And That's Why We Drink - E313 Tommy Pickles Voice and Milkshake Throat

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

Happy sweet 666, everyone! Get your Big Gulp milkshakes ready because episode 313 marks our darling, creepy podcast's 6th birthday! We could not be more grateful to all you boozers and shakers out there so in honor of the occasion Em brings us a hodgepodge story in a collection of haunted dorm rooms. Then Christine covers the wild story of the murder of Carole Garton. Start taking your supplements now... and that's why we drink!Ps. Check out our Feb. 1st listeners episode for some fun synchronicities!Check out our brand new On the Rocks tour, hitting the road this month! andthatswhywedrink.com/live 

hi christine hey oh god it's back you're nobody else has noticed your little tommy pickles voice is uh kicking in blaze and my mom were like what are you talking about hey thank you i hear it i hear it too it's not as bad as i'm making it sound it just really really said i'm gonna start the episode not christine's normal voice i love it how are you and your little voice where did that even come from it was from screaming at the game yep um hi em how are you uh i'm good i have a throat clearing situation today i did not i don't know why i haven't had any olden days you haven't had a milkshake no not at 10 in the morning how often do you have milkshakes actually nowadays i mean nowadays yeah mean, I think it's it's fair to say I haven't had one while recording in a very long time. I know that. But I do like to symbolically still think I'm drinking a milkshake because I do still love that.

You know, we have the I don't know, the the the back and forth of like a team wine team milkshake. Yeah. And I encourage other people to drink milkshakes. i just don't do it because we record in the morning so also because uh i can't i feel so bad about my throat clearing when i drink it um the last time that's the bigger issue i think the the how often i drink the milkshakes um i'll lump that into how often i have ice cream in general and it's probably once a week once every other week uh allison's parents are still in town and so we i've had a lot of ice cream lately so maybe that's why my throat i don't think they're the same though i would say a milkshake is a much more intentional like beverage you know what i mean i think yes i like a scoop of ice cream i feel like i have regularly but like i don't have milkshakes often but when i do it I like a scoop of ice cream I feel like I have regularly but like I don't have

milkshakes often but when I do it's like a very special occasion I feel like I have to be committing to a lot of ice cream in one sitting with a milkshake um because my go-to is usually I'm a double scoop kind of person sure of course I don't remember the last time I got a scoop of something unless we were like going to multiple ice cream places that day and i was like i'll have just one for now um i how many how i feel like you really have to be ready to have a lot of ice cream exactly i thought of actually about having one two nights ago we went to one of my favorite ice cream places and i was like oh i'm definitely getting a milkshake but then someone else got a milkshake before me and i saw how big the cup was and I got intimidated. That's a new thing.

You're intimidated by the size of food? Well, it was like a big gulp. I was like, do I want like a big gulp worth of ice cream right now? Yeah. Oh, okay. No? No.

Who are you? I don't know how often I have milkshakes. Probably, I would still say if I'm getting ice cream once a week, then maybe half the time it's a milkshake. Okay. I'm curious. Yeah. What about you?

When's the last time ice cream in general? How often do you have ice cream? Not often. When I was pregnant, I did a lot. What's your, hold on, can I guess your go-to flavor? Because you strike me as something like a mint kind of person. I do like a mint, but can I guess your go-to flavor? Because you strike me as like a, something like a mint kind of person. I do like a mint, but it's not my go-to. Is it, I think you like just, are you one of those annoying people who just likes vanilla?

Hell no. Okay. What's your favorite? What kind of sicko do you think I am? I like ice cream that has any and all toppings inside of it. Like it needs to have just like every texture and flavor so you're a ben and jerry's person i love ben and jerry's um but no but here's my problem i don't like chocolate ice cream oh and so well so wait you do like vanilla ice cream or

vanilla based i like vanilla based ice cream or any like cherry garcia i like all flavors of ice cream except chocolate and then you let you let the toppings do the lead i just want that's like how i am at the fro-yo too i just get like a bloop of ice cream and then just like dump or which is such a waste of money like i'm literally paying for stale oreo crumbs at the end of the day but like i just want all the toppings all the time i mean we've talked about fro-yo before and how we just really go there for the fresh strawberries yeah exactly i so no i well you know the backstory behind why ben and jerry's is the way it is right like why it's so hell no oh so one of i don't know if it's ben or jerry but one of them um doesn't have the sense of taste which is so he's literally an ice

cream person and can't taste are you serious no and so they it's kind of like how when we wrote a book i said i hate books if we're going to read a book or if we're going to write one it has to be interactive for people like me he basically said i can't taste ice cream so if we're going to get ice cream for people like me it has to be texture but what kind of sadist said you have to start this ice cream company to a guy who doesn't eat ice cream there actually is a really interesting story about how they created ice cream um and it was like for you we were like you have to write a book right then i'm like did somebody say you have to start an ice cream company and he said fine but only if it has a lot of crunchy items in it there was something where he was still passionate about it i don't know if

it was like because i know they were both also activists so i don't know if it started there or if it was like one of them i think came from a family of ice cream people okay i see but uh anyway he was like if i'm gonna enjoy ice cream i can only enjoy the textures not the taste so we have to put a lot of shit in each of our ice creams depressing because like if i didn't have a sense of taste i'd be like what's the point well he found the point it was apparently a bunch of chunks of different things and so yeah anyway that's why they always have so many different textures in their ice creams for people who can't taste that's amazing i didn't know that well clearly for people who can't taste and also me uh because that's how i feel. But anyway, that's my question of the day.

How many milkshakes do you eat? I like your questions of the day. I feel like it has us, what they say, the little kids shake out the sillies, you know? Oh, is that what you did in response? I feel like I kind of dusted the air off of like, oh, now we're going to record a podcast. But first, let's warm up and talk to each other, you know? Get know each other for once it's been a while it's been a while i've forgotten all about you not only has it been a while uh but it is uh coming up on i think this is the week of our six year anniversary oh my Six. I think it's the week.

I don't know if it's the official date, but six whole years together. Wow. How do you feel after six years with me, Christine? Old buddy, old pal. How do I feel? Say something nice. You better. Elevator music. nice you better elevator music um how do i feel i feel so lucky i do too i'm so lucky that i'm so so lucky to have you and to work with you and i can't i really i was uh having a moment of reflection earlier and I got a little misty eyed.

One dramatic tear slipped out. Perfectly rolled down the cheek. If there was a camera, the light would have even hit it just so. My next question was, did you film it for Instagram being a Gemini? You're like, this is me today. No, because I'm a Gemini I didn't film it for others I just really appreciated it and I watched it happen in the mirror and just understand for yourself yeah I get that I get a good self-cry but I I just can't believe I it's

just it's been a long time together and I'm very very happy yeah you know you're right that it comes out so our podcast birthday is next week February 11th well right that it comes out. So our podcast birthday is. Next week. February 11th. Well, so this episode comes out Sunday the 5th. So and the 11th is a Saturday. So this is the first the last episode before our podcast birthday. And the next one will be our official six year. It'll be the day after.

The next one. Yes, it will be like our first in our in our get this seventh year of podcasting. Shut the fuck up, Christine. I know. Wow. Okay. Well, good to know. We should. I'm going to think about it. I'll have another tear just for you. I'll have another drink and it'll be we'll all be happy. You know what? You know what? I'll have a milkshake for our next episode.

Okay. Because you've humbled me. You know what? I'm straying milkshake for our next episode. Okay. Because you've humbled me. You know what? I'm straying from the path. And I really committed that first year and I drank quite a lot of milkshakes. Yeah, we did really drive it home. Sometimes I listen to the old episodes and I'm like, wow, I'm fucking hammered in these episodes. Okay, but Christine, I really want you to be hammered for the next one.

Okay, fine, but not when we're recording at one in the afternoon. Okay. I can't do that because then I just lose the rest of the day. So when I record later, you win. That's true. Okay. We'll reschedule in the future. We'll have to find us a special time where it's perfect tipsy milkshake time, you know,

situation. A little happy hour. Maybe just take like, since this is our sixth year, maybe do six shots, you know, whatever little happy hour maybe just take like sentences are six here maybe do six shots you know whatever you need to do just a casual six shots yeah there's a casual like whole handful and plus one more okay sure okay so it's settled great before we move on and you say no um what are you drinking today though christine and why are you drinking today? I'm drinking another sparkling water. Ooh, a Bevrosino. I can't stop eating goldfish. So that's why I keep asking you questions and then muting myself.

Fascinating. I am doing the same thing over here with my pretzels. Yeah. I just know people hate the sound of chewing. Understandable. But also my tummy needs to get filled because otherwise I'll get nauseous. We don't want that. We're old now, folks.

We need to eat to settle our tummies. I know for next year when we talk more about our next week, when we talk more about our sixth year, we should be like, oh, what would you what was your usual routine before we record an episode? You know, that first year. And now it's like and now I literally am just like there's just like medicine everywhere we just have like supplements and vitamins i've got my magnesium you know everything i'm trying to hydrate i hello i'm literally like what happened wow i don't know we used to be a bright bushy eyed bushy tailed what is it bright eyed bushy tailed 24 is how old i was

is that serious that's so youthful it hurts my feel it hurts my own fucking feelings it's really fucking youthful oh anyway if you're 24 and you're listening to this get ready because it's about to be a real roller coaster uh start taking your supplements now yeah start now you know just not to sound like my mother but my body's falling apart because I didn't at 24 well okay I've been doing yoga every day and I not every day but I've been trying to do it as often as possible and I have that issue where if I don't do something a hundred percent then I immediately fall off the bandwagon so like oh yeah yeah and I think that's a pretty normal thing so like especially with like exercising or like I I would always go like too far like I would get obsessive and um so with I bought a habit tracker so that now I can color with colored pencils I can color

in the days that I do it and then if I skip a day it's okay and I just fill in the next day and so at the end of the month I get like a nice little color wheel and I can see even though there were days where I skipped uh it's still like quite a lot that I I was able to you know complete my tasks so I'm trying this as a new way of um keeping myself accountable without like forcing a daily habit that I'm like especially because like I had I got kind of sick yesterday I had a cold and that I'm like, especially cause like I had, I got kind of sick yesterday. I had a cold and I was like, I don't want to do yoga today. And that's fine. And so I skipped yesterday and I did it today. So I'm trying to be kinder to myself, which is, you know, hard. You know what you should, what you, well, I'm not gonna tell you

what you should do, but what I would do too is on the days where you didn't, I would mark, like, I respected my own boundaries and listened to my body today. Because there are times when if you see all the days that you didn't do it, it might look bad. But there you could also see it as like, oh, well, on this day, yeah, I didn't do it. But I was listening to my body. That's true. Well, the space is about this big, I would say it's probably like a third of a centimeter large. So I don't know how much I can write into it. I can put a smiley face. Okay. Yeah. I've just, I've, I only say that because it's, it's in my mind to be nicer to myself because I'm also trying

very hard and so far knock on whatever you have folks to keep me motivated. But, um, I, this is the longest I've gone keeping a habit and keeping a routine. And it's only it's like not even three weeks. But it's that's big news for me. Three weeks is a long time. And there have been a few times where I have stepped away from trying to be as productive as I have been. But I have to remind myself I'm listening to my body and my body says that we can't do that right now. And so, you know what?

Some days I just don't fucking want to. I'm not even listening to my body. I'm just like, I't do that right now and so you know what some days i just don't fucking want to i'm not even listening to my body i'm just like i just want to sleep and that's okay like sometimes fair enough or i wanted to go to bengals game at one and i'm like i don't want to do yoga afterward after i've had beer all day so it's like you know sometimes you just don't fucking want to do it and that's okay you know just just just relax just be nice to yourself we're all trying our best you know i don't't think I heard what you're drinking, though. Oh, just water because I'm boring. Well, it's liquid death, so I'm not boring. I'm actually very cool.

You're raw. Yeah, I got it. I'm cool and chill and raw and real. Oh, is that their slogan or something? I sure hope not. They're going to absolutely me um if i go around saying that's their terrible slogan uh i think it says kill your thirst oh murder your thirst that is their slogan you know i've uh i've i i'm not proud of this well you know what i don't give

a shit i dm them recently not recently a while ago and i was like hey we'd love to work with you sometime because i was like you know what we have a show called that's why we drink i don't drink alcohol and we there are a lot of people who have come up to us and we're very lucky that they have said that we've made them feel safe in spaces where you know they can't drink alcohol anymore or maybe they don't want to drink alcohol anymore or whatever the reason is they just don't like it yeah no they don't like it and uh so anyway i I kind of pitched like, you know, we've we're in a drinking show that, you know, alcohol doesn't need to be involved. You know, love to work with you sometime if you're interested.

And they wrote basically, thanks. Like, it's like, you know, that's what we have a manager for. Right. Like, that's literally her job. This was literally pre. It was I mean, it, it was a while back, but I also thought at the time they were so much smaller and I was like, oh, maybe they really wouldn't want

to work with us and we could help them. Nope. Nope, I guess not. But they did fine on their own, but I still think about it. Yeah, they didn't need us. Not even a little bit did they need us. Also, I literally sit here drinking at every episode

and I'm like, they're literally getting advertising without working with us. Oops. Well, we ended up, yeah, it ended up working out for them anyway, I guess. But in terms of us still talking about them. Yeah, they got their ads. But no, I still think about it. I'm like, man, I really went in with good intentions being like, it's a small business that I'd only heard about from like from one little like hole in the wall store

out here and I was like oh man like I really like them I want to help them out and then they ended up blowing up anyway so congratulations I want to help them out and they rejected my generosity well no that's not totally what how I meant it but I know I'm teasing you I know but I did think like oh I would love to like promote them on the show like maybe other people would like to hear about them and then it didn't happen but I still love them anyway i what do you do like the sparkling ones the bubbly ones i'm sorry i'm so old okay i swallowed oh my god i swallowed wrong and so now i'm crying okay i'm sorry i wrong, and so I had to mute myself to cough. I see what's happening.

I was like, you were choking pretty quietly. Oh, no. No, it was actually incredibly loud and annoying, so I'm glad that I muted myself. No, I'm just drinking the mango one, the sparkling one. But I like the berry one. The sparkling berry is my favorite. I'm boring, boring. I just like the water.

Can I tell you also also we got a promo box recently um in the mail unexpectedly both of us got one uh from uh death wish coffee which i've always wanted to try but like never really committed to because i it's a it's kind of pricey and i was like i don't i don't know but my stepdad has always wanted to try it so for christmas i gave him this like promo box i was was like, I'm not gonna pretend I bought it, but you know, it came to us in the mail and he's so excited about it. And he talks it up so much that I'm like,

man, I gotta just go buy myself some. So what I'm saying is their promo box worked. But what I'm also saying is, I love that the brands we associate with are like Death Wish, Liquid Death, Murder Your Thirst. Like it's all very, Liquid Death, you know, murder your thirst. Like it's all very liquid death. You know, it would be a good,

a good brand deal. If they listen, if you're out there, I thought it was genius. I was like, that is a great drinking, drinking, drink water.

But yeah, exactly. I thought it made perfect sense. Okay. We're going to call our manager Maggie later and be like, help folks get liquid death on the horn. Cause we are over it. Um,

okay. Moving on. I, oh, okay. Are you ready to, um, do story time? Yes. Okay. Um, because I have a prompt this time. Oh! What does that mean? I have

something to ask you before we get into it is it what i'm drinking this week because we did that already no okay okay here it is episode 313 okay uh my story today is kind of i don't know what the right word is mod pod mod pod hodgepodge i don't know hodgepodge i think and then the brand is mod podge uh-huh okay so i have a hodgepodge kind of story today um where i kind of like it i liked it as a category and i feel like we could do more with it in the future if people like this kind of thing okay so here is a collective episode and the theme is haunted dorm rooms okay now i'm really into this all right all right all right all right all right so obviously there's several colleges there are several dorm rooms and there are several ghosts on campus so um this is truly like barely even a collection it's only just a handful a sprinkling if you will

and if people like it we can do another sprinkling well then also we can prompt people to send in their stories you know i'm sure there's lots of dorm stories people have out there we should pair this nicely with a haunted dorms themed listeners episode you should you could probably literally search the word dorm in our inbox and find a bunch. Oh, yeah, definitely. So the prompt that I had for you, because I'm taking from when we were doing rituals and we always got a lovely little prompt. And I really like that. I felt like, again, it had us shake off the sillies.

I totally agree. So I'm going to maybe start doing that a little more often. That's a great idea. I'm full of them. Six years in okay finally so i wanted to ask you was your dorm and or college haunted i feel like every college has like a fable or a lore you know you know i went to a school that was like so heavily academic i feel like um not even heavily academic that's not the right word but like just very serious like about it was a political science school mainly like a um international

studies and that kind of thing and I feel like people were very serious about like working on at the capitol and like working on the Hill and like it was all about politics so I feel like that I couldn't I wasn't able to find my like group of people that and then my roommate was Allison who certainly did still still doesn't quite by the way my roommate is currently Allison I know and I say currently because if I hear her say ghosts aren't real one more time she might not be my roommate anymore. For now. She's on your last nerve.

Yeah. So I didn't really ever find. I'm sure there. I mean, you know, it's an old building. It's D.C. I'm sure there were plenty of, like, hauntings there. But I didn't really learn any, quite honestly. Really? Yeah, I didn't. I don't think i ever heard one and i'm it's such a bummer because i i don't know it's such i feel

like i love as you know i love buildings with old histories and i did do a couple ghost tours like in arlington and some other like spooky areas in and around dc Um, but the guy I was dating at the time and my roommate, Alison, um, you know, you never, ever heard of her. I don't know if you have, um, I'll tell her, tell you about her later, but they were, they were, that's how this all started. I know, I know they were, neither of them. And I spent most of my time with them uh were ghost people neither of them were ghost people so i didn't really get a taste for for any hauntings which i i regret you know i wish i kind of had looked into that more what i mean i assume yours was oh yeah uh so well also i was a ghost hunter during college okay yeah so you were really in you were the like total spectrum opposite of what I was doing, which is like trying to fit into like a frat party and failing miserably.

You were over there. I was literally in three frats. So probably hunting goes in the frat house. Like that's how opposite we were. Yeah. Yeah. And I love my girlfriend with all my heart heart but you were hanging with the wrong fucking crowd i know what was i thinking this what if this was all for you what if literally my only reason for meeting her was to eventually bring her to you and all this time i was just fucking falling on my sword being like you know what i'm i'm sure someone who believes more in destiny thinks that maybe that's the case i don't know but i uh i'm just gonna roll with it i'm thinking what you suffered enough it's my turn to take her on no i miss her dearly

i'm she's gonna listen to this be like christine what the fuck you know where she's gonna listen to this she always listens to us oh is that you hear that no is that her no it sounds like a monster. I think there's a... That fits. There's like a motorcycle. You really can't hear that? No. I really thought maybe she was kicking you out. Do you hear that?

It's the sound of me being single. No, she's used to it, I think, at this point. No, she always listens to us in the shower. And then she gets out of the shower and then tells me what she thought about us talking about her. Oh, no. Well, Elle, I love you so much. Remember when we had to shower in those horrible bathrooms at Let's Hall? Good times.

Okay. They were disgusting. My shower was disgusting, too. Ugh. Okay. Yes, my campus was disgusting too okay um okay uh yes my my campus was definitely haunted um and also if for some reason we you can hear the sound i am so sorry behind you can't hear that hold on be quiet

i hear literally nothing it sounds like they're lifting a house and dropping it okay wait oh that's weird because you're moving you're like shifting they're carrying you away christine you're really you're so fucking funny okay anyway alison's note is gonna be like actually you're wrong Christine's really not funny okay okay yes there were ghosts sorry we I keep getting derailed um we had a lot of ghosts um freshman year we had ghosts we had um me and one of my roommates Lauren um we there was apparently a ghost that was in her area. We had one of those suites where it was like two rooms connected by a bathroom.

And if anyone's listening and you go to CNU, this is York West, if that matters to you. But there was, they would hear, there would be these two, there were these two girls that lived in the room next to me, Lauren, and then I think her name was Priscilla. And apparently in the middle of the night, they would always wake up at the exact same time and feel something staring at them. And then it would just like hover over them until morning, but they would both experience it all the time.

And then they would come to me cause they knew it was a ghost hunter. And they'd be like, um, what do we do? And I went, girl, I was like, I don't know,

but it is staying on your side of the bathroom and I don't want to. Yeah. You're like shutting the door. Like, Oh, I don't know. I wish I could help you. Okay. Bye. I was like, I don't know, but it is staying on your side of the bathroom and I don't want to. Yeah, you're like shutting the door like, oh, I don't know. I wish I could help you. Okay, bye. I was like, I have to shower. Sorry. But I remember them being really freaked out about that.

There was there were a lot of ghosts. There was one in another one of my apartments. One of my friends had like their blinds getting knocked over oh there was one here's the thing this was like the cnu big lore if you go to cnu i don't know if it's like faded out but this used to be the big thing when i was there is that um so our school used to be a high school our college used to be a high school and so um the it was kind of a bunch of stuff we really took over like land that was once an apartment building and then a different part of it was a high school and a different part was like

something else but the part that was a high school became the theater department um and so if you were friends with any of like the tour guides or the ras or anything usually if you were really good friends with them they would after hours sneak you into the theater department and there were parts of it that never got updated into a college and they were just creepy they were just abandoned rooms and there was particularly one area that looked like the it still was the old high school gym and and we were in a water town so there was a lot of flooding and so all i guess because it never needed to get fixed up it never did get fixed up but the flooring in that gym all of the hardwood floor was all warped and like disgusting

and creepy anyway there was bleachers still not the part that i saw okay um but the but it was just like the what you could tell like where the hoop would have hung and you know things like that creepy and there was always the story in the theater department of a little girl that died there when it was a high school and they always said that the little girl was still walking around and if you were in the bathrooms by yourself which were originally high school bathrooms, you would still hear her. If you were in the bathroom by yourself, you would hear giggling in another stall. Sounds like moaning Myrtle. Yeah, exactly.

Or like in the middle of the night, you would hear like if you were like there overnight and you were walking down the halls, you would see a little girl running by and things like that and did you ever see that i never saw it i always wanted to but anyway that was the thing with me and then also there was apparently um a body in the walls at one point at one point like just temporarily so there's a part of the campus called east campus and that there when i was there, I was there the year that they were converting that part of the property into East Campus. And before that, it was a bunch of just like local apartments that I think ended up being like off campus housing. But then our school bought it and went to like revamp them. But they were knocking on all these buildings. And the rumor always was that when they were looking through the apartments they found they knocked down one of them and in the

walls was a human body and i never found out if that was true or not but i heard it from someone who said they saw the body themselves which i don't fucking know what that means but anyway that was those were the big things so uh those were my my my ghostly those were the big things at cnu if you went to school there you interesting okay okay so now we'll get into the haunted dorms now that we've talked for 30 fucking minutes so us no so the uh just talking about campus ghosts in general they're usually urban legends because there's really no traceable origin like um so a lot of schools they will have like a spooky history but none of the characters ever have a name or like how they died like i mean mine was a little girl died in a high school and now she hangs out in the bathroom like it's very vague and many people just

uh i think one of the reasons they think ghost stories are so popular on campus is because it's a bunch of kids now living together, maybe all trying to impress each other or fit in with a cool story. And either you create the story to look cool or because you know the story, you're cool. And like, you know, you've earned some social status. Social. Like, is that a thing? know you've earned some social status social like is that a thing because again i mean maybe it was just my school but like if i went around inventing ghost stories i would not have looked cool i would they would have been well no i don't think anyone said i am gonna invent a ghost story right now but even if i said have you heard about the haunting in this basement i feel like people would have

been like uh no no like i don't know i don't know that that's necessarily at every college like the person telling the ghost stories is a cool one one there was one um yeah i don't know i wish that would have been ideal for me especially in high school at my at my school everyone just ate up ghost stories so for all i know people were lying to our faces and like there was we also um when i was there there used to be a hollywood video on campus and there was also a bowling alley but they were in the middle of getting demolished and so again if you knew like the ras or someone who could like cover for you i had come straight from sneaking into the slaughter pen every night in high school so

when i found out there was an abandoned hollywood video and an abandoned bowling alley. Pretty cool. You bet your ass I went there. And so I remember just it was actually really one of those like moments where I felt like a new person or something or I felt like I was like experiencing like what college looks like because I was lying on an abandoned bowling alley and I was just like and all of me and all my friends were lying on different bowling alley lanes and we were just uh we were just hanging out and talking but the whole time it was so abandoned and spooky we just got on topic about talking about ghosts and that's when i heard all the stories so for all i know they were making up making it up but anytime i mentioned the haunted little girl you know in the theater department everyone knew who i was talking about so i don't know who created it but if it was fake to begin with they

started a true legend oh yeah i mean i think that's how a lot of these are it's sort of like it just goes back like class and class and class like some of those stories i feel like i've read people having in college was like it was started or it was first talked about in the 80s or whatever i feel like they go down passed down anyway i don't know where it's where it starts from but i'm like social status achieved for me as far as i'm concerned yeah maybe it depends on the school i feel like some like fraternities or something like a really bro fraternity i feel like the cool guy is not the one i don't know maybe i'm wrong maybe i just don't know about i don't know if you came to my

school maybe we would have had a different uh experience or you would have had a different experience but okay so according to um the author of america's haunted halls his name is matthew swayin swayin um he said that young adults are particularly hardwired for sensation seeking and exploration which is perhaps in order to establish independence from their parents so that's where they come up with their makes sense creating stories um he also says that horror movies and ghost stories are safe pathways for an adrenaline rush which never thought about it that way um he also says one role of ghost stories on campus is to help create a sense of community amongst the transition

transit transitory populations of students wait wait say that again i'm sorry yeah i know i couldn't get through that last word one role of ghost stories on campus is to help create a sense of community among the transitory populations of students yes that's what i meant about like passing them down through classes yeah yeah yeah exactly um psychologists also think that students use ghost stories to stay safe because uh it's a way of focusing on threats and trying to problem solve your way out of something so i think that's i've never thought of it that way but all right and it also as at the same time as being a spooky scary story to share around you're still spreading potentially local history passing on folklore and indoctrinating new students

into an unfamiliar social scene so wow those are the main reasons and some of them are also cautionary tales so um here's one cautionary tale for you this is our first ghost story uh this is at point park university in pittsburgh and an old it's an old dorm building um that was once an apartment before it was a dorm and there's a story of a tenant falling asleep because she was smoking um or not because she was smoking but she was smoking she fell asleep and because she was smoking she so as she was falling asleep a cigarette in her hand fell into her chair and the whole apartment caught on fire she did not make it out and now students claim that they can smell cigarettes and fire in the hallways. Oh.

So I guess the cautionary tale there is don't fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand. I don't know how many people are doing that these days. Definitely don't. I mean, that often starts fires. Mm-hmm. In Kenyon College in Ohio, do you know what Kenyon College is? Mm-hmm. Okay.

So there's a story there that a fire killed nine students in 1949 and this is such a spooky thing a paranormal wise nine students died in a fire in 1949 and now the students say that they hear voices shouting at them in the middle of the night to wake up and get out. Oh, that's so sad. So now it's almost as if they're living that moment of history on loop. That's really sad. I'd be freaked out because I would think for a second there really was a fire. Yes, absolutely. And then I'd be like, wait a minute, who is waking me up and shouting? Oh, God, I just want to sleep, you know?

Yeah. I want to sleep so I can skip my 8 a.m class i don't want to experience a horrible part of history yeah here's a good one uh this is well the college is in gettysburg um which gettysburg is one of the civil war's most famous battlegrounds also most haunted battlegrounds um and they have a college so i i guess it's not that hard to believe that the college would also be haunted what's the address well it's it's okay so gettysburg college is uh they have one graduate who said that um everyone that ends up in a certain area or a certain dorm building,

they usually have a lot of ghost experiences. And pretty much if you go to Gettysburg College, you will leave with a spooky story. I can believe that for sure, just based on the name and the location. Oh, I can too. Especially, so there's one part of the college called Penn Hall. It's the oldest building on campus. And not only is it part of the campus, Christine, was it a fucking Civil War hospital?

They always are. They always are. It was also a morgue. Oh, it's it's the hospital. It's where people are really in pain. That freaks me out because it's like, of course, if anywhere is haunted. It was a it was a morgue during specifically the battle of gettysburg where do you know how many people died during sometimes i try to remember this fact and it's it's 51 000 in jesus i guess and guess the time frame the 51 000 people died i don't know three days holy shit and so the college also became more i'm assuming if 51,000 people died in what like 72 hours yeah everything becomes a morgue you're just like where do we put these sure i mean there is just death everywhere it's horrifying horrifying so that building

happened to you know to be that and a hospital so sleep here and do homework and stuff good luck good luck uh yeah and i mean the ghosts there it is thick with spiritual energy there i imagine um one former student actually said they ran into the basement one time or they were going into the basement i don't know if the laundry room's there or something maybe they were fucking around like i would and they were just in the basement maybe there was a bowling alley down there and they wanted to lay on it maybe there was a hollywood video and they needed to bond um but they went to the basement and witnessed the war hospital and by that i mean here's a quote I took to the elevator and when it opened, there was a full working Civil War hospital in the basement with lights, people walking around

working soldiers. I swear to God, I just looked at it like it was a movie and I just stared the elevator door shut. I stood there for a minute and hit the open door button. And when the doors opened again, it was a regular basement. Nobody ever heard of anything like that or saw it. I swear, though, that this happened. Ooh, goose cam. That immediately I'd be like, I guess I need to transfer. Like, I don't need to be here anymore.

Wow. I mean, that would really shake you up. Well, apparently, just for some validation, in the 80s two office administrators on campus saw the exact same thing in the basement how freaky it's almost like a time slip you know yeah like oh what oh um so there's also stevens hall which is the most haunted dorm on campus uh which is more haunted than penhall okay yeah i don't know now this is getting just worse and worse uh so stevens hall uh was built in 1911 and it was once

a prep school for girls before it became a college um and basically one night when it was a prep school the girls tried to rescue a young boy it's very vague i don't know if he like was a vagabond and they like found him or i don't know what it was he an orphan i don't know the situation but there was a boy outside the girls rescued him um and brought him in for the night but they knew if the house mother when doing her inspection saw a boy there she would kick him out and he'd go freeze outside so when she went around for her inspection they hid him on the window ledge on the third story no no no and we don't know what happened to be fair but after the inspection they went to go look and find him and say you can come down now

and he was gone oh so we don't know if he jumped we don't know if he fell we don't know if he ran off but the thing is he maybe froze to death once he you know was outside oh my god um and people still claim to see his face in the window they call him the blue boy oh and sometimes people hear voices near the room and they say that the blue boy is trying to get back inside for warmth. Which we can now say after being on tour, one of the weirdest stories we had to tell on our on here for the booze was at the Queen Mary. One of the stories we heard when we were doing research is that when the ship used to travel from New York to England, it was before they had heat on board

and someone must have died in the haunted room B340 because one of the common paranormal experiences there is that you'll be sleeping and wake up to somebody climbing into your bed, spooning you, and then whispering in your ear, I'm so very cold. I've heard this 40,000 times, but it still gives me goose cam. I'm so very cold. And the fact that multiple people have heard it with that very specific old timey phrasing. No, no, no, no.

Also, reminder, we're going back on tour this month. If you would like to... That was not an intentional advert here but uh it was a nice little sagoo and so um anyway we're going back on tour in a week or two two weeks from now and i'm sure we're rightfully very nervous so please clap very loud for us and um definitely go buy tickets it's called on thes instead of Here for the Booze. So have a good time. That's why we drink.com slash live. So anyway, when I hear this story of the blue boy trying to get back in for warmth, I think of, you know, Here for the Booze. I'm so very cold. Oh, God, with your little raspy voice, it's even worse.

It's that cool, like, multiple children in my throat sound. It almost pulled a Christmas time is here. Okay. So there's also Huber Hall. Huber Hall. Huber. H-U-B-E-R. Huber.

Okay. And that place is also haunted. Students apparently wake up to feeling something on their chest, like a pressure on them. And they also see things get knocked over off their desks they see things get thrown around some students actually wake up to their alarm clocks going off at random times in the middle of the night even when the clocks are not plugged in oh oh no i know it and uh another student actually said this about his room. In the middle of the night, I felt something brushing against my feet incessantly.

When I opened my eyes, I saw three black silhouettes shining lights on us. When I opened my eyes, one of them was shining a light on me. And when I sat up, all three left the room. In the morning, my friends said they felt arms around them, but they didn't open their eyes. That makes me feel like people broke in like that feels that feels like the story with like that your hand was over the bed and the dog was looking no no i hate that story the dog was licking your hand and then you wake up and realize the dog had been murdered and that wasn't the dog licking your hand and then there's a sign it made written in blood in the bathroom that says humans can lick

too uh-huh good times at eight years old i couldn't be more fucked up by that story i was fucked up by that like i to this day i'm freaked out by that story anyway apparently i would imagine if i saw three silhouettes shining what seems like flashlights at me i would think there was some like weird frat ritual hazing thing going on that like i they like got into my room somehow i don't know but i wouldn't think ghosts right away but it's a hazing they just like spoon you they're just there for warm just comfort you okay i don't i don't know what i would think but i i don't know if i would think ghosts right away i feel like the lights flashing in my eyes would really throw me i would be like this is the end

goodbye whatever it is i don't want it no thanks unless it's the comfort thing maybe then maybe then so that's uh that's that college the next one is flagler which we've talked about before on the show when we were in florida we did we also we have covered it um on two different episodes um the saint augustine old jail we covered it in 113 and then we also covered it again in 228 because i think i didn't know we covered it before i forgot about that and that was we always said one day we might accidentally cover the same thing twice. And that story is the St. Augustine Old Jail. Isn't it in the book? It just might be.

So I feel incredibly familiar with this story at this point. But I'm not talking about the St. Augustine Jail. I'm just saying if you recognize the sound of my voice saying Flagler College, it's because of those episodes. So it's in saint augustine florida and flagler is one of the top ranked schools in the south and it is boy howdy so haunted um there's one student there named cory who said that one night her roommate spotted a figure in all black standing at the foot of cory's bed staring at her she thought cory was standing at the foot of her own bed staring at an empty bed and when she tried to talk to cory all of a sudden she realized this black

figure was not reacting to her and then she looked at the bed and saw cory was sleeping in it and for the rest of the year the rest of the school year the figure always stood in the corner of the room nearest cory's bed and watched them sleep i mean did the roommate not tell cory because i feel like if if the roommate told cory cory'd be like not my bed anymore apparently cory knew and was like as long as they don't touch us i guess i'm cool with it and honestly i would be like cory that's not right that can't be that's not right i'd be like, I hope you have a great time in the room with this thing that may or may not touch you. I am talking to my RA and I'm also moving across the country immediately. Yeah, I'm also changing my name and I'm taking this too far, but I'm very scared.

I'm certainly not going to stay here. So I think the thing, too, is that Corey often always wore black. I mean, it just, it looked like her. And so she was until she found out it wasn't Corey. Oh, um, so, uh, at Flagler college, there's also the Ponce de Leon hotel, which is a hotel turned dorm hall, which I'm sure that's a very exquisite looking dorm. Oh yeah. It's probably nice nice probably swanky

i'm just imagining like the ritz carlton becomes a dorm i don't know why because it could be like the red roof in i don't know i don't know i wouldn't go that far but well i remember henry flagler being like really over the top i mean true the reason that the jail was pink for a long time is because he wanted to like paint it to not look gross or something like he was very fit into the like beautiful aesthetic of the area or some shit yeah he thought it like was actually like a gross building and he was embarrassed by it so he like made them embarrassing i know so i think he um and then they like straight up moved the jail i think because he was like it's too close to the rest of my city so i'm imagining this hotel was like very she she um but even though it was very fancy some students here

demanded to be relocated because of how many ghosts there were so um years ago a boy fell off a balcony rail outside and died um interesting because it seems like that was the story of the other college yeah um and now students hear him walking in the halls giggling laughing they hear voices they hear shouting he is all over the place i'm glad he's having a good time but like don't giggle near me right like yeah you can giggle over there like i'd rather you giggle than cry in front of me but no you know what would always you know what freaks me out for some reason in my mind when i hear a ghost giggle i imagine it will eventually distort into like

screaming oh i don't know why giggling's so creepy i think it's because something is having a really good time and you can't see why it's like are you are you having a good time knowing i'm scared are you having a good time yeah it's sort of like it it can see you yeah and also i'm insecure i'm like what are you laughing at like what am i in on the joke or am i the joke you know how like john mulaney said like uh like 13 year olds are the meanest like can you like if all of a sudden can you imagine it's a 13 year old who's laughing at you and you don't even you can't even see them. Not happening. But they can see you.

It's like you can't escape the 13 year old. Oh, my. I really hate it. So supposedly Henry Flagler himself haunts the college. Once there was a tour guide where every time they said Henry's name, all of a sudden the lights would start to flicker. And someone on the tour actually noticed this and said, oh, my God, every time you say his name, the lights go out. They said his name one more time. And the next time the light went out, it was over his own portrait.

That's very theatrical. I know. It's like, okay, queen. Yeah. Yeah. There's also the college. And I'm sure, by the way, there are millions. I'm really blowing over these.

But if anyone wants me to cover like one school specifically, I'm sure we could do that. But I'm just trying to give you a hodgepodge is how we agreed on that. So there's another school in Indiana called St. Mary of the Woods. And it is Indiana's Regal. It's Indiana's oldest catholic college apparently there are nine catholic colleges in indiana which is too damn notre dame oh okay and that'll do it so this school was founded in 1840 by french nuns it was also the first women's business college which which I appreciate. Okay. The first one in the state, at least. And there's one hall there called the Foley House.

And the Foley House, in the 1960s, there was one knight that a nun there named Sister Esther, which I don't like that they both end in stir. Yeah, the stir is a rough one. Sister Esther. That's rough one. Sister Esther. That's a lot. Sister Esther. We could sing sister, sister. Sister Esther.

There it is. I knew you would step in. Well, like I have an Uncle Michael and they both end in col. Oh, Uncle Michael. Yeah, I feel like every Uncle Michael I ever had or knew, it became Uncle Mike because it was just easier. For some reason uncle michael stayed and now i feel like i'm saying it and i feel like i'm in a dr seuss book

or something um okay so so one night a sister esther went to check on a student named isabel who said she was going to be working um but when she saw isabel standing alone in the hallway and not working like she was supposed to she basically said like what's the situation that's exactly her words she said what's the 411 spilled the tea sis what's your beef what's your beef? Like, girl, what's your damage? Is what Sister Esther said. And Isabel said, oh, I'm just I'm just really tired of that one nun coming in all the time. And Sister Esther was like, what nun?

And Isabel said, oh, she just like shows up all the time. And I keep every time I try to talk to her, she just like leaves as I'm talking to her. And I can never see her face. so i don't know who it is and then the theme song started sister she uh yeah also like how rude if you're speaking to her and she just leaves and she just like doesn't show her face she's like it's like so you're gonna show up in my space while i'm working and then i try to attic i try to engage with you and you bounce? What's your damage? What's your damage, Sister Esther?

So Sister Esther goes, that nun you're describing doesn't sound like anybody that should be here. Like, I don't know who you're talking about. And the nun eventually becomes known as the Faceless Nun of Foley Hall. Forget it. Faceless? No, thank you. about and the nun eventually becomes known as the faceless nun of foley hall forget it faceless no thank you uh isabel saw her again in the art department and another time a student asked sister esther if she'd seen the other nun that was looking for her but the description didn't match anybody so it can talk like it does talk right yeah i guess so right freaky what's she saying i don't know saying where's saying, where's Sister Esther?

Didn't she say that? I think another student, the nun was saying that she was, oh, oh, the student saw the faceless nun, and I guess the faceless nun said, oh, Sister Esther's looking for you, or I'm looking for Sister Esther. Anyway, they ended up not being able to figure out who it was and um finally another student said oh there's another student describing her saying she was a funny looking sister and you're going to think i'm crazy but she didn't have a face and sister esther had several strange moments in the art department um where this is a quote one time in a figure drawing class i was over in one corner of the same art big art room i was over in the corner

of that same big art room and a girl near the windows looked up and said something we all looked at her and i finally i answered her but when or i guess her name was celine the student that started talking to nobody celine looked most startled and said, you were right here next to me a moment ago. So basically she was they were in our class and the student just starts talking, thinking sister Esther was right next to her. But nobody was. Other times, sister Esther heard a woman's voice with a German accent in the halls saying, go away and don't bother me. I'm busy. Oh, which like so now

she can she so she doesn't talk but will approach you and when you talk she'll leave but then when she can't see you she'll talk and the voice will say leave me alone girl make up your mind like and she can also hear yeah she can take a lane because she's like hearing people coming i don't understand her situation she really needs to figure out chill out yeah like i don't understand but why are you showing up and then when people try to talk to you you leave and then when you're not showing up you still scream go away like okay it's like we're trying to avoid you that's the whole point of this she likes the drama. Come on. Eventually, Sister Esther asked the house mother to intervene, who said that the school, or she had the school hold a special mass to pray for the ghosts.

And after that, there were allegedly no more, quote, troubles in Folly Hall. But in 1989, the hall was demolished and we think that the the demolition reawoke her spirit and now people see her again in the church she was finally calm yeah now she said go away enough times we listened they bulldozed her then damn here's another one in ohio my friend ohio university oh you that's in uh athens ohio it's uh one of the oldest my friend, Ohio University. Oh, you. That's in Athens, Ohio. Mm-hmm. It's one of the oldest public colleges in the U.S. It was founded in 1804.

And it is so haunted that Fox once listed the school as one of the scariest places in the world. Oh, well, I didn't know that. Apparently, part of its campus, which is called The Ridges, used to be part of the, quote, Athens Lunatic Asylum. Oh, OK. Yikes. I'm just going to call it the ALA. And apparently it opened in 1874. So over 100 years later, there was a well-known patient at ALA and her name's Margaret Schilling. And she was apparently very

kind never got into trouble but on december 1st she vanished oh fuck story goes she was playing uh hide and seek with the nurses who got distracted by another patient and stopped looking for her and she just kept hiding okay that's the most sinister ghost story I've ever heard. Jesus. Just like rooted in innocence. Yeah. Yeah. That's something that makes that so terrible.

She ended up in a closed off under construction part of the asylum and ended up dying before anyone found her. Fuck. They think she either froze to death or she had some sort of heart failure but she wasn't found until 42 days later and i don't know if this was part of her um mental illness or if this is supposed to be spookier but apparently before she died she took all of her clothes off and folded them up and put them next to her and then lied on the ground um and that's they found her so she was also nude when they found her 42 days later well you know that happens when you um freeze you yeah you take your clothes off because it flows off yeah so that's why they think maybe she froze it up oh god um strangely margaret left behind a perfect

imprint of her body and hair on the floor where she died. Whoa. That's very Catholic sounding. Yeah. Well, the scientific theory is that the sun came through the window enough and shined just so to create some sort of imprinting effect, like photographic effect where the image of her body stayed on the floor. Whoa, that's quite a theory. I know. The mark that her body left is now known as the floor. Whoa, that's quite a theory. I know. The mark that her

body left is now known as the stain. Oh, okay. And it cannot be cleaned off, and they say it's so people will always be able to find her now. Oh. That's terrible. In 2016, the building was declared

structurally unsound, so now nobody can go creeping in anymore. But the area also has Wilson Hall, which is the most haunted site on campus and lies in the middle of the Ohio Cemetery pentagram. Do you know about this? No, but I love it. Did I know or did I not tell you? Ohio, there's some fucked up shit here. Like, it's like a portal or something i don't

know i'm it's a scary place this state so apparently on a map of ohio cemeteries one cluster of them is found in a pentagram oh god why and wilson hall is right in the middle of the pentagram it's like oops how did i get here now sidebar i will say um some pagan traditions do say that pentagrams are supposed to keep you safe from spiritual harm right um but i will say that doesn't seem to be the case here um and wilson hall is super duper super duper haunted um students hear voices following them down halls at night they'll hear stomping in their own bedrooms one student was uh in her this one student's name is stephanie she was in her bedroom when her full-length mirror flew off of her wall into the center of the room dropped and shattered and

then her roommate's mirror did the same thing i was gonna say one mirror you could probably like trick yourself into thinking well maybe it was just lose two in a row um also their textbooks were getting thrown off of their desk her um their lights that didn't that didn't have any batteries in them started flickering um and wilson 428 the room 428 is apparently so um full of spirits and gets so many complaints from students that live there that the room has officially been declared uninhabitable oh man because i was about to say i bet you one of our listeners right now is going for what what did they just say and like rewound i look around the room like oh shit um they uh it also reminds me of queen mary because b340 for a while they the hotel staff had to block it off it couldn't be just like left it to rot because and to make a hotel that's a big

move to just close off a room for no reason yeah so uh apparently in wilson 428 if you do happen to be living in wilson 428 i'm so sorry to tell you but um so the door would slam open and uh shut every night uh and here's the super creepy part the wood grain of the furniture would morph into demonic faces what they would hear voices footsteps glasses would explode and in the 1970s when they still had people staying in that room a student allegedly died in that room and their ghost would move things and throw things around all the time oh no so now he's just joined the ruckus one student uh staying here used the room to actually astral travel and talk to spirits again also very queen mary that one of the things they used to do in the 80s and b340 was like have

like like rituals and seances and encourage stuff. So one student was staying there and she was encouraging stuff and eventually passed out one night and died a few days later. Which could be so many other things. But for the lore, people use that as now there's two deaths. Well, I don't know know i've been trying to practice astral stuff am i gonna just open up some sort of portal and then like die at wilson 428 maybe okay um some historians think that wilson hall is built on the unmarked graves of the asylums earlier cemetery which is what causes the ghosts and the school does happen to

be like you said in athens which is a lesser-known appalachian region of ohio and some say that that location in particular has so many hills and rivers that it creates a powerful flow of energy it's a beautiful area and the energy allegedly goes right through the center of town which happens to be the college oh sure it's like oops pentagram oops pentagram oops college um before we go i will show you um in geo's trio we have a little picky okay um this is the two uh girls that i just mentioned where their mirror is shattered oh we have those pictures. No way. Okay, that's both of them next to each other.

So one of the mirrors lifted off the wall and then shattered and then the roommates did. I love that they're giving a peace sign. They're like, whatever. And then in the next one, they're like, okay, we're not messing around anymore. Wow, this is so creepy, anyway that is just a that's just a small smattering of haunted dorms oh i hate it thanks a lot you're welcome um yeah if you have a haunted dorm story write it too and that's why we drink at gmail.com we'll collect them and maybe do a themed listener episode oh okay and also i feel like a lot of people probably said are are yelling i already did send in my story um well maybe search dorm great yes it's still there then

okay so today i have a story for you and you're gonna need to get a few gargoyles out i love my little gargoyles okay it's not even that many people it's just like it's a little confusing so um the relationships are dicey i see yes there's just uh a lot of white dude names. So I just. Oh, Brad, Chad and. Todd, actually. Okay. Close enough. This is the murder of Carol Garten. Carol Garten.

Okay. I don't know this one. Okay. I hadn't known it either, actually. I did watch an episode of, on Oxygen about this. And. Was it snapped? You know know it wasn't snapped i'm trying to remember the name i know you love snapped oh mastermind of murder that's what oh how do they keep it up with these shows it's honestly a thesaurus is probably how they do it i think so

too you know they got it they got what are we here? Every single day they're brainstorming new names that rhyme or have a pun. Like, what's that one? Fear thy neighbor. That's another one? My God. Talk about a double entendre. Okay. Anyway, this is the murder of Carol Garten.

So Carol met Todd Garten in oregon indie music scene of the 1980s oh okay that's very niche very indie very hip very cool carol was a singer-songwriter who played in a local rock band and todd himself was also in a band and uh the best i can say about him is he had some pretty chaotic energy. Oh, in a good way? Not absolutely not in a good way. OK, so, yeah, he came off to people as very self-important, like the kind of guy who you who was right, who just thought he was right about everything. You couldn't talk him out of it.

And he did have some friends, so he didn't turn everyone away. But the friends he did have described him as a guy who had, quote, a million crappy ideas a minute. A million crappy ideas a minute. Uh-huh. That feels like, I was going to say, that feels like me sometimes. It feels similar, doesn't it? Yeah, I feel like I could relate to that, but maybe he has much crappier ideas than I do. I know. Like, what's the level of crappy we're talking? Because you and I have come up with some harebrained ideas that are pretty crappy. They're pretty crappy, but also they become pretty great.

Some of them do. Some of them, I'm sure, just don't go anywhere. And those are the crappy ones. But, like, we're not all crappy ideas, you know? That's true. We've had a couple gems in there. I, uh, yeah. Like, how else would Xenon have come to life?

Now, don't you ever call her a crappy idea. I said some of them are gems. How else would Xenon have gotten here? You're right, you're right, you're right. I'm saying they're not all crappy. I have a hunch his crappy ideas are on a different tier than us i think maybe and i think as we go through the story you might start to agree with yourself okay okay okay i'm talking to the other gemini the other half of the gemini in you okay so his friend said he was a guy who had a million crappy ideas a minute. For a while, Todd had had this fling with a groupie who loved his band, and her name was Lynn.

But according to Todd's, yeah, so good, good job. Todd's friend, sorry, Em's getting the gargoyles out. Can you tell I'm positioning them like a chess game? I love it because I already forgot about the gargoyles and I'm already comforted that you have them to help. I have, I have, I have two of them kissing. So I know that they like each other. That's a romantic. Okay. So that's Todd and Lynn who are kissing the gargoyles. So Todd and Lynn got together and she's a groupie. So she's obsessed with his band. She's obsessed with him. But Todd's friends are like, like oh boy she is bad for todd she's

just like trouble amplifies his chaotic energy like encourages his bad ideas i'm sorry his crappy ideas um but he probably says it as well she gets me yeah exactly you know and like she's obsessed with me like literally because she's a groupie. So she fed into his worst choices and encouraged reckless behavior. So they were not on board. But when Todd met Carol, people around Todd were thrilled because Carol was a calming energy who almost like seemed to soften or take the edge off of Todd. So he was just less reckless, less chaotic, less unpredictable. So Carol was the kind of person who spread joy everywhere she went. But she was also a force to be reckoned with.

Like she didn't back down easily. She, you know, had a strong backbone, stood up for herself. Carol, however, did not tell her family about todd for a while because unlike todd's friends carol's friends were not going to be on board with this relationship she snuck out to meet him for a while and she was living at home at this point and then finally uh she announced she was moving out of her family's house to get an apartment with her boyfriend, Todd. And they were like, who the hell's Todd? And she's like, we're in love.

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. She's like, here he is. And they met Todd. Ta-da! Ta-da! Ta-da! Here he is.

Actually, he does say that anytime he walks into a room. And it's so annoying. Me too! Yeah annoying. Me too. We've just learned. Yeah, you do too. Actually, you know, this is a perfect segue into me saying yesterday I was sweeping and when I was done, I went ta-da. I was by myself, but it was just to make me feel accomplished. That's like the saddest i feel like i feel like in 200 years someone's gonna be like there's this ghost in my house and all it does

is whisper ta-da i wonder what it means you hear a broom sweeping by and like a swish swish yeah there's a there's a tiktok sound that's going around right now where it's like people are putting it over them like doing a really great like basketball like like throw like perfectly into the net and then you just hear someone behind the camera go hooray and like it's supposed to be so lame and the caption is usually like never letting my dad or letting my white friend film my awesome shots again and it's hooray and i feel like tada is one step away from hooray so hooray um like ta-da is one step away from hooray. Ta-da, hooray. Well, the funniest part is when you started telling that story, you said you were sweeping.

But I immediately, for my own entertainment purposes, turned it into you saying sleeping with like a little lisp. Like I was sweeping. And so in my head, you were like, I was sweeping. And then I finished sleeping. And I said, ta-da. For my daily, my regularly programmed nap that I'll be having this afternoon, when I wake up, maybe the first thing I'll say is, ta-da. I love that for you. I feel like it's good energy. Actually, I really like that.

Unless your name is Todd, like stop it wait he would literally go into rooms and he could go todd uh i know that's what i'm saying he could he could use it but i don't know i kind of like it better when you do it okay all right so uh he walked into the room they met him her family met him and said no fuck this guy we do not approve and she's like i knew you wouldn't that's why i didn't tell you about him so they did not like todd uh pretty immediately he did not have a job so carol was supporting both of them um but it wasn't just because, you know, he couldn't find one or what have you. It was because he didn't like the idea of having to go into an office from nine to five. And I'm like, who does?

You know, I find a person who's. Yeah. Who loves doing it, you know. But Carol was strong willed and her family knew they couldn't talk her out of it. So instead of like cutting her off, they said, fine, if this is what you want we'll support you okay that's healthy boundaries i think i don't know i'm not really good at boundaries but they supported her anyway and then um big news we are moving to california and so this was i think hard because i mean they're in oregon it's not too far but she's moving away with this guy they don't approve of and they are not thrilled.

So they do it anyway. Todd gets to California and joins the Marines. He thought it would be better than a nine to five. So, you know, makes sense that that's why he would have chosen that. But it also likely fed into his sense of authoritative superiority and his kind of complex, his God complex. So not great. He loved feeling powerful, loved feeling in charge. This is a scary combination to me. Well, it's also easy to do when you isolate the person and having them completely move away from everyone they know.

From their family. That's a great point. That's a great point. The two of them got married, even though they seemed to be having relationship troubles. They went through it anyway. And eventually Todd left the Marines, and he decided to start his own fencing company. Fencing?

Oh, my dumbass thought you meant sword fighting. You're sweeping and fencing was sweeping and sword fighting and that was my my one of my uh stepbrothers he always had the the r's and w lisp and it still comes out and as a grown man i pushed him down one time we got in a fight i pushed him down and he landed in the dirt grown-ass man he goes oh now i'm all doity and i was like i was like that that ends the argument right there i was like you got into a fist fight with this person no no a fight like a fight like we were like like i don't know

fucking around i like pushed him but he like oh oh i thought you meant you were like having a verbal fight and then you pushed him into the ground i was like jesus oh imagine if i was like i a grown person who doesn't fight with anybody gotten a true verbal match that led to fisticuffs and it ended with one of us going now i'm all doityity. Well, that's what I was picturing. I was like, whoa, Em really fucking showed them who's boss. Okay. I'm all doity. Okay. So anyway, they get married, even though they're having relationship troubles.

He leaves the Marines and he starts a sword fighting company. But by sword fighting, I mean fencing. Fencing actual fences around your house i feel like that's what happened at daycare you know so good you just said fencing so confidently and i so confidently believed it was sort of like cool which like by the way if someone's opening a fencing company like that i so confidently believed it was sort of like cool which like by the way if someone's opening a fencing company like that's great but i didn't i just didn't see it coming and you said something with such confidence i was like oh shit you must have

really liked fencing he developed a love for fencing during his time in the marines uh oh boy okay so he starts his own company. And meanwhile, Carol is working. I believe she was working in some sort of insurance field, something I can't understand. And she was very well liked. She was respected in her office. And so they were doing okay. Things were rocky.

But they did get married. She took his last name. Todd, meanwhile, made friends with a man named dale gordon now dale was a former marine mechanic who had worked on todd's car and the two of them bonded over having been in the marines and they became friends okay hang on i'm setting up my thank you my gargoyles okay so they're buddies yes they're buddies and they were in the marines together they're about to be oh i was gonna say more than buddies but i didn't mean it in that way um oh i that would have been a fun plot twist but unfortunately no uh what i meant was they became

roommates because uh dale's business went bankrupt and not only did todd hire him on as uh an employee of his fencing business but carol also arranged for dale to move in with them so now their friend dale's living with them okay got it and working for todd got it okay then todd found another friend that he wanted to employ. So he employed 28 year old Norman Daniels. And now he also joins the friend group. Okay. Got it. And he joins a friend group and he works at the company at the fencing company, but he does not live with them. So he's the only one that doesn't live with them. Got it. Okay. I got my, I have, I had to get, get i had i didn't have enough gargoyles so i got my little my little guys i like those are those your little uh my little grace my little race and

reapers yeah okay so like i said all three men were veterans and were veterans and so they kind of bonded over that. And Norman, meanwhile, was working hard on two jobs to support his family. He had a young son. So Carol and Todd, even though they're making friends and their businesses are going OK, they are still struggling in their marriage. their marriage and when carol talked to her friends and family when they asked how things were going she just ignored the whole topic of her relationship and her marriage which is not a good sign red flag but the friend group as a whole seemed very happy uh people called them the garten gang because uh todd and carol were both gardensons. That was our last name. And then the two friends were kind of part of the group.

By association, Gartons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Gartons by... Gartons by... Ina Garten. Okay. If you don't have... Storebot is just fine. How easy is that?

If you don't have store bot is just fine how easy is that if you don't have fen if you don't have sword fighting yeah is that what you just said i don't remember what i said if you don't have fence posts swords will work just fine for your if you don't have sword fighting fencing's okay you know okay so all i feel like there's a gas leak in my house i feel like my brain is just like not computing are we the energy is a very odd one today i'm so sorry i feel like it's a hundred percent me i'm like out of it today i'm so sorry alison she's working on the other side of this wall like on the other side of this wall and she has always i'm like can you hear me when i'm recording and she goes no i hear nothing but then every now and then i'll just hear and i i really hope she's not on a zoom call right now she probably is like has a tally mark where every time you do that she's like oh god another episode i'm not looking forward to right or maybe she's, I can't wait to find out in the shower what that laugh was about.

Yeah, that's true. It was you saying, I think there's a gas leak in my house. Oh my God. This energy is really fucking frenetic today. Like we cannot keep it together. We're usually done recording by now. Anyway. Oh no, you're right. That's terrible. We're usually done recording by now. Anyway. Oh, no.

You're right. That's terrible. We have to record a whole other episode after this, Christine. Okay. Well, the day's canceled. Reign it in. Reign it in. Okay.

So, Norman is working hard. Two jobs to support his family. Carol and Todd are still struggling in their marriage. She does not talk to her family and friends about Todd. But the Garten gang overall seems pretty happy. They love target sports, so they would get together often to shoot together. And Carol was a skilled archer, so she liked to use a bow. People said Todd seemed like the leader of the group, but Carol was the heteronormative emotional one to keep everybody together in 1997 carol had a big announcement she was pregnant

her friends were thrilled they went so her friends were thrilled about this because they knew her as someone who had always, always wanted to have a baby. And Norman and Dale, the two junior members of the Garten Gang, were thrilled. The only person who was not thrilled was Todd, the father of the baby. He openly told babies. Nope. He told babies that he told babies they were stupid and hated them he openly insulted babies he had a little press conference with babies he just drops from preschool to preschool

yeah there's the first assembly it's like gather around oh my god oh my god babies what's wrong with me i'm sorry okay so we talked to the babies. I'm so sorry. It hurts. I'm so sorry i wanted to be

oh my god okay so okay okay okay he talks to the he does not talk to the babies okay i'm so sorry. Oh, my God. He doesn't. I promise. I don't think so, anyway. There's got to be. I think you're on to something about the gas leak. I need to get my carbon monoxide checked or something.

I don't know. I'm feeling real woozy today. Okay. We're back. We're back. We're back. We're back. I think it's like lots of sleepless nights. Maybe that's what's happening. I don't have an excuse. That was just the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. I said it so seriously, too.

He told the babies. He talked to the babies. Oh, my God. What's the matter with me? Okay. People said, okay, no, back to this. Okay. So as I was saying, he openly told people that babies were pains who stole men's freedom and that he didn't want any. That's weird. Blaze said the same thing to me when you were pregnant.

Yeah, I'm sure he did as he's now like taking her to the aquarium at this very second and so he was very much against raising his own child like to the point that he started openly randomly accusing carol of cheating on him so he would tell people it probably isn't even mine and she's like oh shit i've never been unfaithful to you and he's like no it's someone else's baby like he really was not on board with this shit carol didn't tell her family about her pregnancy until she was five months along and of course they were very very happy for her very excited her friends were very excited uh and her pregnancy became her number one priority carol could not wait to be a mother. She had always wanted to be one.

Her friends and family were supporting her, even if Todd wasn't. But unfortunately, tragically, she would not live to raise her child. I just want to put that out there now so that we all know. And this is a very specific trigger warning for pregnancy okay terrible

pregnancy crime okay on the evening of may 16th 1998 todd came home from work and found carol lying on their bedroom floor bleeding and unresponsive oh shit he He initiated CPR while Dale called 911, but Carol didn't respond. She had been shot five times. Three times in the head, once in the side, and once in the leg. Holy shit. They were fired at point-blank range with a.44 caliber revolver. And unfortunately, when first responders arrived on the scene they announced her dead and her baby had passed away as well and she was seven months pregnant at this point so very very gruesome

shockingly violent they described it as an execution style attack and first responders were shocked by what they witnessed the former shasta county district attorney who was on scene uh remembers quote the image of mrs garten lying there dead in her very pronounced pregnant state is an image that i will have in my mind for the rest of my days yeah so incredibly gruesome horrific tragic um They could not resuscitate her and she was declared dead at the scene. Her baby was also declared dead at the scene as well. One responder says he remembers feeling simply angry that someone could do this to another human being and an unborn child. And when they, you know, police came, obviously, and spoke spoke to todd and dale they were visibly shaken

um police took them to major crime space to interview them and dale seemed downright grief stricken this is the um the friend the friend and he described carol as a perfect loving person he had great admiration for her as a friend. He's actually interviewed in the episode I watched. Oh, okay. What was it called? Something of Dark. Something. Mastermind of Murder.

Yeah. So as for Todd, her husband, he was equally shocked, and he kind of ran them through a schedule of what had happened that day. From the surface, it had seemed completely normal. The friends sometimes went to gun shows at the local fairground where they would sell weapons and accessories for extra income. And so that's how Todd, Dale, and Norman were spending the day and Carol actually decided to stop by their tent at noon. She was heading to tour the delivery ward at the hospital where she planned to give birth, which is like terrible. And about an hour later after that tour, she rejoined them. She was tired, so she decided she was going to leave early and go home and rest and norman

the other friend offered to drive her in home in her jeep because she was too tired to drive he said he had things to get done back home and todd agreed to close up the booth himself so carol rode home with norman todd and dale packed up the fare around five and headed home but carol's jeep wasn't there so they were like oh maybe she went out but they did notice that the front door was unlocked which was super unusual and dale's first thought was well maybe they've maybe we've been robbed but he went straight to his bedroom and saw that all of his guns were there and untouched so right so that doesn't make sense didn't add up yeah um so todd meanwhile walked to his bedroom which is where he found carol uh he started screaming and dale came running there was no forced entry there were no shell casings on the ground and police concluded that carol must have known her killer because there was, you know, she had let him in.

Yeah. No, it seemed like no struggle. No struggle. Yes. And because there were no shell casings on the ground and she had been shot five times, they determined the killer had cleaned up after himself. OK. But, of course, Dale and Todd both have airtight alibis. They just got there from the gun show.

So immediately they look at Norman, who was the last person to see her alive. But the thought was either he's the last person to have seen her alive and he's somehow implicated in this, or he could be dead somewhere too if somebody came and attacked both of them. Right. And maybe he's in danger. So either way, they have to find him. So detectives start searching for him. He's not at home. He didn't show up for work.

And so now they're getting even more suspicious. After some surveillance, detectives intercepted Norman outside of his house. He had just come from dumping Carol's Jeep at a park and ride over the county line and was pulling up to his own house in a taxi so not a good look they bring him in for questioning and norman shocks detectives when he pretty much pleads guilty immediately oh well that's a pretty clean cut case okay

he literally tried to lie for maybe five minutes and then a judge signed a search warrant for the house and uh police found bloody clothing ammunition and a gun that matched the caliber of the murder weapon and norman immediately broke and said god can't save me now and uh finally admitted finally after five whole minutes admitted that he was he was i mean like i if if i ever did something it would take maybe a second until i cracked like there's no playing it cool there's no smooth we'd be terrible at that yeah yeah this i just i the guilts my mom really did a lot of trauma to me with the the eyes like the i know you're lying eyes uh-huh i would just need someone to look at me once they would bring your mother and they'd be like look at him with the

eyes game over game over i can't lie to her oh no uh anyway um so by the way i want to i want to point out i was exaggerating with five minutes it was not five minutes if anyone's out there gonna i don't know it was a short very short period of time it was it was not very long he he said i didn't do it then they found a bloody you know shirt and he went oh shucks it was me yeah pretty pretty immediately so he says god can't save me now. He breaks into tears in the confession. He describes the crime in vivid detail. And police basically have all the pieces except why? Because Carol and Norman were good friends. bananas all the way to the top noodles all the way to the top explanation imaginable like they were they were like wait i said why did you do this he says well let me tell you and it is batshit okay norman told investigators that he had been recruited by an elite military organization who wanted him to work as an assassin for them okay that that was accompanied by an eye roll folks in case

in case you didn't hear that audibly well he just he's so quickly like broke but then was able to like like then bounce back real quick with a massive lie okay he said they were called the company and they were working with the ira the Irish Republican Army, which is a paramilitary group that fought British state forces during the troubles in Northern Ireland. So the IRA represented the faction who wanted to break from the UK and British rule to create a united Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, south of Northern Ireland. The 30-year conflict had only ended with a peace treaty a month before Carol's murder. So now they're saying, oh, well, the IRA is involved in this murder somehow, is what Norman's saying. And the IRA might be on the mind of people in America who are actually paying attention to international political conflict, but it's still super random.

Like, even though it was somewhat in the news, the IRA, this whole story that he gave them was like, what? You know, just also he's certainly not a part of them now if he's just going to so quickly throw them under the bus. I feel like I'm part of this really super secret organization. And let me tell you all about them. Yeah. super secret organization and let me tell you all about them yeah yeah so of course their immediate thought is why would the ira which is a paramilitary group on another continent whose fight had just ended be recruiting some random dude in california as an assassin like it just of course doesn't make sense but norman doubled down he said he'd been contacted by someone who went by the code name josephine they told him if

he didn't carry out their orders they would kill his entire family so norman was convinced and agreed to do their bidding he said he even received a manila envelope with a red wax seal and inside was his first mission oh god, God. Oh, my God. Okay. There were photos of Carol inside with his orders, Carol's home address, work address, and the deadline for the assassination of Carol. Wouldn't the people who gave him these orders know that, like,

we don't need to tell him the address because he lives with them? Oh, wait, wait no he doesn't live with them but he knows he does but he definitely knows where she lives yeah yeah i feel like that was that's almost too much information because if they know him well enough to know her yeah if they know him well enough to know that he knows her then why are they telling okay to make it official i don't know was it like written in crayon by the assembly of babies like what at his last press conference at the school yeah oh my god no so it had uh photos of carol but interestingly enough there was a photo of carol with todd and dale and they had crossed out todd and dale's faces and circled carol's to be like this one this is your target so allegedly this is the story

carol was also an assassin in this organization okay and she had gotten on the ira's bad side so she needed to be taken out taken That was the story. Okay. Norman took it at face value because, why not? I was going to say, all righty, well, I guess there's no arguing that. No further explanation needed. He took it at face value because, well, here's what you don't know, Em. The CIA was also involved. Oh, I think maybe we all knew that might be coming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was only natural that they would be up next. So the CIA is also involved. So he was convinced that this was like the real deal. Of course, police are not convinced that this is the real deal. I too am not, by the way. Yeah, yeah. If we're clarifying, I'm not either. I'm just going to throw my hat in the ring. Okay. So police did not believe this. They pressed further and Norman finally told them that Todd had gotten him involved in the group in

the first place. Okay. So Todd's also involved. Yes. And he said, oh, Todd's the one who invited me into it. OK. Right. Right. Right. So Todd had spoken over time about his involvement with the IRA. He would carefully drop hints here and there that he himself was an elite assassin who had killed several people. He said he was a sniper and he made tens of thousands of dollars doing this job as a sniper and Norman needed money. So he had reached out to Todd and been like, hey, could I get in on that? Todd was extremely manipulative. He seemed to hold power over his friends.

One psychologist who observed the case even said the people he manipulated thought he was a messiah. This person could convince normal people that people needed to die. who observed the case even said the people he manipulated thought he was a messiah this person could convince normal people that people needed to die i mean so can i take a stab at what's to come go for it i assume here that todd tricked norman into thinking it was an operative mission but really he got him to kill his wife because he didn't want to have a baby ding ding ding okay not to spoil it for anyone but i think i think we can all kind of sense what's coming exactly exactly like todd used his friend norman and like convinced it's it's horrific i mean i can't imagine a more narcissistic thing absolutely we've already determined that he you know thinks he's a little holier than thou for himself to just you know casually bring

in like oh you don't know what i've been through you don't know what kind of stuff i've had to do and like so like slowly weave it in intentionally yeah to allude to like i come from some powerful people and you know you want to be me and i make such good money doing it you know and then when he's in need he uses that it almost feels like some sort of cult mentality like a very like yes almost like a quick little like blip into that world of like delusion because like it didn't take much it seems for norman to all of a sudden you know get a letter with a mission and not even question it you know and also it's his friend he's killing and her baby. Like, it's not just some random person.

Wouldn't you at least go to your friend who got you into the organization to begin with and say, hey, they want me to kill your wife. Like, what do the two of us do? This is my first mission, right? Like, of all things, I know. And so it's very disturbing because clearly he's been like manipulated to do this horrific thing.

Not that I'm saying that's an excuse, obviously, but still just wild. Notable. Yes. Yes. So Norman really believed, well, Carol must for real be an assassin, too, just like Todd. will be an assassin too, just like Todd. And he was like, well, if the people at the IRA where Todd and I work say that Carol needs to go because she's turned on them, then this is the only possible option for me. So this wasn't Todd's first job with the company, as we had kind of already pointed out. He had been bragging about um his his uh jobs quote unquote in the past

so months earlier todd had told norman he was assigned to assassinate a man in oregon what i worry that i set it up that we were we were done with needing more gargoyles but i but now there i forgot this guy's in the picture too okay i'm so sorry i'm on it okay good my yeah i my brain short-circuited for a second i was like wait a minute it's also like a batshit crazy sentence and i tried to find a way to say it like more normally but it's i think it's just so crazy it's hard to rationalize okay so let me say that again yes please norman believes carol must be a real assassin, just like her husband. And in fact, Norman had actually helped Todd with a job for the IRA, for the company before. And so he's like, you know what? I've already been tasked.

I've already helped out on a job. So this company is clearly legit, quote unquote. So I guess if Carol has to go, I have to do it. So the task that he had already helped Todd with, the job, the mission, was to assassinate a man in Oregon named Dean Noyes. Okay. So they've already killed somebody yes so todd uh took dale talk took norman and even dale on this mission with him to like accompany him to show them that the company was a real deal organization and totally manufactured by his delusions sure sure but they don't know that yet so he takes his two buddies who like look up to him like he's some sort of messiah right right right he takes them on this mission and this is again like the manipulation like he planted this seed so that in a couple say how

like how far enough are you planning this murder to start dropping seeds like this exactly exactly and so he takes them on this job um and so norman's kind of involved just to convince him this is the real deal so police brought dale the friend in for questioning and dale was like no, this is all true. There is a company called The Company and they hire us to do scary, scary things. But is this someone that masquerades as a fencing company? Oh, interesting. Maybe that's what the fencing was all about. I guess so. It was a front.

I guess so. So Dale said Todd enlisted them to take out this dean in Oregon, this Dean Noyce. Todd led the three men through several plans, and the men even drove to Oregon several times. Dale was initially attracted by the money, and he was like, maybe this is a good business to get into but he had moral qualms that stopped him from uh unlike norman he just morally couldn't convince himself to join the company i understand yeah there's one slightly normal person so far in the story besides carol so he's he attends this first murder dale does but then he's like i'm out i don't i don't want to be part of this anymore and actually he's interviewed in the oxygen special he's actually like interviewed nowadays like when they when they filmed it which is kind of interesting to watch him uh like talk about it now uh when his

two friends are incarcerated incarcerated yes there it is uh okay so he was like uh i don't think so i don't want to do this but todd tells him dale we're in too deep you're either you're either in or you're out and you're the next target yikes again and again dale was roped in norman was roped in and the tree of them worked on some half-baked plans to try and assassinate this dean character but they just can't pull it off they can't bring themselves to pull the trigger they're not following through with all the plans the story went that dean was embezzling from his company so the ira in ireland put out a hit on him and hired todd dale and and Norman to assassinate him. Larry, Moe, and Curly, yeah. For embezzling in his own company,

or from his company that he worked for. So does this mean that eventually, like, like, Dale, like, when they were wondering, when he was wondering where Norman was and he knew that Carol was dead, having had this prior experience of like almost taking a hit out on somebody and being called a target. Was it in the back of his mind the whole time that like, oh, maybe Todd did this? You know, I don't know. I know. You know why?

Because in the show he was interviewed and he said, well, we knew Todd couldn't have done it because they were such good friends and they were so close but he literally said you'll be the next target and i'll kill you oh yeah maybe it's just a moment maybe in time he's realized that something was up maybe because he's the only one in the story with morals or the only man in the story with morals he was like well that doesn't make sense she wouldn't do that like or he wouldn't do that yeah i don't know i don't know but yeah his first instinct was that it was not Todd who did this. Okay, Dale. And so the IRA needed him assassinated. So the trio, Dale still roped into this, they met up with a woman named Lynn.

And Todd says, what? Lynn, like from earlier? Could be. I have my gargoyles. Don't think I forgot. I didn't think he'd notice that. I still have them kissing right here. Oh my God, they're still kissing. Well, that's pretty foreshadowing.

Okay. So they meet up with Lynn and Todd says, oh, this is our local handler. You know, that kind of like handler. Yeah. Like she tells us what to do and where to go wow when you said earlier that she enabled his crazy ideas it's all coming back to me now making sense so things basically spiral from there um at one point they literally gave up

on a murder attempt because the spare key lynn gave them to Dean's house didn't work. So they just went home. Like this is just, it's just a mess. And when they got home finally from this trip, Dale says, you know what? I'm officially out. I don't want anything to do with this. So Todd finally accepts that his friend's not part of this and decides he's going to stop talking to Dale about the company. But Norman was a little eager and he said, I want another mission. So Todd gave him his first mission, his first solo mission, and that was to kill Carol. Todd acted shocked by this.

He was like, oh my God, I know I'm so disturbed by this that the ira needs us to kill my needs you to kill my wife but we open the wax sealed envelope so there's no going back now oh my god yeah this fucking idiot put a seal on it and then said i just can't so he said it's you know i know it's my wife and i love her so much and she's carrying my unborn child. But, you know, they said she has to go. I mean, like, are you kidding me? And that's fine by me. And I guess it's fine.

So Norman is like, no, I don't want to do that. And he tries to back out. But Todd says, you know what? The company is going to murder your little boy your son oh shit if you try to back out of this and poor norman he believes this he genuinely believes it so from county jail norman contacted todd and police recorded the conversation conversation in the most disturbingly casual blase tone like shocking todd answers the phone and he says what's going on talk to me here so you said you did it and like his wife is literally bloody like murdered in cold blood sick sick sick he brought up his best friend

murdering his wife as if they were just like talking about uh i don't know getting up and getting waiting after work or something yes yes yes exactly like so unsettling and cold and creepy and i think it's like the casual tone of it like hey talk to me you know like yeah are you kidding this guy just murdered your wife and unborn child so anyway in the meantime Carol of course tragically is laid to rest family and friends attended the funeral um it's just it's just so fucking horrific um that this is how her life ended detectives were introduced at the funeral to a woman who attended the funeral uh hanging on todd's date or on todd's arm like she was his date ew and they were like um hello todd who's this with you and she says hello my name is lynn noise so he's back with that girl back with lynn does the last name strike any bells

no or not yet lynn noise no okay let's keep going so her name was lynn noise and police are finally putting the whole story together so lynn noise as you've so astutely remembered was the former groupie uh who todd used to date before he met carol um they even had an affair and stayed in contact during his marriage to Carol. So they were still seeing each other throughout all of this. Lynn was also married to a guy named Dean Noise, who happened to be the company's first target. I get it. Yes. She was the handler, quote unquote, who helped arrange her husband's failed assassination.

Police found emails between Lynn and Norman where she was pretending to be the handler arranging the crime. They also found romantic emails between Lynn and Todd. And finally, there were threatening emails to Norman from a mysterious Colonel Sean of the IRA. They were like, what's an Irish sounding name? to Norman from a mysterious Colonel Sean of the IRA. Oy, oy, oy. They were like, what's an Irish sounding name? I know, Sean. It's exactly the thought I had. Okay.

It was probably like Sean McMillan or something. Yeah, Patrick O'Patrick. Yeah. Sean O'Shaughnessy. Sean O'Shaughnessy. So the IP address, of of course led straight back to todd so like nice try police knew todd had orchestrated this whole crime but they needed proof of a motive so in what lynn

said so talk about um cold-hearted she said i could have prevented it if i wanted to but i didn't because i didn't care like are you serious what kind of wow they really are meant for each other yeah they don't deserve anyone else it's i just hate that carol got like caught up in their fucking nasty nastiness wow what a i don't even know what the right word is, but like, what a mastermind plan. Now I know why it was on that mastermind show. Mastermind murder. Yes.

Terrible, terrible. Todd had also, of course, because this wouldn't be a mastermind story about murder if somebody didn't take out a life insurance policy. Oh, shit. That's like on the bingo card, I feel like. Right, yeah. I should have seen it coming like on the bingo card i feel like right yeah i should have seen a crime bingo card so todd had taken out a 125 000 life insurance policy in carol and what's even more damning guess who else had a life insurance policy on carol lynn like not even on her own like on her own husband probably too but on lynn or on carol that's like so fucking it's almost so obvious like i mean i mean so obvious it's just like how did this not get noticed right away i yeah i think it it unraveled pretty quickly but you would at least

think you'd be like hey lynn say you have a different last name around people so like it doesn't get back great point there were so many little things or like there was like with norman there was bloody clothes in the hamper it's like no one thought through like nobody was coming next he literally picked up the shell casings and that was about the extent of covering up he tried to do like the ip address went straight back to todd's computer i mean they all they cared about was getting the task done not like any sort of and he did it in like a really theatrical way like he didn't just go shooter himself like he built up to it but it was still not smart you know like it wasn't even i guess when they put

mastermind they should put it in quotations because like they were never getting away with this like the police were really going to believe the ira you don't think after i mean i have i don't know if it's some sort of intrusive thought situation but i'm constantly thinking if i killed someone how would i how would i get away with it and i have yet to ever figure out a way where i wouldn't get away with it like i like or where i would get away with it yeah i would definitely get caught within at least a day oh yeah and but like i can't imagine going into killing somebody and then going i probably don't need to worry about the cleanup all that much i've done enough what clean yeah like i think I picked up the shell casings and.

Like, did they not think they were, they were, I mean, maybe that's just the height of his narcissism where it was like, oh, they won't find me. Like, I'm too smart for, if they even care. I think Norman, I think Norman genuinely believed that this was like a real thing. The company. But Todd, yeah. No, I think he believed in it too. But Todd's, Todd's narcissism was like out a real thing the company yeah but no i think he believes in it todd todd todd's narcissism was like out of control i do wonder though if i were norman let's pretend that like the cia

contacts me and says like this is your mission why isn't a protocol in that folder that's telling me how to clean it up so i don't get fucking caught. Like, I'd be like, if you, if you, an organization need this done and you want to make sure it gets covered up because you're so secretive, you're not going to tell me how to make sure it's handled. And if you trust him, why? Because like, what did he prove to you so far? He never even killed Dean noise, the first guy on the list. Like why would you trust him to know how to clean up after himself without instructions? Also, why do you have to kill somebody who's literally his wife that he shouldn't want dead when he clearly didn't have to go through with his target? Yeah. None of it makes sense.

And I guess that's part of why it's called a quote unquote mastermind. Uh huh. Yeah. But yeah, it's it's just infuriating because it's like it's so tragic. And he like clearly thought he was some hot shit as todd guy like oh i'm so clever i'm gonna get away with this and get with my old girl and like fuck you like just why didn't you just break up with her and say i want to be with someone yeah you know just like a normal fucking person yeah just like don't have anything to do with the kid like you

like you weren't going to be a good influence on that kid anyway you know why was it easier to convince your friends to murder somebody it's horrifying that that was like his and he did it horrible it's just all so tragic um oh god so of course police found indisputable evidence that Todd masterminded, quote unquote, the entire plot in his home. Like they even found the ring used to put in the wax seal for the envelope. Wow. Just everything. So everything. Todd never confessed to being involved.

He never owned up to it. He he maintained innocence from day one. Dale, however, went to prison for 10 years over the conspiracy to murder dean uh he expressed deep remorse he's really the only person here um of these dudes who has any sort of empathy or you know compassion uh he he got into something over his in over his head is how he describes it. But he did back out. And so ultimately he was let free. And he truly did have nothing to do with Carol. So he didn't get any jail time for the Carol situation.

And in fact, what's more, Dale even said he felt he deserved his sentence. And he apologized to Dean for planning to kill him and uh he also regretted being unable to protect carol so he really came out with speaking of like what's your damage like he came out with a lot of a lot of damage um lynn got 25 years for two counts of conspiracy to commit murder so for her own husband and for uh carol norman was viewed somewhat sympathetically um because he really believed he was trying to protect his own son but also i'm like i don't there has to be some sort of excuse no i don't think it's an excuse but i also do like wonder like the level of brainwashing that had already happened or something to so blindly just agree to something like that.

To believe to believe this so readily makes me wonder like, yeah, was there anything else going on? Like maybe he really just didn't have the critical thinking to like realize that his quote unquote friend was manipulating one i agree manipulating him i don't know so it's it's hard to tell and i do understand that like there's a slightly more sympathetic edge than to todd but like still he murdered his good friend who was seven months pregnant i mean there's you know there's only much we can, only so much bending we're willing to do. That's a good way to put it. So he was sentenced to 50 years to life. And Todd was ultimately convicted of first degree murder for orchestrating Carol's murder, despite not being the one to pull the trigger, which I think is good because he was fucking behind all of it. because he was fucking behind all of it. Police and psychologists painted a picture of Todd as a mastermind manipulator. They said he wanted to be some sort of military hero or rock star. So to make that happen for himself, he had to invent a fake world where he was edgy and important and people looked up to him and did what he said. And once he started pulling in real people, that's what made it a real scenario that he could, you know, use for harm.

A psychologist said the men were all completely enveloped in Todd's delusion. Even Todd began to believe his own lies. Like, that's how convincing he was. When he took the stand, he sometimes spoke in a fake Irish accent. Oh, okay. Because he genuinely wanted to be involved in the IRA so bad that he had like occasionally practiced this Irish accent. And even though on the stand now he's saying, oh, I had nothing to do with this. But then he starts saying it in an Irish accent.

Very creepy. He was sentenced to death. In 2018, he appealed, but the 7th Justice California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the sentence. As of reports in September of 2021, he's still on death row, but a date for his execution has not been set. And that's just horrific, horrific story. execution has not been set and that's just horrific horrific story um i'm sorry that also that we had like a laughing fit in the middle of it i hope it wasn't you know no i think it was you said that someone was talking to a bunch of babies like in a press conference or something okay i think it's removed enough nobody thinks i mean you know i wanted to be clear like this is one of the most fucked up stories i've ever told so you know we weren't trying to joke our way through it but um but

yeah that's the horrible tragic case of uh carol garden i'm honestly shocked there isn't like a hallmark or a lifetime movie about there there might be because it feels like it feel it reads like a movie like it does it does with the like fake uh crime yeah the hitman like a setup but i mean assassins and all that nonsense it does sound like a movie tm tm tm yeah no um it's really really awful really awful and uh it just makes my heart ache for her family and friends who were like just so excited that she was gonna gonna be a mother and yeah and she didn't i mean she just wanted to be in a relationship with someone who ends up being a i mean just a normal asshole at first and then a complete fucking asshole and a murderer and took it so so far wow well you know you do still

surprise me there's still interesting stories out there to be covered because uh i still like to uh to uh plot twist you every now and then you know six years in you're still uh blowing my mind oh well yes yeah i'll believe it better be let's leave it there uh allison allison i can't hear me. You're still the one after all these years, you're still the one. Oh, that's I'll let it slide. I,

um, I guess we'll, we'll leave it at that. Thank you everyone for listening. and, uh, come to our live shows next, uh,

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