And That's Why We Drink - E306 Mailed Stale French Fries and Rogue Eyebrows

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

It's episode 306 and since it's earlier for us than usual and we just saw each other in person, we're a little extra unhinged! But we're here to bring you some holiday season creeps: first Em covers the Mackenzie Poltergeist and Greyfriars Cemetery. Then Christine brings us a very "Nightmare Before Christmas"-esque story with the extremely sad and perplexing Napa Valley Halloween Murders. And are we here to hook up Bumble BFFs who live next to cemeteries? ...and that's why we drink!

hello double thumbs up hi how are you uh what is going on it's earlier than usual for us well for me that's okay it's my fault so i don't know why you're apologizing um what uh well yeah i have to i had to record earlier today so we both unfortunately you record earlier today we're recording earlier right now oh i thought you said you had to record earlier today i thought you meant you got it we're good i had to record earlier today. I was like, what time are people scheduling you for? Don't they know? No. I was like, we're recording right now. No, it's my fault that we're recording earlier today. So both of us lost an hour of relaxation time.

So sorry about that. It's tragic, really. But thank you for being so accommodating to me. Always. How are you? I just saw you yesterday face to face and I already miss you. It's weird. Okay. It's weird seeing you and then immediately seeing you, but not really. I know. It's especially because we are currently doing our backlog for our holidays just so we get some well-deserved time off and it I feel like every

day I'm seeing you but it's almost in a different format because like I'm seeing you in real time then we're recording and you're back in Kentucky told you it's weird I just feel bad for you because like you have the I have the luxury of not having to also fly across the country round trip and that I just feel like that takes a toll on a person i gotta say that that did knock me out a bit yesterday i because there's no direct flight from where i was flying to and from and yeah um it was uh it was a lot so i i got home around 11 and or midnight or something and and now i have to wake up and no no it's listen it's not early here. It's just early where you are. But anyway, we're doing, listen, we're young and spry and youthful, right? I feel like you're saying it as your head is slowly like leaning towards the nearest pillow. A tear like rolls down my cheek.

You're just like, please God, please God, I'm so sleepy. Yeah, Blaze woke up with a baby so I could sleep. So, you know, life is good. That's all good. I'm happy for So, you know, life is good. That's all good. I'm happy for you that you don't have to travel again for a little bit. But anyway, do you have a reason why you drink besides the utter shock to the system? Yeah, I think that's the best way to put it. Like my body is like, what are you doing? Stop.

And like eating airline food every day. It's just like, what? Anyway, what did you ask? Oh, my God. Why do you drink? Oh, I know why I drink. Because, you know, the beautiful bread candles that we have. I do.

Yeah. So I was burning one when we recorded last time. And then I. And now a loaf of bread is in your room or. Well, I wish I wouldn't be drinking for that. I would be rejoicing, but I,

I, I bumped the table where it was sitting and it. Oh no. Poured. The wax. Melted wax all over this beautiful brand new velvet burrow. I had just set up like two days before. Yeah.

And now I have just this giant this giant like and it's like that oily wax that has like scent in it and stuff oh yeah so anyway it got here's uh the terracar box it got all over these boxes which which is like fine because they're you know shiny i can probably clean it off oh no but the couch looks like my brother said it looked like somebody vomited all over it. It's like that white color. And it's just like that. So anyway, I'm mad at myself because like I'm just so clumsy that I can't get my like this is why I can't be a grown up. Like I'm such a bad grown up.

I spill things everywhere. I can't even light a candle without either like catching something on fire or we knew the bread candle was going to become an enemy because we love it too much. It's too good to be true. Right. We flew too close to the sun and we were going to have a rivalry. Well, I'm sorry. I trust me. I've been there. I still, I still have flashbacks to my sweatshirt getting covered, my favorite sweatshirt getting covered in rose sc scented oil and i was trying to like think of what people were recommending back then like freezing it and i'm like i can't freeze my couch i could try maybe you could leave a bunch of ice cubes on top of it that's true although then i think that would just add water to the

situation um i mean i i meant like a like a like an ice, like just set it on top. Oh, to make it cold. Okay. Yeah, I could try that. Also, you know, people say like to heat it with an iron. I'm like, oh God, can you imagine? Then I'm going to set my couch on fire. Anyway, it's all fine. It's like a minor problem, but it's just an annoyance.

And I'm just, I get so mad at myself for being so clumsy. So anyway, how are you you why do you drink I drink I well I drink because I still feel like I need to catch up on sleep but uh other than that I this is like such a weird I don't know I feel like so okay Allison has a new friend uh that she has made in well in the neighborhood and like a couple streets over and uh she went over to this new friend's house for the first time and they've gone out and like done things together but this was the first like invite to the home where she was meeting her friend's husband or friend's kid and on her way out the husband was like oh i have a christmas gift for m and they have not ever met me. I don't know.

I don't even know this man's name. I don't know his name. And this was the gift. Are you ready? Yeah. Autographed by Biff Tannen, Back to the Future Funko Pop. What? Which perfectly goes with my autographed Marty McFly and Doc Brown Funko Pops.

Wait. Now I feel like you owe him a big present. Unless this man happens to be like the actor who played Biff Tannen and like he can just sign anything and be Biff Tannen. Can you imagine Allison would be like oh didn't I mention? Allison would literally look that man in the face and not know who he was and then forget to tell me so but I'm I am I'm like that this is very lovely gift. And I guess I really shouldn't be that, you know, I should, I should just be grateful first of all. But also, I mean, like one of the other ones, the Doc Brown one, one of our listeners was

like, I just want to send it to you because I know how much you love it. So I, I feel like there was a relationship there in some way though, of like, oh, they listened to the show. They know I'm a big fan. This was just like, it might as well been a random man on the street. And I just, I'm just so confused. show they know the big fan this was just like it might as well been a random man on the street and i just well if you meet if you meet you better bring a nice house where we are like a nice all of a sudden like wow the pressure is on he i'm telling you oh well because allison was like i don't know maybe because i'm friends with her maybe he really wants to be friends with you and

i was like well that is a quick way into friendship certainly it's a very I don't know I mean I know that yes like of course you should just be grateful but also we do host a true crime podcast so it's like I know I think I'm primed to be wary look at everything with a slight raised eyebrow speaking of which you do have a rogue eyebrow that uh do I yeah it's been cracking me up for like the last several weeks no it's when you keep putting on that filter where you have extra eyebrow. I don't think that I'm keep putting the filter on. I think it's still just by default on and I just don't know how to. Let me go turn it off. I love the eyebrow because it's like every time you kind of make a face, it like takes a second to like adjust to where your eyebrows are.

So sometimes you'll just have a rogue eyebrow like in the middle of your forehead and it really does make my day a little bit okay i'll keep it on then i miss your um your random lip color i do too i remember when i thought my new lipstick looked so good and then i was like wait a minute wait a minute well anyway that's that's why i drink i also drink alison was very sweet today she made me a tea for us today. Oh. So I have a homemade London fog. So that's what I'm drinking. What are you drinking? Nothing because I – oh, wait. Water.

Ew. Is that your hydro jug from your beach to Sandy ads? It is. It is from the famous beach to Sandy ads, but it is. And I need to hydrate because, again, airplanes. But yeah, you know, live in the dream. Well, good. Well, I know we're in a bit of a time crunch today. So for all the people who hate our early banter, you are so lucky that we're giving you less than 10 minutes of that today. Happy Hanukkah to you. And oh, yeah, our holiday episode is next week our christmas holiday episode

yeah it's time hey next week don't um don't you already listen i was planning a big reveal okay okay i'll let you warm up your instrument for the next week and then and then really surprise us all well so this is a Christmas Eve episode, in theory? No. Wait, what? A week before Christmas. I don't know what I'm doing. We don't do daily episodes, thank the Lord.

This is the closest thing to a Christmas Eve episode you'll be getting, folks. And for that reason, you're getting a poltergeist story. Oh! Oh, wait, our next... i didn't realize our christmas episode comes out on christmas day that's exciting that fun it's almost like how our 300th was almost on halloween and then we ruined it yeah we ruined it well whatever so uh this is a short poltergeist story this isn't um uh this is it's almost like a feature a featurette uh because we talk first about a cemetery okay which holds a poltergeist if you see what i'm saying i do okay so this

episode is the mackenzie poltergeist and the gray fryer cemetery oh my gosh i've heard about this i have too and i remember trying to do the episode a while ago and I remember thinking, there's just not enough information about one or the other. And now conveniently, just put them together. Wham, bam. Makes a whole story. So it's actually Greyfriars Kirkyard instead of Greyfriars Cemetery.

The name is Greyfriars Kirkyard and it's often called the most haunted cemetery in the world. And in case you're wondering what a Kirkyard is, it's an old Scottish word for church. So it's a churchyard. Kirkyard churchyard. So it's in Edinburgh. And it first grew, well, Edinburgh itself grew as a settlement in the 12th century and over time became a city best known for its leather and wool products. Go Edinburgh. wool products go edinburgh and at the time scotland was catholic and the ground that

would become grayfire kirk yard was a franciscan friary i love the name friary i feel like we should bring that back for like where you eat french fries friary friary can you imagine like a themed like it looks like you're in like a friary like a franciscan friary but it's just it's just a fry restaurant i'm into it i love it i think that's so smart ah okay oh my god i'm so excited okay we're so excited and then in two hours we will absolutely forget this ever existed so what's gonna like tweet us and be like i went to a friary and i'm gonna be like i okay hell like why why Someone's going to tweet us and be like, I went to a friary. And I'm going to be like, OK. What the hell?

Like, why? Why are you going to church? And good for you, but why are you telling us? Be like, what made you think we're into that? Yeah. OK. So anyway. Why would we care?

No, we don't say that. I promise. We're not that rude. But I would be confused. We would be confused. But at this point, we know it's our own fault. If we're confused, we know we forgot something. We're not like, why would you tell us that? We're like, oh, shit, there's probably a reason that you're telling us and we just forget. There have been times people have sent us gifts, and I'm just so confused why it's gifted to me. And I'm grateful for it. I don't want people to think I'm not grateful. I'm just like,

I'm like, what's the reference? And we must have said something really off the wall to receive this present well then someone else there I there was one or two people now so far where we've gotten the gift and it came with a description and I was so oh yes I love that they're like you in episode xyz you mentioned a friary so i have done you the honor of including some really old three weeks stale french fries in this package you're welcome yeah you know what i i feel like if i were to like go down in a spiral and in the middle of the night try to actually build out of the the friary if you will the business plan i would at least i think i could get to through the menu and then the hyperfixation would end.

Yeah, because that's the fun part. It is. Well, you would do the decor, too. Like, you would be all over the decor and then the fries and then we'd lose interest really quickly. That's the truth. Yeah. Okay. So, anyway.

Where the Greyfriar Cemetery currently is, the ground used to be a Franciscan friary that did not offer fries. So the friars that, not the religious friars. Now I'm literally thinking of people at the grease pit. The friars. The friars that lived there were very quiet. They wore gray robes, hence the phrase Greyfriar. They grew herbs for medicine to give to people in poverty. But then, so that was kind of their life and then in 15 in 1560 um after the scottish reformation the country became protestant and the

friary was destroyed oh uh and the land went to mary queen of scots sure so for a long time edinburgh uh buried its dead at St. Giles Kirkyard. That was where they used to bury their dead. But by 1561, after the Scottish Reformation, that graveyard was so overcrowded you could smell it in the summer. Oh, no. Yeah. So Mary, Queen of Scots, was like, something's got to change and gave the Greyfriars land to the Edinburgh Town Council since it wasn't being used anymore. And the town council established that land to be the new burial grave I love that she's like something's got to change here take this problem she's like and fix it I went into

the plebeian central town once and on the main drag I had a one sniff of something foul take it town council take it away did you know that it's actually pronounced plebeian? I learned that recently. I think I'm going to stay ignorant. Plebeian feels even more like. It sounds so much better. And I said, because it was on Beach to Sandy, I said, I was like, did you know it was plebeian? And my brother was like, that can't be right.

Apparently it is. And then I was like, do you not say plebs then? Like, do you say plebs? That's plebs. I always thought that was plebs. Oh, well, I always said plebs. Plebian, apparently is how you say it. And then a bunch of people wrote in like, I didn't know that either.

So we're not the only ones, but it just threw me for a loop. Anyway, sorry. Continue. Because I knew it was plebs, it makes sense to be plebian. Plebian. Plebian. But I feel like plebian implies that the person is so rich that they never even had to learn how to pronounce it.

That's a great point. You know what I mean? They say it their way and it doesn't matter how you say it. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, I love how the plebians want us to call them something else other than plebians. Whatever you say. It feels extra mean.

Yes. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. whatever you say it feels extra mean yes yeah agreed um okay so anyway mary quita scotts was like plebes time to do something town council make it stop smelling so bad during the summer here i need to ride my carriage through the street once a year and i refuse to be among this odor yeah and so uh they decided that basically the gray ferris car yard would be opened up um for new ground so they wouldn't have to keep breaking the same old dirty smelly

dead body ground uh and by the late 1700s so this was 1560s and by the late 1700s that graveyard was burying about 1200 people a year which feels like a lot 1200 that's like four people a day a year that sounds right oh so it is a lot and i feel like i feel like there's no way to bury 1200 people a year and then still have room for 1200 more people next year that feels like a lot of people. Tight quarters. Yeah, I feel like they're all holding hands down there. I just don't know enough about the burial industry to understand how you can look at land and be like,

this could handle this many people. This many plots. Yeah, and then to organize that many people to know when there's not any more room. Yeah, I feel like you'd need a better, like some sort of civil engineering degree, aka the farthest thing from what we have. Yes, I agree with you. So by the late 1800s, it was 1,200 people a year. But until the 1870s, so when it opened, until it closed, which was in the 1870s, nearly 100 it opened until it closed which was in the 1870s nearly a hundred thousand

people were buried there oh my god which again how can you look at that land and be like that's a hundred that's a tenth of a million people can be right here you gotta be stacking people right you have to be right how else would you be able to pull that off i truly have no idea i have no unless it's like walls where they have like the tombs well there are mausoleums here yeah maybe like that kind of thing so that that could be it maybe they were like we don't have any more room below the ground we got to get up on the ground so and then you can just build to the sky so i don't know exactly so here are some of the cemeteries main problems over the years the first one is of course body snatchers um because in the 18th and 18th and 19th century let's spoil 18th and 19th centuries

edinburgh was considered a city of intellects and enlightenment and it was known for its philosophers and scientists and edinburgh university is known for its philosophers and scientists and enber university is known for its anatomy department oh boy we see where we're going with this i see so the students the medical students uh needed cadavers to work on and they basically would pay grave robbers to supply them with quote fresh bodies um i guess the fresher the better and these robbers became known as a resurrection men which i wonder i wonder what the strategy was like would they have to like look up all of the funerals in town and then just like go like try to get there as soon as the funeral was over like how i don't know the timing i don't know i wonder i wonder if like since they're burying four people

a day i feel like it's pretty easy to know that there's always going to be a fresh burial mound, you know? Well, also think of the wait list as a medical student if you're paying people to get you a fresh cadaver. Like, how many medical students are there and, like, only four a day are getting supplied? You know what I mean? Oh, my God. And only for one class. You can't keep using the same cadaver a million times. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. You got't keep using the same cadaver a million times. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. You got to do one and done. Like, what if your whole class is like, every week we're going to use a different cadaver? And that's like, how many weeks is one semester per one medical student? How many cadavers does one medical student need to even graduate? The wait list becomes crazy all the time. Remember when I said, oh, civil engineering is the farthest thing. I think actually maybe whatever these people do, medical degrees is the farthest thing.

It's actually like statistics and probability or something also. There's actually a lot. It's actually starting to make me feel a little insecure how many degrees. It's actually a business degree. It's a full MBA that I don't know about. That's why the friary failed from day one. So the medical students were giving grave robbers money for fresh bodies. We obviously know the wait list was incredibly long.

And the problem got so bad that wealthier people had to start putting iron cages over their graves called mortal locks. Just so it would keep people from digging up their loved ones. Which meant that poor people's graves became the targets. Of course. from digging up their loved ones which meant that poor people's graves became the targets yeah of course um but apparently wealthier people were the cadavers that people wanted so oh my god but like a dead body is a dead body i guess based on how they ate or lived or something i don't know yeah who knows but there's actually one story of a grave robber uh burying or taking out the opposite of burying a grave robber was taking out the body of a woman uh and he saw a ring on her finger that he wanted to keep for

himself so he couldn't get the ring off of her finger and he cut her finger off oh my god and she began screaming because she had accidentally been buried alive while unconscious. I'm sorry. I hope that guy was so scared out of it. He probably shit his pants. And I probably never, never, never. He's going to have like,

that's where I truly believe like four generations down the line, his, his ancestors are, or descendants are still having generational trauma, like nightmares where they're like, why do I keep having this dream? Why do I have a phobia of rings and fingers? I feel like it must have just like embedded itself into his DNA because that

is the scariest. In that moment, your DNA changed. It's just like your whole body. I mean, like as we, the other day had like a scare while we were talking about something very scary.

And I felt like my entire soul like just abandoned my physical body and the physical plane and i was like that this that fear must have just shocked his system so scary which by the way okay so this leads us to problem number two with the cemetery which was that there were a lot of alive burials oh Honestly, my worst nightmare, really. And it was really common back then because Edinburgh was trying to bury bodies as quickly as possible for sanitation. So if you were just like, I'd be so buried because if I were sleeping for a little too long and I was hard to wake up.

And you would be. I would be. You could lift me out of this building in a chopper and I would not wake up. Oh, no. could lift me out of this building in a chopper and I would not wake up. Oh no. And a lot of people I guess were maybe deep sleepers or they had a medical condition or something and they would just be buried alive. And so there's a lot of excavators at the time who said that coffins would be found with claws and bite marks on the inside. Nightmare. My biggest fear. I know. I know. I know. I've found myself often watching those YouTube videos of like, what to do if you're buried

alive? Yes. I'm like, I'm glad that you're telling me now in my sane mind, but in a full panic, no way I would remember to do any of those things. Yeah. It's like, turn to five degrees to the right and put one shoulder. I'm like, I would just be. Or it's also like, take your shirt off inside.

I'm like, explain how on earth I'm supposed to fucking do that explained if that's how oh my god i can't even think about it for too long i want to be cremated because even if i am still alive like not anymore you know right so the uh so that's kind of just like a quick catch-up on the cemetery and just i'm not covering all of the ghosts of the cemetery but just know that it is allegedly incredibly haunted i mean like that means a lot of people died in the cemetery which is disturbing yeah you know like that that alone i would imagine would haunt a place yeah it wasn't even bodies with a history now coming here it was oh it was like bodies had a history because they came here spooky so oh my london fog is getting cold hang on a second it's okay it's a good time for me to watch two rogue eyebrows on the side of your head

i can't drink it now okay sorry i just know it's gonna come out of my nose if i try again i'm sorry so just know that i'm not covering all the ghosts of the cemetery, but you know, you could assume people see a lot of apparitions, a lot of shadow walking. I'm sure a lot of sounds of wailing and moaning and screaming and talking and people grab you. And I mean, I didn't even do the research. I can tell you probably with confidence that that's all happening in the cemetery. But again, one of the main reasons for the ghosts is that a lot of bury a lot of bodies were buried there a lot of them were living so now they have their own trauma attached to the land and bodies were often buried in unmarked graves and then dug up in mass and

then moved without any respect in the area so that doesn't help either famouslyriars is home to the notorious body of Sir George Mackenzie or Bloody Mackenzie. Oh, no. I know about this guy. Oh, what do you know about this guy? He murdered a lot of people in the name of religion. Yes. Not a good guy. So he was born 1636.

And then in 1677, he became Lord Advocate during the reign of Charles II, a.k.a. he enforced the king's law on people. Yikes. One thing I will say, not that this is a redemption by any means, but this is a fun fact that we do like about him. He was fully anti-witch trials and he saw that a lot of women and poor people were being accused unfairly, and he freed many victims. Okay, that surprises me. I will say I would have bet money on the opposite. And in an essay of his, he wrote, it cannot be denied that many true mathematicians and physicians were called magicians in the duller ages of the world. And I condemn next to the witches themselves, those cruel and two-forward judges who burn persons by thousands

as guilty out of this crime. Okay, well what snaps for that snaps for that and he also thought that excess wealth was wrong in his final publication he wrote i think there would be no poor were it were not for a luxury and avarice for all for all would have somewhat and none would have too much so he had what a complicated man because and though if that was on his bumblebee ff profile and only that i'd be like this dude fucking rocks you'd be like what's avarice i'd be like man you're smart why are you talking like that you think you're better than me okay clearly we're showing our uh differences our good side that was as my mom says the first three months of any relationship you bring your representative to the table yeah

how this a honeymoon phase uh so that's what I would have loved about him. And then over time, I would have been like, you know what, I'm starting to notice some red flags. And the red flag mainly was that he was very pro-torture. So he had enemies with, he had made enemies with the Covenanters which they supported the scottish presbyterian church and despite his views of witchcraft and eat the rich he was still pro general torture and even legalized torture and a lot of ways the fuck he was anti-illegal torture but then it's like okay but now you're legalizing yeah he's he's anti-illegal torture then legalize some of it legal yeah so it's like okay so you're just pro-torture it doesn't make any sense yeah

while he was in power a lot of people were in makeshift prisons right beside the cemetery so that's why we mentioned him here because a lot of people in the cemetery or people on the land suffered next to the cemetery um they were risked. They daily were risking starvation, mistreatment, illness. Some were even executed. You know they were tortured. As of starvation, mistreatment, and illness were not torture enough. And some even witnessed him cutting corners and bending laws to get convictions he wanted and allowing illegal torture, not even legal torture.

He was allowing illegal torture that he claims he wasn't for as methods to get convictions he wanted, which is so weird that that would be something he's okay with because it sounds like he wasn't okay with that happening with the witch trials where they were using torture to convict witches. I guess he just was like too smart. He thought he was too smart. Like, oh, well, witchcraft's not real, but it's,'s it's we can do it if it's like a real offense that you're committing yeah i yeah i guess so i what a complicated person yeah um and so anyway the very quick version of him and the reason we bring him up is for his ghost so in 1691 he died and enough people um enough people hated him by the time he died that it didn't matter any good he had ever done they were like we fucking hate you um so when he died he earned

the name very quickly bloody mckenzie because of all the people he tortured and he was entombed in gray friars and uh which is so weird because gray fires was overlooking the prison where he tortured people super so uh now it said that bloody mckenzie's hateful spirit wanders the cemetery as a poltergeist and author robert lewis stevenson who did treasure island he talked about uh bloody mckenzie and he said when a man's soul is certainly in hell his his body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb, however costly. Some time or other the door must open and they come forth in the abhorred garments of the grave. Oh, my gosh. Yikes.

Now, that man's an author because I could never put that sentence together. I see that in a Bumble BFF and I'm like, we got a lot to talk about, man. We got a lot to talk about, but I'm still going to swipe left because I'm intimidated and I will never be able to meet your standards. Because you say sentences like, and they come forth in the abhorred garments of the grave. And I say things like, did you know it's not plebeian? Did you know it's plebeian? No, I say that. You just say the word plebeian.

Sorry, it's even worse than because I go, did you know my friend told me it's not plebeian? Yeah, exactly. Oh, man, we're embarrassing. So anyway, anyone is free to explore most of the cemetery themselves. But Bloody Mackenzie, his mausoleum that he's in, because he's not buried, him and the Covenanter's prison is exclusively, it belongs to the tour company called City of the Dead, and they do ghost tours. On their tours, people have claims to have paranormal experiences, and a lot of times we think it happens to be Bloody Mackenzie, because most of the worst experiences happen in his mausoleum. I see. So it's interesting that he, maybe because his spirit is so powerful or has a lot of like

unleft business or maybe he has a lot of like, I don't know, his energy is just really strong. And I mean, he was known to torture people in life. So it's interesting that he'd torment people now. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So on their tours, people have claimed to experience a lot of things and the founder jan andrew henderson um he used to live actually in a house in the cemetery which is the most christine schieffer thing i've ever said about someone that's not christine schieffer and i see you jan you too that would be a bumblebee ff swipe now now we found our match yep do you imagine two people on bumblebee ff found each other who both lived on cemeteries listen come find me folks well don't come find me that

sounded really ominous i'll be at the cemetery you know where it is well so he published a book detailing people's experiences on his tours okay in 1999 this is the first story of someone not the first this is just the first one I'm going to tell you. Yep. Of someone on one of his tours. It was a student named Siobhan who had the horrible Irish name spelling. It's not horrible. The spelling is horrible.

I'm sorry. It does not look like Siobhan. I have a friend whose baby is named Siobhan. And I had to tell, I was like, Blaze was like, well, how do you spell it? And I told him, he's like, no, no, no. How do you spell Siobhan? I'm like, no, that's how you spell it. I know, I know.

And I'm sure, to me, it's a horrible spelling. I'm sure in Ireland, it makes perfect sense. But to me, my brain does not. It's like spelling dog, X-G-J-V-X-U-N. And I'm like, wait a minute. Saoirse Rowan. You know how you spell her name? I know.

Saoirse or something. Saoirse. I know. All of the Irish names. It's fascinating that, I mean, it's clearly just a different language. So, like, it's, but my brain sees it and I'm like, I don't even want to try. It's hard for us Americans to really grasp. So scary.

don't even want to try it's hard for us americans to really so scary like you there's no better way to prove that you're not from those areas if you just look at someone's name and go i don't know say bon saibon or whatever there's another one that really blew me away oh man what was it i don't remember i'm not gonna remember but anyway it to to my brain, that can't be a name. I don't understand. But anyway, Siobhan, not Cialban. So Siobhan went on a tour. And when they got to Bloody Mackenzie's mausoleum, she felt like she couldn't breathe all of a sudden. And not just like she lost her breath a little bit, but she felt like a strong hand covered up her nose and mouth and was pressing into her face so she couldn't get any air out. Oh. Which is, like, it's even worse that it's not a real hand.

Like, there's no chance of getting away from it. You can't. Like, nobody else can see it happening. And so it was pressing into her face she even tried to back away into the wall to like get away from this thing and it followed her almost as if it was like pushing her into the wall and she felt like she was about to die and she actually did pass out and the only way that she was able to wake up was once the tour guide dragged her out of the mausoleum oh my god i feel like at this point when you're a tour guide if anything's happening in the mausoleum oh my god i feel like at this point when you're a tour guide if anything's

happening in the mausoleum it's just and if someone passes out just be like hang on a second and just drag their leg and bring them outside i was gonna say you gotta be working out daily because you're gonna be dragging people in and out of that thing just gonna just potato sacks at that point just make that part of your your regimen at at the, at the gym. Or I wonder, um, uh, what if the tour guide passes out then? Does he warn people ahead of time? Like just drag me out of the mausoleum. That, that would be the most alarming tour I would have ever heard. If I don't make it out of here, drag my, drag my lifeless body. Oh my God. One time i had a math teacher who used an epi pen and i now now you know as an adult i've met more and more people where it's become normal now but it was a jarring

first experience when i was a freshman in college i was like brand new 18 and this teacher was like oh i used an epi pen if i collapse during our class this is how to use an epi pen on me and i was like what i was like And I was like, what? I was like, you're really trusting me, someone you don't know, and a random 18-year-old who's probably doing the stupidest shit last night. You want me to put an EpiPen? It really happened. Did it happen?

It never happened in my class, but I heard it happen in another class. Oh, okay. But also it was a math class, so it started out real hot i was already jarred about that and then i couldn't stop thinking about it because i was like now i was so paranoid i was like what if something happens i better remember the rules i better remember and now he was like on to math and i was like shit and now i really i missed chapters one through seven i was thinking about your epi pen anyway uh now i know how to use an epi pad after the paranoia that gave me but really i'm it was a i imagine as a tour guide to just be like oh hey everyone needs to know

about this in advance and yeah it's a good thing checking out of the mausoleum i feel like everyone should know how to use narcan and everyone should know how to use an epi pen you never know when i don't know how to use Narcan can undo that. And so a lot of people have been proponents of, you know, other of just regular everyday folks carrying it on their person in case they need to use it. No, I've never heard of it. Okay, well, hey, we'll hang out together and you handle Narcan, I'll handle the EpiPen. Okay, good. I've never used an EpiPen. Everyone is safe when we're there. EpiPen. Okay, good. I've never used an EpiPen. Everyone is safe when we're there. Yeah, sure. Everybody listening is like, I don't think so. Bring Blaze and Allison maybe just in case.

Well, so, okay. So anyway, so she's able to wake up once they drag try the mausoleum. And apparently that's a common story of like people just pass out or they get sick or they don't feel good. And the second they leave the mausoleum, they're fine. Other stories are that a woman went inside the tomb, I think on her own walk. I don't even know if she was on a tour, but she was just at the cemetery. No, she had to have been on a tour because the tomb is exclusively bought by the company. But she went inside the tomb when it was cold. So I guess maybe she was listening from inside the tomb and she was trying to just kind of keep away from the wind. Suddenly she noticed that inside the mausoleum it got like oddly colder and she felt a really strange intense like primal fear oh and she got home and said that she felt the same thing and she felt like a dangerous animal was nearby and she needed to run that was the way she was oh ew members of that

same tour said that they also noticed a weird temperature drop, and they actually started asking the tour guide if they could leave early because they felt scared of being there. Whoa. Once they got outside of the mausoleum, people started talking about hearing banging on the walls as they were leaving. Oh, jeez. Another tour, there was a student who went inside the mausoleum, and she felt very afraid. Also, like, she couldn't breathe. But she, on top of not being able to breathe started hyperventilating she had to brace herself against a wall she was shaking uncontrollably and immediately felt better um when she left

but the next day she woke up with a huge welt over her eye like she'd been slapped and it took two weeks to heal oh my god this guy is an asshole well even 11 year old megan no on tour she was she was holding her mom's hand so she was clearly not doing anything with her body but just holding her mom's hand and she just kind of said to herself like oh my arm feels cold and when her mom looked down at her arm megan's arm was covered in blood and it was covered in scratches blood yeah she had been scratched so hard that she was bleeding and so i don't know she was covered in blood and it was covered in scratches blood yeah she had been scratched so hard that she was bleeding and so i don't know she was covered in blood like it was a scene from carrie but she was covered in scratches that had broken skin oh my god uh but she was all she had

said was like oh my arm feels cold and it was completely scratched up and she hadn't been doing anything people often claim extreme nausea. They also claim to also get scratched, even bitten. People have been pushed. People have been tripped. And a lot of times if they ever bring their stories up again for an interview, the experience happens all over again in their home later that night. That's bad. That's extra scary because it's like you leave the tomb or the mausoleum and you're like, okay, good. I feel better. But then you go home and it's still there.

I don't like that. Well, what freaks me out is it makes it sound like it's always been with you and never left. Because if it's able to hear you years later talking, like recounting the experience and it happens to you again, it's like, oh, it's been waiting around to hear you talk about it. Oh, I hate that. Some people even wake up the day after a tour with mysterious burn marks on their bodies this guy he's fucking violent one guy told his tour guide that it felt like something wrapped a cloak of ice around him and he also felt that like primal fear and felt really sick and the entire experience lasted less than a minute but he

said it felt like he was in that moment for years. I wonder like who gets targeted because it's like everything from an 11-year-old girl to a full-grown man. Like I wonder what the criteria is. Yeah. And I have no idea. It just sounds like anyone.

Yeah. And it's also weird that it would be women if he seemed to be protective of them during the witch trials. No, but didn't he kill men, women, and children? Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. And it's also weird that it would be women if he seemed to be protective of them during the witch trials. No, but didn't he kill men, women and children? Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. I really keep leaning into the witch thing, trying to find good in a person. I think that's not even about people. It sounds like he was just more concerned with like the scientific justice behind it.

Yeah. No, you're totally right. No, you're totally right. But so anyway, the sheer number of experiences, including the numbers alone in the mausoleum of Bloody Mackenzie, has earned Greyfriars the title of the world's most haunted cemetery. And incidents can be so extreme that the tour groups, the tour groups website literally has a warning that says the Mackenzie poltergeist and the South Bridge entity, which is a whole other one we could talk about. mouth bridge entity which is a whole other one we could talk about uh they can cause genuine physical and mental distress you join city of the dead tours at your own risk not suitable for under 12s under 12s uh pregnant women or anyone with a heart condition so i'm out um yeah and uh well yeah happily i'm out and it's not even because i'm any of the above just because i'm i'm out i feel like not just heart condition but if you have like a lung condition, any condition. I'm immunocompromised. Maybe that counts.

I think actually finally an immunocompromised person would be the most safe in that space. Would be lucky. Oh, would be safe there, you think? I feel like they'd be more safe than anyone with an organ condition that like the ghost could grab on or something. Maybe. Yeah. Organ condition. I just feel like if like it makes you have a hard time breathing or could give you like can add to your heart condition.

I feel like finally being immunocompromised. Like he can't sneeze on you. You know. Yeah. He can't give you the flu or something. I sure hope not. So Jan Andrew claims that since the tours started almost 150 people have physically collapsed on his tours oh my god and he's like anyway we still keep going he's so used to just

dragging them out by twos now both legs he says there's poltergeist activity in the house near the cemetery and sometimes mysterious fires near the cemetery and one of the fires even destroyed his own home and the tour's headquarters which very conveniently destroyed all of his records on the mackenzie poltergeist yeah wow and he does however still have records of witness accounts and photos and things like that but i mean yeah i wonder as the tour guide how come you've gone unscathed this whole time yeah i do i wonder the same thing and i wonder is it like because you're Yeah, I do. I wonder the same thing. And I wonder, is it like because you're Protestant or I'm sorry, Catholic, maybe?

I don't know. I have no idea. Maybe he made like a deal with the devil and he's like, look, I'm going to make money off this. Don't you come near me. The devil being Mackenzie? I guess so. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he just came to terms that a long time ago that this thing probably does follow him or maybe they have some sort of understanding of each other i have no idea but he can attack this 11 year old girl but not me but not me yeah so jan mitzi doesn't know what the poltergeist is it might not be sir george at all it could be a demon it could be another unknown ghost um also there's a theory of it being a quote collection of hysterical reactions oh i don't know i couldn't even tell you what that means i wonder if um i wonder if it could be just like how hateful he was in real life or how like full of like if if that energy just stayed like it's not him in like a uh maybe in a what do you call it like in a real present state like maybe he's not him in like a maybe in a what do you call it? Like in a real present state, like maybe he's not aware or whatever, but maybe it's just his like shitty energy that's stuck around in one space.

I don't know. Well, it has become the best documented supernatural case of all time and probably the most conclusive. Oh, this is a quote from Jan, by the way. It has become the best documented supernatural case of all time and probably the most conclusive. Oh, this is a quote from Jan, by the way. It has become the best documented supernatural case of all time and probably the most conclusive. Let me put it this way. If the McKenzie Poltergeist isn't a genuine spiritual entity, then I don't think there's any such thing, not anywhere in the world. Wow.

So if this ain't real, nothing is. Right. So I do have a fun fact to end on with Greyfriars, which is that it is also famous for its littlest grave, which belongs to Bobby is also famous for its littlest grave, which belongs to Bobby, the tiny sky terrier. Aww. In the 1850s, Bobby

used to accompany his master, who was a night watchman who died of tuberculosis, and Bobby refused to ever leave his grave when his master died. And because he never left his master's side, the town began watching over Bobby through his grief. And someone at the cemetery built him a little shelter next to the grave. My heart. Another person would feed him daily. And so

many people eventually found out about Bobby that soon crowds were gathering every day to watch Bobby come out of his little hut to go have lunch. Oh, buddy. Dozens of townspeople took care of Bobby for the next 14 years, who kept daily watch over his master's grave until he died of old age. And a baroness even made a statue of Bobby and had it erected across the street from the cemetery. And when the Greyfriar interviewed edinburgh locals when they were

asked what first comes to mind when they think of the word gray friar many people before any poltergeist or ghost experiences said that they think of bobby oh i have goosebumps um so anyway that is the mackenzie poltergeist slash gray friar story my god i can't get over that creepy dude i mean i know yeah i think somebody called into jim harold's campfire once maybe or maybe it was on um astonishing legends but they talked about like getting like slapped and scratched by somebody who you couldn't see it's just i feel like it's one of those stories where there's there's just too many similar accounts like everyone's gotten attacked in some way or feel something spooky or it's just one of those places so I don't like it it's like one of the few places where I'd

probably be like I'll pass yeah exactly doesn't take much I mean it doesn't take much to convince me to go into somewhere creepy or haunted. But like if it's like hurting children and stuff, I'm like, no, thanks. Well, let's pass. Yeah. All right. So today I have for you a Halloween story. Whoa.

Okay. So we're making it's very it's giving night before Christmas, except episode before Christmas. That was beautiful. I know what it was. Really good. So this is unfortunately a very, very tragic story. It's also very brutal and violent and gruesome. Oh shit. Okay. Yeah. And just, it's just a lot. You said Halloween and I got excited. Now I feel bad.

Well, I wanted to get that out of the way because it is called the Napa Valley Halloween Murders. And so it's definitely a Halloween story, but it's not charming and quaint. Yeah. It's just kind of dark. In 2004, 26 year old Adrian and Adrian and Sonia, 25-year-old Leslie Mazzara, and 26-year-old Lauren Mianza all lived comfortably together in a house on Dorset Street in Napa, California. Okay. Lauren and Adrian were both Napa locals who had lived together for a while before Leslie eventually joined them, and she had moved from South Carolina. So the women were pretty happy together, the three of them.

Adrienne's mother, Arlene, said that Adrienne was looking forward to living in that home a long time and just felt really at home there. Lauren was an outgoing, sporty woman who coached volleyball at a local community college. Adrienne was a civil engineer. Oh, that's what I mentioned earlier. Oh, wow, she would have been able to figure out the cemetery math. She would have been able to do the math. Yeah. Cemetery math. That would be the first math class I'd ever probably enjoy. I'd finally care. Yeah. Yeah. Adrienne was a civil engineer who friends described as vivacious, funny, and above all, tough, a very tough person.

So this is something traumatic that had happened to her back in high school in 1994, which was about a decade before this story happens. She was in a catastrophic car accident where her window was open and her head slammed into the pavement as the car rolled three times. Holy shit. Yeah. Like extremely. She shouldn't be alive. Exactly. Extremely traumatic, had head injuries, but she survived and she even went back to school a few months later. Holy shit. Okay. Wow. Good for her. Tough, tough. But she did struggle with temporary brain damage and memory loss was a major obstacle she faced for obvious reasons, but she healed and actually did well enough in school to earn a scholarship to California Polytechnic State University, where she ended up getting her

degree in engineering. So come back, kid, you know? Sure. So Napa City had hired her on as a civil engineer when she graduated. And in 2004, she celebrated the 10-year anniversary of her miraculous survival and recovery with her best friend, Lily Prudhomme, who she met at work. So Adrian and Lily are best friends. Lily said, it was sort of a fast friendship. We worked together. We saw each other after work. We worked out at the gym together. And meanwhile, Adrian was basically living her dream life at work with her friend and at home with Lauren when then Leslie joined them from across the country. Now, Leslie was a former beauty queen, quote unquote, who had competed in pageants back home in South Carolina. She was known as confident, daring,

and ambitious. And her mom said when she was a little girl, she used to say she wanted to be a mother, a teacher, and a nurse, miss america before she was 21 wow okay girl big dreams her friend said she was an unintentional heartbreaker they said she never toyed with people she never strung anyone along but she was so beautiful and kind that everybody she met seemed to just fall for her left and right and you know it reminds me of like uh i don't know just like a disney princess kind of like she just leaves a trail of people who are you know enamored with her every time she walks by people's eyeballs turn into heart emojis right that's exactly and she can't help it she's just perfect like squirrels and birds come and like talk to her i don't know so she broke up with her longtime boyfriend and

and decided to move to napa from south carolina to be closer to her mom and when she moved to california she actually found a found a job at a local winery that was owned by francis ford coppola oh now i i know that wine definitely um i've seen it too. Yeah, it's like very, very well known. I also want to I think it's just called Coppola wine. I don't know. Okay, it's it's pretty affordable. For me anyway. It's like, you know, for me, it's like 15 bucks. It's not like, you know, super fancy. I mean, it's more than I spend on a bottle of wine. But it's not your two buck chuck it's certainly not but if i'm going to someone's house or something you know that's like a good

gift wine yeah um so anyway remember our first episode we talked about francis ford coppola oh yeah because we was i think it was the first episode you mean cupola cupola was it the second episode it was the first episode i think francis ford cupola okay anyway i just saw that i was like wow that is really is something else okay what a throwback um so she landed this job at a local winery and she was a natural fit in the business and the winery ended up turning into her passion. And so Leslie stayed in California, even though her mom, who she had moved to California for, moved to Michigan. And so she was like, I'm going to stay here because she was so happy. So now Leslie is living in the same house. All three women were pursuing their own career goals, living happily together in a

neighborhood that was known for comfort and safety and unfortunately then we reach halloween night 2004 okay the three roommates handed out candy together to trick-or-treaters and then they all turned in for an early night now i just want to remind everyone there's 26 year old adrian 25 year old leslie and 26 year old lauren and so lauren and adrian had lived there before and then leslie moved there from south carolina okay so by 11 p.m the house was dark and all three women were asleep in their own bedrooms so leslie and adrian slept upstairs each in their own room and leslie's bedroom was the closest to the staircase. And then Lauren's bedroom was on the first floor downstairs where she would sleep with her dog, Chloe.

So sometime between 1 and 2 a.m., everyone's fast asleep. Lauren hears Chloe growling. Oh, shit. And she notices that the motion sensor light was on outside. But after a moment moment everything was quiet so lauren just let it go and went back to sleep sometimes our neighbor's cat set off the motion light so squirrels squirrels anything you know her with her squirrels and birds it's like well i just yeah that's what i always told myself anytime a motion sensor goes on i'm like there's a squirrel

yeah yep it's i feel like that that definitely happens um so she just thought well nothing to be alarmed about went back to sleep but only a few minutes later lauren woke up again this time to her roommates screaming oh shit she said i was in my bed and just opened up my eyes and realized something is not quite right and then i heard a scream that's so creepy that she woke up before too and when i know something's wrong oh that just gave me goose cam i had that exact same thought where it's like you know you wonder like did you hear something like a shuffle or a footstep and you knew something also it's well it's your that gift of fear of like exactly i'm so glad you brought

it up because i was like i mean don't say i don't know if anyone's heard about it. It's just put by Gavin DeBecker. It's incredible. We read it every, if you haven't read it yet, I don't know what you're doing. It's going to teach you everything. It's on Audible if I've heard of it. It's his whole job. And he actually, during COVID, he came out this whole new, like a whole word. Stop it! You're so embarrassing. But no, I mean, it really is. But I also wonder, like, was that in itself the gift of fear or was that just like a freakish moment of knowing that something happened? Yeah, it's hard to know, but I think I would imagine like probably the dog could sense something was up. And so it's got goose cam again. So another thing I know we're talking about again, but I haven't mentioned this part before. He talks about like, oh, when dogs sense something is wrong and we think it's like supernatural.

A lot of time it's like, no, they're just really in touch with their instinct, whereas we're not. And so, you know, if a dog is sensing something is wrong, they're probably sensing the same kind of things we are like. Their gift of fear is a greater gift. Yes. Like they can listen to it better than we can. And so who knows? Maybe she woke up and she noticed the dog was alert maybe maybe she just had a knowing like maybe she just knew maybe she heard a footstep maybe who knows maybe the light was still on i don't know but yeah that's my exact thought too was like it's creepy that you wake up beforehand and then hear the scream there's something really chilling about that so she leapt out of bed opened her bedroom door which i feel like my i don't know

what your reaction is but i think mine would be freeze like i don't think i would fully run out the door i think i would i would love to run out the door i wish i were more yeah exactly if we're wishing things i wish i was like a black belt in every sort of self-defense and i could just handle the person but i wish i could just fly away and not worry about it. Actually, could I teleport in this dream? Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could just stop crime.

Yeah. That would be great. So she opens the door. She stands on the threshold of her room, terrified and listening. And in the dark, she hears an intruder running down the stairs toward her. Absolutely not. If I wasn't frozen before, I'm frozen now. Exactly.

But Lauren listened to her gift of fear and said, My gut told me to go out the back. And I remember thinking, but I'm opening up the door for this guy to follow me out. But she trusted her gut, opened the back door, ran out, and the intruder did did not follow lauren instead he escaped out a window in the front of the house which was the same window he had apparently used to break in oh god so lauren stood in the backyard trapped by the fence hiding in the bushes and even though she had no idea if this intruder was still inside because she had run out before she saw him leaving right window She gathered the courage to go back inside. Ooh, that's a horror movie no-no,

but I'm glad she did it. I'm glad she did it too. It takes a lot, I think, of courage. And she went back in to help her roommates. So she ran back in screaming Leslie's name, but she only heard Adrian who was yelling for help. So upstairs, she found Adrian and Leslie together, both in Leslie's bedroom.

She slipped on the floor and realized it was wet with blood. Yeah. I don't know. 300 episodes, Christine, every time I'm blown away. It's still shocking. I just one time want you to be like, she slipped on a puddle of rainbows and a and an escape out of the building and everybody was fine yeah but okay so so i assume that means

leslie's dead so leslie had unfortunately already passed away yes shit okay adrian was still alive but was bleeding profusely from multiple stab wounds and was getting weaker by the second oh no and at this point there's nothing lauren can do for her leslie needs serious medical attention uh so lauren's trying to call 9-1-1 but this is 2004 and the landline is dead oh no talk about a horror movie oh no she took her cell phone ran back out of the house and got into her car for safety to lock the door in case the killer was still nearby and called 9-1-1 from her cell phone yeah when adrian's mother listened to lauren's 9-1-1 call she said my heart went out to lauren i could hear the panic the grief the fear

in her voice and uh speaking of adrian unfortunately adrian also passed away before help could arrive. Oh, my God. Oh, the survivor's guilt. The survivor's guilt. Oh, my God. So now it's only Lauren who survived this horrifying incident. I was worried that that was how this was going because so far you'd only given quotes from Lauren. I know. Oh, shit. I know.

Sometimes I'm sneakier about that, but not today. Yep. Yep. Exactly. So the crime scene itself was shocking, as you can imagine. A detective said it was the most blood he had seen in his entire career. There was blood on the floor, on the walls going down the stairs, on the window where the intruder came in and left, and on the siding outside of the house. They also found a bundle of plastic zip ties wrapped in a rubber band outside the window what so this was sorry keep going no no i was just the last thing

is they found three cigarette butts on the property two out front and one in the backyard that didn't feel like he was patrolling yep like he had been circling the house yep so this was i mean obviously it was intentional we knew that this information, but it just makes it so much more concrete. Yes. It's not like he broke into the wrong house or something. It's like premeditated. Yeah. Yeah.

So it seemed like you're already on top of it. Like the killer had cased the house for a while before he broke in, smoking cigarettes and tossing the butts on the ground while he circled. He had used a knife to pry open the front window and climb inside. A knife? That's so desperate to get inside. Isn't that gross? There's something so gross about that. Because it's not even like one of those like creepy stories you hear where like, oh, well, the window is open and I took it as an invitation.

It was like, I'm going to make the window open. I'm going to force my way in. Yeah. It was like, I'm going to make the window open. I'm going to force my way in. Yeah. So the plan, they thought, was to bind the women with the zip ties. But they think he dropped them on the way in because they found them by the window. Okay.

And so maybe when he was climbing in, they fell. So he made his way upstairs. And Leslie's room was the first door. And investigators actually suspect Lauren would have been the first victim. But the man simply didn't know she was there because her room was downstairs. And the guy didn't think to look for a bedroom on the first floor. And so they told her she was probably spared by sheer luck. So I know.

That doesn't, that almost makes it no better. Yeah. Like, oh, good. So like, I really went unscathed truly for no reason other than I was lucky and they weren't. I just happened to be in a different spot. Yeah. Exactly. Upstairs, he attacked Leslie while she was asleep.

So she didn't have a chance to fight and she died really quickly. Adrian heard the struggle and ran to Leslie's defense. And investigators said Adrian fought hard hard she fought for her life and she had actually fought back so frightfully that she had chased the intruder out so like he was the reason she had left because they were she was fighting back so hard so adrian saved her adrian oh yeah from from adrian saved lauren probably yeah or potentially exactly because he just ran out back out the window where he came in um that's a great point but she obviously you know unfortunately suffered mortal wounds in the process at the scene detectives collected 71 pieces

of evidence and just to put that in, one forensic specialist said one or two pieces of evidence is average, up to four or five possibly. But this particular case really surpassed what we generally see in the laboratory. So they had 71 pieces of evidence. Wow. While forensics processed the evidence, police started chasing the usual leads, boyfriends, exes, friends of the group. And at first, police suspected Leslie was the target of the shockingly violent attack she was extremely popular she had been dating more than one person at the time and so police thought maybe there was a jealous boyfriend in the mix but they found out her ex's father back in South Carolina frequently called her to try and get in contact with her. And so he was suddenly on the radar and he had actually called her several times that Halloween night.

But he and his son both had alibis. They were thousands of miles away in South Carolina at the time of the murder. So that just went nowhere. There was a handyman who had worked on the house that same day. But fortunately for him he also had an airtight alibi so he was out of the picture police interviewed over 200 potential suspects and came up with only dead ends things look grim as they started to consider there might be a serial killer involved who had no connection to the women at all. And maybe this was just a random killing. Two weeks after

the murder, friends organized a candlelight vigil to direct public attention to the case. But the community, you know, didn't need reminding. People were absolutely terrified. They were thinking, was there some maniac on the loose killing randomly? Like, are we all, you know, potential targets? And essentially, now that they had interviewed 200 people and found nothing, the entire case basically hinged on the pieces of evidence, the forensic evidence they had found. intensely not only potentially saved Lauren but also gave them one of their most crucial pieces of evidence because in the struggle he had cut his own hand and had left his blood at the scene of the crime oh that's perfect exactly so DNA testing identified blood on the staircase wall that belonged to a man in binary terms a it belonged to a male okay they also found a male's blood on the outside of the house and so you know this was not any of the three women that lived there obviously so the

forensics team matched dna from two of the three cigarette butts to the blood so now they're knowing so now they know okay the person smoking the cigarettes is the same one that stabbed the people inside so there's no question about that they also found dna on the rubber band holding the zip ties so at the very least they know this was all connected to the same person they've got that completely covered it is interesting though that it's a premeditated crime and he didn't use gloves and he left his cigarette butts outside yeah you know like it's it's 2004 it's not like like dna analysis is a thing yeah exactly and it makes me wonder like did he know that did he not

know that did he not care i don't know yeah if he didn't care that's even more sinister it is i agree i totally agree so apparently the porous material of rubber bands, fun fact, absorbs and preserves DNA extremely well. Oh, OK. So fun fact, if anybody needs it. Investigators entered the DNA profile into their offender database. Of course, there is no match. That would simply be too easy. That would simply be too easy. Police once again considered the possibility of a successful serial killer smoked cigarettes, and she could only name one friend. His name was Eric Koppel. He was a 25-year-old land surveyor who was friends with Adrian, and he had actually once been engaged to Adrian's best friend, Lily. So Lily is the one who works with her. It's confusing because there are several L names.

Lauren is a survivor of the attack right leslie upstairs was killed and lily is adrian's best friend at work right they went to the gym together etc so lily's her best friend lily had been engaged to this guy eric and so they were going through a rocky time so he was like kind of out of the picture. But Lauren said, you know, I don't really know many people who smoke cigarettes. That's the only one I can think of. Okay. Meanwhile, Dr. Tony Frodakis applied a new forensic technique he developed that could potentially determine the physical characteristics of the killer using DNA analysis. Basically, he was looking for like the ethnic identity kind of how ancestry does that now in 23 and me where you can kind of pinpoint like

what parts of the world what ethnicity somebody might be sure and so he determined the killer had mostly northwestern european ancestry dna suggested blue or green eyes and light colored hair. And so police believed they were looking for a white man with light eyes and light hair. Okay. They released info to the public hoping someone might recognize him. And meanwhile, the victim's families and friends just had to sit tight as hard as that is. Meanwhile, back in her hometown, Leslie's friends raised money for a charity that Leslie had worked with when she did beauty pageants. And Lily, the friend at work, decided this was a sign from the universe. She was like, you know what? Life is too short.

She had postponed her engagement with Eric. And the night of the murder, actually, on Halloween night, she and Eric had gotten into a fight at a Halloween party but the next day when she heard about the murders she called him in tears about her best friend Adrian's death and she said he came over to comfort her they patched things up she said life's too short let's let's get married let's put the engagement back on and obviously now my best friend adrian can't be part of the ceremony but instead she had adrian's mother be involved in the ceremony which i thought was really beautiful that is really nice so adrian's mother attended in adrian's honor adrian's sister was a guest of honor they played adrian's favorite song she She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5. Geez.

Oh, my God. I know. To honor her absence on this like really big day. And then a year went by and it was September of 2005 and Halloween is approaching the first anniversary. And so neighbors start getting anxious. Like, is this some like depraved serial killer? Yeah. Is this like a horror movie

where he's gonna come back every halloween desperately police are trying to get any information they can so what they do is they release information on the cigarette brand and the cigarette brand was camel turkish gold so they like they released it out to like stores to like if anyone purchased it to like yeah so they released it out to the public just to kind of say if you know anybody who smokes these or smoke these about a year ago. Because the other thing about them is that they were relatively new on the market. So a lot of stores hadn't carried them. Gotcha. And so in 2004 like this was a relatively rare cigarette brand.

And so. Go ahead. Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. No no rare cigarette brand. And so. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, you're OK. I was just to say, so they released this to the public and said, you know, if you know anyone who smokes these and fits any of the other descriptors, let us know. I feel like they should be able to release that stuff to stores and be like, tell us if you serve this or not or offer this or not.

And then, yeah, if someone orders them in the next week, like, let oh because they're still yeah that's a great point like because if they were so rare if there's only like five stores in the area then like those five stores could maybe if they had only receipts or credit card statements they could tell you the names of the people who bought them i will say they were relatively rare in 04 but then the year after i think they were much more mainstream so it's not really any more that they were that unlikely it was just they were pretty new on the market back in 04 gotcha so yeah I think I mean it would have been interesting to say like anywhere in this radius if you sell these cigarettes yeah to somebody I don't know how they would go about that but it's in I hadn't even thought of that. But instead, they just released this to the public and said, hey, if you know anybody who might smoke these, you know, keep an eye out.

Let us know. Yeah. And they thought maybe someone would come forward with new information. It was only days later that Lily, the best friend from work, and her husband, Eric, her new-ish husband, Eric, walked into the police station and Eric said, I did it. Oh, shit. Yeah. He just said it. He said, I did it.

He confessed. Why? Everybody was freaking stunned. And although, like, they had mentioned, oh, yeah, he's the only one we know who smokes cigarettes everybody was like well like they dismissed that like well he's the only one but he obviously didn't do it they'd all dismissed it all the friends lauren had said ah no i don't think so so he could have also been he could have gotten away with it forever then and he just never he just said it for fun like why did he admit to it i'll tell you i'll tell you so

the police hadn't even gone around gotten around to questioning him because he was just so off the radar like as a possibility and so now detectives questioned eric on unreleased crime scene details to make sure his story lined up with their information and then they tried to match the dna to the blood on the wall the cigarettes and the rubber band. And it was a perfect match. So they knew, yes, Eric was the killer. Which makes it even crazier. It makes it even crazier that Lauren survived because he would have definitely known she lived in that house.

So, sorry, Lily is the one who is married to Eric. It's very confusing. Lily's the one. No, but Lauren's the one that survived right yes so when eric have known they're like all the friends living situations then like i mean if he was he's dating lily or was married to lily or is with lily and lily's friend adrian lives in that house might he have known her roommate's names and that there was a lauren downstairs like like i mean like he like he ran out of like he attacked two of the three he would have known

three people live there right or what yes probably so it's even weirder if i were lauren i'd be like it's so weird that he the intruder definitely knew i was there i see what you're saying yes yes i believe he did know. That's extra creepy then. Cause I, I would have thought this whole time, like, Oh, maybe he just assumed two people live there and he got both of them.

But now I have the knowledge that this person just left me to live. I see what you're saying. Yes. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Sort of, sort of why we don't really get full answers,

but we get some answers. So they matched the DNAna it was definitely him and eric insisted he was too drunk that night to remember the attack he only remembered that once he got home he burned his clothes in the backyard okay just like shocking i also do not believe that you were that drunk no no he said he couldn't remember where he left the murder weapon. And above all, he refused to confess to any motive whatsoever. He just would not say why he did it. What? Okay. Why he committed this like seemingly random and horrific attack. So it was rumored that Adrian was encouraging Lily to leave the relationship because she could do better. And Eric said after his fight with Lily that Halloween night, he went home drunk, raging about their argument.

And he knew Adrian had pushed, not pushed, or just encouraged Lily to postpone the engagement or to leave the relationship and so now their engagement was postponed and instead of the honeymoon that Lily and Eric were supposed to go on she and Adrian planned a trip together oh for that same week to australia okay and so some people close to eric thought he might have decided adrian had to pay for her interference ah and so the idea could be which is what her family believes and what people close to eric believe is that he went to adrian's house looking to attack her he was so drunk he either went into the wrong room yeah or just didn't care and just attacked whoever he found um and so the the idea was that he was going for adrian and unfortunately you know leslie was just in the wrong place wrong well if if lauren had that feeling of like oh

leave now and then nothing ever happened to her i wonder if he remembered that there was a third roommate and he when he was running downstairs maybe he ran and looked in her room to try to hurt her saw nobody was there and thought okay now i have to get out through the window now it's time to leave yeah it could very well be like it maybe she if she had stayed in her bed maybe she would have been attacked he would have thought no witnesses or can't be witnesses yeah there's no way to know yeah but that's a great point and also how fucking disgusting now in hindsight that at his like at their wedding they played all this remembrance and remembrance stuff for adrian and the groom killed her uh yeah her mom spoke at their wedding like gave a reading at her daughter's killer's wedding

like not knowing oh my god it's so dark it's so twisted i can't even imagine the i mean i feel like obviously the mom would have to go through intense grief therapy to have lost her daughter but then to find out later that you knew the killer all along and you attended his wedding and he did a whole memorial thing how do you trust anything anymore like how do you trust anybody man at that point please tell me leslie leslie or lillian broke up with this guy so well i'll tell you not quite but sort of well you'll see oh my god i know also how ironic of like i'm mad that this person is trying to break up my relationship so i'm going to kill her which wouldn't at all break up my relationship like yeah it's disturbing

how like that thought process it's not clicking it's not clicking it's i mean i guess he did get married i guess he did kill her and then the next day, Lily said, comfort me. And then they got married. So in a twisted way, it sort of worked. Obviously not in the long run, but sure. So Adrian's mom, speaking of Adrian's mom, she remembers, I just had a reckoning with myself that Adrian was the target and someone really wanted my child dead. So now it's not only like she was attacked randomly. It was like, oh, no, she was murdered on purpose, which I bet adds just a whole new element to the to the grief. She said, and then I thought, how stupid was I? Of course, it's always someone in the inner circle.

So this is why he went to the police, because Eric had sent letters to his family that seemed like suicide notes. that seemed like suicide notes and his older brother and lily kind of rushed to his side and said instead of taking your own life let's go turn yourself in that will solve your like guilt yeah and eric himself had no criminal history he was actually adrian's family actually loved him uh adrian's mom had never for a second considered that he could have been the perpetrator she said he was part of adrian's close circle of friends who supported her in her grief yikes and she read like i said a scripture at his wedding meanwhile lily had never suspected her own husband of murdering her best friend and in an interview before eric confessed she had actually said not knowing somebody must have seen

something somebody out there knows something somebody would have to notice a friend of theirs acting strange not realizing it was her own husband and she wasn't realizing it you know oh maybe like love is blind or something i guess oh maybe he's just that good at hiding it i'm not sure like if it that just lets me know that it wasn't just a drunken accident because exactly if you drunkenly murdered anybody let alone your fiance's best friend you would not be able to keep that a secret you would not yeah you you couldn't you would not be able to play it cool like to have a wedding and not even act strange about it like if blaze accidentally killed me or renee like because he was drunk like yeah that man's not keeping it cool

he's right and then at my wedding i have linda come do a reading and we pretend like everything's fine like i can't imagine the way my mother would i don't even know how she would react if she found out she was in the room with my killer i couldn't even i don't even know how she would react if she found out she was in the room with my killer. I couldn't even, I don't even know. The world would catch on fire. It's just to have been supported and hugged and like held while you're grieving. I mean, it's so disturbing. So in December of 2006, Eric pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder as a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. He seemed deeply remorseful, which I guess is why he was carrying that guilt he trembled as he apologized to adrian's mom and sisters and adrian's mom said she appreciated it but she could not

accept that someone wanted to kill my child someone hated her and adrian is a person no one hates and someone wanted her gone and that she just couldn't let go of that sure leslie's mother obviously was traumatized too she said i would wake up with these images in my mind that were just so horrible as my grief counselor told me leslie died once but you keep reliving it over and over again which like makes oh my god makes me want to cry in court arlene confronted eric and said the following. Eric, you knew Adrian. You know me. And Eric, I know you.

You are a man who violently stabbed to death the best friend of the woman you loved. That is not love, Eric. You cannot love Lily and bring a knife into Adrian's home and stab her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and yet again. God. Then Lily took the stand. Oh, God. Then Lily took the stand. Oh, shit. She said the events broke her heart,

but she looked at Eric and said, Eric, there is nothing you could do to make me love you any less. Girl. What? Girl. Oh, fuck. It makes you wonder if she was just, like, ignoring any signs.

Like, maybe just desperate to fully deny to believe it. Yet denial. Yeah. And she said these words are just as true today as they were on that afternoon of the wedding. Fuck off. No, he's girl. No, like like Adrian said, that's not love. Sorry.

Yeah. So ultimately, Eric was sentenced to life in prison without parole which was predetermined by his plea deal and attempting to find peace leslie's mother kathy said leslie's life speaks for itself her 26 years were full and rich and productive and she was a gift i'm so grateful that i got to be her mom and that she brightened our lives i miss her a lot oh my god makes me want and then adrian's mother i'm gonna end on this quote. Adrian's mother, Arlene, kept driving Adrian's car, which I thought was really touching. That is nice.

Yeah. And she said, this car is Adrian's car, and I'm so pleased to be driving it. It makes me feel so close to Adrian. I haven't changed the preset radio buttons. Oh. I know. I'm going to get teary-eyed. Every time I get in this car and turn on the radio, I feel very close to Adrian and

every day is going to be a good day. Oh my God. And that is your nightmare before Christmas story. Indeed a nightmare, by the way. Ain't that a truth. Yeah. Wow. Well, what a way to ring in the Christmas cheer. Yeah. What can I say? I do my best. I hope everyone feels like they're in proper Santa spirits now. So yeah, the good news is that like I know you have to go to your next engagement. But when we record our next after chat, that means it'll come out on christmas day will we i feel like it doesn't because it comes out monday like the after chat comes out monday the day after the episode is oh wait no you're right wait doesn't it come out wait no you're totally right i keep thinking this

is literally christmas eve episode because you said that earlier i'm wrong i'm wrong ignore me oh my god i feel eva's sweating somewhere okay no no no you're good you're good you're good no forget it ignore me we will have an after chat after this episode if you'd like to go listen to it and uh we will probably talk about something unhinged it'll come out the first day of hanukkah so you know what it'll be our hanukkah all right all right well uh go check out our after chat if you are part of patreon and we will see you over there for some uh friendly gabin yay okay have a good interview m okay i'll i'll should i call you after this after the interview to do an after chat sure okay and that's why we drink