And That's Why We Drink - E298 A Merch Bag of Dirt and the Latest Sensation for Jaded Lovers of Uncanny Things

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

In episode 298, the mighty have fallen... Christine has gotten Covid. But spooky season is lifting our spirits so this week we're bringing you two creepy tales to help with all that may ail you as well. First Em tells us terrifying tales of haunted coal mines both in the U.S. and abroad. Then Christine covers the disturbing case of Pamela Smart. Is the Maiden of Heavy Metal the new Bad Boy of Podcasting? ...and that's why we drink!Don't forget to join us this spooky season for the last few Here for the Boos shows! Get your creep on with us in Charleston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville and Austin - andthatswhywedrink.com/live

and then there were none yeah it i've fallen yeah fallen from grace and i can't get up it finally hit her the rona miss rona she me. You were saying last time that you were feeling, you knew that something was up. Something was afoot. To be fair, that was a cold. I had an actual cold and then I fully recovered from the cold. This has been the longest two weeks of my life. I'll be honest. By the way, behind the scenes spoiler alert, we haven't recorded in two weeks.

Two weeks. It's just been the longest two weeks of my life. I swear to God. We had Leona's birthday. There were like 45 people there. So I caught a cold from that. And Leona and I were both sick. And then we recovered in time to go to a wedding.

We drove 13 hours to Connecticut to go to this wedding. It was great. But then on the way home the day after, Blaze and I were like, we don't feel well in a new way. And I was like, I'm so woozy. I'm like dizzy. Like my vision is lagging. And so what you're hearing here nasally is still my cold that then got compounded with the COVID.

Anyway, it's been a long, Blaze and my anniversary was a couple days ago. Oh, right. Happy anniversary. Thank you. We spent that, we spent all day in bed. Get it? She's drinking Gatorade and playing the switch and sleeping. And Leona, knock on wood, has not gotten it.

So I'm really hoping we wore masks around her. My mom took her during the days. So I'm hoping, hoping she's in the clear. But anyway. I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't either. I don't either. Sorry about it.

I'm just very lucky that, you know, we didn't have to cancel our shows or anything. You know, just had a couple days to really recuperate. And I feel great now, but it was just those first three days of that illness, man. And I'm like quadruple boosted and somehow I'm just, I feel so terrible for the people who didn't get vaccinated before they got it. And yeah, that'll kick your ass. I got to say. Was there a particular symptom that was the worst of it or? I just hate the body aches.

It's just so terrible. It's like a flu, you know, where your body just hurts and everything hurts. Yeah. So I take it that's why you drink this week. That's why I drink. Look, I don't think I've ever been so hydrated in my whole life. I have vitamin water. I have water water.

I can drink coffee now again, thankfully. I never lostatorade. I have vitamin water. I have water, water. I have, I can drink coffee now again, thankfully. I never lost my sense of taste. Did you? But I think that was one of, I think that was the original strain. Oh, okay. I think, I don't know how this works anymore. Interesting, interesting. But my, my guess is that that was a symptom that has been weeded out and something has been put in its place. I'd rather have that, I think, than, you know, a lot of the other things, but maybe not. I don't know. I know,

I'm interested to see if you have any long-term effects because, man, brain fog is like it's never been before. Yeah, that's part of the thing where I wonder, you know, I have that just from like having a child now and I definitely have noticed that having a baby and like that first year I feel like my brain is just losing information left and right and so I'm like is it just gonna be double that probably or yeah it'll either be double the intensity or double the length maybe or a little bit of both who knows how fun but anyway how are you I've missed you I felt so bad I had to cancel a recording last week. No, I will always happily bow out of work.

I mean, I love talking to you, but it still also works. Happy to oblige. No, I think it works out for me because I wake up to do for Pacific time. I wake up to record. So anytime you say, oh, no, I can't record. I go, oh, no, I get to sleep then. Oh, too bad. That's what I figured.

That's what I hope that it wasn't too much of a strain on you. But no, I'm good. Why do I drink? I honestly, I'm really just stressed about. um why do i drink i honestly i'm really uh just stressed about there i just have so many things coming up that it's about to be an emotionally heavy rest of the year not emotionally like uh like sad emotionally like just fucking stressed and like trying to like like traveling i'm traveling a lot um allison's birthday i am starting to plan now i i've we're actually not celebrating it until like the week before thanksgiving and her birthday's actually three days from now so um but she's

doing one of her like three week long trips so she's jet setting she's going to be in columbia for her birthday aka she's going to miss our live show and uh but yeah so we're not gonna be doing anything for a while so as of last night i really started planning like what are uh what her birthday is gonna look like and i already know i'm gonna overwhelm myself so and i'm not we're gonna be traveling a lot she's gonna be traveling a lot she's actually gonna be making a pit stop in dc and hanging out with my mom alone, which terrifies me. Oh, boy. So good luck to her and my mom.

I don't know who needs it more. But I'm just I'm stressed about not being home for a long time and then immediately having to go into like Thanksgiving and then Christmas shopping, which is always a nightmare. And so I've been trying to do my buying gifts in advance thing, but I feel like I'm going to miss someone huge or I'm like holding off on certain people because they're going to be tricky. And then those are the ones that I'm going to panic about. Do you want me to just keep reminding you about myself and what I like? No, because you're already done. Oh, good. You're handled. Thank God.

You made me nervous there for a minute. You're already done. You're handled. Thank God. You made me nervous there for a minute. No, you are. Your presence are never in jeopardy because you and Eva are probably the two easiest people on earth to buy things for. And you're both so delightfully appreciative of anything.

I feel like if I pulled a prank and just gave both of you a bag of dirt, you'd both be like, oh, my God. Thank you. I'd love it. I'd be like, this is probably some really like spiritual dirt from Los Angeles that's gonna like help me, I don't know, cleanse my aura or something. Well, I was, honestly, I could probably pull something like that up. Yeah, Eva, write that down for the merch site.

I feel like that could be really fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like that could be really effective and fun. It'll be just like when we were getting, when we were starting out and it'll just be bags of dirt that we sell we just dig them up and just find them in our yard yeah yeah um no i it's it's uh anyway holidays in general but all the stuff i have to do before the holidays is oh i feel you bro i feel like the start of leon october 1st leona's birthday i like, this is here we fucking go.

I've been nonstop. Like, I'm finally home. What is it? The 17th. I'm like home for the first time besides the three days where I was completely out of it. It's since like September. I'm just like not been home. It's rough.

As much as I love spooky season, it really is like the green flag to start panicking about everything. Yeah. i love spooky season it really is like the green flag to start panicking about everything because like because then also all of october i'm like never free on the weekends because we have so many things jam-packed into our schedule for like halloween fun yeah so i feel like i never get a second to rest before november and then all of a sudden it's like oh shit birthday season wedding season like i just feel like everything is and then holidays are coming and then holidays. Yeah. Cause I, I'm planning on going to Seattle like I usually do. But this year my aunt had a really, really, really, really intense surgery that she's still recovering from.

And usually I go to Seattle for her food. And now I think like, I certainly owe it to her to offer to be the one that cooks. Oh, boy. And so now it's like, oh, well, I go to Seattle for the delicious food. But now I'm just going to Seattle to like give everyone that I owe a very mediocre experience. And so I'm already nervous about that. I've never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before, let alone like not in my own home. I'll send you the recipes i use because i've done

thanksgiving a few years now and i've pretty much got it down to where like the most delicious and the easiest like okay so i'll send you that because that i can work with mashed potatoes all that i i'll send you what i have and hopefully that helps somewhat. Well, they always make fun of themselves on Thanksgiving because they all used to be a lot heavier than they currently are. And they are usually these days pretty – not super strict with their diet, but they try to be aware of impulse control, which is something our whole family struggles with. But Thanksgiving is when they all are like, we don't give a shit we know that this is gonna be amazing and so now i'm like oh shit if this is like your one day a year where like you just have like a field day and it's up to me to give you that experience like the stress is intense so um anyway that is stressing me out and thank christmas this year i'm also like trying

to find ways to also get to Allison's house. It's a whole thing. So anyway, there's nine minutes of me complaining in a circular motion about the holidays. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's only the beginning. Do you have any secret plans yet for any Christmas presents you have your eye on for anyone? I don't think so i feel like uh we're going to connecticut for thanksgiving and then doing christmas here again do you and

blaze do gifts for each other yeah yeah um usually on christmas day so my family comes over well how do we do it no christmas eve sorry i don't know i feel like this brain fog is not a joke it was very real you don't even remember 30 years of tradition i lose track of like just what mid-sentence what i'm saying um you've always told me you did the german thing and it's christmas eve everybody comes over and we do presents and drink wine and um the next day we do all the divorce parent stuff you know visit all the other ones i understand i gotta say the best gift allison and i've ever given each other is we don't give each other christmas gifts it's just so lovely to like not have to interesting well because then

it's like i'm with all the other people we have to get gifts for like the last thing i want to do is put pressure on myself to have to really stress about like the person I'm in a relationship with where like all all of my energy would go to that. So it's just like the gift is not having to get each other a gift. Well, Blythe's birthday is the week after Christmas. So a lot of times they just end up getting muddled together. Muddled together. Yeah. Usually what we do is we just save the money that we would have spent on gifts.

And then for our anniversary, we just double up on a really good trip. So it's just. Yeah. Anyway. Sorry, everyone. The holiday talk is already starting. Boring. And by the way, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You is already showing up as a suggestion on my Spotify.

So everyone beware. The spookiest part to the Halloween season is mariah carey's slipping in um okay well and next week actually by the way i know we're talking about all different types of holidays but next week is halloween yeah yes i'm very excited i think if everything works out i think i have a costume that you're going to like. For the recording? Or for what? For the show. Oh, for the show.

We're going to be in Atlanta on the 30th. I think I might surprise you with a little costume situation on stage. Oh, dear Lord. I'm glad you're telling me now. I don't think it'll be here in time for our recording. But if I can get all the pieces in working order. Then you might be surprised on stage. I'm extremely excited. I hope.

I think you're going to be so excited. Okay. Anyway. Is that anything else? Tell me a story. Okay. Let me find my story. Here it is.

Excuse me. You know what I need to drink or eat is some Tums. Some chalk. Some chalk. I wonder if like would sidewalk chalk in a pinch work? Yes, I believe so. I think I've Googled this before. Fun.

I have some downstairs. Well, then that makes me wonder what Tums really are. It's just sidewalk chalk. It's literally chalk. With some flavoring added. Gross. I don't know why I'm surprised. Okay, well, I've got kind of like a generalized ghost situation today for you.

Ooh. There were just a lot to to pick from so i decided that i was going to clump a few together i hope everyone's okay with that yes but we are talking about haunted coal mines i was just telling place that i have a weird obsession with coal mines interesting like yesterday where did this come from i've been watching paranormal state aha and is that a coal mine show i've never seen it before but they went to like a mine and they it was like an abandoned mine and they opened it up and there was a ghost of a miner in one of the houses and i just i you know living in kentucky i just feel like there's such a such a dark history you're getting in the mood

getting in the kentucky mood i freaking love it okay i'm so excited um also i told your brother this when he was uh taking your place uh but just as he is to lighthouses i guess you are to coal mines could we is that a safe thing or you know i feel like i i can't take that mantle because it's not really i'm not i don't i'm not in the know like he is with like he goes and visits and really learns about them makes tick tocks about them i just find them fascinating it's sort of like how i feel about cowboy ghosts like just the kind of same genre of like old-timey western um you know it just tickles the old heartstrings yeah it's just like a little like oh maybe you were a miner in a past life i you know i wonder if that or maybe

um i don't know i think i in any life my soul would be probably way too chicken to go down into a coal mine but maybe like a family member of a coal miner maybe uh well i know um i was saying just like how he's into lighthouses definitely to not to the same intensity although i'm jealous of his intensity is uh my interest in one room school houses whoa i'm obsessed i actually saw one this weekend cool and it's I have a whole like list, I'm sure Zandy's got a list on his computer that he scratches off as he sees them

No, he has a passport Oh yeah, I heard about the passport and I lost my stupid mind I'm sure you did But no, I got to cross another one off the list this weekend There's one here by me! It was very fun There's many next to you i actually have a whole white titan room for the next time i come can i come i also love one room school

house not obviously not to that level but i i find them uh i have literally already planned out every one that is with i did it by distance from your home so i know exactly how many we can not too close to my home that um i know how, like, I know the people who run it and stuff. Shut up. They do events and things like that. So it's up kind of farther north, but I will take you there. It's cool. It's really beautiful. I didn't know you knew. Okay. I had no idea this was an interest of yours, but I guess you didn't know coal mines were an interest of mine, so we're still learning about each other. That's still part of the adventure. They're keeping things fresh you and me. Okay. So haunted coal mines. I'm glad I stumbled upon one of your greatest fantasies. Yesterday,

I literally said, please, I love coal mines. I don't know why. I just do. Poor Allison, because one day I was like, I really love a one room schoolhouse. And she, I apparently had never said it out loud before. And she was like, all right. It is. It's like, what are you talking about? But okay. I think about them all the time. Okay. So haunted coal's let's go into it i'm sorry then that i didn't give you a more um detailed one story but now i have in my little noggin i'll make sure to go look for the most haunted of them all please okay so just a quick little recap, because coal mines are all fine and fun for a second, and then we get to the reality of coal mines, then we go, oh, that's not fun.

So we've used coal for thousands of years, but mining has been very, very dangerous the entire time. Still dangerous. And just to give you an idea, in the UK, from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s there were 85,000 mining deaths in the uk alone in the u.s uh starting in 1900 in just the first 45 years there were a thousand deaths a year on average oh my god um ways to die are more expansive than people are aware of because i would have just thought like oh breathing it in and that's it but no collapse i'm talking to the coal miner here so i don't even

know why the coal miner herself yeah but you can there's fire there's explosions there's like cave-ins where all the rocks literally fall on top of you so you're being buried alive um you can get run over by equipment. You can get crushed to death, literally drowning, which I didn't even think of. But if it caves in and now there's a flood coming in, you know, black lung, which is the chronic illness from breathing in coal dust. It's what a Zoolander had for spending five minutes down there. And so that's just some of the ways that you can die.

And in the 19th century in the UK, their minds also employed children as young as five. The US is no better by the way, but this is just the stat that I have is that in the UK, they were as young as five and all workers, no matter your age, worked at least 12 hour shifts. And with that kind of exhaustion, and when you're five with that minimal training, that comes with a lot of accidents. So it just leads to the death toll or just continues the death toll. And if you search a specific coal mine online you can actually find indexes for each of them on accidents and disasters that happen at each mine so um just if you wanted

to educate yourself more on all that you can definitely look up the index for any mine so uh and because of the awful conditions coal miners often went on strike for better conditions, but the government would straight up use deadly force. So that's nice. That's cool. So here's actually like a quick deep dive, which I feel is important to say is we're taught in school that the first aerial attack on U.S. soil was Pearl Harbor. But it's actually the third fun fact not fun fact at all um the first one was the tulsa race massacre which uh has been getting a little more play at least on my tiktok algorithm recently so i feel like people are finally starting to learn

about that that's a completely whole other conversation that i feel like I wouldn't do it justice with just a sentence. But in 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre is where dynamite was dropped on a Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I highly suggest you go look it up. And especially on TikTok, there are a lot of really amazing Black creators that are doing the Lord's work and explaining it in great detail that I don't totally feel justified in doing. Sure. The second time that that was in August 1921, in the same year where coal miners had a protest march in West Virginia, and the county sheriff had them bombed from planes. And that's called the Battle of Blair Mountain. And both of those happened before Pearl Harbor.

Okay. Interesting. Fun fact, if someone tries to say something about Pearl Harbor, you go, called the battle of blair mountain and both of those happened before pearl harbor okay interesting fun fact if someone tries to say something about pearl harbor you go uh tulsa race massacre and coal miners so the fucking people struggling actually had two uh experiences first and of course we never talk about it what was the second called uh the battle of blair mountain blair mountain okay i actually feel like i remember hearing about it in school but like it was a sentence in a textbook and i knew about the tulsa race massacre i did not know about the blair mountain i found out about tulsa embarrassingly late in my

life so uh and then here's another sad fun fact is that during this protest uh while coal miners were protesting in west virginia and then they had the bombs uh dropped on them from planes they were wearing red bandanas uh around their necks to signify union support and the labor rights movement and this led to the term redneck so most people really it's at least one of the stories the other main one people hear is like oh if you're a farmer you've been working all day and your son burned on the neck. But that is just as likely of the origin as coal miners wearing red bandanas for the labor rights movement. I didn't know that.

And after this, because, of course, capitalism and the world is terrible. and the world is terrible. After they started wearing these red bandanas to signify, uh, we're wanting better conditions. The mining companies and government reps, uh, used the term redneck to promote minors as looking lowbrow and stupid and rural and backwards.

And then that way nobody took their plight seriously. So people would just be like, Oh, now they're just rednecks. It's another redneck. Mm. Hmm. Uh,

but there's, oh, now they're just rednecks. Just another redneck. But there's also another sad fun fact is that there's an understanding that, or I guess maybe a quote or maybe something that Jessica said a lot, that OSHA rules are written in blood when it comes to these workers. And it basically means every safety rule that OSHA enforces for them is because someone's already died from that problem. Right. Exactly. Like there's a reason and it's it's too late, too little too late in a way. Yeah. But most of the rules have been enforced because co-workers were fighting for better conditions. So, yeah, protesting works, folks. And in a lot of those situations, the co-workers who fought for better conditions were minor unions. And since there was a lot of early and difficult deaths in these communities, especially in the actual mines, many coal mines and coal towns are said to be very haunted because there were just so many people. They're being neglected by the government and not getting

proper working conditions. So they were staying up all night. They were five years old and operating heavy machinery. I mean, there's just so, so many ways and so many times that people died in horrible circumstances. Very traumatic and tragic deaths. Yeah. That it makes sense why now people say that they're all very haunted. that it makes sense why now people say that they're all very haunted so if you think about it like even the family members you know of folks who died in the mines it's like what a traumatic

emotional experience to to live through like knowing somebody who died yeah i mean the whole family i feel like the whole town just has really interesting energy. Very traumatic past. Yeah. Yeah. Because either you're the one in danger or you have to worry every single day. Every day. Yeah. And I mean, especially in that time and in a lot of those towns, that person who could die at any moment was the sole provider for the entire family.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Those who died in the actual mines are often considered to still be buried there in a, quote, natural grave because the bodies were so hard to recover. Sure. So just to make it worse. Right. Like who wants to go down there now after it just collapsed or they, you know. After we just found out that the place isn't structurally sound.

Yeah. So because of this, it's said that their spirits can't find a way out and they're trapped in the tunnels. Well, that's fucking horrible. And with that, I'll give you an example of one of the coal mines. And this is in Wales. This is the Morpha pit mine. M-O-R-F-A. And it's especially deadly. There are dozens have died at a time from explosions.

One was so bad that they had to actually manually flood the mines to put out the fire so that's a whole other way you can die too is that you can die from drowning from the flood that they're trying to save you from the fire oh my god um the worst uh explosion was in 1890 and very interesting this explosion because in one paper there was a report that many miners said that they could sense something was going to happen in the mines because they had been having really weird dreams and they just could sense something was up and the town allegedly was hearing spirits at night in the mines they They were hearing thumping and banging. Miners saw doors opening and closing

and coal and debris was ending up in unusual places, like just materializing in random spots that shouldn't have been. Miners started smelling floral perfume in the pit, which made no sense. And a massive big red dog, not was seen apparent was seen appearing and vanishing at different times near the mine and just a reminder i don't know why it was red but um dogs are usually known as escorts to like the underworld yeah yeah yeah um like omens yeah so they started

seeing these this dog running around the mine and then disappearing. Jesus, okay. And also during this time, one apparition showed itself as a man in the cage. The cage is like the one that brings him down into the pit. Someone saw a man in the cage wearing an oilskin coat like an old fisherman, a leather hat, and he was waving his hands as if he was in despair. And then he vanished from the cage another spirit here is of a miner who died in the pit and he will still literally jump on the tram with you and ride it until his station goodbye like are you fucking kidding me like what are you gonna do scream no one's coming you're in a cave you're in a coal mine you know so he just

like hops on and then just hops on like what how'd he do yeah does he i don't wonder if he talks to you or if he just looks really focused on like getting to his shift and then he gets off and then he literally gets off and just like walks into the shadows oh my god forget it truly forget it um many people uh many of the miners have seen these spirits and consider them warnings that something's going to happen like all of a sudden the spirits are waking up maybe to keep you from becoming a spirit that's so sinister uh and usually i guess i guess i guess the biggest threat usually in a coal mine is explosions or fires i would have thought cavens but um i think at least

in this one pit mine usually when they see spirits they assume an explosion is going to happen right um they also before the explosion before like this like big day ever happened uh they heard the seven whistlers so the miners were hearing these seven whistlers which are considered um an omen of bad luck and it's just a bunch of whistling like birds chirping yikes um some people actually i mean this explosion whatever was going on in the cosmos and people were sensing it was freaking people out so much that a bunch of people even quit right before and uh one was quoted saying the morphopit is haunted and some terrible calamity is about to occur and with all this worry um there were particularly superstitious miners

that asked for the tunnels to be inspected the day before and it didn't either it didn't or they did it very poorly yeah um and as predicted after all of these experiences people were having an explosion in the mine came and caused 87 deaths and remember that includes all the way down to five years old oh that's so tragic um five years later another newspaper published an article called Welsh Miners Scared. They leave work in a panic owing to uncanny noises. And it confirmed again that the miners five years ago had been hearing banging noises and loud wailing throughout the mines. And that was why a lot of them even left and tried to find work at other nearby mines because they just didn't want to be at that one anymore um in response to the paper actually claiming that these miners were

just superstitious and it's just a weird coincidence one of the miners said tell the editor to confine his remarks of things to things of this world for he knows nothing about heaven and hell and the workings underground if the editor had been see had been seated in the dim light of a clammy lamp in the interior of the workings and had heard groaning in the darkness beyond and below in the deep he too would have taken to his heels and quickly sought some hole to hide in fire that first journalist this guy needs to be promoted he has a way with words i also wonder like was were people just better at speaking back maybe it was just more uh eloquent yeah the language also like that guy was a coal miner so for anyone still trying to use like redneck as

derogatory that man can talk better than i've ever spoken in my life but it's true like this guy's just writing like oh they're so scared it's like you go down there idiot exactly like how we're the most one of the most dangerous jobs out there tell me if you feel safe ever and then now you're just hearing random screaming and banging no yeah forget it um especially like i imagine if you have that job you're already so hyper aware of anything danger right like the second that i mean i would already be freaked out if i heard uh banging and wailing but like if i'm primed to hear wailing and that means like oh my life's in danger because there's like someone's heard and i'm about to be next yeah exactly no no no no or knocking like oh is something gonna explode i don't know yeah truly so uh in 1896 another newspaper reported workmen frightened away

by mysterious noises um anyway so i there's an i do want to say about that newspaper i was gonna avoid it for a second but i don't know why because it's just funny that so this newspaper workmen frightened away by mysterious noises um the intro sentence to this article uh is uh the latest sensation for jaded lovers of uncanny things is a haunted coal mine and i feel like i feel like that's something you now need on a shirt now knowing your interest is that like is that like in the public domain that sentence because i would like to steal it and i wonder what the law is but if it's from 1896 like how long do they can they claim those words copyright um i don't know but i would like that to be on my shirt the latest sensation for jaded lovers of uncanny things and christine is a haunted coal mine not and christine comma who is christine

jaded lover of uncanny things comma named named christine is is a haunted coal mine you're right sorry i'm obviously we need that or other fancy speakers help with the i know we're no we're no rednecks over here you know that is talented so the article claimed that at least uh from that from another explosion that at least six bodies were never recovered um i don't know it's from the same explosion even though 87 bodies died there were six that were never recovered um on top of the 87 that died so now those six probably haunt the mine. And these spirits are heard singing along with the sounds of drums sometimes. And some miners even refuse to work there altogether until the bodies that died in their station are given proper burials because they don't want to work next to a dead body. Sure.

I mean, ooh, that's so chilling. So that's the Wales's morphopit mine. And then I've got another thing where I just wanted to, I suppose, bring it to your attention. Is that a lot of times in these coal mines, people will say that they're hearing spirits either banging around or making sounds. And some people have claimed that these spirits are actually coblins, not goblins, but coblins with a C. But a lot of, and I'll explain what that is in a second, but a lot of people will say, oh, those spirits are coblins. They're just coblins. And the miners would say like, no, no, no, these aren't coblins because coblins are helpful.

And these feel really dark and haunting. So just so you know the energy when they experience ghosts also feels unsafe so um i love it but i know a coblin when i hear one okay exactly like a coblin would be absolutely not freaking me out would be bringing me my sandwich or something right so so far you are on the right path with what a cobblin is. Good. So cobblins are Welsh fairies who live underground, especially in mines. So they are often considered cousins to the leprechaun, which is an Irish leprechaun or a Scottish brownie or a Cornish knocker. And so all three of those I could probably do individual episodes on but i do want to talk about the cornish knockers for a second um so these coblins are said to be two feet tall at

the max and they wear mining outfits to match their human workers which is so precious and uh they lead miners to rich veins of coal and they warn miners about cavens so they're just there to make nice they're like doing more for you than like your own union rep you know than the actual like uh yeah employers yeah it's like well if the government's not gonna help i guess we have to resort to the welsh fairies who will dress like us just uh to show that they are on our side. I wonder if coblins also wear red bandanas to support the union and labor rights movement. Little mini rednecks. That's so sweet. Okay, so in Cornish folklore, since we just mentioned knockers,

coblins, like I said, are kind of somewhat related or often associated with creatures, including the Cornish knocker. And knockers are they lead miners to tin instead of coal, or at least the original story was that they would lead miners to tin. But then when coal became more popular, the story shifted and Cornish knockers will now also lead you to coal, which I so I guess they kind of became coblins in their own way okay yeah and here's a little note though in the 1800s the knockers became linked with anti-semitic beliefs great which i wonder if that's because they were associated with coblins and goblins actually also have some anti-semitic roots so um i think that's where that comes from interesting it also there's another theory that uh knockers are allegedly the ghosts of jewish men who were forced to work in the mines uh during the roman occupation of england um but the romans uh only

used coal available on surface levels instead of in the deep mines so that kind of debunks that i see so they didn't even send people down there as far as i know as far as research goes yes uh so that one we can debunk but it does still have uh some not so good roots to it so um but like a lot of celtic stories these beings started out as fairies and over time and through just like different cultural elements different beliefs um everything kind of got mixed in and muddled and now the knockers as we now know it um are a little different than they originally looked um several interpretations of uh there are certain there are several interpretations of knockers but it's mainly prevalent uh in like late cornish traditions but a lot of people from that area ended up

moving to appalachia so eventually knocker lore immigrated to the u.s when those people became minors and some immigrant communities now call them Tommyknockers. Aha! So Tommyknockers are big in Appalachia where, by the way, a third of coal exploitation comes from and a lot of it still has

some of its Celtic fairy lore attached to it. And as mining became more commercial, the story of the Tommyy knockers spread and they're said to knock on walls to let you know when there's going to be a cave-in scary so still doing a lot of what the original coblins did it's like oh they i don't know if they dress up anymore in your outfit but they do still keep you safe um or they can't keep you safe so uh it's thought that these spirits traveled across the ocean with immigrants and that's how they ended up here and uh although they are generally kind and reward

kindness punish selfishness they're kind of uh the judges and juries of their own land i suppose right um they do still like to play pranks on miners so they'll like move your tools around so they still like to freak you out a little bit but in a fun way just like mischievous yeah yeah yeah yeah um but if someone were to openly insult or curse them they will throw rocks at you oh or even worse for the whole uh for the whole village uh the whole community of coal miners they will just leave the cave and never come back and now you've lost your protection of someone warning if a cave-in's coming you'd be nice to them yeah exactly you got to be nice so uh as an offering to keep peace this

is what you can do all right this one would be tough for me listening you can leave them the last bite of your meal i knew you were gonna say that i was like what share food that's a tough one for me but you know for the sake of the town i guess it's what i'd do that is tough because the last bite the last bite's always the one that's the best bite you need to eat it to feel like satisfied like you've finished your food not only like i mean i i think there's probably a psychology to it, but there are some people who have the best bite first. No, no. I always, I always eat the worst bites first so I can like have an excellent last bite.

Want to get better. Yeah, I agree. So I wonder if coal miners, if there's an underspoken, understated stereotype to them. You just leave a soggy part of the sandwich for last. Yeah. Do people in Appalachia, are they more likely to eat the best bite first? That's a great question. I'm sure somebody is funding that research.

Yeah. Well, if not, get Appalachia on the horn. I got to talk to them. Okay. I'll talk to them okay I'll talk to them uh so skeptics say that the knocking uh is not actually Tommy knockers if Blaze were here he'd probably agree with these people and say that it's actually the sound of the ground shifting along a fault line and it's the wood beams cracking or it does make some sense that there

would be noises before a cave-in yeah before cave-in it does make some sense that there would be noises before. A cave-in. Yeah, before a cave-in. It does make some sense. I do. I can see why that would, yeah, happen. I can also see it. I wonder who the first person was who felt like, maybe it's actually a fairy. Yeah. Yeah.

I wonder where it all began. I was like, maybe it was. Who was the first person to suggest ghosts and be taken seriously? Yeah. like i was like maybe it was who was the first person to suggest ghosts and be taken seriously yeah um unfortunately uh it seems that the tommy knockers are being scared out of caves and this is because of new modern technology oh so in 1929 the newest of technology comes from 1929 well and it's just to give a a brief note to how today could be because in 1929 an article came down came out that um miners had concerns about radios scaring tommy knockers away

and there's a quote saying sometimes we coal miners think we haven't a friend in the world but we always know the tommy knockers are looking out for us. Many's the life that has been saved by these wee things with their knocking. And I guess he ended up sharing a story about how the miners all had to like really figure out, like had to come together and discuss whether or not their mine pit should have radios to keep them entertained during the day. Because the sound might scare the tommy knockers away and if if the music was playing on the radio then they wouldn't be able to hear the tommy knockers warning them hello yeah and so this is a quote uh uh his opinion on that would ye ye why ye oh my god they're already more erudite than I'll ever be. Would ye drive out the few Tommyknockers we have left?

With all this squealing and blathering coming right through the earth, it's bad enough for them as it is. With one of these radio boxes, okay, dad, with one of these radio boxes, with its great din filling the mine, how could we hear them knocking even if we weren't panicked and driven away even if they weren't panicked and driven away i feel like um you and i are the blathering what did it say uh the uh with all the squealing and blathering right through on one of these radio boxes wow that literally that that should have been uh like the blurb for this podcast written by my father i think it is it is now i'm taking that line too the endorsement nothing but blathering uh but yeah so they they were just very like i think they were like the tommy knockers are protective of us so we should be protective of them and the radios might scare them so um and i mean i i don't want to insult anyone from appalachia but i don't think i grew up around the concept of tommy knockers to a point where i'm maybe as strong

of a believer as others are uh but i will say in the world of ghosts which i am a big believer in they are also terrified of a lot of technology so there have been times where investigating i have said out loud are you just scared of all these lights do you need me to explain them to you it's quite overwhelming especially if you're from like fucking 1800 like what do you imagine all of a sudden there's just like machines around just squealing and blathering coming from a box you're like who's in that box who's in that tiny box exactly so i think there is something to be said about that so um all i can say is if my ghost hunting can give you any uh advice maybe let the tommy knockers

maybe explain it to them before you turn the radio on what it does right um so even if the tommy knockers do all leave the miners are are still rife with ghosts because bodies are still buried under there and they couldn't be recovered. And there's even parts of Appalachia where there are superstitious miners, like I said, that won't work in a certain area until bodies are recovered. But so here's a weird one. covered um but so here's a weird one so companies would end up having to close off these rooms because they couldn't find anyone else to work there but all the miners were refusing to work there and they would just close off big ass chunks of the coal mine just like just board it up until they could hire somebody who was like either not from the area or brand new and like didn't hadn't heard about the deaths and then they would just put them in there so it's almost like great it was almost

like a hazing or like tricking people it's like yeah the earlier or the newer you are to this there's probably been more deaths in that area which is also just like continuing to like enable panic for that room because if the only person that's now operating that space that's already been proven to be dangerous is now the greenest person in the industry yeah so here's a story from west virginia um about a coal miner his name was big max oh i love it big max was six and a half feet tall. Yeah, he was. Big Max was big. He was also, I wanted to be clear that I think this is like a lore that people tell because it says Big Max is also six times stronger than an average man. So I think I'm thinking of him more as like a, like a, not a real person. Paul Bunyan. A Paul Bunyan type. Yeah. But he was known to be very friendly and he was very fearless. He was just like a man's man.

And one time there was a cave in just to show you how strong he was. A cave in once buried a part of the mine and he was able to dig himself out of an entire cave in. Oh my God. Another time he lifted a car off a man you know what i'm saying there's like i think big max may not be totally i think these are stories i think these are stories that big max told at the bar about himself well you know what people believed it so it's got to be worth something that's true so one day at the mine big max was uh he was working at

the mine and there was an explosion that killed a handful of men and one body was unable to be identified but the guy apparently never clocked in on his punch card so that's why they couldn't identify him and there was never any proof of who it was therefore they weren't I guess they couldn't hold themselves

responsible for figuring out what to do with his body since they couldn't determine the body the mining company refused Couldn't hold themselves responsible for figuring out what to do with his body. Oh, my gosh. Since they couldn't determine the body, the mining company refused for that man's wife to get her pension. Insane. And basically they told her to her face, like, oh, he must have not loved you and ran off. And also now you're not getting his pension. So next, I don't know if it was the next day but eventually big max is uh he's at the job he's at his job after this explosion and his uh whole thing is to inspect the area for remaining gas

and to set up new beams and he's working in one area because everyone else happens to happens to be scared of it because it's not very structurally sound and there have been cave-ins there before while working in that section another miner just shows up out of nowhere and starts asking big max if he can help oh and big max said that quote he did not look like a miner at least not a healthy one his skin even though it was covered in coal dust was very white his eyes were set deep in his head like deep wells and although he could do as much work as me he was just a bag of bones and the miner apparently talked mad like and demanded that the beam go in a very specific spot so big max just kind of went along with it and uh

just to avoid any issues he was like okay fine i'll put the beam there and when he went to start digging in that spot he found a boot and that boot was attached to a whole human body underneath that was from a previous explosion oh no and uh that's when big max looks up to ask this miner, like, hey, are you seeing this? And the miner is gone. Oh, no. And he goes home later that night, Big Max, and he wakes up to that same miner in his fucking bedroom. Get it. The miner then says, thank you for helping me.

Now my wife will get what is coming to her. And then he vanished. to her and then he vanished the company later realized that the body that they could not identify at the time was the worker that big max saw and even though he never clocked in they were now able to give his wife a pension um and that is the story of big max wow what a hero there's another west virginia story of someone called big john so all right all right i think uh i think people might have been a little insecure about their size at the time because i don't know maybe they're just like it sounds like they're owning it six foot six pretty darn big i i think i feel like i know a big mike okay and he's like six foot seven or six foot six. I feel like since we have totally no proof of his height, but he can apparently lift

a bus and we're expected to believe both of those things, I'm wondering if Big Max was actually like 5'11". But like he's like... No, no, no. He's a hero, Em. You stop slandering. But why are you slandering him? He did only good things.

I don't know. He's saving lives. Okay. You're right. You're right. You're right. Well, here's another one. This is Big John.

Next, you're going to start dissing the Tommyknockers and we're all going to get in trouble. That's not true. There's a ghost of a Russian immigrant named Big John. And he worked in the Grant Town mine, which was in his job was to plant dynamite to expose coal. How fun. I know. Yeah. Again, like in case you didn't get it this job is

not a safe one no so one day a piece of dynamite exploded too early and decapitated big john oh forget it and he was found by his co-worker oh god um a month later that same co-worker was heading underground alone in the cage and he saw big john holding his head under his arm oh oh and that weird like if this feels like a harry potter move of like the headless nick or whatever his name is yeah yeah yeah uh his head is being held under his arm and yet big john just starts happily chatting with him like nothing was off he's like look he's like my hey buddy my eyes are down here like who are you looking you look at this i know it's like hey what happened would you grow what happened where are you not big anymore big john um so that was just like another random story of like oh yeah like even if you're decapitated

you're still like having a good time in the mines as a ghost i guess um it's often a common ghost story that miners say uh stay behind to keep their co-workers company which i think is like again tells you a lot about the community that like they feel like the tommy knockers are there for them and now they feel like their co-workers are sticking around to keep them company because they all kind of get this they can all sense the like oh working in the coal mines is a lonely job yeah yeah because there was even that one quote earlier i said where the guy was like oh we really like the tommy knockers because like we don't have a lot of friends that is so sweet and sad yeah so i i think it's it's um endearing that there's like this uh this I don't know if it's moral code, but or ethics, moral code of like, oh,

do you just stick around and be with each other and keep each other company? Yeah, I like it. It's like an unwritten rule. Yeah, yeah. They're all about the friendship. And then I've got in Utah, there was one mine that's haunted by a miner in old clothes and he is always staring into the distance, but he is seen so often and keep so many miners company

that they literally just ignore him. They like, they're like, he can stay. He's fine. Imagine being a ghost who's just like overstayed their welcome to the point where like, you're just another one of the guys now. Like, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, oh, it's one of the guys now. Like, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

They're like, oh, it's that guy. He's just staring off into the distance. And they're like, just give it a rest, guy. And so that's just one example of a mine in Utah. But I'm sure that just goes across the board that people just see like, oh, yeah, that's that's Richard. He died about 10 years ago. He's not getting the hint that don't mind him

we've rehired since then richard you can see you can go to the light buddy uh and then uh i wanted to say there's another um in west virginia in fayette county there's a place called the whipple company store that paranormal investigators often explore just to let you know what a company store is. Do you know what a company store is? I mean, I think so. What is it? Just so I don't guess wrong.

No, you're good. You're good. Good call. Good call. Because it's essentially a general store for coal miners in coal towns. But it's run by coal companies and mining towns. And gets problematic very quickly. So at first it sounds very charming

where it's like, oh, it's a general store and it has truly everything you can need for a small rural coal town. So like all the way down to like, it has your groceries, it has your prescriptions, it has your home goods, it has a doctor on site. Like it has- Oh, wow, okay okay it's your one like

commissary for everything um but it gets problematic very quickly because Appalachian coal miners uh have a history of not actually paying their coal miners in money only in basically credit for this store lunacy I mean so it's called it's called script so okay um yeah so they wouldn't pay them they wouldn't pay them. They wouldn't pay them the money. They'd only pay them in script, which keeps you only being able to get things from this company store. And also it keeps you from not being able to build a savings of legitimate money. And so people who are in coal mining industries aren't able to actually save and leave.

You're supposed to be supporting your life and your family. And you're just like it's like a cycle you're just buying a new another pickaxe another pickaxe and also like at the since it's the company store ran by the corporation it's all overpriced yeah they're all controlling of the price oh that's terrible yeah so basically miners and their families had to buy everything here on credit without actually getting to ever build up a true savings. So that way they can leave the coal mines and go start another job or move to a different location. And so that's why one of the understandings of if you're a coal miner, the whole family eventually maybe just becomes a coal miner.

Or if you become a coal miner, it's really hard to get out of the work because you're just trapped in never getting paid true U.S. dollar bills. Wow, wow, wow. Hence the old country song, by the way, called 16 Tons. I don't know if you know it since you're such a fan. Okay. There's a line that says, I owe my soul to the company store. I owe my soul to the company store. I do know that song.

Do you know that song? No. the company store i do know that song why you really do you know that song no seriously why do i know that song maybe if i heard the music to it but 16 what how does it go six oh i just told you i don't know what okay um oh it goes oh my soul to the company store i don't i don't know the rest of it 16 tons what do you get another day older and deeper in debt st peter don't you call me cuz i can't go i owe my soul to the company store you were meant for kentucky i know right appalachia here I come. I feel like if I heard the music maybe, but certainly even if I knew it based on the music, it was always just a humming song to me. Never knew the words.

I feel like I know that one line, and I don't really know the rest. I don't even know why I know it, but anyway, here we are. Again, maybe you've got some sort of affiliation you're unaware of to the coal mines. I mean, I have a very fond spot in my heart for appalachia and um now that i'm pretty close i just looked up this whipple store it's about

four hour drive so if you want to well hey do you want an appalachian tour with me if it's next to the schoolhouse i have my mind i'd lose it all truly um that's beautiful too we could do quite a road trip we definitely could i would i mean that area is i can't there's no prettier area gorgeous gorgeous um okay so anyway the company stores in coal industry are very abusive and corrupt and the whipple company store in particular is um said to be very haunted and investigators feel cold hands. People have even seen handprints on them after they feel cold hands on them. That's in the basement. Also, the ground here, I'm not kidding, allegedly oozes red blood.

What? And then leaves no trace afterwards, but people swear they see it. Like in the movie, like, It, where it's like a hallucination and nobody else can see all this blood everywhere. Or um the other stephen king the shining yeah yeah exactly um and although anyway that that the whipple country store sounds like the craziest of them all yeah but uh anyway so coal mining is seen as a job of the past but uh you know there's still certainly families that uh are part of that world still seeing a lot of ghosts those places will probably forever be haunted and have some pretty um insane energy um and i would definitely love to cover more uh coal mining stories like

more um specifically like one location coal mine stories um one thing i also want to do if um if people could write in i know we don't usually like make that request but i want to make sure that i do it justice and i get um actual people's experiences with this um before i cover it but for a long time i've wanted to cover like apalachico stories because there's a lot of like ways of the world there of like oh when you're in the woods there these are the rules like don't do this don't do that because it's it's said to be a really um heavy energy place um and the people who live there definitely know more than i could probably ever google so i will be doing my own research but i also if anyone can uh send in some general guidelines that I should follow, I would love to cover it.

I've just always been a little too afraid to. Appalachia would be a great topic. Yeah, there's probably so much. Or even if it's just an episode on like what to do in the woods and what not to do in the woods. So, you know, so, and I don't know why i keep saying in the woods in general but if anyone's got like a like a spiritual uh how-to on appalachia please let me know so how cool that is uh haunted coal mines for you um what a cool story what a coal story what a cool story you know there's still license plates i think are they west virginia plates uh that say coal keeps the lights on i thought you were gonna say no i maybe i don't know what you're talking about but i the

way you said coal sounded a lot like that kid who says cone oh it's coal i put butter on it um i think it's either kentucky or west virginia plates and they are black and they say coal it keeps the lights on it's like pro coal i love a good pun i love a love a good uh fact also love a good fact also um so those are you know that's what i know from this part of the world but great story m i um i didn't see that coming but i loved it i didn't see you being so interested in coal mines i don't know why it's i think it's that same just kind of old-timey like somewhat spooky ghosty but like uh rich in like tradition and uh uh what's the word like uh superstition i just you know i just kind of love that kind of story i don't know why i really don't are there any i should know more about this with

you but are there any other locations you have particular interests on so i can jot that down for my research i mean i'm happy to learn about your schoolhouse uh fascination the problem with a schoolhouse though which i'm sure there are haunted schoolhouses because a lot of them come from like the 1800s but like i can't um i think the reason that you don't see people investigate them on tv is because it's literally a one room schoolhouse like if there's nothing going on in that one room maybe there's a basement i don't know maybe like a storm cellar the whole town shares i don't know a spooky storm cellar but there's like like the one i went to this weekend uh it was a one room schoolhouse and that there was one room that everyone taught in.

But there was still like another side room that was like where the teacher, like the teacher's office, which was also, which by the way, was also apparently the timeout room. So I feel like if you're maybe a ghost from back then, maybe there was a lot going on in the timeout room. I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Okay. I don't know. But anyway, so I, I don't know if I'll ever cover truly one haunted schoolhouse,

but maybe I'll make a general episode about it. That's, that's very cool. I just love anything old. You know, I think that's all it is. I just love old, old buildings and old spooky historical places.

I just, I love it. I love it i love have you have you uh fallen in love any more or less uh with lighthouses just by association to your brother no you know i feel like no i feel like i i haven't i mean i do appreciate them very much but i think i'm i'm just trying to let him have room to enjoy his hobby without me trying to smother him in my own interest you know what i mean i'm like yeah this is your thing and i feel like i need to not get super invested in it to that's growth i feel like you and i are both very quick to jump onto things

absolutely and i've done it so many times at this point in my life that i'm like you know what let him have this this is his thing but they are interesting haunted there are lots of haunted lighthouses too so oh yeah as you know from when I recorded with him when I had to talk to him about it for a long time yeah no I will say that well I wanted to know if you were any closer or more closely interested in them just because uh you know when people talk about something they're super interested in, it like hooks you. Yeah.

Yeah. I know. I definitely am. And I feel like, um, I, I watch all his tick talks about lighthouses and some of them have pretty wild histories.

Like the one that they had to literally pick up and move, you know, just some really cool stuff. I hope to love something one day as much as that man loves lighthouses. I'm serious. Me too. I'm dead serious i totally agree okay well i have a true crime story for you today this is the story of pamela smart oh not too confused with elizabeth smart different smart okay pamela smart was born pamela wojas on august 16th 1967

and spent most of her young life in florida until she moved to dairy new hampshire that's d-e-r-r-y is that um i don't know if you know this or if this is coming up but is that where stephen king it is stephen king's in Maine. Maine. The story. It is from a town called Derry. So I don't know if it was New Hampshire. New England. Whatever.

New England. It's all the same. I know. It's all the same. Don't yell at me. But yes. Derry, New Hampshire, which I guess is a pretty small town. And she moved there in eighth grade.

But yeah, he lives in Maine. Yeah. I think around around where does he live what's that town banger banger banger yeah so in high school pamela went to uh this private secondary school called the pinkerton academy very fun uh she was pretty popular she was a cheerleader had a very active social life, was class president and honor student. And once she grew up, she decided to move back to Florida for college. And she went to Florida State University. Is that where your mom went or the other one? That's her. That's her. University of Florida. Yeah. She went to. Go Gators. Go Gators. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Go Gators.

And there she majored in communications. and she also hosted a college radio program and played music from her favorite genre heavy metal so this is a very well-rounded girl she you know she likes she's a cheerleader she's studying communications but she loves heavy metal like really kind of well-rounded you know yeah and her show her radio show was called metal madness okay rock on rock on because she also called herself uh a nickname the maiden of metal oh my god she could be with like with the boy of broadcasting or whatever what does andy call himself again so he's the bad boy of podcasting and the maiden of metal or something you're kidding me metal and i'm the broad of broadcasting but nobody asked me so

the broad and the maid i feel like they have two two very different and similar lives yeah we're differing um so she got a shih tzu and she named her Shih Tzu Halen after Van Halen. So she's like, so cool. I know. And it's kind of cute name. So she's like leaning in hardcore to this. Um, in 1986, Pamela was back home in New Hampshire in Derry on Christmas break, where she met a man named Gregory Smart at a mutual friends party.

And, uh, in an interview, she said she was head over heels for him and totally smitten and uh for what it's worth greg was not while she was a very good student he was not great at school he went straight to work after high school he didn't go to college he was um very friendly and outgoing he loved to party was um just a very happy guy he wore a leather jacket he grew out his hair and he had this kind of like rocker look which i'm sure exactly it was up her type exactly what she wanted exactly um but people remembered him as a softy like he looks like a rocker but he was like a sweetheart on the inside so the perfect combo so honestly the combo you want right he's a bad boy but a teddy bear you know behind closed doors yeah yeah they say about m schultz you know that's what they've

said they may have been lying but it was said they may not know what they're talking about but they did sure say it it came out of someone's mouth whether or not it was true so you know it's got to count for something yeah so they bonded over their mutual love of rock music and as soon as they started dating pamela called up her mom and said i'm gonna marry this guy i'm gonna marry this greg this greg this greg okay in an interview for uh an american murder mystery pam's friend said they were fun they would tease each other they would laugh and be silly together they were a couple. They were well suited to each other. Two years after they got together, Gregory moved to Florida to live with Pamela while she was finishing up her senior

year at FSU. And Gregory wanted to move back once she graduated. He wanted to move back to New Hampshire. But Pamela, who just studied journalism, didn't want to leave the city, you know, where she was there for small town New England and head back home. But they had to make a choice. So she compromised and they moved back to New Hampshire. And when they got married in 1989, 23-year-old Gregory was now working as an insurance agent with his father and Pamela who was 22 started working as the media director at Winnikunnet high school in Hampton New Hampshire so um you know instead of doing the journalism thing down in Florida she found a job doing basically media um at a at a high school cool so at her job what she would do is she wrote press

releases for the school she taught students how to operate video equipment and she also mentored students in a program about avoiding drugs and addiction this program was called project self-esteem okay yeah uh seems a little dorky but you know what it works probably it's it worked maybe i don't know i don't know if it worked but you know it sounds like it i really want it to work yeah i feel like it has great intention behind it you know yes um there are clips of their wedding video actually online you can find photos too um it looks like a pretty happy day they look pretty standard normal loving young couple they're feeding each other cake they're dancing whole shebang unfortunately we know now that pamela was pretty unhappy um yeah living in new england was

not something uh she had wanted to do and she was still pretty unhappy being there and gregory cut off his long rocker hair off so well it's been downhill ever since that i know what honestly like the last straw you know i understand so she didn't he didn't have that like rocker vibe that she loved so much about him he's now selling insurance he has short hair she's just he just became a dude he just became like an ordinary guy he became gregory you know god not rocker greg you know i know it it's sad it's such a sad tragedy sad day so she felt really disillusioned with her life early on i mean she got married at 22 and she's already feeling like this is not where i want to be which is very sad yeah yeah big red. So several months into their marriage, Pamela started to

suspect that Gregory had cheated on her. And we don't know if that's true. There's no proof one way or the other. She was just having these suspicions. And it was at this point that she decided to give up on Gregory completely. She was like, you know what? I don't love him anymore. completely she was like you know what i don't love him anymore we're gonna stay here for now but i'm i'm over it i'm over him sure sure so what she did is she turned to a student volunteer in her drug counseling program whose name was william billy flynn for emotional support and this kid was 15 um a shy teenager with a tough home life who really kind of latched on to pamela and her attention i see where we're heading i think yeah he loved heavy metal music uh pamela kind of used that as a bonding tactic and one thing led to another and he is 15 and she is 22 uh correct

at least 22 she got married at 22 i think it's probably been a couple years at this point so yeah she's like in her mid-20s okay yeah got it bad bad bad so in court later billy said that before long pamela approached him after school and initiated a conversation asking things like are you going to kiss me oh and well okay this one's bad well do i have to come over there and rape you like pardon me what why would she said that to him that was like her flirting oh bad flirting yeah no shit i don't know what else to say no yeah so it's basically like oh um it's like that flirting tactic of like do i have to take what i want you know i know i know what i i think i i think i see what the original she was trying to do

yeah yeah but certainly the words needed to be changed i mean no and also psa we are very weird that none of these words should have been exchanged to begin with sure yes regardless of how threatening they were considering the context it's like none of that should have happened but you're right yeah even out of context that sentence not gonna do it sorry yeah if you were gonna absolutely um break the law and gross everyone out and hit on a 15 year old it's definitely not the way to do it i know not the way to do it i mean of all oh of all wording are you going to kiss me as one thing and then it's really like she googled like what's the worst thing i could say okay good maybe i don't know i don't know i don't know just keep going okay okay i'm

happy to move on so she invited billy to her house and at her house pamela reenacted uh sex scenes from the movie nine and a half weeks which was a film from 1986 that at the time was pretty shocking for its exploration of BDSM and its nudity. And so she kind of reenacted those scenes with him. So we're in it now, folks. Pamela is using Billy for emotional support and sex. And this Billy, who is a child child is completely wrapped up in their relationship well also you said that he wasn't coming from like the right secure place so of course that like easy picking just so vulnerable absolutely absolutely so vulnerable it's very very very sad

um so in a few months it seemed like pamela was pretty much controlling Billy and had him wrapped around her finger and could ask him to do anything for her. Billy said she told him over and over again that she wanted to divorce Gregory, but she was afraid he would take everything in the divorce, even her beloved dog, Halen. And Pamela said there was no way out. She was trapped in this loveless marriage and they hadn't even been married a year yet. So she was still very early on in this marriage. So I guess I take back what I said. She probably was around 23, 22, 23. So Tuesday, May 1st, 1990, several of Pamela's neighbors called the police just after 10 p.m.

And in one 911 call call a woman in the same condominium as the smarts said someone is passed out i don't know a girl is hysterical in here she just ran over her husband is passed out the operator asks if she knows what happened and the caller can be heard yelling to pamela help is on the way do you know why he's passed out then she tells the operator no we don't. So police arrive and they enter the house with Pamela and they pronounce Gregory Smart dead. Okay. Well, I think I know where the story goes from here. Okay. In interviews, Pamela says she thought he was unconscious and couldn't believe he was dead she said she was shocked and she only remembers the night in flashes the homicide detective who

responded said pamela's neighbors looked scared and confused outside the crime scene there had been zero homicide cases in dairy that year it was like a sleepy town, New England, like very small, very quaint. This is like the only homicide that had occurred that year. Inside, there were signs of burglary and a struggle. One detective said the bedroom had been ransacked. There were clothes everywhere. Drawers were pulled out of dressers. Jewelry was missing.

A stereo was on the floor. And there was no sign of forced entry, but the in-ground basement door was unlocked and the back door was hanging open so somebody could have just walked in but it also seemed shocking that burglars would go inside one specific condominium while people were at home like while the couple was at home during it just just seemed, it just seemed odd, um, that somebody would have done that. Uh, and neighbors told police that Pamela and Gregory hosted frequent parties where there was potential drug use. Um, but at the same time, police only found a single joint in Gregory's car and they found no other drugs on the property. They thought maybe this was like a drug related thing. Um, they couldn't quite figure it out. So at 1.30 in the morning, Pamela's friends contacted the police on behalf of Pamela because she wanted to speak to the police.

So they brought her in to ask her some questions. And Pamela said she had had an unusual meeting at school after her usual work hours so she called gregory at 3 p.m to tell him stayed late at school and when she arrived home at 10 30 she said the door was ajar and when she pushed push it open she saw gregory lying on the ground in the foyer she said she didn't see any blood she saw the house was ransacked she ran for help to the neighbor and that's when they called the police police she seemed emotionless to detectives like no crying or anything like that um she was able to give them like a full timeline of the day all the facts leading up to what happened so she was was she ever a suspect after that yes oh okay yes so she seemed very like rehearsed almost um and that being said i feel

like we say this a lot but you know you don't know how someone's going to react in shock or in trauma um and so it's not necessarily fair to say oh she wasn't crying enough to you know what i mean like it i don't i don't usually like that assessment of... Especially, I mean, you and I have talked about before that in, obviously not as intense of a crisis, but in a crisis, we immediately just go flat of like, okay, well, this is what we need to get done before I can react. And then the reaction comes later. Emotion to the back. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, some people can just stick to the bare facts and don't have that huge emotive response that people are like looking for. So I don't necessarily think critiquing someone's response to like a trauma is the best way about it.

But, you know, just that's something they noticed. All grief is valid. They noticed. All grief is valid. Yeah. So detectives began to suspect a burglary gone wrong. But at the same time, Gregory still had his wallet on him and his wedding ring was on. Pamela said she thought Gregory had been hit on the head, but police only observed blood force trauma.

So when the medical examiner found that Gregory had actually been shot in the head, point blank, execution style style people were like totally stunned because they thought he had just been hit on the head with something whoa and then they found a bullet in his head jesus okay the police asked pamela to avoid the media but there was so much gossip happening about gregory belonging to the mafia or like being involved in drug rings that she decided to appear on the news to set the record straight and clear gregory's name only days after his funeral um this is where it's a little weird because she in the interview you remember how she studied journalism and like wanted to be a journalist and all this. So during this TV interview,

she sort of takes over like to direct. What? The interview? She's like, this is my opportunity. Yeah, sort of. And it's like through the eyes of this aspiring journalist. So here's an example. She had the top layer of their wedding cake

saved in the freezer. And since it was days away from their one year anniversary, she had the top layer of their wedding cake saved in the freezer um and since it was days away from their one year anniversary she told the interview uh she told the interviewer he should get a shot of her holding the wedding cake in the kitchen and like crying the second okay well the second you say here get a shot of this like someone's producing an experience yeah it's like the production of it was like a little bit much um especially if you're saying get a shot of me crying it's like okay well now i have to believe that next cry is not going to be legitimate yeah like get a shot of me looking super sad

and it's like like hang on let me pull it out really quick let me get sad you stand there what's my motivation not my husband being dead me ponder. What could my possible motivation be? Yeah. Yeah. So she is like holding this cake, looking mournful. She had like an artistic vision. Let's put it that way for how this interview should go. Sure.

She had a voice. Whatever the producer version of a voice is. Yeah. The journalist who was doing the interview said she was thinking more like a reporter than the victim like trying to angle where everyone should be filming and you know she took this as her like journalistic shot um so investigators stopped giving pamela updates after this because she started revealing private information from the investigation to the media and they were like this is this ain't working she's not listening she just keeps blabbing it feels like it feels i'm gonna feel really bad if she's innocent later

and i'm saying these things but it feels a little like she's asking for attention does that mean to say like no i mean no i mean she's literally like filming me crying over this wedding cake of my dead husband. And then won't stop like giving information. She won't stop telling the media. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I hope that wasn't victim blaming. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't think so, but. Okay. I mean, people grieve differently. Maybe her way of grieving is talking a lot. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I'm just, I hope I wasn't people grieve differently. Maybe her way of grieving is talking a lot. I don't know.

Maybe. I don't know. I'm just, I hope I wasn't an asshole just now. I guess there's a certain point, though, where you're like hurting the investigation into who attacked you. I'm certainly curious about her motives. I feel like that's just kind of where it's at. It's just a little fishy. Yes. Yes. I'm wondering things. It's just a little fishy, yes. Yes, I'm wondering things.

Yeah, so May 14th, this is 13 days after the murder, an anonymous caller contacted Derry police to tell them she worked at a local Italian restaurant and overheard a 15-year-old co-worker talking about a woman who was trying to arrange a hit on her husband. She told them a woman named Cecilia Pierce had information. Now, Cecilia Pierce had information. Now, Cecilia Pierce was the 15-year-old student that this woman had overheard in the Italian restaurant. Cecilia was a 15-year-old student at Winnicott High School who Pamela considered a friend.

Again, these are just like very inappropriate relationships she's having with children. A lot of young people yeah yeah it's like a mentor mentee thing is one thing but like close friends and all this it's like confiding in things like this yes exactly especially when you get like yes yes i'll say did you have a mentor like a teacher that that was close with you not really necessarily no no no i mean we had a teacher who was uh i think definitely was a mentor like i never felt like there was a boundary being crossed but i mean i can i can understand out of someone who's been in this position yeah like of being the student and then again i had a 15 year old brain so maybe i'm not the person who should be speaking on this but i never felt unsafe. There was a teacher,

she was very lovely and she was like very attentive to like, I think you could tell that she came from maybe like a background similar to people who were having some tough times. And she was very good about like, you know, Oh, I've like brought you a gift or, Oh, like I made dinner and you know, like've like brought you a gift or oh like i made dinner and you know like i made extra it was like very kind and very right but like i feel like these i feel like if it were inappropriate maybe i wouldn't know because i'd be so young it's a lot i think maybe i wouldn't know and and i think a lot of times the situation is one where as the student or as a minor like you feel

the situation is one where as the student or as a minor like you feel special you know yeah that's true i and i did i felt special as someone who i still would say wasn't uh problematic but but yeah i can imagine like especially in in a high school world yeah of like wanting to be popular wanting to be cool and like you've got an in with this teacher and like yeah like they they they think you're you know smart enough special enough to like share stuff with you know i mean i can absolutely see how this would go off the rails really yeah it could it could be a very slippery slope when one of the two people is not you know developmentally there yeah like i mean also legally i'm ignoring that real quick to think like and are two people really consenting if one of them doesn't truly know what they're what what the situation is no got it i don't think so i don't think so either

so this 15 year old cecilia was uh one of pamela's friends um She said in an interrogation that she saw Pamela as a big sister. She also dreamed of being a journalist and was a media intern under Pamela. She had actually even stayed at Pamela's house the week of the murder. And so, again, like having students staying in your home, just like too much, I think. Certainly can't relate to that one. No, no. That's a problematic move for sure. I would agree. So police asked Pamela for a list of everyone.

Now, I think this is very clever. Why? The police asked Pamela for a list of everyone who had stayed at her house in the month before the murder. She included everyone, even maintenance workers, but did not name Cecilia as if she wanted to hide the fact that Cecilia had been over at her house. So police immediately are like, huh. Ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. That's a big red flag. Why would she conveniently forget the one person who was there like the week before the murder?

So in the meantime, police are starting to suspect Pamela. And Pamela herself is collecting $140,000 from Gregory's life insurance policy. In June, this part is a little convoluted, but let me try my best. So in June, a man showed up at the police station with a gun and his name was Vance Latime and he had taken in one of his teenage son's friends, Ralph, who was one of his son's really good friends and spent a lot of time at their house. And so Ralph

had approached Vance, the dad, and told him that his gun was used to kill a man in Derry. Oh, absolutely not. Can you imagine finding that out where you're like, oh my God, what? Your kid's friend is like, hey, I have something to tell you. Yeah.

And also like this will be traced back to you and it's too late. And oops. Yeah. Nothing you can do about it. Thank God. Like he had like some, I mean, the kid was mature enough to even say something to say something to the dad yeah exactly so vance took uh the gun out took a look at it noticed it was unusually clean like someone had used it and tried to hide that they used it uh so he brought it into

the police station as a potential murder weapon to be like i i didn't do this but somebody must have used my gun. That's what my friend's, my kid's friend is saying. Which by the way, in any other circumstance, I'd be like, what a bad excuse. Yeah. Somebody used your gun. Wow. How convenient. And you don't know who or how or why it's so magically clean. Okay. No fingerprints. How mysterious. Yeah, I know. So investigators did find that it was the same gun used to kill gregory smart so they brought in ralph the son's friend for questioning who had who had initially told vance about this his gun being used so they brought him in for questioning

and ralph told the police he thought his three friends killed gregory smart he brought up billy the boy pamela was dating and said billy's been going around bragging about it okay this is just red flag red flag red flag ralph's friends including billy told ralph they had killed gregory using vance's gun and ralph couldn't keep quiet thankfully so he went to vance and told him what he had heard good job ralph i know i know so on june 12th police arrested billy and his friends uh his friends were patrick pete randall and vance jr latime jr which is vance latime's son so he goes by jr okay uh and raymond fowler was the other kid all three boys refused to talk but cecilia pierce came forward the 15 year old to tell police about

pamela's affair with billy she told police pamela said she was in love with bill so now pamela's also like talking to other students about how she's in love with another student. Like, I mean. OK, I got I got things to say, but I don't I want to wait to hear more before I. OK, I mean, I'm not condoning it at all. I just before I go on a rant, I would like to hear the rest of the story. No problem. I can do that for you. So she tells police Pamela said she was in love with Billy.

And obviously they were having sex because I walked in on them. So she's like. I mean, it doesn't surprise me, but still. I know. But still, yikes. Investigators had Cecilia meet with Pamela wearing a wire. And Pamela pretty quickly incriminated herself. She said things to Cecilia like if you tell the

fucking truth you'll send me to the slammer for the rest of my fucking life wow okay so very that's I'm glad I waited because I was gonna say is she not aware that this is so illegal but I guess she does very illegal I guess she does she. So the recordings were extremely poor quality, unfortunately, and require transcription. And during the court hearings, people actually found it difficult and frustrating to try to even understand what they were saying. Pamela insisted the recordings were poorly transcribed or purposefully altered. But Cecilia signed off on the tapes and verified that, yes, the transcriptions were correct. That is what Pamela said to me. So police arrested Pamela. Cecilia signed off on the tapes and verified that yes the transcriptions were correct that is what Pamela said to me so police arrested Pamela and when they arrested her they said to her I have

some good news and I have some bad news the good news is that we've solved the murder of your husband the bad news is you're under arrest oh what a line well who do you think planned that for like weeks I know someone had that in their back pocket they were looked in the mirror at themselves earlier that morning and practiced it they straightened their collar and were like i have today's the day um so as you can probably imagine this became an absolute media circus um the case actually became the first murder trial ever covered gavel to gavel on television in the United States. So like from the very first start of the trial to the very end, Pamela admitted to her affair with Billy, but she insisted she had nothing to do with the murder.

She said she had actually broken up with Billy several days before the killing, but the public was like not having any of it uh they did not believe her at all she said she had no motive for murder but prosecution was like you were having an affair with a child and you got 140 000 life insurance and you were very unhappy in your marriage it's pretty compelling evidence i would say the boys took plea bargains to testify against pamela and many believed that the boys were too young to orchestrate a murder without adult guidance but at the same time they were like 16 or 17 and like they could have become their dad's gun and killed him you know i mean i don't think that's necessarily a fair argument but billy's testimony on the stand was very compelling um he was extremely

emotional as he described the way pamela had manipulated him uh he began to cry on the stand and he told the court that his friends held gregory down so billy could shoot gregory in the head and then they drove the getaway car holy shit yeah all the teenagers described their involvement in the killing and they said pamela asked them not to kill gregory in front of her dog valen because she didn't want him to or halen sorry so because she didn't want the dog to be traumatized okay great i'm glad the dog's fine they claimed she gave them instructions on when and how to approach the condo, when Gregory would be home, et cetera. And all their stories lined up so solidly, the prosecution found it hard to believe that these were like fake coach stories.

Their testimony seemed pretty genuine to people watching the trial. And Pamela even took the stand on her own behalf behalf but she failed to sway public opinion in her favor and so on march 22nd 1991 she was found guilty of being an accomplice to first degree murder conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering and she was sent sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole whoa wowza and she's still in she's still alive she sure is uh so billy pete and jr were sentenced with parole opportunities which shocked people because billy was the actual murderer like he actually shot the gun but he was given a lighter sentence yeah in june of 2015 billy was granted parole All three men in the killing have now been released and walk free.

But Pamela is still in prison and she has lost every appeal and been denied audiences to plead her case. Wow. Yep. So what a wild tale. Some people think Pamela orchestrated the entire plan and deserves this life sentence. Other people think it's really unfair that she got such a long sentence and all three of the men are already out.

It's just a big controversy surrounding this case. And although Pamela was by no means a good person, there was so much public notoriety around the case that it was basically impossible for her to have like a non-biased trial or like a jury who you know how sometimes they move move a trial to a different city and this was just such a big highly publicized case that it was like impossible to do yeah and i mean international opinion was against her from the start so she was kind of in trouble from day one um i mean like even just like the the bragging about it to the kids like that's why i was originally has i was like is she able to like go to sleep at night and like think that nothing's wrong like she's not gonna get caught

like that's a real that's a real ego move to be like oh no one's gonna catch me even though i'm also trying to direct news coverage and tell people who will definitely gossip about this like yeah it's weird it is weird and you just wonder like what was the real backstory like did she actually tell the kids i don't know i i feel like she probably had a hand in it but i don't know i don't know it's hard to say oh but i don't know that's weird for what it's worth she maintains her innocence in interviews. She openly owns up to her affair with Billy, but she insists that she did not plan the murder and that losing Gregory was the worst thing that ever happened to her. So, you know, maybe the kids did it of their own accord and just blamed her.

Maybe, you know, maybe. Yeah, maybe not. But hey, great opportunity for the PSA that boys can be essayed as well oh absolutely great moment uh absolutely teachable moment and also as you were saying earlier like i even had to stop and think like oh would i have known that it was happening to me if it was happening to me and i mean obviously the answer is no if it's happening across the world. So yeah, no, it happens all the time. It's, it's, it's scary. Yeah. Well, geez, I got, that's a, that was a, that was a heavy hitter. It's a doozy.

That was a doozy. Um, wow. Life without parole. I, all right. All right. I mean, too late to do anything now, I guess. Wow. And, uh, that,. And that was in 1990?

Early 1990? Yes. Yes, sir. So in jail for 30 years. Yep. Yep. So she would be 55-ish now in jail. Born in 67.

Yeah. You're so good at math. Look at me go. Wow. All right. Well, thank you for my reason, another reason to drink, I guess. You're so welcome. Are you feeling okay?

I feel like this is the most you've probably talked in a while. Yeah. I'm feeling just a little scratchy. Great. I am very happy to be doing this virtually and not near you. Yay, me too. Are you up for an after chat? Yeah, let's do an after chat.

It'll give me a chance to blow my nose beforehand. Okay, what if the whole after chat was me just trying to see how long it took until you couldn't bear it any longer i would just do it right in front of you i don't yeah all right well thank you everyone um next time we see you um is going to be our halloween episode and then after that is going to be our 300th folks and our 300th is particularly interesting it is it's interesting i'm just telling you now and uh we by the way we've only missed one episode ever uh we've only missed one week ever of episodes and had we not missed the episode which we don't regret but had we not missed that one week we are aware that our 300th episode would have landed squarely on halloween

how beautiful would that have been oh we were so close anyway um anyway i guess we'll see you next week for our halloween episode can't wait and that's why we drink