Doomed to Fail - Ep 2: Things I - XIII - Emperor Nero & The Turpin Family

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

** Taylor apologizes for saying South Korea when she meant North Korea ** and for all the ums.On Episode 2 Farz shares the recent story of the Turpin Family and the unimaginable lives of their many many children. Taylor takes us back to Ancient Rome to talk about the famed Emperor Nero, was he really that bad? Well... probably.Follow us on Instagram & Facebook!  @doomedtofailpod Follow us on Instagram & Facebook!  @doomedtofailpodhttps://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpodMore about Emperor Nero:Who Was The Real Emperor Nero? | Tony Robinson's Romans: Nero | TimelineNero: Rome’s AntichristCASSIUS DIO ROMAN HISTORYA Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum    Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California, first is Hortonthall James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Welcome to Doom to Fail, the podcast where we ignore all the red flags. I'm Fars. joined by my co-host, Taylor, and every week we'll be bringing you two tales, one historic and one true crime related of relationships that were doomed to fail. Taylor, what's our signature drink this week? Thank you, Fars. So this week we'll be going back to ancient Rome. So our cocktail is going to be a glass of red wine, but you have to drink it, laying down on a couch covered in pillows, and you don't hold the glass. Someone else holds the glass and pours it into

your mouth. And then they back up and they spill the red wine on the carpet. So you sentence them to death by being eaten by a lion. So that's our cocktail. And then our mocktail, because we know not everyone is a drinker. So our mocktail is one of those mustard yellow Tupperware cups from the 80s. It is stained and it is crusty and it's been on the floor for a few years. And it's also just empty. There's no actual liquid in it. It's just this dirty cup on the floor. And as far as I think you'll cover why we have that dirty cup on the floor. I will absolutely be covering why this disgusting cup is on the floor. If you do have a dirty yellow tubberware cup from the 80s, please wash it before you drink anything out of it. But that's it. Today we're going to be covering Emperor Nero of

Rome and the Turpin family and try to find the red flags, which are going to be a plenty. So I'm going to dive right in. We're going to start on the true crime side of the equation. And as usual, I'm going ask you Taylor being the true prime official that you are? Do you know, are you fully with the Turpin family case? I am, and I kind of feel like I want to gag because it's so gross. I am, like, I don't know all the details, luckily, but I guess

I'll get to know them now. But yeah, I just I imagine it's real gross and sad. Very gross. Very gross, very sad. So kick things off. Do you remember Harry, who is Jeff Daniels' character in Dumb and Dumber? Yes. Okay, picture that guy from now on every time I bring up David Turpin.

He looks like he's wearing a mop on his head, and it also looks silky smooth for some reason. So he apparently cares, he cares enough about his hair to condition and moisturize it, but not enough to actually cut it and modernize it and make it look normal, which is very, very interesting. Okay, great. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay, perfect. So with that preamble, let's start in on David and Louise Turpin. Right at the top, I'm going to blame religion and power dynamic for this story. Religion tends to play in quite a bit, as we've seen in the last episode as well into my true crime cases.

David and Louise met when he was 23 and she was 16. Obvious power dynamic, right? Yeah. I get that a seven-year age gap doesn't mean much when you're 40 and she's 33. But by this time, David was a computer engineer. He had an air of a man who had a shit together to a 16-year-old, right? Yeah, totally. It's a huge difference. Huge difference. From what I could gather, they only were together for about a year before getting married in 1985. And the circumstances under which they got married were also really interesting. They kind of absconded with each other without the parents, with her parents completely disapproving of this, trying to get married to each other. And then somehow they came back home and they

squared things away with her parents and were able to get married. But it was, it was kind of like a, he basically was trying to take advantage of a 16-year-old, is how I interpreted this. Yeah. I mean, there's no way to not. Like, you know, there's a thing, like, if you're underage, then, like, it's against your will. There's no such thing.

You know, you can't consent if you're a child. Exactly. Exactly. So going into a bit of their individual histories, Louise seems to have had a really rough childhood. According to her sister, Teresa, their mother was. would sell the girls to local pedophiles yeah teresa is quoted as saying this is all a quote he would slip money into my hand as he molested me i can still feel his breath on my neck as he whispered

be quiet we begged her not to take us to him but she would simply say i have to clothe and feed you louise had the louise was abused the worst he destroyed myself forth as a child and i know he hers, too. This is Teresa the sister talking, which is crazy. I didn't have an exact age range here where this was going on, but does it matter? I mean, it's still, it's awful

the matter what. So, I mean, it sounds like she never had a chance. Like, yeah. Yeah, she kind of started off with a bad hand using poker terms, which I'm terrible at. And the story was actually corroborated.

So they have another sister. who's named Elizabeth. She corroborated the sexual abuse story, too. But then she also leveled some pretty stupid accusations against Louise to kind of imputed character and justify what she did. She wrote a book. The book is called Sisters of Secrets.

And so for context, Teresa was of the opinion. I can't believe that my sister would do this. This is insane. Whereas Elizabeth was of the opinion of, of course she could do this. Look at her past. Look at her history. Look at what she was involved in.

They're so stupid. She accused her of drinking, smoking, going to bars, practicing witchcraft, gambling. I love that for her. Eating steaks. And then she made some vague sexual promiscuity claims against her. Don't know exactly what those were related to. But all this sounds like, I mean, eating snakes is a little bit unusual unless you're in Louisiana.

I thought you said steak. I was like, that seems fine, but snakes. I see. I get it. I get it. the slithering kind, not the delicious cow kind. But all of this kind of sounds like just edgy emo shit that anybody would do when they're... Doesn't even sound edgy.

Yeah, exactly, right? It's fairly standard operating procedure for most kids. Yeah. So Elizabeth sounds like going back to our thing from last week, a bit of a wet noodle. So we're not a huge fan of Elizabeth because she basically tried to find any reason to justify what ended up happening, which we're about to dive straight into. Totally. But before we dive into it, building back on the characters at hand here, David was kind of the flip side of that equation. He was a bit of a baby straight edge.

He was part of the Bible, chess, and science clubs made really good grades. And actually, I ended up going back and finding his high school year book picture. He had the hair. He had the mop hair in high school. It was absolutely incredible. He looked exactly the same. Oh, my gosh. That kind of thing feels like permanent.

Maybe that's, it was just permanent. Like, you just can't do anything about it. That's so funny. Yeah. I didn't put this in the outline, but I wanted to call this out because if any of you look up a picture of these two, the one thing also that I found really interesting about this, despite kind of like how they ended up, they were part of a swinger's community. So they had swinger parties too, which, again, nothing wrong with being a swing.

Yeah, good fun. That's fine. But they are, imagine walking into that house that I'm about to do. describe in preparing yourself to have a sex party with these people. I think that the problem with being a swinger is like not everyone is attractive. Some of them look like Harry from Dumb and Dumber, yes. But also maybe you like that. So you just have to kind of know what you're getting into.

Like don't be surprised. If you're like, I like that, then like great. But if you're like, I expect it to be something like really beautiful and like sexy and you get there and it's like, no. But remember on all of a sudden when I go to the sex party and Danny DeVito's eating from the buffet? Anyway, it's gross. It's gross. That's what I'm imagining. Like a book, there's also a buffet. Well, it's not even their appearance I'm addressing here. I'm addressing the fact that you walk into what I'm about to describe as the house to have sex with these people. And it's like, what could be going through your mind?

But I'll get to the house. And then we'll back our way into like now imagine walking into this to have sex with these people. So going back to this story. In 2011, David files for bankruptcy claiming 240,000. thousand dollars in credit card debt that's an insane amount of credit card debt what are you buying with that like a car i don't you know i don't think you can buy a car on a credit card i think you have to actually take out an auto loan or something like it's yeah i mean this number really blew me away because i mean sure everybody everybody has credit card debt it's a thing it is what it is but this amount of it is is pretty remarkable to me especially when you factor in that he had a really good salary. He made about $140,000 a year as an engineer.

You know, I don't know if this detail is particularly significant, the debt that they were in. But I can see why that level of debt could increase stress levels and kind of improve it some rational thinking. Yeah. But, I mean, what ended up happening kind of goes a little bit, not a little bit. It goes a lot beyond just stress related to some debt. well no what do you think yeah well i also think like i know you're going to talk about it but part of it is like they have a shit ton of children so like i don't know maybe think about your financial situation before you have 47 kids like stuff like that that i think maybe also ties to the religion factor as well maybe they like didn't take precautions to not have kids but like

at some point you have to be like i'm way over my head with this debt i should stop incurring more expenses, aka having like 7,000 kids. Yeah, whenever I consider the debt piece of it and then look at what ended up happening, I was like, well, could this have been a response to let, we just don't have the money for these children and this is the only option we have? I mean, obviously, that's not an excuse, but I'm just trying to make, I'm trying to create logic in an incredibly a logical situation. Totally, but if you like, you have a dog, if you're like, I can't afford to take care of my

dog you wouldn't stop feeding your dog you would give it to someone else yeah exactly exactly you'd rehome it um so going back to the story they lived in fort worth which is just outside of dallas texas until 1999 and then they moved to another town in texas called rio vista in 2007 they moved 10 of their children into a trailer on that property in rio vista um there was two other kids So there was 12 in total, and the two youngest stayed in the house with their parents. The other 10 were brought groceries on a weekly basis, but apparently it wasn't enough food for all of them. This trailer eventually looked exactly like what you would expect when the family left it.

The way it was described by neighbors was basically like an episode of orders. It was just feces everywhere, dead animals everywhere, food. It was filthy, absolutely. Poor babies. Oh, my God. And I can't. And the thing is, I mean, how big of a trailer could it have possibly been?

I didn't see it. I didn't get dimensions on it. But 10 people is just... Yeah. You'd have to be sleeping on the floor, I would assume, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah.

Well, the family relocated to Paris, California, in 2014. People thought they were odd, but nothing super out of the ordinary. They would occasionally do nice family things. If you Google the Turpins, one of the first pictures you'll pull up is of them at Disneyland, And they're all wearing, you know, thing t-shirts, you know, thing one, two, three, four. They're wearing all of those. And they look normal, minus, you know, David's haircut. Like, they actually did some stuff occasionally together.

It's also so funny because that's so expensive. Like, I don't want to go to Disneyland with my four-person family because I don't feel like spending $4,000, you know, like. Yeah, so I don't have kids. So I don't know what this would equate to, but could you rack up $240,000 in credit card debt by taking your kids to? there, Disneyland? No, but you could rack up like 15. Wow, okay, yeah. If you went there for like a week and like stayed in a hotel and had tickets

and bought food and like whatever and made those thing t-shirts, it could be a lot. Going back to like the pictures, these folks say, there was another picture that came up, which is of them getting, renewing their vows with all their children in tow. You've seen that, right? It's so eerie. It's like

they're so pleased with one another. There's something about it that just, like, shook me. They definitely look like, oh, we're so happy and we're so in love. And, like, renewing our boughs and there's like an elvist. And they just look so super happy. And you're like, what? I don't be pleased with yourself. You're doing a terrible job.

Yeah. Yeah. So look up these people and see these pictures because it's a little haunting after you realize what those kids were going through while all this was happening. So they were both Pentecostal. They believed that they were called to have this many children by God. So, you know, kudos to you, Taylor. You kind of guess why this ended up happening in the way that it ended up happening. I researched Pentecostalism and realized that these are the people that speak in tongues.

Do you know, are you doing with this? I think, well, I think so. I was going to ask you, like, tell me a little bit more about being Pentecostal. So tell me to talk speaking in tongues. It sounds hilarious. I went down a rabbit hole with this because I was just, blown away at like the belief system here so these are these are the folks that think that the holy spirit inhibits their body um and they'll start just speaking in gibberish under the auspices

that that is the holy spirit in their body trying to express itself um there was i can't remember his name now there was a huge mega church guy in in dallas who would do this all the time you get on tv i remember i used to watch this i grew up in dallas and i would watch this guy on late-night TV just like doing gibberish talking to the camera trying to get people to send him money and then he ended up being found as a total scam artist and got sued by the government and everything else but it's crazy

like they fall on the ground they roll around it's like basically the shittiest improv skit of all time and then people just buy into it for some reason but they don't know like do they try to like translate what they're saying no it's nonsense it's absolute nonsense

but they don't try to be like this this nonsense means give me money and or they're just like it's just nonsense watch me do it so you're kind of on to something on that last point so the theology is also tied to the prosperity theology which are you familiar with that no okay so this means that having material in the financial wealth is a sign that god thinks you're great basically so yeah so if you're poor you're poor because god hates you if you're rich You're rich because God loves you. Yeah, so it basically means that your faith in God is what brings you these things.

And I find it interesting when factored in with the bankruptcy because you kind of have to think to yourself, you know, were they thinking to themselves? Like, I guess I was wondering how psychologically, if you believe this stuff, how would you feel if you were also this destitute as they ended up being? Maybe you ignore the debt and you like think, well, I'm rich because I can buy all these things. even though you're not and you're like not thinking about like oh but i don't have that money i have to pay it back i was i was actually thinking in terms of did they think that if they neglected their kids and spent as little as possible to keep them alive it would help them with god because they'd had money left over right you know like it's it's not good it's not good um so the kids so there are 10 daughters three sons all born between 1988 and 2015 um so towards the end of the end of

saga, which we haven't got to the house yet, but I'm going to skip forward to how this ended up happening because what ended up happening, they discovered the house is critical here. So as this saga is coming to an end and they're about to be discovered, apparently there's a bunch of talks of the family all moving to Oklahoma. I don't know exactly the details of what happened here, but in 2018, one of the kids, her name is Jordan, she was 17 at the time, fled through the window and ran a distance from the house before calling 911 on a cell phone she had on her. Apparently, there were some internal discussions amongst the kids who were all,

you know, destitute together, that moving to Oklahoma for whatever reason would be basically the end of them. There would be a death. I don't know exactly what happened because it was already awful. It was already awful for the few years and what was the reason for this? The other thing I don't understand is why these kids had cell phones. There's actually multiple examples of this. I'm going to go into a little bit later.

The kids apparently had cell phones on them. And for some reason, they were still running out of the house to make a phone call. Did they go to school? No, no. What's actually amazing and really funny is, um, is David listed himself on some tax filing or something as a principal of Sandcastle day school. That's like that he cooperated from his house. Yeah, exactly. us. He actually got another conviction for falsifying records on an official form because of this

principal thing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I feel like, I know you can get a cell phone, you know, if you are financially in need of a cell phone because, you know, you do need one to like get a job and like things like that, you know, so you can get one via assistance, but I don't know how they would have like applied for that assistance. I also know that you can dial 911 on phones that don't work. So if you have a phone that isn't connected to like a plan, you can still dial 911 on it. So that's actually really good advice for anybody, like if you actually need to do it. But I will say, and you'll see later on, that these phones had service. I'll explain that bit in a moment, which again, I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how they got cell phones.

I don't know why they didn't use them earlier. I don't know why they had to leave the house to use them, so on and so forth. It's all a little bit of a mystery. But Jordan ended up doing this. And the police showed up and Jordan showed them pictures that she'd taken on that cell phone of the house. And Jordan told the police, quote, my two little sisters right now are chained up. They're chained up because they stole mother's food. Ew. Imagine being a cop who heard that.

I feel like I would just, I feel like, what, what? They stole mom's food. Crazy. Well, I don't say mom and say mother. They called her mother like Mike Pence calls his wife mother. Like, that's not great. When you hear that, you're like, that's bad. I also feel like there's some, I mean, there's so many people who dedicate their lives to helping children who are in these terrible situations.

But there's also a place where they like don't know what is normal, you know. So like maybe a lot of it, they're like, yeah, this is our life. Like, I've never seen a life that isn't like this. But also like, it must feel terrible. So I'm going to go into that too. because I thought a lot about that as well. And it ties into the cell phones and everything else here in a moment. So the police responded for a welfare check to the house

and just found it in complete this right, obviously. It was also what you would picture of a hoarder's house. He said, the detail that gets me is that they keep finding dead pets in the house. Ew. Like, they don't bury or cremate them. They just, like, live with them decomposing on their living room floor. I don't know what pets it was. was just it just said pets it doesn't matter yeah no that's so gross whenever i see that in hoarders

they're like oh yeah there's a cat skeleton in the corner you're like how did we get here like that's that's just that's so much farther than like not taking out your trash um that's horrible yeah yeah that detail you're right when i watch hoarders i also have that reaction is that's the one detail it's like of everything else that's the one i most understand i also just love watching hoarders i keep waiting for a new season i've watched all of it i want more but Yes, same page. We have the exact same TV addiction. So police witness, one of the kids was shackled to a bed. And apparently, I don't know how they know this, but apparently he'd been shackled there for weeks.

I can only presume it was based on the reaction to the shackles on his skin that they would be able to deduce how long he'd been up there. The details of what these kids endured is kind of beyond comprehension. they were obviously incredibly malnourish and extremely dirty they were regularly beaten they were only allowed to be the once per year oh my god go back to the 10 kids in the RV or the trailer right once a year living in those conditions um they were also regularly shackled as police have already observed and they had very little understanding of the outside world apparently they were fed only once a day and they also weren't allowed to use the indoor bathroom so i can only imagine there was like a ship bucket sitting somewhere inside the room these kids were in oh my god yeah

unbelievable um so i'm gonna go back to what you'd mentioned which is their understanding of the outside world and also tied it into the cell phones one detail as i was reading about this story and researching it was in 2014 jordan the girl who the daughter who ran out to call the police. Yeah. She saw a Justin Bieber video on her brother's cell phone. Huh. Yeah.

And she'd also been watching Hannah Montana in high school musical on this cell phone. So that points like, hey, the cell phones work. The cell phones have service. So like totally don't understand how that wasn't being used. But can you imagine that? Can you imagine being that isolated and then seeing stuff like that? Like, I get FOMO if I just stay on a rainy Saturday. I can't imagine what it must be like.

You're covered in dirt, wearing tattered clothes, starving, walking around in shit. And you see essentially the polar opposite. Like, I mean, I've never watched Hannah Montana, but I would assume that it is the polar opposite, right? It is. Yes. Okay. But it is. You remember how a friend Jeff was in Hannah Montana?

Was he really? Yeah, he was in, like, an episode where, like, playing volleyball. There was some reason, and he, like, won against her or something. I need, oh, you know what? That does bring a bell. It actually does bring a bell. I need to go find that. Yeah.

The quote what do you think it was? Yeah. This part of it just blows me away of like you watch this stuff. You know that there's a world like that out there and you live in this situation. I just say it's incredible. Yeah, but just like how much have you been brainwashed to think that that is the life that you should live, right? Yeah. But also, doesn't living like that mean God hates you?

I'm not expecting any rational answers from this, but I'm just saying that, like, if you're living in poverty, God hates you, right? But here's the thing. I mean, given how they treated these kids, I don't think that, you know, religious teachings were being imposed on them. It doesn't seem like they, it seems like the Louise and David were having their own wives being run in parallel to like these separate lives of these kids were living um right because he went to work yeah he went to work he had a great job like he was doing his thing yeah yeah um

so the parents were obviously arrested and they were charged with torture false imprisonment abuse of a dependent adult since several the children were 18 or older in child abuse the dad was additionally charged with lewd acts on a child oh no not that that's surprising but oh no I know. I know. They ultimately pled guilty. So originally they pled not guilty and then they changed their plea to guilty. And they were thankfully sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of your parole, I think after 22 years. But apparently the general prevailing theory is that given the nature of the crimes, that there's no chance it would ever re-release into the public. Good. And they're separated, right? Obviously, because she's in a men's a women's prison and he's in a men's prison. Totally. That's awesome. That's great. So I'm happy they're not together. Yeah, they don't do much good together. So there's a bit of an aftermath, so a bit of an aftermath as far as these kids are concerned, that's really depressing.

So we're going to continue on that theme. It's kind of hard to imagine, but some of these kids suffered even more after this event. What? Obviously, the kids were taken away, right? Like, they were taken away and the state had to, well, the county had to figure out what resources to kind of apply to bring these kids back up. to be able to live reasonable lives. The kids were obviously super fucked up psychologically and also had health ailments

because of the lack of nutrition. They ultimately spent two months in the hospital. It's crazy. It's a long time. This is where it gets bad, Taylor. So five of the kids were adopted by family and these people were utter pieces of shit. I'm hiding out of the screen because I'm so upset. I don't know how.

you find people like this and not appropriately vet them, but apparently Riverside County didn't. The kind of abuse they suffered, I'm going to read the laundry list of it here. They were hit in the face. They had their hair pulled. They were hit with belts. They were forced to eat excessive amounts of food. And then when they vomited, they were forced to eat their vomit. Oh. And, you know, it's a given, but we'll just tack it on anyways. The foster father was also accused of fondling, fondling and kissing them on the mouth. You know, I, all those kids. Jesus Christ. I don't. Oh, my God.

It's like, how much can one, how much can someone take, right? I mean, I can't like, there who are like, I love five kids to abuse, please. Yeah. And they're just like, waiting for that. And like, what I've done in the past? And like, oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really, really bad. So the foster parents were obviously, arrested as well in the middle of all this um but yeah so this story has some parallels with colts so i'm gonna do a little bit of a sidebar here i'm mostly thinking about hardcore insular poly um polymarriage whatever it's called yeah yeah yeah and i'm also thinking of the children of

god who are now known as the family international so when i read stories about people who have left these groups You're sort of by the fact that they can't take care of themselves. Everything's done for you. You're part of a community, a bad one, but you're part of the community that everything's done for you. They don't know how to do the basic adult stuff, how to open a bank account, rent an apartment, buy furniture, work and normal jobs, so on and so forth. That was all going on here as well. Because usually it's because everything was done for you and then teaching basic life skills wasn't really good for whoever the leader was, whether it's children and regardless. want to keep you there.

Yeah. The harder you make it to leave, the less likely someone is to do so. Totally. And that's the impression I get of what's going on here. These kids, as they age out of the foster program, are kind of just dropped into the real world with no understanding of how to do normal things. And like, I don't blame that. I don't know if you remember what you were like when you were 18, but when I was 18,

I mean, I didn't have my shit together until I was probably like 32. Like, you know what I mean? And you knew and you knew about the world also, you know. How old are you now? you're like, 33? What, in terms of maturity? Probably 33. In terms of you saying that you guys should do it there, you were 32.

I'm just asking how long. Oh, yeah. It's been six years. I've been a solid six years. Not bad. Okay. But no, I mean, look, if you drop me into the real world, even without the exposure of abuse that these kids suffer at 18,

I probably would have just died in the gutter. Like, there's no way I would have figured my shit out, right? Like, nobody would. I don't think. I don't think so. I mean, you know, what are you going to, how are you even going to, know how to get a job you know or like that's and then if you don't have anything how do you get anything you know like getting an apartment you have to have money to even start you know like there's

not like it's so hard the story gets the story gets worse now that you mentioned so some of these kids ended up being homeless um obviously riverside county was the um county that had jurisdiction over the kids the child services and were responsible basically their well-being um they were sued by some of the kids for placing them in that shithead foster family's house. And also, because this part, I don't recall from when the news broke on this case, but apparently the public donated around $2 million for the care of involving of these kids. Yeah. And so it never was distributed.

There was a guardian ad litem who never distributed the funds. the kids would ask for it they would never get it and yeah that's why the kids end up homeless in a lot of cases is because they age out of the foster program and they had no resources

to fall back on and no life skills and this guardian ad litem for whatever reason abdicated her responsibilities and did not distribute the resources to these kids they needed to survive so basically everybody everybody failed these kids

yeah I wouldn't say you should give them two million dollars because they don't know what to do with it and they might just buy a house and like don't not take care of it because they don't know how you know but you could like give them money for an apartment you know and like right wouldn't that be that guardian's job to like so that's the responsibility

of the guardian ad litem is is that their guardian yeah it's in lieu of parents this is the person who is supposed to tell you here's how you go get health care here's how you go shopping for food here's how you create a bank account here's how you could do that for them we side hustle is become a guardian ad litem but and it also as part of all of that is distribute resources as needed like you have to make a case for it right yeah the guardian ad linem isn't just going to say

here's $2 million, good luck, go go at it which I think is the right decision yeah but she should do something she didn't do anything exactly so that's where we are right now the parents are in jail presumably for the rest of their lives thankfully the kids are

unfortunately like not doing that great it sounds Like, you know, all this is fairly recent. So every now and then, there's new stories that come up. I think the most recent one was December of 2021 about what the update is on the kids. So there's going to be more and more updates on this. We'll update this podcast as we hear more about what's going on with the kids. Apparently one of them did graduate from high school.

So that's good. But, you know, like, when you're dealt a hand this bad, it's kind of tough to recover. Yeah, absolutely. So that's my story about the Turpins. And when I think about the concept of this being doomed to fail, I really fall back on the conclusion of the control dynamic between David and Louise. I don't think Louise is a good person. But I also think that, A, she was horribly, emotionally and psychologically and physically damaged in her childhood.

And so she hoax up with a guy when she's still a child. who seven years were elder and David and I don't I don't know for sure but I would imagine that David kind of ruled their decision making whatever David did and said would probably work and she doesn't have any understanding of what a normal childhood should look like like you learn what your parents teach you and she never learned the right way to do that and so yeah I think the cycle of abuse is is what you know dooms this couple and this family to fail because there's no like you said there's nothing like good to look back on and know like what it felt like to be like loved and taken care of and you know all those things i think it's just like and who knows if he abused her or she like what that might have been like because she seems super happy but like she also is definitely in a weird situation you know like the the power dynamic of the 16 year old marrying a 20 whatever year old like i hate that yeah yeah not not good none of it's good hopefully kids recover um and that is our True Crime Story of the Week.

I think a good takeaway is to look into your neighbor's windows and make sure I'm not doing anything weird. If you go to a Swinger's house, there's dead cats and dogs in the living room, tell somebody. Yes, tell someone. Like, I think that's, you know, if you think someone's in trouble, please tell someone. I know that, like, we're not, like, the cops are the best. The foster system obviously is not the best, but you should definitely tell someone and try to do something. Absolutely. something, say something. Yeah.

See something, say something. I love it. Cool. Let's pass it over to you, Taylor, for our historic doomed to fail situation. Okay. Well, that was terrible. Thank you, Fars. Happy to hear that terrible story. So I have like seven pages of notes I've been working on. But today we're going to talk about Emperor Niro and Papaya Sabina, who was his second wife. And so a lot of these word names are like a smidge Italian.

of things. I'm going to do a terrible job saying them. It's also a very confusing timeline. So just know that too. People spend their whole life studying these stories and writing books about them and I'm trying my best. So Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome from 54 to 68 AD. So we're going way back in the past about 2,000 years ago. We're a little bit past when Jesus lived and died, but at least we're going up because I'm really bad at BC timelines. I can't figure it. out like i'm bad at time zones and i'm bad at bc timeline so i'm glad we're in on the up and up so 54 to 68 nero was the emperor of rome um so pompea is a second wife and um are you saying pompea papea papea papea papea okay i was thinking about the not busubius thing it's different than

that okay uh yes but that comes that comes back we'll get back to that um so it's not it's not coincidence her name sounds like that is got it got it got it Yeah. So she's a second wife. Having a first wife is not a red flag. You're talking about. That's fine. You can have a first wife. You can even have a second wife. It could be, it could be like have a divorce and it didn't work out and whatever. That's no big deal. But so the idea of having a second wife, being the second wife is not the red flag. What happened to the first wife is the red flag. But we'll get to that in a minute. It was bad. So to study, you know, get prepared for this. I watched some. YouTube videos, some Wikipedia, some other articles. And also, per usual, cannot recommend enough Dan Carlin. He has a great million-part series called Death Throes of the Republic that talks about when Rome was a Republic up to Julius Caesar. And that's when they started to have emperors. So in the very beginning of the empire, the Republic is over. So they get the background on the Republic. Listen to that. It takes like three days, but it's totally worth it. And

So it's a direct, you know, next step in that story. So I want to talk about the background, cast of characters, and then what led to their marriage and what happened after. I also got to do the most exciting thing ever in my life. Now I can find it. Oh, I got to reference my own library far as I was like, I think I've seen this before. So I got to pull a book out of my own library that gave me information that I needed, which is like my dream. What's the book called? This is a fatal thing happened on the weight of the.

the forum. It is a book about murder and death and humanity in ancient Rome. It is by Dr. Emma Southen. It is very funny. It's like funny. She's very sarcastic. I feel like she's probably younger than me. Like I could talk to her. She's awesome. So she wrote this amazing book. And it is, it talks about like just how much of violence there was in this time and the way that people saw other human beings. So if you were an enslaved person, in this time, you were not considered a human, like, at all. And a lot of people who were enslaved didn't look physically different than the people who weren't because it was like spoils of war from like another part of Italy. You know, it wasn't like, you know, African people that you could

like see and really like make that a thing. It was like just other people. But they weren't seen as actual human beings. So they died a lot. People died in like the arena. And they died, you know, working a lot and like to death like working to death you know and like for spilling wine you know you get eaten by a lion and people didn't think that that was wrong it was just sort of like par for the course so it's kind of like hard to understand because it was a long time ago and we also have like very little actual details and information about this like we have stories that we heard like passed on and like bits of pottery and things like that but you don't know exactly what happened. But it seems like, you know, people like wives and children, like they weren't,

you know, treated like people. So if your wife dies, that's sort of a you problem. There's no like police force. You're not going to go to jail. You know, it's like your family's decided what to do. And if you, your family decides that means that you die too, problem solved, you know? So it's a lot of like, just, there's a lot of murder. So it's violent, it's smelly. It's sticky. There's blood everywhere. Like, that's the world that we're in right now in ancient realm. And what did we learn last week? If you kill your spouse, cremate the body before the autopsy. A hundred percent, yes.

Don't like kill them with a knife that has your name engraved in it. Absolutely not. So, you know, we see a lot of Christians being burned for fun. We see a lot of people like hanging from trees and on spikes and a lot, a lot, a lot of death in here. But you just kind of feel, you get the impression that people felt a little bit differently. And that's a lot of that is in this book, A Fatal Thing. happened on the way to the forum that I totally recommend. But just kind of have that in your head that you have these like people that you don't. And murder isn't like you're not going to go to

jail. There isn't a jail and people get murder. Yeah, nobody cares. So that's where we are right now. We're in ancient Rome and some of our, you know, important characters. Of course, there's Nero, the emperor. And to continue with our noodle analogy, Nero is like the spoon that you use. used to get noodles out of the pot like he's not as in a noodle he's like that that like spoon with like the little fangs on it that you used to pull out spaghetti can we okay so you know what's funny is my head went directly to the spoon you get when you get ramen little boat tray thing or is not that no that one's that one's lovely and gentle I'm talking about the one like the big one with like the spikes on it that you used to like hand out the spaghetti so that's what

picture picture painted yes great Great. No, I feel like if we do find someone gentle and nice, they can be like a ramen spoon. Like this one you get when you get like miso soup. That seems like a kind spoon. But so Nero, our emperor, his mother, Agrippina. Claudius is his uncle and his stepdad and an emperor. So there's a lot of like, there's a lot of family tree stuff, very Game of Thrones that I do not understand. But I will try to clarify it as best as I can.

There's Octavia, which was Nero's first wife. Pompeia is his second wife. And then some supporting characters, there's a witch. There's actually a fourth wife. And then there's a man called Spores, who will get to. Great. So Nero was married four times. Yes.

Got it. Okay. Yes. Kind of five, the last two kind of go on top of each other, we'll get to that. So most of history talks about Nero as being just the worst emperor ever. It's being violent and selfish. And some of the things he did are terrible. Like all of the killing, lots of sexual assaults.

Actually, he's actually a model for the Antichrist in the Bible. So some sex believe that when the Antichrist comes back, he'll look like Nero, which means that he will be chubby and have a neck beard because that's what Nero looked like. Even the statues of Nero, he's chubby with a neck beard. So you know that's like what he looked like and what he wanted to look like. So picture that. And some things he did that are like, bad, but like I feel like they're part for the course for an emperor in this time or like a supreme leader in any time. So it reminds me of things like, you know, he's not paying attention to things happening in the far reaches of the empire. Right now the Roman Empire goes all the way up to Britain. So I mean, how is he even going to know what's happening over there? It takes like months to get over the Alps to come back and tell him and he just doesn't care about the empire itself. He cares about, you know, himself. And some of the things that he does involve him like being the best sportsman and being the best actor and being the

best, blah, blah, blah. He's the Kim Jong-un of, so that, that personality, is that what you thought? That personality trait seems to exist, like, it's ubiquitous with, like, power. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's it. I wrote, it's like Kim, King, Kung-un being the best basketball player all of South Korea. And, like, do you remember when Putin, like, went scuba diving in 10 feet to the ocean and found those, like, ancient pieces? It's like that. It's like that. So, good. So that stuff is like, you know, it's bad. But I don't feel like that makes him the worst. But what I do think it is is it is a red flag for a lot of shit happening underneath the surface.

You know, so obviously, like, we know there's so many terrible things happening in Russia and South Korea. And they have these leaders who are like, hey, but I'm the best. And you're like, people are serving. You know, so you're not the best. Kim Jong-un is also chubby, but I don't think he has a nice beard. No, I don't know if he can grow a beard. Oh, yeah. If I can't grow a beard, yes.

Yeah. But it's a very similar idea, you know, someone being like, oh, my gosh. And then, like, when you watch, like, I don't know, I watched a documentary of eye doctors going to South Korea and curing people's glaucoma. And after they would, like, remove the bandages and they could see, they would go up to, like, a picture of the Supreme Leader and be like, thank you, Supreme Leader. I'm so grateful for you that you did this for me, that you got me this doctor, blah, blah, but you're like, this could have happened like 15 years ago if the Supreme Leader allowed doctors in, you know, like, he, what? So. The amount of brainwashing is just unbelievable. Yeah. So there's a lot of that, I think, in this episode for both things. But so, you know, the stuff that he's done that is bad. Some of it's legitimately bad. Some of it's red flags for other things that are happening. Nero himself was born in the year 37. His name was, ready? Lusus, Demetis, Inobaris. Nope, I can't do it. That sounds terrible. He was generally a member of the upper class. That was his name. His dad was kind of terrible. He died when he was two. His mother was Agrippina the younger. And she was very, very.

power hungry. Like she was like distantly related to the Julio Claudian Julia Caesar and Claudia as a first emperor. And the current emperor at the time when Nero was born Caligula was afraid of Agrippina. He was afraid of her ambition. So we had her banished.

And Nero got sent to live with an aunt and he got tutored instead of by like a normal tutor. He got tutored by an actor. So he has like actor who like was his tutor. And also actors are like the lowest of the low it's like

it's like sheep slave actor in like the thing you know like it's real bad so so he's like you know brought up by this actor for a little bit and Caligula is obviously gets assassinated because there's a lot of assassination in this story and a lot of murder

yeah so the next in line is a man named Claudio Claudio Claudius oh my God Claudius in the Claudio line. So he's actually Agrippina's uncle. So he's Nero's great uncle.

And Agrippina and Claudius get married. So she's married her uncle. I know. This is a lot. This is confusing. I'm confused. So she, so the, there's a new, the new emperor, Caligula is, is murdered. The new emperor is Claudius.

Claudius is Agrippina's uncle. So he is Nero's great uncle. They're in the, they're in this like Julio Claudian line of the line of the line of the original emperors of Rome. going back, you know, a couple, like a hundred years or so. And that means that he adopts Nero. So the new emperor is now Nero's stepdad and also his great uncle. It's got to be so confusing, especially when we're being taught by an actor.

Like, if we can't string the logic together, some actor is probably not going to be able to stream the logic of that family lineage together either, right? Totally. It's like a VC Andrews book. I just like don't know what's going on. but so now um the claudius is emperor agrippina is empress um and also claudius has a young son named britannicus who's a little bit younger than nero okay so now they're in this like incestuous family um whatever and claudius was right to be worried um you know about agrippina she was definitely wants to be in power that's her whole thing she wants to be power but she can't be because she's a woman

and so she needs to be, you know, just like, you know, related power. So she's married to the emperor, but she really wants her son to be emperor. So she cooks up a plan to kill Claudius. So Agrippina Nero's mom gets this woman who is super fun. Her name is Lucosta, I don't know my best, but she is a poisoner. So she is a kind of person where you would go to her and ask for poison to kill someone. So you're like, my husband's abusive. I don't like the emperor.

Like, I want to kill my rival. Like, she would give you the poisons. She could do, like, all sorts of different kinds of poisonous things. You know, she could make it, like, a slow burn or immediate death or, like, whatever. She was, like, this, like, witch she made poisons. I say witch because, like, she feels witchy and fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the witchy, but in this case, given where the request is coming from,

she knows that she's doing something to kill the emperor. Absolutely, yeah. Okay, nobody cares. Okay, nobody cares. Nobody cares. She knows. She knows. So she gets, so Agrippina asks for like a slow poison that will kill him slowly over a meal. So not like drink it and you die immediately, but like start to get sick and then die at the end of the meal. So you could like attribute it to bad food or like something else. But I'm like playing out the whole story about like Rasputin's assassination of my mind right now. Where he's just sitting there like, please, when are you going to kneel over? When are you going to fall face first into your. bad of wine is it's incredible exactly and then what happens is claudius doesn't die from this because he throws up because he throws up because he drank a bunch of wine so if you drink like seven casks of wine and eat a bunch of food like you're probably going to throw up um so he does and so he

doesn't the poison doesn't work so agripeat has to go back and get something that will kill him a little bit quicker which is a bit more suspicious but it has to be done so they do it and claudius is he dies and nero becomes emperor do we know what age nero is at this point he's 16 when he becomes emperor oh my god yeah so that's actually that's that's that's exactly what we're talking about so he keeps uh lecusta the witch she gets to live in the palace with him and just like be on hand to make poison so i picture her like um in robin hood men and tights like in the basement like do you know what I'm talking about latrine no and robin hood men in tights the witch his name is latrine and she lives in the basin and like gives him like there's like the bones and stuff is really funny um it'll be a fun thing to have in a basement it would be a fun thing to have in a basement it was just Just you have an in-house witch to go to whenever you need some potions. I love that. I love it.

I love it. She probably also did like skincare stuff, I imagine, like other fun things. So she lives in the palace with Nero. He's 16 years old. So I'm glad you asked that because I did watch a couple videos where they like talk about him being 16 and how that is, you know, a very young age to become emperor. And like, imagine yourself at 16 and that kind of thing. one of the videos even like it was like a i can't remember i'll put it in the notes but a british documentarian talking about it and they had like clips of like young british dudes at the pub

and i'm like yes and no like yes you're young when you're 16 but also i don't know what this ancient roman 16 is you know like being a teenager is new like do you remember learning that in school like you weren't teenager became a word like after world war two like other 16 year olds probably married in hijabs, you know, is that like... Yeah, like, wouldn't you consider, if you were like a single woman or girl at like 16, weren't she like considered an old man? I mean, the lifestyle was so short back then, I would assume. Yeah, totally. So like, I don't know. I don't know if, I don't know if I can compare him to a 16 year old now and say he was super immature. Like, he was definitely like not the best

statesman of all time, but I don't know if his age is like as big of a thing as we can say it is. But he's young. But either way, like, he wasn't going to do. all of the work, his mom was. So even like a really kind of crazy thing is that they're both on the coin from this time, him and his mother. So which is like super unprecedented. They're staring at each other. Like they're both the same size. So like they're both on the coins. Like they know that like she is a big part of this, um, of ruling Rome as well. So eventually she's like trying to get more and more power. She's thinking of maybe siding with Britannicus, who's her stepson. Remember Claudius's son. So Nero has him killed. So he's out of the picture. He gets poisoned. Um, and then he's like,

his mom continues to try to, um, you know, get power from him. So he has her killed. Um, eventually, he has his mom killed. Oh, yeah. So that's a red flag. You know, if you're killing a lot of your family members for power, I imagine. So no, the red flag is like the witch in the basement who's like constantly creating poisons to kill your relatives. I mean, why is nobody calling her a lot? No, that's Definitely bad. But he could, you know, he could kill you at any moment in any number of ways. The first time, the first way he tries to kill his mom is he stages like a boat crash. So he, like, puts her on a boat.

It's another boat to hit it and expects her to drown, but she doesn't. That's so needlessly elaborate. I know, because he wanted to make it look like an accident, but he was like, forget it. He ended up ordering assassins to, um, to kill her and make it look like a suicide. But. Okay. So she gave the basement, gave the basement, which, uh, night off basically. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So his mom is, his mom is dead. He's now like the sole leader of Rome. And now, let's talk about his wives. I think this timing overlaps a little bit. Like he's married when his stuff is happening with his mom. But we'll just talk about his wives in general. So his first wife, Octavia was a step sister. So I mean, they're not related. They're step siblings. But I. So she fits into.

this family. I mean, it kind of makes sense because it's not like you can, like, if you're that high up in royalty, like, your network is probably very insular. Yeah. The people that you interact with on a daily basis, probably like, it's just like everybody that lives in this tassel, because you're not going to go down to the market and buy fish, right? So I guess, I guess it attracts, it tracks. I mean, Queen Elizabeth married her cousin, so. Is that true? You know, that's, but Charles, Charles is her cousin? No, Charles is her son, but, um, Philip was her cousin. Philip, yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Like maybe second cousin, but like not a great number of cousin. Don't get mad of me, England, but that's, it's, they're related. So he's married to Octavia. She's a step sister. She's also quite a good wife.

She really wants to be subservient to him. She wants to help Rome. She loves Rome. She loves, like, you know, being a wife, all the things. And he hated that. So we tried to kill her several times by strangling her because the people loved her. And like, that was annoying. And, like, he just, like, did.

She wasn't super exciting. They didn't have any children. So we kind of used that as a weapon over her because they've been a couple of years and they hadn't had kids. So during this time, he obviously has girlfriends and things like that. And he's trying to, you know, he's doing other things. So he meets Papaya during this while he's still married to Octavia. So Papaya is from Pompeii. So that's where I like brought that up.

They actually think that they have her house in Pompeii excavated. So you can, like, go into where she might have lived. She wasn't, like, there during the, I don't know when Mount Vesuvius erupted, but she wasn't there during that time, but they think that they have her house. I've been there. It's awesome. It's really fun to, like, walk around Pompeii. I don't recommend climbing Mount Vesuvius because it costs like 10 euro, and it takes forever.

You get up there and it's just sand. It's not very exciting. But so she's from Pompeii. She's been married two times before, actually. There's actually a fair amount of divorce in, in ancient Rome. and it seems to be fine. There's no, no one has like any qualms about it.

Her first husband was actually executed by Agrippina, Neur's mom, because she didn't trust him. So he was like in like the guards and she didn't trust him. So she had him killed. Now she marries her second husband. And they got divorced. So whatever.

So she has one son from her first marriage and she meets, um, meets Nero and it seems like this is the, this is the thing. Like they really like each other. They really want the same things. she's from like a noble family she wants to get um you know ahead so it is he um it seems this is like this is their love they really really like each other um so he gets her pregnant

and he banishes octavia his first wife which i was reading it and i was like well that's great he banishes her i'm like banish me to an island with someone it's not going to end that way though like it's it's bad isn't it it doesn't he kills her almost immediately so he he banishes her and people are sad because they liked her and they miss her so he's like oh my on i don't want to bring her back here so he has her felt as well um so you thought for maybe he didn't but like no he did so um but also taylor if if you get banished you're probably not getting banished like hawaii right like you're probably getting banished like somewhere awful i would assume i kind of think i don't i don't remember where she's banished you but i kind of

think it's okay i think you get banished like the seaside actually italy yeah there's not really that many bad spots in italy yeah i think it's like like napoleon like on elba i'm like what are you crying about dude you know but like you still like want a lot of power so people loved her wanted her back so he had her had her killed um so he marries his pregnant um papaya in 62 ad um and you know they generally like each other chose to get married um she helped him with his reign the roman people didn't love her because they really like tautavia and they're obviously like this is suspicious and weird a manor love her um she also had a child from her first marriage that nero drowned on a fishing drip. So that's bad. So bad. I keep seeing things where like new,

new historians are like, maybe he wasn't that bad. But I'm like, maybe he was. Like, that stuff's real bad. I mean, it's, till one child and you're bad. It should be the role. Tell your mother, some shopping. Yeah, talk about a family and I later. Okay. For real. So he kills, he kills that, that kid because he wants like the only kids of, of papaya to be his. But unfortunately, the first baby that they have, she only lives to be four months old, which, is kind of like part for the course I feel like for most of all time so um but now you know Nero's only 26 he's not like it's been 10 years he's had he's like killed his mother he's has two wives like you know a lot of stuff has happened um but he's still only only 26 and then

something crazy happens um Rome burns down in 64 I've heard this Nero and the fiddle right exactly exactly except fiddles weren't invented until a lot later he wasn't there. So womp womp, that's not true. I was lied too. So he was actually at his beach house, you know, like 30 or so miles away. I'm a coast. And he did come to Rome immediately once you heard that it had happened. And Rome burned for almost nine days. So what we see now of Rome and like Pompeii and ruins now, you know, you see stone and you see like whatever like the stuff that could survive, you know, 2,000 years and survive fires and earthquakes and all of that thing. But there's also like tons of wooden houses. You know, there's wooden houses, there's fabric,

there's people, there's life sacs, there's hay, there's so much stuff that can burn. So a lot of Rome kind of burns to the ground. The same thing happened, you know, in the Great Fire of Chicago where a lot of Chicago was burned down. The same thing happened to Moscow. And I think in like the 1800s, Moscow burned down because it was all wood, you know, so a lot of that, what we see is kind of what his left. So he did return to Rome. And one thing he did that was good is he did open his palace to let people in, which I wanted to note that Joel Osteen did not do. Remember that guy? He's like kind of a mega church somewhere and then like there was a disaster in Houston and he didn't let anybody in the church to like stay. He was trying to preserve the carpet, which yes. I mean, right? And all the money.

He had like in the walls. Yeah, the worst. So I mean, he's worse than Emperor Nero of that in that case. which I think is pretty bad. So one thing that people are suspicious about in history is that after the Great Fire, Nero built a huge castle on some of the empty land. So some people think he might have done it to clear the space for his castle. I mean, it's fitting with everything else you said.

I mean, I like that was like a little caveat there saying, look at him, he opened his castle up to let the people come in. He murdered, like, half his family and killed his wife, the step kid, the mom. This sounds more in line with his character than he's just a normal emperor. Totally, totally. And he, like, he also, like, stuff like that. Also, I'm saying, like, it's 2,000 years ago. We don't know what life was like then, all those things.

But also, 6,000 people died making the stadiums. in Qatar for the World Cup this year, you know? I did not know that. That's insane. They would like, they brought people in from other countries, took away their paperwork, and worked them to death. And that happened this year, you know? So, like, there's still so many bad things that happen in the world that are very similar. It has to do with power.

So after the burning of Rome, while those palace is being made, Nero does the most hilarious thing. And he goes to Greece because Greece is part of the Roman Empire. And he goes on like an artistic tour because he wants to be like a singer and an actor. and he, like, wants to play all the instruments and wants to, like, perform. He actually, he brought a lot of, like, performance to, like, the gladiators and the, you know, the arena. Like, he had, like, you know, if you're going to kill, kill, have, like, a slave killed, like, have him dressed like Hercules, you know, so you can, like, make it more of, like, a story. So we really like that, like, showmanship part of it. So he goes to Greece where they're having this, like, annual festival where every town and every place has, like, a competition.

like who's the best singer in town who's the best blah blah blah in town there's about 1800 competitions throughout greece and guess how many nero wins wins yeah well given his pedigree in that he was raised by an actor to teacher he probably did pretty good i'm going to say 1800 i'm going to say 800 you won 1800 no he went all of because if he didn't win he's going to kill of course it was right of course it was right of course it was rig. I'm sitting here. Oh, my pure heart. I know. Good for you. Good for you. No. Like, he definitely, he won every single one of them. So he goes to Greece. He comes back. And people are mad. They're like, did you kill all this woman in your life? Did you burn on Rome? Where have you been? You know, all that. And during this time, him and Papaya get in a fight. And it could have been normal. I'm sure that he was like not a gentle man. But she was pregnant, and the story is that he kicked her to death while she was pregnant, which is terrible. The, like, the newer, there's like other things people are like, maybe she just died in childbirth, and the people who wrote this story hated Nero.

But either way, it's not like he was kind to her at this point in her life, you know? Yeah. Yeah, so he wasn't great before this. So it's definitely, he was definitely abusive, and she died. He probably kicked her to death, which is absolutely terrible. so now things are crazy like now things are crazy he's actually devastated that she's dead and he like instead of having her cremated per usual he has her like mummified and he has like all of these he spends all this money on like a huge memorial to her and all these things like

he's very very sad that she's gone even though he probably had a lot to do with it um and the empire's crumbling people are really upset with him he hasn't been paying attention he's been a jerk he spent all the money on palaces and these like competitions that he was in and he's never around so people are like this guy has got to go um so before that happens i'm going to tell you the worst thing that he did it's subjective because he's done a lot of bad things but like clear your mind you never you never could have imagined this so i'm i'm nervous so he's sad that his wife is dead and he marries a woman named Stelitia Messalina in 66. And she actually turns out fine.

She leaves us end of the story, marries someone else and has a life. But she's not what he wants. He wants his wife back. So what does he do? He gets a young man who has an uncanny resemblance to his wife, has him castrated, and marries him. Oh, my God. That is pretty bad. That is buried in a lot of the stories.

and I'm like, that feels like the worst thing. Like, I know people died, but like, could you imagine if, like, you had a friend whose wife died and then later they were like, oh, here's this, like, person that kind of looks like her. I imagine him, like, wearing a veil and being like, I'm prepared, you know, like. They just slap a dress on me and shave my beard and they're like, this is my new buxom wife. It's just incredible. It's horrible. So he married, he married him.

maybe he wanted to live that you know maybe he was like some poor beggar kid and he was like well I get to sleep in the castle and I get to eat and have clean water and wine and I got to just I don't know well but maybe but I feel like it's just I feel like your situation has to be like pretty dire to where this is an upgrade yes Yes, yes. So it probably wasn't an upgrade. No, probably not. Because I'm sure that he was also very abusive towards him like he was. And then he would like, this is all making this up. But I imagine he would like beat him up and then cry and be like, I miss you. Like it's not great. You know, so he's married to this dude. And now people start like trying to kill him all over. People start, you know, having all these revolts all over the empire. So he starts kind of running around trying to hide. He's like in his palace and he's like trying to find his. And he's like trying to find his. guards and they're not there like people are abandoning him and he knows that he's kind of in danger now. So he decides that the best thing to do is to kill himself. So Nero plans to kill himself, but he can't do it. He doesn't have the guts. So he tried to be like, he's 30 years old.

And he tried to say my last words are what an artist dies with me is what he wanted his last words to be. But he couldn't do it. So he had his private secretary, Hipparoticus, kill him instead. And he ended up actually getting executed from murdering the emperor, which is super unfair, because emperor asked him to do it. And then the others tried to save him. And Nero, his words were actually too late. This is fidelity. So like, stop trying to save me. I want to die.

Do we know how he was killed? I think he was stabbed. It was like a lot of, like very bloody, I think in the neck. So he only lived to be 30. And it was actually the end of the Julio Claudian line that his mom was from. And then the next year in 69, there were four emperors. So it was called the year of four emperors. So things were kind of crazy.

They didn't really get their shit together until a little bit later. And yeah, that's, I mean, after Nero died, Rome went to some time trying to figure out like what it was and what they wanted to do. But he definitely left like this a lot of devastation and a lot of death in his wake. And I feel like his relationship with Papea was so violent. He killed her. He killed her son. She, you know, he killed, ended up killing her.

And then he felt so bad about it and like how to speak her maid and all that stuff, which I think is crazy. That's it. So one thing that I thought of when you first started telling the story about how violent and awful it was during this time period. and I'm thinking on like what life is like today is I wonder which is the natural state of humanity

and then you said something else that I think solidified it for me you mentioned how he probably beat that kid who he had castrated but then would cry afterwards he probably killed Pompeo and would cry afterwards and just remind

it's reminding me of like every abusive relationship that I see a story happening of on investigation discovery of like this kind of dynamic. And I was like, well, I mean, those, that still holds true today as it did back then. So maybe that is the natural state of people as just being just crazy. And we just put rules in place to prevent that from happening. Yeah. But I don't know. It's kind of a wild story.

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It definitely was like... Yeah, you're right. Because I'm like, you want to say like we're less violent than, you know, ancient times, but maybe it's just more hidden. There's still like. You said 6,000 people died in Qatar.

I didn't know that. I think there's like 40 million people in slavery in the world right now. So there's like a lot going on. We just like, we choose to not have it as part of our like daily life, I feel like. So things have always been, things have always been kind of awful. At least for the most part in America, you can't murder your wife and get away with it. and your mom and your step kid and your stepbrother

but maybe people have I don't know yeah yeah what's your takeaway what's your red fight takeaway I think that like there's definitely like a takeaway of like you know if everyone around you die suspiciously I'm suspicious of you

is a big one and also that like quest for power and control of empire being more important than family and relationships and people I think is is wild that you would just be like i will kill anyone and i will um you know betray and poison and stab and do all these things just because i have to be in control um i think that's crazy i'm going to extrapolate one layer beyond that to i think that okay so everybody you got involved in this story. Obviously, you know, this guy was the emperor. And obviously, look, there had to be

some inkling that he was a nut job who was telling people costly and doing crazy shit. And they still went for it. And so there's something around, if you are drawn to personalities of power or to institutions of power, it can have an effect on you where you subjugate your own logic of like this could end badly for me because look at all the other facts in the in the story you you might abandon that in the interest of being closer to that power or to that personality and so I guess check yourself if you start being drawn to that like why am I drawn to that and what are my boundaries that you know I'm not going to overstep totally I think that's good for the turpins too like if someone is controlling you and you're doing things that are that are

objectively bad um when like yeah how do you when do you check yourself because it should have been earlier it should have been yeah exactly and if you have a cell phone and you're trapped inside please use it to call somebody um so yeah our kids i know i know i know for everyone for everyone um well that was our stories for this week on doomed to fail plenty of red flags and thank you taylor for your story and we'll do this again next week awesome thank you far as i feel like i'm getting my stride and trying i don't know i what exactly my schick is but i'm working on it but i like these stories they're fun and i'm like the involved relationships and just like crazy crazy shit that happened um in the past which i think is really

fun because it's like we're all people are always the same and times are different and it's just It's interesting, which is why I, like, started becoming a history nerd in my old age. Which is why I became a true crime nerd in my old age. And the through line between the historic and the modern is kind of remarkable. Yeah, absolutely. We'll keep pursuing it. Cool. Well, I will see you next week.