And That's Why We Drink - E269 Cardiologically Speaking and a Magical Scarf Swoosh

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Welcome to episode 269, where we happen to know a lot about applesauce. This week Em takes us out west to the Twin Bridges Orphanage, which almost became the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame. Then Christine brings us the first in a two-part series on Alexander Pichushkin, the Chess Board Killer. It turns out "all maniacs want to talk"... and that's why we drink! More information on places to donate to help the crisis in Ukraine: Save the Children https://www.savethechildren.org ShelterBox https://www.shelterboxusa.orgHumane Society International https://www.hsi.org

before christine can say anything she showed me the cutest little picture of her little baby oh it was the sweetest picture i've seen so far of the leona oh she's a little bug I mean she did as I was saying slice her forehead open in the middle of the night with her fingernails and I just heard bloody screaming coming from her crib but um I trimmed her little nails today so that shouldn't happen anymore but oh baby she I really I told Christine before we started recording that the picture is currently zoomed up all the way on my computer and then i said like okay okay i took i i i took the picture down and i lied she's so cute i'm just still looking at her well it makes me happy that you guys love her you and eva makes me happy because she loves you like i said even if she doesn't know yet she's gonna

love you so much future her loves the crap out of me i'm very yeah very excited to meet future her didn't you say you're bringing joke because you're gonna see her loves the crap out of me i'm very yeah very excited to meet future her didn't you say you're bringing joke because you're gonna see her soon i am well because we have a show in cincy coming out right and so you're gonna bring all sorts of jokes and i i asked if it was just pictures of the ceiling but it sounds like you have more planned i have a couple a couple things on my sleeve i'm ready to to try out uh see how she reacts. Did we ever talk about the ceiling on the show? I don't know. I feel like I said it quite a lot when I first met her because I was just like such a weird Christine thing.

She's just really enamored with the ceiling is the whole story. It just feels like something. If I had heard that about you as a baby, I'd be like, fits right in. Makes a lot of sense. So I think I said it a lot. Okay. It was my favorite factoid when i first met her got it okay but now it's just she's so cute and she has a little mohawk coming in she's so sweet yeah her

hair's growing in very fast she's laughing all she does is laugh constantly um which makes me laugh it makes me feel sad because when i get there with a bunch of jokes it'll be the quietest she's ever been oh no i shouldn't have set the bar so high. So does she have – weren't you bald for like two years? My mother says a lot of things. She doesn't listen to this show, so I'm going to take this moment to just kind of say gently. My mother says a lot of things. And, yes, I did not have that much hair growing up as like a baby. I mean I had hair.

Like I had like little pigtails but it wasn't you still know in a couple in a couple little dots still you're still yeah exactly i still do but yeah so she's getting a lot a lot more hair than i had at that age so she's getting hair real quick and my mother is very excited to be able to um braid the hair of a not bald baby as she calls it right now you could just take your little fingers and pinch and twist and that's about as far as you can go tiny little bow on top speaking of bald spots i just found out that i'm getting one really on the side it's such a weird place it's like it's a male pattern baldness it feels like it a little bit i've like i'm going to like color it in with a sharpie because is it from sleeping on it i don't know i feel like it's

always kind of been there in hindsight but my hair has always been kind of like either well it was long for a very long time and then half the time it's been short I procrastinate getting it cut so it always gets really shaggy before I cut it so I think only like a small period of time have I even been able to notice it and how often am I how often am I looking above my ear, you know? When you're doing your profile view in the mirror. Yeah. So no, Allison noticed it a couple of days ago and now I keep looking at it and I'm like, oh, this is karma for all the times I've made fun of you.

So on my bald spot. Yeah. It's, it's, I'm finally matching you. I think a little bit. We'll bump heads and make them kiss when I see you. We're already scratching faces. I don't know about that. Something about a genital bridge. I remember that. Oh my God. We're already scratching faces. I don't know about that. Something about a

genital bridge. I remember that. Oh my God, not the genital bridge. Now I'm going to close the picture of your baby off of my screen. Thank you for taking her out of that. I wanted her out of the narrative. She did not deserve that. Why do you drink this week, Christine? Oh, well, okay. This is going to be something I'm just gonna oh no your face you're making the face of like what's Christine doing this time it's it's you mean the face I make every day of my life even when you wake up in the morning you're like oh no I'm like I some there's a chill in the air what's something's afoot there's a chill in the air um okay well so just real quick I was gonna say this before my story but I'm just gonna say now, which is that last week or like last episode that you and I recorded actually yesterday, I covered a Hungarian story.

And then it occurred to me as I prepped for this one that this is a Russian story. And Hungary and Ukraine are bordering nations. And it just occurred to me like, is it weird not to say anything? This is weeks away that this comes out so i don't know what the state of the world will be right i just wanted to be i didn't want anyone to be like is she just like fucking oh yeah totally overlooked over ukraine when like she's talking about like war-torn you know people coming ptsd coming home from so i just wanted to like do a quick like uh i and the problem is there's not i

feel like there's not much i can even do well you have no idea of when this comes out you have no idea of what the future's context is right i don't know where things stand and i've gotten conflicting reports on like how to best help as far as what to donate and and whether to donate physical goods or not because well a a lot of that's happening on mainland or in europe in general but be like you know a lot of it's too much and it's getting thrown away and it's being wasteful um but anyway so like my mom for example teaches german class online like that's one of her jobs um sure in addition to being professor and so her company is doing something really cool where they're offering free classes to refugees who are leaving Ukraine and are in Germany. So she's able

to teach German to people who are fleeing Ukraine and like teach just basic stuff to get around and that kind of thing. And so I just, I felt very helpless. And so I think that's why I didn't even say anything because like, I didn't know what to say. Sure. But so I just I wanted to say real quick that I'm going to put in the show notes like just a list of on Charity Navigator, just a list of highly rated charities that put a majority of the funds actually toward relief rather than, you know, some of the more sketchy ones that have been going around. There are speaking of true crime, there are some like very fraudulent things happening. People trying to draw money, which is so fucked up, but whatever. And so I'm just going to also list my two favorite or three favorite, I guess. Save the Children, Shelter Box USA, and then the Humane Society international division, which, um, is where I donated. And

that's currently offering pets and people fleeing Ukraine, emergency funding and pet food blankets, veterinary care for animals, which, you know, sometimes gets overlooked when there's like a humanitarian crisis. So anyway, I just want to throw that out there and say, you know, if you're kind of lost, like I am, um, yeah, I know I'll probably a lot of us. Um, you know, my, if you are from the area, if you are affected or your family is, uh, from either Russia or Ukraine or anywhere nearby, I, um, my heart goes out to you and, uh, I guess let us know what's most helpful as far as activism, what we can do. Even though we have a platform, we definitely don't want to

misdirect anybody. So if you have information that can help us help others, you know, we're very open to it. So absolutely. And so, yeah, so I'll just put that in the show notes, but, um, that was just my little sidebar. Cause I went to bed last night thinking like, I feel kind of weird that I didn't say anything. Um, no worries. I, I, I don't think, weird that I didn't say anything. No worries. I don't think, I hope no one would hold it against you, but this is also weeks away. So fingers crossed we live in a utopia in just a matter of a month. Can you imagine? All the pets are healthy. All the people are reunited. It's all, Putin's like, just kidding. Cars float across water. Just every problem has been solved. Everything's good. Anyway, what do you drink?

I'm sorry to totally, you know, throw us in that direction. Hmm. Why do I drink? Should I talk about what's going on or no? Sure. Boy. Okay. So, I mean, do you have the time?

Because we're going to have to. Let's do it. Okay, everybody. Here's what's been going on. Does Eva know it? Because we're going to have to. Let's do it. Okay, everybody. Here's what's been going on. Does Eva know it yet or is she going to hear this now? No, I don't think Eva knows it. Or no, about my stuff going on? Yeah.

I think I told her like a snippet yesterday. Oh, okay. So, God, it's like happening as I'm talking. Probably because you're getting nervous. I know. So, hmm. So I've always had this thing. Actually, this is a great PSA for people out there who might feel really lost because I certainly felt lost. Great point.

If I can help you at fucking all, let's get into that. So since I was little, I've had this weird condition with my – I never knew if it was like my blood pressure or my heart. I kind of mentioned it last week that I was switching medications around and going to doctors. But, yeah, I've had this thing since I was a little kid, but it was so infrequent at the time. And now it seems to be getting worse as I'm getting older, where I still can't really put it into words. And it's going to make zero sense to anyone unless you're a cardiologist or have already been diagnosed before me. But I've had some weird issue where at random, like truly as random and spontaneous as like what I imagine seizures, you know,

people with seizures have to deal with. I will all of a sudden have these crazy heart palpitations, which I think for a long time, even I fought away as like anxiety or I just thought like, oh, I just bent weird. Or maybe I, you know, I don't really know what was happening. But for at random moments, my heart would just freak the fuck out where the first time I was 12 and I just jumped into the pool like I did a cannonball. And there was something about the impact of like, it felt like my heart maybe like skipped a beat for a second. And that's what caused it. Or one time when I was in high school, I was like wrestling with someone.

I like hit the ground and the impact of that kind of caused it and like jolted me into this weird episode. And then it didn't really happen through high school or uh or any after that didn't happen after high school for a while or through college i feel like it only really started back up when i was hitting my 20s or once i got to maybe boston and la and i don't know how to describe it to people except that it feels one like you're gonna die i assumed i was having what like maybe like many heart attacks or something um and i was just fucking surviving each and every one of them but i it felt the best way i can describe it um for other people to understand the feeling is like it feels like i either ran a

marathon with zero experience or i like sprinted up a thousand flights of stairs. And now I'm trying to like impress somebody next to me and like act like I'm not out of breath and I'm trying to talk through it. But it's like such an intense heartbeat, such a fast and throbbing heartbeat that there's just no, you know, faking it. But it feels like that cannot catch my breath no matter how hard I try. My heart's going like a million miles an hour. Only recently I started actually checking my heart rate whenever it would happen. And it was like always hitting like one 50, one 60, which by the way, like, is not good if you, if the only thing that happened is like, you're just sitting like um yeah we were backstage

at a show and em was like oh 155 and i was like oh no yeah and so uh yeah and it's happened it was always so weird there was a long time where i was keeping notes of it because i was like one day when i talked to a doctor about this i want to have a log of or what you know i had told doctors about it before and they were like oh it's it's just anxiety. And we could get into that whole thing if we wanted to about how a lot of problems get overlooked very quickly with either anxiety or weight. But, um, so I was keeping a log of when it would happen and it really made no sense. It'd be like, Oh, I sat down at a restaurant or, Oh, I bent down to tie my shoe or I laughed too hard and maybe I breathed in the wrong way. And that kind of jolted it. Like it would be fucking anything. I noticed kind of a,

um, a heavier frequency of when, if it were like when I went from standing to sitting or sitting to standing and it was kind of that weird equilibrium moment, or again, like an impact of like hitting the floor and wrestling or jumping into water, like, or even jumping on a trampoline and falling a wrong way. Like impact was one of the things that caused it more often. But there were times where like, I was just sitting and having dinner with Allison, not stressed about anything. And all of a sudden it would just happen.

And here's the real kicker that stumped many a doctor up until recently was that the only way I can fix it, because when I tell you it's a lot of pain, I can't fight through it. There's no faking it. And if I don't do anything about it, it will happen for hours and I'm sweating and I'm exhausted and I can't breathe and I really think I'm going to like probably die. sweating and I'm exhausted and I can't breathe and I really think I'm going to like probably die. The only way to fix it is to throw my body over something and be completely upside down until the blood rushes to my head. And it's such a weird, I don't know how, I don't know how I discovered it. I must've been lying on a bed at one point and just was praying I wouldn't die. And my head must've been thrown over the bed and that's what fixed it. But when I do that for as much pain as I'm in for as long as it would last, if I hadn't done that, uh, within like 30 seconds, completely fine. Like I'm jumping around, I'm dancing. I'm like, like you would never even know I'm totally back to normal. And so up until recently,

it was very easy to just run off and find something to throw my body over, whether I was in public, I could go to the bathroom or something, or, um, if there was a bench, I could land that one time I laid in my car in the back and just like stuck my head, let my head just lie on the public sidewalk. Cause I was desperate. Um, sidewalk because I was desperate. But it has gotten a lot worse recently. And for no real reason, nothing has changed in how I'm doing things. It just seems to have decided now's the time to happen more often. And it happened to coincide with us being on tour, where I found out that anxiety exacerbates it. It's been scary scary and here's Christine's turn to jump in and tell how it's been on her side while we've been touring uh I don't have I don't even want to make

it about me at all so no you're not you're not like like what I mean it was just really scary I mean we would be some we like Em was because I've seen M nervous beyond any form of nervousness when our first tour like when we first did live shows we were both so nervous we were vomiting like we were so fucking nervous yeah like in a literal way and so to see you now a whole other level like not even the same person. Nervous, but like with like full on. And so it took away the excuse in my brain of like, oh, Em's just really nervous. Because it's like, no, I've seen Em nervous. This isn't just like anxiety, heart palpitation,

like something. Something's wrong. Yeah, like something cardiologically, is that a word? I don't know. Something either a pulmonologist or a cardiologist should be very aware of. And like, we were really afraid that like, Em would have to go to the ER and we wouldn't do the show.

And I mean, not that I'm worried about the show, but like. Well, my big fear, which was, it was so weird because I didn't know at the time it was brought on more by stress, which is so interesting because I was arguably severely more stressed during our first tour. That's why I was so baffled. So why didn't it happen? Then it really just, I don't know if it's because I've just been inside for two years and maybe there's something that I'm not aware of or I don't know. But so, uh, it, yeah, it was really, I like, I was nowhere near as nervous. I mean, I was nervous. I was very nervous and still have stage fright, but the, the anxiety, I guess was, uh, after our first show, I even like came off

stage and I was like shaking. I'd never done that before. Yeah. And so, uh, what, what happened? I think my, my big fear is that I like my, my new anxiety that's come with this tour before I had figured out my medications, which I'm still doing, by the way, so the fear hasn't totally left. But my big fear wasn't even the show because we have talked about the show for two years that we're doing right now and how fucking good it is. I have zero fear about the show going well at this point, which is a big thing. I'm very proud of our show. But the anxiety was now coming from the fact that at any moment, because it happened so randomly, it could happen in a year, it could happen in five minutes, that this like weird heart thing, blood pressure thing happens.

And then like, there's no fighting it. There's no faking it while I'm on stage. I would just have to stand up in front of everyone and be like i have to go be upside down for 30 seconds backstage i'll be right back and it was like it was like my biggest like i started like crying to christine backstage during one of our shows because i was like what if i have to leave you on stage and christine was like just leave it's fine i know and i was like please like if and also if anyone would understand it's our audience like that you have something health wise but then em also made a good point of like you know then everyone would be so supportive and they would come back on stage and everyone would start cheering and clapping and it was like and

then i'll probably just set it off again you know yeah so christine actually made a really good point that one of the reasons my so i i originally thought it was a blood pressure thing because i was noticing that whenever my blood pressure was really high, it was once I started monitoring this. Once my blood pressure was really high, it was more likely to happen. And so I was assuming this was a blood pressure thing, not a heart thing. And I think it was anytime someone would cheer. This is not, by the way, a deterrent. I still have an ego and I'm still a Gemini and we're still doing a

show and we're very nervous. Please cheer when you see us. But, uh, when I was earlier on trying to figure out what was going on, Christine made the great point of like, maybe your body's freaking out because even though people are cheering, your body can't register, like if the excitement is good or bad, like something to be stressed out about or not. I think, did you say, I think you're the one that said that. Yeah.

Like the idea that stress is just your body being like, I'm going to die without any sort of context. And it's like, no, no, this is good stress. Yeah. Yeah. Good clapping. I think my body couldn't figure it out. So then there was one part of the show where people always applaud and I was like, oh, please don't, please don't, I hope this doesn't set anything off. So, but, but so, uh, we ended up, first of all, thank you, uh, to, I won't give names, but people who have given me a lot of advice during this. And, uh, I ended up, we ended up finding out that propranolol was actually was by accident, again, a miracle cure because not only was I taking it for anxiety, but it happened to be a blood pressure medication. It was just like very, very convenient, um, that I

happened to already have the prescription for what might be helpful. I was every night after the shows, I was like on Tik TOK and Google and trying to figure out like what the fuck was going on with me. And I had some ideas and all of them were either blood pressure or heart things. Um, and I was like just trying to get through the shows. It was whenever there was a show where people I knew were there, it was so much worse. And there's this thing now where like, I like the stress is so bad that like, I can't even like go up like three steps of stairs without it, like it completely triggering this weird condition and this is only when i'm on tour when i'm not on tour it is like nowhere near as bad it's just that

my i mean anxiety is so much higher when we're on tour and so if you ever like saw us before the show and we were like really panicky out of the way get out of the way or whatever it was not a personal thing we're not assholes we were just like we need to make sure Emma's in a safe space. God, can we talk about DC really quick? Yeah, I was hoping we'd get to talk about DC. DC was really rough for me. First of all, everyone I know was there. And so that made it so much worse also that was only show three when as of show one I found out that I was shaking on stage and couldn't breathe and I and show two was when I was crying backstage to Christine because I was like I don't know if I can even go on like I can't breathe Portland you couldn't tell right

because that's what I said I was like I don't think anyone can tell because you are such a good actor slash I was white knuckling it but I I did it I don't want to make it sound like I wasn't enjoying the show like it was right we did have fun it was just like there was an edge of fear I was so hyper aware I was like I was just like so ready to accidentally fall over on stage and so uh and so then DC came around where I was the most stressed because people I knew were there like everyone from high school was there and so this is when I found out about the stair thing. And it was because the way we were supposed to get on stage was to go up all of these fucking stairs. Who just thinking about it. Oh my God. And so, uh, as we were going

upstairs, which I found out mid going up the stairs was a fucking problem. We also got recognized. And I feel so bad to the two people who saw us before the show, because I must've looked like such an asshole, but I couldn't breathe. And so the one who fell into a tree. Yeah. She also fell into a tree. So we both had things to feel maybe a little silly about.

I hope that you're okay. By the way, I felt bad that we were like, bye, you fell into a tree. See ya. I wanted to help you up and be like, are you okay?

And I really, if I bent over, it was going to, the show wasn't going to happen. You would have been the death of M Schultz. bye uh you found a tree see ya more i wanted to help you up and be like are you okay and i i really if i bent over it was gonna the show wasn't gonna happen you would have been the death of m schultz yeah to carry that weight on your shoulders and so i mean dc was just so bad i was even the upside down thing was barely working because i couldn't find up i couldn't find i couldn't find a platform security guard steep enough for my head to go over so it was only half working the whole time and what was his name trey i think so i think it was i think it was honestly christine i couldn't even tell you what half of that night so uh this poor guy he is like i'm on it i got you what do you need blah blah and i'm like we had to push the show um I was like, Em needs a minute to just like, you know, get their head straight, whatever.

And we were performing at a synagogue. Okay. Random, but cool. And so we're kind of backstage behind this like synagogue. And of course there's not really like a, what do you call those tables you said again? The tables, the tables you a chiropractor table oh an inversion table yeah it's not like there's like an inversion table or anything or even a regular table back there so m's like hang on and has to go up these stairs and like hang

off them and this security guard tray keeps looking at me and i'm like oh don't worry about them they're fine don't worry i was literally just like planking on stairs like just hoping that it would work. And my head was like on this dirty floor. I've had my head on a lot of dirty floors trying to get this upside down thing to work. And you don't even drink. So we did the show. Em did kick ass, whatever.

And then we got off stage and Trey, gosh, it was something like that. The security guard was like, just looked at you and was like, you did such a good job. It was such a fun show and i was so scared and i laughed so much and it was the nicest thing and like he was clearly just oh eva said it was trey okay yeah he was just like so like hyping you up and it was it was just wonderful um well i in poor trey i think at any moment he was ready to like catch my body if i fell over i mean he was he looked scared because i body if I fell over. I mean, he was, he looked scared cause I gave him a lot of reasons to be scared backstage. I was not okay. And, uh, and yeah,

and like we even, by the way, if you were at any of our earlier shows and it was delayed, it was because I was just trying to breathe. So I'm sorry you had to sit there for another half an hour. I felt really guilty. And like, I was like trying to calm down my anxiety while there was literally a countdown next to me. And I was like, Oh it's very tough yeah and so uh anyway and also shout out to poor even christine because i have been like such a different person on this tour i've been so like introverted and like hiding in my hotel room because i just i'm trying to breathe until like the show time like helpless like i just feel like i and then i try to help and i'm like that doesn't help that makes it worse so i feel like i've also been kind of distant but only because I'm trying to not

invade your space it's it's like nothing can fix it though which is so weird like even if I don't even if I just like relax for three days in the city or like in the in my hotel instead of like exploring the city it doesn't change anything once I there, it's still the same stupid thing. But anyway, so all this to say that I ended up, um, finding out that propranolol is actually one of the very big helpful things that, and so we've been testing the dosage and it's been helping. I still haven't found the sweet spot, but it's certainly better than it was. And for anyone who has heard anything, and it sounds familiar to what you might be experiencing, and maybe doctors haven't properly diagnosed you yet. I'm not here to properly diagnose you, but I would ask them about something called SVT, um, which is what they're pretty sure

I have. Um, they, the doctor called me textbook and average, which feels somehow really good. And, uh, medical sense, that's an excellent thing to hear. Yeah. So it's, I don't totally understand the whole science of it, but it seems like my, I have like a faulty electrical wiring in my heart where there's the way he was describing it was that usually most hearts go like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But for some reason, one of my boom booms will sometimes get stuck in like this little like, like a pothole or like think of it like a pinball machine. And so the boom, boom doesn't know where to go. Oh, no. And so my heart's gone all over the place. And so the one that I have is called or what they think I have, we're monitoring me currently. Um, but I think it's

called a it's a NVRT, a VNRT. Um, it's the most common type of SVT and the long version of it, in case you want to look it up, is called paroxysmal atrial superventricle tachycardia. Yikes. So, uh, they are very confident that they can help me. And if you are someone who is experiencing this weird heart thing for no reason, um, you, especially if you were born, uh, with female anatomy, that seems to be, it seems to be a very common thing for people for, uh, female born people to be, to get this around their twenties or thirties or have had it latent since childhood. And it starts showing up in their twenties and thirties.

So which bada bing, bada boom. So also we can thank Gammy rest in peace for the arrhythmia she has given me because apparently this, it falls under the arrhythmia umbrella. So they are figuring out what to do with me currently, but if you are, which is so weird because I've now been looking through TikTok for answers and this SVT community seems to be very small with shockingly minimal videos where like I go to TikTok these days instead of like WebMD because I'm like someone would be able to give me like their personal experience. And I haven't seen a lot.

be like their personal experience. And I haven't seen a lot, but when I, when I told the cardiologist about this upside down thing, uh, he was like, I think, cause I was like, every time I've told the doctor this, it like really stumps them. They aren't able to, to do anything with that information. They don't know how I'm fixing it by accident. And this doctor basically said, by accident and this doctor basically said i think you inadvertently discovered a new way to um to try this maneuver that we usually recommend to people blaze was describing the maneuver yesterday because he's like i see this in the er and that's what we do and i was like that's the upside down thing yes so uh by the way if you have svt and you because i was seeing on like it was so it looked really scary on tech talk that like a lot of people with svt are like oh i had to go to the hospital and like i had to get like all you know they had to shoot me up with a bunch of stuff

to like stop my heart and i was like oh my god i hope have any of them tried the upside down thing so if you have yeah one of them is uh they stop your heart for a few seconds and you feel like you're dying. I was like, that was a lot of the tech talks I saw. And I was like, Oh God, like, thank God that it has, it has not gotten to that point for me. Um, although if you are someone who's experienced that, I'm so sorry, but if you like a, like a quick, uh, a quick fix that has worked for me, try it for yourself is literally just go find a bed or a bench or something and lie on your belly, throw your head and your arms over and just like to a point where you feel like you're going to not be able to breathe because there's so much blood rushing to your head. And after like 30 seconds, it has helped me every time up until now. So I'm going to join your medical concierge just so I can call you. Anyway, I get, I am not a doctor, but it has worked every time for me. And I feel so bad that all these tech talks look like people are just sitting there and suffering. And I've done that before and it's

awful. So try the upside down thing. And again, it's called SVT. If you're interested, uh, if you are someone who has SVT, um, I really haven't seen a big, I'm brand new by the way, so I could be missing some really important links, but I haven't found a big community for it yet. And if anyone out there knows of places to like look around and stuff, that'd be super cool. Slide into those DMs, baby. Yeah.

I'm, and for people wondering what the treatment is, I'm, shockingly propranolol is one of the old school methods. And so they've been trying to put me on different medication, but it's actually made things a little worse. And so we are going back to propranolol until I'm not on tour anymore because we at least at least we know that works. Yep. And then we're going to try a different medicine and if that doesn't work then i guess i can just ride the propranolol train for the rest of my life unless i want to do a surgery called a surgery called an ablation yes which is minor heart surgery and it's outpatient shockingly because it doesn't sound like an outpatient procedure but basically it is a catheter in your leg this is the most horrific and that's what i drink i've ever talked about this part makes me upset it's a catheter in your leg this is the most horrific and that's what i drink i've ever talked this

part makes me upset it's a catheter from like one of the main arteries or veins or something in your leg and it they with a camera i guess or something and it goes all the way up your body and into your heart and then they burn away the little potholes or that's what I'm calling them at least the little pinball machine parts. Um, and they say it is 95 to 98% successful and I never have another one of these episodes, but Tik TOK is also currently scaring me because so many videos have said that people have had to get three or four ablations and it's not working. Well, if you go on Tik TOK to find, I know, I know. I know. I, so I would So I would like some success stories if there are any out there, because it really terrifies me that I might just have to be on medication forever.

And apparently it is genetic. So I was terrified. I was like, did I do something to myself? Was like, what happened? And they were like, no, it's just always been there. They were like, it was that cannonball in 1998. Why do you think I was 12 in 1998? What's happening?

I don't know. Because you are the the crypt keeper anyway that was very we literally talked for a half an hour but it's been something that I haven't been talking about it's been a big fucking deal in the background of our lives that like it's been a really big deal so also I'm glad you guys could be in on it now yeah and I it's not that I haven't been um um, trying to hide it from people. It's just, I didn't have answers. And so there was, I really, as much as I appreciate everyone always sending in like their tips and suggestions, I was worried that I was going to be getting a lot of conflicting answers and then confuse myself. Just make it even more confusing.

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, probably add to your anxiety, which doesn't help the situation. Yeah. And so I, uh, I'm sorry sorry I've been keeping everyone in the dark about this, but I also didn't want to freak anyone out. But it has been a big deal at our tour. And just now that I can say it openly, if for some reason we're delayed for a second at our live shows, if you sit there for an extra 20 minutes, I'm so sorry. It's probably me not being able to breathe so please be kind please be kind um and also uh this is we're recording this before our like pittsburgh boston whatever shows so like i know it'll it'll come out after so we don't know but but m has at least gotten answers before that leg of the tour before pittsburgh brooklyn all that so at the very

least, if you were at our first, like what, six shows, I don't know. Um, uh, thank you for coming out. I hope you had fun. I think it was a blast. I had a, I did, I did have a blast and in between, you know, in between the other parts. So, uh, yeah, I'm glad everyone, if, if this story at all helps you, I really thought I was alone, especially when so many doctors were like, I don't know how to help you. And I, it just, I felt like when we were like, we're in the middle of our tour and I was like, I really need to find out what's going on before the next leg of our tour. When like, like, what if I don't have enough medicine?

What if I don't, what if I need more medicine? Like no one's listening to me. And, um, it was really scary that we were like coming down to the wire of my next set of shows. And I thought I was going to have to deal with the same stuff. So if this helps anybody and you feel alone, it is probably maybe SVT. And I would like to add too that I feel I consider this a win for myself because I got a free pizza out of it.

You sure did. And this is why. So years ago, I was telling Christine about this weird heart thing or whatever. I've always called it my upside down thing because I didn't know a word for it. And I was telling them about my upside down thing, Christine and Blaze. And at the time, it happened so inf infrequently it wasn't even on my radar i should really like super deeply worrying about it um and i was like i just don't know what it is i'd love i just want a doctor to be able to tell me what's going on and the only person

who has ever been able to properly diagnose me was blaze lampugnale aka mr schieffer himself and so he's he really he said it like 2017 2018 he was like he was like yeah i just came back from like a lecture and they just they mentioned something called like svt and i was like oh okay and he was like i don't really know anything about but it sounds a little like svt and i was like like, oh, all right, well, I'll look into that. And then I like looked it up and I was like, that sounds similar. But then there were so many other things that also sounded kind of similar. So I, it kind of not really fell into the background, but was amongst the puddle of confusion. And I never is my own stupid fault. I never looked super in depth into it, but he said SVT forever ago. And I wrote it down in my notes. And then this doctor yesterday was like, Oh, that's like textbook, textbook SVT.

I was so happy that, uh, I mean, obviously he's mostly happy that you're finding a solution to your, he can be happier for the pizza. I, he was so happy he got it right. He was like, damn, like, yeah. But then he was like, yeah, it makes so much sense because we had talked about it so much recently. And I guess he just assumed like SVT had been written off or whatever. And he's like, I don't know, it could be POTS. Like he was listing other things. And then yesterday I was like, oh, it was SVT, that thing you said years ago.

And he was like, oh, like it makes so much fucking sense why they why M goes upside down. And in the ER, we have to stop their hearts. And I was like, OK, eat your pizza. It's like, please just make people go upside down now. It's like, yeah, those beds probably can do that. You know, maybe I haven't tried an inversion. I can't imagine like having this experience and also trying to like suit up for an inversion chair. That seems like a nightmare. That seems like a nightmare. Just throw them over a counter. You'll, they'll be fine. But, uh, yeah. So I, I christine yesterday and i was

like that fucking blaze that that fucking baby daddy of yours i'm so proud of the nerve but so yesterday blaze got himself a free pizza that was very nice so did christine for doing absolutely nothing and so christine thank you for doing nothing okay here's i'll end on this though is that our second show i was like having having a full blown, like panic attack. I don't think I've cried a lot in front of you, but like I was sobbing cause I was so scared to go on stage. But I remember like wanting a hug from Christine. And I know this is like such a weird, it's meant to be a compliment, but I was like, Christine's a mom. And I was like, I just wanted to go hug you. And I was like, she'll take care of me. So I felt like such an

idiot. I was like literally signing lemons or something for the vip rule and i was like hey and then like you looked at me and i was like oh no christy was like back to my lemons no no no i was like please leave i'm busy no no it was it was very sweet so but i really and i do appreciate because christine also i mean not to totally throw throw you exposed throw me anywhere i throw you exposed but uh but we've talked about it before about live shows with Christine oh yeah yeah and you know if you ever had to run off stage because of your chronic illness uh one of us might have to abandon ship one of these days I always assumed that you'd be the one to have to run off and I would just have to handle the show by myself and I was going to be totally fine with it and not to be gross but mine would take a lot longer

than 30 seconds to resolve itself so honestly that but it well it maybe it did help where like I was like oh like I also like for all can you imagine if I had an SVT episode and you had Crohn's hit at the same time and we were just like gotta go everyone bye you were hanging off of something I was in the bathroom Eva's just like what the fuck do I do you like even get on stage handle this it's your moment but no and also uh Lisa Lampanelli I've I told her about this too because I was like what do I do like if I'm if we're on stage and I have to go and Lisa made me feel a lot better too just because she's been on so many stages it was nice to hear her opinion of it and Christine had mentioned it before even mentioned it before I already knew

this but it felt nice to hear from another performer that it is so clear to everybody that knows our show that our audience I really got to give a shout out to our audience, even though they didn't know that they were doing anything, but the amount of support and the amount of awareness people try to bring to their, you know, any illness, whether it's mental health issues or if it's, you know, like a invisible chronic issue, or if it's, you know, just trying to be more aware of, you know, disability in general. I don't, I don't really, I don't want to offend anybody, but I hope I'm not. I just, I think it's, everyone has inadvertently curated this really wonderful community where when I was asking Lisa, like, what do I do? They were like,

your audience of all audiences would understand if you needed to leave for 30 seconds and come back because of anxiety. So it's true. I gotta, I gotta give everybody a thank you for being so kind and for being so obviously supportive that even other people can tell that other people wouldn't be a problem to worry about. Yeah yeah 100 so anyway thank you in advance if something ever happens but know that we are figuring it out and i'll give you all updates now that i have some answers so i don't think i can tell you just how like i i literally slept more peacefully last night because i was so happy that you yeah i bet that you are finding an answer

because it was just such a well like i've been there too of like something's wrong with my body and i can't figure out what it is and it's just the most draining helpless feeling yeah it's all it's not fun for doctors to be like i don't know and i'm like well if you don't know i don't fucking know exactly and to try different things that don't work and so i'm just there's just like this weight off i'm'm just so happy for you. Anyway, I, this is why I said like a half an hour ago, are we, are you okay for us to talk about this? We can talk about Ukraine again. By the way, like, wow, I really found a way to turn the whole Russia, Ukraine thing into like about me. I really switched up the gears really quickly. Well, this is what we do on the show. Just jump from, you know, just probably a problem to problem. Always jump back to ourselves, you know,

that's how it goes. But anyway, thank if, if you are still listening throughout all of this, I appreciate that you are, you've heard that all that, but hopefully it gives you some insight. It's also not to, I'm not trying to like come up with excuses or anything, but I also apologize. I'm trying to figure out weird, weird leap, but I'm trying to figure out like Instagram close friends and everything. Cause I have been not doing a lot of Patreon stuff recently, partially because I actually have been having a hard time with the Instagram settings. I also have been just swamped with doctor's appointments. Every fucking minute. It's like me. I'm like, Em, you're turning, you're, you're taking over my spot. You you're like blowing up my spot going to the doctor every five minutes well there was a

really like there was a really long wave where i was like successfully doing regularly posted content and and recently in the last couple months even people have been like oh like when are we doing tea time tuesday and every tuesday has been doctor's appointments. And like, it's just, it's been really exhausting. So I'm not trying to use that as an excuse, but just to give people an idea of where I've been also, like I, I haven't usually either upside down on the bed with their head on the floor or at the doctor, but I haven't been trying to ignore you. I do want to get back to tea time Tuesday. I do want to get back to London fog Friday. I just, uh, I, I really have every second. I do want to get back to Tea Time Tuesday. I do want to get back to London Fog Friday. I just, uh, I really have every second I haven't been thinking about, you know, recording or touring or the book because I don't know if you know, but the book's coming out pretty soon, guys.

Um, but I've, I've really, every second has been me trying to figure out all this medical crap. So I'm sorry that, uh, I have not been around, but I'm trying to get back into it. So sorry. We're so happy that you're feeling you're starting to feel better. You're on your road to recovery. Thank you. I and with that, let's tell a ghost story. Oh, sorry, everybody, for how long that intro was, but it was important. So it was I found it to be a very well, I texted Blaze. I said, this is going to be a long episode. Just a heads up.

And then he was like, oh, that's okay. We're fine. Because he's with the baby. And I was like, for what it's worth, you got a little shout out. And he's probably not as excited as, he's probably like, okay. But in my mind, he's thrilled for us. Leona also got a little shout out so the two of them should high five well that's right yeah hey where's my shout out we're they're gonna start asking for royalties i'm gonna hate it that's what i'm worried about so come in for me here so last week we covered a zach bagans exclusive basically because it seemed like the only ghost

stuff out there was and since we watched it or since we recorded yesterday i have not gotten it i have it queued up but i have not watched it yet for anyone wondering it was the stone lion inn and it was juicy um so when i i was kind of bored last night kind of procrastinating and it works really well for me that procrastinating productively can be watching ghost adventures sometimes where i'm like our jobs are lucky in that way very lucky where i'm like oh i'm trying to avoid thinking about work let me watch ghost adventures and then all of a sudden i have like a whole set of notes snapped and i'm like wait a second of course you watched let me tell em about it you watched no that was good em that was this is me trying to be supportive and that was

really funny you i was about to be like excuse me i have a heart condition you have to be nice i'm trying so hard i do you know how many times in the last 24 hours poor allison has had to hear that where i'm like i was if she like she didn't if she doesn't say i love you fast enough i'm like do you want to break my heart even more than it's already broken do you want to break my ventricle again i did tell i told you yesterday on the phone i was like blaze the mender of broken hearts i know handling it he's just like what do i do with all the strange praise i'm getting so foreign to me so anyway all that to say that i watched another episode of Ghost Adventures and I did plan on writing other notes, but I got so invested in this story that I was like, I mean, this is already a chunk of notes anyway. So let's just keep going.

Hell yeah. Let's do it. So I'm not I promise I'm not trying to rip off their material, but you are getting a two for a two for one deal. And I guess let's take a look at my blanket that i'm currently wearing it's a little bit of a zb and his little old glasses and his little old mustache you know what's wild is when i look at zb he just kind of looks like johnny knoxville with a wide face instead of a long face you know and they both do risky business so you know a lot of people whenever this blanket is in photos are like you have a blanket of blaze and i'm like why does everyone think that it freaks

me out i guess blaze is the blonde version i think it's the glasses i'm not really sure someone just changed the uh the coloring saturation yeah like maybe if you swapped it out and Blaze was wearing like a lot of like, I don't know, hot topic black change clothes or something. Studs and leather. Yeah. And if ZB were wearing scrubs, like maybe things would be, maybe you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. I don't know.

That's troubling connotation for me, but I'll think about that after the show. It kind of worked out in your favor i would say so so this is uh the story of the twin bridges orphanage oh an orphanage oh boy love them so this is also known love them that's not the reaction i was expecting i like to throw you off a little bit so So it's also known as the Montana state orphanage, the state home for children and the Montana state children's center. So it's been changed. Name's been changed a bit. Fun fact, this property was,

I don't know if this was before or after, but I'm guessing after it was an orphanage, the property was later momentarily considered for the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame. My dream. I love that it couldn't just be a Hall of Fame. Like there's a whole specifically cowboy. Well, it's Montana. So I guess there's a lot of.

Well, actually, M. What? Fun fact. My brother and I just did a Beach to Sandy episode on reviews of Halls of Fame and the number of people who sent in Cowboy Hall of Fame just for me. What in the world? I'm not kidding. They're like, I know Christine loves cowboys. Here's a Cowboy Hall of Fame review.

What a weird overlap. Isn't it strange? Yeah. So that just threw me for a loop. This was our episode came out like two weeks ago about Halls of Fame. Oh, my gosh. Oh, well, wow. Apparently the universe

didn't want you to be done with talking about it so and i love that for me myself hey i love me too so uh this is in twin bridges montana and in 1894 the now abandoned orphanage was opened it was 140 square oh no not 140 square feet that closet. It was, can you imagine the orphanage is, that's a Harry Potter closet right there. 140 square feet. Yeah, that's no good. That's no good. 140,000 square feet. Way better.

Had 26 buildings and during its lifetime took in over 5,000 kids. Whole crap. Okay. Several of the, quote, orphans, by definition, were not orphans, I guess. I guess that means, like, you have to have two parents who have passed on or something. So, like, they were just dumped there or something? They were just, a lot of them were dumped there. Ugh, that's terrible.

Okay. Which I think, I don't know the proper definition. I would have taken that at face value as an orphan. But, okay. So, they were dropped off here by their parents their family couldn't take care of them at first when the building was opened in the 1890s it was probably uh a majority of why the kids got dropped off were because this was after the mining boom in mont. And a lot of families were now too poor to take care of all their kids. Later down the road in the mid-1900s, there is the Great Depression and the war. And so they just didn't have the capacity to take care of their kids, I guess.

And that's how you know it's like desperation, you know? Yeah, exactly. It's just like the extreme. That's so sad well it's desperation on both sides because a lot of the kids at this orphanage because they knew their parents were out there and dropped them off when they were old enough to remember it a lot of them always assumed their parents were coming back to pick them up and it was like it's just the worst like it was a temporary deal until they could afford it again or something. I mean, even in that story I told last week about in Hungary, about the parents who ended up poisoning their own children because they couldn't feed them.

It's like just the worst, the worst extreme. In the 1900s, the public started fighting for more reform and orphanages. 1900s the public started fighting for more reform and orphanages and so the state implemented the cottage system which was basically make it look like a cottage village so it felt more like you were in a residential a homey right neighborhood where they like gardened and shit so it became one of those self-sustaining properties which seemed to really that was like the thing. It was in vogue, you know? It really was. In the early 1900s, it was like every single place that's holding people that needs to give them some sort of like therapy or recreational therapy. They're all self-sustaining properties.

I can see why that's enticing. Like I wish that were something that could work well. Yeah, I understand it in theory of like, oh, it brings community, it in theory of like, oh, it brings community. It teaches life skills because not only is it a self-sustaining property, but that means the people on the property are sustaining it. So the kids, the kids in this case were in charge of a lot of the operations on the property. Um, sometimes as young as six years old. Oh boy. So fuck child labor laws. Yeah, seriously.

Before I get into that, I did have a fun fact before we get into the sad facts where I found part of the menu, which I love. I love a good menu. This is very good menu. Very basic. But it also says Alcatraz menu. That's just like so fascinating. It's so wild that every

time i go to alcatraz the thing that i'm most interested in is the menu agreed like what in the world is wrong with me but i like can't it's like it's the most interesting thing it is and it's like i i like obviously the stories are super fascinating but like of the of the inmates but there's something that makes it like it's more it feels out of place like it's almost novelty which is horrible that i'm interested in the more kitsch part of it i guess no but it's true yeah if it feels like it shouldn't be there but it also makes everything feel a little more like human or it's like real yeah like real like yeah you can see a cell and not be able to associate yeah yeah you can't understand that as well as looking at a menu and it's like, oh, other people actually –

You see like applesauce and you're like, oh, shit. It's like we're sitting here eating applesauce. I don't know about a cell, but I certainly know about eating applesauce. I know a lot about applesauce. It's one thing about me. That's why one of my favorite cups still is the Alcatraz mug you gave me. See, I knew it because I took a photo of the menu and I sent it to you and you're like yeah been there done that i've seen that and i was like well then i'm buying you a cup i it really i i love it feel i mean i love it because it feels like something i

can relate to more than looking at a bunch of cells that i can't relate to and it's like oh someone else actually i hopefully it doesn't sound like i'm glamorizing the experience but to hold the cup makes me feel like i can get more in touch with the history. Yeah. I can get more in touch with the experience of like, oh, someone else actually had to hold this cup and be in this fucking world. Right. Anyway, for the menu, it's very, very disappointingly stand, uh, disappointingly quick, but it was

a partial menu I was able to find, which is on tuesdays the kids would eat stew okay like again disappointing what kind of stew what's going on i don't want to know wednesday was the saddest day because you only ate beans at least it's filling it is filling protein um on thursday they would eat either hash or chipped beef. Okay. And on Fridays they ate fish. Okay. The Catholic thing. Uh, I don't know about Mondays and it seems like there was no information about the weekend. So I don't know if they were partying it up or food. Yeah. I don't know. Leftovers. So anyway, that was just like my last attempt at a fun fact. So I love it. I'm fascinated by that thank you i thought so i was like oh i where else would i have seen that absolutely uh so there's a self-sustaining properties and on this

property happened to have its own gym school dorm rooms which they called cottage houses or cottages um including they had like a preschool one an an elementary school one, a middle school one, a high school one, and they had a teacher's area. So they all, all lived on the property. They had a hospital, they had farms, powerhouses, uh, butcher shops, shoe shops, steam plants. And again, children as young as six were running some of these things. Yeah. So despite this seeming progressive on the outside, you want to take a guess at what the inside was like?

Oh no, I don't know. Not good. This orphanage was rampant with neglect, abuse and disease. Here is a quote from. So in 95, there was an article where I guess there was a reunion where a bunch of the kids from this orphanage all got together. And one of them ended up writing or a few of them ended up writing like books about the experience and all that but these are just some other quotes uh one guy named murphy says that he quote recalls little children being hung on coat hooks as

punishment he remembers being forever afraid of the dark after being repeatedly locked in a dark cloak room he remembers shoveling snow without gloves and passing out from the shock of frostbite, only to be beaten awake by the matron. Oh my God. Oh my God. Another quote is, bedwetters were whipped in an attempt to cure them. No.

The matrons would also tie shoes on their hands at night on the theory that they were wetting their beds because they were playing with their genitals oh my god so they don't even know what to do with that information horrible so in fact the kids who were wetting the bed it was like i saw this all over every source this was apparently a very common thing that the kids who were wetting the bed were so afraid of the teachers finding out during like morning wake up inspection of their rooms that it was common for kids in the middle of the night to get up and put their sheets that they had accidentally wet on. They would lean them up against the radiator so it would dry by morning. That makes me want to cry that's really sad and uh when kids got here when they were dropped off at the orphanage they were separated by gender and age and they were intentionally separated from siblings so they

couldn't talk to their family members horrible they were only allowed to interact with their siblings for one hour on sundays so i mean that's like the only person the only semblance of normalcy they still had and it's taken away um each cottage had its own like supervisor who they called a matron or a house mother she uh was really cruel to the children one of the former residents say that they were often told by their matron that their parents didn't love them cool great they weren't coming back for them uh apparently a lot of the kids would get locked under the stairs they were whipped until the matron was exhausted from whipping them another former resident said that years later he found out that the staff was withholding letters from him that were from his mom

that's so sad that one the that same person ended up saying maybe they were actually helping me because all the letters were the mom saying that she was coming back for him but she never but she never did oh fuck and so he was like it was really fucked up that they were withholding the letters but maybe they thought they were like saving me from getting my hopes up but either way inadvertently they were saving him even if they were just doing it to be cruel that's what i'm thinking too i'm like it's fucking it in that one instance maybe it ended up being beneficial but it's fucking cruel they shouldn't have done that yeah exactly disease was uh pretty common uh one of the residents remembers the school always being on lockdown and having to quarantine whenever someone got sick um another

former resident said that his matron was named miss hyman and she would regularly whip the kids until they would cry she would almost almost whip them daily until they cried oh god and the only time they remember miss hyman laughing was when she whipped the kid who refused to cry until she finally broke him that's so disturbing uh another former staff member in their 70s or a former member a former staff member who worked there in the 70s like openly on camera admits to having abused children um and i i think they were one of those people who was quote yikes stuck in the ways of the past and oh yeah things were different then and things were different i turned I turned out just fine. Exactly.

So they admitted to giving kids swirlies when they wouldn't clean the toilets, which, by the way, that is, if you are not, I feel like people don't use that phrase anymore. Swirly is, because it sounds so much happier than abuse. It sounds like an ice cream cone. Yeah, it was when you would, I mean, a lot of like movies from the 80s would show like it's a very 80s 90s cartoon of like kids movie thing bullies chasing kids through school and grabbing them and then bringing them into the bathroom and then like shoving their head in the toilet and flushing the toilet so the water's swirling around their face and your hair gets all swirled up and your hair gets all gross and it's supposed to be a silly little thing that people do.

Isn't it hilarious? And then the worst thing that they address in TV shows about swirlies is like you look embarrassed next to your crush afterwards because you got caught. Yeah, good point, Em. Yikes. It was just like, oh, you look wet and now your crush is going to laugh at you. Not like trauma. Not like you almost drowned. Okay.

Right. not like trauma but not like you almost drowned okay right so anyway one of the the same former staff member said that there were kids who didn't want to clean the toilet so she would give them swirlies and then they would never complain again uh she also openly states i believe children were killed here and this is a quote from her all they had to do was backhand them and they'd fall down the stairs and bang we've just lost one more what is this person's problem i don't know in this ghost adventures episode no comment like that's where she's saying this shit to zb what the fuck get your shit together the amount of deaths is documented at 116 but there could be more um one of the former residents remembers i think seeing one of the kids get killed or at least remembers knowing that one of the kids that he went to

he lived there with got killed because uh they were kicked or trampled by a horse and died in the fields oh geez so i guess that one wasn't directly someone's fault but like i mean if that like for all we know that kid like was working the field i was gonna say it could be neglect you know just like yeah still still definitely by the way like the supervisor's fault yeah sure of course like it wasn't cold cold blood murder at least right uh but the former staff there is a former staff member who also remembers that there were around 30 headstones in the field of children at one point how nice they gave them headstones well somewhere down the road they don't know what happened but the headstones seem to have disappeared. Well, I wonder why. They probably don't want to show off that there's a bunch of, you know. Children's headstones, yeah. Dead children, yeah. So in the 1930s during the

Great Depression, the number of children was higher here than it would ever be. It was up to 400 kids at one time. And on average, it was about 250, 300. So sad. So now it's also overcrowded. In the 1940s. This was when people were coming back or late 1940s, I guess is when people are coming back from war, there were new social welfare programs, foster care was being taken more seriously. So there was a number drop in the orphanage. Um, so as of the 1940s, the numbers kind of started dropping and in 1960 and the, uh, in those last 20 years, um, the average number of kids basically halved. Okay. So, um, by 1975, the state funding was cut and orphanages were basically shutting down all over. And the Twin Bridges orphanage, this was 75, the Twin Bridges orphanage shut down with only 50 kids left

there that were brought to foster care. Wow. Okay. At the time it was a 26 acre facility with 26 buildings by the time it closed. And it was pretty abandoned had like medical forms just sitting on tables for people to steal children's shoes are still there um and it had some private owners at different times but in 2005 leslie adams uh bought the property for 1.2 million dollars i think with her dad um to restore the property and they ended up spending more more than that money 1.5 million dollars just an upkeep um i imagine with 26 buildings like that's a lot out of the top with out of the 26 buildings they've over at the time that this source was written they had already uh redone 15 of the roofs and they had gotten rid

of all the asbestos on the property oh well that's good um now it's on the national registry of historic places or i never know it said it's on the national register and i'm like that's either historical places or historical landmarks or haunted locations it's always something it's always something with these national registers it's on a registry somewhere um it is uh according to one i thought up until now leslie adams was still uh running this place but it sounds like this place is now on the market for 2.2 million dollars with 100 acres and 25 buildings oh she flipped it she hey she's did she though if she spent 1.2 and 1.5 that's 2.7 so she's still at a loss um flip or flop flip or flop so uh there is a nearby cemetery that has a plaque with a list of all the names of the kids who died on the property and they think again they think it's about 116 kids um the as for the ghosts you can hear kids singing which is pretty common uh

you can see the children playing outside sometimes if you're far away enough you'll see them playing like hoop and stick basketball so one type of hoop yeah a hoop and ball okay hoop and ball so you can you can hear them play you can hear them singing you can see them playing outside one kid actually saw kids playing on the basketball court and said that he knew he wasn't looking at living children because they didn't look quote flesh and bone ghostly children he said something didn't look right oh no um doors will slam open and shut objects will move on their own there's a sense of something darker in some of the buildings than just spirits of children in the castle which is what the kids called the main building

you can still see kids and matrons faces and the windows. You can also hear singing again. You feel like you're being stared at and the bottom floor is the place that feels the most negative on the property. Would you rather run into the ghost of a matron of like one of these evil matrons or of a child? After watching some shows that have been there, I would like the children more because I think the dark spirits are the matrons that are hurting them. Makes sense. Yeah. Because I know child ghosts are usually the ones that we're like, no, thank you. But I guess you're right.

That would be at least a more positive experience. I think children ghosts always freak me out because I never know if they're actually children or if they're demonic. But I feel like if you're going into an orphanage, there's a pretty good bet that they're actually children or if they're demonic. But I feel like if you're going into an orphanage, there's a pretty good bet that it is actually children. And the matron might be demonic. So yeah, like there's some places where like there's no record of a child dying there. So then when there is a child ghost that freaks me out, you're like, where did you come from? Yeah, I'm like, what is going on here? But an orphanage, I would be shocked if I didn't run into at least one kid ghost. That makes sense then and i yeah i certainly don't want to run into

the one that's like whipping everyone until they're broken yeah and if they're like abusive and terrifying yeah that's true okay i'm with you i i am on the same page so uh here's the ghost adventures episode this was uh weirdly on discovery plus i don't know what's going on over there you seem to be to zeit with them so maybe ask what's going on but uh it said it was season 16 episode 9 but everywhere else it is season 13 episode 9 oh really that's strange i don't know if they're listed differently for some reason i'll call mr plus and see uh i was gonna say talk to dp and let me know what you, I'll call DP.

Yeah. Yeah. Get DP on the horn. You know, there's very few jokes that I can repeat a million times, but you really seem to love whenever I use the phrase on the horn. I don't know why it's so funny. I feel like I've done it enough times now where I'm waiting to see when you'll

stop laughing and you always, it always tickles you. I think it becomes more funny. I think because we, I think we both know the more I say it, the more I'm accidentally going to slip it into my normal jargon and I won't notice I'm saying on the horn. You're just going to keep saying

it as part of your day-to-day. It's like what I would say, like, my peahone and my won't notice i'm saying on the horn saying it as part of your day-to-day it's like what i would say like my peahone and my s-hose and my two lasses and now like i actually don't even notice it anymore i'm gonna literally one day accidentally say i'm using my peahone to get you on the horn get him on the horn get him get him on the horn on my peahone okay oh lord okay so ghost adventures 13 9 uh before they actually started uh before they filmed there nobody had ever done a paranormal investigation there really so i feel sound and knowing that like i've done all the research i can because sometimes i'll i'll look up like a ghost story and I'm like, Oh, were there any other investigations? I'm not, I'm not tracking or I missed and like, I'm not covering them. This says they they've never had an investigation before. So I'm like,

great. So I'm starting at this episode and probably ending at this episode. Yeah. Yeah. It's all I need. So, uh, when they first get there, Leslie Adams, the owner, she was worried that Zach was going to piss off all of the spirits and then leave for her to have to deal with them. Sorry to burst your bubble, Leslie, but you kind of brought this upon yourself by literally inviting the only ghost show that will, without one iota of a doubt, create that exact problem. I mean, like, Christine, can you imagine if zach bagans can you imagine can you imagine if he pissed off a bunch of spirits and then you were stuck in a room

afterwards them you know i am no comment okay i plead the fifth certainly uh okay so take your and keep going so before the, here's my personal favorite and also least favorite at the same time. They're about to start the investigation. It begins raining. Zach says that the rain reminds him of all of the orphans' tears. I'm sorry.

That took me so by surprise. I don't know why. I don't know what I thought you were going to say. I don't know what today's tech jargon is, but I had to rewind to, I had to go, I had to listen to it again because I was like, come again, Mr. Bagans? What did you just say? Holy shit. I'm sorry.

How does he get away with that? And like his crew doesn't laugh. Like that's what baffles me is like, we all laugh because we're like, oh, Zach, you know, and it's like, it's scary, but like we can laugh at we're like oh zach you know and it's like it's scary but like we can laugh at his like little mannerisms but like nobody on his team can like they all keep a straight face but here's the thing and like working in tv at one point i feel like we both know that a lot of reality show is scripted and i right i like to hope i really i really should like we we talk trash about um ghost adventures a lot just because

of the aesthetic that they give us but never once have i do i think we've ever trash talked like their uh their ability to capture something or if if there was something like if there was compelling evidence i've never like we enjoy the show but i the the problem uh not even especially with ghost adventures but anytime but anytime that anyone who has a reality show, I'm talking like I have one, but anyone who goes into a reality show, at some point, most of them will go into a sound booth later and do what's called ADR. Right. And they'll do like the narratives where they're talking over certain scenes and stuff like that. And they don't just go in and say something willy nilly. Like there were writers who came up with where they're talking over certain scenes and stuff like that and they don't just go in and say something willy-nilly like there were writers who came up with what they're

saying so right sometimes i i do wonder like is zach like this or is there just one writer that everyone's just letting slip through the cracks and they're just like amping it up and they're like say this next and they're like zach you're gonna be the one that everyone remembers having said this i'll write it but you just have to go record it in a booth afterwards do you really think he would say it if he didn't want to you know i feel like i feel like if we if we didn't want to let's say we had a tv show that'd be very fun if we had one and we had a like record like b-roll narrative or something later Yeah. 100%. We would be getting the script in advance and we would be like, we're not saying that like we're not. Yeah.

And, and if we're going to say that, like Zach's certainly going to stand up and be like, hell no. Especially if, if you're him and like, I don't know enough about contracts, but if he's an executive producer,

he definitely has a say, right? It's like his show. Right, right, right. Hi. So anyway. I think he's kind of like that. I'll be honest. I think they exaggerate it for the show, but I think he actually is. It certainly was said and it certainly was heard by me. So I, um, That's all the reality I need, you know?

That's all I need. So, uh, here is the things that they experienced while they were there and i gotta say two for two that this is why i didn't plan on covering this topic but like it was like it was a spooky one and like i sometimes they're not spooky sometimes they're just silly and like something to like scoff at but this one had some creepy stuff so um jay feels something brushed by his leg uh there, there's EVPs of children's voices. There are multiple times where in real time they hear disembodied sounds that make no sense. I do appreciate that there were two different times where they debunked something. Ah, that's always helpful.

Uh, both times it was animals. Um, they heard a lot of sounds, which I gotta tell you were the scariest fucking thing of my life. And then they found out it was a pigeon flying through the room. Who knew that this pigeon could make the scariest sound imaginable? Well, then they like, they found in one of the rooms, there was like, um, children's footprints, but then it was raccoons. So like it, I appreciate that they admitted to that. Um, in one room, admitted to that um in one room this was where it kind of got like spooky ooky zach keeps saying that part of the room feels electric he's like i can't explain it just feels really electric so he brings in some equipment and the millimeter starts spiking like crazy like truly an abnormal spike like very creepy and at the same time the ovulus says electric oh that's spooky that doesn't make

sense to me and as someone very creepy has as someone who has used an obvious i'm telling you cannot control what the ovulus says i believe it's very it's very odd and it has a big dictionary right it's not like big old one limited amount of words or something big old one and so uh another time zach sees a like a light or something moving in another room and he says i just saw you you looked like light do i look like light to you and he gets an evp of something saying i see you that's not quite what i asked it's like so as light or not as light um in one room they hear heavy quick footsteps while they also see on the camera a dark shadow lunge at them yuck um in another room they hear scratching uh and then they see a shadow on the camera run from one room to another and when they ask what

the shadow was the ovula says projection and then the ovula says hide oh oh oh oh no no soon after that they have heard scratches they also heard growls they heard three knocks in a row which zach loves to say three is the trifecta from the devil or something um you know and then they all felt something really dark and smelled sulfur so that sounds like a demon to me yeah it doesn't sound good uh and this was in the area that is usually known to have negative energy so later they also see this was very creepy this got this got me uh they see someone standing next to them which is awful and then later by the pool in real time and on camera both they heard it in real time and they got it on camera they hear a little girl's voice teasing and singing ew and you could hear it in the episode yeah really truly

hear it um so while they're standing in the pool it's like it's a drained pool while they're standing there they my dumb ass was like oh my god they put on swim trunks treading water what's up uh so while they're standing in the pool they hear something fall on the other side of the pool it sounded really heavy when they walk over they now see that there is a ball sitting on the floor that wasn't there earlier and they looked back on the cameras and you can see the ball from a completely other room roll to the pool all the way to the pool no and then fall into the pool so they have the literal journey of the ball to the pool oh fuck that and so they think because they were hearing a little girl's voice earlier yep and then the ball falls into the pool the

little uh zach asks the little girl to move the ball again and you can see on the camera it is fully moving by itself no and when zach keeps calling her little girl the move the ball again. And you can see on the camera, it is fully moving by itself. No. And when Zach keeps calling her little girl, the obvious goes, Carol. Yeah, true. Okay. It's like little girl. It's like, like, homie, like I have a name. Geez. Did they check the sign to see if there was a Carol? They didn't, but that would have been so smart. So they say, uh, they're like, Oh my God, Carol, that might've been the same oh so they say uh they're like oh my god carol that might have been the same one who was singing earlier and then the ovulus says laugh as in like ha ha ha or it's just like hello i'm lolling so hard right now she's like laugh laugh laugh right you guys are so funny ha ha ha uh and then so as the ovulus says laugh like zach

like production brain zach was like oh so we have to i have to show this to a camera so they can see that the machine says laugh and so he's kind of twisting around because he's on the ladder on the stairs he's like halfway down the ladder oh in the pool in the pool he's halfway down the ladder when it happens so he's kind of moving around and twisting around to like show the ovulus off to people and the ovulus says twist no and then it said cleansing which they read as like maybe this was a cleansing experience for them but i don't know if like they were maybe it was cleansing to go into the pool i don't know anyway uh then i also watched those orphan tears coming from the sky that were so cleansing. God.

And never mind. I was going to say something. It was going to be really stupid. So then there's an episode called Destination Fear, which remember a while ago? I've said this before, but it blows my mind every time that it's just a very precious. Full circle that there was that one episode forever ago yes where uh they did like a video contest and some some guy won the contest and got to go ghost hunting with them and he home boy ended up being the the ghost invested like the lead investigator on destination fear that's that yes i think that was your zach episode maybe it was i don't i don't know i don't know i remember

that he won a like a music video contest and he like i think pretended to be zach in the music video and so he got to go with his dad on a haunted location with them and uh and he ended up now i guess they became buddies i imagine zach like helps him get us on show. That's the cutest thing ever, by the way. I just love that story. Very precious. So anyway, I watched that episode, which by the way, the intro to Destination Fear and the intro to Ghost Adventures is so goddamn similar. Uh-huh. They have the same musical taste, I guess.

He looks like a younger Zach. He sounds like a younger Zach. Literally, he was doing the Zach voice in the trailer where he was like, my name is Dakota. And I'm like- no wonder you won that contest i'm like you were practicing at that that music video was just the beginning of what you thought the beginning so anyway if you want to watch it is season three episode nine um and i thought it was season 13 that was ghost adventures this is oh oh okay sorry ghost adventures is 13 9 destination fear is 3 9 okay so when they and That was Ghost Adventures. Oh, okay. Sorry. Ghost Adventures is $13.99. Destination of Fear is $3.99. Okay.

So when they, and they got some spooky stuff too. So when they asked for a sign that someone was there in real time, they heard a throat clear in the hall, which they also got on camera. In the gym locker room, this was like, I love when machines go off with yes or no questions. They had a paranormal music box box which it's literally a music box slash motion sensor so uh it's just it's just a creative interesting way to make motion sensors less boring on camera i guess well and it's also like oh old timey ghosts might want to come near the instead of of like a scary machine, it's like, oh, they would recognize this object.

Yeah. Good luring tool. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, basically if they were to approach the machine, uh,

this music would start playing and it was, if the answer is yes, approach the machine. If the answer is no, don't. And so while in the gym locker room, they got, the machine did not go off to,

are you a boy? The machine did go off to, are you a girl? The machine did not go off to are you a boy the machine did go off to are you a girl the machine did not go off to did you like this place the machine did go off to did you not enjoy your time here the machine which like i appreciate that they kept asked if the answer was no they would try to confirm it with the opposite i really appreciate that instead of just like reading into something right um then they said like well even if you didn't like your time here are you at least in this room because you liked it here and the machine started going off like crazy okay um that's good in a room where the girls used to sleep uh they asked who are you and the ovulus said ann and then they said did you make friends here and the ovulus

said harriet oh precious um they also later in a in the castle they said what are you and the ovulus said friend girl oh i'm harriet yeah that's me, big H. And so when saying that, oh, this little girl is friendly, all of a sudden the obvious said, hide, enemy. Which is weird because Ghost of Ventress also got hide. Yeah.

And so to me, it seems like, or the story they were writing out for me, it felt like it was a little girl who was friendly. And all of a sudden someone, like maybe like the matron was coming and she was like, hide enemy. No. So in the castle basement, they also felt. Or maybe it was Carol. And they're like, Carol's our enemy.

She's throwing balls at us. Her head is just so blown up since the Ghost Avengers episode. She and her stupid ball. She was in such a limelight that Carol has just not gotten over it. So, never mind. So, in the castle basement, they experienced a dark shadow lunging at them, which also happened on Ghost Adventures. Oh, mysterious. them which also happened on ghost adventures oh mysterious i wonder it's part of me is like oh that's such good uh evidence because everyone's getting similar experiences so it's like confirming

all of their it's validating all their experiences but then i'm also like i'm like if these shows really are like executive produced by two buddies like are we just doing some overlap collaborating here or is there even just like the um suggestion uh-huh happening because in the first episode if they are buddies i feel like before dakota and his crew got there they might have talked to zach and be like oh what did you experience i don't know this is also me like trying to be like very skeptical, which I don't think is bad, but I also don't, if it happened to like, great, good for them. Um, in the school, this is the last thing that I'll say, but, uh, they, he had a really cool idea where they were like, let's blow up a bunch of balloons and hang them, like put them on a string, tape the string to the ceiling.

So that the ball, the balloon is completely free floating. Nothing's going to accidentally rub up against it and pop it or anything. Let's just hang it and see if anything hits it because it's also, it's super lightweight. So it wouldn't take a lot of energy for something to brush past it or move it for us, which I'd never heard of that tactic before. I thought that was super creative. Um, so he blows up a bunch of balloons and hangs them from the ceiling. And he's like, if you're a little kid here and you know, you pop one of these not pop one of these balloons can you move one of these balloons can you nudge it or walk by it so that you know we see it moving around nothing happens for the longest time and then all of a sudden the two of them the two investigators they were like something

feels really bad here like all of a sudden they one of them said i feel like i'm gonna get in trouble which is so weird because that feels like maybe like a matron came in yeah and as let me i i uh i'm gonna send it to you because it seemed to work last time for me to send this to you i instead of making you go to a time code or anything i just i'm sending you the clip but it's only 10 seconds so let me know when you get that and this is during the balloon thing um stupid question so i clip, but it's only 10 seconds. So let me know when you get that. And this is during the balloon thing. Stupid question. So I thought you said it was only done on Ghost Adventures or that they were the only ones who went. So Ghost Adventures was before Ghost Adventures. Nobody had ever investigated before.

So Ghost Adventures was the first. And then I guess Destination Fear came in, which again, if they're buddy buddy with Ghost Adventures, maybe they were able to get like an in or something afterwards. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I just got the clip. Should I watch it? Okay. So this is, this is right after they felt like they were going to get in trouble and some like dark energy had just walked in. Cause they felt like at the, they had been sitting there for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes at this point, the balloons weren't moving. They weren't getting any EVPs. They felt like nothing was in the room. And all of a sudden they felt something really dark happen. And this, this is right as one of the investigators is saying something feels weird. Okay. Yeah. Like I was just like, okay, maybe I'm just psyching myself out, but I was

like, something feels weird. First of all remarkable how similar they are to z right uncanny it's like a carbon copy that is bonkers so for people who didn't i for people i didn't text the clip to uh as he's as one of them is saying something feels really weird the balloon not just pops but like explodes into a bunch of pieces and you can tell they are shook because they i mean the camera like almost smashes into the ground like they are they are terrified so i am aware to all the skeptics so like i don't know a little bumblebee could have come in and stabbed it or something, but like, honestly,

if a little bumblebee came in and stabbed it, that would have been more fascinating and like such a stranger coincidence. I think then it goes like a little hummingbird just wanted to sniff it with its pointy beak. But, uh, but yeah, no,

it, it really, it seemed at the same moment where they were like, something feels really weird here. And you know what's funny too is that he's saying, oh, maybe I was just overthinking it. Maybe I was just in my own, like, it's almost like he's going back on it. And then the balloon's like, nope, I'm here. It's like, you were right. Yeah, don't forget me.

So anyway, both of those episodes were super good. Is Destination Fear good? I need another ghost show after. So I was literally about to like kind of give like a mini shout out to Destination Fear just because like I have never I've really only watched Ghost Adventures and that's it. And unless I was doing research, I haven't watched any other shows. But I did not hate Destination Fear. They were it was very creative. Like the things that it was actually.

So it's dakota his sister and his two friends and uh they were like just super i don't know if this was like how it was written or whatever but this episode in particular seemed creative like the balloon thing um they also they started the episode by all of them being blindfolded and then being like separated immediately without even knowing where they were. And so they found out once they were in the building alone in separate, cause there was 26 buildings. Each of them were in completely different buildings,

took their blindfold off and then found out they were at an orphanage. And these were all the things that happened there. And so they were able to cover a lot of ground by going to different places. Does Chip Coffey ever make an appearance? Honestly an appearance honestly if chip coffee just kind of like evaporated into in into the building i would have been so into it needs to to twirl his scarf around and it'll happen just like like a one of those illusions were like how they'll throw like a smoke cloud and then they disappear he just does the the scarf and he appears all over again. Oh,

I love him. Anyway, that's the twin bridges, uh, orphanage. That was good. Um, I,

that was really good. And I'm adding, um, destination fear to my list here. I have a feeling by proxy destination fear probably wouldn't like us if they know our feelings on Zach, but we also like ga like we watch it you know and we use it for research i mean fun i gotta say i like ga i have no problem with ga ghost adventures my only problem is things with zach like it's calling the rain you know i

just it makes me think of the orphan's tears like yeah and there's some some troubling things he said and and some uh some maybe screaming in the ghost face it's the it's the problematic stuff of zach that's my only problem with him i don't have a problem with his like spiky hair and acid wash jeans but i do have a problem with like his like lack of depth in some areas sometimes it's a little bit like cringe you know know, but, um, but yeah, I mean, I'm going to check out this destination fear situation, see what's up. All right. Um, good job.

That was, that was creepy. That was really creepy. Thank you. Uh, okay. I have a story for you and this is actually a two-parter cause it's, uh, quite a tale. Okay. I have a story for you. And this is actually a two-parter because it's quite a tale. Wow. You really let me talk for 45 minutes before this episode, didn't you? And then didn't even tell me you had a long story.

No, it's a two-parter. It's a long story that's been cut in half. So it's not like super long. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. It was. And then it's been cut in half.

So this is the story. Like I said, it's a Russian story. And it's a Russian serial story and it's a russian serial killer his name is alexander pachushkin shit i practice this so many times pachushkin okay alexander pachushkin the chessboard killer hold on hang on the chessboard killer i don't know him no but i'm trying to like i'm trying to imagine immediately what i think the chessboard killer. I don't know him. Do you know him? No, but I'm trying to imagine immediately what I think the chessboard killer is so I can be completely torn. Oh, interesting. Like what that could mean.

I mean, it sounds like a Criminal Minds episode, doesn't it? You have been doing a lot of stories lately where there's like a very sensationalized name to them. Like there's, I know there's a lot out there, but I feel like in a row i've been hearing like the angel makers angel makers uh chessboard killer um chessboard killer chessboard killer so in my mind immediately i think of like harry potter with that dangerous that's exactly what i thought too i was like everyone's life-size chess right and then uh but then chessboard killer it's not that for anyone wondering well i don't think i don't think i just thought it was behind this or anything just thought it confirmed but uh chessboard killer i feel like part of me wants to think of it as like an escape room

situation where like he would use like a strategy he would use the chessboard almost as like maybe a map and like based on where the chessboard piece was. I feel like that's you as a murderer, but not this guy. It's too complicated. I think I'm making it too difficult. Chessboard killer. Did he just like play in the park with people and kill them? I don't know.

Like kind of. Yeah. Oh, it's that simple. Wow. I was really making it harder. Well, there's more to it, but that's definitely an aspect of it. Yes. Okay.

I really was hoping that the chessboard was like part of his, he has a chessboard. He does have a chessboard. Okay. Does he wait? Does he? Hmm. Okay. Last time I'll ask a question.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just kidding. Um, but I'm like, yeah, a hundred percent. Totally. Maybe because like a lot of killers, like have like they always collect like a tchotchke after

after their kill you like they need a trophy like is the chessboard pieces a bunch of like things from his kills so not quite but you're definitely on the right track oh okay okay you're definitely on the right track i did better than i thought i was going you did really good you really did because you got two parts of it. Checkmate, Christine. Oh, I don't play chess, but okay. It's fine. I would love to play chess with you. Actually. I think you'd be a very fun chess partner. Really? I've always wanted to learn and I'm embarrassed. I don't know. And you, you even sent me the instructions that you had written out once. And I never got around. I drew it on paper. Yeah, you did on like note cards or something. And I never got around to actually learning it. Um, my brother plays. I would not

want to play with your brother. I, I'm no offense to him. It sounds like a headache. Yeah. Well, he's just like, first of all, I've never met someone more competitive and we would not, we would clash first of all. It would be met someone more competitive and we would not, we would clash, first of all. It would be a headache. Because he would really, really, really want to win and I would really let him. I would be like, I don't want this as much as you do. He would want nothing, he would hate nothing more than for you to let him win. So it would just be a disaster.

But also he's very, he already is naturally very strategic and he like even if he decided I'm gonna take like a fucking Xanax and not even care whether or not I win or lose I assume that's what he needs to like not be competitive I don't know but if he just if we decided we were going to play the same energy he would still already without ever playing him I know he would be light years better than me so it's like no matter what I mean I don't know i've never seen you play chess i don't know anything about it so i can't say either way but i would say i'm average to above average but he is pretty good he's he's i think maniacal at chess i would bet his brain works in mysterious ways i guess i'll put that i'll say that um anyway so this is the story of the chessboard killer and on june 14 2006 we're

going to jump right into we're going to jump in kind of like at a random point like i do sometimes and then like rewind to the beginning i love when you make it cinematic it's like someone executive produced this kind of like a zb exclusive it's stick wolf and me um on june 14 2006 the body of 35 year old marina moskalyova was found in bitsevsky park river in moscow russia okay this gets dark and shitty really fast i'm so lucky that there's two parts to this so i have yeah you're you're welcome be miserable twice as long. Marina had died having been struck on her head. And according to Murderpedia, small wooden stakes had been driven through her eyes and into her skull.

I'm sorry. Whoa, wait. For what it's worth, that happened after the death, but still. Okay. So at least that didn't, I mean, you know. It's gory. It's horrific. So she got hit in the head and then this whole other situation happened with the eyes.

She was killed having been hit, blunt force trauma to the head. And then wooden stakes had been driven into her skull. Wow. Okay. We really just did a very immediate halt on the fun. Sorry. So when the police arrived at the scene and searched the body, they discovered they were very lucky because Marina's jacket pocket

contained two incredibly helpful clues. The first was a Metro ticket that had been stamped with the time on it. Okay. And the second was a telephone number written had been stamped with the time on it. Okay. And the second was a telephone number written on a piece of paper. Very useful. Very useful. The number turned out to belong to her 32-year-old colleague, Alexander Petrushkin. And the two of them worked together at the local supermarket. Wait, didn't you already say this name, Petrushkin? Yes, he's the chessboard killer. Oh, okay. So she just had the number to the killer. I see. Correct. Wait, didn't you already say this name, Patryoshkin? Yes, he's the chessboard killer.

Oh, okay. So she just had the number to the killer. I see. Correct. Okay, I see where we're going. Yes, Patryoshkin. How is this a two-parter? We already found him. The end, I wish. So bad. And he liked to play chess. Anyway, that's the story. I wish that were the end, but it's very far from it. Okay. So the two of them worked at the supermarket together um and the police of course instantly go over to patrushkin's home where he lived with his mother but when police questioned him about marina's disappearance he said he had no clue where she was in fact he said he hadn't seen her in months even though they worked together almost every day at the supermarket so they they were like, something's fishy.

Something's fishy. Cleanup on aisle seven. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, the morning her body was discovered, Marina's 15-year-old son, Sergei, was watching TV when he saw that a woman's body had been found and he knew his mom hadn't come home. Oh, no. Yeah, it's fucking terrible so of course worried about his mother's whereabouts he called his dad who then called the police and when police talked to sergey the son he revealed some even more crucial information

because his mama was very smart when uh he had gotten home that evening his mother had left him a letter which said hey just so you know i'm going to be with this person and i'm going to this park and i'll be on a date with this alexander guy he's my co-worker so if anything happens which by the way like psa like psa women out there or uh anyone who has had to walk down a street in fear let's just put it that way um if you are not one of those people who already does that when you're about to go on a date with somebody or you're meeting somebody for the first time in public please start doing that and also psa to men and or people who've never had to worry about walking down a street this is shit that

people have to do just like yeah and do just like as part of their day-to-day just to add some extra safety just to give you to give you a little awareness that enough things have happened in the world that people have to do stuff like this and it's not just considered smart but necessary so but necessary yeah and it doesn't always even work as we can see but i do appreciate that she was someone who already knew this like kind of universal tip i i appreciate that about her i also i love that she was also keeping her kid in the loop the whole time very savvy um so savvy so fucking sucks that she was killed um and i wish that the story had turned out differently but thank god she was savvy because it led to this

guy's arrest um so he said i have no clue where she is blah blah blah they talked to sergey he's like uh my mom wrote me this letter and it gave me the information that she was going out with his alexander patrushkin and they were going to the park and so they take this metro ticket that has a time stamp on it and go look at surveillance footage from the metro and they discover that she and alexander patryoshkin had walked the mother with the metro together um which corroborated the letter so they really have this guy pinned now they're like every angle points to you he really did not for someone who is called the chessboard killer his he really did not bank on other people having a strategy. Now, that is interesting because that actually is part of the psychology of this case ultimately.

It's like, why? Why did this? So, spoiler, I don't know if I end up even mentioning this because it's two-parter. I don't know where this this gets mentioned if at all but um basically uh he knew she told him on the date that she had written her son a letter with saying I'm with you and we don't know if it was like out of fear like she was like hey just so you know my kid knows where I am we don't know if it was a joke like, oh, you better not kill me. You know, I'm, I was so nervous. I even put your name in a letter to my kid. We don't know the context. Did the killer know that the kid knew? Yeah, that's what, so she told him. I know if it was the kid or just like people know where I am in general. She said, I wrote a letter

to my son where I told him exactly where I was going and with whom. Okay. And yet he killed her anyway. And so. That's so wild. The question is like, why? You know, because the strategy just wasn't there. That's like, that was a full momentary lapse of any thinking of like, unless his next move was to try to also kill the kid for who would have so the theory at least the one so one of the podcasts i listened to that was really helpful was serial killers by parkast and um one of the interesting theories is like that

age-old psychological serial killer one of he wanted to get caught and he was like i'm not getting attention for this um and like spoiler alert as well this is a murder after many others so it's like he's been doing this for a long time so it doesn't really make sense that he would just all of a sudden give up the goat so easily and one of the theories is he wanted to get caught um and so i i don't know if that's true um or you know his his urge to kill was just so strong that he risked it and in it's kind of cheesy but in the serial killers podcast they said something like you know in chess sometimes you have to sacrifice a player to you know gain something else maybe he was just making the risk of you know getting caught but it was yeah he wanted i think he was like it was a very fine line he was risking of like if i give enough information to authorities then at least there's like a chase that i'm seeking

something like that or he could have just been like maybe she's bluffing and it's a risk i'm willing to take like Like, who knows? Interesting. That could also be a totally. So anyway, there's no way to know. But yeah, he got screwed by this particular murder, basically. So Patrishkin's house, which was near the park, was raided and he was arrested. And they found, this is just what they found in his house here we go they found images and newspaper clippings of a notorious russian serial killer

named andre chikatilo and he was somebody that patrushkin evidently desperately admired whoa have you covered him i have not no okay in fact i had not even heard of him i think might i suggest i've never requested before but could you do him after the story so they pair nicely together okay that's a thought i like it m just throwing it out there you don't have to to do it. Please remind me. Okay. I'm going to like not remember it. Everyone's going to be like, what the hell? Yeah. So Andre Chikatilo is somebody that he's evidently admired and not only admired, but like desperately wanted to emulate. Wow.

Okay. Yeah. Which sounds like he was a pretty horrible dude then for this guy. For another serial killer to be like i'll never be you wow i just look up to you so much yeah so andre chikatilo was more famously known as the rostov ripper oh or the russian hannibal lector oh my god yeah he's bad uh he was a cannibal who raped mutilated and murdered his victims oh my god and between 1978 and 1990 chikatilo would kill a total of 52 women and children whoa okay so that'll be a big story that's you choose to do that yeah you've put me set me up for a i've set you up for i think a

three-parter that's what i think i think we all know what the next five weeks of a Natsway drink is going to look like on your end. Boy, oh. They also found an alarming amount of violent porn in Patrishkin's apartment. But the scariest item of all was a chessboard. Okay. Okay. I'm trying to think. I feel like it's not as like thrilling as it might seem.

Is it currently just a literal fucking chessboard? I feel like, are there not names written on the back or something? So here, I'll tell you. So the chessboard was the prop that would ultimately turn Alexander Petrushkin into the chessboard killer in the eyes of the public. in the eyes of the public um why because notably 61 out of the 64 squares on the chessboard had been numbered basically every kill had been marked on the chessboard oh so the the chessboard itself was the trophy was the trophy and he was tallying he was trying to fill it out ew so wait what was going to happen once he hit the 64th one was he just going to stop killing or was he going to get a new chessboard probably get a new chessboard probably take up like backgammon i don't know i was going to say like what's a what's a thing with worse pegs all over it mahjong i have no idea uh so in some reports they say that each one had a a coin glued to it or a date uh written on it or a cross but basically each square all we what we

do know is each square represented a victim um and it's believed that the the date of the kill was on so he that was the trophy was him basically marking he was trying to fill out this chessboard and um like i mentioned petushkin had I'm not Petushkin, sorry. The Rostov Ripper had killed 52 women and children. And, um, Petushkin's goal was to fill out this 64 piece chessboard. Wow. And so his goal was to surpass his idol. And question, I don't know if you know this cause you haven't researched that other fella yet but have you do we know if he was dead or alive because maybe was he going to try to like impress him or make him proud or was this more just for him so he was alive and the reason that he became kind of his idol is because while patrushkin was kind of living his day-to-day life this uh rostov ripper was on trial and it was this hugely

it was this big spectacle this hugely publicized thing and he was getting so much attention that patrushkin was like i want that attention got it got it and so it was more like a love hate thing like i don't think he necessarily wanted to impress uh the rostov ripper i think he wanted to one-up him and get that same amount of kind of attention from the public and be that hero quote unquote in that sick way oh wow yeah so he that's kind of what his goal was um so like i said each square on the chessboard, you know, correlated to one of his victims. And bizarrely, Pichushkin, which maybe does go to show that he was trying to get caught, was more than cooperative with police. He had no issue returning to Bitsevsky Park, which by the

way, is called Bitzaza park that's like the nickname of it and so a lot of times it's referenced as bitza park um so he had no problem returning to bitza park to show authorities around as sort of like a murder tour guide like he showed them how he accomplished his kills he reenacted the crimes um and apparently he wasn't just doing this for show it's actually russian protocol to like have the killer reenact so that there's no doubt in court and they film it so that you can if you're confessing your crimes you can reenact it so that there's no doubt that i don't know that seems to be that's weird and complete And complete side note. My, uh, my stage fright would really kick in.

Yeah. Can you imagine like, all right. Can you also also, Hmm. Camera's rolling. Right. And also like,

I wonder if in a scenario where let's say an innocent person is up for murder, they have to reenact it, I guess, to see if the way. No, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no to see if the way no no no i think this is for a confession

oh oh oh i see okay i think this is for a confession if you're saying can you imagine having to watch a bunch of people like reenact something that awful oh my god this would be so bad oh my god no no this is if you're confessing because otherwise it would be bat shit crazy to have a bunch of people like i guess i did this i was like are they all just gonna like rehearse together like so they all know what to do when they film oh my god no no no no so this is because he is cooperating he's uh admitting to all these crimes and so as part of this process he has to show police what he did they film it so that in court they can go through and kind of show what he did um in this protocol according to a documentary called serial killers the chessboard killer it

was evident to those with him that he was taking great satisfaction reliving the murders it's great yeah like so do they can i ask how they knew? Like, was he laughing or smiling? So he was just like super eager to show them what he did. It was almost like he was showing off. The cameraman who was there claimed to have filmed over 40 hours with him because he was so eager. And Petrushkin remembered everything in surprising detail. And according to senior investigator Andre supernenko quote this is

probably my favorite quote from any recent story i've done so according to the senior investigator he wanted to talk all maniacs want to talk so i mean i guess that makes sense because yeah if you don't know that you need to shut the fuck up and like you're not reading the room that this isn't a cool thing yeah it makes sense or if you're so so i don't know if it's sociopathy or what but psychopathy you're so uh tunnel visioned on your proud of yourself yeah that you don't even have any care that this is like like fucked up thing. No awareness, no wherewithal, nothing. No, yeah, exactly. So all maniacs want to talk is kind of my new, I love it because I feel like it also relates to podcasting.

I was going to say hello. Oopsies. And so he also told the police, quote, it was all the same to me who I killed. I killed for the sake of the process itself. And for the record, I wanted to kill as many people as possible and to beat Ciccatello's record. So that goes to show he was trying to beat his idol. And though a lot of the reports on this murderer really drive home the point that he was a loner, had never been married, had never been spotted with a woman which like shouldn't be necessarily relevant to being a murderer uh for what it's worth his old

classmate dennis asserts when we uh when we learned he had committed the crimes it was a shock because everyone from his childhood was like no he was so nice and normal um i which is shocking because i feel like you would meet someone like that and be like oh no we like oh dear right like we had a feeling we had something was up with this guy he to be able to yeah agreed so um alexander patrushkin known to his friends as sasha was born on apr 9th, 1974. So he's an Aries. He was born in Mityushche, I'm probably saying that wrong, Mityushche, Moscow. And he was raised by his mother, Natasha Fyatosova, after his father left them before he turned one year old. So his father left when he was a baby. They lived at 2 Kersonskaya Street, and that's where he ended up living for a majority of his life. And as he grew up, Natasha remarried his mother and Petrushkin

gained two half-siblings, Katya and Sergei. Now, this is a formative experience in his childhood that I think is going to be a huge red flag in our understanding, which is that he was at a playground as a kid and fell off a swing, hit his head on the pavement under the swing, sat up and the swing swung back and hit him in the front of the head. Got it from the back and the front. Jesus. Yes. And the part of the brain that researchers often believe is linked to homicidal tendencies when injured is a frontal lobe. And I probably phrased that wrong. I'm not saying it's often linked to homicidal tendencies. What I'm saying is some researchers believe that there's a connection there with an injury to the frontal lobe or a brain injury something like that jeez sorry but can you i'm just still imagining like hitting your head on the pavement coming up and getting smacked your brain is just sloshing that is so bad and that's before i believe he was four years old and that's before your frontal was even fully formed and so the damage done is and people did say um he was never the same after that which is just really fucking sad you know it just like makes me really really sad um he was never the same after that which is just really fucking sad you know it just like makes me really really sad um he had once been described as pleasant he loved animals um and he had suddenly

had this head injury and completely changed uh and so doctors speculated that his aggression was attributed to this damaged uh frontal lo. And unfortunately, he was severely bullied physically and verbally at school. He hated the other kids at his school for obvious reasons. And the only really person that he connected with was his grandfather. And it got to the point where his home life was so crowded and so uncomfortable that he moved in with his grandfather who kind of saw something in him and thought, you know, this is a smart kid. I'm going to take him in and raise him as my own. And I'm going to teach him how to play chess. Oh, OK.

Oh, so I'm starting to see why he has an attachment to chess now if it's like one of the only signs of love he's been given. Precisely, Anathy. Love and attention and attention love and attention and something he's good at so he was semi brought up by his grandfather who would teach his grandson how to play chess in bitza park where he would play with the older people at the park typically men, and he became pretty damn good at it. According to an article in GQ, of all places, Bicevsky Park, often shortened to Bitsa Park, is a long, rolling forest filled with trees, streams, and clearings. In the winter, it's popular with cross-country skiers. The grounds extend from Balaklovsky Prospect, a boulevard on the north end, to the MKAD, the multi-lane beltway that encircles moscow four miles south the park is enormous encompassing more than 2700 acres and for

reference new york central park covers 843 so central park's 843 this park is 2700 acres so it's pretty darn big in the middle of moscowing it are tens of thousands of people living in sprawling, rusting apartment blocks, speckled with satellite dishes. Many people call this part of Moscow the Zhopa Mira or the asshole of the world. That's what I call it, Christine. I thought that name sounded familiar. I thought it was a cute pet name, but no, apparently not. Can you say it again so I can type that into my phone i'm probably not saying it right uh zhopa z-h-o-p-a z-h-o-p-a mira m-i-r-a uh me zop zopamira i don't know if that's probably so officially your new name in my phone biggest asshole in the world or whatever it was thank you asshole of the world hey there she goes so this area was

grim uh it was concrete half an hour outside the center of the city and that's why i got this lovely beautiful nickname that it shares with me um and with all this training from his grandfather and at the park uh petrushkin turned into a great chess player. He often he started to beat the older men at their own game. He would regularly go and play games with them. And it was unfortunately a pretty pivotal and pretty sad moment in his life when his idol, his grandfather, passed away. And he was pretty young. And so he had already lost his father at a young age. And now he was losing his father figure, his grandfather.

Yeah. All over again. And so this took him, this hit him really hard. He had to move back in with his mother and he spiraled into a deep depression. It led to alcoholism. alcoholism and uh natasha his mother always insisted later that like there was nothing out of the ordinary about her son at all um but in the gq article they they include that natasha's explanation of him being so normal and uh ordinary included the following fun facts about him he had a cat named mercek and a fish tank and he loved the tv adaptation of alexandra dumas countess of monsereau these are things that make him normal super normal like look how normal he is it's like oh he has a cat and wait did you say he has a cat and a fishbowl? A fish tank. Yeah. A fish tank. Oh, okay. I thought it was just like an empty fucking bowl.

I think he had fish, I'm assuming. I was like, that, by the way, is not fucking normal to just have an empty fishbowl with your cat. He has a cat in a fishbowl and they watch TV together. It's so normal. I wouldn't even worry about it. I was like, that would be like, ding, ding, ding. We got to get him in here.

Like red flag like red flag red flag um she also insisted that this is a little bit cringe uh even though he never showed any interest in women he wasn't gay okay fucking bed because that would not be normal and she said in fact my son was actually going to marry someone but then like had no information about that. So it's like, okay, lady. Like maybe in like a prophecy way of like one day he would. One day. I simply knew it.

One day his prince will come. I don't know. Not his prince. Princess. My bad. My princess. Please. So as much as she called him ordinary, he did some things that were, might I say, out of the ordinary.

Like killing? Well, yeah, he did that for sure. But before that ever happened, he would hang out in the parks. He would sometimes hold up a child by their leg upside down and say, you are in my power now. I am going to drop you from a window and you will fall 15 meters to your death. Whoa. You had me at just lifting the kid by the leg because i was like that's fine i've done that with kids like just as like a wrestling thing for

like fun for fun i the whole speech you just did the rest of it no no you are in my power now no yikes if you're if you're holding a child by the leg and one they aren't giggling and two the next thing to come out of your mouth isn't one two three and then they land into like a land of fluffy pillows whatever whatever the next move is don't do it just also make sure they don't have svt because that could trigger that actually i i hope if they were to have svt i would love to be lifted upside down by my leg and just oh that's a great point, but just don't throw them in a pool. That could end badly. Just keep me hanging and just leave it there. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You heard it here first. So this is what this normal behavior was. Another normal thing that he did was that he would walk around threatening children and film it with his camcorder. So his mother clearly just had a blind eye to all his,

you know, strange behavior, I guess. And here's a little bit more about him. There's an article called The Exile where our author, Marsha Levine, asked Petrushkin about himself and said like, hey, why don't you give us some fun facts about you? Like, like getting to know you, you know, like celebrity profile type thing about him can you imagine okay can you imagine and so he was asked about human life and he was quoted as saying human life is not too long it is cheaper than a sausage. You heard it here first. I have bought multiple sausages and cannot afford much of my life. So I beg to differ. I beg to differ. I have nightmares. A dog. It lived with me a long time. She died. It was my fault. I treated it, how to say, not very. She could have been saved. It was a bad situation. It left something in my subconscious. But they're cheaper than a burrito. That's human life. Oh, sorry. To be clear.

On literature, he says, of course I don't write. Only devki, which are Russian slang for girls. Of course I don't write. Only devki, which are Russian slang for girls. Only devki write. Journalists too, I suppose. That was his way of proving he's not gay, by the way. He was, duh. I don't write like one of those sallies over there.

No, not like a sissy. On friendship, he said, first of all, what is a friend? Whoa. Hmm. He has an empty fishbowl. So like, like yeah he's probably confused about a lot of things um your cat maverick or whatever it was yeah uh on on traveling i would like to live in mexico first it is warm there and secondly there are forests maybe there i could live in a different way if i was there do you want to tell me there are no jungles? Like Freddy Krueger said, Elm Street exists in every city. What a quote. Do you want to know what his favorite book is? The Nightmare Before Elm Street or something?

The Nightmare Before Elm Street. Sorry, the Nightmare on Elm Street. What was his favorite book? This one got a laugh out of me we could go a lot of directions here uh we could it's a really random direction oh the places you'll go dr oh that's fun sort of it is in the same genre probably uh it's dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people oh you know that's interesting i'm I'm almost not surprised because I feel like if someone is having that hard of a time being able to socialize, like that would good point. Or if, if you're having, if you have this whole strategic plan or if you're coming, you don't even realize that you're already kind of conspiring or conjuring a plan to like win people's affection or to trick

them out of it maybe. also he just said what is a friend i'm like you just read a book about it oh i didn't even i was totally in a different direction that's hysterical like right like i'm like didn't you just say that's your favorite book and then you're like what is a friend like what a what a uh a one-star review to the author of like you didn't teach me anything if any serial killer ever called our book their favorite book what a one star right like i don't want that on my hands like oh man that's not what i wanted especially like an instruction manual like dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people i'd be like oh fuck i know i know oh boy okay and so uh on his first murder he said this first murder it's like first love

it's unforgettable gross and then um that was it that was like kind of his little bio that he gave to uh to the magazine um so before we get into the massive amount of lives that patishkin tragically took uh i i did say, too, there's unfortunately not that much information. And I don't know if part of this is because, you know, Cold War. I don't know if like I did hear on the Serial Killers podcast that like records had been disposed of, you know, after a certain point. So I'm not sure why that is, but I just want to point that out if there's a limited amount of information on the victims themselves. But so Petrushkin's first murder took place on July 27th, 1992, and it's something he'd never forget. Like I said earlier, he called it first love, said it was unforgettable patrushkin was only 18 years old uh he was working in that supermarket and it just so happened that

1992 was the same year andre cicatillo was officially convicted of murdering 52 people and that's kind of when he was like i want to be that guy boy so patrishkin had a crush on his neighbor Olga, but she wasn't interested. Good Olga. She had a hunch about something. She knew, but she also had a boyfriend. So like, back off. Yeah. Two good reasons. Two good reasons to not get married. Two good reasons. But so when she rejected him, he did what any normal person would do, and he shoved her boyfriend out a window to his death oh yeah and then what did he think was gonna happen she was gonna jump into his arms and be like thank god like what i i know i think he was just angry and he just oh snapped uh he would later comment the closer the person is to

you the more pleasant it is to kill them it's more emotional emotional. Oh, I mean, I get that it would be more emotional because you were at one point invested in that person. Like I guess by, I guess what he enjoys, isn't that fucked up? A super duper fucked up. I mean, well now you've got me wondering like, if I were to kill someone, who would it be? And it's like, Oh God, Oh God, I don't answer that on air. I, well, the answer is I wouldn't fucking know. I, but I w I would certainly, I can't tell you with confidence if I were to kill a stranger versus my mother, I would certainly the mother one would be a lot harder to get over. I think. Yeah, it seems like he prefers the emotional aspect to it, which is disturbing.

Oh, my God. I can't I can't even just like the thinking about it. I can't do it. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty sick. And Sergei, the boyfriend who was killed, his death was determined a suicide. It was also speculated, but never proven that Petushkin then killed Olga a year later because her body would be found in Pitsa Park, in Pitsa Park the following year.

Pitsa Park is full of energy from this guy's life like yeah this guy ruined that place you could just film like like a a timeline just get like every stage of his life in that same fucking location disturbing it is uh and so a few months later patrishkin uh recruited his friend m Mikhail Odichuk for a killing expedition. God. And he invited him, Mikhail, to pray the streets with him for a random kill. Whoa. Wow.

And Mikhail thought it was a joke. Like, not a joke. He was just like, okay, weirdo. Like, it's like his friend. I'm so glad you said that because my first question was was going to be how the fuck do you find somebody and then even begin that conversation with them and then luck out that they agree with you. Okay.

I'm glad Mikhail was like, he thought he was joking, but Petrushkin thought, Oh great. Somebody who agrees with me and wants to do this. Like he fully believed that this other kid was like, Oh, all right,

fun. It's just further proof that he is not able to one like read the room socially so that book really did fail him but also like he's just like so tunnel visioned or just unaware of anything anything of how to win friends and influence people he certainly failed that test he did fail that test um supposedly when it became clear that uh mikhail was like uh wait we're actually killing somebody um patrushkin was like he's making fun of me and became enraged oh god by mikhail and murdered him by bashing him in the head yeah and it feels like um it feels like all he did was just like second guess if certainly he's no matter what read the room wrong for him

to think oh he's making fun of me it's like yeah no one was making fun no one was making fun of him like yo if you're really saying you're you want to kill a person the last thing anyone's gonna do is make fun of you but is be like that's hilarious right no the guy was like freaked out and and he read it as as i'm being rejected again i'm being laughed at i'm being mocked um and so he killed him so it was after this that notably patrishkin took a long hiatus from killing but that hiatus ended in may of 2001 with the murder of 52 year old yevgeny pronin because as patrushkin would later tell the court for me life without killing is like life without food for you whoa wow so yevgeny pronin had been playing chess with Petrushkin and when the game ended he invited Yevgeny for a walk in the park uh he told him today's a sad day my dog passed away

and I a year ago today and I want to go visit his grave will you join me and have a toast to my dog I brought some vodka and the guy was like sure sure, I'll walk with you. And so they walked into the park and Petrushkin took the bottle of vodka and bludgeoned him over the head and threw him in a nearby well. Whoa. And killed him. From then until July 20. So this was May 17, 2001. Whoa. May 17, 2001. Whoa, okay. From May 17, 2001 to July 21, 2001, Patryckin would kill a total of nine people.

Whoa. And he finished that off with the disappearance of Viktor Volkov. And then before the end of 2001, so that was from May to July, then by the end of the year, he murdered another 10 people. Holy crap. All in a similar fashion. And then in early 2002, he killed two more. Wow. So he really went from I'm taking a break to I'm going on a binge. A binge. Hard core. And up until now, he has been killing primarily men. Oftentimes it's men at the park who play chess. He feels like they're easy targets

he tells them i have vodka my dog's grave is over here will you walk with me and so in some ways he can influence people i guess because he can just get them to walk with him into the park i was gonna say also interesting that his most of his victims were men because literally normally i would imagine if you're going to lure someone with a dog story, it's not men that don't know you. And that's another thing that they've speculated about the psychology. Perhaps he was targeting people he didn't think would be missed. Who were less likely to cause a stir. It could also be like a dominance play of like i also that

like i'm smarter than this man or you know i'm you know this guy might be able to get girls or make friends but i can you know trick him and kill him yeah well a lot of them were just older kind of loner old men who played chess at the park who were kind of who just like the most depressing sentence but just like wouldn't necessarily be missed by a lot of people because they just kind of had their same old same old routine um and he said uh at one point which i think i mentioned earlier he didn't care who he killed he just liked to kill so i don't think it was even necessarily like it was just based on access yeah exactly and like ease of access um so up until now he had primarily killed men but that changed unfortunately on february 23rd 2002 when he attacked 18 year old maria viracheva who was

three months pregnant and this is uh the last bit before part one is over and this is like probably the wildest fucking story i don't know it's it's wild all right so buckle up so he had spotted maria on one of the streets nearby she was crying devastatingly after she had had an argument with her boyfriend and was worrying about how she'd be able to afford things for the baby now that they had separated. So Petrushkin came over to comfort her. He introduced himself, told her, like, I live right over there. They bonded over the fact that they lived like right by each other. He then offered to help her out financially. He said, oh, I have some cameras that I like, some camera equipment that I have hidden in Bitsa Park.

And if you want, you can come with me and I'll give you some of it to sell. And you can make money that way by selling some of this leftover camera equipment I'm hiding in the park. I was going to say, what a tale, like to even start with, like, I'm hiding expensive equipment. Like, yeah. Why? Like, who are you watching or you okay it's already not a stable story it's already a red flag story yeah so as they were walking um through the park he's comforting her it got darker she became a little bit on edge she had to get up early the next morning for work she hadn't planned to be out this late. Pretty soon they approached a well and he says, oh, this is where I hide the equipment. Well, before she knew it, Petrushkin grabbed her by the hair and threw her down the well.

And when she started to fight back from falling, he slammed her head into the iron well cover repeatedly until she let go and fell 25 feet into the sewage pipe. Oh my God. That is where she was pulled under the water for some time. And by water, I mean sewage. She was stuck in this pitch black sewage pipe. She made the smart decision to take off her clothes and boots, which made it easier to stay afloat. She swam around for a bit she fumbled

around she was finally able to uh manage to get a hold of the sides of the pipes so that she could in the dark kind of make her way along the pipes um again she had a major head wound because he had bashed her head in and repeatedly and like this is like the smallest thing to even care about right now but like on there's a head wound and she's swimming around in sewage so like think of the infection it's also causing that's it's the last thing you would want near an open wound i would imagine exactly so she eventually found another well she walked for about an hour and she managed to find another well this one had a ladder attached to it so she climbed up but unfortunately the exit was blocked by a manhole cover and she pushed with all her might but the 90 pounds uh was so heavy that she only managed to move it a couple inches um and she had been uh under she

was there overnight so by dawn she had finally managed to move the manhole cover a couple inches and she could see out to people in the park but they could not hear her screaming they could not her voice was hoarse at this point they couldn't see her they couldn't hear her people were just living about their day but eventually one woman froze in horror as she watched the manhole cover shift a little bit yeah okay so maria's like oh my god i'm saved somebody saw me and then she's horrified to see the woman turn and run in fear in the other direction oh no so now maria's like that's it i'm fucking toast like no one's gonna see me that's i can't move this thing anymore uh then thank the lord like a angel, this woman who ran in fear was actually running to get security

to come see what was going on with this manhole cover. So they came back a few minutes later with security guards and they were able to pull Maria free. She was rushed off to the hospital where she was interviewed by policemen. She survived and thankfully her baby was unharmed. Oh, good. But she dutifully relayed all the information she had she had his full name his address remember because he said like oh i live right there yeah

and so you're like thinking yes they got him um but remember this is only the end of part one because uh he lied about his address and his number and all that nope she told them all the correct information and according to an article in lad bible this cop promised to tell her boyfriend she was safe and get him to bring some clothes for her but only if she pretended she had fallen into the well what herself and the reasoning behind this is that Maria had moved to Moscow from a smaller town. And apparently at the time, you needed to be registered to live in Moscow. And she did not have the proper paperwork. So she was sort of living quasi illegally in Moscow. And if Maria stayed quiet, he wouldn't expose her illegal habitation.

So basically, we're dealing with a lazy cop who said, oh, you're living here illegally. Well, I'm just going to hold that over your head to close this case. There is a little bit of a glimmer of justice here, which is that later down the line, this policeman would be put in prison for incompetence. So, well, not a moment too soon, I guess. Not a moment too soon. The slightest amount of justice, which oftentimes we don't even see that. So at least that's a positive. And then the guy I mentioned earlier, Andrei Supernenko, the future senior investigator on the case, would later say about this officer. His only motive was, I do not want to work.

That's all. He did not need to search for anyone or prove anything if only he had worked properly then patrushkin would have been detained we would then not have seen more than half the corpses whoa if they had stopped him that day they would have been able to stop to save probably 30 some people. And is that why he ended up in jail? Because he was quasi responsible for 30 deaths? Yeah. Wow. And had just blown the case so majorly. And that is the first half of the Alexander Petrushkin case. Wow. This is a good one. Isn't this bananas? I feel like you've been on a real high lately. I've been on a roll. I feel like I came back to the show and wanted to prove myself you know i know well well speaking of speaking of uh well not really maternally but babies in general you want to give an update on your sleep schedule oh well you know we moved her to her crib

and she's doing actually really well and i learned why she didn't like to sleep in her bassinet and it's because she sleeps like this. Oh God. Oh, she sleeps completely like a backwards croissant. I don't even know how to explain it. Like she backbends so far back. She and her head goes all like, I'll send you a photo. Her head goes all the way back and that's how she sleeps. And I'm like, no wonder you weren't comfortable in your bassinet and all you did was slam your feet down all the time she was trying to get in this weird sideways position she's just a stretchy little baby I I also one of my go-to sleeps is like this yeah I sleep with my hands behind my head too and she also does that when she's not um actually like giving you in a it's very relaxing oh it just gave me a nice good stretch just even gives you a good stretch didn't even mean to do that no that's a that's a go-to for me are you a are you

usually a back sleeper or side sleeper I fall asleep on my side and always wake up on my back with my arms like I do the same thing do you have a certain side you always sleep on um I usually sleep on my well that's you did. And then during pregnancy, they ask you to sleep on the other side. And so I, now I just kind of switch. I always, so I, on top of my other medical conditions, uh, I have some really gnarly heartburn or like, oh yeah, like a, like acid reflux. And so, uh, I can only sleep on my left side. Yep. That'll do it. And that's a, that's the Crohn's move too. Is it?

And the pregnancy move. Yeah. Because with acid reflux and stuff, you had to sleep on your left side. Yeah. On my right side, two seconds into sleeping on my right side, I'm in so much pain. That's interesting. Well, you should try this one. Well, that's a backbend.

I do. That's a backbend i do that's that's a good way also um i well my the grossest thing about me with sleeping is that if i ever do like roll over in my sleep to uh and end up on my right side the next time i roll over onto my left side i'll like the the gas in my body like escapes and so i just belch while i'm sleeping really it's so gross that's actually like fascinating anytime i'm lying like allison and i every night we're like watching TikToks. And then when I roll over to my left side, it's like everything, all that buildup has to evacuate. Oh no.

And I just spend the next five minutes like belching like a monster. It's so gross. You and my baby have a lot in common. I know you already know that, but like it's sounding familiar already. I am just a 30 year old baby. That's it. Well, I'm 29. Hang on a second. I am just a 30-year-old baby. That's it. Well, I'm 29. Hang on a second.

I was going to say, hang on. That's the first time you called yourself that. I'm just starting to get into the 30 thing because I'm like. You might as well embrace it. Well, I'm not getting into it, but I'm trying to get mentally prepared. I'm like, I've only got three months left in my 20s. So I might as well keep i might as well keep going on this i'm gonna post if i'm gonna send you this photo and then we can post

it because i don't know i feel like i'm gonna post more shit on instagram but if you post a picture of you sleeping with the post i will we'll post a picture of me sleeping okay deal see if there's a similarity deal all right well thanks everybody for listening and that's why we drink