And That's Why We Drink - E185 The Presence of Emothy and a Wine Glass Planchette

Episode Date: August 22, 2020

May we please introduce you to Emothy, Christopolis and Evatha! For episode 185, we're bringing you some randonauting updates and a sleep over that may or may not have included a Ouija board ambush. Then Em tells the surprisingly recent story of the Chupacabra and Christine covers the heartbreaking and infuriating case of Tamla Horsford. We also attempt to bring you the Chupacabra family tree... and that's why we drink! Check out Princeton University's research on the Chupacabra here: http://www.princeton.edu/~accion/chupa.htmlListen to the Tamla Horsford 911 call here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0iCOt8rw9gPlease consider supporting the companies that support us! Get 10% off your first month with Better Help when you go to www.betterhelp.com/drinkGet that glowy, dewy look for yourself by visiting www.Glossier.com/podcast/DRINKIf you’re a homeowner, head to www.Policygenius.com right now to get started! Go to www.Thrive.com/drink for a free gift and up to $22 in value!

well hello emothy welcome to my talk show where i call you emothy only um i just found i hello i just found out uh yesterday that for years christine in her head has called me Amethy. How does nobody know that? She had normalized it so well in her own mind that she said it out loud to me last night. And I like was so jarred and she was like, what? And I was like, why'd you call me that? And she was like, I've always called you that. And I'm like, you've literally never called me that. The incredible thing is that I've somehow kept it in my brain. Like usually things in my brain just dump out. And I don't know how i kept it hidden but so i've i

called you i was like i was so shocked like emothy and evitha need to like calm down i don't know what i was talking about but i said that and you kind of did a double take and i was like what i was like i more like a like that was a funny joke but i don't understand it and you're like that's not a joke that's literally your name name like who do you think you are I was like apparently not emothy can I call you that emothy it's too late at this point you may um hi hi I don't know how to what I don't know a name off I tried I'm a little bit mad I don't have the same like christothy no christopher christopher is already a name I mean yeah it's not fair um it's not my My life's hard. Anyway, welcome to our show and that's why we drink

where we talk about ourselves a lot but also ghosts and murder. And I would just want to say Emma and I had a slumber party. Two slumber parties. Excuse you. Oh, sorry.

Emmathy and I. Chris. Chris. Chris. Christopherson. I don't know. Christopolis. Christopolis.

Emmathy and Christopolis had a slumber party where we literally just watched ghost adventures and actually really scared ourselves oh we were um like the quarantine episode we watched like well we watched half of the quarantine episodes um a lot of people have been asking us for a while to watch them i did plan to watch them and i just never got to it and then we were together last night trying to figure out what to watch we did a patreon live stream and some like yesterday and people were asking that too and so we were like let's do it yeah and um it was

very well done we like we had we secretly kind of admitted that we were impressed with zach bagel bites genuinely frightened i was like this is a million dollar idea the number of times i like grabbed emmethy's arm sorry and like was like emmethy what the hell just happened that is frightening it really was very scary it was like hats off hats off emothy's top hat off i zb i say everything i've said i take back and for that only for that moment right of just like what a business move that's we literally called him chris kardashian the ghost chris kardashian yeah exactly and uh christopolis Ghost Kris Kardashian. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, Kristopoulos Kardashian. Kristopoulos Kardashian. And, uh. And, and Zagathy.

Zagathy, right? Zagathy Biggins, yeah. Zagatha. Zagatha. Oh, uh, I just saw these in my, um, peripherals. Uh, Finn and Gil are here today.

My fish flops. You saw them in your soul. Let me, let me do a little, let me do a little cameo. I was on the airplane and I got an ad being like, Whoa, we got a big one. Okay.

Are you, are you, are you are you are you done? Are you pleased with yourself, Amethy? Eva made a great point. I'm also wearing Bombas promo code drink, but they're tie dye blue. And he was like, oh, they look like water, like the fish are swimming. And I went like, you're that's genius sticking. Well, listen, I don't know. You can have an opinion, Christopoulos.

You're genius i guess um i guess they're the new hit thing item of the summer is what daily bees told me and i was not i was like did m like pay them off to do this advertisement because no thank you i am gonna say to the people who are in charge of our ads if you can find me weird things like fish flops i will promote them just so we're clear doesn't need doesn't need an ad to promote them? They can just sit here and promote them no matter what. I also, I knew we promised a Randonauting update because we said we were going to do that. So we did go Randonauting with Eva. I feel like we were all really hungry.

And like, I feel like one of the things I was worried about is that like three people focusing on one intent with like different angles on said intent might've thrown us off a bit. Nothing. Which is kind of what happened, I think. Which is what happens in this show to begin with, that we just like constantly are going in different directions.

Yes, just... We tried it. We tried and nothing really came from it. Although I will say that we were already pre-warned of that because in the episode I covered, it was that the only ones that everyone's hearing about are probably the 1% where something really accurate is happening. I don't know if it's, I don't, I doubt that it's got a real wild accuracy rate. I also got to add that like Brandon on in Los Angeles is a different beast because

you're literally, I mean, I was telling Eva, I've never seen the backs of so many buildings. Like suddenly we're like, by the way, every single, actually maybe it did work because every single intention brought us to a dumpster. we were like that's true actually this makes a whole lot of sense we we went our first one was and that's why we drink as an intention it took us to a bar to be fair it took us to the back of a bar with a dumpster at it right uh-huh yeah it's like i get it also there was a guy standing next to the bar that looked like he wanted to kill us and i was like oh that's a true crime yeah we were like we are trespassing, that's a true crime. We are trespassing. So this is a true crime. We are not trespassing. Don't trespass. Um, but we were like in a lot of alleys for legal reasons. This is a joke. Okay. No. Um, also we did lemon, we did

lemon as an intention. And that would, that would actually did kind of work. It brought us to the parking spot where I, cause we were like, where are we? And he was like, this is where you parked Christine when you came to surprise him and hit in the box. And that's where I pulled the box out of my trunk. So it brought us to the spot where I. It brought a Christine energy to it, which I guess is what Lemon is responsible for. Yeah. So I guess it sort of worked in that way. I mean, maybe we'll try it again, like in a different spot that's not so crazy and hectic and filled with traffic. But otherwise it was still fun. Like I would recommend it. We had fun driving around. Yeah, we did see a lot of one particular mile radius of Los Angeles, I guess. Yes.

And then we put in dinner and it brought us to a restaurant, which the odds of that were pretty high. It took me to one of the streets that I frequent. Yes. So I was able to kind of get us around. And like also Eva was kind of our tour guide because we started relatively near where she lives and so she was like oh over there's a great restaurant over over there is a great spot over there my favorite thing is that it would like I was like a mile away and she'd go oh that's probably that restaurant I hate so much and we were like she's like Carmen Sandiego she truly

every single spot she had an opinion about and I was like I don't even know where we are yeah so I never know where congrats yeah anyway that so it was good not great yeah i mean it was fun i don't know that like it worked as intended but it was a fun adventure it was fun not accurate and then we got food at the end so i had a great time fun yeah not accurate but fun um like this show like this show um anyway so i don't think i have any updates i've been with you this whole time so i've got nothing to update you on. We did watch something last night where I now have a new favorite song. It made me watch this horrible thing. We went on Hulu to watch Ghost Adventures, and then, of course, this horror thing shows up,

and Em goes, watch that, watch that, watch that. And I was like, I don't watch horror things because— It was five minutes long. But then it was five minutes. I was like, fine, we'll watch this. It's called The Hug on Hulu. It's called The Hug. And it went Pandora's Pan Pizza Palace.

And it was that song. But for all five minutes, it was just that sentence for five minutes. So by the end, you're hypnotized. Yeah, we were mesmerized. And as we were watching Ghost Adventures quarantine, like under our breath, we were just holding on to each other in the dark.

We're like Pandora's Pan Pizza Palace. It was that movie. I don't know what the hell in the dark going like it was that movie i don't know what the hell it was but basically like it was like it was like uh someone wrote a like a short horror about chucky cheese and it ate a child spoiler alert although i do have a true crime suggestion for you what's that um which is the chucky cheese murders oh yeah do you have that written down eventually i have that written down i've tried to cover it is there not enough info it's like really all over the place oh and there's a lot of like this is true and then people are like no that's all bullshit and this is true. And so it's it's it is on the list though.

So okay. Okay I'm glad you suggested it because maybe I'll go back. I got you. Reassess. Okay well I just thought that was a nice segue into me suggesting. It is it is. So I will uh I will assess that on the plane later. Also, by the time this comes out, we've already done our live show. Not yet. Not yet? So should we plug our live show? Yes.

Come to our live show. Come to our live show. It's a virtual live show. And if you have not yet done so, it is going to be about, we're going to be reading the top 10 scariest stories that our listeners submit. So if you would like to be in the running for that, then send your personal scary story to atwwdfromourcouches at gmail.com, a specific email just for this live show.

And if this does come out after the live show, my bad. And if it does come out after the show, then we hope you had a great time. Then don't email it anymore until maybe we talk about another live show. And, yeah, all proceeds are going to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. We hope you had a great time. Then don't email it anymore until maybe we talk about another live show. And yeah, all proceeds are going to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. And we are doing it the 22nd, 5 Pacific, 8 Eastern. For $10. Virtual.

$10 tickets. Super fun. Okay. That being said, here's my story. And also, I thank you for yesterday going to Target and getting me my favorite drink in the whole wide world oh you're so welcome also i went to target i didn't go to get your favorite drink i went to buy a ouija board but apparently they don't sell them oh yeah christine tried to get me to do a ouija board last night she ambushed me on our own apartment and she was like hey when you get inside can you start filming and i went what the hell does that mean so i had my phone on and all of a sudden she had she couldn't find a ouija board

so she hand drew one on our own poster like just to make it so ominous i tried a few times i had and the planchette she was going to use was a wine glass it was too on brand effective as hell also i use the back of a poster of ours and then i looked at the front and we both signed it so i think there was probably some weird energy there. Like we like signed a waiver to our souls in some way. I drew a smiley ghost on top to make you feel less scared about it. Well, for anyone wondering what happened, we ended up watching Pandora's Pantheon spouse. And then we forgot to do the Ouija board.

So it's just it's just in there now. Anyway, I say that so I can say let's crack into our story okay ready oh let's crack into it okay beautiful thank you okay um so my story is uh something i thought was gonna have a lot more information and apparently uh it's actually much more recent of a story than i realized um it's kind of been one of those uh legendary folklores that i assume had all of this real meat to it and it ends up being a shorter it's pandora's pan pizza pan pizza palace it's very new it's uh came out on hulu um it's only five minutes long it's horrifying uh no so this is the story of the chupacabra

that's a recent story it's more reason than i thought you're probably more on target how recent did you did you think in your mind it was very old i thought it was like at least like the 60s 70s it's not even that old no it's from the 90s it's from us from our time it's from us yeah well it's from us we are the product be born and then create the chupacabra that seems like something that are the product. We would be born and then create the Chupacabra. That seems like something that we would do. It's like we were born and then the demon released itself. To be fair, that's like when black-eyed kids happened in the 90s because of the internet.

The guy who experienced it put it on his blog. Well, so there's actually arguments. I'll get to this. There are arguments that apparently Chupacabra, there's like kind of a, there's this impression that maybe the Chupacabra is as old as the 50s and then there was a kind of a resurgence in the 70s but because the internet happened in the 90s that's when it got really wild i see so kind of the same thing yeah so maybe black eyed kids isn't

really from the 90s either but they know what a telegraph is it has to be somewhat old they can't possibly be from the 90s no unless they time traveled which is its own theory so um so anyway this is the chupacabra uh apparently other names for it uh or its other main name is el chupacabra oh wow and apparently it started as a as a plural it was chupacabras didn't know that um okay me either its nickname is chupa apparently cute precious precious it's also known if if it is at all linked to the stories from the 70s it has another alias or another beast during the 70s which could be chupacabra was known as el vampiro de mocha cute fun that's what they call me so fun and um apparently its closest known relative if at all is the jersey

devil oh i love how its closest known relative is also potentially not real i found a website where i tried to do like a whole like kingdom phylum like oh my god like the animal the family thing yeah yeah i don't know what it's called family tree the genetic though not a family tree that doesn't the chupacabra's grandfather maternal was the jersey devil and christine jesus and christopolis okay so apparent so the reason i decided to do chupacabra because surprisingly few people have ever mentioned it i'm amazed like we haven't covered it but also i'm like yeah not because i feel like it never gets asked of us right apparently i i found out because someone i do not know your name but you know who you are because you're the only person on earth who's ever asked this of me

um tweeted out and asked if i could cover a story on the grunches which is apparently a um it's a i think it's in massachusetts it's like a cryptid in massachusetts oh um and so i looked into it it was way too small to cover, but it led me, because apparently grunches are like one breed of chupacabra. Okay. So for the grunches person, I'm covering this in your honor. I see. So apparently this is related to the grunches.

Same with apparently at one point there was something called the Ozarkowler, something called the Puechen. Third cousin. I'm building the family tree Howler, something called the Puechen. Third cousin. I'm building the family tree. Second cousin twice removed. Okay. Oh, sorry. The Puechens of Chile, which by the way, are more described instead of as like a beast

as winged snakes. Cute. Which like, I gotta tell you, I can't think of a more frightening thing in my entire life. Super, super fun. And then also in the Philippines, there's something called the Sigbin. So of those things, I might try to look into them later for their own separate stories. But from what I gathered, none of them had real meat to the story. So, um, I would, I just wanted to cover Chupacabra as a whole.

Got it. In case, in case there's nothing on those. Um, so apparently, here's a fun fact. Chupacabra was, the was coined by a puerto rican comedian really named silverio perez okay um after some of the very first reports i guess he did some sort of stand-up about it and called it the chupacabra and it stuck and it stuck can you imagine and by the way imagine us doing a live show and we accidentally name a cryptid that goes on for an era. That'd be way fun.

It's called Pandora. Oh, no. Yeah. Not that that's like trademarked by somebody who actually wrote that script. Yeah. We didn't name it Pandora. Pandora named itself. Pandora named itself and ate.

It's Pandora's world. We're just living in it. It's Pandora's pizza palace. We're just living in it. And so apparently the name is actually spanish for goat sucker oh i did know that okay i don't know enough i don't know why but i did know that uh because its uh reputation has been known to it's been known to kill livestock by drinking its blood and then the the corpses have their blood completely drained from what a hilarious stand-up routine that must have been, by the way.

I think it could have been funny for its time. And also like you could made it into a vampire thing, I suppose. I don't know. I would be interested to hear it. Me too. I'm not going to, I'm not going to boohoo it yet. No, no. But so apparently I didn't know that Chupacabra was basically like the animal version of a vampire.

That's. Yeah, right. True, true, true. Interesting. It's been known. There's one quote where the Chupacabra was called probably the world's best known vampire after Dracula. And I was like, if it's that well known, I've been in the dark. Yeah.

In the 90s. So there I don't know if I've I have to have mentioned him in something at some point. But Loren Coleman, he's like the number one guy in cryptozoology. Oh. Everyone knows Loren Coleman. He's like the most renowned, esteemed cryptozoologist out there. So his opinion always goes. He's like the Bigfoot expert, everything.

Wow. And when I was in Maine, I think, Portland, Maine, one of the places I went was the cryptozoology museum. He created that oh because Em took a bunch of photos of everything really disturbing and grotesque and sent it to me saying I I miss you I found you I said I said I didn't know you were here I found you I didn't know you're at this also here you are two feet down also this other winged snake there was like in the beat before you actually get into the actual, there was like I want to call it a lobby, but it was really like one section of a hallway because it like it shared a building.

Yeah. And so they had a bunch of like little stuff in the beginning for you to I take pictures with. And every single one I was like, Christine, it looks like you. Hilarious, by the way. It never gets old for me. It's probably the oldest thing in the world for everyone else. hilarious it never gets old for me it's probably the oldest thing in the world for everyone else um but okay so lauren coleman in the 90s he called the chupacabra quote the single most notable cryptozoological phenomenon of the past decade wow so that's pretty that's pretty ringing endorsement there um so when i tried to figure out the description of this thing i'm just gonna

leave it at what a fucking range okay because it was everything on earth the and also there were different i'll explain it but basically there were um two versions of the chupacabra time-wise so in the 90s people saw the chupacabra as one thing and then when 2000 hit it completely transformed itself, it like had like an epiphany and evolved in some way. Okay. So, um, in the nineties it was considered a furry lizard of sorts. Sweet.

I don't know about that. It here, the nineties description is much more of a mind fuck than what it ends up morphing into. Um, before it's, uh, resurgence or it's, it's a epiphany as you call

it it's epiphany um uh let's see so it was a furry lizard that smelled like a wet dog or sometimes sulfur which makes some people think it might be demonic because if something smells like sulfur usually it's demonic um a longer description is that it is a reptilian it has a reptilian like panther body so then it's like okay so now it's the size of a panther but it's got scales um it's got bulging and glowing red eyes fanged teeth a snake-like tongue and then it's probably most um notorious not notorious um notable notable is the word I'm thinking of. Thank you. The most notable description that carries throughout all the stories is that it's either spikes or quills down its back. Um, and then they say it has three toes on each feet

on each foot. And, uh, it has maybe blue scales. Um, it has long claws, powerful legs that allow it to leap huge distances can be three, four or five feet tall and hops like a kangaroo. I don't even know how to put that in my brain. All that information. I can't make a SIM out of that. No, no, no.

Um, so apparently it sometimes has a tail. Sometimes it moves on two feet. Sometimes it has four feet. Sometimes it has wings and flies. And sometimes it hops from tree to tree. Great. So there really it's capable of anything.

Also all bad. Yeah. Either flies, hops, walks or runs. And then it has it's either blue or green or black or a panther or lizard. It's like whatever you want it to be. It's the chupacabra. So a lot of people also say the reason it's so mysterious is because people have just kind of primed themselves that anything unfamiliar. So maybe you were in an area, maybe even people visiting an area had just they just saw a creature they've never seen before and didn't have a word for it.

And they described it elsewhere, and it just, Chupacabra's a concept at this point and an umbrella term for something I'd never seen before. Right. So it becomes this lore of like, is it even real, or is it just a bunch of sightings? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So apparently it's known to kill its livestock,

drain it dry from its blood, and there's never any other evidence or struggle of the attack except for two puncture wounds in its neck. So it looks like a vampire bite. And apparently the holes are as thick as a human finger. I didn't know that. That's a hole. Oh, God. Oh, no.

But yeah, so they're two very thick puncture marks on the neck. Oh, no Oh no. Um, but yeah, so they're very, they're two very thick puncture marks on the neck. Oh no, no. Um, some say, uh, it has actually attacked humans. Some say it's even ripped through screen windows and, uh, window, or just windows in general to try and jump families, dogs. Oh, like you'll see a creature in the house and try to break in. Um, uh, there's one site I saw where allegedly there have been stories of the animals being dead

and when you open them up you see that their organs are also missing but there was no way for them to have been removed. Oh no. And then there are many theories on whether this thing is half man and half beast. Is it a vampire or is it even an alien? If it's killing livestock it's got that alien.

Well, especially sucking all the blood out like the cows, you know, at like Skinwalker Ranch and stuff. Yeah. Okay. Winning me over with that theory. Yes. There are no known photos of the creature or even credible footprints. And like when I say there are no known photos there's no um confirmed photos yeah because I was like I've seen photos a shitload of photos of people being like I think I saw the chupacabra

right so the first reported cases are said to have happened either in the 50s one sites of the 60s the 70s or the main argument that most people say is the chupacabra wasn't really anything until the 90s okay even if it was around before the 90s we weren't talking about it until then sure um so i'm not sure about the 50s but i know in the 70s there were attacks on livestock in a town called mocha and those attacks were attributed to this creature called el vampiro de mocha or the vampire mocha and so that creature plus the things people have seen the chupacabra is known for. It's been like lumped in. They could be lumped together.

They could be the same creature and it's just resurfacing. And a lot of people in the 70s, they also assumed that, oh, maybe it's not a beast because a lot of people thought maybe it was a cryptid. A lot of other people thought that was kind of a time for a satanic cult offering. So people might have just been taking livestock away and sucking their organs out and draining their blood, doing something terrible. Sure. And most chupacabra attacks were known. The reason it's called goat suckers, because most stories start with the fact that they were goats or at least earlier stories where it was mainly goats and then it slowly uh develops it expanded its taste palette if you will um and so i moved from ghosts to chicken sheep rabbits some stories even say

like things happen to like household pets but i didn't see any real cases of that but i think that's part of the lore of like watch your animals because the chupacabra um and all of these animals were found by farmers uh and they were all dead they had no blood in them and each had small puncture wounds in the neck so they sound pretty big to me but okay yeah small small if you're a whale i guess um and most believe that the creature didn't actually like i said didn't come around until 1995 specifically. So Chupacabra really blew up at this point as more livestock began to die. So basically I think in the 90s

before Chupacabra was even mentioned, there was this weird wave where livestock was being killed off and they didn't have an explanation and that combined with people starting to come up with these Chupacabra stories on the internet, it spun itself into an explanation for all the livestock being dead i see so um i don't know which happened first the livestock being dead or the story of chupacabra but they ended up forming into one bundle of the story um so uh the animal's reputation ended up because of the

internet started going through, or no, not because of the internet. So I guess the livestock dying happened first. And then the animal's reputation, the animal's reputation, I was trying to like say a different word besides chupacabra apparently. Chupacabra's reputation ended up going pretty viral because of all the livestock dying. It went through the local press, people trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the livestock.

And then the internet caught wind. And then it became this kind of storm where it became this celebrity monster where it was a way for people to explain their livestock dying anywhere in the world. Right, okay. It was like, oh, well,

the chupacabra must have gotten it. I see. Celebrity monster is exactly what I hope to become one day. Let's see. Hope to become. Don't worry hope to become one day. Let's see. Hope to become. Don't worry. I'm already there.

I'm already there. You're my celebrity monster. Yeah. At Pandora's Pizza Palace. So reports came out everywhere because the Internet made and it implied that one reason you could be losing your livestock is because the chupacabra. And none of the stories said they the chupacabra is only in this one spot so everyone started using it as some reasoning for what's going on right on their farms and this includes farms uh in the dominican republic argentina bolivia chile colombia honduras el salvador nicaragua panama peru brazil the united states all over

the united states was like we'll take it to mexico russia and the philippines russia whoa yeah we're hopping around here minimal sightings and russia yeah um and and that being said i i mentioned all of those places but that's all those places combined are still a fraction of stories compared to the main location of the chupacabra accounts which was in puerto rico i see puerto rico is like the main hub yeah exactly the chupacabra hot spot i like primo stand-up routines also it's like it's like a win-win for that place right love it um and so and the u.s by the way has had them in weird places too like it was in maine it was in missouri it was in a lot in texas

yeah texas i would get because it's down south yeah like new england oh maine is like on the lobster right chupacabra is really expanding its palate now yes i know there are farms in maine please don't yell at me so um the chupacabra quickly really expanding its palette now. Yes, I know there are farms in Maine. Please don't yell at me. So the chupacabra quickly became this like media sensation. I would argue it's like one of the first viral monsters outside of Bigfoot. Also a viral monster. This is all really kind of coming together as your bio, your Instagram bio or something.

I'm just manifesting. So it quickly became this media sensation. it had headlines all over national press local news everyone was looking for the chupacabra so it would stop killing away maybe that's where the story also came from uh because the description was so vast at some point maybe someone said oh it has wings so it flies to all these places i don't know i'm trying to think of like why everyone thought the one chupacabra wasn't everywhere break to maine i guess i mean i don't know a stretch but sure so um it got to a point where other like certain areas were taking it seriously like very seriously you would yeah so um the mayor of a town in puerto rico called canovanas um it actually held weekly search parties with a,

this, I'm sorry, with a caged goat as bait. No, nothing happened to the goat because no one caught the chupacabra, but they, I hope they fed him. They did have weekly search parties with a,

with bait, hoping that they would catch the chupacabra. And like, when I say weekly meetings, like the, this is, remember this is the mayor who was holding these. Right.

So like the whole town was at arms, if you will. And officials in Chile even called in the National Guard to search the area. And the federal government got involved. And the justice ministry began an investigation, but nobody could find evidence of the chupacabra. So eventually the government just kind of made a statement saying that it was wild dogs attacking the livestock got it um but that like that didn't slow people down a lot of people still thought there's something out there either it's a beast or a lot of people now that the 90s are coming up by 2000 a lot of people started the theory that it might be an alien i would i literally was like can we get back to the alien thing? Yeah.

That's what I want to talk about. So in 2000, the UFOlogists in Chile, they claimed that their military actually, this was like the ongoing theory, was that their military actually found chupacabra eggs. Ew. Also that they had caught the actual chupacabra

and they gave both of them to NASA. That was their argument of like, oh, our government made up a cover-up story so we could give it to NASA. Oh, so they were like, we did this a while ago. We just didn't say it. Oh. And I don't know why they thought that like

their own military had like covered up the story, but obviously NASA denies the charge, but it perpetuated the theory that the Chupacabra is an alien. Yes. Because once we're like, once a government in one country is saying like, or one of the theories is that our government gave it to NASA, it quickly spirals out into like,

oh, these are for sure aliens. Right. And especially the fact that it is hurting livestock. It's draining the blood out of them it especially likes goats and cattle it apparently lays eggs which is just ultra horrifying apparently they think it lays eggs i guess because it i don't know why they think that also it is known to have a large oval head and very large eyes so it just kind of they were finding these stereotypes and gray aliens right that it

could match with um and so again nasa denies the charge uh and another theories of the chupacabras are actually um bats or monkeys that nasa experimented on in puerto rico and then let them they escape from the lab that's fantastic and so they think that these are actually just like animals that the united states was testing on in their rainforest and like mutant and they got let loose snakes with wings and even lauren coleman that which is why this got perpetuated because the cryptozoologist in the of the world he said quote there were monkeys being used in blood experiments that could have got loose don't do that. So there, that just only helped further that thought process. And like,

I don't mean to just gloss over this, but a lot of these, uh, theories are the reason that a lot of people in Puerto Rico thought these things is because of the kind of anti U S belief of that, like, you know, especially, or especially the fact that Puerto Rico is kind of like a non,

is a non-state. Yeah, it's a territory rather than like. There's a lot of, I don't want to dance around it, but I also don't want to speak without having too much education. But it's. Too late, we do that all the time. A lot of the theories, at least from what i saw on these sources is that they came from the fact that they were already kind of anti-us and so a lot of the theories

were like oh well nasa took our we took the chupacabra so there's no way of us finding out or nasa was covering up things so who was anti-us um any of any of the areas in latin america but specifically puerto rico yeah and mean, so you're saying like, oh, they were pointing fingers at like the U S being like, they did that. And to be clear, like I fully support and understand why.

Yes. I totally do too. Like they shouldn't be because in my mind, I just don't know. The U S probably did take their. Not shock. Cause we have many times. I just,

I just want to make like, I don't want people to tweet me later and be like, Hey, you're not, you're not discussing the greater issue here here yeah yeah yeah so i i but i also didn't prepare anything so i'm definitely like saying it very flustered and i don't want to come off wrong no but like literally the second earlier where you said oh uh it was in honduras and you know etc etc there's a lot of spanish-speaking areas but so no i'm so it's like

you were saying like this place this is and then the u.s and i was like great yeah we all knew they would of course force their way into the conversation. Of course we would fucking bounce into that story. We would force our way in. But so, again, I don't mean to like not say enough, but I also don't want to say too much without making sure that I'm eloquent in what I'm saying. No, I got you.

That was a part of the conspiracy of that. Like a lot of people were angry at the United States for like somehow either taking the chupacabra away or trying to cover it up or like getting involved at States for like somehow either taking the chupacabra away or trying to cover it up or like getting involved at all and saying that they saw the chupacabra. Making it their thing. Making it their thing. Got it, got it, got it.

So that is a part of it. The end to that part. I just wanted to make sure that I addressed it. So the reason that I said that there were two different chupacabras earlier is because in the 90s it was this furry lizard thing that could also be an alien that maybe NASA took or let, I mean, they were also, to be fair, like they were also probably using that argument of like, you're doing like animal testing, like in our rainforest and bullshit like that.

So, uh, there, they were like, it could be monkeys. It could be bats. It could be a Panther. It could be a lizard. It could be a combination of could be bats. It could be a panther. It could be a lizard. It could be a combination of all of them. It could be a kangaroo that flies. But in 2000, there was this evolution and this like, they don't know if it's a new relative to the chupacabra. Oh, you got a little baby brother.

A little baby. Let me get the family tree back out so I can. Kingdom phylum, chupacabra's grandson. Let's just call it that. It's son. It's son. It's son. Or it's little brother.

Little brother's probably more accurate. Or it's little baby. Or itself, and it had transformation. It had a, what would it? A rebirth. A rebirth. Let's call it that. Okay.

I like the rebirth version of this. So the description completely changed. Right. So it went from being like this lizard bear or whatever to all of a sudden being very canine. All the descriptions were very canine. That's what I heard of it. Yeah. And so this is helpful for cryptozoologists at least, or at least people tracking it. I mean, even like governments were literally trying to figure out what this thing was. So everyone was

like, oh, thank God we now know that it's maybe canine because now we can at least look at any, you know, dead canines that we find in our, in the streets or in the woods. And we can at least study them and analyze them. We now have DNA samples. We have bone have bone fragments we can look at their footprints see if there's anything different about them than the fact that maybe they're just coyotes right um and so a lot of people were really stoked about that but a lot of original cryptozoologists like lauren coleman they were like okay but this looks nothing like what everyone's been saying the chupacabra is so like even if this is it's totally uncrypted that we're studying right we're just like gonna call this the chupacabra even though for the last five years this has not been what people are

talking about yeah so it's like congratulations maybe you found a second cryptid but like we're totally ignoring the first cryptid and any answers we find for this new second cryptid we're gonna like throw the same label on both of them yeah and call the chupacabra even though they have nothing to do with each other interesting so there is a controversy of in the cryptid world of like is the chupacabra actually canine or did people just find something easier to try to figure out and that was just more common sighting or something it was like a more convenient cryptid to try to discover um and so basically it was uh this was the new description it was canine ish either it was dog or coyote or something like that um but it had leathery

green gray skin it was mostly hairless and then any hair it did have was very scraggly and wiry and it had a very pronounced spinal ridge which is where the quill spike thing that's the pictures i've seen on like the the history channel like documentaries and stuff yeah they so when i said earlier that's like the the spines or the quills have stayed true it's slowly morphed into like a spinal ridge yeah but there's still that arch on the back. Don't love a spine. Don't love it. You don't? I don't. Remember that time you got a spinal tap? Why would you do this? I have to think about it

every time anyone says spine. Oh I'm sorry you have to think about it? Oh that must be really hard for you. Harder than you having the spinal tap for sure. Christopolis? Christopolis. So basically the chupacabra is now like like i said now there's dna tests and a lot of the bodies because now that it's just canine there's dogs everywhere sure so all across

the world now anytime there's a canine uh carcass they're like okay well now we have to investigate it as chupacabra. Right. And it's like, okay, well now we went from having no leads to like every single dog in the world. And so, um, they also did find some of these bodies, especially in the Southwest of the U S I think actually in Texas. Um, they started finding, they started looking back at old reports of potential Chupacabra attacks. They were able to link it to the right canine bodies. And they found out that they were actually either coyotes, dogs,

or raccoons. And one of them was even a fish, which I don't know how on earth that was like, Oh my God, on a farm by itself near a cow or something. But I don't get, I don't understand, but apparently one was literally a fish.

And they usually, like I said, they're kind of dog-ish, but they look less dog-like and more creature-like. So when they started doing these samples and figuring out what the creatures were, because they were like, okay, well, yeah, it's canine, but it doesn't really look like a dog. So, like, I guess the argument was, okay, well, if it looks like a dog, then, like, why haven't we been able to just say when we saw a chupacabra, like everyone well if it looks like a dog then like why haven't we been able to just say when we saw a chupacabra like everyone's saying it looks like a furry lizard

right and a kangaroo if we've really seen it and it looks like a dog everyone knows what a dog looks like why haven't we said anything like that yeah that's a good point like why are we describing it as a beast we've never discovered yeah if we all know what a dog looks like so um basically the answer to that according to people doing dna samples and looking at these creatures bodies and analyzing them they found out that they didn't really look like dogs anymore because they had lost all their hair to mange that's what i was gonna ask yeah which is kind of like mites burrowing up in your skin and so they mange also ends up creating or it's also known as scabies in some places or or maybe that's the older version of it.

But you end up having very little hair or fur. You end up having really like your skin tightens and thickens and looks very leathery. And it makes you weaker. And so you're hobbling everywhere so you don't really walk like a dog. So that would explain the hopping too maybe. And the raised ridge is actually like the last hairs left that are kind of pronouncing themselves um and so the scales that people thought they might have seen could have been the mites burrowing in the skin and then the gray

skin that people are seeing could be actual coyotes exposed skin due to hair loss apparently coyotes are actually gray okay um but uh this is another argument people say but if a dog is attacking animals like it wouldn't just attack the livestock to not eat it like why would it just puncture its neck once and then run off yeah that's a good point and um apparently a lot of uh zoologists have come out and said apparently it's pretty common for dogs or coyotes to attack without eating. Yeah. Apparently like very common. It's like a, it's a misunderstanding or a stereotype that dogs will only attack to eat.

They'll just bite at something or nip at something, which makes sense. Interesting. And so a lot of times they will kill without actually wanting to eat their prey so and that could be for a bunch of reasons that could be like maybe they bite it and then i mean maybe they just want to bite something but they are they're they're aggressive but then it could also be like oh they bite it and they don't want to do it or maybe they're too weak and like they try to attack and realize they're not strong enough or anything like that so or they're just like defensive or something like, yeah,

it got in your face. Yeah. So it could be a lot of things. And sometimes they just attack. So that being said, they looked at the puncture wounds and they did find out that they did match with canine teeth marks. And usually, so you would think like, okay, well they'll attack animals and then they'll have these puncture marks, but then like, how would an animal like die from that? But it, the way that they're biting, it's not that they're necessarily going for a jugular at all, but it's that a lot of animals, if they get bitten hard enough there, they can eternally hemorrhage. Oh my God. So it

looks like they got bit once and then they just fall over and die. But it's because there's either like circulatory shock or something. Yeah, I guess right in their neck. Like that's not going to end well. So that's how the animals could die from just one bite without actually being like ripped apart. It's dark. Okay. And it's pretty common for coyotes to bite animals and run off.

For the animals to go for a neck, that's just kind of like a dog instinct. And then for them to die from internal hemorrhaging. So for a neck, that's just kind of like a dog instinct and then for them to die from internal hemorrhaging. And because of the mange that these canines allegedly have, they are probably weaker and can't attack prey that they would usually find in the wild. So they're going for easier prey that's in a limited space and can't run like livestock because they're all penned in. So it would make sense why it's only going for things that are either slower than it or can't escape. Right. Right. So that explains why only livestock's being attacked. And compared to actual another reason that it's debunking, it's saying like, oh, these are just dogs with mange is because if you look at other animals that are actually blood feeders, the chupacabra doesn't actually have a lot at all in common with them. So the example that I saw was vampire animals like, you know, bats. Yeah.

They're one, very tiny. Two have specialized teeth and three have specialized digestive systems so they can actually live off of the blood nutrients. Yep. So and a chupacabra is not at all tiny. It's been either a dog at the smallest or a kangaroo panther thing. So it's like definitely not as small as a bat. And if it is a dog, it doesn't have the digestive properties or abilities to actually eat blood, so it couldn't possibly be that at all.

Also, a creature the size of the dog, quote, would starve to death pretty quickly on a blood meal because it lacks essential components for canines such as fat. Um, and then you could say, okay, well fine. This thing, maybe a dog's biting the neck and then attacking it and leaving.

And then this animal internally hemorrhages, but then explain all of the blood being drained from the body. Yeah. Because if the, if the, these canines aren't eating or drinking the blood because that's not what their bodies are meant to do, then where's the blood going?

And, like, potentially organs, if that was true. And potentially organs. And so then apparently that is, all the blood going missing in these bodies is actually a myth because there is something called lividity, which I'm sure anyone in the medical world understands, but I didn't know about it. This is when all your blood seeps to the lowest part of your body,

which I have heard of. I just didn't know the word lividity. I don't think. That was an issue with the Kendrick. With Kendrick. I thought that when I was covering this, so it was just kind of gravity takes, takes force and all of your blood goes to the lowest point of view.

And so a lot of times these animals all the blood will seep to like their feet or maybe their stomach or something but something that isn't their neck usually and so um when you actually cut the body open it looks like the blood is missing but it's actually just pooled and then thickened somewhere else where you're not looking glad we're going to lunch after this. This is appetizing. Listen, I... Oh, well, it'll be a bloody good time. So it looks like the blood is completely gone,

even though it's just coagulated elsewhere. Okay. And you're like, I get it, coagulated, got it. Coagulate doesn't bother me as much, but... I think of coag... When I think of coagulated, I hate that word because I think of fear factor because they used to have to eat coagulated blood like okay so gross um so every time i hear coagulated i just think of joe rogan um so in fact there were 300 reported

bodies that had been attacked by um chupacabra the chupacabra or many chupacabras at this point um and there were 300 different animals bodies that were autopsied to see where all this blood went and all of them actually did have blood in them it was just in a different part of the body at this point so that takes away from like oh they're drained it's like no it's just lividity um the biggest biggest proof of it all if that i feel like that almost uh cancels out any real argument for the cheaper copper existing i feel deflated and debunked it's usually canines with mange an animal internally hemorrhaging and then lividity causes the blood to go all of it is so sad like animals with mange animals dying and lividity all sad all bad like it's not like a happy ending no good um but if that wasn't all of it then the real chef's kiss to like taking away

oh wait we're still going got it any credibility is that um there was this one man named benjamin radford who worked for skeptical inquirer magazine and he spent five years like on the hunt investigating any evidence possible um to figure out if chupacabra is real and eventually on his five-year quest if you will he discovered uh the very first chupacabra witness ever and apparently her name was madeline tolentino and she saw a um she saw chupacabra in her window in 1995 in puerto rico and she was the first person to describe it any of that okay she saw it pretty much i don't know if it was hours after or days after but very closely after she had seen the movie species and the alien creature named sill in that movie has a pretty identical description to the Chupacabra. For real?

Yes. Oh, boy. To a point where even Madeline is quoted saying, Syl was a creature that looked like the Chupacabra and the alien creature Syl, oh, Syl was a creature that looked like the Chupacabra with spines on its back and all. Their resemblance was pretty impressive.

And so I don't think she, like, understood what had happened, that she, like, primed herself to describe it in a certain way. Because she. How weird. I just saw the exact same thing in a movie. Yeah. It sounds like in the interview, like she had no idea. So I don't think it was ever her trying to make something out of a cryptid.

Sure, sure. I think she really just has had no understanding of the fact that she accidentally created a cryptid. Have fun. And so Benjamin Radford was quoted saying, she said she only saw it for a minute or two. It wasn't very long, but she gave a whole description of the number of toes, eyes,

and alien appearance, the teeth. She even noticed that it had no genitals. To me, that was a smoking gun. It can't be a coincidence that this chupacabra just happens to look exactly like the monster in the film. Then again, it doesn't matter what I write because, and it doesn't matter that I solved this because people are still going to see a

weird hairless thing and someone's going to call it a chupacabra so basically all of this are just stories that were exaggerated retellings of common animals aka dogs um and plus madeline's original account that went viral and perpetuated these stories. And plus now that the description is a common canine, like I said earlier, anytime you see a dog, like anything you could call the Chupacabra. Right. So it only went from one kind of mystery to another where let's say the Chupacabra exists, any dog-like thing in the world could be it.

And you would technically be right. Right. So it's kind of just like a dead end. And Lauren Coleman even said, anything unknown that happens in New Jersey becomes the Jersey Devil. The same thing is happening right now with the Chupa. So literally anything weird at all that involves a dog, you'd be like, oh, that was a Chupacabra.

And no one can say you're wrong. And I won, by the way. Apparently Princeton University literally maintains a website with a timeline of what the chupacabra attacks at least up until 1996 and so it's a long time ago and also only was a year of events because it happened oh i thought you meant wait sorry what was 1996 so 1995 is when the chupacabra became viral and they have the first year of attacks on it so they've only got like 95 to 96. Their website is current.

At least it was in 1996. And I was like, maybe we should check and make sure. Honestly, I think this was a Princeton student doing some sort of research and they just never got rid of the site. That's what it looked like. And they're just like still paying the domain. They forgot the password to GoDaddy. Exactly. It just keeps going.

And so it's got some, it's got a timeline. I will warn you i'll give you some of them but i'm not going to mention the one the mention the ones from december 21st to january 7th because those are pretty graphic oh great considering these are all livestock attacks those particularly i will say if you want to read them if that's your thing sure go for it um it was december 21st to january 7th um i would i would say if you really wanted to them, if that's your thing, sure. Go for it. Um, it was December 21st to January 7th. Um, I would,

I would say if you really wanted to do an in-depth research to look at it, just because those are the weirdest ones that would imply some sort of alien attack. And it doesn't sound like things that would be dogs that cause these things, but they are also like wild animal mutilation things. So I'm not going to talk about that. Okay. Thank you.

But if you want to know the whole story and like to be honest the oddest cases it's worth looking at because you're like that a dog wouldn't do that can we like put the link in the show notes or do we have it um we don't have it on hand but if you type in chupacabra princeton university i'm pretty sure you'll find the time so we can put that in the show we can put it in the show notes i just don't have it on me right now we'll put it in the show notes. We can put it in the show notes. I just don't have it on me right now. We'll put it in the show notes then. So in 1994, and these are not the really graphic ones, but these are just some of the original accounts that perpetuated the viral storyline of Chupacabra.

In Puerto Rico, there were four or six little greys, like little grey aliens, found under a bed and chased out of the house with a broom which sounds like a precious little like elf troll story I love that it sounds like

like a little short film by Pixar it sounds like the movie The Borrowers do you remember that with the little people just like it was like a book I think

oh I guess I think it was a book and it became a movie I think Draco Malfoy was in that when he was a little kid yes I think you are right but yeah

so there were apparently like six little aliens just hanging out and then they got shoved out with a broom. Wow. Also in March of 95, there were eight sheep found dead, completely drained of blood, which now we can argue was not the case. In August 95 in Puerto Rico, there was a chupacabra blamed for the death of over 150 animals in one farm.

In November 95, the chupacabraras blamed in the death of dozens of animals. And it is said to have ripped open the bedroom window of a house and destroyed a stuffed teddy bear thinking it was a real animal. And grossly enough, it left a puddle of slime and a piece of rancid white meat on the window seal. And it had hairy arms and huge eyes. What in the actual hell? Keep in mind, these are the ones in the 90s before the canine description came out so this is when everyone's thinking this is a lizard kangaroo lizard panther flying

creature yeah that goes to maine for spring break uh-huh i follow so in 1995 porter uh in puerto rico there was one that was uh it was thought that the chupacabra was responsible for over a thousand killings um this is not a bad one from december 21st but in a town in puerto rico apparently one guy named osvaldo claudio rosado was washing his car and he got grabbed from behind and tried to fight off a gorilla who was five feet tall who ran away and uh osvaldo actually had like massive cuts in his abdomen from this the gorilla's like claws what um and he said that that was the chupacabra really anything wild he didn't he said it was a gorilla but also it was a chupacabra it literally could have been like a serial killer

in a gorilla suit but he was like no no chupacabra i'm telling you the 90s were wild that you could blame anything on the chupacabra and no one can tell you you're right or wrong um another one was uh may 2nd where it uh it was described as having arms like a kangaroo feathers it glows from its own light in its stomach and it has a sucking tube-like projection in the mouth tube-like projection and apparently this is just kind of interesting because uh this was one report where a married woman reported that a chupacabra had bitten her neck she's the only human case that it potentially happened to and it was later debunked that she was trying to cover up the fact that it was a hickey from her lover no she didn't want her husband to know about no

that's the best of all anyway that is the chupacab Yay. I love that that guy who did an investigative report was like, anyway, I spent five years on this, but it literally doesn't matter what I say because no one is going to believe me anyway. Bye. It's so petty and sassy, but also can you imagine spending five years of your life to find the original witness?

And it's like, oh yeah, because I watched that movie. I'd be like, fuck everything I've ever done. I'd be like, what a waste of my time. So weird how it looked just like that movie. I just spilled tea down my chin. Cute. Oh, well. Oh, well.

Everyone ignore it. That's why it's my turn to talk, I guess. Okay. You can look at me. Okay. This is the story. This is a big one. So I want to get going.

Yeah. story this is a big one so i want to uh oh a big one get going yeah this is the uh story of tamla horsford which i have put on hold for as we know several weeks after morbid and crime junkie covered it we wanted to uh not report the same story as at the same time yes yes just because people you know i want i want to make sure people don't yell at us. Also, it's helpful for all podcasts in that way. Because if they heard our story first, maybe Morbid wouldn't get to listen. If they heard Morbid's version, maybe we wouldn't get to listen. Some people like to listen to both and get multiple perspectives. But if every single podcast I listen to covered the same story, I'd be like, what is going on?

Like, this is just like a marathon. And I know people do get really um not a lot of people but some people get very like uh upset about it because they're like well you did the same in some way no no no but like you why would you release the same story and it's like I don't know what morbid is going to release like it's none of my business I'm on the plagiarism kick after Jeff the talking mongoose but if it's the same day like you're not going to be like oh you you know stole it right from their laptop or something. But like, you know, I mean,

people get upset and it's like, understandable you don't want to hear the same episode two times, which by the way, it's not. They're vastly different. But also like, you know, we don't know what another show is releasing tomorrow,

even if we're friends with them. So that's my point. Anyway, this is the story of the suspicious death of Tamla Horsford, which has become really relevant in recent months. And we will explain why. Okay. Ready, Freddie?

Uh-huh. Okay. Now, this is like a doozy. So if you have anything you're confused or lost or I didn't explain well, just tell me. Okay. Okay. So Tamla St. Jour was born

on October 10th, 1978 in the Caribbean, but moved to the United States when she was 11. And when she was in the U S she met and married her best friend, whose name was Leander Horsford. He went by Lee, um, or he goes by Lee and they had five children together in 2013. Lee moved his business from Florida to Georgia. So the family relocated to Forsyth County, a town of Cumming, which, you know, arguably is a questionable name in my opinion because it's spelled C-U-M-M-I-G. And nobody seems to say that, but I'm just going to say it because we're all thinking it. I always feel bad for the people whose last name is Cummings. Yeah. It's like, come on, you know in high school someone. It's got to be rough.

Someone said something. Right, right. It had to not be good. Exactly. So the town of Cumming, Georgia. Uh-huh. My heart goes out to that entire county. Which I was like, why do I know that name?

And then I realized recently in Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix, did you ever end up watching this? Okay, so there was one episode about episode about like it was a story of patrice and it literally took place in this exact town oh really coming georgia so i was like that's weird like it's not it's its own it's its own hub it's its own hub and we will get into this town later also but anyway tamla's children are like the most important thing in her entire life she's super proud of them um her boys are active in sports. She's really like heavily invested in all her kids hobbies or schooling, etc. She loves being a football mom is what she calls herself for kids play football. She actively post pictures of like her kids to Facebook and she's just very like involved mother at school and in extracurriculars

and that kind of thing. She always cooks the family dinner. Even like if she has to go somewhere, she always makes sure they have food before she leaves. Like she's just like kids come first. Top dog mom. Top dog mom. Family always comes first. She's described as a social butterfly, really like just super outgoing,

always making friends. She was often called Tam. It was a nickname. And an article in the Daily Beast, which I thought was pretty like, this is like the exact kind of persona. Like this describes her best, I think. So an article in the Daily Beast described her as the type of person who volunteered in all of her children's classrooms

but snuck miniature bottles of wine into the sidelines of their football games uh-huh so like just that fun mom who's also like really so you as a mom so so the best person ever me involved but also like you've got your wine bra on on the field trip i say field trip yeah also i'm definitely not on the field trip because i want to stay at home but with your because you don't want to put the wine you don't want the wine in your bra you just want it down your gullet got it so this is me except i'm just the wine half not like the super involved and i say you're not the pta mom you're the tell me how it goes when you get back tell me how it goes have fun yeah so i'm gonna get into really quickly the history of forsyth county which um wowza does this place have a freaking past. Okay. So in 1829, European Americans,

what a shocker, forced the existing Cherokee people off the land. Within a decade, a majority of those displaced Cherokee people lost their lives on the Trail of Tears. Then fast forward to 1912, vigilantes and the KKK forced all black residents out of Forsyth County, like literally all of them, just like forced them out. White residents stole or destroyed everything owned by black residents from farms to literal tombstones, just like started demolishing them. Like it's bad. And this was so effective, quote unquote, that within a decade,

there were no black residents in the entire county. So like Forsyth County had zero percent. That's so gross. Is that bananas so bananas I mean it's not what year was this um so that was 1912 but Forsyth remained an all-white county quote-unquote not somebody to be proud of until 1987 so like literally Oprah went to didn't Oprah do something there I think yes she did she went to like the whitest city in the country or something and then they like that's the one. That's the one. She tried to do some sort of interview or talk there and they were like, get out.

It was awful. Oh, I'll keep going here. That's exactly right. Okay. Oprah did get involved. Oprah got involved. Oprah got involved. That's how you know.

Don't worry. Listen. Yeah, it was bad. So all white County, which is like the phrasing that they use, which is like, yikes, until 1987, which is long ago, but not long ago. You know what I mean? Like not long ago enough where we can be explained. Yeah. So that year, things came to a head when a local white shop owner decided to hold a march to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

And boy, did that not go over well. Sure. So his life was threatened. And when that happened, a small civil rights demonstration was held at the county seat in Cumming, Georgia, during which members of the Ku Klux Klan threw rocks and bottles and shouted racial slurs at the small group of peaceful demonstrators. Wowza. What a shock.

Sounds familiar. Right? Like, this is why this whole thing is just becoming, like, reignited in, like, the media and pillow guy. And apparently on every podcast. So sorry about that. So rather than deter them, the racist behavior actually prompted this massive civil rights march with 20,000 participants who marched from Atlanta to Cumming, Georgia. Among the marchers were Representative John Lewis, RIP, Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, civil rights leader. lewis rip credo scott king um julian bond civil rights leader and the march was so this was 20,000 participants and the march was flanked by 5,000 counter demonstrators so that's superb holding

signs saying things like i'm just gonna read these to you because oof okay they held signs that saying things like sickle cell anemia the great white white hope, and keep Forsyth County racially pure. This is in, like, 87. So, I mean, it's not long ago. It's not like, oh, the days of yore. It's like, this is in a lot of our lifetimes. Okay. Right.

So 2,000 peace officers and National Guardsmen were called in. The march was considered the, or was, the largest civil rights march since 1970. And since then, since 1987, Forsyth was no longer an all-white county, but it is still predominantly white. Just 4% of the population is black compared to 32% of the entire state of Georgia, like on average in Georgia. And so 32% of the average in Georgia and then 4% is this town. So Oprah did go and interviewed people and said like what is your problem i

imagine she had to be fucking terrified by the way like i don't think that's not no yeah that is not like i feel like just because she has a tv show journalist doesn't mean she like didn't bring a shitload of security yeah that must have been fucking horrifying like physically mentally spiritually etc sure so anyway the reason i tell you all this is because a it's like horrifying but b it comes into play in this story so again tamela and her family moved to this town she's like super like they love that they love their time there she's really involved she makes friends like she's having a good old time um november 3rd 2018 it's a pretty routine uh day for tamela as she makes dinner her close friend and neighbor, Michelle Graves,

stops by and Tamela's like, oh, I'm going to this thing later. It's an adult slumber party with the other football moms, which. Oh, I know what this is. You do? That's the one that gets the picture that went viral. Right. OK. So she's like, I'm going to an adult slumber party with the other football moms because the kids football season just ended. It's taking place at the home of John Myers and her name spelled kind of like Jean, but it's pronounced John, whose son played football with Tamla's and was also celebrating her 45th birthday. So Tamla tells her friend Michelle this and is like, come on, why don't you come to the slumber party with me? And Michelle's like, no, thanks. That does not sound fun to me.

An adult sleepover does sound way fun to me. We literally just had two in a row. We like literally just did. I got to say, and also like my last year, my superhero sleepover party. Yeah. I had so much fucking fun. You weren't there. Eva came. Yeah.

Like we, it was me. Where was I? You were somewhere. You were somewhere. Yeah. You fled. Oh, it was our birthday weekend. When I asked to go to, when i asked for a sleepover

you were like bye i'm gonna leave okay this time you asked for a sleepover and i flew across the country for it so to be frank i made up for it but no my my the sleeper was like i think there was at least a dozen people there who spent the night it was so much so fun i know so like she was that kind of person where she was like i want to go to this yeah adult summer party uh have like drink have fun like not have to drive obviously you can all stay over stay up late like exactly so that was kind of the idea um michelle is like those really she said those really weren't her people she's like i don't think i want to like participate which also i can't blame you either you know i mean if you're not like one of the football moms maybe that's not your thing so before heading the party tamela prepares a casserole for her family,

because as I said, she always makes sure the family is fed. Then she heads to the party with a bottle of top shelf tequila as a gift for the hostess, which is just lovely. I mean, why don't you bring that to our slumber party, but whatever. I don't know. I really, I did think, I was like, I should bring something to this. You brought fish flops. Thank you.

You're welcome. I brought the best of them all. You brought the presence of Amethy and the notorious fish flops thank you and your presence the best of the brought the presence of emothy and the notorious flip-flops i flops yeah i offered nothing you offered nothing that was it oh boy so this party was supposed to begin at seven uh and tamla arrived around 8 30 so fashionably late um like we are always but it's not fashionable i was fashionably late last night i said on my way at seven and then I got there like 745. Sat there with my homemade Ouija board waiting for you to come in the door.

And it was like 40 minutes later you walked in and I've been just sitting there with my Ouija board. Sorry. Anyway, so the guest, like I said, consists of other football moms and Jean, whose birthday was her friends. So Tamla doesn't know everyone at the party. But like I said, she's a social butterfly. She just basically became friends with everyone. There are literally photos of her laying on people's laps, and she got there basically and immediately changed into her onesie pajamas.

Sure. Super cute. So they were all kind of hanging out, having fun. It was supposed to be a, quote, female-only party, but there were three men as there as well so jose barrera 27 year old boyfriend of jean and two others tom smith and michael palerino who were like partners of two of the the other guests so the plan was to watch the lsu versus alabama football game in their pjs eat gumbo and drink cocktails which is like that sounds great all i

want out of life except for maybe the football. We watch Ghost Adventures. Watch TV period. I'm happy. They also played Cards Against Humanity, classic. Jaune, like, apparently just turns her nose up at the tequila. She's like, I don't drink tequila. First of all, kind of rude.

Yeah. Because someone just brought you a really expensive bottle of tequila. But whatever. So she kind of does. She's like, I don't want the tequila. So Tam was like, great, I'll drink it. Yeah. Wow. She sounds like a blast. Yes. And she was, she is. Yeah. So Tamla and a couple others, she's like the blast of the party. She and a couple others enjoy this tequila. They spend the evening laughing, dancing, drinking, like typical slumber party. Um, this one reminded me of myself and potentially maybe not you. Cause

you're from Virginia and like did a lot of this. But they at one point tried and failed to light to light an outdoor fire pit, which I was like, that would be me after a ball of tequila. I got this. I'm going to make s'mores and then like not working, not do it. So they tried. It didn't work. So throughout the night, Tamla FaceTime with her family because she's always like checking in. She actually it's really sweet. She like showed off her kids to the other football moms. Yeah. she like got them on facetime and like so bragging about them

uh jean later told investigators that tamlet quote didn't seem drunk at all a sentiment echoed by others at the party because she could hold her liquor because like obviously she's tam you know she's miss tam we don't doubt that yeah madeline lombardi so jean's aunt uh lived with her at the house she lived in like the basement apartment basically like she was staying with her temporarily um and her name was madeline she went to bed early party pooper uh around 10 30 p.m according to police reports uh a couple of the guests started leaving so nicole lawson sarah cockram left due to child care issues uh because i guess at this point they're also like actual grown-ups

so they have shit to do. Around 1 a.m., the men came upstairs to sing happy birthday to Jean. Jose and Jean helped carry one of the guests to bed, Jennifer, because she was quite intoxicated. And at 1.30 a.m., Jose and Jean, the hosts, the couple,

they head to bed. According to them, Tamla was the last person awake when they went to bed. Jose explains he wasn't sure whether she was waiting for a ride or staying the night at the house, but she was up. Despite Tamla allegedly being the last one awake, friend Bridget leaves the house at 1.47 a.m. and a woman named Marcy left early at 4.10 a.m. to go to work, which, nightmare, but yeah. Yikes. So 1.47 a.m., Bridget sees Tamla. She says when she left, Tamla was eating a bowl of gumbo

and was about to go outside to smoke a cigarette, and she said that Tamla gave her a big hug and said, like, you are an awesome person. Aw. Like, she's just a really sweet, lovely, bubbly woman. So when the guests who slept over began to wake up on the morning of November 4th, 2018, now more people are kind of filtering out early, 7.45 a.m. Then the couple, Tom and Stacey, leave at 8.30.

And then the aunt, Madeline, wakes up at 8.45 a.m. She's the one who lives like in the basement. That sounds sketchy. I mean, she lives like in the apartment in the basement. She goes to the kitchen. She has, like, a little kitchenette thing. She goes to her little kitchenette to make coffee, and as she looks out the window,

she sees a body lying face down in the backyard. And she at first thinks that someone's sleeping, but she kind of looks closer, and she realizes that it's tamla still clad in her puppy print onesie pajamas lying face down uh in the yard and according to madeline she watches tamla for a moment then before doing realizing like she's not moving before doing anything else kneels and starts praying which like go get somebody sorry like that's like do that as later right like i don't care if you pray but like someone is face down in the backyard that just that really just pissed me

off we gotta prioritize what we do let's right yeah one one is a sense of urgency yes one is like an actual human life um so she prays then she goes to find jose and john now according to the report uh according to at least madeline's report she walked upstairs found john and jose and and told john i just want to talk to jose i want him to come downstairs with me and john is like what is going on why do you want to just talk to jose yeah what's wrong uh Madeline responded that there was something, there's something wrong with your friend from the islands. Oh my God. It's not one out there. So Jose and John enter the backyard, find Tamla as Madeline had described. Jose pokes Tamla's leg, which is stiff and instructs John to call 911.

So this is where everything kind of just starts snowballing. So the call comes in at 8.59 a.m. Jean calmly tells the dispatcher that they need an ambulance. And then she says, quote, we had people over last night. We were drinking. Most of us went to bed. One of them stayed on the balcony. She was drinking.

And we just went outside. And she's laying face down in the backyard. It looks like maybe, I'm guessing she fell off the balcony, but she's stiff. And the dispatcher says, OK, is she breathing? And John says, I don't know, but she's face down. And it's like just very calm, which, again, you never know how you're going to react when something terrible happens. But it's also like that is your friend. Right. You haven't even checked if she's breathing.

You have every right to panic and also like make sure she's like you're right like maybe check so anyway it's just a little bit off you know it just feels off so jean hands a phone to her boyfriend jose who says she is not moving one bit she's not breathing she's completely face down in the yard she's stiff i'm noticing a small cut on her right wrist she's not breathing whatsoever so as you can see, Jose told the dispatcher multiple times that Tamla wasn't breathing, but get this not once throughout the entire seven minute and 52nd phone call that he actually checked to see if she was breathing, even though he insisted many times, she's absolutely not breathing. Now you can maybe dismiss that if it's like some guy that, uh, is just like freaked out and doesn't know what to do,

but this guy has rescue training. He was a court court officer he knew how to check for a pulse he knew how to administer cpr like he's fully trained in emergency um you know rescue training but for what i'd like stick my finger under your nose and if you if i didn't feel air you're not that's what i would do anything right that would be it i wouldn't know how to test for any other way exactly but but even that they didn't do right. He literally just poked her leg and was like, Oh, she's like stiff. And the, the dispatcher keeps saying like, can you check, can you please check if she's breathing? Um, we'll actually link to the 911 call. It's, it's pretty long, but we can link to that in the show notes if you want to hear the whole thing. But, uh, basically he just keeps like, he poked her

once and then the dispatcher keeps saying, can you check? Can you check? And he's like, oh, I don't know. Like, she's definitely not breathing. It's just very weird how they're not which I get like it's probably a horrifying sight. But also like, I mean, check if she's alive, right? Like whatever. So a large portion of the call seems to be redacted because like when you're listening to it there's just this like sudden silence as if like the release they released it but they took out a big chunk and when the recording comes back in we hear the dispatcher say do

you know if she was suicidal at all and according to reports the redacted part somebody found out what it said the redacted part featured Jose pointing out this cut on Tamla's wrist and saying like I don't know if it's if it was self-inflicted and, uh,

nothing at any point. Like, why would you suggest like, why would you suggest that? I saw a cut on you. I would be like, what happened? Not like you did that.

Why did you do that? Yeah. She had already said like, Oh, it looks like maybe she fell off the balcony. And now he's saying, Oh, well maybe the cut was self-inflicted. He's implying a lot that she had done this herself it really took

a turn now in the call exactly because he kind of mentioned that and then um she and that's when the cut call comes back in and she says well do you know if she was suicidal at all and he's like oh i don't know her at all like i've only met her once or twice so it's just a little weird um that that was even brought up because why would you assume that i guess right um especially if last night like she was just super fun and like what i had a hair on me oh no worries i was like doing a little dance with my hands um especially if like last night she was super fun and jovial why would that be the thing that you assume so just weird um when asked how high the balcony was this one got me because they described the height as quote 20 feet from where your feet are standing on the railing so like the person literally just

asked how high is the balcony he goes oh well if you were standing on the railing it would be 20 feet high and it's like no one said anyone was standing on the as if like it was a suicide to like kind of further this thought that like weird she probably climbed up there and jumped or fell or whatever it's just a weird way to describe how tall is the balcony right it's 20 feet from where your feet are standing on the railing it's just a strange yeah it's this is just where things start to go off like be off you know jose also insists on telling the dispatcher multiple times multiple times that tamela was the only smoker at the party he says he sees cigarettes in a lighter but tamla was the only smoker uh and then he says my girlfriend has cameras here on the

back deck that we can check that i think would have caught the incident so that's great right yeah like sure so at 907 a.m members of the forsyth county sheriff's apartment department arrive and begin their investigation they find tamla's body face down her feet are pointing toward the house with her arms splayed out and i don't mean like her face is like turned it's like in the ground in the grass like fully faced down you can't see her face right um the post-mortem was performed the following day and the coroner found that tamla had died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries. So she had severe injuries to her head, neck, torso, bleeding in her brain, and damage to her heart.

Holy shit. Yeah, those are just the severe injuries. And you can't, and those aren't, you couldn't see like blunt force trauma on her face? Well, they couldn't see her face because she was face down. Oh, right, right, right, right, okay. But so he said her head, neck bleeding in her brain um interestingly her nose wasn't broken which is kind of weird because she hit face first but you know whatever i guess weirder things have happened and then there were i mean so many just like smaller like cuts and and like abrasions and twists and,

you know, just things that also were smaller injuries, quote unquote. And, uh, said that despite all of these injuries, the cause of death was consistent with a fall. However,

it took more than 12 weeks to obtain the results of the toxicology reports. Um, the reports showed Tamla's, uh, blood alcohol level was 2.238, which is almost the three times the legal limit in Georgia. And she also had a trace amount of Xanax in her system,

which was not something she was prescribed. However, it was like really small, like apparently lower than the lowest calibrated amount detectable. So who knows if that was maybe something she had taken before. This is pretty wild. Crime scene investigators didn't arrive on the scene for three days holy shit during which the scene was not secured at all they just left it there what the fuck yeah okay well that's the that's the just blunder that's the number one big problem so far yeah blunder blunder left and right like anyone could have

done anything in three days to correct do whatever they wanted it was like they had their backyard back also how disrespectful to her own goddamn body correct well i mean they'd taken obviously so like her death right to her right to her death i mean it's just really already bad so um forsyth county sheriff's investigators took nearly a month to obtain statements from all the attendees at the party so it took them a month to even ask people at the party, Hey, can you tell us what happened that night? A month, AKA people forget things. Also people have 30 days to come up with their story, their story, talk to everyone else at the party and be like, here's what happened, right? Like, let's all be on the same page a month. Wow. Um, and I will say like, I don't know if I end up

mentioning this, but during all the interviews, you can find the transcripts online. But during all the interviews, they all insist that Tamla was the only smoker. Like, even when not asked, it's very strange how persistent they are. It's kind of like the killer always comes back to the original location. It's like because they feel guilty, so they have to show up. Like, if you keep bringing up these cigarettes, it's like, okay, guilty so they have to show up like if you keep bringing up these cigarettes it's like okay now i want to check the cigarettes like yeah you're like you keep bringing these up even though no one's looking it's like no one asked right and like even and at one point it was stated that she had been smoking pot and like somebody's one party

goer who i don't think was identified said like oh she and someone else were smoking pot and then everyone was like no we don't smoke pot and the guy like, Oh, she and someone else were smoking pot. And then everyone was like, no, we don't smoke pot. And the guy who was in the elite investigator was like, I am not the dope police. Quote unquote. Like, I don't give a shit if you were smoking pot. That's not the point of this,

but just insistently like in incessantly saying she was the only smoker of like cigarettes. Like she was the only smoker. She's the only smoker. And the guy's like, okay, congratulations. No one asked that,

but it's just really weird so i just want to point that out too oh so maybe it had nothing to do with like a shady way that she might have died it could have just been like they didn't want to get in trouble for no i'm talking cigarettes okay yeah then i still stand by my original part like there was there was also a mention of like pot where the guy was like i don't even care if you were smoking pot like just tell me what happened and in addition to that which they were all like oh we don't even care if you were smoking pot. Like, just tell me what happened. And in addition to that, which they were all like, oh, we don't do that. Okay, whatever, fine.

But, like, the smoking the cigarettes was the thing they kept, like, insisting that she was the only one who smoked, which just seemed strange to me. So, Jane had, like, this, oh, sorry, Jean had, like, this security system, and it had these phone alerts that showed you kind of like a, like a safe, simply safe or something, where every time the door opens, it like triggers an alert

and you can see the history of who went in and out. So you can look, there's an actual like log of these. So phone alerts show the back door opening at 1.49 a.m., closing at 1.50, opening at 1.57, and then never closing. So it, like, stayed open. And I will say when Madeline went out to find, to see, or when they went out, the door was cracked open. Okay. So just strange.

Investigators concluded that, like, that was the moment Tamley went out to smoke a cigarette. investigators concluded that like that was the moment Tamla went out to smoke a cigarette. They believe due to intoxication, she tripped up and over the railing, landing in the backyard 14 to 16 feet below. According to the official report released to the public, the case was closed February 6, 2019, and Tamla's death was ruled accidental. Now, remember Tamla's friend Michelle, who had come over before she left and was like, I don't want to go to that slumber party. So she has become like extremely vocal about her suspicions that this was not an accident and that people at the party knew more than they were letting on. And she like from day one was basically fighting for to like have this looked at closer. She's like, something is wrong here. So John and some of the guests at the party actually sued Michelle for defamationamation because michelle was saying like yeah because like telling them like you're guilty of something and you're not saying something yeah so exactly so she was kind of posting like hey they know something

they know something and then jean and some of the other guests allegedly received death threats online which is why then they sued for defamation the lawsuit was dismissed um but meanwhile michelle is uh you know outward speaking outwardly like something is wrong she discovers for whatever reason that her private information was somehow leaked to people at the party that all these parties suddenly had all her private information she was like she filed a police complaint being like that info information was classified like my private information was classified how did all these people suddenly get my private information so police looked into it and wouldn't you know it somebody had uh allegedly accessed files relating to tamla's death and that person was our good friend jose barrera aha who okay the boyfriend the boyfriend who uh

he had access to that, but it was very much not allowed for him to look into these files because he was a witness in this case. So he had allegedly opened, he was accused of opening these files. I mean, somebody opened them, but so allegedly he had opened these files to find whatever information, and suddenly everyone at the party had like Michelle's private info and information that they shouldn't have had.

And he, he actually got fired for this. So that was, it was that bad. Like he was, there's abuse of power basically. Sure. So Tamla,

these are some inconsistency, the inconsistencies that didn't quite fit into like the story, but that just adding all these up make this the craziest thing um so here are some other ones for example tamla somehow ended up separated from her phone that night and it wound up in the hands of stacy and tom the couple who left the next day which is like how on earth did stacy and tom get your cell phone right it's just super weird and friends and family were like? Right. It's just super weird. And friends and family were like,

Tamela wouldn't have just like given her phone away to someone. And who found this out? The, who found out that they had the phone? Oh, they just were like, Oh, we have it.

We have her phone. I don't know. It was just part of the like investigation that they ended up with it, which just like, why, how would it either you grabbed it intentionally or someone else snuck it in there. But then either of those,

you had hands on it. It's just weird because they had gone home and they were like, oh, we have Tamla's phone. And everyone's like, why? Right. Why would you have taken it from the party? So that's just strange. Friends also point out that Tamla was from the Caribbean.

Like I said, she was always cold. She would never have gone outside without her coat and shoes. It was 45 degrees that night. So that's another thing where people are like, why would she have just wandered out without her coat and shoes, which were right there? Right. Many people also find it strange. Like I said, that Jose, a trained court officer, needed a 911 operator to keep telling him to check for Tamla's pulse. And he like wouldn't do it. And then he suggested that she cut her own wrist potentially. So that's another weird inconsistency. Until the investigation was

closed like basically nothing was shared with tamla's family or the public and so there's this like lack of transparent transparency that adds suspicion to this whole thing um there are also more like a ton of inconsistencies with the witness statements um like insisting they didn't smoke oh she's the only one who who smoked uh jean myers madeline lombardi and jose all wrote out their witness statements together so like they were literally in the same room and they got to just like tell their story together so they didn't like they weren't separated yeah so that like they could you know say from their perspective what happened also weird um while okay so this is like batshit crazy but jean was going to the interview um you know her police interview and she was like

i got you officer something and they're like what she's like i brought you all dunkin donuts gift cards and they were like you can't we like we, like, we can't have, take that. Like, this is a murder investigation. Sounds very bribey. Right? It's so sketchy. Also, like, not a good enough bribe. Not a great bribe. Like, if you're going to offer something, like, in exchange for something, it should be more than, like, a couple donuts.

It's like she looked at the police and were like, oh, I know what I'll get them. Uh-huh. I've watched The Simpsons. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, it was just weird. And they were like, no, we don't, we're not taking that. Please tell us about this, your friend who was murdered. And she was like,

oh, I got y'all some cop, like some Dunkin' Donuts cards. It's so weird. So it took nearly 30 days, like I said, to collect all the witness statements, which is too long. Right. Several attendees, including Jose Barrera and the Smiths who had her cell phone have ties to law enforcement and political ties in Forsyth County. Like I said, the scene was not secured. For example, they never took Tamla's cigarette butts and shoes to process them.

The shoes remained at John's house for nearly two weeks after her death, just like left stuff that could have been, they didn't even analyze the cigarettes, which is like that. You'd think, especially with the amount they're going on about how they didn't even analyze the cigarettes, which is like that you'd think, especially with the amount they're going on about how they don't smoke, like maybe let's check. Maybe let's look at some DNA, please.

Exactly. And what's more, there are no photos from Tamla's autopsy. They can remember how they were. This is so sloppily done. Yeah. There were all those injuries. Right.

Not a photo. And allegedly there were some taken, but no one has seen them. There's no access to them. And is that something you reach out to the person who did the autopsy and be like, what gives? Or is this like, I mean, I think it's just you would think it's proto like you like I imagine this person who did the autopsy knows they're like code of standards. Like you basically like I remember in morbid, obviously, like Elena's like an autopsy tech. And she was like, you don't not take photos like that's not a thing ever. Yeah.

Ever, ever, ever. Unless someone explicitly says to you, no photos, which like why? Unless like someone got involved and like paid them off. Or just told or instructed you to take no photos. Like if somebody above you said, don't take photos. But like, why on earth would that be a thing? Right. Why wouldn't you want evidence?

Right. And I did say murder investigation. This is not necessarily a murder investigation it was just but it could be treated as a homicide or something like it wasn't treated as a homicide well no it doesn't sound like it yeah so i mean they were all interviewed because it's like what happened this is a suspicious death or like you know but it already it'd been ruled an accident so anyway just a huge red flag like why on earth are there no photos? So the security system, remember how Jose said, Oh, there are, uh,

there are video cameras back here. Uh-huh. Right. So, uh, were those mysterious and turned off? Yeah. So the, uh, the tapes were never, they were neither cataloged as evidence, nor were they ever released. It's unclear what happened here um it's shady as hell basically she was like oh there are none they don't exist oops whatever so nobody knows like nobody addresses this nobody's like where the hell did these videos go just gone um the police reports timeline is off but at the same time weirdly enough that night was daylight savings so at 2 a.m like the clocks kind of reset an hour.

So there's a little bit of weirdness there as far as the timeline. Now, Tamla's family's attorney, a guy named Ralph Fernandez, commissioned a second independent autopsy. And this is kind of like the end of the story. But I'm going to actually just read you read you this letter. It's a little bit long, but it like it packs a punch this is the letter that i have chills just like before reading it so this was written june 5th 2020 and this is from the uh this is from tamla's family's lawyer and he wrote this to tamla's husband lee dear leander two weeks ago we finished the exhaustive review of the records related to

the investigation into the death of Tamla. Hopefully by Tuesday I will have a more detailed analysis, but for today, however, I want to repeat some of what I told you. The review reflects that a homicide is a strong possibility. Witness statements are in conflict. A potential subject handled the body as well as the evidence prior to law enforcement arrival. Evidence was disposed of and no inquiry followed. This scene was not arrival. Evidence was disposed of and no inquiry followed. The scene was not preserved. Evidence was improperly handled. A remarkable fact is that there were no photographs taken during the autopsy of Tamla's body.

This had to have been done at someone's directive because such a practice is unheard of. Let us address one issue as a sample in reverse order from the above. It appears Tamla was involved in a struggle. There were abrasions consistent with that scenario. There were parallel scratches to one arm. Since they were fresh, photos would not have proven, sorry, photos would not have proven recent use of defensive force, but having no photos inures to our detriment. There was one x-ray, yet the injury noted as a cause of death appears nowhere. Getting the records has been another monumental task to say the least. I could go on

and I will in a few days. Forsyth County Sheriff's Office employees have been the subject of much criticism. The case against, the case agent was a close friend of the subject who turned out to be the leak

of the ongoing investigation. So that was Jose who had gone and like leaked all this information. The town of Cumming has a history which raises eyebrows. After conducting my extensive review,

I've come to the conclusion that the truth never had a chance here. Let me conclude by telling you that my years of experience led me to believe that 80% of cases where African Americans die under mysterious circumstances end up closed or cold because there are no videos and the only witnesses are bad guys or good guys that deep down are really bad. Then you have cases where law enforcement does a poor job

and cares little to investigate thoroughly because of some connection or association to the perpetrators. Take the Ahmaud Arbery slaying recently. Without the video surfacing in the media, there would never have been an arrest in that cozy relationship between the perpetrators, prosecutors, and the investigators. A rookie lawyer that gets a video in a wrongful death case where a stopped car is rear-ended by a speeding semi

will win each time. A video of someone walking up to a bank teller, face uncovered, and firing a gun point-blank will most certainly lead to conviction. But those facts are not what we are dealing with here. Here we are fighting an uphill battle because those who wear the badges and were entrusted with the investigatory task failed you. But this is not over. It will never be over. Be safe. Be strong. We will get to the bottom of this. Sincerely, Ralph E. Fernandez. That's really sad.

So this was last month as we're recording this. So June. And basically he was like saying, be strong. Like, sorry. Like, well, he was like, something is up and we will figure this out because, I mean, it had been closed February of 2019. And now last month he's saying we've conducted a second autopsy and something is very wrong.

Well, yeah, he listed all the things of like, like there should be photos, like the show signs of a struggle. I mean, yeah. The fact that the second autopsy literally showed signs of a struggle

and defensive wounds is like that alone is compelling, you know? So last little bit here is that due in part to the murder, obviously like the, of Ahmaud Arbery and like everything else that has been going on this summer, there's been a renewed interest in Tamla's case. As I mentioned earlier, um, supporters of the Horsford family point out like, uh, an incredibly, uh, poignant, uh, point for lack of a better word that had a white woman died suspiciously at a party with all black people, this would have been just like a mega sensational story, right? Like, I mean, you can only imagine.

So a Change.org petition to reopen Tamla's case received over 500,000 signatures. And as of June 12th, 2020, so again, like really recently, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has agreed to reopen and investigate Tamla Horsford's death, which takes a lot for them to go back and reopen a case like this. So this is very exciting that we are going to hopefully get some more answers. Fingers crossed. But it's obviously very new and recent and fresh. So only time will tell.

Wow. But in the meantime, that is the crazy story of Tamla Horsford. The end. Wow. and it's still definitely a mystery so hopefully we get some answers so hopefully her family too and her kids yeah and it did go that did go viral that picture of her on the couch it's chilling it's chilling because everyone actually genuinely looks so happy to be together they were having a great time and it's like there's this big photo of all these women at the slumber party and then they're like hey guess who in this photo died right night and guess who didn't get a proper investigation right yep yeah so anyway in an arguably very historically racist area in like

the worst i don't want to say today but just ask oprah yeah just talk to oprah get her on the phone can i actually call oprah and tell her i want to talk to to Oprah, get her on the phone. Can I actually call Oprah and tell her I want to talk to Oprah? Someone get me on the phone with Oprah. I've got a lot of things I want to say to her. God, how have you not gotten us on the phone with Oprah? Eva, get us Oprah.

Get Oprah on the line. Get Oprah on the phone. We need her immediately. Anyway, that's the story. Thank you for listening. I know this was a long episode, so I apologize,

but, um, it's quite a tale. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh,

and if we haven't done our live show yet, please go buy your tickets for that and also submit your stories to ATWWD from our couches.com or at gmail.com. Yep. And then if you also, maybe this came out after the live show, in which case,

please just send your normal stories to, we have our website and that's why we drink.com where you can submit your personal stories for listener episodes. Yeah, and we will see you next week. And that's why we drink. Why do we do that? That's like a recent development, isn't it?

Baby. Bye.