And That's Why We Drink - E317 An Emergency Snuggie and a Vitaminute

Episode Date: March 5, 2023

In episode 317 we're checking in to make sure you've taken your mins and supps (vitamins and supplements). If not, join us in a vitaminute! We're also bringing you the creeps with Em's story of the Tallman House in Wisconsin. We never thought we'd hear about haunted bunk beds. Then Christine covers the tragic tale that led to gas station staff using the buddy system, the abduction of Katie Poirier. And are you a top or a bottom, very exclusively in bunk bed terms? ...and that's why we drink!We did it! We're so proud of our new live show, On the Rocks! Join us for the second half of our spring tour at andthatswhywedrink.com/live

Bye! What's going on, Christine? I'm cold. Your energy is low today. What's the situation? I just took a nap and now I'm cold and I'm tired. I understand. I'm going to put on my comfy. How was your napsicle?

Was it nice? Oh, she's, wow. Okay. She's, for folks who can't see, she's really struggling to get a blanket, robe, snuggie, comfy thing over her. But also I think what she forgot. Who are you calling struggling? snuggie comfy thing over her but also i think what you call struggling you look like a little marshmallow man just became the marshmallow man for the first time ever oh my gosh now i feel better is your your headphones they're not the cord isn't in the way in there who what okay

you look you do look very snuggly but uh how how are you now do you feel better i feel much better i think about 30 minutes in i'm gonna be like i'm hot and then everything's coming back off i've never seen anyone wear one of those and like just enjoy a full day in it it's always hard it really feels like immediately it's great. And then it very quickly becomes unenjoyable. Yeah. And it's such a shame because when you walk into a store and you touch something with that material, you go, it's so soft. It's life changing, really. Yeah. And then you have to take into account that like in less than 30 minutes, you're going to never want it on your body. Right. Like if I were the type to go out and sleep out

outdoors uh-huh for whatever reason i would probably just bring this like uh let's just say in a survival situation right this would be my in my emergency kit my emergency kit would be six feet wide because i would need to pack this entire blanket um but yeah i know i'm good sorry for the low energy i'm just i'm just uh we had our first leg of the tour we did and uh i got home at i traveled like 13 hours and i'm home and i'm tired and uh i think it was the downswing of all that emotional labor we put and physical labor we put into the show so much emotional labor i i think it was um i hey so first of all we did such a good job we did such a good job i'm so proud of you we did i'm really happy with it me too i didn't i not that i didn't think i'd be happy with it but i'm shocked it was impossible to imagine that we would be content and done with putting it together by now.

So just to give people some... By the time people listen to this, they're like, the shows are already done. The tour's over. We're over now. Up until literally the day of our first show, we were still tweaking the script. We were in the hotel

frantically finishing yeah christine was re-editing volume on a on a clip and everything and so it's um it's wild because since so we investigated for the first time this location back in august and in the summer and since august all the way into mid-february it has there's always been something like looming yeah because yeah looming and consuming as i say and so it but either it was watching the footage or editing the footage or writing the script and like so all the way up and then there's like this build-up of what people even like all the hardware so it's just it's amazing to actually have seen it on stage and it all worked. And it's just. Totally.

And it feels like, now what? I know. I'm like stressing out because I feel like there's something I have to do and there's nothing right now. I have to clean my trash pile. Do you want to see it? It's horrifying. Can I show you my trash pile? Look behind me.

I'm just going to. Oh, well, that looks like clothes, not trash. It's an ADHD laundry monster pile oh well mine's literal trash and there's actually moldy tomato soup here so it's pretty gnarly a show and tell from you about like all the gnarly trash that's in your I don't know that like people would be I think it would be like funny for a minute and then people would be like oh this has gotten really dark and sad I don't think I care about anyone else's opinion on this I think I just because here's the thing even i just went to go visit christine before our first show so we could

rehearse and um we i all i wanted to do was take this one nap in this one spot in christine's house it's my favorite spot in the whole world to take a nap and i feel like when i sleep on it it's like it's like a little sun it's like a little spot it's a bench in a sunny area it feels like i'm like i'm a cat and i can sleep on like the warm part of the floor that's what it feels like and all i want to do is take this nap but christine refused because apparently her room was so dirty she didn't want me to see it and i wouldn't be able to sleep on the bench anyway I mean it's not even that I didn't want you to see it oh I mean it's not even that I didn't want you to see it it's that like it's you literally physically wouldn't be able to fit on this bench because

it's covered and I mean like I'm like here's the tomato soup I mentioned um it's just like there's just a bag of batteries I don don't know. That's fun. Actually, I feel like more people than neither of us realize probably just have a bag of batteries somewhere. I would say, right? It would be an excellent. Okay, so when we did. Here's a postcard of carrot people. Is that from Eva?

That looks like an Eva purchase. It does, but it's not. I don't know't i don't know i don't know it's just here you would do excellent all over again on that game let's make a deal or whatever i miss it when he was like what do you have in your bag and he just picks a random item in your room you'd probably win every time oh i'd win every time i mean usually in my bag too even i remember he said a deck of cards and i was like shit they're in my other purse I do have a deck of cards but they're in my other purse which I lost somewhere in my house but anyway it's a it's a shit show like here's that Panera from when we

were rehearsing I mean literally like this place is uh I'm like surrounded by trash so I guess that is answer to my question oh my god there is a plate a dirty plate with a dirty fork and two batteries on it as if i've been just like snacking on batteries like why are they on there i don't know it's like you're the iron giant and you just have a midnight snack anyway not to complain but just to say i guess i do now have a project for myself which uh i love it about you i think it's very charming oh great i'm glad you tell blaze because he's pretty much over it um how are you i'm good you all by the way tell allison the same thing because the two of them really do need to text each other about how disgusting what a charmer

um how am i i'm i'm okay i i don't really know how i feel I'm in like a weird middle ground because I really have I really am so proud of us with the show and I we've been stressing about it for so long that now I'm in this like weird like gray space of like oh well we're good so I don't know I mean just like what we

were talking about I feel kind of like I need to be doing something I felt very like bizarre for a few days. So I'm glad it's not just me. I feel like I've earned burnout and don't have it yet. And so I'm just kind of in this weird halt. Yeah. But I still feel very good.

I'm excited. With my health stuff, I'm finally wearing jewelry. Please, everyone, hold your breath. I got one of those medical rings. Oh! Did you use promo code BEACH? No. No, I didn't.

What ring does Beashy Sandy work with? The Aura ring. God damn it! I should have used BEACH. That's okay. Well, if you ever need a testimony, if you don't have one yourself, I can tell you all about it. But so far, I really like it. So I'm feeling like I'm being constantly monitored, which makes my anxiety go down.

That's good. Anyway, yeah, I'm feeling like I'm on the up and up currently. I'm so happy about that. How are you in your big marshmallow body pillow that you're wearing? I'm actually thriving right now. I feel really poofy and fine fine great great excellent one might even say excellent tante one might and one could and one should and one should i have a story for you today i think she's a quickie but i like her anyway i can't wait um

and this is the story oh by the way were you ready for a story did you feel like you needed to chat about anything no we're good no thank you for asking i'm uh i feel like i'm just i'm like at my my peak right now i'm ready for to i'm ready to absorb your tail good i felt bad i just really dove in there out of nowhere usually no no you asked me how i was you were you were very gentle i'm excited i haven't um uh i haven't done my my my i'm calling them my mins and my sups my vitamins and supplements oh i really now i've really lost you okay i haven't done them yet today and i'm excited to do a vitamin with you after okay i haven't done mine either we, and I'm excited to do a Vita Minute with you after this recording. Okay, I haven't done mine either. We've been doing Vita Minutes together, everybody.

Where we take a minute and do our- Actually, we've never taken them together. We've always tried to take a Vita Minute. We just keep missing each other, and Christine will be like, you want to take a Vita Minute? And I'm like, I already did my mins and subs. I can't do it. My mins and subs. Anyway, we'll do our mins and subs afterwards, and maybe during our Patreon after chat, we'll have our vitamin oh how fun for nobody but us for nobody but hey if you're

in your 30s and discovering mints and subs for the first time you can join us on our vitamin and we can all take them together also while we're at it reminder to take a sip of water right now all you thirsty thirsty little. Does iced coffee count? Sure. Say hi. Yeah. Well, we should ask. You're drinking iced coffee.

I'm drinking a tea from our Anaheim green room. Oh, how cute. Oh, I remember you took those out and then refused to give me a coconut water, but I'm over it. That's true. Okay. Here's the story. Here is the Tallman house. It is in Wisconsin.

But there's also another Tallman House in Wisconsin, so it gets confusing. Okay. There is a Lincoln Tallman House, which is not the one we're talking about today. Okay. We're talking about just good old Tallman House. And the house was built in 1982. tallman house and the house was built in 1982 and four years later alan and debbie they buy it uh as their dream house oh and i know it always starts as a dream house never good i feel like when and when i'm telling a ghost story if i start out with it was their dream home that is the equivalent to true crime she lit up every

lit up a room she lit up a room in her dream home things are about to get so bad things are about to get so upsetting because oh no nothing but high hopes over here well let me guess was bill or whatever his name is a fucking pillar of the community too he might as well have been but so far I mean he is an upstanding citizen as far as i can tell and then things just go that can't be good so they buy their dream house alan works nights at his job so debbie is often home alone at night with their two going on three kids so they have a seven-year-old son um and then they have eventually they have two daughters both of them are babies in the story the oldest is their seven-year-old son okay and i will

say i i don't know why i'm impressed i just feel like this doesn't happen very often but the tallmans to this day have done a really good job of protecting their kids identities and i couldn't find their name anywhere people have had to make up names to talk about them i that really feel i feel like it rarely happens maybe in true crime you hear about that a lot but uh but they're they were really freaked out about it and have been able to hide their identities for quite some time so i don't even know if their names are alan and debbie tallman or they just made it up i have no idea oh i'm serious i think it's got to be a fake name because how can you really like hide your kids identities if everyone

knows your names are alan and debbie tallman you know but whatever yeah i mean at least in your town they would know who the kids are yeah but anyway so the lore is that the son's name is danny which has been like openly just an arbitrary name okay and then they're the daughters are margaret and sarah again arbitrary names okay um so a few weeks after they move in everything's fine at first and then unexplainable things begin to happen and it all starts when alan brings home a bunk bed for the kids that he thrifted from a consignment shop he set it up in the basement and around this time all of the kids start getting sick for no reason oh no and they went from kids who never get sick to having weekly doctor visits each oh no they're just sick sick sick um a month later uh they're still i guess dealing with

colds and being sick and all that but the family moves the bunk bed upstairs into the girl's room um while the son's room is next door so now the bunk bed is really next to both of them all the time they're like i know what i'll fix it let's bring this haunted furniture even closer also though like that i feel like there's something already inherently dark about the fact that the thing that is haunted is like a children's bunk bed that's so true like what dark shit happened oh unless it came from like a haunted house where everything got covered in like spirit goop and everything has an attachment on it but like like a bunk bed that's for kids really makes me feel like something i didn't even think of that that makes it yeah like like a like a wine cabinet like the dibbick box it's like okay it has a storied past and some old woman put a spell on it okay but a bunk bed

you're right like that's inherently an innocent place for kids to sleep. You wouldn't think, if you walked into a room, you wouldn't look at the bunk bed and be like, that's the thing that's got to have like an attachment to it. I'd be like, I want top bunk. And then you'd be like, no, I want top bunk. You know, that's a good question. Are you a top or a bottom?

Well. it's about time we have this conversation you know nobody you never asked me before we've never talked about it but you know um in bunk bed terms very exclusively in bunk bed terms i like to be in the top bunk. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. What about you? Very exclusively in bunk bed terms.

Boys, you know, a bit of switch, you know, but like, I feel like with the, I don't know. I've always been scared of rolling. So I used to have a bunk bed as a kid, which is so ironic because I was an only child. Yeah. You can have both bunks, which is so unfair. the bottom bunk was for all my toys oh my god that's the most m thing I've ever heard but I always had a fear of rolling over and like splat on the floor you know and so I think I out of nerves I'm I'm a bottom bunker yeah I feel like I always was like I always got the top bunk inherently because i was older

and so i got first pick and it felt like the cooler option but now i'm like i have to pee in the night and like i don't want to climb down a ladder to go pee i certainly don't want to climb down a ladder and not with at any time for no no reason whatsoever but then the bunk bottom bunk you kind of have a nice little like cave so i I feel like as an adult, maybe I like the bottom better. Exclusively, once again, in bunk bed terms, we're speaking. Don't take this out of context, people. Truly. It goes both ways here.

But also like my favorite thing about a bottom bunk is that you could, I feel like everyone, it's so underrated because you could put a really big blanket or sheet underneath the mattress of the top bunk and you've got a cave like you have a whole fort yeah and so that was always my i like feeling like like also you can kick the person above you oh if i had someone to kick i bet that would have been so fun yeah i'm too bad you would go you would put your toys up there and be like i'm gonna kick them and then it would just rain toys and it would be like such so a non-problem oh wow what a life anyway let's let's keep it moving so um the bunk bed they set it up uh in their officially. And on the very first night that the bunk bed is next to them, the seven-year-old son, he wakes up to his radio on at full blast.

Not only that, but the loudest, not only is it on the loudest setting, but like a spirit box, it is rapidly going through the stations by itself. Forget it. And he can even see the dial turning itself. No! And the meter bouncing back and forth. Oh, no. And so he runs to his parents, freaking out. They blame it on faulty wiring, which is so boring of an excuse.

It also doesn't even make sense. But I guess as a parent, you just want your kids to like... You have to say something before you get to the bottom of it. I guess when you're seven, faulty wiring is a good enough excuse. But like, you don't know. Right. The house is settling. When you're older, you're like, wait a second.

Why do they always say that? What does that even mean? I never. It was always such a condescending remark to me of like, oh, well, the house is settling. Like, what does that mean? It's settling. Let it be. When it grew legs and now it's sitting back down now that we're here?

What are you talking about? Yeah, it's just like readjusting its skirts. I don't know. Yeah, maybe spiritually there really is like the house is settling, but that defeats the purpose of an explanation against spirits. So anyway, the parents say it's faulty wiring and they take the radio out of the room. it's faulty wiring and they take the radio out of the room um and around this time they also have a cat that starts acting out of character until like like hanging by the walls and freaking out and like desperate to be near people and eventually just runs away like oh no cat's like i don't even

want to be a part of this that's sad on top of that debbie's sister and mom every time they come over to the house they think it feels really weird there they're getting weird vibes and a few more weeks later alan is now painting in the basement and when he gets up to leave for a moment he leaves the paintbrush on like the pan where you like pour the paint into uh-huh and when he comes back the paintbrush is not in the pan it is in the paint bucket upside down with the handle in first ew and now they don't have a cat so you can't blame it on the cat yeah that's very poltergeisty yeah it was like so the brush the brush was the bristles were out like facing out ew that and also like what a pain in the ass to have to

clean that up granted they did have a seven-year-old son could have been that but i whatever i would still obviously first think it's faulty wiring probably right that's what i would say so uh when he went back to painting uh he was like well that was weird he went back to painting and he saw a shadow figure from the corner of his oh god and later in an interview alan even says i figured that something was strange but i still wouldn't accept that my house was haunted so he's still in denial and eventually in the basement another instance happens where a window has taken itself off of its track and is now laid down in the room. Ugh! As if someone tried to take the window apart

so they could crawl in and break in or something, but nothing was stolen. The window was just gently laid down. Ew! And apparently the window was high enough that anyone who ever needed access to it would have needed a ladder, and there was no chair or anything out.

Was the bunk bed ladder still intact or did someone take that guy? That would be interesting. A whole uninstall of a bunk bed stair just for this window trick. So eventually, because it felt like someone broke in and I think Debbie at this, wasn't even going in the basement anymore. They get a dog, um, for protection, but even he's acting really weird for no reason. And a babysitter even tells Alan and Debbie one time that when she was watching their son, she saw their rocking chair rocking by itself. Um, the son also confirms it. He's like, Oh, I saw that shit too too at seven but that was a direct quote um and alan's mother also didn't like the house on top of debbie's family alan's mom didn't like the house

and one time when she was babysitting she woke up and saw red eyes staring at her through the window and then when she like blinked and rubbed her eyes because she was like what is that the eyes were still there oh which i i don't know if i hate more or less but usually you think like in a horror movie like oh if i blink it'll go away but it was still there or it'll come closer oh shut the fuck up christine that is so scary your writer is showing um very well written, I would say. So many people on top of her ended up witnessing these red eyes looking back at them. And here's where it gets the worst to me.

Eventually, their two-year-old daughter, who I guess we're calling Margaret or something, she starts talking about a witch in her room. Oh, boy. She'd seen her hiding behind her door at night. Oh, my God. And apparently this witch had glowing red eyes, just like the ones everyone's been seeing. And she was known to casually set fires in the room at night. Oh, okay.

With her eyes or just like her hands? I i don't know does she have laser beams or she conjured i have no idea um so apparently these fires were i don't think the two-year-old said this but if i were to sum it up as an adult i would say that i think the baby was like being having some sort of like hallucinations from you know the spirit was making them see things because the fire would never actually singe or burn anything it just there they would see fires and then the fire would vanish just the kids saw the fires right just the kids okay but i don't think the kid saying like i saw a fire that was not with that i hallucinated like i just i think um it's not like she was seeing actual fires that were causing damage.

Right. I got you. It just that's how she explained what she saw. Yes. OK. And so the daughter would talk about this witch all the time. And after a month, Debbie still hadn't even told the son or really mentioned it to her husband because she didn't want to scare anybody. mention it to her husband because she didn't want to scare anybody until one night when her son approaches her and says i've been seeing an old woman by my door at night who glows like fire

okay now we're talking i hope that's your uh your response if any one ever approaches you with this i'll say look who's talking. It's like, now we're cooking. Things are cooking. Now cooking with gas. Did your stepdad teach you that? Yeah, I don't know what's happening to me right now. That was a full-blown catchphrase right there. It must be this hoodie. So after he's confirmed this witch, the house always starts showing signs of activity all the time. Doors and closing they're seeing lights floating around there are orbs they're hearing voices calling out their names at night and the kids keep seeing this witch may or may not be who may or may not be setting things on fire the older daughter also begins having an imaginary friend during the day

i was waiting for this i was like one of them's gonna have an imaginary friend for sure and she lit up a room everybody this is a pillar it's a whole thing and soon she starts having nightmares after this imaginary friend starts showing up and now the kids are completely unable to sleep at night they're you know terrified debbie also starts having nightmares and she starts seeing things moving around the house like she sees like the garage door opening by itself and closing by itself um her and alan start fighting more and alan later attributes that to the entity in the house and alan even starts sleeping in the kids room so that they

could sleep through the night and really i'd be like room so that they could sleep through the night. And really, I'd be like, maybe so I could also sleep through the night. For sure. Because I'm like, buddy system. And eventually the family is so fed up, they go to their pastor named Wayne Dobritz. Why are pastors always named Wayne? It's always a name that I don't hear often anymore. Right? I don't know.

When I think of a priest i think of like josiah or isaiah or david or like bill i feel like they're always father bill oh yeah pastor dan yeah something like that um yeah yeah it's always either incredibly biblical or like just like your dad's white bread yeah like reverend gary okay um and so they go to pastor wayne you're right this time christine yes when he goes to check out the house he says immediately that it feels evil which i am hesitant about because i feel like if you're a pastor i feel like i don't know the what we find out later is that he said the way to correct this would probably be going to church more often. It just feels a little like, I don't know.

It's so weird. Everyone in town was like, wow, he called my house evil too. Yeah, exactly. It's a little performative. Church attendance is down lately. Yeah, exactly. He's like, ooh, this house has is probably brand new i just sense demons everywhere you must just like has a lighter in his pocket because he's been lighting fires to

try and he's been pushing the windows out it's all a big fluke from wayne and so anyway he i think he's just trying to turn people closer to jesus and also this was mid satanic panic so yes i am hesitant about the pastor because he also pretty much didn't do anything for them. Like he said, like, well, there's really nothing I can do but go to church more often. So just felt like his heart wasn't in it. Yeah. Seriously. Commit a little harder, guy.

Yeah. And then the family had to live like this for another seven months, even though the pastor like was free. Thanks a lot, bud. So a week before Christmasmas alan has had enough he flips out and he yells at the spirits which if we've ever seen anything from bagel bites enticing them is uh or antagonizing them is not the uh yeah this is not gonna end well for you bud so he says if you want a fight, fight with me. Oh, no. So after this, there's actually peace for like three weeks in the house.

And they have they've been bamboozled. And so thinking everything's going to say they love these ghosts. They love to lull you into a false sense of security. You know, I wonder if it's because a time is so different for them that they're like, we've got eternity. Three weeks is right. We'll let they're like, we've got eternity. Three weeks is nothing. We'll let you sit with this and think you won. Oh, that's just cruel.

Like, what do you think three weeks is in eternity time? Like a blink? Probably a fucking millisecond. Yeah. It's one of the reasons that I, it's one of my personal issues when, with like investigating, because I feel like if we say like, do do something right now like what does right now mean to them like great point like oh i never thought of that what if we leave and then all of a sudden they start answering all our questions yeah like what if they're like hang on let me like use the bathroom or something and it takes like 30 seconds for them to respond but 30 seconds versus like five well i'm saying what if they're 40

40 days on their side to use the bathroom is a little known fact about ghosts well what if they're like their version of one second is like yeah like a year and so when we see things for no reason it's because they're responding to something from forever ago yeah and what if that's like the times that they even wanted to respond because like they've got nothing going on like what it what does it mean to them to even respond to us if they're not interested and that's so deep i mean that's me i should have known deep like an ocean over here that's right so uh three weeks passed maybe for them it was like the blink of an eye. It was one pee break.

One pee break. And on January 7th at 2 in the morning, Alan is coming home from a shift at work. And while pulling into the driveway and getting out of his car, he hears voices that he knew by now as the spirits of the house because he had heard from them whenever they call his name at night. Okay. So he already knows what they sound like oh yeah which is on its own just like just disgusting that's why you know it's too far yeah they start calling his name and the weird thing is it's outside now it's always been in the house but now outside he's hearing his name and it's 2 a.m he's by himself the voices get

louder and louder until eventually it feels like they've like combined with the wind and it's like a howling calling out his name and then he hears come here and he freaks out start running he starts running around the house looking for whoever is making this voice he thinks maybe someone's throwing their voice or playing a trick on him running around the house and then all of a sudden the voice and the howling stop okay and he just stands there still and eventually he makes his way to the front door and when he hears the voice again he hears come here he looks around again until he moves his gaze to the garage and it's engulfed in flames he runs inside to find a fire extinguisher put his stuff down and comes sprinting back out and the garage is totally fine

oh my god now they're just gaslighting him literally literally with literal gasoline yeah and uh and now i guess he's also seeing the fires like his kids have been seeing, but now it's on his home. He goes back inside after being like probably really jarred by all that. He goes back inside and he tries to clean up the stuff that he dropped in the middle of his frenzy. And he goes down to grab his lunchbox. And when he grabs it, he feels an invisible hand violently smack it away from him and the lunchbox goes across the room. Hey!

Not knowing what to do, Alan just heads upstairs and tries to get some sleep in his daughter's room. Aw. I'd be like, get out, Dad. I know. They're clearly following you. Yeah, it's like, you said you wanted a fight, so you're on your own right now. Yeah, leave me out of it.

Well, so he's laying on the floor trying to like just breathe through whatever happened and all of a sudden a strange fog rolls in from the hall and the fog looks like smoke oh no and alan watches the smoke fill the room and soon he hears the voice again and the voice says you're dead oh jesus alan starts feeling like he can't breathe he's freaking out he runs over to his wife and just by how scared he looks she calls the pastor again and goes hey it's been a full seven months um just to update you we're freaking out wayne how are you Wayne, how are you? Hey, girl. How's the kids? How's the wife? WD, what's cracking?

And so Alan, after this, I guess he said go to church, and that was all he had to offer because we don't hear from him again. And Alan just tries to go back to sleep, but it becomes a constant now that he starts having nightmares of coming home and finding his family violently murdered or down the floor. Oh, no. And he's starting to believe that this entity would actually hurt them. Which, like, how did you I would have already pieced that together, I think. But OK, I'm glad he's caught up. And he's scared to leave his family alone in the house. Fair enough.

So he starts asking relatives to stay with them while he's working at night because he just feels so guilty that he's not there. Oh, geez. He starts asking his relatives who happen to be skeptical of ghosts. So that way, like, they wouldn't say no to coming to the house. OK, that's nice. I guess they're useful for something. Good plan. And one night before Alan got home,

the relative, I heard from one source, it was a nephew, I don't know how true that is, but the relative was in the bedroom with the kids when even they saw the fog roll in and they saw the witch appear. This relative runs out of the room screaming, Debbie finds him and basically says, you know know what if even you're seeing this fuck it i don't want to be here anymore and starts packing her bags that night i don't blame her and the family never went back to the house oh my gosh

that's it so putting the timeline together they assume that it was the bunk bed that had an attachment because that was really the beginning of all this but they don't know for sure but they're they've what if it's not and the bunk bed's like what i just showed up the wrong day wrong place wrong time it's like i was already like in a secondary like a secondhand store like i thought this was gonna be my next big break and well it's like paddington bear he was just finally getting a home yeah and so uh they're they're pretty convinced it was the bunk bed just adding up the story and to be clear so am i just saying perfect so because they were so convinced that it was the bunk bed they um got it out of the house and they brought to a private

junkyard and then personally watched it be demolished and buried on site they were like buried okay wow they were like we don't want to we want to know this is never coming back to our house oh my god and then a month later the house was up for sale and usually it doesn't move that fast but i guess there's some exceptions and whoever they were working with saw that they were desperate to get out of this house and so they ended up getting it out getting out within a month and oh my god because of the quickness of their move uh rumors started spreading very quickly around the community about how haunted this place was um the neighbors were calling it wisconsin's amityville they were saying that the walls were bleeding they said there was a portal

to portal to hell in there and then a different another um another source had a different thing where it said the wisconsin's amityville the walls bled portal to hell but on top of all that another rumor that the source says is that people start spreading the rumors that the family had a ghost-powered snowblower that would clean the driveway by itself what the fuck which what switch is so i don't know that just goes to show you how wild a game of telephone can be we're like i mean yeah it's like it's gotten that far where we're like talking about like equipment like garage tools being haunted and like doing housework for you it's like some beauty and the beast shit

they're just like coming alive and singing it really is but also like a ghost powered snowblower that cleans the driveway for you that sounds like a snowblower i want so like that wouldn't be the thing i ran away from i wouldn't leave my house topic with that one yeah exactly i'm like the portal to hell i can understand why someone would flee in the middle of the night but like having yard work done for you that's i'm staying yeah i wish so because it was becoming the local haunted house local hooligans began exploring the house um and they were hooligans i know they were causing all sorts of um tomfoolery they were rabble rousing no it goes you don't say they um i thought it couldn't get worse not the rabble rousers

so they were trespassing all the time they were climbing over fences and showing up drunk and the police had to get involved for disorderly conduct they were snow blowing the driveway oh that's where that rumor came from christine, I got to be honest. You really are on another level today with your humor. Oh, well, I think I'm just melting my brain in this giant hoodie, but thank you so much. You really started with a low energy, and all of a sudden I feel like I'm at flappers watching you headline. At flappers. This is what I would wear also to flappers. you're just this is what i would wear also to flappers okay so uh these rabble rousers they were also threatening arson on the house because they were

like if it's that haunted we want to burn it to the ground so then the police were like oh shit like this is really bad and people are hearing rumors and then freaking out not actually knowing the whole story so they're actually weirdly desperate for the Tallmans to make a statement about the house. But the Tallmans are just so scared of this house that they're actively avoiding media. They don't want it to look like they're doing this for press. They don't want it to look like they're doing this. And they were trying to protect their kids' identities, right? Yeah.

So they're avoiding the press and the cops are like please put out a statement because people are you know mob mentality it's getting really bad by you not saying anything it's like weirdly adding fuel to this yeah so um the police asked them to do an interview and hopefully their answers will calm things down so the gossip isn't so bad and along with the interview the press even agree that they're going to hide the kids names and then they will i don't know how this works i this feels backwards to me but i guess this is a good thing that the cops were willing to release the address of the house because well they already weren't living there so it's not like anyone was going to be in danger but also for so many people who are

threatening arson it was like at least if you're going to do it, like, don't accidentally burn down an actual family's home where, like, people are going to be in the house. Oh, like the wrong house. Yeah. Yeah. So they had to release the address. So if something bad happened, at least it'd be at the right place. If you're going to burn it down, here's the address. If you're going to burn it down, here's the address.

Or if you're going to be one of those people who's breaking in and exploring, at least you're not literally breaking into somebody's house. Fair point. Fair point. So anyway, they make all these terms and they agree that they're going to put out one real statement. And it's with the United Press, who publishes an article called Haunted to be sold bunk beds buried in landfill. And in, in the article, Debbie says that they had the beds buried because, uh,

they didn't want the house sitting on top of its ashes. There's like, I guess they were like, we were going to burn it anyway, but like if we burnt it here, then it might still be connected to the property. So let's put it somewhere else. Okay.

That's fair. So as for the skeptics to this story the main explanations people come up with for why this wasn't a ghost and what was really going on a lot of people say that the family was hallucinating from a gas leak because uh around this time a local power company had replaced faulty gas connections in houses nearby oh and so but it wasn't on their house so it wasn't like a direct hit to a gas leak or anything that they would have been breathing in but a lot of people say like oh they must have had they must have just been really sensitive as a family to a gas leak nearby and they were hallucinating another thing that skeptics say is that it was black molds that the kids were breathing in in the house and they were hallucinating another thing that skeptics say is that it was black mold that

the kids were breathing it in the house and that's why they were getting sick before the hauntings began that was my first gut instinct when you first said they all moved in and the kids started getting sick i was like i've been there that sounds like mold christina's actually had to deal with a black mold like many times throughout my life in a weird weirdly but uh you've been hospitalized for black mold i was yeah it's really dangerous and so are gas leaks i mean there's an episode of um kindred spirits you know how much i love that show um with my with my boy chip coffee and uh there was an episode and i'm not going to spoil which one so don't worry but there was an episode where it actually was a gas leak. Oh, wow. They went to investigate and it turns out I think it was that

show. Maybe it was a different ghost show. But anyway, I remember watching it going, there's something there's a gas leak in this house. And I was like, they're going to pretend it's a ghost and all this. And by the end, like they literally found out it was carbon monoxide. Oh, wow. Yeah. Just heads up, folks. Just get yourself a carbon monoxide protector or detector um oh please do yeah yeah yeah um and i know a lot of in virginia it is one of the states where it is not mandated that you have to have really oxide i think in california it's like is in california in certain states it's already like immediately comes in a built house. But in other places, you have to go buy your own detector. Right.

It's worth doing. Check where you live and make sure you have one with you. Yeah. So other skeptics say black mold since the kids were getting sick. But the kids' symptoms, other than getting sick when they first moved in, didn't match mold toxicity. And black mold isn't said to lead to hallucinations. Right, I was going to say, it only explains part of it. Yeah, it only explains the kids getting sick at first.

Yeah. And then, fun fact, Unsolved Mysteries did an episode on the Tallmans, who also, during this round of interviews, they asked to be portrayed by actors and to hide their kids' identities. And the episode was actually filmed in the house. Oh, cool.

But I guess it's because they didn't live there anymore. So they were like, all right, yeah, you can film it. And it hadn't been burned down yet by some hooligans. Yeah. Well, so I guess the owners of the house at the time they filmed gave them permission and also said that they never had any issues with the house. So some people could say, oh, well, I guess the house isn't haunted. But other people could say, well, I guess the bunk bed being burned away, it's a confirmation that the bunk beds were the culprit all along. Or it was the family that was haunted or yeah.

Yeah. So Debbie has been quoted saying, I think it's going to be a long time before things get back to normal. I still can't sit at home and not be afraid of the dark. No, that's sad. And when asked if they thought the entity could follow them elsewhere, Debbie said, I never thought this could happen the first time. So I don't know if this is the end of the story. Oh, that's got to be scary. That is the Tallman house. That was a great story em thank you good job thanks like a classic campfire story i love it i i feel like there were some spooky lefts and rights you know ups and ups and downs i mean the haunted bunk bed like

i don't know i mean i'm all for buying second hand but like i didn't know you could buy a second or a haunted bunk bed oh yeah it just i think reminds you that any item could have an attachment because you really i would really think it has to be a chachka or like a like or a book or something like something small that like was important in a certain way and like maybe was on a shelf and like witnessed something but like just a fucking bed i don't know you seem pretty opposed to my estate sale couch i bought i still i stand by that um also didn't aren't your stairs from an estate sale or something no my stairs are from a church that got torn down in the early 1900s so i never know if when something has a connection to a church if that makes it better

or worse doesn't it feel like it's more haunted even though theoretically you're like well i guess if it was in a sacred space yeah it's um i feel like it should technically be safe right safer but i also feel like i don't know i feel like it's creepier about it being from a church yeah something makes it really dark and i don't know what i don't know maybe it's christianity who's to say i'm like how organized was this church that these stairs came from i'm gonna call wayne and ask what he thinks um yeah he's probably gonna be like go to church uh he's be like, you're a dirty sinner is the real answer to all this.

I mean, he's not wrong. Okay, I have a story for you today. This is the story of the unfortunately, the murder of Katie Poyer. Okay, I got to get my gargs out. Get the gargs. Got my gargs. Alright, I'm ready to

draw out myself draw myself a little map with these guys. Okay, excellent. Keep up with you. Okay, Katie Poiter? Poier. Poier, okay. So it's spelled P-O-I-R-I-E-R, and I've heard a few things, but the Forensic Files episode called them the Poyers, and they were interviewed in that episode. So I like to think that's how you say their name.

But I've heard Poirier. I don't know. You've been interviewed as Christine Schaefer quite a few times. I've been interviewed by a lot of things. So, yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. But I'm going to go with Poyer now and just hope that's correct. Okay.

So Katie was born February 28,, 1980 in Duluth, Minnesota. And she was born to parents, Pam and Steve Poyer. She also had an older brother named Patrick. And Katie was the baby of the family. So everybody in her family adored her. She was a friend to everyone. Hate to say it, lit up a up a room uh she i know just already bad start she had an adventurous edge she loved sports like water skiing very active um this detail i'm about to say always like gets me a little this kind of a detail always gets me a little choked up because it's so specific her mom remembers that she was obsessed with french fries dipped in ranch and like just it's just hearing that it's just so specific that it like breaks your heart it's like what have you

know it's just a a deeper twist of a knife yeah it just feels like such a quaint memory to have um her mom said she was just a peanut but she she eats like a horse. So she loved her french fries and ranch. She had placed first runner up in a local pageant in town, and she dedicated her time to family, friends, and she had two dogs named Goldie and Riley that she loved. She graduated Barnum High School on the honor roll, and she went on to study law enforcement at Fond du Lac Community College. on the honor roll, and she went on to study law enforcement at Fond du Lac Community College. So around this time, she fell in love with a local boy named Mark Johnson, and they got engaged, and they decided once Katie graduated, they were going to move to Montana. So on May 26, 1999, Katie was working at her gas station job in Moose Lake, Minnesota, and it was Memorial Day weekend. So things were pretty busy. And this being like a small town gas station, it wasn't

usually busy, but you know, it's a holiday weekend. People are stopping in for beer, cigarettes, what have you. So Katie worked the late shift. So she was often the only employee in the gas station well after midnight, dealing with whatever customers came in on her own. The gas station itself was located just off the freeway that passed by town, so on such a busy holiday weekend, there was a constant stream of travelers passing through for gas, snacks, bathroom breaks. It was a little after midnight when police received a strange report. It was a little after midnight when police received a strange report. Someone called in from the gas station and said, hey, I'm here. The lights are on and the store is open and there are customers here, but there is no attendant. There's no employee to be found.

Oh, crap. OK. Yeah. So the caller had looked around the entire gas station, found no sign of any employee being there and were obviously worried something was wrong. And this this good citizen, this concerned citizen called police and said, you know, I don't want somebody to just start looting this store because nobody's here to keep an eye on it. Right. Well, maybe I mean, I could see myself not jumping to a true crime conclusion and just thinking like, oh, this person said, like like fuck working here and just like kind of bounce it's a holiday weekend maybe you wanted to get off early yeah yeah it could be any i my first thought might not be this guy was kidnapped or

you know yeah something like that yeah so you know it's so funny and i was gonna actually ask you about this like where you would stand because uh people it's like small town people were being uh so conscientious and like talk about concerned citizens when police arrived there were uh notes on the counter where people wrote what they had purchased and had left cash on the counter to be like this is for my snickers bar well that's precious um what what small town is this again uh moose lake minnesota well also the midwest i mean yeah also the middle okay you you nailed it yeah that's for sure okay my question was gonna be like would what would you do if people were like well there's nobody here um I'm too afraid of security cameras,

but if I knew I wasn't being watched, I would absolutely steal it. You'd just take it? Yeah. I think I would leave a bill, but also part of me would think, well, someone else is just going to take my money off the counter. Oh, yeah.

I wouldn't even, I think I would, it depends if it were like a candy bar. Again, assuming that like the security cameras just don't exist if you're a candy bar i'm just gonna take it if it were like more than like if it were like 10 bucks or more i would feel too guilty and i would maybe leave a tenner or something yeah i think i'd leave a bill especially if there were other people there because i'm like i don't want to be the only asshole who's not paying for my stuff i uh we have a place still in my hometown where they have a tab list where like you can walk in and order whatever you want and like put it on my

tab if you don't have money at the time you just say i'll put it on my tab and then they just put your name on the whiteboard and then they have a tally mark system of like how many times you've come in since you've owed money and if you come in like five times and still haven't paid your debt, then you're blacklisted from the restaurant. OK, I mean, that's fair, right? Five times. Like, come on. Especially because it's like it's a hot dog place. Like it's like three bucks. Like, yeah, like if you're going to come in for five hot dogs, you should at least pay for one of them. OK, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Oh, boy.

So someone had called the police. The police show up. There's like all these notes with people being like, I bought my Marlboros. Here's 10 bucks, whatever. And weirdly enough, the police chief had actually been at the gas station only an hour earlier, like as a customer. So he's like, that's odd because Katie was here before working an hour ago. That works really well for him, though, because he can like write his own notes out of like pinpoint where she was. Yeah. Like an hour ago, she was there. I saw her with my own eyes. Exactly. So he knew she had been there. So he's like, well, this is

really strange. She shouldn't just be vanishing, you know, during her shift. So customers told the officer that they had searched and waited for 20 minutes, thinking at first maybe she was in the bathroom. And then they were worried maybe she was hurt or had a health emergency. But they just, you know, there was no trace of her. So most of them left. And then that one guy called police. So the police chief was already on red alert. He he actually knew Katie. I mean, again, this is a small town. So he knew her and she's studying law enforcement at the local college. So to him, he's like, this is odd and is not in her character.

There's no way she would just leave the place like open and abandoned like this. So pretty immediately they start looking for clues. And they saw the last purchase logged in the register was at 11.20 p.m. And that was about an hour before this call came in. There was no sign of a struggle in the store. Everything was exactly where it should be. So investigators, you called it already, turned to the four surveillance cameras in the store. And this is when they contacted the manager to access the footage. And now we have to remember this is 1999. So the cameras, I mean, surprising that there are even cameras at all in a small town convenience store, but even so they're going to be grainy and not super clear. So

it was difficult to make out any details, but they could see that Katie was indeed alone behind the counter serving customers as they came and went. Also, sometimes I think about this, like if I were in a position of watching, of knowing something had happened to someone and watching back the footage like that. Yeah. Like how your heart would be pounding, like waiting for something to happen on the screen. Because you know it's coming. Yeah something bad must happen i mean so i mean it's like a real a real horror movie you know it's gonna come yeah like a jump scare but for real so it was 11 30 p.m that a man came in and he started walking around the shelves several times in circles before approaching katie they had a conversation and

then he left the store and moments later he walked back inside police watched in horror as his grainy figure grabbed katie and forced her out of the door into the parking lot and out of view of the cameras she had basically been kidnapped in plain view in the short break between other customers. So the cameras showed that only minutes after this man had dragged her out of the gas station, more customers arrived. So the timing was just so terrible. Immediately, police contacted the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the entire state mobilized because the window to find and rescue Katie was dismally short. Apparently, according to an officer on the case, in seemingly spontaneous,

opportunistic abductions like this one, abductors are not known to keep their victims alive for very long because either they panic or they're like well this they don't have like a long drawn out process like plan for for this victim it's sort of like they got through step one and forgot step two yes yes it's like spur of the moment and now what and of course usually that now what turns into like the worst possible case scenario. So the rescue effort needed as many people as possible to search the area and find Katie before it was too late. Police were watching this footage over and over, trying to get any information they could. They were trying to get a picture of her abductor's face so they could identify him. They could tell he was white and wearing dark pants and a dark t-shirt, but there was like no other identifying details they could make out.

They couldn't even determine his age from this video. So like I said, it was 1999. Video software wasn't really like super cutting edge. And if it was, it wasn't, you know, in local small town police stations. so police took the footage to a place where they did have video software and that was a nearby casino oh god okay you can imagine a casino they want to have they know all about security they want to watch everybody's face very closely so they use their advanced surveillance technology to enhance the video, which is like my favorite terminology when people in a movie or like a cliche like hacker thing. They're like enhance. Oh, you know, you know, my favorite.

I'm in the mainframe. I'm in the mainframe. Exactly. When I when I used to work at my last job, my boss would often get locked out of her computer. And every time she figured it back out, she'd go, oh, I'm in the mainframe. Don't worry, everybody. We can stop panicking. Yeah. Yeah. So they're, quote unquote, enhancing the video, whatever that means. They're in the mainframe. They're in the mainframe. Actually, they're not because they

were not able to enhance it enough to get in the mainframe and shed light on the abductor's identity. Okay, so it was kind of a bust. Well, sort of, because even though they weren't able to identify more details about him, they could see that the man had wrapped some sort of cord around Katie's neck, which is how he took control and forced her out of the store. So they've just added another horrific detail to what they know about this abduction. I just can't imagine being her parents. I know. I mean, it's like, do you want more details or do you not want more details?

I know it's almost like this is helpful in the case, but it just makes everything so much worse for the family. Everything you just played in your head as a worst case scenario now has a worse detail to it. Yeah. And it's not just like your imagination. Like, you know, that actually happened, which just makes it so much worse. And speaking of Katie's family, at this point, police reach out and tell her tell them what's going on. Patrick, Katie's 21 year old brother, woke up in his basement bedroom to his mom

screaming, someone has her. Oh my God. And obviously at first he's totally shaken. He doesn't know what this means. He asked what she was saying and his dad came in and explained to him that Katie had been kidnapped. And the way he described it was that he felt completely numb and for him, everything went quiet. Meanwhile, his mother Pam was inconsolable. She was screaming and crying, trying to make sense of the tragedy unfolding while they were just helpless at home. And Patrick, the brother, decided he was going to go help out the search efforts. So, I mean, I can understand that for sure. He said, I needed to find my sister. I'm going to bring her home. So I can definitely understand that for sure he said I needed to find my sister I'm going to bring her

home so I can definitely understand that inclination to like just go do something when you feel like helpless you know busy hands or yeah yeah and to feel like maybe you'll get closer to an answer so the family watched the surveillance footage sure they would recognize the abductor in such a small community. But when they saw it, they were surprised to realize, like, no, they had no idea who this could be. Well, I always I feel like whenever it's a small town thing, like you would have to be so bold as a member of that small community to think you know. Yeah, exactly. I would almost assume that in a small town crime, it's going to be an outsider just kind of like rolling through the city. You hope it's a small town person so you could recognize them.

You at least know who they are. Yeah. I don't know if you're ever lucky enough for that to be the case, though. So as night turned into day, Katie's family made media appearances pleading with Katie's kidnapper to let Katie come home. Statewide searches scoured the rural countryside all the way to the cities, farms, roadside ditches, basically anywhere where they might have found Katie abandoned. Many friends and family and some neighbors were staying over at the Poyer's home, and there were so many of them that Patrick remembers sleeping on the kitchen floor some nights because the house was just chock-a-block full of people trying to help with the search. Police kept reaching out to

the community for any clues about who the abductor might be. And meanwhile, next door to the gas station, there was a Subway sandwich shop and a young woman named Kathy had been closing up for the night when a suspicious man came in who was clearly drunk. She told him she was closing and he left. So Kathy poked her head into the gas station to let Katie know she was leaving, but as she walked away, the drunk man from before stopped her on the sidewalk. He asked her, are you done for the evening? She was seriously weirded out and she made a quick getaway. Kathy told police the man she encountered was in his mid-40s with graying hair.

But when she looked at the surveillance footage, it was so grainy that she couldn't tell if it was the man she'd encountered. But this had taken place on the night of Katie's abduction. So this was like a humongous clue. Oh, OK. night of Katie's abduction. So this was like a humongous clue. Okay. She didn't know what he looked like or she knew what he looked like, but she couldn't identify him from the video footage, but she could give a detailed description of the man's truck. So not only did she remember it was a black Ford F-150 extended cab with custom paint on the side she had even somehow remembered four out of the six digits on the license plate oh shit okay go kathy i know like nailing it nailing it she said

it coincidentally had the same first three numbers as the local area code so she she could remember that and then she remembered it ended with a y and she like took note of that because she said this guy was being so weird so this is another like good for her yeah see something say something she said he drove away and she wrote down what she could remember of the license plate and like probably thinking oh i'm probably overreacting and then a few days later you're like oh, oh, shit. Yeah, this might actually be useful. And it really was. So investigators were stunned that she had brought all this information to them. But, you know, like I said, Kathy had been on high alert because this guy was acting super weird and putting her on edge. So she was just watching him really closely. So she was just watching him really closely. The unfortunate thing was once they looked through all of the license plates, they found that hundreds of trucks in the state matched the first few digits of the license plate.

So it would be a while for them to comb through all of the potential suspects. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So police released a composite sketch of what they could kind of make out from the footage and from what Kathy described, along with details about the truck. And tips came pouring in, but there was one in particular that seemed to stick out. So there was a man whose appearance seemed to match the composite. He was also a convicted sex offender. And in questioning, he insisted that he wasn't involved, but he did not have a provable alibi. So when they searched his home, police found rope and cord in the garbage, which they thought maybe was what he had used to, you know, wrap around Katie's neck to leave her out of the gas station. So FBI agents escorted the suspect to the crime scene where they posed him in the same positions as the crime, like from what they had on the camera,

which I think is pretty smart because you can't necessarily make out the face, but if you can like pose to match up the body type. Honestly, I'm so honestly just shocked and grateful that they're trying anything. Like, yeah. Yeah. Like if it means posing him like Gumby to like do whatever you need to do,

then do it. Like, absolutely. I would be so grateful that, you know, they were working with me. They're at least doing like kind of thinking outside of the box. Yeah. But guess what?

So in the footage where they brought the suspect to the crime scene and filmed him in these different positions, they could see the man's big spider web tattoo on his arm. But when they went back to the original footage, the suspect did not have any tattoo there. him in these different positions, they could see the man's big spiderweb tattoo on his arm. But when they went back to the original footage, the suspect did not have any tattoo there. Oh, shit. Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. They were like, well, that's not our guy. But I'm glad they at least had something to base it off of, you know? Yeah, yeah. I really thought there was going to be a clean cut. I know. It feels like it was going to be very easy, but alas. So they ruled him out as a suspect.

And next, police shifted their focus to a man named Donald Blom, who lived in Richfield, which was two hours away from the store where Katie worked. And even though he lived two hours away, he did own a hunting lodge near the gas station. Okay. He was also next on their list as an owner of one of the many trucks that matched Kathy's description. So it was a simple formality. They went to his house. They had a long list.

So they were just checking off everybody on the list. A local officer went to Donald's house where they met and spoke to his wife. She told the officer that they no longer owned that truck and that when they had owned it it was white so the officers were like well damn it and they crossed the bloms off their list well shit well up next next family so patrick said this is uh the brother patrick said he didn't lose hope um and it wasn't in the family's blood to give up. But after they ruled out the Bloms, there were really no leads left. And at this point, Katie had been missing for a week. So it's sort of like hope that they would find her alive

is still, is dwindling at this point. Yeah. Investigators turned once again to the footage and it was like so maddening to watch the abductor steal Katie again and again without just being able to clear the footage and enhance it enough so that they could see and also i imagine this was the 90s right so like i imagine just think of how pixelated that footage was they just could not clear it up enough

to see who it was so they were like screw the casino we're gonna reach out to nasa uh yeah wow i really this police force is on it they're not fucking around they're like if we can't figure it out we're calling the scientists in get the astronauts over here the astronauts so they literally contact nasa who were developing technology to enhance images taken in space at long distances and it was so fascinating in the forensic files episode because they talked about how they did it um the the guy who who was working on this new technology basically i guess he was saying a video foot or video a shot from a video is made up of two different layers i don't know forget it why am i trying to explain it basically he said he was able to layer the footage on top

of it on top of each other and that would clear the lines in the footage i don't know it made sense when i watched it on forensic files i'm not teaching it well but just know that it was very fascinating. All I have to know is the astronauts knew what they were doing. Thank God. If someone's going to know what they're doing, I would hope it's an astronaut. Can you imagine an astronaut not knowing what they're doing? That's the worst book of Amelia Bedelia I've ever heard. Let's go to space with the astronaut that doesn't know how to fly us home. They told me to draw the curtains, so I drew some curtains on the rocket ship. So more specifically, their new technology was invented to focus blurry photos of the sun taken by satellite.

And the goal was to de-blur the images as best as possible. possible. But when the NASA scientist saw the video, he said his heart sank because the video was so blurry that he was like, this is going to be a doozy to try and solve. But he was very determined. And like I said, he started layering images on top of each other to create a more focused image instead of kind of the blurry effect. And the only thing he could finally reconstruct was that the suspect has blonde hair and he was wearing a new york yankees baseball jersey with the number 23 on the back oh that feels like a lot of information lead yeah they couldn't get a clear photo of his face but at least they knew you know his hair color and what he was wearing. So it was their only lead and they couldn't bring any more

details out of the blurry footage. So police went really, I mean, I know they've already done several random routes, taken several random routes, but they take another random route. Okay. It seems to be working. They're getting somewhere. They're going places, you know, at the very least. So they enlist minnesota twins baseball player paul molitor to garner media attention and he was number 23 oh no oh no no oh shit i really sorry i absolutely interrupted you and jumped in but for a second i was like they reached out to number 23 and had him put out a statement crazy no but that is a very interesting thought. The jersey that he was wearing was a Yankees jersey. Yankees.

Yeah. But they had this Minnesota Twins player make a statement on the news, and he was actually from St. Paul. And so he described, he basically made a PSA, a public service announcement, describing the suspect and his Yankees jersey which apparently was pretty rare this jersey and that night of his PSA a huge tip came in oh shit would basically crack the case so this interestingly enough was the

1960th lead oh my god just to give some perspective of like how many you know are coming in but honestly if something were to happen to somebody i love i'd be so grateful there were almost two thousand that after a thousand they're still taking yeah yeah oh my god so the call that came in was from a man who worked at a veteran's home, and he called in to report his co-worker, a guy named Donald Hutchinson, who matched the composite sketch, had recently stopped driving his black truck and didn't come to work on the day of Katie's abduction. He even recognized the Yankees jersey with 23 on it,

mentioned in the suspect's description, and said his co-worker wore that jersey occasionally. In addition to having stopped driving his black truck in the days following Katie's disappearance, he had also shown some other odd behavior. He had cut and dyed his hair to drastically change his, I wrote his opinion, that's not what I meant, his appearance, and he had since quit his job with no notice. his appearance and he had since quit his job with no notice so they're like okay this is very shady behavior let's look into it this guy donald hutchinson had been also convicted of sexual assault and even kidnapping and had served prison time for his crimes so now they're looking like

or they're thinking this is pretty good good suspect yeah he had changed his legal name several times and they found out that he had recently changed his alias once again to donald blom the guy they ruled out earlier interesting interesting interesting i was gonna say earlier i was like interesting that that was another donald yep you it. I saw you make a face. You caught it. You did. I was like, Blom, who would pick that last name? If you're going to change your name, why not change the name Donald?

Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Donald's wife had lied. Donald Blom still owned the black pickup truck with the custom paint and the license plate that matched Kathy's statement. In fact, that exact truck was in the Blom's garage back in Richfield. And at this point, they knew Donald had to be their suspect, but they could not find him. When they asked around, they found out he was on, quote, vacation 200 miles away with his wife and children.

Interesting. So his wife seems to know that something's, like his wife is covering for him. She's lying. Right. On his behalf. Okay. For whatever reason. So police track him down and Donald insisted he had sold his truck several months ago.

But what he didn't know is that police had already taken it in. Oh my God. Like they found it, took it in. And he's like, no, I don't have that truck anymore. And they in like from my god like they found it took it in and there he's like no i don't have that truck anymore and they're like yeah i mean you're right we do right yeah so they took it but donald did himself in with the following response he said to police i'm not the guy i wasn't involved in katie's abduction the problem was they hadn't said the name katie hadn't told him it it was Katie's abduction that they were. And to be fair, you know, it was on the news and stuff.

So like it's possible he just assumed. But it's a pretty bold statement to make when you're not even sure why they're asking about your truck. Like it's just a little too on the nose. Yeah. ruck. Like it's just, it's just a little too on the nose. Yeah. So even though he probably could have like lied and said, oh, well, I just saw it on the news. And I assumed he realized that he had slipped up and he basically, yeah, he basically like realized he incriminated himself and like almost immediately gave in. So he stood in a suspect lineup where Kathy, the woman from the subway immediately identified him as a man, the creep who she'd encountered the night of Katie's abduction.

So police searched Donald's trailer, his hunting lodge near the crime scene, certain that Katie would be inside. But there was no sign of her or her body. The trailer, however, was on 20 acres of land. So they had a lot of ground to cover and while they were covering this ground they find an enormous fire pit oh fuck yeah and this fire pit is full of soot from a recent bonfire so they scour the pit where they start finding bone fragments oh my god and even deeper in the em where they start finding bone fragments. Oh, my God. And even deeper in the embers, they find a human tooth.

So, unfortunately, the fire had charred all the DNA off the bones, which I did not know was a thing. I didn't think that was a thing either. I thought you could just extract it if you had anything. Me too, but I guess not. Which meant the FBI couldn't match it to Katie's DNA to affirm her identity. But there was a molar that they found in the fire with a filler in it, like a filling. Okay. And this is so wild.

Okay. So it was this very specialized filling material containing a high level of zirconium that hadn't yet hit the mass market. But a local dentist said she'd only used it for one filler so far and it was on Katie Poyer. Shut up. I know. And now it makes sense why this was on Forensic Files. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this dentist is like, oh, I got this filling material

from like a convention and it was like brand new on the market, basically not widely used. And she had used it only once on Katie. So now they're thinking, well, that's a great match. Yeah, ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding ding ding so they confront donald with this evidence and he immediately crumbles confesses to the crime and when they ask him you know how it happened he tells investigators that he abducted katie drove her to his property and strangled her to death but what's maddening to the police and of, the family is that he refuses to give a motive. He just says he did it and says, I don't know why. And just felt like like not just felt like it.

Not not. He didn't say he had raped her. He didn't say he just said he took her and then killed her. And so they can't get any more answers than that. That's there's i mean we say it a million times there's no like good way for these stories to end but it's there's just something additionally evil about like well i wanted to so i did like it's very refusing any closure any sort of yeah like israel keys of like you were you were nearby you were just there oh my god yeah yeah there's something so creepy i think because of stories like this i think a lot of gas stations

now do like buddy system where like hey it has to always be a second person and you are exactly right that actually yep that ends up being one of the results of this case yeah oh shit okay so he tried to later recant his effect his confession claiming he was uh under the influence of prescription medication which made him confess erroneously which i don't know what prescription medication that is but uh yeah right careful i guess with that uh but the district attorney went forward with the trial anyway and when the poyer family got the news uh katie's brother patrick felt numb um and this just breaks my heart all along he had been convinced he truly believed they would find her alive like he had just really truly to the bottom of his heart, believed it. I think you just, you don't even want to let another option be an option.

One of the detectives who was interviewed in the Forensic Files episode said, like, I wasn't about to tell the family that I didn't think she was alive. That's not my place to say it until we have, you know, the proper evidence, even though statistically, probably she was not alive. So I imagine that hope has to live somewhere, you know? Yeah. So, of course, this is an impossibly heartbreaking blow for the family. In the end, Donald was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. And in the wake of the vicious crime, Katie's family lobbied for legislature changes they hoped would prevent similar crimes in the future. So the goal was to tighten laws on monitoring convicted sex offenders, especially to prevent them from changing their legal names, which I think is really interesting. And the governor signed something called Katie's Law into effect in 2000, only a year later, which applied stricter rules to sex offenders and it

also extended the mandatory minimum sentence for first degree sex crimes and like just to give you an idea this fucking asshole had been on a rampage for years and he really been back out yeah he had abducted two teenage girls and tied them to a tree and they escaped and when they reported it he got basically like a slap on the wrist so anyway it's just like so infuriating if you hear like his full backstory i mean essentially it's just a number of sex crimes that were not taken as seriously as they should have been. Like this guy shouldn't have been out and about, you know. So the state also raised $12 million for technology that would help advance video evidence and other crime scene investigative tools. Over the years, Donald maintained his innocence and the story of his false confession made under the influence of his mystery prescription drugs uh despite all the evidence that mounted against him

uh aka kathy's testimony his wife lying on his behalf uh the truck and katie's tooth being in his fucking fire pit like i don't know that'll know how much more evidence you need than that. Yeah. His wife actually later testified and said she had lied because she was afraid of him, which I'm like, well, I can understand that. Yeah. So Donald Blum died in prison earlier this year, actually last month, January 10th, 2023. He was 73 years old and he had served 23 years of his life sentence a crime reporter exchanged several letters with donald over the years hoping to one day extract a second confession and a motive from him she said i kept thinking for years maybe he would finally tell me he did it or give me details but he stuck to his story that he didn't do it so basically until his dying

day he refused to give any more information gross which is you know it does also like you mentioned israel keys it reminds me of that case as well because key israel keys died by suicide before he could give any of his victims families any information or answers so he basically took them to the grave which is just a such a low blow you know it's such an i don't i mean there's like no like it's such a twisted sentence any way you put it but it's like at least like if you're gonna do something that fucked up like own it and like be right proud of it and like share it with the world what you're capable of so that way we can at least hear what the fuck happened yeah at least at least like at least like have the balls to do that at

least like exactly it's so able to say what you did it's so cowardly to go to your grave and not give them at least the knowledge of what happened it's just it's horrible so he never he never uh never admitted it uh in 1999 katie's mom talked about the way katie's memory followed her she said everywhere i turn it's katie everywhere i am it's katie it is going to be hard for me thinking of her taking care of me now rather than me taking care of her today katie is still remembered by those who knew her as a joyous loving compassionate girl who didn't get the chance to lead the life she was meant to have because this bastard just flippantly took her on a whim just took her away so that's the story of katie poyer which is very heartbreaking oh and i meant to mention also um i guess i forgot this bullet

in here but um they also the company she worked for which i believe was konoko uh started a mandatory buddy system uh for closing shifts yeah i think that's um not a bad call i think i think it should be across the board um a especially for gas stations or rest stops where like it's already dark and it's 24-7 and people can come in and i mean i just i've never had to work at a gas station but i imagine you deal with a lot of bullshit and a lot of that is probably dangerous totally and you think about people coming through just driving through sort of like what you said of not everyone who goes to a local gas station off the freeway is local like they're people driving

through that will never be seen again you know there's an added element of danger there too so wowza yeah this was a kind of a well for us kind of a quickie episode but just finally we figured out how to stop talking feels good it feels like so compact. Oh, good. Well, hey, okay. Well, let's end on a high then. Everyone, please come to our shows. Yes. If you are coming, we hope to see you there and hopefully you enjoy all we've been working really hard on. And if you are a member of Patreon, you can also go check out our after chat that's about to be posted right after this. And yeah, we'll see you over there.

And can't wait. That's why we drink.