And That's Why We Drink - E390 A Noodle Room and a Doodle Competition

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

It's episode 390 and gossip is our espresso! Congratulations, you're awake and here just in time for Em's short spooky story on Sturdivant Hall (shout out, Grandma Pam). Then Christine covers the absolutely mind-bending case of Juan Catalan and Martha Puebla, with some pop culture twists and turns you’ll never see coming. And good morning, Sunshine, we are verboten to be sad... and that's why we drink!Be sure to check out the links Christine mentioned in her story today! Longshot, the documentary and the clip of Larry David here!

Hey, are you okay? Yeah, are you okay? Does shouting help? Well, my ears are more awake now. Good morning. I think all of our ears are awake now. That reminded me of when I would stay at my grandma's house when I was younger. And she would scream in your ears? I've said this before on the show.

I don't even care that she's not even with us anymore. I'll never get over it. She would way too happily sing in the morning. And I'm just like, oh my God, shut the fuck up. And I love her very much, but I'm like, I was not in the damn mood. But actually I did need that. It was, my brain really wasn't asleep for a second.

So you actually helped me there. I knew many people who sang in the morning and the worst offender was my friend Celine's dad, Michael, who would sing about all the things he was making for breakfast. But he's like one of those dads that like wakes up at, you know, 6.15. And so he'd be like, wakey, wakey,

the sausages are in the pan. And we were like, oh my God. It's like, call me a slur. Like I really like do anything else. Do anything else. Yeah, I did say that. And he was like, you're 11, oh my God. It's like, call me a slur. Like I really like do anything else. Do anything else. Yeah, I did say that. And he was like, you're 11, please go home. It's truly like, it's so like, it feels,

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I'm too tired to like be like accepting. It feels like an attack. It feels fully aggressive. Yeah, it is like a form of terrorism, no doubt. You know how they say, like I'm listening to Stephen King, the new Stephen King short stories book on Audible. And he talks about sleep, or one of the stories,

there's like sleep deprivation, like blasting music. And I'm like, well, yeah, that actually goes exactly into what we're talking about. It's like, it feels condescending because it's like, you can't possibly think that our energies are matching right now. It's like, congratulations. Yeah, congratulations, you're awake. Here's a fucking trophy, okay?

Yeah, and also I'm gonna force, I'm gonna put you in a position where now, if you don't match this energy, you look like an asshole. And it's like, you're the asshole. It's like you're playing, it's like you just showed up at the party and they have the limbo stick like on the floor and they're like, your turn. And you're like, I just got here. I haven't even had a, also I just had back surgery.

I'm not. Just had back surgery. And also like I had back surgery twice. I couldn't think of another thing. So I just doubled down on yours. No, it's, it was always like just so damn chipper. And I'm like, I understand that some people don't need like a couple hours to like get ready for the day, but like, give me a minute, please.

It's like when we tour together and when my brother and I tour together, it's like, there's just silence. There's no need for any pleasantries. It's, it's 1130, the Lord's hour, so early in the morning. How dare you speak to me right now? The sun has been out for five hours and that's just not enough. It's still waking up. The sun is in the, and it's currently taking its time. Let me take my time. That is interesting. I don't know if people realize that, but when they wonder what it's like being on tour with you or what it's like for you to be on tour with

me, and I assume Zandi, like truly no words are said until at least one in the afternoon. Like don't fucking talk to me. Don't fucking talk to me. Or just like here. I'm hungry. No, I think the only thing you ever say is, you're not even asking me if I want any you just go I need coffee and then of course I'm gonna ask you what that would be fucking rude. You don't drink coffee Hey, do you want some coffee that's setting you up for a for a losing situation, too I don't think so. I think that's a pretty generic Sentence these days of like we're both getting we're both going somewhere where you're gonna Okay, I mean fair but like yeah, I wouldn't like, hey, here's a cappuccino.

I know you better than that. That's true, that's true. There have been people who, when I'm traveling with them, they don't know me well enough and they're like, oh, I got you a coffee and I'm like, oh, now I have to be nice and drink something disgusting. Jesus, you have the worst luck in the morning. I also just have the worst attitude in the morning.

I don't know if you're hearing it, but I'm just- You have the worst friends who just like. I don't know if you're hearing it, but I'm just... You have the worst friends who just respect your time and bring you coffee. And everyone's happy and singing like it's a musical. What the fuck is wrong with these people? I hate this town. No, I'm not grateful for anything without a couple hours of reminding myself

that I am on planet earth. So anyway, no. Pfft. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Anyway, no, I'm sorry my energy was low when I got here, but after talking about it, I actually do feel better. It's usually mine. It's usually mine.

And so usually you psych me up. So I thought today I'll start shouting and see what happens. I appreciate it. I, no, I was just, I was just a sweepy little baby. And I just, I just needed a second. And you know what really brought me out of that was getting to just complain. If anyone tells me food is there

or we're gonna get to complain or both, I'm awake. Indeed. That is really the only share. Like Em doesn't need coffee. Just like a little bitch sesh, you know? That'll wake him right up. Yeah, that's my espresso. That gives me the jitters, you know what I'm saying?

What the fuck is wrong with you? That sounds like one of those, one of those stupid things at HomeGoods. Fucking hell. The writing, like. The, what's it, the. It's Ray, something Ray. Yes, yes.

People say Addison Ray, I think that's a TikToker. Well, whatever, it's called. Yours would be like, gossip is my espresso. Like, oh god. I would literally buy that. I would literally buy that because. I'm gonna make you that.

Nobody make that. I'm making it. Everyone's, because everyone's gonna make it better than me and then I'm gonna be like, well, shit, now M has to keep one of them and it's gonna be the nicer looking one. Gossip is my, now I'm in a bad mood. What is going on today?

Jesus, we've just traded places. It's a fine balance. We always dance together. One of us always has to be a little too sleepy. Oh gosh, I mean, oh, I got a haircut today. You want to see? I do, because you were saying last time that you really wanted one.

Well, I didn't want one. I needed one because my mom got one. It looks beautiful. Do a little, je, je, je, je. I sprayed, I put too much hairspray in it, so it's like kind of clumpy, but whatever. No, I wanted a fashion show at lunch. You got to do a little wave.

Unfortunately, it's a little too clumpy. It'll just kind of go er, er, er. It looks great. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It's a good length. I needed to chop it off. But anyway, not interesting to everyone, I'm sorry. Especially if you're listening on audio.

But yeah, Em, why do you drink this week? Is it because you're super sleepy? I'm just a little sleepy, baby. Yeah, I- I don't enjoy that, I will say that to you. You don't like this? Why? No, it's like actually really uncomfortable for me. Thank you.

Uh-oh, Christine doesn't like it. Okay, so- God, are you Andy Bernard? I just like to bother you. Uh oh, Christine doesn't like it. Okay, so. What, are you Andy Bernard? I just like to bother you. Yeah, so you are Andy Bernard, my least favorite character on television, cool. You know who my least favorite is? For a long time it was actually Michael Scott.

I just couldn't get into it. But I get it, I get it now. It just took a second. I thought you liked The Office. I do, I just don't, into it but I get it I get it now I just took a second I thought you liked the office I Do I just saw I thought you liked the office you just don't like any Bernard Oh, but I think his point is that he's not likable, right? I Mean I guess that's the same way but like more in like an endearing way. He's supposed to be like in dear I don't know. Maybe maybe people are supposed like Andy Bernard. I can't stand the guy but

I couldn't I couldn't stand him for a long time Because you remind me of everyone I went to college with So who Andy Bernard? Yeah, yeah, like the loafers and like coral pants coral pants. Yeah Oh my god, what was I gonna say to you? Why do I drink? Why do I drink? Hmm, it's because of people who sing in the morning is why you drink. And I feel like I want to tell you the song my dad sings. It goes like this.

Is it German? Is it a warning to everybody? Good morning, good morning, good morning sunshine. And you must not be sad. Okay, it means good morning. So I can't get you to speak German, but you'll sing it to everybody. That's amazing. Happily. Good morning sunshine, good morning. So I can't get you to speak German, but you'll sing it to everybody. That's amazing.

Happily. Good morning sunshine, good morning sunshine. Already annoying. Okay, good morning, good morning sunshine. Good morning sunshine. You are not allowed to be sad. Is that the most German parent like line of your life? You are not allowed to be sad.

My parents have said so many times, there is no room for you to be sad. Yeah, it goes, you are not allowed to be sad. Yeah, those are the only words I know. Good morning sunshine, you're not allowed to be sad. Is that not the most fucked up German song ever? I mean, it's not, there's so many more fucked up ones. But like, that's rude up German song ever. I mean, it's not. There's so many more fucked up ones. But like, that's rude.

I'm sleeping. I like that it's the first message of every day was you are not allowed to have emotions or get in my personal space of inconvenience. Also, I do like that they say don't be sad. Also, Krampus is coming. So do they sing that on Christmas morning? And like they sing, well, maybe you'll be sad. Let's see if Krampus comes coming. So do they sing that on Christmas morning? And like, you know. They sing, well, maybe you'll be sad.

Let's see if Krampus comes with his many sticks. To beat you. Wee. Yeah, that's, you're right. That's why I drank. I just, man, I just want to take a nap. Man, I will. Yeah.

I have a feeling. Yeah, you will. I did wake you up earlier than usual today. I apologize. Um, no, it's not. I went to sleep later than usual, which is why this time is like, usually, I mean, when I, if I wake up earlier than usual, like I'm kind of like a little sleepier, but no, this time I woke up and it was like, um, Alison and I call it getting pulled out of the beyond, which is like the, the moment where you're waking up and you're like, what year is it?

It just doesn't. Oh trust me, we all know I think, I hope. Yeah. It was one of those sleeps, so I think I just needed an extra second. Anyway, why do you drink? Well because of all of that, and because of people who sing in the morning.

And I'm wondering if like, I'm wondering if like, somebody could take that little isolated clip. I mean, we probably have to cut out M asking questions about whether it's about to be, you know, a Krampus song. But if somebody could isolate that clip of me singing and set it up as their wake up tone, boy would they hate me. Boy would they so quickly grow to detest this podcast.

It was a, yeah, especially when it's calling people when it's condescendingly saying, Hi, sunshine, don't have feelings. That's you're not. No, it's not. Don't have feelings. You're not allowed to. Right. Oh, right. Heavens. It's actually fabled and forbidden. You know, oh, yeah. The thing that's sucked when my gammy would do it is she was truly the nicest sweetest most innocent

Naive happy little person in the entire world. You can't even just be like shut the fuck up It would make me it honestly made me more mad because I felt like she wouldn't relate if I was rude about it Like if you did it, I could just go like shut the fuck up, but I can't say that's a gammy, you know I should be like, thank you so much Please do it again tomorrow. I love that song gamy. Thank you for haunting my nightmares with it Okay, so uh Do you I before we get into it people are going to ask because last week

All we did was I get real honest with ourselves about how? Stress we were feeling. Yes. Update. Are you still less stressed? Are you more stressed? Are you less stressed? What's your quality of life today? They said it couldn't be done. Oh, I'm more stressed. Hardcore. I'm so fucking stressed. It could actually like throw up my own insides. It's OK. I. Wow. I wouldn't have asked if I thought that was the answer.

Well, I don't know what you expected. My therapist told me... I mean, I left you like 16 voice memos yesterday. You must have known. You must have known I was in a worse place than I was. I thought we were all in a voice memo era because all of us have kind of been doing that. And it's like not in character for any of us.

So I just... Well, I think I said, Eva, I'm sorry. I don't have time to talk because of the baby. Can you just send me a voicemail? And she went, oh, I forgot about voice memos. Promptly, 65 voice memos later. I'm like, wow, Eva's into voice memos again. So we've started our era.

And then I was like, yeah, I love voice memos. So, you know, I just go back and forth. But yeah, I've just had one of those weeks where you're like, oh, that's funny. You choose today to do this, X, Y, Z. You know, it's had one of those weeks where you're like, oh, that's funny. You choose today to do this, X, Y, Z. You know, it's just one of those days. And my therapist, I know it's bad because my therapist actually requested

that I do a two hour session next week. Oh, yeah, yeah. What? That's never happened to me before. She said- Why does it hurt my feelings? She said, I really think you need to come in. And I said, I mean, you're probably right.

So it's just everything's good. Don't worry, everybody. Nobody's hurt or dead. But my body says otherwise. My panic disorder says otherwise. He he he. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. How do we backtrack from this? So anyway, I think I deserve a fucking trophy because again, they said it couldn't be done. And then my father had the audacity to call me and say, don't be so stressy. And I said, excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry, you're not allowed to be sad.

Oh, right, right. He's saying it. He said, good morning, sunshine. You're not allowed to be sad. Oh, right, right. He sang it. He said, good morning sunshine. You're not allowed to stress out anymore. And I'm like, oh, I forgot it was illegal. I guess I will just internalize everything a bit further like usual. So anyway.

What a full circle actually. You should go tell your therapist in your two hour session about that song and how from the beginning of time, you have been told that you shouldn't actually know how to express your stress. Oh, she knows that already. I mean, she doesn't know about the song,

but the rest of it she figured out very quickly. Yesterday she brought me an ice pack because I was having a panic attack in front of her, which is like my worst nightmare. Like I have panic attacks and I like to have them in the solace of my own hovel with nobody around. And instead it starts happening while I'm sitting there and I'm like, this isn't good, I'm going to the bathroom.

She's like, no, like you're in therapy. You can have a panic attack. She goes, I'll be right back. She brings me a water bottle. And I'm like, Oh, what's this for? And she's like, for you to drink. I was so weird about it. And then she hands me an ice pack and she's like, here, put this on the back of your neck. And I was like, and she goes, I can sense you're like really uncomfortable. This is several minutes later. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I'm supposed to thank you again, or like if you want me to drink the water now.

And she was like, has anyone ever like brought you a cup of water? And I was like, I mean, no, like my friends have, but like not, I don't know. That's just not a thing that I'm used to. So I was like, well, I'm usually hiding in my hovel. So I guess that's kind of what prompted her to say, why don't you come in for two hours? I'm half expecting like a team

of doctors to be there, like, you know, how they're like residents with all their notes, like just watching, you know, is so, first of all, amazed that you still go to therapy in person. That's, I feel like that's almost like what like old people do now because everyone's got the online thing going on. I love it. Cause I can just like go away into her little, she has like the sweetest little office.

It has like a little sound machine. It has like all, it's all colorful and it has all these gay shit everywhere. And like her whole theme, this is not even a joke. I did not know this when I found her, but her whole like theme of her office is moths and... Oh my God. Perfect for you.

... ganas and moons. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm in the right spot. So she has one of those offices where I'm like, I would much prefer to be in there. It smells so nice and it's just so soothing. Understood. Yeah. Wow. And how long have you been with her?

Oh, a couple months, not very long. Yesterday she asked me like, oh, she asked me a question and I said, I don't know if I can even begin to get into that. We only have half an hour left. I was like, I don't think- We only have half of my session left. Yeah, I don't think now's the time to discuss that particular parental unit.

Let's save that for another day. Well, do you do the thing? I do it every time. Poor Jordan. The thing that probably requires the most conversation is the thing I bring up with five minutes left. And she goes like, are you kidding me? I know, it's bad.

It's a bad habit. Oh yeah, that thing, that thing. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, I had a breakthrough. She's know, it's bad. It's a bad habit. And I'm like, oh yeah, that thing, that thing. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, I had a breakthrough. She's like, uh, no, you can save that breakthrough for next week. Please, we're out of time. I said something about, I've had quite a few, I have a roster of fathers at this point. And uh-

Hey, same, but the other way around. Hee hee hee hee hee. Well, I, uh, I said something to her, and I guess it was one of those things where, like, I don't realize it's traumatic, I just said it in passing, because, like, you know, it does not affect me, or I don't think it does. Mostly, it's true, yeah. And then she went, oh, and that was, that was,

and then she said the name of a dad, I went, oh no, no, that actually happened again with the other dad. Yes, yes, yes, yes. No, that's a different dad, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she went, oh no, no that actually happened again with the other dad No, that's a different dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she went there's another one and I yeah And she goes well, it's kind of unfair like you didn't you know, like there's all these different parents in your in your life and like you didn't Ask for that. I'm like, I certainly didn't Yeah, it doesn't matter whether I ask for it or not.

Hi. So it's been a week, I'm sorry I keep shouting. It's just like. I think you need it. It's okay. I think I need it. I need scream therapy. Is that where you just scream?

Yeah, we should do a thing where we just scream into pillows on the show because then maybe that'll give other people permission to scream so they don't feel alone in their car, you know? Or maybe they'll just call some sort of a podcasting authority and say, please make this stop. They should not be on the air. But we can try it out and see what happens. I would love to do, we don't have to do it today,

but at some point a little scream therapy never hurt anyone. I think- We would be good at it. I think um, we would be good at it I think at first we'd feel feel uncomfy and then about five minutes and we'd be like we're the best at this that anyone has ever been I if I were in a car, I would not want to scream alone and I would if I heard other people screaming It's like what's that thing? Um uh, like during uh midterms and finals on college campuses

They'll like I don't know if your college had this, but we had like a day during finals where everyone would go out to like the quad and just all scream at the same time. That was so useful. I just said that on a TV show. I was like, oh yeah, I forgot college students are so fucked up because of, you know, college and stuff.

The system. I think we won't do it this time, but next time I have a pillow nearby, we do a little screaming. Honestly, I would love that. Let's give it a whirl. All right. Okay, until then, let's do a story. And it's a quick one.

I thought it was going to be longer, but then I'd already committed to it and now we're doing a shorty. And I did this for you because I saw the name and I went, well, I gotta do it. So this is the story of the Sturtevant Hall. Shut up! Oh my God, speaking of so many extraneous parents. Right.

Yes, that is my stepdad's last name and therefore the name of my, the, that is my stepdad's last name and therefore the name of my, this is going to sound bad, but it's true, the only grandparent I have who is my grandparent really or wants to be my grandparent. Grandma Pam. Grandma Pam, yeah. Oh, I love Grandma Pam. By the way, she just had surgery on her hip and is doing much better.

So the problem was they didn't know her hip was broken. She thought it was just sciatica pain. And then like months later, they found out her hip had been broken that whole time. Oh my God. Yeah, so she just had like emergency surgery. My mom drove up there, but she's sweet as ever and looking good,

feeling healthy and healthy. Grandma Pam is a dream. If you're trying to think of a Grandma Pam, imagine, you know SpongeBob's grandma? Yeah, yes. That's Grandma Pam. The second I met her, I went, this woman, I don't even know you,

you need a trophy and a hug and an award and a cash prize. No, actually the first time you met her, you thought she was a ghost because you were half awake at my home and I had warned you that my home is full of ghosts and other nooks and crannies filled with graffiti and spider webs and other things. And so you woke up and you just kind of saw

this ethereal presence of Grandma Pam and you really did say, okay, that's a ghost and go back to bed. But after that, yes, you did learn that Grandma Pam was a real flesh and bone human being who quilts a lot and tells me some of the best stories about her and herself and her friend and the many hijinks they got up to back in the day.

She's just a lovely soul. And can confirm firsthand as a ghost, she'll be the best one there ever was. Oh my gosh. She will be like, you know, tucking you in and like, you probably just new quilts will appear, you know, out of the blue with your, in your favorite colors.

She's just a very loving person. And she, the first time she said, oh, my granddaughter, I was like, no one's ever called me that before. She went, what? And I was like, I'm serious was like, no one's ever called me that before. She went, what? And I was like, I'm serious. Like, no one's ever said that to me before. So I was very, she's a very loving presence in my life. Anyway, so sorry.

Sturdivant Hall. Shout out to grandma Pam. Oh yes, Sturdivant Hall. So I saw this and I went, well, obviously I'm gonna have to do it. And by the way, I also suggest now that Renata calls her house Sturdivant Hall. I I saw this and I went, well, obviously I'm going to have to do it. And by the way, I also suggest now that Renata calls her house Sturtevant Hall. I mean, she probably, that's a great point. She probably does.

She'll make it like the wifi name, like how you have your, uh, like Schultz fourth manner Schultz fourth manner, uh, Sturtevant Hall. That's actually, I like that. I love it. I really think all of us should really, because here's the thing, with capitalism, I don't think any of us should really, because here's the thing, with capitalism, I don't think any of us are gonna be getting a manor anytime soon. That old chestnut, or wait, is it hazelnut or chestnut?

Chestnut, chestnut, chestnut. That old hazelnut, oh, that old garbanzo bean, okay. That old lentil. I think I've lost my mind. None of us are ever going to afford these big estates that have a cool name. But here's the thing, we all deserve a cool estate with a cool name.

Thank you. Everybody, just take heed. I've been running with Schultz-Forthmanner for a few years now. It's going great in case you needed a review. I suggest you do it too. So what should your house be? Probably the Schlampagnale mansion.

No, no. I'm trying to think. So right now our Wi-Fi, which actually I'm gonna say here because I've actually decided recently to change it because for other reasons, but because we're getting a new route. Emma's seen the behind, it's not very interesting. My Wi-Fi is atrocious. But we, it's currently Geo's house, H-A-U-S, which is what it's been

since Blaze and I have ever lived together, like through every apartment in LA. So it's Geo's house, which just feels very fitting, you know? But I don't know, part of me kind of wants, like you said, kind of wants, you know, a more austere, a more regal name. But Shlampagnalli just like, oh, the lamp. Oh, that's what I call my birdhouse. I forgot to tell you. I feel like I've meant to tell you this every episode we've recorded for two years. So, you know, I have that bird buddy where it takes pictures of birds. So that I call and nobody thinks it's funny. I feel like you're the only one who will get it. I call it the lamp, wait, the lamp mansion, because instead of the lamp, or wait,

is it the lamp mansion? I love it, the lamp mansion, yeah. Lamp manor, or is it lamp manor? Lamp mansion, I think. Oh, okay, well I call, I think, now I'm through. I get that. But I call it the lamp manor or mansion, and it's extra funny,

because it's a tiny little bird house, but I always thought that was a clever. So now is your house going to now just be called the bigger lamp? The lamp mansion? No because that also seems very silly and A and B well I didn't say A or B but C well you could I feel like people are going to be like oh your mansion okay like it's not a mansion you know so I'm like I don't know I feel like I need to come up with, but my house isn't small enough for it to be funny that it's called mansion. It almost feels like I'm just saying it's a mansion, which it's not, so.

But then you could just add Ron, you don't have to say, like mansion is, like that's why we use manner. Manner is good. The reason we use manner though is because we were jealous of, actually this is full circle because recently Shannon Doherty passed away who played Pru Hallowell on Charmed. And I was always so jealous that the Hallowell sisters would say like, Oh, I'm just at the manor or I'll meet you back at the manor. And they were just

talking about their fucking house. And so when Alison and I lived like in Pasadena or something like all the way at the beginning of our relationship, I was like, man, like one day you and I gotta have a manor. And then we just started calling wherever we lived the manor. So for five years it's been an apartment and now it's gonna be this tiny little cottage. There's like villa or estate. I think if you're gonna expand from Gio's home or Gio's house, you just elongate it.

It's like the Giovanni homestead or something. Ooh, homestead or something. Oh, homestead is good, cause we're in Kentucky, that feels a little bit like Wild West, you know? I'm just trying to think of other words, the hermitage. So somebody- Cause if you're an introvert, you're always home anyway, the hermit.

The hermit's hermitage, her name's Christine, that is what I write. Oh my gosh, Christine, where is your brain? The something. It's at the Homestead. It does, left it at the Homestead again. I completely forget. It was gonna be so interesting, I promise,

but I totally forget. So that's nice. Anyway, I'm gonna go with Giovanni Homestead until further notice. So you do what you gotta do. I like that, I like that very much what you gotta do very much. Thank you Remember when I was gonna tell a story no, but yeah, let's go back to that. You're right. You're right. You're right Okay from the Giovanni Homestead and the Schultz fourth manor. We're gonna talk about servant hall. This is in

Selma, Alabama Okay which Fun fact Selma, Alabama is like one of the most haunted cities, allegedly. It's also like has a quiet pass to it. Sure does. And but apparently in Alabama, Selma is like the hotspot. If you want to go to like a haunted city in Alabama. Oh, interesting. OK. So in Selma, Alabama, this is in the 1850s, which was not

a great time historically. A mansion was built for Colonel Edward Watts and his family. And the mansion cost only $69,000 at the time. Today, that would be be 2.6 million. So this is an actual manor. Each floor, this place was like very spanky. It had, each floor had a 60 foot long porch. It had columns. It had Italian marble where they literally

brought Italian people in to do the marble, I think. And then, and it had air conditioning back in the 1850s. What? Oh, that was when like a bunch of people would just stand there and blow on you. And you were like, this is air conditioning the good old way. This is where I think you would just, yeah,

I actually don't, I was gonna make a joke that wouldn't have actually landed at all. Yours is better, I like that, yeah. Thank you so much for acknowledging that. So this place had originally just 10 rooms, but it was 6,000 square feet, which I don't understand. Okay, so this is one of the things that Allison and I don't understand.

We love Selling Sunset and its sequel, Selling BoC, where they show you all these big McMansions in California, and some of them, it's like 30 million dollar houses and five bedrooms And I'm like you gotta be fucking kidding me like what are you talking about? I'm gonna spend 30 million dollars for me and like my two kids to have a guest room What are you? Say you know that your kids if you're that if you're spending kind of dough, are not sharing a fucking room in a bunk bed. They're getting a whole rock wall and shit in their room.

So it's probably like gigantic rooms where they get like, I don't know, of course my only, this is so embarrassing, my only grasp of what is luxury at that age as a teenager is like Pottery Barn catalog. I literally was gonna say pottery barn catalog. Cause my mom could never like, we could never afford it. So she was always like, so I would circle so many things

just like as what I wanted. And then one time, okay, one time it was really special. And I feel like I never thanked her for this, but one time she went through and she like picked three things and like saved up a bunch of money and bought me a purple dresser and a purple quilt that I really wanted. Like it was expensive and a little rug. And I remember being like, this is my bedroom.

It's the most luxurious room in all. I mean, I was literally living in like inner city. In sort of a hall. But suddenly I was living in sort of a hall and I fell on top of the world. Anyway, so yeah, $30 million for five bedrooms. I'm like, how many giant stuffed bears from Pottery Barn can you fit in there?

Cause that's my only measure. They spit on Pottery Barn. I know, isn't that embarrassing? I'm like, that's luxury. So Pottery Barn, my mom, I remember her actually letting me go through a catalog and she was like, circle what you want and I'm gonna get you something from there.

And she ended up getting me a bedspread that I still have in the house to this day. It's the blue tie-dye that I use as my background when I'm there. Aww. And damn, it's still a great blanket. They don't make things like they did during Pottery Barn kids era. In 2005. No, they certainly don't. That fucking purple quilt, I mean, listen, it's nothing compared to a good old Grandma Pam quilt, but I hadn't met her yet.

So that purple quilt I had was about it, but the, oh my God, it was like purple with light green and it had like all these butterflies. I mean, it was just the girliest thing of all time. We really had the, yeah, green, like neon green or lime green was really in back then. So was the like sky blue. Oh yeah, pastel blue. Oh, anyway, where were we? What were you saying?

Air conditioning. Oh yeah, that's luxurious too. I, yeah. This place had air conditioning, and it, oh here, this is what it was. It said it had 10 rooms, which I guess for $2.6 million, 10 rooms is pretty nice

compared to the $30 million five-bedroom. So is this 10 rooms or 10 bedrooms? Because that also makes a big difference. Because if there's a- Oh, you're totally right. If there's a rec room, that's a room, it's not a bedroom, you know? You're right, it could be like one room's like the kitchen. Like some of them could be very necessary rooms.

I hadn't even thought about that. Hmm, okay, well, anyway, it was designed by local architect Homp Thomas Helm Lee. Homp? Helm, sorry. You literally said Homp Thomas, and I was like, what a name. It was designed by Homp. My throat did something, but no, it's just Thomas Helm Lee,

who, yikes, is the cousin of Robert E. Lee. Fun fact, I don't know how fun that is. but no, it's just Thomas Helmley, who yikes is the cousin of Robert E. Lee. Fun fact, I don't know how fun that is. But Robert E. Lee was, you know, it's the 1850s, about to be the 1860s. It's gonna be a big era for Robert E. Lee, whether or not you like it. In 1864, the Watts family,

who the house was originally built for, they ended up moving and they sold the mansion to John McGee. I did not mess up that one. John McGee Parkman. He bought it for $65,000, which is less than the $69,000. So I don't know what that means, but in case you care about that stuff. John McGee Parkman, he would be the future president of the first national bank of the city of Selma.

Oh, okay. By 29, by the way. So, but then again, like they were, people were president by like eight years old or something. So I don't know how pressing it was. I was gonna say, everyone's at Harvard in preschool. It is fine, yeah. Big fucking whoop.

It's like dual enrollment that they've got going on. Dual enrollment, they're all, no wonder everyone stands in the quad and screams, I would be, right? They're literal toddlers. Give them a fruit pouch, god damn it. Do you ever have days where you just feel so manic and you're like, nothing I do is calming my manic episode and I don't say that lightly.

My therapist said that's something else we can discuss on Monday. So anyway, wish me luck. I've told you about the thing that I was the I can't stop thinking about it because I think it's I think it's I think it's so real. Yeah. Oh yeah. My head shaved at the hairdresser today. I'm like, wow, I think. It's so real. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to get my head shaved at this hairdresser today.

I'm like, wow, I'm off my rocker today. I've been diagnosing Christine behind the scenes with a lot of things. So many. It's like throwing noodles at the wall to see what sticks. So I'm like just kind of saying things to see what her therapist thinks. It's a tag team deal.

Yeah, it's noodles all the way to the top. And that's in a literal way, where Em has thrown so many noodles that now the room, one of the many 10 rooms is just filled with noodles. You might as well just be in the pot of pasta at this point. I'm in the noodle room and I live there now.

I think I'm becoming a noodle. Well, be careful, because you might end up in a real noodle room. I, uh, uh, uh. Send me to the noodle room. I swear to God I've lost my mind. I'm so sorry. I'm gonna shut up.

I'm so sorry. I know I'm pissing so many people off right now. Not me. Do you know what I got out? I got a notebook so I can just doodle, like draw circles while you talk so I can just shut the fuck up. Actually, that's a lovely idea.

Let's both doodle. Isn't it fun just to doodle? Well, I have to. Because I'm like, otherwise I'm fidgeting with my hair and stuff. I'll doodle afterwards. I forgot I have to read the notes. Oh man.

Wait, what if at the end of the episode we share our doodles? That's great. Wouldn't that be fun? I don't even wanna show you my doodles because I already know what your doodles are gonna be. Yeah, here it is. It's beautiful.

Yeah, does that seem like something that you want to compete with? It's gonna be that one fucking doodle you always draw on art. Oh, I do do that now. Christine draws this very no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Christine draws a very inappropriate stick figure situation and only draws it to show it to me when we're on live TV. When we're only on live TV, when we're in the same room together. It's only when we're...

There have been a few times where we've been interviewed on the news and I'm... Literally, it's live. There's no editing this and Christine thinks it's so funny. To draw the most inappropriate things and then just slide them over. And like now, at first I was like, oh I just won't look down because I know what's happening. I'm just not gonna look down and engage. But the way that she slyly moves it over,

that movement alone gets me. And it's always while I'm talking, so I'm like, you know, that's what I like to say about our show and the history of how we've been touring and I just start sliding it over. And like that's what makes you the most crazy is I'm just totally fucking blank staring and talking as if nothing's going on

and suddenly you have to look at this atrocity of creed. I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry. I'm just thinking about it all the time because I know you're doing it, it's so fucking mean too because you're doing it It's mean. I agree You're doing it knowing that by the time I react they're asking me a question

So now I'm totally thrown because they're asking me a question I'm not even hearing it because I'm too busy seeing what's just been what came out of your brain That's okay. I'm like oh I'll take that one. Em's a little nervous today I'll take that one You have done that I'll take that one. Em's a little nervous today. I'll take that one. You have done that. I have taken that one. I'm like, oh, let me answer that for you. It's just like, I know to everybody else,

it's like anyone watching it would be like, wow, Christine's like so kind to like take care of their nervous co-host. And it's like you almost set me up to just not be able to do the news. You're just like, oh, don't worry, you could just be here while I do this. It's like a literal anchorman

where I made the teleprompter a picture of that stick figure. Next time we ever go anywhere, I'm gonna pull a fun prank where I tell the teleprompter people to actually just put that picture up and see what happens. Like, oh, on Em's turn,

Em likes to see this picture before they start talking. It's like a nervous thing. They're gonna put me in the noodle room if they fucking think I like that stuff and like should see it. Oh my God. I feel like I'm the ultimate villain

and it is such a powerful feeling. And no one will ever believe me. That's the sickest part, cause there's no evidence. There's none. Even this admission of evidence won't count, because I'll say, hearsay. It's like declaring bankruptcy. Declaring bankruptcy.

Also, I was in a miniature manic state, so you can't take anything I say truthfully. So who knows? This is literally, I don't know how we can't get through a single story today. This is, I really, this is literally, I don't know how we can't get through a single story today. This is, I really, I keep trying for people who are mad and stop listening. I don't know, just tell you, this is me making an effort. So let's try again.

1864, the Watts have moved and they sold it to John Parkman, who was the future president of the national bank. Right before he became president or Right before he became president, or right after he became president, he was arrested for allegedly embezzling federal deposits like straight out of the bank. Oh, cool. And this caused an uproar in favor of him

because everyone who knew him was like, he literally went to that he's an honest guy, which I don't know how true it was. Yeah, because he's like giving them all the money he's embezzling, you know? Like he's like, loan for you, loan for you which I don't know how true it was. Yeah, because he's giving them all the money he's embezzling. Like he's like, loan for you, loan for you. I don't know how true, I don't know the real story, but people were met, that's all that is important here.

And so his friends who thought he was like innocent and not gonna get a fair trial, they hatch a plan to help him escape jail. Oh! He goes to jail, his friends are like, I don't like what I see, and they hatch a plan to get him escape jail. Oh! He goes to jail, his friends are like, I don't like what I see, and they hatch a plan to get him out of there. They organize a parade

in front of the jail to distract the guards. Genius. My friends would never, my friends would never, you would be like, well, I hope you have fun in there. As your friend, I would never. Yeah. You know what I would do? I would probably throw the parade and then forget why we're throwing the parade and be like, well, I hope you have fun in there. As your friend, I would never. Yeah. You know what I would do? I would probably throw the parade

and then forget why we're throwing the parade and be like, this is so much fun. You would have too much fun at the parade. I wish Em were here. And then I'd be like, oh shit. He'd go, no. But then I'd be distracted again by like a balloon animal or something.

So it's fine. A cat that ran by, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they hatch a plan, my friends could never, and honestly, I don't think I could either. Let's be real. They make this thing to distract the guards. One guard ain't so slick, or wait, is too slick for it,

and he thought, you aren't slick. He spots John trying to escape, but he must have known he was like something's fishy about this random impromptu parade. Uh, what's going on? And then looked around and he saw someone trying to escape. So he chases after John Parkman to the nearby river where a steamboat was apparently waiting for him. That was the second part of the plan. Not only did they plan a parade, they planned a steamboat to pick him up when he ran to the river Imagine a getaway steamboat that feels like so counterproductive because aren't they so fucking slow Also like where are all these type a friends that he's got better like planning so many organizing this fucking thing

So he gets to the water and at this point we don't know what happens that he's got better like planning so many things. Who is organizing this fucking thing? So he gets to the water and at this point, we don't know what happens. We don't know if because the cop and him, if they were in pursuit, did the cop shoot him and he fell into the river? Did he dive into the river? And he was like caught by the current of the steamboat

and like he went under and drowned. Did he, like, we don't know what happened, but at the end of the day, once he got to the river, he got into the water and he died. Oh shit. Okay. Regardless, he passed and his family did not live in the family home for much longer because I guess during the embezzlement allegations,

he ended up losing a bunch of money around the same time. And, or he lost a bunch of money because he was probably embezzling and couldn't recoup. It wasn't his money. Yeah. Yeah. So his family couldn't live in the house for much longer.

They ended up auctioning it. Yikes, it was worth like, in the 60,000s and they auctioned it for 12,000. To a man named Emil Gilman. And the Gilmans lived here for generations. They ended up living here until 1957, and they bought the house in 1870. So almost 100 years.

Wow, that's crazy. So the Gilmans lived here for that long. They ended up selling it, actually making more than anyone else. They sold it for $75,000, which unheard of at the time, I guess. Damn. And it was largely purchased actually by the estate of a man named Robert

Sturtevant, who was a local and he wanted it to be, he wanted, or his foundation wanted this house to become a museum in the town. So his foundation bought the house when it was for sale. It became a museum. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in the 70s. And it is now run by the Sturtevant Museum Association, which is maintained by the city. So the city takes care of the building. It is a top tourist attraction in the area and quote, one of the finest examples of neoclassical architecture in the South. Ooh la la.

And the grounds take up a whole city block. So it's also like a big event space and very pretty and a lot of weddings there, things like that. So here are the ghosts. Like I said, Selma is one of Alabama's oldest and most haunted cities. And so that adds to the fact that this house happens to be in that kind of area. In 1870, when the house was auctioned, John, the one who died in the river, his apparition

began appearing on the grounds. Ooh, he's like, I want my house back. He's like, please don't sell it for that cheap. Please God don't sell it. Oh, Edna, what I want my house back. He's like, please don't sell it for that cheap. Please God don't sell it. Edna, what were you thinking? Sorry, I don't know his wife's name, but it has to be Edna, right? I, it has, yeah.

Yes. No doubt. Allegedly before he died, or no, allegedly before he went to jail and he had been arrested, he swore he would never leave the town until his name was cleared. And I guess because he died and his name was never cleared, the story is that he still haunts this house.

That's like a dangerous threat because like now you have to stick to it, right? I know. He's like, I actually I'd rather leave. And they're like, you promised you'd stick around. Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. Sorry. So sometimes he's seen on the grounds, even wearing formal attire, if there is an event being held. So he has a fucking ghost closet,

and he is sentient enough to know, oh, today is a black tie kind of day. He would never commit the faux pas of wearing khaki shorts to a wedding, you know? In his own home? That's what I would see. They always say they're like, oh, whatever clothing you're wearing,

remember if you die today, that's your ghost clothes. And right now my ghost clothes are me in underwear and a dirty t-shirt. And I- That's probably most of us, to be honest. I do wonder, I'm like, if I died, is that how I... What outfit does my ghost get to go to some like ethereal closet when I die

and I get to pick out the thing or do I get to switch them out? Am I really in the last thing I wore as a human? I don't know what the rules are. If it's that or if it's also like the thing you wore the most, you know, like your uniform or like the thing you were like most. So underwear and a dirty t-shirt.

Yeah, exactly. So honestly, Anne dirty t-shirt. Yeah, exactly. So honestly, Anne, that's been cemented for you. I'm so sorry. God, everyone's gonna see my legs once I go. But here's the thing too. So multiple people in my family have seen my grandfather after he passed. He was an amputee and they all see him with his legs.

So like, did he get to pick the leg or is this like, what happened? I've heard, and I don't know if this is true. In fact, you'll never believe this. Nobody knows if it's true, but I've heard that when somebody passes, oftentimes they come back in a younger form, almost like at their most vital,

like at their, where their vitality was the highest or like their happiest or their most vital, like where their vitality was the highest or like their happiest or their most, I hate to say like iconic time period. So like people will often come back like younger and maybe in their 30s or, and with a lot of times health ailments have been healed. So yeah, that seems to be a pretty common thing. I've heard that a lot of times about amputees,

which is so interesting. Let's test it. And you figure out an outfit I should wear when I go to show up again in. And we'll see if like... I love that that's the test, because then you show up in front of me and you're wearing a dirty t-shirt and underwear.

And I'm like, nope, that's not Em. That's not the outfit we agreed upon. So, sorry and underwear and I'm like, nope, that's not Em. That's not the outfit we agreed upon, so. Sorry. Well, I'm saying if we picked something so ridiculous now, then at least if I'm wearing that thing that would have never even come to my mind alone, then we'll know like, oh, I was able to choose my outfit

to see you, like I got dolled up for you. I understand, okay, yeah. So then if I see you in the underwear, I'll be like, oh, sucks, man. We don't get to pick our outfit. Yes, exactly. But if I'm wearing like a bunny costume or something. No, don't do that.

That would really scare me. Can we do like a feather boa? That feels like less less threatening because I feel like the Donnie Darko vibe is not for me. You know? Okay, perfect. So I'll be in a feather boa. And your underwear.

All right. Pants and a feather boa and pants. And your underwear. Yeah. All right, pants and a feather boa, fine. And a shirt, just so we're all clear. I'll be in full clothes, full clothes, as well as a feather boa, modest is hottest. And that's always when, Em has always said that. I have always had that.

And we'll test it. So now I just have to die first. Great. Okay. Easy. Where are we? Easy. It's not probably not even gonna be that hard. Okay.

So, so he's seen on the grounds in formal attire, apparently at a few fancy functions that were hosted here. People have seen him literally in a top hat and they're probably like, dude, you don't wear that all the time. What are you doing? Were you just kind of a little ghost closet? This is the bride's day. Why are you overshadowing her literally with a giant top hat?

Like put that away. Yes. Yes. He is also felt heaviest in the parlor as well as one of the upstairs bedrooms, which I saw from some sources that it's his bedroom, but other sources said it was his daughter's bedroom. So I don't know.

How much will you just be able to tell by the upholstery sources that it's his bedroom, but other sources said it was his daughter's bedroom. So I don't know what that is. Will you just be able to tell by the upholstery on the furniture, the quilts on the bed, the bedspread? Is it a car-shaped bed? There's a couple ways you could tell. Or is Harry Styles, does he have a bunch of posters on the ceiling? Yeah! Also, because since episode one,

I've never been able to pronounce this, cupola? Oh, don't ask me, because ever since episode one, I've never been able to pronounce this, cupola. Oh, don't ask me, because ever since episode one, I feel like I've lost any confidence in how I say that word. Well, apparently he's seen in that, because of course this building has one. Great. But he likes to stand there and view the grounds, I guess. People have also seen impressions in the beds, as if someone was sitting there and the blankets are all disheveled. Objects will disappear and then reappear.

Pictures on the walls will tilt themselves. Yuck. Women in period clothing wander the garden. Shudders will lock themselves overnight, which can only be... or can unlock themselves overnight, which can only be done inside the house. Oh, that's icky. That feels like someone's been messing with stuff inside, like an actual intruder. I don't like that.

Yeah, I never know. Are the ghosts like, why is this locked? Let me just unlock it so I can look outside. Or is it malevolent and it's like, hey, hey, hey, I want you to know I was here. Or is it just like, or is it a me ghost where I'm just nosy and I'm just like, what's going on over here?

And then I also have ADHD, so I forgot to clean up. Yeah, you forgot to close it again. Or is it like residual or it's like every day they would just open the blinds and sometimes it'll happen on repeat? I don't know. So many reasons for a locked shutter. Beautiful.

Thank you. I'm sure there's a poem about that somewhere. I'll write you a limerick later. Chairs will rock on their own, doors open and close, locked doors apparently have been seen flying open, yikes. Window latches come undone. The alarms will get set off in the middle of the night. Footsteps are heard upstairs.

They always stop at the staircase and then continue towards the bedrooms. People hear children laughing and running around, and, like, in my mind, that I'm like, what children? And basically, there is these two little girl spirits that people see standing by a window, and people assume that they're John's daughters,

but they could also be relatives of the Gilman family because the Gilmans were here for like a hundred years. Oh, right. True. In the same window, people have been pushed, not out of the window, but near the window. And people have also seen a massive cloud of smoke as if a fire had been started in the house. But when the fire department gets there, there's nothing there. Eww. Eww. A mysterious cloud of smoke. I don't like that either. It's all in the same window. Oh, what?

But the little kids that stare out of that window, it has been reported a million times that there are people who will walk by and be like, there's little kids in that window. There's little kids in that window. Or people like have had security go up there and check because they knew it was like closed off for an event and they saw kids up there and thought it was their kids. And they're like, can you go up there and check? Like there's someone's kid is up there. And no one's up there.

That is scary. Why? No. People have seen flashes of light. The caretakers who live on the grounds, they report seeing doors open and shut all the time. They report the alarms going off all the time. They have big temperature changes, so like a really warm room becomes freezing cold. And then there was one time they had an exterminator come out and the exterminator was up by that

one window and he got shoved. And that was the first time that anyone got pushed there. One time the man... It was just like a really tall, it was like a bunch of ants in a trench coat. They were like, they were like, I've seen you.

They warned me about your type. Here's the problem, because if you really do think you're in the middle of an episode, I kind of don't want it to change because you're so fucking on it right now. I'm like, should I write a book real quick? I don't know.

Should I say something fun? Should I make it un-hitch-tick-tock real quick? I don't know. With love in this moment, please don't stop this because you are literally so on fire right now. My therapist will love to hear that. I'm sorry, I'm not getting better actually. Okay.

It's for content. Just say like, it's for my art. It's for my sorry. I'm a tortured artist. Can you tell yeah, so one time Ants in a trench coat is literally so I got everything I've ever said Well, actually no everyone's like no we can think of 400 more dumb things One time the mansion had a painting sitting out, which flew off the easel and dropped by itself, apparently in front of children,

which I love to think that there were just screaming children who witnessed a poltergeist. When strange things do happen, the staff will just apparently say hi to John to give him attention, and then the activity subsides. Oh, he just wants to be acknowledged? I get it. I would totally be thatides. Love that. Oh, he just wants to be acknowledged? I get it. I would totally be that ghost.

I'd be like, hello. No one said hello in a while. They're like getting married. You're wandering around like, hello, anyone? Can I have a little credit here? I built this place. I'm telling you now, Alison's gonna have to hire an exorcist when I go

because every five seconds, I'm still gonna be like, do you love me? Do you love me? And like. You're gonna be like, do you love me? Do you love me? And like, she's gonna be like, oh, we're out of chocolate milk. Oh, are you sure you wanna watch this show? I'll be like, I noticed that you didn't leave an offering for me today.

What's that about? My shrine is a little emptier than usual. The picture that you have of me is dusty. It's almost as if I've been forgotten. Alison would never. I don't like that. I would. She absolutely would. Don't know how to clean, but I feel like Allison's a cleaner person than I am. Let's put it this way. Allison's responsibility in this house is to dust. That woman does not dust. She does not dust. You know what? We split up responsibilities and in the second I said,

okay, Allison, now you do the dusting, she hired a cleaner. What? That's what she did. Yeah, that's the way to do it. That you're like, that's my responsibility. Got it. I will outsource. I will delegate. She went, ew, no, I'm not doing that.

And so, yeah, if I ever die and a picture of me is out, if I'm lucky, I don't know about, I don't know, we'll see. She's gonna hire someone else to dust it. And you know what? That's why I'm gonna haunt her. So. Honestly, I think that's like She's going to hire someone else to dust it. And you know what? That's why I'm going to haunt her. So honestly, I think that's like you should probably hope she doesn't dust it because it feels like she better hope

she does dust it because I'm going to. But it feels like you're ready. You're like, you know, you're like prime to be mad about it. So like, you're just like, I'm ready. The energy is already building in me, and I'm not even on the other side yet. But every night, every night I tuck her in, and the days where she doesn't dust the picture of me

in memoriam, I'll just rip the blankets off. I'll be like, you know what that was for. Get up. Get the Swiffer. Yeah. Or because I can be toxic, I'll just rip the blankets off, even when she has dusted that day, and she'll just have to kind of like wonder, like, what happened that day? What happened?

And you'll just say, you know what you did. And that'll just... Yeah, and she has no idea to kind of like wonder, like what happened that day? What happened? And you'll just say, you know what you did. And that'll just haunt her. Yeah, and she has no idea. That poor girl, she's like, I don't know. There's probably nothing. You just said it to mess with her head, yeah. I just wanted attention, yeah.

I know your little games. You're just like this top hat fella. Hee hee hee, hee hee hee. Yes, I'm the hat man. Okay, so one time the mansion had a painting. It flew off the easel, probably because it wasn't getting dusted. Oh, oh shit, wow, okay.

You're gonna go a little into character here. When strange things do happen, people say hello to make the activity subside. Allison will try this, it will not work. Some people believe that John is haunting the area because he's actually buried in the yard. I did not, I don't know about that. Oh.

Specifically, he's buried in the back, in the Skuppernong Orchard. Pardon? Pardon? Well, fun fact, apparently that's not true. He's actually for sure buried in Live Oak Cemetery. Now back to the Skuppernong shit. So I looked up Scuppernongs.

Apparently they are a type of green grape from North Carolina with a bitter seed inside. Fun fact, there's no such thing as a seedless Scuppernong. They're a big deal in the South. They're actually North Carolina's state fruit. Oh man, I'm so embarrassed I was just there in that state. I had no idea. They make scumpernong wine.

I was gonna ask, that was obviously my next question. And it's like, apparently, I mean, I know people are always very 50-50 on whether or not Virginia is the South, but we are directly next to North Carolina. And I feel like I don't- Which has the word North in its name. I'm just saying.

You are just saying thank you for saying. Oh, my God. Useful. But I've like really not heard of scuppernongs before. And I was going to ask because I was about to be really embarrassed. But if you haven't heard of them either, that makes me feel a little bit better. So apparently, they've been mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird. Apparently it's been mentioned in North Carolina's official state toast,

which fun fact, North Carolina is the only state with an official state toast. Until now, because I am starting a petition. I need that. Well, here is the toast that scuppernongs are mentioned in for North Carolina. Here's to the land of the cotton bloom white where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night. I thought you meant a piece of bread. The toast.

I literally did. I was like, wow, like avocado toast is for California. And I thought they put like scuppernong jam on it. I'm so embarrassed right now. I was like, why are you saying a poem about the toast, you weirdo? Oh my God, I'm so unwell. Okay, I'm so sorry.

It's a toast like, like, cheers. Like a cheers. God damn it, I need help. Okay, sorry. I'm like- Okay, so your state toast would just be crumbs, apparently. Yeah, I'm like, I would eat that weird, toast would just be crumbs apparently. Yeah, I'm like I would eat that weird that weird Oh my god, it's this gross ship. My grandpa used to eat like anchovy fish paste or something, you know

Yuck. No, apparently I think the Christine state toast would be when ants in a trench coat eat it. Oh all away But it's just covered it's half eaten and covered in ants. That's my steak toast. Yeah. I am so sorry. I know I interrupted in the middle of your beautiful eloquent speech. So please, please go ahead. Ding, ding, ding.

Here's to the land of the cotton bloom white where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night where the soft Southern moss and Jessamine mate neath the murmuring pieces of the old North State. Oh, neath the murmuring pines of the old North State. Oh, neath the murmuring pines of the old North State. So, yes, North Carolina is the only one with a state toast. So maybe all... That was beautiful.

Thank you. Maybe all 49 others also thought that, you know, there's state foods, right? So like a state toast, that makes sense. Oh yeah, they're the only one. And then I was like, well, if skopernang is their state fruit, what's everyone else's state fruits?

Yeah. And apparently I just looked up the places we live. California, do you know what our state fruit is? It is very obvious. An orange? An avocado. Oh. Did you forget that avocados are fruit?

No, I just thought maybe that was... I just assumed most of them that make oranges are orange because Florida, you know? But okay, yeah, so the avocado, that makes sense. Do you know what Kentucky is? Kentucky, oh God. A state fruit. A pear? I don't know.

Blackberry. Oh, okay. I don't know. Blackberry. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. And then for fun, I looked up Ohio and Virginia. We have the same state fruit. Shut up, is it a cardinal? Cause that's the same state burger.

I have two. That's actually toast, no I'm just kidding. State fruit of, did you know this about your state before? I did not know this. Um, uh, let me guess, an apple? Well, so I always thought, and this is, Fredericksburg's, uh, my, like, town, our fruit is the pear, and so I just assumed

in all of Virginia it was a pear. And there's like pear trees in both our states. That's what I would have guessed. Or like George Washington chopped down the cherry tree. So maybe the state fruit is cherries. Because it happened in Virginia. Sorry for context. They say that he lived in Virginia.

He chopped down a cherry tree. So I thought maybe cherries were the state fruit. Fun fact though, it was not a cherry tree. It was a pear tree and it was in Fredericksburg. And also it's not true. Take that. Take that. No, it's a pawpaw.

Oh yeah, those stink. Hillbilly mango. It's a hillbilly mango. It looks like mango. Anyway, so those are the four states I'll be mentioning for state fruits. Love that. I think I'm most excited about Kentucky.

I love a blackberry. It's Leona's favorite food right now. So she's really nailing it. Her and I have incredible taste. You both do. She literally eats tomatoes like an apple, just like you. And I'm like, this is disgusting. So get this, apparently Ohio's state fruit is a pawpaw,

but people often confuse it with a tomato. So technically you have two state fruits that people recognize, and it's a tomato. Like they confuse the pawpaw with a tomato, or they just think that it's a tomato? I think it must have changed at some point, and like old school people stick with tomato. I don't totally understand.

I was like, Ohio's embarrassing, but like a tomato looks nothing like a pawpaw. I was like, this is sad. We don't, we need better school lunches is what I'm gonna say. I mean, if they were saying mango, that would make sense. It makes sense, yeah, okay. Anyway, so that's, I don't know how much information

you actually gathered about Sertivant Hall, but that's me talking about it at the end. I thought it was great. I'm sorry that I fucking interrupted 4,000 times, which also is part and parcel when you say, oh, this is a short story. And I go, all righty, here we go. So I do apologize.

No, I like it. So thank you, Em. Wow, I have a story for you today. It's actually, I think, well, I say this now, a bit shorter than usual as well, but again, I can a story for you today. It's actually, I think, well, I say this now, a bit shorter than usual as well, but again, I can't quite promise that. But I will tell you, you know how I did that absolutely, noodles all the way to the top story,

that two-parter recently? This one is also one of the wildest rides. I'm like, is this real life? Like I feel like it's not real life. And it starts kind of slow. So bear with me because there's a lot of backstory, but I also would like you to, if possible, just kind of try and follow gargoyle style.

But if you don't know who's who, there's a Juan and a Jose and sometimes sometimes, like, because the J names, I get mixed up. Well, I'm very good with J names after the Duggars, so we're gonna be okay. Yeah, right, you know, yeah, you're like, those are nothing alike, Christine. Yeah.

So let me know if there's anything you are unclear on, please, because I'm probably making it, I don't know, I don't know. So we're gonna start on on November 7, 2002. 16-year-old Martha Puebla was at home in Sun Valley, Los Angeles when a friend knocked on her window. Martha opened the window and started chatting with her friend, and the friend had been brought there by her boyfriend, Christian Vargas. And Christian Vargas was nearby in his car. He dropped her off, the friend, and waited in the car while they chatted through the window.

Suddenly, both girls heard gunshots and Martha's friend, who was talking to Martha through the window, just like basically, instinctually, I guess, jumped through the window and hid from the gunshots. instinctually, I guess, jumped through the window and hid from the gunshots. Once a few moments passed in silence, they ran outside where they found Christian, the boyfriend, dying of gunshot wounds in his car. The killer had driven away and Christian was unfortunately still conscious.

He asked the girls for help. Seconds later, he passed away. So it seemed to police that Christian was a victim of the Vineland Boys, which is a gang in Los Angeles, notorious for drug trafficking and violence, typically in the San Fernando Valley area of LA. And Martha's friend, when interviewed by police, said, oh, Martha knew who the shooter was.

It was a man named Jose Ledesma. So they go to Martha and they're like, okay, your friend says you saw Jose. And Martha said, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what happened. I only guessed Jose was involved. I didn't actually see anyone because we were hiding. Does that make sense already?

Because I feel like that's already a bit of a convoluted thing. The friend says, oh, she saw who it was. And Martha says, no, no, no, I didn't. I'm just guessing that might be who it is. OK. Yeah. I was being like, oh, well, I'm assuming

he's involved because he knows us and why would this gang shoot at us. So I'm guessing he's involved. Yeah. But then the other person read into it and thought that they were accusing someone. Like, oh, you saw him at the scene. No, I didn't see him. Oh yeah, they witnessed him, yeah.

Yeah. So soon afterward, authorities in Mexico contacted the LAPD because they were responding to a domestic dispute call. So a woman involved in the incident told them that her boyfriend, Jose Ledesma, if you'll recall, from the conversation with police, was laying low in Mexico because he was wanted for murder in LA.

So they extradite Jose to the United States along with his friend, Mario Catalon. So Jose and Mario, they had been in Mexico, kind of hiding out, and the LAPD in the meantime had searched Jose's Los Angeles home. And there they discovered an assault rifle and letters from the violent boys hidden from his family under his mattress.

So they're like, okay, he's our guy. So it doesn't look good. It makes him look very guilty. Yes, yes. And so they need to bring him in. They're hiding out in Mexico. His wife calls, says, you know, after a domestic dispute says he's here, he's hiding out in Mexico. So two detectives, their names are Pinner and Rodriguez of the LAPD. And they believe Jose was the

shooter who killed Christian Vargas. And because he was hiding out with his friend in LA, remember, and they're so close, they also believe Mario Catalan was driving the car during the killing. And that would make him an accessory to the murder. So now we've got Jose and Mario being extradited back to the United States and put on trial for this crime. So during Jose's interrogation, Detective Pinner showed him something called a six-pack. And at first I thought, okay, Detective Pinner, like, yeah, party time showing off. Oh, I meant like lifting your shirt or yeah, or bringing some Miller Highlife.

Who knows? I felt like, oh, cracking one open with the boys to like get him comfy to like admit something to you. Take him. Uh, no, but that would be hilarious if they just start serving beer in the interrogation room. I imagine that that would probably hinder and- Be a problem for sure. Yeah, it may be a problem. But he shows them a six pack, which in this policing world is a sheet that displays six

photos of potential suspects in a criminal case. So it's like what you would see on SVU, like a sheet of pictures, like, do you recognize anyone on this page, you know? So they had six potential suspects in a criminal case and crime witnesses will look at these photos like sort of similar to a police lineup and try to identify who they saw. And Jose's photo, he's the one being interrogated.

So they show him a six pack, a pack of six photos or a sheet of six photos. And Jose's photo is one of these six. Now, the photo of Jose is circled. And underneath it- So priming somebody to think it's him. Well, sort of. Not quite. So someone had circled his picture and someone else had written, this is the guy that shot my friend's boyfriend in quotes, MP Martha Puebla. It seemed that despite claiming she had only speculated Jose's involvement, she had signed on as an official witness for the case claiming she had seen him and she had circled his picture

and said, yes, that's the guy. So she's claiming, no, I didn't actually see him. I just guessed while at the same time signing a confirmation that she saw him for sure. That is what we know so far. So yes, yes, exactly. That is the story that is being told at the point in time where we are in the story. So six months later, Jose and Mario appear in court

at a preliminary hearing for the case. And Mario, who was allegedly driving this car, or at least being accused of driving this car, was an accessory to the murder, allegedly. And he was very nervous and had begged his family to attend the hearing to support him. So his family was in the audience during this preliminary hearing.

And one of his family members was Juan Catalán. When Juan was younger, he had looked up to his older brother Mario, even when Mario started getting involved with what Juan called a bad crowd. So we have two brothers here. Mario's the older brother. I guess he's Mario Jr. because his dad's also Mario. And then Juan is the younger brother. And Juan is at the preliminary hearing in the audience to support his older brother, Mario, who's being tried as an accessory to the murder of this Christian Vargas guy.

Sorry, it's a lot, I know. So when Juan was little, his brother started getting into, you know, all sorts of trouble. He would come home with stolen stereos, car parts, and Juan at first thought like, oh, well he's my older brother, I wanna follow him around, I wanna do what he's doing. But after he was once arrested as a getaway driver,

Juan was like, you know what? I'm never going- Not for me. Not for me, not the life for me. I'm going back home and I do not want to be in jail ever again. Uh-huh, good boy. And once his daughter was born, he was like, I am, he's a very active father.

He's very involved in his daughter's life and very close with her. And he was like, well, I have zero interest in the criminal world because I have a child now and she's everything to me and I have no interest in the criminal world because I have a child now and she's everything to me and I have no interest in being in prison. So he was like, don't go near your uncle Mario. Yeah, exactly.

He's like, I left that world behind, but of course I'll still go to Mario's pretrial hearing just to support, you know? So Juan did not end up following in Mario's footsteps, but he did still love and support his brother and in an interview He said everyone makes mistakes. Just some people make bigger mistakes than others and they're not easily undone So on May 1st 2003 Juan and his girlfriend Alma attended this preliminary hearing in support of Mario Martha Puebla was there too. Okay.

The girl who's saying that he was the one who did it. Precisely. And she, as we've already said, was a witness. So she was questioned on the witness stand. And although she had identified Jose as Christian's shooter on this six pack, on the stand, she seemed a lot less confident and couldn't really implicate him in the crime.

Like really was not confident that, you know, she had seen him, couldn't really give them the answers they were looking for as far as like, tell us you saw him there. And she was like, I don't know, I don't know. So her signing off on it could either be someone pretending to be her who signed off on it or she had to sign it under duress or something.

Wow. It's like you watch SVU every day. Ah. I'm just trying to keep the pieces together in my head of like, okay, she signed something and yet is acting like she wouldn't have signed that. Correct. Correct. So one of those two one of those two things is absolutely right. So Juan at this point, understandably, did not know much about the legal system. He wasn't involved with it and he didn't want to be. So he was just there out of love for his brother Mario. And once he left, he didn't even honestly remember or recall much about the hearing, much less Martha Puebla being on the stand. But what he didn't know is that he and Martha were about to become irrevocably linked. Oh, shit.

So now we fast forward, we're in August of 2003, and Alma is driving Juan to work. It would be an average day. He worked at his dad's machine parts shop, and he arrived, and it was 7.30 AM about when they arrived, and he saw that his dad's machine parts shop and he arrived and it was 7 30 a.m. about when they arrived and he saw that his dad was already there hard at work. Classic dad, probably fucking singing songs to everyone in the morning. Good morning. Don't have feelings. Stop being sad. It's not allowed here. OK. I was not allowed to be sad, so you can't either.

Yeah, passing on generational trauma. Those round and round. OK. Oh, my God, it you can't either. Yeah, that's not the world. Passing on generational trauma. Those round and round. Okay. Oh, my God, it's like you learned that song too. I knew the words. Yeah. You know the lyrics. It's amazing. We all sing the same songs, don't we?

We all speak the same language. Wow. That was beautiful. That was beautiful. Well, we'll have an emotion about it later and defy them all. Will we? Oh, okay. that doesn't sound like fun. So I'll think about it. So they pull up to the shop and Juan gets out of the car, just ready to go into work.

Suddenly, he is rushed by these men. Someone has a gun to his face. He's surrounded. Someone pushes him to the ground face first. He's terrified. Then suddenly he hears radio chatter and he realizes his assailants were in fact the police. And he's totally fucking flabbergasted. He's like, why am I being arrested? And they refuse to tell him anything,

which of course, as we know, as people who watch SVU is a direct violation of the law. You can't just not tell someone why they're being arrested. So Juan's father, poor guy, sticks his head out the door to see what's going on and Juan cries, dad, look at what they're doing to me. The police shout at Mario senior to go back inside and soon Juan was in jail, where by the way,

he said he never wanted to go back to. And he sat there alone for six hours with zero information as to why he was there. Were they like waiting for him to just break or something or like say something that they could use against him or were they just like... I think they just were fully disrespecting him and were like, just sit there, you know.

Yuck, okay. I don't know if there wasn't any clarity on that. My guess is just like toss him in a jail cell till we're ready for him. Eventually he was moved into an interrogation room where detectives Pinner and Rodriguez told Juan he was there because he killed somebody. Oh, oh shit.

Juan said, wait a minute, those are very strong words right there. I did not kill nobody. I would never kill nobody. I'd never do anything to hurt anybody. And the detectives were like, nice try. We don't buy it. They told him, we know you killed Martha Puebla

in retaliation for testifying against Juan's older brother six months ago. Oh shit. Is this the first time he's hearing that she's even dead? Absolutely, yes. Okay. In fact, he barely remembers who she is because she was just a witness.

A random girl at the courthouse that day. Yes, exactly. So on May 12th, now the actual murder of Martha, May 12th, just over a week after the hearing for Christian Vargas' murder, where she was on the stand and unsure of what to say, Martha was on the curb just talking to a friend outside her house, a neighbor. And as they were talking, a Chevy Malibu slowly circled the block several times. And this was around 10.40 PM.

And a man got out of the car, approached Martha and asked her who she was. And by the way, the neighbor is the one who reported witnessing this, which is how we know exactly what happened. Okay. So the man got out of the car, approached Martha, and asked her who she was. She said, I'm Martha. You know me. He said, no, I don't, and shot her in the head.

Oh! What the fuck? And then what of the neighbor? Did you just, like, duck under the window really quickly? Fucking ran for his life. Talk about witnessing a full murder, like up close and personal. Close and personal and so shocking

because she's like, oh yeah, I know you. And he's like, no, you don't. Bam, you know. And so Martha's friend, of course, drops the phone, runs for his fucking life. And he is the only witness of this killing. And so when investigators come and interview him, he helps them create a composite

sketch which prosecutors said bore a striking resemblance to Juan Catalon. Oh shit. So Juan insisted he had absolutely nothing to do with this killing, like didn't even know she was dead or barely remembered who she was. But the detective showed him a six pack in which his photo was circled and the witness had written This is the guy who I saw shoot my neighbor. Oh Damn, there's something going on here. It's someone is as fuck. So hmm, so someone is I'm assuming there's a bad guy. We don't know about yet or do know about who is writing

there's a bad guy we don't know about yet, or do know about, who is writing on these like six packs who they want people to select or like signing off as other people or something? It's almost like a tact, I think it's more of a tactic that they were doing, which is not, I mean, I'm sorry. It feels very illegal in my book that they would circle it and say, see, look, like they would write, I saw this man shoot my neighbor. See? He said he saw you right at the scene. He even signed this paper and it's like, you're faking their signature. But I feel like they do do that in interrogations where they say, you know, we know we have your DNA and like the

lie because you're allowed to do that. Like the'll lie to see if you're like if you'll like get tripped up. Um, but I yeah, but it's very fucking shady. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But so the the like out of body experience he must have of sitting there and seeing his own picture circled and someone saying I saw him shoot my neighbor and he's like wait what the fuck like yeah I have no idea who any of these people are. I would have had, I would have fully, I don't even know what I would have done, because then you think like, oh, someone's actually out there saying this.

It's not like I'm one of multiple suspects. There's someone out there who wants me in jail because they saw, like now they're coming after me. Totally, like someone has pinpointed targeted just me as the suspect here. Yeah, exactly So detectives, of course ask one where he was the night Martha Rose was murdered, but he couldn't quite remember I mean because of course you asked somebody what where were you three Tuesdays ago? You're like, I don't I don't know, you know

Yeah, and he was over. I mean, I don't even know where I am now, let alone like last Tuesday So I don't know what day it is never So he's super overwhelmed by this arrest, this accusation. He didn't know where he was. The murder had occurred six months earlier. So it was like very long ago. He couldn't quite pinpoint what he had been doing that day. But it was Alma who eventually remembered

that Juan was at a Dodgers game on May 12th. Oh, okay. He had purchased tickets for the baseball game from someone who held season passes and the season pass holders weren't gonna be at that game so Juan got a really great deal on the tickets and he invited, he actually admits this in the interview on the documentary I watched, he invited his mom

for Mother's Day knowing that she wouldn't wanna go to a baseball game so that he could have the tickets like he gave them to her as a birthday gift or for a Mother's Day gift. And she was like, oh, thanks, honey. I probably won't go. And he's like, that's okay, I'll go. That's the most, I don't know.

I feel like all of us- Childhood thing. Yes, I feel like all of us have done that at some point but we were also all in high school. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my brother and I got Tim on his first, the first birthday we were like, knew him, SpongeBob floor mats for his car.

And he was like- Oh, I'm sure he was like, thank you. It was horrible. He had to put them in and he's like a car guy. Oh, oh my God. I can't believe my mom let us do that. Anyway, so he invited his mom for Mother's Day to the daughter's game.

She didn't want to go. So instead he brought along his daughter. Now his daughter, as I mentioned earlier, means everything to him. She's about at this point, you know, between four and six years old, depending on like conflicting sources. So he brings his little daughter

who was super excited to go, his cousin Miguel and a friend named Ruben. So Alma tears the house up because she is looking for these tickets, right? She's like, I have to prove they were at that game. So she finds the tickets finally in an envelope. Thank God. Yes, as well as baseball cards that Juan had purchased at the dot at Dodger Stadium that night for his daughter and just to

Clarify folks if you're not from you know, the states or what have you the Dodgers are Los Angeles's Major League baseball team So apparently These baseball cards and the tickets were not enough to prove that Juan was actually at the game Right like a lawyer could say like someone could have just bought them for him Yeah, or like he could have bought the tickets and not gone You know like it doesn't prove he was there it just proves he had the tickets just like how his mom had tickets But didn't go exactly exactly and as for the baseball cards, he apparently had paid cash. So that sucks. Oh, yeah

They didn't have a transaction, you know of that So They also thought like okay. Well, then why don't you interview my daughter? you know, but she's five or six and It's like how you know you any lawyer could say, this is a small child, like someone just told her to say, what we want to hear, you know? And so the testimony from his close friends or his own daughter was not going to do it either.

So Juan needed a really good lawyer. And this part cracks me up. I don't know where I stand on this guy because I don't know him well enough, but he is quite a character in the documentary, which I'll tell you about at the end. So, or I will also link it in case I forget in the show notes, but Juan needed a good lawyer. He had a cousin who happened to work as a filing clerk and his cousin said, Oh, oh my gosh, my boss that I work for as a filing clerk. He's a defense attorney named Todd Melnick. You have to reach out to him.

So Todd meets Juan and he explains the interaction as far as Todd does, I mean. And he essentially has this gut feeling at the end, like Juan did not do this. He's like, you know, he's been a criminal defense attorney for so long. And he's like, I met with him, I'm confident he did not kill this person.

And obviously he's in a terrible spot because they're pretty convinced it's him. So after speaking with Juan, Todd felt he already knew that murder would be completely out of character for Juan. He's like, I have spoken to him, his family, there is no way, he's like, I know I've him, his family. There is no way, he's like, I know I've know plenty of criminals.

There is no way this guy did it. So now his, what do you call it? His obstacle is that he has to prove that Juan was at the game the night Martha was killed. And if he could prove he was there and couldn't have killed Martha, then he could have the entire case thrown out. Sure.

But obviously, that's easier said than done. And this is, again, you know, the early 2000s. And it doesn't, to me, sound that long ago, but it was over 20 years ago, which is the wildest thing in my mind. Insane to me, because 2003 feels like five years ago. Feels like yesterday, when people show, like, oh, like, outfits from 2003, I'm like, big whoop.

And then I'm like, ah, who are those people? Oh shit, that's me and my bell bottoms, oops. I was on Reddit yesterday and one of the top questions was what were the 1900s like? What were the 1990s like? Sorry, that's embarrassing. I was born in the 2000s, what was it like before the year 2000?

I'm not gonna answer you because that's about what it was like. You couldn't just fucking go on Reddit and find out. That was the first question. It was like you just had to naturally be okay with just wandering. You were just like, you would just be like, I wonder how that goes this way or who started this. And then you would just carry on with your day. And then maybe one day you'd find out.

But the worst part is when two people disagree about something and there's no way to check. And if you're sure you're right, they're sure they're right. Well, that's the end, you know, until you get an encyclopedia, like come on. Isn't it wild that friendships definitely ended over disagreements?

I could have just been Googled. Well, I remember you remember that tick tock that like one of the only ones that went viral on the beach to Sandy account is the story of my my recovered memory of being at a hard rock cafe in Niagara Falls with my friend Alyssa. And we started arguing about hamburger prices in the eighteen hundreds. And we got so it got so heated that we started arguing about hamburger prices in the 1800s. And we got so, it got so heated that we started shouting and my mom called me a bitch. And that whole day lives like in my mind forever.

And I'm like, man, we had so many of those stupid arguments. I'm shocked that that did not end our friendship. But anyway, now you could just be like, how much was... Now there's calculators! How much was a hamburger in 1985? Let's find out. I mean, there were grown men who had literal duels over dumber things.

So, I can't imagine, like, how, like, if we always had Google, how many more people would be alive or friends or have certain relationships just because a conversation could have been solved by the end. A disturbingly creepy thought. Forget about it. I mean, and then bring in Ask Jeeves,

and it's all out the window, so... Look, Jeeves was never there for me. He never seemed to know what the fuck was going on. He was supposed to be the smartest man in the world. Neither did that fucking paperclip. I'm like, what kind of fucking wisdom are you giving me? You tell me how to change the font size. Yeah, I figured that out, bucko.

Yeah, Ask Jeeves never was helpful to me. What was the other one? It wasn't Yahoo. Ask Yahoo, it was Bing. Cha Cha. Cha Cha, I love Cha Cha. Cha Cha was specifically college. Anyway, keep on.

I used it in high school, but I'm a year older than you. So Wow. Okay. So anyway, this attorney is like, you know what? I'm going to take on this case and I'm going to prove he was at that fucking baseball game. So he could not have killed Martha. So the first thing Todd does is he contacts Sam Fernandez, who's the senior vice president and general counsel for the Dodgers.

He's basically the head attorney for the entire Dodgers. That's great. The connections. Yeah. So he's like, listen, I know this guy. I've got this guy's number. So I'm calling Sam. So Sam's like, all right, come on by. He invites Todd to the stadium. And Todd is like, yeah, I got to walk around the stadium. It was so cool. Stadium tour. Yeah. I had to walk around the stadium. It was so cool. Stadium tour. Yeah. So he gets to tour the stadium, not really, but sort of, and they walk to the seats where Juan sat during the May 12th game.

Then Sam provided Todd with in-house footage that the stadium staff had shot throughout the whole stadium on the night of that game. Oh, great. So it proved that Juan was there. Not quite. So Todd spent hours, hours painstakingly reviewing the footage, like he was going frame by frame. Hey, I know what that life was like. Yeah, you do, but you're looking for ghosts. You're not trying to get someone off of murder charges, but I would argue equal importance.

Equal importance and also, but not equal toughness, because if you were trying to find Juan in the pitch black, he would not do a very good job. You know what? Yeah, he had it easy, is what I say. So he painstakingly went through the footage and he eventually did find Juan in some of the shots sitting in his seat. But it's fucking 2004 or whatever 2003. It's pixelated and shit. So pixelated and they try to, fucking 2004 or whatever, 2003. It's all pixelated and shit.

It's so pixelated and they try to, you know, enhance, enhance. Okay, that doesn't do anything. That's just TV. I learned that the hard way. And so they try, the resolution's just way too low to actually prove that it was Juan in the shot. So Todd went over that night with Juan again and again. He was like, tell me again and again and again,

every single thing you did. Did you eat a peanut? Did you scratch your head? Like literally anything. And he is just racking his brain. And he does have a very, very clear memory of the game. He can describe the innings and the plays. He was like very, very into baseball.

He said he had gone to hundreds and hundreds of games. So like he knew that game in particular because he went with his daughter, you know, it was kind of a special outing for them. So he remembered the whole game. But again, that would not have proven anything. Like he could have either looked that up or watched on TV, you know.

He could have asked Jeeves, I guess, what the score was that day. So Todd asked Juan, okay, anything else? Do you remember anything unique about the game? Oh my God, my stomach just like flipped. This part is, and this is one of those stories where I keep checking if I'm in a lucid dream because it sounds like something my dumb brain would invent.

I know, check. Lucid dream check. Oh, that's a fun little idea, everybody. Lucid dream check, try to put your finger through your hand. If it goes through, you're probably dreaming. Oh, what if someone's asleep and they're listening to our podcast and I just allowed them to actually have a lucid dream?

Wouldn't that be cool? Did we tap into the main frame? Am I Leonardo DiCaprio? Please? Okay, so Todd asked Juan if he remembered anything unique about the game. And Juan said, yeah, there was this one thing. It was really odd.

There seemed to be a film crew present that day. So more footage we could look through? Correct. He goes, yeah, I took my daughter to the concession stand because she wanted candy. So he goes, takes her to get candy. And on the way back to his seat, someone with the production crew stopped him and said, just wait a moment, we're filming.

You know, I mean, we've lived in LA, you live in LA. There's just sometimes, sometimes you are no longer a normal, you're relegated to like second class citizen because yeah there's a movie set happening. You're now an extra, you didn't even know it. Yeah your house is not your house anymore it's like the setting of a gruesome murder you didn't even know that that was allowed but here we are. So anyway yeah somebody stops him on the way back to their seats it's like a PA you know with

the crew and then the guy kind of just pauses and says, Oh, you know what, just go ahead. I don't know. He, it doesn't, not clear if it's cause he had a little girl, not clear if like, Oh, it's fine. We can have some people walking through the shots. What have you essentially says, all right, you can go ahead. Go back to your seats. So Juan said in all of his years, and again, he has said he's been to

hundreds of Dodgers games, all of his many years attending games at that stadium. He had never seen a film crew there, never seen a film crew. So he thought this was just particularly memorable. It was very brief, but he was like, yeah, on my way back, there was this strange thing going on, but they let me through. So Todd spoke with Sam Fernandez again,

the lawyer for the Dodgers and said can you check with the media coordinator? What were you filming? What were you filming that time? So they're looking through the calendar and they're going May 10th. Nothing may limit nothing may 12th, which is the date of Martha's murder they are filming a Show for HBO. And that's what it says. So they said, oh, yep, HBO actually was filming that day, May 12th, 2003.

And Todd is like, cool, yes, I'm calling HBO. He calls HBO and a producer picks up. Todd explains the situation. The producer didn't quite seem to grasp the gravity of the situation, you know, hindsight is 2020. And he said, oh, we don't release, you know, pre-aired footage, but like, you can wait for the show to come out and see it then.

Oh my God, that's the most LA sentence I've ever heard. Again, like everyone's suddenly a second class citizen, even the attorney trying to get someone off of a murder trial. Like, come on. And Todd is like, I don't know if I really clarified just how important this is. So let me explain it one more time.

So he insists and the producer's like, fine. You can, I'll check with my higher up. My higher up's name is Larry David. He is the... Actual Larry David? Creator and star of a little show called Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was filming on May 12th, 2003 at Dodger Stadium.

Oh my God. Okay, so now there's an episode somewhere in Curb Your Enthusiasm where we know while they were filming, there was somebody else in the audience who was about to be on trial for murder. Correct. Wow. Incredible.

Do we know what episode? Oh, we know everything. Don't even worry. I knew it right away, because I was like, oh my God, I've seen that episode four times. I was like, that's just so trippy. Because I was like,

oh, I remember watching it and going, how did they film at Dodger Stadium? Like this is, but which apparently was a big ask. Like Larry David wanted it to be at Dodger Stadium. And his producers were like, we can't fill a stadium. Like, how are we going to do this? And they were like, well, how about we film

during a real game? So they just happened to pick May 12th. Like they just happened to, out of the whole effing calendar, that one episode where they go to Dodger Stadium was that day. It just feels like some sort of divine intervention. You know? So, Larry...

Like, Carbure Enthusiasm, because of that random day, got a man off of murder. Oh, and you should hear Larry David talk about it. I took a bunch of photos on my screen because you can't screenshot Netflix and stuff. And the photos with subtitles of Larry David being like, like, what was I doing there? Just like the most sitcom-y, like how did this happen to me?

This would happen in a TV show. It just feels... Wow. So they brought, of course, the producers bring it up to Larry David and he hears the story and it's like, truth is stranger than fiction almost. And he's like, well, yeah, I guess let's help, you know, uh, get this guy, get this guy pardoned or freed from, from jail. So he decides to help. He invites Todd, Larry David invites Todd, the lawyer to the studio.

By the way, this guy's having the Hollywood tour of, of his life. A lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. Of a lifetime. So he goes to the studio in Santa Monica and they're like, well, I guess producers are like, we, I guess producers are like, we'll just play through the footage.

Obviously, there's a lot more footage than what they used in that they were going to just use in the episode, but they had all of the footage they had filmed that day. So they say, hey, we're going to scrub through and you know, you tell us if you see anything you're looking for. All right. So the episode that had been shooting that day was an episode of season four called Carpool Lane. In the episode, Larry David's character is stuck in traffic on his way to Dodger Stadium. And when he sees that traffic is only moving in the carpool lane, he decides to pick up a sex worker on the corner,

who's played by actress Kim Whitley, and have her hop in the car so they can, you know, use the carpool lane to get to the game. Yeah. I mean, I know Ellen DeGeneres had a joke about like a blow up sex doll strapped into the passenger. I feel like it's a very classic LA joke, right? The carpool lane. So rather than fill a baseball stadium

with tens of thousands of extras, as we just said, Larry got permission to shoot during this real game. And his crew used a camera with an extremely long scope to film the actors from a distance. So people in the crowd didn't even know there was a camera. Like it was so far away. And so the crew that was, you know, stopping him from walking down was basically there, you know, on walkies, I assume, with and saying like, Oh, they're shooting right now. Okay, now you can go, you know, it wasn't like there were cameras there. He, okay, that were filming up close, right? It was like, Oh, someone is filming this particular section. So just,

just wait a minute. And then when the guy thought when the PA said, okay, they must I'm sure they're done by now Go ahead, you know Mm-hmm. So It was their goal to be as subtle as possible with this angle Because the crew was instructed not to fear with anyone in the crowd who had paid to attend the game They were like we don't want you messing with actual Dodgers fans. They've paid to be here like don't make a scene You know, you're Larry David. I imagine they said, you're Larry David, so you can do this,

but like, don't fuck it up, you know? Yeah, truly. So in the show, Larry's character ends up in seats that he doesn't like really far away from the field. And weirdly enough, these seats that he had picked or that were being filmed for the first part of the show were not anywhere near where Juan was sitting. And so it was unlikely as they're scrubbing through footage of Larry David, like up in the nosebleeds essentially,

that they would see Juan anywhere. But in the episode, Larry's character spots someone he knows sitting in much better seats, much closer to the field. And so in the show, he walks down to ask his friend if he can join him. This interaction between the two of them takes place just a couple aisles away from Juan's seats. So the camera is rolling and a crew member stopped Juan

on his way back from the concessions, but then kind of on a whim, just let him walk through with his daughter, right? It is in that exact moment, in that exact moment, Juan and his daughter walk straight into the shot. So they're on TV? Like they're in the episode? Well, no, this is all pre-episode.

So this is just like... Oh, like they're in the raw footage of it. They're in the raw footage of the episode, yes. That's so wow very Kismet yeah, and you know the PA He was interviewed and he's by the way the most mesmerizing eyes. I've ever blue eyes. I've ever seen I was like Whoa, whoa, what do you do with those? I'm afraid He talked about he talked about the experience. He's like, yeah, I couldn't tell you why I let them through.

I was supposed to stop. And then he's like, you know, instead of saying like, it was fate or he just had a gut feeling, he literally goes, I think I was just a shitty PA. You know, good for you. Good for you. I was like, wow, how relatable is that? Yeah, it's not fate.

I just didn't do my job very well. And I wasn't listening to my walkie and I assumed they had finished filming, but they it's not fate. I just didn't do my job very well and I wasn't listening to my walkie and I assumed they had finished filming, but they hadn't finished filming. So he was not supposed to let them walk down, but you can see in the shot, they're filming like Larry David's talking to his friend and all of a sudden like this man

and his daughter just walk in. Wow. Down the, it's- Oh my God. The wildest shit you ever did see. And so they're on film, there, front and center, in high definition, no less, walking back to their seats. And when Todd saw it, he apparently leaped out of his chair. He's shouting in celebration.

And fun fact, Larry David had not been there for this whole session, but he said, "'Oh yeah, just about, like for the last hour, "'I popped in just to like see, you know, "'what was going on.' "'And that's when they found they found that so Larry David actually got to witness it happen, which is pretty cool Wow, okay cool. So now they have proof that Juan was telling the truth He was at the baseball game the night Martha was murdered however, there's still a little bit of a problem because all of this footage of course has time codes on it and

The footage was filmed more than an hour before the shooting. And so technically, they could- Jesus Christ. I know, it's like every little thing is going wrong. They find the footage not enough. They find footage not enough. You literally have Larry David,

the cast of Curb Your Enthusiasm, HBO, and the LA Dodgers all trying to help this guy out. And it's still one hour off, so technically it's not good enough. Exactly. They're like, they're not going to throw this out because there's still a possibility that he did this. So, worse, Martha happened to live on the same street

as Juan's cousin Miguel, who went to the game with him and whom Juan dropped off after the game. So they could also argue, oh, they left early. And while he was dropping off Miguel in that same neighborhood, like same street. And in LA, that's a big deal, right? Like you're just on the same street. What are the odds that the night she was killed, you happened to drop someone off on her street?

It's a bad look. So in an interview, the prosecutor on the case said the fact that Juan was at the game meant nothing to her. First of all, she is a lot of words that I will not say. She gets interviewed too. She sounds like a pain in my ass. So she believed there was no question Juan killed Martha. And when they said, well, why?

There's not even a clear witness statement. She's like, because the composite sketch looks just like him. Okay, dare I ask? We'll get there. Okay. I know what you're asking, but we'll get there. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. She was nicknamed the sniper. Oh, that was her nickname. Isn't that fun? She give it to herself? Oh God. I don't know if that's better or worse. I think it's probably better because then at least

you're not known as that. You just want to be known as that. You know what I mean? Yuck. I don't know. So she was known as a sniper because she had never lost a murder trial in her whole career and she often imposed the death penalty.

So I think it was more a matter of she was dead set because her track record was not gonna be marred by this one little hitch, you know, in her, in their defense, or in her, I guess in her prosecution. So if Juan went to trial, they now know he would absolutely face the death penalty. That's what she was going for.

So Todd was like, absolutely not. Now he's more convinced than ever that Todd is innocent and he just needs to find a way to really, really prove it. So he remembered that the police had used, so he's like, he just casually drops this. He goes, well, when I was on the OJ Simpson case, which is very silly. Yeah, it's the most also LA thing to ever say. Just casually, I was involved in that whole.

You know, when when Robert Kardashian and I were getting dinner before the OJ, what? Yeah, totally off the record, you know, but you can put this in your documentary, I guess, if you want. So he had been some sort of part of the O.J. Simpson case, or at least tangentially related to it somehow. And he remembered that during that case, police had used cell phone signals to locate O.J. Simpson when he was a fugitive several years prior.

So when someone places a call on a cell phone, you know, they're often linked to the nearest cell tower. And that's how you can often triangulate somebody or find out the general vicinity they're in. So Todd pursued the data to pinpoint the phone calls Juan made that night. At 1012pm on May 12 2003, Juan called Alma, his girlfriend, to let her know he was leaving the game a little early because the Dodgers were losing and he didn't think it was going to get much better.

Tower data showed that the call was made within a mile of the stadium and Martha lived 20 miles away. So there is no way he could have gotten from within a mile radius of the stadium to Martha's home in that time. Isn't it funny how they could have just done that and not contacted HBO or the Dodgers or anyone and they could have just checked the cell towers? That is?

Oh my God, I never thought of that. If I were the lawyer, I'd be like, why didn't we just do that? That would have literally saved me so much time. Yeah, but think about all the cool people you met. But the fun story came from it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you fucking met Larry Davy. That's pretty cool. Okay. So the preliminary hearing for Juan's case began and now the judge had to decide whether this would go in front of a jury at all. So day after day, Juan sat through hearings, listening to like legal jargon, technicalities, people arguing. He didn't even understand what the hell they were saying. And the worst part for him was his young daughter took the stand.

And it- Oh my God, that's so sad. This footage like, I mean, tore my heart. It was- Is she just like crying and saying, don't take my daddy or something miserable? What? Nope, she's sitting there. She's just saying, we got ice cream, I had chocolate, and...

the camera pans, and he is... weeping, like shaking and weeping. And just like so... he looks... so worried and sad. Like he's just watching his daughter say, like, we got chocolate ice cream. And she's like, you know, standing there, sitting on someone's lap and he is just like weeping.

And it's just this horrible. Cause I mean, knowing he didn't do anything and he was at that game and he was buying her ice cream. And now she has to retail it all. And this is all very traumatizing for her and she doesn't understand. So he's just sitting there just like tears streaming down his face.

It's horrible to watch. And so, you know, she gives her her testimony and the judge, first of all, is so funny because she's also interviewed in this documentary and she's like, I didn't know what the hell anyone was talking about. She was like, I didn't know what was going on. Everyone's like saying these different version of events.

So talking TV footage and timestamps. And she says, you know what? I'm taking home the audio tapes from Juan's initial interrogation. I want to take them home and I want to be able to listen to them over and over and over again, as many times as I want to or need to. Just rewind, listen, rewind and listen. And so she took those tapes home and she said this case for whatever reason really anguished her, especially because Martha's family was in attendance, right? So

they're thinking this is the guy who killed our daughter. So she's in a very, you know, scary position where she has to decide like, is this man being wrongfully charged or am I about to let this family's, you know, murdered daughter's killer walk off scot-free? So she's in a very, you know, tough position, and she decides to take home these audio tapes. And she listened to the interrogation tapes and asked herself, is this the voice of a guilty man? And of course she couldn't know that,

but she didn't feel like it was. And she listened to the tapes over and over and over again. And she even played the tapes over and over and over again. And she even played the tapes for her own children and said, hey, do you think this man sounds guilty? Which by the way, I don't know how old the kids were, but what a weird household to live in if they were like 10.

Yeah. So ultimately, Juan's defense was strong. And meanwhile, the prosecution had nearly no evidence against Juan. Remember they literally just have like, oh he happened, his friend happens to live on the street or his cousin and we have this composite sketch. That's it. They don't have any evidence putting him at Martha's house and they were kind of SOL. They did insist that their witness was extremely credible, but the judge said, I don't have any doubt the eyewitness attempted to be credible,

which I love. Oh, God. But he observed this murder on a darkened residential street under obviously the most traumatic of circumstances. So she's basically saying, he might be a reliable witness or he might think he's a reliable witness, but we can't say for certain that he is

because he just witnessed the most traumatizing thing of his life and it was dark and he ran away. But it's not convincing. So Juan at this point is like, I don't know what, it feels like three stooges in here or whatever one of these old shows is. He's like, I had no idea what was happening. I had no clue what anyone was talking about.

Like they're going on and she's saying all this stuff and she, the judge reads this like really long winded statement and Juan's like, is it good? Is it bad? I can't even tell. Yeah, like legal jargon terrifies me. Like just, just like spit it out. Like say the end, you know, like say.

Am I good or am I bad? Like am I the good guy or the bad guy? Tell me. Thumbs up, thumbs down, please. Just tell me what's going on. Yeah, fireworks or rain. Oh, or rainstorm. Or is it my computer where literally nothing happens? Probably that.

So Todd, his lawyer leans over and whispers, it's over in like a good way Okay So the judge decided that a single witness testimony was not enough to bring this case to trial It was not enough to charge one with this murder and she dismissed the case. It would not go to trial and Juan was free Okay, so this part also got to my heart on camera. He walks out of the courthouse, his daughter's there, and she's almost like, oh my God, I don't know why it makes me so sad. She's like almost scared to go up to him, you know? It's been a while and she's so little and like,

there's cameras. She doesn't know. She's confused probably and her mom says, go hug your daddy, go hug your daddy. And she's kind of like slowly, timidly going toward him. And then he holds her, he's sobbing and she starts to cry. It just is one of those moments where you're like, and it's real, you know, and it's like,

oh God, no TV show could ever fake this. Like, this is heart wrenching. So he goes and hugs his daughter. He then, which is also on camera, grabs his lawyer, Todd, and like lifts him off his feet and kind of spins around. Like he's just so excited. Yeah, it's really, really cute.

And he said, I owe you dude. And Todd said, it's all right. And Alma said, no, you owe him your life. Uh huh, yeah. So Todd then left so that Juan could, you know, celebrate with his family. And he later said, it seemed as if Todd had just walked off nobly into the sunset as he should you know you just

Turn around said have a nice life. He did it. He tipped his hat and went See you partner and just kind of see you apart. Yeah, I just kind of walked off I mean Sunset Boulevard close enough, you know Sunset. I'm sure it was something like that so Juan won his freedom, but unfortunately, that wasn't quite the happy ending with a bow that it should have been because a lawsuit he filed against the city of Los Angeles in the LAPD revealed shocking negligence because, get this, the six pack of photos they showed Juan in which his photo was circled was faked. in which his photo was circled was faked. Mm-hmm. Okay.

And the detectives circled Juan's photo themselves and then forged the alleged witness statement to frighten Juan into confessing. And as you said, you know, it's shady. It is technically legal, which is what I was kind of guessing just based on the fact that I know you can lie to a suspect,

you know? So it was technically legal, but apparently it was considered extremely unethical. So it was just a really bad look. And what was worse is, you guessed it, they had done the same thing when they interrogated Jose Ledesma for the murder of Christian Vargas. So as Em called right off the top, they, somebody in there had a grand old idea and just wanted to keep using it. Circle a photo and fake a signature. I do wonder if it was racially motivated, only because the two people that that happened to

both had names like Jose and Juan. Alright, so I'm assuming was there, I'm assuming they looked to the part in some way. Do we know if that had any play? It absolutely had some say in the fact that the composite sketch was, you know, clearly a 30 something Hispanic male, but, and it did look like him, right? Like he admits that himself, like, yeah, sure. It looks like me, but it could have been a number

or like an amalgamation of guys his age, you know? So that definitely played a part and they do discuss that as well. I don't know if this is something that, you know, they get into, uh, as far as the actual negligence of detectives, but we can probably all guess that like, yeah, it's been discussed and it's probably not cute, you know? So I will get into a little more detail. So maybe, maybe we'll have some clarity on that.

But essentially the detectives had just been forging these statements. I bet what happened is the first time he did it, he was like, oh, that was easy. And the guy did do it and now he's in jail. So let's try it again, you know, except with the second one, Juan was not actually guilty. So it ended up coming out. And it makes me mad because I feel like that guy probably didn't even feel bad about it. Like, oh, well, it worked once and it didn't work another time,

so I guess it's still a tactic. Yeah, and I think, I mean, clearly he thought he was guilty. Like, he was like, oh, this will just convince him to confess. But if I were Martha and somebody had faked my signature, I'd be pissed because I'd be like, well, what if that's not the guy, you know? Like I myself said, I wasn't sure whether or not I had seen him.

So why are you putting my initials on it? Oh, yeah, good point. It's just so fucking shady. So it turned out Martha had never named Jose or agreed to be a witness, but they told Jose, yeah, see, she signed it right here. I mean, that's so fucked up. I'm sorry, even if it's technically legal. So detectives Pinner and Rodriguez had sat down with a gang member and implicated a 16 year old girl as

a witness who would speak against him is the summation of it. And it was a complete fabrication. And Jose believed it and made a phone call from jail to a friend and in the call he said, oh boy, he said, do you know the slut that lives there by my house? Her name starts with an M. I need her to disappear. She is dropping dimes, but keep a low profile. Stay on your toes, homie, and don't get caught. Well, that'll do it. The phone call was even recorded, but the detectives hadn't listened to it for months, and if they had, they might have been able to save Martha's life. And so, essentially, Martha was killed because they faked her signature on a piece of paper

after she had clearly said, I don't implicate anyone. I didn't see anyone. And so she looked like a snitch and she got taken out 100% and because somebody else wanted to use a very bad tactic. So then how is that not like some sort of like man slaughter or I guess, cause it's legal. It's like not, you can't be charged with it. I'm hoping.

I mean, even in the documentary, they said like, you know, policing, it doesn't sound long ago, but it was decades ago now. And it's like, I'm sure now with the amount of technology that's tracking everything, it probably is trickier to pull something like that off. Trust me, I'm not saying, oh, it doesn't happen. Like nothing shady happens. But, you know, I bet it's, I bet it's, I bet it was easier back then to get away with it. Cause you know, nobody's like tracking digitally everything you're doing and that sort of thing.

Yeah. So it's just horrifying to think like, if they just hadn't done that, hadn't signed her name, hadn't written a fake quote, she might be alive. And then the dominoes of Juan getting arrested, that never would have happened. It's just really, really shocking. And again, detectives didn't listen

to the phone call for months. And even if they hadn't been able to save her life, they may have at least known that Juan wasn't her killer because they would have had Jose being like, hey, go kill Martha on the phone. But they never fucking listened to it. So they're like, no, it was Jose. It's like they got in their one track mind

and then refused to change their mind. This is why you look at all footage always. I know, Em's like, these fucking, Todd is over here watching every fucking frame of a Larry David show. I mean, not that I haven't done it myself, but you know what I mean. And Em's over here staring into the void

and losing their sanity. I'm staring at the black for 300 hours. You can do it. You can look up a phone call. You can listen to one fucking phone call, you know, that's threatening the life of a young woman. It's just, to me, so infuriating. It's infuriating. And that's why I said, like, the racial stuff, listen, I don't think there was ever anything

like that they got down to. Specific. Yeah, specifics. And I definitely don't feel equipped to comment on that because I don't know. I just don't know that part of the story. Um, but I think everyone knows in general how I feel about things. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Um, and yeah, so they, they hadn't listened to the phone call. So Martha was killed.

They thought it was Juan and in a lawsuit against the city, the city's attorney claimed that Martha and her family were offered witness protection and relocation services. But when they talked to that was like their defense, the city was like, no, we offered them like witness protection. And the Pueblas, which obviously Martha's family insisted they were never offered witness protection or security or relocation. Really? Yeah, never, never happened. They're, they're like, they're full of shit. We never got offered that.

According to them, they didn't even know the detectives had involved Martha in the case or implicated her involvement to Jose. They never even told Martha, hey, by the way, we told Jose that you ratted him out, you know, just didn't say anything, didn't tell her, didn't tell her family. And so they had no clue that she was actually in serious danger. And on top of that, they never even got offered witness protection.

So even if they did, that wasn't on the radar. It's so infuriating. This fucking young girl gets killed. The whole thing. It's outrageous. And the absolutely, the no accountability, no responsibility, no consequences. Certainly not.

The city then went on to argue that Martha revealed information about gang affiliation in her testimony at the preliminary hearing, which is what got her killed. Now this is where we get into the more racist stuff, right? Oh, she's in a gang. So by the way, like, fuck you, whatever. You put her on the stand. She wasn't even going to be on the stand. You forced her on the stand and then- Yeah, she can't hurt herself.

Exactly, you tried to make her say things that she didn't even say. You're the ones lying, you know, under oath, not her. And then you're like, oh, well, she said something about a gang, so like probably that's why she was killed. It's not our fault. It's so gross. And so in the end, the jurors ruled that Martha

and her parents were 80% responsible for her death. Uh-huh. What, they said that specifically? Yep. And yeah, it's, yep. Wow. Yeah. Jurors ruled that Martha and her parents

were 80% responsible for her death, for her testimony and allegedly turning down this mystery protection While the detectives were only 20% at fault, which is the wildest thing I ever heard It sounds like something out of the Middle Ages like what do you mean? That sounds like something a cop would say today of like well, I'm only 20% responsible. What? Right What are you talking about? responsible. What are you talking about? 20, 80% of the time I'm good. 100% of the time. 80% of the time is absolutely the victim's fault. For sure. Yeah.

For sure. For sure. For sure. And we stand by, we've always said that. And I've always said that. That might be the first time I mean that, but. Yeah. I know. Anyway, Martha's family, uh, as a result received no compensation. Their daughter was murdered. You know, all this trauma and just nothing. So Juan, on the other hand, settled with the city and the LAPD for $320,000. And it was ruled that he was unjustly confined in... By the way, they put him in Max and they put him in like high offender Max.

Like whatever they call it. High... Super Max. Super Max. So he was in like high offender max, like whatever they call it. High, super max, super max. He was super, so he was in like super danger. Correct, he said it was just so deeply traumatizing. And remember this guy has not been any sort of affiliation with- He actively avoids crime and like- Actively. And I'm not saying, yeah, whatever,

but like he actively was like, I'm never going to jail again and I'll make sure of it. And then the universe was like, actually, we have supermax. Yeah. How does that sound? I hear what you're saying, but yeah, I hear you. You're valid, but you're going to supermax. But thank you so much for sharing. It means a lot. So it was ruled. He unjustly confined in maximum security prison for six months while he awaited trial and six months in like a little four or five year olds eyes like imagine and then Oh my god your dad's gone.

She's had to sit on stand and say things I mean it's so fucked and seeing him crying while you're talking you don't get it and then he comes out and there's cameras and just the overwhelm. Like I can't even imagine that sweet little child, but thank God things turned out, you know. So anyway, Detective Martin Pinner was removed from working homicide cases and his partner was transferred to auto fraud detail. And the reason I haven't said his name is because it's also Juan, it's Juan Rodriguez. So I was like, let's not bring his first name into this because if there's another Juan, I'm going to get so confused. But yeah, essentially, Martin Pinner and Juan Rodriguez both got kind of booted.

They got exiled from homicide, which I imagine is like a tough goal to swallow. Yeah, when you're in that line of work. The fact that they specified that Juan Rodriguez was transferred to auto fraud makes me laugh so much. It's like, not just fraud, auto fraud. Yeah, it's only really niche fraud, you know? Yeah. So the FBI pursued Martha's murder case and they did

ultimately convict four men for involvement in the killing all with gang affiliation and 30 year old Paul Robledo was sentenced to life in prison without parole for shooting and killing Martha and as you can imagine Juan probably has quite a few bad dreams I imagine or, or a bit of anxiety, but he, thank God, was able to go home and be with his family. And Larry David did, if you own the DVD box set, there are extras that you can watch where he actually talks about this whole thing

and what it was like to help in a murder trial. That's pretty cool. I know. And I took some photos. I'm going to see which, we probably can't even share them because they're from Netflix and I feel like something bad might happen. But it was the carpool lane episode, season four. It sure was.

And let's see, some of the pictures, oh, and I had, near the end of it, I paused and I took my sleep gummy and I went and I brushed my teeth and like got ready for bed. And then when I came back and I restarted the episode, I was starting to get a little like, sleepy, a little fuzzy and a little fun. And I started taking pictures

because I was like, whoa, that's deep. And so I started taking pictures of like quotes people were saying on TV. And I was like, because I was like whoa that's deep and so I started taking pictures of like quotes people were saying On TV, and I was now. I'm like oh my god. Why am I such a dork? But one of the lines was like so jarring. I don't know I don't know what it was but the the attorney for the Dodgers by the way he like he's so scary look at him here He is He's like ah like you don't fuck around with this guy You know and he's just staring straight in the camera the whole interview and like woof He's like, you don't fuck around with this guy, you know? No.

And he's just staring straight in the camera the whole interview and like woof, he's a character. Oh, but here's Larry David saying, he's like, what am I gonna do with it? Cause they asked him like, what are you gonna do with this whole story? He goes, maybe I'll tell it at a party, how I got a guy off of a murder, impress press a date with it? I don't know.

I mean, it's just like the most Larry David thing ever. His staff was basically saying, like, somehow Larry gets himself into these predicaments that are basically what he would write for a TV show, but it becomes his real life. Like, it's this weird circle. Like, Curb Your Enthusiasm being just written about, it could have just been written about him.

And it is written about him. That's the thing, like, the whole story is about him as the, you know, Seinfeld producer and everything. So it's like... Well, if they ever did a revival, then this would obviously have to be an episode. It's so meta. It's like, while I was filming this show,

something crazy happened. And then I just wanted to show this to you and YouTube, and hopefully nobody figures out that I'm doing this. Maybe I'll just move the camera so they can't tell. Okay. I think that works. But this is Juan and he's holding a baseball card, and then they zoom in, and it's him as a little kid wearing the Dodgers outfit.

It's just the cutest. So cute. He has his own little baseball card. But I think the, oh, it gives me shivers because his, so Alma, his partner was interviewed as well. And she said, she said, it haunts me. Like it still keeps me up at night to think what if he hadn't gone to that game? What if, you know, I'm trying to think like,

what if his daughter didn't want to go? So he stayed home. Well, what if she didn didn't want to go, so he stayed home? I mean, anything. What if she didn't want candy? What if the PA wasn't? Yes. And then what if, what if, if he hadn't made that phone call

and placed himself within a mile? Yeah, what if his phone died that day? Yeah, and those were those old ass phones, you know? Well, the old ass phones lived for like three weeks. Okay, wait, that's so true. That's so true. What if his phone wasn't able to dial out because there were too many people in the stadium? That was a more likely thing to have happen.

But she was like, yeah, like he's with his friends and his daughter, like he just called me to tell me he's on his way home. Like that's... that's not a for sure thing that would happen. It's like he just happened to call. It would make me really paranoid about every moment of like, is this helping me or hurting me? And I just don't know it.

It's just the creepiest thing. She says, imagine, and she's like starting to cry because she's clearly so traumatized by this, but she says, imagine he would have stayed home to watch that game. What if the camera crew hadn't gone to that specific aisle? What if his mom actually did want to go to the game and he lost the tickets? And he's like, shit, that wasn't part of the plan.

What if the daughter didn't feel like going? What if he had made that phone call? What if, what if, what if? And then, ooh, that's when I just scrolled and I got to that scary Dodger lawyer. He said, all of life is what if. Okay. And I was like, ah, you know, and then I stayed up for two more hours cause I couldn't sleep. So, uh, yeah, that's the story.

It's just one of those where it like feels like it can't get weirder. And then all of a sudden it gets so much fucking weirder. Like when you were like, Oh, did they get footage of him at the Dodgers game? And I was like, I mean, no, not really. Like they had to keep looking. Anyway, so that's the story. I just, props to Saoirse for finding that one. Cause I really thought like in the early days of the podcast, I had covered every like banana grams, you know, case.

No, that's a great one. But wow, with Larry David involved. And by the way, like, he's such a doofus. I don't, I mean, I don't know much about Larry David, but he does make me laugh, but there is a YouTube, like a deleted scene, not a deleted scene, like an extra, you know, content type thing where they interview like him and talk about what happened. And so I highly recommend that it's only like seven minutes long because it's like a DVD extra That it is on YouTube. So I'll I'll link I always say I will link to that and then I'm like Poor Eva and Megan and Jack have to find it

But I will link to that and I will link to the documentary on Netflix It's called long shot. That's the documentary. It's just really powerful and it is on Netflix. And it's not to be confused with the other Long Shot, which appears to be a as Netflix claims, raunchy, irreverent comedy starring Seth Rogen. So, OK, not that one. It's the other one.

Okay. That's not Seth Rogen. Yes, it is. So anyway, you'll know it when you see it. It's the sad one, not the fun, romantic comedy. Okay. So, yeah, got it. Easy. Easy.

Well, great story, Christine. Great. Thank you. Has ups and downs and valleys and mountains and oh, it has it all. It sounds like a Larry David narration, you know, just like something totally off the wall. Totally off the wall. Noodle room, the noodle room or whatever. I'm trapped in the noodle room.

I felt like that when I read these notes and I was like, is this real? This feels like a fake noodle. This feels like the onion, you know? Yeah, no, but it's the noodle actually. It's the different food. Different food. Wah, wah, wah. Wah, wah, wah.

Well, if you would like to hear us continue to ramble, you can hop on over to Patreon. Oh, I'll show you, I'll show my doodle. Oh, that sounds like a dirty thing. It's not a dirty thing. I'll show my noodle on the after show. I'll show you, I'll show my doodle. Oh, that sounds like a dirty thing. It's not a dirty thing. I'll show my doodle on the after chat. I'll show you my noodle.

No. No. I'll show my doodle on the after chat. What you take, take that to mean whatever you want it to mean and then sign up for Patreon at patreon.com slash and that's what you drink. Also, our book is coming out in September.

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