And That's Why We Drink - E361 Troll Hole To-Go and Naming our ADHD

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

It's episode 361 and we're not naming our ADHD, you are! Ok, we all are. This week Em takes us into the world of the exorcism of Clarita Villanueva and the nuances that mark the line between paranormal experience and mental health crisis. Then Christine covers the recent 2022 murder of Brenda Powell, a sad and perplexing story that has us revisiting why we drink this week. And who didn't have a childhood bossy streak to overcompensate for our parents' divorces... and that's why we drink!We're going back on tour THIS WEEK! Don't miss us in Philly, DC and Baltimore to kick off the very last run of our On the Rocks live show. Get your tickets at andthatswhywedrink.com/live

uh hi christine welcome to my humble troll hole on the go abode you're a troll on the go yeah well that's a shark tank product if i ever heard one. Well, my... Forget Pooh Pourri. We've got a troll hole on the go. I'm really what it is, is I'm in my stepbrother's closet. Whoa, that's weird. Okay. That's not what I was expecting.

And he's been very kind to leave. I think I woke him up and I went,'re gonna have to wake up and go somewhere else so um so thank you to Brendan what's happening with the did you put that sheet up I did this was from last time I was I'm trying to keep a consistent mom's house background which is I it's very familiar that tie-dye yeah yeah it's my bed sheet from seventh grade oh look how much use it's getting I know hey you know i i always knew it was meant for something is that like a pb teen situation it was pb t i knew it i used to just circle all the pb teen stuff i don't think i oh my mom once bought me she

she finally caved and bought me a quilt from there that i still have um and i still have my blanket see every i don't understand prizezed possession why were parents so against pbt and when like it's expensive as shit dude yeah but if you girl math it and we're still using it in our 30s it was like a buck 50 but if you're a single mom who can't afford anything for breakfast but cereal the generic kind then yeah you know i guess a quilt is expensive okay mom i get it jesus but it it evened out so i don't know what we were complaining about you know yeah i still have that quilt i've wore her down which is not i guess i was proud of it a moment ago now i'm not proud of it anymore when i say it out loud in that context i'm still proud of mine so you know

we could again break even fantastic fantastic how are you christine i feel like i haven't talked to you in a million years but i know that's not true but well it is true because like we were supposed to record multiple days and then we just kept putting it off yeah not putting it off but like stuff kept coming up i feel like i got my hopes up that i was gonna see you like three times in a row so now this time yeah but then you're the one playing the tease because you're the one that said oh i can't record you know so it's like man you really got my hopes up that's very nice of you to say i like being missed but you're forcing my hand by saying let's record oh never mind and i'm like oh okay never mind well anyway i i don't know i don't know what to say to that except sorry but uh

other than that you don't have to say anything i that except sorry. But other than that. You don't have to say anything. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here. I almost was like, we're not even going to record today, I bet. I just had a feeling. I was like, I don't know. I feel like we had three recordings planned, I think, for this week. Or two or three.

And it's Friday right before Christmas. And I was like, I mean, if any day to bail on recording, it's the Friday before Christmas. I know. Oh, well. we made it. I'm so proud. We made it. What are you drinking, Christine? I'm drinking my little THC seltzer.

Isn't that fun? You are having a real moment with your THC stuff. I am because I'm really trying to cut back on the drinking during the holidays. I mean, I'm still drinking. Don't worry, everyone. But, you know, I'm trying to find other ways to just take the edge off, you know. And since I can't do it in a healthy way, like my therapist suggests, then I just do it with substances. So I don't know what else to say. That's just the honest truth. I am drinking. Well, OK, so I went to my mom's.

Not closet. What do you call them? Garages. I went to her garage. You need to stop going in people's closets. It's like an invasion of everyone's privacy. You know what? It was, a lot of these closets were mine before a whole other family moved in. Leave me alone. You spent enough time in the closet.

You don't need to go back. That's a good argument. Yeah. All of these closets were mine. That's also a good argument, I guess. It's like, well,

we got one of my step-siblings they're like they have grown up here since they were nine but at each time they like try to act like they like run the show and i'm just like a guest here i'm like let's be clear i lived here for like 20 years before you were even born it's like relax like shut up i would be like totally thrown by that it's like when my brother moved into my old bedroom and turned it into his office and we're not allowed to call it my my room anymore. And I'm like, what's my bedroom? And he's like, No, it's my office. And I'm like, Okay, I don't like this game. why i've decided this closet has to be my kingdom now now um and by the way the room that i'm in my stepbrother's room it was before it was my stepbrother's room it was the new and improved kids club no it wasn't i knew it okay so please like again yeah again this was my fucking domain relax brendan you know yeah did he pass the test because i tried to take the test and i fucking

failed you know what of all the people who would very few would pass the test i think considering we've looked back now and the kids club test was just a math test he would pass it yeah by the way folks if you're not on patreon we did an after hours where m like revealed the binder of the folder of um kids club documents documents thank you thank you portfolio um the ephemera if you will and one of the sheets of paper was indeed the test well there was a song it was a whole thing um but i took the test and um i failed the test because it's a literal algebra it's like a fucking algebra test and i was like why so you passed this around anyway so if you want to witness that it's on patreon but it was probably the hardest I've left in a very long time um it was the most

embarrassed I've been you were so embarrassed but I'm over here like how do you expect me to carry the two like on a I don't know I feel like you and I were both just out of sorts but uh it was a delightful time I had a whole list of of like rules that you had to follow. Oh, God. And after all these really strict rules about like that were like really like military rules. It was intense. And they were like kind of rude, too, by the way. And the very last one was have fun.

Yeah, that's right. It was like clean up after yourself. Don't make a mess. Like you can't touch anything unless we tell you to, or I tell you to. Most importantly, have fun. It's like, everybody's terrified now, but sure am. I feel like I'm actually going to like pee my pants. I can't tell if it's out of shame or laughter.

But yeah, it was really, it was embarrassing. It said a lot about who I was as a child. And again, I was trying to assert dominance. So there's a real pattern there. We've delved into a little bit of the psychology there of like you and I both had this kind of like bossy streak which I think probably came about when the parents got divorced and you know we're trying to like assert some control over people and we were trying to control things where we could our environment yeah yeah yeah so you know we've all been there I mean by we all I mean you and I I don't know just you and me yeah just me and you know we've all been there i mean by we all i mean you and i i

don't know just you and me yeah just me and you uh okay so anyway all that i went to my mom's garage and i was expecting to get me a d peppy but all she had was cherry coke which is essentially the same thing i love a cherry coke though i love that's a good choice um so that's what i'm drinking today wait this is a this oh i I thought it was cherry. It's not. What flavor is it? Black Currant. They feel the same to me. They seem the same.

I think it's the same. What are you drinking for? Why do you drink this week? Oh, gosh. Well, I don't know. I feel like bad complaining to you because you have been traveling and been under a lot of stress. Okay, I don't know. I don't even have anything real except that I'm just so overwhelmed by life and baby and she's, you know, just having a growth spurt or something. And we're just all very overwhelmed. And yesterday she coughed so

much that she threw up in her bed. And I'm like, I just I'm just, wow, I'm just I'm just tired. And I'm behind on my life. Everything. So really on everything you feel behind, just so you know, to everybody else, you look beyond on top of it. Oh, that's really very nice. Thank you. I, um, I did shower this week, so that is a plus. Thank you. And I have, you know, you know, we, you told me this one, so I'm usually I would never admit this, but I feel like you and I have talked about this. Like sometimes with the ADHD, you neglect like some of the basics, you know? And by sometimes you mean every second of every day. Yeah, yeah.

So like you taught me that. So I feel like so out of sorts and it's not helping because I'm like, I just like don't, I've been bad about brushing my teeth. I've been bad about like washing my hair. I've been bad about, I just like, everything feels like it just fall. I just feel like a little bit out of my mind. That's all. One of the other consistent things that I deal with, with ADHD, which is a, another, um, this is, I think a universal experience with ADHD, especially the worse your ADHD is you probably experience this, but the consistent underlying shame of like

never it's just it's just underlying shame constantly that you're just not keeping up in the ways that quote normal people isn't that i feel like that's also a very millennial hashtag millennial thing because i mean i don't know they've done so much i've read so many articles about this where it's like we were raised in this kind of environment of like work hard and you'll like achieve your goals. And like it was always just like, you know, just work, work, work, work, work. And I feel like that really got into our heads a lot of the time. So it can be hard to remember that that's not necessarily always the priority but you can at least um give yourself a a pat on the back a gentle pat that uh if you're struggling with

self-care tasks there's something making that happen for you so yeah just say christine's not brushing her teeth either okay so you know and it's fine and there's a dentist that lives across not lives across the street i don't know where she lives okay sorry sorry i don't know where you live but there's a dentist like uh in my neighborhood the office okay and um actually i do know where the other the retired dentist lives because he has a license plate that says something about us about pearly whites. So anyway, so he roams around the neighborhood. But the dentist in my neighborhood,

I'm like, every time I walk past with walking geo, I'm like, Oh God, I know I should go to the fucking dentist, but like, I should probably brush my teeth first. Anyway,

it's just a constant reminder. But it's, it's, it sucks. But I haven't come up with a name yet but i want to name my adhd so that way i could just blame things on her oh that oh well did you have a um an imaginary friend because i could just say alice did it i didn't have an imaginary friend really even as a single an only child i almost said a single child as a single child yeah i didn't have

any imaginary friends i i but i also i never got to have a drunk persona so i feel like i want to give her they both have the same energy to me like sure sure so i i need to come up with a name for her but every now and then i'm like man that that fucking guy like i just want to wash my hair you know yeah yeah and it's like and and and they're just forcing me to watch call the midwife again yeah yeah damn it damn it alice i'm sorry you feel um overwhelmed i also like no one as especially as a mom of a toddler you will never earn shame from anybody about that like I think overwhelm is part of the process yeah it definitely feels like it's comes with the territory and um you know everyone out there we're recording this December 22nd I know it

doesn't come out for a few weeks but you know I feel like I've met a lot of people recently who are like hey I'm really struggling to get shit done and survive the holidays. And I'm like, you know what? I know it's already allegedly past the holidays by the time this comes out, but you're doing great, okay? You're doing your best. You got out of bed. Or even if you didn't get out of bed, you're breathing.

You're breathing. You're breathing. Have a sip of water, as Em says. What's the thing? Say the thing. Oh, oh, oh uh drink some water you thirsty little rats look at this fucking giant thing your hydro jug i still have mine too hydro drug yeah i like how i'm chugging soda when i say drink some water you but whatever

usually i'm the one drinking coffee so you know what it's fine anyway uh and that's why you drink and yeah why why do you drink i don't know why i drink but i also feel a weird underlying overwhelm and i don't really i mean i have a lot of reasons for what it could be but not to be like a crazy person or you know just be totally off the wall woohoo but here we go you i feel like sometimes i know and I don't know if it's just picking up on cues of like your communication I know I've been sucking ass no no that's not what I mean that's not what I mean I just feel like sometimes I can tell there's like a just like a stress a stress there because I feel like sometimes when you and I don't respond to each other for a

while which happens all the time me too but it'll be like oh well I like someone's in town you're having a good time you're having fun I feel like I've just gotten the sense this past week like Emma's like just frazzled yeah that's the truth and I don't know if I was just projecting but have my eyes just been twitching a little more every now and then I haven't seen you at all first of all but secondly I just got the sense I was like I just feel like with the the stress you had leading up to the travel and then the radio silence, I was like, uh-oh, I'm a little overwhelmed. I've been going through it. And also there was a whole time period I feel really bad about where I did go full radio silence and the first half of it was psychological and then the second half was physical.

I was at a place with terrible reception i just uh combined it looked really bad but also no you're you were still picking up on the right things that i am just i don't know i feel like there's a million things i want to give a hundred percent to and i can only give like ten percent to each and then i get kind of that's a great way to put it yeah yeah I just feel really like I'm letting not letting everyone down because no one's really expecting too much of me right now but if someone were expecting something of me I like can't do you know what it feels like sort of it's like you can't really check anything off your list because you're like sort of handling multiple things but you're not really like completing or giving your all to like

yeah in priority mode yeah i feel like it's just a lot a big to-do list and we haven't got the satisfaction of being able to like cross things off it yet every everything feels half done and i feel stunted to be able to complete anything so it just yeah no you're picking up on the right things um and i i i think maybe after christmas half the issues will go away. Like maybe I'm just worried about people's presence and things getting here on time. And did I forget anybody and like general holiday stuff, but it feels worse right now. And I don't know why. And obviously, I haven't even begun thinking about our tour. on thinking about our tour but i'm sure either like that isn't maybe it's subconscious but like i have not even my brain hasn't even gone there which like yeah wait till it finds out about that oh my god it's gonna be a doozy my brain is kind of like that little meme of the dog sitting at the table and everything's on fire and it's like i my brain knows like i need to pay attention to the fire soon but your brain's like it's getting toasty in here it's getting warm but we'll talk

about it later um yeah i just and everything feels off like i i you know what i'm upset about too let's be is that back in like october or november or something i got really stressed about something i don't even remember what it was at this point. I got really overwhelmed. And I was like, you know what? I have been doing a lot. And I think I just deserve one M's day of fun. And I said, I'm going to have a day of fun. I'm going to do this, this, this, this, and this, and this. And then I had to keep pushing the day of fun.

And I still haven't had my day of fun. And now it's almost New Year. And so I'm just, I need to have my day of fun. This is a day of fun. Talking to me in your stepbrother's closet that is you know the dream but uh no i want a day where i i already have it all planned out i already know what i'm gonna eat that day i know what i'm gonna watch on tv that day i'm gonna play star tenders like i got a whole day figured out and i just haven't found i i don't like that i have to schedule my fun so anyway I yeah that's being an adult by the way

because yeah I don't I get to schedule my fun but it's very you know sporadic um have you had deadline have you had any fun recently or do you just feel like it's overwhelmed and before that goes away there's more overwhelmed and before that you know it feels like I get little waves of like I mean we're having fun like I'm happy I mean, we're having fun. Like, I'm happy. I'm lucky. We're we're doing well. Everything's OK. We're all alive and, you know, healthy enough. But it's just like, you know, I'll be going out.

I'll get invited to drinks with my stepmom or something. And then it's like, oh, that'll be fun. But then it's just like, shit, now I need to do stuff before that. And I need to find someone to babysit. shit now i need to do stuff before that and i need to find someone to babysit like it just feels like even the fun stuff is like kind of a chore or like a like it just adds to the stress even though it's supposed to be like a relaxing thing like it has pre-chores yeah and even like we went to the zoo yesterday for festival of lights which was really fun and oh i got recognized um fun as i was leaving which was very sweet uh but i i was it was just crazy and then as my

mom was leaving there was like a shooting in the parking lot because like holy shit guy jumped out of the car and started screaming about the traffic being backed up like it was it just feels like anything that we do that's fun also has like its own edge of stress built into it you know and maybe that's just the holidays maybe it's like or maybe it's also like just being in the year of 2023 maybe there's no even on your relaxing days you don't get to relax because you have to be right on high alert constantly so there's always internet so you're always finding out the bad news there's always like there's always something that maybe it's just burnout man maybe we're just alive maybe

it's just the world, man. I'm going to open this fucking THC soda because it's killing me that I haven't opened it yet. Can you say let's crack into it? Let's crack into it. Christine, my story for you. She's a shorty, but she's a goody. And I thought maybe you're not stressed enough so okay you know what you also read the cues correctly good job so with that uh let's talk about an

exorcism oh okay okay so this is the exorcism of Clarita Villanueva. Now, this story, Saoirse also definitely wants me to note that this is a very difficult story to note what really happens. There's a lot of versions to it. It's basically the worst version of Telephone ever. And so I'm going to try to give you the straightest version to this um but it seems like there's a lot of plot points missing you know what i mean yes i do okay so anyway the notes mostly come from a filipino writer named ian spike who uh seems the most uh committed and has the most vested interest in trying to tell an authentic version of the story. Okay. So thank you, Ian.

And the notes also mention a minister named Lester Sumrall, who does not seem to be a very reliable source. So no thank you, Lester. Got it. So, yeah, it seems like, I don't know we'll find we'll find out how as lester comes along in the story so okay in 1935 clarita villanueva was born in the philippines and had a mother four brothers lived in poverty especially and had an especially hard life during world war ii because that was when japan occupied a municipality of the philippines and their headquarters was right where uh clarita's mom worked wow um so there was a lot of like

occupation movements and all that clarita's mom worked as a fortune teller fun fact oh and so interesting that of all the kids in the world to need an exorcism there'd be someone connected to spiritualism it's sort of like oh that's a that's a good that's good but then also like well maybe that's why yeah i don't know never mind it's like if this were an urban legend you could see very quickly what the like where the where there's connections to this right exactly so sometime after the war uh clarita's mom died and her brothers abandoned her and that's all we have of that drama like i just clarita's brothers abandoned her abandoned her oh fuck i'm like that is its own story i'd like what the hell um like what did she do or were they just assholes they're i mean i want to know you know it sounds like they're assholes i'm just gonna call it fair uh it said that this is when she began quote sex work to survive although

let's remember she's a child so oh no it's not really um sex work if it is a whole ass child having to do this. Right, and you can't consent anyway, right? Exactly. There's no, the good part of this is that there's no real evidence to this part of the story. It's just added into the story these days. So we can hope that maybe that wasn't really the case? Right, right. It seems like the best we can hope for is that the storyteller wanted to make her life seem even more tragic. And so they were like, oh, let's add sex work to this.

Yeah, you did it. So in 1950. Was that Lester who did that? It sounds like that's a Lester move for sure. Such a Lester move. I just want to make sure. Okay. In 1950, she's now 12.

So let's keep in mind that her, quote, sex work was pre-12. Yeah. Yikes. yikes bad bad bad so in 1950 at 12 years old she has now traveled hundreds of miles to manila uh in search of her father hoping that maybe he would want to know her that is literally the saddest thing i've ever said my life at age 12 that's so sad that's fucking horrible Finding him was obviously more difficult than she imagined. I feel like at 12 years old, you just go up to a person and say, do you know my dad? I mean, that's what the books say, right? Are you my mom? Are you my dad?

That's like all you. Yeah. So she ends up not being able to find him. And as time went on, she took up work as a maid. At one point, she was with a guy who seemed pretty serious um and they planned on getting married uh this is not when she's 12 by the way she's gotten older um they were supposed to get they were supposed to be engaged and then she found out he was already married again i need the storyline oh no she becomes a dance hostess and uh I think a dance hostess is like a go-go dancer.

Okay. And this is where multiple versions of the story really start splitting off. I see. Version one. There's many. I'm just going off of the two main ones that people hear. But one of the versions is that at 17, she went to see a movie on her own. And then when walking home alone, the police profiled her as a sex worker and arrested her.

Oh, God. So many problems in that sentence. Yeah. Another version is that Clarita lost her job after she ended the relationship with the married guy and then became homeless and was arrested for being a vagrant. Oh, great. OK. So either way. To me, she fell on hard times or unfairly arrested just by looks can you imagine right right right um whatever version is true she ends up being sent to what is now manila city jail at the time it was called the old billabid prison um in 1953 this is when clarita

gets there and it was notoriously overcrowded had outdated facilities and poor hygiene measures in this prison right when she arrived she suffered some sort of strange incident and this is the beginning of the potential supernatural spin to this story okay okay i see let's just put the psa now out now that i am aware that this story could very easily just be written into a psychology textbook on mental health okay okay good yeah uh but for the supernatural spin she gets to jail she suffers an incident where witnesses say she just starts screaming for no reason and then collapses oh when she comes to she said that she had been attacked by two men but this was the woman's ward of the jail and no guards had been present during the incident and this is when the story very quickly turns into these attackers being entities okay okay which honestly i don't know which is uh worse probably

if like there were two men who snuck into the woman's ward and they just got away with it because now we're blaming ghosts but right yeah it's hard to say i mean none of it's good as we say it's all bad it's all bad that's what we should have called this podcast it's all bad we say it all the time and i'm like that really would have been a good name it's all bad maybe that can be the spinoff and that's why i drink colon it's all bad you should have a wine glass that says this is because it's all bad i drink because it's all bad it's all bad um so anyway she gets attacked by what are now deemed entities because all men have been written off from being potential suspects sure still clarita swears that she was attacked one of the beings was a very tall male with dark skin dark hair and dark hair covering pretty much all of his body oh and long fangs oh the other person was much smaller only three feet maximum oh with cherub features can you imagine a little cherub attacking you isn't these aren't these the

guys from hercules oh um i uh i could see where you're maybe getting that but are you mean pain and panic yes that's their names i forgot their names so pain and panic are green and purple and have no hair on their bodies okay well they're okay well they're both three feet tall and they have fangs whatever okay that's true i just figure one's really skinny one's really like chunky they're just kind of like i think the cherub one the cherub one you're thinking of is baby hercules okay that's maybe where i'm getting a little mixed up okay yeah yeah yeah and then the horse with wings oh wait no that's he's a good one okay also could you imagine though like what in my mind looks like baby hercules attacking you oh my god um i mean no i can't so the second one was three feet tall with cherub features also white hair a mustache and no no fangs no fangs no fangs so oh fuck i was supposed to

look up how to pronounce these and i forgot to um the first figure the tall hairy one with fangs he is similar to the filipino folklore creature called the capre capra k-a-P-R-E. Capra? And that creature is somewhat of a tree spirit, but before... It's known as a tree spirit, but that was also before Spanish colonizers kind of perverted folklore that existed before them.

They ended up creating these caricatures of darker skinned indigenous people and enslaved Africanrican people in the philippines right and uh so the cop copra capra copra i feel really bad i don't know it um it's was originally a troublemaker who liked simple pranks like moving household items they were very protective of herd animals and they were very peaceful unless their tree or their homes were cut down.

And then they became more vilified in racial politics and their stories ended up including pranks like abducting women and cannibalism. Great. So even its name has roots in words used by the colonizers to describe enslaved African people and indigenous people with darker skin. Right. So, yikes. Originally, though, they sounded pretty charming. Yeah.

Yeah. Not too bad. And again, the same writer I talked about earlier named Ian Spike, who we're getting a lot of our notes from, said that in essence, this was an extreme corruption of indigenous filipinos image that served as our own boogeyman so oh okay but the first being she is describing happens to be this one that now is known now is like evil in some way so the second creature who was smaller with the cherub features and the mustache and the mustache and is not hercules or pain or panic okay uh this one might be compared to another folklore creature called the duende uh which is which is an old man with white hair and a small child-sized body, and they're closely linked to the earth,

and they're offended when folks walk on their home. I would also be offended if someone was walking on my home. I get it. Duendes can both curse people to make them sick to a point of insanity. Oh. Casual. No, not good. Also, they can be extremely kind and bring good fortune if they like you.

Well, that seems unfair because, you know, just pick one lane. You know, I'm like, how am I supposed to know? Duendes feel like that one friend we all have who's like problematic where you can't even defend them anymore, but you want them on your side when you go through some trouble. You know, fair point, fair point we've all got one where it's like oh i can't i can't back any of their behavior but also like if we end up like with a dead body near us you want her in the situation because she'll figure it out time to shine so um anyway that's the the energy i'm getting from duendes if a

person gets sick especially having a fever or they're bloating and medical treatment doesn't work, they say that the person might be cursed by a duende. So I like how it's a fever or bloating, which like I have both of those all the time. All the time. Uh oh. help from a healer uh who has expertise in herbal medicine and supernatural afflictions which you know in the western world i really wish there were more of those uh the same writer ian spike says that western monotheistic religious cultures have introduced the concept of evil invasive demonic possessions to the philippines culture when i guess that wasn't really a thing before so right and after the first attack clarita began battling with these figures every day so oh boy so we can

once again thank ourselves for creating the idealization of or not idealization but the vilification the vilification of these beings and now they have been deemed demons in some way yeah i mean we're literally demonizing them like yeah exactly so this is uh one of the stories where we get to thank white people um finally it's about time they get their their due you know yeah well i don't yeah we're certainly somewhere in there we're to blame for sure oh not surprised after the first attack she's now battling with these figures every day who we have now demonized of course um although they were two separate entities and they seemed to be in cahoots with each other and they were these separate beings they collectively became known as

the thing so Yeesh. So Clarita would suffer fits of agony where she would convulse on the floor and scream, cry, and violently fight these invisible opponents or the thing. She would allegedly see them when no one else could, and she would enter trance-like states for long periods of time before going into convulsions oh no i am very aware of the uh similarities to epilepsy by the way everybody is sure yeah true um but no bear demons obviously obviously so uh this one's wilds this i even wrote ew here okay one of the things that would happen to her with the thing is that she sometimes started laughing uncontrollably because she said that the attackers were tickling her i call that a firm goddamn pass oh

wow no thank you see there's nothing that makes me more mad like instantaneously like the thought of someone i'm like i'm thinking about you tickling me and i'm already so mad at you fury oh my god and by the way we're not tickling anymore folks that's it's you know it's not conceptual it's not unless like sometimes leona says tickle my belly and i'm like okay and i'll like that's very precious but that's or tickle my footsies she says but that's it don't like you know when kids yeah they're laughing but it's like an involuntary reaction it's it's not good don't don't tickle unless you know they're into it okay you know what i heard about tickling i don't know if this is real or not but it makes kind of sense

to me um is that the parts that is that the reason we tickle or the reason why um tickling exists is because it's to practice or back you know forever ago it was to help our kids practice to go into the fetal position if they were in danger because you would like tickle like the armpits or the belly or behind the knees or the feet or the things like you curl up on and it was it was to practice tensing up and protecting your most like sensitive spots what is the sensitive spots yeah that's really interesting yeah i don't know if that's real but it makes sense it's like anthropologists weigh in on this one because i'm very curious honestly yeah but it was supposed to i guess teach you to get into the fetal position when you're in danger and so that's fascinating yeah i again i don't know but i'm i'm rolling

with it so let's roll with it um anyway so these things were now tickling her and when they're invisible and demons i guess you can't tighten up and they go away so i don't know what to tell you um she also began to destroy religious imagery so she couldn't stand this religious statue in her cell and so she destroyed it as an example um when guards would see these attacks happening to her or these incidents happening to her they reported seeing human-like bite marks appear on her and they believed it was a spiritual assault oh no not only did the bite marks appear on her and they believed it was a spiritual assault oh no not only did the bite marks appear before their eyes this part i can't explain this is kind of crazy um not only did the bite marks appear before their eyes but there were also parts of clarita they were on parts of clarita

that she couldn't have possibly reached on her own oh no so they're like on the back of her neck and oh no no no that's not good it's certainly not good because if the rest of this is epilepsy someone else is biting her and getting away with it something bad right something bad is happening either way yeah uh clarita was now getting worse she told her cellmates that the thing was going to kill her and eventually her story hit the papers it drew international interest the mayor of manila didn't believe it and thought that it would cast a negative or superstitious light on the city and so tried to kind of avoid bringing up the story even further than i needed to go okay by the way

complete sidebar but i said the word mayor and now i have to tell you. Okay. There's a new mayor in Burbank, my hometown. Who is it? Mayor Schultz. I'm not kidding. There is a mayor and his name is Mayor Schultz and he is the mayor of Burbank. Literally thought it was you and I was like, I can't do this. I'm sorry. Christine, I've literally I have.

Okay. I told I told Allison this a long time ago and I still believe it to my very core that I could be a mayor. I know you do. I know you do. I know this is part of your internal monologue with your dialogue with yourself. I know that about you just inherently. In the long con, I couldn't go further than mayor. That's too much.

Of course. But all I want to do is end up in a small little cobblestone water town where everyone knows each other's name and I want to be the mayor. And instead you're in greater Los Angeles. Okay, but there's already a Mayor Schultz in Burbank, which means that like it's been done before, you know, like that's a sign to me. This is where people start to see that I also am mentally ill. But like that. You're like, oh, well, they ran so i could also run it's clearly possible that a bourbon could have a mayor schultz and you know what would happen if i were

the next mayor i don't want to know i would become sister cities with idle wild or whatever it's called where they have mayor max the golden retriever oh right and the two of us would have mayoral floats together and we would just we would go to the coffee shop we'd discuss city politics you know it'd be a good time anyway so vote for me mayor schultz in the upcoming election that is pretty bananas um i did you vote for mayor schultz no i found out on instagram they were like welcome mayor schultz and i was like what and so um let's just put it this way okay so here's a situation okay he spells it with a t oh well so it doesn't really count no offense t is for trouble i tell you that's exactly right with a capital t and it rhymes with e and that stands for you know this one no what are you capital t that rhymes with p you got trouble

right here in river city you got trouble my friend capital two rises p that stands for pool i don't know where did that did you just rap for me oh did that you do free flow what was that right here in river city right here in river city with a capital t that rhymes with p and that stands for pool that stands for pool it's from when you're a jet you're a jet all the way i don't know okay it's from the music man no not at all well here's the situation about mayor schultz i told allison and allison if you're listening which i know you are you better do this or else I'm going to scream. That's usually my that's my threat to her usually scream.

I mean, it's a terrible threat because like we can't do it because we can't have that. We know you'll you'll follow through. My regular threat is if you don't do this, I'll scream. And a lot of times it's like I'll scream until you're screaming to not hear my scream any longer. And then we're all in trouble. And then we're all in trouble and then we're all in trouble here's the thing allison if you're listening and everybody please weigh in make sure allison knows about this if you need to i don't know reach out to her however you can thank you i need a shirt that says mayor schultz of burbank now that that's a thing but we're gonna

have to cross out the t in some way well you know i have a cricket machine i don't know why you're bringing allison into this well allison if you're listening I have a cricket machine. I don't know why you're bringing Allison into this. Well, Allison, if you're listening, text Christine. It's possible. I don't know. Yeah, text me. We'll probably talk about something else, but text me. I want a Mayor Schultz shirt, but I'm like such a monster about this. Okay. You're a lunatic is what you are, but okay, sure. So the mayor's like, I'm not into this ghost thing, which like you'd be the opposite. Okay, got it. I'd be be like we have a demon on our hands yeah sure you do we're gonna have to have a panel a town hall meeting with zach bagans see i would be great at being the dog this is gonna be used against me during my election this whole audio i already know the whole podcast like this audio i'm like what do

you mean this audio last week we a few weeks ago we talked about like playing weird sex games as children so i think like we're done for in any sort of office capacity you know what my platform would be i may be unstable but i'm just i'm just the average i'm the common man you know sure i'm relatable i i'm honest like all my deepest darkest secrets are on this podcast so you you're not going to find anything else you know no skeletons in that closet well actually except for the ones that we buy for the tour yeah okay anyway anyway anyway yes okay so the mayor of Manila he's like we're really worried about turning our people into looking like we're a superstitious group.

I don't. This could give us a really bad light. So this is now a few days later. Clarita was brought to the city. Oh, like taken out of jail. By the way, was she still in fucking jail this whole time? For looking homeless? Jesus Christ.

Well, yeah, because she even said like, yeah, that's terrible. Because she even said like she was talking, told her cellmate she was getting worse. Yeah. Oh, this poor girl. Okay. So she was brought to the city and not just any part of the city, not even like town hall. She was brought to the city's morgue. Okay.

To be evaluated. Like you couldn't do it. It was just like a hospital. A doctor? Whatever. she gets taken to the morgue doctors psychiatrists politicians and reporters all come out to see one of her attacks so now she's like her incidents are being exploited oh boy in front of everyone she does suffer another attack and she was held down the mayor saw bite marks appear on her finger and her neck uh clarita was pricked

with pins which we've talked about before oh god no i hate that yeah yeah yeah used to be a test that if you reacted to the pins then you it wasn't an authentic possession that's just banana grams dude but whatever but she did not react to the pain, so they thought, okay, a devil must have taken over her body since she doesn't feel pain to this. They asked Clarita to draw the thing, but when she was given a pencil, it was ripped out of her hands by an

invisible force. The second time, they said, okay, draw the thing so we know what it looks like. She ate the paper. I can't explain that everything so far has been epilepsy this part i don't understand i mean it could be just mental health stuff you know mental illness totally but also it's it's it's disturbing i'm sure it was upsetting to watch the mayor was like i did not sign up for this yeah the mayor was like i just wanted to sit

on a float with a dog and now here I am in the morgue. Right. Exactly. Exactly. You know, you got to call Mayor Maxson for things like this because that's right. He'll sniff it out. That should be his tagline. I'll sniff it out.

I'll sniff it out. I mean, I feel like that's probably the tagline of like every childhood book about a dog. But, you know, still works. Do you remember his actual tagline, Mayor Max? No, actually. What what is it the paw is the law okay that's good that's good they don't need to change it he has a shirt too by the way if mayor max could have a shirt i need a shirt that's all okay sure because you're just as special as the dog who's become mayor that's right and he's and i'm i'm not even actually a mayor in here

yeah we know but thank you thank you for reminding us oh i'm not even actually a mayor in here. Yeah, we know. But thank you for reminding us. Oh, I'm not even a mayor. Really? That's weird. Shut up, Christine. Just let me be. Allison, please text me. I'm desperate now.

I need somebody to, like, just, I don't know, relate to this over. If you guys could get me a Mayor Schultz shirt and then get Mayor Max to get somehow be in on this. I just lose my mind. I would just. All right. I'll hate up the cricket. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Sorry. We're really getting away from like this really sad story. Yeah. Yeah, we are. I'm not trying to be, I'm,

I just, I'm not trying to be an asshole. I just also have never gotten to really talk about this too much, except for that other time. Okay. They, yeah, yeah. I just also have never gotten to really talk about this too much, except for that other time. Okay. They pricked her with pins. Which, by the way, even if I were possessed, if I saw needles coming at me, I'd be like, nope, I'm awake. I'm here.

Yeah, I'd be like, if I were the demon, I'd be like, wait, just because I'm a demon doesn't mean I want you to poke me with needles. Right, exactly. I've never understood this version of things things we am what mayor max died what well in 2022 no he didn't there's a max yeah his son is also oh oh it's the three oh my god i'm so sorry i just like googled him and it said RIP and I was like uh-oh oh my god Christine well okay I'm just we're okay are you sure we're okay the mayor positive oh my god oh yeah okay oh my god no I'm so sorry I didn't mean to upset anybody I just watched one of his live streams two days ago oh okay good good good so you're so he's fine okay great never mind sorry phew i'm so sorry for that i didn't mean to that was fucking i'm sorry okay okay i'm taking my name off the ballot yes i was gonna run against

you but now i won't i'll give it to you okay but wait like can we hold on wait can we both um no okay i was gonna say what if we made like on, wait, can we both, um. No! Okay. I was gonna say, what if we made, like, a fake ballot and, like, we just let our, like, our, our, uh, our audience vote? For just either you or me? They'd probably put in write-in candidates for, like, anybody else. No, we would, we'll each have a platform. Like, what would you do if you were the mayor of And That's Why We Drink, you know? Oh, I see. Okay.

Like, what would you do? You'd make everyone get drunk. I think you drink you know oh i see okay like what would you do you'd make everyone get drunk i think you'd win actually i don't want to play anymore i don't want to play anymore yeah i was like christine you're so competitive you're such a sore loser and then the second m creates their own game and decides never mind i don't want to lose i just want to be the mayor somewhere that's all that's all okay listen i won't take that from you i promise thank you okay she tries to draw the thing she eats paper that's where we left off yeah yeah yeah yeah a doctor there believes that she's faking all this wow yikes a doctor thinks she's faking it which like i guess but also you couldn't even try the theory that she's ill um yeah but yeah yeah yep yeah but yeah is exactly right um clarita hears the doctor saying she's faking all this she turns to him and growls that he's going

to die uh-oh and the rumor has it that the next day he had a heart attack and died okay i was gonna say how many days till the heart attack happened okay one yikes that is scary if that's true that's very frightening another employee at the prison who was cruel to clarita which holy shit used to kick her while she was convulsing what the fuck died from a mysterious illness after clarita growled at him too um oh before he died though he said that clarita asked where his own crucifix was because it had gone missing from him and then later she said to check his pockets and it was there so now she's able to like chris angel she's same plane at will she's just removing things from you and then putting them in your pants yeah um so she at least like royally freaked him out before wishing him death so before growling at him and causing a

heart attack yeah rumors spread very quickly that clarita was a witch and she could vengefully kill anyone that she wanted um which like i love that the mayor was like i don't want us to look superstitious and now the papers are like she's a fucking witch yeah this i feel like this is the what do you call it the strice and effect where it's like well let's keep this on the dl and then suddenly it's like wait it's gotten so much worse and everybody knows about it now it's snowballed everywhere oh no um apparently though she and i don't know i don't know where this is when it comes to mental health or spirituality but at the same time all this was happening clarita was also really scared of her

possession which doesn't surprise me because first of all if you're are if you're truly possessed you'd be scared and if you had a mental illness that no one was taking seriously you'd be fucking scared you'd be scared and even if you thought it was some sort of demonic possession because you didn't realize it was a mental health thing, that would also be fucking scary. If you're uncontrollably convulsing, and this was at a time when epilepsy maybe wasn't as big or as well known. It wasn't as popular back then. It wasn't as well understood.

Yeah. But if the best you've got is demons are inside of you and that's what everyone's rolling with now and also now the world thinks you're a witch so now you've got real physical fear to be now you're in danger yeah oh and so despite her aversion to religious symbols someone actually gifted her a rosary which she would hold during spiritual attacks so she was trying to cling on literally to religion wherever she could um and medical experts couldn't agree on a diagnosis some said that she was having genuine spiritual attacks others thought it was like we said epilepsy or psychosis

um some suggested that this was all because she was extremely malnourished and dehydrated um which would cause the incidents i don't i could see that being like maybe an additional trigger just to couldn't help probably didn't help yeah sure um the story eventually found its way to lester sermal um an american evangelist pastor okay yes he evangelized uh for 50 plus years in nearly 120 countries. And he basically founded Christian TV. And he made the very first 24 hour Christian station. How do I not know this guy? What's his name? Lester? No, that's Dateline. Sorry. Yeah, I don't know.

It's actually Stone Phillips. I haven't heard that name in a million years. I have no idea who that is oh really oh he was like a big i feel like i knew a bunch of moms who had a crush on oh my god oh okay yeah so you're right co-anchor of dateline wow you are in the retro years here yeah i would remember him going and i'm stone phillips okay yeah now when you say it in that voice i definitely know i know i'm lester holt um. That's usually my go to. So Lester Sermal is the guy that we're talking about.

OK. He was evangelizing nearby when he heard about Clarita and decided he was the person to intervene because I bet Jesus told him to do it. I'm sure. I'm sure. He thought if he were successful in exercising her. I love that he didn't even need experience in this. He was just like, oh, I'm going to exercise your demons out. Great. He thought it would be a very convenient tactic to draw people to his new church because he saved the Philippines from her with Christ.

But that mayor is probably having just like all his hair is falling out. He's so stressed. He's like, I really was trying to keep this on the dl and well i don't know about that because my very next bullet point is he and the mayor agreed that if he helped clarita ben lester would get to preach the gospel in front of manila city hall for the next six weeks what the fuck so the mayor has totally leaned into this and was like all right i wonder if it's because he was so stressed out about it he was like you know what get whatever you want if you can put the story to rest right right right he probably could have

asked for more he probably could ask to be mayor i'll take my job yeah honestly yeah he's probably like you know what i'm over it you can have it you know as mayor by the way just to like give you a little snippet into what i could do for the community, what it's like for you to be mayor, right? Sure. I just want everybody to know that if you vote for me in the next mayoral election, just know that I would never give up my job for an evangelist. Let's just be clear. Okay, I do. Honestly, this is the first thing you've said that makes me want to vote for you. So thank you. You're welcome. So just know that I stand firm. Okay. Okay.

Lester also says, I'll do you even one better. And I'm going to get myself a permit free of all legal and administrative fees to build an enormous church in your city. Oh, boy. Okay. That church still exists today. No way. Okay. That church still exists today.

No way. Which, by the way, like, what are the, like, if I were going to go to a church, I'd kind of want to go to the one that was built, like, and there's somehow a story of an exorcism attached to it. Yeah, it feels like it has quite the lore behind it. Like, they could do tours of it, you know? Yeah, totally, totally. But at the same time that I'm like, ooh, but I'd be going to a church that was built on the back of one woman who had a horrible life. And I'd be like, ooh, I'd be going to church church that was built on the back of one woman who had a horrible life i'd be going to church oh right yes of course um so when clarita met lester she reportedly said i hate you oh attagirl and she said it in english even though she didn't speak english okay so this demon is multilingual okay exactly so people saw it as her speaking in tongues

oh well okay because now she's speaking in languages she couldn't before oh my okay i love that even the demon was like english is the way i'm gonna go with this but yeah i know this one lester yeah while most witnesses say she only said i hate you the story was later embellished that she ended up saying many insults to lester in english but even if she had clarita would not be unfamiliar with english because she was born into and raised under u.s occupation so there's a chance she knew the words i hate you um or at least the insults i mean if you ask me to say anything in a language chances are to swear we only know the bad ones right exactly yeah um well because of

this lester is like girl you need an exorcism because you're speaking in tongues and probably because you're challenging me or humbling and you hate me so like that can't be right you clearly don't have enough jesus so we're gonna get an exorcist let's fix that he worked with two other ministers during the ceremony he took clarita's rosary that she loved and said it was idolatrous because he was a protestant what okay calm down the exorcism took over three days of prayer and singing as clarita suffered more assaults this is a reminder to everybody that she's having like convulsive episodes and nobody's helping her they're just chanting they're just singing yeah and at one point she

said the demons left out of the window and maybe she was just like desperate for them to stop and she's like nope they're gone you win they're right but then she had another attack in front of them so they knew that they saw it as she was lying oh she probably just wanted it to stop that's what i'm saying she was probably like you went terrible after the three days lester considered her saved which what did she have to do to prove that um and he told her that it was up to her in the future to keep the demons out if they ever came back which is such a gross gaslighting victim blaming situation yeah like take all i mean he's a good businessman he's like if anything ever happens i'm not liable right right but he's also like by the way if they come back just know that that that was on you like what the fuck it said that a while later clarita began to scream and told a prison guard so i guess she went straight

back to jail after all this jesus christ um she told a prison guard that the thing was back and standing behind the guard oh no she started swinging on these like beings behind him but then the guard told clarita to remember lester's instructions to just ignore it which like is that not the most like your dad saying to get over depression thing for god's sake yeah just ignore it pretend it's not there uh so she tried to push away the gay away exactly she tried to push away the demons uh and clarita eventually passed out when she fainted a medical exam allegedly found a two inch long black hair under her fingernails ew and the doctors tested the hair and proved that it was not clarita's and

not even human and there was no dna evidence by the way, to confirm or deny this. They just decided that this must be a non-human hair. And I guess removing that one hair was all it took because once they removed that hair from her fingernails, the demons never came back. Wow, that's convenient. So if you apparently are either possessed or have epilepsy, just check your fingernails for one hair decide it's not human and then remove it and obviously you'll be done probably is not human at least if you have a cat or a dog or right i was like especially like uh not too long ago a lot of prisons had like cats so like get rid of the mice and stuff so yeah oh by the way speaking of we got i don't know if you've opened your mail but i got a um oh shoot i have to go check who i'll check later who sent it, but a, what's his name? Is his name Dennis the cat?

Oh, Dennis the cat. Yeah, like a, I think it was a sticker or something. Or a patch. It was a patch, and it was really cute. Oh, hell yeah. You should check your mail, because I'm sure you got one too. Okay, Eva, you're still in LA. Go check my mail. Oh, yeah, you're not even there okay um a judge sent clarita to live essentially in an orphanage for a formal education because remember all this happened before she was 18 right yeah well okay that's mine so i don't even know

the storyline as to how she got out of jail because she went to jail for really no reason then she was possessed and had to go back to jail after staying at the morgue with this fucking Lester guy. Jeez. All after her apparently, like, selling herself for sex, which, what does that even mean? Yeah. And now, at some point, she was relieved from jail, and now she's going to an orphanage. Like, life just couldn't get worse for this poor girl. I mean, for real.

Meanwhile, Lester used Clarita's story to push his evangelism and he called clarita in his own testimony a harlot a demonized little country girl and he used that grow up he used that story to push his own agenda and he accused clarita's mother as not being a real fortune teller and ripping people off um just to like salt the wound i guess so like oh and her mom was playing with was not only robbing people but playing with spirits and that's what caused this harlot demonized girl and to have all these problems his testimony pretty much suggested that clarita was attacked by demons because her mom worked in the spiritual world and it's why she sold her body okay sure um apparently he also claimed that when clarita fainted in front of him he would wake her up by slapping her upside the head so now he's also admitting to hitting

children oh my god he keep in mind like you're a child your mom is gone your brothers are gone you've had to experience sex with adults. And by that, I mean fucking rape. Let's be clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you go to prison with adults for being on the street. Then you are having convulsive episodes no one's taking care of, except they're telling you a child that they're demons. And they're bringing you to the fucking morgue and back to jail.

Then this guy's showing up. and they're bringing you to the fucking morgue and back to jail then this guy's showing up and while you're having convulsive episodes and you're scared because you're a kid he's also hitting you and saying this is all your fault and then you go back to jail and then you go to an orphanage and then you hear across the country that this man is using your story and calling you a harlot and you were asking for it because your mom was a thief and a fake and also was playing with ghosts this is disturbing and then you turn 18 happy birthday yeah so he also said that he was the savior and he helped clarita get out of prison he helped her find medical care and now because of everything he did the savior she is now a happily married woman and wouldn't you know it that's amazing wouldn't you know it i'm so impressed it's all because of him so in 1967 she's 32 years old she's our age and she said that she was

seeking help pursuing royalties from media outlets who financially profited from her story yes and other than lester's story on what happened to clarita after her exorcism there's pretty much no information and that includes if she ever got compensation um to this day though lester sermal continues to use clarita's story to bolster his own legacy of course and his website like on the about page even says the in one revival in the philippines dr lester sermal was the catalyst of god to deliver a demon-possessed girl that resulted in over 150 000 souls coming to jesus christ in just six weeks time this guy sounds like a fucking idiot many believe that clarita including us i assume is uh is more of a victim of an american man's desire for fame and power than an actual victim of demons and wherever she is now she deserves all the medical care all the therapy i it deserves it all so anyway that is the quote

exorcism of clarita villanueva that's a wild tale like sometimes your stories really do veer into the true crime and i wouldn't i would argue this is one of them yeah definitely yikes well you know i don't know what she was going through whether it was paranormal or not but um yeah like you said i hope i hope she's hope she ended up you know with a fulfilling life i do i hope that for her um wow okay what a story m uh let's switch to my side of things this is the murder of brenda powell okay now this is a very recent case okay uh we're talking 2022 and so yeah a lot of it is very um what do you say? How do you say it? It's like in progress, TBD, TBD. So, you know, there's some gaps in information and timelines. That's interesting.

You usually go for the cases where you have all your information. Yeah, I feel like this one is, you know, I do usually wait. And I think that's oftentimes with like the really big nationwide cases that are getting like a ton of coverage because I'm like I want to wait to see how everyone else kind of covers this I want to see like you know I don't want to jump on it and just like side with whatever I'm hearing from the news but in this case like really barely anyone's ever covered has covered this so far it's not really gaining like widespread you know okay traction or anything so there's really not that much about it um you can

if you search for it on youtube a couple people have covered it um and then you can also watch the live court testimonies which i did which you know is where most of this information comes from and search or watch them as well uh so you know what we're most of this information comes from. And Saoirse watched them as well. So, you know, we're doing our best. We're doing as far as we know, as of 12, 22, 23. This is the most accurate information we have. OK, so Brenda K. Powell, she was born March 19th, 1969 in Salem, Ohio. Oh, there's so many damn Salem's in this country. I know. I just think there's so many repeat names because nobody can be creative, you know? Yeah.

So maybe if you can't make it mayor over there, you could be a mayor of Salem, Ohio. And you can just say mayor of Salem. Christine. Yeah. Even don't even. Yeah. Let's try it. I can see the t-shirt now I can see the float oh I have so many plans too okay so Brenda grew up in Salem Ohio she grew up as a very compassionate

person very well loved by her family and friends she went to University of Akron and then began work as a child life specialist. So do you know what this job is? A child life specialist? Some sort of child therapy? Yeah, sort of. So it's basically a very unique and, of course, important health care role, which focuses on helping families and children cope with serious childhood illnesses or injuries. Oh, wow. So essentially, you know, she would use strategies like therapeutic play to work through fears about children's medical needs and procedures and, you know, was also there for the parents, especially if they were going through their own anxieties. And basically her role was to empower the families with knowledge about what's going on, about what's going on with their bodies, with the treatment and that kind of thing,

which I just think is like such a selfless job. So they provide support resources. They work closely with the patient's medical teams and they advocate for the patient's needs and wishes, which I imagine, you know, a child especially would need somebody to help with that. Oh, yeah, that's lovely. Yeah, it's a really cool concept. I hadn't heard of the role before. So Brenda worked at the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders at Akron Children's Hospital, and genuinely people loved her. Like she was just one of those people that was remembered fondly by everyone. Parents of children undergoing cancer treatment, for example, described her as

loving and compassionate. And she really made it her life's work to make her patients and their families comfortable while they stayed in the oncology wing for treatment. So parents who lost children in Brenda's care also had only good things to say about her. They described her as a huge source of comfort as they were going through like, not only their child's sickness, but if the child passed, just the like, bottomless well of grief that came along with that. And so Brenda was a very, very big hearted person and she deeply loved her patients and their families. One former patient even said she was like a second mom to me and the mom at the hospital. She treated us just like her own children.

Oh, yeah. She was also really involved with her own family's, you know, lives and what they had going on. So her husband's name was Stephen and her two children were Sydney, the oldest, and Andrew, the youngest. And she would plan family outings. She would show up for all her kids' extracurriculars. So for example, one childhood friend of Sydney, the daughter, said that when she was in Girl Scouts,

soccer and dance classes with Sydney, Brenda was there at every single game, every event was cheering everybody on um so very active mom in addition to being you know very active at work as well so brenda was extremely proud of her daughter sydney um like i said she was doing a lot of extracurriculars very active social uh very. She was a really good student. She had entered St. Vincent, which is a Catholic high school, as a freshman in 2014. Doesn't that make you feel old? She did her work because she got good grades. She was in school groups like ski club.

She went on ski trips and attended religious retreats to pray with fellow students, and she was actively working to develop her relationship with God. She was one of those kids that teachers just adored. She just never caused trouble. One teacher described her as respectful, conscientious, and quiet. She had a lot of friends, and her friends all described her as bubbly and well-liked by her peers and her teachers. And even though she was overall a really good student and very involved, she sometimes struggled with the pressure. It's sort of like the other side of the coin, right? really good student. But with that came a lot of pressure, whether it was external pressure or just pressure from her own mind that she had to be the best and perform academically and perform

athletically. And it's just that kind of, you know, classic trope of like the straight A student who's like really struggling, you know, mentally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah so some friends noticed she dealt with stress and anxiety throughout high school um for example one story that uh i heard in the testimony was that she had gone to her english teacher in tears about a chemistry presentation she wasn't prepared for and and she was almost having this like this breakdown and she just kept saying i can't see the numbers i can't see what's in front of me. And her teacher was like, what numbers? Like what, you know, what's going on? And she just kept saying, I can't see the numbers. Like, I mean, she was having full breakdown, a full breakdown.

And so her, her English teacher was like, here, I'll come with you. Um, went to meet the chemistry teacher and the chemistry teacher agreed to give Sydney an extension and she was able to present on another day. So that's just an example of like how sometimes the stress of school got to her. So to them, it seemed like just a moment of stress any high schooler might deal with, but it never struck anybody that Sydney had any other sort of issues, any deeper issues, anything wrong with her mental health. It just seemed like an occasional bit of anxiety like any student might have. So whether Sydney was just dealing with average anxiety or something far more serious, she excelled in school, she easily collected recommendations from her teachers, and she was

awarded a scholarship after high school to attend the university of mount union which is in alliance ohio okay so she moved on campus with her high school best friend lauren and they went to college together very cute precious and although sydney began struggling more intensely it was almost like as i think a lot of us can relate, like academically, at least, I feel like when you get to college, it's like it's high school, but amplified, right? Like the pressure is just amplified in a lot of ways. So her anxiety was getting worse. But her friend, Lauren, her best friend, didn't really notice anything that out of the ordinary, like anything worth calling her parents about or notifying anybody. She just thought, okay, well, she's just having anxiety about

college work. What did you, uh, how did you handle getting to college? Like what was your experience first semester? You know, I feel like I fell out of place, just really out of place. Were you scared? I was nervous, but I actually remember the first day on campus feeling like so much better. Like I would think that leading up to it, I was more petrified. And then when I actually got there, I was like, oh, OK, like I can handle this like I feel like the the entry bump wasn't too bad um but I think that first just adjusting so like I just fell out of place but thankfully Allison was my roommate so yeah she was friends with me but yeah I just fell out of place I mean I think I just you know picked some weird

classes some weird uh groups to try join. I was dating someone at a different school, so I didn't feel like I was spending social time at my school. It just all felt kind of off. But what about you? My first semester was really bumpy. Well, yeah, my first semester was really bumpy. My second semester, I really started to thrive. i feel like by sophomore year i was a completely different person than the beginning of freshman year interesting but my first year i think that was the beginning of me realizing i had like i didn't know the words for it yet but it was adhd but i had like really bad motivation issues and i assumed I was depressed because I didn't know how else to

explain like not being able to get out of bed to do things. Yeah. But yeah, I think I was just like out of place because I was used to having routine and the same friends and all that. And so yeah, socializing was hard. I didn't do really well in my classes. But by the second semester, I'd kind of gotten it together. That's good. Yeah, I feel like that's such a hard transition. And I mean, I don't know how, what I would suggest they change. But I do feel like at least when we went, there really wasn't much guidance as far as because I mean, I, my, I was hospital, not hospitalized, but I was brought to the emergency room multiple times for what they thought was heart issues. And it ended up being panic attacks. And, you know, junior year, I was so depressed. I

was like, calling my mom and saying, like, I'm going home, I don't want to be, you know, it was just really bad. And like, one was like, Oh, just buckle down and, you know, finish your school schooling, which goes back to what we talked about in the beginning of like the, just work hard, and it'll all be fine. You know, I don't suggest this but um what actually worked really well for me was that i um sophomore year moved in like you know you get to pick your own roommates of course i picked the girl i was dating oh christ well there you go so stupid it's probably some like canon queer event in college now yeah i imagine um so when we broke up i like had to go still sleep in a room with her for the rest of the year god's sake that isn't

and so uh it was for me it was the best thing that could have happened because it forced me out of my room so i had to like go find things to do it's like a like a rough a rude awakening a rude awakening so i ended up that's what i got a shitload of jobs i ended up joining all my clubs i joined greek life just to avoid your roommate i literally would i intentionally would try to be not in the room ever until she was sleeping so vote m 2023 i will problem solve it won't be pretty but it will get done it won't be pretty and it'll have lasting psychological effects but you might join the Quidditch team. Who knows? Hey, you know what? I was on the Quidditch team and it was one of the best things I could have done for myself.

Well, I got rejected from the Quidditch team. So you know what? Not all of us can be so lucky. So anyway, she goes to University of Mount Union. The anxiety is getting worse. I think any of us who did a secondary education understand that feeling. But, you know, to her other friends, she just seemed pretty much the same. Over summer break after their freshman year, she and her best friend Lauren hung out as usual throughout the summer back home in their hometown. And they were really excited to start their sophomore year together. And to Lauren, Sydney seemed like her normal self. She didn't drink or party. She was pretty focused on classwork. She worked hard just like she had in high school. And she was still really, really close with her mom. So they texted constantly.

She updated her all the time about what was going on. They would tell jokes. They had inside jokes. They sent photos and memes back and forth. They kept pretty constant communication. And in addition to Lauren, Sydney's mom was her best friend pretty much. So Brenda's mother, this is Sydney's grandmother, said it was just always Sydney and Brenda. They were just two peas in a pod, very close. And they used an app called the Life 360 app. Have you heard of this?

How do I know that? I mean, this took place in 2022. So I'm assuming it's a current. It's basically how people like, it's like a find my friends app. So it's like a family locator app gps location sharing um and so they would use that all the whole family was on it just to keep track of each other and stay up to date on each other's lives but in secret nobody knew it sydney was hiding major major issues from lauren and everyone else that she knew oh Oh, shit. Okay. Including her own mother, especially her own mother. Turns out Sydney was actually failing almost all her classes. And no matter what she did, she couldn't keep up.

The school put her on academic probation. They warned her she needed to improve her grades to keep her scholarship. But she just didn't. She couldn't. And so that first semester of her sophomore year, when it ended, Sydney failed three of her four courses and the university basically had no choice but to suspend her. Sydney told no one. She went home for winter break and acted as though everything was totally fine. You know, her parents just assumed everything was fine because she'd always been such a good

student and they trusted her and they didn't pry. They weren't the kind to keep track of her grades in college. So they just assumed like if she had a problem, she would come to them, especially because she had a good relationship with her parents. But for some reason, Sydney just did not see that as an option. She was desperate for her parents to not find out about her suspension. So desperate that when winter break ended, she packed up. She said, OK, heading back to my dorm and went back to school, even though she was no longer enrolled. Like she is committed to the bit. That's like what she can do is go sleep in the parking lot. I mean, basically, so at first she stayed in her dorm with Lauren and even attended their that's a that's like what's she gonna do just go sleep in the parking lot like i mean basically m

so at first she stayed in her dorm with lauren and even attended their sorority meetings as usual and when the school found out that sydney was still on campus and participating in student activities and going to classes faculty met with her in person thinking like well maybe she just never got word oh shit like maybe we have to break it to her now awkward right like maybe it got lost in the mail um but no she knew uh i mean she had to know she wasn't enrolled in classes yeah exactly like there was no way to not know like she definitely knew like she didn't get a schedule but like how did they find out though like what well i know you wouldn't know this but like if i were to guess

it's a small camp like it's a pretty small campus um and i imagine like if you're going to sorority meetings and you're going to clubs and you're living in the dorm and people are seeing you around it'll get back to the faculty or somebody you know at some point that that you're not supposed to be there um you know i think at one point her key that you're not supposed to be there. Um, you know, I think at one point her key card wasn't working. And I mean, I might mention this later. I forget if it's in these notes, but, and, and she just like told her friend Lauren, like, oh yeah, there's just like a glitch, you know? I mean, there were a lot of things that she was just kind of brushing aside, but definitely, I imagine somebody probably just took notice that like huh that's weird right

she's still going to and it's 2022 if you think about it also like social media you know if she's if anyone she's in photos and things on social media they can definitely say like hmm that's weird she's in the dorm room she's not supposed to be right so they meet with her in person and they're like hey listen you know i know this is tough but you need to vacate your dorm because you're no longer enrolled here they offered to help her discuss her situation with her parents but she lied and told them her parents already knew so like i said they terminated access to her key card it stopped working but she just pretended like oh my card is just broken and lauren let her in to the dorm thinking like oh she just needs it to get a new id card how would she get into her room isn't the

room also key activated i don't know i'm trying to remember how ours was mine you had to have your you had to like use your id i had to use my id i think we just had like a key like an actual physical key am i wrong i don't know maybe fucking 1800s i know i'm like skeleton key well no i mean because when you carry your um candle stick back from the bathroom i'm kidding back from the m space really was like christine i was like bitch there's no way you had to use a candlestick and allison imagine if allison and i just never mentioned that our school was also like off the grid electrically speaking um i don't know i feel like we had a key maybe not but like wouldn't they always break then like i feel like that would just be a recipe for disaster. I don't I mean, I know that the doors were unlocked unless you locked them physically. Oh, that was not. I'm pretty sure we had keys. I know. Also at Georgetown, they definitely had keys like physical keys.

like you had to have your id your id would weird yeah no ours was just a fucking free for all if you left your door open people just wander on in wild um yeah so anyway they tell her you need to leave your dorm you can't be here anymore but she says sure got it and continues to do so so finally school officials meet with her for a third time and they're like you're you're out of here like we will remove you with security i'm sorry like you can't stay any longer and so she finally moved out she she told lauren she had decided to take a break from school because her parents thought it was a good idea she take some time off um she just could not admit the truth even to her best best friend well at that point there's like so much embarrassment it's almost like you've built right like you've built it up and like oh i've been

expelled three times like that's a hard thing to say right if you've been hiding it this whole time um so she you know she felt like she really could not go home and she was so desperate to hide her reality from her parents that she started sleeping in hotels, sometimes her car, just to keep this kind of ruse alive. And when she was at home, like if she stopped by at home, she would basically tell her parents that she was visiting between classes. That's all, you know? So Brenda began to suspect something was off. Remember, they're really close and she's like, this something is not right here. Also, they have Life 360. Can't it say like she's not on campus all the time? Ding, ding, ding. One afternoon, Brenda checked Life 360, saw Sydney was at home when she knew she had an

afternoon class. So she texted Sydney asking why she was home. And Sydney came up with an elaborate lie. It's like a pretty long text about her professor being on vacation and so they were excused from class for the week and she had a meeting to go to later but she decided to stop at home for a while first and brenda was like i smell something fishy here and she texts sydney several times about other missed classes and some strange behavior she had noticed but sydney did not fess up and continued making excuses. So on February 25th, Brenda even texted her, why do I always feel like you're scamming me?

Oh, shit. She just could not trust her on this. She felt like something was really wrong. She said, why do I always feel like you're scamming me? Just remember, you need the grades to keep your scholarship. And Sydney responded, yes, I know. My grades are good. Thank you very much. scamming me just remember you need the grades to keep your scholarship and sydney responded yes i know my grades are good thank you very much again she's sleeping in hotels she's not in school she's been suspended for bad grades and she's you know really committing to this lie well is she is she suspended or expelled at this point so she's suspended and is not supposed to be on campus

but i mean because i could see like if you're only suspended that i don't i don't know if i could do this but i could see my brain at least jumping really quick to like could we fake it for a semester and then come back and no one would ever know and that could very well be and i'm pretty sure she was suspended it wasn't really a full expulsion i feel like that word got i know i said it earlier and it's it got thrown around a little bit like interchangeably um but you know it was a an academic suspension and later on i know that because later on the school faculty or the staff even talk about, you know, how they had offered like to talk it through and figure out how she could start next semester. You know, like they were willing to work with her. Right. Like she wasn't expelled forever and she couldn't get back on campus.

It was just like you're not you need it. You need to go home for a bit like your grades are not able to keep you here so meanwhile sydney's father steven also started to notice some things were up um she had a tuition to school but uh there was a you know a chunk left that her parents were paying for and so steven noticed that the school hadn't charged his account for her spring 2020 tuition yet. And he tried to log into the payment portal, but for some reason he couldn't get access. So he called Sydney and she says, oh, the school just it's an error. Like I've already notified them. They'll fix it.

And, you know, just everything was like a glitch or something was just broken. On March 2nd, Sydney went to a Bachelor viewing party with her former sorority because that was their weekly tradition. And they were all happy to see her and have a, you know, I assume like a wine night to watch Bachelor. And again, Lauren did not notice anything off about Sidney. She seemed social, upbeat, like she just really seemed like herself, which I think is kind of maybe the most startling part about all this. But unfortunately, in Sydney's life, things were fully unraveling. So on March 3rd, school officials called Sydney's dad to discuss the suspension.

And he was blindsided. I mean, he was shocked. blindsided i mean he was shocked as he's receiving this information or at least directly afterward he opens the life 360 app and he sees that sydney is at home and he drives home to confront her he's like i need to get to the bottom of this you know she fully panicked when she heard a car coming into the driveway oh my god imagine she opens a 360 app and sees his car like coming toward the house. So he drove home to confront her and she continued to try to cover up the extent of the situation. Right. So I know it's like it's like she just can't let it go. And it's almost she's like quadrupled down at this point.

Like it's yeah, it's she's really really really committed um she tries to kind of spin it now because obviously like he knows it's too late you can't lie about that anymore so she kind of tries to spin it right because like what else is she gonna do so she tells him you know i'm not so sure school is right for me like it hasn't been going well and he tries to comfort her he encourages her and he told her you know what why don't we get through this semester, take the summer off, relax, and then, like, you know. Of all the ways a parent could handle that, he really nailed it. I think that's the best approach, right? Like, don't pressure.

You know, just, like, let's take a breather. Let's take a breather. Literally, we said that at the same time. I'm like, man. We would be so good parenting together. We would be such good parents, huh? Let's have a baby. Just kidding. Literally, we said that at the same time. I'm like, man. We would be so good parenting together. We would be such good parents, huh? Let's have a baby. Just kidding.

Oh, okay. I have one. You want to share it? I'll share her. I'll show up once a year and then be tired. And tell her to breathe and then move on. And then she breathes on me and then I get sick. You get hand, foot, mouth.

Yeah, perfect. I love this arrangement. So anyway, she's saying like, I don't know about school. And he says, you know what, don't stress, take the summer off to relax. And he said, I know everything's gonna work out, even though things seem really bad in the moment, just like very comforting, very calming. your mom she you should talk to her about this like she's better at handling this kind of thing than I am so he calls Brenda asked her to come home to discuss school with Sydney and help her figure out what to do next then he went back to work um thinking okay good so those two are together they'll they'll figure it out um they've we've always been able to problem solve and Brenda knows Sydney better than anyone so this will will be great. Um, it wasn't much later, I would say like less than an hour. I don't remember the exact timing, but less than an

hour. Um, a faculty member at university of Mount union received a message from Brenda asking about Sydney's enrollment because essentially Brenda had come home to talk to Sydney and was like, I need to get a hold of the school because I need like the real answers. Right. You know, if you're being evasive and you're lying, I'm going to go straight to the source. So two school officials return her call to discuss the situation about Sydney. But before they could get into the conversation, they heard several loud thuds. Oh, shit. And then screaming.

The screaming went on and on, and then the line just disconnected. Okay. So terrified, they called back repeatedly until finally someone answered and said, Hello, this is Brenda. But they said, this is not Brenda. We know this is not Brenda. This is a voice we know all too well. It's the voice of Sydney, Brenda's daughter.

They said, Sydney, we know that's you. We know it's not your mom. Can we talk to your mom? And the line went dead again. Oh, oh, oh, I'm just remembering that this this topic is called the murder of Brenda. Sure is. So they had a terrible feeling, of course, and they called police and said, can you do a wellness check? Something is not right over there.

We heard some scary sounds. And they called police and said, can you do a wellness check? Something is not right over there. We heard some scary sounds. And they did something. Yes, thankfully, because police responded pretty quickly. And again, like probably within the hour, all of this happened so fast that I think they said, you know, Stephen went back to work. And like within the hour, he got a call from his friend who was a police detective yeah and the police detective said hey i just want to let you know that we've just been dispatched to your house and he's like what he's like i was just there you know like well that probably didn't look good as a police officer right also right you were yeah okay let me see your life 360. Where are you right now?

Right. Yeah. So he basically gets a call saying, oh, police are on the way to your house. I just wanted to give you a heads up. And he's like, hello, for what? So he calls Sydney because he's like, well, I just saw her there. He's worried something happened. Sydney doesn't answer. Then Sydney calls back and she says, oh, nothing's wrong. Don't worry. And he says, well, where's your mother? And she says, oh, she's on the phone with Mount Union right now with the university. Which is like, by the way, the worst alibi possible, because the college is going to say we we're the ones who heard screaming. What are you talking about?

We called the police. Like, yeah, exactly. You couldn't have said, oh, she left. She. Oh, man. Or I don't know yeah anything like she could she for someone who is trying to lie for an entire semester like her lies are unraveling yeah i feel like the whole plot like her whole it's terror it's just so sad like this whole thing is just unraveling in an instant right because she's done something irreversible and now she has to reckon with it she's floundering she's floundering everything

from the past few months is like coming back to kick her ass times a million you know with with this on top of it so steven's like well okay your mom's on the phone with mount union um well i just got word that the police are headed to the house for some reason oh tipped her off and sydney became hysterical and she said dad someone broke into the house that's why the police are coming and then she hung up so he's totally out of like i mean so confused probably like a minute ago she's like oh everything's fine mom's on the phone and he's like well the police are coming she's like that's because someone broke into the house like especially when she just went everything's

fine everything's great and then 180 right it's like if everything it's like i mean girl like this is a this is a what they call it an open an open shut case it's pretty open and shut in in in this way at least in like the logistics of what happened definitely so when police arrived sydney was inconsolable um and it's oh just give me a goose cam just think about it there's um body cam footage of them arriving and she kind of runs out of the house she has blood all over her she's in hysterics uh and she she's inconsolable she's trying to almost stop the police from coming in which i imagine is you know probably a red flag and she tells police there was a break-in she said all she heard was glass breaking and then her mom told her to run so she

doesn't know what happened but then again she's covered in blood right and she was in the house yeah so she didn't run very far um she didn't run but then she came right back but now she's covered in blood and she's also covered in blood is there even glass that broke so interestingly uh there is glass that broke and there was blood on the outside of the window oh meaning the window had been broken after the blood had spilled yes so the police escort her outside she you can watch this on the body cam footage she collapses in the driveway and just becomes like catatonic and she begins clawing the asphalt with her fingers she's hyperventilating and she's mumbling to herself

get out get out get out oh shit so they put a blanket over her and transport her to the hospital and when they get inside they see brenda she is very badly injured and officers know pretty quickly that she is not going to survive this attack. Oh, my God. They can definitely tell, like you said, pretty open and shut that Sydney had attacked her mother. She had first hit her over the head with an iron skillet. Oh, my God. Then she had dropped the skillet, retrieved a knife. And stabbed Brenda at least 23 times in the neck.

Whoa. Yeah. It's like this story just hit me so hard watching the test. Watch it. Somehow it's just. I don't maybe it's because we can all or not all of us, I guess, but many of us can relate to having like tension with our mom, you know, or like having that kind of like closeness, but also that tension and the fighting. I don't know, maybe that's why, but something about this just really like struck a nerve with me. It's also, I mean, if it, time-wise, it feels so close. It just happened. just happened that's true it's not like a you know we've talked about this before yeah exactly but it feels like it could

have been any of our friends moms or anyone we knew and yeah also i mean to know that she was screaming for so long and it's so she was screaming as she was getting stabbed in the neck it's like she knew what was happening. Like that makes it worse because you hope that getting hit in the head would have knocked around. She wouldn't know. But she knew. And it's so hard because, like, of course, I understand the, like, the mental illness aspect of all this. But also to go get a second weapon. You know, it's like whoa and then to

well okay we'll get into all that but essentially uh they knew that this is what sydney had done um and the scene was shocking uh sydney had absolutely no history of violence whatsoever her family genuinely m couldn't even remember brenda and sydney arguing like they didn't even fight like they didn't even have a contentious which makes it which makes it worse because not only was she screaming in like physical pain but she had to be so emotionally confused yeah well and also i will point out we don't know who was screaming like maybe it was sydney screaming you know i mean they just heard screaming i don't know that's true i just want i just want to say in case the call comes out or something i don't i have no idea i don't know

who was screaming yeah let's hope it was not it was not brenda that would be probably better question like see to to all of a sudden have the person you trust the most just snap like that yeah and to be hit on the head like that while on the phone, it almost feels like a desperate surprise attack, basically. So this attack was something that her family genuinely could not comprehend. I mean, again, she never even argued with her mother, let alone like had full out brawls. And it was so brutal even school officials later said that when brenda picked up the phone the first time around like when they first started chatting she seemed really calm like it didn't they didn't get the vibe that like things were

tense in the household they didn't get the vibe that brenda and sydney were arguing brenda was like perfectly calm and friendly so it didn't even seem Sydney were arguing Brenda was like perfectly calm and friendly so it didn't even seem like there was like they called in the midst of a heated discussion or anything like that Brenda was transported to a hospital and unfortunately she succumbed to her wounds when Sydney finally spoke she repeated the story that there had been a break-in um at the house And she repeated the story that there had been a break in at the house. Like I said, she had broken dropped the lie um and although it was cut and dry like you said in that we know who did it to whom and with what uh they could not understand the motive like it was just so difficult to believe sydney would kill her mother to cover up being suspended or expelled um especially now that her parents knew

like she had just talked to steven about it like he knew about it right so it just was a little bit it just seemed over the top like it just didn't seem to match anything didn't match the motive didn't match her could it have been like she thought maybe she could trick her dad into believing a story but when she knew like her mom would find out like she just panicked that she her cover was blown or yeah i mean it must be like that's really the only thing that makes sense um at this point a psychologist evaluated her and actually believed she had suffered what he called a psychotic break. Yeah. I mean, hello.

She's like scratching asphalt and saying, get out, get out. Yeah. Well, and then the other argument to that is that she which is faking it. No, not even. But that she's traumatized from what just happened. Oh, yeah. As anyone would be. Right.

what just happened oh yeah as anyone would be right like even if you weren't having a psychotic episode and you stabbed someone to death in the fit of a heated argument or what have you or you'd probably be deeply traumatized by that as well you know so yeah and also if you had a psychotic break and now you're coming down from that break and you realize you just killed the person you love the most right exactly so it's either some people say she's faking it some people say no she was just having a reaction to something really traumatic um but she had done it in her right mind so to speak and some people say you know it was a full-on psychotic break so it's it's it's definitely hotly contested um people are pretty split over this sydney claimed to remember nothing about the attack.

She said she remembered sitting on the couch with her mom and crying. And then she suddenly remembered feeling a need to escape, walking down to the basement and coming back up. But that's all she said she remembered. She said she'd been hearing voices that told her she was worthless and that she should kill herself. Oh, shit. And she couldn't remember anything else until she was in the hospital after the attack and it felt like she was suddenly waking up this is what she describes to police now the horror of the attack was so far out of the scope of sydney's personality and

behavior that her family firmly believed this must have been some sort of extreme break from reality that she suffered otherwise they could not understand how she could have behaved this way. Her father and her maternal grandmother, Brenda's mom, whose name was Betsy, even though her granddaughter murdered her daughter, she did not want Sydney to be charged with murder. She just fully believed that she needed psychiatric care. So the family really, really advocated for her to be released on bond to receive psychiatric care while she awaited the hearing. And she was granted the bond and was released under psychiatric supervision. She was involuntarily committed to an inpatient psychiatric hospital for nine days. And while there, she was

evaluated and officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. So while she was there, she was prescribed a medication for the schizophrenia, and she seemed to respond pretty well to the medication and was ultimately released to the care of her grandmother. And she lived there with her grandma Betsy on their family farm. And from what they could tell, you know, she was going to treatment with a psychiatrist, a counselor. From what they could tell, you know, she was going to treatment with a psychiatrist, a counselor. She helped with the chores at the farm, like stacking hay. And she seemed to be, like, engaged in family life. And so her family was like, well, this is a Sydney we've always known. We just can't reconcile this with what they're saying happened to Brenda.

So despite her family's wishes, prosecutors believed they had a duty to the community to move forward with the murder charges against Sydney. And her own dad at a pretrial hearing said, I don't know why we're doing this. This isn't what anyone wants here. I don't know how she can handle it. I don't know how I can handle it. I'm trying to keep my family together. Yeah. But they went forward with it.

And at the trial, Sydney's friends and teachers were called as witnesses. They told stories about just great times they had with her, how much they laughed with her, all their happy memories, just the lack of any memories of her doing anything violent or against the rules. And two more medical experts also evaluated Sidney, confirming her diagnosis and testifying that she was indeed experiencing psychosis when she murdered Brenda. They said at the moment of the attack, she did not know, like, right from wrong. She didn't know reality from fantasy. However, the prosecution brought their own clinical psychologist. The prosecution brought their own clinical psychologist, and this clinical psychologist denied the diagnosis and said Sidney instead had borderline traits and unspecified anxiety, but she did not believe that Sidney exhibited any symptoms of schizophrenia. Interesting. Okay. Yes. So definitely like getting two sides, two opposite testimonies here sure two opposite diagnoses really it was her opinion that sydney's condition in the driveway like i was saying was brought on by shock after murdering her mom not by psychosis okay which i could i could believe either one

right like i i believe somebody in shock could be reacting that way i could believe someone in psychosis could be acting that way. Who knows? Sidney also apparently claimed to have experienced symptoms of psychosis as young as 11 years old. But the prosecution psychologist testified that women rarely exhibit symptoms of psychosis at such a young age. And if she had, people would have noticed. she had people would have noticed so that sort of muddied the waters as far as sydney's claim that she was suffering from psychosis okay this started to lean the jury in the other way because prosecution started to argue that sydney was lying to seek an insanity plea and they also argued which this one is a fair point sydney staging a break-in right demonstrated that she knew what she was doing what she was doing

what she had done was wrong she knew she was going to get in trouble for it she knew she knew she had done something terrible and i could also i could see i i could see her having a break though and then coming to and realizing like oh shit now that this has happened i need to cover my tracks and like yeah you know like i just don't know like i mean i don't know i'm not we're clearly not medical mental health professionals but i just wonder like do you just snap i don't know if you snap in and i don't know i have no idea i just i wonder if like the and and the fact that anything but remember she was saying like like her claim was that she didn't remember anything until the hospital so it's sort of like it's sort of like well then so you you did come to in some way to right you were cognizant enough to realize you had to try and cover your tracks

you know right right right right um and she you know remember when her dad called and she was like oh yeah mom's just on the phone like she had already she had already killed her at that point you're totally right yeah so it's definitely very hotly debated i guess i'll say they also said that her use of multiple weapons which you know it wasn't just like a she swung and then dropped and realized what she did like she swung and then decided she wanted she did something more intense and yeah yeah yeah so they said the use of multiple this is a prosecution saying the use of multiple weapons and the brutality proved murderous intent um however her lawyer actually argued the exact opposite he said the brutality speaks to the insanity of this incident.

And I'm like, I can really understand both. I like I can understand both arguments, I guess. Yeah. Sidney's family, who never saw Sidney fight or be violent, agreed that the mental illness was the reason for this attack and the defense's experts said sydney was simply displaying atypical symptoms of psychosis but really had actually experienced psychosis and they believe that she had begun experiencing symptoms as a child that maybe were easily missed and that as she got older and moved into her own place the dorm that she these symptoms like worsened and she didn't know how to handle them. And that's what triggered this bout of psychosis. In the following days, they believed

she lapsed in and out of reality. Sometimes she was lucid enough to carry on conversations. Sometimes she was just confused and totally disconnected. The defense said she had no true motive to kill her mother. But the prosecution said that she did and that her motive was that she would have done anything, anything at all, no matter how terrible, to avoid disappointing her mother. They believed Sidney would rather have killed her mom than have her find out the truth. many who followed the trial agreed that sydney murdered her mother in a fit of rage like sort of a crime of passion and that her true motive was just to avoid the reality of her situation like she just thought yeah and it's sort of what you said like she just couldn't handle her mom finding out the truth you know even though she like on some level her dad already knew you know so it's like i mean i could i could see, if your mom is your best friend and the last thing you want to do is disappoint her.

Or, like, just... If you're backed into a corner and you're having that type of break from reality, just thinking, how do I make sure she doesn't find out and, like, get rid of her? I don't know. Like, I mean, I obviously don't get it because i i haven't been there but i could see being so scared of disappointing her that there's no other way out anymore yeah and i think the key word is like backed into a corner because for the key phrase i guess because it it her lies were just becoming so piled up that what you said earlier too of her lies were just becoming so piled up that what you said earlier too, of not telling her friend, her best friend, because at that point the school has suspended you or expelled you three times.

Like that's not something now you want to admit. Like the first time you cover it up and then the more lies get added, the harder it is to come clean, probably the more embarrassing, probably the more shameful. Um, and then to have to explain like i was living in my car i was sleep i was lying i was sleeping in hotels i yeah you know like all of that comes even she had even she had to know that that was like beyond a common reaction and so like maybe to even admit that it's not just admitting anymore that you were suspended it's admitting like my i let myself get this far and then there's a real worry exactly like it went so far that you know that's exactly i think what happened it just built up and built

up and built up and then it became like this monster of its own that she was just so afraid would get out i mean it was bound to happen eventually one way or another, but unfortunately the worst way. Um, so that's what most people believe. They believe, you know, she murdered her mother in a fit of rage. Um, and she just could not, she just could not handle her mother finding out about the reality of of what was going on and she couldn't handle facing the reality of what she had done um and that side believes she knew the reality full well like she was in full control of her mind she was quote-unquote in her right mind uh but that she just didn't want to face it right if that makes sense yeah so in the end that is

what the jury decided they sided with the prosecution after nine hours of deliberation and they found sydney guilty on all four charges brought against her wow and those charges were purposeful murder felony murder felonious assault and tampering with evidence guilty of all charges in september of this year 2023 sydney was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after serving 15 years the family of course now had this to mourn on top of the loss of brenda a doctor who had worked with bre wrote a letter. This part made me tear up. One of Brenda's colleagues at the hospital wrote a letter to be read in court, which said, quote, I have almost never felt so strongly that I need to offer a voice of advocacy as I have in this tragic situation.

If Brenda were still alive, she would without a doubt want the unwavering support of Sydney's continued treatment for her mental condition in the least restrictive environment possible with as much family connection and contact as is possible. So in the wake of this verdict, which just happened a couple months ago, as we record this, Sydney's defense team said the most important thing now will be ensuring Sydney continues to receive the treatment and support she needs to remain healthy to recover. Brenda, in the meantime, is remembered by the many, many people that she supported in her 28 years at Akron Children's Hospital. Her patients, their families, and her co-workers continue to mourn her and the, you know, just incredible impact she had on their lives. A scholarship fund was created in her memory as well and is actually accepting donations currently through Akron Children's Hospital. It provides education funds to students who have been hematology or oncology patients at Akron Children's Hospital, which I think is a really cool, cool thing and a cool way to remember her.

And this fund is just another way that brenda and her legacy continue to you know help her help her former patients and and their families after she has been taken too soon wow but that is the story of of brenda powell it this one really uh made me sad yeah for a lot of reasons but i do also think that it's because it's um i'm close with my mom so that one that that's one drive home and then also um like i said earlier just because it's so recent like someone we know could have could know her you know like could be involved yeah yeah i think i think what gets me what gets me is i was reading i was watching one of the test court testimonies

and of course i just had to i scrolled down to the comments and oh my i mean oh my god like just to see the things people are saying about this young woman. And like, I understand. I mean, it's all it's all just terribly sad. Right. And then in the comments, people are saying like, yeah, I bet you that worthless father didn't even know like what classes she was taking. her mom like there's no way they were close because x y and z and you know her mom like how wants her to like go to the you know get how do you not have empathy what are you talking about so outrageously uh righteous in the scariest ways well like both sides like people saying like you know she's totally innocent and blah blah and then people saying like you know she's totally innocent and blah blah and then people saying like she deserves to like burn in hell and like just scary shit where i'm like this is it's terribly sad whether it was a fit of rage or psychosis yeah it's it's just fucking terribly sad like it's terrible like the father think about the best friend think about the grandma like they've just lost so much and like out out of nowhere like out of nowhere

like he literally i'm not defending her and saying like well you know she was stressed like okay of course not of course not but like but that poor man he like just he got a phone call and then he got another phone call and then everything in his life changed for the instantly for the rest of time i mean it's just very sad whether again whether it was a psychosis or whether she was just in a fit of rage she killed her mom and that's really fucking sad and horrible and the fact that they were so close is what really really gets me it's like it's just upsetting to hear you know know, her grandma, for example, talk about like how they were inseparable. They were two peas in a pod.

They had so many inside jokes. Like they were deeply connected. And it's like, you know how love and hate are so close. Like they're not opposites. They're just like one degree away. It feels like that, like a crime of passion like she's just so angry and she hurt the one person she loved most you know and she can't take it back and it's just it makes me really sad yeah so well once again christine good storytelling i don't know how to end this thanks i've had fun hope

you have too um i feel bad for you you're the one that has to research all this stuff in depth no wonder you always have so much anxiety okay i know for real though the other day i said something i was like mom i keep having these dreams about 9 11 and she's like yep and i was like what why are you saying yep like what are you talking about and she's like, yep. And I was like, why are you saying yep? Like, what are you talking about? And she's like, you know, things like that just happen every now and then. And Blaze was like, Christine, you literally just research death all day. Death for your whole job. And then I have the audacity to wake up and say, oh, my God, I dreamed I was on a plane. I mean, it's really scary.

I keep having these nightmares. I don't know. I don't nightmares um i don't know i don't know i don't know why but yeah this probably doesn't help it can't help it cannot help yeah well we have fun well uh do you feel at least a little less overwhelmed that we have done notes and recorded an episode i do actually I'm really proud of us. I'm proud of us, too. This should have not happened, just knowing who we are. Knowing us. I wasn't convinced, but look at us go.

What's the next thing on your list to check off if you can check anything off today? Well, I'm going to have drinks with my stepmom, as I use as an example, because it's really what's happening. So I off off to do that and then I have to pick up a bunch of shit from different stores and try and get stuff done do you know what you're gonna order with your stepmom um no because we're going to her house and she said she bought champagne oh so you do know what you're gonna drink oh well I know what I'm gonna drink yes yes indeedy um because my brother's driving so i get champagne today gotcha uh i'm working on presents um me too that is like a never-ending project the day this one project is over i can't

wait to discuss it but um but let's just say i've been working on this stupid thing since like uh july for my mom and really coming down to the wire here and i'm pretty sure i'll be up until i think i'll be pulling it all night around christmas eve trying to get it done before she opens it christmas morning so well considering this comes out next year this episode oh oh we can say em confidently i know it went great oh this is the first episode of 2023 besides the listener episode girl 2024 i mean 2024 remember last year you said or last year last week you said 2025 i i think something's going on in 2024 that we desperately already somehow i'm actually scared i'm actually scared how much we're avoiding saying that year.

Cosmically, we know that we don't want to be a part of 2024. I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah, well, hopefully 2024 goes well. And hopefully my mom's Christmas present goes well. Because I actually am kind of scared that she's gonna be mad at me. No, it's gonna be great. You did. I know what it is. And I think you nailed it. Seriously. Seriously. Okay, I hope so. I know what it is. And I think you nailed it. Seriously. Seriously. Okay. I hope so.

I went against her exact wishes. Oh, excellent. Well, but you're also making it right the way that she wanted at the end. Sure. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Side note.

Last thing I want to say. Blaze just texted me because they're at the aquarium. Precious. Leona just got her first picture with Santa. It was scuba Santa. And you missed it, Christine. And you said, I will buy the photo. Don't worry. Scuba Santa. That's probably the exact Santa that you're going to want to memorialize anyway. Hilarious. I'm like, that would be the Santa. She just is like, oh, Santa comes. He wears a scuba mask well there are there are fishes down there that need

presents too you know that's right mermaids hello mermaids mermaids need presents yeah oh well go have fun with your little mermaid and um and i guess i'll see you i can't say see you next year because we're already in next year but i'll physically see you next year see you next year and that's why we drink