And That's Why We Drink - E294 Strawberry Eyeballs and Our Wildest Autumnal Dreams

Episode Date: September 25, 2022

It's episode 294 and it's been 105 degrees in Los Angeles, meaning it's more important than ever to commit to our wildest autumnal dreams! This week Em does Ohio proud and brings us the story of the Crosswick Snake/Monster, who's four forearms are four feet long each. Then Christine takes us to Australia to cover the Scarlet Letter murder, a story with so many characters Em uses their desk gargoyles to keep them all straight. Thanks for the word hummingbird... and that's why we drink!Don't miss out on our very last Here for the Boos tour dates! andthatswhywedrink.com/live

the floor is yours oh very good are you on a time crunch no i today's about you it's your health and your well-being if i were on a crunch, I would not invite you open-ended to speak on a platform. Okay, that's fair. Well, you go, the floor is yours and I hear, get her done. Yeah, well,

maybe that too. We'll mix a little, sprinkle a little of that in. But no, no. I want to hear how you're doing, Em. Oh, wow. I don't want to stress you out.

So if you're like, I don't want to talk about this, I did think before we started recording, I was like, am I going to talk about my heart again? Like people are so fucking over this. But yeah. We want good news from the heart circuit, you know? As I told you, my neighbor Anne is very concerned with her cardiac health.

Tell Anne I say hey. Or I'll do it for you right now hey girl um so i got the surgery and uh they they say i mean they're they can't give me a 100 but they say in the success range they think i'm in the success range um so and the not to be like just like a negative nelly but that does mean that in the future there it could literally grow back which is terrifying um or that they could have missed a part and that part can give me an episode so i will forever live in a constant state of anxiety that they didn't catch all of it i feel like they got a lot of it as a chronic disease sufferer you think that you will always live with that fear you will not always live with that fear i think the people who listen

who who have been in the trenches of something like your your heart issue or something similar get that feeling of like this is just gonna be it's just never gonna end of my mind for the rest of my life yeah even when things are looking good it's it it weirdly just kind of goes at least backstage you know uh-huh well except i'm actually backstage okay it's like an inverse okay you're not backstage it's backstage you are backstage and ta-da i give it floor and we have to deal with it okay yeah yeah yeah so well you didn't even make that i'm sorry to use the the bs word in front of you when you're on stage in front of a thousand people it's not even there um i'm so sorry um no it's uh thank you I can't wait for the day where that's not the case but I

um so they anyway they think it's fine um I they had me stay overnight in the hospital which I was not expecting and then they told me like five minutes before they put me under and I yeah I was getting updates from Eva and I was like wait why why does Em have to stay the night and um Eva had already told me like don't worry it's not nothing apparently yeah apparently my doctor's like super meticulous I guess and like conservative with that yeah like whether or not you need to stay they make you stay um which I appreciate and I until you get the hospital bill honestly i don't care i because i ended up well that's a plus yeah i ended up actually like probably needing to stay because i did have like a bunch of pain and i mean it was literal heartburn so like they like fried my apparently

the same part of my heart they burned it for two hours and they like just kept going i i my anxiety so i have this fun little trifecta where i'm trying to figure out my heart stuff i'm trying to figure out my blood pressure stuff i'm trying to figure out my like top tier anxiety which has just gotten so horrible i don't know why lately um horrible i don't know why lately um and i don't know which is causing the other two to spike but my big fear was always like my anxiety would either make my blood pressure spike or vice versa and then it would cause an sct episode so as i was going into the hospital that morning to get my surgery um they said oh don't take any like as needed medication or as needed, like situational medication.

So I was on no anti anxieties. I was on no propranolol. I was just gear to go. And I had the night before had a whole smorgasbord with Alison where we ate the worst food for my heart and my anxiety. Well, I wanted my heart to be on its worst behavior. It's like really.

Okay. Okay. I'm coming back around. I get it. I get it. So I had, thank you to everyone who submitted your suggestions for like the most caffeinated, spicy, greasy, carby foods. Oh, I didn't see this request.

Damn. I missed one. Well, about a hundred people sent in everything. And then we, I ordered something from Postmates, from Uber Eats, from DoorDash, and from Instacart. Whoa. And I ate until I couldn't eat anymore. And probably one of the best decisions I made was eat the most triggering things for my heart. But then I had to wait two hours before my surgery started the next day.

And I had to just breathe through all those chemicals in my in my body yeah like hoping it'll be worth it yeah well I was like can you imagine if I have an SVT episode before they put me under yeah before oh no and so um I I all my doctors were very lovely I made it very clear to them I was like I hear a lot of people have to get a second ablation. I ideally would like you to do your absolute best work you've ever done today on me. I need you to absolutely fry this thing out of me. And when I'm under, if you think, hmm, should I go a little further?

Yes, you should. It's like whatever you need to do, get it out. You hear me from the great beyond shouting through the void. Go, burn it two hours more well so one of my like bigger triggers is any impact like any standing up too quickly any sitting too quickly any um jumping or like when even i told you to jump into the pool recently and you were like yeah what are you trying to do kill me and we were like i was like i know i know that would be it

and so one of the things that they needed me to do was kind of hoist myself from the gurney onto the actual operating table. And I was like, I got to tell you right now, I'm going to do it. But the second I do it, SVT is going to kick in very quickly. So I need to be under in the next 10 seconds. And honestly, they listened. And apparently the second I went under, I got I had an attack. The show that I mean, wow, what a beautifully like synchronized show you put on there. I know. And the the after the surgery surgery when the doctor came to check on me in

the recovery room he was like yeah that we saw you weren't kidding though you have a really really really bad version of this and i went yeah dude i know well honestly what a relief to finally have somebody be like whoa you're real sick he seemed he seemed very excited for how bad it was and the fact that he caught it but what i was telling allison is it was so weird having this whole situation like all these doctors coming at me and they were i know this is so stupid but everyone just like bear with me because it was like a reality that I was not prepared for was that all of the doctors were our age. Like it was so because in my mind, I think of doctors as like old wise men who have many years before me and all this experience. And all these people like I know they go home and just watch TikTok.

And like it was just so weird that like everyone was late 20s to early 30s. And they asked me what type of music I wanted to listen to when I was under. And I told them I wanted to listen to lo-fi music. And at least two of them went, wow, this stuff's so vibey. And I was like, I'm going to need you to say words other than vibey and i was like i was like i'm gonna need you to say words other than vibey as you hold a scalpel or like a scalpel oh god and then there was one doctor who i like i was like i was trying to like get everyone's name and he was like oh you can just call me luke and i was like no no you've come too far to be called by your first name yeah anyway so it was just weird to

have everyone operating on me who like was in high school when i was in high school it was just so it was just not what i was expecting for the moment but um anyway i asked all the the nurses once i got to the recovery room like what like the the hospital tea is. I was like, I want to know who's sleeping with everyone. Oh God. I was like, I'm here for a while, so I should probably know this. And,

uh, they all said, actually we like at least three people said, we actually all transferred to this hospital. They separately said this, we, they transferred to this hospital because it's like the only hospital in town that doesn't have gossip.

And they were like, it's like their favorite favorite hospital you went to the wrong hospital em i know i'm so sorry they did all say trust me if we had some i'd be the first to tell you but the one that i went to before this they might as well have written gray's anatomy about yeah and i was like well that one you should fill me in on because i'm here overnight and i'm gonna be stuck with you for like the next eight hours you just eat your jello while they tell you all the scandals i was like if you were 60 like i expected i wouldn't be asking this but since we're homies now um i'm you're and you keep stabbing me with stuff in the arm i'm gonna need you to tell me pay up yeah exactly so uh there was one nurse named steve who is now apparently one of the biggest fans that

we'll ever have steve nurse steve hi steve we got real chummy um for doing what you do he uh he was talking about like the heart healthy foods i need to be eating and then somehow in that conversation we derailed and he started showing me videos on his phone of his favorite taco place and how they like, like flip them into each other's hands. It was, he was, he was a fun guy. So anyway, my heart for all intents and purposes is okay. But I will say, um, between my blood pressure and my anxiety, my stage fright is no better than it was. Yeah. I will say I was so pleased when your procedure went well and that you came out okay. And they said it was like 95%, whatever success.

Like I was so relieved. And then we were like, how are you? And you're like worse than ever. And I was like, oh, okay. I need to reroute my thinking here, my strategy. I do. So one of the things that I have told Christine and also cried to Christine about um is that I now have a really intense agoraphobia which it's not that I never

thought it wasn't real or wasn't valid I just had no understanding of it when people would tell me they experienced that and um I like I have always understood like oh i have anxiety but i've never actually felt true constant anxiety and panic attacks for no reason and i now have that um ever since the ambulance um you know brad um i know brad we're on steve talk we're on Steve talk we're on right say Steve talk we're on nurse Steve talk now so so now I've had like Allison and I have been trying to do like daily exercises where like I get in the car and like try not to cry like it's like it's very very bad and so now the idea of traveling for the shows it's like not just the nerves anymore being on stage it's like i i just developed this huge panic of like being anywhere where an ambulance wasn't accessible because i was afraid

that i would have to need an ambulance again i wouldn't be able to get one and so now i'm trying i i we've been looking at therapists and everything for this and like i'm i'm actively trying to get rid of this nightmare but um i've got like all these other issues now where like my body hasn't caught up yet to the logic of like oh well your svt isn't coming back you don't have to worry about this kind of stuff and so um yeah it really sucks because i now i just think about like, oh, you know, Allison and I had all these plans for Halloween events. And now I'm like, can I, I know I could do it, but my body refuses to believe it. Like just going to Walmart gives me a full blown panic attack. So anyway, now I'm going to a therapist for not just general anxiety, but panic disorders.

So if anyone wants to follow me along on that mental journey, the heart is healed, but the brain is not. Whoa, that's deep. Yeah. So one day I will be tip top, but so far my health in my thirties is just a downward spiral. It's only been a few days since your procedure. I feel like as time goes on, it'll, I feel like with your stuff, like you said, it's like a trifecta and they're all, I feel like with your stuff like you said it's like a trifecta and they're all I feel like you were able to turn the volume down on one of them exactly so now I just have to figure out these two yeah let's hope it like slowly brings the other two down but and it does help like I don't want to discourage um you from trying to encourage me like it does make me feel better that for I can look to someone who has had a chronic illness for a long time and be able to say like oh it's not always this bad I've just I'm brand new to this shit and I don't know how you do it well I used to be in a position where it was like oh I

need to know where every possible bathroom is at every moment and I can't drive long distances at a certain time of day and I can't eat and then drive, you know, whatever. And so there was like this constant under, I mean, it's not as scary as like an ambulance obviously, but it's like this underlying like, oh, well I need to be hyper aware at all moments that this could go wrong. It's so tiring. My brain is so tired all the time because I'm always, I, when we've been doing our little exercises, like yesterday we went to FedEx. I didn't even have to get out of the car but just sitting in the car waiting for Allison to come back from FedEx yeah I was looking at every like park bench or anything I could be

upside down on in a moment so I I understand that I just I don't know how long did it take you to not have that there's something very resilient and i think plastic about the human mind where after a certain amount of time our bodies are like anyway back to normal you know i think i can't wait like giving birth for example is like such a traumatic thing on your body and can be traumatic but people just do it and they're like i'll never do this again and guess what you know two You know, two years later, they're like, Oh, wasn't that wonderful. Let's do it again. So, you know, I think the human body does what it needs to survive. And, uh, once it realizes it's not in constant danger, hopefully your mind can like turn the volume down a little bit. Well, thank you. I'm, I will keep everyone updated when I find a therapist. I like,

I just, I'm in the stage right now where i'm like in denial that talk therapy will help which is so stupid because i'm such an advocate for therapy but in my mind like i'm already telling myself the logic and it's not clicking that but that's why they have their own like if you do i almost said cbd training that's not what it's called um the c the CBT, CBD is also helpful looking into right now. CBT is like more than talk therapy. Cause that's more just like actually changing the way you think about things. So hopefully they can kind of talk you through that. It helped me a lot on, you know, in other ways. Well, anyway, if, if uh if something were to go awry during our live shows

i want everyone to know i'm so sorry i'm doing everything i can to be very brave so you're gonna do great and christine's gonna do great too i feel like you never even get credit for how amazing you are on stage i just try to step out of the way to make sure you're not, you know. At least I won't, in theory, there's a much larger chance now that I won't need an ambulance when I go on stage. So that's at least one very good plus of all this happening. And everyone's been sending me lovely treats. You sent me two whole boxes of chopped cover strawberries with little eyes on them. They were ladybugs that's what i said we couldn't figure it out because they looked a little funky but i said i'm pretty sure they're

ladybugs i would not have bought them if they didn't look funky thank you and not in a funky like moldy way funky no they funky ladybug the stripes on them were um were vague and so i was like i think these are ladybugs and I think Allison thought they were strawberries painted to look like strawberries. Wait, what? That can't be right. I honestly don't know what I mean. Wow, my mind

just tripped and fell on its face. I'm so confused by that sentence. You gave me a puzzle, I guess, with us trying to figure it out. I was not intending to make you work harder. I just wanted to put eyeballs on your chocolate-covered fruit. Thank you. And then Eva surprised me.

She decorated the whole troll hole when I was in the hospital. Oh, yeah. I got a video of that happening as it was happening. Very lovely. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. We were in cahoots there. Well, not really.

I didn't do anything physically. I just contributed from afar. Your name is on the card, so you were involved., not really. I didn't do anything physically. I just contributed from afar. Your name is on the card. So you were involved. That's right. I was. Anyway, Christine, you said I could have the floor and the floor I had. So why do you drink and take exactly- No, there's no floor left. We don't want to- Take 18 minutes like I did.

Taking 18 minutes because everyone's already shutting it off. No, I just have one big announcement. As you can tell, I'm wearing a great pumpkin shirt because fall is right around the corner. It is September. We are drinking pumpkin coffee. We are living our wildest autumnal dreams, mostly indoors because it's, you know, 86 degrees out. But fall is coming. We're in the middle of this heat nonsense.

It's been like 105 here like every day. It's been bananas. And that's why it's more important than ever to really commit inside, physically inside the building. I mean, not physically inside yourself, but that too. Commit to fall and all the wonders that it will bring right around the corner so i love when you say autumnal i don't know what it's one of my favorite words what's what's the other word you say all the time that gets me fucking going hold on what it uh uh oh oh oh oh oh say it say say it is it uh

no that one's you i thought i thought you said that no i'd never say i thought that was your thing okay clearly i've just combined the two of us in my head for far too long because i can't tell the difference anymore but there are certain words you say where i'm like christina's back at it i think there's one more french one which is so stupid double double on double on yeah that's the one where i'm like oh god i'm such a douchebag I think there's one more French one, which is so stupid. Double entendre. Double entendre, yeah. That's the one where I'm like, oh, God, I'm such a douchebag when I say that. Anyway. I love it.

Fall is here, almost, and we are celebrating it. We are willing it to come closer. So cheers to fall, y'all. Fall, y'all. Do you have any fall plans? Leona's birthday. Okay. Okay. Halloween. New Orleans.

Party time. Party time. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Maybe you think of a Halloween costume eventually. I don't know. I'm going to brainstorm it. I need to brainstorm mine too. Yeah. We'll work on it. Maybe I'll be the Hurstine Shifter. That would not be hard. Maybe hard one classy trashy headband yeah you want to borrow this sweatshirt and you're good to go

okay let me find my silly little notes that'd be a good start here they are okay so we've been on a cryptid kick and uh this is another cryptid i actually i wanted i am not going to say what i was going to say and people can just find out next week um but uh another cryptid we're we're on a cryptid kick and i think next week might be the final cryptid um for a little bit and I'll get back into the ghosties. But just wanted to throw one your way. See how it feels. Because it is in Ohio. Oh. And it's between Dayton and Cincinnati.

That's right by me. There it is. And it's not the Hurstine Shifter this time. That's hard to believe. But okay, I'm listening. Although I do think you and the Loveland Frogman and then this fella should all have a little group chat or something okay well lunar lemon my leona cryptid was born literally halfway from cincinnati to dayton was born right there so was it in crosswick no i don't even know what that is okay it was in liberty township

okay i was like wow you have an actual little monster. That would be cool. Okay. This is the story of the Crosswick Monster. I've never heard of it. Or the Crosswick Snake. Ooh. I personally went with monster.

It felt scarier. Actually, snakes are scarier. No way. Monster. Boo. Snake is frightening. I really do feel bad for the people out there who are fans of snakes. And because like I someone needs to love snakes and I'm glad it's you.

We do this PSA like at least one three times a year. It's like snake lovers. Well, I don't have a problem with snakes. I think they're very cool. I don't necessarily. Would you hold one? If the right trainer were involved. I don't think I'd just pick one up off the ground.

But if somebody said, hey, here, what do you want to try? I think I would probably panic a lot. And I think I probably wouldn't really enjoy myself. But I would do it. But I also don't want, I don't wish harm to snakes. You know, I'm just sort of like, you know, you do you over there. That's nice for you. That's good.

You do wish them harm harm i don't know if i wish them harm but i certainly wish them to not ever be near me yeah i wish them i wish them disappearing um okay and they i hope they disappear to one happy little snake land where all the snake lovers can visit them what i do hope is that they like spiders don't disappear while you're trying to track them down in your home. Because when that happens, then you're in big trouble. That is a silly, silly thing you said. And you're for a long night.

Okay, fair enough. Yeah, I think I just put them right. I put them exactly where spiders are and I put those exactly where rats are. I also feel bad for the rat people because I know. I love them. That I would hold in a heartbeat and probably i would own and it's the tail it's the tail and nothing else because i don't i obviously me the zoologist um when it comes to rats in my mind who hates a bunch of animals and wants them all to

disappear yeah we all believe it in my mind if it weren't for the tail i cannot tolerate the tail i cannot do it if what about the beady little eyes though okay here's the thing you don't like that either your little teeth if it weren't for the tail there's no difference between a rat and like a hamster and a gerbil and a hedgehog i mean a cute rat good luck um thank you you better just type in tailless rat i will say not a single one shows the tail you want to know why because they know that's their worst flaw it's no it's literally i'm looking through just dozens and there's not one tail oh there's one exactly yeah see but the tip and it's like one thing like like looking at it already freaks me out but to feel one like hit me if i were touching the rat like i can't even begin

to describe the the physical revolts like i like oh no i it's the same thing with snake people if you're a rat person i'm so happy for you and i hope you and your rat have the best friendship there ever was but like there's I just I can't. It freaks me out. I don't know what it is. I think maybe it's because it's a tail without fur. Like it doesn't look it's not it's not it's not 100 percent a furry creature. And therefore, I don't want to cuddle it or something.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm aware there's a problem with me to be clear. I'm sending you a picture. Like before people come at me, I'm on your side. I want to not be like this. But I'm also telling you. See, that is a cute picture. But again, no tail.

So I wouldn't. He's in a teacup, though, which is pretty darn cute. Honestly, if you sent me a picture of a rat not showing its tail, a gerbil, a hamster, a little mouse, I wouldn't know the difference. I wouldn't know the difference. And i would think they're all lovely but the second you pull all four of them up and one of them's got a tail i judge one i'm sorry okay well okay just to show em is shallow um so here's the thing i'll take it i wanted to say is that when i sent you that photo i scrolled back by accident and i found the picture of the strawberry ladybugs.

And I now understand what Allison meant because the ladybugs have dots. And so the dots look like somebody was trying to like put dots on a strawberry because they were putting dots on the strawberry. Well, because also the only the tip of it was brown. And so I was like, oh, it's a chocolate covered strawberry, but only the top of it's supposed to look chocolate covered and the rest is supposed to be strawberry colored like it the the ladybug color yeah but but also red is the color of a strawberry and i was like is it supposed to be a strawberry color of a strawberry i was like is it a strawberry painted on top of us dropping i'm gonna send this photo to megan and just i just i'm like i i'm not disagreeing with you at all i want to be clear i just find this like weirdly fascinating what everybody kind of you know how you all process this and i hadn't put this much thought into it

so i would like to share this with geo's's trio and then with Megan, our lovely social media gal, to see what other people think. I'm genuinely curious because I can see why you'd be like, oh, it's a strawberry with eyes. Yeah. And thoughts. And I thought that was like redundant to be like, oh, let's just like, why would you waste the time to paint a strawberry on top of a strawberry? It already looks like a strawberry. And famously, strawberries are red, too, as you mentioned earlier. So I do understand the confusion.

If anyone's out there who has painted a ladybug to look like a ladybug, just let me know. Because I'd love to. Oh, a ladybug to look like a ladybug. And then we compare that to the strawberry that looks like a strawberry i think maybe let's not you know i don't want to see a picture of whatever whoever uh sick person is decorating ladybugs it literally it does look like strawberries painted on top of strawberries i'm get i'm understanding because when you said it earlier i felt my brain break a little bit and i didn't really get it but now looking at the dots i'm like oh i see because there's dots yeah yeah i get it i do alice and get it so if you're listening to this i didn't mean to you know

diss your thought process no matter what it is they're all they're all gone now by the way oh okay good that's what matters i'm glad you took a photo before before they went away that that picture was taken before about one of those boxes was empty so all right anyway back to the crosswick snake yeah sure the end that's how far we have really far into your title okay so this is in crosswick ohio and as you said earlier i've never heard of that well that's because crosswalk, Ohio is a paper town, which I didn't know this was a term for this, but it's in an unincorporated community, which I never knew it was called a paper town. But I guess it's kind of like one of those dialect words where like some places called something else. And it's a paper town because you can only see it on a map.

But like when you go in there like it's technically part of different counties or different towns oh okay okay okay which is what fredericksburg is by the way it's an unincorporated city it's a town it's a paper town yeah because our mailing address please don't oh our mailing address is as follows please don't snail mail my mom please don't snake mail her either because i is as follows. Please don't snail mail my mom. Please don't snake mail her either, because I'm pretty sure she feels the same way you do about snakes, if not worse. Probably worse. I at least, I respect snakes from a distance. Everybody listening right now is like, I'm going to scream if you guys fill in another snake tangent.

Okay, okay, okay. But Fredericksburg, our okay. But Fredericksburg, our mailing address is Fredericksburg, but technically we're in Massaponics District, but we're also in Spotsylvania County. Like it's a very, it's a weird thing where I could say I'm from any of those three places

and I'm technically right. And somebody gets it. And someone gets it. So I guess that's what Crosswick, Ohio is because it's between dayton and cincy so um also as a non-local am i allowed to say cincy absolutely we love it we love to see it trying to sound really we love to make it sound like it's cool so if there's anything you can do to kind of up our game oh cool so crosswick is between the coolest city ever cincy and also

dayton all right now you're playing you're like overplaying it a little bit i feel like we want it an understated cool right okay okay puff of a cigarette so anyway crosswick is from sensei oh that's what it was thank you okay uh also as a paper town or as an unincorporated community that means that they have no local government um there's no real official census info um it's basically rural and to locals it's a very legitimate area that like they call it that town name but nobody else would know what they're talking about okay like like one road goes through the town and that's right very so you very ohio so in the late 1800s, locals of Crosswick, they started noticing that there were some unidentifiable tracks on the one road in their town and in the woods near their area. And so they were like, what could this be? And these tracks apparently lasted for years and nobody

did a single thing about it. Like they kept appearing, you mean? Kept appearing for years and nobody did a single thing about it they kept appearing you mean kept appearing oh no and i think everyone was like that's not my business and so it's the first time that's ever happened in a small town but yeah i guess yeah they were uh they i guess it wasn't important enough to them to figure it out or they were just like i'd rather not know what weird creepy animal walks up and down this road fully yeah um and so they lasted years but people ignored them but as of may 1882 there were these two teenage boys or pre-teen boys i guess uh there's 13 year old ed and 11 year old joe and i don't know if you consider that a tween maybe I would say tween or kid 11's more kiddish I would say I don't know yeah I don't know what where the line is for a tween a pre-teen a teen

I can't tell anymore I'm too old it's all blurred you know I I guess if you're like Leona's technically I was gonna say yeah yeah sure she's certainly pre-teenage years you are correct on that front oh god what's it like to be 30 and have a preteen that's crazy so um fellow preteens 13 year old ed and 11 year old joe they went fishing at the creek near the edge of town and it's called satterthwaith's run does that sound familiar to you absolutely not cool I'm starting to believe all this is fake. Probably. So they're at Satterthwaite's Run, and they hear this strange rustling in the bushes,

and they find, when they get nosy, they start looking around where they shouldn't have, and in the brush they find this strange, unknown 30- foot reptile what black and white scaly like a snake and they basically said it looked like a snake with legs so imagine my worst nightmare wow 30 foot snake with legs now you just add a rat tail to that and we're i don't know how you would add a tail to what is essentially a large tail itself, which is a snake. I think that's why I don't like snakes.

They just look like the tail. Wait, wait. There's a big Venn diagram happening of tails over tails. Like a gerbil plus a snake equals a rat as far as I'm concerned. Oh, gosh. You're right. So like on the scale, it's like gerbil, rat and then snakes down here. Yeah. OK, I get it. I get it.

So and one of my issues with snakes, by the way, is that like they don't have legs. I am aware that they don't know where they're going. I don't know where they're going. You've said that. It honestly makes a lot of sense to me. It's like unexpected. And I don't I don't know how how they do it either. I'm aware they have muscles i just i it doesn't and also like m doesn't want to learn like don't i don't want to like and like don't

send like a you know a powerpoint because i'm not going to watch that i don't want you to waste your energy knowing might make it worse um it's the same it's the same reason i hate fish like i don't know where you're going and neither of them as far as i'm concerned blink like they've got like those little fake translucent lids but like other than that like you're always staring and you're always moving and why so okay okay 30 foot snake with legs so the boys see it and smart as they can be take off as, as I would as well. Oh, genius. And this monster shoots out of the brush and chases them.

Immediately I would collapse and I think I would just die on the spot. Immediately these children made up this story. But, you know, I'm going to go with it. This 30-foot snake with legs chased them. I like how that it took me this far to go i don't know about that it seems unlikely you're still on the word paper town so explain yourself so when they while the monster was chasing them this is when they

noticed that the head alone was over a foot long oh oh that's a nice time to notice that they just measured it on the run or so before they uh before they knew it the one of the little boys joe was grabbed by the monster with hits because when i said it had legs i didn't mean just hind legs. It has four legs. Oh no. Like four F O R E not F O U R. Oh, it does have four. Like it's a snake that runs like a cheetah. Okay. Here's,

here's what I wanted to say. When you said it's a snake with legs, I pictured this, this caterpillar with all of these legs. And I pictured a snake with like many feet. And I did picture them wearing sneakers but that was on me you didn't you didn't uh at this point anything's possible okay so through god all things are possible through satan it sounds like um so it's f-o-u-r four legs but

also it has four four not only hind but four. Oh, I see what's happening now. Yes, it has forearms. Okay, forearms as well. Yes, it has animal arms. Okay. And so all four of them are, let's say, galloping at this point towards these boys with a foot-long head.

Okay. And then, by the way, these, just to throw another four number confusion at you, their four arms are four feet long each. Oh my god. Okay. Okay. That's really long. Four feet.

So this thing is like as tall as a person, like five feet off the ground. It's certainly not. It's big. Yeah, it's super big all right um so imagine this thing's running at you with all of its four foot long legs and then gets up on two of those hind legs and with the other ones comes at you and grabs you sure and according to what is now my favorite publication the cincinnati inquirer um the cincinnati inquirer yeah it's been your favorite publication, The Cincinnati Inquirer. The Cincinnati Inquirer?

Yeah. That's been your favorite publication when they featured that big article about me. You're right. Wait, are they the ones who actually put an article out about you? Yeah, front page, baby. Okay, well, front page.

The Cincinnati Inquirer also talked about this monster. Okay, well. As if it were hard facts and then said that uh this massive snake grabbed joe in a slimy embrace so what did your article say it sounds very weirdly exactly similar to that one that you're reading i don't know they must have mixed up the print you know oh okay well um request to you eventually I'd like you to cover something from the freelance star, Fredericksburg's biggest publication to date.

They did cover us too, Em. They did cover us. But no, not something about us. I want you to cover something from the freelance star eventually. Oh, I see. Because you're covering something. I see. I see what you're saying.

Okay, I will. I will. You can cover them talking about me on the front page. That's fine. Okay, sure. That's a crime story if I ever heard one. It's a crime to have spent their time doing that certainly yeah so okay this thing is now by the way all of the information um that

is any like newspaper clipping the sense the inquirer yeah we were on it don't worry we're always so while grabbing joe with its arms the monster gets on its hind legs and runs off. So now it can also hold like an 11-year-old boy. Good. Runs off towards an old sycamore tree. Oh, that's cute. With Joe in his hands, I assume like a little baby. Yeah.

And according to the locals, this tree was very, very old, very hollow, and may have had a hole in it that allegedly leads to the monster's lair sure that makes sense so ed the 13 year old is watching joe get dragged to this tree i would say he's not getting dragged he's getting carefully cradled cradle i just want to be clear about like the you know in a slimy embrace yeah sure exactly uh so ed sees this happening and screams loud enough for others to hear so these three men come running to help um these three men were reverend jacob horn george peterson and alan jordan and by the time they got there they also saw the monster and it had joe in its mouth oh no and the monster was trying to force joe into the tree hole with its mouth it's like come with me i think it was like one of those things where

like i feel like i don't i feel like i see these tiktoks all the time where like a dog's trying to drag something through a gate but it's too long i was just thinking or like when dog's trying to drag something through a gate, but it's too long. I was just thinking, or like when cats like try to keep having to drag their kittens back into their little like nest. Like, you know what I mean? I feel like this monster was trying to drag Joe through the hole, but the tree was too small. So he was like awkwardly trying to force him in.

Yeah. Um, and so, and I say that almost lightheartedly because I feel like the Cincinnati Enquirer was not putting out its best work during this. Oh, speak for yourself. So, trying to force Joe into the tree hole, but it sees the three men running after it. And here's the problem, though.

It gets scared, so it clenches its jaw and bites down on Joe and then drops him and the thing runs off into the tree by itself. Okay. Slithers. No runs. You're right. He's got feet. Either at this point. If he gets on his back, he can slither wherever he wants.

That's true. So the men bring Joe home where apparently he was reported as half dead. Oh. Dramatic. apparently he was just injured okay um and there's a doctor named dr lukens who comes to check on joe apparently joe had uh yikes during this attack he had convulsed a few times and was having seizures throughout the attack okay well um you say dramatic i mean sounds like he has reason to be dramatic yeah that one that one's bad um apparently he was pretty banged up and that night he obviously had frequent nightmares um so now the news has spread

across town that there's a 30 foot lizard with legs eating children yeah that's pretty pretty big news that would that would get a fire lit under me i'd go uh-oh time to move uh and the three men that i mentioned earlier that saved joe they organized 60 men to go find this thing and hunted down once and for all okay so they go to the same sycamore tree but whatever they bring whatever sharp objects they can with them and basically use them as axes to start chopping down those tree okay they start chopping it down but shortly after the monster just pops right out of the tree oh he goes yoo-hoo i'm here he's like the lorax you were knocking so here i come May I offer you a thneed? Speaking of words that you love when I say.

I feel like from amuse-bouche to thneed, there's a big gap. There's no Venn diagram. Just two circles really far away. It's like the opposite of an amuse-bouche is the word thneed okay so here's a so he pops out he goes hello i'm a thneed apparently yeah and this is the newspaper description of the creature according to these 60 men it was a 30 to 40 foot long 16 inches in diameter and had the legs i had legs four inches long and covered with scales the same as the body four inches now not four oh sorry sorry four feet i read my little quotations i'm picturing 16 feet and then four tiny little legs i was like wait it's like a half a borrower um

no okay so now these like grown men are, no, this thing is 30 feet long, 16 inches in diameter, four feet long, four legs. And it's about, its feet are a feet long. Its feet are a foot long. Okay? But they're shaped,

like, this feels like that time that we had the dictionary that was all alliterations it's like it reminds me of i'm like four foot long four arms and a foot long feet you should go check if this is in that dictionary because i bet they have all sorts of things to say about that if it is i i don't even want to know if i want to know about that because but i'd have to read a whole passage we already have a headache yeah okay apparently the feet are also shaped like a lizard's they are black and white with large yellow spots the head is about 16 inches wide with a long black forked tongue

and the mouth inside is deep red the hind legs appear to be used to give it an erect position and its propelling power is in its tail like a kangaroo sure i don't know that doesn't sound right is that what they do i don't think so okay well let's pretend all of a sudden i like tails um so the monster pops out of the tree looks at them gets on its hind legs i guess to be like the alpha in the group. And he apparently stands on his hind legs at 14 feet tall, which doesn't make sense to me because if it's 30 feet long and then goes erect, shouldn't it be 30 feet tall? No, because if it has a tail, then it like has its tail back, you know? You're right. You're very right.

Okay. So it's 14 feet tall when standing, which means the tail is 16 feet gross awful great math though thank you and apparently uh it gets on its hind legs and then it just takes off before anyone can catch him and it takes off quote with the velocity of a racehorse wow scary these men had hunting dogs with them, but the dogs froze in fear. So the men have to go after this thing by themselves. And they report back that the monster is running without slowing down, destroying everything in its path and finds another hole in the ground to hide in. So they see it get into this hole and the men decide to keep guard of the hole while they wait for it to come out eventually.

But it never, ever did. And eventually they all had to go home. And that was the last time anyone saw the Crosswick Monster. That is weirdly, this is weirdly compelling to me. Because at the beginning I was like, uh-huh, okay. Now I'm just like, wow, a lot of people are claiming they saw this thing. Well, so that is one of the most compelling parts is that apparently 60 men reported back to a newspaper that this is what they saw. It was 60 men.

Yeah, that's pretty wild. It's like if it were just two kids, you know, I can kind of write that off. But why are all these people seeing it? Even those three men, I mean, for for some reason i guess when you can compare it to 60 men three men all of a sudden feels like not a lot of witnesses yeah and if since that three men incident was happening at the same time as the kids so it's like maybe that one story got twisted but like the fact that they went back out to the tree and say they saw it again it's just like i wonder what the motivation would be there to all make

that up or maybe they were like hey crosswick right now is just a paper just a pig i would had the same thought put it on the map but but more more than it is right now yeah we got it all attention is good attention in crosswick so uh the town decided that i guess they declared that this was basically a giant reptile and it was an enemy of the town but nobody knew where it was and for weeks after this event people wanted more updates and so they kept going to the cincinnati inquirer and they were they were like what is the situation what's the 411 since the inquirer um but ce since i inquire uh i'm trying to keep trying to do the cigarette puff again no it's working okay uh but all that the newspaper did in response to these like requests for an update all they did was put out a one paragraph

article about joe's recovery and it was like he's fine but he is using a crutch currently oh and also the monster can be venomous that was literally the article where they were like what they're like joe's fine but just to like um fear monger a little more this monster maybe has venom in it where do they come up with that just they just okay sure they're like we're ce we can do whatever we want it might it might or might not it's not wrong i guess so people keep uh asking for more information one person even writes in suggesting that the monster was not a like a lizard or a snake like people thought it was actually a python so i guess type of snake but specifically a python um and their

reasoning which christine hey remember that whole conversation we had about how much i don't like snakes correct their reasoning for why this might be a python is because they said well pythons have legs no they don't but they do don't do this to me but they have tiny little legs there's one thing worse than a snake without legs and that's a snake with legs uh-huh and apparently they're um vestigial organs oh vestigial like vestigial tails yes so it's just so technically a python has legs and so i think this writer was saying maybe they saw a tiny little or maybe like they like their mutation was worse and like they had actual legs oh i see should i google python legs i'm a little scared so you you can't actually see them on pythons but just looks like little nubs.

Like they don't actually like sprout out. Oh, it's like a little claw almost. Yeah. It's enough to make me upset. But like it doesn't actually, they don't do anything. You can't like, okay, I see what you're saying. They're certainly not four feet long and carrying 11 year old boys. They're definitely not.

They're not even four inches long as far as I know. Four centimeters, maybe. Maybe. But so anyway, that was one person's reasoning of like, oh, well, pythons technically have legs. So maybe this one just had a lot of actual legs. Okay. So even though it wasn't completely wrong of an argument, this monster did actually have very noticeable functional legs. So most people was like, okay, well, that reasoning doesn't work.

No. Some people thought that this could have just been a massive lizard, but the world's biggest lizard, do you know what that is? Do you know the name of it? A Komodo dragon? Yes. And do you know how long they get? I should, because I just went to the reptile house at the zoo, at the Cincy Zoo. Oh, the CZ.

Yeah, we saw a Gila monster, which they pronounce Gila monster. So maybe I was saying it wrong. And a Komodo dragon. I would say, I don't know, 13 feet. It's apparently only about 10 feet. Oh, okay. But this reasoning is like, okay, well, the world's biggest lizard only gets to 10 feet. This is three times bigger than that.

So anyway, nobody ever determined what this monster was. They basically just think it was an exaggerated game of telephone from the 1800s. And over the years, it's gotten more out of hand. Over the years, it's gotten more out of hand. But the story of Ed and Joe, the two little kids, plus all those 60 men seeing it, and it being backed by the Cincy Inquirer, and the Cincy Inquirer even said that the story was also backed by a judge in town who was one of the oldest and most influential citizens in crosswick so all of this just makes it seem like it was pretty valid but i will also say the cincinnati inquirer um uh described the sycamore tree as 26 feet wide when the largest sycamore tree at least at that time was around eight feet wide so even the like the information just doesn't sound like it's totally solid so we can i don't know how much you want to

take from it but they were the only ones really reporting on it so we just kind of have to go off of their word i guess they're one of the biggest publications around here so i'm almost surprised that they covered it while no other like local smaller places did it's very i wonder if it was uh i mean it was also maybe they got the exclusive scoop they were like maybe for this special scoop maybe also it was 18 the 1880s so like right right for all i know like they you know i'm not judging them i feel like in the 1880s you could get away with a lot honestly i think that was part of it when we covered so many stories where like newspapers are just outrageous sometimes back then they can just kind of say things maybe they were trying a new thing where they were like okay we're like a big publication but we got to

bring in like the the what are we missing that like the readers are getting elsewhere? And they're like, oh, Bat Boy just left the cave. We got to put stuff like that in here. A new column we need to add to our paper. Yeah, that makes sense. Or maybe someone like, maybe someone wrote this in as like a fun little, did you know? Like random fun fact. And people just kind of took to it yeah

that's yeah i i there's some antique stores around here that sell like old copies i i would just love if i could find an original copy of that i think it was may 1882 so okay well okay well let me make sure i look that up before this episode comes out and everyone snatches up all the newspapers i'm i'm gonna need to uh just ask xandy if we can use his newspaper oh yeah i will Well, let me make sure I look that up before this episode comes out and everyone snatches up all the newspapers. I'm going to need to just ask Zandy if we can use his newspaper. Oh, yeah, I will. I still have his password, I think. May of what? 18 what?

I think it was 82. You know what's so wild is that like my house was being built around that same time. So technically this little thing could have slithered up next to your house one day i sure hope so what if i find a skeleton of it underneath my house forget it um anyway nobody ever officially saw the crosswalk monster again but over time reports have come up of something in shaker swamp which i guess is 10 miles from the first sighting and in 2012 uh two other fishermen who were not ed and joe they were in caesar creek stake park which was five miles from the first sighting and they also saw an unidentified animal in the tree line but it had um like glowing

eyes and was growling at them and that's all they really saw so it could be a completely different cryptid or just a unidentified animal um but others i guess at this point think it must have been if it were anything must have been a massive lizard or snake it could have been like a misplaced alligator um because especially if it was propelling with its tail like i know don't they do that to like come up out of the water? I don't know, but that sounds right. You're the one who went on the gator tour, gator swamp tour. Honestly, that was the bravest thing I've ever done. Yeah.

Looking back, I'm like, I can't believe you did that. I wouldn't do it again. To be clear. Well, things have changed. You're 30 now. Next time we go to New Orleans, I won't be on any swamp in like two weeks yeah i think i won't find you there i'll find you in your hotel room where we're both eating a lot of snacks i've definitely i can say i've done it and like i remember them making me hold that little alligator and like that is the equivalent to me of holding a snake but it just has legs it's the same thing

it was a baby so it wasn't like as it was a baby but it could sense fear and it could only sense right here i don't know why i'm trying to diminish it it sounds scary i really wish they had said like oh do you want to hold this because it was just coming at me and i was like i don't i all i wanted to do was go i don't want i don't want i don't want i mean they call that part of our brain the reptilian brain which is like the oldest and most primal part of you that's like get away from that alligator get away from that spider something dangerous is happening and then they're like here you go take a photo with it well i don't know like it's biting ability as a baby i know as as a big boy it could like eat a car maybe but like yeah you definitely know that for sure like if it

like bit my hand if it didn't like me does it hurt as much as like if a cat bit me or is it like a i don't know i didn't i didn't want to find out and it felt like a rubber tubing with like it was little it was gross anyway i'm glad i did it and i'm happy to never do it again but uh the most fun i'll never enjoy a second time so the last thing i'll say about this is if it's not a misplaced alligator the other big theory which is you know we haven't really um stayed inside the realms of reality right but there is a conspiracy that this thing might be from another world and that it can move

through dimensions. And apparently there are a lot of mythical creatures that use trees as portals. Yeah, well, we've talked about how there's that potential, especially when we talk about Skinwalker Ranch and all that,

of different types of beings and cryptids and extraterrestrials coming from different planes. Yeah, them they think that this might just be using those trees and holes as portals um to switch worlds and that's why we never saw it again how creepy what if it had pulled the kid through can you imagine oh my god that kid would have he would have grown up with the lizard people that would have talked about the tell-all when that kid found another tree with a hole in it and got back and came back that's a new stephen king hulu series i can see it now okay well great i'll reach out to the crosswick snake monster and that little boy and see if they can reenact it for us and don't bother reach out to the cincy Inquirer. I'm sure they've got all that on archive.

Right, right, right. And that was a great story. I, you know, I like cryptid stories a lot. I don't think, this one for some reason is just very compelling to me. Compelling like believable or compelling like you're rooting for them? Fascinating. I don't know what it is about this story, but for some reason it said it's oh hi i don't know i don't know but something about it is less because i feel like most of the cryptids you talk about end up having

a kind of like well anyway it was all fun and games and so and so made it up and that's the end of the story but this one has like an open ending you know yeah nobody admitted to coming up with the story so i feel like there weren't even any like uh theories that were like oh they all made it up because there was a big circus coming to town and they all wanted to join the circus that was one of the episodes of the waltons didn't i tell you about that where they became friends with all the carnival people probably why i had that on my mind i was like where am i going with this well the episode started with the police being like look out the carnivals in town oh no not the carnies it was like they were like a bunch of those people that work there they're all coming

into town and they're gonna break into your house and was like, why are we so harsh on these people? You wanted to see a bearded lady in your bathroom? Ah, it's 1950, whatever. And they actually, sure enough, they found them and like squat and get an abandoned home. But then they became friends. And then before they had to leave to go to their next show in the next town over, they performed a personal circus just for the waltons

it was lovely special for them i know what a special friendship tell me about death okay i'd be happy to you know i think part of the reason i'm sorry i'm still talking about your story but i just i also find it you know astonishing legends jokes about this a lot that like just the weirdest shit happens in Ohio and neither of them are from Ohio. So it just always strikes me because there are so many weird like Ohio is such a it's joked about as being such a blah place. But then there are so many weird things that happen there, like cryptids and alien stories. And even the amount of like paranormal podcasts that come out of ohio there's just a very weird thing happening in in that state is it ohio specifically

or like the midwest or is it like maybe it's the midwest rural areas and therefore more things to hide i don't know because like i don't hear about i mean maybe it's just i'm i hear more about it because i'm from there. So it's like confirmation bias. But I feel like every podcast I listen to about creepy stuff always makes some sort of joke about like, of course, it's from Ohio. I don't know. It just seems like a weird pattern. So I don't know.

I'm just curious. I feel like I think about Virginia. I don't know a lot of Virginia specific cryptids, which is weird. I feel like we should have more water cryptids because we have a coast, coastline. We've got the bunny man, but I don't think I know of too many. You know what I feel like should be Virginia cryptids? I feel like the jackalope would be a great Virginia thing. Yeah, where is Jackalope?

What is it actually based out of? I don't know, but there's like a 49 out of 50% chance it's like not. I was going to say, because I feel like somebody's going to be like, that's a blank. North Carolina or something. It feels like it's, blank jack north carolina or something it feels like it's it just says north american i feel like it's wyoming or something isn't it hang on yeah i just feel like it tends to be a midwest thing these cryptids these wyoming yeah wyoming um which is also where hodag is no No, that's Wisconsin.

I don't know. All Midwest. All Midwest. I know. I think it's Midwest something. I mean, somebody gave me a shirt recently at the Beachy Sandy live show that said, Welcome to the Midwest. And it has like a UFO abducting a cow or something. And I'm like, I don't know.

It's just kind of a trope that weird shit happens at Ohio. Are you and Zandy doing any more shows that you need to shout out or anything we are but it's the only one i think i might have already mentioned it is in chicago and it's sold out so oh look at you where is it at uh it's called the den theater i don't really know anything you guys are in theaters now i think so yeah look at you go christine even thought of that oh um yeah it's a small theater but it's a theater you're right okay we're going to australia now so i know we've all had fun in ohio but we're going to australia oh okay hey i'm i'm down they've got kangaroos they do full circle just to bring it back with their little propelling tails apparently that's right that's right that's how they swim

now they also have something called the scarlet letter murder oh okay is it similar to the scarlet letter where someone has a a scarlet letter a letter etched into them it certainly is oh okay sorry how did you know oh you know well that's like the only book i retained from 10th grade so what a traumatizing one to retain i think that's why i retained it i was like this is too juicy to forget also it was like all about gossip so it was about town gossip yeah i aligned it aligned with me i lied with it yep yep um do you have to peanut butter your bread or whatever you're i i do want to take a bite of my cabbage it's like things happen below like i can't even begin to guess what's going on you know what i mean i like last week i'm like wow m must be like

google mapping something i didn't know and then you're like oh here's my peanut butter sandwich it just appeared now i'm like okay got it peanut butter sandwich there's just like a red cabbage appears in front of me i can't at least you know it's always food it's nothing else i am comforted that it's food um although sometimes i do believe i do hypothesize that maybe you're you know shopping ebay for beanie babies or something or um no it's never that fun i'm usually just i just wish everyone else gets to eat while they listen to you tell your stories. And I don't. I'm the only person in the world who doesn't get to do this.

I'm the only person in the world who doesn't get to eat during your stories. You're welcome to it. But I just need a little. For some reason, you say you're not allowed to and you do it anyway. So I don't really understand the. I just need something crunchy. Okay, last bite, last bite. No, no.

You eat up. You're recovering. You're in recovery from a health crisis eat your cabbage i'm good now we're good before before i know nurse sam's gonna be like or night what's his name nurse nate no nurse sam oh nurse steve steve damn it before i know it nurse steve's gonna be like you are dissuading em from eating cabbage listen this heart healthy bullshit is this is not the diet for me okay um nobody told you to eat raw cabbage and if they did they're misguiding you that's raw cabbage you're eating i actually love raw cabbage well then stop

complaining but no like i've just been eating nothing, nothing but like clean, healthy food for. I literally saw you eating a charcuterie board the other day. And it was lovely. It was lovely. I wouldn't necessarily call that healthy. Is that healthy? Here. It wasn't a charcuterie board.

It was all fruits and vegetables. You know, we had. We were trying to do like. I thought those were cheeses. I was like, damn. I don't even like cheese. We called it a heart cuter board. No, you can work on that. I think you might need a little time.

That's fine here. It was beautiful. I was very jealous. It's literally all. Oh, but it's so cute. It was very beautiful. Also, the thing you're talking about is right here in the middle um we had like four or five like little turkey roll-ups but that was it

oh that was the only meat everything else was grains and fruits and veggies beautiful it looks yummy and it's very yummy very lovely but after like so many days in a row of only eating that i just like wow i want a chicken pot pie like is that not heart healthy what's like not her what are you not allowed to eat um like cheeseburgers i imagine like classic fast food probably like heavy heavy creamy things um lots of like uh unhealthy carbs like i need to basically just be eating healthy fats and like so not pizza healthy grains not like the classics like uh fried chicken stuff like that okay the closest to pizza i've gotten lately is um low sodium rice cakes with avocado or peanut butter on them which is delicious also but when you're thinking about pizza it does not it does not work i have a feeling you're talking to people 85 percent of maybe even 95 percent of who've've been on pretty intense diets for weight loss.

And we do understand. I feel for anyone who's just, like, craving a pizza and can't eat it. I'll tell you that. But, yeah, it's just, I'm very excited to not have to eat like this anymore. But I also, part of me still feels the need to. still feels the need to i have like this like you know anxiety that if i all of a sudden eat like a hamburger like my heart's gonna like rip itself out of my chest so i am still like scared enough into doing it without having to be told to not eat unhealthy i just got you yeah i just really miss unhealthy food over time it's like oh take like, you get a small fry or you have a few

bites and... Have this and that. Back to normal. It's going to be so weird. I feel like I can't drink around you because I feel like we both have to, you know, sacrifice. But, I mean, obviously that's not going to happen. There have been a few times I've had to pull myself away from the chocolate milk in the

fridge. Oh, no, that's sad. Other than that, we've been trying like healthier restaurants and all that and we're doing fine we're doing fine we're doing fine i'm just very proud of you because that is very hard and i am not in that position right now so i'm i feel very fortunate and uh i will not take it lightly when i eat like you know a pizza or something go eat a cheesecake when i go eat a cheesecake i'm going to think of you and shed a tear thank you okay so this is the scarlet letter murder i'm really excited about this one maybe that's why i'm in such a peppy mood i don't know and i don't mean like oh this is fun because you know it's just terrible but it's one of those unsolved mysteries where i feel like you might

and i don't want to put the pressure on you but i feel like you might, and I don't want to put the pressure on you, but I feel like you might have thoughts about this or what happened because it is a lot of like, he said, she said, classic conundrum. There aren't, as far as I know, no they bees involved, but we'll say he should, he said, she said, they said. Who knows? And so I feel like you might have some thoughts,

if not NBD but um it is also one where i have warned you of this before in stories where there are a lot of moving parts and you're better at this than like anyone i know of like keeping track of who's who just because what like you know if i don't know i feel like you're better at retaining like who people are and how they're connected. Sure. OK. Sure. Let's put that to the test today. Well, I know we've had a story like that before where I'm like, and please somewhere in your brain, keep these people. OK, got it. It's on me. And you did that last time. So I feel like I'm hoping you can help me because it's just confusing. And I don't want anyone out there listening to be confused.

So if you feel like you need explanation, please tell me. I'll do my best. I've got my little desk gargoyles and I'll make them different people and we'll all remember their relationships. I love that. Oh, that's so smart. Make a little web, like a little family tree. This little person was the town gossip and this little person. Okay. Got it. Okay, great. So we're in Phillip Island, which is in Victoria, Australia, about two hours from Melbourne, Melbourne, and it's accessible by bridge, which makes it a popular

tourist spot for Australians and international travelers. In 1986, which is the year that this was taking place, the island's 40 square miles were covered in beaches and farmland. So people love to kind of go out there for a more rural vacation, that kind of thing. And it was also known for having a Grand Prix track, which is basically where they would race. Like racing exactly like a pre right so racetrack they were also known for and earlier today when we were preparing i almost said this phrase and i was like wow that would spoil the whole thing oh yeah i can i guess absolutely i'll be wrong but no christine did say earlier oh i almost said two words i would have given away my whole story

and i was like what the fuck does that mean but now that you've said Australia I'm primed to think one of the words is at least kangaroo no but you are weirdly on the right track okay what the penguin parade that would have not given it away I know it doesn't really spoil anything except that it's just something I was so excited to tell you about that i didn't want to say it early and then like ruin the surprise um basically this island is known for its penguin parade uh and interesting we are it's gonna be more involved like this is part of the story so don't worry we're to get back to that. But just as an overview, that's what this island is known for. The population in 1986 was roughly 4,000 people.

And the island was described as close-knit and protective, sometimes even secretive. And, you know, kind of like if something dramatic were to happen, like say a big snake comes out of the ground. We're in Australia, mate. Okay. Like it's going to happen like say a big snake comes out of the ground we're in australia mate okay like that's just what everyday life that's a great point okay i take it back um anything kind of out of the ordinary you know uh sparks people's attention and gossip let's say sure so there is this woman 23 year old beth barnard and she decided to move into her parents vacation house on philip island in the 80s and she took a job as a ranger at the penguin parade that's badass it is i i gasped when i heard that um so let me tell you a little bit about the Penguin Parade, if I may.

Oh, yeah, please. Okay. So according to the Penguin Parade website, Phillip Island is home to the largest little penguin colony in the world. And by the way, these are also sometimes known as fairy penguins. So they're the little ones. Why? Because they're very small and petite and precious and they kind of hop. Is it like, oh, is it like pygmy goats but penguins they're they're small um i've seen them at the at the cincy zoo uh the cz the cz not to be confused with the ce let me send you some oh my god they're so

scary and cute yeah just google that i'm texting a oh they're little babies yeah they're they're called little penguins that's like legitimately the the species name see a penguin i feel the complete opposite of a snake look at that cuddle bug there couldn't be there there aren't there's no such thing as too many near me when it comes to little penguins it's genuinely miraculous these little guys eva's probably in the bathroom or like doing like i don't know doing something making tea and it's like what are these photos coming in from like a rat in a teacup a bunch of strawberries painted to look like strawberries and a bunch of little penguins um anyway so they philip island is home to the largest colony of these little guys in the world and you can actually go experience the magic this is from their website the magic of watching these

amazing seabirds waddle home from the ocean to their burrows any night of the year from our viewing platforms and boardwalks so literally every single night people gather just to watch them walk their daily walk back to their burrows and it's like this magical sight they're all waddling together uh and this is like what they're very famous for on this island very precious it's kind of like our memphis pea body ducks or like the the um san francisco seals that was a pure 39 or whatever but they i feel like there's always isn't it san diego seals or is it it's san francisco oh it's your fisherman's wharf but like they i feel like no matter where you go there's always a town relatively nearby with a clump of animals everyone just gathers you can just watch which is so cute

i would have not expected penguins in australia to be clear i would have felt like a koala bear or something but okay gathered to watch the sloth make its daily three inch trek uh no so anyway the penguins take their daily commute and she decided, which I mean, what a dream that for it sounds like a novel, like a teen novel. Like I moved into my parents vacation home on the island and started working at the penguin parade. What a dream job. It sounds like what Lizzie McGuire hoped for. Yes. It sounds like a Disney Channel original for sure.

So Beth had two best friends on the island. There was Marie, who also worked with the penguins, and then Denise, whose husband worked with the penguins. So that's how she met her friends. The women were reportedly inseparable. They talked every day. They spent most of their free time together. Denise said they told each other everything, including Beth's affair with a married man named fergus cameron fergus cameron was he like the penguin wrangler kind of not really but kind of because 36 year old fergus

cameron was a prolific philip island resident he was wealthy His family was this like big name on the island. They owned a lot of land. He actually owned the Grand Prix track. His family owned that. Oh, dang. Okay. He's a big, a big hotshot on campus. He is a hotshot. Exactly. He grew up on Phillip Island. He was known by everyone on the island. He was a founding shareholder of the philip island grand prix circuit he was and i think in 2004 the family actually ended up selling it for 20 million dollars so like this they are like big name big money on this island and he was widely involved with the island community at large so i want to tell you this is where you need to put on your like reality TV cap and put these people in, you know, their perspective spots.

Okay. Okay. This is why I'm bad at clue because I can't like retain all of the different, like who did it, who didn't do it. There's like six people. Okay. I know. I know. I know.

I know. Okay. Okay. So Fergus Cameron, he's married. He lives together on a big, big farm with different family members in different houses. So they basically. It's like their own little commune, their own little neighborhood. So he lives with his wife, Vivian, and their two young sons. His sister, Marnie, lives nearby with her husband, Ian. And his brother, Donald, lives nearby with his wife, Pamela. Okay, so there are three siblings and their spouses all living together.

Correct. There you go. Yes. I literally, I'm not kidding. Actually, these little gargoyles are helping. Oh, good. I oh good i keep i'm like okay so that one's married to this one we were just saying i was like oh first i see peanut butter bread then i see a cab raw cabbage and now all of a sudden you're holding gargoyles up after doing some movement it's really you're you're full of surprises i'm just i'm here to have a good time that's all it seems to be

working so basically the three siblings live nearby each other on the same plot of land with their respective partners so uh it's a two brothers and a sister donald fergus see i already forget and marnie okay why they named him fergus nobody will know but that's besides the point so vivian who's fergus's wife she was reportedly a newcomer to the island and sometimes seemed like an outsider struggling to fit in while her husband thrived in the kind of spotlight um i actually just listened to an audio book that I was talking to Eve about for a while called Quiet, which is like the power of an introvert, or the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking, I think it's called. And I said that

to my mom, and she's like, well, you're the one who never stops talking. And I was like, okay, well, you know what? You're not wrong, I guess. But anyway, one of the stories was about Eleanor Roosevelt and how she kind of joined, you know, obviously became first lady and was so unprepared for that kind of life of like making speeches and like being in big groups. And so it kind of reminds me of this, where his wife kind of married into this very successful, wealthy, prolific family, and she just didn't feel like she fit in. Yeah, she just felt kind of separate from everybody. So she was naturally shy. She preferred to avoid the spotlight. And her brother said she did all kinds of like very noble and awesome things for the community. So even though she wasn't super outgoing, she volunteered to teach night English lessons to immigrants in the area. And she never told anybody about her work.

So it wasn't like she was doing it for the attention or the good graces of everyone. it for the attention or the good graces of everyone. So I watched a YouTube video by a true crime YouTuber named Liz Wakeford, and her video was really helpful. She said that people described Vivian as kind, intelligent, quiet, but very funny with a dry sense of humor. She worked at the Phillip Island Community community center and apparently like anytime a friend was having a hard time she'd show up with a casserole and a bottle of wine um she even was known to go out of her way to find homes for kittens at kill shelters so that they wouldn't be put down um and really uh was an advocate for women on the island so i tell you all this because she becomes a key player in this and uh we just got to

know a little bit about her personality to figure and how is she related to she is married to ferguson vivian yes okay got it uh i'm not ferguson fer Sorry. She is married to Fergus and she, sorry, they almost named the hippo at the Cincy Zoo Ferguson and it's been in my mind. It's throwing you off. Yeah, it is throwing me off big time. But so Vivian married Fergus and married into this kind of family where they're like. Right. And she feels like an outcast and all this stuff.

She feels like an outsider. But she's still like very involved in the community and very devoted to her family. So Beth, back to Beth, who is 23, just moved there, works at the Penguin Farm. Not the Penguin Farm. Yikes. The Penguin Parade. And at the Penguin Parade, she meets Fergus. So she falls deeply head over heels in love with him and she even told friends he was her first serious relationship um basically in 1985 after meeting him a few months later he hired her to work on the family farm and she came and started working

on the family farm where he lived with vivian and his brother and sister. And she became like ingratiated to the whole family. They became extremely close. And then she and Fergus started up a sexual relationship. And nobody was like, huh, this is fishy. Why is she always here? No. Okay. Nope.

I guess not. At least not right away. So she told her friends that he was her first serious relationship and her first sexual relationship. So this was like a big deal for her. You know, meanwhile, he's married. And so obviously that's a huge problem. Fergus's sister-in-law, Pamela, recalls Beth sometimes fondly referring to Donald as Uncle Donald. And Pamela and Donald considered Beth family.

Like they really sometimes she even called Donald Grandpa, like as a Donald. And Pamela and Donald considered Beth family. Sometimes she even called Donald Grandpa as a joke. They were just very, very, very close. And Beth began to feel extremely guilty about her affair with Fergus. She wanted, obviously, Fergus to herself, but she was also now really close with his sons. And they were young, and she did not want to upend their lives for her own benefit. So she was very conflicted, I guess, let's say. Yeah, sure. And she thought it was best for them that Fergus and Vivian stay together, but she was like madly in love. And so she couldn't reconcile those two things. And Beth's friends, you know, said they didn't think she would purposely break up a happy marriage. But then, of course, Fergus may have said, you know said they didn't think she would purposely break up a happy marriage but then of course Fergus may have said you know his marriage was loveless and she was doing him a favor by

coming in just the classic kind of trope of like he's pursuing her and trying to convince her that his marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be right to assuage her guilt so uh that is backed up by some evidence which is that Fergus later told investigators, quote, I'm sure Vivian had feelings toward me, but I found it difficult to have feelings toward her. And that's his wife. So, you know, that goes to show maybe he was kind of playing down the importance of his marriage to keep Beth around. Sure. So in Vivian's world now, around sure so in vivian's world now she eventually does catch on that fergus is having this affair and how long did that take do we know you know i don't know their their entire affair lasted 16 months oh that's a long one it's a long one and uh vivian knew for quite some time i i believe

uh it's not really clear. Well, she tried to get him to go to marriage counseling because of the affair. So I do know that for a while, at least she was aware and was trying to fix the relationship. And that is because she came from a family that had like almost similar incident play out where her father left her mother for a much younger woman.

And that had like really hurt her as a child. And so she just desperately wanted to salvage her marriage so that her sons didn't, you know, have to go through the trauma of that divorce. And so she tried to get him into therapy several times. I think they said the last time was seven weeks before this incident that we will be discussing. And so she knew at least seven weeks, but presumably longer than that because she was trying to get him into therapy for a while.

Okay. So allegedly she became physically and verbally abusive and the relationship turned sour. You know, we don't know. We have one side of that story. So we're just going to have to take that for at its word, I guess. Beth felt the affair caused her social grief as well.

So even though she was, you know, not the one married in this relationship, she felt like she was getting flack for it. So she told her friends that a coworker found out about this affair and reported it to their manager at work who scolded Beth for spending too much time with Fergus. So her job was almost jeopardized for this affair. So on September 22nd of 1986, Beth hung out at her friend Marie's house. And she told Marie she didn't really see a future with Fergus and planned to meet with him that night to give him an ultimatum about their relationship. Oh, damn. Yeah.

So she's like, you know what? Which, I mean, again, this is like classic story of, you know, her or me. And so she tells her her best friend we're gonna talk about this tonight and this is where the timeline is very important and also very uh disputed let's say so these are going to be different people's accounts of what happened okay so that night fergus uh had heard that bet Beth wasn't feeling well and had some sort of flu symptoms. And so he said he went to her house to check on her. According to him, he left the Penguin Parade around 8 p.m., popped in at Beth's, and then left her house around 9, so an hour later.

Okay. then left her house around nine so an hour later okay this wouldn't if this were true this would make him the last person to see beth alive before she was murdered oh boy okay but according to him he is adamant that he did leave her alive and well after checking on her he allegedly came home to find vivian had been drinking wine with his sister Marnie. So he gets home, sister's there with his wife, and they had both been drinking wine. When Marnie left, Vivian had apparently been like building this anger toward him. And so she confronted Fergus about Beth because she was like, you know what, I know you're seeing someone, uh, and you know, you're not participating in therapy, whatever it may be. She was like, I know you are, uh,

with her. And I know, and she assumed that's where he had been because she had called work called the penguin parade and found out he got off work at eight. And then when he didn't come home for over an hour, she was like, I know know where you were and she had just built up this anger and so as soon as does her drinking wine ever come into play here of like oh she was drunk or anything sort of so she so she right so she has been drinking and this is ferguson's tail, but this is his version of events. So she's been drinking and she confronts him. And apparently the fight gets so out of hand that she takes her wine glass and smashes it into his head in a rage and then begins stabbing him with shards of glass. Holy shit.

Okay. him with shards of glass. Holy shit. Okay. But pretty soon after that, she calms down and realizes he needs medical attention because she has physically harmed him. Uh-huh. So she decides she has to take him to the hospital. Okay.

This whole story. I mean, okay. So Vivian is like, like shit i've hurt you i'm sorry i gotta take you to the hospital so she calls marnie uh the sister who lives nearby who was drinking with her who was drinking with her she calls marnie and ian she says could you please come over and look after the kids they're sleeping but i have to take uh Fergus to the hospital. So can you just stay at our place? Can you imagine being Marnie and then getting a phone call after you just had a great night

just like gal paddling with a glass of wine and it's like, hey girl. So I stabbed him in the chest with a bunch of shards of glass. My bad. You know your brother that we were all joking about at wine night? Well, I did something bad to the back of his head.

That poor girl. I mean head that poor girl i mean the poor that poor man too and everyone is like not in good sorts currently but no everyone deserves a little like hug or something yeah at this point at least yeah so she calls marnie and ian and says can you hey thanks for the great wine night and marnie's like did i forget something there and she's like no actually the actually. Can you come get them? You forgot you need to stay overnight. So they come over. But Vivian and Fergus have already gone to the hospital. So Marnie and Ian come over. They immediately notice signs of an altercation. they immediately notice signs of an altercation.

So I don't know if at this point Vivian has said, hey, I hit your brother in the head with a glass. She may have just said, oh, he hurt himself and we have to go to the hospital. But they walk in the house and they're like, wow, okay, clearly a fight has happened here between Vivian and Fergus. Because they notice blood on clothes in a laundry basket on some tissues and then some also in a spare room and Marnie then noticed a single shard of broken glass on the floor and her thought of course is oh well that's dangerous especially if the kids

wake up in the morning so I'm gonna throw this away so inadvertently cleaned up a lot of what may have later become evidence if that makes sense good job girl yeah she wouldn't have known but like no and like to be fair there are little kids in the house so like yeah you're gonna see broken glass and like totally makes sense and as far as you know everyone's fine you're they're just at the you know hospital getting. Yep. So they come over. They notice this stuff. And meanwhile, at the hospital, the nurses quietly assumed like something had happened domestically. But they also noticed that Vivian and Fergus were really, really close, like very, very intimate almost with each other.

Vivian and Fergus? Yeah, at the hospital. I mean, I guess part of it is like, oh, well, you know, she's worried about him and they're married. But also it's like, oh, but you stabbed him. Like, why are you close all of a sudden? And so there's some dispute about that. And I know some of the nurses even mentioned, or at least one of the nurses mentioned that later later when she heard oh that vivian had allegedly done this to fergus she was like wait that doesn't add up because i would have guessed that he and one of his brothers got into a fight and she was trying to like comfort him and take care of him or something but she was like the way that and again you know just seeing how somebody reacts in a situation doesn't necessarily tell you everything but the at least that one nurse kind of said wait what like that is not how they were behaving like that they

had been the ones in the fight it looked like she was helping consoling him consoling him so who knows i mean that could be part of an abuse situation too so it's hard to say but basically they didn't find any glass in his wound um to corroborate that there had been glass involved. But they just had to take the story for its word. And after he was treated, Fergus was taken to Marnie's house by Vivian. So Marnie and Ian had gone to Vivian's house, taken the kids over to their house and said, like, we'll just watch them at our house. So after the hospital, Vivian brings Fergus to their house to stay the night. Now, this is where Fergus says he and his wife had a talk. She said, you know what? You stay with

your sister and the kids. I'm going to go back to my family in melbourne melbourne melbourne however you say it on the mainland and you and the son you and our sons stay on the island as the divorce goes through oh damn and she said because you're a great father i believe was the quote you basically keep the son keep our kids and i'm gonna move back in with my family okay this is how this story goes from fergus's perspective so he goes to his sister's house stays the night this is where things get even weirder so at 3 a.m that night vivian called her friend this is where you need another gargoyle robin dixon vivian called robert dixon robin robin dixon okay yes and robin with a y if you're wondering gets his call from her friend vivian and robin's husband john answers the phone it's three in the morning he's like is everything

okay and she says I just had a fight with Fergus can you come watch my kids while I take Fergus to the hospital this is happening after the whole this is happening at three in the morning after the hospital thing already happened after the hospital thing already happened okay so replay she's being very very lovey-dovey to him in the hospital which is already out of character then they get back home and then she says i'm gonna go stay with my my parents you stay here with the kids i'll catch you at the divorce hearing or something then uh i guess wherever she is at three in the morning calls her friend and says oh can you come watch my kids even though she just told him you can have the kids okay yes you're exactly thank you this is why i need your beautiful mind on this because

and that's what you missed on glee Miss Unglee. Yes. So thank you for catching everybody up. And I will add to that. Fergus said during their discussion about you keep the kids and I will move to the mainland. He also said, oh, by the way, she said, you know, you keep the kids and I understand that your new partner is Beth and you guys go be happy together. and I understand that your new partner is Beth and you guys go be happy together so she really for all he's aware of her for all he's telling she dipped out she was like clean cut you do you I do me I'm so happy for not maybe not happy for you but like oh I understand yeah like we're bygones be bygones yep we'll we'll figure it out we We'll settle this later. Exactly. Like a homie in terms of a divorcee. Yeah. Like if you're really going to keep it clean. Yeah. Just was like, OK, you know what? But also kind of pulling a 180 from desperately hoping to keep her family together.

So just a strange turn of events. And, you know, there's also that element of like I kind of touch on this, but everyone who knew her said like she would not have left the kids and said you're a great dad bye like that's just something so out of character um uh-huh well it would make sense especially he's already got this history with uh his uh mistress beth beth yep okay so i mean he's already got the history with beth of like probably saying whatever he needs to to get her to think that their marriage isn't doing very well so i'd imagine he's also got it in him to tell police and the jury whatever he needs to fudge the story that's a good point yeah that's a great point so that could for all we know that could be happening

and for all we know he could be telling the truth this is all alleged please don't sue me okay so she calls robin and it's like hey i'm so sorry i just three in the morning i just had this fight with fergus and blah blah blah can you come watch the kids which is so weird because they already did this whole rigmarole and so there's that piece of evidence vivian left but when robin and john showed up to pick up her sons they noticed that her black suede handbag had been left behind in the house they also noticed that the sedan was in the driveway but the family's toyota land cruiser their other car was gone so they were like okay she must have taken the land cruiser and taken uh fergus to the hospital and but left her purse but left her purse behind okay around 8 a.m robin calls she's trying to call anybody she's trying to get a hold of uh vivian of fergus of anybody

who can help her because she went and picked up the kids and she still has them and she's like it's eight in the morning it's a school day what am i supposed to do with these kids where do you go to school kids yeah well actually she sent one of them to kit to school with her kid i guess they went to the same school and then the other one she still had so she was like i don't know what to do with your child and i know you're going through something here but like i need someone to help me out so she starts calling all the all the different cameron family members and manages to get a hold of Donald, Uncle Donald. The brother.

Okay. And she is explaining the situation. So Donald's like, I'll pick up the other son. We're not using names. I don't think they've even been released because they're minors or they were minors at the time. But so he, Donald says, I'll take my nephew home and keep an eye on him. But while we try to figure out what's going on with Vivian and Fergus, and I guess the kid gets a day off of school. I don't know.

Sure. So Donald takes a child from Robin and John, and he as he's passing Vivian and Fergus's house also notices that the land cruiser is not in the driveway. So we can confirm now two people have noticed that the car, family car, is not there. And also, like, neither is Fergus. Well, Fergus is still at Marnie and Donald's house. Not Donald, sorry. Marnie and Ian. Marnie and Donald's house. Okay. Not Donald. Sorry. This is what it's like. Marnie and Ian.

Marnie and Ian. Yes. And yes, Margie, Margie, Marnie and Ian have Fergus. Okay. Okay.

This is, I'm telling you. So, finally donald gets a hold of fergus and is like what is going on because he was not involved in the proceedings of last night so he's like playing a game of literal telephone with a bunch of people try to figure out why do i now have my nephew where his parents what is up so he gets a hold of Fergus who seems a bit out of it from the previous night so he says he says what is going on this bullet is so confusing I just want to make sure I say it correctly okay so so Donald finally gets a hold of, but Fergus seems pretty out of it after the previous night.

So he's like, okay, put me on the phone with Ian, our brother-in-law. So he's like, Ian, what the hell's going on? I have the kid. Like, what is Fergus's deal? Where's Vivian, et cetera? Ian is like, hey, Fergus, Donald has your kid. Where's Vivian, etc. So Ian's like the go between. And Fergus says, can you two please go check on Beth? I'm worried about her. What? That's quite a curveball, right? It's like, hey, I know all this is really weird,

and my wife is calling a bunch of people and telling them that we got in a fight, and also, where are my kids? But everything's actually fine as far as I knew. Can you go check on my mistress? Can you go check on my... Is there a new word for mistress? I feel like that's out of date. I feel like that is out of date as well.

I mean, I guess girlfriend? The other woman? The other woman the other woman yeah i don't know um i don't know let's say girlfriend girlfriend yeah his girlfriend um so he says can you check on beth which we'll get into why that's odd but it's also odd like why don't you go check on beth but okay right you're clearly just hanging out by yourself without having to watch any of your children we're're all doing it for you. What's going on? Yeah, it's sort of like, why are you sending your brothers to go check? Whatever. So he sends his brother and his brother-in-law to go

check on Beth. But Donald and Ian, being nice brothers and brothers-in-law, stop at Fergus's house to look for Vivian because they're like, well, we'll check on your girlfriend, but we're also going to check on your wife right now we should see if she's doing okay yeah yeah yeah so they go to their house vivian is not there so they're like fine we'll do what he says we'll go check on beth's house they arrive at best house and they find the porch light on and the door open oh my goodness. This is where I say somebody call somebody because I don't want to go in there. So Donald finds Beth first. He yells for Ian.

And instead of calling the police for some reason, they decide to drive to the station. Now, Donald is a, he's known, like very well known as being just a very straightforward and well-spoken person. Okay. So it was a little odd when he arrived at the police station and muttered and rambled for about 10 minutes before saying, he doesn't even say she is dead. He says, it's Beth. I think she's unwell. He finally manages to spit that out to the police oh okay yeah she was definitely unwell uh she had been brutally murdered so right let's get into that so sometime that night prior sometime after fergus had left gone home gone to the er etc someone entered her house and attacked

her while she slept she had been stabbed to death according to forensics she tried to get up and fight with her attacker she was found on her back lying on the floor near her bed and she had been covered up to her chin by a quilt so whoever had done this had then afterwards trying to like hide the evidence or like or just at least respect yeah something like that uh just covered up the body um which i always just find so like ironically ridiculous it's like oh i felt guilt or shame it's like well it's too late for that friend you know a quilt's not gonna do it but whatever so somebody covered her up with a quilt her it just gets weirder her ankles knees and elbows were covered in defensive wounds the attacker had stabbed her viciously multiple times slashing at her throat and face they even broke one of her teeth in the stabbing

and the fact that she was stabbed in the face you know obviously struck investigators it's like very personal personal yeah um because it's just you know it's not the deadly place i mean it's probably also deadly but it's also a very personal place to stab someone uh in the face there was sperm found both inside and outside of her body but there were no dna links found uh fergus told investing yeah and fergus told sorry i know you're literally about to speak and i keep interrupting you he wouldn't did he not give a sample so there was not dna evidence yet um oh okay so i don't know if this was something they did later and he wasn't in the system and he had been cleared so they didn't there's that part's not entirely clear to me um just because we do go over like the dna thing later but um yeah the

the thing with the semen is very strange because Fergus told investigators that he and Beth had not had sex that night and then they were like well maybe it came from a previous encounter with Fergus but her friends were like no she showers like every day there's no way she would have gone days without showering it just doesn't add up so i mean again we don't really know um most shocking of all was that beth's t-shirt was pulled up all the way to her neck and revealed a large letter a carved into her stomach believed to be referencing the 1850 novel the scarlet letter which as probably anyone who took 10th grade english has at least heard of which is it follows hester print who's a puritan woman who has a child out of wedlock and must spend the rest of her life with a scarlet with a red a attached to her clothing um to basically

be called out as an adulteress basically being punished for her affair affair you know to having a baby out of wedlock anyway investigators found no forced entry in the home and despite donald's like 10 minute long rambling and then saying beth is unwell they did note that donald and ian were shockingly calm about the whole thing to the point that one investigator even said quote you'd think these blokes discovered bodies every day of their lives like they just didn't seem phased which i don't know i have a hard time with that one with that piece of the story i don't totally know what it means huh so back at donald's fergus calls marnie, his sister, and says, no one's heard from Beth yet. And this is because, you know, the brothers went straight to the police, but they didn't call. They hadn't told him.

They hadn't told Fergus what they had found. Oh, OK. So for all he knows, he's twiddling his sons waiting for his brothers to get back to him yeah meanwhile they're at the police station like tripping out you know that they've just found what they found are they throwing him under the bus at all and being like i don't know he she was sleeping with our brother no so i think that was pretty much known at this point like that was not a secret at this point um so Fergus calls his sister and it's like I haven't heard anything like I haven't heard from Beth I want to make sure she's okay

can you call her again I say why don't you call her yeah isn't that weird this is like pre-cell phones this isn't like oh um she won't answer my calls can you try calling her it's like hey can you call and check on her i just find this a little odd but you know it's all anecdotal so so marnie gives beth a call and of course does not get an answer um and so she's like i feel weird about this whole thing she leaves work early to get home to fergus because he's freaking out he's trying to figure out what's going on with beth then a doctor shows up from his practice in a nearby town because he's heard of beth's killing and he has been given the lovely task of informing the rest of her family and friends about this stuff.

Worst part of that job. I know. And I actually looked him up to see what was going on with this guy. And, you know, he's still practicing over there. He even put some of his interests. Let me make sure I have that here. While not at work, his name, by the way, in case anyone's wondering is dr paul flood and uh when not at work he enjoys bike riding theater opera and travel so if you're looking for a gp go check him out anyway so he comes and he unfortunately has a task of letting people know about this horrible death. And at this news, Pamela also leaves work early to come home,

to come home to the family farm. On her way home, she's driving through nearby New Haven, which is a town over there, when she sees the missing land cruiser parked by a playground close to the bridge that connects Phillip Island to the mainland. Okay. Are we thinking at this point that it's Vivian doing this

or that it's Fergus? To me, at this point, I'm like, I'm like okay Vivian I think I feel like it feels like she's not here right exactly and that's also for that the weird phone call and like the the car is missing and okay exactly I don't know I have no idea what's going on so no but you're exactly on the right page of like okay I think I see a story a narrative emerging here but also like vivian i feel like of anyone like it would not be fergus to be the one to call beth an adulteress and carve an a into her body like i almost think that he's like immediately innocent because unless maybe he's trying to like trick somebody or ding ding ding okay but yes this was the exact direction that the story

was going it was like well okay this a i mean if you know you find out you're being cheated on and etc so it's just so weird though i mean it just feels like with those like criminals who like can't stay away from their own crime scene where it's like he could have never been like hey someone needs to go check on beth what's going on with beth what's going on with beth it's like you could have just not mentioned beth and like we might not have even might not have even gotten that far but maybe he wanted someone else to discover this and then get someone else in trouble haha i see or or at least have someone else be interviewed about fine because i feel like if he were to find i mean this is all outside of the realm of what actually happened i just want to be sure like in a hypothetical world if he had found the body that's one more

like arrow pointing to him like oh you found you found you were the last person to see her live and you found the body you know so maybe i mean this is just conjecture, but maybe that's why he suggested someone go over there. I have no clue. Sure. But yeah, so basically at this point we're thinking Vivian's looking a little sus. So Vivian's sister-in-law, Pamela, is driving home from work to check on Fergus when she sees the land cruiser. It's parked by the bridge that connects Phillip Island to the mainland. Pamela goes up to the car, finds it unlocked.

The windows are down and the key is in the ignition. Moreover, Vivian's black suede handbag is on the seat. Oh, but it was not previously missing like the car was. Ding, ding, ding. It's almost as if someone went back home to grab her purse and then plant it in the missing car. What the frick? Or she just decided she needed her purse so badly and then like didn't. Like let's commit a crime and then race back home real quick because I need that bag.

Grab my bag, but then leave it in the car. Right. So it didn't add up. because I need to grab my bag but then leave it in the car right so it didn't it didn't add up so along with the handbag was a gold purse and two packs of cigarettes as well as a lighter the cigarettes were a brand Vivian was known to smoke and there was another set of keys and a carving knife sitting beside a washcloth covered in blood okay that's a little too on the nose if you're trying to plant something on the nose, isn't it? That's like that's literally like a like a kit or something on like what like every single stereotypical thing you need to make someone look guilty. I mentioned earlier that that YouTube video Liz Wakeford posted and somebody had mentioned um

you know how just how ridiculously stereotypical all these pieces of evidence were and she even mentioned that like in a documentary she watched they even likened it to murder she wrote like the most like cliche you know red herrings everywhere yeah and so yeah that's kind of it's like check check check the there's a bloody rag there's a knife there's uh her handbag and her cigarettes um pamela takes the purse and the keys locks the car goes home and is probably like what the fuck is going on so later when investigators heard pamela's and Robin's stories, it would become confusing as to why, like you had mentioned, she would leave her black handbag behind at 3 a.m. when she had called and said, can you come take the kids?

And her friend Robin had come over and the handbag was there. Then go back to the house and get it, but then abandon it again in the vehicle unlocked. Right. So it just didn't add up. It almost feels like it's been planted there. Like, oh, let me get her purse and toss it in with her ID in it. And that'll be, you know, obvious. At this point, I'll just write a note that says, I did it from Vivian.

Right. Love Vivian. Yeah. It just doesn't. it's a little on the nose but i mean sometimes i guess it's sometimes criminals are that obvious i don't know but now we have a woman who's dead and a woman who is missing um investigators immediately suspect suicide and so they check the water uh surrounding bridge, thinking, well, maybe she jumped off the bridge. And that's why the car was parked right next to the bridge. She was overcome by what she had done, and she decided to jump off the bridge and end her life. Well, they find no sign of Vivian in the water.

And witnesses who passed by the parked vehicle placed it by the bridge as early as 3 p.m another witness even claimed he saw it there at 5 a.m um and said it was unusual enough that he remembered a land cruiser being there at five in the morning so for a while it had been there at least since that morning um so that would have been only two hours after vivian called robin and john and pretended to go to the hospital and then in that time she would have had to go back and get her purse also right right very strange so if she didn't go to the hospital where the hell was she for those two hours uh this is also where it kind of pins the crime on vivian it's like well she had the time to do it and incidentally one of beth's neighbors reported being woken up by the sound of a land cruiser driving by at 320 in the morning oh good ears to be able to tell the exact sound

of a car well a land cruiser i guess is like a specific i looked it up yeah you're right the picture of their land cruiser looked so specific, but I think that was just what it looked like in 1986. I feel like if I got woken up by a car at three in the morning, I wouldn't know what type of car it was, but I wouldn't know what type of driver that person was. Yeah, you're right. I feel like, oh, an asshole at four in the morning. Oh, someone with a huge penis. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So I guess they had heard this Land Cruiser. I don't know if they had seen the Land Cruiser, if they just claimed they heard it. But another neighbor also said she witnessed a vehicle arriving at Beth's earlier in the evening guess, for cars to be in this area when they don't live there. So I guess the neighbors did notice like unusual activity the hours before she was killed. One witness on the road even saw a motorcycle at 530 in the morning driving through town and that was very odd and the person on it was wearing an oil skin raincoat

and the headlights were off so that the driver would remain like undetected uh-huh and the motorcycle was a type often used in agricultural work which another witness corroborated and said the motorcycle actually matched the one that usually sat on the back of the land cruiser so they had a motorcycle that actually because at first i was like okay a motorcycle but i guess there was one really similar that often was attached to the land cruiser so perhaps that has something to do with it more strange testimonies cropped up nothing seemed to add up now this is one that gives me goose cam that i wonder what you think um so glenda who is one of vivian's friends saw the case on the news and immediately called police because she told

investigators that at 10 a.m on september 23rd and this is when vivian was effectively already missing this is like the morning where everyone's trying to figure out where everybody is and uh fergus is saying go check on beth and we don't know where vivian is anyway that morning 10 a.m vivian called glenda out of the blue and just started chit-chatting and they talked about sewing patterns like nothing like almost intentionally and just like and intentionally vague so it would seem as if like nothing's assuming all normal yeah very very strange and like there's more about this that's strange because glenda could hear other voices in the background and she heard vivian shush them and said oh are the boys home but she like wouldn't answer that

question ew and so it it is odd because we know that the boys were not with her because the one boy was at school and the other boy was with donald so like we don't know who was in the background of that phone call weird right and so yeah i guess she'd asked over the boys home from school or something and she didn't really answer and of course police were immediately like oh you must have the wrong day but glenda's friend who was visiting for vacation was like no i i was here and i heard that phone call happen at 10 a.m wow so multiple people are corroborating like nope uh vivian called to talk about sewing just chit chat 10am as her land cruisers by the bridge and everyone's out hunting you know i mean just very very weird so it almost makes me wonder like if it were vivian did she have

accomplices that she like yeah like what's this but then like why would accomplices then put all of this like yeah obviously guilty all these tools into her car to like point at her maybe it was her parents because she was supposed to not she was supposed to be with them didn't she say i'm gonna go be with my parents on the mainland like maybe she was with saying friends on the way to people in the mainland oh oh in the background you mean yeah oh maybe oh maybe because that would be somebody who wouldn't necessarily give her up if it were like family members and it would be people she wouldn't want to include in any trial like if she just like popped by to see people or tried to lay low or right but also like lay low from what because as far as she's if she just like popped by to see people or tried to lay low or right but also like lay low from what because as far as she's concerned she just like left a guy very calm calm headed and

right for the reason to be laying low it would have to be she committed the crime or at least knew something about the crime this is why it gets so convoluted. This phone call throws me off because the woman is so just so genuinely sincere. Like, no, I know what time she called me and my friend was here and witnessed the call. And it's especially weird because I feel like something like sewing patterns. If if Vivian did something, imagine the mindset you have to get yourself into to be like okay I'm paranoid and petrified and and just so guilt-ridden with everything I've just done but now I have to act like everything's fine so I have an alibi yeah so I gotta call Glenda so I gotta call Glenda and also people like I can't do it in a room away from everybody else though I can't tell them to go away

for a second yeah but then if it's not her then maybe she really did just call about sewing patterns and like was just trying to like keep someone's privacy about where she was i don't i don't know it's so weird because i will add nobody ever saw vivian again it was almost i feel like she like almost paid like two random mob people to get her gone maybe honestly maybe she was just like i mean how many times is there that stereotypical dad when you guys divorce and like the dad just takes off and never sees the kids again maybe you know you can flip it and reverse it and maybe she was like all right you keep the kids i'm gonna go here don't call me and then just disappears and just like i don't want to be a part of that family anymore

and it just conveniently lined up with him i just feel like killing somebody no i totally get that narrative and i think that is that's definitely one of the theories i just have such a hard time believing like you could stay gone from your kids and you're like you would at least so long well you would at least think if you planned on leaving your family even though like with no with nothing else going on you just planned on like oh he's cheating on me i'm just gonna leave the family and like just start over you would think the second you find out that there's this massive crime you would consider coming back to be like by the way it was not me well especially because like they're immediately being like oh she did this like i mean the immediate theory is vivian

committed this crime so it's sort of like she's they're on the hunt for her but it's so easy to i mean maybe maybe she did do it but it's also so easy to say that she did it if she's the one that just randomly went missing right exactly and so i feel like I have the other side of the story like we don't have the other side of story so it is like so on the nose that some people are like well duh it's just right in front of us but then some people are like well it's a little too easy yeah and part of me even thinks like oh like maybe she really was like in a room with people who she was like paying to like help her get out of town but like then why would you call for something so minor like sewing patterns when i wonder if that was just the planting of everything's normal and maybe she said something that glenda was

supposed to remember and say like oh she was i don't know i don't know. I don't know. What? This is part of an alibi. It's so weird. And like, I believe Glenda because I don't. I mean, the police basically said, oh, well, that's just extraneous information. You must have the wrong date. And it's like, well, I don't I don't know. She did call her other friend at 3 a.m. and blatantly lied about the hospital. So, like, it wouldn't be the first time she's randomly calling people and making up stories i don't know anyway so glenda insisted i know what date it was it was the 23rd it was 10 in the morning and my friend was here to witness it and she also said i don't

think vivian could have killed beth and then called immediately to chat about sewing patterns like i just don't see that happening yeah and then the investigator told her well people can just snap which by the way is a common misconception and it's not really exactly true so um why don't you go ask your like discovery plus channel as you watch the show snapped yeah yeah which by the way makes it clear that people don't just snap they have a build-up to the snapping like it's not like, oh, uh, there was no tension whatsoever. And then she just snapped. It's like, no, there's always like a buildup to the snap. Yeah. No, there is. There's always a buildup to the snap or maybe

there's not. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Whatever You shut up. You go eat your cabbage. All right. So anyway, a friend said that the night before her disappearance, Vivian confided in her that she wanted to leave the island with her sons. So another friend is like, I talked to her the night before she disappeared and she said she wanted to leave Fergus and take the kids with her to the mainland. Okay. So that can conflict with Fergus's claim that she was like, oh, you're so good take the kids with her to the mainland. Okay. So that can conflict with Fergus's claim that she was like, oh, you're so good with the kids.

See ya. You know? Okay. Yeah. No, I get that. So with no real leads, investigators start digging into the forensic evidence from the scenes. They couldn't lift any fingerprints off Beth's body, the knife in her bathroom or her house.

Another weird thing is that I learned this from the YouTube video as well. On Beth's body, there were like swirls as if somebody had wiped their hands on the body. Like had swirls. Like, sorry, like streaks, almost like they had wiped their own hands off on Beth's body after getting blood on them. So it feels like a messy crime? It's almost just like an extra, I don't know, it doesn't really mean anything except that it's just kind of sick to me. Like, oh, now let me wipe my hands off on your dead body. I don't know, something about it just stuck with me.

Yeah, it feels like no care for the body. Yeah, it feels very dismissive and gross to me. Investigators found blood on Beth's towels in the Land Cruiser in Beth's bathroom and on the knives in Beth's house and in Vivian's car. Okay. So DNA evidence wasn't really used, like I had mentioned earlier, for another year or two, but they did know blood typing. So they did know that Beth and Fergus both had type O blood and Vivian had type A blood. Okay. So they found type A blood, a.k.a. they found Vivian's blood in Beth's house and in the Land Cruiser.

Beth's house and in the Land Cruiser. They found type O blood in the Cameron's house, potentially from the injury with the wine glass. I was going to say. But also, could she have cut herself in the injury and now he has her blood? But so they also found Vivian's blood in the house. Right. So it could have been from that.

I don't know but so they found basically they found both vivian's and fergus's blood in their house they also found only vivian's blood and presumably beth's blood in beth's house got it now one weird thing is that the blood was almost separate like they found vivian's blood in the bathroom but they found best blood on her it was like they didn't mingle but that feels like someone collected yes it feels. Yes, it feels planted. Yeah, I feel like I... And this goes back to smearing your hands on that. Like, you'd think that you would have had some co-mingling of your blood if you were wiping your bloody hands on the body. I mean...

Yeah, I don't think it was her. And, like, if they only had blood typing and they only found type O blood on Beth, well, I mean, guess who else was type O? I'm just saying. Yeah. A lot of people. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. So I don't know.

I don't know. It's just odd. And it's, again, just all circumstantial. But there's more odd stuff because neither the knife in Beth's bathroom, which they found, or the knife in Vivian's car. Neither one matched the wounds on Beth. They were not the murder weapons. So they were both planted. Yes. Allegedly, according to me only and not anybody else.

And don't sue me. But it feels planted. It certainly feels, if I have a sense about it, the sense is that it's planted. Something feels fishy about this whole thing because like, oh, there's knives with blood on them, but they don't match the wounds. They're not the murder weapons. What are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense. Wow.

And so really the only way people have been able to explain that is like, well, maybe it was planted or maybe they made a mistake like in assessing the wounds. So, you know, we don't know. made a mistake like in assessing the wound so you know we don't know but finally this is the last kind of bit is that investigators found cigarette butts in the kitchen ashtray and in the bathroom where the killer washed their hands after the attack uh and the the ones in the kitchen were the same brand that vivian smoked uh but the ones in the bathroom were a different brand and i also want to point out beth didn't smoke so somebody had come over killed her and smoked a cigarette whether it was because they wanted to calm down or whether it was because they bought the type vivian liked and thought oh i'll leave vivian cigarette here to make it look like it was vivian it all just i feel like you're just you just continue to list things that are planted. Like it sounds like it doesn't.

Oh, the exact cigarette brand she used was there having just been smoked after the murder. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. But it feels like it was planted. It does. Or it feels like she didn't give a fuck and was like, oh, you know, which is also possible. Like maybe she was like, I already did this terrible thing. I'm not going to try to hide it and if she did die by suicide like maybe she just knew that it didn't matter whether she left her

cigarette butts maybe it's a mix of both of them where maybe she just didn't give a fuck and then she was already like on her way out and had like whoever she was talking to you know maybe they were helping her get out of dodge you know so yeah maybe she's like it doesn't matter like i'm just letting everyone know. Yeah. I killed her. Great point. Maybe it wasn't like, I'm going to hide it. Maybe it was just like, yep, it was me. That's a great point. I'm not even put that together. Yeah. So they find these cigarettes. Um, there was still obviously all this circumstantial evidence, but no real answers. So police looked at other possible suspects um there was actually this creepy secret admirer who often drove to her house like day and night and he would just sit outside her house in his car

and sorry i was putting the gargoyles down but there's sorry there's a man that's you got to get a new gargoyle but this one has to be like extra creepy because there's this dude who used to... It was like a secret admirer of Beth's and he would just like drive to her house day or night and sit outside her house. So, of course, police had to look into him because he's basically... I mean, for all intents and purposes, sounds like a stalker to me. Yeah, this could be the guy who was like watching everything happen and knew what she was about. Oh, that's interesting. What if he knows the whole story?

Yeah. Well, apparently he was known to leave flowers like expensive flowers on her porch every couple days. He would mow her lawn for her without her asking. And Beth's friends would joke about this like it was no big deal and would sometimes even take some of the flowers. friends would joke about this like it was no big deal and would sometimes even take some of the flowers but they did ask Beth to be safe and she promised to always lock her doors and keep one of the farm dogs in the house with her at night so they did kind of sense that there was not full safety with this guy apparently one day Beth got fed up with this guy and even confronted him while he was mowing her lawn and was like get off of my

property like leave me alone and apparently he got pissed off and he left and then he came back a few days later just to scream at her about how angry he was that she had like rejected him so well that sounds like a big lead big lead exactly but uh you know they interviewed him they cleared him they said it couldn't have been him we don't know many more details and he did seem heartbroken upon hearing of her death he actually posted an obituary notice in a melbourne paper which read beth you held a very special place in my heart i will always hold our special friendship close you made me feel complete yikes like i wish the newspaper had just somehow known not to print

that but i wish i saw that and went no thanks no we'll give you your money back the vibes are off with this one you know um there was another guy who posted in the newspaper about her too who was apparently also lovesick with with beth so maybe she was just sleeping with a bunch of people and like apparently she wasn't and this was like a big thing because her friends were like no Fergus was her first sexual relationship like oh right her first serious relationship she did not you know sleep with other people like they were pretty adamant and the fact that they knew all the steamy details of her life they were like no she wasn't sleeping with anyone else so you know it it complicates matters with

the semen that they found on her too because it's like well was maybe somebody else did come by that night and maybe Fergus found out or maybe who knows but somebody's not telling the whole truth um so this guy it was a male co-worker at penguin parade and uh they were also good friends his name was michael and beth actually told michael like i'm i don't want to go out with you because i'm actually seeing fergus um i'm i'm he's she's like i'm having an affair with him like she fully confided this information in him uh just to tell him like i'm sorry i'm not interested in a relationship i'm already in a relationship. And guess what?

It's with this Fergus guy who's married. So Michael knew about the affair. But Michael didn't even think she was having sex with Fergus because Beth had once told him she was absolutely against sex before marriage. So even to Michael, who was, like, interested in her, he was like, I didn't even think she was sleeping with the guy that she was seeing so she just had a bunch of gentlemen callers yes yes exactly that's the vibe i get um he actually posted uh his own death notice in the paper to honor beth which said my life has been enriched with your love and kindness which you shared with everyone and this is a little strange michael said he found out about beth's relationship with fergus a month before she died but beth's friend marie who like knows everything about beth was like nope she told michael four days before she

died so it just seems like a weird thing to lie about yeah no i agree just Just odd. Odd. So some suspected maybe Michael killed Beth in a fit of jealousy, but there's just that's just rumor. There's really no evidence to support that. There are just thousands of questions that still haunt her family, both families and investigators surrounding the case. There's still no answers. As it stands, no one has ever been charged with Beth's murder and Vivian remains missing. She has never been seen again. There was a book released in 2012 on the topic, which reported that there was still a warrant out for Vivian's arrest if she is found. And meanwhile, Fergus still lives on Phillip Islandip island as of 2016 he serves on the destination philip island development committee as deputy chair um he is very still very involved in the island i believe he is remarried or at least started seeing someone new um and his family sold the grand prix racetrack for 20 million dollars in i think 2004 which if vivian were still in the picture she would have received i think one-sixth of that uh payout which is another interesting

like thing to note that you know she hasn't stepped forward for for that money either yeah you know so anyway that's the story i know that was so long. I'm sorry. No, you're good. There's just so many moving parts. So that's the story. My glory. Thanks for the word, hummingbird. But it's, man, I really do love when you do mysteries, but I also really hate when you do mysteries. Because I just feel like I got all this build up with like no, no final. I know.

Moment. And that's why I like telling them to you because it's like now finally I can share my frustration with someone else. Like, because I just sit here pulling my hair out, like watching these documentaries. Part of me thinks it wasn't Vivian, but part of me thinks maybe it was Vivian. But one interesting. What I know. I know it's like impossible to know and i hear this is what i was gonna add um so some of the things worth noting

that i took notes on and didn't know where to insert into my document or didn't know if i had space and now i'm deciding even though i don't have space i I'm going to say him anyway. Sure. So he admitted to somebody, I don't know if it was investigators or friends, Fergus admitted that he felt like he was cheating on Beth whenever he slept with his wife, Vivian. Like that's how in love with Beth he was. And it wasn't just a, you know, fling for him. He was apparently like deeply invested in Beth. And so that just maybe adds a tinge of context for anybody who's on the fence or doesn't know. Um, so the fact that he felt closer to Beth than he did his own wife, um, especially like speaking intimately. And then

at the hospital, they were like, no, they were very close and intimate you know just kind of odd um the other thing that i mentioned was none of vivian's blood was found on or around beth's body so that was also odd especially like if they had wiped their hands all over the body right um oh and the bridge that was the other thing because they had suspected uh that she had died by suicide but this bridge apparently there has never been a suicide off of this bridge um and people usually just jump off it as a dare like kids dare each other to jump off it it's not a very high bridge uh and apparently it was also high tide when vivian allegedly jumped so it doesn't really make sense and she would not have died by suicide most likely um and also somebody went by and checked and there was no salt disturbance on the railing there was like a crust

of salt uh at that point in time and none of that had been disturbed as if somebody had climbed over the railing. So it was like just kind of one clean layer. So that was another thing that didn't really match up with police's reporting. And then finally, the last thing I want to mention was somebody named Kara's Closet commented on the video that Liz Wakeford posted and said an interesting theory, which I just want to throw out there. And this is just speculation, but this is what this commenter said. Idea. Vivian killed Beth,

then told Fergus about it in a jealous, angry rage. Ferg then killed her because of this Vivian, and then sent his family to discover Beth's body because he knew it was there and didn't want to do it himself. Oh, see, that's, that's a theory a theory that interesting because I was like oh well that would be another explanation why you would send someone because you know she's dead but you don't have the you don't want to be the one to find it so that's an interesting you know angle on this um potentially planted the car near the river to make it look like his wife had died by suicide or

planted the car by the river, the bridge to make it look like she had fled to the mainland. But this whole thing, I mean, Kara's closet, this commenter even posted, the whole Cameron family is sketchy as hell. So I don't know. It's just, it's, that's another, you know, just random theory but i thought that was an interesting angle of like maybe he found out his wife did it wow then you know killed her in a jealous rage or an angry rage who knows it's all conjecture and talk about talk about your classic headache what What a headache. A real humdinger, as I always say. As only I would say.

And no one else. And somebody's grandpa, maybe. Well, good storytelling. What a doozy. I can't believe I'm going to see you so soon. I can't believe I'm going to see you in less than 48 hours. Yay! No, you said it first.

I know. I just realized why I was saying you. It wasn to hang out just to hang out okay well i can't wait to see you just to hang out if you want to see us hang out more you can um slide on over to our after chats if you are a member of patreon and i don't know what we're going to talk about today, but I'm sure it'll be very silly, very unnecessary. Hopefully it's just more about snakes. I'm not really sure. All right. And that's why we drink.