And That's Why We Drink - E4 Demon Pigs and a Call from Tamara

Episode Date: February 26, 2017

In this week’s episode Em and Christine discuss the notorious Amityville Haunting and the unsolved case of the missing Sodder children. Join us for this extra-chilling episode, but be sure to grab your wine and milkshakes first - you’re gonna need them!

Hi. Welcome. To. And. That's. Why. We. Drink. Woo! Oh my god, we did it! I really thought we were gonna fuck that up. I'm surprised we didn't. Is that how we're just gonna start every one of these? Probably not. I hope not. Because that's not going to go over so well. So this is, and that's why we drank, guest starring Gio today. It makes us sound really professional when you can hear the ambient sounds. Yeah, he's pitter-pattering around our recording studio. Your table full of wine. That we have. All right. Yeah.

Well, I'm Christineine i'm am you said that so defeated i was gonna try and do something clever and it didn't work out yeah and i already told you this um earlier but my cousin is doing a research topic now on christine miller from what was it again jonestown from our from our first episode i'm so proud I know what's your cousin's name Megan hi Megan thank you so much for listening and for liking my my little factoid someone appreciated your extra research on Christine Miller I feel like I'm finally being like productive in my life helping you with your school project we've gotten we've gotten a lot of love from people yeah and, and we really, really, really appreciate it.

So thank you all. I'm just impressed someone besides our parents listened. I know. I can't believe it. We were so self-deprecating in the first episode because we really thought we had four fans. I really thought it was just going to be our moms. Yeah. And then there was a couple more than that.

Yeah, a couple more. Yeah. We're doing good. Thanks, guys. So what are you drinking tonight? So tonight... More Cabernet per usual? yeah and then there was a couple more than that yeah a couple more yeah we're doing good thanks guys so what are you drinking tonight so more cabernet per usual actually this week i uh i actually strayed from the usual and switched from my boxed cabernet to my boxed charoz uh-huh um so trader joe sells two boxed reds yep i've had the cabernet last week the charoz is actually my favorite so we've got a...

It's hard to believe that that's your favorite when all you do is drink Cabernet. Yeah. You know. Whatever. I'm going to believe you. I'm full of surprises. I'm... You want to ask me what I'm drinking?

Or is this all me at this point? All I want to know is what you're drinking. Okay. Well, it's actually a pretty shitty strawberry milkshake. Is it bad? It's not bad. It's just you can tell it's... You just said it strawberry milkshake is it bad it's not bad it's just you can tell it's just that it was shitty well it was shitty quality you can tell it was made in about 30 seconds without real ingredients that's sad it tastes good it just tastes fake

that's it's like the the syrup they add to the yeah well you taste like nesquik powder it's strawberry milkshake for the record i do like strawberry that nesquik strawberry stuff i do but i like it as milk but right not as milkshake yeah i'm gonna get through it it's fine all right i'm i'm making my way i believe in you so what's going on in the world are you drinking for any particular reason listen why are we drinking this is why i'm drinking and i have this is why it's not even really specifically this week, although I have been watching a lot of HGTV and sometimes they do Los Angeles episodes. And it's kind of just like been on my brain that I'm living in L.A. now. I'm in this like pretty small apartment. It's not small.

She has a nice apartment. It's a nice apartment, but like it's for three people. It's not like for long term. You know, it's not like in 10 years that I hope to be living here. True. But your apartment is the most is the closest to. Hey, Joe, is the closest to looking like a home out of any of the apartments I've been to. That is really sweet. I. Everyone else I know, including myself, is living in shambles. Listen, I am unemployed and therefore I have a lot of time on my hands to quote unquote decorate.

And I'm employed, which means every time i come to my apartment i don't have time to clean because i get home so late so it's not anyone's fault because i look like i'm homeless you look like you've built a house no yeah we're sitting in a real life kitchen right now that's true with a real life dog that's about as much as i've accomplished in my 25 years i don't have a dog. Well, consider yourself lucky. Sorry, Gio. Plug your ears. So anyway, I saw that the median home price

for a house in Los Angeles is $600,000. Yikes! I think in Ohio it's like $120,000. It's a lot. It's a lot, lot, lot. There are some houses in this neighborhood that are kind of run down, but they're kind of cute. And I'm like, oh, that'd be a nice starter home.

And then I looked them up on Redfin or Zillow and they're like $1.2 million. And I'm like. I mean, we'll never afford that. You know, I mean, depending on where you live, though, like it's so different. Like when I first moved out here, I lived on a couch. I lived on a couch with someone I didn't know. And I was still paying almost $1,000 for a broken couch. Like it was a futon that didn't even fold out into a bed.

$1,000? It was $900. Oh, I know. And it was a futon that didn't fold out. So I just had like a couch. And I just lived out of my suitcase on that couch. Yeah. Yeah.

Welcome to LA. It's casual. And that's why I drink this. Wow. All of a sudden, that couch. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to LA. It's casual. And that's why I drink this. Wow. All of a sudden, that's why I drink too. Sorry. Sorry. Really just bummed me out.

Bringing us down. Why do you drink this week? I drink because, well, one thing I've been trying to lose weight and I haven't gained any weight. That's not the problem. That's good. Yeah. I mean, so I guess I drink in a happy way.

But I also, so when we started this podcast, I didn't realize how much work a podcast is. And so I didn't go to the gym all last week. Oh, oops. Yeah. And I try to run five miles a day, minimum. How do you do that? I scream cry. I can't do that.

But people think I'm, when I tell people I run at least five miles a day, they think, like, I happily do that. And they're like, oh, we should go running together. And I'm like, oh, no. You don't understand what I look like. Like, I'm really, like, about to die. When I was in third grade, we had to read this book about the Iditarod. Do you know what that is? Yes.

Like, the huskies like the sled the sled mushing races and uh at the end of the book like their the favorite dog has run so much that his heart burst on the way to the finish line are you what at eight years old i had to learn about a dog's heart bursting and it was the little kid's best friend children should not read that basically i feel like that dog every day at the gym. I'm your best friend. Right. And you're my dog that's going to have a problem. I think that was the first time you've ever called me your best friend. No, I said I'm your best friend. Oh, well, you're assuming things. I just want to like specify. We're in a place now. This is awkward. You want to be my best friend? Come on. Anyway,

that's why I drink. Listen listen we're drinking tonight how are you feeling about um ghosts today i'm feeling just already freaked out i feel like all of this is going to my all the murder and ghosts are going to my head but i love it at the same time you know yeah i'm always nervous now about like if my roommate or someone like like today i did my research at i stayed away from the starbucks and i went to a panera and i was so nervous the whole time of people like looking at my tabs on my computer because i just had like every tab was a new picture of a death oh yeah yeah i have a bunch of serial killers bookmarked on my computer so if anyone if i die or go missing and someone looks at my... Right. Yeah.

It's a bad look. But it's all for the podcast. What is a reputation these days? I do it all for the podcast. Well, I have a story that I've wanted to tell since the beginning. Oh, I'm so excited. I've been ready my whole life. Oh, we also wanted to say before we get started that we've going, we've gotten some really great listener stories sent in to us.

Yes. At our email. And that's why we drink at gmail.com. And we have some really awesome ones that are better than anything we can find on Wikipedia. So we are going to dedicate a whole episode to listener stories. And that's going to be coming up next. Every first of the month. Right. We're going to be posting an next. Every first of the month. Right.

We're going to be posting an episode that we didn't research at all. We're just taking listeners' stories. Right. We're sharing your stories over the air. So if you have anything. If you, yeah. And it doesn't just have to be ghosts for paranormal. If you have like an alien story, if you have like a conspiracy theory if you've been

murdered yeah that's anything any good story or stalkers oh that's a good one um any anything that really would just make someone cringe and you want us to talk about it yeah give it to us we're ready it's uh and that's why we drink at gmail.com absolutely so that being said we are not getting into your stories today sorry folks next week next week uh so my story is one of my favorite famous hauntings sweet uh it's the amityville horror yeah that's like the big one i know it is because i've before we ever did this podcast i never shut up about it oh man this is m man. This is Em's, like, seershining moment. This is my bread and butter. I actually didn't even really need to, like, write notes.

I was like, oh, yeah. I know. Yeah. It's memorized. I tried to, like, find something I didn't know, and I couldn't. So I did this mainly so I would stay on track. Got it. Okay.

And I'm also hoping I want to do it justice, but I also don't want to talk about it for hours. Sure. There's probably so much. So I'm just going to give you the bare bones. Sup, Gio? He doesn't like me, guys, by the way. This is like the only dog who has an issue with me. Gio has an issue with everyone. I happen to be one of those people. But anyway, hopefully he likes the story too. My dad grew up in Long Island. And so the first time I ever heard about the Amityville Horror House, he... It sounded like I said whorehouse. Horror house.

When I first heard about it, I remember my dad always telling me that he lived like right next to the house which i don't think is actually true i think he was just trying to scare me spooky but i'm gonna tell everyone i know that he lives right next door guys and he saw the ghosts themselves oh my good all right so the amityville horror horror if you're from new york harrah oh the harrah hara oh the hara please just delete that part uh all right so it started in 1974 with the de feo family you know about the amityville horror i do i watched like a documentary you showed i made you watch that i made everyone watch that yeah i watched that it was creepy as fuck am i allowed to plug that am i allowed. On Hulu, if you have a Hulu account, there is a movie called My Amityville Horror instead of

The Amityville Horror. And it's one of the, there's a family that's involved in the Amityville Horror House and there were kids that are involved in the story

and one of the kids did a documentary now that he's like in his fifties. And he says everything that actually happened, not just what like the movies and re reenactments have said, like he gave his account of it. The, okay.

So the DeFeo family, uh, in 1974 was a mom, dad, and five kids. And the oldest one's name was Ronald. And he was 23 when this 23 when the story began. So they lived on 112 Ocean Avenue, which if you wanted to GPS that or walk to it or

do whatever you want, go for that. There's your address. And Ronnie, November, I didn't put the actual date, but November of 1974, at 3.15 in the morning, Ronnie takes a shotgun out of their house and he shoots his sleeping parents, then his two brothers, and then his two sisters. Jesus. And then he leaves. One of the stories is that he leaves and tosses his bloody clothes out of the house, like, brings them somewhere else. And then he goes to work. Then after work, he goes to the bar and screams to the bartender and everyone there that his family's been murdered. Oh, boy. And when the cops go and investigate the house, they find the actual weapon and the shotgun

shell under his bed. Oh, great. So he wasn't, like, too slick about it. Sure. And so he was taken in. He ended up confessing. He tried blaming it on a friend for, like, a second, and he ended up confessing and saying that he doesn't remember doing it.

He was possessed by, like, ghosts in the house that were making him do it. Oh, boy. And so he's still in jail. I don't know if he died. I don't think he died yet. But he is in jail, 25 to life now. Oh, boy. Since then, he's still in jail.

There's another story from one of the other millions of documentaries I've watched on what actually happened after he shot them. of the other millions of documentaries I've watched on what actually happened after he shot them. And his account, when they've done interviews with him in jail, is that he shot his whole family, still really doesn't remember it and thinks he was possessed. And when he found out what he did, he tried to stow the gun away under his bed and then ran to his best friend's house to tell them what happened. That's where that story ends. After that happened, the house was vacant for like 13 months and, um, they couldn't really sell it because there was a mass murderer there. They couldn't figure out if it truly was a murder or like a demonic possession. He was the first person to really roll with the demonic possession kind of alibi.

demonic possession kind of alibi. And at any rate, the house ended up selling in 1975 to the Lutz family, which was George Lutz, his wife Kathy, and Kathy's three kids. So George's stepkids. So after the Lutzes got the house, the beginning of all of the paranormal stuff happened right away. Like, it happened, happened like the day that they moved in and didn't they get the house like super discounted because of the murder okay yeah it was well it was eighty thousand dollars back in 75 which i didn't do the math i should have figured

out how much that actually is worth but i know that it was super discounted because this was like a five floor house like it was it was a, because this was, like, a five-floor house. Yeah. Like, it was a huge house. Right, right. With, like, a pool, and, like, it had, like, an ocean view. Right. The day that they moved in, the first thing that happened was the priest met them there to, I guess, bless the house. Just, in general, just, you know, whether or not there was a murder there i'm sure

that families then were just having a priest i've heard of people doing that and uh as soon as the priest got there he went upstairs to the playroom that well i guess they were going to call it the playroom and he couldn't even go in there like they don't know what happened but as soon as he went up there and looked in he like booked out of the house oh that's a great sign that was like the first thing that happened and then as soon as he left one of the sons uh who was 10 at the time when they moved in um they he went upstairs to put a box in the playroom and there was like hordes like four to five hundred flies flying around oh and this was like mid-december in long island like there was no flies that gives me the heebie-jeebies immediately this is actually also it's a badass motorcycle out there someone really had a point

to prove so uh this is also the inspiration for the exorcist, where all the flies were. Oh, that's interesting. That came from the Amityville house. Interesting. And so it became a regular thing where there would be like 500 flies and you would go around killing all them. And you would know that you just killed them. And you go downstairs to go brag about killing the flies. And you bring people upstairs to see and there are no flies.

There's no bodies. There's no newspaper that you killed them with like you're just so the dead flies would disappear yeah like almost like they were like ghost dead flies or something yeah but there was like they were nowhere to be found like you could smash them like i mean if you're killing 500 flies like they're all over the room and they're all gone now yuck so another thing that started happening i guess with the the guys in the house started becoming much more angry and had much like, um, they got, they just, they just were really hyper aggressive.

Yeah. And the girls were very like flattered and felt like loved in the house, like had a sense of peace. So they were almost like in a trance that everything was fine meanwhile the guys were like getting really violent and there was george who i guess already had problems with the kids because it was his step kids and he comes from a military background and never knew how to be a dad so he's just like super disciplinary and strict and an asshole in general right and um

so the tension between him and his step-sons already got was getting worse and worse and um so their anger i guess in turn fueled whatever energy was there and things just increasingly got more bad as time went on right and uh one of the things that george the dad experienced was he could never get warm like there are accounts of them keeping that house as hot as possible like the furnace was basically choking because they had so much wood in there and they would have the heater all the way up and like it would be like 100 degrees in a room because they were trying so hard to get it warm and he would be like like wrapped in a blanket like shivering and if you even if you were in that room you could walk like five feet and there'd be like a 20 degree

difference in the house like there were just cold spots everywhere how weird, at 3.15 a.m., which was the time that Ryan DeFeo killed all of his family, Yes. was the same time that every night that they stayed in the house,

George Lutz would wake up, and he said that he either heard a giant door slamming, or he would hear a gunshot, or he would have woken up to, like, the sound of music or screams. Music or screams?

Yep. Yikes. And he would wake up in weird places. Like when he woke up to the sound of a gunshot, he wouldn't be in his bed. He would like be outside of his house. Yuck. Or he'd be like downstairs in the basement where like no one even went. Or, you know, the usual stuff.

Just the standard. Just the stuff that happens all the time. Also, Kathy Lutz, the wife, she had a bunch of dreams where she was looking through Ronnie DeFeo's eyes and she witnessed how he murdered everyone and was able to give an account that the newspapers weren't even able to give. Oh, like details that... She was able to tell you, like, the chronology of who died in what order. Oh, what the hell?

The kids also, this was another part of, like, them being connected to, like, the DeFeo murders, is all of the kids, like, the day they moved in, all the way until they left, they all, once they fell asleep, they would, like, roll into the position of, like, whatever kid died in that bed. What? So, like, if you walked around and I saw all the kids sleeping,

they'd be sleeping in the exact position that a kid died in that same spot. Wait, like the kids from the first family? Because he killed his two sisters and his two brothers. Oh. Like, he shot them. I should have said that. He shot them in their beds while they were sleeping. I had forgotten there were all those siblings, too.

Yeah. So he shot them in bed while they were sleeping. And then the kids in the next family would sleep in the same position. As they died. Yeah, I don't like that. Yeah. And one time, the older brother, I guess it was a regular thing at this point, that the dog started to try to kill himself. The dog?

The family dog was freaked out by stuff and would try to hang himself with the chain like he would like such a thing he would literally try to like choke himself like he would run while he was chained knowing he was strangling himself and keep running or he would try to jump over a fence if the chain was too short that's so sad and like once you like threw him over the fence to get him back to safety, he would do it again. Or, like, they had a boathouse on the property, and they would watch the garage just slam up and slam down and slam up and slam down. And the whole family would watch it. Like, the whole family would have to work together to close it and keep it shut and, like, pull it down. That's awful so one of the nights that they were doing that i guess the oldest son and the stepdad they were outside trying to close the garage door and then looked

up into the window of the little sister's room and they saw what looked like a cartoon character of a pig with wolf-like teeth and laser red beam eyes what yeah laser beam red eyes like it just looked like a pig smiling at them with like wolf-like teeth and so being like the older brother he ran into the room to see what happened and looked in the room and his sister wasn't there and the rocking chair was like rocking super back and forth like rocking back so he said it looks like a cartoon a cartoon character of a pig and a pig that description is usually in a lot of like demonic folklore really what like cartoonish like i have a friend who's a medium and has and only a couple instances has seen like a pig run by her but it's like it looks like a like you can't describe it but it's like a devil pig like it's

like a pig that doesn't look like a pig but it has like weird like hooves and like it's really fucked up i'm gonna have badger i'm sorry but so he saw so did two of them see that both of them saw it yeah it was a dad and the son yeah and they both ran into the room and all they saw in there was the rocking chair moving back and forth and then they like tried to figure out why the rocking chair was moving back and forth. And then they came back like 20 minutes later and it was still rocking the same speed. So the daughter, because there's two boys and a girl, the daughter started having an imaginary friend. Oh, that's never a good sign. Especially in this kind of house.

But the imaginary friend's name was the same as the one of the sisters that got shot and she was sleeping in the room with that little girl yeah that's so creepy and it became a regular thing where like if they saw like their sister like through a window or and like in a way like through a mirror or something there would always be like, like, a pig, like, behind her. Like, if they looked really quickly, they'd see a pig and then double take and it was gone. Or they would see, like, a little girl smiling with, like, laser beam eyes. Or they thought there was a couple times where she was possessed and when she would smile at them or turn around, she had laser red eyes. Oh, God.

This gives me the creeps. I know. Oh, it's so scary. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. They also found, like, green slime coming out of the walls. Oh, I've heard about that. Like an ectoplasm kind of thing? Right, like I've heard of slime coming out of walls.

Apparently the movies made it sound more like flubber exploded. You know what I mean? Like jello. Flubber. But apparently it was more like a liquid, like a basically green blood. Yeah. And it was like seeping through. So they felt they had like water damage, but it was green and sludgy.

So they called it what they call it, like paranormal puke or something like that. I was like, way to be creative in a time of distress. Good one. Um, they also had the cold spots. They had different people had dreams about different murders. Like the older son, he had dreams about watching the dog try to kill himself. And then there would be like their roles always reversed in his dreams. Like he had this dream for like years, even after they moved out of the house.

Where like either he would be the dog trying to kill himself or he'd watch the dog try to kill himself or the dog would try to kill him. Like he just had every night he had like the same dream same dream for, like, almost all of his life. And so after, it also started following the kids in the neighborhood. Like, when they said that they were going to school and they, like, would skip school, they could feel something, like, following them around in the neighborhood. And, like, ugh, it freaks me out. Like, I know what it's like to feel stared at i'm it freaks me out yeah all right and then after christmas which was only like a week later because they moved in mid-december oh um by the way they

only stayed 28 days in this house oh so this was all this was all within four weeks like a whole February I mean I get it okay nope after they took the Christmas lights down things got increasingly worse like much more worse much more worse much worse much worse worse gosh I went to school guys so much milkshake in our system. I know. So it started with, like, this, like, crazy stench. Like, they said, like, foul, like, New York sewage stench in the whole house. They also said that there was a crucifix on the wall that you could watch, like, turn itself upside down.

And the stench would come from that. Yep. down and the stench would come from that yep and uh so because the stench was so bad they regularly were going around trying to open all the windows but there were some windows that would get stuck for no reason and the oldest son was trying to like rip this window open but it was stuck and so he finally got it open and he had his hands on the ledge and when his brother turned around and said or when his brother was behind him and said hey did you get the window he turned around he turned his head around to say yeah i got it and when he wasn't looking at his hands were still on the ledge the window went slamming down on his hands and crushed his fingers like skin to skin like the bone was just gone like

top like the top skin of your fingers to the bottom skin of your finger were touching like totally fucked up his hands oh so after that happened like it was like intentionally stuck on his hands because then like you could hear him screaming and the brother the mom the dad the dad's friend who was there that day were all trying to move this window up and it was like not going up and then all of a sudden when they stopped trying to get it up the window opened on its own of course and the mom brings the son down to the kitchen to try to take care of his fingers and as she's turned around about to get like like ice out of the freezer uh he even he like so he told this story in the documentary, and he, you can tell it, like, still messes him up.

Like, he does not want to talk about it. But there was, they saw a full spirit apparition standing at the doorway, looking at him, and then walked towards him, and his hands were sticking out over the table. Like, he was sitting at the chair, his hands were over the table, so they were, like, in the, essentially, essentially like more out in the middle of the kitchen and the spirit walked through his hands

and then sat down next to him at the table and he could see like the imprint of on the chair of the spirit sitting there and as he was looking at the spirit he like blinked and looked back at his hands and his hands were totally fine. Like, bone was reconstructed. Like, everything was totally fine on his hands. And they didn't hurt anymore? No, his hands were totally fine. The only thing is his left pinky still has a hook in it, like, still, like, kind of curves. But everything is, his hands were totally rebuilt.

And, like, literally, like, a blink. That. And the spirit walked through it, and then he looked back at his hands and they were fine. Oh, that gives me the creeps. Honestly. Okay. So that same kid,

um, he, one of the other stories that he had was he remembers walking up the stairs to his room. Like he had just gotten in a fight with the stepdad and he was walking upstairs and his mom was behind him kind of chasing him to be like, Hey, come back.

And I guess that negative energy was out in the house. And something, some invisible force threw him up the stairs. Like not pushed him down the stairs, but like almost like grabbed him by the legs while he was walking and dragged him up. So he went feet up, floating, thrown up the stairs. What the hell? And the mom watched it happen. So she ran up to like get up there to see if he was okay and she got there and whatever had dragged him he he says in his perspective it

like went into his body and he felt possessed he remembers not having control of his body seeing his mom and thinking it wasn't his mom and then when she went to like grab his arm to like see if she was if he was okay the like thing the spirit that was in him went into her and so he got the other perspective of it because it left his body went into her body so he got to experience what it was like to have it in his body and then see someone with with it in their body if that makes sense so did he see himself or did he see no he like he like says that he felt the spirit leave his arm and go into the arm that was touching him into his mom's body.

And he could, like, see that she wasn't herself. Like, her eyes were glassed over and everything. So that was probably what he looked like. Right. Before it transferred. Ugh. And then it went away. But, like, they had that experience together.

So they started having, I don't remember which happened first, but the news got involved at this point. Right. It was starting to get involved cause I guess word on the street was like things were going on in that house. And it finally came down to day 28 where the whole family will still refuse to talk about what actually happened. That was the day they left?

That was the day they left. So day 28, the first thing that happened was, it was at nighttime. Like, everything was just as usually creepy. And then, you know, people are still getting really, really warm and really hot, and they're really aggressive and the woman are like the little girl is still playing with her imaginary friend who at some point got her to go walk onto the roof of the house and say you can be my friend forever if you just jump what yeah her like imaginary friend who like was probably the daughter like her mom found her outside standing on the roof and like grabbed her and was like what are you doing and she's like jody said i could be your friend forever and oh my god yeah and they didn't know that the daughter's name

because i guess at the time they were minors so like you couldn't say who died or who got shot and the only way they knew is because the priest that went to their house to bless the house was friends with the defayos before the death and was like, your daughter is, has an imaginary friend, the same name. Yeah. Can I ask you a quick question? How did they know that the kids were sleeping in the same positions? Autopsy reports. Oh,

okay. Because the parents, like the parents were totally in the know about the murders before they got this house. Right. And they asked to look at everything. So they weren't like misled by the realtor. Oh God.

Okay. Um, so the night that they left it started with the boys because they shared a room together the two boys they shared a levitating experience out of their beds like they were in their beds and the beds themselves were levitating and crashing into each other like the footbed the footboards were crashing into each other and the craziest part is both of those beds were like they were stuck in sheetrock like the bottoms of the beds were cemented into the ground so there's no way they should have been lifted up and banging oh my god and uh so they were like screaming for their parents help and apparently george lutz couldn't get out of bed. Like, something was sitting on him or preventing him from getting up. So he couldn't leave the bed.

He just heard his kids screaming. And the mom was also levitating right next to him. And he was, like, grabbing her arm to, like, keep her from floating away. Yeah. And then he looked at her and she had aged into like an old woman that looked like she was like 90 years old and it apparently took like an hour for it to go away this is like imagine like thinking like just lying there you can't get out of bed and you're stuck you hear your kids screaming you grab your wife because she's fucking floating and then you look at her

and she's an old 90 year old woman i'm so creeped out yeah so eventually uh they all get out and or like he's able to get out of bed and their phones aren't working typical and there's like static and they can't reach anyone they don't have cell phones they just have like the one house phone right and then he had an office phone in the basement and he went down to the basement to like and that phone was working and they called the priest and they were like can you come back like to bless the house like nothing's like all this stuff is happening right now and the priest was like why are you there like like if everything you're telling me is true like why are you in that fucking house like i'm not coming to bless the house you get out of the house that's the real question like yeah get the fuck out like why weren't you thinking oh yeah i should leave

you know i mean legitimately i'm stuck in a year-long lease and if something even pulled my hair i'm gone i'm gone i don't care well that's what they ended up doing they um they grabbed the kids still in their nightclothes. They said, like, I don't even think they said pack a bag. I think they just grabbed them and just got in the car and literally never came back. Like, never went back. Like, the house was just abandoned. And they moved to San Diego to get as far away as possible.

And that's when all the TV deals started. Because when people were like, like hey you just bought this giant house in 28 days in like you're you left in the middle of the night like what happened and so the news started getting in into it and one of the news channels like they gave the the lutz family gave them the exclusive to be like okay you can do whatever you want with this like but we're trusting you to like do it tastefully and keep our kids out of it and all that and uh so they did the exclusive the girl who ran it the reporter she was really close with a lot of people in the parapsychology world right so she knew like a bunch of the medium she knew like the warrens um they they also like if you've seen the movie

like the conjuring or the, the doll Annabelle, um, which are both things I'll probably be talking about at some point, which are both things I've never seen. Cause I am a wuss. Oh, you should watch them. You should at least watch the conjuring. That's a great movie. And conjuring two is even better.

Not going to happen. The conjuring is the only movie series where the sequel is better than the original. Really? Yeah. It's so good anyway i'll get you to watch it we'll see um she knows everyone that's anyone at that time in that field and they all go do an investigation together with a bunch of reporters and lo and behold nothing happened because people actually wanted proof the only thing that

happened was one cameraman who's been through like he went to like war zones and like went to really intense investigative like places like places that they were like really shooting in dangerous areas he also wasn't a believer but when he went into the house he tried to go like on the stairs and he couldn't go up the stairs like something wasn't letting him go up the stairs. Like, he had, like, this gut feeling to not go up. Oh. And he also had, like, these heart palpitations that he'd never experienced. Excuse me.

And, like, he, it was just weird that, like, for him, who's so skeptical, like, even he felt uncomfortable. Yeah. But that was the only thing that was weird. And then a photograph that they got while they were there. I'm going to just show it to you. So they got this photo, which I will post on.

Oh, you guys have to go look this up. I will post it on our, on our social media. I'm sorry. Everybody has to go look this up. If you're too lazy to go look at our social media, just type in Amityville ghost picture.

No, look it up right now. And, uh, they, it's, it's a picture. It's black and white.

And over the banister, you can see a little boy looking at the camera. It's definitely a little boy leaning over. And, uh, the, the thing about that investigation is there were no animals there were no children there was nobody but the investigative reporters and the people in

the parapsychology field and this was in the 70s right this is in the 70s photoshopping shit and this was on a film photo that they they got this developed i don't want to look at it they got it developed that same weekend and that's like this is the closest thing to proof that they they got this developed i don't want to look at it they got it developed that same weekend and that's like this is the closest thing to proof that they have especially because when you put that picture next to one of the defao boys that got shot it is that kid which is the other scary thing i'm not kidding that is unsettling it's actually one of the um this picture has been rated as like one of the closest things we have to evidence of ghosts really because so many people were at that house and i think it was like 20 people and all 20 of them are like even the skeptics are like we took that picture that night that

picture is not doctored we all saw that picture once it got developed like it's the closest thing we have to proof that ghosts are real i I'm not kidding. If you're driving, don't look at it, but honestly fucking look it up. This is the creepiest thing I've ever seen. Apparently John Matthew DeFeo was the little boy who got shot by Ronnie. All right. And this is definitely him.

I don't ever want to see it again. Okay. But everyone else has to go look at it. Um, so anyway, that was the only thing besides the guy with the palpitations. You're still freaking out. It's really freaky. Um, so anyway, that was the only thing besides the guy with the palpitations. You're still freaking out. It's really freaky.

Um, that happened. Where else? Where? Oh, whoa, whoa. Before they fled, I thought this was really interesting, that George and Kathy, they, before they tried to flee, they decided to have their own, um, like, I guess, blessing to, like, bless the house. Uh-huh.

And they didn't really know what they were doing I guess great but they were basically just holding each other saying the lord's prayer just trying to get anything away from them and that you could hear them you could hear multiple people around them shouting uh oh something like will you stop will you stop but like like really sarcastically like will you stop like we're not going anywhere like a sassy ghost excuse me so i'm here to stay um i thought that was kind of cool like i mean terrifying if i were them i would be like no yeah it's cool now but yeah and then george found a room in the basement that wasn't actually on the original blueprints of the house

and when he opened it up it was an entire room painted red that the dog refused to go near like you like you could drag that dog as hard as you wanted it would not go near that room um another thing is one time well because he was always so cold um he would tend the fire every night george lutz would tend a fire right and uh one time when he uh tried to i guess he was like stoking one fire and then putting heat somewhere else he turned around and saw his wife but his wife had changed shape again like instead of a 90 year old woman this time he was she was a demon with half of her head blown out like she had gotten shot by ronald de feo oh god uh when closing the daughter's window one time um oh i already said this uh that jody the little girl was like oh come live with me forever which i think is pretty terrible in the

snow because it was mid-december they would find like cloven hoof prints like leaving their house every morning what yeah like on the doorsteps like the devil was going to work yeah like they were like all right i'll see you later tonight oh and the other thing about the daughter who was probably possessed at different times by the by the girl that once lived there um she would constantly sing in her room and every time she'd left she would like be her normal self and not sing and then she would go back into the room and sing exactly where she had left off it was almost like that one room kept her in a trance and they found out later that that song was the only song that like jody knew before she died okay god yeah this just gets worse and worse yeah that's pretty terrible yeah the only other thing i have

to say is the warrens who are like the like the two big like mediums or he well the husband wasn't a medium it was a husband and wife duo and the husband was just like very well knowledgeable about all of this stuff and his wife lorraine was a medium so they would they were known at the time as like the top demonologists who would go cleanse houses when priests couldn't even do it. Okay. And she said that this investigation at the Amityville house was the worst thing she's ever been to, and it was the closest to hell she's ever felt. And this was a medium who could, like, trance back and, like, go into, like, different times. Like, she was, like, crazy capable of doing a lot of weird stuff and she said this is the closest to hell she ever felt and uh going into that playroom where even

the priest wouldn't go in she said that she saw like a hundred like shadow people staring at her not letting her in the room wow that's all in a hard day's work it's horrible it's horrible it's horrible well they say one of the they a lot of people say that it might be the um the defayo the ghost of the defayo family that died there that caused all this but there's also a lot of talk of george lutz before he even moved there being heavily into the occult i've heard about that and so they think that maybe he triggered something by being in a household of so open and trying to he probably was trying something and he happened to be in the house of like six dead people anyway and he probably was like i think in the documentary they said it was like a magic trick gone wrong like he thought he

was doing something and he didn't really know what he was playing with. He opened something up. Yeah. So they think that's another thing. And the kids have all, in different documentaries, they've all kind of been featured. And they've all said that they witnessed him doing things involving the occult in that house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's another thing. And then the big thing about the Amityville Horror is either it's 100% true and all of this really did happen, which the entire family that lived there, they swore to the day that they died that this happened.

But a lot of people think it was like a money-making scheme of they knew there were murders in this house. They lived there and then fled and said a bunch of ghosts were there. And then they just wanted to said a bunch of ghosts were there um and then they just wanted to make a bunch of money but i feel like you wouldn't lay down eighty thousand dollars and never make like unless you really thought this was going to be like a super profitable i mean i've heard that too and it's just hard to believe that they would everything from the i mean you can't make this shit up like everything from the the pig that looks like a cartoon yeah pig in the window smiling and the fingers in the window i mean how do you even make all those details up

and all the entire family corroborates it yeah the whole family i mean but the other side to that is well they were all really young and you could easily like just tell them what they saw but i think like no 10 year old knows what it's like to have a spirit go through your hands and reconstruct your fucking fingers. You know? Ugh. I mean, you can't make this up. Or like, like, I don't care how young I am. I would remember on my own a bed breaking out of cement and crashing into my brother's

bed. And if my mom was like, pretend that your bed hit your brother's bed. Yeah. So that we can be on the news. Yeah. And also if you watch the documentary, there's a. Yeah. So that we can be on the news. Yeah. And also, if you watch the documentary, there's a lot of skeptics that will say, like, oh, well, you know, he just really hated his stepdad. So he made up this whole story to make his stepdad look like an ass or things like that. But, I mean, you can tell just by the way he talks.

Like, I don't, you, something happened to him that just made him, like, a very, like, he's, like, a very, like, tough New York guy of, like, oh, no one can touch me. Like, he just acts very much like he's shielding. Yeah. He, I mean, just, he, something happened to him. Like, the way that he acts, like, he really believes it. I don't, whether or not all of it happened, he really is convicted of this. Yeah, I i mean in that documentary like he is fucked up from that too like he will talk about it and be shaken to like

you can see it there's points where he's like i don't want to talk about this like near tears and he's like i can't and he's a grown like tough new york man yeah like you don't you don't cry on command no anyway that documentary is called mi amity Horror, and you can find it on Hulu. And it is creepy. I've probably watched it a hundred times. It's creepy, I'll tell ya. Anyway, that's The Amityville Horror. Alright, well that is just, ugh, ugh.

I'm gonna have nightmares. Give me nightmares. I need some, like, sage up in here. We should probably get sage. We should probably. With how much we talk about this stuff. We sit in my house all day long and talk about this. I get to leave. I'm like, see ya.

Exactly. And you leave me with Gio and the demons. All right. All right. What are we talking about? You know how I like to lighten the mood. I love when you do. We're going to talk about a bunch of missing children.

All right. All right. So this is a story about the Sodder children. Oh, wow. Someone sent in a request for us story about the Sodder children. Oh, wow. Someone sent in a request for us to do the Sodder children. Oh, my God. Okay. Well, I'm going to pretend like I knew about that.

Okay. Thanks for the suggestion, guys. Who is it? I don't remember. But someone wrote in. Thanks, fans. This is what we're talking about. Look.

See, we need these. We need these suggestions. So thanks. We got a suggestion. There's at least one person who's very excited for what you're about about. Look, see, we need these. We need these suggestions. So thanks. We got a suggestion. There's at least one person who's very excited for what you're about to say. Love it. So George and Jenny Sauter were a really respectable middle-class couple. They were living in Fayetteville, West Virginia in the 1940s.

Cool. Italian descent, business people. They were well-respected, well-liked. They lived in a two-story timber house two miles north of town and had ten children over a period of ten years, which today is just unspeakable. It's unneeded. Really the opposite of needed. Anyway, so on 1945, Christmas Eve, the younger kids were really

excited about some presents they had gotten from their older sister. So they asked to stay up past their bedtime. And their mom, Jenny, allowed it, like sometimes she did. Right. It happens. Right. Okay. As a mother of a dog, I can say.

Sometimes you let him stay up and open a gift. Sometimes. So they stayed up and played with their toys. And she took the two-year-old daughter, Sylvia, and went to bed. So her husband and two oldest boys were already in bed, so everything seemed fine. But that night at 12.30 a.m., she heard the telephone ring. So she ran downstairs, answered the phone, and the woman at the other end of the line was someone she didn't recognize, asking for a name she had never heard of.

And she said, you know, you got the wrong number. Oh, I hate that. I know. It's creepy. I hate that. Have you ever? No, you haven't. There's one of the only movies that's ever really like messed me up was The Strangers. I that's something I would literally never.

It's like normally nothing scares me. The only thing that scares me is like real life situations. And The Strangers is like a, a very real-life thing. Is it, like, they're calling from inside the house? No, it was, um... So, because you're never gonna watch it, it starts with, like, they're... It's a couple, and they're in, like, a cabin by themselves, typical. Obviously.

And, well, like, they were, like, we're supposed to have got... It's really, like... It's a long story. Basically, they were supposed to be there to celebrate their engagement. And then she awkwardly said no. So, like, I know. So, they go to, like, this cabin that's, like, all romantically set up. And there's roses and candles.

And so, they're just, like, awkwardly, like, you know, hanging out. But so, someone knocks on the door in, like, the middle of the night. And you open the door and she's, like, is Tamara home? Stop it. And then, like, they're like no sorry and so they just like close the door on her and like 20 minutes later we hear a knock on the door and through the door they hear is tamra home stop it and then they're like no you already came by here and she's like are you sure and like and it like freaks me out because then there's like three of them and then they're in the house and they were already in the house and tamra or whoever that girl was was like just a distraction but they were already people it fucks me up like i am so like there's

nothing that's more terrifying to me than like then like things that can can definitely happen like things that can definitely happen our dimension yeah yeah so hearing like someone call the phone be like is tamra home if someone i don't even want to say it out loud but now i need to if someone ever called me and said is tamra home i would i would cry like a baby all right check our twitter i'm gonna i'm gonna release m's phone number tonight i'd like you all to call from unidentified numbers god there's there's nothing creepier i will never name my child tamra purely because of the strangers if you really want to scare yourself go watch the strangers i don't i don't i wasn't talking to you oh okay well if you guys want to

do it it's listen it's there it is your own grave all right anyway so this she answers the phone the lady asked for tam, probably. Most likely. Like, at this point. All she hears is laughing and clinking glasses in the background, and she later recalled the woman's strange laugh, and that's all she could remember. Oh, there's nothing worse than a strange laugh. Awful. Nothing worse. She hung up the phone, and before heading to bed, she noticed that the lights were on and the curtains weren't

drawn. And that was strange to her because the kids always, the younger kids, that was their job before they went to bed. And every night they would turn off the lights and close the curtains and that was just standard procedure. So she saw that and she thought, that's strange. She saw her oldest daughter, Marion, asleep on the couch and thought, okay, the younger kids

probably just went up to bed in the attic and forgot to close the curtains. Right. At 1 a.m., half an hour later, Jenny's woken up again by an object hitting the roof with a loud bang, followed by a rolling noise. And she's waiting. She's listening. Nothing else happens. She's like, whatever.

She falls back asleep. Another half hour later, so now it's 1.30 a.m., she wakes up smelling smoke. Oh, no. Yeah. sleep another half hour later uh so now it's 1 30 a.m she wakes up smelling smoke oh no yeah so she gets up uh looks around she sees that her husband george's office is on fire um wakes him up their older two sons wake up uh the parents and four of the ten children escape the house and so it's marion the oldest two-year-old silvia silvia the baby and then the two older boys so they're all outside they're frantically yelling so wait there's four kids of the ten yeah so the four six of them are in the fire presumably exactly okay so they're all outside uh screaming for the kids what good parents by the way just stand outside the house and be like come on no they so this is what happened they they ran up to get to the attic and the whole stairwell was engulfed in flames so

they're outside trying to get the kids to the window hoping they can jump out so they're screaming and screaming uh they try to call the fire department but the phone lines out of course um a driver happens when it's on fire yeah well you'll see a driver saw the flames uh while driving by called from a nearby tavern couldn't reach the operator finally someone managed to get through to the fire department but at the time the way the fire department worked back then was that each firefighter had to call the it was like a phone lot like a phone tree jesus i know so they had to call the other firefighters to wake them up to tell them that there was a fire and only certain people could

drive the fire truck so they were it's just a mess it took them hours well i wonder why that system is out of place now exactly so it took them hours to get there meanwhile george the father decided to climb the wall smash an attic open, hoping to get the kids out. That's a real dad. Yeah, he cut his arm open. He planned on using their ladder, which they always kept at the side of the house, for the boys to climb up and grab the kids. They went to grab the ladder. It's gone.

They're like, it has to be here somewhere. Yes. Search all around the property. Nowhere. The ladder's just completely gone. There was a water barrel, and they thought, let's get the water. We can try dousing the fire. It's frozen over. They said,

let's get the trucks. Maybe we can pull the trucks up to the house and try and everybody get up. The trucks, the engines are dead on both trucks. So this is just a mess. So basically they have no choice. They're stuck. They're stuck outside. The firefighters are not coming. They watched the house burn down, collapse over 45 minutes.

They just thought, you know, our kids are dead. So several hours later, the firefighters show up. Great. Yeah, you really did your job there. They also had low manpower, I will say, because of the war. Yeah, let's blame the war. Yeah, so they didn't have many people and they had to call each other. So around 10 a.m., the firefighters went in, told the family they hadn't found any bones, and they said, oh, that's normal if they had been burned up in the fire. So the parents are just

devastated. The next day, or recently after, the fire marshal's office conducted an official investigation and the inquest determined that the fire was caused by faulty wiring. So they said it was an electrical fire. Soon after this, though, they're trying to rebuild their lives, and the Sodder family starts to question certain aspects of the fire. They thought, if this was an electrical problem, why were our Christmas lights still working when the fire was going? They saw the Christmas lights on, and the electricity would not be still working if it was an electrical fire. They also said they found the ladder that they had been looking for 75 feet away from the house at the bottom of an embankment. Oh, like someone tossed it out there? Yeah, it was just in a ditch 75 feet away from the house that nobody would have put it there.

They always kept it in the same spot. A telephone repairman came by and said that the phone line had not been burned through in the fire, but had actually been cut. Oh. So, by someone who had been able to climb 14 feet up. who had been able to climb 14 feet up. So regarding the children's bodies, Jenny, the mom, started to question the firefighters who said, oh, we didn't find any bones, but that's normal.

She said some of the appliances were still intact. There were even books that were still, like a dictionary that was still intact and other materials that would have burned if a body, entire bones. If a whole body couldn't burn, then paper would burn, right? So she even took it upon herself to find animal bones and burn them. Good, yeah. To see if there was any way. And she said she tried and tried and tried. Nothing.

She couldn't get them to disintegrate. And she actually talked to a local crematorium. And the employee said that human bodies will remain until burned at 2,000 degrees for two hours, which is way hotter than any sort of house fire. Like, you have to purposefully... Like, there's no way a house fire could have burned. I like to think my mother would be this, like, involved in my death. I know.

They, like... Literally. Okay, so when Stranger Things came out, I, until, like, last week, was begging my mom to see Stranger Things and she refused to watch it. And I was like, literally the show is about Winona Ryder being a better mom than you because she literally found ways to talk to her child through Christmas lights. And all I need you to do is watch an hour of the show and you won't do it. You can't do it just for me. Like, let's compare parents here. I like to think that my mother would be more winona

because you know winona would have done this oh winona she would be like let's burn animal bones she would be in the backyard with the lighter i hope my mother would would put some sense into her to do something like that i think she would i think if like there was a mystery involved yeah my mother would be on top of it I feel like our mothers would care enough to... Let's just pretend. I really hope so. We're going to believe it either way. If I burn, your job is to tell my mother to try and, like, figure it out. I'll bring her the animal bones myself.

Okay. And tell her that fact about the 2,000 degrees for two hours. She'll just listen to this episode and she'll know. Well, if she's a true fan, she'll listen and we don't even have to talk about it. That's true. That'll be the ultimate test. This is a message from beyond, Mom. This is the ultimate test.

Just try. Just be there for me. Prove how much you love us. Okay, so basically it's sketchy. And so regarding the trucks that didn't start, George, the dad, believed that they'd been tampered with. Some people think the engines had flooded so in 46 evidence came out that the fire had been set deliberately a bus driver said he had seen people throwing balls of fire is what he called them at the house and when the snow

melted that year baby sylvia found a small dark green rubber ball in the bushes around the house and that was also interesting considering jenny had woken up and heard banging on the roof oh yeah found a small dark green rubber ball in the bushes around the house. And that was also interesting considering Jenny had woken up and heard banging on the roof and rolling. So that was kind of an interesting fact. Some people even claim they saw the children themselves. A woman who worked at a diner said she saw them the next day and had served them breakfast. Another woman said she saw them in a passing car late that evening. And some other weird things. In October of 1945, two months before this happened, a visiting life insurance salesman was rebuffed by George. Like, George said, I don't want to buy your

life insurance. And the guy said that his house would, quote, go up in smoke and your children will be destroyed. Who said this? The life insurance guy? Uh-huh. He came by the house and George said, I don't want to go away. It's a little ominous. Yes. He attributed this to all the dirty... Oh, that's right.

George had been bad-mouthing Mussolini, who had been executed the year prior. And so a lot of people, it's a big Italian town, and a lot of people were extremely upset by the way he was talking out about Mussolini. So that is another thought. It's like a Mussolini fan.

Exactly. Some people thought that maybe, like, this Sicilian mob was involved. Gotcha. And people were trying to shut him up. The mob is much more realistic than a fan of Mussolini. A Mussolini fan. Don't you dare say that about Mussolini mob was involved. Gotcha. And people were trying to shut him up. The mob is much more realistic than a fan of Mussolini. A Mussolini fan. Don't you dare say that about Mussolini. How dare you?

So he claimed that his children would be destroyed, his house would be burned down. Another mysterious visitor who came by at that time, who claimed he was seeking work, went to the back of the house and warned george that a pair of fuse boxes would quote cause a fire someday george remembered this as being odd because he had just had the house rewired because they were putting in an electric stove um and he said that the electric company had told him everything was perfectly wired and perfectly safe so the stranger showed up and said oh these fuse boxes are going to catch on fire and he didn't know who he was just showed up um is there a theory that

literally all these people were working together that's nobody really knows the thought is just kind of that that nobody can figure it out i would put the muscle so far i'd put the mussolini mob i would have i would imagine that each of them were pretending to be a different type of person so one could go in and cut the phone line, or one could go in and mess with the power lines. One person could be life insurance and warn them, and one person could flood the car. Yes. I would imagine each person was somehow involved in the same organization. It's definitely one of those things where it's, if this is true what they say, a lot of people were for sure involved.

Okay. this is true what they say a lot of people were for sure involved okay um so the weeks preceding the fire the older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway uh and noticed that the people inside were watching the solder kids regularly as they walked home from school which nowadays if you tell your dad oh these people are watching me walk home from school every day right yeah you call someone your dad's gonna go ape shit right but back then you know they're probably not gonna set our house on fire so they hired this pi um and the pi actually uh figured out that the life insurance salesman who had shown up at their house was actually on the jury that uh said that the fire had been electrical fire so they had

like an inquiry into the whole thing they had a bunch of jurors who had to vote on what you know they believed based on the evidence right the pi found out that the guy who had shown up and threatened him was actually on the jury so that's a little fishy so the pi also found out that the local fire chief had told the minister that he had found a heart among the rubble like a little yeah a little heart and he said i buried it in a metal box so he was without giving it to the parents being like you deserve your child's heart yeah their claim was that they didn't want to upset the parents so bullshit i know so he led the pi or whoever to the place where he supposedly buried this heart they dug it up brought it to the funeral director he examined it and said in reality it was very

fresh beef liver that had never been exposed to fire and was recently buried oh so like he needed to like cover like almost like he told the story, and then the guy was like, prove it, and then, like, that night he buried something to be able to dig up. Well, one of the theories is that the whole thing was planned, and that he had hoped the Sodders would find the heart.

So he told the minister and tried to make it... Oh. And so that the Sodders would be satisfied that their children did indeed die in the fire. Like, so they would, like, never, like, really think about it again. They wouldn't question it anymore, exactly, and look into it any further. That's one of the big theories. So the parents spent basically the rest of the, actually, literally the rest of their lives searching for their missing children, who are missing to this day.

Yeah, they're fully convinced, they were fully convinced, they've passed away since. They were fully convinced that they're still alive um after seeing a young girl in a magazine it was a picture of a young ballet dancer george the father was convinced that it was his missing daughter he drove all the way to new york drove to the school demanded to see the girl they wouldn't let him dead end uh in 1949 they did another investigation where they discovered some small bone fragments in the house or among the rubble right uh they were sent to the smithsonian actually and they were investigated and they were determined to be human vertebrae all from the same person someone who had died age 16 to 22 uh the oldest

of the solder children who had disappeared was 14. Oh, yeah. So it's unlikely it came from him. And further, they said it's possible, but the examiner also said that the bones had not been exposed to flame. So they were like, where the hell did this come from? So this sounds like an organization went in and put a fake body in. It sounds planted.

Yeah, a planted body. Yeah. So since then, the Sodders put up this billboard it's a famous billboard they put it up at the side of the house and two more in other locations with pictures of the children and offers uh of a reward and those were up for decades and they just waited and waited they put up flyers they uh george spent his entire life traveling all over the country following every lead he got, which was a lot. Uh. That's a dedicated parent.

I know. I know. Wow. I mean, he was just devastated and it's so tragic that he never figured it out. Um, George spent, yeah, his whole life looking for them. And one woman in Houston actually said that Louis' daughter, one of the kids, uh, had revealed his identity to her one night after too much to drink she said that he and his brother maurice were living in texas so when police finally

tracked them down the two denied being the missing sons they said no that's not us um although supposedly george sotter until the end of his life uh believed they were his sons and that they were that's what that tells you like i mean from the kind of parenting that it took for them to keep looking for their kids, you'd imagine that they're good parents, so why would these kids not want to be around them? Well, one of the theories is that the only thing that they could kind of explain to themselves as, like, a way of dealing with it was that the sicilian mob was involved and the kids didn't like knew how much maybe trouble or threat they would be if they so like

to protect their parents they stayed quiet exactly that was the only theory that they could come up with so nobody knows i mean and one of the theories is that the sicilian mob took them to italy and they've just never reached out and made contact. But how bad was this thing that he said about Mussolini? I don't know. Like, I mean, I mean, like for all the bad things that we're saying right now about our government, like would someone really go through all that trouble for one family? It's hard to tell. I mean, I know that the city they were in was like all Italian immigrants and, you know, Mussolini was a dictator.

So maybe he sent someone in. Maybe. I mean, I don't know. I just I wish I knew it. Like, I wonder what that like that comment had to be really brutal for that to be the family they targeted. Well, I think it was more also that he kind of made himself a target in the community. I read that he had a lot of arguments and bad relationships with people in town. I mean, the family was generally well-liked. Like they were the weakest link, basically. He had made enemies with people because he was very outspoken, very brusque, and I think he had stepped on some toes. And so it's not totally clear, but a lot of people think he angered the wrong people, basically.

And they were in a heavily Italian part of the country. It's terrifying. Yeah. And it was a hard time for Italy. So who knows, you know, who took it the wrong way. Probably the biggest lead that they got came from central city kentucky there was no return address it was a postcard um mailed an envelope with a picture of a young man around 30 who had features that actually resembled uh lewis the one of their sons who would have been in his 30s at that time

and on the back was written lewis sodder i I love brother Frankie, little boys, A90132 or 35. And no one... What? It's just a mystery. What? It's creepy. It's creepy. Was it like a picture of him like in distress or just smiling?

Just a picture. You can see it actually. We'll post it. Yeah. If you look up Lewis Sauter. But it's just a picture of a guy in his 30s. I would imagine in your 30s, like, either you're brainwashed enough to be staying with those people, or you're crazy now, too. Yeah.

One of the two. It's a wacky letter. So it says that. And, you know, you don't know if he actually sent it, but that was, they believe. I mean, and they're holding on to every hope they can. mean they believe and you know you don't know if he actually sent it but that was they believe i mean and they're holding on to every hope they can but they believe that's almost less comforting it is to like get a postcard with your possible child's face and then some weird like ominous language yeah well they sent a private another private investigator to central city kentucky to check it out he vanished, was never heard from again. They couldn't find him.

Oh, my God. They found him and heard him? Couldn't find him. Couldn't track him down. So it's just creepy. And George, the father, he spent his entire life searching. He died in 1969. Jenny and her surviving children continued to seek answers their whole lives.

They all passed away, except Sylvia is the only one. She was the baby. She's the only one who survived the fire that's still alive. The only one, John is one of the sons, and he was the only one who said, we've got to move on. We've spent decades looking. Right. We've got to just accept it. Right. Get on with our lives.

But all the other children, he didn't talk about it, but all the other children and the parents spent their whole lives searching with the billboards. I mean, there's so many loose ends. So many. It's just a weird story. There's so many moving parts. Yeah.

I mean, if you were that young young if the oldest one was like 14 it's not like you had a grand plan to get away and actually pulled it off like someone had to help you especially someone all the people like to move a ladder or to cut a phone line like those are things that a 14 year old doesn't think about yeah like someone had to help and then for the fire department to be like oh don't pay attention like i i feel like there had to be maybe they made friends at school and those kids were actually also planted to kind of be like hey put these ideas in their head to get out or hey you know make friends with them and then teach them how to do all this and i don't know like that i mean that there's and the crazy thing is the smallest kids were really small so it wouldn't

there had to have been adults involved you know yeah i mean it's just especially with all the crazy things that happened with the cars that didn't start and and like the the vertebrae of a person who wasn't even actually there and didn't touch fire and it's just all so weird in the phone call to yeah to tamatha what was her name tamra tamra oh oh my god oh my god oh my god it's spooky yeah so anyway they're missing they're gone they're still listed as missing persons and no one knows where they are so that's a thinker it is creepy and actually um the way i learned about this was from a lovely podcast called uh stuff you missed in history class oh i follow them too it's a great one and that they did a really good episode on this so i'm probably not doing it all justice but it's just a creepy story creepy creepy

that's something like if if my history teacher ever taught me a story like that i'd remember for the rest of my life oh i would have gotten a five on that AP exam. And I'll tell you, I didn't. Well, I mean, God, this was a juicy episode. It was. That was just a really mysterious episode. Yeah, both of them have unsolved answers. If you guys know the answer to any of these mysteries, please write in and let us know what happened.

If you're one of the Sauter children, write in. Oh, that'd be fun. And don't reach us in any other way. Just send us a Facebook message. Just send us a Facebook message and then leave us alone. Anyway. Spooky. So if you guys have a story, we are compiling a list. We got a bunch of great ones, but if you have any more, please send them in. We will cover them more the better and the juicier the better exactly and honestly the more disturbing the better exactly we want the creepy creepy stuff so whatever you got bring it on and we look forward to hearing from you have a good time drinking until next time we talk please do and don't forget to subscribe please give us a rating yeah we're still desperate We need a lot of attention, just like my dog. All right.

Well, thank you. Thanks, guys. And talk to you another time. All right. See you later. And that's why we drink. Bye-bye. Bye.