And That's Why We Drink - E324 Foot Pimples and Chicken Pox Parties

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Help! It’s episode 324 and Leona gifted both Em and Eva with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease! This week we muddle through the foot pimples with Em’s story on Stigmatized Property Law aka the Ghostbuster Ruling. Then Christine brings us the notorious case of Kathleen Peterson aka the Staircase Murder. And are we lost in a hallway with no doors or windows? …and that’s why we drink!

hi hi hi hi what is going on with you over there today i'm excited to record with you today we haven't recorded in a while it feels like a long time when was the last time we recorded it really was so long ago yeah yeah i remember at least like 14 moons at least 14 of them i think yeah that sounds right um it's been a while so um hi how are you i miss you um i'm good i ups and downs today i i have I have, I have some weird. Ups and downs, it's 1030 in the morning. Yeah. I've been going through some like weird, like extracurricular health stuff this week. And I say that.

Extracurricular, fun. Well, cause usually I got my usuals, but something happened yesterday. I'm like kind of panicking about it. I have like some like weird breakout all over my body where like i have a okay yesterday first of all i have a really this is so stupid i have a really big like pimple on my on the bottom of my foot oh i know what it is what is it you got it from my baby did i yeah because i have a breakout all over my fucking skin right now what's going on you have a hand foot and mouth disease motherfucker oh no i was like i'm so relieved that what does that mean is it terrible literally a disease yes it's a disease that little babies get

and most adults don't get it because they had it when they were kids so like it's not usually contracted by adults so I was like well the good news is Evan Eva didn't get it I literally like what's are you sure that's what it is I can't just be like it literally is a rash on your feet hands and or face remember how her mouth broke out like in that weird rash? Okay. But that's, but I have it only on my foot, but the other thing is it's all on my head. Yes. Yes. It's like your face or your head, your, and then sometimes your torso, it's like your whole body. You just get weird patches of rashes. So anyway, sorry. When you said foot, I was like, Oh, I know exactly what that is. So like, what does that mean?

Do I have to go get like an ointment or something? Nope. It'll go away in like three days. It fucking sucks. It sucks. Well, the doctor said that babies handle it really well, but grownups whine a lot when they get it. Well, they're right, Christine.

So sorry. Are you sure? I did. It can't just be i promise you because i wasn't even i didn't even like really like touch leona when i was around you were like we were it's extremely contagious like extremely like we don't know where she got it um and so the fact that you were just in my house near her and you've never had it before because like i'm with her all the time but i don't didn't get it because i'm immune to it because my head my head do you see this like i'm like i'm getting this sorry this is

because of your baby i like i literally i like i literally have in my like on the top of my head i woke up and i was like did i scratch myself in my sleep because i have literally at least this is so disgusting and i've been like embarrassed i like almost thought about like posting something on social media being like if there's a dermatologist out there can you tell me what's going on because i i have like 20 this is so gross and there's nothing i can do about it i have 20 open wounds on my head right now that yeah they like are little open overs yeah yeah fuck christine well leona's went away today and it started when you were here so but yesterday it went like it started to really go away so whatever however many days that is three three ish is it also in your ears i have one on my ear all over i had one on my eyebrow

yesterday hang on be careful because apparently that you get it on your butt too it's not on my butt hang on look at my eyebrow do you oh no i see it it's all fucked i guess yeah i mean i'm telling you my toddler has has had it for days so i know exactly what it looks like um did you yeah uh it's apparently just a virus and it'll go away and now you won't get it again. So that's good. Great. It literally says like it's for children five years and younger. It's all over my body. I keep like, I'm like, why do I have all these zits?

I have them in my eyebrows. It's my birth. Like both when I created your extracurricular health issues. Yeah. My eyebrows, it's so gross. They feel like crusted over. Well, apparently they also, the common one that also happened to Leona is that sometimes you get sores inside your mouth. So.

I literally have a sore throat right now. Oh, yeah. That's part of it. Could it be in my throat? Yeah. They go to your throat. So sorry. I don't know what to do.

I literally was going to say, okay, before you even mention this, I was going to start with, I have a pimple on my foot that makes no fucking sense. And it hurts like ass right now. And I, cause it's deep. Like I can't even like get it. Yeah, they're like sores. Yeah. And then I've had like, since we came back, like a day after we came back, I've had like this persistent sore throat where usually I'm like clockwork with my illnesses where I have a sore throat for a day. But this is it hasn't gone away and it's been like three days.

Yeah. Yep. I mean, you're literally describing it. It says even if you touch toys or doorknobs in a household with it, like it's extremely contagious. But it's like, oh, adults don't really get it off because they are all had it as kids well apparently i'm didn't so um and many many adults apparently don't show symptoms at all but some do so um congratulations how okay well first of all i am glad that i have an answer because i was nervous i was like am i about am i like having a flesh-eating disease right now sort of yeah okay but no super um but i was like so does

it is this the peak this is how bad it gets this is it this is it this is it the rash uh you get a sore throat some people get a fever but some people don't i don't i don't know if adults do or not i know kids sometimes do um and it just says take tylenol and it'll go away very soon do you remember chicken pox parties? Ew, what? When like you were a kid, like everyone would just put their- I got the vaccine. Oh. There was also chicken pox parties where like everyone, if someone, if you found out someone

had chicken pox, all the kids would just kind of go there just to like get it over with at one time. That's insane. I got vaccinated, but I know kids who all just went to chicken pox parties and so I was like oh man like well the vaccine came out like in the 90s while we were kids so I don't know yeah I got it but it was it was very early days of the chicken pox vaccine I realized um I realized that chicken pox isn't like the craze it was when we were kids because there's a vaccine now but we grew up like it came out in the 90s so we were literally like the last couple yeah oh my gosh

well anyway i have your baby's disease but i'm glad that i have an answer because i promise it's like very like low like i mean it doesn't feel low-key i'm sure but it's not like it'll go away very soon. Like probably tomorrow. When did the sores appear? Yesterday. Yesterday morning. Okay. So tomorrow they should start to go away.

Oh my God. It's so annoying. But apparently it usually. Go ahead. Sorry. There's like a really big lag. I hope it's not my internet. like a really big lag. I hope it's not my internet. Well, we were having some technical difficulties.

Oops. Where did we leave off? Your baby gave me a disease. And okay, what now? Okay, so as this was all happening, Eva texted me and said, Oh, no, I have it too. And I hopped with her when you went to reset your internet. And she's like, Well, I had this weird like, but it was the day of our second show. Or maybe it was the day you guys left. Remember? Because she said, I think I slept funny last night. I woke up with all these like spots on my face. And and just but see now my theory which eva does not approve of is that she got it from my baby on friday and then gave it to you when you guys went out to that bar the other day because the timeline makes more sense but either way i started the chain so eva no it was me. So fired. I diseased both of you. I feel so bad. I don't think it was. I don't think it was Eva or it could have been. I mean, we spent my house. I think you were definitely patient zero. I think I don't know if it were Eva. I spent 99 percent of

my time with Eva on that trip, though. So it could have been. But it wasn't at the bar that we just went to. I've had this sore throat for, like, days, and it's killing me. Yeah, it would have been earlier than that, for sure. But, yeah, I feel so bad because Eva even came over and said, oh, I must have slept funny. I have this weird rash on my face. And I was like, that's strange. Yeah, but I, like, wow. I wish it would go away as fast as hers because mine are truly like just so gross.

Well, hers started like Saturday or something, like whatever day that was. Right. Either way, it's not too fun right now. And, you know, I'll remember this one day for when your baby needs a favor from me. Aha. Yes, yes. That will happen, I'm sure. So anyway, I apologize um I really was like oh well if they're

sick like I'm sure I'll hear about it because I because like you guys well you knew Leona was sick so I was like oh well it makes sense that you would be like hey what was Leona's illness when she had a giant rash on her face and also had a fever I just i mean i mean i remember her having a rash i never thought she was like sick sick i know you said she was sick but i never like saw any signs of it other than having a rash and i don't know enough about babies i mean she had remember 102 degree fever that night which is why i was crying at the venue yes you're right yeah but i i don't expect you to you know keep track of my daughter's health but anyway i just was like oh well they knew she was sick so if they have some weird disease they'll probably

call me um but i'm glad i got to find out now on the show i'm glad i found out on the show what it was because i really was about to like go to urgent care or something and that would have been so much more embarrassing um uh yeah because they would you would have been like oh it's i'm in so much pain they would have been like this is a baby disease a toddler a toddler rash you know if it if the pain is the same as what leona was feeling i get why she'd cry oh she was freaking miserable i mean she was but she's also a baby so i was like well i'm sure any discomfort is gonna we can even have them like on my on my hand and stuff yeah that's why it's called hand foot and mouth hand foot and mouth i'm gonna google it later yeah i should had no idea it

even was a thing well yeah anyway that's why i drink are you doing good are you healthy that's perfect that's why i drink i don't even have a single pimple on me uh so you know oh well i really am just thankful i know what it is that's so much better because at least I can prepare for the rest of it. But anyway, I don't know how to get away from this. I feel like any parent out there is like knew what it was before you even finished. All I said was pimple on my foot. Yeah. But I mean, I don't know.

Yeah. I guess. Yeah. was pimple on my foot and yeah but i mean i don't know yeah i guess yeah i guess the moment the pieces clicked it was like oh yeah that matches up exactly i don't know i'm just sorry about it uh i feel really bad and i hope you feel better and i hope you don't have a fever i don't know if i have a fever it's just so weird that like i'm not kidding like 90 of it is on my it's in my hair it's just so gross because there's my, it's in my hair. It's just so gross. Cause there's like open sores in my hair. So like,

it's really like, I want to wash my hair, but then the shampoo burns, you know, like it's, but so then if I, but then if I don't wash my hair, I'm like,

my head's just like full of like pus. It's so gross. It's so fucking gross. Well, I just Googled it. And so apparently this is like definitely a thing, um, getting it on your scalp and I'm sorry.

That's okay. It's not your fault. I mean, well, it is your fault, but you didn't know. I didn't know. I would not have let you come near my home if I knew. It's okay. It's really not that big of a deal. I just keep showing up. It's like on my hands. Okay. Well, I don't know where to go from here or how to get out of this. So you do a topic change. You know, my new counselor, my new therapist told me to go to my, he basically had me create a happy place. So when I'm like spiraling, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go there.

So maybe that's where I'll go for the time being. I'll have to find a happy place too while I'm at it. Yeah. You know, don't find it, create it. You know, that's what I'll go for the time being. I'll have to find a happy place too while I'm at it. Yeah, you know, don't find it, create it. That's what I learned. Sure, sure. I have an iced coffee in my happy place. Do you? I have, you know what, today I think I've got myself like a cup of strawberry milk. Oh, I love strawberry milk. It's pretty pretty good i might do a little swapsies sometimes like maybe i'll be like today's a strawberry milk kind of day it's pretty good you know which i can't fucking stand banana milk i was about to say i'm the only freak in the world who likes that you're really just ill you won't drink normal milk but you'll have banana milk? Absolutely. Are you okay? No, obviously not.

That's unreal. I have to go to my happy place several times a day to drink strawberry milk. I'm obviously not okay. That's fair. Okay, that's a good point. Oh, boy. Okay, well, we brought it back. We brought it back, Christine.

All right. Your turn. So, well, I have what I think is a really good story. I don't know what anyone else will think, but I'm excited about it. Because this stemmed from our last conversation, which I think it was during our after chat, or maybe it was the actual episode. But it's been a while now. and we were talking about um it came up kind of organically about if you live in a certain state if uh they have to disclose if it's haunted or not oh yeah and blaze was like there's no way that's true so i still am unsure about california because the the frame of reference i was going

with last time where i was really convinced of it is that i we nothing ever ended up happening but we sporadically allison and i saw a house we liked and started asking questions of course one of the questions was is it haunted and then nothing came of the house and we're still in our roach infested apartment so relax everybody but uh the the guy the the realtor was saying oh as of a few weeks ago if you ask i have to tell you but like okay but i have so many problems with this because it doesn't make any sense because legally how could you ever uphold that a because like so you just say there's no such thing as ghosts so it's not haunted the end and like well you're about to get a whole episode about it okay okay okay okay because

blaze literally went on to this like long rant and i I was like, Blaze, I don't know what to tell you. I agree with you. But M kept saying, I know. Just trust me. So I trusted M. Okay. And Blaze was like, well. And so now I'm glad finally that this isn't my fucking problem anymore. Well, so I and I looked everywhere for California specifically because that was what I was working with.

And I still can't find where he got that rule from. But I feel like if you're a realtor saying that he might have said that just to be like, I don't know, my stepmom's a realtor. She says all sorts of weird shit. I don't know. I guess I feel like if you're trying to sell a house, you could be like, Oh, I have to disclose this information. I don't know. Well, so today we're going to talk about stigmatized property laws and wait sorry i just realized this is like so pertinent to my story today too oh whoa oh crossroads crossroads and uh so stigmatized property laws which will lead us into wait a minute what's dare i ask if your topic is my topic i did stamp okay a supreme court ruling called stambofsky versus ackley no never heard of it aka the ghostbuster ruling

okay blaze you better listen because i'm not going to talk about this anymore with you this is now m's going to explain it and then you have a problem with it you call m not me no don't call me. I don't want to deal with it. Call M. M really wants to hear from you and has been missing you deeply during your rash infested. I was going to say, Blaze, I really miss your daughter and all of the bumps and lumps on her. All of the open sores that, yeah, sorry.

To be fair, the guy said that the rash isn't what's contagious. It's just like a normal like cold or like you know sneezing coughing how it makes sense i've been sneezing like a monster but i was like i don't have covid and i was like i was like i have a sore throat and i'm sneezing but this is not my average cold and i really do i am a clockwork kind of person with my colds so i was like what the fuck is going on it makes total sense now oopsie you met my child we all knew she would be demonic so i don't know what i'm you called it before i did so i know so uh okay before we get into it i want to give you a few little fun survey polls um in 2017 realtor.com surveyed a thousand people and do you want to guess what percentage

of a thousand people said that they were open to living in a haunted house 60 you're not far off so 33 said definitely yes and 25 said maybe oh okay yeah and 42 said no so where do you stand what's the question would you be open to it is that what the question to living in a haunted house i guess maybe is the safest answer because it's like yeah how hard are we more details yeah yeah uh yeah it's a maybe for me also i would i would have to know what the worst was, like I don't want to live in like an axe murder, like a family annihilator's house or something horrific. But it's like, oh, but if there's like a ghost of a kitty cat running around, like fine, you know, I don't know. So 92% of people who said yes, so 92% of 33%, I guess, 92% of those people said that they would want a perk for staying in a haunted house.

Me too. Like a ghost cat. I mean, it's built in. Well, they were saying that they either wanted it to be in a really good neighborhood, they wanted extra square footage, or they wanted the price to go down in order for them to say yes. They're like, build an addition onto this house and then we'll talk. Like, seriously.

Okay. So weird. Okay. Of all the people who said yes only 20 of them said they would be okay this might go more to your question of like well how haunted are we talking sure of all the people who said yes only 20 said they'd be okay with like harder evidence such as being touched and objects moving okay that's fair yeah uh getting touched in your home like i'm surprised so many people said yes to that honestly i would not i don't think i would either i like things moving fine but like

touching me no no then they asked would you live somewhere where someone died um i'm sure we all have but we just don't know it i think i would still be because again i'm like how bad was the death like was it violent oh sure yeah 47 said yes 27 said maybe and 26 said no that's 26 percent they they think but i mean like the i feel like a hundred years ago like everyone died in their house you know what i mean like if you have a house that's older than a certain amount of time it's like well probably people died there so i would like to read your house yeah yeah well yeah yeah exactly i don't know but and then the last survey i'll talk about is a year later in 2018 realtor.com did another survey that said 34 of those selling to a buyer selling their house

to a buyer would disclose on their own that there are ghosts. 34%. Hmm. Without being mandated to. Interesting. And then 27 other percent said that they would only disclose that to a buyer if they were asked by the buyer. Where would you stand? if they were asked by the buyer where would you stand i think if i think i would gauge my own relationship with the ghost before i just started telling people yeah because it's like some people don't want like don't care don't believe it don't want to know it i don't think i would just like

blurt it out at everybody yeah i think i maybe i would it depends on if how well i knew them already but if it were a stranger and they asked I would say something yeah me too but I don't know if I would start with that because I don't know where they stand you know why I would tell them because then if they moved in and they called me in a year and they were like something strange is happening I'd be like now we can combine forces and tell our story you know yep well that makes sense because I mean that even happened to you twice now where you had those neighbors at your house that told you it was haunted and then you had that guy on the street it was haunted yeah oh yeah good point m well so a haunted place is also known as a stigmatized

property whoa so as for and that's just one type of stigmatized property. So the National Association of Realtors, or the NAR, or the NAR, as I call them, the property is stigmatized if it, quote, is psychologically impacted by an event which occurred or was suspected to have occurred on the property and such event being one that has no physical impact of any kind so basically that means there's no physical evidence of this but you have stigmatized this in your mind because of something that may or may not right so mentally people have a predisposition about it in some way or another okay so this includes houses that are haunted it also includes and this is just um like this is not a perfect list this is just some of them this is houses that are haunted it also includes and this is just um like this is not a perfect list this is just some of them this is houses that are haunted can be stigmatized properties um houses or buildings that have had deaths on site uh a building that a famous person lived in um or if it was a movie look if it was a movie location because it's still you know you still have to

deal with the the traffic of fans coming or let's say if it was a famous location, because it's still, you know, you still have to deal with the traffic of fans coming. Or let's say if it was a famous person that lived there and they had a stalker, they could now be approaching your house. Oh, I didn't think of that. If a sex offender lived there. Sure. Or if a sex offender lives nearby. If the house was the site of a cult or a notable crime. Oh, geez.

If the house was the site of a cult or a notable crime, if the house was a former drug lab, or if the property had any major environmental issues, so like a house that is near Flint with water contamination issues. Oh, sure. Oh, my God. Wow. That's a lot of options. Yeah. Also, if the house was ever abandoned and had regular illegal activity at one point, the might now be afraid is going to persist. Sure. Makes sense. So those were just a handful of them. And some things are some of these stigmas. It's state by state. But some of these stigmas are demanded to be disclosed. And it's usually the ones that have any material fact to them. OK. So if your house had house had you know was abandoned for a little bit and there was like a legal activity going on inside the house and now you're wondering if that's going to continue okay um uh what's another one if you're uh hmm if there was a murder maybe if there was a murder well they don't not everything has to disclose if it was a murder, maybe if there was a murder. Well, they don't. Not everything has to disclose if it's a murder. It's more if the material facts can physically impact your home or physically impact you. So let's say that it used to be a former meth lab. Right. The toxins could still be in the environment and that could hurt you. Didn't they say that it doesn't have any impact on the actual home or something? Like just psychologically? Yeah, but there are some material facts you have

to disclose, but a lot of psychological ones you don't have to. But then there's also gray spaces. So a new addition to the list of stigmas is if a prior occupant had COVID. No way. As of last year, the NAR put out a reminder to people that you do not have to disclose if someone had COVID. I don't know if that means if someone died from COVID, but they don't have to say that someone had COVID in the house. Oh, I thought you said they do. Oh, they're just, it's just on the list of stigmas. It's on the list of stigmas. And the NAR put out an official statement that you do not have to disclose if anyone had COVID here. They also did this. Wait, sorry.

So it's not required. It's not required. Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. Sorry. No, no, no. Because someone else might be confused.

Okay. So sorry. So just to clarify, like what's this is just what defines a stigmatized. So why would they add that to the list if it then doesn't actually impact selling a house? Because it would be a stigma if people knew about it. Oh, if you'll found out. Okay. If people found out, people might be freaked out that there was COVID in the house.

Okay, I see. I see. I see. Okay. But you're, but then they said, like, across the board, across the country or whatever, you don't have to disclose if someone had COVID here. Okay. Interesting. They also said that, which I thought was, I hope I'm reading it right, but at least three different sources told me that in the 1980s, they did the same thing with AIDS, which I thought was really proactive.

I'm not surprised by that at all. I still think it was proactive because I feel like homophobes could have not wanted to buy a house that someone had aids in or something well if they're putting it as a stigma isn't that not progressive or i would think they knew that it would be stigmatized by homophobes and so they made a rule saying you we don't have to disclose that so that you can let the homophobes buy the property i guess so yeah i don't know i don't know i think it's more just like we'll sell more houses this way maybe yeah you know that's perfect but so rules like disease have you know since at least the 80s have stuck around as like this could be stigmatized interesting yeah but then state but i don't know if it's um if disease themselves is

like a federal across the the board like everyone does not have to disclose that. Because most the thing that I think maybe you're getting confused by and the thing that I'm stumbling through and trying to keep up is that this is a very extensive list of like different things that would be stigmatized by certain people. But state by state, certain stigmas are the only ones that have to be mentioned. Okay okay so this isn't like a list of things that you have to tell somebody if they're buying a house it's like a list a general list of what might stigmatize a house and then each state decides differently what yes which ones okay i got you got you sorry i feel like i should have figured that out no no i should have

said it earlier um i feel like for the most part a lot of stigmatized properties all get clumped together and then it's like, oh, well, you don't have to disclose that. But some of them have have specific things. So, okay. There are a few caveats. And one thing I will say that across the board does have to be disclosed is if anything physical is going on in your house if there's a physical condition like a leaky roof or black mold or um again if it was uh i think if it was a drug lab and there are could be toxins still in the house ectoplasm like ectoplasm if there was ectoplasm or if your walls were bleeding they should i don't know if that falls into stigma or they have to disclose it, but, you know.

And they'd be like, it's ectoplasm. And they'd be like, that's black mold. You'd be like, it's ectoplasm. So the former meth lab one, I think that's interesting because I saw from one source that across the board they have to talk about that because the toxins could affect your house but then there was another I think maybe like this is a rule that came in later or something because a different source I saw was that it's up to you to call local law enforcement to see if any like hard drugs were ever seized from the property so I don't know the difference I feel like that one's a health issue like that one

should be yeah like it's closed it's important especially if you have kids or pets where it's like well a little cautious i don't know well so for non-material stigmas like ghosts or you know a famed location or you know insert all the other things i said about half the states operate under uh caveat emptor which is buyer beware so you're on your own we don't have that's fucking rude by the way but okay um the other half clearly i live in one of those states apparently because you know for us i looked up virginia kentucky and Ohio. Couldn't find a goddamn thing. What? So I think they don't really have it written into their disclosure laws. Oh, they're just like, we just don't even acknowledge it.

Yeah. A shocking amount of states in their real estate disclosure laws just don't kind of mention it at all, which is telling. Keeps it vague. Keeps it vague, yeah. But it also says so much so uh half of them go with buyer beware um but the other half the states make sellers disclose at least some stigmas um when it comes to disclosing the paranormal there are only four states where the paranormal is directly addressed in their real estate holy shit blaze blaze seriously blaze stop yelling at me about

it i'm just trying to have a cup of coffee do you want to guess what the four are i would love to i would love to california is shockingly one, which I really thought was going to happen. Maybe he said like, oh, as of a couple of weeks ago, maybe it hasn't updated it yet. Yeah. And this information is this information, by the way, is from a 2019 analysis. Oh, so maybe it's maybe we're adding California to the list. It sounds like it based on that guy that I yelled at earlier. And I'm sorry, guy. I'm sorry. I take it back um Louisiana you know that was my literal first guess and no no because I thought well because you walk around so spooky

and there are all these signs that say not haunted for sale and you're like oh well that's weird why would you specify I guess it's just New Orleans I feel like if you have to disclose that things aren't haunted then maybe you should also maybe you should move to another city because you're really not in good hands if you're in north or new orleans and looking for a non-haunted house i wonder if in louisiana they just don't even put it into the disclosure agreements because they're like we already know oh yeah it's like it's we've it's too far it's a moot point we can't right it's a moot point it's a moot point we can't reign it in um what was i gonna say okay so it's not louisiana well i was pretty confident about that you're not gonna you're not gonna guess at least two of them nebraska michigan oh now i'm just saying random north dakota and uh oklahoma uh North Dakota and Oklahoma. I thought you were going to guess one of them just now.

Minnesota is one of them. Damn, I was going to say that, and I thought, no, that's too, I don't know. That came too early to my brain. Okay, interesting. Minnesota, Massachusetts, which I. Hang in there, though. Hang on. So Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. What? I know. I didn't see it coming either. I didn't see it. hang in there though hang on so minnesota massachusetts new jersey and new york

i know i didn't see it coming either but here's the thing i really didn't see coming right under louisiana i would have guessed massachusetts because of salem witch trials and they're all about being spooky and boston is so old and what's her name was that massachusetts uh lizzie borden lizzie borden yeah yeah yeah So I thought, oh, if Massachusetts wrote this into their real estate law, it's got to be that they're proud of the ghosts. But Massachusetts and Minnesota, they only directly address the paranormal in their real estate laws for disclosure reasons to straight up tell you that no one needs to disclose anything supernatural. Aha.

Okay. Well, that I mean, but again, I feel like it's the opposite side of the coin for Massachusetts. It's like, yeah, all this scary shit happened. We are not trying to lean into this. Let us be a normal state. You know what I mean? Like trying to get away from it. Wow.

That's fascinating. So the other two then. the other two then so new jersey they uh have it in their laws that a seller must truthfully tell a buyer if asked blaze wow if asked if asked they don't have to say anything unless asked but that means if you're in new jersey looking for a house you better fucking ask you better ask and then email us because i want to know and then move in there and then emails. Wow. And same with New York. So in New York, they have a very specific clause. That is the courts can reverse a home sale if the seller. This is very specific.

They can reverse a home sale if the seller. This is a quote and then I'll summarize. Sure. If the seller, quote, creates and perpetuates a reputation that the house is haunted and then takes unfair advantage of a buyer's ignorance of the home's reputation i see so if the buyer has no idea that this place is notoriously publicly haunted and they are able to go to court and and fight to get out of the contract. Whoa. As of 2019, there are nine other states that have disclosure laws regarding death on the property. Is that because of Amityville? Sorry, I'm just like thinking about New York. I don't know. Like, you know, it makes sense. Oh, you're like,

you can't just you can't just sell Amityville and not tell the person that this is Amityville. It does sound very Amityville, but the reason that that is such a specific law is because of the Ghostbuster ruling, which we're going to get into. Oh, okay, perfect. We already know. Great. So as of 2019, nine states have disclosure laws regarding the death on a property. And California, I guess, is the strictest, which I did not see coming. But sellers must disclose a death within three years, which is the widest gap that anyone has to disclose anything. OK, I can understand that. And I think it's any type of death because a lot of these laws or disclosure laws in different states, like it can be general death.

It can be suicide. It can be homicide. Wow. It can be violent crimes. Suicide, too suicide too of course like that would be very stigmatizing yeah so um california i think sellers must disclose any any death within three years wow okay alaska has you have to disclose a death within one year and south dakota um i according to all sites except one um south dakota says that you have to disclose only homicides on the property and then i saw another source that said homicides and suicides but not general death not death from something else so um and then in connecticut delaware georgia north new hampshire new jersey oklahoma and south carolina you must disclose a death or stigma on the property but only if asked wow and i don't know i feel like death or stigma i feel like that could be vague because like since those four states deliberately put paranormal in their laws, if the others didn't and just kind of have, like, stigma as, like, a vague term, I wonder if you can still avoid talking about hauntings or things like that.

Right. Like, which stigmas are the ones you have to answer in the past? Yeah, it feels vague, like you said. Which stigmas are the ones you have to answer in the past? Yeah, it feels vague, like you said. And then Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada. Nevada? Nevada? We're going to get in trouble. No, it's Nevada.

New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah all have similar statements that sellers don't need to disclose anything purely psychologically as a stigma. Okay. Or they all have similar statements that sellers don't need to disclose non-material facts or any occurrences that have had no effect on the physical structure of the property. Wow. So what a dance. What a dance. I mean, phew. And some feel like disclosure laws are way too lax.

Example, in New Jersey, the Watcher House in 2014. Great fucking point. Where the people who moved in wanted to sue the previous owners who were also getting creepy letters but then ended up losing the case because of the lack of laws protecting new buyers from stigmatized properties my god um what happens if you uh do have a house that's stigmatized who do you call and what happens like why ghostbusters well there's two people there's there's two people i want to mention there's a guy randall bell who's also apparently known asaster, which is what I probably want to call you now. Of course you call Dr. Disaster if this happens to you, obviously. Well, he's called Dr.

Disaster because he is a top expert on property damage of stigmatized buildings. And so he says that if a murder, this is just an example of his, but he said if a murder takes place in a house, it can cause up to 25% loss in house value. Wow. And this is a quote from him. I know of a property in Jersey where a family bought a house where there had been a murder, which didn't bother them, but they neglected to think about its reputation. It wrecked birthday parties, barbecues, all the things people do to make friends. So socially, you're outcasting yourself by being in a stigmatized property. Or if you try to resell, you're like, you didn't care, but everyone else probably does.

Yeah, exactly. So I think that's also why a lot of people in that survey from 2017, they were like, I would be in a house house like that but i want something out of it to make my time okay that oh you listen i i take it back i laughed at that but now i kind of get it yeah or like even that quote alone reminded me that like oh it's not just your opinion on the stigmatized building it's like your own friends won't come over your neighbors like it's gonna be you're the one who lives in that house which Which is I mean, there's always that, you know, we've talked a million times about like if a serial killer wore a shirt and then it ended up at Goodwill. Would you wear the shirt? You know, like would you buy the shirt if you didn't know or if you knew that it was his?

And it's like it's just a fucking shirt. But there really is something. Yes. Weird and sinister. I don't know if I would go to someone's house if i knew like a violent crime happened i mean i think i would go there but i don't think i would buy it i'd be freaked out a little bit i would be i i think i it would change my my i think i'd get over it but the first time i was there i'd be like oh my god like it happened in this spot you know yeah yeah i don't think i would like judge the people who bought it no like because i'm like who cares but i would just be really surreal yeah yeah um the

other person i wanted to mention was a broker named cindy hagley who i fucking love this okay she's a real estate broker who's also the president of Past Life Homes, which is, quote, a consulting business that helps haunted homeowners sell their homes. No. Cindy. Cindy's doing the work. Doing the fucking work. Stepping it up. Here's a quote from Cindy.

If it affects the material value of the home, it must be disclosed. That's her personal view on things. If the buyer asks what happened, I believe you should tell them everything you know, because if the real estate agent doesn't, the neighbors certainly will. Oh, right. Sure. She's like beat him, beat him to the punch. Yeah. team quote sells a home that was the site of a high profile murder they'll redecorate and shift the focus to other rooms because quote from cindy when buyers walk into the home they're not going

to recognize the place from the photos they saw on the 5 p.m news so like she so like she handles like really notorious spaces that people are trying to sell and totally reinvents them oh my god so wild i didn't even know that's a job i can't believe it i i would have never even occurred to me that like oh you have to go redecorate this dark space so it's inviting well i actually it did occur to me but only today and we'll get to it when my story comes up because i literally thought about this before our zoom today. This is freaking me out. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, so some haunted houses can actually make money off of disclosing their history, read Lizzie Borden House, like you mentioned, or any house in New Orleans. Right. But not all

properties will sell that way. So how do you know, what do you do if your house is a stigmatized property or how do you even find out if that's the case? Because in some states they're not going to tell you. So there are websites where you can get records of the house. There's a website called Died in House. Yes, which I have shouted out several times, people. But I put mine in and it was like, nope. But then it was like, oh, we don't have a record of this property. And I was like, I just paid $10 for this. Yeah. They will take your money before telling you whether or not your location or your address is in their files. I feel like I shouted it out and then I tried it and was like, wait, this isn't that. I don't know. Maybe you'll have better luck, folks.

But you can also ask your real estate agent because across the board, they get this is where Blaze's opinion comes in real hot. And it's a valid it's a valid opinion is that the rule is that real estate agents are obligated to tell you the truth to the best of their knowledge. But like you said, they could just not say something and just be like, I don't know. I mean, I don't totally know the inner workings. Or the seller could like not tell the realtor that this place is really haunted it's like well why would the seller realtor know that you know right well yeah so the i think their their duty is often to tell the truth to the best of their knowledge so maybe they don't know but you know that's another great example it's like you could ask your real estate agent but maybe they don't know so that's

not helpful right um you can also go to long-term neighbors in the neighborhood you're looking to buy a house in to see if they have any stories that the real estate agent won't tell you which i love that that's an option of like go get the 411 like i don't like that because as somebody with a house for sale down the street i don't want strangers ringing my doorbell and being like what's up with that house down there it's like get away from me i don't know well i don't love that but like, what's up with that house down there? It's like, get away from me. I don't know. Well, I don't love that. But like, you know, if you're that type of person, folks, go for it. But I'm not ringing anyone's doorbells. I think it depends on the house that was up for sale. I feel like in my old neighborhood, if someone came up to our house and was like, what's going on with that? Let me tell you. But so another thing is maybe get a cleansing if it still feels haunted and a cleansing

i suggest from some sort of spiritual person who has some solid references um but like i said earlier new york sellers must disclose their house uh most disclose that their house is haunted but only if they've previously shared that info publicly. That's interesting. Okay. And this law came after the Ghostbuster ruling, a.k.a. Stambofsky v. Ackley. Okay. Holy shit. So in the 1960s, the Ackleys moved into the house.

It was Helen, who's our main character. She was married to George, and they had four kids, Cynthia, I think another Georgeorge and then cara and william the house was at one lavetta place um and i think it's actually still called like the lavetta house or the lavetta haunted house or lavetta lane yeah something like that and it was around 5 000 square feet an 18 room victorian house across the river from sleepy hollow oh and it was built in 1890 and as soon as they moved in the neighborhood kids were telling them that the place was haunted oh no so even the plumber who was like fixing early repairs for them said that he would hear people walking around the house and was scared to leave them alone there um a family though

learned to love the ghosts and said over time that they felt like family they said that there they learned that there were three ghosts there um two were a married couple and the other was a lieutenant in the navy from the revolutionary war he's just the third wheel he's like i was here first just hanging out uh the family and guests would often see the doors and windows fly open they would hear voices bangs footsteps they'd see objects and furniture move people would get touched and they would even see apparitions including a woman in a dress and outlines of hooded figures one cousin came to spend the night and actually woke up to someone walking around in her room

and saw the navy lieutenant sit on her bed and read a book and the book the pages in it had light coming out of it whoa the ghosts were also alarm clocks for the kids and would shake their beds every morning so they wouldn't miss school and if they tried to sleep through it the bed would shake even harder until they finally gave in and woke up oh no and then uh one of the girls who i guess got this haunting the most her name was cynthia cynthia uh she said that she knew that the ghosts were going to try to try to wake her up and were unaware that her school was having a holiday break so she announced the night before that week that she wanted to sleep in for the week because she had time off and her bed did not shake for the entire week.

That was respectful of them. And then that next Monday they came right back. All ready to go. The family would also get gifts from the ghosts over the years, which would then sometimes vanish out of nowhere. So I guess they'd be like, never mind and just take it back. Yeah, this is a temporary gift. Yeah. So I guess they'd be like, never mind, and just take it back.

Yeah, this is a temporary gift. Yeah. So one time they gifted the family a pair of tongs, which I wonder if it was just their tongs. That's like when a kid is like, I got you this. And it's like, well, it's already mine, but thank you. Yeah. Oh, you nailed it. Another time they gifted rings.

Sometimes it's coins. Sometimes it's other trinkets. And then they just also disappear right away. So sometimes they would even steal your sandwiches. Well, that's not very okay. Because like, I'm sure those weren't temporary gifts. Yeah, that one. I feel like maybe that's an excuse. Someone ate too many sandwiches and was like, oh, the ghosts.

Oh, no. And you won't be seeing them again. Apparently, the husband, George, had like a ham sandwich he was very excited about and then it went missing and he flipped out he's never gotten over it he's never gotten over uh george also once saw a ghost wearing moccasins walk by and then here's um one of the stories that helen told about their her the ghost friendship she had there she was painting one of the rooms and she said paint time was at hand and i was perched atop an eight foot step ladder when i felt watching eyes oh no the feeling was not unfamiliar but it still felt a bit unnerving i turned my head the room was empty but the eerie feeling persisted so i spoke out loud i hope you like the color hope you're pleased with what we're doing to the house it

certainly must have been lovely when it was first built i looked over my shoulder again and he sat there in midair smiling at me from in front of the cold fireplace hands clasped around his knees he was nodding and rocking he faded slowly still smiling and was gone but i knew that he approved of the work our family had lavished on our mutual home no i wasn't drinking that day no the paint fumes hadn't got to me no i don't know why i saw him then and had never seen him since but i do know that he seemed happy to be there and i was proud to meet him i just got like full goose cam, full body goose cam. Like how precious.

Like they're just living together. And then there's another story where. I love that. There's an even cuter one where she looked out the window one morning onto the river and she felt something originally threatening stand next to her. I guess it was like confused about why she was there or something. But she looked over. Nothing was there. And she went back and looked out the window and said, it's beautiful on the river, isn't

it? And then this is a quote from her. Then the bad feeling disappeared, but the entity stayed. We stood looking out the window for a few more minutes. Then I turned to leave. My invisible companion turned with me and walked beside me across the room. I hesitated at the door and so did the other. Thank you for sharing the view with me.

I'm going to go to bed now. Good night. I walked alone down the hall to my bedroom and somehow I slept soundly all night. Wow. Wow. So they're just painting and looking at the view together. It's beautiful.

And Helen openly talked about the ghosts in the house, even did local interviews and had the house on, this is in Nyack, New York, by the way, had the house on Nyack's first walking ghost tour. And she then had an article about the ghosts and her time with them published in a 1977 Reader's Digest article called Our Hounded, oh my God, Our Hounded, am I okay? It sounds like a Reader's Digest article called Our Haunted House. Oh my God. Our Haunted. Am I okay?

It sounds like a Reader's Digest like puzzle where you're like, figure out what this anagram is. She even had an article about the ghost published in a 1977 Reader's Digest article called Our Haunted House on the Hudson. Oh my God. That sounds good. You did it. You nailed it. Thank you. And so because of all of this, I mean, she's been, it's been in articles. It's been in interviews. It's on a ghost tour. It's been in Reader's Digest. So it's now been in national press.

The house became somewhat of a local haunted landmark and the family lived there for over 20 years. Wow. But then in 1989, Helen wanted to sell her house. I see. And she tried to sell it to Jeff and his wife, who was either Patrice or Patricia. OK, but Jeff Stambofsky. Jeff put down a thirty two thousand dollar down payment and the house sold for six hundred fifty thousand, which in today's world is one point three million. Sorry, what year was this again?

You said 89, 89. is 1.3 million what uh sorry what year was this again you said 89 89 and jeff was new to town and was unaware that the house was haunted okay okay some reports say that helen and her agent made sure jeff knew before signing that the house was haunted but jeff claims that that did not happen and he only learned about it when a local in town said, oh, so you bought the haunted house. Intriguing. Which this goes back to Cindy, our homegirl who helps people sell haunted houses. It's like you better say something or the neighbors will. Or the kids at the playground will be like, guess what?

Which is exactly how Helen found out the house was haunted. Yeah. Right. So he claims he wasn't scared of ghosts and that's not at all why he didn't want to live there he says he was worried about the ghost's effect on resale value um but from his testimony it looks like he was scared of ghosts but okay but they they said are you scared of ghosts and he said terrified so there you have it okay well i think that answers that but all right and so wanting out of this but

unable to get his contract or get out of his contract he took helen to court and at the time new york went off of caveat emptor or buyer beware and so the court dismissed this but jeff appealed it and this became a supreme court case of stambofsky versus Ackley, a.k.a. the Ghostbusters rule. I cannot believe this is a real thing. So the court said that buyer beware should be set aside because since Helen had so publicly said for 20 years that it was haunted, Helen couldn't deny that info under oath. Right. Because it was public. Oh, my God. Oh, I just got goosecant.

That's so fascinating. And so the court declared that, quote, this is part of the court's opinion, as a matter of law, the house is haunted. Oh. The court opinion weirdly also made weird references to any idioms or pop culture relating to ghosts so a lot of like actual like the majority opinion mentioned like quotes from like hamlet or ghostbusters it's very weird hamlet or ghostbusters i like how they were like anytime there was a ghost they tried to throw it in there and they even like would say weird sayings i feel like they all were like the supreme court was like this has to be a joke let's just make fun of it they were probably like this is the most exciting thing we've ever gotten to do finally and so well

i guess they used wordplay to their advantage because they said things in uh during the appeal such as the plaintiff hasn't a ghost of a chance also i am moved by the spirit of equity another this is a hobgoblin which should be exercised from the body of legal precedent and then someone and then someone else said a very practical problem arises with respect to the discovery of a paranormal phenomena who you gonna call oh my god wow that good. So the Stambovskys won three to two and ended up getting most of their down payment back too. And even though Jeff didn't want the house anymore, because this was such like a huge deal in the area, in that week of the court ruling, up to 50 potential buyers reached out to Helen. Wow.

week of the court ruling up to 50 potential buyers reached out to Helen wow and among those interested which we're about to do a very very quick um downward spiral oh among those that were interested was the amazing Kreskin what do you know who the amazing I thought you were gonna say fucking what's her face I thought you were gonna say the the warrens oh can you imagine well so i did imagine and then you said something so bizarre that i can't even think straight so the amazing crescan was like a mentalist magician huge in the 70s i guess not magician definitely a mentalist um yeah it's kind of giving houdini vibes And it's also kind of giving Zach Bagans vibes because the amazing Kreskin was a mentalist who intentionally wanted to find a haunted home in New York so that he could start building his collection of paranormal items. OK, so that I was on the right sort of career track with at least a paranormal enthusiast yeah so uh and also well i'll just say in the new york times and the la times they both kept people updated on whether or not creskin was going to

get this house or not and so the new york times and the la times eventually wrote that he backed out of the sale um when he said that he wanted to televise a seance there to prove that it was haunted before he bought the house, which is very Houdini. Helen's son said, you are allowed to televise a seance here for $50,000, or you can have an un-televized seance here for free. And he said, no, no, it has to be televised, but I'm not going to pay $50,000. So he wasn't willing to do it in the end. Okay. Well, I mean, this is like the perk all over again. He's like, you throw in a seance, a televised seance, and then I'll buy the house.

Exactly. I like it. And the amazing Kreskin is still here with us. And I looked up his website, which is still active. And the caption on the homepage is seven decades, 3 million miles, 25,000 shows and over one million minds read. He had a show in the 70s that lasted almost six seasons called The Amazing World of Kreskin, and it is still on Hulu. The movie The Great Buck Howard is based on him. This is every I learned all of this from his website, by the way.

I'm so excited. The movie The Great Buck Howard is based on him this is every i learned all this from his website by the way i'm so excited the the movie the great buck howard is based on him he the very houdini is willing to offer fifty thousand dollars to anyone who can prove that hypnosis is real and he's offering a million dollars to anyone who can prove that he employs paid secret assistance at his shows so again houdini who actually had like informants in the crowd but like in a different reason but he's trying to prove like i don't have anyone in the crowd helping me with my tricks yes um i also found out through his website that he's 88 years old he has a podcast called crescent's amazing experiences and subscribing subscribing on his shop for 75 dollars you can buy a belt buckle with his face on it um nothing has ever mattered to me more than this

information i've never needed a belt buckle more uh no me neither here's the best part this is an article that i saw from jacksonville.. Okay. He is most famous for a trick where he will let the audience, he will have audience members escort him off the stage and take him out of the theater. Yeah. While the rest of the audience

takes his literal paycheck that the venue gave him for the night at his live show. Uh-huh. So the venue gives him his paycheck and says, now go out on stage. We're paying you right now.

And he gets the check in advance. Okay. And he has the audience take the physical check and hide it anywhere in the theater. No. And with his mentalist abilities, he is able to find it in the audience and in the theater during his show. And if he doesn't, he will do the show for free and never get reimbursed for that missing check. Has he ever done it for free?

He performed it over 6,000 times and only had to perform for free 10 times. Jesus. This is a quote from the article. He said he's found his check under, and this is the audience. He tells them like, hide it where fucking ever,

not like, you know, in God, not like in someone's's purse but like try to get creative so this is a quote he said he's found his check under the upper bridge inside a man's mouth which like a man in the whole audience i remember that like he's checking everyone's mouth open your mouth inside a 20-foot fire hose rolled up behind a closed door at the back of the theater no and inside the barrel of a gun being carried by a plainclothes detective his most famous failure he said occurred at a new zealand live show where he was unable to locate a check for 51 000

oh my god probably somebody stole it you're right right. Yeah. At that point, I wonder if it wasn't even in the theater, but 6,000 times and you only, so how many, how many of those times you think someone did just try to steal it? And like, that's a great question. He found it. And then the plain clothes detective was like, oh yeah. You thinking about stealing that 50,000? Oh man. Anyway. So anyway, that was my downward spiral of the amazing kreskin um you've just changed my life thank you his podcast has one rating and it's five stars but now it has two oh good job christine so thank you so back to helen in 1993 she was contacted by paranormal researchers who said that they had after she'd already moved out of the house, and she said that she missed her ghosts.

She wished that she could have brought them with her to her new location. These paranormal researchers reached out to her and said that they were able to make contact with the spirits that she used to live with and found out that the spirit couple, their name was Sir George and Lady Margaretaret and that they were not as fond of their new owners and were thinking of moving on they were like we're bored these people are no fun i like how they tapped into two paranormal researchers and they were like pass this on seriously it's like you might as well send a smoke signal jesus yeah well two years later those two paranormal researchers bill merrill and glenn johnson wrote a book about their findings of these two spirits and called it sir george the ghost of nyack in 2003 helen died in florida and some of her kids think that she moved back to the old house

to be the new resident ghost after she died oh my god because she loved the house so much they think she must be the new spirit now that the others have passed on so maybe she's like holding the holding down the fort for them with that guy from the revolutionary war yeah i guess they're just hanging out uh and that being said though even though they think she now haunts the place nobody who has lived there since her has had any spooky encounters um and as for. Nobody who has lived there since her has had any spooky encounters. And as for the people who have lived there, she ended up selling. I think she I think this is she sold it to this guy or there was someone in between. But the people who lived there after her include Adam Brooks, who lived there for 20 years. And he wrote definitely maybe he wrote a Bridget Jones film. He wrote Wimbledon and he wrote Definitely Maybe. He wrote a Bridget Jones film.

He wrote Wimbledon and he wrote Practical Magic. This guy lived there? Lived there. He was a writer, director, actor, and he worked on all of those movies. Holy shit. Then he sold it to Ingrid Michelson. Okay. How, what is this house?

I want to see it. This is such a weird place. And then, oh shit, I forgot to check the pronunciation on this. There's a new musician that lived there up until 2019 called Matisyahu. Matisyahu? Matisyahu. He's not a new musician. No, no, no, like the newest person to live there.

Oh my God, you didn't, I... I don't know who that is he's like a he literally raps in yiddish yeah they said it was a jewish rapper and i was like that's weird that they're mentioning that he's jewish no it's like his whole thing like oh okay okay no it's like his whole thing and modest yahoo and oh my god i used to listen to him like i memorized multiples of his songs and please remember that it's yiddish raps um yiddish raps yeah but i i've i've memorized a few of them um well he he lived there after ingrid michaelson this is weird after adam brooks um he lived there until 2019 and then it recently sold two years ago for 1.8 million or around there and the house nowadays has five

bedrooms five bathrooms stained glass windows arched doorways a three-car garage a sunroom a saltwater pool overlooking the river a turret and a wraparound porch and well now i'm understanding why people buy this why fancy famous people buy this house and that is uh the ghostbuster ruling aka stombowski for exactly and stigmatized property was holy shit um and it was one was it one levada place just so you can see it um because west nyack isn't that right near new york city because we did a show there once didn't we it's over by sleep it's a cross over from sleepy hollow apparently wow oh my god it's literally on zillow right now. I didn't know. No, it's not.

The Zestimate is actually $2.2 million. Oh, but she's beautiful. Well, because in 2021, it sold for $1.8 million. That's what it said. Oh, boy. Here, let me send you a... Thank you. Geostrio. She's cute.

La Vita. I see. Oh my God. Oh Vita. I see. Oh my God. Oh my God. She's beautiful. I wish I had two whatever million dollars. I want to live here. I also want to live here. Look at the exposed brick in the kitchen. Oh I did.

Man the stairs are giving charmed the stairs for oh my god the picture from the water with the sunset come on oh my god there's that saltwater pool imagine writing like the next sleepy hollow while you look over sleepy hollow from your window can you imagine this place is absolutely beautiful you know that reader's digest article has to be the coffee book like the table oh my god you're so right i don't know the coffee table book when they do we didn't know what you were saying when you were talking about reader's digest earlier so must be a um but yeah yeah yeah wow um that was such a good story. Thank you. I loved it. I hope I cleared up some confusion.

I'm still a little confused about some disclosure laws, but it just seems like it's state by state. I'm sure everyone is. It sounds like they're not very clear on purpose. Yeah, right? Oh, by the way, the name of that woman who works on Haunted House or who sells them, Cindy something, right? Cindy Hagley? Do you think seriously like that she, because do you know what other famous houses for sale have you seen this oh i is it the one in connecticut no connecticut house what the john benet ramsey house

oh i'm sure she's on the case well she's a she's a broker in california so i don't know oh okay maybe then just there um let me give her a shout out again it was cindy hagley I'm sure she's on the case. Well, she's a broker in California, so I don't know. Oh, okay. Maybe then just there. Let me give her a shout out again. It was- Cindy Hagley? Cindy, yeah. Did you find her?

Yes, I did. Cindy Hagley of the Hagley Group. Damn. No, so I have the link here. The JonBenet Ramsey house is for sale for the first time since- Boy, talk about a stigmatized property. Like that's like the definition. Yeah.

And so it is. Let's see. How much do you think it's going for? Well, I look for it. Where what state is it in? It's in Colorado and I believe Boulder area. I. Three. Two. Check real quick quick i think you're right i think it's between two and three i feel like with a with such a notorious story just getting seven million oh bye i they

lived in like a fucking mansion remember they like literally oh right um yeah wow okay yeah it's it's 72 7,240 square feet oh my god i mean it's just wild to read the like description because it says stately and modernized 1920s tudor estate in an epic boulder location it's like and on every true crime documentary yeah ever it's just hard to imagine. But yeah, it's like a mansion, basically. I mean, I'd rather live in the Victorian house, to be honest. Yeah. I don't know.

Oh, man. Oh, my God. I kind of wonder if they're going to have to do a screening process on people who live there. Because I feel like it could be a lot of people who think they're going to like try to solve a crime or something, you know? I mean, I guess Dewey, one in your own house. That's a disturbing. But that's true. That's a disturbing thought.

But it's about their child, you know? So it's like, do what you want in your house. But like, it's our kid that died. I don't know. Wow. I know. I know. Yeah, it's our kid that died i don't know wow i know i know yeah it's wild quick side note also because i just uh read the article more thoroughly about the john benet ramsey house and i wanted to correct my mistake which is that the house was

sold in 1998 by the ramses that was the last time it was sold so it was sold for $650,000 in 1998 by the Ramsey family. And that is about $1.2 million today. So then now it's up for like $7 million. Aha. Okay. Well. Intriguing. Yeah.

And interesting. How long has it been on the market technically? I just saw on Twitter a couple days ago. So I think very recent you know they've got offers right away too which oh i'm sure i think it says march 3rd is when it went up for sale um and it said the uh the listing has been viewed more than this is as of that day i think the listing has been viewed more than 26 000 times oh my god so i'm sure by now is it on zillow uh so it is but it's by sotheby's so the actual yeah it's on zillow here i'm gonna text it to you uh yeah so apparently

they the new owners who bought it in 98 which i want to know more about them you know buying this yeah so being like we'll do it uh. But they apparently had the address changed in 2001, which I think is probably smart. And they added privacy gates to prevent like looky-loos. You know, what's so interesting is one of the things I was reading about when I was doing disclosure laws and all that is that a lot of people with stigmatized properties one of the like problems but also solutions that a lot of um agents deal with now is that people try to beat them to the punch and not have to even disclose to the agent that it's haunted by trying to change the address and so real estate agents were saying the internet is making it harder for us to not have more disclosure laws because we even though we in

good faith will try to be honest whenever we can we almost never will know if people are going figuring out a way to outsmart google i understand okay wow yeah people are a step ahead i guess well especially because you can look up any property now i mean i'm literally sitting here looking at the john bennie ramsey house you know so like and of course like we were saying they're not gonna have a picture of the basement you know in the fucking uh zillow listing but yeah are you looking at it it's very like mcmansion-y a little bit i mean it was built in 1927 so it's it's it's you know relatively old but um it definitely is very chic you know very elegant very elegant um so you know it looks it looks like a colorado ski chalet but like gigantic chalet yeah right uh wow okay sorry so

anyway i wanted to correct that but now i want to get into my story oh my god i'm oh my god i'm so excited what is it it is the story of the possible murder of kathleen peterson aka the staircase murder staircase you don't know it no even i were wondering if you'd know it okay why is it like in fredericksburg or something no no it's just very famous as far as like in the true crime community. Cause there was this, um, so my favorite murder, it was like there for, I think their first episode, or it was one of the ones that they like were really into. Uh,

and then there was a Netflix documentary that got really famous and everybody was having an opinion. So anyway, I'm excited that you hadn't heard of it because it means that we're gonna, um, we're gonna do the plot, the twists and turns together. Okay, cool. I'm very excited. I have no idea about this. Wowza. Okay, great. Uh, so Kathleen Peterson was born in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, um,, where and then it literally says where she was extremely popular. Which can't relate, but I'm so happy for her. She was voted Girl of the Year

and Lancaster Lass. Oh, I love when towns have a little, you know, an award to win. And like being next to Pennsylvania, I'm pretty sure Lancaster is like Amish country. I think so. Yeah. So that's a very interesting dichotomy there. If you have like your pageants and your Lancaster last. I don't know. It seems like an interesting side by side.

What would your local town's competition be? What would the name be? Oh, the Cincinnati Sinners. sinners nope that can't be it well it could be a really fun competition that way but yeah i'll i'll finally enter my first beauty pageant i feel like beauty pageant the burbank babes i don't know that's kind of boring it's also creepy it depends on if they're underage or not um oh yeah anyway i don't know okay lancaster last lancaster last of the year love that for her um she was also president of the debate club editor of the school magazine and as a high schooler she took advanced latin classes at colleges nearby to like get ahead so

she was not only popular but she's also very very smart and ambitious uh this is a very fun fact she was the first woman ever accepted into duke university's school of engineering shut up is that not kick-ass that's the lancaster last for you a fucking man because at first i was like oh she's popular but then i was like christine you're not a child anymore a and b uh she's just fucking kicking ass so So I was I was like, wow, that's really impressive. So she got in in 1971. And at Duke, she got a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering and a master's in mechanical engineering. After college, she moved back to North Carolina, and she was considered a beloved community leader, philanthropist and friend to many still, I guess still last of the year or whatever. and friend to many still i guess still last of the year or whatever uh in north carolina she had a daughter named caitlin with her first husband fred atwater but they got divorced and she ended up marrying a man named michael peterson in 1997 now the two main characters of our story have met michael came into the marriage with four children of his own. So he had had two sons with his first

wife, Patricia, and he and Patricia had also adopted two daughters. So we'll get into that. In 1985, which was 12 years before Michael and Kathleen met in North Carolina, he was actually living in Grefenhausen, Germany. Oh. He was originally from Tennessee. And he also went to Duke University, just, you know, coincidentally. And he studied political science and then went to law school. And he was working for the U.S. Department of Defense. And what he was doing was researching arguments in support of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Yikes. And he eventually served as a Marine until he was injured in a car accident

and honorably discharged in 1971. But while he was serving, he lived on a base in Germany, and he met his wife Patricia there. They got married. They had two sons named Todd and Clayton, and they lived on a U.S. military base together in Germany. And they became close with another couple on the base named the Ratliffs. Okay.

So now we've got Michael Peterson. Yes, the Petersons and the Ratliffs. So Elizabeth Ratliff, the mom of the other family, her husband actually ended up dying in a secret military operation while he was serving. And obviously because of that, she was left as a widow caring for her two daughters alone. So Michael and Patricia would step in and help with the girls whenever they could and when elizabeth ratliff died from a medical incident like a freak thing uh michael and patricia offered to adopt the daughters and so they basically took them under their wings it's i know it's under your wing but since there were two of them i said wings but it sounded very wrong like a like a bird adopted them yeah yeah it sounded uh yes so

they basically you know took them in and raised them as their own adopted them so ultimately michael and patricia peterson their marriage dissolves they get divorced and michael moves back to the united states with his daughters and eventually the sons came to join him as well so he has his four kids they settle in durham north carolina and this is where he meets kathleen who's the first heroine of our story okay uh that we talked about earlier and the two of them got married and then combined their blended families in 1997 so we've got an almost brady bunch thing happening here except a lot scarier except a lot scarier so michael and kathleen were considered like a a perfect match uh kathleen as we said was a businesswoman an engineer um a philanthropist community leader

very popular she was the lat lancaster last for crying out loud michael himself was a respected veteran and a successful novelist who apparently once also ran for mayor uh god so they are just very like eclectic very successful very power couple power couple exactly and all the people around them thought so too they had a friend whose name i'm gonna say nick galifianakis because it's spelled like zach galifianakis and i don't know if he pronounces it in a different way but i'm just gonna say their friend nick galifianakis remembers quote i thought that they were an extraordinary couple, a loving couple. They had all the appearances and trappings of happiness, totally compatible with one another.

So they're now living together, imagine this, with their five children in an 11,000 square foot home in Durham, North Carolina, that was so beautiful, it was actually used in 1990 as a movie set oh my god for what movie the handmaid's tale oh wow talk about a stigmatized property also 11,000 that's that makes the JonBenet house look like nothing tiny right I was thinking the exact same thing um and so of course I immediately start googling this and we're going to get to more detail. But it was actually put up for sale again in 2020 and sold for, let's see, 1.6 million. But the Zestimate is 2.7 million. Oh, I love a Zestimate. I love a good Zestimate.

But yeah, so I'll show it to you later but anyway this house was used uh as the 1990 as he set for the 1990 movie handmaid's tale based on margaret atwood's novel so anyway this house is just like so picture perfect that that's what it was being used for and they had this like blended family with this power couple so everything of course as all my stories do looks just beautiful you know just picturesque picturesque love it so it all was picturesque until december 9th 2001 when everything fell to shambles because at 2 40 a.m., Michael made a frantic 911 call. Oh, God.

In the call, Michael is completely panicked, and he tells the operator his wife had had some sort of accident. It looked like she'd fallen down the stairs. Hence the staircase murder. Oh, okay. The operator told Michael to calm down and asked how many stairs. Hyperventilating, he said, what? 15 to 20? I don't know. He told operators that Kathleen wasn't conscious but was still breathing. He repeated

that twice to make sure that the operator knew Kathleen was still alive and like how urgent this was. So paramedics arrived minutes later and the scene is shocking so i already have chills it appears that kathleen had fallen down 15 steps and i'm really like one of my pet peeves which is a personal thing it's not on the people who do this but when people call in and have like a story but they're like let me give you the layout of the house first like i immediately zone out i think it's because i just can't follow my spatial awareness is so bad that when people are like, sure, there's a hallway with, I don't know, is that just me? Like in any story? Are you talking about like when they call the police?

No, no, no. Like if I'm listening to, say, a podcast and someone's like, oh, I'm going to tell the story. Just setting the scene. Yes. Setting a scene almost. I don't know. It's like there's a long hallway and at the end there's two doors and one goes to the right one goes left and at the bottom

of the right one there's a stair i'm like i can't follow this i think if it's like crucial to the narrative and like people keep it as succinct as possible i can tolerate it but i think if like if someone says like okay this is important to the story it's down the hall into the left not the right the left like oh sure yeah that i can follow that i can go but a whole map no i wouldn't be able to do i almost just feel like it's me getting a little insecure about how bad i am at directions because someone will be like this is crucial to the story there's a hallway with and i'm like i am already lost it's a one hallway and i'm lost okay it's a hallway with no doors or windows and a dead end and I'm

lost. Well, yeah. And now I'm dead because I'm part of the story. It sounds like. Yeah. So anyway, point being, I was reading the description of the staircase and it's literally just a description and I got fucking confused and I had to look up a picture. I know. And so for anybody else out there who's directionally dysfunctional, as I put it, I will give you my description of how this staircase looks. So it's a staircase is step number one. There's about 15 steps. And at the bottom of the steps, picture a wall where there's like a there's a poster of a French cat on it. there's a poster of a french cat on it okay so we're going down a staircase and you're facing right into a wall and then the staircase turns to the left and there's a couple more steps down

okay so it's basically just like an l shape and at the bottom there's a wall and then you turn left okay got it it appears she had fallen down that first set of stairs that the tall one like the 15 steps and then into that like dead end wall. Yes, right. Exactly. Hit the wall and then seemed to slide down the rest of the steps to the floor. Not only that, there was blood everywhere. What do you hit on the way down that causes that much blood?

Well, this is a crucial question. Oh, okay. It is because it I thought I thought you knew. I do. But it becomes a big part of the story. So I'm gonna hold it as a spoiler for now. Sure. So Michael and Kathleen had been up late drinking wine outside. And Michael said he thought Kathleen may have even taken a Valium, which obviously would have even impaired her further if she was drinking. So it seemed like Kathleen maybe was drunk, maybe impaired in some other way, had slipped on her way up the stairs and fallen backward all the way down, suffering fatal injuries. And like I said, there's blood everywhere. It's on the steps, on the wall.

on the wall. Of course, when I was looking at pictures of the staircase for my own directional knowledge, there were crime scene photos and it's just horrific. Like it's just blood everywhere. There was blood pooling underneath her. And what was a little strange immediately was that a lot of the blood was dry. And they were like, well, that's strange. It seems that Kathleen has apparently been dead for at least an hour. Oh, shit. But remember, he called and said she's still alive. Oh. Yeah.

Okay. So he calls and says she's breathing, she's alive, and he says it twice to make sure they hear. Hurry, hurry, she's still here. She's still alive. And then they get there and they're like, well, the blood's like almost dried. She's definitely been dead for at least an hour. So this was just like a strange, a strange anomaly right away.

So, of course, police immediately suspect foul play and treat it as a crime scene. So the autopsy report is just even more horrific than they imagined. Kathleen had multiple bruises of her arms, wrists, hands, and back. She had cuts on her head, on her face. Later, the prosecution would cite her arm and hand injuries as self-defense wounds. And strangely, which we will get back to, she had some of her own hair clasped in her hands,

like ripped out of her hair. Oh, what the hell? Yeah yeah it's like grotesque i mean it's horrific oh my god so there was also a fracture associated with her thyroid cartilage so in her throat uh which was also considered by the prosecution as a possible strangulation injury and then there were seven deep complex lacerations on her scalp. So, in conclusion, the coroner said, in my opinion, the cause of death in this case was due to severe concussive injury of the brain caused by multiple blunt force impacts to the head. Blood loss from the deep scalp lacerations may have also played a role in her death. Deep scalp lacerations may have also played a role in her death.

The number, severity, locations, and orientation of these injuries are inconsistent with a fall down the stairs. Instead, they are indicative of multiple impacts received as a result of a beating. Oh, shit. Well, you also said there was, like, things all over her wrist, like... Yeah, she had cuts and marks, and they said this... The prosecution said that was self-defense wounds, yeah. Hmm, yeah, she had cuts and marks and they said this, they, the prosecution said that was self-defense wounds. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

So that is what, uh, what came about as a result of the coroner's report. And as you can imagine, this was damning evidence because if he calls and says she fell on the stairs and then the coroner's like, no, she was beaten to death. Um, you know, obviously who are you looking at uh michael also if bleeding out did play a role in her death then why did he call so late after she had fallen and also why is he telling the operator that she's alive when she clearly wasn't so pretty immediately, Michael is indicted for Kathleen's murder. And this is December 20th. So he made also like this is a this is a side note, but you said it was 2001, right? Yes. Okay. Hmm. Okay. I'm just gonna remember for later. Oh, you said side note. I was like, is there? I did have a side note, but I don't know if it's important yet. So I'm going to hold off. Oh, intriguing. Okay. So December 20th, Michael was indicted for

Kathleen's murder and he made the following public statement. Kathleen was my life. I've whispered her name in my heart a thousand times. She is there and I can't stop crying. I would never have done anything to hurt her. So Michael made his bail and awaited trial in his home at first all five of their children stood by michael's side but after reviewing the evidence kathleen the woman who had died her daughter her biological daughter joined the prosecution side and felt that michael was guilty for her mother's death okay does that do that yeah should i say that more clearly okay no you said it very clearly i'm just i'm just putting things on the shelf so like great great i just want to make sure it's clear and then her sister candace also ended up joining sides with her. So basically Kathleen's biological

daughter and then her sister, Candace, were like, actually, we've looked at this and we think- Yeah, it's shady. He's guilty. Yes, it's shady. Yeah. So the other children were certain of Michael's innocence. They were like, he would never have done this. And many of their friends stood by him as well, saying like, I believe him. He's a stand up guy. He would never do this.

So four months later, we're talking February 2002 after Kathleen's death, a French filmmaker started following the case and shooting a documentary. And this documentary would later be called The Staircase, which is the one that's been like all viral on Netflix and stuff. Okay. which is the one that's been like all viral on Netflix and stuff. Okay. As the investigation proceeded, there was a lot of back and forth because prosecution believed that the deep lacerations on Kathleen's scalp combined with the skull fractures meant that she had been attacked by a blunt,

but light object. Do they think that, that she got attacked and then was placed on the stairs or do they think she got attacked and then also thrown down the stairs because i feel like if her um i feel like a lot of her lacerations could have been like just hitting the rail on the way down you know right right okay and another thing that i haven't brought up yet but which i learned when i went to look at the see having directional difficulties isn't always bad, because I went and looked it up, and I saw that on the staircase there was one of those stair lift thingies.

Oh, so she could have hit her head on that on the way down. So the theory is that she injured herself on that stair lift thingy. I don't know what that, what are those called? The chair, stair master, stair master? No, that's a gym a that's a gym it's a gym okay well it's a chair lift chair no yeah it's a skiing that's skiing we know what you're talking about okay you know one of those where they sit and go up um so there was one of those and so the theory was that she fell hit that and the wall and as you can imagine that would probably have created some of those lacerations. So what they believed or what prosecution presented is that she was attacked intentionally by Michael with a blunt but light object.

And they referenced a blow poke like for a fire. Oh, OK. referenced a blow poke like for a fire oh okay and they said okay well the fireplace blow poke is not by the fireplace it's missing okay and they said so he he must have taken that and then disposed of it and that feels like thin enough like it feels like i feel like a laceration could come from that you know yes exactly that was what they thought like it's light enough where it's not like you know uh like i feel like if it were thicker or bigger it would be like it would have really done incredible blunt force right like less than less than just the the laceration the deep lacerations yeah i agree um and so that's

kind of what they thought. They were like, well, this thing is light enough and it's sharp enough. It could have done this. But they said it's missing, which they, you know, argued proves that he probably or may have taken it and disposed of it. Then the freaking defense comes forward and is like, this blow poke? Oh, okay. fence comes forward and is like this blow poke oh okay they found it in the basement of the house allegedly and they were like here it is but it was missing the handle so the defense basically brought it and said so sorry just to clarify that was the defense that brought it like his defense

team oh shit they found it in the basement. Was it like them trying to like beat them to the punch or something? It was them saying, well, this is their blow poke that was missing and it doesn't look like a murder weapon to us. They were basically saying, here, we found it. It's all dusty in the basement. But that's that's almost like saying too much. That's what i said that's i was like don't touch like why would you even bring that up okay so um this is a very out of left field situation but the josh duggar case with the with his so he

you know is currently in jail for possession of child pornography and for watching it. The way that they, like, so when the cops came to his business, because he was looking at it on his work computer. Right. The cops pulled him aside. And the first thing he did when they cornered him is he was like, what, is someone looking at child porn on the computer? And it's like, you you just they didn't even say anything like like you just so stupid so i think that's the kind of why they say don't say anything that wouldn't you know we can use anything you say to incriminate you because so that makes me

think of that where it's like why would you bring the poke the poking stick thing that they said was the weapon and you're like look i found it and it's like clearly it you bring the poke the poking stick thing that they said was the weapon and you're like look i found it and it's like clearly it was dusty in the basement so it wasn't the murder weapon but like who knows i mean it was very shady the way at least it was presented on dateline the episode i watched it was very it seemed shady like people were like what and then of course the prosecution is like well that's weird because that blow poke is missing a handle where's that part of it you know so now it's like they've just created a bigger problem for themselves in my opinion and like stepped into the trap like someone they didn't even set a trap for you yet you set your own trap and walked into it you walked into it with a blow

poke and we're like look how dusty it is and people were like that doesn't convince me um so you know whether they were it was real or not uh it kind of had a not intended effect i guess um so you know they didn't find blood on it so they were like well this can't be the weapon but like that doesn't now like you said like now it's in people's heads like now the jury's like oh well you're holding the blow poke and now the prosecution can be like look it matches you know it just seemed not great so anyway as we know michael had had plenty of time to clean some things up between kathleen's death and calling 9-1-1 since she had been dead for over an hour but when he apparently had said she was still alive and that became a problem because they were like, well, why would you lie to the operator?

He changed his story a bit. So he said that Kathleen had actually they were outside drinking together. She had gone inside for more wine and he stayed out smoking a cigar. He said after a couple hours passed, he went inside and found Kathleen at the bottom of the stairs. And that's what he called. Oh, so that's why the blood was dry and there was some time that had passed. That was his new kind of updated story. I was going to say early on it would have made sense if the story was like he came home and found her.

Right. But. Okay. Well. That is kind of what it became. Okay. That was his new version of offense okay so of course some people are like well why did he not go looking for her if she went back to get more wine which like i can also argue like oh if someone's like oh i might go grab another glass of wine and then doesn't come back i'd be like well maybe they went to bed or got on a phone

call i don't know i don't think it's i mean if it were you i would think you just got distracted by something i got lost in the hallway with no doors or windows help i feel like all it would take is like one box of trinkets for you to start digging through and i would lose you for the rest of the night like one of those old-timey vampires where they're like put grains of rice on the porch so that they get to think start counting them and they can't come in and i would just get stuck at like five i'd be like wait let me start over yeah so you're right i like maybe that's in my mind why i was like i don't think it's that weird he didn't go looking for her but maybe that's about the funniest thing you've ever said christine maybe that just reflects on me anyway so people of course were like well why did you not find her for another hour why did

you stay outside um if she said she was coming back and despite the fact that you said she went to go pour herself uh more wine um her fingerprints weren't on the wine glass like she hadn't touched it oh so also shady and then prosecution brought another bombshell albeit not a not necessarily a relevant bombshell but they found perhaps relevant it's up to you to decide uh they discovered male pornography on michael's computer along with explicit emails that he was exchanging with another man so it turns out he was bisexual and the prosecution brought this up as like well clearly he is not happy in this marriage because he is seeking you know affection elsewhere but the defense argued kathleen knew about this and approved of it or was fine with it.

So friends and family confirmed that, yes, their mother knew about this or that his wife knew about this. So unclear. But this is what was brought to the table. OK. okay so it was you know obviously a difficult thing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that michael you know just beat his wife to death in cold blood with no motive so uh they had to find one okay well i mean i could see i mean people have definitely killed their partners for yes you're totally right ext extra marital affair before. Yeah, or less than that, you know?

I feel like in 2002, they really were just so tasteless with the way they handled this. And we're probably jumping right over that. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, they brought up his bisexuality as like, you know, obviously he did it, you know, which is like, well. Great. Well, a lot of people have porn on their computer. It doesn't just because it's of the opposite sex doesn't suddenly mean you're cheating on your whatever. No. Good point. Good point. I don't know. I don't know. And the messages were romantic in nature. Yes, it was sexual emails. So he was he was sexually communicating with somebody.

Because I was going to say it could be a guy who was just watching gay porn. No, no. That's no. Yeah. So I did kind of make it sound like that. But no, he was having some sort of affair. Charged conversation. Yeah.

It was like fully sexual, fully explicit. But what we don't know is whether his wife knew or cared or. So that's kind of where we stand with that. It's like, OK, is it relevant? Maybe. But we don't have any proof, you know. So this is where Michael's late friend and the mother of his adopted daughters comes back into the picture. Do you remember Elizabeth Ratliff back in Germany?

Yes. The friend who died, who was a widow and then died. And then he took care. They took in the daughters, the daughters. daughters the daughters so when elizabeth's family in germany heard the news about kathleen they contacted investigators in the u.s and um apparently it turns out elizabeth remember when i said she died of a medical issue that was what it was on the paperwork that is what was technical technically what she had died of um but it turns out if you look a little closer she had died of head trauma and blood loss after falling down a flight of

stairs in her home shut the fuck up how was that not mentioned or caught on earlier that's i guess it was it wasn't in the states right so they maybe he thought the records wouldn't be seen so that's the thing people were like so he had not told his defense about this so they were not yeah so this comes up and his defense team has to like fucking find out by surprise and so of course this looks terrible it's like why did you not tell anybody? Like, this seems like if you really didn't do it, like this seems very relevant to your case. You know what I mean? I guess I guess if he. No. Well, I don't know.

I feel like if I didn't do it, I see what I've got. I see what you're saying. There's like a part of you that's like, oh, shit, that looks really bad. Like, I know it looks really bad. like a part of you that's like oh shit that looks really bad like i know it looks really bad like if if i if i didn't do it and my friend who i haven't seen in years in another country i did adopt her kids but she died very similarly to me i guess i would still maybe mention it well when you say far away in another country oh but you mean like that the situation okay never mind because it wasn't the situation in germany yes but he was there like he was in the he was living in Germany at the time

right but now he's not and so I would I see what you're saying I would have been like well that happened forever ago it's not even here and you know exactly well I might not even put them together but maybe I would I don't know if you like the two moms, you know, especially if it's like the two moms of your children. That's a good point. If you died the same way, I'd be like, um, that's alarming. That's a great point. I would look at my adopted kids and be like, oh, yeah, like that's how their mom. This literally happened to your mother.

Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a toughie. And here's the thing. So that that had occurred in 1985. So I guess 16 years earlier. And fun fact, Michael was the last one to have seen her alive. He had visited the night before her body was found, helping her put her daughters to bed and then had gone home. And the next morning, Elizabeth's nanny arrived for the day and found her dead at the base of the stairs.

A little bit of a sidebar, but I feel like if he did do this, which I'm leaning towards one way currently, like it's almost like he like wanted to adopt the kids. Like it was because he wanted, he liked the kids. Like I'm kind of worried about his motive with these kids because he knew that if she died he someone would have to take them in yes okay interesting point and i might not fully answer it but we'll definitely touch

on that in a moment um okay so i'm glad you brought that up so when they found elizabeth's body uh there was a shocking amount of blood at the scene again and it was all over the walls all over the stairs just everywhere now which you also touched on this because elizabeth was in germany but living on a u.s military base both u.s and german officials arrived on scene. Oh, okay. So this was also noted in the U.S. crime documents. You know, you've heard of them. In the one big confidential folder that holds it all. Big file folder in the sky. So they were both nations, you know, whatever, military, police, or whatever it is responded um to the scene

uh but at the time they didn't think anything was suspicious and here's why elizabeth had a medical condition that could cause excess bleeding uh and she had been complaining of such a severe headache that before she died she actually had an upcoming doctor's appointment where she was gonna ask them to do some scans and see what was happening because her head was in so much pain. So they thought, well, you know, something must have happened on the stairs. She fell down the stairs on her way. Maybe she had like an aneurysm or something. Something like that. Exactly. Fell. And then as she got cut cut she had this bleeding disorder and so the blood must so at the time they were like well you know this is a freak accident it's

horrific obviously um but they were like it's it's an accident related to medical complications so they left without even taking photos of the scene yeah i mean it was 1985 which i know it doesn't seem that long ago but i don't know know. I can see why they'd be like, well, nothing to see here. Moving on. So in the days following, which is exactly what you just brought up, Michael Peterson swooped in, took charge of everything, made arrangements for Elizabeth's funeral, her home, her daughters. Took over the whole estate. So whether it was, like you said, about the kids, whether it was financial gain because he took over their whole estate. Like, whatever the motive was, it's something I think might be there. Like, I don't know.

I don't know i don't know it feels i mean maybe he just very badly wants to feel like a hero but like to kill someone to be seen as a hero i don't know it's a bizarre yeah it's a bizarre scenario and it feels like well why would he do that twice i don't know anyway we'll we'll get to this okay so obviously in 1985 this incident with elizabeth looked like a senseless tragedy now it looks like a very suspicious pattern and what's worse for michael like i said he hadn't even told his fucking lawyers so now they are like taken aback and shocked and are like well fuck this makes our jobs a lot harder. So people are essentially now wondering why this man wouldn't immediately inform his attorney if he was innocent, that the mother of his daughters had died under like identical circumstances 16 years ago, and he was the last

person to see her alive. It seems very shady that he didn't say anything to his lawyers. Very shady. Yeah. So prosecutors said, we have an idea we're gonna exhume elizabeth ratliff's body from 16 years ago thank god i was getting nervous because i was like couldn't you just go look and see if there's foul play so the daughters say okay because yeah they think it's gonna exonerate michael oh yeah huh like, no, no, we know he didn't do this. They really believe it. And are like, just, you know, we agreed to exhume our mother's body because we believe it'll exonerate him. I think they're going to be wrong. So the North Carolina medical

examiner does a second autopsy on Elizabeth and determined and determined that she was in fact beaten to death prosecutors in germany opened up a new case working side by side with u.s authorities to seek a possible murder charge years after this death had been ruled an accident 16 years later they're like never mind and there's no statute of limitations on murder, right? No, at least not in the U.S., no. Okay, okay. So Michael's trial began July 1st, 2003, and an expert witness named Peter Duane Deaver,

this guy comes back into play, of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation basically sealed Michael's fate when he presented his blood spatter demonstrations. So according to his 18 years of expertise, the only way to produce a blood spatter scene where Kathleen died was if Michael were standing over her, beating her repeatedly. A News Observer article reported that Peter, Dwayne Deaver, was the principal training officer for 22 years and authored the training program and policy procedure manual for blood spatter analysis.

So this guy, like, not only was the analyst, he actually trained the other analysts on the proper procedure of blood spatter. So, in other words, his word carried substantial weight in the courtroom. In other words, his word carried substantial weight in the courtroom. Sure. And basically ended up sealing Michael's fate because defense tried to argue that Elizabeth Ratliff's death wasn't relevant. But, of course, the judge, you know, disagreed, said, well, this is too weird to be a coincidence. So we're going to leave it in. Isn't there. Aren't blood spatter experts like is that i'm legit or

there's definitely debate about it okay yeah there's debate about it in uh recent years it's definitely it's a newer um concern that people have that it can be kind of a bunk science or like uh um i know what word you're trying to think of. Controversial. Yeah. Like junk science, bunk science. Um,

it, it, yeah, it's, I feel like it's being debated a lot. I don't actually know the real numbers, but I think that like the, the number where it can be wrong,

like the percentage of times where it's incorrect is like higher than people thought. Um, and it's not like a proven science i think so i still think it's so fascinating it is fascinating i absolutely agree i just don't know the official stance if you ever needed to do a topic request i think you should teach people about blood spatter i teach myself Let's do it. So, yeah, it also came to light that Kathleen had been apparently worried about losing her job because there were a bunch of layoffs coming up. So in the days before her murder, there was she was like extremely stressed about her work and financial security. And this could have created tension in the household. This could have created tension in the household. There was also a $1.4 million life insurance policy on her that would go to Michael in the event of her death.

So, you know, now they're building out this possible motive. And after four days of deliberation, the jury found Michael Peterson guilty of first degree murder on October 10, 2003. And he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole wow so michael's children were shocked uh they truly believed and actually still do that their father was innocent michael himself apparently didn't even believe until the jury read the verdict out loud that he would be found guilty but the story is not over okay we have another plot twist coming what oh i'm gonna tell you what what are you what are you you were gonna say something i'm no i'm mad you're gonna say oh i'll tell you next week no no no i'm telling you okay i was like don't you fucking okay no it's not much left um this is kind of the crux of this whole story, actually.

So, you know, he's sentenced to life in prison. His friends and family are shocked. He's shocked. And then on October 7th, 2004, which was almost exactly a year after his sentencing, the documentary The Staircase was released. Okay. Now, this documentary focused heavily on the defense, excluded some evidence, and spent a lot of time interviewing Michael and his family, who obviously believe he is innocent.

So, you know, it's been noted that it's a bit biased. It tugs on the heartstrings. And so the public essentially began to be won over to Michael's side. So people, this is presented in a way where people are like, well, he doesn't see, you know, maybe he didn't do it. Right. And so it kind of creates this stir. Oh, God. Oh, God. But in January of 2008, another court decided, nope, we still believe Michael is guilty. So they awarded Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, $25 million in a wrongful death lawsuit that she had filed against Michael several years earlier.

Then we fast forward three more years and a bombshell to the entire justice system was dropped when it turns out remember blood expert duane deaver who basically sealed michael's fate with his genius analysis well it turns out he had been falsifying blood spatter reports for years shit this is why i was being so shady because i was like i don't want to give away the spoiler but i were right on the money here and it wasn't even that like he was just guessing like i mean you know the controversy about blood spatter mostly is like oh well we can't like it it's it's not infallible like it's up for interpretation but this guy was just full out faking shit and was this for like multiple cases multiple cases had to be re-examined i don't know the

number so i don't want to say like thousands or dozens or hundreds. I don't know, but a lot. And this was like a huge shakeup, a huge issue. He was fired, obviously. Was he put in jail himself? He was put on trial amongst his peers. I don't know. I know that he lost his job.

I don't know if he went to jail or not. I don't know if it was like a criminal action taken against him but he apparently would like hear what they wanted and then like create reports on it like he was gonna say do you think he's like was getting paid off by people to like he was getting some something either paid off or like some sort of sway because there's no reason to do it just for like shits and gigs yeah it's it was almost like if the police needed something to look a certain way he would just like do it you know and so they found out he had been doing this for years and several people were even released from

prison because their sentences were overturned and it was heartbreaking in one of the stories on Dateline, this guy was innocent and he was in jail for, I think, 16, 17 years or something. Oh, my God. For a murder he did not commit. Wow. And it was all based on this blood spatter evidence. So it was shocking. I mean, so this guy got released, thankfully, you know, but just unheard of damage. And so of course, Michael being savvy, here's of this and is like, well, shit.

And I mean, you know, understandably he was like, well, this guy was on my case. Let's overturn it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's look at this. So, you know, the court had no choice, but to be like, yes, you know, you make a good point. Everyone deserves a fair trial you know whether we think

you did it or not that is the real justice so they decided to give him a retrial turns out uh as they were kind of delving into this police had also mismanaged some of the crime scene and had contaminated uh contaminated the crime scene photos of the blood spatter that peter deaver presented were even questioned because it seemed like in peter duane deaver's photos there were blood spots where the original photos there weren't any like he was like creating he was like photoshopping yes and making shit up it's horrifying anyway whether michael was guilty or not obviously everybody deserves a fair trial so after eight years in prison michael made his three hundred thousand dollar bail and was released on house arrest to await his new trial and during this time

a former neighbor of his who also happened to be an attorney named larry pollard was like you know what i want to take a closer look at this thing. So he begins looking through evidence more thoroughly in an attempt to basically prove Michael's innocence. So one day he has this massive aha moment. He and his team are looking at the autopsy report about Kathleen's body, particularly the part where she was holding onto some of her hair in her hands. Yeah. They have a microscope either brought in or they sent the pictures to a microscope. I don't know how this works. They sent it to a microscope. Okay. To a microscope. They meant they sent it to a random guy who Amazoned a microscope the other night.

Oh my God, Christine. They took a microscopic look at it. Let's put it that way. And they noticed within the hair were three microscopic feathers. This is where we introduce the owl theory what the fuck is the owl theory the theory goes that a barred owl also known as a northern barred owl striped owl or a hoot owl or eight hooter owl are attacked i was gonna say are you telling me an owl came into the house and then flew away? An owl? Literally.

This is why this case was, like, so bonkers. This is why I was so excited when you hadn't heard of it. I was like, if any crime case Emma's heard of, it's probably the one where the owl did it. So I was, like, honestly surprised you hadn't heard of it. No. surprised you hadn't heard of it no so the owl theory goes that a barred owl attacked kathleen outside her home and she was fighting it off ran inside in distress and as she's trying to rip it out of her hair fell down the stairs falls down the stairs or while she's in a panic about it running up the stairs she falls to her death oh my god obviously sounds

outrageous right obviously yes yes that like where the fuck did this owl come from what window did they slide in what front door did they come through during the day aren't they nocturnal so then it's middle of the night oh okay first okay. First of all. Second of all. The theory goes that she was outside, was attacked on her way in. Yes, I know. I know. But the, I know. I know. So this is what we're going to get into.

Obviously sounds outrageous, right? I needed an owl. I know there was an owl expert who came in. I fucking know. We're fucking fucking don't even worry it's no cindy from your house thing but it's a different is it harry potter himself to come talk about his little owl he's like she would never um no but it is the national audubon society uh the foremost bird experts okay so in 2016 they published an article on their website about the owl theory

and they referenced kate davis the executive director of something called raptors of the rockies who was contacted by the documentary team behind the staircase because she had recently done an interview about a raptor which is just a common name for like a bird of prey so a falcon a hawk that kind of thing, had attacked a boy while he was sledding and like seriously injured him. And so they contacted her. Turns out she became convinced that an owl did attack Kathleen the night she died.

What? Yes. Are you serious? I'm dead serious. She was like, I would know what that looks like. Yes. What? she was like i would know what that looks like and this is what the lacerations seem to match the talons of an owl on the back of her skull

okay but this guy says he was having a cigar outside and then he came in and found her down the stairs he didn't hear a ruckus like a bird attacking you yes exactly um you're nailing it doesn't make sense be a lawyer well okay i never said that do not put me on the record saying that um well i guess they had would you say an 11 000 square foot house so i guess they could argue that like right that you know you could be football fields away and not hear it like maybe he was listening to music on the other side of the pool shed i don't know yeah like i guess all i know there's if if i were in a house maybe i just haven't been in a big enough fucking house where i can't hear crisis like that but like i wouldn't

in your house your house is pretty big i would hear from any area of your home in fact i think the fact that it's shaped a certain way makes it more likely everyone in the house would hear it because it like yeah you'd go down the staircase or something i mean so to speak but yeah i so anyway yes you're correct because that is a big question um so the lacerations on her the back of her head seemed to match the wounds that an owl would inflict with its talons and it would explain the hair feathers and there were also some pine needles found in her hands and she had ripped her hair out the only reason i and she's not someone who would like go outside and like get caught in a tree or something like in a wait what you know like well so my thought was like if you know like there's no way he like planted pine needles and feathers microscopically into her hair

right so like i do believe they were there from the beginning but my thought is like could she have not come from outside like accidentally walked into a spider web or something yeah that's a great point like maybe it was just something got in her hair earlier but i guess a spider web would have been seen microscopically yeah so i don't know um so yes the lacerations and i'll send you a picture uh it's basically like looks like a talon marks in her head um and kate the the raptor expert believed it would even explain most of the defensive wounds on kathleen's elbows wrists and hands because it would be consistent with someone holding their arms above their head while an owl attacked their scalp. Interesting. I have some more bird expertise for you here because apparently the barred owl's mating season begins in December, so an overly territorial owl might have seen kathleen as a threat and swooped

down to attack now this is the final point owls apparently have specialized feathers that make their flight totally silent so kathleen would not have heard it coming until it was too late that all said as m mentioned so astutely, Em, uh, J, Esquire, as I like to call you. Yes, me. It's hard to believe Michael wouldn't have heard a fucking commotion while his wife fought off an owl a few hundred yards away. Like, it's just hard to believe. Like, even if the flight of the owl is silent, you imagine the attack would not be. A blood-curdling scream would not.

At the very least, right. Yeah. And then falling down the stairs. You would hear in a house if something wentling scream would not very least right yeah and then falling down the stairs you would hear in a house if something went crashing down so yeah especially if someone were screaming about it but so while his attorneys were aware of this owl theory and that it might like put the blame somewhere else they also said i don't want to risk my client's life or future on this argument that an owl did it. Like basically, right. We it's also so random about it, but we know that it's going to look shady or fishy or just like outrageous to a jury. Yeah.

So essentially what I'm trying to lead to is that he submitted an Alford plea, which we've talked about a few times. And it's basically when somebody feels like they're not going to get a fair trial um based on the evidence they're not admitting guilt they're saying i'll take the punishment but i didn't do it but i know that it looks like i did it right sort of like have you done um the topic on the beginning of the Alford plea? Like who's Alford? So it's Alford, A-L-F-O-R-D. And I have looked into it. I just I don't think I've ever covered the actual original story.

I don't even to be honest, I don't even remember the original case. I've just heard it used every now and then. But, yeah, maybe I'll look into it see if it's uh see if it's it's anything good uh so basically they were like you know this doesn't look good so he's gonna submit an alford plea uh and the thing with it is he had already served enough time so he was essentially free to go. Okay. And his kids were like, yeah, please do that. Cause then at least you get out. And even though you're going to be a convicted felon, because you've basically put in this plea that says you're guilty, but not, uh, despite that, we believe you and we want you to get out of prison. So everyone was on board. He basically submitted this plea and went home and they

created this staircase documentary. Even though the original intention of it was like, kind of make him look better or whatever. His attorneys were like, we don't think that public opinion has swayed that much that we're going to risk putting him on trial so another fun fact about this movie which i was chatting to eva about before um by the way the staircase it might be confusing to some people because there were recently more episodes that came out to add on to the story so it oh it's a much more current story because of that um so it was originally made back way back when like 2003 or whatever and now has updated episodes which are on netflix and people have kind of looked into this apparently including eva's friend ellen who i need to chat to because apparently people have questioned the documentary's integrity after it came to light that one of the editors was in a romantic relationship with Michael

while he was in prison. What? What? I know. I feel like every step of the way someone's getting found out is like not doing their part. I mean, geez. Yes, exactly. So just really shady. Filmmakers, of course, insist their professionalism was never impacted but i'm like how could it not be like even if you tried not to be yeah unless i found out the editor was like just like color correcting or like sure right good point good point i made him look a little tanner than his orange jumpsuit allowed yeah uh great point m so on february 24th 2017 although michael did initially want to go back to trial and defend himself he submitted this alfred plea on the behest of his children and his conviction was reduced to involuntary manslaughter uh he had already served his time he was free he's still

free today he sold his home this is where i got into into it, where Kathleen died for $1.9 million. And, of course, I pulled up the Zillow. And it sold also, like I told you earlier, in 2020 for $1.6 million and is now Zestimated at $2.7 million. Zillow needs to sponsor us because this is the third time we've had to have a whole conversation about it. We talk about Zillow a lot. So he actually ended up moving after selling the house. He moved in with his first wife, Patricia, and she ultimately passed away from a heart attack, unfortunately. And as of 2021, this is the final line of my notes here.

He was living on his own, according to his attorney, who said he's living in a ground floor apartment with no stairs that was a really important accommodation oh boy taste too soon tasteless i know it's like uh wow yeah that's the story of the staircase murder or not murder i guess since he's been well he's been convicted and acquitted technically yeah it's sort of like a weird gray space um i you know so it's all alleged for my own yeah yeah protection um it was uh it's a great story i was wondering until the owl thing i was like why is this a story that like you said other podcasts like blew up because of or like it was the big thing but like and so i like i don't know what happened because you watch some of these things and you're like oh my god the owl fucking did it like you can see the marks you're like that's a

talon mark like you have people at audubon going yeah actually this is like in you know an owl can be really really vicious and the other thing too is apparently where where this alleged owl attack occurred um would have caused massive amounts of bleeding out of her no it makes sense like i mean it's very random and then you imagine you fall down the stairs and continue to hurt yourself and you're on valium and you're drunk i mean you know but also it's so crazy that like i i feel like i feel like even if the lawyer was like all we have to do is prove that someone else could have done it and that someone could be an owl like that. He did a great fucking job. Exactly.

So it's just so bananas. And like there's still, you know, people still don't agree to this day. I don't even know what I believe. I think the fact that the neighbor had died in the same way back in germany is very shady yeah um but also like you know even though it said she was beaten to death he was never convicted of that either so i can't say he did that you know did they microscopically find feathers and great point great point maybe they got to look at that closer you know i don't know maybe him and uh and the owl i feel

like they're just it's just such a like such a crazy like the only reason he even went to a retrial is because that blood got spatter guy got caught forging documents so like this owl thing would never even have come up it's just crazy yeah it's all just so crazy um great story oh thank you i mean i'm probably the last podcast to ever cover it because i think everyone's already done it so i hope people aren't like bored of it but it's just so nuts it's not boring to me i literally found out today so someone else probably doesn't know about it um also earlier when you said oh my god you didn't even know what you're saying and i had to keep my mouth shut but i see i said oh they brought them under their wings and you said oh yeah like a big bird adopted them and i was like uh-oh i almost said hold that thought and then i was like no no

don't say anything if you did i would have absolutely been as lost as you in a hallway with no doors by the way i would have been like what a whole lot about a big giant bird what i would have not seen it coming at all oh lordy oh man anyway well i'm sorry it's such a long effing episode that's fine it's really not too much longer than our usual ones i guess i guess we had some technical issues we also talked for half an hour about how your baby maimed me that's true i literally as i'm sitting here i'm feeling them i think today's the bad day because yesterday it was just my head but like they're all over my hands and my arms right now oh no so i'm literally i'm literally going on allison's family vacation like 24 hours so So sorry.

Should I? Well, I'll have to ask if any of them haven't had this. Yeah. Well, we'll have to find out the hard way. I didn't mean to. It's not you. I just I literally have one in my armpit and I'm about to go like pop something in my armpit. It's like I'm losing my mind.

This is my chicken pox, you know, since the vaccine kicked in. since you went to all those parties and never caught it i never went to the party i got vaccinated but uh no i i uh it'll be an interesting week so i hope your baby's doing okay we love you no i i hope your baby's doing okay is she better now much better yeah she got better uh pretty quickly and is now back on her back on her bullshit cool well i can't wait to see and experience more of her bullshit yay me too uh after chat yeah let's do it okay and that's why we drink