And That's Why We Drink - E331 A Milky Way Martini and a Naughty Gaudy Party

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

It's episode 331 and we're not recording on Wednesdays anymore because Christine cannot handle Em's continued use of "hump day". This week Em takes us to their favorite - Oh, Canada - for the creepy ghost stories of the University of Toronto. Then Christine covers the tragic and eerie case of the Porco family murders. It's a weirdly ax-heavy episode and we're sorry... and that's why we drink!Don't miss Christine and Alexander's tour this summer for Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet! beachtoosandy.com

hi hi i uh welcome welcome to and that's why we drink a true crime paranormal podcast where you listen to us tell spooky stories while we tell you about ourselves all at the same time whoa that was a fun little intro. It'll never be said again, probably. Yeah, we've already forgotten it. What's cracking, Christine, on hump day? What's going on? I hate, I'm not, Eva, can we not record on Wednesdays anymore?

I really hate that so much. You're not answering the question is what's interesting yeah because I hate the question so um what are you doing on this fine Wednesday gentle lady that's better um I'm in my new little setup here I'm trying to get things more I don't know seamless and good looking in this studio of mine so i have my little uh corner here um with my little geo shrine and my little uh oh let me turn him on my little crow with his little light bulb love a good crow yeah it's hard to see though on camera because i kind of yeah yeah so she's still cute yeah i love her um and then i got our books up or my books and then our book up there so you can see a little promo you know if i slant the screen and then i got my little ghost pillow from society six

love isn't it cute yeah there he is i actually had to stop going on that website because i knew i would um it's hard i can't i can't stop buying i go on about i really love it i go on about once a year and then i'm like done i'm like i can't do this anymore also i have this which my beautiful mother-in-law sent me these i was like oh look at these cute pillows and then i look closer she made them they have little ufo abductions on the pillow. And so I have that here. If you go first, I'll be taking that from your home. Which is the highest compliment of something in someone's home. I would like to say it more often to people, but I don't know a lot of people where I can just blurt that out. Just say that. Yeah. I feel like my mother-in-law will be like, oh, I made her that. You'll be like, sorry,

I call dibs. I'll be like, sorry, I call dibs. I'll be like, well, she's not here anymore, so you made them for me, unfortunately. Sorry, by default. Anyway, how are you on this fine hump day? Thank you for adjusting the language to something I would feel more comfortable with. I think you need to say it the right way, though. We're always progressive on this show. We try to be inclusive, but not that inclusive. So I refuse to say it the way that you did. That feels discriminatory in some way. I think it's maybe against Wednesdays, maybe against hump days. Like I can't stop it. What's what's what's cracking today? Well, hmm. I'm going to a soccer game today i don't know how i feel about it oh that's funny i am being promised uh the souvenir shops and soccer games are fun i mean but i i do more

i watch more sports than you so i don't know how that translates to your enjoyment well we have a friend uh a mutual friend, you and I, that is coming into town or is already in town, actually. And her and her husband, who is another friend of ours, they're obsessed with the LAFC soccer team. And I don't understand. But their excitement was wild enough to make me curious and that's how I ended up here so that's fun you know you're just gonna experience someone else's world for a day yeah I

like being in places where people are like so stoked their eyes are popping out of their head and that's exactly what I'm gonna witness today so um I am excited and hoping it is at least fun enough that I'm, I don't realize, oh, I have several more hours here and I just have to like tough it out. So apprehensive is the mood currently, but hoping that it's going to be a good time. So, um, worst case scenario, they got a food cart. I'm going to be okay. Yeah. I've been to an LAFC game.

Um, there's definitely plenty of food and snacks. And the thing about soccer games that I appreciate, because my brother and Blaze are going to a soccer game tonight as well. Oh my god. Are they in Los Angeles? Hang on. No, there are more soccer teams. I know you don't know much about soccer, but there are more than just the one. But I understand that's a rookie mistake to assume there's only one. But no, they're going to one tonight

as well and the thing i do appreciate about soccer games is that the timer just goes like with a football game every fucking five seconds they stop and i love football games but it's like will it be four hours will be five a soccer game is like we're here for 90 minutes we'll add a couple minutes you know stoppage time But then you're out of here. It's like a two-hour ordeal max. I like the quickness of a basketball game. I feel like sometimes maybe they're not, I'm sure there's some. I don't really know much about how long a basketball game is.

Well, so they're 12-minute quarters. They do stop. So it does end up taking longer than 48 minutes for sure. It's still like a two hour experience minimum, but it does feel fast compared to like. I like this soccer because you can watch the timer go down. It doesn't matter what's happening. You're like, I know how many minutes are left. And then, you know what I mean?

It's like very controlled in that way. Well, I do have crowd anxiety. So that throws me for a loop but i'm gonna we're gonna be brave so that's the situation you are so brave it's the only time i will i will be complimented on my bravery and not take it as an offense because it is something i have to be brave about so it thank you for the acknowledgement um What else? What do you next time I see you, we're going to be performing in Vegas. And then by the time this comes out, we're going to be done with our tour. Oh, my God.

I can't wait for Vegas. It's going to be a blast. Are you going to do anything specific there, Christine? I have to bounce earlier than you. Hell yeah. Oh, my God. I'm going to Drag Brunch. I'm going to Chippendales.

I'm going to our show. I'm going to learn how to gamble. I've never gambled before. I'm going to a haunted tiki bar, the same one that you took me to on my bachelorette party trip. And they're going to give us a tour and they have a shrunken head from Zach Bagans in there.

It's going to be a delight. I can't wait. And I, I just can't wait. That's the end of the sentence. How long are you going to be there? Till sun. So I get in Friday morning. I leave Sunday night. Nice. Yeah. So I know you, you have to bop early cause you have to go to the Philippines. How kick ass is that yeah i have to catch a different flight that happens to be like 20 hours long so i am currently i'm spending the day downloading every single thing i can think of on my phone so uh yeah other than that we're

you know i'll only be in town for I think it feels like less than 24 hours. So, uh, I know it's going to be a quick one. I wish I could like enjoy it. Cause there's also the Marvel museum, which I always love going to and things like that. So, yeah, I feel like I'm making up for some Vegas trips that either never came to fruition because of COVID or I don't know, it's our first time performing there. So I'm trying to, you know, make the most of it. I'm dragging my it's our first time performing there so I'm trying to you know make the most of it um I'm dragging my brother with me which will be fun um but what was I gonna ask you oh oh can I make a plug real quick I know I don't try to usually do this but I'd like

to make a quick plug so um I don't know if if all of you or any of you uh listen to my other podcast Beach to Sandy Water Too Wet where we read one-star reviews in a dramatic fashion. But we are going on tour this summer, and we're trying to figure out how to sell tickets. So if anyone's interested, we're going to eight different cities after the end. That's why Drink Tour has stopped. So if you missed one of our shows, you can come see me read one star reviews of your local, you know, hot spots in the area. Christine, I don't I don't know how you do it. I feel like such a piece of garbage next to you sometimes in the best way.

And the best way is in like feel complimented by that, because I I I have one podcast, no other responsibilities in my life. And you have a baby and a whole other podcast. And you did this whole tour. And now you're going to go back on tour. And then we're probably going to go back on tour. I mean, we are going to go back on tour eventually. But I don't know how close it's going to be to your shows. It's sheer idiocy some might say i really do you do you like do you just like being

um like a little like a tinge overwhelmed at all moments because that seems to be your five you do it amazingly i think i just don't have good boundaries and you know so it's unhealthy okay oh absolutely unhealthy i know i'm really excited for the Beach to Sandy tour because it's like just little pockets of two at a time. And a lot of them are driving distance and Blaze and Leona can come. So I'll feel less bad about leaving them behind. So it'll be a fun because we haven't performed outside of Ohio and Chicago yet. So it'll be like a fun experimental summer tour to see how it goes. But yeah, I'm just...

I thought you did it on purpose. Like you like the go, go, go of it all. No, I like to be at home and do nothing and do a puzzle. I've been trying to do a puzzle. And it's like so hard to do a puzzle when you have a baby and you're trying to like do a tour and you have to record. I would think a puzzle is something you can't even, like you're not allowed to do secretly with a baby who's like no i don't i don't tell many people i'm doing it because i feel like oh they're gonna be like don't you have shit to do

and i'm like yes well my thought was like i feel like the second i have a baby it's kind of that like trope which can be very untrue of like oh you lose a lot of freedoms but i feel like i would definitely lose the freedom to have like a puzzle with literally a thousand tiny swallowable pieces available out on a table do you have to like do you have to like hide it and like put it somewhere i just do it in my office i mean there's plenty of oh a different room yeah makes fucking sense in my mind not in her nursery on the floor you don't just dump the puzzle pieces into her mouth actually she does like to play with them but you know i keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't eat them um fair enough i feel like between three animals and a baby like you're definitely not gonna have all

the pieces by the time you finish that puzzle yeah i was about to say juniper is the biggest threat to my puzzles so honestly i'm not what's the picture of oh it's the shining it's the two twin girls in the shining delicious obviously what else would it be i was thinking of like maybe with all your like you know bouncing around the world maybe it was like a peaceful breezy ocean but apparently it's just more trouble it calms. Although I did then the first night that I started it, I did then immediately have dreams that I was in the Stanley Hotel participating in The Shining. And I was like, OK, maybe this isn't the best for my mind. Were you participating in the you're losing your sanity way or you were one of the ghosts

torturing Jack Nicholson way? I was kind of like just on the periphery watching everything go down. Just hanging? You were like the waiter in the bar? Jay chilling. I was like, you know what? I love when these little parties happen in his imagination. Suddenly I can have a martini, you know? Yes, I fully understand. You get it. I get it. Oh, well. I feel like I'm just thoroughly losing my mind. But thank you for checking on me.

I do appreciate it. And so, yeah, I will say it will really heal me, folks, if you go to BHGCity.com, buy some tickets. Because some of these cities are kind of random and people aren't buying as many as we'd hoped. So we don't want to cancel them. Well, that happens for us, too. We still are testing new markets. Yeah, it's wild. We can never

predict it sometimes there's cities that have just never fucking heard of us and then there's cities where like we have like a weird concentrated amount of listeners so you just never know sometimes it'll be like oh this place sold great last time and then like two years later it's like never mind nobody likes you anymore in this town it's like oh cool yeah and then you start like playing the mind games of like did everyone leave to after in covid or do or is every single person out of town it's just always and then sometimes there's nothing out of city and then you have to go back to the city and now all of a sudden it's popping so it's like yeah it's hard to like really not tie your self-worth to ticket sales because it feels like a very direct correlation even though like i'm sure it's i'm sure my therapist says it's not but um but yeah if you know if anyone wants to see a fun

summer show there'll be drinks there'll be you know one star reviews of places in your town um come check it out come check it out i have a good reason why i drink tell me m why do you drink on this fine hump day ah the day you day you say it, I'll have... I'm trying so hard, but I can't do it. Just whisper it. Just a little whisper. I can't. Just like a hum.

Like a hum day, you know? Like a hum. Hum day. Hey! No, you guys... Hum day? Just make the sound. Just a...

Hum day. Okay. Ah! Okay. I hate myself. I hate myself i hate myself okay i uh drink on this fine hump day because uh so obviously you know i have been working shifts at the bar and by bar i mean my virtual reality what are you talking about you're like oh christine you have so much going on i'm like you have a night you work the third shift like at ag shop. And it's not like you can just like pop in on the computer virtually. It's like, oh, you have to go to outer space.

It's not like I can but also this hemisphere but also this interstellar plane thank you to go do this and like how do you do it is what we're all wondering yeah yeah well i do it um i do it often too so it's it's exhausting this gosh anyway for those who are listening backwards and this is your first time experiencing us they're like and got a bartending gig and you would be right i did it's uh i work at the star tender academy uh it's intergalactic it is also virtual of my reality and it's this game i'm very obsessed with and actually apparently i got a few people into it i saw that i a big fan big fan over here. So first of all, I've already beaten the game. And this is the first game I've ever continued to play after already winning. Don't you love when you find one of those where you're like, I still want to play it

even though I beat it? It's delicious. Yeah. So now I'm just like racking up like money. I'm getting... So now I'm like, at least before I was working this, I was playing this game basically where I'm a bartender, everybody. That's what's happening here.

And I was doing it originally making money from my bartending and then putting that money towards things to then like eventually win the game. Oh, I see. But now that I've won, I'm just like racking up dollars I can't spend. But anyway. Yeah, it's too bad the galactic dollars don't translate to American dollars because I would love for you to start picking up tabs when we go out, you know? Me too, because if you have a two-hour shift at the bar, you make $30,000. Okay, but is that grog dollars?

Is that interstellar dollars? I don't know what the word for it is. What's the currency exchange rate? You know what I mean? That I don't know, and I might actually be much worse. I'm not too sure. But it's enough to build a teleporter. So you tell me.

Oh, wow. Brag much, huh? Here's the thing. Here's the reason why I drink. So one of the issues I have with the game is that there's like literally hundreds, maybe thousands of different drink recipes that could show up and you have to make all these drinks. But there's never a place to like learn how to make the drinks you're just doing it on the fly

like it basically you get a it shows you like a menu of ingredients of things you need to put into the cup to be able to be done with the drink and i was like that doesn't feel right i want to try to memorize some of these drinks so that way i can like be more efficient sure on my shift obviously and so i uh went to reddit and i'm in like a i'm like in a vr forum uh-huh and i was like hey i uh what if you were in a bartending forum and you were like hey i'm i'm going to work tonight and i would really like to figure out how to make the the the the milky way martini the milky way martini which i will have to learn how to make now but uh i was like hey i'm really bummed i don't know how to make the like the recipes like is there a list anywhere because there's no there's nowhere in the game where you can practice. So where do I, does anyone have anything?

And the creator of the game commented on my post and sent a Google Drive link to the top 100 drinks, the most common drinks that you get. So it's not all of them, but it's a very good start. That's the top 100 most likely drinks I'll get in the game. I'm so impressed. Me too, because I really did nothing. I expected like Joe from the basement to like say something.

Joe from the basement! You know, I thought someone was going to have some like weird background. Oh, I made this random chart kind of thing but the literal fucking creator of the game was like oh here you go and just sent a link um and that's why i drink i'm so impressed with you me too okay do you have anything else or should we should we like let's let's crack into it but um i hope it's okay if i brought my little friend today god i feel like you don't go anywhere with her little friend anymore yeah well you know i brought my little tiny legal vape pen um because i had like a live interview with

the vegas live morning news or whatever and i I get so outrageously nervous beforehand that I start like vomiting. So I, uh, so anyway, so I had this ready for ready to go. And now that we're recording, I'm like, well, why not? I had to do the same thing. I took, I had to take a whole, well, I took half of a Xanax, a Xanax at seven in the morning. Like I was like, just because I couldn't get it together like propranolol was not enough i was so stressed and like these by the way for anyone who is interested in this side of things when we've had to do like news broadcasts or like morning shows like to like promote either the podcast or the book or our ticket sales right they're literally

two minute two minute interviews no like it's literally two minutes and you basically don't speak because they're like talking and leading the conversation and like we'll even get briefing sheets before an interview where they'll tell you like hey this is what you can expect these are the questions they're going to ask and it'll tell you in there like the duration of the interview like how much time it's going to take it sometimes literally says two minutes. Yeah. And I needed a whole,

I need half a fucking Xanax to answer questions. I know they're going to ask me. It's so complicated. What's wrong with me? No, I'm the same way. And it's like, there's something about it that's so much more anxiety inducing for me than like, I don't know why.

Like poor Em has had to talk me through these so many times and be like, it's four minutes. It's gonna be a thing and then um I've had to do that where I like take some anxiety medication and then it's over and then I'm like well now I'm all blah because I took one 10 minutes ago yesterday I had I had my two minute interview and I was like well now I'm just riding Xanax for the day I guess like like that was not worth it like but then also there was no way i was going to get through without taking it so i'm just like oh man i feel it's why and the questions are like how did you meet what is the podcast about like they're literally it's not fucking calculus today they said what's your favorite drink and i said box, boxed wine. And they were like, there you have it, folks. And you needed anti-anxiety medication for that.

Yeah, exactly. So I didn't do anti-anxiety medication. I'm trying to like limit the amount of that I use, right? So I brought my little friend and he just does. Does it work exactly the same? No, certainly not. But I'm testing out, you know, different methods. Because obviously in a past life, as in a few years ago, I probably would have been drinking. But now I'm a parent. I can't just have a, I mean, I can, but I can barely do a puzzle. So I can't really be drinking at one in the afternoon unless like there's somebody around to, you know.

So I'm trying to just find ways to cope with life. And I know a lot of people will say, why don't you just cope with life? And I say to that, life's too short to cope with life. Like, let me just bring my little vape friend, you know? Maybe I need a little vape friend. I think you do. It's way legal where you are. Here I have to like fucking buy it on the internet from some technical hemp produced THC.

You know, it's listen. Well, yeah. Give it a try. Also, can I say one thing? Well, we've been doing it. We've been saying one thing for like 22 minutes now. So, yeah. Okay.

I have a reason I drink. Okay. That you drink. Oh, okay. Because I felt like being a little snoopy. And so I immediately found reason I drink. Okay. That you drink. Oh, okay. Because I felt like being a little snoopy. And so I immediately found your Reddit account. So based on what you just told me. So just in case you want to.

I mean, I haven't looked at anything. This is none of my business. I don't think I've posted. I've posted like two things on Duggar, the Duggar Reddit. And that's it. Okay. I'm not reading anything because it feels invasive, but I am scrolling through to see what that you did post in bringing up baits.

Bringing up baits. So I don't know if you ever need, if there's anything you want to just, because on mine, I know people will find it. So I like hid my post activity or whatever, so that people can't see what I've commented and posted. But I just feel like you should know that because I google I started searching star tender I found oh no you're good I just checked my profile now I've only I've had let's see oh I've had an account

for three years and I've posted three times interesting um is that what it says for you no no but i mean one two one two three i'm not reading them four five i don't care six seven eight nine i mean nine i don't know what they say so i'm just giving you a heads up now before the episode airs just in case you want to privatize it otherwise it makes no difference to me there's one which if you're going to watch anything it's i post it was the first time i think I had posted. And it says, it was in the Duggar Snark. And there's a clip that I had to post because I watched it of Jim Bob literally drank vomit. What?

He literally drank his children's vomit. So I posted and I said, remember when Jim Bob drank vomit. And then the tag is vomit hazard. And it got 166 upvotes and 109 comments good for you thank you yeah and then another one I posted I mean I I really don't post too much in there I'm usually a lurker but um but sometimes there's just things you gotta say so okay I'm reading the Bates one it's so funny because when I did it's so funny because I did the Duggars last episode as you know when this comes out which was like two days ago for us uh and you posted a

whole thing about the rooms the room layouts which is so funny because you said that on the episode you're like a lot of times I think about the room layouts when I'm going to sleep yeah and I and it's like such like a secret knowledge because they did like a tour at some point and then someone asked about the rooms I was like this is my moment I have literally it's probably the longest post I've ever written and it was all this information on like because they were like how do they fit that many kids in and I was like I have the answer I know you were like finally um anyway I I just was so excited because I found the star tenders recipe list and I'm like this is such a cool thing that you got a response from. And now, of course, I'm opening the Google Drive and looking at.

I'm sorry. I know you know these so well right now, but like some of these are fucking great. Let's see. The battery acid, of course. The Cosmopolitan. There's one called the Screaming Organism. The Wormhole. I mean,

these are really... There's the Wormhole, the Black Hole, the White Hole. They're all holes. I love Glurp. I love Glurp. Glurp is easy.

That's just Glurp. I just want to have a Glurp. Anyway, I'm so sorry. I know that was another giant derail, but I felt like you should know that if I can find it, some of our sneaky listeners can find it

that's fine that's fine i appreciate the warning now i've just got ghost stories for you yes yes um this is definitely shorter than last week's three-hour episode sorry everybody but also not really um but to give you something a little more This is definitely shorter than last week's three hour episode. Sorry, everybody. But also not really. But to give you something a little more palatable, I'm doing kind of a vaguer topic. And by that, I mean I'm covering a college and how haunted it is. But I'm only going to talk about kind of the main players ghost wise i think colleges are interesting because there's they're so often they're so old or they've been around at least for a few decades um the land that it was on has its own history that a lot of times we

don't know too much about gloss over there's so many people i mean every four years there's like new people coming in and out of this place that all bring their own energies it reminds me of like a hospital where it's like people are just in and out yeah and and then there's faculty and there's the same thing there so i i feel like colleges are always haunted because someone's bringing something to campus at all moments and uh so i i don't really want to say like i'm covering all the ghosts i'm sure there's got to be like another several i'm i'm not totally handling but this college does have some famous ghosts so i'm just going to talk about the famous ones and this college is the

university of toronto oh canada okay i just gasped along just to make everyone else who's listening who has some affiliation feel heard because I know that they also gasped because I'm sure a lot of people were like, oh, my God, what if it's my college? Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, especially like we all know if I were living somewhere else during my college years, I would have applied to University of Toronto. I probably might have not gotten, but you know what? I would have tried. I'm sure you would have. In another world, this was my dream school.

So anyway, I'm very excited to talk about it. I did learn a fun fact, which I'd like to start out with, which is that University of Toronto is used as a filming location quite a lot, which makes sense. I know we do a lot of filming in Canada. But isn't it usually Vancouver? Yeah, right? I feel like it's usually Vancouver because it's like L.A. to Vancouver. I guess they've got other little hot spots that they go to. But University of Toronto is often used as Harvard and MIT, which is so wild that like we'd rather go to Toronto than like Boston.

I'm sure there's a lot of like tax incentives for filming up there. I feel like that's why they do that. Yeah. Well, so University of Toronto is a filming location a lot. been using goodwill hunting the incredible hulk robocop tommy boy mean girls shazam the time travelers wife shadow hunters the shape of water warehouse 13 and the boys i wish i wish you could guess i wish we had time for you to guess which of those i have and have not seen it's like so obvious to me i'm like seen not seen seen never gonna see uh i have i've only actually seen a few of them too i don't

wait you mean the boys like the show i fucking love that show that's like one of my favorite shows of all time it's so fucked up i have heard that i feel like every person who watches it tells me that it's like deeply upsetting like it will like give you serious nightmares but it's so good okay well that's my that's my great uh great what do you call it recommendation that seems on par with everyone else's opinion of it uh another fun fact is the university of toronto i assume they call it ut ut i mean ut ut on hump day i was gonna say see i'll do it for that uh it was created in 1827 it was originally called king's college um and then it is oh and also it's the largest university in the country with 80 000 students good job that's a lot of people um uh oh it has it's so large that it has

multiple campuses and each of those have their own colleges and it's been haunted since the 1870s so like 40 years into the college being around i love that and maybe before but uh one of the main stories that we know of and we know about it because the website itself like university of toronto website has a tab that says our ghost story you're kidding they luckily lean into it instead of deny anything i love that so i guess one of the colleges uh through this university is university college and the story here which is like the the biggest ghost story is that one night there was a student named alan and alan was walking home and he was trying to get to his dorm when he spotted a man crouching on the steps oh crouching is never safe feeling crouching in the dark especially

and late at night you know yep the man was tall and burly and uh the man told alan in a russian accent by the way that his name was ivan reznikov if he said it without a russian accent i'd be more concerned i'd be like i don't believe you and i don't believe you at all maybe like my name is ivan resnikoff okay yeah good one ivan so alan i guess uh you know took pity on him and said hey it's really cold do you want to come to my dorm which like i don't know maybe in the 1870s like okay fair it was not as widely known that you could get murdered any blue lights that you could press on campus. Yeah, they weren't. Yeah, he really just.

It was like a gas lantern and you had to like figure out how to turn it on. Maybe taking strangers into your home was just so normal. It's just normal. Makes total sense for Alan. Well, so he invited him over and Ivan followed him. And once inside of Alan's dorm room, Ivan tells him by the way I'm dead BT dubs real quick need you to know I was killed 30 years ago oh okay he tells Ivan back in 1856 he was one of the builders on campus for the first buildings of the school and he was a

stonemason and while he was working on the construction he became best friends with another stonemason there named paul diablos much interesting last name whoa creepy uh even the website refers to ivan as a huge man with fingers bigger than his carver's mallet wow and and a violent temper oh that's not good combo uh yeah and paul was not that well eventually ivan suspects that something is going on on with Paul he's like oh we're best friends but something's up and he has one he's wondering if Paul is sleeping with his wife fiance but you know um her name's Susie and Ivan was like you Susie and Paul are getting a little too close and so that was already already a rift in their friendship. But I think the more silly rift of them all, another thing that got under Ivan's skin, was that Paul, who was one of like of all the stonemasons working on this construction, he was like the best at gargoyle work.

And he used Ivan's face as inspiration for one of the gargoyle work and he used um he used ivan's face as inspiration for one of the gargoyles oh my god which like i feel like that's such a compliment i do too i would be fucking thrilled if i knew how to carve gargoyle out of stone and i didn't make a christ gargoyle, I'd hope he'd be mad at me. I would never fucking forgive you. Well, Ivan was the opposite and was clearly insecure because he really took it to heart and got all up in his panties about it. And so that plus him like getting kind of suspicious of Paul and Susie, he was like, this guy is getting under my skin. So suspicious of everything, Ivan follows Paul out of work and realizes that he was right.

And Paul and Susie are planning to run off together. Well, I mean, Susie scratched out the word Susie Diablos and thought that has a much nicer ring to it. With like a little gargoyle face next to it. I mean, how cute. Well, so Ivan grabs an axe. Oh, shit. He chases Paul throughout campus into the university's construction yard where they've been building. Oh, no.

Paul ran into one of the buildings that was unfinished. And Ivan is running after him, swinging an axe through the building and ivan eventually hits a door um but he pulls it out of the door and he keeps on running after paul now that is fucking shining right and allegedly the axe mark is still there that is spooky which like you're already in the middle of construction you couldn't replace the door but okay no but i like i like that they like kept it you know even the guy working there was like this will make for a wonderful true crime podcast story one day they'll all see so so paul is you know is freaking out he's trying to get away that he's being chased by an axe but what ivan doesn't know is paul had a dagger on him oh and i guess it was he brought

a dagger to an axe fight great but um it ended up working and he pounced on ivan when he wasn't looking and stabbed him and threw his body down the stairs and him and Susie helped hide Ivan's body together oh my god and they allegedly both left town so Alan hears this whole story about Ivan from Ivan the ghost in his dorm room now he's sitting on his bed right can you imagine this Alan this is why we don't take strangers in because they're gonna literally because of you because the first thing they're gonna tell you is they're gonna confess to a very brutal murderer or they were murdered but it was because they instigated it for sure um yeah yeah yeah and also like that you know he's he's good

with an axe not he can't die again he can't die again i mean also do you have a roommate alan like what's going on i don't think alan did because i'd like to think two people living there couldn't be this stupid but okay um anyway uh ivan tells his story and pretty much right away not giving alan any room to ask questions ivan vanishes which probably for the best you don't need to answer any questions about that or i wouldn't want to if i were in his position uh and as i said the axe mark is still seen in the door it said damn um ivan's body was later found in 1890 when a fire in a campus building was destroyed and the skeleton was found on the foundation and they think it was so it was gone until like nobody found it oh shit and his

skeleton is now said to be buried elsewhere and i one source said on campus so uh if you are one of the people who goes to university of toronto and you know just where he's buried um good for you that's a fun fact i hope you're a tour guide for the upcoming freshmen um and yeah so his skeleton was uh was found and reburied and in theory uh ivan has now moved on but ever, students still report having experiences with Ivan. People have seen him sitting on the steps still in the cold or walking through older buildings. I mean, I'm sad that he's stuck and crouching in the cold. Me too.

But also, I wonder why that's the moment of his life he has on replay. I don't know. The people also hear the usual banging creaks and steps and they associate that with him. Then again, it could just, I mean, your college was built in the 1820s. But it could be a ghost. Who knows? We're going to be open to the possibility. Here's my favorite thing.

I fucking knew I loved Canada. And I'm giving, i'm doing the full generalization of canada on this one fact about a college in toronto um is that the campus has leaned into this story so much that they now have a cafe resnikoff no and a diablo's coffee bar i was gonna say he's so happy but but then I realized, wait, he's probably not. Because, wait, is the gargoyle still there? Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. Because I wonder if Ivan, like his unfinished business is to destroy that gargoyle.

I like that they have like a rivalry. I like to think the cafe and the coffee bar, like one's Ivan's and one's Paul's. You pick your team, yeah. I personally hope that the diablo's coffee bar has gargoyles now that it better be part of the theme that's what i'm saying well so another story here is that a security guard in the 80s said that he witnessed spooky shit a lot especially during renovations on campus one of the main things he would see were the lights turning on and off by themselves and sometimes it was just one light or two lights at the same time but uh there was one time where

like all the lights turned on at the same time and he thought there was a break-in called the cops and they couldn't find anything another thing that's happened is locked doors unlocking themselves one student actually tried to get through a locked door, couldn't do it. So they turned away and started heading away. And then the door flew open by itself, even though it had just been locked. Absolutely not. And when he walked through that door afterwards, which I would have not done. I was going to say, walk through, run away from the door.

I would have been like, now that it's open, it's still locked in my mind. That is not something I'm going to. It's actually double locked now. There's a chain on it now. Yeah, but I guess he went through that way anyway. And then all the doors after that one started flying open on their own too. Forget it. So that's just one.

Again, I'm giving you tastes of ghosts. I'm sure this massive campus actually has many more ghosts although i feel like before we go any further did your school have any like famous ghosts no and you know it's so funny and i've been meaning to get back to this but after one time you had asked me that i think when we did i think you did some like haunted dorm stories recently remember didn't you do an episode i did did. I don't remember where it was, though. I think it was. Let me see. I think it was a couple of different places. But I just remember saying on that episode, like, oh, no, there were no ghosts that I knew of. I

never heard any ghost stories. And then a friend of mine that I haven't talked to in years who lived on my floor messaged me and was like, oh, my God, if I knew you were also into ghosts like you and I would have been friends. Oh, no way. We just like didn't know because I lived with Allison, who was certainly not into ghosts. Right. Still isn't, by the way. And then our other roommate, who's now a doctor and very analytical, definitely did not, you know. But so, yeah, I feel like maybe there were and I just didn't know about it. But Teresa, shout out. I got to get back to you. I know you messaged me and I never got back to you. And I, by the way, it was episode 313. It was haunted dorm rooms.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So no, I mean, I think maybe there were. I just don't know about them. I feel like there's a lot of places where like it's the music and theater. It seems that way. Buildings that seem to have the most haunts to them. That was how it was at my school. My school was also, I already told this story, but my college was previously a high school. Part of it was previously a high school. Oh, yes.

And they had the bowling alley and all that. The bowling alley. That was, there was actually a bowling alley next to the school and they've they have combined into one building now but uh it used to be a high school and the gymnasium never got torn out and so there's it's kind of like think back rooms for the college that i went to and you can still find it and there's like all these warped floors and everything but they're said to be a little girl around and so i i feel like a lot of music places have that um okay so now one of the other colleges at the university of toronto is the trinity college um which has a gray lady lady

and gray of course um she is seen in the chapel and she was first seen by a minister before mass she was seen sitting in the pews and looked really upset so the minister tried to go over and talk to her and she got up and walked away before he could get to her she was like this is not what i'm here for he followed her anyway but then realized that in like the blink of an eye she was nowhere to be found oh my god to this day people still see her in the pews or out by the front of the chapel people say she still looks upset they see that she is very pale almost gray hence gray lady and a musician or a music student just saying, a music student was practicing in the chapel one night when they saw something on the lower floor beneath them. So I guess they looked over the railing.

And they saw someone or something crawling. It crawled behind a pew. And it would peek its head out to look up at them but nothing was ever found after that so okay because it's one thing if you're like okay i'm gonna back away slowly it didn't see me but the fact that it knew you were watching it forget it yeah do you think it was ivan like crouching i'm just crouching down here i i don't know it makes me think too like what so is the is the lady in gray is she not a lady is there something darker there or something ladies can crawl ladies can you're right i guess not if she's in a gray dress that seems very difficult well maybe that's why she

looks gray she's all dusty from just crawling around the floor. She's crawling under the pews. But yeah, so either the lady in gray is this creature that crawls around or they are two different entities. In which case I understand why she's always so fucking sad. Why she's sad. It was just about to say, somehow this makes sense to me. You're like, this is my only friend in eternity. My life is so sad.

There are also, at Trinity College college there are some tunnels under the campus that students have used during bad weather i don't know if they still do but at least in the past that was the case and there's a legend that i guess there's one part of the tunnel where the bricks are a little out of order or like look like they're kind of falling out right which like feels like a construction issue that we need to handle immediately but legend has it that in that one part of the tunnel there's actually a body trap behind it and this man's spirit tries to grab students walking by to pull them in to be with him which like can you imagine finally getting out of your house where every single night

when you would turn the lights out you would sprint upstairs because you felt like something was behind you the whole time so now going to a college where you're told hey in this lonely tunnel that you're walking someone's going to pull you into the big hole in the wall like you know there are some people who like very quickly just walk around real quick walk around you know just everyone probably well so apparently he tries to pull you in and uh trap your body in there and if he successfully takes enough students uh the the thought is with every soul he steals another brick becomes loose and one day he'll be free what a spooky thought i love that like i feel like half the ghost stories on campuses could either be true or they could have just been written by like an english major who like just like had some sort of like dark

assignment they needed to write out and yes that was and they're just staring at the wall and they're like well there's a brick missing. I guess I could write about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like it makes things harder to believe where I'm like, oh, you just it's literally thousands of creative minds in one space. Exactly. Exactly.

Well, so there's also the spirit of the college's founder who apparently shows up on campus around the anniversary of his death which is november 1st and oh day after halloween funny you say that because he's still seen wearing his old fashion robes and hat and he walks around campus and people often claim to see him on halloween because it's the eve of his anniversary i see see. And because the veil is already so thin, it makes sense that they would see him just as he's crossing over. Right. And the first is the Day of the Dead. So which is when the veil is said to be the thinnest. Yeah. People also report another professor who died haunting campus, and he is known to knock on doors and throw them

open when even when they're locked so maybe he was the guy from earlier his name was professor linden and so because he's known to uh blow doors open students call him windy lindy okay i love that and they also say that they really like his ghost and he's got a good attitude. So I really like Wendy Lindy. Let's get it, Lindy. I love that. If I were to go to the university's campus and do a little ghost hunting, I'd hope Wendy Lindy made an appearance. Me too.

That's a ghost we'd be more comfortable seeing. Yeah, exactly. There's also another area of the campus is the Royal Conservatory of Music, which I could never get into to be clear. Yeah. The word Royal, I'm already not accepted. The word conservatory, forget it. Uh, so they have a little Victorian ghost in a top hat, of course. Oh dear. Creepy. Um, apparently they're seen and heard running down the stairs as if they're in a rush. And another music student, I'm just saying another because it seems to be music students who are noticing all of this. Also because I think a lot of music students stay late in practice rooms.

Oh, that's true. You're there off hours. Yeah. And I know a lot of students are in their buildings off hours, but I feel like there's something extra creepy about music students or even maybe theater students because the practice rooms are always soundproof like it's just you in the middle of the night in an empty building and it's silent like or or you can just hear like like one person like practicing down the hall it's very spooky just one like high-pitched soprano opera singer but imagine if there's if they're like a uh i don't know the other ones bass what are the other there's a really deep one oh bass yeah bass or if there's someone playing the harp oh spooky oh that's wild, it could get really crazy.

I feel like also no one ever took advantage of the fact that like, hey, it's an empty building of musical instruments. We should just like have a jam, jam sesh, you know? I feel like maybe they did, but you and I were not in the conservatory. We were not invited. Yeah. Also, I don't think they just leave the instruments out. I think every person takes their instrument home with them. Maybe. So I had some

classes in the music building um obviously not the pianos well they had like rooms with like instruments like around so i don't know if that was like i don't know i don't know accessible yeah maybe other people have already like signed off on them that like it's there so you shouldn't touch it but i was always like man this is like if i wanted to just our college had a really like weirdly liberal honor code where like it was just expected that you never nothing ever got stolen ever you could must be nice and i mean like there were many times i actually like in hindsight i'm realizing like one how lucky i am but also like probably it has to say something for the college so like everyone was on board with the sonar code thing like there were times where i would just leave my laptop for hours in a building i was

not at and just like wide open yeah i yeah and just no one would take it ever it was just understood that you didn't that is insane to to me. It was in hindsight. I'm like, why was I so reckless? But also thinking about it then I felt like so safe to do it. It was like never. Wow. It was very odd. But so maybe that was that's the case with some music places where you just don't touch people's music.

Anyway, I feel like music places are always super spooky. I just feel like it's too quiet it's like already set the scene for something eerie yes i agree so at the royal conservatory of music there was one music student who was there in a practice room alone at night and he heard footsteps coming towards his room so i guess this practice room was not particularly soundproof, but okay. But heard footsteps walking towards him. And then he saw a man look through the window

in a top hat. Oh! And when the student tried to open the door for him to let him in, nobody was there to be found. What, to let him in? I don't know what to tell you. Don't let him in! A different time, a custodian saw the same man

in the empty music hall and then felt someone tap his shoulder so when he looked away and then looked back the top hat man was gone but was anyone actually tapping his shoulder oh no so it's like a double prank yeah I was like stop looking at me i'll distract you gosh some students also hear and see practice room doorknobs turning on their own when nobody is on the other side of the door and they've even seen doors shaking violently like someone is trying to shove their way in even though the door is unlocked so it's like okay so it's like purely to scare you or they just don't know how doors work i wish it were the second one i know and uh i mean there oh there's also in this building say it with me a lady in red yay she's always there one day we're gonna figure out it's the same

goddamn lady and she is just jet setting she's like on another literally in on another realm she is globe trotting like i've never seen but don't get it twisted i am not the one crawling on the dusty ass floors that is the gray lady and she gets to keep that title exactly please don't don't put don't sully my name no so she's seen walking the halls nobody knows her story but they all say that she's a lady in red um and now we're going to go to the regis college of university of toronto and they're the home of this college is a building called the christy mansion christy or christine christy damn it i know sorry we can throw an N in there I don't care Christine Mansion oh that's your house actually

Christine Chapel the Christine Christine Chapel that's right the Christine Sistine Christine Chapel that's why we say Christine Chapel because it rhymes with Sistine Chapel I know I'm just trying to throw as many words in as I can that rhyme no let's just leave it

at Christine Chapel because I want it I'm just trying to throw as many words in as I can that rhyme. Let's just leave it at Christine Chapel because I want it to be clear that this place is yours and yours only. Is only mine. It is also pristine because I don't need anything crawling through the dirt on the floor under the pews. There's also no pews.

Oh. That's all you need to know. Okay. That's fine. We'll have to shop that later. If only, you know one day i think i don't know what there is to shop i feel like i just laid out the exact storyline just an empty church and i wish you would just stop trying to shop my perfect creation if i still had all of like rj's streaming stuff in here and i could like we could do like a sims day sims build it'd be fun to create

a pristine christine chapel wouldn't that be fun let's do it well we'll figure it out eventually i'll figure out how to buy a computer okay so that'll fix it okay so the christy mansion is owned by robert christy and he lived there with his wife and three kids. And it's a massive building. But he had a mistress. And he got a little obsessed with her. So he locked her in the false wall of his home. What?

I'm like, oh, that happened. Oh, that doesn't happen. Jesus Christ. Eventually, he got tired of her or something broke up or something happened but he kept her locked away because he didn't want to get found out jesus and ultimately she hanged herself with her blanket um and then robert had to sneak her body out without his wife and kids knowing or society and the secret room was later found out when the building later became part of the college as a dorm.

He's like, yeah, you can have this. Yeah, take it away. Also, don't worry about that one room at all. Also, wait till I'm dead because I really don't want to go to jail. Yeah, right. So the residents ended up moving into this building and they realized that the door to that room would swing open and close all night long. But you can never open it yourself ew that's like those porthole windows at the queen mary where they're so heavy but then they

just swing by themselves oh yeah it was it's like as if the door is locked and you couldn't get in even if the door was unlocked and i have had experiences like that myself and they're so fucking creepy and had i known i was in a haunted location um i would have left but i just thought i just thought oh the door must really be stuck there must be a draft or the the wood on the door must have warped or something but i mean you would get trapped, trapped in this room. And there's no other way to put it. It makes no sense. But it was like the door was cemented to the wall, even though the doorknob is being is turnable like you like it doesn't feel like the doorknob itself is locked at all.

Where was that? It's called the homestead. It's like like. Oh, yeah. You've talked about that on the show, I think. Yeah, there was one room that was one of the creepier nights the entire time i was there really weird stuff was happening i think that was an early episode with uh deirdre you guys told that story she was there when they

yeah that happened but i mean anytime one of us went to the bathroom because it was the bathroom door anytime one of us went to the bathroom we had to like buddy system and like someone had to like stand next to the door because anytime the door got closed, it was. Forget it. There was no getting out. There was multiple people. We were trying to throw our bodies into the door to get it open. But then out of nowhere, you just open the door out of fucking nowhere. Oh, what's your problem?

Yeah. It was like I felt so gaslighting. I was like, what's mocking you? Yeah. I was like, what so gaslighting i was like it's mocking you yeah i was like what the fuck is going on and so either it was the easiest door in the world to open or you might as well been running into a brick wall um and so i guess that's the situation that happens here at the christy mansion where students will like literally get locked in there by accident and they'll have

to like bang on the doors and bang on the walls at night for someone to open the door to let them out but then there's other times where it's like it's mocking them because they can't get out but the person on the other side of the door can just open the door like it's not a problem oh that's very rude and very gaslighting yeah there's also i like this one this is um the Massey College. There's a very happy ghost there named Robert Davies, who was the first master of the college. And he would host Christmas parties every year, which he called Gaudy Night. Ah, I like it. And I would love to attend a Gaudy Night. And if the vibe is like we're dressing camp, very like oh yeah dolly parton i would lose

my fucking mind that's not i'm calling it a naughty gaudy night you know what i'm saying oh my gosh okay then hang on maybe we should do that for christmas we'll have a naughty gaudy this i'm willing to shop you leave my sistine chapel out of it i will host it if you want i will i will offer the sistine chapel as the, you know, home of the party. Well, you know, I always told you that my old boss, anytime she ate a snack and she felt guilty about it, you know what she'd always say? Yes. What would she always say? She would say, I'm being so naughty.

Yeah! I would come into work and she'd have like a bacon, egg, and cheese and she'd be like, don't tell anyone. I'm being so naughty today. So naughty today. You and I still say that like together and separately. Like I still say that to people and I'm like, that's it. Oh, that's based on M's former coworker that I never met. It was my boss too. And so every time I saw her, she'd be like, what do you, what do you, she was food obsessed.

I loved her. And she's like, what are you eating this weekend? Are you going to get so naughty? What are you eating this weekend are you gonna get so naughty what are you eating this weekend sometimes you just gotta be naughty anyway gotta at our naughty gaudy party we're that's gonna be the tagline we're being so naughty tonight so naughty time to be naughty well so at it just means we're eating a lot of good food that's all it means does it okay so at massey college the main ghost there when rob was robert davies and when he lived there or when he was part of massey college he would host gaudy night for christmas okay while he was there this guy would be right in our wheelhouse christine he would make

up ghost stories to entertain the guests and he even published a book about the ghost stories to entertain the guests. And he even published a book about the ghost stories he told at Gaudy night called high spirits, high spirits. I love this guy. He also told his coworkers, Hey, one day when I die, I'm going to actively try to become a ghost on campus.

Come on. And now in Massey college, where he used to have Gaudy Night, objects move and disappear by themselves. Figures show up in the hall. People hear footsteps and banging and a male figure shows up in people's graduation pictures. Fuck yes. He's being so naughty. He is.

And I have never felt more like in tune with a ghost ever ever i love him so that's robert davies if i'm gonna be haunted by anyone i want it to be him um and then there's the walberg building these are just some quick ones but in the walberg building engineering students have had a spirit show up and help them with their projects when they are that's nice it sounds real fucking nice especially engineering you need all the help you can get like can you imagine they're trying to help but they like press the wrong thing and the whole thing crumbles to the ground and you're like i swear it was a ghost yeah also like what if it's just like what if that ghost wasn't an engineering

was a music major like yeah what do they know yeah what if it's just like a random a random ghost that didn't even die on campus and was never enrolled there it's just a random person who's like you should do that and then it doesn't work the whole bridge collapses well apparently this one actually will tell you if there's like broken wires or something on your engineering projects apparently there was one uh team that was working on a lab project with circuits and this ghost came up and told them what was wrong with the project and when they fixed it it worked and there was no one there to thank afterwards oh man there's also the mclaughlin planetarium which uh i hope i said that right looks like mclaughlin to me um there are there's a ghost of a little girl named celeste and she's been haunting the building

ever since the 60s because when she was a little kid she was said to just love the planetarium shows and just likes to watch and with a name like celeste i know i wonder if like other kids though just kind of came up with that i was know. I wonder if like other kids though just kind of came up with that name. I was going to say, I wonder if that was made afterward because it's a planetarium. I know.

It's fitting. I hope it's her real name. That's so written in the stars. Oh, I see what you did there. Sadly, the planetarium is said to be demolished soon and people are worried for celeste but um i hope she's gonna be okay i hope so there's also uh the mcdonald's oh god mcdonald mowat house m-o-w-a-t mowat mowat okay uh and allegedly the canada's first prime minister haunts this place because his name is Sir John McDonald.

And he once lived there. And now it's part of University of Toronto. And people still see him rushing around like he's still working. Which, again, we've talked about it before. But can you imagine still working in eternity like you just haven't earned? Absolutely not. Fucking relaxation. Absolutely not. And I don't buy it when people say he just loved his job. I'm like, nobody loves their job that much.

I definitely love my job enough to watch you continue without me. But I'm done. I'm out. Yeah, but like, let me rest. Please. Yeah, you can talk to me through a Ouija board or something when I'm gone. But other than that, I'm not coming back to keep hosting with you, you know? Hell no.

So there's also the Soldiers Memorial Tower, which is a memorial on campus to Canadian World War I soldiers. And in the 1930s, there was a worker on the top of this tower who lost his footing and dropped to his death this is crazy people still see him repeating the fall oh oh that's traumatizing even more traumatizing he apparently looks alive and real and so does the impact of his fall apparently apparently it looks and sounds very real and then his body vanishes oh no which like can you imagine the trauma of like thinking you just saw all of that and now there's no one to confirm it that's crazy oh my god and then you don't get validated at all um other than that they i'll say there's apparently i don't know if there's like university of toronto ghost tours but there's apparently a ghost walking map oh i didn't find

this on i found this as like a was written down but i didn't see the actual map itself i'd like to find one of those and i'll end on this. The University of Toronto and local ghost organizations remind people to be safe because there have been people who have done some risky things to try to find ghosts, including one couple recently who climbed onto the roof of the Daniels building and the woman fell to her death. ironically ironically they were um going up there and investigating or exploring because in that building in 2001 there was an unsolved murder and they were i guess true crime fans so they were looking around and didn't find anything but uh she ended up dying herself so that's horrible um great way to end this. That is the ghosts of University of Toronto. Wow. Now you know how I feel trying to end on a...

I don't know how you do it. A messy one. I just ripped it off like a band-aid. That's what you got to do. Wow, Em, what a story. What a story. Thank you. And again, I know there are several more.

Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure if there are students there who listen to this, I hope I did some justice. I'm sure there's big chunks that I missed. But those are the leading ones, according to Google. That's the nature of doing a limited time crunch show where we don't have, you know, three hours like we did. Yeah, we do sometimes have three hours. But this leaves room for people to send in their stories for a Lister's episode, maybe. Yeah, that's great.

If you have some more dorm stories. Okay, I have a tale for you. This is the story of the Porco family. Porco family. Yes. Now, it's a weird name. I know. And it's spelled P-O-R-C-O. Okay. So it doesn't look nearly as weird as it sounds, in my opinion. It just has a ring to it because

the dad of the family, his name is Peter Porco, which sounds like a cartoon character to me. Totally. And he's a pig. It's Porky Pig, Peter Por porco like it's hard to not equate those in my mind yeah yeah yeah um so i just wanted to get that out of the way so thank you we can get to the story but i wanted everyone to know i also had that thought uh so the shows that uh initially alerted me to this case were it was initially an episode on 48 hours mystery on CBS. And then I also found a forensic files episode about this. So I'm going to tell you about the Porco family. First off, just who is involved. There's Peter Porco, who is a 52 year old lawyer for a prominent judge, and his wife, Joan Porco, who is a children's speech pathologist at a local school district.

is a children's speech pathologist at a local school district. They live in or they lived in Bethlehem, New York, and had two grown sons who did not live with them. So they had Jonathan Porco, who's the oldest eldest son. He was a 23 year old naval officer stationed in South Carolina. And then he had one younger brother named Chris Christopher Porco, a 21 year old student at the University of Rochester, which was a couple hours away from his family's home. Cool. Okay. So late November of 2004, Peter, the lawyer, he did not arrive for work one morning.

And his coworkers knew something was wrong pretty immediately because he had never missed work without letting them know. They're calling calling nobody's answering so they notify the police when detectives arrive at the porco's residence they find right inside the front door well peter porco at the bottom of the stairs he is drenched in blood and it appears he had died hours before after being attacked repeatedly with an axe oh my god wow we both did axes i had that same thought and then i was like oh the shining too i feel like this is a weird axe heavy episode which i don't love jeez if you walk by an axe later just dodge it just This episode is sponsored by Axe, men's body spray.

Just kidding. Just an axe, actually, who paid us to talk about him. Oh, I meant axe. Yeah, I meant axes in general. So they know that this was an axe that caused his death because the axe was still there. So they see a bloody axe at the scene. The crime scene is a huge mess. As you can imagine, there's blood everywhere.

But oddly, there were also trails of blood through the house. And that's because, as it turns out, Peter Porco had not died right away after being struck over and over and over again. Oh, is this the guy with the head injury and he's walking around he's walking around and he didn't remember he had like it was like a head right yes oh i'm so glad you're covering this because i've always wondered nailed it you fucking nailed it i always wondered okay so at some point after the killer had already fled i mean assuming this man was dead peter had regained consciousness and started to go about his normal routine so he was trailing blood through the house which is how they were able to figure out what he was doing

he used the master bathroom then he went downstairs to make breakfast and unload the dishwasher and he's just like profusely bleeding from his head wounds like he just must have had like the ax must have hit him in the right spot in the brain where he just didn't feel pain or didn't remember you could work at forensic files i think because you're oh please stop with that to it i'm like i mean because usually my thought would be did did you have a head injury? And like, very much, yes, this man had a head injury. Yeah, like, honestly, the only thing we for sure know at this point. Oh, my God.

So there are two theories on this. And I want to say 48 Hours Mystery. I don't know if it was filmed and produced, like, earlier than the forensic files. filmed and produced like earlier than the forensic files but there are some discrepancies that almost seem to me anyway as if forensic files once their episode aired they had gathered more information okay that makes sense so it's it's almost like there were some developments in the forensic files episode that were not in the other one so i'm gonna kind of waffle a little between them um but essentially what happened is, according to the 48 Hours Mystery, they believed he was in such profound shock that he had not processed what had happened. And there are cases of this.

The part of the brain that had remained intact and not injured was the part that's responsible for like everyday mundane tasks, repetitive behaviors that you do over and over again. And according to forensic files, that was the reason that he was doing this. So it was, you know, either his mental processing had been severely damaged or, you know, he was just in total shock. Wow. At one point he even walked outside to grab the newspaper. Yeah. Well, can you imagine being his neighbor and like accidentally seeing that?

What I thought. And I'm like, what are like, nobody happened to glance out like. And for them to be able to know that means there was blood trailing his front yard and down the driveway and the mailbox. Correct. Oy. So they knew that.

As you said, there was a trail of blood leading out the front fucking door. And according to forensic files, and this is where one of these kind of details is presented differently. So I don't know which one exactly it is. But according to forensic files he had walked out to get the paper but accidentally let the door lock behind him imagine with this head injury and you're locked out of your house it looks like like a jump scare attraction at a haunted halloween thing of like a bloody man trying to break into a house. A hundred percent. And like a trail of blood leading away.

So what they think happened is he used the spare key under the potted plant to reenter the house. Like he had enough wherewithal to know where the spare key was, after which he at some point collapsed at the base of the stairs and ultimately died of blood loss. Which is just a wild lot it's all just a wild thought but i will say the thing that differs is that some the other docu documentary and some other uh sources believe perhaps the spare key was used by the killer to get into the house they know the spare key was used they don't know if it was the killer who used it or if it was

peter porco after going to get the newspaper so but somebody used the spare key was used they don't know if it was the killer who used it or if it was peter porco after going to get the newspaper so but somebody used the spare key so investigators ultimately determined when like looking at this crime scene that someone had entered the porco residence sometime after 2 a.m disabled the alarm system went into the garage found an axe that belonged to the family, went upstairs to the master bedroom where Joan and Peter Porco were sleeping, and attacked with the axe, striking them in the face and head dozens of times. Wow. The killer then left the axe at the foot of the bed, headed outside, cut the house's phone

lines, smashed the security system panel oh and fled into the night wow so now i think you would do those two things first uh yep you do you would all right and you also wouldn't leave the murder weapon at the scene of the crime but okay you'd also think so yep uh but i guess what do you do take it with with you and then have it in your car, you know, then leaving blood everywhere. I don't know. So we're back to the crime scene now. And a Bethlehem police crime scene detective named Christopher Bodish was downstairs, you know, where Peter's body had been found while his officers were going through the house to clear it to make sure that the perpetrator wasn't still in the home. And that's when he hears from upstairs one of his officers call out to him they had found joan in her bed having been attacked by the axe

and she was still alive oh my god which means she was hurt and probably like thinking that she wasn't going to be alive or maybe she she was probably freaking out the dishwasher running downstairs yeah she was hearing her husband walk around like nothing was going on i wonder like could she was she not in a okay i'll tell you exactly what you're wondering because okay because that is part of the detail so and if i don't tell you what you were wondering let me know but i i think i'm gonna okay cover that in a moment um so detective bodish of course rushed into the master bedroom he finds joan porco laying crosswise across the bed and she is able to gesture to him okay and so the axe wounds on her face were so bad that she couldn't speak oh my god i was that is what i was gonna ask like why didn't she had been

completely destroyed by the axe wounds oh my god and so you know obviously this is a extreme crisis um but as they were waiting on the medics to remove her from the home and take her to the hospital uh and knowing she could die at any minute detective bodish was like i gotta think fast so he decided to quickly ask her a few questions to try to get as much information as possible so uh when joan was asked whether she could hear him she nodded yes so that he knows she can at least acknowledge his questions in a strange coincidence there's a little side note bodish had actually met the couple two years earlier on like a total a different a totally different situation they had actually reported

a theft of their two laptops which i guess they had left they had not left in one of m's college buildings because apparently it would have been safe there anything safe there yeah but apparently their laptops had been stolen two years prior and he was the detective on that case so he had actually interviewed with them and met them and he because of that knew the family and so he knew that she and peter also had two sons okay so today at the crime scene, Bodish realizes like he's putting the pieces together. He realized like the spare key is still in the door, whether that was Peter or the killer, we do not know.

Nothing in the house had been taken. And he's starting to think, well, this is probably an inside job. So he asks Joan, do you know the killer? And she nods, yes. Oh God. He asks, was do you know the killer? And she nods, yes. Oh, God. He asks, was it a family member? She nods, yes, again.

When asked, did Jonathan do this to you, her eldest son? She shakes her head, no. When asked, did Christopher do this to you? She nods, yes. Oh, my God. she nods yes oh my god and that is when paramedics rush her to the hospital begin emergency procedures and that is when authorities begin looking for christopher the youngest son the weird part is chris is 200 miles away in his dorm at the university of rochester miles away in his dorm at the University of Rochester. That guy sped to school that day.

Oh, my God. So when he hears about the attack, he rushes back home to see his mother, who's being taken in for emergency surgery. And meanwhile, he's taken to the police station where he's questioned for six hours. And of course, now police have their eye on him for obvious reasons. Chris claims, however, that he was in the lounge of his dorm building the whole night he said he was he was had fallen asleep on the couch of the dorm and that he never left campus that night wow okay yeah so that's his claim but detectives head down there to question the rest of the students who live in the building and unfortunately for chris a group of his own fraternity brothers had stayed up till 3 30 in the morning hanging out in the lounge that night and they told police that no chris had not been in there with them for a single

minute oh wow okay and they talked about this room as just like a normal dorm room floor common area, like two sofas and a microwave. Like you're not missing each other. You're not hiding. Right, exactly. So they were like, sorry, but he was not here. So detectives searched his room and they searched his car, which was a bright yellow Jeep Wrangler. But they did not find anything, not even a spot of blood. So they're a little conflicted because, you know know they're convinced he had something to do with it but they're sort of at a standstill especially because they check his easy pass records and he had not gone through any tolls

that night wow okay and there were tolls on the way back to his family's house. But then they get a hold of the university's surveillance cameras. And what do they see but a bright yellow Jeep leaving the school parking lot at 1030 p.m. At 1036, that same yellow Jeep is spotted by another camera heading east. At 1045, a New York toll collector says he remembers a bright yellow Jeep with big tires going through his lane. And at 151 a.m., another toll collector says she sees a yellow Jeep going through her toll lane in Albany, which is an exit only nine miles away from the Porco house. So now their theory is, well, if this is Chris Porcoco's car they believe that he drove from the university

to his parents house but paid cash for the tolls sure and hid his easy pass which actually they verified because they found the easy pass hidden in the back seat underneath i that's okay well the seat a bit of a smoking gun there as far as i'm concerned apparently that will prevent it from being picked up oh by easy pass you know signaling as far as i know as far as they said on the show couldn't you just take it out of your car if you wanted thinking but okay what do i know what do i know what do i know i'm not an axe murderer but i'm sorry i laughed but yeah wow uh thank god so another thing they're not sure about right away is is this actually his car um and you know it's a yellow jeep you'd think if you were an axe

murderer which i know you're not thank you for clarifying um that you would, it's a yellow Jeep. You'd think if you were an ax murderer, which I know you're not. Thank you for clarifying that you would maybe get like a Honda Civic or something. Like whatever the most basic car in the whole wide world is. I'm like literally pretty sure that's a Honda Civic because I had one once. And I remember people saying it's like the most broken into car because it's just like the most ubiquitous car. But anyway, so he had a yellow Jeep. But of course, that doesn't necessarily prove that it was him. So they started looking at all the camera footage and they realized that on the passenger side, there was this like really big dirt stain that when they compared pictures of Chris's car, the dirt stains completely matched.

pictures of Chris's car the dirt stains completely matched there was also a ripped parking sticker on the window that completely matched and a bumper sticker and in case you're wondering the bumper sticker said W 2004 okay so this was his car that was driving through these tolls. However, he claimed he was just moving his car off campus because he wasn't allowed to park there overnight. Okay. So I don't know where he was moving it to. Which, fine. I did that a million times in college. Yeah.

So that's his claim. So like I said, they can't make out the license plate, but the decals on the back of the Jeep match the surveillance video. The mud stains all match. And so on November 4th, 2005, almost a year after the attack, Christopher Porco is charged with the murder of his father and the attempted murder of his mother. and like i said when questioned he's claiming that he was just moving his car off campus but then prosecutors are able to find a witness and this witness is named marshall gokey and this marshall gokey is a neighbor of the porco family wow okay i guess he did not see mr porco getting the newspaper but he did see at 4 a.m a a yellow Jeep parked in the Porcos driveway. Well, there you have it, my friends. Right. And he said there is zero doubt in my mind that was Chris's Jeep because he knows Chris's Jeep. He's like, they live next door. I know what their cars look like.

I saw their son's Jeep. I know. I know we already talked about it. But like of all of the cars you like why a yellow jeep like it was like it couldn't have been more obvious you know yeah i feel like of all things like it's gonna stand out especially if you park it in the driveway of your parents house yeah rough so the guy heading to work at 4 a.m. is like, oh, Christmas be over. And then, you know, has to tell police, hey, guess what? I saw that car in the driveway. Yeah.

As I had the thought Christmas be over and then realized, oh, Chris must be over. He was. Exactly. So things are finally looking pretty good for the prosecution in their case. They are building this case. for the prosecution in their case um they are building this case and then their star witness joan porco miraculously wakes up from her coma unexpectedly they think she's not gonna survive she wakes up is she still alive she's still alive oh wow wow i didn't see that coming. Okay. Yeah. So she is still alive. And so they're, you know, they're thankful because this is their star witness. They go to check on her to question her. And Joan says, no, Christopher was not our attacker. My son, Christopher would never do something like this. Girl, what changed?

So now they're thinking, oh, shit. This was our smoking gun, so to speak. This was the person who was going to say, I see who tried to kill me in this courtroom, and it's my son. Yeah. And now she's saying Christopher would never do something like that. Okay. So all we know is that Joan has no recollection of the attack. And now she's saying Christopher would never do something like that. OK. So all we know is that Joan has no recollection of the attack.

She has no recollection of indicating to police with head nods that her son had anything to do with it. cannot believe you would even take that traumatic instance as you know face at face value i mean i could how many times have people had to testify against someone who tried to kill them and like you know they're terrified so i don't blame her if she thinks like he could he could get me then he can get me now i don't even think it's that i think it's it's her son oh like maternal instincts kicked in i don't think she wants to blame hers or even wants to believe that her son could do this that's my take on it because i think she's probably just trying to I think she's probably just trying to defense mechanism, like just be like,

no, of course it wasn't my son and totally block it out. I don't know. And obviously I'm no expert, but it was a very, very sudden turnaround that she said, absolutely not. He would never do this.

It wasn't my son. I love him dearly. Yada, yada. A mother's love is crazy. It is. So fucking powerful. It is.

And like, to be fair, if she doesn't remember it. Yeah, that's true. I can see her saying like, no, I must have just been in a daze and not known what you were asking me. Which is fair, too. I mean, they had a witness or not a witness. They had a witness or not a witness. They had I guess it was an expert witness who said, you know, with a traumatic brain injury like she had, you can't expect her to be. You know, clear and aware of what's going on in a conversation. And so to be fair, like I can totally understand that as well. Like. Obviously, it's hard to say someone who just got their head

smashed in with an axe is reliable, you know, with head nods. I can see why that would be questionable also. So a month after Chris is first charged, he is out on bail. Family and friends rally to support him, insisting that he's innocent. He could never do such a thing. And so his defense team starts to point out some new evidence found at the crime scene. For example, they found a fingerprint on the phone box, which is only inches from the cut phone cord. And Chris's family and friends believe that the fingerprint belongs to the killer. And so and it doesn't belong to Chris. So, you know, that's a mystery. And yes, all the evidence so far has been circumstantial.

There's nothing, you know, totally provable about this. They were not able to find one shred of evidence that Chris was in the house that night. Not a fingerprint, not a footprint, nothing, no blood, no hair, nothing in his car. Like he's just not there. OK. As for the surveillance video, his defense stuck with the story that he was moving his car off campus. And by the time he got back to the lounge, his frat brothers had all gone to bed. And that's why they didn't see him there.

Now, the alarm keypad. Somebody had disabled the alarm using the family's four digit code. So they had another code they knew the code and even though the uh keypad was smashed the person who smashed it didn't realize that that data was stored somewhere else smashing it didn't get rid of the evidence that someone used that specific code to get into the house. OK. But now the defense is saying, well, maybe Peter turned the you know, while he's doing dishes and walking around with this head wound, maybe he turned the alarm off, as was his habit in the morning. And when the killer came, they just smashed the keypad as like a precaution. OK. So, you know, they're arguing back and forth about this.

I can see kind of where this gets muddied because, you know, there's also the key in the lock, which they say the killer did. But then there's proof that Peter Porco left the house. So could so he could have used the key from the spare key lockbox. Like it's it's hard to prove. It's just so hard to prove that Chris was actually the one there. That being said, prosecution was not having any of it. They followed every possible lead and they all kept leading to dead ends. But they were still convinced Chris was the perpetrator. So when the defense argued that Chris would never have harmed another person, let alone his parents, the prosecution was like, fine, then why don't we go that route? We're going to prove that Chris

is not as angelic and as perfect of a son as the defense is trying to make him out to be. Oh, okay. So they were onto something because remember those stolen laptops from two years earlier? Well, it turns out Chris had been the one who had stolen his parents' laptops. OK. Not very surprising at this point, but OK. And he had staged it as a burglary and later attempted to sell them on eBay and had been caught. Furthermore, his own frat brothers testified that chris had led them to believe he was like a totally different person they said he was this rich kid who came from a wealthy family in connecticut and his grandmother owned all this land and they said it was not unusual for him to

bankroll our parties tell his friends that their his family owned a lodge in vermont a house in aruba it was all made up he like made up this whole fake rich boy persona in front of his friends that their his family owned a lodge in vermont a house in aruba it was all made up he like made up this whole fake rich boy persona in front of his friends and in reality he was actually flunking out of school and he was deeply in debt oh shit okay wow so what's more is when they checked emails in the days leading up to the attack, Chris's dad, Peter, had found out that Chris had been forging his dad's signature. Oh, that's a rough one. That's a rough one to obtain a car loan and a thirty one thousand dollar loan to pay for school. And now this is how he had actually paid for his yellow Jeep by forging his dad's signature.

Man. Yeah. Whoa. OK. his yellow jeep by forging his dad's signature man yeah whoa okay so peter his dad sent him a series of angry emails and some excerpts include asking what the hell he had done accusing him of spinning out of control meanwhile joan his mom had written to him as well telling him his dad was about to have a nervous breakdown over all this and that if he didn't call her, she would drive down to Rochester herself to talk to him in person. And one of the emails specifically read from his dad read, I may be disappointed in you, but your mother and I still love you and care about your future dad. So these are the emails they're finding just days before the murders what's also chilling is that peter had recently mentioned to a co-worker quote i think my son might be a sociopath who said this peter said to his co-worker mm-hmm that's not good.

That's not a good sign. That is very unhelpful towards his case. Wow. 100%. Chris had also failed out of several classes earlier that year and then forged transcripts so he could be readmitted. Several emails between him and his mother showed how angry they were with him for failing out of school, for lying to them, for stealing from them. So essentially, prosecutors have all of this, and they present Chris as broke and desperate, saying the motive was his parents' money. Alive, the family was worth around $60,000, but dead, they were worth $1.1 million, their life insurance policy. they were worth 1.1 million dollars their life insurance policy at the trial which had to be moved all the way from like albany new york or like that area to orange county because it was

such a circus oh my god wow locally as far away as possible like truly across the coast or coast to coast because of the intense media coverage joan walked into the courtroom of the trial with her arm linked around chris's and continued to insist he was innocent now joan you can see photos had had to have her face fully reconstructed okay because you know she had been attacked so brutally and so it's really hard to see her walking with these horrible you know you can see the scarring in the aftermath of her wounds and she's like holding on to her son saying like he could never have done this and just for someone like me who is leaning toward he did do it It's like a very dark picture to look at. Yeah. So she takes him into the courtroom and she says, no way. You know, he didn't do this. He would never do this. And I want to add one more thing, which I don't think I remember to put into these notes. But speaking of the money that they were worth, it turns out that he had had

a meeting with like a financial advisor uh right before the murders and he told them he would be coming into several hundred thousands of dollars and it was from a family member okay is what he told this financial advisor implying like oh money will be coming. But wink, wink, imagine the person isn't dead yet. Correct. So more than 80 witnesses took the stand in this trial, including the paramedics who watched Joan nod yes when asked if Chris was her attacker. So nine of Chris's fraternity brothers were also called to the stand to challenge Chris's alibi that he had been in the lounge that night. Christopher's older brother, Jonathan, also

testified. And according to the Albany Times Union, Jonathan's demeanor toward his brother was icy cold. And he described their relationship as strained, which, yeah. He didn't look at Chris the entire time he was on the stand. And then the defense brought Joan herself forward to the stand to testify. She explained she had no memory of the night, but was certain her son had nothing to do with the crime. So on the afternoon of August 10, 2006, the jury deliberated for six hours before finding Christopher Porco guilty of second degree murder and attempted murder of his mother. He was sentenced to 50 years to life on each count, totaling a minimum of 50 years in prison. Wow.

And he is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. And up until now, all of his appeals have been rejected. There were articles as recently as a couple months ago that he's still trying to appeal. But so far, everything's been rejected. He will not be eligible for parole until December 2052. Wow. And to at least, you know, being Joan, thisan this is just you know and the prosecution said this too like being joan it's horrible because you at least wanted to believe that your son

was still your son and hadn't harmed you and hadn't killed your partner um and now her son's going to jail so it's like she's lost so many people at once and we don't we don't know if she really is in denial about him being the killer or not so she we don't know she insists that she has no memory of any of that okay but she had such a deep-seated guilt because she truly didn't believe that he had done it and she had such a guilt that like maybe she had nodded and had like sentenced him to this to this you know prison sentence but the jury actually has come out and they have insisted to this day they have insisted and still maintain that jones nod had absolutely nothing to do with their oh eventual

decision okay and so for what it's worth if you know i'm hoping that's at least some comfort to her that like that wasn't what the case was riding on for the jury but then she still has to sit with the fact that like she will never know if maybe her son is willing and capable of doing that to her. Yeah. And, you know, I just have to imagine and like, I don't know this. I have to imagine that if he did do it, she and she did somewhere in the back of her mind know it, that she's just had to tell herself a different story to get by. You know, I, I don't know. But I mean, I, I can see that being the case. People have, you know, convinced themselves of much more wild theories. But yeah, so what the jury said is they want Joan to know it was not her nod that sent her son to jail. It was Chris who got himself there. And that is the story of

Christopher Porco and his family. I'm glad you covered it because I've heard that story forever of like a guy who had like a massive head injury and he was bleeding everywhere and didn't even notice he was bleeding everywhere and he was doing his house chores it's scary and it's so random it's so bizarre to like like to hear a story of someone's going about their chores dripping in blood and they don't even notice. You're like, what is the story there? Like, how is that possible? Wow.

Amazing. Amazing in a bad way, but just still, I am amazed. It's a shocking, shocking story. Wow. I'm glad you covered that one. I didn't know the ins and outs to it. And I never thought it was the kid. Growing up and hearing that story, I never thought that.

Wow. Yeah, it's pretty shocking. And Joan is still alive. As far as I know, Joan is still alive. Okay. Wow. Good story. Juicy story. Interesting story, Christine.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, here, look. I just Googled her. As of this year, she defends her son uh still to this day so and maybe she's right maybe she's right you know i mean listen as a as as a famous podcaster once said i'm no axe murderer what do i know exactly and that person sounds probably like the smartest person you've ever met.

So I honestly, I was going to say the same, but I'm glad you agree. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in this week. And that's why we drink where we tell you a true crime paranormal story. You remembered. Thank you for joining in on this hump day.

And that's enough. Uh, I guess, you know know well this is after the fact but we'll see you in vegas if you're coming and other than that you can see christine and zandy at beach to sandy where uh they have their own eight shows coming up so go look at their website maybe m will be at one is that gonna convince y'all to come? Maybe Em will be there. I just won't say which one. Yeah, exactly. And other than that, yeah, I hope everyone has a good week. And I hope everyone has learned something from our paranormal and true crime stories.

And maybe stay extra aware and be safe. And we'll see you next week. And if you're part of Patreon, you can go hang out with us for our after chat. Yeah, we'll see you next week and if you're part of uh patreon you can go hang out with us for our after chat yeah we'll see you there and that's why we drink