And That's Why We Drink - E328 A Wicked Birthday Card and a Vampirarchy

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Grab your Kentucky-legal vape pens because episode 328 is chock full of frenemies, boats, ex-lovers and Sperry's! First Em takes us across the pond to cover the Highgate Vampire, the Degrassi of paranormal stories. Then Christine takes us to Connecticut for the story of the murder of Ellen Sherman and how a horror movie helped crack the case. And Karen 3000 is as impatient for her grog as ever... and that's why we drink!

Christine's getting high everybody just a PSA I'm watching her before my very eyes things are changing around here. Not really. Like the receptors in her brain. Here's the thing. I found this legal weed. Okay. And I mean legal because I live in Kentucky. Normal weed is not legal. I totally forgot.

I was like, why are you? I was like, you were saying like, oh, I hope it's okay. And I was like, I don't give a shit. I totally forgot you're not in California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is not legal here, recreationally or medically. Isn't that fun for me? And I found through some podcast ad, I don't know, like THC-8 and THC-9, which are like lower.

I don't know. There's like some, it feels like a loophole because it still has like the THC effects, but it's just less. So I started using them as like little sleep gummies at night and they work wonders and it has helped me cut back on my drinking which is great because like oh nice if I'm going to bed I don't need to like keep drinking I mean listen you know it's fine my third by the way this is not an ad this is all we've talked about so far and I haven't even said a brand I'm not going to say a brand because i'm you know whatever um but uh so i found these fun little like thc8 like uh i don't know gummies and like this little vape pen that blaze keeps making fun of because i'm like let me grab my vape it looks like a little

office highlighter or something it does doesn't it and then i've been labeling them jack that's the strain of it apparently but then i put little symbols for what it does so this one apparently is good for creativity so i put a smiley face my label maker doesn't have that many symbols so i put a smiley face and a pencil i was gonna say this is the most like mom version of getting stoned it's like let me use my label maker to organize how it makes me feel and like to be clear i was never it's probably obvious never a weed smoker like i just didn't i drank way too much but like i never really smoked i was never against it i just never did and so the first time i did was in colorado where it was

legal and i got way effed up and i accidentally took way too much of an edible I was like never again so it's taken me like almost a decade to like really come back yeah yeah it was like really traumatizing so I'm back baby um I'm redoing my office um um I have my mothman collection back there um I put a mini fridge up here with all my with all my water beverages i mean you said you said oh let me get my liquid death from my corner and i was like what i know i was gonna say from my new mini fridge but i was like i want to announce that on the podcast so i'm gonna say corner is it the same mini fridge from your old house that kept no we get we that one got backs i just like couldn't move it with it so um I ordered a new one off Walmart.com.

Sorry, also not an ad. Is that so? Is that why you're not sitting on your couch anymore when you record? Yes. You've got a whole wall now? Well, so here's the thing. I've also been working on that corner and I put up some shelves and some pictures and I've been trying to put my books up and I'm slowly building that together.

Is that Junie? Oh, there he is. Hi, June. Is that a dead cat in the middle of my room? Yep. That's Juniper for you. But so when I record Beach to Sandy, we film it like with cameras. And so I usually sit there. And so every time I would have to like swap all the chords and since we do it over Zoom. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to have an and that's what you drink recording station which has fun things like this and then i'm gonna have my corner over there for uh bs2 sandy so listen it's i'm i think i'm thriving i don't know as the episode goes on and i keep trying

out this fun little machine you let me know if i'm getting a little too out of control um how are you m uh well uh i'm fine i'll be the exact same amount of not stoned by the end of this um oh man i only know that psa where like the girl's like melting into the couch that'll be by the end of this which by the way i was always like that looks lovely why do they want me to avoid that i was like a good nap the way my brother taught me the two strains because he has a medical marijuana card in ohio is um so there's sativa and indica and indica is like in the couch like you're like it's like the mellow like make you sleepy kind of thing right anyway that's that's how i learned fun fact everyone that's clearly what that melting girl was on yeah exactly i always think of that i'm like yeah in into the couch physically um other than that i'm fine i've i not much to report here

i don't think oh i got a present from your girlfriend. I got a package today. And it said from Allison. And I was like, huh? And I opened it because I was like, oh, she just went to Iceland. Like, maybe it's a souvenir. And then I opened it. I was like, this is amazing. And then I read the card and it's for my birthday. So, oops.

But when this comes out, as we messed up last week, as this comes out, I think like in a week or two is our birthday. So, you know, it sort of counts. But she sent the sweetest little card. It says have a wicked birthday with like this creepy demon on it and i love it so much and then i'm sorry look at these freaking matches that are like little elephant guy like these cool vintage looking matches and then m what a lucid dreaming kit i was with her when she got that that was from the renaissance fair oh um i was like wow m's if if m was not involved in this m has someone what do you say run for your money how do you say that phrase it sounds right giving you a run for your al's giving you a run for your money with with the gift giving because i gasped when i opened this she did tell me all

about these matches and i never got to see them so she i beautiful. Well, I didn't know what was going on. I just kept being like, you sent her matches for her birthday? Okay, I've gotten a lot of matches for gifts recently and it's the best because they're like just the most beautiful container and then you can replace the matches. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Nobody has to know that it's not the original. Genius. Yeah, these are so cute.

So thank you, Al. You can also make it a little tchotchke box. I love a tchotchke box. Or a little tchotchke box. But this little kit has tchotchke box um and but this this little kit has like all your little vapes in there oh come on now which is the digital match book the digital matches right who needs a match that's a great point um um no i was with her for the renaissance fair when she got uh god it's so cool i mean it has dream tea and oh anyway i just i just saw it on my desk so thank you al pal um you're the first birthday gift i got al thank you

she's been really on a roll recently with her um being productive yeah i mean she like she mailed it out like a month before my birthday i know she's traveling and stuff but i was like damn she's having a bit of a crisis these days with um getting tasks done and so i know she's traveling and stuff but i was like damn she's having a bit of a crisis these days with um getting tasks done and so i think she had like she was in a panic state one of those like yeah she was like i need to get everything done because then i'll relax and and it's like don't you love that then you need your indica you know to really relax that's what maybe that's what i'll mail her for her i was gonna say allison could probably use some Indie Couch, I think. Indie Couch. But yeah, no, she's been trying very hard.

She texted me when we were in Boston or Florida, and she was like, I already got all your birthday presents. And I was like, whoa, that's not for a while. Oh, I hope I didn't just spoil all your gifts. Oh, no, you already knew about these. Okay, good, good. Allison, if you got me matches, i'm sure they look very pretty apparently i was like how do i go about this delicately i don't know if i want matches please um but no i

she seems to be really on top of it and she said she's i'm excited to see what she got me she said this is the year that she feels the most confident in the gifts because she's always kind of guessed before so the okay she's putting a lot of pressure on though because if it's not then you're going to be like really this is the bar if she was really confident about the matches i'm so sorry allison i was like what oh about matches for you i was like i was like that's a great gift for me i gasped when i saw those they're beautiful the design is very you i love matches like, that's a big gift. You got to get with the times. It's good candles and they're decorative.

We honestly, we have so many candles that need to get lit that a box of matches wouldn't be the worst thing that I get for. See, you're coming around. Anyway, I'm doing good. Nothing really to report here. It's about to get busy. So like, I'm really trying to appreciate this like week I have at home. And then it's like I feel like I'm traveling nonstop until like the end of summer. And then RJ's wedding.

Back on tour. Yeah. Vegas. What else you got? So I have I have the Philippines, which is overwhelming to me because I don't do well with international travel. So that's bigger in my mind than it actually is. And it's one of my best friends getting married which is also a big deal for me um what else then I've got we've got Vegas but that's very quick like I think I'm only there for like 24 hours it seems and then I'm going straight to the Philippines and then uh when we get back

oh then it's my birthday but my mom's in town for my birthday oh boy was not fully invited to my birthday by the way she just is attending um she just said i'll be there um and then after that i have like a bunch of people coming into town so it's really not going to be like like i have um this is so gross health stuff, but I have two surgeries on my stupid legs in June. Oh, no. I know. They're taking them off? I'm taking some gross veins out.

Oh, yes. We've talked about this. Yeah. So I have that at the same time that I have friends coming into town. So I'm wondering how that's going to go. And then in July, I'm going home for a while. I'm also stopping in Florida to see my grandma. And then in August, oh'm going home for a while uh i'm also stopping in florida to see my grandma and then in august oh i'm seeing you at some point in june and then in august we've

i've got something else going on and then we're going to be back on tour oh my god yeah i'm going to sweden in august and bht sandy has six or eight live shows throughout the summer. I feel very nervous for you. Oh, at some point I want to come to one of your shows. So that'll be on the docket too. Oh, that would be so fun if you could. Yeah, I'll send you the list. By the way, folks, check out beach to sandy dot com slash. I don't know something.

Just go there because there's tickets. But yeah, we're going to a lot of cities that Em and I haven't gone to in a while and a lot of places that we have so it'll be fun anyway i feel like i've got a lot of things coming up and so i'm i'm trying to appreciate the like seven days i have at home yeah and then it'll really be a bit of a nightmare seven days is a good like yeah period like a good long period yeah although we are recording a lot during that time so i feel like it's uh i don't know how much relaxing i'm doing i'll just be researching recording so anyway i'm i'm just happy to be at home physically because i'm about to get a lot of hotels so anyway it will it will figure itself out it always does we'll survive with that i've got you a story today christine which i honestly i feel like it's

hmm i mean it's it's a it's a good old classic story but there's like two of the main characters are frenemies and like really hate each other like i don't understand what's happened there's like to this to this day, they have beef. And one of them's dead. Like, they- Oh, what? They started as friends and then they like very obviously broke up

and like, and then just like very publicly hated each other. Is this like a Degrassi episode? I'm so confused. It feels like it, yeah. So we'll get into it. This is the story of the highgate vampire oh hi as in christine uh gate as an offense and vampire as a vampire gotcha and uh but highgate it's the name of a cemetery in london so this is uh during the british satanic panic. Was that a different time?

Uh, it was like the, uh, 1970s. So I guess not maybe like right before our satanic panic. Um, so the British has had several panics, hysterias, uh, over the, over the course of history, but by the 20th century, that's when we got names like alistair crowley and arthur edward waite and um so this era of like british occultism came after the first wave of spiritualism okay and it led to a lot of accusations about local satanic cults so by the way there is like no real evidence for these cults in a lot of spaces but they were constantly getting blamed for any wrongdoings going on um and this i think is so wild is that even when satanic rituals and satanic cults would be blamed for things the police never had to go looking for evidence because they would say it

was too dangerous for them because come on the there was quote a very real danger of police being hypnotized that was their reasoning so they're like we don't even need to find evidence to note this is wrong and if we go look come on it's too troublesome okay so despite having no evidence the police were still adamant that the rumors were true that satanic cults were just sweeping the nation um in 1954, there was, I think it was like a magazine or like a weekly called Witchcraft Today. I want that. I want it so bad. It was published by Gerald Gardner and it promoted Wicca, which even Wiccans during the Satanic Panic, they were speaking out against Satanists and black magic.

Oh, wow. And they were. They were like, you're giving us a bad name, probably. Yeah. And I mean, still to this day, a lot of people clump all witchcraft together. Right. Exactly. And I know my own stepmom taught me at a very young age, there's a difference between black magic and white magic. Sure. A good witch and a bad witch.

me at a very young age there's a difference between black magic and white magic sure good witch and a bad witch and so i think a lot of wiccans would like write into witchcraft today or would be promoted in witchcraft today as as advertising for white magic or good magic um on top of that so this was during the i said it was during the 70s but it was during like the 50s to 70s so um i think earlier, definitely, there was satanic panic. On top of that, cemeteries were being vandalized and graves were being dug up. And it was being blamed on black magic, despite zero evidence. By 1964, police said that there were over 200 cases involving black magic and satanic cults. Again, even though there was very little evidence

yeah well it was too dangerous m of no one wants to get hypnotized what do you expect yeah are you kidding uh this however led to people associating the british or the 200 cases of cemetery vandalism in the area this had people associating british cemeteries with satanic rituals and that brings us to highgate cemetery which is in i hope i'm saying you're right is linkedin islington in london oh i don't know i don't know it wouldn't be eilington like like the british isles oh i saw most sources just said london and then on one i found the name and you just had to be specific and wrong apparently at the same time so no i mean i i don't know i really don't know in the general london area there's a cemetery called highgate um fun fact this cemetery is

where karl marx is buried oh um it's also where where Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Oh my god! Oh, I didn't know he was dead. I guess that's probably an old book. And, probably the most important person to be buried there, is Roland Hill, who invented the modern postal service. No. So, good for him.

Roland. Roland. Classic. so good for him roland roland classic uh so highgate is split into two parts and there's a road right down uh the middle of it called swain's lane and in 1839 is when the oldest part of the cemetery was opened and uh up until or since 1839 over a hundred thousand people have been buried there oh geez the cemetery got damaged and overrun over the years but especially after world war ii and the area became notorious for kind of troublemakers if you will um just because it was an overgrown cemetery um they would teenagers would damage property they would allegedly even drag bodies out of coffins

ah well i mean i guess if people are digging up the graves then like the next step would be opening coffins i can't imagine you're digging up a grave to not open it to not right yeah like what's the point yeah i mean not that there's a point okay you know what yeah i wasn't involved i swear to god i was really busy that day, whatever day it was. Em was there and can attest to my worry about it. This is the beginning of our frenemy breakup, I think. That's right. Yeah.

So all these rabble rousers, troublemaking teens, they would damage property. As I said, they were dragging out bodies, I assume to swipe the jewelry off of them or something. property as i said they are dragging out bodies i assume to swipe the jewelry off of them or something but a lot of people thought that it was to drag them out for sacrifice rituals or blood rituals in the 1960s two of these teen occultists as they're being called they spent a lot of time in highgate and their names were david and sean what year was this sorry this was in the 1960s okay they were two of the kids that you know participated in roused some rabble yeah you know what it's all about i gotcha it's almost as if you were there christine interesting you know what um you're literally getting high

right now so i don't trust anything you're saying about being a good citizen i might as well be a fucking satanist i guess yeah in the 60s you would have been they would have done a psa about you yeah yeah it would be bad uh so anyway two of the teenagers from the 1960s that were often in highgate were david and sean and i want you to remember those names because they are the two who are the alpha bun glinda to this story if you okay now we're talking they don't make it unfortunately you said good witch bad witch and i kept my mouth shut but then you just said their names and i'm really excited didn't even occur to me i used a witch reference oh my god i'm so smart okay you are yeah i guess i mean yeah yeah oh hmm moving on i'm just saying like

who noticed it okay you're right so they formed a group together which this does feel like something we would do in the 60s if we were already hanging out in graveyards which we've agreed early before this episode that we would do oh absolutely they absolutely. They formed a group together called the British Occult Society. Ooh! We could create an occult society. Yeah, I love it. I think we kind of have already. That's an excellent point, actually.

And that's why we drank Occult Society, for sure. They formed this group, and they eventually got... I guess it was where people could send in reports of, you know, spooky things. That's kind of the vibe I got. I don't know the official mission statement of the British Occult Society. I don't know if they had one. But eventually they're getting reports of entities around town. One of them being a hypnotizing dark figure at Highgate.

Don't tell the police. I was going to say, I feel like a cop is the one who reported it. They a hypnotizing dark figure at Highgate. Don't tell the police. I was going to say, I feel like a cop is the one who reported it. They're hypnotizing me. And this is in 1969. David decides that he is going to stay at Highgate and investigate for the night. And just before midnight, he sees this figure himself. Uh-oh. He says it's dark.

It's walking by him. It's just like this says it's dark. It's walking by him. It's just like this kind of shadow figure. It's seven feet tall. Its eyes were inhuman. And they were, in fact, hypnotizing him. And he said he had to break eye contact to shake the spell off. And then the figure vanished. After this experience, David wrote into the local paper and asked other readers to share their experiences at Highgate, which what a topical thing to do if like there's like all these stories of, you know.

You know, bad kids at Highgate, you know, they're seeing something at night or something. Yeah. They're trying to scare each other. There could very easily be a wave of stories come in. Yeah. It's like I saw there there it's like pre-reddit you couldn't just make a forum online so now you gotta use a newspaper what i'm kind of i shouldn't be mind blown at that but yeah the newspaper is just original reddit sort of um so he asked other people to share their experiences from highgate and a bunch of people wrote in and they said that they had also seen the exact same figure he was talking about. Another person wrote in saying

that they saw a tall man in a hat who apparently would just disappear. He would walk into the walls of the cemetery. And people just kind of wrote in what they had seen. Soon enough, people were writing in, though, that there was a particular entity there called the Highgate Ghost. And he made front page news eventually after so many people had written in.

So... The ghost did? The ghost. It was called Spooked or Spooks. And it was the headline of the front page news all about the Highgate Ghost. Locals had multiple different names for it called the White Ghost, Mad Arthur, and the Wild Eggman. I like that one the best.

I like that one too. It sounds like a Pokemon or something. It does. So some people wrote in that there were other ghosts as well in Highgate. So one was said to chase women, which is terrifying and maybe not a ghost. Yeah, right? Another is, say it with me, a lady in white. Always.

And she would try to lure people into the water nearby. Oh. And when she would get into the water, the water would not move. And soon she would disappear into the water herself. Ooh. The main character, though, was this ghost of a man in a hat. And David and Sean looked into this entity, and I don't know their research protocol, but ultimately they determined that this was not a ghost.

This was a vampire. Oh, my mistake. Yeah, me too. I'm like, how did that happen? Sorry. Oh, my mistake. Yeah, me too. I'm like, how did that happen? Sorry.

One of their main sources that they worked off of was the fact that several animals in the area, like foxes and all that, were being found dead around town with neck wounds. And it looked like the neck wounds were causing them to be completely drained of their blood. Uh-oh. uh-oh in february of 1970 uh the local paper you know that the reporters are going crazy for this with all these articles coming in the local paper wrote an article called does a vampire walk in highgate and in the article sean said this is not just a vampire, my friends. This is a king vampire from Romania. What? I think Sean had a flair for the dramatic. Yeah.

Sounds a little off his rocker to me in that way, but okay. I don't know. I can't say yes or no, I guess. True. He said it's a king vampire from Romania, which a king vampire sounds like a type of spider or something. It does. Oh's a king vampire from romania which a king vampire sounds like a type of spider or something like it does oh a king vampire um bite you it's it sounds to me that this really was like the king of vampires or something or maybe it's like a powerful vampire yeah like the concept of

like it's uh oh my god i was gonna say rat king but i feel like maybe that's not a good analogy i don't know in the world of vampire hierarchies yeah like he's like call it a vampirearchy but whatever that's a good one um you know i am the smartest one of the two of us that is true that is true i say it all the time. So this King Vampire, however he may be or came to be known, he apparently has a bunch of supporters. And these fans of him, they helped him move to England in the 1700s. Well, that was nice. That's the story we're going with.

They like carried his couch up the stairs and everything. Yeah. He's a good friend, you know? I'm wondering, like, did he go to bed in a coffin and not wake up? And so they all carried his coffin to England? Well, we're his friends. We should really... Couldn't they wait till it was like nighttime and he could wake up and the sun wouldn't be

there and he would just fly to England? Like, why did they have to bring him there? I'm telling you, maybe he had a heavy futon. I don't know. Well, hopefully... I know exactly where he put that futon, by the way, because the theory then goes that once he got to England, he moved to the London's West End. Oh, OK, good for him.

Yeah, I wonder what his zillow looked like before he got there. Oh, I wish I could know. Sean believed that these grave desecrations and the vandalism going on in the cemetery were rituals by his supporters to bring the king vampire back which like i thought you brought him here yeah come on make up your mind bring him back was he dead how did he die maybe it's maybe they might bring him back maybe they might bring him back to romania but they brought him to england i know i need clarity here maybe okay hear me out maybe the vampire's friends are not vampires or his supporters and so they don't live forever so they keep dying out and

the new ones have to step in and so they're like wait wait wait wait yeah maybe like like like a new um like a new e-board got together and they're like we actually don't like making some changes yeah exactly uh that makes sense right guys so in this king vampire's fraternity they all got together for a chapter meeting and agreed that they were gonna make some some go back to romania yeah yeah yeah as i was looking through these notes i gotta tell you it did not make much sense so i'm just reporting the news here i like i'm following perfectly thank you great okay so uh yeah apparently everything that had been going on in the cemeteries in the last few years was clearly the king vampire's supporters and they were trying to bring him back with these rituals that they were performing in this overgrown

cemetery sean said that now that he knows apparently with confidence that the king vampire is here and the rituals must have worked for so much tomfoolery to have happened in the cemetery which like i feel like if he were back they went okay whatever um sean said now that he's officially back with no public statement or anything he just said well now we have to get rid of the king vampire and the only way to do that is to quote exercise the vampire in the traditional and approved manner is that a stake through the heart so that's what i yes yes but apparently there's more to it which I did not know. I always thought stake through the heart, bada bing, bada boom, one, two, three.

Yeah. Apparently I was wrong. This is the traditional manner. This is a quote of his. Drive a stake through his heart with one blow just after dawn between Friday and Saturday. Chop his head off with a gravedigger's shovel and burn what remains. Okay. My guess was separate the body parts and burn them. For some reason, that was my next guess.

So I was sort of onto something. Because as we figured out earlier, you were there. You were definitely there. But also- You're like, I have this weird vision. It's so weird. I have the most accurate answer. It's so weird. I have the most accurate answer. It's so weird.

I'm holding this shovel and... Oh my God, no. It's I'm holding this vampire's head and I don't know where he came from. Oh no. It's the weirdest thing. So according to Sean, quote, this is what the clergy did centuries ago. But today we'd be breaking the law. So we can't just go chopping around heads

and stabbing people in the heart anymore oh man so of course this was sean's opinion that this is what we should do but other people's opinions including an actual minister who i don't know his life story but he was an actual minister and then became a vampire exorcist at one point. Didn't know that was a real thing. But even people like him were saying, this is not a vampire case. I don't know what Sean's talking about. And Sean is literally referencing

the clergy in his argument. So it's like, now the clergy's like, I don't think so, which is not a good sign for you. Exactly. He's like, this is what they did. And they're like, but OK. But as someone who's exercised actual vampires, which I'd like to know his expertise on that. That's got to be another episode. As someone who claims to have actually exercised vampires, he's saying this is not a vampire case.

OK. Another skeptic wrote this. I don't know if it's really scathing, but it's certainly passive aggressive. OK, even better. He said this about Sean. He said the British Occult Society is to be congratulated on fighting a brave last ditch battle. But alas, it's too late by at least three generations. I like that he inserted brave.

Yeah. Nothing more condescending. it's so condescending yes sean you've been so brave now step aside you've been such a brave young lad didn't i call you brave for something for a show yeah it was very rude i don't remember though did i say oh i was like it's so brave that you'll just wear that yeah we were literally in the car on the way of the show and i was like it's so brave of you to wear what like whatever to a show he's such an ass it was probably the funniest thing i said all night i think um uh it was like oh so you're gonna wear that no that is so brave of you as i walk out in like sweatpants and a hoodie like we're okay so despite the many skeptics against sean being like this isn't a vampire i wonder if they were skeptics who believed in vampires right but we're like this isn't one or if they were just

like this this is all baloney yeah like your best guess is a vampire and you're saying it with your whole chest okay so despite the many skeptics uh many do agree with sean so there's a real back and forth here like team sean and vampires team this isn't a vampire and david who at the time seems to be very pro sean yeah he even says i am prepared to pursue it, taking whatever means necessary so we can all rest. Oh, and this is the first time that things getting a little messy because David later recants this and says he was kidding to the interviewer. Well, that's it is a hilarious joke if he was kidding. The funnier than my brave comment for barely but but a little bit funnier yeah so uh anyway at the time he allegedly was very you know this is a vampire and we're gonna put this thing to rest so sean and david they get interviewed on tv about this this is how involved the town is about this stuff and of course it's on a friday the 13th and apparently right before they went on

the cameraman clutched his throat and passed out oh clutched his own throat i thought you might clutch sean's throat i was like true crime here we come okay no clutched his own as if like a vampire bit him and he passed out and he's carrying that heavy camera you know that probably shattered everywhere oh and it was from the 70s so expensive oh so then they had to get a second cameraman so eventually i guess he was fine but everyone was a little rattled at that like what are the odds and he uh and david said that was kind of odd that we were going to get interviewed and then this guy like just fell over but on top of that before this interview we were getting a bunch of death threats for satanic cult from satanic cults for exposing their work one of the letters he got was written in blood

oh with a bunch of symbols all over it and it said by your interference with the work of our high order, you have invoked the wrath of Lord Hadit. Had it. Had it. By his element and the power of the sevenfold cross, you shall now be destroyed. This is decreed by his grace, and this wish will be fulfilled through our order. Be it thus so. Written in blood. I was going to say, that's a lot of words to write out in blood it's really i appreciate the floweriness but like for a satanic cult i feel like you could have just kind of been boom to the point you could have just put a symbol and everyone would have been like ah you know like that's so much blood to write out it is you couldn't just like try to keep it concise

so concise anyway i don't know so during this interview uh after so they've gotten these threats they get to their spot it's on friday the 13th this guy passes out as if someone bit him now they're doing the interview and during this interview sean says oh well david actually plans to stay the night and hi and slay the vampire oh my god that's something like you and i would literally joke about for sure joke about but also like if one of us did that to the other like talk about like a friendship ender or like at least uh on live television like that is that's not cool well because also like think of the um i don't remember what i don't know what the right word i'm trying to think of is but think of the hysteria that's already through the town and

now you're like label like your geo you're locating exactly where he's gonna be all night point and what he plans on doing and people have been sending him death threats. Like, not good. What an asshole. Anyway, Christine's address is. She plans to spend the night there and look for the devil. Oh, my God. And so, and not only that, but on top of it, he says, well, David plans on spending the night here, but now he's not going to be doing that anymore because, quote, we feel he does not possess sufficient knowledge to exercise successfully something as powerful as powerful or as evil.

He's just like double blow. So also he's stupid and he's not strong enough to fight i'm gonna throw you under the bus and then i'm gonna drive the bus backwards over you again because the first time wasn't enough but i'm gonna say you're staying the night here surprise on live tv no pressure but also you're too stupid to do it so never mind like what all of it so yeah years later david even said in another interview by himself he was like i never planned to stay the night but sean just said that like we never even dick like can you imagine not even ever having discussed that and now sean is like saying this you're on tv you're supposed to save

face oh god yeah so like what is i wonder what he did of like uh sure i didn't plan on that but okay oh my god so i guess he was like well at least you like got me out of that by saying i'm too stupid to say thanks for pulling the plug on that so years later david said he actually never planned to be there but he also said that sean had like um had reached out to a lot of people for publicity to make this interview really successful um and so that might have been why he did it for like the publicity stunt of it all or it could have just been to make david look bad because i was gonna say but also like couldn't you just say oh i plan to spend the night like why do you have to say he's planned you know what i mean like why didn't you just if you're gonna do a publicity stunt why don't you just say and i plan

to bravely spend the night you know what i mean like why are you throwing this guy under the bus well so here's a weird thing this is where the friendship gets messier or where like our understanding of it gets messier is that david says i never planned to be there but at the same time he did stay there for several more hours after the interview. So I don't know if Sean was... David did. So, yeah, David did stay, even though he claims we never discussed that. And then Sean even said,

oh, David plans on being here, but now he's not going to be there. And was he there alone after the interview? He was there alone. Oh, weird. It makes no sense. So maybe he's like, I'm not stupid. Maybe this was all, what do you call it?

Psychology, reverse psychology. He's like, he's too dumb to do it, right? Yeah, he tried to prove himself. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't understand how that worked out or what the real story is. But it sounds like he ended up sticking around anyway. And people must have thought, like, maybe he'll still be there. Or maybe we can get a glimpse of them doing this interview live.

People must have thought like maybe he'll still be there or maybe we can get a glimpse of them doing this interview live. It ended up turning out that within hours of this interview, a mob was at the cemetery. Oh, no. And this was, you know, at the time people heard he might be slaying a vampire tonight. Sure. They were like, we got to get over there. And it basically looked like pitchforks and torches and like what you would imagine and it was as big as like a crowd of people at a football game the police could not control the crowd over 100 people broke into the cemetery with their own weapons to help fight the vampire and at the end

of the night somehow the crowd kind of dissipated on its own nobody ended up being harmed shocking damn well yeah that is shocking especially if everyone's bringing weapons yeah but it ended up causing a bit of a scene so sure everything kind of started to die down until august um and that the that was march so okay like about five months later three girls are walking around the cemetery you know and they're probably seeing like it's probably yumi and eva or something going like wow i can't believe a vampire was almost slain here this is so spooky well so they're in the cemetery by themselves and they find the remains of a body and it was she was removed from her coffin. She was charred and decapitated. Oh, no.

And police, of course, said, I don't know, but this could be black magic. We can't check. We couldn't check if we wanted to. Close your eyes. And the British Occult Society, David and Sean's group, they still believed that this could be the doing of a vampire because they never slayed the vampire and therefore he's still out there. Later on, David claims that he and Sean, fun fact, could never actually agree on what type of vampire this thing was. So Sean was very king vampire who came over from Romania and lives in the West End. With his heavy futon.

Right. His fraternity of brothers. Yeah. vampire who came over from Romania and lives in the West End with his heavy futon, right? His fraternity of brothers. Yeah. Yeah. David, however, thought this was more of a demonic vampire like entity. Oh, which I like that. I like that better. No offense, Sean. I also wonder if it's because I believe in demons more than I believe more than a vampire. Me too. Me too. demons more than i believe more than a vampire me too me too um so which is kind of a wild thing to say but it's true so i know yeah it's i don't know how i feel about it i don't either uh so that same month after this this body was found like a week later uh david ends up getting arrested in highgate because he's trying to summon and thus banish the demon he thinks this vampire is oh my goodness and i wonder if it's because he heard about that body and he was like this thing is still large i need to do something about it um but due to so he goes into like

summon this thing and then he's going to try to banish it basically do an exorcism and due to minimal to no evidence of david doing anything truly illegal because it was totally written into the law he's like kind of evaded it and he ended up being exonerated i guess it's kind of a hard thing to pin down like yeah what the actual charge is when you're arrested for that yeah i guess you could get trespassing right but yeah that's probably true um a year later david and others tried to summon this thing again so i guess he thought well i'll get exonerated again um he's like it's called double jeopardy right isn't that how this works not really but maybe a little bit so he tried to summon this thing again with a group of people

but uh he refused to share what they did he said quote the intrinsic details regarding this part of the ritual may not be disclosed as this would violate magical secrecy it's like i don't mean to laugh but what a flowery vague way to say i'm not gonna tell you yeah i plead the fifth because it's magic or something. Whatever they did, apparently their circle that they formed went icy cold. Apparently the candles went out. The fire that they had going blew away and there was a dark presence nearby. Uh-oh. They tried to banish it and it didn't totally work, which as someone who is a ghost believer,

I would be terrified that thing would follow me home. Hell yeah. They wanted to go back and try to banish it again, but they never got the chance. And David basically said, I still think Satanists and cults and rituals are being done in Highgate, and that's the best I've got. Unfortunately, the public turned against David

when, because it used to be David and Sean. And then they went against David and they stayed with Team Sean. When Sean started telling people, I don't know what like, you know, behind closed doors fight they had. Yeah. But this is clearly where they had a breakup

or they were about to. sean started telling everybody publicly david practices black magic this guy is fucking toxic okay what a crazy crazy fucking menace he is like he is so toxic like he's that person in the reality show where you're like okay you're just trying to create a narrative around yourself he's a shit stirrer he's a shit fucking villain you know it sounds so far and i don't know who's right i don't know who's wrong but i will say in terms of like initial behavior i don't know about david starting this problem you know yeah it seems like all all uh roads lead back to a certain someone named Sean. All I know is all of David's opinions came way after the fact, and he is now telling his side. So it doesn't sound, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. But something must have happened between the two of them. And then Sean was like, I'm going to ruin you. And then told everybody, I practice black magic. You've already been arrested for hijinks in the cemetery people already think that you're trying to banish demons like you've been arrested oh you said that already arrested like bad news oh he's really just stepping on

him while he's down and so i guess sean was trying to imply that david is evil and does black magic meanwhile i am good and do white magic that was that's kind of what he's implying because in 1973 they really go toe-to-toe when sean publicly challenges david to a magic duel duel okay okay what the fuck 1973 he challenges david to a magic duel the duel was set again for a friday the 13th and publicity for it quickly spread if you can't imagine it yeah i imagine posters advertising the duel quickly referenced to things like blood sacrifices and naked virgins appearing oh come on um they couldn't it wasn't enough apparently that this was a magic duel they had to make it seriously even more so and these ads also made david come off as the evil

one and uh honestly he he was scared of what the crowd would do to him so he bailed he ended up honestly smart i think the duel didn't happen yeah um and also i don't know i don't know the true inner workings of who's right and who's wrong here but if i'm i'm currently slightly leaning towards david right now yeah you're being very diplomatic you're being more diplomatic than me which usually is not how it works but i'm like fuck this sean guy but like david like he's can you imagine just getting in a fight with your friend and all of a sudden people think you're an evil warlock and like and jesus christ you can't get a break and when he and people when people weren't invited to the cemetery a mob came that couldn't be controlled by the police imagine how people

coming to see a magic duel we're like what if you don't even practice magic like now that's just what if you what if you're like unhinged and you're like really team sean or team david and you're gonna like act on it and like yeah. I mean, I don't know this. Yeah, it's feeling like it's not safe. It's not feeling safe. And ultimately, all of this because, you know, he bailed on the magic tool and Sean already had this whole thing set up. He already had people coming. And so he didn't know what to do.

He ended up turning it into a public exorcism on David's evil powers. Okay. So now David's just like on a couch. He's in the couch somewhere. And he's just sitting there. I hope he is. I hope he's at least having some marijuana to ease his nerves because he deserves it. And he's just sitting there.

And to know a whole section of town is like now doing a public exorcism on your behalf honestly i almost hope he doesn't believe any of this because otherwise that would be so scary if you're laying there and you're like they're doing something to me and i have no control or say if i were david i would literally leave town i'd be like i would be gone for sure yeah that's scary i'm starting over this is bullshit um ultimately this all just basically led to town gossip and more like infighting between people who are in the occult there was one guy named uh long john baldry long john baldry okay and he said that david was to blame for his missing cat his cat went ran off and he assumed that david was using it for a ritual so this feels like a very

individualized witch hunt like a literal yes against you're 100 right um it's like all my crops are dead it must be david's fault my cat's missing i mean come on and even though the cat eventually came home that wasn't enough are you serious and another couple in town accused david of animal cruelty for other animals he just they must not have caught that's insane pissed off about this i think this is where david's starting to snap yeah this is where elfaba all of a sudden becomes the wicked witch, if you will. She turns green. It's a whole thing. So David sends Long John Baldry two mini coffins, which I guess are like a death curse or an omen or something.

Oh my God. And he sends the couple who accuses him of animal cruelty and like ask for him to be arrested, like press charges on him. David sends them a box of dolls with pins stuck in their heads and a note with a threatening spell on it. Uh-oh. David, you're making yourself not look good. I know what you're doing.

I know you're stressed, but this isn't the answer, my friend. We're spiraling, David. We're getting a little off course. You're giving them what they want, my friend. Yeah, you're right. You're giving them ammo. So David did later say, none of these were actual curses they were being dramatic i was just kind of retaliating with the accusations they've thrown at me yeah which i get i get but

also like david you have to be the classier one it wasn't smart yeah it really wasn't no it's not classy uh the next so he says like oh, like they weren't real curses. No, I'm not going to curse anybody. Not after everything that's already been thrown at me. But he did like put like a death omen of sorts on Long John Baldry's front door step. And a year later, Long John Baldry got hit by a fucking train and died. Oh, my God. And get hit by a train.

And guess who everyone blamed? no i wish honestly at this point so a year uh yeah a year later he ended up dying and everyone blamed david and a neighbor a neighbor near the highgate cemetery later found a headless corpse on his property and that was like the final straw for the police. They were like, okay, we have to blame somebody. And so,

well, no comment. But so they decided that they were going to blame the British Occult Society for all of the issues in the cemetery. Oh my God. Just because Sean and David were like, their names kept popping up. I was going to say, I mean,

where there's smoke, there's fire. Like these two have been kind of rousing rabble in the cemetery for years now. And I guess it could have been fair. There was no solid evidence that they were ever the ones who dug up graves. They were never the ones who vandalized the cemetery. They just kept it just kept being like the location of all their discussions. I see. the cemetery they just kept it just kept being like the location of all their discussions i see um or they kept talking about the high gate vampire which was in the high gate cemetery and so they just kind of got associated with each other but it wasn't fair to um blame the

british occult society especially since they hadn't done any of these things and the cemetery was already having these issues for decades before right okay that's true so it really wasn't fair to just point at those two but they arrested david anyway not sean just david and uh they were able to use photos of his rituals as evidence to be like well he's doing rituals he probably in the cemetery and by the way the rituals like and the photos taken of these rituals the irony is incredible because david was taking photos of his rituals as evidence that they were not anyone who does rituals would be able to tell oh these aren't evil rituals these aren't satanic cult magic rituals against him oh no but like you know ignorant

people not in the occult world saw rituals and they were right there's no good rituals for those people right and he'd already been like dragged through the mud and like in all of the town that he was evil and i mean hello i'm sure exhibit a was those posters about a magic duel for against an evil yeah so it just all looked really bad and then there were pictures of him doing rituals and then that guy dying after he left him a death threat or whatever and one of the photos of his rituals i guess his girlfriend happened to be there one night and the girlfriend was nude i don't know if that is involved in the ritual or if it was just like i'm with my girlfriend and we got naked in the woods.

And it just happened to be like in the pile of pictures. Happens to the best of us. Happens to the best of us. Oh, it was in the photos. Oh, no. But so it was in the photos. It was like essentially in the album, if you will, of his other ritual photos. And so then people started saying, oh, well, this is obviously necromancy because she's

alive, by the way. Yeah. The judge assumed, again, ignorantly, this must mean necromancy because there's a naked woman during a magic ritual. OK, sure. So basically not looking good for David, because if you're going to leave it and if you're going to leave that decision of your time in prison to the hands of people who don't know anything about this stuff yeah yeah it's not gonna look good oh no this guy can't catch a break so he ends up uh basically he was given four years in prison

wow that blows two years into his sentence eventually some teenagers came forward and they said the recent damages and grave digging were our fault and i don't know i don't know what like caused them to all of a sudden have like this moral compass of like guilt guilt complex i don't know maybe or maybe one of them broke and then the rest had to follow i don't know something happened but they even when they were asked, why are you doing this? Why are you digging up people's bodies and like cutting their heads off and shit? It's a fair question. They said for the laugh of it.

That's what I'm saying. Like what moral compass? Anyway, literally one of them stole a corpse's head and kept it as a trophy. Oh, my God. Little serial killers. the making uh so i i guess they really must have had a full 180 change of heart and they went david didn't do anything and so he ended up getting parole um and that was two years after already being in jail and to be fair even those who were against david going to jail or being charged with all this they were when they were already against him as a person and thought he was evil they thought his

charges were unfair um even sean publicly defended him and oh well sean wants to step forward all of a sudden okay sean was saying like decades of vandalism in the cemetery is not david's fault and there's no evidence that he even ever vandalized the cemetery great point all of that kind of added up and two years into his sentence he was released on parole and he ended up winning a bunch of libel lawsuits against the media which like i, talk about deserving it, right? Yeah. Like, winning those arguments. After all this, David did still believe that satanic cults were the true cause of Highgate's desecrations. And David continued to run the British Occult Society until his death in 2019. Wow.

And David and Sean seemed to never stop having beef with each other. Aww. Which, like, I was really rooting for those two. But how do you come back from so much? I know. I feel like Sean. No offense, but it's Sean's fault. So we have mentioned we have a lovely researcher and, you know, they helped us with these notes. But I want to say this was the note I got

with my research from them. They said, oh, here are notes on the Highgate Vampire. This is what I found. And then said, I found a Facebook group where people are still arguing about it as recently as last week. One of the men involved, Sean, has been caught making fake accounts to argue with people

so that little sneaky sneak so apparently the feud is still on even though david died four years ago you know what david i'm gonna take up the mantle and i'm gonna defend you no i'm not i don't have the time for that we have enough facebook we have enough social media shit to deal with on our own. But wow, that is banana grams. Yeah. So apparently people up until a week ago are still arguing this. And I don't know if it's arguing like was Sean right or David right, but they could even be arguing like, was it a vampire?

Was it a ghost? What's going on? Was it a king vampire? Was it a king? was it a ghost? What's going on? Was it a king vampire? Was it a king? Anyway, other than that, there is a fundraising group called the Friends of

Highgate and they have raised enough funds for the cemetery to fix up certain sections of Highgate and they've actually been able to keep bodies from being desecrated again. That's good too. You can still buy tickets to visit the cemetery. You can go on a tour of the cemetery if you'd like. And I'll just end on this fun fact that the Highgate vampire also appears in season nine

of Buffy. Oh. And the vampire is revealed to not be a vampire, but a demon that feeds off of its victim's emotional trauma. Okay. Spoiler alert, first of all. But okay. Just saying.

She'd be nice and well fed if she were to attack me if she's getting off i was gonna say be careful because i think we're both targets anyway that is the high gate the high gate vampire slash the drama between two very um unfortunate souls i can see why this struck a chord with you very frenemy centric the second i saw our researcher say they're still fighting about it as of a week ago you're like i'm not even gonna not even all aboard yeah um good job what a story thank you oh okay anyway well tell me tell me something awful please happily okay i have a story for you this is a story of ellen sherman ellen sherman okay so i don't know who that is you're about to ellen and ed sherman happy couple live together in

niantic connecticut for the entirety of their 16-year marriage niantic is a village in the town of east lime connecticut um and it is an affluent new england seaside town so there it's it's it's like a kind of a hoity-toity connecticut community like high class high brow a country club type of country club type of town it's kind of what you picture when you hear like connecticut you know i asked blaise what how to pronounce that town he's like i've never heard of it so that that tells you that maybe tells you everything you need to know not to sound so country clubby but like man connecticut is quite a town is a very a very fun place to summer if you will a someplace well they have like cape cod and all that over there so. Yeah. They're such a sucker for a little beach town. You are.

I know. I know you are. Well, you'd probably be friends with this guy. I don't know. I hope not. I would probably not be. I would maybe be the person running the coffee shop that he, you know, visits. That's true.

I would not be allowed in the same circle as him. You'd be making his London Fox. Yeah. So in the 80s, there were fewer than 3000 people living in this village. And it's one of those like classic bubbles where people just feel safe and they leave their doors unlocked, which is the same as a story I covered last week. People just don't lock their doors. And the Shermans were especially lax about this. So they would leave their house unlocked even when they went out like even when they weren't home and one friend he uh used to joke with ellen saying you're gonna

come home some night and have nothing left in your house like you guys are just so loosey-goosey and one day someone's gonna walk in and just take all you have i bet he felt real bad about that later on in life it's not a good yeah yeah yeah he actually in uh forensic files episode like mentions that he's like yeah i used to tell her this all the time i mean your door like this is not the time to say you were right but like that's it's got to be really rough just lock your doors folks you never know people are unwell and they'll there's dangerous people out there i feel like locking your doors or the doors always being unlocked is this season or this era's version of pillar to killer of like great guy in the

community like i feel like just so safe in this town where they never locked the doors and then last week it was like a serial killer showed up you know i don't know i'm just like don't mess with it just lock the door you know you never know. So either way, Ellen didn't seem worried about it. She was a very laid back person, very friendly. She was not only loved by the community. She was actually also a savvy businesswoman, very successful. She worked full time running the graphic design and advertising business that she and Ed owned together, but it was her family's business. So it was more her project and she was the one who put more work into it and took home most of the money for the family. Ed meanwhile taught at a local community college, but like I said, the family business was like the major source of income.

They had a 13-year-old daughter from the outside, as is, you know, normal in a lot of these places. It looked like they had this idyllic, traditional American life. People said their home was full of laughter and love. But of course, like any married couple, they did have their issues. And so this is where we get into like a piece of their relationship that became kind of a crux of this whole story. So early on in their marriage, Ed told Ellen he wanted to open their relationship to other partners. And he said he was not a fan of traditional monogamy, which, to be fair, kind of what she had mentioned to her before they got married. But I feel like if that's going to be a red flag for you, maybe should have been addressed earlier.

And maybe you didn't find out you don't like monogamy until you participated in it. I guess that's possible. Maybe things were getting kind of, you know, dull and you wanted to spice it up or something. Wanted to spice it up. Yeah. So he proposed this idea and Ellen was not a fan. But and this is the biggest red flag one. At least you and I have discussed this with people, you know, we know who've, you know, tried out open relationships and some are really successful, some are not. And like one pattern that seems to be a huge red flag is if one person feels like they're compromising to make the other person happy. Like both partners should be 100 percent on board. Otherwise, I feel like things are bound to tip and, you know, go awry. on board. Otherwise, I feel like things are bound to tip and, you know, go awry. So she was not a fan of this open marriage idea. But like I said, she compromised to satisfy her partner. And Ed, you know, wanted Ellen to have her own partners. And she had a couple flings. She had partnerships with three different men, including a close friend named Len Fredrickson, who was actually the guy who said, oh, you got to lock your door and all this.

So just interesting full circle. I was watching the Forensic Files and I was like, oh, that guy. She had sex with that guy. I'm like, I know way too much. I know you. I know you. And it's funny because in the Forensic Files episode, they didn't say that. Like he wasn't like I was one of the people, one of her partners. It's just like friend of the family. But I'm like, oh, he's one of the three that she hooked up with.

That's so funky. Yeah. But it is public knowledge. I'm not like, you know, putting anyone on blast here, I don't think. But anyway, so she had flings with three men, including this guy, Len, but they didn't stick. And Ellen just was not happy with this arrangement. They tried different things. So over the years, you know, Ed regularly had who he called mistresses on the side. And the Shermans would host swinger parties and what they called wife swap parties in their home. And, you know, whereas some of their friends knew about it and were even sometimes set up with different partners at these parties, other friends had no idea, which must be just so jarring after everything comes out and you're like, wait, why wasn't I invited? That's what my first thought

would be. Why wasn't I invited to the swinger parties? Your FOMO is like on a level I've never understood. It's out of control. It's okay. Sometimes. Sometimes I don't want to do like it. I mean, I guess it's on the same level, kind of, of like, hey, maybe you are, you know, people even say like, I know you're out of town or you won't be here, but no, you're invited. Maybe it's like, I know you don't want to open up your relationship, but no, you're invited. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But here's the thing. I don't even think it's

that I would want to go to the parties. It's more why like, wow, I really didn't know this about my good friends. I think that's what would wig me out is like, did they not feel comfortable to tell me? You know what I mean? Like if they're having if they're like in an open marriage and a lot of their friends know, I'm like, what about the ones who don't know? Are those like the conservative friends that you don't want to tell? Right. You don't want you don't want to be clumped into like the judges. I think I would just be worried like, oh, no, they didn't trust me with that information. Like I don't want to go to the swinger party, to be clear. I also don't really want to go to a country club family party to begin with um so you know it's not fomo about that i don't know if i want to

go but i do want to hear about it afterwards i want the open bar i definitely want to like hear like how it all went like i want to know like the details of like is there any good gossip anything cool come up? Anything, you know? And I'm like, man, they had great wine. And you're like, that's not what I need to know. No, I just want to, like, hear that everyone had a good time. You know, that's all.

I care more about the information than actually being involved. Yeah, I don't want to be involved at all. Actually, I just don't want to feel like, oh, they didn't trust me with their friend. You know, they didn't trust me with this information. You know, they didn't trust me with this information, which again, this is not about me. And also, whatever, it's none of my business. But it is interesting just to think about that some of their friends like had no idea until all of this came out, like splashed across the media. Like, I think that's pretty fascinating. And my guess really is that they were just probably the more conservative friends that were like, no, we're not going to bring them into this, you know, lifestyle. So, okay. Anyway, the people who did not know about their open

marriage basically assumed they had a very traditional life, which goes to show how much you really know about your friends and, you know and stuff unless you go to the after swingers event brunch the next day and get the 411 like m has hosted it their apartment well y'all get to go find out what happened um yeah i want to go to that i'll go to that yeah it would be nothing but supportive and loving i and i still want to be involved in my friend's world i just that's not my vibe that's no. No, no. I just want the open bar again, but I'm sure we'll have that at your brunch as well. We'll have mimosas ready. Don't worry. Thank you. Anyway, so eventually Ed was with a woman named Nancy Prescott as one of his, again, what he called mistresses, but he actually fell in love with her.

And so here's another problem that I've sensed arises when this happens and people, you know, develop feelings and he starts dating her more seriously. And by the way, Ellen is okay with this. You know, she's like, all right, I know you're seeing this person, you can date her. And so just a quick side note at this point, like I said, Ellen and Ed have one daughter at this point. And Ellen really wanted another baby. And Ed said, no, I don't want another kid. And she's like, okay. So they're kind of at an impasse.

Well, Nancy gets pregnant. The girlfriend. That cannot feel good for her. Can't feel good. Can't feel good for her. And it is Ed's baby. And Ellen says, you know what? If you and Nancy are having a baby, I would like a baby as well.

So Ed says, fine. And he kind of relents. And Ellen gets pregnant. Good thing to relent on. Wow. Yeah, I know. Now he's like, now I have three kids. I know.

So now Ellen and Nancy are having kids, both by him. They're both aware of each other. But it got to a point where he was so split among these two families, like so divided that Ellen was like, you know what? I take it back. I can't live like this. Either you pick her or pick me. So, yeah. Now with kids involved, though?

Now with multiple kids. I mean, it's messy. Talk about messy. Wow. We both really picked the drama today. We really said we need to we need to stir shit up. Where's my mimosa? I feel like Sean today. Just fucking stir in the pot, you know. So in any case, he is getting like stressed out between these two families. You know, she gives him this ultimatum.

This is in the summer of 1985. She's several months pregnant. And she says to him, if you want to continue our marriage, you need to break things off with Nancy, leave behind this like, quote unquote, swinger lifestyle. And we need to focus on our marriage. So Ed was obviously not thrilled about this, you know, proposition, but he did give in and he broke up with Nancy and basically said, okay, you know what, I'm going to focus on us. And, you know, and they have a teenage daughter at this point too. So it's like, you have to consider her as well. And so he's like, all right, break it off with Nancy. Get back together with Ellen only. You should see an aunt. See an aunt. Try this monogamy thing. So in August of 1985, when Ellen is five and a half months pregnant with their son, Ed is getting ready for his annual boys trip. It's a sailing trip that Em is on. No, I'm just kidding. Em wasn't invited.

I would like to go to the after brunch however you are the bartender on the yacht okay sign me up sure i'm your assistant to taste test all the beverages it's perfect what could go wrong we would do a great job working a bar together i think i think we'd fucking nail it. Except Christine, is this mimosa too, too full of alcohol or what? And I'd say no such thing. And then it would be the grog shop all over again. And that Karen lady would be so rude. You know, I actually I have a 3000.

I have a shift at the bar later tonight. So you do. I know. I'm pretty excited. You tell that little witch that I got my eye on her. When I see her now, because I turn my microphone off, every time she walks up to the bar, I go, ugh, what do you want? And then you turn it back on. You're like, lovely to see you again.

I'm like, hey, girl. Oh, this fucking bitch. I can't with Karen 3000. She drives me crazy me too uh okay so in any case uh he's on this sailing trip with his friends it's like they call it a boy's trip every year they go on it they go sailing together it's just you know broing out on the ocean with your connecticut pals i assume everyone's wearing loafers i don't know or what are they called boat shoes whatever sparrows sparrows oh god private school i did i hated those oh sparrows and then everyone wore

moccasins which now i'm like oh god i was i was unfortunately one of those people and now i hate myself yeah it's it's a bad look looking back and being like oh no some of this stuff oh half the things i ever did i'm like oh no um i was always jealous of the kids with sparrows i never got any and now that now thank god i didn't isn't that funny all the popular girls wore sparrows and i was like whoa now it's like oh god berries in the summer uggs in the winter and then uh really telling on myself from an early age i pretty much consistently wore Birkenstocks. Oh, there you go. I mean, I did too, but I got mocked relentlessly for it. So it was either rainbow sandals or Birkenstocks every single day of my entire middle school and

high school. Pretty much. And then I got edgy and I wore Converse. I was gonna say I wore Converse and everyone was like, Oh my God. Yeah. Because because i didn't have sparrows or moccasins i had converse okay here we go uh so they're going on this boy's trip in their sparrows and on friday august 2nd it is ed's birthday so what does that make him a leo sure is that right you just said sure like you're just humoring me i leo always throws me i think oh yes is it early no because i always mix it up with virgo it's late it's july august no it's july august yeah yeah leo always confuses me i think that's right anyway yeah my mom's a leo and she's august 16th yeah i'm gonna trust you okay that's really dangerous

but okay you do you okay um anyway so friday august 2nd uh as we said ed is a leo and it is the eve of this big boating boys trip so he spends a day with ellen who again is five and a half months pregnant with her son and their daughter jessica meanwhile who's a, is five and a half months pregnant with their son and their daughter, Jessica. Meanwhile, who's a teenager, is away at summer camp. So 7 p.m. that night on his birthday, Ed's friend Roger Peterson picked Ed up from his house and they all met up with the other sailors, sailor boys at one of their friends houses is where they were all congregating. At one of their friends' houses is where they were all congregating. Then the four friends the next day would drive to Maine, pick up a sailboat, as you do, and then sail for 10 days. Wow.

That's a long time. It's a long time to be on a boat, in my opinion. I thought you were going to say 10 hours. I was like, that's... 10 hours I can maybe do, but 10 days. So this is their big plan. And that evening, as they're all gathered at their friend's house, Ed calls Ellen from the friend's landline and he calls to check in. Uh, he says, Hey, by the way, there's something, could I ask you to like put something away on the boat that I left at home? You know, he's asking her to kind of run one more errand that he forgot to do. And he wants to check in, obviously, because she's pregnant. And everything seems fine. They have, you know, their fun little night.

And then the next day, they set off to Maine and head out to sea. But according to Ed's friends, he seemed pretty anxious about leaving Ellen at home while pregnant, understandably. And so he had this ship to shore radio. And so he was trying to get a hold of her, trying to get in contact with her. But every time he called, there was no answer at home. And so he tried this over and over until he got so worried that he contacted their friend, Len. Remember Len? I remember Len.

To go check on Nancy. And Len arrives. And the door is locked. Oh, shit. That's not normal. Is that not a red flag? Len would fucking know. Red flag central.

Oy. Yes. He arrives and the damn door is locked. And he's like, this is already weird. What's even weirder is that all the lights are on. And he can hear the air conditioning running. but nobody's answering the door when he knocks. So eventually he found an unlocked window. He had to climb inside the house and upstairs Len found Ellen in her bedroom and she was dead.

He immediately called 911. And when police arrived, it initially looked like she had been raped. And that's because she was on the bed, but her pajamas, all the blankets were on the floor. Her underpants had been ripped and there were strangulation marks on her neck.

And so, of course, detectives immediately suspect Ellen must have known her killer because, you know, the door was locked. It didn't look like any sign of forced entry. There was no sign of struggle within the house itself. And the only fingerprints they found were hers, her husband's and Len's. So there was also nothing stolen. So they were like, well, it's not a burglary. So they're trying to get to the bottom of this and they try to determine a time of death so the

medical examiner ruled that ellen had been murdered between 8 p.m friday night and 8 a.m sunday morning so that leaves like all 8 p.m to 8 a.m so 8 p.m friday but then 8 a.m sunday so that like has like a 48 hour window saturday i think it's like what's in between that 36 hours yeah so yeah 36 hour window and they're saying that is the time of death well that timeline cleared ed because he left friday evening at seven and oh wow okay so yes right on the dot. Like the marks on it were the same as on her neck. Really disturbing. But when they looked at the actual cause of death, it was not that she had been strangled by her underwear. It was that she had been strangled by hand. Somebody had manually strangled her and they found broken cartilage in her neck. That was only possible if she had been strangled with somebody's hand. Oh, God. Okay. And when they did an autopsy, they found no evidence of rape either.

So it almost looked like someone was staging a sex crime. Okay. Because they took the underwear and put it, you know, made it look like that was used to strangle her. That wasn't actually. It was probably placed there after her death. So it looked almost like somebody was staging this to look like a sexual assault case when it really wasn't so police contacted ed with that ship to shore radio and they broke the news of his wife's death and so

imagine hearing that in the middle of your boys trip oh my god it's horrific and you're already worried like i would feel so claustrophobic like i couldn't get oh you would yeah you're like You're on your boy's trip. Oh my God, it's horrific. You're in the middle of the ocean. I would feel so claustrophobic. I couldn't get... You would, yeah. You're trapped. Also, I don't know anything about sailboats, but in my mind, they're the fucking slowest way to get back to shore.

Yeah, they're not quick. So in my mind, I'm like, you obviously want to get back as soon as you can and to just be like... You're all stuck like slowly yeah and what are your friends supposed to do be like it's okay buddy do you want a brew ski like what a horrible situation for everybody yeah so they tell him this horrible news of course and they are able to direct this boat of friends to a coast guard office in woods hole massachusetts

and connecticut state police actually met them there. So Len, who had found Ellen's body, was a suspect, of course, because he was her best friend, former lover. Who she slept with, yeah. Yep, and he was the one to discover the body. So, of course, he's her... And he was the one to say,

you better keep your door locked. You better lock your doors. Great point. Great point. So police thought Len seemed like ellen's confidant um he told investigators all about the sherman's marriage because he was also a really close friend of ellen so he kind of knew the troubles they were facing and all this um and they worked together because their businesses kind of overlapped so they had a very close relationship

but when they're looking at len they just could not find a motive they were like we just don't know why he would do this it doesn't really add up and they even went so far as to exhume ellen's body this is really hard but to do a paternity test using fetal bone dna from the baby to test whose child it was and it was ed's child so there was no confusion of like maybe it was len's kid you know. And it was Ed's child. So there was no confusion of like, maybe it was Len's kid, you know, but it was Ed's child. That part really got to me. Yeah, that's rough. But Len cooperated fully. He told police everything that happened, everything he knew. He, you know, didn't seem to have anything to hide. And one thing that he mentioned,

which stuck out as strange to him is that the air conditioner was on full blast when he arrived um and it was so cold in the room that there was ice residue on the vent of the air conditioner oh it was to keep a body cold oh you've been watching some law and order what's going on i'm just the smartest one in the room, as we discussed earlier. That's all right. Why do I keep forgetting? Probably because I'm so dumb. Okay. So hold that thought, Amethy. Okay. Dr. Henry Lee, who I know pretty well from all the true crime documentaries I watch, began to suspect that the cool conditions of the room had slowed decomp and the process

of rigor mortis. But unfortunately, Len and the paramedics had left the door open, obviously, because they're trying to get, you know, service helps and services in. And so they were not able to determine what the actual temperature in the room was when her body was in there so they can't really scientifically like prove how slow the decomp was or anything like that they can only kind of assume that maybe that's what happened so the medical examiners decide to evaluate the state this is pretty gnarly folks if you have like a gag reflex just hold on tight uh so they evaluated the state of ellen's stomach contents

and she had had linguine with tomato and clam sauce okay and the linguine was intact so she had just eaten correct man you move aside dr henry lee damn it's me it's me the mensa kid me okay ed was in mensa so maybe you are friends i mean we've definitely like exchanged contact info yeah well apparently he was kind of a douche he told everyone how smart he was so my i have a few family members in mensa i obviously did not get their genes um but you did you're very come on but they're all assholes all the ones that are i just like i don't know if you ever listened to the jamie loftus podcast um and i just saw her live too but uh my year in mensa she like, a podcast about just her a year. She got into Mensa and then, like, went to all the meetings.

And it's just I mean, it's bonkers. But if you want, like, some gossip about what happens inside the Mensa group, like, that's a great show to listen to. I yeah, I don't know. And I'm sure there's some lovely people in Mensa, but I am not related to any of them. Yeah, yeah. I don't even. And I'm sure there's some lovely people in Mensa, but I am not related to any of them. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even want to know what my IQ is. You know, let's just leave it at that. I just like if I'm average, that's I'm going to call it a high. Let's let's fucking it's a win. Yeah.

We should take Mensa tests together sometimes. No, it'd be so bad because you'd be like three points higher and you'd never let me live with them. I already know you're book smart the the smarter one between the two of us but i don't i don't know about that it's like book smart only because you hate reading famously so there's not even i i really i was growing up i was always a b plus average student oh but i don't even think that has let's yeah let's ride this ride let's light this candle say i was always a B student. Yeah, maybe maybe we maybe we have the same exact IQ. Wouldn't that be cool?

What was your SAT score? I don't remember because it was that time when they switched the numbers. Yeah, we were in that like weird three year phase. Yeah. Either way, mine was bad. I don't remember. I know I got a five on the ap english exam and my teacher accused me of cheating because i had a b in her class i got a one on ap gov which is like the easiest of aps no i was the only person in my grade and like for several years to come i was the

only one who got a one and he even said like you have to try try to get a one you have to try to get a one. You have to try to get a one to be like everyone gets fours or fives. And I was like, OK. And I it's like, how did you just not fill it out? I don't know. I really I don't know. I think I never learned how to properly study because I would study so fucking hard for tests and it would always be like absolutely the wrong material. So I would study really hard.

And then none of those the questions that happened one time you and i in grad school i still remember you spent all night at this whiteboard like writing these crazed like charlie-esque like strings and like the next day we took the test and you like failed it oh failed with like with like what's it called like flying colors flying colors i mean i it was like single digits i think was no i think you literally got like a seven i think so i think seven sorry i just remember like that class was so scary and hard and everybody was like she was everyone failed she was like 40 of you failed and she's like that and i'm like but isn't that on the teacher at that point?

40% of the class failed. I know. Not everyone failed. You got a normal grade, right? You got a B? I got a 90, but I kept saying I got a B because everybody else was like. Because you were the one who we couldn't curve our grade because you were something, right? Yeah, I didn't want to piss it, but I.

So you got a 90 and I got a seven. And we're wondering who would be better on a meds exam. But I don't think any of those things would be on the meds exam. I don't know what is on the meds exam, but I'm sure like the history of Sesame Street is not on it. Okay. Also, by the way, if it was the history of Sesame Street, I would have gotten an A. You would have nailed it. I don't know what I'm talking about.

I don't even remember what it was on, but. I don't either. It was, it was about like, I don't remember what it'm talking about. I don't even remember what it was on, but. I don't either. It was, it was about like, I don't remember what it was about, but I, whatever I thought it was about was not in. She, she literally was looked at us and was like, I've never been so disappointed in my life. And we were like, oh my God. And like, I know I wasn't like, I don't even think I was a bad student because I did try

really hard and just not nothing she taught clicked with me. And to this day i blame her i mean to be honest if 40 of the class fails an exam there's some disconnect you know i don't i'm not saying it's like all her fault but like there's some disconnect between the material and you know i'm just saying i also remember that was the class where the guy who created the big bear in the big blue house came and i was so stoked literally think about this all the time everyone looked at me like i was a crazy person and i was like i definitely i was like are we not in a television program i'm supposed to be jazzed about this i think i was

pretty rude to you too about that not rude but i was like whoa you're excited like i don't know i don't know if you were but i've never seen that show so i think for me i was like i don't understand a lot of people like gave me like weird comments about it and like i was the only person I don't know. I don't know if you were in the film. But I'd never seen that show. So I think for me, I was like, I don't understand. A lot of people gave me weird comments about it. And I was the only person who seemed really stoked. And then the guy who created Bury the Big Blue House even seemed weird that I was excited. And I was like, why the fuck did you come here then? Don't you want people to be excited that you're here?

I wonder if people thought you were just kind of being facetious. Like you were trying to be like. No, I was so excited excited i know now knowing you i know that but i wonder if from the outside people were like are you pulling our leg well half of our class were a bunch of like i mean we were in a film and tv program don't remind me like film douches and so and i was like wow like you're i'm getting to meet you like this is such a cool part of this program i'm so glad i'm here. And everyone's like, where's Alfred Hitchcock? Yeah. And I was like, I'm sorry, but this is a show I watched as a little kid. Like, shut the fuck up. I'm allowed to be excited. I was like, how old are you? Because

that was a show my sister watched. And I was like, are you like, how are you in this program? I used to wake I used to wake up really early and I just put on whatever was on TV. And that just happened to be on TV. But I always liked it. I always thought it was nice. Oh, well, good show. Now I feel bad about that because I think I was kind of like because I thought you were kind of kidding. I think I really didn't know if you were serious or not, like because we know I don't think we'd ever seen you really expect something. And so that's something was bare in the big blue house. We were like, is M pulling our leg or are you serious serious i think it was also a show i had actually heard of because i was not part of like the film douche crew where they would all talk about like wes anderson and this bullshit and i was like okay and like then

i heard about like a childhood show that had some nostalgia to it and i was like so excited and i'm sorry if i was part of that i don't really remember but if i was i do apologize um i was not trying to trying to ruin your spirits. They probably wondered what my story was since I was getting sevens on the tests and I was excited about the Big Blue House. I mean, I feel like you were presenting a really interesting narrative about yourself and we were all trying to kind of put our finger on it. People should have gotten it from the beginning.

Like, I'm a little stupid, but I'm excited to be here. You're so not stupid that's the thing okay anyway uh murder i'm sorry yeah he was in mensa which i don't even know if it's in these notes but he was just fun fact uh so in any case um let's find out where we are uh they left oh the oh my god here it is they uh had to analyze her stomach contents and yeah if you were trying to fast forward through that you're still not over it sorry it's still happening uh the linguine in her tummy and it was uh intact and so like you said that indicated she had eaten it pretty recently and so turns out she had eaten that on friday with her co-workers for lunch so now they're trying to figure out well how long would it have

stayed intact after lunch on friday uh in order to stay intact by the time her body was or like until when she died does that make sense yeah okay so do you want to know how they tested it can you guess i mean i would guess they would just replicate it and put it like they would make it someone else eat it and then i don't know x-ray them or something to see make them throw it up make them throw it up interesting yeah which is so gross throwing up spaghetti like who volunteered for that job that's what i was wondering because several people ate like participated they had living subjects eat the same meal which is like clams and and then you and

then they made them throw it up that's a bad thing to throw up too it's bad like you probably would never eat clams again like i mean it's already a rough food to like get on board with um but so then they kind of timed out how long it took for this food to digest so if you threw it up and it was still intact then you know could have been in the window where she died so they did this and they determined that complete digestion of this meal would take only four hours okay so they're thinking by so four hours from when they found her from four hours from when she ate it at lunch and four hours later it would have digested in her body so within that window since it was still intact she is she was murdered in that window so are they saying that she was then murdered on sunday since it was still intact in her stomach? I guess it wouldn't have digested if your body stopped working.

So Friday, yeah. So she ate the meal Friday for lunch. Okay. So it was on Friday. She had to have died within four hours. Otherwise, when they found her body days later, it would have been digested. But since it was still intact, that means she died within four hours of eating that meal got it i was confused in my mind her body was still digesting things even though she died i

totally get what you're saying yeah when they found it yeah okay so friday between 12 and 4 right yes so or whenever lunch was to four hours later yeah now guess what ed's alibi is fucking falling apart my friend because he left at seven uh-huh left at seven and so now suddenly her time of death was smack dab right in the middle of ed being home right before he conveniently left for a 10-day trip for a 10-day trip also it was his birthday which like isn't really relevant but just kind of fucking sucks too you know what i mean like what are you doing it's your birthday you asshole but also makes his alibi look worse because you think you'd be with your wife on your birthday yes that's true too and uh and he was with his wife on his birthday and he just pretended like okay anyway yes you're exactly right

so his alibi is starting to fall apart but, there's no like real ironclad evidence yet. Then a witness comes forward and says, hey, I don't know if this is relevant at all, but I had a really weird encounter with Ed Saturday morning before he left for Maine. OK. And they're like, OK, what is it? And they're like, OK, what is it? Turns out she was at the video rental store and he was either returning a movie or picking up a movie. But he said, oh, I just watched this great film. I highly recommend it. And they knew each other.

So she said, hi, how are you? And he said, oh, I have a great recommendation for this movie. It's called Blackout. I just watched it. It's awesome. And she's like, oh, great. Thanks for letting me know. Well, let me tell you the plot

of blackout okay in blackout a man murders his wife and children and then puts them in a room with the air conditioner on full blast to slow decomposition and confuse the forensics team about time of death goodbye that's weird that'll do it. What a weird coincidence. So Ed told the woman he really enjoyed this movie. She had to watch it, which like what a fucking dumbass. Like if she hadn't come forward with that information, nobody would have known he even rented it. It's one of those things where like all information is useful even if you don't realize it. You'd be like, why would that matter?

But look, like it matters a lot. Yeah. And so, you know, things are just looking worse and worse for Ed. And he starts falling back on his like ironclad, what he thinks is ironclad alibi of having called Ellen the night before he left sailing. And he was at his friend's house and he used the landline to check up on her, see how she's doing, tell her to run an errand. And his friends were all there and it was at his friend's house. So he's like, you guys saw me on the phone with her. And they're thinking like, I mean, yeah, we did. So, you know, we don't know what to make of this. And this is still a really solid defense. Four people can say, or three people, I guess, can say, yeah, we all saw him talking to her on the phone. So investigators are scrambling to put together some sort of motive as to why he would do this. And according to Len, their sort of like inside source, despite their initial reconciliation, Ed was still kind of trying to see Nancy and keep her in the loop and still trying to balance both families and ellen was on the verge of divorcing him so things were rocky she decided apparently according to len that he would never that ed would never be a fully involved husband and father and she was fed up with his lifestyle and she alleged that he could quote, keep Nancy and his sailboat and she was going to take everything else.

Oh, wow. OK. Including the house. So she was basically like, you can have your girlfriend on the boat. I get the business because it's her business. She sure, you know, it's both of their business, but she does a majority of the work and she owned a majority of the business. And she was like, I'm going to take the business over and I'm going to take the house and you can go off with your girlfriend in your boat. And apparently that was not something he wanted to hear. So Ed, who worked at the community college, knew that his life would change dramatically because his salary was nothing compared to what Ellen brought into the family. what Ellen brought into the family. And so he was kind of stuck. And he apparently also said that he was very angry Ellen was making him choose between her and Nancy. And, you know,

I can see why that would anger you. But like, you kind of put yourself in this predicament, my friend. And here it is. Ed belonged to Mensa. And one friend, apparently it was in my notes, one friend said, Ed liked to make people feel that he was smarter than you. Ed thought he could have whatever Ed wanted. So in a certain way, people were like, this guy just thinks, oh, I know how to solve this problem. And he could be pushy, he could be arrogant, and he could be violent. So people were starting to turn on him and think like, well, maybe he did do it. And the narrative around this became Ed must have killed Ellen because he refused to give up Nancy, his lifestyle and their business and the income that came with it.

And throughout the investigation investigation his friends who supported him in the beginning they really thought he couldn't have done this they're starting to get more and more uncomfortable because he is being a big weirdo and he's asking them questions like hey do you know how bodies decompose and they're like why are you asking us that like why i'm just gonna jot that down in case i ever need to know let me see the time stamp on that question okay yeah and there he's asking like do you know how they determine time of death like he's just not being sneaky at all and one also like hello it's the classic arrogant confidence of like i'm smarter than you i can get away with it and i can go to blockbuster

hollywood video and say rent this movie it's great wink and think no one's gonna figure it out like i mean that feels like such an intentional dig because he could just not fucking said anything you couldn't you could have just been like oh i don't know what the name of the movie was doesn't matter like yeah why why make it a thing so another thing his friends started to kind of remember is that on the boat on the first day he was wearing long pants and a full turtleneck and everyone else it's august everyone's like burning up so they're all in shorts and t-shirts and they were like it was so weird he was in like he covered all of his body and he had like defensive wounds so they don't know because, again, like nobody had a hardcore evidence. I don't mean to say hardcore evidence, but they didn't have that either.

They didn't have any hard evidence. And so they were just like, well, he was wearing a turtleneck, which doesn't prove anything, but it's also fishy. And I'm you're not going to like this. And when they found Ellen, her fingernails had bent backward. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry oh my god from what from like trying to scratch him yeah

oh my god I'm sorry that's a rough one I'm sorry oh my god and like also like my own issues aside imagine how scared you must be where you're scratching that hard. I know. I know.

It's horrible. It's horrible. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I can't. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

But on that note, it's how they knew that whoever had killed her had defensive wounds. And so, of course, now it was too late to prove that he had any but it's still shady that he was wearing like a turtleneck and long pants on an august day on a boat so you know it was just odd and so his friends are starting to think like this is getting weird even the air conditioner evidence was shaky because like they didn't know how cold the room really had been there were no conclusive studies that this would actually work um and so it was all kind of up in the air and they were like we we really think he did it we just don't have anything to pin it on him fast forward to march of 1990 this is five years after the murder and Ed is still running around living life.

And suddenly a new witness statement comes forward. What? Who? So one of Ed's friends is driving his daughter, I don't know where, to volleyball, to school, I have no idea. And she's in the backseat. And he's discussing Ed's biggest defense that he had spoken to Ellen on the phone with his friends Friday night. And that was at his house. So the guy driving is like talking to his daughter. He's like, man, we all saw him on the phone.

Like we know he called. And the daughter in the backseat speaks up. And she says, well, I never really thought about it because she was so little back then but she said it was the weirdest thing i picked up the phone to call a friend and i heard ed talking to nobody on the phone oh my god she said the phone line was just ringing and he was saying okay i love you honey can you make sure to how are you feeling you know he's asking all these questions and so all his friends are like oh well he's on the phone with his wife she goes well actually i picked up the phone to call a

friend and heard him talking and realized it was so weird he's talking to an empty line ew yeah so wait did he not realize that like someone had picked up on the other no he didn't she was in a different room because it's like a landline so she had just wow she just happened to pick the phone up and thank god because that was like almost like a like a fate moment right she's like I should really call my friend Sue. It's really on my mind for some reason. Yeah, it's so weird. But yeah, so she just happened to pick up the phone.

And since she was so little back then, it really didn't click until years later when her dad is saying, you know, it's so weird. We saw him on the phone and he was talking to Ellen. And she goes, actually, he wasn't talking to Ellen. He was talking to Ellen. And she goes, actually, he wasn't talking to Ellen. He was talking to no one. So, of course, now apparently the dad almost crashes his car because he's like, what? Like he almost crashes his car. This is so shocking to him. And so he calls police immediately to report his daughter's statement. And now that's kind of the last remaining thread of Ed's alibi or of ed's story that she was still alive when he left and like he can't talk his way out of this one you

know what i mean like now he can't prove that she was actually there and still alive so police went to ed's office and finally felt like they had enough to arrest him for first degree murder. And he sold the family graphic design business in order to afford his defense team. Damn. And Ed the whole time maintained his innocence. He was extremely confident to the point of being cocky. He even laughed and made jokes throughout the trial. And the teenage witness who's, you know, was a child when this phone call occurred, she was equally confident on the stand about the fake phone call. Like she did not back down when the opposing side was saying, well, are you sure? And she's like nope she insisted what she heard uh even when they were pressuring her um in cross-examination but still it just wasn't enough because even though this like cold room theory was being presented they

even showed clips from the movie blackout to be like look how similar this is but there's still that lingering doubt because none of it is like hard-hitting enough to nail him and so they didn't have the like scientific backing that they needed to really like prove that rigor mortis was delayed and all that but the pasta evidence was more compelling you, they're saying she had to have died within four hours. And then there was also the fact that Ed had a history of domestic abuse. Oh, shit. violent history as evidence because previous abuse, according to the judge, didn't prove he was guilty of this particular crime and they thought it would just sway the jury. So they ended up ruling out a previous case where Ed had strangled a woman in the 1970s. Oh, my God. They also ruled out police records of Ed abusing his girlfriend, Nancy Prescott, and the now mother of his child.

Ed abusing his girlfriend, Nancy Prescott, and the now mother of his child. And apparently he had once kicked her in the face so hard she called the police on him. And they had photographs of her swollen face and injuries. But they, again, couldn't use these in court against him. Oh, my God. But thank God Nancy decided to testify against him in trial. And she told all about his violent nature his history of physical abuse so this is like talk about character you know this is like showing his real character and was very damning what makes me sad is that ed's daughter was who was 19 at this point and had been 13 when her

mother was killed uh came forward to testify on behalf of the defense so like on her father's defense which just makes me sad it just seems like a horrible position to be in yeah and also it makes you wonder like so wait against him or for him for him for him i wonder if um if he really was violent if she was also like threatened into it yeah who knows or or yeah i don't know it's hard to say especially because like she had or she could have been like parent yeah you know she could just be like this is my last parent i just want i don't want to lose or i want to believe that he didn't do it or yeah who knows um just a really tough position to be in um so the prosecution attorney cross-examined ed for days um and their goal was to keep him on the stand for as long as

possible so jurors could see the quote-unquote real him and so it is smart yeah i totally agree so in the end the jury sided with the circumstantial evidence and the witness statements and found him guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison and nancy the girlfriend attended the sentencing hearing um she didn't want to be there but she this is really sweet wanted to support jessica the the daughter so like her boyfriend's daughter okay jessica who um like stood on the stand as defense for her dad and everything okay so uh nancy wanted to support jessica which i thought was really sweet so i i do hope there's some connection there i know that's probably

awkward because like it's your dad's lover so to speak but yeah i don't know i i would like to think worse has happened in this exact situation so i know i feel like maybe she took her under her wing i don't know i don't know that's I'd like to live in that fantasy world. Yeah. So she had. So Nancy attended, even though she didn't want to, but she wanted to be there for Jessica. And so she attended and she apparently said she resented the way the media had covered the case regarding both Jessica and her own child. And had sucked both of these kids into this fucking drama you know that

like they weren't part of and so she just resented how like they were treated by the media Jessica and her own child and so she attended Ed at the sentencing hearing like we said was sentenced to 50 years in prison and this is when for the time ever, he apologized to Ellen's family. But not for the killing, because he didn't do that. Mm-hmm. But for the way that he acted when Ellen was alive. So he did show some remorse. He said she deserved a better life than the one she shared with me.

For that, I will be eternally sorry. But he also said, but I don't know who killed her. So it was only three years into his 50 year prison sentence that Ed died of a heart attack at only 52 years old. Dr. Henry Lee, the celebrity medical examiner, and who was also the lead ME on this case, was caught in a controversy because two men he helped convict in the 80s who had been in prison for years were exonerated because his evidence had been flawed in those cases. Apparently, Dr. Lee had tested a towel for blood at the scene of the crime instead of using a laboratory test. And he falsely concluded there was blood on the towel. And this evidence ended up convicting both men or helped to convict both men of murder. Oh, wow. And that was like one of the major points that sent these men to prison. So, you know, it, of course, led people and we've seen this before to wonder whether Dr. Lee had maybe messed up some other evidence on the. It only takes one time to ruin your credibility. Yeah, exactly. And he had done 8000 investigations.

So like people were thinking, well, is are any of these now flawed? But Dr. Lee maintains this was a one time mistake and that he agreed with the exoneration of the other two men. And he fully admitted that he had screwed that up. And he said, I otherwise uphold all of my testimonies. So, you know, geez, who knows about that? But of course, Ed has passed, so he obviously can't appeal. But an investigation could theoretically be opened if, you know, somebody does want to prove that to be guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. But still, some people wonder, you know, did he really do it? If not, who did? science and criminal investigation stated that the case demonstrated why crime scene procedures are so important to follow which we see all the freaking time and the malay john malaney bit of like sweep up that blood yeah i have a hunch yeah forget it forget the fingerprints and so you know

if paramedics and police had shut the bedroom door which i didn't even know it was a thing that was part of crime scene protocol. But apparently they were supposed to shut the door to preserve the scene. And they are supposed to take environmental parameters like room temperature, which I also didn't know. I didn't know that. You know, fun fact for you there. But, you know, if they had done that, it probably would have been more reliable to be able to test how long, you know, till rigor mortis and all that. So that is the case. I mean, you know, he basically based his murder on a movie that he

got at Hollywood Video or who knows where. Can you imagine being the director of that? Oh, no. Oh, fuck. Yeah, it's horrible. And I read an article from God, it must have been the 90s about the sentencing. And in I think it was New York Times. And in that article, it said Ed Sherman, who was known to love solving mysteries on weekly crime shows. So like he would watch those crime shows and try to solve them and like prove that he could because, you know, he's in Mensa and all that of course of course yeah I uh yeah I wonder at some point I feel like maybe it's on a Law and Order episode and I just haven't seen it yet that I feel like a true crime podcaster will be the killer of a true crime or something oh I think that is an episode

it has to be right no I'm pretty yeah I'm pretty sure and I'm uh let me see it because I think somebody funny play or maybe hmm it just it's a perfect the perfect plot i'll think about it i feel like uh i feel like that was definitely maybe not law and order but one of these crime shows definitely did podcaster which was kind of hilarious yeah well great story we both had messy ones today i I mean, talk about frenemies and... Lovers, ex-lovers.

Lovers and boats and sparrows. Do we have any update on the daughter? Is she okay these days? I don't know. And she was 19 when the trial happened in 1990. Okay, so she's not a teenager anymore. 50s. Okay.

Yeah, so I'm not sure. I mean, I hope she's okay. Yeah, me too. I'm sure you wouldn't be okay in a lot of ways automatically. Yeah, as whatever okay means. Yeah, exactly. I hope she's found healing.

Let's put it that way. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Great story, though, Christine. Oh, well, thank you so much. I really thought the whole time it was going to be

his ex lover who like one nancy yeah i thought originally you were gonna say it was nancy who like wanted him all to herself and then knew that he knew that he was on a trip and so she went over ah well in the svu episode and she didn't know not to unlock the door yeah that, that's what I thought. Oh, well. I'm just glad we've got an answer. Yeah. Christine, those are some good stories we covered. What a doozy.

Thank you, everyone, for listening so far. If you would like to continue enjoying our voices, you can find us on YouTube. You can find us on Patreon. You can find us live in your can find us on patreon you can find us live in your town except right now it's just a vegas show and then that was only to zach bagans live in your town if you are zach but we will soon be coming out with uh more show dates and all that

kind of stuff so be on the lookout for that um and we do a an after chat on patreon every episode where the following day we release a video a youtube video of us just decompressing after after a normal episode and the last one all sorts of things the last one was almost as long as a normal episode it was intense yeah it was really long we really got into it so maybe that'll happen again but hop on over if you want to i'll bring my more of us yeah i'll bring the mensa tests yeah oh my god let's find out our iqs on an after chat all right and that's why we drink