My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 183 - Here We Back Are

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

Karen and Georgia cover Jacob Wetterling and the Mothman legend & Silver Bridge collapse. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Okay. I'm gonna scoot so I can see your face. I know. Okay. Good. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome back.

Welcome back, everyone. It's season five. We all took two months off together. What did you guys do on your spring break? Oh, my gosh. Was it the best? Did you drive all around? Oh, my gosh. Did you have the top down and listen to Britney Spears? Did you flip off cops? You nut.

What are you doing? Don't do that. That's crazy. Since we recorded a real episode. Two full months. And that was wild. And I missed it. It had been three years since we had taken a vacation.

That's right. Since the very beginning of this podcast. We had not taken a meaningful break. Sure. I went home for Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Once or twice. And we take a week off here and there and put up a live episode. Sure.

By the way, we also had to do work on those shows, too. Work on those. Yes. The live episodes are harder because you have to stand up the whole time and wear an outfit. And be charming as best as you can. Keep an audience with you for a low about two hours.

Sometimes four hours. I mean, it depends on what city we're in. And how long we want to talk to those people. And listen, if the home town goes long, then the home town goes long. We just stand there. But here we back are. Here we are back. I just took a shot of

Paul Holt's McClellan 12. We're here at the exactly right studios that we share with Billy Jensen and Paul Holt's Murder Squad. We let them record here. We share the space. We lovingly share the space

like family where you steal people's stuff and go tell them about it. I went over to look at our alcohol selection and I see hidden behind it thing of Knob Creek. No, Paul, you don't hide. I pay right here. It ain't that way. I'm taking a shot.

That's right. And then Jago's people noticed. Jay's sitting in his kitchen office. I just stole a cop's whiskey. He's retired. He can't do shit. I feel badass. What's your, what do you want to share? I have a whole thing of just, you know,

updates. I mean, two months worth of updates. This is going to be the longest update section we've ever done. Let me just take another shot. Hi, how are you? Okay, well, here's some news. Paul, we drank all your McClellands. Don't be mad.

Don't be mad. And if you are, that's fine too. You're allowed to have your emotions, but you're fired. As a fired person. Then we hire you back. That's right. At a lower rate. Do it. What's the most exciting thing, I guess? Live shows? Should we talk about live shows?

Sure. We're going to get all the information there. It's November 1st and 2nd. It's going to be freaking awesome. It's going to be like, like Murderino Con. Is that a thing? Yes. It's going to be a small, beautifully appointed Murderino Con. Yeah.

Where we get to hang out with roughly, how many? A couple thousand? A couple thousand people who feel like hanging out in a weekend in November. In Santa Barbara. In Santa Barbara watching live shows, live podcasts from the Exactly Right Network. Arts and crafts.

And then you guys are going to have your own meetups too, which I think is going to be great. Everyone's going to be saying there's participating hotels, so you're just going to be overrun by your friends. It's going to be great. That's right. I have a pitch. And listen, Marty's totally down for this. What if Marty and Jen...

I already have weird chills. No. I'll say no now, but keep going. Host a bingo night. Just absolutely not. Ben said he'll emcee it so that anyone can understand what they're saying. And the whole time, neither of them can hear anything. So they're going to be yelling what?

It's going to be a silent bingo. I shouldn't have said no before you got the idea out. That's my bad. That's fair. Why do you think I'm saving it for recording and not telling you in a text, even though I was so excited about it? You know what? Here's what I'm thinking. It's only mid-August. Yeah.

That means we have three months to try to convince Jim to come down for this weekend. Marty's already coming no matter what. Of course Marty's coming. But Jim is the anti-Marty. He is fiercely private like my dogs. I think I'm like a brawl. Like a bar room brawl.

Marty and Jim? Jim would beat the shit out of skinny Marty. Listen, Jim has spent his life beating the shit out of people. I heard some stories. Just as a sidebar, when we went on our 10-day Hawaiian vacation, we forced my dad to go on. He won't even go on a Hawaiian,

a tropical Hawaiian vacation. I don't need that. I don't like this. I heard some stories. Yeah, he's a street fighter that Jim killed. Good for him. But I'm sure he'd love Marty and I'm sure

he might be into this hang. I don't know. Well, my dad is about as to one time he and his friends dressed up like the pointer sisters and did a lip-sync. I'm so excited. I feel like it's an even fight. This could be in an anything-can-happen situation. My friend Doug who's going to be DJing

his incredible French pop where he also projects the videos, the old French pop music. Love it. He wants to do a karaoke night too. He's obsessed with karaoke. Amazing. Totally. I think we're going to have all kinds of cool things planned. I personally love the bingo idea genuinely.

Because you know how I feel about games like that. Bingo's the best. How about an UNO tournament? I have UNO in my purse right fucking now. UNO to the death. I also wouldn't be against a trivia night which clearly I've pitched many times and no one answers

when I say it. So I don't think anybody else is really interested in organizing it. I think Vince will do it. I mean, you'd have to write questions and stuff. It's like a whole thing. Steven, get your listen. Pen and paper out. We can do it all. What we're saying is won't you join us

on this amazing weekend in Santa Barbara? My favorite weekend.com gives you all the details, etc. And then we're also doing our next show after that is a UK and Ireland tour. And we added a Dublin show on November 25th

and a London show on November 28th. So there's going to be two shows in both those. There's also Manchester and Glasgow. I don't know what's sold out yet, but you can go get those tickets. And it's going to be really fun. There's still tickets left for the UK and Ireland. That's right.

They're different places. They're not the same. We deal with it. We know. We know because we went there and we're wrong about things. Never. This is how you learn. This is how you grow. Take another shot. The fan cult is fucking booming. Our website in general and our fan cult

have become next fucking level. My favorite murder.com. Check it out. But the fan cult is going to now have an exclusive merch store where you're going to get shit that you can only get on the fan cults. All new stuff. It's going to be fucking awesome. It's going to be specifically developed

with you and mine, fan cult members for you and mine. We were very passionate about what we picked out. We're also doing videos every fan cult Friday. There's one up right now that anyone can watch with Steven and Jay of A Would You Rather and then there's also

we're doing like unboxings and we're doing question and answers and would you rather and it's a lot of fun. So check that out. My favorite murder.com. I want to talk about Exactly Right Network real quick. Oh yeah. The Percast. Their episode this week is

they talked to the rock stars of the trap and release community. How fucking cool is that? I love it so much. Oh, you're doing like a TV guide for Exactly Right right now. That's right. Great idea. Okay, TV guide. Season five of The Fall Line is up. You can hear episode one on our feed and make sure you subscribe to The Fall Line.

It's a fucking great season and really important. Yes, they do amazing work on The Fall Line. Jensen and Holes, Murder Squad, The Boozehounds. They have Morgan Bauer, her missing person's case this week. This podcast will kill you is doing a wildlife disease called

chitridomicosis. Probably. And all the chitridomicosis fans out in the audience are like, what? She said it wrong. They're doing our thing. And tell us who the guest this week is on Do You Need a Ride? Do You Need a Ride? Is it this week?

No, on Monday it's our solo night ride episode. Oh, that's right. Chris and I and Steven go out into the night. It's scary though. Turn the lights off? Yeah, we drive around with no headlights on and we hit 16 bird scooters.

No, we just had to... It's that kind of thing where when we all plan stuff out, no one ever thinks, oh, we record everything on Monday. Like, Steven is sitting there going, well, I could record with you guys either 11 in the morning or 8 o'clock at night. Those are your two choices because I got stuff all day long,

which is brand new and exciting. So we did an 8 o'clock at night and then in the future we're going to record on different days than, like, say the murder squad or whatever. Oh, but do you know, Steven had just finished recording a murder squad. This is future episodes because

they had to do them all at once because Paul Holes is in town. And it's the case that I did. Yeah, the Neil Falls is the person that we talked about who you covered. The Las Vegas Live show. The guy that worked at the Hoover Dam that creeped everybody

out and got killed by a sex worker who picked up the gun and shot him back at us. They talk to her. No, they don't. Had their soul. We had her on as a guest and that comes out sometime in the future in the next couple months. So that's kind of a teaser teaser. They might not want us to put that in there because it's a future teaser. No, do it.

But I am so excited to listen to that episode. That's incredible. Because Steven said, oh, we just had this interesting one about a guy they're not sure if he's a serial killer. And I was like, what's this? Like finally break out of my own bubble. They're doing such important shit. I'd have chills if I wasn't

lightly sweating in this really hot fucking office. But also it's the cool thing about murder squad is because they need help. These are cold cases. They need help. So they have, you know, that guy in particular it's so frustrating because clearly when he attacked Heather, this was not the first time

that he had attacked or killed anybody. He had a kill kit. He creeped out everybody that was anywhere near him that like there's information to be gleaned about who else this guy did it to. Yeah. Who's people who, the people who aren't being spoken for. Right. I'm so

excited to see where that goes. Me too. Yeah. It's very, very exciting. Citizen sleuths. That's what he called them, right? Yep. I have one in my story today. Do you really? I'm like really excited about it. Having you been like chomping at the bit. Yeah. To do this again. I have been really excited and then

I've also been really nervous about what story I'm going to come back with. Right. And as soon as I started like doing the research, I was like, oh, I forgot how much fucking fun. I mean, not fun. This is terrible and horrible. But I'm enjoying like research is so much fun. Well, it's, it feels great to have your mind

occupied by something that you're genuinely fascinated by. Yeah. You're using the word fun because actually it's you're fascinated. Fascinated. You're, you're unbelievably upset. Yeah, yeah. But passionate. You're passionate. If passionate started with an N. That was

my acronym, fun. Passion. What it really stands for. Passionate with a capital N. This is like what school must have been like for other people that enjoyed it. For smart people who were encouraged. Right. It's like writing a book report of a book I actually like. But you actually read. Yeah, I was like into. Instead

of me looking at the cover of Silas Marner and going, this is about an old man for sure. Yes, we know for a fact. An old man is in this book. Keep writing about that. And just what are old men like? Yeah. Well, this guy is especially bent over at the shoulder mid back area.

I did want to bring up a couple things that have happened while we were, I was going to say out of town, but that's not technically, that's not the case. And the most exciting I would say is when we were on tour last time

in the UK, the last time we were back there two years. We did Steven, was it 2016? No. 2018. It was definitely 2018. I always remember the great Elvis throw up laptop of 2018. Oh, that's right. That's how Steven marks time. I blocked

that out. We were in Sweden and I get a text from Steven saying, hey, so Elvis throw up on my laptop and I'm taking it to the laptop doctor, but it doesn't seem to be working right now. Elvis throwing up on someone's laptop is the height of cat aggression.

Oh, yeah. Why not throw up into Steven's mouth, Elvis? He did throw up. Okay. Nothing ever happened. Okay, gross. Okay, so we know for a fact it was 2018. We had an amazing show in Manchester at Saint, I want to call it Saint Mark's,

but it was this, it was a converted church. Cathedral. That was just bewildering to do a show and it felt amazing. The audience was incredible and then after the show, we had a hometown

from a woman named Chloe that was among the greats. Truly a great storyteller, a really fun person to spend time with and she tells the story of a woman named Helen McCourt who was murdered and

at the end of the story she starts talking about how Helen's mother Marie is trying to get a law passed so that murderers who are convicted will not get parole if they refuse to reveal where the bodies of their victims are buried. Incredible.

It's an incredible concept. It makes so much perfect logical sense and yet it's never been enacted, I don't think anywhere. And on July 5th, 2019, Marie McCourt and all the people that signed all of those

petitions. Which a ton of murdering post of that episode which is fucking incredible. That's right. All kinds of people got active and let their voice be heard and they passed Helen's law and now in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it is the law that if you don't reveal where your victims buried

you don't get parole. Fuck yes. Amazing, amazing work. Congratulations. Good job you guys. Yeah, that's incredible. That's the kind of thing that like how exciting to be even adjacent to that. Yeah. So great job Chloe. Powerful. Chloe is the person who brought that

to everyone's attention. Yeah. And then of course everyone else that actually got it done. That was such exciting news to get in the middle of vacation. That's when I was like I wish we were back. I missed it. We could talk about this for you. Yeah, for sure. So exciting. Then of course, you know

season 2 of Dairy Girls premiered. The girls who live in London Dairy, Northern Ireland. Not Bill Fass. No. Totally different town. Different? They don't even like each other. No. No problem. Anyway. Have you been watching Euphoria on HBO? Oh yes.

I love it so much. It's so good. Friend of the show, Maude Apatow is in it. And she's so cute and funny. Everyone is dressed up. It's Halloween. Everyone is dressed up as a sexy whatever. Sexy whatever. And she's dressed in full Bob Ross costume.

Full Bob Ross dress. And I just love it. So it's just a perfect character. It's so good. She's darling. I love it. It's such a good show. The character cat is groundbreaking. Watching the trajectory now

have not watched the end. I haven't either. Okay. So I still have to watch the last episode. I'm sure there's something terrible coming for all of us. It's terrible. But I just as a girl who grew up fat, watching that girl have this renaissance

is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I love her. She's the coolest. She's gorgeous. But she's also like high school broken. And like I can't wait to see her. Like I want to see her in her 20s. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like get it like so finally she has it. Like I love her. She gets all together. I want to protect her.

But I love the way that show is like here's all the different ways you can be a girl. Here's all the different versions. And here's all the different things that might happen to you. And here's the way that you don't have to be victim to it. Here's the way that you can rise up

within it. I find it so I find it inspirational. I find the eyeshadow unbelievable. The one that looks like tears with the glitter. Oh my god. These kids are so good. How about a simple neon pink top line. Dude. Just why not go for it. I'm doing it.

You know I decided to be a wig person on my break. On my summer vacation I decided to become a wig person. Maybe because of that show. And so I bought some pink wigs. And they look like wigs. Yeah. They don't look great. With the little bob

like hot pink. Yeah. Sure. I just need better quality wigs. But I feel like the show is um, what's the word. Making me want to do stuff like that. Inspiration. Turns out I'm not 16. That's true. I'm 39. But look. That's the opposite of 16. Listen.

Hey. It's all in your mind. This is, we're on a timeline that goes by so fast. That's true. The difference between 16 and 39 is a blip. I don't feel any different. I do. You're not different. I'm not. None of us are. I mean these chits are still perky. Hey. They're not going anywhere. They are not.

They are not. Until you're almost 50. And I'm just like how are these getting lower? There's nowhere else for them to go. Yeah. The wrinkles in the morning are staying a little longer. Two. In my chest. There will be a day. There will be a day when you wake up and they don't go away. No.

That's what happened. That was also from gaining weight. I got this red line where I was like, what's this? A cut? And it just was the like double chin line. Jesus. On the chin. It's like, guess what? We're here to stay. Yeah. Moving in. This is the pain. We're renting property. The pain has arrived. Good night.

Whatever. Mother fuckers. Here's a great pubic hair to make it even worse. Goodbye. Eat more upset. Is there anything else that we've missed? That's all I want to talk about. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping

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Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corrie, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chautchilla, California.

They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry as the air supply for the trapped children dwindles a pair of unlikely

heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. I want to say okay, so I don't know who's first and I know Steven knows,

but I feel like we, I saw him reaching for his second mic and like, I know, I know, I know. But I feel like we can do whatever we want. I feel like this is like a new season. It's so true. We could do whatever we want, so. Let's pick who we want to go first and then let's ask Steven if we're right. Okay, let's throw the runes.

Do you want to go first? I don't care. Do you want to go last? I don't care. Mine's long and sad. Okay. And yours is? Mine's sad, but hopeful. Interesting. Okay, then I'm going to go first. Is that okay? Steven? Well, if we went off

of our Mary Vincent episode, then you would go first, which technically is last week, but if we went off the last time we recorded. Too much information. Can I just say a really quick thing about the Mary Vincent episode? First of all, thank you everybody for voting

and giving me a shit. So yeah, in the fan call, we had a vote for the top three episodes in those of the past three episodes that we posted. It was so fucking cool to see what you guys liked the most. Yeah. There's a couple people who piped up on Twitter to argue those where I wanted to go, hey friend, that's not her decision.

It was, it's called voting. Yeah. Get out there now and in 2020. That's right. But I would like to say this about Mary Vincent, who is a living, breathing human being today. If that story moved you, if you were inspired

by her strength and her fortitude and everything about that story, please donate to a local victims rights charity. Amazing. Because I think about that sometimes, you know, there's lots of people who like to ask us about

victims and comedy and murder and all these different things and somehow, you know, like we are supposed to answer for all of that when we just are talking about true crime. But when things like that, when we are talking about real people and living people, those people

do something in their name to make them feel like this is the good intended show that it is. Or at least if you feel like you want to, I guess, is what I want to say. Yeah. It's a good way to acknowledge what that person went through

and what people who didn't survive went through and to, you know, it seems like you're just throwing money at it, but you're helping those people by doing that. I know who came up with that phrase, throwing money at it, because money is what makes things go. It works. It's what makes things work. It's a great solution.

And it's what charities need when they're trying to help other people who go through really difficult things. So if you can do it and we realize that these days you either can do it or you can't, but if you can, that'd be a great thing to do in Mary Vincent's name. Or you can volunteer. Oh, I'm scared. I'm nervous about this one because

I want to come back with a bang. This is one I didn't want to do live. Minnesota's most famous crime, arguably Jacob Wetterling. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Let's do it. This is one of, this is the story that I started, I started to research and there's

so many twists and turns in it. And of course, a lot of that information is from the incredible podcast In The Dark hosted by Madeline Barron. She's incredible. The first season of In The Dark is about Jacob Wetterling and the disappearance and it is fucking incredible. Yeah. Second season's insane too.

She's so talented. The team that makes it so talented. And I got information from APM and from a blog called by a woman named Joy Baker, but I'll get into her later. Okay. So, all right. Here we go. 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling

was a totally normal American kid on a fucking totally normal Midwestern fall weekend. Picture it. Leaves. It's beautiful. In 1989. So he's 11 years old, 1989. I think I was, I must have been nine years old. So totally fucking remember this happening. And

St. Joseph, Minnesota is a totally normal American small town. It's just an hour from Minneapolis. The population is just about 2,500 people. So it's a small town, Midwest town. It's considered safe. Kids are allowed to play out on their own, left to their own devices and tell dark, which we all were. And I want

to stress for our younger listeners that helicopter parenting is around because of stuff like this story. Yes. They had to be helicopter parents because they realized all the crazy things that happen when you let your kid just go live their lives on their own. Go be in the world. That's right. Yeah.

So on the outskirts of town in a less populated, a little more rural area, dirt roads, corn fields, long driveways, that kind of thing. But it's not like, it's not secluded. It's just outside of town, of the small little town. At the end of a cul-de-sac live the Wetterling family. Patty

and Jerry Wetterling had four kids. And Jacob, he's born on February 17th, 1978. He's the second oldest. And on the evening of Sunday, October 22nd, 1989, Patty and Jerry are out at a function. And the kids are home alone, which is a totally normal

thing back then. Constant. Yeah. And since there wasn't school the next day, a friend of Jacob's is over. And the two of them along with Jacob's little brother, it was just 10, they want to go run a movie at the local Tom Thumb. They, it's about a 15 minute bike right away. So they call Patty to get permission.

And he's like, no fucking way. And then they're like, you know what we should do? They call back and ask to speak with Dad. And he's like, okay, but they're worried that, the thing that they're worried about is that they'll get hit by a car because they live in this rural area. There's no street lights, that sort of thing. So they make them bring

a flashlight, wear a reflective vest. Like that's their worry then. Right. You know. Because that's, that was the worst that could happen in their, in their knowledge. Right. Yeah. And so they let the kids go. So it's just around 10 p.m. It's just getting dark. The boys leave the Wetterling home and on the

right of the store, they hear some wrestling in an overgrown area, but they don't think anything of it. And on their way back though, it's now dark and they rented Naked Gun, which is like the most normal fucking 1989 thing to do. And just as the boys are about to ride

by a long gravel driveway, a man steps out of the shadows pointing a revolver at them. It's just so crazy because you think of like kid being alone as the thing you need to worry about. Not with two, with two people. Right. Well, and that's where the buddy system

kind of broke down. Right. That's where, that's how helicopter parenting came in. Where it's like, if there's not a mom within, you know, eyesight, then, then you have to figure out where another mom is. Yeah. It turns out kids need to be watched and kept safe from predators,

but we didn't know that back then. Right. You know. Well, in this idea of predators, I think that was kind of the dirty secret. Yeah. That was the thing people weren't talking about. Right. Because it was inappropriate or it was wrong or whatever. Or like not in our area. There's not pedophiles in our area. Now, of course, we have

what's the one that you can find a pedophile Yeah. In your neighborhood. Like PervNet or whatever. Yeah. And it's like they're just dotted everywhere. They're everywhere. Yeah. But we didn't know that back then. There was an innocent time. It was. Um, so the man has his face obscured by a black stocking cap. He's short and stocky

and in a raspy voice that one of the boys later describes as sounding like he has a cold. He orders the boys to throw their bikes into a little ditch and then life faced out on the ground. He asks them how old they are. And when Trevor, the little brother, says 10, the man tells him to run into this kind of nearby wooded

area and not look back or else he'd get shot. So Trevor takes off running then the man forces Jacob and his friend Aaron to face him and he tells Aaron to run away and not look back or he'll be shot as well. And Jacob Wetterling is now alone

with the man and when Trevor and Aaron finally reach the woods and look back Jacob and the man have vanished. The boys run home. They tell a neighbor what happened and the search begins. But only the abandoned bikes are found and the search is called

off by 3 a.m. and doesn't start back up until the next morning at 8 a.m. So there's all this fucking, you know, this police fucked up. It's so horrible. All the problems that went on with this investigation

but you can hear all about that in the dark. I just kind of, I touch on that. Well also wasn't it, I mean I haven't listened to it in the dark yet but wasn't it a thing where these are small towns that have never dealt with anything similar to this. So to them, they don't know that

thing of the first 48 hours. They don't know all of the things that now simply by the forensic files education we've all gotten in the past 20 years. These are the things that seem standard but back then they didn't know. The problem with that though is that the FBI are called in and people who should have known stuff

are called in and didn't do basic things like question surrounding neighbors for over a week if at all ever. Which is what you're supposed to do. You start in the small circle and you go outwards. I mean that's what we hear. So they didn't do a lot of those things and it's partly

because this became such a crazy media circus and there were so many investigators and so many different departments on it that it just became bungled. So the next day FBI and other agencies joined the investigation. Hundreds of tips are called in and officers and volunteers

conduct aerial and ground searches. The story goes fucking viral and the search becomes the biggest search for a missing child in US history. And at the time things like Amber Alert don't exist. That didn't happen until 1996 and we covered that in episode 52 actually.

And there isn't even the kind of laws necessary to deal with such rare crimes like stranger abductions because that kind of is rare. There's no national registry of sex offenders so there's no way for investigators to even monitor or track sex offenders even a town away.

So everyone sees Jacob's sweet face on the flyers. It's on pizza boxes. It's sent through the mail and everyone feels like he could be their kid and the horrifying way in which he was taken

really strikes people and scares them. So they rally around finding him. They wear white ribbons pinned to their shirts. They form mile-long human chains just to pray for his return because he just feels so fucking helpless probably. And I fucking totally remember this. By the end of the first

week nearly a hundred officers from various agencies are working the case. The searches are putting in 18-hour shifts and Patty Wetterling says at one point she looked out her window and the people all wearing black all the investigators they were searching shoulder to shoulder

doing that ground sweep and she said it reminded her of a Stephen King movie just so horrifying. But somehow it took more than a week before authorities began to question neighbors and fully canvas the neighborhood and that's known to be one of the most crucial moves in an investigation of this

nature. And despite the massive search the only evidence found are footprints and tire tracks at the abduction site which are casted. Is that the right word? When you do a cast it's cast or casted I think. Well that's what they did with the prince. One of the problems

that arises that the story goes national I remember a current affair like they fucking loved it. What's his name Moripovich wait what's the guy's name with the mustache. Pat O'Brien? No. Corraldo? Corraldo thank you. Corraldo fucking

milks the shit out of it in a really creepy way and the story goes national and the law enforcement asks the public in the nation for tips and help which is a bad fucking thing to do because it's probably local and now what happens is people from all over the country call

in these crazy tips that now investigators have to follow up on. So they have all these leads that probably go nowhere you know some guys like I saw a kid that looks like him in fucking Alabama they have to look into it. Right. But none of those tips lead anywhere. So then two months later after Jacob's abduction

another boy comes forward to law enforcement with information that he thinks is relevant to Jacob's kidnapping. So nine months and ten miles away from Jacob's abduction nine months ago this boy he's 12 year old Jared Shiral and he he had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted

and physically threatened by an unknown assailant and this fucking 12 year old boy comes forward and is like I think this is connected to Jacob's kidnapping. It's unbelievable. This guy Jared is the fucking hero of the story. We'll get into it. So Jared had been

walking home in the dark by himself from an ice skating rink in cold springs which was just 10 miles away in January 1989 when a man had pulled up and asked him for directions the man then got out of the car had grabbed Jared and forced him into the backseat of the car telling him he had a gun

and wasn't afraid to use it and he drove Jared to a remote area sexually assaulted him and then later let him go and the man told Jared if the authorities ever got close to finding him they he'd kill Jared first and then he told him to run and not look back or he'd shoot

ooh yeah so the family had reported the kidnapping and assault to the police at the time and based on Jared's description of the car and the man authorities were able to connect it to a man a local man that was on the police's radar due to burglary charges and he'd

been caught driving with a police scanner in the same kind of car that Jared described and he said that the man had a police scanner so they're like let's fucking talk to this creep and but he's unable to pick him out of a lineup and because of Jared's description of the man's car

it didn't totally match up he said that the car had a sports rack on top and the car like didn't even there was like a fucking the same fucking car that the man is released okay okay but now nine months later when Jared tells the story to the FBI they believe the cases are connected

because of the details Jared's story leads FBI agents back to the original suspect in the case he's an unemployed man who lives in the town of Painesville which is about 30 miles from St. Joseph and his name is Danny Heinrich he denies any

knowledge about the abduction of either Jacob or Jared but he fails a polygraph test he agrees to provide investigators with his tennis shoe prints and the souls match the prints taken at the Jacob abduction site and it's also found that Heinrich Sears brand tires on his car

match the plaster cast of the tire at the scene of Wetterling's abduction oh my god right and then the other thing too that I found interesting is that they didn't see Jacob driven away in like a getaway car and maybe it's because nine months earlier the car had been described

so this time he learned to hide the car and he was hidden up the driveway behind some trees so he walked him to the car makes sense so they have this is the fucking like talk about re-traumatizing a victim they have Jared sit in Heinrich's car in the back seat

to see if he can recognize it as the car he was abducted in and this fucking strong as hell boy says that on a scale of one to ten the vehicle is an eight or nine in terms of how similar it was to the car in which he was abducted in a year earlier but they don't do fucking semen tests

on the back seat none of that shit but Heinrich has put under surveillance he shakes the tail with several times with evasive maneuvers which is like if you're innocent you're not trying to get away from the fucking car yeah just go to 7-Eleven and come back but obviously

but for some reason after two days they stopped trying to find him or follow him with no explanation so during a search of the home with his father investigators find the police scanner and they find a locked trunk containing two photos of little boys one

with a towel wrapped around him and another in his underwear both taken in Heinrich's home so but he says to them those photos make me look bad and you can't take my properties so they give the photos back to him and he burns them they give him the photos back

they do convince him to stand in a lineup for three boys which I think the photo on the post of this you can see it he's in a lineup and they show it the lineup to three boys two who reported seeing a suspicious man in the car

near Wetterling's house in the week before the abduction so who the fuck knows who they actually saw and they also have Jared look at the lineup and none of them pick out Heinrich but the kids who aren't brought in to see the lineup is fucking problematic Aaron and Trevor who were with Jacob when he was fucking abducted

and they were not brought in to look at the lineup and it's also criticized that the investigators didn't have Heinrich speak since he was said by everyone to have a low raspy voice so that didn't happen and also I wonder if anyone

thought to put a mask like a nylon over his face to see what that would look like because clearly it wasn't a guy that was just standing there and there's so many other things to that when you listen to it in the dark season one you'll know like he was known to wear camo around town and all

the victims were saying that this man had camo on like same kind of clothes that sort of thing like so many little fucking things that just made him a probable suspect that should have been looked into further you know so Heinrich is released though they take some hair from him, hair samples from him

then on February 9th 1990 an event that has been called the most fatal flaw in the Wetterling investigation occurs when a drunk Danny Heinrich is arrested and questioned by two inexperienced FBI agents who didn't really know the details of the case

they questioned him about the kidnapping and the molestation of Jared Shirol but not they didn't know he was connected to the possibly to the Jacob Wetterling case the agents allegedly tell detectives that they don't think Heinrich is guilty and he's released again I know

and then a man a fucking pedophile convicted pedophile named Dwayne Hart comes forward in 1991 he's a suspect in the case and they go after him and he's like I'm friends with Danny Heinrich and he asked me how to that month that Jacob Wetterling went missing asked me how to fucking hide a body

like this fucking pedophile is like I'm telling you who the person is right now and so the investigators don't follow up on this and that's the last we hear of Danny Heinrich in the Wetterling investigation for more than 20 years it's easy

to sit here 30 years later however long it is and put all the pieces together but these are those things because the first thing it made me think of is John Benet how are you assigning any inexperienced anybody

to a case like this and you know everyone wants to blame a simpler time 1989 but it's like the FBI and fucking criminal profiling existed it wasn't like fucking there weren't homicide detectives those people existed they you know

and I know that there were so many leads and this was a really emotionally charged investigation high pressure but they had him and there's more easy for us easy for us but god damn it it's frustrating but I think it's and I'll tell you it's acknowledged that they fucked up

by them so here we go well and also these are the things not that it counts but these are the things that then later on make it so much better because it's that thing of never again yeah next time they they don't they don't repeat the same problems you gotta hope yeah okay

meanwhile the Wetterlings established the Jacob Wetterling Foundation which works to help communities and families prevent child exploitation and Patty Wetterling becomes a national advocate for missing children this woman is a fucking badass hero like I just you watch these interviews

with her and how she stays so strong and centered and just thinking positively and knowing what her fucking goal is which is to help children and victims not you know get exploited is unbelievable and I don't know how she has that in her it's fascinating and she's just

so incredible in the summer of 1990 the Jacob Wetterling Foundation offers a national database assistance program to help families of missing children and legislation for the Jacob Wetterling Act a national registry of people who committed crimes against children is passed so that's when

this sex offender registry comes into fucking play love it amazing people take their horrible experiences and turn them into into something that can help future victims and future families yep it's I'm just

in awe of them well it's also kind of like maybe it's a way to go there is a there is a not a point yeah but it is that the good that come come out of the ultimate darkness the worst thing of all time that there still is yeah something beneficial

that can come out of it right yeah yeah amazing so early 2000s investigators zero in on a man named Dan Rassier who becomes a fucking person of interest Dan is an elementary school teacher and he lived at the house at the top of that gravel fucking

driveway yeah all I can think now is now that we live in the world where exposed pedophile ranks basically every conspiracy theory has been proved correct yeah and there's no longer conspiracy theories now they're just fucking theories about the way power works or his world Jesus and

that idea that they are all friends or know each other which used to be so crazy and insane yeah is so believable now hold on he has nothing to do with it damn it I was going on an Epstein I'm on an Epstein turn dude I can't stop reading about that fucking creepy

piece of shit he had an island that the locals called pedophile island but no one could touch him because he's a billionaire millionaire how was he able to kill himself after attempting it a week earlier he either is

not dead or was murdered that's I'm telling you no what else could it be it could be an aptitude it's so simple there's so many things it could be okay okay let's get back Jesus Christ let's get back off pedophile island into this terrible day go get me another

actually it's eight of them um I'm not Paul we're drinking Paul I'm going off the wagon and we're drinking your McClellan's I'd like to point out that I'm not forcing Steven to get me drinks anymore that's nice been promoted that's right Steven's the engineer he doesn't get drinks Steven gets

a drink with me that's shots together yeah and then everything some would call you peers no we're not I love you Steven okay Dan Rassier so Dan is an elementary school music teacher and not a pedophile damn it sorry Dan Dan sorry

I went crazy yeah no he lived at the top of the gravel driveway where the doctor had hidden when he took Jacob so they were like maybe it's him like let's go after him the way I just did yes well understandable and I remember I remember when he became a person of interest because

like most murderinos we kind of kept up with the updates of news and shit about this case and you're like yeah it's fucking him it's that guy it's obviously him but investigators search the farm the house is his parents and he lives there with them another like fucking pedophile red flag for most people like you live with your parents

like maybe they have a nice fucking house maybe they have an indoor jacuzzi you don't know teachers do not make money no that's right they need to live somewhere music teachers he's not so they fucking like of course make a big deal of digging up the property look you know and like make it look like they have information

that's leading them to do that so they just kind of hound him for years they ruined his life trying to get him to break at one point they have Patty Wetterling wear a wire and confront him in public and be like tell me if you took Jacob and what does he do he's like he just denies it he denies it the whole time

and he does interviews and he's just really forthright and he's like I didn't do this and he didn't yeah okay so let's jump to 2012 now here we are there's this fucking amazing woman named Joy Baker she's a blogger she is from a town

not far from where Jacob had been abducted and had been obsessed with finding out what happened to him and since 2010 she just had this like I read a lot of her blog post and it's just that she had this pull and she always thought about him and she was just obsessed with the case it sounds like she was just really into

it to true crime and wanted to see if the investigators had missed something and maybe she could help find it so she since 2010 had been researching Jacob's case interviewing witnesses digging into archive news stories and had been writing about the case on her blog

Joy the Curious it's JoyBaker.com if you want to check it out in her research she stumbles upon articles from the mid 1980s and I'm looking at I'm fucking picturing microfiche and this is just like a movie waiting to happen like yeah because that means Joy had to haul her ass

down to the library or the police station to find all those articles that's right who would she be played by she's like a young Martha Stewart I would say so let's get Laura let's get Laura Linney on that job Laura fucking Linney bring it

she can handle it she's salt of the earth yeah very emotive yeah yes so in her research she stumbles upon articles from the mid 1980s there's like a two-year period where all these cases of a strange stocky man with a raspy voice start

is grabbing boys off their bikes and sexually assaulting them at night in the downtown area of Painesville Minnesota what? remember Painesville it's where our friend Jared is from the man even asked about the boys ages before grabbing them and threatened to shoot them if they looked at him

and one boy this is such a creepy fucking little side like bar said that one boy from Cold Spring said his attacker had quote cheese teeth like Swiss cheese kind of which is such a like kid thing to say you know and it's so sad

and it turns out Danny Heinrich had chewed tobacco for several years and it'd affect his teeth and made holes in them so it turns out that on October 24th 1989 less than 48 hours after the abduction of Jacob

one of those victims from fucking Painesville had come forward another one not Jared had come forward about his assault and told them that it was a very similar to the description of the abduction of Jacob and that he thought it was the same dude because of the quote quick military

and proficient way it was done and he said that he saw two other ambushes by the Painesville perpetrator so Madeline Baren interviews a couple of these like now men about their abductions and assaults and they talk about how it was just like

known like watch out for the pervert like around town everyone knew what was happening and like one kids like yep he got my friend you know like they all knew about it and yet I think because of like the stigma the stigma of it the pain of it the horror

those families went through instead of like coming together and being the forthright which would be a very difficult thing to do anyway everyone just keeps it to themselves and also don't you think it's a little bit about boys men sexual assault that the complete taboo

yeah and like unspoken shame of that it happened in my little tiny neighborhood when I was like six or seven there was this kid who was molesting other boys they one of them took him to trial and we never

talked about it it was not discussed there was no don't you know warning don't go into bushes with weird fucking creepy kids right like there was no warning because you didn't talk about it I mean I feel like that's the other change aside from that that's the newest version it's like we're all now

helicopter parenting each other by being honest and telling these stories that's right that's kind of the point well that's why this guy Jared is such a fucking hero because he came forward time and time again trying to find out who did this to him and knowing that Jacob

was probably attacked by the same person and he didn't let that get in the way you know he just like he went full fucking force as a child and as adult again okay so this other guy came forward he said that he saw two other people that happened to and he gave

the deputy the name of the officers in Painesville that he had reported it to so he said to them go talk to these officers but this lead wasn't checked out until January 5th 1990 so like a year later no that's like three months

okay so three months later time is crazy and it never let anywhere though right right so they kind of didn't know that this had been happening and Joy was able to find this out she fucking reaches out to Jared on Facebook and is like did you know about these

and send some of the articles he didn't know about it this is all interviewed in the dark and together they dig into the articles find new leads and they track down the boys now men who had also been assaulted by the same man and Jared convinces them to tell him

the story convinces them to band together and go to the police and tell them what happened and they they all think it's the same man who took Jacob as well so after hearing each other stories and piecing various descriptions together the perpetrator Jared and the men

reach out to Jacob's case investigator to reveal what they knew but it took a few years before investigators began listening and making the connections so it's not until July 2012 a DNA profiles lifted from the wrist of the sweatshirt that Jared had been wearing the night that he was

assaulted and in 2015 it's confirmed that the DNA that's found on the sweater that's not Jared's matches the DNA hair samples taken from Danny Heinrich in 1990 oh my god but guess what

he's dead no statute of limitations oh no you can't take someone who sexually assaulted you and kidnapped you when you were 12 years old to court when you're an adult because they got away with it

because of statute of limitations that just doesn't it doesn't make any sense it's like being victimized all over again yes and also it doesn't make sense the idea of like you got away with it

to me is such laws made by men about things that happen to women and I understand that this is a different situation but I honestly feel like that's part of the blowback from that it's like oh well if they raped you and seven years later too bad for you

they're a different person now I don't know what the thought is on that well I think it's not understanding these predators I think it's genuinely whenever these laws were made they didn't understand the way these people work how they never stop how you can't and you don't think of the woman

and how she doesn't have a statute of limitations on her fucking trauma and horror and the pain that was caused that's not going to end in whatever five, seven years because time has passed that's with her forever or the victim obviously we're talking about men here too and then it's also like okay well if the police didn't do their job

correctly and fucked up and didn't find the suspect and like the statute of limitation you're just fucked it doesn't matter okay but they are able to use this to search Heinrich's home and they find

19 binders that contain child pornography oh my god so this motherfucker's still alive just hanging out in Painesville or like a town over but basically they also find numerous videotapes that he had made around town of course of like kids playing baseball

and news you know he's just a fucking pedophile pervert piece of shit who's been allowed to be on the street for like 30 fucking years okay they arrest him he's now 52 years old and they arrest him on possession of child pornography which is like the only thing they can get him on month before

he's set to go to trial on those charges it's like 25 charges of child pornography possession he agrees to a plea deal and the plea deal is that he finally admits that he was the one who kidnapped sexually assaulted and murdered Jacob Wetterling so on September 1st

2016 Heinrich leads investigators to the burial site located on a pasture near Painesville and Painesville again it's next door to St. Joe but it's a tiny town 2500 people, lots of farmland about 30 miles away from

Wetterling's home and abduction site and a short distance from where Heinrich was living in 1989 the remains are confirmed through dental records to be Jacob Wetterling's after 30 fucking years Jacob's mom Patti Wetterling says all I can confirm is that Jacob has been found

and our hearts are broken I am not responding to any media yet as I have no words I know in the plea agreement Heinrich agrees to plead guilty to one count of the 25 federal child pornography charges

brought against him in addition to revealing the location of the body and pleading guilty he also agrees to testify as to the details of the Wetterling crime so his family finally fucking knows what happened even though he won't be ever charged for them that's part of the plea deal

so he admits to murdering a child and he's never going to be charged for it now yes okay so yes my thing is I know do you know what I'm going to say that maybe all these people that work on this side of the law are like how about we know for a fact

pedophiles get jailhouse justice the second he goes into that can't be true because there's so many pedophiles in jail and he's probably a high risk fucking because of that is high risk but at the same time it's like they got Epstein

did they? no they probably didn't they probably didn't you know I'm sure they talked to the Wetterlings and were like we can find out where he is and bring him home so you can have a proper burial for him you can visit his grave like know where he is at least

you have to have the faith that they did consult the family yeah and so he's never going to get out of jail so he got like it was like 19 to 20 years on that one count of child pornography so he'll be in like early 70s when he gets out but they did it in a way that was like because of that child pornography

they can just keep putting him in the system right because he's dangerous to the world they did basically a work around exactly to get around the fact that the laws do not reflect how things should actually go they couldn't have done this he was going he's not just going to get 20 years

or whatever for good fucking behavior hopefully you know yes at the court hearing Heinrich testifies that he kidnapped and handcuffed Jacob drove him to the gravel pit near Painesville sexually assaulted him and when he heard a patrol car nearby he freaked out and so he shot Jacob in the back of the head

and killed him he buried his body in a nearby construction site he stole a bobcat from the fucking site to dig a grave he said he returned a year later when it was dark and found Jacob's red jacket sticking out of the dirt and some bones so he took those

and buried them close by as well during the court hearing Heinrich also admits to kidnapping and sexually assaulting Jared Cherelle earlier that same year so Jared finally gets his fucking confirmation he was exactly right the entire time Heinrich sentenced to the maximum prison

term for the child pornography charge 20 years blah blah blah and in a recorded prison call with his brother Danny Heinrich told him that he quote hasn't touched anybody since the 1989 kidnapping and murder of Jacob I know so who cares

who cares what anything about what that guy is right but at least there isn't that thing of like you didn't find him quick enough and he killed all these other people true very true but how do we know that we don't know that we're gonna believe this fucking monster he knows he knows for a fact that his calls are recorded in jail totally yeah

months after the first season in the dark was released then the sheriff of the county at the time abruptly resigns and he and his chief deputy replaces him that same year 29 years after the abduction the new sheriff Don Gunman son holds a press conference

commenting on the botched investigation and they also released the states 41,000 page investigation file which you can fucking read online he acknowledges that the Stearns County Sheriff's Office lost control of the investigation and should have caught Heinrich much earlier and he takes responsibility for ignoring

key evidence related to Heinrich and for making critical errors that allowed him to avoid being caught amazing yeah it's it's he says all of us failed oh there was a lot of manpower most of it was squandered he said what a huge symbol that is it is that's

incredible and I think a lot of people like the FBI were pissed at him for saying that shit but I fuck them then because that's what you do that's what a professional does is you cop to your shit you talk about what got fucked up so that it doesn't get fucked up again that's what a kind

human does is acknowledge that you fucked up and people are hurt because of it yes and also someone who's good at their job because how do you change how do you how do you fix and and better the system so that it doesn't happen again if you never cop to your shit right or if you just like give out

awards for the people who like finally did it it's like well that's not acknowledging the 29 years that he wasn't found it's that kind of it's a tiny bit of touching on breaking down that fraternal system that there seems to be where if in that

in criminal justice if people can't go it shouldn't have gone this way without having their whole you know souls be destroyed it's just like everyone else has to do that why shouldn't you have to do it too yeah it wasn't it wasn't like he was a diabolical fucking person that got away for 29 years and eluded

police he was just right there waiting for the dots to be connected and the dots to be found and they weren't and they weren't so in 2018 a judge awards Jared Shirell now 41 more than 17 million in damages and his civil lawsuit against Danny Heinrich shit yes

at the trial Jared's friends and relatives testify so the damage that was done to him and his life by Danny Heinrich and Patty Wetterling who's close friends with him now I know also testifies on his behalf and said that his fortrightness about what happened to

him is what ultimately resolved Jacob's case oh I can't I know I can't continue to cry on this podcast it's all I do you're gonna short circuit the Jared Shirell of course is unlikely to see any of the money since Heinrich filed for bankruptcy in 2011 of course

but it's a symbolic thing yes wanted his day in court and you know he wanted acknowledgement of what happened to him and Jacob's kidnapping changed the lives of children and parents across the U.S. of course helicopter parenting just stranger danger all that shit

Joy Baker the blogger wrote that quote Jacob's abduction changed the way we raised our children we taught them to be wary of strangers to be home before dark and to scream and fight back yeah and Jacob Wetterling would have been 41 years old today and that's the fucking Jacob Wetterling case

amazing please listen in the dark season one I can't wait to it's so good I can't wait to you know it's funny it's not funny because you've told me about in the dark a bunch of times and and I thought you were right I'd listen to it I'm glad you you know what I listen to what cold

which is the one it's a different one and it is a huge bummer a huge bummer that's the one about cold is the one about the murder of Susan Powell and her two sons by their husband

Josh Powell and it is so fucked it's so fucked up and also it's they made recordings he made recordings of himself he made audio diaries of himself so it's it's listening to the killer talk I hate and so I basically had to bail on it and

I think I got them confused and then forgot there was a other one that was right essentially I did love cold about to talk too much shit on them I don't mean to talk shit no no no it's hard it's a really hard to the killer talk it fucked the whole that whole season in that case fucked me up when I listen

to it it's just like I can listen I can listen to that but not dr. death right well that's a different thing we all have our we all have our areas cold is an amazing and very well produced podcast that this subject of which so fucked up

on when I was driving up and down the five alone yeah didn't help me out no I can't imagine in any way it was spending time with a bunch of creeps well the second season of in the dark is the one flowers was has been convicted and he's been tried it was like something like six times for this

this murder in this furniture store and it's just like by this racist fucking county prosecutor it's just this this saga of what happened to this poor man Curtis flowers and it's just incredible investigative journalism amazing by the team yeah yeah god god bless

investigative journalism so that we can have our show exactly well that was amazing thank you good story you and with that I'm going to change gears on you great as a as I want to do only because for me it's still summer

yes I don't want to let go of that endless summer feeling yeah no and so my story this week is going to be partly it's actually partly a disaster story but then it's also partly a crypto zoology legend that's right

I'm doing the mothman story that's right tell me everything now how much do you think you know about the mouth man literally zero is that true I don't think so you haven't even watched the mothman prophecies the movie I've told you to watch about 20 times I have not

watched a single movie you told me to watch ever I keep meaning to have a night and just watch all care in the movie recommendations I'm gonna make you a list oh I have something for you oh friend Doug Jones who's gonna be DJing the night who I write about in the book stay sexy

don't get murdered as being someone who likes to share weird obscure things like mr. show oh and Largo with yes made us a movie from the TV murder in Texas to 1981 TV movie about the murder that you covered yes was it oh god this could

be the one about the the rich woman and her shitty father and her father the father the husband killed her she was into the horses and the father killed him yes this was a live show that we did I don't know if we've posted really we must have posted it if he knows

about it I think it wasn't alive Stephen what are you talking about yeah I know it was because we did it in oh that's right while we were there yeah Texas he said you did good oh it's called murder in Texas oh my god

I shouldn't have taken that eighth shot this is amazing you know Doug Jones thank you Doug Jones what Joan Robertson Hill yeah John Robinson Hill yes and her father had a like a Texas guys nickname but but but

but it was dude hat hat ash robinson ash robinson oh I was close you were close with hat close with hat robins I want my nickname to be hat from now on okay promise

because you wear hat so much I do yeah thank you thank you Doug this is Doug I'm so excited wait a second I think this might start either Farrah and maybe it's Tommy Lee Jones I think so and I think we posted this no it was the guy who should have a mustache all the time Sam Neil no no

Sam Sam Elliott we got there we got there and it wasn't a live episode was not shit what episode was it Stephen 172 okay we had just come back from Texas

and it was one I hadn't done there thank you you can have that I appreciate it I'm gonna get that one on a technicality okay so we're talking now about one of my favorite stories and I have referenced on this show that to me of all things that are scary the

scariest one is people talking too fast on the phone my sister and I talk about this all the time there's a part in the Mothman prophecies where Richard Gear the star of the Mothman prophecies which is basically an amalgamation of all of the witness stories put together

in one so they kind of made it and it's based on a book by an author named hold on front back simply named simply named and I quote John Keele he wrote the book the Mothman prophecies in 1975 and then they made this movie

and 22 and Richard Gear is like I'm on board Richard Gear is like this is my jam yeah I'm gonna this is my vehicle so these creepy things are happening to him as a reporter it's completely this version of it is not real but

at one point he's staying in this weird little hotel and he picks up the phone and there's weird feedback and electrical noises and then there's a voice that goes like that fast creepy talking and my sister and I decided one day because I did it to her on the phone just to be funny

and she got so mad and we decided that way too fast talking is the scariest thing it's so scary anotherworldly so anyway if you haven't seen the Mothman prophecies starring Richard Gear we're all gonna watch it together please stream it on your local

streaming services also I got most of my information from an article on Ranker the website that works so hard and gets almost no credit such a good website and then they're like oh you like this article well here's 10 other ones you're gonna fucking stay up all night reading yes you're gonna like all the rest of these articles

as much if not more so good rubbish and also the website which I can starting to use more and more weird us which basically there's a book series that I used to read in the 90s called like weird Los Angeles weird San Francisco

and it would have all the haunted places creepy places murder sites whatever kind of creepy of interest areas so now they're they're all on one website called weird us love it and and then of course the Mothman prophecies

okay so this story took place in and around the cities of Point Pleasant West Virginia and Gallipoli Ohio which I can't believe that's the way it's pronounced when it looks exactly like Gallipoli acceptable it really made me really mad

when Steven looked it up for me from November of 1966 through December of 1967 so this started happening November of 1966 and went on for a year and these two cities sit directly across from each other

across the Ohio river and or the the northern part of Gallipoli it sits directly across from Point Pleasant West Virginia so the West Virginia side is best known for Mothman sightings

but it actually also happened over on the Ohio side as well the Ohio river is between and it also kind of acts as the state line between West Virginia and Ohio my mind just blinked out geography don't resist geography because here's the thing this is how we're learning about

our great nation thing we know nothing about and also did you even know West Virginia and Ohio were next to each other of course I did and I failed that class I stared at this map for so long um okay so the story begins November

12th 1966 80 miles southeast of Point Pleasant West Virginia in a little town oh I didn't look up the okay I'll just pronounce this how I feel it let's hear it clendenin that's right C-L-E-N-D-E-N-I-N clendenin or it could be clendenin

or it could be clendenin but this is a little sleepy burg of about 1,500 people in Wikipedia says in 2010 over 1200 people probably tripled since then I would like to think okay so this is what happens

cut to we're in a cemetery five grave diggers are digging a grave why are we here cut that out no leave it so gross this is like a weird thing coming out of my throat I belched in the micromone so it's only there

um 5 grave diggers digging a grave they look up they hear noise in the trees overhead they look up to see a man sized black bird with huge glowing red eyes fly out of the treetops and then down low to the ground

near them and away okay so it's not a man it's just the size of one and it's a giant bird yes I think the word man being thrown in there is confusing man sized it was a hyphenate okay got it a man sized bird got it so he didn't have like hands and arms

no he didn't have like weird eyebrows that need to get trimmed um no it was just size wise you know birds are usually the size of your arm or smaller or fist not my man not not not been sized okay so

for me immediately kicking this off my cynic mind goes when have there ever been five grave diggers anywhere unless this was a unionized cemetery from the late 60s two max three maybe what is this fucking family annihilator how do you get five

fire all together and they're probably also kind of freaked out a little because they're in a fucking grave yard digging they might be used to it if it's their job unless they're just digging a grave and they're not professionals we don't know it was the late 60s speculation anything could have happened back then

but then the fact that so I was saying con that it's five because I'm not buying it that con that it's grave diggers because it starts on a dark and spooky night or whatever but then pro is the fact that five individuals came forward so that's meaningful

although I'm sure they were ignored and humiliated by the authorities but three days later on November 15th two young couples in Point Pleasant, West Virginia their names are Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Millette report seeing a quote

large flying man with ten foot wings that's different than a man size bird that's right this is a man that flies with huge wings I think someone wrote that down wrong but this huge man size bird was following their car

wait man bird though was following their car in an area known as the TNT area which was the site of a former World War II munitions plant near Point Pleasant they said his eyes glowed red when the car's headlights picked up

like shown on him like a big man size deer in night vision but I'm off man I'm here for this you just said a bunch of words then more sightings start coming in

on November 17th so that's two days later a teenage boy is driving down Route 7 near Cheshire, Ohio a grey man shaped ten foot tall creature with red eyes based on the pictures I think the reason they're saying man shaped

and man sized is because it's got wings but two legs yes and also the head stops mid-wing and doesn't go up above it so it doesn't look like a man wearing wings like a hop

yes the head's down low just like below the wings but it's a bird head, not a man head the head part is a question mark oh, Steven has a great Steven has a bunch of pictures let me take a look oh god I just closed it, Steven what's your password

I'll say it on air C-A-T-Z cat it's like an owl who has eyes in his chest we'll come back to that part okay that's creepy as fuck my favorite murder on Instagram

all our socials go on this teenage boy driving down Route 7 sees this tall grey man shaped ten foot tall creature that's bad enough but then he tells the authorities that as he sped away it followed

his car so very creepy and spooky then about two weeks later we're back over in Ohio at the Gallipolis airport and or Gallipolis, sorry Gallipolis airport thank you

five pilots circle in red and put a question mark above five pilots see what at first they believed to be a weird airplane flying at 70 miles an hour then they realized is a some sort of large bird with a long neck why are there five pilots on one plane

is well we don't know if they were if they were separate and it was five reports okay if they just loaded a plane filled with pilots we have to get this thing where it's going everyone's a little sleepy

so if everyone takes a turn it'll be great one awake a co-pilot equals four sleepy co-pilots also back then did all men spend time in groups of five and is that why things are so fucked up now I trust pilots I do too

except when you find out one of them they're drunk trying to fly a plane that never happens almost hardly ever joking JK so then it is credible because they see a lot of stuff sorry grave diggers I trust you too

we absolutely trust you but you see creepy stuff you're creeped out a lot there's a Scooby-Doo element to being a grave digger when you're a pilot you're just like I've got everything on lock and I must so then on December 7th four adult women

because it's women so it has to be one less four adult women are driving up Route 30 I'm saying these roads like we know them at all you know Route 30 I take it to the 110 to Route 30 okay so they're driving up Route 30

and they see what they report to be a brownish silver man-shaped creature with glowing red eyes so you can rely on the women to get accurate about that color maybe the sun was setting crimson they're like crimson there's like he was either super tan big apple red that's what they paint my toenails

so okay so authorities are baffled probably very scared because they keep on hearing these stories of people seeing creepy shit so the Mason County West Virginia Sheriff comes up with a totally logical answer to this mystery

he claims that everyone's seeing an unusually large heron that has gone off of its normal migration route and he refers to the bird whether it's a term local terminology or he's just mad

he calls it a shit shite poke shite poke I know I know it might be slang then a wildlife biologist at West Virginia University tells reporters that the descriptions of the moth man all fit the sand hill

crane which is a large American crane with a 7 foot wingspan that's as tall as a grown man with reddish circles around the eyes and that it could be just this type of crane that's somehow lost say you're taking a fucking shortcut down an alley

Steven is showing me this crane that is a fucked up crane let me see I haven't lost what if you run into that crane in an alley that's a fucking ugly creepy poke the sand hill crane is pretty serious

they're big and it looks like an eye mask like a sleep mask that's red that's bright red frightening here's my problem this bird is white as our many cranes

these are white, grey, a little bit brown I'm not buying it maybe everyone was on acid I mean this was definitely when acid started getting popular so I would not argue you maybe it's like the sailing witch trials where there was mold on the grain

that made their head did you hear about that one? that's one of the theories and I fucking love it because I'm obsessed with mold hence fucking this podcast will kill you being on our network it's amazing this mold on the grain

that they used to make the bread and everyone went fucking hallucinogenic psycho like a psilocybin style exactly people not now, right? so essentially now we've got the crane theory

in the mix and people are like it's just a crane it's just a huge man size crane but none of the witnesses who hear this say they saw a crane they're like no, it's simply not that I know what a fucking crane is don't you dare condescend to me professor

so including a man who's a contractor named Neil Newell Partridge and he argues that the theory doesn't explain all these weird electrical interferences that he's been getting at his house since he spotted the moth man

in a field on his property and he basically saw it in a field and put up a flashlight saw the glowing red eyes and was like that was no crane and here's how I know I saw the moth man my German Shepherd has disappeared

what? that doesn't mean anything it ate the dog oh god I gotta cut it or did it run away and join the moth man join that crane and they became a fucking dynamic duo the crane carries the German Shepherd

like a little baby a newborn baby and they're like fuck migration patterns we're going wherever we want in West Virginia we're gonna do it let's do it Neil Partridge is like no something weird is going on

I know it my dog knew it do something about it so now there's a reporter named Mary Hire who is her correspondent for the Athens Ohio newspaper the messenger in the 16 in the 16 she wore the highest of heels

so she begins writing about all these strange sightings that she's seeing coming over in the telegraph I don't know if that's what it's called is that the telegraph? what? a moth man you say why? there hasn't been a moth man around here

in about 25 years a really short amount of time people start calling so she starts writing about it in the messenger the Athens messenger then people start calling her and telling her when they see UFOs experiencing odd electrical interferences

like Newell did they also start hearing weird humming sounds coming up out of nowhere on one particularly busy weekend she got over 500 calls from people in the area saying that they had been seeing strange lights in the sky

500 calls in one weekend holy shit leave me alone I'm trying to sleep how'd you get this number I'm just trying to report the news so here's John Keele in the book the moth man prophecies from 1975 upon which the classic

Richard Gere film is loosely based loosely and he is basically considered to be the foremost authority on these moth man stories he claims that between November of 1966 and November of 1967 at least 100 people

personally witnessed the moth man in the Ohio and West Virginia area now on the Wikipedia page it goes on to when it gets into the debunking stage talk about how none of these people nobody could track them down

but I just told you people's names because they were like there's no real names and you can't track them down but it's like just because people have died since 1967 doesn't mean they didn't have the experience they had so fuck you professor why are we mad at this professor

the scientists always take the moth shit okay and writings of strange creatures in the sky is not new for this area in the early 1900s that area was known for reports of thunderbirds

which in cryptozoology are known as their giant birds with 12 foot wingspans that were spotted flying up and down the Ohio river valley Steven do you want to look up thunderbirds because this is a real thing now the pictures that you find on the internet

will be hoaxes but thunderbirds are kind of legendary tell me what they are again they're humongous birds a lot of people think that are somehow holdovers kind of Loch Ness monster style or like pterodactyls exactly they're like leftover dinosaur birds

that come in and are just like what's that a toddler goodbye and it happened to like the pioneers and stuff oh shit this is a story that's been going on for a while there's also stories of similar types of creatures that would ascend from the sky that Native Americans

and First Nation people have always told where if a certain type of cloud would come in they'd be like get all the kids inside because those evil things those evil thunderbird type animals are coming

so this isn't new in any way is my point Steven let me see there was some car showing up of course there were he can't tell the size but this is real ugly a majestic a majestic in an ugly way

this looks like if you're a high school mascot is the falcons there was actually a picture I was talking about is it the science picture with the scientists with the gents you know what read his text seriously

can you bring up that picture it might as well say Alex P underneath it or have like a look at that big ass bird holy shit Steven will you post this post this picture also and also Steven will you find out if that picture's a hoax

that's insane oh if it's a hoax they'll tell us that's a hoax there's no way there's that big of a bird this is the fun part of the show where we're gonna say something's real and it's your job to tell us if it's a hoax but say it angrily make sure that you act like we're always supposed to get everything right

we should do better we're your primary source of news okay so what we're saying is just that big huge bird like things in the sky is not new for this Ohio valley area get with it Ohio river valley I don't know if it's a valley

that's how I go wrong is adding in words like that okay so all of the witnesses here's the difference though in this period of between 1966 and 1967 all the witnesses who reported seeing the mothman gave similar descriptions it was wider than a man

but had human like legs that its eyes were set near the top of the shoulders which is the creepiest aspect of it and that it had bat like wings that glided rather than flapped when it flew and when it flew away it ascended

straight up into the air like a helicopter and it flipped you off on the way out and said bye bitches every time it said bye bitches which is rude and say well they didn't know at the time what it meant but hashtag bye bitch what's a hashtag

it said it really fast scary so scary witnesses also described the murky skin is either being gray or brown and that it emitted a humming sound when it flew like that like it was nervous in the grocery store I

again and I probably said this before if you're ever near a person who just starts whistling or humming you're getting your pocket picked and you need to keep your eyes open you need to get put that head just start punching I think is the answer but first start by punching behind you yeah you be the weird one if someone's humming near you

become the weird one and just start punching yeah because you can just you can always stop and walk away there's still the weird one that's humming go back baby can you feel it? can you feel the energy of it? oh this is my favorite sentence

of all of this research the humming sound when it flew and then it says it was also incapable of speech it communicated with a screeching sound me too so thank god it didn't land in front of your car with its red eyes

I was like what's up Jerry I'm here to freak the fuck out of you you mean it talked like a bird but I've had it hummed what's up in your car okay so all this is fun and creepy and weird and cryptozoological which is kind of my favorite

as we know and maybe not true also my favorite but here's the part that's interesting and factual these sightings continue for a year up until disaster strikes the evening of December 15th

1967 and all these commuters are sitting in their cars in traffic waiting to cross the Silver Bridge which connects Point Pleasant West Virginia and Gallipolis

Gallipolis it's Gallipolis and Gallipolis Ohio which are on either side of the Ohio River so the Silver Bridge is a span bridge it was built in 1928 and about 4,000 cars a day

cross it and that is very different since the 40 years ago when it was built I said I wrote since it's erection shut up but the bridge has never been updated or rebuilt to accommodate the increasing

drive time congestion so here's the way it happened I found this story these stories from a website called Timeline.com because I just put in Silver Bridge Disaster Timeline and then there's a website called Timeline.com

and it had these stories on it so around 5pm there's a woman named Charlene Wood getting on the bridge to get home from her job at a hair salon she's pregnant, she's been working all day she just wants to get home all around her there's trucks

and there's people shopping for Christmas because it's almost Christmas beginning in December suddenly she feels the bridge shake now apparently because this is a span bridge a span bridge is kind of built similarly to it's one where it goes

over a river over a body of water so it has to suspend itself but I guess a span bridge I'm not going to be able to explain this correctly but the Golden Gate Bridge is technically a span bridge it's the cables on it that hold it up and keep it out

those are like pillars instead it's like holding itself up with tension but the way this bridge was built was flat pieces of metal that were a foot wide and like 2 inches thick as opposed to the Golden Gate Bridge

is just all those cables so there is a tiny and I think in the end they found out 3mm wide flaw in the steel on one of the spans but it had been there for so long

there was no way to inspect it unless they would have to look at every single inch of the bridge but nothing had ever been checked or updated so over the years and the way this bridge it would move with the cars and with whatever so people said it was very common to be

on the Silver Bridge and have the whole thing move and shake and do stuff and people were used to it but over the years this thing kind of wore away and wore away until this day so Charlene is sitting there

and she feels the bridge shake really hard so she real quick decides to throw her car into reverse and back up as far as she can and luckily she can because one minute later 60 seconds later the cars in front of her begin

lighting down off the bridge and into the river the bridge had collapsed and the cars were just going in and she had somehow miraculously been able to back up to solid ground and get off the part that had collapsed

and she said and the water of course it's December it's freezing the water is 40 degrees she said it was like someone had lined up dominoes I could see cars light flashing as they went tumbling into the water the car in front of me

went in and then there was silence so she was the last car that before they stopped going into the water a truck driver named Bill Needham is midway across the bridge when it collapses he's thrown into the water but he's able to escape because he has

a half rolled down window and he was quoted as saying I didn't know how far I had to go up when he means like swim back up he says but I could tell that the water I could tell the water kept getting lighter so that's basically how he knew

what direction to swim he used a box that was floating in the water because basically there's all these trucks and all these cars so there's just stuff in the water so the people that were able to get out of their cars and get to the surface were grabbing things to hold on to because Bill didn't get

rescued out of the water for 15 minutes he was in 40 I think they said is 40 degree water for 15 minutes his partner Robert Toe did not make it out of the truck he died in that truck and so did 18 year old Marjorie Boggs

who was driving her husband Howard and their 17 month old child across the bridge when it collapsed Howard was pulled to safety by a rescue boat and the first thing he said to the crew when he got on board was I just hope to God Marjorie and the kid got out okay

Marjorie and her baby and Howard's baby's bodies were found six weeks later in the car in the river State Trooper Rudy O'Dell who was 31 years old at the time was one of the first officers to respond to the disaster and he said

quote I could hear them hollering for help I didn't know how many there were at the time there was absolutely nothing I could do it was a long way out into the water so he's basically on one side of the river looking out at these people what he's going to jump into 40 degree water and try to sleep yeah

and that's not the way you save people when they're when they're drowning so in all 31 cars went into the Ohio river that day sending 64 people into its 44 degree waters so it's 44 degrees of the 64 people who went in

46 of them died the silver bridge collapse remains the deadliest bridge disaster in United States history President Lyndon Johnson released a statement saying all Americans were shocked by the cruel tragedy and loss of life and assembled

a task force the task force on bridge safety to mountain investigation and forensic analysis traced the problem to a small stress crack inside the bearing loop of I bar 330 so the I bars were the things holding it up no sightings of the mothman

were reported again in the point pleasant area after that day yeah so that's why people connect there's the the theory is that the mothman appeared trying to warn people about this tragedy that was coming if that is the case

he did not do a good job I mean it could it must have been the only I can screech yes he why write something down yeah speaking human tongue yeah sorry mothman that it's just the truth whatever you did all you did was freak people

out and you were not on message could try in 1969 the silver bridge was replaced by the silver memorial bridge which was a mile downstream of the original and there is a memorial installed in point pleasant to commemorate the 46 bridge collapse

bridge collapse victims um what's so sad it's horrible but and I think I think the reason that legends like this pop up because a lot of you know the theories are that there's always been this legend in like

these stories and that it come it comes up after the fact right because people want to lay some kind of that there would be help or something out of this just senseless tragedy where in the middle of the day at Christmas time

all these people just got dumped in the river and died so it's this there is a lore and a legend around it like something was there and it could have helped but also I think it's that idea that like that maybe some somebody's watching us could help us prevent these tragedies

in in the future we just knew how to pay attention to them correctly right understood screeching yeah exactly now on an up note point pleasant held held its first annual mothman festival in 2002 really and a 12 foot tall metallic

statue of the creature created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach was unveiled in 2003 yes there are pictures wow and it's much more silver and beautiful than any of the drawings or illustrations and also much much taller

than the way people described it the mothman festival is a weekend long event held on the third weekend of every September and there are a variety of events that go on during the festival such as guest speakers vendor exhibits a mothman pancake

eating contest yes can we go could we please can we be the speakers I mean we have to hit the circle of a pumpkin that's right pumpkin festival first right I think this should be number two yeah and then also the cheese festival in Wisconsin yes that's right in

Athens, Wisconsin I think so isn't it at some kind of a other foreign city name you're so smart Steven thank you I just love that it's a mothman pancake eating contest like moths love pancakes if you're gonna have a legit

you have a how about you have a wool suit eating contest because that's the real deal my vintage dress eating contest yes exactly it'd be way harder way longer but much more accurate there's also hay ride tours focusing on the notable areas

of point pleasant and there's now a mothman museum and research center that opened in 2005 run by someone named Wamsley good job Jeff Jeff if that's still open God bless you it'd be amazing to go look at that that's right and that's the legend

of the mothman and the tragedy of the silverbridge collapse of 1967 wow that was not what I was expecting great job right I didn't feel like getting fully back into the full tragedy no I get it that was a good one and you know touch of it at the end I feel like you know we can do stuff

like that now and we do this we do this at live shows a lot of times too of like urban legends and stuff like that yeah I feel like let's now that we're back it's storytelling it's storytelling this is new we don't need to find the world's worst murder every week it can also

be stories like this and I like that fucking hooray oh yeah so let's end this on a positive note let's do it do you have one from the past two months do you want me to go first absolutely yes you go first okay we three weeks ago finally moved into

my first home I keep calling it my apartment because it's so fucking weird I don't get it but I love it yeah I'm just really happy about it and one of the things that brings me so much joy about it is watching the cats experience it

because I've just always had an apartment that faces a stucco wall and that's like it but now we have like a view of trees so they can watch the birds and there's this one giant beetle that keeps clonking against the window and the cats get like lose their shit and because of that the windows we also have

sunlight in the afternoon isn't that nice yeah I love it and so the cats have been laying in it in the sun and it's just so nice and comforting to watch but Elvis has this pink like he lost some fur on his chest because he's getting older and

he's been laying in the sun for the first time in years because we have sunlight and he's gotten tan so now his pink belly is like a little bit tan and it's just making me really happy oh that's good it's really funny that's that's what's bringing me

joy that's so good now this now be quiet now this my fucking right is so has nothing to do with me directly but I am so deeply

proud that shits creek was nominated for multiple Emmy Awards they're going to be at the Emmys this year and so it was like for comedy series lead actors Eugene Levy, lead actors Catherine

O'Hara and costumes huge but the idea that they didn't nominate Dan Levy who his whole acting style is the reason that that show like sizzles the way it does

it's like his style and the realness and whatever but all that is to say when I saw that I was it just like I felt so proud because that's the kind of show I've rewatched it probably four times and it just keeps on giving it's funnier every time you watch

it like it's just so good so if you haven't watched it please watch it and if you watched a while ago rewatch it like if you're in a bad mood or things get scary it feels it's just so great I had never finished watching it so I need to get back to it I mean

look it's not for everybody I like to make very strong recommendations on this show and tell everybody things are exactly the way I think they are like Mothman prophecies but um yay hooray for Schitt's Creek and how exciting because that means that they're they're gonna be in our town that's awesome

yeah I love it I know me too um cool thanks you guys welcome back to everyone oh my god we're so we're so excited to be back live and in studio with you we missed you this is like art the most fun job we've ever had it's the best

I can't believe we get to do this for a living and I'm just thrilled to be back and now we have to do it for a living damn it now we have to make a living no we gotta do this thing that's right thanks for being here with us thank you we hope you had a great summer vacation too we miss you we love you sorry you have to go back

to school now that's right send your buns and tell them today Nars are her first day of seventh grade oh my god she's a grown up yeah and her braces are off yeah bitch I'm gonna call her a bitch I'm sorry I'm not calling your niece a bitch no no no you were doing that

Mothman style bye bitches bye bitch bye hashtag um so yes stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye bitch bitch I'll miss you want a cookie want a cookie