And That's Why We Drink - E469 Nostalgic Lip Landlines and Dancing Ghosts

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

It’s episode 469 and we’re stepping into the fiery spirituality. Today Em takes us back to cowboy country for the haunted Moss Mansion which feels like it was built in the Sims. Then Christine bri...ngs us another hotel room mystery with the murder of Artemus Ogletree which leaves us with more questions than answers. And do you think ghosts want the lights on? …and that’s why we drink!Etsy Links:https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheXtineFileshttps://www.etsy.com/shop/foragerscraftshopCatch our bonus Yappy Hour intermissions on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3L28lDw or subscribe on Patreon: http://patreon.com/ATWWDPodcast!___________________For 50% off your order, head to http://DailyLook.com and use code DRINKLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster—join at https://RocketMoney.com/drinkFor 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.Try ZipRecruiter for free at http://ziprecruiter.com/DRINK to hire faster and find quality candidates for your team.If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don't wait to get help—go to https://learn.nocd.com/ATTWD and book a free call with their team to learn more.Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/DRINK and use code DRINK to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise.
Starting point is 00:00:27 CBC News. When McDonald's partnered with Franks Redhot, they said they could put that shit on everything. So that's exactly what McDonald's did. They put it on your McChrispy. They put it in your hot honey McNuggets dip. They even put it in the creamy garlic sauce on your McMuffin. The McDonald's Frank's Red Hot menu. They put that shit on everything.
Starting point is 00:00:52 Breakfast available until 11 a.m. I'm participating in Canadian restaurants for a limited time. Frank's Red Hot is a registered trademark of the French's food company LLC. talk about it a lot, but OCD is a very complex and nuanced and misunderstood illness, and it keeps people stuck in a cycle of stressful, unwanted thoughts and repetitive physical behaviors. It's hard to kind of find the right path when you are being diagnosed, and a lot of people aren't able to be diagnosed. Maybe they don't have the resources or, you know, the avenues to do that, and not every therapist understands OCD or is qualified to treat it effectively, which can
Starting point is 00:01:28 make it difficult to find the right help. But we've got no CD on our side, and that's why things are going to change. OCD is highly treatable with a specialized type of therapy called ERP or exposure and response prevention. And with no CD, you can do live virtual ERP therapy with licensed therapists 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. NoCD therapy is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. I think that's just amazing. As someone who's had to ERP really changed their life. I recommend it to anyone I know. So 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
Starting point is 00:02:08 with their team to learn more. That's NOCD.com to schedule a free call and learn more. Hello and welcome to and that's why we drink your true crime and paranormal favorite. I'm Christine and that's the other one. I'm like, why am I making this a mad lib? That's not how those works. It's me, but also like weirdly blurry. Oh yeah, you're blurry. Is that better? Actually, yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah, I'm better now. A ghostly film. I know. I love your face. It was actually a spirit was just standing in front of the computer. It was really fucking rude. That's so fucking rude. I hate when they do that. I literally, I can't even get into it. So anyway. Stop yelling at them. They live in your house and they're
Starting point is 00:02:59 invisible. That's so scary. Why do you drink, Christine, besides the horrors that are our nation? Oh. Unless you, you. want to throw that in? I mean, I do want to throw that in. Things are rough and scary. And so I was flying back into Cincinnati with my brother. And it was like that snowstorm was coming in. And we're on the plane. And I just glance up and it's, I mean, it's something I'll never forget glancing up and seeing everybody's screen, whether it was CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, whatever. And it's like on the plane, everyone's watching. It's dark out. There's like this huge blizzard happening. I'm seeing like the news headlines from Minneapolis on every screen in different like context.
Starting point is 00:03:40 And it was just one of those like, oh, okay, the world is, this is a history book. Oh, yeah. A big history book situation. It feels a, I mean, with every day, I feel like every day I wake up and say, oh, it feels like we're in a dystopian wasteland. But then the next day happens and I go, I miss yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like again, now what? Yeah, what am I waking up to?
Starting point is 00:04:05 Yeah, it's really jarring. I mean, I've been following astrology pretty closely lately, and I do feel like things are shifting rapidly. In case you're wondering, Neptune... I would love to hear what the stars have to say, because I'm so over what the newscasters have to say. Well, great, because Neptune is entering. So it's been in Pisces for 14 years, which is a very dreamy state. and Neptune governs like spirituality and like that kind of like drive to, I think it's like a drive to change the collective or to spiritually grow and get people on your side.
Starting point is 00:04:46 Either way, it's now entering Ares, fire sign. And the last time that this happened was about 150 years ago, the first day of the Civil War in the U.S. So ain't that funny. Ain't that something. Literally the day that the day. Then that's tomorrow, by the way. So as we record this January 27th.
Starting point is 00:05:10 Sick. Okay. Yeah. And it's going to be there for 14 more years. So we'll see. But this is a time. It's a time to step into, it's a good thing. Because it's like we're stepping out of a Pisces kind of like dreamy, like spirituality into an active, fiery, like resistance type.
Starting point is 00:05:30 spirituality. And, you know, if you're, if you're, if you've been doing the work, they say, you're on the right. This, this year, jump aboard. We're fighting the fascists. Okay. We're fighting the faths. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a rough one. Have you been finding joy at all anywhere? Have you, what's something good that's happened? I feel like, thank you for asking that. That's a nice question. Well, you know, actually, this is probably a good time to segue into this real quick. One of my, I've been trying to find outlets, right, as we all are. And I ended up making a drawing that I'm turning into a sticker.
Starting point is 00:06:09 And I've decided after all the Minneapolis news this week that I'm going to go ahead and sell them. I wasn't sure if I was going to, but they're a little hot stuff devil sitting on an ice cube. And it says abolish ice. And I figured I'm just going to donate the proceeds to. I have it already up on my Etsy page, but the link isn't public yet. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it, but this just felt like the time to mention it. So if you want to go order one, I only have, I think, a couple.
Starting point is 00:06:40 I have like 100 or 200. If anyone's interested, I'm donating the proceeds. And hopefully, oh, and hey, your girlfriend now has an Etsy too. She does. This is all, this is crazy. It's called Forger's Craft. She's making her own jewelry these days
Starting point is 00:07:00 and she's doing a very good job. Well, I keep wanting to wear the earrings to show them off and then I'm like, oh, I have these headphones on. I can't really wear the earrings. But anyway, they're beautiful. I ordered some. Man, she's talented, dude.
Starting point is 00:07:12 Yeah, so people, she has been gone for what feels like I think a year or now. But she said, oh, while I'm gone, I guess I'm also going to open an entire jewelry business. So she's been, when she's not watching the baby, she has been going to this area in Charlotte where she's been able to make all this stuff. But anyway, she's doing a really good job.
Starting point is 00:07:36 And if you would like a set of earrings or a bracelet. She's very good at all of it. It's specifically woodworking stuff. Yes. Forger's craft, if you would like to go follow her on wherever you would like. Or go. Mainly Etsy. If you would like to get something from her, it's on Etsy.
Starting point is 00:07:54 Yeah, and they're beautiful. And she has a really good Instagram and TikTok, I think, that shows how she makes them and stuff. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't, I can't find the draft of the post, but I do have already a donation page set up for the money that I'm going to make. Hopefully, if anyone buys any of these, I'm going to donate the proceeds. So I don't know. I don't know anymore what to do.
Starting point is 00:08:19 This is like my feeble attempt, right, I like helping. But, you know, I think also every. everything changes weekly. So I don't really know which nonprofit yet. I don't even know what's going on going on by the time. I know. I know. So I'm going to hold off on even mentioning which nonprofit yet, but I will put it in the listing. You can go to the X-teen files. I mean, so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm like, how can I contribute trapped in my house? I guess I can maybe I draw something silly. Sure. Yeah. That's my contribution. Is that your, the joy you found this week? Yeah. It's, it feels like a little, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:54 a little control in an uncontrollable world. Nice. Yeah, what about you? Are you okay? I mean, not really, you know, in general. No, no, no, I'm not okay. I have been trying to, you know, distract myself with things. And so I went to a Comic-Con yesterday.
Starting point is 00:09:14 I got to meet a bunch of people who worked on, like, Nickelodeon shows, which I thought you'd be interested in. Oh, cool. I met Craig Bartlett from Hay Arnold. Yes. Did you ever meet him? I don't know. In my mind, at Nickelodeon, you just had dinner with him or something.
Starting point is 00:09:33 He wasn't there because he wasn't working anymore. I think he was retired when I worked there. As far as I knew, he wasn't there. So I met him once, and I think we follow each other on Instagram, but that's it. Thanks. No, for those who don't know, Craig Bartlett was like the illustrator. And I think, did he create the show, Sue? He created it.
Starting point is 00:09:51 I think he created it, yeah. For, like, Hey Arnold and I didn't know this, but he also drew Cynthia from the Rugrats. Oh, that, it fits. Yeah, it fits. But he, so I guess they had records, like vinyl records of the Hey Arnold soundtrack from the first season. That's cool. And so I didn't, like, one of my favorite things to listen to on YouTube is, like, ambient, like, New York jazz music. which is basically Hey Arnold music.
Starting point is 00:10:24 And so, like that did. Yeah. So I got the record and he told me that it was like the last one that they had in their, in their personal collection. Or I don't know if it was his personal collection or like the store. It was like the last vinyl that they were selling. And so I got him to sign it for me. You have it?
Starting point is 00:10:44 The music. Hey Arnold, the music volume one is kick ass, dude. And he signed it to M. Yeah. And then I also I got some other autographs. I met the people, like, I don't know if it's one woman or three women,
Starting point is 00:10:59 but someone who voices the Powerpuff Girls was there, which was fun. So I got to say hi to her too. Anyway, it was fun. I bought some chachkas, you know, I love a little chotch. Was it in town or did you have to leave town? No, it was in town.
Starting point is 00:11:15 That was the highlight. I was like, I need an escape. And I looked up like things that are going on. And I was like, I'll go to a Comic-Con. Hell yeah. So, yeah, that's a good reason why I drink. The bad reasons why I drink are the same reasons everyone's drinking.
Starting point is 00:11:29 So I don't know. Everyone, just watch out for your neighbors and I don't know. Buckle up. Yeah. Shit's getting real, really real. Any announcements to make before we get into me telling a ghost story? I feel so, this feels so, like, silly to tell a ghost story. right now given the, I feel like.
Starting point is 00:11:52 It's not any similar thing. Going to a Comic-Con or drawing a picture. What else are we supposed to do? I know. Just keep it moving, I guess. Is there anything we need to announce? I don't think so. Not that I know of.
Starting point is 00:12:05 I mean, we're kind of like, I hesitate to say this to feel like somewhat ahead for the first time. Great. Probably like a week. But still, it feels pretty, it feels like we're ahead a little bit. So it's kind of like, I don't know, I'm just. kind of grooving, ready to hear what you've got. I need to tell you about my green blazer.
Starting point is 00:12:28 Okay. I know, like, you're usually the blazer person, but I got a green blazer through daily look. It's something I never would have, like, tried on necessarily at the store. But when I got it, I was like, oh, snap. And I've been wearing it. I feel very chic and elevated in it. And again, it's not something I would have, like, come across in my own shopping searches.
Starting point is 00:12:46 So I'm thankful for daily look. And my green blazer and all the other. lovely items they've sent my way. I'm glad. I think everyone look sharp in a blazer. I'm glad you have that. And Green would look lovely on you. Thank you. Yeah, this podcast is sponsored by a daily look, the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. And with daily look, you get your own dedicated personal stylist, Esperanza. If you're lucky, you had pristine you could show the same stylist to curate a box of clothes based on your body shape preferences and lifestyle. And this is not an algorithm. These are real personal stylists. And you get the same one
Starting point is 00:13:19 every time. That's right. It's time to get your own personal stylist with Dailylook.com head to Dailylook.com to take your style quiz and use Code Drink for 50% off your first order. Once again, that's Dailylook.com for 50% off. Make sure you use our promo code drink so they know that we sent you. One last time, DailyLook.com and promo code drink. Oh, I love this. This is a talking point here. What's the most ridiculous subscription or hidden fee you've discovered you were paying for? Because mine was that Nickelodeon subscription box. Mine is something new every day.
Starting point is 00:13:50 When I get a new email and all of a sudden I'm like, why the hell am I getting things like this? I'm like, I have a subscription again. I thought I got rid of you. In this economy? I know. It's so overwhelming. But Rocket Money is here.
Starting point is 00:14:02 Rocket money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills. So you can grow your savings. M. don't worry about it. You know, I had a lot of subscriptions as we've discussed before, Cincinnati.com. I love you, Cincinnati.
Starting point is 00:14:16 Not that much, so sorry. That's the most ridiculous one. That's a good one. Now you're like publishing basically the world's news is what I'm hearing. You're financing it. You know what? And I've always said that. And you're welcome world.
Starting point is 00:14:27 And I'm ready to quit. And luckily with Rocket Money, they're going to help me do that in a snap because I am over all of you with your magazines. I'm over it. I get it. It's time. You've done enough. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster.
Starting point is 00:14:41 Join at RocketMoney.com slash drink. That's rocketmoney. dot com slash drink rocketmoney.com slash drink. This is a quickie. This is from Billings, Montana. Ooh, Cowboy Country again. I don't know what's going on because I'm actively trying to find different locations. Maybe.
Starting point is 00:15:03 I'm trying to find different areas of the nation and elsewhere. My is kind of a, now that I'm thinking about it, also a repeating pattern of what I've been doing. Well, I think you're right that it might be my algorithm because I have been, I don't even know if like it's, if I feel like traveling lately. But I keep planning this stupid Montana trip to get through my leftover states so I can hit all 50 states. That's right. It's on the brain. And Billings, Montana is a Montana period, but Billings is one of the places I'm looking at. So anyway, maybe I'll stop by this house if I ever go.
Starting point is 00:15:38 This is the Moss Mansion. and it was built in 1902 for the Moss family. If you can believe it or not, the Moss Mansion. Actually, like, I thought maybe it's just really green. I just thought it was covered in shit. Really verdant and squishy. Oh, my God, wait, can I tell a quick anecdote one time in element? Half a sentence and, yes, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:15:58 Before I even get your yes or no, I'm like, can I, before I take a breath? Can I tell you a story as I continue? Yeah. No, no, let me, let me, let me, uh, let me reggae. Gail you, but it was elementary school and my brother did a diorama and we had bought that like fake moss at, um, at Michaels. And he, Michelle's and he came home and we didn't realize it first, but he had this horrible reaction like his eyes swelled and stuff.
Starting point is 00:16:28 And we were like, what's going on? Turns out he's allergic to that fucking moss from Michael's. So if you have like strong allergies and be really careful because that shit is like spores, you know, and it'll get in your sister. Good to know. I actually wouldn't know. I've never touched fake or real moss, I guess. It doesn't feel nice, really. Okay. It's like just moist, you know, always. That just really sealed the deal for me. I'm not doing it out immediately, exactly. Hmm. What other words could we use so I never touch it? Okay. Yeah. So if you're doing a diorama, maybe use like tissue paper instead or something, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Just like a textured spray. Spray paint. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's cool too. The piping, the piping thing from, from, cakes. Oh, but what are you putting in it? Really thick paint or frosting and really just... Don't put paint in there because then someone's going to eat it. Okay, never mind. Listen, don't let us tell you how to make a
Starting point is 00:17:21 diorama. You believe in yourself. Yeah. Okay. The Moss Mansion. Here we go. Okay. Moss Mansion. 1902. It was built for Mr. and Mrs. Moss. But their names are Preston and Martha, although they went by P.B. and Matty. Maddie Moss. Isn't that cute? That is. I'm telling you, there is such a significant rise in my chance of marrying somebody if there is an alliteration if I were to change my name. If they were to change their name.
Starting point is 00:17:49 So, but for you it would be E, which doesn't quite have an alliteration. It's a tough. Because it's sort of a, what do you? It would have to be like M. Emberson. Yeah, it would have to. It would be actually a really sad, gross name, I think. I think it would not sound right. Hey, if your name's M. Emerson, M thinks you have a really gross name.
Starting point is 00:18:08 I like it personally. I think Emerson is a cool ass name. But what about Emerson? M. Emerson. Maybe. Okay. Hey, wait, how does this hit you?
Starting point is 00:18:17 Emmethy Emerson. I think if there was Emmethy and it's, and then the next, the last name started with the TH. Emothy Thab. Maybe. No, because then anyone with Elisp is going to have a real,
Starting point is 00:18:28 with Elisp is going to have a hard time. Emmethy Thet. Because then it would be Emothy Thal. So wait, it would be Emmethy Thurgood. Try saying that. Thurgood. Well,
Starting point is 00:18:38 I'm trying to think of a TH name. Emethy Thurgood. Yeah, that'd be really... It sounds terrible. Emethy Thurgood. It sounds like you don't... Yeah, it sounds like... Oh, you're totally right.
Starting point is 00:18:47 It's just fine, but like, I don't know if that's what you're going for. No, you're right. It does sound not like how I would want it to sound. I... Emothy Thurgood. I don't know why I thought that. I don't know what... I think my name's the only name.
Starting point is 00:19:00 Maybe that's why I'm appreciative of alliteration, because I know my... What about Emmetheedon? Emothy Emerson? I think it's... It works great. I think you're a psychopath. Beth, that's what I think. Well, okay, you're the one who wants to name yourself,
Starting point is 00:19:11 Emothy Fowler. Okay, let's start. Let's go with yours. Like, Christine, anything with a sound is going to sound incredible with yours. No, it's not, because if it's Christine Parker. You're immediately wrong.
Starting point is 00:19:25 What? You know what? It sounds better than epithy third. What if it was Christine Christensen? Then I sound like I've literally invented the church. It's actually short for Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's short for, my dad is God.
Starting point is 00:19:41 Sorry. My dad, the inventor of those children and Jesus Christ himself. Christine Christensen is insane. But anyway. I think you have a better shot with the alliteration than I do. Well, too bad.
Starting point is 00:19:52 My husband's name is Lambignallia and I fucked it up. You got it all up. You got burned. That's okay. It's, you know what? Speaking of burned, Emberson is a cool last name
Starting point is 00:20:01 and I will die on this hill. I agree with you. I just don't think it's from my name. But I think Emberson. Yeah, like, because also that just sounds like, A member son. Okay, Emmethe Emerson.
Starting point is 00:20:14 I think it's time to call it quince. Okay, fine. I do actually, I know someone from college. Her sister's name was Ember. And I was like, that's fucking sick. That's a kick-ass name, although I thought we were giving it a rest. Okay, you're right. Okay, sorry, yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:31 No, you're right. I would have talked about it for another hour. Actually, the best name I've ever heard, though, Maddie Moss. Hello. Martha Moss, Moss, Maddie Moss, very good. Martha Moss, Mattie Moss. Very good. No notes.
Starting point is 00:20:42 Her and her husband, so they ends up getting this mansion, built for them. It costs $105,000 then in 1902, which is now basically $4 million. Yikes. Oh, pricey. And fun fact, it was designed by the same person who designed the Plaza hotels and the original Waldorf Astoria. Oh, okay. So I feel like that alone, he was like, it's going to be $4 million regardless of size.
Starting point is 00:21:06 Base level, yeah. Yeah. My starting pay is $4 million. This mansion had 28 rooms, which here's what I don't like. I'm so over this. When they don't tell you what type of rooms immediately, I want to know bedroom, bathroom, bathroom situation. I don't like the rooms. We're going to have to like too vague.
Starting point is 00:21:24 Yeah, specifically. I agree. Because a room could mean anything, frankly. If someone said 28 rooms and 26 of them are like pantries, I'm like, well, I don't fucking want that. Yes, you do, because if they're full, you're going to have a good day. You copy immediately, yeah. But I understand your point, like, are they all bathrooms?
Starting point is 00:21:43 Because again, this is like out of the Sims all of a sudden, but you know what I mean? Like, yeah, if there are 28 rooms, like, which rooms are? It's Chauncey Bliss's favorite mansion that ever existed. It's 28 pantries and 28 bathrooms. So there's 28 rooms, including parlorers, that's plural, libraries, plural, sitting rooms, garden rooms, a ballroom and a salarium. Ooh, wait, what's the documentary a solarium and a garden room?
Starting point is 00:22:11 That feels like the same thing. Fascinating question. I don't, because then also throw in a greenhouse, I'm really fucking confused. That's right. And they have enough room, it seems, for all three, but they're just called garden rooms pretty much. Hmm. Hmm. Sounds lovely, though.
Starting point is 00:22:28 I'm over it, actually. Oh, okay. Me too. Honestly, if we have a solarium, why the fuck isn't there a planetarium? that's what I'm thinking. Oh, shit. You got $4 million?
Starting point is 00:22:39 You're not going to get yourself a planetarium? Very good question. Not that hard. I bet. I'm not impressed. Not impressed. If I had $4 million, I'd imagine a planetarium is much more likely to happen. That's the first thing you're going to buy.
Starting point is 00:22:52 Certainly, not the 10th. Mm-hmm. So the home also had, and this is a quote, because I didn't even want to mess with, I didn't even want to mess with the quote. The home also had heated indoor plumbing, an electric bell system, and a very early version of a rotary phone. which rotary phones weren't even going to be popular for the next 20 years. Geez, 1902 this was?
Starting point is 00:23:11 Yeah. Who are you calling when no one else has a fucking phone? But that is so like McMansion coded, right? Like, what are you even going to do with that thing? Whatever that like extra weird thing you bought? I'll wait 20 years until you can get back to me. Yes. Yes, I'll leave you a voicemail.
Starting point is 00:23:27 Someday you'll get a voicemail box and you'll know what I'm saying. What was your phone number one? It's just stupid. Dial my friend one. Yeah, you could probably talk to like Alexander Graham Bell or whoever the fuck. Like in that or Thomas Edison, you know, or whoever the fuck did this. Franklin? Who, what are these fucking old men did this?
Starting point is 00:23:45 I literally, I could not agree more. It's, I think at some point it's just like I would love with with my adult money, I would love to buy the clear build it yourself landline phone we all wanted as a kid. I love those. And yet, why? Who am I calling? I don't have. Yeah. I don't have.
Starting point is 00:24:04 I would, I would want the experience. of us both being on a landline and twirling the cord. But do you want to know something? I think some people are trying to bring those back. You know why? I think people are trying to get off the, off the, like people are going Luddite mode, some people. And they're getting like landlines and like flip phones.
Starting point is 00:24:25 Like people are kind of detaching from some people. Not I, certainly, but some people are detaching from, from the phones. I'm not quite there yet. But maybe sooner. Hey, why don't you get one? Why don't you dial one? See what happens. See what happens. It'll get me a mansion. It'll get me a little. It'll give me a little. And then you're ready to rock and roll. I think you're on to something. Thank you. If landlines do become more popular, just know that's exactly, you don't even have to question which phone I'm getting. Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah. I actually still have the lip phone, the lips phone. No, you don't.
Starting point is 00:25:00 From when I was my stepmom. It was my stepmops in the 70s. and then she gave it to me. And it used to be in my bedroom growing up. And I just was always so embarrassed by it. Why? Because I don't know. I was like a kid and I was like, what is this weird mouth phone she put in my room?
Starting point is 00:25:15 No, that was so iconic. So now I wish I had it back. It's at her house. I should go get it. That reminds me of like the peanut Eminem phone or something. I feel like there was a phone that the M&Ms were somehow involved in. Well,
Starting point is 00:25:25 remember my SpongeBob phone where you open. And remember then I left it at TSA and they said, Oh, yeah. Name one thing in your bag and we'll give it back to you. By the way, what a wild choice for a TSA question. He's like, just give me one thing in there. And I was like, shoes. And he's like, too vague.
Starting point is 00:25:42 And I was like a SpongeBob landline corded phone. And he was like, okay, here's your bag. You know what would be even crazier is if you really were just trying to steal someone's bag. And that was the one guess you got to take. That's what you said last time. And I still find it absolutely crazy. You're right. If that were, if that had happened.
Starting point is 00:25:58 I mean, this was also like five years ago. I just remember that that was your exact response. And I was like, that's a really good point. If I just guess that at the Cincinnati airport, somebody was toting one of those bad boys around and I was right. I do have a side announcement for you is that I, you might be onto something with the psychic thing, maybe.
Starting point is 00:26:17 Because I told you. Somebody at Comic Con was doing the Crescan ESP. I got everyone. You're sick, dude. I told you, listen, I've been telling M for years that M is psychic. there's like we've done those like cuskin things and em gets like a freaky amount right sometimes like em we'll go to the bathroom we'll put like something underneath a cup and em comes oh we put the that's what it was the fish the fortune telling fish i was told to leave the room while eva and christine
Starting point is 00:26:46 tried to hide something and then i had to guess her it was and i my god a little too confidently walked right and went it's obviously right there and it was right like a piece of celery and i was like chombed on it the best things in life happen to me when i'm eating celery i'll tell you that It really felt like it was out of some sort of a sitcom. But wow, okay, so you got them all right. Shit. And even the people there were like, were reangling it? Like, they were like, no one's done that.
Starting point is 00:27:13 Okay, what are we doing with this? Are we, are we doing anything with this? What number am I thinking of? 38. I don't talk about. Three, so you were close. I, uh, I, I don't know what it. I don't think there's anything to do.
Starting point is 00:27:28 I think it's just a fun. Fun story. I'm not, because like, then what? Then I tell people I'm, I'm psychic, and then all of a sudden,
Starting point is 00:27:36 everyone's trying to test me, and I'll get everything wrong. So statistically, I will get most things wrong. So then I just don't look psychic. So then, like, then it's not true.
Starting point is 00:27:42 What color am I thinking? Purple? Fuck. I don't know. I know, no, you're right. It is like,
Starting point is 00:27:48 you can't really approach it like that. You got to kind of use it. For evil. You're right. Yeah, totally. Use it and like, in your own, as a tool. I don't know. You could probably
Starting point is 00:28:02 hmm. I don't know. It feels like something you should pursue. If I knew how, I'm not. If I were fucking psychic, I've been trying. Okay, but if I were actually psychic, naturally, I would be all over that shit. I think if Creskin were alive, him and I could do something interesting. But other than that, I think the window is closed.
Starting point is 00:28:23 Channel him, baby. He's up there. He knows. I'm feeling him in. I feel him. He feels me. Yeah, we're in it. Yeah. anyway that was my update because I remember it happened yesterday and I was like if christine were here I would just I would not hear the end of this you heard me I knew it okay so they it's a big fucking mansion and this couple lives there um the moss family they actually moved to Billings right when Billings was brand new they were like there's this new town let's go just take it over so they moved to Billings they are immediately a very successful power couple um P. P.B Moss himself was a very very important banker. He massively helped develop the town. He had ranching businesses with like tens of thousands of
Starting point is 00:29:08 animals. And that led to him developing the city's first meatpacking plant. He also founded Billings first heating plant, water and power plant. It's first, I think it's first telephone company. He was the president of the town. Yeah, because he needed a phone. Yeah, he was like, I got this thing and it doesn't work. So let's throw a power line up there. Yeah. Instead of being like, I don't need that. He's like, actually, now I got to build a whole industry behind my new landline phone.
Starting point is 00:29:34 You know, if he's not here to answer it for me, it's a bit chicken or the eye. Like, did you start the company and now you need a phone? Or do you have a phone? And so you need to start the company. Although I do understand if someone wanted you to start a telephone company, you're like, well, I guess I might as well get one of my house of these newfangled bad boys. Maybe he had it on display in his home as like a, like a World's Fair exhibit thing where he was like, people come on over to my mansion and let me show you this technology you should buy. It's in the solarium. It's You know what it is. And then all of a sudden it went, bering, and he's like, what the hell is that?
Starting point is 00:30:04 They didn't know what it was. I mean, in a room that's meant to be so peaceful. Like, that had to be jarring in 1902. It's like, yeah, a bell all of a sudden ringing. And if it's not in the Silarium, by the way, what an idiot. Where else would you want to sit and talk on the phone? Huge. Maybe in one of the pantries.
Starting point is 00:30:20 I think so that's where the Oreos are. Honestly, and you had, we're connected by a cord. You might as well be doing food. I remember we used to sit in a pantry. At least I did. And snack. I remember being like, hang on, I have to go. food and then you would just put the phone on the floor.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Yep. Anyway, so he did all those things. On top of it, he was also the president for the town's first national bank. He was in a bunch of Masonic circles. He participated in the billing school board. He helped build other local companies, including a sugar factory, a college, a toothpaste factory, the town's irrigation system.
Starting point is 00:30:53 Because the sugar took off. He's like, shit. Look, now we got to do a toothpaste. I know ADHD when I see it. I mean, honestly, I'm really relating to this guy, except for the Masonic part. He's like, oh, I'm just going to build the town's irrigation system. The bank is getting too boring. While I'm at it.
Starting point is 00:31:08 Yeah. Yeah. He also founded and owned the first printing company in the area, which ended up becoming the Billings Gazette, which I used for my notes. No, that's so full circle. I know. He ended up... Billings Gazette is a kick-ass name.
Starting point is 00:31:25 Isn't it? Although, I'm not even going to really try to go there, but, you know I love alliteration. So I prefer when it's like the Billings something. I was just thinking that. The Billings Bulletin. Oh, you know I love a bulletin. But I love a Gazette.
Starting point is 00:31:42 Because it just the name, the Z, honestly, is kind of a wild card in my book. It's like, all right, but if we're throwing a Z, I guess you can play with the first letter alliteration. The only reason I love my last name is because of the Z. It's excellent. I know. If you have a Z in your name, you're so lucky.
Starting point is 00:31:56 I know. It's so cool. I'm jealous. And I agree, Gazette just sounds like old 1940s. Hey, you buddy, kind of. I just got to take a look. I got to get my papers on that Gazette. I work for the Gazette, you know?
Starting point is 00:32:08 Don't you know? Oh, I bet you could probably, if you wanted to start a subscription to the Billings Gazette, I'm sure you could just take mine since I'm subscribed to every newspaper in the nation. I'll just tell Rocket Money to go on over to yours and send it my way. Just swap it out, yeah. Start forwarding them. What was your hometown's newspaper growing up?
Starting point is 00:32:28 Cincinnati.com. you're famous. No, can I? It wasn't really? No, it was a Cincinnati Inquirer, but so I think you may have also subscribed to that one. So it's nothing surprising. What was the, was there a Fredericksburg flyer? I would love for there to be a Fredericksburg flyer.
Starting point is 00:32:41 Maybe I start that. I was going to say, I made a Wolper news when I lived on a street called Wolper, and I made, I put it on the neighbor's mailboxes. I use my mom's copy machine. That's so powerful. Oh, thank you. Oh, wait, you know what? How about during the Yapier, I tell you about what I wrote about my features?
Starting point is 00:32:58 and all this stuff because it and about the people the people who had to tell me to stop showing up at their house because I'm a child and I need to go home. I would love that. Yeah, okay, great. I would love that. No, we had the freelance star and I was like, we could have named it anything else. Yeah. Sorry. I don't feel love for that, actually.
Starting point is 00:33:19 Freelance star is not great. We have the Burbank Bulletin here. That's good. But I will tell you the best thing about the Burbank Bulletin is that it is owned by a reality, not a reality show, L.O. It's very ill. Now that's good. A realty. Bravo took over.
Starting point is 00:33:32 The Bravo Burbank, sponsored by Bravo. A realty company. There's this guy in town named Brad Corb, who I'm just giving free press to at this point. But Brad Corb, he clearly owns this newspaper because half the newspaper is, like, on the front page every single week, it's like, Brad Corb's done it again. And I'm like, what has he done? And he's just selling houses. He isn't a journalist just covering his. I feel like it's Brad Corp.
Starting point is 00:33:57 in his Bradcorp basement going, I've done it again. I don't know. I've done it again. I mean, he. He. Anyway, that's the Burbank bulletin, which I appreciate the headline, but every time I'm like, let me guess, Bradcorp's done it again. He always does.
Starting point is 00:34:11 Has he done it again? There has yet to be a week where he hasn't done it again. But that'll be breaking news when that happens. I would like to see a change of pace, Brad. Take a week off. Take a walk. Take a walk. Take a walk.
Starting point is 00:34:25 So that was Peebee. He did everything under the sun pretty much. He's done it again, as they say. He's done it again. And then his wife, Maddie, what, Maddie Moss was also well known in town. She was also a part of like her church and the Freemasons or her own part of the Freemasons. But my favorite fun fact is, this is a quote, that she was the first woman in Billings to drive a car and was deviled to death with everyone wanting a ride. I think because they just couldn't believe that a woman could drive.
Starting point is 00:34:55 What's deviled to death? Like she's like Overwhelmed maybe Oh, oh she's just bothered Pestered to death by these people wanting a ride Oh my god They rode with a woman driving the car Are you sure it's not like she's the only one with a car
Starting point is 00:35:09 Maybe Isn't she the only person or the only woman to drive a car? First woman. Oh, so they wanted to drive with a woman Okay, I see I see That'd be crazy though She was the first woman and person to have a car And all the men are just like
Starting point is 00:35:22 Give me a ride So Pee B and Martha they lived in this big old mansion with their three servants and their six kids. Their kids' names were Woodson. It's spelled Kula, but apparently pronounced Cully. Okay. And then Melville, who's a girl. Melville.
Starting point is 00:35:42 Wow, these are like 2026 names. I know. A lot of these are coming back. Preston, David, and Virginia. Wait. Didn't you already say Preston? What was the first one? Woodson.
Starting point is 00:35:55 Okay. Please. Woodson sounds like a bourbon or something. Okay, Woodson, what's the next one? Cully. How do you spell that? Like Cula. K-U-L-A.
Starting point is 00:36:07 Okay. But apparently pronounced Kulae. I've never heard that name. Apparently it's indigenous. It means something like bird, peaceful bird or something. Oh, Kooley. Okay. What was the next one? Melville, Preston, David, Virginia.
Starting point is 00:36:20 Melville Moss. Now that's a good one. Virginia Moss is pretty cool, too. although it does sound like something you'd see in like a plant guide. It sounds like Spanish moss. That's why.
Starting point is 00:36:31 Yep. That's why. Yeah, nailed it. And so P.B. and Martha and their kids, while still living in the home, they passed away in the 1940s when they were like in their,
Starting point is 00:36:43 I think, late 80s. So they spent their whole lives with their kids in this house. Actually, P.B. passed away in the home. So I think he was the first person to die in the house. house, but six relatives of the Moss family ended up dying in the home over the years.
Starting point is 00:37:00 So there's six deaths. Another one of those deaths was their youngest daughter, their youngest kid, Virginia, who was born in the house and then passed away from diphtheria only five years later. That's rough. When P.B. and Martha passed, their daughter, Melville took over the house until she died in the 1980s. So it stayed in the family all the way into only like 40 years ago. Melville didn't have a family herself, but she spent her life being a like international traveling musician.
Starting point is 00:37:34 So I think Melville was just fine. Yeah. In 1984, the end was near for Melville. And she was still living in the mansion, but she had a hospice nurse. And at this point, she was unable to use the stairs. And so she was sleeping near the stairs on the main floor. floor and one night I think it was
Starting point is 00:37:55 one version said it was the night before Melville passed or I think it was just kind of near when Melville passed. The nurse heard something in the middle of the night and went to go check on Melville to see if she was okay. She got up to check on Melville and saw a little girl standing
Starting point is 00:38:12 over her bed watching Melville sleep. Oh my word. And it's presumed that that was Virginia Moss who died in the house at five and she She was just watching over her sister as time got closer. The big sister saying we're all waiting for you. Which I would then go so far as to say that was probably also what PB saw on his way out. He probably saw his daughter being the person who welcomed him to the other side.
Starting point is 00:38:34 Oh, she's the psycho pomp. Yes. I love that you remembered that word after all this time. You know what? It's like I'd heard it so many times before you did the episode. I still had no clue what it meant. And you finally told me and it clicked. That was a good episode.
Starting point is 00:38:47 Yeah, that was. After the first time, we're assuming Virginia. the little girl, was spotted by this nurse. Virginia ended up becoming a much more popular spirit that people would get a glimpse of if they were lucky. So today she is most often seen on the staircase landing, maybe still heading over to Melville's room, or I don't know why the stairs specifically,
Starting point is 00:39:10 but they assume it has to do with checking on her sister before her sister passed. Melville's also said to haunt the home now because investigators have asked for the ghost to state their names if they're present during investigations. And they got an EVP of someone saying Melville. Ooh, I mean, that's a very specific sounding word, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
Starting point is 00:39:33 And there are also EVPs of an adult woman's voice with a little kid, and a lot of people think it's Melville and her sister reunited. Oh, my God. And they're just hanging out together in the house. Sweet. In another EVP, the investigators said they were going upstairs and got the same voice saying, I can't come with you.
Starting point is 00:39:52 And people think maybe that's because Melville as a ghost is still in her older form when she could no longer use the stairs. Oh, so she's like, oh, I can't go up the stairs. Oh, wow. Which imagine haunting a 28 room fucking mansion and you can't get to the top floor. That's insane. Are you thinking, yeah, and it makes you wonder like where, how are the parameters set? Like are they set based on her actual limitations?
Starting point is 00:40:16 Does she just think she can't go up the stairs? Because she's like, right. Like, is it just a confidence thing? Right. Or she just needs a little pep talk. So you can't. Yeah. Like sometimes they say, oh, you know, she, or she looked so much younger and like more vibrant
Starting point is 00:40:30 when I saw her ghost. Like people say like, oh, she, they like heal and they come back like more. But maybe that's different if it's just like a. Yeah. My understanding from what people have said is that if they see someone, it's either in their, like, in their happiest years, like they like are able to age to whatever. like they can choose. They're most like prime.
Starting point is 00:40:51 Yeah. So it's interesting that it's really sad if a ghost can cross, a person can cross over and is still in the same head space or, or dealing with the same medical stuff. Well, and I feel like you do see that, I guess, with like hauntings where it's like, oh, someone, you see someone like hanging or falling to their death or like replaying their last moments.
Starting point is 00:41:12 That's true. Maybe it's just like replaying her final. I don't know. That's a good point though. I don't know. But I assume it's something like what you and I have done on investigations where it's gone like, okay, we're going to go upstairs, you can come with us if you want. And then they got, I can't come, which is sad.
Starting point is 00:41:30 Anyway, our reaction would have been like, why? What's up there? Yeah, yeah, would have totally run into it. Either way, you go first. She'd be like, bitch, it just can't get up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Other spirits here are said to be Virginia and also their father, Peebe, since he died in the house. I don't know who the other people are that died in the house.
Starting point is 00:41:51 So I don't know why they said six relatives died in the building. But I didn't see a list anywhere of those other three people. That's mysterious. It is, it is. He has been seen walking down the staircase. There's something about these stairs. I know, man. These stairs are like some sort of portal or something.
Starting point is 00:42:11 Well, Peeb is also seen at night in his bedroom, which I love that he's still going to sleep like he always does. Routine, man. Which would be, if I died and my haunting was like, I still go to bed at the same time, I'd be, you'd see a ghost walking to the bedroom at like five in the morning. Yeah, people would be like, oh, they're going for breakfast. No, it's bedtime. It said if you play music from their time period, you'll start seeing shadows darting around the mansion. Oh, they're dancing. Oh, I hadn't even thought about that. I just thought they appeared. Did you think they were like running in panic from the noise? Like the time the phone rang and everybody had a fucking connection. Get to the salarium, quick. Everyone gather in the solarium. I don't know what I thought. I think I assumed it was like, oh, now they're just moving about their day in the house. You're just like activating them somehow.
Starting point is 00:42:55 I mean, maybe. Maybe. But I guess investigators have done this where they've played old-timey music. And in the library and the parlor specifically, I don't know which parlor. Wow. They saw shadows everywhere. Staff have also gotten calls from people that figures have been seen in the third floor windows. Ooh.
Starting point is 00:43:13 However, I then saw in an interview someone say, that's the employee. only area. It's probably just employees. Oh. So I don't know. I don't know which is true. Maybe both are true. People will feel wind blow through the house. Sometimes it actually feels like it's swirling around just one person. People have seen the curtains blowing on their own.
Starting point is 00:43:31 Weird. Yuck. That's like a new one kind of. Yeah. Staff have also, they make sure to tell the house high and goodbye each day to keep the spirits happy. And they've heard a female voice singing in the billiards room. They've heard laughing footsteps, knocking, voices talking,
Starting point is 00:43:47 and they claim that objects move throughout the house. And there are many EVPs. One team actually got a man saying, bring me a flashlight. And one, it's assumed that that's PB, because that's the only man we know of that died in the house. Right, right. But two, it's funny where, like someone said,
Starting point is 00:44:04 a ghost said, bring me a flashlight. And they're like, well, they were ghost hunting, maybe just because the lights were off. And this guy was like, where? I can't see anything. Hey, what the hell? Turn the lights back. Which that makes me wonder every time we've gone,
Starting point is 00:44:15 ghost hunting, did they want us to turn the lights on too? Because they're like, why are we all bumping into each other? If you're going to be playing music, like, turn the fucking lights on. I can't see where I'm dancing. Anyway, food for thought, do you think ghosts want the lights on? Yeah. Probably not. I feel like it's, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:44:34 I feel like, I don't know. If I were a ghost, I'd be like, just fucking leave me be in the dark. I think I like the idea of them meeting the lights. on so that way they can feel like they're living in the building that they're used to. Like they can feel like it's just every day. The lights are on sometimes. But I feel like it's easier for them to contact us when the lights are off because then we're all a little more vulnerable.
Starting point is 00:45:00 Yeah. Our senses are like heightened, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Staff also feel like something is definitely in the house with them, but they claim the spirits are kind and probably just either still living here, like blueprint theory, or just watching over the people who now run the house. Right. One of the reasons that the place might be so active is because when the family sold this mansion, it's now a museum.
Starting point is 00:45:24 And in the museum are artifacts from the family. So there are a lot of accidental trigger items throughout the house. They're like, I can't reach my comb. Yeah. It's like, I'm just trying to get it. Fuck. My one phone, the one phone you can't. Oh, oh, I said comb.
Starting point is 00:45:39 The phone would be even more distressing. Please. The phone's just ringing off the hook and they can't reach it. Oh, God. Now that would be creative though if they got that phone probably unplugged these days to ring. That'd be scary as shit. Some of the artifacts though are their furniture, quilts and needlepoint that they made, Melville's harp, Maddie's oil paintings. This one I don't fucking understand, but apparently the children at some point got together and made a basketball hoop.
Starting point is 00:46:10 And so that's still on the third floor. That's cute. I guess like if you if you learn to do the string like tie the knots yeah to a net I've never heard of that before but I guess if you want to I guess it's like a new it's like new fangled hoop and stick it is literally just sideways hoop and stick yeah but hoop with no stick with a ball instead um and then the other thing that's still there is a toy ship that one of the sons made um but it he literally painted on it with his sister's fingernail polish and oh oh And the ship is still there. And the eerieest part, the eerieest part is there's still original chalk drawings from the kids. In the attic. God, no. Where people see the fucking people in the window.
Starting point is 00:46:55 Forget it. The mansion is open to the public, offers events and tours to raise funds for its preservation. Some of the events are ghost tours, murder mystery dinners, a jump scare Halloween house. And then during Christmas, there's a Christmas tree tour? No. Where I guess a bunch of different businesses get to decorate a tree. and then everyone goes to the mansion to look at everyone's trees. Oh.
Starting point is 00:47:16 And I think there's like a vote or a contest on a past tree. And then I'll end on this that it's on the National Register of Historic Places and has been a filming location for a bunch of movies. I did not know the name too. Cool. Does it have a plaque? I assume so. I got to assume so. That's cool.
Starting point is 00:47:32 But that's the Moss Mansion. Hey, good job. Moss Mansion. It does sound like a Sims house, but I love it. Also alliteration. Also alliteration. Your favorite. Moss Mansion. Flip it around. Wicked witch. Oh, hell yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:47 Sorry. That's a stupid TikTok thing. Okay. Well, I'm going to go pee and then I want to tell you about the Wolper news because I have really breaking news from 1998 to share with you. It will be breaking to me. Okay, great. See you in a moment. I'm all about simplifying. Okay, this year. I'm like, let's just simplify at base level. And that's why Hungry Root has been such a dream. They send foods my way that are, like perfectly curated for my kitchen. So it's sort of like in the morning. I'm like, oh, shoot, I don't really feel like eating anything. Oh my gosh, Hungry Root sent bagels and cream cheese. And then later, oh, I don't know what to cook.
Starting point is 00:48:25 Oh, well, let me look at the couple recipes they sent and how much time they take. I mean, it's like they thought of everything. Not only is Hungry Root. They are with the variety. They have over a thousand grocery items, but they also have the quality because hungry root holds all of its food to high standard screening at over 200 additives, including high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives. So there's a lot of it, and it's all going to be yummy, is what I'm telling you right now.
Starting point is 00:48:50 That's right. Even for Leona, and it's hard for her to admit that, but she does like what they send her way. You're going to love Hungry Root as much as we do. For a limited time, get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com slash drink and use code drink. That's HungryRoot.com slash drink code drink to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Listeners and M, think back to a first date. Hmm.
Starting point is 00:49:15 I know. Sorry, I should have given you like a little warning. But when you're really interested in someone, you ask some questions, like, what are you looking for? What are your deal breakers? You can get an idea of like, this is the right person for you. Well, the same goes if you're hiring. You definitely want to address key questions first to see if someone could be right for your role. Like the time we asked Eva and all the other people we were interviewing through zip recruiter, whether they believe in ghosts.
Starting point is 00:49:36 Oh, what side are you? Oh, and what zodiac sign are you? We asked a lot of ridiculous questions. But you know what? Eva answered them 100 for 100. beautifully. And that's why you need ZipRecruiter. When you post your job, ZipRecruiter suggests screening questions to help you hone it on top candidates faster. And today you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter. Atzincruiter's matching technology immediately finds qualified candidates that check all your boxes,
Starting point is 00:49:58 including Believes and Ghosts. We literally, that's not a joke. We did ask that. ZipRecruiter also put some very like normal, helpful questions into. It wasn't just the ghost thing, but that helped. Ask key questions and hire faster with Ziprocutter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. That ziprecruiter.com slash drink. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. We're back.
Starting point is 00:50:26 Thank you so much, everybody. If you were in our lovely yappy hour, you heard about the Wolper News and M's getting a copy for themselves at a larping party they went to. So, you know, things are just popping off over there on Patreon. I would really, if you do find a copy of it, blown up, sent my way. You just let me know. I'm surprised. I have more resources at my disposal than a fax machine and copy machine now. I could probably print it on some, what is that called, parchment paper.
Starting point is 00:51:01 Yeah. You could literally just make it really tiny and print it as a sticker on your Etsy. Oh, that. I could just be a sticker of the Wolper News. And people can be like, like, part of, like, subscriber to the Wilper News. It should say underneath something. Shrek, the movie gets an A plus from me, and it'll be like this big, you know. I'm just saying family-friendly.
Starting point is 00:51:19 That would be an incredible, like, obscure reference to the podcast. It's like that one reference that I kept having to Google that everybody kept putting on things. That really long, was it, like, Jersey Shore? Oh, what about Jersey Shore? Remember that long, like, rant and then people put it, like, he was cheating. on you or saw him with a girl. Yeah. What's that from? Jersey Shore. Oh, it is. Okay. I've like Googled it so many times because I always forget and I
Starting point is 00:51:49 never watched that show. I did not know that you had a struggle with that. It's like like the note is one of my favorite pieces of reality show. It's very, very funny. Like I just, I remember just finding like the whole concept to hilarious, which is why I kept Googling what it was from. So I was like, this is good stuff. These people are making good content. When you were at bed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun for me even on the outside. Okay, everybody, back to the depressing news. As M said, I have the story of, okay, the reason I said it's kind of the same pattern is that it's another hotel room mystery.
Starting point is 00:52:26 And I feel like I've got a lot of those. But for some reason, like, they are just very interesting to me these days, you know? They're just like, it's like a puzzle within a story. I eat them of, Christine. I'm so glad. Thank you. Keep this up, actually. Listen, you're so welcome.
Starting point is 00:52:43 I'm going to let you kind of try and figure this one out. Because you are going to solve it, right? That's what we decided at the beginning of every episode. I love that you, first of all gave me permission as if I wasn't just going to keep interjecting all episode. But I... It's a, what do you call it, courtesy, you know, just a courtesy. Thank you. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:53:02 I appreciate it. No, I do plan to solve it. Oh, good. Can't guarantee anything, but I am confident. That would be great. Okay. I am psychic. So, oh, wait, hang on, but make sure you're not just psychic about what I'm thinking, because that's not going to be helpful because I don't know what happened. We'll see. I can't make problems. Okay. So on Wednesday, January 2nd, 1935, a man entered Kansas City's hotel president at 14th in Baltimore
Starting point is 00:53:28 and asked for an interior room several floors up. He registered under the name Roland T. Owen and gave Los Angeles as his home address. He paid for one day, of lodging and he carried no luggage with him. Staff descriptions varied on age but usually said about 20 to 35. Distinctive features were repeatedly noted. Dark brown hair. He had a large scar on the side of his scalp, which was like pretty noticeable. And he also had cauliflower ear.
Starting point is 00:54:04 Okay. Do you know what that is, right? It's like people oftentimes with boxing or wrestling or or juice. Jiu-jitsu, you get, yeah, like the fluid buildup in your ear and it turns kind of poofy over time. So they thought maybe that was kind of what he had a background in. Bellboy Randolph-Propst escorted this man to room 1046 on the 10th floor. It was an inside room facing the courtyard. And the bell boy later described him as neatly dressed in a dark overcoat.
Starting point is 00:54:36 But he also said that this guy, Owen, had stayed at the same. the nearby Mulebach the night before. That's what he told the bellboy. Okay. But he said he came to this hotel instead, the hotel president, because the mulebox's $5 rate was too expensive for an inside room. What year is this? So this is 1935.
Starting point is 00:54:56 $5 nowadays is about 100. Okay. And also let's note that he, as if you haven't already, but let's the class, is that he's already stated in another place. So he is already due for a change of clothes but has no luggage. Right, very good point. So he's already been in town at another hotel for a night. There have been times where I stay in a hotel for the day to do a day rate because I don't plan on spending the night. So I don't need luggage. But if you stayed at another hotel last night, where are your clothes from yesterday? And you don't want to pay the rate. So it's not like you left your stuff there. You clearly like moved. Yeah. Yeah. And you played on spending the night here. So you're already now two nights in. No new clothes. And no new clothes. And on top of that, he did have a couple things. They were all in his pockets.
Starting point is 00:55:40 So the bellboy observed. Owen unpack all of his belongings, which was a black hairbrush, a black comb, and toothpaste. And that was it. No, toothbrush? Okay. Good point. So what's that for? To scrub on your finger? I mean, maybe back then you didn't really have a normal tooth.
Starting point is 00:55:56 I don't know. Maybe there was like... I mean, he was carrying a normal brush. Oh, maybe just hairbrush his teeth. Oh, gross. After putting those items by the sink, Owen and the bellboy left the room. The bellboy saw Owen exit the hotel shortly afterward. So now we have another witness, Mary Sopdick.
Starting point is 00:56:16 She is a housekeeper and she first encountered this man, Owen, when she went to clean 1046 around midday and found him inside because, well, apparently this surprised her because a woman had been using the room previously. And so I guess she just got a little startled. The room's lighting and his demeanor stood out to her immediately. the shades were tightly drawn. There was only a dim lamp on. And she thought that this man seemed worried or afraid and was trying to keep in the dark.
Starting point is 00:56:47 And he was just kind of hiding from something. Yeah. It looked like it. So during that cleaning, Owen was very friendly. He said, come on and you can clean. He put on his overcoat while Mary was still cleaning, brushed his hair. I don't know about his teeth in the bathroom. Maybe you forgot his toothbrush.
Starting point is 00:57:05 That is annoying when you like have, you're like, now what do I do? And also I'm carrying this other random thing that I can't even use now. Now you have an extra thing. Yeah, exactly. So he brushed his hair in the bathroom. Then he left the room and he told Mary Soptic, the housekeeper, to please not lock the door because he was expecting a friend to stop by soon. Okay.
Starting point is 00:57:24 So this is a weird situation that, like, gets a dress, but we don't really know why this is the case. This hotel at the time, the doors could be locked from the outside. Which is... Could they be unlocked from the outside? Yeah, if you had the key. But you could lock. I guess it's just an old, I mean, 1935, I guess it's just a normal lock door. So you could lock it and unlock it.
Starting point is 00:57:52 I'm thinking of the Hotel Congress we stayed in in Tucson, the old, old. Oh, yeah. So something like that. Yeah. I'm imagining like it's just like a door, just door. I don't know. With a metal key and a normal lock. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:07 So he tells her, please don't lock the door, leave it open, I have a friend coming soon. So, I'll tell you all. Hey. Hey. Hey. Do you want to know something so horrid? Uh-huh. We never pressed record again.
Starting point is 00:58:19 I don't know why, but it says paused. And why does it say two seconds? Did we not record anything? Oh, no. All the video was off. Um. Like for the whole thing. Like the whole episode.
Starting point is 00:58:38 Uh-huh. well we're here now folks welcome to the last quarter of the episode jesus i kept looking up and i kept seeing end recording and i was like oh good so we're still recording my fucking god hmm this was a very visual episode i feel like i feel like we did a lot of this did a lot of gesticulating i showed my sticker and nobody could even see it oh it was a beautiful sticker. Oh, thanks. Wow. devastating. So you want to start the entire episode again, Christine? No, I don't. I mean, I don't, unless you do. Maybe we can just like,
Starting point is 00:59:38 we're sorry. Yeah, I think so. I think if anyone was watching on YouTube, I think they just find out now. I'm sorry, everybody. Man, oh, Christine, that's silly. Oh, I'm sorry, Jack. I'm sorry everybody. Oh, my God. That was so, so. Stupid. Well, we've got our locals. Shit. At least we have audio. I mean.
Starting point is 01:00:04 We have audio. That's all it matters. Remember that one time we literally recorded a whole episode and then had to go record the entire episode again? Do you remember that? That was in your old old house. Heaps worse. Tremendously worse than this. Because you didn't even press record.
Starting point is 01:00:21 At the time, we only recorded through like the mixers or something. We were just talking to each other. Yeah, and then I had to come back the next day and just tell the entire story all over again. Terrible. Remember when you fell asleep or no? Okay. I've just heard about it and I've visualized it in my mind's eye, but for some reason I can't quite pull the memory itself up. To this day, my favorite episode.
Starting point is 01:00:42 There's no, there's no better. I'm truly so glad you did it because the story is so funny. It's just dying. I just remember one eye good closing and that I would try to close the eye. You were doing, you were like this and you go, uh-huh. the microphone with my head. I wish we recorded video then. I know. That's disappointing. If you saw, you would have made us to redo the entire episode because there, it was so obvious. It's so embarrassing. It was my favorite episode. I'm so glad it happened. Um, so anyway, welcome everyone
Starting point is 01:01:11 visually. I'm so sorry, everybody. I, I cannot believe that. That's, I'm glad you caught that, but like, shit, dude. I caught it way late. We were, we, neither of us saw it. And there's two seconds. It says two seconds. neither of us saw that at this entire times for an hour and a half well christine's story is going to get some real visual play all of a sudden so sorry everybody okay we're at the mystery of room 1046 uh so owen puts on his overcoat he tells this uh housekeeper to not lock the door from the outside because he has someone coming over now i also mention that you can't lock the doors or that you can lock the doors from the outside because staff tended to use locked from the outside as sort of a proxy message for the guest is probably not here because they lock the door from the outside and
Starting point is 01:02:06 left. So they kind of did that as like, oh, if they're going to clean the room, they knock, they say, oh, it looks like it's locked from the outside. I'm going to go in and clean while they're out. You know what I'm saying? That kind of thing. Sure. I mean, I guess it's no different than like today's hotel rooms where you can get into a locked room. Right, with like a master key. It just feels eerier that it's a physical key. I think so too. Um, so around 4 p.m. Soptic, Mary Soptic returned with fresh towels. Um, the door was still unlocked. The room was still dark. And he was back in the room and he was lying across the bed fully dressed in the dark. Oh, okay. And he's like, oh yeah, go ahead. She's probably like, um, you were a clean up or? I wish you dismissed me, honestly.
Starting point is 01:02:53 So she sees him lying across the bed, fully dressed, and as she's kind of like dropping the towels off, from the light in the hallway, she sees a note on the desk that reads, dawn, comma, I will be back in 15 minutes, period, wait. So the next morning, Thursday, January 3rd, Mary Soapdick went to clean 1046, the room 1046 at around 1036 a.m. The door this time was locked. And so she interpreted that as someone had locked it externally and left. But she opened with her key and found Owen inside sitting again in the dark. It's a fucking vampire this guy. It's creepy. While she was there, the phone rang.
Starting point is 01:03:42 And she overheard Owen say, no, Don, I don't want to eat. I am not hungry. I just had breakfast. And then he said again, no, I'm not hungry. and the guy is Don, which means, or the guy that he's talking to is Don, which means... Presumably. Yeah. Okay. So he's on the phone saying, yeah, Dawn.
Starting point is 01:04:03 I'm only saying that because the note that said, Don, wait, the guy that were the overcoat guy with the comb, he's the one who wrote that note. Yes. Right. Okay. Got it. Presumably, yeah. It looks like he wrote the note. This time she's in there, he's on the phone with this Don person and saying, no, I'm not hungry and insisting on it. still holding the phone. Owen then started to ask Mary about her job in the hotel, like whether she was responsible for the entire floor, whether the hotel had any residence besides just guess.
Starting point is 01:04:36 He complained again about the cost of the mulebox nightly rates, and then she kind of went about her business, just thinking this guy's just a little weird, I guess. Later that same day, around 4 p.m., Mary Soptic returned again with towels and heard two men talking inside the room. So this time there are two men inside the room. Presumably Don.
Starting point is 01:04:57 Presumably Don. We don't know. There was a man with a rough voice, not Owen. And when she knocked, this voice said, who is it? And she said, oh, it's housekeeping. I'm bringing the towels. And this room had no towels left. She knew there were no clean towels, so she was bringing them.
Starting point is 01:05:15 This voice responded, we don't need any. So she was basically dismissed. That evening, January 3rd, a separate guest checked into room 1048, which was right next door, and later told police she heard loud talking and cursing that night that was keeping her awake, and it sounded like both men and women in the room. Oh, okay. However, there was also a boisterous party reported in 1055, which was a couple doors away. So, yeah, it complicates like the witness sighting, because it's like maybe it was, maybe you just heard the
Starting point is 01:05:49 party. During the graveyard shift that night, elevator operator Charles Blocker told police he had recognized a commercial woman. Okay, that's his, a sex worker? Okay, it does. And you like nailed it because I feel like nobody really knew what it meant, like when they were describing it. But I don't know, that that, that is the vibe that I got when I, when I researched like his original statement. he called her a commercial woman. He said that she frequented the hotel with different men. And he recognized her. He knew her.
Starting point is 01:06:24 And he took her to the 10th floor because she asked to go to room 1026. He drops her off. She comes back to the elevator and says, huh, the man I was looking to see is not in his room. Maybe he was in a different room. And that was 1026, but this guy's in 1046, right? Correct. So she left. But so it's basically like could she have over misunderstood the number and out of the wrong room.
Starting point is 01:06:51 Was she looking for him? We don't know. Locker said the same woman later returned with a man and went to the ninth floor. And later in the early morning hours, both she and that man came back down and left the hotel separately. Late that night, Robert Lane, a Kansas City Water Department employee, reported an encounter on 13th Street. he saw a man running in the cold wearing trousers, shoes, and just an undershirt. He initially, this man initially thought that Robert Lane was a taxi cab, so he kind of like ran over. And when he realized it wasn't a cab, he asked for help getting one.
Starting point is 01:07:34 And the guy was like, listen, I don't know, man. And this mystery guy with like not enough clothes on who's running through the street, he said, says, I'll kill that expletive tomorrow. So Robert Lane is looking at this guy and he is beat up. He has a deep scratch on his arm. It looked almost like he's trying to hold some blood in on his body. And Robert Lane was like, all right, let me just drive you where you need to go. So he drives this man to 12th and truce where the man jumps out, runs to an actual taxi, opens
Starting point is 01:08:12 the driver door because the driver's not in the taxi and starts honking, laying on the horn until the cabby comes out of a restaurant and is like, what the hell, dude? Oh my God. Like that's how I guess desperate this man was to get a ride. To get a ride. He already had a ride. Whatever he was going. Yeah, I'm unclear as to like where he was going.
Starting point is 01:08:32 Sure. I'm not really sure. So after. Well, also did he say specifically 12th and truce? Do you, we know that? Yes. because my thought is it sounds like I don't know anything
Starting point is 01:08:45 but it sounds like he knew a cabby who would be there because why else would he say 12th and truce and then conveniently there is a cab there that he also felt comfortable enough to get into and lay the horn on knowing this guy was in the restaurant. Interesting that could be although I
Starting point is 01:09:00 although I feel like he just got dropped off there because that's where this guy who was not a cab was kind of going like he just took him and dropped him off closer to town I think And then the guy saw a real cab and was like, oh, there's a cab. Let me call it. It seemed like that's kind of the vibe by God.
Starting point is 01:09:16 I don't think he told him where he was going. I think he just said like, I need a cab. I need a cab. I need help getting a cab. Okay, got it. So the guy like dropped him off closer to where some cabs would be. Some unsuspecting cabby who's just trying to enjoy his fried eggs or whatever. And also that was just,
Starting point is 01:09:33 remind me who Robert Lane is. Oh, so Robert Lane is just the, the local water employee who was just, trying to get home or whatever and sees this man running through the correct and he drops this random scratched up dude who's angry he's pissed off um at 12th and turst and this guy goes into cab and are we assuming that this is owen or gone i think so okay i think so i think we're assuming it could be owen okay potentially or don i guess so friday morning january fourth hotel staff notices that room 1046's phone had been off the hook for several hours, triggering like a quick check because they can't call up, obviously. The phone is off the hook, speaking of landlines. And so they send up the
Starting point is 01:10:26 bellboy Randolph Proops, who was the one who had initially checked him in. So Randolph Probes goes up. The door's locked with a do not disturb sign on the knob. And after repeated knocking, a voice inside tells him, come in and turn on the lights. But the door, nobody's. nobody opened the door and it was locked. So he's like, well, I'm not going to, I'm just going to leave you alone. Now he's thinking, well, this guy's clearly drunk. So he yells, I don't need to come in, just put the phone on the hook and goes back down to the desk. They go down and it's still off the hook.
Starting point is 01:11:02 They give it some time. 7.10 a.m. another bell boy is sent up. Again, they're thinking this guy's drunk. They just get another response like, all right, I will. And they leave. 8.30 a.m. The phone is still off the fucking hook. He's clearly incapacitated or tied up or something.
Starting point is 01:11:22 Something. I think he's, so far I'm guessing, something embarrassing is in there. Like he's like a, he can't, he's tied up for some reason and can't, but then he's afraid to ask for help for some reason also. But then why would he say turn on the lights? Wouldn't you be like, don't turn on the lights? That's a good question. Because I, also my first, I was like, what if he killed?
Starting point is 01:11:43 somebody and he's like, okay, I will. And he's like, well, wouldn't you just then hang up the phone and just shut them up? And yeah, the phone off the hook is the weird part too, because it's like, why is that not getting rectified? Why can't you get to the phone? Because if, yeah, if you're trying to cover something up, you would just do it to keep them at bay. So why can't you get to the phone? But then also, whatever you're doing that you can't get to the phone, if it's shady at all, why are you telling them to come turn the lights on? You were right about the incapacitated bit. Let's just put it that way. Okay. Okay. So you're on the right track with that because at 8.30 a. The phone is still off the hook. It's been off for hours. A different bellboy. Harold Pike goes up. He uses a key to
Starting point is 01:12:25 finally enter the room. It's dark. He sees a guest lying naked on the bed, breathing heavily. And he sees like almost a shadow under this man, like a dark shadow under this man that he just assumes his shadow. He reset the phone because it had been knocked to the floor and he left. still assuming this guy's just drunk. So that was around 8.30. Now fast forward two hours. Around 10.30, the phone is again off the hook. Yo, what?
Starting point is 01:12:54 Remember he put it on the hook. So I think is he trying to like, if he's like, his heads bust, maybe he's trying to like reach for the phone to call for help. And the phone gets knocked off and then he can't grab it from the floor anymore. That's exactly what I thought. Okay. So this time the original guy probes returns. and this time he opens a door and instead of seeing Owen on the floor,
Starting point is 01:13:19 or sorry, instead of seeing Owen on the bed, he sees this man on his knees and elbows only five feet from the hotel door. He is on his knees and he's holding his head in his hands, and there is blood everywhere. Also, a part of me is like if he was incapacitated and in pain, when people were calling him or calling through the door, why didn't he just say help? Yeah, I mean.
Starting point is 01:13:47 Like if he's trying to grab the, if we think, you're right. He's trying to grab the phone to call for help. Why didn't he just say help originally? Unless he's like so fucked up in his head was hit so hard he wasn't thinking. Right. Unless he has such a brain injury, he doesn't understand like how much danger he's in. Right. But also like, yeah, you'd think your your survival instinct would just be like help, you know.
Starting point is 01:14:07 Yeah. And also turn the lights on. It's like, so did you want someone to see that? Is that your way of asking for help? I don't know. Yeah, maybe you're like so out of it. You don't realize like how dire the situation is. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:14:19 So he sees this man. There is blood everywhere. It's on the ceilings. It's on the walls. It's on everything. Oh. So the bellboy runs for help. And when he returns with the assistant manager,
Starting point is 01:14:29 they could only open the door a few inches because he was that close slumped over to the door. Hmm. A doctor arrives with hotel staff and police. And in the doctor's statement, as summarized by Kansas City Magazine, the victim was found in or partly near the bathtub. So almost like as if he was kind of halfway out of the bathroom. He also had clothesline tied around his neck. Ooh. He had clothesline tied around his ankles and wrists.
Starting point is 01:15:05 He had been stabbed in the chest multiple times. Oh, my God. He had at least three blows to the head. And when medical findings were finally delivered, they noted that he also had a punctured lung, a fractured skull. And based on the wounds, it was estimated that the wounds, the injuries had occurred roughly six to seven hours before discovery. So essentially, yes, like what you were saying, he was clearly incapacized. fascinated, injured during this period, which makes it extra horrible to think that they were stopping by and had no clue.
Starting point is 01:15:47 Which also makes me wonder. Like, why wasn't he asking for help? He was able to speak enough to say, I will or okay. He couldn't just say help. Well, one thing that is a little weird is that when they got him, he was shockingly, they got him to the hospital, he was shockingly still alive. Insane. Barely, but he was still alive.
Starting point is 01:16:08 and he was able to say a few final words before passing away. And the last thing he said, they said, who else was in the room with you, who did this, who else was here? And he said, no one, I hit my head on the bathtub. Oh, he's, he was in danger or something. Something's up. Something's up. Or he's really, he hit his head so hard that he didn't even know where he was.
Starting point is 01:16:31 That's crazy. But then how do you get tied up? No, I'm saying like he must have hit his head so hard that he's just coming up with a story because he doesn't even know what the story was at this point. But he was so insistent. It was almost like he didn't want to tattle on whoever that was. And I don't know if that's like because he's scared of them because he cares about them because they threatened him because he, I think he first, I mean, if they did that to him for whatever his last crime was, imagine like ratting them out now. Like, of course you're going to say, oh, I just hit my head.
Starting point is 01:17:00 No way. You're going to be like, that fucker just tried to kill me and I'm about to die and I want him to. I wonder if he knew he was about to die. I mean, they found him on the ground with stab wounds to the chest. I don't know. But yeah, he said, he said, nobody hurt me. I just accidentally fell. And unfortunately, that was kind of the last thing he said.
Starting point is 01:17:24 He slipped into a coma, died the next morning, Saturday, January 5th, 1935. Just really disturbing. The room, when they took a closer look at the actual room, it appeared. completely bare like scrubbed of basics there was no clothing there were no personal belongings um the only remaining items in the room was a torn necktie label a hairpin an unsmoked cigarette and a glass that had um mysterious four fingerprints from a mystery person there was no knife or obvious weapon like for him to say yeah I'm just thinking like for him to say because at first I thought, well, you could tie yourself up if you were doing some sort of, like, if you were,
Starting point is 01:18:13 you know, doing something sexual and you didn't want people to know. But then the stabbing in the chest is like, never mind, right? Like that, it was, the tying up is one thing, but. Definitely not his doing. No. So they ruled out suicide because, um, there was no knife, no obvious weapon that he could have harmed himself with. Um, as for the fingerprints, they are reported to be a woman's fingerprints. But there really is. is no way to determine that because my first thought was how on earth would you, would you even know that? And then I looked it up and you can't like determine, you can't reliably determine someone's sex based on a fingerprint. They would just kind of look at it and say like, oh, based on
Starting point is 01:18:51 how small it is and the ridges or what a ridge detail, it's a woman's print, but it's kind of like not, let's say it's not admissible in court, right? Like it's not really, um, for sure. You want to hear something gross? Oh, I don't want to know about this. I want to know every second of my life a new gross fact, please. You do, you would. Okay, here's the thing. Traditional bed sheets can hold more bacteria than a toilet seat. And I don't doubt that because I have pets all over my bed.
Starting point is 01:19:22 I have me forgetting to change the sheets. There's just a lot of factors that weigh in here. I go to the dog park every single day and then Hank immediately jumps into my bed and goes, map time. So I hate that feeling when you're like, it's too late. It's too late. The damage has been done. Yeah, but luckily we have Miracle Made.
Starting point is 01:19:38 Miracle Made bedding is designed to fight back. and stay cleaner longer with silver-infused fabrics that actually prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. Miracle-made sheets are crafted with NASA-inspired silver-infused fabric that helps regulate your body temperature. It's like technology in your bed sheets. Like, why have we not done this sooner? Well, in theory, it feels like sleeping on like a hand sanitizer wipe or something. I'm like, how are you keeping me this clean? A really cozy and luxurious one. But imagine it doesn't smell like hand sanitizer, look like hand sanitizer or feel like sanitizer, and it actually looks like a comfy bedding.
Starting point is 01:20:10 but upgrade your sleep or give the gift of better rest. Go to try miracle.com slash drink to try miracle made sheets today. You'll save over 40% and when you use promo code drink, you'll get an extra 20% off plus a free three piece towel set. They make an amazing gift and with a 30 day money back guarantee, there's no risk. That's try miracle.com slash drink code drink at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode.
Starting point is 01:20:32 So pretty quickly, police suspected that this guy, Roland T. Owen, was an alias because he had written Los Angeles as his home, and authorities reported no record of a person by that name. The body was actually held at the funeral home for public viewing for a few weeks. That's rough. Yeah, just hoping that somebody would come and identify who this man was. Kansas City sources report dozens to hundreds and later thousands of people came through just to see if they knew him, if they, like, had any connection,
Starting point is 01:21:06 if it was their missing loved one. Because at that time, you don't necessarily have just like on, you know, you don't have photos just everywhere to look up. So people came from all over to check and probably some looky lose as well. Then they had to expand the chase. So they sent letters and telegrams to departments, police departments nationwide. They were flooded with tips, but nobody seemed to match this victim. They did, however, look into that one tip about the mulebock.
Starting point is 01:21:36 and they did conclude that someone matching the victim's photograph had stayed at the mulebock under the name Eugene K. Scott. Oh, okay. And had also listed Los Angeles at home, but was also not any resident of L.A. that they could find. So they sort of assumed, okay, he's using two different aliases at two different hotels for an inner courtyard room for some reason. And that must be the same guy. Now the central unknown of all this is who the hell is dawn, right?
Starting point is 01:22:09 Like that was the thing that people kept landing on. They didn't know if it was the guy on the phone. They didn't know if it was the rough-voiced man she heard through the door. If it was somebody that the commercial woman, quote-unquote, was talking to or was visiting upstairs or if it was the person that the neighbor heard arguing. Sure. With that woman, we don't know. In March 1935, the journal post announced that the unidentified man would be buried in a potter's field.
Starting point is 01:22:34 But shortly after that was announced publicly, the funeral home received an anonymous call. And the caller said, I would like you to please delay the burial because I'm sending the money for a proper funeral. Oh. They asked who this was, wouldn't say, hung up. But lo and behold, March 23rd, a special delivery envelope came containing cash wrapped in a newspaper enough to pay burial expenses. and they buried the body at Memorial Park Cemetery in Kansas City. And we're thinking this was maybe that dawn guy? Perhaps.
Starting point is 01:23:12 Which is interesting because I also think of him as the killer, in which case, like, what is... Right. Why would you do that unless you felt guilty or... I don't know. Because then you think maybe it was a lover's quarrel. That's my gut. Oh, interesting. Why else would you pay for someone's funeral that you harmed, right?
Starting point is 01:23:32 I don't know. If you're abusive or whatever. That's a good point. I immediately went to like the mob and he ended up being the wrong guy killed and now the mob is like paying for the funeral. I don't fucking know. I know, but they, yeah, it could be, but like they would just want you to dispose of it, right?
Starting point is 01:23:48 Like, I don't think they would spend their money on it. Making it so much more complicated in my head. I mean, some people think it is like mob, but just because of how strange it is and how much like secretive. Yeah. I think that's also really not a bad call, a lover's squirrel. I wonder, yeah. And then I also thought, like, what if it's a parent or someone who is estranged and, like,
Starting point is 01:24:08 was disappointed by life choices or, like, if he was gay or something like that, maybe they just don't want to associate, but they still feel like they should get a burial. I don't know. I mean, that's just my kind of random take. But there was also another anonymous incident that occurred where nobody came to the, there wasn't really anyone at the funeral because this was kind of a unknown person. but that day they did receive a bouquet at the funeral home. It was 13 roses and attached was a card that read Love Forever Louise. Hmm. Louise.
Starting point is 01:24:49 Weird. And they were purchased from the Rock Flower Company, if that's interesting to anyone. Now we get it. Interesting. Okay, so I wonder if Louise was like, a wife he was cheating on or like was louis like the guy's nickname in public like oh this is like they had nicknames for each other in public so that way they wouldn't have to out each other was it was don actually a nickname for a woman that he was seeing maybe and that was like the nickname
Starting point is 01:25:22 you know i don't know i don't know because he kept saying like no don't don't don't know i'd not hungry like it's just yeah the dawn thing always struck me is odd but um and then i was like don't Louise, is there any connection? I can't think of one. So Kansas City Magazine adds another chilling detail from a Kansas City police memo, which is that when asked why the original donor was paying for the funeral, and like he wouldn't say who he was, but he said, I will pay for the funeral. Reportedly, he responded that this guy, mystery man, Roland T. Owen, quote unquote,
Starting point is 01:26:00 had not played the game fair and cheaters usually get what's coming to them. Mob again. See? But cheaters, cheating. That's true. That's more like... I feel like maybe... Interpersonal. Maybe it's both.
Starting point is 01:26:17 Maybe he was cheating on somebody and they were connected to the mob, but the mob was defending the person he was cheating on. Yeah. I don't know. Or the person's partner found out and killed him because they were so pissed. That's a more cliche. I mean, that makes the most sense. Yeah, I'm just trying to come up with anything.
Starting point is 01:26:35 You want the mob to be involved. I want the mob involved. I mean, Kansas City, yeah, it's not a terrible idea. Also, some of it's so creepy, like the laying in the dark and the notes and leaving the door open. Yeah, but that also could have just been like being depressed. Like, it could have just been like, I can't believe they're coming to get me. I'm so scared. Maybe I just like close my eyes and hope this is all fake.
Starting point is 01:26:57 I don't know. What's the note then? Like who's that for? Yeah. I don't know. I don't fucking know. This one, I got to be honest, I've done it again, just like Brad Corp. I will not be solving this.
Starting point is 01:27:10 I've done it again. I've given up on solving this one. So, finally in 1936, after the case was republicized, he'd already been buried. A woman named Ruby Ogletree of Birmingham, Alabama, recognized the man in the newspaper, this picture of him, as her missing. son. Okay. His name was Artemis Ogletree. What a name. I mean, fuck
Starting point is 01:27:37 Maddie Moss or whatever it was earlier. Yeah, right. I know. Artemis Ogletree is wild, dude. So Ruby explained the head scar that he had as the result of a childhood grease burn, which matched the distinctive marks scene in the case photos and descriptions, and she also revealed
Starting point is 01:27:52 that he was only 17. What? Yeah, not 20 to 35. Whatever he was running from, that stress was eating him alive if he looked like he was in his 20s or 30s. Yeah. And some people say 19. One source said 19, but the more that the local newspapers and that kind of thing said 17. Although I actually, I take back what I said. Have you seen what 17 year olds looked like in the 30s? They looked like grown ass men. Right. Because they, yeah. Yeah. I feel like people grew up quicker back then, visually especially. But maybe, I don't know. I don't know if back then if you saw some.
Starting point is 01:28:29 someone who looked 30 or like, oh, that's clearly a 17 year old. Like maybe they were still spot on that he looked old for his age. I have no idea. And he was also wearing, and like, who would expect a man in a dark overcoat at the hotel to be 17? Like, they probably just assumed based on how he presented, you know, that he was also not. Right. But it is like a 17 year old to not pack clothes.
Starting point is 01:28:50 That is like a 17 year old. But pack toothpaste. It's also like me, but I sometimes operate like a 17 year old. So that's a good point. I, yeah. So it gets even spookier because she recognizes Artemis immediately and she is able to corroborate the scar. She reveals he's only 17. After Artemis had left Birmingham, Alabama, which is where he was from, his mother had actually continued to receive letters from him sporadically.
Starting point is 01:29:16 He wanted to travel the world. He left with one of his friends and just said he wanted to go see California and they left. and he would write. He would write pretty regularly. And at first, if there were gaps in the correspondence, she wasn't like super alarmed because back then you just kind of had to deal with spotty. Spotty communication. Sure.
Starting point is 01:29:42 But about a year into his travels, he suddenly stopped writing. And that was until the spring of 1935 when Ruby received three letters signed with Artemis's name. The letters were sent from different cities, including Chicago and New York, and each letter described Artemis as traveling, recovering from illness, and moving forward with his life. But Ruby immediately noticed that the letters were typed rather than handwritten, and every letter she had received thus far from Artemis had been handwritten, and to her knowledge, he had not learned how to type. So there's no reason he should be typing her letters. Furthermore, the wording and slang did not sound like her son, and the explanations felt unusually detailed for the way he wrote. Kansas City Magazine quotes the typed letters as using some outlandish slang, including,
Starting point is 01:30:30 I got poisoned on something I ate in some dump. And even that, in that line specifically, she said he would never say something like that. I don't really understand why it sounds so different, why it's typed. Despite these concerns, Ruby just assumed like, okay, he's just adapting to life on the road. He's young, he's changing. Who knows? Several months later, she comes across this article, right, that leads her to discover her son had been killed. Only after identifying that Artemis was the one in the newspaper who'd been buried and killed,
Starting point is 01:31:01 did she realize, did she reexamine these letters she had received and realized they were all sent after his death? Yeah, well, I could see that coming. That's, okay. Ruby then naturally concluded that someone else had written the letters intentionally to make her believe her son was still alive. there was never an author and obviously knew him well enough to be able to say like oh I'm just like adventuring like knew the situation enough
Starting point is 01:31:30 to try and pretend to be him no definitive author of the letters was ever identified we just don't know it's just another dead end that August she also received something strange but this time it was a phone call it was a long distance call from Memphis
Starting point is 01:31:46 from someone who identified himself as Godfrey Jordan claiming to have met Artemis in Cairo Egypt where Artemis, I know, it's so bad shit, where Artemis supposedly saved him, this Godfrey Jordan, from a band of thugs, quote unquote. She was on the phone with this guy for 45 minutes and found it unsettling,
Starting point is 01:32:08 but she didn't really understand what was going on here. Very, very weird. Did this guy, like, was he was written about in the newspaper, Owen, or Artemis when he died? Mm-hmm. Because I feel like anyone, it's almost like, true. People now on Facebook seeing someone died and now like heckling their parents or something.
Starting point is 01:32:27 And could just, it would just want to like be part of the story or like, like that teenage girl who called and pretended to be the missing. Ugh. Yeah. So, yeah, could just be like a prank call,
Starting point is 01:32:40 but just also really strange, you know? Mm-hmm. And like getting her phone number and stuff. It just seems like a lot of work. But strange. So Kansas City magazine adds that Ruby actually had a specific person in mind that she thought was behind this. She suspected that this person was Joe Simpson, the boy her son had originally left home with to travel.
Starting point is 01:33:06 And he was like trying to cover up his tracks or that? Yeah. Okay. She believed he might have been the caller trying to sort of red herring her in a way. Probably wrote the letters, she thought. Ruby wrote that when she confronted Simpson on December 28th of 1939, she became, quote, reasonably convinced that he was the Memphis caller, and she described him turning red, dropping his eyes, and appearing nervous
Starting point is 01:33:30 when she said she would recognize the voice. Well, there you have it. Ruby also reported that Simpson laughed while calling it the perfect crime and said police would never get the ones who killed him, according to her letter to detectives. But then I'm like, wait, so he's either really shocked. about talking about this and terrified and then he starts laughing and says it's the perfect crime i don't know i just the vibes are off i'm like i don't know if maybe she's kind of exaggerating this event i'm not
Starting point is 01:34:00 sure i don't want to accuse her of that but it's just a strange it's it's strange it's strange to report that he kind of did two opposite things in one cover i mean maybe maybe um so another last bit here that's a little bit strange um the early 2000s there was this guy named dr john Horner, who was very involved in telling the story and researching the story and giving it kind of a written account. He reports receiving a call in the early 2000s from someone saying, hey, I'm itemizing this elderly person's belongings, and I found this box of clippings and information about the case.
Starting point is 01:34:39 And it looks odd and suspicious. And even said there was an item in the box that had been mentioned as part of of this case. Oh, fuck. And of course, Dr. Horner is like, okay, like, bring it to me, bring it on, who are you, what's going on? Um, they kind of said, never mind, hung up. Refused to engage as far as we know. Um, maybe, maybe he and this guy had a longer chat, but now it's been 20 some years. So it feels like we didn't get answers from that either, because it's kind of another dead end. Um, and that's the, that's the case. It's like, Oh shit.
Starting point is 01:35:17 It's a little too open-ended to kind of figure out, I think, to solve. What do you feel like happened? Do you still with like lover's quarrel? No, I kind of think that maybe he and his friend, I mean, this is totally out of the Noggin, off the dome here, people. I'm not making any allegations here. But my theory is sort of like he went out into the world with his friend, his best friend, whatever. Maybe he slept with that man's girlfriend and maybe this friend was so pissed off that he
Starting point is 01:35:55 maybe they were going to meet. Maybe he and the girl were going to meet at the hotel and then the guy found out came instead and killed him. I don't know. Or maybe they left because they were together. Maybe they had a relationship. Who knows? Maybe he's the one who also paid for the funeral. It's just odd. And why is he going by Dawn? I... And why is Owen going by Roland T. Owen? And the other names that he gave in the other hotel.
Starting point is 01:36:30 I don't know. It's just so strange. I feel like it's the mob. Or I feel like it's someone they're sleeping with and they change their name so they could get away with. That's what I... Yeah, that's something I get where it's like, no blank. I'm not hungry. And like you're kind of awkwardly like trying to speak. away between the lines yeah yeah yeah yeah but i don't know interesting do we know what the item was
Starting point is 01:36:55 in the box that no that is the one thing that like oh it's so frustrating like that was kind of the kicker of that call and then they never i don't even know what that would do from my information but i'm mad i don't know what it is i know same in my mind that would solve at all but it probably wouldn't um yeah the caller apparently refused to say what the item was And nothing further was resolved publicly. The person just hung up, didn't bring the stuff. And I guess got cold feet. It was probably like a parent or somebody they were related to and didn't want to go there.
Starting point is 01:37:30 I don't know. Is there like an overwhelming theory online about what happened or nothing? Just kind of. Not really. I mean, it's kind of, I think it's mostly just discussed because of how bizarre it is and how clearly it is not suicide. Like I know we discussed the other case recently, but in the hotel room where it was like staged as a suicide, but this one is not even possible because there was no weapon.
Starting point is 01:37:56 So it's sort of like we know someone else was involved. Maybe the item was the knife. Oh, oh shit. And they just have in that box. Holy shit. Or the weapon, whatever they hit him over the head with maybe or. I mean, it's got to be something that they wouldn't want to release to the public. Maybe his missing.
Starting point is 01:38:15 items. Like he had a necktie or a necktie tag and something else in there that or no, no, sorry, not the missing item. Not the ones left behind the missing ones. So maybe like his toothpaste or his hairbrush or whatever they stole or took. It's just weird. And then like all the, it sounds like an affair to me, but he's also 17 or 18 or 19, even at that age. Like, I mean, I guess like you're having an affair, but like you must have pissed someone off. You're right. Like maybe it pissed off a mobster, maybe pissed off his friend, maybe pissed off his fiance, maybe using, somebody said maybe he was, I think there was some clue somewhere that he could have been engaged and maybe like he cheated on his fiance, who knows, who knows? Could it be that he was out with his friends, hooked up with a girl and then found out that she was married and then that guy to the mob, maybe? Yeah, I mean, really, yeah, it could be.
Starting point is 01:39:10 Because then that would explain why we really don't know who it would have been. it would have been a random guy, happens to be the husband of a woman he was sleeping with. That would explain maybe why the woman secretly sent flowers to the funeral because maybe she had feelings for him but couldn't tell her husband. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:39:29 I don't know. It's not a bad idea. I think he found a woman along the way and she was married. That's what it feels like. That's my theory. Whether it's the, then all the like follow-up phone calls are weird, you know?
Starting point is 01:39:44 I just feel like, the friend knew something if he's acting so fucking shady. Yeah. But that's also just like she was pretty hell bent on that theory. So, you know, there's nothing that technically. I feel like maybe the friend knows that something goes up, but also doesn't really know all the information. Because like maybe this guy was found this woman who was in a relationship and then knew he was in trouble that like the husband might find out and was trying to keep his friend at bay. It was like, no, I'm not hungry.
Starting point is 01:40:11 Don't come here. And then the other note being like, wait a minute. because he knows that like this bad guy might be looking for him and doesn't want to get his friend implicated. Yeah, yeah, could be like. And then that random grown man being like, oh, I'm going to kill him tomorrow. I don't know. Yeah. That's what I think.
Starting point is 01:40:30 Yeah, that guy too, that running, guy running around with no shirt on, scream, like all beat up saying I'm going to kill him. Yeah, I feel like has to be part of it. That's what I'm putting in. So if we ever find out some mystery. love triangle or infidelity I do too, I agree. Okay.
Starting point is 01:40:51 Maybe we saw that. Hey, we saw the congratulations. Thank you everyone. I'm so glad you got to see all 40 minutes of this part. That was very silly. That's okay. Neither of us noticed. It's not, you didn't do anything
Starting point is 01:41:06 that I didn't do. It's very funny that we're still figuring it out. That's all. the yap yower wasn't on video then oh well i just talked about the wolper news it doesn't really need video i guess and apparently we've discussed it before so i guess yeah go back to episode three whatever yeah go watch the episode where we did talk about it on video um okay well see it next week everyone oh my god everything just fell in my lap and it's a whole stack of papers so cool hopefully we see
Starting point is 01:41:38 you and you see us yes exactly and that's why we drink.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.