Chambers of the Occult - Episode #11 Innocence Lost: The JonBenét Ramsey Mystery and The Devil Made Me Do It Case

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Send us a Text Message.In this episode, we unravel the dark and perplexing mysteries behind two of the most chilling cases in recent history. First, we delve into the tragic and mysterious murder of JonBenét Ramsey. This shocking crime gripped the nation and remains unsolved to this day, shrouded in controversy, speculation, and a web of unanswered questions. We'll examine the key details, theories, and the ongoing quest for justice in this heartbreaking case.Next, we explore the infamous "Devil Made Me Do It" case, where a shocking murder led to a sensational trial and a groundbreaking defense. This case brought the supernatural into the courtroom, as the accused claimed demonic possession compelled the horrific act. Join us as we investigate the evidence, the trial, and the chilling intersection of law and the paranormal.For our bonus story, J delves into the legend of a mysterious arcade game from the 1980s. This game allegedly caused strange side effects, from intense nightmares to vivid hallucinations, and even led to disappearances. Its existence remains a topic of debate, spawning urban legends and conspiracies about its true nature and purpose.

Chambers of the occult may contain content that might not be suitable for all listeners. Hello. Hi. I'm Jay. I'm Kai. And that's Alexa. We were literally like waiting for you. Yeah, I'm like, are you going to talk or are you just going to laugh? Like, you didn't want for your introduction this time as well. I hate me. I hate you.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate gonna talk or are you just gonna laugh? Like, you didn't want for your introduction this time as well.

Oh my God. All right, get your laughs out, get them out like always. Okay, they're out, they're out, they're out. Do you need a dad joke to get them out of the way? Yes, please. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, you can help with this one.

I actually don't know. I don't have a dad joke ready for you. Oh my God. You don't have a book of dad jokes on deck? You need to get the direction. Or actually give me an object, something. Banana. Banana.

Hey, waiter, there's a banana in my soup. The waiter comes over. And then, oh, you know what? I got it. I got it. Hey, waiter, there's a banana. Wait, wait. Alexa, say it.

You tell me that there's something in your soup. Hey, waiter, there's a banana in my soup. Sorry about that. The chef was just monkeying around. Oh my god. Oh my god. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on. How much you guys is weak? Oh, yeah, it's been hot. Yeah. It's been hot. It's hot right now. If I pass out in the middle of this episode. Well, you guys know what your case. Thank you. Well, you guys don't even know it, but like. And you'll be fine. You guys can make something up. Yeah, we're just going to like a hero continue where you left off. I have an addiction to Thanksgiving leftovers.

Quitting cold turkey is not easy, especially for a vegetarian. That was a pine. I got the phone. Let's say one. It just went right over her. Alright, let's move on now. Okay, let's go. Okay. Actually, Jay and I planned this. You're actually starting off, Alexis.

Dun dun dun. Yo, I just got owned. No way. I'm not starting this up. By you guys. I got blindsided. Betrayal? You guys are setting up mischievous little activities behind my back? Little activities behind your back. Yeah, I didn't know another word for it. I think I had the best sandwich of my life earlier today. What was it?

Yeah. It was good. It was from Ike's. Was the, it was the Steve Jobs. Mm-hmm. Steve Jobs. Yeah, I felt really weird ordering it. But it was really good. Yeah, I felt really weird ordering it.

But it was really good. What type of bread? So it's like, I'm vegetarian, so like it's breaded eggplant, pesto, ranch, and provolone. I got it on sourdough. And I got lettuce, tomato, pickles, jalapenos, and banana peppers. And then I also got mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers in the sandwich also. Wait, Ike's has jalapeno poppers? Yeah, apparently. I saw it for the first time today and I was like wait, I need to get those in my sandwich Okay, so it sounds like a good sandwich and then you add the jalapeno poppers and the mozzarella sticks

Yeah, and I think it just takes it to another level exactly. It was it was it was kind of life-changing in a way Anyway, it was good But anyway, it was good. I'm glad you had a good sandwich. It's actually really good. Thank you. All right. Is it story time? I think it's story time.

Care to take us somewhere in the world, Kai? All right. I guess for my case today, I'm just going to set a little scene for you guys. So. Yes. today. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna set a little scene for you guys. So yes, it's the day after Christmas 1996 in Boulder, Colorado. The Ramsey family had just had a lovely Christmas the day before and of course they were expecting that joy to follow through into the next days to come. Of course, you know, it was Christmas time, nice snowy white winter down there in Colorado.

I wish we had snowy Christmases here. Oh, that would be really nice too. But some nice days, you know, they were falling through on that joy, hoping to go into the new year with a fresh start. But tragically, their day was not what they had ever hoped would come. Or was it? But I'll get into that later. So the Ramsey family consisted of the father.

His name was John Bennett. John Bennett Ramsey. He was a businessman. He's the president of a computer software company called Access Graphics. And so they lived in, he lived in Boulder, Colorado with his wife, Patricia Ramsey, and so that was the mother of the family. Patricia usually went by Patsy, and so I'll call her Patsy throughout this story.

And they had two children, their son Burke, and in 1996, this time he was about nine years old, and then their daughter, John Benet Ramsey, and she was about six years old. It was that morning, yeah? Continue, I just said cute. Well, it was that morning, the day after Christmas, December 26th, 1996, when six-year-old John Benet was reported missing by her family. But just a few hours later, she was even more tragically found dead in the basement of their very own home at 755 15th Street in Boulder, Colorado. I know. Sorry. Yeah.

And even like, I haven't heard it recently, but like, I know some details and I know you're going to provide more. And I'm threading this already. Yeah, so, okay, before I get more into it, I'll go into the family, I guess, just a bit more. So John Ramsay, the father, this was not his first marriage, getting married to Patsy. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1978. 1991 is when he and Patsy moved to Boulder where the headquarters of that computer company was located. So they moved just a regular old guy, I guess, but Patsy, she was very interested in beauty pageants and just being, in a way, kind of a star. And so that's why Patsy very commonly entered in Jean Benet into like lots of child beauty pageants

as a little kid. So she won a lot of titles, America's Royal Miss, Little Miss Charlevoix, Little Miss Colorado, all sorts of different titles and awards that Jean Benet got from these pageants. And so this does tie in a bit later to, I guess, motives behind the murders. But I think one of the, I guess the funniest things to me is not funny at all, or not connected to like the death or anything, but just her name, Jean Benet, her name is literally just her dad's name.

Her dad's name is- Yeah, I was going to say it's so similar. Her dad's name is John Bennett. Yeah. Her dad's name is John Bennett. They made her name by just putting together his first and his middle name, John Benet, and of course her middle name is Patricia after her mom. So her name is literally a combination of her parents, which is cute, but it's also like be more creative.

I don't know. like, be more creative. I don't know. Yeah, true, true, true, true. But yeah, Jean-Venay, she was born on August 6th, 1990, and then of course she did pass away Christmas 1996, December 25th, there in Boulder, Colorado. How old was she? Six years old.

Okay. Yeah. So like I mentioned, she was reported missing that morning, December 26th. And she so according to like the the statements that Patsy gave to the police after she was reported missing, she realized that her daughter had been missing after she found a two and a half page ransom note inside of their house on the the kitchen staircase. And so it was a handwritten note just left inside of the home. The, I actually have the note and I can read it out. So here it is. It reads, Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully. We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your businesses but not the

country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want to see, if you want her to see 1997 you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw a hundred eighteen thousand dollars from your account. A hundred thousand will be in one hundred dollar bills and the remaining 18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attached to the bank. When you get home you'll put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 a.m. tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to

arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pickup of your daughter. Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police, FBI, etc. will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with law

enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around, so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now, John.

Victory, S-B-T-C. What? What the hell? Okay, what? Do you know business is he like ran or had? Yeah, so he was let me find it once again. He was the president of Access Graphics. It was a computer software developing company. And then later became a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, which is,

yeah, one of the biggest biggest aerospace manufacturers type of things. So he did have a pretty important role. So one of the most interesting things about this ransom note is the call for $118,000 specifically. How much money would that be nowadays? Let me look that up real quick. I can look that up. Okay. Cool. Yeah. If you can look that up, that would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You keep going.

Yeah, you keep going. So, yeah, the $118,000 in and of itself is just a specific amount of money, but it makes it more even interesting because John, you know, the father, he actually pointed out to the police that that $118,000 was almost identical to the amount he got from his Christmas bonus of that last year. Oh. So it kind of like shows that maybe somebody who had access to the information knew about it, and that's why they were asking for that money and they were involved in hiring. Bonus. And so yeah, of course, the know, they looked up things behind the company Access Graphics.

But what are you saying, Alexis, they're about to say? Sorry. So $118,000 in 1996 converted into today's money is $235,805. Damn, that's a lot. So almost a quarter of a million. Yeah. Wow. Man, that's a lot.

Yeah. But the thing is, so there's this ransom note. It was also very long. It was two and a half pages. Nobody writes that long of a ransom note. So it was even in the FBI. Even the FBI admitted that it was unusually long for a note that was written at the crime scene. When you usually hear ransom notes, they're kind of short.

Yeah, they're like two lines probably. I don usually hear ransom notes, they're kind of short. Yeah, they're like two lines probably. Yeah. And so, you know, there was investigation into it. Of course, the police thought that note was staged. It was long. It was a lot more expressive than a ransom note usually is. It was written in the home, using a piece of paper and a pen that were found in the home. So it was written right there, and it would have taken a long time to write. So that coupled with the fact that Jean-Béné was found in their basement, of course, Jean and Patsy were the main suspects for the initial investigation. Jean-Béné, she had been in the autopsy. It had been revealed that she had been strangled. Her cause of death, her official cause of death was asphyxia

by strangulation, also cranios cerebral trauma, so blood force trauma to the head, traumatic brain injury. There was, it was found to be an eight and a half inch fracture on her skull in that autopsy. So it oh J's gone. Oh God. For once it's not you Alexis. I know. I kind of feel good about it. Now he knows the struggles Yeah Yeah, especially with a little I think I'm back oh my god Jase doppelganger oh no Did you see his name? Can you hear me? Wait, what? What about his name? Oh, it is Jay's Doppelganger.

Yeah, it's literally Jay's Doppelganger. For the listeners out there, we're able to see each other's name on the website that we're recording on, and Jay's name is Jay's Doppelganger. This isn't actually Jay, keep in mind. Yeah, no, it's not. No worries, just keep going. He's an imposter. Just forget that I'm here.

Are you on your phone now? Yeah, I switched to my phone. My wifi went out, so. Oh no. You sound good. Actually, so you're... Okay, good. All right, where was I?

You were where you were. True. All right, it was the morning of Chris... I'm kidding, I'm not gonna... No, so... Okay, yeah. So, um, visual cause of death was asphyxia, um, with, by strangulation, with blood force trauma to the head. Um, and so, uh, she had eight and a half, an eight and a half inch fracture on her skull, um, that was revealed in that autopsy. And so it was a combination of both of those,

how she was found. Now, I just want to say that this crime, you know, it had been such extensively investigated during that time. But what made it hard was like, so when John did find the body down in the basement, he actually went down there with somebody else, with one of his friends, but when he went down into that basement, he actually he picked up John Benet's body and then brought her back upstairs, like into a living room, and so that immediately just ruined the entire crime scene.

He trampled over it, destroyed a lot of evidence in doing so. Yeah, it was pretty much tampered with by accident. Exactly. Yeah, and so because of this, you know, in a lot of the early investigations, there was lots of talk of John and Patsy being those prime suspects, them hindering the prosecution, tampering with that evidence. But eventually, John and Patsy were kind of removed as suspects, as primary suspects, at least through some of those further investigations. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah.

You know, they looked more into that ransom note. A court ruled that it was unlikely that Patsy wrote the note after consulting with handwriting experts. So a lot of evidence just fell short of a definitive conclusion of whether John or Patsy were actually the culprits behind it. And that's just where it made it so much more complicated. Because it was, her body was found later in the day on December 26th. She had been missing, reported missing since that morning on December 26th. She had been missing, reported missing since that morning on the 26th. But then the night before, it's the only people that were actually in the house

on the night of John Benet's death were of course her family, you know, mom, dad, Patsy, John, and and Jay's gone again. Maybe we should restart. I think we should restart. No, you're good. Okay, okay. Okay. All right. For some reason, it went out and then it came back and kept going. Okay. So yeah, of course, it was just parents, um, after John Benet's brother Burke. parents, or Jean-Béné's brother, Burke. So immediately after, of course, that reading that ransom note, you know, they were told not to contact police or anyone for that matter. But that's exactly what Patsy did. She called the police at 5 52 a.m. that time she called some family friends and two officers responded to that call actually within three minutes of the call they managed to respond which is okay like good on you older police so of course they connected that search but there was not found any signs of forced entry, no way to like a violent way to get inside of the

house. Now one of the officers, his name was Rick French, he was sort of like the lead for that investigation. You know, he walked around, went down to the basement to check on that door. around, went down to the basement to check on that door. When he came to the basement door, it was secured by another wooden latch on the door frame, so it was pretty sealed shut. He explained that he was looking for an exit route that a kidnapper could have used. So since the latch of that door frame was holding door closed from the inside of the house, so the kidnapper couldn't have used the door to the basement to get out of there. So it got ruled that out as a possible exit. And then so that's exactly where Jean-Venay's body was found, behind that main exit door of the basement.

behind that main exit door of the basement. So, John Benet, she did pass, but then her dad, John, that's definitely gonna confuse me as we go through this case. So, John immediately started to make arrangements to pay for that ransom. So he was prepared already for what needed to happen. But then the forensics team was dispatched. The team, they did think that Benet had been kidnapped. And so Jean Benet's room was actually the only room in the house that was like closed off to keep safe from contamination of the evidence. And so there were no other precautions taken to the rest of the house, which is just the reason why it made this so complicated. You know, people started showing up, family, people, they kept coming to the home. They helped clean up. They moved things. And of course, in that process, so much evidence was actually destroyed.

Yeah, I was gonna 1 p.m. on the 26th, is when Detective Arndt of the Boulder Police Department to, you know, search the house. Search the house with John, the husband, and Fleet White. He was a family friend. That was the friend that John went down to the basement with. So they start their search in the basement. John opened up the door that Officer French checked out earlier, and of course found the body of his daughter there in the room. Now, her mouth was covered with duct tape, a nylon cord was found bound around her wrists and her neck, and then her was covered by a white blanket. Um, almost, yeah, almost staged down there in a way. And this is when John picked up her body, took it upstairs,

of course, you know, further contaminating all of the evidence and the crime scene that was around them. Yeah. Of course, the the Ramsey's they did the whole family, they provided, you know, their blood, hair samples, handwriting to the police to get all those tests done. writing to the police to get all those tests done. John Patsy, of course, were interviewed. Even the son, Burke, who was only nine years old, was interviewed after that. And so there's actually lots of different, you know, theories that happened. People sometimes think that maybe Burke the son could have been involved in the the murder of Jean Benet. The parents helped cover it up, but there's lots of theories I guess that I'll kind of get into a little bit later

on. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, her death was, of course, it was ruled a homicide, and so that's when that investigation really started to take off. The autopsy, you know, it was pretty standard. It reviewed what she had eaten that day, it reviewed how she died, the markings on her body. There was no sign of any like, you know, sexual abuse or rape or anything like that, which thank God for that. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. No, what's kind of interesting is that that autopsy revealed that Jean-Béné, of course, it was that she had eaten some like pineapple earlier in the day, a few hours before her

death. And of course, there were photos taken of the home when her body was found and there was like a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table. But neither of the parents, John or Patsy, remembered putting a bowl of pineapple on the table to feed John Benet. And so... And this small child is not going to give themselves like a bowl of pineapple. No, and so police reported that the son, Burke, they found like his fingerprints that were on the bowl. And so that really brought some attention to Burke. You know, even though he was nine years old, he was also considered a suspect in the death of his sister, Sean Benet.

So there's been lots of investigations and I guess I didn't want to say this soon, but this is an unsolved case. It's been a cold case for 28 years at this point. And it has over over all of these years, it's never stopped being investigated. It is the Boulder Police Department's. Most famed case that they have, essentially. They've followed up on literally thousands of leads. Over the years, they've looked into more than 21,000 tips, letters, emails, they've traveled to 19 different states to interview or speak with over a thousand people

who they believe were connected to the crime. And yet still to this day, it's still never been actually determined. And a lot of that was because of how many errors that were made in the initial stages of the investigation. So all of the damaged evidence and everything like that, it just it led to be John and Patsy as the main suspects. But of course, they were, they ruled them out pretty quickly. But by the end of the next year, October, 1970 or 1997, By the end of the next year, October, 1997, they had over 1600 people for their persons of interest for the case. No way. Oh my God.

Lots of that. That's huge. What? That list went like, that's a huge list. Oh, 100%. Yeah. No, it's, it's insane. I was like, how do you even find that many people of interest?

Yeah, I don't know. But they needed help desperately to tackle this case. So there was a man named Lou Smith. But they needed help desperately to tackle this case. So there was a man named Lou Smith. He was a retired detective from Colorado Springs, Colorado, but he was like renowned in the area. You know, he solved so many cases. So the Boulder County District Attorney's Office, they reached out to Lou Smith to pull him out of retirement

to get his help with the case. And so over the years, the lead investigation for the case has jumped between Boulder Police Department, the District Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. And that's where a lot of confusion actually takes place that sort of prolonged the investigations. There was so many people working on it.

And it was like too many cooks in the kitchen type of deal that made things so much worse. The fact that they go out and have someone come out of retirement to help, it's anytime I hear that I'm like, what, what, what are they not able to connect or like, what's happening? Yeah, no, 100%. It's because they had no direction for what they wanted to do or how they wanted to investigate this case because they focused on John and Patsy for the first year of investigation, but there was no actual evidence they could use to put against them. So they had no clue what they were doing. Yeah.

But Lou Smith, he was basically the person that was like, like he presented his findings like that would point the evidence pointed away from the Ramsey family from John and Patsy. So he's sort of the reason they were, they were exonerated in a way, you know, he helped challenge the police if that they were guilty. And so the district attorney's office did actually reach out to them and apologize to John and Patsy for thinking that they were the suspects. I don't know if this is talked about or like you even know, how would, because the body was found in the body, the body

was found in the house, how would they say the family are not culprits? Because technically they lived in the house where the body was. I don't know. I don't know if my question makes sense. No, yeah. So, yeah, I'll get into that in just a second, just with a bit more of the theories. But that's why so many people refuse to not see John and Patsy as suspects in the case. Because there's just the whole environment and the context around it really does point in their direction in lots of ways. But yeah, continuing on from when they were

exonerated from that, there was, like I mentioned, so much animosity between the district attorney's office, the Boulder police, that eventually the governor of Colorado at that time, Roy Romer, he actually took charge on that. And he was like, nope, you guys are not dealing with this. He named a special prosecutor named Michael Kane to lead the investigation and to start a grand jury to help with that as well. So eventually, September 15th, 1998, a grand jury was convened and they had officially, it was them

officially indicting John and Patsy for charges related to the case. And so, in 1999, a little bit later, the jury did try to charge the Ramses with placing the child at risk in a way that led to her death and with obstructing an investigation of murder because of how John tampered and destroyed a lot of that privacy and evidence. So that's what they were indicted for, but the district attorney of Boulder County didn't prosecute them because he didn't believe he had, you know, he could prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the conviction. And so eventually after that, that's sort of where it was dropped. But over these 28 years of investigation, Boulder County has cycled through so many

different district attorneys who have each taken over the investigation from from the police during this time. And so in December 26th of 2008 or 2002 is when the next district attorney, Mary Lacy, did take over. And so from there essentially is when she agreed with a federal judge that the more consistent theory was that there was an intruder who had murdered John Benet down in the basement. So from that point on, that's sort of how they investigated it as an intruder that came in.

And then also because of that time, DNA analysis was more widely available and opened up. And so in 2008 is when they officially ruled the Ramsey family out as suspects because of DNA sampling. So they didn't find their DNA on the body or anything like that. Okay. So yeah, that kind of answers the question that I had. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually have a timeline of some of the major rounds of DNA testing that the police and investigators did. In 1997, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, they performed a DNA test on fingernail clippings of Jeanne Benet, as well as the underwear And so they found two foreign alleles, which are, I don't know how to simply explain it, but essentially little DNA markers in there. So there was other DNA that did not belong to John

Benet that was found especially on the underwear. And so it was actually found that at the time there was a piece of DNA found on John Benet's underwear that did not match John or Patsy, her parents. And so that's really sort of what ruled them out the most. The underwear person, it was tested again in 1991 or 1999, then also in 2001, then also in 2003. Oh my god. 2008. I mean it would make sense because as time goes by they have more people's DNA in their database. Yeah. And then more in the database, more advanced technology as well. There was continually more detail found over the years through these things that suggested further that it was somebody who was not her parents.

So there was some major testing that was done over the years, but it did kind of stop. There was a big jump in testing. In 2009, there was a major test, and then after that, the next one was in 2018. So there's a big jump. And then in just a bit, I'll get into a little bit more of the testings, but I think I want to jump into some of the, I guess, theories behind this. Yeah, please do. I want to jump into some of the, I guess, theories behind this. So there are two primary theories about her death. One is, of course, the family member theory, but her parents are who the primary suspects are. Like I mentioned a bunch, her parents were the prime suspects for a good, good chunk

of time. They are people that were brought on, of course, from the FBI, retired profilers who had things to add, and a lot of them did believe that it was very probable that it was, you know, a family member that did commit this crime, who, because it's statistically, um, there's actually a quote right here, statistically, statistically, it's a 12 to 1 probability that it's a family member or a caregiver who was involved in the homicide of a child. that it's a family member or a caregiver who is involved in the homicide of a child. So just based off statistics alone, it was a very good theory that the parents did it. There was no evidence of a forced entry into the home. There was a lot though of evidence

staging with that ransom note, with other things throughout, a lot of evidence of destruction as well, but trampling through things. The Ramses, the parents, they actually weren't cooperative in the initial investigation at all. Like for a time they refused to answer police questioning, they were pretty quiet about it. They did not want to help the police for the first few months whatsoever in actually, you know, solving the death. You know, the parents, they said that they were just afraid there wouldn't be a full investigation for intruders. And so that's why they were so reluctant to, you know, cooperate because they don't want the attention to be on themselves.

They don't want to be hastily selected as the key suspects. But I think them... ignoring questioning, avoiding it made them even look more like the key suspects. That always seems guilty. Yeah. What? Sorry. I was saying like, it's guilty, but I'm like, no, it's suspicious at the least.

Yeah. No, it a hundred percent is. So one theory it says is that Patsy struck John Benet in like a very angry fit of rage after she had wet her bed and then strangled her daughter to cover up what had happened after thinking that she had killed her mistakenly. But Patsy didn't have a history of anger or anything like that. She...

Burke, her son, in the interviews said that, you know, his parents were nice. You know, he never got spanked. They never laid a finger on him. They would definitely not have killed their own child. Yeah. There's sort of thoughts that the strangulation could have been a red herring to throw off the police, throw off the cause of death. From what?

Remember earlier how I said a lot of people thought that Burke, the nine-year-old son, was like a main suspect as well? Yeah. Well, so Burke, he was interviewed a lot by the investigators at least three times. The first two interviews, there really wasn't any concerns, but there was an interview in 1998. So a little bit after where the Boulder Police Chief during an interview said that, like, he was not a suspect. Of course, in 1999, the District Attorney's Office said that Burke, again, was not a suspect. But in a lot of these, like, interviews, there's lots of people that love talking about

this. There's actually a whole subreddit on Reddit just about the murder of John Benet Ramsey. And so there's people from all around who maybe think that like Burke like hit his little sister causing that skull fracture and then in like a fit of rage or something like that, jealousy about his sister for being so involved in all the beauty pageants and being you know like the love child because her mom loved her so much. So accidentally, so he hit her and managed to kill her and the parents, they staged everything to cover up the murder that their son had committed.

That's where sort of like the red herring aspect of it kind of comes in. Staging it, staging the strangulation, staging the ransom and kidnapping. It was all to draw attention away from themselves or away from Burke, their son. And so that's- I'm not able to live with that guilty.

No, 100%. No, but keep going. Wow. Yeah, so like, it's, it's kind of funny, like, there's this one person on Reddit who said like, no one can convince me it wasn't the brother and the parents helped stage a more sinister setting. The ransom that was written with pen and paper from inside the house. It's unusual length and detail, including the exact amount dad had just received

as a bonus. Question regarding the letter. Yeah. There was handwritten, right? Yeah. And it didn't match like anyone's handwriting like parent, like in the family. Yeah, not that they could determine yeah

see that's what that's what i would go like for and it's like if it doesn't match it doesn't match move on but i'm like i don't know yeah but the thing is it's like it's not always the most accurate i guess especially back then like you definitely can learn to change your handwriting for things, but I don't know if the parents would really go through all that trouble, I guess. So, especially like within like 24 hours, right? Because they reported Hermes in one day and then found her the next day. Or the same day as when she was found. So a lot of people sort of, I guess, pass on the family member theory. There's lots of people who still believe it, of course, but I think one of the more commonly accepted theories, at least by investigators, like official investigators, the police, is the intruder theory. So a lot of them followed leads for like an intruder or

intruders after they rolled out John and Pat's suspects. That was found to be in unidentified boot mark left in the basement where Jonathan's body was found. So some of the earliest suspects were the...what's their family name? The Ramsey family is a neighbor. Bill McReynolds. So yeah, Bill McReynolds was a neighbor. There was also another man named Chris Wolfe. He was a local reporter. His girlfriend at the time reported him as a suspect, which I don't know why. Interesting.

Yeah. A family housekeeper, Linda Hoffman Pugh. So they did have a housekeeper that they brought on. And then another man named Michael Helgoth, who died in a suicide pretty shortly after John Gennet's death. And so I think that sort of brought attention as well. after Zhang Binet's death. And so I think that sort of brought attention as well. Yeah. Yeah, like I mentioned, there was hundreds of suspects, thousands of suspects, hundreds of DNA tests performed, but none of them could ever find any matches to anybody

or anything in the FBI database, the index that they have. anybody or anything in the FBI database, the index that they have. So it was really hard to actually narrow down any suspects. But there was that man, that detective Lou Smith that they brought out of retirement to help with the investigation. He was the one that mainly concluded that an intruder had to have committed the crime. So on the night that Jean-Bené was killed, so December 25th Christmas night, there were two windows that were actually left open in the basement. There was a, or sorry, two windows that were left open in the basement. There was a, or sorry, two windows that were left open in the house.

Because they were running Christmas lights outside. There was also a broken basement window, and one of their doors was unlocked. So a few things. Yeah. So those few pieces of evidence really kind of drove them in the direction of this being an intruder. Now Lou Smith, the detective, his theory was that someone had entered and through the broken window in the basement, but there was an intact cobweb in that very same basement window, which means that people

really question it. There's a web there, you know, who could have crawled through that window down there. Also random question. Well, not too random. It's on. It's about the story. Is there any talk or like records or that the family said that that she would occasionally go down into the basement? No, really nothing like that. There wasn't really talk. I don't think she ever would have gone down into the basement really on her own.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, the evidence, like, tampering and all that stuff, like, contaminating the scene, drives me crazy. Yeah, no, seriously, that's like one of the biggest reasons that they didn't have so much evidence. But that's not the only reason they didn't have so much evidence. But that's not the only reason they didn't have so much evidence. There was actually found out that over the years the police had actually failed to document or investigate or test a lot of the evidence that was actually found.

or test a lot of the evidence that was actually found. There was a reporter, let me find her name really quickly. Yeah, so there was a woman named Paula Woodward. She was an investigative journalist who literally has been following this case since the 90s. When she, when an autopsy was conducted of Sean Benet, Paula Woodward, that journalist, she submitted a public records request for the items that had been tested for DNA. She actually learned that several significant items were never analyzed, including the, the like, the garrote, the rope essentially that was found around Jean-Bernard's neck to strangle her. The ransom note was never analyzed. And also there was a suitcase found in the basement directly below that broken window that people think the killer used to escape through the window to like step up on top of and themself up to get outside.

Yeah. Wait, so this to the to this day has not been tested? Yeah. Or at least to the point where that you know that person requested that information. To this, or back during that time, those things were never analyzed and a lot of them have still not been analyzed. And that's partially because people are afraid that the Boulder Police Department have literally just lost some of those items. No. And they've never taken them for VNN. Yeah, so John Ramsey, the father, he is still alive today. Patsy, his wife, did pass away not too long after their daughter did die, but yeah, John, the father, he, he continues to this day to keep pressuring the police department to of course solve the case to do DNA testing. Who wouldn't?

Okay, some pressure from family. Yes. That's good. Yeah. Cause I'm like, if I would also be pressuring them for more information Yeah, um so

There it's kind of shady in a way at this point There's actually a Quote So There's actually a quote. So, sorry, let me put this together. So John Ramsay, the father, he was actually interviewed pretty recently. There's actually an article that was published on June 4th, 2024.

So, a week ago. Wait, no way. Wait, what? That's a week ago. A week ago. We were recording this on June 11th. Yeah, yeah. So, this article, it was

John Ramsey, the father. He was interviewed by Fox News on May 31st at CrimeCon, a true crime convention that was going on. And John said, quote, we heard reliably that one of the members of the police department, I don't know who, told a journalist, we're just waiting for John Ramsay to die. And John Ramsay said, it's just disgusting, but it's not out of character at all. So yeah, so we're just waiting for John Ramsay to die.

And the implication is, then pressure will be off and all of this will go away. and the implication is that pressure will be off and all of this will go away. That's disgusting right there. Yeah, so who knows, you know, maybe at this point it's that the Boulder Police Department, they fucked up so badly in their investigation that of course they're too, like, they're too pussy, they're too much of cowards to admit that and they're just waiting for John to pass away so that they don't have to deal with it anymore. Yeah and so that's kind of the craziest thing like I was doing research and I found like very recent articles of you know John Ramsey sort of pressuring the police

departments. But at this point in time, there actually is a lot of hope for the case to finally be solved with DNA evidence, because our testing is is good enough now, essentially. Yeah, constantly keeps getting improving. Exactly. You know, there's a lot of belief that it could help, but in my opinion, I'm not even sure anymore. I think that at this point, like it's not, it's not just going to be DNA that's going to completely solve this case. be DNA that's going to completely solve this case. The police is just really waiting for him to die so they can close on that. Exactly. The police department is just so done with actually trying to look for

closure on this case that it's never even going to be found. That's definitely something I'm worried about. Of course, it's something John is worried about, and all of that rings a family. Yeah, I mean, I would too. Yeah, it's still unsolved to this day. Going back into that intruder theory though, so there was that broken basement down in the window and then there was also that suitcase found in the basement to escape from that basement there. There are some investigators that say that

the kidnapper could have initially tried to use that suitcase to stuff John Benet's body into to get her out of the house and hide her, but they found out that she was too big for it or it would have been too heavy or too much of a hassle. Yeah, that was going to be my question about the size. Exactly. Yeah. Lou Smith, that detective, he believed the intruder had managed to subdue Jambine using a stun gun. Took her down to the basement and then killed her down right over there. Where does the stun gun come into place? I honestly have no clue. Out there?

What? Sorry? Is it just like a random theory out there? No, so it's actually that's directly from Lou Smith. He was the first like primary detective on the case. I'm not entirely sure where he got that from, but he was basically in his own lane. He was in his own world while trying to research this case, and he would not take suggestions from anyone really.

He needed to have the investigation his way. He eventually did resign not long into investigation because it just was not going the direction he wanted it to. Okay. So while he was a very good detective in his time, I don't know how much I believe his theories. Yeah. Valid. Yeah, so it's never been solved to this day. I thought it was kind of, it was very interesting going through different Reddit threads talking about the murder in Jambonet.

This one person said, I have too hard of a time believing someone outside of their home did this. I look at the pictures and videos of the house and frankly it was a mess. Walking around in the dark an intruder would be bumping into and stepping on a lot of things. One neighbor heard a blood curdling scream but the family inside the home didn't. Another neighbor saw a light on but everyone is supposedly asleep. There are just too many unanswered questions.

And I completely agree. I've tried to form my own thoughts on this case, but there's literally not enough information to point in any direction, like specifically. to point in any direction, like specifically. Yeah, it's, the fact that there's evidence that didn't get tested and that the crime scene got contaminated, there's so many things that just, unfortunately don't add up and probably never will.

I don't know, like, something about this case, like, something about it wants me to believe that it was the parents. It's just because of the way that things were sort of staged, like the ransom notes. Do you know what day of the week the they call the police and the body was found? December 26 1996 which was a Thursday. Okay because I was going to say that if the parents were perhaps the culprits It could have been earlier on the week that they killed Their child and then they didn't report it till Thursday But I don't know if like the kid was like in daycare or any of that kind of thing

True, but I also think but like if they killed her sooner her body would have been decomposing a little bit at that point Yeah There were no signs of that in the autopsy or I mean at least There's also the basement which is in the same temperature year-round That's true. Like it could have preserved her body a bit. I don't I generally don't know it's I don't I generally don't know it's ah Yeah, thank you You're welcome. That's the thing like reading it. It's like

It feels so jumbled around and I feel so jumbled around while talking about this case But that's literally because the investigation was just so fucked Like it was so botched. It was so botched. It was so jumbled by all the different companies interacting with it and all of the mistreatment of information and evidence. And it went all over the place and there is literally not enough evidence to I think ever solve this case. I'm not sure. I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope this does find some closure but I don't know. I mean who knows like maybe like 10 years or next year they'll come up with like a new

10 years or next year, they'll come up with like a new thing to test out or to try out. DNA wasn't a thing, like always a thing, and it helped solve so many cases. Maybe something similar will happen. Yeah. Um, I don't know, like there, there are arguments that it's like, oh, well, it couldn't have been John or the parents because John is such an advocate and still is for finding closure for this case and for getting the place to really investigate all of this DNA evidence. And on one hand, I agree with that, but on the other hand, I know that there's the possibility he could be involving himself so much to shift the blame off of him, you know? Yeah, it could be one or the other. It's like, yeah, yeah, I see that.

I don't know. I, like, me personally, I almost just feel so disappointed with the resolution of this case so far and in the research that I've done. Because there is none. Yeah. I need more. I don't know. Thank you.

There's a... Thank you. You're welcome. There's a- Thank you. You're welcome. There's a- it's so funny hearing, like on one hand,

the quotes of the Boulder Police Department, just wanting John Ramsey to die. And then on the other hand, there's another quote from the police chief of Boulder Police Department. And she said, this crime has left a hole in the hearts of many and we will never stop investigating until we find John Benet's killer. That includes following up on every lead and working with our police and partners and DNA experts around

the country to solve this tragic case. This investigation has always been and will continue to be a priority for the Boulder Police Department. I sure hope so. I sure hope so and I sure hope it's always been, you know. But a lot of evidence points to you guys not really caring all that much throughout the years. Come on police, prove us wrong. Yeah. But anyway, that is the murder of Jean Benin. Unsolved case still to this day. Thank you. Insert clapping sounds right here. clapping sounds right here. snaps all around.

Yeah, like, I, like, I don't get it. Sorry, like, okay. The silent. She died. She passed away December 25. That night, Christmas night. Yeah, but she was reported missing on the morning of December 26th. They didn't think to check their house until the police showed up. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Actually, they didn't think to check their calls. They didn't think to go down in the basement.

You might have been searching the house until you found the ransom letter and then you're like, okay, there was no point searching. Someone took her. Fair. But I don't know how it went. Like, yeah, I get it. And then like, so how would they have like kidnapped her and then brought her back into the house? Yeah. Or they never kidnapped her at all. And they just killed her, left her down there. But then what's the point of writing the ransom note? Do you think they really just expect her to like take money away, like from the family and then be like, Oh, by the way, your daughter is in your basement. Yeah, like, I don't I don't know. There. There's so much that's unanswered and so much that's

confusing to me and it made it seem like he was being certain like the whole family was being watched so i don't know i don't know such lengthy letter is wild yeah like when why would they have taken the time to like sit down and write that long of a letter inside of the home? And then I don't know. They could have done it ahead of time. I think so I've on Reddit though I, I mentioned I've found like, like whole posts by people like going into detail on like their own theories or conclusions on this whole conversation, on this whole thing. And so I think if some of our listeners are interested, I think it would be kind of fun

to like go through a lot of these like Reddit theories. Yeah. Like a little like mini part of an episode or like maybe I guess next week I'm probably doing, I'm doing bonus story, right? I could probably add that in. Let us know if you'd be interested to hear more. Literally on my screen right now I have like a long thing of somebody telling their exact thoughts of what happened, why it happened. I don't know. It's pretty cool to look at.

So you got to let us know. All right. Well, Alexis. Yeah, we're passing the torch to you. Um, I, it's okay. I don't really, I don't really like fire. So not in this, not in this. All right. All right.

All right. So my case, it's pretty popular. You guys might even know it too. Um, I don't know if you know the details of it, but that's what I'm here for. I'm going to be talking about the trial of Arnie Cheyenne Johnson, otherwise known as the devil made me Do It case. So. Oh, okay. I'm I don't know anything about it. But yeah, I've heard of it. Okay. Yeah, better. Okay. There was a movie on recently. The Conjuring movie. Anyways, so

yeah, The Conjuring, The Devil Made Me Do It. Okay, thaturing the devil made me do it. Okay. That's why I've heard of it. Yeah. So Arnie Cheyenne Johnson, he was 19 at the time when he was convicted of first degree manslaughter on November 24th, in Brookfield Connecticut for murdering his landlord Allen Bono. He was 40 at the time. And there were no murders committed previous to this for over like 193 years. So this like this case made history in a couple of different ways. But before I even talk about that, I do want to go over the background. So in 1980, in May, Arnie and his girlfriend, Debbie Glatzell, they moved into their new

home in Brookfield. A month before they moved, Debbie's younger brother, he was 12 at the time, his name was David. He actually claimed that a demon was tormenting him. Now this paranormal activity that started, it was believed to be started once the family had actually rented a home and they were cleaning it up before they moved in. David said that there was an old man in the house who was pushing him and basically like tormenting him and. The couple, they originally thought that this was just a way for David to get out of cleaning the house, you know, just like a normal kid.

But he said that the old man was just a way for David to get out of cleaning the house, you know, just like a normal kid. But he said that the old man vowed to harm the Glatzel family if they moved in. David actually even had visions of this old man, whom he described to resemble a demonic beast that would mutter Latin and threatened to steal his soul. Whoa. Yeah. So of course this raised some concerns within the family. Well, yeah.

You don't say. No, and the family called over a priest from a Catholic church after they had found that David would experience night terrors and they also found these unexplained scratches and bruises all over his body. Eventually the family, they grew very scared and they came to the conclusion that they no longer wanted to rent it.

Eventually, David's visions, night terrors, as well as many other events that he would experience were so severe, they not only were happening at night, but they were now happening during the day. And so this led the family to call Ed and Lorraine Warren, a couple of demonologists. 12 days later, after they called them to help Lorraine immediately when she went into the home she noticed a black mist appear directly next to David. Let's see which she could see that was visible. Yeah. So Lorraine is proclaimed to be like a sort of a kind of like a like a clairvoyant kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She. So she's she's able to. She's able to see things

that of course others aren't. And she saw this blackness appear next to David knowing that it was some 11th present around. Debbie and even her mom had witnessed David being beaten and choked by what they described as invisible hands. Eventually, David would start growling. He would speak in unrecognizable voices. And what they found most concerning is that David would actually recite passages from the Bible or a poem poem book Paradise Lost. And a lot of things that are very common when it comes to possessions within people is that they notice that the people that are getting possessed will recite passages from the Bible, which is why it was so concerning. Yeah, so that's a very common thing when being possessed. Every night, one of the family members would actually stay up to kind of surveil David because he would convulse and he would go into these really severe spasms.

Lorraine actually claimed she saw David levitate, stop breathing, and saw displays of precognition, basically meaning that he knew what would happen in the future relating to Arnie murdering the landlord. So he knew way before it even happened. The Warrens family were so concerned that they eventually had to make a phone call to the police department in October of 1980 warning them that the situation had became very dangerous. As you can see. What are the police going to do? How do they prepare for this? Just shoot them.

Exactly. Guy. Maybe not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they would. They would. They would. Especially the Boulder Police Department.

Well, this is the Connecticut police department. I know. So it was said that Ed and Lorraine had performed about four exorcism rites on David in the span of like a couple of like several days actually. But in one of the exercise and rates. Arnie had actually played with the demon that was supposedly possessing David and he said take me instead. I actually have a quote from this certain event right here. Let me. So this is a direct quote from Arnie. I yelled at this thing at the top of my lungs. I said,

leave this little kid alone. Take me on. I'm here. Take me on. I felt this coldness come over me ice cold. Lorraine said, coldness come over me, ice cold. Lorraine said, Oh my God, what did you do? End quote. So obviously that was not a good idea for him. It was said that he was kind of antagonizing the demon, kind of like egging him on a little bit so that he would leave David alone and instead take him over. Which of course was not something that he should have done, especially in the eyes of Ed and Lorraine. They were trying to convince him not to do that. They were constantly trying to tell him, please don't stop. You're making a huge mistake. But of course he continued on to do so. Shortly after this, Arnie went to the rental property that they had where they cleaned up and everything.

And there was an old well there. Now the old well is where some people believe the demon was supposedly housed in. So he went to the old well and he claimed that he made eye contact with this demon and after that is when he supposedly became possessed. Now David's condition began to worsen so it wasn't getting any better which really upset the family and ultimately Debbie and Arnie they moved out of the family house and ended up moving into an apartment nearby Debbie's brand new job she was actually hired by Alan Bono to be a dog groomer. And after moving into their new place, Debbie was kind of concerned. Arnie started showing these same

kind of behavior as David would. He would go into this trance-like state. He would start growling and he would also hallucinate, but yet he would not have no recollection of what actually went on. He just got that dog in. recollection of what actually went on. He just got that dog in. For real. But, this now leads up to the killing.

On February 16, 1981, Arnie, he was working at Right Tree Service, but he decided to call in sick that day. And instead, he decided to join Debbie at her job, her kennel where she worked. She, it was Arnie, Debbie, and then Debbie's sister Wanda, or no or no this this was actually Arnie's sister Wanda Debbie's nine year old cousin and Mary was also there. And what was that? What's the name? Mary.

Okay. Yeah. So Yeah. So, Alan, he was the landlord of both Debbie and Arnie. So, he was doing a little bit of everything. He was new in town too. And he brought them to lunch at a local bar. They started drinking a whole lot. After their lunch, they went back to the kennel.

But also, Debbie decided to take the girls out to pizza. But she wanted to make it really fast. She said she felt like there was something happening, something bad that was going to happen, basically anticipating trouble. When they returned, Alan was extremely intoxicated and he started becoming a little bit agitated. Everyone ended up leaving the room.

Debbie told everyone to leave the room because she didn't want anything bad to happen to anybody. But as Mary was about to leave, Alan immediately grabbed her, stopping her from leaving. And he refused to let go. And this was pretty scary. Mary was only nine. You know what I'm saying? How are you going to grab a nine-year-old girl and stop her from leaving the room? And when Arnie saw this and headed back to their apartment,

Alan then released Mary, but that's when it started. So there's a lot of different things that happened or that was said to have happened. There's a lot of different witnesses. There's Wanda, there's Mary, there's Debbie. And then of course there is Arnie. But Debbie said she witnessed Arnie starting to growl, almost like he was starting to get angry with Alan. But Wanda said she had seen it as well.

And then that's when Debbie started making her way in between the two men to help try to mitigate the situation. Ultimately, Arnie ended up taking a five inch pocket knife and stabbed Alan repeatedly. He was he was then taken to the hospital and then he died at the hospital as well. He. It's not said how many times he was stabbed exactly. There's a lot of different estimates. What's for sure is that there were four to five detrimental stab wounds to him, which ultimately caused his passing.

wounds to him, which ultimately caused his passing. And Arnie was found two miles from where he had murdered him. He was found by Sergeant Gordon Fairchild of the Brookfield Police Department. And he said he helped arrest him on charge of assault. This was when Alem Bona was still technically alive, so it wasn't considered murder at that point. But Arne said he didn't mean to hurt anybody and that he didn't remember anything. He even told the officer that he said he needed help because he thinks he got a drinking problem. He does. And then when he was taken to the police department, they informed him that Alan Bono had died. And Fairchild had actually said that Arnie became very incoherent. Eventually he fell asleep for like 20 to 25 minutes, which was kind of weird to me. I don't know.

Like, I don't know. You just, I don't know. It's weird to me at least. Um, and then when he woke back up, the police detective Sergeant John Lucas had given him his rights and then charged him with first degree murder. He was held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center and he was on bail for $125,000, which in today's money is around $475,000. That's a lot.

Damn, yeah. Yeah. A whole lot. The day after the killing, Lorraine had actually informed the police department, the Brookfield Police Department, and told them that Arnie was possessed when he committed this murder. Now, Martin Manila, which was Arnie's lawyer at the time, he received calls from all over the world about the,

quote, demon murder trial, end quote. So he traveled to England to meet with lawyers. He basically was trying to find any way, shape or form to make this plea by virtue of possession kind of valuable. He was just trying to find a way to, of course, defend his client. But the trial took place in Connecticut Superior Court. It started October 28th, 1981. They submitted a plea of not guilty by virtue of possession. Of course, the judge, Robert Callahan, didn't accept this. There was no actual evidence. It was unscientific and relative is what he described it as. And ultimately, he was charged on November 24, 1981, of first degree manslaughter after 15 hours of deliberation by the jury over three days. after 15 hours of deliberation by the jury over three days.

Yeah. On December 18th, 1981, he was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, but he only served five of those years due to his good behavior. So that's pretty much the end of like his trial. But a lot happened after this where a lot of shows, books that were being made by this. In 1983, Gerard Brittle actually published a book called The Devil in Connecticut, and Lorraine Warren actually contributed.

So there's accounts from her on there as well. There's a lot of accounts from the exorcisms as well too, in that book. It was also said that Arnie's family was paid $2,000. So they did profit off of the book as well. Lorraine shared her profits with the family There were tons of movies being made even one recently in 2021 the conjuring the devil made me do it

Sure some of you have seen that movie, if not, there's one. There's also a TV film. It was called the Demon Murder Case. It was produced in 1983. Kevin Bacon stars in it. If you guys know who Kevin Bacon is. Yeah. Yay.

Okay, cool. There is also the most recent Netflix documentary on it as well, The Devil on Trial. I've heard a lot of good things about the documentary. I personally have not watched it yet, but I definitely will be soon and I do highly suggest watching really anything about it if you're interested in this case specifically. I think there are a lot of different perspectives of it but I do know that Arnie is in that documentary for Netflix so that's why I do suggest that one.

That... I don't know this made I don't know this made history this is a first trial like first murder trial where they basically like said hey I murdered him because I was possessed you know like I don't know that's crazy to me but that's the end that's basically all I have for you guys that's the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson. Every time you tell one of these like Ed and Lorraine Warren stories I'm like oh my god like I've heard of it but I don't know anything about it and then you tell one of these like Ed and Lorraine Warren stories, I'm like, oh my god, like I've heard of it, but I don't know anything about it. And then you tell the story and I'm like, oh wait, I watched the movie that this was based off of. So I like can picture some of the scenes you're talking about, like in the theatrical Hollywood sense of it. But like I picture them

happening as you're telling the story. And I can't help but laugh because I'm like, this is so funny. Like this is, like I know it's supposed to be like real and there was like a murder and like possession. But it's like, it's just, it's so funny how they do it in the movies. So. Oh yeah.

Oh my God. They so over exaggerate it. There's sure a lot of things. They had things like a like a seance and like in the movie, they have like an exorcism. Yeah, exactly. No, it was opposite in the movie they had that it was a conjuring the first conjuring movie in the movie, they had exorcism, but it was actually a seance. That's kind of what I said, but I said it backwards. Yeah, I don't know if I remember watching the second one because I definitely remember the first and now that you're sharing the third one.

Yeah, The Conjuring 2 is the one with the little girl in London and she's like possessed by this old guy named Bill. Oh yeah and then the spirit of Bill. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I think you're the only one that has covered cases involved involving and I like it. Yeah So I'm not as tomorrow because there's a case I need you to not cover because I'll be covering that one What? ever because I'll be covering that one. Oh, my what? I'll talk to you tomorrow about a case that I don't want you to research about Ed and Lorraine Warren. It was all you suck.

You're taking it away from me. I already have a lot of the research done into it, so I need you to take a pause. Oh, you're fine. I'm just kidding. I know you are. There was like there was a lot more that I could have said to that are from like movies and documentaries and stuff. But a lot of them are like over exaggerated. So that's why I didn't really include it.

Because a lot of it is just like, it's exaggerated in the film, but this is what they said it happened in real life. And then it's like something, sorry, but like something kind of boring. And I'm like, oh, you're good. Fortunately, we'll talk about that tomorrow. But yeah, thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

I have some thoughts. For first of all, I like I like laughed or something at like the towards the start of it is because it reminded me of the time when I apparently saw a demon when I was little. Wait, what? Like chill it in my closet in my room. Yeah, so- Wait, what? I was like six years old or something like that, like somewhere around there. And apparently I was like just trying to go to sleep in my bedroom and like I was at my

house and my uncle was over. He's like my very religious Christian uncle of my family. My family is Christian, but some of us are definitely more than others. But yeah, he was there with my mom. They were all in the living room or something. And I slowly like, I don't remember any of this, but this is what I've been told, you know? I like slowly walk out of the room and apparently I go up to like my uncle and I'm like, oh, there's something in my closet. It's like really tall and it like kind of looks like a person, but it also looks like a lizard. Like it has scales. What? Somehow? It's like scale and like in the Bible,

demons are described as like scaled like reptilian type creatures. Yeah. And so apparently like my uncle like he like ran into my room and he immediately like like rebuked the demon and stuff like that disappeared. And I don't know, I think that's kind of crazy. Your uncle will think you tried. Yeah, he's like, not today, Satan. Literally. That's crazy. Also more related to the story. When you were describing like at night, he was like seeing

these things, hearing these things, whatever they've been to start to the story, when you were describing, like, at night, he was like, seeing these things, hearing these things, whatever, they registered to the day, literally schizophrenia, like paranoia. Yeah. Like that's what jumped to my mind. No valid, completely valid. Yeah. Also, I didn't add this because it's not confirmed, but I read that there was like 42 demons inside of this little boy.

Oh my god. Yeah. I think that was also conveyed in the movie, wasn't it? No. I think so. No, really? It was conveyed that there was like several, but it wasn't conveyed that there was 42. The only reason I'm saying it is because I've definitely heard in other movies like

What demons involved when there's like multiple in a person? Yeah, that happens a lot. I hear all the conjuring movies about like multiple positions like Probably kids. Yeah, I don't know. Well, they are demilogist after all Probably because, yeah, I don't know, they are demunologists after all. No, I know, but like they're specifically about this person focused on them getting possessed and they have to exercise the demon. Yeah. So all the movies blend together for me, just because they're all like this same concept

essentially. Yeah, yeah. Exactly, yeah. Anyway, thank you for sharing. Yeah, thank you. Thank you you for sharing. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening. We also have to watch the movies. I feel like we should have a marathon, like a conjuring a marathon.

We're not that night. Yeah, I usually never do. Not just because of like the marathon, but also because we're literally watching this movies. Yeah. I don't want to sleep that night. Yeah, we'll wait till the sun comes out. All right. Take it away, Jay. Take what away? The torch? Yeah, Take my torch. It's hurting my hand. With the heat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's my turn.

You know, like, I'll... Yes, you do. Yes, I do, actually. It's the difference. Continue. No, no, no, you're fine. So, for this week, I'm doing your bonus story and. It's I'm going to give you a little bit of.

What's it called like exposure to like the year and then I have you guess what I'm covering. Okay, okay. So So the year is 1981. And a few things had happened this year, 1981. So I'm going to just, I did that in bullet points. Well, I'll let you, I'll tell you what happened on this year. So in 1981, MTV had just launched the first music video played, and it was Video Kill the Radio Star. Oh my God! Yeah. Video Kill the Radio Star! So, President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt.

That also happened this year. Similar, Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt when he was shot. Yep. Damn. Probably cheated death. The first shuttle mission, STS-1, was launched. Check. And, not and, there's two more left. The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana took place. And a mysterious video game appeared in an arcade in Portland, Oregon. Okay.

So, what would you like to discover? Oh. Hmm. I like arcades. So, Oregon. Anything from Alexis? Whatever tickles your boat. Okay, cool. I'm going to cover the arcade because that's the only one I was actually going to share with y'all anyway.

So thank you, Kai. I'm not ready to cover assassination attempts or anything else. Oh, let's go. Oh, yeah. So now I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the early 1980s and which includes 1981. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about arcades. Because at this point, the arcades were pretty much the popular place where teams would hang out. There were the centers of entertainment,

social interaction. And of course, they were filled with the latest video games, technology. And they had a variety of games that just appealed to all ages. Sometimes families would go there together and then just split and like go play and yeah. Yeah. So to describe what like an arcade would have been if you walked into one in 1980, there's a lively ambiance, there's dim lighting, and it's crowded spaces. Some popular games during this time, some iconic popular

games include Pac-Man because it was released in 1980. I love Pac-Man. Donkey Kong which fun fact it was known as Jumpman. Yo that's sick. I love Donkey Kong. GK. Did you know that it was originally called Puckman? What? What? Puckman, right? Yeah, Pac-Man was originally called Puckman. I wish it stayed Puckman.

Well, no, because they were worried that people would change it to be an inappropriate word. Yeah, I know. That's why I wish it was still Puck, man. They changed it because of you. Yeah, specifically. Yeah, because I was born in 1981. No, no, they had stick-icks that were going to say this will be a problem in the future. Awesome. All right. Okay, so a few other games was Defender and Galaga. Okay. I love Galaga. Yeah. So there was of course a variety of games for everyone. Shooters,

racing games, fighting games, puzzle games, sport games, pretty much everything that was available like nowadays back then as well, just of course pixelated. So the social aspects, because like I said, it was like the center hub for people to like spend time together. Competitive play, community interaction, and then most arcades work with the token system. So you would change your money. They would give you tokens and you'd go use that in the machine. Now, this one, our kids were like simple. Yeah. Yeah.

Like they were the local hangout. No, literally. Now it's like so expensive. You have to buy the card and prepay. Like you can't just like get your quarters and pop them in the machine. Yeah. Now, there was also a dark side to this arcades. Okay.

Yeah, so there was parents were concerned about multiple things, but many parents were concerned about the influence that arc kids would have on their children. The dim lighting, crowded spaces, and the presence of older teenagers. Often let the parents to worry about negative influences, including drug use. And then the media reports during the 1980s, some media reports and community groups raised alarms about arcades being like potential spots for illicit activities. So this report's only contributed to, you know, people feeling that like arcades were not safe for their children.

Yeah. Now, I did my best to find actual incidents of drug activity and, like, police surveillance. I was able to find one, but it took place way after 1980. So I got this from the Congressional Research Service, and this is called the, uh, the pose. Communicate us act and related matters. So it. It's called a use of military to execute civilian law. Damn.

Sorry, I'm laughing. Why are you laughing? It's kind of funky. Yeah. The Pase Comunicados Act and Related Matters. So it was actually updated in November 6, 2018. I don't know if there's an updated version out there or not, but this is the one I found and there was a case of a Navy undercover agent who had received information that a sailor had purchased drugs at an off-base arcade. So joined local police with several military agents for some surveillance of the arcade. They made the drug buy and

cooperate. I can't even say it. They cooperated with the local police and they made the arrests and conducted the search of the civilian. So that's the only case that I was able to find of like drug related use like in our eighties type of thing Yeah I thought I found a second one of a training video Or like space port like arcade But it's a regular training video and at no point during the video there's like drugs mentioned

So I think it was kind of all like in the parents head and like media just making that environment. I mean I definitely understand the concern behind like drug use in like social settings and like an arcade is a social setting but also I think parents probably like back then especially but always are just they're worried about their kids doing drugs like in... Yeah. Yeah. Like it doesn't matter if it's like at school or like with friends or an arcade, it's always gonna be a concern. Yeah. Now the reason I was bringing this up is because some people thought that it was a

drug-related thing or like it was being surveyed or things like that. The mysterious video game that appeared in Oregon was called Polybius. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. No. Okay. So the first initial mention of Polyvius, it's on a website called coinop.org in the 2000. I sent you the link if you want to check it out. But I think it's very interesting because one of the the things that says if you were just to search Polybius, it literally says like we need more info or like we need info. You also see what appears to be an image of perhaps the menu for Polybius when the game starts.

Oh, I see it. Yeah. And the text says that the game was copyrighted in 1981, and it's maybe a German company. But there's lots of things that just don't make sense when it comes to Polybius because it describes the game as a mysterious arcade game that appeared briefly in Portland, Oregon in 1981, and I think it was only available there for like two weeks before it just appeared. Now, people often said that it was like it wasn't just a regular video game because they would get like there was psychological effects to the players, and that included amnesia, insomnia, night terrors and hallucinations. The fuck?

Yeah. What? So people that played Polybius were like, said that they had like side effects of playing the video game. What? Yeah. Not what you were expecting. No.

No. No. So, once again, like this video game was like in this one arcade in Portland, Oregon for like two weeks before it disappeared. Now the game was like, the description of the game was like a vector style puzzle or like a shooter game that was highly addictive. And it had like a strange like that was highly addictive and they had like a strange like hypnotic effect on the player. That's so crazy. What's wild is that people that were like that said that they played the game and that

they were like waiting in line to play the game and things like that mentioned that like the cabinets which is what they call like the thing that the machine is on, was visited by men in black who collected data from the machines. They never took like tokens or money out of the machines. They just like collect the data. What? So they put it in, it's like, they just came in and they looked at the machines to get info? Yeah, like, I don't know what they were collecting, but it was not the tokens, it was not money. And like I said, only after a few weeks, the Vita game completely disappeared from the

arcade. What the hell? What the hell? Yeah, I was gonna say. It's like men in black type stuff. No, it's wild because like, you know, maybe like security or like a cop would pop in every once in a while. But like this government, like if they were governor, government workers, they were not trying to be discreet. Like they were men in black that would show up

Poke around on the machine and then just take their leave That's And so what was the point was like it ever found out. There are some theories of what was happening. But once again, as soon as the video game disappeared, people started going like. They started like rumors about it, like people started talking online about it. Some websites had like called it like an urban legend that it was never a real thing. Other people just say say that's weird. Yeah.

But the thing is, like, there's a small group of like people that remember playing this game and like the side effects that they had. We got to meet these people. 1981 if there were teenagers at that point, they're probably like in what? The grave. They their 50s now They're not that all kind We need to play this game We didn't I know I was gonna say wait, you know what game we need to play which one

the game What? You guys lost. No, have you guys ever heard about like the game? I'm giving you like the bird right now. Wait, what? I said you can't see me, but I'm giving you the bird right now. You know about it, Jay? OK, OK.

Because then I just have to... You know about it, Kai? No. Have you never heard people say to Stella, I lost the game? Yeah. It's like when somebody says the game, if you think about the game, if you hear the game, if you say the game, you lost the game. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It's like impossible, you know? Like that's stupid. Yeah. Unless you like live under a rock. Yeah, you do. You do. No, no, no. I mean like physically live under a rock. Yeah, you do. You do. No, no, no. I mean, like physically live under a rock.

Yeah, he's like Patrick. Yeah, yeah, sure. I am. Now, the thing about Polybius is that there was a lot of references about the Vita game throughout the following years. There were TV shows, Vita games, and podcasts about it. The Simpsons made a reference to Polybius. Dude, that's so sick.

That makes so much sense. If you want to watch it or look it up in the future, it's season 18 episode 3. And the episode name it's Please Homer, Don't Hammer Him. It's literally going on Disney Plus right now. It's seen in the background with a sign that says property of the US government. So once again, this is directed to like the government conspiracies and like how they were involved somehow. It's also in the tv show Ash versus Evil Dead.

And some of the beauty games that make references to Polybius, it's the binding of Isaac, rebirth. Uh this is an indie game. Yeah. I've heard of the binding of Isaac. birth. This is an indie game. Yeah. I've heard of the Binding of Isaac. Yeah, so it appears to be like a hidden item called Polycephalus. And it just wants to bring back to the game Polybius. There's also a game named Polybius that came out of 2017. I don't know. Yes, that one was created by Jeff Minter and it's actually a VR game. Oh, that's sick. I got hired by Polybius and it just does its best

to get those psychedelic visuals and gameplay that people have often said to like, Pat if they played it. Yeah. That's sick it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, there's just a lot of lack of evidence regarding like Polybius, like despite numerous like searches and inquiries, like no physical evidence of Polybius, um, were ever found like in the arcade cabinets, ROMs or like credible eyewitness accounts, they never surfaced.

So the lack of evidence just leads to believing that it's purely a fictional thing or a hoax. Yeah. So it's kind of like an urban legend. The most popular theory, like I said, it's that the government was involved and they were conducting experiments on like the public to like, see if they could like. Brainwash them or like, you know, create some psychological effects.

I want to play it. I don't know. Like I would do the thing of like this is me like five minutes before playing Polybius and then take like a video after this like this is me like 10 minutes after playing Polybius and just see if there's like a change or something but no like it's a, like I said, a, what did I call it? Psychedelic? I don't know. No, no, it's like a, it's like an urban legend.

Oh, urban, okay. On arcade in Portland, Oregon, and then within a few weeks it disappeared completely. Damn. And like people just can't find any evidence that like it existed. Yeah. So yeah. I'm going to find evidence that existed. I'm going to investigate this. I'm going to find the game and then I'm going to make all of us play it. She's going to find it and then we're not ever here for park. She's gonna have hallucinations and seizures. It's gonna be like Jumanji.

I'm gonna go into the game. Yeah, that's probably exactly what it did. Yeah, so what are we a story of Polybius for y'all? And I know it's on the shores, that's because there's not really any evidence as you can tell, like it's an urban legend, it was only there for a couple weeks, like that's when people post about it online, and there's only a few theories, the most popular that it was the government. I think it was the government. I don't know what, the but I just want to play it. Honestly I would if like if someone was to tell me like you if you play this video game

like this are the side effects. I would see that for myself. I don't know. No seriously. I'd be so curious and you know what they say about curiosity. It kills the cat. It was a dog. Yeah, I got that dog in me. Okay, wait. If you guys, if like in the future there was a technology that like actually like could put you into a game.

If there was a game, it was like if you die in the game, you die in real life. Would you play? Yes. No. Ah! I would play Final Fantasy VII Remake. Or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. You'd be gone. I think I would play Rebirth, actually.

Oh my god, it would be so fun. It would be so fun. You would be gone. I think the only time I would do that, it's if I was like in my deathbed. Oh fair. Like I was like you know like suffering from like a terminal illness or like I was about or like I was like like nine and a half um and I'd be like yeah please put my consciousness into like Stardew Valley or like Animal Crossing. Oh that'd actually be fun yeah. Oh that's cute. I love Animal Crossing, dude Did you imagine if like they make that into like a VR game?

That'd be so Weird It's so weird actually, hey, I think it'd be fun Hey, I don't know VR and like VR in general just makes me like, I can't be too close to a screen in the movie theater too. You gotta wait till they put that chip in you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, that's all I have for y'all. All right. Well, thank you for telling us about Polybius.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always come up with like the little like weird stories that like you're like, what? No, yeah, it's cool. I enjoy it. Because I'm like, cool, you haven't heard. Let me tell you about it. Alexis find it most like out like the out there, like the most like.

Like what what what is this story even? I come up like I come up with just like extra little bits of like like weird cryptids and like crime bits and then Jay comes up with like. Yeah. The like funny light-hearted yeah Jock and Mongoose, Polybius. Yeah seriously. No it's fun I like the variety. Yeah yeah exactly. Like I would like to remind myself that like we start with like true crimes so it's like a heavy story most of the time. And that I can't

end it with a heavy story. I could, I could just say, you know what, everyone, fuck you. Let's be impressed today. Yeah, exactly. But I try to not go dark if I don't have to for bonus. Yeah, valid. I try to find it's sometimes it's hard to find, like, a good story, though, like, or something that, like, actually gives you enough to talk about. Yeah. Seriously, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, you can find something that, like, maybe looks interesting, but there's only, like, a paragraph on it. And it's like, okay. Exactly. Yeah. If you guys want to hear, like, if our listeners, like, you listening to us right now, yes, I'm talking to you. Put the soda down. Yeah. If you guys want to hear like if our listeners like you listening to us right now.

Yes, I'm talking to you. Put the soda down. Yeah. Do now. If you want us to like cover like shorter smaller cases that really don't have that much info. There's plenty out there. Yeah. There's an email.

We'll do it for you. Yeah. Chambers of the occult Anyway, um sit ups straighten out your shoulders take a drink of water. Yeah stretch your neck Because I realized I was punching back like the noter freakin Dame Oh my god, you're now breathing manually in out this is for the listeners to you guys better be doing this yeah listen to your diaphragm first your chest you feel your air from the bottom up. Yep. Put your, both of your arms into the air.

All right, now we're gonna bend your right arm behind your back, and then you're just gonna slowly push it down to get a good stretch in. And then you're gonna switch arms and do it the other side. And then you guys are gonna get up and go about your day. And drink water, because it's hot as as hell food and stay healthy and stay hydrated and get your daily and you get your Your your jig on your FDA recommended

45 minutes of exercise a day Yeah, and you would like Kai to give us a little like breathing exercise at the end of every episode, please write in, please write in and be like, you know what, I like the exercising, like the breathing exercise. In the middle of the episode, I'll come in and be like, all right guys, time to sit up. Yeah, we'll wrap it up with the breathing exercise or like we'll do it between episodes, like cases.

Just write in, tell us what you want. Yeah, please talk to us. We want to engage with you guys. Please. Oh, well you don't need to show them that we're like that desperate, but. Please. Now, if you want to switch it up a little so you know how the episode like the podcast comes out every two weeks? Yeah, we're gonna throw in like a like a special episode between those episodes. Yeah

Yeah You don't have to wait two weeks anymore next week. We'll cover something Not so dark. Hopefully gonna be a little more casual a little shorter. Yeah You can probably send to that on the way Yeah, and then once once we get it up and started you guys will see what it is And then you can definitely help us out with like suggestions and maybe things you want to send in for that Yeah, send us some letters in the mail. We'll set up a PO box. No, we won't.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet, at least. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right, all right, all right. All right, all right, all right. Good job. We're gonna call it an episode here and we'll see you in the next one. See ya.

Thanks for listening. See ya. Thanks. Bye. I see you. Bye! Thanks for watching!