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Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas
00:01:09
with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
00:01:14
You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, okay, hold on, I got a new favorite food.
00:01:21
That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie Mayo. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap
00:01:25
and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it at the grocery store.
00:01:28
And this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks,
00:01:34
which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything.
00:01:41
Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it.
00:01:47
Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.
00:01:55
My favorite murder Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstart.
00:02:12
That's Karen Kilgariff. This is a podcast where we started out talking about true crime.
00:02:17
Now it's a bit loosey-goosey. Would you say it's devolved? Yes. In some ways? I think it's devolved terribly.
00:02:25
Yes. I mean, terribly well. De-evolution, you know, let's just go for it. Let it go.
00:02:31
We are Devo. No, we're not. We are not Devo. This is my favorite murder. We're a podcast, but we're also on TV.
00:02:39
That's right. And we know how fucking weird that is these days. It's weird for all of us.
00:02:43
It's weird for me. I finally watched a little bit of when I was alone, which is always a bad thing.
00:02:48
And I was like, let's just see how we look. And I turned it on and I immediately went to the Internet and bought a posture like harness.
00:02:55
that looks like... Does it hook to the back wall? Yeah. It just keeps you up the whole time.
00:03:01
Like a dog. The whole time. Like a dog harness? Like a dog being washed? Oh my God.
00:03:06
Yeah. I fucking can't even. And I also got a new hairdresser. We're podcasters at heart.
00:03:12
Yeah. I wonder what it's going to be like in the next few years with podcasting and video.
00:03:15
Like you kind of have to do it now. I know. For the kids. Well, it's like, or then the alt people
00:03:21
will stay audio only. They will moralize about it like it's better and you're a better person because of it.
00:03:26
Right. Whatever. That always happens. And we don't have any opinion. We're just being told what to fucking do by big podcasting.
00:03:33
By big podcasting. And you know how much we love to follow rules. Well, and also it's, we want to be up with the times.
00:03:41
Yeah. Doing what the kids do. And it's fun, I think, until you watch yourself. It's fun and great as long as you don't watch yourself.
00:03:47
Just don't look. Pretend it's not happening. Do you have anything? Anything good?
00:03:51
Anything bad? Are you reading that book, Burnout, that I gave you? out of my pocket like that I took out of my purse and handed to you.
00:03:58
You're like, here, someone do something. I do have some good news and it's a true crime update.
00:04:03
Start doing those again. Love that. Fun. Let's. But this one's huge. The Gilgo Beach serial killer has been terrorizing that part of the East Coast forever.
00:04:14
I mean, it feels like since the 90s. I can't believe they finally caught him. Those are so satisfying.
00:04:21
They caught him. It's amazing. They caught him and he pled guilty. There's not going to be a trial. He has been formally charged with the murders of seven women, Megan Waterman, Melissa Bartholomew, Amberlynn Costello, Maureen Brainerd-Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sondra Castilla.
00:04:38
And he also admitted to killing an eighth victim, Karen Vergata, but he wasn't formally charged with her murder as part of his plea.
00:04:45
Yeah. I mean, thankfully those families aren't going to be put through that trial. Like what a fucking monstrous thing to go through after losing your family member.
00:04:54
such a horrible way. I mean, yeah, it's the best news in the worst situation possible. There's a
00:05:01
quote from the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, though, and he said, quote, this case
00:05:06
closes and another opens. There are still bodies on that beach. There are still bodies in Suffolk
00:05:11
County. There's no rest for the weary. Yeah. And then there's also some Ted Bundy news.
00:05:18
What's the Ted Bundy news? Oh, so a victim of Ted Bundy's has been officially tied to him.
00:05:25
One of those ones that's been suspected since the beginning. In 1974, the body of 17-year-old Laura Ann Amy was found by hikers in Utah's American Fort Canyon.
00:05:37
She'd last been seen months earlier leaving a Halloween party in Utah County where he was a fucking, what was he, a college student at the time?
00:05:46
Oh, yeah, that's right. He was going to become a lawyer. Right. Yeah And just before his execution Ted Bundy admitted to murdering her but there was no hard evidence to support it until very recently Forensic DNA testing of case evidence has now allowed investigators to build a genetic profile that they say links Bundy to Laura murder So on April 1st Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith said they are officially closing Laura case
00:06:10
And I mean, I can't give her her fucking respect, you know, and her due. It's been such a long time. I think that is incredible.
00:06:19
I'm sure that the relatives and friends and family thought it was never going to happen or that they wouldn't get answers.
00:06:25
And like, yeah, that wouldn't matter anymore. But it's like it does. We're still thinking about it all the time.
00:06:31
Good news in the bad news. Right. Totally. Good news in true crime world. Like that's you're not going to get a fucking Lisa Frank stationary.
00:06:39
No. Moment. That's not what they do there. That's not what we do here. True crime news.
00:06:45
And sometimes we eat weird flavored jelly beans. Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's something else to look forward to.
00:06:51
Yeah. If we find out about them. Yeah. Tell us. Tell us in the comments, guys. But you're saying KFC is making jelly beans?
00:06:59
My sister sent me a photo of a bag that the kids were so stoked on. It was like fried chicken flavor, mashed potato flavor, and like coleslaw flavor, I think.
00:07:09
We're corn niblets. Right. No one orders that, do they? I love it. Buttered corn?
00:07:15
No. No, it's like watery. Yeah. It's so watery. Just like my mother's cooking. Dry chicken, weird watery corn, and some minute rice.
00:07:24
Vince made funeral potatoes the other day. Ooh, were they good? They were so fucking good.
00:07:28
We were given a funeral potato kit when we went to Utah, Salt Lake City that time, years ago.
00:07:34
Because we didn't know what they were. Yeah. It was good. He used frozen cubed potatoes, a can of cream of chicken soup, and just all the cheese you've ever seen.
00:07:42
And it was all bubbly on top. I burnt my tongue. And then cut up potatoes like a child.
00:07:48
Because you ate them the second they got out of the stove. It must have smelled amazing.
00:07:51
That's all of my mother's cooking was based in Campbell's soup in some way. We've got to bring it back.
00:07:56
Right? Because it's so easy. Can a cream of chicken, can a cream of celery. You're off to the races.
00:08:01
That's sauce. Pack of onion powder or like ranch powder. And a half a cup of wine.
00:08:05
In your mouth while you're cooking. Drink that, pour some in, toast some almonds.
00:08:10
And then you don't care what it tastes like. There are people on Instagram, I'm sure on TikTok, that are like, here's me making like
00:08:17
a classic meal from the 1970s and they make like shit on a shingle or they make like fucking
00:08:21
casserole with like the actual vintage kitchenware, which, you know, is my fucking weak spot.
00:08:26
Yeah. All lead based and everything. Yeah. You love lead. I love lead. It's so delicious.
00:08:32
I'd lick it like I licked mercury as a child. And here I am today. Look. Look at you.
00:08:39
Didn't hurt you medically? Video podcasting. We are a result of mercury poisoning.
00:08:46
To camera, to camera. I'm fine. I don't have a uterus anymore. It's fine. I mean, who needs it?
00:08:52
All right, should we talk about this network? Because things are happening on this network.
00:08:56
Stop it. It's crazy. We have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media. It's been quite a week.
00:09:01
We are still celebrating our newest addition to the ERM family. Our friend Jake Brennan and his true crime music podcast, Disgraceland, is here on ERM.
00:09:09
We're so thrilled. We are. His newest episode, which you can go check out now, is all about Grace Jones.
00:09:15
If you don't know her, she's a legendary 80s icon. Her life collided with crime and scandal.
00:09:20
and she had to fight to protect her reputation. Of course, she was a powerful, incredible looking woman of color
00:09:27
in the time where it was blonde women only. And it was incredible. I remember seeing her on TV and just being like,
00:09:33
she has a crew cut and the best cheekbones I've ever seen in my life. What's happening?
00:09:38
She's a legend. Yeah. I can't wait to listen. And then over on Bananas, Kurt and Scotty are joined by Pooja Maytha.
00:09:44
They cover octopuses getting extra cuddly on ecstasy. Oh, I want to be on ecstasy with an octopus.
00:09:50
You will. You will. When the lead wears off. Paragliders narrowly avoiding a polar bear enclosure and people who can mentally time travel.
00:10:00
I fucking just read about that. What is it? They have such good memory that they can put themselves there.
00:10:06
Yeah. Like literally be in that moment. And I think that they can also tell the future what's going to happen in the future too.
00:10:13
Because they understand correlation so much better than most people because they actually remember.
00:10:19
Yes. Oh, I burned myself that one time. Don't do that again. Yeah, that's an incredible gift.
00:10:23
Imagine that. To not re-burn yourself a thousand times psychologically. Meaning dating.
00:10:28
It's called dating. Have fun. Go back. Try it again. Then over on I Said No Gifts, Bridger tries to stay calm when the greatest of all time,
00:10:37
our friend Martha Kelly, you know her from baskets, you know her from euphoria. She shows up with a gift anyway, of course.
00:10:43
They get into a gigantic fight and also storm chasing, broken air conditioners and fighting for joint custody.
00:10:50
I love that there's a generation of young people who are scared of Martha Kelly because her role on Euphoria is so terrifying and so perfect.
00:11:00
And she almost plays the same character as in Baskets, but it's the most intimidating.
00:11:05
And Martha, I don't know if everybody knows this, is one of the greatest standups.
00:11:08
If you go watch her live, it will blow your mind. That's why it's so funny that they're scared of her.
00:11:12
Yes. Like people on the internet are scared of her. That's fucking badass. It's so good.
00:11:16
Over in Merch Corner, we've got brand new whistles. Do you need a whistle for whatever reason you might need it?
00:11:22
Because we've got fuck politeness and we've got wheat woo. Two whistles that you can buy.
00:11:28
Keychain whistles. They're so cute. Proceeds from both of these whistles benefit the National Immigration Law Center.
00:11:35
So you can order yours at exactlyrightstore.com. So this is more big news, which is very exciting.
00:11:41
but this is almost like circumstantial. So we have a cult podcast here on ERM called Trust Me.
00:11:46
Now there's a new cult documentary on Netflix, and it's called Trust Me, the False Prophet.
00:11:52
It not associated directly except that Lola Blanc who is the host of our Trust Me her mother Dr Christine Marie is featured in this documentary because that why Lola hosts a cult podcast She was raised in this cult
00:12:05
And Christine Marie was the first guest of Trust Me. So you can now go on Netflix and watch Trust Me, The False Prophet, Doc.
00:12:15
And when you're done with that, come on to ERM, go on to Trust Me, go listen to episode one, and you get every possible part of the story you would want.
00:12:23
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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at MintMobile.com. Okay, I'm first. Okay. I have been waiting to tell you this story for a long time.
00:15:06
I don't know why I haven't done it yet. It's just, I'm going to put my glasses on.
00:15:10
Oh. I like the build of that where you're like, And now I'm going to. Are those new?
00:15:17
Yeah. Cute. They're okay? Yeah. This is a story that is very familiar to those of us who lay awake at night scrolling Reddit and scrolling missing persons, clickbait articles.
00:15:32
And it takes place in Ohio, which is home to many, many cases we've covered. Ohio gives and gives.
00:15:38
Yes, it does in a horrible way. It does. And on any given day, around 1,000 Ohioans are missing, according to data from the Ohio Attorney General's office.
00:15:48
There are 1,000 people a day missing in Ohio. They're not new every time. Okay. Just like...
00:15:53
It's the consistent count is that high. Yeah, it's very high. So today we're going to talk about one of those missing people, one of those 1,000.
00:16:01
And due to eerie surveillance footage that's kind of hard to fully reconcile, this story has become more of an urban legend.
00:16:08
ending up on those late night doom scrolls about mysterious disappearances. But unfortunately, it's not an urban legend.
00:16:15
It's a true tragic story for one Ohio family in the mid 2000s. This is the story of the disappearance of Brian Schaefer.
00:16:23
Okay. Do you know yet what I'm... You'll know when I explain. Do you see that? What did it look like?
00:16:29
I don't know. I can see everything now. It looked like a cat hair. Your vision is too good.
00:16:33
So good. You're like, can't read. Did you see that? It was an atom. Is Brian Schaefer the guy who left a party and they found like a canoe?
00:16:43
No. No. Okay. I'm like, what? Because that was on True Crime Bullshit because it was about a potential Israel Keyes victim.
00:16:50
Right. There is a similarity there. Like, I think you're close. Okay. I don't know what it is.
00:16:54
So the main sources I used for the story are an article in Columbus Monthly by April Johnston, one from Mel Magazine by Kirk Pepe, and one from the Columbus Dispatch by Mike Wagner.
00:17:05
And the rest of the sources are in the show notes. Okay, so. Your eyes are a little bit bigger with those glasses on.
00:17:12
Does it look insane? Not like Jerry Seinfeld in that episode where you're wearing the weird glasses, but when you went like that, you were just like, ugh.
00:17:22
Is it weird? I feel self-conscious. That you don't have perfect vision? Yeah. Come on.
00:17:27
I'm getting older. Yeah. We're falling apart on Netflix. Truly. It's great. All right.
00:17:34
This is serious. It's the wee hours of Saturday, April 1st, 2006, April Fool's Day.
00:17:40
We're at the Ugly Tuna Saloon. Oh. That's what it's called. It's great. It's a popular college bar at the edge of the Ohio State University campus.
00:17:49
You know those like blocks, like there's some in Austin that we've been to or Nashville.
00:17:54
Yeah. We just walk and there just like bar after bar kind of interchangeable just for college kids to get drunk cheap you know Totally Although it isn really a safe area either
00:18:05
So three second year medical students have been bar hopping around town, blowing off steam because they've just finished their final exams.
00:18:13
Med school, of course, is extremely high pressure and stressful. But for one of these students, 27 year old Brian Schaefer, it's been a particularly awful few months.
00:18:23
So just three weeks earlier in March, he lost his mom, Renee, to cancer. Then he had to just pivot and turn around and take his exams, his medical exams.
00:18:35
The same thing happened to my mom when she was taking her nursing test, her RN licensing test.
00:18:40
Her dad died like the day, either the day of or the day before. Oh, my God. Yeah.
00:18:44
And you just shut it all down. Totally. And you do what you got to do. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:48
But it does seem like Brian's ready to take a break from this stress. And that's what this night is about on the night of March 31st.
00:18:55
So before the first, he goes out to dinner with his dad, Randy. Then he meets up with his friend, Clint Florence.
00:19:02
He'd also invited his brother, Derek, to come out too. But Derek and his wife were at a comedy show.
00:19:07
And they just went home afterwards. So let me tell you about Brian. Everyone's like, he's an ordinary, normal college student.
00:19:13
He's also like this beautiful, charming person. This is Brian and his dad. Oh, yeah.
00:19:18
So that's Brian. He's like, good looking. He looks like a cross to me between a young Tony Hawk and John Mulaney.
00:19:25
Do you see that? Sure. So, yeah, he's like a good looking. He's fit. He's smart.
00:19:30
He is nice and friendly and is, you know, pretty normal person. Right. So Brian and Clint start off at the Ugly Tuna bar.
00:19:40
And just before 10 p.m., Brian calls his girlfriend, fellow second year medical student, Alexis Wagoner.
00:19:46
She's a few hours away in Toledo, staying at her parents' house, but she and Brian are planning to go on a trip to Miami together, I think, for spring break.
00:19:53
They're supposed to leave two days from then, and they're both looking forward to it.
00:19:57
According to many people who tell this story who were there, Brian is planning to propose to Alexis on this trip.
00:20:03
So he's just, you know, in the prime of his life. Yeah. So shortly after this call, Brian and Clint start going bar hopping.
00:20:09
They stop at seven other bars, and they take a shot at each bar. and I guess I asked Vince like how many shots would make you shit-faced yeah because I think
00:20:21
I heard somewhere that they had like 11 up to 11 shots I mean and I'm like well you know you're six
00:20:26
he was like six foot two and big is he gonna be drunk and Vince is like fuck yeah and you're
00:20:32
drinking a beer at the same time you're not just going in and having a shot you're like right that's
00:20:36
speculation obviously but no that makes sense also the more like just thinking I'll talk about myself
00:20:41
The more shots I took and then beers I backed with it, the more I was like, well, it's fine.
00:20:47
I'm fine. Let's keep going. So you'd like once you're over eight, it's mayhem. Yeah.
00:20:51
You're making all bad decisions. Yeah. No shots. That's my rule. Shots just get you to a whole different place that you kind of can't plan for.
00:20:59
No, no. So they presumably become very drunk. And then along their bar crawl route, Brian and Clint meet up with a friend of theirs, a woman named Meredith Reed.
00:21:10
And towards the end of the night, Meredith drives everyone back to the Ugly Tuna.
00:21:14
They end up back there at 1.15 in the morning. And so the Ugly Tuna is actually inside a bigger indoor complex, kind of like where the Alamo Drafthouse is.
00:21:25
Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, you go up the escalator and there's like the bowling alley there, the Drafthouse there.
00:21:30
Yeah. So the indoor complex is called the Gateway, and it has a movie theater and some stores and offices and some university housing.
00:21:37
So the entrance to the Ugly Tuna is inside and up an escalator on the building's second floor.
00:21:42
So surveillance footage from that night shows Brian, Clint, and Meredith riding up on the escalator and then entering the bar.
00:21:50
So that's the three of them. Okay. So they know for a fact they were there. They see all three of them.
00:21:55
There he is going up into the bar. He's corroborated that he is there. Yeah. You can see the escalators and right outside the entrance of the bar, but you can't see the actual doorway of the bar.
00:22:06
and there's no footage from inside the bar, but it's clear that three of them walk back in
00:22:13
and then we never see Brian leave ever. So at about 1.57 a.m., right before the bar is scheduled to close at two,
00:22:21
Brian is just barely visible on the surveillance footage, standing outside the Ugly Tuna,
00:22:27
talking to two women casually. According to some accounts from that night, Brian was maybe flirty.
00:22:33
That's, again, speculation, And you can't really tell much from CCTV footage, like body language.
00:22:38
If you have some beers, that's what everyone's doing. Fun times, good times. It might mean nothing.
00:22:45
So people, and there's so little to go on in the story that like people just cling to things and make up their own stories about it.
00:22:51
They're trying to figure something out. Right. So the women go back into the bar.
00:22:55
They use the bathroom. They leave and they don't see Brian again. And meanwhile, Clint and Meredith, who are back in the bar, can't find Brian as they're all planning on leaving when it's closing.
00:23:04
It's unclear if Brian went back into the Ugly Tuna or if he went elsewhere in the complex after talking to those women.
00:23:10
But he definitely did not leave the complex via the escalator that is in view of the security cameras.
00:23:16
The cops like combed this video footage after the fact and he is not in it. Wow.
00:23:22
Clint doesn't know that. And after looking for Brian and calling his phone, he assumes Brian had just Irish goodbye and gone back to his apartment, which is very close by.
00:23:30
And so they leave. And if it's a complex like that, there's plenty of other exits.
00:23:34
No, there's not. No, we'll get to that. But also, like, I feel like 2006, it's not like we were texting each other constantly.
00:23:41
Like you would have been like, yo, I went home. You call if he didn't pick up. Yeah, much more stuff was assumed.
00:23:47
Like it was just like, you're not there anymore. Or we had a plan, but you must have.
00:23:52
Yeah. And he's a grown, it's not like he, you know, is a woman and you're worried about them getting
00:23:57
home safely in the same way you are about a dude just walking. away and going home. It's like not that big of a deal. And it sounds like a very intelligent guy.
00:24:04
Yeah, right. But also really drunk. So that's a little worrisome. But all day Saturday and the
00:24:09
next day, Sunday, no one seems to be able to get in touch with Brian. Alexis, his girlfriend,
00:24:13
tries several times, but no one's answering his phone. He's not returning her calls,
00:24:18
which is unlike him. And so the next day is Monday and Brian and Alexis, this is when they're
00:24:24
scheduled to leave for their trip to Miami. From what I read, Alexis is just like, he's,
00:24:31
something happened to his phone. I'm just, you know, everything's going to be fine. I'm just
00:24:34
going to meet him at the airport. I bet that's what's happening. So she goes to the airport
00:24:38
and he doesn't show up and he misses his flight. And that's when Alexis and Brian's father contact
00:24:45
the Columbus police and a missing persons case is opened. What a horrible feeling.
00:24:50
Just sitting there waiting to see his face. Sitting there. Like, because you get that thing, you know, in the very much, much, much smaller version where you're kind of like, no, it's like, it's all just going to come together and it's just going to work.
00:25:03
And this will be, this is the final chance for him to, he'll just get out of a car.
00:25:07
Yeah. And here we go on vacation. There'll be an explanation and we get a move on.
00:25:11
Yeah. And you're just waiting with like kind of in the back of your head knowing that it's not going to happen.
00:25:16
It's not realistic. Yeah. So Brian's dad, Randy, goes over to Brian's apartment.
00:25:20
Nothing seems out of place. His bed is made. His textbooks are all there. Police find that Brian's bank account and credit cards are untouched.
00:25:29
You know, there's, of course, in the beginning, people are like, he must have just taken off on his own.
00:25:33
And there's that trip to Miami. Like, maybe he just, like, fucking left town, was there already.
00:25:38
Right. So very early into the investigation, police get that surveillance footage from outside the Ugly Tuna Saloon.
00:25:44
God, I don't want to say that anymore. Yeah. But it doesn't answer any questions.
00:25:48
It appears that he just disappears into thin air. There are other ways out of the building.
00:25:53
One of them, they don't really make sense. One of them is like a back door, and I think there is video footage of that, but he's not in it.
00:26:01
And then one is like the building was under construction. So there is a service door leading down to a construction site outside of the building.
00:26:09
That exit is covered with plywood. You kind of have to climb down through a shaft.
00:26:14
Like, why would he go that way? But if he's super drunk and he could have fallen or some, you know, an accident.
00:26:23
Totally. I don't know. So he could have possibly fallen, gotten hurt. But the area is searched and Brian is not found.
00:26:29
And other businesses in the Gateway building have cameras and the buildings around the gateway also have cameras.
00:26:35
But as far as we know, Brian never shows up on any of the security footage. He just goes up into the fucking bar and disappears.
00:26:43
And I've always imagined him, like you said, still in there, having fallen somewhere.
00:26:48
Like, did you see that recently? Like, a woman got stuck in her crawl space and, like, died and she'd been missing for years and years.
00:26:54
Yeah. That's happened. I think we did a story about that one time, too. The fireplace?
00:27:00
The fireplace one. I think there was a rock club one, too. Yeah. Which is so rare.
00:27:05
Right. It's, like, just the oddest thing. And they would have smelled something.
00:27:08
And they did a—I mean, they did multiple thorough searches, it seems, of this entire complex.
00:27:13
But who the fuck knows? Can I tell you one theory just popped into my head? Because if these other stores had cameras and if somebody that was in one of those stores was involved, then they could have gone and like erased the camera.
00:27:25
Sure. Or they're like, oh, sorry, our cameras erase every day or something. And cover their own tracks.
00:27:30
Yeah. Just that it's not freestanding. It's like there's other places and other people that are kind of set there.
00:27:36
Yeah. And like this is what we're doing, right? Theorizing kind of. And there's a total possibility that he is on those surveillance cameras and we just, it doesn't, it hasn't, I can't imagine it hasn't been connected.
00:27:47
But yeah, who the fuck knows? Weirder things have happened. Sergeant John Hearst of the Columbus police, he's the lead detective on this case.
00:27:54
He believes that this is the likeliest route that Brian took out of the building that he'd left through the shaft, wound up in the construction site and then left the construction site or was taken from it.
00:28:05
One more interesting detail that Hearst says is that dogs tracked Brian's scent from the construction site to a nearby Wendy's, like across the street, then possibly to an abandoned building, and then they lost the scent completely.
00:28:19
We've also heard the stories of drunk people ending up in dumpsters and those getting emptied.
00:28:25
I mean, that's such an awful fucking thought, but he got maybe got beat up and put.
00:28:30
I mean, this is clearly just more speculation that everybody does. Yeah, it's all you're left with.
00:28:36
So this area of downtown Columbus, where the Gateway building is, is known for having a pretty high crime rate.
00:28:42
And so part of the reason the Gateway was built was for the university to establish kind of a safer area for students to hang out.
00:28:48
But again, this also means that there are cameras pretty much everywhere and no trace of Brian is seen on any of them.
00:28:54
A massive search effort expands outward from the Gateway Center with Brian's friends, family and Alexis, his girlfriend, all working tirelessly to search the nearby Olentangy River.
00:29:06
And also they check every dumpster. But it had already been a few days before he was reported missing and no sign of him is ever found.
00:29:15
Alexis calls Brian's cell phone every day. it always goes straight to voicemail except one time several weeks after Brian's disappearance
00:29:23
it rings once can you imagine that idea that this is the last connection and you're just going to
00:29:29
keep trying because nothing else is working and the people who are supposed to be helping you or
00:29:33
solve it yeah can't do it there's no answers and so then you have this one way and that's just like
00:29:38
the only thing you can hold on to and then it rings and you're so desperate you're almost you
00:29:43
also were like, if he left me and doesn't want to be with me anymore, good. I just need to know
00:29:48
what happened So like yeah it fucking rings once And Brian cell carrier believes it was just a glitch and not Alexis making an actual connection with Brian phone It 2006 so it so hard to tell And that said in the 30 days after Brian disappearance
00:30:07
his phone pings several towers around the Columbus area. It's that telephone ping thing
00:30:13
that we got in serial that like, does it make sense or does it, is it just a fluke? Is it an
00:30:18
accident? I mean, as we do in these things where we take conjecture from the things we've learned
00:30:24
from the media. So my thing is like law and order where it's like, well, someone found the phone on
00:30:30
the ground and it's their phone now for a little while. And then they ditch it. Right. And it's not
00:30:34
connected and it's not that. But like if that person came forward and said where they found
00:30:40
the phone, it would help so much more than them getting in trouble for stealing a lost phone.
00:30:46
Yeah. I mean, yeah, but they already stole something and they don't know why, how important it would be.
00:30:50
No, they don't. I don't think. I feel like someday in the same way DNA, we're able to like read it better.
00:30:57
I think the pinging phone thing is going to make more sense one day. Yes. Although I wonder
00:31:01
if it's going to be able to be useful for old cases like this. What I hope is we someday
00:31:06
get rid of these fucking phones. And let's just go back to long form letter writing.
00:31:10
I think it's best. Oh, that's great. I love it. And this is one of the biggest mysteries of the case,
00:31:16
as is the elevator footage. All calls to Brian's phone go straight to voicemail suggesting that the phone had lost battery or was turned off.
00:31:25
But if it was pinging towers, it would have to be turned on. And some people, Redditors, a lot of Redditors, believe this must mean that someone had Brian's phone and it was periodically turned on, like we said.
00:31:35
So in 2007, it wasn't possible to pinpoint the phone's exact location, though I wonder if someday it will be or if it's just like old technology at this point.
00:31:44
Well, it'd be great if it could happen and it'd be great if we could focus on things like that.
00:31:48
Yeah. And the case attracts tons of attention, of course. Brian, he's also a musician who is actually considered becoming a musician as his career before picking medicine instead.
00:32:01
He's a massive Pearl Jam fan and he has a Pearl Jam tattoo, the stick figure from the art.
00:32:06
That's how I know this name. Really? Well, because Pearl Jam started talking about it, right?
00:32:10
Yeah. Eddie Vedder learns about the case and talks about it at a show in Cincinnati.
00:32:15
That's the tattoo. He has the tattoo, yeah. Stick figure. So he dedicates a song to Brian, and this brings even more attention to the case.
00:32:22
But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to turn up any fresh leads. So, you know, there's the theories.
00:32:28
Some people believe that Brian died accidentally in the construction site, and there was some conspiracy by the developer or the local government to cover up his death.
00:32:37
But, you know, not wanting to lose funding or stall the project somehow. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go through in a very quick time.
00:32:46
And a lot of people to be complicit in doing that. I don't. Right. There'd be one guy like, I'm not.
00:32:52
No. Another theory that comes up again and again in this case, and really when any young man disappears on a night out in the Midwest, is that this could be the work of an unknown serial killer who some people call the smiley face killer.
00:33:05
Not it's separate from the happy face killer. Believers in the smiley face killer theory.
00:33:09
So we don't even know if there's an actual serial killer out there. Note that young men, often drunk, have disappeared from many college campuses, particularly in the Midwest.
00:33:18
Often they're eventually found in bodies of water near campus. And often a spray-painted smiley face has been found somewhere on the banks of the river.
00:33:28
Yeah. So it all might just be a coincidence. Totally. And yet then you kind of underlay that with the Israel Keys story where we had a serial killer who was intentionally crossing state lines and driving all over so he could kill people randomly or make it look random.
00:33:44
Yeah. I mean, that's the unfortunate thing. It's just like that because that I remember trying to do the smiley face killer on this show.
00:33:52
Yeah. And it's just it is like it's a ton of the same story. And so frustrating because it's like and then he disappeared or then he was found dead in this water.
00:34:01
But graffiti near a horrible accident is not uncommon. Totally. Trying to lace all that together.
00:34:09
But at the same time, it's already happened that way. Israel Keyes is the proof that this could be happening.
00:34:16
Other people could be doing it. Yeah, right. It's not impossible. No such smiley face has ever been found on the banks of the Olentangy River.
00:34:24
The FBI has always maintained that there is no such killer and that the presence of the smiley face graffiti is just a coincidence.
00:34:30
Sorry, they say the same thing about Lady Bird Lake. I know. We're not doing that. We're not going to believe the FBI.
00:34:36
Okay. Ever. Sounds good. Ever again. Ever again. Another theory is that Brian did leave the bar under his own power, that he changed his clothes and put on a different hat so he wouldn't be recognized in the footage, in the surveillance video.
00:34:49
And then people point to Brian's grief over his mother's recent death that apparently Alexis asked him to, quote, go away, just go away with him.
00:34:58
that maybe he had been planning to run away. But why would he, you know, it just doesn't seem likely
00:35:05
that he would have put his family through that all this time. No. And did he just graduate from medical school or is about to?
00:35:12
He just finished his exams for that year or for that semester. You do all that work.
00:35:16
Exactly. And all years. And then you're just like, whatever. Yeah. I'm out. It seems like that's bumped down to the lower percentage of possibility.
00:35:26
Yeah. Yeah. And then his credit cards and money aren't touched ever. Like you'd never hear from him again.
00:35:31
Sounds kind of impossible. Yeah. Intentionally. And he was close to his family after all they'd gone through with their mom.
00:35:37
It just seemed really out of character for him, people said. Yeah. So Brian's dad, Randy, and his brother, Derek, worked tirelessly to try and find Brian or any clues that could lead to finding out what happened to him.
00:35:50
At one point Randy the father consults a psychic who says Brian is in the Olentangy River says he was caught in a whirlpool by a specific peer like gives him all this information this grieving father Randy puts on waders and goes out to this spot and almost gets sucked into a whirlpool under the surface himself
00:36:10
So sad. So it's just fucking. So sad. It gets worse. In the year after Brian's disappearance, Randy never lets up and is constantly calling Brian's friends.
00:36:18
He calls Alexis and the police to discuss any possible developments. Like he just dedicates himself to finding out what happened to his son.
00:36:25
Then in September of 2008, there is a powerful windstorm in the town where Randy lives.
00:36:34
And Randy's trying to clear some debris and a large branch falls off the tree and kills him.
00:36:42
Ugh, this poor family. I know, like the poor, the brother who suddenly lost his entire family within like within two or three years.
00:36:51
Oh my God. I know. So in the years since, though, Derek has taken a step back from the case, understandably trying to protect his mental health.
00:36:58
Yeah. You know, and Alexis spends a year also trying to search for Brian, manning the tip line, participating in physical searches and still calling his phone every day.
00:37:10
And about a year later in 2007, she tells herself she needs to stop for her own sanity.
00:37:14
And I mean, not stop, but just not become be so involved in your entire life. Yeah, just focusing only on this tragedy over and over every day, which I'm sure in the beginning was like a way to get up and out of bed and dedicate yourself to something.
00:37:32
But yeah, it's years of not finding any clue. So crazy. And then about six months after that, her mom introduces her to a contractor named Eric.
00:37:41
They fall in love. He's very understanding. and they ultimately get married and have two sons and settle down in Toledo,
00:37:48
where Alexis works as an obstetrician now delivering babies. She doesn't believe in any one theory.
00:37:55
She tells the Columbus Dispatch that she's kind of numb from that time in her life.
00:38:00
And she says, quote, it almost feels like this all happened to someone else. Yeah.
00:38:04
Because it's just so strange and took up so much energy and effort of your life.
00:38:10
and then you had to walk away from it and just pretend that everything moved on.
00:38:15
You had no choice but to move on. This month marks the 20th anniversary of Brian's disappearance.
00:38:20
The case remains open and the Columbus police say they still receive tips and pursue all leads.
00:38:26
Wow. In a prepared statement for the 20th anniversary of Brian's disappearance, his brother Derek says, quote,
00:38:32
every day we think about Brian and can't believe it's been 20 years. We still continue to hope and pray to have answers someday and wish that anyone who knows anything would come forward.
00:38:43
And that is a story of the mysterious and tragic disappearance of Brian Schaefer.
00:38:48
Wow. I know. Hey, if the Gilgo Beach serial killer can get found and arrested years and years later.
00:38:55
Totally. This person can get found. I feel like there's a simple explanation. I don't think it's some big conspiracy.
00:39:02
Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just simple and not nefarious, maybe, because the ex-detective is going to write a book about it and they haven't ruled out murder.
00:39:12
But it's like we can't rule it in either because there's nothing there. What an incredibly frustrating story you've just told me.
00:39:20
Sorry, I know you. But I really love that you did it. The fact that it's the 20th anniversary and that it's that kind of thing where it's like missing persons where everyone just puts their hands up.
00:39:30
And it's like, why haven't we established governmentally like huge cold case teams or missing persons teams where it's like a dedicated group of people and that's their job.
00:39:40
And so that the family doesn't have to do it. And it's not left to the people who are hurt the most by it.
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Default terms at mintmobile.com. Great one. I also have a bit of a mystery story to tell you today.
00:41:53
Great. But it a real left turn Okay Very different Okay And it one of those ones I excited to tell you about It begins on Tuesday September 29th 1903 Oh shit You know what that is The turn of the
00:42:06
century. My favorite time. And we're in a small town, Van Meter, Iowa. Okay. It's around 1 a.m.
00:42:14
And a man named Ulysses G. Griffith is heading home after a long day of work. Ulysses is in his mid-30s. He runs a farm equipment business. Such a different time.
00:42:25
And the business requires him to travel all around the region. He often makes it home quite late.
00:42:30
And we assume he's traveling in probably a horse-drawn wagon since it's 1903. And, of course, he's exhausted.
00:42:37
It's a lot of long, slow travel. So he rolls onto Van Meter's Main Street, and then he sees something incredibly strange.
00:42:48
There's a bright beam of light coming from the roof of a nearby building, cutting into the nighttime sky.
00:42:53
So this is 1903. We are in rural Iowa. It's a darkness that none of us really understand anymore.
00:43:00
Oh, my God, I bet. Before the Rural Electrification Act. Yeah. So some towns did have electricity, but it was usually when people had it in their homes, it was people with money.
00:43:11
Right. So it took a while for everybody to get it evenly. So this kind of like spotlights and things, no one's seen that before.
00:43:20
Most towns like this in America don't have streetlights. Yeah. Or if they do, they have gas lights and they're probably out by then, like that time of night, right?
00:43:28
Totally. We have a picture of Van Meter just to get the sense of, oh, you know, small turn of the century town.
00:43:36
Train stops through it. It's big enough to have its own train stop. Yeah. Huge, but not big enough to have its own newspaper.
00:43:42
Got it. We're right in there. And then just in the background, no lights. Nothing. There's nothing. No.
00:43:48
So Ulysses is baffled, of course. He's just staring at this bizarre sight, trying to figure out what he's looking at and where it's coming from.
00:43:56
When suddenly the light jumps to another rooftop and then it jumps again and then it vanishes into the darkness.
00:44:04
Is this an alien story? We'll see. Okay. This is such a small town and incredibly tight knit community.
00:44:10
So, of course, word of Ulysses' experience. Is that the plural of Ulysses? Ulysses?
00:44:15
Ulysses. Ulysses. Ulysses. Ulysses. Word of this strange experience spreads very quickly, but no one knows what to make of it.
00:44:26
And luckily, Ulysses is described in old county records as, quote, among the leading men in town, both socially and in a business way and uniformly respected, end quote.
00:44:37
So we don't think he's bullshit. Yeah. Or an old drunk tractor salesman who's just like, well, it's right up there.
00:44:43
It's like, it's the moon, Ulysses. People of Van Meter know him as an even-keeled, honest man who has not won for practical jokes.
00:44:52
Still, there is no explanation, and there's really no way to find one. So time passes and life just kind of continues on.
00:45:00
And it seems like that strange sighting is just a one-off oddity. But if that were the case, I wouldn't be telling you about it right now.
00:45:08
This is the story of the Van Meter visitor. So the main sources used today are articles from the Des Moines Register archives, a book by Chad Lewis, Noah Voss, and Kevin Lee Nelson about the topic, and a mini documentary from Iowa PBS entitled Spooky Stories, Van Meter Visitor.
00:45:27
And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So I'll tell you a little bit about the town.
00:45:32
Van Meter, Iowa is situated along the Raccoon River, 20 miles west of Des Moines.
00:45:37
So it's technically a suburb. And to this day, it still has that small town feel like it did in the early 1900s.
00:45:44
But of course, the 1903 Van Meter is totally undeveloped. You saw that picture. Very remote.
00:45:51
The I-80 has not been constructed, but trains do pass through the town. And that local train station that you saw is a major source of business and life in this small town.
00:46:03
Van Meter is also an important Midwestern shipping stop for everything from lumber to farm goods to coal that's mined out of a local mine there in Van Meter.
00:46:13
But by 1903, that mine went out of business and it sits on the edge of town, a creepy and abandoned remnant that's in a state of disrepair.
00:46:23
So Ulysses sees this strange sight at 1 a.m. on Tuesday, September 29th. The rest of that day unfolds normally until late that afternoon when a thunderstorm rolls in and the town's doctor, 25-year-old Fred Alcott.
00:46:37
Oh, my God. Everyone's a baby in this story. Middle-aged man. Right. Middle-aged 25-year-old.
00:46:42
Yeah. He's like, he looks like Wilford Brimley, 25. So he's working a normal day, seeing patients all day long.
00:46:49
And like many business owners in Van Meter, he keeps an apartment behind his office.
00:46:55
So between the day's bad weather and the sun setting around 630 at that time of year, Dr. Alcott's not planning on going anywhere that night.
00:47:03
It's too dark. It's too rainy. So he just goes home, goes to bed, and falls asleep.
00:47:08
So sometime around 1 a.m., now it's Wednesday, September 30th, a bright light shines through Dr. Alcott's bedroom window, lighting up an otherwise pitch black room.
00:47:18
He's jolted awake. He jumps out of bed. He thinks someone's breaking into his office.
00:47:22
So he reaches for his gun and he rushes outside. But what Dr. Alcott finds when he gets out into the street is incomprehensible.
00:47:31
Just steps away from him, there's an impossibly bright light shining from what looks like a horn on the forehead of a large creature with bat-like wings.
00:47:41
Okay. That wasn't where I was going. I was going leprechaun. I don't know why. Don't ask me why.
00:47:47
You just felt that. Yeah, but so we're talking about a winged horse. unicorn type creature?
00:47:53
Well, there is a horn and there are wings. Where did I get horse from? Just you're a good rider.
00:48:00
Uh, terrified, Dr. Alcott lifts his gun and starts firing at this thing. Just fire at it.
00:48:05
Just shoot it. You just gotta shoot a thing. You saw, it was a time where they had just settled this area.
00:48:11
Yeah. Shooting things was the solution to almost everything. Well, has anything changed?
00:48:15
I mean, hello, America. What's up? The problem is, his bullets have no effect on the creature.
00:48:20
So he runs back into his office, he locks the doors and windows, and he barricades himself inside until the sun rises.
00:48:28
So just like the first time, word of Dr. Alcott's encounter spreads very quickly through Van Meter.
00:48:33
It's like, it happened again, people running up and down the street. So because this has happened within a 24-hour period, people start getting very worried.
00:48:42
And it's also from an equally dignified, well-respected member of town. But this time, he's not just claiming he saw light.
00:48:49
He's claiming he saw a monster. So as the sun goes down that night, the people of Van Meter are on edge.
00:48:56
A clerk at the town bank named Peter Dunn in his mid-20s has an idea. Everybody.
00:49:02
So young. So Peter Dunn has an idea. In his mind, these lights and winged creatures feel like real people that are being misidentified by panicked witnesses or exhausted witnesses.
00:49:14
And he's worried that they actually are criminals who are trying to target the bank and steal everybody's money.
00:49:19
So he decides. Mr. Make It About Himself, Mr. Main Character over here. Exactly right.
00:49:24
He's like, all of this is bank related. It's me, the 23-year-old banker of town.
00:49:29
So bravely, he decides to stand guard over the money all night long. And later on, Peter will go on to earn himself a very widely respected role in the town of Van Meter.
00:49:42
He manages the bank. After that, he holds several city offices, including becoming the mayor.
00:49:47
So he's a sound mind. He's not the type to lie. But what happens next sounds very far-fetched.
00:49:53
So at 1 a.m. on a cloudy Thursday, it's October 1st now, Peter claims he hears a weird noise coming from just outside the bank.
00:50:01
He says it sounds like, quote, someone strangling. It's like a weird choking, strangling sound.
00:50:08
So he takes his shotgun. He races outside, right? The rule. Have you seen this is reminding me of this tweet, R.I.P., that says, I'm sorry, but my friends and I would have smashed E.T. with a hammer.
00:50:24
Yes. Yes. We would not have taken him home and bed home. And I was like, oh, shit.
00:50:29
We were feral. We would have done the same. We would have dissected him to be like, well, I wonder what it is.
00:50:33
Let's beat it with a hammer. We were a real kill first to ask questions later generation.
00:50:39
Yeah. It's really what America kind of is at its heart. Poor little E.T. Poor E.T.
00:50:44
You found the right guy at least. I'm looking at really bad movies. Steven Spielberg would have been like, what are you doing?
00:50:51
This movie is 32 minutes long. We're going to get him. We're going to have him land, get discovered, and the kids on that cul-de-sac circle up.
00:51:00
Okay. So Peter races to a nearby window to see what the hell this sound is, knowing that it could be the thing that everyone is worried about.
00:51:08
And he goes and peers out into the darkness. But when he presses his face to the glass, an intense light immediately shines right into his eyes, and then it goes out.
00:51:18
So we can safely assume Peter was dazzled by that light. Men are so hysterical. It's like, calm down, dude.
00:51:24
God, stop crying. You've got your big gun. So he's like, whoa, what just happened?
00:51:31
He keeps looking out. He's trying to see if that light comes back on. But now he sees, as his vision kind of comes back, the light is bouncing around on the street in front of the bank.
00:51:42
We can assume with spotty vision and feeling absolutely terrified, Peter tries to focus on the light as it's moving.
00:51:49
He thinks he can see something under the light, but not very clearly. He ends up describing it simply as, quote, a great form of some kind.
00:51:58
Cool. So he panics. He raises his shotgun. He fires right through the bank's window, blowing out the glass.
00:52:04
But the light vanishes, and once again, everything is dark. He stays inside that bank until sunrise.
00:52:10
now with a broken window. Good job. We can get right in. It's called, here it is, open it.
00:52:17
So when it's finally light, he goes and tells everybody what he saw. The area surrounding the bank is searched
00:52:23
and according to old reports, a set of, quote, great three-toed tracks are found nearby and captured in a plaster mold.
00:52:32
Do you have the photo of it? It's like, I'm thinking duck. That mold has since been gone missing.
00:52:38
Of course it has. There's no, I know. But, yes, it's almost like a three-toed, a big bird.
00:52:45
So, yeah, like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park. Yeah, that's right. Yes. That's how we do it.
00:52:51
Law and Order in Jurassic Park. Steven. Okay. So this is the third encounter in 48 hours, and the town of Van Meter is now gripped in fear.
00:53:00
But the strangeness continues when the sun goes down that night. Once again, around 2 a.m. on Friday, October 2nd, 35-year-old Otto V. White, who is the oldest man in town, just kidding, who lives in an apartment above his Main Street hardware store, is now awakened by a, quote, rasping sound outside.
00:53:21
He immediately grabs his gun. He opens a window. Oh, good. And he scans the street.
00:53:26
He's waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. I wonder if their vision was different because there was so little artificial light back then.
00:53:34
Yeah. And then also like the dude in the bank. He's, I don't like him. I don't know why.
00:53:38
But his vision would have been so fucked after having, you know, basically like a flashlight in your face.
00:53:45
Especially because he had never probably hadn't been around electric light that long.
00:53:49
Yeah. So I don't trust him. I don't know why. I don't like him. You don't like capitalists.
00:53:55
Is that what it is He seems like a pick me guy That what I saying Okay so he hears the rasping noise This is Otto from the hardware store He hears a rasping noise immediately grabs his gun opens the window scans the street
00:54:09
He's waiting for his eyes to adjust. And as they do, he sees something hanging off the nearest telephone pole about 15 feet away.
00:54:16
So dangerously close for my taste. But it's another kind of rainy, cloudy night.
00:54:21
There's almost no moonlight. It's really too dark to be able to see any of the features of what this thing is.
00:54:27
But Otto's already heard about the monster-stalking van meter, so he thinks the best plan is to just shoot at whatever it is hanging off that telephone pole and ask questions later.
00:54:37
He raises his gun, he pulls the trigger. But instead of this thing tumbling to the ground or screeching or anything, it's just silence.
00:54:45
Until a moment later, when an incredibly bright light shines right in his face. suddenly he's overwhelmed by a horrible stench
00:54:53
and then it all gets a little foggy. And Otto cannot remember anything that happens after that.
00:55:01
After the stench. This has Mothman vibes. Doesn't it? Yeah. That will come up later.
00:55:06
So meanwhile, Otto's gunshot wakes up the man who lives diagonally across Main Street.
00:55:12
20-year-old shopkeeper, Sydney Gregg. 20-year-old shopkeeper. His children. He's been asleep in his street-level apartment
00:55:19
that's attached to his store. So he runs into a shop. He swings the front door open.
00:55:24
He looks out over Main Street and he's looking around for the source of the gunshots.
00:55:27
But what he's shocked to see is the entire street lit up like it was daytime. And then he sees the creature still clinging to the nearby telephone pole with a bright light coming from its head.
00:55:38
And according to reports, Sidney says it's hanging by what look like talons or bird claws.
00:55:46
Yuck. Three of them. Three bird claws. Let me just go ahead and do this. Yeah. Like a pincher.
00:55:52
Ooh! He ate with that light coming off his head. So Sidney is the witness who gets the best look at this creature of anyone in the story.
00:56:02
And his description is more evocative of something like a pterodactyl versus like some flying humanoid creature.
00:56:09
Okay. He watches as it climbs down from the pole and stands upright. And he estimates this thing is eight feet tall.
00:56:17
Oh, no. Yeah. It jumps a couple times, unfolds two massive featherless wings, all the while the light on its forehead sweeping back and forth like it's scanning the area.
00:56:29
And then right on schedule, the overnight train barrels past van meter on the nearby tracks and spooks the creature.
00:56:36
And from his shop's doorway, Sidney says he watches it bolt off, quote, on all four feet.
00:56:43
Whoa. So he runs like a horse. Right. Remember you said in the beginning? But he looks like a bird.
00:56:48
But he lands like a human and looks like a bird and then runs off on all four. Okay.
00:56:53
So when the word gets around the next day, this town goes into an all-out panic, of course.
00:57:00
Where are the women to calm everyone down, for fuck's sake? Right? There weren't many in the pictures.
00:57:05
Doesn't seem like it. It seems like a bunch of college grads went out and started Van Meter by themselves in a boys-only club.
00:57:12
Hysterical boys. Then more information comes to light. Talking about the old abandoned coal mine in Van Meter, it was built next to a brick and tile factory and the brick and tile factory is still in business.
00:57:23
So word spreads that workers at the brick and tile factory have been hearing weird sounds coming from the abandoned coal mine for a while.
00:57:32
They just haven't really talked about it to anybody, which also is an interesting kind of dynamic of like the pressure of small town.
00:57:39
Like once you say, hey, we heard weird screeching or whatever, it's like, oh, they're crazy at the tile factory or whatever.
00:57:45
Right. Puff and tile glue or whatever. Right. Exactly. So they haven't talked about it.
00:57:50
So we don't really know how long they had been hearing those noises. But the factory and the mine shaft sits about 500 feet away from each other.
00:57:58
So relatively close. So as the sun sets that Friday evening, the residents of Van Meter are preparing for another night of terror.
00:58:07
And sure enough, it comes. Around 1 a.m., 44-year-old, oh, my God, a geriatric. 44-year-old J.L. Platt, the operations manager of the Brick and Tile factory, and his crew of overnight workers start hearing those same weird noises coming from the mine shafts once again.
00:58:25
But now, because they've all heard about these sightings and all the crazy stuff that's been happening, Platt finally decides he's going to step out and investigate this noise.
00:58:35
There's a full moon that night, so he can see better than he would normally be able to.
00:58:40
He walks towards the mine shaft, and as he approaches, he sees the outline of two creatures standing in the shaft entrance.
00:58:48
He's got a buddy? He's got a buddy. A little buddy. One is noticeably larger than the other.
00:58:54
Both have those light horns on their heads. He watches as they raise their enormous rings and fly off into the dark.
00:59:02
Goodbye. So this time, there's no waiting until sunrise. Platt, his workers, and other citizens of Van Meter immediately mobilize.
00:59:11
Thinking that the mine is where these creatures live, a group of vigilantes armed with guns—
00:59:16
Just start fucking shooting into it or set it on fire or what? They surround the mine and they wait until daybreak because they're like, if they live here, they're coming back.
00:59:25
And sure enough, right at dawn, the monsters are seen flying back through the sky toward the mineshaft.
00:59:32
What the fuck? So everybody starts shooting. Right? They unload everything they've got
00:59:38
And as they do The two creatures let out bizarre Loud groans And the air suddenly fills with that strange odor
00:59:46
But like every other time That anyone's tried to shoot at these mysterious things
00:59:51
The bullets have no effect Reportedly The creatures land And here where I go They push their way past the citizens and they disappear down the mine shaft into the dark tunnel So they like out of our way
01:00:05
We're going back home. Yeah. And no one can do anything because it's like you're not going to fist fight them.
01:00:10
Right. Duns don't work. They like got that close. It's surprising. Right. What happens next is also mysterious.
01:00:16
What we do know is that the citizens of Van Meter block the entrance to that abandoned coal mine like boarded up forever.
01:00:23
And after that, there are no more documented sightings of these strange creatures ever again.
01:00:29
Over time, they become known as the Van Meter Visitor or Visitors. And the remnants of that old mine with its blocked off entrance are still there in Van Meter, but they're now on private property.
01:00:41
Has anyone gone in and searched for them? I mean, I'm sure. Well, but here's the thing I wonder.
01:00:46
We'll theorize. Okay. So there are a lot of theories about what this could have been, who or what the van meter visitor actually was.
01:00:54
The most plausible explanation being it's a case of mass misidentification involving something like a vulture or a large owl, which is the same theory that kind of writes off the Mothman.
01:01:06
Right. Which is interesting because the Mothman, they think it was a gigantic bird called a shoebill that was basically migrating and got like knocked off its migration path.
01:01:15
The weirdest looking fucking bird you've ever seen in your life. It is a wild looking bird.
01:01:20
But if you saw out in the wild, you'd fucking run. Especially in like car lights on a very dark highway.
01:01:27
I feel like darkness is a big part of all of these things. Seems like it. It's nocturnal.
01:01:32
They're nocturnal. They're nocturnal creatures, except for that last experience, which is so heightened that it's like truly a whole town sat there and watched these things come and fly.
01:01:42
And then they were like pushed out of the way. Like they're at a fucking concert or something.
01:01:46
They're pushing to the front. Okay. Some write the whole thing off as a practical joke.
01:01:51
But if that were true, then they'd know who was doing it because the one was eight feet tall.
01:01:56
If they were average height, they'd have to be talented enough to bounce, fly, and climb telephone poles on stilts and in costume while carrying an incredibly bright lantern or an electric headlight.
01:02:09
Yeah. There's almost no way that could have. Yeah. Yeah. Sears had an incredible catalog.
01:02:14
it always. There's also the theory of mass delusion. At eight. In series eight, there's the theory of mass delusion because throughout the 1800s
01:02:24
and the early 1900s, newspapers were full of sensationalized reports of weird creatures.
01:02:30
The Van Meter Visitor story predates the 1909 Jersey Devil Panic, which is similar because
01:02:36
it involves a flying dinosaur-esque creature. It predates it by about seven years. And of course,
01:02:42
It predates our beloved Mothman by 50 years, more than 50 years. But it's totally possible the people in Van Meter were reading about other strange creatures in the papers and getting those ideas.
01:02:53
Because about a decade earlier, a pterodactyl-like monster known as the Tombstone Thunderbird was spotted in Arizona.
01:03:00
And that's the one that I've heard about that, where it's like it's a bird, but it is so gigantic.
01:03:08
It's like a 50-foot wingspan. I've never heard of it. And I think there were stories of like it carried off a child.
01:03:14
Jesus. Like it's so huge and a bunch of people saw it. So even if that story was a lie, but it's in the newspaper and then the story goes around, then it's like we've got our own.
01:03:23
Also, there's, of course, the very plausible theory. The residents of Van Meter invented a monster story to drum up either publicity, draw visitors to the town.
01:03:31
Sure. It's hard to imagine the most respected citizens of the town, like a doctor and a future mayor, would use their own good names to, like, back up a hoax like that.
01:03:41
Yeah. Although, let's not put anything past the high-level people, as we have learned these days.
01:03:49
By most accounts, locals did not, like, seize on the newspaper coverage to make more of it.
01:03:55
They actually didn't seem to like it. So it's unclear who would have benefited by spreading a story like this.
01:04:01
Sure. We can take a closer look at the man who wrote the articles about the Van Meter visitor.
01:04:06
He's a journalist named Harry H. Phillips. And we can mull over whether or not he is a bad reporter or somehow involved in an elaborate hoax or just plain old telling the truth.
01:04:16
The town of Van Meter, as I said, doesn't have its own newspaper in 1903. So the first reports of this event pop up in the Des Moines Daily paper on October 5th, a couple of days after that last reported sighting.
01:04:28
it's totally possible Harry H. Phillips was given bad information or got kind of basic information and embellished the original details
01:04:36
as he was working on the copy. I mean, we've done that for 10 years. That's what we do.
01:04:42
You know, their old timey version of clickbait, essentially. It's just like, can you believe what's happening out west
01:04:47
where nothing's provable and there are no cameras? Again, though, I will say, Harry H. Phillips is an esteemed member of the community of Van Meter.
01:04:55
He lives in Van Meter. He is the local postmaster, which I think takes an extra amount of honesty and trustworthiness.
01:05:03
He's not one to embellish or lie. Yeah. Okay. He's off the hook. What are those things?
01:05:09
A money order? Yeah. Is that what it's called? No. I know what you're talking about.
01:05:13
I need to give you $300, but I don't give you cash, so I'll give you this thing from the bank.
01:05:19
Yeah. A wire? I don't know. Cashier's check? A cashier's check. God damn it. You know, I quit. Forget that. I'll just keep going. So people trust this man. And also, very important to mention that there was a contest in Van Meter. Or I don't know if it was a contest, but they had the handsome bachelors of Van Meter that they featured every year. And he was one of them. Here are the handsome bachelors of Van Meter.
01:05:51
This was from 1901. I want the one who looks like he just seen a ghost This guy Yeah Constant surprise Oh you mean young Harry Houdini who somehow lived in Van Meter Iowa You guys go to our Instagram if you want to see this photo
01:06:06
The front row mustaches are fucking given. Yeah. Are they, you know? Is it like these are the most esteemed citizens because they have the biggest mustaches and it goes up to the youngsters?
01:06:16
You can't just willy-nilly grow a mustache. I think if I had to pick one. Yeah. How about that lone wolf over on the left?
01:06:23
I like the one below him. With the mustache. That's kind of a daddy-ish pic. He's giving zaddy.
01:06:29
He's giving zaddy. It's totally a daddy-ish. Old-fashioned zaddy. My guy has a hair sticking up just like I always do.
01:06:34
Oh, yeah. Hey. He looks the most, like, modern, I'd say. Yeah, he does. That's the time traveler.
01:06:40
He's like a modern man. That's why he's a little bit apart because he slipped in on the side like, hey, I'm from 1974.
01:06:45
He's disappearing right before our eyes. Wait, what? His one hand is going away.
01:06:50
So Harry is on the left in the middle row. Okay. So this guy. He's a little thicker.
01:06:54
He's a little thicker around the face. You know, now that I point him out and blame it on you, I think he might be my pick.
01:07:02
Okay. No more time travelers. Our boyfriends are friends. Hey, you can have both.
01:07:06
What? Don't have to pick. Fucking monogamy is out in the 1903s. Imagine. That'd be even more revolutionary than this monster with the light on its head.
01:07:16
So he's handsome. Of course he's not lying. again there's no obvious reason for him to make up the story unless it it is a ruse to get more
01:07:25
subscribers yeah which i think is what uh yellow journalism was kind of all about back then i mean
01:07:31
that makes sense so what we really need for the fan meter visitor or visitors mystery to be solved
01:07:37
is to find that old plaster cast of the monster's footprint or maybe discover some lost diary of
01:07:43
someone's great great grandmother in an attic yes i was there in an attic in an attic some
01:07:48
fucking ex-sheriff's grandma's fuck what i don't know please or like i like to then even more kind
01:07:56
of thrilling to me as it's at the bottom of a pile in a hoarder house where people are like i just
01:08:02
can't deal with it yeah but there we have to wait till grandma dies before we clean up or she's
01:08:05
gonna freak the fuck out that's right but they're just sitting there proof that was my dad yeah he
01:08:12
You told me not to say anything, and then I started hoarding to cover up the secret in my mind.
01:08:18
People don't talk like that in Iowa. Don't they? Maybe they do. Everyone becomes an old prospector.
01:08:28
Immediately. Okay. It's like the Bigfoot deathbed confession where it's like, hey, look, it's all a prank.
01:08:34
Like, that would be great. But until that happens, we just can't know what happened in Van Meter in the fall of 1903.
01:08:41
Everyone in our story, of course, has long since passed. No, except for Harry. Except for that guy.
01:08:47
It's crazy. He's 212. He hasn't aged a day. I say he's 212. I know for a fact how many years it's been since that happened.
01:08:58
But how old was he then? So he's 100 and whatever. We don't math here at My Favorite Murder.
01:09:04
It doesn't matter and we love to riff. Use your calculator. I can't. I don't know how.
01:09:07
I'm not too sure. We're just a few. I've seen the meme of like, my husband can, I don't want him to look at my camera, not because I'm cheating on him, but because, and then it pulls up a calculator and it's like nine minus three.
01:09:20
The most basic math. Yes. Oh, so good. I think we should start doing our favorite TikTok of the week and show each other.
01:09:29
All week long, we're like, find the thing that you love the most, whether it's funny, touching, and cool new thing.
01:09:35
And then we'll learn the dance. And then we do the dance. You have to do the dance.
01:09:38
You have to do the dance, though. And then we do like— You know the couple's ones where it's like they—
01:09:42
Yep. Or whatever. I'll flip you over. Yeah. And then we end in a two-man pyramid.
01:09:47
Yeah. Okay. I'll do it. Okay. So here's the good news. We're just a couple years shy of the 125th anniversary of the Van Meter Visitor event.
01:09:57
And more good news, Van Meter has since embraced their historical cryptozoological mystery.
01:10:03
They have a yearly Van Meter Visitor Festival. Fuck yes. And this year it's on September 26th.
01:10:09
We're there. We'll see you there. That's the story of the Van Meter visitor. Good.
01:10:15
Good one. I have never heard of that guy. I know. I love a cryptozoology. And also one that's like, what if there were dinosaurs?
01:10:26
But what if there is? But what if there are dinosaurs that had lights on their head, like those fish?
01:10:31
Like the fish. I was totally. Right? It's not impossible. Animal doctors. Has there ever been an animal, I'm sure there's been an insect, but has there ever been an animal that has had a light source on its head?
01:10:44
Please let us know. Yeah. We didn't go to college. We don't know anything. We're not animal doctors.
01:10:49
Be here and help us solve this Van Meter mystery. Yeah. As a doctor, I'll tell you my theory.
01:10:55
Because you know, this is my theory, or this is what I've read and then absolutely believed about the Loch Ness Monster.
01:11:00
Yeah. is these prehistoric creatures that are in underground caverns and lakes and all the things we don't know are down there.
01:11:08
Yeah, deep, dark, and mysterious. And then they evolve down there. Yeah. And then you start blowing up their ecosystem.
01:11:15
And they come to the surface and look around and go. We're the intruders. We need to reduce our carbon footprint.
01:11:24
It's their land and we're intruding. In the center of the earth. well wait let me see if there's any other pictures that i would is there one like a drawing of what
01:11:33
it would look like is that okay oh well there it is oh it looks like a dragon van meter hot under
01:11:39
the collar so basically it's like the report on like here's what they think happened now everybody
01:11:44
thinks they're crazy yeah which is why people don't come forward as we know totally so is there
01:11:49
a cryptozoology guy in your town tell us at my favorite murder at gmail for minisodes and also
01:11:55
any of the stuff that I just talked about that is incorrect yeah When I first moved to L.A. in 1994, there's a group of guys, Mark Feit, Toby Huss, Jim Turner, and they were called the Iowa Boys.
01:12:08
They all did comedy. And I love Iowa because of those three boys. They represented it well.
01:12:14
They're just truly salt of the earth, good guys, great drinkers, funny as fucking hell.
01:12:20
And so I respect the people of Iowa. If I said anything wrong, please let me know and I will correct it.
01:12:27
Those are the last people I want to displease. Yeah. Totally. Right? Yeah. Is that it?
01:12:34
I think we have to stop. We must stop. It's plenty. Some fucking point. We're going to really soon.
01:12:40
Don't worry. We've really got to stop. Really soon. We're going to. All right. Here we go.
01:12:57
Hey, everybody. we're in the car doing a live action moving, driving, honking hooray.
01:13:03
That's right. Presented by Hyundai. Driven by Georgia Hardstar. Should I go for it?
01:13:07
Oh shit, she's running around. I thought it was. That was very yellow. That was very yellow.
01:13:15
They're going to take it away from you. This is the perfect. Yep, let's definitely do that.
01:13:20
Okay, here's the first one is from Cass and it's via Instagram DM. And it says, hey queens, my hooray is that after a year of sickness and injury,
01:13:28
and mostly being stuck inside. I remembered who I am this month. I completed a four-week Pilates challenge,
01:13:34
went to a bunch of gigs, and remembered I have a personality and free will, so I got a new tattoo.
01:13:40
I'm stronger, happier, saw Noel Gallagher play Master Plan Live, and I'm feeling like myself again,
01:13:47
which is better than any drug I've been prescribed this year. And then it says stay sexy and pulse this one out Cass Hell yeah Nice one Cass Solve any heartbreak That such a nice build of like she was down
01:14:01
Yeah. Like, didn't know what to do. And then slowly but surely, like, I did something for my muscles.
01:14:07
I did something for my ears. I went to. For my ears. Seeing Noel Gallagher. You're all set.
01:14:14
I remembered who I am. I love that. I know. Good job, Cass. We're behind you. So here's the second one, and it's a short one.
01:14:22
It says, my hooray is a huge personal one. After eight years of referrals and waiting, I finally have a date for top surgery.
01:14:29
It's finally time to yeet my teats. And then it just says, Alex, they, them. Amazing.
01:14:35
Alex, congratulations. Alex, you've done it. It's good that you were patient. It's good that you got to do the thing that you wanted to do.
01:14:44
And sorry that this nation has turned the way it has. We support you. We support you entirely.
01:14:50
Okay, here's one. It's from an email. It says, hooray for sisters. And it starts, I'm so happy hoorays are back.
01:14:57
First, it was a dream to see you in Denver with my favorite and only sister. Now to the hooray.
01:15:02
Let me preface with the fact that my little sister is my everything. Four years ago, her abusive cheating husband left after running her into foreclosure and bankruptcy.
01:15:12
That was not on me. Also, I'm not laughing at either of those things. That was a weird three-way stop that Georgia had to manage.
01:15:18
A few months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a single mom and self-employed woman, a double mastectomy and the recovery was brutal.
01:15:26
She lost all of her retirement, her savings, her home, and her beautiful boobs. Now she has a growing business, a gorgeous daughter, a supportive, caring partner, and me.
01:15:37
She always has me, and my hooray is we have each other and she is here. A cancer-free, strong woman.
01:15:43
I love her and I couldn be happier to have a best friend like her Krista you my hooray Thanks for all the laughter Karen and Georgia Don forget to get the girls checked Kira in Colorado Amazing That a really amazing one Love the message It hurts but you gotta get them checked
01:16:00
Okay, this honking hooray is about someone we all know and love. The email is entitled Paul Giamatti, and it says,
01:16:08
are we still doing hoorays? If so, I've got the tiniest little thing some of your fans might like.
01:16:13
I'd just like to shout out MFM royalty, Mr. Paul Giamatti. Does he know he's MFM royalty?
01:16:20
I don't know. He's like, mm-hmm. I hope not. From making my day by giving a lengthy quote
01:16:25
about how Star Trek Deep Space Nine is his favorite of the series, I don't think I'm alone
01:16:29
in taking a bit of joy hearing about super talented and charming folks who also share your particular flavor of nerd.
01:16:36
There's been plenty of times when my tastes have overlapped with you all during the years, too.
01:16:41
Anyway, hooray for Paul Giamatti again, and may 2026 be a year we listen to our elders like George Takai.
01:16:48
Thanks for everything, Lindsay. Aww, but what about next generation? I mean, there's so many choices in the Star Trek community.
01:16:57
Good job, everyone. Yeah, we really hoorayed it up. We sure did, and thank you to Hyundai for giving us the opportunity
01:17:03
to drive around and read hoorays. We really appreciate you, Hyundai, and stay sexy.
01:17:09
And don't get murdered. Ambulance. Bye. They call it an ambulance when they hear it.
01:17:15
Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
01:17:29
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.
01:17:37
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.
01:17:42
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix And when you there hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons
01:17:53
That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn.
01:18:02
I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast,
01:18:07
Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible.
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It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Paramount Plus is now the home of all your BET favorites. What? With all new episodes of Tyler Perry's Divorce Sisters.
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You've always liked a little drama. Plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator 2.
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Now I will control an empire. Original series like The Chi. Just make sure we protect each other.
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And live sports like UFC. Welcome to the history books! New home, same family. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount+.
01:18:57
Subscribe now. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project.
01:19:04
One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales. and somehow none of them talk to each other.
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That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together.
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From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform.
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No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets.
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Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system.
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Try for free today at odoo.com slash iHeartRadio. That's O-D-O-O-O dot com slash iHeartRadio.