And That's Why We Drink - E299 A Lesson in Filaments and a Future Ghost Prank

Episode Date: October 30, 2022

Happy Halloweekend, boozers and shakers!! We can't believe we missed a Halloween/300th celebration crossover by one episode but we'll take it. Episode 299 is a spooky doozy in and of itself! On our favorite holiday Em lets Christine pick the paranormal topic in real time so she requests the haunted San Diego staple, Hotel del Coronado. Then Christine brings us a creepy cold case in the story of Jane Marie Prichard. And do you happen to know what Mothman's fanbase is called? We're going with the Mothbabes... and that's why we drink!We're getting sentimental about how few Here for the Boos shows we have left! Come see us for our last hurrah of this very special spooky show! andthatswhywedrink.com/live  

Hey, Boozers and Shakers, we are coming at you live. We're so excited for a fall tour. It'll be the final installment of our current Here for the Booze tour. The final, I think, 10 shows, something like that. Something like that. for the booze one last time this is it folks before we do our next big big big tour so hopefully you can make it to the next few cities if you want to you can check out uh our tickets at and that's why we drink.com slash live we can't wait to see you there some shows are already sold out so get hi happy halloween also i have a surprise for you i made it myself what oh wait why isn't it working you made it yourself i made a bunch of emojis of what is this? Well, also the Captain America shield's apparently showing up every now and then because it's a Zoom background. I love it.

But the rest of it are all random stock photos of creepy things because it is creepy day. Happy Halloween. Okay, well, I made something for you too. Hold on a second. Oh, gosh. I didn't make it. It actually has the person's signature on it so i want to be clear this is my i love it also your mothman background you're a little when you sit in front of it it's like your brain has wings i know i'm mothman if

only i had red eyes but yeah this person who ever drew it signed it in the bottom. So they get full credit. I did not. I'm not like a deviant art expert. You know, I purchased these stock photos so I could use them. You did not. I did. So the credit is all me, folks. They were like a dollar each.

So it wasn't that big of a deal. Good for you. You got aliens in there. I love them. I tried to get a little of every bit of razzle dazzle i could i think the only thing i'm missing is a cryptid and you just handled that and i'm on it okay it's at the end of the day our brains are still somewhat always uh in sync i think oh well happy halloween christine are you are you eating any yummy candy do you have a favorite candy you're hoping to get

a whole bucket of you know I love a Kit Kat and that's probably I love a Reese's and a Kit Kat a peanut M&M I love a peanut M&M but you know that already yeah I love a Twizz I love all of it I have always thought about getting you um uh like a Princessaries pizza, but with peanut M&Ms on it. But then I was like, you know what? That's a really gross combo. But the thought is there. That's honestly, and with the background of that movie being one of my favorite movies ever, I think it would really touch my heart. I just think of you as Anne Hathaway, and I just so badly want to be a rocker.

So, you know, together. Look how he looks like he's standing on my shoulder it's like he's your little pirate parrot hello he's my little familiar my little red-eyed familiar what sound do you what sound do you think he'd make oh did you hear that me juniper is meowing he's doing the voiceover for Mothman. Hang on, hang on. Why is he screaming? He's saying happy Halloween. He's actually just mad that he can't get out the window on the third floor of my house. Oh, well, he'll get over it. He thinks I need to let him out. Oh, and to answer your question, I love a good Twix.

That's really all I need. Love a good Twix, also. Milky Way, you know, any caramel. Left or right Twix. That's really all I need. Love a good Twix also. Milky Way, you know, any caramel. Left or right Twix. Remember those hilarious commercials. Left. I saw something on TikTok where there actually was shockingly a difference where one had more caramel versus one had more wafer. But that could have just been like a TikTok, you know.

Which one's the one with more caramel? Left or right? I think the right one and the left one's more cookie. I want the more cookie one. Me too. left or right i think the right one and the left one's more cookie i want the more cookie one me too so even if it's not true someone should pay that tiktoker for like making me now one who actively go find all the left twigs so that's funny well uh do you have any halloween reasons why you drink at all well you know i'm dressing leona as a tomato. I know. I'm so excited. Did we talk about that on the podcast or just on the after chat?

I think maybe just the after chat. Oh, well, Leona's getting dressed up as a tomato because it's her favorite food. And I bought a little red sweatsuit and I bought some felt from Michael's and I'm going to cut her a little collar of green. So she's going to be my little tomato. I'm going to be a witch what are you are you gonna dress up at oh you're dressing up for a show right i'm dressing up for a show which is today as this episode comes out ah well hey atlanta um hopefully you like my costume later today wink wink i'm already nervous um that's also assuming that everything came in on time so it might be a

really weird half costume so we'll see how it goes you're gonna have to bring a costume because you've promised a costume i will bring a costume but i really hope it's the one that i want it to be otherwise it's gonna be a really random like everyone's gonna be like why the hype up and i'm like i don't know i'll just borrow leona's tomato costume honestly that could be cute yeah i think so i'm excited for you to be a witch are you going to be a witch at our show i guess so because it's easy we sell those hats now on the website and i got one for myself maybe just and i always wear black so it's like just you know lean into it a little bit yeah that sounds good to me i was lemon one year um when we did

our halloween live stream remember when we did a did a Halloween live stream for Patreon and then we got kicked off because we were playing Ghost Adventures in the background? I was doing like a voiceover or like a narration. You and I were commentating on an episode of Ghost Adventures. We were trying to do like a live watching. Watch Ghost Adventures with us and then all of a sudden youtube was like you have been uh suspended from streaming because of copyright violations and uh we which i love that someone somewhere had to log zap bagan's voice as like a violation i'd be like i'd be like this isn't supposed to be here this voice well. Well, I have a story for you.

Actually, here's the situation. This is why I drink, because I'm a little stressed. Uh-oh. Because I did a thing where a while ago, like a few weeks ago, on Instagram, I posted, hey, like, what should this year's Halloween story be? Ooh, okay. And I got some really interesting ones a nut i was shocked that a lot of them weren't like more halloween themed um but i got kind of like the the three tie the three three-way tie seems to be a haunted hotel a haunted ship or um a

cryptid of sorts like a spooky very a famous cryptid okay and uh then i got a fourth runner up option that said make christine pick uh on on site no who did this who did this a lot of people a shock with these people so to make it easy on you but also slightly difficult on me because i didn't get to fully solidly prepare the way I usually would. But I decided to put all of those together. And I would like you to pick which of those three would you like today for Halloween? So you did notes for all of them? I found a set of notes I hadn't covered before. And then I already had one in my drafts. And then I did a set of notes. So it was a bit of a headache but i wanted to give

the people what they wanted and the majority could not figure it out but i should have done like a poll and like of the top three what do you guys want but i also like the idea of making you pick and it being a choose your own adventure for halloween oh my gosh i am thrilled what are my options now haunted ship haunted hotel or cryptid orid. And the cryptid is like a famous one, not like a, like, not an underdog. It would be one that you definitely would be excited to hear about. Oh, the famous underdog? The famous spooky cryptid? Can you imagine if I just covered the show Underdog for like five seconds?

Oh, that'd be fun. There was a haunted hotel, a haunted ship, and then a cryptid. I mean, we got to do a haunted hotel. Okay. Because that is just like the spooky, like we're going to be traveling on Halloween or like right around Halloween. I don't know. Okay. Well, then we'll do a haunted hotel.

Yay! Let me pull that one up. Also, we're going to New Orleans soon. And you know, I love a New Orleans haunted soon and you know i love a new orleans haunted hotel i know you love a haunted hotel i do i kind of assumed this was going to be the one i know i felt i feel kind of bad i was like should i have just like 180 and like pulled a pulled a punch and like really plot twist but but no i will tell you uh the other one in the top five uh potentials everyone was saying I needed to bring back the Hercine Shifter.

I was like, I don't think anyone realizes the mental damage I did to myself trying to create that. It took a lot out of you. Let's put it that way. So just know, I think between my Hercine Shifter story and your, what was the one? Clement? Oh, my God. What the fuck was its name cletus cletus cletus the name that you literally told me about days before and then somehow your name fit perfectly into cletus as an anagram it was so weird so between the two of those i think we've got it you know we've done. We're so beautiful that this would work better.

Here is a story that I thought I had covered. That's why I had the notes. I must have done it maybe for like a live show all the way back in like 2018 or 2019 or something. Because I'm like, why do I have these notes? It's not maybe it's in our book. or 2019 or something because i'm like why do i have these notes it's not maybe it's in our book um but anyway here are some notes i found that um we're all gonna explore together at the same time this is something you have heard me talk about before the hotel del coronado oh spooky and out of paranoia uh i just want to double double double check that i've never covered this. I checked last night and it said no on our website, but I just am paranoid.

I've definitely heard of it, but I don't know why. I think that's why I never covered it because we talked about it so much that I think I was just like. Where is it? I have to have covered it. Coronado. No, it's not there. All right. So we're in the clear, folks.

All right. By the way, shout out to our episode guide list you can find on our website. Okay. Yeah, Em works very hard on that. Thank you. Okay. So here's the hotel tell. Here, Eva.

Sorry. I knew Eva would have something to say. She said, we also posted about it on our haunted road trip bucket list on Instagram way back in the day. That's got to be it. So that might be also where we remember it from. These might have also been like emergency notes at some point. I really am unsure of what happened. It's a Halloween mystery. Ooh, if you had said that up front, we wouldn't have had to even choose.

That's true. Mystery all the way. These just came from me from another alternate reality, I suppose, where I covered it already um okay hotel dell and the history is pretty uh seemingly brief we really i really leaned into the ghosts on this one so um okay the hotel dell it opened in 1888 we know it fondly and it was it's a national landmark one of the largest wooden buildings in the U.S. Ooh la la. Fun fact. It became known as the Talk of the Western World. It was later nicknamed the Lady by the Sea.

Oh my my. Where is this place? This is in San Diego, California. It's in Southern California. I think San Diego. Okay. Hang on. I should know that. I'm sorry. Why is that not even written down? I don't know. You'd think if I'm going to make you stay there one day. It's in San Diego. Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. So the hotel has a slogan and I got to tell you, it's just about the dandiest slogan I ever did see. Okay. I would like you to come up with a slogan eventually for me that sounds as enthralling.

It has to rhyme with Cletus, so I'll work on it. Cletus, that would be like a xenon situation, like Cletus Lapetus, you know? Cletus. Okay, let's move on quickly. Okay, so the hotel slogan, which whoever wrote it, you deserve a big hug and a trophy and money. Free from malaria, hay fever, mad dogs, cold snaps or cyclones. I like that it's not and cyclones. That's it?

That's it. That's the slogan? Oh my God. It's just free from those five things, but apparently only one at a time. I also love that that's what makes it stand apart, whereas other hotels are known for their mad dogs and cyclones. This one is like, you can get your hay fever somewhere else. Yeah, you can and you will, but you come here. So this place was not only known for its apparently amazing slogan but it was also um very swanky it had over 750 rooms and it had an 11 000 square football room like 11 000 i thought you said football

oh you said square foot ball room and i said a football room i'm honestly that would to some people that would be very swanky so um so they also had 34 billiard rooms billiard tables oh my god not i was like okay they so that's a problem it had 34 billiard tables bowling alleys and it had a dining room that could seat a thousand people it had tennis courts it had a japanese tea garden it had an olympic sized saltwater pool yeah and to top it all off for a sprinkle of razzle dazzle it had an ostrich farm whoa i didn't see that coming and you're not gonna see this coming either thomas edison oversaw the light installations no way like what what do you mean like you just like told them how the lights worked while they put them in you just you just screw it in actually it's there here's the filament i think is what it's called they had

um uh i wanted to say last week i talked about the school room the one the schoolhouse i went to and they actually had like a lot of the schoolhouses will have this and it's usually the exact same piece of paper. So if you I don't have to buy it a million times, but they usually have like a wall of like charts that look like they're from the 1870s and you can buy them for yourself. So you feel like you're looking at the real class schedule and like rules from the teacher and like things like that. rules of from the teacher and like things like that the schoolhouse i just went to had a new piece of paper i hadn't seen before where it was the old it looked like the old flyer to warn the teachers about how the lamps worked because edison bulbs had just been installed no i was like now that's fun that's pretty damn cool the teachers are like really we got to learn a whole nother thing now damn it oh my god christine i have to tell you by the way

oh my god speaking of like having to learn a whole new technology i just stayed as you know because i was late to recording today sorry i just stayed at this hotel last night and my friend she's a flight attendant whenever she comes in town we always have a sleepover and so i get to like stay at different hotels in my own town which is super fun but there's this one hotel i'm not going to say the name because i don't want to insult them but please also never make me stay there because the technology i couldn't i felt like i was 90 000 years old i couldn't figure out how anything worked the elevators i've never it was a digital elevator do you know what that means no it honestly rocked my world and like in such a confusing way it was okay so first of all they

had two elevators they were one of those buildings where no they had three elevators they had that you had to take all of them in the right sequence so i know i don't understand uh they had a elevator just for parking so once you parked your car you had to take an elevator just to get to the lobby then to get to the lobby uh once you're in the lobby you have to take an elevator just to get to the lobby then to get to the lobby uh once you're in the lobby you have to take elevator number two which only takes you up to a certain amount of floors like the like floor one isn't the lobby you have to go to the first floor to go to a lobby that's like 10 more floors up okay then from there you have to take another elevator to get to your rooms okay but each of these elevators i'm not kidding don't have buttons huh don't have buttons so like you have to the parking

one had a button but then the other two elevators you had to rely on your room key which like how do you even get your like how do you take the initial elevator to the lobby without a room key i don't understand it um thank god i was with someone else the whole time but you have to use your room key to basically where the buttons would be for you to call an elevator usually there was just a screen and you put your room key to it and then there would be um it would you would have to type in your floor and then it would show and then it would show you different numbers to let you know what elevator to walk to to get to the elevator that was going that was now pre-programmed to take you to your floor specifically. Oh, my God.

It was such a nightmare. So anyway, let's just say I can relate to the people who had to use these Edison bulbs for the first time. To these 1800s school teachers. I was like, this is, like, who thought of this? This is not user-friendly at all. No, it doesn't sound like it i'll be honest with you i only figured it out on my way out to drive away and never come back imagine like getting stuck in one of those elevators and there's just no buttons and you're like well i

can't even call that's what it said there was only one button and it was the phone in case there was emergency i was like this is beyond i can't this is such a nightmare. And then they even, they had to know it was a problem because there were like attendants at each of the hallways that had different elevators that were programmed to take you to only certain sets of rooms. And so they had attendants to be like, this is the hallway to the elevators that take you to these rooms. Like they had to pay other people to stand there and tell you how to use the non-attendant elevator this is yeah that's when you know like maybe you've stretched it a

little too much it's like why don't you just pay for buttons and then nobody has to you know i just stayed in a hotel in chicago that had a tv in the mirror in the bathroom mirror that's funky but it was like you can't really see it no you couldn't and it was so grainy and it was about like it was like this big it was tiny and there was a remote on the um and i also stayed in a recent hotel in san where were we i forget somewhere and um the freaking uh toilet had a remote. I was like, whoa. Like a full-size remote. That's going to be the dirtiest remote I've ever seen.

I know. I was like, yikes. And it had all the different bidets and heated. And I sat on it in the middle of the night. It was like warm. And I was like, okay, this is tripping me out. All these different buttons. But the TV in the mirror was like, somebody thought this was cool 10 years ago. And now it's like already outdated because it's so grainy.

You can't even see it like from the shower or the toilet. So like, or even when you're looking like I've seen those mirror screens and like, unless it's like a super duper, holy crap, expensive one. Like you still see your reflection the whole time. Exactly. It's like I was watching like PBS. I turned it on. It was like Antiques Trojo, but my dumb face was like hovering over all the antiques.

You're the antique. I am. Honestly, that makeup mirror told me so. I looked at it and I went, oh, God, this is too clear of a mirror. Anyway, sorry. So, yes, high tech hotels. We're already too old for this shit. I, yeah, I never, I always thought, oh, when I get older, I'll totally keep up with the

times. I won't be like everyone else. We'll never be like my parents. I'm never going to ask what the cloud is. Right. That elevator really humbled me. So anyway, that's how I feel today. Okay.

So Thomas Edison oversaw the light installations, which yes, for all I know, means he just like watched people. He gave like a lesson in filaments. Okay. So those are some of the fun facts another fun fact about the hotel dell is in 1904 the hotel had the first in the entire country outdoor electrically lit christmas tree oh that is a fun fact i think that's so fun i love that um and then here are just some of the guests this might be outdated because again these notes if i were to like look at the information on it it might be a few years old but at the time

that i wrote these notes uh the guests of people who have come here were presidents harrison mckinley taft wilson roosevelt bush obama and several celebrities including a personal fave orville reidenbacher. Oh my goodness. And he actually lived here for 20 years until he died. He lived there? He lived there for 20 years. Okay. Actually, you know what? If I were a Benton kind of fella, I would say, I think this is a chapter in our book because I remember talking about Orville Redenbacher in our book. I like how that springs the memory nothing else none of the thomas edison none of the crazy facts about hang on yeah just

the popcorn king he did it he did it i'm getting my book to see i gotta have my book somewhere oh it's under all these other books i don't want to pull it out by the way that's something they don't tell you like once you write a book you don't always remember everything you put in there. Oh, wait, it is in there. Is it? Yeah, almost positive. 185 if you'd like to read along people. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I already see his name, Orville Redenbacher. Okay, so there we go. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I also see Ostrich Farm. So, you know, i definitely did do these notes for the book you knew what you were talking about for sure uh-huh uh-huh okay well that'll do it that'll do it also in the book by the way i wrote uh to be honest it oh hang on most many notable

people have stayed here including orville redenacher, who lived here for 20 years until his death. And then I said, in parentheses, to be determined if his ghost has popped by. Lord, Em, ouch. That hurt me. Just a taste of what you can get. It's painful. Yeah. We're trying to sell this book, not, you know, just kidding. Very good.

Very good, Em. Thank you. Thank you. Snaps for me. Snaps for you. Okay. So, yeah, he lived in this i would like more information on why he lived there for 20 years like what was the situation he couldn't afford

his own home or because this was so elaborate expensive to live in i feel like he was probably just like super rich at the time he was like taking care of know, you got people doing your cleaning and all that. You got 34 billiard rooms. He's got Thomas Edison original first edition light bulbs. So this is also where King Edward VIII met his wife, who he later gave up the throne for. Fun fact. And this is where Stephen King was inspired to write 1408. Oh, my God. Fun, fun, fun, everybody.

This is a cool place. So in 1958, this is where they filmed Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe. And a fun fact about her behind the scenes is that Marilyn Monroe ate a chilled vanilla souffle with meringue on top every day. But no popcorn. Can you imagine how insulted Orville was? Oh, he was pissed. He was like, I'm right upstairs. You could smell it from down there.

I could have just, like, craft services never contacted me. That's so fucked up. Really embarrassing, honestly. Also, the room rates, I want you to guess at the time. This was in the early 1900s. Oh, no. Opened in 1888. In 1888, what do you think the room rates were want you to guess at the time this was in the early 1900s oh no open in 1888 in 1888 what do you think the room rates were per day six dollars close it was two to 250 per day

okay so not close so a third to us close okay yeah close close in today's money maybe yeah um two dollars two dollars to 250 so no wonder orville was hanging out there for two dollars a day he's like this is great uh also the resort once had a separate dining room and an entrance both of them for single women oh no that's so fucking rude like if you're married welcome all but if you're single there's the door oh boy yeah spinsters were not welcome no no and then there's the story of kate morgan and i think this is why i keep thinking i'd had covered the story before because she is one of the most notable ghosts here and i feel like every hotel has a ghost named kate and i don't understand what's going on i think uh we hit the double whammy um a couple episodes ago when there was a woman named

kate who was the woman in red who the whole lost at sea thing so yes double like triple triple facta triple facta trifecta triple facta that's what they call it okay so kate is the uh most notable ghost and her story is that she was born in iowa in 1864 and she was sent to live with her grandfather um and as an adult she married a man named thomas edwin morgan but they were not happy and a few years into their relationship kate left her husband and ran off with a man named albert allen who was thomas's step brother oh my god indeedy and it suggested that their relationship was also an unhappy one you know keeping it in the family it didn't probably didn't start hot you know um didn't venture far enough from the family so thanksgiving 1892 uh kate checks into hotel dell under the name not kate morgan but mrs lottie a bernard from detroit how much fun do you think she had coming

up with that little that fake little name i know mrs lottie a i like how she was like we're gonna get creative enough to throw an initial in there but i don't know what it stands for but but she's like but if somebody asks i'm gonna have to come up with it on the spot it's a little exciting game for me you know even i don't know what's even i don't know so uh fun fact she entered the hotel through the single lady's entrance um and she mostly kept to herself and she was in frequent contact with the housekeeper who often visited her room and this is where the story gets kind of complicated because she's by herself she's really only talking to the housekeeper she's going by this other name

and either this is version one she said that she was diagnosed with a some sort of stomach like a cancer or something a terminal illness that um and it was at this hotel where she was going to meet her brother who's a doctor and he was going to kind of update her on her prognosis okay so that's story one but she made that up we think so okay the other story that she made up what or that people say she made up is that she got separated from her boyfriend on the train and this was just their meetup location and she was waiting for him to find her at the hotel okay sure which i love that maybe this was more common back in the day i do remember this being a more common thing but it just kind of hits me to realize like oh yeah

people had to discuss meeting up spots in case they got lost oh yeah um and so i like how they picked like let's go to that really bougie hotel that hell yeah that way that way when i show up and i don't know when you're coming i don't really care because i can just spend weeks here right there's so much to do so much so many billiard rooms to explore so many light bulbs to see turn on by themselves um and so that's either one of those stories where she was waiting for her brother who's a doctor or she was waiting for her boyfriend who she got separated from okay and the hotel staff testified later that they remember her looking like she was in pain but actually refused a doctor so i guess they she could come up with a story of like oh no my brother is the doctor

i trust okay um but the next day even though she looked like she was in pain one night hotel staff said later the next day she was asking for wine she asked for a jigger of whiskey she asked for painkillers and malaria pills to all be brought to her room well well well you know how they feel about malaria at this place oh Oh, yeah. Well, you know what a bunch of painkillers and alcohol will do if you mix them together. Oh, yeah. I was just still thinking about the slogan of the hotel. I wasn't even thinking about the other part. No, your part is definitely more fun to talk about because I was wondering with the slogan, I was like, where does malaria come into play? but i guess they found a way to insert it into their story the anti-malaria pills you could ever want

i know hay fever got it but the flu no no no no you're on your own there no therapy here uh so they brought up a bunch of alcohol and painkillers and a few days passed and no guy either a brother or boyfriend ever showed up and by november 28th, three days after Thanksgiving, Kate went out and she bought a handgun. She went out to the veranda and she died by suicide. Oh, no. And the hotel's assistant electrician found her the next day. But cops tried to find her family and they couldn't so even though she said she had a brother they don't know who it was um they found out that

lottie wasn't her name i don't totally know how but because they found out that lottie was not her name the press ended up nicknaming her the beautiful stranger whoa And her employer in L.A. ended up seeing the picture in the paper of the beautiful stranger and was able to reach out and say, oh, I know who that is. The beautiful stranger is actually named Kate Morgan. Oh, my goodness. But so now we don't know if Kate Morgan or Lottie Bernard was the fake name. We don't know which one. I guess Kate Morgan was probably her name because her employer had it. Her employer knew. knew right right um but while she worked for the employer she said that she was married to a gambler um and she left her job to travel with her husband so others remember her saying brother it gets very complicated and we just don't really know what her story was she

was clearly on the run um or she was clearly trying to avoid people finding out who she was yeah yeah um so theories suggest that her and this man that she was waiting on were con artists and they would travel around and either swindle people out of money um something like that and then the guy just never came or that the guy never existed and she just she thought someone was coming and they didn't and so she died by suicide because of that or she could just been really depressed and just you know we don't know the real story so why the alcohol and pills then i wonder if it was just like to have like the last couple days to just kind of maybe in a it escape or maybe she because i thought that's how she was gonna die i did too

i wonder if it was an attempt and it didn't work. I don't know. Right, right, right. Okay. So days before she actually arrived at the Hotel Del and this whole story starts, witnesses say that they did see her on a train with a man heading towards San Diego. Okay. But then those people said that they saw them get in a huge fight and parted ways and that's when she must have showed up at the hotel. those people said that they saw them get in a huge fight and parted ways and that's when she must have showed up at the hotel so we really don't know the situation at all but allegedly there was a man involved and he never met up with her oh no um so she is now buried uh in mount hope

cemetery as lottie anderson bernard i don't know where anderson comes from a a Bernard. I don't know where Anderson comes from. A. Yeah, but I don't know who picked it. Somebody got to pick it. It's not fair. She didn't even get to pick her middle name. Maybe that housekeeper she was friends with asked, like, what's the A stand for?

Maybe. Yeah. So she's buried in Mount Hope Cemetery as Lottie Anderson Bernard, a.k.a. Kate Morgan. Okay, I see, I see. And the coroner, by the way, to see if the original story of, like, oh, she had some sort of really bad stomach illness and her brother's a doctor, a coroner said that she was far too young for stomach cancer

and there was no sign of it showed in his autopsy. Intriguing. That one is pretty debunked. Another clue. It's also theorized that her stomach might have been hurting because maybe she was pregnant and wasn't telling anybody and maybe she with the pills and alcohol was trying to okay okay and that might have been the topic that led to a fight on the train with this guy you know like maybe like she said i'm pregnant and i don't i don't want the baby and then yeah or maybe he didn't want the baby and so yeah he left her who knows oh gosh oh yeah

maybe he left her when he found out she was pregnant yeah so yeah we don't totally know but in the 1980s the case was looked at again and it could have actually been a homicide homicide because of the position of the gun and the upward trajectory of the bullet and the fact that the bullet didn't mash her gun so it could have looked like it was a cover-up like someone just left another gun there oh my god oh no it suggests that maybe whoever she was waiting for to show up actually did show up just to kill her and then leave but since it was so long ago the case has not been reopened again so wow um and there is a store in the hotel called kate's it's on the lower level of the hotel named a store after her

yeah that's cute i think that's cute i'd love a store named after me i hope she's like beaming about that um so the store is named after her uh in honor. And the other two rooms that are most haunted in the hotel, other than Kate's room, are both where pregnant women died by suicide. Oh, no. So that in a paranormal way almost confirms, not confirms, but makes you think like, oh, maybe if the other two had that happen and there was a story that makes it sound like that could have been her situation, too. And all those three rooms are haunted. Maybe that's what happened to her. There's another story of a little girl and her favorite doll that she brought everywhere with her. But she became extremely sick at the hotel and was taken to the doctor.

And no one thought to grab the doll and she died without it. Stop. And so now they think that she haunts the hotel looking for her doll i know i know i know i wanted to say that when like a band-aid rip it off yeah so here are some of the other ghosts um or uh other hauntings i suppose so the most haunted rooms are booked over a year in advance for the most part so if you wanted to be in kate morgan's space good luck um also the cleaning staff they like to work in pairs to avoid being alone anywhere um i'm sure there's some like you know more uh macho uh staff people who are like i can dandle it but i would definitely be someone who wanted to buddy system uh electronics will unplug themselves and your electronics will go missing uh footsteps run past your bed absolutely not forget it

uh they're very strong floral scents that will make you wake up in the middle of the night because the perfume is so overwhelming for the smell people hear women and babies crying which is super sad um pictures of orbs have been found floating next to kate's room people have seen groups of women dressed in victorian clothing walking around that's cool i i think so too and i always wonder if i'd be one of those people who the ghosts think oh i'm stupid enough to think this is like a reenactment like i want them to think i'm i would think that you know like yeah yeah yeah yeah i want them to think i'm i would think that you know like yeah yeah yeah yeah i want them to think i could fall for it because i would because we both would probably

we both would i'd be like that's exactly oh man a reenactment i gotta go find them and then it goes uh people feel themselves being watched or being grabbed at uh people have had their tv switching on and off by themselves they've heard voices and whispers there's a face that's known to appear in reflections which is not yours during antique road show and uh especially there's reflections of faces in the tvs when they're not being used now that i certainly can't get into goose cam um especially if you're just lying in bed and your tv's off but you can see like over oh you can see a reflection of someone else sitting in the room with you i certainly beg to differ terrible apparently your ears will ring until you can't hear anything

i don't know if that was someone with just like particularly bad tinnitus but um you know whatever i it hasn't happened to me so i don't know. There's a quote from someone who says, I started to hear my name. It sounded muffled. And then it was like the entire hallway was echoing my name. Ew. I don't like it. Ew.

People look into mirrors and see distorted versions of themselves. Nah. That's out of a horror film. And there have been cases where there's no reflection at all. What? No. That's a new one. That's a horror film. And there have been cases where there's no reflection at all. Oh, what? No, that's a new one. Now that's a new one. That is.

People sense deep sadness. They sense your throat closing up. They have dreams of a woman in a black dress standing over you. There are reports of a woman wearing black 1800s garb gliding down the corridors which is just so perfectly haunted and the same woman is seen standing by the windows and trying to open locked doors and so people think maybe that's kate because she's like trying to get out on the roof or something um there's a guest that put her necklace in the closet safe and when she opened the box the necklace was literally tied up in several knots well that's just rude that's so fucking mean that's the hardest thing when you're trying to untangle one of those chains especially if it's in a safe you

know that that means it was also expensive like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it wasn't like a dollar general necklace that you can just toss like you have to figure it out untangle that shit now and like and what was the point like what is the point like what was that for was that just you as a ghost being inconvenient for everybody if you want to be that's there's a difference i promise you i will be uh inconveniencing everyone as it goes but i will not be a grade a dick like that's a dick move. It isn't honestly. It's probably for the best because I tangle my necklaces all by myself. I don't need a ghost to do it.

All my necklaces are tangled anyway. Yeah. Oh, that's a, that's a wild one. I, no, I have, I will have standards. You have limits. Yeah. Like there's some ways where it's funny and then there's other times

where it's absolutely not fucking funny. Yeah. I do appreciate your understanding. Thank you. I'm just telling you now because we both know I'm probably gonna go before you so like let's just i'm gonna blame i'm gonna try to blame you for the necklace thing even though i just told you i do it to my own necklaces all the time i'll be like fucking m and eva's gonna have to be like m literally outright told you that that's not their fault okay i'm glad that you're seeing the situation i i because i am trying to preemptively let you know where my boundaries lie you know i'm gonna blame you for every fucking inconvenience

of my life i will absolutely steal your keys just to go like haha but then like if you actually need like to go to like get your like remicade i'm not gonna steal your keys you know like there's a difference thank you you're welcome but uh if i were well we could get into that forever but just we'll do an after chat on it okay uh the light over the steps where kate died will not stay lit which is interesting so the it's like the electricity won't won't keep up uh maybe because they're still edison's original 1800 bulbs but i was actually just thinking that uh there's flickering lights everywhere again edison bulbs i don't know what to tell you oh

my god sorry i thought i was imagining it but then now i see it a literal light bulb in my room just went out bye absolutely not i will oh well let me turn my background off because as you said they will not stay lit the corner of my room went dark. And I thought, that's odd. But I was like, maybe the clouds shifted. And now I'm looking at the ceiling. I'm like, no, the light bulb over there completely went out. I hate it.

Happy Halloween. I know, for real. So here are my, oh, there's one light bulb. But now the one. I don't know how to turn this. you need like an old teacher's like stick to point at the blackboard can you see like my corner over there yeah it's gone light above that is is out it just went dark but it was right when you said the light won't stay lit where she died you know what i mean about that is that my, like, I'm in your headphones. So in theory, nothing in your room should be hearing me.

You're right. No, it's listening all around. I didn't even think of that. It knows no space or time. It just is everywhere all at once. Talk about boundaries. I mean, geez. Yeah.

Yeah, truly. Get out of her headphones. What's wrong with you? Get out of my headphones. As the next light goes. I know. This is one by one one all the light bulbs but that was pretty creepy especially because like it's it's the only one right and like i can see happen right in front of me and i was standing

here going what went dark over there oh my god literally a light bulb went out firm pass the timing was very odd okay i'm gonna say i did that on purpose that was actually my future ghost trying to play a prank on both of us. Honestly, it was probably you in the past when you took a nap up here. You probably unscrewed the light bulb just to a point where one day it'll go out. One time I took a nap in Christine's house while our manager was also staying with Christine. And the manager, I think, the manager. This is how little I think of Maggie during this story. This is how little I think of Maggie during this story. Everyone else who has experienced and witnessed me taking a nap knows that it's one, not a pretty sight. And two, once I'm asleep, like I'm unconscious.

And I told you I was going to go take a nap. And I don't know if our manager knew that because all of a sudden she came up and just started talking to me. And she was like, oh, we have to leave for something. And it wasn't her fault because we did have to leave for something but i was i needed someone to be mad at and i was so upset with her i was like i'm in the middle of the best nap of my life on the best like christine has this one little nook in her house that i'm not kidding is the best nap i've ever it's the best nap i've ever had underneath this fucking light bulb that just went out so good luck but i remember thinking before I even got to your house, I was like, I'm going to fly across country. And I know exactly where I'm going to take my nap. It's going to be so good. And I never get to sleep in this spot because I'm never here.

And then all of a sudden, within 20 minutes, she was like, oh, we have to go to something. And I was like, you have no idea what torment you have caused me. She actually did because she said, can you go wake Em? And I said, absolutely not. I'm not participating in that. And I said, you're the manager. You do it. And so she said, fine, I'll do it. And so that's how Maggie ended up being the one to come up here and get you. Maggie, if you're listening, I'm sorry. I absolutely refused. It wasn't your fault. But also I've really I become such a child with my naps. Wow. were we oh yeah flickering lights the lights went out spooky spooky so the lights will flicker but also fixtures will swing on their own aka chandeliers

which i just don't like do you have any chandeliers is it gonna swing i do i'm looking at it now and it is stock still okay good phew future ghost me if you'd like to fuck around and find out right now you can swing that little chandelier if you're listening in my ears like you were a minute ago i probably got bored i took a nap i heard us talking about it and i was like well that sounds probably why you turned that fucking light off you were like it's too bright in here bedtime um dark figures speaking of naps and going completely wrong dark figures will pull sheets off of the bed. So beg to differ. Yikes.

Guests, their speakerphone or their intercom will keep turning on and off in the middle of the night. Gross. That would be annoying as hell. Try this one on for size. Alarm clocks will stay on all night. That's so fucking annoying. This is just like the house of oddball activity. Yeah.

There's a spirit of a girl that said to run around in guest rooms. The rooms will get untidied and the staff will think that the girl or the rooms will untidy themselves. And the staff thinks that that's the girl who is going through people's stuff looking for her doll. Wait. Or just looking through their stuff. Or looking through her stuff. I think that's, why not, you know, as it goes. A woman will follow you down the hall.

She mirrors all of your actions. And then she will smile at you and disappear. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Christine, we've talked about so many things on this show. And that is one for the books. That's one of the worst. Like mirroring you. That's like out of a Jordan Peele horror film.

Yes. Yes. I wonder if it's like, so if you think you see something in the corner of your eye, but you move and she moves, it's like you think it's your shadow. You know, I had a dream last night that I was looking in the mirror and I moved my arm and the reflection moved a little too slow. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. And so this is not playing well with my subconscious right now. Oh, good.

I'm, well, hey, that's what I'm always aiming for. I know, and you're doing a great job. Another woman in old clothes will stare at you from the ballroom. A shadow will stare at you. Well, no, not at you. Will stare out of the window to the ocean slash garden and then fades away that one i'm cool with like completely not bothering me yeah people will hear conversations right outside their door but no one is there

which i've had that happen to me in a hotel where like i thought people were like really fucking drunk and like not going in their hotel room and we're just talking outside and then i've opened the door to be like hey can you keep it down and it was completely empty well remember it was in new orleans actually where i kept being like why are you knocking on my door non-stop you kept not or was that you who kept hearing knocking one of us kept hearing knocking on the door no you kept gaslighting me into thinking i was somehow next to your door knocking on it you were fucking with me you kept somebody kept knocking and then every time I'd rip the door open, nobody was there. And I was like, Em, are you just like crawling under the door and banging on it? And you were like, I'm legitimately not. I see why you think I would.

Right? Like, okay, I feel crazy and I probably am, but it really did feel like something you would do. I think because I thought I also knew it was something I might do. Every time you texted me, like, are you knocking on my door? I'd be like, have I knocked on your door recently? Remember the time when I did? Yeah, you were like, maybe? You texted me, you were like, I'm on the toilet. And I was like, prove it.

Then I was like, don't prove it. Actually, don't prove it. I never need to prove it to you because every time I call you on the phone, I'm always on the toilet. It's the first thing I tell you. I should have known. I say, Christine, I'm on the potty. I'm ready to talk about stuff. I'm ready to chit chat with you. It's always such a nice place to have a conversation. Okay. The last few things are that the doors and curtains will move on their own. People hear murmurs and coughing and hearty laughter. The screens have fallen off the windows. Again, that could be poor construction um strange glowings and

lights uh are on show up under the doorways of vacant rooms that one i have been able to debunk before um with it being um if it's a window facing like the street you somehow you can still get car lights like a headlight headlight right ums have flown across the room and smashed into walls, especially in the gift shop. Oh, that's not... Like a snow globe is what I'm picturing. Like the things they're trying to sell for money. That's so sad. That's the same person who's knotting up everyone's necklaces.

I guess so. Fucking around. People have woken up to shadows standing beside their window uh people have seen indentations on the bed and the sheets will not stretch back as if something is still sitting on the bed oh it's like tug you tug on it oh no now that i do not enjoy i don't either uh uh apparitions have been seen walking around in the gift shop probably right before they smash something against a wall uh windows and doors open and close guests have said that their bed shakes at night one maid slipped a note under the door asking if an occupant wanted the room cleaned and then a note was sent

back under the door saying yes but it was a vacant room truly get out of town the ghost was just like waiting for somebody to scare it was like like, somebody come in here, please. I like to think there was a ghost like squatting by the door with a pen and paper ready to go at any moment. Anytime. Guests have seen the drapes blowing in the breeze, but the window is shut. Spirits of children are heard running around. Sometimes they will apparently run into you and you'll feel something hit you, but you think it's a kid and there's no one there. run into you and you'll feel something hit you but you think it's a kid and there's no one there um ghosts have been seen uh overseeing the dining room where you think there's an employee there but

it's actually nobody's there guests will hear someone talking in the hotel room but they go inside and nobody is there and ghosts will hear people talking in the bathroom at night but nobody is there oh no there's also gurgling sounds in the bathroom shower curtains moving toilets flushing sinks going on and off and guests will feel vertigo and icy cold spots oh gurgling some have even felt chest pains in a room where a man is said to have died from heart failure oh that's sad and then i'll end with a quote that says at about 2 a.m this is from a guest who had something happen at about 2 a.m i was awakened by exceedingly cold temperatures and the ceiling fan working at high speed the fan remained on for about 30 seconds and then stopped i awoke to find that all the bed pillows had been stacked pyramid

style on top of my computer i that's some poltergeist shit of like things stacking on places that they shouldn't be oh creepy creepy creepy imagine that new orleans hotel if like we woke up and all the pillows were just like stacked in a pyramid on top of your computer on top of my ipad which was playing mysterious music in that same hotel room now that was freaky that was freaky that was freaky that was freaky and m was on the potty i was on the potty and i started screaming and you were like what and i was like i can't blame you for this one because you were on the potty but i swear to god i wasn't touching my ipad i remember you telling me hey something paranormal just happened and my pants were down and i was mid potty experience the ghost knew so perfectly what i was i was mid potty experience the ghost knew so perfectly

what i was i was like i can't even run away if i wanted to right now like this i got nothing i just have to sit here and pants down i just have to wonder if all of a sudden the ghost is gonna think it's so funny to fling the door open and you just see me on the party so fucking rude because we were separate we were in the same room but we were like just the one five minute break where we were in separate spaces something spooky happened so i couldn't like prove to you i wasn't touching it but i remember i was screaming did you turn on music and you were like no how would i do that with your ipad that's over there oh yikes anyway i can't wait to go back to new orleans when this comes out we'll be in new orleans tomorrow or

in a few days so a few days very spooky timing oh yeah well oh and that anyway that's the hotel del coronado and that was so good and so spooky it really was thank you thank you and now i've got notes for the next uh two episodes i can't believe it you're the ones who didn't pick i know it wow that was a good one m honestly a lot of stuff happens there that I hadn't even heard of before like the person mimicking your movements and that is absolutely that's an immediate it's a new one to me red flag like red flag hotel red flag yeah gigantic flag I have actually a cold case for you today oh see, see, I'm always so excited to hear them.

But then I also get so mad because what you're telling me right off the bat is you're good fucking luck finding out. Maybe you'll solve it. I say that every time. I know. I always think like I'm the detective ready for the case. Finally, the right person has come along and it's Em Schultz. They've been waiting all this time just for this moment. Oh, well, you never know.

Maybe you'll have some sort of insight. We'll see. We'll see. Maybe. This is the Jane Marie Pritchard cold case. And I watched, there are a bunch of sources, but one of the YouTube videos I watched was called Killer Bites. And I thought she did a really good job with it.

So just wanted to give her a little shout out. Killer Bites. Fun. Killer Bites. Sorry, you said that was a show or was it a youtube series yeah youtube show um and i thought she did a really good job so jane marie pritchard was born in tacoma park maryland in 1958 and was a very outdoorsy person from from. She grew up on a 38-acre farm and developed a great love for nature and animals. Apparently, during dinnertime, she would come in and give presentations on the different plants she had found out in the yard. Just very sweet.

So had a green thumb, loved planting things, was constantly working in the garden, even as a little kid. Just loved being outside. And she had three siblings two older brothers named greg and keith and a younger sister named beth and she was close with all three of her siblings but she had a special bond with keith who was three years older than her okay one of her brothers described jane as adventurous and independent um she once had

driven from maryland across the country by herself to California when she finished her undergrad degree just to like explore and see what was out there and what she might want to do next. And for that time period, like in the 60s, 70s, like for a young girl to be driving cross country by herself is pretty badass, I think. I think so, yeah. Yeah. And so she was just a very adventurous person. She was also a very good student.

She was valedictorian in high school. She graduated from her bachelor's with honors. And she graduated from her bachelor's in 1980 and started working on a graduate degree in botany at the University of Maryland. And according to her academic advisor, she was a calm person who loved being in nature. And at the time she was studying at the College Park campus of University of Maryland and living in a suburb of Washington, D.C. She also worked at a place called Brookside Gardens, which is a botanical garden in Montgomery County, Maryland. And this is, this was news to me because I had never heard of this before, but she, her research specifically

focused on a native edible plant called hog peanut. Huh? I've never heard of that. Hog peanut, edible plant. I wonder what it tastes like. Maybe, maybe that's why it's called that. Hog? I don't know bacon and peanut sounds pretty good sounds pretty good um but yeah i mean it looks just like a leaf to me so i don't know how i don't know oh wait listen this is the first here what does hog peanut taste like they are sweet and delicious raw with a taste that is more like shelled garden beans than peanuts shelled garden beans so maybe like a snap pea yeah okay yeah is what i'm fine with that i'm you like a snap pea i love a snap pea i'll even

just found that video of us singing veggie tales and eating snap peas in new orleans so i have proof i really i love a good snap pea snap pea. That's probably one of my favorites of the greens. Yeah. I wonder what, if they sell hog peanut at Ralph's. We'll find out. If they, I feel like that's a Trader Joe's move right there. It's definitely like a world market only. So she was studying this hog peanut and she often collected data in blackbird state forest which is a forest

in delaware which was about two hours from her home so at this point jane was finishing up the data collection necessary for her thesis and she was hoping to finish her degree in the next few months her research was described as top-notch she had even been asked to prepare it for publication in a scientific journal hey i know like she was really kicking ass. And she also worked as a teaching assistant and was beloved by the undergrad students that she taught as part of their courses, which was really sweet. As a former TA, I was certainly not beloved by my freshman writing class. I always forget you were a TA. It was so dramatic traumatic that was at bu

right like it yeah what did what was your like what did a curriculum piece look like for you we did college writing so it was like uh it was basically like learning how to write an essay um and did you go into it thinking it'd be fun? No, but they paid a lot of my tuition. So I did it anyway. Okay, that'll do it. That'll do it. Yeah, it was a good experience. Sure. It taught me that I don't want to be a teacher.

So there you go. All right. I had to do office hours and a bunch of students cried and I got emails from parents. They cried because of you? No, they just like cried because like school is hard and, you know, they're freshmen in college and like overwhelmed. And I was like, I'm not equipped for this. Like, I'm about to cry, too.

Like, I'm not much older than you. I'm like two years older than you. We're both crying. We both go to this school. I was like, I'm going to call my mom, too, right after this. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, but they always called me Professor Schieffer. And I was like, please don't call me that.

Please don't call me that please don't call me that please call me professor schieffer as i'm about to walk into my own class of where my where a professor can hear me get called professor yeah exactly i was like i'm not equipped to be i'm not bold enough to pretend like i'm supposed to be here you have to be one of the cool you got to be called christine like if you get a lot you got to let them call you christine i tried i really did. And they were like, professor. And I was like, please, please. Um, actually I had a student DM me recent, not recently, maybe like last year on Twitter and being, be like, Hey, I was one of your students. And, uh, I listened to your podcast now. It's like, well, you're that person's about to get

an earful about how you should have just been called Christine the whole time. I was so traumatized. Okay. Anyway, she had students who loved her. And it seemed all around that she was a pretty studious and kind, friendly person. Very impressive to her professors and her classmates. And, of course, this is where things go wrong so on september 19th of 1986 jane at this point is 28 years old and she stays the night at a friend's house in lewes delaware she packed all of her

research equipment with her and the next morning she left early to drive about an hour to blackbird state forest where she was gonna do some collection for her thesis and around 7 a.m on september 20th she parked her white and blue Chevrolet Blazer on the side of an access road near Blackbird State Forest Road to set up her equipment. So she had tools that stretched from the back of her truck

to about 30 yards into the woods besides the road. Wow, okay. And she was recording the data minute by minute in her scientific journal and around 10 a.m. the entries in her scientific journal abruptly stopped. Oh shit.

Okay. having a wonderful, peaceful fall, autumnal day until they discovered the body of a young woman about 20 feet from her equipment near a trail lying in the forest underbrush. Interesting. Sorry, you might have just said this, but how far away was that from the actual, like where she parked her car and had the equipment? It was right there? About 30 feet. Yeah. 30 feet. Okay. That's what I thought you said. So, okay. So no one, well, I don't know. I don't know how it's going to go, but my first thought is, okay, well she wasn't kidnapped if she's right. She's still found right there. Unless she was kidnapped,

something happened and then they brought her back, but I don't know how this is going to go. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so her body was about 20 feet from her equipment, um, which was like 30 feet from the car. So the couple scrambled to get to a phone. This is pre-cell phone era, obviously. And they called the police who leapt into action. Jane was partially clothed when the hikers found her and investigators determined that she had been killed by shotgun wounds to her back. And she had uh killed essentially by bleeding to death from her left shoulder and neck okay so it was certainly a person was there and killed her and she shot her right right yeah um so man because my first thought was like oh maybe there was like some weird like random wild animal that attacked her right right okay but yeah a gunshot is pretty pretty human in nature pretty human yeah

okay yeah so investigators briefly considered actually an accidental shooting like maybe there was a hunting accident um the so that saturday actually was the hunting season's kickoff weekend and there were about 25 to 50 hunters in the area at the time of jane's death but um the fact that she had like multiple wounds and they were fatal and she was partially undressed like didn't strike as like an accident you know i mean i'm still already leaning into someone took her somewhere else and then brought her back or was there and ran off. Oh, really? Interesting. Why took her somewhere? I don't know why I took her somewhere.

In my mind, it would have to be a more secluded area. But I guess it's by an access road and nobody is, you know, people are driving really fast, so maybe no one would have noticed. I don't know. Yeah, I think she was killed right there, at least based on what they could gather. So they decided this had to be um killing with intent rather than an accidental death um they asked anyone who'd seen jane or her vehicle on saturday to reach out with any information they had and about two days after her death a 27 year

old squirrel hunter named michael p lloyd contacted police with a tip. He said he had seen Jane working in the forest the morning she died, and he noted that there was another hunter nearby whom he described to police sketch artists. And in a later interview, he said he felt it was his civic duty to contact police and let them know what he had seen. Okay. So investigators closed off the crime scene. They scoured the ground for any evidence. They used metal detectors. They collected soil samples. They sent potential evidence to the FBI and DC to review. And basically all they found was a single hair at the scene, which did not belong to Jane. So this was a big deal because at this point, DNA was like a new tool being used by investigators and it was like brand new. So there was only one lab in the entire country that processed DNA evidence. And it was out in California.

But so they had this random hair. And besides that, they really didn't have any evidence whatsoever. There weren't even footprints to see like, oh, where did this person escape or what kind of shoes were they wearing? What shoe size? They just couldn't find anything. In the meantime, police interviewed 300 people about the case with no luck whatsoever. And Blackbird State Forest encompassed 7000 acres. So it was pretty impossible to know who might have been lurking in the forest and just hadn't been seen by anybody that morning. However, now they're starting to suspect maybe Michael, the squirrel hunter who called in the tip, had something to do with the

crime and was like inserting himself and, you know, trying to push the investigation in a certain direction. He worked as a janitor at a pharmaceutical company and he had described Jane's clothes and equipment in detail to the police. So now they're thinking, well, maybe he he knows about what she was wearing and he knows about her equipment. Maybe he had more interaction than we thought. Then again, maybe he was just observant. I don't know. than we thought. Then again, maybe he was just observant. I don't know. So police then took issue with some inconsistencies in the Hunter's story. So they called Michael every single day for a week

to question him. And he started to feel like, okay, this is too much. Like you're harassing me at this point. Sure police told him oh don't worry uh you're not a suspect but later okay guess what he's arrested because like what are you calling to take me to dinner like why do you keep calling what do you want exactly why am i if i'm not a suspect leave me the fuck alone leave me alone exactly so they say you're not a suspect don't worry and then a few days later they go ahead and arrest him and this is about a month after jane's death and we'll get into it but basically he later says like i was just trying to do the right thing and tell you what i saw and now i'm

suddenly like getting arrested for this crime that i did not do yep so they arrest him charge him with first degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during commission of a felony. And at the time, newspapers claimed that investigators had solid evidence against Michael. But really, this was all a hunch. They did not really have any solid evidence. They said he seemed somewhat emotionless when he spoke to them about Jane. But like he hadn't he didn't know her he didn't find her body like it didn't make sense like there's no reason why he should be like super emotional about this you don't even know this girl so it was just odd they said he seemed too emotionless and that's why we think he's guilty

um and he hadn't even been the one to find the body so it doesn't no reason to need to be emotional like yeah to feel like that would be part of your story it doesn't. No reason to need to be emotional. To feel like, yeah, to feel like that would be part of your story. It doesn't make any sense. So the evidence that the newspaper mentioned, all it was was that single random hair they found at the scene. And they determined that this hair was a pubic hair. Okay. So a detective on the. And you said her dress was like kind of torn and everything, right?

So she was partially undressed when they found her. Okay. And so they took this hair and they flew, a detective flew to California to personally deliver it to a lab for testing, convinced this was this Michael guy's hair, saying like, well, this will nail him. We know it's him. It did not match. So it was not michael's hair okay well then what now they had to release him they said you know what we can't hold you on a hunch that you're not emotional enough so we have to release you and eventually all charges

against him were dropped but uh he had spent 10 months in prison over this basically over being wrong place wrong time and trying to do the right thing trying to help yeah trying to help so in august of 1987 they dropped all the charges against him um but again he had spent 10 months in prison so it must have been probably pretty traumatic and on top of that during his time in prison michael had lost his job his apartment like a huge portion of just important things in his life um the newspapers had printed his photo and had said like there's evidence that he did this i would have fled town after i got out of jail i would have been like there's your reputation is ruined even if people just hear something like it's over like it's yeah it's too late they printed this and so he lost his job he lost his home it just was uh an incredibly

traumatic experience for him yeah um he also said that the conditions in prison were abysmal and he said he said his time in prison uh was the most degrading and humiliating experience of his life. Apparently there were even several days where there was no running water in the prison and like just inhumane, you know. This was in the 60s or 70s, right? The 70s. The 80s. The 80s? Because that feels like a jail that I would talk about from like the Civil War or something.

Like St. Augustine or something, Florida. Yeah, yeahida yeah yeah yeah nope it was like the late 80s so it was a couple years before we were born actually geez um so that's pretty horrific uh he said he learned a valuable lesson though from his nightmare which was that he would never help the police again so honestly hope you know what i can't blame them can't blame them for a second and hope they heard that and you know internalized it a little bit because yikes so in an interview with the washington post he said i would never make that mistake again my advice is don't get involved so boy oh boy he's just trying to do the right thing so investigators at this point were completely out of options they had no no leads. They had no motive. And after seeing what happened to Michael,

it was no surprise that nobody else was calling in with tips. So they kind of ran out of their leads there. Yeah. Well, they did that to themselves. So yeah. Jane's family was very, very devastated to be back at square one but you know at least the dna evidence got an innocent man out of jail so okay yeah um and then in the following months jane pritchard's death unfortunately fell to the wayside because other cases came in and eventually jane's case just was cold for decades so it wasn't until october of 2014 that the newcastle county police launched a cold case homicide unit. And the purpose of the squad was to solidify police vigilance in identifying and arresting those who commit murder in Newcastle County, regardless of when the crime occurred.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So they're trying to even reach all the way back to like the 70s. And they started looking into as many as 50 unsolved homicides. The unit consisted of one full-time detective and a support team, and these cases stretched all the way back to the 70s. So Jane's case was actually the first to be reopened because the cold case unit hoped modern DNA tools might help create new leads. And the team reopened evidence collected at the scene in 1986, which they felt may produce new DNA evidence that police couldn't access at the time. Okay. So when the unit contacted Jane's brother,

Keith, he said, I thought it was just astounding. I was flabbergasted. Keith said Jane's death had left him scarred and hearing about it again after so many years made him feel like it had all basically come rushing back and just happened yesterday um so just like reopening a wound right he was worried the new investigation might upset his elderly mother or maybe even get her hopes up unnecessarily that they would get answers um yeah so it must just be a very hard thing to revisit after so many years of trying to put that behind you you know yeah that's i can't imagine so it seems keith remains active in the search for answers and um you know it's it's unclear whether anything has happened essentially the cold case unit may have

dropped the case again because we haven't really heard anything in 2019 a youtube investigator uploaded a video to his channel of a live stream where he reviewed jane's case and shared his thoughts and a year ago in 2021 a commenter by the name of keith pritchard so presumably if the name is true that's her brother commented twice wants to say my sister would have tried to fight for her survival. And then again to say, I'm Jane's brother, Keith Pritchard. They brought me in on this first cold case. It went nowhere after being told there was new evidence and they were close. What happened?

So even he doesn't know, you know, it's not like, oh, the family knows anything we don't. It's just like, they've just been left in a lurch again because so it's like reopening a wound just to be a dead end just to be a dead end and the fact that they even told if this is really him the fact that they even told him they had new evidence and that they were close to finding answers and then just never reached out again it's like that's pretty cold you know yeah they're hoping for answers or something. To at least say, please don't expect anything. Yeah, to get their hopes up like that. Yeah.

Just unnecessarily cruel. So for what it's worth, Jane's family still hopes that one day the case could be solved and someone might come forward with new information. And if anyone out there does have information, I know we said, you know, stay out of it. But I'm just going to go out there on a limb know we said you know stay out of it but i'm just gonna go out there on a limb and say don't stay out of it um if you do have any information or tips on a cold case you know what i i say go for it um i still say i still stand by see something say something but also maybe if you can get a lawyer just in case yeah oh yeah yeah yeah always

be care yeah you know protect yourself for sure. For sure. Be aware that nobody is on your side while you're trying to do the right thing. Yeah. Be aware that there's always risk associated, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But if you do have a tip or you have any information, you can send those to the Newcastle County

Police Department through their website, via their website and so that is the case of jane jane marie pritchard and you know very very like just so in cold blood right there side of the road no answers like somebody just i think that's why my first thought was like she had been taken somewhere first but which like makes no sense because why would you think but my first thought felt like that because it was like, well, how could it be done in such blind, broad daylight? And people just didn't see. It could have happened right there. I mean, it must have just been a crime of opportunity. Somebody is out there with a hunting or with a gun or whatever and sees her.

Maybe with all of her equipment, they thought maybe she had something expensive. And then, I don don't mean who knows i mean the fact that she was partially undressed also is like a big clue you know yeah it lets us know probably something intentions yeah anyway just very fucking sad so happy halloween be careful out there folks um wow well hopefully there's a one day when the new uh oh well thank you i forgot to put my mothman through that whole story um maybe one day when we have a revolutionary thing like finding that we can track dna maybe there's something out there that's gonna i hope so shed some light so man there's something out there that's gonna. I hope so. Shed some light. So man, there's so many cases. I wish I could help, you know.

Are you intentionally sitting so that Mothman is perched on you because it's working? You know, I'm not. I'm just lounging on the fainting couch, but it really does look like he's just kind of showing off his calf muscles on my shoulder. He's definitely squatting right next to you. Are you still team Mothman, by the way? I feel like that's a mainstay for you, but I don't know if you actually have a secret favorite. I just love Mothman. Just a Mothman till I die, you know?

Just a Mothman. What do you think Mothman's audience would be called? The Mothbabies? Mothbabes? The Mothbabes. Well, Leona has that onesie that says Mothbaby on it that you got her which is so effing cute i know the only one i really got to get it for her before she's potty trained but the el pupacabra that's oh no that one really got me good that one that was the one i was most excited to get her and they didn't have it in her size i was so upset oh well thank you for

that are you gonna go do anything um particularly halloweeny i know we've talked about that before but our plans changed didn't know if you had anything coming up really you know just do our our dumb little show on stage well uh i know for those of you wondering, we are celebrating our 300th next episode. I can't believe it. We have quite a show for you on the 300th. It's going to be special. I almost feel bad. I feel like our Halloween episode was almost put on the back burner because we were so excited about the 300th.

I know. Like we've said this before, but they almost were the same episode. I know. It would have really... Know that we're upset about it, too. they all and like we've said this before but they almost were the same episode like they were i know it would have really know that we're upset about it too it would have been perfect so perfect um but uh yeah we're having our show tonight in atlanta and then in a couple days we've got new orleans and then we've only got like a handful left of shows and then i just it really hit me for the first time where like i got really sad like that you know it's like that's that's it for here for the booze we spent years with this show now unintentionally it was an unexpected uh as they say season of life and but now it's it's

been in our lives for so long it's in the twilight years now yeah it's definitely I mean I know I'm always like riddled with anxiety but it's always only like the first 10 minutes and then after that I'm having so much fun up there and there's always for every show Christine there's a moment where like you're not looking at me and the audience isn't looking at me so I get like a moment to myself and I just like try to take it in and I'm just like wow one day like this is gonna be special a memory and I'm like living in my future memories right now and it's just so wild it's like on the office when they like take a picture like yeah like the glory

days and picture i try to remember that i'm living it right now and it's just it's so fun but the show really is so important to us so you know when you get to see it later um please uh please enjoy so yeah uh and i hope hope you guys have fun with our 300th episode that comes out next week you guys are gonna be very excited they're gonna lose it uh other than that we're yeah having a good time over here so i guess uh we'll see you next week for 300 episodes that's crazy can't believe it and that's why we drink