And That's Why We Drink - E55 Big (Frat) Brother and a Dixie Cup Stethoscope

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

It’s episode 55, TAKE TWO! Sorry guys, Christine messed up. But we’ve still got a good one for you. Em covers the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago, which is full of poison, murder, gang activity, suicide, and ghosts. Oh, and tainted moonshine. Safety first! Meanwhile, Christine talks about a mofo named Ward Weaver III, who’s part of three generations of murder. Come meet us at CrimeCon 2018 this May in Nashville, TN! Get a surprise gift from us if you use promo code “ATWWD” when buying your badge! https://www.crimecon.com/Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Visit rxbars.com/drink and use promo code DRINK for 25% off your first order! Use promo code DRINK for $10 off your first FabFitFun box at www.fabfitfun.com! Check out Empty Frames on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

are you mad at me no well no i was just supposed to go on a date with my girlfriend it's fine i did something bad you guys guys. Guys, I got a text from Christine yesterday. And it just, let me just read it to you. Oh, no. It made me smile now, but then it did not. I got a text from her saying, M, you're going to stab me in the heart. And then she said, I don't even deserve you as a friend. And so being sarcastic i said you were

totally serious oh no i was being sarcastic and i was like let me guess it didn't record and all i got was dot dot dot and i was like what the fuck so basically christine our audio engineer dropped the ball drop the. Here's what I have to say. In my defense, when we recorded this episode, the first time around, it was the first episode in over a year of this podcast that I did not have a drink in my hand. Isn't that wild, guys? The first time I've... That's what happens when you're sober.

It's a big mistake. That was my first fucking mistake. And now we have to do it all over again and guess what i'm still fucking sober yeah how's that going by the way you're whole 30 i'm doing a whole 30 elimination diet for my stomach i don't want to talk about it all over again like i did in the messed up recording but point is i miss wine so much i don't blame you yeah it's a struggle and yesterday was just proof that bad things happen. To good people.

To sober people. To sober people. Bad things happen to sober people. So take this as a PSA. Yes. Go drink something. What should we talk about? Well, here's what I'm going to tell you.

Okay. Let's just say we gave Em a gift that a lot of listeners had contributed to that was just his idea from our secret facebook group and em got to open it and i recorded the whole thing and it was great and obviously it got all fucked up so i'm gonna try and insert it here so just be forewarned the audio is crummy because it recorded through the pot through the laptop instead of the microphones but i want to have em's real reaction okay so. So is that okay if I just insert it? No, that's fine.

Just sorry in advance that we sound like we're a million miles away. By the way, you know what's so funny is that we spoke into these microphones the entire time for literally like just novelty. And it was recording over here in my computer. All right. Anyway, here is the horrible version of my wonderful reaction. It's something you mentioned a long time ago that you wanted is this a thunder blanket it's an anxiety it's a gravity blanket yeah no way oh it's so heavy i know oh this is gonna feel so good

everybody oh man because you had mentioned it a long time ago and everyone's like we just need to make it happen for this is so great oh oh my god i'm so excited this is so cool put it on while you record no i'm trying to pick it up this is really heavy did you guys get the heaviest one that's why i asked you for your weight the other day oh i thought you were just being a bitch entirely possible i was like i'm just gonna roll with it yeah no because you're like what's your weight it's a surprise i was like, I'm just gonna roll with it. Yeah, no. Because you were like, what's your weight? It's a surprise. I was like, what the fuck does that mean? I'm gonna write it on a big poster and hang it up so everyone can see it. Because I'm third grade, Megan, you're bullish.

Fucking Megan. She smells like a dead fucking body. Guys, this is so nice. I still am trying to get it out of this box this is amazing you guys are so i don't deserve this at all this is nice okay guys that was so nice of you it was sweet like just so i can say it with clarity clarity in my audio it's it was the nicest random most random act of kindness. I was not expecting that.

There was no reason for you guys to do that except just to make me happy. I also want to list the names one more time of who donated to it. A lot of people. Within 24 hours, the whole blanket was paid for. That's amazing. It was so sweet. So it was just an idea she brought to my attention. These are the people who donated. It was so sweet.

So it was just this idea she brought to my attention. These are the people who donated. Carly, Michelle, Kyle, Sabrina, Hannah, Leslie, Anna, Suzanne, Regina, Nicolette, Shannon, Jamie, Ashley, Jamie, Lisa, Michelle, Anita, Elise, Leanne, Amanda, and Julie all contributed to it. Amazing. So kind. Amazing. And I want to thank Jess for helping set that up.

We still have her CrimeCon GoFundMe going on on the Facebook group. I just posted about it. If you can help get her to CrimeCon so we can give her a big hug, that would be amazing. Please help. We want to meet Jess so bad. We really want her to come. And speaking of CrimeCon, if you use our promo code ATWWD when you buy your badge, you will receive a surprise gift from us as well as a meet and greet with us because we also want to give you a big hug. We really do. We want to meet you so badly. Thank you guys for the year of commitment you've put into our show and we haven't even

met you yet. So we want to. Yeah, we really do. And that's all I have to say. Did you experience the earthquake? When was that? Okay, so no. Wait, maybe I did.

Did you? Because I thought something was shaking maybe that's why my bed moved that's what it was then that's what it was was it at 2 16 in the morning yes i just told you it was like around two right yeah that's what it was oh my god i just told a whole ghost story about how my bed we just debunked it i mean good but we told a whole story about how my bed shifted in the middle of the night and it was like shaking and it turns out it was an earthquake. Oh man, I'm so stupid. Well, no, because it was my first earthquake that I've felt. Yeah. And I was at Allison's. Actually, we had just recorded. It was the day that we recorded. Right. Yeah. And yes. Yeah. And so that after we recorded i went to allison's because her house was closer and it was already like midnight and i couldn't sleep and so i stayed up and i like watched netflix or something like that and around 2 a.m i was like okay i guess i should go to bed

that's exactly what happened to me yeah and so i was lying down and maybe i maybe 10 minutes into falling asleep all of a sudden like I woke up to the craziest sound and the whole like it sounded like the world was opening up it was just like boom oh I didn't hear that oh no we heard the whole thing and well we were only a mile away from it because it was in Silver Lake oh was the epicenter and so um but like we both woke up and we're both really deep sleepers so for both of us to wake up i looked at her and i was like did you feel that and she was like yeah and i already knew she had to have felt depressed to be awake yeah like i like as we were lying there she was like what

was that and i was like i think that was an earthquake and i was like what do we do and she was like what do we do she was like i think we stand in a doorway i. I was like, we're on the second floor. I'm not standing in a fucking doorway for this whole house to collapse on us. That's why you stand in the doorway, because it doesn't collapse. Well, also, we're right next to her front door and all that. So I was like, Allison, I'm not trying to be that baby, but we're fucking leaving. And so I made her get up at 2.30 in the morning. But wasn't it already over?

Yeah. But I didn't know if there'd be like an aftershock or like, if that was like the beginning of the end, I watched a lot of like dystopian movies, but so I assumed that like, if there was one there, like it could just be like, uh,

some sort of, you're not supposed to go outside in an earthquake. So I don't know what you two are doing, but read up on the, they say stand in a doorway or like stand in your bathroom with a mattress over you or something like that but i was like i would rather at least be outside no you're not supposed to be outside that's where shit falls on you well whatever okay it doesn't matter i'm glad i'm glad you didn't die and now i'm glad there's not a ghost shoving my bed in the middle of the night i thought it was a

fucking ghost no like i saw everything like shaking and swaying in her room and then like after we woke up you could still feel like it felt like the bed was like on my bed was vibrating yeah oh my god i really thought it was a ghost well never mind all right and that's why we drink and that's why we fucking drink and that's why i don't drink i drink la croix today oh yeah yuck i love it but i hate it at the same time because i miss wine one day when la croix is our sponsor you'll hear us be like we love la croix it doesn't taste like backwash at all i mean to be fair i drink it constantly and also you drink mine constantly so i do thank you so much thank you for your purchase

um also i want to say that the original a lot of people were like we don't want to lose it and not hear it and i'm like all right suit yourself sorry for your ears but i am posting it on patreon for those people who do want to hear it because there are some fun rants and jokes and fun stuff in there that aren't going to make it into this episode unfortunately and thank you for the um for being a part of our facebook live yeah that was fun that was really fun very fun people got a tour of our new studio oh yeah if you're on patreon and missed it, you can go back and look and watch the video. We took you on a little tour of the house and that cellar door open by itself. Just

saying. Yep. And we showed the cellar we show what it looked like in there and the podcast studio all done up. Yep. So feel free to go check that out. Also this episode we're gonna I'm putting it out literally after we record so there's going to be minimal editing. So I apologize in advance. Yep. We'll just see how it goes. So if you hear coughing or if you hear Gio's footsteps, just know that would have been edited out.

But we just, we're doing, we're doing this. It's like a practice live episode. Yeah, exactly. There's some throat clears going on. I clear my throat a lot. You guys don't actually know how often. I actually find the wavelength. I know what it looks like on Audacity, and I clear it out.

I'm sorry. No, it's fine. Here one comes. That's the one. Yep. Get ready for that. Are we ready to go? I'm ready.

Are we pretending to react? I feel like. Are we, like, pretending to react? I feel like I kind of forget what the hell we even talked about. So we can at least, I mean, we don't have to pretend, but I'm going to still be like, oh, wow. Okay. I mean, I'm still going to be. I was like, how much do, that was my real question, I guess. How much do you remember? Like, am I, because, like, the shock factor isn't there anymore, you know?

I know. I fucked up big time. It's okay. They'll be'll be shocked guys we're relying on your gasps for this okay so get ready i'm gonna react anyway because i just feel like it okay i'm gonna react to yours too because i'm not too sure what we talked about either okay good uh sorry this is a real look into sorry we're sorry we're sorry so this is the story of the congress plaza hotel in chicago i remember that and now do you remember how you are affiliated with the congress plaza hotel h h holmes yes i mean i'm not affiliated oh but hh holmes this is one of the hotels that he supposedly uh walked through like through the lobby regularly to search for women.

To, like, lure his victims. What a fucker. Also, what is the sound? I'm sorry, a guy's soldering his gate outside. Okay, so before we get a whole lot of guff about the audio still being bad, it's not us. It's our fucking neighbor. And by our, I mean Christine's. I was just going to let it go, but...

All right. So anyway, yes, this is one of the hotels of hh homes um although other people have said that this isn't the actual hotel it's like actually a couple blocks away oh okay but i mean i'm for the sake of the story i'm gonna call it the hh let's go with it let's roll with it let's just see where that takes us let's roll with the win so this hotel was built in 1893 and it was originally called the auditorium annex again i said this last time not as cool of a name i don't think so either um it was built for the world's fair in chicago and my favorite thing about this story is that there are there's no like bullshit history like this this just goes straight into the murders we love that the deaths and the

ghosts so that that was literally that one bullet 1893 built for the world's fair known as the auditorium annex oh my god there's your history folks all right i feel educated already let's get into the death because that's what we're all here for always all right get your get your slurping glasses ready in 1900 so only seven years into it being opened. Right. In 1900, there was a captain of the Spanish-American War. He was a veteran named Lou. Lou was staying in the hotel, and this is where he committed suicide by gunshot to the head.

His death was ruled to be accidental, however because um a lot of the people that they talked to like his friends and family were like we don't know why he would have done that he was in such good spirits and he literally that day married his wife whoa um he like was just like he had never shown any signs of there being any mental illness and he but they did know that he suffered from severe insomnia and night terrors and so they think like you know he it's 1900 everyone apparently just has a gun on them all the time and so they think that in the middle of one of his night terrors he probably woke up thought he was still in one of his like violent dreams and shot himself by accident. I'm sorry, look out the window. What is that? Do you see that?

Yeah. Oh yeah, it's someone soldering. Oh, okay. I was like, is there an alien here now? I'm so... No, he's literally soldering the gate. Okay. Well, sorry. Unscripted, and that's why we drink.

All right. I thought it was a UFO. It looked like a ufo it's like flashing on set this also i can't see anymore because i looked right into the light which is why they have those helmets on but i did not we should get one of those helmets just in case oh yeah yeah so anyway they think that lou's suicide by gunshot was accidental because he thought he was in one of his dreams that's so sad yes so then two years, they started construction on the south tower of the hotel. And from 1902 to 1907, it was being built. But there is a rumor that during that time

of construction, there is a worker who got trapped behind some of the walls. And so now they claim that they see a hand come out of the walls. Wasn't his name Drywall Dave? It certainly was. So sad that's your legacy drywall dave 1904 two years later um the hotel guests witnessed an elevator operator fall 70 feet to the bottom of the elevator shaft and he was killed on impact that's like one of my biggest fears falling down an elevator shaft but why how often does that happen but it's just the concept

of like you have no control it's like an l i mean it's one i mean i'm scared of like being in an elevator and then dropping that's what i mean oh i thought you meant like an open shaft but also that it's like when you notice i mean he did it i guess so so in 1904 there was a guest named roy gormley and he was in the hotel's ballroom. He paid the orchestra $500. In 1908, $500. That's a lot. Paid the orchestra $500 to play the Death March for him as he went to his room, and when he got there, he shot himself.

What the fuck? Also in 1908. There was an attempted murder-suicide right outside of the hotel's entrance, where a woman named Ruby and her husband were shot by Ruby's lover. Oh, jeez. Both of them survived. Oh. Fun fact. I didn't realize that. An attempted murder-suicide.

He shot both of them, and then the lover shot himself. Yeesh. They stayed together, although after a few years, they realized it wasn't working out, and they got divorced. Oh. Bummer. Whoops. after a few years they realized it wasn't working out and they got divorced oh so bummer whoops um and that kind of puts a damn suicide kind of puts a damper on i know in 1916 a minor investor like mining oh i thought you meant he was not like he invested in children no i thought he was like 14 and he was like oh yes actually i mean back then you could be an investor at 14. He worked on wall street.

In 1916, an investor named Morse, um, him and his wife formed a suicide pact. What? And they, in room 312, which still exists of the hotel,

they ingested cyanide capsules. Oh my God. She survived. He did not. And when they asked her what the fuck they were doing she said that they accidentally took cyanide capsules not a thing because they believed that what they were taking were epsom salt supplements and they just happen to have cyanide tablets on them right yes that sounds like spy shit well that's what they thought so they sent her to a

home and from that home she attempted to jump off the third floor window. Also survived. What? Like fucking Michael Malloy. But without the alcohol. Michaela Malloy. Michaela Malloy. And Mr. Not Mr. Mr. David's dead.

Mrs. David, after she tried jumping off of the third floor window right was then admitted into a psychiatric hospital so okay that was they were like okay three strikes you're out probably about time in 1919 i'm just running down the list there's just so many deaths go go go so much death we love it in 1919 disclaimer we don't but it's disclaimer don't email us we're clearly joking we're not assholes in 1919 a young woman was poisoned at a party being held in Congress. In Congress. Wow. Congress used to throw these ragers.

Wow. Yeah. Back when the government was fun. It's like solo cups. Back when Big Brother was Big Frat Bro. Big Frat Brother. So they held in the Congress Plaza Hotel. A young woman in 1919 was poisoned at

a party in the florentine room okay or no not in the florentine room it's called like the pom pomian pomayan room very weird what pomayan like pomeranian that's what i i keep calling it the pomeranian and i was intentionally trying to not call it that and then i accidentally called it a wrong name fuck me so in 1919 it's okay and we're not mad about it i was really stressed out there could you tell yes she so he said she was poisoned in the pomeranian room okay in 1919 an opera singer also tried to attempt suicide by poison in the pomeranian room wait what like was she also at a party no it's just convenient oh my congress had stopped throwing ragers by the end of the year.

He was no longer frat brother. Right. In 1920, there was a group of guests in the hotel that decided to do shots of moonshine together. Oh, boy. Good times. Good times. However, it gave people severe poisoning and actually killed one of them. That's how you know the moonshine's too fucking strong. Something wrong with it was actually kerosene um it was cyanide tablets i just

thought it was moonshine it was actually epsom salt um in 1926 a woman named harriet accidentally fell six stories down the elevator shaft oh my god with the elevator into the basement and was killed on impact of the basement splat impact of the basement impact of the basement not into it not like not impact of the air above the basement which is where she was possible um in 1928 a guy named g herb palin cool suffered from a heart attack in the hotel not cool what is cool is that he coined the term safety first oh no that's he died of a heart attack right right yes i thought that he died falling down the elevator shaft which would have been just so ironic but yeah safety first safety first interestingly like the man ate nothing but like fatty fatty fatty food his whole life he's

like safety first and then you whole life he's like safety first and then you know heart attack i mean safety first means you board yourself up in your house don't get any like safety first that's called the whole 30 right christine and then you don't get a heart attack clearly not because i'm fucking shit up left and right to be honest with you there's one of those famous throat clears love it in Love it. In 1939, this one's really sad. Oh, no. Do not tell me. Do not tell you what? What did you say oh, no about?

No. Oh, oh, no, you said this one's really sad. Oh, I thought you said oh, no, and I was like, do not tell me this has not been recording again. I was about to get so goddamn mad. I thought you were saying, I thought you were were like do not tell me like my own story I was like I don't even remember this story I don't even remember I was like do not look at that computer

and then suck at me I'm sorry because your eyes were squinting too and I was like are you trying to figure something out no I'm not wearing glasses and my grandma texted me that's probably how your grandma texts without her glasses

oh it's because my sister now wears size 10 shoes and she's 13. Damn. Yeah. So that's all. Her and I have the same size feet. Guess so. Yikes. Yikes.

In 1939, during World War I and World War II, the Congress Plaza Hotel was used to house immigrants and refugees. Oh, wow. From war-torn countries. That's kind of nice. Very nice. The nice. The nice nice most people should probably be like this fucking hotel and i say f except without the murder and elevator shaft yeah except without

any elevators actually just in case just don't safety first you got to just put slides or stairs no stairs are dangerous too let's just all like just kind of float around our own little hover bubbles okay so in 1939 one immigrant who was a czech jewish woman named adele she was staying in the hotel with her two sons well i already remember this i'm sad again that's why i looked at you i was like i'm gonna wait for it to click in your head what's happening um so they were in the country on a six-month visa and it was about to expire or it had already expired something along those lines and her husband was supposed to be joining them but he was not like they were not able to reach him they didn't know where he

was they were afraid that maybe he already got deported um she was getting like very nervous very very paranoid that they were the government was on their way to deport them. To a point where she had herself a nervous breakdown. And in 1939, she took her children to the zoo. They had a great day. Brought them back to their room on the 12th floor and threw them out the window. Then she jumped out of the window and all three of them died. Oh, my God.

How old were the kids? Do we know? Four and six. No. What if I said seven and eight? Would it have been different? No. It's just all so sad.

They went to the zoo and had ice cream and saw the monkeys. Well, to be fair, in 1939, I bet ice cream sucked. Also, the zoo was really depressing back then because they like. Tortured animals. Whipped lions. I made that up, but. I don't know. I'm imagining the 30s was a horrible time for zoos.

I feel like... Or maybe better times, because there weren't all these PETA rules. Maybe you could really get wild with the animals. That's... No, but worse times for the animals, because they... I know, but in the 30s, no one had emotions. Were abused. Oh. Okay.

Right? We're making a lot of assumptions, and I'm just going to believe all of them. I know that animals were not treated well in zoos in the 1930s, for sure. I don't... I agree with you there okay okay maybe just maybe let's just keep going really i think we're good where we are let's just stop right here well here's the sad sadder part of that story is that that same day that she killed herself and the children her husband was not reachable because he was surprising

her at the hotel that night showing up because he wasn't supposed to get there right away and he found a way to get there earlier was going to surprise them at the hotel with the letter from canada saying they had permanent residency there just that makes my heart sink so awfully yes that's so fucking tragic in the 1940s there was a resident of the hotel who had a wooden leg, and he was having breakfast in the hotel when he suffered a heart attack, too, and died. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Safety first. Safety first. In 1950, the security managers went upstairs to the room of a 25-year-old guest who owed them $104. He had an overdue unpaid bill. Uh-oh. I know. So the security managers knocked on his door, asked him about it.

He let them in and said, yeah, can you just wait here and let me go get my wallet? Came out with a gun and shot them point blank and then killed himself. What? What is even the point of that? In 1966, a lawyer was found in his room naked and strangled by his own shirt oh no and his wrists and feet were bound together with his own socks nobody knows what happened to him so this is the like during this whole time there was talk that there was paranormal activity going on and that they were manipulating these people to hurt themselves because anytime there was paranormal activity going on and that they were manipulating these people to hurt themselves because anytime there was,

um, a, a death that looked like someone was murdered, but no trace of an actual murderer. It was like the door had been locked from the inside and no one had ever followed them into the room. And like, there's no proof that anyone had ever seen them.

Cold war spy shit. Yeah. It's very weird. But so how would he have strangled himself with his shirt? Exactly. So they think something paranormal happened. Yeesh. Or, I mean, this was a little later, but I'll get into this, but there was a lot of gang activity.

Right, true. So maybe something happened and it slipped through the cracks. Who knows? Got it. In 1970, a woman committed suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Oh, no. And guests have reported seeing the dead girl's ghost appear in their bathtubs oh and if not the see-through ghost

they have just seen a woman's dead body staring at them when they come into the bathroom in the middle of the night god yeah in the middle of the night yeah like with the fucking shit dude it's also believed that an exorcism took place here somewhere in the hotel and the staff refuses to confirm which place which room it took place in oh interesting but they don't deny that it happened oh so they're just like we won't tell you where we won't tell you where just know that it happened no additional deaths great because they don't have years so i'm just gonna list off these other deaths. Okay.

There was a taxi driver who was staying there who jumped from the North Tower. Oh my god, everyone's jumping out of the building. There was a salesman who purposely threw himself down the elevator shaft. Enough with the elevator. There was a man who hung himself from a cupboard hook in his room. A cupboard hook. What was that thing made of? Metal?

Yeah. I know, but like like how is it just hanging i feel like if you if you hang a whole body on a little cupboard hook how'd the whole door not fall off i mean i don't want to know i tell myself that it's made of like shit ikea wood and like it's just i'm sure i don't know um a homeless man was reportedly murdered in the alleyway behind the hotel. An insurance salesman was at the hotel, and then he walked into Lake Michigan and drowned himself. What? Another guest went into the hotel, where he then cut off all of his dry cleaner tags out of his clothes, burned all of his identifying paperwork walked into the lake and shot himself

i told you cold war it's very spies that's what they did so um this location i know you haven't seen it but for any of the people who are unfortunate enough to have not watched this movie the movie 1408 is one of my favorite paranormal movies right i just think it's very original and i think that um it's not one of those typical oh, look around the corner and then it's there. Like actually has its own interesting play out. Right. It's actually about, it's John Cusack and he stars as a writer who is a skeptic about a haunted hotel. So he goes to this hotel and then the room 1408 is this haunted

room that is completely sealed off from the guests. No one's allowed to ever be in there because apparently any guests that ever stays in there cannot make it out alive within the hour because something compels them to kill themselves. Oh no. And it's based off Stephen King's book, right? It's all, yep. It's a Stephen King book. King book 1408 have you read it I haven't read it it's really long isn't it probably I mean the I wanted to read Stephen King's it and it's like it's so long the audiobook is 11 hours I read woof I read The Shining but not it I think I would get into 1408 I think because I like the movie yeah but um but it's just it's a really good story and it's super creepy but i mean there's a lot of parallels like i haven't read the book so i don't get to like really be a

snob about this but based on the movie this the hotel in the movie seems a lot like this hotel where interesting anyone who has survived from this from like their attempts in this hotel have also that they felt like they were compelled to do it. Not that they actually wanted to, or they ever waltzed in with the intention. They just like something caused them to want to do this. And so that's where a lot of people think that Stephen King's story 1408, um, it was inspired off this location. Okay.

Also just looking off my notes for once in my fucking life, it actually says Stephen King's short story 1408 so we might actually be able to read that pretty fast oh is it for some reason i thought it was long but it might be because it's made of numbers 1408 pages i was gonna say maybe it's over a thousand pages i don't know well it's a short story but since it's stephen king maybe it's just the length of a normal story. So a lot of people believe that this hotel inspired Stephen King's 1408. However, a former employee has said that that is entirely fictional. Oh. And it comes actually from a woman named Ursula who invented the entire thing up. Totally made it up for one of her own books. And then they even met her

or worked for her at one point and said like, is it about Stephen King's like, is Stephen King's 1408 about this, like you said? And she said, well, no, but it makes a good story. Ursula! Ursula. You witch. Get it? Didn't we talk about it last time? I think we said every Ursula we've ever met was just a horrible

person. Oh, yes, we did. Because it's Phoebe's twin. Phoebe's twin. Ariel's Ursula. This Ursula we've ever met was just a horrible person oh yes because it's Phoebe's twin Phoebe's twin Ariel's Ursula this Ursula who's making shit up you said you had you knew an Ursula that yeah you didn't like there's an old old lady named Ursula who used to be really mean to me as a child and called me dumb and fat yep she's an old German lady in Maryland gross she was very mean so anyway so Ursula good luck Ursula. Good luck, Ursula. Classic Ursula. Classic Ursulas. Anyway, if you're an Ursula, that's nice.

We're sorry for your name. We feel, we pity you. Honestly, Ursula, it's not us. It's you. So H.H. Holmes, like we said, was known to meet women in the lobby here before taking them back to his, quote, murder castle. Murdle. His murdle. His murdle castle.

His grandma murdle's house. His murder castle. That's so fucked. He would go around the lobby. He would see women looking for work and would offer them employment at his pharmacy. Ugh, what a jerk. at his pharmacy. Ugh, what a jerk.

Although people who have worked at this hotel have said that that's not true and the hotel people talk about is actually a couple blocks away. Oh. But, I mean, like I said in the beginning, I'm gonna not... We're gonna Ursula this and pretend it's true. Honestly, it just makes a good story, though.

So, when I said gang activity was involved... Right. Al Capone's ghost has been reported in this hotel, both in the bar and the lobby, where we both know you'd be in the bar and I'd be in the lobby. I don't know why you're in the lobby. I'd be. It's a good time in the bar. He was known to frequent the hotel a lot.

He had a lot of, quote, business meetings. Fun. At the Congress Plaza Hotel. Bet those were very boring. Oh, yes. Nothing out of ordinary there, I think. A lot of PowerPoints. A lot of nothing nothing out of ordinary a lot of power points a lot of excel sheets yes a lot of ursula's i'm sure in the crowds ursula um hotels

the hotel's basement was used for a lot of probably smuggling goods and having like some not so savory savory meetings um some of his gang actually once held a prisoner a guy well he held a guy there and held him prisoner oh no um and a lot of people want to connect al capone to the saint valentine's day massacre which i think at this point it's just assumed that he was connected but they never had any true proof right but the biggest evidence that they ever had on him being connected to the saint valentine's day massacre is that a guy named jake guzik who was known in his gang as greasy thumb sorry what can you imagine if that's your fucking name i'm gonna join a gang to be really cool and no one's gonna make fun of

me i'm gonna be so tough everyone's gonna take me seriously my name's greasy thumb that's disgusting did he just suck his thumb or something i'm imagining it's like he had a slippery thumb like he was quick to like pull a trigger or something like slippery finger i don't know what a greasy thumb has to do with anything oh maybe like like like counting the money oh like how you like count through so he would like drop it all the time because he couldn't oh keep hold of it it would just like fall out of his hand sure i was thinking more like he was just counting the stacks a hundred. That's probably more accurate. Um, but anyway, so greasy thumb.

Sure. He, the biggest piece of evidence that they have of Capone being connected to the St. Valentine's day massacre is that greasy thumb called Al Capone from the lobby of the Congress Plaza hotel minutes before and minutes after the shooting. Aha. So they're like his house in Florida, right? Or something? Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's crazy. So a lot of stuff... And it wasn't just Al Capone's gang, but a lot of gangs were involved in that hotel. In fact, a lot of Al Capone's associates and close friends actually lived in this hotel from the 20s to the 30s.

Oh. So for like 10 years, they were like almost marking it as their like their gang territory yeah and a lot of gangsters lived there so it's very common for people to report ghosts of people that look like they're from the 20s and they're like making some sort of shady agreement that's so creepy or like people will be looking around corners or like people will see like a spirit looking around corners and when you look to see what they're looking at and you look back at them they're already gone i know i said this last

time but can you imagine a guy in like 20s clothes with a gun just like coming toward you in the hallway that would be terrifying gross no i don't want that nope um also people have seen full body apparitions of al capone himself as well well as Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy's just there. He's just hanging out. He's just checking in. Get it? He's just checking in. Checking in.

Like a hotel. But not checking out. Nope. This is called the Hotel California. Apparently, Teddy Roosevelt made his announcement in this hotel that he was leaving the Republican Party. Oh. So, I think maybe he has some connection. Here's where it gets real good oh boy a peg-legged man wait sorry i'm not laughing about his peg leg i'm laughing about just

this like what's coming this derailed so hard last time we had this conversation it did go on um we're gonna try to keep it real kosher this time let's do it a peg-legged man has been seen all over this hotel he's the most reported and he's also like the the most well-traveled like most people see a certain ghost in a certain room right another ghost in another room but this guy people just see this peg-legged man everywhere yikes he's been given the nickname peg-legged johnny oh and a lot of people think that he could be one of three people i mean everyone seemed to have a peg leg back then i mean there were at least three to go off of that could possibly be in this one hotel i mean

that's crazy so uh the ghost of the peg leg johnny could could be either the peg-legged guy who had a heart attack eating breakfast. Right, safety first. Safety first. It could also be the homeless man that died in the alleyway. He got murdered in the alleyway, but he also had a peg-legged. Okay. Or there are rumors that one of my long-lost ancestors... Oh, I forgot about this!

could have been the ghost because here's the thing. Back in the early 1900s there was a murderer afoot. Afoot! Only one foot because he was peg-legged.

And his name was Conway the one-legged killer clown of 1912 guys so why christine hasn't done a story on him i do not know because listen to his name that's horrifying so everyone thinks it's either breakfast guy homeless man or conway the one-legged killer clown of 1812 1912 1812 was a war 1912 was the clown the war the year of the clown that's how you remember right yeah there's one there's a war in the clown and it's like the chinese menus that they give you with like your your animal year right 1912 the year of the clown um so the year of the dog by the way is it as of friday chinese new year is on friday oh wow and it's year of the dog for geo baby g so sweet um which you're which one are you i'm a

monkey i am a sheep or goat i forget if it's a goat or sheep oh i'm the monkey through and through blazes snake typical slytherin he is he is a little slow um so anyway let's talk about conway real quick apparently and he was a i didn't want to read too much about it because i didn't if you do ever decide to yeah i'm going to for sure this is amazing apparently he was a killer clown and he escaped prison in 1925 and was never found oh god But the site of the murder that he committed was only like right up the road from the Congress Plaza Hotel. Holy shit.

So people think when he escaped, maybe he went back to the murder site and like stayed near the hotel or in the hotel. Oh, God. Wait, so how come he's, what if he died eating breakfast? People think maybe that was him. No way.

Or maybe he was the homeless man that got murdered. Oh, my God. So what if they're all the same person? What if they're all the same person what if they're all the same person i mean i don't know except they died twice except as a homeless man what if there were two identical twins oh don't do that to me right now okay twin killer clowns who both happen to have peg legs gemini clowns so um a shadow like oh here's okay so anyway that's the end of that. People see a peg-legged guy and they don't know who it is. Here's the next ghost. Close the chapter.

Close that book onto another. This is just a list now of all of the ghosts. This one I remember being really freaked out. This is why I thought my bed moved. Yep. Instead of an earthquake. I can't wait to tell Allison that. Oh, I'm so annoyed.

So anyway, here's all the ghosts, guys, besides Peg Leg Johnny. Who could be Peg Leg Conway, by the way. Or Peg Leg Breakfast Eater. Excuse me. I bored myself, apparently. These are the things Christine likes to edit out. I liked you a lot. I really enjoyed it.

I think it's your favorite part. That's why we started a podcast. You could edit out my yawns. I just want you to make lots of bodily noises Christine likes to edit out, but I liked you a lot. I really think it's your favorite part. That's why we started a podcast. You could edit out my own. I just want you to make lots of bodily noises for me to edit. I don't know how to control that. Okay. A shadow like figure has been seen standing by beds. No.

When you wake up in the middle of the night before it dissolves away. when you wake up in the middle of the night before it dissolves away in room 441 there is a ghostly woman who shakes the bed inside the room in the middle of the night to wake you up and then she's gone that's what i thought was happening in my room oh she showed up from room 441 oh god um visitors claim to be kicked away by a shadow woman in the middle of their sleep kicked away like kicked out of their beds like kicked awake oh kicked awake um objects move they hear eerie noises and it's the room that most people leave in the middle of the night to go to another hotel why are you staying there and room 474 the television channels and volume change constantly on their own. In room 759, the door is allegedly pulled shut from the inside when guests try to enter the room, as if they don't want anyone coming in.

In room 905, the phone in this room doesn't actually work, and yet if you ever pick it up, you can hear static running through it. Oh. Yet if you ever pick it up, you can hear static running through it. Oh. There is also several reports through this hallway of paranormal activities, such as a little boy around 10 years old seen running up and down the hallways in knee-high britches and button-up boots. I bet he's so cute. And the elevator on the fifth floor of the South Tower, people report hearing moaning.

Oh, God. I wonder why. That's awful. of the south tower people report hearing moaning oh god i wonder why awful oh i forgot we also added sound effects today um many people have felt like they were being chased down the hall oh god um even when they're just standing there they feel like someone's running at them that's awful they also hear a little boy laughing that's pretty fucking creepy too um here's the thing that really freaks me out the most about this a lot of people reported

shadow people coming out of a closet. Oh my God. Sometimes they quote slither out. And other times they will army crawl in stop motion choppy movements. No, that's a fucking demon. Yes. No, I don't like that. The thing for me is I wonder like at what speed they're going. Because if it's stop motion choppy movements, but like a little too oh my god that's some like it the clown that's pennywise what's happening that's pennywise fuck so um okay so there's that yikes then there's drywall dave who we know and

love love that guy um drywall dave is the guy that supposedly was the construction worker that got stuck in the building sad in 1905 ish um people have reported seeing a hand emerging from the wall from where he was allegedly buried as if he looks like he's trying to escape however this is the one story that employees either former or current have all said is not true it's just a rumor that went a little too wild and um they even say that the wall that he would have been buried behind isn't nearly thick enough to trap a person if he really needed to he could have kicked his way through or people would have heard him screaming and also that area of the hotel is not typically available to the public even the employees themselves only ever go through there a couple,

like a handful of times. Oh, okay. So it's not like people, if people are seeing this, it's because they're in the wrong place and they shouldn't be seeing it anyway. Oh, okay. But, you know, all employees do say that's the only one that has no, like, source. Like backing, yeah. Yeah. There's also the gold room, which has been known to known to by staff all employees have said that they

it's always always unlocked no matter how many times you lock it no matter what type of lock they put on it they can try and deadbolt it and it'll still be unlocked when they come back crazy strangely enough the photographs um if you ever take a picture in front of the grand piano um if you take a photograph in front of it usually one or more people will be missing from the photo that is wild so like if you and i took a picture together i wouldn't be in it or i wouldn't be in it or you why do you get to be the one who disappears sometimes i want to no i'm just kidding oh my god dark i'm kidding this fucking hotel it's it's the earthquake guys um also in this gold room appliances are often like

disconnected turned off like put basically in the middle of the room and they will turn on by themselves ew so like a toaster in the middle of the room or something yeah like everything is unplugged when it's not being used and that room hasn't been used in a long time and yet all the appliances will turn on all by themselves and then the across there is the gold room where all the appliances will turn on all by themselves. And then across is the gold room where all the doors are being unlocked. Oh, okay. There's also the Florentine room where people will hear women whispering, men humming, piano music, organ music, wooden wheels rolling on a wooden floor. Gunshots, screaming, etc. But upon inspection, it is always empty.

Nothing is in there. No one there no one is that really escalated in this room this is also the room where teddy roosevelt said he was leaving the republican party so where he liked to roll his little wooden horse around apparently so apparently he was like hmm wood and wood maybe people would use like that hoop game oh we talk about that the stick hoop and stick hoop and stick on a wooden floor i mean it has a very distinct sound it certainly as i know very well uh on the 12th floor the 12th and 4th floors are supposedly the most haunted floors but the 12th one like holds the torch just by a hair okay um in hallways people experience feeling paranoid panic dread

doom and this is the sensation that they are being watched or chased yay fun a six-year-old boy is often spotted there which is sad because that's the floor that a six year old boy was thrown out of the window oh no this floor is considered to be the most haunted and many rooms are sealed off and are literally wallpapered over that is so fucking creepy you can literally see like the the lines of a door behind the wallpaper. They're just like, do-do-do-do-do. Yep, like, never mind, nothing to see here. We'll see past this ugly floral pattern. The staff has said out loud that they have closed those parts of the hotel because they were literally, quote, too horrible.

It has, quote, an unsettling number of rooms which are permanently closed off from the public due to paranormal activity. And the sealed doors don't even have doorknobs anymore. People will go up and knock on the imprints of the door that you can see through the wallpaper. They'll knock on them to see if anything happens. And they can hear hollowness, like there's a room behind it. If you try to piss off the ghost on this floor you will literally hear someone moving around in the room that is wallpapered over and also you're an asshole so don't do that um also a few of the doors that have not been wallpapered over but are still sealed shut have

padlocks and chains over them oh god can you imagine the yelp review like look it was all great until i saw a couple chains now um so yeah it's nice and spooky that's fucking creepy as hell um a hotel security have also seen the shadow people and think that they're lost guests so they'll try to like follow them and help them and then when they turn the corner oh no they're gone oh no um the hotel is now much more strict about paranormal groups letting like letting the groups go past the lobby like they won't even let them go past the lobby they used to let them into their rooms and on the 12th floor and like do whatever they wanted and it's apparently gotten so bad that now they're like you can sit in the lobby and we can tell you stories

but you can't go past that far i mean it's nice they at least let people in to that's true talk about it there is one room i'm assuming this is the exorcism room oh sure one can only guess sure but staff members refuse to name which room it is just like the exorcism room hard to get um but they have had multiple reports from multiple different guests that the photos hanging on the walls will rotate 360 degrees oh no that is exorcism shit mothers that stay on the 12th floor feel compelled to look over the 12th floor railing oh don't and think about jumping no don't don't just like the mother that threw her kids don't stay there um i have a quote of someone who stayed there okay um A little story. I turned off the TV, plugged in a portable fan in the bathroom for background noise,

and laid down to go to sleep. Just as I started to drift off to sleep, I heard a crash from the bathroom. I went in to see what it was. My fan, which I had plugged in and sat in the middle of a countertop, was unplugged and in the shower. Oh, God. Standing upright. At one point, I saw the cord to the lamp next to me swaying back and forth on its own the closet door kept opening even when i shut it

firmly and worst of all there were many many voices i heard voices on either side of the room muffled and low enough that i couldn't hear the words but definitely knew they were voices it could have been other guests but i guess i just don't usually hear a lot of people up and chatting at 3 a.m oh and that's weird for me for the fan like the fan that would because i mean like a lot of fans will like vibrate and like shake and fall off the countertop but this one was unplugged and put on the other side of the bathroom moved standing upright into the bathtub yeah but still also made a crashing sound i was wondering about that weird maybe it just wanted his attention you know yeah that's what i'm thinking

too yuck that's the worst part when it wants your attention like if it's just fucking around because it's bored that's one thing ignore it but it wants you to know gross so um here's the thing tell me the thing here's the last thing i'm gonna do go for it and i would appreciate oh no should we just insert that whole thing yeah oh you guys this was something we cannot recreate i would appreciate if you could just put the whole clip of this experience i will so there is a room called uh in this hotel called room 209 and it had a viral video a couple years ago where a woman stayed in another room of the hotel and called the front desk because she heard a female scream in the Room 209.

Heard her constantly screaming. Yeah. Which was the room next to hers or something. Yeah, something like that. She called security, or she called the front desk. They called security. The security went. And there is security footage of what happened happened you can only see the hallway and you can only see the

security like go into the room but you never see the room yourself somehow that makes it creepier um it's just very worth seeing so i would just type in room 209 like poltergeist haunting or room 209 security footage ghost like just put like something paranormal to it too if you yeah yeah we'll put a link to it because i don't really know what i typed in it was just a series of like words i knew google would pick up on but um it's i i played it for christine and she freaked out a little bit no wonder i was scared that night it's really good and it's really juicy it's really creepy but But basically that is the creepiest part of this. And that is the end of my story.

Okay, I'm going to insert that here. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. What the fuck, Em? Yep.

So if anyone else has seen it um that made me so uncomfortable so that's some exorcist shit i don't want to spoil it for you guys but i do i do feel like it's my job to tell you what we just saw okay so if you don't if you want to watch it by yourself just skip the the next couple, just skip the next, press the little fast forward thing a couple times. Yeah. So he, a security guard walked in there. You can definitely hear the screaming. Even on the footage, you can hear someone screaming in the hotel.

So the camera is like, it's like CCTV, like the floor security camera. So you see him, the security guy at the door. Yeah. And you can hear like the radio footage of him talking to security. door yeah and you can hear like the radio footage of him talking of security and basically he decides to go into the room to try and see where the screaming is or what's going on once he's in there nobody is in the room there's no one that should be screaming in there however all the furniture has been turned upside down the carpet was ripped up and the shower was on and he immediately ran and left and called the police i think what's spooky about it is that he goes in and you're like what's going on what's going on you don't

see any of this stuff but then he kind of like backs out of the room and then the guy in the security is like okay uh he wants you brian wants you to call the police um he says no one's in there but all the furniture's been turned upside down and the guy is like clearly spooked the fuck yeah he's clearly terrified oh my god that really freaked me out. Well, good, that's the end of my story. There's something about him like backing out of that room. It's seeing someone's true, it's a reaction. You never get to see any paranormal

stuff on footage, and especially never get to see anyone's reaction to paranormal stuff on footage. Especially like a security guy. A poor guy who was like probably working graveyard shift and thought that nothing was gonna happen, and then all of a sudden he has to go into this room. And all the furniture is sitting upside down waiting for him. And the shower is turned on.

Yes, you can hear screaming. You can straight up hear a woman screaming. It's really loud. I have full goosebumps right now. Me too. I don't like it at all. And I'm mad that you didn't let me close the blinds. I'm so mad.

I'm sorry. I have those goosebumps where, like, they're so raised they're itchy. Yeah, yeah. So I'm, like, trying to scratch myself to calm myself down oh wait my ground is not good yay! wait why did you get one? I don't know I don't know why everyone was so nice to me I don't deserve it everyone loves you because you're great

okay is everyone nice and freaked out? are you scared? did you watch it? ugh gross anyway that was beautiful while i have the floor right now go for it um i would like to have a guest on the show huh who deirdre what because deirdre was wondering if she could tell you about how haunted her house is

are you serious yeah we get a surprise ghost story in here you down hell yes okay how do we do it i'm just gonna call her and speak her phone oh okay hello uh do you can you talk real quick for the podcast? Oh, yeah. Okay, hang on. We're ready. Are we recording? Yep. Okay. Oh, hey.

Hey, girl. Okay, so Deirdre is on the line, and I recently told my story about... The groping ghost. Yeah, the ghost that groped me at Deirdre's house, then Deirdre's like oh yeah I have more stories from that house so Deirdre take it away okay so first I wanted to say that you thought I was grabbing your ass you thought like my hand was literally like on your ass the whole time

the way you found out it wasn't me was because you like literally turned and looked with your flashlight and you're like you're holding my ass right now and there's nothing there yes that's exactly what happened I was like there's nothing there okay so I yeah I don't know why I didn't tell you this but um I've had a couple of ghostly experiences and one of them is like very like very benign and the other one was terrifying oh tell me no i think there might be different ghosts so i think that was great i think that was like the mischievous one who i think he's just he likes to play jokes because i was in the shower one time oh god I know I know I like left and I think it's because I left the door to the bathroom open

like into my room I swear to god so like the ghost could go it's so stupid but like I shut the door every time now I dropped my razor in the shower and I was just being lazy. So I like was just, I just forgot about it for a couple of minutes. And then I went down to like grab it and it was gone. I was like, what the fuck? I was like,

where's the razor guy? I was like, look around the tub. And I like pull back the curtain and it was like sitting on the opposite side of the bathroom. No, I swear to God. Oh my God.

I'm out of the tub to move it so I know I didn't fucking move it oh my god that's so wild it's very creepy it's just like I don't know and so now you close the doors if he won't like just walk through the door he's like oh shucks I can't get in and you take some kind of precaution what's the what's the traumatizing one everyone luckily like it didn't happen directly to me but it involves me so um I'm the only girl in a house of five guys and the guy who lives below me is Joe and so one night i like passed out pretty early and i usually go to sleep like after midnight and joe was down in his room and he says that he heard a woman like loudly scream oh my god like he was convinced it was me like he said it was my voice so he and this was

at like three in the morning so he came upstairs and, like, opened my door and, like, looked in at me. And I was, like, completely peaceful. That's so creepy. And it was, like, a blood-curdling, like, scream. What? Oh, no. It was scary when I woke up in the morning. I was like, thank God he didn't wake me up and tell me that.

That's horrifying. Oh, my God. Okay, well, did you ever do any do any like research on the house or anything i've tried to i know that it was built in the 1930s and the other thing is i should have showed you while you're here um my roommate upstairs has this really creepy room that has a secret it has like a hidden room no yeah so if you go through his closet there's like this little door and you open it and then you go in and it's like this tiny little attic room with a window it has like a window and oh god old window in there oh well yeah i don't know

so creepy i don't feel like not safe but it's still creepy i would feel unsafe i mean i guess i didn't when i got you know my holter groped when i got my ass grabbed your ass like i didn't you weren't scared though were you i it was one of those like we both kind of laughed because there was nothing else we could do no there's nothing that we could do could do. But I remember I looked at you and I was like, what the fuck were you doing? And you were like, I'm literally all the way over here. All the way over here. Like, no, I really didn't do anything.

Well. I couldn't have done anything. Oh, God. While we have you, are there any, like, stories you want to tell about your house growing up? Yeah. you want to tell about um your house growing up um yeah oh I I meant to give the shout out before so my good friend Kara Saphos who you know too um her house is like extremely haunted and terrifying and she like she's had she's been like locked out of her house before. She, like, goes out, like, the back door onto her patio or the backyard and, like, gets locked out. And she, like, has heard cannons going off.

Whoa. Yeah. It's really wild. And I've, like, heard, she says she hears it pretty, like, frequently. And I've heard it, I think, one time. I've had just like all kinds of really creepy nightmares and I like I used to sleepwalk a lot in that house or I think because I would wake up and with like all the lights on and you in different places oh no oh

god creepy dreams I had this one dream where I thought it was real because everything was like the same and I was laying in real because everything was like the same. And I was laying in bed and there was somebody at my door and I could hear it. Like, but I couldn't move. I was like frozen. And then they opened my door, came around to my bed. And I just felt like the most evil presence. And it was standing like right next to me, went down to touch me. And I like, I slept with my mom that night.

Yeah, I don't blame you. Yeah. It's, there's some creepy, like, spots. You know too, Em. Oh, yeah, no, there's a lot of weird shit in your house. I mean, there was, there's one room in Deirdre's house that, whenever I slept there, I only slept in that one room

because it was the only room I felt safe in. Yeah, Em will only sleep in the sunroom. Mm-hmm. Wow. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we'll only sleep in the sunroom. Wow. Yeah, it's a pretty creepy house. Yikes. I remember Deirdre used to sing, like used to sing throughout the house and you had to turn out all the lights

so that like the spirits couldn't get you. That's my, oh yeah, and my mom. Okay, my mom's room. There's something definitely weird about that. Like she's been in there before and she's had things thrown at her. Yeah, she's had things thrown at her, and she recently just sent me a video of my cat, like, I swear to God, playing with a ghost.

And I sent it to you, Ella. I don't know if you watched it. But you can see the orbs and shit. I swear it's got to be. I think it's my cat princess, but I don't know. What the fuck? You have to see it. It's very creepy. Weird think it's My Cat Princess, but I don't know. What the fuck? You have to see it. It's very creepy.

Weird. Uh, save for that shit. It's always, like, freezing in the room. Well, alright, thank you. Thanks, Deirdre. We will, I'll call you back afterwards. Okay. Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Bye, we miss you. I miss you guys, too. I have to come back to visit please do okay love you bye love you bye whoa anyway that i've been trying to get deirdre on the show for a couple episodes and we keep missing each other but that was because see it's good that i was sober and fucked shit up right do you forgive me yet oh yeah no i do and she's been wanting to tell me her stories anyway. So I was like, don't tell me until the show.

Don't tell you until we're recording. I want to see this cat video. She did not send it to me. She's lying through her teeth. So we'll have to, what a, what a liar. I know.

Anyway, guys, you got to, if you want to go listen to Deirdre's personal stories and some of my childhood and, um, her personal story that she wrote for the episode that she put together. I think it was episode 19 that Deirdre was in. So perfect. It was a good it was a really

good people really liked that one. Good. All right. I wanted to put that in before we switched gears from paranormal to true crime. So yes, please go check that out. Okay, so let's go to true crime that's me baby how you doing i have a wedgie yay i'm sorry it's empty do you want another lacroix no i'm good i just want to i want to hear your story this is the story of ward weaver the third oh we received the suggestion in an email from andrea and aaron Yay, Andrea and Aaron. Thank you guys, because I did not know about it. So mine's kind of similar to yours in that it's like a timeline of just awful shit happening. Love it.

So I'm just going to go straight into it. Excuse me. So this guy, this mofo, Ward Weaver, he was born on April 6 6 1963 in humboldt county california um in 1967 when he was four his father abandoned the family and a few years later his mom married a guy named bob boudreau who was an abusive alcoholic and they all relocated to portland oregon love it not maine i know not to be confused with portland maine uh which by the way we hear you guys we want to go to both yes his stepfather would beat him relentlessly and was an extremely heavy drinker um sometimes his mom would literally make a bed in the back seat for the kids and drive

around town looking for her husband at all the bars it's just really so sad really sad and the kids said they would be really happy when they didn't find him because it was abusive right they meant that he didn't have to come home with them um at age four uh ward fell out of this the second story window of their house um to calm him down his stepdad gave him a dollar and then a short time later his mother caught him trying to jump out the window again because he wanted another dollar exactly the kind of entrepreneur i'd probably be at four too the entrepreneur we all need but also look do or die you gotta hustle right but also the head injury that probably creates a serial killer so we'll see um as a teenager ward began to exhibit anti-social

behavior fun his sister tammy later said he physically and sexually abused at least one family member by the time he was 12 years old jesus um his half-brother robert said ward frequently beat him he would stand him up against a tree wrap a dog chain around him as if he were about to be burned at the stake oh my god and then he would face his little brother's nose inches from the neighbor's fence, howling with laughter as the neighbor's dogs leapt against the fence, just snapping just inches from his face.

Jesus Christ. Um, Ward, who is much larger than his brother, Robert would often beat him. And Robert said he invented a technique to withstand the pain where he would take a deep breath and hold it for as long as he could, which was usually several minutes. And he would get delirious from no oxygen, which helped him to distract from the beating.

That's so sad. So sad. And Tammy, his younger sister, said it took months. I mean, not months. I'm sorry. It took years of therapy to even recover from all of this torture. Yeah. I'd imagine that's like lifelong therapy. Lifelong, yeah.

Jesus. I can't even imagine. She said he would shoot her in the back with a BB gun. And then in 1981, when Ward was 18, a teenage relative of his reported that he had repeatedly raped and beaten her. Fuck. repeatedly raped and beaten her so police um did prosecutors decided not to pursue charges because weaver had enlisted in the armed services and would be leaving portland soon so they just let it go yeah great move of course soon after that ward graduated from high school joined the u.s navy reserve but he was discharged after only a year for heavy

drinking and dereliction of duty but while he was in the navy he met his future wife 19 year old maria stout who was a woman from the philippines they moved in with ward's parents and she quickly became pregnant oh moment of silence yep moment of silence for maria sorry maria five months into the pregnancy ward who was also 19 slapped her pulled her hair and banged her head against the bed sending her to the hospital fuck ward was arrested but she refused to press charges and their son francis was born in december of 1982 i wonder how that kid's gonna turn out yeah we'll find out so he and maria married in 1984 and relocated to bakersfield california and he

later explained that part of the reason he wanted to move there was to reconnect with his own father who had abandoned the family at age when he was four okay um and it turns out that his father was actually at the time on trial for capital murder oh great so we got two generations of murder yeah so far it turns out that in 1981 his father had picked up an 18-year-old Air Force recruit, Robert Radford, and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Barbara Lavoie, near the Mojave Desert after their car broke down. He beat the man to death with a piece of pipe. Fuck.

Took the woman on the road with him, raping her repeatedly. Then, when she struggled and bit his thumb he strangled her with a diaper fuck it's just oh my god it's so bad he buried the woman beneath a concrete slab behind his house um in oroville california and for help he enlisted his 10 year old son to dig the hole oh no he told his son they were looking for a broken sewer pipe but when his son went to school he covered the body with concrete and dirt and built a wooden deck over her grave jesus he was caught pretty soon after that and a jury deliberated only 42 minutes before declaring him sane enough to stand trial uh he was sentenced to death by gas chamber oh wow remember that whole thing i do

tell me all about gas chambers gotta tell you about gas i want to know i want to know so this is information i got from death penalty curriculum dot org and i explained in our last recording that i just was like wait what death chamber or death chamber gas chamber and i went the same difference so whatever yeah exactly so i went on a little research spree um and it's very fascinating. So apparently in 1924, the use of cyanide gas was introduced because Nevada was seeking a more humane way of executing its inmates. The first person to be executed by lethal gas was named G. John. And the state tried to pump cyanide into his cell while he slept. But it proved impossible because the gas leaked from his cell which led

them to construct what is now known as the gas chamber yay so today five states actually authorized lethal gas as a method of execution but they all have injection as an alternative method um so i guess that means you get to decide yeah you get to pick okay um a federal court in california found this method to be cruel and unusual punishment, and the last use of the gas chamber was on March 3, 1999, when Walter Legrand, a German national, was executed in Arizona. So what they do to execute someone is they strap them into a chair in an airtight chamber. Below the chair rests a pail of sulfuric

acid a long stethoscope is affixed to the inmate so the doctor outside the chamber knows when to pronounce death which is so weird let's let's stop there real quick yes literally the other day i was hanging out with mr christine aka blaze and he was telling me all about this new bluetooth stethoscope he loves his bluetooth stethoscope and he was telling me all about this new bluetooth stethoscope he loves his bluetooth stethoscope and he was talking about how you can like hear heartbeats from afar and shit they use that for these or like how did a long stethoscope so it's like a okay so it's like they literally attach it affix it to the person and then it like trails out to the doctor oh i was thinking for a second it was like a dixie cup string dixie Cup kind of thing for a stethoscope.

I mean, honestly. Well, these days they would have a Bluetooth stethoscope, according to Blaze. Blaze would know. Anyway. This is really sad. They instruct the prisoner. Oh, wait, hold on. Okay, so right.

So they have the long stethoscope. Once everyone has left the chamber, the room is sealed. have the long stethoscope once everyone has left the chamber the room is sealed the warden gives a signal to the executioner who flicks a lever that releases crystals of sodium cyanide into the pail which causes a chemical reaction that releases hydro hydrogen cyanide hydrogen cyanide gas then this is fucked up the prisoner is instructed to breathe deeply to speed up the process of death but obviously most prisoners try to hold their breath it's instinct yeah what are you gonna do and some struggle against it um i would imagine all of them yeah against it jesus the inmate does not lose consciousness immediately according to form former san quentin california penitentiary warden clifton duffy quote at first there is evidence of extreme horror, pain, and strangling.

The eyes pop, the skin turns purple, and the victim begins to drool. Jesus. It's just really sad. A man named Carol Chessman died in California's gas chamber in 1960. But before he was executed, he told reporters that he would nod his head if it hurt. Witnesses said he nodded his head for several minutes before passing away. Jesus. Yeah.

So it's just really fucked up. And then afterward, what they do is an exhaust fan sucks the poison air out of the chamber. The corpse is sprayed with ammonia to neutralize any traces of cyanide. And about half an hour later order orderlies enter the chamber wearing gas masks and rubber gloves and are trained to ruffle the victim's hair to release any trapped cyanide gas before removing the corpse is that not just so twisted any chance of cyanide is epsom salt it's actually they bathe in epsom salt right uh yeah anyway so he had so his dad so ward's dad was sentenced to death by a gas chamber jesus and that's how he died so on june 15th 1986 when ward was 23

um he had had a fight with maria his wife um and then he'd gone out and consumed six beers six vodka screwdrivers a little marijuana and a gram of powdered speed yay yeah um and he the teenage daughters of one of his friends actually found him outside a bowling alley and he asked for a ride so they were driving him home they knew him pretty well as family friends uh he said he had to pee so the girls pulled over the van um he got out of the car then opened the passenger door and hit the 15 year old sister jennifer in the head with a block of concrete fuck then he grabbed her 16 year old sister who was driving the car in a headlock pulled her to the floor and started choking her um he was sentenced to three years in prison and the girl who the 16 year old girl said it was like a different person had possessed his body and he was just like crazy losing it and like didn't listen to anything and she's like we know you

like you're our friend and oh my god so once he got out of prison he and maria relocated to canby oregon where they began operating a gift shop together, which sounds very quaint. Yeah. Interesting. They gave birth to their fourth child because they had other ones. A whole fucking litter. Jesus. Her name was Mallory with an eye.

Okay. With a heart over the eye. Yep. And maybe some glitter in 1989 in 1993 uh maria filed a restraining order against him they got divorced he quickly found a new girlfriend who was fresh out of high school 18 year old christy sloan um and a mutual friend had actually set them up on a date which like good fucking friend that's not a friend that's not a friend that's someone who wants you to lead a miserable life that's a fucking enemy

that's someone looking for revenge for something you did yeah for sure so this friend sets them up um at a showing of jurassic park and they got together uh he grew really controlling with her he forbid her from cutting her hair or even leaving the house alone um one night he beat her with a cast iron skillet and he was jailed for that but christy told a prosecutor she was too scared to testify against him so the charges were dropped oh it's just so sad and then in october they were back together by february they were married in 1999 ward and maria's son francis who was now 17 and was living with his half brother his father's half brother in idaho shot a rifle into a truckload of teenagers and injured his best friend who was in the car so no one was killed but he shot his best friend and served

several weeks in juvie and he did that on purpose yeah he intentionally shot at a group of people including his best friend inside a car yes fuck i mean it's lucky no one died in august 1997 ward who was still married to christy began an affair with a woman he met at work um and they eventually moved into his rental house in Oregon City. His 12-year-old daughter Mallory became with the eye Mallory with the eye heart became friends with two girls named Ashley Marie Pond and Miranda Diane Gaddis. So they were all students at Gardner Middle School together. We're all 12 years old and we're all also in the same dance class. So they became really close, had sleepovers together, all that good stuff. In August of 2001, Ashley, who was 12 at the time, accused Ward, so her friend's dad, of attempting to rape her at his home while she was over for a sleepover.

No. Police did not investigate the charges. Why? Because the world sucks. I have no idea. On the morning of January 9th, 2002, so a couple months later, Ashley Pond left her home at the Newell Creek Village Apartments to walk to the nearby bus stop on her way to school, but she never arrived. the nearby bus stop on her way to school but she never arrived everyone began searching for her including miranda uh the dance team that both of them were members of organized a fundraiser to help in the search for ashley and that fundraiser was scheduled for march 23rd 2002 on the morning

of march 8th 2002 miranda the other friend vanished oh no this is when the fbi got involved and started a task force to search for the girls um after both girls had vanished our pal ward told his son that he needed help digging a hole outside no for the hot tub that he was installing so they dug a hole in the backyard and covered it with concrete which think about the parallel between that and his father both needing someone to help dig holes which he asking their son to help dig a hole out back and also he didn't know that about his dad so yeah it was like completely it's just creepy coincidental yeah so when ward became a suspect he was interviewed by several local news outlets. In an interview with the Oregonian, he stood on top of the concrete slab and explained to reporters, I'm putting in a jacuzzi.

The last time I checked, that wasn't against the law. So everything fell apart on August 13, 2002, when Ward raped his son's 19-year-old girlfriend. Okay. Throttling her neck as she tried to resist. Fuck. Okay. That's horrible. That's just,

Oh my God. Ward's son, Francis himself called nine one one. And while talking to the dispatcher said that his father had killed Ashley and Miranda. So finally investigators had a warrant, had a reason to search the property. So they found Miranda's remains in a shed in the backyard, and they found Ashley's body underneath the concrete that he had recently poured. Jesus.

On October 2nd, 2002, Weaver was indicted. And last time I read every charge he was indicted on, but it's, let's just say it's a lot. It's let's just say it's a lot. Six counts of aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, sexual abuse, attempted rape, sexual abuse in the first degree, sexual abuse in the second and third degree. And so to avoid the death penalty, Ward decided to plead guilty to murdering his daughter's friends. He received two life sentences without parole for the deaths of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis. And I know I said this last time, but can you imagine being poor Mallory and just... I know, like your dad killed both... killed and probably raped both of your... Oh, and definitely raped one of them, right?

Yeah. Oh, your two best friends. Like you literally have friends over 12 years old for sleepovers. I mean, that's so tragic for her too. So she was obviously taken out of his custody obviously yeah right um i don't know what's how she is today but that's probably for the best hopefully she can live somewhat lifelong therapy good life okay miranda's sister one of the girls who was killed her sister her older sister later found out how ward had abducted her he actually gave her an explanation from prison so what he did he saw her walking up the hill to the school bus and thought she had seen something shady he was in

the middle of doing so he panicked and told her that her friend ashley was inside and really wanted to go home he told her she was scared scared and that Miranda needed to come help her. So she went with him into his house. And he also told her that he, he told Miranda's sister that he killed Ashley because he was afraid he'd get arrested for raping her. Fucking asshole. Wow.

And if that's not enough in March of 2016, Francis Weaver, the son himself was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a man making francis part of three generations of murder jesus grandfather father do we know francis ever had any kids like could that be like i don't know actually i don't not that i know of i think he's pretty young when he was arrested okay well let's hope there's another fourth generation yeah so that's the story of ward weaver the third weird and that mofo and his dad and his son and yikes and this is now a little outdated but i have a geoscope yeah okay to give to all the scorpios and to geo and here it is although you are very down

to earth at times you can also be very dry in the way you express yourself true that's true talking about your feelings may be something you try to get out of the way as quickly as possible the current astral aspect encourages you to put a little more fire and originality into your voice when talking to your love me Me. That's M. Say it like you mean it. Come on, G. Come on. Come on.

All I do is just tell you how much I love you. All you want. There's no reason. There's no reason to hold back. I'm not going to leave you. Don't hold back. I love him so much. So that's that.

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It was like it's front print front page of the arts section, baby. That's amazing. C7. We're so proud. Guys, just thank you so much. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Patreon, ATWWD podcast. We also have our website and that's where we drink dot com. We have our email and that's where we drink.com we have our email and that's where we drink at gmail.com or you can put send us your personal stories you put out a new listeners episode every first of the month we have um what else do we have we have um we have oh store and that's why we drink yes dot big cartel.. Right. We also have our personal social media, Xteen Schieffer and The M Schultz. And...

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All right. Well, see you next week. I don't have a glass, so I just have to clink my empty LaCroix can. And that's why we drink. No, that's when we just do the sound. Just insert the clink just insert the cling sound

of the song cling cling that's just so much more work for me okay then don't do it here you do the clink and i'll do it okay okay never mind that was okay enough bodily noises and yep okay we're done bye guys