Let's Go To Court! - 79: Cruel Teenage Girls & the Snake House

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Brandi starts us off with a story so upsetting that she’s put off telling it for weeks. In the winter of 1992, two hunters discovered a body that was so badly abused it initially didn’t look real. The body was charred. It had been beaten and stabbed. Law enforcement officers were stunned. Murders weren’t common in Madison, Indiana, but this one was unspeakably gruesome. Despite the state of the body, it didn’t take long to determine that it belonged to 12-year-old Shanda Sharer. A little while later, investigators rounded up their prime suspects: teenagers Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence.  Then Kristin tells us about Jeff and Jody Brooks. In 2014, the couple found a house they thought they’d live in for the next twenty years. The modest ranch in Annapolis, Maryland, had a main floor office for Jody and plenty of room for their children. But the home also had a strange scent. As winter turned to spring, the family discovered snakeskins on the floor. Then, they heard movement coming from inside their walls. What they discovered will give you the heebie jeebies. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Welcome to ‘The Snake House’: Lawsuit claims home infested with snakes,” by Tim Prudente for the Capital Gazette “Settlement reached in Annapolis ‘snake house’ case,” by Ben Weathers for the Captial Gazette “Capital follow-up: Famed Annapolis ‘snake house’ close to sale,” by Rachael Pacella for the Capital Gazette  In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Death of Innocence – The Murder of Young Shanda Sharer” by David Lohr, Crime Library “Why 12-Year-Old Shanda Sharer Was Tortured And Killed By Four Teenage Girls” by William DeLong “Woman convicted in 1992 slaying of 12-year-old Shanda Renee Sharer is released from prison” by Justin L. Mack, The Indy Star

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a snake house. Is this like a spider house?

Yes, it's terrible. Is this a snake pit house? Yes, but we're still doing the intro. And I'll be talking about the cruelty of teenage girls. Oh, oh no. Yeah, it's bad. It's real bad. It's so bad.

It's so bad that I almost- How bad is it? I almost did this case before on our Patreon exclusive episode. And I was like, no, this case sucks too much. It's so dark. Then instead I went with the hammer murder. So. Well, okay.

I don't know what to expect right now, but I am glad we didn't do Timothy McVeigh and whatever the hell this is. No, that's true. That's worse than a hammer murder. Yeah. It's worse. Oh, God. Is this like Slender Man 2.0? I mean, what are we?

Yeah. It's like Slender Man, the prequel. Oh, good. Is this like Slender Man 2.0? I mean, what are we? Yeah, it's like Slender Man the prequel. Okay. Yeah. So it happened before Slender Man. Yeah, I understand what a prequel is. Yeah, thank you. Do you understand words, Christine?

You know, I went to one semester of law school, so I think I'm pretty smart. When you pull up the Wikipedia page for this case that i'm about to do at the bottom you know when it says like see also yeah the slenderman case is listed down there so so excited thanks so much yes get out of my house any oh fuck beans what'd you do i just closed a window that I needed open. Shit. There's no getting that back. No. Who even fucking knows what it was? I'll find

it. I mean, I would hope you would know. Nope. Pause for dramatic effect. Are you feeling dramatic yet? No, I'm feeling like you accidentally closed a window and now i have to sit here quietly wow okay are you ready to talk about a horrible case i feel like that's how all of my cases start yeah because you do the these terrible cases okay so like i said i almost did this for our patreon episode and i was like fuck it i can't do it

and then someone messaged us and was like, hey, have you ever thought about doing this case that I'm about to do? This terrible case, yeah. And I was like, yeah, actually, I almost did it because she messaged us like two days after that. And I was like, yeah, actually, I almost did it. I did a bunch of research and then was like, fuck that case. And so then I decided I was going to do that this week. And then I did a bunch of research and was like, fuck this case. And so then I decided I was going to do that this week. And then I did a bunch of research and was like, fuck this case.

I got to do something lighthearted. Didn't have time to switch. So here comes a horrible case. Here we are. Okay, great. Okay. So a couple of shout outs to start off. First is from the person who messaged us on Facebook.

Her name is Alexis. She said she recommended this case. And her mom went to school with some of the people involved okay good no no sorry just go with the murderers spoiler alert there's an s on the end of that a second shout out to uh david lore different david than i usually shout out but still from the crime library okay My favorite resource. So they like their Davids over there. I'm also a big fan of Davids. Oh, God.

You see what I did there? Oh, my gosh. Brandi's got a boyfriend named David, and she thinks he's the most. He's so keen. Why are we in pajamas? What are these pillows doing here? Why are we in pajamas? What are these pillows doing?

Did you guys know that we have a pillow fight after every time we record a Let's Go to Court After Dark? It's a terrible idea because these mics are expensive. They are. And we're just putting them at risk. Let's get started, shall we? I'm so stalling because I don't want to fucking do this case. You are stalling big time. Just get it over with. Let's do this.

I'm going to pound it out. Oh, wait. Just get it over with. Let's do this. I'm going to pound it out. Oh, wait. It's Saturday, January 11th, 1992. We're in Canaan, Indiana. This man, Don Foley, and his brother, Ralph.

Ralph. Why did I say that weird? I don't know. You are stalling in every way possible. I said Ralph. I know you did. That's not a name. There was a W that you added. That's no one's name his name is ralph well ralph on twitter is gonna be really disappointed

in you um so they were out quail hunting and they spotted something in a like a soybean field at first they thought it was a body and then they were like no way it's a fucking body like this is rural indiana um and they're like must be a blow-up doll i'm sorry that was that was their immediate like they're like oh of course that this must be a blow-up doll and so they decided they needed to get closer and check it out and like, they're like, oh, of course that this must be a blow up doll. And so they decided they needed to get closer and check it out. And at first they were like, yeah, this is a blow up doll. And then they got closer and realized it was a body. And it was a human body that had been badly charred.

This body had been set on fire and the body was naked with the exception of a pair of panties. Um, and it had been, why panties underwear? Oh, I don't, I'm sorry.

That was a copy and paste. Men love to say panties. Panties. Yeah. I don't call them panties ever. Yeah. So I had to stop under underpants okay continue okay so aside from a pair of underpants the body was naked um and the charring was kind of

from the waist up but it was the the remains were burnt so badly that identification was impossible. They couldn't even tell the the sex of the of the body, really. So they called in the police. Of course, this article goes into a lot more detail about the state of the body. And I think that's completely unnecessary. I'm not going to do it. OK, so they called in the police and police get there. It's like 10,

it's almost 11 o'clock in the morning. By the time the sheriff's office gets there, there had not been a murder in this part of India, Indiana, and like over three years. And so it didn't, they didn't really take the call seriously. At first,

the sheriff was like, surely that's not what's out there. There's no way there's a charred body out here. And so they kind of took their time getting to the scene. And once they got there, they were like, holy shit, this is a dead body. And he quickly realized that the state of the body made this case something way bigger than he had the capacity to be able to deal with himself. And so he called in the Indiana State Police for assistance. So he called the sheriff calls in the Indiana State Police and they get there sometime after one o'clock in the afternoon.

They recorded the crime scene with video cameras, took lots of photographs, made castings of tire tracks and footprints around where the body was. And all they were doing all of this to collect as much evidence as they could without moving the body at all, because they were waiting for a coroner to come and make a determination on, you know, how this body ended up here. Was it? Did here was it dumped here you know all of that and so what they discovered in this time was that the victim had been through a lot of torture prior to being set on fire they around the scene they noticed like a plastic bottle that had get that had been uh filled with gasoline so like a small gas gas tank like one that you use for a mower or something like that

had been discarded kind of in the weird weeds nearby um and then various other things like that that had just been kind of tossed away from the scene. When the coroner arrived, they collected hair samples and they were able to remove a ring from the victim's finger. And that showed that it was a, when they looked at the ring, they discovered that it was a high school class ring with the initials SGH engraved inside. So again, still really unsure of the age of this victim by this time they discovered that it was a female um but pretty sure that it was a young female but other than that pretty in indeterminable as far as who it was or anything like that meanwhile kind of the same time that they're taking stock of this scene, this man and his wife Clifton and Glenda Lawrence, they're sitting in their home. It's a Saturday evening.

They're watching TV when all of a sudden their daughter, Tony, walks through the front door. She had been supposed to be spending the night at her best friend Hope's house, but in walks Tony. supposed to be spending the night at her best friend Hope's house. But in walks Tony. Behind her is Hope and Hope's parents. And they all look like they've got terrible news. The girls are very upset. All of a sudden, as soon as Tony sees her parents, she just starts bawling and trying to say words, but she's crying so hard that the words can't come out. starts bawling and trying to say words but she's crying so hard that the words can't come out and so her friend hope's parents send tony and hope back to a to tony's bedroom and they're like let us talk to your parents and we'll go from there so they sit down tony's parents um clifton and glinda and they're like the girls just came to us and they said that they witnessed a murder earlier today

and that the details were super sketchy but they had enough information that they felt like they were telling the truth and so clifton and glenda tony's parents, were like, we have to go to the police immediately. But Hope's parents were like, I don't know if that's the right move. I think we should call a lawyer first. And the Lawrences were like, you do whatever you want. We're going to the police station. Yeah. And so it's like 9 o'clock that night.

Hold on, Hold on. What would you do? Oh, my gosh. I don't know. I think it would be. I see the logic in saying we need to contact an attorney first. Yeah, I do see the logic in that. But I think I would probably be like, we just have to go to the police station.

What do you think you would do? Well, no, I realized I was saying, uh just have to go to the police station. What would you think you would do? Well, no, I realized I was saying, uh-huh, with a lot of judgment. Yeah. But if I had a child and they witnessed something like that, I'd be like, no way in hell are you talking to the police. You're totally right,

because knowing what we know, like... Yeah, I would get the best attorney possible. I'd want it to go very quickly so the police got what they needed quickly. Yeah. But there would be no way I'd put my kid at risk for getting something pinned on them. Absolutely. You're totally right. Thank you.

One day I will be an excellent mother of a witness to a crime witness to a murder okay so it's the same day that the body has been discovered by these two hunters but tons of time has gone by the crime scenes all been secured they've gotten all the evidence they've taken the body back to do an autopsy um and the sheriff the guy who was originally called in to that initial crime scene, is sitting at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. And it's like nine o'clock that night when the Lawrences like bust through the front door in a panic. Yeah. They're like, our daughter is saying that she witnessed a murder. We don't know anything really, but we brought her here as soon as we heard this.

She needs to talk to someone. We need to figure out if this is real or what happened or what. And so Tony sits down with a detective, the sheriff. I'm not really sure. But she says that she had spent the previous night with her two friends. Hope, who was um was the one that she came home with yeah hope hope is 15 tony is oh gosh i don't have tony's age written down tony's also 15 so tony and hope are 15 so they said that they spent the night together and then

they also spent the night with their other friend laurie tackett who's 17 and that the three of them had gotten in tony's car and driven and picked up melinda loveless who's 17, and that the three of them had gotten in Tony's car and driven and picked up Melinda Loveless, who's 16, and who was a friend of Lori Tackett's. But Tony told detectives that she had never met Melinda before. This was her first time ever meeting her. Okay. They had gone to like a concert for a few hours. And then when they were headed back toward home, Tony and Melinda started, or I'm sorry, Tony told detectives that Melinda started talking about this girl that she hated. Her name was Shanda or Shonda. I think it's Shanda. Okay. And that she said that Shanda was trying to steal her girlfriend, that her girlfriend had cheated on her with Shanda and that she hated her and she wanted her dead. Oh.

Yeah. And so I just like for a second, just imagine you're in that situation. You've just gone to a concert like you're teenage girls. I mean, we're talking 15 to 17 is the age range here. And all of a sudden you're driving home from a concert. There's this friend of a friend who's in the car with you. And it's like, this bitch slept with my girlfriend.

I'm going to kill her. Like I want to literally murder her. I would think nothing of that. Right. You would think it's somebody talking shit. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And initially that was kind of the the feeling so tony gives the police all the information that she has and the lawrence has told the police that hope rippy had been present for all of this too but that her parents were talking to a lawyer before yeah they were going to tell the police anything. So the sheriff's kind of sitting with this information, not really sure how much is true, how much of it correlates to a crime scene that he dealt with earlier that day. Could it possibly be the same thing? I don't know. This is crazy. And then he gets word of a missing persons report that had been filed earlier that same day, about eight hours earlier. So about one o'clock that afternoon for a 12 year old girl named Shanda Sharer.

A 12 year old? A 12 year old girl. Oh. Yeah. The description for that missing girl was that she had blonde hair she was about five feet tall she weighed about a hundred pounds and it was the perfect description for the the Jane Doe that they had found badly burned in that field earlier that day the sheriff said his heart just like sunk immediately. He was like,

I have to tell these parents this and I'm pretty sure now that these other girls are involved in this whole thing. He immediately, they immediately got arrest warrants ready for Lori Tackett and Melinda Loveless,

the two girls who were mentioned in Tony's statement. Tony, is that right? Yeah. I can't remember if it's Tony or Tori now. Tony? Yeah, I think it's Tony. Okay, so these are the two.

Tony's what you said this whole time. It's definitely Tony. Okay. I'm sorry. I wanted to say Tori and then I was questioning myself. Yeah. And then I was questioning myself. So they get arrest warrants ready for the two girls that Tony had mentioned earlier for Lori and Melinda. And during that time when they were getting like waiting for these arrest warrants to get signed, they get positive ID from dental records that this this girl that they had found was, in fact, Shanda Sharer. was in fact shanda sharer when the detective called shanda's parents like he said immediately when they heard from him they were so glad to hear from so soon it meant that

they they felt like it yeah and that their daughter had been found safe yeah and because it had she'd only been missing like eight hours by that point. Eight, ten hours. And instead he had to deliver this horrible news that she'd been brutally murdered. So 2 a.m. So we're talking like the longest fucking day of this sheriff's life, I'm guessing. Right. I do want to go back. Yeah.

Just say good for him for when he came upon that scene he immediately recognized this is this is bigger than what i can handle which i feel like that's kind of rare oh super rare yeah i feel like like you get like the arrogance or the yeah i'm not gonna let anybody else take my crime scene i can handle this yeah yeah but i think that he had the forethought to be like i can't mess up this evidence this is way more than i know how to deal with we gotta call somebody and who can handle this better yes and make sure that we're dotting all our i's and crossing all our t's yes yeah so it's 2 a.m they finally get the arrest warrants and they like go in like guns a blazing to melinda loveless's house so he found out that melinda loveless and uh laurie tackett were spending the

night together at Melinda's house because they kind of tracked they tracked Lori Tackett's car down and it was at Melinda's house. And so they go in, they ring the doorbell there and Melinda's mother comes to the door and they were like, we're here to arrest Melinda and Lori. Where are they? And she was like, super confused. It's two o'clock in the morning. She's like they're upstairs and so they like bust in the bedroom the kid the two girls are asleep and they scream at them to get up and get out of bed and they arrest them like they went in like kristen frays balls to the wall and not fucking around yeah can you imagine being that mom no i mean no you think you've just hosted an innocent sleepover yeah holy shit yeah

yeah so now we're up to sunday morning the day after the call came in about the body in the field and the autopsy is taking place on shanda's body and it told quite the story shanda had been through a shit ton um there were legal ligature marks on her wrists there were lacerations to her head neck and legs her fingers were in such a defensive position and rigor mortis had already set in that they had to actually in order. What? They had to remove her fingers and able to fingerprint them. Oh, God. Yeah.

Oh, this poor girl. This poor girl. Her upper body was covered in third and fourth degree burns. I didn't even know fourth degree burns existed. No, no. I thought third was like the worst. Yes. burns i didn't even know fourth degree burns existed no i thought third was like the worst yes her tongue was like clenched in her teeth

and it was clear that she had been through some kind of trauma molestation something there was some kind of sexual part to this um There was some kind of sexual part to this. There was a lot of bleeding to her anus and stuff. Yeah. Terrible. Oh, God.

This is the worst case ever. This is terrible. The worst part. The worst discovery that was made during this autopsy. You haven't already said it. It's terrible. Was that there was soot in her airway, which meant that she was alive when she was set on fire.

Oh. Yeah. Yep. So Melinda Loveless and Lori Tackett had been arrested by this point. They'd been questioned by police. They'd been each charged with a single count of murder. And in a hearing like their first hearing, a judge moved both of them from juvenile court to adult court. both of them from juvenile court to adult court. Yeah. It's like they are going to be tried as adults because they are 16 and 17. And so this has made national news by this time. It's a huge deal.

How do I not remember this? Do you remember this? No, we were super young. We would have been six when this happened. And so police are trying to piece together what happened based on the stories that they were told by Hope and Tony in the beginning. And then what Melinda and Lori have talked about. And so through all of that, they kind of put together a picture of what Shanda Share's last hours of her life would have looked like. So I'm going to walk you through it.

Okay. And it's fucking horrible. Okay. Just be forewarned. Well, yeah, I'm not feeling very optimistic about anything right now. No. So we're going to go back to Friday night. So her body was found on Saturday.

So Friday night, January 10th, 1992, Melinda is pissed. January 10th 1992 Melinda is pissed she finds out that her 14 year old girlfriend Amanda had been cheating on her with 12 year old Shanda they went to a school dance together Shanda had recently moved to this town her mother had and father had recently divorced they just moved to this town she was new at this school she went to a school dance with amanda i believe that melinda did not go to this same school okay and so melinda finds this out she's pissed and she's like i'm gonna show her who's boss she believed that it was more than just this dance she believed that they were having like like sending notes back and forth to each other and and there's some evidence that that was taking place but they're 12 and 14-year-old girls.

So, of course, they're sending notes. Yeah, they're 12 and 14-year-old girls in 1992. Yeah. There's no text message. There's no emails. They're sending notes back and forth to each other 100%. Yeah. So she was going to show them that she had found out and that she was pissed about it.

And so her friend Lori Tackett was coming over that night and she knew that she would be more than happy to be. She was like her ride or die. Like, I'll do whatever. Best friends, you know. So they they put together this plan. They put together this plan. So Melinda thought that even though they were really good friends, she thought that Lori was a little bit weird. And so this is why she thought she'd be so in on this plan because she like dabbled in the occult. And she claimed that she had dreams of killing someone. Like that was like one of her, like she wanted to do it just to see what it would feel like. Oh, so like not a nightmare. No, no, no, no, no. Like, oh man, yeah. Like on her, like, she wanted to do it just to see what it would feel like and all this. Oh, so, like, not a nightmare.

No, no, no, no, no. A goal. Like, oh, man, yeah. Like, on her vision board. On her vision board, yeah. Murder someone. Wouldn't it be fun? Yeah.

Cool. Yes. So they meet up with Hope and Tony. And like I said, Tony had never met Melinda before. And Hope had only met her once or twice. So it's like, you know, kind of like two groups of friends who are tied together by one person. Right. And when you think about these girls, 14, 16 and 17, like that age range makes a little bit more sense.

But then you've got 12 year old Shanda thrown in there. Yeah. Like that makes no sense to me. As the victim, it does. What do you mean? She's not one of us. Oh, yeah. I get what you're saying.

We can. She's so much smaller. Yeah. Oh, you're absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they had all lied to their parents and said they were spending you know the night at you know

each other's houses and they planned to spend the whole night out going sneaking into this concert or going to this concert and then they were going to lure shanda to this park and scare her is what the two younger girls thought the plan was initially or what they say they thought the plan was initially so they had looked up shanda's address they'd never been there before um they had trouble finding it they had to stop at a couple different places and ask for directions ultimately they found it so hope and tony had never met Shanda, but Shanda would have recognized Melinda, I guess. So Melinda sent Hope and Tony to Shanda's door that night and was like, and they were like, hey, we're friends of Amanda's. She wants to meet up with you tonight at this place at this park, which they called the

witch's castle. You need to sneak out and meet her. Or she's not going to be friends with you anymore. She's not going to see you anymore, you know, whatever. And so she's like, well, I can't go. My parents are awake. But if you guys come back after midnight, I think I can sneak out. back after midnight, I think I can sneak out. Yeah. And so they go and they kill some time. And then they come back after midnight and they, she, they walk up to the house and she's outside waiting for them. And so they take her, um, it's like 1230 by now now and they take her to the car and melinda loveless is hiding in the car because she knows she's already like gotten in like in like an altercation with shanda by this point yeah imagine that right kept her cool yeah exactly and so she knows that shanda will immediately recognize her and won't get in the car right if if she's seen so she's hiding under a blanket in

the back seat of the car and so they get her in the car and like immediate they have her sit like in the middle front seat and then immediately after they close the doors and lock the doors melinda like pops up and puts a a knife to shanda's throat and tells her that she needs if she wants to live she needs to do everything they tell her to do holy shit yeah she of course like immediately starts sobbing uncontrollably she can't think she can't do anything she's just like trying to do anything they tell her to do hoping you know that that they don't they don't murder her absolutely she's 12 years old she's 12 years old why did you do this it's the worst case ever yeah yeah um so they go to this place in this park called the witch's castle which just is like this abandoned stoned building um and they like take her jewelry like they steal her jewelry off of her except for that

ring that she had on but she had like a she had a mickey mouse watch on they took that from her yeah and so they go into the castle it's all dark and so they start a fire with an old T-shirt and they they like start taunting Shanda. Lori Tackett told told her that she pointed to the fire and she's like, that's what you're going to look like by the end of the night. If you don't do what we say. Yeah. So they've got this fire going and like people. Oh, my gosh, that scared the shit out of me. Boo.

It was boo. Boo jumping down. Boo jumping down scared me. And so cars keep driving by. Like, this isn't really a very secluded area, and they've got this fire going. And so the girls are like, I think we need to move somewhere else. And so they decided they were going to drive to some other place by Lori Tackett's house, I guess. She was like, there's a place by laurie tackett's house i guess she was like there's a place by my house where we can take her and so they all get in the car and they like drive an hour to laurie

tackett's house and this whole time they've got like a knife to to shanda's throat and whatever and so they drive to like this, an old logging road. So just like an access road. Okay. Kind of by Lori Tackett's house. And they make Lori and Melinda get out of the car and they pull Shanda out of the backseat. And it's like, it's January in Indiana. It's freezing cold. And so Hope and Tony stay in the car and they just kind of watch what's going on at this

point. They make Shanda strip down, take all of her clothes off. They take her clothes and Melinda throws them in the car and she's like, hold on to those for me. I want those as a trophy. Oh, God. Yeah. At this time, they start beating her up. Like Lori pulls Shanda's arms behind her back and Melinda starts punching her. And they just like,anda's arms behind her back and Melinda starts punching her. And they just, like, she's begging them to stop

and they just keep yelling at her to shut up. It's terrible. She had braces and, like, her lips started bleeding because, like,

they were hitting her in the mouth and her braces were cutting her lips. She fell to the ground because they let go of her lips she fell to the ground because they she they let go of her and she fell to the ground and she's trying to compose herself and they pull out the knife and they actually try to melinda tries to slit her throat with the knife and the knife is so dull that it won't slit her throat and so she decides she's just gonna start stabbing her with

it oh god but they're just like they're they're too shallow they're not because the knife is dull they won't do enough and so she's they're hurting her well yeah but it's not enough to to kill her and so they go and they get some rope out of the car and they strangle her until her body goes limp and then they pick her up and they put her in the trunk and then they go back to laurie tackett's house so they've got her body in the trunk they're pretty sure she's dead because they've strangled her and they go up and they're in laurie tackett's room all four of the girls um and they laurie does like these i mentioned earlier that she like dabbled in the in the occult and stuff so she's like doing some uh readings of some kind like

tarot cards or stones or something like that trying to tell their future and um jail yeah exactly and all of a sudden lori notices that her dog is barking and her dog doesn't really bark and so like they get really quiet and they start listening and they can hear shanda screaming from the back of lori tackett's car from inside her trunk and so laurie runs out there she grabs a kitchen knife on her way she opens the trunk and just starts stabbing no what's happening guys, if you can't hear this, this is so scary. Brandy's telling this story and there are like police cars going right down my road. Alarmingly close. Do you think the mics can pick that up?

I don't know. I mean. I don't either. I'm also wondering if they can pick up Boo knocking up against Steph. She's never been so loving i know she's scared by the sirens too or this story either one um so she so laurie has run out to the car she's opened the trunk and she's just like stabbing away with this kitchen knife she closes the trunk i guess when she thinks that she's done enough and goes back inside, she's covered in blood.

And the girls are like, what, what's going on? And she's like, we need to leave. We need to go for a ride. We have to take care of this. Oh my God.

And Hope and Tony were like, no, thanks. We're done. And so they, they stayed at Lori Tackett's house. lori and melinda have driven off and they're like we need to find out if shanda's dead in the trunk or not and so they open they pull over they open it and she sits up you're kidding she's still alive she tried to speak this is the only words she could get out were mommy oh

god and so lori reached into the trunk around shanda's body and grabbed the tire iron and hit her in the head with it what the fuck is wrong with these people yeah um and so she knocks her out and she closes the trunk and they get in the car and they drive down the road again so she's still making noises in the trunk she goes and hits her with the tire iron she knocks her out they drive a little bit further she's still making noises and so this happens a couple times each time she makes a noise they go they pull over. Lori Tackett gets out and goes and hits her with the tire iron again and then gets back in the car. She realizes that this isn't going to be enough.

And so they decide what they're going to do next. It's like almost dawn by this point. And so they're like, we have to we've taken it this far. Like we have to finish the job. And so this is when they decide that they're going to set her on fire i cannot wait for the justice part of this story yes so shan or i'm sorry laurie tackett's like oh we have a we have a burn pile at my house. We'll just go set her on the burn pile and set it on fire and it'll, you know, just take care of itself.

Because, I mean, they're teenage girls and they... This is their first murder and they're idiots. Yeah. Okay, great. So, they get to the burn pile and oh shit, it's winter in Indiana. It's all frozen. So they can't...

Yeah. They can't start this fire the way they had wanted to and they didn't have any gasoline. So they decided that they would try to set her on fire with Windex. What? Yep. try to set her on fire with windex what yep yeah eventually they realize that that's not going to work and they take her out they managed

to get a small amount of gasoline they take her out to that field where she was found and they set her on fire at some point they sodomized her with a tire the tire iron is what the police believe but none of the girls ever would admit that they did this well so by that point it was just two of them right yeah yeah so both of them did it yeah if if neither one of them is admitting it. Yep. Which seems really weird that that's where you draw the line, but okay. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

So they... You look like you want to give up right now. It's so terrible. Actually, I think that at this point, when they set her on fire, I believe all four girls are there. Because they'd gone back to Lori Tackett's house to burn her on the burn pile. And when that didn't work, they had Hope and Tony get back in the car with them and go to where they were going to finish the job. Because after they set her on fire, all four girls went to McDonald's and had breakfast together.

You're kidding me. No, and they made jokes about how the sausage that they ate with their breakfast looked just like the body. It's fucking terrible. And then fast forward to the two girls telling their parents

and everybody's arrested and all of that. So now we're up to Melinda and Lori have been charged with one count of murder each. And then shortly after that, Hope and Tony are also arrested. And they, Hope and Tony were not charged with anything for like two months after this. They weren't charged until March. Okay.

So they waited, I guess, until the full investigation was complete to decide that they would be charged as well. And they were charged with murder, arson, battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery, criminal confinement, and intimidation. And during their arraignment, they were both moved to adult court as well. They were not, they were going to be tried as adults, not juveniles. So these girls are 14. They're both 14. No, 15. I'm sorry. They're both 15. Gosh, that's pretty young to be deciding they're not going to be tried as juveniles.

I don't, I honestly don't understand why we have these rules. If you can just say we're not. Yeah, you're not going to do it. Yeah, we're just going to waive them from juvenile court and move them into the adult system. Not that they don't sound like monsters, but I totally agree. Absolutely. I don't understand either. stand either um and then shortly after that additional charges um were filed against melinda and laurie to reflect all of the torture that shanda had been through so in april of 1992 so

about a month after she was charged tony law Lawrence actually accepted a plea deal with the state in exchange for her testimony against the other three girls. So she remember she is the first one who went to the police. Right. So when Hope's parents were calling up a lawyer and not letting her talk to the police, Tony was in there telling the sheriff everything that she had witnessed. was in there telling the sheriff everything that she had witnessed. So they offer her a deal that in exchange for testimony against the other three girls and a guilty plea, so she's not getting off with nothing, she will be, all she will have to plead guilty to is the charge of criminal confinement. All of the other charges would be dropped. And with that one charge, she would face six to 20 years behind bars. Wow.

Yeah. And they would leave. And the deal said that they would leave the sentencing up to the judge's discretion. Well, sure. Yeah. So it wasn't saying, like, you'll get this many years. You're still facing six to 20 years, but you're agreeing to testify against the other three girls. What do you think about that deal? I mean, if she's facing six to 20 years, I don't know. I also I have a problem with this going to adult court because these were not adults yeah and i i'm struggling with what to say here but i feel like i can see how it would be hard if you were younger in that position and all of a sudden

you're in someone else's car yeah you can't even legally drive yet you got in the car to go scare a girl yeah and then it escalates and you are now a 15 year old girl at the mercy of a 17 year old girl which is a huge age gap at that age it really is I don't know. I don't know what the fuck I would have done. I think that's why I'm feeling so conflicted, is I kind of feel like I would have been scared shitless. And I don't know that I would have done the right thing, necessarily. The prosecutor's big point of contention with Tony and Hope is that, yes, they were probably manipulated into participating in this but there was a large portion of the evening where they were left alone at laurie tackett's house when they could have called somebody they could have let somebody know what was going on

and they didn't sure um and that's fair yeah but again i think when you're that age you can get into this dumb thing of i'm gonna get in trouble yeah if blah blah blah yeah i'm gonna get in trouble if my parents find out i used a fake id to get into this bar so i'm gonna get in the car with the drunk person to take me home like that kind of thing yeah absolutely yeah because i'm gonna get in trouble because i lied to my parents and said i was spending the night at hope's house yes and i'm at laurie's house instead it's that childish thinking to me that that makes me not feel like this is so clear-cut oh they should have picked up the phone yeah obviously they should have picked up the phone and called the police.

Yeah. So people were pissed about this plea agreement that the prosecution offered this to her. But prosecutors said. They thought it was too lenient? Yeah. They thought it was way too lenient. Wow. But the prosecutor said that they needed someone who was an eyewitness. Yeah, you do.

You do. I completely agree. I think this makes sense. I mean, to offer a plea deal. Yes. Yeah. Six to 20 years is not nothing. I know.

I know. That. Yeah. That's your formative years. Around that same time, the prosecution offered deals to all of the girls and the rest of the girls turned them down. Really? Multiple times. And then in July of 1992, the prosecution announced that they would be seeking the death penalty against Melinda Loveless and Lori Tackett.

Hope Rippey's age prevented that from being. She was young enough that they could not file death penalty. I don't know what they say. Intent. They call it specifications in this article, but I've never heard it called that either. Oh, well, I mean, An intent to seek the death penalty. She was young enough that they could not do that, but they. And they couldn't just override that.

Apparently not. Apparently that's a hard and fast rule. I'm glad we've got some hard and fast rules. Yeah. Around this same time. So that happened in July and August. Tony Lawrence made a attempted suicide in her

cell in jail where she was awaiting her own sentencing and awaiting testifying at the other girls' trials. So she was, at this time, she had been prescribed

an antidepressant lorazepam. Sure. And she was tonguing her meds every night and saving them up. And she took them all at one time to try and commit suicide. So from August to October, she was held in a mental health facility. And then she was transferred back to jail after they deemed her no longer a suicide risk, I guess. During that time in September, Melinda Loveless and Lori Tackett decided to take plea deals to get the death penalty taken off the table. Both would plead guilty to murder and torture and to arson and criminal confinement in exchange all of the other charges

would be dropped and they would withdraw the death penalty the agreement specified that they would both cooperate and with the trial that was still planning to take place for against um oh shit yeah um hope rippy she was still maintaining her innocence at this point she was she was had turned down several deals she's gonna get the brunt of this and her parents were making statements like that um they were gonna fight this and that you know there was no way that she she was gonna that she was gonna beat this yeah well that's just crazy i mean yeah yeah i think it's completely ridiculous there's no way you're getting off without anything yeah it would be way better to take a deal which i won't keep

you ultimately she ends up taking a deal oh okay okay yes i i okay i was worried that she was going to take the whole yeah they were all going to testify against her and then you know potentially the person who wasn't a real key player would yikes yeah so in november of 1992 both melinda um loveless and laurie tackettett had their plea hearings where they admitted their actions against. I mean, to some degree, admitted what they had done to Shanda that night. And their sentencing hearings were set for December. The following day, Hope Rippey's trial date was set for the following spring. So her trial was set to begin in March of 1993. I've

already told you she ends up taking a deal. So let's, let's get to sentencing. Okay. What do you think? What do you think is gonna? Well, the main two have to get life in prison without the possibility of parole. That has to happen. Brandy. if you tell me they're out right now i told you this case is horrible well what the fuck so december 14th 1992 was the beginning of melinda loveless's sentencing hearing the The courtroom was packed. There's media from all kinds of national outlets all over the place. The prosecutor laid out in vivid detail what happened to Shanda that night,

the torture, the murder, all of it. And then over the next several days, Tony Lawrence, Lori Tackett, and lots of friends and acquaintances of Melinda Loveless were called to testify against her. All the men who had discovered the body testified. The detective who had been the first on the scene testified. Several members of Shanda's family made statements. members of Shanda's family made statements. And of course, the most impactful, the most heart-wrenching statement came from Shanda's mother. She began by playing a video, which was

like a slideshow of photos of Shanda at different stages in her life. And as the photos went by, she narrated them and said what Shanda was doing in each of the pictures. And then following that, she read a statement and she spoke for like 45 minutes. She said, it has obviously shattered all of our lives. I speak for all of us when I say I don't think there's anything worse than burying your own child. I can't control my emotions most of the time. And I cry because I want my baby back. I want her home for Christmas this year. But I can't have her. This year, I didn't get to buy Shanda any presents. There are no presents for her under

my tree. Melinda has cheated me out of being with my daughter during this life. It is my wish for you, Melinda, that you live your life with memories of her screams and the sight of her burnt and mutilated body. I'm not sure who you love most in your life, Melinda, whether it be your mother or father, but I want you to imagine them in the trunk of that car. I want you to imagine the person you love the most begging and screaming for their life. I want you to imagine that person being the person lying on the ground who was burned and mutilated. Maybe then, and I doubt this seriously, you could feel a small portion of the pain our family feels. The proper punishment for Melinda would be to place her in a cell with pictures of Shanda's burned body and force her to constantly listen to a tape of my

daughter screaming like she did that night. Wow. I. Yeah. Yeah. So she was the last person to speak at Melinda's sentencing hearing. And then the judge made a statement. He said that he was not going to sentence her that day. He was going to wait until after Lori Tackett's sentencing hearing and pronounce both girls' sentences at the same time. What is the point of that? The drama? I don't know. That's it, right?

That's really strange. That's terrible to do to Shanda's parents. Yes. Yeah. Get it over with. Yeah. Yes. To Shanda's parents. Yes. Yeah. Get it over with. I. Yeah. Yeah. Did did the judge give any reasoning for that?

Not that I found. Yeah. I don't like it at all. So Lori Tackett's sentencing hearing began December 28th, 1992. So the following week after Melinda's ended. And it was nearly identical to Melinda's. They called the same witnesses. They, you know, presented the same horrible, vivid details about what happened that night. But Melinda loveless actually testified as part of her agreement she had to testify at this and so the girls were sentenced on january 4th 1993 that's

a long fucking time for them to have to wait after melinda's sentencing hearing when are you going to tell me their sentences because i am like creeped out over here. So Melinda was sentenced first and the judge began by citing all of the factors that were involved in the case, the gruesome nature of the crime, the victim's age. And then he laid out all of that stuff and then he sentenced her to 60 years in prison, which was the maximum allowed under the plea agreement.

Really? Yeah. She pled guilty to murder and torture. 60 years. That shocks me. It shocks me, too. Yeah. And this is what the judge said to her as he delivered his sentence he said

you still have time to turn your life around and do something good and useful with your life after prison shanda share does not i hope you take advantage of this opportunity melinda like sobbed uncontrollably when she was delivered her sentence and she was sobbing as she was led from the courtroom and taken you know to prison. Following that like immediately after Melinda was taken from the courtroom Lori Tackett was brought in and he the judge went through the same thing. He did all the details and she was sentenced to the exact same sentence, 60 years. In contrast, though, she had no response to it.

No emotional reaction. She didn't even flinch when she was given her sentence. There you go. Yeah. And she was the ringleader, right? Yeah. So it was Melinda who was mad at shanda right but she specifically enlisted laurie taggett because she thought that she would go along with it that

she would do it was the one who had the idea to burn her body and yeah yep um two days after the sentencing of melinda and laurie shanda's parents actually filed a $1 billion lawsuit against all four girls. So this is super common. We've heard of this before. Where they do it just to block the girls from being able to make any money off of their selling their stories or doing anything like it. Because apparently it was being talked about a lot that Lori Tackett was like shopping her story. Oh, fuck that. Yeah.

Yeah. that Lori Tackett was like shopping her story. Oh, fuck that. Yeah, yeah. And so I know that the suit was kind of settled or dismissed, but either way, a judge did block them from making any money off of their stories. Toni Lawrence was the next to be sentenced. She was sentenced on January 19th of 1993. Her hearing, in contrast, only lasted a couple days. The other

sentencing hearings had lasted a week or two weeks. And investigators actually got up and testified in her defense and praised her for her cooperation and being the one to come to the police. And Toni Lawrence spoke at her sentencing. She read a statement specifically to Shanda's family. She said, I'm so sorry about your little girl. I know that you can never forgive me for being with those girls on January 10th and 11th. But I would like to explain some things to you. I do feel very much remorse for your daughter. I've been locked up for 10 months and that time has been a living hell. I've had nightmares where I wake up screaming and can't stop to think for a second without seeing Shanda's burned body or hearing her screams. I was terrified of Melinda and Lori. Melinda had a knife and was going to

kill Shanda. I know I should be punished but in my heart seeing Shanda tortured and burnt was punishment in itself I didn't get help because I was scared they would kill me too that night and morning will live visibly in my mind for the rest of my life

I know you have the right to hate me I wish there was something I could do for you but all I can say is how very sorry I am I know you have the right to hate me. I wish there was something I could do for you. But all I can say is how very sorry I am. I mean, I think that's what we were had already said a little bit like, yeah, I think she was probably scared. I do, too. I completely believe that she would have been scared for her own life. Following that statement, Shanda's mom gave up, stood up and gave her her victim impact statement, her her reply, really. Right.

She said, I sat through three sentencing hearings and had to look and listen to my daughter's murderers day after day while they lied and put on acts worthy of an Oscar. I see attorneys trying to convince everyone that these girls are victims. The victim here is Shanda Renee Scherer and her family and friends. Tony could have saved my daughter's life that night at any given time. She chose not to. I mean, I think that's a completely reasonable position for her to have. I mean, I think that's a completely reasonable position for her to have. Ultimately, Tony was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which was the maximum sentence that was allowed under her plea agreement.

Yeah. So as I mentioned, Hope Rippey had held out. She was going to go to trial. It was going to start in March. And she ended up taking that plea deal as well. Her sentencing wasn't until June of 1993. And the defense made a motion to because of the publicity that had been around this to move her sentencing to South Bend, Indiana. At her hearing, Hope made a statement saying that her only action against Shanda had been pouring the gasoline on her body. That's the only thing that she did.

Oh, great. Good for her. Yeah. So following her statement the defense also called a psychologist to the stand and he stated that hope was at the end of the day she was immature and she had acted solely under the domination of melinda and laurie but tony laurie and melinda all testified and painted that, you know, they as part of their deals had to testify and they testified that she was actively involved in the whole thing. The prosecution also called all of the same witnesses from the previous hearings. And the last to testify was, of course, Shanda's mother. And she once again showed that video of those photos and she became

angry because hope wouldn't watch oh she looked down the whole time and so she she actually asked the judge to stop it and to make her watch and the judge ordered Hope to watch the video. Well, yeah, she fucking should. Yeah, she fucking should. 100% she should. And so following the video again, Shanna's mother made a brief statement. She said, imagine how you would feel if someone did this, did to your niece what you did to my child. You cannot know the pain we felt. There is no greater pain than losing your child. You cannot know the pain we felt. There is no greater pain than losing your child. Hope was sentenced to 60 years, but 10 of it was suspended for mitig the other ones did because she had held out for so much longer.

And so this judge at her sentencing said, Hope Rippey had choices. There were avenues of escape, ways to help herself, ways to help Shanda. She poured the gasoline so no one would get caught, even though she knew it would kill Shanda. Her lack of mercy, of tender courage is a horrifying lesson to us all. So that was the last of the sentencing. And following that, Shanda's mother made one of her first statements to the press. She said, I don't know what normal is anymore. I'm not the person I was when Shanda was here.

I'm going home to my new grandbaby who was just born. You have to move on, I guess. Shanda's with God. Oh, my God. Yeah. Where are they now? They're all out, right? Good behavior? In the 60-year cases. On December 14th,

2000, 24-year-old Tony Lawrence walked out of prison. You're kidding. After serving nine years of her 20-year sentence. Yep. Wow, I thought she would serve more than that. Nine years. Good behavior. Good behavior is typically about half your sentence.

Okay. Yeah. Good behavior is typically about half your sentence. Yeah. Following her release, she made a statement to one of the local television stations. She said, I didn't stop it. I couldn't stop it. I don't care what anyone else says.

If I tried anything different, I would have been dead lying there with her and they would never know i mean maybe maybe maybe i feel really weird that i'm oddly sympathetic i know it is yeah on november 3rd 2004 hope rippy's prison sentence was reduced so she got the 60 years but 10 of it was suspended her sentence was reduced. So she got the 60 years, but 10 of it was suspended. Her sentence was reduced to 35 years by an appeals court. The appeal judge said that he believed that, oh, I'm sorry, the appeal, the appeal judge was a woman. Jenny, that's typically a woman's name. She said that she felt that Hope was remorseful and likely to be productive in society. She said in making her decision to reduce the sentence that she took into account the fact that Hope had gotten her bachelor's degree while in prison and that she'd spent time training seeing eye dogs and speaking to various youth groups. Shanda's mother was

enraged by this reduction in sentence she made a statement afterwards saying she's taken every class she's gotten every degree she can get with my tax dollars she's done everything she can to get out early but it's just wrong she said the only thing she wanted was for hope and the others to serve their full sentences on april 28 2006 hope rippy was released from prison laurie tackett was released on january 11, after serving 26 years of her sentence. Wow. January 11th.

She was released on the 26th anniversary of Shanda's death. You're kidding me. No. Oh, that was an error. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my. Yeah.

Melinda Loveless is the only one of the girls who remains behind bars she has filed multiple appeals to get her sentence reduced among them was an argument that she was profoundly affected by childhood abuse in her home so this actually turned into something it actually resulted in her father being arrested and charged with various charges of abuse and battery and sexual abuse. Ultimately, all but one of the charges were dropped because it was determined that the statute of limitations was up and he ended up pleading guilty and getting like probation or something like that. But ultimately, all of her appeals were denied. But she is scheduled for release in september of 2019 what yep and that's the fucking terrible case of the murder of shanda share i will say i do believe i believe that tony believed that she would have been killed.

Well, I was just going to say, I believe, was it Melinda who said she was abused? Yeah, Melinda said she was abused, yes. Yeah, it would shock me if you could do that to a person and not have suffered abuse. And not have had some kind of, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, you weren't far off. Almost all of the girls are already out of prison and one will be released in a month the last one grief yeah well they're women now women yeah they're women yep oh that was horrible yeah yeah that's a terrible case thanks a lot please tell us

about something better well this well okay it's snakes nobody fucking dies right you're right no one dies and now i feel like a total asshat for even saying this i'm just really afraid of snakes so this is a really scary one to me i'm not i'm not making a comparison no but that's how that's how my spider case was. Yeah, so you inspired me with your spider case. You did a case a few weeks ago where this couple bought their dream home. Turned out it was run by spiders. Run by spiders? Yeah.

Overrun, I think is the phrase. No, I'm thinking like they check you in, they check you out. Like they own the house. Yeah. Like, they check you in, they check you out. Like, they own the house. Yeah. So, after you did that one, in our Discord, we have, you know, these different, like, chat rooms, so to speak.

One of them is a case suggestion area. So, someone suggested the case I'm about to cover. Yeah. And you had nightmares about it? I read the article. I'll tell you why later. But I did have nightmares about it i read the article i'll tell you why later but i did have nightmares about it i hated it i was like this is the worst suggestion ever i'm not doing it and also the person and i'm sorry i didn't write their name down because when you because you hate them

no when you scroll back in the discord i remember the article had a photo of a bunch of snakes on it. And I'm sorry, person who suggested it. I didn't want to look at the photo of snakes anymore. And by the way, the articles I pulled from for this had no photos of snakes in them. You exclusively went with articles that had no photos. When I look at a snake, a photo of a snake, whatever, I have a nightmare about a snake that night. So Casey, my sister Casey, is exactly the same way.

She's terrified of snakes, and just seeing a photo of a snake terrifies her. Yes. I am terrified of spiders, but I don't have that same reaction to a photo of a spider. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder why that is. I don't have that same reaction to a photo of a spider interesting yeah i wonder why that is i don't know but if there if there was a spider on the ceiling right now i would be like paralyzed with fear you would there would be a brandy shaped hole in the wall you would just be gone yeah no i i get it um anyway okay what i i don't okay i also i'm gonna say one more thing okay something i cut out of a previous episode so i told you that i thought it was really brave of you to share how afraid you

were you're right spiders yeah because you thought somebody was gonna intentionally kind of scare me with spiders you're afraid that's to happen to you with snakes now. So here's how afraid I am of snakes. I don't tell people I'm afraid of snakes. Yeah. Because I am afraid that they will then use that against me. Yeah. Yeah.

You've never had a snake experience, though, have you? You're just afraid of snakes. Okay, this is so stupid. Because I know this can't be real yeah but i have this memory of being like five years old i was out playing alone in my backyard i had like a little kid shovel yeah and there was this pile of dirt yeah and i scooped just a little off the top yeah and i swear my memory is that i saw like a snake's back going through the dirt pile. Yeah. Maybe it's possible. It's possible, I think.

But I ran to the house, was terrified. Yeah. Also, I spent so many summers at vacation Bible school. I'm sure there's some biblical shit mixed in there too. But yeah, I'm just very afraid. That's totally fine. No judgment here, Kristen. Thank you.

Judgment-free zone. We're just like a Planet Fitness on this podcast. Exactly right. We have pizza Wednesdays. We actually have nacho Wednesdays, but close enough. I've got to say, so I'm a Planet Fitness member. That's correct. And we are not sponsored by them.

Yes. Obviously, because I'm about to say something nasty. You don't feel like it's a judgment-free zone? Well, it's totally not. Yeah. But also, who brings cheap pizza into a giant room that smells like sweat? It is the worst. Yeah, no, thank you.

Those Pizza Wednesdays are disgusting. And they need to hear it from me, I guess. It is nasty. It is nasty it is nasty okay here we do you feel better working out on purple equipment than if it was just like black does it make you feel more excited actually yeah so they have a purple and yellow theme yeah going on it's bright in there yeah yeah i like it okay all right all right i was just curious i've never i've never been inside a planet fitness brandy please don't interrupt me i'm about to

give them my promo code for planet fitness no it's um i like it but it gets really crowded yeah yeah and i don't like that yep so i used to have a 24-hour fitnesship for years You'd go at 3 in the morning I did I would go really late Not 3 in the morning but I'd go at like 11 o'clock at night And then my dad would constantly worry That I was going to be abducted in the parking lot That's my dad for you Was this gym in Missouri?

No Oh god if I went to one in Missouri Chris and I would have He wouldn't have made it He would accompany you to the gym every night No. Oh, God. If I went to one in Missouri, Kristen, I would. Oh, he wouldn't have made it. He would accompany you to the gym every night. No, I went to the one on Shawnee Mission Parkway. It's not there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I went to that one for years.

I'm glad you survived. I did. Okay. There was a peeping Tom there. No. What are you talking about? Yeah, it was one of the employees. He was peeping in the women's. No. Yeah, and it was the guy that signed me up for my membership, like, initially. Wait, how?

Okay. That was, like, dates all the way back to when we were in high school. No. Yeah. Tell me everything. Yeah, it was this guy. He was a super nice guy. Sure.

Yeah. I bet he was really happy. Yeah, he signed me up for my membership and really liked him. He showed me around the whole place. And then, yeah, like two weeks after that, he was fired. And like some women caught him being a peeping Tom in the women's locker room. Yeah. That is nasty.

Yeah, it's horrible. Yep. And like apparently he'd been suspected of it, but nobody could prove it. And then somebody caught him. Red-handed. Where do you think that term red-handed comes from? Okay, I think it's old timey. I think that you had to...

Oh, somebody... Is it like the ink? Yeah, I think so. We better look this up. Yeah. What you got? Ooh. What? so i we better look this up yeah what you got oh what the expression caught red-handed has its origins in scotland around the 15th century given how it was used in its earliest references the

phrase red hand or red hand one word sorry i guess i didn't really mean to read that um referred to people caught with blood on their hands from murder or poaching. There was blood everywhere. Yeah. Wow. That was much more literal than I would have ever imagined. Hmm. Okay.

Well, that's according to mental floss. Well, they're never wrong. And neither are we. That's right. Here we go. Okay. Let's talk about snakes baby no you didn't like that i hate you thought it was kind of clever no no let's talk about snakes baby let's talk about you and me let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be let's talk about snakes let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Let's talk about snakes.

Let's talk about snakes. Okay. It was 2014. You are really, like, having... You look like me when I had to do this part. I had to do it. Like, somebody made us do these cases. Do you remember that time when we had to force me our head? Forced me into the spider case?

Why do we do this to ourselves? I don't know. I just... You know what it was? I felt guilty when I brought that up with you about basically saying wow, you really put yourself out there. That was kind of dumb. And you seemed kind of...

I was like, well, see, here's my thing. I have way too much trust in humanity that no one would do that terrible thing to me. You do, you really do, but my thinking was, you know, we say our biggest fears and people are going to use them against us. I've already revealed my other biggest fear. Okay, spiders and what?

Wilds. Oh. Sorry. Well, you whispered that that so no one will know. So nobody heard it. Can you bleep that? Yes. No, you don't have to bleep it.

I've already talked about it on here. Okay. Don't you remember that time that clown followed us around the mall? Yes, I remember because you like lost your mind. I was terrified. You were. You okay now? I mean, it's been like 20 years.

Okay. It was 2014, and Jeff and Jody Brooks were on the hunt for a house. They wanted a place that they could live in for the next 20 years. So they did what anyone who has ever shopped for a house has done. They went to houses, looked around, made decisions. Typically, that's something you do with your real estate agent. Your agent lets you into the house. They lock up afterward. Yeah, pretty standard. Yes. But when Jeff and Jody wanted to look at this like modest ranch house in rural annapolis maryland they learned that

things would go a little differently the seller's agent would have to be there in fact the seller's agent would arrive a little early before they got there okay red flag red flag red flag now hold on hold on okay red flag so she would be there just to unlock the house uh turn on some lights you know make sure it was presentable and get rid of all the snakes so i do want to pause here my dad's a real estate agent yeah um and we've looked at way too many houses together. The one thing I can say is that at a certain price point, like a really high price point, sometimes this will happen. Not always, but sometimes the seller's agent will insist upon being there. This was not at that price point. No. But it makes maybe a little more sense when you hear the background i when i was a

teenager when my parents were my dad and lisa when they bought the house that um that we lived in by by the high school right the house we looked at another house that same night that we looked at that house and like the family was there at the house. It was so fucking weird. Okay. Let's pause. Bad idea, people. Yeah. People go into your homes.

Okay. By the way, my house is on the market right now. So this is like very fresh. Yes. People go into your home because they want to test drive it as their own home. Yeah. And if you're there and a bunch of your knickknacks are around and your family photos are around, it ruins it. Yeah.

By the way, my mom once toured a home where the couple was there and the guy was massaging the woman's feet. No! And that's how they got the home they live in now. And then you winked at your mom. Yeah. Winked at Sheree Ray. Hey, I could be worked into this deal.

I think a cash offer could really help. So the deal is that this seller's agent, whose name is Barbara Van Horn, was related to the seller. In fact, the seller was her mom. And plus, Barbara lived right next door. Okay. So she would pop on over. Yeah, so she pops over. Just sweep those snakes right out of there.

Yes. I mean, no, this is a totally normal house. Calm down. Okay. Anyway, like I said, nothing weird going on here jeff and jody pulled up to the house okay so i've got the location here i'm well i'm gonna okay i'm gonna tell you the location i'm gonna ask you not to google it just yet i'm gonna have you google it at the end to look through the pictures. Oh, okay.

Because you haven't given the reveal that there's snakes in the house yet. No, that's not it. Located at 631. Can I type it in? Sure. 631 Truxton Road, T-R-U-X-T-O-N Annapolis, Maryland Okay, I'm ready to go So they pull up to this thing

They are charmed It's not some flashy house It's just a modest home But it was like exactly what they wanted Yeah There was an office for Jodi on the main floor Little Thomas and Lily Could each have their own bedroom.

Each have a 50 pet snake. Please do not jump ahead. Right now we're in the happy part of the story. There was a spacious backyard, Brandy. With a snake pit in it. And oh, the location. They were just a quick bike ride away from jody's parents it was the perfect place to raise a family okay guys brandy had some hair it was a snake just Just right in your ear.

Okay. Now, okay. There was one minor issue. At some point, a neighbor mentioned that the house had a snake problem. So they asked Barbara about it. And they say that Barbara was very reassuring. Yeah. We used, you know, it's a stone basement.

You occasionally get a snake in there every now and again. We've gotten that taken care of. I wouldn't worry about it at all. You are good. You are so good. So she said, there are no snakes in the house. I swept them all. The neighbor was mistaken.

They say that Barbara even told them that she'd hired an exterminator to perform a snake treatment and what the fuck is that is that a thing well so they perform this snake treatment which is when you massage the snake that's exactly what that sounds like and then he'd conducted an infrared study so it was all good oh okay okay neighbor was maybe working with old information when maybe they like had one or two say i don't know we looked at a house when i was a kid that had a stone basement that's why i said that and the realtor told my mom that occasionally they get snakes in there because of the basement my mom's like thank you so much we'll see you later yeah i wouldn't even look i'd be like and i think my

mom did not go into the basement because of it like she was like getting ready to go down there and the realtor was like you know it is an older home it's a stone basement i believe it was um like over off antioch somewhere okay anyway um i was seven probably so i don't know for sure um but yeah i believe my mom was like getting ready to go down to the basement where the laundry was and the realtor said something about it being a stone basement and occasionally get snakes down there my mom like reversed yeah no i i would dash out of a house like i remember loving the house because it had like a converted attic that like would be where my bedroom was yeah yeah i love a cool flight of stairs and then, like. Away from the snakes.

Yeah. Snake-free attic. You hope. Yeah. Okay, so Jodi and Jeff were relieved. The house was perfect. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. It for sure wasn't crawling with snakes.

Yeah. Oh, God. Did you just see a snake? No, I just, like, I get shivers. We are a fucking mess. My hair tickled my ear. I thought I was being attacked. So they knew they had to have it, so they made an offer.

And are you ready for the good news? They got it. They got it. There were no other offers on the table. They did a home inspection in November and it. Yeah, there were no other objects on the table. They did a home inspection in November, and it went great. There were no snakes. Is that when snakes hibernate? Is that a thing?

Very good, Brandi. So I should say, I don't know if they hibernate, and I'm not Googling it, because I might come across a picture of a snake, but I know they are certainly not as active in the winter. Excellent. Great. Oh, God. So they closed on the house in December for $410,000.

Man, that's expensive. I know. It's funny because I saw the house price before I saw a picture of the house. And I was like, man, they weren't kidding when they said modest ranch. Jeez. Come on down to Kansas City. I know. The housing prices are amazing here.

Things were awesome. They put in a swing set for the kids. They painted bedrooms. But the house had kind of a strange scent. A musk, if you will. Oh, no! Oh, no! Yeah, so it had this funky musk that they couldn't quite place.

You know, probably the sort of thing that you go in it and you're like, we'll just clean it and it'll be fine. We'll paint. That'll cover up. Yes. Maybe the old owners had a cat. Yeah, a real musky cat. Sorry.

Then they noticed this stuff on the floor that looked kind of like coffee grounds. Oh my god, what is that, snake shit? Yeah. Okay. And then all of a sudden there were these snake skins in the basement. You know why snake skin is bad? Because it means there's the presence of snakes? Yes, and then also that that snake is now bigger.

One day... Oh, this is gross. One day, they found a small black rat snake stuck to a sticky pad on the basement floor. Okay. Then, the weather started to warm up. Oh, no. And they started hearing sounds. And they started hearing sounds. There was, like, movement in the house, but none of them were moving.

Oh, no. The snakes are in the walls? Are the snakes in the walls? Pretty soon. Are the snakes in the walls, Kristen? Jeff and Jodi realized that the sounds and the movement were coming from inside the walls. Oh, there's snakes in the walls! Snakes everywhere.

Snakes. Oh, God. Oh, this is disgusting. This is the worst. Soon. Casey's going to be so pissed at you. Just so you know. I'm pissed at myself. I was reading this today before you came

over and I was like, I can't believe I did this! Um, oh god. So, you know, the weather's just getting warmer and warmer and the snakes are like moving and grooving all up in their walls, everywhere. Oh no!

Okay, so then they started seeing the snakes. Oh gosh. Their home was just like, there's no other way to put it. It was just infested with black rat snakes, which I know they're not poisonous, but they were fucking snakes! They can be up to

seven feet long. What the fuck? You haven't even heard the worst part. They can live up to 25 years apiece piece these fuckers are okay so you might be thinking if you're some kind of snake apologist or something. Snake apologist. That like, oh, well, at least the good thing with like these really big snakes is like, they can't get into tiny places.

No, because the babies are tiny. And, get this, these fuckers can be, oh God, they can be seven feet long just chubby as hell and they can fit through they can fit through oh god oh a a space about the size of a half dollar No! Yes! Oh, gosh! This is terrible. And these snakes, oh my God, I'm not done. These snakes are like, oh, one of the articles I read, which, by the way, the Capital Gazette did amazing reporting on this, and they didn't include a bunch of pictures of snakes, so. Winners. Thank you. They refer to them as acrobatic

because these snakes can climb brick walls. They can just slither on up. Yeah, I've seen that. No, stop. They can squeeze themselves into a home with ease. And you know, come wintertime, they're just like us. All they

want is to curl up in a warm, cozy space like your home. With, like, I don't know, a book and a glass of scotch. And they got, like, a wool sock on their tail. And if you think that these snakes like to spend their winters solo, you are wrong. No, they get up in a snake nut. A snake ball. It's worse than what you are thinking. This particular brand of snake.

This particular brand of asshole. They sleep in like a big pile. Yeah. Once they find a nice winter home, they like to hang out there. For the next 25 years. They have sexual intercourse, which results in a bunch of

disgusting little snake babies. Then they return to that home. Every winter? Um, yeah. Like, it's a favorite vacation spot. Oh! And soon, word gets out in the little snake community

about this hot snake hangout because... Hot snake sex pad. That's right. Because the snakes release a musk! And it's like the calling card and they... because the snakes release a musk. And it's like the calling card. And they go.

So that's what Jeff and Jodi's home really was. It was a snake nightclub with no bouncer. But Jeff and Jodi did not understand that yet. They thought they maybe had a manageable problem on their hands. So they reached out to Home Paramount Pest Control. And they signed up for this snake treatment program. They gotta kill it with fire. Yeah, they just burn the fucking house down.

And hopefully you get insurance money. So they signed up for this snake treatment program because apparently in rural areas, Just burn the fucking house down. And hopefully you get insurance money. So they signed up for the snake treatment program because apparently in rural areas, you know, it's not unheard of for a snake or two. How many snakes they got? Do you have a number? I don't have a number, but you're going to get a lot of details. Okay. I wasn't even that scared of snakes before this case it really wasn't but this is terrifying right so exterminators came out and they were like wow

this is pretty intense they kept coming out doing their little snake treatment which i'm sure did jack shane but as the weather got warmer, oh, the snakes started moving around more. They hatched. No! They hatched! Yes, of course they hatched! What do you think? What do you think they were doing? Oh, I told you they were having sexual intercourse.

Sexual intercourse? And don't snakes lay eggs? They made love. Oh, I guess they did. As I mentioned, I did no Googling of snakes. But maybe they fertilized eggs. Maybe they do bang. I don't know. Don't Google it.

Oh, well, you can Google it, I guess. Go ahead. Let me find it out here. Snakes bang. How do snakes... being how do snakes oh how snakes make yeah snake sex oh god oh they do have sexual intercourse thank you they copulate the same way many other animals do. The male mounts the female, but they remain entwined for several hours

of mating before they go their separate individual ways. Oh, God. Can you imagine coming across two intertwined fucking snakes? What? Yeah, so the eggs they lay are What? Already what yeah so this the eggs they lay are what already fertilized but some snakes

carry their eggs inside their body and give birth to live they hatch the eggs inside their body and then pop a little snake out i don't like it is that my search history now? I'm gonna get snake orgy pictures In my ads Okay so You know these snakes are moving and grooving In Jeff and Jodi's house You know like they're getting ready for

Swimsuit season and Jeff and Judy Were just Jodi I'm sorry Were disgusted Horrified Then one day in April and Jeff and Judy were just, Jody, I'm sorry, were disgusted, horrified. Then one day in April. Oh no, what happens? They spotted a snake, like, casually coming out of their house. Just, like, out of their house.

It's like, see you later, Jeff and Judy! Bye guys! The next week. See you later ruby in a way the snakes i mean the snakes have lived there longer than they have it's the snake's house they're just humans who like bought a snake den the next week they found a seven-foot snake in their basement. I would die.

Yeah, and then the snake would eat you. Sure. The exterminators came, killed it, left. I shit you not, one hour later, a four-foot-long snake crawled out of the woodwork of their basement. Oh my gosh. The manager of the local branch of that pest control company. We can no longer help you. I'm very sorry.

He said, I've never seen anything like it. You need to call somebody else. Here's what happened. This is, oh, the pest control crew took out drywall in the basement. Because, you know, they knew they were in the walls. Okay. So they found all these snake dens in the walls. And they found snake tunnels in the insulation.

And they were like, okay, this is not a basement problem. This is a whole house problem. So they go upstairs. Start taking down more drywall. They find more dens, more tunnels. Snakes were tunneling through the insulation all the way from the basement up to the roof. There were snake highways in this home. Oh my gosh.

Finally, a snake inspector came and was like, You're going to have to give them the house. Look, man, they have it fair and square. And so the snake looked at, what's his name, Jody? And was like, let's go to court! I've lived in this house for 25 years. No, so the snake inspector was like okay this house is infested it's not safe for children get the hell out of here yeah i don't know that the person said hell but my god yeah i could have told him it was probably said gtfo

yeah by that point jeff and jody had been in the home for all of four months oh my gosh they'd had enough they grabbed their shit they hightailed it out of that hellhole and over to jody's parents house and then they said let's go to court so the more they thought about it the more certain they became that real estate agent Barbara Van Horn lied to them and knew about this. Yeah. She had to have known. So they basically came to this realization.

She hadn't gone over to the house to unlock it to make sure it was presentable. Well, I guess they had. She had, but to make sure there were no snakes around. Jeff and Jodi's legal team did some digging, and it didn't take long to figure out that before Jeff and Jody bought the home, it had been rental property. And you're not going to believe this, but the people who rented it had definitely experienced snake problems.

And guess what? Their landlady was Barbara Van Horn. Oh! Oh! One set of renters were this couple named Jay and Amy. And they lived at the house with their six-year-old daughter. Oh, my gosh. They moved to Annapolis from California because Jay had just gotten this job teaching sailing at the Annapolis Yacht Club.

And, like, right away when they moved in, they found a snake in the house. So Jay says he called Barbara and he was like, what's the deal with this snake? And she was like, oh, you know, it's a rural setting. It's the country. Snakes happen. There might be one or two in the house. might be one or two in the house so this was the first time that jay and amy had ever lived on rural property and they're like maybe this is real yeah yeah so i'm i'm guessing that barbara was so laid back about it that they were just kind of like oh i guess this is normal, maybe. They rented the house for five years.

Yeah. The whole time they continued to find snakes and snake skins and snake droppings, which are apparently called scat. Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. Most of the snakes they found were between three and four feet long. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. Jay says he heard a rumor that a previous owner of the home

had an aquarium of snakes in the basement. Is this how it started? With a snake breeder? So this is what he heard, that there was this aquarium full of snakes. The snakes busted out of the aquarium and infested the walls. Turns out that was not

true. It was just a rumor, but I can understand why you would think that. Yeah. So Jay and Amy lived in the snake hotel until 2013. And at that point, a new couple rented the place, Rich and Kim. P.S. Rich and Kim now refer to that house as the snake house. Wow! Which you should. No. The first week they moved into the house, Rich and Kim's little daughter came up to them and said, There's a worm on my window.

So they went and checked it out, and it was not a worm. It was a baby snake. Pretty soon winter came, and things seemed normal in the house. Then the weather heated up. And guess what? There were snakes everywhere. Rich said he found big snakes like four and a half feet long downstairs. Meanwhile, don't worry, I am almost finished.

Meanwhile, Kim was disgusted. She kept finding snake poop on the floor, and she'd be bleaching the house constantly. Nightmare. They told Barbara, the landlady, what was happening, and Barbara called an exterminator. But it didn't work. Yeah.

Because it's infested. Yeah, you can't just remove one snake. Rich and Kim were pissed. This didn't just like remove one snake. Rich and Kim were pissed. This didn't seem like a new problem. No. And they were upset that it wasn't being addressed to their satisfaction. As in light this thing on fire. On fire.

Yeah. At one point, Rich was so mad that he took a dead snake and dropped it on Barbara's door. Yeah. Uh-huh. a dead snake and dropped it on Barbara's door. Yeah. Uh-huh. Finally, Rich decided just to seal off the basement.

That was where the snakes seemed to be coming from. So he figured, you know, we just seal it off. We don't go down there. That's where the snakes will live everywhere else. That didn't work. Yeah. We'll live everywhere else. That didn't work. A short while later, Kim and her teenage daughter were hanging out at home when they saw a snake coming up the stairs.

So they ran out of the house, and a neighbor came over and removed that snake from the house. And in case anyone out there is thinking, oh, maybe this whole neighborhood might just be crawling with snakes no okay that neighbor said look i've seen a couple snakes out in my yard over the past 35 years but never one in my home did i ever tell you by the time i was living in north carolina and there was like a shack of snakes next oh god okay so norman would always mow the lawn and he always said that there were snakes in the yard okay so i parked our car in like this driveway area and i would have to walk usually park mine too well he parked his on the street so i'm just saying so i walked through the grass to get into the house. I never saw a snake.

Okay. So, and part of that, I think, is my mind saving myself from this kind of thing. Anyway, one day, I came home from work on my lunch break, and the house next to us had been rented, but then, like, I think the tenants, like, up and left or whatever. Yeah. And I saw these guys, like, over in the shed working on it. And finally, one of them came to the back door.

He knocks. He was wearing, and by the way, sweating profusely, wearing a pair of overalls, no shirt underneath, which is the most disgusting thing ever. So hot. And he says to me, Ma'am. Ma'am, you better stay away from that shed over there.

There's a whole mess of snakes in that shed. And I freaked out. I freaked out. I freaked out. Of course you did. Because he's saying, there's a whole mess of snakes. It's just snakes on snakes on snakes. And I was an asshole. Because a nice person would be like, hey, thank you for telling me.

I was like, I wish you had not told me that. Like, it was just, oh, it was too much. I wish you had not told me that. I really didn't want to know. Like, I just, oh, God. How many snakes do you think were in there? It was a whole mess of snakes, Brandi. Snakes on snakes on snakes.

Which is Southern speak for too many. So many. I'm sure it was just all snakes. I'm sure it was a shed made of snakes. Okay, so Rich and Kim, they tried sealing off the basement. They tried talking to Barbara. And then in the span of two weeks, they found ten snakes in the house. No.

Bye. And they were like, okay, that's exactly what I have in my notes. I was like, and they were like, fuck this. Goodbye. So they left the house in June of 2014. And of course, as we now know, Jeff and Jodi bought the house in the winter of that year. So Jeff and Jodi suddenly learned all this history about the snake house. And they were like, this is bullshit.

Yeah. So they sued Barbara for $2 million in civil court. Absolutely. Absolutely. Barbara doesn't have $2 million, but okay. I think they should bring back the death penalty for this. I'm just kidding, Barbara. Although, good grief. They alleged that Barbara knew that the house was infested with snakes and withheld that information.

Yes. That's very clear. So the one thing I have to apologize to everybody about is this is very light on the court stuff, very heavy on the snakes. Yeah. Over time, they dropped their lawsuit to $1.5 million. I'm not sure why I would have bumped it to 5 million. But anyway, in September of 2015,

they entered mediation. Nobody really wanted a trial. It would be great if they could reach a settlement. Yeah. But they couldn't agree on anything. Oh my gosh.ara didn't think she owed them anything good grief fucking barbara yeah i'm not a fan no not a fan that what happened was horrible horrible what yeah it sucks okay i you were making a face. I mean, I'm not clutching my chest quite as much as you are. I've been clutching my chest a lot.

So by November 2016, they were headed for a trial, like literally days away from a trial. But then at the very last minute, they reached a settlement. How much? It's confidential. Fuck. I know. I hate that. What do you think? How much? It's confidential. Fuck. I know. I hate that. What do you think?

How much do you think? $750,000. I mean, it makes me so mad. Because to me, there's like not enough. Not enough money. There's not enough money

in the world. Yeah. If somebody was going to pay you $10 million to stay in that house for one night, could you do it? in the world. Yeah. If somebody was going to pay you $10 million to stay in that house for one night, could you do it? $10 million? For one night.

Yeah, I could do it. In the height of snake season. Oh, God. I would... It would be terrible, but for $10 million... Do you think you could do it? Probably not. I don't think you could do it either i couldn't stay in the spider house yeah i i would lose my mind and then the 10 million

dollars would go to like therapy or something yeah okay so the case was dismissed without with prejudice or maybe you'd come out there no longer being afraid of snakes. Maybe it'd be like immersion therapy or whatever. I mean, that, I don't know. You know when they make people hold a spider because they're afraid of spiders? Or they make you stick your hand in a tank of snakes? That sounds awful. It does. I can't imagine a scenario where I become friends with the snakes. They make you sit in a circle, like in the middle of a circle with clowns dancing around you.

And none of them murder you. But oopsies win, does, because they're all creepy. And you're like, I knew I should be afraid. I knew it was going to happen. So that's the extent of the legal stuff. Yeah. But would you like to know what happened to this house? Yeah.

So Barbara Van Horn works for Champion Realty. And according to the property records dug up by the Capital Gazette, Champion Realty bought the house from Jeff and Jodi for the exact price they paid for it in December of 2014. They say that they hired experts to determine where the snakes were entering the home, and they sealed all of those entrances.

Did they just cover the house in duct tape? How can you be sure? I don't know, but I don't trust it one bit. I don't either. The assistant manager for Champion Realty told the newspaper that the house... I'm sorry, the assistant manager is making the official statement? I'm sorry.

I threw that in to be shitty, but yes, it's true. This person said that the house didn't have a snake problem. It had a mouse problem and the snakes and the snakes were just coming in after the mice no which like okay even if that's true what the fuck no wonder peter is not the manager of champion royalty i realize you didn't say his name but i'm guessing he's a p. He sounds like a Peter to me. The company spent $90,000 renovating the home, and now they say it's not a snake house, it's a great house.

Oh, my gosh. They knocked down walls, they gave it a makeover, and on April 20th of 2017. 420! Yes, they put it on the market for $429,000. Has it sold? Four days later, it was under contract. Wow.

So in other words, if you want to buy the Snake Airbnb, I'm sorry, you can't. It's already been bought in. B. I'm sorry, you can't. It's already been bought in. So go ahead and Google it now, because now it's like the made over. And I'm wondering if you find it charming enough that you would go live there. Snake hat. Oh, it is a modest

ranch. I know, really, right? Super modest. Are we calling this a ranch that's okay a california split isn't it what they called it in the articles which i did not like they called it a rancher a rancher which i found very confusing because a rancher is a person that is a person i thought when you walked in like this it's either like a side-by-side split or a California split. Yeah, to us that's a California split.

Yeah. I don't know how they do it in Annapolis. I mean, what do they call it in California? A snake den. Just a split. You're so proud

of that joke. Look at you. Look at you. Huh. Yeah, I mean, it looks made over. Yeah. Great.

Great. I'm sure the snakes love it. Yeah. I'm sure the snakes are loving their new sex pad. I just spat everywhere. Is it on the water? I think it's near water. Are you tempted?

No! Okay. The screened- green porch is nice. You think it's snake free? I would never call this a ranch. Okay. Well, this is the problem. I'm not upset at you.

No. I'm in no way upset at you. I would just never call this a ranch. We just, we don't, that's not what we do here. Yeah, that's not how we do it here in the Midwest. Yeah, it's not that far from water. Burley Creek looks pretty close. So as I was researching this case,

I started to think about an infestation that I had when I rented an apartment many years ago. Baby mice. No. So one day, because initially I was reading these stories and I was like, how did people find a snake in the house and stay there? And then I remembered one time when I was living in North Carolina, I came home and there was like this thing kind of, not on the ceiling,

but like up against the wall on the ceiling. kind of not on the ceiling but like up against the wall on the ceiling and it was like an inch and a half long this like brown thing kind of like tube shaped i was like what is that it looked so weird to me so i went and got a broom and i kind of knocked it and the thing flapped its wings and flew around my living room. It was a fucking bat. Holy shit!

It was a bat. Have I not told you this story? No! Okay, so I Oh, I lost my mind. I, you know, threw the door open, managed to get the thing out.

I was losing my mind. Yeah. So, you know, that happened one thing out i was i was losing my mind yeah so you know that happened one time and i was like oh my god i must have like left the door open too long when i was bringing in groceries or something and a bat got in yeah oh my god terrible okay norman and i hadn't been dating for very long yeah like we're talking like a couple months one day I woke up to go to work yeah I went into so I had my clothes in like another room yeah because this apartment was like way too big for me but like there are like five apartments that you can rent in Elizabeth City and this was one of them I went in there and I had a pair of black tights that I wanted to wear. I'm so scared. So I had this pair of black tights that I wanted to wear with my skirt.

And so, but I noticed that there was like a black sock that was stuck in the tights. So I reached in. With the bat? You touched the bat? Do you have rabies? Did you ever get 18 shots? So I reached in to grab the sock. As I was pulling it

out of my tights, the sock moved and I screamed and I flung it to the ground. It went splat on the carpet, wings out. I lost my mind. Peanut! Peanut came running in. Norman came running in. Freaking out. Norman got, like, a thing of Tupperware from my kitchen and, like, scooped the bad out. And, okay, side note. He then tried to, like, wash the Tupperware. No, that's trash now.

Yeah. That belongs to the garbage. It's like he thought it was, like, $5 million Tupperware. No. Goodbye forever Tupperware no goodbye forever so the funny thing is as i said there were like five apartments for rent in elizabeth city and so norman had actually rented that apartment like a year earlier and he had a bat when he was there he had had bat problems so i talked to my landlords and i said i'd have had bat problems. So I talked to my landlords and I said I'd had bat problems. And my landlords were so shitty and they were like trying to act like this was some new thing. And that maybe I had left my clothes out in the laundry area.

So the laundry area was kind of like on a screened in porch. But like I didn't leave my clothes out. on a screened in porch but like i didn't leave my clothes out yeah so anyway the real reason they were pissed was because at the time um that morning when i had the bat in my tights yeah i was supposed to write a column for the paper and so that's what i wrote it about because it was such a crazy story yeah and i didn't say the name of the apartment building but i think you know people figured it out when you got got five, it's just process elimination. So I moved out of there. Yeah.

A new guy moved in. He ended up having to get rabies shots. Well, I'm concerned that you touched a bat and didn't. You know, I seriously thought about getting the rabies shots, but I ended up not getting them. Did he say, let's go to court and sue the... Last I heard, he was thinking about doing that. And they were... This couple who own this place.

They were... Anyway, this is a long winding story. But at one point, I remember I was... So I was the education reporter. And this pest control guy ran for school board. And he told me this story of how he had gone to that apartment building to deal with the bats because he'd gotten complaints. And my old landlord told him that he would go up into the attic, which of course was infested with bats, with a shop vac and suck up all the bats with it.

You know, this is a pest control guy. And that guy was just like, sir, you gotta stop talking to me. It was, I mean, it was terrible. It was terrible. So I, I feel for people who are renting places that are infested. I mean, ugh. It was a nightmare. Yeah.

And that's the story of the snake house. And your bat apartment. Fuck. Did I never tell you that? No! Oh, my God. You think I'd be friends with you still if I didn't touch your bat and your baby shot? Podcast adjourned.

I don't, I remember I went to emergency care and I can't remember how the whole thing went down. And they were like, ma'am, you're fine. I think really

I'm so afraid of shots that I think I heard 18 shots to your gut. Yes, 18 shots. And I was like, nope. Thank you. No thanks. Oh, fuck.

Beans. Yeah, that was not great, huh? No. Should we answer some questions? Yeah. What do we got? Hit me with your best questions. Why don't you hit me with your best questions?

You guys, if you haven't signed up for our Patreon yet, you're missing the sweet picture of Kristen and I at sophomore homecoming. Yeah, Brandy's mom.

And in case you're like, wow, I don't, I won't know who's Brandy's mom is in the Discord. Her username is Brandy's mom. That's correct. Posted a picture of us looking so fly.

Super fly. Norm said, I can hear Casey and JoJo in the background of this picture. Did you notice how color coordinated you were? I know. And why am I so tan? You were super tan. I remember being that tan. I remember you being that tan.

You looked lovely that year and i was wearing like the exact same dress as our friend christine which was like you guys are like the sandwich you guys are one end but like why the hell you know what okay my dress was ten dollars from burlington coat factory and i felt like i couldn't pass it up it's my favorite dress i ever wore to a dance yeah that was my favorite on you too. Yeah. I remember we, you were with me when I picked it out. Was I? Yeah, we went to Dillard's at Oak Park Mall and I was like, I don't know, it's pretty racy. And you were like, it's the dress. And it was on clearance for like something crazy cheap. Well, yeah, we obviously had no money. We had zero dollars. Everything we wore was crazy cheap. Ooh.

Brooke asks, what is your favorite restaurant in Kansas City? Mmm. Mmm. Love it. Love the question. Okay, if you're visiting from out of town, you have to go to Joe's KC. Absolutely. That, in my opinion, is the best barbecue place.

Yes, but we disagree on the best thing to get there. And so Brandy's wrong. Yours is the more famous one obviously you get the z-man z-man which is a brisket provolone cheese an onion ring on top here's my big beef with that okay let's see what i did there oh god yeah very clever brandy amazing i don't like cheese and barbecue together yeah well i get, what do you order? I get the Hog Heaven, which is pulled pork and sausage with a healthy dose of barbecue sauce on it. It's so good.

Okay, that does sound really good. It's so good. If you want like a fancy thing, Gold Knox. We love the Gold Knox. It's a steakhouse. It's so cool. It's this awesome steakhouse it's in the stockyards district and it's like you like feel like you need to order an old

fashion like the minute you walk through the door which of course i did yes um yeah it was just it's a really cool it's a cool yeah it's super cool and just like cool atmosphere for italian i like garroso's yeah big fan delicious really there's so many good restaurants in kansas city except for the one that um gave us yeah which somebody's asked us to name and we're not gonna do well okay so what we're talking about is the time we went out for hot wings and it was a disaster lots of toilet time afterward someone asked us in the in the discord or actually no it was on patreon they asked us what was the name of the restaurant yeah and i named it on there but i don't want to say it on

there i don't want to say it on the podcast yeah on air trying to get we're trying to get sponsored when by saying that we're doing nothing yes we're just trying to put out quality you know quality content and not make people pissed at us and get no cease and desist. Preferably. Shanna asks, I'm curious if you had the chance to snap your fingers and make or change a law, what would it be? I know what mine would be. You do? Yeah.

Okay. I would get rid of the statute of limitations. Yeah. Particularly when it comes to sex crimes? Yeah. Okay. I would get rid of the statute of limitations. Yeah. Particularly when it comes to sex crimes. Yeah. I don't understand why there's a statute of limitation on sex crimes. It's ridiculous. I maintain that whoever made it was, like, a rapist.

Probably. Really? I mean, like, why? And that guy must have been sweating when he came out with that idea. He's like, hey, guys. I'm this crazy idiot. I'm hoping a couple of you are rapists, too. Yeah. But, like, the idea that you can.

That enough time has passed that a crime you commit doesn't matter anymore is ridiculous. That's a really good answer. I don't have a better one than that. Well, in your face. Let's see. If you're not fired up enough about that, you should go watch The Keepers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Available on Netflix. That's what really got me fired up about statute of limitations. Yeah. You know what? It did me too. It did me too because the violations still occur. Yeah. You're still dealing with the ramifications of the violation.

Why would an arbitration? Yeah. 20 years is 20 years exactly it doesn't matter anymore too bad yeah yeah ann asks what are your favorite books doesn't have to be true crime related i'm looking for some summer reading suggestions lol um my favorite book that i have read in the past probably a couple Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter. I love Karen Slaughter. She's like a mystery writer. Pretty Girls blew

my fucking mind. I also love Gillian Flynn. I read all of her books before Gone Girl just Oh, I liked I liked Gillian Flynn before Gillian Flynn was cool. Good for you. I read Sharp Objects first, and then Dark Places, and then Gone Girl. And you're weird because you don't think Gone Girl was her best work.

I don't. I think Dark Places was her best, but it's super fucking dark. Yeah, I think you're crazy for thinking Gone Girl is not her best work. No. We've had this discussion before. We're never going to agree. So the book I read like every year, and it's just like a good, fun summer read. Yeah. best work no we've had this discussion before we're never gonna we're never gonna agree so the book i read like every year and it's just like a good fun summer read yeah nora effron's

book heartburn have i told you about no okay so in real life she was married to carl bernstein who was one of like the deep throat reporters guys so you know they had this like famous ish marriage i believe they had a child and she was pregnant with their second child when she found out that he'd been having an affair oh wow and what she did you know it obviously just shattered her but she took like a year yeah and she went and wrote this book called heartburn and it's fiction. Yeah. And it is technically fiction. I mean, she doesn't use anybody's real names, but it is hilarious. It's the story of a woman who finds out that her husband is cheating on her.

Yeah. It's so, so good. So well done. I have a book that I read like every year too. What is it? Maybe it's embarrassing because it's like a young adult novel. No, who cares? Looking for Alaska.

I love it. It's by John Green. It's maybe my favorite book I've ever read. Um, I read it like every year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm. And I cry every time I read it.

I cry more in books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was the book that I forced you to read? I always forget the names of books. The really creepy one oh first of all educated by tara westover is an excellent book it's a memoir yeah what was the

creepy one that i made you read you yes yes yes there is this book called you which i think the whole world has heard about now because of the netflix slash lifetime show but the book's so much better the book is amazing. Don't sleep on it. Okay, well, that'll be that for questions. I think it's all good. I think we've got some work to do. What do you mean? Some inductions.

Oh, yes. Yes. Were you really? Did you really not know what I meant? I totally forgot. Before we start the inductions, I want to hit a couple of points real quick. If you're wondering how the fuck you get inducted, you have to head on over to our Patreon and join up at the Supreme Court level. And we've had a couple of people that are like, hey, I think I answered the ice cream one and I didn't hear my name yet.

We had so many people answer that. So we had to, you know, we had a cutoff. We did so many on that. We'll do so many on the Zodiac. So if you answered one of the questions already and we didn't induct you, the next time we post one, get yourself in there. Insert yourself wherever you feel comfortable. Oh, and don't worry. If you're a member of the Supreme Court, you will be inducted.

Oh, 100 percent. We will get to all of you. Mm-hmm. For this round of inductions, we will be reading the inductees' names and their zodiac sign. M.K. Harris. Cancer. Yana. Sagittarius. Taylor Dean. The Crab King.

Cancer. Do you think he's the crab king because he likes crab, or is it because the cancer sign? Isn't the cancer sign a crab? Yeah, it's for sure because of the cancer sign. Well, you don't know. Maybe he's like the king of crabs. I hope not.

Maybe he's got like some itching. Taylor, let us know. Taylor, do you have some itching? Mondo. Taurus. Lillian. Taurus. April.

Aries. Sarah Dyer Scorpio We're the assholes. We sure are, Sarah. Holly Barnett Libra Welcome to the Supreme Court! I mean, if you're listening to this episode, maybe it's your first time.

Maybe you don't know all of this information. I'm going to tell you. For those of you who are regular listeners, you know, just zone out for the next 30 seconds or so. Oh, no. It's the same thing I say all the time, Kristen. You wouldn't know because you've never said it. Hey, guys. Hey, why don't you pop on over and find us on social media?

We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube. We're on Reddit. We are on Patreon. And then, you know, we're still working on those iTunes goals. We'd like you to leave us reviews.

Good ones, please. If you think we're super cool. Head on over to iTunes. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. And then you know what to do. Join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics.

Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from wonderful reporting in the capital Gazette. And I got my info from the crime library, the indie star and an article by William DeLong for a full list of our sources. Visit LGTC podcast.com.

Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.