And That's Why We Drink - E302 An Elbow Eyebrow and an Asparagus Salad

Episode Date: November 20, 2022

It’s episode 302 and Christine has another ghost story she’s been waiting to tell Em on the podcast! Then Em brings us the dramatic, Victorian paranormal story of the Berry Pomeroy Castle, which could have been the first McMansion? Meanwhile, Christine covers the wild and plot-twisty story of Stacey Castor. And we’ve cried once and we’ll cry again that our Here for the Boos shows are over! We’ve been performing it for a 10th of our lives! …and that’s why we drink!Be sure to check out our After Chat this week on Patreon where we're finally able to talk about our ghost hunt at the Queen Mary!

I love playing the silent game with you well every time I start you're like I know well you started so I always wait for you to start and then also wait for me well you also have we wait for each other and also um every time we press record all of a sudden your face lights up with a big smile and i don't know i don't know if it's just for me or if it's because you have exciting things to say and i'm like oh now i'm not gonna say anything i'm just thrilled i'm just thrilled to be here but i do i see what you're saying you're reading the room and you're like oh like oh she's fucking prepared something um well i do have a couple ghost stories now that we're starting oh i have oh yes i forgot i forgot christine okay so we we just had our last big leg of shows and when we were in new orleans christine you called me first or texted me first

and you were like i have things to tell you. And then I saw you in person. Then you're like, actually, I'm going to wait for when we record. The problem was I was telling Eva at the bar downstairs and you walked in and I was like, oh, man, I want to tell this story to Em. But I want to wait for the podcast just because I feel like it's nice to have these stories like, you know, immortalized. Yeah. And have everybody else here along with you. Kind of the nature of our show. It's nothing like that crazy, but I just feel like a lot happened in a week where I was like, this is the kind of thing I would call M about.

So, yeah, we had Halloween. Okay. Halloween happened and Leona was a tomato. Go to my Instagram. She wore a beret and I sewed it together and I was so proud of myself I'm proud of you for sewing also thank you I didn't own a sew I was like I'm gonna sew this felt on and Lisa was visiting and my mom was there and they were like well where's your needle and thread I was like I don't own that you would why would I need that for so what what would I want that for? Where would I? Yeah. So they had to go buy me one anyway. Um, but that day, so we made friends down the street. Their names are Troy and David, Troy and David. And they're, and they're, they're great. And they're so into Halloween and, uh,

Lisa befriended them at Leona's first birthday party and then invited them to dinner, uh, like a few weeks later when she visited and the first thing, and they, they, they know nothing about me. Okay. And the first thing that Troy says when he sits down is, Oh, I went and saw, um, this,

uh, paranormal investigator named Amy Bruni last night. And I like dropped what I was holding. Thank God it wasn't wine. Um, it was probably just like a cracker, but I dropped it. And I was like,

you have got to be kidding me. And he's like, Oh, you know who that is? And I was like, uh, do I be kidding me. And he's like, oh, you know who that is? And I was like, do I watch Kindred Spirits with Chip Coffey and Amy Bruni? Anyway, and I was like, of course I know who Amy Bruni is. And so he was like, whoa, like he was totally taken aback because I don't know. He just didn't expect me to know that. And I was like, well, I host a paranormal podcast. And he was like, you do what? Like,

it was just one of those fun moments where he was like oh my god i have so many things to tell you and poor lisa is even by the way i learned more of a skeptic than blaze like blaze yeah dead serious like blaze was trying to tell lisa like no it was scary you had to be there for certain things and lisa was like okay so she was just not having it she was very polite like she let she's like i believe that you believe it and i was like wow that hurts that that's like you have every right to be wrong yeah yeah yeah i was like ouch okay fine um but he was talking about you know and then he said to me he looked in my eye and he said do you want to know about your house

and i was like sorry we're sitting in my house do i want to of course your house? And I was like, sorry, we're sitting in my house. Do I want to? Of course I want to. And he's like, it's nothing bad. And I was like, well, now that you've said it, I have to know, you know, whether it's bad or not. And it wasn't anything that crazy, but he basically said the woman who, which I think I did mention to you when we saw each other, but the woman who used to live here, right, who sold us the house, apparently took him aside one day at like an event, like a block party or something, and was like, hey, can I talk to you? Because I guess she knew he's the one to talk to about ghostly encounters. He must really be making a name for himself. I love that. I'm

so impressed. People just know immediately. I mean, now I'm making a name for him if he hasn't done it already. You really stepped in and said, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. Like, I'm the podcaster here. Oh, I was thrilled. I was like, finally, a kindred spirit. Get it? And so anyway, he said that the woman who used to live here, she took him aside one day and said, hey, you know, there's the weirdest thing happening. Every time my husband leaves town, and she had two little two young kids, she said, every time my husband leaves town and I'm asleep in our bedroom, I'm woken up in the middle of the night by this rocking chair, which, by the way, I said, that's your that's her first problem. I don't know what she expected, putting a rocking chair in her bedroom. But she said, I'm woken up by this rocking chair rocking and not just like swaying, but like as if someone's just sitting in it and rocking back and forth. And she said it happens repeatedly, but only when her husband's traveling.

And I was like, and he goes, but maybe you don't share the same room. And I'm like, we definitely share the same room. So, you know, I don't have a rocking chair in there. Maybe that's a thing to test out. I've never felt anything in that room really only in the hallways so maybe it's leaving me alone maybe it went with her i don't know but fingers crossed yeah yeah so that's the first thing but then on halloween night m this is the thing i haven't told you yet oh and it's nothing like humongous i already have i already have goose

cam i don't know oh my god your arm has an eyebrow because you have that eyebrow feature turned on. Oh, my God. I was so offended for a second. No, no. Where's the eyebrows? Hold on. Move it a little bit up. Move it a little bit.

Oh, there it is. What if the whole time it was just your arm hair and I was like, oh, now I'm going to relax a little. I was like, do I have one thick follicle? Like, what's happening? It has a big unibrow. If that were the case, I would just do do I have one thick follicle? Like what's happening? It has a big unibrow. If that were the case, I would just do this and have crazy eyebrows all the time. Then you could really own the like, the like model look, the big brow look. The woe is me, I call it. The woe is me unibrow.

Okay, Halloween night. Oh, so it's nothing crazy. But my mom and I walked inside and we had such a great time. Like, I feel like this was the first Halloween since we've been here where people were really out. And like it was, you know, it felt like a normal Halloween, so to speak, like, it felt almost like a pre COVID Halloween, like there were neighbors out just like at their houses, like everyone was just chatting. And you know, there were, I think seven to 800 kids went through like it was holy shit it was a lot um but so afterward we like packed everything up we went inside my mom and I were just standing in kind of like the the lobby I don't know the foyer I don't know how to what's the entrance to a house of your house it is a lobby okay lobby no we were like standing right in front of the right by the front door it was kind of dark and my mom said something like wow this really reminds me of um our halloweens growing up you know just like how fun and special and happy they were and i was getting a little emotional and i was like yeah you're you're right this just felt really special and i said i i hope this is probably

a weird thing to say i don't know but i said something like i hope the house like appreciates us being here because like leona had so much fun and i just said i hope the house is happy we're here and i swear to god somebody like gently like in a nice way put their hands on my arm as if to like hold on to my arm shut up and i'm standing there and i go mom mom mom mom mom mom mom and she's like what and i was? And I was like, someone's holding my arm. Someone's holding my arm. And then she like got all emotional. And I was like, you're not scared. I'm terrified. You're not scared.

And she was like, well, they're just, they're just saying thank you for, for, you know, making this a happy house. And I was like, stop it, stop it. But somebody was holding on to my, like one arm on my forearm and one on my upper arm, just kind of like holding onto my side sort of to be like you know it was it was one of those moments where i was like mom somebody's literally grabbing my arm and instead of being like what are you talking about she's like oh that's so nice and i was like don't act like this is normal could you feel like fingers like could you feel a hand

or was it pressure yeah it was like a pressure it was like but it was almost like oh i knew somebody was standing there was it did it feel was there a temperature change yeah it was it was warm and it was like kind of tingly like you know how i remember when i used to say like i would get like a tingly feeling in my left arm and then i wasn't sure if it was a heart attack or a ghost or both which precipitated the other I don't know but um but yeah it was and it's it's hard to explain but it was just one of those moments where I was like whoa and I was standing in the like front of my house in the dark and I was like wow this feels and it wasn't really scary it was just like very touching and

well hey at least you got the approval i know i was relieved about that but um i mean that that does debunk the uh theory originally that they left with the rocking chair that's true maybe they're just like a protective like a you know a maternal figure i have no idea yeah yeah did it feel maternal yes oh 100 which i didn't realize until i just said that loud and i was like oh right yes it was definitely a woman standing there which is which i didn't realize until i just said that loud and i was like oh right yes it was definitely a woman standing there which is like i didn't see anybody but how cool oh my gosh it was very cool and it's the first time that's happened in the house so i felt like oh god well let's hope it's not getting too comfortable and yeah yeah great

point let's hope that's that's where it stops thank you for the acknowledgement now let's let's separate now let's let's separate now let's go our separate ways anyway sorry now that was long but um no I just had a lot to update you on no I've been waiting for a long time because we whenever we had our New Orleans show like definitely over a week ago you were like I have a ghost story for you and then we did the thing of like oh we can't talk about it till you record I know I hope it wasn't too disappointing I know it wasn't anything crazy happened but but it did feel very real. It's interesting that you're the one that has now seen a ghost and felt a ghost.

I feel like I'm just like actively, I don't know, just talking about it enough that maybe they think like, oh, they've already had that experience. Or maybe you're more like, well, why don't you leave me alone? And I'm more like, oh, I had a glass of wine. Come say hi. And you're like, what are you doing? Stop it. Yeah, I definitely want to, you know, have an exchange outside of my home from separate aisles or something. But meanwhile, I'm like, come visit. Yeah, you're like, let's snuggle. And I'm like, let's, let's text, you know. You can WhatsApp me and we'll see if I'm around. The Ouija WhatsApp, yeah. I'm very excited for you.

I'm also really excited it did not happen to me. But I am very happy that that happened. What a spooky thing. And to happen on Halloween. On Halloween. And I had been thinking the whole time because we had recorded our Halloween episode already and I was just thinking like wow you know I'm talked about it being like thinner between us and the other side and I don't know it just felt very poignant yeah I wonder if I wonder if they want to talk to you more often but Halloween was just the easiest

maybe you know I wonder if they were just thrilled and they they were like thank god you're not the type to uh what did people used to do cabbage each other's houses they're like thank god there's no more yeah commit arson yeah and i'm like i hope we make them happy and they're like well you're just sitting outside eating candy i think like it could be way worse yeah it could certainly be worse i i wonder if they were alive during the cabbage nights because that would have been a nightmare oh boy well we'll know next year on halloween if a ghostly phantom cabbage flies through your window but what a dream what a dream um so well okay hey also let's talk about our shows because we had a great uh we had a great last big leg we've got only gosh one city left yeah we have austin and that's it i feel so like

i don't know sad i cried but you know yeah oh wait this comes out after our last show oh shit yeah know that i'll cry again everybody well we've cried about it our show's over we're very very like bittersweet just it's it's big it's been a huge part of our lives for three years now three years out of 30 is a tenth of my life let's put it that way whole yeah is that right 30 divided by 3 is 10 whoa yeah so that's why it feels really big. And also it was definitely the most significant thing that's happened to us through COVID. It was the only consistent thing that we had. Yeah, it's true. And it started pre-COVID and now is ending. I wouldn't say post-COVID, but you know what I mean? Like post- Book ending.

Book ending it. It feels very bittersweet and uh you know i mean we're gonna you know do more live shows in the future but this one was just like our our big project yeah it was definitely the one we we had never worked so hard on something no no and we went to grad school so we really uh kicked it up a Well, are you happy to be back with your little baby for a few days? Yeah, I am. And it was really hard that one week where I came home for Halloween and then I was there for like 36 hours and left again. And it was just a lot going back and forth.

And I know Blaze is like, you know, he's basically just home with her all the time so he's like really um doing uh most of the work right now as far as like parenting goes um so it was nice for us to take a little like for me to be able to wake up with her and him to sleep past seven you know you know what you should do well blaze if you listen don't listen to this part we should uh we should you should we should plan a surprise vacation for the two of you or something oh it's like a thank you for him being there when you were doing all the touring oh are you gonna watch leona during this vacation sure okay great bring her to la i'm in um but anyway no i i am also i've wanted to say blaze if you are listening now listen to this part

that uh he really is just like such a trooper and i don't want it to sound like oh because he's a man and exactly but because he's just a human being i think anyone's staying with a baby even if it's yours for that extended period of time absolutely it's a lot of work everyone needs a break even if it's your kid and it's like exhausting like on a level of like emotionally and it's like a 24-7 like you're just constant it's a constant job i mean any parent listening knows that it's probably so frazzled just like yeah phrase your nerves for sure especially now that she's kind of at the point where she's like obsessed with climbing upstairs and uh you know things where you're like constantly trying to corral or like be on edge.

But yeah, it's yeah, you're exactly right. It's not like, oh, because he's the dad. It's just like, you know, if it were you, I'd be saying the same. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been home with her for a weekend and I was like, holy Lord, I cannot wait for him to come back. So anyway, snaps around the world for Blaze.

For any parent that's doing this alone or not alone, it's a lot of freaking work, okay? It's a lot of work. But anyway. Anyway. I guess that's why we drink. I was going to say, that's why a lot of us drink, I think. What about you, Em? The show ending?

The show is a big emotional one. I'm trying to come up with like a lighthearted one. I'm trying to come up with like a lighthearted one. Oh, I'm seeing I got early access to see Black Panther tonight. Is that why that keeps coming up on my calendar? And I'm like, what are you? Oh, sorry. No, I just keep panicking. Like, I have an event tonight at 8 p.m.

And I'm like, Marvel. Okay, that must be him. No, that's me. That's me. How cool. Yeah, so it's my second pre-screening I've been invited to. I'm very excited. and i'm like marvel okay that must be him yeah that's me that's me uh no i just like yeah so it's my second pre-screening i've been invited to i'm very excited um whoa it's weird though because you know how allison and i go to every movie together uh she is still traveling she's in columbia still um uh or i think she actually just got to D.C.

And she's staying there for a week. Anyway, I'm not going to see her until for like I'm not going to see her for another week. And then we see each other for two days. And then we don't see each other for another like two and a half weeks. So this is the first time we're seeing a Marvel movie without each other. It's very weird. So I'm going to the screening and I don't have i'm just like going by myself this is a month full of brave moves we're making i'm very you're you and your husband are very brave for raising a baby who climbs and i'm

very brave for going to a pre-screening for a marvel movie listen i don't know if i could do it's hard to go somewhere by yourself to an event. Especially when it's like a networking thing. Yeah, exactly. Especially when you're supposed to like, you're expected to talk to people. I mean, oof. Yeah, it's a weird one.

You're going to do great. It'll be fun. Thank you. Also, side note for anyone who cares, my Stranger Things Eggo box, I told everyone that I made the box. People probably know that by now. But the tape and the adhesive has finally fallen apart.

And here is my actual Eggo box from Stranger Things. But if you're from Stranger Things, no, it's not. But all the tape finally peeled off. And it's now, I have to rebuild it. To be fair, now, if you have to pack it up you can just lay it flat that's true that's a good point it's easy to pack i um but also i always wanted to show everybody i've just never wanted to touch it because i could tell the adhesive was slowly falling off but what's interesting is because it was getting printed for the screen and you

were only ever going to see it like this far away you never have to even if you saw the back for a second you never pay attention to the details but like you can see how pixelated it is on the back oh my god but it's supposed to look like i think it was 1983 so it's the 1983 back of the eggo box but it's like it's so pixelated you can't even read the like you can't read the ingredients or anything like it's just like such a random clearly they found whatever image they could and just work and just went with it yeah just stretched it up but anyway now i have to put it together look at the original ingredients and like the original toaster they're like put this in a toast this is how it works put it in

a toaster there's one image it's a waffle in a toaster but yeah so it's um anyway i have to rebuild it but at least everyone got a sneak peek of it i guess but it's now that it's all ironically the expiration date on it is november 22 no way isn't that crazy look and it said oh my god it said this is as long as i promised to to to be oh my god that's crazy i think it probably meant like november 22nd 1983 or something but it what are the odds in november 2022 that it fell apart the box is over yeah that's so weird anyway um that's why i drink i suppose black panther and stranger Things and you for very serious reasons. Nah, I mean, I talk to a ghost, so, you know.

All right. Serious, not serious. Well, I did see that meme that everyone's tagging us in where it says like 40 minutes into the podcast. They say, well, let's jump right in. Well, let's jump right in. Let's cut to the chase. Yeah. So I guess here at a hot 19 minutes, let's jump right in let's cut to the chase yeah so uh i guess here at a hot 19 minutes um let's jump right in here is a ghost story for you um it is one of the most haunted places in england it's said to be the

most haunted castle in england and it is called i think i'm saying it right the barry pomeroy barry pomeroy castle i can't wait i love a haunted castle i also love a haunted castle but i will say early on shockingly zach bagans has not been here even better oh that means we got the scoop we do yeah well it's called the barry pomeroy castle because it's in a village called barry pomeroy which is in devon county okay so um and the pomeroy part comes from the pomeroy family who back in the 11th century of course the one you know yeah yeah of course we all remember fondly uh the pomeroys were a prestigious uh like prominent landowner they were prominent

landowners at the time uh and so i'm that's how they ended up with the land for berry pomeroy i don't know where berry comes from maybe a bunch of berries grow there oh i thought just the guy's name was berry no berry like blueberry oh got it uh i don't know where berry comes from but pomeroy comes from the landowners and they originally got the land because um in the 11th century william the conqueror uh granted the land to a knight um and he was a pomeroy ancestor um he never ended up building a castle there but like a cool you know 14 late 1400s you know in that time period hundreds of years later i guess uh hundreds of years hundreds of years yeah yes uh his family finally grew a

castle um grew a castle they built one they grew it with bricks it was made of berries and they watered it every day with their newfangled 14th century sprinkler system. Okay, but if they did, that would have been like the very first topic I ever covered. Okay, they grew it with their bare hands and a construction company. And they built it because at the time a war was coming it was called the war of the roses oh yeah i remember i heard about it in ap euro did you i don't remember anything but i got a four on that exam so i must have known something about it you knew about it really well for a very short time for an extremely short time

for as long as it took you to study and answer the test yeah and uh and that why why why keep it any longer than that you know so uh the war of the roses was on its way and so i think the pomeroys probably at this point were like oh well we're gonna need a much stronger home than what we're living in a safer home and so that's why they built the castle gotcha um and it is northeast of the actual village of barry pomeroy and fun fact the castle was uh one of the last ones to ever be built with like the old school fortification features so like a curtain wall and gun ports and a moat which i feel like we should certainly bring back i definitely i as a child i always thought oh my dream house will absolutely without question have a moat yeah

and a drawbridge like hello yeah i never even thought it was like there was no possibility in my mind that that wouldn't happen yeah i was just like oh well one day i'll have a moat how's that going for you in your apartment in burbank okay well i'm just wondering i have a moat of cockroaches uh oh yay they say you cannot cross and that's how i can't get into my own room it's a moat against you i see uh so although the pomeroys were once super powerful um they literally had a castle they eventually lost the land in political conflict oh and the last of the two brothers and the pomeroy family who lived in the castle uh let's just say they refused to surrender during a siege on the castle and the way that they went out in a blaze of glory if that's what you wanted to call it um they put on full armor i'm so sorry

they blindfolded their horses and they had them jump off the highest tower i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and oh my god them and their horses died and that was the end of the pomeroy family at the castle why are listen why are men so dramatic? Truly. Here's the thing. Why do women get accused? I mean, I'm talking in a very binary, you know, historically. But why do women always get accused of being dramatic? And then you hear a story like this from hundreds of years ago, and you're like, I'm sorry.

I'm the dramatic one? The woman would have brought the horse to the fanciest coziest ranch farm to live out its days and just hide and be like whatever what's lost is lost you know and honestly she might have stayed on the farm with the horse and been like you know what we're both safe here that's what i'm saying what would have happened let's start a berry farm no one will know yeah okay hey that's i'm gonna consider that the true factual history of i wish that were history. Barry got its name in the town. Anyway, that highest point off the highest tower is called Pomeroy's Leap. Whoa.

I know. It's so dramatic they had to also rename the tower, I guess. They didn't even just jump. They leaped. Okay. They leapt. Galavanted, I suppose. They strutted across and leapt off i mean come on i know um so anyway that

is how the pomeroys ended up not having the the castle after that it's gruesome and i will say thankfully slash hopefully um that story isn't a hundred percent historically confirmed so i'm gonna pretend at the very least the horses was um dramatic flair for a story i see so we can at least tell ourselves you know you know maybe it's not true we can they did actually go to a farm cling to that hope okay um and after that in 19 oh no not 19 that is significantly further into the future in 1547 uh the property ended up going to sir edward seymour who was the first duke of somerset um fun fact for any broadway fans out there if you have been listening to six at all in the last few years um sir edward is in fact the brother to jane seymour who was okay henry the eighth's third wife who died during childbirth she's the one in the song where she

just goes died just you know if anyone has listened to the song you know what i'm talking about from that one note they're like oh that song yeah well instead of divorce beheaded yeah she's died she's died um okay so sir edward her brother uh also ended up making a lot of enemies and by 1552 so that's like five years into owning the castle he was imprisoned and executed and the castle was passed on to an heir of his oh my god so he had five hot years in this castle yeah um his heir i guess was into interior design or something and decided this is a quote castles are out big mansions are in which i'm confused at the difference but okay just to show my wealth status

i don't know the difference between a castle and a mansion yeah i don't either quite i mean i would assume a castle is a moat but like a mansion with a moat sounds plausible too so i'm not really sure and better and better i guess if you already have a moat why would you say that's out time to scrap it up you You're right. Well, anyway, this heir had a very strong opinion, apparently, about big mansions versus castles. Yeah. And decided to renovate the inside of the castle pretty much to a significant degree. They removed a whole bunch of stuff from the original structure.

This is like, yeah, you know what this sounds like? This is like McMansion business, like this kind of nouveau riche like oh i'm gonna build like old stuff is gross i'm gonna build myself a brand new i'm gonna take out all the beautiful light fixtures and all this and i'm gonna make it like all the fancy and brand new yeah it sounds very mcmansion-y it's the first mcmansion sounds very ty pennington tlc's like trading extreme makeover or something yeah and the the they put race car beds with slides in all of the rooms um it's like i heard you like tennis so your floor is made of tennis ball carpet and you're you're all your clothes are now tennis whites and you

can't do anything about it sorry so you're you have a tennis coach who just sits in your closet like a sleep paralysis demon he's always there ready to practice your serve with you um i i was gonna say something oh fun fact i don't know if i've talked about this on the show did you know do you know what the original mcmansions actually were like no uh victorian houses were well okay hey perfect i know they were the original mcmansions because um people who were building them had recently come into money and they were making these kind of elaborate gaudy like lots of colors lots of random like turrets where it doesn't make sense for a turret to be yes very dramatic very show, very dramatic, very showy. And so back then

they were considered very tacky and like, oh my gosh, like they're just trying to show off their wealth. And nowadays, obviously, Victorian, you know, homes are like very traditional and historic. So it's kind of an interesting little twist. I love that tacky is like actually history. I know. Isn't that wild to think? Like people in Victorian homes, it used to be like, I know. Isn't that wild to think? Like people in Victorian homes, it used to be like, oh, what a tacky library you've built into that turret. You know, imagine if you told them like, oh, actually, in 2022, people are going to spend top dollar on that. They would probably be like, I know, because I spent so much money to put this fucking turret in. Well, OK, well, this basically I guess this guy was pro mcmansion but not pro

mccastle so he renovated the entire castle to be more modern but that included removing a bunch of the stuff in it so i guess maybe the difference between a mansion and a castle is maybe one was tackier looking and like more dramatic yeah i feel like that's that's not really um i feel like that's more subjective than anything but i guess so but if he's taking out a bunch of the like dramatic flair maybe he was one of those people who was like oh this is so tacky if i have to inherit this castle i'm gonna definitely make it look like i'm more modest so but didn't he say he wanted it to be more like okay well i guess he ended up building well no ty pennington was not in charge of the project so it definitely did not become

more dramatic um he turned it into just a four-story mansion which i don't know what that fucking means i don't either um but apparently he he turned it um into an elizabethan mansion which um anyone who knows more about architecture than I do will maybe know the difference. But in the 1600, or no, at 1600, on the dot, in 1600, his son ended up renovating the building again. I figured it out. What?

A castle is a, this is according to Quora, a castle is a fortification. A mansion or a manor is just a house. So it's not. So we took all the protection away? Well, I think it's just like, it's not meant to be, it's meant to be a home. Not like, oh, it's meant to protect you from warring troops. You know what I mean? Okay.

troops you know what i mean okay like i think it it means more that um you're you're using it as a as a house rather than uh being like focusing on the fortifications for safety purposes i guess so but i feel like if you already have a castle with all the bells and whistles i feel like i would still live in it and be like oh yeah we don't use that anymore but like how cool for history i have a feeling but a history i feel like from like 50 years ago isn't really like history yet you're like oh we don't need moats anymore that's so outdated like good point we're not getting attacked but now yeah i wish i could get that moat back okay fair enough fair enough i don't know well so then after he i guess kind of downsized or at least um took out some of the the flare and the fortifications sad his son ends up renovating the building to make it even bigger which i think is

so ironic because like probably could use some of those old walls you knock down to make extra rooms but whatever um but the project was never finished so i it's in 1700 the property was abandoned so 100 years after the last renovation that which still never got finished and is now also abandoned okay um now very quickly time travel into the 1900s and in 1977 um english heritage which cares for a bunch of historic properties they took over the castle and they are now still doing renovations okay interesting sidebar about english heritage what do you know about their youtube channel oh what don't i know um i don't know anything i don't know okay english heritage english heritage if you're listening i'm probably your biggest fan no i i when i saw this uh that

english heritage took it over i was so excited to finally have a sagu into talking about their youtube channel because they fucking nailed it so you know about this before this episode i knew about i well when i was looking through the notes it said english heritage took over i was like oh my gosh. But you already knew about this YouTube. So I see where you're coming from. Because you would think English Heritage would have a YouTube channel where they talk about all the landmarks and properties that they're taking care of. I'm talking about a very specific playlist that they have on their YouTube channel.

Because they have multiple playlists. Whoever's doing their social media and coming coming up with the ideas well done because they have a whole playlist of like teaching you historically accurate um like makeup tutorials from like hundreds of years ago but you're saying you knew about this before these i knew about english heritage the youtube channel yes okay okay that's all i want to know okay sorry no i thought you meant oh i knew about the castle through the no no no no sorry i just meant like you've heard of this youtube channel this is like a long-standing thing you've been waiting to educate me on long-standing this is um this is one of my like comfort youtube channels oh really um yeah sorry for the confusion there but no no it's one of the

things i'm thrilled to learn about this when i'm like eating lunch and i need to like throw something on i love those moments where you're like i have the perfect thing it's one of the only things i go back and watch multiple times be and only one of their playlists i appreciate their other playlists for existing i'm sure they're useful and wonderful to other people but But this one playlist is called The Victorian Way. And how fun is that? So here's the thing about The Victorian Way. They have a few types of videos or like different like hosts.

But there's one that I follow. It's like their cooking channel, but it's The Victorian Way. And it's OK. It's filmed in one of the houses that they are preserving called the Audley Inn house. And I think it's filmed in there. I would bet almost my life, almost, that it is filmed inside the house in their kitchen.

And the person who's like the chef and cooking for you, I've never met someone more committed to a fucking character but i don't know who this person is is it mrs warwick no no no it's mrs avis crocombe oh crocombe yes and she's the head cook for um lord and lady braybrook stop it this is why i love shows like downton abbey because you're like whoa i feel like i'm just transported she i don't know who she got her studying from on like what this character is probably like but i'm so convinced that mrs avis crocombe is actually back from time traveler from the 1800s and she makes some of the m there's a dish before you say it say it with me on the

count of three i don't know if i'm gonna say it right oh it might be a different different things okay okay let's say it on the count of three and it'll be really funny if they're different it will definitely be different because you can pronounce mine very easily okay just say yours just say yours uh asparagus salad yes okay that's a wild one i was about to say the meals that she makes are kind of outlandish but yeah for the time but that's why it's funny because like the asparagus vase like we learned all about that and like this is a vegetable salad where like it's literally just adorned with all these asparagus because like now we know they were super hoity-toity back then well that was celery oh but maybe

like shit you're totally right wrong fucking vegetable my bad okay the one i thought you were gonna say because the next sentence out of my mouth was gonna be the things that she cooks are things i would never eat but also like so interesting to watch one of them being pigeon pie and she i i still make that in certain places literally she adorns it with the pigeon's feet i'm like absolutely not i'm like miss crocom you didn't you missed the mark today you know crocom you are something else um but her videos i'm just like this is just like a episode now where i just rave about mrs crocum but she's amazing i have never heard of this and now it's all i care about i mean this this channel has 1.29 million subscribers like this is clearly a very and her video her videos she always like

has like a storyline to them she's like mrs lady braybrook is having ladies over to play cards later and i know just the thing to make them and then makes like asparagus salad and i'm like what oh my god um i'm trying to think if there was one uh where i watched uh that i watched of like like um it wasn't colonial it was it was like plantation life on youtube channel and it was like plantation life on YouTube channel. And it was like historical. And I watched that a lot too when I was like doing my makeup or when I was like just eating dinner. And it was like this where they had enslaved people who, you know, I mean, obviously in character. But say like this is what a day was like. So fascinating.

For an enslaved person who worked as quote unquote the ladies maid for a woman in early America. Just like really interesting, like little like slice of life. Yeah. But acted out. And I just find it fascinating and like very educational, but also like, you know, really immersive. I just love shit like that. Yeah. Well, enjoy English Heritage, the Victorian series.

I'm going to. I just subscribed, so i'm ready lady braybrooke is they're all of a sudden they're gonna be like why did our numbers go skyrocket i mean they already have 1.3 million subscribers i don't know that we're gonna add that much of a chunk but i have a hunch we'll put a little dent in there especially at the pigeon pie video well the pigeon pie video might be suddenly number one okay anyway all of that to say English Heritage also does many other things, including caring for hundreds of historic properties. Great.

Including the Barry Pomeroy Castle. So they are in the works to renovate the building and also on the side have a YouTube channel and you should watch it. Love it. Okay. Now just for the ghosts. Okay. I'm in. I'm ghosts okay i'm in i'm in sorry i burped right as you said that and i was like i feel like i should just not say anything you know what i mean i just like why because earlier when i said i burped you went ew yeah um okay so as for the ghosts okay so they're uh the two brothers that were just like you know

bringing their horses to the afterlife with them um visitors say that you can actually see ghostly riders on the castle grounds which which which also implies the horses are there too right the ghost horses. It's like, God, I mean, you just trauma, like what a fucking traumatic way to die. No wonder there's a ghost horse. They're like, what just happened? Yeah.

Oh, totally. Like a minute ago, I was like fine. And now, oh, it's so sad. I also like we're putting that, those ghost reports with that story, but I feel like there had to be more than two horses on the ground it's right so a ghostly rider could probably be anyone who used to travel around the grounds yeah yeah could have been anyone so let's continue to pretend that maybe that didn't happen

to the horses maybe maybe maybe um so people there's actually in 2019 there was um one person named chloe who visited with her friends and they heard what sounded like an animal and then started taking pictures and they got blurry forms of horses and riders. Whoa. I have a picture of that that I can send. Sweet. Oh, shit. Isn't that crazy? That's actually pretty fucking cool, dude.

Yeah. You know what's wild to me is that the guy in the corner we'll put this on um we'll have megan put this on instagram megan um but what's wild to me is that the photo is that the dude in the photo is like completely non-blurry like he's completely clear it's like what's right next to him so it's not like the whole photo is blurred it's just like this one portion of it yeah it also looks like it's happening over a bush or something or like it looks like something that would be oh good point like it feels like there would like the bush would be damaged or something if there was really something there and what's

freaky to hear like oh or what's freaky is that they heard an animal took a photo and like, there it is. Yeah, that's super weird to like already have some sort of evidence going on. And then it's almost like secondary proof. Oh, boy, that's pretty cool. Well, also, I don't know, but I'm going to guess that that castle in the back of the picture, one of those towers is probably the one that, you know. That they didn't jump off of. Right. Gotcha.

One of them is there. Gotcha. As for the other one, there are also reports of the sounds of men shouting and heavy thuds and the sound of horses at the top of the the tower i don't like the thuds that's not good yeah i wonder if it's like the hove the falling oh i thought it was the falling it could be either um so also there is uh a tower there called the saint margaret's tower and in the dungeons apparently there is a say it with me lady in white um i was like an um what do they call it when they ghost they bricked in the nuns i thought you were going to talk about bricking in no no no but there's asparagus salad there's no just one lone plate left

uh nope there's a lady in white okay called White Lady. All right. And the story goes that one of the Lord Pomeroy's, fun fact, there was like almost 20 Lord Pomeroy's. Okay. But one of them. 20 Lord Pomeroy's. And a plate of asparagus salad. Wait. Hold on. I also just realized something. What lords a leaping maybe all

them were pomeranians i'm saying leaping off the tower oh shit leaping the leap oh if it were two lords a leaping i'd be real nervous yeah how many lords a leaping is it could be it could be a different number 10 lords it is 10 lords yeah all right well all right i guess that makes it better at least we don't know where they're leaping to or from you know hopefully just from one foot to the next in a beautiful happy jig because their because their pigeon pie was so tasty yeah okay so where on earth are we anymore i don't know i'm sorry oh right right right okay how the white lady came to be so uh one of the leaping lord pomeroys uh he went on a crusade which I like how that was probably just like a day at work

for him. Yes. Oh. And he left his oldest daughter in charge while he was gone. And her name was Lady Eleanor. And Eleanor's sister, Lady Margaret, was engaged to a man. But here's the thing. Both of them were in love with this man.

Oh, the sisters. Oh, no. It's giving Hamilton, you know oh for sure for sure so eleanor got really jealous of margaret for being engaged this man and while the dad was away on his crusade she locked margaret away up in one of the towers for nearly 20 years how long was that wait wait what hold on how long was mr crusader gone you know leaving his daughter in charge freaking years maybe he died and at the crusade i was gonna say like that's the only thing that makes sense well that by the way that's a like a lucky call for her then like what was she gonna do when he came back unlock her

well yeah she could probably just be like oh she was misbehaving and i was in charge so i guess so but like that did work out weirdly well for her at least that 20 years no one came looking yeah yeah um and of course in 20 years without food or water uh lady margaret died in the tower so 20 years without food or water so more like what three days three days and then like an extra 20 years for like oh i don't know just to double check um and so that is lady margaret who died in the tower also it is called saint margaret's tower um wow lady margaret is said to be the white lady and she wanders the grounds in a white gown often seen in saint margaret's tower which is where she died and a lot of people who see her are overcome with fear anger or despair

um those walking down that particular tower at night um if you're walking towards the dungeon people will feel something brush past them like it passed them on the stairs oh people have also seen her waving at them oh but when they see her waving they feel evil like they feel an evil presence presence wait how weird is that? I wonder why that is. I know. I wonder if she's just got a bunch of pent up anger from what happened to her. Oh, maybe.

I wonder if it's waving like hello or waving like help me, you know? Oh, shit. Oh, I don't know. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, maybe it's like a residual. Like both are bad because if someone just waved at you like this, it sounds very sinister to just wave hello as a ghost. But also waving for help is kind of terrible.

Yeah. What if it was waving frantically? And then if it's a residual haunt, that means that that already happened and someone was walking by and she was just replaying. That's pretty horrific. Well, there's also a blue lady instead of a white lady. That's a fun twist. It's fun until I say this next sentence, which is a trigger warning for you in particular, because I know you have- Oh, excellent. I'll turn it off for a few minutes.

Okay. Thanks for the trigger warning about something I can't turn off. Uh-huh. I really did just jump right in and say, good luck um it is a um we will rip it off like a band-aid but it is a true crime baby situation oh no okay just but we'll rip it off like a band-aid so um the blue lady was the daughter of a lord who was abused by her father um and she now wanders the grounds in a cape and a blue cape and a blue hood um but the reason one of the ways she was abused is that she got pregnant with her own father's child and when the baby was born in a fit of trauma smothered the baby oh god another version is that the father her father and i guess the baby's father yeah um is the one who who killed the baby

um oh my god the end the end tragic fucking horror horrifying um but nevertheless uh the blue lady is now said to haunt the grounds mourning the baby mourning her own trauma tragedy yeah so um she is said to be you know probably very sad and angry so uh the blue lady is probably not the one you want to bump into if she's yeah talk about like feeling uh the despair of somebody you know i mean oof and the no wonder the weird dark irony of being a ghost mourning another loss is just always that always gets me because it feels a little meta is the wrong word but it's the like yeah your death is never ending because of someone else's death yeah it's like a cyclical, like you're stuck in this tragic loop almost. Yeah.

So between the two of them, the blue lady is mourning her baby and the white lady is, I guess, mourning herself. And probably still has some vengeful thing about her sister. A lot of very tragic ends. Yeah. And then, of course, let's throw the animal cruelty in too with the horses. Sure, sure, sure. Why not? Nice trifecta. We might as well. yeah and uh and then of course let's throw like the animal cruelty into with the horses so sure sure why not nice trifecta we might as well so allegedly the blue lady is heard crying at one of the towers but here's the thing because of her own um trauma with her father she really doesn't like men oh well i don't fucking blame her yeah so one of the things that she's known to do is

cry for help at one of the towers. And if a man comes to help, she will try to push him over the ledge of the tower. Oh, goodness. As she should. No, I don't know. No, no. But like, yeah, I mean, it's hard to. Yeah, I can see why that would be the instinctual.

I hope nobody gets actually pushed off the tower, obviously. But I can see why that would be the instinct, i hope nobody gets actually pushed off the tower obviously but i can see why that would uh be the instinct you know i would definitely i would hope that um men are warned that like if you hear a cry maybe don't go wandering like maybe just stay down here yeah cup of tea yeah yeah yeah i don't know if there's actually been a successful death from a ghost i feel like we would have heard about that yeah i agree but that is supposedly what she's up to and that's it so um it happens most at saint margaret's tower which i've already mentioned and fun fact um saint margaret is the patron saint of expectant mothers and difficult births wow so what are the odds that the blue lady is up there i didn't know that um so uh now to get

into like well let me just see where this takes us okay you're like i don't want to commit before i really know i don't so in victorian england uh there was this movement to romanticize like ruins and ghosts and gothics and Celtic ruins and ghosts. But when tourists started flocking to these sites, a lot of them didn't have like enough stories to make a whole tour and like a whole ghost tour, which I love that there were ghost tours back then. Yeah, which is so fun. Like, you know, we were on all those tours in our past life. I would love to know what the first ghost tour was oh i'm sure it's a quick google but i feel like it was the guy who did the tizzy whizzy he was like i got a ghost tour for you i made it up but actually that's a great point right like he's like i got one it's not real but here we go great point by

the way someone um at one of our shows just made us Tizzy Whizzies. Yes. And somebody made this too. And I put the card somewhere. But this is, I know. And I think. It's another Tizzy Whizzy. Yeah.

They bought the hedgehog crochet pattern and then added wings. Oh, that's so sweet. And eyebrows. And then, of course, they made Zandy one since he loves hedgehogs but without the wings um and i looked at this and was like what is that i was like it god the ultimate take a hike zandy i feel like for someone who loves hedgehogs we the tizzy whizzy is not far that would be his favorite lore i'd imagine yeah i was gonna say he better get on board because like we're we're nailing it with like his interests i mean very on brand for him but yeah i'll uh i'll find the name

of the person who made it later i have it on a card but um yeah we've gotten some fun tizzy wizzy merch the ornaments are so cute love it love it uh i don't know how oh sorry my cardiologist is calling me yeah yeah he's like i hear that your heart i can sense your heart is uh not doing too hot today yeah something's not right something's not right okay so let me try that again so in victorian england there was a movement to romanticize ruins and ghosts and thus tourists started coming in to see these sites um but the guides had to start making up these stories so that they could sell hilarious ghost toy yeah i i think so too i you know they had to sit together and be

like what are we gonna say like what are we even what could we possibly have to say so i wonder if any of the stories that i just told were just concocted forever ago and now we have no proof about them that's a great not existing point how much of it intriguing how much of it is real how much of it is i don't know well unfortunately i think it was either the white lady or the blue lady i think it was the white lady um that maybe can be more confirmed because uh there is one story that people take particular interest in because a doctor who was visiting. So like someone who's more logical and probably more skeptical. He said, no, no, no. I fucking saw something.

OK. So this is in the late 1800s. His name was. Well, he was a doctor, but he was also called sir walter farquhar so i'm like are you sir doctor or doctor sir i don't know i'm from shrek not farquad farquhar close close but yeah i don't know which title to go with first i feel like it would be because like you say professor doctor so maybe sir doctor oh okay walter farquhar um and he published a memoir and in it included his experience at the barry pomeroy castle where he um was asked to

visit because the caretaker on the grounds his wife was really sick and so as a doctor he came on over and while he was waiting to see the wife, he saw the white lady in the room with him. Uh-oh. And she looked really stressed and she was wringing her hands. And she walked up the steps and looked at him and then vanished. Which I feel like if you're about to go see a sick person and then all of a sudden ghosts are showing up. Yeah. Especially like those hospital stories you hear about like when people are about to die all of a sudden people from the

other side start visiting is it oh you just gave me chills well sure enough he talks to the caretaker and says i just saw this ghost and the caretaker was like oh well she's actually a death omen to the family and the next day his wife died so you were 100 right like she visited and it's sort of like oh no she knows a death is coming oh my god which is if that's all true it's interesting that when you're on your way out it's not just ghosts that you know that are visiting it's just whoever happens to be like in proximity is easier to see because i feel like usually it is a family member family or yeah yeah like a partner who's passed or a pet yeah but to know that it could just be like a ghost that happens to just like live in the house is also easier to access yeah that's very creepy well i don't like the fact

that i'm now seeing ghosts at my house let's just ignore that fact let's ignore it don't get sick anytime soon please try um i've been trying for three years so i'll continue yeah okay great great point another ghost there's apparently another lady in white who we don't think is lady margaret but possibly a pomeroy daughter who was very very cruel to people and thus she's just doomed and banished and she's not the one that locked the other one in it's not eleanor yeah right you would think she sounds pretty damn cruel the fact that so many cruel people have lived here is kind of crazy i mean i guess what do you expect in like a old-timey castle where

they probably didn't where they threw horses off the top i imagine they weren't necessarily the nicest people a lot of weird energy going on yeah some people claim that this lady in white will actually lure you to unsafe places uh and on the castle grounds hoping to cause accidents oh my god that's really fucking evil can you imagine just doing like a like a plain old ghost hunt here and then all of a sudden like you just start straying i'd be so nervous it would like it's very rare for me to be like oh i wouldn't want to do a ghost tour somewhere but i'm like i don't know if i'm prepared for this kind of energy you would just have to like all leash up like just have like fanny packs that connect to each other and stay in a line you know oh my god you'd have to like do the the like preschoolers like hold a rope yeah there's another ghost here called the smiling cavalier

uh who is a man dressed in 17th century cavalier clothing and he smiles and walks around uh he's walking toward the village apparently when you see him okay but what's what's interesting because we talk about the blueprint theory a lot of like oh well maybe you know he's just walking around in a room that doesn't exist anymore to us but to him it existed well he is walking on a path that used to exist and the path used to be on raised ground but since so he is he's floating it looks like he's floating ah okay that's so fun isn't that crazy so? So what a fun, like weird time hack. I love it. I wonder if that means that if you die on a plane,

are you just always in the sky? Or are you going like this? Oh, die on the plane. I thought you meant the plane crashed. Cause I was like, well, that's horrifying,

but Oh, Oh, if you are floating on ground that no longer exists there, do you think that's where, okay, here, let me, let me put it this

way do you think he died while doing that walk or did he just do that walk so often that as a ghost that's what he haunts because then it would probably be the pilot who was haunting the sky because he just lived his life flying airplanes so when he dies shit even on the ground maybe he spends his days up in the sky like flying an airplane you know luckily i've never encountered a haunted plane so i don't know me neither can you know luckily i've never encountered a haunted plane so i don't know me neither can you imagine being the flight attendant on a haunted plane and like there's some so like what do you what do you even do like that would honestly does anybody have that story because email us i don't know why you would have that story but like i feel like so one of you

must have a story that'd be the toughest listeners episode request to date. Poor Eva would be like really in pain doing that one. But if we get some, please let us know. You mean in plane. I'm so sorry. Okay. Me too. Anyway, interesting addition to the blueprint theory of like, oh, that includes like elevation.

Yes. That is very interesting. Oh, that includes like level like elevation. Yes. That's very interesting. And he does seem to be an intelligent spirit, too, because he will react to you looking at him and he'll smile at you. That's the smiling cavalier. And he'll tell you he's on his way to the pub.

I don't. Oh, well, that's nice. Does he invite you along or does he just give you an update? I don't know. I haven't been there, but I feel like i would like to i wonder if he vanishes right away or can you get a quick sentence in there could you say like oh can i come with you or yeah floating have a drink for me or why are you all the way up there yeah so many questions anyway that's the smiling cavalier which i was worried he was going to be spooky

with he sounds creepy it sounds creepy for sure so, he seems like the one that I want, especially because he's walking away from the castle. Yes. Yes. I love that for him. And he's just minding his own business, getting a pint, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So here's another dark one. But in the kitchen, there was a nine-year-old named Isabella. She was a servant. I don't know if she was an enslaved person. I hear servant and I wonder what the definition is. Sure, exactly. Especially because she was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of a Pomeroy nobleman.

Oh, excellent. Just excellent. Just wonderful. You tell me what you think. Yeah. I won't. I'm just going to let you. Nine-year-old

servant let's just call it an enslaved person yeah a child laborer yeah yeah uh-huh um well she was in the kitchen and she watched her mom getting attacked by noblemen oh cool great excellent so additional trauma and she tried she tried to fight them off, but she couldn't. And her and her mother died. And now Isabella is still seen walking around the kitchen and has even followed people home, especially if you're a friendly visitor, because she's trying to find probably a safer place. So, I know. That's fucking sad. And it's just a really dark story in general.

So, yeah, the whole of it is sad. Yeah. And anyway, of those ghosts, I will say many of the spirits in the castle are officially endorsed by English Heritage. And visitors can go on guided ghost tours of the castle, all that good stuff. That's cool. If English Heritage does it, i believe it if english heritage wants to hire us as their ghost hunters i would please pretty please and if i could go with mrs avis cronkham um and if i could ghost hunt with her in the kitchen of the oddly n house i would do you think she's gonna ghost hunt i don't think so she has a lot of pigeon pies to bake

but i think like i would go with you and i'd be like, wait a second, where did Em go? And I would find you in the fucking kitchen, like taste testing all the lemon tarts. This is an official request. If anyone knows the woman who plays Mrs. Crocombe, or if anyone knows someone who works at English Heritage,

I would do anything to go something oddly in-house, preferably with Mrs. Crocombe. Where is it? Oh, did you tell me already? England? Right, sure, yeah. But you don't know where i don't know where i just know it's called the oddly in house and i would get on a plane tomorrow um so if you're if you're out there however this needs to get spread please let them know i am very interested spread the word and as you said earlier especially because zach bagans hasn't yeah we might as well get on it right yeah yeah

okay so the last fun fact i'm going to throw at you is that there is a website by a man named And as you said earlier, especially because Zach Bagans hasn't. Yeah, we might as well get on it, right? Yeah. Okay. So the last fun fact I'm going to throw at you is that there is a website by a man named Simon Day, and he has compiled many ghost sightings from Barry Pomeroy on his site. He even says like he does. He did not believe in ghosts beforehand. But a quote from him is, I'm a very mature person and worked for the Devon and Cornwall police as a special constable for nine years. I don't drink and I don't take drugs. A constable, you say.

And I am very wary of stories by nature. And so he's like just trying to like give you his resume of how like in his right mind he is. How much he hates this podcast got it and he said i've only uh on this website i've only listed the sightings i have seen that i have been witnessed by others and i see no point claiming something i've seen alone because he feels like he'll be you know gaslit into not being true sure so um on his site he claims that interestingly the kitchen where nine-year-old isabella was the kitchen feels most evil and someone has knocked him over in there and he's even had his change fall out of his pocket and vanish before his eyes oh weird

and after that they heard a terrible scream and he looked up and saw a hammer falling from the sky about to hit him oh he dove out of the way and the hammer landed so intensely that it embedded itself in the ground what is that about had it not had he not dodged it he would be gonzo basically how weird is that i'm like a hammer out of the sky is this fucking thor what happened what are you talking about it's supposed to be a horse and i like how he's like no wonder he has that whole like cv now of like this is how logical of a person i am and a hammer fell out of the sky after my pocket change vanished um so anyway he also claims uh that uh there was another time he was at the castle and him and a group of almost 20 people saw an old woman standing at the top of the saint margaret's tower and this was 10

minutes before 1 a.m and without her opening her mouth they all still heard her say beware of the hour and 10 minutes 10 minutes later at 1 a.m sharp they heard a terrible shriek and the castle started the castle gate started to shake by itself whoa he also has um outlined instructions on the website of how you have your best chance at seeing a ghost there um i will read them now okay okay i'm taking notes some of them are maybe I think they could be used elsewhere. I think he was making it especially for the castle, but I feel like most of them are pretty universal. Yeah.

Okay. So one is don't have too many people in your group. Two to four people max. I guess because the smaller the group, the more vulnerable you are. Yeah. For some reason it says never go inside because once you or someone else has been inside you won't see a ghost i don't know what that wait what he's like the hammers fall out here not in there oh right he was like i was in the kitchen and my pocket change vanished

but don't you dare go inside because you won't see it that's so weird i don't get it okay that's the only one that doesn't track for me okay because so far i'm like one for two i guess uh the other one is you have a better chance of seeing a ghost if you walk up the rear path versus the main road um the other one is don't use a light or flash camera i will attest to this too is don't use a light or flash camera until it's like unless it's your last thing you're doing before you leave because the lights and the sounds will scare the ghosts away. Yeah. I feel like that could be startling, like a bright flash of light.

Yeah. So usually that's the last thing you do. At least that's the last thing I would do. Apparently in this castle, the cafe, which didn't know there was one, the cafe is the best spot to stand in case you want to see a ghost, which is interesting. I guess I'm the ghost in this scenario. I was going to say, that's where I will be too. So, you know.

If you really want your best chance at seeing me as a ghost, go stand at a grocery shop deli section. And the magic words are boar's head roast beef. So another thing is to be respectful of the place and to not make jokes about the ghost of the castle which is fair they were people real people another one that's probably less it's probably more difficult to do but um bring a dog or a pet with you because they can sense things that you can't happily would love to bring geo with me he would take off into the night he would never come back but you know what i mean he would at least uh he would at least love the cafe yeah also geo's castle that's the isn't that the name of

your the wi-fi or something that's uh i think that's our apartment Wi-Fi. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gio's Castle. So, hey. I think so. I think so. Unless it's changed. The red candle. You have to bring a red candle, apparently. And he even says. A red candle? I don't know that one.

That was Alexa. Did you hear her? No. She went, I don't know that one. And I went, girl, I don't either. I don't either. i don't know what i said that set her off but a red candle uh yeah he said bring a red candle if you can but then even explains it as this raises the success rate a little bit but i have no idea why i was like

you know sometimes i feel like this guy's just filling up a word count you know i'm like I feel like there's a chance you actually just had a ghost experience and happened to be holding a red candle that one time and like to be fair okay yeah but like that's true I just feel like who invented this rule and did anybody actually have success with it yeah I don't know if you happen to live near this castle maybe go bring a red candle over there but also like here's the situation bring a red candle and then it says once you reach the castle blow out the candle and you might see something that's all very vague to me so walk towards the castle with the candle lit then as you're approaching the castle blow it out and you might see something just seems very convoluted it seems very like whether without the candle you might see something you also might not whether without the candle and we don't know why the end yeah yeah i do

appreciate that he said i have no idea at least he's being honest yeah at least you're being upfront about that um he also mentions as just like a little caveat that like if you hear screaming don't take that super literally as a ghost because there are a lot of foxes in the area oh and fox screams sound like human screams um and so you know if you hear screams you're welcome to be scared but also know that there is probably a rational debunking right there are a lot of uh animals whose screams are very human-like and very freaky. They also said on the website that people have witnessed a large dog in the halls and on the grounds, but will eventually vanish once it's seen you. Okay, I like that.

And people report seeing the cane bearer, who is a woman dressed in rags who carries dried plants like cane oh okay for like weaving baskets and sometimes if she doesn't like you she will poke you with her canes um but good for her and it ranges because sometimes she'll poke you with the canes and sometimes she will follow you home temporarily so no thanks and then there's a note that she's harmless and i'm like i don't know about that sounds like maybe she's not right just a thought uh other visitors have seen a medieval guard by the ramparts and he will he's holding a light he will creepily smile at you and he will vanish excellent and then people have seen the spirits of other guards pacing the grounds.

And an old gardener has been seen cutting the grass with a scythe who then vanishes. Oh, to be fair, I'm glad he's cutting the grass. But like a man holding a scythe is the last thing I want to see vanish in front of my eye. Well, I actually am thrilled he vanishes as well. If he stayed there, I think I'd be more nervous. But I think my fear is he'd vanish just to reappear right behind me. Exactly. Like, I don't want to. I don't I don't want I want him in my eyesight. I don't want be more nervous. But I think my fear is he'd vanish just to reappear right behind me. Exactly. Like, I don't want to know.

I don't I don't want I want him in my eyesight. I don't want him vanishing. Yeah, you see right there. And all that to say, the castle still offers day tours on English Heritage's website and also a second shout out to go check out their YouTube channel because I'm so excited about the YouTube channel. And that is the Barry Pomeroy Castle. Wow. And that was a really Pomeroy Castle. Wow. And that was a really, really, really, really good one.

Oh, thank you. I was worried. I try to keep a time limit for myself. I feel like I went over this time. No, no, no, no, no. I fucking loved it. I just love the ones where it's like they have such a storied history. And so it makes sense why there's so many ghosts, you know?

Yeah. No, I love those. Really like this one. I feel like there was a lot of variety to it. Yes. And a lot of like, creepy history, which I love too. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of places I cover where it's like, oh, there were footsteps and knocking. And I'm like, I, I feel bad when I'm reporting it, because I'm like, I feel like other people are like, oh, it's the same story over and over. And it and over and it's like I can't control that I like trust me I also want there to be some variety to this I a lot of haunts are just footsteps and knocking I don't know what to tell you yeah but this one this one really I felt like was a it was refreshing it was it had quite a variety yeah oh I Oh, I loved it. Well, I have a story for you today.

This is the story of Stacey Castor. And it is a doozy woozy, okay? Okay. Stacey Castor with a T? Yes. Castor. So C-A-S-T-O-R. Stacey Castor.

So her maiden name was Stacey Daniels. She was born July 24thth 1967 in new york state and she had one brother and a sister when she was 17 and a high school senior in 1985 she was six feet tall she was outgoing uh she was on the yearbook and prom planning committees just like a very sociable um fun loving gal lit up a room lit up her smile lit up a room you get the idea uh and while she was a senior during this time she met a man named michael wallace so this michael wallace he had been born in 1967 so he was was six years older than her. He was 24 when they met. And he was also kind of like the life of the party type. Stacey was pretty quickly drawn to him. And the two of them got

very close very quickly. Mike had actually already been married to his high school sweetheart, Nancy, who coincidentally was Stacy's third cousin. Hang on now. Okay. Hold on, say that again? So Stacy met this dude. Mm-hmm. And she's like, wow, this guy's great. And he's like, you know, I am divorced.

I actually was, I used to be married to your third cousin. Oh, okay, okay. And she was my high school sweetheart. And high school sweetheart. Okay. I, I'm just getting my gargoyles ready for the family tree. That's all.

For a visual aid. Right. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So Stacy's, uh, new boyf,

her new BF, her guy going steady. That he used to be married to her third cousin. Got it. The gargoyles are placed properly. Her new BF, her guy, going steady. He used to be married to her third cousin. Got it. The gargoyles are placed properly. They are waiting and ready. Got it.

Okay, good. They're ready. So Nancy, for what it's worth, and her third cousin did not know each other very well. So if you need to, you can separate the gargoyles by like a millimeter. i don't think anyone really knows who their third cousin is i i certainly don't uh yeah you know what's that website 23andme tells me i have some but i don't really know what they are we definitely have some but i i don't think i would i don't even know the relationship that a third cousin is i don't know i know a second cousin and i know cousins once removed but i don't know third cousins i don't know the difference between once removed or second oh do you want me to teach you yeah oh okay um i didn't want to interrupt you again no no please tell me um i so you and what's a cousin's name

of yours uh oh my god what's a cousin's i have I have so many. Pick one, Bill. I don't know. August. Okay, August. If you in August, since you're cousins, if you have kids and August has kids, they will be second cousins. Okay, so my cousin's kids and my kids are second cousins. Yeah. So it's when your parents are cousins. Yes.

Okay, got it. They're second cousins. But once removed would be your relationship with august kids as they would be you would be first cousins once removed so one generation different okay um you're so smart and then it i don't totally i wouldn't be able to verbalize it but if you see it on a list if it shows like first cousin second cousins third cousins so I guess maybe third cousins are your parents are second cousins oh which feels genetically so separate like I feel like that's not that weird

if you're like yeah I feel like that's so far away like a third if I found out I was dating someone who was also dating my third cousin it's so removed yeah I feel like that's so far away. Like a third, if I found out I was dating someone who was also dating my third cousin, it's so removed. Yeah, I feel like that wouldn't phase me that much, especially if I didn't really know them. Yeah. So I guess third cousins are when your grandparents are cousins. Oh, okay. Wow.

Yeah, that is quite a leap. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. Wow. You're so smart. Like my brain just can't comprehend stuff like this. You know, I thank you. But it's that's as far as it goes. So I don't have any more. I was very stuck. I was stuck at first cousin. So that was about as far as my knowledge went. So thank you. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Cool.

Anyway, they he had been married to his high school sweetheart who happened to be Nancy's third cousin. But the women didn't really know each other. And Nancy, the third cousin, had been pregnant when she married Mike, but not with Mike's baby. So with a different baby, a different baby with a different man. And then they had their own son together as well when they got married. But their marriage didn't last long. Nancy claimed that Mike abused her and he had been to jail for drinking and driving. So that relationship kind of imploded and they got divorced. And now Mike and Stacey were together. Got it. So a lot had happened. Stacey's like 17. A lot has happened in this guy's life before before she came into the picture i don't

have enough gargoyles from committee yeah so stacy and mike dated for a few years um but when stacy at age 19 found out she was pregnant unfortunately mike made it really clear he did not want to start another family and so he just up and left her yikes st Stacey gave birth to her first daughter, Ashley, in 1988. And friends considered Stacey resilient, single mother. She basically did it all to provide for her daughter. And according to Stacey in her own words, quote, I knew from that moment on my whole reason for being here was to take care of her. And St considered ashley her best friend ashley was her life ashley was everything to her but eventually plot twist mike comes back and marries stacy in april of 1990 i guess uh the grass was not greener wherever he was uh adventuring to sure so he came back and

according to stacy mike was larger than life if you needed something that Mike had he would give it to you oh okay so Mike is this larger than life guy he comes back into the picture he marries Stacy now they're together uh and interestingly enough Stacy also got along with her third cousin Nancy aka Mike's ex-wife sure so all three of them all three gargoyles sometimes spent holidays together with the baby gargoyles of them, all three gargoyles sometimes spent holidays together with the baby gargoyles with all their children. The gargolettes. The gargolettes!

Introducing the world famous gargolettes! So if they're third cousins, then what are their children? Fourth? They're third cousins and then they have kids. Yeah, I imagine they'd be fourth cousins.

Wow. I'm learning so much. I'm probably anyone who knows how a family tree works better than me is probably like, no. Honestly, I'm baffled that you even know this because my brain, I just never understood. I'm always doing my ancestry stuff. But I do. I mean, it makes sense

to like if your parents are first cousins, their kids would be second cousins. Yes, it totally makes sense. It keeps going down the line. So it makes total sense. I'd say they're fourth cousins. Interesting. OK, so all the cousins had, you know, holidays together, that kind of thing, which I think is really lovely. You know, they all got along. Soancy uh the ex the third cousin was amazed by stacy's dynamic with mike because remember nancy had you know said mike was abusive um would drink and drive was just a very toxic relationship and so she was just shocked to see that mike who was once abusive to her seemed to follow stacy's lead in their marriage so yeah nancy thought stacy was just a smart woman she was able to stand up for herself get things done

um and in i don't know how else to put it but they basically said uh wow i can't believe stacy was able to tame him and like keep him like from being this horrible dude that I married. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. You know, for lack of a better term. So still, Stacy later recalled that Mike was not, you know, back to 100%. He struggled with drug abuse and excessive drinking still, even during the second marriage. But according to Mike's sister, he was just someone who tended to go over the limits

on everything, but was still a good soul uh and a good man so you know people tried to give him the benefit of the doubt I guess sure both parents worked to support their little family Mike worked as a mechanic and Stacey worked in ambulance dispatch and in 1991 Stacey and Mike welcomed their second daughter into the world, whose name was Brie. Okay. And so this makes me a little bit sad. Mike seemed pretty distant with his first daughter, Ashley. If you'll recall, he didn't want to start a family and he left when Stacey became pregnant.

So he never really, I guess, connected with Ashley. But when Brie was born, he doted on her, like adored her like adored her and so you know makes me a little bit sad um it was very obvious he had a favorite child uh no one really understood why um they're both his not that this makes it better or worse but they were both his blood children right correct yes both biologically same parents i feel like you see that a lot with like the trope of like like a step parent or something right right right even though half yeah sibling yeah so okay weird yeah and i i wonder yeah i you know it's i guess people just couldn't really figure out put their finger on why but maybe it was because he had said he didn't want a child and so held resentment toward her who knows sure um but yeah so when brie was born he he was like head over heels in love with with having her. So Stacey and Mike, despite having, quote unquote, tamed him, yikes, they struggled in their marriage. They had very different work schedules. They rarely saw each other. And like I said, Mike was also struggling with addiction. And Stacey just overall was not happy. In 1999, she told a friend that she was planning to divorce Mike.

So here we go. She planned to wait. She told the friend, I'm going to wait till after the holidays so all the garglets can enjoy their Christmas morning together in a happy family. And the year wraps up normally. But then, you know, when the holidays are over, this is what I'm going to let him know that I'd like to file for divorce. Sure. Unfortunately, right around this time, Mike started to get really sick. Oh, shit. So he went to the doctor for his symptoms. He told the doctor he felt drunk and dizzy even when he was sober.

His daughter later recalled he was having a hard time walking and he was having a hard time talking. But doctors, no matter what they tested, they couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong with him. Ashley, who was 12 at the time, this was January 11, 2000. Twelve-year-old Ashley came home and saw her dad on the couch acting kind of strange and making funny faces this is talk about fucking trauma in the making say he reached an arm into the air and then dropped it and ashley didn't understand what was happening but she was supposed to be out getting brief from school so she left and thought he was just being silly or like maybe having one of his like episodes or something where he was just kind of dizzy or yes yeah exactly so she thought okay well i'll just leave him on the couch and she went to pick up her sister but when she

got home with brie and again she's only 12 like how on earth was she supposed to know um stacy had found mike unresponsive on the couch and had called 911. They took him to the hospital by ambulance and he was pronounced dead of a heart attack. Oh, no. Talk about the trauma. Very traumatic. And, you know, for years, Ashley struggled with the guilt of this. She wondered if Mike would have lived if she'd called an ambulance. But again, she was 12 years old.

She didn't realize what was happening. You know, tormented herself over the what if, like, what if I had done something? What if I had, you know, stayed? So just very, very tragic and traumatic experience. And when this happened, this was also very shocking to people who knew the family. Friends and family were totally grief stricken. Uh, Mike was a pretty healthy dude other than, you know, he did have some addiction issues, but, uh, he did have this history with alcohol and drug abuse. So when doctors, you know, looked at his records, they were like, well, a number of things can happen if you have, if you're, if you're alcohol

dependent, if you're drug dependent. Um, And so they felt pretty confident that he didn't require an autopsy because of this. So Mike's siblings asked Stacey to request an autopsy anyway just for closure, just to see if there was something wrong. Another argument for this was that maybe if he had a genetic heart condition, they could tell from the autopsy and this could help Stacey's daughters to be checked out and keep their health record clean. But Stacey refused to go through with the autopsy, didn't want to do it. And so instead, she collected $55,000 from Mike's life insurance and was able to pay for the funeral, pay off some bills.

And then she took her two daughters, Ashley and Brie, to Disney World. Okay. So at the funeral, Stacey was very stoic. She told people she wanted to act like a mother, not a widow, and people were impressed by her strength, the way she took care of her daughters in the wake of tragedy and acted like kind of a pillar of strength for them. They settled back into their pretty typical routine, their pretty typical lives. And months later, Stacey met a new man named David Castor. Okay. So David Castor, he had been born in 1957, was about 10 years older than Stacey. This didn't bother her in the slightest. They married in August of 2003, and Stacey took his last name, which is why she's now known as Stacey Castor. So according to Stacey, David was very conscientious, very work-driven, very into the outdoors. He had snowmobiles and four-wheelers and a boat, and she considered him

support and strength and security. That's like what she saw in this new man she was seeing. David himself had an adult son from a previous marriage and Stacy's daughters were not thrilled about this. These two getting together. I mean, I imagine also like they're still grieving the loss of their dad and all that. So I imagine it's a very loaded time. But for what it's worth, apparently David was difficult with the kids. He expected them to do everything he said without question. And, you know, being teenagers or whatever, they tended to rebel against this a little bit or question the new rules that their stepdad was making.

And so there was a lot of tension between them and their stepdad. So August 22nd, 2005, Stacey called 911. She said her husband, David, never showed up for work. And she had spoken to him the day before at 5 a.m. just before he had locked her out of their bedroom and remained inside the bedroom silently. okay so they were like elaborate please yeah and i was taking a really good nap elaborate situation oh good question let me tell you well stacy said david got upset about something and locked himself in the room with a bottle of soco southern comfort oh so she told her friend danny that she had pressed her ear to the door and heard David sleeping and then told detectives that David must have been sleeping off whatever had upset him. So she just let him be in the room.

But the next day, you know, he didn't go to work and she was locked out of the bedroom. So she called 911 when police came and knocked the bedroom door down. David actually was not sleeping. He was dead. Oh okay apparently by suicide oh jesus okay yes so david's father had recently passed and stacy said the grief must have driven him over the edge um that being said dav David's ex-wife and the mother of his son, Janice, was like, bullshit. I call bullshit. She said there is no way in hell that this man would have died by suicide. This is just not in the cards.

So this is where we're getting some red flags from other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's even more shocking is remember he had this ex-wife Janice and their son, their grown son. Right. Turns out after he passed, they found out that David's will left everything to Stacy and her daughters and nothing for the son. Oh, fuck that. Yeah. Also interesting.

By the way, was very close with. So it's not like they were estranged. They had a very close relationship. Well, that's what I'm saying. saying well i think i'm putting pieces together and i'm i'm that's where the fuck that is coming from because i'm like i have a hunch that was not his doing wink wink wink wink wink wink okay okay okay so janice is like hello i don't think so i don't think david would neglect our son so harshly because they were still close. It's not like they were even going through a fight. Like, there's no reason. Right. But despite this, she just assumed, you know, well, maybe Stacy will be considerate and understand that, like, this is also his family. out to david jr the son and gave him a couple things including a plaster handprint he had made as a child wow that's so generous uh some old army bonds a toy car and a teddy bear and that was what he got out of the will so what a great present what a gracious kind

to what a treasure what a treasure to bestow so david j Jr. asked Stacy if he could have some more time to brainstorm and try to come up with anything he might want from his dad's stuff. She said, okay, I agree. That's fine. Take your time. If there's anything else you want, any more art projects from second grade you want, you just let me know and I'll hand them over to you. But this whole time, Janice janice understandably is super suspicious uh so she tells her son david jr to call stacy his pseudo stepmom and ask for some of david's tools to work on his car stacy tells david jr oh sorry i'm liquidating all of your dad's things uh and there's nothing left to give you of your father's oh okay not only were all the objects left to stacy to be able

to liquidate them but she also cashed in all three of david's retirement funds and kept all money for herself uh-huh so got it sorry i the the old brain is doing a little work over here yeah well i feel bad too because i gotta figure it out i never know when to like kind of lean into the suspicious part or like when to make it seem like oh she's just a sad widow like i don't know i never know where to lean i also never know because i'm always terrified to like accidentally i know that i'm gonna make you say oh i know what's going on and then i that i like victim blame yeah exactly i know i know it's like at what point at what point do i confidently feel like i could publicly state i think something silly is happening let me just give you the big green flag to go ahead and believe what you're believing. And I also want to

add that I also kind of left out a little tidbit at the start, which is that the story is called Stacey Castor, aka the Black Widow. So bye. Okay, now you know, but I wanted it to be a little bit of a mystery, you know, thank you. Well, now, now I know, just like elevate to be a little bit of a mystery you know thank you well now now I know just like elevate your anxiety a little bit um as we go along you're so welcome so once again Stacy is this stoic widow people notice that she bounces back very quickly from David's death just like she had from Mike's yeah she awkwardly buried buriedid and mike next to each other so she oh my god yeah and like their ghosts are looking at each other like are you fucking kidding me are you serious first you now me oh my god god so she buried them next to each other again this must be a blow to like the

son who's like hello like i have no say and no rights in like my father's death well that also like i was gonna say think of the families of the two men that are being buried and like they i feel like that's almost you know like the cockiness of um certain uh criminals who like they think they can get away with it and so they just like almost are begging for you to see yes it's like so obvious i feel like burying your two dead husbands next to each other isn't the like it's definitely telling more than i think she meant it to i could see her saying like oh the two men i love should be near each other so i don't have to be without either of them or whatever bullshit but i feel like the family has started picking up on something at that point you think so right especially when she's like stripping the family

of any rights to yeah their their their money their belongings yeah exactly and like weird you'd think i mean i'm not i don't know this for a fact but i feel like a lot of people would at least have a say in where they're want to have a say in where their parents are buried or where it sounds like she just kind of stripped all of their families of their rights in any capacity like she gets to decide where they're buried she gets to decide what happens to the retirement funds to the art projects from elementary school i mean yeah it's showing a weird amount of need for control control exactly exactly um so she's this kind of stoic widow she buried them the two men next to each other and then basically moved on with her life she took a new job as a legal aid um which was uh

she i would how do i put it like kind of consolation prize because she originally wanted to become a lawyer um and then that kind of never happened and so she ended up becoming a legal aid and said like, well, this is the next best thing sort of. Um, so she did that. Uh, there was a rumor that she had a new boyfriend because somebody saw a man pulling a Christmas tree into her house. Um, I once had a man pull a Christmas tree into my house because I had it delivered in Los Angeles. Um, but you know, that guy wasn't my boyfriend, but, um, it could be, could be, I don't know. But, you know, that guy wasn't my boyfriend.

But it could be. Could be. I don't know. Stacey didn't know that police were actually looking into David's death now because they had gotten a few red flags as well. Here's the thing. Oh, OK. Oh, yeah. You want to know the red flags?

What tipped them off? Yeah. So at the scene of David's quote unquote suicidequote suicide they had found two glasses both containing traces of antifreeze oh shit and under the bed they found a container of antifreeze okay and in the kitchen a mummified lemon i was like what and in the kitchen trash they found a turkey baster that smelled of alcohol and had been thrown away okay so investigators were like well that's enough red flags for us to keep tabs on this you know which like it also reminds me of the cockiness of criminals it's like all you had to do is throw that away and you would have been scott free why did you leave the antifreeze under

the bed yeah like you what are you thinking you really didn't think to put the murder weapon somewhere other than directly underneath him next to the body it's just beyond me so as time went on investigators felt like they needed a true confirmed cause of death on mike's uh body on mike's death and fortunately he had not been cremated. You know, when you hear about the stories where like the partner has them cremated immediately so that nothing can be tested. Well, he had been buried and not cremated. So they exhumed his body and were able to do some testing. And this was September 5th, 2007. They noticed pretty quickly that nothing seemed to be wrong with Mike's heart,

seven they noticed pretty quickly that nothing seemed to be wrong with mike's heart even though he had allegedly died uh of i don't know a heart attack um but there was something strange about his oh wait no he hadn't died of a heart attack that was the first guy yeah mike what was oh mike mike is the first guy sorry yes i'm getting all mixed up i'm gonna he he was the one that like he died he felt really drunk and busy and like makes sense if he was maybe drinking antifreeze exactly so yeah so they had said he had allegedly died of a heart attack and so um they did note they didn't notice anything about his heart but they did notice something strange about his kidneys um under a microscope the doctor found microscopic crystals and these specific crystals form which sounds painful

as fuck in a person's organs when they're poisoned with antifreeze these like crystals formulate so the detective who ordered the exhumation said i knew at that point we had a double homicide and stacy castor probably killed both her husbands j, ding, ding. Their suspicions were confirmed. So what they did next is they got a warrant to tap Stacey's phone and they set up cameras. And this is like where it gets into like a crime series, like on TV, where I'm like, whoa, when I hear about stuff like this happening in real life, like they're tapping her phone, they're setting up cameras. They set up a camera at the cemetery to monitor like if she would come by or not like they oh i just love like how they're

doing this yes it feels very tv show but that's actually what happened so they put a camera at the cemetery and it showed that stacy did not once visit either of her husband's graves after their death which uh-huh is all circumstantial obviously it's not or you know it's not differently yeah it's not evidence of anything but it is um they were surprised because they were like okay so she's not even a little bit like yeah sad about this i guess um so i don't know what they were trying maybe they were trying to find something suspicious on camera but they noticed instead of something suspicious, she just never showed up at all. Yeah. So detectives brought Stacey in for questioning. She was shocked by this.

They showed her photos of the glasses that they had found, like the drinking glasses in David's room, because Stacey had previously said she mixed a cranberry juice drink for david before he died a cranberry juice mixed with what a cranberry juice cocktail of anna yeah yeah uh so they this is um this is where it's like too stupid for a tv show this is like where if this were written in a script i'd be like i'm sorry that's just too ridiculous. We need to rewrite. We need to rewrite stat. Okay. They asked Stacy if she remembered which glass she had used for the juice. This is wild. Stacy said, well, when I poured the antifree, I mean the cranberry juice.

Shut up. Well, was the next words out of someone's mouth you're under arrest i sure hope so i like hello oh my god had she heard that their suspicions were about anna freeze no oh my god what a stupid person sorry sorry i but still i was like what they had not said anything about they they literally said oh we found these two glasses which which one of these did you put the cranberry juice in and she said well when i poured the antifree i mean cranberry juice this is why it sounds so made up oh my gosh ridiculous so you gotta imagine the investigator was like wow that was easier than i thought um like so and the case is closed that was fast we can get home

by dinner time yeah um so she tried to move on i'm sure uh but the detectives were like oh wait what did you just say and stacy said oh well i can tell you're trying to frame me for my husband's deaths oh wow double downed quick double down said this is your fault like gas lighting of the century so she just got up and left and they let her leave um and she called her daughter ashley uh who was the older daughter who had just started college of course the week that police were exhuming her father's body which is like i'm sure a very difficult time um her father's body, which is like, I'm sure a very difficult time. Seeing as she's also the one who, you know, was carrying that guilt from seeing him on the couch and all that.

So Stacey called Ashley and said, hey, the police are trying to blame me for your father's death. And Ashley is like, imagine like first week in college and is like, I have enough to do. I, you know, I'm trying to remember my roommate's name, let alone like deal with this. But Ashley is stunned that her mother is being accused of this and being blamed for this. She couldn't believe anyone would suspect her mother of murder. But police visited Ashley at school where they told her about the antifreeze crystals in her dad's organs uh and that they believed he had been murdered by her mother which again this poor girl like she just i can't imagine having to

she finally got away from home and not a got away but you know she's finally like trying to branch out on her own and it's like no she's trying to leave it in the past yeah just keeps showing up again keeps drag getting dragged back into it boy so ashley called her mom in tears after this visit i can imagine why and stacy came by picked her up after her last class and said you know what we've had terrible days let's go have a drink to unwind okay oh shit no um oh no this is real deal like this is so fucked up i know just say it quickly so stacy never had never drunk with her under 21 daughters before so ashley was like that's odd but i guess like you know my mom's just trying to like connect with me. And like now I'm in college. She wants to go have a drink.

And so her mom, she was like, well, OK, my mom has a, quote, adult daughter now. Maybe she just wants to like go out on the town with me a little bit and relieve some stress. So Ashley was like, sure, mom, let's have a drink together. So Stacey poured Ashley's first drink. And after a while, Ashley began to feel sick to her stomach and stacy said oh don't worry that's normal for antifreeze yeah she said here's a pill this will help you feel better oh no and ashley just went to bed uh in the morning stacy said they should drink again and ashley was like i don't know if I feel like it. But Stacey insisted. And they began to drink again the next morning.

This time Stacey mixed her a cocktail that was almost too disgusting for Ashley to stomach. But her mom told her to stick the straw into the back of her throat. And to just swallow the drink without tasting it. Oh my god. Because this was a quote-unquote cool trick from Stacey's younger years. Oh, my God. Okay. What a sick, sick person this is.

Oh, my God. So her daughter did as her mom told her to do. She began to feel sick again, and she went to lie down in her room. 18 hours later, her younger sister, Bree, found Ashley. She found her with her eyes open and glassy and her mouth agape not responsive at all and brie screamed ashley's name and of course stacy came running and called 9-1-1 when she saw ashley's condition she told 9-1-1 operators i think my daughter took some pills

ashley pretty quickly started throwing up poor brie i don't know how old she is at this point but several years younger so you know wherever the fuck brie is a child like she was definitely a minor a child when this occurred um so as she started throwing up brie left the room in terror um so ashley started throwing up brie left the room in terror stacy told the 911 operator that ashley had taken ambien and had drunk an entire bottle of vodka what i don't recall that happening isn't that also going to get so quickly proven in an autopsy it's a great point although she probably gave her the ambien in the pill maybe but yeah the the vodka i don't know where she would yeah what i don't know it's just i mean either way it's a stupid story i wouldn't you just want to be like i don't know what happened she must have taken something

like why would you say specifically vodka and ambien if that's not what they're gonna find she must have taken something period period yeah but also like how do you i can't even like to i mean just to not even like think twice to not grieve about your kid like it's shocking like it's one thing for the for the partner but to your own child this is where i was shocked really when i when i was researching this because it's like oh my god like you hear about people who do this to their husbands wives which obviously horrible but hey like there's there's something particularly primal and yes instinctive about never wanting your kid to be something cold about like murdering your own child I mean obviously that's like understatement of the

century but like colder colder that yeah exactly so she calls nine one she says oh she she drank she drank a whole bottle of vodka and took an ambien um brie pulled herself together and came back and um when she came back into the room she noticed something she seemed to have missed before it was a piece of paper she picked it up and stacy took it out of her hands and read it apparently it was a piece of paper. She picked it up and Stacey took it out of her hands and read it. Apparently, it was a suicide note from Ashley. Written by mom? Interesting. It wasn't only a suicide note.

It was a confession as well. Oh, okay. The note was addressed to her mom, Stacey, and it admitted that Ashley had murdered her own father and her stepdad. Oh, what a perfect crime. Are you fucking kidding with me right now? Wow, that's so, so, so fucked. So fucked. The note opened with lines like, quote,

I'm sorry all of this is happening to you, but now everyone will know what really happened, and they know it wasn't you. It closed with, please don't hate me. Remember, I love you. Okay. Miraculously, thank Christ, doctors were able to pull Ashley from the very brink of death. She's alive?

She fucking survived, dude. Oh my God. She fucking survived. No way. I know. Oh, that's such a happier ending to how i thought this was going thank god she got no one the two daughters are fine right they're today they're alive yes oh my god oh my god i just thought you were about to like put me on another roller coaster and sorry

no they're alive they're alive thank god because she was she was right on the brink of death like her eyes were open and unmoving and yep oh my god she was unresponsive like they really didn't know if she would survive this or not um when she was finally awake and recovered enough to talk to police detective detectives asked her about this note she had written and um surprise surprise she had no idea what note they were talking about she didn't even know what was going on she was like why am i here what happened um because the last thing she knew she was having a cocktail with her mom you know yeah um according to a 2009 interview uh she said quote i'm like what are they talking about i didn't do any of these things that

you're saying that i did so she's just totally confused. At this point, police are like, okay, we know what's going on here. It didn't take much convincing that it was not Ashley who had written this note. Detectives had already suspected Stacey of both of these crimes. And then they noticed a strange typo in the suicide note. her own name was misspelled or something no but it said anti-free which earlier sounded sort of like she was kind of saying when i poured the anti-free and didn't finish but apparently she thought the word was anti-free no comment except but yeah so she apparently literally thought the word was anti-free. And so she actually admitted in her mind the entire word to the police. Yes, exactly.

That's exactly what I was trying to say. Exactly. It wasn't even like she stopped herself mid-word. It was like that was she said the whole sentence and then went, oh, that's not what I meant to say. You know, ha ha ha. So she thought it was anti-free. So she wrote in the suicide note anti-free.

And they were like, hang on. That's so stupid. Like, that's so stupid. You made the same typo, quote unquote, in our interview. So detectives arrested Stacey on two counts of first degree murder and on one attempted murder. Ashley could not believe what her mom had done. I mean, obviously, because she thought oh well we're just having drinks together and next thing she knows she's being pulled from the brink of

death at her mom's hand i mean yikes boy in an interview she also said what gave her the right to play god with people i never knew what hate was until now even though i do hate her i still love her at the same time which just is heartbreaking and these poor kids they've gone through hell i mean think about the trauma of both these kids now have endured it's horrific oh my god i i can't even imagine what they're up to in in the world like i like do you even how do you go a day not thinking about this i feel like every time we cover one of these they're always just like kicking ass you know at the end we're always like damn they're just living the best lives so i hope that i hope for that for them

so stacy um wow shocker maintained her innocence she said what quote i would die for my kids well i call bullshit on that but okay utter utter bullshit like this literally verifiably inaccurate what you're saying you know right she said i would die for my kids i could never hurt them like that ever my kids were my life i could never do that to ashley it's just heartbreaking. Stacey's mother, for what it's worth, who had been a lifelong fierce defender of Stacey through all of this, she not only defended Stacey's innocence, she actually spoke against her own granddaughter, Ashley, like believe believing her daughter that this was Ashley's doing that Ashley had killed her dad and stepdad. Okay, what is wrong with the grandmother? I know.

What is just delusional? I don't know enough about the grandmother to make an opinion, but it feels like I can see where Stacy's confidence came from. Confidence. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. And just as a reminder for everyone,

Ashley would have been 12 when her dad died. So like the, they're basically accusing her of murdering her father when she was 12 years old yep and doing it so pristinely that nobody ever caught on and getting away with it exactly exactly so she said this is my grandmother i love that granddaughter as much as anyone else in the family. Ashley needs help if she did it. Okay. Okay.

She said if she's wrong, she'll apologize to Ashley until the day she dies. But she doesn't think she's wrong about this. Right. So she won't have to apologize. So she won't. So don't worry. It's not going to come to that. This is just filler words.

Just in case, theoretically speaking. So Stacy's defense team searched the caster house and found an old letter in ashley's room written for her ex-boyfriend and in this letter she had discussed struggling with suicidal thoughts after her dad died um the defense brought this to trial as evidence that ashley was once quote suicidal when she was 12 and her father had died okay she was and she was the last person to see him alive yes and he his arm was up in the air so he's been struggling and now she has to think about that every day exactly but no this is proof that now she's somehow his murderer and also

tried to overdose you know whatever um they also argued that ashley must have been jealous of mike's preference for brie and perhaps uh resentful that their dad their dad likes their her sister better which is like what a horrible game to play you know in court especially because yeah you're just reminding her that like uh there was i wasn't there but i'm guessing based on everything you're telling me there was clear favoritism. So like now you're just reminding her like, oh, you were suicidal. You watched your dad die or you were the last person there when he was alive. Also, he didn't love you as much.

Like they're like poking and poking and poking. Yes. It's like dredging up all the horrible, horrible things that you already have to deal with. That you think about yourself. Yes. Think about him. Oh, my God. And then somehow trying to pin those against you in front of a jury it's like yeah it's very cold um

for what it's worth ashley fully and firmly denied this uh she said she doesn't even remember her father's alleged favoritism she said she actually only remembers just having a happy childhood up to her dad's death um and thank god in end, the jury didn't buy all this bullshit. And they convicted Stacey Castor of one count of second degree murder for David Castor and one count of attempted second degree murder of Ashley Wallace, her own daughter, and for forging David's will. So that was also part of the big plan. Wow.

She was sentenced to 51 years to life in prison and in 2016 she died of a heart attack at the young age of 48 so very young yeah uh in the courtroom ashley had one final thought to share uh regarding her mom and this this is Ashley, the daughter. And her sister is very sweet. Her sister Bree stood by her side as she read this out to her mom. Okay, here we go. I never knew what hate was until now. I already read part of this,

but we're just going to read the whole thing. I never knew what hate was until now. Even though I do hate her, I still love her at the same time. That bothers me. It is so confusing. How can her, I still love her at the same time. That bothers me. It is so confusing. How can you hate someone and love them at the same time? I just wish that she would say sorry for everything she did, including all the lies.

As horrible as it makes me feel, this is goodbye, mom. As hard as you tried, I survived, and I will survive because now I'm surrounded by people that love me. I'm going to do good things in this world, despite making me, in every sense of the word, an orphan. Oh, wow. So that is the story of Stacey Castor, the Black Widow. Wow.

Just like how you said earlier that every time we have had a story that had survivors who were still, you know, doing things today, they do seem to be beyond successful so strong so like you know focused on justice just like yeah i do hope that for for the two sisters i hope that whatever they do is like i hope they at least just have like peace and they deserve the easiest life on earth just like happiness and peace yes agreed agreed like i don't expect them to do anything productive like i just hope they're happy i hope you just get paid to sit on a couch all day if that's what you want like you just you've you've done it you've gone through enough trauma if not start a podcast because that that'll do it for you hey oh there you go oh wow well

that's definitely um you know sad that it it happened, but it is a good story. Yeah. But it's still tough that other people went through it. I know. I know. I feel like we both came with hard hitters today. We did. These are like very classic and that's why we drink stories, you know? I know. Hey, it took 300 episodes, but we're doing a full victory lap now. Man.

Okay, well, I guess I'm really excited for our after chat today. Okay. Because I think we finally get to talk about something. What are we talking about? The show? Well, the tour's over. We're talking about that in our after chat? I guess so.

Why not? Okay. Because I feel like if we talk about it in a... In an episode, it's going to be two hours of just that. It's truly going to be so long of us basically going through the entire tour. You're completely right. If you happen to be a member of Patreon, please go and listen to our after chat this week where we finally get to tell you what the whole secret of our live show has been this entire time chaos chaos true chaos uh

and yeah that's i guess that's it for this week i can't wait let's go chat about it and that's why we drink