And That's Why We Drink - E251 Mercury in the Microwave and a Ghost's Attic Speakeasy

Episode Date: November 28, 2021

It's episode 251 and we've got our carb enhancing oil ready! Em starts the first in their two part series on the hauntings of the Glen Tavern Inn of Santa Paula, California. Then Eva takes us to a wealthy suburb of Sacramento for the wildly traumatic case of Susan Hamlin and a fabricated satanic cult. Also, be sure to take your mad scientist themed Halloween light switch covers out of your passenger side doors otherwise they might terrify you on a casual morning drive... and that's why we drink!  Huge shout out again to Ellen Tremiti for her stellar research and notes! You can find Ellen @etphoneh on socials as well as her latest short story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. 

yay okay oh eva today today is a day i don't know what is going on but the world just feels like it's retrograde yes it is the most retrograde there's just everything out the window is uh on one also everyone in here is on one including us there's like people now people now make fun of it and call like like mercury and gatorade or whatever and then they feel like mercury in the microwave today feels like a day where mercury is in the fucking microwave and it's exploded and actually we put foil in the microwave with it too correct yes chaos and also i think i texted you earlier but i was gonna tell you the story anyway um m ask me why i drink because this is also regarding retrograde and oh why do you drink okay so this morning i was in my car it's pretty early i was driving around i was at a stoplight i'm just like listening to this like really like

lovely kind of like, like emotional podcasts, like very like thoughtful and like whatever. Out of nowhere, I hear this insane cackling, just like Halloween cackling. Top, top, top tier. Like I'm in my car too. Where was it? So I, like I had this panic in my heart that was like, okay, I'm going into overdrive, but I know that it's not something like life threatening. Cause I can tell that it's, it's like I walked past something in CVS, but I'm in my car. Okay. It's just like someone threw in a weird sound effect on this show. Well, so it turned out, but I could tell that it was in my car.

So I was like like this is terrifying turns out do you remember giving me a little light switch cover okay i see where this is going now yeah i got eva a light switch that looks like a mad scientist like pull switch where like you have to like pull the lever to close I don't know you know anyway it's a but it's a light switch that turns on and off when you pull the lever but it also like glows bright green and has like a creepy witch cackle I guess so yeah sorry no I'm the idiot that didn't take it out of my car so I was gonna say good to know you haven't installed it into your wall that feels good it definitely was I'm like a really bad like I'll leave even like exciting things that I love I did the same thing like way too long so it was in my like not even

my side door pocket it was in the passenger side door pocket but then I had to like why are you just leaving how did it get there what I could you know my car day in and day out is a goddamn nightmare I never want anyone to ask for a ride in my car. But the one spot that is always as clean as can be is the passenger side pocket because I can't even reach that area. You know, fair. I think my friends have been in this weekend, so I think I kind of was, like, stashing things in different places to be like, oh, I'm clean. I'm not. But ask me why I drink.

Why do you drink them? Okay, because you asked this earlier and I was trying to like be coy, but it didn't work. But I am officially on Adderall. Yay! So to everyone that was on Stratera with me in that moment, I commend you for staying Aunt Jotara, but it was not for me. And I ended up going off of it and then I just lived the unmedicated life for the last six months.

And that's why people are like, hey Em, where's the escape room? Hey Em, where's this? And it's like, I can't do anything. It's not you. I can't do it. But I just got off the phone with a psychiatrist who was very lovely.

Oh, love. Finally. Finally. It only took a million years. And she gave me, like, an evaluation. I guess she was like, it seems like you need this kind of immediately. So instead of going and getting, like like your previous doctor's medical records, I'm just going to redo the test now with you.

And she, I guess the range is like from zero to four is the scaling system or where like, like, Oh, you have ADHD. Like four is, Oh,

you have ADHD. I was at a six. Oh, she was like, she was like, I am writing the prescription immediately to the very nearest pharmacy. So anyway, Oh, got it. for a while she even said like be prepared for like months of nothing until eventually we find the right dosage for you so got it playing the long game but i'm very excited because all i've wanted is either adderall or vivance because those are the two i've heard the most like ringing

endorsements about yeah i was really hoping for vivance but the way she described it was that it's like the tesla and right now we're going to start at the Honda Civic. And I was like, okay, okay, that's fair. That's fair. So the goal is by Vance one day, I guess. You're like, work our way up to self-driving. Yes, exactly. It's like, you don't get the car that can fart on its own immediately. So anyway, that's why I drink. And you drink because I gave you a little heart attack. Because you scared me. And also also because so I have some actual wine here. So real, real cheers. Clink. Clink to that because I wanted to. So Christine was so sweet. And actually she gave me this like really great credit to First Leaf. So I got like this really great First Leaf like delivery and I have all this great wine and I wanted to do like a little cheers to

her at my and that's why we drink. That's the first time I've seen wine on this show in so long. I know. I figured that might be fun too. I was like, what's that purple drink in your cup? Well, I hope you're having a good time. Does it taste good? What type of wine is it?

It is. It's really good. It's a Spanish. I don't really know how to say it, but Grenacha? Grenacha? And this one's a really good it like kind of reminded me of when Julia and I and my sister and I were in Barcelona so that was like super fun uh just shameless plug to first leaf and if you want to feel like you're in Barcelona a plug also in terms of plugs I have something for you too that's like a fun remember I told

you I was gonna look up the uh the company that Rachel got the bread candle from? I asked her and then she just bought you a candle. So I have a bread candle for you. I love her. With every day, with every day, I fall more and more for your girlfriend. She really just, I mean, okay, so here's another big thing, by by the way for everyone wondering more about my my own love for uh eva's girlfriend is my favorite place my favorite snack place in all of los angeles is called donut friend i will never eat another donut that is not from donut friend i am now

i have been telling everyone i know since i moved to LA or if they're visiting, I'm like, you've got to go to Donut Friend. It's like 90s alt rock band themed, like all their stuff. They have like a Motion City soundtrack donut or some shit like that. Or like Taking Back Sunday, Ice Cream Sundays. Are you kidding me? And apparently Eva's girlfriend named her dog after one of the donuts like are you fucking kidding me are you kidding me one nutella is her dog also shout out to her dog she just survived quite an ordeal but she's okay now but nutella yeah was named after i mean obviously nutella the

spread but also specifically the nutella donut which i forget exactly what it's called new television that's what it was new television yeah yeah it blows my mind okay so anyway go go to donut friend um also go to barcelona and drink wine or something yeah also go to the overlap bag candle company for some big bread action i can't wait to smell that it's gonna be so good it's just products we love corner um bread candles if you're listening please be one of our sponsors okay eva i have a story for you and uh true to true to mercury being in the microwave i thought that i was gonna have to be done with these notes by yesterday i thought we were recording yesterday i stayed up all through the night which is nobody's fault but my own but at this point

like and it's not even a surprise anymore like I people would be shocked if it was like I clocked out at five like so to no one's surprise I stayed up all night being like I gotta get these notes done on time so that way I can record and then Eva was like oh we're recording tomorrow and I was like well fuck I know that was a little bit my fault. I'm so sorry. No. But so the notes that I did, I ended up staying up even later because I found all of this information. I thought it was going to be like a quick set of notes.

And then I ended up finding all of this stuff. So this has become a two-parter. So you will get the other half, everyone, including Eva, next week. So this is the story of the Glen Tavern Inn. A tavern as in a bar? As in a bar. And also

like a man named Glen. I mean Oh yes, the Barcelona wine thing. That's what you know by tavern. So for the Glen Tavern Inn and i had never heard of this i actually googled uh i was having a little bit of a burnout moment where i couldn't think of a topic and so i went to uh ghost adventures episode list just to see if there was something i hadn't tackled yet and i literally closed my eyes and just like swirled my finger around and landed on one. And it ended up being a great story. So Zach, shout out.

Love it. So fun fact about the Glen Tavern Inn. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been since the 80s. It is an official Santa Paula and Ventura County landmark. So it's in California. So it's close to us, right? Ventura County landmark. So it's in California. So it's close to us, right? Ventura County? We could do a little hop, skip, and a jump over there sometime if you wanted.

I'm just saying I would love to do that. Okay. And I'll make sure to clear out your side pocket in your car when you drive me. Thank you so much. Because I would drive you, but you cannot get in my car. It's so disgusting. Fun fact, again, I don't know if this is real, because I only saw it in one article. But I'm hoping it's real, because it makes it sound super cool.

The hotel's motto is, where the past comes to life. And I think it's because it's a restored building from forever ago. But it very much is on brand with the paranormal activity. I love that it immediately has a motto, too it's like listen states get this we're important enough we get a motto too i would love a motto but i'd also be so scared of the motto someone would pick for me so allegedly up to 75 if not more of the employees that have worked there have had a paranormal experience at some point oh that's high that's a big one that's a big one that's big enough that i feel like they should mention it in the interview uh-huh you know correct yes so when the story

starts in 1872 when santa paula was founded 18 years later in 1890 the union oil company is founded here fun fact oh um so i love olive that's my favorite one okay we love that kind of oil not as much the oil you know that spills an environment and bad we love it's easily set ablaze. Correct. We love a consumable oil that's like preferably you can dip some bread in. I love a carbon enhancer. A carbon enhancer. So in 1890, the Union Oil Company was founded in this area. So that's why it's important.

So around the same time, I only saw this on one article but i feel like it's like if the if the oil part is worth mentioning and so is this but uh around this time not only was the oil company founded here but one of the city's founders started growing oranges and like it became the first orange crop of the area so now they've got oil and oranges all in the same decade. And the town also, by the way, becomes the citrus capital of the world for a while. I don't know what it is today. I assume Orlando for no reason at all.

I mean, it still is like one of the Disney locations, if not both. Because isn't that in Soarin' Over California? They like spritz orange spray at you when you're like flying over oh i don't know but that sounds way fun it's really could they do that with like fruit punch or something so i can catch it in my face red candle orange candle uh yeah so in that decade in the 1890s oil became a huge industry and oranges became a huge industry in the area. When I think of oranges and oil together, by the way, I think of that one weird set of years where all of our moms were really into like Tuscany, Italy, and they all had that,

those weird jars of oiled fruits. Yeah. We were talking about the Tuscan style at Christine's place, weren't we? Cause there were a few things that were kind of like, Oh, maybe you kind of nailed it. And we, everyone was like, Oh yeah, that is that like, that's how you know Christine's a mom all of a sudden she's into tuscany she was trying to get rid of it i think she was she was she was showing us pictures of how the whole place used to look exactly like all of our homes did in the early 2000s that's right yeah

yeah yeah so uh the two major industries they came in at the same time, and that's what allowed Santa Paula to thrive at that point. In 1911, so only like 15, 20 years later, Glen Tavern Inn, the building was constructed, and it was during a point in Santa Paula's history when it was super successful. Plus, the land that the inn was on was right across the street from the train station, so there was a lot of foot traffic.

If there was any tourism, it was coming right through there, plus the two massive industries and employees were coming in on the train. So the town wanted a hotel there. And I guess there had already been a hotel before, but then there was a few years prior, there was the 1903 fire, which I guess burned down the original hotel, and the boarding house in the area had just shut down so uh they needed they needed lodging and also at the time remember in

the early 1900s hotels were like the hip happening place to be for like wealthy elite and it was like like the lounge downstairs was where everyone like always hung out so it was a very uh it was meant for like high society so they thought not only are we going to bring a bunch of other people in but especially the wealthy folks so interesting uh at the hotel uh to have the hotel a board of trade directors decided to get local investors involved and uh they helped fund the construction of the hotel and i saw on one article that they only agreed to fund the hotel if they would get repaid a thousand dollars each afterwards which feels like the opposite of funding a hotel if you expect them to pay you next i don't know if that's a normal business transaction yeah i wonder if maybe that's

like a payback plan type thing? Maybe. Like, I'll invest in you hoping things turn out well, and then you pay me. I'm not sure if that's a normal thing, but I thought it was odd. So the hotel seems to front. It was officially built in 1911. And since then, the hotel seems to have been passed between a bunch of different owners over the years.

And even during World War II, I guess the government leased it out, and it became lodging for female employees of the military. Oh, interesting. Which I don't totally understand that, but I guess the government needed all their women in one spot. Sounds either nice or questionable yeah yeah exactly i feel like something fruity happened there i feel like there was at least one or two really funny stories but like the whole military just called them friends you know oh sure the abnormal from that trick-or-treat story yeah yeah yeah or it could have been like a really good early version of like the real world of like just put a bunch of women together

and i mean it could have been anyone i would have also liked to see a room full of men and you know after the world war ii lease the government lease got uh i guess they were gonna have to repay it but they gave it up so it became a hotel again and over time the area went from an oil town and really like booming and successful to just being a small rural town and the population of the tourism kind of died down and so at this point by the 1960s the hotel is struggling and by 1974, foreclosure proceedings are starting on it. I don't know. $1,000.

They paid too many thousand dollars back to the. I know. I also wonder how many local investors there were. Like, did they owe $3,000 or like $30,000? Like, how many people did they owe back? And like, how long term was that investment? Like, yeah. Were they still paying it back in the 70s or was it like just a couple payments?

You're totally right. I have no idea. I don't know what happened in between the foreclosure proceedings in the 70s and all through the 80s. But by 1989, one guy owned it who decided that he was going to turn it into a branch of a college in Tokyo. a the a branch of a college in tokyo so like the u.s branch of an international college at first it was the whole building but then by 1992 i guess he had some there wasn't enough enrollment so to keep the building open and the school itself open he kept the third floor as the school and as the classes but the second and first floors were back to being a hotel which is so wild to me that like some students had to like go up three flights of a hotel to get to school that well a version of

that happened at emerson when i so i went to emerson in um oh gosh what even were the years i forget 2004 to 2008 And they had one of the dorms they were, I mean, they've since like rehauled every single one of the buildings. But at one point, they were redoing one of the dorm buildings, they didn't have enough dorms for everyone. So they like, rented out just like for the year, a couple semesters, I think it was two years, actually, it was like a long time. They rented out the Radisson down the street. And so there were kids just like in Radisson's for like a Radisson hotel rooms for like an entire year. And according to Michael Scott, that's a really flashy place. I mean, listen, we know the Radisson is kind of a similar thing happened to us

where it happened. The last year it happened at my college was my first year of college. So I was definitely like the last year to come in to remember this. But when we were expanding as a school, there were a lot of, I remember there was a few different storefronts that we literally had to go into the back of the building to have classes because they were just renting out a room of an office space. So I remember a bunch of people like had math class in an H&R block. Like it was kind of cool. Yeah, they were like, would you like to do some taxes while you're here? It would have made less sense if it was like learning a language or something. But I remember that I lived above a tropical smoothie when I was in college. Love.

And I remember, I think i've mentioned that before on here but before all of them were apartments they were additional businesses or something so i i kind of understand the like you know oh you have to go into the back to get to your actual school actually my all the way through until i graduated one of my um statistics classes was in a bank oh also somewhat seems fitting it also seems fitting but if anyone is at CNU write in and let me know if they still do classes at the SunTrust building so SunTrust oh my gosh I remember I my mom came to visit me and she was like oh like you have a building called the sun trust and i was like no girl it's like the one you know and love it's like it's the one i'm gonna

help you get me an account at later um so anyway that was a long-winded version to say that there was a school on the third floor for a while and it continued being a hotel got it um and so eventually it was bought out again in 2004 and from 2004 2007 uh the owners decided that they were going to restore it back to its old form from 1911 so now today it is a hotel restaurant lounge event space by the way it is super haunted and which like that's what I'm talking about it. But it's so haunted that one of the things that they do at their event spaces is they host paranormal conferences.

Oh, fun. So they lean into it. Like, I feel like that goes one of two ways places. When 75% of your employees are dealing with something, I think you have to lean into it. Otherwise, you're just like, that's bad business. That's bad HR, right? It's like hearing those complaints and being like, no,

no, ghost town exists. If you deny it, I consider that 75% gaslighting. Like that's, it's like, now. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so in 2008, it actually, for its restoration, the owners earned certificates of special recognition from the Senate, like the U.S. Senate,

the U.S. Congress, and the California State Assembly for their restoration. So they, like the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the California State Assembly for their restoration. Oh my god. So they did like a really good job. I guess so. Like damn, can you imagine Congress emailing us being like, you deserve a certificate. I'd be like, you're something, someone, I don't think the person in charge of emailing us. I think someone went out on a lunch break and the intern is emailing us it does feel like one of those things like i would love to know if like they submitted themselves for

it or if they like knew it was a thing right like they the government like came to them to be like was it a shock or did they beg for this it's somewhere in that range so this uh here's my favorite fun fact of the the entire notes is that the glen tavern inn has been featured in several books and documentaries about their ghosts including cnn's southern california's best kept secrets the dead files and do you want to guess the third show i'm about to say oh my gosh uh vanderpump rules it's as ridiculous as that mtv's teen cribs okay teen cribs i didn't even know that was a thing there were only two seasons i did everything on earth to be able to find it online i know if you can find it please go for it it's season 2 episode 19 and it's the second half because they

i guess have two people show their cribs at a time to teens it's literally like mtv cribs but it was like i think it's like teens of rich families like and they're like check out my mansion it's like your it's your parents mansion but okay um or maybe i mean i couldn't watch it i don't know what it's about but it seems like it's people who either have like very bougie homes or at least unique homes and uh one of the daughters named i think her name was aisha or asia at one point her family lived there and she was on mtv's teen crib season two oh my god lived in the now tavern yep wow i think it was like her family owned it so they at least were there all the time if not actually living in it got it yeah fun fact it was on mtv's teen cribs listen you get me with

any reality show and you know it oh eva which by the we have to talk about reality shows in a little bit because there's a new season of below deck that we need to discuss oh yes okay so um the building was slash is 35 to 41 rooms i got different numbers on different sources and i'm wondering if like at a different time it was 35 and now it's 41 or i saw 36 at one point so i don't really know what the number is but it's between 35 and 41 rooms it's definitely more than i thought that seems like bigger than oh really that's true yeah that's i i don't know why but i think it was less than i thought huh huh in fact meeting in the middle it is three stories it said that at first it was originally two floors of a hotel with an attic.

And because the attic wasn't expected to be hotel rooms, it was, I guess, an open floor plan and there was nothing going on up there. So during prohibition, the third floor's open, spacious landscape let it very easily become a speakeasy slash gambling hall slash brothel. Oh my gosh, we love an open concept speakeasy. I literally wrote open floor plan and I was trying to avoid it so maybe you could insert it yourself and you did. Listen, I didn't work at house hunters for nothing. Honestly, that's when we knew that we wanted you in our lives and you're like, I work on house hunters and I was like, um, you're coming home with me. You are definitely hired.

You're definitely hired. And also, because it was on the third floor, it was a good view for cops. Or for authority. You could see down and see if anyone was coming so you would have time to escape. Got it. As like a lookout spot. Yeah. Also around this time, the hotel was really popular because this was the era of Western films.

And it was in an area that had a lot of really easy settings to turn into Western films. Oh, cool. So not only is prohibition a thing, um, where there's a bunch of like literal, uh,

there were literal cowboys coming in originally. Now there's prohibition where there's like bunch of like literal uh there were literal cowboys coming in originally now there's prohibition where there's like gangsters and now there's also celebrities coming into this hotel so it's got a big rep you know yeah quite a mix too of like lots swirling around lots of hip happening in that attic speaking well speaking of swirling my head's all over the place with that sentence i was i loved what happened there, but I could never remember verbatim what you just said. I just enjoyed the energy that came from it. I pulled it from a Mad Libs. So there were a bunch of Western film actors coming in.

And so because this hotel was so popular, film crews would rent out rooms for their cast and crew while they were filming. So that includes several famous Western actors, mainly like John Wayne, but pretty much the whole run of them were there at some point. Clark Gable was there. Rin Tin Tin, the dog, was there. Oh, my gosh. Famous pup. I think he was like the first. Was he the first famous pup? In my mind, he is. I can't think of a famous pup i think he was like the first was he the first famous pup in my mind he is i can't

think of a famous pup before him i mean no i certainly can't old yeller i don't know um a biblical dog that is unnamed and not real in my head it was actually jesus's dog his name was i don't know rover it's all the da vinci code, the apocryphal wife and dog of Jesus. Oh, and then, just kind of sidestepping the Western actors and Rin Tin Tin, another famous person who stayed here, I guess quite a bit, was Houdini. Oh my god, callback! A little callback collaboration from when we did our houdini episodes um houdini's room this is also where i get very confused because i feel like in every source the like the

main haunted rooms are like 307 308 and i feel like every time there was a fun fact about anyone that stayed there they were like oh when they stayed at 307 they stayed at 308 it's now apparently 308 is now known as the houdini suite but but also i don't know if that's true because there's like a bunch of other people who stayed there that are like have equally critical stories in this i don't totally maybe one person really wanted it to be the houdini suite and so they wrote that into the article but it's like not true um gotcha but the story went at least in that one source that it's called the houdini suite because it's where houdini liked to stay because he was insistent that he and his magic tricks would stay on the top floor so nobody could snoop around and find

out about his magic tricks sure so like the attic is good for like illegal at the time. Uh huh. Yeah. Easy stuff. And also for Houdini secrets. All sorts of trickery and tomfoolery. Yeah. And during the prohibition era, there were obviously a lot of undocumented shootouts and murders and crime. And that also goes for this speakeasy that was in the hotel and the most popular story from the prohibition era was of a cowboy named calvin calvin you you know him well cowboy calvin we all we all know one so some say he was a cowboy others say he was actually part of like the western film crews and he was like uh one of the horse saddlers or one of the ranchers that was like basically one of the animal trainers on set before it's time um and so they

don't know if he was a cowboy or just worked on the film crew i think he was a cowboy most of the stories may seem like he was the cowboy and maybe cowboy meant like cowboy like they called him that as like like he was the cowboy on the set yeah it's like not the actor if he was the horse wrangler i imagine he was definitely of all the people on the set the cowboy except for like the actor pretending to be a cowboy right but anyway so they've tried to find records of what his situation was but there's no real evidence and they're not even totally sure this is a real story. This has just been lore that's been passed down from each owner. So we think it's real,

but no real solid proof of it. But the story goes that Calvin was playing cards on the third floor in the gambling hall and he got caught cheating. floor in the gambling hall and he got caught cheating and i i don't know if it was actually on the third floor upstairs in the gambling hall or if he later went back to his room but he really pissed someone off when they caught him cheating and he got shot and he was found with a bullet to the head or the story goes that he got shot in the head um but so that's like the most popular death to have happened on this site got it the lore continues because years later when they were doing some renovations in i think the kitchen they found a crawl space or a hole in the kitchen

and a cowboy hat with a bullet hole in bloodstains allegedly was in there. Oh my God. Whoa. So it's almost like, like, was his body there? Did they only stash the hat? Like where did the rest of them go? And why didn't they just bury the hat with him? Why did they see this one hole in the wall?

And they were like, this is exactly where this needs to be. This is like just setting it on fire or like patching it up and using it again recycling i don't know oh my god they were like we for sure want a ghost here but we don't want the bones so like we're just gonna put a hat in a wall right exactly yeah i have no way it makes zero sense why yeah i feel like you'd at least want the evidence not in the hotel anymore but whatever for sure yeah and like even i mean obviously at that time who knows what like i don't know what police i don't know it was like then but it seems like someone should have been like hi this like piece of evidence yeah yeah don't bury it in your wall maybe that's why they buried it in the wall maybe it had like extra like oh maybe track something but or maybe they

were like it's like hidden in plain sight sort of thing i don't know maybe it was in his will maybe he was like burying my hat in the walls of this bar yes i'm sure the man who committed cold-blooded murder respected his will anyway there's many believe that this is proof that calvin was killed on the property and apparently if this hat existed i think it did all the sources were acting like this hat is like the real deal. And nobody had questions about it except you and me, I guess. But I guess they actually used to have the hat on display in the hotel. And then eventually it went missing.

So some people say it was like the ghost took his hat back. And other people say that someone just stole the fucking hat. Okay. I was actually just going to ask about it being on display. Yeah. That's really wild. They did have it on display. Wow.

Apparently so. Apparently so. So some say that the place isn't haunted and that the ghosts were... Before I talk about more of the ghosts, I just want to say some people say that this place isn't actually haunted and that the ghost of Calvin and the speakeasy brothel gambling hall thing was actually just a promotional idea in the 80s because they knew that the hotel was tanking and so to like boost interest uh they just said it was haunted um also some say that the speakeasy wouldn't have even been on the top floor so the

whole speakeasy storyline doesn't make sense because anyone anyone who knows anything about speakeasies apparently knows that they would never be on the top floor because there's no easy escape route unless they had like i would think like a window or a ladder like i feel like you could just get on the roof and hop to another building or something i don't i'm imagining spider because they're all Marvel characters at this bar. But I feel like that's not a really solid argument, but that's the main one of like, well, a speakeasy would never be on the top floor.

But then in my mind, a speakeasy should never be like underground in a basement. That's certainly less escape routes. No, I was just going to say that because like I feel like the same level of like, oh, this like underground basement bar has like tunnels out I feel like also in a lot of old houses they have those like you know like even like servants quarters on the side you know with like staircases on the side that go down like I feel like that's not a great argument I feel like there could have totally been I think a speakeasy was just trying

to fit wherever it could so like exactly yeah take up and especially if it has good lookout like you know yeah nowhere there's definitely that's a great argument of like oh you can see down and if anyone's coming into the building yeah at the same time people also said that this place probably doesn't have like the speakeasy gambling history because santa paula at that time was becoming really rural and they would have been like too moral for sinister activity and i'm like okay relax i feel like it would have been more like the more moral some thing or some area gets usually doesn't it swing the opposite that like people need more than outlet let's take the pillar to killer example away from a person situation in a place situation like you never expect the kind sweet man like maybe you never

expect the kind sweet town but maybe you never expect the kind sweet town but like there there could be a speakeasy right upstairs who knows yeah so it wasn't it's not like a solid argument to me but a lot of people do say like oh the ghosts aren't real and it's just like it was marketing for the hotel to stay up got it fine whatever but also there's a lot of people out there who are saying this thing's haunted which is so i'm just obviously biased but i think none of the arguments are solid um they others say it's definitely haunted because i guess if they've done any research on ley lines apparently a lot of them intersect or the town's ley lines intersect under the hotel which i know nothing about that i'm just taking someone

else's words but that's a really cool theory um they also say that if the place is haunted room 307 is the most haunted in the hotel and i guess the surrounding rooms on the third floor are pretty haunted too um and calvin is the spirit most seen here um apparently he is seen in a white shirt and a western jacket and he has long hair a beard or a goatee some sort of facial hair and he smells like cigars sometimes um he's seen the lobby and in the first floor women's bathroom yikes calvin oh calvin and uh he is seen in pictures as well as walking through walls and fading away and one psychic even said he was a buffalo bill look-alike oh or could have been a buffalo bill look-alike there is another ghost here that's really really popular named

rose who worked in the brothel during that time um so she was a sex worker uh that apparently was i i guess also in room 307 this is what i'm saying they're all overlapping in the same rooms and it feels a little too easy that we're just like throwing everything at 307 or 308 got it got it like how convenient that everything is happening in these rooms. Maybe the people checking in, people were like, you seem like drama. You'd be a good ghost. Let me put you in 307. Or maybe all the people who are really troublesome, they're like, enough shit has happened in these rooms. If I do something bad, it'll just be another rumor versus really landing somewhere.

That's a good point. that's a good point but so rose uh had a client uh in room 307 who apparently beheaded her beheaded rose yeah oh no and left her in the closet to be found without her head without oh my god i obviously started this by saying I got this information from Ghost Adventures. And thus we know what I will eventually be talking about in this episode. I will say in the episode of Ghost Adventures, if you are not into graphic shit, like cover your eyes. Because they really did a visual number on reenacting Rose's death oh reenacting like they they don't show her actually like a person being beheaded but they um they show pictures that had because this is all a rumor so the pictures had to be fake but i they were done so well part of me thought these were like real

crime scene photos oh god so um it's just if you if that's like not your thing i like zach even gave a warning which like if you have to give a warning about reenacted pictures like you did it too well like take a step back also i feel like if zach of all people is giving a warning like a graphic warning then it's like oh oh okay he literally said hide your eyes and and my i went like okay zach and then i went oh my god i should have hidden my eyes oh okay we yep that was the one yeah right because it's so hard to know if he's being dramatic or if it's like it's like for real but okay so anyway so the story goes that she was beheaded in the closet of

307 um she's shown herself to people as a full-bodied apparition she's also shown herself as a white mist people have heard knocking inside the closet oh my god oh that's so sad i wonder if the this is sad maybe i shouldn't say this is the mist because she doesn't have her head like she couldn't like fully materialize to like maybe maybe but then that makes me wonder about the times where she's a full-bodied apparition maybe remembering i don't know before whatever it is it's disturbing oh that is so disturbing no that's so sad rose also allegedly likes to open and close doors she's the reason that the phone will apparently ring off the hook for no reason like nobody's on the other end oh

wow according to one investigator heather woodward who we're going to talk about a lot next week i think she said she saw rose who has short dark hair and olive skin heather said that she believes that there's also a perfume saleswoman who died here oh and you can smell her floral perfume through the halls oh this speaking of this perfume saleswoman i guess heather also does automatic writing which if you don't know what that is it's like kind of going into like this trance and not moving either moving your hand in spirals or some sort of um repetitive motion and then just kind of letting the guides it's almost like you're the ouija planchette if that makes sense like all of a sudden like you'll or some sort of repetitive motion and then just kind of letting the guides... It's almost like you're the Ouija planchette,

if that makes sense. Like, all of a sudden, like, you'll just kind of start writing things without knowing what you're writing. And... Which, like, by the way, really freaks me out. Like, just the idea of it has always really freaked me out. Like, more than...

I don't know enough about it, so I'm still, like, super, I guess, hesitant to believe that it is real but then again everything else has like the potential to be real or not real so I'm open-minded to it I just don't understand it and I think that's what freaks me out because if it's real like that's crazy yeah right it's that like unknown version of it like love but and then it's like in someone's body that they maybe don't know about it's like yeah creepy it's just bizarre it's just it's like in someone's body that they maybe don't know about. It's like creepy. It's just bizarre. It's just it's so wild.

So while during automatic writing, Heather was talking, I think, to the perfume saleswoman. And these are the words she got. Sex. Mistress. Lover. Tall, dark, handsome. Mustache. Killed.

Bled to death. Wait, that's like a whole Mad Libs sentence sentence that's like a i want to snap to it like it's poetry like that's but it's like everyone was its own statement of sex mistress lover tall dark handsome mustache killed led to death which like yikes and like i mean i can't imagine thinking like i'm gonna go into an automatic writing session and we'll just see what happens and you get those string of words right that like paints a full picture of a full story like that's a full like arc that has a beginning middle and end it really told me everything i feel like i learned a whole situation there oh my god there are also

several accounts of children ghosts in the hotel i don't know if it's one child or multiple children but it seems like it's multiple um but they all know each other they know each other for some reason that makes me hate it more like they're gonna gang up on us they all like play together i guess you know what freaks me out is that there have been sometimes i think this actually happened in the ghost Adventures episode, where one of the ghosts answered for another about its own history. So it's like the ghosts know of each other's stories, even though they didn't die together. So I've seen cases of a ghost that died in one century is answering questions about a ghost that died in a different century. So it's like, oh, you are like cognizant of each other and like, you know, each other's stories

to be able to answer. Like gossip sessions. They're like, how did you know? How did you get here? And that's how I hope it goes. Because when I die, I'm not about to like not ask everybody, like, what's your deal? Like what? How how did we all get here but i wonder if it's actually a gossip session or if like they just all become like omnipresent all-knowing beings i don't know it's all odd it's something we could i feel like if i were a little stoned i could talk about it for the rest of time um so several accounts of children in the hotel many people say that they hear children laughing and running up and down the halls and up and down the staircase and knocking on doors there have been a lot of cases of people hearing

little kids knocking on the door and giggling and then they open the door no one's there no or or calling down to the front desk and being like whose kids are here because they are running up and down the halls and we can't sleep. And then they're the only people that were booked on that floor. There's one little girl people have seen literally walking into walls or they've heard her giggling when they see her. She vanishes during a wedding. Kids were apparently seen in pictures of the ceremony that weren't invited. Oh, my God god can you imagine

getting your wedding pictures back and being like oh my god they're gonna be so beautiful and then like a fucking ghost is in the middle of your like professional portrait i hope it's the ghost having a blast because if i got a ghost just like standing there with like dead eyes like staring into the camera i'd be like this is something no one's even gonna believe me about like I can't even I can't even bond with anyone in this trauma I just have to know what happened you didn't even go to the speakeasy I put in the attic I know like I would like to think if I'm throwing a party and a ghost is there the ghost is like if I get a picture of a ghost she's gonna look like she's throwing the fuck down like she's dancing like she's snooki at jersey shore you know

if i just got a ghost not partying i'd be offended i'd be like oh my god they don't even like my party that's crazy my gosh snooki as a ghost i would also like a reality star ghost at some point because that seems less threatening and also very fun i were you part of the jersey shore generation because that was definitely my scene no i wasn't really but i'm just like transplanting that into my love of love of all the terrible things that i watch well but i was gonna i think jersey shore was the first real reality show i was invested in and uh to this day there's still like a kind of a tiktok trend where people will um uh impersonate each of the Jersey Shore people because they each somehow they each had such a specific dance that they would all do on when they would go out to the club together like one of them

was like known to dance a certain way one of them was danced to known a different way so there's like this trend that like everyone's dancing like all the people from Jersey Shore I want to see if I ever got a picture of a ghost at my wedding they better be dancing like at least one of the jersey short cast like that's how you know they'd have a good time they better be imitating a tiktok otherwise or redo it like read doing the tiktok they will be happy that you have haunted them i think this is oh yeah this is still the children in room 204 a couple apparently saw a little girl in pajamas walk into their bedroom and then just vanish i don't know if she just vanished before their very eyes or if she was like

hiding under the bed and then they looked again she was gone i don't know how creepy it is but i guess they thought that she was part of a family that had booked out a bunch of rooms at the hotel because there was like a quinceanera or something and so i guess they thought one of those girls had wandered into their room looking for her family and by the time they called the front desk she was just gone gotcha in room 104 people's ankles get pulled um beds move apparently the lamps turn on and off by themselves the sink runs by itself no and you can hear a woman giving a toast? Okay. I have mixed feelings about that.

It sounds like it could go really well. Maybe she's just the ultra-hype woman giving you a toast to brushing your teeth in the hotel. We love dental care. I don't know. We love dental care. I don't know. I would like to think if there's a ghost giving a toast, and I have to listen to it, it better be about me.

Put me on that docket. I don't want to hear you talk about someone I don't even know all night long. It's so annoying. It could go a ton of different ways because I feel like toasts go a ton of different ways, right? They're either like kind of boring or they really nail it or they're like the back and forth toasts of bridesmaids where they're just like passive aggressively trying to one-up each other actually wait put the maybe they're from the same place the girl who's giving a toast and the girl who's like going to parties at weddings maybe it's the same now someone has to play like that song someday somebody's gonna make you yep yeah i would like to see my ghost get down to that song, actually, where they're making wishes.

Correct. And to pull it full circle back to reality shows, if that toast ghost can also be spilling some tea about the party ghost in the toast, we'd just get it all. I'm just kidding. No, it's perfectly fine. For me, I don't know where everyone else is. So there's also a ghost hey this person could also be at the wedding there's a ghost that likes to play piano in the bar oh fun um it sounds like it didn't billy joel write about him or something the piano barman oh yeah yeah yeah so the piano man is there and uh allegedly this is one of the guests who actually passed

away either in the hotel or he passed away but loved the hotel and he loved playing piano there. So they still hear him playing piano at night. Oh, I like that for the ghost. Like, I feel like that's a nice afterlife to just like play piano in a bar. Yeah, chill. I also wonder, does he actually need the physical piano or if they were to move it one day would you still hear piano in the house or if his hat is buried under the piano honestly they should just tear up every wall and see how many hats are back there um another ghost is harvey van norman who was the assistant to williamholland, which if you live in LA, you know that William Mulholland is the namesake of Mulholland drive,

AKA one of the worst fucking drives ever. It's one of those windy ass roads that has always backed up. I think they, they tell you it's a beautiful drive, like maybe at midnight, but like I have only ever gotten stuck in horrible traffic there yeah my dad was really adamant that when we when he my family visited back in August that he wanted to drive Mulholland and I was like okay here's the snippet of Mulholland that I'm

willing to do it's like just like a couple miles and we stopped I imagine like yeah I imagine it's like when people go to San Francisco and they're like I want to go down Lombard Street and it's like no you don't no you do not but except instead of Lombard Street being like a couple like not that long of a drive Mulholland literally goes around like an entire fucking mountain like you're stuck once you decide you're taking Mulholland Drive get ready you're there forever yeah it's like I when we looked it up it's like I mean I don't want to give the wrong number, but it was like so long. And that's why I was like, okay, I will go between Laurel and Coldwater because those

are like up downs. I was going to say Coldwater is even fucking worse. I hate Coldwater. Oh, Coldwater. Coldwater Canyon, I cannot stand. This is LA Complaints Corner. If I ever have to like meet up with somebody and the only thing in between us is Mulholland Drive or Cold War Canyon, I'm not going.

I'll be like, I'll see you some other time. Goodbye. Yeah. So one of the ghosts is Harvey Van Norman, who was the assistant to William Mulholland. And apparently he's been seen at the lobby fireplace wearing a vintage brown suit with a coat and hat. And he has literally spoken to people and like sat down and had coffee with them oh cute is that like not bananas though like that's the ghost story you're always hoping

happens is that a a posh gentleman will just share a cup of tea and then go away like yeah also if i'm gonna get haunted i would like to not know during the haunting that i was haunted and then afterwards be like oh that was fun in hindsight that's exactly it he apparently later people would say oh where's the man we were talking to and they'd be like oh that's that's harvey that's harvey he built a really long road we don't want to drive well so what's interesting about harvey being the assistant to william mulholland is william mulholland himself has a history with the hotel so it's interesting that his assistant shows up there because william mulholland as william mulholland himself has a history with the hotel so it's interesting that his assistant shows up there because william mulholland there i didn't know this but apparently he was uh responsible for like a massive flood disaster it's called like

the damn disaster saint francis damn disaster and like in the area alone i think like 500 people died oh my god because i don't know how he was responsible for it. I guess he was in charge of the materials that were cheap or something. And it caused the dam to break. But so apparently the hotel itself, when everything was coming through the town and destroying the town and killing all these people, the hotel itself was like a,

a disaster emergency space for people to like go seek refuge oh my god so it's interesting that his assistant is seen there often yeah maybe he was there for like damage control or some shit i don't know yeah that also makes me wonder too that like i mean moholland is such a windy twisty dangerous road itself i wonder if that has like a paranormal history too just from all of the i'm sure it does i'm sure it does it'sy, dangerous road itself. I wonder if that has like a paranormal history too, just from all of the. I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. It's such a dangerous road.

Yeah. So yeah. So people see him and then they're like, oh, that's Harvey. Other ghosts have been women who are, a woman is seen on the first floor walking through the walls. A lot of people are walking through walls. Another ghost has been seen taking care of someone in bed as if they saw like a replay of her taking care of someone in bed as if they saw like a replay of her taking

care of somebody oh one guest's makeup kit was thrown at the wall really really violently um people will hear whispering at night they'll hear their name being called to them which i hate yeah i hate no that's too personal too personal unless you the toast girl, then you can say my name all you want. Things get knocked off of dressers. Guest items would get stolen. Super creepy. Rooms would be deadbolted from the inside and no one was in there. So someone was locking people out of the room.

Yuck. That's also kind of a fun prank, but also yuck. Also yuck. People feel someone watching them or walking behind them and then they turn around and no one's there. They'll see things from the corner of their eye. People feel like they're being pulled out of their beds at night. Oh, I hate that. And the curtains move on their own.

Oh, no. A lot of employees would work upstairs only in pairs, like would do the buddy system because they were so scared of the third floor. And a previous owner one time was sitting on the toilet this is the worst time to ever have a ghost experience was sitting on the toilet and watched the doorknob move and then the doorknob fell out of its hole

and then she got, and she was locked inside the bathroom for 30 minutes. Goodbye. No thank you. I mean, no. Goodbye. No, thank you. I mean, no. No. No. I always, I mean, and I actually, yeah, always. Every time I'm on the toilet, which, by the way, is pretty darn often. At least once in every session, I'm like, what if a ghost came?

Really? Yes. It's a huge fear of mine because i'm like what do i do do you have a plan if you've thought about it this much do you have a contingency bathroom haunting plan i have thought many times about how ill-prepared i am like that's my that's the situation because also i i think it stemmed from like real house issues like what if you're on the toilet and like a fire happens or like what if you're on the toilet and like someone breaks in like like i i've thought about that stuff and i'm like what if a ghost like just like i don't know swung the door open i don't

know i don't know okay i like how in that case the worst scenario is it swung the door open but i mean she did get it sounds like the manager right she did get trapped in the bathroom. So like, that's not fun either. Yeah, but at least if you're trapped in a bathroom, at least you're trapped in the one spot with a toilet, you know? That is true. The worst thing is what if you're trapped in a bathroom and you really got to go and there's no toilet paper. Oh, yeah. That's a nightmare. The plumbing is haunted too.

Like, that's kind of a nightmare if you're in there with... Nothing is scarier than than the water pressure not being good the water pressure there's nothing more terrifying especially on a family trip good night okay and good luck okay so uh chairs and items in the restaurant will move on their own and fly across the room apparently Apparently people hear scratching on the walls. Oh. There have been impressions on the bed as if someone's sitting down. People have woken up to feeling like they're being strangled in the middle of the night.

Oh, I don't like that. No. One employee saw a woman in a vintage dress and no shoes on the third floor where nobody was staying and it looked like she was floating. Oh, that's creepy oh my gosh there's also a spirit named helen who's apparently in her 30s who wears a dress with flowers on it very fashionable helen oh helen and then there's a woman uh who is known to look out the window of the hotel and another will knock things over into your lap in the lobby so there's like quotes of people just sitting on a lobby, on the lobby couch. And all of a sudden, like the lamp will start like scooting over and then just go boop and just like fall into their lap. So a cat ghost.

It feels like a cat ghost or it feels like at least a very precious attempt for attention of like, hello. Yeah, like a kid or something being like, do you notice? Do you notice now? Do you notice now do you notice now that feels silly i like i'm okay with that one that felt silly yeah people feel things brush by them when no one's around like someone walked into them um some people will see shadow figures at the foot of their bed no thanks um apparently other people have had sleep paralysis one guy said here it's super creepy one guy said that he's convinced it gave him

nightmares of run-ins with doppelgangers of himself trying to hurt himself oh oh god there was like there was like a nightmare where like a guy in a hood or a cloak or something came at him and when he pulled the hood off it was himself and oh god that's really intense that's like something you see as like like a twist and like i was thinking about the star wars where ray sees herself in the like mirrors all the way down but it's like that's like so dramatic you see it at like the climax of like a franchise blockbuster not like in your dreams yikes unless you're like i don't know george lucas and you can like just envision that shit for yourself. Unless you already have, like, the three-story arc, like, set in your brain. There's another spirit of a woman with one eye who apparently guests have witnessed getting murdered on repeat.

Oh my god. That one is the most insane to me. Oh no. Like, I don't know if the one eye, if she was just, like, a woman with one eye, or, like, or like if like they see her getting murdered and part of it leads to her having one eye i'm not sure about that but they say that they have seen her uh residual haunting of her getting murdered oh that's so awful also i'm sorry i react i feel like i reacted poorly to the one eye part but i because we talked about a real monster so much i think i was picturing no i totally i are real monsters in real life that you just said the real thing would have been holding the one eye in the hand and massive blue lips and completely naked that would have

that's the real scare there yeah yeah um there's some evps uh that people have caught one of them saying emily i love, which is so sweet. Oh, that is sweet. Another saying, please help. So sweet. No. And then after please help, it was followed by sounds of splashing in the bathroom. Oh,

no. I am assuming that means like a drowning or something. Right before a bunch of ghost equipment machines went off for no reason, the ovulus said disaster. Oh, God. And then one time when asking the ghost to turn off the lights, a child's voice got caught on a recorder saying, I won't make it do that. Oh, gosh. The ones that are like in between like someone being like no that

sounds yeah like too much and it's already scary it's like oh what else is happening that i don't know about this one is weird but i'm gonna say it anyway another evp was found in the allegedly houdini suite uh and the evp was i need milk which apparently people equate that to one of Houdini's big escape tricks was the milk can escape trick. Oh. Which was one of Houdini's favorite tricks he ever did. So I think they hear I need milk and assume it's like, oh, like if he kept all of his magic tricks up here, maybe he needed milk to practice his trick. Gotcha. Yeah.

Or it could be like a little kid ghost who needs milk. You who knows or someone that just wanted to fortify their bones someone who wanted some moo juice you know oh god so if christine were here she would hang up on me i can do it by proxy i didn't like it either so weirdly some people have also experienced trance like sleepiness and slept through all of their alarms um and some after that even wake up to figures in the room that's like a double whammy it's like sorry you don't get to wake up for the thing you're here for and also yeah you're gonna be terrified so there was one guy and his girlfriend who stayed in room 307 which is apparently the most haunted and even though it was super early, they, like, fell asleep for no reason.

They planned on being there all night, awake, ghost hunting, but they couldn't keep their eyes open. They were like, let's just take a one-hour nap. And so they closed their eyes, and they woke up without any alarms or anything, both at the same time at 3 a.m. sharp. Oh, no. And when trying to get back to sleep sleep his girlfriend said that she couldn't because quote there is someone looking at me oh i like that they were there specifically to ghost him but then they were like forget it we're just gonna sleep this is not great it like it's like something like shut that shit down it was like you're gonna go to bed yeah don't look at us

we're gonna look at you oh i hate that so the same couple left a recorder on when they went to dinner earlier that night just to see if they got anything in the room. And they heard a door creaking. They got a woman gasping and they heard a loud bang like something hit the recorder. The scariest part of all of this, by the way, this was a Reddit post and this user's name was Cheeseburger Cat. Love it. Love it so much. Cheeseburger Cat at the very beginning of his post says there is no elevator, just one giant staircase. So that's how I would have be immediately never gone here. But just so everyone else knows, the scariest part of it all to me is that.

So next up, I just wanted to do the I wanted to tell you about the tv shows i watched obviously i tried to watch teen cribs and give everyone the 411 on that but it's not going to happen instead i'll tell you really quickly about dead files which was season four episode seven and the psychic amy did catch on to a surprise to surprisingly a lot of things, but definitely sensed a darker presence than anything I had heard or seen of online. She said the guy was an all-black walking up and down the hallways. He doesn't like women. He had apparently told her that he has, quote, dealt with women like her before.

Oh, wow. Yikes. I hate that. Apparently very physical and likes messing with people he knows how to induce fear and he doesn't like when people are in his room which is 308 and he tries to make the room very weird and disturbing so they'll leave oh my god this really ratcheted up i feel like a lot of things up until could be like we're like very creepy but this is like but you can't really it's like the kind of ghost it's like was that malicious was that just because you're a ghost and you don't know this one is like no i'm a ghost and i hate you and i'm gonna do everything i can

to fuck with you well so interesting too is that they gave a lot more information on the history of the building than what i had seen anywhere else so So apparently there was a cowboy who shot his wife's lover like only a half a block away. So they think maybe he's one of the people that has been haunting the area. There's also a story of a woman who I guess was a manager of the hotel. And in the middle of the night,

she got stabbed by one of the guests. And then also the family that was living there at the time which i think was teen girl teen cribs girl mtv team cribs her family was there at the time that they filmed dead files so it was her parents that were running the hotel in this moment and the mom had like this weird possession-esque possession adjacent attachment you know how like a lot of before possessions they're like obsessed with the house and they can't leave the house and when they leave the house their behavior is back to normal but when they go back to the house it's like has this weird hold on them oh yeah she said she said that her mom was dealing with that and

the whole family was like let's get the fuck out of here like none of us feel safe yeah they're i think their housekeepers were getting grabbed or something i don't remember what it was but they were like we don't want to be here anymore and she i think the girl from teen cribs even said sometimes i feel like my mom loves the house more than us so there was so sad there was like a weird a weird hold on some of the family so it implies some sort of a disregarding the potential of like maybe just some like mental health issues if it's paranormal it's uh it feels a little like a possession situation yeah pretty nice um and maybe not even mental health issues but like maybe the mom was just going through something who Who knows? But if it's paranormal,

if it's paranormal, it was, it feels a little demonic. So in Ghost Adventures, that was season seven, episode 17. Shout out to Christine's Discovery Plus account. And cheers.

And Zach is talking to the new general manager named Monica. So I guess the family eventually did convince the mom to leave. And now it's in this woman, Monica's hands. Got it. Or was when this Ghost Adventures episode was being filmed. So the first week that she moved in, I guess the general manager's room is 106. And when she was moving into her room she was um reaching for papers or something and she saw someone walk past her so she turned and it was a woman standing there

staring at her and then disappeared into the wall like that's your welcome into this job like that's the job hi just saying hello hashtag above my pay grade like i not here for it by the way shout out to this episode it was a super good episode if you're looking for like creep factor um but just to give you some like highlights i guess billy didn't go on the walkthrough with them so they asked if he would stay in the hotel and night by himself without knowing anything even though the rest of the group had found out stuff so he went by himself 10 minutes and he turns on the ovulus um the microsoft sam machine and it got these words all in an order before spell soil friendly cards and then three minutes later it said goodbye oracle oh oh it's weird yeah so they

they used the they used these words and kind of assumed i mean it was zach plus tv plus the best guesswork they could do and they assumed that the obelisk was talking about things that were going to happen the next night um because i guess all the words were able to kind of fit into events that happened the next night when they did their investigation oh interesting especially goodbye oracle they brought like the like a psychic that came and so it was and all that kind of made sense under that guys although i am very aware of the potential inaccuracy or the lack of realism there sure um i guess orbs flew into billy's face while he was sleeping and even though usually i'd be like okay yeah yeah yeah orbs whatever they apparently landed on his face and

in that exact moment he also wakes up from sleeping and decides to turn on the ovulus and this i guess was the room where um sex workers would do their services gotcha and uh so he felt something on his face which was caught on camera via orbs turns on the ovulus and he immediately gets the words blow and gentle. And so he thinks I might be a sex worker. He immediately feels something grab his thigh or his thigh spasms. And then the Oracle says thigh. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I'm sorry.

I said, I Oracle, the ovulus says thigh. Got it. No, no. I, yeah,

I understand. Which is super creepy because like an ovulus, it's not programmed. It just says it's like there's no of all the words that it's programmed to say that it's for it to come in as that word. And in that exact moment when you can't time responses, it came in at the exact time where he like looked at the camera and said something touching my thigh and the word thigh showed up. Yeah, that's really creepy and timed like specifically yeah then he says did you touch my thigh and the ovulus says right oh which i think means like correct or was it his right thigh i don't know maybe i don't know so uh later the next night during investigations they all hear a little girl whistling upstairs.

The housekeeper's pants got tugged on. They also hear the same little girl humming later and then her voice upstairs singing. And during all of this, the obvious says, girl. Creepo. Yeah, I know. So then they use the spirit box, the thing that goes. Oh, God, I already hate that because it's so scary already. It's so jarring. And so they say

what's your name and the spirit box says ingrid oh my god so like had a real a real intelligent response wow and then in the room 308 one of the more haunted ones they said can you tell me who's in here and the spirit box said i can help and then being helpful thank you it's like thank you uh then he asked tell me who you are and the spirit box said majita which apparently is spanish for my little girl oh yeah mijita mijita yeah yeah oh my gosh um then in an empty room they were like not investigating this room but a camera's microphone picks up a man whispering i was shot calvin maybe calvin and then later on because they had already had the a psychic come in and do like tarot readings and like talk about the things that he had he had seen in his past visits there wait i'm

so sorry i was actually thinking i didn't know that there was tarot there but when oracle also there are oracle cards that made me think about earlier so if there were tarot readings there that makes sense okay there you have it sorry so no no so after the the psychic left or the tarot reader left um zach has the spirit box and says what is the the name of the family's Oracle who was sitting right there? And the spirit box said, Patrick, which was his name. Oh,

wow. Yikes. That's really creepy. Also on the spirit box. He later says, address yourself. Who are you? And the spirit box says,

Marsha. And then there's a silence. Like the spirit box isn't acting up at all. And Zach says, Marsha, are you there? And the spirit box says, yeah, at all and zach says marcia are you there and the spirit box says yeah i'm here i'm just i'm just like not interested it's our reality star ghost again

they later ask what do you want like zach asks what do you want and the spirit box says be gone goodbye goodbye bye eventually which feeds into this uh reddit poster cheeseburger cat who said that he had completely like fallen into this weird trance like sleep and all that zach starts acting super weird he doesn't even remember doing this he says he blacked out he walks upstairs locks himself in a room by himself nobody can find him he like goes full-blown missing he won't respond to anybody shouting for him and when they find him he's like on the bed barely conscious oh my god he said he went into this like crazy trance and he lost time he had no idea how he got up there and during this when the rest of his crew end up finding him, footsteps start creaking in empty rooms and they hear tapping.

And it's almost as if the ghost is trying to distract them from finding him. Oh, shit. Like in other places, not where he is. Yeah. And then they get an EVP of a man's voice saying, sleep in here. Oh, I hate that. To like him, like trying to put Zach to sleep. So the last thing I'm going to say is that there was, I've said before, there were paranormal conferences held there.

And one of them is called, I don't know what this one was officially called, but it was one of the Paracons or paranormal conventions, which I don't know why we haven't gotten to those yet. No. Yeah. But next week, I'm going to talk about a particular instance that happened at one of these conferences, which leads me back into talking about the psychic Heather Woodward,

because let's just say she saw some stuff or did she oh wait i'm so excited because that could go so many ways because i feel like you cover so many psychics that like either get debunked or don't but like that's so interesting okay i'm really excited so anyway that part two next week will be the seance that was done at this conference oh a seance and what may or may not have been seen oh that's what i'm gonna say okay oh my gosh and that's the first half of the glenn tavern oh my gosh that was so good thank you wow okay i'm so excited for a seance and a psychic and all the drama the reality tv drama next i mean i'm adding the last part in but i look well we can just watch reality tv after we record let's just be what we do instead and just talk about uh

jersey shore and below deck and oh we have to talk about the plaths we still have to i need to we gotta watch that it's just burning for those of you who don't know and can't figure it out for yourselves yet even i really bonded over quarantine with reality tv shows so uh anyway you miss out on some really good conversations and we need to watch it that's apparently the new season is insane i've heard that one's like really wild yeah we definitely got to get into that for sure i can't wait there's so many first yeah i was gonna say first you gotta tell me a story We definitely got to get into that for sure. I can't wait. There's so many. First. Yeah. I was going to say first. You got to tell me a story.

I have a story for you that shout out yet again to my friend, Ellen. This is my second set of notes that I have used from her. She is a godsend. Thank you, Ellen. Ellen of trial crew. She is great. T. Thank you, Ellen. Ellen of Trial Crew. She is great. Trial Crew is so fun and great.

Also, you did say in your texts that like this one's going to like tickle me. That it's like, is it a silly story or something? Like what's the... No, sorry. I meant that about the story about the screaming light switch in my car. I was tickled. So I guess you were so right. While you look for your notes, let me do a classic cracking of the can for a Let's Crack Into It. Okay, ASMR people, get ready for the cracking of a can.

Ooh. Ooh. I don't know if that meant anything to anyone but me, but I had a good time doing it. Cheers. By the way, shout out to Arizona Tea. I recently discovered their merch website, wow it's so extensive didn't you also get a shirt of theirs from a thrift store that's like exactly their can okay so funny you mentioned that i i went home to fredericksburg literally on like such a whim like i accidentally ended up in fredericksburg and i decided i guess fredericksburg

now is becoming like hip and cool and shit and all of the stores that used to be like very boring to visit are now turning into like really cool gen z thrift shops and when i was there the very first shirt i picked up looked like it was literally the arizona tecan design and i was like you're coming home with me I keep using by the way I keep using that TikTok sound and I'm sorry for everyone who doesn't understand the reference but I saw that shirt you're coming home with me I was like there's no way this is literally it's too like someone should have been sued for how accurate this design is because it looks just like the Arizona teacan. I ended up looking it up. It is literally one of many Arizona teacan shirts and they are all so cool. I literally, okay, for

Christmas, this is so sad, but half of my wishlist is like a bunch of Arizona teacan merch, but it's so cool. So Arizona teacan merch company, if you're listening, I love you and I want all of what you're offering. Oh my gosh gosh this is just a brand shout out it really is free just a total free advertisement but like if you're if you know someone who likes an Arizona Deacon you're gonna find something clothes wise on their website you're gonna like it is a really nice shirt like it's so specific and like and it's so soft also I got it and it was very weathered so I think someone like broke it in for me but it's so soft. Also, I got it and it was very weathered. So I think someone like broke it in for me. But it's my favorite shirt currently. Moving on. You were about to talk about murder. No, I did find my notes. And I'm so sorry I led you to believe this is a silly story because sadly, it's very sad. That tracks since we're talking about crime. Yeah. So this is the story of Susan and Richard Hamlin. story of Susan and Richard Hamlin. Okay. To no one's surprise, I don't know what that is or what the story is. So I only had like an inkling. There's one part that I'll tell you about later

that I sort of remembered. Like it kind of triggered in my brain and I was like, oh my gosh, did Christine cover this at a live show? Did she? I don't think she did. I looked through, show and I don't think she did I looked through shout out again to your episode guide um thank you I looked really really diligently through that and I went through the audio the whole live show audio I think and I kind of realized I think I just remember us like me and Ellen and Caitlin and Sue's talking about it in trial crew so I think I just remember this one twist part and being like oh that was just us talking about it. Fine. Okay. Well, I'm glad you, it clearly resonated with you to want to do it. So, all right. Yeah. There's one, yeah, just the one spot I'll let you know later. But so,

of all these sources together, these are Ellen's Notes, CBS Sacramento, California Bar Journal, Village Life, Evil Lives Here, an ID show, Trapped in Hell, season two, episode nine. There's also a blog online that like kind of pulls all that information. And I'll talk about this later, but a somewhat questionable old true crime blog called Skeptics Dictionary that I'll mention at the end. Okay, cool. So this is kind of a doozy. It starts with, to set the stage, 2004 successful attorney Susan Hamlin walks into a Sacramento police station and confessed to witnessing a murder, plotting to kill her husband, who was a local prosecutor, Richard Hamlin. Oh God. Okay. her husband oh um who is a local prosecutor richard hamlin oh god okay and sorry it gets said pretty immediately subjecting her four children to physical and sexual abuse for years

whoa yeah oh wow and she claims in this confession that it was all for and with her father's satanic cult. Wow, a lot of twists. Okay. Yeah, a lot front loaded here. So now we're going to backtrack a little bit. Well, well done with the, if we were in English class in eighth grade and my teacher's saying, you need a hook to really lead people in. You really hooked me. This story alone, like, because the story kind of starts here in general, just a lot of places, just because it's like, this is where, you know, the police first hear about it.

This is where people start to like hear what happened. So it's kind of like a shocking. It's also really shocking because it's like they're, you know, both attorneys, they're wealthy suburbanites from Sacramento, like in a Sacramento suburb. And it's like, how did they go from, right, wealthy suburbanites to satrament like in a sacramento suburb and it's like how did they go from right wealthy suburbanites to satanic cults yeah like definitely a i guess a leap yeah yeah so susan and richard met in law school at the university of pacific's mcgeorge school of law um they only dated for about six months before richard proposed to susan on valentine's day how i know yeah a little little short but you know you know okay no judgment exactly yeah

after they were married susan went on to work at one of the top law firms in sacramento and meanwhile richard became a highly successful prosecutor in the area huh they had four children and richard soon convinced after they had these children convinced susan that she wanted to become a stay-at-home mom which obviously no judgment either way on that specific thing yeah i'm not loving the convinced her correct yeah the force actually and convincing is i'm a i'm a huge fan of the idea of being a stay-at-home parent one day yeah not my problem for sure yeah but if someone were like you so want this i'd be like now i don't know if i do yeah yeah it's the thing of like you're telling me right like bypassing the like what's

best for you what are you comfortable with of like it's a manipulating consent thinking that you want this when it's like now i'm unsure if she did that's a really good way to put it no manipulating consent is like a really good way to put it because it's like you're like in the eyes of a lot of you know the top level like looking at it it looks like she because she then went on to quit her job and become a stay-at- home mom so it looks like she made the decision herself when it's really like totally coerced into it yeah okay it seems like it yeah she did unblame her job to stay home and raise the kids the hamlins yet again like so many that christine talks about on here that you even mentioned earlier were pillars of the community uh-huh

they went to events they went to all their kids, you know, games, sports games, neighborhood parties, church, local events. They're just highly visible and highly respected in their community. After 17 years of marriage, Richard transitioned to a successful private practice where he started making $700,000 a year. Okay, Richard. So lots coming in. And so with that amount of money that he was then able to, by the late 1990s, the Hamlins moved into a million dollar hilltop home in Eldorado Hills,

Colorado, which is a she, she suburb of Sacramento. You did not have the name alone gave it away either. Right. Yeah. I know it has that, like, it's like the same thing i feel like i always say this but like how high school friends names always sound like high school friends names this is like a wealthy suburb always sounds like a wealthy suburb i like just saying that i felt dirty not having my pinky up listening to you and high tea at a what is a yacht club probably a yacht club but okay who knows so they seemed

like a normal well-off family even though things were starting to spiral downward at this point so it starts with well um Richard basically starts asking Susan a lot of questions which questions are fine but he starts specifically asking about her own childhood and kind of prodding into like more specifically did your father abuse you did your father sexually abuse you as a kid and like she hadn't brought that up like he brought it to her to be like hi did this happen to you and they were they were married already yeah. So do we find out why he's now asking out of the blue? I feel like if you were to ask or if that conversation were to be addressed, it would happen before you got...

I mean, I don't know people's life stories, but it feels like something that would have already been in the general knowledge of their relationship. Right, or based on something that he noticed or saw and right you know was taking a clue from so he claims that he was uncomfortable with how affectionate her father was with her meaning yeah that their hugs and like kisses on the cheek were too intimate seeming okay which okay right juries out because obviously both of those things can be very consensual very not consensual so like yeah i don't i i don't know where i stand yet because i haven't seen it with my own eyes but right i also know like 50 of me wants to be like fuck you for judging like how

yeah a parent and child love on each other and second of all it's like wait was it actually looking really creepy and out of character like what's happened so i don't i don't know no for sure it feels very nuanced but then susan does initially deny anything like she's like oh no that's not what's happening here gotcha gotcha denied remembering any abuse gotcha yeah i know because i i was gonna say like growing up like my family were new Yorkers. I don't know if that's like, if it, that makes it a regional thing. I feel like anyone else I've talked to who was like on my side about it were New Yorkers, but I was one of those kids who like, until like very, until I got much older, I like kissed my parents on the lips all the time. Like

that was like, it was just like, it's like kissing them on the cheek, but it was on the mouth. And it was never grossly sexual. It was just like how it felt. It felt like, oh, it's just what you do. And I've seen people say some like conflicting opinions on that. And I'm like, well, fuck you. Like, that's not how things go. No, exactly. So, but if she's saying that it wasn't ever a, like nothing happened.

She says to this day, nothing happened. Exactly. Yeah. She's like, everything, like, I was never uncomfortable by those things you noticed. And also, there was no abuse in my past. So that was kind of the baseline there. Exactly. Gotcha.

So, right. It's like, don't, right, don't judge this parent-daughter relationship. Without knowing what's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also, like, being told by her, kind without knowing what's going on yeah yeah yeah and also like being told by her kind of what's going on she seemed to process it and then be like no i not that's not the case and then um sadly richard kept at it he wasn't stalled by susan saying that that wasn't the case he also also pulled out old childhood photos of Susan sitting on her father's lap and of her sleeping during sleepovers.

Okay. But again, Susan is like, no, like trying to remember anything possibly because they've been married for a while now. And she's like, I don't, there's nothing like I don't. So weird. Yeah. I see the same thing you are potentially thinking or seeing like it may be like out of context it could look weird but it could also have just been like my upbringing and there was nothing wrong with it yeah exactly right sure yeah so now Susan

continues to try to remember because Richard keeps pressing her, but denies the allegations that Richard's bringing. And then the issue sort of morphs into Richard worrying that Susan has repressed memories and that she's not fully remembering everything, which is why she's denying everything that he's. God, that's so manipulative. Isn't that awful? Now convincing her she has memories she doesn't even remember because they don't, as far as we know, exist. Right. Which is then like you're planting something in there, which like goes into like brainwashing. Yeah.

Oh, for sure. Because now she's going to start like weirdly resenting her father or something. And like, oh my God. Wow. That gets really insidious really fast. It's really hard and wild. Yeah. Especially like mentally just in terms of like, right. Brainwashing, like coercion, probably not super. I don't know. This definitely gives away a lot about Richard and the whole situation is that at the around this time when he's like, oh, I think you have repressed memories. around this time when he's like oh i think you have repressed memories um he also starts complaining that susan wasn't sexual enough in their marriage okay well okay yeah right okay so we're instant like it's like there were some like back and forth like maybe questions but i feel

like that was the note where i was like and he's a villain and it's him and it's him here we are and men are still trash okay that's where we correct we've landed there we got it we're here it's like he had me manipulated for a second i was like it's like no no more benefit of the doubt in my life uh okay sure so now in the story i'm currently thinking i don't like this guy correct yes because he apparently demanded sex several times a day and tried oh well of course she would be like i'm no thank you i'm so busy i'm right like are you kidding like i'm all of a sudden a stay-at-home mom because you chose that for me like i've got shit going on i'm i can't i'm i know right right and like right it's also like no judgment if that is your schedule, props to you if that is a consensual schedule. If you are both happy and you can make that work.

Yeah. I can't. It's up to you. I need a nap like at least five times a day instead. Correct. And also, right. The demanding is the like little like crux of the sentence there because he's demanding it several times a day. And he's trying to link he's trying to basically say like, wow, you don't want sex with me because you have these repressed memories of sexual abuse in your past that you're not taking care of or you're not like noticing. also pointed out in her notes um that she sent to me that this was also a point where susan recalls um later than um recalling back remembers her mom telling her that quote marriage is hard and you really have to work at it which like things like that are again also kind of nuanced because obviously like nothing what in life is super easy and also like you shouldn't there are certain things you shouldn't have to work at like that are just like this is bad and yeah you get to say goodbye to that yeah there

it's it it's one of those things where i mean as someone who has not even had to deal with like religious guilt or anything like that it i still have heard from a lot of conservative people though of like oh you gotta like i again keep mind i like know of the duggars and the pizza so that's where i'm getting my information from but like i've heard them say like you have to like you know cater to your husband and like be willing and available and it's like like you should just want to do it if you don't want to do it then don't fucking do it correct it should be like a conversation yeah that was some of the stuff a mutual experience a mutually fun experience a mutual experience

should we all have mutual experiences yes correct it's not like you right obviously we don't need to right but like the the just the like pressure and manipulation and yes I say that because for her mom to be saying like oh sometimes life is hard you have to make your marriage work I could see somebody grasping at straws hearing that and translating it for themselves into if I don't want to do this I should still do it to keep my marriage you know fulfilled right exactly yeah especially when you're being so manipulated by the person that you're you know quote-unquote supposed to be working it out with and that person is saying it's not their fault

it's some outer right thing coming into it yeah that just feels like a really big like mind fuck so after multiple long talks with Richard Susan still is like i just don't think any of this happened like i just don't really think it but richard is still not believing it so richard becomes obsessed with proving he was right about the abuse allegations so he actually ends up quitting his job holy shit yeah can you imagine being this poor woman's father and finding out that your son-in-law is on this weird manhunt to prove that he sexually assaulted your kid like yeah that comes in a little bit later too because obviously the dad does find out and right it's just so bad so right Richard became obsessed with this um he quit his job and started researching

what he felt like was the biggest case of his career, which was the case against Susan's father. Okay. Yeah. So not surprisingly, he became more and more controlling throughout this time. The Hamlin house was sort of in a form of lockdown. It sounds like no one was allowed to answer the phone except Richard. He alone controlled all the family's finances, which is always like a gross, never good sign yeah that's not not great at that point it's like yikes richard had so worked himself up in terms of susan's father's alleged abuse that he decided to sue her father for depriving him of a wife with a healthy sexual appetite. Shut the fuck up.

Are you kidding me? It's so bad. Eva? It's so bad. This story is your last name. It's gross. It's so gross. It's so bad.

So is that a legitimate thing you can sue someone for i think you can sue someone for anything inside any reason like i think it's not like you know like their chart specific charges that like when things are brought against people like federally or statewide like i think there are specific charges you have to be like hi you are charged with this thing i think when you sue people i could be completely wrong please definitely correct me if I'm wrong but I think you can just be like hi you're being sued for oh and it was also for a million dollars he thought that he had earned a million dollars forget it oh my god okay um yeah uh wow that's awful yeah yeah I think oh i actually did write the next bullet i wrote

this is the grossest thing possible and one of those sentences that has so many things wrong with it you don't know where to start that's where i that's exactly how i feel i feel like i i don't know i am kind of frozen in time it's just so stupid immobilizing it's like yeah it feels also like one of those things so like you hear about and like back when husbands were sending their wives to asylums for anything just so they could go cheat on them and never check them out again it's it feels like it's like if anything very old-timey and like but even then it doesn't even feel like that's a realistic reason. Like if you could just sue someone's father for their daughter, not turning out a certain way and like

to make it something so like vulnerable too. Yeah, no, it, for sure. It really does sound like sort of a modern day version of that, of like, right. That used to happen. And I'm sure definitely still happens in a lot of different ways, but this does sound like a really overachieving version of it. Because it's like he's suing his father. He's going to all of this mind games. Like imagine the arrogance where you're like, oh, I can do this and everyone will back me. Like what are you talking about? What are you talking about?

I have to think. I have a bullet down here later. But I have to think it's because he's a prosecutor. like, oh, yeah, or was like, you know, and is still really well known as like, you know, head of like a legal fucking department,'s father, Richard also started to make Susan participate in, quote, memory getting sessions with him. What does this what does that mean? Is that is that as bad as I think it is? It's it gets that it gets pretty bad. I'm not exactly sure what you're thinking right now but it okay is i think i want to keep it in my own head okay it's really bad i think it's really bad it's mostly just like apparently like talks for hours it does escalate i'll mention this later too but it does escalate to like involving weapons like he is basically him being like

you have repressed memories and her just being like completely like I don't like not knowing what to do like what do you do in that situation when like someone is that adamant and you're like this is not reality this is not I'm telling you that's insane it's really wild yeah so all okay and sometimes they lasted all night long just him and her until daybreak and it was at this moment it's just like his version of talk therapy of like yeah let's like but that feels like so it feels like a big conversation that ends in a dead end when like it starts with i don't remember like so now we're right from there like exactly it's like then he's building so much in his

mind in his you know narrative of what's happening it's just so wild I feel like with all this money he could have just sent her to therapy and then I hope that therapist would have been like please leave this man correct right the therapist could have been like hi um maybe uh maybe he sucks maybe that yeah maybe everything he's saying is incorrect and it seemed it definitely seems like I mean we can definitely talk about it later too but like it's just such a like an emotional torture type situation that like it definitely seems like she knew also like that's just such a hard I imagine with this kind of talk therapy, the reason it went for hours and hours and hours is because she was at a dead end. And I imagine that it I mean, I've told you about my past.

I imagine that from personal experience, eventually it just breaks you down and you will say whatever it takes just to shut them up for five minutes. And then they just keep harping and harping until eventually you've built out a crazy storyline. And even you don't know what's going on anymore. Right. It's crazy making. No, exactly. Like, that definitely factors into her confession from earlier where it's like a lot of the sources were saying and she even said herself like i i just didn't know what to say anymore so i just i and i didn't want to be with him so i had to say something to get

away yeah just to just to like appease them so you have a second of peace exactly yeah which is so so scary um so finally when she wouldn't admit to the abuse that Richard was still like really obviously harping on, Richard became violent. Shit. Okay. So he's now moved up from emotional abuse to domestic violence. He just starts devoting all of his time to this. Ellen calls it the phantom case against Susan's father. Okay.

Which I thought was a great term, phantom case. I think so too. Right. Yeah. So Richard cut off all contact between their family and Susan's family and friends. Meanwhile, he basically becomes Charlie from the mailroom from It's Always Sunny because in his study. I'm sorry.

That's like the worst time to laugh. No, I like built it in because he literally does like in his study he like pulls himself away in his study he's got like papers everywhere like books and research he's like scribbling and highlighting and circling everything just being like this is evidence this proves this and this proves like you know just like trying to link everything to this thing that doesn't doesn't exist that's right like i mean truly grasping at straws like yeah literally aren't even there yeah and like right exactly you're grasping at like phantom straws like completely miscellaneous like miscellaneous not even like yeah it's just so wild

so he's charlie in his study uh he all in the name of finding evidence against to like continue to now he's already filed a suit but like to continue finding evidence against her father meanwhile the memory getting sessions get worse he keeps a gun in his lap as he's questioning her and or other

weapons including his sword what yeah okay I know or other weapons, including his sword. What? Yeah. Okay. I know. I feel like I... I don't... Okay.

I know. It's just so, like, wild. Like, again, it's, like, another... Oh, you have a sword now? Like, what? That's another one of those twists. That part of my brain is thinking, like, that's fucking horrible and traumatic. And the other part of me is, like, I feel like i should have known earlier that he had a sword

but like right but i also you know what is the jarring part about that is because first of all i didn't know he had a sword and second of all i have never known anyone to have a sword and actually have it for a threatening reason like so to me yeah i feel like now swords are like something you either collect or you learn about or like i'm very like i'm not in the cosplay world but i'm pretty adjacent to it so i see a lot of like you know swords for like hobby stuff right but i feel like a gun immediately threatened me just hearing the story but a sword i have to tell myself like oh no it's being used as like a a threat as a weapon right and it's like so jarring because now it just feels like anything could be a weapon at this point if it's in his lap and it's right really creepy it's

a it's a i don't know another hurdle to jump through to understand the story but no for sure it's like the it's like the the chaos of the choice right it's like jarring yeah it's like that's exactly you already had a gun why do you need a sword like yeah it's like now you're just getting creative with like making someone truly fear for their life yeah like it's it's i think that's what it is i think that's a perfect way to say it because it it feels like there's a little extra sick twist to it of like i could shoot you but i'm gonna just like do whatever I want at random at this point and you're still gonna feel in danger right and like in the same way that like you know any I feel like

brain is going through all of the possibilities of any situation even if it's like small it's like you're now given a different fit like she was probably then at that point like wow i could get shot wow i'm already getting abused wow i'm like you know physically abused now there's a fucking sword like it feels like it's almost like i don't know in some in some way like showing her just you can't even be certain about the type of pain i could put you in it's like i'm just gonna at different times display different ways that you are in full danger and you can't even guess which one is going to happen to you no that's such a good way to put it too a mental torture yeah and like right falls right in with that like i mean toxic masculinity doesn't even seem to cover it because that doesn't even seem like, like enough of

impactful words. Yeah, for that. But you're right. It feels like that controlling, toxic thing where it's like, you can't even feel in control of the fact that you're going to get hurt. It's like, you don't even know in what way that's going to happen. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. I didn't mean I didn't mean to harp on it. But you said sword and my brain did gymnastics. So no, that's such a good way to put it too because i hadn't thought through all of the ways that that like really implied such a like a chaotic like continued emotional abuse it's just awful and not to also like completely negate the fact that at other times he had a literal fucking gun in his lap like holy shit it's just on top of bad like it's all

bad um so maybe not surprisingly although he was making so much money although at this point um the hamlin family went bankrupt which obviously didn't help anything or the stress that anyone was under even like i was thinking like like shake him out of it like it felt like this moment felt like a kind of almost like a cult point mentality of like maybe he's so far into it that he's like I have to believe this now I have to keep going with it or maybe he already believed it I would think that like not having money anymore would really like shake you out of something into some other sort of survival mode but yeah also obviously can make things way worse and usually does i feel like in true crime

um so um then trying to get everything in writing like a lawyer richard wrote a letter detailing his what he thought was susan's childhood abuse and convinced Susan to sign it. Wow. Really like a lawyer. Yeah. Right. Like all that we need now is a notary. Like, are you kidding me? Maybe he was,

I mean, who knows? I don't know who was a notary or who's not. Maybe he was his own notary. I mean, I don't know if he can be your own notary, but it sounds twisted enough that he, I mean,

he literally quit his job to, for this like weird challenge he put himself in. I wouldn't be surprised if he also went out and found a way to become a notary. Right. Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't be surprised either. Oh, so it's just so heavy. Like, the whole, all of it is, like, so, like, emotionally heavy.

So maybe he didn't go out to a notary, but he did make a ton of copies. So he found a copier somewhere. And he plastered them all around Susan's father's neighborhood. Oh, no. I know. Oh, my God. This poor, poor father. I know. I mean, this poor woman also.

Just like now that we've moved on to a new character in this story. This poor man. I know. Waking up that day. And now walking outside. And that's what's all over your neighborhood. like now that we've moved on to a new character in this story this poor man i know like waking up that day and like now walking outside and that's what's all over your neighborhood and like no matter what he says for the rest of time someone's gonna be skeptical you know i know which it is it so it's interesting later um i had the quote but i'll i'll share it here that um susan's later susan's sister did testify that apparently

their dad wasn't a great dad she was like listen he's not the best but also he definitely didn't sexually abuse at least me like and I did not witness anything with Susan and Susan is also saying that she never saw anything so I did think that was kind of an interesting kind of you know twist that she was like yeah and all like he's not great it's like and also 100 but he's not zero exactly yeah he's not what this is but he's you know yeah exactly so i thought that was really um interesting and right again nuanced and that's gonna be horrible to wake up and see that accusation to all your neighbors. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And if your relationship is already like not where maybe he wanted it to be with his daughters. Like if that like it just I can't imagine coming. And he probably also was like, what the fuck did I do to this guy? Like. Right.

Out of the blue. Truly. Yeah. So Richard also started making Susan keep a diary where she talked about her childhood abuse and now he starts escalating to the idea that susan was not just a victim of childhood sexual abuse but now he starts layering in the idea that she is also abusing their children as well wow it gets i get it gets so it gets so layered so fast and i'm still recovering from three things ago yeah i know and it's so it's just so sad and it's all so like not there like it's just he's pulling at just like yeah he's just nothing

and like why why would you i mean i'm i'm sure the reason is control or power or something but like why would you if the whole thing was like you weren't getting laid enough as much as you for the amount of sex you thought you deserved why now are you going to go ruin another man's life and your children's lives because now you're going to convince them that their mom is abusing them like why are your kids having to go through this because you weren't getting laid like i know it gets so fucking sad when the kids come into it they that comes up in just a few points too because he does right he like tells them ruining generations of people yeah just like the right the malicious like the just

like the radiating maliciousness out from this one fucked up person is so it's so awful i mean he sounds like the the king of incels like just like well she's not giving me sex so the kids are gonna hate her her father's life's gonna be ruined her life is certainly ruined yeah and i'm still not getting laid it's like what's the problem here not me right yeah exactly unless wait a minute what were where i was? I was just going to say, so there, I didn't find, like there wasn't in the notes that I found in the articles that I found, but I assume that he was also raping her as well.

Like it was, it was quote working for him that she was discovering this about him. And therefore their sex life was back to where he wanted it. And it was 100%. That's what I was assuming. There's wanted it. And it was 100% rape. Essentially. That's what I was assuming. There's a point later that I was like, oh, I think that is what's happening. And it's right.

Just like awful. This woman needs a hug. She needs a real fucking hug. Yes. So this is also so, so sad. But where Ellen points out in her notes that richard starts getting really targeted with his abuse and so richard actually at one point broke her ribs why and then because she was in in the just the course of things like not okay i didn't know if

there was a certain reason okay i think it was just along the lines of like not agreeing to certain reason okay i think it was just along the lines of like not agreeing to potentially in one of the memory getting sessions and so he would do things like break her ribs and then hit it you know like target that spot again like knowing obviously where it was it's so so bad it's so bad um he would force her to stay in her room obviously isolating her from her children he even slept with a gun pointing at susan oh my god wow this is okay wow i know i'm so sorry at some point there's at some point there's just nothing i can even say. That's. I know. I'm so sorry. Is this person still alive and around? Is she okay?

Can you just tell me now if she's okay? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Wow.

I just, I just so hope the world for her. Okay. I know. And I'm so sorry because it does get worse. I don't want to hear it um i'm gonna hear it obviously it's her story it needs to be heard but i am not gonna enjoy it and i also wonder like i know you're gonna answer it for me in three seconds but how the fuck does this get worse i know it so it continues escalating basically along the trajectory of him seeing her as not not a victim anymore but seeing her as participating in and this is where the satanic

cult stuff really comes in because oh my god i fucking forgot there's a whole satanic cult to happen yet yeah does it turn into well you just tell me you just gosh. I'm so sorry. It's such a hard story. But, right, again, like, one that, and, like, you know, I was talking to Ellen about it, and she was like, you know, this wasn't a story that I found a ton of places. So it's, like, seems like it maybe isn't one that has been, like, super covered. And it's also, like, wow, like, right, her story really needs to be heard and validated. Someone needs to be talking about this. Like someone went through this. Yeah. Oh, it's just so awful. So. Wow. Okay. So Richard, right. Moves from Susan in his mind from victim to willing participant. He starts telling his children

that their grandfather is a high priest in a satanic cult and that Susan was attempting to become the high priestess in that satanic cult. I'm going to let you say a few more things before I start asking questions because we'll be here all night. Yeah. So this is also really fucking sad because this is where he starts bringing the kids into it and he would like abuse Susan in front of the children. Oh my God god I know and tell basically tell the kids that like that um she had the devil in her that she was demonic

a part of this cult um along with their grandfather right but like wow they obviously know um the children admit that they at the time believed their father, but also it's like, how would you not? It's survival at that point. Exactly. Self-preservation. Of course, you're going to believe whatever,

whatever keeps you alive. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And they kind of, it sounds like they talked amongst themselves of like, some of the kids talked about it in terms of like, oh my gosh,

we need to pray for her. Others were like, no, she's lost. And like what their dad was saying which was like she's lost to evil and is already completely which that's also kind of like christian ideology which i feel like is like a flip in terms of like pointing at quote satanism even though i feel like that's not I have a hunch yeah I think Satanists don't do this correct I feel like didn't you and I

one time look up the satanic tenets and we were like I think we are Satanists we believe all of these things I'm certainly on board with a lot of this it was like very consent based and it was very like very consent based I feel like I want to put quotes around Satanism anytime it comes up because it was very like, I forget which. Very consent-based. Yeah. So this is like, I feel like I want to like put quotes around Satanism anytime it comes up because it's very

like, it seems like what like a conservative would point at and be like that Satanism. Whereas like actual Satanism seems like, do we all want to have a good time? We're all okay with that? I mean, I don't know, but like, I feel like that one time. But only if you want to if you don't want to i don't want to exactly yeah i'm just gonna talk it out so okay i feel like i'm just gonna ask some questions because we really went from not talking about quote satanic cults at all to immediately him thinking that she's trying or telling them that she's trying to take the rank of a high priestess like did he have interest in this shit like it sounds like like where did that come from unless he had like an additional mental breakdown like right yeah i actually caused that fully no

like part of me thinks like it did mention they went to church um in the okay you know earlier so part of me was thinking like well what's the you know quote unquote like worst thing he could think of to say about her i guess so yeah i mean all signs point to the devil i guess right like so okay it also sorry i will say too because i had this at the end, but I'll say it now too, that he basically, like, even after all of this, like, doubles down on the idea that he was doing this to, like, save children from being abused and say, you know, and like save, he thought that, you know, use terms like tip of the iceberg potentially. So things like that just really started sounding very QAnon-y too. So part of me. Oh, yeah. You said incel before, like it sounds also very kind of along those lines too.

So I wonder if there was some connection there that like, maybe, yeah. I mean, I don't know. It was like early, this was 2004. So like early internet-y times. I mean, not early internet. So I was still like, you you know a little bit before but but definitely not what it is today yeah yeah i my my big wonder was was like why is he bringing the kids into it if he's trying to protect them when he went to keep them away from the mom versus right watch me beat her and now you're also traumatized because if he right i mean i'm one of the smartest things my mom ever taught me was you can't rationalize with irrational people and i don't know why i'm

trying to logically make sense of something that is completely out of touch with reality so yeah part of me wants to shut up but also part of me is like if you're so about like taking care of the kids then but it's not about taking care of the kids it's making sure that they hate her exactly yeah it's the controlling thing that like it's even using that as an excuse for the behavior too so um this is also really bad everything is really bad Richard escalates it even further and so in in at a point where he's abusing Susan in front of the kids, he says, quote, that he is going to get rid of Susan and get them a new mom. So earlier when she at the very beginning, when she was like thinking of killing her husband i'm on board like i'm like i'm yeah it started it started with me wondering why she would admit something like that

and now i get it and now i and now i get it right it is it is interesting like ironic that he that's something that i think he told her to say. And also at this point, if she had, it would have been very much self-defense. Oh, yes. I don't condone murder PSA, but also like that meme of Lucille Bluth going, good for her. That's where I'd leave it if I found out she did kill him. Yeah. Okay, well. Right.

It just is like so chaotic and so torturous and abusive it's like how else does this stop so um yeah okay i know there are a few more like it literally still ramps up a few more points and then we we come back down so i'm so sorry in advance. I really, I feel like I say this a lot and like people take it as a joke, but I don't mean it in a joke. So if it comes off in like a weird jokey way, I don't mean to, but truly how can this get worse? I know. I know.

Every time I think that is the end, it is, there's more to it. Yeah. Well, let me tell you. end it is there's more to it yeah um well let me tell you uh so the house then goes from sort of like the not like metaphorical still very real prison but this is now he like really locks down the house like they barricade the house um start talking about he starts talking about how susan's father is plotting to kill him um okay this is auto okay i forgot we have like one little little ish lighter note it's not really but it's not like the ramp up and then down okay i'll just tell you so um one time this is also to to the point that everything was so locked down and he had so much

you know abusive control of the house that one time jehovah's witnesses came to the door and richard ran after them with a gun and accidentally shot himself in the leg oh well i don't know if i'm supposed to feel bad but correct yes i certainly don't um but of course like like in his own head, that's not what happened. So he came back in and told his kids at least that the Jehovah's Witnesses were a part of the Satanic cult and they had come to kill him. And that quote, the Satanists had shot him. Okay. Which I feel like this is the point that I remember.

But maybe it was just also in the story that there was a moment like this that I just remember being like oh my gosh this boohoo this like yeah fucking piece of shit like yeah and like at some point at some point i i want to like recognize that there's clearly like a serious mental an illness going on yeah but it gets still like what really outweighs it all of it is that this poor woman is going through like i mean nothing nothing compares to what this poor woman's going through right horrible yeah no exactly um so at this point richard this is where we ramp up and then i promise we will come back down um so richard forces susan and two of their children the two older boys into the family car and really terrible he makes the kids point loaded paintball guns at susan's head the whole drive what i know it's so awful oh my god yeah one of the boys later testified that he 100% thought his dad was going to kill his mom, like, multiple times, including this day.

He, Richard, pulls over near an empty field and takes Susan out literally into the middle of this field, points a loaded gun at her head, and for whatever reason decides not to kill her in the middle of the field. And instead, the next step of the story is taking Susan to the Sacramento Police Station. So we ramp all the way up there, and then we meet back at the beginning of the story is her confessing to her quote-unquote crimes to the second my adrenaline is sky high i it doesn't look it i'm trying to keep it together because you keep saying it's eventually gonna not be bad anymore so i hope this is the beginning of that it's sort of the beginning there's like one more like i'm so sorry for your adrenaline there is one more little like blip in this because she so she confesses everything obviously thinking that like

she you know she's obviously just so scared she's like let me just say anything and everything and also even if the cops arrest me i won't be with him like at least i'll be yeah safer you know yeah so she confesses is in this police station the cops in not great form send child protective services to the house to remove all of the children but tell susan that she is free to go home with richard i'm so sorry for all of our nervous systems that that point like when I read that I was like I want to break things want to break things you know one of the hardest things about being a podcaster is I have to for the sake of audio have to have something to say I have nothing I got nothing I know it's so bad and like I can't imagine the the gut wrenching of you tried and you failed yeah I feel like in hindsight if I were one of those kids I would think every day about how I should have just put a paintball gun to my dad's

head like he was in the front seat just get him in the fucking eye or something. I don't know. Right. All of the mental like back and forth of anything. And like, this is the part too, where I was like, I can't even imagine like walking into an establishment that like you are societally told is there to protect you and protect vulnerable people, protect your community. And they so glaringly don't do that for you. And also just, right. Like it's the thing too, where like he is a prosecutor. So like, I'm sure these cops also have seen him. Like, you know, cops have to go in right to court,

even for like traffic tickets that they pull over. So they know this guy, like, I bet you it was so was so it was just easy and he's a pillar of the community so it's like what are you talking about you're having a mental breakdown or you're a woman yeah exactly so i bet as wild as like they thought it sounded i like they still clearly obviously sided with him initially because the patriarchy because like cops yeah you know it's just all of that it's so awful kids i just i wow well here's a good point because thankfully the children were questioned and they were able to tell the cops what they had actually seen versus what richard had like told them and told them to say and, the quote-unquote evidence that he had gathered.

So the police, as soon as they heard, I think that was, like, kind of a turning point. As soon as they heard what the children were saying, they were like, Thank God they were, like, I mean, I'm always, like, so bristly about using this word, but thank God they were so brave enough. Right. Which, I mean, a little kid defying their abusive father that's fucking brave right so I know and like I was thinking too about like those questioning sessions like I just hope they were I mean it sounds like they thankfully that was what turned the narrative for the police

in terms of like them being able to arrest Richard because they then do but I also was just like oh my god those kids like I hope that questioning session wasn't, I mean, it couldn't be anything other than traumatizing, but I just hope that it was handled in a way that was like, you know, I don't know. Yeah. All of the easy, it made it even a bit easier. I'm not sure, but. But also by them, by them standing up, they saved their mom. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. Gosh, yeah. Especially hearing that quote from like, it was the 18-year-old at the time of the trial that was like, had testified and said that like, yeah, this day amongst multiple other times, we thought he was going to kill her. So there is one more really gross part that, so when Susan goes back to the house with Richard, he is trying to convince Susan to have a romantic, fun evening with him. Which is, that is the end. Because then he gets arrested. Thank fucking God. Thank God. Yeah.

So his trial, this was in 2004. His trial in 2006, two years later, is very, in some ways, Ted Bundy-ish because he represents himself in court. Of course. Which. I mean, just it tracks with all the other, like, narcissism doesn't even begin to cover it. Yeah. Like, this beyond holier-than-thou image of himself but he can just get away with everything why not why not also be your own prosecutor literally why not be just or your own defense or whatever yeah exactly ellen did point out in her

notes that this also made his susan testify directly to him in court i didn't even think of that i hadn't either but ellen pointed out twisted and it feels so intentional right yeah that it's like another level of control that even in this place that's supposed to be unbiased you're still you still like to your abuser who like if you've been in an abusive relationship like Like, if you've been in an abusive relationship, like, you addressing what your abuser has done, point blank, period, not flying. No. It just isn't, it's just not going to happen. Unless you, I don't know, maybe she felt safe under, like, the fact that she was surrounded by all these people. But did she then have to go home with him after this?

No. No, I don't think so. He had been arrested at that point so i think he was being held so i don't think i think at that point once he was arrested they were looking him in the eyes and talking about what he did i can't imagine and being questioned like if he's representing himself like doesn't that mean he gets to question to her like witnesses to people that are on the stand like i can't imagine what she had to go through no it seems like there should be some semblance of more protection there that like that doesn't happen because that seems like a complete like completely compromising the reason

that a trial is happening you know like you're trying to get to the truth and like if an abusive person is there you're abusive person yeah telling you to tell the truth knowing that you better fucking not like are you kidding me it's so gross it's so gross so basically he thankfully was sentenced to life in prison so he is still in prison um but because of the way california law is set up is what um was said in a few different sources he has been eligible for parole which his poor family every time is like no like yeah fucking no so in 2019 richard hamlin was uh denied parole but is eligible again in about seven years it sounded like but it does sound like every time like all of the talks about it are very like

no don't let him out but like like and what would even like I mean I don't I mean no one knows but what would happen would he try to go back to her? Would he like do this to another woman? Like, right. Like what would happen? There's just no, there's nothing good that would come from him. Like his kids probably feel the safest they have ever. Like now, like imagine him coming out and always wonder, I would not be surprised if they all changed their name. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. So i only have a few more points here that questionable uh true crime blog that i was telling you about earlier so i read that one and got to the end and was like i felt like their coverage was just a little bit like not it just felt a little too middling like it was trying to be too unbiased and i was like okay but this woman was like

emotionally physically and sexually yeah i feel like this is this is the one we're allowed to like yes be open with our feelings correct correct but so this author the author of this blog claims and who knows if this is true or not but claim so this uh true crime article the blog article was written uh right around the time of richard's arrest so it came out and this author claims that he got an email from Richard having read it and then being like, hi, I liked your coverage. And the author, yeah. And so the author even like kind of waffles and was like, oh, I guess I was like maybe too unbiased or I was trying to be like whatever, whatever. I mean, I guess if he's like a reporter

or a journalist or something, they teach you to be unbiased, right? So maybe he was like, I did my job too well. Maybe, but it was a really like the blog itself is not connected to anything. So it seems like it's not like super credible. But basically, it kind of gives a bit more like if this is true, the author quoted Richard's email saying like things like he did it to quote, get help for those children who have been violated so that they can begin on the road to health, which like a lot of it just sounded very QAnon-y, like early stages, like that. If he were out today, he certainly would fall into that world. Yeah, so that I thought that was kind of an interesting like tidbit whether or not it seems like maybe it's who knows if that's like potentially true or not um and Susan thankfully

Susan went through just the most like hellish awful ordeal she actually now speaks about domestic violence and I have this last quote from her um this was during the last the last time that when richard was denied parole she said that process of even just him being the option of his parole being there was quote it was a grueling process and re-traumatizing for us all she said we can only hope richard does not appeal the decision or petition to advance the next hearing date thus shortening the seven years but for now we can breathe jeez wow and how so do we know their ages like where where is she i keep thinking of the kids as like our age now i think like it's actually probably it might be around that because I think so I think at the time of the trial in 2006 one of the sons was 18 so that would have been a little bit younger

than me so like yeah maybe around like in between our ages maybe I think so too 2006 of 18 yeah because in 2006 I was 14 yeah and I would have been a sophomore in college I think so I would have been like I would have been a sophomore or a sophomore freshman in high school okay yeah so right in the middle of us wow so yeah and how many kids were there four oh my god yeah wow if any of you ever hear this I'm so fucking sorry god it's it's just such a like i just right my heart goes out to all of them and like just the idea of like i don't know i feel like exposing people who are that manipulative feels really like important to write talk about a story like this because it's like who knows what like it sounds like he is like the system has flipped and it

sounds like he is very being taken as like the danger that he is like the system has flipped and it sounds like he is very being taken as like the danger that he is but it's also like that's such a fucking dangerous position like men like that in power that are just trained their whole lives that they are entitled to anything and then will say anything and it's just so fucking scary and people believe them first over anyone else it's like oh it's just so awful so i know yeah to if that's if any of that family is is listening um yeah god well just i'm so sorry we wish you all the good things yeah everyone send good vibes please um so i think you ended up doing christine a favor by her never having to cover that i think if christine if you're listening she's probably like thank god like i like that was really really dark but also like you said there's not a lot of sources out

there that have covered this yeah it was mostly like ellen mentioned that too when i was talking to her about it the other day it was was, yeah, some articles, mostly the Evil Lives Here episode. And then, yeah, I really tried to look because I kept thinking like, oh, wow, like that part. It was the part about him shooting himself in the leg. I was like, for some reason, I feel like I remember that. But then again, maybe that happened in a different story. But yeah, I looked all around other podcasts, too, to be like, was this out there? But I didn't.

Let me know if I overlooked anything. But I didn't seem to find anything. I would not know. I mean, it seems pretty, pretty thorough. It also just seemed pretty horrible. Yeah. How do we welcome, by the way, Eva, to what we always struggle with? I know.

Now how do we bounce back from that to end the show I should have thought of something I don't have a baby app to or a baby my baby is the size of a molecule and actually not even that big it doesn't exist um yikes how do we bread candle how do oh yeah can you actually give a shout out to the bread candle yeah what was the company called oh my god it smells so much like bread it's called the burlap bag baked bread bag oh they don't just do bread oh yeah no the bread is just the there's a coffee one there's an apple cinnamon one there's one called cowboy kush i don't know what that oh sounds maybe like throwback to my story i'm excited to tell you my story next week

uh the second part i'm trying to i don't know how much of it i want to say or like leave you on. Because there is a twist. To the story. Of Glen Tavern Inn. And what the psychic has. Come up with. So. Anyway. Thank you for coming on again. This is your third week.

Are you feeling more. Obviously you're feeling more comfortable. You're just like throwing out horrific stories left and right. I know. Next one is not quite. Well it's like in some ways. It's like a bigger story but I think it's less like emotionally impactful because it might a it might be one you've already heard and

b might be like a little less uh like I don't know the right words to say but I think I think you'll like it I guess we'll figure it out after my psychic twist next week. Yeah. So thank you everyone for listening and also, wow, everyone good luck with the rest of your day. Whatever happens on your day today, just know that it's only going up from here because we've just bummed everyone out. Oh my gosh.

I'm so sorry. I'm really doing the thing. You're just doing Christine's work is what you're doing. She passed on the torch to the right person. So thank you. Next week, I think that's your last week guest hosting. And then we've got a new person coming on afterwards. Oh, my gosh.

Thank you for having me. And it's so nice to be able to chat with you in this way. And thanks, everyone, so nice to be able to chat with you in this way. And thanks everyone for listening to me. I hope I did Christine's seat. Obviously not here amongst all of my stuff. But Christine's like metaphorical seat, Justice. You certainly left a mark. That's for sure.

Okay. So we'll see you next week for your last episode and finish up my story. And hear something maybe fingers crossed better than this week's because wow and that's why we drink