And That's Why We Drink - E381 Drunk on Leaves and Resurrecting the Information SuperHighway

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

It's episode 381 and we're back on our cryptid bullshit! This week Em brings us the wild tale of the Mongolian Death Worm. Then Christine covers the tragic and bizarre case of Greg Fleniken aka "the body in room 348". And please tell us we're elegantante... and that's why we drink!We're going back on tour! Don't miss out on our brand new live show coming to ya this fall! andthatswhywedrink.com/live

Look at sweet Christine and her little Harry Potter glasses. I know they're blue light glasses. I don't even think I don't even know if these do anything at work, but they make me feel smarter. You and magical. You look very magical. Thank you. How are you look very magical. Thank you. How are you doing, Em?

I miss you. I miss you. I feel like so much has happened and nothing's happened at all since we last recorded, where I've been doing a lot of physical exertion. Not by choice. Well, I guess by choice, but not in a fun way. I've been doing a lot of cleaning like to like, Allison is not here, Kelsa preys.

What else is new? But so I'm trying to like, you know, get things cleaned up before either she gets back or before we start really like moving. And so I've been doing a lot of rearranging and pulling things out and trying to come up with piles to get rid of stuff. On top of that, our friend Christine, not this Christine, not Harry Potter,

but we have a friend Christine, she's moving. And the first time in several years, I had a friend say, can you come over and help me move out of my apartment? No! And we're too old for that shit now, come on. I had a lot of fun, but it was, the next day my body hurt a lot.

And I was just like, man, I don't think I ever felt like this. You don't even drink beer. You can't even be paid in a six pack of beer. Like, that sucks. And I paid for the pizza. I was like, hey, wait a minute. Christine, you are a genius. Whatever you're doing, it's working. She just batted some eyes at me, you know I'm a sucker.

All my friends have just like the best eyes and um but I, yeah I don't know, I just I got swooped into it. I really, I mean I don't really care what I'm doing. I just wanted to like make the memory with her but then the next day I was like wow, that was, the memory was nice and now I'm doing. I just wanted to like make the memory with her but then the next day I was like wow I know the memory was nice and now I'm experiencing it all over again. Yeah. So I'm just I need to do a big stretch. I think that's where I'm at today. What about you? How are you? Are you stretchy? No I just would rather not move at all but I will say I'm very excited. The reason I drink this week is because I hope are we announcing this yet. When do we announce it? today

Okay, we're going on it's too late Eva's not here today to tell us no I thought you said yes, that's why I went forward, but you were not saying yes. Were you I was trying to figure out? What day this comes out, but I think when do we announce the tour? Monday Okay, so yeah, we're okay Great going on tour. Okay folks We're so excited and we have so many random cities like that's my most excited part is that we're going to places We've some places that we've never been before we're doing some repeats, of course

But we're doing some we're doing some real randoms, which I can't be like. Real randoms. Freaking Lawrence, Kansas, we're coming for ya. Isn't that wild? Which I hear is actually a great time. So maybe there's a reason to this. Yeah, it's a college town.

So with our booking agent, is that his official title? I think. The guy who creates our tour Yeah, we he'd send us a bunch of cities and we're like, I don't know what half of these are about but yeah There's gotta be a reason to him. So let's see how this goes. We were like, what's Iowa City, Iowa, but hello. We're coming So let me just list some more there's gonna be a promo So you probably already heard this folks, but we're going to New York, New Jersey, Tarrytown, New York, which I think is Sleepy Hollow, right? That's Sleepy Hollow.

Yeah, that one makes a little sense to me. Yeah, that one makes sense. Portland, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Madison, Wisconsin, Iowa City, Iowa, Springfield, Missouri, Lawrence, Kansas, Dallas, Austin, I'm excited to go back to Texas, Atlanta, Charleston, which I'm really excited about. San Francisco and San Diego. I can't wait.

And this is for the fall. And then in the spring, we'll put out other cities eventually, but for now this is the first half of a whole tour. So we have no idea where else we'll be heading. And apparently we're going to some random as hell places, so don't wait for your big city. Just come and hang out with us in some tiny spaces. If there's somewhere that you wanna go,

I would just scoop it up, because I barely know where we're going in the fall, let alone where we'll be going in the spring. And if we're not coming to your town, do not fret, because I will be also going through the summer to several towns with my brother doing Beach to Sandy, where we read one star reviews of all these different towns. So, you know, if we're missing you there,

because we're doing a Cincinnati show and a Columbus show and some other towns. So come see me there. Is Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where we had the snowpocalypse situation? It seems like it would be nearby, right? Because it can't be that big of a place, the state of New Hampshire. Let's just hope that it doesn't snow this time around That's all we can hope for with New Hampshire. I really hope that in August or whatever month we're going

We'll see I can't promise anything But I'm there is snow I'm getting a all-wheel drive or or just not going or snowing I don't know. We'll see I never got my Dartmouth gear. So we've got a whole new reason Got a whole new reason to be over in New Hampshire. We'll be there. We'll be near what is it Exeter, right? It's an Exeter? Sure, I don't remember but I'm very excited specifically for Terrytown on principle. I saw that one pop up and I went Oh Well, him in New Hampshire, you know what?

I usually make a week of a trip anyway, so. Yeah, it's all, you'll find, you'll cover your bases. You'll hit them all. I think so. But yeah, Tarrytown will be fun. That's our first, and it's a new show, folks. So if you've been to these last few years, like it's a totally new show that, by the way,

we have not even done yet. So like, we don't even know yet what's gonna happen. We don't even know if it's gonna be good. We'll see, we'll see. No, it's gonna be good. Shut up, Em. It's gonna be great. But we are gonna live in total terror until we have it ready to go. So at least we should call it Terror Town. We're called Terror Town. Right. That's it. Anyway, that's why I drink. But I'm ready to I'm ready to party. Em, do you want to tell me a story or do we have anything else to cover?

I don't think we've... Oh, this is just another casual reminder that we have a book coming out. Oh! And pre-order sales are very important to us when it comes to where we land on the list, the bestseller list, if we end up on a list. Or if we land up, yeah.

Not to say like... Our... We've already been warned about the- The first book when it made the bestseller list, our own agent manager said, this was really a surprise to us. And we said, yeah, no kidding. But I mean, I'm glad- Us too.

Yeah, us too, but like, thanks a lot for all your confidence. But then this time around, they were like, hey, just so you know, it's even more competitive now, so don't get your hopes up. And I was like, honestly, it's even more competitive now, so don't get your hopes up. And I was like, honestly, they're never up. Em and I don't have our hopes up. We leave our hopes on the floor,

because if something exciting happens, we get to celebrate. So don't worry, we don't have our hopes up, but we do appreciate any pre-order sales. It really does help us a lot to get it kinda out there. I do say like, oh, it helps us where we land on the list. I think I'm saying that in a manifesting way. I don't actually, my expectations are low for us.

But- Let's just say we've set our expectations. And I would say also, you and I are very excited that the cover of this new book says New York Times bestselling author. So who gives a shit if this one makes it? We're all ready. We got that title.

It's on the cover. So I'm pretty- I will be bragging? We're all ready. We got that title. It's on the cover. So I'm pretty sure. I will be bragging about it over the holidays. As you should be. You should put it under everyone's tree. And everyone's talking. Thank you in advance if you have already pre-ordered. But if you would like to help us with our numbers,

then you can pre-order. Also, if you just want to read a really funny book, you can pre-order. Yeah, we're really proud of this one, I'll be honest. We're really proud of it. I think it's very funny. I rag on Christine quite a lot in the size of the book. Yeah, it's like a lot of banter in there this time around.

Yeah. Okay, so anyway, please go check out our book. I think that's all we've got. Oh, do you want to pitch your tour? My, my tour? Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, so we're just doing 12 different cities, which is the first like real tour we've ever done. We're doing DC again at the Improv. My, my, yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah.

So we're just doing 12 different cities, which is the first like real tour we've ever done. We're doing DC again at the improv. We're doing a bunch of towns, Seattle and Portland are already sold out, which is exciting. None of the other ones are. So Portland Seattle has always been kind to us. So I'm not surprised that it's that it's that demographic really gets us. And so yeah, that one was easy peasy. The rest of the towns are a little more uphill battle.

So yeah, check it out. Every town we go to, we read one star reviews of your town and places around. It's really fun and we have a good time. Sometimes Em shows up. That's my always, my little like teaser, even without Em's consent. Like a little, yeah, a little, a prairie dog or something.

Yep, I'm just like wood checks on in and every now and then, Anne gets like a whole signing autograph line going in the aisle, which is really fun too, cause I get to just watch. I don't mean to, but it does happen. I mean, I know you don't mean to, but for me it's delightful, cause Alexander and I are like, phew, now we can go to the bathroom and no one can see us.

We can sneak past everyone. As long as you're okay with that, I just don't wanna, if you ever want me to shut it down, I'll shut it down, because it's your show, not mine. I'd prefer it if you just keep. My mom would disagree, she would say. Yeah, as she should. I would keep her to the.

She'll be my plus one and she will want a line, for sure. Yeah, she wants a line, she has her own line, quite frankly, she can shut yours down and keep hers going, she wants a line. She has her own line, quite frankly. She can shut yours down and keep hers going. That's fine too. Okay, I'm ready to tell you about a cryptid this week, Christine. Oh, it's been a while, I think, since the last cryptid.

I think it has too. I went on a bit of a ghost heavy track, which I like. I would like to keep it primarily haunted things, but every now and then I like to sprinkle in a what the fuck thing. And we love it. We love it every now and then. Yeah. Spice it up. A casual what? You know, something like that. OK, so here we're going to talk about the Mongolian death worm.

Say it ain't so oh Well, I will not go Turn the lights off Gary be home. I've been listening to a lot of emo music lately Mongolian death worm Which sounds emo by the way sure does it sounds like someone gave themselves that nickname to look cooler in school, but everyone's like, okay, death worm. I bet you're- Okay.

Not that, not that big. It's okay. All right, Peter, we know your real name. Stop calling yourself Mongolian death worm. So before we can talk about the Mongolian death worm, we have to talk about its cousin, the Indus worm. But if, just to give you an idea of where we're heading, did you ever see the movie Tremors?

It was like a sci-fi movie in the 90s. No. It's about giant worms attacking people from underground, which is exactly what a Mongolian death worm is pretty much. I can kind of picture it. I think I've seen pictures from those movies. Yeah. I'm thinking that

Death worms like the the lore of them is exactly the inspiration for this movie and that was it They didn't even think probably right. Yeah, it feels pretty spot-on Yeah And in modern days if someone's like what's a bath worm? According to PBS it is a giant underground worm that comes up from the earth to attack its prey, a la tremors. And-

But they're like, not a real one, PBS, right? PBS? There's a show called Monstrum, and it talks about different monster fuck-or. I was like, what kind of fucking PBS programming is this? Cause I thought PBS was educational, and now you're telling me they're talking about death worms. Okay, you got me a little nervous.

As far as I know, I don't think there's actually death worms. Certainly not to the size and grandeur of the worms I'm talking about today. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, not big Godzilla-sized snakes. Man-eating, yeah. But yeah, so I guess the official definition is that a death worm would be soft bodied,

limbless and invertebrate and moves by crawling and lives partially under dirt and is a threat to humans. Okay. Lots of qualifications there. Wow, okay. Origins of these worms date back to folklore from hundreds of years ago. An example of that is the Indus worm,

who has his own legends from up to like 1,500 years ago. Comes from the Indus River, which is 1,800 miles long and flows through the Himalayans. And in five in the year five no the year four Was it December of four or January of five it's really hard to say In the fifth century BCE, so even further back, a Greek historian wrote that in this river,

in the Indus River, lived a giant white maggot. Ew! This maggot was so big that apparently a 10-year-old could wrap their arms around it, and like specifically a 10-year-old. Could, but like- Would? Would? Should not, please.

Also, why 10? Why? I was this size at 10, so obviously you're wrong. Yeah, so you don't count. Yeah, I feel like that seems like not a good measurement. If I had a 10 year old and someone wrote that down in that time period, I'd be like, we're staying indoors until you turn 11.

I'm worried about why he knows this, this weird man. Is the 10-year-old the only one who survived? What about an eight-year-old? What about... They don't have the grip strength. Or what if there's only one person who was dumb enough to try it and it happened to be a 10-year-old,

so that's the only frame of reference we have. I mean, that fits, yeah. Somehow there was also the description of this maggot being 10 feet wide. So now I'm thinking, OK, is is it one foot per child that they're measuring by? Yeah, what kind of fucking wingspan does this 10 year old have? OK. Yeah. That's a great point. So weird. So this historian who wrote about this maggot that lives in the Indus River.

OK, historian in quotes. I'm sorry, I just have to say it now. Who the fuck is this? Who wrote this? Is this a very historical? Someone from year four, negative four. Okay, but it's not like Plato or some shit? Like it's just some random? We don't know.

Okay, so I'm just gonna say, historian, quote unquote. A guy who maybe saw a maggot, I don't know, he could have been drunk on like leaves or something back then. I don't know. Oh, that's probably what it was. Maybe he was 10 years old. He was like, I'm just writing this for a school project.

I'm not a historian. He just went, as a 10 year old, this is how I would have held onto it. I could hold onto a giant worm. It was around 10 feet wide. It would spend its days hiding in the sun, hiding from the sun in the water and soil. It would just tuck itself under the water in the dirt.

And then at night it would come out and it would hunt very large creatures that included camels and oxen and horses. So, um, so that was kind of the whole thing. It was just, it was essentially nocturnal and during the day it would hide out in the dirt. It was also supposedly, this feels like either something a 10 year old came up with or someone who's drunk on leaves, apparently the worm only had two teeth, one on its top jaw, one on its bottom jaw.

And I'm like, in like a redneck way or like, was it just like the whole row of teeth all connected like as just Yeah, are they pointy cuz then that seems like a useless type of tooth or is like one sharp and one flat so that it can like Yeah, are they both sharp? Cuz then if they're both sharp like I need to know how big they are Is it the size of a normal tooth or literally is it like a row of teeth as one big tooth? That's horrible.

I hope it's not one big tooth like that. That's not good for me. I feel like there's like some uncanny valley where like there's an AI man who like only has one tooth. Yeah, well it's because like AI can't do like faces or like hands correctly. So they always get that freaky freaky look. Yeah. Freaky mouth. I feel like one tooth on top and bottom is not good.

Well, apparently that's what this thing had going on. It was one on its top jaw, one on its bottom jaw. And apparently, I think it actually was pretty flat. I mean, maybe it was sharp enough to like first the grip of it, but it I think they were kind of dull and the jaw alone was the real weapon and these teeth would catch somebody. It would jump out of the dirt, it would hunt and grab somebody and then it would drag them back into the water. This worm apparently would eat every single part of its prey but the intestines.

I don't know why. There's no reason for it. That makes no sense, but okay. It's like, the colon is great. Intestines? Yeah. The eyes? Great. I think the colon is part of the intestines, right? I guess then you get an intestinal problem.

Girl, call Blazon. Well, I was gonna say, as someone with an intestinal problem and my colon is definitely the issue I think probably it's not eating the colon which is probably for the best. Is the bladder? No Because I think about like if this worm were to eat something And it's like, um, I don't want the parts that taste like waste but you're eating the bladder. I guess that's sterile

I don't think that's sterile. I don't think it's sterile. I mean, Well, the blood, the pee is sterile, but not the bladder. The kidneys are getting all the toxins out. That thing's full of toxins. No, it's eating the kidneys. It's full of bile. Maybe he likes it.

Maybe he's into it. But not the intestines. I really, I feel like you still need to explain yourself. Yeah. I guess so, but I mean, eyes, you're fine with eating eyes? Yeah, I'm fine with eating, oh, you're not asking me? Sorry. I mean, not that, I think a worm has an opinion, but.

Apparently it does. Apparently it's very strongly against eating the intestines, which doesn't make sense, because any wild animal, I feel like that would be the thing that they eat, right? I don't know. Well, I feel like a wild animal would at least not eat the bones, or like you eat everything around a skeleton,

but it's even eating that and just, petui, the one part it doesn't like. It's like the intestines are its chrysal. That's nasty. If for some reason you wanted to catch one of these worms, apparently people would try to do it by using live goat as bait. And people would fish for this worm because its body was extremely valuable. Forget the fact that it's fucking rare and a giant worm.

But apparently a literal monster from outer space. But OK, sure. Apparently the skin on it, it was so flammable. Like it had like really intense oils on it that were super flammable. And they wanted to use that for old school like weaponry during war. And so they would catch the swarm, allegedly, because one has yet to ever be fucking caught. Right, right, right. Okay. As far as we know, apparently there's locals who swear they're grandpa's grandpa's grandpa caught one of these things. Whatever. He was a ten-year-old Greek historian actually. If the worm, so you

catch the worm and then I guess the oils could only be put out with dirt, like if they were to catch on fire. So does this thing spontaneously combust? I don't know. But apparently, you catch it, you hang it out to dry for a month, and like put something underneath it to catch all of the oils that drip off of it.

But you kill it, right? Like you catch it and kill it. I assume, I imagine a wriggling, live giant worm for a month. Ew. Like just, no thank you. So anyway, it dripped, I guess you kill it. It drips all the oils off. They take that oil, go down to like, I don't know,

the weapons factory. Department. Yeah. And they would use that oil to create spraying flame throwers. This is a 10 year old. You can't convince me anything else. This is not a 10 year old writing this in a comic book, like making it. He clearly learned about intestines and biology class.

He was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's disgusting. Yeah. My my character is not going to like that because I don't. We have the oil. I guess. Did you ever see people? I used to do this. I do not recommend. I do not condone the like spraying like aerosols and like next to a lighter. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. I used to have some problems with lighting things on fire not like to an extent that was illegal But like I definitely enjoyed playing with matches, which I do not recommend folks, please

I got caught one time doing the the aerosol lighter thing. I still think about it. Were you in big trouble? I got yelled at in front of all my friends. Oh Is it your mom who yelled at you? Yeah So embarrassing they all watched oh and then I like walked away and tried to pretend like nothing happened, but they were like, we just saw that happen. I still lose sleep over it. I hate it. I hate it.

I hate it. I'm so sorry. That is traumatizing. Oh God. It was just the worst. As it was happening, I was like, I'll remember this forever. Don't you hate when that's happening and you're like, God, I wish I didn't just feel it like lock into my brain, like my subconscious

just locked itself in. I just felt it happen. It's never leaving. God, I hate that feeling. Well, so similar to that, that's what these people would do is that they would spray this oil next to an open flame and create flame throwers in battle. So that's why people were after this thing.

Although I'm sure there was some like narcissist who just wanted to say, I caught one. Yeah. And then would throw away all the good oils or something. Yeah. In 1852, there was an academic, here we go. A 10 year old academic drunk on leaves. Okay, go on.

He proposed that the Indus worm or this worm that we've been talking about, now has religious and folkloric roots in the Indus River Valley because it has been talked about so much that now it's become part of their... Oh, okay. Their, you know, zeitgeist culture. Yeah. He does say though that his guess is that the worms are not real, good guess. What? But he believes that the worms were actually symbols

in previous religious stories. They were like symbols of like the serpent or something. And he's blaming it on the Greeks, but apparently the ancient Greeks who were reading about these symbolic serpents took them literally by accident And he's blaming it on the Greeks, but apparently the ancient Greeks who were reading about these symbolic serpents took them literally by accident and really believed that these giant.

By accident. And like really believed these giant ass worms existed. So. Well, yeah, there's a dangerous game pre-internet. People nowadays read articles and still think they're real, even though they're from the onion. It's like, watch out folks. As folks of the digital era, with the,

what was it called, the information superhighway at our fingertips. What was it called? What did one weird middle elementary school teacher call it again? Oh yeah, the information superhighway. They used to say that in the 90s. They were like, beware of the information superhighway.

Or if you were not experiencing that when you were in the 90s, if we're older than you, just so you know. That was really what it was called for a while. It was called the information superhighway, especially toward kids, because they wanted it to sound like cool, and like you could learn things.

Surfing the net. Surfing the net. I mean, oh, we gotta bring some of that back. I really like that you said information superhighway. I've been saying it, I'm trying to make it happen. I say it to myself quite a lot. So it's like a very, very good phrase to bring back. I also have been using the phrase surfing the net,

which has made me feel good. You've said that to me before. And I've been like, wow, that's very wholesome. Even though what you're doing is probably looking up worms and like other weird shit, but it feels wholesome when you say it like that. You know what? Half my job is surfing the net. So I guess I'm a professional surfer.

You are honestly Olympic, Olympic medalist perhaps, per chance. And you know what's crazy is that I surf a highway. You surf a highway. A super highway. I think I'm pretty, you know, I'm not gonna brag, but I'm pretty great. I think you need a medal. I'll get you one. Thank you. But yeah, as people who surf the net,

we get lost in translation a lot. So imagine year negative four, where... And you find like a text, one singular text, and it's talking about giant worms. Like, of course you're gonna be like, oh, shit. Yeah. At the very least, you're gonna tell someone at the bar who's then going to in a horrid game of telephone go I know a guy who's talking about these giant worms totally

And I caught myself Sometimes I feel like back then was like like equivalent to like QAnon or just bad news Like it's just like, you have no evidence. You can just go to someone and be like, I got a friend who's terrified of these fucking giant worms. You wouldn't believe it. And now I say, oh, my uncle's terrified of lizard people. You know, so.

Yeah, you're so right. It's the same thing. It's like, oh yeah. And you could make those fucking pamphlets that just said like whatever the fuck you wanted them to say. You could make like salves and balms and tinctures and they would just be fucking salt water or like lead poisoning in a bottle.

And then you'd be like, here you go. And nobody can do fucking anything about it. It feels like the information super highway actually hasn't changed anybody. It feels like it's just kind of advanced the way in which we do the exact same thing. It just does the crazy making faster. It does, and it connects more of us,

which is also bad, I think. Aw. Okay. Anyway, so the running theory by 1852 is that- They didn't understand metaphor, similarly. They didn't understand metaphor. No, they thought it was a real giant worm. I mean, understandable.

Yeah, fair. And then this same PBS special, there was a cryptozoologist named Dr. Zarca talking about these Indus worms, who said that these, they also agreed that there's a chance that these were just written about, these worms were just written about, and they were later considered real worms, but they were probably like inspired at least by estuarine crocodiles. Also known as marine crocodiles or salties. Fun fact.

Oh, I like that. I don't know how to say the first one. If your last name is Irwin, like leave me alone. I don't know how to say it. Irwin! Wait, how do you spell that? Not Irwin, but- It's like estuary, but estuarine.

E-S-T-U-A-R-I-A-N-Y. Oh, estuarine, yeah, estuarine, listerine. Oh. So these, they could have been inspired, Dr. Zarca talking, that these Indus worms, maybe they really were just symbolic, but they could have been then perceived as real when people experienced marine crocodiles, which are crocodiles that are usually in salt water,

but also happen to magically live in rivers like in I guess if the river is Salty enough just salty enough like maybe like in a marshland where it's like kind of salty in the soil There's like some crossover. Mm-hmm Irwin's You want to fact-check be no stone. Okay, please I guess I'm just gonna say what I want them Yeah, okay. I'm gonna look up these I'm just gonna say what I want then. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna look up these

because you know I'm really into crocodiles right now. Yes, I do actually finally know that about you. I thought you were about to just say something so off the cuff and I was gonna have to pretend I knew. Finally, there's something I've already told you. Actually, I have something I haven't told you yet. Oh God, what? You bought one.

No, but I'm getting a tattoo of one and it's going to be in color and it's going to have, I feel like I'm spoiling it. I haven't even booked this yet. This is just like a new idea I have, but I'm going to get a colored, it's my first color tattoo with a little birdie on his head. Like, you know how sometimes crocodiles have like, or alligators have a bird. So it's gonna be kind of like a crocodile, but he has like a bird just perching up there on his head. What bird? I haven't decided yet.

Thank you for asking though. That was my brother's first question as well. And I was like, I gotta get it. I would look up to make sure it's also compatible with crocodiles, because what if you get like their favorite treat, you know? And they're, yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I think that's part of it is that because they're sitting there and they have wings you can't really eat them

It doesn't fly away which which bird do you think would be the yummiest to a crocodile? I? Think this little blue jays. He's some chicken chicken, but I mean chickens my favorite bird I mean as far as I know what birds taste like I would argue chicken But I don't have much experience of what the others taste like. I'm just saying, you gotta figure it out because like, what if you picked like a duck or a quail or a peacock?

Quail would be hard. Like there'd have to be- A penguin wouldn't work because they don't fly. Speaking of like metaphors, like imagine if you picked a penguin, like you'd have to explain that for the rest of your life. That would be unfortunate.

So you might as well pick an unassuming bird so people leave you alone. Probably I will do that, yes. Maybe a parrot. No, I'm just kidding. That'd be crazy though. Just a toucan. Just actually toucan Sam from Fruit Loops. That would be great.

Oh, and then the alligator will just be actually Tony the Tiger. It'll just be like cartoon characters Now that we're talking about it. I have always wondered what happens that little Coco puffs bird Yeah, oh, he's probably not doing well No, he needed to be committed. He was having a mental breakdown many decades ago He was like one of those celebrities is having a breakdown in front of us and nobody was saying anything and we just all Pretended it was okay. He started with clothes and then in the early 2000s I think no clothes. Maybe he was in treatment at that point and that's why.

That's what I can tell myself. Sure. But he was, there was something experimental happening and I don't know if it was voluntary or recreational. I don't know if it's voluntary or Recreational I don't know there, but I will keep eating that cereal So it doesn't you know as long as doesn't make you too cuckoo like he went you know I'm saying sure sure hope not Where were we I don't know worms so alligators crocodiles Okay, so the Indus worm, probably if it existed, is inspired by crocodiles.

Because like a crocodile, they spend much of their time hiding in the water during the day, laying in mud, jumping out of the dirt without having been noticed, and hunting at night. They kind of, forget their tiny little creepy legs. They look like a big textured worm. Yeah, I mean, when they're in the water too, like they move, you know, they kind of move like that. Yeah. And yeah, they spring out of the water,

they use their jaws, they grab people and drag them back to the water. So it feels very- They have one tooth. I've never been close enough to a crocodile to count just on any teeth, but I- To be fair, you're right. I've never actually seen it with my own two eyes up close. But I know if I saw just a row of one solid tooth,

I would remember that. I would die probably on the spot and be like, fine, that's it, I'm done. It just looks like a fairly odd parent's teeth. Like just one big white strip. You know, like on MS Paint, sorry folks, Eva's not here today. So we are like, we have free reign and it's like, it's like.

It's also Friday for us. So like we're about to like go over a weekend. It's like, it's like somebody led us into the kids club, but like didn't. There's like the boss, M isn't here. So it's like, we just get like to play. Yeah. Yeah. But you remember in MS Paint where you would like draw a bunch of squiggles and then you could fill in the different. Yes. That's my favorite game.

Yeah, with the paint bucket. Wow, to be young. To be young. So that is what I'm thinking of with the teeth, where it's just like one tooth and then you just drop a paint bucket and you're like, I don't wanna draw all the teeth. I'm just gonna fill it in, you know.

Exactly, just pick white, just put it in there. One big tooth, yeah. Which, speaking of the information superhighway, that was the fun we had. I don't know who's listening. I feel like some people have their kids in the car. If you'd like to know what fun looked like back then in the digital age,

the thing that all of our parents were so scared of back then. The dawn of the internet. It was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't even have games. There was no internet. I didn't have access to internet. We had like Pinball,

but my dad wouldn't let me play it on his computer. So it was like that was the extent of games. We had Pinball and Minesweeper in Solitaire. Those are kind of it. And then what we would do is we'd go into MS Paint and we would create our own coloring books, essentially would create our own shapes and then color them in. And then when you were done, you would just erase it and start over. You know, it's so funny is Leona literally does that.

Like she has a tablet and I bought I downloaded like basically the equivalent Of just a basic like drawing thing. Oh and she just does that all day and I'm like, wow, okay I guess kids kind of like the same things. It's it's it's it's a Multi-generational I like that someone out there grew up and went we're gonna need another MS paint. Yeah, sorry It's time to bring this back. Thank you I'm happy about it. So, yeah, anyway, crocodiles are probably the creation of the fear of giant worms. So that's the Indus worm. We had to talk about that to get to its cousin, the Mongolian death

worm. And they got a whole other thing going on. So this is now in the early 20th century AD. So this is now in the early 20th century AD. Wow. And I know a whole maybe 25 years later. I don't know. 25 years? Oh, 20th century, century. I was thinking year 20 for a second. No, I'm pretty sure that's thousands of years.

But you know, you were close. Thank you for it wasn't zero. The early 20th century. Almost. It was almost zero. Okay. I would say cut that out, Jack, but let's just, I'm gonna keep,

I like to stay humble every now and then. Let's own it. Let's knock you down a peg or two. Let me, I'm just like everyone else, just a little dumb sometimes. Okay. I know that like, Em talked about being like at the dawn of the information superhighway.

So sometimes we just need to like knock them down a peg or two to be like, you're still one of us, okay? Just remember, don't forget where you came from. But almost, we're on our way to that not being a flex by the way. It's like, I was here during the dawn of the super, the information superhighway, everyone else is gonna go.

Wow. Great you don't know what 20, the difference between 20 and 2000. Cool. Sounds like things are going well. You know what I thought was so funny? Eva's not here so I can like rag on her in front of everybody. We did a gift opening video yesterday for patreon if you're on patreon, please go check that out and someone sent like someone has a Company that I guess named after they named it after a dog Ethan She didn't put that together. She just kept calling the company a thon. Oh Eva it's like dog the bourbon. Yes. Yeah, Ethan Almighty.

I have that. I love that. She kept saying, Ethan Almighty. And I was like, girl, Ethan. Girl. That's the most Eva thing ever though, where she'd go, I found this cool name called Ethan. And we're like, girl. I love her so much.

Anyway, it made me feel. She makes me laugh. It tickled me. Anyway. Yeah, it's like we all have our own dumb shit that we say in like our very own specific ways. So it's very fun to like poke fun at each other because we all are equally dumb in our own ways. Do you know what I mean?

In the same breath, she said the phrase De Numan and I was like, you can't say Ethan, but you can say... Wait a minute. Yeah, exactly. There's just like a gap in our knowledge, but in usually different parts of our knowledge. Yeah. In the early 20th century, Roy Chapman Andrews, a man, I'm done saying naturalist,

he went to the Gobi Desert, which is in parts of it in southern Mongolia. And in 1926, he published a book about his experience there. And while getting permission to travel into Mongolia, one of Mongolia's like, department heads or head of state, they, they apparently the way that he tells the story, this feels like revisionist history. He says that the Mongolia's head of state asked a task of him.

I feel like what happened is he probably was making small talk in the office and the guy was like, oh, you know what you should do, ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he made it his life's work. Oh gosh. But apparently his version is that this guy asked Roy specifically, it was now his duty as a tourist

of Mongolia to capture and collect a Mongolian death worm. Oh no, he's getting punked. Yeah, you're right. Right, isn't that like a snee, like go catch a snee? Yeah, go catch, yes, precisely. Like you're getting punked. So, Calsepriz, he did not succeed,

but he collected stories from other people who live in the area about the worm. And none of them, by the way, said, "'It's a snee, you got punked.'" Oh, okay, well, so maybe, okay, so maybe I don't wanna belittle their culture. If they're really saying, like, "'No, this might be a thing that's actually real,'

then go for it. I thought this was just like, they didn't know, they didn't believe it was real. To be fair, though, just to like, for your own like mental safety, I thought the exact same thing when I heard that though. I was like, oh, he really just ran with it. It sounds like you're just giving a kid like a task

that's like kind of like poor, like go to the, like at the beach, like go fill this with, fill this hole with water until it's full. And then you just like keep coming back, you know? Yeah. But yeah, I guess if it's more something they actually believe in, that's I guess different. Sure, so yeah, and I mean, he is a secondary source

on what he, this is a good point that you made, is that the things that he wrote about that he heard from others, keep in mind that that now makes him a secondary source. So like, and he's a man at this point, I don't know what's going on. So take it with a grain of salt. So according to him, locals say that the worm, when they described it, and this was now centuries

after like this lore has kind of been shifting throughout the ether, it has started to evolve the description of deadly worms. They're still completely limbless, but they are two feet long, only two feet, which does not feel very massive to me. That's, so like, a two year old could hold that, right? Well, it doesn't feel massive until you see

a two foot worm coming at you, but yeah, sure. You just made an excellent point. I'm gonna shut my mouth. Apparently this thing is now so deadly, you could die just by looking at it. Okay, what the fuck? They're like, we gotta overcompensate in another area since it's no longer 10 feet thick.

We gotta overcompensate. Also, I'd immediately sue Mongolia's head of state if they said like, you know what you should do? Go look at this fucking worm. For real, like that's just, that's not even a pump. That's just like a death wish. Like, bye. Yeah. And also this does give more credence to like why nobody's ever been able to catch one. It's like, well, cause anyone has ever seen one that just died.

Whoops. So there's no, it's one of those, I don't know what the right word is. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe catch 22. Yeah. It's like, it keeps you in a loop of like, oh, it's real, but there's a reason like sure A new mall and Ethan and Ethan almighty Yeah, it feels like a loop where it's like well, we don't we've never seen one, but it totally exists Oh, well, we've never seen it. Yeah, it's like you can't really prove it one way or the other. It's just never gonna happen so Maybe it's like you can't really prove it one way or the other. It's just never gonna happen so Maybe that's like

They also said like oh well you don't always die by looking at it But you can but if you touch it you will absolutely die so Okay, and yeah, I don't if we're still sticking with the story that people once like fished and caught this thing How did you do that if you can't even look at it a little and touch it? You just close your eyes really tight. You just kind of feel around and then die. Don't feel around. Don't feel around. No, no, no, no, no. You have to follow...

You just exist together. You just... you just... you just close your eyes. It doesn't make any sense to me, so... The magic happened. The magic of fishing and killing for maybe sport. You just close your eyes. It doesn't make any sense to me. So magic happen. The magic of fishing and killing for maybe sport. Yeah. Well, for all your cool fire flamethrowers. Right. For war at the to it for the magic of war.

The ultimate reason behind human anything activities activities hobbies. So if yeah so apparently you can't look at it you can't touch it but people fish for it and they capture it and they touch its oil all the time so use it as flame throwing material. I get it. Roy says after talking to all these people his thoughts are that the worm is also a piece of folklore not actually. But the Mongolian death worm was brought into the Western world around a hundred years ago and some people still claim to see it. The Mongolian death worm is like the specifically so poisonous that you can't even look at a thing. And so

an example of how people claim that You know this Mongolian death worm is the real deal in the 90s. There was a cryptozoologist named Carl Shucker Shooker And he wrote about the Mongolian death worm, which I got to tell you I went to his website I'm sorry his blog spot and I don't know if I don't know if, I don't, he's got one of those websites where it looks like it hasn't been updated since the 90s and it makes me trust the veracity of anything on there.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he's not really up on like, he's still on the information superhighway. He hasn't quite gotten to like modern day. He hasn't found his exit. Yeah. You know, I feel like it's also paired with the fact that he's a cryptozoologist, which, you know,

most people would immediately call bunk science. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like if you're gonna be into like something that a lot of people see as bunk science, you gotta have the most professional looking shit to like, ass head. Yeah, unfortunately, you probably have to overcompensate. Yeah.

Yeah, he did not do that. But he did write about the Mongolian death worm. He said that its name in Mongolia is I'm going to butcher it, but olgoy corkoy. But apparently that translates to intestine worm, which now I'm confused because I thought the intestine is the only thing they don't fuck with. So now why are they called intestine worm? Like the one thing they don't fuck with, so now why are they called intestine worm? Like the one thing I don't fuck with is fish.

Can you imagine if everyone just called me like the fish person? I'd be like, fuck you, you're kidding me. Yeah, it's like, why? Like now you're just being mean. Yeah, I was like, pick anything else. Anything. Yeah.

I eat eyeballs, you know that about me. Like, what's your thing? Mine is like disembodied feet and stuff. Oh, a torso. A torso. Imagine if you were known as a torso girl. Absolutely not. Intestine worm. It's the same thing.

It's not nice. Well, apparently it's called intestine worm for a completely different reason, which is that it gets its name because apparently the Mongolian Death Worm is bright blood red color and it looks like a colon essentially. Ew.

And it only looks like this because this is a proof that the versions of this have evolved or devolved over the years. Apparently the new story is that the Mongolian Death Worm lays eggs only in the colons of camels. And so to lay the eggs there it has to hang out in the colon so it becomes the color of the colon and that's why it looks like intestines.

That does confirm your thing earlier of yes the colon and intestines. But apparently the Mongolian death worms are known to adapt to the color of their environment, of yes, the colon and intestines, hand in hand, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, okay. That makes me feel better. But apparently the Mongolian death worms are known to adapt to the color of their environment, of the environment where they're hatched. So when they're born, what their environment looks like is the color that they look like. And a lot of them are born in the colons of animals. So they all are colon-colored. This also feels like just what a new age 10-year-old came up with of like...

What is even happening? Yeah, I'm like, I've, this 10 year old has lost me. I'm sorry. I lost the plot a long time ago, but I'm still- I'll say big worm, okay. This is starting to get a little convoluted even for me. Really? It gets worse. So- Oh, good.

And by the way, just more evidence that this thing is probably a myth is that parasitic worms need to be eaten to get into digestive tracts and if this thing is so poisonous the second it touches your mouth The animal would drop dead. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want unless maybe in there unless maybe they're getting in I don't want to know I said I don't know. Okay, don't say it. I'm just saying don't what I'm not saying Other descriptions of the Mongolian death worm is that, oh, it's not actually red like the color of intestines. It's actually very pale.

Similarly, like the maggot version of it at the beginning of the Indus worm history. Gross. So either it looks like maggots or your intestines. I can't decide which is worse. It also apparently now can be up to five feet long and as thick as a human arm Yeah It also has no mouth. No nose. No eyes. Does it still have the two teeth? I Don't know

Allegedly this thing is now so poisonous that not only can you not look at it? Not only can you not touch it? But if you walk on ground that its oils have secreted out of, you will die. Yes. What? So it's been said that the Mongolian death worm is the reason for entire herds of camels

dropping dead all in one spot. And it's thought that they must have walked over a hiding worm who was secreting its oils and their little toes touched it. Oh, that's sad. Another, so now it's like, that's even further into the like, well, I don't have to see it for it to kill me. Right, it's like how is it getting in your intestines

if a camel steps on its secretions and dies, that makes no sense. Yeah, if its toe touched it and it's dead, how on earth can it get into its tummy? And I'm so proud of our logic. Look how like we're so staunchly like, this doesn't make sense. Yeah, I am a critical thinker at heart. So I'm pretty impressed by that.

You're doing a really good job. Thank you. There's fewer things I am good at than science. So I always say that about you. Another story similar to the camels is apparently a geologist. What is with all these? Can someone just give me a fucking name? Brad was walking around one day and he was poking the ground with an iron rod. Why?

I don't know. It seems like something a guy would do. We've been there. I've done that. Or I mean, he's a geologist. Maybe he was like poking for some rocks. Yeah, he's a lot poking the ground. Yeah. Apparently he hasn't poked for that long

because he drops dead. And instead of like thinking heart attack, stroke, aneurysm. No, apparently they think that a giant worm happened to be where he was standing and he was just underground. Brad happened to be near it. And oils wise, it, it went through his shoes into him, died. So this led to a new theory that another 10 year old must have come up with because it's that the worms produce electricity and they conduct it, they were conducting it and when he put his little iron rod down on the ground, he must have conducted electricity from their oils or from their actual body into himself. And it would also explain like a lightning rod.

And it would also explain why all the camels dropped dead at once because they must've been electrocuted with their metal legs, I guess. Sure. Wearing horse shoes. Maybe the camels were wearing horseshoes, and maybe the horses were wearing camel shoes. Okay, okay, you know what I mean. Maybe they had like those metal like plates on them. I know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I have no idea. You know, maybe, I don't know. What the fuck do I know about camels? None of this makes sense, so. I don't know why I'm trying to explain any of it. It's ridiculous. Well, the defense for the Mongolian death worm is electrically charged is because if it's a worm that's electric electric deals exist and

They can create a charge up to 600 volts that have killed people Okay And very different ways like direct contact, but you know. And through water, which is... And through water. Yeah, okay. Well, okay. Also, apparently there's a new thing where if you get too close to a worm, it will spew just like the most intense acid ever at you.

Oh, okay. Well, that's no good. With great accuracy, by the way. And it immediately burns your flesh off and you turn yellow, that part I don't understand. Cool. We're just creating things here. Now we're just winging it.

There is a warning that if you are to be anywhere near southern Mongolia and you are afraid of a death worm attack, high risk times for these attacks happen to be in the hotter months because like a- I can feel Alison booking her plane ticket right now for July and you and I are gonna be like, mother. It's like she knows in advance

what's gonna really get our anxiety like through the fucking roof. It's starting to feel intentional, right? It's just like- Oh, absolutely. I don't doubt like you're onto something here. It's intentional for sure. It's like when I said, I thought she was a Jewish boy, but she's got a little evil streak to her She's like I actually you've already got a wonky heart. Let's let's light that candle. Let's play

Let's just stoke the fire. Let's poke it with a big stick. Why not see what happens? Yeah, she's like I got a house out of you. So, you know, my She's not wrong. I feel like um like I was trying to explain it to somebody else. I was comparing you and Allison. I was like, you know, they make sense as friends because I was, this was in the middle of me using my nice Jewish boy thing. I was like, I feel like Allison has 90% nice Jewish boy

and 10% catastrophe. And I was like, and Christine has 90% catastrophe, but 10% nice Jewish boy. Okay, now we're talking. And I think the two of you make a perfect little hug. That's so beautiful, Em. Yeah. I like that.

And by catastrophe, by the way, I mean only catastrophic to my wants and needs. But that's it. Oh, to you specifically, absolutely. Yeah, no, I didn't doubt that for a moment. It makes sense why I like you and I like her because you're both the same. Yeah, again, the hug.

You're right in the middle of this hug that you didn't ask for. Yeah, now describe me. Nevermind, don't. Okay. I took a deep breath, but I'm gonna pass. Until next time. Another story, oh, the, Brad and the geologist

and getting electrocuted. Okay, so then, oh, so it's new thing is now it can also spit acid at you. Again, how would we know that if you can't even look at it? How would we know? Well, they found a yellow tinted person on the floor with no flesh, I guess, and thought, I know what happened here.

Hmm, interesting. Okay, sure, let, I know what happened here. Hmm, interesting. Okay, sure, let's just make that fact because. Why not? At this point, anything could be real. This is where I was saying, the high risk times for attack, beware, are the hotter months because just like any other reptile, it comes out to put its tummy on the warm sand, right?

So June and July, apparently, those are the worst times. I feel like the poor people who work in Mongolia are like, what happened to the tourists in June and July? What's going on? And everyone's just like, whoa, those Mongolian death warrants. Em Shultz told us about this fucking death warrants. No one's going there anymore except Alison.

So anyway, June and July, that's when they come out. You have been warned. But also, have you i like i'm more i'm confused about like so you can't see them because they're underground but at least you're alive because you're not looking at them and dropping dead right but if they're out i guess if you see them that's what makes them more dangerous or that you're more prone to attack because they're not underground they're not. It feels like no one's safe ever. Like if you could be walking around

and just accidentally step over one and die, if you could be run into one and see one and die, if you saw one and it sprayed you, if you walked into its little puddle. You're at the grocery store, bumping into each other at the candy section. And it's just like, bam, you know? So it feels like no one's safe.

I don't even know. I don't know the ranking of dangers here. Well, so now apparently the worm can also travel under the sand. So kind of like in those movies where you would see like a lump under the ground moving around. Ew, yeah, yuck. That's apparently a sign of,

apparently a Mongolian death worm being nearby. So you can watch them move and allegedly they have a favorite snack, speaking of their candy aisle. They like to get near black saxals and goyo plants. Those are two different types of plants. So if it's just rains or if they're like, I guess, thriving, avoid those plants.

Allegedly, this is how they draw their poison directly from the roots of either plant to kill you. But neither of those plants are poisonous and they're actually used in like a lot of medicine. So, okay. I did look up the Goyo plant and that thing seems to like fucking cure everything. It actually sounds like if this thing wanted to spray Gyo plant secretions at me, I would let it.

You'd probably get fixed, yeah. Finally. Apparently it's like actually prohibited from collecting, I guess because it's like so sought after. Oh, interesting, okay. Maybe this is just all them stuff ployed to say stay away from those plants. The big worms eat them.

You know, it's like the park rangers got like bored and they were like how do we get people to stay the fuck away from those plants? Leave these fucking plants alone yeah. Let's create centuries old giant monsters so that way they leave us alone. That's really smart. It obviously worked because apparently goyo plants are like kicking they're doing a good job over there so but they treat this is just some of them. High blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatism, headaches, dizziness, joint pain, hepatitis, organ inflammation, constipation, stomach cramps, knee, kidney and back pain and improve sexual function. Like it, wow. Tell me if it's like just, so please bathe me, bathe me in Goyo plant.

You'd probably be allergic to it. Just knowing how our lives work. You'd probably immediately break out in hives. They'd be like, sorry, you have a rare allergy to this plant. So apparently when it does choose to spray poison at you, the worm doesn't spray it, but it lifts half of its body off the ground, puffs up, and apparently there's like this elevated end,

like this like bulb that fills with poison and it bursts and shoots at you. And apparently doesn't harm the monk. If something burst on me, I'd have to go to the hospital. Not a pimple? Not a pimple. So maybe it's like a pimple because it just kind of closes itself up. Yeah.

Apparently this poison that like it poison that builds up in it, or this acid that builds up in it, is so bad that it will burn to death anything it touches, and it can even corrode metal. Oh my Lord. Remember this thing does not have a mouth. So why is it doing this? Because if it's doing it to kill prey,

but it can't eat. It can't eat it? So like why are we doing- But it eats plants, how does it eat plants? I think it just rubs up on like the roots of the plant and like has like its oils and their oils kind of make a baby. What?

I don't fucking know. That's nothing. So anyway, there's another mystery for you. If it has no mouth, why is it even killing these people? But there are those that say the worm does kill prey and it does have the intent to eat So I guess those people think it still has a mouth and it's too stupid teeth um

But how it consumes Is a mystery I would guess through this fucking mouth you're claiming it has but okay and Maybe this is according to some people. Maybe it has long sharp spikes protruding from either end of its body yikes some people also say It's might have a mouth. That's like one of those circular teeth Like it's like a like a demogorgon or some shit or one of those like Whole time so I guess okay great kind of yeah, that's how I've been picturing it unfortunately

Well, that's how people imagine, if it seems to have no limbs and it seems to have no features on it, where would its mouth be? Apparently those types of mouths have a certain seal that when they open and close, you can't even see them, so it's like a secret mouth. Gross. And so people think it might have a secret mouth.

This would also suggest, if it has secret mouth, This would also suggest if it has secret mouth, it might also have secret eyes, secret nose, secret other things, secret other sensory organs. Whoa, with teeth, with circle teeth? No. And apparently it might just open and close in a way that we can't see. But then again, how could we see it to begin with

if looking at it kills us? I'm so over that, I'm so over that. That's so annoying. So cryptozoologists who were literally inspired, by the way, by the Dune series, who has gigantic sand worms, these cryptozoologists suggest that maybe Mongolian death worms are also just attracted to vibrations

like the giant sand worms. So one team even tried proving this by bringing out this huge, heavy vibrating machine that thumped on the ground to attract Mongolian death worms. So one team even tried proving this by bringing out this huge heavy vibrating machine that thumped on the ground to attract Mongolian death worms. No luck, can you guess? And then, so then their thought was like, well, maybe it is still attracted to vibrations, but just not a pattern we know about. It's like, okay, like we are really digging our heels into everything. Yeah, we're pushing this a little far. Just saying. Other cryptozoologists have even set off explosives

under the ground to try to flush out the worms. Why, stop it. Usually I would say that's not humane, but it didn't work, so whatever. Well, and also, there's probably other animals down there. Just stop blowing shit. Oh, shit. You know what I mean? Just stop blowing shit up. Yeah, and it can't be good for the environment either.

No, I would doubt. I would think not, yeah. Some believe that the Mongolian death worm once existed exactly as described, okay? Some people say that it's just folklore. Others say that maybe it's based on spiritual encounters. I mean, if you're out in the desert, maybe, like you just had like a moment and you thought you saw something or you were meditating and something came to you. And one theory is that Mongolian death worms are a real animal because the Gobi Desert covers half a million square miles. So it could just be a rare animal.

It could be an animal that earlier generations know about and have passed it on. And over time, it just kind of became more of a folklore than a real experience. So we have no idea, but some say if it did exist it would look today like a legless lizard, which excuse me that's still a fucking worm. Yeah, true. With the abilities similar to a spitting cobra that sprays acid to protect itself.

So anyway, that is the Mongolian death worm. What the fuck in the fuck in the fuck? So anyway, that is the Mongolian death worm. What the fuck in the fucking fuck? Like, wow. I mean, like you've covered stories before where it's kind of, oh, this was a hoax or like somebody believed it, but then like only two people have ever seen it before.

Like the squonk, you know, but this one seems like people are after this fucking thing. Like they want to find this damn worm. And I'm like, don't, why? Stay away from it. This also shows you like how silly human beings can be. Cause like all I did was just describe the like, if this thing exists, your only story afterwards is I died.

Like that's- Yes. Why do you wanna- It's like a lose lose, you know? I don't know. Whatever. I don't know. I do not know. Naturalists be naturalism- Yes. Why do you wanna- It's like a lose-lose, you know? I don't know. Whatever. I don't know. Naturalists be naturalism-ing. So anyway- Amen, sister.

Amen. And I've always said that, as Anne likes to say. Always said that. Okay, so I have a story for you, Anne. I'm very excited to tell you this one because it is quite a doozy. It's a mystery, but we do get an answer at the end. So it's almost like the best of both worlds.

Oh, my goodness. So it's a temporary mystery. It's a temporary mystery. You get to try to figure it out. So I first heard about the story on Red Handed. They did a really good episode on it. So that was episode 322 of their show. If anyone wants to go listen to them talk about it, they did a really good episode on it. So that was episode 322 of their show. If anyone wants to go listen to them talk about it, they did a really good job. This story takes place

in Southeast Texas in a town called Beaumont. And Beaumont is a city of roughly 112,000 people. It's relatively small compared to many US cities, but it does have a disproportionately high crime rate with violent and property crime rates, both well above the national average as of 2020. And some real estate crime rating websites place Beaumont in the first percentile for crime. Defining- Oh shit.

Yeah, 99% of US cities, quote unquote safer than Beaumont. But as we know, especially doing this show and listening to the show and, quote unquote, safer than Beaumont. But as we know, especially doing this show and listening to the show and any true crime, you know, the idea is somebody could, would more likely perhaps experience a violent or property crime in Beaumont than almost anywhere else in the US. At the same time, flat statistics

don't really tell the future. So maybe you'll have a wonderful day in Beaumont and then go to your home in the suburbs and get the tax, who knows? Or you can buy a house in Beaumont. Or you can just do your thing and not even- You just do whatever you want. Just do what you want.

However, I say all this to give you the idea that Beaumont has a pretty rough reputation in that area. So people will know of Beaumont as a high crime area. But Greg Flanagan, who's the primary character of our story today, he liked Beaumont. He was comfortable there. He didn't live there. However, he spent many nights in town for work. This was like a regular, it almost became like a home away from home. The hotel he stayed at there. And the hotel was called the MCM Elegante.

Oh my God. Excellent Tante. Ooh la la, excellent Tante, elegant Tante. So he would always stay at the MCM Elegante Hotel for work. It was like his home away from home. And just a little bit about Greg before we get into the story. So Greg was born Gregory Joseph Flanagan in 1954. He was a very adventurous person. He loved to travel. He loved animals. He would take care of the stray cats in

the neighborhood. He was also a skilled hunter and fisherman who harvested for food and not trophies. He would often feed his family and friends and even neighbors with the catches from his fishing and hunting. And it was said that he loved water, he loved the woods, just like a very outdoorsy kind of middle-aged man, essentially. Named Greg, like you can picture him. I know exactly what he looks like, yeah. You get the idea. So for a time he worked as the chief engineer on ocean ships where he would often spend months out at sea. And as for his love life, he had actually met Susie

when they were in their twenties and they immediately fell for each other. She was a singer in a rock band and she thought Greg was the kindest person she'd ever met. And then they kind of- I like that he's also like, she's kind of a bad girl. She's like a rock star?

Oh my gosh. Oh my God, he's just at home tending to the cats. Aw, the stray cats. It's kind of like you and Blaze, you know, just- It is, I'm just jet setting, you know? Yeah, he's just- He's just tending to story cats. It's kind of like you and Blaze, you know, just. It is, I'm just jet setting, you know. Yeah, he's just, he's just. He's just tending to the cats. Catch and releasing, you know.

Yeah, yeah, same old, same old. So actually they met in their 20s, really liked each other. Then they ended up going their separate ways for a while. And it wasn't until years later when they were remarried and then divorced that they reconnected. Oh my gosh, wow. Yeah, they like, I know. So they went, they went and had their own lives, married separate people. And then years later, they got back in touch and their love was the same as it was in their 20s. That's so sweet. I know it's a nice love story. And everyone who knew them said they just adored each other.

They were a very happy couple. So when Greg and Susie got back together, he kind of settled down a bit. He left the seafaring behind and decided, you know, all that seafaring. He decided to get into work with his brother, Michael, and go into business with him. So what they did is they ran a land management business. They dealt with minimal rights, they dealt with mineral rights easements, that old thing, that old chestnut.

That old chestnut, oh wow. Wow, okay. Really took it to another level. I did. Between private properties and the oil and gas industry, I don't know what the hell it means, but I imagine in Texas there's a lot of this kind of work. And when he would go home, he lived actually in Lafayette, Louisiana, and he and Suzy, get this, ran a bed and breakfast together.

I okay, I know you're gonna make me just heartbroken because at some point someone's going to get hurt. But currently, their life feels like a lifetime movie. Yes, it does. Oh, yes. Oh, you know me, just like a young sailor, just just whatever the ocean version of jet setting is. Yeah. And then I've got Mia, a cute little rock star waiting for me. And at the other end she's like, oh, there's this pirate boy.

He's so nice. He's so nice. I'm gonna stand on my balcony with a white handkerchief and wait for him to come home from sea. And he actually comes home and she does not become a lady in white. And then you like put them in a time machine. You see where they end up.

And they're just running a bed and breakfast together, kissing, holding hands. Is that not the most happily ever after thing you've ever heard? Yeah. Can we end the story here? Yeah, I wish. I fucking wish, that would be nice.

They, Greg and Susie, they ran this bed and breakfast in Lafayette. They loved hosting people from all around the world. They met people from all walks of life. But Greg worked so much that he would pretty much just spend his weekends at home, and then weekdays and nights would be spent in Texas, in Beaumont, which was about two hours away.

And that's where his business with Michael was based. So he was kind of just going back and forth. And there, like I said, Greg was a regular guest at the MCM Elegante Hotel, where he had what people described as a very, very predictable routine. Here's what happened. Every evening after work,

he would return to his room, his hotel room. He never stopped at the hotel bar. He didn't like socialize in the lobby with other guests. Nobody ever visited his room. He just stayed in for the night, watched a movie, and he even had his own like little, what do you call them? Idiosyncrasies. Like he would, he was very tidy in his hotel room. watched a movie and he even had his own like little sync, what do you call them? Idiosyncrasies.

Like he would, he was very tidy in his hotel room. So he would put his dirty clothes in the closet. He would hang up all his clean shirts and then he would keep like live out of his suitcase with the rest, but he was also a big smoker. And so what he would do is he would set up this little like movie watching situation in bed and so he would get a hand towel from the bathroom and he would use it as like a placemat and then he would get

His candy on one side and ashtray his cigarettes the TV remote like everything all set up And then he would turn the air conditioner all the way up and watch a movie before bed This is like his routine every time. Nearly lovely. I know, I know. Just, there's nothing I love more than being in a hotel that's too cold and you're under those blankets. Ooh.

Oh, and you just like don't have anywhere to be. Oh, so bad feeling. Wait, question. Do you like being a little too cold or a little too hot? I kind of hate both. I always say I prefer to be hot, but as I get older, I'm like, maybe that's not true. I don't know.

Prefer to be hot? I thought we were gonna like bond over something. No, everybody says that I'm a freak for that, but like, I just hate being cold. I hate being cold. I literally- I can't function when I'm cold. The idea of being at all warm.

At all. Is just the sickest torture you could put me through. Well, it's funny, because the other day I was like, why am I freaking out? And it's because I had one extra layer on, and I was just slightly too hot. And I was like, okay, I think I'm developing more sensory issues as I get older,

because now I cannot handle being too warm. But I think, yeah. When I was helping our friend move in, it was also a little too hot in her apartment because like the body heat of us, you know, like moving out and out. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, you know, I asked the same question. I was like, oh, is it like, you don't notice this? She's like, no, I usually I usually like prefer to like run a little hot.

And I was like. I didn't even I was like, I didn't even, I was like, I don't think I have a response. I'm just grossed out. If the option is like, oh, the AC up and you're under the covers, or you're hot, I would choose AC with under the covers.

But I don't like to be cold with no option to get warm. Sure. I can't function. Okay, I'll rephrase the question if you're in an apartment and you and someone else is in charge of the temperature are you hoping at least I hope it's a little bit colder okay thank you I don't even know if I've forced you to say that but I'm glad you said no no no no I don't I don't know no because there there's nothing I hate more than like feeling

tacky or sweaty or like there's like a film on my forehead. Yeah. Oh my god. And like at least- But I think like outside I'd prefer to be hot than cold. No! Like if I have to stand outside for a long time. No, because then it's sweater weather.

What are you talking about? You could always layer up and look cozy. That's how it says that, but then you're still fucking cold and miserable. No you're- you're wearing the wrong sweatshirt, Son. Okay, here's the thing. If it's too chilly, then you at least can always warm up, but if it's too hot, you can't cool down. Everyone says that. I don't agree.

I don't agree. Because there are times where I'm like, I'm just fucking cold to my bones and I hate it. I just usually respect everything you say. And today- No, you don't. Not about that. But that's a-

Nice try. I certainly found a new winner. I certainly said, okay, so that one I- I mean, listen, I could list them for you. I know exactly what's gonna be. I would never say that to you because I know full well you would not have appreciated it. But now here we are.

We finally come to this crossroads. Now you know. Oh man, no, there's nothing I love more than a little chill cuz I'm like, oh cuz then Eventually enough layers are going to worm you. Yes, but a little chill is not what I'm talking about I'm saying I don't like to be fucking freezing cold Oh, no this whole time I'm talking about maybe you need to move back to a town where it gets fucking cold And then we'll talk again about being cold cold And layers because sometimes layers are not enough

Just saying about being cold, cold, and layers, because sometimes layers are not enough. Just saying. You say what you want, my wrong little friend. All right, fine. When we get our car in another snowbank, then we'll talk, okay? Okay. Like, seriously. All right, let's see.

What's next? Right, so he liked to keep his room cold. He liked to have his little bath mat from the little hand towel for like a place mat. Just all very kind of adorable little habits he had picked up over the years. So the evening of September 15, 2010, no different. He finishes up, he goes to his room number 348.

He has with him a Reese's Crispy Crunchy Bar. He has a root beer and he has his pack of cigarettes and he is going to watch Iron Man 2. Holy shit, this is like a great night. Oh my God. I'm telling you, you'd be friends. Oh my God. He read an email from Suzy about filing a tax extension.

And if you needed another like hallmark moment, he responded to her, you're doing great, babe. Oh! Man, he's really after my heart. This is insane. Well, unfortunately, he would never be heard from again. Oh.

The end. I thought you... I think I misunderstood because earlier when you said the mystery was solved, in my mind, what you did say, you did not say this, in my mind I heard, everything's happy at the end, don't worry. Oh, well you did also just say someone's gonna get hurt, so you did know that was coming. I thought he'd get hurt and then get healed. Oh shit, no, sorry, no no, there's no, there's not, it's not a happy ending, no no, you should

know better than that. One day you'll have a happy crime for me. You keep telling yourself that, whatever helps you sleep at night. So anyway, he sends Susie this nice little note. Unfortunately, he'd never be heard from again because on September 16th, the following day, Susie realized something was wrong as soon as she started her day.

She and Greg, of course, being who they are, spoke every single morning when he was away at work. And that morning she did not receive a phone call. And because he was such a creature of habit, as we've already determined, it was pretty hard to imagine he would just forget out of the blue to call her. And it was even more unlike him to not answer when she called him, but he did not answer. So she called his office in Beaumont to ask after him. And unfortunately the news she got was concerning. Apparently Greg had not shown up for work that morning.

So she's getting nervous. She talks to his colleagues. They agree they're going to go to the hotel to check on him and they go to his room, they knock on the door and there's no answer. So now they're getting really worried. They find the hotel manager and he agrees to let them into the room to look for Greg. They open the door and as they open the door, they see Greg. He is inside right near the door lying face down between the bed and the door. There is a cigarette butt between his left hand fingers as if he had collapsed mid smoke onto the ground.

Yeah. So paramedics responded quickly, but Greg had unfortunately been dead for hours. It was reason that he probably passed right after he emailed Susie, like, you're doing great, babe. And oddly, this is sort of like a locked room mystery. You know, those like kind of old

timey like Sherlock Holmes-esque locked room mysteries. That's sort of like what this is. There were no signs of a struggle or violence in the room. Everything was exactly as Greg left it. Simple, tidy, nothing was stolen. He had a couple hundred dollars cash in his wallet. That was still there. And when a detective arrived an hour later, he thought everything looked perfectly in

order in the room. There was a scrape on Greg's cheek where he hit the floor, but other than that, there were no visible injuries to his body whatsoever. So obviously there's no reason at this point to suspect any foul play or something out of the ordinary. The only thing that Susie kind of noted being off about the story that she was told is that the air conditioner was turned off when they found Greg and it was pretty hot in there. Yeah, that wouldn't fly with me. But I see

it's I so I was assuming I wouldn't fly with him. But like could it be he was on his way to turn on the AC and that's when he dropped dead. So, good detectiving. Let's get into it. So, like we said, he liked a cool room, and Beaumont was pretty damn hot in September, but the detective was like, well, that's just like a little technicality, you know. The working theory now being that Greg had a heart attack,

which made sense. He's a lifelong smoker. He didn't particularly eat well. So he was young, 55 years old, and this was tragic, but he thought, well, it kind of adds up. So the detective kind of questioned some people in nearby rooms, said, yeah, this guy died nearby, and everyone was kind of horrified.

And it just seemed to click. Even his own friends said, yeah, it tracked. He was, like we said, a smoker. He didn't exercise. Heart failure, like, is sad and tragic, but it's not a shock. So a childhood friend named Miles Martin even said in an interview, I thought, well, those damn cigarettes

finally snuck up on him. So everyone had kind of accepted that this is what had happened. There was a little comfort, well, those damn cigarettes finally snuck up on him. So everyone had kind of accepted that this is what had happened. There was a little comfort as well knowing that he had lived his life the way he wanted. He died happy. He died content. He died with his crispy crunchy bar. And Suzy said that several times, Greg had actually heard about someone dying like very suddenly and had said, lucky bastard, that's how I want to go. So it's sort of like, she took comfort in like, maybe this was just a quick like heart failure. He didn't feel it or suffered. So they're kind of grappling coming to terms with all this, his family. Meanwhile,

Greg is transported to the Jefferson County medical examiner for just the routine autopsy. County Medical Examiner for just the routine autopsy. But when the medical examiner, you know, turned in the report, it listed a shocking manner of death. The manner of death was now listed as homicide. And when they took a look, it was specifically homicide by blunt force trauma. So what happened is during the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered a small laceration on Greg's scrotum. Oh. The entire area surrounding the laceration

was swollen and bruised all the way to his hip. Jesus. Next, when he did the autopsy and took a look inside of Greg's body, he noticed that Greg had suffered massive internal damage to his organs. So something was like someone beat the shit out of him. That's what it appeared. So there were lacerations in his liver, his stomach, his intestines.

There was blood in his abdomen. There was a hole in his heart, which likely had burst. And it seemed as though this had been at traumatic beating. Even two of his ribs were broken. This was like the kind of injury that they kind of described as like a car crash would cause, you know, like it's, it's very, very extensive internal damage. Wow.

The chest injury alone would have killed him even without like the abdomen and the blood in the abdomen and the groin, all that. So the conclusion became, well, someone clearly beat Greg to death. So the medical examiner imagined that a really hard kick to the groin with steel-toed work boots could have caused that damage, but they could not figure out like how the rest of the damage would have occurred because outwardly there was not much visible damage to his body, like his chest, his stomach. Even though his internal injuries were consistent with like a car crash or being crushed by

something really heavy, the outward signs of his body didn't show that. So that was the first mystery. The second mystery was who the hell wanted to kill this guy so badly and like so brutally? Yeah. So they talked to everybody that Greg knew essentially and it left the detective scratching his head because Greg basically had no enemies. He was well liked at work. His family loved him.

His friends loved him. He hadn't really burned many bridges in life. He'd never done anything like with untoward groups or anything like that. In fact, he was like the kind of person who wanted everyone to like him and had a lot of friends and nobody had a bad word to say about him. The next mystery was, well, how did they even have

the opportunity to pull this off? Whoever it is and however they did it, this couldn't have been a silent event, right? So how had nobody heard anything? There were these two electricians staying in the room right next door, 349, and they were actually staying there because there was this, like, I guess, electrician's conference going on.

And so... I love that. I know, and so they would stay. And when Red Hand had covered this, they talked about going to like some crime meetup and in the same bar as the true crime meetup they went to in London, there was an undertaker convention.

That's so perfect. Wow. I was like, what? Weirdly hand in hand. What a night. Anyway, so they had heard someone coughing, but they said like, no, we were here all night. We did not hear like a brawl, a fight, anything like that.

The only thing that was noted, however, in the logs is that a handyman had visited the room to fix a circuit breaker because Greg was microwaving his popcorn and he blew the circuit. So they thought, well, this handyman, we gotta look into this guy. He's one of the only people who were,

who was face to face with Greg and maybe was the last person to ever see Greg alive. So they find this handyman and the story they figure out is that the handyman had gone to the room around 8.30 and had fixed the circuit breaker and moved on and he, unfortunately for police, had an iron clad alibi for the rest of the night. So it was basically a dead end. But they can't confirm at least that, oh, this guy was alive at 830.

Live at 830 and that it explains why the air conditioner was off because when the breaker went out, the air conditioning shut off and he may have forgotten to turn it back on before it got super hot. Not noticed right away. And then by the time it got super hot in the room, he had already passed. So that was like you said, just like a clue of the timeline

and why this AC might've been off. The microwave also incidentally blew a circuit in the electrician's room next door. And they also- But they know how to handle that. Yeah, I was gonna say, of all people to experience that, they're like someone, they probably like look around like lick their finger, put it in the air,

like someone made popcorn on the baked potato setting again. So their circuit blew as well. And they also experienced this kind of brief blackout, but they said they never encountered Greg or anything. Like they just said, when that handyman came up and fixed it, their lights turned back on. No problem. So the detective briefly considered like maybe one of them went over to complain about him

messing with the circuits and this escalated into like a violent confrontation, but like none of that ever panned out and That kind of ended up just being another dead end. So months past the investigation just kind of went to a standstill They had no motive no suspect and they didn't even know how the murder happened So meanwhile Greg's brother Michael his business partner and brother, consulted a private detective and former FBI agent from Houston, but that went nowhere even though they paid out quite a bit of money for that. Then Greg's family offered a $50,000 reward for any information and that didn't go anywhere. And it seemed like Greg's family just wasn't going to get any answers, but that was just unbearable to them. So Susie said, you know what, I'm going to take another chance and hire a second

private detective, but this time she found this guy in Florida named Ken Brennan. And now this Ken Brennan folk guy folks is like top tier, like Sherlock Holmes level. Okay. There is a famous murder mystery he solved in the past 20 years or so that I'm gonna cover in the future because he's like the king of these like bizarre, and he's like monk, like he kind of looks at the world

from a different angle, you know what I mean? Like he's just, he's on it. So Ken agreed to meet with Susie and go over the case. He talked to her about her relationship with Greg, about their lives. He was not only getting to know Greg through this, but he was also trying to rule Susie out as a suspect. You know, that's kind of a sneaky underhanded plan here because he has to make sure that she's not in on it. So he asked about their business or life insurance, uh, try to figure out any way that Susie might benefit from Greg's death, because that obviously could be a potential motive, but she could not find a single thing. And when he was

finally sure that Susie was not involved in her husband's murder, Ken met with the detective on the case and said, let's go back to the hotel room. I want to see this all in person. I want to look at the autopsy. I want to talk to all the same witnesses, and I want to see the crime scene photos. Like he wants to start from square one and see every little thing. So one of the theories was that Greg had been beaten to death elsewhere and placed back in his room, but Ken didn't believe the assailants would have thought to put a burning cigarette in his fingers.

But the other weird thing is that the cigarette was in his left hand and he was right handed. So he only smoked with his right hand. So there's also a little strange. So he's like, I'm telling you, it reminds me of Monk, my favorite show, by the way. I'm also rewatching it right now, folks. It's on Netflix. Just just do yourself a favor. But so they thought, well, it's weird that somebody would kill a man, then stage it with the lit cigarette. Like that just seems like very involved and for what. But then also it's weird that the cigarettes in his left hand and people who talked or people who knew him said he would never have smoked with his left

hand. He only smoked with his right hand. So it was just a little bit odd. And it was lit. So, you know, who knows, who knows. Like, was it lit in a way that like, if like it was still lit when the cops got there? No, no, it had just been, like he had been smoking it. So it had been lit already. It was like actively something he had been smoking. It went out when he died or when he fell.

Thank God. Yes, yeah. And so Ken believed that Greg did not die in a separate room or a separate building or separate area, but he had died very suddenly right there in the room. And he became convinced that because this happened inside the room in this small contained area, that the electricians next door had to somehow be involved. He just... Interesting. I don't know if he's just intuitive or what, but he was like, I know there's some connection here. So the detective was like, all right. And he started reaching out to the electrician's coworkers to say, hey,

you know, your coworkers who stayed in room 349, have any of them said anything weird to you guys? Like have they, when they talked about their conference or their trip to Beaumont, did they say anything? Did any of them let slip anything? Because there was a group of them and it's like, well, if a group of people knows something, one of them's gonna slip up or might slip up. So they reach out.

Or just any of them at least know that one of them is like, something weird. Is this guy a weirdo at work? Something weird is up. So they reach out. Or just any of them at least know that one of them is like, something weird is going, like, is this guy a weirdo at work? You know, be honest. Something weird is up. And I feel like they did a really smart thing, not going straight to the electricians, but going to their co-workers to be like, hey, you see this guy every day.

Anything weird happened when he after his conference? And most of them only they they said, oh yeah, that something did, something weird did happen. And the more they asked people, they said, yeah, that conference that night in Beaumont, they did talk about something weird happening, but it was all kind of secondhand. Like nobody really had like details or a concrete story.

They just heard like, yeah, this guy died in the room next door. That's all we've heard. Like, we don't know the details, but it was just a little fishy. And so the private, Ken just kept, kept poking at it. He knew there was something there. So one of the men got this murder confused with another incident that the, that the group had been talking about at work. And he said, oh, the thing with the gun. And Ken was like, the gun.

Speak on that. Yeah. Oh, you're looking for something odd. There is a gun story. I mean, the gun thing. Yeah. So he's like, you know, the story about the dead guy, like, or you know the story, that crazy thing that happened when? Your co-workers were at this electrician's conference in Beaumont and everyone was like, yeah Yeah, the guy who died next door one of them went. Oh the thing with the gun and he said

No, I was not talking about that but like please elaborate Yeah, let's keep it keep it going keep this train. And so he had not thought anything of a gun yet or heard anything of a gun. So the man he was interviewing didn't really have many more details than that. But this got in Ken's head and he was like, there's something here. So he goes back with the detective to the hotel room

and they start looking for a bullet. They scour the entire room. There is no sign of a shooting. There's no sign of a bullet. And this had occurred like months before. So, you know, any residue or dust or whatever probably would have been cleaned up. But they thought, you know, at least we might be able to find the bullet itself. If it got lodged somewhere, they could not find this thing.

But then Ken was standing by the door, just kind of assessing the room. And he noticed a small indent on the side, kind of where, you know, when you have a door with like a metal handle and they'll put a door stopper to prevent the door from punching through the drywall. So he noticed like kind of where that doorknob would go, a little indent, but he's looking at it and he's thinking, I don't think that's from the doorknob.

It doesn't appear to be from the doorknob. It appears to be more like a hole. So he goes over and where it looks like the door handle had been bumping the wall, when he actually moved the handle to line up with the hole, it did not match. So this is actually a hole from something else. So he goes next door to the electrician's room because he's thinking, okay, this is on the wall that was shared with these electricians. They go to the other side, look right where that hole is and they find another patch spot on the wall.

It is filled in with tissue paper and toothpaste. This hole had not been patched by a handyman. It was just a small, neat hole that had been stuffed with toothpaste. And in 348, the hole was a bit bigger, consistent with a bullet entering a wall and exiting through the other side. Ken believed they had their answer. Somebody, one of the electricians,

shot Greg through the wall while he was in bed watching his Marvel movie around 7 p.m. When he was hit, he probably, I mean, think about like the, like less than a snap of a finger, like how fast that would have happened. And of course he wouldn't have known what happened. He was just suddenly in this tremendous pain.

His body is like torn up from the inside by a bullet. He doesn't even realize. And he stands up presumably to try to go to the door, which is why they believe that he handed off his cigarette to his left hand to grow grief to the door, which is why they believe that he handed off his cigarette to his left hand to go reach for the door. And that's when he fell and died pretty instantly of his injuries.

Damn, so in this version at least, if this is the running theory, then the electricians didn't even know what they did. They were just hoping that the bullet didn't hit somebody. Ding, ding, ding. Ding ding ding. Okay. Yes. So the issue, of course, was that the medical examiner had ruled the cause of death blunt force trauma not a shooting. And unfortunately, Greg had been, he could not be exhumed because

he had been cremated. And so any hope to find the bullet in his body still was lost because he had been cremated Oh when the autopsy have found a bullet hole, I mean so they found a small incision on his scrotum But it looked like just a cut it went right and also who beat the shit out of him though Like that's like a whole other thing nobody Where all that just like the damage from just getting shot. Literally shot through his scrotum, up through all of his organs.

Oh my God, I didn't understand that. Because he was lying on the bed, it would have gone straight horizontally through. Is that not the most horrific thing you've ever fucking heard? This whole time, I thought maybe he was like standing up and like got hit by something. I'm like, wouldn't they have seen a hole for that? And then I thought there was like a second part

to this mystery of, and this is how we found out other people were beating him up. Okay, I'm on board. Oh my God. So he was lying down and he got hit from the balls up. It's a freak accident. The bullet went straight through the wall, straight into his scrotum and up his body. In his crotch, oh my God.

Tore up all his insides to be consistent with a car crash or like a fatal car crash or being crushed by a really heavy, like that's how. Oh my God. How deeply the internal injuries were. It's. Oh my God, that poor man. It's horrible, It's horrible. So essentially they realize now like this bullet probably

could, they didn't realize that he had been shot. So they weren't really looking for a bullet. And also it could have been somewhere completely like random lodged in his body and they wouldn't have even known to look there. So, you know, all they had left was the autopsy photos. So they realized that this hole in Greg's heart was not a burst atrium from a beating,

but a bullet hole in his heart. Yeah. I mean, ooh, it gives me like the worst kind of chills. Terrible, terrible, terrible. But at least we're back to knowing that it was probably instant, nearly instantly. I can only hope it was within, I think they said probably within seconds

because he would have had the shock to stand up and that was about as far as anything went. So at the very least, we can hope that it was very quick. The forensics team also determined that the bullet's entry hole in room 349 and exit hole in 348 did actually, they shined a laser through it. This Ken Genius guy shined a laser and it would go straight to where he would have been laying on the bed watching Iron Man 2 and straight over the remote and his snacks. I mean, it was like,

you could see exactly the track of this bullet. Oh my God, oh my God. Yeah, and so even though they now know what probably happened, they don't have proof because they don't have a bullet and they don't have his body to prove that he was shot. So now they're thinking, we got to figure out how to get them to confess these electricians and tell us what really happened. So they brought in Lance Mueller and Tim Steinmetz. And on June 1st, 2011, Ken and the detective,

so Ken's the PI, and the detective spoke with Tim Steinmetz. And he said, oh man, yeah, that was crazy. I don't know anything about it. You know, he said nobody heard or saw anything strange. And then he agreed to sign an official statement, which was then notarized there and then by a local police officer. And as Tim signed the statement, stood up and said, are we good here?

They said, well, we were until you signed that statement. And now you've got a problem. So he told Tim, basically we don't know what happened, but we know you're lying because you just signed a false statement saying that you saw or heard nothing strange. And we know that you saw someone shoot a gun in that room that night. So you are lying. Lying. Lying. You big liar. Come clean. Thank you. Come clean right now. Tim broke down immediately. According to him, the night

of the murder, he was with his pals drinking in room 349. It was him, Lance, and a third man named Trent Pisano. And they were drinking beers and Lance asked Trent to make a run to his vehicle, which was out in the parking lot to grab some whiskey. He also said, Hey, why don't you grab my nine millimeter pistol also while you go down to the car. So when Trent returned with the whiskey and the gun, Lance took the gun and drunkenly started pointing it at the other men in the room as a joke, quote unquote. Funny.

I know. Obviously Tim or Trent did not find it was funny. They are the ones on the receiving end of this gun waving around. And they're telling him like, cut it out. That's not funny. And you're drunk. Like put the, like, what are you doing?

And so Lance is waving this gun around and Tim actually dropped to the floor because he was like, I do not trust Lance with this gun waving around while he's wasted. So Lance turned the gun on Trent as a joke and then the gun went off. It shot off. Of course.

It missed Trent barely, like by, you know, whatever they say, inches, centimeters, what have you. It went right past him, thank God, and went right through the wall. So Trent stormed off back to his room while Lance put the pistol back in his vehicle. I guess he realized even he had gone too far. And according to Tim, he was really freaked out.

He was kind of in the middle, like on the ground while this had happened. He was like, Oh God. He said we went to the hotel bar afterward and we were like, Whoa, that's crazy. So Lance and Tim went to the hotel bar afterward, they kept drinking and they were saying they didn't even know if anybody was in that room. However, I don't know if you recall, but they had heard someone coughing in there earlier. And I don't mean like from the wound, from the shot. I mean, like they had heard someone coughing in there, so they knew someone was staying in that room.

Yeah. And they did not think to go, or they didn't dare to check. Then the next morning when they're carrying someone out in a body bag, all three men realize what has happened. Can you, I can't imagine the stomach drop of that. Holy shit Yeah, heart into your butt. I mean, I mean that holy shit so they essentially all decided to get their story straight and

That was what they were going on until Tim finally broke and told police what had really really happened until Tim finally broke and told police what had really, really happened. Further investigation revealed that Lance had actually filled the bullet hole himself with toothpaste because for a while there was unclear whether the hotel had done it just because they were like, oh, there's damage, we'll just cheaply fix it. But it looks like Lance himself.

So he actively was trying to cover up the bullet hole. He knew what was going on. He knew, he knew. Lance, like I said, had also seen first responders wheeling a body bag out of the room next door. And he thought, oh shit, did I do that? Yeah, you did. But he said nothing.

Instead, he asked his friend to hold the gun for a while. And then he asked his attorney to hold onto the gun for a while. And he actually asked his attorney to not only hold the, for what attorney is this? I know, I was just saying. Asked the attorney to hold the gun for him. And he also asked the attorney to acquire the initial autopsy report to make sure that the cause of death was not a shooting.

So when he heard to, to his credit in a way, I don't like to say that, cause it's his fault. But to his credit, he did get the autopsy report and it did say that the death was due to blunt force trauma. So he thought this must've been some freak coincidence that this guy had gotten killed. Murdered right next door to him shooting a gun. Exactly. So he thought, well, shit, I guess that wasn't my fault.

So he did not contact the authorities, which ended up being a huge mistake because once the truth was out, prosecutors, still they knew they had to charge him. They were hesitant to charge him with a felony. So Ken took it upon himself to convince them that Lance needed to be held accountable for drunkenly mishandling a weapon. He had, if Lance had come forward at the start of the investigation saying, hey, I'm sorry,

I shot a gun. I didn't, you know, maybe he would have gotten off with just a slap on the wrist for accidentally killing someone, you know, manslaughter rather than murder or... But whatever happened, it wasn't that. So instead, he lied multiple times. He insisted nothing out of the ordinary happened. He hid the gun and filled the bullet hole in with toothpaste. It's clearly criminal intent. So that is what the judge decided, and that is what the judge decided. And the judge also decided that Lance was most of all responsible for grossly mishandling

his weapon, his pistol. And ultimately Lance pleaded no contest to manslaughter. He received a 10-year sentence. In court, Susie was able to make a statement to Lance directly. She said, I have waited over two years to look you in the face, eye to eye, and simply have the chance to speak directly to you. You would never have come forward with the truth. You murdered him. No, you didn't intentionally seek him out to murder him, but you murdered him with every lie you told, with every intentional selfish deception, with every cover-up, over and over

again. You saw his body taken out of the room in a body bag the next day. You knew you killed him. He meant nothing to you. I would have spent the rest of my life tracking you down and I found you. Greg's murderer. I brought you to justice." So powerful stuff. You know, for what it's worth, Greg left behind a really nice legacy. I mean, it's pretty clear he was very well loved. When news of his death and memorial service were announced by his family, they requested that people, instead of sending flowers, make donations to nonprofits, one of which protected and recovered wetlands

in the area. And the other was dedicated to the humane and compassionate management of feral cat populations, which was something that he really, really was passionate about. Wow. So that's the story of Greg Fleniken, AKA the body in room 348. You know, well done on the story. That was a great story.

Doesn't it sound like Agatha Christie, basically? Yeah. But also you did just officially give me and everyone listening a full fear of being in hotel rooms now. Okay, so that's what they talked about in Red Handed 2 and I forgot if it was Saru. I don't remember which one said it but she said listen on the contrary like people always ask oh does doing true crime shows make you like so paranoid or like make you feel like you're prepared and she said something like no it just makes me um aware that like you could die any day anytime

any minute no matter what you're doing like you could just be eating a candy bar so it's like who knows what to be afraid of anymore like they were in this town Beaumont with this high crime rate this wasn't even like part of some organized crime. This wasn't like a drive-by, this wasn't a mugging, this wasn't even a burglary. Like it was a freak accident, you know? Yeah, I'm definitely more scared of freak accidents these days. There's something so out of control about that

that you feel like you can't, you have no control on it. Yeah, well, thank you for adding another one to the list. You're welcome. Well, if you want to hear more of our rambles, you can head over to our after something dark after dark after dark because this was dark and we're going to talk about something after the dark. Okay, great. And if you're on Patreon, you go do that.

You can also see we have bonus videos and other things like that for you to go see and order our book. Get ready to see us on tour. You can find tickets at our website. And that's why we drink.