My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 241 - A Deep Pause

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover the Élan School and the Martha Moxley murder.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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To my favorite murder. Say what you just did. I just... Okay, we were about to start. I always kind of have a moment where we stare at each other through Zoom before like a pause, a deep pause, and right in the middle of it, I sniffed my armpit, my hands over my head, and just took a big old whiff, just out of curiosity. What do you think?

Do you think you're sick or anything? Can you tell by your armpit smell if you're sick? No. I think certain dogs can. I'm sick in that I love bad smells, but no, I smell... I'm a... I'm an eight. Yeah, I feel like the body odor portion of my quarantine is definitely faded.

Oh, that's good. The nervous sweat stopped in like July, then the despair sweat has started back up for me. Which smells like maple syrup for some reason. My despair is... It's delicious. Delicious. I've always been a fan, but now more than ever, my own despair.

I love the smell of my own despair. What a great narrative that is. That's so great. Hey, this is... Did we already say this is my favorite murder? Nope, we didn't. This is my... I think we did.

Didn't we? No. This is my favorite murder. Maybe you did. That's Georgia Hartstark. Thank you. That's Karen Kilgariff. Thank you.

Got that out of the way. Get it out. Do you want to hear what my therapist said to me today that made me cry? Apps of fucking literally. You've always been brave, but you were just too scared for a while to know it. To know. And I was just like... What?

What? And then I kind of was like, put my hand on Jess, I was like, what? She's like, say it with me. I've always been brave. Everyone. Everyone right now listening. I'll say it together. I've always been brave.

I was just too scared to do it. Amazing. She's... It was basically her saying, the part of you that's scared is smaller now than the part of you that's brave. So now the brave part of you can take over. That's beautiful. And then I was like, peace out.

I don't need you anymore. That's how brave I am. You're still a little scared. You're still... You've got this tiny bit of fear. Tiny bit. Well, I've been doing... Don't forget that tiny bit of fear.

I've been doing the twice a week therapy now for two weeks. Oh, report back. Well, I always was like, oh, I'm not that bad that I need it more than once a week. But then I realized it's not about that. It's like you're able to get into shit deeper. That's all. That's right. That's right.

You're able to get deeper and focusing on it instead of just what happened last week stories. I mean, it's helping so much. Yeah. You can kind of get a consistent consensus or discussion going. Right. Totally. And also, I think that commentary that you said you felt inside, which is I'm not that

bad or any kind of that, that might be a little bit perfectionistic or a little bit self-abusive or self-denying maybe, it's just like no one can see you. No one's watching you. No one can hear you. You get to go to therapy just like you're going to the dentist. That's how much shame you should have about it because it's like taking care of those emotional cavities and you're the only one that suffers when you don't do it. I mean, maybe you make other people suffer, but it's not a contest and anyone you have

in your head that's like, they don't have to go to therapy. It's not true. They do need to go to therapy. It's so funny that people are always like, oh, they tell people in their lives are going to therapy and people that don't understand it say like, oh, what's wrong with you? But I just did the same thing to going twice. It's like, what's wrong with me that I have to go? It's not.

It's not. Actually, I'm fucking better than you, person not going and talking shit to me. I'm double fucking better than you. And now here's the big reveal. You're the person talking shit to you. Because it sounds like my mom. You'll hear these things. It sounds like my mom.

Speaking of perfectionism, I want to recommend and therapy and all this shit. I want to recommend a podcast that late in the early hours of the morning, whatever that means, Murderina tagged me in it to listen to on Instagram and now I'm obsessed and she's like my friend now too. Okay. So the podcast is called the cure for chronic pain, which immediately you're like, well, I don't have chronic pain or whatever, but it's the thing that you always talk about, which is that the body holds the score.

And then also she says, the issues are in your tissues. When you've got shit going on, it sticks in your body. So it's really just like a therapy podcast and her name is Nicole Sacks, S-A-C-H-S. And so there's a toxic perfectionism episode. And I always was like, I'm not a perfectionist because I don't do anything right. So I'm not a perfectionist. Yeah. What was I thinking?

That's the same. No, but I think that's also part of that. That's part of the perfectionism scam, which is I'm less than therefore, you know, it's like always turning away from that work or that kind of like, it's almost like I don't deserve to get better or to get this behind me or to call myself a perfectionist. That means I think I'm great. No. I think in today's society, women are kind of, I think like so many women are raised

to be a perfectionist or you're like worthless, you know? Yes. So. Fuck yes. With the shit that we keep getting shown where it's like, oh, are you, do you not weigh 97 pounds? Then you better buy A, B, C, D and E. The goal weight.

That's all we get. You'll never get there. You'll never get there. You'll never get there. Whatever your stupid goal weight is. Your goal weight, your goal face, your goal lack of fucking wrinkles, your goal, whatever. Even while all those voices are kind of parallel going, therefore no one will ever love you. Therefore you can't have A, B, C or D.

It's such a fucking setup and it's such a scam. Yeah. So I really love this episode and also it was an episode about anger, which was really fun to put into use and then just get like angry. It was a good episode about anger as well. It's just, it's good stuff. It's like good shit that you need to hear from this woman who's like your best friend, you know?

Nice. Your best friend is a total murderer now. So now we're like friends on Instagram. And say the name of the podcast again. The name is called The Cure for Chronic Pain and her name is Nicole Sacks, S-A-C-H-S. Awesome. That's what I would assume. Yeah.

Really good stuff. Love it. That's very cool. Yeah. Because if I saw the name of that podcast, I would say, I don't have sciatica so I guess I don't need to listen to that. Exactly. It's like, it's what it's more of a like self-help podcast.

So we should get, we should maybe pitch to Nicole. Can we make it The Cure for Chronic P, capital P-A-I-N, perfectionism, insecurity, assholism, narcissism. Narcissism. Narcissism. There you go. You know. The pain that you cause yourself.

Done. Let's change everything. Of course. Yeah. I like that. That's great. Yeah. What do you got?

What's going on with you? Let's see. I just wanted the new Netflix series from Ryan Murphy, Ratchet, starring the great Sarah Paulson, starring the fucking unbelievable Judy Davis, the great Cynthia Nixon, the cast is unbelievable. I know the wardrobe, the girl who's like the head of wardrobe. Jesus. The fucking production design on this thing.

Give her a high five. She's incredible. She's incredible. Cynthia is like the wardrobe person on that her name is only cats and food on Instagram and she posts these gorgeous photos. It's like a dream job. Yeah. Well, and she does an unbelievable job on this.

We watched the problem is that we binged like four in a row. So this happens to me. This is just my personal experience with most Ryan Murphy projects. He does a thing where he catches you with the design and you're all like my eyes. And then someone, you know, someone's skin falls off for some reason and you're caught in the design and suddenly you're like, I want to look away. You're like, I don't want to look at this one. I don't want to look at this one.

Covering the room now. Yeah. There's, so there's all this, it's very macabre, but it's start, it eases you into it with this kind of like, I love the forties. This is great. Yeah. It's great though. It's cool.

It's. Can't be. Is it can't be a little? I know it's almost more of an homage. There's a real hitch cocky feeling. Beautiful. The music is very hitchcock. It's, it's really interesting.

But I turned to my friend who I was watching with and said, who's quarantining with me and said, that is the same woman who played Marsha Clark. It's crazy. Like what can't she do? She is so talented. So talented. Love that woman. Yeah.

She's so good. Have you heard of any, heard of or watched the show Love Fraud? Yes. Have you watched it? All the way through. It's the fucking best. Oh fuck. Okay.

I didn't know. You watched it. Sorry. Steven, we might. Okay. This is amazing. This is amazing because I was trying to think of what I've been watching lately. My friend Allison Fields, who is a hilarious genius.

She goes, are you by chance watching Love Fraud? And I knew just the way she was asking me, I had to go and watch it immediately. It is. It has everything. Everything. Every male bounty hunter who smokes and fucking wants revenge. If you want her to be your grandma, like she's the best. All these scorned women who are like, well, let's fucking go after him.

Like all of them figuring out what a piece of shit this guy is trying to save the future women from his fucking grasp. Because what he, the way he comes in, he always picks these women who are divorced, who maybe think it's like they're on the sunset of their possibility of ever finding love. The manipulation is so disgusting and so painful. And he comes in and like within three weeks is like, I have to marry you. You're the one. What's your dream to open a crab restaurant?

Then we'll do that right here. Let's take out a loan right now for your crab restaurant. And we're going to do it together and I'm going to take care of you. It's again, it goes back to, I feel like all of our society is starting to slowly slot into like, you're one of four things. You're a straight up fucking psychopath who is just here to do damage and get as many boats as you can. And then there's the victims of those people and then there's the people who learn from

that and then become like the Avengers of those people. What he does to woman after woman after woman from state to state is so crazy, evil, creepy. Even to his own family, he does it and these poor women who are just like, they feel broken because they were scammed by this fucking dude, but it's like everyone was. And I feel like when they start to meet each other and be like, well, I think you're really cool and you did too. So maybe I'm not a total like, maybe I'm not a ding dong for getting scammed by him because all these women are badass.

So it's him, it's his fault. It's the manipulation of the one thing everybody wants man or woman, which is I belong. I am seen and I'm appreciated for who I actually am. And he snakes right into people who are giving up hope on that perhaps and going, no girl, I see it and I'm into it. And they go, oh, wow, it's really, because he's no prize. Now, so it's not like they're going, this could never happen to me because it's John's Damos, I just saw that commercial that he's in Damos is the one you go to.

He seems, you know, commercial. Yeah. Yeah. He's hitting the start. It's so funny. That girl that's in it is so funny. But yeah, it's just that idea where they're like, well, he's on my level. Like I could get this guy.

It's not like, yeah, but then so evil. Did you watch the last episode? No, so don't I won't do it. Cause I'm like, I'm just going to tell you, I think I'm two away. And I tell you that they, he allows them, he gets the, the answers. No, you can't. Okay. I can't.

I'm not telling. I'm not telling. I was going to wreck it. Is it a spoiler? Admit it. It is. I didn't think it was, but it is. So I'm not saying, but it just the last half hour we watched of the last episode, we watched

three fucking times. Oh shit. Okay. Please don't tell me anything. It's a study on fucking sociopathy. In being a weasel and weaseling out. It is like, you got to watch it so you know what to look for. Great.

I will. And great job for the people who put this together because it's unlike any documentary along these lines that I've seen. It combines the best of all kind of, I feel like this is what's happening now is everyone's fine tuning true crime documentaries. It's not the same thing over and over. They're starting to go, what would people actually like to see? And then yeah, this story, I hope there's another season with another brand new

dude. I hope. Yeah. Because it's common. It's heartbreaking. It's a pretty genius idea for a show. Yeah. Because they deserve to go to jail.

Okay. No spoilers. Just also wait, here's a spoiler, but this part, a woman's dream was to open a crab restaurant in Wichita, Kansas. That alone is dreaming the impossible dream. She finds a man who says, I want to make that dream come true for you because it's important to me just like it is for you. They do it.

The restaurant is actually successful, which is hard to fucking do anyway, anywhere, much less a seafood restaurant in the literal center of the country. But her husband, dude, her fucking husband, oh, that comes after, it's like, I felt so bad for him. And then ultimately, I'm doing to you what I just yelled at Georgia did not do to me, but I just, it's so Karen opening the crab restaurant was this. The last scene of the second episode that we was a cliffhanger and you just ruined it. When it was like crab Kings opening in downtown Wichita, I was just like, these people are

out of their minds. What? That crab that for inland, are you crazy? Crabs can travel anywhere now and people want it to. They want crabs. They deserve crabs in Wichita. She launched a fucking restaurant, succeeded any ripped her off. That's what a fucking asshole.

But you got to feel good for her and she'll find, she'll find another way to watch that show. Yeah, watch it. What else? So good. Should we? Yeah, let's talk about merch for a hot minute. Coming up soon.

We have a new spooky Elvis design. That's basically Elvis looking like a zombie cat. Right. Yep. And it glow and the logo itself for the design itself glows in the dark. It's very black sweatshirt. Yeah. The glowing cat face.

It's very death metal of us. Yeah. Which is so us because we're, I mean, me, I'm so funky, I love death metal. You are hippin' down with the funky kids who love funky death metal kids and death metal. Have you seen the Twitter black metal cats? Oh my God. It's just like photos of mostly Maine Coon cats who look all serious and like death metal quotes underneath them.

It's fucking beautiful. I'm not gonna make sure it's called that. That's good. What else? I mean, I'm just mostly in this house, you know, wiping down surfaces and trying to get things done. But like, I'll be like, ooh, it's Saturday. I better put my story together for the episode on Tuesday.

And then it's Thursday and I don't know how time passed at all. No. I chose mine. I had it done. And then this morning I was like, this is, I'm doing something else. Goodbye. It's a whole different fucking thing. Full bail.

So over the past like, you know, 18 hours I've been immersed in this like crazy story. That's all I can think about. And also the world is burning. It is quite a time. It's not letting up. We all know this figure out a way to join hands with your brothers and sisters and the people that you care about because fuck, we're gonna have to re-figure out how to like be as human beings.

And from just like the weird feeling when you go to the store, like we went to the store to get some supplies for our quarantine. And of course there was a guy there that was like acting weird and making conversation about getting in line. And his mask was pretty much below his nose. Cover your noses. People. Nose and mouth.

It's nose and mouth. Yeah. And then the second I was like, you can go ahead of me. He was like, I got the sense that he, I was like, you can go ahead of me. Good for you. Which means you can get away from me. Oh, that's so nice of you. And then the girl, I don't know why this woman did this because I don't think she was using

her full sensory thing to go, don't start a fight with this guy. He's questionable. Okay. So he got in line behind her and did the thing where he moved up right behind her instead of staying back five feet. Which is annoying when there isn't a fucking global pandemic in the air. Yes. You don't want people that close to you anyway.

No. Right. I was like, you need to stand back and did a bit of a thing, which he was waiting for. And immediately his voice goes up to octave or two volume notches and he's like talking about how everybody these days is so angry and attack. And I was just like, I mean, I'm not saying she was wrong. She's not. You need to assert your space.

Yeah. And she needed to do that. Except we see the videos. We see these people. He's a troll. They're not okay. Or they're mentally unbalanced in a way where they are looking for a fight because there's something going on.

Yeah. It's like you can't treat everybody like they're just a standard citizen like you and they're deciding to be actually deciding our next step and our next step and our next. Some people are fucking not doing that. They're not. But anyway, we got in the car and we're like, why did we go to the store at all? Yeah. Yeah.

So the thing we can do, which is vote, fucking vote, that's really if you are feeling like you are flailing in the wind and you have no control over your life and the world voting is definitely something that can make you feel a little more in control. And also getting involved in local politics. I've been very inspired by my younger comedy friends who have gotten since the Black Lives Matter movement really started this summer, have gotten super into local politics and sending messages about like how to affect change on a local level, which really does affect those policies like around you.

I think that part too is like, it's very inspiring. There's so much you can do. Yeah. There's call banks and fucking, are there leaflets? I don't know. Probably. Find out. Find out what you can do.

So just give money too, which is a great way to like feel like you're being effective. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. It's difficult and it's easy to kind of get unplugged, I'm saying unplugged. It really helps my one, less than one month off of Twitter really, really helped my sense

of what the world is actually made up of. Yeah. For sure. Even my two week Instagram, almost two week Instagram break, I really did reset my brain a little bit. It's necessary. But also, we're not saying ignore what's going on in the world, whatever, you get it. You guys know your murdering us.

Right. We can't tell you to ignore what's going on in the world. You won't. And we won't either. But don't lose faith and don't lose hope. And if you feel hopeless, then figure out who else you know feels hopeless and help them. That's right. Yeah.

It's a great way to combat that when you kind of are bottom of the barrel because then call your grandma, call your dad, call someone that would love to hear from you that you can just buy just a simple communication, make their day a little bit better. It doesn't always have to be the grandest action. Sometimes it's truly person to person connection to say, I'm so happy that you're still around and you make me happy and you make this all easier. I need to do that. I need to call my cousins.

Shit. Okay. You're hot San Francisco cousins? You think my cousins and San Francisco are hot? Remember, I just remember being backstage at the San Francisco show and you were like, these are my cousins. And it was just the hottest group of people. I was just like, what's up, everybody.

They got the good Chatsky jeans over there. Danny and Hitchie. Chatsky. Yeah. They look good. Gorgeous children. They just all look great. They really do.

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You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Who's first this week? It is me. It is you. Karen. It's you. So hi. Are you ready for me to begin?

I am ready. Oh, sorry. I'm just going to really quick before I start say the one reason I'm so excited to be back on Twitter and it's just for a scam and a laugh and a holy shit. My friend, Kary O'Donnell, the funniest from cohost of sex unique podcast, he retweeted the like, what, what did it end up being 20 foot giant skeleton that they were selling at Home Depot over the weekend? Yeah.

You sent that. It's amazing. Georgia and Danielle and Katrina and I was just like, hey, who likes Halloween? And it is a, it's a giant skeleton that looks like it could go above your house. It does. It's huge. I mean, that they, I love how pleased you are with that thing. Something about that.

And I'm sorry. I don't know what it is. If it's like, because my cousins listen to so much Iron Maiden growing up, or if it's just like, there's something about like an avenging giant skeleton where I'm like, fuck, yes, here we go. Well, just the fact that like your neighbors are going to fucking hate you. And it's like, good, I want suburb, I want to suburbia fucking giant skeleton. Just like to piss people off.

Guys seek out, if you like stuff like this, seek out giant home depot skeleton, which now aren't available there anymore, but they're being sold on eBay for four times the price. Oh my God. What if you get one? What if we all band together and surprise you, all of us murdering us, buy one for you, put it in your backyard, you wake up in the morning, it's coming over the hill, the hill in your backyard. Yes.

Yes. You could do that like year round. I mean, I do have a birthday coming up in a year. Yeah. Oh, you do have a Christmas coming up though. I do have a Christmas coming up and I like, I like Jack Skellington, enjoy a nightmare before Christmas. So speaking of nightmares, my story this week is suggested by a listener named Chelsea Dickinson.

She was listening to the episode where I talked about Synanon, that cult, and so she recommended the story of the Elan School. Have you heard of this? No. I'd never heard of it. I knew nothing about it. It's unbelievable. And it's linked to the murder of Martha Moxley.

Shut up. Yeah. It's, you'll see. Okay. It's so crazy. So thank you, Chelsea, because that was such a good suggestion. And she had watched, I believe, what I interpreted from her tweet to me was that she had watched, there's a 2017 documentary on Amazon Prime right now called The Last Stop and it's a documentary

about this school and its history and I have, I have not seen it. I didn't look, I took a picture of her recommendation and only right before when I went to write, make sure I got her name right, did I actually look at the full tweet and then at the end I was like, oh, this whole time I could have watched that documentary. I could have just been copying this down. My usual trick of like, as the documentary rolls, I'm just writing down the facts the documentary tells me. But I'm definitely going to watch it tonight because this story is nuts, unbelievable.

So if you don't know, was Martha Moxley's murders your first story on this podcast? I don't think it was my first. Or was it like your? I think Jean Benet was my first, but I think it was definitely like first 10. First month. Yeah. For sure. Five or 10.

Okay. So if you listen to that, if you would like, also you could listen to me right now. Sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. It was so long ago. We were so new. I mean, I actually really cringe when I think of people listening to the first year of this show.

You know, in the first, oh, the first episode was around Halloween. In the very first 10 minutes, we talk about a dude getting decapitated on the fucking five freeway by our houses. That's right. But it happened. Okay. So just to give you a background, and this is really one of the, this is a classic true crime story.

It is a young blonde rich girl from the sub, some intensely rich suburbs, privilege and fucking, you know, narcissism and fucking Kennedys are involved. Like it's definitely like. It has all of the kind of over the top tabloid elements. It also is intensely sad, but it also is a great example of all of the true crime stories we were presented with first and foremost, which is, you know, a blonde girl being murdered. So this happened, it was the evening of October 30th, 1975, it was in Belle Haven, Connecticut, which is a suburb of Greenwich and incredibly wealthy 15 year old Martha Moxley is out with

her friends on mischief night, which is their, how they celebrate the night before Halloween where teenagers go around. We didn't have that in California. I didn't know about that till I met Vince in Michigan. They do it. Do they really? Actually, I'd never heard of that. He lived right outside of Detroit and the fucking police officers base or the fire department

basically said, say to everyone on mischief night, you're, you're on your own. Really? That's like the purge. Yeah. It's fucked up. Shit. Yeah. So essentially, yeah, no, well, and also growing up in way out in the country, our version

of Halloween was very different than the city kids version. We were like literally in the back of a truck with straw, all freezing, we didn't, we were just wearing jackets with our costumes underneath. No one really knew what we were ever. But sometimes we get full size candy bars because we were the only kids in the neighborhood. So essentially, this is teenagers running around their city, ding dong ditching, you know, kicking jack-o-lanterns, tee peeing houses and trees, throwing eggs at people and cars and whatever.

So Martha is out with her friends doing that. And the next morning, Martha's body is found under a tree in her family's backyard. She has been bludgeoned to death with a six iron golf club and then stabbed with that broken club. And there is also evidence that she's been sexually assaulted. So that golf club is traced back to the Skakel family. And there's two brothers in that family that still live at home, Thomas, the older brother who was essentially like the good looking one and his younger brother, Michael Skakel.

Thomas was the last person seen with Martha that night, other kids report that they saw the two of them, quote unquote, falling together behind a fence near the Skakel family pool around 9.30pm. But Thomas maintains he was watching TV at the time of the murder. His alibi is corroborated and there's no hard evidence linking him in any other way. No charges are filed and the case goes cold. So just to give you a bit of a background, the Skakel family are related to the Kennedys. It's the father, Rushtyn Walter Skakel.

His sister is Ethel Kennedy, who was married to Robert F. Kennedy. But the mother and Ann Reynolds Skakel dies from brain cancer when the boys are young and the younger brother, Michael, takes this death the hardest. He starts drinking when he's like abusing alcohol when he's 13 years old. He starts flunking out of schools. He's always acting out. And then three years after the murder of Martha Moxley in 1978, Michael Skakel gets a DUI in New York.

So to avoid jail time, his family sends him to a juvenile rehabilitation school in Poland, Maine, called Ilan School. So Ilan is a French word meaning energy or enthusiasm. And if you looked at a pamphlet for the Ilan School, it's very 70s minimal. And with beautiful kind of like lower case printing, it's between Ilan and school, there's a picture of a tree. And it's basically the pamphlets talking about how we take your troubled children and make them into responsible adults.

And they kind of give this idea that it's this, because it's, you know, up in the remote, this remote, very woodsy part of Maine, that they're skiing and horseback riding. And it's basically like a boarding school, but for troubled children. Right. But sounds amazing. Send me there immediately. Yeah. And it's a $44,000 a year in the 70s.

Which today, 205? I would guess. Sorry. I didn't. Maybe Steven, would you do it for me? I didn't do it. So I'm going to go $206,000 today. It is $257,576.

Right in the middle. 250 that we did that, we nailed that. So me and you. Or it's like, you're over here and I'm over here and like together, together we make it happen. Okay. So think about this. These people are sending their troubled teens to a boarding school that costs them $250,000

for one year. For one. Per kid. Okay. So here's a little background on Elan School. So it starts as a drug rehab center in 1970 and it's the brainchild of a child psychiatrist named Dr. Gerald Davidson and a millionaire entrepreneur named Joe Ricci. And basically it sits on 33 acres of land that used to be hunting ground in a very small

and remote town of Poland, Maine. In 1974, it's converted from a drug rehab center to an accredited private alternative school for troubled youth ages 12 to 18. It's built as a correctional school where misguided kids can be rehabilitated using some of Dr. Davidson's quote, behavior modification programs, along with Joe Ricci's personal spin. Is that next to him? Right.

So there's a lot of tax tactics like hard menial labor and humiliation to break teenagers down and rebuild them into quote, upstanding citizens. Oh my God. So they actually end up doing interviews on like 60 minutes and they on different news programs talking about this radical therapy that's used at the school and how it yields amazing results. Some of the imagery is extreme with the kids yelling at each other and screaming at each other performing medial chores like scrubbing a toilet with a toothbrush.

But Joe asserts that while these tactics seem extreme, ultimately they're all beneficial. And for over four decades, people believe him, four decades. But can you see like these privileged kids who have never fucking wiped a sink off after brushing their teeth in their lives to go and experience what it's like to not have help like mommy and daddy and their fucking nannies and shit, like, I could see that. And there's definitely people who in later articles, like in the early 2000s, when this came back to the fore, people came forward and said, look, it was horrible. It also saved my life because I was really fucking up.

There's definitely a section of the alumni who say it put me on a better path. And even like, I don't want to have to go back there. So I'm going to do the bare minimum of behaving. And then you become a better person, probably, hopefully. Right. The only problem is that these, these tactics, it's built on essentially children's self-policing and group policing. So it's not the adults or the administration that are in there deciding who's getting

in trouble and why. It's children who are trying to get themselves out of bad positions and into power positions who are reporting each other. So it essentially becomes a private for-profit Lord of the Rings. Oh my God. Okay. So, so let's do a little on Joe Ricci's background because he's really, he's really the guy behind all this.

He's an Italian American from Portchester, New York. He comes from a broken home raised by his grandparents. He's charismatic as a kid, but underneath his friendly appearance. He's narcissistic, manipulative, and insatiably greedy. He has a, he gets caught stealing a lot. He also likes to shoot animals. He starts sleeping with his middle school science teacher when he's 12 years old. What?

The fuck? Uh-huh. In 1961, at age 15, he gets into a car wreck and is given painkillers while recovering from his injuries and develops an opioid addiction that soon turns to a heroin addiction. Can I just say he didn't start sleeping with his science teacher when he was 12. His science teacher started molesting him when he was 12. Absolutely. Yeah.

I think the, the- The narrative- Idea behind that, the story is pointing out either sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies which have to do with power in all forms, whether it's money, sex, or whatever. Okay. So yes, you're right. He could have absolutely been a victim to his middle school science teacher. Yeah.

That's a good point. But then he goes on and at age 15 becomes a heroin addict because of this terrible car accident. In 1967, so that's about six years later, he's arrested for robbing a mail truck. So now he's in the full on like life of having to get drugs and you know, get money for drugs. He's able to talk himself out of jail time and instead he goes to rehab to kick his opioid addiction. And while he's there, he notices something and that's that rehab is a cash cow.

So in 1969, so like two years after he gets out of rehab, he starts his own rehab facility called Survival Inc. And he makes a small fortune off of it. What the fuck? Yeah. So his, his whole goal is to grow his own wealth. So then he decides to buy Scarborough Downs, which is a horse race track in Scarborough Maine.

And he rules it with an iron fist. His employees accuse him of being physically emotionally and like abusive and sexually harassing. He is really scary. No one ever challenges him. They also all believe he has mafia ties, which could be racist because he's Italian and he's running a horse track, but you know, or maybe it's true. During the late sixties, early seventies, the FBI publicly suggests that Joe Ricci has

ties to the Patriarcha crime family and Joe sues them for defamation and wins $15 million. Who is this guy? Oh my God. It's, he's quite something. He really is. The FBI can't fully make the link between him and the, and the mafia, but on more than one occasion, people have crossed Joe Ricci turn up dead under mysterious circumstances. In 1970, Joe meets child psychiatrist Dr. Gerald Davidson, who specializes in quote behavior

modification programs for kids who get caught abusing drugs or committing crime. And being an astute businessman, Joe sees this as an opportunity to do two things, to make a ton of money off of a school and to wield power over helpless individuals. So later that year, he opens the Elan School, charging the yearly tuition of $44,000 a student, which is $250,000 in today's money. And within the first year, the enrollment enrollment grows from four students to over a hundred. Oh my God.

So now here's the details that a lot of people didn't know about for a really long time. If you go, a lot of times they, the states had, or you know, different cities had it set up where if you were a kid that got arrested for doing something bad, the judge instead of sending you to juvie could send you to Elan School. Kickback? Yeah, I think so. I think, yes, it was like funding, it was all, you know, doing favors for each other. But if your parents decided that you were too much trouble and you needed to go to Elan

School, what would happen is that in the middle of the night, a quote unquote teen escort company would show up, break down the door of your bedroom, grab you, subdue you, which sometimes included like throwing a bag over your head or putting you in handcuffs and throwing you into the back of a van. They wouldn't talk to you. They wouldn't explain what was going on. And then you would just be driven to Poland, Maine, from wherever you were taken from. And these are wealthy families.

So they probably were like, I'm getting kidnapped for ransom for all they fucking knew. Yes. The girls thought they were being kidnapped to be raped and murdered. I mean, these kids were in absolute terror. And part of the thing was that the people that took them never spoke to them and didn't explain anything. Then they finally get to this tiny remote school that's way out in the middle of the woods in Maine.

So the Poland Maine is remote itself. And then the school is away from everything and in the middle of the woods. It is absolutely, this is a horror movie, like all the way around. So once the van arrives to the school, the new kid is walked inside. And it's kind of like, they call it an old hunting lodge or an old trapping lodge. But it's really run down. It's basically the main building, which isn't that big. And then these kind of old trailers all around it.

Yeah. And it's really scary that kids, a lot of the survivors talk about when they first pull up and they realize how bad it's about to be. So the students are immediately informed they can forget about trying to run away because in those 33 acres of forests surrounding, there are big guards waiting for kids to run through the forest so they can go grab them and take them back. And during a 1979 interview with NBC News, Joe Ricci even says the quote at Elan, the first thing you learn is that you're not going to get out of here.

No matter how many times you run away, we will go and get you. So then the kid is forced to strip down and shower in front of staffers. They're given a new set of nondescript clothing. So most of the kids have whatever, a shirt with their favorite band on the front of it or something. They're just replaced with super plain clothes because the whole idea is to erase any personal expression or individual personality. The new students are told they are non-strength.

So it's a strength and a non-strength. Non-strengths are the new kids. They're the ones that have no, they have no power. They're not allowed to do anything. And if they break any of the rules of the school, they get a demerit. So let's talk about the rules. And this list of rules I got from a blog called Suzuki'sThoughts.blogspot.com. Oh, shoot, I didn't give the, I didn't give the sources, sorry.

Because this, this blog is the first organized thing I read about this school and it was exhaustively reported by this person, I believe their name is Suzuki Nathy, if I'm pronouncing it correctly. And it just walks you through what it was like to be at this school. But also, I got information, there's an Wikipedia and Murderpedia. In the New York Times, there was a couple articles around the time of Michael Skakel's trial in the early 2000s. There's also an article in bustle.com.

But mostly it's information that people have learned from a Reddit forum that got started called I Am a Survivor of Elon School. Wow. Yeah. So all this, all the people that went there, like found, began to find this Reddit forum and started telling first-hand stories and supporting each other and remembering and, you know, it was like a whole thing, essentially. Okay, so, and then of course, the documentary The Last Stop from 2017, if you want to watch

it. I'm going to watch the shit out of that. Right? Okay, so here's, here's the rules that are listed on Suzuki's thoughts.blogspot.com. Go to that if you want to read more because there's so much detailed information. Here's the rules. This is what's against the rules at this school. Talking too quietly, talking too loudly, talking to someone without authorization, talking

to a non-strength while being a non-strength, talking too much, not talking enough, sex, which includes talking to or looking at someone of the opposite gender, avoiding looking at someone of the opposite gender, being attracted to someone, looking outside, looking at the floor, having negative body language, reacting to insults, slouching, yawning, reading, writing, drawing, not falling asleep at bedtime, sleeping for too long in the morning, laughing at a joke made by someone of a higher rank because it's all ranking systems, doing bad in academics, being tired, speaking without permission, eating after designated mealtimes, not eating, going outside without permission, rolling your eyes, attempting to run away, swearing without

permission, smiling without permission, not smiling enough, making any sort of physical contact, wearing clothes with image, which just means any kind of self-expression, having bad thoughts, showing or voicing any dissent. So these kids... They are mind-fuck. Yeah. They're completely set up to fail. Now, all the other kids that have already been at the school, they know the rules, and

they're there to enforce the rules on the new kids. But everyone is set up to fail, so no student ever got through a day at a lawn without getting in trouble for something. So the new non-strengths that come in are assigned to a big brother, a higher-ranking student who serves as sort of a guide for this new student, and the idea that the student then relaxes because they're someone they can talk to. But the big brother's job is actually to keep watch over these non-strengths, make sure they don't ask too many questions and make sure they don't try to run away.

Right. Because if they do, they'll get in trouble. Yeah. And there are stories of big brothers who trick their non-strength into planning to run away together only to be rewarded when they rat out that kid who and get them caught. Yeah. That's what I would think is there's so much treachery going on. Like if someone else is in trouble and you're not in trouble, so don't trust anyone.

The entire setup is better you than me, which so it's essentially like a children's version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. But that never stops. It's really a nightmare. So we'll just go, here's a typical day at this school. The students are woken up at 8 a.m. They have to bathe and get dressed, clean their rooms, undergrown inspection, and then they spend the rest of the day doing odd jobs, menial jobs, and forced labor around campus.

Mealtimes average from five to eight minutes long. Sometimes they're cut down to one to four minutes. Eating outside of mealtimes will get you a punishment. So they basically eat as fast as they can and hope that no one gets in trouble while they're eating, because if there's bad enough trouble, they call general meeting. And that means everyone has to get up and run into this other room. And so let me explain this to you. It's so crazy.

But before I'll just say for the rest, if that doesn't happen, then they do their manual labor all day. Then from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., they have school. Now school has no teachers. There's no curriculum. They're never tested on anything. You basically go into a room, you take a book, and you copy out of it for four hours after a full day of manual labor, hardcore manual labor, and then you give yourself grades.

And basically this is a sleep deprivation tactic. They're underfed and they're not sleeping, which makes it easier for them to be broken mentally and then retrained, quote, unquote, into better people. So after school, it ends at 11 o'clock. The students are sent to bed in military-style group barracks. And there are guards in their rooms called night owls. They stand in the rooms and also out in the hallways, making sure everyone's asleep, that no one's breaking rules, basically just and that no one's trying to escape.

In the daytime, night owls are called expediters. And this is the thing I'm talking about, where the kids are used against each other. So expediters are students. They're posted in every room and every hallway around the school and they carry clipboards with notebooks on them and they write down every, quote, unquote, guilt that they see or suspect a student of doing. So guilt is when you break the rules. If the expediter doesn't have enough infractions written down about his classmates in his notebook

at the end of the day, they are severely punished. So this setup is they have to accuse and attack their students so that they don't get it, just like we were saying. This is some fucking straight up Nazi youth shit right here. It's horrifying. When someone's caught violating one of the rules, that's called a guilt. I said that a guilt is punished with an LE. That stands for learning experience.

That can range from grunt work, like I'm saying scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush or urinals with a toothbrush, to something more severe like time in a straight jacket, or they get sent to what's called the corner. That's the school's name for solitary confinement. And some students sent to the corner are left there for days, weeks, even months. No, children in solitary confinement. In solitary confinement and sometimes in straight jackets. Yeah.

Oh, that breaks my fucking heart. And also it's rebellious kids in the 70s, which basically meant you smoked pot. It's not even like you were dangerous or anything to other people. Correct. And it was a kind of a whiplash thing from, they say, from the cultural rebellion of the 60s of the late 60s, where all of a sudden it was like, did your kid go become a hippie and start smoking pot? We'll end that now.

And this is the way we're going to solve that for you. So a lot of those people, those parents that were watching the cultural revolution of the late 60s happen and freaking out, or like, I have to like nip this in the bud now, and then just go trust this school that they never go to themselves and never find out if it's properly accredited or because they know that it's a lot of times, like you're saying, these kids are kind of the extreme versions where they already got sent to fancy boarding schools. Now they need something that's actually going to work. So having gone to rehab before myself, I'm recognizing a few things, but man, that was

a fucking cakewalk compared to this. And then my mom went through this. There was this like movement in the 90s or 80s called tough love that everyone got. That was 80s. I remember that. So my mom joined that tough love or it was like, it basically was like, be like a fucking disciplinarian, you know, military person to your parent, to your children, and they'll behave.

I think that theory may work if you're starting young and that's your consistently that way. But I don't think you can go in the middle. I don't know. I mean, like maybe there's people who are like, tough love saved my life, but it doesn't seem if you if you're suddenly pulling this out, it's worrisome to me. I mean, I get the idea of like having had relatives with drug problems and stuff. That idea that you have to stop enabling the difference train, not enabling and cutting off entirely and, you know, it's tough.

I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, if it was effective, people would still be talking about it and doing it, right? Because it would be like, oh, this was the really good, healthy way to solve these problems. But I think that idea and this was, you know, when my mom started working in psycho hospitals in the sixties, she worked at a place called Langley Porter in San Francisco and they had a psych ward that that parents in this is earlier, you know, 65 and on, I believe parents would send their kids if they caught them smoke smoking pot would send them to a mental hospital.

My mom saw it all the time and there were kids mixed in there with people who really did have meant serious mental illnesses. And some of them are just like, yeah, I'm just kind of the rebel that like, this is my solution. She saw that a lot and said it was really horrifying. So it was a time where like, there were desperate people trying to do the right thing sometimes. Then there was some, some people who are just like here, fine, just this will work or try this.

Okay, so the most thing that happened a lot at this school that that was actually kind of featured, it was a thing called a general meeting. So this was when a kid needed to be punished, a general meeting is called all the kids in the school are required to run to one hall and I'll be there together. A broomstick is laid down on the ground in front of the kid that's being punished, separating him from the rest of the group. And then all the other kids are expected to run up to the broomstick, you're not allowed to go past it and scream the worst things you can think of screaming at this kid about

what a fucking loser they are in your fucking asshole and you're whatever they can do. They can say and scream anything they want. But the kids who are running up to the broomstick to yell at the kid being punished, if they don't do it with enough enthusiasm, angrily enough, you know, whatever, they'll get punished. So it's your chance to basically prove you're doing what everybody wants you to do by attacking the other kids. This is hitting me really hard. How old can I ask you this?

How old what's the age range of kids 12 to 18 is the age range 12 that's Micah my fucking nephew like it's Nora it's it's in your high to high school. Here's the problem is you the general meetings sound terrible. There's a worse thing and that's called the ring. So if the administration sees that you get punished at a general meeting for breaking the rules and being bad, but they think that you didn't suffer enough or that you didn't get it or that you need more punishment, the student is sent to the ring. They're forced to put on boxing gloves and fight their fellow students one after the

other with no breaks. So no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, they box somebody that, you know, and then that kid gets taken out and another one gets put in. And the kid basically just it's it's student on student violence and this kid just gets the shit beaten out of them, basically, yeah, extreme public physical abuse. It's incredibly damaging, physically, emotionally, mentally, and in one case it was fatal. When Phil Williams was just nine years old, his father beats his mother with a pipe and leaves her in a vegetative state.

So his father goes to prison and Phil and his sister are placed in foster care. Phil begins to experience fits of rage. And by the time he's 15, he's deemed a problem child and he's sent to a long school. Once he's at the school, he acts up even more, mouthing off to staff and being uncooperative in their system. So on December 27, 1982, Phil is forced to enter the ring. The kids take turns mercilessly beating Phil and his injuries are so severe that he ends up dead.

The Elan administrators inform Phil's family that his cause of death was, quote, a brain aneurysm. No charges are filed. Part of the reason these abuses went unreported for so long and these stories didn't get out for so long was that the kids were entirely cut off from their families or anyone that could help them. They also, many of them had been sent there by their families and they were told repeatedly, you know, your family is the one that wants you here, give it up, they're not there, there's

nowhere to go back to type of verbal abuse. When they finally would move up in the pecking order and earn the privilege of getting to communicate with their family, they were forced to send an apology letter saying that they were bad and to say, and that this school was teaching them to be better people. And if you moved up in the ranks again, you might even get a phone call. But again, both types of those communications were heavily monitored by expeditors and administration. So any complaints, crying, criticism of the school, the letter would be thrown away, the phone call would be disconnected, and that student of course would be punished.

So there were a few kids who did actually escape this school, even though they were way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere. So for example, in 1979, a 16-year-old boy slips past the guards in the middle of the night and he runs 15 miles through the woods. He finally finds refuge in an apartment complex, but he is found by police officer, Lieutenant Ashburn, who knows that he's required to return the student back to Ilan. But when he sees the bruises on the boy's body and sees the fear in his eyes, he decides instead to take him to a truck stop so that he can hitchhike home.

Wow. So it was basically like, I'm going to help you get out of here, but don't like, you never met each other, I would assume. There's another story that's in these blogs and these different things that I was reading that I'm just remembering from a person writing it out. And it's basically a kid earns the privilege to call home. And while he's talking to his mother, his mother hears how robotic his voice is saying, I'm sorry, I'm bad, this school is good type of thing.

And she knows something is wrong. So she convinces her husband to drive up to the school. They make a surprise visit and say, I want to see my son right now. They're shocked at the state of the school, that it's not some beautiful place that they're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on, that it's like this really kind of shitty weird place in the middle of the woods. And then when their son is brought in, of course, the boy knows and is told repeatedly, don't you fucking say a word because when they leave, you're done for.

And they don't want you anyway. So just say the party line and you'll be okay. Well, they bring the boy in and again, he's there saying to his mom, it's all great. He's just like basically trying not to get the shit out of him. And then they tell him say, okay, that's it. Say goodbye. And he goes back and basically goes back to his chores going, that was my one chance to fucking get out of here and I can't get out of here and he's so upset and he can't

be upset. He can't cry. He can't do anything. And all of a sudden, administrators come in and yank him out and pull him outside and fucking throw him into his parents car. His mom, after they had that meeting, his mom was like, I don't know what the fuck's going on here, but give me my son right now or I'll call the police and he fucking, he got, he got pulled out of there.

But there were students that were not so lucky. And this was, this was a turning point in March of 1993, 17 year old Don Marie Birnbaum manages to run away from Elan school and she makes it all the way to Pennsylvania. And there on March 21st, she hitches a ride with a trucker named James Robert Cruz who rapes and strangles her and leaves her body in a snow bank on the side of the highway. He's caught five months later after the FBI traces his trucking route and links him not just to Don Birnbaum's murder, but the murder of eight other victims. So she essentially escaped and then got caught by a fucking serial killer.

But when Don Birnbaum's escape and murder, when that story hits the press, people start to seriously question what the fuck is going on at this school. Because if these tactics are so effective, why are kids risking their lives to get away? Holy shit. So the stories of horrific conditions all along prompt investigations of abuse allegations to main authorities. In 1975, Illinois state officials pull 11 kids out of the school alleging abuse. In 1979, a district in Massachusetts banned sending kids to this school because of the

mistreatment that they keep hearing about. But what they find out is none of the practices at this school are technically illegal. So no criminal charges can ever be filed. And often the accusations are discredited because the people who are making them are quote unquote trouble teens. They're known liars, they're cheaters, they're criminals, they're girls that got pregnant and ran away and their parents are sending them to like turn their life around. So it's the ultimate trap for powerless, voiceless teenagers.

So also there's a lot of them that may have in modern times been diagnosed with mental disorders, autism even. So they're actually not built to follow directions in this militaristic way. Right. And can express what's happening to them either to that point. And in that kind of every man for himself way, they're just constantly victims. They're just constantly fucking up. So Joe Ricci runs to the press after Don Burenbaum's escape and murder, he runs to the press

to try to balance back out their reputation at that school. He convinces several newspapers to write up glowing reviews, highlight the success rate and feature positive statements from psychiatrists. That works for a little while, but in 1991, Joe can see the writing on the wall. Hold up. It's still going on in 1991. Last we left off, it was like 79. Yeah.

No, it keeps on going on tonight because there's one and passed. It's okay. So. Okay. That's how we bring the Martha Moxley case back in. Because in 1991, private investigators reopened a seemingly unrelated cold case from Greenwich, Connecticut, which is the murder of Martha Moxley. That had been basically untouched for 16 years until William Kennedy Smith is tried for a

completely separate rape case. And then even though he's acquitted of that rape case, a rumor starts that he was at the Skakel House on the night of Martha Moxley's murder. And that rumor and the fervor with which people want that tracked down, basically a private investigation firm called the Sutton Associates start digging back into the deep into the evidence of the case. And they find that although William Kennedy Smith was in fact not at that house on the night of the murder, that both Thomas and Michael Skakel stories have changed several

times over the years. So this, the Moxley case gets more and more attention and there's more and more pressure to have it solved. Until finally on January 9th, 2000, Michael Skakel is arrested for the murder of Martha Moxley. He was 15 at the time of the murder. A judge decides he'll be tried as an adult. The backbone of the case against him comes from testimonies of former classmates at Elon

School. Oh, I fucking remember that. That's crazy. Yes. Right? Okay. So one former, because I think when I remember this case and kind of seeing bits and pieces here and there, you're just thinking it's people that went to school with him that heard

him talk about it. Yeah. At a boarding school, a random boarding school, of course. Right. Everyone's talking shit. But whatever. Yeah. So one thing is, a former student testifies Michael Bragg to the other kids that he assaulted

and killed Martha Moxley, but that he was, quote, going to get away with murder because he's, quote, a Kennedy. More students come forward about Michael's time at Elon. The public hears more and more details about just how horrible conditions at the school really were. Because Michael's case is so high profile, the bad press for the Elon School is more than Joe Ricci can handle. And all of this is coming up at right at the dawn of the internet age where information

is being shared faster and more like in bulk, basically, instead of just one story coming out of one person talking to one newspaper. Yeah. And then I think a local newspaper. So only those people see it. It's now you can read it from all over the fucking country. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

And in an attempt to steer attention away from these things happening at Elon School, Joe actually comes to Michael Skakel's defense, telling them that he'd never confessed to murdering Martha while he was at Elon, that that was an absurd rumor. But the voices of Elon survivors drown out Joe Ricci's attempt to clear his school's name. How creepy is it that he is going to defend a possible, probable murderer to hide his own bad deeds? That's how badly he needs to hide.

Right. Oh my God. Okay, so Michael Skakel's trial begins May 7th, 2002. His defense attorneys use his time at Elon School to gain sympathy with the jury, stating that it was a hellhole. Two of Skakel's former classmates from Elon provide testimony describing some of the abuses that they all suffered every day. One of those former classmates, Emanuel Michael Wiggins, testifies that Michael was thrown

into the ring so that kids could beat a confession of the murder out of him. Oh my God. Another former classmate, Sarah Peterson, tells the court that Michael was forced to wear a sign that said, quote, confront me about the murder of Martha Moxley for six weeks and that he was subject to a general meeting where a hundred kids screamed at him about the murder. So he basically had every single punishment possible at that school, according to his ex-classmate.

Which is so creepy that like, how did they know about that, about Martha Moxley and him being tied to it? Well, what they're saying in the beginning here, and I'm not sure, you know, what the actual timeline is, but they're saying that when he got there that he was bragging to people about it. Okay. So he may have not gotten the situation that he was in. He may have had a big brother that he kind of confessed to, that then used it against

him. Because that was part of what they did, was kind of got info out of you. You were also supposed to write down guilt and confess your own. Collateral. That was the thing that they asked for, yeah, collateral, exactly. They asked for it all the time. Collateral, not sleeping and not eating. Oh my God.

It's all the same mind control shit that we're seeing in the vow that's happening here. That's standard cult shit, how they break you. Okay. So on June 7th, 2002, Michael Skakel has found guilty of Martha Moxley's murder and he sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. So two years before that in June of 2000, Joe Ricci is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And although he did begin chemotherapy six months after his diagnosis, he dies at 54 years old.

So the Elan school is left to his second wife, Sharon Terry. And she attempts to repair all the damage that's been done to the school's reputation by eliminating the use of the ring. That's what, but all the other corporal punishments are kept, including the general meetings. All of that is still. It's like the Nazis being like, you know what we're going to stop doing is imprisoning communists, but every, but, and that's going to make our reputation, we're going to fix it.

We're going to fix the public image. In 2005, a Reddit forum on the Elan school is started and this is where it comes together. It's a forum that's called I am a survivor of Elan school and they, in it, the survivors share their stories in gruesome detail, supporting each other as they inform the public in even greater detail about the atrocities that they endured. In 2007, the New York state education department, which used to send special education students to Elan regularly, files a scathing report of the school, they stop sending kids there and they withdraw their funding to the school.

My heart is just fucking broken over all of this. It's horrible. Soon enrollment numbers start to dwindle till there's barely any kids left and finally the state of Maine that actually renewed their accreditation against the wishes of Maine's residents who are all against it. Vote, vote, vote. Yeah. Finally, the bad press can no longer be ignored.

They can't get around it. On April 1, 2011, the Elan school is finally closed for good. It's gone, but the effect on its students caused irreparable damage. Since 1975, at least 39 of Elan students have taken their own lives. For those who survived, the mental trauma made it hard for them to maintain relationships, keep jobs, some committed violent crimes. To this day, no administrator, no staff member or teachers ever faced any criminal charges or legal repercussions for the abuse they took part in at Elan school.

Yeah, where are all the fucking grownups? Right. Great question. And there is also a ton of sexual assault allegations against these staff members. Lots of them were not teachers. They were like friends of Joe Ricci's. Those are the personal stories and it's horrible. And of course, if there's the abuses of power that are going on in every other way, it is

not a surprise to hear that lots of children were raped at this school. Of course, you're fucking, it's like a predator's playground. It is. That's, oh my God, it's, it's really horrifying. So even worse, the business of adolescent abuse under the guise of rehabilitation still goes on to this day, schools for juvenile delinquents or otherwise trouble kids are not often regulated, leaving the kids who need love and understanding the most subjected to physical and mental abuse that skirts the line of legality.

For example, in 2006, a 14 year old boy named Martin Lee Anderson died at a similar behavioral school in Florida after sustaining beatings, being made to breathe ammonia and forced to run in circles and 100 degree heat. Six of the school's administrators were charged with negligent homicide, but they were all acquitted. So it's, it continues to this day because it is this line of what is legal and what is allowed and what is it. And the parents, the fucking, the guardians of these children are basically saying, do

what needs to be done. So they're kind of complicit, complicit. Well, complicit. They're, well, and they're trusting that like the pamphlet is the full story as opposed to, I mean, I bet it happens less these days because you can go online and actually look people's names up and see what comes up there. And hopefully there are people that do that, but I think the thing, the real problem is the kids who don't have anybody on their side doing that for them.

There's tons of kids, like the idea that kids in the foster care system are being sent places like this. There's no one to call home to, I mean, that is, it's so egregious and it's like the ultimate manipulation of voiceless people. And in March of 2016, Main State Police launched an investigation into the 1982 death of 15-year-old Phil Williams at Elan School, but due to insufficient evidence, no criminal charges are ever filed. And that is the nightmare story of the Elan School. That was one of the most intense fucking stories on this podcast ever.

Yeah. And I've never heard of it. I feel like I've seen clips from a documentary about like tough love, like you're saying, schools where it's like, there's pictures too on Suzuki's blogspot, Thoughts Blogspot. They have pictures from a documentary and I don't know if it's the one that's on Amazon Prime or if it's just out there. People walking around wearing big long signs that say like, my name is this and I am manipulative and I do this and I have done this.

And it's like this big humiliating thing, there's lots of dunce caps. There's lots of just like, there's tons of proof that this is the way they did it. And there's definitely in that 2000, I believe it's 2002 article from the New York Times. There are people who definitely seem to feel very strongly to say, hey, look, you know, some people can't deal with it or, you know, they have that kind of stance. But I think that's that stance of the Gen X and older where it's abuse is inevitable, abuses your fault. You just have to take it.

You need to learn your lesson too bad and it's luckily it's a thing that's changing these days. But I also think that there's this idea that they're going to boot camp, which is okay. Like some of these kids need discipline. My brother was a fucking wild kid, 18, joined the Marines and is now a fucking amazing father and husband and is a computer programmer and has a great guy. He would never think that you'd never even suspect. I mean, yeah, you would never know.

And now he fucking makes his bed perfectly every morning because he was a Marine. It's like, yeah, it totally changed his life and that can absolutely happen. And tough love works, you're right, for some fucking people. But this depravity is not the same fucking thing. Right. Because there have to be people on the inside of setups like that that give a shit. Exactly. And our train are there.

Yes. That there has to be there has to be restrictions in place because that is the ultimate exploitation of people who are, I just think that that's the place where you can fuck around the least and that there should be people. But it's just like the foster care system where tons of people are needed. There's not enough staff. There's not enough oversight and we don't put enough funding and enough money into helping children who need help the most.

Right. Totally. Yeah. 100%. Wow. I'm wondering if I had a heavy hit or two. I'm wondering if maybe I should go next week and you take that shit where we're almost at two.

I know. That was incredible. It was totally fine doing that. I'm fine with that. And that was amazing. I wanted at one point to stop you and be like, take your fucking time because I don't think I'm going to go this week. You were like on a roll.

So I didn't want to say that. That was incredible. Because I was like, let me get this done. It was so good. Let's do it. That was so good. That was so powerful. Mine is a standalone episode because it's a big deal.

So I think the hell yes, I'm going to party. I'm going to party till between now and then. I didn't want to mention this because it's so ridiculous, but did you see Paris Hilton just put out an interview? Yes. And actually, you know what? Let's talk about this for one second. I didn't want to make it about Paris Hilton first and foremost.

But I do think it's really impressive because recently there was a story that came out, if you don't mind me, commandeering this point you just made. Paris Hilton just started talking about she went to a boarding school in Utah that was very abusive. And there were already a couple people talking about it, and then they were being accused of lot being liars or whatever. And Paris Hilton came right in and was like, oh, no, no, this is real. And they're all like together supporting it and talking about how they were totally abused

at this boarding school. I mean, I believe it. And it's so sad because there's this like want in you to be like, oh, poor little rich girl had to clean toilets or whatever. But there was actual abuse and actual sexual abuse and there was nobody who would believe you because they told your parents that you were a liar and are trying to get out of this. And you complain on the phone and they'd say, we need to have tough love and not let her come back.

So there's no, it's just that you have no, not authority, you have no autonomy, you have no rights as a young person. And you, it's the thing of, oh, you broke a trust, therefore, you're just thrown to the wind. Right. It's that idea. And I think there are definitely, definitely people like my sister who are in, that are teachers who work long and hard at being teachers who care about kids who are quote

unquote problem teens or that work really hard and like say an outward bound style program of like, fine, we'll take you out of your environment. We're going to get you to like wash dishes and get involved and we are not going to take your shit and we're not going to spoil you or we're not going to ignore you. We're going to care about you into whatever that definitely is a real thing. That's what I had. Yeah. That's what I got, which is great.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is meaningful. Yeah. But then there are these cases where when it goes the other way and it's put into the hands of people who don't care about kids or their futures, oh, it's the ugliest thing. Oh my God. And why isn't it regulated?

Why isn't it regulated? Why isn't it regulated? Because there's enough money to be thrown around. That's fucking why it's always, it's always the money. It's bad, bad, bad. It is. Jesus. Okay.

But you know what's good? What? I don't know. We're going to have to reach the fucking arrays and find out. Don't you think? We probably should. Let the people tell us. This is from slow flow C H L O underline underscore F L O W W first chair trumpet at my university.

I play trumpet, which is typically a male dominated instrument. So I'm used to having a bunch of guys in my section and have had mostly male principal players in all of the ensembles I've been in. We do auditions for seating each semester at my university. And this semester, I won first chair principal in the top ensemble at my university. This is a big deal because the last time there was a female first chair trumpet player, it was 2015 and I was still in high school. I've wanted to be the top chair for so long now, but I always was afraid to say it out

loud for fear that I would get made fun of or laughed at. I worked my ass off during quarantine and took that time to shed, which means practicing hardcore and it definitely played off. Sorry. It definitely paid off. I still feel imposter syndrome during rehearsals, but I'm working through it and gradually becoming more confident. The best part is that I get to play one of the best known trumpet solos with that ensemble

this semester, which is promenade from pictures at an exhibition by a must gorkski. Yeah. My favorite song. Oh, that's my favorite. To all my fellow female brass musicians, keep that. Yes. Sorry. I love it.

Keep that. Your hard work pays off even if it doesn't feel like it. That's so left field and beautiful and hell yes. And there are other younger girls looking at you, watching you. And so if you have imposter syndrome, just fucking you're doing it for them. Also know that every other person in your section, in your school, in the world has imposter syndrome. People start.

It's a weird thing right now that it's like, it's very female imposter syndrome. Sorry. Everybody has it. It's just dudes don't talk about their feelings and they don't talk about stuff. And it's a natural reaction. When your fear gets triggered, it makes you try to go, it tries to make you go home. So imposter syndrome is just one of the many ways that it tries to convince you that you shouldn't be there and shouldn't risk.

And all you have to do, like my therapist said, is be braver than you are scared and just work toward that and you're already doing it slow flow as beautiful as a next cello player. I fucking high five you as a flute player who wanted to be a trumpet player. My heart is deeply touched. So awesome. Fucking join a ska band. Okay.

This is from blue state girl on Instagram. I've been thinking about my fucking gray now for a few months in 2016, I had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy and felt like I would never get over it. I was so broken from it, I didn't even try to get pregnant again. Last year, my friend and I at work began praying for me to get pregnant, but my anxiety was still in the way. You talk about mental health so often and thanks to that and my friend encouraging me, I finally decided to not only get medicine, but to try therapy again having had bad experiences

in the past. My new therapist turned out to be amazing a month after starting therapy, I got pregnant and in June at the age of 41, my miracle baby was born perfect and healthy. He's been the biggest joy of my life and is the one good thing 2020 has given me. Yeah. Congratulations. Wow. That's quite a journey.

Blue state girl. That's incredible. I love you. You did it. I love these like fucking stories and it's so important to talk about your miscarriage. It's so normal but it feels so personal and private, but there's so many women out there. There's so many women and now you know, now blue state girl knows and a lot of other people going through experiences that are on par emotionally with that know that you can take

a hit, you can get knocked all the way down. You can not want to stand back up and then eventually you can want to stand back up. You can stand back up and you can try again with the that is life. That's life resilience and but if you get knocked down and you don't want to get back up for four years. That's fine. Yeah. It's totally fine.

I love that. And you can come back and then you can have a little tiny baby baby a little baby that has that you have to cover their fingernails because they'll cut their own teeth. Oh, you should put little mittens on their little hands, their little paws. Sometimes they have weird little scabby stuff on their forehead. That's because they're new to the air. They're used to being in the fluid. And their nails get so long.

So quickly. Their nails get long and their new parents are scared to trim them. Sure. Do it while they're sleeping. Those both of those I think encompass the full range of female experience. Totally brass instruments, imposter syndrome, miscarriages, having a baby at forty one, you know, appreciating that but not forgetting the others and encompassing your life and the quarantine.

Amen. Amen. Love it. Thank you all so much for participating with us. Thank you guys. This is what a great outlet that we all have in this podcast and I am so fucking grateful for it. I've been thinking a lot lately about the people we've met at meet and greets in the

past because I just every once in a while just give myself a little jolt of like, we'll get to do it again. But remember the two girls that brought their grandma who was mad she was missing Bingo? I mean like just small details like that of like true joy or just remember like the group of friends that all came around the corner wearing shirts that said a thing but they were all standing in the wrong order and they're screaming loud and I mean like remember the girl who made us meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potatoes instead of frosting. How many times we stood backstage eating cupcakes before going on stage like what are we doing?

Let's get high on sugar and go out there and scream at each other and I mean what a joke. I feel like the luckiest lady in my whole brass section of life. You and I are first chair in life. We're first chair of podcast and you guys voted for us. Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, till next week stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah, good boy.