Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 121. The Ghosts of Kadena Air Base

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, isn't just the largest U.S. military installation in the Pacific—it's also one of the most haunted. From shadowy figures trying to enter through the gates to abandoned buildings that drive occupants to the edge, and the chilling laughter of ghostly children, Kadena’s legends are as eerie as they are enduring. But are the hauntings rooted in the base itself… or in the haunted history of Okinawa Island beneath it? Youtube Video Referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S8pAqAWZko Jayne's Book On The Ghosts of Okinawa: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ghosts-of-okinawa-jayne-a-hitchcock/1003696515 Get stickers! https://shop.heartstartspounding.com/ Subscribe on ⁠⁠Patreon ⁠⁠for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to bonus content as well as other perks. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to bonus episodes and more when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on ⁠⁠Tik Tok ⁠⁠and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ for a daily dose of horror. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Welcome back to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I'm your host, Kaila Moore. I'm not going to lie, when I first set out to make this episode, I thought it was going to be about haunted military bases. I hear from so many of you who have lived on bases around the world and have scary stories,

so I wanted to do a deep dive. I started my research by looking into Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. And you guys. I stayed up the entire night reading stories that were so creepy I had tears in my eyes. And I knew I had to dedicate an entire episode to it and tell you all about it. And it's not just because of how chilling these stories are. It's because in true Heart Starts Prounding fashion, the more I read about the dark history of the base and the area around it, the more real life stories I uncovered

that correlated with these hauntings and almost backed them up. Because the island that Kadena sits on, Okinawa, is probably the most haunted island on the planet and is essentially a giant graveyard. So today I want to tell you all about it. I'm going to tell you about the ghost children of the island, the creature that is often seen at one of the entry gates on the Kadena Air Base,

the one ghost where anytime anyone sees him, someone else dies within two weeks and so much more. What I have for you today is a really ghosty episode that I think you're gonna like. But before we dive into the scary stories together, you know I love to shout out listeners, so I wanted to shout out the person who let me know that when they moved into their home on the Marine Corps base Hawaii,

they jokingly yelled out hello to their empty unit and something shouted hello back. And a quick note on the Heart Starts Pounding calendar, we are off next week, but think of it more as an official binge week. So if you've been wanting to try out Patreon or an Apple podcast subscription, now's the perfect time to start your free trial

and catch up on all of the recent bonus episodes, including next week's subscriber only bonus episode on Vatican lore, mysteries, secrets, and legends of the Vatican. It is very fitting for this month if you ask me. We recently covered the butterfly people of Joplin, Missouri, a strange and emotional tale of survivors of the tornado that devastated the small town. We also talked about things like Antarctica conspiracy theories and so much more. All ideas are submitted by

patrons and voted on by the Patreon High Council. So like I said, if you want to try it out, there are free trials on Patreon and Apple Podcasts, and you'll have access to all the past bonus episodes as well as archived episodes to keep you busy throughout Binge Week. Links to both in the show notes. Okay, let's dive in. To begin our story, I'm going to take you to the US Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. First, let's talk about where the air base is. Kadena Air Base is an American military base that sits on the island of Okinawa, a Japanese island that is honestly pretty far from Japan.

It's on the divide of the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea between China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. And for most of human history, bloody battles have been fought on the island. The most recent being the 82-day battle between the Americans and Japanese during World War II. During the Battle of Okinawa, 12,000 American soldiers and over 110 Japanese soldiers were killed.

And on top of that, 42,000 civilians were killed in the crossfire. It was about 14% of the island's population that died. The base itself was constructed just before the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and today remains the largest and most active US Air Force base in East Asia. And over 20,000 American service members, family members, and Japanese employees live or work at the base.

For centuries now, locals have sworn that the island is full of spirits, ghosts of those killed in the many battles on the island, but also other kinds of spirits, trickster spirits, protective spirits, and some that even serve as omens. But a woman named Jane hadn't heard any of these stories when she moved onto Kadena Air Base in the early 1990s.

Her husband was stationed there, and he and Jane moved into a small house on the base that really wasn't anything flashy. Think white washed walls, freshly painted over, red, crumbling terracotta t house on the base that really wasn't anything flashy. Think white washed walls freshly painted over, red crumbling terracotta tiling on the roof, a small front lawn with big bald patches. In Jane's experience, you had to keep your expectations low when it came to military housing. She was an author, so it was easy for her to pack up and go wherever her husband was stationed and each place was more or less the same. A little, well, janky.

It made sense though, so many people were in and out of these units that were originally built by the US military in the height of World War II. They were for utility, not luxury, and as a result, they were not very well kept. So Jane probably wasn't all that surprised when one morning after her husband had left for the day, she saw a puddle of water sitting

on the floor of her kitchen. She looked around for the source, hoping to catch the leak before it got much worse. But the ceiling had no water damage. The sink was in perfect working condition. It seemed like the water had materialized out of nowhere. Jane mopped it up and didn't really think much about it. Okinawa is an island after all,

the humidity, the rain, the jungle climate. It's not like it was weird to see a puddle somewhere. But the next day, the puddle was back. A perfectly circular, crystal clear, small pool of water, sitting undisturbed in the middle of her kitchen. Again, nothing was leaking from the sink or dripping down from the ceiling. It hadn't even ranged the night before. Where was this mystery puddle coming from?

Once again, Jane mobbed it up, and then she went on with her day. First she sat down to do some writing, then she went for a walk. But before she left the house, she put her dog in its crate. Outside, the air was thick and humid, storm clouds sat off in the distance like they always did. The island was so lush and so green. When she finally made it back home,

she was relieved to see that the puddle had not come back, which was a relief because her dog was running around the room and she didn't really love the idea of him drinking up strange water. Wait, why was her dog running around? She had locked him in his crate before she left. Jane went over and looked at the crate to be sure.

The door was wide open. Nothing was bent, nothing was broken. Her dog hadn't violently escaped. It was as if she just didn't lock the kennel door. But it was such a force of habit for Jane, she must have locked it. It wasn't long after these strange occurrences that Jane's husband let her know

that he was going on an assignment and he was going to be gone for a while. Her heart sank as he told her. She would miss him. The thought of being alone in this house, the fluorescent, impersonal lights, the furniture that wasn't her own, the weird puddle that kept coming back, it was unsettling. Sure, she hadn't seen the puddle since the second time she mopped it up, but over the last week or so, the dog's kennel kept opening on its own. Her husband insisted that it was just old, that she should get a new one. But Jane knew that wasn't the case.

One night, when her husband was away, Jane was alone in the house with just the dog when she felt something small whip past her head. It was the size of a large insect. She jumped off the couch and looked behind her in the direction it traveled. And there on the floor was her husband's guitar pick. It had somehow flung itself across the room. If you love True Crime Podcasts, you've got to check out True Crime Obsessed. Each week, hosts Patrick and Jillian tell a riveting true crime story by recapping a documentary based on the case.

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And we would like to tell you a little bit about our podcast, Psychopedia. It's true crime infused with comedy. Making it a crime-ity and that is our word. Thank you. We made it up. I do extensive investigative research and go deep into the darkest corners of the human psyche. This episode is brought to you by Klarna. I know I've mentioned this before, but I just moved cross-country for the second time in one calendar year. I'm finally out of the woods with unpacking, mostly, and now I get to think about decorating. However, that requires making a couple of big purchases all at the same time, which I always have anxiety about doing. But that's where Klarna comes in, your

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California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license, NMLS number 1353190. Klarna balance account required. Klarna may get a commission, limitations, terms and conditions apply. Jane was not alone in feeling like whatever was happening inside of her home was supernatural. It's not uncommon to hear people speaking on military bases

about their homes being haunted. That is, if they're willing to. I often hear stories about how people suffered in silence, fearing that if they told anyone about their haunting, they would seem crazy, only to later find out that everyone around them felt similarly. Jane's story is the most common that I read about happening on Kadena.

People who hear bumps in the night, who awake to see strange puddles on the floor, or who watch objects move around the house. Some people believe that these are local Japanese spirits, or yokai, but others think it's the spirits of Americans who died in World War II. Jane always had the sense that whatever was in her home was the latter. But I will say, there's a few other really common types

of ghost stories that I read about on the island. And one that I really wanna share with you comes from an on-base nursery. The following is a version of that story told by one of the employees. I've worked at the daycare just off base for years, and a few really unexplainable things have happened. But there's one terrifying one that comes to mind.

One that keeps happening, no matter the turnover of kids. Every group of kids I've had since I've started this job does this. Basically, the staff has had a problem with kids throwing toys. Not at each other, though. They'll go to the back of the yard outside where there's a high fence and they'll start chucking their toys over it. The first time I saw kids do this I almost lost my mind. It's rude, it's wasteful, it's littering. So I ran out and I grabbed the little toy truck from a boy's hand and I told him, don't do that! Why are you throwing your toys? That's not very nice. And he looked at me, like he had this dazed look on his

face, like he was looking past me. And he said that he wanted to share with the kids on the other side of the fence. Now, there's no kids on the other side of this fence. There's nothing but fields that lead to runways. But that's what every kid that throws their toys says, that the little kids on the other side of the fence want them to share. Again, I don't know why this happens, but the other teachers all say that this has been happening for years. We've tried to make the fence higher, but it doesn't stop them. I've just gotten used to going out over lunch, collecting toys and bringing them back into the yard.

I've heard so many different people talk about that exact same thing happening. Kids playing with other kids that no one else can see, offering to share their toys with the invisible children who have no one to play with. Who are these kids though? Well, like I mentioned before, all of Okinawa is essentially a giant graveyard

and tens of thousands of normal citizens were killed during World War II. Not to mention the battles that occurred over thousands of years on the island as Mongolia, China and Japan were constantly at war over the territory. But as I was reading more about this specific area, I found something that I knew I had to share with you guys.

It's a disaster that occurred on the island on June 30th, 1959, and it made my heart drop. So by the end of June in 1959, the rainy season would have just wrapped up giving way to warm summer days. That day was a perfect day for outdoor recess at Mea Mori Elementary School. At 10.30 a.m., it wouldn't have been long

since the students had gotten dropped off by their parents and they would have been taking their mid-morning milk break. Just then, the kids saw a plane flying overhead. It was a United States Air Force F-100D Super Sabre. It's this shiny metallic fighter bomber plane with a bright red tail. All of the kids would have been watching it

do test flights past the school and they'd point at it in awe whenever it would fly by. This one was being piloted by 34-year-old John Schmidt. He was a 10-year veteran who was stationed at Kadena, and when he was passing over the school, he was just a five-minute flight back to the base. As the children watched the plane in the sky, they saw it was taking an irregular flight path.

Actually, it seemed to be flying lower than usual and too close to the school. One child who was inside of a classroom and had heard horror stories of war from his parents screamed out, air raid, and all of the kids in his class ducked below their desks just as the plane collided into the school's roof. It sent flaming gasoline, shattered glass, and debris everywhere.

See, upon takeoff, John Schmidt had lost control of the plane, and when he realized there was no hope, he ejected himself from the craft and safely made his way to the ground. His plane essentially firebombed the school, killing 11 children and six adults. It caused a fire to break out, which quickly spread to the surrounding neighborhood and consumed 25 more homes. Thousands of servicemen from Kadena and surrounding military bases

flooded the area to provide aid. But 210 people in total would be injured, including over 150 children. And this has led many to ask, could this story be the origin of who the kids on base today are giving their toys to? Well, what do you guys think? Another famous ghost story surrounding Kadena Air Base

takes place just north of it by the caves on the beaches of Cape Maida. It goes... If you see an old man at Cape Maida walking slowly back and forth, run. Don't look at him, just run. Camp Maida is just north of the base and it's gorgeous. It's where everyone snorkels and scuba dives. There's cliffs.

It's perfect for a day off. That is, unless what the locals refer to as the man is there. I haven't seen him. I've only heard about him. But there's an elderly Japanese man who can be seen walking by a cave by the water. That man is not alive. He's dead. He died a long time ago.

No one knows how, but every time he's spotted on the beach, a body washes up on the shore within a few days. I know it sounds like an urban legend, but two of my buddies were down by the water one day a few months ago when one of them saw that man. He was wearing a tattered suit and was slowly walking back and forth by the rocks, staring out into the distance. My buddy had heard the stories, so he told our other friend not to look and then he grabbed their stuff and started running. But it was too late, apparently, because two weeks later, a family was walking down the beach one morning, and they found the body

of a local man in his 30s washed ashore. Cops said he had probably gotten swept out to sea at some point the day before. They said he was probably drunk, and that was the last we heard of it. But to this day, my buddy wonders if it's because he saw the man. That area actually used to be a field hospital used by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but don't look at that man or another body will wash ashore. So I read actually a really interesting theory

about this man who walks on the beach because a lot of people have encountered him over the years. While some people believe that he is a bringer of death, that seeing him means someone will die, some locals actually theorize that he's a protector, ensuring that anyone lost at sea is returned to the shore so no family has to wonder what happened to their loved one. But as I was reading more about the base and the island

and the spooky stories associated with it, I came across this one story, this one big unsolved mystery on the island. And actually, I think it ties into this specific ghost story. So the story is about another plane accident that actually happened on the island on November 2nd, 1987. That day, two aircraft flew out of the Kadena Air Base to perform a simulated attack for pilot training. It was a beautiful day for flying. There was clear blue skies, a calm ocean below. The planes were proceeding on their simulated routes when one pilot looked out of his window and noticed the other plane was no longer in position and instead it was spinning out of control

in a nosedive. A drag shoot had been ejected in an attempt to slow down the plane's dangerous downward trajectory and that basically signaled there was no hope of riding the aircraft. A drag shoot kind of acts as a bandaid for an inevitable crash. The pilot watched from the safety of his own plane

and he prayed that the other pilots would make it out alive. And over the radio, he yelled to the pilots, eject, eject, eject. And he kept waiting to see their personal parachutes falling through the air, signaling that they made it out alive. And finally, he saw both of the pilots successfully eject themselves from the aircraft.

They made it out with only moments to spare before the plane hit the water. The two parachutes slowly made their way down to the ocean, narrowly avoiding the flames that had erupted by the downed planes. But the pilot's relief at his fellow pilot's safe landings would be short-lived. One of the downed pilots was easily recovered from the water,

but the other was not so lucky. There was no sign of him. They searched and searched and searched, but the pilot's body was never found. The only evidence of him having hit the water was his helmet, bobbing lightly on the surface. No one is positive what happened to him and we will most likely never know. So the leading theory obviously became that the pilot must have drowned. Somehow his helmet became unattached from his head

and he drowned, case closed. But those on the island who know the story of the man who walks on the beach think something else may have happened. They believe if he really was lost out at sea, the man would have ensured that his body returned. So they wonder if something else

may have happened to the pilot. Though they don't really have any firm explanations for exactly what that might be. So when talking about hauntings on the Kadena Air Base, it seems like there are two main areas that people talk about the most. The first is the gates, specifically gate three. Gate three is one of the main gates on the base.

It's where people can get on and off. It's open from the crack of dawn until deep into the night. Because it's an entry point onto the base. It's where people can get on and off. It's open from the crack of dawn until deep into the night. Because it's an entry point onto the base, it's constantly monitored by cameras and guards. For the most part, it seems like an uneventful job to have, watching people drive in and drive out, except at night. At night, more visitors come to this gate, and according to the guards, they're not always human. This is one of the most common ghost sightings from Gate 3. I want to start by saying that I do not believe in ghosts. Well, I didn't believe in ghosts until I got to Okinawa.

I was a guard at Gate 3. Most of what I did was easy, just checking people in, looking at IDs, mostly making sure people weren't getting too drunk and coming back onto base, that kind of thing. Every now and then, we would have contractors from the area come onto the base and do some work. And it was well known that there were some buildings that they didn't like going into because they thought they were haunted. I always thought that was just local superstition. For context, people in Japan believe in spirits. Like really believe in spirits. It's a huge part of the culture.

So of course we never forced anyone to go into a building they weren't comfortable with. But still, I figured it was just a cultural thing. Not real. But some people insisted they couldn't go through gate 3 because of the same thing. Spirits. I had one guy tell me that he felt a big dark energy near the gate and refused to come in. We had to send him to another gate instead. I let him do it just to be

polite but I was also kind of annoyed. One night though, around midnight, I was on duty at the gate with the guy that had been on the base much longer than me and he starts telling me a story about how one night, a drunk guy comes stumbling towards the gate. He was so drunk he could hardly stand. And so the guard on duty got up to go help the guy, check his ID, and see where he needed to go. But when he got over and helped him up, he saw that the guy was wearing a leather flying

jacket and olive trousers. He looked almost like a World War II cosplayer until he opened his jacket and the guard saw that he was covered in blood, drenched in it. He said it looked like someone had reached into his chest and pulled out his heart. That's how much blood there was. The guard turned to run and get help, but when he turned back, the man was gone. Later on, he told someone else in the AFSF, that's Air Force Security Forces, what he saw, and they told him that that man comes around all the time, and they're pretty sure

he's dead. Apparently, it's not uncommon to get a visitor from World War II. I mean hundreds of thousands of people were brutally killed on the island after all. But here's the crazy part. As he was telling me this story, in the middle of the night there's nothing going on and all of a sudden something big and shadowy whipped by the corner of my eye. There in front of the gate was a big black blob, almost in the form of a human. It hovered by the gate for a moment, so long that I actually thought it was a shadow, but then it just floated away.

The guy with me saw it too and he was speechless. I know it sounds ridiculous, but years later, someone caught that exact same blob on video. The video is this old, grainy security footage by the gate taken just after midnight, around the same time that it happened for us, too. And at the beginning, you can see a shadow on the back of a sign. And then you can hear the guys on guard start to speak. Probably still be there. Anyway, you can keep to that. It's gonna move now, he's gonna move, watch it.

The guy says that something is going to move and then you can see the shadow on the sign move about a foot to the left really quickly. It has the movement and sort of the shape of a person, just how I remembered it. You see? Yeah, I see the shadow moving. You see how it moves? Yeah, it's Yeah, it's right behind the sign. Yeah.

And it's gonna fly away in a little bit. The older guy says it's going to fly away and then a few seconds later it floats away up and to the right off of the screen. To this day, I don't think anyone knows what it was. It wasn't the World War II bed everyone says they see. It was something else. Maybe it was what that guy felt, the reason he couldn't go on base. But like I said, I never believed in ghosts until I got to Ogunnaua.

I've seen this video that the writer is talking about and it's true, I can't explain what's happening. I'll actually link it in the show notes for anyone listening to the episode who wants to watch it. It's just how it's described, a strange black blob that floats around with shockingly human qualities. Usually on videos like this,

the first few comments are people just trying to disprove it, saying things like, that's fake, or explaining that it's a spider on the camera lens or a glitch. But no, all of the comments are just other people sharing their horrifying experiences in Okinawa. And this story really makes a lot of sense when you think about the death and destruction

that's happened on the island. The area seems to be teeming with the restless spirits of World War II. And it sounds like that guy at the gate just wants to get back to his bed. Okay, I mentioned that there's two places that tend to get spoken about on Kadena. We talked about the gate,

and now I wanna talk about the other place, Building 2283. The last story mentioned that there's buildings on the base that some local contractors won't go into because they feel like they're so haunted. This is definitely one of those buildings. I've read a bunch of stories, there's too many good ones to just pick one,

and I've noticed that they all have the same elements. So building 2283 was a single family home on base. And while a lot of the housing that I saw on base were units in a complex that shared walls, building 2283 was a standalone home. Now, a few reports say that the house was demolished in 2009 or 2010. And I would actually love if anyone listening

who lived on base could confirm that for me because I wasn't able to confirm it myself. But before the house was demolished, it said that it was used as a storage unit. And why would one of the nicer housing units on base be used just for storage, you might ask. Well, because no one felt comfortable enough to stay there. This building has an incredibly dark history.

It seems like when families move into the house, something would, let's say possess the father of the family. In one story, a family who moved into the house in the 1970s was murdered by the father before he took his own life. In another story, a deranged father kills his teenage stepdaughter. And shortly after these events, new families moved in

and they started experiencing strange things. At first, they thought it was just jet lag, like they were tired at odd hours, lightheaded. Sometimes they felt as if they were hallucinating. They would often hear the faucet turn on in the kitchen from another room. But when they went to turn it off, they would see that it actually wasn't on

and the sink was completely dry. One time a young daughter approached her mother and said that she had seen a teen girl washing her hair in the bathroom sink. There was also a little boy who lived in the house once and he used to sit by the vent in his bedroom for hours, dropping pennies into it and giggling. And when his mother asked what he was doing,

he said he was sending coins to his friends in the walls. The family thought they were going crazy until they needed work done on the house, and they saw that none of the Japanese contractors they called would take the job. They eventually were able to find someone who agreed to help them out, and when they arrived the employees complained about having the same symptoms. They would get unusually tired as they worked, incredibly lightheaded and they would also hear sounds

that they couldn't explain, like children laughing from the vents and a young woman sobbing. One evening when a worker was finishing up for the day, he walked out of the house and saw another man standing on the walkway leading up to the home. He went to say hi, but quickly saw that the man did not look like one of his fellow workers. No, he didn't look like anything he had ever seen before, at least outside of a history

book. There was, standing there, a Japanese man in striking purple, green, and red garments. He had long gray hair and a gray beard that just covered his chin. On his head was a beautiful gold and red dragon headpiece and strapped to his side was a long sword in an elegant red and gold sheath. The worker blinked and the man was gone."

And he wasn't the only person who's seen this figure before. Another Air Force officer had seen him, but couldn't make any sense of it. Was it someone who had shown up to the base in costume? Someone eventually mentioned that they felt like this person looked like a samurai. And seeing the figure seemed to be the last straw for the workers.

They couldn't finish the job after that. Eventually the family moved out. No other families would move in and the home fell into disrepair for years. Other people on the base were too afraid to get close to it and accounts of paranormal activity continued. Sounds of children laughing, brief sightings of the samurai. One person even said they saw the house glowing one night.

And I will admit, I did have to look up what the worker saw and what I found was really shocking. So it seems like there were Samurais in Okinawa throughout history, but the dress that the man was described in was so specific and I wanted to see if I could figure out exactly which era of samurai he saw. Well, in 1609, the Satsuma domain in mainland Japan invaded and conquered Okinawa.

Samurai officials would have been leading the battle all over the island as they defeated the Ryukyuan army. And when I looked up what Satsuma samurais in Okinawa looked like, they matched the description of this spirit perfectly. Beautiful purple, red, and green garments, a gold headpiece that looked like a dragon, an intricately designed sword. It seems like the ghost of a Satsuma samurai

really is on base. His restless spirit patrols the base, reminding everyone of the conflicts that define the island. It seems like Kadena is one of the most haunted military bases on the planet, because Okinaena is one of the most haunted military bases on the planet because Okinawa is one of the most haunted islands on the planet. Would Kadena be so haunted if it were anywhere else? Probably not.

Okinawa has such a dark past and spirits are such a big part of Japanese culture and mix all of that in with the recent tragedies that have happened on the base and on the island. And you have a place that is so ripe for these kinds of hauntings. If you ever get a chance to visit Okinawa, be careful. If you're standing on the shore and see an old man walk by

or hear a child laugh off in the distance, you may have to look twice. All right, that's all I have for you this week. Remember, we're off next week, so catch up on all of our bonus episodes if you can. And we'll be back here the week after with another episode on some more Backwoods Horror. This time, we are going to hike

the Appalachian Trail together. And until then, stay curious. Ooh. Heart Stars Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Stars Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research and writing by Megan Gilbert. Sound design and mix by Peach G Sound.

Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heart'sheartspounding.com.