And That's Why We Drink - E29 Seasonally Employed Ghosts and the Scottish Tim McGraw

Episode Date: August 20, 2017

Mercury’s in retrograde, guys…don’t say we didn’t warn you. We learn why Em doesn’t wear pink dresses and why Christine doesn’t wear white. It’s pinafore-ific!First off, Em tells us about the the Jefferson Hotel in Jefferson, TX, feat. suicidal brides, sleep paralysis, giggling children, shadow people, unwanted cuddling, AND MORE. This place is a hot-spot for creepiness.Christine isn’t actually a murderer but Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel SURE IS! There’s a reason he’s called the Beast of Birkenshaw (not to be confused with the Beast of Birkenstock). Lock your doors, Scottish friends.This episode is sponsored by LOLA, a modern and transparent approach to feminine care, with 100% organic cotton pads, tampons, and liners. Use promo code DRINK at mylola.com for 60% off your first order!

hey guys welcome oh jinx oh you owe me a bottle of wine uh-huh i was like i'm not gonna buy you a coke did you know that in appalachia they call coke dope no my brother taught me that today and at like Appalachia like North Carolina do they yep they also say um poke is a bag so a poke a dope is a bag of soda oh else they say sody water sody water sody water no no my cousin went to app state and cc went to app state for her master's i wonder if either of them picked that up i have a feeling they don't say sody water in grad school but maybe not anyway how are you feeling um i'm good i'm surviving going strong blaze took me to the to his work aka the, and they put me on some nice meds, so we'll see how long that lasts, but otherwise I'm alright.

How are you? Comparatively, I'm fine. You're not great. Gio also has a puppy cold. Yeah, everyone's sick. Everyone's sick. It's because mercury's in retrograde. Is it?

It is. That makes so much sense. Oh my gosh, today, that would explain today, wouldn't it? Oh yeah. We can't talk about it, because I don today, that would explain today, wouldn't it? Oh yeah. We can't talk about it because I don't know who listens at work, but let's just say work was a doozy. It's a doozy. Also, we got the wine glasses in, and I'm just so excited.

We did. You're drinking your wine out of one of our wine glasses. I am drinking my wine out of an, and that's why we drink wine glass. They're on sale online, and that's why we drink wine glass they're on sale online and that's why we drink dot big cartel dot com get your hands on them we got a really cool thing in the mail we did we did we did we did to our p.o box which is uh 1920 hillhurst ave number 265 los angeles california 90027 okay we should make a song. Well, you just did it. Maria sent us these letters and cards. Oh, my God.

They're all custom. They're all personalized. One for me, one for Christine, one for Gio. Oh, my God. And they're like hand-cut bones on Gio. Like different colored bones that she definitely cut by her hand on the Gio card. Mine has sequins on it. It's just so great. And mine has different shakes and fraps on the back card mine has sequins on it it's just so great and mine has different shakes and fraps on the back oh my god it's so cute it's so nice and then

she wrote us this card i've it's like a very moving card we were very moved so well here's this okay we also got a mini card for the podcast in general so it says hello ladies and geo here are some cards to show my appreciation for all the hard work you put into the podcast i know it's a labor of love because telling the story of death is a really really hard thing to do also geo's card should be sung out loud and your best rap beat x x o o x o maria well geo's your dog so you just wrap it no that's not fair i don't want to do it Aren't you the rapper in the group? No, no.

Oh, God. Here we go. You once were a dog who needed rescue. Now you're with two people who really love you. Your life is grand and you're on Twitter. You know those folks who hurt you? Don't be bitter. They're in your rear view where they belong.

You got me rapping this rhyme? Know that you belong okay to be fair i hadn't read it before then and you're very white it shows baby g such a good boy anyway thank you maria that was so kind we're just so in love with all of it. Also, I'm very jealous because Christine's card was in neon pink paper and the C in Christine is entirely made of glued on sequins. I just keep finding sequins now on my pants and on my laptop. Me too. Also, we have an update.

We're now on Spotify. We are on Spotify. Yay. So that's really exciting. Also, we just the two two girls one pup pup cast uh we just started on that yes we did so you should go check that out we talk about ghost dogs and uh crime dogs and scooby-doo and all sorts of fun stuff and for all the people who say that they like us because the way we talk to geo it's just a whole episode we talk about geo oh sure yeah it's a geocentric episode yeah so if's just a whole episode where we talk about Gio. Oh, sure. Yeah. It's a Gio-centric episode.

Yeah. So if you just really want to hear us talk about him, if you want to hear me beat Christine at some Scooby-Doo trivia by like a long shot. To be fair, you reviewed before the episode. Okay. To be fair, she told us Scooby-Doo was going to be involved. Why wouldn't I come with homework? Okay.

That's fair. I'm just bitter. It's just, you know what? For someone who probably did better than me in school it was nice to like blow you out of the water with some knowledge you keep kind of like um harping on this win you got it's like the only one i've got it's not true just let me have it all right um so i think that's all i have well people were actually really hung up about the dear David Twitter. Yeah, a lot of people are still they want to hear your take. My take? Yeah.

Someone says, can you please direct Dear David to Trump Tower? People are making videos. I mean, this is wild. So Oh, God. Okay. What? Apparently David came back eight hours ago. He tweeted he hadn't dreamt about david

in a few months but he appeared again last night in my dream my bedroom was filled with hazy smoke but i could see david sitting in the chair across the room he was smaller this time almost shrunken he didn't do or say anything except look at me like his power hasn't grown back yet and then he said anyway it feels like a bad omen but then i mean not to play a skeptic but at the same time he has become pretty notorious for this character of course he's gonna dream about him for a second sure but it's been months also he's saging the rocking chair remember how the rope geo you're not making us comfortable but yeah he staged the hallway where he saw the saw the figure and he also staged the rocking chair that would rock on its own at the end of his bed

absolutely not one of his tweets folks have been urging me to get some sage so i did good glad you're listening smart man it is just creepy oh my god there's more photos okay you guys have to go check it out there's more updates i want to see i guess he posted this um he said left is with my phone right is with my polaroid the hall light was on both times why is it pitch black with the polaroid no anyway so that is the update on that you guys should go read the whole thing if you haven't uh it's moby underscore dickhead and who knows if what is going on but either way it's fucking creepy yeah i like but he really could be messing with all of us he could be but just i mean i don't believe it's working it's it's better than any of the movies out there about ghosts i believe this a lot more oh also have you seen annabelle it just came out

okay that was a stupid question really stupid question i really want to go you look so no it's like surprisingly doing well i know npr said it was good and i was like fuck you npr i'm not gonna go on imbd it's um imdb it's um it hit like 35 million dollars already or something i've never seen that the the movie that this annabelle doll is in is the one i took a picture of at Warner Brothers. So I've already met her. I knew her before the movie came out, so it's no big deal. You're such a hipster. Oh, my God.

I am. Okay. Why are you drinking? I'm drinking because Blaze and Alexander are gone. I had to skip my trip to Boston because I'm'm sick so i'm pretty bummed about that and blaze's family it was going to be the first time i saw them after we got engaged and we were going to do like a big like get together and i had to miss it which is a bummer um oh i'll be drinking twice as much wine as normal i'll be here all by my lonesome but by the time this comes out people will be here so don't try and kill me. Oh, okay. That's just a warning to everybody.

Right. I'm also ditching you. And then fucking Emma's ditching me, too, because she's going off to see her beautiful girlfriend. My number one. Our intern, Allison. Our groupie. She's really, like, climbed the ladder pretty fast, hasn't she? She went from, oh, our friend in Tanzania in episode three. That's what you get when you're sleeping with the boss. You climb all the way up the ladder pretty fast hasn't she she went from oh our friend in tanzania in episode

three that's what you get when you're sleeping with the boss you climb all the way up the ladder soon she's gonna be running this thing well she will be internally i guess if she's our intern now anyway i'm going to seattle to see allison i'm going to seattle to see allison and i'm gonna be here all by myself oh last time i saw her at a uti on a campground oh god things will be different this time things will be yeah knock on wood um and i'll be here alone surrounded by all this merch that you guys better buy so i can actually get it out of my house because it's piling up we just have like boxes of shit all over the place i'm sitting between a lot of boxes right now. Poor Blades is like, when will it stop? Nope.

He signed up. You never. You trapped him. That's all that matters. Listen, I got the ring. You got the ring. So, all right. Shall we?

Do you have any other updates? No. Scare me. I don't. I'm going to scare myself because these notes are not good. But like. Every week, Em. No but i like this time it's a little bad we will see i feel like you can't start our podcast by saying this is gonna be really bad but i've been doing it for 28 other episodes so why not why end now you know that's fair um the

only reason i say it's bad is not my fault this week. It's really not. I'll be the judge of that. No, I looked high and low for history of this place, and all there are are ghost stories. So I guess that's good. Oh, that's not bad at all. But, like, there's no history. Like, I have no...

There's nothing. Just tell me the story. Okay. It's the Jefferson Hotel in Jefferson, Texas. Just tell me the story. Okay. It's the Jefferson Hotel in Jefferson, Texas. And Jefferson, Texas is supposed to be one of the most haunted towns in America.

Like, it's just supposed to be littered with paranormal activity. So you would think there'd be some history. I'm mad about it. Maybe it's always been haunted, so there's never been, like, a... Maybe. I don't know. Like, there's a lake right next door to the jefferson hotel and it like the lake alone like a hundred over 170 people have died i'm sorry what i know but there's no history their only the only story they have is in uh at some point back in like the 1800s there was a steamboat crash so 68 of those 170 people

died all at one time and then a lot of other people died in the lake just from drowning and then because it was um a town that everyone traveled through a lot a lot of people would use that as a place to dump the bodies of people they murdered. Okay. So it was like a big. Dumping ground. Dumping ground. That's really sad. And that's like. That's.

I have more history about the lake than I do about this hotel. So there was like. A preview. I'm. If you live in Jefferson, Texas. Help me. Because I. I'd like to know where these ghosts came from.

So anyway. The Jefferson Hotel. I will tell you what history I was able to find. Okay. It was built on an Indian site because, of course. See, told you. It's probably always been haunted. The Caddo.

C-A-D-D-O. Caddo? Indian community. That was like a bunch of tribes put together. Okay. They all lived on that land. And then the 1800s, it became a cotton warehouse oh that was 1851 is when they first built something on that land and then in the 1870s it started to convert from a cotton warehouse into a restaurant at the bottom which still exists in the 1870s and still exists

oh my god and upstairs was a it was a restaurant and a laundromat downstairs and a bordello upstairs oh sure i actually didn't know what a bordello was i was like oh google what is a bordello and it was like brothel and i was like oh it's like a fancy word for i was like oh that's a fancy brothel it's a one-stop shop you do your laundry grab a sandwich did you know in virginia it is um depending on where you are it is illegal for more than five women to sleep in the same house because it's considered a brothel oh shit which is why like sorority houses like on college campuses like by by state definition they're all brothels no comment um so in the 1870s it was you know a bordello sure of sorts and a lot of the um women

that worked up there would come would come down to the laundromat in the restaurant and would grab customers from there and bring them upstairs so imagine just like doing your laundry and you're like they're like hey big boy hey trying to trying to go upstairs stud look at those tidy whiteys i know where you can bring them get them dirty all over again oh no so um i guess because so many people were already sleeping there they're like let's make it a hotel so okay i don't know if that's really i'm just gonna start making up my own history i like your history i like it too it makes sense it's like when you told us about how you would do uh school projects we're like well i guess this happened oh that really happened though i did a um i did a book report on this book called z is for zachariah and i didn't

read 80 of it but i reported about it like it was the best book i've ever read and my teacher believed me i was like wow this sounds really good i might have to teach that to the class next semester and i was like no no no no no please don't ever read it please don't ever open the book i was kidding also i feel like that's kind of what this podcast is don't tell anyone oh for sure we're just like listen to us talk where they're like oh we should go to that house m told some really cool ghost stories i'm like wait no no it's actually doesn't exist i made that up yeah Yeah. I made up ghosts. All of them.

Ghosts aren't real. There's never been one. Em made all of it up. Wouldn't that be the greatest surprise if at the end of this there was some scandal in the tabloids about how you invented ghosts? I meant more like I'm actually not a believer at all. Oh, I'm sure the tabloids would really pick up on that. Well, they'd pick up, what if you were really a murderer? It's the perfect crime. I don't know if the tabloids as much as like to report on everyone

else to keep the fingers away from you what if i murdered you okay let's change the subject oh you're about to give away your your ultimate yeah i'm not doing a very good job being secretive right okay i can't wait you can just can't wait to find out check the tabloids in a few months. If I'm alive. Wow, where were we? Oh, yeah, brothels. So they decided to make a hotel, and that was right at the turn of the 1900s. There are on record seven ghosts in this hotel, but apparently every room has its own ghost. Oh, God. So the only thing I know about the town of Jefferson

is that it was a big steamboating city in the 1800s. A lot of people would travel through, I think, to get to Louisiana or to get to Mississippi, just like in that direction. In that direction. The hotel was once called the Crystal Palace, and during the Roaring Twent 20s it was a big place for people to go dancing and hang out cool um was it still a bordello or was it no after it became a hotel it they they shut up it wasn't a laundromat or anything the the restaurant stayed but the rest

of the whole building was just a hotel gotcha um so one of the people who died in this hotel her name was elizabeth and she hung herself in one of the rooms because she was supposed to be getting married that day and her husband ended up standing her up and so she hung herself on the hanged herself my bad i'm not gonna say anything i'm not an idiot okay i'm sorry i'm laughing so hard i know it was kind of hurtful um she hanged herself on the headboard of her bed how because the headboards back then were built to be over 12 feet tall they were those really big ones. The really big ones. And that headboard is still on the beds today. Wait.

Oh, my God. Why would you sleep in there? I don't look. I don't know. But so people will still, like, take pictures next to it. Uh-uh. I'm like, that's morbid. That's pretty fucked up.

I wouldn't take a... I certainly wouldn't sleep under it either. No, for sure not. But so I guess the groom stood her up and she was also pregnant. And during the 1890s, like, she didn't know what to do. Like, nobody takes a pregnant spinster. You're pretty much screwed. So she handled things her way.

That's really sad. And then, like, 15 years later, or 20 years later or something, right around, right before 19 1915 i think it was 1912 there was another woman named lydia grisby who was also a fiance standing staying at the hotel whose husband wrote her and said he wasn't coming to their wedding and she also hanged herself oh my god um and this time she hanged herself from the chandelier in the room ew can you imagine walking in there the weird thing to me is i think at least back then chandeliers if it was really fancy they had like the hanging the crystals yeah the things that like they like cling together and everything if you hang yourself like you like hear it yeah can

you imagine walking in and it would be swaying that's like out of one of those haunted houses yeah yeah hey blades when i get married at the uh the jefferson hotel no you might make lucky number three sounds like things go really well there okay um so anyway there so those are the two people who have definitely died there and then there's also no record of it because i guess all the documents um burnt in a fire but also in the early 1900s there was another woman. I think she also was a bride and got stood up. Oh, my God. I think. I don't...

They, like, it was very hit or miss about her story. But what ended up happening is she was in the bathroom. Oh. She was taking a bath, and then she killed herself. And they don't know if it was, like, she cut her wrists or she she cut her wrists or she oh no she stabbed herself what like just right in the chest and then she ended up actually living in the tub for the next two days m no thank you and she died from the inflicting wounds two days after the fact but because she had stabbed herself so close to her throat i guess she couldn't scream for help. So she just sat in a bathtub for 48 hours and then died.

And that was in room 19. Oh my god. But so room 19 happens to be the most active of all of the active rooms. Okay. So that's just for future reference. People don't know how he got there, but people will also see a man, a ghost of a man, who is tall, wearing a long jacket. He tucks his pants into his boots, and he walks down the hallway and turns a corner. And if you ever try to follow him, you'll just show up at a dead end that's empty or a room that's totally empty.

If you try to follow him, he'll totally go away. It's so creepy that there's no background on him but multiple people see the same thing so it's like yeah so everything that i found was in um like newspaper interviews and that man got brought up every single interview and they it was either one was a manager of the hotel one was a former manager of the hotel one was an owner of part of the hotel um but they all say that they've seen the exact same man and people will like come up and say that they've seen him and they'll always ask for a description and it always matches up oh that's so creepy um there are also ghosts of children several children and they apparently like to be on the lower floors more and that's probably one of the theories of ghost patterns

of how they live on the other side is that they still follow the blueprints of the building that they died in so that's why a lot of times you'll think that ghosts are walking through walls it's because they're actually walking on a path that before our architecture they're following the path that the house used to look like oh my god so they think that the ghosts like the lower floors because at the time um when people were living on that property it was just a one floor building that's like last episode when you talked about the kids like looking out windows that weren't there yeah a lot of the people who work there also say that they're jokesters and like pranksters so they'll move a lot of objects hide a lot of objects which

you and i both know way too well too much of that they will hide objects from guests as they're trying to check out that's so mean bastards so mean and uh if you bring toys because a lot of people i guess know that the place is haunted with ghost children so they'll bring toys intentionally to try to entice them out and they will play with the toys if you bring them toys oh god um one psychic came and she said that a girl there um a girl that works there or no a girl that is a ghost there a girl that works as a ghost. Right. Yeah. She's a seasonal employee. They said that they met the girl and she was actually all the way from the Cotton Warehouse days. And they met another ghost girl who was from before anything was even built there. So, like, lived on the land.

Oh, my God. Also, when comparing stories, just like how they'll ask multiple people about the man and what he looked like, they'll compare stories with a lot of visitors because just about everyone sees kids. And everyone, the most common thing that everyone says is they see a boy and a girl. The girl is seven and the boy is eight. And the girl is wearing a pinafore? Pinafore? I feel like I know what that is and I don't remember what that is. Okay.

Well, she wears one. She also wears... Should we look it up? pinafore pinafore i feel like i know what that is and i don't remember what that is okay well she wears one she also wears should we look at that she is pinafore clad she is pinaforific oh okay a collarless sleeveless dress oh harlot tied or buttoned in the back and typically worn as a jumper over a blouse or sweater you spoke too soon oh i mean but think about like back in the day they were it looks like an apron it's like a jumper it's like that's like an overall apron we wore those in in school in elementary school no in cincinnati they were like plaid and they were jumpers we called them oh it's the thing you wear oh yeah over a blouse it's an overall dress it's it's an overall dress it's a jumper is that what an overall dress is yeah okay so you're

agreeing with me a pinafore okay it's not an overall dress because that implies that it's made of denim no it's overalls without the legs whatever it's a jumper i used to have overalls little alligators on them that's cute yeah well i couldn't wear it now could i glad we can agree on that so the girl wears a pinafore she also wears a white leotard and she wears black high top button boots whoa that's pretty bad like today that would be really uh very like steampunk yeah it's very like 90s revival yeah yeah yeah um and then the boy wears knee-high britches nope he lost nothing else no oh and then one of the quotes that people have is they weren't considered fancy clothes during the time they were everyday clothing um for when those kids were alive but to me that's still

fancy clothing like when i was little i was lucky if i wore clothes like oh yeah oh yeah i mean considering i had my alligator overalls and nothing else it sounds like you were all set i was taken care of um i also wore a lot of like onesie pajamas with like the the um long john butt like the flap those were great my mom was pretty much all i ever my mom always put me in those like crazy german like 90s dresses that were just like gigantic and had like did your brother have lederhosen i mean he does now he didn't back then that's awesome no it's not don't get me started um when i was little should have been a sign but my mom when she first had me, wanted to put me in, like, all of the, like, frilliest, night, like, straight up, like, Christian Dior. No, thanks. Fanciest, ruffliest, pinkest baby dresses that ran for, like, hundreds of dollars for one piece.

Ew. And I would just, like, vomit all over them and drool all over them. I was like, get me out of this. That's funny you said that because my mom stopped putting me in white because every time I wore white, I would vomit all over them i was like get me out of this that's funny you said that because my mom stopped putting me in white because every time i wore white i would vomit all over maybe that's why neither of us wear white now yeah maybe it's just like a like a trained thing of like oh i'll throw up if i have to wear i will spill wine all over my clothes oh yeah it was just foreshadowing yeah you know when i was um five uh a boy asked me to be his girlfriend and i laughed

so hard i threw up on him oh you had wine in your mouth sorry that's why i don't wear white um that's a good time oh good anyway they weren't wearing fancy clothes for their time but they certainly were for us you know i'm gonna look at my kids in the future and like analyze their every movement because like now that we talk about our childhoods and i'm like how did my mom not see and now it's like it's like i better see if i put my daughter in a dress or my son in a dress who cares yeah and they throw up i'll be like well it's not their style that's fine let's put them in uh a pinafore yeah and see what happens uh we'll put them in some alligator overalls i loved mine um so these kids will giggle um to each other so you'll like hear whisper giggling oh no kids will play with each other like kids will play with the ghosts and

you'll be like who are you playing with oh god uh they will tug on people's hair as like a hello nope they will turn the lights on and off um the opposite of whatever you wanted so if you're walking away from like a dark room they'll turn them on. So you have to go back in and turn them off or vice versa. I much prefer that than to walk into a room and have the lights turn off. Oh yeah, that's true. It's a lot creepier that way. That's true. They actually are really well behaved because if they're frustrating you too much and you shout at them, they'll fix whatever they were doing.

Aww. It's like, aww. Poor babies. So I guess the manager has to go in every now and then early or stay really late and there have been times where as soon as she will walk away the lights will turn off and she has to go back and turn the lights back on and they'll keep doing it non-stop and eventually she'll just be standing in the dark and be like all right children enough is enough and then they'll turn the lights on all right children like all right now and she doesn't have

to even walk over to the switch i'll turn on by itself oh my god i'm like fix it she has to like scold the children it's so cute she's like this is not part of my job description it's like i did not sign up to be a mother thank you babysitter um so one of the things in the lobby is that you know how most hotels will have like a guest book do they still i don't think they do. Maybe like a bed and breakfast or something will have it. Well, they still have guest books at the Jefferson Hotel. Okay. But they have binders of a specific guest book category, and it's just paranormal experiences. Oh, cool. And they call it the Book of Dead.

Or the Book of Death or something like that. That's the creepiest thing to call it. Yep, but okay. But so like if you really like that stuff and you're a guest at the hotel you can even check out an entire binder and bring it upstairs with you and like read everyone's experiences oh that's so cool yeah but apparently it's been around for decades and um they still like they encourage staff and guests to write anything that they have so creepy some of the things from the book of dead are as followed uh in december 2014 one girl was staying in room 17 and she said everyone took a shower before me and only whenever i showered the words

get out would appear on the mirror in steam and then she said oh my god the next morning there was nothing there we turned the heater off and throughout the night it would be scorching hot and then freezing cold all on its own no matter what we did with the thermostat that sounds creepier than children there have been a lot of people who have said that like the mirrors will spell things and it will even spell it not not the words will be in reverse but it'll happen in reverse steam wise so if you're taking a shower the only thing in the mirror that will be steamed is the writing so like the whole window will stay clean with no condensation or anything and just oh so the condensation will only go on the letters yeah oh no and then vice versa where there'll be just

steam and then like it looks like someone like wrote out it with their fingers yikes so you never know what you're gonna get um and then one of the other ones um december 2012 a visitor was staying in room eight and said i woke up in the middle of the night and saw a little girl sitting on my bed she was a small child and she said her name was sarah and she was waiting on her birthday she said she wanted to be an artist and then she faded away baby that freaks me out that's so sad um another thing like i guess a lot of the managers have said that they're just used to people sleeping in the lobby because like so many ghosts will wake people up in the middle of the night where oh my god um one of the quotes from the previous owner was we have a lot of people creeped out we've had people leave in the middle of the

night or sleep on the couch in the lobby some people say they feel touches or will hear people talking to them in their rooms and they think it's their wives but their wives are sound asleep or vice versa no thanks so that would suck if we like spent the night in a hotel and all of a sudden i heard you talking to me and i'm like rolled over facing the wall and having a whole conversation with you and then i turn over and you're asleep that is out of a horror movie i'd be like oh i'm out that is straight out of a fucking horror movie i'd be like and we're done and then i'd be pissed that you left me in there alone to go sleep in the lobby i'd be like you're clearly fine you're clearly better off than i am right now see ya fair point um so a lot of things that people uh experience are whispers out

of nowhere orchestra music will um come out of a closed dining hall that people uh experience are whispers out of nowhere orchestra music will um come out of a closed dining hall that hasn't been open in a long time just orchestra music coming out of there and they open the door and it's just like dark and no clearly no one's been in there which is weird because that was also in the white house the bush daughters heard orchestra music coming out of the fireplace um knocks on the wall and headboards the smell of cigar smoke when no one's allowed to smoke anywhere near their faucets will turn on by themselves doors pull back and then will get pushed shut all on their own um children have been heard laughing and romping around the hotel on floors that no longer exist what um footsteps

on the stairs when the hotel is empty people have felt shoulders tapped and their hair tugged ghostly orbs and pictures phantom figures that appear in the middle of the night oftentimes sitting on their bed knocking on the doors for people to open and not see anyone there windows opening and shutting by themselves the manager said that a lot of times she will sit at the front desk and she will see, like, I guess the way that the desk works is, like, if someone in their room calls you, their light will go on. So she'll sit there and when she knows that they're vacant rooms, the switchboard will just keep lighting up as if rooms are talking to each other.

Okay. Nope. Um. That's not okay. Dishes move by themselves and you can hear them clinging in the kitchen, even though all the staff is gone. The payphone in the hall will ring by itself and then hang up on you when you pick it up. Ew, the payphone ringing by itself.

That's so creepy. The television will turn off by itself. Things will fall when no one's around them. People have been cuddled when they go into a room by themselves. Nope. Nope. Other than that, I have stories for different rooms okay in room five there's a story of a couple whose son woke them up in the middle of the night because the man with the long coat wouldn't leave him alone

and he was sleeping on one of the rollaway beds and the one with the pants that went into the boots yeah oh god he kept poking the little boy to keep him awake and then the little boy woke his parents up and was like that man won't leave me alone why would you take your kid there that's traumatizing i don't know but that's like one of the big stories now the little boy kept seeing him and he wouldn't let him go to sleep that reminds me of your story with deirdre where like you were on the rollaway bed oh you mean when i saw possession yeah i remember that too deirdre are you listening she was possessed you're not here to defend that now she was possessed um okay and then room 20 two older women were staying there and they kept getting woken up to the sound of running water and they kept having to go

take turns turning off the faucet um and then eventually right in front of them when they went to go turn off the faucet again all of the the shower turned on behind them too like just to be like fuck you you can't turn off the faucets if i don't want you to fucking terrifying um because then you'd think someone was in the shower behind you that's so creepy oh i didn't even think about that to hear the shower i would have just been like ghost it's a ghost i would have been like someone's gonna stab me and that's why we do these separate parts of the podcast and room 21 a guy and his friend were spending the night and then in the middle of the night at 3 45 in the morning he woke up and uh this this one would creep me out he had locked the room all the lights were off and when he woke up at 3 45 he couldn't

move so it was like a sleep paralysis kind of thing and he all of a sudden he says he experienced a loud rushing sound filled in his ears so that was just white noise that was getting louder and louder and then he felt as if he'd been like plugged into like an electrical socket like his like his whole body was like doing that white noise fuzzy feeling tingly um extreme goosebumps the inability to speak or move and he felt the bed like depress um and he felt someone scooch into him and spoon like be his big spoon oh my god oh my god oh my god and he said chills were racing up and down his back and he thought maybe it was his friend trying to like be funny or something like that and he opened his eyes and his friend was in front of him sleeping ahead of him and so

he was trying to scream and like move his arm to like wake his friend was in front of him sleeping ahead of him and so he was trying to scream and like move his arm to like wake his friend up and he couldn't do it and then eventually he was able to like muster out a scream and his friend woke up and the feeling like went away my body is not happy with that story i have chills then in room 23 one girl woke up uh about three in the morning also because she heard scratching and banging in the room above her as if someone was moving furniture and the people in the room next to her had the exact same experience and when they both went down to complain about it they were saying that no one was upstairs and there's no furniture in that room that's weird that both of them reported it yeah no they met

each other at the boot at the in the lobby to complain at the same time how creepy in room 24 a wife woke up at five in the morning and she uh got up and went to the hallway to make coffee and as she turned she noticed the man and the man the man oh no not like the government no she found big brother amongst standing in the hallway uh she found the man with the long jacket in the foyer and he was turning down the hall and so she went to go follow him and uh the doors opened right in front of her she saw him push the door she saw him push the door open and when she went to go follow him and turn the corner he was gone and the door swung shut by itself no it's like she watched him push the door open but when she got there the door closed by itself also the main room is uh room 19 which is where the girl stabbed herself

in the bathtub for two days no a man told his wife to go back to sleep when she woke him up about um seeing a blonde woman uh who kept grabbing her arm and touching her hair while they were trying to sleep that is absolutely what kind of man are you to be like go back to bed not be like uh we're getting out of here you're just dreaming if anyone woke me up and was like if you woke me up and you're like by the way this happened i'd be like oh we're leaving even blaze if i woke blaze up and i was like a woman is stroking my hair he's at least turned the fucking lights on like um so uh another thing that happens in room 19 is that the shower the the mirror in there will also fog up but it apparently spells help and then in another place it spells red rum but get this red rum are you fucking kidding me so they

think because it was so haunted somebody put put, like, a consistent adhesive on. They think someone fucked with the mirror because everyone, without a doubt, always sees it. And they're like, this is too convenient. And because why would Redrum be on, like, such a pop culture reference? Like, oh, someone from the 1800s predicted The Shining. So then it still freaked them out enough that they moved rooms and went into room 12. Oh God. And, um, they, and the husband who doesn't believe in anything said that he couldn't sleep all night because he kept seeing shadows dart across the crack under the doors.

If someone was walking by it all night and he kept hearing random banging, whenever the shadow would stop next to their room. Uh, and then all of a sudden he said he saw shadows, shadows um slither under their floor and end up in their room and he watched shadow people walking on like at the foot of their bed all night um and a hand was lightly caressing the back of his leg up and down while he laid in bed trying to sleep i have to sleep here alone tonight so then he went to complain about that to the people up front and was like, I thought room 12 wasn't supposed to be scary. And they were like, no, but we moved the we moved the bed from room 14 into room 12. And that bed was the one that Elizabeth hung herself on. Shut the fuck up.

OK. And he didn't know that beforehand. When you were saying like the shadows walking underneath the door, I was thinking, well, at least they can't get in the door and then all of a sudden you're like that's out of a fucking nightmare i know a horror movie and a lot of people have seen a blonde woman um roaming and floating so for him to think something was touching his leg and for the person in the last story to have seen a blonde woman oh that was the same room yeah oh fuck um people also see a lot of what they like guests in weird clothing walking up and down the hall. Right.

Um, but, um, they'll like blink and that person's gone, but they'll still feel like someone bumped into them and no one's next to them, but they'll do the whole movement of feeling someone shove into them. And they'll also feel like gusts of wind get blown at them. Even like in the middle of a room that like there's no doors, no windows, the temperature isn't like going crazy. They'll just feel a gust of wind in the middle of a room that there's no doors, no windows, the temperature isn't going crazy. They'll just feel a gust of wind in the middle of a room. The doors and windows will also close on their own and unexplained temperature drops, like drastic drops, like 20 degrees within five minutes. Then it'll keep going back and forth.

Sudden cold chills, odors with no discernible origin, phantom footsteps, voices, and strange apparitions all in room 19, including the regular steam written notes in the mirror. A lot of people will also hear children running around the room when they're outside of the room. And if they, like, they're assuming a family's in there. And then and then they'll see like a maid come out and there's no family in there and that's that that's fucking creepy yes how have i never heard of this place i don't know maybe because there's no such thing as any history to it whatsoever just the ghost story the jefferson hotel jefferson hotel in jefferson texas i mean even the history of it being like a indian burial ground then a broth then a cotton warehouse then a brothel then a hotel like it already has i thought there would be like some more shady shit going on with the brothel i would have thought for sure there was

like a sex worker who died there i mean probably if that's maybe maybe the man walking around was like a bad guy if he's waking up kids in the rooms to like wake a child up and not let them go to sleep maybe he's like get out this is not child To like wake a child up and not let them go to sleep. Maybe he's like, get out. This is not child friendly. I don't know. But the fact that there are all those children running around too is kind of creepy. I know.

With their buckles and their lederhosen or whatever it is. Their buckles. What is it? Pinafore? Their pinafores. Their pinafores. My pilgrim shoes that I wore in seventh grade. Oh, maybe they make an appearance.

Oh God, they probably do. Anyway. All right. shoes that i wore in seventh grade oh maybe they make an appearance oh god they probably do anyway all right i'm ready for you to scare the pants off me yeah well let's see what you can do at least metaphorically right metaphorically you always do good you have yet to do it literally and that's the day i'm waiting on someday i'm really working my way up the ladder. Okay. All right. So I'm going to tell you a story about Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel, AKA the beast of Birkenshaw.

Oh, he is a notorious serial killer from Scotland. Okay. Well, I do like a good Scottish man. Hashtag CK. Hashtag CK. Although we,

I do keep doing these um you know uk stories and then like fucking up their geography and our language so hopefully wales is not in england wales is not in england that's all we know we don't know how to pronounce things in welsh but this story was actually suggested to me by my brother, Alexander, who is currently on a plane to Germany and just texted me. Germany is also not in England. It is not. Thank you. He texted me a few moments ago that he got a free glass of wine on his flight.

So team wine. Oh, okay. And he also suggested this because he is going to Lithuania next week. He also suggested this because he is going to Lithuania next week. And Brian Cox, who played Hannibal Lecter in the movie Manhunter, used this guy, Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel, as an inspiration for his character. Yeesh. Okay, but I'm ready. Big circular story. But basically, point is, my brother suggested this, so thank you, Alexander.

So I'm going to tell you about peter thomas anthony manuel who i'm now going to call peter manuel okay or the beast or the beast beast of birkenshaw okay i keep when i say birkenstock that's also german i i sure know that okay so peter manuel was born to scottish parents in new york city in 1927 but the family moved back to Scotland in 1932. Manuel was bullied as a child, and by the age of 10, he was known to local police as a petty thief. Uh-oh.

So by age 10, he was already kind of a little trouble child. Hmm. Little rabble rouser. Little rabble rouser. Little hooligan. At 16, he committed a string of sexual attacks. Oh, lord. So went downhill from there

um and he actually went to peterhead prison for nine years because of those oh so he came out of prison um at age 25 which well it is interesting to me too that in the uh 40s he was sent away for almost a decade for sexual crimes because I feel like that was not as... Especially in the 40s. Right? In the 40s, you must have done something really horrible to actually even be considered a sexual criminal. Definitely. That surprised me. And especially because he was a minor.

Like, it really surprised me. Yeah, in the 40s when you just be like, oh, well, women deserve this. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. Right. So it just really surprised me. But it does say, there aren't any details, but it does say a string of sexual attacks.

So, I mean, it must have been pretty darn bad. So the following year, oh, I'm sorry. In 1955, he was charged with rape, but he served as his own defense and managed to successfully acquit himself. Okay. The following year, on January 2nd, 1956, a 17-year-old girl named Anne Neelans was planning to go out dancing. But her date was suffering from a...

Just get ready. Hogmanay hangover. Uh-huh. Do you know what that is? A hogmanay? Hogmanay? No. I think I'm saying that right. It's a Scottish New Year's Eve celebration. Oh that is a hogmanay hogmanay no i think i'm saying that right

it's a scottish new year's eve celebration oh well hogmanay the only thing worse than that is an irish celebration but i'm an irish no like an irish hangover aren't they like the worst i don't know we're starting probably a war over there oh okay so apparently her date was suffering from a hogmanay hangover scottish new year's eve celebration hangover so a celebration you would love to be a part of i'm sure that i'm a part of without even knowing it yes okay yeah january 2nd so he didn't show up peter manuel saw her and leave a friend's house and began following her he chased her through a golf course until he caught up with her she was apparently terrified running from him uh he raped her and he bludgeoned her to death with an iron bar oh my god um at this point manuel was known

locally as a sex offender so police decided to question him duh uh he was working for a local gas company laying pipes when he went to work a couple days after the murder he had scratches all over his face and some of his clothes were missing but he told police that he had been in a fight on hogmanay hogmanay celebration um so police when police went to his home and questioned him his father gave an alibi for him and the police left him alone okay so he got off scot-free nine months later on september 17th 1956 marion watt aged 45 her 16 year old daughter vivian and her sister margaret brown were shot and killed point blank in their beds oh no so manuel was currently out on bail for breaking and entering nearby but police actually suspected marion's husband william who was away on a fishing trip. They assumed he had driven about 90 miles, faked a break into his house,

murdered his family, and driven back. The ferryman claimed to have seen him on the ferry during the night, even though the route that he would have had to take on the ferry was out of the way. It wasn't even like the shortest way to get back to their house. And a driver also claimed to have seen him. So William Watts, the husband, was arrested and held on remand in prison. But it turns out the ferryman who said he saw him was confused about the car he had seen. And the other witness, who was a driver, admitted that he only identified him in the lineup based on how he was holding his cigarette.

Okay. So then they looked into his car and it was established that the level of gas in his car had not changed overnight. As in, he hadn't driven anywhere. The police then searched gas stations along the route to question employees, searched for a hidden stash of gasoline,

but found nothing. But still, they kept him in prison because he was their number one suspect. So he stayed in prison for 67 days. And then when he was released, he still remained the prime suspect. All right. For now. For now.

Dun, dun, dun. Okay. On December 8th, 1957, the body of a taxi driver named Sidney Dunn was found on the Moorlands. He had been shot at close range and had his throat slit. Like, what's, why, why why both i don't know and there's no reasoning it's not like i don't know is there any relation between any of these people or just nearby people are nearby at this point there was no relation okay so i'm sort of telling these in like a chronological style where later they kind of piece it all together it's almost like a it's almost like a tv show like all these things are happening and they don't know how they're

connected and then later they kind of put it all together okay basically they connected this guy to the murder just because he manuel had been in that town in that jurisdiction for a job interview so they were like well maybe he has something to do with it but they had no evidence um so they never tried him for it on december 28th 1957 so this is just 20 days later 17 year old isabel cook went missing from her home oh my god in carrick drive mount vernon which is the same street tam street Tam McGraw would later live on. Ooh. Do you know who that is?

Tim McGraw? That's what I thought, but no. Oh. Tam McGraw. Oh. No. Because, like, Tim McGraw lives in Scotland. I was like, Tim McGraw is, that is a very non-country thing to do.

He's really pulling off that accent. I know. Wow. That fake accent. Your southern accent is really wow like your southern accent is really like kicking it up in scotland apparently oh this is where scottish people are like what the fuck is wrong with you the scottish are like who the fuck is tim mcgraw no all right who's tim mcgraw is apparently an infamous gangster in like an notorious gangster

in scotland so he was like a violent dude me neither okay so the case of isabel going missing went unsolved for now okay so the next thing that happened this is where it gets fucked okay early morning new year's day of 1958 peter smart, his wife Doris, and their 11-year-old son Michael were shot to death in their beds. No! Similarly to the Watts murders. It turns out Manuel had killed them, then decided to stay in their home for nearly a week. What? Not only did he stay there, but he would come and go as he pleased.

Like he lived there. Yeah, he lived there and would go and leave. Like he lived there. Yeah, he lived there and would go and leave. He opened... So neighbors at this time were... Later, they were interviewed and they were like, yeah, lights would go on and off. We didn't suspect anything because curtains were being opened and closed.

Lights were going on and off. He drove their car around. He ate their New Year's leftovers. Their... What's it called again? Hog... Hog... Hog... Hogman Day? Hogman-y? new year's leftovers uh they're what's it called again hog hog hogman day hogman that sounds right hogmanay hogmanay never i've never heard of that word until today god okay so he ate their hogmanay leftovers what is a hogmanay leftover compared to a normal New Year? I don't know. What's a New Year leftover, though?

Like champagne, right? No, there's no leftovers. No, that's true. You don't have five days left. I would just think it's like Christmas leftovers, like ham or... Oh, like a ham? I would imagine that's about right. Like ham and just normal sides, like potatoes and...

That sounds right. Gravy. But then in New Year's make you finally make new stuff because you've been eating all the christmas leftovers yeah so it's like still the same it's like basically a an extra round of thanksgiving and christmas i sure think they don't put marshmallows on their sweet potatoes probably not it's definitely a thing they don't do there okay because when i first saw that here i was like what the yeah but isn't it so much better okay don't answer that no comment um but also they don't have thanksgiving there but they do have christmas true they don't have thanksgiving maybe it's like their thanksgiving dinner maybe

we'll have to ask ck i don't know're all like, what is wrong with you guys? But. Well, they're asking, like, what the hell is Thanksgiving? And we're like, what is Hogmanay? They're probably like, we know about Thanksgiving because this is a westernized country where America just, like, shoves everything in our faces. That's true. That's true.

And then we're in denial about all the horrible shit we actually did on Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah. Like, we didn't do that. No. We just eat turkey. That's all. No. Indian burial grounds burial grounds what it's fine anyways um okay so he ate their uh new year's marshmallow sweet potatoes right to say the least and he even fed their cat oh kind which i'm like like the 11 year old boy was too much effort but the cat was good yeah fuck you um after a few days

he decided to take some brand new bank notes that the smarts had put aside for a family vacation and left with the family car so the dad was like storing away money for a family trip he was gonna plan with the family oh so this guy manuel took the bank notes and took the family car and drove out of the neighborhood then he decided to pick up a local police officer who needed a ride in their family car no and this guy was investigating isabel cook's disappearance so the woman i mentioned earlier the young girl who was 17 and where tim mcgraw slash tim mcgraw lived on her street and she went missing so they talked about it in the car and um manuel while they were chatting manuel told the officer he thought the police weren't looking in the right places so he is a bona fide narcissist oh hell yeah yeah but this is where he gets a little

too cocky so so far it's like worked where he's evaded people enough but i feel like this is one of those things that happens where psychopaths who are also serial killers kind of their undoing is that they like go too far like they think they're so smart. That they won't get caught. They overlook how cocky they're becoming. Yeah. So what he did was. Although he was normally broke. He started spending the money he had stolen from this family. Left and right at local pubs.

So he was like going to bars in town. And spending a shit ton of money. And a bartender became suspicious. And called the police. And the banknotes were brand new. Because this guy Peter Smart that he had killed killed had just gotten them out of the bank. So they were brand new banknotes that he was storing. So they traced them back to Peter Smart.

And a bunch of people in the bar ID'd him, ID'd Manuel. And were like, yeah, that's a guy who was at the bar with us. So they linked them. And they finally arrested him and charged him with seven murders holy crap i know after he was arrested uh he basically became an open book like he wanted to tell them exactly what happened he's like well if you're gonna know you might as well know the right information he's like look what i did so isabel who i was just talking about who disappeared from our house um it turns out her body uh was only discovered after

manuel led detectives to the exact spot in a plowed field where he had buried her and he is reported to have told police you're standing on her when they found when they went to the right uh apparently he had stalked raped and strangled her and then buried her in the field oh my god that's horrible he decided to serve as his own defense again, because again, he's narcissistic and thinks he can outsmart everyone. But he was unable to convince the judge of his insanity plea. Not surprising. Here's some of the things that he actually claimed while in court.

He claimed that Peter Smart, the father who he had shot, had gone on a spree and killed his family and then himself and that peter smart had been a friend of his who had given him keys to the smart house so he was just going over with his keys that his buddy peter had given him after peter had murdered his whole family and he was just going over to feed the cat and hang out like it just didn't make any sense, basically. Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. In May 1958, Manuel was convicted of seven murders, although many who followed the case believe he killed up to 15 people,

and he actually admitted to, I believe, 18. He was hanged at Barlany Prison in Glasgow on July 11, 1958. He was only 31 years old wow and he'd already done all that he had like slaughtered families shit um his last words yeah were reportedly turn up the radio and i'll go quietly i wonder what song was playing i feel like it's maybe yeah i was gonna say i feel like he's being trying to be deep, but like. No, I feel like he's just trying to have like one last chance of control. He's like, turn up Bob Dylan and I'll go. Yeah.

I don't know. So 17 days after he was hanged, a coroner's jury looked into the taxi driver murder. Remember that guy, Sidney Dunn? And then they made the realization that manuel had in fact a murder done after a button found in the taxi was matched to one of manuel's jackets oh wow so they convicted him of that after he'd already been hanged but it still contested just because it's kind of up in the air because he's already dead right you know whatever um and that's that that's this fucking guy that's horrible what a fucking terrible that's the beast of berkenshaw well yeah oh and he was never convicted of um

anne nealon's murder he was never convicted of her murder because they said police said there wasn't enough evidence and that's the one where he had scratches on his face how do you know how is that the one without enough evidence it was before there was dna or anything like that so there was no way to check whether she had dna it was awful so that was the one that people believe he did that he was not convicted of which is so sad so when he killed that family did he bury them or anything or was he just like traipsing around their house with dead bodies just hanging around oh they were in their beds which is also fucked because he was like oh yeah um he's just a friend of mine i was just coming over to feed the cat every day and they're like wait so they were all dead in their bed then

you were just coming over to feed the cat yeah okay but yeah so they were just in their beds so he just became he just went way too far but like a big thing in articles that i read like a big theme was like if he had been he should have been caught earlier his dad gave an alibi and it wasn't there was plenty of evidence you know geez pointing to him but instead he ended up killing you know 16 more people or whatever whatever the case may be but yeah so that's the beast of berkenshaw berkenshaw and thank you aux inter for your recommendation oh well there's that on that there is that that there is anything else we have to cover you know what nope uh before i forget and before it's too late for you guys uh our next listeners episode is in two

weeks from right now yes from when this gets posted so you have two weeks to submit your stories um we also if you didn't catch it the last time we have a new patreon level um we have some new things happening we're making videos we're making videos this isn't even like tip of the iceberg of stuff we're gonna do we're just slowly this isn't even like tip of the iceberg of stuff we're gonna do we're just slowly being able to be able to do more because you guys are helping out so much right but we have some pretty fun things coming some very weird things coming they're mainly um being pushed by me but i'm into it uh yeah we're all into it we also have merch that's ready to go so please by all means visit our shop yeah that's all in my end next week is episode 30 oh for god's sakes

oh my gosh oh my god oh my gosh my gosh oh my god oh my god zen breathe all right lamaze ready and that's why we drink we're so good that was actually very good by number 30 we'll be 100