And That's Why We Drink - E471 Crop Top Capes and a Beatles Ghost

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

It’s episode 471 and we’ve got 99 strawblems but a drink ain’t one! Today Em takes us to New England for the Berini Haunting which is surprisingly insidious. Then Christine covers Part 2 of the Todt Family Murders which is just as much of a doozy as promised. And is this the first time we’re genuinely saying “Thanks, Priests”?! …and that’s why we drink!Catch our bonus Yappy Hour intermissions on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3L28lDw or subscribe on Patreon: http://patreon.com/ATWWDPodcast!___________________Get $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping at https://nutrafol.com with promo code DRINK.Shop my favorite bras and underwear at http://www.skims.com/drink #skimspartnerTry ZipRecruiter for free at http://ziprecruiter.com/DRINK to hire faster and find quality candidates.Our listeners get 15% off plus free shipping when they buy two or more pairs of prescription glasses at https://WarbyParker.com/drink — using our link helps support the show. #WarbyParker #adIf 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. When I was first diagnosed with OCD, I was like, wait, what? And I was so fortunate that my therapist was a doctor who specialized in OCD, but not all providers know how to treat OCD. And it can be so debilitating, especially if you're not sure what's going on with you, if you feel like any shame about it, which is very normal. That's why we're so proud to work with no CD. Yeah, not every therapist understands OCD or is qualified to treat it effectively, which

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you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don't wait to get help. Go to NoCD.com and book a free call with their team to learn more. That's NOCD.com to schedule a free call and learn more. Hello and welcome to and that's why we drink, a podcast where M's already sipping the tea. Oh, beautiful. Do we say that anymore? Is that old, old jargon? I think it's that stuff that has somehow, it has, it has, it has,

I don't think, I think it's a timeless phrase now. I think you're right and I think some like, um, or spilling the tea. I think some ancillary phrases like spill the tea might not be as popular now, but I think like just saying, oh, what's the tea? Like still pretty okay, right? Am I, am I gauging this correctly? As someone who's also your age, I think so. You are more chronically online than I am.

So I usually ask you or my brother and or my brother. Very sweet. Thank you. And you both take that as a compliment, which is kind of wild. But anyway, I'm glad about that. Nice thing you can say about me. What are you drinking? I'm in the milk.

I'm drinking. I'm drinking, well, I have a little... Spill the tea, babe. I have my usual tea, my little black tea with some lavender in it. But then I also have an extra surprise. I have a real situation on my hands over here. Oh, what could that possibly mean? At the shake shack.

I got a real cravingly. for their strawberry lemonade. It has been unmatched over here. And ShakeShack is, I think, open to like midnight or one in the morning here. And so I got this in the middle of the night. I was like, what I would give. Oh, my God. I was like foaming at the mouth for it.

And so I got me to be. Whoa. Well, you got to hit that like minimum order threshold. Well, yeah, I couldn't justify the purchase of just one strawberry lemonade. With like an $18 delivery fee. and it's like yuck yeah um but i one of the reasons i i i got that many though is because i was going to have one that night and then i knew i was going to be here and then i also want one for the dog park it was i'm really i'm having a moment with the straw blam you know you're sort of like propping

yourself up for the next few days which i kind of love you know yeah always be prepared scott's honor so yeah i love that um i've got my tea got my straw blam i'm very i'm very happy over here what are you drinking got a nine nine nine straw problems I got nine nice problems and a and a drink ain't one. I don't know. Why do you drink? What do you drink?

I'm still ashamed of myself for not realizing that big B coffee is a big B. And today I ordered it and I felt like it was sort of my karmic punishment to order it again. I haven't ordered it since we recorded that one episode with, but now today I was like, gotta get me some some sustenance i got the spotted owl drink um they have about 75 iced lattes on their menu and they all are like marshmallow teddy bear clouds and stuff like that and i gotta say they're pretty darn good i have been is friend flirting a word where like i have been going to a local coffee place um that's near my house for a long time now and ever since then I've had

I've known all the people's names there because I'm unfortunately or fortunately irregular and I have wanted to be friends with this one person for so long Is this one who works there? Someone who works there, yeah. Oh, I love that. I just thought they were so cool. They had a cool little vibe and I was like, oh my God,

I would love to hang out with you outside of like you handing me a drink. You serving me in a retail environment. The five seconds I get before you're talking somebody else. Listen, don't get me wrong. It's great. It's great, but. But so it's finally happening.

And so, oh my God, whoa. We're having a little hang out soon. Very excited about that. How did you ask them to hang out? Um, I literally said, do you want to be friends in real life? Oh, wow. Enough time had passed that I had a feeling it would be a yes. Okay.

We see each other quite often. And then every time I come, but it's so nice, they go, um, oh my God, so glad to see you. And I was, part of me was like, Is that a lie? Is that what you say to all your customers? I was going to say, you should hide on see if that's what they say to all their customers. But it sounds like you've already had this intrusive thought.

So we've also like we go to the same pharmacy. So we've bumped into each other there. So like it's been very small town. So we've ran to each other a few times accidentally. And now we're going to run into each other on purpose. I'm very good. Fantastic. What are you, what is your date?

I think it's just going to be a little dinner, a little dinner moment. Aw. But I, sorry. I feel like I took over your story. there by accident about how... What was my story? I don't even think I had a story. That you went to your place and there was a whole bunch of different tea lattes and that what happened in my brain when that happened was I remembered my coffee place that has all the tea latte options. I mean, you just grabbed my hand and I went with you. I don't know where I was going.

You know, I didn't know where I was going anywhere. I said something about honey bear marshmallow clouds and I think that was where we stopped. Usually that's, that would be the thing that propels this further conversation. A launching pad. Yeah, but like honestly, they're just delicious and that's kind of all I've got to add to the conversation. So I'd much rather hear about your adventures in friend dating, I guess. Thank you. Thank you. I'm also going to dinner tonight with an Uber driver.

Wow. I've never been to OvaJava. I'm sorry. I was on TikTok this morning, which is like a once a week occurrence. And I guess I just got in a loop of like liking the vine compilations. And it's just been really, it's been drain in my feet. It's been really taken up a lot of my. Parmic energy.

You are... You are... A very chronically online yourself. I have been lately, you know? And it's new for me. It's not new for me. But used to be neopets. Now it's actually like current events, pop culture.

I mean, things are crazy. Right before we recorded, there was like... I was scrolling and there was like a live... There was a press conference. NBC News was streaming a press conference for the... Sylvain Guthrie's mom. Like, did you see this? She was kidnapped.

Savanna Guthrie from the Today Show, her mother was, her 84-year-old mother was kidnapped from her house. Oh my God. No, I didn't know this at all. It's crazy. I just like learned about it. I think it was only a couple days ago, but they had a press conference and I like popped in to see if they had any news and they didn't really say much except that they think she's still out there. There's potential rumor that the brother-in-law is involved. Oh, my God.

there was a guy who was walking out of the house with um and he was wearing a internet crimes against children like badge or logo and carrying like a case of something out of the house and so like people are saying who's is that like what was on there is it a laptop um but it's just crazy and they found blood on the porch and it's hers they did DNA test and it's the mom's blood oh no oh my god yeah and apparently she's on a lot of meds that she doesn't have it's just like really bizarre like the world Like some, the top comment and one of the posts I saw that had like 4,000 likes and it was just like, does anybody else feel like we're just in the like the craziest simulation? We're just like throwing shit at the wall.

Like every time I open my phone, I'm like, oh good. Trump confused Greenland and Iceland. I mean, that was weeks ago now. But like, you know, just every like little thing I'm like, this feels fake. This feels like I'm in a coma making up like stringing things together that don't make sense. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I've also, yeah, I'm just going to end.

Yes. It feels like before I spiral, it's been crazy. Although I've been very impressed. Last time I was on the, I went to the dog park and I was talking to my mom. And she was saying so many correct things. It was shocking. Not that she's constantly saying incorrect things, but I didn't know how well read she has recently become. Oh, good.

And she was, I was like, yeah, yeah, who's talking to you? That's not me. What's going on? She's like, six, seven. that's right what's the tea spill the tea which the way that she was uh in the world of politics i feel like usually i'm the one trying to kind of hold her hand through it and she was just saying everything i was like you got another kid who's fucking i was gonna say she's found a new m do you say what is wrong with us the media thought do you talk to all your customers

this way like what are we sick like what's going on but uh i was very proud of her i was like oh I didn't know we had, she's been promoted, I guess. Wow, she's leveled up. I don't know who, what person is behind her algorithm, but keep it going. Okay, but does it also even out because you did just tell me before we here record that she learned about the Kardashians? I think she just finally went on the internet. I think that's what's going on here.

Oh, okay, is that all it took? And was like, yeah, she's like, hey, Kim Kardashian is kind of cool. And it's like, where have you been? She, for like 10 minutes the other day. She was like, this Kim Kardashian. Her alga must be crazy. I think she just, yeah, finally logged on. I don't know.

Anyway, why do you drink? Because of this shit. Every time I go on the internet, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And then they're like, don't worry, the star, star regulus is going to align with the sphinx, and then we're all going to see an alien. And it's like on NBC news. And I'm like, why are we reporting this?

I mean, listen, I don't not believe it, but also like, Everyone's just acting like, this is totally normal. Everything's just falling apart. And, you know, I saw something very comforting because I've always felt kind of like a freak. Because when these really big world events happen, I get almost excited. And it's not like excited. Like I'm happy, obviously, that things, that bad things are happening.

But there's just something in the air of like change, you know? And like one of the comments I saw that was so evocative and effective in like explaining my thinking was somebody on Reddit said, why does it feel like evil is winning? And you'll understand this metaphor, M. Somebody said, you know when you exterminate cockroaches from your home and you set off the thing and they all come scurrying out? And it looks worse than it was, but it's actually just like clearing. Well, what it's like, you're finally seeing what it's always been.

Yeah, you're like smoking out the like fucking demons and they're all coming out. They're all of them. It's all of them. It's all the power. all the powerful people fucking trash i mean they're just going about their day it's just crazy so i i hope that at least like and then somebody said oh sunlight or being like um being revealed to like on a mass scale is the most disinfecting thing like putting this out in the open is what's gonna like finally clear

cleanse us out clear this out we're all gonna hopefully i know these days hope feels like a foreign concept but no no no that's why you got to keep the hope The trolls want you to lose your hope. That's how they're going to win this. So you've got to just, we got buckle in. We always knew this was happening. We always knew these people were evil. Now it's just on display.

Now we just got to do something about it. Yes. I'm agreeing with you. I'm just trying to figure out which of the 20 things I would like to say. But I think it's not. I mean, I'm not going to say anything that nobody else isn't feeling at this point. I think you're correct to publicly. be trying to encourage hope instead of what I'd be encouraging, which is just one big scream.

No, because that just, that just wallows, you know, and there's a place for wallow, but like, we just got to use that anger, you know. I have my little print here, stay open to the wisdom of anger, you know, we're all fucking pissed off. We're over it, right? We're done. These people are pedophiles. Like, how much more do you need to be like, I don't know about this, you know? I know. I know. I know. Anyway. It's just shocking every day I wake up. I'm like, oh, I just, how are we finding ways to turn the narrative or like,

or not even show that it's crazy that nothing has happened. That's the thing that I'm most. I mean, the fact that in those comments about, um, no perp walk. Like I saw this is the only silliness I can find in here, but someone, um, posted something saying like, where the fuck is Olivia Benson right now? I mean, literally. Okay. So then.

Mariska Hargitseh has the opportunity to do the funniest thing right now. I'm just saying. Marisha could really go to the White House, Mariska, just bring some handcuffs. Show your badge at the front lawn. Even if it's just for the press, the photo op, people would go nuts for the photo op. NBC is missing the fuck out. Well, they're covering the fucking Today Show's host mom disappearing. By the way, the fact that one of the comments on there was like, I think this is,

they're just distracting from like the Epstein files. I'm like, so now they're just like, people are saying, oh, they're just kidnapping people to like, And I'm like, this is really insane. Like the world right now feels absolutely diabolically insane. But I will also add that I just saw, where did it go? They're offering a $50,000 reward now for Samantha Guthrie's mother. Oh my God. I can't imagine being Samantha Guthrie today.

It's a wild, it's a wild thing. So it's just a weird, it's just weird, you know? Yep, I know. So, want to talk about ghosts? Sure. Yeah, I guess I don't have a reason why I drink either. Oh, right. I guess I should ask you, too.

No. I bought a bag that looks like fruity pebbles. Wait, okay, like a box of fruit? You got to explain. The bag looks like a fruity pebble, a bowl of fruity pebbles, a box? I see what you're saying. I'm trying to find. Where can I find levity in this fucking hellscape?

Hang on. I must know. It looks like a box of fruity bubbles Oh wait, I can't see Hang on Well, I haven't Oh, oh Sorry, I thought it was because my window was

Let me bestow something upon you Are you fucking kidding me? Okay, display Okay, bag Okay, that's cool, I like that And then on the inside It looks like fruity bubbles See, I knew there was something more to this

This is amazing Take a bite, take a big bite It actually looks Have a little escape So who made that Did somebody make that? I know. Where did you buy that?

Well, I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing. I bought it on the street. Whoa. You bought it on the street? I don't know. I was having a mental breakdown. I was like, that looks great. I'll take it.

That looks great. I'll take it. Sometimes you just got to do a little street shopping, you know? You know, and I've always said that. And I've literally, I can't even stop saying it. So there you go. I was trying to find sub-levity. I hope everyone finds a little joy.

I appreciate, Christine, that you are very pro-hope, and I hope to be hopeful, but I am having a bit of a down day just because it's also overwhelming. But maybe tomorrow, I'll be hopeful. Don't get me wrong. My nervous system is in complete overloaded despair. But, you know, I'm working on. We got to heal ourselves and heal the world. Oh, we are the world. We should start singing like everyone during COVID. Oh my God. Remember, it's so cring. Imagine all the people. And they're just like their shitty webcams and it's like, this is so. This is so embarrassing. And then it was like a week into COVID.

And then like a year later it was like, oh dear, we didn't know anything about it. I just really need them to come back and sing because maybe this time it'll work, you know? I think they really, they were, they shot their shot too soon. They were accidentally, you know how they say like the Hollywood elites have some sort of like ritual thing? I think they opened a portal with that fucking song. Oh, fuck. They need to close it. Come back and do it again.

Close the portal. Throw in all the cockroaches. then close the portal. Oh, well, as for ghosts for you, I have, I always say a short one. I truly, the notes-wise, it is incredibly short. The more you say that, the more I settle in to be entertained for the rest of the afternoon. Oh, I'm wearing my grumpy troll shirt. I just, oh, you know, I don't know if I...

It's so cozy. I did tell you this. I was a while back I finished my sticker book. Oh, yes. And yes, you have the sticker from there. I have a lot of, shockingly a lot of sticker. We did a lot in that one little accidental road trip. That town had a lot going on.

Where was this? We went to that cave. Wisconsin? Yeah. The troll capital of the world. Remember when you tried to like be a homie and like let me stop at a cave on the way? And then the cave was closed or something or that we didn't have a time. It was like, oh, a two hour, it takes about an hour and 30 minutes to get through from one

into the other. And we were all like, but then we went to the gift. And I bought stickers and I was like if anyone asked that was the best cave of my life. We bought so much shit in the gift job and we were like had not even been in the cave. Yeah, that was one of my favorite things. I was just looking at my sticker. Now that I have them all in a spot, I've actually looked at them so much. I think I'm going to throw up.

That's so. That's so inspiring because I'm always like so overwhelmed by my stickers and I think if I put them in a book like maybe that'll help. But then I wonder would I even do anything. but I feel like you're right, that would be kind of more an invitation to take a look at them every now on them. I will say also, I think what helps me is the proximity,

the fact that I live in this space where I can see the bookshelf at all times and it's just sitting on my bookshelf. I think if you had your sugar book like in a certain room, maybe you wouldn't always look at it. I'm literally always at that stupid bookshelf. So every now and then when I'm like putzing around, I pull it out and I'm like, oh.

You just a little flip. Just a little flip. Like, oh, let's see which one I would get today. but it's weird because I spent years collecting all of these stickers to a point where I didn't even know what stickers I owned. I was going to ask if there are any that you're like unsure about where they're from or anything like that. Or did you want to keep the ones that meant that you remembered? I think I remembered all of them. I did a pretty good job of like all.

I have two sticker books. I have one of like ones I just collect on my own and then I have one that was specifically tour. Oh, cool. Okay. which for maybe yappy hour we can go through the tour sticker book or something that's actually a really fun idea because mine are probably scattered throughout the lands i would like to take it as an opportunity to encourage you to do a cigarette book because i really i did not expect to have so much fun being a cigarette book i mean it sounds really i'm telling you your life will be changed i know it sounds it i was like oh i'll do this for like a day and i ended up becoming a crazy person and like i had just had like mariska playing for like eight hours and i was just like finding Your stickers. And all of a sudden, I'm like, where those people were all in, like, my sticker book's really important to me. But it was so fun to put together.

Listen, we are all in need of some analog activities. I mean, Mariska aside, of course, that's necessary as well. But like, it's nice to have something to do sometimes with your hands. I was just coloring with a Leona. And I was like, I don't usually do. I don't really like coloring usually. But we just got a pack of crayons and they were like neon, a glow in the dark, which you'd appreciate. And then we'd take them to her room and then like do an art show and they were all glow in the dark.

It was fun. But so at first I was like, I don't feel like coloring. I was so in the zone coloring Peppa Pig that I was like, is this what I'm missing? Like just more like we sat there for like an hour and this child does not do silence very well. You know, sounds like someone else we know.

We sat there and just colored for like 45 minutes and I was like, this is crazy. I haven't really had like such a like a, talk about nervous system like calming activity for a long time. Locked the fuck in. Yeah. So I feel like a sticker book thing is similar where you're just. like kind of doing something mechanical and like creative yeah I love that it was also fun because

you only have so many pages in the sticker book and you like you try to like you have to collage them them the right way oh and it's so satisfying when they like perfectly like kind of fit oh gosh it was wonderful I'm I'm telling you and I literally for a bag of stickers I had for like four years five years how long did we tour five years um feels like 50 but I don't know um it was like I look at them so much more than I ever looked at that stupid fucking bag of stickers. Right, if they're in a bag, right, you're not going to just like dump them out. Yeah. No, it was a dream.

Okay. Sorry, everybody. Everyone's like, Jesus, it ghosts. Okay. Okay, now that we're on video, I'm able to finally show off my Nutraful results. Okay. I've had a lot of, I know, this is really breaking news. I've had a lot of shedding over the years and a lot of different hormonal issues that

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That's Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code drink. Oh, wait, you want to hear something again? I know I do this every week. Oh, I love it. It's so much better than when my mom. does it. Thank God, because that's like not the highest of bars when you're talking about, you know, enjoying somebody snapping their own underpants.

But guess what? Everyone's excited. In the house, they're on my butt. They're extremely stretchy and extremely comfortable. Everyone is excited. Christine's excited. My mom's excited. Everyone's where it's Gibbs.

I've yet to meet a person who has tried them on and gone. This is not look good. Our whole team was kind of like, ooh, eyes emoji. You know, can we get in on that? They're just so comfortable. they're lightweight. They're so easy to pack because they're so, they're just like a little really light, stretchy. I have the cotton-rooshed back hipster that are really cute and the cotton jersey full brief. That's probably my favorite. It's the most coverage and really cozy.

Shop, my and Linda's favorite bras and underwear at skims.com. And after you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you, select podcast in the survey, and be sure to select our show in the drop-down menu the follows. This is the Bereanie hunting. haunting. Barini haunting. Do you want to say it again or do you want to? This is the Barini haunting.

Barini? Like a, it sounds like a pasta. Barini. Barini. Yes. There, it was a name used to change to protect the privacy of the family. So they went with Barini. It's a Borrelia family.

And they also changed the location. So, or. What? How do you do that? I could do that. I'm going to change my name and location. And now I'm going to tell you the story of my life. What?

I feel like... Why am I mad? Why am I angry at these people? Do you do this with all your locations? You heard about this guy Kanye West? He's married to Kim Kardashian. And he just, he's incredible. Don't look further than after like 2008.

Don't look further. Did you see that he posted in the New York or in the Wall Street Journal, like a full page ad? I, you know what? Sorry for all his anti-Semitic behavior. It's like really insane. I would like to instead rephrase that to you. Can you believe what the Wall Street Journal allowed someone to put In the Longstreet Journal.

But then my brother was like, if he's releasing an album, and then it turns out he is releasing an album. So I don't know. It's all just like, I don't believe that that man is real anymore. Nothing's real. He will never be sorry because I don't think he's aware of what he's sorry of. He just like, it's not there.

Too far gone, yeah. So basically the, the psychical research foundation, which nowadays is called the American Institute of Parasicology, they were involved in this case at the very, very, very end, and in their report changed the location and the name just so the family could have some closure and be away from the situation. That's fair enough then. I see. Someone else is telling the story.

So all we know is that it was in New England. So I guess it didn't change the location. They're just being like so vague about it. So it's the Barini family in New England. Great. and the main character is Joe and Rose Barini and then they also had

Rose's kids from a previous marriage, John and Daisy, who you do not hear much about. But Joe and Rose. So in 1970, 1979, Joe moved the family into his dad's childhood home. And fun fact, many family members had died in this house. Oh, good.

I will, I'm going to start off by saying, I would love a whole report on how Joe is connected to his own family because he's moving into his dad's childhood home. The way that all of the sources I looked at seemed to, they made it sound like Joe has like never spoken to his father before this and like never lived in this house, but now he's moving into his dad's childhood home. And I don't know if there's like a, they were estranged and now he's just inherited this. I don't. Because it feels like a movie plot point.

Like, oh, I've never been to this haunted Airbnb in the countryside that my great app left me, you know. Exactly. Yes. Because at first I was like, it also could just be like Joe's dad as every other dad who just doesn't really stereotypically give you any information about much of his childhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I feel like in a lot of the story, Joe is just calling around being. like, does anyone know about this random family member? I've never heard about them.

Oh, yeah, they died in your house. Yeah. And that feels like something I would have with all three of my fathers that I've had. I feel like all of them would vaguely, cryptically be like, 100%. Oh, yeah, I'm actually a bird in the middle of the night. Like something crazy. They'd say something crazy.

And also my mother would do the same thing. And then I'd be gaslit into oblivion and be like, oh. I could see Tom being like, yeah, I'm one of 25. What? You didn't know that? You didn't know. What do you mean? And you know what they say next?

when you never asked. What a fuck kind of dumb-ass comment is that? I found out... And by the way, we did ask. That's the other thing. We always ask. I found out yesterday on my own accord that Tom has step-siblings. I'd fucking know that.

What? And you didn't know this. Never done that. What did you talk to him about it? Was he like, duh? I have not spoken to him yet, but now we have a conversation to have... Does he know about his step-siblings? Now, that would be very silly if...

But no, he has to know. Can you imagine our listeners know before he does? They do. I know that that'd be crazy. I was like, they do? They know that I'm going to talk to him about it, though. But at least now we've got ourselves a little, a topic starter. Love that.

Anyway, so I feel like that's what's going on here. It could range from being everyone's normal dad who just doesn't talk about his childhood or him and his father have never met. I don't know. It's just a little bit mysterious. Yes. So he moves into this, he moves into this house. And immediately there's spooky stuff.

going on. And Rose seems to be the person that is getting the most activity in the house. So pretty immediately Rose starts hearing a little girl's voice. Oh God. Yuck. And the very

first time that she hears this voice it says, Mama, Mama. And that's not my baby. That's not my baby. That's not my baby. And you hope it's a situation like a like a time glitch and that you're actually witnessing your own.

That's what I tell myself. Remember, I heard that daddy in that middle room. And to this day, I'm like, please be Leona. Have you heard it yet? Because I'm waiting for the day you let us know that it's you gone full circle. I am appreciative that you're reminding me of this because I have been working on that room to turn it into like a playroom kind of extra space guest room type area. And I feel like once that's kind of cleared out, we'll spend more time in there.

So I wonder if that'll happen. You know what I really hope, really honestly, truly. is that the day it happens, because I don't imagine a world but this doesn't happen. But you hear the daddy and you, I need you to be standing near. I remember exactly where I was sitting.

I need you to be there because I would like it to be a full circle or now you see past you experiencing it. You know, Gia was also next to me and I feel like I would see a double. And I remember him hearing it. Like he heard it in the moment. So we both heard it.

So I wonder if he'll be there too, you know, like a little replay. Tonya. I really, It would really put my mind at ease that glitches in the Matrix do exist. Yeah. Because you don't remember seeing yourself in that. So you wouldn't notice you seeing yourself in the future.

Right. True. Yeah. Whoa. Whoa. I'd be sitting on my own lap all of a sudden. She's going, hi. This is real.

Don't forget this. Remember this? You'll hate it. So, okay, says mama. You got to hope that it's in the future. unfortunately the voice keeps saying mama and eventually says mama this is serena bye okay bye and nobody knew a serena they were like what that fuck is that and that's such a specific name it's not like i'm sally you know like right for some reason that creeps me out more because it's such a

kind of unique name yeah it's not like oh my name is mary bob yeah yeah um so nobody knew with Serena, but they'd soon learn because she kept hearing the voice and they picked up very quickly that when Serena was around, all of a sudden eminent doom would follow. Eminent doom, Jesus, okay. And we don't know if Serena

is warning them or is causing it, but I think the vibe people were experiencing was that she was trying to warn them. Ooh, it's like moth man. Especially by saying like mama and being this little girl, it's almost like she's trying to help you or she wants to...

She's like, pay attention. Pay attention to me, yeah. The very first time that she heard Serena's voice, that same weekend, one of the kids had to go get their tautils taken out, and there was complications during the surgery. Oh, no. And the daughter, Rosa's daughter, almost died from heart failure. Holy shit, dude. Which, like, you think something is, like, commonplace is getting your tonsils out. It's like, oh, you can't die from that.

What year was this? 79. I wonder, also anesthesia, perhaps, like a bad reaction. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, but Jesus, that's terrifying. Well, the next time Rose heard Serena's voice was months later, and that night, Joe's grandmother had a stroke. Oh, shit, dude.

The time after that, Rose heard Serena's voice and Joe's grandmother, I think the same one that had a stroke, then passed away. Okay, that's, it's sort of like, thanks for warning me, but it's like, what are you, what am I supposed to do? about it. Yeah, it's almost like, do I even want you to come? No, I'd rather just kind of not have the dread of like, now I know somebody's going to die. And say goodbye to everybody. I know. I've got to call everybody.

I've got to say sorry for something that I did to everybody in case they die and haunt me. Yeah, every time I hear Serena's voice, go, what do I have to atone for really quickly? Yeah, what did I do this time? So up until that point, only Rose had heard Serena's voice. But the next time Serena came through, it was late at night and Joe heard Serena's voice. And he had been sleeping, but her voice woke him up in the middle of the night, and he turned over and saw Rose seemingly struggling next to him.

Oh, no. Like she couldn't breathe. No. And so he woke her up really quickly and was like, what's going on are you? Okay. She was having a nightmare about someone trying to strangle her. Oh, okay. And now it feels like, sleep paralysis style.

Yeah, either sleep paralysis. I would wonder, like, does this mean that the ghost can also tap into your dream? because... I always think sleep paralysis is on the verge of some sort of... Like, I know it's scientifically proven whatever, but I still do think there's an element of, like, something dark can take over or enter your space in that, in that, like, state of hypnagogic state or whatever you call it.

I love when you say hypnogic. I love when I say it, too. I also really wish you liked horror movies just to be able to watch Insidious because it's so on the nose of everything we think. I did watch it with you. Oh, didn't I? No, that was sinister. He didn't watch that either.

I watched. You watch it. Yeah, he watched your eyelids. I watched my eyelids. You guys, I took a Clonopin to watch that movie and fell asleep. Oh, and like two melatonin. She took it on purpose. Yeah.

Oh, and two melatonin. Right. And then it was like six o'clock at night. And you and my brother, my brother was like, you left me alone to watch this movie with M. I fell asleep right between you. It was great. I had a good time. I mean, I'm trying to get more into horror movies.

What is the one you said? Insidious. That feels like it's not for me. Does I feel insidious? It feels a little more insidious than I'd like to admit, yeah. But the story is wonderful. I could not end up like, oh, lovely. It's like, it's what we're always talking about.

Really? Okay. It's like a little kid who like can't wake up. Oh, well, that does sound lovely. Thanks. But like, it's like ghosts. Like he was like, it's like the, like he left his astral body. He's trying to come back. My worst fear ever?

Great. Anyway, it's a good time. And it's part of the whole icon. Oh, because it gets taken over. I remember hearing about this. The CCU, the conjuring cinematic universe. Oh, okay. Okay, so anyway.

She wakes up. And I don't know why Serena had to warn Joe to wake her up unless something actually violent was happening in her sleep, which adds to my theory that something was messing with her. That it's something more than just sleep process. Well, at this point, Joe is like, who the fuck is Serena? I'm over this. So he goes asking around his family. Does anyone know Serena?

Anyone know Serena? And they went, bitch, Serena died in this house and she was five years old. I hope they said it just like that. Bitch. I hope they went up to Joe and I went, girl, I'll figure it out. Come on. Spill the tea. I'm spilling the tea right now.

So Serena was apparently his dad's sister. He didn't know his dad's sister. See, this is what they do, these people. They just don't tell you a damn thing and then you have to live with the consequences. It feels so much like anything Any of my dads would say like, oh yeah, I had a sister. She died at five. It's a generational trauma that they just are like, well, we'll just ignore that, you know?

So Serena is real, apparently. God. It does make you wonder why she was calling them Mama, but maybe she's also kind of stuck in a blueprint situation or maybe she... Yeah, and if she's five. Or she might not know that she is a ghost and she just saw a grown woman in the house and I don't know. It's confused. Yeah, who knows?

Maybe Rose looks like what? Yeah. Joe's grandma used to look like, I don't know. So eventually, and that would make sense too, why Serena was trying to warn them about, like, Joe's grandmother dying because that was her mom. Being like, my mom's about to die. Oh, shit. Which in some ways is very precious that, like, even if you, like, lose a child, they're still with you and, like, trying to warn people.

It's like... Maybe when she's saying mama, she's trying to talk to her mom who's still alive. I don't know. Oh. Mama, it's Serena. Oh. She was trying to talk to her mom. That's horrible.

Wow, it just got really so much sadder than it was. You're welcome. Thanks, Christine. Wow, now I feel like shit. Hey, remember what I said about Hope earlier? How did I do that again? Can you remind me? No, I was barely holding on as you were back in the day.

You were like, give it an hour and Christine, it'll be completely turning this around. Well, eventually Serena seems to leave and they don't hear her voice ever again. It's almost like once they discovered who she was, maybe. Maybe when her mom passed. Maybe she was attached to her mom. Oh, yeah. And she was like, I have no reason to be here anymore. God damn it, Christine.

Listen, I have a four-year-old. I think about dark, sad, intrusive thoughts and try to not let them take over my mind. So, you know, I'm primed for this. I have been singing a lot of songs to Hank, and they pretty much all end with like, and in about a decade, I'll be absolutely devastated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. how will I cope So eventually

Serena seems to leave Nobody hears her voice anymore And the haunting seemed over For like a year and a half I don't know One source said six months And I was like that's not the same thing But a lot of time passes

And eventually it's 1981 Which is about 18 months later And after thinking Kind of like their creepy days Were behind them One night Rose sees a little boy Oh my God She had to be like this again.

Oh my God. He is an all white. And straight out of a horror movie, he just walks through the hallway. Just like you don't see him. Then he's walking through the hallway. Then he like walks past the door where you can't see him anymore. What the fuck? Ah!

Apparently he was translucent in a way where Rose said he looked like a glass milk bottle. Whoa. And he just apparently it's a, it's worse because not only did he just walk through and now you're like what happened what was that but at the time you processed it it's gone home boy was walking through the hall multiple times for two hours what just like why like at some point i'd be like is that a real fucking kid is he lost in my house like i'd be like what who is this a weird optical illusion or a prank like what's going on and i'd be like i i'm seeing this right at some point i'd just get a chair and some popcorn

and be like, what the fuck is happening here? I'd get a camera. Let's start there. Nowadays. Yeah. But I would also wonder like, it's so weird. It's, at some point, after two hours? What's, why now?

What's happened? I would be scared. I'd be like, who's going to die this time? Great point. Like, what are you doing here for two hours? Like, and it's your first time here? I don't know. Something feels like it's shifting.

I, well, I saw one, one of the articles I read was like, it was almost like when Serena left, she left an available space for someone. They can see. Yeah. Insidious. And so it's, I just can't imagine. After two hours, I think I'd get kind of bold and I'd be like, are you okay? You're going to say bored.

I was like, me too. I'm glad you said it. I'd be bored too. Okay. Never mind. After enough times, I would be kind of brave enough to go, are you, are you here? Like, I don't know, I don't know what I would ask, but then I'd, then I would be like like you would recognize me or.

You know. See if he looks over. Like, oh, I didn't see there. A little too loud, yeah. So, anyway, he apparently is just pacing the hallway. He leaves. He walks to the hallway. He leaves.

So weird. Somehow Rose is describing this as a peaceful experience. She said that this is fine. She's like, oh, this is actually kind of peaceful. It's probably better than getting choked in your sleep, so. Sure. Although part of me is in like, is this who was choking me in my sleep? Okay, fair point.

Ah. Um, so two weeks later, Rose's heart has told Joe about this, I hope. But Joe then is like, okay, well, hopefully that doesn't happen anymore. Famous last words. Because then that night- Don't worry, it's all over. Joe sees the little boy too.

Ah, ha, ha, ha. And he sees the little boy literally going from room to room and in the hallway, stopping to like kneel down on the floor as if he's like searching for something. Oh, oh, oh, oh, ew. His body. I think it would be so weird. Like, it's one thing to see a ghost go into a room. Already I'm talking about it for the rest of my life.

But to see a ghost go into a room and then come out unsatisfied and go into the next one, I'd be like, whoa, don't come into mine. I'd be like, okay, that's actually enough of that, you know. Also, at some point... You've done your tricks. Now stop it. At some point, does that mean I'm watching you from a room that he has yet to get in, go into? Is he about to come in here?

Is he just approaching? Oh, no. Oyo, yo. And the kneeling down and he, He was apparently like touching or like petting the floor trying to find something. Oof. Rose also saw him again. And this time, uh, the boy talked to her the second time if they ran into each other in the hall, I guess.

Uh, excuse me. Uh, sorry. One of the left. Scoot right past you. Oh, uh, oops. And the boy goes up to her. By the way, having not said anything yet. First, fucking words out of his mouth.

Where do all the lonely people go? where do I belong? What? Eleanor Rigby? Is that a lyric from Eleanor Rigby? It literally sounds like it. I look at all the lonely people. Okay, maybe that's right.

Because I was at first like, wow, that's strange. For a second I went, oh my God, am I being scammed? Is this just the Beatles write a ghost story? This is just like some weird pop culture fan fiction about the Beatles. Wow, but okay, so the Eleanor Rigby of it all aside, that's, really fucked up and dark. Okay, a lonely little boy. Yeah, and where do I belong?

Like, so he's lost. And then part of me, he's like, why are you looking at the floor for your help there? But, and this might be an answer as to what he was doing on the floor. Joe remembered that he was looking around. And now that this boy has shown up multiple times in the house, he's like, what was he looking for? I'm going to go over to that spot on the floor.

Correct answer. Correct answer. He pulls up the rug. Carpet, yep, which the little boy couldn't seem. It seemed like he could not do on his own. Picture this. 80's rug. Shag.

Tufted. Yeah. Beautiful. And he finds like a medallion of the Virgin Mary. Spooky. Makes me think if he was looking for something religious and he's like, where do I belong? Maybe he thought I need to get this thing. Kneeling.

That's when you first said he was kneeling in the hallway, I'm like to pray. I mean, I guess not. But like it sounds very ritualistic. Yeah. the white thing yeah so joe goes back to the family i imagine in in 2006 it would be a group chapping like can you guys just give me a rundown of every person that i don't know about yet because i'm so tired of this first of serena you just do a voice memo so i can just have it all just send me the ancestry link you know what yeah yeah yeah yeah the link um so you asked the family what about this little boy

like who else died here finds out oh yeah you know how your brother or how your dad had a sister named serena um he also had a brother who also died as a kid. And like, no, I didn't know about any of that. Thanks, though. Which is like, I have to hope that him and his father were just like estranged because otherwise, what the fuck did you ever talk about with your dad? I mean, as someone who has a dad with siblings, I literally don't know anything about it. Sort of like, I just see you, it never comes up. It's shocking. Unless you ask. It's weird. Yeah. And then he's like, well, you don't ask. And I'm like, I don't even know that I'm supposed to ask. Should I just start from the bottom and

say, do you have any dead siblings? Like, what am I supposed to? say here. I mean, I guess maybe. Maybe that's the key. I can't stand that. Well, you didn't ask. It's like, well, I didn't. That's infuriating to me. Didn't know. So Joe finds out that he has an uncle Giorgio, who died in the house of eight years old, buried in his first communion suit. I knew it. I was like, that's a baptismal or first communion? Holy shit. And then he got that medallion for his first communion, no doubt. Holy shit. And of course, I was wondering, where do I belong and he's like I oh honey he's probably trying to get to heaven oh boy um so anyway after figuring out who he was the couple started seeing georgio all the time oh dear like multiple

times a week oh dear it was almost like they spoke them into existence officially or like once georgio knew that they knew who he was he felt safer to come around they apparently would literally talk to him he would answer random questions for them he would talk about family numbers Joe didn't even know or he would talk about events that Joe didn't remember. He would even, um, Georgia, I guess, had a twin that did survive. And he would talk about his twin, like what his twin was up to. Jeez. What the fuck?

And whenever, I will say, this is a weird note, but whenever they would see him, it seemed to them that Giorgio always seemed incredibly fucking stressed. By the way, I would too if I was an eight year old who can't get into heaven. You know what I'm sorry? Yeah, that sounds like one of those weird dreams you have as a kid where you're like stuck or even nowadays, like where you're stuck somewhere and you're like, I can't, I can't get out. Like that, it feels like a nightmare replaying over and over. Of course, you're stress.

I'd be stressed the fuck out. I'd be like, where is everybody? Here's my random 40-year-old nephew. And I- Can you imagine you don't even get to wear your khakis? You have to wear your fucking communion thing. I also probably one of the biggest, I'm sure there's a lot of ways that this story so far has proven to, like, just be like a wives tale and isn't true or something like that. But the most unbelievable part to me is that people,

who are alive who knew Georgio aren't immediately running to the door to finally see their like long lost dead relative. Right. It makes you wonder if they, yeah. Yeah. That's weird. If I knew like if I, if there are family members of mine who have died and if I found out that they have someone, I can speak to them again. I would be at the house that day. But I'll be honest. I know people who like have who if they if they're dead sibling resurrected at eight like an eight year old ghost and they were like living across the country. They would want. nothing to do with that. That's a good point. Like I know, I definitely know people, especially the kind who don't talk about their siblings, who probably would not go see their ghost because they don't even want to think about it. Or, like, I mean, Serena and Giorgio sound like maybe they're not from the country, so maybe it's hard to get here or something.

Like, maybe it sounds like, like, like, Italian. Tarina, Giorgio. Sarina, Giorgio. What's the last name again? Barilla. Barini. Which is a fake name, but it makes sense why they'd pick an Italian one if the names are Giorgio. I'm just saying if someone said, yo, even that one cousin that you fucking hate just came back to life, I'd be like, I gotta go see this myself.

I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could, I don't know. That really freaks me out for some reason. I don't know if you go. I think I would be more concerned about the people in the house. I'd be like, are you trying to trap me and like kill me? I don't know. I think I would be like really, really, like, hesitant.

No, I would have to see it with my own eyes. I'd be like, this is literally evidence that the afterlife exists. It's crazy. It's crazy. You wouldn't get, right in the comments if you would go, because I know, this is such a, to me it's such an obvious absolute. It's an absolutely, yes. It's an absolute no to you.

No, it's not an absolute no. I think I would go eventually, but you would have to probably talk me into it because I think I'd be like, I don't know if I trust this brother-in-law or whoever the hell this guy is to me in this scenario. I don't know. I'd be like a little weirded out. I'd be like, I mean, I'd bring a knife, you know. I'd be like, okay, he's saying he sees my dead brother that feels like disrespect. You'd bring a knife. Okay. Well, in that case, I feel safe. I guess, yeah, it depends. It depends on how close you are with the people. Like, if I found out,

that's kind of it. I think that. If a long lost relative, I see what you're saying. Like, if a long loss relative, I don't even really have a relationship with said this to me, I'm not going to your fucking house. It's like, come over your dad brothers here. I'd be like, what the fuck? Yeah. In that case, I'm not going over to your house to find out that you have like a mental health situation going right i don't really want to be part of that but like if my cousins i talk to regularly yeah okay that's fair alive i'd be like if i felt trustworthy that this was a thing i would absolutely yes absolutely think of the experiments you could do you could be like tell them to come over here and like can they teleport and like i mean i would have i would have just as many questions for them and they'd be like why are you holding a knife can you answer that first

yeah the eight-year-old at knife point is really like no i'm not going to go over there you freak And they have the nerve to go, Georgia always looks a little stressed. Yeah, you're just showing up with a knife doing experiments on him. Like, no wonder. Honestly, if I was living at a house with an eight-year-old ghost

and I didn't know he was apparently my uncle, I'd also have a knife there too. I guess so. I guess like what's that going to do to a ghost? So, anyway, Georgia is walking around. They're chatting it up. But he always seems stressed.

And one article did say it was like, it was as if he, like Serena could sense something dark or was attached to something dark. And even though he was fine and harmless, he knew about something that we couldn't foresee. I think that's part of what freaks me out too. Like not that I wouldn't go see this person, but this ghost, but I feel like there's something sinister beneath it that's like, why is he stressed? Why is he hanging around? You already had this serena, like sleep paralysis, creepiness. Like part of me is like, is that really my twin brother? or is this like something darker?

I don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's unsettling. You know what? To go back to our previous conversation, talk about family members who would want to see this person back to life, his fucking twin who's alive.

Right, that's what I meant. Like if this is my twin. That's what I'm saying. Like if Carlos, I'd be like a little unsettled though. If like, oh, and we also had all this demonic activity, I'd be like, even if I believe you, I'd be like, I don't know if I want to see my eight-year-old brother

as like a demonic ghost. I don't know. Yeah, maybe Carlos, like, sends a picture of him, like, waving. He's like, give this to him. Let's FaceTime. Yeah. That's about as far as I'll come. Well, after two months, Giorgio finally stops appearing. And his final words to them, by the way, was, my oldest brother is the only one that can help me. Oh, my God. What is his oldest brother? Do we know? Like a priest or something? I have no idea. And also, if that was the solution this whole time, why were you ever here to begin with? But he didn't know. Well, so I think what's, happening is it seems that the kids are confused about their relationship to these people because

like how serena was maybe calling rose her mom yeah maybe georgio thought that joe was his father and not the father's son or his brother his brother when it was his uncle oh so he was saying maybe like my oldest brother is the only one that could help me being like you're my oldest brother you're the only one that can save us talking about joe i think i don't know i have no idea um but it's it was certainly cryptic and fucking crazy. And then he disappeared? And they disappeared. Which I feel like we could have said one more sentence before we left and like clarified

some things. I just this guy, this kid knows how to, this kid knows how to do a cliffhanger. He did. He said, I'll be back for the sequel. Or will I? Fade to Black. The same night, Giorgio disappeared for good. His absence seemed to also leave room for a new entity.

What's telling you? I don't know what. what you fill that with, but you gotta fill that. Put your thumb over the hole. I was gonna say just like put some like like cock or putty on it. Like yeah, putty. Yeah. You staple it closed.

That's what I would do. Concrete it in. Yeah. Some calc. Calk. The same, so he disappeared and all of a sudden something else appeared. Literally within the same 24 hours. Um, and immediately they really missed that little boy because Joe and Rose's phone flew off

the nightstand on its own. multiple times. Uh-oh. And this is not a cell phone. This is a landline just to remind everyone. Like when it hit the wall, it probably went, roing. Oh, and like, and then you heard, eh, because it fell off the hook.

How creepy is that? Horrific. So much more cinematic than an iPhone going on. I feel like our hauntings would be so boring today. I know, boo. It's like, that's just AI. Oh, man. And also, like, another question for ghosts,

because we didn't have the technology we did back in the old day when they seemed to be super duper prevalent. so like we wouldn't have known back then what other capabilities they have they were just working with the stuff going on back then I wonder if there's new versions of haunting today because there's new technology that we can see them interacting with there are because Jim Harrow covers like technological

those sometimes where they'll like come in on a phone call or they'll like a text oh the creepiest ones are when text messages come through like from the deceased person but it's like the numbers like just stuff like that really does happen kind of regularly, regularly enough to be like, whoa. I mean, another example is like your iPod playing random music you didn't start up. Ew, that was creepy. First of all, it was an iPad.

It wasn't the year 2005. My iPod. The iPod shuffle Christine brings on tour started. I was thinking about that yesterday for some reason, that iPad playing. And I was like, I wish I could remember what song that was. I'm happy to not know. Okay. Even like Wi-Fi or like streaming services.

I'm like, could it do all that? Like I have a- We do blame tech issues on a ghost a lot. So I feel like we've already kind of committed to that theory. I have one friend who closed captioning changed on her TV and like was able to go back and it played like the normal fucking words. But only one time it's like was almost like responding to her like an ovulus. Isn't that the scary thing you know what the fuck? Hey, I hate that.

So I guess there are new ways that they can do things, but they could always probably do. They just didn't know it themselves because they didn't have the technology yet. Maybe they did. And they're like, hurry up and invent the cell phone. I'm so tired of having to type every fucking header out. But yeah, also, how come on my laptop I haven't gotten messages on. Well, people have gotten messages on their like on a blank document.

It happens. So, and remember that one time we, wasn't there an episode we recorded where the whole thing got deleted, temporarily or something? Yeah, there's some weird tech shit that happens that we used to be like, ha ha, it's the ghost. And it's when we were talking about one of the dolls.

Oh, 100%. That was PtD, I think. And there was, I think there was another episode we recorded where we were also talking about her and like the things that she's capable of. And our episode was fine, but only like that section was totally like silenced or something. Oh, there was some weird.

There was like static or something happening. I remember people were like, did you do that on purpose? We were like, no. Also, just like side note, two nights ago, ooh, I have chills now, like, cold all of a sudden. I heard this shattering sound in the middle of the night. Remember how, like, my bathroom up here was flooding? So the same area, I heard this shattering sound. I thought that I saw all three pets, and I went, uh-oh, that's, okay, not a good sign.

Of course, I go upstairs with my flashlight on, and I'm looking, I'm looking, and I can't figure it out. The, like, since, like, the 80s, there's been this, like, mirrored vanity thing. and the top of the mirror just like slammed on the floor and shattered everywhere in the middle of the night. What the fuck is going on in that bathroom? I don't know, but it just occurred to me. It's the same bathroom. As someone who's used that bathroom, I can confirm.

It is the scariest bathroom I've ever been. It is pretty creepy. I would never want to be in that bathroom by myself. It has a nice toilet now, a new one. Maybe it was the toilet all along. Oh, I guess not since things are happening post-new toilet. That's right. And I was a little concerned.

And then someone said, well, probably the humidity. from the bathtub. I'm like, I've not turned that bathtub on in five years. It doesn't look plugged in. No, it's sort of like one of those decorative, like, clawed foot things. And I'm like, I don't know, man. And my brother was like, well, you know, the adhesive wore off. And I was like, I've heard it all before. That's fine. It's just weird that it's been 30 years and one night. It just shatters while I'm awake in the middle of the night with insomnia. I don't know. 100%. Anyway, so now I'm just, all I'm saying is I'm getting creeped out by the story already because I'm like 10 feet from that spot. And I feel a little. I wish it would happen as you're recording so we could all witness something. Maybe you can talk about PTD again and she'll make something happen.

Well, remember that time we held hands and looked PTD in the eye? And she talked to us. I don't remember what she said, but we did look her in the eye together. We were so polite. We were, I was like, hello. You are beautiful.

Bye. So, anyway, Joe puts the phone back on. I remember the phone flew off. the nightstand. Yeah. And he puts it back on the table, flies off again. It flew off the table like a dozen times.

And he called his parents to see if they knew what Giorgio meant by like, my oldest brother is the only one who can help me. And like, because he took it as a sign of like, that's the last thing I heard from Giorgio. And now the phone is flying off the hook. So like, use the phone, ask about Giorgio. Check in. But similar to our audio whenever we talk about dolls, every time Joe would say Georgio's name, the phone would go dead by itself.

I don't like that. Every time, or sorry, eventually it wasn't just the phone being thrown around, but the doors started slamming, dishes started breaking, footsteps started being heard only running through the house. And a box of pasta was ripped out of Rose's hand. That's the most insulting to me.

Baria. Pena. Tene. Give me the secret recipe, the ghost shouting. Or I was like, not this, boxed swine. Oh, yeah, this will. Throw this in the trash.

Swill, not swine. What's wrong to me? That's pigs. I didn't even notice. The couple went to a priest who told them, of course, say with me, just ignore it. Are you serious?

I haven't gotten to say this in a long time, but thanks priests. Aw. Miss her. And soon other items started flying around and they kept ignoring it because the priest told them to and they're just sitting there

like hoping and hoping it's going to stop until eventually things only got worse because now this entity shows himself to them. And it is a dark male figure with a black cape, a hunched back, a gruff voice, and very large feet. What the fuck? They ask who he is. Sounds like the hamburger.

Holy shit. I think this is the origin of McDonald's. It all started with a small Italian pasta family. quick someone get there, but cheese on the hoard. Where were we? So sorry. He had big feet. A cape, by the way.

Not cool. Are you kidding? Do you know how many times I've worn my cape this week? I fucking love a cape. Okay, I'm saying not cool as a go. Like, oh, it's very cool. It's cool to wear a cape. It's also like fine to wear a top hat.

Never mind. No. Especially with a cape unless you're getting paid and doing magic. Correct. There's really strict rubric. If I saw someone wearing a top hat and they're not either an A Blinken impersonator or a magician, what are you doing? Or the hatman himself.

Or the hatman himself. Or like, I guess if you're really trying to like do one over on the opera. Like you're really trying to commit to the theater. We'll think about it on that one. I'm still uncomfortable about it because like people are going to sit behind you in the audience and they're going to hate you. Oh, I thought you meant on the stage. I see. You better have some fucking tact and take that hat off if you're in.

the audience. Please. It's just for the entrance, the grand reveal. Exactly. Like, we've already seen you in the lobby and talked about it. Sit down. Now, if you saw me in a cape, you would really go feral because this, this is a delicious cape. I have it right here. What? I was like, are you getting it right now? Oh my God. I wear this cape all the time. I wear it. Did you, did you wear it? Are you wearing it to your date? Your friend date? No, but I have worn it before with new people. Just to give them a real taste of who I am. Those ones that never called you back. I'm just kidding. No, I call this my everyday cape because I actually have like four capes.

Yeah, I know. So this one is, have you seen this before? Am I showing you something you've already seen? I really don't think I have. I've had this cape for years and I really decided to commit to the bit recently. I do feel like you've talked about it quite a lot and I feel like in my mind I know it, but I don't think I've ever seen it. It's lovely.

I wear it to the dog park often and not, and I'm not wearing it. I think here's the thing. You have to have the confidence because I am not wearing it to be like spoofing. or like kitchy or quirky or quirky like I'm wearing it functionally like it just keeps me warm that's the key if you're wearing it it's like oh that looks comfortable I'm not going to be like why the fuck would you wear that you know you have to wear it like like I mean it's no different than like bringing a blanket somewhere in public which I guess is weird but people understand the purpose of the blanket and a case it's just that and I'm like kind of jealous right like if I

see someone with a blanket I'm like oh I should have thought of that well it's been like there have been nights where like the dog park is really fucking cold and I've seen people bring Blank instead. I'm like, that's so fucking smart. And I'm like, I'd rather have a blanket that just buttons on so I don't have to hold it. So that's what it gave is. So here, I don't know if it's really going to. Oh, oh, it looks voluptuous. So she's got a little hood moment. Satin? She buttons up at the neck. So it's very, uh, ah, and then she's got pockets and she's got sleeves. It's a short, so it's a crop top cape. It's like it ends at, at your back. It's It's not a long cloak.

Oh, it's like a poncho. I guess so. That's probably the rudest thing I've ever said to you. I'm sorry. It's not like a poncho. It's not like the kind I got at Dillard's in eighth grade. No, it ends at the waist. Oh, it does.

It's like a little red riding hood size. Oh, charming. Like a cape lit. Cape lit. But it also has like spots where you can put your arms through. So with you move, it moves like wings. When you move, it has the finger rings. So it stays on your fingers.

So it moves with you. Oh, my God. So you're basically, like conducting an orchestra looking like Batman. It's very comfy. And it's thick. It's like three sweatshirts thick. It looks extremely voluptuously cozy.

And when you close it up, it literally keeps the cold out so well. How did we get here? Oh, I don't know. There's a dark hunchback man. He's wearing a cape, and I'm upset about it. And I'm not saying I'm upset about you wearing cape. I'm upset about the shadowy man in my bedroom wearing a cape.

Like, get out of here. That and also final sentence, this is a PSA. if you've ever thought about buying a cape, I've never once regretted it, and I only get compliments. So everyone leave you long. Except for all. Yeah, fuck you all. Wait, where did you buy the cape? Because my next question is, I love a cape.

Where can I get one? I'll tell you exactly this one because I... Do you buy this on the street, too? No, I bought this actually like a Comic-Con and I guess... Oh, that feels right, too. Which, like, I guess technically it was meant for cosplay, but I never used it for that. Anything's cosplay if you really try hard enough, you know? That's true.

To give them a shout out because I want this company to stay in business so that way I can buy more capes. It's called the original scareware. Okay now. Now we're talking. And it's called Creepsville with a K. And now I'm trying to tell us, no, no, there's nothing weird or creepy about this cape. And they're like, no, there is. Oh, wow.

I mean. Creepsville, if you ever want to do an ad with us, I'll take as many capes as you want. Converts here, yeah. It's a game changer. I've never, and I I wore it to Wicked, of course. Of course. I wear it in Renaissance things.

I guess I do cosplay with it. See? I'm so sorry to everybody who wanted a short story. Let's keep going. I'm trying to clock the fuck in. Okay. I'm not sorry. Go on.

There's a hunchbacked man with a cape. Right. And a gruff voice. What could go wrong? He's throwing everything around. He is a real, nightmare. And, uh, and they've been told by priests to ignore him. And then eventually he decides to walk up to them and tell them that he is quote, a minister of God. Oh, boy. Okay. They continue to

try and ignore the obviously dark energy, but oftentimes, uh, the activity was just too intense to ignore. For example, the, the family would just start hearing a random man scream obscenities. And I feel like a lot of people go, that's just grandpa. Yeah, he's just under the weather. He's just in the other room. That one I don't mind too much. If I heard a random person cussing in the house, it, that's fine. Oh, is it if you heard a random man cussing in your house? Compared to every, if that's the worst, it's just like, oh, there's that fucking guy again. Yeah, fair enough. If I knew who it was, I could kind of just like brush it aside. Yeah. Especially when all I know about him is he's a minister to God. I'm like, oh, the minister's mad. Oh, not the minister again. He loves those

swear words. Well, apparently it got worse because those items, that were flying around, like the phone and everything, was now aiming itself at the couple. Objects were flying into them all the time. Uh-oh. Religious objects were getting smashed. Yikes. Or they were being ripped off the wall.

Yikes. The furniture would end up all over the place, including bookcases and desks that were upstairs. They are now downstairs. Or they're being toppled over or they're being found in different rooms. I can't imagine going home and it's just my bookcase is upside down and upstairs.

and in a different room and top of them. I'd be thrilled. I'd be like, finally, somebody helped me move the furniture. I know, like, at least use your power for good. But I would want it to be used in the way that I would really need the bookshelf to be placed in a certain way. So, yeah, it would be annoying. The real kick in the crotch would be if you finally moved it yourself,

and now it's back down seriously. Oh, now that's not cool. I'd be like, you're fucking asshole. I pulled my back out for that, you know. I know. Is that the phrase? Threw it out? Threw it out.

You sounded like someone who's never thrown your back out. if only. If only. I can't. Oh my God. Here's, I think the creepiest one to me is that they had those like classic attic stairs where you had to like pull them down on a string. Oh, yeah. The stairs to the attic would open themselves, which you might think like, okay, the latch is loose or whatever and it just fell by itself.

But first of all, think of how loud that is if they were to fly down by themselves. Terrifying. Terrifying. And dangerous. And it couldn't just be a loose latch. It was clearly something paranormal because not only. would the stairs open themselves. They would shut themselves.

So something's pushing it up. And it would open and slam and open and slam. And it was doing it so hard that the ceiling cracked. Oh, no. Like, that's it for me. Like, cut the cameras. I really, I get it. I'm out.

Rose seemed to get the most violent attention, of course, because lamps are getting thrown at her head. A freezer door when she was bending down. Hit her in the head when she came back up. Holy shit. She would find bruises all over herself. she would get grabbed and scratched by unseen hands. And, of course, activity got even worse whenever she would pray

than things were like even more intense. And a few months after dealing with all this torment, Rose is in bed alone one night and starts hearing banging on the walls. And the bed then levitated off the floor, I think with her in it. And the doors slammed themselves shut to imply that she cannot leave the room. Jesus, okay. The doors only re-operated. opened when the family dog growled protectively, good puppy.

And when she did get out of the room, she was then grabbed like out of a horror movie and dragged back into the room. The door slammed shut again. She was getting choked and she's levitating off the ground by herself. And then slammed onto the floor. Oh no. Joe finally gets into the room and he sees her cowering in a corner and quote, the bed jumping as high as two feet into the air.

What the fuck is? going on. Like, I miss Serena, girl, you know, I'm tired of us. I know if only that were, the cussing man and Serena were back. And for Miss, I'm going to warn you of imminent doom. Like, how about, where were you? Or was your whole presence that? Is that you were just from the beginning, you being here was the warning that something worse was coming? You know, she moved out and it was not her fault that someone else moved in. Okay. You know what? I shouldn't be blaming her. You're right. Listen, she tried. She tried. After this, they tried to make, uh, living in the house work, but how could you?

And they didn't have to try for very long until they gave the fuck up because very soon after this big event where she's getting thrown around the room, the couple walks into the kitchen and sees, quote, a heavy carving knife stabbed into the kitchen table. Oh, no. And it was also just happened to be on one of the kids' birthdays. Happy birthday? Aside from a horse head in your bed, that's the most threatening, like, symbolism I can think of. It's like, I'm sure it's been the cover of movies.

Horror movies. It has to be. But like just walk in, it's just stabbed the butt right into the table. And then I don't think I'd butcher block back in the day as popular as it is today. It was like an expensive table too. So the couple called the priest again going, hey, we listen to you and fuck you. Fuck you, first of all. They moved out.

They were like, you can do whatever you want with this house. I'm so over it. I guess priest came in and actually did some sort of pseudo-exress. on the house. A blessing. A blessing. Well, no, the first time was a blessing and then they were like to ignore it. This time was like something powerful enough that I guess witnesses were there.

And I guess it was deemed successful because after this, there was no more activity. I don't think I've ever covered a story where the priest come in and do one exorcism and it's handled. Maybe it's like a cleansing or something. Yeah. Yeah. Something intense. I imagine Latin was involved. But I don't.

Must have been. I just like when Latin's involved. I don't. Feels more serious. I mean, I like when it's happening. happening in a room I'm not in. Right, from afar. Yeah. But the story is juicier later. Um, so after that, there was no more activity. It really was like exactly how you would hope priests can be helpful. So I guess this is the first time ever. Thanks, priests. And that's enough.

Credit. Yeah. Like, thanks like the second time. The end. Five claps for you. But, uh, after the fact, I think they were still obviously horrified by everything. And that's when Joe called the what is now, American Institute of Parapsychology. And he was like, we had some really fucking crazy things go on here. It's technically over. Maybe you'll find something if you would like attempt it. If you'd like to research a house, you can have this house. I wonder if you also called them in to be like, can you double check that everything's good?

True point. And make sure it doesn't follow us. Yeah. But it's, and every article had completely different findings here on what happened when the American Institute of Parasychology. went in there. Some sources said they were haunted like crazy and could corroborate every single thing that

the family had seen, which means that the actualism didn't work. Then there were other sources where was like they couldn't find anything. They just had to go off of stories that they heard from the family, which means that the exorcism did work or that it was never haunted. Or there was other sources

that said like they found some things that they could have deemed haunting but the most telling information they got was just from like friends and family who overheard the stories. So I don't really know what came out of that. But they did look at it and after they looked at it, they wrote up a report.

Could not find the report. But I guess in it is where they named the family the Barini's. And that's how we get the Brini haunting. So that is that. What the fuck? That one upset me a little bit. Kind of creep me out like beyond normal. It feels like unless if you're not a believer, I'm about to say something so hysterical to you.

But to me, it feels like something that could actually happen. That's what I'm saying. It feels exactly what I was going to say. Like an everyday cape, everyday haunting style. Honestly, if I saw a hunchback man in a cape in my house, I'd be like, take my fucking cape off. You'd be like, who told you you could wear that? Like, you can haunt me, but don't raid my closet. You're getting wrinkles in my cape.

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. I am like really alarmed by the. that and I think you're right. I think it's because it feels like something that could just happen to a family and then end. I think it's, I think what's eerie to me is I do not, I'm not opening any portals or anything like that. I, in theory, don't hate the idea of having like a little ghost going around as long as it's just like something as simple as what Serena was at first. Like just a little

voice every now and then you hear a little thing and like, okay, that's the end of it. But as soon as it escalates to like, oh, now we're warning you of bad things. And then I leave and now you can see a different ghost. And he could even talk to you and interact with you like fucking Casper. And then he's really fucking scared about something you don't know that's coming. And then he leaves the scene. And now it gets worse and worse. And now you're getting knives and your tables.

Like it just feels like, it feels personal because the unraveling of it. Yes, yes. And it escalates to a point where you're like, how would you even manage to like stop it. You know, it's like the second one leaves, like another one shows up and you're like, wait, wait, wait. I didn't even have a chance to call the priest. Yeah. I think it's, I think maybe it feels personal because you and I would both be open to how it first started. Yeah, that's actually a concerning. Good point. Then we could accidentally slip into like the worst of the worst. As I like think about how I have to pee in that bathroom in about 10 seconds. You cleaned up the floor. A little bit.

Okay. There's still some mirror. around. Well, thank you everybody for listening to my... Oh, there she goes. Oh, my camera died. Super. Girl. Girl. Elgado. What's that a cat? Well, I was charging my vape, and I used the cord for my camera to charge my

vape. I... That is the least surprising thing I've ever heard you say, hey, I know we're in the middle of work, but I'm going to charge my vape with the camera cord. I'm going to unplug my camera. What a mystery this is. Oh, you know, you could have used the... I could have used the cord for my that I

plug my light into but no I used the cord to plug my camera into so can you imagine if um elgado was paying us for the spot right now that would be no that would be nice because they are great elgado this you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing in the world right now is just give us some money and we'll keep this screen going and never see christian again oh oh man you didn't you didn't you didn't bring the money to the table el gato okay i think i think i've got to um do a little refresh or something. Okay. Well, thank you everyone for the story, for listening to my story.

And I guess we'll reset, as it were, and you can go pee in your haunted potty, and I'll go get my sucker book. Yeah, we'll reconvene for Yappy Hour, which you can listen to on your podcast feed or Patreon. Okay. So you hopefully see me in a moment. Okay. You know, as to people who never thought we would ever be hiring, it's crazy that we

got to a place where we had to do that and we didn't know where to start. We had no idea. And I remember Christine saying, you know, I heard about this website called ZipRecruiter. Maybe we just try looking for people there. And within 24 hours, we found people. It was like the two least qualified people to hire somebody just like heard about this tool called ZipRecruiter and then Eva showed up. Like, it really is the most magical. Two people bumbling around and they end up with like a dream too. It's crazy. Oh, man. It's like meant to be. Well, when we. first found Eva amongst a few, a pool of candidates. We asked some very important questions, like, what kind of job are you looking for? What's your experience? Do you believe in ghosts?

What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you? Things like that. What's your sign? Yeah. What's your sign? Et cetera. 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. And that's why you need ZipRecruiter. When you post your job, ZipRecruiter suggests screening questions to help you hone in on top candidates faster. And today you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. Ask key questions and hire faster with ZipRecruiter. 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's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. We're just those kind of people we like to accessorize. I don't know if that's like the Gemini in us. I don't know what it is. But we're just big fans of Warby Parker and I was so excited to see them come across my desk today. Yeah, as they do. Yeah.

Dying eye glasses before Warby Parker was something that I never want to experience again, which was like going into a store. With your mom. With your mom. Behold into like some crazy price that she then starts arguing with the people about. You could try every single one on. She goes, no, not those. The one you like, she's like, ooh.

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and tell them our show sent you. I forgot to also mention that I did make a TikTok when it happened because I heard the crashing sound and went upstairs with the video on because I was like, if I'm about to either run into a serial killer or a demon, I'd at least want to make content out of it. Yeah. So if you want to see what it looks like, you can look on my TikTok, but I'll also add that I'm very curious to see if anybody senses anything, you know, like if they see the bathroom. I'm just curious if anybody like if they look at it and they're like ooh, this is something similar to our conversation about like with the new technology what are ghosts capable of. I wonder with the new technology what psychics are capable of because I've always wanted to meet somebody who can like see things on a screen that's like being recorded. I obviously can't see anything next to you. But if someone's like oh there's someone saying next to you, I would love to know if someone is capable of that or is that too crazy. Oh yeah. That's very calm. No, no, no, no. I don't think so. I mean that's how we found out about Harry. Remember that Moonlight Medium said, someone's walking around behind you. And I was like, oh.

I totally forgot his origin story. Yeah, no, it's definitely a thing. Because I mean, so many virtual appointments with psychics and things are virtual now anyway. So I think they kind of have to be. Interesting. Yeah, I always, it feels like. Transcends time and space.

I feel like I am a believer in a lot of things, but that one is like hard for me to wrap my head around that like some, you, I feel like you have to be in the room to sense the energy, but I'm also not a fucking psychic or medium. so I don't know what I'm talking about. I mean, you are, but that's besides the point. It did get me

an opportunity with the LA Ghostbusters out here. Did you know about them? What? It's a volunteer group. It's not actual ghost hunting. You are bearing the lead on so many things today.

You're like, oh, one time, my friend, what was the thing you said really? I don't know, but I'm practicing to be a dad who just says like nothing. Yeah, seriously. You said something like a haunted story earlier. You're like, yeah, this haunting happened to my friend. And I'm like, what?

Close captioning, yeah. Yes, that's the thing. Okay, and now what are you telling me now? Oh, the ghost hunt. What is that LA ghost hunter? It's a volunteer group. A vigilante group? No, it's like volunteering at hospitals, but they,

Oh, what? Oh, as the Ghostbusters. They're just like, ask Ghostbusters to, like, go see the kids. I thought you meant, like, they literally do, like, ghost hunting in hospitals. That's really disrespectful that they go to a hospital. I thought it meant, like, people. die and they go there. They're like, don't worry. We'll suck up the ghost before anyone gets out of here. Wow. I read that really wrong. Okay. So it's like they, oh, it's like it. Wait, so wait,

what do you mean? So what happened with them with you? Well, no, because they did the Crescan ESP thing on me and I like, nailed it. Oh, that's who that was. Yeah. Even they, when I, when it was happening, they looked around and they were like, this is fucking weird. I saw them make eyes with each other. It's really weird. It's really weird. It's really weird. So I got an, an email asking if I, Well, not asking if I wanted to join. I told them I was interested in joining and they sent me an email. And so now I guess I'm, I don't know what the right word is. But it's like it's not just like a, oh, come and join whenever.

It's like it takes like six months and a certain amount of like hours and before they even consider me. It's like really intense. Wait, but wow. I know. But so it helps raise money for children's hospital gowns to look like Ghostbusters uniforms. So that way they feel like they're Ghostbusters. and everyone gets like a plush ghost like a little like a stuffed animal in the hospital. And they do a bunch of,

they do a bunch of charity work. But the one thing that they were proud to show off was they had one of the the ghostbusters looking children's robes. It literally looks like you're a fucking ghostbuster. It was very cool looking. Now that's cool. I mean that's really cool. And then they go in and hang out with kids and, you know, show them all.

You have like literally to be one of them. You have to have like the like equipment and then like the kids, I guess, get to play with and stuff. It's just a volunteering thing. You have to like cosplay for real. Yeah. And they even said like you only when you, uh, have a uniform and a proton pack and all the stuff then like, we'll consider you and I'm like, a proton pack.

Can you imagine when you leave, they're like turning your proton pack instead of your badge? Um, so they like sent like a, like a, it felt like a Harry Potter list of like you have to have all these things on your uniform before you can come to Hogwarts. And it was like, you have to have to have to have. this type of knee pad and this type of belts and this type of this. They're very serious about it. So I don't know. Are you going to do it?

I think so. It sounds fun. Sounds cool. Leona came home during the fall at some point and she's in a new preschool class and she was like, who are you going to call? And I was like, Ghostbusters. And I was like, Ghostbusters? And she's like, yeah.

And I was like, this is a fun tournament. I love that she's giving you a litmus test. She did. And she was like, shockingly, my mother passed. Apparently, it's like her teacher's favorite movie. So she was singing that all fall. I've never seen it. Oh, it's very good.

So I didn't pass that litmus test, but she doesn't need to know that. Well, see if you can watch it together. It's not really scary. Yeah. I mean, she might be scared because she's four. I was going to say she's kind of scared of like, yeah, peppa pig sometimes. Okay.

Maybe when she's older. But no, I didn't mean to like spring. She's a lot like me. I don't know if you're catching on to the lake, whole sinister or insidious. It's certainly not insidious. Movie watching vibe. Certainly not. But, yeah.

No, so I'm probably going to, I'm more excited about like their, they get, what's the right word, reserved or booked a lot for like Halloween events and all that. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. That seems fun. So cool. And you pass their psychic test.

I passed their psychic test. And then they gave me a candy eyeball for my third eye. Hell yeah. That's kick ass. What are you, what do you up to these days? Are you in any groups or doing any fun things? You know, I just was looking into a group that goes around and makes a lot of noise outside of hotels where ICE is staying. Really, I haven't heard of that any of those.

You want to elaborate or? That sounds very fun. I'm very proud of you. Yeah, it's pretty cool. But they're, yeah, they're trying. They have like an anonymous tip line of like where ICE is staying. And unfortunately, they're coming to a neighborhood in my town very soon. and it's becoming a very high stress environment because we have been watching all this,

of course, Minneapolis. And there is a detention center near here and stuff, but it's becoming a lot more, like, close to home in a literal way. So everyone's kind of bracing for that. So I've been looking to that as far as, like, volunteer stuff. And then just like, again, like try to be analog a little bit, like do more just, like, creative for just to be creative, not like to. Like, I'm always like, well, what am I?

going to do with this out. I always feel like I need to make something productive out of it. I'm trying to like just be low key, but it's hard. I'm not very low key about relaxing. No. Well, I wish you the best. And again, sticker books are very fun. I mean, honestly, I'm looking around like making mental notes of the piles like where they are because I'm like, well, I got to get those ones and those ones together. I was going to say, think of it this way. If you need to be productive, that like, yeah, I mean, you're also cleaning your house. It scratches both. It. It. Itches, yeah. Organizing yours too.

To say a gross thing, but like it kind of works, yeah. Okay, so I'm doing part two today of the Tote family murders in Celebration, Florida. I'm so excited. Oh, my word, it's just such a fucking doozy. I have a little summary for everyone, including myself, just to keep us all in the loop. If you've not heard part one, I would go listen to that because it's just deeply insane. And it's pretty relevant to what's going to be discussed today. So here's a summary of part one.

We've got Anthony, Tony, Tote, and his wife, Megan. And by the way, Tote, like some people say TOT. It's T-O-D-T. Okay. I just say Tote. I feel like that's the more common pronunciation, but not 100% sure on that. His wife, Megan, they were highly regarded physical therapists in Connecticut. They had three children, Alec, Tyler, and Zoe.

11, 8, 4, I believe were their ages at this point. they were a normal, quote unquote, loving household seemingly from the outside. But after moving to the Disney design town of Celebration, Florida in 2017, the family became increasingly isolated. Megan struggled with Lyme disease, apparently due to a tick bite she got at Disney in depression. Her father, I don't think I mentioned this last week. Maybe I did, but her father had died by suicide like a decade earlier. And it was something that weighed on her obviously heavily throughout the years.

but then I think Tony, a lot of this is information we got through Tony and like take everything he says with like a mountain of salt because he's full of shit. Okay. But like when he says like, oh, she was so sick and depressed and didn't like this world, I'm like, how much do I believe about what was really going on versus like is he exaggerating? Well, especially because he was saying, he was saying like, oh, their whole doomsday thing that he's claiming that they were both like into thinking that like December 28th is the end of the world and they had the suicide pact. and I call bullshit 100%. And then he goes to jail and calls his sister and goes, oh, I actually wasn't there at all. Yeah.

You have lost the plot, my friend. The credibility. Yeah, like how am I supposed to believe anything you're fucking saying right now? There's no proof of this, no witnesses. You know, I just don't believe you in general. So I don't know how much of this is true because a lot of it is information from him. But from what we can tell, she was struggling with some health issues. Was that a fruit fly?

Yeah. Sorry. was or is? Did he meet his team? He might still be here. Sorry, I didn't mean to take away from your story. I'm sorry. No, you're fine.

Okay. So from what people could tell, though, Tony, at least from the outside, and I guess Megan a little bit too, they were not doing great. She was looking a bit sick. She had lost a lot of weight. And he was actually gaining a lot of weight. And he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at this point. they were just, they were going through it.

But no one except Tony knew how bad things really were because behind the scenes, Tony was actually drowning in a financial crisis and we don't even think Megan knew the half of it, you know, his way. I don't think so. I don't think so. He was under federal investigation for $130,000 in Medicaid fraud at his Connecticut practice. He faced over $100,000 in personal debt to like 20 different lenders, some like really, you know, sketchy ones that you don't want to be owing money to.

by late 2019, his professional license had expired. His business was collapsing. His family was facing eviction from their home in Florida. And this is when the holidays come up. 2019 holiday season. The family kind of appears to go off-grid. Tony sends some weird text to relatives claiming everyone has the flu and they're not coming back to Connecticut like usual for Christmas.

Weeks of silence go by. The family orders some wellness checks, federal agents and local deputies finally. enter the home on January 13th, 2020, and they discover that Tony has been living with the deceased bodies of his entire family for up to two weeks or so. Perhaps longer than that. They find him dazed.

He claims to be experiencing a Benadryl overdose. He had staged his family, his victims, wrapped in blankets, holding crucifixes, almost in like a... shrine-like manner. He initially provided a detailed confession, claiming he and Megan both went into the suicide pact together to keep the family together in the afterlife.

He outright, on recording, boldly admitted to suffocating his four-year-old daughter, suffocating and stabbing Alec and Tyler, assisting Megan's suicide by suffocating her after she stabbed herself, and then killing the family dog because they wanted to take the dog with them. Sick. And then not knowing how to kill himself. And that was his story that he tried so hard and he just couldn't do it. But he could kill his four-year-old. Right, right.

That was a lot easier. Wow. That part wasn't so hard. That one actually, you know, and he also survived. And not only that, but then he like ate peanut Eminem's next to its, next to the baby's corpse. I literally put the, this morning put the peanut Eminem's back in this part two. I was like, it deserves another fucking mention. It's so sick.

I really respect that in the last episode you tried to be like, well, I don't want to, like, give off, like, I don't want to, get too into the nitty gritty of it. But like now that's what I'm going to remember him as is like the guy who ate peanut down him's next to his fucking kid's dead body. That's what sticks with me because I think it's exactly what you're saying that it's like so specific that it almost makes it just like more real and like tangible. It feels like you're like can you imagine somebody doing it? Like that's so fucked up.

Bear with me. It feels relatable because like in a way. Yeah. It feels accessible like to understand from a. Yeah. It feels like I don't know why because it actually feels like it's literally the least relatable thing in the entire world. but it's there's something i can understand eating m&ms and it's like doing something so every day so

common so like it and next to you're gonna mention this later it is it is i'm just going to mention it now because it's just as relevant now but the peanut m&ms they're actually on a receipt of a pellet gun he bought at a sporting goods store and he bought like i forget what soda it's not a doctor but it was like like a diet coke and a bag of peanut m&ms and then a pellet gun and pellet ammunition and like you just see the receipt and it's just like so creepy to see just like a dick sporting goods receipt with like peanut and you're like this guy just went to the store. I think it's because his family's all dead at home. I mean it's just sick. I think it's because he what he did is so hard to wrap my head around that when you when you bring it back down to earth with something as simple it's like,

oh, he also just like goes to dicks. He also just eats him and ms like us and it's like once a Diet Coke. Yeah. It makes it extra eerie because it's like I can somehow relate to a part of you and not be able to get. So like if you're, if you can be normal like that or human like that. Oh, I know, I know that guy. You were like, I could know that guy. That could be my neighbor. I could know the guy at the dicks in front of me at the dick's sporting goods

buying peanut. Like if you said, if you said like, oh, he killed his family and then he also ate like, um, a big bowl of like glitter and scrapple, then I'd be like, that's insane. Like, like, and I still can't relate and it's just as ridiculous as the rest of it. But like this is very like, it feels like so mundane. Yeah. That's the word. Yeah.

That's the word. It's my brother's favorite word. He loves it when anything is mundane. I don't know why. He just loves like it's very emo, you know, like just a mundane short story about someone living their life, you know. Sorry, Zandi, I love you. But yeah, it's very mundane.

And that makes it like so much creepier somehow. Anyway, okay, thank you for bringing up the peanut M&Ms. It was definitely in my notes. So I'm glad you said it. So he admits to all of this, okay? And then he gets to jail. And he's like, I don't think. this is for me. He is on the phone with his sister who's fucking terrified and confused and was one of

the people she, her name's Chrissy, she's younger, she's one of the people that have called for wellness checks on the family. Tony changes his story when he's talking to Chrissy. He starts saying he had no memory of his confession. He says he doesn't remember anything about the month of December. He doesn't remember confessing, which then like why do you suddenly seem to have such a vivid memory of the fact that you were not home when your wife Megan murdered your children and you had no idea. This is what he's telling Chrissy now. Oops. I actually wasn't there. I have nothing to do with it. Like insane. Like what was, and she's like, you told them you did and he goes, I don't remember that. They literally fucking found you there. What do you like? It's on camera. Like, what are you talking about?

Oh my God. Like, if you weren't there when they died, explain how you were able to walk inside and throw your keys on the table and see the dead corpses and blood everywhere and then just keep it moving. Like, what do you mean? And then buy peanut M&Ms for dinner. Yeah. Don't worry. I have an entire explanation for all of it from his mouth. And it's very, it's very. I'll see right. I'm ready.

It's absurd. It's absurd. It's absurd. It's absurd. It's absurd. So now he's pleading not guilty. This is the summary of what we covered last week. And what I ended on was that in June 2020, while awaiting trial in the Osceola County

jail, Anthony Toad, sent a 27-page handwritten letter to his father, Robert, aka Bob. this was their first significant contact in years as Anthony had been estranged from Robert following a crime he was convicted of in 1980. The crime that Bob Toe, his dad, was convicted of was the crime of hiring a hitman to take out his own wife, Pony's mother.

This is why this story took me so many freaking weeks to do because it's like it's just so many layers. And so we're saying that he had not been speaking to his father because of this atrocity. Correct. And yet. It restrained. And yet. Here comes the 27 page letter. Are you going to read the whole thing?

No. Oh my God. Imagine. Actually, one of the YouTubers that I watched do a three-part series on this read, like, I think all of it. Most of it, all of it. And it's in his handwriting. So there were words where she's like, I literally don't know what this word says. I have no idea. But it is the ramblings of a madman. A narcissistic dad. Like it's literally just a rambling of somebody that you'd, be like, yep, obviously a total self-involved narcissist without empathy. Like you just read it and you're like, really? That's what you're complaining about in this 27-page letter. Wild. Your children were murdered and you're like, I've been doing a lot of housework and, you know,

like it's just like, what are you doing? He's unwell. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the story, though, about Bob and Loretta, his mom and dad. And what happened to them when he was only four years old? So here's a story. Loretta Toot woke up in the late evening to find a man in her bedroom at her home in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania. This is 1980. The intruder subsequently shot Loretta in the face at close range before rifling through doors to stage a burglary. Four-year-old Anthony walked into the hallway upon hearing this gunshot and reportedly saw a man in the hallway. And some sources report that the man picked four-year-old Bob up and put him back in his gunshot. And some sources report that the man picked four-year-old Bob up and put him back in his gunshot. bed. Loretta survived miraculously, but the bullet destroyed her left eye and remained permanently lodged in her skull, causing lifelong health struggles.

Following the event, her husband, Robert Bob, claimed a Charles Manson-style cult had broken in and smeared blood all over the walls. And, wow. Police were not buying it, okay. No? No, I know. Shocking. They arrested John, the amount of times people probably blame Charles Manson for shit.

And the police were like, we've heard that one before. It's 1980. Come on. I mean, you know other people who killed their families, though, were like, finally. Like, now I've got a really good excuse. Perfect excuse. Yeah. Perfect scapegoat.

Like, Charles Manson just really helps everybody kill their family members. I guess so, because he claimed that that is exactly what happened. But police were not buying it. They arrested John Tremonti and acquaintance that Bob knew through his teaching job as a special education teacher. This was a former student of his brothers, I think, or at the school. Tremonti confessed that Robert Tote offered him $800 to kill a woman. Bob described only as a babysitter. This is his wife, the mother of his children.

Bob allegedly provided Tremonti with a house key, a 32 caliber revolver, and bullets to carry out the hit. In a newspaper testimony summaries, Termonti also claimed Bob told him to shoot Loretta and said he could stab her two if he wanted. as long as the job got done. Ew. I'm like, oh, and if,

it's that, up to you. A cat playing with like, like, like, torturing a mouse or something. And it's like, just kill the fucking mouse.

But it's like, oh, and if you want to like, yank on its dead body while you're at it. That's what it feels like, it's like, oh, you can, you can play.

You have room to play. Yeah, you have room to do what you want. Like, yuck. Oh, I mean, it's all, yes. Investigators,

quickly discovered, Bob was leading a double life, actually a triple life, and was scheduled to marry a nurse named Colleen Fachechow just one month later. They already had their wedding date planned. And he decided this would be easier, I guess, than divorcing his wife. Imagine being engaged in finding out. Uh-huh.

Oh, my God. And then she had to testify about, like, because he was actually at her house, this Colleen woman, he was at her house as like his alibi when this occurred. And she was having to testify what time he took. left and I mean just to get wrapped up in something like this um also I said double life I met triple life he was also dating I don't know what the laws were back then a 17 year old girl as well so well I know what the law was but I don't know uh what morality was as a yeah yeah yeah exactly so um I say dating loosely because I I don't know like legality wise if this is considered

consensual I assume maybe at 17 you know back then but I I don't know. I don't know. Either way, it's just, it's so gross. And he has these three people on the hook here. He has two kids at home. And now this four-year-old literally witnessed his mother getting shot in the face. Okay.

And like, remember, you know, decades later, this is the one who literally kills his own wife and kids. So it's just such a weird cyclical, like. I would love to know the why behind, like, which we'll never get that answer. But, like, was it because, you? you witnessed this that that changed you and it always was like now an option for you because you saw that it was an option for somebody else or like or is this something chemically where both of you had this within you? Is this like a genetic like a lack of empathy or like yeah.

Yeah. Did the event like traumatize you to the point that it was yeah, in your subconscious? Is it something you've thought about? Like it's just a million questions. Yeah. I mean like was it normalized because of what happened? Yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, it's like obviously traumatizing,

especially like running into the guy in the hallway and then he picks you up and puts you, I mean, anyway. But also not speak to your father for years because of this, tells me that you knew it was wrong. So is this just a stroke of coincidence that like, what are the odds two generations? He's like, two buddies, like two buddies sitting next to each other, totally innocent.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. Um, so Bob's attorney argued that being an adulterer did not make him a murderer. Sure, that's true. They tried to say that this, this Charmonte guy, like, did this all on his own for drug money. Loretta, actually, this is pretty sad too. She testified for the defense and wept on stage and said her own husband would never do this. Even if he was having an affair, he would never try to hurt her. It's like pretty obvious he did this. But she had known him since she was 14. And like, she just was like, there's no way.

Like, how do you even... I would be denial, too. Exactly. She really just couldn't wrap her head around it. In 1981, the jury convicted robber of attempted homicide, conspiracy, and solicitation to commit murder. At the sentencing, Bob

embraced Loretta, and she shouted at the jury that they would have to sleep with this for the rest of their lives. But fortunately, within, I don't know, maybe months a year, they were divorced. She divorced him. And she did have to raise the children alone while struggling with like just the physical, the trauma, emotional, psychological.

And now she's a single mom of these two kids who were also traumatized, right? Like this is just all, it's heavy stuff. So Bob was released on parole in the early 1990s. The family really didn't have much contact with him after that point. And now we fast forward to 2020. Okay. So like 30-ish years later, the child who witnessed this violence at only four years old, Tony grew up to be the man who now murdered.

his own wife and children 40 years later in celebration Florida so tony writes this letter to his dad it's 27 pages i'm not going to read the whole thing i kind of want to maybe i'll do that on like just like a bonus bonus like a weird yappy hour it's like just like a sad horrible story time reading yeah yeah it's story time um almost to commiserate basically was this letter to about being wrongly accused like isn't it rough to be in this position his dad by the way was like you're giving me bad press it's like oh right you did say that last time yeah he's He's like, you're giving me a bad look, and it's like, if you're making me look bad, yeah. If he, if your dad who tried to murder your mom says you're giving him bad press, like,

it's just, hello, it's got to be bad. So Tony implored Bob to trust his account of what really happened. And he even asked his father to keep the contents of the letter private, uh, between him and his wife only. Although part of me wonders if he, I mean, he's not an idiot. He knows that mail is monitored in and out. So part of me is like, I think he was trying again to lay. groundwork like by writing in the letter all about how great

he is and what he does for his family, blah, blah, blah. So I don't think it was necessarily naivete. I think he did this on purpose. It ended up biting him in the ass, thank God, because the letter's insane, but I don't think he knew that. So the narrative Tony crafted in a letter was basically an expanded version

of his initial kind of plot twist where he says Megan did it all. Placed all the blame on Megan. And he actually wrote, by the way, ironically, in a 27-page letter, he finally got to the murders of his family. And he wrote, long story short, which I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? That's how you introduce.

Now let's talk about the elephant in the room. Long story short, hello? You've just spent like pages talking about how hard you worked on your home renovation projects. And now you're like, anyway, long story short, don't do that. Don't do that. Long story short, Tony wrote, she gave them the Benadryl, Tylenol, P. pie separated them woke up at 1130 p.m. stabbed and then suffocated each one. He claimed he wasn't even home when it happened that Megan had asked him to go get Zoe's Mickey Mouse necklace from their

nearby condo and he was so tired that when he, because he had been a really good dad that day. Oh, right. I'm sorry. It's a really exhausting job. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That one day he did something right. He did. He played basketball with the kids, even though he didn't really want to. He just love them so much. Honestly, he's so brave. He's so brave to be admitting all of this. So he goes on and on about how exhaust that he was from being a really good dad and husband. And so he says he goes to get this necklace for his daughter that his wife said so he wanted. But he was so tired from all the things he did with the kids that day that he fell asleep in his van

outside the condo, looked for the necklace, didn't find it. Also, side note, he told Chrissy this story and she went to the condo. and it was exactly in the spot where he said, oh, I looked in the jewelry box in Zoe's room. It wasn't there. And then Chrissy showed up and opened the jewelry box and was like, it's literally right here. So like you either didn't look, you're making it up.

Like he's not even making up a good story. But anyway, that's kind of besides the point. But so he says he goes to get this necklace. He falls asleep in the car because he's so tired, he's being such a good dad. Then he never finds a necklace. He wakes up and realizes he missed his and his wife's 4 a.m. Physical Therapy appointment because he's,

been trying to help her heal from all her ailments. And he had a bad day yesterday. He had to like spend time with his kids for five minutes. And that was so hard. It was really hard. And so now he has a 4 a.m. physical therapy. And then he even turns this on his wife because he literally said, I knew I was going to get a scolding from my wife about this. And it's like, fuck you.

Like, fuck you. There's no 4 a.m. Shut up. Shut up. Shut the fuck. Shut the fuck up. So you guys, I'm going back to my house. know I'm going to get a scolding worse than usual for falling asleep on her and not going to

her physical therapy, whatever. He rushes back allegedly and finds an eerily quiet home with all of his three children dead inside. And his wife, of course, looking like a total lunatic saying like, hi, honey, you know, I killed the children. I mean, it's like just like, really, okay. No. Guess how much I believe? A hot zero percent. Hot zero, hot zero. quote, I entered the house to find the melted dessert and remnants on plates on the tape. By the way, he's a terrible writer. And like the prepositions alone, it's like on, on, it's terrible writing. Do you think it's, I mean, I would just argue just because he's a stupid person.

But do you think he was nervous and like it just became a rambling because he was trying to like fill in all the blanks? No, I think he just like thinks very highly of himself and he writes in this sort of flowery way. know where you're like, who are you trying to impress you fucking the fucking queen? Yeah. Right. Like, shut up. And he's like, the creator, oh, God, what is her name?

I need to look up her name so I give her credit. But she was basically saying like, nobody, like, he's basically doing this to, he says this phrase all the time that's like, as I am a dedicated father, comma, or like, as I, like, you can just tell he has these stupid, like, writing tendencies that he's trying to sound like a genius, I guess, you know, mentioning he's a doctor, mentioning like all these things about himself to his own dad to try and get approval, I guess, from his murderous father. Great. I got to scroll through all these Angelina Ballerina Clips to find me video.

I'm so sorry. I thought you fucking said Angela Anaconda from fucking Nickelodeon. Oh, I don't even know who that is. Oh, it's an old Nickelodeon show, but I was like, why are you watching Angela Anaconda? I might be now, honestly. Angela Ballerina? Angelina Ballerina. It's like one season of a show that Leona had discovered from like 2005 with like terrible animation.

It's like that early like creepy stop motion tape. That's Angela Anaconda. That's exactly. No. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. It's same vibe, maybe. They're the same. You show Leona, Angela.

You show her that one. She might have a nightmare. Most likely. I'm going to have a nightmare. Remember like all the weird shows like on Kablam? Yeah, although it does feel kind of like a fever dream a little bit. Sorry, I was like, I've never heard that name in years. No, and you didn't hear it today either.

Okay, I heard it in my head. Okay, Stephanie Harlow, sorry. So that, very well-known YouTuber, but she did a three-part, and she, she's like my kind of gal. She goes into newspapers.com and, like, pulls the, like, articles and this, like, I found what he was eating, you know, like, like. Love. She's the one who's, like, giving him.

giving me the inspiration for all these little tidbits. But so the writing is just fucking annoying is what I'll say. Okay, here is what it says. I entered the house to find the melted dessert and remnants on plates on the table. It was some sort of, this. Oh, I remember this chick. I told you. I'm sorry.

I know we're in the middle of a dark thing. I just sent Christine a picture of Angela and Anaconda, so I wouldn't forget later. But it really unlocked. I'm so sorry. I just unlocked something. She like has a freckly face. I remember her. She's literally black and white, but the rest of her is not.

Yeah, but yeah, anyway, weird. Okay. Sorry, sorry, go ahead. So, on plates on the table, graham cracker crust, here we go. Oh, it was some sort of fruit pudding pie and a gram cracker crust. It looked pretty good, as all of my wife's desserts were, but smelled horrible. Turns out, it was a Benadryl pudding pie. Okay. Okay.

Megan, he claimed, calmly confessed to him that she had released the children's souls. According to the letter, Tony was so overcome, he ran to the bus. bathroom and vomited. Megan then in Tony's telling proceeded to kill herself in front of him. He said she stabbed herself in the abdomen and drank a bottle of Benadryl as he watched horrified, then asked him to suffocate her. Oh, shut up. And then it gets so much worse. When he couldn't or wouldn't suffocate her, he claims she told him, I finally found something you suck at. Wow. Bitches, right? Like, I,

Like, I. Those nagging wives. How did he find a way to turn his murder into him being a victim? That's incredible. It's incredible. Or his murdering somebody as him to victim. It's like remarkable. Like,

that he thinks this is going to work. And then I killed her. And then she was still criticizing me. Um, or then I tried to kill her and I still wasn't even good enough. Her last words. Yeah. It's, it's, it goes on.

What did he think? Did he think someone was going to go? Man, that's tough. I can't believe she would say that to you. 100%. 100%. He wanted his dad to be like, oh, I know how that feels, you know.

I wonder if he's just taken lines right out of his dad's playbook. Could very well be. Could very well be. The letter goes on to describe how Tony left alone with the bodies of his family, arranged the scene. He admitted that he wanted the children to be comfortable in the afterlife. And so he laid them all side by side in blankets, covered them and put rosary beads in their hands.

He wrote it, like, as if this was like a very common. compassionate thing. I think this is somebody who doesn't really understand what compassion is. So he's like trying to paint this weird like ritual picture to impress people. I totally, I have a belief that narcissists think compassion is people sympathizing for them. Like they think compassion is people having compassion for them. Oh. External compassion. And it feels like he's interesting. He feels like he's, it feels like he's, it feels like he's writing it in a way where he hopes people

have compassion for him, but he would define it as he's being compassionate to another person. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it totally fits because it must be hard to be this guy. His whole family's dead. Isn't that horrible? Yeah.

He'd be like, what? I'm doing the right things and you should feel bad for me. And it's like, no, that's not how that works. I fixed the deck by myself a few months ago. What the fuck? Like, he says shit like that. He's like, I did most of the work myself. And it was really heavy.

And it's like, okay. It's wild to hear him out loud. saying things that he thinks are, are the, like at the end, what he's hoping for people will pat him on the back. It's like, well, yeah, yes, he wants to look like the victim. Gross. You could have been a victim in so many other ways it didn't involve killing somebody. And then people would have like tolerated you, you know? Exactly. And it's like you, you already said you did this. It's not like, oh, we think he did. He literally said, oh, yeah, I killed them all. Okay. So now he's saying, no, I didn't kill any of them. I didn't.

just showed up and they were dead and then I put them in a lovely position on the floor to make them comfortable. Okay. He added, if I was there that night, this never would have happened. Hence the self blame and self condemnation. He says things like hence, you know, it's annoying. Hence the self blame and self condemnation. But because I was being so selfish, I have lost everything near and dear to me. And when I leave here in a couple months, yeah, fat chance. When I leave here in a couple months, I will be leaving homeless and without clothes. Okay. I'm fine with that.

This is like a man whose three children were just murdered in cold blood allegedly by his wife. It feels like people we know in our lives that are narcissists. Where it's like you are missing the plot point. Like you're in a totally different book. Yeah. It's crazy. The tunnel vision of trying to desperately make it about him. But like how do you miss the much bigger plot point here?

Because you're not even like able to pull out enough to go. That doesn't look very good. Even if, you know, you're spires. Yeah, he's losing it. So he's just like, so sad. Because I was so selfish falling asleep in the car before my wife's 4 a.m. Physical therapy because I was such a good dad the day before. That's why all this happened.

Oh my God. It's like pathetic. Above all else, Tony proclaimed to his father, I am not 100, not 1,000. I am 10,000% innocent. I'm sorry. If you're... Okay. It's, yeah.

Okay. Sure. Immediately, I'm like, oh, so you did it. Right. It's no better than saying you're 100% guilt-free. Correct. It's just, now we're just getting elaborate for no reason. Thou doth protest too much, my friend.

He says, I am 10,000% innocent of all these preposterous charges. Whenever someone says preposterous, I'm like, you're bullshitting me. I know you are. I have never heard anybody. but he actually, they're like, preposterous charges against me. It's preposterous. Yeah. If someone said that, I think the conversation would shift quickly into a different one where I'm

going, why the fuck are we talking like that? Why are we doing this? What's going on? I'm reading between the lines. What's going on? Yeah. He insisted that the only reason he hadn't gone public with the true story is that his high-powered lawyers advised him not to talk.

By the way, he had a public defender, which is fine. But don't say your high-powered lawyers, which he said, by the way, were the best in the state. It's giving like Donald Trump craziness, you know. Thousand percent. Yeah. He's like, these are the best in the state.

We have the best. This is a public defender that you were assigned. Like this is not even like someone you picked. So you guys, I'll say, I'm 10,000 percent not guilty. Is that what it is? Uh-huh.

Innocent. Sounds exactly like something someone else would say about some bottles. Doesn't it? 10,000 percent. And that's mathematically accurate. He should say like 58,000 or however. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 48,000 more times than Jesus in the files.

the Bible. Okay. So anyway, his high-powered attorneys said, don't tell the real story. Okay. But he added, once he was exonerated very soon, he planned to sue everyone involved. Again, this is striking a lot of similarities. The letter was all over the place. Of course, he described how much work he'd put in a home renovation project with like no thanks for it was the vibe. like I did so much for this family in this house. And he described his wife as nagging as burdensome. He didn't say those words, but he basically described that she was like always up his ass,

like giving him a hard time. She said it pretty well when he was like, she wouldn't, I choked her, I tried to choke her to death and she said that wasn't good enough. Exactly, exactly. I mean, that's all you need to know. Exactly. Oh, it gets worse actually, so hold on.

He, he though, of course, described himself as a devoted husband. He did everything. He always obeyed his wife. and that was kind of his whole thing. He said he obeyed her at every turn despite the fact that her illness had weakened her to the point that she experienced the loss of all female features.

Oh, shut the fuck up. Basically was like she's too skinny for me to even want to fuck. So why would, but look at me. I'm still giving her physical therapy appointments. Fuck you. Also, I love that. I have never seen a picture of this man.

I know enough about him to know that. however he looks is nothing like how that woman looked. I'll tell you. Yeah, please. Sit the fuck. Look in him here and sit the fuck down. You never, oh, God.

I'm so glad you said that because also, apparently this is a side note that only Stephanie Harlow talked about. And I was like, holy shit. Apparently his dad is like this total health nut, right? And so when he's writing to his dad and he had gained like a significant amount of weight, Tony had and was diagnosed with diabetes, he writes in this letter like,

I finally have my six pack back. And it's like, bullshit. Like, he's so transparent. You just want daddy to, like, feel bad for you, you know? And he's like, I've eating so much protein and I'm doing pull-ups and I got my six-pack. And it's like, what are you doing? You're eating P&A Eminem's next to your dead family. You fuck.

Like, shut up. Yeah. And also, all I had to hear was my dad was a health nut. And I'm immediately analyzing like, oh, so you're, first of all, didn't have to tell me dad was a little controlling when he was already murdered mom, you know? Yeah. Oops. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Whoopsies. But I guess that's also another hard part of your life. Yeah. So yeah, he goes, oh no, she lost all her female features. Okay. He also claimed he was starting a non-profit in honor of his family. Okay. He said he was working on a book.

Okay. This is like when he's first in prison. This is like years ago. Like this is not like recent. He's already writing a book like fucking however many years ago. He has a list of lawsuits from. when he gets out of here. So Bob received his letter and apparently immediately gave it to his attorney and was like,

what the fuck? This is my son's letter. At one point his dad, like I said, even said that his son's story was giving him bad press and then I just wrote L.O.L and big letters. By July 2020, within weeks, the Orlando Sentinel had obtained a copy of the entire letter and published a damning article revealing its contents, became front page news in the true crime world, headlines blared things like Celebration Dad blames slain wife for families murders in jail house letter. Just like very sensational. People magazine, NBC News. They're all picking up on it.

Everyone is like, this is insane. Like, does he expect us to believe this? Like, I wonder what he was telling like his close personal friends that I'm sure he had. Like, what is he, is he like, wow, look at me go? He, the only person I think he really spoke candidly with was his sister on the phone and then his dad in this letter and on the phone he definitely painted it as like man i just don't know i don't remember anything from the month of december but megan you know she's just so unwell i just don't even know what's going on and like i don't remember anything except my horrible my wife was and how bad that benedrelle pie smelled like fuck you yeah that's a great point it's easy you remember that pretty darn well and how much basketball you played with your son like yeah you remember all five minutes of that of how good of a dad you were

due to the pandemic, other delays, it was not until more than two years later in April 2022 that Anthony's trial took place in the interim Florida prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty because it simplified the trial and if convicted, Tony would receive life in prison automatically. Opening statements began April 11, 2020, in a Kissimmee courtroom. The prosecution presented their theory that Tony Toke killed his family to maintain control as his own life spiraled out of control. assistant state attorney Danielle Pennell painted a picture of a man overwhelmed by debt and disgrace who decided to commit an extended suicide taking his loved ones with him.

The prosecution leaned into Tony's own words from his confession, which was taped and he'd had his rights read to him. It's not like he knew what was happening. Whatever, okay. In his confession, they quoted a line that he'd said to detectives that night that parents, quote,

bring their children into this world and they get to decide when they leave. He said that. Say it again slowly. Parents bring their children into this world and they get to decide when they leave. Okay. They argued that Tony's motive boiled down to control and possibly warped love. Like maybe he was like, I don't want to punish them, but I think it's more just like a shame spiral and, you know, all sorts of other things. They did acknowledge that his motive wasn't crystal clear, but they said, we don't

really actually need to prove the motive. We just need to prove that he fucking did this and he did. We have a confession. We have physical forensics. We have a letter blaming Megan, which like is clearly a Hail Mary 180 situation. The defense, meanwhile, was very obvious in their cross examinations basically saying like there's doubt. There's a little doubt. We don't know who made a Benadryl pie. Could have been Megan, you know, like just a lot of trying to poke holes. Because what else are they going to do? guess if their argument is like, well, we're just trying to prove that you could be innocent. Right.

Not that you're not guilty or not that you're not guilty or guilty. Just that you could be innocent. And he's like, but 10,000 percent, right? 10,000 percent. Not any less than that. Right, right, right, right. Right. Yeah, they told the jury there were no eyewitnesses.

So there's like no way to know who really committed the murders. Of course. Yeah, of course. And so they also said like, oh, this confession was sort of like coerced because he fell down the stairs and was on Beniger. and he doesn't even remember it. But they were not really allowed to argue that. They were like, you can't argue that he had like mental health stuff. Like we've already kind of, that's just not, it's not allowed in this trial.

So instead they doubled down on the storyline that Megan did all of it alone as the villain, evil villain. Love that they had options. I know. I love that for them. That's totally what an innocent person does. She's your own adventure. Several things were not allowed to be addressed during the trial. The prosecution was not allowed to bring up Tony's insurance.

fraud case, which is fair because it's probably like a separate case happening with the FBI, the prosecution was not allowed to bring up Tony's insurance fraud case, his past mental health issues, or the fact, fun fact, that in German, the word tote means dead. You know what? Fun fact for you. I love that even if we couldn't talk about it then, we talked about it now. You know? Precisely.

And I want to add like, I looked at, I saw the name tote family murders and I went, the dead family murders what kind of fucking wild out. And then I found out that his dad also named Tote tried to kill his wife. I'm like, what is going on with this fucking family? Tote. It means dead. It's like

death. It's creepy. So anyway, the prosecution rested its case in three days. They presented crime scene photos, autopsy reports, testimony from a dozen witnesses, including the folks who picked him up at the house to begin with. Then the defense began their side. They called one witness.

Tony himself. High risk move, but also he insisted, of course he did, on telling his story on the stand. So they put him on the stand. He wore a suit and glasses. He had lost a lot of weight. He was 46-year-old, years old now. He had a six-pack, just kidding. I don't know that, but I'm sure he'd tell you he did.

He spoke directly to the jurors, often through tears, in what appeared to be an emotional plea. he basically rehashed his 27-page letter with more detail. Okay. Help us all. 27 wasn't enough. No, no, no. Megan was the true villain, of course. She was also sick and delusional.

He described how her lifelong health issues had plunged her into despair and radical beliefs. He testified that she had become engrossed in a Hinduism-based belief system with a focus on... Ew! I know. Yuck! With a focus on reincarnation. and shedding bad karma. Like how ironic.

Like, okay, you couldn't have picked something other than like Buddhism, the most relaxed, like peaceful fucking religion in the world. Okay. It's like, God, she just believed in being radically kind. And karma. Exactly. You're fucked in that case. She started watching Doomsday.

This is all, according to him, started watching Doomsday videos, that there was this imminent apocalypse. And people are like, oh, my God, COVID was coming up. But it's like, yeah, but he's halfway through, he's in 2022. He can make this up and say she knew about an impending... Right. Nobody's saying that except him. So I don't find that to be like very impressive.

Certainly not his best lie that I've heard so far. No, no, no. So this is what he says happened. Between December 14th and 18th, he does not know the exact date, allegedly. He returned home from evening, one evening from looking for Zoe's favorite necklace to find Megan eerily calm. She told them he, she had killed their children. he said he threw up, he ran to find his kids,

he said, it's the most horrible day of my life. And then he said, he returned to the primary bedroom, saw Megan standing by the bed with a knife, and out of a horror movie, she stabbed herself in the stomach, and said she wanted to join the kids in death.

Okay. Okay. He said he yelled for help out a window, but did not leave the house. But he did go to Dix? Yeah, when they were all dead, he'd started to go to, he went to Starbucks too, this fuckhead.

Right. Couldn't ask for help then. Couldn't pick up a fucking phone. No. Well, so here's the thing. She had hidden their cell phones, is the story. Oh. And he's like, I couldn't call anyone because she hid my cell phone.

And he said his best chance was to get her to tell him where the phones were rather than leaving her alone. He said, if I left her, I thought she was going to die. I thought the best chance was for me to tell her, for her to tell me where the phones were. He said, during the last moments of her life, she gave him a dramatic final speech. Because, of course, she did. Oh, because she has the ability to speak currently. stabbing herself in the stomach and drinking a bottle of Benadryl. Okay, so she told him she wanted to die to be with the kids and then expired right in front of him.

Okay. And he then tried to explain away the next part, which was living with the bodies for weeks. He said after Maggie died, he was essentially paralyzed by grief and trauma. He moved the children's bodies to clean them up. He admitted he tried to kill himself. And here he went into a list of all his failed suicide attempts. He said, instead of trying to die out of guilt, he actually was very, trying to die out of duty to join his family.

Oh, his duty. Oh, I remember when he was a good dad, his duty to be a dad for five seconds because they played basketball. But he can be a good man and end it all. They love to be martyrs, these guys. They love to be martyrs. It's like, nothing he loves more. Fucking annoying. And he said he deserved to die for not stopping Megan from her atrocious acts.

Okay. Tony said he tried to buy a gun, but was told there's a three-day waiting period. but I'm like you had two weeks, but whatever. Okay, so he said there's a waiting period. So instead, he tried to overdose on Benadryl a few times. He put zip ties around his neck allegedly to hang himself from a doorknob. That didn't work. He even recounted buying it pellet gun, which is where I mentioned the receipt with the peanut M&Ms.

He, of course, that didn't work because it isn't necessarily lethal. So he bought the pellet gun to harm himself, but also made sure to get a snack before he ever did. That's exactly it. And then ate the, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And a fucking Carmel Machiatto. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's like, but I'll get to the pilligan eventually. Yeah. I feel really, I'm, I need to emotionally eat first because I'm hungry.

Yeah. I feel so bad. I feel like my duty. Jesus. Finally, he slashed it himself with a knife, he says, but in his words, he chickened out and didn't pierced deeply enough. Well, where's the fucking, where's a cut? I want to see a cut line. No clue. No clue. Um, he's clearly trying to garner sympathy, as we've sensed. Um, he had two weeks alone and he, is allegedly saying that they're trying to pin him for something he would never do. He's just a dutiful husband and that's his only sin. Okay, blah, blah, blah.

So crucially also, he addressed the elephant in the room, which was his confession. And he said, oh, I don't remember that at all because I'd taken Benadryl. I was traumatized and I fell down the stairs. And I was actually, what I was doing is I was covering for my wife because I wanted to take responsibility. Okay. she did this horrible thing. And I, as a patriarch of the family, I wanted to defend her, to protect her. I, sometimes I would love, if anyone knows a judge, can you tell them to write into the comments?

Because I'm so curious how they, they have to take a class in law school, how to keep a straight face. Good point. Because if I were this, I would be Judge Judy all over this. I'd be like, girl, like, you cannot fucking think, I believe you. I'd be like, pah! Like every five seconds. Yes, I'd be good. honking. I'd be like, you are so stupid. Like, I don't know how you stay partial or impartial.

So the cross-examination was very intense. Danielle Pennell, she played segments of Tony's confession tape and said, is this your voice? And he was like, yes. And it said, I suffocated my four-year-old daughter. I mean, it's like, how are you going to? Hello? Hello? He plainly describes murdering his kids, pretty chill. Penel asked him to explain how he could recall, like, all the details of what happened but not his confession. And he basically said, I was just trying to protect my wife's honor, probably,

but I don't remember. Unfortunately, there was evidence at the scene that there was a struggle between Tony and Alec, which is really sad because they think he woke up and fought back.

There were bruises and scratch marks on him. And he was the oldest and he was like the shy one. It just made me really sad. It made me really sad. So April 14, 2022, both sides delivered closing arguments. The jury deliberated several hours, and despite some disagreement, they reached a unanimous decision. When they announced it, Tony basically just shook his head and said no, every time.

Guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Megan, Alec, Tyler, Zoe, and Breezy, the family dog. Tony was just like, oh, no, it didn't do this. Meanwhile, Megan's family wept and hugged each other out of relief and sorrow. When given a chance to speak, Tony said, no thanks. Just kidding. He said, absolutely. And he got up there to talk. And his lawyer had to try and get him to sit down two times because he talked for so long about just like how he didn't do this.

I mean, he wrote a 27-page letter. I can't imagine speaking goes any shorter. A podium. Give that me a podium? Yeah. Please. They were like, they had to probably hold him down under duress. We've made a huge mistake.

Yeah, this is enough. His lawyer really had to like pull him down. The judge, actually, now that you mention it, told Tony, you are a destroyer of worlds. Oh. Yeah. He's not fucking happy with him. He said he, you destroyed not just one world, but four. Those of his wife and three kids.

And in the process devastated every relative and friend who loved them. He then sentenced him to the four murder counts life in prison without the possibility of plus an additional 365 days in county jail for animal cruelty. Okay. In the aftermath, he was sent to Florida Department of Corrections. He, as of mid-2020, he's incarcerated at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution of Milton, Florida. They appealed, which is pretty standard in a murder conviction. And, yeah, he sued in 2024, he sued the sheriff's office for releasing his letter,

his 27 page letter, but they were like, well, you, it's jail mail. Like, it's monitored. Like, you can't, you can't do that. Okay, they dismissed it. In the end, it's just just a horrible, horrible story. Megan 42, loving mother, friend, sister, Alexander Tote 13, shy, honor roll student, budding musician who loved history in soccer. Tyler 11, a family comedian who played folk guitar and was kind to all his neighbors. Zoe, four years old, who liked to play princess and dance

and had her brothers wrapped her on her finger and of course Breezy, the little white dog. It's just the whole family just extinguished in one night. I mean, it's just unreal. It's unreal. So that's the story of the tote family murders. And who, I got goosebumps.

I do appreciate when you do the, like, stories where it's just like so beyond an absolute narcissist. Yeah. There's like no question. No question. And not that like this is at all like a laughable topic, but it like it brings some sort of levity to it because it's just like this is so ridiculous.

It's absurd. It's like you've done something so horrible. You can't pretend like we're like we're not stupid. Like people are not that stupid. Like you're a monster. Yeah. Can't talk your way out of this one. I like the two-partners, Christine.

And she should keep that going. Yeah, that one really kicked my ass. That first day when I was like, I can't do this, I can't. I can't. Maybe you shouldn't. Never mind. No, no, no. It was good.

It was like really fascinating. And I feel like some of these cases is just like, you could go down 800,000 rabbit holes and just like never come up for air. So, yeah, that was a dozy. But thank you for listening, everyone. This has been a long episode. I apologize. I was doing my interrupt. You know, the ghost even told me to stop interrupting.

No, I really feel like I made this episode about me a few times. I feel like about the beginning I talked to quote. Oh, well, God forbid, we make our episodes about us. Well, thank you, everybody. We will see you. Sorry, that was an accident. I don't know what I did. I was trying to minimize the full screen and I think I minimize myself.

Christine is out of here. Bye. So we'll see you next week. And that's why we drink.