And That's Why We Drink - E312 Our AIM Renaissance and Our Cryptid Festival Year

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

In episode 312 we're suggesting you chew on Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts at your own risk. But we are recommending a cryptid festival road trip for any who'd like to partake! And we're starting with the topic of Em's story this week, the Van Meter Visitor, or as Christine dubbed them, a time traveling monster with headlamps. Then Christine covers the brutal case of the Connecticut River Valley Killer, an unsolved 70's serial killer we can only hope is identified one day. And shout out to the video that's still up and available on the Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet YouTube of Christine's worst birthday party including a piñata full of beans... and that's why we drink!Don't miss our brand new creepy live show ON THE ROCKS! andthatswhywedrink.com/live

oh christine i uh don't know what to do because usually you beat me to the intro but welcome everybody to and that's why we drink how are you today christine i miss you so much it was you too i'm trying to be i'm trying to give you the space to start the episode you know that's very kind but i i do i think i secretly like when you take the reins yeah but i needed you to make that decision for yourself instead of me you know imposing it upon you so i'm glad we've reached the same decision and next week I'll start the episode. Okay. I'm just teasing. Oh, Christine, what are you up to today on this fine, fine Tuesday? Tuesday.

I don't even know anymore. I got to say, I'm drinking a cold brew. Okay. A potent cold brew because I had one of those nights last night that when you're like watching a sitcom or a rom-com and someone has a baby and they're like you know and that is exactly and I've always said which I know in some ways this might be ignorant or I don't know but I've always said like I felt like people fear monger a lot with parenting and like put this like fear in people and say like you're never gonna be yourself again you're never gonna have friends again you know like there's just a lot. And maybe I just internalized that probably. I have as well. I, yeah. Right. It terrifies me. It's terrifying. And like, then I had a baby and I was like, okay, like you can make this work with

like your, with your life. Like we live in a time where as a woman, I don't have to like stop my whole life for having a baby, you know? But so I've always felt very like, yeah, we're kicking ass and like Blaze does so much. And last night, um, the molars, the molars started coming in and oh my God. And she's teeth. She's had like her front teeth. She already has eight teeth, but like the molars started coming in and oh boy, are we in our own personal hell? but like the molars start coming in and oh boy are we in our own personal hell um she this poor thing she's just like pulling on her ears like fevers just like like wailing like all night long

wailing and then i like put my finger in and like her gums are just like swollen and like hot and there's like you can feel the teeth coming through and i'm like this sounds so painful and for a baby who's like never had you know any sort of like real life experience it's like she must be like what is this happening to me the worst thing in the world yeah and she's so she hasn't been eating enough because you know so then she wakes up and she's starving in the middle of the night sounds like today's maybe an applesauce kind of day yeah oh it is a yoga one of those like gogurt like the the organic gogurt whatever it's called and a uh like literally in the middle of the night blaze came downstairs at 4 30 and i was sitting on the couch with her watching miss rachel which i just learned about and oh really

i do too and feeding her yogurt out of, like, a tube. It was, Blaze came down and was like, oh, my God, what's going on? And Leona was just, like, laughing, but she had just, like, tear-stained face because she was crying all night. And then Blaze took over. And so we've been taking turns. But this morning, I will say, we accomplished something because we went to the gym, like, her little gym class. And she did some front gym class and she did some front tumbles and she did some climbing and she's napping so you know what it's okay I have coffee

I'm ready to go oh my gosh and is she better during the day or something because she's like you're willing to like throw her around in circles but she like her teeth are still breaking through her mouth yeah I don't know what it is I think think during the day she's been very, very cranky. But then today I think she's like on, I don't know, it goes day by day. I feel like some days she gets the fevers and the achiness and some days she doesn't. But they say it's like a two-week span. So I'm hoping, and it's been going on for a little while. So I'm hoping we get through it soon.

I'm so sorry. That sounds awful it's um it's one of those nights where i'm like oh i see now what people are saying when they're like this is really hard and don't get me wrong it is hard all of it's hard but like this part you can't put a positive spin on no this part just sucks because like she's in pain that's the worst part it's like oh god you know and as someone the my molars are my favorite teeth that I have in my head. Why? Because you can eat steak with them?

I think I don't. I have some sort of probably oral fixation or something if Freud were here. There's something about Oh, yeah. You do say that. You've said that. I chew on some weird things because it feels good on my molars like the dr

shoals and souls oh my god they feel so good it's so good it's like it's like when we used to chew on like the pencil grippers you know yeah i do get it i just never grew out of it and so as someone who loves my molars i'm telling you leona wherever you are it is worth your time when this yeah she can eat more fruit snacks once she has those she can have some dr shoals and souls with me don't you dare don't you dare they're big enough she couldn't choke she couldn't possibly choke on it don't they have liquid inside them i've never broken through with my human teeth with 30 years experience so i think she wouldn't ask you don't put them out of your shoes and then into your mouth right be for real i mean m it's not a a thing where i'm supposed to suddenly know all

the parameters and rules surrounding this habit you have like i think we could assume i have feet insoles and mouth insoles and they are so sorry i should have known man if you if you need something to do if you have some sort of like stimming thing like and you need a new thing to chew on you give one of those dr scholl's foot insoles okay i'm not signing off on this in case we get sued because i am saying at your own risk chew on something that goes in your shoes and probably has chemicals on it i don't know it probably has chemicals i mean i'm saying you go for it and also don't sue us i'm just saying i it's it's a it's a good time if you want to give it a whirl once and that's it this turned this turned really interesting anyway don't die this is why i drink today um blaze and i both woke up and like looked at each other and we're like oh

my god our eyes i was like your eyes he's like your eyes edward's like so you just the first night of waking up and seeing yourself aged parents oh well you know we had that during definitely during the newborn phase but then we got we got jaded because like she slept so well for so many months that we were like we nailed it and then all of a sudden i really think you're predisposed to have a worse second child like you know how they say that the first if the first baby's good the second baby is like kind of a little bit of a fireball yeah because they say like the first baby like convinces you to have a second and then you're like oh no what have i done yeah yeah and i feel like if leona was this

good that two weeks into her like being alive you're like oh we nailed it you know you're really really gonna go through through the ringer if you have a second kid anyway the end no why do you drink oi i don't know why i drink today i it's always more medical stuff i'm still having these like stupid fainting spells but the uh tell them about your dr shoals inserts they might want to know that might be what's doing it no i'm like on a weird like i'm like i've created this whole routine i don't even know like this isn't like doctor's orders this is me just like kind of going with my gut i'm like adding certain vitamins and like if so svt has been handled and so now this is a whole new thing and so currently

they're thinking it's pots which a lot of people did write in a long time ago and say that sounded like pots um so i've been really like i've looked like a crazy person allison's family is in town and i just must look like the most unhinged person but also i've literally next month is going to mark a year of all my medical stuff and so i'm just like god officially like fuck it with how insane i look in public because i have a backpack full of like all these like like a medical bag at all times if it is pots i apparently need to be eating like so much more sodium than i have so i like have these salt sticks that I'm eating. Like I'm like eating like,

Oh yeah. We talked about it last week or a week before. Cause I said it reminds me of a horse. Yeah. They just taste like vitamin C, but they're, um, I just like,

I have to be chugging water constantly. So I'm drinking like a gallon of water a day. I'm like eating so much salt. It's, it has helped on days where I've done it. I haven't had fainting spells but i don't know if i don't know if it's because of that or if i'm just like lucking out are you keeping a little journal to like mark yeah and uh but yeah so because i'm getting another heart monitor in

february or no at the end of january but it will be congratulations thank you but it will be while we're on tour so nothing's gonna get solved until after tour so well at least you're But it will be while we're on tour. So nothing's going to get solved until after tour. So at least you're putting it to the ultimate test, you know? Yeah, it's true. And so far, I just want to say I have not I don't want to knock on whatever wood you have, everybody. But I have not had any fainting spells at nighttime yet. And so that's my big hope that as long as I don't have fainting spells during the night i'm okay because that's when we have shows and i would really like to not faint in front of everybody on stage so um i keep telling myself it's just like 16 or 17 shows and if i can just get through those 16 or 17 nights we're in the clear at least until the fall maybe or something

so yeah um that's all i need to do is just learn how to control it enough to make those 16 nights really worth it and we'll figure out the rest from there but i will leave it on a good reason why i drink this week because i am always such like a medical bummer these days but um so i'm wearing a shirt that i wear pretty often where it's a little cartoon house for people on youtube i'm showing you but for people who can't see it is a little cartoon house for people on YouTube I'm showing you. But for people who can't see, it is a little cartoon house. And at the top of it, it says, in this house, we respect people's pronouns. I always get comments on it, good or bad. I always get an opinion whenever I wear the shirt in public. That's my least favorite kind of shirt to wear, by the way. Well, actually,

you know who inspired me is Blaze because he wears shirts like this. He does, you know, and we do get actually in Kentucky, we've only gotten good comments, which is, I mean, again, knock on wood, but we've gotten quite a few people out of car windows. And yeah, he has some cool ones. Well, he inspired me because I was like, if a straight white cisgender man can do it, I can do it. In Kentucky, by the way. In Kentucky. Ballsy. Maybe I couldn't do it in Kentucky, but I can certainly do it in Los Angeles and not be like aware about it so um I was wearing this shirt yesterday to a museum and all the docents there were um at an age where I was assuming either correctly or wrong wrongly uh I was stereotyping the whole and all of these people were older where i assumed that they probably would not side with my shirt and i wrongly assumed about one woman who

was probably she was definitely in her 70s at least um but i guess she read my shirt from far away and as i came up to her i guess she called the police she'd been waiting for me to approach her i guess so like so i could she could be within talking range and she went i really like your shirt and it says um in this house we respect people's pronouns she says i really like your shirt the only grammar i care about is the oxford comma and i went same girl that's that's a line that i hope to use for the rest of time that's a good fucking line and uh she said that she even had an argument with her grandson during christmas about how pronouns are important fuck yeah and how the oxford comma is just as important and i went okay you keep inserting your little narrative in and i appreciate it and so i love it anyway that's my my feel-good reason why i

drink this week because i i i felt bad that i wrongly assumed something about a person um but you know i'm i'm used to getting kind of nasty looks from that demographic and she really uh she made my my whole day with that so oh that's wonderful i love that what are you drinking just water oh you're drinking your cold brew cold brew don't you forget it i'm drinking some of my gallon of water so great good for you you're healthier than me today well uh christine i know you've got a little bit of a lengthy story today and i've got a little bit of a shorty so we didn't even plan that that just worked out very nicely for us oh good also i i'm like really

loving my voice right now because it keeps like cracking a little bit because um i don't know if you heard i'm sure he didn't but the bangles won their first playoff game last week and i got to go um and so i lost my voice but now I'm like Phoebe on friends where like I find it much more charming when my voice goes up it like cracks a little bit and I'm like the raspy flip is what I call that raspy um so I just realized I went oh oh and it like did that so um just for anyone who's wondering um if you scream for like four hours straight it might happen to you too well if anyone here is uh interested in some satisfying raspy asmr they will be immediately fast forwarding through my part and going straight to my long story by the end i will just be whispering so

it might be actual asmr bad asmr by the by the end you'll have emailed me your notes and it'll have forced to hear me anyway. So, okay. I'll do my quick little story. And I don't even know what to call it. It's more of a mystery. It's kind of got a cryptid vibe to it, but it's more of a mystery. And this is the story of the Van Meter Visitor.

What the fuck? This like a a criminal it sounds like a a stalker or something it is very vague it's actually vague on purpose um huh so i will tell you about that in a little bit but um it's called the van meter visitor because it's in van meter which is in in central. Oh, not Ohio, Iowa. For some reason, those sound the same in my brain. Iowa,

Ohio, whatever. I mean, they're close enough. Um, van meter, central Iowa, and it's 19 miles West of Des Moines.

Um, so this is in 1903. Uh, fun fact, the population at the time was about 400 people. There was other sources that set up to 900, but the census says 400. So we're going to rock with that. So this is late 1903. This is, I guess, on its way to being late September 29th. And it's the first story comes around at 1 a.m and there's a man he is 35 his name is ulysses g griffith which ulysses s ulysses nevermind you're talking about grant yeah i got really thrown off

because that's like the only besides like you know the book that's the only Ulysses. What book? Ulysses. Oh, is there a book called Ulysses? Okay. I was like, am I like having a, yeah, yes, there is. Yes. Sorry, you're talking to, I don't know if you know this, but I'm not like the biggest reader.

Sorry. I thought you were like, I don't know. I thought you meant the Bible.'m not like the biggest reader um sorry i thought you were like i don't know i thought you meant the bible because you said the book and i was like ulysses i thought it was a good book no no no uh the like the like the james joyce okay it doesn't matter anyway you said the book as if like universally far and wide we all know of the book and the book ulysses i meant i only know of the book and the grant i understand now but i definitely was like the book and she's must be talking about the bible i haven't read the book apparently it's like a really tough read okay so hmm okay good to know well between the two of us you're bound to read it before me so tell me someday in the afterlife maybe so ulysses not the book the person g griffith who i like that his initial spell

he would sell farm tools that was his job and at 1 a.m he is walking down main street on his way home he so basically as he's going down the road, he sees this very bright light glowing on one of the building's rooftops. And keep in mind, this is 1903. There's not like fairy lights and battery packs. Someone has their catio set up to be all like automatically lit up at night.

Yeah, exactly. So he sees a light and he's like, well, that's a newfound thing I've never seen in my life. A newfang angled contraption and um he it's a very bright light and he says it's way too bright to be an oil lantern i would imagine so i can't could you really see an oil lantern light from a few blocks down up like probably not i mean it would look like a firefly like a tiny yeah be really distant so he sees this bright growing glowing light he says it's way too bright to be an oil lantern and he has a hunch for some reason that it's something bad he thinks maybe there's robbers that broke

into this building or something again this makes no sense to me because i feel like we took quite a leap from like what's that light it must be robbers okay but imagine like how irrational your your mind would trying to be rationalizing this you know i feel like you'd be like oh gosh like because my mind as a very anxious person would probably be like cool the world's ending someone's getting robbed you're right i don't know i'm thinking to present day i'm like it's like oh it's a light who gives a shit but yeah if it's something more rare like out of the ordinary yeah part of you would be like what is happening um okay so you're right thank you for humbling me i just feel like someone needs to stand up for you for ugg so that's me i'm doing well he has a whole book apparently named after him so he does

and a shoe brand and a president so he had a hunch it was robbers and on his way to go check it out which i love that he checked it out because in my mind mind, if I saw robbers, I think I'd be like, OK, well, I'm going to. He's a modern day hero, you know. I know. Well, I guess what was he going to do? Use his cell phone and text the police in 1903? I guess it's up to you back then. So he heads towards the building and the light that he saw jumps off of the roof. Nah. Glides across the street like a little sugar glider lands on another roof and at this point ulysses tries again why running after it to see what it is i a little reckless a little. Like it was already weird to me that you were ballsy enough to run after multiple robbers in your head.

And now you're going to run after this like sugar glider of light. Yeah. So he's running after it, but it keeps moving and eventually it floats up to the sky and vanishes. The next day I wrote him as a, which is hysterical, but I met Ulysses next day ulysses tells people what he saw and again he's one of those like on the council prominent businessmen

respected by the community people so they believe him right away and they're like all right that's kind of freaky anyway have a good day ulysses and good day okay like cool maybe you were just drunk or something i don't know like classic yeah they think it's weird and they believe him but they're like well what are we gonna do about that and so the next night um which is now september 30th 1903 it's after midnight which is right around the same time as the previous night the local physician his name was dr alcott he wakes up to a very very bright light coming through his window which that would freak me out more if it was coming from outside

because i feel like absolutely if it's not a torch what is light doing outside at night you know yeah into my window forget it so the light totally freaks him out. He jumps out of bed, grabs his gun, and heads outside to chase it. Why is everyone chasing these things? Listen, I don't know. That did not evolve with us into the present day. No, no. If anything, I've learned I don't need to find out. Hide under the covers.

I'm like, that's a funky light. I hope someone else talks about it one day because i'm not gonna so uh he runs outside to chase it down and outside he sees quote a half human half animal with great bat-like wings and a giant blunt horn in the center of its forehead whoa and this light beam was coming out of the horn whoa my horn can pierce the sky it certainly pierced the darkness it was like it was like he had his own little like natural headlamp cute that's nice i love that he can't turn it off though clearly because he's like trying to run away from everyone and i'm like just turn off your horn i feel like like he's looking left to right trying to find like a place to hide and like it's just like light light seriously i hope nobody

has epilepsy i mean damn and this thing by the way is like trying to run from him like it's not even trying to like what's i want to know what until like these humans come in and like try to track it down what is he doing with his light i mean he's peering in windows what does he think is gonna happen i don't know maybe he's looking for i don't maybe he's looking for something a normal flashlight so he doesn't look in my bedroom the this light beam is coming from the horn and dr alcott shoots at this thing five times bang bang bang bang bang but three four five i do it right yeah oh but the creature seemed unbothered he was like i don't think so i like how he's bothered by getting somebody running after him but not by a gunshot well i think because he's bothered by getting somebody running after him, but not by a gunshot. Well, I think because he's like these things without light beams on their horn are running after me.

Oh, I see. These bangs I don't recognize. And those probably do have a little light when they come out. Actually, yeah. Yeah. So Alcott runs inside and locks the doors and he sits with his gun until morning, terrified that this thing is going to try to get him. The next day, nothing happened. Surprise, surprise.

Dr. Alcott tells people what he saw. And now there are two respected men in town who are saying this stuff. People are very uncomfy. And the next day at 1 a.m., basically 24 hours later on October 1st, a man named Clarence Dunn, who goes by Pete. That's Leona's birthday. That's lovely. What was was i gonna say about that i don't know but you didn't seem happy that i said it and i apologize for interrupting no i have pretzels next to me and i was it was not you it was a delay and my my animal brain went from snacks to my human brain at work and i was like oh i have to say something oh man i'm sorry the two sides of the human brain snack side and the speaking side let's try it again

so on october 1st yeah that's leona's birthday shut the fuck up you didn't know that i think i did but i love the reminder um also the 30th the day before, is Alexander's birthday. So we got a little Libra action happening here. You do realize, like, when she's older, you guys are just going to have to have midnight parties to celebrate both people. Honestly, that's exactly what I plan to do. But then each of them still want their own birthday. So we'll do, like, a cake on one side of midnight and a cake on the other side of midnight. Fun! An 11.59 and a 12.01.

Isn't that perfect? So, a question. Did you ever get him back with, like, the worst birthday you can ever imagine? Remember he gave you, like, the worst birthday? Oh, yeah. You know, I did. And then I filmed it. And then I never edited it because COVID hit.

And I was like, I don't have time for that. But I have all of the files still on my computer. I forget what I even did. I think I went and bought him. I I mean this was pre-veganism so I'm sure I just went and bought him all of his least favorite foods I don't remember I don't remember him I should go edit that together somehow I feel like it was a great gift that he gave you that memory he filled a pinata with beans like literal that's a good brother beans that's disgusting and then made me stand out in the yard and hit it you know it's disgusting him having to fill it and you did not have to do that part he didn't have to do that

part either okay to be clear nobody had to do it he went above and beyond to give you a memory by the way that it is a give you a memory it By the way, it is a memory. To give you a memory, it sounds like. That video is still on the Beach to Sandy YouTube, and it's heinous. And it was when I was turning 29, and he threw me a 30th birthday just to really, really rub it in. It was incredibly rude. He bought those 30 balloons I'd always wanted, the big balloons, but he bought them for 30 instead of 29. It was very rude. i think it's probably the most genius birthday i've ever heard and then he bought me non-alcoholic beer it was sick it was a

really sick sick prank he pulled also if it was pre-covid that means it was 2019 so it was really pre-tiktok but in today's world that would have been a fucking hit i know maybe we should somebody it would have started a trend of like help like the anti-birthday yeah birthday yeah well somebody helped me edit that video into a tiktok and then hit me up october 1st leona's birthday 1 a.m there's this man named clarence dunn he goes by peter okay sure he was trying something, I guess. What's the nickname for Clarence? Rensi. Are you telling the truth? How would I know the nickname for Clarence?

I feel like Clarence is a name that obviously needs a nickname, and I don't know. Clary. Sea Dog. Sea Dog. Hang on a second. I have to look this up because it's going to drive me crazy. Nickname? What if it's Peter? Well, maybe that's why he picked peter because he was like there's no we're gonna look like such

dummies literally it means the literally the nickname is claire okay well that didn't help claire clarence yeah okay so now i'm not as confused by peter picking peter he's like that'll do he's like claire's not gonna work for me okay so now every time i meet a girl named claire i'm gonna go oh my god is that true for clarence oh clarence i love that okay so peter he was a he was walking to work he worked at a bank he's walking to the bank why he's walking at 1 a.m god help me i don't know um maybe back then you had to go in really early and manually count the money. I don't know.

Probably some shit like that or like open the vault with your hands. Yeah. One dollar bill, two dollar bill. And they just do it all day. Poor Peter. So, um, having heard in town about the recent events from these other two well-respected guys, he was bringing a gun with him everywhere. And I feel like 1903, that was okay. And in 2023, that's still okay in some places

apparently okay still yeah so he brought a gun with him to work thinking if they thought it was burglars and i'm working a fucking bank like i'm definitely gonna be ready to go so uh while walking peter hears this weird garbling sound sounds like something strangling being strangled and then he looks he's at the bank already so he looks through the window because he hears it coming from inside and he sees the same bright light oh no the light beams onto him and hits him smack in the face and when it when the light kind of moves away he has a moment where he sees this gigantic shape inside the bank i would personally think you're

seeing stars after being shot in the face with light like that yeah you wouldn't be able to see anything in the bank but i guess he could still see this figure and in this moment he realizes something is in the bank and they're not supposed to be there so he shoots through the window okay so peter goes in to the bank to see what exactly it is that he shot but all he found inside were footprints and these tracks were giant three-toed footprints which apparently peter plaster casted he just fucking had all that kit on him at 1am with his gun yeah i don't know i mean he already shot through he shot through a window of his workplace into the inside so i feel like he's probably like well i'm gonna get fired anyway i might as well bring my plaster kit i guess so i just like that part i have a hard

time believing that's immediately the least believable part like this light with a made out of a horn on your head is more believable than this guy just carrying around at 1 a.m in 1903 a plaster cast i'm not gonna lie to you i agree like in what on what and also wait so he was was the creature like making indentations on the floor? Like how did he plaster cast it? What did the floor of the bank look like in 1993? Was it dirt? What is happening? That's a great.

Maybe it was hardwood floor, but it had tracked mud in, but also it apparently flies. Then how do you plaster cast that? Can you? Yeah, can you inverse plaster cast where instead of getting the hole all right a track can you get the the ridges of a tree maybe the thing had walked outside too and so he's like oh i'll i'll plaster cast the one outside also yeah what happened when he shot and it didn't obviously the bullet didn't either hit this thing or it hit it and it was impervious to it so then did the thing just kind of like waltz on out and like open the door and just kind of keep walking down the road we don't know it

literally the next point they just keep plaster cast the footprint he although was left in the bank when he went to go look was footprints so yeah like could you at least follow the footprints to see where they went like right so this bullet is probably my least believable bullet i think yeah i'm struggling with this one yeah this one all of a sudden i'm like uh-huh we gotta talk to peter who real's name is clarence by the way so everything is right he's already starting off on a shaky foot in my in my mind a shaky foot we should plaster cast it yeah i have a kit with me right now i know you do that's the thing is one of our dumb asses would carry a plaster kit around in our

purse or like my turtle would definitely have a plaster casting kit in there between the two of us i think we own just about one of everything at all times yeah i mean we'd literally be set if we ever found a cryptid on the loose. I mean, except a gun. Neither of us have that. So I feel like anything else. I would have the plaster kit, but you would have like some weird surveillance downloaded on your phone because just with your weird internet creeping abilities, you'd be like,

give me 15 seconds. I gotta get it in the bank surveillance system. If there's anyone I needed to break into a vault i know i would call you before anybody else that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me thank you uh so yeah so peter goes in to see what was shot there was nothing there except footprints which he apparently plaster cast even if he went back home to grab a plaster cast kit and came back i would still be confused about this so later that night um there's a man named ov white who he wakes up he goes by clarence that's what i'm guessing i'm just trying to get ahead of the

story stands for clarence peter actually i mean it's possible so he wakes up to the sounds uh to these weird sounds outside of his home and his home is happens to be on main street where there's already been a sighting so he grabs his gun he goes out to his window ready to shoot whatever it is that he sees which is such a risky opinion like way to go out and as soon as he uh looks out the window he sees this dark figure 15 feet away and it is sitting on the telephone pole oh like spider-man or something so he shoots it he apparently like everyone's shooting this thing and nothing's working shoots it he i think he hit it but the gunshot did nothing in, this thing now shines its horn beam onto Ovi and begins reeking this horrible smell. Huh?

What? So I don't know if the smell is like a defense mechanism or maybe when you hit this thing, it has a puncture wound for a second and starts reeking. I don't know. Okay. I like that theory. Either way, it seems relatively unharmed. So maybe it's like if you like scratch yourself and like

a little blood comes out maybe that's what a bullet does to this thing his blood just smells really bad putrid apparently yeah um it was such a bad smell that it apparently stunned ov into blacking out the rest of the event which like she smelled like a dead fucking body am i right oh no now this thing is getting bullied psychologically too and by me apparently by you so the gunshot did happen to wake up ovi's neighbor sydney so sydney runs outside because i think back then it was like just loyalty like if i hear a gunshot i'm i'm shooting too or something but it depends on what side because this neighbor if he's shooting a gun i don't want anything to do with it this guy i want to see what's up yeah yeah yeah if this guy owes me like 80 dollars and horseshoes or something

then you know whatever whatever they were dealing with in 1903 so uh so his neighbor sy Sidney, who's apparently on his side, runs outside, sees the monster himself. Sidney says that the monster was climbing down the telephone pole. Oh, no. But it was climbing down, quote, like a parrot using its beak. Huh? So it was almost like biting its way down. Ew! You know what I mean?

Why did that give me goose cam? I hate that visual and when standing once it landed on the ground it was at least eight feet tall and its horn this light beam shined quote as bright as an electric headlight what the fuck is going on so instead of flying away uh which maybe it was hurt now maybe he had shot it in a weak spot because we hadn't even heard the bad smell thing yet yeah so maybe he is weakened in some way instead of the um the creature flying away like it has in the past because it had these massive apparently featherless wings so So like bat wings almost.

He kind of flapped them, but instead of taking flight, oh, the early morning train passed by and the sound scared him. And so instead of flying away, he kind of like tucked in and ran on all fours. And he runs out of the neighborhood or down the street and toward the old coal mines and its wings were still flapping on its back as it ran away that's traumatizing to witness i'm sorry

that was a lot of information if i saw that if i saw that in real life truly forget it i would log off i'm signing off i'd be like good good night i'm going to bed and my a.i.m sound would go or whatever yeah my away message is up for good it would be the door slam sound oh the door slam so depressing mine always went moo and i thought you were a cow yeah and i feel like it just annoyed everyone okay here's the thing there was um this one girl i'm not gonna say her name because i think she listens to the podcast oh you know who you are i don't think she knows who she is but alice knows who she is because we accidentally ran into her last time we were in fredericksburg together and

i went that was the girl i had a crush on i thought this girl hung the moon and by the way so did every other queer uh person being raised female at the time and every single guy everyone she hung the moon everyone was with her and uh where was i going with this i already got blinded by my memory of her oh oh her a.i.m i was always too scared to i.m her we weren't close enough where i could just randomly i.m her except we were like on a sports team together. And that's all I'm going to say. And, uh, so every now and then during that season, I could IM her and be like, Oh, what, what games next or whatever. And then I'd be like, Oh, who are we playing tomorrow? Yeah. Anything to get, get through the door. Her AM, uh, walk in sound was the moo. And every time anybody had the moo, I would hear it from my laptop, wherever I was in the room and every time anybody had the moo i would hear it from my laptop wherever i was in

the room and freak out and run to my computer hoping it was her and then and then i mean i'm sure this is like a universal experience but like i would never even i am her i would just sit there and gaze upon the fact that she was online and then the second she like would leave and like sign off my heart would be broken even though no moves were made. It was like the darkest thing and it's like, well, I wasn't going to do anything, right? But I'm like, I don't know. We felt together.

We felt like we were in the same room for a second. I totally, totally was the same way. I would like hear the sound and run to my computer to see who it was and then like just like stare at their profile and like. For hours. I don't know what. Yeah. And do do nothing about it i would do nothing about it i really wish there was still an a.i.m day for like nobody texted nobody dms the only way you could communicate was a.i.m i kind of want to relive a.i.m with you like i feel like we would have the most unhinged

conversations homie you realize that a.i. still exists. We could probably still sign on. Okay, let's do that. I would love to. My username is I'm always crazy 444 in case you forgot. Homeless, I know. I'll find you. And I go moo and nobody waited until I logged on and stared at my profile. Well, what I'm saying is even if it were you, anytime I heard the moo, I would come running to my computer hoping it was her.

I love that I was just like Pavlov's dogging you. Yeah. If I ever heard a moo and we were friends, I would have, I would have been like, oh, it's just Christine. I'm like, God damn it, Christine. Oh my God. Anyway, where were we? I don't know. I'm so sorry. I literally said I have such a long story today. And then I immediately derailed every five seconds. I, wow. wow I it's okay

she I'm still thinking about I'm still thinking about her especially with um when Allison met her in Fredericksburg and it was with my mom it was just me my mom and Allison to tell you but like she definitely knows who she is now if she's listening like how many people could this possibly be and like she knows what her sound name her username sound was she i mean come on anyway good where were we i don't know ov white oh man okay as i'm looking for my notes, tell me the name of one of your crushes. Oh, boy. Okay. There was Ian and Henry. Henry? I've never heard about Henry. What was he like?

Oh, God. Don't even get me started. What a mess. What a mess. I like the name Henry. I do, too. Did we like him? As an adult, do we regret liking him? I don't know what ever happened to him, to be honest. Henry, are you listening? No, I don't think so. Anyway, I found I found our spot.

So the creature was now running on all fours toward the coal mines, its wings still flapping on its back. Ovi and his neighbor, neighbor Sydney both told their stories and the town of Van Meter is now officially scared because five well-legged people have now all seen this thing, tried shooting at it, and nothing has stopped it. Now theories are circulating. What could this thing be? And so one rumor was that it was even an antediluvian creature, which biblically is an animal pre noah's ark great flood um that was like one random theory really there are no solid guesses but everyone's freaked out maybe because there's no solid guesses so just the mystere of it is really terrifying people um soon others reported very weird things especially noises in the defunct mine shafts,

which have now become a, the, the mine shafts are near what's now a brick factory. So a lot of people working at the brick factory are saying there are some crazy things going on in those mine shafts, including sounds that quote, sounded like Satan and his imps getting ready for battle. Oh, which like talk about flowery writing though seriously they knew what they were doing they knew what they were doing yeah um if only they could describe the sound of the moo on aim and just how you've already done that tickle all of us you've literally already painted the most beautiful picture with words today. Thank you. All right. October 3rd. Is that anyone's birthday, Christine? It's Mean Girls Day. I was going to say, it's probably some important date. And then I

remembered about Mean Girls. Okay. So on October 3rd, the whole town's wearing pink. It's 1am. And there's this guy named J.L. Platt Jr. And he is the manager of the brick factory that's now either near the mines or is the mines. I think it's just near the mines. It's just near the mines. And he also reports as the manager, as like the guy running the show around here, he's like, no, no,

there really are some crazy sounds going on in those mine shafts. Uh-oh. I guess his employees were freaked out or maybe he wanted some clarity so he goes looking in the shafts for these sounds and he doesn't get very far because pretty much right away comes a monster out of the mine shaft what the monster everyone's been talking about oh no and a second smaller monster his little baby his imp his little baby i don't know if it's his baby or maybe it's like his little brother or something

but it they're the the it it seems that they're a monster a parent-child duo both with blinding horn lights now i got two of them to deal with oh boy so nearby employees report seeing this event happen where they come out of the mine shafts then they see the two creatures fly out of the mine shafts and disappear into the night sky so now the people of van meter know that these things are living in the old mine shafts so what's the next obvious move say it with me start a mob so wait it i'm not even kidding it literally glitched right when you said whatever you just said they started a mob started a mob okay i heard they all and i said they sobbed yeah i guess i would also solve i don't know i don't know i don't know what else there is to do but okay i guess i was wrong started a mob got it um pitchforks torches the whole nine yards i imagine so really any weapon

you could grab oh my god i just figured it out it's a fucking guy who's the first guy what sorry who is the first guy in your story um i'm sorry his name is ulysses you what the ulysses he's behind all of it he sells farm equipment he sold those pitchforks to every single member of this town christine i think you just cracked the case. Listen, I'm in the mainframe. I'm telling you, look, I was not kidding that like you could crack a bank vault just by thinking about it for five seconds. That was amazing. I mean, listen, selling farm equipment. Suddenly everyone needs a pitchfork.

It just kind of writes itself, you know. Whip them up into hysteria. I would give anything to be able to time travel back to 1903 right now and hot off the press we have cracked the case okay but here get this this is my other theory that this monster thing is literally a time traveler who just has like a headlamp shut the fuck up christine so if you go back now you're the monster and we're just completing the circle oh my god oh my god you're the monster i knew it i'm itchy with excitement hang on i'm so impressed with your brain it is everyone's like that makes no sense christine but m is my biggest hype man i'm so proud of every single thing you've ever done. Including this exact moment. I'm like, you are the smartest person I've ever met.

Well, you're the monster. So we should all be applauding you, really. That's me. Oh, and I brought Leona with me, by the way. It's her birthday. She had to come. What are we to do? What are we to do?

I guess we finished the story, but I don't really want to. Oh, we can talk about AIM again. Man, I really lost my track oh i was gonna say obviously the time travel part is a bit of a stretch but i think you are absolutely fucking on to the farm i mean thing that makes so much sense i'm just saying i don't know i'm just saying he should have at least been interrogated just a little bit he should have at least explained himself when he bought like a porsche the following year and everyone was like where did he get the money for that you know it's like and like the Porsche tractor or whatever the equivalent was sometimes

I don't know why I'm on this show because I you're just the funny like what am I doing here like I just I think I throw you I think I I think I lob you the hitters and then you knock them out of a park you're so full of shit okay so you're the funny one we all know it i really am still trying to figure out what i am on this show besides just helping you shine oh okay i could that's fine okay so they start a mob with apparently a pitchforks that for some reason say ulysses grant or something on the bottom they say ugh it was the first ugh grant fucking christine schieffer shut up like let me have i'm sorry no i'm i guarantee i'm pissing everyone off they're like can you just let em tell the fucking story you're not pissing me off at all i'm just getting madder and madder that every funny thing comes out of your mouth like

non-stop i'm sorry that was a good line that was good one. I can't wait to be funny again, Christine. You'll see. They'll all see. Just wait till my story about murder. Then you can really shine. You know what? I would love to have to tell a murder and then you throw curveballs like this at me because it's not easy.

I know. I would be so bad. I would be screwed. I wonder if people think you're the funny one because you have more opportunity to be the funny one. Ample opportunity. Yeah. People think I'm probably just so dry because like, how am i gonna make murder funny you tell me has anybody ever combined the words m and dry

in a sentence i don't think so my dermatologist but other than that oh a zinger another classic zinger from bm schultz here we go just hitting myself wherever i can just going for it okay mob pitchforks ug at dusk the townspeople got together here's the other weird plan that they had the pitchforks i almost understood because like at least that's what a mob does when they're chasing a cryptid the other thing they do they turn on every light in town. I don't know why. That doesn't make sense. I don't know why. They say the reason of the goal,

or the reason, is that the goal was to hopefully scare the monsters away from their homes. But these are monsters who fucking love light. They have it in their heads. That's their whole thing. Their whole thing is they like light. I feel like if there's lights everywhere

then how are you going to differentiate the lights from the monster light? Christine? I'm just saying. When I tell you your brain is always on top of it, I mean it here too. Oh really? Because that's what I thought. I was like if it's going to, why wouldn't you want it to be pitch

black so you can see like a Batman signal hitting the sky? You're going to start pitchforking everything in sight. I, okay, raspy voice, relax. I know, wasn't that good? I liked it. Was that on purpose? No, I don't know how to, I wish. Okay, so they turn on all the lights because apparently that will really just scare them.

Sure. And after all the lights were on, which by the way, it's 1903. That's like three lights. They put on like three oil lights.'re like look at us go i think everyone just wanted to brag about their lights so they turn on a fireplace or something it's like turn on their candles and the mob after they turn on all the lights in town they why wouldn't you just wait till morning like but that's natural light you wouldn't have to turn any of your lights in town they why wouldn't you just wait till morning like but that's natural light you wouldn't have to turn any of your lights on oh yeah but i guess he only comes out at night

which is extra stupid because if you if he doesn't come out during the day why would you want to make it look like day so he won't come out but then also if you think oh but if you turn on all the lights then they'll think it's day i don't know just absolutely the most backwards thinking i've ever heard in my life so anyway apparently they think this will make them want to fly around even though it's never been seen once in the day yeah and the mob stands by the brick factory and waits for the creatures to come out of the mines to begin their day and fly around the sky, as if they ever have done that. Okay.

They waited all night for these creatures to come out of the mine shafts until sunrise. And at 6 a.m., all of a sudden, the two creatures finally not fly out of the shafts to begin their day, but are returning home and fly into their shafts which makes so much more sense because it's about to be daylight so now they're going to go hide and hang out at night yeah hang on now my brain's confused anyway i don't know how it works but they are flying back in and as they're flying towards the mob to get to their mine shafts flying towards the mob to get to their mine shafts the they just open fire on these creatures apparently the level of intensity of this attack quote would have sunk the spanish fleet so which like i don't know about that i think that was a man talking about his one

experience in battle he also had one candle in his house. So it's fine. Like, relax, guy. And so apparently they really shot these things. But the creatures, although making terrible noises and once again began to wreak a horrible stench, they were pretty much unharmed and flew right into the shafts and it just took cover. So now the town knows for sure that their defenses are not working on these creatures. Reminder, these creatures, by the way,

haven't done anything. I was going to say, have they hurt anybody? No, right. Hurt or damaged. Nothing. They've hurt nobody.

They're just existing. Sometimes maybe like their light flashes into your eyes, but that's it. And that's it. And so now the whole town wants them murdered. Terrified anyway, the mob tries to barricade the mine shafts before the next nightfall to keep the monsters away from Van Meter. So now just like trapping them in there until they die.

Horrible. Burying them alive. And a local reporter called H.H. Phillips, he wrote about the events and he's actually he printed the only source published story on the monster um which was that day 10 3 um october 3rd's des moines daily news so fun fact and after that night the monsters were never seen again so i guess they were successfully buried oh that's horrible. I like to think, I mean, they've got like lighthouses on their heads, right? So like maybe they can teleport and they just moved away. Maybe they found another exit.

I really hope so because that's really sad. Maybe they found a shovel from Ulysses down in there and just dug their way out. I hope so. That next week, the same paper the des moines daily news tried to do damage control about the situation and they said that hh phillips who wrote all about this experience they said that his account was greatly exaggerated which i wonder why the des moines daily news was okay with him writing that story but then the next week had to go never mind he we our editor wasn't in town or

something last week and that slipped through the cracks yeah what is that about i don't know but after this the town was worried that this would hurt local business and the general consensus ever since has been that the lights were just burglars or pranksters um one theory is that they were extraterrestrials which is my favorite one. One paranormal investigator named Chad Lewis said that these strange lights in the sky had been reported in Iowa for the last decade. In fact, one set of mysterious lights in Iowa was heavily reported on in 1897, which was not even 10 years before this event. So weird.

So something has been going on within those 10 years. And I'm just thinking iowa cornfields crop circles i don't know there's something there it's a perfect space for someone to crash land not super populated like dense population wise i mean some also think that the it could just be two birds there were i don't know why they have fucking headlamps on but um two eight foot tall birds yeah well so they think it could be the sandhill crane or the whooping crane but we're always saying this about mothman all right i'm done with this it's a crane and if so um the if they if it really was a crane, the light on its head, the one horn in the middle of its head like a unicorn, the no feathers on its wings, the eight foot height and being bulletproof are all very wild exaggerations that it's almost as if it's not a crane at all. Only the wings are the accurate parts of that story. The same guy, Chad Lewis. Also, he said, whatever it is,

the most important part is just digging up the cryptid lore because it can inspire interest in local history. So even though some people thought it might hurt local business, it could help because it could drive tourism in. He also is the one that coined the name Van Meter Visitors, purposefully choosing a neutral name because they never did any harm. There's no reason to make them seem bad.

I like that immediately. I said, it sounds like a serial killer slash stalker. Like clearly I did not find it a neutral name. Oh, I think you are primed to think like that. That's true. And there's some other people who, you know, don't think that they didn't cause any harm. So there in in 2013 one local

named jelena walker she said i believe there is a god so i believe there is a demon and i think it's evil so calm down jelena jelena really has an opinion in 2013 like a lot she just wants to get her pitchfork out i think literally over a hundred years later she is convinced that this is demonic so jelena and i probably wouldn't get along no um of course van meter iowa is now the host of the van meter visitor festival of course and travel iowa says that the festival has quote guided monster walking tours paranormal paranormal presentations. Why have we not been invited? Monster themed games, drinks, food, and more. Hello. Can we go to this? I'm not even joking. I would love to. I've never been to Iowa. Just to end this properly, I have a little picky for you.

Whoa. That is not what I pictured. Me either. But I mean, I guess maybe it's because it's like currently on all fours. But I guess if we were standing, it kind of looks like what I thought. I mean, it's a bird with bat wings and a flashlight on its head. But its head looks like a dinosaur. It looks like a dinosaur, this thing. See, I think of it as like it just looks like a featherless bird. What's wrong with its head, though? I don't know. It looks like a parrot's head to me.

Really? I think it looks like a skull's head to me really i think it looks like a skull oh well maybe well we'll post it on instagram yeah everyone decide if it's a you let me know dinosaur or a bird i don't know i like it i mean birds are dinosaurs so it does kind of that's true it looks like a like a like a pterodactyl with a flashlight on its head but laser beam on its head yes that's oh speaking of pterodactyl can i tell on its head. Right? A laser beam on its head. Yes, that's exactly. Oh, speaking of pterodactyl, can I tell you? So my aunt is really going through it right now, also medically.

She's in the hospital right now. And I found this place where you could customize stuffed animals and send them to people in the hospital. How cute. And I got her this stuffed pterodactyl. And on the belly, I wrote, stop feeling terrible. And terrible has a p that's so cute like pterodactyl that's the cutest thing i ever heard i was like i'm pretty sure this is the best stuffed animal that's ever existed so i'm pretty sure you should

uh sell that well yeah if people would like to use that idea if you find yourself a stuffed pterodactyl and you can write something on the belly it's really adorable it's really adorable m oh thank you all right well anyway that is the van meter visitor well i was only in nine hours and 10 minutes so if you want to drive over there no hey okay yeah and we can do that on the way to the mothman festival or it's a totally opposite but you know we should just do a um a cryptid festival road trip and oh because we also have to do is it kentucky that has the kelly hopkinsville man festival or it's a totally opposite but you know we should just do a um a cryptid festival road trip and oh because we also have to do is it kentucky that has the kelly hopkinsville that one i would love to go to as well we should actually one thing we should do for 2023 is

actually have a calendar of all of the cryptid festivals and see if we can get to as many as we can i would love to do that i would i'm not i would love to make 2023 our cryptid festival year i'm really into that i too am really into that it's a great idea eva call mothman write it down get bigfoot on the horn immediately call the nearest crane or whatever sandhill crane oh anyway that is uh that's that's all i have to say my friend and you dropped something that looked it sounded expensive it was your holder wasn't it no it's a gallon of water was it open yes eva not eva christine oh freudian slip eva call dyson call bounty the quilted quicker picker-upper not an ad i actually have a roll right next to me also not an ad but if they will want to send me some because i use a lot of them

as you can we spill a lot in this house. Oh, Allison's aunt, who's also in town, she accidentally spilled like her cup of coffee on me yesterday. She felt so bad about it. And she was like, I'm so clumsy. And I was like, I promise to God, I am so much clumsier. This is not worth your time being stressed about. Yeah, you're lucky you spilled on an M of all people. the least of it yeah you're lucky you spilled on an m of all people yeah on my black pants that won't even go stained yeah um are you good do you need to clean up a gallon of water no like honestly i already cleaned this sofa from the wax that i got all over it which by the way the paper towel trick worked so much better than i thought the putting an an iron on it? Yeah, with ironing it,

just like immediately came out. Oh, that's why this paper towel rolls here. Yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, so dumping water on it is like nothing. Anyway, okay. Here we go. I have a story for you now.

This is the story of the Connecticut River Valley killer. Oh. Serial killer. Ooh. Okay. Yep. I say ooh, but I also mean ooh.

I know. I think it's been a while since I've done a serial killer. So I don't know how long. How many victims? Can you tell us in advance how many victims there were? I think seven confirmed. Yeah. okay okay so this took place between 1978 and 1988 which i do feel like is the serial killer prime time like i feel like 70s are known as like the big serial killer time like when that emerged as like a massive thing another thing i would like you to

cover if you ever do like a history presentation episode is why the 70s was such a big time for serial killers compared to today i do believe in like the um roe v wade argument there's like i mean i know what roe v wade is but there's like an art there's an argument that before we had roe v wade a lot of people were having's like an art there's an argument that before we had roe v wade a lot of people were having children when they couldn't and they weren't either i'm not going to say it as eloquently as a lot of other people but they just there either wasn't enough access to give that kid the best life or they weren't being they were being neglected or they, um, it all kind of turned out in a way where, um, I guess that the kids just kind of had, they had those women had access to abortions when they

wanted them. Um, so many children, I don't know what the right, I know what you're saying. So basically like, so like so many people back then had kids when they didn't want them and there was an influx in children and we didn't have more of a control. Who weren't properly cared for. Exactly. And that is one of the running theories that there's, that's why there was so much higher crime in certain spaces. But then when we had access to abortion and people could control whether or not they were ready for a kid or if they wanted a kid. Again, this is this is just only some people had that access. But all of a sudden, crime rates went down in the future and all this stuff.

So you can predict based on abortion laws 20 years into the future what crime rates will look like. There was some documentary short I saw on it. But I wonder if that contributed to the serial killer era. That's very, very interesting. Sorry for jumbling through that. I was trying to remember as I was saying it. No, it's a hard thing to explain. I feel like that does make sense. I mean, I definitely want to look into that because, yeah, it would make sense that if you're unable, and this is all conjecture on my part. But I have to imagine that if you were to give up your child for adoption in like the 50s or not even necessarily adoption, but just like to a home for children.

I imagine standards were different then than they are now. Or even mental health. Exactly. They thought like lobotomies were good for you and so like if you a lot of people that you've covered happen to have head injuries or something you know maybe they just say like oh he got knocked around he's fine now and like yeah you don't realize i don't know that could be a whole other thing on top of roe v wade but i saw a it was like one of those fascinating it was one of those tikts where it was like a multi-parter, but it was, you know, it was fascinating.

Oh, okay. I just found something interesting that matches kind of what you're saying. What's that? But it's more about the parents. So this is from Rolling Stone. So this guy, Vronsky, who began studying serial killers, Peter Vronsky, criminal justice expert. Uh, he has deduced that serial killers generally develop the personality and compulsion benefiting a killer when they're young. By the time they're 14,

they're basically fully formed. They generally start killing in their late twenties. As such, he looked back at what was happening in the world when murders like John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy were growing up and discovered a link. They were all born during wartime. In cases, for example, like the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, Richard Cottingham, the torso killer, their fathers were returning war veterans with PTSD, which was not a diagnosable illness until the

80s. In short, these children were already predisposed to violence and were raised in potentially violent, likely broken homes. Yikes. And that does fit, I feel like, with what you're saying. I mean, not necessarily maybe a direct correlation, but it definitely would make sense that there would be more neglect if children were, you know, unable to be cared for or were not wanted. There's definitely something on it. I don't, not that like, uh, access to abortion causes more or less serial killers, but it was like a general crime. And so, but I don't know if based on the era, I think it was also in Freakonomics or something where it said like, you could always predict like 20 or 30 years ahead based on the laws

today because those kids are going to grow up. And so anyway, um, didn't mean to totally derail us but i would love for you to eventually do like a presentation on like the intersectionality of the 70s and why there was such a because i mean it's crime time because obviously there are serial obviously looking back it's like oh we know all the big names whereas i assume in 30 years we could probably 50 years look back at today and be like, we know the big names from now, you know, so I do, I can see that, but it is called the golden age of serial killers. Yikes. Um, so, you know, I mean, here's just one more example, Connecticut river Valley. Um,

yep. This guy was active starting in 78, uh, all the way to 88. He was a serial killer who terrorized the Connecticut River Valley in New Hampshire and Vermont. And he would stalk a stretch of Interstate 91 where he abducted women from the roadside and then stabbed them to death. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's really heinous. So the interstate runs along 255 miles of the Connecticut River, and the killer would abandon his victims in the woods along the banks of the Connecticut River. Now this is the most frustrating part. The identity of the Connecticut River Valley killer is still unknown to this day. Of course. Of course. And it is one of the most haunting cold cases of New England for obvious reasons.

And today we're going to cover the crimes and the victims and one potential suspect. Okay. So there are seven confirmed victims associated with the killer. They are all women aged 17 to 38 there was katherine kathy milliken 26 mary elizabeth critchley bernice cordemanch ellen ruth fried eva marie morse linda m moore barbara agnew 38 so in may of 1984 17 year old bernice cordemanch lived with her boyfriend teddy, and his parents in Claremont, New Hampshire. Bernice's home life had been a little rocky, so she moved in with her boyfriend's family, the Berries, and started working as a nurse's aide at the Sullivan County Nursing Home. Teddy's family said Bernice was a joy to have around.

His parents started to see her as their own daughter, like she folded right into the family. And Bernice and Teddy were already talking about marriage. They were really close and she loved being a part of his family. So let's just start on a depressing ass note. I was going to say, I don't want to get too attached. I know. I know. It's horrible. Yeah. One afternoon, Teddy invited Bernice over to his sister's place in Newport after work. At 3 o'clock, she asked a co-worker for a ride home where she had a snack and picked up some stuff for the night. Then Teddy's dad offered Bernice a ride, but she said no thanks. She would just hitchhike the 10-mile drive to Newport. So Bernice was only days away from taking her driving test and she would

then be able to drive herself. But in the meantime, she regularly hitched rides. She never had any issues. This was just like day to day at the time, not a big deal to hitch a ride, very safe area. New Hampshire was famous for its low crime rates and overall safety even at a time like we were just saying when violent crime in the U.S. was at an all-time high so in recent years at the time several young girls like age 13 and under had already been abducted and murdered in the area but that killer was caught and it was chalked up to, you know, being young and defenseless little girls. And so Bernice was older, you know, she, she was 17. She could hold her own. So nobody can like, nobody worried basically when she said she would hitch a ride.

So Bernice, uh, said, I'm just going to hitch a ride. Don't worry about it. And she never showed up to Newport. When it started to get dark, Teddy and his brother-in-law drove around looking for her. And they figured, well, maybe she just got unlucky hitching and she'd still be on the roadside waiting for someone to pick her up. So we'll probably just spot her along her usual path. But, of course, they could not find her anywhere. spot her along her usual path. But of course, they could not find her anywhere. They thought she must have changed her plans and like maybe didn't have access to a landline and so wasn't able to update them. She was a very independent girl. And so this that becomes kind of a through line through all of these victims, very independent. And so they just said, oh, well, maybe she just made up her mind to go somewhere else. So they went to bed. But when Bernice was still in no show the

next morning, they called the police and filed a missing persons report. Pretty quickly, a report came in that a witness saw Bernice get into a white pickup truck with two or three men inside. But Teddy was skeptical about this because even though she regularly hitchhiked, she had rules where she would take rides from women, was cautious around men, and would absolutely never take a ride with more than one man in the vehicle. So he was like, that doesn't really match up. That's not how she would have done this. A few days later, another witness said he had seen Bernice, who he recognized from the newspaper's missing persons report, getting out of a white

Ford across the river from Lebanon, New Hampshire in Vermont. And this would place her 18 miles north of her destination, which is a strange sidetrack. Yeah. Teddy's mother, this is horrible, which is a strange sidetrack yeah teddy's mother this is horrible started having nightmares about bernice being lost in the woods so god i know i mean the helpless feeling there i can't imagine so she started going out on her own just hiking everywhere and looking for bernice thinking she must be out here somewhere terrible and of course there was no sign of the girl that she had hoped would become her daughter-in-law. Like that's how close they were. Leeds dwindled and things started to seem hopeless. And unfortunately, that year, Bernice was not the only girl to go missing. So 26-year-old Ellen Ruth Freed was working as a nurse at the Valley Regional Hospital that same year.

And one day in July, a call came in to police that a car was abandoned on a dirt road in the woods. Police figured it belonged to Ellen, but she was nowhere to be found. And then Ellen didn't show up for work. And her co-workers said she was highly dependable and always considerate. So this was unlike her to just disappear. And then Ellen didn't show up for work. And her co-workers said she was highly dependable and always considerate. So this was unlike her to just disappear. Ellen was known as being empathetic and caring. And like Bernice, she was fiercely independent and very brave, especially like at the time, you know, you know, we're talking like 50 years ago. It was just less likely to be, I think, described as independent as a woman.

Sure. God forbid. Yeah. I mean, they meant it in a good way, but I just feel like it wasn't as common of a trait necessarily. So Ellen had moved to town after breaking it off with her longtime boyfriend, and she aspired to a life of travel and freedom. She loved when friends brought their kids over to visit. Neighbors would hear her playing banjo on summer nights and nobody wanted to think of someone as kind-hearted as ellen being in trouble it was just like such a horrible thought so a search party of over 30 police and fish and game officers searched the woods where her car was found and the theory the hopeful theory that she was lost just started to kind of dwindle because they couldn't find her.

Also, this area of woods was pretty sparse and pretty bare. So they kind of searched the whole thing and couldn't find her. One officer even said a child couldn't even get lost in there. So that's how scary this was that they's so dark it was very dark so unfortunately every possible lead on ellen quickly fizzled out and now there were two missing women in claremont and the following year in 1985 there would be a third so 27 year old eva morse is described by people who knew her as and i want to be clear i don't't know if it's Eva or Ava, but I'm so used to saying Eva that I'm just going to go with Eva. So Eva Morse was described by people who knew her as tough, athletic, and energetic. She grew up at the time

as quote, one of the boys, and she loved hiking, swimming, and sports. She was known to reject the norm. So she was labeled a tomboy. She was also queer and she was fat, all of which were very uncommon labels for women at the time. troubled situation because her new stepmom wanted nothing to do with his quote old children oh and so she was just totally cast aside by her own family like yeah just totally dismissed and she ended up moving in with her half-sister noreen who was 14 years older than her and so eva got pregnant when she was 17 and had a baby named jenny left high school to work. And basically the people who knew her said everything she ever did, she did for Jenny. Like Jenny was literally the most important thing in her life. Eva started dating women

and her family's reactions varied. There are a lot of labels from the time that label her as a lesbian, but like we don't really know because these are just right she was known to date both men and women so it's like you know also if she were one of the boys for all we know it that could have been how she identified right exactly like so there's there's like no clear i mean basically what i'm saying is I'm not comfortable labeling her as anything. Sure. Queer, queer, queer. Openly queer.

Yeah, exactly. So there were, you know, I feel like also labels change so much over the decades. Like who knows, you know, just lesbian in the 80s is like such a vague term. Yeah. So Noreen, her sister, who she she, who she lived with struggled to understand the situation, but like loved Eva unconditionally. Eva made, I know it's really, she really did have like a powerful network. So she made a small group of friends in the Valley LGBT scene.

Um, and these were all people that were considered outsiders of their communities. She devoted all of her time to her daughter she worked really hard to provide for her um she couldn't afford a car though so unfortunately she usually hitchhiked to work oh i can't imagine that being part of your every day like oh i'll just find a ride i'll just bum a ride i'll just bum a ride. My anxiety would constantly be like spiked, like without the, the clear, like reliability of getting to work, you know, like the work alone is stressful enough.

I don't need like the anxiety on a daily basis. It's not like, Oh, every two. It's not like, Oh, every Friday. Yeah.

On time. I never even to do it every single day as part of the routine. Also, is it bum a ride or thumb a ride? Cause thumb like, Oh, I know it's bum a ride or thumb a ride? Because thumb. Like, I know it's bum a cigarette. So I just thought, right. That's right.

Is it? Is it thumb? It's so stupid. Our podcast is so stupid. Thumb a ride. It is. You're so smart. It makes sense with your thumb.

Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, I can't imagine that being like, oh, oh it's 6 a.m better use my thumb and get a ride real better thumpkin where's thumpkin okay i've been watching a lot of miss rachel all right uh so anyway um yeah so she but remember her co-workers called her reliable and considerate so like she clearly wasn't just showing up for work at any old time. Like she was getting there reliably every day with hitching a ride. I can't believe it. I think it just, again, I'm thinking in modern context. Yeah.

Because maybe back then like hitchhiking was just like, oh, any car is going to stop for you. I think so. Especially like in rural areas. It was just like well you know someone needs a ride hop on in i'm going there anyway yeah what a wild time i can't even imagine time i'm not interested thank you very much um so anyway she's hitching rides to work and in june eva disappeared and of course her older sister noreen was terrified she said quote it must be something bad because she would never,

ever take off and leave Jenny without making sure she was taken care of. So the investigation in Charleston, New Hampshire was slow. Locals talked about the way those people were unreliable. Gross, gross, gross. They said, well, you know, those people in the LGBT community, meaning, were unreliable. So, you know, it's not that shocking that she would run off and abandon her child. Oh, okay. Wow. Cool, cool, cool. Get this.

Eva's disappearance didn't even make the papers. So that's great. She, as we said, had never really fit in with mainstream society like i said she was not straight she was fat she was poor and she was a single parent basically all of these a monster in the village obviously yeah a checkbox like every box checked for like dismissive you know society dismiss her so people started of course because what else making up stories about her abandoning jenny and running off that's not going to traumatize her poor daughter you know right but like forget all the other things where like everyone thought she was so devoted to her

daughter up until this moment yep just like throw that out the fucking window um because she's a lesbian so she must have just abandoned her child you know oopsies so they said she had done this before she had not uh and so with what other child just like left her there and people were like wait no she hasn't she literally never did that but you know people make up their own reality so noreen and eva's childhood best friend rose knew differently noreen drove to claremont and put an ad in the paper, which prompted a reporter to go ask police about the investigation. Police seemed totally uninterested. And one officer said dismissively, I could get the search dogs out, but where would we start?

It's like, that's your job, bud. Yeah. Are you talking to me about that? Yeah. What the fuck? You want me to tell you? So it was a full month before they finally set up a roadblock to question drivers where Eva worked. One woman came forward. A month? A month. A full month.

Well, then she's already. I mean. Like, fuck. Fuck you. I mean, really. One woman came forward and said she'd picked upa hitchhiking on her way to work that day okay so that's a solid lead wish we could have gotten that information sooner but okay right the woman let eva out at a local vet office like an animal hospital and eva hitchhiked on

from there okay i know this is like a side note again but imagine you have to hitchhike but sometimes you only get dropped off part of the way so you have to like take multiple cars there have been times I mean okay this is like the this is not hitchhiking I think we can all relate to whatever you're about saying okay I feel it in my bones I it's obviously not just hitchhiking but I have done that with ubers where I've like I was driving three hours from the airport and I felt so, I wasn't going to ask someone to drive me three hours. So I drove, I took an Uber an hour, then I got another Uber an hour. Then I got another Uber for an hour. And I was like, the fact that I'm so lucky that there would be access to cars at every hour mark, but like, can you imagine just being like oh i have to hope that

now the next car i get in is going that far and in that direction without any stops and like wants me in their car and will stop for me like and is safe like every day oh my god and we'll get there on time i mean i can't yeah it's just like no driver is gonna respect your needs before theirs if you're like i need to get to work now, step on it. And they're like, I'm getting some milk at the store. Like, get out of my car then. Yeah. I feel like you must have just been such a fucking puzzle.

My dysfunction would just never allow this to happen for me. I would just not be able to do it. I would just give up. Like I can, it's hard enough for me to get into a car to go to work like when i worked at an office what happens if like you're working on a day where everyone else like got work off like or what if there's like yeah what about inclement weather what if someone else like got snowed in like and now you have less cars to pick from or like what if like they're driving a safe route

but your route to work has especially in new hampshire and vermont like what's what are you to do honestly give up that's what i would do i would absolutely give up i i'm dead serious i would just be like forget it i guess i'm not working i don't know. I don't know. What a scheduling fiasco. What a fiasco indeed. So this woman says, I picked her up, but I could only take her as far as the vet's office, as far as the animal hospital. And she was going to hitchhike from there the rest of the way to work. So first piece of the puzzle, they know the last place that she was seen safe. piece of the puzzle they know the last place that she was seen safe so now they had three women missing in this area and uh that september of 1985 unfortunately two men out target shooting in the newport woods found human remains there were only bones and a single shoe, and they were partially swallowed up by an enormous hemlock tree's roots.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be Ellen Freed. Okay, well, I saw that coming, but yikes. I know, I know. So Ellen was the second victim that I mentioned who had moved there after breaking up with her boyfriend and um had a lot of close friends and loved kids and all that and uh her story was the one where her car was abandoned in the woods but you're asking me no sorry i'm just covering i'm just um i'm just recapping like which one oh because I know there's a lot of names in this story so um Ellen Ellen's the one that the two people were out in the woods and they found human

remains yeah but I'm saying um so they found Ellen's remains but Ellen was the victim whose car was found it was the one before Eva whose car was found abandoned in the woods gotcha the way you paused I was like do you want me to say it back to you? No, I was trying to piece it together in a coherent way because I know we've skipped down. We've bounced around. We've bounced around. Yes, exactly. So unfortunately, the remains turned out to be Ellen Freed. And so the investigation was reopened and police still did not make a connection between the three women. Some papers speculated Ellen and Bernice were connected, but they never included Eva

because Ellen and Bernice were, quote, normal. Okay. I hate that. Yeah, they were considered normal, productive members of society. They had boyfriends, steady jobs, et cetera. Eva struggled financially, moved from job to job, wasn't straight.

I was going to say, like, you had me at, well, they had boyfriends. Yeah. Okay, well. Yep, yep, yep. So police said she simply didn't fit the same profile as the other women. But what they failed to recognize is that what linked the women is that all three were independent and prone to be out alone, vulnerable, and two of them were last seen hitchhiking so yeah it does add up you know yep i mean maybe the killer's type was not you know what their orientation was but whether they were easily accessible like his opportunity

i have a hunch yeah i don't think he was interviewing them to see what they were about exactly exactly thank you in april of 1986 that was the following year the connecticut river valley viewing them to see what they were about. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. In April of 1986, that was the following year, the Connecticut River Valley murderer, who still had no name or identity at the time, struck again. One April afternoon, Steve Moore came home from work. His wife, Linda, did the bookkeeping, and he had called to ask her to write a check for him to stop by and pick up but she didn't answer the phone so he and his co-worker terry drove home and he's like oh we'll just stop by my house and have her write the check and things looked normal there saint bernard abigail was lounging in the yard linda's shoes were in the grass beside a portable radio and a lounge chair

as if she'd just been out laying with the dog but inside he found linda lying face down in a doorway shit he turned her over and she was dead she had clearly been attacked she was covered in blood and there was a cut on her so deep he could see bone oh my god wow wow she had been stabbed more than two dozen times two dozen that feels so personal like but like such overkill but since there's i mean literally and also like i um i feel like because i know it's a serial killer there's no way he had like a personal thing against any of these women so it's just weird that if any if it was just like a standalone murder i'd be like oh that's personal yeah but i think with serial killers it often becomes like a power thing no like they're standing in for

somebody like oh you know if there's a hatred toward women for example and a hatred toward their mother for example like it's a projection of women, for example, and a hatred toward their mother, for example. It's a projection of something personal. Like Ed Kemper, where he then finally did kill his own mother at the end of killing all those women. And he outright said, like, I hated my mother and this was like my outlet, you know. Oh, God. Yeah, you're right. So that's where my mind goes, that it's probably somebody who's, well, clearly someone who hates women. I don't think that's really like up for debate.

Clearly someone who's unhinged beyond repair. Fully, fully, yeah. So she had been stabbed more than two dozen times. This is pretty dark. He checked her pulse and called an ambulance, but he was in shock and it didn't quite click that she was gone right away yeah um so he told terry who his friend in the truck his co-worker to come in quote my wife's been stabbed and when the ambulance arrived he just seemed like kind of despondent like totally out of it i would be i mean I mean, there's no way. How else would you, you know, stunned is the only way you would be able to be for several, several days. I totally agree. And

Steve said to Terry, his coworker, oh, I'll write that check for you. And I'm not, I'm totally, I would be the exact same way though. Just like, all I know right now is how to write this check. Your mind's just trying to like keep it together i imagine yeah and so the ambulance driver said how can you even think of that right now and it's like okay i'm with you different yeah you never know how you would be none of us have experienced unless you like have like a particularly gnarly history like nobody i know at least experiences shock enough to know how they would react in a time of shock so yeah i feel like unless you're in a

position like this you can't be like well why are you thinking of that it's like i don't know yeah there are some stories there are some stories you've covered where like you know what's the the the guy that killed his wife and daughters and then went on this holy press tour where he was acting like he didn't know what happened christ like there's there's times like that where it's weird that they're acting a certain way i don't know like it's it's a fine line it's a fine line it's totally a great area other people yeah especially when they go on talk shows because it's like. Yeah.

I don't even know how I'd act on a talk show as without any sort of traumatic incident like let alone with. But again. But there are some things that just feel like. I feel like even though I'm very lucky to have never been in a state of shock like that. I feel like I can still somehow on a human level relate to the complete panic and almost disassociation you know but then there's other moments where someone acts a little too odd or not odd enough and i'm like that doesn't sit right on a human level with me it's very weird it's a it is and i feel like it's different for different people and so it's like know, it's hard to gauge. So, yeah, I mean, interestingly, we'll get to it. But of course, and again, he's the husband. So like, of course, you look directly at the husband first. You do. That's most likely who killed her. But, you know, in this case, it was not.

So when his children showed up from school, he calmly explained to them that their mom was gone. And then his parents came and picked the kids up. Obviously, Steve was in shock, but police were quickly convinced he must have been the one to kill his wife. So they interviewed him several times and just were like, OK, it's not adding up that he did this. Eventually, the detective on the case was promoted and new detectives started investigating poor Steve. But luckily for Steve, the original detective was convinced of his innocence. He once said, if this guy ever went to trial, I'd probably be called as his best witness. I did everything in the world to arrest him, but it's my obligation not to arrest the wrong man, and I believe in that. So several days after Linda's tragic death, Bernice was found in the woods.

Now Bernice was the 17-year-old. Yeah. This was now 22 months after she disappeared and it was only three miles from where they found Ellen's remains. So a dentist identified her skeletal remains with dental records, just as he had done for Ellen. A medical examiner was able to determine from her bones that Bernice had also been stabbed to death. And now police finally started looking seriously into connections between Bernice and Ellen. Meanwhile, locals, of course, are reeling. The two women had been discovered and Linda had been stabbed to death in less than a two week span.

So one of them is murdered and two of their bodies are found within two weeks. Yeah, that's I don't know what to say to that. That's very odd. Well, I just mean like that's the town went into like full panic because of the back-to-back-to-back incidents i know but is there a is there a um i don't know is there a reason why all of a sudden two are being found at the same time when it's been so long between the i don't think so i think i imagine it's just like maybe it's hunting season long between the, I don't think so. I think I imagine it's just like, maybe it's hunting season or,

you know, people are just out. Oh, I'm not, I'm not sure, but I don't think it was like anything intentional. I think it was just because their remains had been there since they were killed.

Got it. My first thought was that it was weird because like maybe someone had someone who maybe knew something i'm already in like trying to figure it out mode right and i feel like if two bodies got found in in the same time period maybe someone was on to it and i don't know i don't know ignore me my i'm going in different directions no no you're good i mean it's it's possible listen we don't know the fucking answer so who who knows? Because guess what? Only days later, two brothers who worked in logging found Eva's body in the woods. Four victims, all discovered within weeks of each other, all like proximity wise, very close to each other. All like proximity wise, very close to each other.

Now get this. This is talk about bad luck. Okay. These poor guys, these two guys who found Eva's body had already found a body in this exact spot before. Shut up. Oh my God. Five years earlier. Yeah.

Unrelated? Well, not necessarily unrelated, probably related. necessarily unrelated probably related but uh five years earlier they'd found the remains of 37 year old mary elizabeth critchley who had gone missing in august of 1981 i can't imagine having first of all finding a body yeah and then thinking that's the worst thing that's ever happened i hope that like there's no way on earth that could happen again and then in the exact same spot where you're probably already triggered to go to work there you find not just another body but two bodies no sorry they found just another one so this oh okay i thought there was two for a second okay still all of a sudden it happens again exactly where you are probably hoping you never have to go back spot you know on

the ride there they were like oh yeah this is a spot where we found a body last time fingers crossed doesn't happen again and there's a body yeah yeah yeah so oh god so five years earlier they had found the remains of 37 year old mary elizabeth critchley who'd gone missing in august of 81 they had literally found Mary Elizabeth like less than 500 yards away from where Eva was now found. Yeah. It's sort of like you're hoping they're recovering from the trauma of the first one. And then it's like, JK, here you go. So pretty quickly, it was like, well, this must be related. Like this guy's using the same spots as his dumping grounds, so to speak. What happened to Mary Elizabeth, which they had not connected yet until,

until this, this death, Mary Elizabeth had been hitchhiking home to Vermont from Massachusetts through the Connecticut river Valley. When she went missing for several weeks before these brothers found her, her cause of death could not be determined but it was ruled a homicide so now they're saying well shit like they must be connected because it's the same spot like what are the odds it's too weird it's too weird unless like a whole gang of serial killers know like west side storying their turf like no this is my turf yeah yeah yeah so police formed a task force and they said you know

what we've already linked linda bernice ellen eva and mary elizabeth now we're gonna throw another case into the mix because there was one more case that they had not considered and that was even earlier october of 1978 okay so 26 year old katherine kathy milliken went missing while she was photographing birds in the chandler brook wetlands preserve wow that sounds of all like the most innocent things someone could be doing you could be doing not that it matters whether you're doing something innocent but it just makes it all the more horrific to hear yeah you know it's like he took one look at her and went i don't know easy easy target yeah yeah yeah so her body was recovered the day after she went missing yards from where she was last seen which means she was seen safe somewhere and literally yards away so literally right there

she was killed she had also been stabbed 29 times she is considered the connecticut river valley killer's first victim but this was like they were back back dating all of this basically like they were connecting the dots much later if that makes sense but this task force that they had set up decided the deaths were unrelated uh what it how what was the reason i don't know there's that tiktok sound of what was the reason but like really what was the reason reason i don't know, what was the reason? What was the fucking reason? I don't know. And they were, of course, still othering Eva and saying like, well, she doesn't fit the profile. Oh, shut the fuck up with this.

And they were out of leads and they just said, there's no serial killer. So it just didn't add up. And fortunately, one investigator told reporters that he felt they were all connected deep down, despite his official stance that there was no serial killer. Because that man had read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. He had a hunch and he ran with it. He's like, I trust my intuition. Yeah. And so he announces to a reporter and the public took it and ran with it. They were like, oh, this guy thinks there's a serial killer even though the official stance is no well yeah there is because we all know it and finally

someone's validating that so now they are sure there is the public is sure there is a serial killer in the valley honestly good for them to rally against the the cops on that one i mean imagine like the fear in the public eye and then like waiting to be lit by a spark. And it's like the spark is the one cop going, I think actually there is a serial killer. And everyone's like, we fucking knew it. Yeah. We knew we were waiting for someone to say it. We fucking knew it. And they did know it because months later, this man attacked again. So there was a nurse named Barbara Agnew who lived in Norwich, Vermont. She was divorced with a son who lived back and forth between her house and his dad's across the

river. She was taking classes at a local college for her bachelor's in nursing, and she traveled the country teaching other nurses how to use medical equipment. Already there is a pattern here nursing uh there were a lot of nurses that were victims but that wasn't the only thing because barbara was also fiercely independent adventurous she was putting herself out there she was single but dating men through a matchmaking program like living kind of that single independent life that wasn't as common back then, especially post-divorce. So in January of 1987, a huge snowstorm hit the area and Barbara was out skiing with a European man she'd once met on a flight to visit her dad in Canada. She had spent the day with him and at the end of their get-together, she assured him she was a Vermont girl who could safely drive home in the snow, so there was no need to

worry about her. Okay. And he watched her head out into the storm, and that was the last time anyone ever saw her. All right. Unfortunately, drivers all over the interstate had to leave their cars behind that night to get to safety, so no one was too alarmed when a car was left alone with the driver's door open at a rest area. And when no one came to get it, it was towed away.

Oh, shit. Yeah. A few days later, a rest stop attendant found Barbara's ski jacket and sweater in the dumpster. That's not good sign especially because they were in perfect condition and had barbara's hospital id in one of the pockets oh wow this person isn't even trying to hide it anymore no no it feels almost like the cockiness is growing the confidence it's just like fucking it's like well no one's found me yet dismissive yeah so he and an office worker called the hospital several times trying to track barbara down to come and get her clothes because

they were like brand new yeah and her id the hospital contacted barbara's ex-husband who called another contact who finally called barbara's best friend this friend had already been worried about barbara uh she hadn't heard from her in three days. And now that she's hearing like nobody else has either and her clothes were found in a dumpster, she knows something is desperately wrong. So she calls the police. Eventually, detectives are able to locate Barbara's towed car and they find blood inside on the floor, the steering wheel and the driver's seat. Oh, my God. So she didn't even really make it out of the car.

No, which is horrible, especially because she was like in a snowstorm at a rest stop. But she must have also like it must have happened while she was nude, right? Because her clothes weren't perfect tact. They weren't like bloody or anything. Well, it was her jacket and her. Like, I don't know if maybe he took it out of the car and threw it in the dumpster do you know what i mean yeah i was like that's a weird extra step but it sounded like her clothes were all not bloody and she the car was bloody i don't know yeah you know that's a good question let me see like what i mean it's a yeah technically just a

random detail you're right because it was her ski jacket, which I can understand she would have probably taken off in the car. But her sweater was also found in the dumpster. So I'm not 100% sure. Maybe it was just like her outerwear. Yeah, yeah. It could be. Or maybe just something extra she had in the backseat and he just didn't want it to be identified. I don't know.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So they find blood all over the car the media puts out barbara's face and story because she has not been found yet everyone in the area knew she was missing uh and two months later a woman out hiking with friends found barbara's body face down in the snow she said after hearing about barbara in the news she often wondered after hearing about Barbara in the news, she often wondered when they would find her. And when she saw a body in the snow, she knew instantly who it was. Yeah. Feels almost like she knew this was going to happen. Like she was like walking toward her own fate of finding this body. She was like, she was like, I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

You know, a lot of people have that experience where as they're walking towards that moment, something's already, there's like an aura about them. Yeah, it's freaky. Or they're like, that's the dead body. Like there's something like your spirits connect somewhere where like you're aware inside that something's going on. You're like, I know this is, I'm like heading toward this and I can't stop it. Yeah, yeah.

Ugh. So like the other women, Barbara had been stabbed to death. Of course, now the surrounding communities are in a full-on panic. Gun shops are selling out of weapons and mace. Women, of course, were terrified. And one man who was interviewed said, well, it doesn't really affect me. Well, fucking ding, ding, ding. That makes sense to him.

Like, I'm not surprised that someone that someone i mean let's just call it what it is that is the most privileged thing i've ever heard in my life yeah seriously it's like okay must be nice yeah must be nice and not have to care since you know that like you're a man and don't have to deal with it yikes so unfortunately leads kept going cold and it was clear now that bernice ellen eva l, Linda, and now Barbara must all be connected somehow. And maybe even Mary Elizabeth, who'd been killed in 81, and Kathy in 1978. Just a whole slew of people. But everything was a dead end, and it seemed like none of the victims or their loved ones had any chance for closure.

And of course, because he was not found, in 1988, the killer struck yet again. All right. Just fucking buckle up, then. That's not it? This is the fucking... Finale? Coup de Grace finale. Here we go.

Okay. August 6, 1988. Hot night at the tail end of summer. 22-year-old Jane Borowski, who is seven months pregnant, by the way, is heading home from a night at the fair when she pulls over to a closed convenience store to get a soda from the vending machine it was there in the empty dark parking lot that the connecticut river valley killer attacked jane but she survived oh did her baby i'll tell tell you. Yes. I'm just going to say yes. Okay. Okay. Thank God. Okay. I know. I was going to wait till the end to say, but I don't want to leave anybody in a

lurch. Yes. Sure. Sure. Sure. Okay. Okay. Thank God. Yes. Thank God. So I recently, this is interesting. I recently listened to Jane tell her own story on a podcast called Murder She Told, which tells like stories from like the New Hampshire and surrounding areas. It's a really well done podcast. And then I realized, wait a second, like 10 seconds in, I was like, I know this story. Because I'd also heard Jane tell this like a few weeks ago or months ago on the podcast, This Is Actually Happening. like a few weeks ago or months ago on the podcast this is actually happening uh the episode is called what if you survived a serial killer and uh so she also told her story there and so either way i have listened to her tell it twice and she told it a third time on a show called dark what is it called dark minds dark minds uh i watched that as well last night just to get

one final viewing in sure and so here is the story told in jane's own words oh thank god wow we never get that i know i know i know it's really powerful she says i pulled in went to the vending machine got my soda and i noticed this vehicle pull in and park right next to me on my passenger side of the car. I didn't think anything of it. I had no reason to think anything of it. As I was sitting in my car drinking my soda, getting ready to pull out, he walked around the backside of my car and asked me if the payphone worked and opened my car door and tried to get me out of my car. Oh, no. She said as soon as he grabbed her she screamed

so loud she broke the blood vessels in her eyes yeah i can't imagine the pain of that but also good for you like scream scream scream as far as you can scream she was in shock it was happening so quickly she started kicking at the attacker wildly and she actually shattered her own windshield in the process fuck up oh my god she's already out like the most powerful person i've ever heard of she said the next thing i know he takes a knife out and said calmly maybe this will persuade you to get out of the car oh my god i can't i can't imagine the fear. And she said, which it did. I got out of the car. She asked what he wanted, and he accused her of beating up his girlfriend. What?

She realized he must have her confused with someone else, so she told him he had the wrong girl. And he said, isn't this a Massachusetts car? He walked around and checked her plates, which were New Hampshire. He walked around and checked her plates, which were New Hampshire. He started walking back to his car. And Jane said something that she'll regret for the rest of her life. Oh, no. She said, hey, asshole, what about my windshield?

Oh. And he fucking turned around. Wow. He was leaving. And he turns around she said well you know she didn't feel that threatened anymore she thought well he must confuse me with someone else he's walking away and she's like what the fuck you just broke you just harassed me scared the shit out of me attacked me and broke my windshield no i get why she did it i i just i like what happens next i'm very

on edge right now it's not good it's not good oh shit so she says hey asshole what about my windshield and he stops and he turns around he walks back puts a knife to her throat she sees a car driving down the road so she makes a break for it she runs screaming toward the road but the car keeps driving it's like all these people picking up hitchhikers and this car is like nah i can't keep driving like come on like of course yeah we've just talked about like the one time yeah jane says quote the next thing i, he tackled me down like a football player. Oh, fuck. I was on my back on the pavement and he was on top of me.

And before I could even realize what was happening, he was stabbing me. It was almost like an out of body experience. I could not believe this was happening to me. He stabbed Jane 27 times. And she survived? Mm hmm. He stabbed Jane 27 times. And she survived? Mm-hmm. The entire time she was trying to cover up her stomach to protect her baby. Oh, God.

I forgot she was pregnant. Then suddenly he stopped. He got up, eerily calm. She's still very much awake at this point. Walks to his car and starts driving away. Jane started to get up. She obviously knew she needed to get help and he just watched her as he slowly drove past just stared down at her that's i mean obviously she just got stabbed 27 times i know that's not that's was had to be the worst thing in the world but there's something particularly evil about a slow drive staring just watching

that's so i mean creepy isn't even the word eerie isn't even the word evil it feels evil sinister yeah very evil she said quote i rolled over on my hands and knees and started getting up he just so slowly drove right by my head and looked right down at me and i looked right up at him and he drove away he didn't speed off he just drove away god that is truly i think the most sinister thing i've ever heard i have goose cam and like i've heard the story now so many times jane got in her car and went to get help and uh here's the damage both of her lungs had been collapsed. How is she alive?

I know. She struggled to even open her own car door because he had severed the tendons in one hand and one knee. Oh, my God. He'd even cut her jugular and lacerated her liver, part of which she had to have removed. She did manage, though, to get into the car and start driving but before she knew it don't say it's got even even worse or not worse but they just kept going because she suddenly realized she was driving behind him he could see her in the rearview mirror. Didn't even cross my mind. No, of course not. So she pulls into a friend's driveway, jumps out to meet up with her friend, call for help.

She and her friend heard the slamming of brakes and the squealing of tires from the car on the road when he noticed that she had stopped and pulled over. Oh, my God. So they are just like waiting for him to get out and come after them but suddenly the car just took off and peeled out so did she get his license plate or anything okay just wondering no so after he left she realized how much she was bleeding and she started to lose consciousness. I imagine the adrenaline's wearing off at this point. Sure. She was convinced she would die just based on the amount of blood alone. But thank God she survived and so did her baby. She carried her daughter for two more months. So fully

determined. How? I know. Also, like she had to get a C-section or something. You can push with that many stitches in you and all that, right? I don't know. I don't know. Oh my God. I can to get a C-section or something where you can push with that many stitches in you and all that, right? I don't know. I don't know. Oh, my God.

I can't even imagine labor during that. Okay. No, I can't either. And when she was born, unfortunately, her daughter was very sick and had to fight for her life for 10 days in an incubator. And she was saying, you know, how unfair it felt because she's like, the two of us already fought for our lives. And now she's sick

and like barely able to also i can't imagine just like complete sidebar the guilt of like maybe my stress from that night caused something yeah yeah which like it's not that's not i don't know that i would worry about that the whole time but of course you'd be yeah you're like well we survived but like is the baby gonna be You know, how do you know? I mean, so Jane actually didn't even know about this serial killer situation until she saw a report about her own attack in the newspaper, which said she was a possible victim linked to the murder of these other women. So she didn't even realize there was like this, this whole chain of people who'd been killed. there was like this this whole chain of people who'd been killed the police interviewed her and jane identified the attacker as a white man between 30 to 40 years old he was average height around 150

pounds and he was blonde he drove a dark colored or brown 1970s to 80s jeep wagoneer with wood grain around the sides they swabbed under her fingernails and all that. So they have DNA evidence. But as of her most recent interviews, it's been 34 years with no arrest and no closure. Wow. So on top of all that, imagine living every day knowing that whoever did this to you is still out there. Could find you again.

I mean, he knew your license plate, you know, like he at least knows you're in New Hampshire. He knows where your friend lives, you know. Oh my god. Especially because he's local, seemingly, since he killed everyone in the same area. So, terrible. Also, like, I feel like there's some sort of connection of, like,

I feel like he stabbed everyone somewhere in the 20s amount of times and like i mean it's interesting that i really would like to know the psychology of why he didn't feel the need for someone to die he just wanted them to suffer you know it's wild because everybody else died you know yeah and you know maybe he thought he was leaving her for dead like maybe the others since they were out in the woods i would be panicking though if i if i could see she was still driving behind me like the driving i know and he did slam on the brakes but maybe he thought the risk was too high to get out and attack her and her friend you know maybe they'd already called the police like i don't know i'm sure she's thought about it a million times i'm sure

wow i know i can't even imagine the fear of going through all that then your daughter having you know some issues at first and now she and now and he's no answers yeah yep no closure at all she and now and he's still out there yeah yeah no closure at all so of the seven uh i emphasize the seven known victims because again we added more later you know who knows if there are more that we haven't even heard about found uh connected but so of the seven known victims jane is the only person considered a survivor of the Connecticut River Valley Killer. And it is thought he may have many more or at least some more victims that have not been connected or even been discovered. Now, we don't know who it is. There was a single popular suspect named Michael Nicolau. And in December 2005, Michael Nicolau murdered his second wife and her 22-year-old daughter in Florida.

Oh, my God. And then took his own life later that day. Back in the 80s, though, Michael had two children in a previous marriage, and he lived with his family in Massachusetts. And in 1988, his then-wife, Michelle, took their children and hid from him in an unknown location because she was afraid of him. He was prone to violence. Michael found out where they were, and they have never been seen since. Wow. And their disappearance remains unsolved.

Michelle's family hired a private investigator who started to believe that Michael could be the Connecticut River Valley killer. So this PI reached out to Jane, the survivor, and convinced her Michael was her attacker too. But, plot twist, Jane has since changed her mind and does not believe Michael is her attacker. Oh, okay. So she said that she was actually never sure Michael fit the attack, but the private investigator spent two years convincing her it had to be him. So she finally just kind of went with it.

Gave in. Yeah. Yeah. And she said, quote, I never really wanted to say to the media that I felt like it was him, but she told me if I didn't say that, nobody would take us seriously. And I did want people to take this seriously. I wanted the authorities to investigate him. She felt like they were doing nothing, though they actually were investigating him. I really want them to take me seriously. So I told her, okay, I'll say it was him. And then she said, I wish I didn't. So she felt like that

pointed the investigation in the wrong direction. And other people, you know, offered differing perspectives. So Jane started really questioning this P.I. and the P.I.'s work. And she said the P.I. got extremely defensive. So Jane just cut off all contact. Ultimately, Michael died by suicide using a gun. And he had also used a gun in Florida to kill his wife and daughter. And according to psychologists and investigators, it's extremely unlikely for a serial killer to swap out weapons like that. Like it just doesn't really fit for him to do so many crimes with a knife that were clearly like successful crimes.

Yeah, exactly. Like so many in succession and then suddenly switch to a gun. And so Jane firmly no longer believes Michael is a culprit. But unfortunately, that means the killer could still be in the area. And on Dark Minds, they did touch on two potential suspects, but they didn't reveal the name. Okay. And it took 20 years for Jane to be diagnosed with PTSD. 20? It should have taken 20 fucking minutes. Are you kidding me? I know. I imagine, though, like, you know, it's probably hard, like you, she would have had to

go seek help first, you know? And it's like, I imagine that's a hard step to take. Like, I don't think it was that it took 20 years for anybody to decide on it. I think it was just like, it took her that time to actually go get a diagnosis. Okay. First thing I was like, um, that's the easiest diagnosis I've ever heard. Who is gatekeeping PTSD from this person? I mean, Jesus. So the attack deeply affected her life, of course. Her story was featured in media like Unsolved Mysteries and that episode of Dark Minds. And she now speaks openly about what she experienced, her long road to healing, and how other survivors of violent crimes can heal too. I definitely recommend both the episode on Murder, She Told and the episode of

This Is Actually Happening. And you can also watch Dark Minds to see her tell the story face to face. So New Hampshire and Vermont government sites still ask that anyone with any information on Jane's attack or the seven victims to contact authorities because families are still waiting for closure and these women are waiting for justice. And I really, really hope this is one of those like Golden State where I'm like, can we please just nail this motherfucker? Oh, yeah. Let's get him. I can't. I mean, shout out to Jane, by the way, for making sure that her story is told accurately so badass to spend this long and then still have the guts and the fortitude to tell the story over and over and over again

you know i guess if it happened so long ago eventually and not that you can't be re-traumatized by things but like maybe she's just like i'd rather people know than not know and yeah it's a very noble pursuit because i i couldn't blame her she was like, I don't want to revisit that part of my life, you know? Yeah, I would. Yeah, that's what I usually would expect someone to say. Or I would at least expect them to say, like, if you're if I am going to talk about it, it's going to be like with I'm not going to go into full detail. Yes. With parameters. Yeah, exactly. I'm not going to go into full detail because there's something parameters or yeah, exactly. Wow.

So yeah, that's the story. And I know we're, uh, him and I are brushing close to a work call, so, uh, I'll leave it at that. But yeah, if you have any information, you know, obviously go, uh, check out the, the local, you know, PD of, of those towns and submit a tip oh my gosh let's get it let's nail him and uh shout out to jane thank you for your story and it's a badass i uh just everyone take this as a lesson if you see something say something and trust your gut read the gift of fear by gavin de becker apparently and do whatever you can to stay safe don't don't hitchhike that time is over and everyone's lives i think yeah um and with that

well i guess we'll see you next week i i man i'll bring another humdinger i guess so humdinger is the perfect way to is the perfect thing to call it i guess so um catch us for more humdingers next week and we'll see you then and that's why we drink