And That's Why We Drink - E174 A Diamond in the Wall and Untarnished Vibes

Episode Date: May 31, 2020

We're going full rhombus this week, everyone! We've got some life announcements and some wild stories as Em takes us back into the world of Harry Prices with the story of the Séance of Rosalie. Then Christine covers the intense and gruesome story of Michelle Knotek. It only gets worse from here... and that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Use coupon code DRINK for $10 off your first box at fabfitfun.com!Visit Audible.com/drink or text drink to 500-500

you guys i lost my bottle opener oh no i found it don't worry i found it okay you couldn't find your headphones but you had your bottle opener well obviously i have priorities and i guess uh i guess this is the episode huh welcome? Welcome, everyone. Welcome. How is everyone doing? Oh my goodness. You guys, I'm so sweaty. I just had to witness this disaster. I was running up and down three flights of steps over and over looking for my headphones. And then when Emma and I were just recording ads just now, Blaze walked up with them and was like, here. Where the hell were they? I ran out into the road and screamed, Blaise, look in the trunk. And I was very late to the recording. So I apologize, Em. So before we get started today, we have a few things we want to announce. So the first one is that, well, I guess,

does this come out this Sunday? Okay, so we can still announce our live show. Yay. So if you did not listen to our episode last week, we are having a birthday benefit show for COVID relief. And so it's going to be on zoom and you can find, I know there's a bitly link. That's like ATWWD B-Day bash, but you can also find that in our Instagram bio on, and that's why we drink podcast. And we're going to be hosting a virtual live show i know i'm so excited we've been super

antsy about like getting to perform for you guys again and in case you were wondering this has nothing to do with the here for the booze tour so if you have tickets to that this is not taking away from that experience yeah um but we're just it's basically going to be doing live notes that we have never done before i don't know christine's story she doesn't know mine and it's going to be doing live notes that we have never done before. I don't know Christine's story. She doesn't know mine and it's going to be a birthday thing. Cause it's June 5th. A banana's bonanza. Banana's bonanza.

It's June 5th. So the day after both of our birthdays and it's going to be at five Pacific eight Eastern. And if you have access to zoom and $10 to donate, then it is going to go to a great cause and we're going to have fun. It's great. We're a hundred percent of proceeds go to coalition for the homeless. Um, and we just wanted to do a little bit to support the relief efforts going on and also, you know, include you guys in something fun since we feel really bad that our tours being postponed and you know,

we're really bummed. So yeah, I'm really excited. It's going to be super fun. you know, we're really bummed. So yeah, I'm really excited. It's gonna be super fun. Yeah. So that that's like, I guess the the big and that's why we drink news. But we do have some other news that Oh, that's a good one. Was that your first time? With the wine? Right here with where you are? No. So okay, so I'll start it off. You start it off. We do have some big news to announce.

And we are feeling a little guilty that we haven't shared it publicly with you because this has been something that's been going on since probably, oh, sorry, the motorcycle. That's me. I was just driving by to say hello. This is something that's been going on in our private lives since january ish january february yeah like february um and so i guess some there's been a big life event no it is no one is pregnant i mean you just heard me open a bottle of wine so hopefully not um and no i'm not engaged or anything like that but they're like then what else could it be That's the only two possible exciting things. But

so there were a few reasons we decided to kind of do this. To have it all what it is or no, I'll preface it with that. Okay. I have a speech plan to for when you're done. Okay, cool. So we decided that we were going to kind of keep it hush hush, not to keep anyone in the dark intentionally, but just because it was kind of a big life event, specifically for Christine. And also for the podcast, we had to make a couple business decisions about it. And we just wanted to make sure that when we told you we had all the answers for you. So I, that's the only reason that you haven't heard about it. We wanted to make sure that when we told you we had all the answers for you so I that's the only reason that you haven't heard about it we wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly before we announced anything so take it away Christine okay big news is that Blaze and I have moved back to Cincinnati

or at least we bought a house here and um we arrived yesterday or the day before yesterday and it's just been a chaotic week but I will say like in addition what I've said was true but like also in addition to that um because this we made this decision like right before covet hit and so blaze and i were very careful about like even telling people we knew because we weren't sure if you know we put an offer on a house in march like the week before quarantine hit and we were like we don't know if it's going to fall through or if the sellers are going to like even come through with this or whatever so we really like even for people in our own lives kept it pretty quiet. But we are officially in our house and we are in Cincinnati.

And I plan on coming back to LA like monthly at least to record with them when quarantine lifts and also, you know, any meetings and things like that. So it's not going to seem very different, I guess, day to day for you guys. But I yeah, so that's the news. And I've been like, so I'm so curious if anyone had any like, inklings, but because nobody not one person has like mentioned it or messaged me or like noticed that I was moving out of my old house. Which I think is what like what we kind of wanted to at first because we didn't want to cause any personally, like at least podcast wise, we were afraid that if people knew that you were leaving,

people would start freaking out and think that the show was going to change or the format was going to be different. But I'll say one big business decision that we made together, which is kind of exciting, and I guess not really come into full effect yet because of COVID. But when Christine pulled me aside and said, so you you know, Blaze got a job. We've been looking at houses and we're probably going to be moving. We decided together that since we'd always been recording in Christine's house and she's not going to be there anymore, we got an apartment together. This is the most Evan Christine bullshit ever. We're like, we need our own apartment. We live together, sort of. We do. We moved in. We both co-signed an apartment together.

How cute. That's in Los Angeles. And so, like Christine said, I think we're thinking like a week every month she's going to be commuting out here. And it's a full apartment, not just a studio, but it's also got a bedroom and a bathroom and everything to it. So Christine will have a place to live out here instead of having to like camp out a quarter of her life in hotels. And she'll already be at this apartment that we are slowly turning into a studio. So that way we can actually film our YouTube show again and like actually really build that content like we've been planning, but COVID got in the way. And I will say too, I think one

thing like we noticed too, was that while we were, you know, social distancing and we were recording remotely, that was kind of a good test of like, okay, well, this actually works. Cause we were in LA, both of us 12 miles apart and we still had to do it remotely. And so that was kind of a good test run to be like, okay, we can pull that off. And so now we're doing that, but I'm just in a different time zone. I will say I have two okay i have two of two funny stories so first of all nobody like we drove across country this has like been a long ass week it took us like five and a half days we drove from la to cincinnati this week and um like nobody

seemed to notice i didn't post anything but like you know nobody was like wondering or suspicious or anything and then today like two hours like our movers were here and I decided I was going to order beer on drizzly so I ordered beer and and wine and 19 crimes which is actually the one you just heard me open and um the movers were there and blaze went to go pick it up from the front door somebody knocked and I just hear your name's blaze does your wife happen to host a podcast and I know it's already happening and I like stuck my head around and their name was holly and they go holy shit and they're like what are you doing here and I was like I know this is probably extremely jarring that you're just like working and then all of a sudden I just like appear

in front of you so wait so someone already knows where you live, like what your house. They watch the movers. I was literally going to say like, maybe this time, this is your third place. Do not triangulate where you live at all. I ordered a bunch of wine to my house. That was my own damn fault. And they were like, they literally hit it off behind 19 crimes. We're like, are you Christine?

I was like, oh shit. And they were like, oh, I live like right down the street. And then told me all the cool bars in the area. So I like oh my god maybe you found your first friend did you tell holly please don't tell anyone where i did well i was like oh yeah we haven't announced it yet and they were like i will not say a word you're my favorite i had to oh go ahead sorry i was just gonna say also we just did that instagram live stream and i was like here and i wanted to wait till the podcast to announce it. And Blaze had gotten was ordering food. And you were like, Oh, what did and I was ignoring all the questions that were like, what did you order? Because it was skyline. And I was like, Oh, God, I got to come up with like a restaurant. And so you're like, Oh, what did you order? And I was

like, sandwich. I think another food. So I just went I thought you gave it away for sure, though, in the Instagram live because at the end you went, oh, it's 7. It's time to go. I didn't even notice that. I very quickly went, yep, time to go. Goodbye. You went, oh, oh, shit, I'm such an idiot. Yeah, and somebody actually commented, oh, Christine has that 3 p.m. glow. I was like, nah, it's 6.

Anyway, so this is like, I mean, we've been working, you like not it's six anyway so this is like i mean we've been working you know it's it's all good everything's ironed out we're here um em and i have just been going on life as normal and doing all our meetings and stuff and nothing's changed that much um but we also had to had to fib during the instagram live because someone asked when the last time we saw each other was. And I true. And I had to I had to fit because I couldn't tell anyone yet. But I went over to say goodbye to Christine and specifically geo because that was the saddest part of this was I'm now going to be seeing geo whenever we perform in Cincinnati. Andati and that's about it but uh i at least have his number so we'll still be talking behind your back like more more often probably yeah oh yeah we're definitely gonna be like what's it like there and he's gonna be like it's pretty rough you

gotta get rough um yeah so no that's true m did come over we did a social distancing goodbye in my backyard with masks on um i also like i got a camera and attempted to vlog the whole drive across only across the country only because before the drive, I kept looking up YouTube, like other people who've driven across the country with a cat and a dog because I was just like, how do people do this? And I was so nervous. And I couldn't find anyone who had posted a video like that. So I was like, I'm just going to post a video about like driving cross country with a dog and a cat because I tell you it was speaking of rough. Yeah, it was very rough. And so I have M's visit on camera and everything and M and Eva surprised me when I was

leaving. And yeah, it was very lovely and touching. So anyway, we hope no one is upset at all that, you know, we kept this as this is not meant to be like a secret. It was more just like we were trying to cover all our bases before we like launched information at you and didn't have the answers ourselves we didn't want people freaking out that like the show was over or anything but we've got we still have a studio out here now it's much nicer no offense christine to the one room we have air conditioner it has an air conditioner we have a whole apartment it's dog friendly in case christine ever wants to fly Gio out. Only if you bought me a first class ticket so he has enough room to lay down.

Well, it also works out now because Eva and I also have like an office space, which like her and I had both talked before about how we would get stir crazy working in the house. And now we've got a place to drive to. It's near a Starbucks. I'm very excited about that. Yeah, and pick the location. I did. Eva and I, we went to go look for they were like we did we went house hunting and christine i sent christine like 20 pictures of this place like a

video tour of it to be like are you in or out or should i keep looking and apparently the pictures never went through she just got the text and she was like i'm in and i was like you know you're like wait so you didn't get any posts i was? I was like, nah, I trust you. It's very nice. Because I know you're not going to pick a place without air conditioning. So I was like, I trust you. That's the truth. And I mean, to be fair to like, I'm really excited about this next like phase of the podcast.

Yeah, me too. Because like, also, have you thought about this? But like a lot of people like love when our banter sounds fresh and new. I thought about this a lot of people like love when our banter sounds fresh and new. And now like every time we record now, it's going to be like best friends seeing each other after a whole month. We're going to have so much to laugh about. I know it's true. And I think that's part of like doing these like remotely in the past couple months anyway

has been like a nice look into like, oh, well, like we don't see each other every second anymore. And so it is like, hey, I don't actually know what you've been doing for the last three days. Anyway, everything is peachy keen. It's perfect. It's fun. And it's, it's good news only. And a lot of people who like I know or who I've met, like even Holly was just like, why did you move? Like, I know a lot of people are going to ask. And it was just nothing in particular except Blaze and I were, you know, ready to buy a house together. And I really was always hoping to move back closer to my family.

But I thought writing TV, I was like, I'll never be able to leave LA. And so now that we kind of have a career that is... So I'm basically dependent on the podcast. So it's not going anywhere. Because I'm like, the only reason I... Please write and subscribe. Yeah, exactly. And help me afford my mortgage. No, the only reason I was like able to move

is because we were able to build a career in podcasting. So I'm very fortunate about that and feel very lucky. And we're closer to Blaze's family and they're visiting in July and closer to my family. I've already seen my sister a few times.

So that's, I mean, that's why nothing really that exciting, except we just wanted to be closer to family. So she, we actually are enemies and she needed to get away away so she just moved totally across the other side of the country but we hit it so well right and we did that's the real secret no uh but no and also i in case people are wondering i have no plans to do anything i am very set in my ways here poor ev is just like christine they cannot calm the fuck down i'm just always like hmm i'll get another get another animal. I'll just fly to another country and get attacked by a jaguar. When Christine told me, she was like, so I have something to say.

And I was like, are you breaking up with me? Like it was like such an intense conversation. I was like, we're going to be fine, homie. Like we're good. I was so nervous. You're the person I was most nervous to tell. So I was like, I don't want you to think anything's changing. But also basically anyone I said, hey, I have something. that go, are you pregnant? And I'm like, I'm

literally drinking with you right now. Like, no, mom, I'm not pregnant. So that is not the news. Hopefully anyway, because this wine is very good. So anyway, that's my update. Sorry to like take up the entire intro, but we wanted to make sure. And my other reason for like saying it now too, I was like, I don't want to run around and have people be like, what the hell is Christine doing here? And then people being like, is she just not saying something or I don't know. So out in the open, everything's transparent and I have a central air now. So my life is very good. Yeah. That's why we're talking for so long because now Christine isn't sweating as we discuss anything. Only a little bit. Cause I had to run around the house,

my MTS house and find my headphones, but we discuss anything. Only a little bit because I had to run around the house, my MTS house and find my headphones, but we did it. Well, anyway, that's the news. Hopefully you guys are hanging in there and happy about it because I'm very stoked about this. It's two. Oh, sorry.

Just getting some wine. Okay. So anyway, now that that's all said and done, clearly the podcast is still on the up and up and we are doing good so i'm going to uh circle back for the like third or fourth week in a fucking row about harry price i have one more piece of information and it's that i literally can't stop thinking about jeff it's all i think about every day. I like Jeff is I think my favorite story you've covered. I just can't stop. Last week, too. I know. I was really thinking about him.

You know, he's a doozy. I'm gonna say he's a real diamond in the rough. Diamond in the wall, sort of. I mean, who's I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that he's probably that's probably not a real thing that happened that i don't think jeff entirely ever existed but i like to think in our hearts he's like the mascot he's of like what's out there who knows i'm just so fond of him and um that's all and it's gemini season i just i just wanted to put that out there that's all it's happy jeff season it's jeff season oh my gosh does our next episode come out after our birthdays no this is the first comes out on the first this is the last one where we're sorry that's what I mean is this is the next one our next one's gonna come out after this one does okay you're right

you're right you're right yeah this one though this is the last time I'm 27 and you're 28 what is it like I don't know you tell me I mean listen I have central air I don't know. You tell me. I mean, listen, I have central air. I don't even care about anything else. So I'm happy. Well, I, uh, I'm very excited that, uh, you're turning 29 and I'm not, I guess is what I'm going to say. But do you, do you realize when we started this, I, we were 23 and 24. Really? That can't be right.

No, I was 25. No, I, wasn't it our first cake together was 245 or was it 256? No, it was 256. Okay, so I was 24 and you were 25. Yes. Although this is the last time we could have a cake together. Maybe I'll get a Carvel cake for our live show and they'll say 289. But it's, aw, but it's coming here, right?

No, I'm just going to eat it. Remember the last time when you dropped a whole fucking Carvel cake on my face? I'm going to eat this one now because I deserve it. I don't feel bad about it. For those of you who don't know what the 289 thing is, Christine and I had our first birthday together. She got me a Carvel cake. And because she was turning 26 and I was turning 25,

she put 256 on the cake. So you could she put two, five, six on the cake. So you could almost put a slash through the five and the six. I don't know why I did that. We both still. Anyway, I think since this is the last time we can do that, I'll probably try to make one for you. I remember you being like, what is 256? I was like, I actually don't remember. I hadn't learned your craziness yet.

The way my brain doesn't now i've embraced it okay so anyway happy 289 for you and oh to you too so this is i promise next week i will have a different story this is the last i'm going to talk about harry price for a while i promise um but if you have not listened to the last two episodes you should because they're fucking doozies they've been so good i love them basically harry price is the original ghost hunter and he was around in the early 1900s and he was the first person to build a lab specifically for psychical research um he was the i mean he really was the very first celebrity ghost hunter he would do broadcasts on the radio when he was in haunted houses, things like that.

And he was known for really sensational stories back in the day. One of them being Jeff the Talking Mongoose from last week. One of the other ones that he's really well known for. Well, one of the probably the biggest one he's known for is the Borley Rectory, which I covered, I think, in episode 65. And I plan to revisit it now knowing what I know about Harry Price. But the story I'm covering today is another one of the most popular stories he ever covered. And that is the Seance of Rosalie. Ooh, what?

Okay. So this one is pretty, it can get really lengthy. So I'm going to try to speed through some of the beginning part of it. Just to make sure that I get as much information out as I can as possible, but there's a lot to it. And I'll try to keep it entertaining as an entertainer better. Excuse me. Okay, so I'm going to start out with a quote from Harry Price about this case. So basically, he saw he was part of the seance. The next day, it freaked him out. And he wrote this massive account about what happened. And so in that account, this is the first sentence of it. So

I'm just going to start off with the quote from his report. I must describe the most remarkable case of materialization or rather alleged materialization I have ever witnessed. It is with considerable hesitation that I publish this account as I've only had one sitting and have been unable as yet to obtain independent corroboration of the extraordinary phenomenon which I witnessed. So we're starting heavy on this one. But so he this started and just to give you guys a sense of where my notes came from, most of this came from his actual entire account.

This most of, I would say 90% of my notes came from his account of this. A primary source. A primary source, literally written by him is where I got most of this, at least the first half of the story. So, okay okay excuse me so we start in 1937 and uh december 13th apparently i always mix it up with harry potter because i wrote him everywhere as hp so i always keep thinking that Harry Potter is saying these things. So December 1930, December 1937, Harry Price wrote in this account that that was the day that a woman wrote to him and basically said, how do I say this? Okay, so we're going to call her Mrs. X, which is what he also called her. Oh.

Just to start this early. Mysterious. So Mrs. X called Harry Price and basically said that she had read one of his interviews that he had done on Haunted Houses. And she was very impressed that he always wants to, quote, ascertain the truth. And that she had a proposition for him because she could quote guarantee him a ghost okay so she said that every wednesday at her house her and her family had a seance for a little girl named rosalie um and apparently she always showed so mrs x wanted to invite harry price um to join one of the seances but if he said yes there were conditions

he must follow and there were no signing of documents it was more of a gentleman's agreement that he would cater to this so here were the conditions if he said yes he could never reveal the identity of the sitters in the seance or the location

he could write about it as an account but he could never mention who they were which is why he called her mrs x got it um he could not perform any formal experimental tests during the seance or bring any equipment um in advance to do uh experiments mid seance um the mother of rosalie always attended these seances, and she was afraid that him being there or doing some sort of scientific experiments would quote, terrify the girl. And so she wouldn't show. Oh, yeah. So basically, one of the conditions was you can't do things in the middle of the seance, you kind of sit there and shut up and just watch

what happens. Otherwise, you're going to scare her away and then you won't see any ghosts. So kind of already shady. And that being said, even though he wasn't allowed to do anything during the seance, he was allowed full control of the entire house and the participants of the seance before and after the seance. So he could investigate the house, the seance room the windows the doors he couldn't mess with the furniture he could check floorboards he could check you know wall decor um he could check the their electronics he could sprinkle powder and like starch anywhere he wanted he could place machines near entrances he could do whatever he wanted as long as it was before the

seance began and after the seance ended okay um so he could also study every individual sitter or a participant in the seance again before and after but once the sitting happened he couldn't do anything and he had to ask permission if he wanted to make any alterations during the seance um and let's see. So, uh, Harry Price wrote back saying that he was very interested, uh, even given the conditions and he would have to think it over, but eventually the same day he basically said, yes, I want to come, but can my partner, um, Rex Lambert, if you remember him from Jeff, the talking mongoose, uh uh if you haven't listened to that episode yet rex was kind of one of his main uh people that accompanied him on investigations

he said would it be okay if rex came with me and she never responded so he assumed no and just went by himself so he gets to the location he does not he's kind of sneaky in an asshole because he doesn't ever say the exact location but he writes about it in like unbelievable detail like writes about it like how many stone steps led up to the left side and how many windows were on the right side and how many garden windows there were and how what the door color was and the building surrounding it like basically if you just walked through triangulating absolutely like what i'm gonna do with my house like like holly from drizzly is gonna probably do no holly's like listen you're on your own you're you're at fault it's my fault you chose this i trust you holly so once he got there this was two days later once he got there harry price met the family which was

mr x mrs x and their 17 year old daughter who he called miss x um and so he had dinner with them and uh two more people ended up also showing for the seance that night one of them was named madame z okay um and she was a french woman who they became friends with through church and uh there's talk of this this part was not in his own writings but in future notes i saw that mr x was allegedly in debt so the family they knew that madame z had money and so there's talk that he was in debt and they were friends with her because she was helping pay off loans or something like that um and then the other person who came was uh this guy named jim and so talking about Madame Z really quick. So she had some money and we knew that the X family was in debt. So we don't know if she was helping them pay for anything.

But she was also a nurse. She had married a soldier who died in the great war. And so she was widowed with their baby, Rosalie. Oh, so that's how Rosalie comes into this. So apparently Rosalie was always a really sick baby um and at six years old died of diphtheria and so madame z has been a believer ever since and

this was during the spiritualist movement um and so basically she was always looking to speak with rosalie after she had passed on the other person who i mentioned was a guy named jim apparently he was a young bank clerk and from what harry price noted it seemed like he was more interested in the 17 year old daughter than the seance oh god jimothy jimothy sounded like he was kind of there just to impress her not so much for the seance so apparently he was around 20 years old so and basically what happened so it's those five people it's all three of the x family jim and madame z that end of that harry price admit so apparently starting in the 1920s madame z would wake up in the middle of the night and hear

Rosalie's voice calling for her, saying mommy, mommy. Oh no. And this became a regular event to a point where Madame Z started seeing her outline and once even felt her hand get touched by something in the middle of the night. Oh shit. So she started going to

her church and she became friends with the X family and confided in them. And they suggested that they would start holding regular seances to encourage Rosalie to appear. Oh, my. Okay. Because if she was already that active. So they're like, lean into it. Exactly.

And so there's talk that maybe Madame Z was paying for seance services in lieu of their debt. Oh, I see. Okay. Interesting. That's not confirmed, but it's a thought. I get it. So they started doing these seances in 1928. And very quickly, Rosalie began to speak.

She would show herself, albeit in complete darkness, but you could see, again, a dim outline of her and she would touch Madame Z's hand. Oh, my. Um, and when she would speak, it was mainly yes or no answers. Um, it was in a childlike lisp. And after Harry Price hears all this, he's like, okay, I know enough to kind of do my own investigation before the seance begins so after dinner he searches the house he starts sealing any entrances or taping down windows he's also initialing everything to make sure things don't get moved um he removes different furniture and wall decor um and he also like finds a way to seal off the chimney

chimney chimney chimney chimney chimney chimney chimney cricket so he also inspected wires cabinets drawers dressers floorboards and uh he also checked the clothing of the sitters to make sure nobody had any like strings on them or anything and basically the way that they were circled i don't know if this matters but to people who are probably more visual if they want the idea so it was mr x sitting at the table then jim then miss x then madame z harry price and then mrs x so jim is between the mr. X and his dog. Oh, okay.

Right. Next to next to link wink. So, uh, Harry price was then able, he tested in the dark that he could hear everyone's voice, where they were sitting from and whose voice was whose. So if anyone for some reason got up, he would be able to hear where they were.

And he also, um, so basically that was that was his prep and mr x uh once the lights were out for a couple minutes mr x walks up and turns on the radio because apparently that drew rosalie in because she liked the music then he turned it off went back to the table and then nobody spoke while they meditated for rosalie to appear so that's important later that he got up and turned the radio on and then turned it off and came back down and so sorry which one of them did that the husband mr oh okay he so because i thought that was interesting from the beginning as i was reading this that everyone is sitting in the dark during the seance and then he's already getting up and walking over to the radio he's like she likes music

right and so then me you'll you'll see yeah so uh yeah so five minutes later he turns it off and goes back to his seat and soon madame z starts calling out rosalie's name and at some point mrs x uh whispered to harry and said rosalie is here don't speak i just got goose camp so and harry did right he was like i felt something next to me and the smell in the room changed oh and he said he started hearing the shuffling of feet and suddenly he felt something touch the back of his hand creepy so he said that it felt really soft and warm, the touch to his hand. And he said nobody was actually holding hands at this point. So it's not like they were like something, you know.

Sure. Like someone's thumb moved on his hand or anything. Right. But then you could also argue that like, okay, well, someone just reached over and touched your hand. True. okay well someone just reached over and touched your hand true um but so so he said his hand was on his knee and everyone's hands were on their own knees and something touched his hand and eventually mrs x asked madame z if harry could feel around for the spirit like move his hands and feel for the spirit because if all of a sudden it had appeared, maybe he could like reach out and like grab or feel something.

So that being said, the next thing I'm going to say comes with a content warning. Oh, oh, okay. Because it could be very controversial depending on your perspective of things. So and wait until the end to make your own decisions on this i will say first of all i want to make sure that i say it the most politically correct way possible because i don't want to sound like i'm defending anybody um but the way that it was written, it appears as if this was written scientifically and not erotically. Okay? Okay.

Okay. I'm just going to read the quote because I think trying to paraphrase it would either make it sound better or worse. Yes, let's just hear the primary source. And know that as I was reading this, I did read it as a matter of fact account and not so much a any other intention. All right, I'm ready. Okay, so Mrs. X asked if Madame Z. Mrs. X asked Madame Z if Harry could reach out and try to touch the spirit. Okay.

Quote, and it's kind of long long but i wanted to do it justice permission was given and i stretched out my left hand and to my amazement it came in contact with apparently the nude figure of a little girl aged six years oh my i know that's that's the content warning here yep i passed my hand up to her chin and cheeks. The flesh felt warm, though not as warm as one would expect to find normal human flesh. I laid the back of my hand on her cheek and I could distinctly hear breathing. I then placed my hand on her chest again and I could feel the respiratory movements. There were the normal limbs of a normal six-year-old girl. I estimated her height at about three feet, seven inches. There were no

words to express how i felt at the appearance of the form before me a supreme scientific interest with a feeling of absolute incredulity would best describe my reaction i had not bargained for anything such as this but if i had been tricked then so had the mother because she could have not been acting because madame z this whole time is like sobbing crying that her dog in front of her oh my god okay um so if i had been tricked then so had the mother and that is unthinkable oh my god i was told that i could move my chair nearer to the child and this i did if it is a spirit i argued to myself then there is no difference between a spirit and a human being with my right hand i lifted Rosalie's right arm and felt her pulse. It appeared to be too quick and I estimated a rate of 90 to the minute. I put my ear to her chest and could distinctly hear her heart beating.

I then took both her hands and asked Mr. X, Ms. X, and Jim to speak in order to prove their presence in their respective seats. Oh, smart. They did so, and I knew that Madame Z and Mrs. X were on either side of me as I could just put my hands out to feel them next to me. So I said all of that to make it clear that like, I don't think he meant anything erotic by the fact that he was touching a naked six-year-old girl. I will say that if I were in a seance and I felt anyone naked, especially a child, dead or alive, I would step away. And I don't want to defend like,

oh, this is the times because it was the 30s. I don't want to say that there was an excuse for this. But it sounds like he didn't, like he said, I did not bargain for this. And it sounds like Mrs. X was giving this permission so i don't think he was prepared for that yeah so i don't know how to best i wasn't prepared for that so i guess he probably wasn't either i just want to make it clear i don't think it was meant as a sexual assault whatsoever no but it did come off as very matter of fact that he was saying like felt like limbs i was looking for her respiratory movements right blah blah you can do what you want with that i'm not claiming any either side of that i just want to be as direct as possible so um so after that he was like

in summary he was like i'm this is literally like a fucking human being that has materialized out of nowhere and like i'm getting proof that like everyone that came into this room is still sitting in their seats and nobody could have entered because i've sealed off all these entrances how did this form show up like we're ignoring why the fuck is it a naked little girl but how did this being show up if they if nobody else came in here with us and he checked all the spots there was no way for someone to have been hiding to pop up later so the real question is what the fuck is going on in many ways and uh so apparently they had these mirrors that had some like glow-in-the-dark paint for the time uh he was allowed to bring those in and they're basically little reflective panels so you could kind of see a light source through it um and so he asked madame z and the x family if he could use

these small reflective panels to try to see rosalie like see her face and be like is i'm am i looking at a human being or a spirit or what's her face look like and madame z said yes but you have to start at her feet and move upwards okay so he started at the floor and he saw what looked like human feet and as he moved the light upward he saw more and more of a human body but he did uh write in his account that they quote looked older than her alleged years so apparently this looked like an older this didn't look like a six-year-old right um harry did say that when he got to the face it was pale had dark eyes and a closed mouth and harry asked if he could ask her some questions he asked madame z can i ask your daughter some questions? Because apparently she did give yes or no answer sometimes. Madam Z said she probably won't talk because you're

a new person and she might be afraid of you, but you can ask and see what happens. So he wrote in his account, he was like, I didn't know what to ask. I just started asking questions like things I would ask a normal child so he said um the questions where do you live what do you do there do you play with other children have you any toys and are there animals and she didn't respond to any of those things oh but i want to know so bad are there animals um apparently rosalie just stared into space the whole time. Okay. Like just kind of catatonic, not paying attention. And then when he asked, do you love your mommy? All of a sudden her eyes lit up and in a lisp, she said, yes.

Oh God. Um, oh no. So Mrs. X asked Harry to put down the lights. Like she was like, okay, that's enough of that. Put the light sources away and we're going to sit in silence in the dark room. And 15 minutes later, he had been told that Rosalie had departed from the space.

She was no longer there. Okay. So after that, he was told he could reinvestigate because he was allowed to look after the seance at the room. And he saw all the seals were intact. No furniture, floorboards, starch powder, anything had been disturbed. And he was incredibly freaked out. And he, within two hours, had ran back to his home or wherever he was staying

and wrote the entire account down while it was fresh in his mind. So this is a quote at the end of it. He did say, quote, I'm still wondering if Rosalie was a genuine spirit entity, or whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Looking at it in retrospect, I can think of several things I ought to have done that I did not do. And one thing I might have done was to have ascertained who the medium actually was, because Madam Z denied that she was a medium, but I can think of no one else. So apparently there was no medium during the seance. Which is true. No one really seemed to be hosting it. People were just kind of announcing like, Rosalie's here. Now Rosalie's gone, you know? And also Madam Z z who may not be a medium but was the child's mother was like kind of saying like oh she might be scared of you you know like but there's

there was no one really in charge of this so that was the entire seance but this is what happened afterwards so the next day apparently many people reported seeing harry and he looked quote deeply disturbed and almost distraught he was just fucked up by he was like i think i just literally touched saw and spoke to a human like a like a spirit in human form yeah and he ended up so the entire account is actually a chapter is a whole chapter in one of his books called 50 Years of Psychical Research, which was from 1939. So everything I just told you were paraphrases of that chapter of that book. So the rest of this is from Google, Google notes. uh from google google notes um but so he was from his account he was really shocked but upset that it had he was like i'm pretty sure i just saw something that blew my mind but also this

wasn't done in a lab so like i can't replicate this like there was no i can't write like as someone who was a staunch uh believer in scientific method, he was like, I really kind of failed myself because something awesome happened, but I didn't do a proper experiment because I was told I couldn't. And so if you remember from the biographical episode I did on Harry Price, he was known for his publicity sense. price he was known for his publicity sense um and so a lot of people actually didn't like this chapter in the book because they thought rosalie was just a sensationalist fictional story that he just to sell more books oh wow because a lot of people were like he pissed off the spiritualists because he claimed to be a skeptic but then he swore he saw something materialized in front of him but he also pissed off the skeptics because he was convinced that something happened when it was done outside of a lab yeah and especially like his own lab like he was known to create the first lab and he didn't even use it so yes i see so the

whole pub everyone was like we like you're kind of going against both of your own beliefs and like we know that you like attention so like this could just be not a good look yeah a pr son um but so basically in 1946 he laid this was so 1946 was like seven or eight years after the seance and he just got like fucking slandered and like attacked all the time about how like the rosalie case like was not real or why won't he try to replicate it or why won't he like tell more details of it and he kept saying like i told them i wouldn't say anything like i told them i wouldn't mention their names so he kept getting criticized that like he wouldn't go back and reinvestigate or he wouldn't bring it to a lab and do like

use standard tools and all that um but he did say that like he he made one last comment in 1946 where he said that he had kept in touch with the x family until 1940 but then when world war ii hit everyone lost touch and this was his final statement he ever made on it so this is kind of long but he he remained uh like like a believer a skeptical believer he was like whatever that was it was fucking weird yeah um so this is his quote from that is this a true ghost story at the time i was convinced that it was the next day i began to wonder if rosalie was a genuine spirit entity or whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax if the latter then it had been going on for years and no actress

on earth could have simulated madame z's poignant emotion and why would they cheat no one was getting anything out of this neither money nor publicity nor kudos and would any sane family fool one another every week for years well and then he said and where did the spirit come from was there a revolving wall in the drawing room or a trap door? If so, could it have survived my minute and systematic search of the apartment? I suppose that this is possible, but moving floors and sliding walls imply costly, elaborate, and silent machinery to operate. And what could possibly be the motive for such a stupendous fraud? Especially when they were, in theory, in a lot of debt.

They probably couldn't afford that. That's a good point. So the rest of this is people trying to debunk what the fuck happened. So he never like really got a full answer. No. Oh, so he he made that statement. And two years later, he died of a heart attack. Wow. And as promised, he never disclosed location or the identity. Just how many steps and colors of the windows he disclosed a lot but not a lot he couldn't okay fair he followed the rules um and i said this again in the first episode about him that when he died because he made so many enemies with spiritualists and even some skeptics a lot of people were out there trying to smear his reputation um two in particular were a guy named eric dingwall

another named trevor hall who ironically were actually collaborators with him in his early days and then they kind of turned into frenemies um but so they tried to really just tarnish his fucking vibe um which is the most tarnished my vibe tarnished my vibe man so tarnished by vibe, man. So. Tarnished vibes only. Untarnished vibes only. Okay, there. That's better. So, let's see. So, basically, they really went after him. Like, pretty wildly.

So. Jeez. They ended up writing, I think, if not a whole paper about it, a whole fucking book about how he like, this could not be real. It was a total publicity stunt. And he even said, well, we don't even have any proof that this even happened because all the people that would be able to confirm it,

he never gave us an hour. Like Mr. X, right? Right. That being said, though, three different people have been quoted talking to Harry the morning after

the seance. And although two of them were close friends, one of them was Rex, and one of them was the secretary. There was one member of the SPR who were like the people who really didn't like him. Yeah, even one of them vouched being like, No, I talked to him the next day. And he looked really fucked up. Like, wow. Okay. So Eric and Trevor, they also tried to challenge that the house never existed. But there were two different investigations done that tried to debunk where this house was. And so one of them was the SPR did their own investigation. And this was led by one of the SPR members named Richard Medhurst.

And this is super interesting. So he was going through all of harry price's old archives and he found a copy of one of harry price's letter of like the harry price letter to mrs x two days before the seance which like at this point like there was no physical proof that this seance ever existed and he found the letters whoa okay m. So interestingly, when he saw the actual letter that Harry hid from everyone, the letter was not from a Mrs. X, but a Mrs. Mortimer. Aha. So now we've got a big, a big clue. So breaking the case. We're in the mainframe. So why do we always say that? Like, we know what that means. I used to say it when, so when I worked at ISS, when I was working in the promos department,

my boss, Renee, anytime like our computer glitched and like we tried to like, like reset the computer or like figure out what our password was. Every time we figured it out, she'd go, we're in the mainframe. So that's so funny to me. That's where it started. That's what I say every time i fuck up the the zoom call and then eventually find my way back inside so so uh anyway so medhurst knew now that mrs x was probably from a family called the mortimers so he went through every uh

every house in london that or he looked in the directories at every house under the name mortimer in 1937 that also had a phone because they had apparently called a few times oh good smart so he's looking at all of those houses and he found one in a town called broccoli broccoli not like the food it was like like like the word brock and like this is made up and then jeff showed up he was eating broccoli in broccoli um but apparently so he found this one house and it was at 21 wickham road but he looked into the family details to see if they matched Harry's description. And apparently the daughter was 15 at the time, not 17. And there were two daughters, not one.

So some could agree that the age was just kind of off and they never mentioned. Maybe the other daughter was the ghost. Right. So, so that's one of the theories. So no, no, no. On to something new. You are. That was the first time that people had like an explanation to work with and and that was their first theory of it of like oh well there could have been a second daughter that was hiding i see but when you think about how like if you read all of harry price's account he was like nobody could have been hiding in that room and nobody could

have come in yeah so there's no way that there was another person hiding can you imagine if he was like looking through the house at the beginning to like try to debunk anything and he like opened some closet there's just like a naked person like oh shit i wasn't supposed to come out yeah what are you doing like like why do you not have clothes on why is this part of the thing oh my god can God. Can you imagine? He would just see a naked person and be like, is this part of this? Yeah, like, I'm in the wrong room, I think. So, again, so that was one of the very first theories that came out. But then while the SPR was doing their own investigation, another investigator was kind of doing his own rogue investigation. And his name was David Cohen.

And so David Cohen began to research Rosalie on his own for a. And his name was David Cohen. And so David Cohen began to research Rosalie on his own for a lecture he was doing. But it ended up turning into this whole book he wrote in the 60s, where he went from being kind of indifferent to Harry Price to being like, like a staunch, fierce defender of him. Oh, okay. So he so anyway, six months after that book came out, I guess that book circulated pretty well. And a lot of people read it. And he was getting a lot of mail from, you know, people who had read it. Six months after the book came out, he got a letter forwarded to him allegedly from Miss X. Oh, shit.

That explained the entire Rosalie thing. And Miss X is the 17 year old. The 17 year old daughter. Got it. So basically the first sentence of this letter is, Dear Mr. Cohen, I've read your book about Harry Price and his spirit child with interest. And forgive me, for I'm always amused at the various guesses about the Rosalie ghost. But then I am in a rather privileged position being now the only living person who knows the whole truth about the seances held in our house 30 years ago.

And then so I'm going to try to go through this quickly because I pretty much I tried to break down her letter. And I tried to make it into bullet points, but I really just couldn't do it justice. So I'm going to read like half a page of a letter go for it i'm excited because it all it answered so many of the yeah yeah i want to hear it okay i'm gonna try to do it quickly so apparently in this letter it pretty much it was the first piece of evidence that kind of explained most things about the sentences so this miss x says it was at this time that i was first brought into the deception my parents asked me to take part in what they called a ghost game to play as a harmless joke on a french lady that's what m told me was the podcast hey it's just called a ghost game don't it's harmless and i was like shit you tricked me here we are three years so uh they so and what

they called the ghost game to be played as a harmless joke on a french lady that's so mean at first my part in this business was simple i was to slip into the dark room soon after the others had settled down and this was before harry price so i see i was to slip into the dark room soon after the others had already sat down. Take up a position in the corner of the room. Is it Friday? Oh, it's Thursday. I don't know why Allison's screaming.

If it were Friday, she like cracked open a bottle of wine or something. At my, so I was to slip into the dark room soon after others had sat down, take up a position in the corner of the room and answer some questions in a hushed lisp. I was then at a prearranged signal from my mother to slip silently out of the room before the lights were switched on. My mother was to ask certain questions of the spirit, commencing with, are you there, Rosalie? And after she had repeated this three or four times i was to whisper in a childish voice yes rosalie is here oh so we've already learned the mom as a as at least in on this with what a shitty person if i remember correctly madame first visited our

home for a sitting about two days after the crystal palace fire the seance went without a hitch and i waited in the hall after Madame and my parents had entered the room and I listened to the radio to be switched off, which was my signal to slip into the room. Oh. The door opened noiselessly at a slight pressure and I crept into the room and waited. I answered about five or six questions, giving the answers, which my father had told me to say such as these people such as i'm very very happy i play with the other children they are very kind to me after some months my father decided to ask his young brother uncle jim to help in this ghost

so uh i think the reason for this was that mad Madame had asked whether Rosalie was the only spirit which had appeared at our seances and what had happened before she ever made an appearance. I see. Father, who was always anxious of Madame's slightest suspicion, said that several other spirits had spoken and would no doubt return when Rosalie became less insistent. So Uncle Jim, on occasions, waited in the hall with me and we took turns entering the room and he spoke in the voice of any person who appealed to his imagination. So basically, she started getting suspicious because only Rosalie would ever come forward and then the dad was like, we need a second plan. And the theory is that if they really were in debt and if she really did have some money, they were hoping the more rosalie appeared the more she would help with their debts so that's probably why they were doing this is

that they were getting money out of her to pay off their debts that's so fucked up so that's why they wanted to keep up the facade so when she got suspicious they all of a sudden brought his uncle in or brought his brother in uncle jim so uncle Uncle Jim was like hitting on his 17-year-old niece? My father and I had told, hang on. My father had told Madame at a separate time, at a separate time, my father had told Madame that he had a daughter, but had not mentioned my age.

Soon after the seances had commenced, Madame asked my father how old was his daughter. And father, thinking that there might be some suspicious connection in her mind between the spirit child she had been seeing and myself, said I was 16. Unfortunately, Madame had asked why she had never met his teenage daughter, and it was finally decided that I must now impersonate my elder self. Oh, come on. This is so fucked. Okay. So we find out later that she was actually 11 during all of this oh she was really little she was oh so you can't even blame her i thought she was like 17

the whole time so she was like a child getting roped into this well that's what they were saying like let's play a ghost game like let's do this really quick that is well it tricked me and i was how old was i 25 or 256 or i don't know how old I was so you'll be 289 next week actually so so now they've basically she was getting suspicious again like why haven't I met your 16 year old daughter and they were like oh fuck like we've gotten 11 year olds what are we gonna do so another quote my mother went to work and with the aid of cosmetics a teenage dress a padded bust bodice a new hairdo and high-heeled shoes brought out a fairly convincing transformation it is true i was a little short

for a 16 year old but the high-heeled shoes and the hairdo added some inches to my height my mother was rather frightened that madame having seen my face during some of the seances would recognize me as rosalie for some months after i'm almost done i swear no i'm just like riveted right now for some months after this all went well until one disastrous evening so basically what's been happening up until this moment was that now they're whenever she comes over for the seances sometimes she'll say hello or um even invite this 16 year old daughter into the room even though she had a different job of being Rosalie. So at different points, she had to like find a way to sneak out. Oh my god. So for some months, all this went well until one disastrous evening, I had become rather overconfident and ignored my

father's instructions. And he had told me that if Madame ever asked the spirit anything about Rosalie's life, I was to either I was to remain silent. I cannot recall the question that Madame asked on that evening, but I foolishly attempted to answer. And of course, it was the wrong answer. So she was getting cocky pretending to be Rosalie. And then all of a sudden, Madame found an inconsistency. Oh, no. After that seance, a quarrel broke out between my parents and Madame. After this, father offered to have his seance investigated by a trained investigator to prove the legitimacy of the seances. And Madame suggested Harry Price because she'd seen him all over the news. Right.

So now that's why Harry Price came into the picture because he needed to verify. Don't go. We still need your money. Let's prove that this is legitimate. This is so shitty. For the first time, my father was worried. So my parents, Uncle Jim and I worked out a procedure. My mother was to telephone Mr. Price, invite him to a seance and extract from him an assurance

of secrecy. Because should Mr. Price publish our names and address it, it would be difficult to avoid further inquiry. I, as the teenage daughter, and Uncle Jim as my boyfriend, were to also be sitters at this seance. I see. The importance of my being in the room

was in case Mr. Price sealed the door, so she couldn't escape and switch through. She couldn't wait until nobody was looking and slip out because they all knew Harry Price would close the door. So now they need a new plan for how she's going to turn into Rosalie while being in the seance room. So the importance of my being in the room was in case Mr. Price sealed the door, which we knew he would. There were two reasons for Uncle Jim to be a sitter. One, to have an extra helper in the room to cover me in case something happened.

And two, he he would as my boyfriend add testimony to my assumed age as a teenager this is wild it becomes like a little true crimey so yes i mean this is literally a crime you're convincing this lady that her dead daughter is like speaking i mean this is fucked so although madame had heard uncle jim's voice before because he had also spoken during some of the seances she had never met him in person and therefore could be safely introduced to the group because remember he had stood in the hall and shouted before so she had heard him but never seen him wow so this is going to answer some of the um more interesting questions that we have uncle jim pointed out that if mr price

wished to see me it would be impossible to assure that he could only direct light to my face because he might see and recognize the dress i walk in with my mother said that i could change into quote spirit clothes or other clothes but my father's clothes but my father said that should there be a search of the room any clothes would be impossible to conceal it was finally suggested that the spirit should appear in the nude a 11 year old child a suggestion i didn't like but i eventually agreed so that's where all of a sudden i take my sharp left turn into like no this was absolutely not one million especially when she's like i didn't want to do that like, especially when she's like, I didn't want to do that. Like, right. She's a minor who does not want to be naked. But now she's in front of grown men and like grown adults or anyone.

Yeah. So that's why I said in the beginning, like, hang on until the end for me to explain. Because I see I don't necessarily want to cast immediate blame to Harry Price because he if this letter is true, then it's legitimizing that he had no fucking clue was and that they were like we know you're about to touch our naked daughter right so put your hand out anyone blame the parents because what the fuck they convinced her and then remember if harry price's account is accurate they asked madame z like oh can harry reach out and touch your child but it was their child that was naked so like they and then they put the blame on her like oh she said it was okay like what the fuck but they knew that a grown man was about to touch their naked child so oh my god again concept warnings all fucking around yeah

this is so twisted anyway so it's definitely true crime you're right it i mean come on welcome so um anyway moving on quickly in the complete darkness i was able to leave my place and so this is how she became naked when she so she walked in with her outfit on that harry price had seen her in as a teenager in the complete darkness i was able to leave my place in the circle and undress in a corner of the room so everybody is looking a different way and it's pitch black and she just undressed. While holding the spirit's hands, or while Harry was holding the spirit's hands. My mother placed her hands in front of Mr. Price as if she were Rosalie, while I returned to my seat in the circle. So basically, she, she undressed, then the really awkward thing happened, where she was nude nude and then when she stepped away um her mother put

her hands in front of harry price as if she were rosalie while this girl was changing really quickly and going back to her seat oh my god so when it came to using the mirrors mr price was asked to start from the feet and work upwards and And this was because when he came, when it came to the light hitting my face, the mirror would be beneath my chin and therefore I would be backlit. So that makes sense now why he had to start from the feet. After the seance, he examined the seals and found them intact. He seemed satisfied that trickery had been impossible and Madame's

suspicions had vanished, which was what they wanted. My, my father in 1939 had arranged to take my mother for a holiday and ran into Madame by accident. They went to Paris together, or they ended up traveling together to Paris, and no member of my family saw Madame again. There is now, I believe, no other living person who knows the whole story.

The cook is dead, and the housemaid married and left England. Yours sincerely, Rosalie. Whew, I'm so sorry. Signed it who i'm so signed it rosalie signed it rosalie so we still don't know who the fuck this person is oh they didn't even say their name oh my god so this caused so much more confusion because it never confirmed an actual name never confirmed mortimer never confirmed like where the house was never confirmed if any of this is true for all we know a random person wrote this like fan fiction so it could not even be real that's true because they i mean they had all the information right from like the book and the the telling of it right and like they're

assuming that their procedure was that they would sit in a certain area so harry price would never notice her slipping away but he had control of the seating arrangement and everything so they really just like went off of luck that he wouldn't ask to sit next to her so and again this could have been written by anyone also like a mom would recognize their child's face even if it were fucking backlit so like people are saying like if this were madame z she would have seen rosalie's face and known but if she saw a random person's face she would have known it wasn't her child that was the spirit so anyway in the same year that that letter arrived, David Cohen ended up dying.

So he couldn't actually investigate this. Oh, my God. And that was back in the 60s. So it ends up being untouched. And in 2007, so decades later, decades later, a guy named Paul Adams decided to take on the investigation. And now with tools like the internet, it was so much easier to look into the shit so he found no death records of any first he looked up death records of children named rosalie in 1921 to be like is that even accurate like that rosalie is a baby who died

but there is the argument that you know he didn't find any death records of a rosalie who died in 1921 so the thought then is that harry price could have even changed the name of the fucking baby that died so right to not give it away yeah so rosalie could be a pseudonym but then going back to knowing that their last name might be mortimer mortimer he looked at over 500 different people named mortimer that lived in london in 1937 blah blah he cross-referenced all the houses he found two matches out of like 300 houses he found two matches that he felt could match the description one was in a town called lamberth but the husband had a different job there was a brother not a or there was a son not a daughter

and the house was near a bunch of apartment complexes which was not in the description so it didn't really match with his description. But then you can argue again, that all the descriptions were fake, right? The other one, which is the most likely ish, is that it was an East Kensington, and the house was 28 Cadogan Square. The husband's name was Halliburton Mortimer. Yes, it was. He was a city stockbroker, but not very good at his job. So that implied like that was written in record. So it's implied that maybe he was in debt. And in the initial account that Harry Price wrote, the husband was a city stockbroker. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the wife's name was Dorothy. The daughter's name was Joan. So we think that Rosalie or whoever Miss X is, is Joan Mortimer. Got it.

They also had a son, but he was deployed at the time. So that would make sense why they didn't even mention him while Harry was there. Right. But the family records also show that they had a maid, a cook, and a butler, all of which were mentioned in Harry's account. Yeah. So in 1939, apparently Halliburton inherited a bunch of money, which is around the same time that they never talked to Madame Z again. So maybe they didn't need her anymore. I see.

But the inconsistency is that the biggest one is that at the time of the seance, Joan was 30, not 11. Oh. And there was also no family records of a man named james or jim um rosalie said that she was the only living member but this family happened to have several members still alive also a lot of the aspects of the home were off so basically what paul did was he found a draft of a will written by joan and cross referenced the handwriting to the Rosalie letter. And he did get back that there was a likely match. But that would mean that Joan was 30 during this.

And so the Mortimers couldn't have used her as Rosalie. As a child, right. So they would have had to have literally brought in a random like child to make her nude and then be used in this weird game yikes but then that would also mean that the letter written by this rosalie or by this miss x isn't true yeah because the story wouldn't add up so something's off yeah they also another theory is that maybe uncle jim was actually the butler that harry never interacted with that night or could have been a legitimate boyfriend or they he could have been the brother back from the military right um but there was no uncle jim in this family um death records do suggest i'm i swear to god i'm

almost on death no you're fine death records do suggest that kid of all the kids in the area there were 14 possible children who could have been rosalie at the time. The best match is like, if there was a baby who died, you know, from diphtheria or something at six. Yeah. The best match is one child who did not die of diphtheria, but died of appendicitis and was eight,

not six. So Harry could have changed those, those parts of the story. Or they could have like told him differently, you know that too also that's another theory um but what's interesting about that is let's say that was the child the um the mother of that child was also dead but the father so he could have changed the gender and madame z could have been mr z right um and what's interesting is that child

who did die around the same time or around at the same age with around the same disease their father was a city stockbroker that worked with halliburton so there's a chance that it could have actually been a mr z this whole whole time who was trying to look for Rosalie. Whoa. Assuming that Rosalie really was a spirit who manifested, but if this letter from Miss X is real, then it was never true. So anyway, the last thing I'm going to say is that regardless of what the truth was, Harry, not Potter, Harry Price was very sure that it was at least very likely.

And the first person who ever wrote a biography about him was named Dr. Tabori. And this was a quote about Harry Price and the Rosalie Sands. He said, Was he lying? I don't think so. He was not good at inventing tales. And the few pieces of fiction which I had read from him all show that he was utterly incapable of spinning a convincing plot ouch ouch and why should he lie anyway what possible motive could he have had for risking the reputation of a lifetime psychologically and morally this theory will not hold water i believe that harry price was speaking the truth and that he was both frightened and shaken by the experience oh my god which is true to me because like if he he couldn't have gained anything from it because nobody would have believed it would be such a waste of time for him to make

all that up or like yeah anyway i know i spoke for literally an hour but that was crazy that is the story of the rosalie sands and we still have no idea like that's the wildest part because there's so many missing pieces and even of the we have, they could have been embellished or like changed. Right, like if one thing's off, then it could throw off the whole spiel. We'll never know. But I can assume that at least even if that letter from Miss X was from a random person and not accurate, it at least sounds like someone was able to get most of like, like was at least able to find explanations for a lot of the stuff so something along that might have happened

i really hope nobody was sexually assaulted um but i also who who knows so anyway it's a crazy story like even if part of it's not true or it's exaggerated or whatever like holy shit it really quickly became a true crime yes i was gonna say even if it's like true or it's exaggerated or whatever like holy shit it really quickly became a true crime yes i was gonna say even if it's like completely bunk like not paranormal like it's still so fucked up yeah and to that poor mother being like oh yeah no come back your daughter wants to see you again it's like what the hell right anyway sick i'm so sorry that was so long i know you have no story to cover but it like that one really fucked me up and i was doing it at like two in the morning and i was like

what is going on here like i had never heard of this before that was insane dude anyway thank you for riding that ride with me i always do i always will and i always love it. If you happen to be Rosalie, let me know. If you happen to be like 100 and whatever. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have another true crime tale for you today. Maybe that one turns into a paranormal story. Actually, that would be very fun. Little twist, wouldn't it? Full circle closure. I don't think I'm going to gonna i think instead of a circle oh my god i'm sorry wait um look okay if you're watching this on youtube oh no what did i do look i don't know do you just hold it now oh my god you guys i'm sorry i don't know what happened all of a sudden the microphone just launched off of the side of the desk it was like spring load she's probably like stop making fun of me

um it was like spring loaded the arm and i guess it got on it was too springy it was too ready it was very springy i guess i hold it oh god this is so awkward hold on okay let's just hope this stays let's hope this stays long enough. Can you hear me properly? Oh, I certainly can. Oh my God. We have someone helping us with our recording. He, and he's on mute. He probably just glanced over and just saw me like, I like to think that to him, we look like, uh, like we're in an escape room being like, I need a clue. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like the panic button oh my god i'm so sorry everyone i hope that sound wasn't oh he's literally laughing at us look he popped off the camera

just to like laugh at us michael my hope was that he had just happened to go to the bathroom at that one moment and missed the whole thing but no such luck i I suppose. Anyway, sorry, everyone. And I'm sorry, Rosalie, I will never make fun of you again. I do now have a true crime tale for you. And what I was gonna say is that I don't think I'm gonna end up going full circle. And I was gonna make a joke about a rhombus, but now it's just not even funny anymore. So you can just pretend you can make a full rhombus out of it, though, if you're not going to go full circle.'s what i was going to say and then my microphone smacked me in the face so i just was like maybe that was a sign for me it was literally your guardian angels being like don't be so fucking stupid and i do it anyway they know better they're like that's not going to stop her

um okay well this is the story i'm very excited about this one so this is the story of shelly notech or michelle notech okay and um this takes place in raymond washington and uh i'm just gonna jump into it so it takes place like in the 80s but shelly herself so i'll start with like a little background on her she was born in 1954 um and her mother abandoned her and her brother when in 1960 when she was little and she was about six years old and her mother was then murdered by a boyfriend oh yeah pretty fucked up um we're really diving in really diving in and she was only six years old so like this is just not a good start to her childhood um relatives believed shelly blamed her father for her biological mother's death because he was the one who divorced her and a boyfriend killed her mother if that makes sense so like sort of like uh her mom her

mom and dad divorced and then her mom started dating a guy who murdered her so she blamed her father for like divorcing her mom and and basically was like if you hadn't split up with her then she wouldn't have dated this guy who turned out to be really violent. So it was kind of just like she had a really misguided anger, I guess, when she was little. And her aunt would later describe her during this time period. And remember, she's six years old. So her aunt described her during this time period as volatile, uncontrollable, and it just got increasingly worse as she got older. So she became more angry, more violent,

and more out of control. So in 1975, I'm out of breath from launching my microphone all over the room. Oh my God. Okay. So in 1975, Shelly marries her high school sweetheart and they have a daughter named Nikki. Then they get divorced and she marries another man and has another daughter named Sammy and they also divorce. And at this point, she starts working with the elderly and she's kind of like working with cases and she works in the home healthcare field. So she's working with a lot of sick elderly people. And during this time in the mid-80s, Shelly meets a man named David Notek and they marry. So David, her new husband, was a Vietnam vet. He was on the rebound from a really devastating breakup when they met.

And he was described as being nice and quiet, but well-liked in the town. And this is, again, in Raymond, Washington. It's a pretty small town and he had grown up there. And so he was actually really well-liked and he was kind of chill and quiet. And the two of them bought an isolated farmhouse out on a rural piece of property. And their goal was to like restore this farmhouse with their children, like his stepchildren. And all was well. Not really.

Okay. I don't believe it. So Shelly decided she was sort of like the head of the household. She every time David got a paycheck, she would take them. So she was like in control of his money. And then she would give him a small allowance, which I mean, we've seen a lot in like abuse cases where people start by just controlling the other person's life in like really explicit ways.

Well, yeah. One of the first signs is financial. Yes. Financial control. Yeah. Yeah. And like making them dependent on you in a way and so even though he was the only one with a job she would control his money um and so she worked part-time uh eventually like sometimes she would take on little jobs but she mostly just um was a homemaker and once they got married a lot of friends and family of david's uh described him as becoming

really exhausted and depressed uh so not a good sign of their marriage yikes okay and things just got worse well um they can't imagine that they get better as i went full rhombus it's noodles all the way to the top i i went full rhombus on you you didn't even say coming goose camp we should we should do a show live love lemon we should do a fucking show we should like speak in our stupid isms and it doesn't make any goddamn sense i feel like someone's grandfather has had to listen in on like five seconds of this and was like what is going on exactly five seconds because after five he was like turn the shit off he's like i'll disown you go away what's a live laugh lemon i think so at this point shelly convinces david so she's like really micromanaging his whole life at this

point at this point she convinces him that he needs to discipline her daughters the same way she does. And the discipline includes severe beatings as well as withholding food. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm surprised. Yeah. But I really wish that wasn't the direction we went. Yes. Unfortunately, it was. And you probably knew it, but we always hope it won't go that way.

And it always does. So it's always a fingers crossed moment. And exactly. On a show called And That's's why we drink we're just never right no not usually um so sad so they start so david is kind of now in with this in on this with her basically like they are both abusing the children at this point and um during this time sammy and nikki so the two daughters describe the psychological and physical torture uh as the following so her their mother would hide their homework or would tear out pages so that she could like convince them or would like punish them for not doing their homework which is just like such supreme gaslighting holy shit like she would literally just hide the homework be like you didn't do it and then like beat them for it like it was so twisted um so she could punish them for

like not doing the work but she's the one who ripped them out and hid them like it's just so like that's like i mean i know this like does not count as like the worst part of that story but like on top of it like even if they were good students they're like exactly anti-praised for doing one thing right no that's exactly it because it's like even if they were good students they're like exactly anti-praised for doing one thing right no that's exactly it because it's like even if they try so hard to like do things right the right way even if they're shitty like even if they were shitty kids in the eyes of their parents like they still couldn't even be good students or like even like i mean that's affecting their school life because the teachers are going to be like where's your work and it's

like oh my mom tore it up like that's less likely than dog ate my homework right exactly yeah it's it's really twisted doing the most impossibly the most unrealistic thing so nobody will even believe that they go out for help yes which is like creepy ultimate gaslighting of like no why would anyone do that it's like yeah nobody knows why you would do that oh my god. And I'll also add here that like in the, in the TV shows about this case, the daughters are typically referred to as with different names because they were children when this happened. So their names in the shows were Megan, Dana and Whitney and Leslie, Dana and Whitney. And they were kept, their names were kept out of the early reports. But since then they've done so many like interviews and they had a book written about them.

And so that's how we kind of know their their real names, which is why I'm using their real names in this case. So in addition to the homework thing, their mom would regulate when they could use the bathroom. And they would receive severe beatings if they went without permission. They would be I will also say like this is a very brutal case. I mean, it's just really, well, I mean, it's, I guess you've already noticed that everybody. So probably don't need to tell you that. But yeah, also water's wet. Also there's crime in this and it's true. Okay.

They also were locked in closets. um they also were locked in closets uh they were subjected to this thing called wallowing where shelly would wake the girls up early on really cold mornings force them outside to roll around in the mud in the mud while she sprayed them with a hose so like extreme physical abuse too yes like regulating their temperatures yes yes unregulating them unregulating you're regulating them yes and like starving them etc like controlling their bathroom habits um and then after i mean classic abuse after the incidents she would shower them with affection and gifts and like win them back over and then you know obviously like jekyll and hyde turning it um so in the late 80s shelly's nephew whose

name was shane Watson, came to live with the family. And Shane also had had a rough early life. His mother had struggled with addiction, was in and out of jail. And his father, who was Shelly's brother, was in a biker gang. And he was also in and out of jail. So he didn't really have a stable home life. But he was described as the sweetest young man, tender and an all around good kid and shane had been living with his grandparents but at this point shelly was like you know what you need a regular normal home life we can provide that for you bullshit and you can come live at our place and he was like great so he came and lived with them and at first like uh shelly and david treated him really well he was like a new

member of the family but right yeah exactly Stepping or treading lightly at first. Treading lightly. And then pretty quickly it turned into the same abuse that they subjected the girls to. And Nikki says, one of the daughters says that Shelly forced her and Shane to slow dance naked in the living room when she was 13. So this is her cousin. And Shane started to hate shelly for obvious reasons um but they're all just terrified of her so there's like not really much they can do she's like controlling the whole household so now it's also like not even disregarding how like that's like

like like physical like teetering on also sexual assault and that they're naked and shit but it's also the broader scope of that situation alone is just mental torture because they're yes she's just forcing them into these things that they don't want to do exactly and they're like living in total fear of her and then she would right like do the do the like sweet act and win the back over and then just turn again and become violent. So just really bad situation. So at this point, Shane's still living there and Shelly meets a woman named Kathy Loreno.

And Kathy is this like really sweet, friendly and super shy hairdresser from the nearby town of South Bend, Washington. And she befriends this woman, Kathy and Kathy was originally from Southern California, but her father and stepfather had both tragically died and her mother had moved them to South Bend, Washington for the low cost of living. And it's there that she became a hairdresser. And she was promoted to managing

a chain of hair salons, but I guess she wasn't very good at upselling products. And so she lost her job and eventually lost her apartment because she really struggled with work with maintaining her work and she moved back in with her mother at first but they would argue a lot about her boyfriend and so eventually in 1989 when Kathy was 36 she left her mother's house and moved in with the no-techs as a live-in nanny so I know Michelle or Shelly was like oh I know you and your mom are having issues so why don't you come live with us? You can work as a nanny since you'll get, you know, room and board basically. And how old is this nanny?

36. Okay. Okay. So she's 36 and she knows Shelly well and they're friends. So she's like, sure, I'll come work. And Shelly and David had just had another child. So they had a baby. Oh, my God.

I know. I know. It's just like builds and builds and builds. And so there was a newborn in the family now named Tori. And so Kathy moved in basically and was like, okay, I'm going to be the nanny in exchange for room and board and take care of this baby. And by this point, Shelly and David are treating Kathy like family. You know, obviously they're like, welcome to our home. You're part of the family, yada, yada, same old story.

And pretty quickly, according to Sammy and Nikki, abuse toward Kathy starts to escalate as well. Um, so David and Shelly both beat her mercilessly. Um, apparently like David would, the kids said David would get really annoyed with her and punch her in the face. And I'm like, that is not how you no no the nanny sorry oh i mean that's so bad but like oh my god the baby no no the nanny that's still terrible yeah so they treat her like family and then they start beating her um and he would just get frustrated with her and just punch her in the face and it's like okay um so remind me again

what her what was her how bad was her relationship with her mom like could she not leave at this point or so it got to it was one of those things where they would just like mentally they would they would treat them so well and be like oh you're part of the family you're part of the family and then it would just like slowly escalate to the point where they gradually trapped her in exactly like she ended up being pretty much stuck and it gets worse to the point where like yeah there was no way to get out of it unfortunately i didn't know if she like i know eventually like at some point like when it comes to abuse you just can't leave like most of what people think is possible i don't know if it was it happened early on enough that she like yeah

i think that was the exact i think that was the exact thing because with shane too like at first they just were so loving and you know kind and would like enfold them into the family yeah it happens super gradual gradual at first and then it's it's like so yeah it's it's like so smooth on their part of like oh they'll you know, you just don't see it coming. And then suddenly it's just so bad that you're like trapped. Yeah. So in addition to beating her, they forced Kathy to do household chores naked. Hey, hey, when does it get better? When does it stop getting worse?

Never. At the end of the rhombus. Just wait. I'm taking you through the many turns of the rhombus about which side. I know how many sides it has. Don't worry about it. Four. Four sharp left turns and they're all worse than the other.

And then we end up in the same very shitty place. The same shitty corner that we started in. So Sammy, the daughter, one time her friend was over and saw kathy locked outside with no clothes on and shelly was like oh she just had an incident with the hot tub but sammy was like no she always got they would lock her out naked and just like force her to like wait outside without clothes on until they would let her back in they also uh locked kathy in a pump house on the property or like at one time they this is bad one time they put her in the bottom of an abandoned well and waterboarded her just poured water onto her to torture her um they this is probably one of the sickest ones

so just a heads up um they would deprive kathy of food until she was starving and then they would feed her rotting food with maggots in it and then they would watch her eat every bite of it wow yeah that one's just like extra because to even to even have the mental capacity to come up with something like that and execute it like what the fuck is going on in your head i mean i just shit i mean you're i mean it's you're it's not not at all excusing any form of abuse but like you expect things like getting physically hurt like physically beaten or something like that but and a lot of abusive people will argue like oh i couldn't control myself but that's like a whole other level of like you're intentionally trying to create ways to really make someone incredibly fucking miserable no you're

and like to entertain yourself almost it's not even just like that you're angry at them it's like oh but you also just get you derive pleasure out of it and you are being creative and coming up with like new twisted ways it's like a fucked up art for you or something. Yeah. Yeah. As enjoyable for you and as miserable for them. Yes, exactly. And it, trust me, it just gets worse. So it doesn't sound like it can, but it does. I don't believe it, but okay. Continue.

I know. So Shelly and David would also verbally degrade Kathy. And then every time she tried to escape, they would drug her with tranquilizers and like basically continue to starve her. So it was just one of those like lose-lose situations where even if she tried to get out, she'd be punished. And this is also just really bad. Shelly would force her own children to beat Kathy. So that's another form of abuse toward the children of like, right, right. You need to I'm abusing you. You need to abuse her. I mean, it's just like, fucking horrid. Well, it's more it's more mental torture for both parties, because now you're making them turn against each other when

they're all going through the same thing. Yes, yes, exactly. And like this is an adult, a member of the family, quote, unquote, and now you're convincing your children they have or forcing your children to hit her. They also she also convinced the kids or forced the kids to stab her with scissors and kick her with steel toed boots. This sounds a lot like, excuse me, Sylvia Likens when the mom would like convince the other kids to play along, you know, and like, yeah, there's just that argument of like, well, you know, they're children. Like this isn't their fault. They're also being abused. Yeah.

Like you like you can't be mad at them, but also like, holy shit, like this poor person's being stabbed with scissors. But a different person is being forced to do this. Exactly. Exactly. It's just so twisted. Okay. A forensic psychologist later said this was a form of manipulation and control over the children and they the psychologist believed that this was a form of manipulating them into believing they were partially culpable and so they would never tell because they were convinced they were part

of the problem and if they told like oh well i stabbed her with scissors so i'm going to jail or whatever they're all of a sudden you could very easily trick them into believing like, oh, you're not the victim. Yes, you're a perpetrator of this. You earned part of this and you deserve guilt. Exactly. And it seemed to have worked. They were all just stuck in this situation for a really long time. So at this point, Kathy has been so malnourished that she loses 100 pounds.

Like she loses a full 100 pounds because she's so starved um and she has received so many injuries to her head that she can't maintain balance anymore and like literally can't even stand properly like permanent severe vertigo yes yeah exactly like her balance has been impaired permanently oh my god and then to top it all off in 1994 kathy succumbs to the abuse and she dies and she dies while locked in the no-text laundry room this is really fucked up but i'm surprised she lasts that long like i know like i i wouldn't have been shocked if she died months months months earlier yeah this was five years oh my god um and nick and nicky uh one of the daughters says she and shane so her cousin saw david the father trying to resuscitate her in the laundry room um and then after david left

the laundry room shane apparently took polaroid photos of Kathy's body. And it's believed that Shane was intending to get photos of the body and use them to show police to help himself and the kids escape. Okay. From the abuse as like proof. You know what I mean? So at some point, and I mean, I don't think someone can just turn evil, but I'm assuming that the entire time this was happening, David and the kids all felt remorse. And like, like they, or did any of them kind of. I don't know. I mean, like being okay with this behavior.

David started beating the daughters right away. I mean, you know what I mean? Like they started getting right. They got married and he, she apparently quote unquote convinced him to start disciplining the children the way she did, which was through, you know, physical and mental torture. So, you know, he and mental torture. So, you know, he was in on this from the beginning. And obviously, I think the children, I don't know, I mean, they were not implicit at all. So I'm not really sure what their I don't know if they're like behavior changed. And they started like showing signs of like, whatever their their mom had taught them or anything. But okay, so they're all still like,

super guilty and feeling horrible about this, too. top them or anything but okay so they're they're all still like super guilty and feeling horrible about this too i don't know i mean i don't think i mean maybe the daughters but the dad has been like implicit in this the whole time and i think okay as much as he tried to resuscitate her it was probably like we don't want a dead body in our house and we don't want to be right okay murder that checks out i know if the kids ever i know if the kids ever interviewed later being like or you said that they stayed out of interviews right oh no no that's why we have their names because they did they've done so many interviews and they really wrote a book about this and so that's how we know their names

um but so shane is like the cousin and he has been stuck in this as well he's the one that moved in when his parents went to jail and um he's so they think he took photos of um kathy as like a as proof to bring to the police to like escape sorry i got mixed up there first no no it's very confusing there's like a lot of people involved here and just a lot of backwards shit um but so shelly at this point takes the kids to a hotel for a few days to kind of like get away from the house. And meanwhile, David burns Kathy's body in the backyard over the course of several days before disposing of the ashes at nearby beaches. And Shelly and David tell the kids that Kathy is dead. And if they tell anyone, they'll kill all the kids and themselves before going to prison.

So if anyone asks, they need to tell them that kathy left with a new boyfriend and she also reminds the children again that they assisted in kathy's abuse so this is partly their fault which it was not but you know besides the point right right so nikki and sammy say at this point that the atmosphere in the house over the next six months um reached a boiling point kathy's family reported her missing. Shelly was asked about Kathy's disappearance and told authorities that Kathy had met a trucker and moved to Hawaii. And she produces a photo of Kathy standing in front of a semi with a man. So she's like, no, here they are. And it's still not clear where the hell she got this photo.

Interesting. But she had one. And so at this point, the missing person investigation stalls because also, you know, Kathy's an adult and it's just really hard to prove that someone's like missing if they went willingly. They're an adult and they're allowed to do that. So the investigation stalls. But the Kathy's family, the Loreno family had hired a P.I. who believed that Kathy had died at the no text, but they couldn't get enough evidence to go to the police. And sadly, but, you know, expectedly, the abuse that had been directed at Kathy is now basically back at Nikki, Sammy and Shane. So they're back like in the target zone, if you will. Right.

But Shane is now getting older, bigger, stronger, harder to control. is now getting older bigger stronger harder to control and while nikki is being beaten one day uh she accidentally lets it slip to shelly that shane had taken these polaroids of kathy and so because she hadn't known that so nikki had seen this but uh shelly the mom had not seen this so in february of 95 shelly takes the girls to another nearby hotel. But this time Shane is not with them. And Shelly tells Sammy, Nikki and Tori that Shane went to go live in Alaska because he got a job on a fishing boat. Bullshit. And yeah. And the girls later say they were just so desperate to believe he was OK that they went with it because they were just like they couldn't

wrap their head around the fact that anything i don't want to happen yeah yeah so they just basically believed this story at first but in reality unfortunately he did not go get a job in alaska in reality david had shot shane in the woodshed and was burning his body to dispose of it just like he did with kathy's because he and shelly believed that shane knew too much and had the evidence to tell police and that they would be you know in in trouble if he if he went to the authorities right and he and the kids they like hadn't normalized any of this they like knew it was fucked up so like they were yeah okay yeah at least at least he did he wasn't you know he wasn't actually one of their children and he was older so i think he was more in a position to like i wonder why he hadn't is there do they know why he hadn't

gone to the police yet about it or he was just holding well i think they were just really really um controlled like i just don't think there would have been maybe an opportunity for him to sneakily go to the police if that makes sense i feel like he was probably waiting for his moment or something like that just never came yeah and i think i mean i'm pretty sure this happened pretty this was like less this was anything a matter of months so this wasn't like a long like he wasn't holding on to them for years right exactly this was pretty quickly afterward that um they decided he he was too in the know to keep alive gotcha so oh boy so shelly tells shane's school because he's still in school she tells this chain school that he has run away and she reports him as a runaway to police

and she follows up shortly after i just love how she's so involved like oh i have more information for you um i actually heard from shane she says and he's fine up in alaska don't worry and police at this point like pretty much believed her because apparently they're in washington and a lot of young men like in their teen years like or their late teen years go up to um alaska to work and so it wasn't like that out of the ordinary that their her nephew who lived with them temporarily went and got a job i'd like to think that they would have been suspicious since there was already a missing persons case within a few directed yeah connected to them that's that's a very good point um yeah so for i mean you're right and And one's in Alaska and one's in Hawaii.

How convenient. Right. That's a very good point. That's a little strange. But in 1996, so this is the year after, Nikki actually runs away and she goes into hiding. And Sammy follows shortly after. And so now it's only Tori, who's the youngest, at home. So, Shelly, at this point i just i don't

even know i keep saying at this point because i'm like i don't even know how to like go from point to point because it's just just so absurd how this escalates into weird directions but at this point shelly tells everyone she has cancer she does not and she shaves off all her hair and eyebrows and she and david just invent this whole storyline that she has cancer and he knows she doesn't either but this is just another one of their weird tactics i like i don't know if they're just getting attention or like sympathy or maybe trying to misdirect from like the criminal angle i don't i don't really know but it's just another weird thing they tried to pull off.

And so 1999, this is about three years after Nikki runs away. David is away most of the week and the two eldest girls were gone. So Shelly decides to take in a boarder to live with her at the house. And his name is Ron Woodworth and he's 57 years old. He's also a Vietnam vet down on his luck, kind of like Kathy, who needed a place to live. She was being so generous and letting him stay with her, quote unquote. And he had just moved to Washington from California. He didn't have any contacts in the area, convenient. He had recently been fired, had just broken up with his long-term boyfriend.

And acquaintances of Ron's believe he had also started displaying signs of mental illness around this time so he was like a perfect storm for shelly to kind of victimize basically manage of so shelly abuses ron in a similar manner to kathy she would make him do yard robe i'm sorry yard work in a robe and underwear barefoot and would then make him jump off of things into the gravel and bare feet to like cut up his feet so he couldn't run well and then she would pour boiling water and bleach over his injuries honestly i feel like 20 instances ago you said this is the worst thing you'll hear no i said it just gets worse oh my god and you said i don't believe you and i went okay it's like okay well let's see yeah so i mean and i mean you might right like you think oh

so he can't run away that's a lot i mean twisted and fucked up but logical but no she just like wants to hurt people and entertain herself like there's not even sort of rhyme or reason to what she's doing she just wants to like humiliate people and hurt them and so yeah she would pour boiling water and bleach over his feet when they were really injured and it i know i said the word skin slippage last time but you're gonna again something similar they said like to to slough off his skin or something the injuries yeah on his feet it yeah rough um so just really deeply abusing this man as well and in the summer of 2001 so this is a couple years later nikki goes to the pacific county sheriff's department she's been hiding for six years and is now in her 20s

and she she goes to the police station but she's still terrified of shelly finding out that she's talking to the police and so she refuses to be recorded she tells investigators everything she knows about the abuse kathy's death and shane's disappearance so investigators go to question shelly and try to talk to ron the border to see like what's going on here but they have a really difficult time of getting a hold of shelly and when they do she's like no no look at these postcards they're from kathy they're from all around the country she's having a great time and she sticks to her story about shane in alaska and she has this photo of kathy by a semi with a man and so she's just like talking talking her way out of this

situation and then ron the border he refused to speak with the police and so they're like well there's really nothing we can do like there's no proof here you know nothing she didn't slip up in any way and tori i assume is also like a massive focal point of the abuse because there are no other children you know there really isn't much that that i write about what was happening to tori at this point I think a lot of it was directed at this man Ron um and I mean I'm sure I mean there's no way that she's suddenly treating this third child as like right it's probably happening yeah I imagine it probably did um I don't know too much about it and since Nikki and Sammy were the ones who kind of wrote the book

and told the story I don't I know more about their situation than Tori's, but yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I'm sure she was also not in a great place, especially she was still unsafe. I'm pretty sure. Yes.

That money. 1 million percent. So investigators are like, sorry, we can't really do anything at this point, but we'd like to get your statement on record. But Nikki disappears in fear and the case stalls again so the year after that 2002 shelly starts work as a home health care worker for an 81 year old man named james mcclintock and he suddenly dies of

blunt head force trauma but get this apparently he had been known for falling out of his scooter and had actually once required 79 emergency calls in one year for falling out of his scooter so it was just really easy for her to be like he fell again and this time his head injury was so bad that he didn't survive so there was just no question about like oh he was you know really old and he had injured himself so many times right that one was so easy to cover up exactly and this is why okay this is wild mcclintock willed eight thousand eight hundred dollars to shelly because she was like his caretaker basically and she and he willed the house to his dog sissy and upon sissy's death shelly would also get the house so she killed the dog five months later shelly reports sissy's death and i told you god and this is nervous

laughter like i'm always says i'm not laughing at the situation oh no it's so beyond my comprehension it's like your brain cannot process it yes like all you can do is laugh precisely i'm like i don't even know how i'm telling you all this it's just so twisted um right so she reports sissy's death which means she gets the house and she sells it for 140,000 dollars so in 2003 shelly calls david home from work saying oh my my gosh, Ron, the boarder, has taken his own life and he has died by suicide. You need to come home right now. So she had actually been storing Ron's malnourished, battered, and dead body in the basement fridge. And unfortunately, David was not able to burn the body like usual because there was currently a no burn order in the area.

Probably because of, you know, wildfires, that kind of thing. So he couldn't just go out back and burn the body. So at this point, it's just in the freezer or the fridge, I guess. So Nikki and Sammy, 2003, they come out of hiding and they go on the record. And this point they basically say hey we're scared for tori our little sister she's now 14 years old and um she had told nikki and sammy that ron had disappeared and had gone to california and that's when they were like uh-oh like tori's in more danger now than ever they're like it's still fucking happening yes it's exactly like it's happening all over again and now she has this 14 year old home alone.

So they come out of hiding and they finally want to go on the record to say what they know about their mom. And so the sheriffs go to remove Tori from the house. And according to investigators, Tori's relieved to be taken away from the house, but I was also like just petrified of her mother. So you're right. It was probably an abusive household for her as well. I can't imagine otherwise i feel for her and that she's like probably excited to go but also like saying she doesn't want to because she's like so scared yeah no you're right like you don't want to piss off exactly like even when they were in hiding and went to the police they're like they're still scared that she'll find out that or like she'll punish them later or like yes like tell them that they they she might say like i know you were saying things about me to the police even though she like probably or like her their sister in punishment

or whatever it may be exactly so like flory is clearly still terrified of her mother just like the older two are and um the sheriffs are unable to check so they have like this separate it's called a pole house and i guess it's just like a i don't know like a shed or something on on stilts or on poles um so the sheriffs are unable to check the pole house at the time and they had because they had no warrant and so they were just there to remove tori and the following day um david goes to the sheriff's office at shelly's behest to get tori so she's like david you need to go back you need to go to the police station and get our daughter back and so david's like okay so he goes to the police

station and while he's there the police are like okay well since you're here let's chat about all this shit your daughters are saying to us about your household and at first he denies everything but apparently he was there for five hours and he eventually basically just let it spill he said that kathy once choked on her own vomit after slipping in the shower but he wouldn't call for help because it would reveal the abuse that was going on in the household this is just one example of like shit how bad things were um he also explained how he had burned kathy's body he says that he shot shane but it was in self-defense um but he adds that he and shelly were concerned about him talking about kathy which is also why he did it so he's like he's like it's true but it's not true yes exactly there's like opposite statements whatever yeah

it's self-defense but also i was scared he would tell me tell on me okay right so he also says he burned shane's body and disposed of the ashes on long beach and he tells investigators that shelly told him rana died by suicide and reveals that the body is on the property so the pacific coast sheriffs arrest David and get a search warrant for the no-tech property. They can finally do that. And the search does recover Ron's body and apparently a burned primate bone in the fire pit,

which like was not explained to me. And I don't understand that. Of all things that you've told me so far, that's like the least ridiculous thing I've heard. I know, that part, I almost just brushed over it. Like I was like trying to find the answer and I was like, but honestly, like the rest of the story is just so ridiculously fucked up that like

this doesn't even scratch the surface. Yeah. So they find a burned primate bone as well. Um, in, in the fire pit. And, um,

the investigators find bloody clothing that, that belongs to Ron. They find bloodstains throughout the house. They also find an undeveloped roll of film. Can you imagine the terror of the cop, the poor police officer who had to like get that, the rookie who had to go to the film shop and get that developed. Imagine what the hell is going to be on this thing. Oh, well, I'll tell you, it showed Kathy being forced to crawl around naked on the floor.

Um, yeah. So they had proof around naked on the floor. Yeah. So they had proof of that now as well. Hey. So investigators finally find Michelle or Shelly Notek at a nearby property she owned and they placed her under arrest, obviously. And get this. This is the only like positive thing that has happened. Oh, sorry. The only positive thing that has happened so far

sissy mcclintock's dog is alive what she didn't kill the dog oh my god the dog made it oh here's juniper oh god oh hi too oh my gosh sorry juniper's about to knock my wine over juniper oh he's do you see his forehead he climbed in the fireplace the day we got to this house. Of course. And it won't come off his forehead. He has sweat all over him. He's like Simba. Yeah, Janie's making his Zoom debut.

Okay, honey, you got to get off. He's so... He's so... Well, you want to know why? Because it's four o'clock here. Dinner time. Oh. why because it's four o'clock here dinner time oh no it's not it's seven o'clock there you're right i saw seven and i was like that must be east coast time i was like what time is it here okay sorry no he probably is hungry i mean you're definitely

right on that um okay so anyway the dog is alive so she had reported it dead but couldn't bring herself to hurt the dog which so there's like one little like eye droplet of hope yes there is a one primate bone worth of empathy in her okay wait a minute it finally makes sense um yeah so i'm just like i put a million exclamation points next act so because I was like, what? Like, she's abusing her own children and like all these people. I'm shocked a living creature is still a living creature. And like the fact that she reported the dog dead to get the house but didn't kill the dog is just wild to me because that would have been the easiest thing to hide. Yeah. So anyway, I'm very pleased that the dog's alive, obviously, but it's just so backwards that like, because that means she had some sort of empathy, you know, so it's like how you couldn't be a complete, I guess, psychopath.

It's like the dullest silver lining. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Sad. So anyway, in 2004, the Notex enter into plea agreements. Shelly enters an Alford plea, which I think i've only talked about like once on the show before it's basically um you're at your how do i explain this you are pleading guilty without admitting that you're

responsible so you're accepting the punishment but you're're still like, I'm not saying I did it. Got it. It's sort of like you can do that to prevent a jury like finding you guilty of, you know, something worse. So if you don't think that you're going to get a fair trial or if you don't think you're going to win the trial or whatever it may be, you can enter an Alford plea and say, okay, fine. I'll accept the charges of second degree murder. And second degree manslaughter for Kathy and Ron. She received 22 years. But she never admitted that she was guilty. So it's just a weird loophole basically. She's just like saying.

I embrace what's coming. But I'm not going to say I'm at fault. Yes I'm martyring myself. I guess for the cause. And meanwhile David pleads guilty so he does to second degree murder and he is sentenced to 15 years in prison so after all this she only gets 22 years excuse me 22 years um for all of the above abuse and crimes um anyway so here's kind of the epilogue so david was actually paroled last year in 2019

and apparently nikki sammy and tori have been able to move beyond their abuse which is just awesome like they really have become awesome cool people they all have successful careers and families they keep in contact with their dad um david they say he without her their mother around he's changed and become just a more loving and caring person. That's good. So he's part of their family now. And Sammy kept in touch with Shelly at first in jail, but she kept asking for expensive lingerie and money. Shut up.

So Sammy finally realized she was being used and cut her off and stopped mailing her underwear, I guess. Good. I know. It was about time and then in 2017 the the daughters reached out to an author named greg olson to tell their story and help ensure that their mother remains in jail for the length of her sentence because they were like we need this story to like be out there so people don't just let her slip and get out of jail sure so then in december 2019 so this is like a few months ago um this book was published it's called if you tell a story of murder family secrets and the unbreakable

bond of sisterhood and i looked this book up on amazon and it has like unbelievable reviews and like um glowing i don't know i don't know the right word like not testimonials but like praise from other authors and it just looks really good so i am going to hashtag audible that and um listen to that as my next book um so in interviews now the daughters say they are no longer afraid for themselves but they are afraid for anyone else that their mother comes across and if and when she's ever released from prison so hopefully this book kind of keeps this story alive so that people realize how dangerous she is sure but michelle shelly notek is set to be released from prison in 2022 shut up how is she not in prison real soon life right and she's only 66 years old so it's just pretty fucked up and the daughter say she needs to stay there so we'll

see what happens she clearly doesn't know a way to stop yeah it doesn't seem like right exactly so that is the story of shelly no tech and um thank you for listening everyone wow all right well thank you christine sorry for the chaos sorry my cat smashed the computer and i launched a microphone on the floor and everything all of the above yikes well i i don't know what to say just come to our live show june 5th come to our live show um and that's it i thought we were doing our exit just be like just we're sorry and sorry that's why we drink cheers drink a lot a lot