And That's Why We Drink - E341 Conversations with Fake Allison and Cast Iron Skeletons

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

Hello and welcome to episode 341 where, conceptually speaking, we have a lot in common with babies! Em is back in Virginia becoming a funcle a second time around and Christine is on her way to Europe with a toddler. But to ease our anxieties we've got some creepy tales for you: First Em takes us to Milwaukee for a classic haunt at Shaker's Cigar Bar. Then Christine covers a story with some wild twists in the alleged abduction of Sherri Papini. And don't forget to give your partner quiet, whispered compliments even when they aren't in the room... and that's why we drink!

see we did it without eva for once yeah yeah yeah we did it and it's a monday morning and i woke up without my without personal complaint because usually I wake up and I go, I wonder why. It's because I was the one complaining the whole time. I gave you no room to complain. I woke up like five minutes before recording and was like, I woke up before you. That's got to be a first. That is definitely a first. My Apple Watch is from like 1995.

I still have it. And all it basically does anymore is track my sleep. Um, it told me. Your Apple watch from 95? That's not even a good joke. Okay, fine. My baby G watch. Okay.

Your, your calculator watch. It's also a phone book. Yeah. And it's a slap watch too. So you can slap it on um it said i slept over 10 hours last night because i'm so behind on sleep oh i feel for you so it was a lovely time but i didn't want to get up i wanted to hit you know 11 12 hours but um it was my idea to record at 10 a.m so it is my fault and yes we

are talking about 10 a.m folks some of you are probably want to punch us in the face we're complaining about getting up for 10 a.m we recognize our privilege we do we get to be our own bosses and make our own hours but you know what i will say the perk of getting to sleep in every day i i still feel like I do the equivalent amount of work because I end up staying up late like it's all proportional everything yeah yeah exactly so like everyone else is done working usually by like five or six and I feel like I'm still working at oh yeah eight nine ten so yeah and now that I have like east eastern time and're now on Eastern time, but you're usually on Pacific time. I feel like my day, it's nice because my day doesn't, I mean, with Leona, I have the morning with her, but then my like work day doesn't really start till noon. Yeah.

But then it doesn't end till like 8 or 9 p.m. So it's like, well, I don't know. It's all, it's all. Relative. Relative. Thank you. How are you? I'm good.

I'm not as stressed as you are currently. I'm fine. I'm sorry. Let me try that again. Take two. I'm fine. Oh, that was worse. I'm fine.

No. Okay. Go ahead. I'm fine. I'm not fine. No. no okay go ahead i'm fine yeah i'm not fine um no i the you're about to go on your big international trip and that overwhelms me just as a concept so um conceptually speaking um i don't envy you i do because i know you'll still have fun but the logistics of it all just i really um daunting yeah sending you good vibes but no i'm i'm i'm good i hung out with my hometown friends yesterday

how's the funkle life you're now a funkle to multi babies uh it's it's a it's currently a good life because i have done nothing. That's the dream. I have held the baby's hand on the day he was born. But then I haven't seen him since he was born. So I'm actually going over later today to hold him for the first time. Oh, take photos. Oh, it's a little baby. So cute.

And he likes to sleep. I like to sleep. So so far we've got a lot in common um so it's like when leona started eating tomatoes and you were like i finally got we got it we got each other yeah um but no i i'm gonna hold them later today and that's kind of my whole agenda. Good for you. It's a good life. I got really nothing to report on. I'm trying to think of a good reason why I drink, but I guess the reason I drink is because for five seconds, I feel like I've got some relaxing time.

Good. Tell me all about your feelings and your thoughts and your oh your everything about this big trip coming up oh my um well uh i'm drinking by the way i meant to tell you real quick i'm drinking coffee out of the mug you gave me um what is it hon let me see my my documents are in the way it's oh that was an old one now married bitches um i think what are you drinking in it coffee with lots of yummy creamer i'm drinking deer park because i don't have that on the west coast and i missed her yeah i know you have that favorite brand um dp dp right um no i'm good you know what i'm good i'm chilling okay? I'm good. I'm chilling. Okay. Sort of.

Any updates on, like, your travels? As you know, I bought everything that the internet sells for traveling and for toddlers. I have some fun Gabby's Dollhouse coloring books ready to whip out during a crisis. I'm just, you you know today's packing day do you have any um big things you're looking forward to on your trip oh well the last time i went to sweden um i found out my boyfriend cheated on me and i tried to jump off the boat into the fjord uh okay and so i'm excited to not do that this time unless blaze has a really some bad news that's true and that's true i got to be really careful um because yeah sweden has done me dirty

in the past but it's a great country i'm very excited um and i'm excited to this is going to sound terrible but we're not really seeing like a lot of relatives. Like I have so many relatives over there. There's nothing wrong with that. Okay. I don't mean in a mean way about them. It's just like it adds so much stress and I don't know, and socializing and all that. So I'm excited.

And Blaze's parents are coming and they've never been. So we get to kind of show them around. And you're going to get a car out of it. Oh, yeah. By the way, I'm getting a car. That's why that's part of the reason we're going. And oh, we decided that I think I'm going to try to take my car and drive it through Europe. Oh, that'd be fun. So like as like a little road trip so what um what do you know where you're gonna be stopping uh i think hamburg hamburg okay thank you or berlin i'm not really sure yet maybe berlin um do you have a favorite place over there that like yeah you know i love this not even in germany but i love vienna which is we're spending a couple days in v Vienna. Nice. It's so beautiful there.

I can't wait to take you there one day. Well, you got to get me some good food recommendations and nap spots. Well, I was going to say, I learned that in Sweden they have this thing called Fika, which in Germany they also have. I imagine it's similar to a Spanish siesta. I'm not really sure. But it's like basically coffee and cake hour. And like in Germany, like I swear to God, the world stops.

At like 2 o'clock, everyone's like, okay, bring out the coffee, bring out the cake, bring out the tea. And everyone just like takes an hour or two. Every other country does everything better than us. Exactly. Like what are we thinking? We took the worst parts and brought them here. And why? Because like, you know, at my at my last job, you know, everyone gets the munchies around three o'clock. So obviously I get it with the cake thing, the energy dip,

you know, you want like a tea or coffee and some some sugar. So like naturally in our bodies, we all get that feeling anyway. So why don't we just give into it? Come on. And so, yeah, I'm excited because my parents very vehemently support coffee and cake hour. And the fact that I found out Sweden does the same thing. I was like, I already booked all our like little not booked, but I like picked all the best little spots to make sure we're getting a good. And apparently in Sweden, it's cinnamon buns. So in Germany it's like cake. You know and in Sweden. Which makes sense now at Ikea. Why they sell those cinnamon buns.

It's for when you're shopping. And then when two o'clock hits. You stop your shopping. You sit down in one of the. Beautiful living rooms they've set up for you. Do you know what I found out about my. The Burbank Ikea. Which by the way if you're not from California.

Or from Southern California. Burbank is apparently known for its ikea um i have told people i live in burbank and they go oh they have ikea they're like we're like the only area in los angeles that has an ikea and people usually come all the way to burbank when they when they're yes i've spent a lot of time at that ikea and uh i just i just talked to somebody here in like virginia and i was like oh i live in burbank and they were like oh ikea are you shitting me i was like there are other ikeas you live here where there is at least a dozen like within i don't know 200 miles of you yeah well uh so apparently that ikea is the largest ikea in the continent huh fun fact and think of the real estate i was like no wonder everyone knows about this fucking ikea okay i

remember that used to suck because you used to have to park across the street and then they would have like a loading zone and you would have to drive it so when i was by myself i'm like well i don't have any friends to stand here and like hold my furniture so i'd have to drive. And so when I was by myself, I'm like, well, I don't have any friends to stand here and like hold my furniture. So I'd have to like leave it, run, get the car, but they changed it all. So it's much better now. Ikea is a team event. It needs to be.

I don't know what I was thinking going alone, but yeah, well, I don't know what we were talking about. Oh, Sweden and their cinnamon rolls. Yes. So I'm excited for that. Just be prepared for a lot of photos of my food and my cake. So that sounds excited for that. Just be prepared for a lot of photos of my food and my cake. So that sounds great to me.

I still I very much miss my during COVID. I was setting like every like three o'clock or four o'clock. I was having tea time with myself. Yes. Tea time. Exactly. Like you get it. It was lovely.

I know. You should pick that back up. Everyone. It is. Whenever you listen to this, you have permission from us in case you need the permission and the external validation. You have permission. We give you the freedom to go give yourself an hour and do whatever you want today. That's right.

And if your boss asks, say you have not a doctor's note, but a podcast note. We got it covered. Don't even worry about it. Also, reminder to drink, thirsty little rats. Okay, I'm drinking coffee. Does that count? Well, stay hydrated however you need to, but put something in your mouth. Oh, okay.

I want to edit none of those words. No, as you shouldn't okay well christine i got a classic haunt for you today um this is in milwaukee oh i love milwaukee i've only ever been there with you i know i've only ever been there with you. I know. I've only ever been there with you. There's a pattern, it seems. That's weird. I wonder why. This is a cigar bar, which, you know, we love those. You know, I've only been there with you.

Hang on. Allison just texted me. Oh, no. What did she say? I don't understand the context but it said i oh oh she responded with i feel like one day i'm gonna look back at all this and see that this was the first sign of mental illness for you the first sign i'm sorry no offense m but the first sign are you shitting me where's she

is she not listening because i tell her every day i'm so mentally unwell does she not realize um yeah well she's she's the context she's right she's right about what i said to her i mean i don't doubt that for a minute but what did what were you talking about you don't have to tell me well so allison goes to bed really early yeah and speaking of our schedules i mean it's gonna truly sound like i'm like i'm mentally unstable um i because she goes to bed early i i'm very and when i you don't have to tell me if you don't know it's just stupid i one of my favorite things to do is like just like shout affirmations at her um good and oh yeah she's so unfortunate to have someone encouraging her every five seconds

allison if you're listening to be fair that wasn't the mentally ill part so apparently she's on board well so she goes to bed so early and it's become a habit where i just like shout affirmations just to note just because i know that she's got something she that she'll hear something so now when she goes to bed i um i just keep doing it i just keep saying like while you're across the country you mean or what no no like when she goes to bed, I, um, I just keep doing it. I just keep saying like, while you're across the country, you mean or what? No, no,

no. Like when she goes to sleep at seven o'clock at eight o'clock, I just like get a like weird. Still where I just still want to say nice things about her, even though she's not in the room. Oh, I see. So I'll just be working and all of a sudden I'll be like,

you're so pretty. And then I realized she's not in the room. And so, so now we've made a thing where I just talk to fake Allison when she goes to bed. Yeah, well, okay, I'm seeing now where this became a little concerning. Yeah. So in the morning, I'll be like, Oh, I talked to fake Allison. I told her she's beautiful. So you know, everything should be covered for the rest of the day. I love like she has to be the most supportive partner to say this

is the first sign of mental illness like i've known you for a long time uh anyways she's clearly has blinders on so you're lucky um she's saying she's saying it because since we're across the country i was telling her like oh i've been talking to fake alice and a lot more recently since you know our time schedules are different I was like so anyway she was like her response was I feel like one day I'm gonna look back and see if this was the first sign of mental illness I love that you're about to start your story and that comes in she has impeccable timing that one she does she does I'll talk to fake Allison about it later though me too while we're at it you know yeah yeah might, yeah, might as well. Okay, so anyway, this is a cigar bar.

It's called Shaker's Cigar Bar. Okay. And I guess we just get into it. So it was built in 1894. It's in Milwaukee, and it's built on a previous cemetery, of course. Sure, why not? Fun fact, do you know the difference between a graveyard, a cemetery, and a burial ground? Oh, I just got goose cam from just the question. Fun fact, do you know the difference between a graveyard, a cemetery, and a burial ground?

Em, ooh, I just got goose cam from just the question. I asked fake Allison, she didn't have a fucking answer, of course. Stupid, stupid Allison. Tallying your mental illness scores. Adding one more. Check. Let's see. A graveyard, a cemetery. cemetery no i don't i found this out yesterday because i went to a cemetery and i went on a tour of a cemetery cool i don't i regret it because it was so fucking

caught out and i was like i and i was the only person on the tour i wait what what the fuck i was the only person on the tour i i don't know why i thought 3 p.m is when everyone goes on a cemetery tour um so i went and it was just so fucking hot i couldn't even hear half the things he was saying and i had to keep looking interesting because there's nobody else yeah you can't even hide behind someone that sucks it was just the two of us. It might as well have been a fucking bumble date to build the cemetery. Maybe it was. He said a graveyard is attached to a church. Oh, I've heard that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a cemetery is not. And then a burial ground doesn't even have monuments or stones or anything. It's just a plot of land that people bury dead bodies. Gotcha. So it's not even like meant to be sacred or have like right headstones okay wow am that's cool that is a fun fact so shakers cigar bar is built on a cemetery so it's not attached to a church gotcha uh good

because i don't know if a church wants to share land with a cigar i mean listen priests have a few vices usually it's wine but um but i get that it's the blood of christ actually so that's true it is that's true you're right until the 19th to 20th century um uh the pre the cemetery was untouched. Nothing else was going on there until about the 19th or 20th century. Then Milwaukee wanted to expand, and they had nowhere to do it except on top of their older cemeteries. Oops.

So many people couldn't actually afford to move their loved ones when they knew the construction was coming. And so those bodies were left in the ground and they get rid of the headstone i'm sure that's just yeah classy you just have to write down somewhere what acre they're on i guess um yeah you got to stand in the cigar bar and they're like uh excuse me i'm sitting here and you you're like, do you mind? Right. Yeah. I'm putting flowers. Just sit them on a booth in the corner. So when they decided to build over the cemetery, the location that is currently Shaker Cigar Bar was originally a Coopridge house. Do you know what a Coopridge house is? It sounds like a chicken coop, but I don't know.

That's what I also thought. Okay. You made a face and I was like, am I about to be so embarrassed? Okay, good. No. Glad it's not just me. Well, I've always heard the name Cooper and I thought, oh, that's someone who does like who makes coupes.

Oh, barrels. Barrels. How do I know that? I don't know. But it just popped in my head when you said the last name Cooper. I was like, I think that means barrel maker. It is. Oh, okay.

So a cooperage house was a house that made barrels. And specifically this building made barrels to transport Schlitz beer. Yes! And so that was what the building originally was. And then in 1922, it was bought by the Capone brothers. Oh! That fits. That fits.

So Al and Frank Capone, they opened it, of course, into a speakeasy because I've never heard them open anything into like a library. Had to be something bad. There's nothing bad about a speakeasy, Em. You watch your mouth. Okay. Maybe in 1922 it wasn't all good. Well, probably when we get into the details. Yeah. Yeah. In today's world, a speakeasy is divine i was just at one in knoxville i had a great time but i'm

sure it was a different vibe what was the theme i you know a speakeasy can't not have a theme okay so i don't know if you'll love this or not but it was like a library oh i love that okay good because i know you're not like a huge book person but all the characters were named like the drink I got was called the Violet Baudelaire from from Willy Wonka? No oh my god Christine

Violet Beauregard? Beauregard. That was Willy Wonka wasn't it? No not Beauregard Baudelaire from the things that are all bad all the things are bad um Christine Willy Wonka Lemony Snicket a series of unfortunate events did I just have this conversation with you uh did I because I feel like I should have uh had it better this time who was I talking to I was just talking to someone about all you could do with a library themed bar. I was just talking about this with someone.

Oh, well, they did a good job. But Violet, did you ever read that? No. A series of unfortunate events. So they had like characters named after different books and or I'm sorry, drinks named after different characters. It was it was really cool. I was just talking about this. I was just talking about this with someone oh my god was it fake allison it might have been fake allison because i i was just talking about like how good um oh maybe it was allison it was real allison i think oh okay um for one distinction um because i was i asked her like if you could do anything in the world what would you do like if like money was nothing what would you yeah like what and she said she wanted to open her own bookstore with a coffee shop in it but it was also like like a

bookstore that turned into a bar at night or something so it ends up being like a library themed bar and we're i was talking about like oh even like you know how it like cafes and a bookshop they've got like fun little drinks for kids and i was like think of like what you could do with little like drinks fun drinks for kids and i was like oh the curious george would be like a peanut butter banana smoothie. Oh my God, that's really cute. Anyway, very weirdly timed in the universe because we just talked about this. It is weirdly timed. And I thought of you because I know you love a speakeasy.

And I love a theme. I know you do. I love a theme. Wow. Okay. Next time I visit you, we'll go. Yeah. I i mean it's in knoxville so it's four hours south but yeah next time i'm in knoxville i'll text you for the address excellent um okay so shakers was originally a cooperage house and made barrels for schlitz beer in 1922 the capone

brothers turned it into a speakeasy and they would smuggle beer from Canada. And their front, the name of their like fake restaurant or building, so that way no one would know it was a speakeasy, was ABC Soda Company. They're like, what? ABC. Got it. Nailed it. First try. I guess there's an ABC like liquor company, right? There is an ABC liquor. Oh, interesting. try i guess there's an abc like liquor company right abc liquor oh interesting um i wonder if

that was on purpose if that was a play on words like oh you know the abc that we're talking about this is abc soda yeah yeah nothing not related uh the speakeasy was in the warehouse district so i guess a lot of its clientele were people who were working in the middle of the day so they would come in on their like lunch shifts or in the middle of their shift. But it was also at nighttime, a gambling hall and brothel. Hell yeah. And because it was mob run, it is difficult to know how many people died there. But it's suspected that a lot of a lot of people.

Right. it's suspected that a lot of a lot of people right thus many of the deaths have become local legend because all people can do is guess how people died um and the staff has actually tried really hard to put the pieces together and has worked with historical societies to learn as much as possible um which i like that they're trying to find the bodies and at least honor the names. Yeah. Um, the most notorious death that they've been able to figure out here is of Molly Brennan, who was an Irish 16 year old who was also the most popular of the sex

workers. Oh no. While 16, she worked the penthouse as the most popular sex worker and was murdered and dismembered for unknown reasons. Dear Lord, that's dark. Some say she might have like a client met up with her and when they saw each other face to face, she realized it was someone that she knew. She realized it was someone that she knew. And so, like, afraid that he would get found out that he was, like, with her.

The story, that's kind of one of the ideas of what must have happened. Okay. Another version is that maybe she was killed by, like, a jealous client or, like, a jilted suitor. I mean, listen, people have killed women for much less for much less yeah maybe she didn't laugh at his joke yeah i could also especially when it comes to sex workers i feel like i've watched enough svu to know this has not changed much as far as yeah needing probably know that's what he was like he was into pain and like did something went too far or something so did something went too far or something so but you just it could be anything um another death was in the 1840s when the land was still a cemetery and it had an orchard on it and there was an eight-year-old named elizabeth no and she fell out of one of the trees of the orchard in

time oh my god um we also know that there were people murdered in the speakeasy and sex workers died upstairs a lot um and that could be either homicide suicide we don't really know all the reasons but multiple different types of deaths upstairs and in 1932 al capone goes to prison and and a year later, Prohibition ended. That being said, the brothels were in operation for like another 13 years. So from 1946 to the 1980s, the history of the property is really hard to nail down. But we do know that by the 1980s, a guy named Bob reopens it as a cigar bar. Okay, Bob's like, oh, what's this? Yeah.

I just stumbled upon this. Doesn't feel eerie at all. Nothing wrong with this place. So when he reopened it, he had- To ABC Cigars. That would be hysterical. Wouldn't that be good? What a good nod.

Oh, it'd be ABC Gar. ABC Gars. That's really good. I, listen, he had a missed opportunity there. Yeah. Well, I think Bob just, I think he was running with the first thing he saw and didn't even think about the creativity. So he reopens it in the 80s, and he also brought the building back to its original 1920s aesthetic. So it looks like it did when the Capones owned it. Cool.

It was cool. I'm down with that. looks like it did when the capone's owned it cool it was cool i'm down with that um fun fact apparently in the early it's not really a fun fact but early in the 90s bob claims that this was a regular hot spot or watering hole for jeffrey dahmer oh i mean it is a fun fact in our universe like it's our type of fun fact that's just fucked up um that's upsetting yes well in case you wanted to know that now you do i didn't but thank you for telling me anyway you're welcome so during during uh renovations uh of course those state renovations it seems and contractors started having very spooky experiences and by the second day of this building being open bob knew it was haunted oh no that's pretty quick that's

rough i'd be like oh how much did i invest into this fucking yeah um staff had issues right away and soon because people were having so many paranormal experiences bob just started giving informal tours of the building okay which like if you find a side hustle lean into it i guess you know i would take him up on that yeah if he was like oh you want to see like the place and maybe have a spooky experience let's go yeah um he also started very quickly looking into the potential entities here. He knew about Molly and Elizabeth, who both died on the property. Elizabeth, she's a hoot. A little eight-year-old girl. She loves her some mischief.

Aww. And it's fun for her, and it's fun for me not having to experience it. But if I were someone who had to experience it i'd hate it um because she's most often seen and or recognized in the women's bathroom which is like on its own a sad thing because it's like she just wants to hang out with the girlies you know yeah she's like this is where the girls go yeah um so in the, the faucets turn on by themselves. Women hear giggling in the bathroom. Apparently, they'll hear knocking, of course, on their stall. Oh, no. You're like, I'm really indecent right now. Truly, pants dropped, maybe in the middle of an intense situation.

But that is such a kid thing to do. Mom! What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Can I come in? Well, if you don't lock the stall door, guess who kicks it open? Shut up. It just swings open and there's like nobody on it.

That's terrifying. And then some people, even worse, is if you're walking by the stalls to like see which ones are available, sometimes people will see the shoes of a little girl standing. Ew, I just got goose cam. That's scary. Imagine if you see the shoes when you're on the other side on the potty and she's trying to bang on the door and giggle and you see little vintage feet and shoes. What if she's just silent and you just see Victorian shoes? You're like, oh my you just see like Victorian shoes?

Oh my god, what do I do? For the rest of time, if I ever see shoes on the other side of a stall, I'm just going to assume that it's a ghost for sure. With no context? It's going to be like Skechers shape-ups and you're going to be like, oh my god, it's a Victorian ghost. They're going to be shoes that like light up, like the little kid light up shoes. It's like, that's a demon for sure you're gonna start saying the our father and then the parents are gonna be like okay we're gonna find a different bathroom this one's really weird imagine if they're healings i am imagining so uh yeah apparently she just likes to chill in the bathroom also she has a portrait of herself in shakers they've like i don't know if it's a painted portrait or what

there's a picture of her to honor her at shakers next to the bathroom where everyone sees her okay and apparently the portrait moves on its own throughout the building and people just find the portrait in different rooms oh my god that feels like a big heavy item to be moving around it again it brings up this stupid that thing that quandary this yeah the quandary like is it falling into a portal and just showing up somewhere is it being moved and no one's not how would you not notice is it getting like moving floated through the hallway or is it just like poof in it no no if you're on a healy that's sliding you're right it would glide you're right right if you just see it gliding away you know little kid in helios is doing it um in 2001 during renovations human remains were found in the

upstairs walls which is oh my god where the broth Shit. Forensics say that the charred bones were 70 years old, and they're believed to have belonged to a teenage woman, or a younger woman. Sad. They could belong to anyone, but it's suspected to be the remains of Molly Brennan, who died. Okay, sure, that makes sense. molly brennan who died okay sure that makes sense and the basement here and in the bar used to be a meet-up spot or a hideout for the capone brothers with like all their mob wheelings and dealings and during the renovations bob had the crew the construction crew use radar down there on the ground and they found two bodies buried under the concrete oh no is that not the most like quintessential mob thing you've ever heard they just bury you in concrete i love that bob was the exact right person i like

made fun of him at first but he's like on it he's like i know something fucking happened yeah he's like we're gonna get to the bottom of this or also like i wonder i wonder what his involvement was i like to think if i found remains in a wall we're checking every fucking wall now every wall but i wonder if like the police got involved or something i don't know yeah it could be like a historical issue like right right right um so they found two bodies in the basement under concrete and the police said that the burial was so old that digging it up felt unnecessary and so bob just never recovered the body so they're still down there oh that's dark but to mark the spot he put two plastic halloween skeletons where they are okay so you know

where the bodies are buried which i feel like an x on the ground there's a couple other ways you could mark without honestly you're a fucking cigar bar you don't want to just put a table down there with two cigars for them that's a great idea m like a like just leave a like a cup of whiskey and just never touch it yeah just let people let them have yeah yeah the halloween props are a little but except for Halloween. I'm telling you, if I end up being like, wherever I end up, if someone would like to put a skeleton there to honor me, go for it. Yeah. And make the skeleton do funny things. We're definitely the exception. We'd be like, let's become a sideshow the second we die. I would like my grave to be a sideshow one day absolutely and you know i'm gonna fulfill that wish if you die before me i hope so um but so yeah they he marked the spot at least so people know where they are and it's right in the corner of the basement so it's not like it's you know two big skeleton props that are like you have to trick over right right right

they're in the corner so um anyway so this makes three confirmed deaths and three bodies remains in Shakers. I was going to say, it's not even like, oh, people died. It's like their bodies are here. Yeah. That's so disturbing. So now for the ghosts. Molly, she is known to haunt the third floor, especially the penthouse where she worked. And it's now a hotel

by the way the upstairs part is a hotel room and so guests actually have to sign a waiver just in case they have a haunting that they're not going to sue the i was gonna ask you if you would stay there i feel like that's a little that's almost too on the like i would usually stay in any haunted place but that feels a little i think i would be well it depends on assuming the ghosts are were just sex workers and yeah people from before there was ever a building there yeah i would but if the spirits are like mobsters i think i don't want to be part of that i don't want to like be harmed. But I feel like if I were in a room where sex work happened, I would just go in and be super respectful and be like, I'm not here to... You want to just hang out and watch TV or something?

That's chill. Just watch TV. We're not going any further than that. So you are welcome to feel safe here. And I want to feel safe here. But if it was someone who wants to apparently throw me into a wall like no i don't want to bury you under the concrete right yeah um so people also i guess because of all the dark stuff that happened there people will hear crying on the third floor um plus the tvs and the

lights turn on and off by themselves on the tv like the channels and the volume will change on their own people have been grabbed there especially when they're sleeping yeah see that's why i'm saying i don't know about this but also i wonder if that's like in a dangerous way being grabbed or if it's like in a sex worker way they thought you're supposed to approach but here's the thing i don't care if someone grabs me in my sleep i'm like that's a good point no matter what the intention is i'm like who grabbed me in my sleep that's a fair point i wonder in my mind i just feel like if i go into a room and i like state my boundaries first yeah i feel like i'm probably safer and i feel like if i knew again what ghost was there if i was getting grabbed and i knew there

was at least like yeah no threat i would be more inclined to be okay with that's fair that makes sense because i'd be like no no no no we don't do that we just we just don't do that um so people get grabbed especially in their sleep which i wonder whenever a place was formerly a brothel, I wonder what the stats are of like how often men are being touched compared to women. Yeah. Interesting. I've heard other places were like, oh, the men, especially like someone's going to rub your back. Someone's going to try to touch your hair. You're going to smell perfume.

So I would be interested about that me too people also hear speaking but usually out of context they'll just hear like a random phrase i like that that's my kind of haunting where you're like oh what does it mean what's the drama girl but they'll just hear like either mumbling or voices as if they're picking up on old conversation people will see shadow figures, and guests will have their items moved, especially odds and ends like jewelry. Shoes, apparently, especially move on their own

and then reappear in odd places. Well, they are Heelys, so they will roll. You have to be careful. If someone can go to that bar and leave one light-up shoe, one Heely, one Wedge, and one... One Wedge? I'm trying to think. And then a random boring one.

Yeah. Just a flat. I would love to see which one gets moved first on its own, as a test. What's your favorite shoe? If it's not the Healy, I'm going to be really upset. It would have to be a Healy, especially if a little eight-year-old girl haunts that place yeah or like a tap shoe because you can make noise with it oh no that's all we need the ghost with tap shoes and you know what the sick part is that eight-year-old ghost would never let that shoe reappear you would just hear tapping for the rest of time sorry it's it's mine now um items can be uh knocked off dressers and tables if they're not

just moving or disappearing on their own activity has been so high in the past that people leave in the middle of the night and things allegedly don't get too wild until 3 a.m so you're great until 259 folks um apparently less people have been fleeing in the night because the bar slash hotel has been getting more experienced investigators recently so instead of people running there's now more people leaning into this i see and they've realized the most active spot is the basement where there is a very deep cistern which i hadn't even mentioned yet oh um or a well essentially uh it's in the basement and the theory is that the capones used to throw bodies down there oh shit which is wild like did you throw them down or did you bury them in concrete or did you do both i was gonna say maybe they just ran out of room and i don't know yeah otherwise i'm

like how do you decide and like which one's worse both had their own method you know like each of them yeah i would think if you're running a mob owned speakeasy and you have a well nothing good has ever what do we think is happening in that well you know clean what do we think or what do we know what do we know um so about this well the well is now covered with a grate that has metal bars so that nobody else can accidentally be thrown down there um but it used to be fully covered so it wasn't a grate that you could see through it was just a slab yeah but apparently when that was around the basement ghosts got so aggressive why which is so weird because i don't understand is it like they're like trapped down there now so that's what they think that the spirits felt trapped like they'd never be found again or they couldn't see the world again oh and that is kind of ominous

to put a big slab over yeah hmm so anyway the staff changed the solid grate to one with bars and activity did die down which is weird how they even like i wouldn't have even have put those two things together that it was associated with the great yeah um so in the early 2000s one of the servers was dating a guy who claimed to be very spiritually sensitive and he said that in the basement he felt an entity named o'connor oh um and ever since then i guess this guy's been called o'connor whether or not that's his name so fun fact the basement is known to be where most horror guides that are women get assaulted presumably by o'connor but also this is again where we're talking about maybe these are ghosts from the brothel time you know we're

from the speakeasy time so but women sure do get assaulted down there they sure do sure do um Sure do. Sure do. O'Connor is, I think, just the name they slap onto this entity now. Okay. And he is known to pull women's hair. He is known to slap their butts, grab their butts. Oh, no. Be very hostile towards women. On one tour, there was a woman who was the tour guide. She called O'Connor a lazy Irishish bastard which not to victim blame here but what

were you thinking and then immediately she gets forcefully pushed into a wall yeah okay i mean i feel like she told someone to record before she said that just i hope so like for camera yeah like girl you work here you know better than that. So this entity is very hostile towards women, especially blondes and redheads. Okay. He's also very active during investigations and is very quick to react and communicate with equipment. He has said he's said to have been seen before. And when he has been seen, he is in Confederate regalia. So excellent.

Just to add to the charm winner um they think he might be an irish immigrant who fought in the civil war and he this is super weird he was also seen on an infrared camera standing in the basement in the corner where the two bodies are buried. He's like, I did this. Yeah, right? I wonder if he's like, these are mine. Or I wonder if it's like, or he's one of the bodies. Or it's one of the bodies, right? True. Wait, that's a great point.

Which makes me wonder why the other one isn't showing up. Like, did he do something to the other ghost? Maybe the other one has moved on. The basement also has very nasty, dark vibes. If you're a cop, I guess, probably because of like the mobster spirits. Oh, true. They can smell it on you. Yeah.

Isn't that weird? So many places where if you're an officer and the place used to be a place that like would get busted. Yep. Those ghosts fucking hate you. Yeah. And like you're screwed. You got it. They can send like it doesn't even matter if you're off duty.

They can smell it on you and i thought but then i get confused too because like why are there mobsters that are haunting this place wouldn't it be the bodies that the mobsters killed here well i bet you they're sometimes one in the same right like they killed each other that's a great point didn't even think about that so yeah then no i don't think i would stay here if there's clearly aggressive people you know what i mean yeah yeah well you are a cop so ain't that the truth if i'm a cop it's like a paul patroll cop i was gonna say the world will probably fall into a million pieces but anyway so um apparently people who have to deliver beer to the bar they sometimes have to go down to the basement alone to like better get the king's treatment

okay because they're delivering beer to the former speakeasy well so a lot of them apparently feel such dread in that basement that they will drop it off not unload anything they'll just leave their own equipment and fucking leave. They'll run. Oh, no. I thought they'd get like the special treatment. You would think. But also, like if you work there and you know how scary it is, like maybe I wonder whose job it actually is to unload the beer in the basement or if everyone's just like pulling short straws.

Yeah. Hopefully they do it. Hopefully a new person comes and unloads beer because they won't know and we don't have to deal with it. Yeah, we'll send them down it almost feels like if the basement is this sinister like just find storage on the second floor else i had one friend growing up and her basement was so haunted oh she refused to go in that basement i'd been in her house a million times in my life and she was like i'll never go down there and you know m was like no let's just

go down real quick let's just yeah i was but she was she was like scared scared and i was like oh if you're not if you're you live here and you don't even want to do it then like i get the message yeah excuse me yawn break so in the basement there's a door leading to the storage room in the basement okay the door down there will knock on its own and shake violently and it gives off the illusion that it looks like someone is trapped down there ew i don't. Plus, the door's latch is bent outward as if someone on the other side is pushing to force themselves out. Ew!

So this door is being shaken so violently that it's breaking. That's, I mean, wild. And there's nothing in there. They'll open the door, no one's in there. That's freaky. Here's one. I was trying to figure out i leave an acronym every now and then in front of my notes yeah i know that about you like ff means fun fact yeah i didn't know what this one meant a h h but it's actually just

so i was like american horror story oh okay Oh, okay. It's just screaming. It's just for me to tell you, oh, this is a scary one. I got the message, by the way. So one of the tour guides there, his name's David, and he had to go down to the basement, and he saw a 400-pound safe down there that had moved itself to the middle of the room. Ew! Facing the staircase. Ah! i get the i get the ah h now well you'll really get it now because he sees the safe had moved on its own 400 pounds

is now facing the staircase as he's looking at it he gets an out-of-body experience what while standing there staring at the safe he realizes that he is now on the other side of the room looking at himself staring staring at the safe as he's watching himself from the other side of the basement whatever body he must be taking over to be looking at himself or whatever is happening he then realizes that in this in this point of view where he's looking at himself staring at the safe he without being able to control himself starts sprinting at his own body oh my god so scary so whatever took him over started running that's horrifying and he could see it from this thing's perspective he suddenly snaps out of it as this thing sprinting at him that he

can't see in real time and he runs up the stairs before he can find out what it was that was charging i would never go back down there forget it so like so was that thing i mean it must have intentionally taken him over just to freak him out or like they tapped into one another that's so weird i wonder if i wonder my feeling is like there was probably an entity down there messing with the safe whatever and then he walked in and somehow his consciousness like yeah like like bluetooth with each other yeah bluetooth connection uh or it was really intentionally sinister either way or that i like the idea of like bluetooth and helis bluetooth and helis um so guests have experienced a lot here but the scariest thing is that just people in general feel

in danger when they're here um many people have left because of this and that's both in the basement and i guess in their own rooms at night um but like i said more people are coming knowing what's to happen because they know that it's haunted um so i i mean i think the only people who are willing to stay are either people who have no idea or someone who has every idea right right right shakers is listed among america's most haunted bars with nearly 10 000 people a year coming on their ghost tours whoa that's a lot and there's um seemingly ghost encounters happening non-stop here so if you are in milwaukee and you need a spooky time um shaker cigar bar i'd like to think that during halloween they like really amp it up you know i mean he has those two

skeletons you know he bought more at the halloween store when he bought those i wonder if he's upgraded from like the ten dollar plastic spirituality ones to like, yeah, something like a cast iron skeleton or something. Oh, Lord. He's got them custom made. I know. Anyway, sounds like a good place if you want to be haunted. I mean, you know, everyone's got a thing that happens to them there.

So I would go there with you, Em. I'd go there with you. And I would leave there with you, Anne. I'd go there with you. And I would leave there with you, too. I would leave there without you. No offense. Either way, I'm leaving. That sounds like a delight. I would go.

Let's go. When do we get to go to Milwaukee next? No clue, but I want to be there. Okay. We can try it. It's like an eight-hour drive from my house, so we could go. Cash. It's like an eight-hour flight to you and then an eight- an eight hour drive it's just easy we could be there in a day

we could be there in 16 hours it doesn't i'm right now i'm in virginia so it's just an hour flight yeah i we could be there by dinner what if you showed up at my door so what if right now we decided to hang out tonight wouldn't that be be wild? I know what you're doing. Also, it would be so stupid because I literally am like checking in for my flight today. I literally got on Google Maps just to see just in case for fun. But you're right. You are leaving. Hang on. Let me type in your address. If I were not leaving, I would absolutely drag you over here today. Hang on. I'm typing in your address to see how far of a drive you are from my house to your house. We are 383 miles from each other or eight hours and 25 minutes. That's doable in a day.

That's a road trip as far as I'm concerned. That's an easy road trip, you know. Well, just saying. You want to help me pack? If I didn't have to round trip make it a 17 hour situation fair point yes fair point fair point uh you could healy back that probably would be faster you can healy down the freeway do you imagine me just holding on to the back of someone's truck i absolutely can that's the worst i literally have healy's i know you do i thought that and then i was like maybe i invented that

but no you do I'm not athletic or coordinated at anything but I actually am a pretty fucking good healer well yeah and you're good at segwaying I can't segway so like you clearly I've got a balance situation going on you're good at balance have you ever paddleboarded uh yes and I did not fall, but my legs actually, whatever muscles you use to paddleboard were atrophied. My legs were like shaking. Yeah. Well, I figured it out. I paddleboarded for 0.03 seconds because I stood up and I couldn't, I didn't even stand up before I was already falling. So that's how my balance, but to be fair, it was in the ocean. So it was like really crazy. But yeah, I've only done it in a river. I don't think I could do it like anywhere.

I have no balance. So I did it with my mom for Mother's Day one time. And she picked the day that we had a severe tornado watch. Oh, my Lord. And so as we were out there, the view was incredible. I'm not sure why I was shaking. I'm like, yeah, because a tornado was probably coming your way. It looked like an apocalypse. And halfway through, we ended up having to stop because the storm was very much coming in.

I don't know what your weather's like, and I know you're in a basement, so you probably can't see. But are you in a basement? Or no, you're just in your closet. I used to be in a basement when I came here and now I have upgraded to the guest room. Oh, quit bragging. That's Elisa Lampanelli. She says it all the time. She's always like, quit bragging. And when it's like something like really unpleasant. She said that to me when I told her I had a headache. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's a great line. But I don't know if you can see, but at least I know we're like 300 miles apart, but now in my head we're neighbors. But there's definitely a storm brewing out here. I'm looking outside and it is ominous.

I wonder if she flew over to you because last night we had a storm. Oh, probably. Oh, probably. By the way, seeing rain and as a West Coaster, I cried a little bit. I was going to say, I always tell you when it's storming here so you can kind of get the, well, usually you're just mad that I told you. I love a storm. I know. So I was hoping maybe you got the same experience. Yeah, it looks creepy.

And it's perfect because I have a creepy story for you, Em. Nice segue there. Thank you. looks creepy and it's perfect because i have a creepy story for you m nice segue there thank you you know you're the segue master but every now and then i can get a sagoo in there um so this is the story of sherry papini okay do you know this one at all but a fun name yeah blaze was like oh i know the story and i was like what oh i love when he just delivers out of nowhere i just never know what to do i'm like okay fine have you talked to fake blaze about it maybe he can do something oh you know what i've ignored him pretty extensively for most of our relationship but maybe now but you were gonna say like no because i don't have the first signs

of severe mental illness oh i have well sure let Well, sure. Let's go with that. Wink. Okay. This is the story of Sherry Papini. And it is a doozy. So let's start from the beginning. Keith and Sherry Papini, they were childhood friends. They actually had their first kiss in the seventh grade together.

And they would write notes to each other in middle school. And he actually kept them all the way until he was a grown up. in the seventh grade together and they would write notes to each other in middle school and he actually kept them all the way until he was a grown-up and why did i say it like that he was a grown-up a grown-up what's wrong with me okay uh when they reconnected as adults he dug out the box of old notes and said look sherry what i still have from like decades ago in middle school. And they fell for each other after years apart. How could you not? I would melt. You would be done.

Like, it would be like, please, if anyone needs like a formula, that's it. To get M on board. Just keep all of your garbage until something that associates back to me. I do keep all of my garbage. So one day when we reconnect in the nursing home, I will win your heart. I know it. Thank you. So Sherry's sister, Sheila, said that Keith and Sherry did these sort of like cutesy things. I mean, God, this is like M-stream for each other that you'd like see on TV or read in a novel, like leave little notes and all that.

And they had like kind of a what people called a fairy tale romance and got married in 2009. So they moved into the house that Keith had grown up in his childhood home in Redding, California, which is in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. And they had two children. They had a son named Tyler and a daughter named Violet. So Sherry was a very active stay-at-home mom. She was doting. She was very involved, always coming up with activities and taking the kids everywhere to their extracurriculars. And Keith worked as an audio video specialist at Best Buy. So people considered Sherry a super mom and a super wife. She had the energy to do everything. She woke up at 6 a.m. and like filled the kids days with activities.

She meal prepped. She cleaned. She ran errands. She baked. She cooked food. She was like the quintessential like mom figure, you know, super mom. So Keith was also a super husband. Sheila said everyone could only hope that their loved ones could find a husband as loving and dedicated as Keith.

He came home from work and, you know, the kids ran to him and he took over while Sherry made dinner. They just had a very good, balanced relationship. So on November 2nd, 2016, Keith was leaving for work at 6.50 a.m. and Sherry went to go check on Violet. He gave his wife a kiss and a hug and left for work. But when Keith got home that afternoon, things felt off. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. So usually when he opened the door, both kids who were like four and two, I believe, would run to the door to greet their dad when he got home.

And Keith called it their family snuggles. And they did this every day after work. But when he opened the door, the house was silent. So he started looking around for his family inside in the yard, but there was no sign of them anywhere. And he wasn't quite panicked yet. He and Sherry had Find My Friends on. So he was able to check Sherry's location. And according to the app, she was at their mailbox. Now their mailbox was kind of farther down the road from their home, like a mile away. So it's not like you can just glance out the window and see the mailbox. It's further down. They're kind of in like a rural area.

So Keith assumed like, okay, well, they must have gone on a walk and she took the kids with her. And so he hopped back into the car and went to go check. She was not there, which was odd. And her car was still in the driveway, by the way. So he was like, okay, she was not there, which was odd. And her car was still in the driveway, by the way. So he was like, okay, she's not driving with the kids anywhere. So he thought, you know, hopped in her car, went to check if they were on a walk. They were not there. Very, very odd. Mm hmm. So Keith called his mom who hadn't heard from her either. And he started to get more and more worried. He called his kids daycare and said, Hey, I'm wondering what time Sherry picked the kids up. And the person on the other end was confused and said, Sherry never picked the kids up. They are still here.

And so now he's really freaked out. Uh, this is not something that has ever happened. She's never left the kids at daycare. Uh, and in that moment, Keith was like this, something bad has happened. Yeah. So he starts looking for Sherry's phone because he has the app and it says it's right here and he finds sherry's phone lying on the side of the road near the mailbox i mean oh my god that's when my blood runs cold oh my god the headphones were still plugged into it. Oh, God. Well, that tells you everything you need. Yeah. And there was some blood on the cord of the headphones and some pieces of Sherry's hair tangled in the headphones.

Oh, God. Yeah. Disturbing. So Keith now is in a full panic. He calls 911. He insists something is wrong. And he later told interviewers, I knew she was taken. So she had been training for a 5K race. So he suspected based on the phone's location and the headphones that she had been kidnapped while she was jogging.

Now, this is like a kind of irrelevant but fun fact for you. Apparently, she was really into Michael Bublé. kind of irrelevant but fun fact for you um apparently she was really into michael buble and their wedding song was um oh my gosh i forget was it everything was i think that's it yes oh that's my favorite song of his uh everything and the so she always played it to run to and when he picked up the phone that song was still playing and it was on a loop, like on repeat. Oh, that's so heartbreaking. Isn't that disturbing? Oh, my God. That detail like really got me.

I think it is everything. I don't want to. Yeah, I think it is everything. And so like very, very alarming. Clearly, it looked like she'd been kidnapped while she was out for a jog because he knew she was training for a 5K. And so I kind of love this fact about him. He actually took photos of the phone on the ground before touching it. So smart.

Which I was like, that's fucking genius. Like you see so many stories where it's just like, oh, they messed up, you know, because of course you're going to panic. But like the fact that he had the wherewithal to do that, I kind of love. So Keith now calls Sherry's sister Sheila, and Sheila remembers falling to the ground and crying, then telling her husband Sherry had been abducted. And she was just in a panic. She was like, I don't know if I'll ever see my little sister again. Everyone is getting really worked up. So police contacts Sherry's friends and family. They're trying to piece together clues about her day before she vanished. They checked neighborhood surveillance cameras. They checked in motels. They checked hospitals in case maybe like she had gotten injured. They contacted her ex who lived out

of state, but he hadn't heard from her in over six years. And so any, any type of tip that is coming in, they're following, but the tips lead nowhere. So Keith, like just not knowing what else to do, reaches out to the mayor and he was able to speak at a city council meeting to ask the community for help. And it didn't occur to Keith right away that he would be the prime suspect because, you know, the husband did it is usually the refrain. And police were thinking, oh, well, you know, he took photos of the phone on the ground. And that was just, you know, it seemed like too on the nose for being a good witness or being a good part of the investigation. They were like, this seems a little staged.

Like it seems, you know, maybe he killed her while the kids were at school and then faked an abduction. Right, right, right. So that's what they're thinking. So they start questioning Keith about some arrangements he and Sherry had over text before she went missing. So Keith had said when Sherry got angry at him, she regularly sent angry texts and threatened to take the kids and leave.

He said he hated confrontation. So Sherry would always up the ante in the arguments to like get to him by like just escalating until he reacted. Or try to like egg him on to have a reaction. Exactly. Exactly. escalating until he reacted. Or try to egg him on to have a reaction, yeah. Exactly, exactly.

He said he knew their arguments would look surprisingly aggressive via text from the outside, but he was like, I swear I had nothing to do with this. And even Sherry's family said they didn't consider Keith had done something for a second. They were that confident in their relationship and they thought there's no way Keith could be involved in this well also like if his alibi or like if the thing that was if he killed her if he killed her and the narrative looked like oh well they had a tumultuous relationship and they were sending angry threatening texts to each other why would he plant a phone that looked like it was on loop of their wedding song you know it like wouldn't it be a song like i hate my husband

well wouldn't it not be that wait because wouldn't he want it to look like they had no no drama i guess so yeah but i don't know i feel like if when you then also like while you're at it delete her text yes make it look really bad for you yes i feel like um that's a fair point yes if you were going to do it properly quote unquote which is the worst word to use in this scenario yeah probably you would um and so uh but yeah so sherry's is like, there's no way it's Keith. Like they he loves her. He cares for her. He's a great dad and great husband. So Keith volunteered to take a polygraph test and he surrendered his phone.

His computer records was like very what's the word? Cooperative. Cooperative. Thank you. And he passed the polygraph and handed everything over. So he's not looking very guilty. But in the meantime, while this is all going on, Sherry's disappearance has become breaking international news. International? Why?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's probably just like, oh, a pretty blonde mom of two gets abducted from the side of the road in like a nice neighborhood. You know, it just has all the trappings of like easily consumable true crime media um and so at this point investigators still aren't like there's no concrete proof that she was abducted but her kidnapping quote-unquote was all over social media so whether they had announced that it was officially kidnapping or not, that's kind of what every, uh, everybody went with online. Um, Oh, here we go. This is actually the quote. I was probably really poorly butchering is the host of a show on oxygen named Abby Schreiber. And she said, Sherry fit the profile of who the media and the public often care about when it comes to missing people. She was white. She was blonde, she seemed to have this perfect life, the perfect marriage, perfect children, and then like the unthinkable happens. So that's why it became such a media sensation.

Speaking of which, the FBI got involved immediately, which I was kind of surprised by. And within hours of Keith's 911 call, police launched a massive search effort with officers and volunteers. People were scouring the woods, the creeks, the back roads, the ditches. No stone went unturned, but there was no sign of Sherry whatsoever. They were putting up missing posters

all around town. There were even billboards. And locals started tying yellow ribbons around the trees, like, you know, to come home like safe return come home um and the papinis were themselves pretty private people they didn't really use social media but keith kind of went out of his comfort zone and started appearing on tv to try and bring awareness to the case and keep the case in people's minds um you know he would

say i'll do anything to bring her home. Please bring her home. And their son, Tyler, at this point was only four and Violet was two. And the Papini's friends and family cared for the kids around the clock. But poor little four-year-old Tyler could tell something was wrong. And one day Tyler asked about his mom and he told Keith, dad, you can tell me anything. He's four. I know. It breaks my heart. So Keith told his son that Sherry went outside and they didn't know where she was. Tyler asked if they were looking for her.

Keith said that the whole world was looking for her and they were going to find her and bring her home. So Keith's mind at this point is racing. He wonders if whoever took Sherry was feeding her, like if she's still alive. You know, I mean, there's just a million questions. He said he wondered if she was too hot or too cold, which like makes me cry. And meanwhile, police weren't calling it an abduction yet because officially there was no evidence beyond the phone on the side of the road. But Sherry's family knew someone had taken her. So, I i mean i guess that makes me sherry's family because it's obviously an abduction like it's like there's blood and hair on it and like it got yanked out of her head

yeah yeah and there's no sight of her sign of her so search efforts started to kind of wane but sherry's and keith's family kept looking ke Keith was desperate enough that he started considering psychics. And one day he saw birds circling overhead. This is like where you realize like how dark it must be to be in this position. He saw birds circling and he realized like, oh, maybe they're birds of prey and there's a body that they're above.

So he, that's where his mind is. He's just like in constant panic mode. Um, and it's getting difficult at this point for him to hold onto hope, but he keeps pushing, um, the Papini's launch a GoFundMe account and raised just about $50,000 to fund greater search efforts. And then something like there was a weird twist in this story that like I was not expecting when an saw keith on tv and he was like so moved by the story that he offered what they called for like the opposite of a ransom like a a backwards ransom where like they would pay the criminals to bring her back okay like they offer the ransom rather than is there a word for that no they they

said something i'm trying to remember i listened to case file episode on this the other day um and a reverse ransom is what they called it oh but this is like not a thing it's like just something this guy kind of came up with um and it was a little odd because he's just this wealthy businessman he's anonymous um but you know they went with it and they said i mean i would do it too if if someone i loved went missing i'd be like i will pay you to bring her back like i'll do yeah but this was like a random dude like just oh in town in town for work so it was kind of like huh who is this guy? Okay. So this anonymous donor, he suggests that Papini's offer like a reverse ransom to Sherry's abductors for her safe return. And they said the abductor should contact the professional negotiator whose name was Cameron Gamble.

Now, Cameron Gamble was a retired military airman who made his living training soldiers, police officers and citizens how to avoid being captured and how to escape if they are captured. So they're saying now this money is going to go toward this this guy and he's going to help us find Sherry. So in a 2016 interview, he showed ABC his training warehouse where he built kidnap simulators, which is like my worst nightmare. It's like really intense escape room sort of, but it's like you're being abducted and you're training how to get out of the situation, which is scarier than any haunted house, in my opinion. Yeah. So on November 18th, this negotiator posted a video to YouTube stating that he had been contacted by someone regarding Sherry's case who wished to remain anonymous. This is this like businessman. He introduced himself as quote, an international kidnap and ransom consultant. And he addressed the abductors and said,

I don't know your motive. I don't know who you are. And I don't care. We care about getting Sherry back. So now they're roping in these kind of professionals to try and take a new angle at it. On November 23rd, he posted another video. This time he said, the world has been looking for you, Sherry Papini, and now the world is going to be looking for you, whoever you are, to the abductors. He told the abductors that the ransom was no longer an option so there was actually a three-day period where the businessman said if you don't bring her back in three to eight three days i'm pulling this and by the way the the sum like the ransom was a mystery six-figure sum that all. That's all that he said. But after three days when they didn't get Sherry home, this like mystery businessman left town and said that that money was now going toward the reward to to the public to find Sherry.

OK. He said he wanted to make the reward so tempting that even the abductor's own mother would turn them in. Holy crap. So the sheriff and others, the police and a lot of people in the public were not thrilled with this they were like this seems like a publicity stunt like it almost seemed like this hostage negotiator guy was like plugging his own business as part of this shtick like it seemed kind of like a stunt. It's like a sponsored ransom. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you.

That's the best way to put it. People were like, this is just really weird. But Keith was like, I don't fucking care. Like, I just want to get my wife back. So I give zero shits. I don't blame him. So on Thanksgiving Day, it had been 22 years, 22 years, 22 days since her disappearance keith gets a phone call it's the police and they say we have found sherry okay i'm skeptical she told the police officers

that her abductors had dropped her off in the middle of nowhere on a rural road. She was bound with a chain around her waist. Her left hand was chained inside the vehicle so she couldn't run. Her abductors had put a bag over her head. And at one point, the abductors pulled over, cut her loose, pushed her out of the vehicle and sped away. So she used her free hand to get the bag off her head, which ended up being a pillowcase, and taken her surroundings. She had no idea where she was, so she ran to the closest house, but nobody answered. So she tried a nearby building, which was locked and empty. Finally, she ran toward the interstate, and she started to wave the pillowcase around to flag down a driver.

Yeah. Turns out Sherry was in Yolo County, California, which was 150 miles from her home. And most people just drove past while she kind of screamed on the side of the road for help. Sure. She was like, maybe having chains on me made me look like I had escaped from prison or I don't know. She she wasn't sure. So she tried to kind of hide the chains and she's waving this pillowcase around. Finally, several people stopped to help Sherry and somebody called 911 and they all described her as frantic. So yeah, exactly. The 911 operator asked to speak to Sherry and on the phone, she sounded desperate. She cried and begged for the operator to call her husband. She's hyperventilating. Authorities told each other over

the radio that they were responding to an unknown medical problem and described Sherry as heavily battered and said she was the victim of some sort of an assault. So finally they get to Sherry. She's, you know, back in, back in safety and they're asking questions and Sherry says her abductor you know they're asking who who did this to you who took you and she tells officers that her abductors were two hispanic women in a dark suv officers said that in california that's a very extremely common profile to hispanic women so sherry says the abductors were always wearing bandanas that covered, you know, everything but their eyes. So she could not tell what they really looked like, except that she heard them speaking Spanish often and she did not speak Spanish. She could only say that one of them had dark curly hair and that the younger one had dark straight hair and she believed they were sisters.

had dark straight hair and she believed they were sisters they held her at gunpoint forced her into their vehicle and uh i guess she said that she tossed her phone at the last second as like a clue to anyone looking for smart yeah um with such a broad description many hispanic latina women feared being profiled and blamed for this crime as like people were out on a hunt for these you know people so of course now there were like warnings to people in the area like don't if you fit this profile at all don't leave in pairs because like you'll stand out like you know try to stay indoors stay out of sight which is really sad and so once sherry was safe in a hospital authorities called Keith. And when he picked it up, there was an officer on the line telling him to remain calm.

But he heard Sherry in the background screaming Keith's name. So he was like, holy shit, she's here and she's alive. Keith talked to Sherry very briefly, then said, I'm coming and sped to the hospital to see her. She was extremely emotional. She wouldn't answer any questions until she saw Keith. And she just kept telling police, I want to see someone I know and trust. So an officer walked Keith to Sherry's room and told him to prepare himself and remain calm because of Sherry's shocking physical state. So Sherry's face was covered in deep violent bruises her long hair had been cut off just like kind of hacked off um she said her abductors had starved her and she

she had weighed 105 pounds she's five foot three and now she only weighed 87 so she had lost oh my god a lot of weight uh How long was she gone again? 22 days. Oh, my God. Yeah. After 22 days, I would have assumed they were dead. Oh, for sure. I feel like it's shocking to me that they found her alive. Oh, my God.

I know. And so what's more is that the abductors had branded her shoulder with some letters, and apparently it was the word Exodus, which she described as a disturbing Bible passage. She also had burn marks on her arm. Was this like some sort of like initiation, like a cult thing? So the assumption immediately was human trafficking. Okay. So the assumption immediately was human trafficking. Okay. Yeah. And so that was one of the theories when she was missing that maybe she had been taken.

And, you know, usually human trafficking victims are much younger. But since she was so small and slim, like, you know, maybe from the back she looked younger than she was. Some of her friends said she could probably pass for 18 even though she was like 30 something so maybe that's maybe it was a mistake and they thought she was younger than she was but that was the running theory at this point so keith took sherry in his arms and held her she cried and said i thought i was never going to see you again and in her interview with keith by her side she told investigators that her abductor said they were selling her to a buyer who requested that she be branded so that was the explanation for the brand and when she was talking to her husband he was like you need to

tell police what happened and she said i can't talk to police because they were part of this and he's like what and she tells her husband the buyer that was going to buy me was a cop and he wanted this brand on me she said that the two women who branded her kept taunting her telling her that the news said she ran away that no one was looking for her she said when she was confronted at gunpoint she ripped her own hair out and had left it on the side of the road as like a message to keith the two of them really are meant to be together because she left clues and he knew not to do anything but take pictures a clue yeah yeah keith said he felt nauseated looking at sherry thinking about what she'd been through. She told Keith at one point that she rolled up a piece of cloth and rocked it pretending it was violet to comfort herself. It's really dark. Special reporters in a former FBI profile are considered suspects like cults, like you said, local meth dealers, sex offenders. They addressed online rumors that so people now were starting rumors that this was just a big hoax by either the couple themselves or by this hostage negotiator guy.

Like this was some sort of giant like what a funny hoax. What a funny hoax what a funny hoax um and if it were a hoax reporters were like i don't know she was pretty brutally assaulted and uh it's hard to imagine keith could have like played along in such a genuine and horrified way especially like having the two kids at home let's say involving the children yeah god it's dark at home let's say involving the children yeah it's dark and you know that made sense because keith was not in on it but m it was a tell me what no it wasn't sherry tell the story again Sherry had created the entire thing. She had some mental health issues or something? Let's get into it.

So a year into the investigation, Sherry was giving officers very little information. She acted like she was too deeply traumatized to discuss the details. Meanwhile, at home, Keith said she was jumpy. She got frightened easily by everyday noises. He told interviewers it would take a professional to deal with her PTSD and he'd be there to support her recovery. But all along, Sherry was putting on an elaborate act that even her own husband didn't realize was phony. Funky. What a trip. Okay. What a trip. So soon investigators started questioning parts of sherry's

story that didn't quite make sense so although both of her abductors were women forensics only found dna on her clothes that turned out to match a man oh no now this man was not in codis um he was didn't have a criminal record, so they couldn't match him. And it took years for them to kind of uncover who this guy was. Eventually, through genealogy testing, they were able to figure out who this man was. And his name was James Reyes. And James Reyes was Sherry's ex-boyfriend. The one who said he hadn't seen her in six weeks.

He had not seen her in years. Yeah. Or six years. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if it was the same one. I will say I don't know if it was the same one. But this was an ex who said, I have not seen her in years.

And they used genetic genealogy. They said, hey, buddy, sorry, we have your DNA. So nice try. They also discovered that Sherry had been in contact with several men in the days before her disappearance, and they were hidden in her phone contacts under women's names. Very suspicious. Sneaky Sherry. I know. She had been texting one of the men for five years.

His name was Donovan. And Donovan said that Sherry often told him Keith was violent and abusive toward her. She said that Keith kept her locked away in her house for weeks. And actually they had met in Michigan on a when she was on a work trip six years earlier. And they had spent the entire weekend together. And Donovan told police she did not tell me she was married during that time. He thought she was single. So investigators tried to verify these reports with friends and family. Nobody agreed.

They were like, fuck no. Keith has never touched her. Sherry was a very independent woman. She did what she wanted. She wasn't locked away ever. Like even her own family was like, um, no, like this is not real. She did. She was not abused by Keith. She was not locked away by Keith.

So investigators start scrutinizing her whole story. And along with that, they start scrutinizing the identities of Sherry's alleged abductors. So Sherry lived in a primarily white community. And in November 2016, in the midst of the presidential election, remember that? No, what's that? Good times. That was when- When are you going to talk about that true crime? That was the dark days right before we started the podcast, November 2016.

So it was the midst of the presidential election and people in her neighborhood had become very vocally anti-latino. Then a disturbing blog post came to light. And this was from her high school days. And she published it on a website called skinheads.com. Holy shit. Okay. Yes. And she had published it under her maiden name sherry graph

so wasn't even trying to really hide it no not even a little bit not even a little bit okay the title of her blog post was called being aware and having pride okay in this post the author was home well you keep going before i start making wild accusations but i hear the word pride on a skinhead blog post and i think i'm in the right direction well yeah yeah it's a one plus one equals two situation especially when she already claimed that oh the bad people here are latinos that abducted. Correct. So in this blog post written by Sherry Graff, the author claimed that in high school, her father had often been bullied by, quote, the Latinos. Allegedly, they hated him and called him a Nazi simply for being of German

descent. So he had to stand up for himself against her constant harassment. The author also wrote that she, too, was frequently suspended for standing up to the Latinos. She wrote, quote, the chief problem was that I was drug free, white and proud of my blood and heritage. This really irked a group of Latino girls. Sherry insists that she did not write the blog post to this day. She says she did not write it. And she said somebody made it up and put it put her name on it to make her look bad and she said it gave her a yucky feeling okay so they tried to figure out if there was a way to trace who wrote it uh but they couldn't do it through like an IP address or anything. No, because it had been written so it was 2003.

And so it was it was long too long ago to be able to trace where it came from. Sherry tried to get it taken down, saying someone was trying to frame her as a racist. But regardless of whether or not she wrote the post, she, like you said, relied on stereotypes of Latino people in her interviews with investigators, despite claiming her abductors wore masks to hide their identities. And remember, these abductors are not real. So, like, at this point. Right. So she just made everyone a target in town. She made new characters up.

And she told police that one of the women, quote, wore those big hoop earrings and one of the women had thin drawn in eyebrows uh she described one of them as having hairy arms uh and she described them wearing bandanas she was basically like creating this idea of like a quote-unquote threatening latina woman as like a white lady she's creating this and one of the things that stuck out to me that they mentioned in the case file episode was that when she was describing how she had been locked away and, you know, all this, she said, and they would play this real, she said, you know, that really loud, annoying Mexican music. She's talking about mariachi.

Oh my God. And she said they would just blast that all day long. Like she's, she's, she's a cashless. And cash and also you know what's so weird too is the um she ends up doing the reverse of what i was talking about earlier with the putting her wedding song on loop to make it look like the relationship was good versus maybe him trying to plant it to make it look like the relationship was good yes it was sort of like yes it was sort of like she wanted to be like it wasn't my husband i was abducted by these so right by dark haired strangers these people she's trying to get revenge on for being mean to her dad apparently or something um so how did she lose all that weight she just stopped eating she just just just said to for

the for the bit i'm gonna lose 30 pounds in 30 days well wait till i tell you how she broke her own nose oh yeah she was covered in bruises and shit oh my god wow remember the brand oh no wait what's the verse is the verse something fucking so all it said was exodus which is like a book of the bible so it's not like even a verse like i didn't know if it was like you know how deuteronomy is like one of the more problematic ones so it is it is in the old testament so it is definitely like one of the old-timey creepy ones like i was worried it was like a racist it might be actually i i i don't know that's a great point um all i know it is in the old testament and uh she kept saying it's it's a disturbing bible passage but i'm like it's actually an entire book of the bible so i don't know like if she just didn't know or if she just knew

it was like the old testament and had like creepy meaning to it i don't know i'm not on her shoulder so how did she brand herself oh i'll tell you so when police are finally unraveling like oh my god this was all a hoax and by the way they'd spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this case, like trying to find her and think about like where that money could have gone to actually helping people who were being trafficked or were being abused. Or it just makes me sick. So as they're getting kind of as they're finally able to untangle this, uh, they start hearing from Sherry's family, Sherry's family and friends say, well, Sherry has a history of making things up and running away.

And, uh, one woman named Asia Coleman told the sheriff, that is how she used to deal with things as a child. When things got hard, she would just run away. Uh, one friend said she does tend to be a little dramatic,

a little exaggerative. And one ex-boyfriend said he broke up with Sherry after two years because she kept making up stories for attention. I mean, she made up a lot of things. That's one big honking story. Yeah. Yeah. She actually would create almost different realities for people. Like fake Allison. Like fake Allison.

Like fake Allison. Uh-oh. Look, if the farthest my lack of sanity goes is me pretending my girlfriend is next to me, I'm in the clear. And you're just complimenting her. I'm just telling her she's beautiful and I'll catch real Allison up the next day. But like, wow. her. I'm just telling her she's beautiful and I'll catch real Allison up the next day. But like, wow. Okay. I'm sorry.

Okay. So she's got a lot of fake realities. Yes. So she presents herself to different people in like very different ways and not just like, oh, she acts different around different people. Like she creates entire backgrounds that are fake for different people. So wild. Yeah. So she like, for for example she would make

up like illnesses she would make oh she told one uh ex-husband that she had a heart murmur but then but that wasn't real and then she told her like current husband she had like a some other health issue pathological like since she was young has been making stuff up she would tell her friends that her her family like abused her and treated her terribly but then she told everybody that each man she was with treated her terribly and like it became clear that this was all fake because the number of people that she accused of, like, locking her away and beating her, like, after interviews and after plenty of other witnesses, police were like, OK, this isn't real. Like, she lies. I'm honestly impressed with how much she could get away with if she's been with the same person since she was 12.

So, well, they it wasn't the same person. So they had that, like, little middle school romance. But then they rekindled it. So she had gotten married in between there. So they had had other relationships before, you know, like 15 years later when they got back together. Sure, okay. Yeah. So in an interview with investigators, Sherry told them she was a fan of true crime shows and randomly told them,

this was before anyone knew she was faking shows and randomly told them this was before anyone knew she was faking it randomly told them that she had read elizabeth smart's memoir which is just great great uh then sherry's ex-boyfriend james reyes finally broke the entire case uh he told investigators that he had lied when Sherry went missing and when they so it was the same boyfriend. Sorry. So when he had said, oh, he hadn't heard from her in six years when they first reached out to him, that was the same guy that she ended up being with. So James tells investigators that he had lied when Sherry went missing and when he said he hadn't seen from her or heard from her in years. In fact, this is what actually happened. Sherry had reached out and asked him for help. She told him that Keith was abusing her and she needed to escape. This was a blatant lie, but he believed

her. He was like, oh my gosh, she's in danger. She's an old friend. I want to help her so he followed sherry's instructions he uh had a friend rent a car so that he could pick sherry up it's a nine hour drive so he drives up to pick her up she gives him explicit directions tosses her phone and gets in the back seat and lays down so that like no one sees her and he has to turn around and drive nine hours back so he drove nine hours up picked her up and then he turned around drove nine hours back to the point where he was like falling asleep at the wheel but she was just in the back seat napping they went back to his apartment and she stayed there she she stayed in his bed while he slept on the couch. And this was for several weeks, for 22 days. She's just sleeping on his bed and nothing sexual happened.

It was not like a romantic thing. She just said, I need to get away from my family. And so he didn't have a TV. So he didn't realize like the extent to which this had become like a phenomenon, her missing. like the extent to which this had become like a phenomenon, her missing, like he didn't realize how, what he was involved, like the extent to which he was involved in this. He really didn't. So she's staying in his bedroom. He's sleeping on the couch. He just goes to work every day and she never left his apartment. Uh, she stopped eating. Uh, she really cut down to lose the weight. She stopped eating. She really cut down to lose the weight. She hacked off her own hair. And she self-inflicted all the wounds that she claimed came from her Hispanic abductors. So she told investigators she had been stomped on, kicked, beaten with various objects. She said they shut her in a closet uh and incredibly she actually got james to help her inflict some of the injuries

like the brand on her shoulder uh she basically had him go buy a wood wood burning tool from like my imagination is michaels or hobby lobby right right a wood carving tool and then she told him to write exodus on her shoulder and he was like i don't know what it means which like that's a lot of letters it's a lot of letters why didn't you write luke that's another book of the bible hi like or just a letter a letter would have been vague enough too right okay this part i find a little funny knowing what we know uh because at the hospital they were examining her for her injuries and they saw the brand and they said wow it looks like a series of letters like we can't make out what it says and she went i think it says exodus like she she knew what it said because she told him to write it but

they couldn't tell because it was all scabbed and like she could it's so weird that she also clearly wanted exodus of all things like so weird like there has to be a reason behind exodus for her to yeah i wonder and it's like i'm not gonna read the whole bible chapter but i don't know or the bible book but i don't know man it's it must mean something um of exodus atlas and i scrolled through the wiki and it's long okay the main message how god delivered the israelites and made them his special people that the overall theme is redemption and the word means exit or departure yeah okay i learned nothing yeah it's basically like the israelites leaving egypt i don't know it means nothing to me yeah okay maybe she just

thought it sounded cool i don't know okay so by early morning so oh by the way the the broken nose i meant to tell you uh that happened because she told him to hold like he wouldn't hit her he's like i'm not gonna hit you yeah but she told him to hold up a hockey stick because he played hockey and she ran into it and broke her own nose how do you even run into i don't know but the thought of it makes you want to scream i first of all maybe it's because i'm just bad at all physical movement you can paddleboard my dude so i can't run fast enough to break my own nose into a stick that someone's holding that sounds horrific i feel like that took a few times i was thinking the same thing um and so that's how she had all these injuries self-inflicted

but apparently on thanksgiving morning sherry said she missed her kids and she wanted to go home so she told him to rent another car and drive her back. So he dropped her off on the side of the road and she took the pillowcase and started screaming and made a whole scene. They revealed to Sherry that James had told them everything after this confession. They brought both Sherry and Keith back back in and by that by now it's august of 2020 so this has been like years uh that they've been trying to figure out what happened like so much so many wasted resources um they revealed to sherry that james had told them everything and it was it was too late to try and claim this was. Oh, by the way, when when they told Sherry and Keith, like, oh, we know what really happened.

Sherry was cornered, obviously, like she knew they were about to get found out. Keith was thrilled because he thought, oh, they finally found Sherry's abductors. And she's like getting really upset. And he and there's footage of them whispering and he's like, what is wrong? Like, this is great news. They've got your abductors. She is whispering to him. I don't want them, um, to arrest the younger Latina woman because she saved my life. And he's like, what? And she goes, she saved my life. She's the one that dropped me off on the side of the road.

So I don't want them to find her. We have to stop them from going any further. So she's like trying everything she can to like. She's floundering. She's floundering. She's completely floundering. So they come in and they're like, yo, there are no two Hispanic women. Like, stop saying that.

That's not real. And so she's trying to deny it. She keeps crying and saying, it can't be. It can't be. And they're like, well, it is. Hispanic women like stop saying that that's not real and so she's trying to deny it she keeps crying and saying it can't be it can't be and they're like well it is so we don't know what to tell you and when Keith hears this he just walks out of the room yeah he just like doesn't know what to do he has been by her side from day one and panic full panic mode for three weeks full panic for three weeks with the two kids uh he believed every word out of her mouth until it was like right in front of him because he was that

devoted to her he he really believed it until it was right in front of him and he couldn't deny it any longer um she lied over and over he found out also during this time that like she had been talking to other men and had had that affair in michigan so like she used all of this he is like on her side um so two locals at this point terry and marilyn smith had been huge supporters of the papinis because their own daughter this is so fucked up has been missing since 1998 and actually disappeared from the same road and went to the same high school as sherry oh my god so essentially she staged her own kidnapping to look like the one from 1998 of her classmate and so terry and marilyn had been so supportive because their own daughter had gone missing. And so for years now, they've been like helping her to recover and been there for her.

And now they find out that she made it all up. And they said it was like a slap in the face. On top of that, the Latino community had been on the edge or been on edge ever since the abductor's descriptions and composites were released. And now people were outraged. Like Sherry had just blatantly framed a specific group as the villain in her story for no reason other than like pointing at that group of people. So she even told investigators that her abductors were listening to mariachi music. And this was uh in the car and at the house and she described it as that annoying mexican music so that's classy um

one man said there are no dangerous masked gun-toting hispanic latino women here wanting to abduct your children especially if they're white. Like people were just pissed off. Sheriff Michael Johnson was outraged that Sherry had diverted vital resources from real cases and actual victims of human trafficking, especially in a state where many victims of trafficking are women and girls. And by the way, oftentimes from Latino communities and places like South and Central America, because white women are not usually the target of human trafficking. It's usually vulnerable people in vulnerable communities who are being told by someone

they trust that they're going to find a better life and they're going to take them somewhere safer and somewhere where they can, you know, make a good living. And then that's when that's typically how human trafficking works so the fact that she's like oh i'm white and they wanted to sell me to a police officer like it's just all so infuriating it's all just like making a full mockery of it especially like yes to like you were saying earlier like oh she looks 18 or i feel like there's like got to be some level of narcissism there of like oh i'm i'm young and hot enough to be heavily violently sexualized yes yes and she said too um so she had actually just gotten a breast augmentation like the week before

and she described it as like the pain of like getting branded while my breast implants were still healing and it's like you did that like you timed this out nobody branded you without like this was your idea it's just bizarre the whole thing's so bizarre and people were like pretty shook because there were there was a vocal group of people online saying, and I remember this happening. I remember there being a big debate about whether she made it up. And a lot of people were like, this just does not track. Something's going on. She made it up or she and her husband are in on it. So when it was finally revealed, a lot of people were like, told you, but a lot of people were genuinely shocked. Um, obviously like they really believed everything she said so sherry had blamed her fake tragedy on

the very women who were most likely by the way to be victimized by a real human trafficker which is super fucked up and in the end she really did like this was the way they put it on case file too is like this was not a victimless crime just because nobody died directly because of it you know she did untold damage to the lives of her family her friends i mean her poor kids i can't even imagine um entire communities and by the way she has never given like a motive like she's never even tried to explain not even a fake motive like she's wild it's bizarre like she's never said oh i explain, not even a fake motive. It's wild. It's bizarre. Like she's never said, oh, I wanted money.

I wanted this, that, the other. I think she just wanted attention. It sounds like a pathological liar situation. Yeah. I think that's all that it boils down to. So in 2022, Sherry was charged with making false statements and mail fraud because some of the money she had received. Oh, by the way, she received money from the freaking california victims compensation board to pay for her therapy and her ptsd treatment and she had collected thirty thousand dollars

from the victims compensation board like they paid they paid it back so yeah she was required to pay restitution over three hundred,000 because these were resources used searching for her. The $30,000 victim fund, the money from the GoFundMe that all these people are donating, you know, 50K. And by the way, this is when I start to wonder about this fucking mystery businessman who's offering a six figure sum like that's so shady to me and it really makes me wonder if she was just on the computer at this guy's house like posting has to be yeah and i don't know like this has never been addressed in any of the sources i looked at but it's just a thought like have we looked into this guys because who's this anonymous businessman that nobody has ever named who just right felt compelled to offer half a million dollars or whatever it was for someone he doesn't know?

The whole thing is just shady. It's just weird. So as much as she was ordered to pay restitution, the judge commented that she was unlikely to ever pay it back because it was hard to imagine anyone ever hiring Sherry to work again. Oh, my God. So he's like, good luck getting your money back. No one's going to hire her. Exactly. Wow. She was also sentenced to 18 months in prison.

it's not even really a silver lining, but like the one good move, I guess, is that Keith, who had stood by her through the affairs, through all of this, uh, this, the day he found out that she made it up,

he filed for divorce that day. Good. Good. And he told the press, my current focus is on moving on and doing everything I can to provide my two children with as normal, healthy, and happy of a life as possible.

Yeah. And that's the story of Sherry Papini. And I'm sorry I misled you. I know I do that sometimes, and I felt bad about it this time. No, no, I love the twist. Okay, because if you frame it a certain way, it's hard to believe that it's a hoax. But then the way they presented it on case file which i i think they did a really good coverage of it was like from the beginning they kind of hinted that it was a hoax

like they said you know they talked about all the people who were skeptical and but i kind of left all that out because i was like i want it to be a plot twist i love a plot twist i love the drama yes i know especially because i just said oh that would be a stupid hoax or something. I know. You were like, nice. You're like, funny hoax. I'm like, yeah. But you're right.

Like, not funny at all. Really not funny. And just Looney Tunes, man. It's just bananas. It's noodles all the way to the top. Well, great story. Oh, my gosh. What a doozy.

I mean, terrible. I hopeith is doing okay oh you know i know me too and the kids i mean i hope i mean you know all you can hope is like hey they come out of this with um i don't know just love and support and feel equipped to to live their lives i don't know i feel like it can be so daunting to think of like what if you went through that what if your kids went through that but i don't know i hope that at least they uh come out stronger on the other side i don't know oh well good job christine and i i don't i don't know what to say for after that how do we sagoo out of here so anyway let's sagoo on out um we need an ending like i feel like every freaking podcast has like just an ending that's like and this is that and

this has been that and that's why we drink i feel like we need to find a smoother way you know it'll never happen it seems oh i'm gonna send you photos by by the way. I forgot. Oh. Okay. Just to, like, give you an idea. And that way, Eva can put them on Instagram. Good call. We're not going to post the kids because that is inappropriate. But, you know, she looks to me. Oh, my God. She's all beaten up.

I know. And those sweatpants. And those sweatpants ended up being that guy guy's uh james's sweatpants oh my gosh which is why they only found male dna and like i didn't really give the full picture but uh but it took years to find out who this guy who this mystery person was um like it took years and years so it wasn't as quick as like oh we found male dna let's match it like they didn't know for many years oh my gosh so here are just some photos but yeah i mean what a fucking you know who she looks like to me that that woman from um

criminal minds oh yeah the blonde one well what are you doing for those criminal minds SVU I'm sorry SVU the one who's kind of I think it's SVU right am I wrong now I don't know anyone oh detective Rollins hold on oh kind of

who was I thinking of for criminal minds I don't know here this is the one I'll send you this separately so that Eva doesn't think this is part of the... No, I don't want to... Amanda Rollins? Amanda Rollins, yeah. I think they look alike. Anyway...

What are you doing for the rest of the day, Christine? Well, I'm packing. What are you doing? I don't know. Oh, I'm holding the baby. Oh, you're seeing the baby you're saying baby baby well thank you everyone for listening again for the 341st time in your life I'm so proud of you and thankful for you all and I guess we'll see you next week

we have good stuff on Patreon to keep you busy in the meantime we've got our listeners episodes you can also um you know submit your own stories for the next episode if you'd like and all that good stuff find us on social media i'm always up to some bullshit on instagram that is true i can confirm that and uh and good luck to follow my sweden trip on instagram although probably by the time this comes out i'll probably be home so i don't know i don't the time this comes out, I'll probably be home. So I don't know. I don't know when this comes out, but yeah. And so then stay hydrated.

Stay hydrated. That's why we drink. God, we need a better ending.