And That's Why We Drink - E345 Baba Yaga Barbie and Emergency Needlepoint

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Episode 345 is here and we're feeling ancient demon vibes... First Em covers the iconic Slavic folklore of Baba Yaga. Then Christine covers the tragic, gruesome case of the Lost Boys of Bucks County. And is Em a gossip witch? ...and that's why we drink!Be sure to check out our case updates and paranormal news in After Hours on Patreon!

oh hello it's you again um i'm here are you not. I don't know what's going on. Are we together mentally? Because I'm not feeling it. I don't know. What's up? Em was like, are you having a good day? I was like, I am. Thank you. But my attitude doesn't show it.

Oh, and neither do your eyebrows. Your eyebrows say, today's the day to fuck someone up. And I don't mean it in a... They look darker than usual, so I think they just look they look like darker than usual so i think that just means they look stronger to me and like not in a not in a i promise not in a bad way no no but they really they i feel like they change your face a little bit and therefore it changes your personality a little bit and you've kind of got like like badass power kind of radiating finally but i'm also a little threatened by it.

Oh, good. Excellent. Yeah. It was an accident. In a good way. I drew by accident four inches of eyebrow onto myself and I'm talking vertical. Like I swear it was like, it was like I had, I don't know. Like you fell down the stairs with your eyeliner. With my eyeliner. Yes. It really was chaotic and i looked at myself and thought groucho marks and then i cleaned off the rest of it um no they look good but it's clearly still showing through so and like but in like a uh positive intimidating way i appreciate that no it's a great compliment um kind of thrown by as long as no estheticians take a closer look don't zoom in

it's not pretty i literally just take a dark brown thing and color like my baby well remember remember my apparently my zoom settings where i had like eyebrows on all the time so excited about that when your eyebrow would go rogue and would just like take off your face i was like something very very strange and unusual is happening in your neck. Yeah. That was not positive intimidation. That was just positively fucking stupid. It had a mind of its own.

I remember, I'm pretty sure we named the episode A Rogue Eyebrow, which is probably the funniest thing we've ever come up with. Oh. How are you? I feel the same way as you. Isn't's really going on i feel like there's probably a i feel like there's probably a lot of small factors adding up to me just kind of feeling meh like am i depressed i don't know like that's kind of just the daily question i was gonna, that's the least of my worries. Yeah, no, I just, I feel overwhelmed but don't know why what. And I just, I think I'm a little on edge.

Me too. I feel on edge. I'm like, kind of like jumpy. Not jumpy, but like, kind of like, I don't know. I'm just off kilter. You know what I mean? That's a very interesting way to put it. And I like it. Like your eyebrow, kind of. Like, just off the wall. She's not off kilter. She what i mean that's a that's a very interesting way to put it and i like it like your eyebrow kind of like just off she's not off kilter she's off the planet she's

she's off the screen she's up with xenon in a different universe um i treated myself recently i got myself a tie-dye kit oh fun and i i was like you know what i think maybe this weekend i'm gonna treat myself to a little tie-dye party. Did you make that? No, no, no. I haven't done it yet. I was like, holy shit, look at your shirt. It's incredible.

I didn't even realize I was, that was subliminal that I saw my own shirt and talked about tie-dye. It matches your magician's curtain. Well, just, I'll only do it because i know you're feeling in a little bit of a funk but uh just so you can make fun of me again i bought another shirt that represents one of the local high schools around here and i i i'm collecting them and i feel like a little creepy about it but i was when i first i like this is bulldogs this is this is new to me i didn't know you do this i was well not like totally on purpose but i when we first moved here i was telling alice and like i really wish i was like part of a community out

here not like i want to be part of the high school out here no like um but we happen to be at like walmart you know like a lot of local walmart's like half the shirts yeah yeah so i was like oh i guess like now that i live in burbank, this is the first like Burbank shirt I've seen that I can purchase. So I bought it. And now I just like, I'm weirdly collecting because anytime I see a shirt that says Burbank, I just buy it and I can't stop myself. So are you going to like send your future kid to Burbank just so you have like an excuse

to have all these shirts? No, I think this is a temporary situation. It will one day probably be goodwilled. But I, I just, I saw the shirt because it was tie-dye. And then, of course, then I realized what it said. And I was like, okay, apparently. And then a graduate of Burbank High School. Yeah, you're like an honorary alum.

I don't know what my problem is. We went to CVS recently. And they had like, sorry, CVS, if you're listening but their like t-shirt selection is like always really janky yeah and they had a bunch of shirts that just like looked it said just burbank on it and it was in like the worst font ever it was like heat pressed like at an angle it was like so bad but i was like well it says burbank so i'm gonna buy it and so that seems to be my habit what in the world i'm just collecting shirts finally make it as a t-shirt maker because if you bought that at cvs i feel like i could sell you anything if you make it say burbank apparently i'll just purchase it

and then i don't even care what it says uh i did see someone wearing a shirt that said like my child is the on the honor roll like like some random school i was like now that's a shirt that said like my child is the on the honor roll like like some random school i was like now that's a shirt i haven't collected yet i was like that seems like my child is on the honor roll yeah i sure hope not it's just creating a whole persona for myself apparently but i fascinating i saw tie-dye i saw burbank i made a purchase and then i went oh my god it's another fucking high school shirt like what is wrong with me so anyway i was trying to give you something to laugh at while you're not feeling very entertaining and i feel like i haven't glimpsed this aspect of your personality yet so i feel like i'm learning all about you i don't know what my deal is anyway so

i that as soon as i decided i want to be like wearing burbank merch it's just every time i find one it's just worse than the last like the the CBS one was the most recent purchase and that was crazy well yeah well it sounds like it was a poor decision but I really do support it um thank you yeah what it's worth I always support like a questionable purchase especially from a CBS so um that's kind of my it's my favorite one so far I feel like now that I know CBS has like really bad shirts, I'm probably going to start throwing away all the high school ones because like, why do I have them? I don't know. But like, I can't stop myself either.

Nobody knows the answer. And please don't ask that because nobody knows. There have been the best part, though, is it's kind of becoming this weird, like, not really like a scavenger hunt, but like I like to like mentally tally every time that while I'm in Burbank, someone sees my shirt and goes, Burbank High School. And I'm like, I was going to say,

I was going to say, what are you going to do if somebody approaches? Now I realize somebody has and you continue to wear and purchase them. So I guess. And they'll literally, they'll, I just like, I can't, I don't know what to say.

I'm just like, you can't just say, okay, now say oh head to and that's why we drink episode whatever the fuck this is and then they'll finally understand what your problem is i because even i don't know the context i'm just like i don't know man i like the shirt i picked it out but yeah it makes no sense cvs by the way i was shopping for clothes at the cvs i was just going through like all the racks and and i found a shirt that looked kind of wild enough to wear it's like the corduroy of shirts it's like it's like crooked it's like missing a button it jumps on the mattresses at night um anyway if you want to make me the wildest burbank shirt possible you

can put anything on it i i would wear it so like i'm going to do it so hard you're gonna not even understand um how much time you're having missing this shirt next time you're having a full-on like episode of whatever is going on with you um just you could put a bunch of frogs on a shirt and have them spell out burbank or something and i'll wear it now you're making it complicated i don't know how to do that but i was just gonna put anyway sands on it but sure i guess i'll have frogs writing it out just about like whatever random decision you make will only make it better but um anyway i'm glad you and your very normal shirt are having a better day or i don't know a better wardrobe well it's a better wardrobe

certainly um thank you for setting the bar very low for that um i would like to say oh i had something to say oh yeah so for our patreon we're now doing this thing called after and that's why you drink after hours and it's it's where where we like recap any true crime or paranormal or spooky things that we've come across in recent news that we don't have time for on the podcast. So I just want to give that a little shout out. However, last episode we did go on like a half hour personality quiz journey to find out that we're both. Well, I don't want to spoil it because it's the only surprise part of this whole bonus but to find out whether we're like chaotic good chaotic neutral the other ones i don't remember um but so today um i mean i don't know i know you had something you had in mind but today i was thinking we could use um this app i got called necrophonic yeah and it's basically um like a i paid 9.99 for it so we have to use it

somewhere uh it's basically a spirit box app that like you that sweeps through the radio and you can use it to communicate so i thought we could do like a little ghosty adventure on our after hours session today i guess not our ghost adventure it adventures just our ghosty adventures it's different lawyers okay um so i don't know i thought that might be a fun thing i wanted to tell you about my new app and i thought that was a good excuse to use it so we can okay let's do it yeah definitely um otherwise i'm drinking a nice liquid death rest in peach tea. And how are you doing? Are you good? Are you fucking ready to rock and roll? I'm good. I've got my water.

I feel like I'm part of my community because I'm wearing a shirt that says Burbank. So, I mean, that's all you really need in the world, I guess. Yeah, it is. A community. All right. Like-minded high schoolers. Trust me.

I hate it. Like, let's not. You me i hate it like let's not that was not much i i just wanted a shirt that said burbank it was the first one i found at walmart and then i found another on cbs i don't know i get listen i get it i'm not i'm just giving you a hard time um i'm razzing you yeah it's working because now i'm like paranoid that it's sending the wrong message entirely but no it's not it's not i'm just fucking with you i like it i there's a high school near me that is has i don't know why i'm suddenly getting all weird about because i live in newport kentucky there's a newport high school and i'm

like i haven't checked cvs for for any clothes but i could you might find some really good stuff yeah i feel like um i have a two-year-old at home so they're gonna be like who in your life goes here imagine if there was a shirt you know it's like my kid is the i was on the honor roll what if you had a show that said my kid is a future student my toddler is on the honor roll suckers i'll put that what if you got her a shirt of newport high school and it said future valedictorian wait now that isn't called manifesting is what that is and also getting probably bullied but that's okay it's all in the name of college admissions okay your turn i'm just kidding guys she's two she probably won't even go to school there okay

don't stalk me well oh i know anyway we could just go on forever about that okay so here i have a story for you she capital s is a folklore, a Slavic folklore. Ooh. And you might have heard her name before. Her name is Baba Yaga. Ooh, I have. But just like last time when you did La, what was it? La Owl. Oh, La Lachusa?

Lachusa. I've heard of it, but I probably don't know much of anything about her i i confuse confuse baba yaga with um the baba duke yeah yeah they are they i do get the same reaction which is ah whenever i hear both words yeah i know i don't want to mess with either of them that's correct correct yeah i've never seen baba duke but baba duke the baba duke the baba duke have you watched it uh i watched it when it first came out and then never again and i don't think i could have appreciated it at the time i think if i watched it now i would be able to like really get into the camp of it because he's actually a like a queer icon that's what i've heard so yeah i i

would like to watch it again and like really analyze the camp of it all maybe i'll watch it with you because i still haven't seen it okay well uh baba yaga yeah totally different thing i'm now accidentally gonna say babadook like every fucking time so baba yaga is from slavic folklore specifically maybe not specifically but especially in ukraine russia and belarus and she is a powerful malevolent witch um baba i know hey hi barbie so baba can mean grandmother or old woman just older maternal figure right uh aka she's known as grandma yaga something she's called like grandma witch um because baba is also linked to the word sorceress okay so could be grandmother or it could be witch essentially if i'm like ever a grandparent i hope that that's

my name like witch slash grandma like it's you know up up for interpretation i feel like it works really well because it's it's neutral enough or ambiguous enough that you could just be called baba just and people will be like and every day can mean something different i feel like depending on the vibe yeah um slavic cultures like a lot of places have a concept of like a benevolent sorceress um one who does good magic to ward off bad magic. They can protect your livestock, cure sickness, scare away bad witches, etc. And with the name Baba Yaga, a lot of people think that maybe she's a grandmother figure who's also a good witch. a good witch yes however throughout time her story has warped because now she's been definitely more demonized in her story it's like she's the villain a scary creature yeah um so she could be

a benevolent sorceress turned evil through throughout the years in storytelling. And Yaga, the second half of her name, is in different Slavic languages, has a lot of different bad connotations. It can mean rage. It can mean ill-tempered. It can mean sickness. It can mean malicious. It could also mean two things that you and I are,

which is gossipy or derangement. Who's who? Take your your pick so technically we could be yaga i guess uh uh basically it ends up translating into the sorceress or the witch of rage the witch of the malicious the witch of the deranged um the witch of gossips would for sure be me wow that's you i'm deranged for sure but you're gossip central yeah so i don't know if we should call each other baba yaga but i am saying we technically fit the definition i'm not gonna argue with that one uh and like i said a lot of times it's also just translated into grandma witch which um what we do know about Baba Yaga is that she wasn't just any old witch. She's notoriously wicked.

She started her fame in the 1600s and 1700s. In the 1600s, it was in art. In the 1700s, it was in writing. She even shows up a lot earlier than either of those things, at least through like the medieval times through oral traditions. But the first like physical record we have of hers in the

1600s some say that she has ancient roots as a goddess figure um that relates to life and death so she's actually come back up more recently with modern witchcraft a lot of people have associated her with uh hecate from the episode i covered on her yeah and she's often thought of as a hag which can mean an old woman but it also can mean a powerful ancient being which i never knew the second definition okay i always kind of got that vibe got the vibe of an ancient demon because like when they talk about sleep paralysis they're always like and the hag and she like sits and chokes you to death and i'm like oh well she seems more than just like an old lady then like she seems like a an evil presence so that i thought it kind of

makes sense i thought of hag as like a derogatory thing to just call it old woman so like if she was sitting on me choking me yeah call her a hag you know what i mean exactly but it makes sense that that definition of it being a powerful ancient being has always existed whether or not i knew it because fairy tale hags are often older women that have some sort of magical power so um baba yaga is a lot like that. She looks like a hag in that she has she looks like an older woman. She's frail. She has kind of like a curved back. Some say that her bones show in her body that she's very fragile looking. Gaunt.

Sometimes she's called Baba Yaga the bony legged. Okay. Well, no wonder she wants to sit on you and choke you. of a bony legged okay well no wonder she wants to sit on you and choke you in a uh in a lot of times she can be described as extremely ugly so i guess whatever that means in your culture is how she would be described uh most commonly her hair is undone it apparently looks like she's not wearing um any chest support if you catch my drift. Some saggy boobs. Just dangling. Let them free.

And apparently she wears a lot of loose clothing with weird description said with no girdle or corset as if like that had to be part of everyone's. The flab is out. You know what I mean? Are you wearing a girdle or a corset, Christine? Or are you a hag? I think we both know the answer to that question that i don't need to answer to you said the witch of the deranged said the gossip witch because the gossip witch always wants to know whether the other witch is

wearing a bra i would be the gossip witch because i'd be like she's literally so deranged and not even wearing her corset look how saggy she looks today without a corset on um so the by the way the words that i have used like hair undone uh her breasts are hanging low loose clothes not like very saggy i guess all of that combined would be the word frumpy which i think i've mentioned on the show before is my mom's like oh it's most cursed word like insult like the most cutting insult you could call her any word in the book and if it's not the word frumpy you haven't called her the worst word so honestly i kind of get it my mom always used that as like the most cutting insult also and if somebody ever called me frumpy especially if i was i mean most of the time i am frumpy but if someone called me that when i was like trying not to be oh i would be

wrecked like to the i mean these days i probably by definition my mom has had to really change her ways because i look very frumpy very often but uh if my mom ever were to walk up to somebody and call them frumpy i mean that's her version of like the c word or something you know like she's she wants you to drop dead from the words alone um i will so if she ever finds uh sometimes baba yaga not only is she frumpy which is my mom's worst nightmare but she's also known to sometimes only have one tooth that happens to be razor sharp. I can't imagine her poor tongue on a daily basis. Oh, that's rough.

A corner of your mouth. Imagine like you'd eat so slow. I mean, if you only have one razor sharp tooth, when you chew, do you just ram your razor sharp tooth into your other gum? Ew, yeah, so I guess you just can have applesauce you said it on me that stinks uh peep there's other stories that she has a mouthful of teeth and they're all made of iron so either she's chewing real fucking hard or she's not chewing

she's only eating sirloin steak overcooked or applesauce there's no in between her teeth are actually a pressing factory um so it's said that baba yaga gets around this is where things get a little like holy what um okay and like i'm aware that like all cultures have stories and we're not trying to judge any cultures here this isn't meant at all to judge or mock the culture this is just i had to google it to double check because it just didn't make any fucking sense to me and like i can't wait i if this is truly part of her like fairy tale folklore i fucking love this for her but it makes no sense and you're gonna have to probably google it yourself because it's gonna confuse you baba yaga, I'm excited. Baba Yaga gets around. This is how she travels.

In a big flying mortar. And she's the pestle. Like she moves around with the pestle. Like to grind your herbs? Yes. She has a pestle that she uses to like, I guess, canoe herself while she's sitting in a big human sized mortar. That's fucking genius. She's the guacamole. know what i'm saying i was gonna say yeah she's like a little cumin seed um and i i was like i was like that can't be right and then i googled it she's straight up in every picture

sitting in a mortar like oring herself with the honestly, that's so delightful. I love this for her. I do too. And like, to be honest, it sounds so off the wall that it reminds me of if you heard that witches fly on broomsticks from another culture where that was never mentioned, you'd probably be like, she flies around on what? Like a broom? You know, I feel like there'd be like a very similar like a household item that you use a lot you know what i mean like i feel like there's similarities there

no definitely it's like something that maybe i i don't know enough about like slavic cultures but maybe they use a mortar and pestle a lot i know i probably sound incredibly ignorant to somebody i don't i don't just don't know about that maybe back in the day it was just probably just a more commonly used tool you know or everyone had one or something. Yeah. Yeah. Just like a broom. So it just I read that and I was like, nowhere in any of the information before this prepared

me for that. So like the guacamole, I wasn't seeing that coming. And so I thought for sure. I thought for sure our researcher like it was a typo. I was like, there's no coming and so i thought for sure i thought for sure our researcher like it was a typo i was like there's no way like i thought mortar i was like motor like a motor but no she's a little motor on her motor i i feel like it's so delightful because if somebody said like what what magical item would you like to enlarge and travel around in i would a mortar and pestle is genius because it's a big round bowl so you can't really fall out of it you can't

get hurt because it's like a cast iron so you're protected exactly you are stuck in this ceramic thing and then you have a little ore in case you want to change directions and there's my little leftover guacamole down there. Again, you said it on me. That's what I'm thinking too. And she can eat guacamole with that one tooth of hers. Genius. No matter what, she can eat an avocado. She's fine.

Wait a second. That might be why she has a mortar and pestle. Because you grind stuff with it so she can eat it. Since she only has one tooth. Look, we're piecing it together on our own. Unaware of anything else so she flies around and i will say a lot of the pictures of what a mortar and pestle looked like back then or at least the one she's writing on they look kind of more like a flower pot or

something because it looks like she's sitting on top of it i'm just warning before people like go google it it's supposed to be a mortar and pestle, but it looks a little more like a cot. Can I go look it up real quick? Yeah. Okay. Mortar and pestle Baba Yaga. Oh, my. Oh, my goodness.

She is on the move. She's on the move. So she also, if you look at the pictures, it looks like she's flying very low to the ground. Some of the pictures look like she's just riding on the ground. like she's flying very low to the ground some of the pictures look like she's just riding on the ground yeah um but interesting that you mentioned broom earlier because she also carries a broom on top of her pestle she must have a trunk in this fucking thing to carry all the shit is full like this thing is big and full of all her stuff like my car max capacity yeah uh she yeah exactly just like your car and just like my car she she carries a broom around because I guess to keep herself incognito since she's so low to the ground.

I mean, the mortar is cast iron, you know, she couldn't get it too high off the ground. That's right. It's heavyweight. Whenever she moves around and pedals herself with the pestle, she, pestle, pestle? I say pestle. Okay. Well, she also has a broom to sweep up her tracks behind her that the mortar makes oh geez that seems like a lot of work it seems like you would walk faster than

all that and it seems like imagine imagine like propelling yourself in cast iron and then having to like turn around grab the broom sweep behind you and then keep going and then be like sorry we've got to go back i missed one of my tracks and I dropped my broom. Hold on. I feel like it would be so not efficient, so inefficient. And also then you're going to be looking backwards and run into somebody with that giant cast iron mortar. Well, so some other versions of the story

are that she doesn't actually, the mortar doesn't fly. She actually is driven. she's sitting in it like it's a little vehicle and she is transported by demons carrying it for her so she's that i can get behind it's like one of those uh we just looked up this word i think they used to call like a sedan like the thing where you hold someone in the air yeah like hold the like uh the wooden plank sticks and they're sitting in a chair i feel like um i feel like that's what it that's what it seems like and also think of how jacked the demons are again i'm i don't mean to keep repeating myself but cast iron and a human being like that's you got to be real strong to carry that over your head

and walk everywhere and then clean up your tracks afterward that's got to be a nightmare maybe that's why she's got the broom she's trying to be helpful and she's like oh i'll get your little tootsies you know i'll get behind you you're making it harder to do our jobs stop and she's like i'm just gonna help yeah relax you're welcome by the way actually don't relax because i'm gonna tip over out of this mortar i wonder also like chicken or the egg i wonder if because she is seen as a witch she had to have a broom or i wonder if she already had a broom without like the witch trope you know interesting also i'm realizing the mortar and pestle as a witch like you'd probably make all sorts of little oh my god and potions i'm literally so fucking stupid. I landed on guacamole and just never looked elsewhere. Guacamole! Oh my god. That is a spell of its own right, to be fair.

My literal witch of a stepmother has a collection of mortar and puzzles that she uses for her spells. It's weird. She has this XL one that she puts jacuzzi water in and floats around. So I guess you're finally realizing what that's all about it keeps it nice and hot joke of the week christine well done um no that totally i'm so i'm literally so fucking stupid yes obviously so okay so i would then assume that the broom is also part of the trope. Yeah, like the symbolism of witchcraft, sure. Yeah. And so demons carry her around, blah, blah, blah.

And just like the trope of witches back in the day, she's known to create very dangerous windstorms. So again, she's a weather witch. Weather witches. Not only is she associated with wind storms she's also associated with winter frost and destruction via snow um she's linked to chaos as well as the wild um specifically the untamed wilderness and that kind of over time led her to be associated with forests as well and that she lives in an ancient forest oh that's cool in some stories people have to venture deep into the dark scary forest just to find baba yaga which why would you want to go find her yeah you

have to go i don't think you have to go yeah if anything i think she's encouraging you don't if it's hard to get to her i'm sweeping my tracks for a reason exactly so i don't want to be found um in other stories she doesn't live in a dark scary winding forest but just in a big lonely field so she's easier to find that way but all of her stories have to do with you going into the wilderness to find her in some capacity okay so here's the other thing that i had to google because i was like surely this is a fucking typo but nay um baba yaga's house is a hut raised up and sitting on a it's like it's in the air not on the ground it is sitting on a pair of chicken legs what like drumsticks of legs like a sense like giant chicken legs give her a goog you tell

me oh okay um baba yaba Baba Yaga chicken leg hut. I feel like we're doxing her, you know? So they are essentially- Oh my God. I mean, they're literally giant, like webbed chicken feet. It's like essentially like an architectural, it's like a stilt. They're like stilts for the house, but they're chicken legs. Like giant chicken legs yes so the legs are said to also spin the house around endlessly i don't know

if it's like because they're working legs like does the house can the house move or are the it's always like pecking the ground and she just gets like slammed into the front door she's like i picked the wrong animal to carry my house around sorry i have no idea why on earth it would spin in circles it seems like a terrible construction design it seems well apparently the idea is that it's very on brand for her like disruptive chaotic energy i mean that's um sure which like you would think if you're already known to be chaotic don't then go up to people and be like my house is on chicken legs like yeah you've they already know where you stand girl like it's okay right and why are you covering your tracks when you have literal chicken tracks like leading to your house yeah people we can see the talons in the ground we know where your house

is um we can hear you screaming because you're spinning around and around such a bad i'm like so mad about this architecturally speaking like it doesn't make any sense oh my god okay well also like imagine the giant feathers just laying across a bunch of trees like no you're right this would be such a hazard yeah i think somebody needs to actually sit her down be like the broom isn't needed anymore girl like girl nice try though um okay so on top of all that her property has a fence around it made of human bones oh good um and skulls that uh depending on the story glow from the inside she'll like keep her whole property warm. I guess by putting coal. And these skulls. Okay.

Delightful. They have like glowing red eyes. And some of. Some of the stories actually tell you. That the skulls can talk. Which is not the most ridiculous thing. I've heard so far. I was going to say.

Well. They might as well at this point. They probably have a lot to say. Yeah. Like a chicken with only its legs. Is still alive enough to carry an entire house okay um but so they'll talk and if you approach them they will tell you to leave the area which i it feels like the original ring doorbell like it's just saying please leave the property

they're like you know leave the packages at the back door please um thank you uh the door the house itself in some of the stories doesn't have any windows or entry points so the only way to get through the door is through like a magical phrase so essentially an open sesame um i guess a lot of times the phrase is this is probably like a gross mistranslation but the general phrasing is something like dear hut please turn your back to the forest and your front to me um in front to me okay and if you stay outside of her house you're like oh i'm not gonna go near that once you're on the property it's too late because homegirl can smell you oh no um so she'll and she'll yell at you from her house to be like what are you doing here and like if you're gonna if

you're trying to see me you're gonna have to come inside like there you're it's too late oh no a lot of times once she's called you inside and has essentially acknowledged that you're there it's already too late and if you don't go inside she's gonna come get you and be like not nice about it so um inside abayaga is said to usually be cooking over her stove i don't know what this means but sometimes she also is just lying on top of the stove wait girl it's giving like together plank era yeah everything wait till she's on parkour era she's gonna be like falling on her face out of that stupid house as i say maybe her little chicken leg hut is gonna do parkour with her and just run through the town

uh she is said to be cooking on the stove or sometimes lying on top of it either way the house is so small that she can touch both sides of the hut just by extending her limbs oh and uh she's also seen by her stove um when she's cooking she's making a lot of food apparently she eats like as much as 10 men combined hell yeah and uh she's also gone i know i don't know she's got a tapeworm or something because like if she's perhaps if you're eating that much and you look that frail see that's a condition yeah i'm worried about you she's also said to drink like in a wild amount of alcohol so good for her understood one one of the things that she's uh always cooking up can you guess since this is a fairy tale is little children i knew it per the trope she most loves to eat the

badly behaved children sure of course she will also consider eating children that visit her and fail whatever demand she has asked of them so a lot of times the fairy tale is like you go to baba yaga because you need something but first you have to pass a test and it's always impossible to pass and then she gets you what a delightful uh what a delightful little plan this is where we deep dive into the most popular fairy tale of babayaka um and this is where i tell you the russian fairy tale called vasalisa the beautiful oh okay vasal you're gonna realize real quick she's got like cinderella energy okay uh so vasalisa's mom is dying and before she officially dies she gives vasalisa a doll

and i guess it's um like a an enchanted doll and tells her never let anyone know you have this doll but this doll is to take care of you when i'm gone if you ever need help just ask her for it and she will help you and keep you safe and then and the story apparently that day the the mom dies later um trauma uh so then the plot at this point turns into cinderella all the way where basilisa's dad remarries she ends up getting an evil stepmom and two evil stepsisters uh they are all looking to get married and basilisa is like the fairest of them all but no one wants the stepsisters and that makes the stepmom pissed off and so there are a lot of times where the stepmom will try to get basilisa to do

chores or keep her busy so that way she's not going out um and a lot of times it would be so many chores that basilisa would be overwhelmed, but she always kept the doll with her. So she would ask the doll for help. And this doll would come to life and do all her chores. Oh God. Okay. I thought it was just like a symbolic thing for a minute, but no, no, no.

She's like Pinocchio-ing. She's like, this, this thing is just coming to life and just doing it all. I wish we'd heard about like the first time she just asked it for help thinking it was like a little symbolic thing and then it just like appeared into a real creature but okay think of the fear the scream the scream would have been the loudest the world ever heard my beautiful mama gave me this little trinket and then it starts talking oh no oh my god it's such a good point i want the the origin story to this to this doll yeah uh so the doll that vasalisa's mom gives her helps her around the house whenever she's feeling overwhelmed a lot of times just to let her keep

her youth she will um the doll will just be like girl i've got all these chores don't worry about it just go be yourself and have fun and the doll would just do everything the doll would also say a lot of encouraging things when vasalisa wasn't feeling good and the stepmom hates vasalisa and keeps sending her into the woods to do certain errands hoping that she'll get lost and never return oh my god that's horrible i mean i know the story of cinderella so i'm not totally shocked but like that's sad um and some of the stories implied that it was because uh everyone wanted to marry basilisa and she wanted her stepdaughters to get all the attention so if they got rid of her then the stepdaughters would get married um or this you know i've seen a cinderella story i've seen and loved a cinderella story so i get it starring hillary duff and chad michael murray

uh so this stepmom keeps sending her out into the woods thinking she'll get lost and never come home but this doll is like don't worry i'm also a gps turn left turn right now you're home oh and remember nobody knows this doll exists. So fed up with it, the stepmom decides to get rid of Vasilisa once and for all by sending her to Baba Yaga to be eaten. Great. She creates this plot, this plan with her daughters. And she's like, we're going to blow out all the candles. We're going to get we're going to snuff out the fires and the house is gonna get cold we're not gonna be able to see and we're gonna need vasalisa to go to baba yaga for light

to bring us light okay um so vasalisa comes home they're like oh girl you are not gonna believe this we have no light the craziest thing just happened and they said but allegedly baba yaga has glowing skulls or skulls filled with coal in them so we need you to go easy this is literally this is literally one of the reasons they said otherwise me and my daughters we can't do our needle points because we can't see so i better hurry that haste that was haste vasalisa's probably like why haven't you already gone without me oh my god so now it's her job go find Baba Yaga so her stupid sisters can

embroider or something wonderful Vasilisa goes to Baba Yaga's hut they're making like one of those Burbank shirts and it's like really crooked because it's so dark they're like now only CVS will buy these off us literally i that is the only origin story i'm gonna stick with now for why my shirt's so fucked up is like sewn by

what's her name vasalisa's evil stepsisters yes oh my god genius great callback great callback um so vasalisa goes to the hut or she tries to but she's lost in the woods and then the doll goes hey i got you head this way um so she gets to the house with the doll and from the hut she's already she's she's standing outside looking at the hut on his little chicken legs looking at the human bone fence with all the glowing skulls. And she can hear Baba Yaga in the house. And like I said, once she can smell you, you're in trouble. Oh, no. And all of a sudden she hears, I smell with my long bony nose a Russian girl with tasty toes.

Oh, that's horrible now i can't confirm that that's like officially what she has said since like before the 1600s right i can't tell you and some of the current child's the current children books of her that is that's what she has said wow um so uh anyway basilisa asks for help caesar and goes listen my mom can't needlepoint you understand help me and baba yaga probably rolls her eyes and says uh well i will help you if you do my chores for me and one of those chores that i'm going to need you to do is to separate all of my wheat from my wild peas and you have to do it by the time i wake up which i guess was an impossible task so right because she's gonna do the impossible thing right some versions also say it was separate rotted corn from healthy corn. And you have to do it while I'm sleeping.

So in the dark. Gotcha. Either way, Baba Yaga goes to sleep. Basilisa's freaking the fuck out. She's like, I can't do this. And the doll says, don't worry, baby. I got you. Hey, you relax.

She says, you sit a spell. You take a little nap. It'll be handled. Baba Yaga wakes up and all the wheat is separated from the peas and she's like i did not see this coming and and how'd that happen and fastly's is like napping she's like what the fuck it's like and you had time to go to bed you're my new housekeeper i guess uh so babiaga is like okay redo i have some shit i gotta do out in town in my mortar and pestle but here's the situation you hang back mortar and pestle in uh what's it called i almost called

it vaseline valvoline oh vasalisa valvoline vasalisa for a two-top boys um she's like i'm gonna head out for the day i got some shit i gotta do and i will come back tonight and help you but only if you continue all this excessive cleaning and chores that i've got set for you and now i'm gonna need you to separate all of my dirt from poppy seeds oh god well yeah even i know that's gonna be a quite a task it's a big ask yeah big ask um and then she says or i'll eat you and then she flies away and her little see you girl bye barbie oh shit um and wouldn't you know it this little doll is a homie and separates all the poppy seeds from the dirt and bobby agar gets home and sees it's all completed and I don't know maybe Vasilisa's taking

another nap um amazed amazed by this she asks Vasilisa how on earth did you do this and Vasilisa says it's because of a blessing from my mother love that I love that vague answer she was like this is not my first time being asked how I do the impossible. Yep. And Baba Yaga just kind of just goes like, last thing I want in my home is something blessed. I don't want a blessing in this house because she is apparently an evil witch. Remember, God forbid she's something. Sure, sure, sure. A blessing. So she kicks Vasilisa out.

She's like, a blessing. I'd rather you survive and get the fuck out of my house. So leave, please. out she's like a blessing i'd rather you survive and get the fuck out of my house um so leave please and handed one of the skulls glowing with coals inside of it to her and said don't come back here so the story gets interesting where i don't know if it's some of the versions are apparently that vasalisa didn't even want to bring the skull home at that point. But the doll ends up telling her, no, no, no. Baba Yaga has done us a favor and you need to bring the skull with you.

So she ends up keeping the skull. Oh, okay. And other versions I saw it kind of omitted that. But I like that part of the story where the doll tells her to keep it because Baba Yaga has secretly done something nice. So Vasilisa gets home she sees her uh mom and step sisters and the lights are still off in the house and so she shows them the skull that she gave the lights off if they thought she was gonna die excellent point like didn't you couldn't you the second she was out of sight start needle pointing you know like couldn't you have left like a candle on upstairs and then like gone back to it i think we're fine matt we're safe we can turn the lights back on she's getting eaten right now interesting

point christine just a thought well she she gets home and stepmom thought she was dead insert miley saying i'm back motherfuck. I swear they're trying to kill me. You're correct, actually. They're trying to kill your favorite bitch. But I hope that's what Vasilisa said. And Vasilisa shows the stepmom the glowing skull and says, I did it. Here she is. And when the skull is pointed at them, the skull's eyes light up.

And the stepmom and sisters are set on fire. I knew it. Also, much later in the story, she ends up like becoming like royalty or something. And of course, it wouldn't be a fairy tale otherwise without a Prince Charming, yeah. So, all that story to tell you that Baba Yaga, although she is dangerous and is known to eat people and be evil in some ways, she also has this weird flip side to her where she can actually help a hero out and be very nurturing, like, in a way that you don't expect it. She, like, almost helps the underdog in a way that you don't expect it she like almost helps the underdog in a way yeah so she went from as long as multiple other people die also i guess yeah she was like oh three for one deal three for one yeah so in vasalisa's story baba yaga is scary and dangerous but also rewards vasalisa for you know i't know, her determination or like doing the impossible.

And it's interesting, the amount of stories I read last night about not just Baba Yaga. There are like theses about fairy tales, which blows my mind. I just I'm sure that's common for some people, but that was not in my realm of fun facts. And a lot of people have said it's interesting that in stories that involve Baba Yaga, if the hero of the story is a girl, she's more of a donor and will actually help the girl along the way and give her a gift or will will be easier on her she can't finish the tasks whereas if the child is a boy she's more of a villain and will eat the kid interesting interesting so she's kinder to girls than boys um either way she is meant to keep children in line and she's known to be a collector of magical items which is why in a lot of stories when someone is on a quest um she gives them a test to pass and then she helps them with their item they need um this is what i was also the theses theses theses that i was reading about last night um

a lot of them had some interesting stuff to say that baba yaga is symbolic for like complex things or complex themes of motherhood um where that she can be seen by some as cold and bitter but others she's giving and nurturing um she fits into the fairy tale motif of maternal cannibalism which is a lot of like hansel and gretel and little red riding hood and i think i think it was the original sleeping beauty had like a grandmother figure eating you at some point probably um and so it's usually a grandmother figure turned evil and is you know set on eating children which the again i don't think people realize that there were multiple like professional papers out there and research studies about maternal cannibalism in

fairy tales it was very interesting my mother wrote her dissertation on uh german jewish exile literature focusing on three specific female poets. So to me, like the more niche, it doesn't surprise me. I feel like there's very, very, very, very niche dissertations and theses out there. But maternal, what is it? Maternalistic cannibalism I've never even heard before. Specifically in fairy tale motifs. And they each had a different point to make but uh baba yaga is definitely fits the i don't know the bill for it and more than just uh mother

figures uh baba yaga also represents the theme of general womanhood um so that in society there are certain expectations of who she is versus what she'll do um she like a woman is uh you know supposed to stay in the kitchen but a woman these days is also about empowerment and like but i'll plank in the kitchen on top of the stove exactly so baba yaga Yaga is said to cook, but she will also, just like we saw with Vasilisa, she'll provide for people in need, even if it's in a really backwards way. But at the same time, she seeks solitude and values her independence because she lives in the fucking woods. So she can be seen as nurturing or she can be seen as a witch, depending on how the story is written. I see. Which is very in tune with a lot of the experience of a woman. She also represents the line between life and death.

And some people, like I said, link her to deities of death and birth or destruction and regeneration. Some modern pagans have actually found associations between her and hecate or the triple goddess um and those who seek baba yaga as a goddess figure say that she appears as either the maiden uh the maiden the mother or the crone which are the triple goddess and whichever one you need in the moment she will appear as oh that's nice so weirdly i think it's it's because she was associated with like the ambiguity of motherhood that this it was easy to bring her into this kind of world of like oh she's uh a strong woman and therefore she could be seen as this goddess figure to us yeah yeah um by reaching out to her though it can be very risky because you don't know who you'll get she'll either be very nurturing or malevolent and admirers of baba yaga say that

she has helped them with self-acceptance because her ambiguous nature helps them honor every part of themselves regardless of expectations that's really beautiful um and there are apparently some rituals you can do online to contact baba yaga but this is where i also give my psa that you should only follow like trusted rituals by true practitioners know what they're doing summon her i don't know unless i mean you know you weigh the pros and cons guys but i'm not backing you on that one i feel like we could leave her out of it i feel like i don't trust her if i see a house with chicken legs anytime soon i'm gonna know one of you fucked around and found out of you and now we're finding out yeah if all of a sudden there's a mortal and pestle that almost like hits me on the way down the highway window

you're like did i just see that yeah no no no no no anyway that is uh baba yaga i love it em that was a good story i swear i've heard that phrase and i knew probably zero of those facts so once again i uh taught me a lesson that's what i'm here for the utmost uh top tier education once a week okay good job em i just realized in all my notes oh wait i have to grab my laptop charger sorry i left it across the room please stand by we have to step away and go get mine answer the door we just all right um are you ready for my tail? Yeah.

I was trying to think of something witty to say. You said tail, and I was like, tail, head. Heads, tails. It didn't land. Anyway, I gave up, but I had to explain it anyway. Pretty sure I think we can all agree it landed just perfectly. 10 out of 10. I'm about to land off a cliff.

I can't. I felt so bad that I didn't. I just wanted to have something weird to say. And now I'm going to think about it for the rest of the day that I couldn't keep up with you. Honestly, I believe in you. I'm going to think about it for the rest of the day that I couldn't keep up with you. Honestly, I believe in you, and I bet any moment now you're going to scream something out that has to do with heads and or tails, and we're all going to laugh. It'll only be at the saddest point in your story. I got it.

I went to thesaurus.com. I got it. Okay. All right. Well, I do have a sad story for you today. Of course, this is the story of the lost boys of bucks county i feel like i've heard this one interesting the title not anything else i had also heard of the title and did not know about the story so we're kind of in it together

but bucks county is in pennsylvania it's the fourth most populated county in the state. It's home to roughly 650,000 people. And it's in eastern Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia. meets urban Pennsylvania. And so many of the county small towns have quite a bit of wealth where people are moving out of the city, buying bigger houses with active communities, well-kept historical houses. It's obviously a very old historic area. Bucks County itself has a reputation, of course, as a safe and friendly place to live. Many people move there for the well-funded schools, the low crime rates. It's known as being a very family-friendly area. Overall, many people in Bucks County feel like it just has a general pleasant and secure feeling. They can let their guard down. They don't feel at risk like they might in a bigger city.

They're not like they don't feel at risk like they might in a bigger city. And they feel like they know everyone, know their neighbors, despite being close to a place like Philadelphia. That is why it was so shocking when the county became the focal point of the nation in 2017, when four young men all went missing at the same time over the Fourth of July holiday. Oh, okay. All four were from Bucks County, and three of them were friends. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about them. They were all just enjoying their summers, living their normal day-to-day lives. And just for quick context, the 4th of July is a huge celebration in Bucks County because,

fun fact, Bucks County is the george washington famously crossed the delaware river oh oh okay and therefore turned the tides of the revolutionary war so it's a huge deal fourth of july um a lot of the community communities celebrate for a week before and after the actual date of fourth of july um a lot of the community communities celebrate for a week before and after the actual date of 4th of july hosting charity where i know i'm like i always even forget it's 4th of july till the actual day and i start hearing banging noises outside yeah but they take it very seriously they host charity runs parades cookouts historical reenactments, craft shows, the whole nine yards. Many people were still in the midst of festivities on Saturday, July 8th, when two parents called the police in Middletown to report a missing person. By the time they called at 6 p.m., they had not heard from their son in nearly 24 hours. hours. Their son was 19 year old Dean Finocaro, and he was described by friends and family as fearless, adventurous and loyal with a big heart. He was a free spirit who loved fishing and sports,

and he was also a daredevil. In an interview, his dad fondly said, quote, he had more balls than brains. He kept me on my toes. So everything Dean did, he wanted to push to the limit. He loved riding dirt bikes. He loved cliff diving. He just had a natural hunger for adventure. He'd gotten in trouble for some kind of crazy off-roading and things that teenagers do out in the country. But overall, he had a big big heart his favorite saying was the bob marley quote love the life you live and live the life you love he was a very genuine caring person he was very close with his parents and his father described his hugs as so heartfelt oh i know that one got me at 6 30 p.m the night before dean told his dad he was going somewhere but he'd be

back in 15 minutes when an hour went by with no sign of dean his dad tried texting and calling him but dean never responded and the calls went straight to voicemail as if the phone had been turned off dean was an adult because he was 19 but his parents were still worried because dean always stayed in contact with them and if he said he would be home in 15 minutes he usually was or he'd let them know why he was delayed dean's dad sent it an interview he told us everything even things we didn't want to know so they felt like he wouldn't be hiding something from them. They felt like something was actually wrong. If his phone died while he was out, he would always contact his parents on a friend's phone

so they knew how to get a hold of him. So they knew something was terribly wrong. And when he didn't come home that night, his parents started reaching out to his friends, but none of them had seen him either. The police spoke to the parents' neighbors who had security cameras outside, and the cameras had recorded a silver pickup truck driving down the road at the time

Dean left his home. Neighbors confirmed they saw Dean get into this truck, which his friends said belonged to 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo, who lived about 15 minutes away. Dean's friends also admitted to police that they knew Dean was actually leaving that night to buy weed. That's where he was going on that quick trip out of his parents' house. But his friends also said that he never came back or answered any of their calls. His friends all tried reaching out to Cosmo on Snapchat, and he didn't give them any information. Okay. Before Dean's cell phone was turned off, it had pinged a tower 20 miles away in Solbury, Pennsylvania, where there were two properties under the name DiNardo. Hmm.

Oh. Suspicious. Oh, suspicious. Late that night, a Middletown officer drove to Sulbury where she met with a local officer and they headed to one of the properties. And this was a farm owned by the DiNardo family. So Cosmo's parents. The local officer was relaxed. He thought, oh, well, we're just going to go on this property, take a look around and we'll probably just find all these fine dean hanging around smoking weed and just like forgot to tell his parents right but when they arrived at the property it was eerie and it was quiet there were no lights on the house looked like nobody had lived in it for years and it was too dark to really look for anything so the officers left but interestingly enough this is like a trust your gut moment on the way back to the station

the officer had a bad feeling and was like i should have looked inside that shed and so he turned around and he drove back by himself and he's like i'm gonna look in that fucking shed so he got back and he found the shed it was open he didn't have a warrant so he couldn't like open the door and go inside. But he could shine his flashlight in to see if he spotted anything. And when he did, he noticed a car that looked like it had recently been driven into the shed. I mean, not into the side of it, like inside it. Right, right.

Without any destruction. Drove into an open door. Correct. Thank you. More like a garage, I suppose, is a better way to say it. Pulled into the barn. Pulled into the barn recently. Thank you so much. There was no driveway and there were fresh tire tracks in the grass leading to the shed. And so he called the plates in to see whose car this was. Turns out it was registered to a young man named Thomas Mayo who lived nearby in a town called Plumstead. Cameras had captured

Tom Mayo's car driving in town about a mile away from the farm on Friday night just before 8 p.m. which was about an hour and a half after Dean left home the same night so an officer called back on the radio uh saying hang on did you say thomas mayo that's the car you found he said yeah i guess so and they said his mother called earlier today to report him missing so now there's two boys missing she reported that he had been missing for 24 hours after disappearing with his good friend, Mark Sturgis. Both boys were friends with Dean. 22-year-old Mark was a talented guitar player and overall musician with skill and a good ear. He was even teaching his friend Tom how to play guitar.

he was even teaching his friend Tom how to play guitar. He was also a loving older brother who spent time with his little sister and a loyal friend who went by the nickname Alpaca among people close to him. This is Tom Mismayo? This is Mark, sorry. I meant to warn you at the beginning. It's a lot of people. So Dean is the first person we talked about whose parents called in, said he was missing, but he was known. And I haven't really added this, but I should point it out that he was known to police already because he was kind of a daredevil. Like I said, he had done some like off-roading stuff. There was a clip of him literally standing like on a motorbike on the highway.

Like, I mean, he was a daredevil. And so police kind of already knew who he was. oh my god a daredevil and so police kind of already knew who he was and his parents were really frustrated because the police kept saying like oh well you know you know him he's probably just causing trouble and his parents were like no we do know him and something's wrong so they had trouble getting the police to take them seriously um but so dean was the first one i mentioned then the police officer looking for dean found uh a car belonging to thomas mayo who was reported missing that same day and thomas mayo had been out and about with his friend mark who also had never come home so now we have three young boys, and they're not kids.

They're, you know, they're early 20s or late teens, so they're technically adults, but in the eyes of their family, they're still kids, you know? So one friend described Mark as having so much energy, being so outgoing. He had a lot of friends, just a really smart kid who

cared about everybody. Now he was missing with Tom and Tom's car has been found recently moved into a shed on Cosmo DiNardo's property. Tom's mom could not get through to him or Mark and both of their phones sent calls straight to voicemail as if their phones were off. The morning after she last heard from them, she looked for them at work, where Mark's dad employed both of them. So they worked together at Mark's dad's company. And he said he hadn't heard from either of them either. And they were not, by the way, the type to miss work. Like, this was just totally unusual.

21-year-old Thomas Mayo, whose car was found in the shed, was a confident and unapologetic guy who people said you could always count on to be himself. He never seemed ashamed to have fun and lead the way, and he was the kind of person who gave other people the confidence to be bold and be themselves. He was an athlete in high school and a hard worker after he graduated. He really cared about his friends and family. His girlfriend said he was thoughtful, patient, and understanding. He wanted nothing more than for those he loved to be happy, is how she described him. Like Dean, Tom also kept in touch with his mom and would never run off without telling her where he was going.

He was also diabetic, and he relied daily on oh shit yeah to live so he could not go anywhere without planning around the medication so this was like extra concerning for his parents tom's mom thought they must have ditched work which wasn't like them at all but she was like well what else could it be you know and the fact that they're both missing together is very strange maybe they just decided to play hooky but she thought well you know what they'll come home with a funny story to explain it and uh that'll that'll answer all my questions unfortunately of course they never showed up and none of their friends could admit to seeing them. Investigators discovered that Tom's and Mark's phones had happened to ping the same cell tower as Dean's

just before they were turned off. Okay. Was it the same one that was near Cosmo's farm? Ding, ding, ding. All three of the boys' phones were turned off at about the same time, and they were all turned off within three miles of Cosmo's family farm

interesting and i think it's it's also i don't know what this means or if it means anything but the fact that people remember dean getting in the car with cosmo i wonder if that means but but thomas drove there yes so there's like different stories going on so i wonder if there was some sort of conversation of like all four of us will hang out. I'll pick up Dean on the way. But also. Em, you're so smart. You're such an investigative mind.

It's also weird to like that Dean would have lied and said I'll only be gone for 15 minutes. He had to have thought it was really only going to take 15 minutes. He really had. It would have been like, hey, I got some weed. Let's all just like split it up or something and then i'll take you home like something quick you are seriously oh sorry no in the best way no yeah listen i don't even want to say if you go missing you want me in your corner folks apparently i do um yes please uh wow so you're nailing it i think it listen don't take this the wrong way i mean it in the best way possible but it strikes me that you would have a really good intuition about what teenagers are up to like shut up oh my god serious i mean in a

good way though like you're like it's because I wear the high school shirts, apparently. I don't know. Right. You're literally, your persona is showing. But I feel like it's true, though, because you, I don't know. There's something where you're like, oh, I know what teenagers are doing. Like, I know what they're up to. Like, you, I don't know.

You just, I just feel like. Me? Well, I did do a lot of teenage scheming. Yes. Maybe that's why. I feel like, like, the driving around, like, driving around, I feel like you kind of intuitively know. Everyone in my group, sorry, mom, everyone in our group lied to our parents all the time about where we were.

So it's an easy, it's an obvious one to me. Now you can't because everyone has GPS, lol. I truly, do you ever think about how much bullshit well maybe not you because i know you were more of a goody two-shoes than me but the the amount of shit i got away with because there wasn't find my friends oh god like kids these days have no idea what they could have you could literally say i'll be home by midnight i'm going to my friends and then do anything and like they would never know and like we had self like we had cell phones but the cell phone culture was not what it is today where like you're expected to always have your phone like i had a phone in my pocket for phone calls but you couldn't even text people like you

had to like you only got like 100 texts a month or something and after that so like like either your phone was something you used to call or you weren't using your phone and it was just so easy to just be like oh well i met deirdre's which often was your parents just had to trust where you were which like i i did a really good job of checking in with my mom like every like i would be like i'm alive and i like maybe wouldn't tell every, like I would be like, I'm alive. And then I like, maybe wouldn't tell her where I was, but I'd say I'm alive,

you know, and I'm fine. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like that's what these parents were hoping for. Cause like they knew their kids were adults. They were like,

you know, we don't know what they're up to. And they've gotten like, Dean had gotten into trouble with the law before. Like this is, they're not like expecting their kids are all just like crocheting together but at the same time they're like you know 24 hours later my son would have told me because he knows how worried i'd be like he would have told me he's alive or like he would

have said oh i got caught up in something and i'm i won't be home tonight like he would have told them you know like how you said you would check in So that's definitely the same vibe that I'm getting here. That they're like, okay, we had a little bit of leeway to give them, but now that several days have passed, like that's not normal. So basically, I think last thing we said was that they found that all three boys' phones pinged the tower within three miles of Cosmo's farm right before all three phones were turned off. So they decide next to run the plates on Cosmo's truck. And the Friday night that Tom, Mark, and Dean went missing, they found out Cosmo's truck drove by the same camera that Tom's car passed but 15 seconds earlier so basically like how you were kind of putting together the pieces of how everybody got together it looked like tom was following cosmo on the way back to the farm so it was just like we're just like weirdly on the

same route at the exact same time or on the same route yeah um it it appeared as though he was following him uh to his property so word started spreading about the missing young men of course uh the police made a press release and people across the county started speculating on where these three boys could be of course a news spread this is 2017 so spread on social media where people tried to put things together and piece together who saw which of the boys when the boys friends and family were also posting on social media themselves asking if anyone had seen their kids or noticed anything and you know obviously it seemed like all three disappearance had to be connected um it was like were they each targeted separately or were all three brought together and then targeted um was there another party on the loose who was dangerous

and you know those were the big questions to be answered so investigators reached out to other buck county municipalities to see if they could point a finger in any direction and if any other missing persons cases matched up so that they could add them to the list. And they waited to hear back. Meanwhile, an officer went to Cosmo's family house in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, and there Cosmo's mom answered the door and said, oh, he's at work and i'll have him reach out to you when he gets home and basically like kick them out so instead the next day cosmo's attorney contacted the police and said you can come meet with cosmo and his dad at my office so cosmo was waiting there police came by to meet him and his attorney and his dad he seemed relaxed

and confident he said yeah i picked up dean after work but when dean said he wanted to run an errand i didn't feel like going so i dropped him off back at home and then i went fishing huh strange okay he said he had not been to the farm in solbury and that his his own farm and that he did not know. Tom or Mark. He's like, I don't know those guys. Just lying, lying, lying. Flat out lying without a care in the world. So on July 9th, investigators were made aware of a fourth missing person.

A boy named Jimmy Patrick. He had disappeared two days before the other three boys. 19-year-old Jim Taro Patrick was a dedicated student who had just finished his freshman year as a business major at Loyola University, Maryland, where he was attending on a full scholarship. He was spending his summer vacation working at a restaurant and living with his grandparents who had actually raised him from birth. So his grandmother had brought him home from the hospital when he was just a day old. She actually had not been expecting to raise him because his mother or her daughter was struggling with some severe mental health issues.

So she ended up having to raise him as a son. And she actually, I believe the quote was, he became my son. And she was in her 50s, had a full-time job. And now she and her husband were suddenly like raising a baby as their own. So, you know, they at first brought him home totally unprepared. They had no diapers, no bottles, no baby clothes. And so the entire neighborhood showed up with gifts and supplies and helped it was like a a village you know it

takes a village sort of yeah that's nice just really sweet so jimmy was beloved by his grandparents they considered him a son uh he was a talented baseball player. His community loved him. He was pretty popular and liked to party a bit. And at 6 p.m. on July 5th, he had left to go eat out with friends at Chick-fil-A. And he was supposed to be home by 8, but he didn't show. him missing the next morning um but they were like you got to wait for 24 hours to pass and they were like okay so they waited for 24 hours to pass and at 6 p.m the following day once he had been missing for 24 hours they put together a missing persons report the whole community came together people were putting yellow ribbons on their mailboxes they brought the grandparents food and keep in mind this is two days before the other two even went missing, that he disappeared. So this is like before they're realizing how massive a situation this is. The last time his phone pinged a tower before it was turned off, it was in Solbury near Cosmo's farm.

Yep. Ding, ding, ding's farm yep ding ding ding ding ding like the other three boys jimmy was also friends with cosmo dinardo on social media so although he wasn't friends with uh tom mark and dean he did know cosmo still knew him yeah cosmo was the kind of link between all three fully the common denominator between all these people precisely investigators worried that perhaps his disappearance was linked to the other three because at first it wasn't investigated together because a it happened at a different time and b he didn't appear to know the other three boys but when they realized like this is all connected they started getting pretty worried so july 9th investigators all turned their attention to the dinardo's farm investigators knew that dean had intended to buy weed because remember his friends had said oh like they finally admitted yeah we knew he was off to buy weed that's where he was going he

you know he said he'd be back buy weed. That's where he was going. He, you know, he said he'd be back in 15 minutes. That's where he was headed. And it seemed unlikely that Cosmo actually did not know Tom. As you said, he's probably lying through his teeth, especially considering the video footage they had of Tom's car following Cosmo to the farm. So they're like, OK, well, you clearly knew him to a certain extent. to the farm. So they're like, okay, well, you clearly knew him to a certain extent. So they're thinking maybe Cosmo was letting like the three guys hang out or camp on his family's farm and smoke weed together, like literally what you suggested, like maybe he offered to

everybody get together, share some weed. And so the edges of this farm were pretty wooded, like maybe they were camping, maybe they got lost or injured out in the woods. You know, there's so many possibilities. But of course they end up back at this fucking shed. And Tom's car, which was still in the garage, had the keys and the title of the vehicle removed. And they were like, rested against the wall of the shed.

And they were like, that's really odd like why like why would somebody feels like a trophy or something doesn't it feel weird so they were like that's strange like if he brought a hero of his own accord why would he take the title out of the glove box and like prop it up on the wall with the keys it's it's like the title is like the like the scariest thing to remove from your car like that's like you don't do that yeah oh that's yeah that's not something you just leave in a random barn to get destroyed that is like that is hard to replace i mean to be honest that's something you don't take out ever unless you need to like it's not something you like think to take out of the glove box you know no like even when you get pulled over you pull out out the registration. Well, I pull out everything because I panic.

But you're not intended to pull out the title of your car. So that was very bizarre and a little creepy and unsettling. And what's probably even worse is that in the backseat, they found Tom's medication and his monitoring kit for his diabetes. He's not with us anymore. and kit for his diabetes so he's not he's not with us anymore he either was incredibly ill or it just in i mean basically in imminent danger yeah like he's he's if he's alive it's not he's in trouble yeah knowing tom was in imminent peril police did not need a warrant so i mean that's the only quote-unquote silver lining is that because they could say hey his life is for sure in danger uh they did not need a warrant to launch a search and rescue operation so they searched the huge 70 acre farm on foot with dogs and they used a helicopter to sweep the farm from above until dark they found a random sneaker that had recently dropped behind the house and they found

dean's cell phone now his cell phone had been abandoned in an old historic barn on the property and when they went to look inside the barn they also found pools of blood on the first floor and they noticed that this blood was dripping from the floor above through the cracks of wood. Oh, my God. And so they go upstairs. Whoever had to do this. I mean, dear Lord. Go upstairs to investigate what's up there.

They find a pile of sand, which has been used to cover a huge amount of blood presumably to soak up the blood right and with the amount of blood that they found uh they determined someone had to be seriously injured uh for this much blood to be like not alive to like not alive alive probably yeah so they sent a sample to the lab and a lab result came back and it was a match to Dean. So this was his blood. So things are not looking good. And they're now starting to realize this is more than a missing persons case, probably a homicide case. So the NOVA, which is the Network of Victim Assistance, arrived in person to support the families of the four missing boys while the search continued their role was to answer the family's questions to keep the media away from

the families i do like that this exists like a protective force for the families while the investigators are doing their work because i imagine it would be very overwhelming to have like cameras in your face and media and so it'd be nice to have like somebody in your corner yeah so more police departments began to get involved and the fbi even sent resources the police searched the dinardo residence in ben salem where they found guns and although they didn't suspect the gun's use in any crime, they did arrest him on charges for reckless handling of a firearm. So they were able to arrest him on that charge, bring him in, and his bail was set at $1 million. Eventually, investigators focused their attention on a spot by a cornfield where gravel had been recently laid down, and there were still tire tracks leading to and from it.

And when they moved the gravel aside they could tell that the earth had been recently disturbed so it is looking like a fresh grave essentially oh my god so now they know where to dig and before they dig they cover the site with tents and canopies to protect the investigation from the news helicopters each bucket of soil they removed, they had to sift through for evidence. They frequently uncovered fresh grass, like clumps of grass, ears of corn, basically showing that this had been recently buried. Local businesses and residents continually delivered food to the dig site to support the investigators and the families who by the way

just had to like sit there for hours and wait like they couldn't touch anything they couldn't go closer they just had to watch and wait as the as i can't like slowly one bucket at a time dug through the dirt i can't i mean unfathomable but to to even know like even if they find something there's that moment of like please don't be my kid yeah exactly it's like you want answer it's that it's that thing you see that push and pull where it's you want answers but at the same time you kind of don't because they're probably like i'm just praying they don't find anything but also that doesn't help because where's your kid exactly then it's square one again it It's like a limbo, like a purgatory almost. So they're stuck there.

And thankfully, there's at least a community to deliver food and, you know, try to take care of them the best they can. Finally, on July 12th, investigators had reached 12 feet deep into the dig site when their shovels hit a metal oil tank what i didn't expect that yeah and so they hear this clank and they're able to uncover this big metal oil tank which the dinardos had actually converted to a pig roaster so at least the dinardos are like what the fuck is that doing yeah wait a second and let me, it can hold a pig so it can hold a body. Hmm, interesting. So they use a camera to look inside the tank and inside the tank they see a boot that belonged to one of the missing boys. Yeah.

So in the meantime, Cosmo's family had managed to come up with $100,000 in bail and Cosmo was released from jail then his friends start coming forward to investigators and they're like we actually have something to tell you one friend said that Cosmo had recently offered him a Nissan Maxima for $500 guess what kind of car Tom had in the shed of cosmo's farm a fucking nissan maxima so basically he's trying to get rid of this fucking car so they use that information to arrest cosmo again but this time for stealing tom's car and this time they set the bail at five million cash so they're like yeah getting out this time yeah nice. Nice try. Nice try. After more arduous digging, investigators removed the huge pig roaster from the ground.

Underneath was a blue tarp and they uncovered Dean's body. Tom was buried immediately underneath him. Afterward, they recovered Mark's remains, but Jimmy was nowhere to be found. So three of the family's questions had been answered in the most tragic way on July 3rd sorry I'm sure you'll cover later I was gonna say how did they die oh yes you will find out yeah I feel like the story like it definitely has answers like we know who did it and what happened but the big question like why is never really answered which is very overwhelming and okay i don't know frustrating thank you for the warning i know i know but we do i was hoping for it figure out how they passed away and all that

so on july 13th and i they found three of the boys. And on July 13th, the district attorney made a deal with Cosmo DiNardo. They said, if you tell investigators what happened and where to find Jimmy's body, you will not face the death penalty. So he took the deal. Okay. They also brought in Cosmo's cousin. His name is Sean Kratz. He was 20 years old. And Cosmo had basically pointed at him as his

accomplice so they bring sean in as well and it's very unsettling to listen to the interviews with police because cosmo is very casual uh he he's almost bragging about what happened or or like as if he's just telling a funny story like it just doesn't seem like it really resonates no empathy like no empathy or no even like realizing how big of a deal this is um so yeah he's talking in this kind of matter-of-fact tone uh and he used an aerial photo to show investigators where Jimmy was buried. And he told investigators what happened. He said on July 5th, when Jimmy told his parents, like, I'm just going to run out to Chick-fil-A to meet my friends. He drove Jimmy out to his parents' farm to sell him weed.

So he had told his friends, hey, I'm going to go buy some weed. So that part was true and apparently jimmy was short on the cash he was supposed to bring as payment so in a calm and casual tone cosmo told investigators so i look at him like yo bud what ha ha hee hee this is not a joke and he apparently had brought eight hundred dollars in cash and not eight thousand dollars in cash so cosmo said we get out of the truck and i shoot him i go get the backhoe dig a hole say a prayer and put him in the hole and they're like it was that easy for him it was just black and white it wasn't even like oh not enough come back tomorrow yeah but let me tell you this

part which is almost more disturbing or adds to the disturbing he'd ever had any weed to sell them so no matter what he was he just wanted to rob them he just wanted to kill him yeah that's true because 800 wasn't enough to rob him like yeah he wow and so they still are kind of like what the fuck like why and two days later dean tom and mark basically met the same fate so even though those three and jimmy didn't know each other they basically had the same situation he was just the early practice selecting from his pool of friends yes whether or not they knew each other he was like well this person needs weed this person want weed exactly so at first he got jimmy and then what what their parents what jimmy's grandparents

suggested what his grandma mentioned um was perhaps cosmo had killed him and then had like a got a rush of it from it or felt like oh I can do this again you know and so that that's the only real explanation as to why after Jimmy he did it to three more people and so quickly like that's really weird because like it'd be one thing not I mean you know what I mean by this but it'd be one thing if you're if you kill a person and then like have some sort of itch you need to scratch again in a couple weeks or something after that rush dies off but to kill one person and then basically a weekend later i need three i need to do this three more times at once like yeah talk about escalating. That's crazy. Yeah. So this is essentially as much information as they could get. They did get some details about the murders themselves. So Cosmo shot Mark multiple times, but Mark was still alive and now paralyzed after he was shot multiple times.

after he was shot multiple times and Cosmo had run out of ammo. Oh my God. I know. So he said that Mark was kind of laying there and saying like, I can't move my legs. And Cosmo went and got the backhoe and just drove over him. Oh my God. Yeah.

And just was like, like okay that's done to know the last thing he saw he couldn't move he just saw the car coming at him yeah it's horrible oh my god it's like so fucking dark and again like as he's describing this to investigators he sounds totally at ease um there's no remorse it's like he's telling like a funny story over a beer yeah and and they're like as if he's trying to impress them you know and so cosmo took credit for the murder of jimmy tom and mark but he insisted that his cousin sean killed dean in the barn with all the blood you know oh my god so sean did admit to dean's murder. He got the same plea deal and he was also able to stay off death row. So Sean killed Dean in the barn. And then only hours later, Cosmo brought Tom and Mark to the property to kill them, too.

So all four young men were lured to the farm under the pretense of buying weed. But still, there was no real motive for why these four boys were killed uh the crimes didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense um but you know cosmo admitted to them and so did sean so cosmo was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences with no opportunity of parole and sean was sentenced to life in prison so this year uh in, the victim's family settled wrongful death lawsuits that they had filed against the DiNardo family. And according to the DiNardos, Cosmo had been a model student, a perfect son until 2016, when he began struggling with some serious mental illness. He had a couple diagnoses. I don't necessarily want to get into them. Our researcher made a great point that like it might lead to or contribute to harmful stigmas to like list out.

Sure. So he had become obsessed with Mexican drug cartels and the methods with which they disposed of bodies. So he was almost like fixated on that. So it's like he was testing them out or something. Yeah, exactly. He was like researching them before the death. So it was almost like the weed thing was just a ploy to like kill them and then like dispose of their bodies to try it out. kill them and then like dispose of their bodies to yeah try it out um despite having previous issues with handling firearms though cosmo's parents continually gave him access to guns atvs farm equipment and their vacant property so one of the lawsuits claimed cosmo's parents

provided him a playland for illegal acts which which is fair. I mean, if he's struggling seriously with mental health issues, has gone in trouble for guns, and they're just like letting him roam free with weapons and, you know, it's probably not the best move. In the end, the residents of Bucks County felt a sort of sense of relief after the four disappearances because the culprits had been caught so quickly and charged and went straight to prison. No one had to worry that there was somebody still on the loose, you know, hunting for the next victim. And their hope is that eventually Bucks County might feel safe again. But of course, the families of the four victims couldn't just move on. You know,

Dean's father said losing his son left a hole in his heart all four boys were loved by so many people and their absence in so many lives will never go away loyola university maryland started a scholarship in jimmy's name to honor his academic passion honor his memory and the friends and families of all four young men continually speak on how wonderful loving and kind they were as an example Tom's girlfriend said that the day he died, she had visited him at work where they got in a conversation with his co-workers about the things that make him happy. According to her, Tom confidently said, money doesn't make me happy, my family and friends do. In the media, they've become known as the lost boys of bucks county

and that is the story from 2017 oh my gosh wow that's a wild sick it is yeah that's really it's just so tragic and it's like that feeling of for what you know like yeah it wasn't even it was just for the fun of it snuffed out four lives like for what you know it's yeah it's so fucking ruined four families yeah like oh my god like the i think it was just especially sad too to see jimmy's grandparents um who raised him talk about him and say like his grandfather was saying you know we always expected him to take care of us when we're older yeah you know and now he's just wiped off the face of the earth just gone um so just really really tragic and uh i mean thankfully it was solved i guess but yeah at least they they know what happened but like almost it's that double-edged sword like

you want to know what happened but you don't want to know what happened. But like almost it's that double edged sword of like you want to know what happened, but you don't want to know what happened. But you don't want that to have been it. Yeah. It's like. Oh, my God. Yeah. So. Wow.

Are you set for our ghost hunt after this to distract? Yeah, I definitely need a distraction. Thank you. need a distraction thank you uh yeah maybe for the best that we have this these after hours because then at least i don't leave the rest i don't live the rest of the day feeling like such trash i know it's a nice distraction for all of us uh yeah especially well all of us if you pay us money for patreon i guess i guess so for the rest of you you, go smell a flower. Go away. Go smell a flower. Go have a sip of water or coffee.

Yeah, drink some water. This is your reminder, your weekly reminder to drink some water. Your weekly reminder, yeah. I wish I could give you a reminder more often, but this is your weekly reminder. Replay this every day until we record another episode so you have a daily reminder. i don't think you need to listen to that story every day for a week but um just this just like this one minute clip okay yeah well until then drink your water see you over at patreon see you next week and that's why we drink