And That's Why We Drink - E3 Paranormal Bitchslaps and the Body Examiners

Episode Date: February 19, 2017

Get your drinks ready. In episode 3 Em talks about a poltergeist legend from Southern folklore, the Bell Witch Haunting. Christine discusses the infamous unsolved case of the Black Dahlia murder.

all right we're back for episode three hello how are you this is and that's why we drink with how are you i'm great okay i'm so great how are you i'm fine you shouldn't answer. I have bigger fish to fry right now. That's fine. Welcome to episode three. We made it. We're going to blow your mind. We are. Right to pieces. I have a present for you, by the way.

What is it? There you go. What are wine gums? I don't know. And why have I not eaten these before? I don't know, but I found them on the way today. Em just handed me a bag called Wine Gums. Well, the name isn't as great as the product inside. It looks like candy and it has wine in it.

Well, it's gummy wine. The fact that I didn't know gummy wine existed makes me really question my commitment to wine. Well, the picture is like, there's like different colors, like the dark red one. If you look, it says port, like each one's a different flavor wine. Wow. Is there a box wine flavor? If not, they should make that.

Maybe in the, maybe in one of the beginner starter packs. The cheap, the clearance aisle. That's for you to enjoy that is so sweet i actually have a gift for you too no you don't i do wait do you really yeah no that's so crazy that we both thought of that to do we really didn't plan this no we didn't plan it at all i didn't even remember until you gave me those okay i bought these today ah i hope you like girl scout cookies uh yeah i I guess who doesn't? I noticed that it's open. So thanks for that gift.

Listen, I had a long day. Well, is there at least... So you got me... Actually, you got me my two favorite ones. Those are my two favorites. Did you actually get these for me or are we just sharing them and then they're going to stay at your house? No, I got them for this. I went to the grocery store and I was like, Em and I need some Girl Scout cookies.

We got Samoas and we got Thin Mints, aka the two best flavors. Can I tell you, I didn't mean to interrupt you. God, that was rude. I'm sorry. I'm kidding. So when I was in middle school, there was, I don't,

someone must have been a Girl Scout and they left like their supply in our bathroom. Oh. And I remember I had to have been in like sixth or seventh grade. And I would intentionally during math class always leave and go to the bathroom. So I could go eat all of these Girl Scout cookies that were just always restocked. They were in the bathroom?

Yeah. Oh, they would store them there? They would like leave them there in the corner during the school day. And I would always eat all of them. That's a really stupid thing to do. Well, you would think after day one and all the cookies are gone, they wouldn't bring a whole new case, but I kept eating them. But I had like free Girl Scout cookies for like a whole year. I was a Girl Scout until the day they told me we actually had to go to limited too and learn about fashion and we got a

special fashion badge while the boys got to like go camping and go get a business, like learn about fashion and we got a special fashion badge while the boys got to like go camping and go get a business like learn about uh being businessmen right and i got a fashion badge and my mom was like this is literally worthless and so we quit the peak of fashion is limited to right i did learn a lot all i know about fashion is from that trip to limited to actually. So really, as you can tell by my beautiful, what is your shirt? I hate running. I hate running. Oh, good. It's me and some wine and some Girl Scout cookies and some wine gums. Obviously I hate running. Anyway. Hi, welcome. We're back with snacks. We're back with snacks. And we also wanted to, uh uh just do a little shout out

and thank you guys everyone who's subscribed uh listen to our first couple episodes we have just a crazy we have this map of who's listening how many countries yeah countries we have 10 countries here nah 10 i think let's see yeah 10 so we have the u.s united kingdom france argentina the bahamas hey i wonder who that is maybe my mama my bahama mama yeah emily's bahama mama is in the bahamas thanks mom so we got a canada a germany which i'm a little disappointed because i have a lot of relatives there and my entire family actually is there and we only have one download in germany well that says a lot about your family but what makes up for it is that we have a united republic of tanzania listener stop it i know and that's my beautiful ex-roommate allison so shout out to you for bringing us an africa representative well we

had and we just by the time this comes out, they're going to have heard a few episodes, but we've already, we just posted everything last night and overnight we had over a hundred downloads. Yep. 129 to be exact. As of right now. In 10 countries. Oh, can you imagine if when this comes out, we still only have 129 downloads? We shouldn't have specified what time it was. All right. Well, anyway, thanks, guys, for being so supportive. Yeah, we love you all.

So thank you so, so much. And shout out to our designer. Oh, man. Our graphic designer, Kirk. Long overdue. He is the one that created the logo that you guys have been seeing everywhere on social media. It is something that we absolutely would not have been able to do ourselves. No. Although Em did a pretty good job on the first one.

Yeah. We ended up not using it, though, so that shows you how good it was. Well, Kirk is, you know, he does it professionally. He upped the ante. We just want to thank him for doing that for us. It really, like, takes our podcast to the next level. So thank you, Kirk. You are my hero.

I've never met you but i love you i've met you you're a okay well all right you're great what are you drinking listen i'm drinking okay so this is the thing i went to the store today and i was like i'm gonna buy a bottle of wine instead of a box today wow i know i really was I really was feeling like splurging. Mm-hmm. And I found this bottle of wine. It's from Meridian Vineyards, and it's a Cabernet Sauvignon. Per usual. Per usual. It's my fave.

And I actually bought it. It's a $10.99 bottle of wine, and it was on sale for $3.99. Oh, my gosh. So I feel incredibly accomplished. What a bargain. I'm not going to question why it was so discounted, but it's pretty damn good. Good for you. Yeah. So that's my cheap wine. That's my extra cheap wine of the day. I am drinking a shamrock shake. Oh, those are the best. Yeah. Well, actually, remember I told you I had fun facts about wine and milkshake? Absolutely.

All right. So my shamrock shake is my fun fact yes they're this year they're doing five flavors so this is mcdonald's right yes are we allowed to say that whatever we didn't make a shamrock shake sure i can say yeah i ruined it all right come at me mcdonald's so do it we dare you uh and sponsor us right i'd be no ignore the last part please just sponsor us uh okay so shamrock shakes this year are coming in five flavors. There's original, which I did not get, as you can tell because it's brown. Yeah, I was confused by that. I got the Shamrock chocolate chip frappe, which is a chocolate chip frappe with the Shamrock syrup and green sprinkles, which have now melted in my whipped cream.

Oh, my God. It's not bad. The first taste was a little bit of a kick, but I got used to it. frappe with the shamrock syrup and green sprinkles which have now melted in my whipped cream oh my god it's not bad the first taste was a little bit of a kick but i got used to it uh then they have a chocolate shamrock shake which is my favorite looking one because it's on if you look at the cup the bottom of it is a chocolate shake and the top of it is a shamrock shake like it's not mixed together they're layers cake like that wine that your mom likes. You and my mom. Then we've got shamrock hot chocolate, and there's a shamrock mocha shake. So this is new, right?

Because I remember in college we would drink shamrock shakes, and there was only the shamrock shake. Right. This is the first year they're doing five flavors. Okay. And by the time this comes out, it will be close to St. Paddy's Day. So people better stock up while they love it those are my favorite yep anyway i feel like i should be coming in with wine facts and i never do i just come in with actual wine don't worry i've got you thank you you ready yes um you may have seen this because this is all over the internet but it's still worth mentioning mit

which is the school right next door to where we went, their grad students created an algorithm to match you with four wines per month that your body chemistry, like your taste chemistry, it'll pair well with what your body, bodily something. Your taste profile. Yeah. You really threw that together. I struggled a lot. You're welcome. But they have a quiz online that you can take, and it'll be like, if you had iced tea, would you want it with lemon? Would you want it with sugar?

Would you want it diluted? Would you want it fruit-flavored? They give you questions kind of like that. And then based on all those types of questions, they put together what you're interested in. And they send you four wines a month. Do you really think I haven't taken this quiz already? Yeah. The whole time I said it, you were doing a slow nod. Like I'm going to let you finish. I have taken this quiz and I was so excited because it's always advertised on my Facebook. I wonder why. Um, and then at the end they were like, we'll tell you after you give us all this money. And I was like, when I have a really good job, I'll come back to you, MIT.

But I'm waiting. I'll be there. Well, they have a good idea. It is. It's a great idea. It's cool. I just, I was kind of bummed, but I remember the quiz. It's cool.

Anyway, those are our facts of the week. Lovely. Um, why are you drinking this week? week lovely um why are you drinking this week i'm drinking because i still haven't told my roommate i'm moving emily this poor guy it's not even funny i i really i have been actively avoiding him oh lord that's why why don't you just tell him i'm just afraid oh it's kind of awkward i mean it's gonna i mean no matter what i do it's gonna be bad't you just tell him i'm just afraid oh it's kind of awkward i mean it's gonna i mean no matter what i do it's gonna be bad you should just leave him a note on his pillow once i've left yeah good idea just move out oh we could stage a kidnapping i've been reading too

many crime stories what's wrong with you i don't know anymore he's a 40 year old man is he really yeah oh i always thought he was our age oh no he no. He's also Egyptian. I knew that part. Okay. I mean, that doesn't, like, make him, like, more or less interesting. But if you're imagining a white person, that's not him. You're wrong. Who were you imagining? I'm just telling everyone they're wrong if they were imagining a white person.

Oh, yeah. Well, they were wrong, too. Yeah. But no, see, I'm drinking because of that. I'm drinking because I'm about to switch departments, which I'm still nervous about. That's it. That is terrifying. Mm-hmm.

But also exciting. Right. It's going to be great. Why are you drinking? I'm drinking because, oh boy, just let me tell you. So my boyfriend, whom I love and adore very much uh he just disclaimer he is doing this like new workout program and he a part of the program is that he has to go paleo for six weeks and i agreed to go along with it and you know it's like not so bad they eat a lot of me and no well the no carbs

is a big thing that's gonna kill me i can't eat bread or crackers or anything like that. Um, and my new year's resolution was to be a vegetarian. So I'm failing extremely quickly, like much quicker than I hoped. You can just do what I do. I eat vegan half of the week and then I eat like a monster the other half of the week. So I just felt kind of weird at the grocery store. We bought about 16 pounds of meat today. I'm not exaggerating. Jeez. And our grocery bill was $319. I know I've never spent that much on groceries.

And then we walk out and there are Girl Scout cookies. And as you already know, I bought two boxes and now I have wine gums. So I'll help you. Let me give me that box. Yeah. I'll have some Thin Mints for me. I'll figure it out for you. It pairs well with my shamrock shake. In other words, I'm going to be eating a lot of meat and girl scout cookies so my life is really not bad but i'm drinking anyway you know what the best

part about these are they really i was being sarcastic they really do pair thin mints and a mint chocolate shake they were meant to be destined anyway i'm gonna crack this they also pair well with a nice meridian vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. We've said like seven brand names and none of them are endorsing us or sponsoring us. It's so sad. Get at the plug of that Meridian. Could you hear me chewing? I could hear you chewing.

It was neat. It was really neat. And it really made me feel great. Let's crack into murder. Go. Let's go. Oh, you're murder. I'm ghost. Let's crack into murder. Go. Let's go. Oh. You're murder.

I'm ghost. Who's going first? Me. We discussed last time. I'm always first. All right. Emily's always first. Mm-hmm.

So, Emily, please scare me today. Why are you drinking today? All right. I'm going to do my best to tell you all about this, because here's the thing. I was also listening to the new Bruno Mars album while I wrote all the notes, so who knows how scrambled this is. Emily! All right. Maybe I'll be even more messed up than it's supposed to be. It'll help. I promise. Let's go. Bruno Mars pairs well with a nice paranormal story.

Bruno Mars' new album is the best album of the year, and it's only February, and I cannot be convinced otherwise. My soul hurts hearing you say that, but we'll discuss this at a later date. Okay. All right. So have you heard of The Bell Witch? I'm trying to think, because I've heard of The Blair Witch. No, this is about The Blair Witch came from The Bell Witch, though. I love The Blair Witch.

I have only seen it this year. This is the first time I've ever seen it. You've only seen The Blair Witch Project this year? Yeah, my brother and I. No, it was a couple months ago. It was last year. But my brother and I watched it because we were like, we've never seen this movie. What is wrong with you?

Oh, it was so good. Yeah, I know. Everyone 15 years ago thought that, Christine. God. I was busy still watching Barney 15 years ago. You know, every time my mom has ever tried to watch the Blair Witch Project, which she stopped after like videos or DVDs or something like that. But every time she's ever tried to watch it,

the machine that she put the tape in broke before she could watch it. Listen, I'm glad you told me that after I watched it, because if I heard that, I would never watch it. But it's great. I have a lot of behind the scenes stuff. I mean, we're both on TV, so we'll talk about that. I thought you said we're both on TV. I was like, I wish.

Oh, God, the dream. We're only on a radio that doesn't even play through a radio. All right. The Bell Witch, which inspired the Blair Witch. And another story in Maryland also inspired the Blair Witch. Disclaimer. So the Bell Witch was in the 1800s. And it's also one of the most famous

hauntings in america uh there was a man named john bell and and he moved from north carolina to what's now considered adams tennessee okay um over time when he got there within the first couple years he bought uh over 300 or over 300 acres of land to start farming on. And he bought his, some of his land from a girl named Kate Butts. The end. I'm 12. And so Kate Butts,

she thought that the deal that they made for her to sell her land to John Bell was unfair. And she took it really hard to a point where on her deathbed she cursed his entire family what they must have she must have really gotten ripped off she must have not had much else going in her life she's just vindictive she's gonna haunt me now in 1817 um after this deal had happened and then she cursed the family and then died, John Bell was out in the field and he saw an animal sitting in the middle just staring at him. And he couldn't see the actual animal, just its silhouette, but it looked like it had the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit. No. What?

No. rabbit no yeah no and uh it he he shot at it i guess to make dinner out of this demon or something it ran off he couldn't find him but that night he heard like beating sounds like boom boom boom boom like beating on his house all around the walls outside and every night after that just got worse and worse like you could hear like basically like as if someone was knocking on the inside of the walls i've heard that as part of hauntings like that the banging on the walls right yeah that's a thing it's it's like footsteps but not on the floor exactly you know what i mean all right whoa my mind, I have a master's, guys. And so eventually it got to a point where they were looking out the window to see when this weird animal would show up. And every time they saw it was when the beating on the walls would happen.

So then the whole family started trying to catch this thing and they never could. And the children began complaining that they couldn't go to sleep at night anymore because they could feel something gnawing at their bedposts when they were sleeping. No, no, no. Then when they started ignoring that and just taking that as like, oh, this is normal. Let's keep sleeping anyway. Their covers would get yanked off and the pillows would get pulled out from behind their heads and thrown across the room by like an invisible thing this is my nightmare like the stuff that happens just seems like it might as well be a movie right it sounds like an exaggerated horror movie where they just pulled out all the right if this was really

happening like why why are there people who don't believe in ghosts you know and also why are you still living i would be gone i would rather live up in a tree than right i would have moved where like something is pulling the covers off me at night just saying fucking nope out of there go on uh so they started complaining that the pillows were getting pulled out from under their heads and thrown against the wall um and they started hearing humming around the house and a woman whispering. Mm-mm. Yeah, Christine. I don't like it. And then, uh, the daughter, there's three kids in this family.

And one of them is a daughter named Betsy. And she just started getting bitch slapped by something invisible. Are you serious? Like, for the rest of her life. For a good amount of her life. Isn't that, like, the highest level of like. It's this is like America's one of America's first poltergeists. Okay.

Cause I was going to say, cause that's like extreme. Right. Well, the thing with poltergeists, the thing with all spirits that I, as far as I know, is that the more energy you give it, the more power it has. Isn't that why they say like a lot of teenagers kind of energy. Yeah. Well, it's, it's kids because no one's taught them sure to to think that anything's wrong right like oh if you have if you see a person there no one's there to you haven't

learned yet that you don't see that right and then teenagers they're because a lot of their angst and stuff like yeah they're like so hormonal um i'm shocked i didn't have a poltergeist at age 14 i did i needed one we'll talk about that on another show. That was horrible. We will. Believe me. I'm going to bring that up. That'll, that'll be a two wine kind of night.

Oh Lord. But yeah, so she was, there was little kids in the house. There was her little brother who was like four or five. So like the perfect age to like see things and have not been raised yet to think that those things aren't there. Um, and then she was also a teenager, so she was all hormonal and angsty. So they were feeding off that negative energy.

So it was just like, you know, just a bad hot zone. Yeah. Um, so she just started getting slapped around and her hair started getting yanked. And this wasn't even like at night.

This was like, um, like just us talking right now, all of a sudden someone just go, bam, and just the anchor head, like off like her, like hair until, like just us talking right now, all of a sudden someone just go, bam, and just yank her head like off, like her like hair until she like fell down. Oh.

Um, and then when her, uh, parents started like saying like, no, you're, you have to be kidding. They started seeing like red handprints on her face and like welts and bruises on her.

Um, there is the, the skeptical side of this is that she was getting abused by one of the slaves on the farm that's also really scary i mean no matter what it's bad but i would think if it was a slave how easily is it for like the father or the child of the owner to be like dad a slave hit me like that slave gets fired or killed like that's not a thing that you can get away with very easily right i feel like a slave couldn't get away with sleeping an extra hour let alone hitting exactly exactly like so all this is starting to happen and everyone's getting freaked out and so john bell tells his friend uh james johnston about what's going on

and so that friend spends the night with his wife to like check it out for themselves. And immediately, uh, the covers get pulled off of them that night. And when he wakes up, they like something is like smacking him like in the face, like beating him up,

like severely, like apparently he got like kicked in the gut, but there's no one there. Like he just like felt all these things happening to him. And when everyone like saw him run out of the room, he was like covered in like welts. And he looked like he had gotten beaten up by like a mob of people. And so he ended up getting it to stop by screaming in the name of the Lord, who are you and what do you want? And then everything for that night stopped. But eventually

it only pissed it off more. Surprise. Of course. And the voice got worse. The humming got louder. So was the humming like songs? Like it was humming songs? It was humming like... It was just like one pitch. Like biblical music. No!

Yeah. That's even worse! This is where I kind of like... Even as someone who's a total believer in this stuff, I have a hard time wrapping my head around this because it started intelligently speaking. Like they would just hear voices. And it would, like, recite scripture to them. Ugh, it gives me the chills.

It really does. And I don't know if they, like, all heard it as, like, they all heard it coming kind of from all angles. Like, if everyone was sitting and they actually heard it outwardly or if everyone, like, heard a voice in their head. Sure. I don't really know. I've experienced hearing a sound where like you couldn't outside you yeah you couldn't figure out where it was coming from and i've heard things that were in a very specific area right but i've never just heard something in

my head i've heard like my name whispered but in your head no but like outside of okay i'm gonna assume that's what they experienced too but so it was uh they recited scripture there was intelligent conversation and there's one report where they quoted word for word two different sermons that were being recited at two totally different churches like 15 miles away from each other ew i don't know how you would have figured that out in the 1800s so it's not like you can, like, type into lyrics or something. Watch the sermon on YouTube. Yeah. I don't know.

I also know he was a super prominent guy, so he probably knew both pastors in the town or something like that. So the story started to spread, and it got to Nashville, Tennessee, where General Andrew Jackson was. And he started hearing about all this stuff. So in 1819, which was two years later, after all this is still happening, Andrew Jackson goes to the house because he's like, I think in my notes, it says, Jackson says, what the fuck? I'm checking this shit out. That is a verbatim quote. Yeah, that one's in the history book. It's in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

And so Jackson brings all of his, as many men as he can fit in one wagon. And they're almost that one's in that one's in the history book it's an encyclopedia botanica and uh so jackson brings all of his as many men as he can fit in one wagon and they're almost at the house like they have like a one more hill to get up or something like that and the wagon they don't know they can't explain it but the wagon just stopped like the horses couldn't pull it it just like stopped like almost as if like the wheels were cemented to the ground. So they all all the men get out and try pushing it and nothing's working. And so Jackson said, by the eternal, this must be a witch. And then as soon as he said that, everyone heard a voice like around them that says, let the wagon move then, but I'll see you tonight. And like everyone heard this.

What? Everyone that was there. I think there was, like, seven different, like, military men who were like, what the fuck was that? What? What? Yeah. And then as soon as they heard that sound, they looked around, like, who said that? The wagon was able to move again.

So they got to the house, and one of the men in the, like, entourage of General Jackson was like, we're all going to be fine here. I'm a witch tamer and I have a gun with a silver bullet and the witch isn't going to come get us because she's afraid. And before he could even finish his sentence, he started screaming and jerking around. And he was saying that someone had stuck a bunch of pins and needles in him. And then he fell to the ground and was acting like someone was severely beating him. Like someone was kicking him in the face and the stomach nonstop. And then everyone saw him literally get thrown out the door by something invisible. Like something kicked him out of the house.

And then after that happened, people heard a whisper. This time it was in their head. They a whisper this time was in their head they all heard the same voice in their head and it was a growl and it said there's another fraud here and he'll be identified and punished later stop it yeah um and then so all of his men are like like jackson let's go and he was like no i want to stay i want to stay he's like i want to see who the other fraud is and nobody knows what actually happened that night but there's a bunch of reports of them leaving in the middle of the night like and like fleeing the house did she mean a fraud as in like a traitor to this no no she meant like that first guy in his entourage was like oh i'm a witch tamer and she's scared of me and so i think she there was someone else pretending that they were like big and tough um so nobody knows what happens but they flee

and then a couple years go by where the same stuff is happening casual and betsy the daughter is now engaged to a guy named joshua gardner and the entity i guess is what we're gonna call it uh said throughout the house many times not to marry him. Like, anytime she brought him up, you would hear in the house, don't marry him. And it got to a point where they, like, anywhere they went, even if they left the property, they could both hear the voice saying don't marry him. Can you imagine being engaged to someone and you hear a random ghost being like they shouldn't marry you they shouldn't marry you it's like enough to hear your parents say it like to hear like a disembodied voice being like oh no well but so would you trust the voice because i feel like if the voice is so evil maybe it i wouldn't

i wouldn't i mean if i had never heard anything before, I would be more prone to believe it. But if this thing's also bitch slapping me every night, I'm going to be like, no. There's also another rumor that Richard Powell, who was an old school teacher there, liked Betsy and showed a lot of interest. But get this, showed interest because he was a school teacher to her ew like he was into her when she was like 11 which in the 1800s i don't know what like the age of consent is but 11 is not that's too recent for 11 and um that's too recent give it 200 more years we'll talk and so he was also known to study the occult and so they when he asked her to marry him and she said no i'm marrying joshua gardner they think that he

caused all of this by like because he got rejected and so if he's part of the occult he caused like a witch or something to sicker i wish i could have caused witches for everyone that rejected me yeah cause a witch i need about a hundred witches then um so betsy and joshua like cannot stand this like ghost following them being like don't get married don't get married and like mocking them and laughing at them and to a point where Betsy breaks off the engagement and is like, I just can't do this. And so that's Easter of 1821 that she canceled her engagement. And after that, Ghost actually left her alone for the most part. Oh, my God.

But it kept harassing her father, John Bell, and vowed to kill him no matter what it took. So can Ghost kill people? I thought they couldn't kill people, but I guess... I mean, they can... I guess if you're possessed, you can... I mean, they can push a weight onto your head really quick or something. If they're slapping you around, they could probably drop a brick on you. Yeah.

It's not hard to just, like, make you trip at the wrong time, I'm sure. I don't know. I don't think they can... I don't think, like, a knife is just floating that chases you don't know i don't think they can i don't think like a knife is just floating that chases you but i think like they can just like throw a knife and like you're the dartboard you know what i mean that's okay i need to go to a therapist anyway uh okay that's page number two floating to the ground all All right. So Bell began, John Bell began experiencing like twitching and seizures after the ghost vowed to kill him. That's the dad, right?

The dad. Okay. And it just got worse. Like he started having seizures every day and he was blacking out a lot. And if he tried to go anywhere, like all of his stuff would be hidden. Like his shoes and his coat would be either hidden or if they were right next to him would be thrown across the room in front of him to like make sure like he couldn't go anywhere i don't know it just all it's like it's it's like too too obvious it's you know much i guess back then maybe the ghosts were

a lot more active back then because they knew there were no cameras to catch them like you have to take everyone's word who Who's going to believe you? Exactly. Nowadays, like, they're all real quiet, so it seems. They're like, everyone has a home video camera. Mm-hmm. You would hear her laugh and mock him and call him Old Jack Bell, which was the only – she was the only one that said that.

Ew. They never called him that. She gave him a nickname? Yeah. It would be like, Old Jack Bell, Old Jack Bell. Yuck. And you could hear it all over the farm. that she gave him a nickname yeah it would be like old jack bell old jack bell yeah uh and you could hear it all over the farm like if she was making fun of him in like the bedroom you could hear him you could hear it in the barn like he always knew when she was making fun of him so

that december john died after going into a coma the night before and afterwards the family found this vial on the ground and like right next to his bed. And they didn't know what the liquid was. So PETA wasn't around yet. So they fed it to the cat to be like, oh, what's this? What the hell? The cat died like within an hour. And so it looked like he was poisoned.

And they killed the cat. I like how I'm more upset about that than anything else. Well, yeah. I mean, they didn't know what it was. And they were like, well, we're not gonna try it. Might as well give it to some farm cat. All right, fair point. And then, so once they figured out that, oh, the cat died, and this is right next to his bed, he probably took it and died. They heard a whisper and a laugh from the ghost saying something along the lines of, he didn't even know he drank it.

What the fuck? As in, like, she had either possessed him or she had forced it down his mouth. Like, something had happened where he didn't, he wasn't even aware of what was happening. And the poison got in his system. And then you heard a laugh. Like, the whole room heard a laugh. And the son grabbed the violin, threw it into the fireplace, and it exploded bright blue. So the stories say but this

is like this sounds like a like a harry potter movie it right it sounds like poof right um so at the funeral they say you could hear the voice and you could hear singing and laughing during the funeral all the way until the last person left the cemetery what on earth i don't know but like the whole town of nashville like heard a random voice and no one kept a document about this so there was no like document like how did you like the only way i found this out was just through like like this is this is apparently one of the most famous witches out there in america and so everyone knows the story and yet there's still people who either don't believe or like this is so obvious why would you believe sure i don't know anyway i had a hard time swallowing it and i usually am just so accepting of every ghost story

yeah but for this to be one of the oldest ones someone's got to believe it also i would rather just believe it and not have that person come after me i'd be like you're you're real absolutely so we'll marry whoever you don't want us to marry i promise so then in 1821 the now that he's dead the ghost wasn't there to visit um like wasn't there to visit him but visited his wife the widow and said i'm gonna leave you alone but i'll be back in seven years and said that i don't know but said that in 1821 and then in 1828 she did come back and she visited their son now that he was an adult and told him all of this weird shit um said the world needs a mass spiritual awakening really like talked to him about like politics or something like this thing just came back to talk about politics and then very accurately predicted the civil war what the fuck and like

so he knew all of this and because general jackson had been to his house when he was little he like knew people high in government and like but then that makes me think like if you predicted the civil war and like had all these connections why were we all surprised what the hell not that we were all you know you know what i mean like why weren't we like much more prepared for it this is well because i guess if you say oh a witch told me right no one's gonna say but in the 1800s didn't people like really weren't they really scared of witches i mean it sounds like there were two people who were like i can defeat the witch i mean if you had general jackson fleeing your house in the middle of the night i would think he would believe you I can defeat the witch. I mean, if you had General Jackson fleeing your house in the middle of the night,

I would think he would believe you when you say the witch told me that. That is true. That is true. And he could have told other people who were, like, high in the military. Whatever. Okay. So, anyway, after they have that conversation, he says he would be back to visit in 107 years, and he would visit the most direct descendant, who ended up being this doctor named charles bell

in 1935 and charles bell wrote a book about being a member of the bell family and then they have no information about him after the fact that he wrote it in the year that he was supposed to get visited by this witch was the book about the witch or was oh like all we know is he wrote a book that year that she was that she was supposed to visit, and then no one knows what happened to him. He vanished? Yeah. So, nowadays, one of the big, like, haunted tourist attractions is to go back to the land and the property of the Bell Witch. And there's a cave there that's known as the Bell Witch Cave.

That sounds like my least favorite place on earth. Well, people, apparently a lot of the house is already gone, and so people will visit the cave thinking that's where the witch dwells. And apparently, like, a lot of cameras will malfunction there, or, like, you'll get photos of apparitions that you did not see. There was one girl who was on a tour who claimed it was all fake, like, was calling bullshit the whole time. And all of a sudden, everyone heard, like like a smack right in the face and when she like they turned around to see her she was on the ground there was a giant red hand on her face oh my god it could

have really just been anyone like slapping her to shut her up but i mean like i mean i've never seen someone like fully slapped a girl in the face in public, but you never know. She got slapped around, and there's other... Just like that wagon story where the wagon just stopped out of nowhere. People trying to walk onto the property will just literally stop. Their feet can't move. Oh, that's creepy. They're frozen in time.

And then they can regain their walking if they move backwards from the house oh that's creepy creepy and in usa today um i think two years ago there was a medium who went to the property who was talking about how a lot of things are still there and she was apparently able to get a lot of information about what happened and she talked to the actual like kate butts who, said that she was gonna haunt them and curse their family. Yeah. Oh my god. At the end. That's some creepy, creepy, creepy shit. There's, there's that. I, like, usually I want to go to places that are haunted to, like, see them and check them out, but that place I think I might avoid. Well, yeah. I don't know. I don't want to get slapped around.

That's fair. Do you have any comments or is this exactly why we drink? I am like thoroughly creeped out. I think it's something about witches just gives me the heebie-jeebies. See, witches don't freak me out as much because I know like W, Wiccans and Pagans and, like, people who are part of that. And they don't scare me because I know what they're about. I don't know if this was, like, a different type of witch and they just put a witch on it. I don't even know if it was a witch.

It sounds like a poltergeist to me, which they are not the two. I think maybe they called it a witch because, again, like, there's that whole thing of witches with... Like the Salem witch trials. Yeah, it's like a buzzword. We're both eating cookies. Whatever. Everyone needs to enjoy the crunch of a Thin Mint. But, um, but yeah.

So, I don't play with poltergeists. I play with witches. I'm cool about that. That's what I'm saying. That doesn't sound like a... It just sounds like they didn't have definitions back then, so they put everything as a witch. Everything was just a witch, right? Anyway.

Anything unexplained. I need to clean my hands from that. Do you have a nice bloodbath for me? I have a really clean, clean story for you. Right. It's called the Black Dahlia Murder. I think I know about it. I don't. I don't. But I've heard this. Dahlia strikes a nerve with me. Well, it's actually set where we live in Los Angeles. Yes. And this was actually recommended to me by a good friend named Lindsay. So shout out to you. Hey, Lindsay. Thank you for the

suggestion. So I'm just going to dive right in. Basically, what happened was on January 15, 1947, the mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was found cut in half at the waist and drained of blood in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. what so that's a fun start in 1947 yes that's interesting um so a woman walking past with her daughter discovered the body she thought it was a mannequin at first because it was in two separate pieces oh so both pieces were there it's not like they found half of a person yeah it was both pieces yikes okay creepy creepy um she realized it was a body, called the police. So the body itself, this is

if you're sensitive to gore, like I know a lot of my family is, if you're my little sister, please don't listen to this part. If you're my dad, please don't listen to this part. Plug your ears. If you're my dad, listen real good. Yeah, if you're Em's dad, you can listen all you want.

My dad is not into the blood so her body was found completely severed at the waist drained of blood her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears which is called a glassy smile uh she had several cuts on her thigh and breasts and entire portions of her flesh had been cut off. The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper. Okay, and this part, I know you're eating a cookie, but you're going to not want to be eating a cookie when I tell you. Oh, test me. Okay, so her intestines had been, quote, I told you,

had been, quote, tucked neatly beneath her buttocks yeah i know so the corpse was posed with her hands over her head her elbows bent at right angles and her legs spread apart and detectives found a cement sack nearby with watery blood in it which belonged to her that she raped no okay so that's where the growth could get worse it sure i i guess so that's where the uh and there's m with the with the silver lining so this is uh i try to keep the positive in this atmosphere it's so good of you so uh if you've been plugging your ears you can listen now um this part actually i consider to be kind of the most fucked up i mean that's obviously the most fucked up no question but this part's pretty messed up um so again we're in the 1940s uh so once police had identified the body

reporters from the los angeles examiner contacted elizabeth short's mother and told her that her daughter had won a beauty contest because they wanted to get as much information about her as possible so they called her mother instead of telling her your daughter's been killed before the police had even contacted her asked all these questions because they said your daughter's been she's won a beauty contest we need all sorts of details so they got all sorts of details out of her and then said oh sorry actually your daughter has been murdered and dismembered in the same conversation yes yes so wow i know wait did the police call her and they were like hey very these this is the police your kid won a beauty contest or did they lie and say we're a pageant judge it wasn't and

then it turned into by the way we're the police no it wasn't the police it was reporters oh that's extra fucked up yeah at the la examiner they said oh i hear examiner and i think like a body examiner it wasn't it wasn't a body examiner okay it was yeah they were reporters which is just so unethical and horrible and like obviously today that would not fly but so these reporters had heard that they had identified the body and before the police could even get on it they contacted the mother to say she won this beauty contest um but anyway to quote unquote make up for it they offered airfare to fly the mother out to california to help police with the investigation. But when she agreed and flew out there, they kept her away from police because they wanted

the inside scoop. So they basically interrogated her themselves and didn't let her anywhere near the police. That is messed up. It is. It's really fucked up. But at the same time, this became this hugely sensational crime. I mean, it was the 1940s. And at the time, newspapers had this habit of nicknaming serial

killers and crimes. Some other ones in the 40s were the Acid Bath Murderer, which I'm sure will... Yeah, yeah. It's a fun one, I'm sure. Sounds like a dream. And we'll probably get to that in a future episode. The Lipstick Killer and the Lonely Hearts Killer. Oh, I know about the Lonely Hearts Killer.

I don't know much about the lonely hearts killer i don't know much about that but i don't know much i know some well i'll tell you someday okay i'm sure give me the scoop but uh so the nick uh so the nickname that this the victim actually got elizabeth short was the black dahlia so this became the black dahlia murder um and some people think that the name came from a film noir murder mystery called the Blue Dahlia, which was released the year earlier. So, pop culture. So things get weird here. I mean, they're already pretty fucking weird, but they get weirder.

So dozens of people confessed to the murder. What? I know. Why? Because I guess it was... Because that's, like, the trend? It was cool. I don't know. Like, they I guess it was. Because that's, like, the trend? It was cool. I don't know.

Like, I don't know. Like, someone, like, they wanted to go to jail? They just wanted to be publicized. God. It's like the American Idol of the 1940s. Wow. Like, discover me? I don't know.

All these people were seeking fame, and they wanted to be a part of it. Over the years, hundreds of people confessed. Most of them were, like, immediately discounted and ruled out because there was no way that they were the murderer, but some people like remained suspects. Um, one sergeant who worked the case actually said until his retirement. So pretty much his whole career said that it's amazing how many people offer up a relative as the killer. Yeah. Which is like kind of fucked up if you're like, no, my dad definitely did it. It's like going to elementary school and everyone's like, no, my dad definitely killed him.

Like, my dad's definitely the killer. It's like when we were little, everyone was like, my dad's an astronaut, my dad's a whatever. And it was just, like, inflating your... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, no, my mom's the one that for sure sliced that body in half yeah she's really good at cutting things yeah you should meet her sometime yeah so basically everyone was trying to be like no my uncle did it my sister did it my cousin did it that's such a like i mean that's like a psychologist's wet dream of like like this mob mentality of everyone wanting to be a murderer absolutely i've never heard of that

ever it was like a societal instead of everyone vilifying the person they were like no i'm the was there like a bounty out or like if you like no if you confessed you like no they just interrogated all these people and then ended up being like you're not the person and that's nuts yeah it's just out of control but so the most promising lead at the time was this army corporal who told police he'd been drinking with short uh in san francisco a few days before her body was discovered then blacked out with no memory uh of what he did until he came to in a cab outside penn station um and she had an affinity for servicemen. That was, like... Her thing.

Her thing. You go, girl. Yeah. So they were like, this is a good lead. So they, you know, they asked if the corporal thought he committed the murder. And he said, yes, I think it was me. So he was surprised. Oh, no.

Okay. It might have been me. These people were all... It might not have been. Out of control. So finally, they finally they like tracked him down and they were like no you know what you were on the military base there's tons of witnesses like there's no way you could have done it uh suspect number two was in 1991 this woman was

doing uh therapy to retrieve repressed memories and she was convinced that her father had been the murder um she like contact police She's like, I remember now. Like, it was repressed. They dug up the yard. They went through his house. There was nothing that connected him to any murder. So... All right.

They found some costume jewelry that he had buried in the backyard and some farm tools, which, like, is weird in and of itself. Right. That's another story. That is probably his own weird little misgivings. Suspect number three is the most recent. Right. That's another story. His doctor is the late George Hodel, Dr. George Hodel. He was a medical doctor. And according to Time Magazine, soil samples taken from the man's Hollywood estate in 2012 tested positive for chemical markers for human decomposition. So bodies had been buried there. And the way that actually the detective became convinced that his father was guilty is that he found pictures of a woman that he believed was the black dahlia among his father's

possessions after he passed away and he also says that his you know father was a surgeon and he had the surgical accuracy with which the body was dismembered um suggested killer with medical training training like his dad so the lapd actually right now considers him a suspect but they're not right now. Like now? Currently. So this was in 2012 when they dug all this up. So people are still saying, like, I know who did it. Yes.

Basically, the mystery as of right now in 2016 is, I'm sorry, it's 2017. Yeah, it's worse than 2016. I haven't even had half a bottle yet. And that's why we drink. So, as of 2017, the mystery, or the murder, is still unsolved. So, the LAPD considers him a suspect, the most likely suspect right now. But they have not called him the killer just yet because there are 22 viable suspects. Still?

Still. Since the 40s. Yes. Seven of whom are doctors. That seems to be the most. I know. Because I guess the body was like really carefully dismembered. Some people believe there's a link between Elizabeth Short's murder and the Cleveland

torso murders, which just sounds like a really fun time. Yeah. Which took place in 34 and 38. Cleveland. That's next to you. It is. It's do you remember that story that we're hearing about it? No.

Cause it took place in the thirties. So I was. It was only a couple of years. I was a twinkle in my great grandma's eye. And some people think that Elizabeth short's murder is connected to the 1946 murder and dismemberment of six-year-old suzanne dagnan in chicago who was murdered by the lipstick murderer lipstick killer so one person in california one person in ohio one person chicago might all be linked and out of like what 60 years how many years exactly well they think that either the la murder might be linked to the cleveland murder or it might be linked to the Chicago murder.

I'm not sure if they think all three are related. Gotcha. But like the girl that was killed by the lipstick killer in Chicago was named Suzanne Degnan. I think that's how you say it. And the woman, Elizabeth Shore, her torso or her body was found on Norton Avenue, which is three blocks west of Degnan Boulevard, which is the same last name. And there were also some similarities between the ransom note from the Chicago murder and a letter sent to the police after Elizabeth Short's death. So they think that the handwriting was similar. They used a combination of capitals and small letters.

It's so creepy. The note about the six-year-old girl said burn this for her safety i know and he wrote on the on the mirrors like with lipstick and he said for god's sakes catch me before i kill again i can't stop myself that's the person i've known about that twisted i've known about that quote i've just never known who that was if you see the photos it's really really creepy um and they had the same post them later yeah it's it's wild but so nobody knows and the guy actually that they had they caught for the lipstick murders and put in prison claimed until the day he died that he was innocent and that he had only confessed under uh duress and he had been kind of tortured so

there's really no way to know who did it um so that's it's just so twisted and that's really close to us and it's kind of ugh it's just yeah it's just gross do you think there's gonna be like would there be another murder that could be connected to it or whoever did it is probably already a suspect i think it's probably too late at this point i mean mean, that was the 40s. Right. Yeah, you would have to be, like, at least 80. Yeah, to, like, disinherit a 20-year-old. It seems like a lot of work in your 80s.

Right. And I think, I mean, if the guy they did arrest was guilty, then, you know. Problem solved. But this murder, as of right now, remains unsolved. And just as disgusting as it was in 19 in the 1940s so and that's why we drink and that is why we drink just let me tell you well good i'm like good good researching oh that shit is heavy yeah i i really hope i never get sliced in half like i mean eventually i'm gonna go i just hope that's not the way you know i could not agree with you more okay i mean i just hope

it's not it's gonna it's gonna happen some way but if if i get sliced in half i hope everyone knows ah that is not what she wanted. Nope. All right. We'll find out. I'll put that on your tombstone. She never wanted to be sliced in half. Yeah. Good. What a friend.

I know. I try. Anyway, that's it. I'm drinking. All right. Enjoy. We did it. Anyway, thanks, guys.

Thank you for listening this far. Pretty mind-blowing. Three episodes in and you're still here absolutely like we think it's so much fun to make so we hope you guys have fun listening we hope you're drinking along with us to get through these freaking crazy stories thanks guys yeah

we'd really like any if you can subscribe if you can rate that'd be great um you know if you don't hate us please rate us oh well that's nice yeah i did that if you do hate us please don't rate us that's my other wait oh did i say if you hate us i said if you don't hate us please i'm sorry if you do i'm sorry i'm listen okay put the line down i know okay if you hate us don't fucking rate us. That's my slogan.

Cool. What a good way to end this. Yeah. All right. Well, if you have any suggestions, please email us. If you have any stories or anything you want us to talk about, give us a shout. Yeah. We'd love any of your personal stories. If you have any crazy murder stories or paranormal stories, we'd love to hear them. Go ahead and give us an email at and that'swhywedrink at gmail.com. And follow us on every social media platform. Everyone.

At ATWWD podcast. Except Google Plus. We don't have that because nobody does. That's true. So thanks, guys. Thank you. Yeah yeah we really appreciate it and we hope you guys are looking forward to episode four as much as we do yep bye and that's why we drink