True Crime Campfire - Twisted Campfire: A TCC Halloween Special

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

It’s Halloween again, time to scare you all into submission. And this year, we’ve decided to bring in some reinforcements to do that. An expert in the art of the scare, with one of the best horror podcasts out there: Nina Jones from Twisted Mirror. We’ve chosen two true stories that will have you sleeping with one eye open, wondering what dark secrets might be lurking in your seemingly friendly neighborhood. Case One: The Watcher. Case Two: The Strange Ritual Murder of LeRoy Carter, Jr.Sources:The Cut, Reeves Wiedeman: https://www.thecut.com/2022/10/the-watcher-657-boulevard-update.htmlMedium, The Mystique: https://medium.com/the-mystery-reporter/the-haunting-mystery-of-the-watcher-and-a-dream-house-8eead59a0aefSF Weekly: https://www.sfweekly.com/archives/yesterdays-crimes-chicken-wings-and-bloody-stumps-in-golden-gate-park/article_148021db-d730-5237-9cca-60d05fed31f4.htmlSanta Ana Orange County Register: https://newspaperarchive.com/santa-ana-orange-county-register-feb-28-1988-p-211/ https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-feb-09-1981-4123551/ https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-feb-09-1981-4123553/Wikipedia: Santeria and Palo Mayombe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_(religion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa https://newspaperarchive.com/search/location/us/pa/indiana/indiana-gazette/Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. It's Halloween again. Time to scare you all into submission. And this year, we've decided to bring in some reinforcements to do that. An expert in the art of the scare with one of the best. best horror podcasts out there. Nina Jones from Twisted Mirror. We've chosen two true stories that will have you sleeping with one eye open, wondering what dark secrets might be lurking in your

seemingly friendly neighborhood. This is Twisted Campfire, a TCC Halloween special. So campers, you know we like to spoil you a little bit for Halloween, bring in a little the old razzle-dazzle. And this year we've decided to bring in one of the most dazzling ladies we know, Nina from the podcast, Twisted Mirror. Now, some of you are already fans, I'm sure, and some of you probably know that Katie and I have both done guest narrator spots on the show. Katie voice acted the season three premiere just recently, and I did the one for season two. If you haven't listened, Twisted Mirror is a fantastic fictional horror podcast with a a sort of twilight zone vibe.

Nina writes all the stories herself, does all the editing, she's an absolute queen and one of the most talented people we know. So Nina, darling, thank you so much for joining us today to tell some scary stories. Oh, thank you. What an introduction. I feel so special. And yes, they both

have amazing episodes. And they both kicked off season two and season three. So very special episodes. They've been my premieres and Katie just did a very a gory story. Oh my God. It's a lot.

I got the pleasure of editing out my literal gags from the audio as I was trying to get through one of the parts. Yeah, I'm pretty desensitized to what I write. So it brought me a lot of joy. I'm like, okay, this really is gross. Good. I'm doing a good job. It's gnarly.

It's gnarly. I did enjoy it, of course, but like, oh, and the mouth noises were so upsetting because I'm such a misophonic, like, oh, this is so gross. but also so scary and wonderful. And I mean, I thought my episode was bad, but cheese and crackers. Yeah, I'm a little masochistic. I do enjoy putting those sounds in there to get people squirming, for sure. You're so good at it, too.

So we're going to tell you two creepy Halloween stories today. Katie and I picked out one of them, and Nina picked and did all the work for another, which is one of my favorite things in the world. So bless her for that. You're a great guest, Nina. Oh, thank you. writing is what I do That's right, exactly, and you're damn good at it too.

I barely had to touch it. So I got to tell you, prepare to sleep with the lights on tonight. Okay, so first we have a case that gave us all the Wiggins, probably because it's just almost too easy to imagine this happening to us. The story of The Watcher. Now, for this one, we're in Westfield, New Jersey, June 2014. Derek brought us was that the beautiful new house he and his wife Maria had bought just a few days earlier, getting some painting done to get the place ready to move into.

He was there by himself. Maria was home with the kids. It was like 10 o'clock at night, and once he wrapped up his painting for the day, he decided to go out and check the mail. See if their change of address had taken effect yet. And at the bottom of a small pile of bills and other random stuff, Derek found a greeting card type envelope.

It was addressed to the new owner. Huh. Inside was a folded piece of paper, typed, not handwritten. It read, Dearest New Neighbor at 657 Boulevard. Allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood. Oh, that's nice, right? Yeah, not so much.

How did you end up here? The letter writer wanted to know. Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within? 657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now. And as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s, and my father watched in the 1960s. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out.

Geez, how much would you be shit in your pants? Like, seriously, that is just incredibly creepy. I imagine the hairs on the back of Derek's neck were already tingling pretty good by this point, but of course, it got worse. Because whoever sent this creepy thing had obviously been watching the house. I see that already you have flooded

657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be, said the letter writer. By the way, this sounds like one of my mid-century design groups whatever you do, do not paint the wood. They will come for you. They will. They really will. They're serious. Like, I mean, it's like, it's brutal in there. Tis, tis, tisk, bad move. You don't want to make

657 Boulevard unhappy. The house is crying from all of the pain it is going through. You've changed it and made it so fancy. You are stealing its history. It cries for the past. It cries for the past. and what used to be in the time when I roamed atolls. The 1960s were a good time for 657 Boulevard, when I ran from room to room imagining the life with the rich occupants there. The house was full of life and young blood. Then it got old and so did my father. But he kept watching until the day he died,

and now I watch and wait for the day when the young blood will be mine again. so yeah i know right it's like whoa you're almost too good at reading this it's like surprise i'm the right okay i'm just kidding um it's like yeah i am from the area okay so the writer had noticed the contractors and worse than that they'd notice the kids derrick and maria had been there with their three kids a few days earlier to introduce themselves to some of the neighbors. You have the children, the letter said. I have seen them.

So far, I think there are three that I have counted. Will there be more on the way? Do you need to fill the house with a young blood, I requested? Better for me? I asked the woods to bring me young blood, and it looks like they listened. The woods were the couple who'd just sold them the house. They'd lived there for 23 years. Was your old house too small for the growing family?

Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names, I will call to them and draw them to me. Okay, now that's six kinds of creepy. Call them and draw them to me? Yeah. Who am I? The letter went on. There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day.

Maybe I am in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one. Welcome, my friends. Welcome. Let the party begin.

Mm-mm. I don't know about y'all, but I... Sounds like a fun time. Yeah, I don't want to go to this guy's party. I want no part of this party whatsoever. No, it's a bad, bad party. Bad party. The kind of party where they have like soggy chips and like only Dr. Pepper, no other kinds of soda.

Are you not a Dr. Pepper fan? I actually am, but like I like options, you know. No, that's true. You've got to be kind of in a mood. Dr. Pepper's intense. Yeah, Dr. Pepper is like, if that's your only choice, you're a psychopath. Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's going straight to 100. Like, you got to have like entry-level sodas in the mix. Entry level. Entry level. And to start with the R.C. Cola and work your

way out. This party has soggy chips, Dr. Pepper, and body stacked like cordwood in the back bedroom. Yeah, of course. At the bottom of this letter in a fancy font, it was signed The Watcher. So, as you can imagine, this freaked Derek brought us the fuck out. Here he was, all by himself, in this big old Victorian house. It's dark outside. No, thank you. So, with his heart beating out of his chest,

he called the cops, who sent a patrol officer to 657 Boulevard. The cop's reaction was, and I quote, what the fuck is this? Which, fair enough. That would probably be my first question in two. He asked

Derek if he had beef with anybody at the moment, if there were any obvious suspects, but Derek said he couldn't think of anybody off the top of his head. Once the cop left, Derek drove home. Talking softly so they wouldn't wake their sleeping kids, he and Maria talked about what the hell to do. It was weird, Maria thought, that the watcher had mentioned Andrea and John Woods,

the people who had just moved out of the house. I asked the woods to bring me young blood, and it looks like they listened. What did that mean? Derek and Maria sat down together and wrote the woods an email. I wonder how that went. So this is going to sound weird, but any idea who the watcher is or why they'd be calling our kids young blood? And when they woke up the next morning, they had a response from Andrea Woods.

She and her husband, John, had gotten a watcher letter, too, just a few days before they moved out of the 657 Boulevard house. It was strange, she said, said the same thing about the author's family watching the house for generations. But Andrea and John had lived in that house for 20 plus years, and this was the first time they'd gotten a letter like this. They thought it was weird, but they didn't think much more about it. They tossed it out and forgot about it until they got an email from Derek and Maria. Which seems like an underreaction to me. I feel it really does. Absolutely.

I feel like if I got a creepy letter, that'd be all I thought about for the rest of my life. You know, I got to be honest, I might have gone the way of the world. I mean, I don't have kids, so I might have, I think the kid's blood thing, that's what takes it over. But like, if I just got like a run-up, you're right. I don't know. I mean, I'd have fun with it, but it's hard, you know, it's hard to believe someone's going to do something.

The kid blood thing does kind of take it a little bit far. For sure. And they get progressively worse, as you're, as we'll find out. But now they were all pretty worried. Andrea and John Woods went with Maria to talk to the police about the letters. They met with a detective who told them not to tell us. anybody about the letters. Not even your neighbors, he said to Maria. They're all suspects now. Oh, that's comforting, right? Welcome to the neighborhood. One of your new neighbors could be

plotting against you, and we don't know which. Have fun. God, what a kick in the kidneys for Maria and Derek brought us. This house was supposed to be their dream come true. Six bedrooms, a beautiful $1.3 million home. They bought it right after Derek turned 40, and Maria had been dreaming about that house for years. She grew up just a few blocks away. But somebody, for some godforsaken reason, had taken a big old poop all over their dream. Derek and Maria were freaked out enough to put off their move-in date. Derek even cancelled a business trip so he didn't have to leave Maria and the kids home alone. Whenever they went to the new house to work on the renovations, Derek and Maria watched the kids like hawks. One day, the Bradus's contractor showed up at the house to start

work and found that a yard sign had been crudely ripped out. Another time, Derek was showing one of the neighbors around the place. They still hadn't moved in, remember, but he was giving them a look at some of the work they'd been doing, and the woman said, it'll be so nice to have some young blood in the neighborhood. I can only imagine the speed with which Derek's stomach hit the floor when she said that. I mean, it was probably a coincidence, but how could they be sure? And then, two weeks after the first watcher letter appeared in the broadest mailbox, there was another one. Same greeting card style envelope, same blocky writing, on the front. But this time, the watcher had used their name, though he spelled it wrong. It said

Mr. and Mrs. Braddus. But it was close enough to suggest that this person, whoever it was, had been watching and listening. Welcome again to your new home at 657 Boulevard. The workers have been busy, and I have been watching you unload carfuls of your personal belongings. The dumpster is a nice touch. Have they found what is in the walls yet? In time, they will. They As if this wasn't creepy enough, the watcher went on to list Maria and Derek's three kids, calling them by the cute nicknames they used at home. Names the writer couldn't have learned from the internet, but could have overheard Maria's shouting when she called the kids in from playing.

I am pleased to know your names now in the name of the young blood you've brought to me, said the watcher. You certainly say their names often. At the next line, Maria's blood must have run cold. the writer mentioned one of the kids by name, said they'd watched her painting at the little easel they'd put on the screened-in porch for her. Holy shit. This was especially scary

because you really would have had to get close to the house to see that easel. It wasn't visible from the street. The watcher went on. 657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in. It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have you found all of the same?

secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement? Or are they too afraid to go down there alone? I would be very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs, you would never hear them scream. Will they sleep in the attic? Or will you all sleep on the second floor? Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I'll know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better. All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who am I? I am the watcher and have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The Woods family turned it over to you. It was their

time to move on and kindly sold it when I asked them to. I pass by many times a day. 657 Boulevard is my job, my life, my obsession, and now you are too, Braddus family. Way to go. Welcome to the product of your greed. Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard, and now it has brought you to me. have a happy moving in day you know i will be watching oh jeez oh okay so i know this is terrifying granted isn't me or is there something kind of like rod farrely about the tone here you know prince of darkness vampire cult leader dude it's so arch it's like the watcher's been watching too many cartoon villains like puny mortals how dare thou tryest that show when williams tiptoe through

the tulips pink in my breakfast nook I shall destroy you the demon prefers dusty rose the wall demon is very particular about his paint colors fashionable so it's interesting that the watcher keeps bringing up greed though right like if i were the cops i would be looking real hard at anybody who got like outbid for that house like that lady from california i think it was California. There was this lady, she was so pissed off at getting outbid for her dream house that she launched into this like year-long harassment campaign against the poor couple who actually bought it. Sent like porn magazines to their house, sent dirty valentines to women in the neighborhood signed like with the husband's name, tried to get this poor wife sexually assaulted by posting

a Craigslist ad that said she had rape fantasies and then posting their address. Like it was bananas. And the woman who did it was on Dr. Phil, interestingly enough, so you could watch her interview. But I could see this be in the same kind of situation, or at least the same motive. Yeah, especially since, according to Reeves Wydenman from New York Magazine, nasty bidding wars were pretty common in that neighborhood at the time. The boulevard was one of the most sought-after streets in town. There's a problem with this theory, though, at least according to John and Andrea Woods, the previous owners of the house. they say that there weren't any disgruntled potential buyers out there that one guy backed out for medical reasons and another just picked a different house

so maybe that's not it after all but honestly having purchased a home in the spring of 2021 I sort of get it I have never been rejected so much in my life and this is true I actually been in a house where two people had died I'm not even joking and I got rejected for that house oh my god they died peacefully We didn't get the first one we wanted either, so I feel the pain on that. Oh, my God. No, because this was like the high, you know, like the post-pandemic low interest rates thing. I lost count of how many houses I bid on.

So there's a point where you're just like, it's hard not to take it personally, even though it's just like, living in houses. And you're like, okay, well, I can't even get dead people's houses. But who, yeah, I know, it's like really. But whoever was doing this and for whatever reason, the watcher letters had knocked Derek and Maria Brodice's world off its axis. Scared to bring the kids to the new house, they put off their move-in date indefinitely. And the watcher took notice. A few weeks later, another letter appeared in the mailbox. Where have you gone to?

It said. 657 Boulevard is missing you. Great. Love that. How sweet. It didn't take long for a suspect to emerge. One afternoon, the broadnesses got invited to a barbecue on Boulevard to welcome a couple new families to the neighborhood. Derek and Maria were kind of on edge about it. I mean,

it's hard to enjoy a hot dog when you know your stalker might be in the mix. So they were keeping their ears open to catch anything suspicious. When they sat down to talk with their neighbor two doors down, they got an earful about the quote, Boo Radley of the neighborhood, a guy named Michael, who just happened to live right next door to 657 Boulevard. Michael was in his 60s. He had a Grizzly Adams beard. He lived with his sister Abby and his 90-year-old mother, and he struck his neighbors as, you know, a little bit strange. I swear to God, if anything like this ever goes down in our neighborhood, I will 100% be Michael. Like, I will be the freaking weirdo that everybody suspects. Just because, you know, I carry around cat treats and know all the pets' names and none

of the humans, and because I might sort of talk to myself a little bit when I'm on my walks, like you do. And probably also because of that time I picked up a snake and tried to show it to one of our neighbors and he ran away screaming like a toddler. It was cute. It was just a little garden snake. Okay. How was I supposed to know Greg had a phobia? Said I was sorry and everything, but my dude ain't looked me in the eye once since like 2015. So yeah, I'd be suspect number one. You absolutely would. And honestly, I think we should bring back enclosed front yards so kids can dare each other to, like, go run and touch your front door. I think that would, like, 80-style, like, hijinks with the neighborhood kids.

I think that would be great. There were quite a few things that seemed to line up against Michael, like the fact that the guy's house was the perfect vantage point to see that easel on the Bratis' screened-in porch. And the fact that Michael's family had lived in their house since the 60s when the Watcher's father had allegedly been keeping an eye on number 657. And most compelling of all, Michael had kind of a creepy reputation around the neighborhood. He had a habit of trespassing on his neighbor's lawns and peering in through their windows. He'd startled the shit out of people on multiple occasions.

And as Derek and Maria soon found out, their detective already had Michael on his radar as a possible candidate for the watcher. He'd brought him in for an interview about a week after the first letter arrived. The interview didn't do anything to quell the detective's suspicions. In fact, Michael said some stuff. that seemed to echo the letters, but Michael denied any involvement, and there was no proof that he was the watcher. To everybody's frustration, the police hadn't found any fingerprints on any of the envelopes or letters. They couldn't arrest this guy without evidence, or at least a confession. But in Derek's mind, it was pretty much case closed. It was neighbor Michael. He was furious,

the detectives couldn't charge him. And he got a little bit Pepe Sylvia about the whole thing. Obsessed, as writer Reeves Wydenman put it. He put cameras all over the house and started spending nights over there by himself, lights off, sitting on the floor, waiting, watching for anything suspicious. He put together an elaborate dossier on the case, with diagrams of the neighborhood and drawings of sight lines. He worked out which houses were with an earshot of 657. Apparently, it didn't do his marriage any favors. Maria thought he was losing it. Derek had a friend in the FBI, a profiler, in fact, and he and Maria reached out to her and one other agent for help.

Smart move. This is exactly the kind of place where behavioral analysts tend to shine. Absolutely. So what did they know about the watcher? Well, it had to be somebody with local ties. The letters hadn't been hand delivered. They were all mailed and postmarked nearby. And this is interesting. The first letter had been postmarked on June the 4th, which was before the sale of 657 Boulevard, was even made known to the public. The contractors had just started work on June 3rd the day before the letter was. mailed. So obviously, the watcher had pretty intimate knowledge. The profilers noticed some verbal peculiarities that they felt suggested that the watcher was older, with a big vocabulary that probably meant they were an avid reader. They noted that although the watcher seemed pretty

enraged, they never swore in any of the letters. Maybe this suggested a more passive, quote, less macho author. The good news was, the profilers didn't think the watcher was the type to actually carry out any threats, but there were some scattered little mistakes that made them think they might be dealing with somebody unpredictable. The letter writer definitely seemed to have a grudge against the wealthy, all that talk of greed and everything. Maybe the watcher was jealous. The profiler suggested checking into former housekeepers, which okay, interesting idea, I guess. The idea that, like, your housekeeper is just seizing with jealousy. It's kind of amusing to me, but it's a thought. But by and large, the case was stalled.

there just wasn't anything concrete. A DNA sample taken from the first letter came back female, which was interesting. They tested it against neighbor Michael's sister Abby, but it didn't match. The police had also spoken to quite a few people who had known Michael and his family for decades, and they all thought Michael was a good dude. He could come across as a little strange, he had some mental health issues, but he'd never shown any violence or meanness. At some point toward the end of 2014, the police told the broadest that they'd ruled out Michael

and his family as suspects. Meanwhile, Derek and Maria were living a nightmare. They'd sold their old house, so they had to move in with Maria's parents. They finished their renovations within a couple months, and even had a priest come out and bless the new house, but they were afraid to move in. One of the rentos was an alarm system, and it had gone off several times in the middle of the night. Each time, Derek would haul ass over to the house, armed with a knife, and find nothing. Maria started seeing a therapist who diagnosed her with PTSD. And this didn't help. The watcher was get Nancy.

A new letter read, 657 Boulevard is turning on me. It is coming after me. I don't understand why. What spell did you cast on it? It used to be my friend and now it is my enemy. I am in charge of 657 Boulevard. It is not in charge of me.

I will fend off its bad things and wait for it to become good again. It will not punish me. I will rise again. I will be patient and wait for this to pass and for you to bring the young blood back to me. 657 Boulevard needs young blood. It needs you.

Come back. Let the young blood play again like I once did. Let the young blood sleep in 657 Boulevard. Stop changing it and let it alone. Yikes. And that little part right there, that is really sounding more and more real to me, like more and more like somebody who actually has an obsession with this house, as opposed to somebody that's just messing with these people for sadistic shits and giggles. This person does not sound okay. Right. Yeah. And it's just weird how it seems to have really ramped up with

this particular family. Yeah. Maybe it's the little kids, like there's something there that. I don't know if the other people ever had kids or if they had kids that grew up, but there's something with those kids. It didn't sound like they did. Yeah. I don't know for sure, but yeah, it didn't sound like there were any kids living there at the time that they sold the place. So yeah, I think you might be on to something with that. So creepy. Yeah. So six months after closing on their dream house, Derek and Maria decided to waive the white flag. They listed 657 Boulevard for sale. And it's a gorgeous house, newly renovated and everything. But Word had managed to get around about the watcher letters.

Nothing real specific, but enough to make potential buyers squirly. And Derek and Maria were up front about the letters with the people who did express interests. At some point, to everybody's horror, the Today Show picked up the story and ran with it. And now everybody in the neighborhood was freaked out. One neighbor said her piano students were too scared to show up for lessons. And people were throwing out potential suspects like a dude with a t-shirt gun at a basketball game. it was a pissed off real estate agent it was some teenager doing a creative writing project it was an angry mistress it was a publicity stunt for a scary movie it was this it was that one other family in the block came forward to say they'd gotten a letter too but they hadn't thought anything of it until the watcher story broke in the news like andrea and john woods the previous owners of six five seven boulevard they hadn't found anything especially scary about it. They just thought it was weird and threw it away. The people in this neighborhood

of balls of steel. Okay. I know, right. God. And then, late one night, one of the detectives was staking out the house, as he'd done many times before, watching the place with binoculars from the back of a van. Around 11 o'clock, a car pulled up slowly and stopped right in front of a 657 boulevard. It just sat there, long enough. for the detective to get suspicious. So he ran the license plate and tracked down the owner. It was a young woman.

She lived a couple towns over, but her boyfriend lived on the same block as 657. And she had some interesting things to say about her man. He was into really dark video games, she told the detective. And in one, he played

a character called, guess what? The Watcher. Aw, snap. So the detective reached out to this fella, and he agreed to come in for an interview. Twice. But both times, he didn't show. And the detectives didn't have anything solid to force him to come in. So that's where the lead died down. Tantalizing, frustrating, infuriating.

And the broadices weren't having any luck finding a buyer for the house. Nobody wanted any of that watcher smoke, and honestly, I don't blame him. The watcher was not happy that they were trying to get rid of the house. and the letters got more threatening. One said, maybe a car accident, maybe a fire, maybe something as simple

as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you feel sick day after day after day after day. Maybe the mysterious death of a pet. Loved ones suddenly die. Planes and cars and bicycles crash. Bones break.

You are despised by the house and the watcher won. So Derek and Maria came up with a plan B. They proposed selling the house to a developer who could tear down the house and use the lot for two new homes. But there was a problem. The two new lots would have been about two and a half feet too small to fit the zoning rules of the neighborhood.

So Derek and Maria had to appeal to the neighborhood planning board. Honestly, I know. We need a screen. sound effect there honestly as scary as the watcher is the idea of having to go toe to toe with like the neighborhood homeowners association is worse just fuck all of that i'll just live with like the blood weeping down the walls or whatever i'm not messing with the HOA um true story i actually have like a pretty low-key HOA but i'm currently in the facebook group of it just watching just this drama

unfold with the board and they're just straight up calling each other a lot i'm just watching with popcorn like it's it's really terrifying yeah yeah we had a coup in ours a few years ago like literally it was like that's i think that's what may be happening right now i may be witnessing some like roman you know like julius caesar type stuff going on well i wish them godspeed because ours definitely needed to happen this woman needed to be toppled she was horrendous she would like yard shame people on like the group facebook page about like middle aged women who get but like they're like waspy women that get like just the smallest amount of power it makes them go literally fucking insane also I have this this theory the safer the neighborhood the more

terrified people are in it like yeah yes everything's a gunshot in my neighborhood oh of course like it's amazing I was walking down the street and saw fireworks with my own eyes and I got home and I got an alert and someone was like in the neighborhood app were those gunshots I was like I saw them with my own eyes or fireworks everyone can calm down You live in an extremely safe area. There are gangland battles happening outside. Yes. Well, there's a theory about this, actually.

I don't want to go, we're blinkering hard. I'm so sorry. But like in the book, the nations of the United States, I believe it's called. It's about like how the U.S. is actually like 11 different countries. And you notice that like in states like Colorado, for example, where nature can literally fucking kill you or Arizona where nature can literally fucking kill you or Arizona where nature can literally fucking kill you. Like we have a little less regulation about like people living day to day. And then you go to California, which is so temperate and beautiful all the time. And people are

like, that building might give you cancer. Better watch out. So I think you're on to something there. Your theory is correct. My bank has a can. My bank had a cancer warning. Yeah. Every time I walked in, I'm like, listen, I got to get my money. So I'm just going to deal with this risk. Okay. Well, anything's better than the homeowners association. Of course, we're right about this because the board, of course, said no. No. We know you're terrified for your lives and all, but no. We have to follow the rules. They rejected the Bratiss's appeal 100% unanimously. Assholes. And Maria called everybody out and good for her. She said, you know what we've been through and you've decided that a house is more important than we are. Yeah, pretty much. People suck.

Of course, to be perfectly fair, there was another element at work here. Some people suspected the broadasses were sending the watcher letters themselves. Yeah. The idea was that they'd bought the house, realized it was out of their price range, and had buyers' remorse. And this was what they came up with to unload the place, or to get some attention, or to make money by selling their story, or whatever. I mean, we have seen people do weird or shit than this to chase clout, right? And it didn't help that some of the people who had made the loudest objections to the Broadus' proposal to split up the lot had received creepy, threatening letters themselves, signed Friends of the Broadest family. And who do you think sent him?

Yeah, it was Derek. Now, later, he was very apologetic about this, saying he just kind of snapped after years and years of frustration, which I get. But wow, was that a dumbass idea? for some people, this will be all the evidence they need to decide that this whole thing was a sham from day one. And look, I was actually suspicious of the family myself. When I first heard about this case, I was like, yeah, they did it, you know, themselves. But the more I looked into it and the more I thought about it, the less sense that makes to me. First of all, everybody who knew Derek and Maria said they were totally devastated by the whole thing. Like Maria was literally

suffering from PTSD. Her friend said she would be like shaking when they would see her. She was so upset. Right. And the family did eventually sell their story rights for a Netflix series, which I haven't seen. It's got, what's his name, Cavaconte, Cavaconte as a, Derek. Yeah. I know. But they didn't even make back the loss they took on the house, which they finally sold in 2019. They certainly didn't get rich from it. They've taken a shitload of online hate. It's caused their kids a lot of trauma. Yeah. At the end of the day, I just don't see it. And obviously, the DNA didn't match anybody in the broadest family. It hasn't matched any of the suspects so far, and the case is still unsolved. A local high school teacher is a favorite suspect for some because he'd been obsessed with a house in the neighborhood for years and talked to his students about it all the time. But according to the teacher, it's not 657 Boulevard he was obsessed with. It was a different house nearby, a gorgeous old Victorian. He'd even made friends with. He'd even made friends with. the owners at one point. They let him house sit sometimes. So it sounds like this guy's just really into architecture. I don't know. At this stage in the game, a lot of the original suspects are

dead, and the only way this case is getting solved is if the watcher decides to come forward, or if the broadnesses get what they want, and the police agree to run forensic genealogy on the DNA sample. That's how they caught the Golden State Killer. So it seems like a good idea to me, but so far the police haven't shown any interest. Everybody seems to have moved on. except the broadnesses, who have offered to pay for the DNA analysis themselves. Yeah, and that's another reason why I don't think they're involved in this. They've also hired linguistic experts, handwriting analysts. Like, why would they do that if they had done this themselves?

They would have to be really stupid. Right. I mean, not only did they, like, ruin their relationships with their neighbors. They ruined their, they ruined their chance to make any money off of the house. Mm-hmm. Yep. Even if they're doing well, that's a lot of money, like to put on a house. Oh, yeah.

They're 40, so I don't know if this was their first house or they were leveling up, but it's not like. Yeah, they were leveling up. Yeah, it's still a lot. And I just have to go back about that architecture thing. I'm a little mildly insulted that he was like, no, I'm sorry, it's not your house. I'm obsessed with. It's the much nicer house down the street. I was a little mildly insulted for them.

Yeah, you should be, I think. Yeah, the, and that was like, it was like 2014, 25. which is the peak of like house flipping. So like, I know it wasn't like a, it wasn't a rundown house like you see on, you know, HGTV, but like flipping nice houses is a thing. You can flip a house and make at least a few K on it, you know? Yeah, it would have been much easier to just put the house up for sale without all of this Rasmataz.

What do we always say, kiss, keep it simple stupid? You don't kind of make it fancy. I don't think it was them. I do not think it was them. Yeah, I was also skeptical early on. on, but it just seems like it's not something that would guarantee the kind of result they wanted anyways. It just seems like a really roundabout way to get something, even if it worked out. Yeah, my early theory was that it was some teenager, but the way the guy writes, he doesn't use

any contractions. Like, he writes like adult human, like adult. Yes, absolutely. Old man. He writes like an old man. That's what I was trying to avoid making it a thing, but he writes like an old man. That's what the profile said too. Or like that video game. guy, someone who's like in a character of an old man. Yes. Right. Yes, exactly. There's way more detail on this case and reads Wiedman's articles if you want to read it. We'll link it in the show notes. Okay. So now we're going to move on to our second case, chosen, researched, and written by guest goddess Nina. And this one is going to be a doozy. Hey, campers, with the busy fall season already in swing, you might be looking for wholesome, convenient meals for jam-pack days.

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views of the sweeping peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge or rolling fog coming in from the Pacific Ocean, climbing over jagged rocks onto a verdant northern California landscape. San Francisco, the home of Golden Gate Park, is known for its booming tech industry, which is always looking forward to the next big app or device. But in that fog, something sinister lurks. And in a city so regarded for its advances in technology, old world traditions and even dark magic can find a home beneath the redwoods. On February 8, 1981, Detective James Dorty was called out to Alvard Lake in Golden Gate Park, which was charmingly described in one Google review from 2019.

as a Hep C pond. That's evocative. Good God. However, it seems the area has since experienced improvements. A young woman had discovered a tan backpack. That alone might not get a direct visit from the detective, but this one was splattered with blood. Detective Doherty showed up at the rainy scene to retrieve the backpack and do his standard due diligence.

A blood-stained backpack is caused for concern, but this is the big city, and all manner of suspicious items are abandoned in parks. The contents of the backpack itself were standard, a black coat and two shirts. It's what Doherty found next that was absolutely not standard. In the nearby bushes, inside of a sleeping bag, was the headless body of a young man. And that's not even the weird part. Because in the place of the victim's head, shoved into the gaping wound were two kernels of corn and a chicken wing.

So this is crazy, right? Yeah. Well, the detective also found the body of a chicken, presumably the source of the wing about 50 yards away. I just have to interject that when I first heard about this case, and even though I have some personal experience seeing sacrificed chickens, more on that later, I kept envisioning a fried chicken wing and two-fold cobs of corn, for some reason. That's what I thought too at first. I know, like a corn, like the world's worst cornucopia. My brain just skipped right over the colonel's part and that people don't. tend to sacrifice KFC. So I just want to clarify on that. So specific details are hard to come by in this case, but the chicken was a live

sacrifice and it was to kernels of corn, not whole ass cobs. I was envisioning like a rotissory chicken, so I'm really glad you clarified. Okay, so back to the scene. Fingerprints were taken from the body and it was soon discovered that the victim was 29-year-old Leroy Carter Jr. He had a rap sheet, which is how they were able to

quickly identify him without a head, but his criminal record was your basic run-of-the-mill petty crime type stuff. In fact, Leroy was like a lot of young men at the time. He had served in Vietnam as part of the U.S. Army, and it seems like he had trouble finding his footing back in the States. Many of the veterans of that war dealt with drug problems and PTSD. We can't be certain of Leroy's story, but the path from Vietnam vet to transient with a rap sheet was sadly familiar. Detectives believed the poor guy was sleeping in the bushes, as it was a quiet, isolated spot at night, and was ambushed.

Based on the grisly scene, the murder had to have been committed right there. A deputy coroner was quoted as saying, The cut was very clean, like an expert did it. It would later be revealed that the weapon was most likely a sharp axe or machete. So, Detective Doherty had a headless murder victim. with corn bits and a chicken wing in place of a head, a mutilated chicken nearby, and a suspect or suspects who appeared to have experience removing heads, or at least body parts. Now, it's 1981, and for a little history refresher, this was the dawn of the satanic panic.

The McMartin preschool trial was just a couple of years away. Headlines like, teenagers push adolescent rebellion into dark satanic realm. would grace major publications such as the Daily Herald with the gems for quotes such as the ultimate thing you can do in satanic worship is kill yourself it's the highest tribute to satan which doesn't i mean it's like okay that doesn't really make sense and the majority of teenagers involved people say they're just dablers i say my god the dablers are the ones committing the crimes they're kids and they're killing people can you guess what this person was speaking about?

Frolff? Juggalo's? You guessed it. Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, of course. Coming for us nerds again. Oye. Now, south of this scene in Los Angeles,

12 years earlier, the Manson family murders took the country by storm. And just a few years prior, cult leader Jim Jones moved his home base from San Francisco to Guyana and led a mass murder suicide of his followers and officials

who had come to investigate after receiving pleas from desperate family members. Cults and the occult were top of mind, and the murder of Leroy Carter Jr. had all the hallmarks of a ritualistic killing. Detective Doherty and his team searched the park thoroughly, but a key piece of evidence couldn't be found. The victim's head. Carter had been dead for no longer than 24 hours, but they didn't have much to go on.

So Detective Doherty enlisted the help of Inspector Sarker's Sandy Gallant. The People's Temple, the Church of cult leader and murderer Jim Jones, was based in San Francisco. While the murders and suicides took place in Guyana, there was lots of investigating to do and loose ends to tie up in San Francisco, as many of the family members of the deceased, former cult members, and some survivors were from that area. To her involvement in the case and her subsequent interest in the topic of cults and ritualistic murder made her something of a cult expert. When the case file was handed to Gallant, she noticed some similarities to a religion called Santeria, and more specifically to a related but distinct religion that

combined Santeria with beliefs and rituals from other traditions such as voodoo, Catholicism, devil worship, you name it, called Pelot Mayombay. Now, these are very complex religions with complicated belief systems. They overlap in many ways, but also have distinct differences, but we'll do our best here to relay the basics. I'm going to interject here again for a moment because I brought up seeing sacrifice chickens and I'm not going to leave you hanging. So I am New Yorkan, a term for someone who grew up in New York City with Puerto Rican heritage. In my case, both of my parents are from the island.

My neighborhood was diverse. There were a lot of people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and all over the West Indies, basically all over the Caribbean. While we all have distinctive and diverse cultures and traditions, we share a common thread. These islands were once inhabited by Arawak people, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, but were eventually colonized by European countries who raped Aeroak women and brought disease and slavery, not only of the indigenous people, but of those who were kidnapped and brought from African countries via the Atlantic slave trade. This forced mixture of disparate peoples, the Arawak, the slaves, indigenous to Africa,

and the colonists of Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Sweden, and Denmark, to varying degrees, birthed new cultures that mixed customs from their original homelands. Language, food, music, art, and yes, religions were all molded by this violent history, which brings us to Santeria and Palomayombe. Santeria is a polytheistic religion that was born of this blend of cultures. Originating in Cuba, but spreading out to other countries in the Caribbean and even making its way to the U.S. via immigrant communities, Santeria blended the Yorube religion of present-day Nigeria, Catholicism, and spiritism, which basically is a French reincarnationist form of

Christianity. Palomé, sometimes simply called Palo, has similar roots, but in Instead of the Yorube religion, its roots lie more with the Congo religion of Central Africa. While they have their own deities, their focus on them is not as strong as it is in Sateria. And while the deities of Sateria are seen as measured, the deities of Palo are chaotic. It has a reputation of being a darker religion, incorporating black magic and perhaps even Satanism. As is the case with blended cultures, it appears something. Santeria did have some influence on Paolo.

Some adherents even practice both religions. So forgive us if there is some conflation of the two, but these practices are not mutually exclusive. Santeria and Paolo do not have a central governing body. There is no central text, and it has a degree of flexibility, incorporating traditions from other religions and cultures along the way. Santeria and Paolo are religions that focus mainly on practice through intense rituals, not just sitting at sermons,

and truly are a reflection of how Cuba and Caribbean countries blended aspects of many cultures to form new identities of their own. Santeria and Palo are not the only religion that came out of this cultural stew. I'm sure you've all heard of Haitian voodoo, for example, and there are others that are lesser known. This is freaking fascinating. I'm just learning. Isn't it? Yeah, researching this was just like bananas. Though Palo is seen as the darker of the two, Santaria also gets a bad rap.

Its practitioners argue it is like any other religion, and they simply want to be able to practice in peace. That they mean no harm and their rituals are to be used for good. But Christians in the region did not see it that way. They believed, and many still do, that it is brujeria, what we would call here in the good old US of a witchcraft. The pagan-like ceremonies and rituals gave the Christians the good-all heibi-jibis, and practitioners of Santeria have long argued that their religious freedoms were being violated. I can say firsthand, it was heavily stigmatized when I was growing up. I was told all sorts of stories of Santeria practitioners,

demonic possessions, and black magic. You could sometimes spot practitioners by their all-white wardrobes. I was warned to stay away from these people. that despite the claims of those who practiced that they used their rituals responsibly, they were, in fact, vessels of the devil, conjurers of evil spirits. Wow. I'm getting to the chickens, I promise. It's a lot.

Okay, so what are the aspects of this crime that likely lined up with these eclectic and mysterious religions born of a dark past? First, they're ritualistic religions. the ritual itself and the adhesion to proper execution is of the utmost important, even more important than faith or belief. This murder had a very clear, ritualistic vibe to it. While it was brutal and gory, the actual separation of Carter's head from his body was precise, as if done by someone who had butchered animals or people in the past.

This could have been a surgeon, a butcher, or someone who was part of a religion that regularly uses animal sacrifice, which leads to reason two. A major part of practice in Santeria is Ebo, or offerings. These can be in the form of money, flowers, candles, liquor, and food and animal sacrifice. Those corn kernels and that chicken wang suddenly make a bit more sense. Impalo priests offer these gifts up to an enganga, which is a pot or cauldron filled with specially designated items and acts as a vessel for their deity. Human bones stolen from graves are sometimes added to the Nganga, along with animal blood and rarely human blood, eventually turning the mix black and putrid, often attracting insects. They're designed to look intimidating,

and the contents spill out of the container and can fill a room. If human bones are added to the enganga, the spirit of the person is believed to reside inside of it and becomes a slave to its owner. The owner feeds the spirit blood and gifts so it will do the owner's bidding. Certain engangas are also thought of as capable of killing people, and practitioners can use them to put out a hex, adding to the dark magic reputation of Paolo and linking it to the possibility of using human parts for rituals. Honestly, I'm genuinely concerned. and it's getting dark in here, I might actually open up a portal in my room right now just saying this stuff.

For freaking real, geez, I'm a little nervous just listening to you. I know. Another link. The significance of the human head. Those in gongas I just described, the most important body part to add to one is the human skull. And a core belief of santeria is that a person's head holds their essence and that it forms a link with the oricha, what they call their deities.

So the head holds a very special place in this religion. And when animals are sacrificed, it is often the head that is offered to the deity of their choice. Organs may also be cooked and offered, and practitioners may choose to eat some of the animal. The controversy is that there have long been rumors of human sacrifice, specifically that of children. But practitioners argue that there's no need to commit human sacrifice when animals and grave robbing will do. Remember the bone-stealing witch? I sure do. I was thinking about that. Besides, it's not so easy to kill someone and get away with it in modern-day society,

unless you find a poor, lone, unsuspecting transient sleeping in a bush. The kind of person without a wealthy or involved family to follow up and push law enforcement. The kind of person who lives on the fringes of society, a petty criminal, whose death might not be a priority to the police. if you were going to choose a human to sacrifice and get away with it, someone like Leroy Carter Jr. would be a prime candidate. This all may sound a bit wild, a bit impossible. After all, we were just making fun of the satanic panic and the pearl clutching about the boogeyman coming to take your kid

and turn him into a blood-drinking, devil-worshipping, heavy-metal-loven suicidal murderer. And that still stands. For the most part, it's all bullshit. But Santeria itself is not. here come the chickens so so growing up i lived by a huge reservoir surrounded by trees and parks it was deadly quiet at night very dark in many places probably a lot like alfred lake where carter was murdered it was a hot spot for people banging in cars and doing all sorts of shady stuff

one of the things was the dumping of animals used for ritual sacrifice finding headless foul feathers and all was not uncommon for me as a child. Sometimes other random items lay beside the sacrificed animal. These are real practices, real belief systems, and many of the people who are vehemently against it believe it themselves to an extent, hence why they fear it. We aren't talking about some freaking pizza shop or some kids who dyed their hair black and were edgy. This religion and others like it are a deeply embedded part of Caribbean cultures. So, it was great in all that Gallant identified a possible connection to Santrio and Paolo, but other than being extremely horrifying, that alone wasn't going to get them closer to the identity of the killer or killers.

These communities are secretive about their practices. That is, until she consulted with Charles Wetley, an expert on Santeria out of Miami-Dade County, an area with a huge Cuban population. He agreed that this thing sure looked like ritual. human sacrifice, and furthermore, based on what he knew about these rituals, this one wasn't complete. Remember, that execution and proper adhesion to rituals is super important. You can't half-ass your human sacrifice. You have to full ass it. Otherwise, the whole thing is ruined. Based on what they knew of the practices of Paulo, the priest would make a brew using Carter's

brain and perhaps his ears and eyes. It's even possible the priest would have consumed this brew. After 21 days, if all went according to plan, then the priest would sleep with the head and cauldron for another 21 days. Remember, one of the core beliefs of Santoria in its offshoots is the power of the human head. After that, on the 42nd day, the head would need to be returned to the scene of the beheading. This last part would complete the sacred ritual. So naturally, Gallant reported back with her theory to her colleagues, and of course, since

they had no other leads and specifically sought out people who were familiar with rituals that looked much like the one they found at Golden State Park, they did the bare minimum and had somebody stake out the park where Carter was murdered. Just kidding. They laughed her out of the room. But, but Gallant, who had come up with his theory, surely, surely found a way to watch the park on the 42nd day. Also, no. No. She did not. It's like, come on. I think looking back on it, we had a real difficult time, too, believing that something like this could happen, even though it was our theory, Gallant said in a L.A. Times article. Boy.

Okay. It's like the bar is on the fucking floor. I know. It's crazy. You just need a guy. Just a guy. Yep. To sit there.

Maybe another guy, two guys. It's like basic work. Yeah, what are they doing? Like what you should be doing anyways. You could have a trainee there. This is what is so baffling. Hindsight is 2020, and I'm sure these investigators still lose sleep over the whole thing. But it boggles the mind that during a time where there was so much paranoia around occult murders,

including people who were falsely accused and even prosecuted, no one took this lead about a longstanding religion and its practices seriously. And, you know, like I mentioned, it's not like they had anything else going on. And police do all kinds of desperate things, like, higher psychics. Like, oh, I envision the body in water. And it's like, she's alive. It's like, wow, how original. Yeah. It was that case where the three girls went missing.

And Sylvia Brown told the mom, she's dead. And she wasn't. Horrible. Oh, God. It's always train tracks or water. on water. I can save them the time. Yeah, of course. We're all psychic, actually. We're launching a business. Hire us, police. We'll tell you to listen to the experts. God.

And it was pretty commonly known even then that even run-of-the-mill vanilla murders have been known to return to the scene of the crime. They just happen to be given a very specific day to be on the lookout. But unfortunately, this was an extremely skeptical team. You can probably see where this is going. Guess what was dropped off near the original scene of the murder on the 42nd day? Mm-hmm. Poor Leroy Carter Jr.'s head. There aren't details available of its condition insofar as what was missing from it,

like brain, eyes, and ears, to match the suspected ritual brew. But seeing as it was returned exactly 42 days later, it does support the theory that it was in fact a ritual murder using the traditions of Powell's, or Santeria, whether it was a true believer or some person who bastardized it, researching just enough to do their own version of the sacred rituals. Right, which would be my vote. Because, I mean, obviously, the vast majority of people following these religions would not ever do this.

Just like, you know, they're members of every religion who are going to go crackers and do this kind of shit sometimes and play on their religion. From my research, I couldn't put it all in here because it is such a dent. Both of them are very dense religions. but they have connections at grave, like at cemeteries and hospitals, and they'll just throw someone a little side cache and get some bones, you know? They do say that the rumor is if they need to do like a really hardcore thing, like a really strong hex or something, that maybe they would use live humans.

But again, who knows the truth and if in modern times anyone does? Absolutely. And like you say, very secretive and very protective of their religion. And so it's hard to know what the truth is. You know, take this with a grain of salt. But like a lot of times they only need, they say they only need blood. Like they don't need a full sacrifice. Unless like you said, they're doing something very, very hardcore.

And even then, like, would that be worth it, you know? Yeah. Because the power of that hex would probably be equivalent to a murder, right? Yeah. It's like, just go kill the purse. Yeah, right. I guess at that point. But, yeah, maybe they want to, you know, they want to stay away from the motive part.

But yeah, again, it's just, it, it, it, who. Who knows? Yeah. Like, at the end of the day. I mean, it is ritualistic, but it could have been anyone. They fumbled the bag so hard we will never know, you know. Exactly. Yeah.

And there's also the possibility that it's the world's biggest coincidence, which, you know, I don't know that any of us necessarily believe, considering like everything else that line up. Yeah, it's like, wow, they really stumbled into that one. Yeah, they got a lot of, the lotto on that one. Yeah. Whatever the true story, the investigative team, just blew it. The murderer walked right back into the park with a human head and strolled right back out without a single officer there to catch him. I presume it's a hymn because while these religions are heavily dominated by women

and have strong female leadership, certain rituals and rights are to be performed only by men. This could have been one of those cases right out of a TV show with almost too spot-on of a Danaeunt to be true. It could have had the perfect ending where a detective does. some out-of-the-box thinking and despite the side-eyes from the chuckling colleagues is redeemed when they catch the murderer right in the act, bringing him to justice. Because even though Leroy Carter Jr. seemed like the perfect victim, a transient man alone sleeping in the bushes, his life mattered. And the people or person who so rudely and boldly conspired to hack his head off deserved to face a

court of law. Instead, the murderer was, against all odds, able to complete the ritual. And until this day has never been caught. This case just like, oh, it makes me like bite my knuckle and be like, oh, it's like, as a detective, this is a dream. You know, like, and how could you drop the ball in this one?

It just wild to me. The reaction to cases like this one contributed to the fear that there were secret satanic and occult societies lurking everywhere, recruiting and killing in large numbers. And boy, did we overreact as a society.

We like to think of the satanic panic as a thing of the past. But it doesn't really seem to have gone away. It is just morphed. There are new boogeymen. Hell, some people think Harry Potter is part of a cult indoctrination and that their political opponents drink baby blood. Just spend a few minutes in the comments section and you will see the wildest takes about this stuff.

But Gallant made it clear. Occult murders are rare. And in a 1989 article, she said, For most of us, and I can give myself as an example, what we tended to do in the beginning was we started to hear these things. And first of all, we disbelieved it. Then we felt guilty about disbelieving it when it appeared that there might be something there.

And then from there, perhaps we got a little hysterical in the way we responded to. After all, what defines an occult murder or a satanic murder? Any edgy loser can kill someone in, draw a pentagram on them. Someone whose religious parents refuse to get them professional help may rebel and act out using religious symbolism. But are they really a true adherence of the occult or just someone struggling with mental illness who isn't getting the support they need? Is Susie, who plays Dungeons and Dragons, goes a little heavy on the eyeliner and sneaks out of her bedroom to drink booze and hook up with boys, really possessed by the devil and planning to sacrifice her bestie, or is she really just a horny teenager trying to give her parents the middle finger? I say, why not a little bit of both?

Yay! Right. But, you know, even in the occult, the devil is minding their own business. It's the individual who has to have bad intentions in the first place to conjure them up. Here's a quote from a 1988 article in the Santa Ana Orange County Register entitled Troubled Youth Turned Toward Satan, Away from Life. The kids will tell you themselves, what have we got to live for? You've crammed religion down our throats.

You've destroyed everything. You've built bombs that can wipe out the world, said Denver police, detective, worker sham. It was said in the context of wayward teens turning to Satanism in the 80s, but could have been said yesterday and it would feel fresh. I don't know. I think the quote itself is ironic, and the kids seem to have a point. Do true occult murders happen? Sure, but very, very rarely, and certainly not the levels that are deserving of the hysteria they seem to attract. But the story repeats itself. People see violent and apathetic, sometimes angry youths. They see violence and suffering and think, the devil must have made them do it. Maybe we don't

have to point the finger at the devil. It looks like we do a pretty good job of ruining things all by ourselves. Damn, that's a good point. Boom. Wow. So Nina, darling, tell us where we can find twisted mirror. Yes, so you can find twisted mirror wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to check out Whitney or Katie's episodes, Whitney's is called Blessed Are the Meek, and then the other one's called The Hunger, and that's in two parts. That's Katie's episode. They both did fantastic jobs, and I know a lot of you've already listened, but if you haven't, definitely go listen, so you can see their other side of their voice acting. Well, I got to put on my full Southern accent for.

for mine, which was fun. Yes, that was really fun. And I'm so glad, because I've told Whitney as many times, but had she not agreed, I would have sounded like, what's his name? The rooster, like, I'll say, I'll say. Foghorn, Leghorn. Yes, Foghorn, Leghorn. I would have been like, oh, my daddy, don't treat me good, you know, or like the water boy.

So I'm so glad she came and spear me. It was really fun. And I have a secret motive in inviting you to do the show because I really want to do another one sometime. Oh, sweet. Oh, yeah. But what I would suggest is that you start with episode. Episode one of Twisted Mirror and you don't stop until you get to the end because it's seriously

badass stuff. And I'm a huge fan of Twilight Zone. I watched every single iteration of the Twilight Zone from the old Rod Sterling one all the way up to the Jordan Peels and I love them all. And it really has those vibes. It's that kind of story. And some were genuinely terrifying too. Yeah.

But that was like my formative show like growing up as a kid. It was what I watched with my dad all the time every New Year's Eve, the marathon. So it definitely, maybe I was two years. young, but it definitely made an imprint watching that show, as you could probably tell. And thank you for having me. I am a big fan of true crime campfire as well, and love listening to you ladies, and I can't do both. I can't do the true crime necessarily and the fiction, so I live vicariously through you.

Well, we'll have you on again, and stick around after the outro because we're going to play a little snippet of one of Nina's episodes, so you can get a little taste. So that was, as always, a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And today we want to send a big hug and a big shout out to two of our patrons, the lovely Maddie and her brand new husband, Tom. Like, they're literally getting married as we're recording this, which I think is so cool. So Tom, Maddie, I know it's so sweet.

So Tom, Maddie loves you and she's so excited. to start your life together. Congratulations on your marriage, y'all. We wish you a long life full of love and happiness. My husband and I will have our 21st anniversary in February, and we still can't get enough of each other, so I wish you the same vibes in your marriage. Congrats. And you know, if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode, ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes even two, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And once you hit the $5 an up categories, you get even more cool stuff.

A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin while supplies last at 10 virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. And for great TCCC merch, visit the True Crime Campfire store at Spreadshirt.com. And guess what? We got a website now, truecrimecampfirepod.com. A twisted mirror. Years ago, I went on a trip to visit extended family in Puerto Rico.

On one of those days, we took a trip to El Rio. We hiked through the jungle to an isolated river. We swam and hopped on slimy rocks that I imagined were lily pads. I remember feeling like we were real-life Mario Brothers, hopping from one obstacle to the next, trying not to fall into the water. I watched my brave uncles jump from massive boulders and slice into the dark water below.

It's a core memory marked by photos I have seen countless times when my mother busts out old picture albums, one that should only be recalled with innocence and glee. When the photos were developed shortly after, we returned from the trip? Yes, it was that long ago. All I could see in every picture of me laughing and having the time of my life, balancing against my cousins on uneven, slippery stones, were my belly rolls. I was nine. It took me decades to look at those photos and not feel shame. it wasn't enough to be smart or funny or athletic or kind those were simply consolation prizes for the plane girl

eventually i grew up my body changed i experienced thinness and just as i had imagined it opened up a whole new world to me there are undeniable perks to being thin but But it was only then I learned a little secret. The pursuit of thinness can become an addiction, an obsession. It can consume you. It can steal the very joy it promised. Today, through the mirror, we meet a woman whose quest for physical perfection consumes her.

Yara stood in front of the mirror, her top up, pinching the flesh on her abdomen. Pinch an inch, she thought. What about a handful? So disgusting. You're getting fat. These jeans slid on two months ago. Now they're hanging on for dear life. I hope this is just period bloat.

Who are you even kidding? Yara let out an exasperated sigh and yanked her sweater down. Yara had to get back to work, and she could only spend so long in the solo bathroom agonizing over her imperfections. She walked past the sea of cubicles, mostly empty as it was just past noon, into the communal fridge. She grabbed the limp salad she had packed for lunch that sat just next to a plastic container full of lasagna and understood, just for a moment, why people steal co-worker food. Just as she slammed the fridge door shut, a chorus of laughter echoed through the open space. Yara had just started working at the fledgling marketing firm, on the tech side of things, under the promise of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Sure, the pay wasn't great, but she could build

something here instead of being permanently stuck somewhere between the lower wrongs of the corporate ladder. Their tech team consisted of her boss, one other guy in his late 20s, and her. Yara was told she'd be a project manager of sorts. What she mostly did was field update requests from existing clients, and despite her dev knowledge, it felt more like a customer service job than some fancy tech appointment. Most of the dev was outsourced, and there were mentions of eventually it being brought in house, something she would love to spearhead. But once she arrived, she realized eventually could just as well mean never.

The laughter she had heard came from a few people on the sales team, heading out to a long lunch, probably expensed, with some client. The hiring strategy for the sales team was clear. Young, good-looking, fit. The women were slim and perfectly groomed. The men were trim and perfectly groomed with a touch of slickness. Any one of them could probably start their own TikTok or Instagram and become a mega-influencer, but she could feel the corporate ambition oozing off of them whenever she walked by.

Not that she begrudged them. They were the kind of women that Yara wished she. was, that one day she hoped she could be calm. If only, she tried harder. If only, she could pull that version of Yara out from underneath the one that sheeds her like a thick, impenetrable layer of latex. It's easy to dislike those you envy. In fact, that's the most human reaction. To take those down a notch in order to feel a little less shitty, it's not fair that someone could be hot, smart, popular, and successful. So if the universe was going to hand them everything on a platter, well, then why not find a reason to hate them? How else can the skills be

balanced? No one is perfect, and if you look hard enough, you'll find your ammo. But Yara didn't dislike them. In fact, she didn't even know them. Sales and IT didn't mix much unless there was a problem that needed fixing, usually communicated via Slack, and having only been on the job a whole six weeks, Yara hadn't really had much opportunity for friendship making. But it was clear to her, as it had been her whole life, she was not one of them. At least not yet.