And That's Why We Drink - E355 Ghouls, Gays, Theys and Cottage Core Lesbian Hauntings

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Do gay people attract poltergeists? It's episode 355 and Em is taking us to a haunted U.K. theme park, Alton Towers, that just might be tied to a cottage-core lesbian couple. Take us to the haunted gift shop! Then Christine re-visits the Amityville Horror House to deep dive into the true crime and murder sides of the case. And, weigh in: do you need an Excel spreadsheet to have fun? ...and that's why we drink!

christine whoa and m that is our new theme song i commissioned i went on fiverr and i paid five dollars for someone to make this a song and i said just accent my name because that's if i make five dollars off that i'm gonna be writing a lot of songs soon yeah sometimes m uh will text me or will venmo me and does this to like a lot of their friends like venmo like um ugly tax one cent and uh i pay it every time, my friend. So I put it on Instagram. And then like five minutes later, I was like, well, you reposted it was like, well, she paid for it. And I was like, you know what?

You're right. Like, I can't say, wow, how dare you? Like if I'm the one paying the tax, you know, it sounds like it was a reasonable fare and a reasonable it was a reasonable price for a reasonable reason. And you said, all right, here I go. I said, fine, here's a cent. Yeah. Ugly tax, straight tax.

Well, now I can't charge you straight tax. If anything, I owe you 50% back. Oh, my God. I'm going to start charging you for your homophobia. But anytime I've got a straight friend, about once a month, they get a dollar requested from me. What if I said I was bi just to avoid the one cent tax that you used to send me every month i honestly that's you're evading tax law you're a venture capitalist or whatever it is i that sounds like that's entrepreneurship oh thank you probably saved a whole nickel by now i honestly and i'm gonna spend it that shiny nickel can't wait um how am i

um same yeah i work i'm good now i've been in a bit of a hole for the last few weeks yeah yeah yeah yeah just a lot going on nothing like super dire i think everything just felt like it was coming in at once and i've been very overwhelmed and i feel like i haven't gotten to sit and fucking relax and it's that's it's fucking scorpio season let's be clear um they always do it to us yeah it's showing she's rearing her ugly head um ugly tax one penny please pay it up pay it up scorpios um yeah i just i feel like i haven't really gotten like any time to breathe lately and then in a couple days i'm about to be gone for like two weeks because i'm traveling i feel like i've got a wedding then i'm seeing other people and

then i've got thanksgiving it's just it just never ends. So, yeah. Yeah. A little bit of treading water until I drown is how I feel. Treading water is a good way to put it. Yeah, that is what I feel as well. Yes. I have a chaotic reason for why I drink. OK, tell me. Because which like if you hang on, how am I going to phrase this? Oh, God.

Hmm. So, last night was the first night in a while I've actually had like a second to breathe. Well, not really, but I had some time. Some time, but I found a way to use it very unwisely, which is I found a new hyperfixation. And it is the Waffle House marking system for their menu where okay i'm glad you don't know and if you've ever worked at a waffle house too so i'm like primed for this information i'm ready christine it's fucking crazy pants okay so um if you if you work at waffle house can you please like send me like a full cheat sheet because I want to memorize the entire thing.

But you know how at a restaurant, usually there's a POS system where they just write on the ticket what you order? They have code, secret code. Maybe not so secret, but they don't write anything down they use their own ingredients and and like put it and put random like butter packets and jelly packets all arranged a certain way on a plate and that's how they tell the cook what to make no so like one butter packet means like a waffle two stacked on top of each other means a double stack one upside down means and they're like it's fucking crazy by the way like that's the most normal information i'm about to give you if you put a butter pack with a jelly packet on it that means um it could mean either blueberry waffle or it could mean dry toast or

if you put a ketchup packet horizontal it means you want a steak but if you have it vertical on the left side of the plate versus the right side of the plate means different things doesn't it slide around i guess not if you want if you put pickles if you're looking at a plate you put pickles on the top of the plate like uh north if you okay that means ham if you put it east it's sausage if you put it south it's bacon if you put it west it means this sounds like you've been locked in a basement for too long and like you're you've come up with like an entire world in your own mind like wherever you put wherever you put the jelly packet there's like

five different locations on the plate to tell you how you want your eggs cooked if you do it a different way like implied if you put the if you put a mayonnaise packet one direction or on one side it means chicken if you flip it over it means something else it's like it's the craziest i mean you're right i've never heard of such a thing how did is this a is this a tiktok revelation reddit how did you discover this uh it had to be tiktok but also is is the like mafia like the waffles mafia gonna like silence the waffer the waffia is the waffia gonna silence you for sharing their secrets like i won't be silenced by the waffia i won't okay all right well watch it watch yourself because i will be silenced and i don't feel like it right now so so i found a couple cheat sheets for people who like work

there and i guess it's like always posted over the grill or something found a couple of those memorized them now i'm trying to like now i'm trying to learn every single little thing i want to learn i want to learn the whole thing for what reason none also if you apparently that's just for the people cooking but then if you write it down a certain way they write it down really fast But it's also its own complete different jargon. Like it doesn't just say fucking eggs and bacon. It's like there's a whole like script that they write and it's in crazy words. So Waffle House is just as fucking bonkers as we all thought. OK.

I mean, yeah, I feel like this is enlightening. But also, yeah, like you said, not surprising necessarily. Yeah. It feels like Waffle House this entire time. It's like it's like it's all connected because I'm feeling like Waffle House has always been run by people who are their best and worst at 3 a.m. And now it's just making even more sense in their business practices because. Yeah, it's sort of like they've they've evolved or devolved into their own language. And it's like, well, what did we say?

They had a troll hole and they were like, we're going to write it in code. And then they just really committed to it. And everyone's like, well, what did we say? They had a troll hole and they were like, we're going to write it in code. And then they just really committed to it. And everyone was like, you don't have to do that. You can write blueberry waffle. And they're like, no, that's too easy. So anyway, that's my reason why I drink is because this week's hyperfixation is the Waffle House marking code.

I'm very impressed. Thank you for sharing that with me. Thank you. Why do you drink, Christine? I think i've got myself a a guess no here we go let's take it away i'm so tired i'm so i'm so okay we had a big project okay m is that's what m is referring to we had a big project you'll hear about it later So that was finally the deadline was approaching. It was really stressful. We were not sleeping. We were up all night, blah, blah, blah, blah. Literally the day that this project was due, the next morning I had to drive to Pittsburgh for a live show with Zandy for Beachy Sandy,

which was a delight, of course. Then the next day was Nashville. But like, of course, I had to prepare my notes for both of those so then we drove nine hours from Pittsburgh to Nashville then the next morning I drove back home and then the next morning I had to drive to Columbus for a wedding and we're driving up there everything's fine and good and all of a sudden my car starts making this horrible shrieking siren sound and I look at the dash and it says i can read it to you it says brake failure pull over safely and i'm like i'm going 75 miles per hour on the high on i-71 and you're telling me by 75 were you going 90 obviously and so i was driving and i'm like in the middle lane there's tons of traffic and so i like go to slow down and i'm like in the middle lane. There's tons of traffic.

And so I like go to slow down and I'm like, oh, the brakes just don't. OK, so they're not doing anything. The brakes just don't do anything. So Blaze is like, push the e-brake. So I press the e-brake. Fucking nothing. It's like pull over. And I'm like, if the person in front of me slows down even five miles an hour, like we're

collision court, like there's no stopping the car i'm hitting the e-brake i'm trying to break the car literally nothing it's not letting me it's i mean it's a it's a an actual nightmare you went through because one of those stress dreams we've probably all had where like the brakes stop working and it feels like why would that ever happen well it did and um not to give everyone anxiety because it ended up being fine. I don't really freak out during like a crisis. I'm very much like I just kind of go into like problem solving mode. So I'm like, well, OK, this wedding and, you know, it's so funny. It's not funny at all. That's why I'm not laughing. But five minutes before I had said to Blaze this, I said, I'm so tired. I can barely like I like I don't even know how I'm like not sick or collapsing. And he goes, well, you know, we don't have to go to the wedding. We can like send our,

and I said, this is the only thing I've been looking forward to for almost a month. Like we're going to this wedding. And he goes, okay, Christine, I wasn't like, just, just, just offering it. Right. Five minutes later, my breaks are easy. We're on our way. We're halfway there. later my brakes are yeah easy we're on our way we're halfway there literally it was 49 minutes from Columbus 49 minutes from my house we're at literal halfway point my car just goes actually we don't want to want you're not going to be able to stop now so I do that thing that you see or think about or if you're me you constantly think about where trucks have to go pull off and like use one of those ramps to like stop themselves when the brakes fail so i'm like trying to get off the highway it's like tons of traffic and i like which

by the way is the one thing i definitely wouldn't have done because my thought would have been oh if i get off on a ramp and now i'm like there's a red light like i'm just gonna drive right into a red light no it wasn't a real ramp it was like grass it was a farm i was like i just gotta get off the highway otherwise okay honestly like whatever whoever is in charge of the cosmos they were looking out for you there because that's yeah yeah that's crazy i i mean it was just like long stretch of highway i was like i gotta pull over the shoulder so i'm like gone merging trying i'm like sorry guys i know i'm like i gotta pull over the shoulder so i'm like gone merging trying i'm like sorry guys i know i'm cutting everyone off because my car is not in my control

anymore i'm jesus take the wheel nope he's not here so here i go and so i just veered off into the grass and we just had to fucking roll the car until it was slow enough that i could put it in park like because the car won't go into park obviously if it's rolling so you just to be clear you so you just found at the perfect time of a whole field to just drive through and no no it wasn't a field it was just like the shoulder like I just went along the shoulder for like a mile and I was like I'm just gonna have to keep driving along the shoulder Eva just said that is insane I'm so glad you're okay. She's like, is that why in your be real you posted you at a wedding and said we almost died on the way here? I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why. Anyway. Also, you were so fried mentally. You had to have thought that this was just a dream. Were you just like pressing your hand a million times? No, I literally was. And then I went to the wedding and I was like, this all feels like some weird fever dream the night before the wedding where i'm just like inventing all this stress right no it was real and then my brother had to like get up drive to meet us the

tow truck oh that's the other thing i pressed the fucking sos button that comes with the car fucking crickets she so no she answers the phone it's not even that it's worse than that she answers the phone and she's like emergency is everyone okay and i said um yeah you know we're all fine but like the brakes failed and the car's off because if i turn the car on it just starts rolling and like we don't know what to do and there's like a pause and she goes is anyone there who can hear me and i'm like yes i can hear you i'm right here and she goes i think they hung up on me and she's talking to her co-workers i'm like girl i'm screaming i'm right here and she's like man like blah blah blah and she's like bitching and i'm like i'm right

here like what if i was dead and i wasn't answering you because i was yeah by the way isn't that like isn't your first assumption if you're the sos that if you don't hear anything call a fucking ambulance i'm like clearly and it's in my location like i'm clearly on the side of the road like so she goes i've dispatched police and i was like okay well at least she dispatched police bullshit we they never came nobody ever came you got to get with the winning team you gotta you gotta be team subaru i've never had a problem with my subi i don't think that's true i've heard some some what have you heard she has gone through it all and she's well you've I guess you've put her through a lot maybe yeah I'm I'm the worst thing to ever happen

to her so no just like you for once in for once in a relationship I'm not the toxic one um with this car so it's nice you know in that No. And I like seriously do not want to put them on blast because again, like I'm so proud of my car. I love her so much. She's my best friend and I've driven her all through the U.S. already. OK. And she's nailed it. But she had some sort of sensor failure and something bad happened. So anyway, she's coming back to me tomorrow and I'm only a little bit afraid uh but i know i was gonna say do you have ptsd now of no you're of i would i would like i think it would be very normal to be nervous to get in the car now i wonder if your brakes are gonna fail every time only if

leo i mean that's probably more in your head it's just me and be like it's fine um no it's fine they're gonna fix it because they know if something does happen they're in big fucking trouble so i think they're gonna take every measure to fix it and you know when i got it there was already an issue with like the trunk sensor i think the whole sensor thing on this car has to be i think they're replacing the whole sensor i think something it was a little too big for its britches with all this fancy new equipment you know, I'd be like throw an extra sensor in there just in case this one also fails. Throw a few sensors in there and make sure the e-brake works just in case, you know. So anyway, it was just like really ridiculously chaotic and like silly.

It was like the last day I was like, this is finally something fun. I get to go do, you know, just a quick drive with my, with my wonderful partner. We can drive up, have a nice solo night. And then all of a sudden we're straight on the side of the highway. I'm walking to the way station, um, to go pee in the port-a-potty cause you know, there's too many cars to pee on the side of the road. It was just like one of those days. And, um, really like i feel like oh and then the next morning i woke up and i had a dream that i had got a cold sore and i woke up and was like phew that was just a dream and then i just got like burst out in my my herpes oh gosh well i uh i

just like you know when you have like an inflammatory response. Well, I do because I have an inflammatory illness. So my whole body just went like berserk. And now everything is upside down and topsy-turvy. I have like cold sores all over my face. I'm like, anyway, I'm just like having a day and a time. Girl, you need a nap. That's number one. I do.

I just don't have time. You know, I have a baby and all this nonsense that takes up a lot of my time but oh and okay i'm sorry i'm just complaining now i'm so sorry um i'm back oh okay here with you now and i'm gonna have one of these old-fashioned lemon drops from jungle gyms um and by the way if we need a transition eva told us to talk about something which is that apparently there have been some issues with people's podcast platforms that they listen on where they'll write in and say like oh there's something wrong with the editing and then once you refresh or redownload your podcast player you know whichever player you use it'll kind of fix the problem and this seems to be increasing i don't know if these platforms are like uh updating funky getting funky

getting glitchy uh but for whatever reason that seems to keep happening so we wanted to give you a little psa like if something sounds wonky um it might be your podcast player so just try closing out refreshing redownloading you know anyway psa one last uh also wear your seatbelt just in case oh okay uh and one last other announcement kind of big one what girl we're going on tour oh right that it just feels like let's try it again hang on i'm gonna we're going on tour we're going on tour i'm so excited actually it's gonna be a fucking blast we're going to salem beverly technically but i've never been to salem i'm very excited for you i'm so excited i can't wait to be your your official tour guide i'm

eva's also going to be your tour guide you are in good hands are you guys going to be debating over who gets to be my tour guide uh eva can do it okay wow but like if you like maybe we'll tag team it you get an eva day and an m day and we'll we'll see who who you know i can't wait i'm just so excited and oh eva says she already has a google doc so i think you're falling behind sorry i mean sorry sometimes you don't need an excel sheet to have fun am i oh really just saying just saying eva well it'll be it'll be a a duel for us i suppose a sale and duel excel sheet to have fun you heard it here first my girlfriend would disagree she loves the excel sheet i know allison and she used to take saturday

morning excel classes okay so she's she's her own person and i love her for who she is okay we're going on tour everybody and we've got 16 shows uh we didn't plan this but apparently it's a whole northeast tour didn't see that coming no it really is just like its own i don't know how that happened its own beast we were we're testing new markets as they say and apparently what that means is we're going to the northeast um yeah well and also indianapolis which i feel like and that they've gotten the shaft so many times because when the last tour i forget what happened oh well with 2020 and then their show like just never yeah scheduled so like that would be the one that deserves it

the most i think we've skipped them so many times so they finally have their moment knock on wood hopefully and if you would like to um get tickets you can at our website and that's why we drink.com and we hope to see you there and if you can't make it for some reason we will see you in the fall but it will be a different tour so if you want right this is your last if you want to see our current show on the rocks which is not the same as here for the booze here for the booze was us investigating the queen mary here for the booze is old news you know yeah yeah old old news here for the booze okay i'm sorry if you want to see on the rocks you have until the end of this tour and then if you want to come

to another tour then we'll see in the fall we'll see in the fall hopefully let's see how we how we survive this first tour but yes uh it'll be in the southwest since apparently this is the northeast so i don't know apparently so yeah texas was like what the fuck and we were like listen we don't know i'm sorry we didn't do this new york texas i was looking for all of it and i didn't didn't my whatever we'll see in the fall i guess i guess so but no promises because again we don't control it um but anyway wanted to say that because we're famous for telling you that we're going on tour with like one date left so that's that's true so please please come and we'll probably be making announcements throughout the next couple

episodes just so to make sure everybody knows so with that uh i christine and christine shoulders in that black tank top we all love are ready to uh tell you a story now that 20 minutes have passed are you ready christine i'm so my uh you can see my moth now when 20 minutes have passed. Are you ready, Christine? I'm so... I can see my moth now when I wear this. Oh my God, you're flexing. Christine, stop. I'm getting bothered. Yeah, right.

Flexing is not something I'm able to do. But yeah, sure. Flexing. By the way, ever since I mentioned your shoulders, I'm not trying to sexualize you at all. But a lot of people have been writing in agreeing there's something there's something about that tank top i gotta say i'm like loving it only because i am so deeply insecure about my shoulders that i'm like wow okay so we're getting some love that's nice you've got

the queer girlies foaming at the mouth it's like literally the nicest thing ever because again i grew up with some commentary from people who shall not be named about like oh like the full shoulders of a football player and like oh yeah and you know what the queer girls are saying now hold me with those shoulders so you're so strong like a linebacker or whatever they're called like yeah a linebacker yeah anyway so it's very kind thank you all for your love and you am yeah well you know i was the first to notice but i'm glad everyone has followed suit so um okay you flex again if you want at any at any moment okay um i don't want to give it all away once you know yeah where's the where's where's the where's your the door to your room can you point it for me where can you point out why just give it a point oh i'm stupid i'm like why it's right there where is it hang

on i'm confused here it's right here oh here's a middle finger for you i wanted to see that bicep one more time okay i don't have early but okay Apparently Christina's going to just be a tease tonight. That's me. I've got a story for you that starts a little goofy and starts with a deep dive because I can't control myself. This is in the UK and this is the story of Alton Towers. Okay. I've never heard of it. Alton Towers. alton towers what do you think what does it like sound like to you when i say the uk alton towers it sounds like a dorm building to me it sounds like to me it sounds like castle-y medieval-y but oh it sounds like somebody in the u.s trying to be cast like like the belvedere apartment like you know it sounds like something that's not fancy but it's trying to be Kes. Like, the Belvedere apartment.

Like, you know, it sounds like something that's not fancy but is trying to be. But you said it is in the U.K. So, yeah, it does sound more like it would be a real royal thing. Well, it's a theme park. Oh. Thanks for letting me wander that path and just, like, letting me go. I really let you take the bait, yeah. You did.

So, it's a theme park it's actually the uk's largest theme park and it's a resort it's so big that it also has three hotels connected to the amusement park is that where peppa pig world is i didn't deep dive that far i'm maybe come. What kind of deep dive doesn't go all the way to Peppa Pig? I didn't even know Peppa Pig had an amusement park. Of course she does. Well, then Bluey is hot on her tracks. Yeah, well, Bluey's Australian, so maybe that'll be next. If you're in Australia and there's a Bluey amusement park,

I'm going to need you to tell me about it. So, okay, it's the uk's largest theme park it's on over 900 acres well it has three hotels attached to it and there are over 40 rides but i did you know i wonder if that's true because i looked up its list of like current attractions and i didn't see up to 40 maybe this is in its time counting 40 as like every little yeah i think so too because it looks like they've got about like 15 like main attractions right um uh but at least before covet i don't know the numbers now but like three million people come to sing every year is a hot commodity in the UK I've never heard of it but um it opened I thought it was a dorm build

a shitty dorm building with rats infesting it so clearly I also have not been well it opened in 1980 um and it featured when it first opened it featured the corkscrew which was uk's first ever double loop roller coaster holy shit a double loop to loop a loop to loop yep and uh that's it that's what a loop to loop is right it's a it's a double is it loop the loop i am so stupid um and the alton towers has also broken several other records with their rides including oblivion which is the world's first dive coaster now here's speaking of dive here's my deep dive on roller coasters for you um we almost made this a roller coaster podcast, you guys. Like, not even shitting you.

And was like, we could do, like, abandoned theme parks podcast. That's true. I did suggest it a long time ago. You did. So, Oblivion. I'm sorry. Oblivion is the world's first. World's first.

Not UK. World's first dive coaster. So, I was like, what's a dive coaster what is a coaster it is so you know when you're on a roller coaster and then it's like you like climb up up up up up up and then you're about to like essentially dive off so like i know a lot of roller coasters do that but a dive coaster is one that does that um but there are more than four people in one row so it's like a really wide roller coaster that dives over the edge okay um then there's 13 and it's spelled with like numbers in it because it's so it's leet yeah yeah yeah uh and it's the world's first vertical free fall drop mid roller coaster, which is like a roller coaster on a track and then drops and then like lands on another track.

Oh, wait, I just did that on I-71 North. It was like probably the scariest thing I've ever done and I don't recommend it. Next time you caption a picture about that, make sure you use numbers. So it looks really cool. Happily. Then there's Galactica, which was the world's first B&M flying coaster. And those are the coasters where. Oh, where you're like hanging? No, it's like, like at Six Flags where they have the Superman where you're like your tummy

is. Oh, where you lay down. Yeah, you're parallel to the superman where you're like you lay down yeah you're parallel to the ground so it looks like you're flying that's kind of cool actually i do kind of like those and then there's nemesis which is guessing these these all sound like albums from zach bagans the next one's called immortal portal no so nemesis is just Europe's very first inverted roller coaster. So an inverted roller coaster is instead of you sitting in the thing on a track, it's when the track is above you and your toesies are hanging. Those are kind of fun. But there's roller coasters like that are called inverted and suspended.

Inverted are the ones where you are very solidly bolted to the track above you, whereas suspended is like you're attached to a thing that's attached to, it doesn't matter. To oversimplify, it's the one where your toes are hanging over. Got it, okay.

And then the last one is the smiler, which is ironic. Okay, why is that the scariest name ever? Like all of these, that's the scariest one so far to me. It's also ironic because like you're not going to be smiling by the end. No. It's the world's, it's the roller coaster with the world's most inversions. It's broken the record for the most inversions.

And I was like, what's an inversion? An inversion is any time you're upside down. so it doesn't have to be a loop it can be the times where like you kind of twist and you're upside down for a second okay okay you're just getting like whiplashed all around anytime your head is is i don't love i don't love that um someone's wondering on the smiler you go upside down 14 times. My pots could never. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. But when I had my SVT, I could have really used this. Honestly, that's a great point.

It'll just hang you upside down, yeah. Eva, get me to the Smiler. And then it's also the world's first Infinity Coaster. And an Infinity Coaster holds more people for a longer track. and it can move forwards and backwards and does all sorts of drops. Whoa. Anyway, there's my deep dive on the five record breaking roller coasters at Alton Towers. I mean, listen, look, you're living out your dreams of doing a roller coaster podcast. rollercoaster podcast I honestly I would like a pat on the back for resisting

the urge to fall really deep into hyper fixating on rollercoaster fun facts it sounds like you were already really busy with your other hyper fixation my Waffle House menu marking system I think maybe there just wasn't room for that

next week though I might be showing up with a lot of weird My Waffle House menu marking system? I think maybe there just wasn't room for that. Next week, though, I might be showing up with a lot of weird roller coaster trivia all of a sudden. And you're going to have to endure. Yeah, it's going to be just so random. You're just going to casually throw them into conversation. We're going to know. And you're going to love it. And you're going to love it. You're going to love it.

At least someone out there will. So Alton Towers is a big deal roller coaster uh theme park and originally before it was ever roller coaster it was the site of um it was uh it was used during the iron age so like a thousand bc and it was allegedly cursed by long-forgotten magic. Which feels like this is just the amusement park's history to this. The lore of the amusement park, yes, it does. Especially with names like Oblivion, you know, they're like, oh, this is all from some forgotten magic.

Yeah. It feels like it's like part of the brand, but whatever. Yeah. So going all the way back, in 700 a.d this site belonged to the saxons then it belonged to the normans and william the conqueror who we have talked about during our tower of london episode yes um and in the 15th century this land was given to the talbot family um they were the earls of shrewsbury. See how what I mean, though, when you say Talbots and here in the US, it's like, oh, it's like a store, Kenwood, Kenwood Mall. And then there it's like, oh, it's like very famous, royal, rich, rich, fancy people. So yeah. Anyway,

just an observation. Yeah. Well, another observation is i can't ever talk about a place in the uk without saying something like the earls of shrewsbury shrewsbury and then when when english people are like don't make fun of us i'm like but it's so easy it's so easy you can make fun of us so easily too but yeah like we're americans shrewsbury come on like you it's like fish in a barrel making fun of us like let us have this. Let us have one one thing. Also, speaking of which, if we were to tie the history of this place back into the amusement park as an homage, the Earls of Shrewsbury would be the coolest pub at this at this amusement park. Think about the possibilities. Let's capitalize on it.

What are they called? Like the the the oktoberfest mugs yeah stein a beer stein a stein i feel like you could get a good stein at the that was actually my first thought also like one of those beer steins with like oh with like their um coat of arms on it you know like an old timey tabber wow you just busted out the what is that called when you break the volume on the microphone? Did I? I'm sorry. I was also looking at your shoulders at the same time.

So that's probably just a combination of reactions. Well, that's on you. Okay. Be more careful. Just kidding. So the... Yeah. So the Earls of Shrewsbury got this land in the 15th century.

And they had this land all the way until 1924 so they had it for 500 years oh jesus okay um in the late 1600s there was a house on this land at the time that the talbots owned um and they built onto it over time and by 1800s, they were still adding additions to this thing. So imagine two centuries of just adding to this. It's giving Winchester Mystery House. It is, actually. And eventually, they ended up having one of the best homes and one of the finest gardens in all of Europe. All of Shrewsbury.

Of Shrewsbury. Which, if you're working on it for 200 years, it better be fucking good. Can you imagine if it was still ranked as like the trashiest place? Give me a break. So the Earls, they favored the Gothic revival style. And so the property started looking very medieval and it became known as the towers, which. I feel like we could have gotten more creative but okay yeah it's like it has its like um intended effect where it's like wow it's imposing an imposing name yeah

it's like vague enough where you're like oh but um but yeah it's not that creative yeah i well i guess when you know you've owned the property for 500 years and you've had all that time to think of a name, maybe you just have to fucking throw a dart at the wall. You just circle back to the beginning. Yeah, yeah. So when the Saxons owned the land, one of the kings actually went mad here and cursed the land before the Talbots ever got there. During the Earl's renovations, I got no context for this, but apparently they also cursed the land. Wait, does that cancel out the first one? I feel like that's two stories I'm not giving information on, but I don't have any information on it.

So now the building has been cursed twice by both of its owners. Some say the curse began in the 1820s. Some say it happened in the 1840s. And either the 15th Earl or the 16th Earl, Tabit, are responsible for this curse. And pretty much the story goes that the Earl was in his coach heading to the house when a woman stopped him nearby. And this woman goes up to the house when a woman stopped him nearby and this woman goes up to the earl she asks if he can spare a farthing which by the way is the price of a quarter of a penny

so i would have to charge her literally 0.25 cents, he says no and continues to drive on. She's pissed because... I love how he takes the time to stop to talk to her. Like, why even stop? Like, what was there, a red light, you know? It's like the equivalent of if you walked up to somebody who was, you know homelessness and you were like hey like what's up what do you want they're like hey do you have like something for me to like eat or drink or like a couple bucks and you're like no bye it's like well why are you even you're being an asshole

intentionally well she clearly had the same opinion she she felt the same way because as he drove away she points at an oak tree. And she tells him that every time a branch falls from that tree, one of his relatives is going to die. Oh, wow. So she said, I bet you really wish you gave me that quarter of a penny. That's right. And the next night, there was a freak storm. And one of his relatives died, got second died during this night.

And when the Earl went out to the woods again, he saw a branch had come down from that tree. Oh boy. Which like could have just been from the freak storm, but it was coincidental enough to freak him out. So he had his men chain the trees branches in place so that the branches could never fall again. Oh, yeah. Nothing to see here.

Don't worry about it. I have my reasons. I feel like if they've broken off the tree, that's still not good. Yeah. No, it's not. No. I feel like he's trying to play with fire here. Well, you know what's super eerie about this, though, is to this day, that tree has chains all over its branches.

Are you serious? Isn't that funky? funky oh that just gave me the creeps i wonder like what her tag is on instagram like her location tag you know is it just like tree yeah you know people go and take pictures of this like lore tree you know oh i wonder i like to think her location is what the fuck is this creepy ass tree like also get these chains off me i'm a tree leave me alone yeah i'm wondering like it's interesting that the town has appreciated the lore and respected it and no one's just taken the fucking chains off by now like you know there's a teenager in the last several hundred years who was like let's go take the chains off a teenager would do it because i was thinking like it would be a little daunting to be the one to take them off because you're like well i don't want to mess with the curse you know but a teenager i could see like fucking around also i wonder who like

ancestry wise like who is the the current talbot do they know about the tree and does it hold after he died is it like still in play or is like the curse now null and void right you know so many questions i'll let you know when i talk to the witch so thank you um so anyway by the 1860s uh the 18th earl of shrewsbury finally decides to open the tower up to the public because it is so big and marvelous and well so gracious my lord to let me look inside your beautiful palace and charge charge people right sure so uh he but he starts hosting abby i know how this works and they're just trying to make money because they are getting broke okay i know what's going on well actually it was this was during a time when a lot of people were starting to have financial upheavals so there we go i told you i watched a downton abbey movie on the airplane i know

all about this here she comes historian christine consider me an expert well so he starts uh hosting live shows there he starts letting people perform music there. The gardens are really pretty. So, you know, people are going to go see the gardens. And until the early 1900s, so that's like 40, 50 years in, sections of the tower, as you said, they were losing money. And even having people come see the gardens and everything wasn't enough. money and even having people come see the gardens and everything wasn't enough and the property started being sold section by section until uh the newest earl there was like all right let's just sell the whole thing and by night at 1924 that was when the last piece of the land was sold off

after hundreds of years of the earl of shrewsbury owning the land wow the land then became a world war ii training camp for a little bit but then it went back to becoming a popular tourist attraction with the gardens and everything and in 1980 it opened as a theme park so can you sometimes i wonder about that and there's no real answer to this but what do you think the people who lived there and were like so proud of their like hermitage and like just having this estate and this tower and they've spent hundreds their family legacy and they just imagine it's going to go on forever if they got a glimpse into like a hundred years from now there's going to be a kid vomiting cotton candy all over the sidewalk like where your dog sleeps or where your hunting

dogs sleep i don't know it's just so weird to me to think like what would they think i have Like where your dog sleeps or where your hunting dog sleeps. I don't know. It's just so weird to me to think like, what would they think? I have no idea. And I wonder like, not to get even like trippier, but like, would they even know what a theme park was? Exactly. If you told them like a roller, like the oblivion is going to be in your bedroom. The first inverted roller coaster.

You're like wait what the total drop from 500 yards in the sky or whatever like and like then it makes me of course start thinking well in 100 years we can't even fathom then what like what is going to be on what part piece of land anyway then i spiral so well i mean hey let's continue because i let's keep going let's keep spiraling let's keep this party going because great i've even said before like where we've talked about before on the show of like where i'm sitting right now like there could have been a dinosaur walking through here i mean for real i think about yes okay thank you you get

and then like the in you know 100 years from now the equivalent to the oblivion is like where i'm sitting like it's it's wild how at the end of the day land is just land is just land and like yeah and it's not even our command no certainly not so like just to add that into the twist of this from it right but like it's it's wild that at the end like it's like so much history can happen in one spot and it could all just also be totally erased like that and there's just no way to even imagine or know what could possibly be coming down the pike um i like to imagine something like the oblivion would be where i am but m m will come back to haunt if it's the oblivion m is gonna be like i'm on that i first dibs on that roller coaster

okay but perfect would be it would be perfect if it was like the haunted mansion right like and then you got to be a ghost on your property while it is branded as haunted that would be yeah fair point actually pretty pretty there's some i like there's some pretty convenient places to be haunted zach's museum in vegas imagine if you used to live on that property and then died and was haunting the area and you were like oh if only i had some friends that were also ghosts that could be nearby and then they build a fucking ghost house on you but what a danger zone because you're like if only i had a friend and then it's like how about 600 creepy clown doll friends you're over

saying you're welcome i meant every now and then this is my house but okay anyway i think there's some places that it could really work. Be a good time, you know? I'm glad you understand what I'm saying. What if you're a dog, and then you die, and then they build a puppy rescue where you used to live, and now you get to keep haunting the place with all these little puppy friends? I think you've just finally calmed my spiral anxiety that I have when this goes on, and I'll say, oh say oh okay maybe it'll be a safe haven for puppies one day and end of thought the end of spiral but then like i'm not on the first floor right now so when that puppy building is created i'm currently in the sky so i'm like would i be

haunting the puppy haven or would i be haunting the sky above and that's what they're always fucking looking at up there just me just floating around trying to haunt them oh my god that's what they're staring at i knew it was spiraled again we spiraled again okay oh shit i didn't even notice i'm back sorry okay so we kind of actually just touched on this um because i don't know how we got there but we did find our way you tell me i have no idea what you're about to say. So in 1980, the place opened as a theme park called Alton Towers, and stories about the roller coasters,

like the lore about the... The theme of a lot of the roller coasters actually have to do with the history of the towers. So, for example. Oh, I was going to ask that. Okay, cool. Just like how I was saying, like, the Earl's of Shrewsbury pub, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They have a ride called, or I don't even know if it's still there anymore. But at some point there was a ride there called Hex, the Legend of the Towers. And it's the lore of the chained oak tree. That's like the story and okay i fucking love that right like i love that that's actually really fun i would like to imagine that if it is a roller coaster about a haunted tree then you have to be a little squirrel or something and you're in the tree you're just like rolling around the branches that i mean listen i am all about this i like that they're leaning into it i do ironically this ride is said to be haunted

which i feel like that means it just breaks down a lot and they're just saying oh it's the ghost don't look at the man with the wrench now that was good now that was a joke landed joke landed so so can i tell you something so funny can i tell you something that has nothing to do with anything please we went to um we went to a play recently you would have eaten it up we went to a play of catch me if you can and what our our friend is in it and And Allison and I were sitting next to each other. And it was, of course, the only moment in like a two and a half hour play where it was dead silent. Oh, no. Oh, no. And Allison's stomach, like it was like everyone around us looked at her. Like it was like not well hidden. And it was like, like everyone around us looked at her.

Like it was like not well hidden. And it was like, are you okay? Easily. I've never heard it that loud or that long. It was literally like her stomach had a solo. Like it was, I'm not, I'm not kidding. I know I'm usually dramatic. No hyperbole.

This stomach sound happened for like 30 long seconds. And it sounded truly like someone was moving furniture upstairs like it was the loudest sound in the world and her face because she's trapped like you can't go anywhere so she's just sitting there taking the heat knowing that everyone and she's like they're like genuinely worried for her well-being she's like i'm fine there were people looking at her and then like like back at the stage because they didn't want her to know that they could obviously hear but it sounded like check it sounded like a tv belch like it just like was the grossest sound and it was when everything was silent even the

actors on stage had to have heard it because we were out oh it was so awful anyway you just made me laugh like i wanted to in that theater so i finally got to release it that's what happened okay sorry for the people who hate banter this this is where we've gone apparently my bad so alton towers is said to be haunted. There are a lot of places that still have original foundations of the building there or original parts of the building there. And visitors have often seen people in Victorian era clothing walking around and throwing things at guests, including rocks. Oh, whoa. That's that's like you're like, oh, what a cool reenactment. And then they chuck a rock at you and you're like, OK, whoa. That's that's like you're like, oh, what a cool reenactment. And then they chuck a rock at you and you're like, OK, Jesus. Also, like, was that their version of fun before there was an amusement park here?

They just threw rocks. Great question. Or is that like what they would do if like peasants came toward their property? They're like, get away. Shoo. You know, shoo. Imagine if you gave them a hoop and stick. Oh, the delight.

They wouldn't be throwing Roxy anymore, would they? Because they'd have something to do with those hands. It's a merrymaking they would have had. The merrymaking. Or made, I guess. That's their version of an amusement park. Just give them a hoop and stick and a hill. They're going to lose their minds.

What else? You need a marble maybe and you're set. There's also apparently the apparition of a man that haunts uh the banquet hall which i don't know why it's not called the earls of shrewsbury but okay not acceptable but yeah and people feel his very looming presence they hear heavy footsteps when they sense him and they've also seen dark figures appear and vanish oh and after seeing harry potter world i just don't know what's real anymore like i feel like if i was told that that place was haunted i'd be like one is it part of the lore and two even if

it's really haunted the rest of the special effects here are so good i can't tell if that was a ghost yeah and like if you ask how can you trust that they're not just like playing along like there's no you know but like that reminds me of when I was at where I saw the ghost of Mr. Whaley at the Whaley house. And I was like, oh, that's fun. That's part of the reenactment. You know, I didn't believe them. I was like, well, why would they would tell me, you know, no, that's just a ghost. But like, right.

It's hard to say. In 2007, investigators went in, which I love that they got to meet at an amusement park at night that's i mean that's the that's the ultimate dream it's a dream um and their medium sensed a large man wearing a hood who is always angry and shockingly he's not the one that throws rocks at people so oh no he sounds like an executioner, doesn't he? Like a hooded man. Right? An angry hooded man. I don't like that. You have to be angry to be able to kill people for a living.

I would imagine it has to be part of your nature. Yeah. One member on that investigation team also walked out that night with scratches all over their head. And a woman has been seen wearing a long, dark dress, and she appears very real. People smell a perfume that follows her, and one employee actually thought that she was a park visitor who tried to stay after closing.

So he ran up to her, told her to leave, and then she faded away in front of him, which, like, she did exactly what he said. That's true. Like, he should die. I hope he's happy. Okay. Bye.

Some people think she was actually the governess who managed the estate which she has to be looking around now going i have lost control like what she wakes up one morning it's like wait what the fuck happened overnight oh no um the guy who bought alton towers in the 1920s his great grandson has blogged about the hauntings his family has seen on the property oh that's fun his name is will and he grew up there or he can grow up grow up there but he spent a lot of time there as a child his family also stayed there a lot um and he said that there is just too much evidence over the years that his family has caught it is definitely haunted uh he said the gardener there actually used to see a man all the time in the gardens with him wearing medieval clothing and he thought that this guy was like in cosplay or like a reenactor or

something and uh i thought his grandpa like hired an actor to just wander around the yard yeah i was like was this during is this a normal thing or is this like a thing people do over there he was always wearing medieval clothes and the gardener would always try to wave at him and like talk to him and the guy never waved back and so he was like what the fuck is this guy's deal like he's dressed weird and he won't be polite that's a crazy kind of an asshole yeah and so after years of trying to interact with this man the gardener started noticing like wait a minute that man has never aged what is going on like oh weird ew oh so this whole time he's been seeing him oh imagine for

years waving to somebody like get the hint like oh read the room um but yeah for i mean long enough that he was like this guy isn't aging something's going on after years uh yeah of trying to interact with him realize he wasn't aging another time there was a catering manager who was noticing that dishes would go missing and then reappear in odd places which i hate that that's not good and in the 60s and 70s which i think still up to now there was a gift shop that had a poltergeist and no matter how many times the store clerks would move them back a whole collection of dolls would would move themselves on the shelves to always be facing

the wrong way oh ah you know i hate that yuck facing the wall and then every time you turn them back you come in the next day they're turned back again yuck oh then one day the gift shops like several boxes of little toy soldiers all of them are removed from their boxes and scattered all over the floor. And only the ones holding weapons were all face down dead as if dead. What the fuck? But then all the ones who weren't who weren't holding weapons were standing up. So it's giving pacifist like I suppose in like a weird backhanded way in a weird all the what i'm a pacifist i murdered all the people with weapons they're dead i feel like

there's some sort of symbolism there that i'm not picking up on yeah other dolls here would disappear and reappear they'd move on their own they would also be taken out of their boxes there were dolls in the store that would be dressed up by unseen hands throughout the night where people would walk in the next day and the dolls would have jewelry on them or they would have books in their lap like they were reading. Do you think it's a kid? I feel like it has to be a kid. Like, I feel like it has to be a kid dressing up a little stuffed animal.

And like playing with toy soldiers and stuff. I mean, it sounds like a kid. I mean, again, like we've talked about this a little stuffed animal and like playing with toy soldiers and stuff i mean it sounds like a kid would i mean again like we've talked about this a million times but like where you would you haunt i would haunt a gift shop obviously like what a delightful place to haunt it's not it's not the worst place i bet it's air conditioned true lots of toys um lots of toys um but also like maybe poltergeisty because like the dolls keep rearranging themselves turning themselves around is like unsettling yeah that part feels kind of sinister also books that were in the gift shop their pages would get ripped out and left all over the floor ew and that again we've talked about this but like do you think the books are actually like

the pages are tearing themselves or you blink and then the pages all of a sudden is it like they're just transporting um one time the catering one time the catering manager came in and found only specific letters from pages had been ripped out of a book they're like i've been trying to send you a fucking message and no one's reading into it so i guess i'll have to ransom note this well so the letters spelled out dolly and dolly was the catering manager's nickname as a kid oh my god what the fuck so like was it something following her like what you know like what was that and also apparently it was a nickname from a dark time in her childhood so it's like i was gonna say is that like a comforting thing but doesn't sound like it but so it's almost like is it a dark thing from

that time period or is it like trying to like poke at her using you yeah using your weaknesses also on the property will's aunt and uncle and their kid stayed on uh stayed there for a while their house you could overlook the property and see the old chained up tree from from their house and one night their daughter whose room faced the tree directly woke up screaming and the next night her mom decided to sleep in the room to see what she was so scared of and this mom her name's annie she woke up in the middle of the night uh to the room being ice cold she felt the need to keep her eyes closed because something was in the room with her and she could see or she could sense something dark standing over her bed and she could sense

that it had it was like it had it was not human um she could smell the scent of something she'd only smelled before in the old towers nearby she felt breath on her neck and she got the weird feeling that this thing had four legs ew i like how it probably is like deciding what to tell her you know what i mean like yeah and i'd like four legs so that's your alien brain where you're like oh they can communicate with you in your head it's like yeah it's like oh you want to imagine what's going on here okay four legs it's we're struggling you don't have to open your eyes i'll still tell you well so she finally got the nerve to open her eyes and nothing was there except on either side of her were two indents on the bed as if four legs were standing over her so two like on her left side two imprints of feet on the right side so it was like

standing with it literally standing over legs oh that's horrific that's then then the indents started moving on their own they would disappear and reappear as if the creature and all four legs were stomping on her bed oh ew it was like i'm still here oh um she pulled an m and although she wasn't religious she said something about jesus and the creature's energy went away immediately i'm telling you it works i don't know what it is it must work it must work i'll give you that so i'm imagining a story happened in between here but the chief of police finds out that this place is haunted

and he decides to get to the bottom of things so he asks if he can stay the whole night by himself in the towers

but he flees in the middle of the night after he heard footsteps banging and his dog started growling and like the fur

on his back raised oh if the police dog is upset I'm like I don't feel safe here yeah if the police dog is upset i'm like i don't feel safe here yeah if the trained dog is freaking out let's all get out um yeah there was also another paranormal investigator that came through and this is probably my favorite thing i've ever said in

any episode um a paranormal investigator came through was walking into the guest the gift shop that's like super haunted and had a feeling had a weird feeling and approached the people who worked there and said, have any gay people been here recently? What? Said, have any children or gay people been here recently? people have been here recently and they said oh actually a gay couple not only used to like work this place for several years but they lived on the property which i it's so cottagecore lesbian i can't even handle it for show yeah they literally lived in a cottage nearby it's so idyllic um and with no explanation the investigator oh, that makes sense because gay people attract poltergeists. Again, no explanation, but I got to know where he's getting his findings.

I was going to say children. I've heard preteens, the hormones, the craziness, you know, of puberty can attract a poltergeist. What about gay people? They're chaotic. Is it that we're sinning or something i like what is it that's weird but also like i love that even if that had no real like sound logic behind it i love that the queers love like you know ghosts and shit like it works out very well for like it's like well that's on brand it's like a double like they're me it's like they're fulfilling their own prophecy you know what i mean like they're like well the ghosts

love the gays the gays love the ghosts exactly like why not the girls and the ghouls girls and the ghouls we're all just having a party yeah which like by the way why was that never like our thing like boozers and shakers why weren't we just the girls and the ghouls yeah girls and the ghouls. Yeah. Girls and ghouls. Hang on. The ghouls, the gays, and the vays. The ghouls, gays, vays. Ghouls, gays, and vays. I mean, well, we figured it out. I mean, it took like seven years. We got there.

Finally. So another time Annie was finishing up work, and she smelled that familiar perfume, and the room got really cold, and she heard a loud thud and this was when she was on her own she heard a thud behind her and a book had fallen by itself the book was titled a stranger is watching this ghost loves his little word play it is so creepy he feels gay like i feel he's giving a little fabulous haunting like he's like it's gonna be aesthetic we're gonna love it you know he probably misses the cottagecore

lesbians that used to work there he's like hang on a second i lost my people god so all this annie suddenly gets this intense feeling that she needs to bring the book home which oh she should have not listened to that i'm sure but she brings it home and she thinks there's like a dark spirit or something that was connected to the book or attached to the book and tried to attach to her great and her husband claims that he decided that he was going to burn this book because he was so freaked out about it so he throws it into the bonfire okay and the book reappeared in the house later oh the ghost was just begging him to throw in the fire do it i dare you flaming flaming do it i'm still here you so uh annie's daughter then did a school project

about the book which wow i'm sure that didn't go well and the teacher for her the teacher asked if she could borrow the book and then never returned it so some people think that she just destroyed the book herself good she was so freaked out about this kid's presentation free libraries those little free libraries i feel like um now i feel like that's gonna be leona's future one day she's gonna bring in like a skull or something from your studio and the teacher's gonna be like that's great sweetie can i see that and then just like fucking smash it for a second chuck it behind her yeah honestly i don't doubt it also last thing i'll say is will's family they also apparently once walked past the old chained oak on their property and walked past a group of new age druids who were chanting and performing a sacrifice under the tree

okay and when they all noticed each other the druids stopped chanting and silently stared at them until they walked away and out of sight and then went back to chanting that's sorry scarier than any ghost as far as that's also scarier than them like charging after you being like you didn't see anything get away like to just death stare you on your own property is so violating in so many ways yeah like they're like we're not moving you better move i mean okay i'm out yeah oof anyway apparently that's that's the the last big thing that we'll have reported but that is is the property of Alton Towers. Emma, what a story. Thank you.

And I can't believe we started with a theme park and then. I know. I really, I, man, I really tried my hardest to say what I needed to say, do what I needed to do and not get hyper fixated on it. Yeah. Tonight might be a different story yeah yeah now you have all the time in the world um that's crazy uh i think to do a haunted investigation at a theme park is probably the pinnacle of what this podcast would consider success so maybe you know what happened someday you said it on me is this when i tell everybody that i've been uh

looking at old home videos and i found out that i have a fucking queen's accent when i was it is someone asks little m like hey do you have any pets and m goes a dog a dog i have and like i i'd been so my parents used to have like really thick accents and it just never occurred to me that I would pick up on that. But I had one until I moved to Virginia and like two or three years and it faded. But in the videos that I have, there's all these clips of me talking and walking and, you know, the coffee. So cute. A little baby with the accent. It's honestly all the accents I saw for myself. I did not see that but whatever i just sounded like fran drescher at five what else is now and like what could we ask for like

what more could we ask for what could be better it was a gift even to me i was like at 30 i'm finding out i had a fucking accent my whole life you know i didn't find out till i was like in my 20s that i had a german accent till i was about six I feel like if we put I know I've already said this but like put clips of you clips of me with our little accents back to back like we would have been quite a duo I don't know what people would have made of the two of us but it would have been a mess why are you talking like that what are you doing you would have been like what's wrong with you what the hell's going on yeah anyway i'm glad you liked our the roller coaster extravaganza that was because i know how much you like it you know i'm like that's such an m

and m story um well it's a christine story now okay this is actually an m story because i don't want you to be mad at me but i'm covering something you've already covered but i'm just doing you're sick the crime part of it prison why what did you do this is the story of say it in your accent the amityville murders the horror the amityville horror there it is the horror i don't know how to do it anymore sorry Sorry to all New Yorkers listening. But, okay, great. Hey, we haven't covered that since like episode fucking four or something. I was going to say, do you have a guess what episode? And it was indeed number four.

Good memory or like freakishly weird fun fact that you knew on the top of your head. Option B. Can I tell you also that i listened to that episode yesterday and i'm sorry thank you so much don't say anything else i don't even want to know no i can't have to it was i was gonna take notes on your story and said i just took notes on the dumb shit we said i was like this is outrageous also my audio i was like talking you had a mic I was talking like my audio is going through the computer

like we clearly didn't even figure out he's a mixer and we were like oh we have all these fans like I don't know it was just so embarrassing to listen to literally we said we thought our moms would listen but now we have real fans and I'm like okay I think we had like three people and that actually was three more

than we ever thought so yeah it's like one extra person who was your cousin um so like good for us but also the audio oh my god i was like clearly just talking through the computer and um there also my research was shit back then so it's probably actually really good that we're doing a revamp i gotta say i listened to the whole thing and i went we really upped our research game i don't know what we were doing back then but like clearly just reading remember when i used to write my notes on like fucking notepad i literally have legal pad paper with your handwriting where you wrote and like that was always impressive to me because that's a lot of work to write it all by hand but then i don't know why i did that like november of some year i didn't write down the date anyway like what is wrong with us like we didn't write the date down

and then anyway it's just like it was just so cringy you know um yeah i i really for the first like 100 episodes i really would like to just wipe the slate and like no one's ever hearing it's embarrassing but i feel like it's part of the journey you know no you know like the disney vaults where they just put like snow white in there or something yeah yeah yeah we should have it and that's why we drink vault where but we never open it never open it ever again it's like what they would do to people torture them like brick them up into the walls we'll just break all our old episodes up into the wall break up our Brick up our notes.

Brick up our notes. Do you remember? Do you remember? Obviously, none of us remember. But do you have a guess as to why we drank that week? It's a fun fact. It's for different reasons. But probably something a lot less dramatic than near heart failure every day.

I don't know. I was going to say, now we're're like our hearts are giving out my breaks are giving out well back then apparently the reason i drank was because i was on zillow and like houses are so expensive and i'm like houses in los angeles are like six hundred thousand dollars and now i'm like they've like probably tripled since then so nice they sure have nice going um and then you were saying like you know i i don't know your reason for drinking was that you this is not a joke you said your reason for drinking is that you've been so busy you don't have time to get to the gym before work in the mornings and i'm like you know what that was you said, typically on a typical weekday, I like to run about five miles a day. And I'm sitting here going, you ran five miles a day? Since when did you run five miles? That's more than a 5k. I think one time I actually was like, do you really run five miles a day? And you were like, well, on an elliptical. And I was like, OK, that's not the same.

No, I would do half on an elliptical. And then I'd either walk the other half on the elliptical or I would do or like, no, not elliptical. Sorry, the treadmill. I would do half on the treadmill and then I'd either walk the other half on the treadmill or I would do the second half if I was really tired that day on the elliptical. What a time. What a fucking time.

That was like, what, 60 pounds ago? You literally complained that you didn't have time to run five miles a day. And I'm sitting there listening to this going, hey, who are these people? Who are these people? I've never heard of them before. If we go back to 2017, let's let that M know

that I never get back to the gym. Yeah, sorry. This yeah sorry this is the end the beginning of the end um you also said this dog hates me about geo and the entire episode you can just hear him clip clapping around there's like so much noise it's like the worst audio ever um this let's take this moment then to really appreciate the ogs who still listen because the fact that you endured that which also is a testament to how far podcasting has come because maybe that was good back then like i was gonna say i don't think today that would have like cut through that wouldn't have flown no i think in 2017 when you know not everyone had a podcast it

was no i think you just listened to what you had. Because like, I remember Googling like how to set up podcasting equipment. There was not a single article. Like there was not, you know, wiki hell. There was no like, here's an Amazon page on like which mics to buy. None of that. There was nothing. So we had to like read the instruction manual, you know, like it was 1955 and like figure out clearly we didn't even do that right. But well, thank you to everybody who's been listening since then. And for some reason, despite all of the flaws, you you really you hunkered down and it's still bad. You still listen. But it's nice that you've kept up. I appreciate your dedication. That's all we do.

And honestly, like every time someone says I've been listening since like the early days, I just shocked i'm shocked like that sounds kind of like sad but it's true i'm like shaken to my core every time someone says like oh no i've been listening forever yeah it still blows my mind or even when people now say oh i just found them and i've been binging the episode which i'm very appreciative but in today's world where there is better audio in first episodes, it's like, why did you listen to ours? And that was worse. And they're like, I started from the beginning. I'm like, God bless, you know? Yeah.

I mean, listen. We appreciate you. You're the reason we have the lives we have today. You're the reason I stopped going to the gym. So, you know, thank you. I would rather have all of you than ever run another five miles. So, thank you also oh my god me too not that that's hard to say but me too that was what lonely sad m looked like and now

look at me look at me now look at you now uh moving right along this is the amityville murders but it's the murder part so you covered you covered the ghost part um and i listened back because i wanted to make sure i wasn't like doubling you know any information or like just retelling the same story but it is a different story because um you referenced the murder but you didn't really like go into detail so that's what i'll do today so we've got the notorious Amityville house of the Amityville horror. I don't know how to do it. Horror. Horror. I don't know. Horror. Okay. And it's on Long Island on Long Island. I'm not going to do anymore. I'm stopping in New York. And in this show, in the episode, you said, my dad claimed that he lived next door to it, but I don't think he's telling the truth,

which is one of the funniest things you've said i i still you stand by i still think that yeah he grew up like my dad says he grew up on or you're like he grew up on long island is that right that part's true yes and he grew up near amityville but i and you're like he says he lives next door but i don't think that part's true yeah i i don't believe that for a minute but um it was a good story when i was 10 i was like oh for sure it's a great story it's just now we have to you know i just love that you already called it episode four you're like that's bullshit i do run five miles a day but my dad did not live next door to amityville like one of like honestly of those two sentences i would more believe today that my dad lived in the

MDVL house or something than I ever ran. That's why I asked you, because I was like, did I miss something about your exercise? Back then, it didn't even phase me when you said five miles. I was like, oh, cool. Now I'm like- That was my prop house days. I see. It's a different time.

Then I started remote working. I don't drive to the gym anymore. Yeah, sure. I blame you. Yeah, you're welcome. You blamed everyone else who listened a minute ago, but I guess now it's my fault. Everyone but myself, yeah. Well, sure.

The notorious Amityville House, located on Long Island, New York. Now, I'm going to give you a quick background on the actual land. I know we've been talking about land today. So long before the house was built, which, by the way, the address at the time was 112 Ocean Avenue, Now, I'm going to give you a quick background on the actual land. I know we've been talking about land today. So long before the house was built, which, by the way, the address at the time was 112 Ocean Avenue, and it was built in the 1920s. Amityville had a storied, the area at least, had a storied history of its own. So according to the Matanikok tribal nation, the island was home to 13 tribes of the Algonquin family, a group of peoples who spoke the Algonquin language and who still live on Long Island today. European Americans began colonizing the area in the 17th century when Amityville was founded as a settlement, but it wasn't fully incorporated as the village of Amityville until 1894. Okay.

So Ronald and Louise DeFeo are the couple that purchased this infamous house in late June of 1965. And the husband, Ronald, worked at a car dealership that his father in law owned. And the DeFeos lived pretty comfortable lives. father so it almost feels like the father-in-law like ronald's father-in-law aka louise's father is sort of like kind of has i i don't want to say like in a negative way but it seems like he has a lot of like purchase in this relationship like a lot of power like he hired his son-in-law he bought them the house you know it almost feels like he's kind of pulling the strings a little bit sure um so reportedly he bought them the house so they could move out of their brooklyn apartment and he is also said to have given the family tens of thousands of dollars just as spending money um and they have these which we didn't mention and i don't think i

realized at the time but like they had these like famously lavish family portraits painted of all the kids and the family and i don't know if you've seen them but there's something like unsettling about of course seeing them now after the murders because sure they're like larger than life these like massive oil paintings um and so they they're kind of they were known for these like massive family portraits. And so the DeFeos lived in the house for nearly a decade and they had five children, Ronald, who was nicknamed Butch, Dawn, D-A-W-N, Allison, Mark and John Matthew. So Ronald, the oldest, a.k.a. Butch, who was named after his father, was born in Brooklyn in 1951. And many accounts say he was a survivor of relentless parental abuse from his father. members witnessed Ronald's Ronald Jr.'s father throw him against walls hit him until he was covered in bruises and these are other adults in the family who had who had witnessed this abuse happen Ronald was also bullied pretty badly in school so he really didn't have like a safe haven anywhere he didn't have a place where he could let his guard down

he was even known to pay some older guys in his school to like protect him to like keep an eye out to keep him from getting you like paying for security because he was so stressed out geez which i'm sure didn't help the bullying right like i'm sure that right it's only more fodder they're like go tell your go tell your security guard right exactly and like oh you're paying you're using money to like protect your you know i'm sure that this was not a good system but it was the only way he could like get through it and like sarsha our researcher put a really great note here um that like this is it's spoiler alert. If you don't know what happens in across as oh because he was a victim of

abuse that's why he like murdered his whole family because typically um and like search made a great point here that like uh actually a lot of times the bullies themselves are like research actually shows that bullies themselves are the most likely to continue being like perpetrating violence. And so, you know, obviously many people survive bullying and abuse every day without like murdering their whole family. So even though the media sometimes is like, oh, this active shooter situation, this this perpetrator was a social outcast and like that's why he did it like a lot of that is very skewed and not necessarily how the world works um but of course we know much more about ronald jr's background because that's what the sources focus on and that's kind of what's relevant it's so much easier well not easier but it's so much um more telling now given at the time there there wasn't a lot of active shooting going on um like

there is today with people around his age you know like in today's worlds he would be one of many that is just it was quote an outcast and didn't know what to do and decided to turn a gun on people that he was around all the time and that's a very good point that's a very good point it's interesting that back then we probably wouldn't have had the same vocabulary that we would today for someone like him because now it feels like so different yeah every week sometimes multiple times a week we're over analyzing someone who he probably would have hung out with of like an outcast who feels like they don't have anybody who feels alone, who has a lot of pent up anger. Maybe there's issues at home, like all the usual like buzzwords that we hear. The tropes. Yeah. The tropes. And all of them do something very similar to what he

did. And so, I mean, he would be clumped into a whole category these days versus being this one outlier incredible story that's a really good point and i feel like that needs to be like noted just because like you know again just because someone survives familial abuse like does not make them a you know a shooter yes sure yeah so but it is interesting that at the time it was an outstanding case whereas today totally very sadly it is like what happens every fucking Tuesday as it is like children getting shot is not like the most uh outrageous headline you've ever heard if that story happened today it would have not been the the giant case it probably would not have been as yeah and I think it would have still made some news but it wouldn't have been notorious 50 years later exactly and i think like obviously part of the reason it became

notorious is the following owners and all this and like his claims but you're right it would have probably been a drop in the bucket nowadays versus back then where it was like so shocking and jarring yeah um and of course it is still shocking and jarring it's just now we have much more there's a there's a lot more cases like this i mean now it's happening a lot more in schools than homes but it's yeah you know anyway it's not we could go on forever and ever about this i totally agree with you and um you know this is is just my little caveat that I want to throw out there. So Ronald started suffering from violent outbursts. And these violent outbursts made his friends and family really, like uncomfortable, and they did not feel safe around him. He started

struggling in school. He started fighting with his father. He was expelled from high school. And he began to struggle with a substance use disorder. They tried to intervene. And back then, you know, this is not as standard, but they did try to get him professional mental health intervention that did not do anything. And so his family was at a total loss and they all they could do is try to keep him happy and peaceful. He was given expensive gifts his parents uh bought him guns to add to his gun collection which is something that he was very proud of yeah okay maybe and no comment okay they gave him a job at the family car dealership and they paid him even if he didn't show up, even if he did poor performance, which was the usual.

He often skipped work. He would show up late, leave early, and they just paid him to keep him calm and happy. Employees were extra polite to him because they were like, we don't want an outburst. We're just going to kind of skirt around this guy. him because they were like we don't want an outburst we're just gonna kind of skirt around this guy and ronald would eventually be accused of stealing from the dealership nineteen thousand dollars in cash and checks and at the time it was nineteen thousand yep which today is worth approximately a hundred and eight thousand dollars holy shit and he stole this with an accomplice and he told police that they had been he was just on his way to deposit at the bank on behalf of his workplace but they'd been held up on the way

to the bank and someone else stole the money from him was his backstory and police didn't think this lined up so they went to the dealership and found out yeah this was all bullshit he had stolen it himself um and so ronald senior his dad asked police to please take it easy on ronald like the and found out, yeah, this was all bullshit. He had stolen it himself. And so Ronald Sr., his dad, asked police to please take it easy on Ronald. Like the last thing he wanted was to get his son worked up and sent home and, you know, lash out at them. So he asked police to please take it easy on him. And there are a couple more stories that, for example, he allegedly jokingly threatened a friend at gunpoint on a hunting trip and then just like moved on. Right. Like nothing happened. Like a hilarious joke.

Another story goes that during a fight with his father, he actually pulled the trigger of a gun, but it failed to fire and they just moved on. So there are a couple of those massive red flags. He was also charged with larceny. And as part of that, basically, the charge was that he had used his family boat as a getaway vehicle. And he had been on probation for drug use. And so, you know, as you can imagine, he began hanging out with sort of like a rough and tumble crowd they were known to fight uh and get into all sorts of antics but they always ended up back like in the same kind of small group and he would oftentimes bring his friends over late at night

while his whole family was upstairs asleep and the friend group would just hang out and drink um they had this like beautiful home which now is just known as a creepy beautiful home but at the time obviously was just like this gorgeous home uh on the water and one friend for example told the new york times it was a beautiful home very expensive they had a big bar with champagne and everything we would drink and play music but i never met his family um sometimes apparently his mom would yell from upstairs like please turn the music down but that's the only way his friends even knew that his family was there like he would just say come hang out at my house and like everyone would just kind of assume like no one's home the mom would be like can you turn down the music and they were all asleep upstairs but they were too scared they were like walking

on eggshells around him essentially um i'm really glad you covered it this way because the obviously since episode four the the creepy part of it or the ghost part of it is really like the the part that people hear and like everyone's so focused on the hauntings and no one actually knows like like part of the story story spoiler alert is that he thinks he like he claimed he was possessed but with all this backstory it's i can see why that that might not have been the case like maybe he was just you know in the wrong crowd going through it had a clearly some psychological stuff going on access to weapons access to a lot of guns that they were they were giving him more guns while he when he had violent outbursts to appease him which not blaming the victim just backstory um but so it's i've none and all you

ever hear is like oh this this guy killed people and yeah and that's exactly kind of how i felt about it um and when we were searching like suggested it i was like well you know i'm already covered this and then i went back and listened i was like oh but like you covered like the ghosts the story like the lore like the one that's like in the famous part yeah yeah the famous part and i like had no kind of concept about like i really didn't realize how much well because the story always makes you think like oh out of nowhere he just went fucking crazy how could someone do that right and then he said like it was the the story sounds like overnight he really was possessed by something and and but i would have never known this whole time i had no idea that there was like years of

important information that led up to that yeah and i feel like the story of him the story of the murder of his family all of that gets kind of sometimes brushed aside yeah to like tell the more like uh sensationalized sensational exactly version so you know it's it's worth telling the backstory i guess yeah um so yeah he would have these people over and you know it was like this gorgeous three-story home with a pool like just the perfect place for teenagers to hang out except that his siblings and parents were asleep upstairs but they just let him do it they didn't want to like mess with anything set him off um one night for example a friend remembered Ronald breaking a pool stick in half in a moment of anger. He just would have these like outbursts and sometimes they became physical.

So despite confirmed and alleged stories about Ronald, the DeFeos were generally well liked by their neighbors. Like they were a pretty, pretty pillar of the community type family. They were also very good to their neighbors. They went out of their way to befriend and support them. There was one neighbor named Catherine O'Reilly who lost her husband and they were like extremely supportive and kind and like helped her through that, her grieving during that time. Ronald Sr. would drive a 16-year-old to work at her family's restaurant in Brooklyn every single day because she didn't have a ride. Like, they were just very good to the people around them. Another example is that the family would give out homemade pastries

to friends and neighbors, and the assistant pastor at their church called them which i feel like is an under like supposed to be a compliment but not really an average good family i'm like okay yeah that's a weird backhanded situation i mean necessarily and also that was someone from their church i feel like that's church lingo very quick right you feel like it's like nuanced like what does it mean yeah it's like oh. Like, what does it mean? Yeah. It's like, oh, you're average. Yeah, you're just average. It's like right down the line. Not bad. Not good.

Do you even remember who I am? Like, it sounds like you're just bullshitting. If I invited you to a party, it'd be like, you know, we don't feel a certain way. If I'm in the area. Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to have some of those great pastries laying out, maybe I'll stop by. Yeah.

Some days are better than others. No, I get what he meant, though, of like, oh, they were just like normal. Like they were standard. You wouldn't see anything like this coming kind of family. No, no, no. You wouldn't like look twice. So that part of the story actually is kind of true. Like it was very shocking when this happened because they just seemed like such a typical american family yeah

the family was pretty religious and they prayed together on sunday nights um they actually installed a statue of joseph holding baby jesus on the front lawn uh complete with lights and a fountain um so that's nice uh a sign a sign in front of the house read high hopes. And it was almost like they had named the house that. So a lot of locals would refer to the house as high hopes, which is so crazy to think like it had this identity as high hopes. And no one knew like, oh, one day this will have like a real big identity. And now it's like international. Any hope would do. Right.

It's like, yikes, that turned really quickly on its head. But it did really seem like one of those everything looked fine from the outside, like everything looks perfectly normal from the outside. And I'm sure a lot of this came from the parents like just putting on, you know, putting out there what they wanted other people to see. what they wanted other people to see. So in 1974, we've got a household with Louise and Ronald Sr. Ronald Jr. is the oldest. He's 23. 18-year-old Don, 13-year-old Allison, 12-year-old Mark, and 9-year-old John Matthew. So the date is November 13th, 1974. And around 6.30 p.m., 74 and around 6 30 p.m ronald jr burst into an amityville bar and started screaming you gotta help me i think my mother and father are shot so several people accompanied him from the bar back to 112 ocean avenue they ran all the way there the door was unlocked and one of the family dogs was barking at them as they went inside and up the stairs to Ronald's parents' room. And lo and behold, there were Louise and Ronald Sr., both dead in bed.

Someone had shot them while they slept. They then, of course, went to the other bedrooms to check on the children. And tragically, all four of Ronald's younger siblings had also been shot to death in their beds. four of ronald's younger siblings had also been shot to death in their beds all six of them all six of the victims were lying face down in bed louise and ronald senior had both been shot twice and the children were each shot once someone called police while ronald broke down outside and when police arrived ronald told him he believed it was a mafia hit by a hitman named Louis Fellini. And his story was that he was at work and it must have happened during the day when he was at work. And so he had no way of knowing until he got home.

And when Ronald Sr. had failed to show up for work, Ronald told everyone he had no idea where his dad was. He tried to call him and didn't get an answer and ronald had often alluded to his dad having mafia connections um you know this was an italian family but friends thought like his friends thought oh this is just a ploy to get like the bullies off his back right like he's trying to make himself kind of like they thought it was bullshit like oh my dad has mafia connections and one of his friends oh my dad lived next to the amityville house yeah exactly you get it i get we've all been there um but one of his friends made a really good point which kind of cracked me up and i was like oh yeah a good point he said when you belong to the mafia you don't talk about it and i was like oh yeah right so i imagine like all his blabbering on about the mafia and how his dad has mafia connections like probably was most people brush

that aside but police were like okay well it's worth checking so they put ronald in protective custody and they investigated the crime scene and of course immediately things did not add up uh for one all of the family members were in pajamas and in their beds so like he said this must have happened during the day while i was at work but that doesn't add up if they're all in bed in their pajamas and their pjs yeah yeah so investigators realized that this must have happened like well before ronald went to work uh putting him at the scene of the crime because he had slept there the night before which is wild that he would have done this and then slept next to all of them and then just gone straight to work like to brush your teeth knowing that in the other room is i mean and then to spend all day out and about and then run into a bar

screaming in hysterics like it's all an act it's very chilling it's really chilling so investigators realize like yes this must have happened in the early morning before he left for work uh not during the day as ronald had claimed they also found ammo matching the murder weapon in ronald's bedroom and when they interviewed people who knew ronald jr they were putting together a pretty troubling profile and they pretty quickly knew he was probably involved uh he started to change his story he said lewis fellini this mobster had woken him up with a gun to his head and made ronald follow him around the house and watch him kill his family one at a time um but then like why would the hitman

spare ronald like right exactly sense and also why would he it already ruins his credibility from when he ran and he goes i think my parents got shot it's like great point so i thought you watched technically do it but it was because someone forced me to do it yeah like it just didn't make sense and so they were like asking him like go on explain more and he said oh well then lewis fellini threw the gun into a sewer. And investigators were like, hmm, this is not adding up. But they kept pressing him. And finally, he did confess to all six murders, which took place in the middle of the night slash early morning hours before he went to ask for help. He said it all started so fast.

Quote, once I started, I just couldn't stop. It went so fast quote once i started i just couldn't stop it went so fast i mean also like it would have to go fast if you just shot somebody and people are going to start running and hiding so like if you want to get yeah which like i know it's a fucked up way to think but like it has to happen fast once you pull the trigger once and everyone's gunshot in the house exactly exactly if you're if if you are a killer of one person there's witnesses now so there's a choice now you either stop and or keep going yeah and you're done and they know it was you or you keep going and try to work your way out of it so tragically he tried and it didn't

work um he was arrested for the murder of both of his parents and his four younger siblings and of course even if they had known he was troubled or what have you this was like a total shock to have not only the parents but four small kids killed in their beds by their sibling their oldest brother um ronald's friends refused to believe it and were like trying to find a way to explain this to themselves and wondering if he had been set up. One friend said, I can see somebody having a quarrel with his father or mother, but those four children. I was talking to Ronnie just recently about how proud he was of his brother playing football. He he'd never kill his brother. So they were just really shaken by this do you think they were just like collateral

damage of like well now that i've killed my parents who who's gonna watch them i don't want to have to deal with it like i mean it very well could be it sounds very family annihilator you know which is typically the father in a family but yeah i don't know it's almost like you'd think it'd be easier to explain away as fucked up as it is to even say this out loud but like you'd think it'd be easier to explain away like killing your parents and you can say or one of your parents saying oh we were in this heated argument but they're like there's no way to say my nine-year-old sibling right my sister who looks up to me yeah yeah yeah that part is part is just so far fetched that like people could not wrap their heads around it. But Ronald did kill all six of them. And so in the following weeks, he would change his story over and over. People questioned how the family had slept through the gunshots, because like you mentioned, one gunshot goes off and you imagine everyone hears it, but they were all still in their beds um the weapon that he used couldn't be equipped with a silencer so there was no chance he had put a silencer on

the weapon neighbors had reportedly heard the family's dog barking that night but that was really normal their dog barked all the time and so nobody like thought twice about it but nobody else seemed to have heard the gunshots ronald uh for you know his side of the story he claimed he drugged his family with barbiturates at dinner so that they'd sleep through the massacre um and like maybe he was trying to look more compassionate like oh well they were all asleep when i did it like right they were unconscious like at least i did it painlessly or something yeah painlessly like they didn't know what was happening but of course i have to report that that is also untrue um because evidence suggested that louise and allison were both awake uh i mean this is also

this is so terrifying but this is also a reality that a lot of kids have to deal with now it's like do you think they were just hiding in their beds and just hoping that like under the covers i mean it wouldn't come into their room it's like that classic move of just like pulling the covers over your head and being like what else can i do i mean if you're a nine-year-old girl like what else you're gonna do you know like just hope hope that it happens and why would you think and apparently oh god this is in one of the documentaries i watched he walked in and louise i don't i think it was louise said what's happening what happened and he just shot her so she thought that he had like protected

the family for a second right he walks in she's probably like oh thank god like my brother's here you know whatever this noise commotion is like he'll protect me and then so fucked up so on october 14th 1975 ronald went to trial facing charges for all six murders and ronald's defense tried to paint ronald to be this kind of sympathetic figure um they said they would plead insanity uh they claimed that r that Ronald would hear voices that he believed to be demons who told him to kill his family. But there is a little bit of controversy because apparently Ronald like publicly opposed the insanity plea and was like, no, I don't want to be labeled. Like that's not part of my defense. But those who knew Ronald testified that like probably no mental illness set apart

in his crime they said um maybe it was his issues with his family rising tensions drugs his anger problem but they were like we don't like the people who knew ronald best were like we don't think this was mental illness at play it might have been a number of other things. But like, we don't think he's, we don't think pleading insanity is going to work. So in the end, with all that said, he was found guilty on six counts of second degree murder and sentenced to six concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. Wow. Yeah, that's a long long time and over the years he changed his story several times um and he appealed for a retrial he tried to convince the courts that this is wild

that his sister dawn had actually killed the entire family oh my god throwing one of the victims under the bus is crazy can you imagine that's fucking crazy after all that he like so how did you so how you how'd you get away big man and like why so why is she dead yeah here you go this is what he said his sister dawn had killed their entire family and that he only killed her to protect himself at the end like he walked in on this and shot her which like imagine if your parents were alive to hear you calling their dead daughter a monster are you kidding me it's horrific and then what you like care you like shot her put her in her bed and then pretend like it doesn't make any sense that you would change your story all of a sudden to that like literally the only story that makes sense is that a fucking demon came in like

that's the only believable story and that's why that's the one that landed i guess turned into the story right like it's the only way that I feel like you could maybe get a few people on your side. I also now because that also makes me wonder with because I mean, his his most popular excuse or his most popular reason for having done this is that he was possessed by a demon. And now it makes me wonder, too. I mean, if his family was incredibly religious, maybe he thought that would be a good scapegoat of like. That's a good point. And I feel like Italian Catholic, like I could definitely see guilt in some way by blaming the devil or like, oh, temptation made me do it or some symbol. And it almost makes some sense that like that would maybe be the first thing his head goes to like, oh, shit.

Something that Christians or his family would. Yeah. Something his family would pity him for, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Like they maybe would accept as a reason. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of the like Catholic or the Christianity connection. So, yeah, he's changing his story left and right. The weirdest part to all of this, which I maintain, which like, what's the word? I confess I don't have an explanation for this and it does i find it to be the weirdest part is that he has never given a motive like he has never said why he not only killed his parents and maybe you know if he had been suffering abuse at the hands of his dad you could like i guess get a motive you know you could definitely get a motive out of that um you know

when it comes to life insurance he did once ask about collecting his father's life insurance policy but uh it wouldn't explain all the siblings being killed i mean i know they're tropes so i don't want to blame one of these things but i could see in see in today's world be very easy to find buzzwords and very easy to find tropes for him of he was an outcast or he was doing drugs or he was hanging out with the wrong crowd or he disrespected his family or they, you know, he was just he's had enough pent up rage and was over dealing with his dad but then he realized he had to get rid of everybody else after he got rid of his dad like i mean i i don't think i don't know if any of those would have been contributing factors but i know they would have been considered today i feel like he um it just seems so like hard like i mean i'm not here to diagnose anyone i do i would wonder if he had i haven't really looked into it i will but if he's been diagnosed with like any sort of mental health issues or just even psychopathy because yeah like the leap from saying one week to your friend i'm so proud of my brother and his baseball career he's gonna do great and i'm so proud of him and then his baseball career. He's going to do great. And I'm so proud of him. And then a week later, shooting him in the head and shooting your sister while she's

like cowering in fear. Like, it's just such a stretch. But I guess for somebody and I'm not saying he is psychopathic. I have no idea. But for somebody like that, it could make more sense why he'd be like, well. It was just a collateral damage, you know, the only thing i can think of is like his i mean the only thing i would first choose out of like the list of like you know the reasons he could have done it is just that if he really had these incredibly violent outbursts maybe like could he have been like drunk or or high on something and like that plus the outburst caused something i mean he had

access to guns right next to his bed so So like where was the outburst from? You know what I mean? Like it wasn't like in the heat of a passionate argument or fight with his parents. Yeah, that's true. You know, like they were all asleep, which is weird. But you're right. Like if drugs were involved, it could have been heightened sensitivity. He had an outburst on top of a normal outburst.

Yeah. I don't know. But I do know if he had his own collection of guns that he had access to i mean he could have just like come up with a scenario in his head or if he was if he was on something i don't know if he was and it could not be this at all but i mean i would i would wonder like did he was he tripping on something and he thought they were in a fight earlier and then he freaked out and he just like had a gun next to him and he went oh well that'll do like i guess i don't know we don't know what happened the night before maybe there was a big falling out and he was just like mulling it over

and over right you know maybe or maybe he heard something about his parents and then he came home and was i mean it could be anything i guess yeah and so it's frustrating because it's like he's given all these like reasons like the devil made me do it and like um a mobster named a pasta whatever rotini made me do it and it's like okay but why like why did you do it like i feel like there's no like real or was it like was he trying to get if he's talking about how he had mafia connections like which i don't totally believe but if that was the case was this like an initiation or something like what and then they were like never mind we don't want you right like you're it's actually you're causing a bit of

a uh problem for us press yeah this is becoming a hollywood blockbuster that we didn't sign up for and um yeah thanks yeah i don't know i i feel like it's it's just it could be so many things or nothing at all it's and again like if he if he is if he is psychopathic and does not feel emotion or or like empathy towards people then you could probably explain like oh it was an inconvenience he didn't want to take care of his siblings he figured why not get rid of all of them you know what i mean like that kind of thinking does happen if you don't have empathy and i'm not you know i don't know if he's been diagnosed with that but and i yeah we don't know anything about his diagnosis but

just in the world of theories like maybe if he did have something going on maybe he also maybe he really did think the devil made him do it for all you know like maybe good point maybe he was tripping like you said and then or maybe he had like a psychotic break and he really saw a demon or something and the demon was telling him to do things like i mean we don't we have no idea there's so many empty like just blank spaces that we're never gonna really know and um it's very frustrating to me um but you know there's nothing i can do about it um so a year after the murders another family moved into the house named the do you remember oh um what's the let's family yes i i only asked because when i listened to it, I was like, oh, yeah, what was their name? And you said the Lutz family. And I went, yeah, that's really, I don't know why I remember that, but it's a very memorable name.

The Lutz family. 300 episodes later, I'm still able to pull that off. That's actually kind of incredible. That's what I thought. I was like, for some reason, I think Em will remember this. So the Lutz family moves into the house and they were there for only 28 29 days uh less than a month which in episode four you said unless it's February and I said well it was December but yep I tried hey you know I know I'm still practicing my banter. It was good. It was good. I shut you down.

So they moved in and fleed within a month. And they claimed that the house was violently haunted. And as we know, their story was adapted into books and movies and became so notorious that it was, you know, it kind of overshadowed the actual real horror that happened there. Like the actual multi-murder of children you know right and so uh ronald was resentful of all these stories coming out this hollywood thing and he said quote i guess the amityville horror really is supposed to be me because i'm the one that got convicted of killing my family i'm the one who i'm the one they say who did it. I'm the one that's supposed to be possessed by the devil. And so he kind of has grown to resent this storyline, even though I feel like it has just added. Sympathy toward him about being possessed by the devil, but whatever.

Anyway, although many people consider to have debunked the Amityville haunting, of course it continues to compel people to this day and it's almost like the real life horrors of it have become like an afterthought to the story yeah it's like oh yeah a bunch of people were murdered here and now it's full of demons and it's like wait wait go back to the i wonder if it's because like girl math i feel like it's because the story that everyone hears is that a dead the devil or a demon made him do it or he was possessed. So it sounds like there was already ghosts and then after him there were ghosts. So there's two ghost situations and only one murder. So it just seems more haunted than crime.

The umbrella story is like the demon. Yes, exactly. It's bookended. The crime is book yeah with ghosts and i also think it's easier for people to swallow the story of someone just murdering their four baby siblings in cold blood and their parents probably easier for most people to swallow by convincing you know being convinced that yeah it was a demonic force it was satanists it was the devil something out of his control and there's no way human beings could do that yeah no. No human could do that to their younger siblings. Exactly.

I feel like that must be part of it as well. And that's probably why this was so compelling is like, holy shit, how could anyone do that? It must be demonic forces. So, you know, this, of course, has become such a notorious story that it made the cut for episode four, top first five, I was gonna say top five episodes, first five episodes, certainly not the top five episodes of our podcast and covered it. And so you should. Well, I was gonna say you should go listen, but maybe don't.

Guys, maybe don't. Em did a great job. I just am embarrassed by my. I don't think I did that. If I did it today, I think I'd have a lot more or less information. But also, did we cover it? I didn't cover it in our book. So, Oh, no, I don't think I did. I think you might have. I think for New York, maybe. Maybe. I literally have it right here for some reason. Let me see. Do we have a New York? Here

we go. New York is page 11. Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. You did the Ghosts of Broadway. Oh, why did I think you did it? I feel like I did. I feel like maybe I mentioned it somewhere in the book. Oh, probably. You probably said my dad lives next to the episode. Next to the. You are funny. I'm reading this nice little. Why? I don't know. Let's see. Christine covered NXIVium at the live show i covered dear david oh and that light bulb exploded above your head oh yeah the grammar c um my favorite you wrote my favorite parts of night were when lisa lampinelli came to support us and when my girlfriend sent us good luck cookies um and i talk about creremit so that sounds right um that's what you have to look forward to if you buy our book excellent yeah wow go buy our book I guess um I don't even see Amityville in like the

places to check out I don't know well I think because it was um Long Island and not the city I was oh that's true that's true that's true well uh anyway so it is not famous enough to reach our book but it is famous enough to be in episode four of this podcast um but Em did a very good job of the ghost part which I'm not really covering today because I wanted to focus on the murders but if you want to go hear the ghost Em does a great job of that and there's a photo that you showed me back then that is still seared into my memory of the little kid and we put that on our instagram i mean again this was 2017 so like it's a long scroll probably to get back there but i mean it's a long scroll on spotify too if you're gonna go listen to the episode well no you can do the nice filter where it says sort by oldest

episode one uh but yeah if you want to check that maybe we'll repost it just for funsies yeah like that just on instagram wow okay wait we're gonna post it on instagram and if you were there for the original posting can you comment there's probably not many people can you comment like this is the second your cousin and our moms uh like this is the second time i've seen this post i don't know maybe that's yeah it'll be allison and our moms uh like this is the second time i've seen this post i don't know maybe that's yeah it'll be allison and our moms and that's it well that'll be nice anyway okay i'd like the support of those three um anyway so the owners of the house have since changed well it's gone through many hands since then but uh the address has changed um of course this has been leaked a

bajillion times it's like probably the most doxxed house on the internet um and of course they can't move the you know it's going to be there whether it's 112 ocean avenue or not i think it's probably one of those places that if you move in you're you know you're prepared for you really you really have to be prepared yeah exactly and i can't imagine you would buy it without knowing what the fuck is going on. Yeah. Although I also wonder, like, I feel like a lot of houses now that have haunted histories, I feel like the new families that move in, they say like, oh, we've it's we've literally never had activity. I don't know what you're talking about. I feel like they almost get trapped or they have to say that. And now they can't ask for help because if they say it actually is haunted, then they're just going to get phone calls out the wazoo about. Yeah, but then they got to make a TikTok or like a, you know, Instagram page and then they can get famous. Just what every family wants.

If you want to be viral, just move in. It's fine. Just go viral. Listen, it's not the first time Emma and I have heard of a haunted property and been like, should we buy that? When the Conjuring house went up, we that's right. We really we didn't like have a full sit down, but we did have like a minute where we were like, that could be our studio. We were like, hey, I have one more glass of wine and like, let's fucking buy it. And you were like, OK, don't drink.

Christine really was about two sips away from just pressing buy now versus like as if it was an Amazon purchase. Yeah, buy now versus like as if it was an amazon purchase yeah buy now one click purchase i um and the funny thing was it was up for like over a million dollars and i'm over here like let's buy it it's like we can do it we can do it we could we did it last time with our with our 200 microphones we we found it we found the coins in our couch we can do it again and of course like looking back well first of all no we cannot afford that everyone don't worry but second of all uh looking back now and listening to that episode where i'm like man houses like a starter home is like three hundred thousand dollars and then like now that house is probably cheaper i a two million dollar conjuring house for fun

because i'm drinking and it's like no no no no the tables have turned mentally for me but not in reality anyway they're constantly getting worse sometimes i go on zillow and i'm like it's only nine million dollars i go we'll figure it out your brain gets so fucked up where you're like relatively like things don't i don't know there are times where i've shown alice in like a 12 million dollar house and i'm like what do you think and she's like what do i think what do i think i think close the fucking tab that's what i think like delete all the zeros afterward yeah um so if only we knew like how bad but look now i own my own home um at least not in la it's in kentucky but you know uh we you've made the changes you had to make to make it work so yeah we've come

pretty far i feel very um happy that you know it's just also very uh nostalgic to listen to episode four and it was one of those days where i just thought i needed this little like pick me up of listening to young em and christine and their bullshit you know um and probably saying like non-pc things and all sorts of uh cringe worthy moments um but oh i do want to say one update too which obviously had not happened when we recorded the original but uh ronald de feo jr has since died in prison in 2021 um and he was only 69 years old so you know that's another thing that like i really need to re-estimate my like how time works for me because it feels so long ago but to know that ronald lefeo like experienced covid with us like i know i know it like i feel like he he was gone it puts a different perspective

on it i totally agree it's like oh maybe he died of covid i mean i don't know what he died of but like it's just a crazy you never know yeah yeah um the official oh not been released to the public okay thought i would check just in case but yeah and i mean i remember that documentary that you told me about way back when and i watched that before you because you had said there's this documentary called like my amityville Horror, I think, which was like his side of the story. It was like the kid who one of the kids who lived through the house. He has his own demons. It seems like he's got some stuff going on.

But yeah, I don't really know. But the well, and then there was a whole thing with the warrens who got involved and then they got all complicated because they're kind of fucked up so it feels like it was just such a mess of a story even i i will still recommend it was like what was it called miami ville story my amityville horror um yeah it was i don't know how much of it i believe i believe he believes it like i that's almost what's really interesting about it and like I would recommend watching that and then watching I watched a couple documentaries about I watched some more one that came out I think after he passed in 2021

on Discovery Plus so if you just search Amityville there are like several options but so seeing my Amityville horror and then watching the other ones you're like oh he didn't touch on x y and z or his gun collection or his this that and the other yeah i actually i thank you for bringing that back to my out of the folds of my brain i might actually watch that tonight i remember being good even if i like i feel like the the only reason i hold back because usually i'm so pro ghost is like i am also aware that like when that guy who's in charge of the documentary or he's like narrating what happened to him i know he was also a little kid so maybe his story is skewed in some way it's so hard to i don't know

what's real and what's not and so like i try to take it with a grain of salt but it's still scary like even if like the things that he's saying if they're like they were bigger in his head then yeah or if they really happen i mean if they really happen that was fuck it's and to be honest like what is a house like with a six-person murder like just in innocent children getting murdered like your brain's gotta come up with shit i was gonna say no if that's if if someone tells me that place is haunted I'm like yeah most likely like I don't doubt that a place is haunted maybe not because demons made him kill his family but maybe like I don't know it can't be like a good energy right like oh and apparently when the Lutzes

bought the house which we never really touched on before is they bought it with all the furniture still and the mattresses were removed but the bed frames were all the same so the kids were sleeping the kids were sleeping people had the bed frames on new mattresses in the same beds as the children that really i mean we've talked about this before too but like how where is the line theory like is there oh oh i see what you're saying yeah like would you wear a shirt that a murderer wore or would you like things like that where it's like at some point it's where are they like but at some point you know what i mean like at some point is it okay to move into a house where this happened sure but is it okay to sleep on the beds no but why like and

there's some really practical people who don't have who don't feel like energy connections to things things. And they can be like, what? It's a bed frame. I'm not going to get rid of a good bed frame. It's a perfectly good bed frame. That's every dad ever. Yeah. In my head, I'm like a soul ended there or like a soul was a baby who was taken out of a body on this. And it's like, well, why is that any different than a new bed there? I don't know. But in my head, it feels different. You know, it feels totally different. It's like, well, why is that any different than a new bed there? I don't know. But in my head, it feels different. You know, it feels totally different. It's like or I honestly like I would have to repurpose the entire room of like I can't sleep in a room where two deaths happened. You know, like it would really be trouble.

And you'd have to be one of those people who's like, I don't believe in that to like feel totally comfortable, you know, unless you're like full on thrill seeking enthusiast for that. Right. Unless there's what you want. There's no in-between. Either you have to be Zach Bagans or you have to be Blaze. Like, you have to...

Those are the two ends of the spectrum. And with that, here are my arms again, okay, everybody? I don't know what the fuck to tell you. What a great way to end this. What a segue. Well, and that's why we drink, drink folks we drink because of those two stories and christine shoulders the reason we are the way we ended episode four was we went okay ready set go and we said and that's why we drink at the same time and i was like that's almost stupider

than how we do it now because we have to like time our like one two three go it's like why do we do that we but at least back then we were in the same room so that's true okay that's true the lag makes it hard that's true yeah we'll never know how to end it but honestly at this point if we knew how to how to it would probably be a little too clean and polished for people it would be people would be like something's up so it's not my uh podcast catcher or whatever it's not my podcast player i like it it's a little it's a you know we stumble through it it's a little it's like when i'm saying goodbye at a party and i get this is why irish goodbye because i get like nervous when i'm talking and i'm saying goodbye and then i'm suddenly like

what a beautiful chandelier and they're like i thought you were leaving and i'm like i don't know how to say goodbye and leave like i'm just making just making it weird. And I'm drawing out the goodbye. It's like you're pulling teeth to your own situation. Next time you're saying goodbye and you comment on something, I'm going to go, goodbye, Christine, and just close the door on you. Just leave. We're going to close the door for you. Yeah. Well, my every now and then my mom, I feel so bad about it because it's like so bitchy. But at the same time, there are a lot of times when my mom will call and I just hang up in the middle of her sentence because like I just it just keeps going.

And I'm like, we've said bye like 20 times. Goodbye. And so as as I've tried to teach people and I hope everybody remembers. But if you are on a phone call and you hit, don't hang up, but if you, well, do hang up, but if you hit the airplane mode emoji or not emoji, the airplane mode, it'll say call ended or call failed. It'll say call failed. And so it'll look like there was an error in the phone lines or whatever. You're really telling yourself because next time that happens between us i'm going to screenshot and go what the fuck what the fuck did you do i do that sometimes when i'm really stressed out and i'm scared and then i just hit the airplane well you're not alone because my mom also can't say goodbye she every single

i think you're like i'm gonna hang up because i want her to know that i'm hanging up and it's not an error if i don't do it, it will never end. I'd still be on a phone call from eight years ago. The good thing, too, is if you hit airplane mode, then they can't call you back until you turn it off. You know what I mean? It's honestly a win, win, win, win, win. Well, she doesn't know how to end a phone call, but she also clearly has this weird guilt if she hangs up that like someone is disappointed that the phone call's over and so she can't end until she's already scheduled a new phone call with you and but it's

never like oh get your calendar out when are you free she just frantically screams a time at you after she's already said goodbye five times okay i love you goodbye oh wait one more thing okay goodbye oh one more thing okay i'll call you at eight o'clock on Thursday. And the voice is just getting farther and farther from the phone. But it's like she's still somehow shouting through the phone. She's just like, I'm like, girl, I'll get you when I get you. Like, I don't need. I really I don't care.

Like, and she she keep. Anyway, I just hang up. I'm like, I'm like, so now we're your mom. And we just won't hang up the phone. We won't let these poor listeners free. We won't set them free. Oh, yeah, you're right. We're very Michael Scott-ing this.

Okay, so we'll go. We should say, and that's why we drink at the same time, right? That's how it went on episode four? Sure, we can try it. And Jack, our editor, if it doesn't line up, can you just leave it how it is? Because it'll be funnier. It will be funnier if it's bad. So one, two, three.

And that's why we drink. And that's why we drink. It sounded like the problem is on my end it sounded perfectly in sync but i'm sure on your end it didn't it didn't the the my words and your words didn't even touch on my oh excellent well we'll see we'll see what happens when it comes out okay and that oh wait what i don't know i don't know that's why we drink the end