How To Destroy Everything - Episode 3: How to Destroy a Home Part 2

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Wherein Darren returns to the "scene of the crimes", The Royal Manor, and discovers way more than he could have possibly imagined. In the dark recesses of Danny's childhood attic, long held secrets are revealed, and Danny is forced to confront a childhood he hoped would stay in the shadows.  Listen to HTDE on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What? Marsha? Marsha? Oh! Marsha, wake up! What? What happened? Are the kids okay?

It's another delivery. Quick, grab the log. Okay, what time is it? What time is it? We gotta write down the time. 3.24. 3.24. Where's the pin? Earliest one yet. Where's the log. Okay, what time is it? What time is it? We've got to write down the time. 324. 324. Where's the pin? Earliest one yet.

Where's the lock pin? Forget it, forget it, forget it. Okay, I'll just remember. 324, 324, 324. I'll remember, okay? Yeah, 324, Jacobs is talking to the driver, okay? Okay, this is the third time this week. Listen, stop talking for one second. Tell me, can you hear him? You know, Jill told Matt that Crazy Jacobs wouldn't give his contact information out to the school because he said he was CIA.

No way. I don't know, though. If you're in the CIA, would you actually say you're in the CIA? I just don't understand why he has these boxes delivered in the middle of the night. Pretty sure Sandy said he used to work for the government. Wait, hold on, hold on. Yeah, hand me the binoculars. Give me the binoculars. Give me the binoculars.

Are they opening it up? Oh my god. What's in the box? Can you see what it is? What is in there? Like a really... Get down. Did he see you?

I don't know. Just wave, just wave. Give a thumbs up. Hey! Hi! Yeah! Thumbs up! All right!

Anyway, have a good one! Oh my god, why? When I returned to the Royal Manor for the first time since I was a teenager in the 90s, I learned a lot of things about my best friend's childhood home. Some of them were disturbing, some were frankly amusing, and some were ultimately just confounding. was a teenager in the 90s, I learned a lot of things about my best friend's childhood home. Some of them were disturbing, some were frankly amusing, and some were ultimately just confounding. For example, Danny's dad really did receive these mysterious packages in the middle of the night. 18 wheelers were rumbling down this quiet little suburban street, waking up the neighbors who all wondered what the hell he was up to. And it was also true, by the way, that Richard claimed he

was CIA as an excuse for not giving our contact information to our elementary school. None of it really makes any sense on the surface, but I hope that maybe by returning to the scene of the, well, crimes, I could help Danny finally get some answers. My name is Darren Grotsky, and this is How to Destroy Everything, a podcast about how one narcissist, my best friend's dad, destroyed his family, his neighborhood, and his community. This is episode three, How to Destroy a Home, part two. Oh, very nice, Darren. Oh, God. Thank you, Danny.

It was nice. You know what was my favorite part about that? Tell me. Just being able to sit back and relax. Yeah, you were. You were sitting back and drinking water and eating corn chips. I mean, you're just really milking it that I've got to do the opening this time. You best believe it. I did not enjoy that at all. Next time, it's back on you. Now, just for transparency's sake, we should tell everyone that right now you and I are sitting here together in the studio.

You are not, in fact, in St. Louis where we last left you at the end of episode two. we should tell everyone that right now you and I are sitting here together in the studio. You are not, in fact, in St. Louis where we last left you at the end of episode two. Well, I think our listeners can attest to the fact that it's been, you know, a minute since we released our last episode. It would have been quite a long trip if I were still in St. Louis. Sure, sure. We do apologize, listeners. But yes, I am back in Los Angeles.

And wow, what a trip it was. Going back to the Royal Manor, seeing that house again was beyond surreal. And we are going to take you guys with us through the entire experience, beat by beat. And so why don't we start where we left off in the last episode, you had arrived at the house in the rain. Yes, Yes, it was a downpour, which is very apropos. And what happened then exactly? Because at that point, you hadn't called me yet. Right. Well, I mean, I walked up to the front door, as I had many times. As one does. As one does, and as I had many times, you know, in our childhood. But so it felt like going back in time in that regard. Only I have to say it felt like going back to a much, much better version of the past. You're not perhaps referring to how gross my dad's house

was while I was growing up. Oh, I am. Although I would argue that gross is an understatement. I'm going to go with cesspool. Okay. Well, I don't know. I feel like cesspool feels a little extreme. Like here's what I will say. Here's okay, maybe, yeah. Here's what I'll say. I was like, I think that there are parts of the house, there were parts of the house that I think the word cesspool is appropriate for. The toilets and bathrooms, for example, which were never cleaned, nobody ever cleaned them in the entirety of my childhood.

That was absolutely disgusting. The fact that most rooms and hallways were just like, you could barely walk or move because of the floor to ceiling papers and boxes. Yes. But there were also some clean parts of the house or cleaner, I should say. Like the living room was livable. Like, you know, we could sit in there and watch stuff on the TV or whatever. Do you hear yourself? Do you hear yourself right now?

Like you're constantly qualifying everything. You're like, they were clean. Well, cleaner parts of the house. You sound like a, um, you know, like, I don't know, you're into some POW camp and you're like, well, occasionally I was allowed to, uh, have my own little corner of the cell that was mine. I mean, you know, it was, look, let me just say from an outsider perspective, it was pretty disgusting. The bathrooms, especially you're right. Like, let me just say from an outsider perspective it was pretty disgusting the bathrooms especially you're right like let me ask you this was there were there cleaning supplies in the house was there a mop in that house if there was a mop it was disgusting okay so yeah all right look so maybe maybe the thing that i will acknowledge is that I might be an unreliable narrator here.

Right. Like I recognize that. Like I was inside the fishbowl. Right. So so I like my perception is warped. Like I, you know, and it's all relative. Like you're right. Like my room, which was like always clean. Your room was great. Your room was. Yeah, that is true. Yes. which was like always clean, was great. Your room was nice. Your room was nice.

That is true. Yes. But I recognize that like from inside the fishbowl, it's hard to tell what the fishbowl really looks like. So I get it. I really do. But if you see the house now, it's been totally reborn. I mean, it's repainted.

It's remade. It's got a street number on the mailbox. In a lot of ways, it's unrecognizable. But at the same time, there's a distinct familiarity. It is still the same house. Yeah, and I was, when you called me, I was vibrating with anxiety. I mean, yes, the house looked different. But as you say, you could feel those old ghosts in there.

I mean, the sadness and danger was lurking there underneath the surface, and my brain just kept screaming out to me, like, what the hell are you doing, Jacobs? Run, run, run, and don't look back. And yet we did not run. Instead, we stepped right into all that lurking danger, and we began with a tour of the main floor. And one of the first things I noticed as we walked into the foyer was the tool wall was gone. The tool wall. The tool wall. The tool wall. Oh my God. The famous tool wall. Okay. So in the foyer, my dad had carved on this one wall, the entire wall, he had carved

these little inlets into the wall in the shape of whatever tool he wanted to have that be its home. Just to be clear, this is not just like a rectangular carve out for a hammer. It would be carved in the shape of the hammer. So only the hammer could go in there. And it would be magnetized. would just kind of lock into place. And it was like, this was an entire wall. I mean, this was floor to ceiling. I remember there was one for a fly swatter that was in the shape of a fly swatter and one in the shape of a flashlight. What an inordinate waste of time.

And I mean, it's clever in a way, but also really, really dumb and unnecessary. So then after touring the main floor, we headed down into the basement. Yes, the basement, which, which again, was completely redone. Was I was wondering, because I don't think I ever was down there. Oh, yeah. I mean, the basement that I knew was filled with so many boxes, you could hardly move. Well, that tracks. Yeah. That makes sense. But when we went down there, we found two very interesting things.

The first was, well, I guess you'd call it a secret room. Yeah. So apparently, hidden among this hoarding maze of boxes that I knew about was something I didn't, a panic room. That's true. So you had no idea that this existed? None. Your whole childhood?

Absolutely none. Apparently, my dad and his handyman, Frank, built this secret panic room and installed the hinges on the inside of the door so that no one could enter from the outside if it was shut. So what was it like for you to have this revelation? You know, that there was in your basement a secret panic room that you knew nothing about. I think the main thing is that it suddenly hit me learning that how much fear my dad actually had. Oh, dude. Yes. I had the exact same reaction.

I was like, this guy was so afraid of people, I guess, I don't know, coming after him or discovering what it was he was up to, that he had constructed this room in his basement where he could lock himself and he would be safe. No one could get in. I mean, that is wild. Yeah. I mean, that is wild. Yeah. And, you know, just to chime in here to say that we're going to put a bunch of videos and photos of all this stuff up on our Patreon site for our supporters. So if you want a visual aid to anything that we're talking about, please consider becoming a supporter at patreon.com slash howtodestroyeverything.

I believe that's what they call in the business a plug. Well done. And a great one it was. Oh, God, your modesty is non-existent. Anyway, there was another thing that we learned about while touring the basement. We examined the spot where your dad had built what can only be described as, well, why don't you listen to what Rick Capert has to say about it. Rick is the developer who flipped the house after your dad died and ultimately sold it to the current owners.

We go into the basement and there was like a command center in the basement. Like some video screens. What? Yeah. And there was like a shortwave radio or something like that. You know, like a CB, something along those lines. I don't remember exactly what it was. And there were some things we couldn't quite figure out. But everything seemed to like go down to the basement. There was definitely like a paranoia, if you will,

about the house. This house had at least three, if not four, motion sensor spotlights on the side of the house. The front of the house had to have like five or six. The whole back of the house, it was same thing, five or six motion sensor spotlights. If I remember correctly, some of them had some type of camera, which my assumption would be probably fed down to what I call the command center in the basement. So apparently my dad built this, I don't know what else to call it, this communications hub, essentially, that could manage or monitor something like 60 telephone lines. Okay, so this is one of the craziest things in the house. I mean, I still can't quite wrap my mind around it.

It's like, this is like spy movie shit, dude. Like, or, you know, remember Morgan Freeman when he had to help Christian Bale spy on, like, the entire world in The Dark Knight? It's that level of insanity. Yeah, you know, we spoke to one of my parents' old friends, Leslie Werther, who mentioned something that my dad tried to get her to do years and years ago that I suspect was related to this project. He asked me if he could put a phone in my house with his phone number. Really? Yeah, and I thought about it. I don't know, and I called the phone company, and they said,

well, if you do agree to that, you can never get rid of that phone again. I have no idea why he wanted to do that, but I told him, no, I'm not doing that. So he asked you, he was like, listen, can I put a phone in your house that when someone calls my number, the phone will ring in your house? Well, it won't ring in my house. It'll go to his phone somewhere. I don't know how you even do that. Huh. So it'll ring in your house and it would forward to his phone, but it would be his phone number?

Yeah. Yeah. And did you ask him why he wanted to do that? Yeah, and I don't think he would tell me, so I never really found out why. So you, of course, were just like, no, thank you. Exactly. Wow. Okay, so I have to be honest with you.

I still don't understand that whole setup situation. Because he was saying that he would put a phone in her house that would ring when someone called his number, but then he would answer it. Yeah, I know. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Here's my theory, okay? My theory is that that was a lie. That, like, maybe he came up with some reason why he needed that to get her to do it. But that ultimately, somehow, that allowed him to listen in on her conversations.

That's my guess. See, this is why you are your dad's son and I am not because I take it at face value. I take what he said to her at face value. But you're right. He wanted to listen to her phone conversations, which is what he loved to do because the common denominator in a lot of this stuff is that he wanted information. He wanted the ability to, you know, control and manipulate people. And what better way to do that than to be able to listen in on their intimate phone conversations?

Information is power. Right. And so after touring the basement, it was finally time to visit the place I'd been most dreading all along. The attic. Yes. place I'd been most dreading all along, the attic. Yes. Listeners, you may recall that the attic is, it's really what brought us back to the house in the first place, right? We heard from Chloe, the 16-year-old who lives in the house now, who told us that when her family moved in, the attic hadn't been renovated at all. Yeah, this was the only part of the house

that would have been exactly as my dad had left it. It's kind of a tomb. Exactly. And honestly, going up there, I had no idea what to expect. Literally anything was on the table. Now what we thought we would do here is play the video of the tour we got from the current homeowner and just kind of take you through our thoughts looking back as we experienced it. Here's the door to the attic in the master bedroom. When he pulled the staircase down and I was about to climb up into the attic, I did have an insane thought. There's going to be a dead body.

Booby traps. Oh. Pretty standard by all. It's Goonies. By all means. It's Goonies, exactly. I was like, did Richard anticipate this, that one day you or I would come up there

and he set some sort of booby trap. Until we get up to the top. Here, this will be an end already open, but usually this is shut. Which again, we've seen that it's pretty standard, but it's weighted. So I take one hand, typically, and you can easily open it

because there's a counterweight on it. And the light switch immediately to the right. At this point, I was just feeling, I think, I was excited, honestly. Like, and nervous, obviously. Makeshift floorboards to walk up and down. A couple random shelves. This is where my mind got blown. This is the interesting part.

This is the wiring that was all cut. These wires go all along the attic. And they're all cut. These wires go all along the attic and they're all marked. Hall computer, living room computer, a couple more marked with speakers. For your computer. So they had computers all over. Some of them actually had people's names with their bedroom and said bedroom. Those are kind of dry rotted and fallen by the way, so you can't really read them anymore. These wires. So we think that might actually be not just audio, but video,

which would mean that your dad had a camera in your and your brother's room, possibly? Possibly. All the boards still have one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, four bedroom, five bedroom. And you know what's crazy is like, every part of this house was wired up. You could not go to a corner of this house and not be caught.

Alex, ring your phone. Second, Alex, ring your phone. Yeah, so I mean, it looks like phones, speakers, closed circuit, low voltage wiring all the way down. And then over here you have names. So you can see extra room, Danny's room, room. Man. Like this might have been something he just didn't want us to ever find out. That he was up here doing what he was doing.

Watching, listening to what my brother and I were up to. Interesting. Library, first floor hall, foyer speakers, outside front. What is that? Or could it just been, I mean, what does it feel like? It feels terrible. I mean, it feels like, you know I you know it's hard for me to say I mean at some level I took divorced myself from the

emotional violence of my dad kind of listening to my conversations and just being this unwanted presence that it's hard for me to tap into sometimes the, the real, um, this, the real emotional violence of that. There's a numbness. You, you almost have a numbness. Yeah. Yeah. I'm numb to it. I mean, like, this is all very shocking and not at all surprising. I just, I, we just felt it odd. Cause we'll not, I mean, we have no idea what any of this really was

it's all been removed obviously and the wires cut the wiring is still here down here were a lot of electrical boxes so there was a lot of electronics

up here doing something right, electrical boxes that you could plug a bunch of stuff in. God. What were those used for? What could that be? It could be screens. It could be, I don't know what. Well, and this is where he has the bench.

So there's a bench set up to sit down. And this, by the way, is where I found a piece of paper. And again, we see that had these schematics, the random schematic writing. Yes, in my dad's handwriting. It was in typewriter, typewriter plus handwriting. That's when I was like, oh, my God, I'm in a frickin spy movie because I just found evidence walking towards the end that would be kind of over the garage addition proceeding down i mean the wires follows all the way down this was a setup man it's like this was just this was all a system you know what i mean a planned out system you know i wonder if the because there was the command center in the basement which maybe was about all the various

phone lines but i wonder if the plugs there was the command center in the basement, which maybe was about all the various phone lines. But I wonder if the plugs and everything, if there were monitors up here. Like, I wonder if he had his. Yeah, I mean, this, it had to be first, it had to be about monitoring the house. Because I think this was hidden in a way that the command center in the basement was not. Yeah. You know what I mean? The command center in the basement was clearly about monitoring people outside of the house.

But if you're trying to make sure the people that are in your house never find this, this is the place to put it. In your closet, in your master bedroom. We know what's crazy about this It's just like thinking about The times that he might have been up here And I was just like right underneath his feet You know He's like right up there above me And I have no idea

That's wild. Remember the contractor told us that they actually found a roof access in the attic, which they sealed up. Oh, that's right. So your dad could also climb onto the roof from this space. From the space. Somewhere in here. Which means, which has got to be like some of those dishes on the roof. Somehow this was, it's either that some of the technology on the roof was connected to this stuff,

or the darker interpretation is that he needed, he wanted an escape hatch for some reason. It's just possible. I mean, considering he had the panic room in the basement, maybe this was an alternative escape hatch. It's like there's an obsessive quality to this that becomes clear to me when we think about that. Yes. An obsession with knowing things that he's not supposed to know. Oh man, that is it.

An obsession with knowing things that he's not supposed to know. Like feeling that he has the right to know all of that. Yeah, it's his domain. This is his house. He is the king of the Royal Manor. That's right. Whatever it was, it was done very, very well. He was very smart.

So again, you know, here we are in the attic. We are seeing your name on the wall, you know, attached to wires. You are learning that your father may have been watching you your entire childhood. And here's my observation. When this happened, when we were learning all of this, you were kind of like weirdly, seemingly disconnected from it. Like you didn't react. Yeah, that's interesting. At all, emotionally.

Yeah. And this is my question for you in general, you know, like you. Well, I can tell you. Yeah. If you want to ask. No, no, I think you know what my question is. How? Why?

Yes. Yeah. Because if I found that, I would be just crumbling. But you were like weirdly calm and neutral. Well, another way to say that is I was disassociating. Yes. I mean, like, look, I think that the way one of the ways that I survived my childhood was by putting things out of my mind that I could not have a real control over. So, for example, when you and I would be talking on the phone when we were

kids, right? And I would hear these little clicks or these little beep boops, these little things on the line that would just sort of happen. Oh, yeah. I can remember those. So I'm fairly sure that those were moments either in which my dad was kind of patching himself into the call, or it was sort of had something to do with the system that he had set up for, for to listen in. And I knew it on some level. Um, but I really put it out of my mind. I had to, because I couldn't sort of just exist knowing that my dad was listening in that way.

And I think maybe when I, when I found out what was going on in the attic, a similar thing occurred. Yeah. It's kind of a compartmentalizing kind of thing. A hundred percent. Which I think is healthy. At the same time, I think one of the revelations that I've been having in this podcast is that you never let anything out. Like you compartmentalize, which is good, but you're holding all of this somewhere. All of the anger and the sadness, you're always and you always have been holding it in.

Yeah, I guess that that's true. It's hard for me to consciously kind of have an awareness of that. Like, I think it's been such a subconscious process for me that none of those, that was a choice. I think what my therapist might say is that it was healthy then and it might not be healthy now. It was healthy because it allowed me to survive then, but maybe it's not serving me those same ways in which I sought to survive or not serving me as a grown-up today. So we wrapped up the tour of the house, and after that, we found ourselves in a party. A bunch of the families that lived in the neighborhood back when Danny was a kid, all of whom shockingly still live there now, they all congregated in this bonus room above the

garage to welcome me and Danny. So the first thing we did was we sat down with Chloe, the 16-year-old who messaged us and got the ball rolling on this whole thing. Dear Chloe. We also sat down with her parents. And by the way, a note about the Lancaster family. Besides Chloe, they have eight-year-old quadruplets. And it is a stark contrast from walking into the house when you lived there. It is loud and vibrant and bright and welcoming and warm compared to the darkness of your,

I mean, literal darkness of your dad's house. Yeah, no, I think that that is an accurate description. As a note, dear listeners, while I was in the room for this party, Danny was obviously talking to everyone on FaceTime. You were the man in the box. Yeah. And all these people were drinking,

and that's what it was from my perspective anyway. What did that feel like for you? Well, I was falling apart inside, Darren. Oh, dear. No, I mean, it felt like I was about to go face a firing squad. Did it really? Yeah. Going in, you felt that level of anxiety?

Yeah. Fascinating. You're a fascinating science experiment. I'm just looking around, Danny, just so you know, like, people are drinking wine and whiskey. I mean, we're actually having a social gathering here. It's like your dad's dream come true, but also a nightmare, because his privacy is exploding right before. My name's Chloe Lancaster. I messaged you. I don't have any stories or anything, really, like, other than the rumors, but I grew up with, I went to the same school as a kid that lives

that used to live over in that house over there and he would always tell me all these crazy stories and his sister would always tell me the crazy stories about crazy Jacobs and all his cameras and how they'd ride the bikes down and they'd like sometimes they'd think that they saw the camera move or something and I'm like okay you're crazy right but then i moved in here and i heard all the stories and i'm like well maybe maybe not so you knew of the the legend of crazy jacob as you say and then you moved into his house yes oh no no no no she was told the stories after we moved in yeah no oh okay okay okay so what was that like for you to move into the house that you have you had heard these stories about?

It was really awkward. It was really weird. Hi, I'm Cheryl Williams. So we moved in in 94. And I don't know exactly what year this happened. But, again, you're talking old school. So AT&T has to come to your house and actually put in your phone lines. AT&T has to come to your house and actually put in your phone lines.

And the AT&T guy said to us, be careful about the guy across the street. He won't bother you if you don't bother him. And that was like our opening message. And the AT&T guy knew that. But my kids never knew his name, and they never met him. But because of all the cameras, they referred to him as the Russian spy. So he didn't even get the name of Mr. Jacobs because we didn't ever get introduced. Or Crazy Jacobs. Or Crazy Jacobs because we never got introduced.

He was just the Russian spy because of all the cameras. I'm Fran Bader. I live four houses to the west with my husband, Ken. And my daughter was Amy, who babysat for you boys man and this is my son dan and my husband was a trustee for a while of the subdivision okay received many letters from richard oh maybe we should start there like you what what sorts of letters well number one richard never paid his dues never never yes from day one had never paid his dues and Never. Never. Yes. From day one, had never paid his dues. And the Zumbra Division, of course, eventually put a lien on his house.

However, even though there was a lien, he felt the need to write letters to whoever else happened to be a trustee, suing them individually and trustees collectively for who knows what. And of course, they ran pages and pages. And we just said, that's Richard. He actually filed the lawsuits or he was threatening them? No, this was after he had been disbarred. Oh, okay.

He threatened. He did lots of threatening. Yes. And we just ignored it, truthfully. And so, but he, did you take any further measures to try to secure the dues or there was nothing that you could do? No, when the house was sold, they were paid. All the back takes were paid because there was a lien and you couldn't get a clear title without that having been paid. Right.

So the subdivision did certainly benefit once he died. There was a nice influx of money. Once he died, there was a nice influx of money. Now, one of the more telling stories the neighbors told us was about a time in which my dad hired some of the neighborhood kids to do a little yard work for him. Seems pretty leave-it-to-beaver-ish, but no, not with Richard Jacobs. Oh, hey, guys. How's it going? Okay.

It's okay. Ow! Mr. Jacobs, this isn't fun anymore. Fun? Work's not supposed to be fun, kids. There's a lot more left, and we're burning daylight, so I really want... Richard! Richard! I want to talk to you. Oh, hey. What can I do for you? What are you doing? What is this? What do you mean? Your kids are digging up rocks, like we discussed.

Richard, this is not just digging up some rocks. This is... Oh, my God. Are your fingernails bleeding? It really hurts. Oh. Oh, honey. Go home, kids.

Go on home. Okay. Bye, Mommy. Mommy will be right there. Bye, sweethearts. It's a little scrape, that's all. Richard, I am not a happy camper right now. Yeah, well, I'm not too happy myself, to tell you the truth.

We had a deal. But this is a coal mine! This is ridiculous! Yeah, well, I agree. You can see there's still quite a few rocks left, and I'm not picking them up. They're six years old! Okay, look. I don't want to step on your parenting here,

but I think it's never too early to teach your children some responsibility. It's 95 degrees outside. Yeah, and I provided lemonade, which they happily had many glasses of, but I'm not counting it against their salary. I am done with this. Done! Okay, fine. I'm hiring the teenagers across the street. Good day. Oh, good day. Pay your HOA dues, you lunatic.

Pay your HOA dues, you lunatic. Now, when we first moved in, I had a dinner party from our old neighbors. And they were at the house and we were having, you know, just a pleasant time. I was nervous, you know, my new house and all this. And your dad knocked on the door and he said, can I use your phone? He had put some wiring in the house and the builders all ripped it out. And he was quite upset. So he went in the kitchen and he used your phone. He had put some wiring in the house, and the builders all ripped it out. And he was quite upset. So he went in the kitchen, and he used the phone.

And he got a little emotional about his feelings of what they had done. And so he was quite upset. And finally, Don said, I'm sorry. You just can't talk like this with our company. So you'll have to leave. The way my dad would explain this story, it was quite a bit of profanity. So you have a room next door with a dinner party nice friends mom's nervous your father's in the kitchen because of course it's a quartered phone back in the day and you am effing blah blah blah don't you shouldn't have effing done this and my dad my dad's like hey richard you can't talk like

this in my house i got guests and over. And he kicked him out. Wow. He did. So our relationship wasn't real close. This was the beginning. This was the very beginning. What was he upset about again? Some wiring? I think they, yeah, the builders had taken the wiring out.

He had wired the whole house the way he wanted it, and they had ripped it out. Okay, we are rolling, so go ahead. So there was a time when we were playing basketball on our back driveway, which is aligning right next to your backyard, my dad and I and Ann. It's a hot game of horse. Do you remember Toga? His shih tzu, obviously a male, came down to meet your shih tzu, who was obviously a female.

His shih tzu started to meet your shih tzu in a way that would create more shih tzus. They're enjoying themselves famously. We weren't even there. The funniest part of the story starts happening as your dad comes out. What is happening out? Sees what's going on. Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Not again. Pissed. Extremely pissed. Hey! Hey!

Get off of her! Get that dog off! Why are you just standing there? It's not my dog. I'm not getting in between that. Your dad's immediate reaction is this is evidence of an assault on his Shih Tzu. That dog is raping my dog! You are defiling my property! But then Toga comes down and he's like, bad dog! Bad dog! Bad dog! Stop!

Your dad starts just berating and yelling at Toga. He's yours, huh? Well you should leash him, Toga! That's your responsibility! Hey! Hey! Get your dog off god no and he's taking pictures of how he's getting violated by toga's kids too why are you taking pictures buddy i'm collecting evidence they are very photogenic though look at how they're turning towards the camera look at them go my dad's like say cheese i believe your dad sued the family for their dog being out of their property. In pet court? Like, what is this?

I don't know. Did you sue them for impregnating the dog? At least that was the story that he tried to. But we made that the longest game of horse we possibly could. This is true. Because we just had to keep watching it. And my dad was like narrating like good girl. So I'm Ellie. It's my brother. I'm Reed. I'm Simon Whitlock. I'm Olivia Whitlock.

Yeah, we're all really close and we always would play outside because we had like a swing set and we also had a tire swing and Yeah, uh-huh. We'd also dare each other and see like who could like get farthest into the backyard. Cause also it was super overgrown. Like the grass was always yellow. It was crazy. I remember one time me and my sister were out playing with a ball or something and we,

one of us accidentally kicked it into the yard and we were so scared to do it. And we did like some sort of way to see who would have to do it and it was like a bad thing and the person that had to do it i think it was mean i ran out there and grabbed the ball and i was terrified yeah it's kind of like the same yes yeah yeah we we played like like we played like rock paper scissors to see like who had to come over because we were so scared. Oh, I just remember being in our den and occasionally, yeah, like suddenly I'd be watching TV and there'd be just like this knock and then laughter. And then I'd see like kids running away basically from the back of the den.

Danny, did you hear Keith? Might have been us. Boys. I have no idea. I blame Adam. I blame Adam for running. Sorry, Danny. No, listen. Anything I might have done at some point.

This was a wild moment to me. I mean, I went over to that house so many times as a kid, and it never occurred to me that I was going to the Boo Radley house, that this place evoked so much fear in the neighborhood. First of all, it never occurred to me that I was living in the Boo Radley house until that moment. That you were Boo Radley's son, effectively. Yeah, I mean, it's not, I'm not going to lie. It was, it was hard. It was really hard to hear that. Like I was trapped in that place, like this weird house. I frankly, I don't even blame those kids for feeling afraid. I think I was afraid. No, no, that fear in a lot of ways was absolutely

justified. I mean, Richard had a vengeful side. So the house, your dad thought that your mom was gonna get the house in the divorce. So he took a crowbar and he went through the entire house, broke every light fixture, ripped out every outlet and socket. He ripped the house to shreds. I didn't know that. And then took it to the air conditioner and beat the hell out of the air conditioner. Thinking your mom was going to have to repair it all, he broke everything.

Then he found out... Hey mom. Richard, I'm calling with some good news. Yeah? Your father and I bought the house back. Hey, Mom. Richard, I'm calling with some good news. Yeah? Your father and I bought the house back. From Sandy. What?

The title transfer will take some time, but the deal is done. The house is yours again. Frank! Frank, hang on a second! Thanks, Mom. I, uh... Thanks. Frank! Frank, stop! Yeah, okay. Well, I, thanks. Frank! Frank, stop! Yeah, okay. Well, I love you.

Let's get together when you have a little more time. Mom, any chance you might have some money left over for repairs? So, okay, so he absolutely obliterates the place. He's kind of making it unlivable. He's destroying everything. And then the next day, it is true. My grandma called him to say that they had bought the house for him

from my mom. God, that's amazing. It's just like, it's, this is a weird thing to say, but it's kind of beautiful in a way. He destroys the place

so she can't have it nice and then he's got to clean it all up. I mean, if you pitch that to me as a story idea or as a scene idea, It's too much. I would be like, no way.

It feels written. It can't be real. But it is. Now, as far as we know, it is true that your grandparents did end up paying for all the repairs and the cleanup from all the destruction? I mean, I assume so. I don't know for sure. I do know that my grandparents did fund my dad's life for many years especially once he had been disbarred

so I would imagine that if they didn't give him specific money for those repairs that that was part of his whatever his monthly stipend was you know that fact that he didn't have his own money that he was reliant on his parents

your grandparents for money I wonder if that contributed at all to his excessively frugal nature. I mean, it could be. Then again, there's a part of me that feels like that was just baked into his DNA. I mean, look, we learned from the neighbors, actually, that he was penny-pinching babysitters even when I was really little. Now, I also want to emphasize, my daughter Amy said she couldn't be here, but I should relay to you, number one, she only babysat maybe three or four times, I'm not sure, but

evidently the going rate was like a dollar an hour. And if she'd be here two hours and ten, twelve minutes, Richard would pay her two dollars and twelve cents. He would go through just pennies to find 12 cents. Amazing. And she said, unfortunately, she described him as creepy because she was probably 13 or 14 years old at the most. She was the oldest of seven, so she had a lot of experience in babysitting children.

And she said, I'm sure to let you know that she thought you and Bobby were great, but your dad was creepy. Is that why she stopped babysitting? Basically. When Richard would call and ask her to babysit, I, of course, had to give excuses. No, I'm sorry she's busy tonight. And after a while, of course, he give excuses. No, I'm sorry she's busy tonight. And after a while, of course, he figured it out. Meanwhile, he goes to the Elks to apply to become a member.

The Elks Lodge. The Elks Lodge across Ladue, yes. Across Ladue. Now, my husband tells me he was totally blackballed. However, there were two men in the subdivision who had been members that went to that meeting, and he blamed them for the blackball. He called one of them, my neighbor, and asked, said he was so-and-so from the Elks. Wouldn't my neighbor like to change his vote? Oh, wow.

Yeah. Did he pretend to be someone specific? Yes, there was a specific name. It was whoever, some big wig over at the Elks. Wouldn't you like to change your vote? Yes. Did Tom change his vote? No.

Right after that, my daughter Amy received a letter in the mail from Richard telling her what terrible parents she had. Wow, to your daughter? My daughter. Fourteen. Who is fourteen at this point? Thirteen or fourteen. Probably thirteen.

I think she was still in grade school. Wow. Yes. That they wouldn't let her babysit for his children. And that they had deprived his children, and he probably truly meant this, deprived his children of enjoying the pool and the friendships at the elks but it was scathing i remember her crying because she was a kid yeah and we told her it was okay you know it's richard and she said the boys are fine mom i'm gonna do

she was upset oh my goodness well uh she's now an adult and she's gotten over it, by the way. She's okay. She's down at my house right now putting my dinner in for all my company. Oh, very nice. Very nice. And what did you do in the aftermath of that letter? I didn't respond. Yeah, just ignored him. We felt the best just not respond. Yeah, yeah. I think that probably was the right move, actually. Oh, yeah. You were going gonna say something about the kids playing in the street and so I was walking my three boys and I'm guessing they were probably like Two six and seven year olds. They're pretty young boys

One of them might have been riding a bike I don't remember we're all walking in the street and anybody that knows the neighborhood they don't have sidewalks so you have to walk in the streets if you're walking around and richard comes flying by you know because he did drive pretty fast in the neighborhood but there it was out of fear or whatnot and flies around the circle comes back and and i'm able to stop him and i said hey slow down i said these are my kids you might hit one of them. And he looks at me and he rolls the window down and he goes, well, get your kids out of the street. I was like, what do you say to that, right?

Yeah. So we hear from our neighbor Cheryl. So a couple days after this incident that we don't know about, child services rings our door and um and told us that they that we were unfit parents because our kids were in the street unattended unattended and our kids are older kids and so my husband was really confused and he asked some more questions and she's like well they were in the street and they were riding their bike in the street. And he's like, well, they're 10, 13 and 15.

How old do you have to be before you can ride your bike in the street? And that's when she was like, oh, I must have the wrong house. And so we, you know, put it together, but didn't point her in the direction of the right house. We just let her go on her merry way. And my husband had asked at that time, can you tell us who called in the report? And she said it was a neighbor, but she couldn't tell us who. Wow. Wow. Wow. Oh my God. That is awful. Guys, this is a lot. How are you doing, Danny?

Yeah, you're okay, Danny. Yeah, Danny, do you want to tell us how you're feeling? Well, I i have a lot of emotions first of all i just want to thank everybody again for doing this it means a ton it's really surreal and weird for me i i think mostly like i'm feeling real a real surprising amount of like sadness and shame. Sorry, sorry. It's okay. Hey, it's, it is hard for me to hear about so much pain to others that was done.

Like, you know, I think about somebody calling child services, and we're all laughing, and it is funny, but it's also really tragic and sad and mean and rageful. and mean and rageful and uh and and and i just i just think that uh there was so much um devastation that was done here and uh and and i think that a lot of my own um feelings about shame are coming back of just feeling like uh about shame are coming back of just feeling like like I like I've done something wrong you know what I mean like somehow I know that that's not true but I felt that when I was a kid and I'm feeling that again now. So, yeah. Yeah.

And none of this was Danny's fault? None of it. Well, then Danny and I talk all the time about what it was like being a kid in the 80s and 90s in St. Louis, where the idea that he was sick or that there was a thing called narcissism, we didn't even talk about it. My parents went to high school with Richard, and they would describe him, the euphemism they would say is,

oh, you know, Richard, he's not all there. That would be the expression. But we just took it at face value. It wasn't like a thing that I even understood as a sickness. Absolutely. Yeah. One of the things that I'm hoping for is that I will find a way somehow to have some empathy for my dad, this man that was... Maybe you will and maybe you won't.

I wouldn't put that pressure on yourself. I, ironically, am a therapist. Yeah. So I think that's why I was kind of drawn to reaching out to you. Yeah. But I would just follow the process. Yeah. Just ride those roller coasters of feelings

and nothing um i wouldn't block anything i wouldn't shame yourself for anything i would just really embrace all of these feelings um from all of this and i think that's going to be a healthier process yeah no that makes a lot of sense while this is all happening i was thinking that in all the years that i've known you this may have been the very first time that i saw you not hold it in i have never seen you break down like that ever and um we talked about before how you've always been the one who kept it together in your family. No one thought, no one thinks they have to worry about you. No one's bothering protecting you because you always projected this image of, I got this. But here it was.

You were like laid bare. It was clear that there was so much pain inside. It was kind of shocking to me to be honest with you. No, I hear you. I did not plan for that. And, um, and I, I, I think it's a good thing, a healthy thing probably. Uh, is it a good thing? Is it a healthy thing? I, yeah, I mean, I, Honestly, I don't know for sure. Like, I have to say,

like, the combination of this, my emotional reaction back in the house, as well as sort of coupled with things that have been happening with the podcast in general has made me question whether or not this is a good thing. I mean, you know, one of the things that's been happening over the last couple of weeks is I've noticed that

I've been in conversations with people, friends, wherever, and either friends or other people have come up to me and been like, I want to ask you some questions about your podcast. I want to ask you about, you know, why was your mom doing this or why was your dad doing that? And I had this feeling of like, my God, like, uh, that's my trauma. That's the trauma of my life. And suddenly it, it, it sort of feels like there are no guardrails for me to explore it. That like, I am just this sudden open book that everyone that the world feels, you know, they have the, the right to just sort of like opine on or ask me about it at any moment.

And I get why that's the case. Like I've chosen to tell this story in a public way. But it is very, very frightening to me. And it's like my emotional reaction in the house and this reaction that I've been – this feeling that I've been having since has really frightened me, honestly, about this whole experience. Like, it made me question, like, I feel – there's an aspect of it that feels out of control for me emotionally where, like, I am suddenly not in control of when and how I deal with my own trauma. And that is such a weird place to be in. Like most of the time, your trauma of your life, Darren, you are walking around and you get to decide when it is that you explore that or not explore that. And suddenly I haven't been fully in charge of that, right? Like this experience at the house was something I wasn't fully in charge of in a way.

I mean, yes, I know that I made the decision to go. I know that I made the decision to go. But I think I'm just feeling broadly this feeling of weight on me that is scary. And I am honestly unsure of – I know that people say, yeah, this is valuable. This is the stuff. That's what they say. That's what they say. But it is fucking scary. I mean this is exactly what we were afraid of back in episode one.

Yeah. This is exactly what I was talking about. Not exactly because like, I don't think that we, we didn't bank on the public aspect of this being like, I'm walking around in my day to day and suddenly somebody randomly is like, let's, let's bring up your childhood trauma. Like that is, that was unexpected. Like the degree to which I thought at the very least I would have some, some control over it in my, in my moment to moment life.

There are times, which is to say most of the time that you actually don't want to talk about childhood trauma. Yeah. I'm like, God, I am. I just, I'm like, it's all the time. It's every day, every day you and I are writing about, thinking about, interviewing people about. Yeah. And it's really, it's getting to me in a way that I, that is very unexpected and scary. We're seeing dads that we like sort of know at Little League Games saying, hey, when's the next episode coming out? Yes. You know, and I'm also doing things I'm realizing where like, I am making a choice, right?

Like I'm just doing, living my life. I'm like making a choice and I'm wondering, are the people that I'm with like analyzing that in terms of like, oh, is he saying that or doing that or making that joke because they know all this information suddenly about what's underneath all of it? And I don't like that either. Is this where we end the podcast?

I would be lying if I said that there were times that I didn't fantasize about just stopping this. But then at the same time, I listen to people like Anne and to my own therapist who are really encouraging and saying that this is the, this is the hard stuff, but it is, but coming through this fire is what it's all about ultimately. Right. And so I am, I'm ultimately choosing to believe them and to have faith and trust in that process, even though it is scary. But I also, at the same time, I'm like, I want to make sure that I protect myself and set some boundaries for myself. I, you know,

I have been sort of like very much an open book and in sort of anytime someone says, Hey, let's talk about your podcast. I'm like, okay, let's, let's get into it.

Or like every time somebody emails us, I've been like responding immediately and being like, I hear you shockingly fast. Yeah. Because I just feel like I feel the weight of their stories combined with mine and the weight of their emotions. And I want them to know that they aren't alone and they are being heard. And but but I think I have to make some some changes and some choices to protect myself. If I'm going to do this, if we're going to really continue down this road, I have to just make sure that it is a scenario that feels safe or at least safer. Yeah. I mean, you don't need to respond to emails quite so fast. That's one thing.

Yeah. I'll respond to the emails. Yeah. When you were talking also, I was about feeling safe and being supported. I mean, obviously, you know, you have me. I'm here to support you. You didn't sell it? No, no. you know, you have me. I'm here to support you. You didn't sell it? No, no.

I know. I know. But I was thinking back to when we were at your dad's house. Yeah. And this group of neighbors and among them who, you know, we started this whole journey where we were looking for the support group that your mom had been a part of back in the 80s. And in a way, we kind of found a support group for you. Not the one that we were expecting, but this group of neighbors effectively turned into one for you. Wow. That's really interesting.

And there's something kind of lovely, I think, about the fact that a lot of these people were people that your dad butted heads with. In some cases, they're people that he went to war with. He went after them. And it's like those very people that he tried to destroy, now they're reaching out to you to try to heal you. Yeah. I mean, and that's ultimately, I think, why I'm willing to keep going. why I'm willing to keep going because the response, like the response has been so overwhelmingly supportive from,

from the neighbors, from the audience, like nobody, everybody is, is trying to keep my best interest in mind. And by the way, and I just want to say, like, I don't think that anybody,

you know, when I'm, when I'm saying, Oh, people are coming up and they're saying, let's talk about the podcast. Like they're not, they have, when I'm saying, oh, people are coming up and they're saying, let's talk about the podcast, they are not, they have only a generosity of spirit.

I just don't think, it's hard for people to understand what that's like for me. You know what I mean? Of course. But it is that support that ultimately is why I want to keep going and see where this goes. Well, all right then, friend. I guess we shall continue this and see where it goes. And the next place that it's going to go, I think,

is back to the beginning of your parents' relationship. Yeah, I think it's time in our next episode to finally really figure out how my mom fell in love with a man like my dad and how she ultimately left. Okay. So, all right. So mom, so the next episode is going to be about, it's going to focus on you and your childhood and your early dating life with dad and your marriage. dating life with dad and your marriage. Well, what is the answer to this question of how you ended up being married to this guy for 13 years? What's your answer to that? Okay. When I first met him, I thought he was cute and I thought he was very, very smart. And he seemed like he was very interested in me and what and what we did you know and talking together you know I was talking together

and getting to know each other and so I started dating him and he had some quirks but I felt like everybody does so I didn't I didn't pay much attention to him. And as time went on... Okay, I have to take a break here. Why? Because I don't know if I should say this. Well, go ahead and say it, whatever it is, and we can always talk about whether or not we can use it or should. All right.

He was very good at sex. Oh, no. Oh, God. all right he was very good at sex oh no oh god i told you i didn't bring it up he was like he was like we were trying and he was showing me you know you know just showing me what to do and how to oh god okay well you know what, you know what, Mom? You know what? On that note, I want to thank you for dropping by and to say that perhaps we'll talk more about that, or maybe not, in the next episode. Because actually, this is actually the end of this episode. No, it's not, Danny. This is the end. Thank you for sharing that, by the way, Sandy. Yes, thank you, ma'am.

That's the only thing that really kept me going for a while. You know what I mean? Well, sweet. Okay. Can we please, please move on to the credits? All right. How to Destroy Everything is written, directed, and created by Danny Jacobs and Darren Grotsky. Executive produced by Michael Grant Terry.

And editing supervised by Dashiell Reinhart. Dashiell. Yeah, you got it. Dashiell. Oh, you got it. Dashiell. Oh, I never heard that name. Starring, in alphabetical order, Frank Krim, Clayton Farris,

Darren Grodzki, Jonathan Kaplan, Mike Nelson, Jessica Polly. Polly? Jessica Polly? Oh, no. Jessica Polly,

Laura Schein, Bruce Wexler, Harrison Wexler, and Hartley Wexler. If you knew Richard Jacobs and have a story to tell, please reach out to us at iknowrichardjacobs at yahoo at yahoo. No, that's not it. iknowrichardjacobs at gmail.com. Additionally, if you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com slash howtodestroyeverything.

And of course, you can find us on Instagram and Twitter as well. Episode three is also executive produced, edited, sound designed, and music supervised by Joel Pysik and is a production of Aileron Films.