And That's Why We Drink - E297 A Halloween Holiday Gift and Justice for Book

Episode Date: October 16, 2022

Hello Hocus Pocus community: It's episode 297 and Em has some thoughts! Including giving all the awards to the actor and/or CGI artist behind Book. We also challenge you (and Blaise) to count how many times we say "lore" this episode because Em is covering the Selkies, a magical seal-folk who can shed their skin and turn into humans. Then Christine brings us the chilling but wildly resolved story of the abduction of Shawn Hornbeck, also known as the Missouri Miracle. And don't forget to tune in to hear all about Leona's rager... and that's why we drink!We only have a handful of live shows left so don't miss seeing us in the spookiest season! andthatswhywedrink.com/live 

hi hey what's going on i for the last half hour i've been watching you just shove chips in your mouth or something are you you doing good no not really leon sick. And so I'm getting sick. And so I'm in that phase where I'm like praying I don't get sick, but I feel it happening to me. But also she, the poor baby got her first cold after her birthday party. It was too good of a r it was very fun, but she'd never really met other kids before. And there were like other little kids and, you know, they all get sick from daycare and stuff. So they just touch each other. Just snotty, you know, little, little cute, snotty babies. How, uh, how was it though? I know you were really stressed leading up to it. Did it, was it, are you proud of how it went? I am. It was really, really fun. And like the house has, was all put together finally. And there was a photo booth. Everybody used a photo booth.

And there was a paint your own succulents. I love when people actually use the photo booth. My mom was walking around like you need to go. Like she was demanding that people use it. So that was great. And then we had like this beautiful like three-tier cake with like little, you know, jungle animals on it. It was just so cute. And then there was like a little time capsule for when she turns 18. three-tier cake with like little ants you know jungle animals on it it was just so cute and then

um there was like a a little time capsule for when she turns 18 everybody wrote a little note to her and then we did like i made little spray painted like little jars um with like uh hershey kisses in them as little party favors it was just really fun and cute and there was we ran out of beer uh so that does not surprise me. So we had to open other booze. It's the first time at a party that I haven't had enough alcohol. So Blaze made a special drink for the event, the signature cocktail. Was it bourbon?

For 21 plus, yes. It was bourbon, Aperol, rosemary. It was delicious delicious I didn't actually get any but I had taste tested it the week before we ran out of that it was just it was a great time it was really fun and Leona did great and then when

everybody was singing to her I got nervous because there were like 40 people singing and staring at her babies for social anxiety yeah but she she started clapping oh and i was like all right she's fine she's she's not jaded yet that's so sweet no she's an extrovert i'm not i'm like if somebody were singing at me i'd be like why is everyone staring at me but she loved it um so it was great but it was really fun and we saw people we hadn't seen

in ages and we met people's kids that we hadn't gotten the chance to meet yet but now leon is a runny nose and um she doesn't know what's happening it's so sad because she keeps waking up and just being like why can't i fall asleep it's because she's getting older girl the second you hit one your body just starts shutting down everything starts to fall apart but yeah so is there just was there a winner in terms of the birthday presents anything that sticks out oh boy she got a lot of fun stuff blaze's brother sent like a lion uh rocker that has her name engraved on the side oh my gosh yeah just really sweet personal like a lot of lion themed you know a lot of animal themed stuff. Somebody gave her a book that we still can't figure out who it's from. And it's some sort of science book. Like I can't even understand it.

It's called like Bayesian probability for, for babies or babies. It was not me. I can't assure you. I was like, dad, was this you? Cause he's an engineer. And he's like, no, I don't even know what that is. So I don't know who gave that to her, but she's going to be pretty damn smart if she figures that book out. Maybe it was her future self who time traveled and left something she's going to discover. That's how I'm going to describe it. Just for the mystery, I hope that's the right answer. We never figure out who actually gave it to her. Only she can crack the code to begin with, so you're not supposed to know.

Well, good. I'm glad you had fun it was a blast but we missed you uh you were missed evo was missed um we you know i was supposed to shower today but with the baby being sick and everything i'm just falling behind on life and drinking a vitamin water and i feel i i really feel for you because i is this your first time you have to experience as a mom being sick? Oh, yeah. I was going to say it's my first time since pre-COVID that I've had a cold of any sort.

Oh, shit. I haven't been sick. I mean, knock on wood, but I haven't been sick at all. Like I haven't even had allergies, basically. I've been so careful, obviously, during COVID that I just didn't even catch like the normal cold, which honestly is the way I'd like to live my life in the future because it's been real nice to be like two years in without, you know, any sort of sniffling. I hope your experience is better than mine. Cause my first cold after being quarantined really kicked my ass just cause I, my body wasn't used

to it anymore. Yeah. I think my body's going to be like, why are you doing this to us again? Are you... Oh, I was also going to say, I feel for you because, like, one of my biggest fears as a future parent is, like, getting a cold and, like, still having to take care of my children when, like, I'm usually out for the fucking count.

So, like, I... Oh, you got that man flu? I just... I have some sort of strain of that, yeah, where count. So like, I, well, you got that man flu. I just, I have a, some sort of strain of that. Yeah. Where I'm just like, don't come near me. So like the idea of having to raise a child in the middle of that sounds just like, Oh yeah. I mean, I think that's just how it goes. If one, one of you gets sick, I'm assuming everyone does. I mean, I feel fine right now, but she's got a pretty gnarly runny nose. Have you tested? No, not yet. We do have some tests.

So probably today we will. And we're supposed to go to a wedding this weekend, Blaze and I. And so obviously that is now, it now hangs in the balance. And I'm like, we got to get them an extra nice wedding gift if we just bail like two days before.

Are either of you in the party at all? No, thankfully. But it's like, it's in connecticut so we were all excited we're gonna drive to connecticut stay at blaze's family's house you know it would have been so so i'm saying it like it it's already not happening but um maybe somehow we can avoid it we'll see we'll see but anyway that's why i drink why do you drink this weekend wow i nothing compared to you my friend uh why do i drink um you know this is i'll throw a silly one in the ringer this time around um so i know this is like not your cup of tea but

hocus pocus came out with their sequel yep yep yep um and so allison and i watched it last night and it was fine i think everyone kind of feels the same way about it we're like i'm very grateful that they gave us a very lovely holiday present and i like then that's not meant to like be like as passive aggressive as that sounds like i really am happy like these women like I looked at their ages when the first movie came out Sarah Jessica Parker was 28 and she was and Bette Midler was like 43 or something and now and so they range from their late 20s to early 40s in the first one and in this one they range from their late 50s to early 70s and they did a whole movie song and dance all that yeah so I am very truly grateful that they gave their nostalgic audience a present like a holiday gift and uh and and it was a very delightful movie but a lot of us

wanted i think more nostalgia to it um they didn't like lean into that no they did a good job of making nods but like we all really i think and i say we as if i've spoken to the universe but i i think i feel like i could generally guess that people were hoping for like a cameo from one of the original kids and it just didn't happen and like allison and i stayed up all night think like there were so many ways they could have been inserted into the narrative and it just didn't happen. And so we're just like, why? And so, but here's the thing.

The reason why I drink is because even though the main characters did not come back in the movie, one character came back and really blew us away. And it was that creepy little book made of skin and eyeballs. And do you know what I'm talking about? Because you've seen the movie. No? I saw it once like five years ago now and I don't remember anything about it. Okay, so I'm going to send you a picture of the book. Oh, and I want to be clear, folks.

I'm not like anti-hocus pocus. I just genuinely missed the... You missed the high of it. Yeah, I missed it and I tried to get on board, but I think I watched it too late in my life to really appreciate it to the fullest extent, if that makes sense. Yeah, I'm not trying to rag on you for not liking it. No, no, I just don't want everyone to be like, what is the matter with you? I really like, I'm not at all. and but i feel like with this movie especially people the bar was probably so high because it was like how do you satisfy all the like og fans like that was a really tough it was tough and

they definitely made it um it was definitely sweet it was definitely like a good movie for like this generation i appreciate how diverse they tried to keep it. Like it was they they hit a lot of things on on the head. It was just like, man, I really wanted like it could have been so easy considering this is like the 30th anniversary. All the kids are perfect ages to have teenagers like you could have at least made them the parents. Like, you know, it was like little things like that. Do you think they tried and they didn't want to be part of it? I doubt it. Right. saying do you think um they tried and they didn't want to be part of it i doubt it right i also doubt it because um i know they still go to like halloween themed conventions and stuff and like

that they wouldn't um the only thing is one of them the little girl and i was like doing a full deep dive on this last night so i was like how did how did they not join this movie um the little girl who was eight in the movie who's now like 40 and like primed to have a teenager uh she was actually supposed to be in the movie somehow but i guess like it was like a scheduling conflict so that's her reason the other two have not given me a reason and for some reason i feel i'm owed it for no reason at all. For some reason, I feel I'm owed an excuse. The fucking cat did not make a cameo. Please send this picture. I cannot find it.

Oh, I've been ranting and raving, so I forgot to press end. Okay. Oh, I was like opening every possible text chain with you. Here's the book. That was from Hocus Pocus 1. Oh, I do remember this thing. Yeah.

Okay. Oh my God. Have they like amped it up? This book, I swear. They were like, this is the only main it up? This book, I swear, they were like, this is the only main character we're bringing back besides the witches, so we gotta fucking deliver. Which year did the first one come out?

93. So this was almost 30 years ago. So this is book from the second movie. Look at his eye, so powerful. Oh no, oh no. Here's the situation though his eye looks like so detailed for people who are not you know googling this alongside us we'll put it on our socials but um here's the situation and like i'm gonna call this episode um justice for book because this episode

this entire episode is a psa to the hocus pocus community first time we've ever only had one phrase as the title and it's justice for book from m schultz okay sure whatever you say i'm gonna show i'm gonna make i'm gonna send you clips of this later and you just tell me if i'm completely wrong in this but so the in the first movie the book was like not even really a character it was like a prop of the witches in the second one this book is like like almost like has its own emotions and things like that and the actor that's who i care about the actor this eyeball right here wasn't even listed in the credits as like an actor but whoever acted the eyeball of book fucking delivered like they said i'm this is gonna launch my career and they clearly every their entire body was put in like a i'm guessing like i don't think that's a real person's eye. I think that's like graphically. I think that's probably CGI.

In that case. Okay. Here's the thing. If it's not a real person, which by the way, if it is, they deserve an Academy Award because that one eyeball made me feel things I've never felt.

I'm not even trying to be dramatic. I, Alison and I started crying only once in this movie and it was because the book was reacting to something and because he like looked to the left like this what the fuck is going on the acting that went into this one eyeball was fucking crazy and if it was it doesn't look like a real i mean it looks like real i bet it looks like hyper realistic i feel like this is probably if it was an editor then that person also deserves whatever the oscar version of an editing award is because it okay it was it was the best acting in the whole movie i'm not kidding like with i'm not trying to sound

dramatic here if anyone else has watched this movie and has also been moved by book's eyeball please let me know and that's why i drink okay wow uh wow we've got a whole array of feelings for everyone to relate to today i i cried i was i truly i was like who is doing this i was like i'm not even two eyeballs whoever it was just it was it was beyond so anyway congratulations to book if you're out there i'm i'm very impressed i'm reading an article about it uh about how poignant this book is so you're not the only one i'll send you clips later. I'm going to make you watch it whether or not you want to.

But this book really, really did say like, this is going to launch my acting career and I'm going to take it seriously. And maybe this book needs to just get his own IMDb page, you know? IMDb page? Oh my gosh. Okay. Anyway, that's why I drank.

Okay, great. Well, Em, do you have a story for me today it's about book from hocus pocus oh can you imagine actually i don't know why i didn't do that i do because nobody would be listening to our show anymore okay yes i do have a story for you this is um a cryptid i've been asked about quite a lot and this is uh a selkie have you heard of selkies um it's familiar s-e-l-k-i-e i've heard of it i don't know what it is though i didn't know what it was either and now i feel kind of silly because i feel like it was right in the name the whole time but maybe not i don't know i think it alka seltzer okay you made me feel better actually i have no idea what you're talking about so don't worry so selkies or sometimes are also called silkies they're apparently seal folk seal people oh oh oh oh oh oh like. Like a bark, bark. Flap, flap. Okay, gotcha. Nailed it.

Nailed it. So they're a race of seal people who can shed their skin and turn into humans. Whoa. Shapeshifting seals. Okay, I did not know anything about this. Oh, okay, good. So the main lore, start counting Blaze as I say the word lore. It's from Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but it's also

often in Ireland through Northern Scotland, all the way down to Southern England. It's all over. And there's one woman named, or actually, I don't know if it's a woman. It's a gender neutral name. So I don't know why I assumed that. Ooh, I'll unpack that later, folks. I don't know why I assumed that. Ooh, I'll unpack that later, folks. There's someone named Morgan who says that, who is an author who said that Selkie comes from the Scottish word selch or selk, which comes from the Old English seok, which means seal. So that's where we get the name. And then there's another person named Duncan, who is a storyteller and a traveler.

And I make sure to note those because in the area there actually is a specific marginalized group of nomadic people in England who are known for their storytelling. In England, you said? Yeah. Yeah. And so just a shout out for their storytelling tradition. But Duncan says that they were called silkies for their soft fur. Makes sense because they do look very silky. His own grandmother actually had a piece of seal skin that she used in her life to predict the weather

because it was said that if the seal fur would stand up on its end, it was warning you of a bad storm coming in. But if the fur laid soft then it meant that there was calm weather coming interesting would love a piece of fortune telling weather some sort of device maybe i don't need it to be skin i was gonna say let's just specify right now we don't need it to be skin so you know if you have access to that folks make sure please that it didn't come from a living creature you know my favorite uh fortune telling slab of anything ever was you know those little see-through red fish on your

love those the palm of your hand love those oh it changed me i remember one time it curled up and i meant like someone was in love with me and i was like i'm seven but i's what it meant. I know. And I was like, wow. I believe you. Wow. And you're right. Fish. It's like, I got it. My task today is to find this person who's in love with me. So as for where people can find selkies, you can probably assume since they are ocean bound. On a lot of shorelines, people report seeing fishermen on small boats. And this is kind of what i imagine this is where the origin of selkies came from where people would see fishermen on small boats but the boats were

impressively fast because they were made with seal skin stretched over them and so they could go through the water faster i see no i'm sorry that was a very Adam joke. No offense. This is why I laughed my friends. And also the fishermen were usually like experts. They knew what they were doing better than anybody else. And so a combination of these really wonderful and efficient fishermen who were going on these boats that were much faster than any other boat it just seemed like otherworldly i see okay and it just looked like big ass seals swimming through the water so it's very i imagine easy to have combined the story of these fishermen that use seal skin on their boats combined it with selkies and then that's kind of where the story comes from right um there's also i guess selkies have fallen into the Christian world in some ways, or at least Christian beliefs have been put on where Selkies come from, because there are versions that Selkies are actually angels who have fallen into the ocean or that their souls

have reincarnated into seals. And I don't hate the idea of souls reincarnating into seals because the idea is that, oh, now you're part of both worlds. It doesn't sound very Christian. It doesn't sound very Christian, but you know what? It maybe is a little more enticing to me then about, oh, I guess I could just be part of both worlds like Hannah Montana, but as a seal and, you know, get a little bit of everything. You get it.

And the biggest lore of the selkies is that basically they look like seals but they are shape-shifting fairies who can travel between worlds now that i'm into too um people who encounter a selkie have said that the sound of the ocean is heard in their voice you can hear hear the tides, which I imagine is just so calming. That's beautiful. Like I, you know, I always make my A-L-E-X-A play like ocean sounds

when I'm going to bed. I'm like, I wish I just had a Selkie to talk to. They just, you should really get a Selkie to voice an episode of Sleepy and they read you a story and you just kind of hear the tides in the back, you know?

What's an episode of Sleepy? Okay, ad but sleepy is a it's a podcast where they read they read sleepy stories to you to help you fall oh there's so many of those i don't know that one but um oh the com app who is one of our sponsors also does that yeah for folks who are uh looking to support the the show here allison uh there's there's one guy who voices a sleepy episode that she's like obsessed with his voice for something and i i always mess up his name i think it's like otis spunkmeyer which is like a cookie or something wait a second otis something but she's obsessed with him too by the way he's actually a talking cookie um but uh every there's like he tells one story and anyway there there you have it there you have it we should have uh a selkie on either that on that one episode with otis spunkmeyer or on com um but so people can hear the ocean

in their voice also people have described uh selkies as having oddly expressive eyes when they're in seal form, almost as if they're seals, but they're observing as if they're human. I see. So when they shift. Sorry, I'm going to stop. I'm sorry. I'm going to keep laughing every time you say it, to be clear. When they shift into their human form, they still keep their expressive eyes but um they're usually very big very dark and weirdly when they turn into their human form they also have unusually well-kept hair where like even the the middle part is like perfectly

clean and i wonder if that's because seals are so slick you know like i wonder if there's wonder if that's because seals are so slick you know like i wonder if there's something about that interesting selkie women are reported this is kind of so fucked up uh selkie women are reported to be plain looking that's like their claim to fame they've just got like a perfect part in their hair but they're really otherwise very boring that's really nice the middle part is their entire personality i guess so but interesting they may be plain looking in front of you but once they leave you remember them as very very beautiful that's so weird what a fun skill i would love that i do too man selkie men on the other hand they are known this is some sort of patriarchy selkie men are known to be oddly

handsome and can seduce women especially those in lonely marriages oh but then when they leave you're like that guy was pretty ugly it's like the opposite you're like it just doesn't work i hope that's the case because that would be a perfect balance um so there's one uh theory that when selkies want to come out on shore and hang out on the beach they can uh take their seal skin off and they'll like dance and feel free on the beach at night when nobody else is around so it's usually under a full moon that they're all dancing together by the water. Lovely. The other part of that theory, though, or I guess a different version of that theory, is that sometimes, how do I say it? There are versions of that story where people say, oh, well, they actually can't come out whenever they want.

They can only come out on certain days of the year. So that's why they're dancing, because it's like a celebratory thing that they can be on shore. And then they have to wait a certain amount of time before so that's why they're dancing because it's like a celebratory thing that they can be on shore um and then they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can come out again and selkies for the most part but just before i get into like the stories they're usually considered very very lovely and very kind and they're actually usually the victim of stories they're never like attacking people it's more like people are you know being harmful to them especially selkie women so in a lot of stories selkie women are said to be coerced or taken by human men against their will to become their lovers oh no oh no it had to go there had to go there. Had to go there.

One story that's pretty common is that there was a fisherman one night who was looking down at the shore and he saw shadows moving around. So he went to go look. And that's where he found a group of selkie women dancing together. And he tried to approach them, but they heard him coming. And I guess they just thought, like, ah, man man and just ran for it and they took off they all grabbed their seal skins put them back on and jumped into the water as they shifted back into seals but one of them couldn't find her seal skin and was just running around the beach looking for her seal skin so she could get back in the water. And the fisherman saw that he was standing on it, so he picked it up, and he just started walking home with it.

And the selkie woman started crying and asking for it back, saying, like, I can't go back in the water without my seal skin. I can't turn back into a seal without it. And he just ignored her and kept walking. And so she had to follow him all the way home so that she could get her seal skin. But when they got to his house, he hid the skin. What a jackass.

Since she couldn't get in the sea without it, she was forced to stay with him until further notice. Fast forward years later, she's now living with him. And just to keep it really surface level, she somehow has now bore many of his children um and the story tries to make it sound like i'm sure especially in the past like when our grandparents told the story it was probably like oh when you know they lived happily ever after because a human man and a selkie found their way to love um and their wonderful little happy family but like let's not forget that he straight up kept kidnapped her kidnapped her um or held her against

her will and also the story says that she would like walk out to the sea each day and like call out to her selkie family horrible so the story ends where the kids end up finding her seal skin in the house and they're like mom what's this And she has to like sadly bid farewell and say goodbye to them. And she like grabs it from them, puts it on and dives into the sea and never comes back. Great. So just all around tragedy. story where like she visits the kids on the beach every now and then or she teaches them the ways of the selkies um it's so meanwhile there are stories of human women with male selkies also um there's one story of a woman named ursula who was from a noble family and she had all these plans from her family to like marry into royalty she had this like niece who had red hair and had a big fish tail her brother was the king of the sea weird how that happened uh so yeah that she becomes an octopus is how

this works well i guess that's not too far if she's already becoming a seal or something so so uh ursula is from a noble family her family had big plans for her to marry rich but she goes against her dad's wishes and marries a farmer um but unfortunately that marriage was now failing and so she's depressed and she doesn't know what to do so she likes to walk out to the ocean and just look at the sea and cry about her life. And apparently she cried exactly seven tears into the water. And I guess unlocked a portal or something because then a Selkie in seal form appears and says, what's your will with me, fair lady? And after venting about her personal life, the Selkie says, okay, I'm going to come back

later when I can turn into human form and when he comes back ursula either falls for him or begins an affair with him or something and they have their own kids ursula changes her name to protect her family so now conveniently there's no evidence of the story being a true story sure um not that i totally need it but you know uh and so anyway they end up having their own kids and this begs the question so what happens if you're half human and half selkie if so uh apparently that means you're half selkie which then means you are half fairy so isn't that fun? That's pretty cool.

Some stories say that you're able to follow your mom into the ocean, maybe at a certain age. Makes me think of the 13th year, the DCOM, where he's a mermaid. And on his 13th year, he becomes a mermaid. What are you talking about? The Disney Channel original movie, The 13th Year, where he becomes a mermaid at 13 years old.

Oh, I forget. I'm throwing a lot of old Disney references at you. Yeah, it's a lot. And it's not landing. Interesting. Listen, I did fucking Little Mermaid, okay? So just let me have it. Okay.

Well, I got no references for that yet. We already did the Ursula thing. No, I'm saying I already referenced it. So that's enough Disney today. Thank you. You're fair. It's fair. So some people say that they follow their moms into the ocean.

Some people say that they're born looking like they're half Selkie. So they'll have certain Selkie features. In Ursula's story where the seal turned into a human and then they had their own children. Her kids apparently were born with webbed hands and feet um so like almost as if they were like seal paws or something like that and to hide their selkie genes i assume this means to hide that ursula was having an affair on her husband with the selkie um ursula's midwife used garden shears to cut the webbings to unweb their hands and feet oh no oh no no no and they lived happily ever after the end so these selkies will uh

sometimes they'll say the selkies will live with their children or partners they'll bring or they might be able to bring them into the ocean um that's rarely the case where they can bring their loved ones to the sea with them okay there there are versions of the lore that say that um because humans can't join them since they can't shapeshift into seals with them right that if you're able to be a Selkie, you have to eventually choose your family or the sea. Oh, that's dark. Yeah. And then there are those stories where it's like, oh, well, we'll come back to visit. But it's mainly like, oh, if you want to go live at the sea, your loved one can't come with you.

I see. See. I'm so sorry. And one story says that there was actually a boy who loved the seals and grew up with them and would even like swim in the ocean with them and just loved the seals so much that he was actually able to become a selkie even though he wasn't part selkie at all because he traded his human toe for a seal skin his human toe yes he cut his toe off i guess so i don't know how it was removed from him but i imagine painfully same fucking garden shears or whatever yeah and so uh anyway he trades his toe for a seal skin and he's able to become a selkie and then live in the ocean as he's always wanted

but he still uh comes back to visit his sister who obviously lives on shore. That's so sad. Okay. I mean, I hope it was worth it, I guess. Yeah, I guess so. So with so much talk of Selkies, many in the area are extra careful to be kind to the seals whenever they... Well, that's a good outcome of this story that I wasn't expecting, at least there's something. Super solid PSA of like, be nice to just in case just in case uh when seals in the area gather on shore people will say oh they're warning us of bad weather those are the selkies warning us of bad weather oh interesting but also to be fair seals actually do gather on shore right before and after storms so i was about to ask about that i was like i bet but that's kind of cool though that that became part of the lore a little bit.

Here's number two, three, place, part of the lore. That, like, oh, they actually were able to track, like, animal patterns and habits and, like, use that as part of the story. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Using science for their fiction. Oh, interesting. No, it is very lovely that they have this message of like, be nice to the seals. And then they're nice to us and they warn us of weather and all this stuff.

And also to remind locals to be kind to the seals. There are cautionary tales warning against messing with these seals so that you don't mess up. You don't piss off the seal folk. Right. So there's one story that has been named the silkies revenge oh and here's the story this is the cautionary tale of why you should be nice to seals okay so a minister lived with his wife and his daughter the daughter's name was morag m-o-r-a-g and the minister loved fishing but he hated the local seals

because they would chew holes in his fishing nets. To get the fish, probably. Yeah. And so one day when he was fishing, he pulled up his net and found a baby seal inside. Oh, no. Oh, no. And he basically screamed at the baby seal and said,

one day you're going gonna grow up and eat my fish and was pissed about it and so he ended up uh on a living the baby seal important to the story so i'll say it but uh hit him in the head with a rock okay so no so when he got home he told his wife about this and apparently the wife's name was christine schieffer and cussed him out and said how fucking dare you dare you divorce divorce yeah tomato tomato tomato okay so uh they he basically was uh not doing hot after that he his relationship tanked and then weirdly almost as if karmically his wife got mysteriously sick and died. And the minister put out an ad for a housekeeper or a babysitter to help him watch his kid.

And one night, a woman named Selina comes to the house for the job. Just knocks on the door. A la Fran Fine the nanny. Just shows up at the front stoop and is all of a sudden given a job um and selena uh is now taking care of modag and became very close very quickly with her and they would spend their days at the beach together they would talk to each other they got very very close very very quickly almost unnervingly close and the whole time uh i guess the minister the father is starting to notice how attached his daughter is becoming to selena and so he's like okay maybe i need to like see their dynamic on

my own so i'm going to take them out fishing with me next time i leave so he took them fishing and realized that the two of them like were not interested in talking to him they were sitting off in the corner they were whispering to each other they were like being very affectionate and like he was i guess jealous of it so he screams at them and says you're trying to steal my daughter from me like this is you know you're you're getting weirdly close this is my kid not yours and so he says you're trying to take my daughter and selena says you did the same thing to me because you took my baby and hit his head against a stone. Oh, no. And then Selina grabs the daughter, jumps into the sea, and the two of them were never seen again.

Did she kill the daughter? I don't know if that means death or that maybe she turned into a seal. I don't know. She like took her maybe as her own child now yeah let's at least hope at least hope for that outcome yeah so an eye for an eye with a selkie another story is that there was a fish shortage in the area so a bunch of fishermen uh went out one day and they found eight seals in the area that they thought, oh,

all the seals are eating the fish. So they killed all these seals, all eight of them. Excellent. Or they killed seven of them, but one of them got away with a spear in its side. Later that day, that same day,

uh, there was a really intense storm and they got caught out in the ocean in this storm. And the fishermen all row to an Island for safety, where they find this old man in a cabin who lets them stay inside while the storm goes down. And inside the, he saw that the man's son was moaning in pain on the ground because a spear

was in his side. And the man said his eight sons had all gone out earlier and they were all killed but this one and he says the only way that his son would survive is if the spear uh was pulled out of him by the person who stabbed him oh no so i guess good timing um and being in the right place but also you're the one that caused this and also now you have to look this man in the eye and say ah it was me who stabbed your son whoops but it was a a message to like oh don't fuck with selkies like you might still awkwardly run into them afterwards and have to own up to what you're doing and killing them uh so the fisherman pulls the spear out of the selkie and somehow the father like just lets this man leave even though all seven of his other sons are dead because of him and the fisherman swears that he will never hurt

seals again because of the experience he had um wow i feel like that's the least realistic of all of them just based on emotions because i feel like if all my children were dead because of the person standing in my house. Right. That guy would not would not live to tell the tale. Fair point. But anyway, the legend goes on that that fisherman and his group swore that they would never harm another seal. And from that point on, the area that they lived in always had lots of seals. And thus, by the always had lots of seals and thus by the way lots of fish yeah i was gonna say that can't be like bad for right no you're totally right because uh i guess

this is still an extremely sensitive subject uh in certain fishing circles um who think that seals are eating all the fish but um just a psa that seals are apex predators and food webs depend on them for balance so uh if you wipe out seals you're wiping out massive parts of the ecosystem and so uh seals are actually good for fish or i guess it all works out in the butterfly effect but they're probably good for fisher people yeah so just don't get rid of seals and think that'll cure your fish problem um and then there was another story uh that a man killed seals to sell them to people great and then he comes across an enormous talking seal that threatened to drown him if he didn't stop that was a dream he had though that feels like a bad dream he had that feels a little more like like somehow more unrealistic his subconscious came like roaring into his nighttime routine

like that it's me all the seals you've killed so this godlike figure seal was maybe his subconscious it was like just stop doing it so he didn't okay um anyway, those are just some of the sample stories. For the most part, the bottom line is that Selkies are generally gentle folk and they've been said to save people from drowning. They predict good weather or bad weather for you. They seem to just not want to be harmed. And that's about it on that. So I guess this is not just an episode about justice for book and whoever acted in his role back to that again but it's also a psa to be nice to

all wildlife especially seals so that's the story of the silkies i can get behind that uh that psa yay okay well there you have it good job m thank you i was trying to oh oh here it is here it is i was my brain was trying to find one here we go do you give it the seal of approval find one wait oh your brain was trying to find one you weren't like googling it no no no my brain yes i did Google. I just thought really hard. That was very good. I thought you Googled seal puns and I was like, oh, come on. Nope.

That one came. If you came up with that, that was pretty damn good. Came from the old noggin. Old noggin. I'm barking my seal of approval. You did a great job. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. So I have for you today, uh, an abduction case. So speaking of abductions, does it happen to be a seal being abducted by a fisherman? Wish, but no, unfortunately it is,

uh, a child. So here we go. Sometimes I think, wow, we we really named the show so perfectly because like i in my head i just went oh and that's why we drank and then i went oh my god that's oh wait a second that sounds so familiar i was like i know that from somewhere yeah it is easy to describe to people when i tell them the name and then i just say it's all the reasons we drink i don't know what else to tell you. People usually get it pretty quickly.

They're like, aha, I see. Very on the nose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, by all means, please bum me out for the rest of the day, starting now. This is where the tires screech and we do like a quick 180, where I'm just, we're talking about like fun seal folklore. And now I'm like, anyway, there was this child, 13-year-old William Ownby, who went by Ben uh who lived with his parents don and doris ownby in buford missouri now i'm not sure if it's beaufort or buford so buford sounds right buford sounds right so let's go is usually b u f o r d cool this is beaufort then b B-E-A-U. Okay, sorry. You just never know with these towns

and these Midwest. They always, like there's a town in Kentucky called Versailles, but it's spelled like Versailles. You know what I mean? They have videos. Some, I don't know

what like network it is, but there's like a YouTube channel where it will just give you cities, like names of cities and you have to guess how it's pronounced. And it's always not what you're expecting. Oh, sure. Yeah. Unless you probably live there and then you're like, I know this one finally. Right, right, right. Yeah.

So either Beaufort or Beaufort, Ben was a responsible, again, he's 13 years old. He's a responsible, like prudent child, straight A student, a big reader and a classic child of the early internet so every day after school he would return home right away sign into his desktop computer by 4 p.m and then spend the day i am going to go uh make this a little uh revisionist history and say he was playing neopets i don't know what he was doing. Club Penguin. It was Club Penguin. Okay. I'm going with Neopets. I was a Neopets kid. Yeah. So I'm going with Neopets. You go with Club Penguin. You know what, folks? We can all just guess whatever your heart desires. Yeah. Yeah. So he wanted to go into computer science in college and become a computer programmer. So he really loved being on the computer. And he was also a kid who had a pretty standard daily schedule.

He didn't really do things unexpectedly every day. His school bus would drop him off at the same stop at about 3.30 p.m. And he would walk a short distance home and would usually get home by 3.45 or 4 at the latest. And his dad, Don, was always home waiting for him. And this is where I also get a little bit like skeeved out is that even the right way to say it skeeved out because um i it's probably maybe not even the right phrasing but like i used to walk home from the bus and it wasn't very far but it was like the same time every day and my parents were home they were just up the street

but it's like just that one little well we had um uh i don't know the i was too young to be following the details i was like seven years old but when we first moved to fredericksburg my there was the story there was a huge abduction case of like two girls our age who were just walking home from school oh forget it and it took over the city like my mom still talks about it and she's like oh well i was always worried about you walking home because of those two girls did they solve it i don't think they did no no but that's terrible i mean i and we'd walk just a few minutes like literally down the street but it's still like it's just one of those things where like and even if any any sudden trauma it's like oh it like who'd have thunk five minutes ago that this was gonna happen to me yeah and that could happen with anything so i'm not trying to say like you know i mean no it's it's just like a universal like i can't believe like like who

would have thought like it was gonna be me in five seconds brief thing that we do every single day yeah so anyway it just makes me makes me think but uh january 8th 2007 ben did not come home by four o'clock as usual and his dad don was home waiting for him and by 4 10 this is how like routine this kid was by 4 10 he knew something was wrong because he the latest that Ben would ever get home was four. So by 410, he's like, something's not right. So Don contacted his wife, Doris, and they called family, neighbors and Ben's friends trying to figure out who knew where he was. They couldn't really picture him leaving school with his friends and not telling them. It just was unlike him. He didn't have any problems at home or school. He had never run away before. It was just completely out of character for him

to deviate from his daily habits and not tell his parents. So when they confirmed that no one in Ben's life knew where he was, they called the police. And the police jumped on this pretty quickly and issued an endangered persons alert, which is a level below the Amber alert, because at this point, they weren't 100% sure what had happened, if he had been abducted or not. So they figured he might just be around with friends, but they did issue an endangered persons alert for him. Okay. So the police then brought search dogs to the neighborhood and Ben's parents organized a small search party to scour the area for Ben.

But once police got to questioning neighbors, things started to look bad. You know, they're hoping that he would just turn up somewhere. But unfortunately when they talked to his friend Mitchell, who was a 15 year old boy, they asked Mitchell who rode the bus with him, by the way, you know, have you seen Ben? And at first Mitchell lied and said he got off

the bus and went to a friend's house. But pretty quickly, poor Mitchell realizes like, oh, this is not the time to be lying to save my own, you right here so he says okay okay uh i actually parked my car at a hill near the bus stop and i drive home after getting dropped off and the reason he lied is because he was 15 and he wasn't old enough to drive yet oh god he would put his car there and hide it and like get off the bus and drive home which is like such a christine move and i feel like a move of like i don't want to walk like 10 minutes home like doing the most for like such minimal reward minimal effort yes exactly like i refuse to walk home so i'm gonna break the law and drive there with my secret car that i hid in the bushes so he finally admits like okay OK, I lied. I had my car there and I did get off the bus and I did see Ben.

And so he, thank God, was able to admit this. And thank God for Mitchell breaking the law for his own convenience, because when he got into his car on top of the hill, apparently he saw a vehicle back into a ditch turn and then speed past him toward a gravel road oh and almost subconsciously he remembered that ben was no longer in sight it was sort of like he was telling this to the police and he's like well come to think of it ben wasn't there anymore like ben wasn't walking like he usually would be so oh okay basically the point is this car had presumably taken ben and driven off sure luckily mitchell the hero of the day was really into trucks and he had noticed a lot of crucial details about the vehicle he had seen in front of him that was speeding away.

Oh, wow. OK. So he said the car was an old, beat up, white Nissan pickup truck with no hubcaps. He said the back left fender was rusty and there were dents all over the truck, most notably on the rear passenger side. OK. passenger side. Okay. But the description was so detailed that police were skeptical because they were like, why would you, why would a 15 year old boy recognize all this? It's like, uh, I'm literally breaking the law so I can drive my car for 10 minutes, like every day. Clearly I'd like cars. Leave me alone. That's a great point. Like we've established how I feel about cars and it's very good. And also like you would would i was about to say like wow

something if god forbid but if something were to happen to me or someone i love i would hope that like a car expert is the one who clocks the car yes but then of course now the fucking police are like oh well that's too good it's a little too convenient that you notice this yeah so it's so detailed the police are a little bit skeptical but then they talked to more neighbors who were like oh wait no i saw that exact same truck with no hub caps and so they they realized you know what mitchell's probably telling the truth and has seen this car so poor mitchell i know honestly mitchell and it's not over because mitchell goes through it a little more too and i will say he was interviewed in the 2020 episode I watched about this.

And it's just like he's like, well, I like this. I saw this truck like he did. Poor teenage boy who's trying to do his best and everyone's like ragging on him. Jeez. He's like, I really like cars. It's just very sweet. Anyway. So within 24 hours of Ben's disappearance, police now were pretty convinced this is an

abduction case. So they issue an official Amber Alert, which at this time was actually relatively new. The Amber Alerts were like pretty new on the scene. The system had been in the works technically since 1996, but the Federal Communications Commission had officially endorsed its use in 2002, and then Missouri didn't even adopt the system until 2003. So that was four years before the subduction. So it's a relatively new concept at this point. And the Amber Alert that they issued said the following.

Ben is four feet, 10 inches tall and weighs around 100 pounds. He was last seen wearing a red St. Louis Ram sweatshirt with a hood, blue jeans and carrying his black backpack. Ben has brown hair, blue eyes and wears glasses. William Ben Ownby is 13 years old and Caucasian. Police ask if anyone finds a black backpack anywhere on the side of the road, please call them or the FBI immediately. Can you imagine? I mean, this is just off no well first of all no but can you imagine you're like walking on the street and you're like oh someone dropped their backpack and you go home and then you see this amber alert and you're like wait now i should call the fbi oh my god very very scary so the fbi did join the frank Franklin County Sheriff's Department on this investigation and the state highway patrol basically kicked it into gear. They set up roadblocks, they searched vehicles, they tried to catch anybody who might be leaving the area who might have been in their custody.

So dozens of volunteers organized to search as well. And the FBI held a press conference to address the media and alert people to look out for signs of Ben. And on top of that, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also got involved. But things were looking bleak because no matter how many cars they searched, no matter how many people they stopped, they were not able to find any signs of Ben. of Ben. Investigators became concerned that Ben's abduction might be linked to another abduction that had happened about four and a half years previously. Oh, okay. I know. And there were enough red flags here to kind of make them wary that this could be related. So back in 2002, which again, four and a half years earlier, 11-year-old Sean Hornbeck had been abducted while riding his bike on a back road. Okay. Police noted that both boys were about the same height and weight.

Both had brown hair. They were similar in age. They looked young, like they looked like little boys. And they were both wearing jeans and sporty T-shirts when they were kidnapped. And like I said, they were also very close by geographically speaking and so this immediately set up like red flags and the police realized this seems way too similar for comfort and that was not good news because at this point Sean had been missing over four years later and had been presumed dead. Yeah, had never come back. Had never come back. So, you know, the thought is, well, this can't be good.

Yeah, if this is the same perpetrator, then it's probably not a good sign because at this point, Sean was presumed dead. So after a few days with no new leads and no sign of this truck, Mitchell had seen people's hopes started to falter. The police, basically all they could do was keep an eye out for the truck and hope for the best. But Sean, so Sean's parents,

so Sean was the one who had gone missing in 2002 at age 11. And Sean's parents actually held a vigil for Sean every year to try to keep the case, you know, somewhat alive and in the minds of people who lived locally. They refused to let his story fade in case they got a hold of any new information to solve the case. And they had founded something called the Sean Hornbeck Foundation in his name to help other families find their own abducted children. Oh, OK. Wow. So Sean's parents were essentially the only ones left who still had hope that they might find him someday.

Or they might also have leads because I'm sure they studied everything they could in the last four years, right? Yes. Wait, what do you mean leads for for which for i mean just to give advice to this new family who's lost their son they might at least have they may remember something that no one else is remembering or right perhaps like especially if the two cases are related so at this point things did not look good for sean and for ben especially if this was the same perpetrator meanwhile this is where Mitchell gets kind of thrown under the bus some people start suggesting

perhaps Mitchell had something to do with it oh he was facing some really really ugly accusations but again like I kind of said already he genuinely had nothing to do with this. He just was trying to be helpful. So this is not me giving everyone the runaround. He genuinely just liked trucks. So that was his only, he was just trying to help. What a shame that all he had was an interest. I know.

It was the fatal flaw. Fatal flaw. So investigators backed up mitchell's innocence they even had him do a polygraph test uh which he passed with flying colors just so they could release to the public like hey this kid passed a polygraph with flying colors it's not him like they were just trying to save protect him protect him from from the public so on january 11th ben had now been missing for three days and uh you know that show 48 hours as you most people know or at least probably most people listening to the show know uh if you don't find you know the child within 48 hours it's often uh a bad sign because

many successful recovery cases of missing children happen within those 48 hours. And after this point, hope kind of tanks, like your chance of a good outcome essentially kind of tanks at this point. Meanwhile, police in Kirkwood, Missouri, which was less than 50 miles away from Beaufort slash Beaufort, were at an apartment complex serving an arrest warrant to a resident in an unrelated case. And while they were in the complex parking lot, they noticed this old beat up white Nissan pickup truck with no hubcaps. At this point, thankfully, every officer in the area and many civilians as well were on the lookout for this exact truck because they had to release this information to the public. And so as police are observing the truck, other residents kind of come up to the

police and say, hey, we've actually noticed this truck too, and we've considered calling it in. But they hesitated because, I mean, as you can imagine, you see your neighbor's truck and you're like, if I call the police, am I just going to like make an enemy out of my neighbor for no reason? Like maybe it's not them. Maybe I'm seeing things. I'm second guessing myself. You know, especially when it's like call the FBI if you notice anything. It's like that's a big ask. And so, you know, just another PSA here. If you see something, say something. Worst that happens is your neighbor's like, what the hell thought i kidnapped someone yeah you know what it'll be awkward whatever it'll be awkward exactly that's the worst so they're looking police are looking at this truck and a couple residents come over and they're like hey we've actually noticed this too and we wanted to let

you know like we've thought about calling this in but you but we've hesitated for whatever reason. A resident then tells police, hey, I know who that truck belongs to. It belongs to my neighbor, Michael Devlin, who lived in a first floor apartment nearby with his teenage son. So 41-year-old Michael Devlin was sort of a recluse, but neighbors were pretty comfortably familiar with him. He lived there, like I i said alone with his son um they were known to like i don't know be be pretty keep to themselves but uh sometimes they would like pitch a tent and have a little camp out behind the building for fun okay um his son had actually uh recently had a bicycle stolen and had wanted to report it to police and so went and reported it missing.

Unfortunately, police, when they were reporting the spike missing, didn't realize that the teenage son of Michael that they were talking to was actually the teenage Sean Hornbeck who had gone missing four and a half years earlier. Well, that's a very plot convenient convenient thing to stumble across plot twist well they didn't know they didn't yeah they had no idea but like what are the odds of what like well they had no idea but it's just i mean i

i think i need to hear more about this plot twist before I decide how psyched I am about this. Oh, I see. I see. Well, I'm just saying that. Sorry. I think I maybe phrased that wrong. The neighbor had gone into police to report a bicycle missing in the past and had introduced himself as Sean Devlin, as Michael Devlin's son. Ah, OK. Got it. Got it. Got it. sean devlin as michael devlin's son ah okay got it got it got it at the time police had no idea that this kid was actually not sean devlin it was sean hornbeck and so now this we're fast forwarding um police were like oh yeah we've spoken to that kid before they didn't even realize that that was who that kid was um because michael devlin had been playing this off like, oh, this is my son, Sean. So wild.

Totally different person. So Michael, he worked at a nearby pizza shop as well as a funeral home. And police knew Michael because the pizza place was just around the corner from the police station. And Michael was on friendly terms with the police officers. They would sometimes hang out and he would talk and joke with them in public and serve them pizza uh but at home he rarely interacted with his neighbors um he's he'd called the police once on someone to settle a parking dispute but that's about it he really didn't have any history with the cops any sort

of criminal background um but the the police at this point, they call in the truck and it matched the description Mitchell had given, dent for dent, so to speak. Like everything Mitchell had described was exactly spot on to this truck. So they tried to question Michael outside of his apartment, but he refused to talk and just went inside and said, like, leave me alone. to talk and just went inside and said like leave me alone the next day two f two fbi agents went to the pizzeria on this same lead and one said michael glanced up once and then he didn't look at all that's my first clue my spidey senses were up almost immediately okay and she was interviewed in this 2020 special too and was like i can tell when someone's lying. And she said he just wouldn't look her in the eye.

And she's like, something is up with this dude. Problematic. Problematic. And so they asked Michael if they could search his truck. And he agreed. And while one officer searched the truck, it started to rain. So the same woman, she offered Michael to sit inside her car, inside an unmarked vehicle for coverage from the rain, and he agreed, and they just started chatting. And she said she just kind of roundabout was

talking and trying to get any information out of him, but as casually as possible, so as not to make it sound like an interrogation. And all of a sudden, he said, I'm a bad person. Ooh. That'll do it. And during this freaking conversation in the rain, he ended up confessing to Ben's abduction, the most recent abduction. And he told investigators that even in that moment,

Ben was inside his apartment alive and well interesting did he did he maybe already said this but did he sense that she was on to him and that's why he admitted it or was he just like eager to share that he was a bad person because he knew why they were searching the car like he knew that he was under suspicion for this, for the abduction of Ben. So I think the guilt was eating at him. Yeah. Or he didn't know how to talk his way out of it. Something like that. Yeah. Probably the guilt. Considering he said, I'm a bad person.

Yeah. And then incredibly, Michael said, oh, but it's not just Ben. I also abducted another boy four years ago. Oh, shit. Sean Hornbeck. And so now police were like, OK, we're right. These two are connected. These cases are connected.

But to everyone's shock, this guy is saying they're still alive and they're in my apartment. So in no time, investigators obtained warrants and entered Michael's apartment. The conditions were very horrendous. There was trash and cat feces all over the floor. Oh, God. The place smelled of rot, waste, and garbage. And right in the middle, smack dab in the middle

of all of this mess, Ben and Sean are playing video games on the couch wow we never get a story where it ends like this i know my god i was not expecting that to be how this goes okay thank the lord so the first thing ben says is are you going to take me home and just so so so sad. Both boys were immediately taken to the hospital where they were declared perfectly healthy. Thank God. Police contacted Sean's parents who were driving in the rain and they pulled over. I mean, it's all the same rain.

I'm just thinking like it was the same rain where he had to sit inside the car and then he spilled his guts about the abduction. where he had to sit inside the car and then he spilled his guts about the abduction and his now sean's parents are driving in the same storm and at the call uh it's just very poignant um but so they their kid has been missing four and a half years and everybody's told them he's presumed dead and now they get this call and they're like we found sean i mean he's just playing video games and he's playing video games right now he's a-okay at least physically speaking sure yeah yeah what was the story that he was told about why he was there for four years oh uh you'll see you'll see okay sean's mother when she got this call about sean said i feel like i'm in a dream only this time it's a good dream it's not my nightmare that

i've lived for four years wow so very rare happy ending for one of these kind of stories uh when this is very sweet when ben got home he went straight to his computer and booted it up and played neopets club penguin or whatever whatever he has been back to life he's like man my neopets so hungry my meerkat is so hungry. He just wants a snack. I wonder if he it sounds like he was mentally all right. I wonder if it was maybe he was just told since not a lot of time had passed in his mind. Like, oh, you're just here with me for the weekend or something. Well, he was 13.

He wasn't like. Young enough to be fooled. I think so i don't think um i don't think either of them thought like oh i'm supposed to be here right okay yeah that's fair that makes sense so pretty immediately sean the older kid who had been abducted younger than ben he was 11 when he was abducted but now he's 15 uh He starts getting put through the ringer. So it's pretty sad. People kind of wanted to know, well, you've been gone for four years. What have you been doing? Which is like, I was 11. What do you mean what I was doing?

Survive, I guess. But OK. As the story came together, police learned that Sean seemed to have had a lot of freedom while living in this house he was allowed to leave the apartment unsupervised he even had like a friend next door and they had sleepovers together he even had a girlfriend he saw regularly he had a cell phone he had internet access on michael's computer and so people were like well why didn't he try to escape and he had an answer because when it turned out that Sean had ridden along in the truck on Ben's abduction,

people were furious and felt like Sean was an accessory to Ben's kidnapping. And we're basically putting him on the spot to be like, why don't you do something? Yeah. Not only did you not escape

when you had free reign of the internet, but you also, quote unquote, helped or you were there when Ben was abducted. You were somehow contributing to this without. They felt like he was a conspirator for that abduction. What's worse is people started suggesting that Sean didn't escape because he simply didn't want to. People were saying, you know, he didn't have to go to school while he was living with this, with Michael. People felt like maybe he was having fun. He had a girlfriend, he was playing video

games and had friends and they were like, well, that must be why he didn't run away. He wanted to be there. This was all extremely painful of an accusation because it couldn't be further from the truth. And like I said, he had a actually a very solid explanation for why he was still there. So during interrogations, Michael, the kidnapper, admitted that he had originally planned to kill Sean pretty soon after abducting him. For an entire month after the abduction, Michael kept Sean tied up to furniture in his apartment with duct tape over his mouth. And so whenever Michael would go to work, and he worked those two jobs, whenever he would go to work, he would leave Sean tied up with duct tape over his mouth for hours and hours on end.

And again, this kid was 11. And so during this time, while he was tied up in this guy's apartment, Michael abused Sean sexually, physically, verbal, every way, every sense of the word. He abused Sean. And he's interviewed alongside his parents in the 2020 special and you know this this is years ago now so i'm not sure what the updates are as far as this aspect of the story but he says you know i'm not ready to tell my parents that side of the story and it just was very sweet because his parents were like you know we're here whenever we're not going to push him to tell us what happened but if he ever feels like he wants to

tell us he can tell us um but it seems like a lot happened that he was not comfortable to share publicly or with his parents at that point sure but we do know both boys were sexually abused by Michael. So finally, after endless weeks of this just being tied up and abused, Michael decided to kill Sean and began to strangle him with his hands. Sean managed to break Michael's grip and he promised Michael that if he let him live, Sean would never try to escape or tell anyone what Michael did. Gotcha. Sean would never try to escape or tell anyone what Michael did. Gotcha. And so Michael decided he was going to trust Sean and he let him live. And again, this kid is 11 and he's making these like deals like I'll never tell if you let me survive this.

And so slowly over the years, Michael gave Sean more and more freedom. It wasn't really freedom, you know, I mean, it was like on the surface, maybe. But like I said, Sean had promised Michael that he would never tell anyone and he would never try to run away. So Michael convinced Sean that if he did try to run away, he would find him and kill him and murder his whole family. Oh, my God. And this again, I feel like I just need to sound like a broken record. But this kid's 11 and you're saying I'm going to murder your whole family if you try to run away. Yeah, that's, you know, one way to keep somebody to doing what you want them to do. So she's the accusation that he wanted to be there.

And I mean, it's just pretty sick. For four years, Sean was abused, manipulated and programmed by Michael to believe that he truly only had two choices, which were stay with Michael under this roof or die and have your whole family potentially killed. Yeah. So a neighbor who lived above Michael Devlin said that he often heard the sounds of crying and screaming in the apartment below him, but for whatever reason, never reported it to the police. for whatever reason, never reported it to the police. There's just no way to really, you know, properly, I'm trying to think of the right word, quantify, I guess, how much torment Michael put Sean through, you know, from age 11,

like basically through his formative years till he was 15. Super formative, yeah. Just 15 super formative yeah just just tortured and traumatized this child um and so people who judged him and said you know i'm sure he just wanted to be there he didn't want to go to school it's like i can't how could you imagine you know what it was like to be in this position and i can't imagine the position of now leaving that world and now just having to live a normal life. Well, probably at the same time, like you, first of all, you can't live a normal life

because of all the trauma, but also probably can't live a normal life because you've been stunted from like, like four years of like school and all that. Right. Like, I mean, did he get to go to school? He did. And he actually caught up and like aced all his classes. Like they, oh shit. Okay. Yeah. They talked about it in the special he just like kicked ass like he went back to school and just nailed it oh okay phew okay well that's one thing that we don't have to worry about i guess but

yeah but the one and and to be honest like i was so impressed with how just put together and like eloquent and just gentle he seemed like he just seemed so grown up and mature and I could have gone a really different way I know and I don't I don't say that to say like oh think you know wow I would have expected him to be you know this that or the other but I would not have blamed him for any way that he behaved so to see somebody who's much more eloquent than I ever was at 15 and much more put together and grown up and mature, I was just very impressed. And so he apparently got out of there and kicked ass. So I was at least happy to hear that.

But yeah, so he, you know, he told a CBSbs interviewer in 2008 there wasn't a day when i didn't think he was just gonna kill me i'm not gonna lie there were times when it seemed like i was better off dead and even in the 2020 special he said like when he was originally locked up like chain you know tied up and and kept away from the outside world he would think it was uh like july and then it would be snowing out or vice versa like he was just lost all yeah lost all track of time and normalcy and i mean just every layer of like torment you could probably go through uh this kid was going through interestingly he had uh he he had actually lost hope he said that he would ever be saved like he just lived a life now where he was like oh i'm just this is just i mean i'm never seeing my

family again years and years of waiting yeah i mean there's all you can do is i don't know i would have given up too i would have just thought like oh well this is this is how it is this is i'm just resigning myself to this he did, once try to get a message out to his family, which didn't happen the way he tried. Well, I'll tell you what he did. So his parents actually ran a website to post updates about the case. And Sean once sort of Googled himself or found this website. And he once commented on it from Michael's's desktop computer which my heart is racing just thinking about that moment where you're like what if he walks in what if like what if he just like

looks through the history or something and i didn't what if i don't know if i'm erasing it right oh god like the fear must be so real and he commented on one of the four on the website. And he wrote, how long will you be looking for your son? Oh, trying to just get any hope that they were still looking for him, which is just the most heartbreaking thing. And he signed the comment, Sean Devlin. Oh, so he did that. But Sean's parents just thought it was like a troll, like,, like fucking with them or just some rando named Sean Devlin. And they thought maybe this person was using their son's first name to just be cruel or cruel. Exactly. But Sean was just basically seeking any sort of reassurance that they wouldn't stop searching for him.

So it's very jarring to see that comment and be like oh my god that was him writing that you know just very chilling so you know sean never gave up despite thinking he was never going to see his family again he survived this ordeal uh he made it home um he and his parents were interviewed on 2020 and they seemed close and you know just so happy that they were reunited and uh you can read online speaking of forums some of the comments from when they were found in real time because this was like during the era of the internet and forums and that kind of thing and so you can read comments from that day oh that's so freaky it's weird right so here's one of a person reacting in real time to to this case in particular the user's name was mama cakes and it was posted on a cake baking forum january 12 2007 and here's the comment i know this is not cake related but i

have to share i am from franklin county union missouri we had two boys missing in this area i am on my knees thanking god for this miracle they found them both oh so it's just cool to be able to go back and see like people in real time saying, oh, my God, guess what just happened? And yeah, updating, you know, comments on things. It is just, I don't know, an interesting little throwback. It's weird to be able to see like a moment frozen in time. Yes, yes, exactly. Precisely. So news outlets began calling this the Missouri miracle.

And that's still pretty much what it's called. Wow. This case, the Missouri Miracle. Michael Devlin was sentenced for multiple convictions, including abducting with a deadly weapon when it came out that he took Sean at gunpoint. He also had child pornography on his computer at home. And today he is serving literally several thousand years worth of life sentences. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. And he won't be eligible for parole until he's over 100 years old. He was once attacked in prison by another inmate. I mean, I think we've all heard from Law and Order SVU what happens when you harm children and then go away to prison. People aren't happy about that. And he is still in the same state prison meanwhile sean and ben have continued on in their lives they are thankfully safe home with their families and in a 2013 interview sean said that whenever he hears stories of missing children being found it actually doesn't trigger traumatic memories instead he remembers the day that fbi investigators found him and finally brought him home this is like the most

well-adjusted teenager on any level despite being abducted and or not like i'm just shocked at how well-adjusted this i feel like it's just expected that like you're you're allowed to need a minute and like exactly react to things yeah yeah exactly i was just so impressed how like um strong this kid is you know so as far as we know now ben and sean both still live in missouri they're grown up with families of their own and uh for once we have you know a happy ending to a pretty traumatic story so that is the story of ben and sean's abductions. All right. Well, that's the end of the entire podcast. We end on a high. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. Oh, my gosh. It's rare, but here we are. Well, thank you for a happy ending, finally. You're so welcome. Very rare. Very rare on this show.

Wow. All right. I hope Mitchell's doing okay. Yeah, I hope all three of them are doing okay. But Mitchell certainly also deserves a high five. Mitchell deserves Mitchell's doing okay. Yeah. I hope, I hope all three of them are doing okay, but Mitchell certainly also deserves like a high five. A little shout out. Yeah. Um, wow. And what they're called the Missouri miracle. Yep. Cool. I know. I'm so happy for them. Um, sorry if I pronounced Beaufort or Beaufort wrong folks. Uh, I do apologize. It's okay. It's one of those, it was just one of those names. Do you, what do you have a name in Ohio?

That's kind of wild. Well, we got Versailles, uh, in Kentucky. Um, oh yeah, there's so many.

Well, there's like, if you think about Des Moines and then there's Des Plaines and it's like, well, yeah, what are you doing? Like commit to one or the other. It's not Des Plaines,

it's Des Plaines, but Des Moines. Anyway. Oh, there's, I, either of those are Ohio, but just makes me think. like commit to one or the other it's not de plain it's des planes but des moines anyway yeah oh there's i either of those are ohio but just makes me think good to know those two really do come very quickly to your brain it really irritates me because i'm like you have to think about which one is pronounced des and which one is pronounced da i thought about you recently because i saw a tiktok someone was complaining about someone's wedding invitation because it was in papyrus oh well i would have that was probably me i'm sorry i didn't know someone was filming you just shifted into another form and just took it upon yourself to make an opinion especially the video started

with like the actual person with the wedding invite being like like you can't tell me this isn't like the prettiest invitation you've ever seen. And then someone stitched it being like, that is the worst thing I've ever seen. Anyway, well, thank you for the education today, Christine. You're so welcome, Amethy. I can't wait to do a quick little after chat with you, too. I know. And I'm sorry you feel icky so we don't have to be on for too long oh that's

okay our patrons know i don't have to be you know in character unscripted over there scripted right as scripted as this show is you know but it's christine after hours is a whole other site seen on nyquil here we go all right and that's why we drink