And That's Why We Drink - E444 A Long Island Iced Tea Bit and a Kaleidoscope of Jewelry

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

Welcome to the Imalwayzcrazy444 Episode where we hear some crazy stories from Christine! This week Em takes us to Wales for the very old and haunted Skirrid Inn. Then Christine covers the tragic murder of Sophie Lionnet, an au pair from France. And who’s gonna help us bring back “sending out” for things? …and that’s why we drink! Photo Links:The Skirrid InnSophie LionnetMark Walton Want to hear more from us? Subscribe to our bonus Yappy Hours on Patreon or Apple Podcasts! http://patreon.com/ATWWDPodcast___________________Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to http://Zocdoc.com/DRINK to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Take advantage of this exclusive offer: For a limited time, get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to http://hungryroot.com/drink and use code DRINK. Listeners of And That's Why We Drink can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting http://FayNutrition.com/DRINK. Make everyday purchases count with Chime’s Secured Credit Builder Visa® Credit Card. Get started today at http://chime.com/DRINK If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don’t wait to get help. Go to https://NOCD.com and book a free call with their team to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need a job. Oh. Okay. Do I? What? I don't know. I was like, oh shit. What a time to tell me right when we're about to start a ZipRecruiter at?

Oh, I see. Oh, yeah. I need a job. Here's the other thing, though. I'm also, I'm looking for someone to hire. In either circumstance, I've got ZipRecruiter. It is there for me. We really are thankful for ZipRecruiter.

we've had, obviously, like, stellar experience with them. I mean, how do you think we found Eva? You've heard the story a million times, but within a day, we posted and found Eva, and it was that easy. It can be overwhelming to have too many candidates to sort through. But you're in luck. ZipRecruiter now gives you the power to proactively find and connect with the best ones quickly. They do that through their innovative resume database, and right now you can try it for free

at ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. SipRecruiter's resume database uses advanced filtering to quickly hone in on the top candidates for your role, skip the candidate overload, and instead streamlined your hiring with ZipRecruiter, CY4 out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. That's exactly what happened with us, and we could not be more grateful to them. Just go to this exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash drink right now to try it for free. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. You know, I'm talking about the horrible things we talk about on the podcast that makes, that make us

drink. That's tough enough, right? But like, if you have OCD, it's sort of like all those things in your brain and then they become these intrusive thoughts. I think a lot of people understand that concept. It's gotten a lot of like press recently, like press. Okay, on TikTok, but you know what I'm saying. People kind of are getting kind of understanding the concept. It's definitely something I've dealt with for a few, well, for my whole life, but consciously for a few years. And that's where no CD comes in. It's just such a great service. I heard about it from listeners years ago. And I have loved it ever since. 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. I have done this for many years now and it has worked wonders for me. And with no CD, you can do live virtual ERP therapy with licensed therapist. That was not an option when I was first doing this and I wish it had been. That would have been great. With licensed therapist who specialize in OCD. No CD therapists are highly trained, so they really understand OCD and won't judge you no matter what your thoughts are about. You know, no CD therapy is also covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans, so

for the people out there who are thinking, like, you know, a lot like Christine, but they don't know if they can get the help. With no CD therapy, hopefully you're covered. And 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 our team to learn more. That's N-O-C-D.com to schedule a free call and learn more. Hello, everyone.

Welcome to, and that's why we... Oh, my God. So sorry. That's why we wheeze. That's why we hack. I feel like I am... You okay? Just, uh, I don't know.

I feel like it. there's a there's a there's a i think i finally understand the phrase there's a frog in my throat is that phrase and i don't even want to say it there's a frog in i've got a frog in my throat yeah but i never understood with that man either well i do i do now and it's not enjoyable it feels like there's a frog in my throat are you is it just allergies i think so it must be um we just didn't add for zoc dog and that's when i realized wait a minute maybe it's allergies like i realized during the copy read um but you know good thing i have speaking of ads uh another a little angry orchard bevy here because as we are now working with them uh they sent us a nice array of

beverages and i'm gonna just crack this one open early um because i think i need to lubricate the the frog see where it takes you see where that little that little froggy goes how's it feel to be clear I'm not, like, required to drink this on air. In fact, I think it would be illegal for them to require me to drink anything on air. I do so willingly, and it just so happens. They're also a sponsor, so. It just works out. Before it feels weird or anything, it does.

Hey, I feel a lot better already. That's not a medical claim. No, but it isn't. That's why we drink claim, certainly. It isn't, and that's why we drink claim because it does seem to have kind of removed the frog. You know, it makes me so mad that it took us years to finally have, like, an alcohol. like like this really isn't at everybody we're just kind of yapping right now but um because we never really talked about it off i feel like anchory orchard how has it gone how have we gone so many years

and not had like a beer want to work with us or like an i don't know what i was like finally somebody and thankfully something i already love but like i would have taken it you know i was like i was like ready for anyone to step forward but yeah i was excited when that happened um and my mini fridge is uh chocka block full so that's that's nice for me too. Well, I'm happy for you. If for some reason a blackberry farmer wants to sponsor us, I'm also eating on camera. Well, Leon and I just, as I said, went blackberry picking at a blackberry farm. So should I have dropped off my business card? Maybe. Just slipped a little phone number in there. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I'll do. But yeah, so sorry to just

barge in, but that is what I drink this week, a nice refreshing cider. It's beautiful. And the reason and I drink is because Leona has she's not seeing anything ghostly but it's almost like her insistence that there are no ghosts is making me more it's almost like she's

thou doth protest too much you know it's sort of like she like not that I ever bring up ghosts but sometimes she'll be like ghosts aren't real and I'm like why do you feel the need to tell me that you know it's like it's either Blaze like priming her to say this to you right so so like leona gets on team skeptic or all the ghosts in the house are telling her to tell you this

okay okay both are red flags one is a red flag about my marriage and parent and blaze's parenting style the other's a red flag about just our whole existence in this home um so neither are great uh no what you think it comes from i you know what's so funny is like sometimes i get kind of mixed up when i tell the story when people ask us in interviews you know uh like how long when did you become interested in like scary spooky stuff and for me I was such a scaredy cat like you know I'm a huge scary cat I don't even watch horror movies I was such a scaredy cat as a kid that I would just like literally lay in my bed and be like those aren't real like cover my eyes with things like I don't know if I ever did see anything but I must have known something was there because

I was hardcore like dissociating trying to like not and I used to just convince myself and I remember one time I begged my mom. I said, when you die, I was probably like nine. I was like, when you die, do not haunt me. Do not leave me a sign. Do not. And she was like, why? I would love to. And I was like, I can't, like, I can't tolerate it. I'm way too scared. Like, for some reason, that's kind. Did you like an early trauma with a ghost maybe? That's what I wonder, because I'm like, I was so hardcore about it. But then on the flip side, like, I was obsessed about like finding out more about hauntings and psychic phenomenon and aliens like so i don't know if there maybe there was something that happened but the way that now she is like there are no ghosts and blaze definitely

does not say that i don't think he would ever say that because probably a because i'd divorce him but um i think he's but he believes more than he lets on but like i've never brought it up in front of her because i also don't want her to like get scared or think about it you know like i'm not trying to put that in her head but sometimes she'll bring it up and then sometimes i'll say good morning and I'll say like I had a dream about you last night and like we she's like what did we do and I'm like oh we just like went to the cafe and we accidentally ate a carrot or whatever I like tell her the story and she laughs and I'm like did you have any dreams without fail she goes I don't have dreams and she says it like so aggressively and I'm like okay and I'm like everybody

has dreams and she's like I don't have dreams and she and I said well and she goes well how do dreams happen I was like well when you fall asleep you close your eyes she goes, oh, well, I don't close my eyes when I sleep. And I was like, why does she want to be Wednesday Adam so bad? I don't know. But, like, also, she doesn't because she's like, she's like, I don't dream. I don't even close my eyes. And I'm like, what is she, like, pushing up against?

I don't know. Like, I've never tried to show her anything scary. We've, the only time we've ever talked about a ghost was the time that Blaise, like, mentioned that window closing. And she said, let's go find the ghost. And I said, okay. And I followed her lead. But, like, I don't.

This is not a household where I'm going to scare her because I was so scared as a kid that, like, sometimes I'm like, Blaze, you know, this Disney movie is way too scary for her. And he's like, she's fine, Christine. And like she usually is. But like, I was so scared and sensitive that I'm like hyper aware of that. So I don't know. I don't know. But she's been like pushing back.

Is she scared of the dark? Not at all. Or not that I know of. She's never expressed that. In fact, she like doesn't like a night light on or anything. So, and she's never said anything about closets. are like none of the usual kind of stuff that you you know that I remember feeling or hearing I wonder I don't know and it's been like totally chill but there's just this like weird

insistence and then I heard blazing there last night saying and she kept saying when is it morning when is it morning and he's like well when you fall asleep and she's like she's like I'm not going to fall asleep I'm going to keep my eyes open all night and I'm like is she having bad dreams and she's not telling us I don't know anyway could she be like just like a little kid who like desperately doesn't want to go to bed who doesn't want to go to bed that's Like, that's what I'm assuming, and that's what I'm hoping. It's just kind of like a, like a trying to be kind of contrary thing. Because I'm like, I hope you'd tell me if it was something else, you know?

I hope she ends up liking ghosts in general because that would be fun if you guys got to tell her all your stories. I know Blaze doesn't really have too many, but maybe one day. What was that story that happened to him? In time, he will. What was the thing that happened to him? Oh, with the footsteps on my stairs. And he basically, it was like. No, there was something on that.

The highway? Wasn't there, like, a girl on the highway? Oh. Was that a ghost? Yeah, he and I were walking from the beach in the middle of the night, like, through this, like, kind of path on an island. We were, it's a long story. We were visiting, we were crashing my stepmom's house at this, like, fancy island, and we were super broke. So we were, like, let's go and drink a lot of champagne and then, like, go back to college the next day. And so we, because we were, like, in, I was in Boston, and it was, like, nearby.

and so yeah we were walking through this kind of marshy like but middle of the night like moons out and there's just this like figure up there and it's kind of like almost cornstalky like it's so thick you can't really go through it was like a fog figure or like a person figure? No it was like a woman standing there in like this dress and of course we freaked the fuck out and so it got to the point that I literally took my glass bottle because I was like we need a weapon like we were so scared and I took the glass bottle and like I was like I'm going to shatter this and like use it if I need to like we were so freaked out and we got close and it was like almost it was so strange it was almost like we skipped like like we skipped forward in time for a shut up like a time glitch yeah because all of a sudden she was gone like we had passed her I don't remember this at all like we had passed her but then she was kind of gone and then we turn around and like she wasn't there and we were like well that's and we were like maybe we made her nervous but then we're looking around and we're like where did she go like

she wouldn't have wandered off and maybe she did she's faded away but then she just like it wasn't even fading it was just like she was there she wasn't there and then um blaze was so free i was like it's just a girl like looking for friends or something and blaze was like no that was a ghost he's convinced. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it is? I know.

I know why I was, she had a cell phone, I think. Like, I saw a light and I was like, so maybe it's not. So that's why I was convinced it was not a ghost. Maybe she's ethereal and glowing. I don't know. I don't know. And I also couldn't see her that well because I was busy

Googling how to make a weapon out of a Sam Adams bottle or something. Hmm. But yeah, she was kind of there and then she wasn't. But it was weird because she was wearing like a weird long skirt and it wasn't like the right vibe you know but she had a phone and I'm like I don't know maybe it's like a newer ghost I don't know if anyone died there recently but it was very strange because it was also middle of the night and like this is a very solitary place like this was on someone's property like there's

no way it wasn't like in a in a public area either like I don't know it's just strange well thanks for I didn't mean for you to tell me the whole story but that was awesome I think I never really fully told it because I feel kind of bad because I'm like that's the one blaze believes in and I don't which is like the opposite of usual but yeah sorry I feel like I'm taking him so much time but no I don't even know how we got on there oh because maybe the two of you one day can sit with Leona and tell you spooky stories about oh and he's been with me in like Halifax and so when we did those ghost tours so you know one of these days he'll experience something again whether he likes it or not yeah no I uh I I hope you guys go back to five fishermen or

whatever that restaurant was oh I want he's very excited about that episode coming out um also why do you drink this week do you have anything specifically that you're drinking uh i was drinking an iced tea and then i finished it too early i got too excited um to be fair we were both um kind of crotchety old men hacking up a lung so any beverage that was available i was also drinking the power of editing um because otherwise we would sound disgusting during most of our recordings yeah poor jack has to hear like the worst of the worst sides of our our nasly voices yeah no i just drink water with my pills everybody take your pills that one of you forgot so take it um i did not today which is a win for me and we'll drink some water well rats please thank you oh i even have my rat

do you not my rat i have my rat hey i got a rat em i would have needed a full explanation You would have probably just believed me. I got my drink cup, Christine, rat. Love it. Mine is in the wash right now. But no, I don't have a real reason why I drink. I think just more dog stuff. I mean, he's consumed my entire life.

Stand up. When M hopped on, I said, what's the shirt you're wearing? I just saw the shoulders. They were very purple. I said, show me the shirt. It is puffy hankies. It is the word hankies in puffy paint, basically. But like this beautiful bubble letters, bubble letters.

That's what they're called. Yeah. And it's purple. It's like Scooby-Doo colors, purple with green puffy. Oh my gosh. And it says hankies. And I saw the shoulders and I thought of this purple shirt. And I thought that's something special.

I, uh, so he's consumed your life, you say. Yeah. I, this isn't the only shirt either that I bought on Etsy as a, as a custom made hankies shirt there's yeah i feel like half my wardrobe is now hankies clothes that's gonna have to be its own tic-tok account or i don't know i know i know i didn't even it's gotten to a point where i have enough that i don't even know i'm wearing them now and at the dog park someone was like to your shirt say hankies and i went yeah but oh yeah anyone who doesn't know that his name is hankies they think like like a hanky like a hankerchief or something and i'm like

hanky what a weird thing to promote um anyway yeah it's just it's i'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to break the separation anxiety thing he's got going on. I'm trying to get him less scared of water. You did have a lot of people weighing in in the comments. I don't know if you saw this Spotify comments, but I was like, I was like, oh boy, I don't know if I was even going to see these, but there were a lot of tips coming in. Oh, I'll go check that out. I got, I saw people in my DMs and it was a large amount of people, mainly crate training, which we're gonna start dealing i guess that was that was one thing on spotify as well excuse me it's just um a lot i am feeling a little bit like a prisoner in my own home because every time i leave he

destroys something and so i'm like oh like we gotta fix this um why do you leave the house you know what for no good fucking reason apparently to get a fucking lackberry from arwan or something according to hank to do absolutely nothing but piss him off to ruin his life yeah he's like such a teenager Well, like, I, like, I have been really itching to go to, like, back to Universal since I'm home. Like, I want to go there and I have my season pass. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I'm already terrified about what he's going to destroy then. What is it?

Like, what is out that can be, like, furniture or, like, what would he? It's not, so far, it's not furniture, but he always finds, like, something. Like, he always, and I don't know where he finds it because, like, I try to hide everything. I put them in other rooms. And then it's, like, that thing teleports into the room that he's in. I don't know, because the door is still closed, but it magically appears in here. And I'm like, how the fuck did you get that? Like shirts, socks.

Oh, geez. I keep waiting for the day that he grabbed something that's like glass and it shatters. I keep waiting, and then he eats the glass. Like, it's going to be something horrible. But one time I got a, I had a, like, weighted ankle things, ankle weights. Oh, yeah, yeah. I walk them all the time and now I've become like one of those walkers. I love that he ate the sandbag he ate all the sand and I was like that shit's going to absorb in his stomach it was a whole doctor's appointment he's fine obviously but I was like he just ate a bag of sand are you regulars at the vet now yeah they know him mr glitter shoes knows him a little too well now um and all the things inside his belly yeah and he just hell right now I am I'm trying to do a lot more like I'll do a quick

15 minute walk and see how long he can like how long until he starts grabbing things and I'm going to slowly try to start like incrementally growing the time but still like I want to like go to a movie and that's like two three hours of my time that I'm like paranoid now about him thank god I have cameras in here but there's only so much I can do from far away I just get to watch the horror just watch it unfold yeah I just go yeah just watch him eat a bag of sand um yeah so I just I'm also worried like what if I hide everything and then now he tries to go for whatever's left which is like electrical cords or something like you're like let me leave a decoy out did uh what if you buy dog toys that are shaped like things that are not I mean oh no that would probably just be

reinforcing my behavior frankly well there's also there's only so many dog toys he can have like because like he can't have any plushies or stuffed animals because he just eats them in a whole he eats he ate a whole tennis ball he's eaten a whole shoe like he's I don't know where it goes insatiable yeah yeah what if I not what if i have no i've i say what if i have no tips whatsoever i'm so sorry to say i don't know how to deal with this but um did they is there even room for like a crate like somewhere did they there is was there one that came with him or did he has he not been oh okay so he was never crate trained um and he oh i thought he was for some reason you know what's weird i don't i guess

it's not that weird in the world of like dog behavior from what i've read about is that um he never had separation anxiety when he first came here and he was much better left alone when he came here but i guess it's because he didn't give a shit about us so he didn't have separation anxiety um and now that he cares he's like where are you going um and i think he's getting more comfortable because it's like his home and i anyway so at first we were like man this is great we don't even need a crate train this dog he's totally fine in the house for hours like for like six hours he was totally fine at one point he bamboozled you he's like reverting it's like what's that reverse cycling or whatever when like a baby can't sleep anymore oh my god wow that word just triggered something very primal in my brain thank you uh that's how it feels i'm like why are you getting worse all of a sudden but apparently that's what happens when they get settled into a place so oh so anyway i the only reason i drink is because i'm trying to like get a little freedom back you know i hate being inconvenienced and this dog is taking away all my conveniences that about you. That is what they say about you.

Proudly. That's fine. As opposed to me who loves being inconvenience. Yeah. That's true. That's my favorite part about that trait that you say. You're like, I hate being inconvenience. That's one big thing. I know, because nobody likes it. Has anybody ever said, I love being inconvenience? But it's the thing that I absolutely refuse to tolerate compared to like, I think other people are like, oh, that's annoying, but whatever. In my mind, I'm like, please don't fucking bother me. Yeah, yeah. You really shouldn't. You really should have, you really should have seen this coming, my friend.

I mean, you must have on an intellectual level. I did. And part, I mean, I'm literally wearing a shirt with his name on it. Obviously, I don't hate him. But I really, I also still, uh, every now and then have some of the puppy blues of like, man, I am aware of all the fun I could be having today if I didn't have to like stay here and be worried that you're going to eat everything. So stay here and be worried. Yeah. Um, anyway, so that's why I drink.

Wow. Well, I'm glad that, uh, you, well, I'm not glad that, uh, you, well, I'm not glad. because you don't have a beverage but um i'm glad that you drank it already and maybe got a caffeine boost it was really good it was really good and i had i had it sent out as my grandma would say instead of i got it on like door dash whatever oh i had it sent out hey we got to start saying that that's cool isn't that bringing it back yeah because you say like oh i sent out for it yeah it sounds so much swankier now i like it too but she said something where she's like oh i had it sent out I'm like, what are you talking about?

And it was like... Like a domino's pizza. Anyway, that's, yeah. So I had a very yummy tea. I'll probably have another one sent out later. I don't know. Sent out. Until then I'm drinking water and eating blackberries, but I'm doing them simultaneously.

So in my mind, it's blackberry juice. That's really nice. Yeah. That's all. Also very health, healthful for you. Also, like, hydrating and... Thank you. Well, I'm not really trying to make that conscious of like a health effort, but I'm also trying to just eat more fruits while they're in season, which has accidentally become a health thing. You know what I mean? No, and that's great. And I feel like that's good on so many levels. I've been trying to get better about that as well. Once it's not berry and watermelon season, it's over for me. Right. Well, what about corn? That's kind of a thing. I guess, well, I guess corn's also summer. Yeah, I agree. it's watermelon and berries that's when I really thrive in the in the produce department you know

that is yeah that is what um they traditionally say about you and your habitat i'm famous for that i hate inconveniences and i love watermelon season um you love the produce aisle between the months of may and august uh before we get started are there any are we forgetting anything to say do you want to oh we are oh my god we got to say this and we'll do a promo too but we're very excited we brought on our second show onto our network it almost sometimes feels like the more excited we are about something the more we completely block it out of our brains like when we wrote a book and we kept forgetting to tell people we wrote a book because it like felt i don't know but uh yes i'm so glad you asked too we should ask every time this is the first time we should hey by the way happy angel number if anyone out there their angel number is four four four um this one's for you shout out episode four for yep i'm always crazy that was also my my number this is the i'm always crazy episode everybody now that's loved this is where now since it's the i'm always crazy episode i am going to ask you after this after we do all of our plugs to tell us something crazy about you okay we'll see get ready always crazy with the z at the end um you bet you didn't see that coming that's crazy

that is pretty crazy uh i'm wild you know um yes we brought our second podcast onto paraphos network we're so excited creeps and crimes our lovely friends have joined i'm just so thrilled we have ladies and tangents and creeps and crimes um you probably heard the ladies and tangents episode last week if you haven't please listen it is so fun i learned things about em and vice versa that we've never talked about like ghost stories and things that happen at sleepovers and yeah it was just a blast and we're going to be on their show soon too and now creeps and crimes is in the mix and we're just i mean i'm my i'm just over the moon about it it's starting to feel like we're, it feels like the beginning of when we started a podcast from like, wow,

I can't believe like we got an ad. And it's like, now I can't believe like with a network is like, I can't believe people would like work with us. It feels surreal. It's like when we wrote the book too. It's like it doesn't even feel real. But it's so exciting. And we're just so honored that they wanted to, they trusted us enough to work with us. And yeah, so creeps and crimes, ladies and tangents. And yeah, check them out. Check them out. And also if you are ladies and tangents fan or if you're looking for something to do August 20th, they start their sleepover themed tour.

And it's called Girls Gone Mild. Girls Gone Mild, very important. Pajamas and Courage as for dress code. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Screams and Crime, are they on tour right now? I don't think so. I don't know, M.

Sorry, I really threw this on you last. Eva, the producer, seems to know everything about every. She has, like, thrott. She has blossomed into, like, I don't know. It has to be way above producer now. She's kind of like the marionette guy, who is Geppetto. Yes, absolutely Jeppetto. I think I've just turned what was supposed to be a compliment

into a gigantic insult. And I'm sorry, Eva. I didn't mean it like that. No, everybody go check them out. And, yeah, we're just very excited. It feels like early romance butterflies in our tummies. Yeah, it's kind of like honeymoon phase, but it's going to last forever.

And also proud of us for, you know, climb into that next step and podcast world. I know. It feels really special. And it feels like very fulfilling. It feels very fulfilling because it's sort of this full circle of, you know, scrabbling to figure out a podcast and then helping, you know, finding other podcasts that have done the same and kind of supporting each other. It's just really cool. Yeah. Also, would you like to plug your own tour? I guess so. Hey, I'm also. on tour and you can come see Beach 2 Sandy. We read one star reviews of things in your town it used to be like, you know, important things

like the Statue of Liberty, I don't mean important, but like historical landmark well-known things and then my brother decided he was going to just start scrolling Google Maps and clicking on random Walgreens and he gets more claps when he announces his locations because he says this is the

I don't know insomnia cookie storefront on 3rd Street and everyone's like that's where I get my cookies and I'm like this is a bridge and everyone's like I don't care about that but that is something I'm processing separately so don't even worry about it we read once our reviews of places in your town it's pretty fun we've had a very good time I drink um long we we started a bit quote unquote where we drink long island iced teas on stage love it um when I say a bit it's not really a bit because we actually just do that is it like to slowly devolve into more drunken chaos

they're fun and we like them. And so, and I'm sure it does contribute to that as well. But for the Chicago show, we promised that if it sold out, we would take shots of Malort on stage. Do you know what Malort is? Oh, boy howdy. So last time we're in Detroit, my brother mentioned not knowing what Malort was. And I was so shocked because being from the Midwest, I'm like, of course you know what Malort is. And he didn't. And someone in the audience had a server bring us two shots of Malort. Shut up. And I was like, actually this went the opposite of how.

I plan but we both took the shot and it's basically this very it's only in Chicago it's like pretty putrid what's it tastes like like is there absent it's like liquorish yeah it's like that wormwood like uh yeah and it's it's it's a wild taste it's like it's like you messed up well people say it's like a good it makes you go like so yeah it really can fuck you the the roger rabbit sound the yeah exactly it's very bitter it's very bitter it's It's like, see, they call it an acquired taste. That's how you know. I hate when they use that phrase.

I hate an acquired taste, yeah. No, but I actually do like it because I do like an acquired taste, but I think you would not like it. It's very absinthee. And also it's alcohol. So, yeah, not your thing. Understood. Well. Thank you for giving me the room for the plug.

Always. I have nothing to plug. No, I've got a dog named Hank, and now I just. And a shirt. named Hank. I've become just like this little single parent situation over here. Yeah, we knew this would have. I mean, we didn't know the single parent, but we did know that you would become the parent of the dog. At least I knew that. One day it won't be a single parent situation, but I do tease Allison cough. You keep telling yourself that. I do tease her that

like this is about a bit of a teen mom situation where she's the dead beat bad. Oh my gosh. You're right. Oh my gosh. She's, if we decided to adopt the dog and then she went, peace and now this dog absolutely doesn't know who you are. maybe he'll meet you when you get here i guess yeah and she was driving force behind a dog if i recall and the one who signed up for fostering mm-hmm that's all true but um it ended up probably working out in my favor because now this dog has like imprinted on me and now when alison gets here we can look at each other at me and the dog and can judge her and be like she doesn't even know you're like it's two against one so whatever you want goes when alson's like what do we do for

what should we go do for fun this weekend and hang will be like what are we going to do for fun like she doesn't hang's like you don't get to leave because i will eat all of yourself so tell them and i have told that also of like i hope you enjoy leaving all your shit everywhere right now things are things are getting wild over here consider that over when you get back home leave your valuables in south carolina oh wait what's the craziest thing you've ever done i'm always crazy four four so are we talking like what is the like kind of dealer's choice What's like, just give us a crazy story or a crazy, crazy, if it's too much, then what's just like a crazy fun fact about anything? Just give us something crazy.

Okay, I'll give you something crazy. Hold on. I bet it's going to be great. It's getting worse every second. The thoughts I'm having, the ideas I'm having are getting markedly worse with every passing moment. That's good. That's what I like to hear. Oh, I know something. Okay.

One time, the horrible school, okay, let me say that again. Well, I mean, I stand by it. One time the school that I attended when I was in my youth, a we last, they did something called, I don't think they do it anymore. I hope to God they don't. They did something called Shantytown where we all brought boxes and put them up on. the school property and slept in them overnight to get the true experience of what being quote unquote homeless is like and then we had a um as as basically they were framed it a recovered homeless person come speak to us about how to not be home how it's so bad to be

homeless and then we got on the metro bus and deep shame here about this it was my first time on the metro bus and I was 16, 15 maybe. And we went downtown to Panhandle, literally, this was the assignment, yeah, at the stadium outside of Reds game. And so we had to stand there. And by the way, we were still in our school uniforms, which were, you know, plaid and buttoned down blouses with Peter Pan collars, the whole nine yards and, you know, knee-length gray wool skirts. And we're, you know, doing our knee-high socks and we're doing our pan-handling. And then they let us keep the money. And I'm like, and then we saved up enough money to buy, to order pizza because

you're not supposed to eat food because you're homeless. Like this is literally the logic of this fucking administration of my school. And then you ate the pizza and not gave it to a homeless person. Oh, yeah, no, because we got back to our private school property and then ordered pizza, and someone's mom brought it, and we ate it and said, wow, being homeless is so hard. So you started the day by panhandling as a homeless person, and by the end, you had your pizza sent out. Sent out, exactly, exactly. That is actually, and by definition, always crazy. Thank you so much.

And this was, by the way, if anyone needs context, this was the year 2007, I believe, down six. And I know for a fact, they did it for several more years. I mean, there were all sorts of nonsensical things that happened there. But that one is so egregious. And I felt such guilt for a long time about, like, why didn't I take this money? And then I'm like, I was 15. I literally was just kind of doing my assignment.

I didn't even process it until I was older. And I went, this is really bad. Anyway, my daughter's not going to that school, FYI, in case you're wondering. Well, if it makes you feel any better to try to relay some safety your way, in college, we didn't, it was not to that level, but we had an event that was like an annual event that everyone would go nuts for at my college, um, where you would all find a cardboard box and then all have a big sleepover on the lawn. And it was also to simulate homelessness. What was our problem? Why were all doing this. It's this weird. Yeah. I will, you know, also,

I also absolutely take shame in that. But I do remember finding out later it was about homelessness. I thought everyone was having a big cardboard box. You know, like. Oh, that's so funny. So it wasn't even like, clearly obvious. It was just like, oh, we're all bringing boxes and making forts. I knew it was for some like sorority, ironically, charity event.

Hopefully they were giving their money to fucking actual unhoused people. Well, how many pizzas came? A lot. I see. It's like, what in the fuck? I remember seeing a bunch of people, like, taking cardboard boxes out there and then, like, hanging out on the lawn. And I was like, oh, cool. Like, in my mind, it was like in out of the box.

They make a bunch of cardboard boxes and turn into like a tree house. I was like, oh, wow, we're just making like a big human-sized hamster tunnel. I mean, that's what I would have guessed, unless it were like very obvious, especially if it's like a raucous party, you know? Yeah, that's what I thought. And then all of a sudden I realized like, oh, no, we're all pretending we're homeless. And I went, whoa. That's crazy. Yeah.

Wow. Christine, well, well done. I thought you were going to say like... I can send those to Megan. M's face is signifying to me that I wasn't reading social cues correctly until now and I should not share this photos. Okay.

Maybe if you put an emoji of like a really ashamed person over your face. I mean, I'm really hoping it's obvious that like the way that I'm throwing around this terminology, you know, I'm not sincerely saying that this is anything worthwhile. In fact, I find it no one here thinks that of you very damaging okay good just making sure what was I gonna say what was I

gonna say I thought you were gonna just throw like a fun fact I did too that's the craziest part am I did too and I was like suddenly like where is this coming from I did have therapy this morning and it we did a lot of internal family systems and I think like all sorts of ages of me are just like dying to speak up you know I see well and I'm always crazy and I went well here we go honestly that was in fact crazy I was I try to throw you a softball there of like, just give me a fun fact. And then you went, I once, I cosplayed as a homeless person.

Yeah. Like for a grade. For a grade? What class were you in? Religion. Oh. I'm serious. Religion class.

With Nora. You know what? Religion is always fucking crazy. I'll tell you that. Well, yeah. I bet you, you know, we had to, okay,

ask me next time about the crazy. Maybe this will be a new bit. Oh, I'm always crazy before when we had to do fake marriages like in class and do like we made wedding pamphlets to each other and it was really

strange. What now? It's like I got a D on it too, which is the worst. Good. What is happening? I'll tell you about it later. Yappy hour? That's a story. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'll tell it on Yappy hour. There we go. Yeah. I've taken up so much goddamn time here. I don't need to tell you about my fake wedding to my crush. I need to know about it though is the thing. And I got married to my crush, which was the whole. whole thing. It was crazy. That's crazy. Cool. Yeah, thank you. Um, Hank says hi. It's bothering me

that he's not asleep. And then he took someone else to prom. Oh. We'll talk about it later. Wait, where's Hank? I'm kind of waiting for his doggy CBD to kick in because as people know, whenever we record, which is like, by the way, if anyone's concerned, like once a week or sometimes twice a week. Or like sometimes once a month. Yeah. But he only gets doggy CBD when we record. So that way he isn't bothering me and it hasn't kicked in yet I'm kind of wondering what's going on anyway he's being okay

maybe you've been foiled yet again yeah maybe I can't wait to hear about that for Yapiaa that your life is a hurricane I love that I mean it's like not by my choice for the most it is now but back then it wasn't by my choice

well okay let's get into a different type of hurricane now that I'm back home and Christine is Gallo advancing across the nation. I finally have a second to make some dinner for myself. I'm enjoying my time at home, eating some yummy food. But that doesn't mean that I have learned to love shopping or planning my groceries. And luckily, we have Hungry Root by our side. Hunger Root takes a stress out of grocery shopping by filling your cart with personalized selections

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I was specifically talking about how I'm losing my hearings. Now I go to a hearing doctor. I wouldn't have been able to find that doctor if it weren't for Zokdo. I think a lot of us are contending with seasonal allergies, spring allergies. I don't think I realized it really, but that's probably why I keep hacking up a lung and having to, you know, make Jack cut it out. I'm realizing now I got to get back on Zoc Doc, which is not a problem because they have got us covered. Whether you need a nearby allergist, like apparently I do, a PCP for an initial checkup, pediatrician for your little ones, telehealth just for some quick care. Zock can help you get allergy relief fast so you can be sneezing season.

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scurid in um and it is on scurid or it's also something's called scurid mountain in although most place is just called Skirid in at this point. It is in Monmouthshire Wales on Skirid Mountain, which is probably why it was originally called Skirr Mountain in. Fun fact about this mountain, if you needed a fun fact for your crazy thing. I do.

Okay, here's something crazy for you. Scurid Mountain in Wales, apparently the rumor goes that this mountain was struck by lightning and split in half at the exact same moment that Jesus died on the cross. Whoa! Obviously, I don't know how much source material is out there. Maybe the Bible.

Other than that, I don't know who made this claim. Do your own research people. No. Yeah. Imagine, oh my God. Imagine if somebody asked me like, what's the craziest thing you ever done? I'm like, did you know that there's this tree? I split a tree in half when Jesus died.

God split a tree in half. This is my favorite fun fact. Oh, my God. Also, you would have. I love that it just happened to be in Wales. like I know I'm like I feel like we could have gotten closer what's the connection like sister cities I don't know I don't know or like I don't know oh whales Noah that's a stretch I like where your brain's going though thank you wasn't even Noah who had a whale he had an arc he had an arc which she put every animal oh Jonah in the well technically wouldn't Noah have whales on the arc or does he need to work he would have oh maybe not the underwater animal maybe not the underwater animals because they were already wet.

Right? I mean, I don't know enough about Noah, but did he have to give a shit about like sharks? My big question is amphibians, right? Like if, like, do they need to take a dip or did he have like a little a waiting pool for them on board? Yeah, did he just kind of grab a frog

and just kind of dunk it underwater and put it back? And like how would he have known like the exact, you know, kind of sol ratio? The biological need of every animal? Like what's he? a fucking zoologist. Yeah, like, who gave him that right? Oh, I guess God did.

Okay, well, that answers that question. That answers that. Next. Well, so this inn is said to date back almost a thousand years. Whoa. Every time we're up. I know I say it every time. I'm so sorry to all the international people who think this is annoying.

It always blows my mind just because of how young America is, but or how young U.S. is. But yeah, apparently over 900 years. is how long this inn has said to be around. If that's true, that makes it either the oldest pub in Wales or one of the oldest pubs in Wales. I like how 900 years doesn't even make you the oldest. Give or take. I say if that's true,

because a lot of the information out there is fuzzy. First of all, I don't know how many documents are out there that are 1,000 years old. but there is allegedly an earliest record about the property dating back to 1110 Whoa

and that was I think when it was already a building or already like an establishment which means it would be earlier than 1110 that this place opened. We can't confirm a few things first of all that this is the exact same building or maybe it's just a building built on top of the same property

right um also i saw on a few websites uh where people were trying to look for these earliest records of the property from 1110 and couldn't find them anywhere granted that could be because it's no one just scanned it into a computer i don't fucking know but anyway it's said if we're going with like the lore of it all this place is over 900 years old however archaeologists have literally gone to this building and carbon dated parts of it and said that the place is only as old as the 1600s Oh, okay. Okay. So there's a, only. So there's a big argument over this building's origins. Whether it's the same building or built on top of a previous building, it's still believed that this was always an inn, regardless of... So the hauntings persist. Hauntings persist. Whether the building is the same or not, I imagine blueprint theory, et cetera, that they could still stay there.

So just know all of this story is a big, allegedly, with everything I say. Okay, good. so if this place is as old as they say it is then uh or whatever used to be here at that time in 1175 there was a man named william he worked with king john and he learned that his uncle was killed by nobleman and so he wanted revenge he wanted to avenge his uncle so he said come on over to this inn uh to all the nobleman who killed his uncle they didn't know come on over come on they apparently didn't know he was aware of what happened oh boy so it was an inside job and apparently he figured it out he invited all them over on christmas night to have dinner together and then how stupid are these people they waltzed on in and i guess this guy william had some homies and he was like fuck him up and they killed all these people all at once on christmas night in the sin red wedding yeah uh Another legend about this place is that around 1,400, this was the site where O'Wine Glendor,

he's apparently as popular in Wales as like King Arthur. I've never heard of this name, but around 1400, he was known to lead the Welsh Revolt against English rule. And a lot of the, let's say, pre-gaming before their revolts would happen at this inn. They would all gather together. Oh, interesting. And, oh, wow. So there's, like, heightened shit happening here. Yeah, and, like, historical.

Right. Like, significant war. Yeah. Many of those who did revolt are said to have come here beforehand to all rally the troops together, but then also to come here after the revolt to either drink or have a place to stay. Maybe some of them were wounded and didn't have anywhere else to go. And therefore, there are rumors that soldiers died here.

because they would have come back after the fight. Oh, my gosh, that's interesting. In the 17th century, I know we're skipping a million years, but in the 17th century, this building's top floor was used as a local courthouse, similar to like the Whaley House. There was a random courtroom upstairs. Where they're just like, who's attic can we use?

Yeah, pretty much. Can we use? And the story goes that this courthouse was ran by a very cruel man named Judge Jeffreys. Uh-oh. And he was known as the hanging judge. Oh, yeah, I hate to hear that. Mm-hmm.

One person that he is said to have sentenced here is future ghost. John Crowther, apparently, some sources said he was the first person to get executed here. Some people said he was the last person to get executed here. I, whatever. He was executed here. That's the important part. He was executed here, and it was for stealing sheep. oh boy

like five sheep well but I was listening to something about that not about that but like about the concept of being hanged for stealing a horse that kind of thing I mean

and I think it was on astonishing legends but they made the point like today we might think like whatever it's five sheep but like back then like that could be your whole livelihood you know what I mean that's true and like so and stealing a horse is like basically

your mode of transportation like your work vehicle etc because I I was always like, not that I think anyone should be hanged ever, frankly, but like, you know, all that aside, I got a little perspective shift on that recently. Yeah, and maybe the sheep were like, going to keep a bunch of people warm in the winter. Who knows, right?

Like, how much, yeah, anyway. So he, uh... Not that I, like, support this fucking judge, by the way. Right. I believe fully what you say that he isn't. I promise you. A cruel man. Nothing you say can be more wild than your fucking shanty town.

situation oh good see that's what i do i set the bar so low that like nothing else you know it's like nothing else really matters no you're totally fine um we are not proponents of the death penalty let's just let's just say it out yeah hey does anybody uh need me to write that down i can't anyone wondering moving forward we are anti-death i'm not that crazy please okay i'm crazy well so this guy was that fucking crazy because judge jeffreys during his time working in this courthouse sentenced over 180 people here to die oh that okay because when you said he was either the first or last to be hanged i was like what if he was the only one okay clearly my friends you're wrong right um fun fact though this inn is kind of like just like house sized it seems it doesn't

feel like that big of a place just like the waley house just like the waily house and And so think of the Whaley House when I say this. The holding cell in this courtroom was a small room off of the courtroom, but it was basically a closet. Uh-oh. Fun fact, today that holding cell is essentially a pantry. Ooh. Imagine going to, like, get some, like, frosted flakes.

I was going to say frosted flakes. What the hell? That's so weird. as for the gallows where they would execute these people it was the staircase oh my god which is very waily house because the gallows were the gals was the archway yankee gym hang yeah but so this was the literal staircase it seemed like there were like three or four flights to this house um and so i'm assuming part of the staircase just had no banister and they would hang people and just make them walk off the banister and just hang in the middle part of

the stairwell are you serious so they used it while it was a stairwell while it was a staircase oh jesus because at least the i mean at least but the waley house like the arch was built after it was used as oh like on the spot of the whoa that's like like in your house imagine there being a beam at the top floor and just walking off of a part that doesn't have a banister actually i'd rather not imagine i mean i know Just to give you an idea. No, no, no, I get it. That's horrifying, truly. Yeah, so they would force people to walk off the staircase.

That's like walking the plank. Like, that's like so intentionally creepy and cruel. What the fuck? And also to know that when you're walking upstairs to the courtroom and you like have to walk up the gallows to go to your hearing to maybe. And it's not like, I mean, no wonder the holding cell was pantry size. You didn't have to wait very long. You just wait until the stairwell was clear. oh that's so disturbing there's something oh okay time to go everyone's cleared out for the day oh yeah there's

something in my mind that i feel like i don't i don't even know how to phrase this but in my mind's death row would feel like okay if i got sentenced to death at least i still have to go from this facility to another facility and it feels like there's still at least a couple minutes of time in between and so many people like stay on death row for so long nowadays yeah but for someone to like swing the gavel and say, okay, your sentence to death, uh, and now just go out into the hallway. And that's where it'll happen. It feels like so instant. Happened so much faster back then. And then on top of it, now you're literally just, I mean, I guess that probably happened more often than we realize. But yeah, now you're like

in the closet, like, looking at the stairs going, okay, that's, here I go. Like, I only have 10 steps left in my life. Like, it's just like, it's so swift you don't have time to process it. Maybe that's, maybe that's good, but I don't know. Nothing else about that sounds good. I mean, I imagine just like the, I feel bad, but I imagine like the panicked screams in that pantry of someone knowing like, oh, or in the holding cell, it's like in 10 minutes, I'm just going to, 10 minutes ago they told me I'm going to die and in 10 minutes I'm going to be dead. Like that's, um, and even worse is most proper gallows, quote, proper gallows where people would be hanged, there's a trap door. And this is just walking off the stairs. So there's no trap door, which means nobody. is there's not a mechanism helping you break your neck quicker so all these people were

kind of walking off and just immediately hanging instead of dropping which means they were dying much more slowly excruciating death that's horrifying which means you're also just looking down like several flights of stairs and wondering like are you going to die by hanging or is the rope going to snap and you fall

like I mean like just the terror of it is awful to this day that is a functioning in and the wooden beam where people would be hanged is still there. Great. With rope burns like squared into the wood

from people swinging. If I only ever believe in one haunted object in my life, it is that beam of wood. Seriously. I got a second one for you because still hanging

from the beam is the noose. And people, you can just go and just touch it. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. And I hope to God, I don't hope for this, but of the two,

I almost hope that the original one was taken down and like another one was put in its place on display or something. It doesn't look like it's like a 500-year-old piece of rope. Right, right. I imagine maybe they just put it up there for like a... But some of the

sources I looked at did say like, oh, the the noose is still there. But It could be a replica The beam is still absolutely there And you can still go up And like touch the beam Where like the dent is From ropes burning into it

You can touch that part Yeah That's no good That's no good energy So So This courtroom Has now been divided into two rooms

Kind of like in the Queen Mary The most haunted room Used to be one big room Or three rooms And now it's one big room So the courtroom Where all this energy is Has been turned into two rooms

which guests can now stay in and they are called Room 1 and Room 2. Great. In 2005, really come into the future, Jeff and Sharon Fiddler bought the place and they've been the innkeepers ever since.

Jeff apparently even knew about the reputation of this place when he was a kid. Ooh. But when they, I guess him and his wife already ran a pub somewhere else and when they thought this one was open, they're like, oh, we're going there. They sometimes host ghost tours there or they have people come and do investigations there people have hosted

seances for the public there um so they do lean into it and one thing jeff still does at the inn as the innkeeper is this tradition that apparently has been there since the beginning of time called the puka cup i almost had puka shell puca um where uh it's spelled p w c a but i think it's pronounce buca um basically it's this cup that you leave on the mantle in a pub to appease the evil spirits from causing any chaos it's like a oh it's like an offering to them like an offering yeah um and it said that when the inn closes at night they would take that same cup and leave it at the front door to keep evil spirits from coming in at night when no one's attending okay that's cool um fun fact I don't know how true this is, but I did see it.

The tradition of the Puka Cup allegedly inspired Shakespeare to name the character Puck in a midsummer Night's Dream, because stories were word of mouth back then, so by the time he heard it, it might have just turned into Pook, Puck. Yeah. Is that a Puka? Anyway, that was interesting. And yeah, ever since Jeff and Sharon, and have owned the place it is still very haunted one of the it's one of wales most haunted

in pubs um and there was so much content on youtube that i actually had to give up i just stop watching eventually because i just i couldn't do it never ending like i typed in skewered in haunted and it just went forever and every single one of them was like a lot of people post their investigations so every video is like an hour long and oh yeah i was like i don't know how much this I can get through. So I'm sorry, I can't say I watched everything, but I watched a lot, including two TV spots that this has been on. It's been on the show called Extreme Ghost Stories, and it's been on a show called Most Haunted with Yvette Fielding. Here's the thing about Most Haunted. I don't even know really how to put this one

into words, but Most Haunted, their episode of the skirt in, they had this medium come on a tour and kind of tell you what he was feeling. I can't tell if he's the conception of most of these legends. Like I can't say... I did all of this research and then that was when the last things I watched was that episode. Right. So then you made the connection. I see. So when I was watching it, I was like, wow, this psychic is really good. He knows everything. Oh. And then in my mind, I would start the whole story. Oh. And I did later,

I read one paranormal investigator's blog who said there's a lot of misinformation out there about the history of this place because a medium came on during the show Most Haunted. So that's why I said early on a lot of this stuff is alleged because I don't know which came first and if he did if he already knew the background of this place and then started talking about it or if he really said all this stuff and then people ran with it. And then it just kind of yeah became the truth. Right. Yeah. So I was thinking I was like, wow, he's really nailing. it. This is the best psychic I've ever heard. And I'm like, oh, maybe he created a whole story back.

That's like one way of, I don't know, being a medium, just like inventing your own story. I know. Um, so anyway, that's why I say take everything with a grain of salt on this place. But it, at the end of the day, it's still an old-ass fucking bar. It's definitely still haunted. I believe that. Something's happened there. Yeah. Um, one of the most haunted areas of this place is, of course, the staircase or the former gallows. So do we know if that's true? That is true. Oh, that is true. Okay, few. I thought that was also part of the story.

Not few, but few that, like, at least he's not making up fucking crazy stories like that. The courthouse or the courtroom upstairs and the gallows are real. The only thing that might not be real is that the judge's name was Jeffries. Okay. But it was a courtroom with gallows there. I mean, the beam with a noose on it is. Right. Yeah.

I wish that that were not real, but here we are. Here we are. Well, so it is the most haunted area. There's a very dark energy there. Sometimes people see a black shadow standing over there. Many have had a hard time breathing on these stairs, and they feel like they're being strangled. I also have a hard time breathing on stairs, but not because of a ghost. At the best of times.

Yeah. A lot of people feel like they're getting strangled. A lot of people will say that something hurts or they're feeling like they're choked, and then later when they leave, there will be rope burns on their neck. No, no, no. Near the stairs, people also say that they get very nauseous and busy and feel violently ill. One man is heard talking upstairs and seen walking down the halls. It's thought to be Judge Jeffreys. A lot of the stories that we're trying to like over-dramatize this were like, it's Judge George, it's Judge George Jeffries looking for his next victim to hang.

And I'm like, okay, come on. Yeah, let me go to the bathroom, please, without that thought. Thank you. um yeah it's like he could i guess he would be here that makes sense or like it could have been one of the 180 plus people that he walking to their death right uh oh yeah walking duh that immediately convinced me that's what that is thank you um allegedly there's a priest who roams the halls oh no again this is something that i heard from the medium on that show and so i'm like i don't know Not to poo-poo on mediums, but I just don't know what came first at this point.

But his name apparently is Father Henry Vaughn, and he used to read Last Rights Here for people, which could be either the gallows or like post-revolts, maybe. Oh, sure. I forgot about that, yeah. The most famous ghost here is a 32-year-old woman named Fannie Price. She was either, depending on which source you're looking at, she was either the in-lady. she was the barmaid or she was married to the landlord but she was here she was there she was there in the 1700s she said to have died of our favorite consumption in the building and um if though

what was I going to say oh she also happens to be buried in the churchyard nearby so a lot of people have made it a thing of like visiting her grave when they go to the end oh okay um so it's a two stop shop yeah um fanny is often seen in the inn uh before she actually appears to people they will hear either her dress swishing around or they will smell lavender perfume which to me I love the smell of lavender but it was mentioned in a lot

of articles um that this is lavender that smells like heavy old lady makes you kind of sick lavender perfume oh so like maybe like really stuffy yeah overly done yeah not good perfume um sorry girl sorry yeah wow did they have to specify that but okay do you imagine if they're interviewing in the house and fanny's just overhearing this like fuck you she's just like smelling herself like really isn't that bad it was the 1700s this was all i had i was you say but that kind of convinces me more because it's like well they probably did smell pretty wild if they were trying

to cover up body odor and stuff you know you know how they smelled always crazy always oh by the way meant to say there are probably people who are like what is that oh that was just that was my AIM username in like elementary middle school um I'm always with the Z crazy 444 it came out one time and nobody ever let me live it down so there's that certainly not me um certainly not you that was actually part of the america's hercine shifter lore that's right it was part of the lore of course so you all should know that already mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm when did rice pudding nine happen. Okay. Well, we don't used to go that far. That was a high school edition. Mm-hmm. That was when I thought I was being, like, quirky, I think. Maybe middle school,

maybe late middle school. My middle school one is the one that was my, my most popular, which was Lefty Sponge. Lefty Sponge is good. Lefty Spong is so good. In high school, everyone started changing theirs, and I was like, I guess I have to get a second one now because everyone else is doing it. Everyone changed them, yeah. And I changed it to, oh, snap, it's Emmy. It's Emmy. Whoa, who's that? In high school, there was an Emmy phase.

It was not my decision. It just kind of became a thing. Well, I tried to make a Chrissy Kiwi phase, and it really fucking flopped. Isn't it funny that when people try to make it their name, it never is? And then when you don't try? People start calling me Emmy, and I was like, when did I announce that for myself? Wow. For like five years, people called me Emmy.

really so it actually worked but you didn't do it on purpose no i didn't i didn't hate it there were other there was i mean emily was a very big name back then so i think it was just a way to be different an easier way to change yeah never occurred to me to be fucking m um yeah well it did eventually i was going to say never's not the right word uh what was i going to say to you oh more about this um okay fanny she's also said to say her um own name. I love that. Instead of saying your name, she's like, I'm Fannie. Also, isn't that, doesn't that mean like your U, your vagina over there? I know. We've talked about this before. It's interesting how every time I decided to do something

Eurocentric in some way, Fanny always shows up as a name. But that's why I'm so surprised because I'm like, I know it was a name here in the U.S. because people didn't equate the same thing, but I'm surprised about whales having that name. But I guess maybe it's different. Anytime there's some sort of U.K. situation going on, I feel like Fannie has popped up quite a few times. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. But she does say her name. Maybe she was trying to be different than the other Frands or something.

Just like you and Emmy. Oh, snap. It's Fanny. Yeah. Snap, it's Fanny. But so she'll whisper her own name to people. When they're not asking if she's around, she'll just say it and leave. I love that.

She will make people feel like. like a woman is staring at them and she likes to cause unexplained temperature drops. Jeff, the innkeeper, says that his favorite thing about her ghostly abilities is that she will often rearrange your stuff when you're sleeping. Oh. Specifically your jewelry if you lay it out on the table. Oh. He was quoted saying that jewelry is moved, quote, in a childlike manner in a kaleidoscope of rings

and earrings. Oh, that's cute. maybe it's not childlike maybe it's just like she likes it that way i'm glad you said that because my first thought was like the first half felt insulting and the second half felt like a compliment exactly like what a strange way to phrase that in a childlike manner in a kaleidoscope of rings and earrings i'm like that sounds awesome yeah couldn't we just say kaleidoscope yeah um speaking of jeff the spirits didn't want uh a new owner it seems because when the last person decided to sell and jeff showed up activity got worse probably because the last person this is only me talking by the way the last

person was a woman who owned the place and i'm sure they were like why is a man here like get him out get him out i feel like any sort of disturbance though in the routine can be a struggle for the ghost i feel like sometimes they're like oh come on we finally figured this out i'm just speaking from experience every time a man shows up i'm like you gotta get out of here um jeff um jeff he did say that on his first night there, because remember he moved in with his wife. Yes. On his first night there, Jeff's wife, her legs kept getting yanked in bed

by something. And this is a quote from Jeff. Later on we learned that relatives of people oh, this is so sad. Later we learned that relatives of people who were slow to die during a hanging would yank on their own loved ones' legs to end their suffering.

Oh my God. Oh my God. I hadn't even like, oh my God. Oh, my God. Like just from like the the floor underneath. Oh my God. Like they would just reach up in the stairwell. What the fuck? What the fuck?

In lighter news, one time Jeff and his grandson were the only ones in the building. And his grandson came running out of the bathroom saying, The man in the long dress won't let me in. Jeff has also, or no, sorry, not running out of the bathroom. He tried to get into the bathroom. And said the man, the long dress won't let me in. Jeff has also seen an apparition.

here on the porch, which he described as a coachman, a coachman-like character in a tricorn hat. Ooh. He also says that the most memorable thing that's happened to him while he's been here is that he watched a guest who was fresh out of the bath, still dripping, hair wet, came flying down the stairs, screaming, she's trying to drown me. And then he made, he made a mention of like, I remember in the moment thinking it was odd that she said he, he, he or it, just said she's trying to drown me. Whoa.

He thinks that she must have seen, she must have seen a woman do it. Right. Yikes. Or felt like a woman was doing it, but, or smelled that whack-ass perfume. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the lavender nonsense. Well, apparently in the tub, this, this woman got yanked under the water and she couldn't come back up for air until the last minute. another man who was staying here once claimed that he felt quote a huge pain in his stomach and started having flashbacks of hanging with his feet kicking back and forth whoa he later said

this is a quote from again it wasn't my body but it felt like me i could see people's hands all red full of blood and i don't know what this part means i'm so sorry to everybody i don't i don't understand the context but this is a quote from him saying here i could see people's hands all red full of blood bits were being pulled out of me and i was temporarily possessed perhaps by a past life perhaps i was that spirit whoa i mean i don't know if this is relevant but for a time it was i mean this was more for public hangings you know normal quote unquote societally accepted to take pieces of the person hanging but I don't know that that would have interesting no you're right I don't know I don't have no idea or like perhaps if I don't know the blood is like wild I don't

know if why that would be I don't know either maybe that maybe he if he was getting flashbacks it was like of something heated to someone oh maybe it's like a combination yeah I don't know symbolic who knows sure people have witnessed the security alarm going off by itself without it being set it just starts freaking out no there was actually a youtube clip i saw of someone saying there and the it just started going off i don't like that they're like what the fuck is going on um they also hear footsteps both near and far some people were saying they're like near and far like i was by myself walking down the hall and i heard something chasing me people hear roaring in their ears ooh people hear their own name called out they hear voices talking they hear horses outside

um they hear people out in the courtyard which might be from the revolts um and they hear phantom music playing and i don't know how true this is but a lot of sources said that the bar actually loses 10 to 15 glasses a week because of how often they're getting thrown about by themselves employees sometimes keep lights on in all the rooms after closing because they're too scared to look into the rooms when they're dark which made me think of that room in your house oh yeah we don't like that room in the dark no know. In the guest rooms, people have seen a dark shadow at the foot of the bed. Guests get touched and they see faces and windows reflections. Yuck. An investigator said that they heard footsteps and banging them. They were all alone in the building. They've gotten a lot of EVPs. Um, doors. I saw this a lot on YouTube is that doors will open and close on their own and they're always caught on camera. Uh, one investigator said in room one, the camera was knocked over. A male voice can be heard saying, get out. and then while the camera is still facing down, you can hear and see it being moved.

Oh, I just got chills. People say that the energy absolutely shifts after hours when the end is closed, especially near the bathrooms, which is where the grandson said, oh, that guy won't let me in. And the drowning. And the drowning.

The bathrooms in the main area are said to give off a horrible energy with 100 eyes watching you, and one person said that they felt like it was, quote, off limits. someone else was quoted saying I found that I just couldn't open the bathroom door it wasn't locked and it did budge but as it opened as I opened it just a little

I was hit with a blast of freezing cold air and the door felt as though someone was holding it back on the other side one apparition has been seen marching around like a soldier people with higher spooky sensitivities will always feel the gamut of emotions if they stay here long enough

and they all think it's fanny that they're feeling one person said sometimes you go in there and you could be the happiest person in the world but come out and feel like crying oh that's sad i don't like when that happens i would imagine that's the people from the gallows but um people have also said they hear coughing from all parts of the building and that could either be people hanging and like trying to breathe or it could be fanny who died of tuberculosis oh right that makes sense yeah people have felt themselves getting dragged out of bed people have um heard and noises that have kept them up all night and then they realize that the sounds are coming from inside their own bathroom in their room what is with the bathroom i don't know these bathrooms fucking freak me out the worst place by the way imagine like first of all that's where you shower you'd be naked naked imagine if you have the runs and you're just like like you're stuck there and hope that every time i'm on the toilet i'm like this will be the moment the earthquake happens yeah don't yeah don't yeah don't taunt me universe please let me just please

one thing I thought was interesting was one of the guests was like brave enough to go look in the bathroom and see what the sound was that she kept hearing and her toilet paper roll kept spinning itself all night long without actually unrolling any of the toilet paper it just kept spinning someone needs to learn how to turn it the other way because they're like why want to come off I think that was like a cat like a I know like just playing with it one time patrons at the bar all watched money on the bar move move itself from one end of the bar to the other and then throw itself onto the floor. What? Multiple patrons saw this. That's so weird. One guest took their dentures out before going to bed and then found them on the other side of the room. Oh, geez.

Well, organizing your jewelry into a beautiful kaleidoscope. That includes your dentures now. I guess so. You know, if you can only move so much jewelry around until something interesting hits the nightstand and you're like, oh, I'm going to play with that. You got to spice things up here. one thing I thought was really funny was that an investigator from walesonline.com he got a room there to investigate one night and he was looking for fanny so he went into one of

the rooms and was asking for her and apparently he said I switched the lights off and tried to make contact with her informing her that I was from walesonline.com it's like why would she fucking know what that is. Walesonline.com don't worry you can trust me. I like that it was probably just like a reporter's muscle memory of like oh i'm from whales online yeah yeah yeah yeah just like your slow your tagline i informed her yeah that was probably like not the line she was probably like i don't want anything to do with whatever that is whatever that means stop it yeah um and then the last thing i'm going to say is of course you've been wondering this whole time where is the lady in white of course there's a lady in white um apparently not fanny not fanny wow in my mind she's wearing

she's a lady in red but i don't know why yeah i thought actually i pictured her with red hair, weirdly. Well, the woods nearby are said to be haunted by a lady in white because in the 17... The woods? No. No, thank you. Which I'm not surprised because the woods is also where, like, the cemetery

where Fannie is buried in a bunch of other people. Oh, fair point. Yeah. So, of course, it's haunted. And also, like, if it's on the property, like, you'd be walking around out there. Well, apparently in the 1700s, a married guy was sleeping with a girl. The wife found out. The wife killed the girl. And she was left in the woods. So now people claim to see a lady in white sometimes in the woods but also sometimes she makes her way into

the inn i guess on a cold day oh and people see a lady and white walking the halls of the inn sometimes so she is always there she's like santa or jesus the lady in white is always there always watching always watching um but that is the scurred inn very good one i that gave me some goose cam with all the like moving dentures and moving stuff i like to think the like it's like one of those those wind-up dentures like oh yeah yeah yeah i forgot to mention it they were my uh my toy dentures yeah i pulled them right out of my gummy mouth because i don't actually need teeth but i like this i like the the dramatic theatrics of it all yeah yeah yeah as you can see it's very dramatic um wow nice story m i had never heard it before i've been on a bit of a health kick right now

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Super. But here we go. In January of 2016, Sophie Leone, she's from France. So that is how I'm attempting to pronounce her name. Just after her birthday, she moved to London, January of 2016. She had just turned 20 years old. and this would be a huge adjustment for her because she was from a small town called Paron

and this is in rural France and so she had not really been to the big city let alone moved there so this was way out of her comfort zone she wasn't really an adventurous gal growing up she was actually so shy that her mom said she had to basically pull the words out of her

to even get her to speak up so she was just a very shy very gentle young woman and she was one of three. She had an older sister and a younger brother and she lived with her mother and stepfather, Catherine and Stefan. Their last name is Devalonay. You're killing it. Devalonay. I mean, I don't know. Don't speak too soon. I will find out one way or the other. Proud of you for trying. Thank you. So like I said, Catherine considered her daughter just very meek, you know, gentle, quiet, sweet, and extremely reserved. But, you know, a happy kid also.

She was especially happy whenever she was around children. There was just something about kids where she could open up with them and be herself, as she felt differently, you know, around peers, her own age or around other adults. And for that reason, she studied early education. and she decided to make a career out of working with kids. But finding work locally was proving difficult. So when a friend showed her an ad for a French-speaking opair job in England, she applied. Nice. Her mom, Catherine, was a little uncertain about this because, of course, Sophie was intelligent and capable,

but her mom knew she was also a little bit naive, not in like a foolish way, but just like a literal way of, she doesn't know much about the world because she's new experienced it yeah exactly very green yes very green she'd only been abroad once on a class trip she'd never even traveled on her own so moving out was kind of a big step and especially in another country right or another area especially another country because she was also hoping to learn some english when she moved there so that was another kind of selling point for her but like you said also another kind of obstacle that sophie reassured her mom that the move was only temporary. She would work as this opair to build her resume and then come back and have kind of a more

bolstered background for childhood education. Sure. And a job in that field. And like you said, she would be speaking English. So that would be a marketable skill that she could work on. And so she applied. She got the job and she moved to London to work for a mother of two named Sabrina Queeter.

Nice. So Sabrina lived in Southfields with her two kids. Her childhood friend, an off and on again partner boyfriend, Wissam Maduni, who went by Sam, Sam Maduni. He lived with her technically, but he would sometimes be absent for like months at a time. So it was just like a very kind of ships in the night situation. He would be there for a week and then he just disappeared. Yeah, at random.

So Southfields is an affluent district in London. It's next door to Wimbledon to give the Americans maybe some idea. Many of its residents appreciate that it feels like a distinct community separate from London, you know, like its own little village, but of course it's close to London. So I'm sure that's, you know, obviously a big selling point as well. And people in Southfields are known to live sort of a small town social style, like people know each other, more village-like, you know, than the big city. sure so Michael Croner who ran a restaurant there in 2016 described it as a place where you cannot not know a person so it seemed a little bit odd to everyone in the neighborhood when Sabrina and Sam moved in and basically had zero interest in anybody else in the neighborhood they basically kept to themselves they were like we don't want to be part of the community you know which is whatever do you but wherever Sabrina did go she made quite an impression

impression. She was a fashion designer and people, the number one word that people used to describe her throughout this research was glamorous. Oh, okay. So she would show up dressed to impress. She'd actually once been in a celebrity relationship with Mark Walton, who was a founding member of the Irish pop group Boy Zone. Wow. And so, you know, she knew. She knew her work. A thing or two about a thing or two. She knew a thing or two about a thing or two. And so she was... You could say she was always crazy.

You could say it. You could say it. But not in my level because... Just in the glam faction. Just in the glam factor. Maybe. Maybe that's it. So it was actually Mark, this guy that she had dated from Boyzone, a founding member of Boyzone,

who secured a spot for Sabrina in Southfields in 2013. It's not like an easy place to move into, right? So when they separated, he paid her the first few months rent to give her time to settle in. And then along came Sam, her childhood friend and now on and off again, partner. And he was more unassuming he was a financial analyst for a local bank. He wasn't really like the glamorous fashionista like his partner was. He didn't really care about fashion or what he wore. And people just kind of thought they were an odd match, I guess.

because she was such a bold statement everywhere she went and he was so unassuming and people just kind of couldn't figure it out. They also, on top of that, didn't seem particularly happy. Like I said, Sam would disappear for long periods of time. But meanwhile, Sabrina unfortunately had developed a deep obsession with her ex.

So she was obsessed with this ex. celebrity ex right and uh she was so obsessed with him that she actually projected it onto him which i feel like you see sometimes where it's like she's like he's ruining my life and he's stalking me and it's like actually it's the other way around yeah you know what i mean like you're almost you wish yeah you wish right it's sort of like that projection and so she she she apparently made over 20 phone calls to the police to report mark for harassment and abuse she claimed he flew helicopters over her house to frighten her every time the police were like there none of this is happening he lives in Los Angeles like this is not real boy zone boy zone yeah Mark Walton

boy zone I don't know if I know this guy but Mark Walton oh I think he's got that face where he's got the boy boy band kind of like and he's got a face where I'm telling myself I recognize him but I don't think I do. That's how I felt about it too, especially with the name like boy zone, like perfectly vague, but also like specific enough. Literally like, yeah,

it's like boys to men, boys in motion. Boys zone. Backstreet boys. Yeah. So the police repeatedly determined these accusations were false. They even had to actually intervene

and demand that she stopped posting defamatory content about Mark online. She was posting that he was a pedophile. Like she was hardcore. or obsessed with kind of aiming all her troubles onto this man. And typically she was polite and soft spoken when you first met her, but her neighbors soon learned that she could be very aggressive, very unpredictable.

She once caused a scene in a local shop over a disagreement, and she ended up calling the police on a service worker. Like she could become like, you know, Karen 2.0, like, ultimate boss Karen, you know, in a heartbeat. causing a scene creating like all sorts of mayhem and bringing the police in the police would often arrive and then would escort Sabrina outside and explain like hey they did nothing wrong so she's basically just kind of wow all over the place okay so the neighbors were like okay maybe it's a good thing that these two are keeping to themselves and not involving themselves

further in the community um but their neighbors were curious curious when a young woman showed up and it turned out to be Sophie. So Michael, who I mentioned earlier as the restaurant owner who said in this town, you cannot not know a person, he was actually in talks with a couple Sam and Sabrina to go into business together. He owned a fish and chips shop, so I don't know what the business they were like planning was. But when he visited their home, things seemed normal. He met Sophie, who was a new addition to the family. And he thought she was just sort of like any other nanny in the area. He could see she was excellent with children.

But he did notice, like, she was pretty isolated. Like, she seemed lonely, you know? She was, there were a lot of nannies who spent time together and got in, like, groups, meetups, that kind of thing. And they tended to gravitate towards each other, but she seemed to always be riding solo. And was that for any reason other than the fact that, like you said earlier, she's just, like, kind of an introvert? I think it was just her being kind of introverted and shy.

Yeah. at first yeah so whenever sophie came to his shop to eat she was always alone and meanwhile you know the other nannies in the neighborhood would come in groups or they'd come after work sometimes even with the kids that they nannied but she always came alone and michael could tell oftentimes that she'd been crying and it became evident she was pretty homesick she told him that her mom was unwell and over time michael became one of sophie's only friends everyone sophie knew she knew through sabrina and sam They were like her only connection to anybody outside the home. Another person she met through them was Yolanta Gotovska, who said she wanted to learn French. And so Sophie was really happy to be able to help with that. And they kind of formed a bond in that way. And Sophie opened up to her new friend. So in 2017, Sophie told Yolanta that she was very homesick and wanted to return to France in the fall.

I guess her time abroad had given her new perspective. She had made new decisions about where she wanted to go in life and what she wanted to do. And she decided she wanted to go to school to study film. And that's, I don't know, a cool progression to make. And so Yolanta said, go for it. You know, you've got your whole life ahead of you. Friends, Sadie, and Nancy live nearby Sabrina's apartment. And they didn't know the family well, but they had started to notice Sophie kind of in and out of the house.

and they hadn't been introduced or anything. But on September 20th, 2017, Sadie's husband was on a walk to a shop down the street when he saw that the neighbors, Sabrina and Sam, were having a bonfire in the backyard. Okay. And he saw the fire and he's like, that looks way too close to the house.

And so he just wanted to make sure that this was like a contained thing and not just like a free burn fire. So he looked through the gate. gate and he saw someone adding wood to it so he thought whatever someone's keeping an eye on it you know none of my business so he moved on but another neighbor whose house actually shared the same backyard saw this going on and called 999 the emergency number and the fire department responded but then soon police arrived too and then soon neighbors were like really confused when people

in hazmat suits arrived in unmarked van Oh, boy. Okay. Yes. So police, they all watched, of course, neighbors all watched as police escorted Sam and Sabrina out of the house in handcuffs. They taped the street off and authorities put up a white tent in the backyard so that you couldn't fly like a drone or helicopter over to block aerial views. And meanwhile, neighborhood Southfields residents gathered at the scene and watched police come out of the house carrying a stretcher with what looked like a sheet over a body. Yeah. The fire is not a good sign so far. It looks like they were burning evidence before people got there or something. Yeah. Yeah. So exactly. It would be days before the police identified this deceased person. But when people in the neighborhood confirmed that Sam Sabrina and her two children were alive, all the neighbors were like, okay, well, that only leaves that young woman that's been in and out of the house that we don't really know. Like some people thought of her as like a cousin or maybe a family friend. Like they didn't even know who she was. That's how like kind of. of isolated they were so michael her friend at the chips fish fish and chip shop learned of sophie's death when a reporter approached him and asked if he knew sophie he said yes and the reporter said

did you know she was murdered and he was so shocked which by the way i feel like that's kind of like and at work too it's crazy tactless yeah uh and just totally like blindsided him and he was so shocked he couldn't speak um people started to talk now about who this person was sophy leone the nanny who some described as timid, petite, and shy. Some people had never even noticed her at all while others had been worried about her for a while. So Sadie and Nancy, these neighbors, thought Sophie was a family member,

like maybe a cousin or an aunt who came to help out with the kids because of how much time she was spending with the kids. And they said that she worked such long hours and seemed to have such extreme patience. They could not have ever imagined she was an employee of the family and not like a family member who was somehow willing to do all this.

Yeah. If they had known, they might have suspected she was being exploited. So Michael and her other friend Yolanta had tried to help Sophie in the months before her death. Yolanta had actually found out that Sabrina and Sam had run out of money and had stopped paying Sophie for being an opair and stopped paying any of the fees they were supposed to be paying. Wow. Yolanta wanted to help so she offered Sophie part-time work. Um, but then when Sabrina found that out, Sabrina's one who introduced Yolanta to

Sophie and Sabrina broke all contact, freaked out, broke all contact with Yolanda. Well, because she was like getting found out for like not paying or something. Yeah. Okay. One day, Sophie was at Michael's chip shop and she told him Sabrina had beaten her. And he asked why, what happened? And she said something he couldn't totally understand, but something about she dropped some butter. Wow. Okay. So we're just like a heated. We're just in a bad. She just snaps at

anything. Okay. Red flags. He could see how absolutely miserable Sophie looked. She started to wear like only the same outfit every time he saw her. She didn't bathe or brush her hair. She was looking skeletal as if she hadn't eaten in a long time. And every time he gave her food, she would be ravenous and would basically inhale it down. And he wanted to help, and he offered to buy her a ticket back to France, but she just kind of detached and disengaged and didn't take him up on it. I wonder why. Do we find out why? Yeah, pretty much.

Okay. So Michael told Sophie he could find her a different job. He even called a friend who said, like, oh, I'll help Sophie. But when Sabrina found this out, she dragged Sophie crying into Michael's shop and screamed at both of them. basically the answer to question is abuse she was just just yeah just being I know if there was like a she had a crush on someone or something like some outside situation it's just that she was kind of getting trapped she was just being yeah exploited okay um so Sabrina found this out that like he had looked up another job for her and so she dragged sophie to michael's shop screamed

at both of them and most of what she said was in french so michael didn't even understand the half of it. He thought perhaps the issue had nothing to do with him and maybe like he had accidentally aggravated the situation so he tried to back off. Sophie sent messages to her mom over social media saying she was unhappy and homesick and she needed money for a flight. So her mom deposited the money. But Sabrina called Catherine and said Sophie would not be coming home right away because we're really working on our disagreements together and like we're going to make this work don't worry and then katherine asked sabrina so katherine the mom asked sabrina the the what do you call it the opair lady she yeah the host the host mom asked her to please encourage sophie

to come home and said like hey i think she's really homesick like i know you want to work things out but Can you encourage her to just call me and come home? I put the money in her account. The next phone call Catherine got was from the authorities that her daughter was dead. So theoretically then, she was already dead and the, and Sabrina was pushing it off or like? I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the timeline.

It could have very, it could have very well been, because this was kind of like a drawn out situation. it could have just been like oh well i'm just going to speak on her behalf it could have been like you don't get to say what she does or yeah or that's more my gut i think because i think um the murder happened a little while after that gotcha okay cool i'm not 100% on that so all of this goes down basically like they're figuring out the body they just took out of this house is this young nanny people are horrified um of course news breaks that sophie's murders had not only killed her but tried to dispose of her remains in a backyard bonfire and they were actually cooking chicken on the grill

to like cover the smell. Oh my God. I know, I know. So it was already impossible for neighbors to even imagine that like their neighbors would kill this young woman. Like how could they understand that? But it was equally impossible to figure out why.

Like what the hell was going on here? And what nobody knew then and what would eventually come out is that Sabrina had sort of taken her obsession with Mark and like... Placed it on to Sophie. Yeah, like shared it with Sophie because now she decided

she had this diluted idea that Sophie was secretly involved with Mark Walton and the two of them were plotting against her. This girl is always crazy 444. I mean, I don't even want to say that because it's sort of like there's clearly like actual mental illness happening here. Like a mental health situation? I mean, she's...

Yeah. Had they ever met Mark and Sophie? Yeah, they date. No, not Sophie. No, no, no, no. No, the nanny, no. Yeah, she just decided... She just decided... She basically, like, there was just a new person in the house and Sophie got roped into it. It's really... I wonder if there was just, like, some sort of, like, insecurity about some young girl.

And it's just like, oh, maybe that's what Mark wants. I don't know. Like, yeah, I... I couldn't even follow that line of logic. Yeah, I don't think there was really a line of logic. I think basically her story, the way she perceived the situation is that Sophie had come to work in London as Mark's spy to, like, gather into. Whoa. Yeah, it was, it was a lot.

She accused Sophie of drugging the family. What? She accused Sophie of sexually abusing the children. Whoa, that's, okay. And then she claimed it was all by Mark's doing. Like he was the overseer of all this. Like Mark was telling her what to do or that the two of them were like equally in cahoots about this or something. Like that he was making the demands and she was just his spy or his lackey or what have you.

Wow. And these accusations were actually ones that she had hurled at Mark before. You know, remember I said like the police had to tell her to stop posting disparaging stuff. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you did say that. So she kind of just, like, channel it now at Sophie. And so she not only had posted on Facebook that Mark was a pedophile, she once actually approached this man named Sunil Patel, who ran a local newsstand and showed him a photo of Mark on her phone and told Sunil that Mark was an extremely dangerous person who had harmed her and her family.

And she even said to this man that her nanny was even involved. in this scheme. So she's, like, telling people randomly, like, she's clearly unwell, you know, and dangerous also. So Sabrina then made false reports to the police about Mark. She also accused him of sexually abusing her cat. She didn't even own a cat. Oh, wow.

You're very good at dropping these, like, little nuggets because like the first part was wild and now you're and then the second part is like oh and the cat didn't even exist like that's so okay it's like it's not hard to do when every bullet point is like more like ridiculous in the last yeah is did she ever have like a history of going to see somebody like was anyone able to like guess what's happening here I mean yeah so she she definitely has some pretty severe mental illness I'm not sure that we have like a diagnosis or something. Older diagnoses like from before this event,

but we definitely discuss her mental health going forward. Yeah. So by the time, so all this is going on, she's blaming Sophie for being like in cahoots with Mark and ruining her life and what have you. Meanwhile, Mark is living in the U.S. He doesn't even know about any of this, okay? Like he's totally detached.

And we find out, later during the trial and after the police dig all this up that the couple leading up to sophie's death had conducted weeks of what they called interrogations on sophie i don't even want to know what i know i know and they recorded all of them okay did you watch any of it i listened to a bit of it but i i i will say it was obviously extremely difficult to listen to and um Yeah, just a bit. I couldn't really stomach much more than that. For weeks, Sam and Sabrina had started beating Sophie with objects, including an electrical cord. They had stopped feeding her. They, of course, hurled these accusations about colluding with Mark to harm their family. And, like, you know, what's interesting is that Sam had also gotten involved in this. And from what I read, or at least what I read, or at least what I've learned oftentimes when you see like a partnership like this it's the man who's kind of in charge so it's it's more unusual to have the woman kind of being the head honcho in a scenario

like this where it's two against one well i also wonder like maybe he was being abused and to just relieve himself of any dealing with that stuff maybe but he was gone for months at a time and didn't seem particularly attached to either you know my first thought was like maybe this is like like he's just even though he probably felt bad about pushing it off onto someone else because he can't stand it and like he's like almost guilty of this but you're totally right he wasn't around for a lot yeah i think i think this was just uh you know when two people get on some i don't know if it's folio d technically but just like they both i mean they share a delusion and i guess that's the definition of folia death i wonder if um remind me of her name not sabrina the oh sophie i wonder if

she felt like obviously on top of being abused and not being able to leave because of that i wonder if i leave this might happen to the kids or something like maybe she was felt obligated to be there for them that is definitely possible um yeah that's it's totally possible i don't think we have any way of knowing because like it's just really horrible because it it's sort of like it was a drawn out thing but then it also happened so fast that it was like you know people didn't even realize they had such little time to intervene but the court had to hear excerpts from over eight hours of torture that Sabrina and Sam inflicted upon Sophie and Sophie's mom was in the courtroom I mean it's just oh my god I can't even imagine being night worst nightmare worst nightmare and she I mean

to know in hindsight i know you say you don't totally know the timeline but to know in hindsight that she was calling and saying can you like i want to come home and like and she wasn't able to get a hold of her and was talking on like talking to the to Sabrina instead to know that she's probably in the other room being like tortured yeah yeah yeah yeah it's just it's just horrid i mean and when i'm talking about torture too it's like they literally waterboarded her um And they demanded she admit her relationship with Mark and her plots against them. And, of course, now weeks go by and she's completely broken down by pain, hunger, fear. And she just confesses to these alleged involvements with Mark thinking like, maybe this will be my way out.

But unfortunately, it wasn't. It's what led to the rest of it, yeah. It seems to have kind of created an even bigger problem. I mean, there was clearly no... easy way out of any of this. The court heard that months earlier, Sabrina had actually been diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder. And the media consulted psychology professionals who were not involved in the case.

And they speculated upon why Sam participated in Sabrina's witch hunt. Like, you know, were they experiencing a genuine shared delusion? Or was he just like, sure, I'm not opposed to hurting this person? Like, we don't really know. people were definitely speculating left and right as to like what could be going on what kind of mental illness they had or if either one of them had one of them did one of them didn't in a statement to the couple sophie's mother blamed both of them in the couple she said you are equally evil as one another and i mean i can't imagine you'd feel any other way if both of these people cause the death of your child yeah because even if he was um just complicit in and her doing it he still didn't stop it you know exactly he was there contributing let alone yeah not stopping it so because sophie's remains were badly burned by the time authorities arrived her exact cause of death couldn't be determined but uh they were able to confirm that she had four broken ribs oh my god

sternum was cracked and her jaw was fractured and they could just and you'll tell she had endured extreme violence and you wonder how much of that was caused by or how much of that was because of the murder or because of the torture right and it yeah like which one which injury was longest like did they happen simultaneously different times i mean it's horrific to even have to think about um and of course yeah what a surprise sam and sabrina both say they didn't do it the other one did uh-huh and both said oh i was asleep and she said i was asleep and she said i was asleep while he did it. He said I was asleep while she did it and that they claimed that they woke up to find the other one had killed Sophie. But here we go. We have a witness who lived

in an apartment in the same building who testified that they heard both Sam and Sabrina at the same time the night Sophie was killed shouting breathe, breathe. Oh. So did they want to, were they just trying to torture her and not kill her? And then when they found out she was Oh, I think, yeah, well, I think they accidentally killed her and realized they'd taken it to, as my guess, for why they'd be saying breathe. I'm not sure, you know. Up until this point, I thought that they just got her to admit that she was sleeping with that Mark guy and then that... I think it's just kind of up the torture level, so to speak, you know. Gotcha.

So the trial went on for 43 days while the court learned just how terribly Sam and Sabrina had treated Sophie, not only in life, but also then in death. um they transferred her body from their apartment to the fire in a suitcase and when a fireman noticed her remains sam said oh god i mean really so a firefighter noticed the remains and sam said oh that's just a sheep the body of a sheep what trying to like claim it was something else just livestock don't worry about it exactly exactly that's like so extra upsetting sam and sabrina We're basically just as callous about her after death as they were, you know, during life. Sophie's mother, stepfather, and father, whose name is Patrick, Leonet, traveled to England for the trial. Neither Sabrina nor Sam would look at Sophie's mother the entire trial.

Sophie's parents, so Sophie had an eight-year-old brother and he adored her. And they didn't bring him to the trial, you know, for obvious reasons. But apparently he had begged his mom to go because he wanted to. to tell Sophie's killers that they broke his heart. Wow, that's so sad. A little boy. After 30 hours of deliberations, the jury found Sam and Sabrina both guilty of murder.

Sabrina began sobbing. Catherine cried too. And both of them, Sabrina, age 35, Sam, age 40, were sentenced to life in prison with the requirement that they each serve a minimum of 30 years. now we get to the question of course of you know why didn't she leave which kind of is always on the outskirts of stories like this especially like when you rightfully so said you know i wonder why when he offered her like a new job and a ticket out of there like why you know and really there was no clear reason other than she was in too deep just happens yeah like she felt so stuck and there was no evidence that she was physically trapped like locked in or anything like that she often left the house so wasn't that psychological abuse is crazy exactly exactly and you know

it's not so simple right it's like by the time sophie was killed it had been months of psychological abuse and Sabrina and sam said things like and i listened to some of this it's just horrific they told her i mean and you know you think too they're starving her so she's not even got her right wits about her and now they're they're telling her they're torturing her and telling her no one will help you if you try to leave you know we know you hurt our children uh they said if you try to contact the authorities you'll be arrested they're all out there looking for you like they messed her mind up so much you know that she was just completely turned around and sam and sabrina like knew that they were able to do this because

They left the doors unlocked, you know, and whenever somebody else offered her a job, they just cut ties with that person. It's just, like, classic abuse. It makes you wonder if, like, there was another opair before them, before Sophie, and, like, what happened to them? I don't think there was because I think we know kind of the history of the family and, like, the ex-husband and all that. And because Sam was kind of new in the picture, I think it kind of took the right sort of ingredients, you know, to make this all happen. I wonder if Mark the ex-boyfriend was the first person she did this, too, or if there's someone else to, like... Yeah, I mean, this is clearly a pattern, right? Like...

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know either. I don't know either. It's a very good point, especially because she dated that guy, and it's like... Yeah. You know, um... So in one recording and the last image ever taken of Sophie, you can see how emaciated she is.

It's very disturbing. Um... The fact that she ultimately made this false confession to Sam and Sabrina proved just how much they had kind of warped her mind and broken her, you know, through this abuse. And she might have, like, truly believed that she would get in some sort of legal trouble. Like, who knows what they were telling her? Like, oh, we told them this or we, you know. And, you know, even if she knew she didn't do anything wrong, maybe she believed Sabrina would follow her and, like, do something to her parents. You know, who knows what they threatened her with, right?

and investigators who searched the home also failed to find Sophie's passport and in that way they figured oh okay it looks like maybe that was withheld from her by Sabrina and Sam and so even if she was able to kind of get out of there she couldn't leave the country she couldn't prove her identity like another power move you know so Sophie wasn't able she was trapped whether it was physically or psychologically or what have you all the above um she was forced to sleep at a desk in her room and on the desk police found a note that she had written that just said why me i need help to stop them it's just horrible and and people who had tried to help or wanted to help of course now live with that kind of pain of what if i'd done something could i have done something um for example michael tearfully regretted not making a report about the situation. He knew she was struggling and he had tried to help

and then thought it only made things worse so he wanted to back off. He didn't want to cause more trouble for her, you know, he didn't realize, like, quite how far, I guess no one realized quite how far this abuse had gone. Likewise, everyone else in the neighborhood found Sabrina and Sam, like, unpleasant

and, like, not great neighbors, but they never thought, you know... Yeah, you're not a killer because of it. chamber in there exactly like that's just it's something we don't necessarily think about and sophie's mother was interviewed uh in a documentary i watched and she her advice was to encourage parents to confirm their children's safety whenever they traveled abroad even if they're adults you know or your loved ones in general um and if you're you know she said if your child is going to be an opair you know go with them to visit the family first um make sure everything's safe and

that you trust everybody. Although even then, like, it's the scary part is they could just put a front on for mom and then. Exactly. And also, like, that's not always possible. Like, opers can't just necessarily pay for their parent to come with them, you know? A lot of people are opairs because they're trying to make money to save up and go somewhere. And perhaps send money back, you know, to their family.

So it's like, you know, of course that is ideal. And I don't, I'm not disparaging the mother at all. I'm just saying, you know, I think like that's just, uh, that is. helpful advice I think just it's not always possible especially because like a lot of opairs come from you know underprivileged backgrounds and it's like they are there like you said for the opportunity um a lot of times employers even expect o'pares to pay them back for like visa expenses and that kind of thing um and you don't really make much money as an opair you're basically getting like room and board and some spending money that kind of thing and um so it's it's it's like

already kind of in a more vulnerable spot for that reason, right? Like you're depending on these people. You don't know the country. You don't know the culture, the language. And they're your only lifeline to the outside world. So regardless of, you know, economic background or country of origin, of course, anyone is vulnerable to when moving to a new country to work for strangers. And a lot of times it works out great and things are fine and awesome. But sometimes, Unfortunately, people take advantage of this and things go very, very wrong. So on June 6th of 2018, Sophie's remains were returned to her family. She was buried in France, and her family remembers her as an exceptionally kind person who,

despite being very, very shy, was a friend to everyone, especially children. And according to her aunt, she was a pearl, kind and gentle. She loved everyone. Yeah. And that's the story. it's not even I mean you obviously don't push us on anybody but when it's just like someone who only was just quiet and kept themselves and kind and go to kids she just silently writes why me you know and she would have made such an amazing opair you know and was such an amazing caregiver to the kids it's like it also makes you wonder like where the fuck were those kids when like she couldn't watch them because she was busy being tortured you know like so now now that just add negligence to your kids on that. Anyway, that's just neither here nor there, I guess. Horrible.

Yeah. Awful. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. Sorry, I bummed you out. If you would like to come learn more, if you would like to come to Yappy Hour, we will be on Patreon doing that. I guess I was going to tell something. What was I going to tell? I don't remember.

It was something about, I'm always crazy 444, but I don't recall. Rice pain nine. Oh, perhaps. But whatever it is. we'll figure it out and you can come join us there and everyone i hope everyone has a a good swig or chew of something yummy to get um to get your dopamine back up because mine is low uh but thank you christine uh it's always nice to know that my hormones can balance and imbalance themselves so um you're welcome i appreciate it um you're just giving me a reason to go

spike my own serotonin and buy myself a fun little treat so that's what i'm here for and That's why we drink.