And That's Why We Drink - E431 Mr. Glitter Shoes and a Mystery Vortex

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

Don’t you swipe! Because Episode 431 is here! This week Em tells us the urban legend and lore of a story that haunted many of our childhoods, The Green Ribbon. Then Christine brings us the sad and e...xtremely frustrating story of Chynelle “Pretty” Lockwood, and shines a light on the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in the U.S. and Canada. And do these cool 90’s choker necklaces make us look like French revolutionaries? …and that’s why we drink! Resources from Christine’s Story:https://uicsl.org/six-ways-to-be-active-in-mmiw-movement/https://www.niwrc.org/resources/toolkit/mmiw-toolkit-families-and-communitieshttps://www.nativehope.org/ For a list of resources or ways to help those affected by the fires in Los Angeles visit: http://bit.ly/atwwdfirehelp ! Come see our last show of the Pour Decisions Tour in Boston! Get your tickets today at http://andthatswhywedrink.com/live !___________________For a limited time, get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/DRINK and use code DRINK. Start listening and discover what’s beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days and dive into a world of new thrills. Visit Audible.com/DRINK or text DRINK to 500-500. If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don’t wait to get help. Go to NOCD.com and book a free call with their team to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You know what speed dating is, right? You've done that. I have. I have not, but I'm sure you're the only millennial who has. And if you're the owner of a growing business, what if there was a feature like speed dating except for hiring somebody? Isn't that interesting?
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Starting point is 00:00:28 excellent candidates for your job via back-to-back video calls. We kinda, before this feature came out, we actually did do this at the local coffee shop. Yeah, we just hang up on people in person. Yeah, and be like, goodbye next. But no, it's, trust me. You know, the awkwardest one,
Starting point is 00:00:43 there was somebody next to us, remember, who was also interviewing, and it was a you know the awkwardest one there was somebody next to us remember It was also interviewing and it was not Eva the last person, but they you know they just had to go up against Eva There was no winning. You know yeah They came in right after Eva and they definitely heard us saying before their interview that we don't need to look any further She's the one we said Enjoy the benefits of speed hiring with new zip intro Intro only from ZipRecruiter, rated number one hiring site based on G2. Try ZipIntro for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash drink.
Starting point is 00:01:13 Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. ZipIntro. Close jobs today, talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight. Rocky's Vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet!
Starting point is 00:01:29 Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice! On behalf of Sierra Canada, nice travels. Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on EquipFlight, sponsored by Bell Condition Supply, sieracanada.com. Well, welcome everyone to... Is it technically 4 30 or because we did a live episode last week? Was that 430?
Starting point is 00:02:08 I thought you meant the time. Oh, whoopsies. It's 431. It's not 431 p.m. It's episode 431. Well, happy four minus three equals one everybody. I hope that you're having a lovely day driving or cleaning or eating or planning a fun trip or Hang out with your friend. What else would they be doing petting a cat?
Starting point is 00:02:33 Bedriding. Yeah, I hope this is I hope you're having a nice break from tik-tok How's your day Christine? What are you doing? Oh imagine that we put this on tik-tok and then we're like caught you in the act Well now that's the clip. It's not a clip, it's real life. We see you, don't swipe, don't swipe, don't swipe. We're right here. What is the matter with you? Are you having fun?
Starting point is 00:02:56 I'm trying to bully you right now. Go watch our episode. Get off TikTok, get off TikTok right now. Go pet a cat and hang out with your friend. Go watch this, you're gonna have fun. So, hi Em, what did you ask me? I already lost the plot. How are you?
Starting point is 00:03:11 Oh, thank you. I'm doing well. I am drinking iced coffee out of my bisexual pride cup. Love that. What are you up to? I actually just washed my bisexual cup. I don't have a bisexual, the cup is as bisexual as I get,
Starting point is 00:03:26 but I got it recently at, when we were in Houston, I went to Bucky's, obviously, and I bought myself a little summery Bucky's cup, but it was bisexual colors, made me think of you. Oh, I love it. I forgot to tell you. Tell me. At that Houston Bucky's, by the way,
Starting point is 00:03:44 has the world's largest, world's longest car wash. Did you go through it? I did. Avis can thank me, their rental car came back squeaky clean. You are deeply insane. That's so funny. It has a laser light show in it, my friend. Come on.
Starting point is 00:03:59 Like, and then I- So people just go in there with their rental cars to wash them off for the light show. That's hilarious I wonder if there is a higher number of clean cars that get returned to rental cars in Houston Yeah, they're like, oh they must have gone to Bucky's, you know kind of a smart setup there you got going. Yeah Anyway, that was my fun Thank you so much you're working really hard hard. Do you have a reason that you drink? I have this crazy cough that won't go away.
Starting point is 00:04:32 I haven't heard it yet today, have I? Or maybe I've just become immune to the sound. You've become immune. It's insane. I also have a three-year-old, so I think coughing, it just like, unfortunately has become part of just the general white noise of my life.
Starting point is 00:04:46 It's becoming like a thing where I think I need to go to a doctor, because it's almost a week long, and it's, I've had a week long headache from coughing so much that my head hurts. Oh, no, don't get pneumonia, that's what I'm thinking here. There you go, getting pneumonia, thanks a lot. I don't know where it came from, I'm not sick, I wasn't sick, it's just, I'm not sick. I wasn't sick.
Starting point is 00:05:05 It's just I just woke up one day and now I just have like a terrible cough. So it's fun for everybody. I'm really actually nervous about our live show where I'm just going to cough through it in Vegas. I don't know. So sorry in advance. A weird time. Anyway, it'll be good. It'll be good. That's, I guess, one of the reasons why I drink.
Starting point is 00:05:24 I've got plenty that will stick with that one That's a good one. We'll save the rest for next week. I guess I drink because I'm getting okay. There's just been a lot of weird things that have happened synchronicity wise But I would all add well, I'll just say now and oh how about in the yappy hour? I tell all the synchronicities that led to this? Cause it's actually a bonkers story. I like wrote it down cause I was like, no one's gonna believe me. I'm getting a tattoo in Vegas.
Starting point is 00:05:53 I'm getting little hot stuff. And it wasn't even planned. It just the other day, again, a lot of weird things happened and I just fell into a tattoo appointment in Vegas. It was just really weird. What kind of synchronicities led you to getting little hot stuff tattooed on you?
Starting point is 00:06:09 What's going on? I know that's why I'm saying it's gotta be a yap-yap, because it's way, I don't wanna drag this on forever, but man, it's quite a story. Is this another you and Eva going to get tattoos together, or is this like, it just happened? Totally happened. Do you know what position he'll be
Starting point is 00:06:25 in on your i think i'm gonna put him on my like wear my body or like where like him and you thank you for asking you get it uh so i think i'm gonna put him here well at first i thought i want to put a little hot stuff devil on my shoulder right because like you know devil on your shoulder but then i was like but i want people to see him and I want to see him and then I'll never see him. So I was like, I think I'm going to put him on my arm next to my moth man, next to my moth. And he's, I haven't decided if he's going to be kind of, there's this one pose I have of him kind of standing very like cheeky.
Starting point is 00:06:58 And I think I'm going to have with a broken or crooked halo over his head and then holding a flaming pencil. And so either the one where he's standing there or the one where he's like doing the sleepover, like, you know, writing with a pencil. So I'm surprised you don't get him like on your shoulder right here so you can't see him.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Oh, that's actually a cute idea. I think I'm too chicken to do that. Oh really? That would be so fun. Everyone would go, oh my God, you got a little devil on your shoulder. I actually, hang on. That's it, I think.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Yeah, I'll put it here. You're welcome. Thanks. He's such a cutie pie. He is. And I got to say, I finally read the whole comic. This is the first one, by the way. It was like a reissue in the 90s. But this is the first. The OG. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:38 And because look at the back, look how 90s. What's the story? Oh, home. What's the story in there? There are several, but my favorite one is that, well, first of all, he has a grandpa named Blaze, which is really wild. And grandpa Blaze also wears a diaper.
Starting point is 00:07:55 And so Blaze loved that. And then my favorite story is where he has an aunt, Clinker. Is that her name? You know, I was on board with Blaze because that made sense. Clinker is crazy. Yeah. So, I mean, he's just so cute. Look at him. And he's always just trying to like build a cool fort or like make friends with a snowman, but he just accidentally melts him
Starting point is 00:08:16 or he actually catches his cave on fire. It's just all very sweet. So are you going to get like stylized wise? It going to be like a vent like that version. Yeah, cool vintage look I think oh, this is my favorite. It's called it doesn't suit me and aunt clinker Says aunt mushy is coming today Great, I don't imagine the artists had two of these women have crazy names, right? Like what's going on clinker and mushy sounds like they went to prison together
Starting point is 00:08:44 Oh, there's also an incredible amount of cigars in all of these comics. I'm like amazed that cigars were having quite a heyday, even the children's population at the time. No, so aunt Mushy comes with a present and it's this little sailor outfit and he puts it on and he's like, I don't like it and they make him wear it. It's very relatable, you know, probably to you especially. And then he's like, what a crummy outfit. I'll play sailor all right. And then he just like ruins it. He fights some sharks and ruins his outfit.
Starting point is 00:09:14 And then she's like, don't worry, I brought another one. And then puts him in another little outfit. And then at the end, he's like, no, what you don't understand is I just really like the way that he actually says, I'm gonna quote I only like to wear this fireproof asbestos diaper. Cutie pie. Yeah he has an asbestos diaper guys. Yeah but he's a little double he's allowed to wear whatever he wants. That's right and they say she goes oh well you should have said so I made
Starting point is 00:09:41 you this beautiful flower patterned asbestos diaper. And he says, how do I get out of this one? It's just so silly. Womp, womp, womp, womp. It's like, awt mushy. Everyone's got an awt mushy, you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. There we go. There was something in your voice when you just went like,
Starting point is 00:10:00 I don't want to wear it. It made me think of, we just took Hank to the vet and there's- Yeah, he's sick too. He's had an upset tummy for a little bit. And so we're having to switch his diet. But he, his vet, by the way, is like a very openly proud gay man
Starting point is 00:10:19 who wears glitter shoes. Oh, cool. And so when we were sitting in the vet. What about the cats like that? Maybe I liked it. I guess I'm a cat. Yeah you're on the ground with the cat. But we were we were waiting in like one of the waiting rooms and we were waiting we didn't know his we didn't know his name we didn't catch his actual name so we kept calling him Mr. Glitter Shoes. And Dr. Glitter Shoes to you. Well it became a thing where we were trying to make voices as if we were Hank, because he's terrified of the vet.
Starting point is 00:10:50 He's terrified of anything outside of this house. And so it became this line that we now keep repeating nonstop in our house together. But we were talking as if we were Hank, and we just kept going, Mr. Glitter Shoes, I fruit up. I fruit up. No, I fruit up? Aw. So that's become-
Starting point is 00:11:06 I don't wanna throw up. I know, that's sad because you know, that is, literally Leona one time threw up and she said, I didn't like throwing up. And I was like, oh honey, no, I know. No one likes it. No one likes it. That's how Hank sounds for sure.
Starting point is 00:11:18 I don't doubt it for a second. I fruit up. Anytime we have, we, Allison's not in the room and she comes in I go miss a good issues. I ate my dinner So anyway if you hear me for some reason that slips out in the future just know that there was a reference point to that But that's that's the update is that he's sick and he had doggy pink eye recently. He's just all over the place Catch a little break. He's just all over the place. He needs to catch a little break.
Starting point is 00:11:46 He's on the mend now, we're fine. Jinx, can I say one more thing real quick before I forget? So big important announcement, May is actually missing and murdered Indigenous People Awareness Month. Specifically May 5th, and I say Indigenous People Awareness Month, specifically May 5th, many people wear red. We missed May 5th already because I say indigenous people awareness month, specifically May 5th, many people wear red.
Starting point is 00:12:06 We missed May 5th already because I was supposed to record, we were supposed to record that for that episode and then all sorts of stuff happened. So we released a live episode, but just to add, we're still in the month of May, so it's still very, very timely. People wear red on May 5th to raise awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls,
Starting point is 00:12:24 and Two-spirit people. It's often known as Red Dress Day, typically celebrated in the US and Canada. It's a symbolic gesture to honor the missing and murdered, especially, you know, considering how high the ratio is compared to, you know info on that at the end of my story later on today But I wanted to point that out of top just so everybody kind of is aware that that's what's happening this month And it's important to keep at the top of our minds and draw attention to what can you can you repeat the whole? Title of the appreciation month. It's a lot of words. Yes. It is a lot of words I'm gonna so that is the that is what nativehope.org calls it according to YWCA Spokane.
Starting point is 00:13:11 They call it Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People. So I think there are other, there are a lot of ways to say it, but basically the idea is to remember and honor, especially because these stories really don't get told enough, not near enough. hundred percent so that's what we're gonna get into later but for now I would like to hear a story from you Amethy well let me cough first I'm hungry what to do what to do just kidding I know it's hungry roots
Starting point is 00:13:43 yeah we just got our hungry roots some. I know it's Hungry Root. Yay. We just got our Hungry Root sent to us yesterday. It's Alison's favorite part of the week. She gets weirdly giddy. No, but it's like thrilling. Like it's thrilling in a new way. It's nice to have a box of food that you know you're gonna like. And it's like surprising.
Starting point is 00:13:58 It's like, oh, it's all, it's different and they customize it just for you. It feels so special. I love a custom experience, especially again, when it's food and it's arriving to my door. You know I hate inconvenience. It's just, it saves me in so many ways. Hungry Root is like having your own personal shopper
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Starting point is 00:14:55 Go to hungryroot.com slash drink and use code drink. That's hungryroot.com slash drink code drink to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Hungryroot.com slash drink code drink. If there's one thing I know about M, it's that they're always craving their next action-packed adventure. That's the truth. That's the truth. That's what we always say. Action-packed, you know, I'm not action-packed myself, but I like to be stimulated in the action-packing.
Starting point is 00:15:20 That's right. And that is what Audible is here to do today for all of us. Audible delivers thrills of all kinds of every kind on your command from electrifying suspense. By the way, this morning, my therapist on the way to work sent me a screenshot of the book she was listening to on Audible. And I was like, thank you. I had already read it. I love that you're bonding that way. I know. I was like, this is a kind of a fun way to like share. Anyway, you can unleash your adventure side with gripping titles that keep you guessing.
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Starting point is 00:16:02 what's beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try audible now for Free for 30 days and dive into a new world of thrills visit audible.com slash drink or text drink to 500 500 You're not gonna get a story you're gonna get kind of my one of my 101s that I do I almost said a ghost story and then I went I should be more vague a story You should be inclusive you fucking inconsiderate bitch. Yeah, actually. What else is new? What else is new with me?
Starting point is 00:16:28 You've always gotta reign me in. You're just not woke. You're just not woke. You're, what are you, the PC police? Yeah, so I got recognized when I was in, oh my God, where were we just? Kansas City. No, where was the place before that?
Starting point is 00:16:47 St. Louis. St. Louis. And I got recognized by a girl named Bobby, loved that. Cute. And Bobby said, oh, I've wanted you to cover this for a long time. So Bobby, this is for you. Bobby's like, fuck you, I don't live in Kansas City. Bobby's like, actually, my name was Billy,
Starting point is 00:17:05 so I'm fucking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, this is the green ribbon. You know about that, right? I think. Like, around the neck? Yeah. Yes. So, which is interesting, because it's not a ghost story,
Starting point is 00:17:21 but Bobby humbly and gently reminded me that I'm also supposed to be covering urban legends. So this does fall in. It doesn't sound humble. It was humble. It was very kind. But I was like, you're right. I should just, like, there are so many scary stories we all grew up with and don't know the origins.
Starting point is 00:17:38 Yeah, okay. Oh, I love it. So like the kind of nightmarish story and like where it comes from. Oh, oh, this is fun. Okay, so The Green Ribbon for those of you who remember Maybe the first moment you felt horrified in your life It was a children's book for us, or it was a children's story that a lot of us read I will tell you before anything else that as soon as I googled
Starting point is 00:18:04 The Green Ribbon one of the first articles came up was a BuzzFeed article and it was titled for everyone I will tell you before anything else that as soon as I googled the green ribbon One of the first articles came up was a BuzzFeed article and it was titled for everyone who still fucked up over that story About the girl with the ribbon around her neck. See it's like the most millennial like Creepy pasta that lives in our brains. It definitely was it feels like it was just our era But maybe it was also like the generation before us and it was like Gen X, I guess. I think it's because it was featured in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It got like very widespread in our,
Starting point is 00:18:31 like that was a big book in my elementary school. Well, I will tell you, I don't know if I'm legally allowed to do this. I think I can if I'm gonna give it credit. I'm gonna read the whole story to you right now. Well, do you remember when COVID first started, we started reading scary stories to tell in the dark. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:51 But there's like- I also don't know if that was legal. Whoopsies. No, don't care because probably- We got away with it. Honestly, we probably didn't even do it right. Because I remember like that was pre-camera, like we didn't know how to do,
Starting point is 00:19:05 I remember screen recording you holding the book and then I was trying to speak over, it was insane. Now that there's Zoom, it's like, what were we doing? The pandemic was a crazy time. It really fast forwarded our live reading scary story situation, so I would love to hear it. Yeah, and it's so,
Starting point is 00:19:27 to the people who remember that story, it has lived with us for so long, I thought it must have been much longer than this, but it's like a paragraph, not even. Oh, it feels like it was like a full chapter. Doesn't it feel like it was like, maybe because when we read it as children, it felt like 25 pages. You know what, probably.
Starting point is 00:19:43 Yeah. Or when that kid in class who just like kept not saying the words. Oh yeah, drank popcorn. Yeah. Yeah, oh my God. All right, so here is the green ribbon. Insert spooky music.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Once there was a girl named Jenny. She was like all other girls except for one thing. She always wore a green ribbon around her neck. There was a boy named Alfred in her class. Alfred liked Jenny and Jenny liked Alfred. One day he asked her, why do you wear that ribbon all the time? I cannot tell you said Jenny.
Starting point is 00:20:20 But Alfred kept asking why do you wear it? And Jenny would say it's not important. First of all, like red flag. First of all, she fucking told you how she feels. She just said, I don't wanna do this. And so you just like, you keep asking her. Like pushy fucking bastard, yeah. Like listen to a boundary, okay?
Starting point is 00:20:37 No means no. Like respect her. Seriously, it really irks me. Jenny and Alfred grew up and fell in love. Okay, so Jenny doesn't see the difference. His persistence worked. This was clearly written by someone from the 40s who was like...
Starting point is 00:20:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What they're not mentioning is Alfred is 35. Yeah, if someone pulls your hair really hard, it means they're in love with you. It's a good thing. So Jenny and Alfred grew up and fell in love. One day they got married, and after their wedding, Alfred said, now that we are married
Starting point is 00:21:06 You must tell me about the green ribbon That's a long con to get you to marry me just take him finally figure this shit out Talk about like a shut up ring or whatever they're called. It's like I'll just let you know about the ribbon once Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, finally Jenny Who's into edging? I guess said you must still wait No, he's in into edging I guess said you must still wait No, he's into edging They're like I'll marry you they're both having a moment here. Yeah, so Jenny says you still must wait
Starting point is 00:21:34 I will tell you when the right time comes Years past Alfred and Jenny grow old One day Jenny becomes very sick. The doctor told her she was dying. Jenny called Alfred to her side. Alfred, she said, now I can tell you about the green ribbon. Untie it and you will see why I could not tell you before. Slowly and carefully, Alfred untied the ribbon and Jenny's head fell off. Which like that's the strongest,
Starting point is 00:22:05 what was it, like, made of gorilla glue? Also, how, do you know that ribbon got undone? Is that the end? The end, yeah. The end, okay. You know that ribbon, like, at least once the bow got undone, and he was like, ah, this is the moment,
Starting point is 00:22:16 and Shady Boy tied it right. Yeah, tie it right back up. Yeah, what the F? And also, like, why did that fuck us up so much? It doesn't seem scary to me now. I mean, I'm 33, but I feel like it was scarier back then. I, yeah, I remember, I think it was the, it was the first time we ever experienced like a shock value of like, oh, her head fucking fell off. I thought we were gonna. Good point. I thought it was probably shocking that she was dying of old age. We were probably
Starting point is 00:22:43 already like, she's dying, and then it's like, oh, her head fucking fell off. Her head fell off. And then, because it makes you wonder, so she's had the secret her whole life. Yeah, oh, yeah, it's kind of sinister. I hope he's happy. Like, does it mean she, also,
Starting point is 00:22:57 what do you mean she's dying now? I'm pretty sure beheaded she was already dying. I like that the doctor was like, oh, can't figure it out. And it's like, maybe it's because her head's not attached. I like that the doctor was like, oh, can't figure it out. And it's like, maybe it's because her head's not attached. I like how the doctor also never said, can you take that ribbon off? Like, can you please?
Starting point is 00:23:12 What's that giant wound coming up from under your beautiful necklace? The doctor had to have gotten fired from the board when they realized that she's been dead and he was talking to a zombie and didn't know it. He was literally just trying to, yeah, diagnose her with something. It's like, okay, all right. Well, I'm fascinated about this. So this comes from something. Like, I didn't realize that. Yeah. I thought I just assumed it was sort of like invented by
Starting point is 00:23:34 whoever made this compendium of stories. So interestingly, you already fell for their first trick, Christine, because you said, oh, it obviously comes from the scary stories of Telling the Dark. I did. I did. Whoopsies, you're wrong. It comes from the same author, which is why I think a lot of people get confused. Oh, so it's not even in that book. Oh, OK, OK. Oh, I see. It comes from the author, Alvin Schwartz. This version, I'll say of the green ribbon comes from Alvin Schwartz,
Starting point is 00:24:01 who did write scary stories to tell in the dark. OK. But because of that, a lot of people think the green ribbon is in that book when really it's in a different book he wrote called In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Stories. So other stories and scary stories probably sound the same. Yeah, in a dark, dark room. I remember that one too, though. So that book was that book was from 84. Okay, So this story has existed since 1984. It was part of the I can read book series. Congrats. Here's some trauma.
Starting point is 00:24:32 Yeah. Oh, you can read. Here's your first fucking sentence that you'll never want to read again. Let's ruin your life. So fun fact about the I can read book series, cause I obviously had to look that up. Yeah, I love these guys.
Starting point is 00:24:43 Today there are over 500 titles, including Amelia Bedelia, my favorite, and your favorite, Frog and Toad. And do you know what their very first book that they put out was? Box Bear Children. No, but it's another one of our favorites. Little Bear.
Starting point is 00:24:58 Oh, God, they're all killing me. Oh, it's so good. So it's been around since 1957 and Little Bear was the first one. There's something about parenting that's great when you can just be like when Leon is like, what's that? And I'm like, that's Little Bear. And yeah, we're going to watch it together.
Starting point is 00:25:13 It's just like so you know, when I'm satisfying. One of the things I've been trying to do more on this tour when I've been traveling and going around and stuff, I've been trying to go to, if not botanical gardens, I've been trying to go to like the big park in the area of each place. And every time I've gone to a city's park, I play a little bear playlist on Spotify. So it feels like I'm wandering through the woods.
Starting point is 00:25:40 Isn't that precious? I don't regret it at all. Like that the cat's going to come out from a log and then the goose. Oh my gosh. Duck's going to come over here with her anxiety. Out of here. You're so frenetic. Anyway, highly recommend. Also, I listen to a Shire playlist, so it feels like I'm a hobbit traveling across the land. Yeah, that's good too.
Starting point is 00:26:00 Okay, so another fun fact about this. These I can read books. For those who don't know, these books are sold as series and they come in different levels based on a kid's ability to read. I mean, it starts with just learning vowels all the way to like, you can read advanced books on your own. So, In a Dark, Dark Room is level two.
Starting point is 00:26:20 Okay. Which is the first level where kids can read on their own. Right, so it really is like the first trauma. It's like, oh, here's a bad experience. Okay, I got it. I mean, I guess it's a good experience. We're still harping on it. It couldn't have been that bad.
Starting point is 00:26:33 It's literally when the kid is like, I can finally read, give me a book all by myself. And then five minutes later, they're like, I don't want this anymore. Yeah. So this version of the green ribbon was not the first rendition of the story, but fun fact, it was the first time in any of the stories where the girl's ribbon is green. Oh, so that was the change. That's the change. This urban legend goes all the way back, at least written down into the 1800s, but it's thought orally this goes back to the French Revolution. Oh, shit. Okay
Starting point is 00:27:05 I really thought we were gonna start at the 80s. I did not realize it actually went back that far No, because guess what was going on during the French Revolution. People were dying by the guillotine Not no pun intended this actually bled into bled into Fashion at the time the fact that the guillotine was so big. That's insane. Because there were private parties. This was a deep dive. I loved going through. Yeah. During the French Revolution, there were these private secret,
Starting point is 00:27:36 almost like speakeasy parties called Balls de Victim. Balls de Victim or Victim's Ball. Whoa. And during these balls, the victim, or victim's ball. Whoa! And during these balls, they were held during and after the revolution to, and you had to be, you could only be invited if you had lost someone to a guillotine. Oh, jeez.
Starting point is 00:27:57 So it was a way that everyone could get together and grieve. Oh, wow. But people would dance and celebrate the lives of the people who died, but they would wear mourning clothes in honor of those who were executed. They would also dress the part and started mimicking what the victims of the guillotine would look like. So it became very popular for women to cut their hair short because that was one of the last things they would do for women before they got executed. So women's- That's also, that's like, speaks to like human coping mechanisms and stuff too.
Starting point is 00:28:28 You know, like, wow. It's like reclaiming the short hair of like- Yeah, you've- Eventually, so I think it started as like, if you're related or if you've lost someone, so you're going to, they were the victims and now you're honoring them. Eventually they known more as like survivors balls were like even even after the revolution It's like we were rebels who somehow escaped the guillotine survived it, right? Yeah
Starting point is 00:28:54 So then in that way they were reclaiming the short hair for the people who lost their lives. That makes sense So women were cutting their hair short because that's what would happen right before you were sent to the guillotine. They also at these parties would dance and sharp jerky motions like oh I know. They also began wearing red ribbons around their neck to represent the blade. Red wow see the red okay so he's like I'm gonna take some artistic liberty and make it not blood colored. And fun fact this is the beginning of chokers in fashion. Okay, I was gonna say that must also be why millennials
Starting point is 00:29:30 are into that, because I love to wear a choker. Yeah, they came from people being guillotined. So remember that. You had sensitive inconsiderate bitch or whatever I said earlier. Listen, you already called me that. So it's like at this point, how much lower can I get, you know?
Starting point is 00:29:44 Excuse my watery eyes. I'm, it's absolutely talking about chokers, not the coughing. Okay. It's calling me names. It just doesn't sit right with you. I felt icky, yeah. Okay, so those are victims balls.
Starting point is 00:30:01 Again, later they became known as survivors balls after the revolution and people were still honoring those that passed. I think, let me see. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's where we think the green ribbon story has its original roots. Although the first time we see it ever written anywhere
Starting point is 00:30:17 was 1824, where there was a different compendium of stories by Washington Irving. And if that sounds familiar, he's the guy who wrote Sleepy Hollow. Do you know that when you started the story, I was about to say, this gives Sleepy Hollow vibes. And then I didn't, but I guess, of course, with the headless, like, of course that makes total sense.
Starting point is 00:30:35 Yeah, so he actually wrote Sleepy Hollow only a few years before. So then he became popular. So I think his version of the story is- Interesting. It took off. So then he became popular. So I think his version of the story is interesting. It took off. His version of the story was actually just called the Adventure of the German Student.
Starting point is 00:30:53 Look out, Christine. Wait a minute. And in it, a man named Gottfried Wolfgang. Okay, sure. Yep. That sounds German to me. Visits France during the revolution. I feel like that's not the time to go. You got a really cheap ticket, though.
Starting point is 00:31:07 They were like five bucks extra extra sale. While he's there, he meets this pale woman dressed in black and they were they met by the guillotine that would later be used the next day or had been used throughout the week. I guess they were both just standing there and looking at the guillotine. He meets this girl. Fun fact, she had a quote, black band around her neck clasped by diamonds.
Starting point is 00:31:31 Oh, beautiful. I know she has diamonds. That's fancy, okay. So they go back to his place, they hook up. Oh wow. The story is like so like tropey lesbian because they fall in love that night and decide they're gonna move in together. Well probably because they want to have sex so they're
Starting point is 00:31:48 probably like now we have to get married today. Oh yeah cuz they're dirty oh yeah yeah they're living in sin. So if we're gonna get pregnant right now we better get we better get a house we have nine months. Yeah. So they hook up he they fall in love or at least say they're going to get married and move in together So he literally goes apartment hunting the next day gay Also, like he's on vacation. I know you don't even live here. Do it. You don't even live here, dude So when he comes back though to tell her like I got a place she's done Whoopsie is big day for him. Did they need a doctor to tell her that or did she just?
Starting point is 00:32:27 Well Whoopsies, big day for him. Did they need a doctor to tell her that? Or did she just... The doctor didn't tell her. Well, let's see how you handle this. The cops are the ones who tell him, fun fact, we just looked into who she is. She was executed yesterday by the guillotine. And so of course the day that he met her, she had died earlier that day. That's so twisted too, because it's like now the cops think
Starting point is 00:32:46 you were sleeping with a corpse. Hold onto that thought. Uh oh, I don't want to. I don't want to. When the police took her ribbon off, because they're like, oh, there's that, they were like, give me those diamonds. Her head rolls across the floor.
Starting point is 00:33:00 Her head rolls across the floor. And so that's another version of this story. Okay, so he's probably like, I didn't believe it. And then they pulled the ribbon. And so that's another version of this story. Okay. So he's probably like, I didn't believe it. And then they pull the ribbon. Okay, I see. Yeah, I like how he was probably, think of, okay, imagine you hook up with someone today
Starting point is 00:33:14 and then you come back and see them again, they're dead. You call the cops and then all of a sudden they've been beheaded and they were tied together by this tiny little band. And somehow you don't go to prison as the princess. That's what's wild to me about it. Like it feels like the makings of like a Netflix crime drama, like a twisty turny crime drama, but wow.
Starting point is 00:33:37 Okay, all right, I'm in. So that was a Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving's version of this. Okay. He heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy. So he doesn't even claim that he created this. He's the one who wrote it down. He's like, I've been hearing, and it had never been written down before.
Starting point is 00:33:57 So I think he was like, apparently the story goes back forever and ever and ever. I've heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy. I'm just going to write it down and publish it and be the one that everyone, since I've got my sleepy hollow fame, everyone will hear this story. Might as well get some credit, yep. So one of the guys he heard it from, his name's Horace. And Horace wrote a very similar story
Starting point is 00:34:19 and published it later. So there's confusion sometimes between like who came first. But Horace technically knew the story first, but he wrote about it and published it after Washington. Oh, bad. Yeah. It's like so that fucking guy got all the credit and no one even remembers. My version. I told him that story. Yes. I said it better, probably.
Starting point is 00:34:36 Well, to go back to your point, Horace, his name was Horace. He was like, oh, well, he never confirmed this, but there's it's heavily thought that he got inspiration to write it from a pamphlet from the 1600s about necrophilia. Oh my God. Why did I have to like align with Horus psychically? I don't like that. Apparently in that pamphlet, there was a cautionary tale about the devil tricking someone into sleeping with a dead body That feels like a hot stuff Exclusive comic book strip from the 40s or 60s or whatever. It certainly sounds of From a different era really a cigar. Yeah, this cigar. Oh
Starting point is 00:35:22 Okay, so he the thought is he got this story from that pamphlet, which the pamphlet is from the 1600s. It's older than the French Revolution. So oh, wow. I don't even know where his inspiration comes from. What's real anymore? I don't even know. We live in a vortex of mystery.
Starting point is 00:35:37 So it's real. Anyway, it's beautiful. Thank you. The main thing is that people heard it most from Washington Irving, who also came up with the legends. The loudest. Yes. So after the 1820s, now there's multiple versions written out.
Starting point is 00:35:55 Another one comes out in the 1840s by a guy named Alexander. He wrote the woman with the velvet necklace. So now we've had red, we've had black, we've had black with diamonds, we've had velvet. There's a little puppy dog looking out the window right now, by the way. Oh my goodness. He wants to come back inside and he doesn't get to. Oh, he's outside.
Starting point is 00:36:15 Oh, oh, he's outside. I thought he was inside. No. That's even funnier. No, Alison is, I was like, you have to leave for several hours. Figure it out. You must get it out. So so anyway, by the 1850s, there's already multiple versions written down.
Starting point is 00:36:31 And so I imagine it's already in the zeitgeist that people have heard the story. Yeah. So that's by the 1850s. And more versions keep coming out after that. My personal favorite is 1924, which it's from the writer's name is Gaston Leroux. He also wrote The Phantom of the Opera. My personal favorite is 1924, which it's from a, the writer's name is Gaston Leroux. He also wrote The Phantom of the Opera. Ooh, okay, Christine, famously. And here's his version, is that a mayor throws
Starting point is 00:36:57 a French Revolution party, which I'm imagining is one of these victim balls. Feels like it. Well, it's like, I think it's like, the theme is victim ball. I think they're mimicking the old victim balls. Feels like it. Well, it's like, I think it's like, it's the theme is victim ball. I think they're mimicking the old victim balls. Right. Okay, gotcha. And this mayor has this party because he wants to show off his refurbished revolution era
Starting point is 00:37:17 guillotine. So it's like when somebody gets a new thing and they're like a new grill and they're like, we gotta have a party. Exactly. Except like ultra wealthy. Yeah, right. Sure. It's a new yacht.
Starting point is 00:37:31 It's a new guillotine. It's very let them eat cake. Yeah. So big time. He apparently, so in this version, the mayor has this party, wants to show off his guillotine. Surprise to everybody. He had found out recently that his wife was cheating on him.
Starting point is 00:37:47 And he decides, I'm gonna do a demonstration of this. Ghiattin. Uh oh. And he told his wife that it wouldn't hurt her, even though it's a brand new, renovated Revolutionary Ghiattin. Put your head right here. Puts her head in there, trusts him, and slices her up.
Starting point is 00:38:07 Oh my God, in front of a party people, this very Edgar Allan Poe, you know? Like this kind of like morbid weirdness. Again, how do you not go to jail as at least the prime suspect, you know? At least. Yeah, I mean, I guess you have to be an urban legend. Otherwise you're probably in jail.
Starting point is 00:38:21 I guess if you're the mayor, maybe you get some sway though. That's true. Although I'm forgetting this is literally a story that got us on the road. I was gonna say this is probably in jail. I guess if you're the mayor, maybe you get some sway though. That's true Although I'm forgetting this is literally a story that So Okay, so that's just my personal favorite in the 1920s, but fast forward to the 70s right before our version was written in the 1970s there are still more versions of this coming out But now because of the way society moves and ebbs and flows,
Starting point is 00:38:48 the story is also changing. And now there's a lens of, back in the 70s, there was one of the first big waves of feminism. I see. And so the story changed with that as the new cultural lens and the story began to focus on women's consent which is what we were complaining about when we read the story.
Starting point is 00:39:10 Oh, okay. So it worked that we were raised on these versions of the stories and now as adults. We picked up on it, yeah. We're like, what about bodily autonomy, bitch? Why is he fucking pestering her? So yeah, a lot of the versions of these stories started to come out where basically she was saying,
Starting point is 00:39:26 don't touch the ribbon. And the man was weirdly pushy about it. But before that, the stories were all like, oh. And that feels better because it's like, oh, now you really want to know? Here you go. It's not like we're in love. It's like, here you go. It's like you're learning a lesson.
Starting point is 00:39:38 Yeah, exactly. Which from a storytelling point of view, like it is nicer that there's a moral to the story versus like, oh, they hooked up. And like, it feels like back then it was like, almost like a bar joke that you would. Yeah. It's like, I hooked up with this girl
Starting point is 00:39:52 and then her head fell off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This feels more like a, like a. Like a don't you dare or else. Like a moral to the story type thing. Yeah. So, so that's the type of stories that were coming out in the 70s. One of them, uh, and interestingly, by the way, all of the ones in the 70s that I could find are all in children's books.
Starting point is 00:40:15 Huh. So I wonder if like they had to change it to have a moral so that way kids could learn a lesson? I don't know, but it's interesting that they all had to do more about women's consent and they were in the wave of feminism and they were all in children's books. Versus- So then in the 90s, did they make them less about, oh, oh, so you mean before, wait, when did the, where's the consent coming in, in the 70s? In the 70s.
Starting point is 00:40:41 Okay, and then did they take it, and then the 90s one, did they take it over and then the 90s one? Did they take it away? We haven't gotten to that yet. Okay, but the one you read out loud, was that the one from? That was from 1984 and she in that was saying don't touch my ribbon. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:58 But all of them, I just think it's interesting. I don't know what that means, but the only versions I could find were in kids' stories and happened to all be not consigned. I guess they're probably like those kind of, I mean, it is sort of like a kids' campfire tale. Yeah, that's true. I also wonder if nowadays you don't really, like it's so short of a story,
Starting point is 00:41:19 it almost has to be a cautionary tale about something else. Like it couldn't be its own book, you know? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, so in one version, in this new wave of consent, the man is so pissed he's not allowed to touch her ribbon that he waits until she falls asleep and cuts it off.
Starting point is 00:41:38 Oh Jesus, okay, wow. Oh, these are in the kids' stories you're saying. Okay, I thought you'd already touched on as much consent as we're gonna get, and I was like, I don't think that's, okay, that's intense, wow. Yeah, and then her head rolls away and it's supposed to teach him a lesson about,
Starting point is 00:41:52 after the fact, consent. And yeah, anyway, so in more modern versions, like coming out in like the 2000s, or even the, like one of them came out in 2017 like it's still new versions are still being written yeah it's they have still kept the consent element to it but it's almost even more so like it's like really in your face because it's such a an obvious thing now it is a powerful thing now yeah totally it makes complete sense in the 1820s it like guess it wasn't even, they weren't even implying that the man desperately
Starting point is 00:42:29 wanted to touch her ribbon. It sounds like he was just having sex with her and not even thinking about the ribbon. I was going to say, it sounds like he wasn't even remotely concerned at the time. Yeah. I wonder if maybe because more women became authors and they took their own spin on it, it was like, what if... I also feel like it's a better horror story if somebody gets like a come up and sort of like a shock for being kind of an asshole. I don't know. I just feel like it's also a better story. Like, you know, it's always like, oh, the teens who went out in the woods,
Starting point is 00:42:54 even though they weren't supposed to, or like, it just always feels like, oh, and then if you leave the door on, there's mystery. This will happen. Yeah. Like there's some sort of like consequence, you know? Yeah. So it's scarier than a love story, I think. It's certainly. Yeah, like there's some sort of like consequence, you know, yeah, it's scarier than a love story. I think It's certainly yeah. So Anyway, it just kind of ends on the fact that in more modern versions The moral has shifted to be even more about consent than anything else and interesting
Starting point is 00:43:17 there there's really interesting commentaries people have done about Like now now that it's seen in this light of like, don't touch my body, I'm going to do it anyway. Yeah. The narratives of today, looking back on that story, are really interesting about the patriarchy and men controlling women's bodies. There was, a lot of people have done essays
Starting point is 00:43:39 on like what the green ribbon symbolizes. Oh, I love that. So you can like really explore it over time. That's cool. Yeah, so love that. So you can really explore it over time. That's cool. Yeah. So one author named Carmen Maria Machado, she actually wrote her own, I think it was a, I don't know if it was a personal story.
Starting point is 00:43:55 I think it was a story she wrote, but she wrote it as if she was the main character. Oh, wow. I think I'm getting that right. So in some ways, it felt like an essay, but it was really like a like a cautionary tale. And it was she compares the green ribbon to a husband stitch. So for those who don't know, a husband stitches when they
Starting point is 00:44:19 when they're sewing a woman back together after labor, a lot of times they have done an additional stitch. They're sewing a woman back together after labor. A lot of times they have done an additional stitch so that way it is tighter for their husband later and it has nothing to do with the woman's body. It's just like a really gross way of there being like a male ownership over her. It's just.
Starting point is 00:44:37 Yeah, it's sort of supposed to be like a present for the husband, quote unquote, to say, oh, well, I know now that she's had a baby, like it's gonna be all Loose loose down there we might like and then the joke goes like add an extra stitch for me doc And that's the joke yeah, and like it's been kind of debated how Actually real it is yeah, I think it's definitely an old it definitely happened It was definitely an old an older thing most of the time. I certainly hope
Starting point is 00:45:04 It definitely happened. It was definitely an older thing most of the time. I certainly hope Yeah, hopefully that's not happening nowadays would be like get the fuck out of here and advise divorce to the person Yeah, who just went into labor, but but so it it it was a really interesting comparison of like, you know I can give you everything Yeah, give you like even like the most intimate vulnerable vulnerable parts of me and at the end It's still gonna be like up to you if I get to like some sort of ownership over my body. It was very interesting. And it also talked about symbolizing or a lot of authors now when they talk about the green ribbon, they say it symbolizes something that men can pressure women into regarding
Starting point is 00:45:42 the woman's body for the sake of the man's own comfort or interest. Our own interest, our own curiosity or whatever. I'm just more comfortable when your head's attached. Yeah. It's just like a me thing, I know. Another author named A.E. Osworth, I thought this was interesting, compared the green ribbon to wearing a mask
Starting point is 00:46:00 during the pandemic around anti-maskers who were like, take it off, take it off, take it off. Why don't you just take it off? You don makes me you don't need that. Yeah. So I thought that was really interesting. Wow. Other than that, I just was going to leave it up to you on why we think it's so traumatizing to our generation, because it really is just a paragraph. And it's kind of amazing. Yeah. It had such lasting power. It really was, I think, one of the first pieces of plot twist though that we probably ever read. I think you hit it right. I think you hit it on the head when you said, yeah, like it was the first kind of
Starting point is 00:46:34 shock, especially if we were like beginning beginner readers and we're like figuring out, I mean, that must feel also really empowering to be like, oh my God, I just like read that by myself and figured out the plot twist. Like that must be a very formative experience. I did look it up and when it comes to those, no, no. They probably tell you. I looked up more information on like the, I can read books and that book was a level two.
Starting point is 00:47:03 So that meant kids were reading those books around five or six. Jeez, that feels really young. And so I looked up like other things about five and six year olds to see like why there's such a connection to the story. Yeah. Memory starts developing right before this time.
Starting point is 00:47:22 Reading comprehension happens at exactly this time. And five to six is also the same age when kids start showing interest in horror. Okay, because it's kind of like that subversive, scary, like that thrill without being like overcome by fear. Yeah. So I think a combination of like, I'm just learning how to remember things.
Starting point is 00:47:42 I just figured out how reading comprehension works. And also like this might be my first like step into the world of spooky. Yeah, yeah, wow. So it just unlocks a lot. It's sort of like a gateway to the scary stuff. Cause like we, I feel like everyone in our kind of space of liking spooky things can probably remember that story.
Starting point is 00:48:02 I feel like that's a pretty, if they were from like the same 100% and read the book at the time. 100%. Anyway, that's the green replace. Wow, I had no idea. I really just thought it was in that one book. It wasn't even the right book. Here we are. It's like a Mandela effect. Because I think most people think it's from that book. I was like, it feels like my first Mandela effect.
Starting point is 00:48:24 So if anyone has any other stories they want me to cover, like urban legends from our childhood. I really liked that because that was like the fact that it also has such a dark like with the beheadings and stuff. I mean, I think I never knew how Chokers came to be. I didn't know it was because we were mimicking the guillotine and honoring the victims of it. I had no idea.
Starting point is 00:48:48 It honestly gives me goose cam a little bit. It makes me want to start wearing chokers more. I literally bought a pack to mourn the rebels. Before I realized the detriment I was causing, I bought a big pack on Amazon years ago. And the detriment I was causing using Amazon and buying bulk chokers But I bought these chokers and they're all like the elastic ones, but they have all different things
Starting point is 00:49:11 They're so fucking cheap that they break when I wear them one time But I have like a hundred of them and so I feel like I would look down and they'd snap in half They were yeah, they're kind of junky even gave me a really beautiful Dark red velvet one though, which it very right for my birthday last year. She has no idea what she's done. Yeah, it felt right for this. I should have pulled that out. Wow! Good one. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:49:33 Now I feel like I need to come up with some suggestions or requests. I mean, you should cover the hook. That one always got me. The hook? Oh! I don't know. Is that true crime or is it urban legend? I think that's you. I think that's you dude Maybe I'll cover the hook next because I have some request for you also because I want to I want you to also do What's the one you've just opened up like a floodgate of suggestions here, thank you bet you among people The one with the clown the campfire story about the humans can lick to or whatever. Oh, a clown. I always heard the dog. That'll be fun.
Starting point is 00:50:09 Oh, yeah, my version was a clown. I'm sure they're all. Yeah, I'm sure there's a million. Yeah. No. OK, well, I'll see it. Maybe I'll do like an a series of urban legend. That would be really fun. And that feels also very Halloweeny, like it does. They tell those scary stories. Maybe I'll I'll stories in the dark.
Starting point is 00:50:26 Or maybe I'll save them for Halloween then. That could be fun. We could do like a reading, a little reading. Yeah. Hey, so I don't know if you know this about me, folks. I did do an entire like Instagram ask me anything about it. I will say that it has gotten better over time
Starting point is 00:50:44 thanks to one of our sponsors today, NoCD. But OCD, it's something I struggle with. It's something a lot of people have related to me with over social media and that kind of thing. OCD is a lot more than what it looks like on the surface. It's a serious and highly misunderstood condition, but NoCD is something I've been using for years. So when they came forward and said,
Starting point is 00:51:03 hey, we'd like to sponsor the show, I screamed very loudly. Not every therapist understands OCD is something I've been using for years, so when they came forward and said, hey, we'd like to sponsor the show, I screamed very loudly. Not every therapist understands OCD or is qualified to treat it effectively, which can make it difficult to find the right help, but it doesn't have to be that way. OCD is highly treatable with a specialized type of therapy called ERP or exposure and response prevention,
Starting point is 00:51:18 and general talk therapy is not recommended for OCD and can actually make it worse. With no CD, you can do live virtual ERP therapy with licensed therapists who specialize in OCD. NoCD therapists are highly trained so they really understand OCD and won't judge you no matter what your thoughts are about. NoCD therapy is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD please don't wait to get help. Go to nocd.com and book a free call with their team to learn more. That's nocd.com to schedule a free call and learn more.
Starting point is 00:51:51 All right, so as I mentioned up top, May is Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Awareness Month. This is something that I, especially as a true crime podcaster, keep on the calendar every year. And thankfully, the people on our team are not only aware, but they're also, unlike me, good at looking ahead.
Starting point is 00:52:10 And so Megan messaged Saoirse and me like in March or April or something and said like, heads up, like, you know, because we're recording a little bit in advance, you might want to start prepping, you know, some stories to whatever. So I was really thankful for that. So I just want to start prepping, you know, some stories to whatever. So I was really thankful for that. So I just want to say thank you.
Starting point is 00:52:28 We have an awesome team. And I don't- Snaps for Sersha. Seriously, for all of you, for Megan, for reminding us. Oh, Megan, sorry. Snaps for me. And Sersha, obviously, but for all of you, because I do, I feel like we don't give you enough credit.
Starting point is 00:52:41 So here is what I'm going to tell you about. This is the story of Chanel Lockwood, also known as Pretty. Okay. Sorry, sometimes people say they can tell by the way that I sigh or like make a noise at the beginning, how bad it's gonna be. And I-
Starting point is 00:52:56 We should just do a sigh meter. You know, right? I know. There's not an episode where you don't start with a sigh. Right, it's not gonna not, it's not gonna be zero ever, right? But unless I'm doing the Grinch again, which works on something.
Starting point is 00:53:10 Cletus, whatever. Cletus, yeah. No, that was the, wasn't that the Grinch? Oh wait. I don't know anymore. Doesn't matter, I think it doesn't matter. No, Cletus was me. The Grinch was when you sang.
Starting point is 00:53:20 Oh, oh. Right, how could I forget? Okay, so, Sersha was also thoughtful enough to give me a few pronunciation guides. So I watched some videos, really interesting. We're gonna be talking about a group of people called the Yupik. They're a group of indigenous peoples
Starting point is 00:53:40 of Western, Southwestern, and South Central Alaska and the Russian Far East. They're related to the Inuit and Yup'ik is the largest of the state's native languages, both in the size of its population and the number of speakers. So there are a few creators on TikTok and YouTube that give lessons on culture
Starting point is 00:53:57 and pronunciation of certain words. And a lot of people in these areas actually learn Yup'ik as our first language. So it's like pretty vibrant language, which is great. So we're going to be talking about a girl named Chanel Lockwood, and she was born in the spring of 1998 when she came home from the hospital, her three-year-old brother held his new baby sister. Fuck.
Starting point is 00:54:22 Why do I keep crying during episodes? Like, what's wrong with me? I just look insensitive because I just- No, you don't! I just look like I'm having an emotional crisis at every point of the day, which is probably true. He told his parents he thought his baby sister was so beautiful that her name should be Pretty Pretty. That's so much better than when Bendy Irwin decided to call Robert Irwin Brian. Do you remember, do you know that story? Can you tell it? Bendy Irwin I guess was used to naming all of the animals at the zoo.
Starting point is 00:54:59 That's Steve Irwin's daughter. Yes, yeah the Irwin kids. And so Bindi Irwin was their first, and she was used to naming all of the animals at the zoo as a little kid. So when her mom got pregnant, she assumed she would be naming the baby. And so when she met the baby, she was like two or three herself, and she was like, oh, his name's Brian.
Starting point is 00:55:19 And they went, we're calling him Robert. And she went, I think I'm gonna call him Brian. And so to this day, she calls him Brian. Wait, okay, that's super cute. I don I think I'm gonna call him Brian and so to this day she calls him Brian Wait, okay. That's super cute. I don't think I really understood the whole story. I thought okay, that's sweet Yeah, anyway, so speaking of me looking insensitive I was just trying to come up with something lighthearted before it gets horribly bad so no, I mean it's worth saying cuz it's like that's just really sweet because just like that, the nickname stuck and they called her Pretty. And the fact that he gave her a first and last name,
Starting point is 00:55:50 Pretty Pretty. I didn't catch that part. Yeah, Pretty Pretty. And so over time, they just started calling the baby Pretty and she just grew up to be Pretty. And I just think that's the sweetest story. Any other brother on earth would have picked a different word. I know, butthead or something.
Starting point is 00:56:07 Yeah, I mean, even I would have picked a dumber name, you know, for my brother when he was born. So, wow, it's just a really sweet way to introduce you to Pretty because that's what she went by as she grew up. But, of course, most of the sources use her legal name of Chanel, so that's typically what I'm going to say.
Starting point is 00:56:28 Um, pretty was more of a nickname in her community. Chanel was a third of nine siblings, uh, five daughters and four sons. She grew up in St. Michael, Alaska, which is a majority YUPIC community of just over 400 people. Um, there is another name for this town as well in YUPIC and it's spelled T A C I Q we could not find a pronunciation guide on that. is another name for this town as well in Yupik and it's spelled T-A-C-I-Q. We could not find a pronunciation guide on that so I don't wanna just guess, but that is the traditional name for it.
Starting point is 00:56:52 The village is located on the northeast coast of St. Michael Island in a volcanic field in Norton Sound, which is part of the Bering Sea. The communities here rely largely on subsistence living and residents harvest berries. They basically commune with the land and with nature and that's a lot of their culture, but also their lifestyle as far as getting resources and providing for families, that kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:57:16 There's also, of course, the sea nearby, so they have that resource as well, fish, seal, that kind of thing. It's also a tight knit place. Everybody kind of knows each other, very close community. And Chanel was a very friendly girl. And so she made a lot of good friends, but her best friend was a guy named Mitch Shelikoff. And he later reminisced that hours of walking and talking was almost their daily ritual.
Starting point is 00:57:41 They would just walk, I know. All of this is- Wow, she's got such a lovely set of men in her life. I was gonna say, I feel like you don't see that, right? No, she's got a brother that calls her pretty, a best friend that just wants to walk around. Yeah, especially in a true crime. There's just something really beautiful about it. Sidebar, but you said she was the third of nine.
Starting point is 00:58:00 She was a fifth of nine, third of nine, I'm sorry, third of nine. Did her brother get to name the others? Oh my gosh. Because what happens after pretty? I'd be like, oh, so that's pretty and I'm... Hmm, weird. Okay.
Starting point is 00:58:13 Anyway, it's so nice that she had so many boys in her life that were really kind to her. I'm realizing too is five daughters and four sons and she was the first daughter in the family. So like she was probably the first girl and the little boy was like, oh my god, so pretty. Oh, it makes me That's melting. I know. Oh Gosh, okay. It's like how do people not know these stories like these stories should be fucking
Starting point is 00:58:40 Everywhere, they shouldn't even be unsolved. Okay. Spoiler alert. But, well, I think we all saw that coming. So her best friend Mitch, they basically would just walk and talk every day. Chanel was considered soft-hearted, but also very capable. Her mother's name was Yvonne Evan. And she said Chanel was basically, she described her as a basketball player tomboy who took care of herself. And speaking of indigenous writers, that just occurred to me. I read a book by Stephen Graham Jones called,
Starting point is 00:59:14 I think it's called The Only Good Indian, and it's set on a reservation, and it has like a daughter who plays basketball and just this kind of like tough girl theme to it. So I feel like if any, and it's a horror novel. So if anyone's- What's it called? It's called The Only Good Indian, I believe.
Starting point is 00:59:31 And it's by Stephen Graham Jones. And it weaves in a lot of like folklore from his culture. And it's just a really good, he writes good horror stories, horror books, speaking of, you know, your thing. But it's called The Only Good Indians if anyone needs a good book. It's pretty scary.
Starting point is 00:59:50 Okay, I'm trying to get into horror now. It only took me since I was traumatized in apparently age five or six. I was gonna say, you could start with the 1984 classic. You know what, I think I did start with it, and then I paused for 30 years, because I was like, I don't think so. Not for me today.
Starting point is 01:00:05 Thank you, I have enough trauma in my life. I don't need to know about this dead girl. Here we go. So I just thought of that because of the basketball player, Tom Boy character. So she was very protective of her younger sisters, especially she was the eldest girl and she watched her mom as she grew up
Starting point is 01:00:22 take care of her own mother in old age. And so she became really interested in that kind of caretaking role and she decided to go into medicine. So when she graduated high school in 2017 she decided to enroll at the University of Alaska in Anchorage but you know this was the end of senior year so she had the summer ahead of her to enjoy before school started. Up until now Chanel actually didn't live with her mom. She lived in St. Michael with their uncle and other relatives and her siblings as well. And Yvonne would visit back and forth between Anchorage and St. Michael.
Starting point is 01:00:53 But because now she was going to Anchorage for college, she got to live, she was going to get to live with her mother full time. I hate that I keep having to change the tense to like she was supposed to have a wonderful experience living with her mom. So because they had never really lived together or hadn't lived together in a long time, she was absolutely thrilled.
Starting point is 01:01:12 She and her mom were extremely close and she was very, very excited to, her mom actually flew out for her high school graduation and said it was the proudest day of her life. And she was so excited that she was coming out to college to be near her. And so that would have started in the fall of 2017. So we're back in May when, you know, graduation just happened. Mother's Day, which again, this May theme is really hitting this month, this episode.
Starting point is 01:01:40 So for Mother's Day, she made her mom a, now I'm gonna say this, and I've been practicing, but it's a different sound than I'm used to, a gress, a chesp, a chespuck. Sorry, let me say it again, a chespuck. Literally, she described it so perfectly. She said, it's the guttural sound that a raven makes when it calls.
Starting point is 01:02:03 And I'm like, oh, shit, okay. So I've been practicing but I've been channeling a raven literally. Thank you for understanding So you were only one step away from delusional and now you You like those birds so much you want to be one I really do the only problem is then a crow came through and I started calling oh, that's not the right sound I wish a songbird would come through. Or I'm sorry, croaking. Yeah, no, that would be nice. So I was just singing a Dahudore.
Starting point is 01:02:32 So basically she said a very guttural sound. It's like, so she said, chaspec, chaspuk. Sorry, I'm gonna try, but chaspuk. And that's the name of what, sorry. Sorry, this is a traditional garment that, I haven't even said it yet, I'm gonna try, but cuspuk. And that's the name of what, sorry? Sorry, this is a traditional garment that, I haven't even said it yet, I'm sorry. It's a traditional garment that was worn,
Starting point is 01:02:52 that is worn by this community. It's just a traditional Alaskan garment, it has a hood. And Chanel was a very talented seamstress, so she adorned the cuspuk with these hand embroidered designs and made this for her mother, which I just think is so beautiful. Neither of them could wait for fall and for Chanel to move in and start their adventure together.
Starting point is 01:03:12 So it's now July, Chanel is doing her daily walk, but today Mitch is unable to join her. God. God. He was in Nome, Alaska for an appointment and that's over a hundred miles Northwest. So this is like an all day affair. So he's not able to come on their walk.
Starting point is 01:03:31 During one of their all day text conversations, Chanel tells her mom, Yvonne, that she's going out for a walk. And Yvonne is like, I don't really like you going alone. Mostly because of the moose and bears, like not even for people, right? But like it's just Alaska, you know?
Starting point is 01:03:45 And it's like, okay, be careful, especially by yourself. But Chanel was just like so used to these walks. They were second nature to her. She did them every day. She said, oh, don't worry, I'll call you when I get home. Before she left, she spent the evening with her uncle John. He made them dinner. Chanel told him she was counting down the days
Starting point is 01:04:02 till she got to move to Anchorage with her mom. They talked excitedly about her plans. They rode ATVs that evening. And then Chanel walked to the beach near their house. I mean, if you had a beautiful beach near your house, of course you would walk there every day. Like, it's just so hard to not. Also, what a lovely day.
Starting point is 01:04:21 Dinner with your family, and then you're gonna go ride ATVs. You're counting down the days to see your mom. It's just such a wholesome and beautiful thing to just fucking destroy. And her best friend is just out of town for the day, but he'll be on the walk tomorrow and you can catch him up. It's just really fucking awful.
Starting point is 01:04:40 But this is Alaska, and so the sunlight is, is, is always there. Not always, but it's not quite the midnight sun, but summer in Alaska can blast, blast 20 hours a day of daylight. So they're very, very long days. And that day in particular, July 10th, the sun rose at about 5 a.m. and it set just before 1 a.m. So there were about like four hours
Starting point is 01:05:06 of darkness which is a wild thought to me. Yeah. I would struggle more with the opposite one but I would thrive. Oh my god. Where it's only dark? In the dark? Yes. What are you are you new here? I literally hate the sun. I just can't understand it. I get so depressed when without vitamin d. Every time I see the sun I go, you know that, obviously you don't because you don't watch focus every year like the rest of us. But when Winifred Sanderson goes,
Starting point is 01:05:34 ah, another glorious morning, it makes me sick. Yeah, yeah, I do love that. I feel like that's the vibe. And I wish I were that way because it would be very helpful to me, especially in the winters. But I just, I get so depressed. I'm like, I don't know.
Starting point is 01:05:47 I think I just need one of those sun lamps all the time. I don't know her. So anyway, it's light out 20 hours a day, which especially if you're going for a walk in the evening is like, okay, great. I'm not gonna be in the dark. I don't need to like look out for things I can't see. So fast forward to the next day. Mitch is back in St. Michael and he and Chanel were
Starting point is 01:06:10 supposed to go on their walk together and he gets home and people are like, oh hey where's Chanel? And he goes, what do you mean? I just got home and they say we didn't see her since her walk last night. So of course Mitch is immediately worried. It's a small community and he's like, how does nobody know where she is? Like, I just went away for a couple of days, I come home and she's gone. So he didn't have a phone.
Starting point is 01:06:32 So he set out on foot to ask everyone he saw for news or if they'd seen anything. And that evening, while Yvonne was getting ready for bed, she gets a call from her sister, who's Chanel's aunt. And her aunt, Chanel's aunt, Yvonne's sister has to tell her that her daughter has been found dead on the beach next to her house. Oh my god so she walked to the beach and that's where it happened okay. Yes, yes. Yvonne didn't know how to react she literally didn't believe her sister right like you would just be like what are
Starting point is 01:07:04 you talking about? How do you even process that? So she hung up the phone, she dialed Chanel, went straight to voicemail. She called the health aid, sorry, let me say that again. She called the health aid on-call number for those who don't know, on-call health aids are local professionals in Alaska native villages
Starting point is 01:07:22 who are trained to provide urgent medical services after regular doctors office hours So it's sort of like an on-call medical provider Of course the aid who picked up this being a small town and all was Yvonne's niece. Oh my god. That's terrible Yvonne's niece picks up recognizes Yvonne's voice Bursts in the tears and said you have to call the police department I'm not like I don't want to said, you have to call the police department. I'm not like, I don't want to say anything. You have to call the police department.
Starting point is 01:07:47 Yeah. Also again, shout out to dispatchers everywhere. I mean, yes. Any sort of on call, you don't know what you're going to get situation is just, Yeah. I couldn't, I don't, I couldn't handle it. So of course, Yvonne is in full panic.
Starting point is 01:08:02 She calls the village police station and they give the phone to her son who was already there. And her son gets on the phone with his mom. His mom says, let me talk to pretty. He says, you can't mom, she's dead. So news had already broken in St. Michael that somebody had been discovered dead on a beach. And when it was confirmed that it was Chanel, Mitch went straight to see her family. He just held on to her sisters and they
Starting point is 01:08:29 just cried. They just were completely at a loss of what to do. When Alaska State Troopers received a report about a body discovered in St. Michael, they responded alongside a village public safety officer and village police officer. This would be the first of not many steps into a pretty fraught investigation. Let's put it that way. Of not many steps is all you needed to say. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, ding ding ding. Many rural communities in Alaska have no full-time law enforcement services or their officers
Starting point is 01:09:02 lack the training or qualifications to keep the community safe. There's also of course a lack of funding to provide housing or competitive pay and among other like very major systemic law enforcement issues. Therefore, when they do hire what are called VPOs or village police officers, there's often like a very lax hiring process. So much so that investigations into the issue found that people hired to protect their communities as village police officers were often guilty of having harassed and assaulted their own
Starting point is 01:09:36 families, especially women and children. According to a 2019 article by Anchorage Daily News in Stebbins, which was a village only eight miles away from St. Michael's, village police officers had been hired despite their convictions for sex crimes, animal cruelty, assault, and domestic violence. So these are the sorts of people that they are hiring to maintain law and order in the community, which already is troubling
Starting point is 01:10:05 if that's one of the first people on scene at the death of your child, I can only imagine. So Melanie Bankey is a board member for the Alaska Federation of Natives, and she criticized the system for placing these individuals in a position where they have control over people, and also access to law enforcement and direct resources like that, which seems wrong.
Starting point is 01:10:27 That's sorry, that's my own addition. In a position where they have control over people and possibly could victimize the victims further. So the Alaska Federation of Natives has a big problem with this. When investigations and emergencies are escalated to state law enforcement, there can be a very slow ticking response.
Starting point is 01:10:45 It can sometimes take state troopers hours or even weeks to respond to emergencies, including active shooters and child abductions. Sorry? Weeks? Yeah. For an active shooter? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:11:00 It's like, we'll get there eventually. It's just all... So just say nobody's coming. All the way to the top is just bad news. I just it's like one of those things where you're like, the whole thing needs to be fucking figured out people. I don't know how. I don't know. I don't know. That's so I mean, duh. Disturbing. Yeah. So. Going off that in the days following Chanel's death,
Starting point is 01:11:24 her family just waited for anything. At that point, you just keep on keeping on. You just go back to life. What do you do? You have to just sit and wait. So Yvonne's brother, John Evan II, said that state troopers flew to St. Michael for a few days in July, but he was like, they didn't really talk to many people.
Starting point is 01:11:41 They didn't ask many questions, and then they just left. So Yvonne was a little disturbed about how much makeup the funeral home put on her daughter for the wake, but her family said it was necessary because the bruising they had seen was so extensive that they needed to put on really, really thick amounts of makeup to cover her. She had also had a patch of hair ripped out in a struggle.
Starting point is 01:12:06 And that is all that her mother knew because she saw her at the wake, she saw her body and realized all the makeup was covering some sort of bruising. But by the end of September, which was two months later, Yvonne told reporters that she had absolutely no information regarding her daughter's death. That was it. She had seen her and had kind of put together
Starting point is 01:12:27 two and two to be like, oh my gosh. Forget collecting evidence. Right. It's like this was a violent death and that's all she knows, but that's it. And it's that I can't imagine. I can't imagine. She didn't even know how her daughter died. They didn't even tell her, you know, whether it was strangulation, whether it was a stabbing. Like none of that. She has no clue. For trauma. For trauma, right. No clue. She said the medical examiner would not release cause of death because it was an open investigation. But then everyone was like, well, what's the investigation then? Is there an investigation? And Yvonne said she didn't even know whether foul play
Starting point is 01:13:01 was being considered. They hadn't even told her if this was a homicide or an accident. Like she doesn't she didn't know if somebody had accidentally, you know, it's just or if she was assaulted too. Exactly. Yeah, no, no information on that at the very least. Yeah. Yvonne called the investigators offices over and over asking for updates on Chanel's case and there was just no information to find. The authorities handling the case lived outside Chanel's community and so there weren't those social connections they had to the people in their own town and they couldn't easily go there to investigate in person or talk to anyone in person so it just felt like there was already this barrier to entry almost. On top of that the case was reassigned to different investigators multiple times
Starting point is 01:13:46 and they wouldn't tell Yvonne why, they were just shuffling it around. And so she didn't even know at a given time who was in charge or who the contact was. She said that the family was once told that ligature marks on Chanel's neck indicated she may have been strangled, but then they got no follow-up information
Starting point is 01:14:04 and only a few members of family were told this, so they don't even know how true that is, which imagine the horror of thinking maybe that happened, but you don't know. There's something extra dark about it could have been this. Well, just having to sit in the sinister. Yeah, and then not being able to move past it, because you don't even know if that's true or not. No closure.
Starting point is 01:14:25 Yeah, no closure. So with no answers, of course, rumors start spreading through the town and nearby communities. People who knew Chanel posted lists of names to social media of folks they thought could have been involved in her death. Some rumors claim that a number of different individuals were the last to be seen with Chanel the night she died. And Yvonne was horrified when people began suggesting maybe she might have died by suicide because they were like, no. That's literally not what happened.
Starting point is 01:14:53 Literally a chunk of her hair's ripped out of her head. Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah. There's just rumors running around. John Chemuck III told Anchorage Daily News, everybody knows it wasn't a suicide. That's, that's where that's where her uncle was at.
Starting point is 01:15:10 Which sadly, it feels like that's the story of many people's lives. Doesn't it? I mean, everybody knows, but okay, sure. Yvonne said that investigators even considered that Chanel maybe just fell asleep on the beach. What? Bitch, what? Fell asleep? What are you talking about? Fell asleep and died? on the beach. What? Bitch what? Fell asleep? What are you talking about? Fell asleep and died?
Starting point is 01:15:28 What are you talking about? Fell asleep with her hair missing? What a hermit crab came- what are you talking about? Fell asleep and has bruises so bad that she needs makeup on her face? What's wrong with you? And that's the end? And so it doesn't matter whether that's true or not, it's just the end. What is wrong with you?
Starting point is 01:15:43 What is wrong with you? This is a girl. It's just, it's just, the fact that this is so common is, and folks it's really common, okay, I'll give you the numbers in a little bit but it's disturbing. When Chanel's cause of death was finally released it only stoked more questions and rumors because the medical examiner declared the cause of death drowning of undetermined etiology due to submerging Submersion in ocean water under unknown circumstances. So she drowned while she she drowned So the so the word etiology which I did not know and that's ETI Oh
Starting point is 01:16:21 LOGY is quote the cause set of causes or manner of causation of a disease or condition. So unknown etiology, which is, or it says here undetermined etiology, means that the cause is unknown. So the cause of Chanel's death was drowning for reasons unknown and circumstances unknown, but by ocean water.
Starting point is 01:16:42 That, I don't believe it. That she was submerged. It's like, so you don't believe it. That she was submerged? So you don't know if it was foul play? How do you not know? Also, like, was she wet from the ocean when you found her?
Starting point is 01:16:58 We don't know, that's the other thing. They don't fucking tell the family anything. They just saw what they saw the funeral home. I don't believe that for a second. This is what's so sinister, is like, there's just no entry point to get this information for this family. It's like... What?
Starting point is 01:17:12 It's so sinister, because it's just... And also, like, if the people that should be there to help weren't there for, like, weeks, like, what evidence do you have at all that she... What kind of say, how do you know that... Is know that are on her? What are you talking about? Because she could have just been while she's getting probably beaten up She could have been maybe tossed into the water and then brought back like I mean like she didn't if she drowned How did someone find her on land? What are you talking about?
Starting point is 01:17:40 Unless you got washed back up or something. I guess that's the argument that she went out. This is stupid. It's stupid. I'm sorry. Yes, technically somebody can go I can hear the well actually yeah somebody could have she could have gone swimming at 10pm for no reason by herself and then accidentally ripped her own hair out and drowned and has his full of bruises. Yeah, maybe but like it wasn't that also maybe not.
Starting point is 01:18:06 But also maybe not. I wasn't there. I got me a hunch that it's not that that's not the truth. Sorry. So years pass. So whether or not she it was an accident or not seems irrelevant anyway to the people in charge. Years pass with no updates, no closure, no justice for Chanel.
Starting point is 01:18:27 In 2023, fun fact, Alaska State Troopers Communications Director Austin McDaniel told NBC News that Chanel's death is considered a homicide. Surprise! Oh, fucking, you were wrong, Christine. It's not weeks, it's years. It's years. Yeah, fun fact. Sometimes they surprise you you even when they...
Starting point is 01:18:45 Who even decided to reopen that case with what happened? Actually he said the investigation is at a complete halt and according to him authorities identified a suspect during investigative interviews with 75 individuals then submitted their findings to the Alaska Department of Law which would not prosecute with the existing evidence and Apparently DNA evidence was collected at the scene, but Austin said two labs determined the samples were insufficient For analysis and I'm like you had her whole body there 2017 and you didn't get ever you didn't get DNA evidence. Because if you're saying, oh, there's,
Starting point is 01:19:27 the samples are insufficient, that means that you did not really get the samples. Yeah, no, you didn't. Sorry, like that's, come on. It feels like 101, sorry, but like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Also, why are we picking a wounds? Like, why are you now coming forward and being like, by the way, because they asked, it's now like, tell us what's going on.
Starting point is 01:19:52 And he was like, oh, well, it's a homicide. And they were like, what? Like, I think people were pressuring them to say something. So they finally said something. But rather than then release a public statement saying, if you have any information right come forward instead NBC News reported that Austin declared the case was now closed So it can't even be solved the end
Starting point is 01:20:13 So basically you're right like so they so they were like tell us what's going on. He's like, oh, it's a homicide It's like okay. Maybe we can get some traction. Never mind That's I mean It's like okay That's, I mean. It's like, okay. So case closed. He said there are no further investigative measures that can be taken to increase the likelihood of prosecution. Now, of course, Chanel's family is no stranger to violence in their community, especially no strangers to living without justice or closure.
Starting point is 01:20:48 For example, Chanel's great uncle, Lawrence Lockwood Jr. belongs to an entire generation who survived years of sexual abuse by Jesuit Catholic church personnel living and working on the island for decades. This has become a very big hot topic recently. A lawsuit filed against the church claimed that priests and other church personnel with histories of sexual abuse were purposefully reassigned to the rural Alaskan communities
Starting point is 01:21:09 because they're just lack of community safety infrastructure and medical care and it's easier to just ship them there than actually find appropriate people who will take care of small children. Super. Yeah. So, avoiding the abuse or, you know, getting it out, they just made it impossible. They just sent them there and said, it's fine. You know, whatever attorney,
Starting point is 01:21:32 John Manley who represented survivors in a lawsuit said, quote, imagine every child in your community being molested and what that would be like. That's what they're dealing with here. Basically, the entire school of children went through this trauma. Although investigators say the suspect in Chanel's case was a community member, the people who live there and know each other are all like,
Starting point is 01:21:55 uh-uh, uh-uh, violence against indigenous folks most often comes from outside the community. And at least in this community in particular, I know there is also a lot of domestic violence and things like that happen amongst indigenous communities against women and girls, but in particular this community, an abuse survivor who grew up in St. Mary's, Elsie Boudreau says,
Starting point is 01:22:20 "'The way of being a Yupik person is to live in peace, interconnected with the land, ourselves each other animals and the universe it's the way of life it's just the whole lifestyle is being like at peace with the world right and it's like of course that keeps getting stolen over and over because There are just people looking to take advantage of that and just people looking to take advantage of that. And so these communities keep bearing the trauma of systematic abuse, failures of justice, just ignoring getting swept under the rug. It's just so much trauma being passed down from generation to generation.
Starting point is 01:22:56 In a 2019 interview, Lawrence said, what we grew up with can't be erased. And it just feels like they're trying to just kind of move on. You know, like, oh, it's probably nothing. You know, she probably just accidentally fell and got killed by a hermit crab. Don't worry about it. What the fuck are you even talking about? Breathtakingly stupid. Breathtakingly stupid is right. His older brother, Chanel's grandfather, Chuck Lockwood, was interviewed for the same article
Starting point is 01:23:21 and he is agonized, truly agonized by the thought of Chanel just becoming another number in that statistic. I'm going to tell you in a little bit of cases that just go unsolved because of who the victim is. He lives with this anger and heartbreak. Both brothers, of course, expressed anger about the injustices, many injustices their family has endured, especially as a whole community. They also expressed a desire to take matters into their own hands, right, to get justice for Chanel. But they said they were raised to be so, you know, to be nonviolent and non-confrontational. They don't even have the skill set for that.
Starting point is 01:23:55 It's not in us for that. Yeah, we're not here to like fight, you know, against people. We just want some justice and peace. I imagine it's gotta be such a juxtaposition, I guess, of like, I so badly want justice, and yet there's no way for me to actually shake my fists that strong because it goes against my actual core.
Starting point is 01:24:20 Exactly, you can't authentically necessarily make yourself. It's like you have to deny a certain part of yourself to be a different part of yourself It's yeah, I mean I'm putting them in an impossible position Like how could it and it's heartbreaking and it's perfect bait to like to just be totally be taken advantage of if like oh Well, we can do this and you're not gonna do anything and you're just gonna be fine with it or whatever you're just gonna so to live a passive life and also be marginalized is like so... I just feel so bad. I know. It's this kind of trying to decide if you...
Starting point is 01:24:55 Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, it's just a it's also just such a culture clash, you know? And as we've kind of talked about, the greatest fear in a lot of these cases is that these young women and girls will be forgotten and will just be like never remembered. And that's Yvonne's biggest fear is that everyone will forget about Chanel and her case. Of course, like I mentioned earlier, there's a crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the US and Canada for whom murder is one of the leading causes of death.
Starting point is 01:25:27 Let that sink in everybody. Many Indigenous led organizations focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit LGBTQI plus people. Indian Health Institute wrote that systemic and institutional practices allow indigenous women and girls to disappear not once, but three times in life, in the media, and in the data. And that is heartbreaking because when it comes to the data and it's just being erased or deleted or oh, suicide and just moved on, it's like you're erasing a history that we could learn from or like a past that we could build and make better in the future. And you're just not, you're actively avoiding it.
Starting point is 01:26:08 And it's super, super rough. And if it, I mean, we've talked about Two Spirit before, but I know it's not necessarily the most widespread term, especially for folks who are not in the indigenous community. But Two Spirit is what to, sometimes written as the numeral to and then the letter S, is sometimes equated by non-native people to mean simply an indigenous person who is gay or trans,
Starting point is 01:26:34 but Two Spirit is actually a cultural identity that doesn't really have like a one-to-one ratio, like a one-to-one kind of word or name or label in our sort of culture. It's more than just like an indigenous version of this thing we have. It's their own kind of practice and there are a lot of people online
Starting point is 01:26:56 who will give beautiful explanations better than any I could do. So if you're interested in learning more about that, I definitely recommend looking into that. But according to that report, 5,712, let me say again, 5,712 cases of missing and murdered indigenous girls and women were reported in 2016, 5,712. How many were logged?
Starting point is 01:27:22 116. Oh! Into the US Department of Justice database. How many were logged? 116 Into the US Department of Justice database, so the Department of Justice just has a percentage of my reports Let me find out Five's like half a million. Is that the number you said earlier? No, no five thousand five thousand. Oh, thank god I was like what in the fuck? Okay. God. I said it three times. I hope I said it right No, I you I just got overwhelmed immediately. I knew the number was gonna be bad So I just extrapolated
Starting point is 01:27:50 It's two percent Two percent I mean come on And that's how many are in the database I have been have been logged yeah of these cases that's how many are in the database. Have been logged, yeah, of these cases. That's how many are in the DOJ database. And see, like, how can people see that and just go, that's fine. How the fuck can you see that? And think that that's normal or tolerable or professional or morally okay? I think it's just easier. I really think it's just easier.
Starting point is 01:28:24 And people don't like to face things that are bad and scary, especially if it looks bad on them. So what? Fucking deal with it. Yeah, agreed. Fucking agreed. God. Yeah, that's horrible. I mean, horrible doesn't equate. That's really fucking horrible. You're right. I just have a few more bullets here and then we're done. According to the National Congress of American Indians, more than four and five American Indian slash Alaska Native women, which is, let me give you, speaking of percentages, 84.3%. Four in five have experienced violence in their lifetime, physical violence, and or sexual violence. And homicide was the third highest cause of death among specifically American Indian and Alaska Native girls ages 15 to 19. The third highest cause of death among teenage girls in
Starting point is 01:29:22 this community, Alaska Native community. That's- Murder. Those are children. Yeah. Those are little girls. What the fuck? As far as women aged 20 to 24,
Starting point is 01:29:37 and then by the way, I wanna also add, this is from 2019, this case, this study. That's five years ago for us right now or six years ago That's like Terrifying pretty recent, you know more than four and five and So third Homicide is the third highest cause of death among girls aged 15 to 19 and
Starting point is 01:30:02 among women aged 20 to 24 as well in 2018. So from 15 to 24. Yeah so let's just lump them together 15 to 24 women and girls. So teenagers and young women just it's just just all the way through. Third highest cause of death is is homicide and four and five more than four and five will experience physical and sexual violence. Oh my God. And as you said, it's mainly from outsiders of the community.
Starting point is 01:30:31 Yeah, it's often outsiders. I actually wonder if there's a statistic on that. I will look into that as well, because I want to make sure I don't misspeak on that. Chanel was just 19 when she was killed, so guess what? She fits squarely into the average mean of this fucking range. Just a statistic as far as people are concerned. Exactly.
Starting point is 01:30:52 Which is, can you imagine something scarier than not only the horror of this experience, but then also realizing like people just don't care or aren't gonna remember. Like it just must be hell, you know? Yeah, yeah. So violence against indigenous people is underreported. And then as we've already learned,
Starting point is 01:31:09 once it's even reported, it's usually ignored. The Department of Law stated that if it receives new information about Chanel's death, it will evaluate the additional evidence to decide whether it is appropriate to bring charges. And until that happens, those who love Chanel feel stuck and just hope somebody will do something. I mean, what are you gonna do?
Starting point is 01:31:29 They've tried their avenues. They're being blocked at every turn. And there's a bigger system that can just eat you up and spit you out, you know? And that rules until things change. Yvonne said, I'm knocking on the door, but nobody's answering. And I just find that to be like sickening.
Starting point is 01:31:44 Oh my God, that's so dark. And I just find that to be like sickening. Oh my God, that's so dark. And Mitch, the best friend says he prays every night before he goes to bed that Chanel receives justice someday. But for now, like to pray and to hope and to wait and to try and survive this is like kind of all they can do. Of course, there's more you can do as far as getting, you know, the word out and that kind of thing. But I don't think that onus falls on the family right like
Starting point is 01:32:08 that's more my job or our job. It's just a really really tough thing and so I want to I also pulled a few resources here just to have I'm going to put these in the show notes there because it can feel really daunting to hear something like this and be like well what am I supposed to do you know if you're not which I can understand and relate to so there's an article called six ways to be active in the MMIW movement there's a toolkit to any families or communities experiencing this and then the resource I mentioned earlier nativehope.org will also add that in there and that is is the story. I'm sorry, Emma, I talked your frickin' ear off. I just, I knew there wasn't much room to kind of be...
Starting point is 01:32:51 Funny. Silly, right? Like there wasn't much backstory because there's not much fuckin' reported about this. Yeah. There's enough to know how fucking horrible it is, but not enough to know like how to find an answer. Yeah, that's. To say, oh, we don't know how she died, but she drowned,
Starting point is 01:33:11 but we don't know why or how. And then years later go, oh, it's a homicide. It's just the blatant incompetence. Yeah. And not even competence, but just like lack of effort. Yes, yes. The lack of compassion. But lack of everything. Yeah. Just like apathy about it, like eh. Yeah, just like totally everything else matters more than this.
Starting point is 01:33:29 Just like I don't give a shit, yeah. About your 19 year old daughter who was coming to live with you. Oh my God. Anyway, it's really, really rough and somebody on Reddit did just complain that my stories are all so dark, but I listened. Well don't worry, I got in a really good Bindi Irwin joke earlier. Yeah, there you go. Did that does that fix it for you? Oh gosh landed
Starting point is 01:33:50 Joke landed. Yeah Maybe it's better now. I Know is this gonna be a series throughout May is that what's happening? We do have a couple I don't want to make it just like a big like to do I want to I know I also always say this but I try to keep things kind of coming throughout the year too to make sure that it's not just like once a year we talk about it. But you know we have a couple on deck there is one that when Megan sent in we were in the middle of doing notes for that I'm not sure if we're gonna put next or the week after. We'll see. But yes, I do have some more stories.
Starting point is 01:34:28 And I promise I won't just dump statistics on everyone. You've got them now. So you can come back and listen if you want or just click on the links. I won't I won't I won't tell you all the stats again, but you know, it's just worth hearing. Yeah. Well, if you want something more light hearted, you can head over to Patreon and we're gonna go do our Yappy Hour.
Starting point is 01:34:51 Yeah, I'm gonna get a little bit high and tell you the story of how I'm getting my tattoo. Yeah, sounds good. And that's why we drink.

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