And That's Why We Drink - E318 Collateral Damage to Everyone's Misdeeds and Thor Peanut Butter Schiefer Schultz

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

It's episode 318 and it's happening, it's happening... We're bringing you some throwback chaotic energy this week so tune in to hear how Christine lost Em's only pair of shoes at the Portland airport and Eva ran their rental car out of gas. Em also covers the topsy-turvy topic of Crossroads (sadly not the Brittney Spears movie circa 2002). Then Christine brings us the tragic and unexpected story of the murder of Molly Watson. And as we always say, "first bag, last bag"... and that's why we drink!Don't forget to join us on our brand new spooky tour, On the Rocks! Get your tickets at andthatswhywedrink.com/live

hello and welcome to episode 318 this is the smooth sounds of and that's why we drink i'm x-teen oh you're really going with the x-Teen. You're really leaning into X-Teen lately. Only because it was on my vitamins. That's the only reason you say that. I love it though. I think it's, I think it's very sweet. I know you're going to like, I made fun of me for my vitamins, saying X-Teen on them. As I was in the middle of saying the sentence, I think you're going to say I'm making fun of you. But publicly you're going to say, oh, it was so nice but in in the car you were like what is wrong with you did I say what was wrong with you or oh that's very sweet I think you can be crazy and sweet at the same time to be fair and I think it's very sweet like

hello that's what I call the duality of man I send presents to future me like I'm I can also be crazy and sweet at the same time but like I do think it's very cute that when you have your vitamins sent to you, instead of writing Christine, you made sure the package said Xteen. I did. I do that on my shampoo, too. It's so cute. If you need more to make fun of, go for it. You can keep calling.

Someone feels like I'm making fun of them today when i keep saying the word sweet and cute i don't know eva was in the car so eva can write in and let me know and she's probably gonna play the middle ground and say i don't know but i wasn't even paying attention i was driving or yeah it'll be something diplomatic i was busy driving the car so that we didn't all die at the canada border well i gotta say eva was busy eva was busy driving the car so that we didn't all die at the canada border well i gotta say eva was busy eva was busy driving the car yesterday and then the gas wait how did that happen i literally saw the light on the day before and i was like oh they're gonna have to get gas on the way to the airport and then the next thing i know i look at my instagram and y'all are on the side of the road

uh oh look eva wrote in with something diplomatic that's interesting um so the way that the we're gonna take it back when she hears me bitching about running out of gas yeah eva be on my side officially thanks um the the reason we ran out of gas was because i also saw that it said low fuel and apparently eva also saw that it said low fuel, but I guess we thought we could make it. Which luckily we were already going to the airport earlier than usual. So it really was not a big deal. Hey, you want to tell everybody why? This has been the most chaotic end of a trip ever.

I swear to God, I woke up. Okay, here's the thing. The other day I listened to an old episode of And That's Why We Drink. And I was like, wow, we had chaotic energy. And I was like, what has changed changed and then now we hop on and I'm like let me tell you about the time em lost their shoes their only pair of shoes and it was one of my favorite pairs of shoes too did you get them back no I didn't what it's okay I'm really not that upset about it it was not your fault to be fair don't feel guilty oh my god no it was totally my fucking fault no no no no no no stop stop stop it really it worked out well

because they were my favorite shoes but they were like real busted and i was even telling eva that this kind of was like a blessing in disguise because i was too emotionally attached i was never going to get rid of them but they needed to go and so you know you guys this is so horrifying i literally took them and put them in a metal bin in the airport and never got them back to be fair had it we were trying to go to the airport early so i could get the shoes but then with the whole gas thing that ended up not just being enough time it just it ended up working out in a way where i couldn't get them but I do appreciate you chaotically trying to find a solution. I was losing my mind. Here's the thing. I woke up and I realized I'd gotten a text from Omar and I was like, who the hell is Omar? And he was like,

I'm your driver to the airport. And I was like, oh my God, I forgot we had like a driver scheduled to drive us to the airport. So I had scheduled an Uber for like an hour later because I'm, you know, lazy. So I woke up to pee, looked at my phone was like, Omar was here 20 minutes ago. And I was like, shit. And so I like frantically shoved everything in my suitcase. And I texted him like, I'm coming. I'm sorry. And I'm like doing one final sweep. And I see a pair of shoes behind the bed. And I went, Oh, my God, by the way, you're lucky I look under the bed. Okay, I'm very lucky. Give me about lemon. Except not because you don't even have your shoes I was like oh oh my god so I ran down to the front desk and there was a line like three or four families deep

and Omar is out there in the rain going like this hurry up and I was like what's his deal why does he feel the need to what's his rush I don't know because I was like 45 minutes late 45 oh I don't think I knew that was how late it was okay understood and so I panicked and I was like ah so I shoved up in my purse and just like ran to you know went to the airport and then I wandered around like the tunnels of the airport looking for like a storage locker place like I was trying to find like where they do like luggage rental, locker rentals for like part-time storage. I was looking everywhere.

And then I found a lost and found office, but they weren't open. So I had to like put them in the bin. I can sense your dread, but also quick question and not meant in a judgmental way, but I, how come you didn't just keep them until I saw you next? Because I was like,

well, M doesn't have another pair of shoes. So I was like, well, maybe I should just leave them until I saw you next because I was like well Em doesn't have another pair of shoes so I was like well maybe I should just leave them here so that so I can walk in with my socks and then go to the airport you're right I mean at that point it was too late and at that point I was like oh well I'll just put them in this office here and Em can just grab them on the way because I was like oh well I won't see you for another couple weeks across the country right right right I don't know I don't know man it was really dumb it was just a panic frenzy I was getting people DMing me being like why didn't you go to the front desk I was like read the message

I tried I really did well no I we're also to be fair I never once panicked I I think I just did my like sigh of disappointment but it was at myself for even forgetting my own fucking shoes did you like because I was like well Em picked at myself for even forgetting my own fucking shoes. Did you like, cause I was like, well, M picked up the Taco Bell last night. Did you go pick up the Taco Bell in your socks? Like,

I mean from your room, not like from. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well that explains it. Cause I was like, how did this happen?

Okay. I'm a sock wearer. You just had socks on. Yeah. Okay. Also it was, to be fair, those floors were weirdly heated.

I just thought I was already in shoes, I guess. The floors were heated in this hotel, which was tremendous. It was wild. And I was like, how much do they spend on heating the floors that like, and don't like advertise it or, you know, make a thing of it. But I made a thing of it. It was amazing. No, they, they were, they were good shoes and they had a good run, but it was time anyway. And I would have never been able to part with them so it really worked out for the best but uh also had i not i i was able to get new shoes because i was meeting friends anyway for lunch and i was like hey random errand request can you please bring me shoes um and it worked out but either way now you can like instacart things from like target i would have just I would have found a way to get shoes. It would not have been a big deal.

I'm so sorry. No, but anyway, I already lost my shoes. Then I had lunch with my friends and then Eva and I were driving to the airport together. We ran out of gas like five minutes away from the airport. and I don't know Eva this is where we differed opinions here because Eva tried to coast for the next five minutes like that was Eva's plan and I would no you have to

pull over you have to pull over and Eva was like we can do it and I was like no no you cannot do it I was like pull over right now I love that all three of us saw the gaslight not one of us said a word like in what on what planet by the way poor eva wrote in i'm so dumb you're not done i literally threw m shoes into the trash basically um for no good reason so

i was collateral damage to everyone's misdeeds okay be fair, you are the one who left your beloved shoes behind. Okay. So. Also, Eva says she thought it was a hybrid. I'm like. We drove it from Canada and not once did we get gas. We literally stopped at a gas station and still didn't get gas. We drove from.

Oh, my God, you're right. We literally stopped at a gas station for candy and not gas this is so embarrassing for all of us um this is really embarrassing where's omar we need omar to just like be on top of it from now on and drive us fucking gas no but uh you could tell also the best part i wish you were there because you would quote it with me all the time christine but when i was in the car and eva has clearly had like intrusive thoughts about i don't know if intrusive thoughts whatever the phrase is she's clearly like worried what about what it would be like one day if a car ran out of gas because when it happened i could hear her under her breath multiple times going she's going what she was going it's happening it's happening oh my god

it's happening oh my god it's happening you know i mean like we've all kind of had that thought right of like what would i do if i ran out of gas the fact that it was like so she was like this is the moment this is it i can just hear her going oh my god it's happening it's happening and i was like yeah girl pull over she's like don't worry i've dreamed about this moment i'm gonna coast 80 miles to the airport don't worry i think okay well to be fair we were so we were literally getting off the exit ramp on the highway i'm sorry that is really and so i think she was like i can at least getting off the exit ramp on the highway i'm sorry that is really and so i think she was like i can at least coast off the exit ramp i get where she was coming from

logic makes sense yeah but one thing by the way if you've never had a car run out of gas which i never experienced this i never have either knock on wood you would think you could at least coast until like i see where eva's brain went like you could coast until there's no more gas literally the car fucking stops in like 30 seconds like you have 30 seconds to figure it out oh no and so that's why like the car was slowing down so quickly and we were on a highway and i was like i was like pull over my heart rate right now oh my god anyway luckily my friends who got you the shoes who got you the shoes oh my god these people i was seeing uh uh two friends from my hometown that now live out there and they're a brother and sister the sister got me the shoes and i was like i'm not calling her again for a

new favor so i called the brother this time and i was like they're gonna like reconnect with each other and be like how's your time with em it's really really weird wait a minute so I was like hey um I'm so glad you called because if you didn't I was gonna have to call and ask a whole other favor of your sister can you please bring me gas also happy birthday because it was this is not real life I I, wow. Anyway, luckily I have a slew of friends wherever I go, I guess, and they were able to figure it out for us. But man, we ended up making it in perfect time, not including the fact that I planned on looking for my shoes. Damn.

Damn. What a chaotic time. Anyway, I was like listening to an old episode. I don't even remember why, but there was one I just like kind of put on on the airplane and I was like, man, I miss how chaotic we were. Well, apparently nothing's really changed. And that's famous last words. because I don't know I think we're always in our heads about people's opinions of us and sometimes we'll we'll see a comment of like they talk too much and then there's people who are like you don't you need to keep talking that's why we listen to the show yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's hard to to ignore the naysayers you know um but yeah the episode I listened to was so wild it was like I was very drunk and then at end, the one where you fell asleep.

No, I will never listen. I'll never listen to that episode. It's gotta be my favorite. I can't bring myself to do it. Oh, boy. Anyway, so wow, what a chaotic time. And that was yesterday. And then I had to come home and do notes and wake up and see you all over again to talk you were like are we recording today i was like the calendar says yes so i'm gonna be there i don't i don't know if either of us both of us will show up but here we are so well we made it anyway is there a reason uh yeah all of that all of that okay yeah and i'm drinking an iced coffee from my fridge. What about you? I'm drinking water. I just had my vitamin in it.

And now I'm back to... It's weird. Now we're finally back for a few days. I think we're home for two weeks. Yeah, for a while, it feels like. So I feel like the last couple of weeks have been like we came home basically to repack our suitcases. Well, before that, we were frantically prepping the show so it was just constant it's weird i feel like after we record today i'm gonna have like a night where it's like oh i don't think i have to

do anything yeah i told blaze i was like we can finally watch white lotus like because everyone's watched it like a year ago i'm finally able to do it it's weird for a moment to know peace, you know? Yeah. It's also terrifying because it feels like the calm before the storm every time there's any sort of calm. I see her so rarely that when she shows up, I'm like, you're only in town for a quick time. Yeah, I'm like, what's your ulterior motive here? Why are you visiting? So anyway, I guess today I'm going to, I don't know.

I probably have a lot of things I need to do around the house. I should probably do laundry and clean, but I'll probably just watch White Lotus. I haven't done laundry in like five years. Yeah, me too. I got home and Blaze had folded the laundry. I was like, you were a stay-at-home parent for five straight days and you did all my laundry? Wow. God.

Blaze, do you need to get married again? Because you can do my laundry. Honestly, probably. He's probably like. Blaze, do you need to get married again? Because you can do my laundry. Yeah, honestly, probably. He's probably like, yeah, I'm done with her. Is that a fun deal for you if you marry me and do my laundry? He seems to love it. Okay, well, I do have a bit of a lengthy one for you today because it seems to span across the globe in many ways. So I wanted to make sure that I got as much cover as I could.

Ooh, we're globetrotting Carmen Sandiego style. That's us. Yeah. Didn't Carmen Sandiego have a movie come out recently or something? I thought there was one. I remember a trailer. If this is a freaking. It could be fake.

If this is a freaking, what do you call it? What's the thing where you. Berenstain Bears, Berenstein Bears. Oh, Mandela Effect? Yeah, this is a Mandela Effect, but I swear I saw a Carmen Sandiego trailer. If there isn't one, there certainly needs to be one. There should be, and I'll fund it.

Oh, great. I'll fund like $20 of it. Well, yeah, so this one is obviously Get Ready blaze it's a lore and it's it i think it's gonna end up being a two-parter because there's a certain topic i actively avoid in this because it itself was just so full of information that i think it might have to be a next week thing so cool um but anyway this week we're gonna be talking about Crossroads not the Britney Spears movie I was like I know all about that what guess who I am it's happening it's happening I would love to become a podcast where we talk about true crime the paranormal and sometimes Britney Spears early 2000s movies

yeah i feel like what a dream i really had a moment where i went it couldn't be could it and then i'm like obviously it couldn't be but do you imagine if there was like some like spooky behind the scenes story i was about to cover about i don't know i got excited oh anyway if you never watched crossroads um you were not from the early 2000s and if you'd like to really experience what life was like then go ahead and watch that tonight okay Crossroads I'm talking about like liminal spaces

oh you know I love this I know you love it I know nothing about it but I love it I know it well and this is to not be confused with ley lines that is not today's topic have I covered ley lines no but I don't think so but I would And this is to not be confused with Ley Lines. That is not today's topic. Have I covered Ley Lines?

No, but I don't think so. But I would love to hear about it. If not, let's. Let's do it. And not to be confused with Ley Lines, the early 2000s Britney Spears film, which is also a Hollywood hit. That was probably the funniest thing I've heard you say all day, Christine. Oh, look at me go. The bar is high.

Okay. So, uh, crossroads, aka liminal spaces, aka when multiple realities or planes are all converging and very fun stuff. Um, so I don't, just so we, this is more informational than anecdotal this time around, but that doesn't mean that that's not coming. I just went, I'm trying to explain as much of it as i can yeah it makes sense and wow we got a lot to do so lemon uh liminal spaces comes from the latin word limina or maybe lamina but it means threshold okay okay so they are usually interestingly man-made infrastructures, unlike natural areas where the veil feels the thinnest.

So crossroads are literally road intersections, but they could also be doorways or they could be even the back rooms, which we covered once. crossroads are often situated in a way that makes you feel like you're in between worlds, which is why a lot of people experience paranormal events around there. And they happen to be often on natural ley lines, which we will cover at a later date. Oh, interesting. So ley lines, just to give you a taste of that, are lines across the world that produce high energetic vibrations. And a lot of times when they overlap, things get real crazy, folks. So are ley lines the one that you were saying might be next week one or is that a totally different topic? If we do a three-parter, that'll be the third.

Oh, okay. So it wasn't – ley lines wasn't the thing you were talking about okay no no but ley lines definitely should be something we cover if i have not done that yet um so a lot of crossroads interestingly are also dependent on time and i say interestingly because i'm as i when i read them or when i was doing the notes i was like oh yeah that makes sense but i've just never put that together. Where a lot of crossroads or liminal spaces seem to have a specific time where it feels its eeriest. So like an abandoned pool after hours or rest stops at night or airports in the morning.

You know what I mean? Freaky rest stops at night. Rest stops at night. At an airport in the morning, you can see me running around with a pair of shoes and just like crying. That's pretty fucking eerie. I'm sorry. It's scary and supernatural all at once. It's definitely high voltage energy or whatever I just said.

Yeah. So I saw this one article I really liked that described a bunch of different types of crossroads out there that could all um have some sort of liminal vibe to them some of them are physical crossroads some of them are metaphysical some of them are metaphorical so uh some of the crossroads are more literal like railroad tracks bridges like um intersections. Then, didn't even think about this, but property corners that are technically crossroads that are protecting your home. Like boundaries, even invisible ones. Oh, that's interesting. And a lot of people will do rituals at crossroads.

So if you're doing them on your property corners, you could be, you know, manifesting protection for your home or health or finance or something like that there's also spiritual crossroads like churches and cemeteries where the dead are more likely to interact or have more energy with our realm and then there's cosmic or even seasonal crossroads which are more like moon phases or um you know like twilight midnight uh new year's eve like where like it's the beginning of something and the end of something you're like crossing a boundary in time oh my god this is trippy so twilight is the bridge from day to night so it's a time of change so is midnight when you're ending one day to the other and i thought this was super cool

another crossroad that we don't think about but a cosmic crossroad is months that end in a 31st day the whole 31st is a gray space if all months are 1 through 30 but the ones with a 31st is an additional bridge uh into a new time coming up a new month so what about today because we're recording this on february 28th that's a fucking vortex i don't know it's a black hole that was just like vacuuming everything in then there's other crossroads again a lot of this can be rooted in either witchcraft or other spiritual rituals like rivers doorways and even all the way down to like your hands and your feet and your mouth and your ears because they're entryways into the world. Oh, wow. Isn't that crazy? Yes. Yes. So

for example, the mouth is the intersection between the mind and the physical because it merges, it uses communication to merge you with others. and to like put your thoughts from your head out into the world whoa that's deep so crossroads can really be any version of a bridge or intersection into multiple worlds wow isn't that fun that is so fascinating so they are very powerful there's tons of reports of uh spiritual activity going on at Crossroads. And the first chunk, because I feel like this episode comes with like a table of contents. The first little chunk I'm going to talk about is general witchcraft, which I'm sorry, I'm not getting too specific about things. But again, we got a lot to go through.

But again, we got a lot to go through. So in terms of liminal spaces in witchcraft, they work best at boundary times, just like kind of how I mentioned twilight or midnight. Liminal spaces in witchcraft are when two opposing ideals meet. So that's why a lot of things will happen at sunset or again at midnight or when you think about even their holidays of halloween or sawan it's when summer turns into winter or when the day turns into night when the veil is always the thinnest and that even leads into other things like cryptids like werewolves and why they transform during a full moon there's a there's a phase that changes okay and it helps them enter that world where they can transform into their the identity they have on the other side.

Makes a lot of sense. Symbolically, crossroads are about everything and nothing all at once, and thus they kind of represent choice and potential. And when you add the fact that it's a liminal space that can be very spiritually powerful. It's the potential of all power and the potential of no power. I think this is so, if I were Stoney Bologna right now. That's what I was going to say. Like, imagine if we did drugs. We'd be like, whoa. Sometimes I wish I did drugs.

I just, I mean, it's possible. Like, it's, again, you know. Potential. Is it potential or lack of potential all at once? So, crossroads are still used in many magical rituals, such as offerings. But the thing that I thought was the coolest, because I never even thought about this, is that crossroads are often used in ritual work for disposing of spell remains. Okay. And I feel like I've wondered kind of off the cuff, like, oh, what do you do with the spell if you're done with it?

Or like even us with those, like, I don't know if this is in the same realm, but it leads to me often thinking like when we would get haunted items we didn't want, what do we do with it? How to dispose of it without like being disrespectful or like causing mayhem. Exactly. So when it comes to certain spells, a lot of times crossroads will be the place where people respectfully dispose of them because crossroads, since they are a both and neither situation, that's land and property that technically belongs to everybody but also no one and so um the only people that would be i guess affected by that would be the spirits themselves but then also because it's a both and neither situation the spirits wouldn't be affected that's the way that it was explained to me um and then also shout out uh psa that like just because i'm saying this doesn't mean everyone go dump all your crap at crossroads um just yeah they're like this is the border between my

neighbor's house and my house so nobody owns it so i'm gonna dump all my haunted items here right right right and also if you're like new to witchcraft like i don't know if there's like for certain spells or certain things you have to like i don't know if there's like for certain spells or certain things you have to do please don't take my word for this so don't litter um and also like you don't like another good point to that on top of littering is like i don't know what's in your spells and if animals could eat it you know what i mean oh true yeah you don't want to harm nature or animals yeah good point but there are some spells that um people will dispose of at crossroads one example of that is uh a lot of people will take cleansing spiritual baths and

they'll dispose of the used bath water there oh cool okay so it can be something that simple yeah i don't want to say simple you know like minimal ingredients just just your dirt on from your body um or there's even certain areas in the world like there's parts of india where they practice um uh disposing the remains of exorcisms oh and leaving them at crossroads so that the idea is that it confuses the evil spirits and they can't follow you back home. Because they're big at loss in the crossroads. Me too, by the way. So anyway, it can be anything from bathwater to like exorcism remains.

And inversely, sometimes you actually need the dirt from the crossroads for other spells. So there's one spell I saw where if you want someone to leave you alone, you take the dirt from their footprints. I don't know if it means like when they were walking by the crossroad or just in general,

but take dirt from their own tracks, put it in their shoes, and then- Put it in their shoes, that's rude. I wonder if it's to like confuse your own footsteps like i wonder symbolically what it means of like getting glossed in your own tracks or something but uh but then you also take that same dirt and put it at every intersection or you can physically take the dirt um a different spell, like a love potion at intersections between you and where the other person lives.

Okay, that's interesting. There's, this is, I keep saying interesting, but I really had never known anything about this whole topic. And I'm just kind of. So anyway, here I go again. Interestingly. There's another spell, again, a love spell where where if you want to attract a male lover, you have to use dirt from only the three-way crossroads in between the two of you. Three-way crossroads, okay. So the T-shaped ones.

Right. And the plus sign-shaped ones are four-way intersections. Right. Okay. And I'm only saying that because I want you to envision both of them when I say this next thing. I needed it. That the G, apparently, not geography, geometry?

The shape of a crossroad is important in certain spell work because T-shaped or three-way crossroads are considered male because if you look at them they kind of look like like a wang like a wang and his side pieces you know what i'm saying and then the four the plus sign one or the four-way crossroad is supposed to represent the woman and the explanation i saw is because it was like the multiple layers of her vagine and i don't understand i don't understand entirely but i'm gonna roll with it i was gonna say the top has two boobs oh and that makes sense too so not two that's where i stop there's an up and a down and a side and a side yeah however you want to think about it apparently four-way intersections or four-way crossroads are considered feminine

whereas the t-shaped three-way ones are considered masculine so if you were to try to attract a male lover and use a four-way crossroad you did it wrong so or maybe not i don't know if trans people get mixed into this spell worker yeah i don true, yeah. I don't know. But all that to say, even the different types of crossroads get involved here. And generally speaking, in witchcraft or hedgecraft or ritual work, crossroads can be a great place to visit the other worlds because the veil is the thinnest there and so it's easiest to access other spirits cool crossroads uh are also often associated with the beginning of a journey and since they're which is interesting because i would think of them as the beginning and the end of a journey but since they are seen as the beginning of the journey a lot of people will go to crossroads to do protection spells on their way to

the journey. Okay. Other spells. These are just some random ones I saw that I thought were cool. There's a spell where if you put herbs from a crossroad in an amulet, it's supposed to help people during labor. Whoa. So try that next time.

Yeah. Seriously. Should have told me sooner i know and then there's another one which i don't understand it i don't know the symbolism here but apparently if you bury frogs i guess i'm assuming they're already i sure hope so you know passed on their own um but if you bury them at crossroads it's a way to prevent fevers which all right also i feel like if you can prevent a fever that way you can prevent a lot of other things that way so maybe there's a lot of things being buried at crossroads i don't yeah i'm kind of curious maybe i should go take my you know i love my metal detector i

mean it's not going to detect frogs but bring a frog detector and tell me what you find i will uh so that's just like a quick couple fun facts in the witchcraft world but um i do want to say in terms of crossroads in the united states and their lore over here um crossroad legends uh and its connection to spirituality has it's really been um cultural wide it's been very hard to research this last night because it's there's a lot going on but in the u.s a lot of the legends begin in the south because the lore in the south comes from west africa because of the slave trade oh wow okay so shout out to um black storytelling and being able to keep their traditions alive or being able to you know make sure that it it stood the test of time and so a lot of what we have in uh the u.s is luckily because of what black people were able to pass on and preserve so um our our legends of crossroads spiritualism or the lore really starts with uh your is it your ruba

your is that how i want to make sure i say it right. Yoruba? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And their god of the crossroads, a lot of places have their own deities related to the crossroads. But here, their god is named Eshu. And I think his, the longer version of that name is Eshu-Alegba. And he's technically a trickster god,

but that's not actually a bad thing even though a lot of times when you hear trickster god you you know read into it a certain way yeah but um new york latin culture magazine says eshu alegba represents the power of chance and every time you leave your house you're taking a chance that things can go good or things can go bad aka being at a crossroad wow um so from the enslaved people who passed on this story it has then been continued through the south and really made its first uh i guess notable story for us in the blues scene in the 1930s cool when uh there was this one guy named robert johnson and oh do you know the story yeah so robert johnson he back in the 1930s he wanted to be in on the blues scene but he was apparently this terrible musician he could not get it together and he was like basically shamed out

of the music world only a few years later three years later, he comes back and he fucking blows everyone away with his musician skills to a point where he becomes the king of blues and even paves the way for rock and roll. So just casual, just fucking casual. But because it was such a drastic change from what people remembered him doing, people refused to believe it could just be hard work of course sure and so they had to spread rumors that he sold his soul to the devil in order to become you know this titan of the industry um and you know so he of course the best place to meet the devil would be in a liminal space such as a crossroad. And nearby, there is a crossroad.

It's the intersection of highways 49 and 61. And the story morphed into Robert went to this intersection and called for the devil and made his deal. Wow. Rumors spread. Robert put out titles like Hellhound on my trail, Crossroad, Crossroad blues, ump up,

jumped the devil and me and the devil blues. Whoa. And this is kind of the, the first story in the U S where the concept of the devil is now associated with the crossroads. And so even though it's like kind of i don't i don't know um how else to really explain it that basically so robert dies at 27 and then people made all these stories of like oh well he sold the soul of the legends they had that still had West African roots. But when Christianity was forced onto a lot of enslaved people, their stories ended up getting kind of conflated with christianity

and so all of a sudden their god of the crossroads got kind of changed into the devil the devil okay interesting and so now a lot of people i think because there was already the mindset of like the crossroads are a liminal space very quickly christians leaned into like oh the devil or you know yeah only one explanation right so it all kind of got morphed into each other and so like uh even his parents robert johnson they've said like this story was not true even though a weird amount of people are convinced that he really sold his soul to the devil to become a good musician like believe it or not he just worked really fucking hard believe it or not yeah but so even though you know it's like a very infamous story around here it's still uh you know it's important to note the like christianity somehow sunk its

closet and the devil got involved um have you listened to i know you don't really listen to podcasts but uh the episode of jim harrell's campfire with robert about robert johnson so it was a while ago and i i it's probably going to be kind of a spoiler but and i'm not going to give it justice or do it justice so you know go listen to jim harrell's campfire but it was the wildest shit ever uh one person called in and told a story that had to do with Robert Johnson's music and said like you know uh this music started playing and I believed it was like somebody from the other side that I loved whatever so um and Jim was like oh Robert Johnson yeah you know great musician and then the literal next caller called in and was like I'm an artist and was telling the story and just like casually at the end he's like oh who are you painting right now and she's like oh I'm painting um an artist

I don't know if you've heard of him his name is Robert Johnson and it was like what the fuck and he was like hold the phone like I 20 minutes ago was just talking to a guy about Robert Johnson's music. And oh my gosh, he's not I feel like he's well known, but not like, like, that's just a really weird synchronicity. And so yeah, the episode got even weirder than that. But I just remember them talking about the crossroads and all that. It's just fascinating. Crossroads plus synchronicity feels ultra liminal oh it does doesn't it gives me the creeps a little bit yeah they're both weirdly like spiritual and coincidental and yeah so uh anyway others a lot of people say that you know there

are western elements to that story but also you, you know, like I said, religion got involved. But the family does say the story is not true in case anyone swears by the fact that Robert Johnson actually sold the soul of the devil. That being said, though, this story does mention common legends that have developed over time and have even been a part of multiple communities. So it sounds really bad but let me just say it first and then give you an explanation um there's one uh entity now that people claim to see at crossroads in the u.s called the black man aka the devil at the crossroads cool apparently he is literally just a man that is like solid like a shadow person yes yeah but the black man also known as the devil is really just so fucked up when this really gotta get some brand work going you know what i mean like let's let's especially already

comes from like west african roots it's like oh we couldn't fucking do anything else about there's not any yeah other way to phrase that yeah so um and again this is where i say they say he's the devil but that's kind of more of a newer hot take where he's not actually supposed to be the devil the black man at the crossroads is supposed to be a helpful spirit but over time has morphed into some sort of satan demon cool vibe so all bad um over the years this story was just kind of retold enough about robert johnson that i think it maybe solidified the fact that like oh he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads and now the devil is part of the crossroads and legend goes that this being i don't know if this is like pre or post being considered the devil but the story has now become that anybody can sell their soul to the devil at the crossroads if you bring an item that you wish to master and you bring it to the crossroads some

people even said you have to do it at midnight for so many nights in a row. Some people have just said, just show up with the item. And you might see. No RSVP or anything? You don't need to like. You just kind of pop on over. Let them know in advance. Okay. See what's cooking that night.

And, you know, if it's feeling breezy, you know. What would you bring? I, this is like maybe such like a queer trope but like i so badly if if we if i went into like witness protection or something or if if the podcast dropped and i needed to like completely revamp my entire identity and just start from scratch i would go into i think construction or something like being handy oh yeah well you'd be good at that i mean you make made props and stuff i just like i like i but i'm so bad at it that's the problem i'm very like i'm making like it's i feel like i've pigeonholed myself into looking

really good because i say like oh i made movie props but like i want to be able to build anything and i can only build a very specific first of all the notion that you've pigeonholed yourself into being very talented well because I'll tell people oh I can't build and then they're like oh but you can build movie props and I'm like yeah but that's I have a very specific set of skills and other than that like I can't do anything really useful with it and so um I would love to know like just basic construction what would you bring like a hammer i guess a hammer and like a slab of wood like a two by four i don't know interesting interesting what would you bring um maybe some maybe some running shoes or something sporty or yoga running shoes i like i've always wanted to be able to like do an exercise for you know but i'm just not good

at it so maybe some yoga a yoga mat maybe i'd love to be really good at yoga it'd be cool to be bendy yeah right because i think about like my own toes i i feel i understand that like sometimes i i'm looking for my remote sorry my oh here it is my television decided to turn on do you see that oh crazy jesus what's it what shows on maybe it's a sign no it was uh eight hours of calm beach vibes so stupid um oh i know neither of us wanted that um i i feel like when i like i like the idea of being bendy because i think about how many times in my life you know what if i need to dodge something or for sure it's not gonna happen for sure you know how many times in your life you need to dodge something it could happen the older

i get i'll have to dodge more things i think i just i don't know but uh that's a good one i think yeah thank you um anyway so anyway sorry in this case it like with robert johnson it was a guitar so yeah um we bring an item and you may see a bunch of black colored animals that like run by it's almost like the gradual opening of the portal and then eventually this man that is solidly black will approach you and he will grab the item from you that you want to master he'll show you how to do it hand it back and then he vanishes and in theory you have now made yourself a deal with the devil and you will be perfect at it for the rest of time in exchange for your soul so this was um uh i think the very original roots of that story um or at least um who the guardian of the crossroads was was um eshu and that is from

yoruba but there's also a similar um entity that people see a lot that or that people i guess would find similarities to which is in like haitian voodoo which is papa legba and he's associated a lot with saint peter and again a lot of it's kind of been morphed into like oh like they're dark spirits or they're sure scary but they're literally gods of the crossroads. They're supposed to be helpful. And Papa Legba personally is, personally, not to me, like him specifically is supposed to help.

An old friend. Me and Papa. He is known to help at physical and mental crossroads. So any type of indecision you're ever at, he's supposed to offer you clarity. Oh, I would really need him to help me with a lot of things right and so a lot of people will offer um like food or like make altars at crossroads for him because he's supposed to be helpful to you um of course american horror story coven wrote him into the storyline of that season as a villain so oh boy

and he comes from some african roots so you know gosh doesn't take a lot of mental gymnastics to figure out where i'm going with that yeah um so ignoring that those are the like the two big beginnings of um the united states having their own lore of crossroads outside of witchcraft okay um but now there's also i'm very subtly going to touch on irish lore where they say crossroads are meeting places for spirits where they can listen or play music and dance and people even on this side will court each other and it's where it's like a big gathering spot and it's where all of us can find harmony and we can see the i guess interact with the fae and all that um there's one story actually of a fiddler who was at a crossroads and he heard

an invisible voice asking him to play um presumably for someone to dance so So he did. And I guess that's a pretty common story of like, oh, the fiddlers played for the Fae. I love it. There's also stories of people spotting a man standing at the center of Crossroads in all black and he's facing away from you. Oh, no. I just hate that. I'm scared of that.

And then, of course, because she always fucking finds her way into my stories there's a lady in white and back girl if all if that lady in white is one lady in all of my stories she is jet so talk about carmen san diego she's like everywhere all at once so uh she has been seen near crossroads obviously obviously wearing a white gown, and she will approach people. But I guess she's good or I don't know, because people will hear wings on her beating. So I assume that means angel or something like that. kind of the rest of my spiel here where she leads me into talking about how many cultures that relate to crossroads have deities that they see as the god of the crossroads or the guardian of the crossroads some people have just one some people have multiple or some cultures have one

some cultures on multiple um and what i like about each of these deities is that they all seem to be between the spirit and mortal world. So they're actually liminal figures in charge of the liminal space. And they're able to bridge communication between both worlds. That is so cool. So these are... Do you want the actual names or do you want me to just tell you how many areas I found? You can just tell me how many areas.

Okay, because I think I'm about to mispronounce several cultures gods and i don't want to do that let's just skip that part okay cool so there are i could find deities that have to do with guarding crossroads in uh gaelic lore germanic lore in brazil the caribbean guatemala japan japan actually has three and all of them get statues placed at different crossroads which i think is cool china uh uh there's india in buddhism in judaism the mayans had someone um different parts of africa uh oh and then the big one that i'm gonna cover this will be next week is uh the goddess i think her name is hakate um it's spelled like he kate um and uh she is from like greek mythology but she's also still important in a lot of like i think pagan rituals

and she just had so much information on her it felt wrong to not bring it up but whoa i also don't have the time today so we'll we'll cover her on another day but she seems without any proper research on her it seems like she's either related to or often combined with hermes oh um which is the messenger god so it makes sense that does make sense but so we'll cover her later and on top of different deities at these crossroads every culture seems to have their own folklore creature or entity also waiting at these crossroads for you so um and the British Isles there's a bunch of standing stones erected at crossroads for you so um and the british isles there's a bunch of standing stones erected at crossroads and originally people thought oh that's just to mark borders but a lot of people

think that it's actually to prevent fey from entering our world because there's something blocking their path into liminal spaces whoa um in romania they think uh a lot of times that crossroads are where the vampires allegedly met in brazil there's a woman who turns into a headless mule which it seems like brazil's version of a werewolf because the transformation happens at a crossroad like a werewolf would and again remember it could be a physical crossroad or it could be right like the moon a moon phase full moon yeah in wales there's a banshee like entity called the sereth sereth who hangs out at crossroads there's also bogles which are uh their own spirits i have never covered and i would like to and in eastern europe there's another creature i've never heard of that i'd like to cover called Isles, which are large cat-like blood-sucking creatures, and they hunt at crossroads.

What country is that? It just says Eastern Europe. Oh, whoa, whoa. In Belgium, there's a hellhound called the Oscart, and he attacks travelers that have, it feels a little religiously to me it feels like if you are a sinner in some way or you've done something wrong um he'll he'll attack travelers that have a bad past and aren't guilty about it and he will torture them until they come to a crossroads of consciousness where they repent. I know. Oh no, oh no.

Also in Wales, there is a massive black dog that is often a death omen seen at crossroads called the Gwilgi. And we've covered this in the past, the Black Shuck is another large dog that's often seen at crossroads. Yes. And my favorite one that is seen at crossroads

is the money cat which have you heard of the money cat no the money cat like alice in wonderland no okay i don't know actually he has something to do with money or am i making that up i don't i haven't seen alice wonderland in so long the cheshire cat is i know it's his name but i don't are you thinking cash here cat cash uh i don't know why i thought that maybe i'm crazy probably well the money cat is apparently a black magical feline who will give you money give you soul tried oh okay he just takes money never mind he just stares at you he just sneezes with his eyes open so well apparently these cats can be found at crossroads with the invoking of a spell or the other way which seems like maybe a little more modern is you leave food for the cat and then

take the cat home oh here kitty kitty so it gives you money apparently it will give you money so i think i think the original story was if you did a spell a black cat will show up and he will literally physically give you silver coins and i think in 2023 um if you find a cat and bring it home and take care of it, you'll like have good luck or good fortune. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because I was like, these pets are expensive, man.

I don't know if they're giving money to anyone. It's like, are you just hitting a net zero? Yeah, you might just be breaking even. So the description I saw on like today's version of getting yourself a money cat is leaving food as an offering particularly a dead bird until it shows itself until this cat appears to you you take the cat home you tame it you take good care of it you offer regular treats and if you don't bad luck will come your way i feel like a cat fucking wrote this yeah it's uh it's bad luck they're all typing it like, oh, add a thing about treats. The cat just like every time it walks over your laptop, it's actually typing out how to take care of it or else you'll get bad luck.

So there's the money cat. I hope everyone enjoys their money cats at home. And I hope you're getting good luck. And then the last thing I'm going to talk about is some of the rituals of crossroads in different areas of the world. So this is just kind of a quick rattling off. But in Aztec and Mayan cultures, crossroads were a place of sacrifice. So a lot of offerings and altars are placed there. In ancient Rome, there were guardians of the crossroads called Laris Compitalis.

And they even would host festivals in honor of these guardians and they would host them at crossroads which I think is cool that is cool apparently Anglo-Saxons honored Mercury or Odin at crossroads and some Native American legends they think that crossroads are a point of high creative power and their conduits for wisdom. And some believe that each protrusion of a four point crossroad are for four sacred concepts of spirit, self, nature and knowledge. And together they establish harmony. It's beautiful. And then, well, it went from beautiful to the early europeans showing up and guess what happened so uh-oh their way of using crossroads i guess because

they see it as actual a cross for christianity is anyone unholy who could not be buried in a proper cemetery they would just bury their dead at crossroads so a place where people are practicing you know magic or um places where natives are saying that this is a really you know a conduit for wisdom and spiritual inspiration and then the fucking colonizers are like bring out your dead. That's not great. Apparently criminals, I'm so sorry, victims of suicide, and unbaptized children were the top three choices. And they would be buried at crossroads to keep their souls in purgatory because they might be confused over which path to go in a crossroad,

or their souls would be confused. And then, of course, it progressed in especially in the uk to those accused of witchcraft were buried at the crossroads so white people really know how to absolutely destroy something beautiful no surprise there not us and uh so that's that was me quickly trying to get away from that and whales they have burial processions where people pause to pray at crossroads one because again it's the shape of a cross but um it is the crossing between life and death and some of the theories are that crossroads are considered hallowed ground but also they could each be a stepping stone for the spirit to find its new path oh that's kind of cool yeah i like that um

in the isle of man people uh say that if you sweep the crossroads you can shoo away evil spirits and bad luck which i do think is part of wicca because i've seen my stepmom do a lot of sweeping to get bad energy out of the way yeah um hence the origin of witches with brooms by the way not that they fly brooms they literally fucking sweep with them. In Denmark, this one's funky, on midnight at New Year's Eve, which, interesting, because those are two crossroads,

midnight and New Year's Eve. Mm-hmm. Here's a quote. If you stand within a rectangle formed by a horse cart, so a horse cart, I guess like like the tracks if you stand in the square that the tracks make a ghost of any dead person can be summoned and will be forced to answer three questions of your choosing oh no it's so non-consensual like why are you dragging them from beyond yeah it's like truth serum but like truly by force also interestingly in germany on new year's eve uh if you go to a crossroads you can hear the

names of people who will die that year i don't want to know uh i don't either i'd be like that's a fun trick that i don't ever want to try. It's like the least fun game of all time. Yeah. In Estonia, there is a folklore that crossroads are where you could run into the devil, especially on a Thursday at midnight, which I wonder why Thursday. Is that a crossroad itself into like the weekend? I don't know. I wonder. I don't know what Thursday has to do with it. Oh, I wonder. I don't know what Thursday has to do with it.

Also in Estonia, if you don't know which road to take, if you're at a physical crossroad, you can spit into your palm and slap the spit with your finger. And whichever side more spit splashes from is the direction to go. Oh my God. Honestly, I might use that next time I'm lost in a parking garage or something. You might as well. I mean, it's a 50-50 chance you're right, you know? Honestly.

And it's portable. You don't have to bring anything with you. It's honestly better than what I do now, which is just cry. So. Oh, sure. I mean, it could just be a new GPS tactic. Sure. And then also in Estonia on New Year's Eve, girls will collect snow from a crossroads. once the snow melts if the water is pure the

air will be good and on new year's day if you stand at a crossroad and hear the rattle of wooden boards in the distance you'll probably die this year because it means the hell cart is coming its way to you i don't like all this stuff about like planning your own death yeah stonia is going wild with us right now and then the last thing i'm going to say is also from estonia and this is their creature from the crossroads which is called a krat do you know what a krat is no i know wild krats well krat k-r-a-t-t is a creature made out of household items like brooms or silverware or straw and you can bring it to life and uh you do this by again with the thursdays for three thursdays you go to a crossroads and each time you drop three drops of blood

of your own blood of your own blood i guess for the devil of course and once you do that for three days three thursdays so like in a you know in a 21 days or so you'll have a krat alive with your blood do you bring the thing with you i think you like make him i think you make him like a doll out of whatever you have lying around do you bring it with you when you drop the blood and stuff i would imagine you have to drop the blood on it right oh you drop it on the i'm guessing but it makes sense to me did you do you know wild kratz no oh okay you didn't react and i was like oh man um wild kratz was a show on pbs about it was like the the host of zaboomafoo remember zaboomafoo the krat brothers wild kratz yes i i remember the boomafu i've never seen the

show in my entire life it's because my sister was the exact age when it was out it was 2011 so um yeah we watched a lot of wild crats anyway i was like i wonder if that has anything to do with it but i think that's just their last name oh well yeah is it their last name in the show the crap brothers also looking at it it looks like a few of the animals they hang out with are cats so i wonder if they're just trying to combine it no because they did they hosted zabuma foo so they're they were the crap brothers it looks like on the in the show though are the two main characters also the Kratt brothers? Yes. I see.

Unfortunately, I don't see any dolls made of twine and brooms. So I'm going to say... I think that's for the best. No blood dropping in an episode? You can remember? Not that I remember, but they did... What? What just happened?

Nothing. what what just happened nothing i was gonna say something stupid about how they brought something to a crossroads and i don't know i was gonna make a dumb comment about they did bring like a it was a thursday yeah thursday brought ukulele to a crossroads and uh i don't know it was dumb it didn't it wasn't great you already nailed it with the blood droplets so thank you well so uh on on thursdays you go to crossroad you drop three bloods for the devil i assume on the doll you've created got it and then um you your crat comes to life but you can make the crat do whatever you want like it can help clean for you okay that's my next question like why but okay i guess i get it now it can steal food for you it can steal money for you if you're a bad person um but here's my favorite part if your crat becomes too much to handle this is how you get rid of a crat you have

to you have to make it so frustrated that it destroys itself so So you could do this. This was like from the source. I was like, this is crazy. This is wild. You could make them. Sorry. Holy craps. Holy craps. You can frustrate them

by making them do an impossible task, quote, like weaving a rope out of sand. And then eventually they just like explode from frustration which is mean it's like cruel and unusual punishment it cruel crats that should be their spinoff show cruel crats i like that um and then all i'm gonna say now about um crossroads and liminal spaces is for the skeptics what it could possibly be is that it's a collective consciousness that something is an eerie space which leads to your favorite the uncanny valley um making the area feel incredibly powerful because it looks like a safe place but unfamiliar

in some way and so they the place isn't technically dangerous but it still looks mysterious it's predictable but unfamiliar and it causes a subtle revulsion and this again there you could also consider the pseudoscience of ley lines which we have not covered so anyway that is crossroads and it was literally an hour of time but i'm so sorry but it was no i loved it i loved it i love it it's such a it's something i never even thought of i really i never thought about how crossroads could be anything other than physical and like a road yeah i thought of um like for it to be like your mouth or your mind and And I mean, that's also like real trippy. Again, if we were like, what did I say, Stoney Bologna earlier?

If you think about it, like you have crossroads on your body. So like we are all connected at all moments. So symbolic. And to think that crossroads could be time, which is its own dimension. So you think of the dimension of time time then there's like the physical dimension and then you wonder how many dimensions there are past that that we don't even know about and if you even if you tried to layer all of them at this right time like your mouth like it's like invoking spirits and you do it like apparently on a fucking thursday like at midnight and it's a new year's eve and it's at a physical crossroad and it's like the

full moon like how many of those can you achieve at once and then is there is there a time where that always perfectly lays on top of itself like a realm lasagna what happens what happens or do is there a ritual i don't know about that people always do only on that day? I wonder if the Thursday, like, what's the god of Thursday? Like, maybe that has something to do with it. The god of Thursday. Oh, shit. If you asked me a week ago, I would have known. I know.

I was going to say, didn't we talk about this? Isn't it Thor? Yes. Thor's day. Yeah. Thor's day. I'm double checking, but I'm pretty sure it's Thor. Yep.

Thor. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. It was just a thought of why it keeps being on a thursday interesting well i don't know you know what's weird though because i did say something about how they honor odin at crossroads and odin is thor's father okay maybe maybe there's a connection i don't know anyway a lot to a lot to fuck around with i think uh in terms of thought yeah in terms of thought in terms of thought and no other way no other way um wow that was that was lovely m thank you uh okay so let's see what i got for you i got i'm excited about this one

tell me ready to crack into it i'm ready i got my gargs and i got some water i'm have a good time okay so this is the story of molly watson and this is a lesser known story i had not heard of it before uh until i watched it on kendall ray's youtube i was just like watching a bunch of videos and this one stuck out to me um and then to get some more information i listened to an episode of a podcast called they will kill by two sisters courtney and sadie eck so i want to give them a little shout out um this story takes place it starts with the birth of molly watson in moberly missouri in december of 1982 she had a brother named Tim with whom she was very close and Tim actually this is precious but also dangerous Tim actually named his sister Molly when she was born. That is dangerous. You really like it seems cute for one second but if it's anything other than

like Molly you know it's gonna go downhill. Like it well you have to commit to like never getting in a fight with your sister like Like, you know what I mean? What do you mean? No. So he named his daughter Molly. No, he named his sister Molly. Sorry. What I'm saying is he her brother named her when she was born.

Oh, my God. OK. It really all did not click that way in my brain. Get the gargoyles out. I thought like, oh i i was like how did he name his did he have his sister i was very confused for a sec i was like we're really going into the true crime immediately sorry no he they were really close and to the point that he actually named her molly when she was born you said everything right and my brain did not translate it right and i thought you meant like they were so close eventually he named his daughter after his sister molly yeah i understand that i was like that's also risky you have to you

can't anyway okay i see what i see what you're saying i was thinking you tell your kid to name their sibling it's a dangerous game it is it could be like i want to name the peanut butter oh you're thor back to which one's worse i don't know uh so thor peanut butter schultz sorry thor peter butter shiever schultz that's the one yeah that's the one okay so tim describes molly as his best friend he said he was her protector they were both goofballs of kids and were very very close well unfortunately i'm just going to give you the end result right up front and then go into the details uh molly was killed 48 hours before her own wedding so a friend described never would have thought i'd be going to her funeral next week

instead of her wedding so the week of her wedding was her funeral, just very tragic, very symbolic. Um, so Molly as a person was smart and outgoing. She worked in education with a bachelor's and a master's in psychology, and she was working on a second master's in counseling. Uh, her family remembers her as very authentic. Molly was autistic and her passion and dedication to like the interest she had really shone, shined, shone, shined. I don't know which one it is. Shined. Shined in all that she did. So quick side note here. We have a researcher actually who has been really helpful and wrote a note here about, you know, autism. And I will say too, that Molly's family refers to her diagnosis as Asperger's, but apparently that's an outdated term, which I didn't

realize. Did you know this? I don't know. I haven't, I don't think so. Okay. Cause it's like, okay. Yeah. I didn't need it. Is it wild, wildly, wildly outdated? Okay. Yeah, I didn't need it. Is it wildly, wildly outdated? It's not wildly outdated, but it should be, I guess is a better way to put it. So let's all try and remember this. Basically, Asperger was a man who worked for the Nazi party as a researcher. Yep, we're going there. And he decided which autistic people in the Holocaust were worthy of living, quote unquote, and which were too disabled, quote unquote, which he sentenced to death camps.

And so Asperger's then became the name for what's considered high functioning autism. And so this term Asperger's is no longer on the DSM-5. It's not an official diagnosis, but some people who don't know this history, including myself, still use the term from time to time. Okay. So it's just important to clarify because several sources did say Asperger's and I wouldn't have even thought twice about it. And I don't know if I'm a person who should be commenting on this or not, but I think is it still high functioning, low functioning autism? I think it's now like high needs, low needs. Oh, I'm not sure.

I think that's how we say it now. Okay. Yes. So there are apparently, according to SpectrumNews.org, a large study supports discarding the term high-functioning autism. See, we're learning so much. Look at us. We're all learning together, folks. Yeah. And so that's interesting to know as well.

So, yeah, let's not say high-functioning either. I think it's now referring to needs, high needs and low needs or something like that. Okay. Anyway, nothing to be ashamed about. We don't know're learning right now we're learning we're learning um but anyway definitely don't say asperger's folks yeah apparently not which i again i didn't realize um you know especially because her own family uses that term you know um so it's just interesting i guess a lot of people and it's still regularly used. So, you know, I don't want to say I had no clue. I didn't either, to be honest. Wow. Okay. I mean, basically, the end of the study just says or this article basically just says we should call people what they want to be called. So I don't know. I don't see it. clear that's a good rule of thumb yeah i'd say that's a clear uh rule of thumb um perfect okay cool i don't know what you do if someone wants to say they have asperger's i don't know what

where that line is you know it's not my place to say yep so anyway um let's get back to this so molly was just like such a gem um she loved to share her personality and interests with the world through her YouTube channel. In one of her vlogs, she described herself as very much a huge geek. And she said, I hate being called a nerd. Oh, OK. Because as I have always heard it be put, nerds know, geeks do. So I am very much a hands on geek. Oh, nerds know and geeks don't. Interesting. No, no, no. And geeks do so i am very much a hands-on geek oh nerds know and geeks don't interesting no no no

and geeks do geeks do geeks do okay so like nerds are like intellectual we're in this theory and geeks are like hands-on you know yeah yeah so molly you'll get this, loved Marvel and Disney. She was a talented seamstress. She was super into sewing and cosplay. She loved to draw and sing. And quick side note, I'll give you all the link at the end, but her YouTube is still up. And you can watch some of her videos. It's very emotional to watch considering what happened to her. It's very emotional to watch considering what happened to her.

But it's really cool because you can see her sing and her family, you know, still feels connected to her by watching her vlogs. And so it's, you know, it's very humanizing, I suppose is the best way to put it. Sure. Her cousin described Molly as one of the luckiest people I knew. Apparently she had just really bizarre bouts of luck where, for example, she would walk by a vending machine and just hit the button and like a soda would fall out. Which, by the way, I never thought of doing, but kind of want to now. Now I want to, yeah. Yeah. And so apparently this just happened all the time and people just knew her as like having this weird lucky streak um and it's just horrific

what happened to her but she also founded her own nail polish business and brand called shine spark polish and the name came from her one her love of sparkly things and then two a maneuver in her favorite video game metroid dread which was called this like secret move was called the shine spark oh that's pretty cool okay kind of a fun name and so she was apparently really popular in the indie nail polish community which is basically independently owned nail polish small businesses a lot of them you know are trying to make more affordable and safer and, you know, cruelty-free vegan nail polishes, that kind of thing. And so Molly actually formulated and created her own polishes.

And people loved her work. So on the personal side of things, Molly had been married before, and she had one or two exes from relationships that had ended pretty badly. One time on Facebook, she posted that an unnamed ex was trying to access her bank accounts. So seemed quite toxic. She said that this ex was unstable and had once pointed a weapon at her when she tried to leave their relationship, but never specified who it was. She had a son from her first marriage, which hadn't lasted very long, and that had been in her early 20s. And her son's name was Declan.

Now, Declan was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, so he struggled with health issues and couldn't walk. But he was Molly's whole world. She doted on him in his every need. He was like the center of her universe. And when Declan was a baby, Molly started dating a woman named Amber. Okay. So the two of them were together for five years. And Amber and Molly had actually known each other in kindergarten.

And they actually didn't like each other when they were kids. That's how it always starts. It is, right? I know. I love that story. And when they crossed paths as adults by chance, they became friends and then they fell in love. That's very sweet. It was beautiful for a minute because, well, at the time they were both married to different people, but they were both preparing for divorce.

So they ended up moving in together and they became a family and co-parented Declan. But when Molly got a new job at the local local prison she started to fall for a co-worker oh okay his name was lieutenant james addy and sadly unbeknownst to amber molly started having an affair with james okay amber found out in probably the worst way uh by tracking Okay. just huge blow. Um, Amber was heartbroken, understandably, and Molly moved back in with her parents. And after this, you know, big, uh, upheaval, Amber was most resentful actually toward James rather than Molly. Um, she encountered him at a gas station once and she told him not to talk to her and said, you need to shut up. You broke our our family so just i i do feel like it's always you always pick one person to be i mean not me with you know not that i've like been in all

these situations but i feel like it's i hear like it's common to pick with the other person because it's easier to pin your anger yeah and you know we talked about that this weekend actually when we were on our many drives and the fuel light was blinking in the background and we didn't realize but um we talked about like that kind of mis misdirected anger at the person who's having the affair with your partner because it's sort of like you want to be so mad at them but it's it's like well your partner chose to make this decision you know what i mean it's like a hard easier easier to be mad at you know someone you don't also have emotional attachments to yeah i mean i get it i've been there i get it i've been there it's the end of my details but yep um so when amber actually heard about this post that molly made said, you know, it was an unstable ex, Amber swore she had never threatened Molly.

And people believed her because they were like, well, Amber is not the type to point guns at people. Like they just pretty much wrote it off as like that wasn't her. OK. So back at home, Molly just went full steam ahead with her relationship with James. Her family was a little put off by their age gap. James was 16 years older than Molly. Oh, wow. That is an age gap.

It's quite a gap. But they moved past it mostly, you know, for Molly's happiness. James himself was a former Marine who had fought in Desert Storm. James himself was a former Marine who had fought in Desert Storm. And according to his family, his own brother remembers growing up thinking he was an amazing brother and role model whom he admired greatly. James Addy was a proud veteran. He had two children of his own before he met Molly. And he'd actually been married four times before Molly.

So his brother says that James was always attracted to women who were very kind. So from the outside, the couple seemed to be truly and deeply in love. James even described it as love like he'd never experienced before. And Molly's family said Molly was happier than she'd ever been in her life. Like she was on cloud nine and they were happy for her because of that. But all that aside, they were still not huge fans of james oh okay so molly and james dated for seven years before getting engaged and by the time that they announced their engagement her family still felt like they barely knew the guy and this is seven years in molly's brother said james was always evasive and put off bad

vibes he didn't look you in the eye he was always vague and evasive basically they were just getting red flags from this guy yeah no warmth no it didn't seem like it um and her aunt said he was like a ghost he would come and go without talking to anyone and this is like just to put a finer point on it when molly announced her engagement most of her family didn't even know james's last name like her brother was like i didn't even know his last name that's how for seven years seven years oh my god yeah that's how little they felt like they were connected to this partner of hers but they wanted to support molly of course and when molly was 35 and james was 51 this is when they got engaged and she was ecstatic okay she poured all of her creative passion into planning her wedding to the point that it was

basically all she talked about to her family and friends according to her hairstylist the wedding was going to be disney themed with an emphasis on beauty and the beast that's so weird i actually have a friend who had an emphasis on beauty and the beast at her disney wedding that's a cool one like i i don't know her wedding dress straight up looked like she was bell that's cool yeah. So there were actually video. There are videos on her YouTube of her trying on all these beautiful ball gowns. And she she ended up keeping two because she couldn't decide on a wedding dress. So it just makes it so heartbreaking to know she never got to wear it. Oh, shit.

I know. Yep. That's why I said it up front, because like. Thank you. So we know, you know, while we're going forward that it never happened. But it was really like she was planning this to be the best day of her life. She could not wait. Again, she was trying on different ball gowns in her YouTube videos.

So as they prepared for the wedding,ames called molly with a shocking update he told her his ex-wife melanie and the mother of his children had been in a terrible car accident and had passed away from her injuries so melanie spent a while on life support and he had to make the terrible decision to pull the plug when it was clear she wouldn't recover from this. And further, he had to break the news to Molly that the funeral for Melanie would be held the day before their wedding. That's so brutal. Okay. This is just a lot happening. So the couple pushed through the grief.

Molly invited James's daughter, who is a teenager, to be in the wedding party, but she declined. Sure. Understandably. Some of Molly's closest family decided not to go to the wedding either, but that was because they didn't approve of this. They opposed to her marrying this guy specifically. her marrying this guy specifically a few nights before the wedding molly sent her brother a text telling him this makes me sad telling him she needed him to be there because it wouldn't be the same without him at the wedding and he finally gave in and he said i will attend the wedding for you so he had changed his plans he said if you really need me there i'll be there. But of course, 48 hours before the wedding, tragedy struck.

April 27th, 2019, a man named Glenn McSparran was on his way home from his mom's house in Monroe County, Missouri. And just to give you an idea of this area, the whole county was a rural agricultural area with an Amish community. And the prison where molly and james worked was the biggest employer in the county okay so this guy glenn was taking a shortcut through some back roads and he ended up on county road 930 this is a pretty remote road there's gravel mud and part of it actually goes through a creek like you have to drive through the water um there's not like a bridge over the creek uh this is called a low water crossing fun fact oh interesting we we had one of those uh growing up on my way to my dad's apartment i was gonna say they're they're very much common especially yeah here in like my area

too um what's it called a low water crossing interesting okay yeah so you know be careful because sometimes you need, when it's really muddy, you might get stuck if you don't have like a four-wheel drive. It's a moat. I'm just going to call it a moat. It's a moat. Yeah. It's a moat on the way to my manor, you know. On the Schultz Forth Manor drive, just a moat outside. So when Glenn was on the way to his mom's to drop his daughter off he had a weird encounter on the road a car shined its lights directly at him and then moved to cut him off and so he assumed they wanted to pass him so he pulled over to the side to let them go sure and that's when he noticed

another car parked on the right and at this point he thought maybe someone was stuck in the mud the car was shining its lights and was spinning a bit in the mud and was just pulled over on the side of the road and glenn saw who he described as an older white man in what he described as an old grandma car so i don't know what that means but i think we all have an idea of what that might look like yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's what he described seeing. So Glenn pulled up and stuck his head out and said, hey, is someone stuck down there? And this man said, I don't know where they're at. It's going to be a while.

So he told Glenn, why don't you take a different route? So Glenn pulled back and went another direction. But by the time he got to his mom's, he felt like the situation felt funky to him and he couldn't get it off his mind. Just in his gut, he knew something was wrong. So when he talked to his mom and brother, they said, yeah, that does seem strange. Why don't you go back and check it out and see what was going on there? Which I love because it's like, why don't you go check it out? We'll be here.

Yeah. They're like, you're right. That does sound really weird. We're not going to fucking move, though. Why don't you do something about out? We'll be here. Yeah. They're like, you're right. That does sound really weird. We're not going to fucking move though. Why don't you do something about it? That is all you. It cracks me up. So he did.

He went back to the creek and he still saw this car pulled to the side of the road. And of course, now it's after dark in the middle of the woods. This is just a scary place to be. And he feels weird about the situation. He turns his headlights on to shine at the car. And he said his heart stopped when he saw a woman lying in the road in front of the car who wasn't moving. Oh shit. So he just parked in the middle of the creek.

Called 911. He said he got a little frantic. But in his 911 call, which you can listen to, he seemed very calm and collected, uh, at least more so than I could hope to be in that scenario. And since Molly was lying in front of the car, uh, of course, 911 said, you know, it might be a medical emergency. Can you get out of the truck and check on her? And he's like, Oh my God, what if the person who did this is still out here? Valid question, by the way.

Terrifying. Like it's dark out except for your headlights. You're in this rural road. And so he was brave and he got out of his truck to check on her. And he remembers feeling on guard, quote, waiting for someone to come out of the darkness, which is just pure terrifying. quote, waiting for someone to come out of the darkness, which is just pure terrifying. So he didn't actually have a flashlight with him. And his truck, which was still on, was so loud he couldn't hear anything around them. But the dispatcher, like, talked him up, talked him out of the, you know, was like, I'm here, talked him out of the truck. And he took a handgun with him just in case. And then he had to wade through the water calling out to molly and

you can hear this on the call saying ma'am ma'am and when he got to her he noticed some blood on the ground outside and drag marks in the gravel oh shit yeah then i'd be really scared i mean it's sad and i'd be really scared and then there's also the fear exactly she was wearing pajama pants and a tank top and she still had her engagement ring on her left hand he tried to find a pulse and she was cold to the touch glenn said i looked into her eyes and i could tell that she was gone oh my god so obviously this was traumatizing for him but despite that he stayed calm on the phone he stayed on on with 911 until authorities arrived. And interestingly, on the way to the crime scene, a sheriff's deputy was driving in the dark and happened to spot a white T-shirt in the road. And he almost drove by it. But then he second guessed himself and he thought, you know, this is really close to the crime scene. I'm just going to grab it just in case. Yeah. Oh, smart.

Well, maybe smart. I don't know if it's touching a crime scene i'm just gonna grab it just in case yeah oh smart just well maybe smart i don't know if it's touching a crime no no yeah it was it was the right thing to do i'll say that for right now so when police arrived they ran the vehicle registration and identified her as molly watson and they realized immediately that this was a murder because molly had suffered a point blank shot to the back of her head which they described as execution style oh no oh no i know the bullet the medical examiner found in molly was so damaged they couldn't identify the murder weapon beyond a small caliber firearm and on the road leading away from the scene they found an ammo box for a small caliber weapon.

But I know I said that she was still wearing the diamond ring on her finger, but she also still had cash in her wallet. So at this point, they're like, well, this was not a robbery. Yeah, this was personal. Yeah. Her cell phone was missing. There was, this is sad too, a marriage certificate in the car with her name on it and the name of her fiance, James Addy. And they saw on this information that their wedding was only 48 hours away. And they were like, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. Like, we have to go tell this dude that his fiance is dead.

So as for Molly's family, her brother Tim remembers his wife waking him up in the middle of the night and his dad was on the phone to tell him his beloved sister had been murdered oh my god his dad said timmy the highway patrol just left our house they found molly dead in the road and tim was obviously like he just woke up this is just like shocking information so he's in utter disbelief and molly's aunt and cousin remember that molly's mom was totally inconsolable just screaming i mean it was just heart-wrenching the crime scene was located pretty much exactly between molly's house and james's house so around 2 a.m several investigators left the scene to drive to james's house 25 miles away with the very overwhelmingly tough task of telling James that his fiance was dead.

When they arrived, who should answer the door but a woman? And she identified herself as James's wife, Melanie. What? Hang on. So he's got another wife? Okay. Remember how his wife died in a car accident she didn't oh well i want to say i'm i mean i am surprised but also i guess it's not that

shocking since he was so quiet and like obviously didn't want anyone to know anything about him not even his last name because people like you would have been googling him and found out yeah um yes precisely so this woman answers the door and says i'm melanie addy like what what's going on and they're like wait you're his wife and where did she think he was gonna go this that's what i'm wondering i don't know this this is like he had a whole fucking wedding to go to i mean oh my god it's it's batshit crazy this whole situation this woman it's horrifying she answers the door she's like what are you doing here and they are shocked because they're like we're here to tell your husband that his fiance is dead 48 hours before their wedding and she is just like flabbergasted no idea no idea not the slightest

faintest idea that he's even having an affair let alone for seven years and marrying seven years and marrying her and now potentially murdered her just like out of control so they're shocked she's shocked and melanie had been james's wife of 23 years and the mother of his two children including teenage emma who had refused to be part of the wedding turns out he had been living a completely total double life for seven years and molly knew about melanie but james had convinced her that their marriage was over they were that he was free to date that uh they would divorce as soon as his youngest daughter graduated high school and then she was told that she died so she was like that's just what the story she believed wow it's how do you even have a double like how do you juggle i don't know how do you like how do you

even find time to spend enough time with the second person that they're not wise to the fact that you've got a whole other you know it's so shocking because his wife said like she he really played it off like she had no idea she said they'd gotten into a few arguments because he would get off work at three and sometimes not come home till five but that's still not like that wide of a window that you're like you know who are you meeting what are you doing yeah um and so she just really genuinely was totally blindsided by this um and so it gets worse because he had even gone on vacations with molly which he told his wife were work trips or trips with friends of his and he had once even printed off a fake form to show his wife about like an upcoming work trip and he said that this

was sniper training in Florida. I mean, wow. But also I guess that sounds like something that would require all of your attention. Yeah, and if you trust your partner and you're like, I love and trust you. And people describe this person, this man is like just very stoic Midwest is I think how They Will Kill the podcast talked about it.

Just that classic like stereotypical Midwestern guy who doesn't say much who doesn't wear emotion on his sleeve you know just all those cliches seem to be how he was so it was sort of like he wasn't acting any different he was just as quiet as always and reserved but they also made a great point on that podcast because they were like what kind of prison employee retreat is happening in cancun mexico like he was going to cancun and stuff and you know making up these ridiculous stories but again like his wife just loved and trusted him and encouraged him you know when he said oh my friends want to go on this trip she was like

go have fun you know like she was just being a supportive partner one trip he actually took molly on and then months later took his wife and stayed at the same hotel ate at the same restaurants did the same activities just copy and pasted his trip with molly with his trip are you worried about someone being like oh welcome back welcome back with a new person we've gone to hotels for the show and like then and a year later they'll say like welcome back with a new person we've gone to hotels for the show and like then in a year later they'll say like welcome back and it's like the front desk is like oh you've stayed here before yeah and and i don't even know that i've been there before i'm like what do you mean welcome we never know where we are have i been here before like can you matt they have to be able to be like

they the people that work there have to be like oh you were just here a week ago like but i wonder if they're just trained to be discreet. I guess so. You know, it's like you don't want to blow their spot. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's shocking. Actually, they have to be trained, right?

Because I can only imagine someone getting busted and suing the hotel for ruining their marriage or something. I mean, I'm sure people have done wilder things. their marriage or something. I mean, I'm sure people have done wilder things. So yeah, I'm sure there's, you know, some degree of staying quiet when you work in a hospitality industry is what I'm assuming. But again, I haven't started White Lotus. So I'll let you know. You know, tonight when I actually watch it. That's not true. I've actually watched a couple episodes and it's really good but um there's a lot to go have you seen it no oh it's so good okay so um let's see it's at this point and i want to make another point of this um which again our researcher made a great like just like a side note on um because people here often question molly's naivete and say, you know, how could she have just believed all of these lies about his wife and that he was really going to divorce her and stuff. And, you know, on the one

hand, yes, she she was autistic. And so it's like, well, maybe that had something to do with it. But again, you know, maybe she wasn't picking up the social cues, what have you. But then again, the other possibility is like she had already cheated on a partner and so maybe she just didn't mind the complications of this relationship like maybe it just didn't faze her as much as it might somebody else or also like maybe like i mean his his original partner who'd known him for even longer than seven years had no clue so there's maybe she maybe he's just really good at duping people he must just be an excellent liar that's a good point like he clearly had exactly he had duped the person who'd been married with him for 23 years so it's not

out of the realm of possibility that he was just that good at lying um so so that's kind of, that's a great point. I, I, uh, I kind of side with you on that one. Also, what year was this? So 2018, 2019, I'm sorry. I was going to say if this was like the fifties, like people were getting away with crazy shit. The fifties? You think she had a YouTube channel in the fifties? No, no, no. I'm just saying like, if it were something like the fifties, like, you know. I mean, the double lives back then remember and now i mean you know about it with like family stuff okay yeah i shouldn't say

that i'm sorry no no it's true that's true i i had i had i just say that out loud i don't know it's not a big deal no i've had family who like have fully lived double lives but it was because they were able to live in a world without technology on their ass. Exactly. And now there's DNA and people are finding out through Ancestry and 23andMe, finding out, oh, like I have these half siblings. And I mean, it happens all the time, shockingly, but like not so shockingly. So, you know, he I mean, and he did get away with it for seven years. So it's like to a certain extent, he pulled it off. He pulled it off.

I don't want to, not trying to like give this guy like credit, but like. Well, to be fair, he pulled it off until he very much did not pull it off. Great point. Until he just extremely did not pull it off. Great point. But no, it is impressive that someone in this day and age could even do that. Yes. I'm like, yes.

Without, especially without your partner even having an inkling an inkling not even a and not a lick of knowledge not a lick and like obviously we don't blame her so it's like you know it's on this you just always assume like if it were you you would be able to figure it out you always hope if it were you you'd be able to figure that's a great point sometimes people just can be the smartest person in the room and we'll never be able to figure it out this is such a great reminder because it's like sometimes you hear these stories and you're like that wouldn't happen to me i wouldn't be duped and it's like well you know like you said there are people who are smart in that way or just manipulative in that way that like people you just wouldn't even it wouldn't even cross your mind

yeah um and that can be i mean that's very scary but i guess it's important to know because Like, you just wouldn't even, it wouldn't even cross your mind. Yeah. And that can be, I mean, that's very scary, but I guess it's important to know because, you know, you can't necessarily trust everybody. I'm not saying don't trust your partner, but I don't know what I'm saying. We're all on the same page, folks. You know, I hope so. So when James told that melanie had died molly truly believed that this had happened i mean it's it's also like a shocking thing to tell somebody if it's not true if it's just like a bald-faced lie i feel like it's hard to believe someone would make that up so she was

like oh god no like that's horrible you know yeah um and so this is all happening investigators of course immediately start looking at james especially when his wife opens the door they're like hmm red flag central and while they're talking to him in his home he starts panicking and he gets really hot and so he opens a window and puts a box fan in because he's sweating so much damn he's just like his nerves are out of control and i mean fully busted not a great sign fully busted and also what did you think was going to happen but okay but also i mean he had seven years you have to wonder if after like seven years you're just like well i guess i got away with it like i guess everything worked in my favor so maybe a little

more time yeah i don't know so mel Melanie, of course, was in shock. And like I said, she did not see the affair coming, didn't suspect it for a minute. She said he seemed the same all the time. And so, you know, they're determining he's a skilled liar. When they asked what he was doing that night, he told officers he had visited a friend to pick up an avocado plant. Girl. Girl. And his wife was like, yeah, I was really annoyed because i said like why are you leaving at seven o'clock on a friday night to go get an avocado plant from your friend like

where are you going right but he was like i'll be back and he told police he got home at 8 30 p.m he also told them at this point because i guess he couldn't hide it anymore that he had a secret phone that he used to talk to molly oh nice and he gave that phone to investigators and told them he had last spoken to molly earlier that day so when they look through his phone his secret phone there is a 22 minute phone call from that evening he even sent her text after she died oh it's horrible because the texts say the following things what did you eat for supper i love you so much good night sweetheart like come on that doesn't even really feel they don't feel warm is that weird to say no like they feel it feels like i'm assuming that he was trying to he's i'm currently assuming he's the bad guy

and let me just put it out there i mean yes you're correct okay so i feel like him covering it up with texts like that wouldn't you pick wouldn't you be a little more but if those are like the way he texts it all the time maybe it was just like oh this is just the norm i just assumed she was okay that's true i don't know i don't know but yeah that it it's disturbing to think that he literally shot her in the back of the head went home and said what'd you have for supper what the fuck and also like you really think that's gonna trick them and like by the way like it's one thing to be able it's i mean it's one big thing to be able to get away with an affair for seven years without your wife even having an inkling but like talk about a new challenge of like going home to your wife and just like

pretending like nothing happened yeah great point to murder somebody just like totally straight face chill and who was what was do we find out the reason for the murder was it just to like not marry her and like make the web trickier with his wife yep oh my god we couldn't just fucking break okay you couldn't literally just say i fucked up and not spend your rest of your life in prison. Spoiler alert. But can you imagine that conversation of like Blaze sitting down with you right now and going, I fucked up. I'm kind of getting married this weekend. I want to invite you to my wedding.

I've taken it too far. It got out of hand. Which is a very Christine thing to do. I know, I'm a little nervous now. I'm like, am I going to do this by accident? Like, oh my God. Look, it just spiraled out of control i texted zach bagans now we're getting married i don't know what happened

i'm seeing him in vegas you honestly he'd be like i've been waiting for you to break this news to me for a long time i do think i could pretty much come to allison with anything at this point and she would not be surprised by the words you know and i gotta say like i'm gonna mention this later but his wife melanie even said, as much as she was shocked by the information, she wasn't surprised by his behavior, which is like, ooh, chilling a little bit. Like, I guess she was shocked she didn't notice or know, but she also wasn't surprised because she called him very selfish and was like, I'm not surprised he took this as a way out which is like woof if i were i don't know if i i mean like obviously like you know i'm not i'm not commenting on her at all i'm i'm saying though like if i were with somebody and like it was unsurprising that one of the options they chose was murder murder oh my gosh like i would i almost wonder now if she ever felt fear around him i know like it's interesting it's like why did that not

surprise you like if that was i mean obviously it's a red flag for anyone you're in a relationship if they have that capability but if you knew that that was a capability of his i can't imagine you always felt 100 safe around him that's a. Like, had he shown violence before? I'm not sure. Or, you know, and did he have PTSD from Desert Storm? Like, did that somehow have anything? I'm not sure. And again, this is literally just me asking.

Yeah, we're speculating because I don't have that information. But I mean, it's an interesting thought of like, why would it not surprise you if you're like, if Blaze murdered someone? I'd be very surprised i would be very surprised and not only about the event but also the fact that he did it you know i don't think i could even believe it so it would be hard for me to believe blaze or allison i'm just using blaze as your example yeah well sure um but like i couldn't even imagine blaze contemplating it let alone yeah yeah great point taking the first step second step third step to it yeah it makes you wonder like what was the background like there between their dynamic i don't know um so anyway there's this

there are these texts from him to her that are supposed to supposedly giving him a quote-unquote alibi that he thinks she's alive. Nailing it. Nailing it, for sure. And investigators also, when they were looking through this, found text messages from Molly to James over the last few days before her death. And this is where they start to kind of dig into it a little bit. Okay. Because in these texts, she sounded worried

that James wasn't fully committed to their upcoming nuptials. Oh, shit. She apparently seemed self-conscious about her autism, her mental health. She texted him at one point, are you still sure you want to marry me with my anxiety? Because when we were talking earlier, you sounded like you were starting to doubt your decision. Oh, my God. That's so sad. It's heartbreaking. And he responded, not even close, dear. earlier you sounded like you were starting to doubt your decision oh my god that's so sad it's

heartbreaking and he responded not even close dear and so the day molly was killed james this is another like bizarro detail in this he had made a payment on the wedding and had picked up some decorations and to me like i forget who which episode or whatever i was listening to or watching where they were like, well, why would you do that? And I'm like, I think it was probably just his way of trying to create some doubt. Like, well, why would I have paid off my wedding if I killed her? But again, it's not very effective. To show your commitment of like, obviously. Yeah, yeah.

And maybe at that point, like, he didn't even know this was going to be his plan. I'm not sure but he did stop by at the venue make a payment drop up some drop off some decorations and the wedding planner asked him are you getting excited and he responded molly's driving me crazy oh shit which like first of all is really kind of fucked up but second of all like looking back makes it much more sinister i think like it's one thing to be like oh my partner's driving me crazy with all this wedding planning you know nonsense but it's another thing now looking back yeah yeah so police did also consider

this unstable ex that she had posted about in 2017 on Facebook. Do you remember like, oh, this ex is trying to get into my bank accounts. And her former partner, Amber, was like, I swear to God, that was not me. Yeah. You know, I would not point a gun at someone. So now guess what they're thinking? This unstable ex might be James because they were kind of on again,

off again for a little while. Has to be in my mind. And so they're sort of on again, off again for a little while. Has to be in my mind. And so they're sort of saying like, maybe that's the person, the mystery guy she was posting about and saying he had a gun. And, you know, we don't know because it wasn't clear in the post, but that is definitely something they were linking. It would be weird if there were two men that could be that could fit that in her family yeah that's true and it's possible to be fair but you know there are people

who take advantage of nice kind loving folks yeah so when abc 2020 tried to look into james's other wives they couldn't find a single person who knew any details to share on their relationships or how they ended so it was just like a weird dead end of information like they just could not figure out what his past marriages were and to be fair he had been married to melanie for 23 years so it was like a long time ago that these other marriages had ended so maybe it just wasn't you know with the internet age not having existed yet, maybe that information just kind of died with the marriages. But despite all this, the kind of lack of information, investigators still felt that they had enough motive to arrest James for the murder of Molly Watson. I mean, think about it.

He's living a double life with a wife who's oblivious to his affair and a fiance who believed his wife was dead and a fake funeral at an impending wedding like it's just like who else could it be like if if it were someone else that would be the wildest coincidence of all it would be be i would go home as the police officer that night and be like you're never gonna believe this shit like if i'm gonna write it for anyone else i'm gonna quit the police force and write a memoir because i have a doozy so just crazy i mean in 48 hours he was supposed to be in a public wedding with her whole family etc everything was about to fall apart for him and it was sort of like he was backed into a corner and didn't know what to do and so they charged him with first-degree murder and james's brother and sister could not believe it like they were so shocked

that he could ever harm somebody and i mean this just goes to show like what you said of clearly his wife believed him so maybe he was just so manipulative that his own family was shocked that he could ever hurt or kill i think it's like one of those superpowers, like, I mean, evil superpower in this case, but like of just being a quiet person. Yeah, good point. Unassuming. Unassuming. So James's wife, Melanie, I know I kind of already said this, but in an emotional interview,

she said she felt James was capable of murder. And she said it just seems like something he would do to fix a problem. He was a pretty selfish person. He could be controlling and intimidating, which goes to your point of maybe there were times she did not feel safe. And she said, I could see this being a way out for him. So, again, she wasn't totally surprised. And, in fact, she actually took the stand against him at trial which must have been very difficult and not only that but his own teenage daughter emma took the

stand as well which must just be seriously heartbreaking and emma get this had met molly before so he is such a fucking idiot this guy his daughter needed a costume for i think it was like comic-con or like some upcoming event and so he said oh i have a co-worker who's really good at making costumes and brought her to molly's house and molly knew this was his daughter but emma the daughter didn't know molly was her dad's girlfriend like that was that's a really bold move because it was fire there because molly's now gonna be like well how come i don't get to see your kid more often or so that was the other thing that was the only time she'd seen any of his kids she saw emma once never met the other one

man i don't know he must have just been really convincing he must have also like She saw Emma once, never met the other one. Man. I don't know. He must have just been really convincing. He must have also, I mean, that feeds into, like, I mean, the wife said that he's really selfish. And I mean, that's the most, like, narcissist confident move I've seen. Just, like, come over to my girlfriend's house and I'll just watch you interact. Your mom will never know. Yeah.

It's disturbing. And Molly, on her part, thought Emma was going to be in their wedding as a bridesmaid. So it's like Molly probably didn't even realize like Emma didn't know who she was. But like what if she says, oh, when I marry your father, you know what I mean? Like, right. Like what a bold what a bold move. And it just didn't happen. So I guess he's lucky in that way.

What a bold move. And it just didn't happen. So I guess he's lucky in that way. So the car Glenn had seen on the road before he found Molly's body matched James's car. There were clear tire tracks matching James's tires at the crime scene. The ammo found in a gun in James's home also matched the empty ammo box they found near the scene. But it was still all circumstantial evidence. It just wasn't enough. And then prosecutors

revealed they were able to find molly's phone wow the phone they used gps to locate it and it had been tossed to the side of the road so they were like well here it is found it all right and when they took a look at it they realized mo Molly had apparently been growing suspicious about James. Well, that makes sense because she even texted him like, are you sure? Are you sure? I'm getting vibes. Guess what she Googled? How to find out if your fiance's cheating on you.

She might have Googled that, too. She Googled Melanie Addy obituary. She was trying to find. She searched death notices. She searched obituary pages she was basically just digging for any information to prove that melanie had indeed passed away she she googled a car crash big fucking suspicion that's not like oh maybe he wants to back out of the marriage maybe he has cold feet maybe he still misses his wife that's like you're that's i think your wife

is still alive that's a big and you lied about it which is like a massive i wonder who tipped her off like that's not something that just comes to you sometime right like you know i don't know i wonder if like she was asking for details because this was only days before the funeral slash wedding i i don't know if maybe she wasn't getting any information about the funeral and she was like starting to wonder why. It's really hard to say. But she even searched for like the car crash, like December car crash, Melanie. Like she was just trying to find any article or information.

And so, you know, ding, know ding ding ding clearly like she's on to him and james had texted molly that day i think i'm going to see you tonight then oh my god i already have goose cam this is so disturbing he was sending text to himself to try and build up his courage like sending himself a pep talk like from from past him to future him like sort of yeah yeah and it said he texted himself that he had a meeting tonight in the normal place and he had to be there and then he said don't be a pussy again let's go man to his own phone oh my god oh my god and also i'm worried about again like right and had he tried this had he done it with someone else like also but like the second you do that good luck ever getting away with this murder because the cops are gonna see that on your phone

yeah like like all you had you could have written that on a piece of paper and burned it but you literally digitally saved on your phone you hyping yourself up to go through with this plan that you're now gonna have to deny it's insane i mean it's really insane how how narcissistic this guy is so the evidence actually proved that she drove to the location of her killing while she was on that 22 minute phone call with James. And the drive from her house to the murder site is exactly 22 minutes. So that phone call from here to there and she was on the phone with him. It's like, what else that doesn't what else could that mean?

You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So most damning of all. And this is where, in my mind, it's really like nail in the coffin, so to speak. It turns out that the t-shirt which had a specific logo and design on it was her dad's because she had made it at school oh my god she testified that she was the only student in her design class who made a mistake on the printing of the shirt so it was like all wonky like the other kids had made the same shirt but hers was like wonky or something so she ended

up just giving it to her dad as like a rag and he used it in his garage so now this with like the imperfections on it that she made shows up on the side of the road with blood and gunshot residue and she says i gave that to my dad and he used it in his garage. And the defense tried to say like, well, maybe James gave this shirt to Molly, which is why it was near the crime scene. But like it just didn't add up because the shirt was found down the road. It had gunshot residue from the gun that killed her. It doesn't. How would she have gotten it down the road? It doesn't make any sense.

Then his wife, Melanie, and his daughter, emma poked more holes in james's story like he had lied about what he was wearing that day um and the and they actually never found the clothes that he apparently was wearing um when he left the house initially and the defense also their their whole thing was he was too in love with molly to kill her which by the way has never stopped anyone in the past have you heard of a crime of fashion anyway um yeah so like stupid argument but okay um and they did call into question lack of a murder weapon fair um but in the end the jury found the evidence sufficient and after only two and a half hours on the day of what would have been molly and james's third wedding anniversary.

James was found guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Wow. And very poignant on the date there. Talk about a crossroads. Talk about a synchronicity, a liminal space. Yep. All that. Just really, really wild.

So Molly's son, Declan, wrote a statement that was then read in court, and it was addressing James. And the statement called his mom a beautiful and kind woman and said, The only reasons she believed you were because she loved you and saw past your shortcomings, and she was probably willing to walk to the end of the earth for you. Yet you couldn't be a little bit honest with her or anyone else for that matter. You stole my mother away from me. You her son here's the bottom line you now have to live with the repercussions of your actions and i hope you will oh my god it's just heartbreaking so of course to this day james insists on his innocence and wants a new trial but he remains in prison to this day and molly for what it's worth is remembered fondly by many in an online post even a former friend who had had a falling out with her said

she was glad james was going to prison and this is just really heartbreaking on april 21st days before molly's death and potential wedding molly had posted to her nail polish business's facebook and you can still see this post, that her orders would be on hold for a week while she was on her honeymoon. Oh my God. And then she was killed. So the comments on this post, of course, are all condolences and people called Molly's nail polish creations pure genius and, you know, said this community would never be the same without her and uh her

memory lives on in those she loved and who loved her uh her parents died pretty shortly after she did um and tim always felt like you know they died of a broken heart um it's just really tragic that he lost all three of them yeah And so if you are at all interested and want to just see, I don't know, some of the light that Molly brought to the world, you can still watch her YouTube videos and hear her sing, especially Disney songs. Her YouTube channel is at SnarkySnarkster1826.

And that is the tragic and like just banana gram story of Molly Watson. Wow. That was an hour and I'm sorry. No, we both we both really delivered this time. Which is so wild because I thought, you know, we literally had shows this weekend and we this we were just on planes like a couple hours ago. So it's I really thought we were both going to pick short stories and we went easy breezy hell no no no way to easy breezy i think we were like

we got to really deliver and prove that we can still do it we're still young and hip we're still chaotic and hip i uh that was a great story though it was it was jam-packed drama just like family drama crime sorrow sorrow sorrow sorrow yeah yep oh that poor kid um that's so sad and i had i not had you not talked about i feel like that's had you not covered that story before no if i did this would be a wild time for you to tell me. It would be. At the end. It would be. By the way.

I don't know why. I feel like the name Molly Watson is familiar for some reason. I wonder if it's like... I worked with a Molly Watson. Oh, you did? I was going to say, I wonder if it's just like kind of a common name. No, no. Well, maybe. But no, I worked with a Molly watson oh you did i was gonna say i wonder if it's just like kind of a common name no no well maybe but no i i worked with amali watson that's what it was wow well on to the next thing i guess christine we're gonna record another episode soon and upward or onward and downward i'm not really sure first bag last bag, last bag. I don't think we've ever discussed first bag, last bag with people on this podcast.

But the point of it is that it makes no sense. And you just kind of use it as a filler when you got nothing else to say. The point is one time Eva woke up early while we were traveling and watched the Cornhole Championships. I'm sorry, the Super Hole. I think it was called the super hole uh or something uh and was just texting us all these updates yeah all these updates um of the american cornhole league so you know and one of the things that they say or like a move or something is called first bag last bag and so no the move is called the airmail right sorry and the guy his name was

cornhole super hole eva just texted what was i get doug flutie how do i remember this doug flutie's catchphrase oh my god yes doug flutie his catchphrase was first bag last bag and we still don't know what it means and so now we just say it we just say it for whenever we need says to say something to say something so you know first bag last bag that's what i always say that's right and with that and that's why we drink