And That's Why We Drink - E348 Stolen Meditation Journals and Fun, Fruity Pond Water

Episode Date: October 8, 2023

Welcome to episode 348, where we're contemplating the smell of the bottom of a Zoloft bottle! First Em takes us to the Catskills (ATWWD retreat, anyone?) for the incredibly creepy story of the Catskills Crone. Then Christine covers an oldie but a wild case in the story of the Barnes Mystery aka the murder of Julia Martha Thomas. And stay tuned for our deep dive into the smells that define us, both as humans and as ghosts... and that's why we drink!

oh i didn't mean for that to come out you thought we were not recording yet i was like just one more breath before we started you could have more breaths while we record just say it out oh thank god okay keep going i forget how this works um i'm like really upset i'm gonna cry maybe not really gonna cry but i just can i just tell you why i drink i know you haven't even gotten a word in yeah it happened about five minutes ago and i'm like so angry somebody leona's birthday party supplies just arrived they're like the i literally bought all these very hungry caterpillar birthday supplies and they were at the front door in this

huge box i was like finally they're here her birthday's next week some man i see in the ring doorbell walks up with a cigarette and a baseball cap on fucking picks up the package and just puts it in his truck and drives away yeah blaze like walks right out and is like what the fuck the guy had to like unlock our gate like it wasn't sometimes packages get stolen if they're just kind of like tossed where they people can reach it right he just waltzed right up the stairs right up to the porch right in front of the ring doorbell just fucking picked up this massive package waltzed right away all her birthday supplies in it like hundreds of dollars of birthday supplies in it like hundreds of

dollars of birthday supplies i'm like that asshole's gonna open that box and be like all these hungry caterpillar napkins yeah congratulations he's gonna have the nerve to say i don't need any of this and then just throw it away put it in the trash and i'm gonna be fucking pissed because there's nothing expensive and now i'm not gonna get it in time for her birthday and i'm freaking out and i'm so mad i'm so mad what kind of an asshole sees a box? It says it has a pink flamingo on it. It says Oriental Trading Party Supplies. Who the fuck do you think you are? What do you think is in there? An iPad? I'm going to kill him. It sounds like someone who probably doesn't have kids to who doesn't know what Oriental Trading is. He's going to learn. OK, he's going to learn the hard way because there's all sorts of fun stuff in there. You know, nothing makes my blood boil more than, I don't know what the right word is

for them, but like the package thieves. The audacity. As you just told me, I have the audacity as I started my audacity. They have the fucking audacity. Like, fucking grow up. And also, like, let's acknowledge the fact that it also feels so fucking violating it's like so violating you're totally right especially when you watch them do it and you're like i can see you yeah it's the it's the not even giving a shit

like i know i'm stealing from you and like you can me. I don't care. But also, I mean, it does. There's a huge difference between, like, an actual burglary or a theft inside your home. Like a home invasion. But, like, they're only one door away, you know? Right. True. They're on your property. They walk up to your door.

They're taking your shit. Your stuff. It feels like there's nothing that freaks me out more like i'll i i have like the doorbell the ring doorbell app and like the neighbor's app and all that yeah yeah and i every every fucking time i watch someone's package get stolen it's not even my package and i feel violated for them it's so violating and like there's nothing you can do i mean last time this happened, somebody called the police

because a neighbor saw it. And so that was delightful to come home and have the police on my porch. And they had stolen. What did they steal? It's so hilarious what they stole. Oh, my body scrub. I was like, okay,

you stole my body scrub from fucking Ulta. And then the time before that, they stole my new fucking meditation journal. And I was like, yeah, you better fucking use it, asshole. You know, I've actually I've heard that a few a few people are stealing Amazon packages now because they have like that affiliate program. And so they resell them on Amazon. Oh, for fuck's sake. So I'm sorry, but he's making hundreds

of dollars off your hungry caterpillar. I'm really upset. Like, I'm looking at what I ordered. I would be. The cutest shit. I ordered little stickers. I ordered little strawberry plates. I ordered, like, a big three-foot hungry caterpillar for Leona to sit next to. I'm really mad now. I don't know what to do.

Can any of it be, like, Amazon Prime to you in the next two days? I'll try mad now. I don't know what to do. Can any of it be like Amazon Prime to you in the next two days? I'll try, yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry to be a bummer. No, I'm trying to problem solve with you. Can we call them and say how much would it cost for a rush? Yeah, maybe I'll try that. That's a good idea.

I'm going to send you... Do you want me to call? Well, good idea. I'm going to send you... Do you want me to call? Well, obviously I'm not going to call anyone, but I'm going to send you a picture of the little apples that I ordered that are going to go in the goodie bags. They're little felt apples. I mean, what an asshole and there's these little tiny felt apples and they go inside the um the uh the little goodie bags with a little caterpillar bouncy ball and some stickers I'm like so mad anyway it's I would be pissed and it's just like so infuriating I wouldn't even be I mean I'd be mad at first but then when I like sat with it I would just be really sad

so I think that's what it is I when I get yeah, I would just be really sad. I think that's what it is. I, when I get, yeah, I get mad when I get sad. So I think that's what it is. I'm like really like people just, and they unlocked the gate. Like it was, it's one thing if you just reach over and grab it, which like has happened, but like to walk all the way up the walkway, up the stairs. It's so intentional. Like I could just whip open the door, you know?

And I mean, obviously I didn't. Anyway. Okay. I'm sorry for getting all worked up. the stairs it's so intentional like i could just whip open the door you know and i mean obviously i didn't anyway okay i'm sorry for getting all worked up um no that's it's a very very valid reason to but i was so worked up that i realized how thirsty i was and i went and got a bunch of water because i think i was just like good so at least i'm following your orders well yeah everyone this is your uh reminder weekly reminder to stay hydrated and um christine if you need help after we record we can hunt the interwebs together and collect everything and get a chip we can look on craigslist for free like the free section see if um they're just giving away like party supplies did you at least get his face on the camera so you can like

post looks like a cranky old white man with a baseball cap. So it's really hard to see because he has a hat on and he's smoking a cigarette. So it's his face is kind of covered. So not really. But one time in L.A., a package got stolen and the guy just looked directly into the camera and like did a little wave. And I was like, that is next level, like cruel. Like, fuck you. it's so fun and you know what one of the i'm this is you know knock on everything so i don't want to you know all of a sudden give myself a weird twist

of fates but um other than the i know the roaches are like they're not bad these days but i know the roaches is like an obviously serious problem in my apartment building but other than that like i pretty much have a great apartment to build apartment and like i'm so lucky that like all the neighbors on our floor and like in our building like i've never had to worry about packages being stolen i've never had really nice and so i like there have been this is not good but there have been multiple times i've accidentally left my keys in my fucking That's really nice. But it's I know that like currently, at least my apartment is like a very safe place. And I torture myself by going on like the neighborhood apps and all that. Yeah. Ignore those neighbors who have a shitty time.

As someone who's like it's not like a, you know, a currently very serious thing. But as someone who's flirting with the idea of moving one day, like I just torture myself because I'm like, oh, one day I'll have a standalone house. And, you know, anyone could just steal anything. It freaks me out. It totally freaks me out. That's what all the technology is for. You think and then you put it up and they just wave at it. Yeah.

But yeah. Yeah. It's only slightly infuriating. I'm sorry, Christy. I'm not mad. I'm just it's a fucking pointed. I'm not. Oh, yikes. Well, anyway, anyway, that's my day. How are you? I am currently on a new anti-anxiety medication. That's right. And it's going okay, but the side effects are really messing with me.

Which usually I've been a person who anytime I start a new medication, I'm very lucky and I've never really had any side effects. And so this is one of the first times I'm having to deal with this um it seems to be only anti-anxiety medication is the stuff that gives me side effect problems but it makes sense i mean they're very potent yeah yeah and um the i was having like a lot of nausea at the beginning of this week but now i'm uh the thing that really freaked me out yesterday was that it actually gave me really bad heart palpitations oh yeah that's not good for you and so i don't know if that's a side effect and it's gonna go away and then i'll be fine or is that like something that would become a daily issue in which case i'd like to end this because it was like you don't have room for that yeah it

was like fighting against the propranolol which usually keeps my heart rate slower so it was like going... You don't have room for that. Yeah. And it was like fighting against the propranolol, which usually keeps my heart rate slower. So it was beating out my propranolol. And I had to take double the propranolol just to calm down my heart. But it was just like a weird... That's like when I used to take Zoloft. I mean, I take Zoloft now and it works great. But back when I first started taking it, it made like so drowsy and sleepy and brain foggy. And then my doctor was like, oh, well, that's why you take Welbutrin, because then it helps you.

I'm like, wait, so now we're just like stacking, you know, but it worked really well at the time. I mean, you know, sometimes you just need to tweak. But yeah, I feel you, man. That is never fun. The brain fog is like really crazy. I mean, I'm always like i've had brain fog before but this is wild like i've been having to like stop everything i'm doing for like 30 mississippi seconds to figure out a word like i'm oh no so i just feel like i'm like i don't know i'm like

well that feels like what happens when you get like mom brain is what they call it. When you like have a kid, you're like, wow, I just like can't think of a word all of a sudden. Yeah. Yeah. Does that go away or do you still have it? Mine went away pretty much. But apparently they actually have studied this as far as I know. Don't quote me on this, everyone.

But I'm pretty sure they've done a study that proved that your brain matter after pregnancy like your brain your brain matter literally changes like permanently like your brain changes forever and not necessarily in a bad way but it like just changes but not in a good way I mean I don't know maybe a good way I have no idea but it just apparently like changes your whole setup i don't know i mean everything else about you changes so makes sense yeah yeah it wouldn't wouldn't be surprised but oh anyway well anyway i'm uh i'm glad you're safe and happy and i hope your keys are not in the door my keys are not in the door. Not to give me an additional anxiety. That happened enough times that we don't do that anymore. Anyway.

Good. Good. So let's begin. Shall we begin? Let's begin. All right. So I have a short story for you today, but it's a nice little urban, you know, insert lore here so Blaze can laugh at how often I say lore.

Legend? Urban legend. Yeah. I don't know. I actually don't know if it's an urban legend. You tell me at the end of this. Okay. Okay.

I'm sure I'll know. Not. This is the story of the Catskills Crone. Catskills Crone. Sounds like an urban legend, but what do I know? Have you ever been to the Catskills? I have not. Have you? No, but I've always wanted to.

I have too, weirdly. I don't know anything about them. It sounds like she-she, but a lodge, but it's the mountains. Yes. Yes. It sounds like a wonderful she, but a lodge, but it's the mountains, but it's. Yes. Yes. It sounds like a wonderful, like, escape, you know? I know a lot of older Jewish families go there.

Yes. So I feel like. That's like where they have the, Miss Maisel. Yes. It's a good time. It's a good time. I watched that and was like, why don't I get to do that? That looks fun. Maybe we can have a retreat there, Em.

Anytime you say retreat, I'm usually for it. Yeah. I love that we just say that word sometimes because we know the other person will go, yes. But the second you say retreat, I'm more inclined to say immediately. Yeah, exactly. So here's the thing. This story was told almost from like a first person perspective.

So we don't know the name of one of these people would you like to come up with a name christine and just um sure let's go with um marcel great so the story takes place in 2016 and there's a guy danny and there's his friend marcel i was like if you just change his name to danny i'm going to kill you i thought you changed it i was like are you fucking kidding me right now no the source i read it from i never once got the other person's name and i was like okay well i guess i'm just gonna keep saying his friend for the entire thing okay i like it danny and marcel danny and marcel so they're in

the catskills which is for people who don't know it's a mountain range in uh new york um and it includes the catskills state park and it's like it's i think like a million acres i think it's like 700 000 acres oh geez it's a big place so're going to have a long retreat there. And the Catskills are, it's an area that has a lot of caves. And like, you'll love this. Countless abandoned mines from when it was a busy mining town. Retreat, retreat, retreat. So I'll take care of the resort and you go into the mining caves. I'll go into a mine.

That'll be fun. And then the Catskills are not just like a popular summer destination, but it has a long history of hauntings and strange phenomena. And the local lore says that there's

like haunted locations. There's like sacrificial cultish spaces where people have done rituals. There's stories of witches and cryptids. So I'm probably sure I could probably do a whole episode on the catskills but oh fun fact washington irving who is the author of sleepy hollow he was inspired by the catskills he said that they bewitched him as a boy

oh i like that that makes me want to go more well Well, so that's the scene I've set for you. Love it. And now enter Danny and Marcel. So they're hiking and they went to check out a cave that was off trail. And in this cave, there was evidence of a fire, like a recent fire. Oh, shit. Exactly. That's what i would have said

and so um they go to this cave they see that there's recently a fire so they know somebody has been there not too long ago um and yet they still go in i feel like this is about to be a story of like mishaps of like why like you had evidence to not do this and like what not to do in this situation this is like me going we should keep checking it out and you're like absolutely not we're going right to the resort right that's that happens quite a lot in this story it seems familiar and so uh em and christine i mean, Danny and Marcel, they go looking around anyway, even though it's clear someone's been there. And near one of the cave walls, they find this piece of wood that has been like whittled and carved into the shape of a human. Ooh, creepy.

You're on the right track. track so this carving had it like was enough of a human that it had eyes whittled into it and each of the eyes had three nails driven into them and the body was very old looking the nails were very rusty but was what was brand new was a rope that had been fitted as a noose around the doll's neck oh no so danny said they hey this reminds me of like some sacrifice shit like this looks like a part of a ritual or something nothing good um this feels like part of a ritual and we i want nothing to do with this so insert me thinking again why would you do this marcel goes i don't care that you want nothing to do with this i want to bring it home yeah i'm marcel in this scenario got it yeah so pretty much right away things go funky um the friend starts oh not the friend sorry marcel starts having i have a name

i have i have eyes and a heart um and three nails in them each marce marcel starts having trouble sleeping and he starts having he starts having trouble sleeping because there is a mysterious banging that keeps waking him up. And whenever he would wake up from this banging, there would be a very intense smell of pond water. Oh, that's very strange. Yeah. Which is like, I'm such a dumbass because all my brain can relate to is like, oh, chlorine. You're like, we had a pond out back it had a

waterfall and some floaties tiles surrounded it it was lovely uh so pond water if you could smell pond water you know what's going on that's a murky smell yeah i Yeah, definitely not chlorine. Not only that, but Marcel's dog refused to get near this carving and started peeing in the house. Oh, honey, that's that's sad. Leave the dog. That's awful. So soon, Marcel is waking up and feeling watched. And then the doll starts moving by itself. And boy, Marcel starts finding by itself at night. Oh, boy.

Marcel starts finding it in new spots each morning and smelling pond water at the same time. So when he started smelling pond water, he knew that that meant the doll has moved. Oh, no. It's very Pavlovian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or like leaving a scent trail.

You could never go back to any sort of body of water without being like, you know. Yeah, exactly. You could only be in pools from now on. If you got to have a smell associated with every movement you make, what would it be? Lemon, citrus. I walked right into that, didn't I? What about you? Actually, I would say actually in reality like a nice cedar, like a nice cedar smell, you know?

Is that your favorite smell? I love that smell. Like kind of an instant, like a cedar pine, like wintry smell. I know what you're talking about. Like the green candles, the green candles. Yes, the green spruce. Stop it. I'm a spruce.

What about you? You shut up right now. You can have lemon. No, no, I'm a spruce. What about you? You shut up right now. You can have lemon. No, no. I'm fine. I don't know. You know what? Now I'm just listing my favorite smells.

I think that's what we're both doing. Okay. It's okay. Well, it would not have any attachment to me, though. No smell. What do you... Oh, like what would would my, like, signature... Yeah, like, what would people know me as smell-wise?

Listeners, weigh in. Listeners, yeah, what do you think Em smells like? I guess they wouldn't really know. This isn't smell-o-vision. Thank God, because I would probably just be sweaty. I just always smell, like, deodorant yeah me too i mean if i'm getting to like pick a smell like i i'm not gonna turn down the smell of like brownies in the oven you know or like see i'm not a food smell type of person because then i'm like but now i want the

food like if the food's not there then i get disappointed i'm the food version i'm not the candle version of food but i am the food version of food. Right. Oh, got it. Okay. So you wouldn't be just like a fake smell of brownies. You'd be like, no, now there's literally brownies here. No, I don't.

Yeah. I would, if I want it, I want to confuse you and make you fucking think there's brownies in the oven. And then, well, that's, and then you're like, well, I'd be a poltergeist probably. So, so you'd actually make the brownies for me? No, no. in the oven and then well that's and then you're like well i'd be a poltergeist probably so so you'd actually make the brownies for no i would just want to torture you oh you're just being cruel intentionally got it oh okay i should you know what you know what's a good smell though christine that's a great tell me i have this candle oh i have this candle say more it's grapefruit oh it's grapefruit and uh oh what is it oh what is it oh lavender and

bergamot oh where did you get that i want it it's divine oh it's a tarjay it is a tarjay of course yeah i gotta get that because i love my tarjay i got a candle burning right now my favorite target candle is my cinnamon pumpkin uh muffin candle oh man that's the best halloween candle here's a question for you when it comes to fall are you an apple scent or a pumpkin scent i think i'm more of an apple i'm an apple you too i feel like we had this conversation before and we both agreed for once i've never cared for pumpkin not i mean that one should keep its ears shut as i say this but um the little one behind me but i don't oh i'm like who's behind me okay next to me no i don't i don't like pumpkin snacks i don't like pumpkin smells i don't

like pumpkins carving pumpkins i'd rather die like i'm just dramatic at all pumpkins are just we're not with you i i do like it i'm not gonna lie i do and i like my pumpkin candle but like if i were to have to choose i think i'd go the apple route for sure. Or just like this, this wood smells, you know, I don't know. I just listen. I love a I love a. Sorry, you know what? Or Oriental Trading just emailed me that they're going to refund me all the money and reship everything. Oh, shit.

So nice. I emailed them earlier and I just saw it come into my inbox. Sorry. Ask them if they are like team apple or team pumpkin. They'll know what it means. This poor person is like, that's not in my manual. Okay. Anyway.

Wow. Tangent time. Okay. Where were we? Oh, the smell of pond water. Jesus. Okay. So the most delightful smell to be associated with

right right right wait what do you think eva would what's eva's signature smell or like what do you think would be like a good fit for eva since she can't be here to defend herself even though oh yeah yeah hmm i feel like by her aesthetic i would expect it to be some sort of incense like i feel like she her house gives like like a warm like yeah yeah or like a like a linen candle like a something oh that's nice to me it's like a lot like maybe i'm thinking margaritas like kind of like okay like a little eccentric like a little bit of like something sweet see i think maybe i'm associating calming things with eva because she saves our ass all the time that's probably true i'm like she smells like a like a warm towel like you know she smells like paxil oh wait she smells like zoloft the bottom of a zoloft bottle which by the way is my least favorite

smell so i hope not um no i could see why you would think like a like a citrus like a lime i could see that yeah that's what i get like kind of a lime like tangerine something like fun and fruity you know just like she is sorry eva that's a good thing i swear yeah you don't smell like pond water so relax you know so calm down okay she said i'll take it she says okay good um fun and fruity pond water she says okay that could be okay so um let's see pond water oh okay so every time he's smelling pond water he's associating it with the doll moving he's waking up every day and the doll's in a different location in his house soon he's waking up and he's feeling watched and one night at 3 a.m there's a knock on the door and weirdly the

motion sensors out front did not go off which super duper freaks me out because now there's something just in the shadows yeah yeah uh and also a knock that the that loud that will wake you up makes me feel like it's intentional and needs you to wake up but now it's still working doing so the friend goes to not the friend fuck marcel goes to check you do a find a replace i know so marcel goes to check and opens the door but no one is there but still he feels like he's just made a huge mistake as if he has invited something in oh it's been banging on the walls and now he's letting it in he went around and made sure that his house was locked but freaked out he calls danny who

suggested that uh you know hey let's go out for a little bit and you know take a drive or something to distract ourselves when they get back to the house everything feels a little calmer marcel goes to bed but wakes up at 10 a.m to his dog barking um his dog's barking he gets up to see what's going on and he realizes that in the hall there are several muddy footprints on the floor okay worst fucking nightmare bear footprints too now we're not talking bear like the animal we're talking no can you imagine that's its own adventure of like that they're both nightmares to be clear they're both really scary especially like where did the bear go is it like in the bathroom but my dumb ass would be like what what is that a dog print like i wouldn't

even know it was a bear so i'm like such an idiot but you're talking bare feet like bare feet bare feet not like oh we there's a grizzly in this house um and i think he ate my dog i'm not positive if honestly if you survived a bear walking through your house and you just slept through that you'd be, either that was the dumbest bear or I'm the luckiest person. I'm like, yeah. And your dog's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Oh, this poor dog. Okay.

No, bare feet. So they see muddy bare feet all over the floor, which is so much freakier for some reason, because if it's boots, you can assume, oh, someone broke in. But if it's bare feet, it's like, did someone take their fucking shoes off to be clean and they were still covered in mud? Like what's this about? It's covered in like pond water probably. Oh yeah.

Like swampy, muddy. Right. Like walking out of a pond. Ugh. Yeah. Bare feet is so much more intimate and personal. Yeah.

It's bad. So when he sees this this of course he smells pond water again and he knew that the doll must have moved on its own so when investigating his house he now hears heavy breathing around him and he compared it to his grandpa who had a tracheotomy um what a poll what a specific yeah yeah that like could just said how many people can relate to it could just said heavy breathing but um anyway so he hears heavy breathing freaks out grabs a dog heads for danny's house danny lets them stay for a while and freaked out while they're sleeping danny is now online trying to do some like recon about what

this could be cool danny finds out through literally this has been 2016 so very uh apropos he finds out on the paranormal subreddit yes um he makes a throwaway account called wigged hiker throwaway which like like wigged out um oh i was like wow is that one of his hobbies okay got it so he makes a post describing what's going on and states that his friend is thinking of burning this carving to end the issue it's like what should i do should we actually burn this thing pretty much everyone immediately is like do not burn that that's a terrible idea don't do that don't do that but they also couldn't come up with any alternatives some people were saying to throw it into moving water some were saying to just

assertively tell this entity to stop and go away um some people were giving contact information for paranormal experts um there was a whole bunch but a lot of people also didn't even believe the story and some actually thought that marcel deserved it for taking the doll okay i mean it's too late for that but thanks a lot it's like thanks for your non-help yeah so there was a lot of people who had different opinions about what to do but mostly people said that you should take it back to where you found it apologize and then leave an offering and cleanse your own house okay that's fair advice yeah i could start there and however a few days later danny comes back on the subreddit to post an update and the update says sorry i haven't posted things got worse yesterday night so we sent the statue to a guy

in the comments today zach it was called not it's called back zagans it's the username we don't know throw away um so far so good thanks to everyone who actually tried to help and didn't just call us a couple of fucking idiots yeah yeah um so the guy in the comments when i read that i was like um did this guy fucking ask for it how'd you have his address what's going on but this guy in the comments his name was greg newkirk and he left his contact information for Danny about having the doll sent to him. Wait a second. Greg Newkirk, we were just talking to Roz about Greg and Dana. Oh, OK. OK. You know this already. OK. Though I was about in my very next.

Oh, OK. Because I have a tab open with their names so I don't forget. So I've been like looking at it every day like, oh, I got to look them up. Because apparently they live in Cincinnati. My very next bullet is Greg and Dana Newkirk. They co-curate the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and Occult in Cincinnati, Ohio and in Kentucky. See, I didn't know that. And I'm like, how did I not know that? I got to reach out to them.

They also are consultants as paranormal experts for the TV show Finding Bigfoot. So and the next thing I was going to say is that we have just been mutual friended with them. Yes. And so anyway, that was it was going to be an opening for you to talk about it if you wanted to. So that worked out very perfectly. I love that. Sorry sorry i burst in with with what you've never done that before um yeah i'm excited to uh to hit because they did they also i think helped produce hellier

um and they're i think they've been on astonishing legends i don't know i feel like i i definitely know of them i just had no idea they were local. So now I can really, you know, be a be a pest. Yeah, especially because one of their friends told us that we could contact them. So I got to go ahead. I have a permission slip from Roz. Exactly. So anyway, it was a perfect timing that I did these notes. So if you were looking for a sign to reach out. Hilarious. Actually, I love that M. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to keep this tab open. I was reading.

Chat later. I was reading my notes and I was like, get the fuck out of here. And so. That is so weird. That is weird. The timing. I'm glad you picked up on it. Otherwise, I was going to be like, oh, I don't know if I should say anything.

Okay. I'm glad you picked up on it. So Greg was the guy who commented on that's crazy subreddit and said like hey if you need help with this carving or this doll you can send it my way which means maybe we could see this wait a second i'm that means i'm very close to that doll right now by the way you're only like two degrees of separation from the stall i'm like 10 miles away maybe yikes that's look up the traveling museum of the paranormal and occult and you'll see see how far away it is from you museum of the what paranormal paranormal and occult visit where to visit events

uh oh my god it's in for mitchell kentucky hold on um let me see from my house that would be just about six miles great well super now you know what you're doing after this drive 15 minute drive there um not too bad i'm gonna become a museum member is one of the tabs on here oh you have to yeah i have to hello like when you visit we're gonna have some activities to do yes yeah yeah yeah so okay they were uh they reached out to danny and danny wrote back to greg and greg said that marcel should definitely put the figure back where they found it and apologize um so danny and marcel agree and danny goes over to marcel's house so they can or danny and marcel both go back to marcel's house because remember he ran away the two of them go back to

marcel's house to grab the doll so they can start this going back to the cave and putting it away but the dog won't go inside and the doll is sitting in the middle of the hall and next to the doll is a massive crack in the drywall as if the figure had been thrown and crashed into the wall now he has like a fucking deposit is gone too this sucks they grab the doll they apologize that for even messing with it and they were originally going to return it back to the cave but they like they said it as they were apologizing like okay now let's go back to the cave and you know we're gonna put you back and they both immediately got this sense of dread that that was the absolute wrong thing to do. No way.

And to never go back to the cave. So outside of the house, the dog starts freaking out. Poor baby. They get up and in the living room, they see an old, soaking wet, naked woman with glowing eyes. fuck what the fuck danny and the friend race out of the house and they realize that they forgot the fucking doll again so they have to go oh these people so they realize if they go back inside the house and after a few like after a few minutes they like get the courage to go back in there and the woman's gone. That's good, I guess.

They apologize to the figure again, put it in a pillowcase, and then instead of bringing it to the cave, they just send it directly to Greg. They're like, we don't even want to go into the woods with this thing. Did he get a pillowcase with a stamp on it? Right. They spun it really fast so it all twisted up by itself yeah there you go just tie the knot and toss it in the mailbox so because of this old woman that is where the doll officially gets its name the crone lovely so when um when this doll got to greg and Dana, they put her in their office. And by that night, they start hearing sounds in that room.

They hear something and go check on it and find that one of their figures of Jesus ripped off of its own crucifix and was thrown across the room. Oh, my. I was going to say, oh, my Christ. That seems a little too on the nose. Wowza. And like ripped off so hard that one of the arms stayed on the crucifix. So now Jesus is armless. Jesus.

Christ. Again. Jesus Christ. Greg soon also starts having stomach issues that are so painful that he considers going to the ER, which I guess that never happened. But they they thought about going and they put up a motion sensor camera in the office to keep an eye on the crone on the doll. And eventually they catch it slightly moving on its own. At one point, they're even live streaming video of the crone so other people can like watch it at night and one is totally my kind of like lo-fi background music and then just

like watching this crone figure on a live stream you know they said calm down i don't know if they still do it but at one point the queen mary had a 24 7 surveillance camera in the pool one point the queen mary had a 24 7 surveillance camera in the pool for people to like see more places need to do that i think so i mean entertainment zach bagans has it like in every inch of his fucking museum it's so smart just to have footage and just have someone constantly checking somebody it's like crowdsourcing like somebody will notice it even if you're not watching. Wait, that's a very good idea just to have something live streaming nonstop. Why not? So one viewer of this stream told Greg that she ended up having a nightmare later of a woman saying that Greg swallowed nails while he was sleeping.

And this woman put the nails in his mouth. OK, so I said, what's wrong? What could possibly go wrong with a live stream? Here I am getting the answer. Yeah. And so that made Greg think back to his stabbing stomach pains of like, shit, what if I symbolically swallowed nails? Also, remember, nails were in the eyes of the doll. Yes. So it's almost like they're becoming one or something.

I don't know. And so he wondered if the crone had something to do with with all this yikes shortly after that they begin to smell intense pond water and no wet footprints start appearing in their home and on top of their furniture which like ew that feels poltergeisty because i'm like not even an alive human is usually walking on top of your furniture yeah um this is a quote from greg haunted objects like misbehaving children tend to respond and retaliate to the attention given to them during tantrums but our usual routine of ignoring the bad behavior was not working um so i guess that i guess that was their original plan of like oh you can send this thing to us and we're going to ignore whatever happens until it goes away until it calms down

now it's just escalating yeah so greg now tells the doll uh if we'd left you with the hikers you would have found your way into a fire pit or a garbage can if you found your way to a priest you'd be bound and buried or worse locked on a dusty shelf for years we're happy for you to live here but only if you respect the situation if you've got unfinished business we'll help you put it to bed but if you don't treat us respectfully you're going in the box now that's called gentle parenting it feels like gentle parenting and also a reminder of set a boundary yeah i'm setting a lot of boundaries and also you need to be grateful because we're being nice um suddenly they hear from another room huge amounts of water pouring down as if a pipe had just burst

oh shit they ran to the sound and then the sound stopped out of nowhere as soon as they got to where they thought they heard it coming then they heard a thud and the crone itself rolled off of a table by on her own she fell under a tv so when greg bent down to grab the doll this was like all intentional for the doll to roll off the table and under the TV. Because then he goes and bends down and the TV on its own starts falling forward as if to land on him and kill him. Oh my God. Luckily, Dana catches it before it hit Greg. But the lights start flickering and the couple hears three big knocks on the walls.

And Greg and Dana are officially fed up. They put the doll into a secure box, which is they, you know, they're following through on their boundaries. That's exactly right. And it's one of the very few items in their collection that almost all the time stays locked up. And it's also one of the only items in their museum that visitors cannot handle, which means you can handle a lot of stuff over there if you wanted to. Okay, I hear it. I hear it. I'm excited.

When visitors do see the crone at the museum, they often recoil from her, smell pond water, and feel their eyes burning. So in like 15 minutes, you're going to know for sure how you feel about this when you drive over. Yeah, I'll let you know after the break.

Yeah. Elevator music? No. So Greg, Danaana and countless psychics have uh different ideas as to the origin and purpose of the crone um some say that it's an ancient babylonian spirit others think that it could be a protective spirit meant to guard a ritual site it could be a vengeful entity involved in a curse um in one article greg wrote that they don't know the intention behind the crone therefore they may never understand it and that is the cat skills crone that one was creepy um i the bare wet footprints on the furniture oh my lord it was a quickie but it was a goodie

it was I still have like goose cam on my neck oh yeah that's an interesting one yes I don't know I was just gonna say like don't take stuff out of like I'm always

the one who's tempted to do that don't take stuff out of like like, I'm always the one who's tempted to do that. Don't take stuff out of, like, places you find them. Like, you know, like this. I gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, like, don't, guys. Just don't do it.

I feel like if I saw something burnt into a shard and then had nails in its eyes, I'd be like, that one's not for me. I know, but, like, knowing me, I'd be like, but I want to take it home and you know you'd fucking think it's cute and like get emotionally attached to it exactly that's exactly it i can save him he needs a home i'm like he looks sad he looks so sad with those nails in his eyes i want to take him home. Well, I got nothing on that one, Christine. Well, I've been weighing in my head whether to tell this part or not, but I guess I'll just put him on blast. My grandfather. Here we go. Here we go.

My mom was going. I forget where she was going to some town. It was either in Portugal or I think it was in Portugal. And my grandpa was like, before you go, can you do me a favor while you're there? And my mom was like, sure. And he literally gave her, this is not a joke, a bone. No. And he said, can you put this back in this certain basilica?

Oh my God. no and he said can you put this back in this certain basilica oh my god so my mom had to go to the specific basilica because my grandfather had stolen a finger bone from a nun like decades ago runs in the family am i right oh i know and my mom was like then i had to go and find this place and make some excuse to be taken down to the catacombs. I was like, holy shit, what? By the way, I can't even imagine if your mom did it smoothly or just directly said, my father stole a finger from a nun. So here.

Honestly, she probably did it that way. I wouldn't blame her either. Like what? Like what? You didn't say lie for me. Mission impossible way do you get down into the catacombs to be fair she has done that quite often we'll be somewhere and she's like you just have to look like you know what you're doing all this is a legend it's not real and i'm not gonna get arrested so don't try

but basically we'll go to somewhere and she'll be like there as i'm like there's a rope or a sign she's like i don't care and she's just like i feel like you just have to like the only thing stopping most people is social anxiety like it's the fear of being told like it's the fear of being caught and being told you have to leave and being in that like shame moment yeah yeah if you don't have shame you can get away with a whole lot that's actually what it is i think i have so much shame and my mom has like zero and so when i'm with her i'm like whatever yeah we'll do what you say and um yeah so we've gotten into a lot of catacombs and sometimes they literally just have the skeletons on display and you're like okay that's wild yeah so anyway my grandfather took a finger bone and then i guess like decades later he was like i just don't think

that was a good idea and everyone was like yeah like what was going on was he having things follow him or something i don't know i think my mom just uh i think my mom said he just was getting older and was like hmm starting to weigh my like pros and cons of my actions in life like am i going to hell or not yeah like maybe this is not it you know because he must something must have happened or he must have always felt a little guilty because if i stole something decades ago yeah i wouldn't even remember it you wouldn't know where it was yeah yeah so something must have been happening for him to for to stay on his mind yeah i wonder i'm gonna ask her for more because of knowing her she just like forgot to tell me that like also a poltergeist was happening at the same time also the power move of like

taking a finger like it's not like oh you were digging around in like a local park and accidentally found something yeah did he rip it off of a hand like yeah i was just sitting out like as a display oh my god that's like like does he go to museums and steal fossils like i mean probably i don't know i don't know that's bananas i am not putting any dinosaur bones back for him because i'm not about to get in trouble um right like you can deal with the consequences sir um i have a tale for you today this is a murder called the murder of julia martha thomas also known as the barnes mystery and uh this as yours was a shorty and a goodie this one is an oldie but a goodie this takes place in the late 1800s late 19th century uh it was about a woman

named kate webster she was actually born katherine lawler in collaine county wexford ireland around 1849 or 1850 and this was in the midst of english colonial rule uh during which the devastating great famine otherwise known as the potato famine took place um and that is when the english government uh official in charge of relief efforts decided to pull back on government aid and uh you know starve the people to death with the following quote the judgment of god sent the calamity to teach the irish a lesson uh cool love that gotta love it um what a piece of shit. So this was all going on. And in just seven years during this time, the combination of death and emigration out of Ireland saw the country lose a quarter, 25 percent of its population. And so obviously, as you can imagine, during this time, many people did what they had to do for survival. And Kate was no different. She became a petty

thief as a child to make a living, to survive. And she was imprisoned in Wexford at 15 years old for larceny. And when she got out, she stole money to take a ferry to Liverpool, England. And when she arrived, she continued to steal for survival there as well. When she was 18, she wound up in prison once again, this time for four years. And Kate told people that she was married to a sea captain at one time, which is where she got her last name. But historians are pretty sure she just made up a fake last name and changed her name. And a story.

And made up a story, precisely. She also said she had four children with this sailor who all died, including the sailor. And as tragic as that is, we're pretty sure that's not true and that she made it up. Oh, okay. as tragic as that is we're pretty sure that's not true and that she made it up oh okay to give herself like a false backstory and kind of create this new identity it also probably wasn't that uncommon like that to us sounds like a terrible backstory because like not only could we fact

check it now but like like that just never happens like what would the odds be but back then i think well it was easier for kids to just die. Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. And if it is true, obviously very tragic. It's just that the number of times that she changed her name and her stories kind of point to like, this was probably just another. Especially because she had been in prison and jail for most of this time. So like when when did you have four children where are they like i don't know it just didn't really add up people people believed her because why not but um looking back people are pretty sure this captain webster never existed um got it so after her release she moved around uh england doing domestic work and eventually she moved to notting hill you know which i obviously know as one of my favorite vhs tapes growing up and uh she moved

in as a cook and housekeeper where she met a man named strong oh what a manly manly name she thought so too because they had a son together in April of 1874. But unfortunately, Strong walked out on Kate and her son, their son. And so she resorted to thievery once again to survive. Now, she was in and out of prison over the years. And while she was in prison, her friend Sarah Crease would take care of her son, whatever she was, you know, MIA. Yeah, what a homie. What a homie.

Yeah, I know. You got to have somebody like Sarah around if you're going to be in and out of jail. So in May of 1875, she was sent to prison on 36 charges of larceny and she served 18 months and then was immediately sentenced to another year for a different crime and by 1879 january of 1879 kate was finally free again and this is when she met a woman named mrs julia martha thomas in richmond london i had to google it so i was like richmond virginia no no no so not quite julia was in her early 50s she was twice widowed and she's described in several sources as eccentric but nobody like explains any further what kind of eccentric okay i feel like that's pretty vague and also we both

know that eccentric was like a bless your heart when i was growing up so it's like a backhanded like kind of yeah yes which like were you were you artsy or were you just like the the local weirdo were you like a loner were you yeah there's something or did you like yeah wear funky glasses you know who knows but was something, some combination of the above because people described her as eccentric. But she was really popular. People really liked her at church. Her relatives, her family was really close with her. And she wasn't particularly wealthy, but she did have enough money, enough finances to hire a maid.

And so she decided to hire somebody, a young woman to work for her and kate who had been living under several aliases trying to find work stepped up to her doorstep and seemed to fit the bill um kate thought this is perfect i'll live in this house this nice house and i'll work for julia and like make a good living but pretty immediately Kate showed that she was not very good at being a maid um oh boy did a little yeah this is like legit this is like how I would be it was like she's spilling stuff dropping things bumping into cabinets I mean it's like how I would try so hard and just be a colossal failure at this kind of work. I mean, I can't even keep my own house clean. But so Julia was a little bit frustrated.

Like, I don't think this is what it's supposed to be like hiring a maid. And according to her, Kate spent way too much time at the pub and was actually an alcoholic and not enough time working and was just drinking instead of working. And when she did work, it was careless. Julia was disappointed. So a few weeks into Kate's service julia gave her final notice and said by february 28th you're out of here that's your last day um kate didn't take that news very well as her last day approached she

started to become more and more hostile and julia said is it hostile or hostile i think it's like a vase or vase okay is it vase or vase is it foyer or foyer help me i'm spiraling i say hostile okay me too obviously she became hostile so julia said she felt unsafe with kate at home. And sometimes she even had her church friends stay the night because she was so nervous around her maid. I know it's like she hired this woman. Now she like can't get rid of her basically. So on February 28th, Kate comes up to Julia and says, I know this is my last day, but I haven't found a new job. I have nowhere else to go. Please, can you just let me stay the weekend? So we don't know if it was out of fear or sympathy, but Julia unfortunately agreed and said, okay, fine, you can stay over

the weekend until March 2nd, and then you have to be out of the house. Sure. So March 2nd was a Sunday, and in the morning before church, Kate and Julia got into an argument before Julia left for the church service. Kate had Sunday afternoons off between morning church service and evening church service, and Julia went to both. So Kate had to be home prior to each service to help Julia get ready. It sounds like she was sort of also like doubling as a lady's maid, which is like the person who helps your hair and helps you dress. Buttons your corset.

Buttons your corset, exactly. Puts ribbons in your hair. And so she had to be there to help her get ready for both of these church services. So Kate started the afternoon visiting her son at Sarah Crease's home, where he was being taken care of. And then she headed to the pub and got pretty drunk she got silly she got it just got a little silly and she got home late which agitated Julia even more and they got into another argument before Julia then left for the evening service

so at church Julia's friends noticed that she was very upset and she actually ended up leaving before the service even ended which like never happened she always was a loyal church-going lady and always stayed till the end today she was so distraught that she left early when she got home she and kate got into another disagreement but this time it really really escalated apparently in the heat of the argument, Kate pushed Julia down the stairs. And when Julia landed at the bottom, Kate could tell she was badly hurt and she began screaming in pain. But Kate didn't want Julia to alert the neighbors and have her sent back to prison. So she ran down the steps and in order to silence her, she strangled Julia to death. Oh my God. Yes. Wow. So Kate later described this as a crime of

passion and that during, you know, the heat of her anger and rage, she had shoved her down the stairs. And so this was like a in the moment kind of thing. However, what Kate ended up doing with Julia's body was so twisted that it, it's hard for people to believe there wasn't at least some premeditation or like some personal element she got. Yeah. Like something she got out of it. Okay. Cause up until now I was even going to say,

Oh, well she came back from the pub and she was like all you know twisted so like maybe like she just got like worked up and yeah okay but sounds like that's good my opinion's about to change yeah so i mean i i i could believe that this part could be an act of you know like in the heat of the moment but it seems like she had it out for her further than that because what she decided to do is get herself a razor a meat saw and a carving knife and she decided to first decapitate julia and then completely dismember the rest of her body oh my god so she burned several of julia's organs to dispose of them and then she used an enormous sorry burnt individually

burned her organs yeah so had to gut her to pull out each organ. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's very. Okay. Keep going. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So dark. So she burned several of the organs. Then she used an enormous copper pot, which was usually used to like boil laundry to boil the rest of Julia's body down into like a fat. So, so grotesque okay afterward kate put the remains that she had uh in a box except for julia's head and one foot which uh okay one source says there wasn't room in the box we don't know why but most of it went into this box and her head and her foot were left behind. Kate then spent several days scrubbing the house top to bottom in an effort to cover evidence of her crime. And it was a very bloody situation.

She had to clean up. Sure. She disposed of the foot in a garbage pile and then she put Julia's head in a black bag, which she carried with her to visit some friends from a previous job. Oh, my God. Their name. It's a family called the Porters. And she just stops by with this black bag and she's like, oh, hey, how do you do? What's what's going on with you? Life's good.

And she was wearing one of Julia's nice dresses. So she had gone into her closet and taken out one of her dresses, went to the porters and said, oh, the saddest thing happened. I have an aunt and she passed away and she left me in her will, her beautiful home. And they believed it because, I don't know, they didn't have any reason not to. because I don't know they didn't have any reason not to yeah and so Kate said you know but I would love to move back to Ireland so I'm trying to sell the house with everything in it can you help me and they were like sure we can uh introduce you to some people who might want to buy a house or who might want to help you sell the house so they're walking around town together like stopping in pubs chatting with people and Kate uh uh says oh mr porter do you mind carrying my bag uh every now and then because it's it's a bit heavy and so he's just walking around town carrying her head with julia's head inside it he obviously had no idea that's even sorry that's even i i understand what i'm saying here it's all crazy but that's even more wackadoo than like

the dismembering and because i originally felt like oh maybe she was like really drunk and like even like obviously doing all that to a body like exceeds being drunk but at least that could have been an element i guess but this is like days later she's wearing the dress she's carrying a fucking head around she's like enjoying someone else like the risk of someone else finding out there's a head in her bag yes like that's exactly where it turns from like oops this was an accident to like wow you are milking this for all it's worth also like i don't know how like dismembered heads work but is she not worried about, like, blood coming out of that thing? I know. And, like, dripping everywhere?

I wonder if it's since it had been several days, if maybe that just, oh, I don't know. Or the smell. I mean, I'm not trying to be gruesome. But, like. You know, anyone could have been like, oh, my God, this bag is heavy. What's in it? Like. Yeah.

Or, hey, can I put something in your bag? Yeah. Like, oh, do you mind holding this for me? Exactly. So, yeah. like yeah or hey can i put something in your bag like yeah like oh do you mind holding this for me exactly so yeah apparently he later did say it was very heavy and uh he just helped her carry it because they would take turns carrying it it's just so dark and so at some point kate was like oh um i'm gonna go see a friend real quick. And she came back without the bag. And they were like, where to go? I mean, nobody really asked.

They were just like, huh, that's weird. She came out without the bag now. So she's bagless. Then Kate said, oh, anyway, I'm back from seeing my friend. So, Mr. Porter, your son, Robert, I'd love to chat with him. So she gets Mr. Porter's son, Robert Porter, to help her with some stuff back at her house, which is Julia's house that she's claimed is now hers. And she brings him back and says, hey, I have this box.

It's really heavy. Can you help me carry this box to a bridge bridge over the thames because i'm meeting someone there and this box is for them but it's just really heavy so obviously this is a box of julia's remains and she has robert carry this to the bridge and then she says okay anyway uh thanks a lot you can go now and as he's walking away, he hears a loud splash, which he later realizes was Kate dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it.

Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it. Dumping it.

Dumping it. Yeah. So the box, she wasn't very bright in this way because overnight it washed ashore. And the next morning a man discovered the remains near the Barnes Railway Bridge. But the body did not have a head. And so Julia could not be identified and on top of that no one knew she was missing because there was no reason to know she was missing right and so the newspaper just reported this as the barns mystery because it had been the remains had been

found near the barns railway bridge so kate worked fast selling everything out of Julia's house. She was just trying to make cash off all the stuff in the home. And she began wearing Julia's jewelry and clothing, basically took on her identity, and she started calling herself Mrs. Thomas, which was Julia's name. Yeah. Wow.

It's gone real. It spiraled fully it's too yeah yeah yep i think even she can agree this is like way too far and the next bullet point i have here which like duh is that the people who knew julia were like is that julia's maid calling herself mrs thomas what's happening you know like people in town knew her so it's just kind of a weird con that's also like gonna work it's not even like grabbing all of julia's like candles and shit and like putting it in a box and then going somewhere to another town to sell it it's like like if i like i feel like half my stuff, if it got sold to you, you'd be like, M has this exact same thing. That's so weird. But I'll take it for five dollars. Right.

Right. Right. It's true. And apparently one of the neighbors literally noticed people carrying items out of the house. And that's suspicious. Like, duh. You know, so people definitely noticed pretty quickly. And to top it off, poor Robert Porter read the newspaper article about the Barnes mystery and said, this sounds a lot like the box I helped Kate carry to the bridge the other day. So he's like, wait a minute.

Oh, I think I see what's happening here. So several people go to the police with their suspicions about Kate and investigators pretty immediately search Julia's house. That is where they collect charred bones, an axe, a razor and a handle that had broken off the box Kate dumped in the Thames. Those weren't the first thing she tried to sell. And like also the charred bones. Like I thought she got rid of all the evidence.

I thought she got rid of the evidence. Apparently not. Like it was pretty she got rid of all the evidence. I thought she got rid of the evidence. Apparently not. Like, it was pretty easy to pin it on her. The first thing I would have done has been like, oh, Mr. So-and-so, here's a saw that I don't need anymore. Would you like this saw? Yes. Or leave it in the woods or something. Or saw off the bridge.

Yes. It really was not. And then she's flaunting her dresses and jewelry around town and calling herself mrs thomas i mean it was sort of like someone was gonna notice pretty quickly yeah and they did and they were like well we know who did it obviously it was kate so they release a description of her uh and they call for her arrest so So meanwhile, Kate had fled. She had taken her son back to Ireland, but police caught up with her pretty immediately. They knew she was from Ireland.

They went there, picked her up at the end of March. And unfortunately, this also had bad ramifications for Irish immigrants throughout the UK, because at the time, you know, based on that early description of the Great Famine, anti-Irish sentiment was at an all time high. And Kate, unfortunately, seemed to fit every negative stereotype that many English people held about Irish immigrants, such as drinking too much, being lazy, being rude, being a thief, you know, and so she kind of ticked all those boxes. And so people like ate up the story and and felt sort of like, oh, my gosh, this sinister Irish immigrant woman murdering her

well-to-do English employer. Right. They just loved this story. And so this is like political fuel also for for English media to use for its agenda. And, you know, obviously, true crime is just compelling in general, but especially in the Victorian period, they were obsessed with crime. I mean, Spring Hill Jack, Jack the Ripper, not sure why they're all called Jack, but they're, you know, this was like the time where people were fascinated by these kinds of stories. If podcasting was out in those days. this would have been a humdinger this would be an old industry we're in this would be like a timely episode instead of 150 years later yeah um so you know it was also very salacious that julia thomas's killer was a woman like this was not a common thing this was you know a twist on

normal gender roles and so you know it's just a shocking headline and people ate it up and apparently they sold hundreds of thousands of papers with this story so gossip exploded some papers reported that kate had saved the fat after after boiling Julia's remains and had given it away as gifts as lard, claiming it was pig lard. There's no actual evidence to support that. So it was kind of dismissed as just like fabrication. But we're not 100 percent sure. Wasn't there that that woman who was a murderer and she sold people's fat as soap? Yep.

So maybe it's happened before yep it's possible and uh so some people claim that really happened uh in the tv shows i watched like uh snapped they definitely play that up and she's like here's some big lard you know but uh traumatization you know at its finest so it's hard to say if that was actually real or just a good plot point. But it's disturbing either way. And so, you know, when the trial commenced, this had become international news. Wealthy people and aristocrats fucking loved this story because it was like, now we're getting revenge for this Irish immigrant, like killing one of our own, you know, this well-to-do woman

didn't deserve this so the the court audience was mostly wealthy people and aristocrats and kate pretty much spent the whole trial denying any part in the crime she blamed like several other people including strong the father of her, which didn't really make any sense. And so the jury was like, we're not buying it. She blamed like three different people, then took it back and said, well, I still had nothing to do with it. It was pretty obvious she was lying. And so the defense, basically all they could argue is that, hey, you have no proof that that body is Julia's. There's no head. You have no proof that that body is Julia's. There's no head.

You have no proof. And that was their argument. And it was true, obviously. But Julia was missing and Kate was wearing her clothes and jewelry and selling her belongings and calling herself Mrs. Thomas. Yeah, we're like 99.99% sure. Yeah, exactly. So the jury was like, that's all well and good, but we're convinced and she's guilty.

So in just under an hour, Kate was sentenced to hang. And she first, fun fact, claimed she was pregnant, which would have commuted her sentence. And so she was examined by something called a jury of matrons. Okay. Now this is a fun fact. A jury of matrons was apparently a jury made up of women with relevant expertise who essentially served to examine convicted criminals who claimed to be pregnant to decide whether or not they were.

Okay. Very specific job title. like a league of mothers yes it is it feels like almost vigilante the name of it but apparently they held like some serious authority that women did not have at the time because their ruling was final so they basically had the power to commute executions and for women to be able to do that was just unheard of in like such a patriarchal legal system i also appreciate that for some reason at this point in history they were allowing women to make decisions about women yeah for once instead of like you know today like you don't even have to have a uterus but you get

all the opinion you know it's like yeah yeah yeah yeah it, like you don't even have to have a uterus, but you get all the opinion, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like they knew where they stood and they brought other people in, more experienced people. Who actually knew about women's bodies. Right. Exactly. Yes. They brought in prominent sources. Yeah. I love that. I mean, I imagine it's because the men were like, gross. We don't want to check if she's pregnant. Right. But still, it's nice to see that at least women were involved. And apparently this system actually existed for centuries until it was abolished in the 1930s.

So it was around for a while. And unfortunately for Kate, the matrons found that she had been lying. She was not pregnant. So her sentence remained. Before her execution, she finally confessed to a priest priest but the way she described it as just like a crime of passion did not add up um there were some reports that kate had even used an axe in the final killing of julia which also you know would not have fit with like just pushing her down the stairs and whatever the truth was um we'll probably never know because

it died with julia and kate um and when kate was uh hanged executions were no longer public and she was actually even given more privacy because she was a woman um so how kind of them to finally give some some sort of benefit when they're executed yeah right wow so thoughtful so reporters were not allowed to attend uh the way they apparently would a man's execution and kate was the only the second person to be hanged at the prison and by the final execution which took place in the mid-20th century she actually remained the only woman ever executed there fun fact oh fun fun it's a m fun fact it is yeah so when the prison started reusing old graves for future executions they actually left kate's grave alone because she was a woman and they didn't

they didn't disturb women's graves it's just such a weird backwards like i don't sexism i don't know i don't know what to describe it as but it's like thanks it's like i it just feels like a backhanded compliment every time yeah i don't know how to describe her but that's so thoughtful of you to let her rest in peace? It's just odd. I don't totally understand it, but I guess that was how they rolled. So anyway, after Kate's execution, there was still a mystery to be solved. Where, oh where, is Julia Thomas's head?

I was going to say, because she had it in a bag and then left it somewhere yep yep yep this gets they couldn't they didn't ask her before they killed her they did she just refused to reveal she refused to reveal where it was because again her defense team was like oh we're just gonna say that's not julia's body so right definitely don't tell them where the head is yeah so for 131 years julia's remains were incomplete and were never fully verified as to as belonging to her in 2009 do you know uh who sir david attenborough is yes okay good he like narrates planet earth he has that kind of like oh the the okay keep going chip chimpanzee i don't know he has like that british actually sounds very intelligent david attenborough yeah david attenborough yeah he has a very like uh highfalutin accent you know and he does all the nature shows and it's just very um i don't know

he has a soothing voice so this guy sir david attenborough who uh yeah narrates planet earth etc he uh decided to expand his backyard and so he bought an old pub uh The Hole in the Wall, which was located behind his house. And he was like, I'm going to use this property to expand my yard. I imagine he, being a host of Planet Earth, the earth to expand his property and they found a skull. And it took detectives eight months using modern forensics and historical research to determine that this was Mrs. Thomas's head. Wow. to determine that this was Mrs. Thomas's head. Wow.

And finally, her cause of death was officially ruled a strangulation and head trauma. This is 131 years after she had been killed. And now we're able to use the evidence to kind of conclude that Kate disposed of Julia's head beneath the stables of the pub, which was close to Julia's house. So presumably when she said, oh, I have to go see a friend real quick, she went into the stables of a nearby pub and disposed of the bag and the head underneath the stables. And that is where it lay for 131 years until Julia's identity could finally be completely, you know, acknowledged.

Science is fucking crazy. Science is amazing. How did, how on earth, without DNA evidence from 130 years ago, how did they know it was her? I believe you, but like how? I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm no scientist. Oh my God. I believe. Yeah. Well. Yeah. her i like i believe you but like i have no idea i have no idea i'm no scientist oh i know i believe yeah well yeah and well i mean they also knew where her home had been they knew i mean i'm not

sure but i'm sure they could tell that this head had been decapitated off of a body so they probably were able to right make that leap um but yeah that is the story i just i it's just so bananagrams that like sir david attenborough's like i guess i'll do some uh renovations it's always wild that like anyone could find a a yeah decapitated head but then like for it to be someone that everyone knows it just feels like even rarer like what are the fucking odds of that happening it's so random like what are the odds that he would buy the property next door and then decide to expand take down the building over there it's just so like the way the machinations of setting that up over public history. Imagine if he did a documentary on that cold case and then he went, but at the end, I found the head. And then he steps into frame like, yes, it is I. It was me all along.

And then he's in his little English garden having tea. Yeah, right here, right where I sit. Watch, watch as I have a sip of my chamomile anyway why is that wow that is crazy and also i'm pretty sure that whole story passed the bechdel test because like i didn't hear about a man for quite some time great fucking point even when kate was like oh, it was this guy and this guy. Like, that didn't even stick. Yeah. Hmm.

Wow. I'm going to send you a couple pictures that I have here. Hold on. Of what? The head? No, God, no. David Ambrose. Of Planet Earth.

I just really love some. Have you ever seen where snoop dog like narrates planet earth scenes yes yes it's the best it's the best you know when i was in high school my boyfriend at the time oh that doesn't feel right nope uh all he ever wanted to do he'd be like come over to my place and we would just sit and watch planet earth while he got stoned that was i mean i mean as a newcomer to you know the lifestyle i get it now wow like i could i used to watch planet earth and just be enamored as it is but like you know you add that in and it's like it was like holy every friday night he was like let's get stoned and watch planet Earth I love that for him did you just sit there

I just fucking sat I didn't even like Planet Earth that much I was like you didn't even like boys none of it was fun I was just sitting on the couch I pretended to like a lot of things for crushes but you didn't even have that going for him his room was in the basement and he had like turned it into like

this like actual like a really cool party pad and so I would just like walk around and like mess with his stuff you just sat there on the couch like have a good time and like do your own thing he had like his like old i spy books from when he was a little kid and so i would just know those if i got high into that i think my brain would explode but i used to love those books anyway anytime i hear planet earth i'm like oh i just like i i'm sure it's, but I associate it with being so fucking bored. That's kind of hilarious because I remember like they would play it at school and I would be like, jokes on you. I love this show.

Yeah. Boring. And I was like, I'm actually so into this right now. Good times. Good times. Well. Oh, wait. I've got to send you the photos here they are oh it's just like a newspaper clipping um and then like they would do these like kind of gruesome like recreations like they would draw the hanging like right before they were hanged i don't know it's kind of gross it's like oh like because back then like you had to draw the picture

for it to be in the newspaper. Exactly. But like reporters weren't even allowed. So I imagine they had to just imagine what it looked like, which is a weird fucking thing to do. Yeah. So on the front page, it's a drawing of her execution. But if they weren't there, then they just drew. They were like, I imagine there were four white guys.

Yeah, they just drew like. Standing around her with a rope. My guess is as good as yours, but I'm the one that got hired to draw it. But you can't draw, so here it is. It's kind of like the Lizzie Borden newspaper. Oh, yeah. All of the articles about her murdering her parents, the pictures of her are like drawn portraits because weird they didn't have photographs back then it was they're like you know this woman and people

like oh yeah yeah or they had photographs but not like you know they didn't have the budget for that i guess but they could afford a sketch artist for every other page anyway wow that was that was a topsy-turvy story i gotta say it's uh it was full of twists and turns you know what does your shirt say oh it says um mamasaurus oh so i got for blaze's first father's day i got him and leona matching shirts hers says leona saurus and his says daddy rex or something like that oh god and they would always wear them i know it's something stupid and they would always wear them to the museum together and then the following year i got one and i was like okay but i'm like thank you please but i'm not wearing this like with you two together like you guys can wear your matching shirts but like i wear something else i don't

believe you i think all three of you like to wear matching outfits when you go out together i wish i just don't have the balls for that i'm sorry what you know as soon as someone would like point it out you'd feel so nervous and embarrassed for the rest of the day yeah um what uh ending on a happy note what's your current favorite outfit of Leona's that she can fit into? Oh, my gosh. I got her a little sweatshirt from Kohl's that says pumpkin. And apparently Lauren Conrad has a line of toddler clothing at Kohl's. Fun fact. Oh, my God. All so cute and like, you know, fall neutrals.

And like, so I got a little maroon leggings with a little shirt that says pumpkin. But I also bought us, okay, speaking of matching shirts, I bought us these shirts. Mine says momster and hers says, oh my God, what does hers say? Like, oh, I know what mine says because i'm i've worn it so often uh let me make sure i find it christine oh yeah her shirt just says little monster oh and like in like cute it's like a light purple shirt with like lime green like kind of creepy writing it says mama's little monster and then my shirt says momster dope anyway it's very cute it's silly and dorky but you know what are you gonna take

her to the pumpkin patch this year i haven't even thought about it but yes but you should make her wear the shirt that says pumpkin wait that's cute actually hang on and then the caption for your instagram can be my favorite pumpkin in the patch god damn you're like writing my whole life script now i love it and then you can talk to farmer bob you can get on a tractor riding because the beginning of funkle m you know and then mention me the whole time and then every year she's like mom do we have to do the whole tractor ride where you met m thing again i'll be like this is a really special memory i want you to be part of it one day you'll appreciate yeah oh well farmer bob and i say hi and we miss you are you doing any fall stuff obviously yeah obviously um question honestly you're really you're just a big stupid stupid dubby stupid idiot what was that me yeah i was gonna say what's the

thing that we were saying for a while it was an idiot oh yeah because renee used to say idiot but when she was when she really meant it she would put like an emphasis on the last t and it it stung so bad say it yeah you're such an idiot and it was like whoa because it wasn't like oh you're such an idiot it was like you're such an idiot and it was like whoa because it wasn't like oh you're such an idiot it was like you're such an idiot and it felt like so cruel yeah it cuts well uh i don't know how to end anyway i like i were like on a positive note anyway um well i guess on a positive note we can say we're gonna go do our and and that's why drink after hours. Yes. Chat.

Do we have a topic? Do you have a topic? I forget. Sure. I have a topic. Oh, I was also going to eventually talk about active. Oh, wait. We already did active serial killers, didn't we?

Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. We'll talk something ghosty this time. Okay, cool. And that's why we drink.