And That's Why We Drink - E53 The Perm of the Century and A Call to the Apron Factory

Episode Date: February 4, 2018

It’s episode 53 and the gasp is back. This is maybe our scariest episode yet. Em covers Christine’s favorite topic, Black Eyed Kids (BEKs), whose eyes are voids as black as Em’s heart. Meanwhile, Christine covers the totally bananas story of Dolly Oesterreich and her “Bat Man” lover, who just wanted to drink bathtub gin and write pulp fiction, but ended up being arrested for murder. Additionally, Em was groped by a ghost and Christine can’t subtract by two. Can we use your telegraph? Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Visit www.tryfirstleaf.com/drink to get your introductory three-pack of wines for only $15! Visit Stamps.com/drink for a 4-week trial PLUS postage AND a digital scale without longterm commitments. Use promo code DRINK for $10 off your first FabFitFun box at www.fabfitfun.com!

Hello! Hi. Hey! I wanted to start off on a... We tried to start this a few minutes ago and it was just so... I got distracted by something that makes me mad, so... We were all kind of dull and heavy, so now I'm trying to lighten the mood. Thank you. Woo-hoo! Welcome to the show! It's Grant.

Welcome. Welcome to And That's Why We Drink. Why are you drinking? Well, first I want to say that i'm going to ignore that question because i want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by our 25 patron taisha well that that's why i drink that's why i drink too she's a gal pal she's taisha she's great she's on our facebook the secret facebook group she's a gal pal. Thanks, Taisha. She's great. She's on our Facebook, the secret Facebook group. She's a lot of fun. Wonderful gal. And she supports us.

She's supported us for four months now. So thank you. She's the bomb. She's the bomb.com. You know, I keep forgetting to tell you. Oh, boy. A ghost story. What?

A personal one. It's so weird that you keep forgetting and then you do it every week anyway. Shut up, Christine. Listen. This is my stage and you are my audience i wanted to tell you since i came back from virginia but i keep forgetting to do it now do it right now so here let me turn this off so that we don't bother the listeners oh yeah they wouldn't be they don't want to listen to this um i need to turn my phone down so um so i spent the last one of the last nights in virginia at deirdre's house oh boy and she lives in dc now so um and then cloudy our other friend

the two of us spent the night at her place and she has a really big bed so all three of us were like in a spoon train fun cloudy was in the middle and cloudy passed out really early not a little earlier than us and so deirdre and i are on either side of her and kind of like talking and laughing and then all of a sudden i'm pretty sure like at this point i thought deirdre had gone to bed i thought she had fallen asleep so i was just kind of lying there and i'm in a bed with two other people behind me like I was the baby spoon out of all three right and I thought like I mean we've known each other since we were little so like obviously we're gonna like fuck with each other and I thought I felt Deirdre's hand like kind of like fall over onto Cloudy and like kind of hit me in the process like her arm like kind of reached over and hit me

yeah and I but then like the hand was kind of like traveling and like grabbing my butt and i thought she was like just trying to like freak me out and i thought she was like trying to just be goofy or whatever and i let it happen i didn't even stop her i was like i i want to see how weird it gets and so yeah you're like two can play this game exactly and so her like it just kept, like, squeezing tighter and tighter. On your butt? Yeah, literally directly on my butt. And eventually, like, it didn't hurt, but I was very aware of it. And I just felt it, like, kind of, like, squeezing really tight and also, like, rubbing back and forth, like, kind of pacing on my butt.

What the? And so all of a sudden, I'm like, ha-ha, Deirdre, that's so funny. And Deirdre's like like on the other side of the bed and she goes what and i and i was like i grabbed my phone and i like threw on the flashlight and i was like oh what like you don't know and then i like pointed it at my ass and there was no one there and as soon as the light hit my butt i felt a hand release and i saw the blanket move what like it was absolutely it was like literally under the blanket no like i moved like someone like was taking their hand off the blanket that

was covering me but i saw like i like absolutely i was a thousand percent sure that you're just trying to mess with me what did she say about it then she was like oh yeah this place is pretty haunted and i was like what the i'm sorry what a pervy ghost by the way yes a very pervy ghost what a freak but so like i don't i don't know but i brought it up and i was like did you we both started doing that nervous laughter where we're like okay what the fuck do we do and it's probably dark and you're like uh because i was like i was like your hand was just on my ass and she was like no, no, it wasn't. And then we started being like, oh, my God. Like, definitely, definitely, definitely just got groped by a ghost.

I just see Allison going, likely story, Em. I tried to tell her. And she literally was like, hmm, I'm hungry. And I was like, damn it. She's probably not believing that ghostly groping story. But no, Deirdre and I kind of just awkwardly laughed it off and then fell asleep. And I keep forgetting to tell you, but anyway, I guess that's why I drank. That would freak me out very, very much.

I don't know how you fell asleep. Well, I was like, if that's the worst that's going to happen. And I just went to bed. I don't know. Who knows what happened when I fell asleep? Maybe they're like, no, whoa. I meant like, maybe they like grabbed my butt again, or maybe they like grabbed Deirdre's butt. Maybe they didn't grab anyone. Let's hope. I'm like maybe they like grabbed my butt again or maybe they like grabbed yours, but maybe they didn't grab anyone.

Let's hope. I'm just saying I was fine. You never, you don't know whose butt it got next. I mean, I would just. The possibilities are endless. The weird thing though is I've never, like I've experienced things where someone kind of touched me or I felt like I was kind of being touched, but this was a firm, like I was baby spooning and looking at the wall and was i didn't even question it i was

so sure it had been cloudy in her sleep thinking you were like she's she's like dead when she's sleeping she just does not move and you saw the and i i like turned the flashlight and my flashlight was on my butt and i was looking at it and i i absolutely felt a hand leave. And no one's hands, no one's living hands moved. My favorite part of the story is when you went, and then I shined the flashlight at my ass. I did. I'm glad that was your favorite part out of all of that. What you expect. Wow, that is quite a tale.

Thankfully, I don't have a true crime story to tell from this month well good knock on wood anyway um i do a couple announcements all right number one next week is our one year anniversary episode yay can you believe it yeah guys we're planning something special fun special things slash if you saw our last facebook live video you kind of watched us create it oh yeah yeah you kind of created it and we just like stole it yeah we were like okay actually yeah someone mentioned and we were like sure that's what we're doing but that also means that today is episode 52 right it's actually episode 53 which is why i'm very confused oh it's fine it's because our first episodes we did we released three in one

week yeah because we didn't we didn't know about us signing a day episodes we did we released three in one week yeah because we didn't we didn't know about us signing a day no we did there was a whole thing on itunes or on like the message boards that i was talking about how if you release multiple in a week and your first week then you get like traction you listening potential podcasters then you pick a day seriously apparently that's a thing well then i guess last week we have been doing this for a full 52 weeks aka a full year can you believe it no i cannot no it's actually pretty crazy so we have some fun things planned for you and speaking of planning fun things we're going to crime con in nashville and we know we've told you this before but we want to stress like

really heavily that ticket prices change at the end of this month. So please, if you haven't gotten your ticket yet, use promo code ATWWD for a discount. And we're planning a special surprise for anyone who uses the code. Yes. So that is very exciting. And we also just want to meet you guys. And we're planning on doing a meetup with people who... Who do get to get there. Yeah, who get to use the code and everything.

So just come be our friend. We just want people to like us. Use our code. That's CrimeCon in Nashville, May 4th through 6th. We really want to meet you. Also, if you guys use the code, it really helps the podcast and helps us get there. Yes. So that would be great, too. We would like to get there. Can you imagine if someone used our discount and then we couldn't get there yes so that would be great too we would

like to get there we imagine someone used our discount and then we couldn't get there oh my gosh oh man good times uh beep boop bop also fun story before i forget i want to thank a bunch of people who are just i mean i feel like all our listeners are just like the best the best actual angels. And I have mentioned like my dream vacuum in that last episode. Shut up. They did not. People are donating to my registry and I just started crying and I'm like, oh, my God. And so I started getting thank you notes ready already.

Oh, my God. First, Rick Perry, one of our listeners, was the first one who found it and just donated toward the vacuum and was like, just wanted to contribute. And I was like, thank you. And then Carly found it and messaged me and was like, do you mind if I post this on the group? I think people will want to help you out. And I was like, wait, what? And then all of a sudden, I started getting all these things about people are donating toward your vacuum cleaner.

And I'm like, you guys are so sweet. So we're going to steal it. Halfway to the vacuum cleaner and i'm like oh my god so sweet so we're gonna steal it halfway to the vacuum cleaner i'm so excited so you guys are just gems and i have been just tearful all week about it so thank you anyway that's my that's my spiel do you have anything why are you drinking because a month ago a grope i got groped by a ghost i got polter groped by a ghost. I got polter groped. I'm sorry. I really did think it was Deirdre. I swear.

Also, you guys think you're real slick, but Deirdre has texted me and told me that a lot of y'all are trying to add her on Instagram these days. So I'm in the know. As if she doesn't. Oh, so you're saying as if i think people are trying to be trying to sneak around on you oh yeah got it yeah it's a betrayal that i'm aware of betrayal um i mean she did introduce everyone to sugar bush so i feel like she deserves the love that's true um also remember how we told everyone to make us a get us a tv show did they do it

can you imagine and then the camera crew comes in i would make that jim halpert face of like i mean i wouldn't be wearing like flannel shorts if that were no they told us that this has to be as natural as possible oh so this is me and my habitat i have three bottles of wine around me and I'm in flannel shorts. No. So people were like, oh, so someone tweeted us like, well, how do we get you a show? And I'm like, I wouldn't be asking if I knew how. We only have masters in TV production.

Yeah. I'm like, why are you asking me? And then I'm like, oh, wait. Also, at Science Rough, R-u-f-f tweeted it's tweeted your tv show should be called drunk mystery and i like that's the funniest thing i've ever heard in my life i almost fell out of my chair that's so fucking creative with that we kept calling it drunk history but with us which is a drunk batman in a kilt um yeah so drunk mystery seems like probably the best thing to ever hit television ever.

Okay. Netflix, are you listening? Hello? Hulu? Hello? Hulu? Fresh? Fresh?

Okay, but we are giving HelloFresh, like, the ads of their dream. They didn't even ask for this. Hello? Hulu? What, they didn't ask for us to just obnoxiously yell into the microphone yeah probably for a reason anyway let's make it happen drunk mystery taisha thank you for donating yes this one is for you there was well it was funny that you said and then the cameras roll out and we would have our reality show and I would have just been signed on.

And Bob Barker was here, yeah. Oh, well. I just added that to my fantasy. All right. No, because for a while they were trying to make a TV show at my work. I remember that. And so like every now and then all of a sudden there'd just be cameras. I remember that.

It was always the most awkward times. Like I'd be really going to town on a sandwich. And then I would look up and there'd be a camera in my face. And I was like, I did not sign off on this. It's like the BBC doing a documentary and you're, like, eating, like, in your natural habitat. Yeah. Eating a Subway sandwich. Scarfing it down in 20 seconds or less.

Oh, man. Anyway. Lord help anyone who has to watch a reality show about us. Spoiler alert. They filmed it for eight seasons and none of them got on TV. Eight seasons or eight episodes? I was like, holy. And then I aged immediately into an old man. I was like, are you 45?

How old do you think I am? I mean, you're always insisting how much younger you are than me. So it's like. I guess. Listen. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about let's talk about it let's talk let's get into the nitty-gritty let's let's channel my walter cronkite what is wrong with you i don't know oh even geo's mad i'm just in a weird place okay can you just tell me about a ghost now

oh you already did i keep trying to come up with a clever pun and you just pick the best one. And now we're going to get a bunch of tweets and we feel like an idiot. Yeah. Another ghost. I already told you about this. I think a couple days ago I woke up at 3am sharp. Um, you actually said this on the listener episode. I did. It still bugs me. Wait, what do you mean? It's like the ghost still bugs you or the membrane of it still bugs you? Like do you mean it's like the ghost of books or the membrane of it still books like i've been waking up a lot more at three lately oh god last night actually i was at allison's and i woke up at 3 a.m so now it's following you to allison's oh no well i'm just asking i just like i woke up like in a like in a creepy way like i was lying like coffin position

i hate that and my eyes just went like blink just like wide open and then i couldn't sleep for like an hour it was very weird ew and that's why i drank but the staring thing didn't happen right last night last night i didn't feel like i was being stared at but i felt like there was a reason i wasn't supposed to be asleep oh and usually and that's happened a lot in my life and i assume that like like there was one time I couldn't fall asleep yeah and then like someone called and there was an issue and it was like thank god I was awake to help right right but this time like nothing happened something just won me to be awake it was very weird that's a rude ghost all right so in honor of it being a full year and we're doing our anniversary special

at a different time i wanted to give you a story that i know you would love i was gonna say guess but i don't want you to guess a different story and then i fucked up so i'm sure that's not the case but okay you've requested this many times what wait whoa i'm so excited what is it just guess and then if you're wrong we'll edit it no just tell me so I can freak out. It owns an acronym. I'll let you just figure out by the acronym. B-E-K.

Yay! I knew it. I knew it. Yes. I'm so pumped right now. Black Eyed Kids. Guys. Oh, man.

Actually, I was just telling someone this is the only topic that actually scares me. And we're home alone right now. So this is great. Well, let's wait. Let's crack into it as it spills all over me. Let's crack open a cold one. By the way, that's not beer. It's sparkling water.

It's La Croix. It's La Croix for M. It's lime, in case anyone cares. Lime's one of my favorite flavors, fun fact. Ew. First of all, what do you mean by ew? This is yours. You bought it.

I feel like it's different to water, but like lime popsicles. Yeah, that's my favorite. Gross. Well, orange is first. No, I was going to say, as long as it's not orange. Orange is my favorite flavor all across the board. And everyone knows orange is the worst flavor. No. Literally everyone knows that think about starburst yeah those are my favorite starburst you're the only human in the world so it's orange and then lime is my second favorite

you're so wrong about it though i'm sorry i'm not okay so the so okay this is gonna be an interesting it's gonna be a weird one on how i talk about this i'm i'm there's a lot to unpack here i am geeking out right now so should i tell you the fun part now or later what should i tell you i don't know don't make me decide things okay we're gonna rapid fire as much as i can about the like i'm just gonna tell you the fun now so half of my story i compiled a lot of good personal stories of people experiencing i thought you meant of you you i was like every story of me with a black eyed kid so one time one grabbed my ass well oh can you imagine if i no oh my god okay thank god it wasn't that i'm sweating okay so for people who don't know what

a black eyed kid is oh right we should probably explain that i mean it's a black eyed kid um it's not like they've been punched in the eye but no like they're in replacement of their eyeballs are gaping black holes. Voids. Voids. Into an abyss. Into my heart. Oh my. Into the dark abyss that is Em's heart.

So they are regularly known to have jet black eyes without any sclera, which is the white part of your eye. Fun fact. Or iris or pupil. It's literally just a black mass. i'm not kidding that i'm already freaked out and you've said you're about to get real fucking creeped out also when i woke up at 3 a.m i woke up and the laptop was still open for me reading these stories that's the weird part no so there was like a light from the screen that illuminated okay i need to shut the door i'm actually very scared so i'm gonna shut the door

are you serious already yeah i'm already one sentence in this it's not even a scary one astonishing legends did a three-part series i know and i tried to listen to it and then i was like if i listen to it i'm gonna do that thing where i subconsciously steal their stuff so i just didn't listen that's what i do if my favorite murder does one i never listen to it because i'm like i don't want to accidentally take their quotes and stuff we don't plagiarize listen we're academics goodbye i need to put elevator music on while i shut the door okay you're better i'm back all right so the black-eyed kids not only have black eyes here are their commonalities within stories of people that have reported experiences with them okay they are known to knock on your door or your window asking to be let in

their voices can be monotonous but have high-pitched giggles so the origin you might ask but m where do these come from but m but let me grab your butt i'm a ghost all right so it officially started in the mid 1990s it was like an internet like a viral internet right story um very much on the same level as like slender man right like a creepy pasta like a creepy pasta yeah a lot of people think it's a creepy pasta but anyone who's experienced a black eyed kid they all swear that this is real like it's right well the original story is actually not right a creepy pasta the the guy who wrote the original story swears it's true it just ended up on creepy pasta and so a lot of people think oh that's where it originated right right but he actually originally wrote the story two years after his experience in a ghost, like a paranormal forum.

Right. Where the only people that can reply were paranormal investigators to help you. Yeah. So he wrote the story and then it somehow ended up on Creepypasta and people think, oh, well, it's... Someone, right, right, right. Like it's a Reddit... Like it's fiction or whatever. So he was a blogger.

His name was Brian Bethel. And he first reported it on a ghost hunter forum of something that happened to him in 96 in Texas, where he was parked in his car in front of a movie theater. And two boys around nine and 12 wearing hoodies knocked on his car window, which these days, I don't care what your age is. If you're knocking on my window, I think you're going to kill no um but also this was 1996 so who knows who knows he says i was immediately gripped by an incomprehensible soul-wracking fear because that's also a symptom that they they like are known to manipulate the energy where all you feel is dread and doom

so like you never feel safe like as soon as you see them, you're ready to shit your pants. So why do you want to let them into your house? You don't. They just come up to your house and ask to come in. Oh, my God. So he cracked the car window, and they said, oh, we want to go see Mortal Kombat. Me too.

But we forgot our... Said something like, we forgot our tickets, and we need you... Can you drive us into town to go home and pick up our and back or some weird story like that right and he was like he knew that something was wrong when he realized that the last showing of mortal combat was already an hour in and was like why do you want to go back and get your tickets and so so they're not very good liars either and so he kind of rolled up his window and he was like, no, sorry. Like he just like made up any excuse he could. And another common thing is that if you deny them, they start getting really angry really fast.

Oh my God. And so all of a sudden they got crazy angry, started pounding on his car windows and saying, we can't come in unless you tell us it's okay. Like come into his car. They started saying, let us't come in unless you tell us it's okay. Like, come into his car. They started saying, let us in, let us in. He, like, just got the hell out of there. And he looked in his rearview mirror and no one was standing there. How fucking traumatizing.

All right, I need to get the t-shirt quilt out. Hold on. Don't tell Blaze if I spill wine on it. He'll know. It's not white wine, Christine. Fair point. So, anyway, they were gone and uh he wrote even if they had ran i don't believe there was any place like close enough that they could have hidden from that view

that quickly um a lot of people question this story as like just a creepypasta kind of story because a month earlier he wrote a post on his blog talking about the concept of creating um an entity out of like just collective thought like just the power of energy creating something into existence what's the word for that again uh uh a tulpa yeah yeah tulpa a tulpa is a an apparition that's concocted by your own mind, your energy. Yeah. Um, so he wanted, this is one of the questions that he asked in his blog.

Um, the month before he wrote the story is, can we create something like bloody Mary just by collective force of will? Oh. And so then a month later he wrote this story. And so some people claim that like, this is his experiment that if enough people like think about bloody Mary enough, then like it'll exist. Their consciousness it'll like create yeah and so

his thought was if a lot of people know of the black eyed kids and are aware of the black eyed kids then by being attentive to it and aware of it it will manifest itself oh but this was other people's like hypothesizing yeah he never he swears that that story happened but a lot of people think like fuck you you created black eyed kids and now we're all terrified and experiencing this you're the reason so um i'm just gonna run off a bunch of pieces of information about them just please do i'm so excited so they are often pale skinned with light colored hair they might wear sunglasses or grow long bangs to conceal their eyes. Oh.

Because they don't want you to see their eyes. It's usually once you see their eyes, that's when they get really angry. Right. Because they'll be like looking down at the ground and ask to come in. And if you say no, then they look up into your eyes. And some people even claim it's like almost like a hypnosis. A lot of people feel like they're being drawn to open the door and stuff like that, even though they know they don't want to. Oh, my God. diagnosis a lot of people feel like they're being drawn to open the door and stuff like that even though they know they don't want to oh my god okay for someone who's scared as shit you really just

turned off the lights to sit in the dark and hear this i want to make it spooky all right well you're gonna be texting me as soon as i leave this house oh shit yeah blaze doesn't come home till like six in the morning i wish you lived close to work so we could have sleepovers wouldn't it be fun and then you could just like stretch your arms be like oh i have to like go to write for spongebob oh my life is so hard and then you'd be like are you grabbing my ass again christy so the children also usually travel in pairs ranging from ages 6 to 16. And there's always one child that is definitely older compared to the other one. So the older one is known as the spokesman because they're often the one that's the most confident and asks to come in.

The younger one is usually just standing there kind of shy and looking down. Right, okay. So generally the older one will be pretty shameless in asking about coming in. Like there's not even an ounce of doubt or an ounce of the thought of like, oh, I shouldn't do this. Right. Because they rarely ever actually get into someone's house, very few things are known about what happened if they get into your house. So like their, quote, powers are still kind of unknown. Sure.

So like their, quote, powers are still kind of unknown. Sure. Witnesses have reported children staring at each other before starting to talk to you as if in silent communication. And even before you see them, you'll feel drawn to the door or the window. Like something will make you look up out the window so that you can see them. So that's another idea of like their telepathy or some sort of hypnosis. So that's another idea of like their telepathy or some sort of hypnosis where whatever they do with the energy around them, they can manipulate it in your emotions to basically do whatever they want. To like pull you in. Yeah.

Yeah. They pull you in. Oh my God. So they are really good at manipulating your emotions and to a point where all you feel is a sense of doom. So you could think everything's totally fine and then look out the window and all of a sudden you think you're going to die. Like it's a guaranteed feeling they also seem this is um something i'm gonna cover again a little later but they seem to also have some sort of connection to electricity or radioactive energy so uh a lot of times there will be flickering lights or power outages whenever they're nearby um this is the creepy part to me they also often only know how to say one or two sentences like you don't have like they have like a fine vocabulary

but they can't go further than like two sentences in repetition and they also like to show how old they are or like how long they've been around. They sometimes will only talk to you with weird old fashioned expressions. What? So one guy, and one story I read, he woke up in the middle of the night and just felt like he had to go to his door. He didn't know why he had to go to his door,

look through the peephole. Oh my God. And there were two boys there looking down and all of a sudden they looked up and he could see, it's like, it's an actual horror yeah but before he saw the eyes they were still polite and trying to ask to get into his house and they were like can we use your telegraph and he was like what the fuck are you talking about

what kind of stupid prank is this i know or they'll say like can i enter the premises oh my god or like is tamra home like some weird i was about to say that um also it reminds me of like the stories of mothman and um where like the old like the the guys who come down and are dressed as like men and they speak in such weird ways and wear like old timey clothes that are always from the same decade it's very weird as if they studied humans and like we're trying to copy them it's so creepy so witnesses have reported them demanding entry stressing that they need to come in but they can't come in without verbal permission which to me is very interesting on like a a paranormal

ghost spectrum of like, just like how with a Ouija board or when you're talking to spirits in general, you have to welcome them in. Yeah. You can create like a boundary and like. Yeah. So from a ghost perspective, it's interesting that they might fall into the ghost category. Yeah, that's true.

Because you're right. Probably an alien can just do whatever the fuck it wants or something. So occasionally when you see them outside of the home, they'll like originally be like doing like imaginary play together, like throwing a ball or something so occasionally when you see them outside of the home they'll like originally be like doing like imaginary play together like throwing a ball or something playing like stick and hoop like yeah you know what's funny i uh i saw a tumblr post at one point where it was that giant hoop with a stick and the only thing on the pictures it said if you remember playing this you're probably dead like all those 90s posts like if you remember this aim noise yeah you're probably dead that's nice anyway charming can't wait for someone to be mad and email us about that i played hoop and stick and my so did the black eyed kids So But so they'll like be playing

Like either playing catch or something but it's almost To lure you in so you feel safe to watch them And then when they can sense that you're like Looking at them they will literally Drop the ball and just turn their heads And stare at you Like super creepy Okay yeah they're like on a swing

And then you look over and they're both like... Yeah, but then like all of a sudden the swing just stops mid-swing and just... And they just come at you? Oh my god. Well, because another thing is sometimes they'll just freeze and just stare at you until like they've drawn you in enough. What are they? I'm so scared of them.

They'll stop playing. Everyone was scared of Zozo. I'm scared of these fucking kids. These are way creepy. Way creepy. Way creepy. Especially because there's so many personal stories. There's so many, like I was trying so hard to weed out for just the best of them and

I barely got 10. Yeah. So, um, some people like when people think, oh, well, what are they? Are they ghosts? Are they aliens? What the hell is going on? Right. A lot of people have claimed from a medium, a median

who spoke to, a median, fuck me. It was inside the highway. In the middle of the highway. A medium apparently came in contact with a few of them. And so based off of her account a lot of people have this understanding that maybe they're spirits of children who died during the victorian

era of diphtheria because one of the big um symptoms of diphtheria was that you had uh the paralysis of the eyes which makes them come off as dark and sunken so wait what so whoa i have never heard that before that's interesting so there's the thought that if they're ghosts they are victims of diphtheria why are they so evil okay well i gave you one theory i guess they have diphtheria i'd be pretty evil too well one one suggestion that they might be ghosts is that in 2014 in england there was a woman with her child who heard another child scream that was out of her eyesight um she ran in search of the child found her and apparently she was standing in an old-fashioned like almost like a mennonite white dress um she asked the girl if

she was okay but the girl had her eyes covered like she was not crying, but that she was, quote, waiting for a birthday cake. It's like she was happily covering her eyes. Like peekaboo. Yeah. Like peekaboo. In a white creepy dress. And then when she asked her again if she was okay, she took her hands down and that was when the woman saw her eyes and there were no eyes only black holes and the woman said that's when i saw that they were completely black no iris no white nothing

i jumped back and grabbed my daughter when i looked again the child had vanished the thing that makes her possibly ghostly as well is that apparently that, her aunt had seen the exact same girl exactly 30 years earlier in 1984. What the fuck? Ew, so is it like haunting her family? Yeah, so there's a thought that they also connect to a family and stay with them. Ugh. So, here's the, um, there's also a thought that maybe they are, um are dark fairies from Irish folklore. Oh, interesting.

And there's another thought that they might be vampires because of the relation to them having to be welcomed into a house. Right. It makes sense. The biggest thought. God, are we like a thousand? I'm like, hold on. Let me lift my quilt up oh no we're never gonna last another year with this thing

um the biggest theory not ghosts not vampires not fairies although a lot of people do believe they're fairies that's actually probably another running common one. But the main one that I could see anyone trying to validate is that they might be alien-human hybrids. That's interesting. That's the moneymaker. That's the one, baby. Game changer! You hit the nail on the head. I think I might have.

Money shot. Yes. Yes. you hit the nail on the head i think i might have money shot yes yes so um they think that because just like how they have black eyes their eyes very much resemble the grays yeah the big creepy fucking black the stereotypical gray alien with the black eyes who also have pale skin they also uh this is where the radioactive stuff comes back oh So just like how the lights flicker and power outages and all that. Right. So they have some sort of electrical control or electrical manipulation in our world.

But also assuming that, you know, these might be some form of an alien. They also have in common with aliens that they seem to cause radioactive exposure like symptoms to victims that actually do get them into the house oh that's fucked up so if you welcome them in um it's all like so when people experience ufos really close to them or they say they got abducted there's this thing called moonburn syndrome oh i didn't know that that was the name for it yeah so it's basically it's um people have symptoms that are very similar to radiation poisoning oh shit and it's unexplained why like they hadn't been doing anything different in their life but they seem to have also just been abducted

by aliens according to them or they saw a ufo or something weird and now all of a sudden they have radiation poisoning jesus so these black-eyed children once you have welcomed them into the house seem to also cause that same kind of sickness oh god so there was one woman who um let me find the best parts who made a poor poor decision oh yeah she really fucked up oh no so this was in january 2016 this was like only two years ago listen this is why i don't know what one time allison was over and the doorbell rang and i'm like i'm not opening the door she goes why i'm like don't open the door and now we live in a house so it's like you can't escape so she like opens the door and it's this like elderly korean man and he goes he goes let me tell you about jesus and alison was like oh okay and like took this pamphlet i'm

like hiding under a blanket and he goes are you korean she's like no he just left open-minded of him i will say that it was kind to ask because we do you never know you never know but it was a kind question but alison was very polite and i was, don't ever open my door again. Fair. Allison, don't open my fucking door either. He was not a black eyed kid, but I was like, fine, you open the door, but don't tell anyone I'm here.

I would have done the same shit though. I'd have been like, you are here alone. This is your house. You live here and you're maybe Korean. Do not involve me in any of this. So in January 2016, this woman made a bad choice

and our podcast was born oh in 2016 oh wait no that's wrong i was like are we a thousand we already determined how old we are god sorry we've already also determined that i don't know numbers so like literally minus two you couldn't fucking do it. If you're surprised, that's your own damn problem. So the woman says that it was like a blizzard outside. It was super snowy. She lived in Vermont.

Two kids were standing on her doorstep, a boy and a girl. The woman said that they were not dressed for cold conditions. See, that's just mean that they do that. I know. Well, the whole point, they also, it's very regular that these are women because they play off their maternal instinct. The vulnerability. Yeah, yeah. And they like to go in pairs because, I guess, you know, power in numbers.

Yeah. It's like an intimidation kind of thing. Right. So, the weird, the first weird thing is that when she looked at the peephole, they were not dressed for cold conditions and they didn't even seem phased oh um that gave me chills i've fucking read this before and it gave me too so they asked if they could go inside and she let them in no no as she brought them in she noticed that her cats were really fucking pissed um how interesting she asked if they wanted a hot cocoa and they said our parents will be here soon oh my god

what the fuck our parents will be okay also the even though their parents would have no idea where they were remember that well that's what I'm thinking. Like, what a fucking weird thing to say. Like, she didn't know who they were. They didn't know who she was. But all of a sudden she's like, oh, our parents know where we are. And they're going to get us. Do you want hot cocoa?

Yeah. Our parents will be here soon. So anyway, she came back with hot chocolate. Very aware at this point that she's made a fucking mistake. It's one of those things where you're like, oh no, I'm going to think about this in 30 years. She should have put something strong in that hot cocoa.

It's going to keep me up at night. Oh my God. She came back into the room with the hot cocoa, handed it to them. And when they looked up at her, that's when she saw the black eyes for the first time. Was she home alone? No,

she was with her husband. Oh my God. As she stared at them, they both suddenly asked they could use the bathroom at the same time. Oh no. In that monotonous tone. Can we use the bathroom? Can we use the bathroom?

So. We'd be bad black eyed kids. We can't even say things at the same time. We can't even say our own fucking show's name at the end of every episode. She tried to show them where the bathroom was. And as they passed her husband, his nose started bleeding. The power then suddenly went out. The gasp of back, guys.

I can't stop myself. As she went to go get her husband a tissue, she noticed that they were just standing at the end of the hall, motionless, staring at them. Shining style. Yes. Fuck. she noticed that they were just standing at the end of the hall motionless staring at them shining style yes fuck um they then at the same time said our parents are here no no no no then they walked themselves out of the front door no making their way back out into out of the house and as they went to close the door, she saw the children getting into a black car with two men. Oh, a gay couple. Why are we so homophobic all along this whole time? How dare us? This is propaganda. You know what? How dare us assume that those two people in suits are men? How dare us dare us you told me they were men that was my bad how

dare you i'm a disgrace i'm not so the children got into a black car with two tall men both dressed in suit but dressed in suits um they all got in the car and drove away a month later or two months later her husband was diagnosed with aggressive skin cancer and skin in vermont although she didn't go into specifics it is stated that she also began to suffer from regular nosebleeds and described herself as being in the worst condition of her life and she knows with all her heart that it started at that's during that night and what the that's that's not listen another report has also shown a healthy man a healthy grown man nothing wrong with him with his like like he has no illnesses so like chris trigger from park snook there it is he uh also let them in one time oh no And later that month he was diagnosed with bladder cancer and died six months later. Oh no.

So a lot of people think, okay, so that's proof right there that they've got some sort of radiation. Radiation. Yep. Um, so a lot of people not only think they're aliens, but there's a big chance that they might actually be alien human hybrids because I mean, I already told you. I know, but it's just so interesting because i never thought about that so uh they think that they are not like aliens that mated with humans it's not like they're like it's not like they're like bread or something yeah it's not like they're a product of like an abduction assault or anything like that oh it's that they were somehow created in an alien lab to appear

like humans, but based off of the only information aliens know. So that's why they come off so fucking awkward. Stranger things. So basically, like, the fact that a lot of the stories, they're very, very polite. So they'll be like,

can we please come in? Can you please let us in? Sir, ma'am, can you please let us in sir ma'am can you please let us in i need to use your telegraph yeah so they're very straightforward and they try to be very polite and it comes off creepy to us but based on like it's like i'm getting this directly from a website but it's quote an alien race may see this as an accurate attempt at human courtesy right like grammar school like yeah like it's like they're trying to understand our quote, an alien race may see this as an accurate attempt at human courtesy. Right. Like grammar school.

Yeah, like it's like they're trying to understand our etiquette, but it's coming off totally wrong. It's like when you go to a foreign country and you try to speak their language and you like copy it from a book. Like, may I please use your toilet? So a thought about this is that it's not just them trying to come down and invade Earth or anything like that. It's the idea that the alien population, they're trying to assimilate with us right under our noses without us knowing about it. So they're trying to get either... There's a thought that they're trying to make these kids

be like little spies and look around houses and everything, which would make sense why then they just left without doing anything. They walk around to see the bathroom and then leave yeah they just walk around to see like where your telegraph is it's in the bathroom and so they think like like for example so there's one uh abductee who has reported her name was karen morgan like i think her story is pretty popular she reported at one point that when she got abducted and put on a ufo and she was on like that classic like slab in a hospital

she said that um she saw black-eyed human-like beings on the spaceship which were in tanks as if they were like incubating oh no and they were described to her by the aliens as quote the children of the future listen no no no no no no no no so a lot of people so they're either like bringing these kids down to study the human world and then leave and they just happen to like seep radiation and by accident are giving people cancer right or there's a thought that they might be um just showing up just to freak people out or just like kind of like be able to manipulate the situation and training them essentially to be the next generation and the next breed that's the most powerful so or they might be ghosts to haunt you and like rip your soul out who knows so why So why do they get so angry? You know,

if they're like polite, like learning, you know what I mean? I think because like, maybe that's their one vulnerability or, or maybe because that's the, that's the most alien looking part of them. And they're trying to assimilate.

And if you recognize it, then you're like, they're not doing their job. Right. I don't know. So anyway, it's just so creepy. I know we don't have a lot of time however i have like a whole

page of stories tell me every one of them i don't give i'm so sorry guys just i don't even know where we are on the timeline at all we're really fine i'll read i'll read you i'll read you as many as i can until you're bored i won't ever be that there's let me count there's seven stories great that's one more than a normal listener story i wish there were eight all right pouring my wine hold on i'm just gonna pour the whole bottle in yeah might as well the first one goes and i'm reading them as is i got them from thought catalog i got them from reddit i got them wherever you can find them on your own so either read along or don't judge me for how these things are spelt. Whatever. I'm reading them as is. And I'm not drunk.

Don't make that face at me. No, because there was one story. I think I actually erased it, but there was one where it was definitely not written when the person was sober. So I was like... Oh, sorry. That was me last night. So I was like, if I decide to read that one, I don't want anyone thinking I'm dyslexic. You've gone

to the dark side of the team wine side. This one, it goes this way. Is that what you're going to do at my wedding? Okay. It goes this way. I'm pretty sure. This is the way that it goes. This is the way I'm going to direct it, however it's supposed to be.

If you want to skip it, guys, just skip it. Just fast forward a couple times. It's fine. Okay. I was 12 the end no also you at my wedding also i was 12 congratulations i was 12 i was sitting outside of a hairdresser's this sounds fucking old school i was sitting outside of a hairdresser's in an old chevy pickup waiting for my mom to get her haircut. About 15 months. She was getting a lot of curls. It was like the most expensive haircut I've ever seen.

It was like the perm of the century. About 15 minutes had passed and I saw some kid walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of my parked car. At first, I thought I recognized him as one of my friends from school, so I banged on the front windshield until he looked my way. It was not anyone I knew. Oh, no. Which is embarrassing on its own. It's just like, oh, fuck. Remember when you, like, wave at someone and they're like, nope?

At this point, I was not scared at all, just embarrassed. The boy walked over to the side of my car and just stares at me through the glass. I think to let me get a good look at his eyes to freak me out let me tell you if you have never seen a black eyed kid you have no idea what to imagine eyes black as the night sky the boy whispers you must let me in also whispers through the glass and you can fucking hear it that's eerie and then i locked the car door and ducked down into the space below the seats five minutes later he was gone imagine if five minutes has to feel like a century of someone staring at you and

you're like i wonder if he's still there yeah and then looking up and he's still there and you're like oh okay i'll be back uh i'll be down here when my mother got into the car she told me that a boy with black eyes had come into the hairdresser's office and insisted for her to give him the keys to the car. Oh my God, what a little psycho! Even though he had no idea my mom and I were related. Or would have had no idea that my mom and I were related. Yet still found her.

So he was parked and he didn't know that his mom... He didn't even know that his mom was in the hairdresser's office or shouldn't have. And yet somehow went to that particular place in the whole strip mall and then... Demanded to be let into her car. if that's gonna work god your son is hiding from me let me open the door and attack him all right so that's story one that's fucking creepy all right so this one someone wrote about his neighbor's story okay so this is about his neighbor he was watching tv and the doorbell rang. Since it's Halloween,

he grabs the candy bowl, swings the door open and is about to yell boo or something to freak them out. This is everyone's stepdad. Okay. But stops dead when he sees the kids at the door.

He said one was probably around 13 or 14 and the other was 16 or 17, both boys. They weren't even dressed up, but he remembers the older one was wearing around 13 or 14 and the other was 16 or 17 both boys they weren't even dressed up but he remembers the older one was wearing a flannel checkered shirt he was immediately overcome with uneasiness like opening the door was a huge mistake oh no he's right huge mistake they just stared at him and he noticed that they had really big irises and dilated pupils entirely jet black, no white.

He couldn't even see the whites of their eyes. Okay, this guy needs to get his shit together. He couldn't even see the whites of their eyes, so he figured they were contact lenses. Oh, right. Okay, makes sense. He was frozen there holding the candy bowl like he couldn't slam the door in their face as much as he wanted to. So he nervously tried to smile at them, hoping they would break character and ask for candy or something the younger one said they had gotten lost and needed to come in and use his phone that was when he closed the door more than halfway on them and said no sorry and the older one said something like can we just wait in your house until our parents come get us huh why do

they always that's some that's how an alien i think aliens think that our parents just always know where we are they're like don't worry our gps chip will tell them where we are but by then my neighbor was convinced that his life was in danger and these kids must be high on something or intending to rob him so he just started mumbling no sorry good night as he entered the door closed and locked it he told me he was so scared at that point that they were going to break into his house that night so he looked through the peephole again they just stood there and watched him oh holy i actually have that like type of chill where it goes down your scalp like into your body oh my god i'm so freaked out this one gets me good oh boy this guy says the incident took place about 13 years ago we were small town

newlyweds from the midwest being naive and new to the city living i habitually answered the door without a second thought the first thing that should have tipped me off was that the fact that it was six in the morning and someone was knocking on our door the second thing that should have dawned on me is that the kid had to reach over a rather tall patio gate to unlatch and open it. Ew. The knock at the door was startling. The moment I opened the door, I was overtaken with an inexplicable sense of fear. Oh, my God.

To this day, I can picture him. He was a teenager, average height, average build, knee length, black leather coat, short black hair, and sunglasses. The sunglasses at 6 a.m. struck me as even more odd. Ew, that's creepy. And he was eating an apple oh my god it really is like oh this is what children in 1945 do like oh how fucking weird he was very polite and asked if he could come in and warm up i said no closed the door and slid the security chain into place a moment later another knock i opened the now chain door and

before i could speak he asked again if he could come in and warm up as if he had forgotten what he already did. I screamed no and tried to close the door. Before the door could shut, he put his hand up, stopping the door on its hinges. He looked directly into my eyes, still wearing his sunglasses, and said, can I at least get some ketchup for my apple? Like not knowing how food works what a little psychopath the guy says get the hell out of here my wife is calling the police he takes a moment to let this information

sink in then he lowers his glasses revealing his eyes are black as obsidian and says no you won't be calling anybody at that moment i forced the door closed to lock it and call out to my wife she's scared shitless hiding in the bedroom i'm jacked up on adrenaline i rip the curtains back to look out the window next door or next to the door and he's totally gone absolutely no trace of him i go out onto the patio and check the gate and it's still latched from the inside oh wait what ew as if like he'd never been there that's just an extra creepy detail the sentence the story ends with i thought it was really fucked up and then i really thought it was fucked up as i turned to enter my house and saw a half-eaten apple on the ground it's just like a series of like kind of like heavy breathing because you're uncomfortable

like nervous laughters oh my god i can't deal with this shit my favorite i'm not going to read this one but there was one where a girl came home from work and she lives on the third fucking floor. And there were black eyed kids on her balcony. Like, there's no way they could have gotten up there. And they were trying to say, can you let us in through like the sliding balcony door? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Always lock your balcony.

Well, she also found out because like she was like, it was like those twist curtains. And so she twist, she opened them and they opened up two two boys without eyes no on the third floor somehow getting up there by themselves is this are you is anyone there a horror movie producer because if you are this is what you need to do everything we just said everything m just said put it into a movie and you will make millions. Here's another. It was around 3 a.m., of course, and a gas attendant was going about his normal duties when the power suddenly went out. Using his phone as a makeshift light, the attendant made his way back to the backup gas generator and switched it on. The backup lighting came on, but only the parking lot in the hall to the register was lit up. He saw something moving, what looked like children riding bikes.

Almost as soon as he saw them, two of them leaped from their bikes and made their way over to the gas station. They stopped at the doorway and stood staring at him. He made his way to the door and opened it, asking the two children if they were okay, since it was so late. One of them, a young girl he could if she could use his phone as he handed her his mobile phone her eyes met his and the attendant saw that they were solid black orbs the girl said no i need the real one and motioned to the landline and the gas station at this like slick also as if a small child knows what a real phone is instead of an iPhone. I know, but also how creepy is it that it's like, you gave me what I wanted, but I'm still not inside your house, so this is an issue.

Yeah. At this point, fear finally overtook him, and he pushed the door shut, shouting as he did so that the girl would go home. He watched her through the window, lift her head to stare back at him, and that's when he could not stop looking at her pitch black eyes. He passed out and when he came to it was morning. Ugh. No. So this is the last one. Okay.

I'm sad. Um, it goes like this. I woke up to my dog Lucy Lucy, barking at our door. I decided the best bet would be to open the door and show her nothing was there. Oh, I always do that. Bedroom door. Bedroom door.

Oh, bedroom door. Wait, bedroom door? Uh-oh. Okay. Lucy was barking at our bedroom door. I decided the best thing would be to open the door and show her nothing was there. The second my hand reached for the deadbolt, Lucy went wild. She started barking and jumped towards me.

And when I touched the metal, she suddenly changed her temper. She whimpered almost like she was terrified and backing down. It's like the second her hand hit the doorknob. Wait, there was a deadbolt on her bedroom door? I don't know where she lives. That's, okay. I need that. I think I do too. Someone install that. Like we're kind of making, we're like, we're judging her, but also we're like, that's okay i need that i think i do too someone install that

like we're kind of making we're like we're judging her but also we're like okay but i need that i'm not judging her i'm saying that's brilliant as lucy's mannerisms changed so didn't mind i wasn't calm anymore i had been flooded with a mixture of fear and dread i look through the peephole um oh sorry i tried to make this shorter because it was a really fucking long one. And then I fucked up. So there was nothing at the main door. But then they went downstairs to the front door because Lucy was still freaking out. Oh.

Okay. Sorry, guys. That was my fucking bad. I was like, wait. They have a peephole in her bedroom door. This is getting a little crazy. I tried to shave out the middle because this was like a long one. Don't shave it out.

We like it. Well, I don't know. We like it unshaven and au naturel. Anyway, they shave out the middle because this was like a long one. Don't shave it out. We like it. Well, I don't know. We like it unshaven and all natural. So anyway, they're at the front door now. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. I had been flooded with a mixture of fear and dread. I looked through the peephole. Outside were two kids. One of them was just a little bit shorter than me, and she looked to be 16 or 17. She was slender and pale her hair was a light shade of honey blonde and she wore it long about mid-back with a long thin blunt bangs in the front that covered most of her eyes she wore jeans and a thin looking olive

colored pullover style hoodie i like how she's all about the fashion i'm into it i'm like i like hello fabfitfun hello i'd wear that she held the hand of a small girl who looked to be around three or four and in the same style jeans the smaller one looked at the floor shyly with a stuffed toy under her free arm and was identical to the one oh the toy was identical to the one my daughter has that's the creepy part something about them seemed off at this point i hadn't made any noise i hadn't shushed the dog or grumbled nothing i hadn't turned on any lights and these kids had no indicators that i was at the door the older one spoke

she had a voice that was mature confident strong and accentless she held her head tilted downward and i couldn't see her eyes she said we have to use your phone she raised her head tilted downward and I couldn't see her eyes. She said, we have to use your phone. She raised her head to face me directly. And that was when I saw her eyes. They were black or midnight blue or some sort of dark, dark purple. They were otherworldly. She said, our mother is worried. I didn't answer her.

She still doesn't know I'm fucking there. That's me paraphrasing. This bitch has no clue. Slowly and silently, I backed away from the door. Lucy's still cowering on my ankles. She kept talking. No. Just let us in to use your phone.

I took another step back, and with that step, the tone changed. At first, she seemed polite. When I took the second step back, she became commanding, almost hostile. We're not going to hurt you. If we wanted to do that, we would have broken in. I'll ask again.

May we come in and use your phone? Lucy snarled at the door and I inched backwards, though. Something inside me seemed to be slowly pulling me back towards the door. No, it wasn't a physical pulling so much as a subconscious need to go back and let them in. I got to my room, covered up the window, locked the door and sat there in the dim light. I called her. I heard her call me back to the

door once more and then quiet. I didn't go back to sleep that night and I haven't slept right since. Oh my God. Lucy, you're the real MVP. Yep. Oh, my God. How terrifying. Anyway. Is that good? That's it?

Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm so scared. This is why I don't open. Don't open the door. If you're not expecting anyone, don't open the fucking door. That's wild. If they want to talk to you, guess what they'll do?

They'll email you. I'm serious. They'll leave you a voicemail anyway i'm sorry for however long that was but i know it's something you've wanted me to cover so i wanted to nail it needed that in my life today and i'm very frightened and that i feel like when we record I'm not usually frightened because I'm like in record mode. Well, you get to edit this. I'm frightened. Okay. Do you want me to tell you something? Yeah.

I did kind of... Okay. This is how I picked my topic for this week. Okay. I just sort of Googled weird shit until I found something I liked. Yay! I just sort of Googled weird shit until I found something I liked. Yay!

So this is the story of Walburga Österreich, a.k.a. Dolly. Dolly? Dolly. Okay. Her last name is Österreich, which is how you say Austria, like in German. Oh. Like Österreich. So I don't know what that's about. So Dolly. I'm just going to call her Do Like in German? Oh. Like Österreich. So I don't know what that's about. So Dali.

I'm just going to call her Dali. Okay? Yep. So. Dali, Austria. Is that Dali, Austria? That's the one. Yep.

You know her well. Who could forget? Who could? So I got a lot of this from an LA Times article, crack.com, Atlas Obscura, and Gizmodo. Those were like my main sources. Love it. There were a lot ofura, and Gizmodo. Those were my main sources. Love it. There were a lot of fascinating articles on this. Okay.

This is one of those weird ones that I'd never heard about. And then I stumbled upon it on crack.com, I think. And then I checked our suggestions page, and no one had ever suggested it. And I was surprised. But it's all right all right so this takes place in los angeles in 1922 your lucky number yay dolly was married to a man named fred oesterreich who was a local apron magnate magnate an apron magnate which was a thing what did they do make aprons yeah oh all right no we're not calling an apron magnet which was a thing what did they do make aprons yeah oh all right no we're not

calling an apron maker apron magnet like he was like a like a business magnet but with aprons i see as in like extremely wealthy textiles etc i see so they were super wealthy they lived in this mansion um which you know i guess apron magnets presumably do um so in 1922 the police show up at freddie and dolly's mansion to discover that fred has been shot dead in his living room fred is dead they find dolly screaming in a closet that had been locked from the outside she became the prime suspect of fred's murder what but they because she was the only living person in the house but they couldn't figure out how on earth she could have managed to lock herself inside the closet so they couldn't press murder charges the case grew cold and eight

years later dolly and her attorney herman shapiro who was also her lover got into an argument oh no as vengeance shapiro decided to reveal evidence to police that would crack the case oh no it turns out dolly had had a lover named otto sandhooper and when the murder of her husband took place, Otto had been living in the couple's attic. Dun, dun, dun. Oh, no. So here's what happened. In 1913, when Dolly was 33, she called her husband at the apron factory. Yes.

Yes. Exactly where I wanted this to go. Every good story starts with a call to the apron factory. She calls her husband at the apron factory to complain that her sewing machine had broken. Her husband sent 17-year-old sewing machine repairman Otto Sandhuber to fix it. Now, Dolly had seen Otto before at the factory, so she knew he was the one who was going to be sent home. And her sewing machine wasn't actually broken. She just wanted her husband to send Otto to her house. Right, the miner, but whatever. He's 17,

she's 33. Oh my. He shows up at her house and she greets him in a silk robe stockings heavy perfume and nothing else that's how i greet you i know it's like the warmest welcome i think so christine what are you doing here sailor no hello hello fresh hello fresh does not want to be affiliated with any of the things we discuss in this podcast. Okay. So, Dolly described Otto as her vagabond half-brother. And they quickly became lovers. So, problematic in several ways. Yes.

She started... Okay, so they started arranging these secret trysts. They apparently had sex like eight hours a day, every single day. Damn. I know, like for a long time. Okay. But neighbors obviously started noticing his comings and goings and were going, I'm sorry. Just some good old, like...

Comings and goings. And comings again. For eight hours. It's like a marathon of them, really. It is. Oh, man. Good old 1940s puns. All right.

So, neighbor started noticing that he was coming and going. I bet they did. I bet they did. I bet Dolly noticed too. Oh, man. Okay. So neighbors. Oh, my God. Okay. That's what dolly was saying that's it dolly said i'm sorry we're done

here this is what i needed after your fucking black eyed kids bullshit a good old sex joke a good old sex pun from the 1930s that's what dolly said so anyway neighbors were like why is this dude why is this 17 year old boy here always coming over so dolly was like you know what our neighbors are growing suspicious why don't you quit your job and move into my attic i kind of think this is like some 17 year old boy's dream. Not work and end up just getting eight hours of sex every day. Mrs. Robinson type shit. I mean, so obviously he agreed because.

Yes. Like, why not? You know, he thought it was a great idea because not only would this keep them in closer proximity, but he would it would also give him time to pursue his dream of writing pulp fiction wow good luck don't we all want to do all of that yes so at this point dolly and fred were living in milwaukee fred dolly's husband had no idea that dolllly and Otto were having an affair, let alone that Otto was living in his attic. Jeez. Guess how long he lived in their attic. Four years.

Ten years. Until they were older than you. Ten years. She was 33 when they met. He was older than you. Okay, fair. Fair. And you. Yeah, I just, you're older. older than you 10 years she was 33 when they met he was older than okay fair fair and you yeah i just what do you like say like i'm fucking elderly i guess it's more impressive because you're older i have a quilt on okay so 10 years wow anyway and he had no clue for a decade no

wow so did he have friends was he stuck? Did he just have cabin fever for 10 years? Or was he allowed to leave? Do you want me to tell you? Yeah. Okay. Good question. My friend. So Dolly was the only person he ever saw. He called himself her sex slave later.

Like when he was interviewed. All right. And said that he loved her as a boy loves his mother. Ew. Ooh. And so his family didn't hear from him for 10 years and just thought that was cool. I mean, I assume there was a telegraph. I assume there was a telegraph.

I mean, it was 1922. I assume there was a telegraph. No. I just assume it was a situation where he was like, yeah, I can move into your attic. No one will give a shit. Like, I don't think he was like, everyone will worry about me. Like, it didn't seem. Well, no.

My only question is like, if they weren't, like, was he not speaking to anyone except her? No, nobody. So they never wondered where their son went? But who knows who his parents were? I mean, he was 17 and working in a textile factory. Yeah, in the 30s, he's almost a spinster. Get it? Because he works at a sewing machine.

Yep. That was the point. No, it wasn't. You did not come up with that. Yes, I'm creative, Christine. That's pretty good. Thanks. Pretty, pretty fucking good.

Thanks. So, this is what his life was like. The attic where he lived was furnished with a cot and a desk. That's it. He spent his time reading books, writing pulp fiction, making bathtub gin. And then... Allison does that. And having sex with Dolly. allison does that that's weird

um so i mean at least he had bathtub jen to i mean you gotta make the hooch you gotta you're gonna get the cooch i'm sorry i'm gonna actually need you to leave. I'm so... Actually, I really want that deleted. I feel gross. Actually, can you leave? Yeah. Okay. But no, really, you need the hooch. You need the hoot.

You can't... If you're just... It's truly prison. They make hooch. For a re... I mean, it's understood. You need something to do. Why...

I feel like alcohol or, like, coping mechanisms are part of the human condition. And if you're not going to be able to buy alcohol at 27, you might as well learn to fucking ferment it in your bathtub. I'm amazed. He didn't even. How did he know? I don't know how you know how to make it. You just get bored enough until you start drinking things out of the tub and it gets you drunk you're like that'll do just like poison yourself okay yes that's what he did so about five years into this arrangement um

and i thought college was long. Jesus. What's wrong with you? I don't know. I regret everything. Okay, so about five years into this arrangement, Dolly's husband, Fred, who, by the way, was a severe alcoholic, he started noticing that things were off, despite his, like, constant alcoholism and kind of neglectful behavior toward his wife. So he would hear strange noises. He would see mysterious shadows and he would sometimes notice that some of his cigars would be missing from his collection. Which like, sure, someone's living in your fucking attic.

Right. He decided that he was going crazy and that he and his wife needed a change of scenery so he told dolly they were moving to los angeles she agreed to move on one condition they had an attic yes sir that the new house had an attic so once so he agreed and he believed her. And once he bought this house, Dolly sent Otto to Los Angeles ahead of her and Fred so that by the time they got there, he had already settled into the attic. He was 22. Wow. He had lived in their attic for five years. Jeez.

So in L.A., Dolly and Fred's marriage started to deteriorate. He was drinking a lot more. The fights were escalating. In August of 1922, four years after they had moved to L.A., Dolly and Fred had an argument and it became loud and violent. And Otto heard the fight from in the attic and grew concerned for Dolly's safety. So he ran downstairs to protect Dolly, and he ran in carrying two.25 caliber guns, one in each hand. Right. Edward.40 hands. You got it. Edward.25 caliber hands.

Yeah. Double fisting guns. You got it. That when in doubt frat bro through and through you know uh fred recognized otto from like back in i like him on his drunken stupor he's like five years ago i saw you once in the textile nine years ago yeah this has been 10 years now 10 years ago yeah it was the last time he saw him in milwaukee and all of a sudden this guy's running from the fucking attic how fucking weird is that it's so trippy yeah so yeah but so fred recognized him flew into rage obviously and then uh apparently they struggled this is like debated what actually happened, but essentially the guns went off. Fred was shot.

So Otto and Dolly quickly staged the crime scene. Otto took Fred's expensive watch off his wrist, locked Dolly in the closet, then ran back into the attic to hide. Um, Dolly started screaming until the neighbors called the police, right? So the police get there they find her in the closet they can't pin the murder on her even though she's the only one

alive in the house and it's a little sketchy because like only his watch is missing and it's like what is going on here so police are a little suspicious um but they can't pin it on her because how in the world would she lock herself in this old timey closet yeah so she inherited her husband's millions of dollars and bought herself an auto a new house with an attic that's right he decided to move into her attic again even though now her husband out of comfort is dead yeah they liked having their own space he had all the freedom to come out in the real world uh but he decided to stay uh in the attic as dolly's sex slave which at this point you gotta remember he was 17 when this started he was a minor he doesn't even really know anything else i guess nothing else he was a minor i mean if you flip it the other way it's like if a if a young girl was 17

and was like trapped in an attic yeah it'd be like a stockholm statutory rape and then you like what else do you know yeah so meanwhile dolly started a relationship with her lawyer you're kidding me herman shapiro so at one point she made the really brilliant decision to give Shapiro Fred's diamond watch that had supposedly been stolen. Oh, no. And he was like, wait, isn't this Fred's watch? And she goes, oh, yeah, I found it under a couch cushion. Yeah. And he was like, okay.

But thank you for your dead husband's watch to show that I'm the only one in your life. Right. But also that. But also that. Thanks. I'm going to put this on my wrist. Yeah. Ooh.

Then Dolly decided to add a third lover to the mix. A businessman named Roy H. Klum. And she had a favor to ask of him. She asked if he would dispose of an old gun she had that looked similar to the one used to kill her husband because it would be really embarrassing if the police found it if that's your reasoning that's a red fucking flag it's embarrassing you should just be like i inherited this from forever ago and i've never used it but you know give it to someone else who would care i mean for real any story will do any story but that also is

otto like totally cool with these other guys he doesn't know because he's trapped in the attic sheisty and he's not even trapped is he kind of trapped he's like emotionally spiritually trapped maybe but no technically because that's brave of her to bring people to the house now that he knows he can just come downstairs whenever he wants. Yeah, but apparently you had to tap a number of times to let him out of the attic. Ew, it was like a psychological... It really is. That's so fucked up. It's really fucked up.

It's very fucked up. Ugh, okay. Like, the only time he came down was to protect her, and then he murdered somebody. Like, it's so fucked up. So, anyway. She asked Klum to dispose of this gun. And he was like, okay. And threw it into the La Brea Tar Pits.

Yay! We know about that. We know about that. But apparently... P.S. If you guys don't know about the La Brea Tar Pits, I'm, like, weirdly obsessed with them. I think they're fascinating. But it's, like, this place in Los Angeles Los Angeles where like tar literally bubbles out of the earth and like trapped all these like woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers and things like that and preserve them. So he

tried to throw it into the tar, but he threw it into like a really shallow spot. Jesus. It like didn't go anywhere. It just like stuck on the ground god also just take it to a fucking pawn shop why are you making this so damn extra like someone's gonna see it it's so extra like at that point the labrea tarpids were probably already being excavated like why are you throwing it into the so stupid it's so funny to me okay so i believe uh crack.com called him a dumbass so there we go anyway then she asked her neighbor because remember he came running with two guns right so then she asked her neighbor to dispose of the other gun and there's another guy and the guy just buried it under a rosebush in his backyard.

Well, that's fair. Like, at least he tried to, like, hide it. Be discreet about it. And apparently he didn't tell police, like, later on, he didn't tell police until he saw it on TV and was like, Oh, yeah, I buried something like that under my rosebush a few years ago. Listen, I don't understand. So, the following year, a detective learned that shapiro had fred supposedly missing watch because remember shapiro was already like this is sketchy i know this is fred's watch and clume after breaking up with dolly they had a bad breakup he told police hey i threw one of

her guns into the la brea tar pits with a woolly mammoth and then the cops were like you're an idiot and the cops were like i think this is where crack.com was like apparently being a total dumbass doesn't like uh offer enough evidence because they were like okay well this doesn't prove anything because they got the gun and it was too deteriorated to, like, prove anything. So they arrested her to, like, question her. And while she was in custody, she asked Shapiro, her lawyer lover, you know. Yeah, that. That.

Who was still hung up on her to please bring food to the man living in her attic. Oh. What? Who she told him was her half-brother. Who's just been hanging out this whole time and no one's ever known. I forgot to tell you about him. He lives in the attic, actually. He's a vagabond half-brother.

Yep. So he... So Shapiro shows up at the attic to see Otto. And Otto had not spoken to another man in over a decade. Oh my God. He was like, what are you? Can you imagine? He's like a black eyed kid.

Like, can I use your telegraph? What is happening? It's like when Wonder Woman first saw Chris Pine was like, you're a man. Poke, poke. Yes, seriously. So, he had not spoken to another man. And he decided to regale this lawyer, Shapiro, with all the tales of his sexual exploits with Dolly. And Shapiro was like, what what the fuck get out of here and kicked him out of the attic because he was all jealous like this isn't your half brother this man says he had

sex with you but he's like in love with dolly so he's like get out of here and scared otto enough to basically just kick him out and otto fled and also this guy's a lawyer so he probably could threaten him so Otto fled to Canada changed his name and then eventually he came back to LA and got married under a new name um years later in 1930 so this is about like I think seven or eight years later Shapiro had moved in with Dolly into that house after he had kicked Otto out. They had a bad breakup. Did they? Some might say.

They had a really healthy relationship. So they broke up, and Shapiro, sort of as vengeance, told the police about the mystery man in Dolly's attic. So finally, police were like, okay, we got something. So Otto and Dolly were both arrested and tried. So Dolly was acquitted because she was just that charming. Otto was convicted of manslaughter, but the charge was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired.

Oh, OK. It had been eight years. And after that, Otto kind of vanished. Nobody really knows where he went. Dolly lived in Los Angeles until her death in 1961. And Otto, he peaced out and his sort of memory kind of like lived on. And he became in the tabloids the Batman of Los Angeles because of his sort of like cave existence for 10 years. The Batcave.

The Batcave. But like Batman was not a character at that point. So like when you see Batman. Oh, really? No. Yeah. So there was no actual Batman or anything like that. So they called him the Bat

Space Man. Oh, yeah, because he lived like a bat. In a cave of an attic. Yeah. Oh, weird. Isn't that weird? The Batman of Los Angeles is what he was called for a long time. So he peaced out. Honestly, no one knows what happened to him. I i mean he's dead now

or is he i mean it's been almost 100 years so yeah he's dead he dead uh so that's the story i mean i it's really fucking bananas i did want to add like this is not nothing related to the actual story but i looked up there was an article that was like oh sometimes fred would hear weird noises it was on wikipedia and it was like sometimes fred was suspicious of someone being in the attic and i clicked the little like uh footnote and it was like this article in time magazine in 1930 and i was like cool oh neat yeah so i like clicked to read it but of course it wouldn't let me read it because it was like sign up for a membership at time.com and i was like no but they had the first like the page of the magazine or whatever that this article had been featured in. So I got to read like the first few headlines or whatever.

1930 was a weird time. What were the headlines? I just want to read them to you. Monday, April 28th, 1930. In Brooklyn, John Edmonds walked into the Edwards Hotel clad in his underwear, demanded room 313. Informed that it was occupied, he said, It was, but it isn't now. I just fell out of the window.

What? That's story number one. Story number two is titled, Wooden Legs. two is titled wooden legs in lynn massachusetts warren a goldbald was arrested for driving his auto head first into another auto while accompanied in the driver's seat by three friends on investigation warren a goldbald was found to have two wooden legs oh my god Now the third one is very offensive. Okay. Warning. The headline is midget. All right. I mean, you're already in deep water there.

Yep. In Manhattan, Kurt Zwiebler, a midget, was arrested for driving a small electric automobile without license. Well, time knows how to paint a picture. Paint picture indeed and that was all he got actually i'm thinking all about those wooden legs the wooden peg legs driving a car you always hear about people with wood legs but like you never see them because now people just have robot legs yeah yeah crazy i um i'm currently going through a lot of old magazines at work And I just stumbled upon one where the headline was Can you inherit disease? And I was like, yeah

I was like, you have so much to learn Someday you'll know It's like one day The horrors are coming I remember Celine and I when we were little would look through like old her dad had all these like national geographics that were like decades old yeah look through and there was the one from like 1972 that was like it was like revolutionary and it was like a car ad at like a minivan ad and it was like

holders for your cups it was like a cup holder ad and it was just like whoa i can put water in my a glass of water in my car and the cup holder ad and it was just like the most revolutionary thing it was like a full spread ad that's amazing people had great lives back then just the smallest thing made your whole year fascinating we're so hard to please now we're just like it's like what do you mean there's not a backup cam oh my god try again hello fresh kids with only black eyes okay actually that terrifies the shit out of me what am i who am i kidding it's like god put on some like liquid what do you put on what you put on for your dark eyes i literally don't know what you're talking about you know for like makeup when you have like dark bags under your eyes you like put some sort

of oh concealer all right put concealer into your that's what the aliens should do though at least in their eyes at least around it no it's all sunken in but i feel like it's like just their their actual they almost had it with the glasses the glasses are the best solution the bangs don't work no because it's weird if you don't see their eyes but like the glasses make sense what i don't get is like if they're building these creatures to look like humans why are the eyes so like that's wrong because they're not humans and don't know the expression that the eyes are the window to the soul. Or maybe it's because

eyes are the window to the soul and they don't have a soul. That window is shut. It's the thing of where we crack the code of everything. I mean that drunk mystery. Hello. Fresh. Everyone that drunk mystery hello fresh everyone hates us i love drunk mystery and i think we're gonna be the best i can't wait we're gonna be the best house ever it's one of those things guys when we when we were starting a

podcast called iran theory by the way we once tried to start a podcast we one we were like in the middle of our very first meeting ever where we were like, it's so great. Let's go. Let's buy audio equipment. Let's like, what? Imagine where we'll be in a year. By the way. Hello. Fresh.

Right here. $600 later after that conversation. But so in the middle of that conversation, Christine said something and all of a sudden I was like, oh, and that's why we drink. And then I was like, that should be the name of our show. And we both had this very weird moment. Long silence. It was like a very weird, like supernatural, like our eyes met and we were like, that's the name. Like, I feel like we were parents with a child and we're like, what do we name it? And then, I mean, it was like in friends when Ross and Rachel were like, like, you just know

when you know, know yeah yeah and that happened for us technically this was our it is our child it's our baby so we technically i'm ross and you're rachel so it's like yeah why am i rachel because i want to be ross fine be fucking ross i'll be jennifer aniston oh what a hard life you can be the i just the opposite everyone hates ross and i kind of do too, but I kind of love Ross too. I hate Ross. Everyone hates Ross. I love Ross.

Technically, hang on. I don't know how it works, but we are in a Chandler-Ross-Monica situation with Allison. Somehow, right? College roommates. Who's the college roommate? Ross and Chandler. So you and and then so we'd be siblings you and i'd be siblings then so you're the only wait so you have to be ross in that situation because you so congratulations i guess so i'm ross and then allison is who chandler either chandler or monica but she hates chandler you have to be monica that sucks

i mean i guess the gellers are just horrible friends would have been so much funnier without either of them no yeah all right anyway on that note why did i bring up the our name thing i don't know you had a whole thing going and then i did have a whole thing that was gonna happen really derailed very quickly it was like a i remember it being in reference to like an aha moment whatever guys you should have learned i'm sorry learn the lesson i'm not sorry you know oh don't be sorry here we are don't apologize everyone learned their lesson we're here to teach you lessons i'll listen to this when this comes out and then i'll be like ah that's what i was trying to say it'll be too late you, that's what I was trying to say. It'll be too late. You probably told everyone what you're trying to say. And then

we just immediately forgot it. Yep. But we think that you all have learned enough for today. Thank you so much for listening to us again. Why did you do that? But thank you. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter at ATWWwwd podcast we also have our website and that's why we drink.com we also have our store and that's why we drink.bigcartel.com we have an email and that's why we drink at gmail.com where you can send in your personal true crime and paranormal stories we put out a new listeners episode every first of the month. We also have our Patreon. Please donate. ATWWD podcast. You can follow our personal whatever's if you wish.

You wish to. Yes. At the M Schultz and X Teen Sheeper. Yes. Also, if you guys get the opportunity, it would be super helpful for us if you could rate us on iTunes

or on Apple Podcasts because that really helps us like get traction and move forward in the ratings and get... Please help. rate us on iTunes or on Apple podcasts, because that really helps us like get traction and, um, move forward in the ratings and get, please help, you know,

more sponsorships and things like that. So thank you. Keeps us alive. And you guys are doing that and it's really awesome. So thank you for doing that. Um, that's all I got. And that's why we drink.

And that's why we drink. Ow. I don't know why I thought we should do that at the same time. My finger was going to push it into your finger. Ow. And that's why we drink. Bye. Hi, we're back real quick.

We actually just realized that we have... Yes. You ready for it? You ready? Go. Finally! Desiree sent a drink thing this came from my this came from my stainless steel 30 ounce chill cup it's it's the metal straw from desiree yeah it's very effective all right we have figured it out finally 53 episodes in bye holy girl goodbye