And That's Why We Drink - E272 The Most Emo Cryptid and the Emcyclopedia

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

It's episode 272 and the ice worms are back again... join us on a wild journey as Em takes us to the forests of northern Pennsylvania to cover the much-requested, very teary-eyed cryptid, the Squonk. Then Christine covers a topic Em forgot they requested: Hybristophilia and the people who fall in love with serial killers. And is the Squonk and their tear-salted footprints related to America's Hircine Shifter? ...and that's why we drink!

hi hi christine miss you i miss you the vibes are off today for me i know are you all right you look so colorful i i think i'm trying to manifest brightness in my in my day with well you're not doing a great job with your attitude not attitude i didn't mean that sounded really bad no my attitude is very lethargic i just mean lethargic right not an attitude in a bad way just you seem kind of i don't know i don't know what i don't know why i think i've hmm i don't know what's going on i think i'm just kind of in a bleh mood, in a funk, I guess. Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that. Are you missing your beautiful girlfriend? Is that why? No. Are you missing me? Is that why? That's what it is. Yeah. No, I actually,

I was, what's so funny is as we were talking, I don't know. So Christina and I and Eva were having a meeting before we recorded. I don't know if you noticed, but I pulled this out of the, out of my stand. I'm, my laptop is on top of a million boxes right now. And before Allison left, I had been telling her for a while that like, I wanted more like notes around the apartment and stuff like that. Like I want like something cutesy and like i i we have a good friend bethany watson who is one of the co-hosts of an acquired taste and one of her love languages is like really creepy um love notes to her partner and i always think they're so funny they're like like they just say like wear your skin yeah no one of them just said like seven days one of them was

like oh how mysterious life can be. It was like very creepy. But I was like, man, that like really like gets my serotonin going. So I was telling Allison about it and I was like, oh, I kind of wish that there were some like, you know, little notes around the house for me and stuff. And so before she left, by the way, Allison is gone for like literally two months. We're not seeing each other. And she left a bunch of notes around and I'm like still finding them.

Tell me what they say please one of them was uh it's on the fridge already but it's the note said if I were Bethany these would all be death threats that's actually really funny and then this one there have been a few of these which are currently my favorite ones uh it says time for a Starbucks treat text me and I'll'll Venmo you. Oh, that's nice. That's not creepy. No, that one's nice. I'm into it, especially because I get a treat out of it. But because we're on completely different time zones right now, she's asleep.

So I can't text her for Starbucks. So kind of backwards. But anyway, I just saw that and that actually made me feel a little better. So, um, I do miss the stinky witch. I wanted to show you something I thought you might appreciate too while we're here is that um in the mail today i got my new spr journal um because they they're supposed to come every quarter but because i'm not in london i get mine severely delayed so this is from 2021 um and it came today and it came today? And it came today. Okay, wait. Tell everybody who doesn't know what the SPR is. Oh, okay.

So it's the Society for Psychical Research and people like Harry Price, or I don't know if Harry Price was in it, but Arthur Conan Doyle was in it. They hated Harry Houdini. It's been a longstanding, I guess the proper way I would say it's like a research lab or a research co-op where they look into supernatural things and scientifically try to either debunk them or see how true to nature they are. I remember the first time you brought up the SPR. I do too. And I think that night I joined. But do you remember?

Do you remember when it was? Yeah, I called it the like physical research or something something stupid I remember we were sitting in those fields and you were like you kept saying the society for cyclical research cyclical that's what it was cyclical what do you mean and I like could not figure out what you were talking about the worst part is my my brain translated translated it to psychical or it was my brain cannot get those two words to sound different. Anyway, you said it right every other time, but I remember being like, what is that? Anyway, and then you joined it and then immediately we're like, it's called psychical. So my brain cannot detach it from cyclical. Sometimes I still catch myself saying it for no reason. But anyway,

one of the benefits is that they always send you journals of the things that they're currently researching. How cool is that, by the way? And so I originally joined because I was like, oh, this gives me good potential future content for the show. Because if I see what the SPR is up to, it might, you know, jog totally some new ideas. So something i have to look up right now is i guess they're doing uh work on a lab called an implicit and explicit assessment of morphic resonance and i sure sure sure sure i don't know what that is yeah another thing is the static dynamic model of religious levitation oh and then they also do like book reviews and things like that so um it's for like for different paranormal books so anyway it's i thought you might hello do they want to enjoy seeing one

book review of a little something i like to call a haunted road atlas i will let you know these titles um seem a little more she she than our haunted road oh you think the the levitate this i i literally can't remember one word of the things you just said i'm trying to like levitate is the only thing i remember i actually said cyclical a bunch of times you might have the way my brain is processing this you may have uh because that was a lot a lot of terminology thrown around actually you know we're just talking about that made me feel better so thank you well i have an idea which my spirits are high what's that oh good well that's what we like to hear um and i wanted to throw out that this might actually be a good little recurring segment we could do for our new thing we're doing i just want to take a minute to

apologize to patreon because i feel like we've hinted at this but i feel like we've hinted at this, but I feel like we've dropped the ball a bit and it's not necessarily like entirely. Yeah. And I feel like we promised a lot of things and it's always ends up falling by the wayside when shit gets crazy. And we're trying, as always, trying to find ways to make sure we get content to you. And I know some people were not pleased on, you know, Reddit and stuff. So we're, we're trying to fix it. Um, and, uh, part of the reason was not anybody's fault because M uh, got like banned from Instagram. So a lot of that got totally thrown out the window. I would say we were doing pretty solid until the tour came about and we just got really busy. So right. Which is like the endless excuse, of course, but I know, but I do

think it was, it was certainly not intentional for us to fall off. I think we just got caught up and finally being able to be outdoors and traveling and it just quickly flew right past us. Well, and we had this great intention with these close friends. And then all of a sudden, Instagram lets you add like 100 people at a time. And we had like, I think I still have 6000 people to add. And it was like, sorry, you've reached your limit for like three days, 72 hours. And I'm like, well, what's the point of adding 100 people every 72 hours? I'm never gonna get there. And so it just ended up anyway, the point being here is not to complain or make excuses. But we're trying Eva was, of course, as always as always the genius the brains behind the operation

who came up with well the brains beauty and brawn behind the operation oh sure right we'll just give it all yeah triple threat um but she came up with the idea of doing like a little bonus segment every time we record so that we don't forget to do extra content so we already did one um and you know just little they're just little like after bites of uh us hanging out they're just little uh snippets i guess we talk about in the first one i already forget i don't know fonts oh fun okay both of those things it's just it's just like five or ten minutes of us just kind of like talking outside of paranormal and true crime stuff and just more an insight into like our friendship conversations they're like isn't that what we get every freaking episode but yes yeah but shockingly we try to censor ourselves uh for this show and so and so at the i guess behind the scenes is not that it's

like the dark gritty side of our friendship it might be i mean we did yell a lot about fonts it's it's more of a uh shockingly somehow more scatterbrained than this but it's us just kind of free associating if you will it really feels like we're just free associating but it was really fun to record it ended up being like 15 minutes and we talked about all sorts of stuff and i think eva even had the idea like if we go out of town somewhere then we can come back and do like a hey guess what weird shit happened while we were traveling that we don't have time to talk about on the podcast so we're trying to do that and this is not again a call to be like go back on patreon this is just kind of a shout out to people who have been patrons especially and have been sticking

with us even though we kind of dropped the ball and we're sorry but here's our here's our new plan here's here's a try here's a try at it why do you drink this week christine oh well i'm like sad and i it's why well it's i feel like this is i'm going to be a little i've been debating whether or not to talk about this. I always knew I would because I can't shut up. But it's it's about being a parent. And I'm a little bit sad about it. But it's something I think a lot of people can relate to, which is why I figure I'll talk about it, which is that I think I'm stopping breastfeeding. And, you know, it's it's something probably some people do not want to hear about.

But whatever. It's a normal thing that a lot of people do so get over it um or skip ahead and forget it get over it just over it grow up breastfeeding is a thing it's normal right okay but so anyway with all the traveling and stuff it's been really hard and and now she's learned that uh bottles are so much easier and I think um we've gotten to a point where I'm like it doesn't really make sense for me to constantly be like pumping every four hours and traveling with it and it's just been a lot and um she's been doing really well on her formula like a combo of both for a little a few weeks and I think we're just gonna you know switch to she's already it's almost seven months old and is starting to eat like real food so is

this is that a normal whatever normal means time for breastfeeding to end so I guess the WHO recommends the first year um and some organizations recommend the first two years. I think it's not common for people to go all that way. Some people do and even further on. And it's there's just such a wide. I think you know your baby best. Yeah, exactly. And I think if it had been easier and I was around much more frequently and not working and having Blaze. I mean,

it is nice that Blaze can and my mom or whoever can feed her without a whole sort of process. But it's a little bit sad. And I don't think I ever thought I would be sad about that. But there's something kind of like, oh, you're losing like, it feels to me a little bit like I'm losing like a little connection or a little, you know, it's the first like kind of grieving thing like I'm putting this part of your babyhood behind us she's she's graduating yeah so anyway it's just making me a little bit teary-eyed this week but um I'm okay but again now I can drink because you know have you not been able to drink this whole time because of that too oh no I've just been really strategic. Oh, I see. I have my ways.

I just have been making sure to pump or when we go on tour, then I drink. I'm like, yay, party time. So that's been how it's going. And then while I'm at home, I try not to if she's eating. But she's breastfeeding less and less. So I'm kind of like we're finally kind of moving on. And I don't know. I'm sure people will have opinions on this.

But, you know, don't listen to other people, everybody. You know your baby and your family best. She's also got a big ass head. So I kind of think she's like really advanced. Her brain must be huge. I feel like for a seven-month-old, her head is like the size of a two-year-old. So like maybe her stomach and eating habits are also higher up than just a seven-month-old, her head is like the size of a two-year-old. So, like, maybe her stomach and eating habits are also higher up than just a seven-month-old. You know what I mean?

I think she's 95 percentile head and 20 percent height. So, I'm like, that is proportionally quite big. She looks like, I couldn't even tell. Like, her head alone is Mr. Incredible and the rest of her is just like a little stick. Awesome. I couldn't even, I couldn't even tell, like her head alone is Mr. Incredible and the rest of her is just like a little stick. I, well, so I'm sorry that you feel like you're, you're having a, a tinge of heartbreak. It is, it is. It's like a pang, you know, every now and then when I think about it, but, but, but it's okay. But thank you.

That's, that's kind of. I don't, I can't relate, but I'm. I couldn't relate until literally this week. And I was like, what the hell is going on with me? I never thought this was something that would bother me or like hit me. I mean, I've heard, I've heard that it's a pretty common experience, but I still don't know the, I, as someone who is very sentimental and very nostalgic, I could equate it to like, oh, like this experience isn't going to be an experience anymore. And it's just going to be part of my past. So I can understand it that way.

But as in a way of like a parent child relationship, that's a big part of it. And I think also there's a little bit of guilt, which I'm trying really hard to unlearn. And I think that part is heavily influenced by like rest is best. You know, that nonsense, which fed is best. And we're all gonna say it okay um however you choose to feed your baby or have to feed your baby whatever uh it's nobody else's business but um yeah i feel like uh i feel like it can get kind of controversial and i don't and so there is a weird guilt like maybe i messed it up maybe messed it up it wasn't working whatever

but um i think i'm trying to get past that but then i realized i think it's i'm just sad because And so there is a weird guilt, like maybe I messed it up, it wasn't working, whatever. But I think I'm trying to get past that. But then I realized I think I'm just sad because it's like a chapter that's closing. And I'm like you, I'm very sentimental and like attached to things. So what's the chapter that now gets to open up though? Oh, that's a nice way to look at it. Well, today she ate applesauce for the first time. God, I fucking love applesauce her and

i can finally bond see that's the new milestone that's it that's the new milestone when i was uh in college i used to well this isn't this isn't great but tell i don't care well my go-to snack when i was in college is i would just have a jar of applesauce and a straw and just drink it like so good you know what i hate huh bad story actually it's you no i hate those squeeze pouches only because only because hear me out everybody i already know what you're gonna say what oh because they're bullshit because you get there's no you get like a slurp and that's it a slurp it's 50 calories of applesauce i'm like who wants that i want an entire jar thank you also i know this is disgusting and i'm gonna lose a lot of personal fans street cred well here's it's really i know

it sounds gross i know it sounds gross but people can i'm getting my box knock me all they want a personal favorite i guess what other people would call like a drunk food combo, but I've never been drunk. It's just like a college food combo. Just don't, you don't have to try it, but I'm just trust me. It's not as gross as it seems. It's chicken nuggets with applesauce. Oh, I don't think that sounds gross at all. Oh, really?

Okay. I've seen a lot of disgusted people. I was like really freaked out disgusted people see me like. I was like really freaked out what you were going to say. The reaction I've gotten from some people warrants me feeling nervous to announce this to people. Like I'm not into that really, but I also A, don't eat meat and B, I don't like fruit with my like savory food. I usually don't either, but it's so good. My ex used to do it.

I would eat that though. Like it's so good. I ex used to do it. I would eat that, though. It was so good. I really can't eat chicken nuggets. I'm talking like the freezer microwavable chicken nuggets. I can't eat them without applesauce. Well, I eat the vegetarian ones. I bet I could try that now that I have applesauce on hand. I feel like I wouldn't hate that, Em.

See, once Leona can also eat chicken nuggets, her and I are about to go fucking crazy. Gosh. Party time. I'm going to teach her all about the Dunkin oh she's gonna have a good time party time uh anyway i'm sorry you're going through some sad things but also think about all of the chicken nugget she's about to be able to dip in applesauce i don't want to think about that if you care about your child's happiness you're about to be so excited for this time in her life i'm just saying it's about to be an awakening thrilled for you mostly but also for her funkolem and leona are gonna go to town on some chicken nuggets oh question i don't know if this

is controversial do you plan on your baby being vegetarian um i don't plan on um feeding her meat so yeah probably oh okay damn because i was gonna give her the dinosaur shaped ones i think i'm Um, I don't plan on, um, feeding her meat. So yeah, probably. Oh, okay. Damn. Cause I was going to give her the dinosaur shaped ones. I think I'm going to just, well, but now they make all the vegetarian ones in real fun shapes too. And personally, I really like them and Blaise and I eat them and he's not vegetarian. So I feel like that could be the way to go.

Like we just don't even tell her they're not quote unquote normal chicken nuggets there. to go. Like we just don't even tell her they're not quote unquote normal chicken nuggets there. But yeah, I don't think I'm going to. Yeah, maybe that is controversial. I haven't gotten into this part, this chapter of parenthood yet. And I feel like everything's controversial. Like everything's a landmine. I feel like you can't do anything right. So you might as well say whatever the fuck you want. Might as well just feed them dino chicken nuggets all the time yeah uh no i don't know yet so i i my gut is like probably not at home but i feel like i'm not going to be super strict if she grows up and wants to eat me like that's not my place you know one day years and years and years down the road i guess well funko m will get the okay first but if i happen to only have chicken based nuggets in my freezer and she's having a sleepover at my place where, I don't know, it depends on how you feel about it, but if she asks me for chicken nuggets, I'm not going to deny her unless mommy has something to say.

I think I fully support that plan, so you get the A-okay from me. Ah, you hear that, Leona? Okay. She's going to cut this episode out one day and be like, Mom, you promised. Okay, so let me tell you about this. I have a quick story today. And I say quick because like, it's not even a full page of notes. But I have told people that there's not a lot of information on this topic. And that doesn't seem to stop listeners from requesting it okay um people seem to be very relentless on this so I'm just

gonna do it and if it's not as much information as you were hoping for just know I tried my hardest we know we believe you we trust you and I feel like maybe you've heard of this before um just because i feel like we get tagged in it a bunch if not then that's very exciting because it's certainly worth the banter i think okay what is it this is a cryptid based in northern pennsylvania and uh it is called the squonk i have no idea what that is okay no excellent squonk so um people really want me to talk about it and it's been happening for like a year or two now i've heard your cries and i have been denying your cries because every time i've tried there's only like two links unless you like really open your mind on how you're going to research for this.

So your mind would take a mushroom. I felt like I was a crazed person typing anything I could into Google to get any information. So here we go. Here is the squonk. So the this cryptid lives in northern Pennsylvania in the Hemlock Forests. It seems to be exclusively in this area. And it is called the homeliest creature in the world. Oh, dear. By one person, it's also considered, quote, the most morbid of beasts. Has anyone seen a chupacabra? I feel like that's quite a statement to say it's the homeliest creature.

If you've seen a chupacabra, but. That's fair. By the way, do you follow the cat on TikTok who's named chupacabra or something? Yes. Oh my gosh. What a creepy cat. But I love him. Looks like a freaking, if that thing, no wonder people see sightings. Like if that thing ran across my driveway in the middle of the night, I'd be like, it's real.

I feel like that's a chupacabra. Yeah. Like cat's name is like Chupi or something. Yeah. But also looks like a straight up vampire bat. Like it's really wild. The craziest cat. But I also love him.

Oh, it has like a following of loyal fans. Yes. I'm the leader. I'm obsessed with that cat. Chupi, if you ever hear this. Meow. Okay. Moving on.

Oh, that was nice of you so in here's here's back to the squonk the other homeliest creature uh so in 1910 that is the earliest written account of the squonk and it was in a book called fearsome creatures of the lumber woods and this book was written by William T Cox. And he claims that the squonks have been exclusively part of Pennsylvania since the late 1800s, more like the early or late night, late 1800s, more like the early 1900s. Okay. Um, so they used to be common in other areas, mainly desert areas. Um, but when their regions became more, uh, swamp swampy the squonks had to adapt to the water nearby oh so the squonks would go through the marshes and over time because they

were now having to kind of learn how to wade in the water over time they evolved webbed toes but only on its left side oh so it like propels by its left leg. So here's a quote. On entering the water, it could only swim in circles and never got back to shore. This sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. Are we sure? Like the squonk, he can only swim in circles. This really sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme.

Well, I'll show you a picture in a second of what the squonk looks like. Thank God. And then you tell me from there. And then here's the rest of the quote. Because it kept swimming in circles and couldn't get back to shore, fossil bones dredged from these lake bottoms reveal that thousands perished of starvation in this manner. Oh, well, that's fucking sad. Couldn't get out of the water.

That's horrible. I couldn't get out of the water. That's horrible. I want to make it clear early on that the cryptid that we're discussing is probably, I would say, 99.99% a silly urban legend that has just kind of taken the area by storm. Forget chicken nuggets. This is the most controversial thing you've ever said on this show. I know. But let me just as i explain it i i want you to tell me if you think this is a legitimate creature or not i think it truly is

just like a like the frogman the loveland frogman you know where it's like oh it's like a i love the frogman i wore my shirt last night one of our listeners gave us a loveland frogman shirt well i think this the squonk is like Pennsylvania's Loveland Frogman. I get it. Or like, you know, it's not Nessie, something that people... Oh, the hoedag. Something like that. The hoedag. Something like the hoedag.

Yeah, I get it. I get it. You get it now. Okay. So I just, I only say that because I don't want you to feel too bad that it's fossiled bones are coming up from the lakes because of starvation. I need it to be brought back to reality. So thank you. Thank you. So that all came from the earliest written account, which was that book in 1910. Another book in 1939 called Fearsome Critters, which is kind of

a fun play on the original book, Fearsome Creatures. Right, right. They say that the squonks originally came to Pennsylvaniasylvania from the desert regions um even though they were super swampy and everything the thing that officially moved them out of these regions and into uh northern pennsylvania is because during the timber industry boom all of their i guess logging camps tore up their homes and so they ended up kind of fleeing to pennsylvania this is sounding a lot like the lorax i'm just saying it hmm it's not but i see where we're going not the dead fossilized animals that part got a little heavy but one day i would love to cover a dr seuss cryptid and you just have to guess which one it is i already know it's the lorax probably or that terrifying cat wearing that big hat the cat in the hat yeah you could have just said that's the one that's the one you've heard of him

do you have a favorite dr seuss book by the way i know a lot of his books have recently been canceled but he does still have some winners some classics i think i i actually i've always liked dr seuss just for the um i've always loved the Sneetches um that's a favorite of mine which uh I had on VHS tape as a kid and then I love um I really like the Lorax but it makes me very sad uh what about you um I always liked um I think my mom would say one of the first books I knew how to read was Go Dog Go. Oh. And then what was the other one? One of them actually, one of my favorites when I was a kid and blissfully unaware of things was one of those like really awful books that got canceled. The A to Z Zebra is the one that, or at least the one I know of that has some pretty problematic imagery.

And there was the one i know of that has some pretty pretty problematic imagery um and there's some pretty it's not great uh which stinks too because like it's quite a good bop like if you're reading it i just love the rhyming i feel like he's one of the most excellent rhymers there is out there i think as a child I just only fell onto the rhyming and that was it. I think it was like the Mulberry Street one or something. I don't remember if I ran the zoo maybe, but one of those two, I think it was the Mulberry Street one. I remember liking it as a kid or I remember just always being in my room. So I assume I liked it as a kid, but I don't remember what the story was about it. I um I also always like Bartholomew and the oobleck because it felt that's a good one too felt paranormal um oh it kind of did so I also want to point out um that I'm sorry but I already

have covered a Dr. Seuss cryptid on this show I know what you've done but you also covered a Dr. Seuss true crime you know what that's fair it was quite a crossover you know what another true crime dr seuss you could do is are you my mother and it's like the missing mother i saw that yesterday at target and i was like oh that one kind of bums me out too i'm way too sensitive for children that was that was another one that i used to read a lot and i remember that was the first book that ever made me cry because i was like he can't find his mommy and i just lost my mind i can't give that to him I honestly I'll cry and it'll just cause more emotional damage than even her crying it'll be like why is my mom so emotionally unwell

well speaking of emotionally unwell let's get back to these um poor fossilized creatures homely creatures who only evolved on one side of their body um so this fearsome critter the squonk i'm gonna start describing it and you tell me how you feel about the squonk okay so the squonk is known to be shy and nervous and hide in plain sight but they are most often seen in as soon as it's starting to get dark out so right right around like dusk. Okay. This is apparently when they move the slowest. I don't know why that is or how that is, but they move the slowest as it's getting dark out. So it's easier to find them.

And today the squonk looks exactly as described since its first account, which is interesting because usually these creatures, their details change over time or people's testimonies of them change over time. But it is still exactly as is and probably because the story is so stupid short there aren't a lot of accounts so em is not having it with all you people who've suggested this i appreciate the passion that

people have about the squonk but i gotta be honest i am used to doing like hours upon hours of research each night and i feel like i cheated you for only but i feel like using like a couple sources a nice little break that's true especially because this is a humdinger this creature so okay and here's why so the description has not changed since the very beginning in 1910 and here is how the squonk is described. Its skin is too big for its body, which sags everywhere. Oh. And it's covered in hanging moles and warts. Oh. And it knows it's ugly.

Oh, that's sad. And because of that, it is constantly heard crying. Oh, my God. They even avoid bodies of water so that they won't see their own reflection okay this is getting a little dramatic and the squonks reportedly are known for their infamous low crying do you know what i just thought sorry i really for a brief moment there thought holy shit are you doing the hersene shifter again And like this whole time you're talking about me. I had like my blood ran cold and I was like, am I supposed to be catching on to something here?

I was really nervous. And then I was like, I don't see how squonk. I have said before in private that you are so ugly, you should cry about it. But I know exactly. But I have never thought that your skin was too big for your body. That part got me off. Okay, got it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Do you avoid bodies of water to not see your own reflection? I mean, I avoid bodies of water because I don't have time to shower, which I feel like it goes in the same vein. So maybe. Fair enough. So they are infamously known for their low voice when heard crying. So they are infamously known for their low voice when heard crying.

And their crying has been described in the same book as resembling the call of the cross-feathered snee. Now, you can't tell me that's not a Dr. Seuss book. Doesn't it all sound like the Dr. Seuss? It's got, that's like sounds so Dr. Seuss, it's going to blow your mind. Because I was like, what the fuck is a cross-feathered snee? is going to blow your mind because i was like what the fuck is a cross-feathered snee so i looked it up and there was only one reference online and it was from an online cryptid guide no called called be prepared for the alliteration here lenwood's lexicon of lumberwood's lore it's just like the same people in the same area kind of writing their own like little

world literally like dr seuss's weird stepkid is just like it's like trying to like steal all of his writing so this is just canon within this group of authors like this isn't even like oh the snee you know it it's like no no nobody does because it's just you three and your own canon you've created. I gotta be honest. If somebody has the answer, I would love to know it because this is a mystery I could not figure out for you

because why would this guy writing about the squonk have mentioned the cross-feathered Snee when the only reference for it is in a completely different book about lore from the same area and the squonk wasn't even mentioned in it maybe he's trying to get on that person's good side like he's like i feel like this is a whole world i accidentally tripped into like

it's definitely like these authors are in some sort of scenario society society of cyclical referencing each other or something so i sense this the only reference happened to be a guide uh that mentioned a cross-feathered snee and it seemed as ridiculous as the rest maybe that's his pen name like maybe he literally wrote the other book i'm not even kidding honestly maybe it was him you know and he's just referencing like his past literary work it but that's true like maybe he's like referring to his his own stuff but it is weird that the squonk wasn't mentioned in the other book maybe that's like part of the the storyline here oh yeah maybe he wrote one book to justify another that's a lot of time that's a lot of time. That's a lot of time. But honestly, brava if that's what he did.

Wow. Here's the wild part of the brava. Because if he wrote this whole book just to eventually justify the squonk, that entire first book that he used, he made in this conspiracy theory we've just created. in this in this conspiracy theory we've just created if he made this book just to use it later as evidence he wrote like 20 pages of this book completely in alliterations no no so i looked up what is the cross-feathered snee because i can't do this mentally i'm not prepared okay so um again the squonks crying was uh it's said to resemble um the sound of a cross-feathered sneeze so i looked it up and this is what lenwood's lexicon of lumberwood's lore had to say about the cross-feathered snake um i'm just gonna read it to you oh yeah and then i'll give you my translation so if your brain breaks i I've got a better offer for you.

It's already broken, so I'm glad to know. Here is the full description. This frost-bitten feathered fowl flutters and flourishes on fashionably frigid and frozen furrows. For it is inclined to the inclement and inhospitable iciness in its immensity. The nondescript nests and natural nooks nearing the nadir of the negatives and is native to the northwest of nowhere and nearly as known is never noticed by nobody. Naturally, the nudnick is in need of a null nearly as non-symmetrical as knowable. After all, this asymmetric avian animal always is aware of any level land lying lengthwise in a linear layout.

Unfortunately, unless it is unbalanced underneath, it is unable to be upright, as unluckily its unequal extremities eventually end in edgewise. Effectively, the entity is exceedingly exhausted and entirely exposed in this event. You are not kidding about this being... I think I just took mushrooms. I told you earlier, that's what I thought was happening, and I feel like my theory is correct. I think the Lorax. Teddy Geisel's great cousin twice removed is writing this or something. I think the Lorax gave me an option between the blue pill and the red pill, and I got cross-eyed.

He literally was like, pick a sneed, and and you were like you mean a cross-feathered this is the most batch i feel like i took mushrooms and i'm having a weird dream and i'm gonna wake up and go you'll never believe what i dreamt anyway it's like you you took drugs and then now in the middle of your drug trip you are being held in a council where we tell you back all the bullshit you've created so okay after all of that weird alliteration which by the way again if he only if this happens to be his other book that he used a pen name for and he only used it as evident for evidentiary purposes for the squonk he wrote 20 pages like that just to one day justify something about the squonk so

we're thinking maybe not maybe it's either a different author or he had a really weird phase of his writing that just tripping acid yeah okay yeah i think it might be two different people because if it was can you imagine the first person who worked so hard to do all that alliteration just to be like called a ghostwritten version of another man wait a second that's my signature style so um anyway all that translation when i was trying to describe the cross-feathered snee to you. I translated it for you, so you didn't have to think. I studied that stupid paragraph for so long trying to figure out what it meant. And this is what a cross-feathered snee actually is. Sounds like an AP English essay question, you know?

Here's what it is. It's a snowbird with different sized legs. Wow, you really should have been on the editing team for this. I think. No offense, guy, Lenwood, but I get it now. Now I follow. Yeah, a snowbird with different sized legs. So it likes to be on uneven land to match its legs so it doesn't get tired from balancing. That's really cute. That's precious. But also, why can you just say that? Listen, he he's doing something. Anyway, people wanted the squonk and you accidentally got a whole thing about a totally different cryptid. What year was that book written?

The Lenwood's lore. Sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot. Lenwood's lexicon of Lumberwood's lore. Oh, you mean it didn't auto auto fill in on google the best part is so it's fearsomecritters.org so maybe it was um and that book fearsome critters came out in 1939 so maybe this is like an a digital version of it oh um the best part is when you are looking for uh the cross-feathered sneets on part four of many um so but there's also every single page in there here let me just send you the the link i'm gonna

send a text i wanted to know what year because i was so worried i was offending someone who worked really really hard on this and i i'm not trying to do that certainly did work really hard on this. And I, I'm not trying to do that. Someone certainly did work really hard on this, but I could not even, it's part of, it's part of the unnatural history museum. Uh, but they're not. I don't know if they're alive or not. If they are, let me just say like, you clearly worked very hard on this and good for you, but I am very confused. Yeah. I want to make that point that I'm not, I feel bad. I'm not trying to like shame someone. Um, cause if we, if we could have written our entire book in, uh, alliteration, we would have, it's just something probably we don't know

how to do. Did you click on this? I did. And I'm so every single one of them is different alliteration passages. Okay. Here's my favorite that I want you to cover. I'm going to make a bunch of Twitter accounts, like fake Twitter accounts, and start tweeting that you need to do this one. It's called Old Spider Legs, the Eight-Legged Horse. And that's what I want you to cover next. I mean, it's literally four lines, so you're going to have a hard time making it a story. But it's something you're going to need to do for me. Okay, I'm keeping this up. You know why I'm

keeping this up? Because we're going to have somebody to talk about during our little bonus episode situation. Okay. Sounds perfect. I like how there's another one at the very end called ice worms. And then in parentheses, it says again. Hey, I forgot to mention this other thing. And since this is on a typewriter, I can't really erase. So I'm just going to add some more information is what I'm guessing. They're like, by the way, they're back. From the last time I wrote about this shit, they're here. From 18 pages ago, I have some more information.

Also, last thing I'm going to say is at the bottom of this fucking website. What is this? Fearsomecritters.org. It's literally a quote by Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. I'm like, why is that the quote? What's the quote? Don't worry about them. They are blind leaders.

And when one blind man leads another, both fall in the ditch. Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, comma, Christianity. In case you're wondering the source, it's Christianity. I'm telling you, this website is unstable. I've never cared about anything as much as I care about this website. I mean, like, I don't understand. I would love to meet the person who came up with any of this just to be like, I think

you're me in 30 years. I was going to say, time travel is real. I have to double check. M has somehow come back in time to read their own fucking work on this parentheses again again um okay so anyway all of that to get back to the squonks okay sorry everybody sorry sorry uh we could really hypothesize on that as long as we wanted but i don't think we can we'll figure out. We'll do it in our after dark special. Our after hours show. So, um, okay. So all of that, just to let you know that when the squonk

cries, because it knows how ugly it is, it sounds like the cross feathered snee, which by the way, after looking up the cross feathered snee, I learned nothing about what it sounds like. Yeah. I was going to say, how is that helpful at all? Apparently it sounds like a snowbird with different sized legs. So you figure it out from there. Which sounds like a squonk. So really, it doesn't make much fucking sense. Talk about cyclical.

Like, that's so nonsensical. Okay. So, yeah. Okay, so the squonks, they cry about how ugly they are and they avoid having to look at themselves out of shame. This is also where people start referring to the squonk as the most relatable cryptid. I mean, I get it. A lot of people on TikTok, if you were to type in squonk, any video you click on, just read the comments and you'll die laughing every time. Because everyone is like, apparently I'm a squonk.

Today I found out that the cryptid hunters are going to for me oh i love that so much uh so they can allegedly be tracked down um by squonk hunters if there ever were one uh because in their trails and the tracks that they leave they are always left wet with tears. Oh, I thought you were going to say the left one is webbed, but I guess they're left with tears. Okay. That's how a scientist thinks. We're not here for that today. I'm so sorry. I looked at this too analytically. I get it. No detectives on this case. We're looking for some salty tears in the footprints. Just look for a puddle of tears. It's at this point that I would like to mention that in its original book, a quote for the squonk was that,

its fearsome aspect is its contagious misery. This is so sad. By the way, relatable. Contagious misery. So the only way you can find one is by following its trail of tears. But fun fact, if you do find one and corner it, squonks are known to escape by literally dissolving into their own tears. Oh my gosh.

What a drama queen. So the original author, William Cox, he gave squonks their own taxonomy classification. Can you do that? I guess if you just say it enough and no one else is stopping you, yeah. So the classification for a squonk is lacrimocorpus dissolvans, which is Latin for the words tear, body, and dissolve. Okay, now. All right, everybody.

In fact, there are some substances that are, like, this is true, apparently. There are substances that are, quote, stable in solution but cannot be isolated without catalyzing their own polymerization, a.k.a. just like squonks and how they dissolve into their own tears, there are some chemical substances that liquefy into themselves.

So these are allegedly known as chemical squonks. It's the science community. No, wait, really? That's what they tell me. Who? This man on Jesus Christ Nazareth website? Jesus of Nazareth told me himself. Call it Christianity.

Dr. Seuss told me in riddles, so. This show is so stupid. So in 2015, there was a guy named Hal Johnson, and he wrote an updated version of Fearsome Creatures, which was the 1910 one. And he better described the squonk, or he described the squonk in a way we hadn't seen before, where he basically decided that squonks are just gnarly-looking pigs. Oh, okay. They have crooked yellow tusks. They have four, but sometimes three and a half legs oh and i could i don't know and they have quote cauliflower ears covered in wax and hair oh my so what a real looker what. Yeah. Um, and the only documented squonk capture is by a man named Jean Paul or JP Wentling.

I think he actually happened to know Hal Johnson. So Hal Johnson in his book wrote about his friend, JP Wentling, um, catching a squonk. Um, and JP was able to catch a squonk by coaxing him into, coaxing it into his bag after making squonk sounds, which is the sound of a snowbird with weird legs. Classically, I mean, we all know this, obviously. Okay, got it. We're learning. So your motivation is snowbird, different size legs,

make the sound if you were to call a squonk out from behind a tree. You know, and if it has three and a half legs, it also is kind of crooked like that bird. So. Oh yeah. So that actually makes sense. Maybe it does always have different size legs if you only have three and a half of them. Right.

I'm seeing sense in a similarity here. Uh, anyway, I don't know what the sound was, but I'm assuming my go-to would be a crying sound because if people know the squonk by its crying then yeah it said a low right a low pitch yeah i would just sound but that's not what oh my god i think i just heard a fucking bird what is it called cross feathered i think i just heard a feathery thneed somewhere in my house. Help. Why are you saying it like that? So JP coaxed him into the bag. And as he was carrying the bag home, he realized that the sound of crying had stopped.

And the bag got lighter all of a sudden. Oh. Oh, no. And he opened up the bag and found nothing left but a bubbling puddle of tears. The classic quick getaway, if I am not mistaken. That's the most Emma and Christine getaway ever. I've dissolved into my own tears. Okay.

Just cry until you don't exist anymore. So emo. Honestly, why hasn't the squonk just been called the most emo animal there is? It feels like you're doing Hersey and Shifter part two, and i'm still not fully convinced you're not so i'm just i'm i gotta say i'm not covering the anomaly as it were but i sure wish i was um so you know what someone said to me recently because i was telling them about uh america's her scene shifter and they were like the fact that you're the only paranormal podcaster on a regular texting basis with a cryptid is so cool.

And I was like, I was like, wait a minute. You could write your own fucking lexicon. I don't know why you have it, quite frankly. I could write it in my own words and then translate it into like,

I could get help from the shifter who could just like write it in my own words and then translate it into like, I could get help from the shifter who could just like write it in riddles. M's Encyclopedia of. The M-Cyclopedia. The M-Cyclopedia. Listen, we're going to ghostwrite this together. And it'll be bilingual because it'll be in my language and yours. Certainly.

And it will just be in rhymes. So you have to figure it out on the way like we did. God. We're going to change the world world whether or not we want to so in case anybody needs to know by the way that was the only documented capture we have but it was also written into one of the only few accounts we have of the squonk and in case anybody needs to know the squonks do reproduce asexually with binary fission which is when i need to know when one body splits into two bodies and it just keeps replicating dissolving into itself so i wouldn't put it past it it does have a superpower that is

being very overlooked right now right it like liquid. It's like the secret world of Alex Mack. I love... Ooh. Vintage. Love this. Vintage nod right there. Throwback. So, fun fact,

besides the fact that the squonk does reproduce, there is a touring performing arts troupe from Pittsburgh, which makes sense because they're within squonk territory um so there's a performing arts troupe named uh squonk opera and i i think they might just be called squonk online now but if you type in squonk opera you get all the same links and this is like one of the craziest touring performing arts groups i've seen um they like uh every few years they put out a different performance and then they like travel to many venues i think it was like over 250 venues they've been to the current one that they're doing is called hand to hand and they have like the world's largest puppeteer hands and

they pull strings so all the fingers move differently and then they they i think they perform with these hands while there's also some like psychedelic music playing behind it um whoa it's very odd but if you look up hand to handonk opera, I don't think you'll find anything else besides what I'm talking about. Go to squonk underscore official on Instagram because that will get you there. Also, were they seriously on America's Got Talent? Probably. They are pretty big, apparently. I was unaware of how big they were.

Squonk. I wonder if that's why people keep sending you to it. Maybe. I don't know. But apparently squonk i wonder if that's why people keep like sending you to it you know maybe i don't know but apparently squonk opera is the thing and they've been around for a long time too so they if you go on their wikipedia you can see a list of all of their previous shows and like the one before hand to hand was like all about air and It's very wild. Oh my gosh. This is wild. Squonk Opera is really feeding up to its name. I think you can't be called Squonk Opera named after a cryptid so odd and not have some weird shit in your group. So good for them.

I mean, I'm all about it for sure. And then another fun fact is that Squonks back in the 70s had a few songs written after them so this isn't a maybe it's a relatively new cryptid that people care about i mean it's i guess it's technically been around since 1910 but i don't even know if that book is real to be honest um the fearsome it's real to me okay fair enough but the only references i've seen for it have been in song lyrics from the 70s specifically but they were also like big groups like steely dan and genesis had songs about the squonk so there's one song from 1974 by steely dan and a song called any major dude will tell you and here's one of the lyrics okay have you ever seen a squonk's tears well look at mine

the people on the street have all seen better times whoa okay so that so we're really leaning into like hashtag relatable with this creature yeah yeah the whole point i think was just to compare the squonk to himself at in time of crisis. So emo. So emo. The first lyric of the song is my favorite, and it's something I just want to start texting you for no reason. Oh, no. I feel like he was either talking to the squonk in this lyric or to himself or maybe me talking to you.

Oh, here we go. Here's the lyric. I've never seen you look so bad, my funky one. Ouch. God. I've never seen you look so bad, my funky one. Ouch! God! I've never seen you look so bad, my funky one. And I feel like I'm at least going to start calling you my funky one. I mean, I feel like if you texted me that, I'd be like, yeah, you know me so well.

Anyway, and then it just goes on to reference the squonks tears. So that's Steely Dan. and then two years later in 1976 there was a song by genesis literally called squonk what and the entire song all the lyrics are just about the perspective of jp catching a squonk so like the story of him catching the squonk and then he like the bag feels lighter and he looks in and it's disappeared into tears. And so that the whole story, which, by the way, I now know that means my information is wrong somewhere because I thought that's the story of JP came from a book that was written in 2015. But if this song came out in the 70s. Oh, yeah.

So something's off in my notes, but whatever. So this is these are some of the lyrics from the song Squonk by Genesis. All the king's horses and all the king's men could never put a smile on that face. He's a sly one. He's a shy one. Wouldn't you be too? Stop your tears from falling. The trail they leave is very clear for all to see at night.

Now listen here. Listen to me. Don't you run away now. I am a friend. I'd really like to play with you. Making noises my little furry friend would make. I'll trick him. Then I'll kick him into my sack.

What? You better watch out. You better watch out. I've got you. I've got you. You'll never get away. Walking home that night, the sack across my back, the sound of sobbing on my shoulder, when suddenly it stopped. I opened up the sack, all that I had, a pool of bubbles and tears,

just a pool of tears, just a pool of tears. And all the while, in perfect time, your tears are falling on the ground. So does this mean i could be a famous musician because like really that's the lyrics okay those are the lyrics and it's like a six and a half minute long song holy shit i i listened to the whole thing and it was was it a fine oh it was fine but i in the comments every single person was like, this was the best song Genesis ever put out. And so I wonder if it's like only real fans even know about that song. It's a deep cut. Yeah.

Yeah. I see. Anyway, that is the story of the squonk to the best of my ability, folks. That was one of the wildest and most entertaining stories you've ever covered. I am beside myself. I don't, I, I'm glad it did not end with, wow, Christina, I can't believe you didn't catch on because part of me was convinced. Honestly, I totally understand

why you would think I was referring to you because everyone thinks the squonk is referring to them, to be fair. But also it really does sound like it was just like a bad hallucination out of a dr seuss book it sounds like a dark version of dr seuss and if anyone can solve the mystery for us on who the hell lenwood is of lenwood's lexicon of lumber wood lumber was lore i would love to know is he or is he not the same person who wrote these fearsome critters fearsome

creatures books we gotta know and i'm gonna um save this because i i mean i cannot wait to talk about where to go here you go oh by the way you never looked at a picture of the squonk oh no i didn't just give him a quick googs okay squonk just so you know why he was crying oh buddy he's very sad and he's very i mean or buddy he looks up he looks as described he looks so sad this little squonk every picture of him is literally just tears pouring out of his eyes. I'm getting like emotional. I need to not. If you're not real, then why do I feel this way? I am not mentally stable enough to be looking at these photos.

I'm sorry. I can't. Let's put it this way. You can take a guess at what he looks like and you can feel confident in it knowing that christine has already fallen in love with him i feel like i'm just upset and i need to take him home and give him a little bit of love you know okay you do that all right i'm gonna sit over here without that responsibility on my shoulders well after the episode i'll tell you more about the bear behind bear behind what in the world that's one of the things in this lovely book oh hey all right i'm excited all right so i am i have something very special for you today and i hope that you

appreciate it because it's probably the first and last time ever that i will remember a request you make and actually follow through with doing the story on an upcoming episode. Okay, wow. So 272 episodes, 272 episodes of requests. What could I have asked for in that time? This is the story. This is the information about hybristophilia i didn't ask for that i'm gonna tell you what it is and you're gonna you're gonna change your mind okay the apa uh you know the american psychical psychical psychical uh psychological association definition Psychological... Psychical? Psychical? Psychical? Psychical. Psychological Association definition of hyperstophilia is as follows. Noun.

Sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes. In some cases, this may be directed toward people in prison for various types of criminal activities. Yeah, I did want this. You're totally right. want this you're okay good good good because i was like this is when this is the phenomenon phenomena of people falling in love with like ted bundy and thinking he's hot and like the weird sexualization around serial killers and stuff 110 percent we okay so i'm so excited. I really wish you could have told me earlier in the episode that that was what we were covering because my spirits needed it. And now triple lifted. I'm so excited. A good one. I'm gonna just go out and say it. This is a good one. This is a this is a wild trip that I went on here. This episode really turned accidentally until I think

one of my favorites we've done. Oh, that's fun. I feel like I just hope everyone agrees is what I'm going to say, but who cares? I love that I talked about breastfeeding in the early part. So if we ever recommend this one, people are going to be like,

why is this the one that you think I should listen to? The wide gamut that we are able to cover every week is amazing. From A to Z zebra, you know what I mean? We've got range, range, and more range. Endless range. Okay. So here's a more detailed definition of hybristophilia from Wikipedia. Hybristophilia is a sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes a paraphilia or sexual disorder in which sexual arousal facilitation and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed a crime whoa yeah and you know what i feel like i

asked for this well for a few different a few different times but this particularly reminds me of a couple episodes ago when we were talking about uh the woman who was married to like the checkerboard chessboard guy that's the one where you asked if i could cover it yeah because i remember being like what is the deal like what like are you okay should we like be paying attention to you for red flags is no, first of all, not okay. Not okay. But yeah, I feel like this will answer some questions. It's still kind of a widely misunderstood phenomenon or not misunderstood.

I wouldn't say that, but it's, it's a not fully understood phenomenon, if that makes sense. Yes. So according to a medium piece that I found by a writer named Bad Bunny Pubs, quote, it is not a clinically recognized mental illness within the ICD-10, and hyperistophilia predominantly affects women. So that is notable because most of the examples we have are women kind of lusting after male murderers. Can I guess? Of course.

Is it some sort of like a sense of being protected? But like they know that this guy could like really do some damage if someone tried to hurt them and like if they cared about them. You know, that doesn't really come up, don't think but that is an interesting i mean i know that's like i'm we're talking about this as if it's not like a really disgusting horrible topic but i'm trying to think like trying to get in the mind of that person yeah yeah and like if this person has already proven time and time again that like they can't be touched physically then like if if you're with them or if they cared about you only then like you also couldn't be touched well i don't know if this

counts as that but what it reminds me of is one of the theories that this is kind of an expression of masculinity maybe so you know outbursts of rage kind of an abusive, angry, and what some might refer to as a masculine energy. And some people theorize that maybe that's what people are attracted to, the domination, that kind of thing. Sure. So maybe that would be part of that, I assume, like, oh, and therefore they like me, so I'm protected, perhaps? I don't know know there I mean I would never be able to know until today so but that's a great theory so uh in pop culture the phenomenon is also known as Bonnie and Clyde syndrome because like Bonnie was in love with Clyde and why he's murdering people etc I see so some classic examples which you've already mentioned include the groupies of

Ted Bundy. Uh, that's a big one. And I'm actually not going to go into detail on that today, but the one I am going to go into detail on is Richard Ramirez and his groupies. Oh, see, that's even, I don't know why that's more fascinating to me. I think because with Ted Bundy, I feel like he, one of his, I don't even want to call like a power or a pro to his personality that worked in his favor, at least, was that he was charismatic and like charming. So I feel like he, it makes sense to me why some people, like I can justify in my head almost why they're getting swindled and forgetting the bad parts of him. But I feel like in my mind, Richard Ramirez is more like unhinged. And so, yeah. So I feel

like it's, it's even more fascinating to me of like, he's not doing anything to make you, I don't know. Some people really think Richard Ramirez is hot stuff like oh really yeah I mean he was missing a bunch of teeth so that part not so much but once he got his teeth fixed or if he's closing his mouth he's not a bad looking dude and I think people jumped aboard that train am I thinking of a different person that maybe it's Charles Manson but I feel like Richard Ramirez and interviews seemed like really frenetic or is am i thinking of a different person well he probably was i don't know what his energy was i guess i'm just thinking of like purely looks from photographs so i'm not okay i'm not sure but yeah it kind of doesn't matter. It's literally anybody.

Gotcha. Anybody who has gotten to a certain point in their violence and public notoriety seems to attract at least a few of these people. That's so weird. I had no idea that certain things wouldn't matter versus other things. Huh. Yeah. Sorry. I don't mean to keep interrupting you. I'm just so jazzed. And it's the same thing that you said of it's a pretty short story. So feel free to ask questions if you have any. And then the only other example I was going to say is Jeffrey Dahmer was the other one that tends to get quite a few or tended to get quite a few groupies and most of us know that those guys have groupies but there are some more modern examples

which I think to me was more disturbing and I don't know if that's just because like oh Ted Bundy like everyone already knows that eye roll you know that people find him attractive whatever but some of the more recent examples include Chris Watts, who murdered his wife, Shanann, and his two daughters, four year old Bella and three year old Celeste. And that was episode 198. If you want information on that. Yeah, he has fucking groupies and people in love with him who want to marry him, etc. Oh, yeah. Didn't he get married, remarried in prison or something?

You know, I don't know offhand, but it's entirely possible. I feel like a weird amount of them do. They do. And then there's Scott Peterson, who was convicted of the first degree murder of his pregnant wife, Lacey Peterson, and the second degree murder of their unborn son, Connor. And those were episodes 242 and 243. And I don't know what it is about these two that are just more kind of impactful and I think it's because pulling them into a more like modern time period drives home the point that there are people who truly admire and lust after people like this who it's not just like oh teenagers being quirky online and saying like Ted Mundy was cute cute. It's like, no, this person we know murdered his smothered his two daughters, and you're still attracted to him. It's one of

those things that we've covered before. I don't know if we've really covered it. But we have discussed it before where certain stories, even though it's unfair, there is something in the human psyche that happens, I think we're like, some stories feel less real because so much time can separate us from it. Yes. Yep. But when, which again is not fair because 300 years ago, someone was suffering just as horribly as someone is today, but, um, it just doesn't feel as real in some way. And I think to know that there are people either our age or someone we know, someone we could be eating dinner with or texting is someone who is able to have been affected by

this, who are alive. So like Shanann's family and like those two little kids who probably have playmates and you know what I mean? It's like, especially with social media and that those family members can accidentally run into people who think like, hey, that guy's super hot. That's the thing. That's the thing. Exactly. That's exactly it. So it just made me kind of ill. And the part about this, too, is like Chris Watts and Scott Peterson killed their wives. And like as much as Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahmer are like the fucking scum of the earth. Why would you as a female partner be looking at this person being like, I want to marry you when he's very openly murdered his wife and children? Like it that that part is also baffling. It's like, you'd think that at least logically would prevent you from

taking that step of like, hey, why don't I reach out and meet up with you? But alas, it's still very much a thing. So according to a YouTube video by Dr. Todd Grande, the warden of San Quentin received over 30 phone calls of women interested in Scott Peterson within a day of him being incarcerated. Oh, my God. Yeah. I wonder what those people would do if they like came face to face with someone who was actually affected by things that scott peterson did you know like that sounds like a terribly exploitative dr phil episode that probably exists somewhere like yeah we're gonna bring out this person's family members you know yeah um yeah i wonder too and we i have some examples of like when shit goes wrong so we will

definitely get there um there was another youtube video i watched called true crime community on tiktok dot dot dot yikes by sarah hawkinson and she basically calls out like pretty cringe tiktoks that are like glorifying um serial killers and i know i know not everyone's going to agree with us or me on this one um i am not a fan of kind of turning serial killers into like home decor or yeah i was gonna i'm glad you said that because i was wondering when i could insert that into this conversation of there's like a shirt that says like, eat me like Dahmer. And it's like, what? Like, are you kidding me?

Yeah. It's to me so, I don't even know the right word. It just feels tasteless. It's so tasteless and so cruel and senseless. Like, why would you do that if you even think for a minute in an empathetic way about someone else you would not find that to be funny but I mean maybe I'm just a square I don't know I think maybe I don't know if we're just like aging out I don't know I don't I don't want to like say like a whole generation,

things like that. I just, I, I do feel sometimes like I'm like, you know, the wet blanket in the room by being like, that's not very funny. And I, by the way, I also am wildly aware of our position as two people who entertain by talking about true crime. And that's where it's hard. Yeah. Cause I, I've had people mentioned in front of me, whether they knew I had a true crime podcast or not, they've been like, yeah, like there's like a, I really struggle listening to true crime podcasts because there really is a weird balance. I can't totally get behind the fact of telling stories at, at family's expenses. And I fully understand. I mean, I'm literally a true crime podcaster

and reconcile with that every day of like, oh, like this is my job, but I want to make sure I'm doing it respectfully and not disrespecting anybody. But I know exactly what you're talking about, about the products that are like on Etsy every now and then where it's like, I can't think of any right now, but it's- There's i can't think of any right now but there's a jeffrey dahmer like kitchen it's a meme that goes around pretty regularly of like a kitchen decked out in jeffrey dahmer

stuff you know it's like oh like the dish towels say you know i don't know it off the top of my head but like and whatever i'm not gonna you, go in and yell at you or judge you or whatever. But just from my perspective, I personally don't, I just don't get it. I don't get it either. And I hope we don't sound hypocritical as we have a true crime podcast. But if you happen to also have a true crime podcast, or I've had a lot of people come up to me, I don't know about you, Christine, but I've had people say like, oh, we're starting our own true crime podcast but it if you happen to also have a true crime podcast or i've had a lot of people come up to me i don't know about you christine but i've had people say like oh we're

starting our own true crime podcast if we can pass on any wisdom to you um it i don't know if we're the right people to do that but please make sure that whatever you do is respectful and if you are going to try to do it with levity like we do that That's the part that's hard too. Yeah. That's the part that's hard. I like to think that we, most of the jokes or humor come from things that do not have to do with the victims in our stories, or at least that's what we aim for. And if we're ever,

if we ever do anything wrong, always check us. We will always be open to criticism on that. But if you're thinking of doing that yourself or what type of content you might want to listen to, I'd always suggest the people who are trying their best to do this respectfully. So yeah, no, I totally agree. And I would say most of the shows I listen to are trying to do that respectfully, including myself.

I definitely try and like you're not going to succeed every time. And so I am well aware there are probably times where I've maybe not done the most due diligence. I mean, in recent years, at least I've really tried. So always feel free like to, you know, call us out or whatever. What have you? I think the most validating messages that I get are when like a couple of times Eva has forwarded emails to me that are from victims' family members.

And they say, thank you for spreading the word there. You know, that and that's not happened often because I can't. I don't. We don't expect that either. No, of course not. But, you know, and I don't expect that most victims' family or friends are like listening to this kind of thing. are like listening to this kind of thing. But, you know, for those who are able to, to sit through that and kind of discern who's, it just felt very validating, like, okay, at least some, at least I'm not totally delusional that I'm like, especially with missing persons cases,

trying to do something helpful, and I'm not, you know, and so anyway, I know everybody who is listening is like, yeah, that's why we're here. So I know, I know. I also, I just, we, it's a, it's just a weird sticky spot that this conversation puts us in that we should be able to discuss. I mean, we were true crime podcasters and for us to not be able to talk about it would be really, I don't know, insincere or sincere is a good way to put it and I do think back on some of our earlier episodes before I I don't know grew up and like I just I I still think about some things I said in early episodes where I'm like oh I'm not proud of that and but so I hope everyday people know that we're trying to better ourselves and not be horrible people. I like to think we're pretty solid people and on top of being as respectful as possible. But I certainly turned this into a conversation about us by accident, but I also felt like it was

important to address. So I'm sorry, I totally intervened on your story, Christine. No, it was no, no, no. But that's exactly where I was going is I mean, I knew what we were going to bring up because it's sort of like, you know, we find this a lot in our, and I don't want anyone who's like, oh, I thought that meme was kind of funny to feel like, oh, we're like, get out. You're a horrible person. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's just, I think also being so deep in this content, I think maybe 10 years ago, I would have been like, oh, that's funny. You know, I not thought about it. I really do. I think it's just being so deep in this and watching interviews and reading people's testimonials makes it so much harder for me to like,

find that funny. And on top of that, having our own audience looking to us on how we're going to discuss it. So it's from all angles, I think, I like to think we are as hyper vigilant as we can be. And, you know, there's also, in my opinion, a line between dark humor, which I fully appreciate. It probably doesn't sound like I do, but dark humor and, you know, like, oh, this is actually pretty hurtful. Yes. And so, you know, there's that line, too, which, again, is not something I can delineate right now, right here. Mine too, which again, is not something I can delineate right now, right here. When in doubt, if you're looking at a meme or listening to content or trying to make your own content, maybe just always ask yourself every five seconds, would the victim's family be cool with this? That's what I always think of like is put yourself in the person's shoes.

That's at least I do the same thing like as far as how to determine if I'm why or or even why I'm like kind of icked out by something sometimes I'm like why why does this kind of rub me the wrong way and a lot of times it's that it's like I wouldn't want anyone affiliated with this crime to see this right um anyway we have totally rambled I apologize Christine but it was important yada yada I get it I know I'm not stupid. I know that probably a lot of you don't, not a lot of you, but I'm sure some of you don't agree with me and that's totally fine. Um, that's why people have different interests and you know, I've been called a square many times in my life, so it wouldn't be the first time, but anyway, this isn't all going to be about that. So let's get back on track. Um, just needed to do the PSA before we

got into this. It would have felt some version of hypocritical. Disingenuous a little bit. Hypocritical. Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. To talk about it and not address the fact that we are also in this. For a living. Exactly. And you're right. I do wrestle with that a lot. So it's definitely worth mentioning. And if any story is going to bring it up, it's probably this one. it's definitely worth mentioning. Um, and if any story is going to bring it up, it's probably this one. So some of the examples, uh, that Sarah and, and Sarah Hawkinson, who did this YouTube video, which is about the true crime community on Tik TOK, um, makes a couple of really good points about that line between, uh, dark humor and, uh, you know, fetishizing serial killers basically which is really interesting and um

i think if you watch the video it's it's it's worth watching it's it's not very long um but she calls out these tiktoks that are pretty cringe and some examples just to give you an idea of some of the stuff that's out there that people i guess are amused by and if you're wondering like oh my god am i the one who's doing not. Some of this stuff is really extreme and fucked up. And like, I, I like to think most of our listeners are on this side of things, but you never know. So some of the examples for our, and if it, if it does happen to be, if we list something that you are, you know, maybe this is a learning opportunity to unpack something. I don't know. Yes. Oh, exactly. Respectfully. It's a, it's a learning moment for us. Respectfully. Maybe

it's at least a moment to step back and consider things as Emma and I have learned many times over the past five years to, to step back and look at how we handle things or entertain ourselves. So some examples she shows, there are a few point of view TikToks that say things like this POV. You wake up and all you can do is try to hold your breath. And it's a video of somebody looking out of a bathtub underwater and then they turn on the faucet. And it's like so it's like a simulation of someone getting murdered. Yeah. It's sort of like point of view. You're in a bathtub looking out and I turn on the faucet all you can do is hold your breath um and like

comments on some of the tiktoks include uh i volunteer to be the next victim because the person is like a good looking guy and so that's kind of the whole shtick is you know i'm it's like a dexter i'd give it all i'd sacrifice it all for this hot guy yeah it's really like you're volunteering to get murdered and not thinking about the people who have been murdered this way yeah and yeah exactly and so those and she makes a good point like those are different too because it's not like they're saying oh this specific serial killer with real victims is super sexy you know it's a little bit different. It's sort of like, but it's a removed gray space.

It's removed. Exactly. So it's still, I mean, to me, it's disturbing, but whatever. Here's an example of a comment that I thought was interesting on her YouTube video. And this is kind of, I think, gets to the bottom of why I feel icked out by some of this stuff. So this user called GM commented, imagine having a life ripped cruelly and painfully away from you and then having some people on TikTok either making fun of what happened

or glorifying the one who killed you. And I think it's like the glorifying the one who killed you part that just resonated with me because there are a lot of people. It used to be Tumblr. because there are a lot of people it used to be tumblr now it's um twitter who are like uh ted bundy stands and just think he's so hot and it's it's almost like a quirky personality trait to have but i feel like you if you have that empathetic ability to just like think about what if this were your aunt who was killed or your sister or you know it just seems like there's a lack of awareness awareness or at least like thinking introspection I don't know yeah yeah

or empathy even just like thinking about not just the joke of it or not just the like quirkiness of it but like the people who might see this. And we mentioned this earlier, but I wonder if that's because certain people like Ted Bundy. I don't know about the Scott Peterson or the Watts family situation, but like Ted Bundy does feel relatively removed. And so it's easy to ignore the storyline

or think of it as more of a fiction. It's really easy to think of it as fiction. And so you can also because something that terrible shouldn't happen. So it's hard for a brain to process unless you've lived through that world. Absolutely. That this has really happened. And I think that becomes difficult when it is the world of true crime. And you're like, well, you watch shows like Dexter and it's like, oh, well, you're like well you watch shows like Dexter and it's like oh well you're watching a fictional show but then you watch Dateline and it's like but this really happened and you have to kind of find the nuance between and again like a lot of these people commenting are young and teenagers and I'm sure I said stupid I know we all did we all said stupid shit so I'm not trying to say like

wow I'm so above this and I've never done this but like you know it's just something i think worth shedding a light on i think we're also as as we mentioned too i think we are our sensitivity to this is more heightened because we feel responsibility to be on the right side as best as we can so maybe we maybe the things you're listing like only you and i will react to but hey at least we're reacting i think in the right way of like oh like that's a little a little too cringe it's a little much and honestly hold on because i think even if you and i are reacting to these um it gets pretty i'm just gonna say batshit crazy some of this this stuff gets out of control bonkers. And it becomes almost like just a fascinating psychological study almost of people of like, what on earth is going on in their brain?

So obviously, Ted Bundy, like you said, oh, and one thing about Ted Bundy, too, is like a lot of the photos are black and white. That alone removes it. You know what I mean? Like that alone makes it feel like you're not really part of it. And the danger is removed. I feel like that adds a lot of, there's just a lot of nuance between that and like Chris Watts, like you said. Yeah. So I'm going to focus on two serial killers today. And they're hybristophiliacs, which are who are uh suffering from question mark this illness sure

um so the main focus will be richard ramirez and um that was episodes 217 and 218 and uh richard ramirez is also known as the night stalker it's uh one of those stories that really has stuck with me i feel like uh some of them kind of end up blending together, but the Richard Ramirez one, for whatever reason, really got to me. Well, I was actually about to say, and I stopped myself, which this is a perfect opportunity to mention it. I was, my go-to thing that I was going to say was, oh yeah, I've always thought he was like,

maybe one of your favorite serial killers. And then it's a moment like that. We were like, the phrase favorite serial killer is implying the, like, this is like a fun story to tell and totally negates all the horrible shit that actually happened. So, but so what I meant to say is I feel like he's always been someone that you, you think before everyone else, but my, even the phrasing there, it's like, just be careful with your words. And the YouTuber that Sarah Hawkinson made a really good point too,

she caught herself because she said, and she said, well, you guys know I love true crime. And then she was like, okay, like the phrasing alone is rough. Like, I don't love true crime. It's like, but we all say that, right? Like that's, we know what we mean, but yeah, you're right. Like the verbiage around it is, is tough too. So.

Well, you can even extrapolate that just into like other big problems going on in the world right now, where if you're saying like, oh, well, you know what I mean? And it's like, okay, but like either, whether you, whether or not you meant it, this is how maybe you shouldn't phrase it anymore. You know, time, time's a changing. I'm a big believer of language matters. And I think culturally, socially, language really, really matters. And I know I think it, but it's true. It's the truth.

I'm sorry. It's the truth. I think my opinion is, but language matters. And so, yeah, exactly. I think my opinion is but language matters and so yeah exactly I think that's something to like catch ourselves on and like you said if we listen to our old episodes we're probably like oh yikes some of this stuff is probably not sure I'm sure if we ever even like when I make friends like and I'm later they're like oh I'll listen to some of your episodes and I'm like please please do not like and part of it is like it's weird for them to be able to listen

back to a show of mine at all but like I know that I've grown a lot and whatever I don't even want to know what I've said in some of the early episodes but I'm already just so embarrassed so please please don't I'm already embarrassed about this episode because I feel like people are going to be like god they're fucking annoying I know so many PSAs I'm sorry So, I mean, I feel like I should stop because you guys get it. And if you don't, then like, you're not going to be convinced

by another sentence out of my mouth, but. Amen. Okay, point being Richard Ramirez, he had these groupies and they would show up to his trial in hordes and they swooned when he flirted with them from the stand. He wore these little sunglasses and he would like flirt.

So I know you're saying like he's like he you don't see him necessarily as like a romeo type but i must have been thinking about charles manson or someone then well he also had his own the manson girls you know so wild it there who knows i mean he's it doesn't matter what i think he looks like but point is some people thought he was very attractive uh the media even dubbed him death row romeo so he really uh got it cooking um and there was one particular story that stuck out to me as kind of the intro into this whole phenomenon and this is from a youtube series called crime viral uh they also wrote an article that had more details. So

this is a really cool source. But they talked about a woman named Cynthia Hayden, and she was a juror on the Richard Ramirez case. And I guess she started to fall in love with him as she was a juror. Whoa. I know. And Ramirez would make eye contact and stare longingly at her during the trial. And basically what he was doing is realizing he had someone on his side and was trying to manipulate her. I mean, obviously, like from a third party, we can obviously see that is what's going on. So on Valentine's Day, she gifted him a cupcake with, I love you iced on top of it. Uh, that is so beyond inappropriate. So inappropriate.

Right. So thankfully she was dismissed. Um, and he was ultimately sentenced to death despite her having been on this jury. Um, but their relationship didn't stop there. She repeatedly visited him in prison and even brought her parents to introduce them to him wow wow that that got me um according to a website called sinister series.com cindy told richard ramirez that she had fallen deeply in love with him and soon she was making tv appearances claiming he was innocent and that he had been possessed by the devil when he performed his crime. So it wasn't really his

fault and he shouldn't be put to death. But at the same time, anytime she was questioned about what would happen if he got out, she said, I think he would do exactly what he did before. Like I have a job. You have a job. His job is killing people. It's what he was before like i have a job you have a job his job is killing people it's what he was trained to do sorry what so hang on a second so yeah she thinks that's his actual like this is what gets him through the day leave him alone like he needs this to be able to go to sleep at night it's monday i need a cup of coffee he's gonna go stab a few people yeah the the logic there I don't get especially because she said he's innocent and then said but anyway he needs to keep murdering people that's what he does although I don't I don't know that she was even saying he needs to

keep doing it I think she was saying there's a reason he's in jail because if he gets out, he'll do this, but he shouldn't be put to death because it was the devil's fault. See, it's things like this where I also wonder like how harshly should I be judging these people because there's clearly a mental disturbance somewhere where like, I'm like, am I even, is it even okay for me to be judging them in my mind so intensely when there's clearly like something not right? I don't know how to put it but some of them are really wild like this and some of them like are very aware that this is inappropriate and don't go on camera and don't talk about it and so you wonder like where's the line of mental illness where's the line of like is this something we should be treating is this something we should be addressing or should we should be treating? Is this something we should be addressing or should we just be vilifying?

It's, it's so hard to say. Um, but I do have some bad news for Cynthia. Oh. Uh, and I have some bad news for us, which is that she was not the only one who had fallen in love with Richard Ramirez. Yeah. In fact, according to the San Francisco Chronicle during his 23 years on death row, Richard Ramirez received bags upon bags of mail, fan mail, mostly from women. Whoa. According to Crime Viral, one admirer, who remains anonymous, said of Ramirez, he is good looking and I loved his big hands. Get out. I know. The thrill of danger of going up to a state penitentiary made it all worth it because to me it was like a dream come true to face one of the world's most feared men.

And then added, like my mom used to say, you can love someone, but you don't have to like them. I'm like, I don't think that's what mommy meant. I don't think it is. See, that should put some fear in your heart as a new mom of like, what are you going to tell Leota that she's just going to fucking roll with? I know. Wow. Okay. Be careful.

Language matters, right? Yikes. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Can you repeat that? Can you repeat the? Of course.

He is good looking and I loved his big hands. The thrill of danger of going up to a state penitentiary made it all worth it because to me it was like a dream come true to face one of the world's most feared men like my mom used to say you can love someone but you don't have to like them i feel like that's some type of i mean i am not the expert here but i'm purely speculating that for her to have mentioned twice in that one in that one statement that she loved the adrenaline rush of being near someone who was so scary. I, I wonder if that's kind of my theory earlier of like, Oh,

but he wouldn't hurt me. Or I wonder if it was like some sort of empowerment thing of like, Oh, I can, I can look him in the eye and I got away with it. You're touching on like four different theories of what this could be. And I, it's very interesting because I think some of them do converge like that.

So, yeah, there's a list later of like possible reasons a psychologist thinks that this happens. And you are really kind of like touching on a few of them, which is super interesting. I mean, I have a psychology degree. And I use it like once every three years. But it's usually i'm pretty on top of it when i do um so also do you ever mention anything about men having this happen to them because i know there is significantly less female serial killers but have any of them been pursued like yes uh there have been a few i don't really talk about it um because it wasn't

really there there weren't many sources on it but one of the tiktoks that the youtuber i mentioned earlier has um is a tiktok that's called like the the hottest serial killers or something and it like goes through and there was a woman in there and I looked her up and I guess she had men who were like trying to get with her while she was in prison so it definitely it definitely does happen um I don't think there is a minute I mean there's so few as many examples yeah so I don't really focus on that but um I probably should look into it to see if it I mean it's probably such a small number i don't know how accurate it would be but i didn't know if we should like consider this like across

the board for all people or just women it's definitely it's it's weird because it's or gay men like could be too that would be an interesting study in the future whether yeah yeah how gender plays into it because you know obviously we believe gender is a construct because it is uh but you know it is weird how how this does happen in a power dynamic way of it's usually people who are identifying as women kind of going after or lusting after yeah men who've killed women so it's like yeah it feels like gender is certainly up like so for sure i wonder if there would be a proportional in some way amount of of gay men or i don't know because i would think like oh well women are terrified of men but i would imagine at the time of these serial killers, like gay men were also pretty terrified because LGBT issues were not the same.

I like to think gay men were like, what the fuck? No. You know what I mean? I like to think they were also like, what the fuck? Somebody had a little logic. But, you know. I'm trying to think in terms of like all groups were relatively oppressed at the time. So I wonder how any of them would feel facing or having the thrill of looking at a

dangerous man and getting away with it. I don't know. Again, sorry for the ramble. You should probably go back to grad school and get your psych degree and really write a dissertation on this because... Nah. Okay. Anyway, next up, we can just ponder over it and pontificate on our own without having a degree, you know fair enough i i'm sorry for all the rambles you really just picked like such a chef's kiss of a conversation oh this is such a short story then i was like what am i talking about this is like a talker you know this is a good one um so anyway this admirer kind of gave this horrible little mental montage of why she loves Richard Ramirez.

He's dangerous. He has big hands, yada, yada. Even more disturbingly, hordes of women would send Ramirez, who was, by the way, very public about his foot fetish, photos of their feet so that he could fantasize over them. Oh. So really playing into that. The medium piece I mentioned earlier delves into two of Ramirez's most notorious fanatics.

So we've already kind of gone over the first example, who was Cynthia Hayden, the juror. But even though she introduced her parents to him and all that, it was not a long lasting relationship. He had more serious relationships with two other women yikes yeah so the first is Doreen Loy and the second is Christine Lee so we're going to start with Doreen because chronologically she came first so Doreen is a former journalist from Burbank, California. Shout out. Who described herself as a Catholic virgin in one interview.

Okay. She is best known, however, for being Richard Ramirez's wife. Oh. Oh. She learned about him after watching his arrest on television and wrote him 75 letters before he agreed to let her visit him in prison. Wow. And this is how she describes falling for him. Quote, this was a feeling that began from as long ago as the night before he was arrested

and police broke into the television show I was watching to broadcast his picture. Looking back, I see it was a turning point for me. They show this mugshot in the middle of Dallas, and I saw something in his eyes, something that captivated me. It wasn't as if I knew him, but it was something in his eyes. Maybe the vulnerability? I don't really know. Okay, well, all I can think of is the fact that she's a Catholic nun who is certainly sinning in some way. Okay, she's not a nun. She's a virgin.

Oh, virgin, virgin, virgin. In my mind this whole time she was a nun. Oh, wow. That would be a Shondaland-level drama waiting to happen. All right? I was like, why aren't we talking about that more? Okay, just a Catholic virgin. Got it.

Just a Catholic virgin. Still it. Just a Catholic virgin. Still sinning as far as I'm concerned. But, wow. She's a nun. I was like, I feel like that should be like a main character in the Richard Ramirez story. Wow. I also, you can tell that she's really enamored with him to be using language like, oh, like the cops broke my, broke into my TV channel. So I had to, you know, watch them go through this whole thing on TV. It was love at first sight.

I saw something in his eyes. It's like, oh, yikes. He was on your news channel as having killed a nine-year-old. But okay. Yeah. I guess we love him now. And around 1988, Ramirez, I guess, was also at least playing along because he proposed and they tied the knot on October 3rd, 1996. Okay. Wow. Wow. That's all I got. I know. It's hard to even say anything productive at this point. But at first, she was a loud supporter of his even claiming she'd die by suicide if they executed him as planned. But then in 2010, they kind of mysteriously parted ways. And it was for unknown reasons. But it's speculated there are a couple theories as to why this happened. So it's speculated that they split due to this is kind of the main theory due to Ramirez's lack of empathy toward the murder and rape of nine year old May Lung. And part of the theory is that or the theory is that she found out for sure that he did perpetrate this crime is that the right word perpetrate is that a word well yeah he's the he was the perpetrator okay wow i was like perpetuate

cyclical cyclical i'm so confused okay i feel like i my own brain was trying to get back together to help you i felt like i was saying something important i was like i don't want to say the wrong word but yeah the theory is that she either found out he had perpetrated this crime against a nine-year-old or he or she brought it up and he didn't seem phased so i feel like that conversation should have happened way before a wedding but okay especially because he proposed in 88 and they got married in 96 so they had a lot of time to talk a lot of time she wrote him 75 letters you think that would have been addressed um another theory is that she found out he had 12 other girlfriends which he did so either either way

i think that one's i'm gonna put my money on that one because it feels more recent. It feels more shocking considering everyone else already knew about the Maylong case. I feel like she went in after years knowing about a nine-year-old child getting brutally assaulted by him. And that was fun. See, that's what I was talking about with the chessboard guy with his wife, where I was like, are you just actively doing everything you can to ignore the bad parts? And then the good parts are all- Yeah. Are you just really good at lying to yourself? Or how do you justify all these red flags? Yeah.

Yeah. So that's the thing. either they think they had an argument or falling out or she couldn't get him to admit that he felt bad about the nine-year-old's murder or that she found out he had 12 girlfriends so either i feel like that was more new information and probably the reason she left which by the way if you only left because he cheated on you and not because of everything else like your priorities i'm not going to tell you what to do with your life but maybe straighten them out maybe maybe think about it maybe start journaling you know yeah uh there was a line in the crime viral video where she was like who ever could have expected a serial killer to cheat on his wife and it's like very good point it's like what do you expect like he's a sociopathic serial killer

and you're shocked that he cheated on you uh so how dare he um but so after richard ramirez and dorian divorced ramirez began talking to christine lee now christine was a young single mother of two who said that she liked him because he quote treated her right so maybe a little insight um i found out more about christine on distractify's website she apparently was interviewed alongside another one of richard ramirez's other admirers and i want to put it out here right now the irony is not lost on me the other admirer's name was Eva. So I found absolutely no way to address this without really just head on covering the fact that these two admirers interviewed together are named Christine and Eva. Two names that are not that common, but not, I haven't really stumbled upon them together

like this. I feel like you're the only Christine Eva duo I've ever heard of until this moment. Especially in a true crime context. Exactly. So apparently the two of them were discussing their infatuation with Richard Ramirez. And I want to point out Eva at this point was 16 years old, a child. Wow. I don't feel even super comfortable that she was interviewed at all about this because she's a child. But okay. In the interview, the two discuss their relationship with the Night Stalker. Eva claimed that she and Richard Ramirez exchanged poems initially for a school project.

Girl, what? Okay. What? But first of all, if that's true, your teacher needs to sit down. And second of all, is that a lie? Because it sounds like a lie. Yeah. I don't know.

But apparently they started exchanging poetry for a school project, but she became infatuated with him, not because of his looks, but because he, quote, broke away from the system. Oh, boy. She's 16. That's the kind of thing I'm saying is like she's 16 you can't like blame her for that right like get her away from the serial killer i i feel like it's i don't know i always find myself in like a a mixed bag situation where like i i don't want to blame someone who's underage and didn't know better but also like where are the parents what is going on here that's

what i'm saying like put her in time out for a minute let her frontal lobe develop a little bit okay yeah like it's not there yet all right and like this man is clearly taking advantage right yeah definitely when i think about being 16 i think about how many stupid how like very clearly stupid decisions i made and if if any of them were like wrapped around love forget it so like I feel like she didn't stand a chance especially if no one was being like yo let's let's maybe not mail this person anymore or this number let's not text call this person anymore oh yeah exactly so you know who knows what the actual origin story behind that was um but i see red flags all around as for christine lee she was really tight-lipped about her relationship with richard so we don't know

too much about her it's actually extremely difficult and this is what i was mentioning earlier of like some people recognize how unhinged this looks and they do not want to be kind of in the public eye like they know how bad it looks and so it's kind of like huh so like they until they were gonna get from the media it's like they were fine with it until they were getting called out is that kind of yeah so that's an interesting angle too because it's like well is that different is that the same thing no that's totally a different angle because this whole time i've been telling myself like well something must not they don't must not know the difference but they clearly know the difference enough to know that they'd be judged for it exactly and some people really hide and so we

really don't know much at all about Christine except that she said like he treated her right and that's why she liked him there was one interview that exists on YouTube um where she said she was engaged to him uh but she would not admit if she loved him on air and all we know is that when he died of cancer in prison in 2013 it was reported in that story that he and christine were engaged and that's pretty much all we know so now there's serial killer and sadist philip carl jablonski and this is a wild tale okay so this fella was convicted of brutally murdering five women in california and utah between 1978 and 1991 he was sentenced to only 12 years in prison don't even get me started on that and while he was in prison he put out an ad for quote

lonely hearts prisoners okay yeah so wouldn't you know it he got a response from a woman named carol spidoni they became romantic pen pals and to spidoni's delight he seemed just as eager to pursue a relationship with her as she did with him so apparently the fact that he was in prison for murdering his previous wife didn't faze her which seems to be a running trend here and according to all that's interesting.com over the course of the next few years carol and jablonsky got to know each other and in 1982 they tied the knot in san quentin prison but things sort of changed for Carol. The romance did not last for her because she decided to end their marriage a little while in. We're not really sure.

There's kind of an eight year gap where we don't know at what point she ended the relationship. But all we know is that she told a friend she found Jablonski, quote, weird. You already married the guy, but OK. Yeah. I feel like everyone's making calls way late into this. It's like you did not listen to your girlfriends at the slumber party who were like, uh. Like what were they saying after? What were they saying on the first few dinners after you told them you were seeing somebody? Like you didn't.

Right. That didn't stick out but i guess uh seven years and she told a friend he was weird but she couldn't fully escape him because in 1990 she found out that jablonzki was about to be released for get this good behavior ha ha what i know uh big yikes so she started to worry for her safety and for the safety of her mother with whom she was living at the time. And meanwhile, I guess Jablonski, despite their breakup, had assumed that he would be living with Carol when he was out of prison. So he had all of his belongings sent to her home. so immediately this makes me think more psychologically about why they fall for these men in general and i feel like this just goes to prove that like maybe it's because it's a thrill an unattainable thrill or like safety yeah it's like even you said earlier that someone was sending like feet pictures to Ramirez and I feel like that could somehow be some sort of like there's an arousal and like getting to

be in control sexually with someone who can't overpower you because they're locked up and I ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding you're hitting like the fifth thing I feel like you hit every possible theory and just kind of combine them all in one because that's exactly one of the things is like oh there's this thrill of the danger but there's also a safety element of yeah it's it's um it's cautioned danger it's what's cautious what my my mom always used to call herself a cautious risk taker which was like she will she's fine with like uh a safetyness a safety to her danger or a danger aspect to her safety and like in a way that is controlled and she feels like she's doing something fun and

kooky but like at the end of the day she knows she's gonna be fine i think that's where it's sort of like that line of like oh it's a quirky thing for people to say on the internet versus like oh you're really yeah exactly there's and now this poor woman probably felt like oh he's always going to be locked up i can like either play this facade or really let myself feel like i'm into him knowing that i never have to truly face him anyway well and you know he was, he was only showing up at my house, but he was only locked up for 12 years. And so I feel like she technically would have known he wouldn't be there forever, but there was probably at least subconsciously a little bit of like,

oh, well, it's fine. He's in jail and not really thinking it through. Well, also, if he got out on good behavior, she probably felt like, oh, I have a certain amount of time to end things. That's true. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, shit, if he got out on good behavior, she probably felt like, oh, I have a certain amount of time to end things. That's true. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, shit, like he thinks we are for sure in love. And even if I am currently in love, I didn't expect to ever have to.

This is becoming too real. Yeah. The danger zone has really broadened itself all of a sudden. Yes, it did. And like, I mean, to be fair, he was in prison for like 10 years. So it's not it's not like, oh, he got out after like two years and she was totally shook. It's sort of like, yes, it is earlier. But so in any case, he assumed he would be living with his wife. She was like, uh, crap. I don't think he should be free and I don't feel safe.

uh, crap, I don't think he should be free and I don't feel safe. So he had all his stuff sent to her. But then Carol and her mother managed to convince a friend to move his items out before he got out of jail. So she was like, let's get all this shit out. And she even contacted his parole officer to let him know her concerns and say, we had this stuff sent out of my house. So the officer forbade Jablonski from visiting her home, which was in Burlingame, California, under any circumstances. Unfortunately, the following year, a tragedy struck when Jablonski disobeyed

the orders from his parole officer and paid Carol a visit. Great. He stabbed and shot both Carol and her 72-year-old mother, Ava Peterson, killing both of them. And he proceeded to

sexually assault her mother, Ava, after her death. Yeah. There's a lot of layers here as far as getting out on good behavior and there's just a lot a lot happening here um but Jablonski was ultimately found guilty of these two murders and at least three other additional murders and sentenced to death but he died in prison in

December of 2019 at age 73 and those are just like i had plans to kind of go over all the examples but like this is as far as i could go because the notes would have been so so so long um there are so freaking many i could probably honestly um i could probably do an episode on every serial killers groupies as its own episode you know honestly i would appreciate it i feel like if you're ever if you ever need like a last minute topic or something or or maybe like it's not even last minute if you just want to cover it again i'm telling you with open arms i feel like it's such a good lesson to keep reminding ourselves of yes it's a really good point it's like the darker side i know it sounds so stupid but like the darker side of true crime of like,

the really kind of terrible, like emotional damage you can do or Yeah, it's, it's, it's scary. So I know those are the two very brief examples I shared. But I did want to go over the hystrophilia part, like just the actual mental illness part of it. And I guess, oh, you know what? I do have a note here, Em, about men succumbing to its effects. Here we go. Apparently I kept this in. I thought I deleted it. So it's worth noting that although it's predominantly women that are affected by hystrophilia, men can succumb to its effects too and according to cnn susan atkins a member of the manson family who got a life sentence for her role in the sharon tate la bianca murders married two different men in prison who were infatuated with her whoa so i guess it's really can be both ways i guess so i mean probably always

be both ways i guess so i mean probably always maybe it's just wild that that then that means instead of it just being like a women's issue i don't know a woman if it's not exclusively a female experience that means this is just like something that happens across humanity which was wild so it's it's just a thing that across the board that can affect people hook us in yeah affect us and uh i'm gonna go into actually like what possible reasons are that this affects not us but you know us as humans um but first i wanted to make a make an interesting fun fact note which is that according to crime viral there is a letter writing organization called Human Rights. That's W-R-I-T-E-S. And it hooks up members with inmates on death row in the USA.

It was founded in 2000. And you can pay an annual membership subscription of $30 and be basically connected to death row inmates and write letters to one another wow so fun fact uh apparently there are currently more than 1500 members who use this service and they offer also offer this is interesting counseling sessions for those who have befriended an inmate who is scheduled for execution whoa yeah that's grim but also is so grim uh the website reads typically your coordinator would be in touch with you several times before the date and would try to be available to you on the evening of an execution oh wow that's heavy it's heavy it's so grim it's so heavy um and in an article on psychologytoday.com professor of forensic forensic psychology, Catherine Ramsland, PhD, she goes over what she thinks are some of the reasons that women who have dated serial killers do so.

And I'm going to list them. And I feel like this is where we get into kind of some of the stuff that you have touched on. So here we go. um so here we go there's a list of let's see six different possible reasons that dr ramsland believes could be reasons for this uh behavior so they may believe they can change a man as cruel and powerful as a serial killer so that's one of the ultimate theories is like oh i can change him i can save him the savior complex exactly number two they see the little boy that the killer once was and seek to nurture him so so like a freudian situation there yes precisely number three they hope to share in the media spotlight or get a book or movie deal

so that's a very different angle i would say um yeah that one feels less like an actual infatuation and more like a personal gain completely exactly i had the same thought number four they believe they are dating the perfect boyfriend and i think that goes more into like they're behind bars they're manly or masculine what have you in a traditional sense because they're angry and violent they're behind bars so they're safe uh the one of the examples that talked about this was like they don't have to cook or clean or you know get hit like they were in an abusive relationship in the past it's sort of like have the the romance without someone getting in the way exactly and that's exactly it mm-hmm so number five is they are unable to

find love in normal ways. So maybe this is just, I don't know how else to put that, except this is maybe just the only way they've been able to make a romantic connection with somebody. And then finally, they may seek relationships that cannot traditionally be consummated. So maybe. Like the Catholic Virgin. The Virgin, who you thought was a nun. Hey, you know. Maybe they're not looking for sex. Yeah. And that's maybe, that's a good twist of like, oh, for my convictions, I don't know if I want to have sex or maybe I'm just, I'm not someone who wants to have sex and this is a good way to let them down easy. They're like, oh, we couldn't have sex anyway. Right. You can have that relationship without even having to turn them down sexually. I don't know. Which like, I mean, that's, and by the way, I don't think that's what asexual people should or do deal with. I'm just saying.

Of course not. No. I'm not just, I don't want people to think that like that's no of what I am out asexuality too but I you know at the time if before other sexualities were being discussed I'm sure it was easier to be like oh well if only we could but you're behind bars and then you don't have to tell anyone that maybe you just weren't into that exactly so there's there's that theory of like well maybe some i mean and again this is like some people maybe like a couple people thought oh well or didn't even think but subconsciously were like oh well i won't wouldn't have to be physical with this person which i mean understandable

if that's not something you're looking for maybe that was part of it uh then there's this woman named sheila eisenberg she's the author of Who Love Men Who Kill, a book I probably want to read. Will read, I think. Will read. And she explained, quote, if the guy's behind bars, it's always exciting. Adding, it's easier to get a date or get attention from serial killers than, say, Brad Pitt. Pitt is going to ignore your letter. He's not going to boast about your letter, but this guy is.

He's probably reading his letters and responding to them because it puffs him up and raises his status in his own eyes. So there's that element, too, of like, oh. An attainable celebrity. A celebrity who is attainable, precisely. That was Gio's theory, I think. Sorry. Precisely. That was Gio's theory, I think.

Sorry. Juniper definitely just clawed Gio in the head. And Gio was not having it. Anyway, so those are the kind of theories that are floating around. Some of the other ones are what you said earlier of like, oh, people like that thrill of the bad boy. Without having to deal with the thrill without having to be in the violent way of them exactly um and so you know there's nobody totally understands but those are the theories uh and so that's that's kind of it like there's really not too much um else that just explains it or gets to the bottom of it.

There are just a lot of theories. And I did want to add at the end here, this is my last bullet. If you need support in any way, because I feel like this was kind of a heavier topic than I really intended at first, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit rainnwith2ends.org to chat online. And I just like to throw that out there whenever there's kind of a very heavy, traumatic episode like this. Also, what is the name again of the mental? Oh, hybristophilia so it's with an h y h y b r i s t o p h i l i a and anophilia is is sort of a uh considered a sexual disorder so essentially hybristophilia is the sexual disorder of being um attracted to people who commit violent crime just in case you're someone out there who

felt like this related to you yeah yeah and again like this is clearly something that has a name has you know a lot of baggage uh traumatic and otherwise attached to it so i don't want anyone to feel like shamed by this episode by any means but yeah it's just a it's a fascinating topic i feel like i just scratched the surface and i feel like we went on all sorts of weird directions with it but um many a tangent and many a tangent by the way like it sounds like most of this like all else in the world is uh in caused by and also encouraged by toxic masculinity. I feel like that was fully the patriarchy there of like, oh, women are falling in love with serial killers because they don't want to deal with men in real life or because they

wouldn't feel safe if they weren't locked up. Like, what does that tell you? That's a scary concept in some ways. So, um, this was probably even though one of your darker topics, what a good topic. Oh, good. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I, I listen, you request and I deliver once in a hundred years. Once every hundred times you request something. Thank you. Bingo. Here we go. You keep me on my toes.

And I also, I mean, that really was, I do feel like we went on a lot of tangents and all of them were kind of heavy. And like defending ourselves. I felt a little, like I don't want it to sound like we're just like, not us. Making ourselves sound good or something. Yeah. If you, if you, for some reason feel like we, that we were not, I don't know if you disagree with anything we said, we definitely want feedback. And, but I, it was such a weird fine line of like, we definitely need to mention it as true crime, quote, entertainers, but also like, hopefully we didn't make it too much about us. But we also wanted to make sure that, you know, we set our piece. So again, the line, it's always so hard to find that line, you know,

to toe the line in the right way. And I readily admit that we don't always do it. So yeah, we're happy to be checked. So we just, we want to be good people and do the right thing and be as respectful as possible. That's all we want. We really do. That's all our intention. So if we ever stray from that,

please like go into your concerns and judgments with that as like a bullet point. At the very least, please know we're trying even if it's misguided. Yes. Well done, Christine.

I do hope you cover more stories like that eventually. Oh, good. I'm so glad. Because it's almost like the aftermath of a case. I was going to say, it touches on so many different cases at once. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Well, good job. No, thank you. Well, yours was fun too. This was kind of a banana grams episode we talked earlier about range range range and we really went from the squonk all the way to some really intense stuff so we went all the way from uh lenwood to theodore geisel seuss and we and back again and we ended up at the night stalker so you tell us how wild of a ride this episode was. And that's why we drink.