00:00:00
This is exactly right. of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Wireless plan
00:00:33
as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Sun's out, so dads are too.
00:00:41
This Father's Day at Lowe's, shop the gear that'll make his summer. Get two free select DeWalt power tools
00:00:47
when you buy a select 5-amp-hour battery kit for weekends in the garage. Plus, get a free Blackstone 6-piece stainless steel griddle kit
00:00:56
when you buy a select Blackstone griddle. Our best lineup. is here at Lowe's. Valid through 624.
00:01:02
While supplies last, selection varies by location. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley
00:01:08
I Almost Famous podcast. If you are ready to refresh your wardrobe for spring, BOEM is one of my go-to spots.
00:01:15
They have the best everyday pieces. Think really good denim, easy dresses, and outfits that you can
00:01:21
actually wear on repeat. Everything feels current without being over the top. And you get great quality
00:01:27
without the high price tag. Whether you're getting dressed for work, errands, or weekend plans,
00:01:33
BOEM makes spring outfits feel simple. Shop BOEM's new arrivals at BOEM.com. That is B-O-H-M-E dot com.
00:01:42
hello hello hell no what hell yes i thought you said hell no and welcome did we just start a new
00:02:11
think to my favorite murder. Year eight. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Gary Kilgariff.
00:02:19
New intro. We are pros. This is the time to change things. Hell no. It's pretty good. Yeah.
00:02:26
Who were ever going to change things? Hell no. I mean, it kind of feels that way right now. Hell
00:02:33
no. I'm a hell no. There's a hell no energy about things. mm-hmm yeah let's feel that for a second just breathe into it I have cookie news for you right
00:02:50
off the bat okay so you know Vince likes to buy like special edition of regular things you know
00:02:56
like this like special edition flavor of these jelly beans whatever yeah so my favorite cookie
00:03:03
is the Milano, the Mint Milano specifically. Hell yes. I fucking love that thing. Yes. He comes
00:03:09
home the other day with a special edition flavor of London Fog, which is fucking Earl Grey tea.
00:03:18
Yes. Don't make that face. Yes. It's tea. It's British. You can eat it with your British
00:03:24
procedurals. Wait, are you telling me you liked it? I loved it. Is there any mint in there? No,
00:03:30
know. It's just a Milano. And then chocolate with some tea. It's like a tea latte, basically Earl
00:03:36
Gray, vanilla and chocolate. No tea. If I keep saying tea like that, will you get it? Oh, that's
00:03:46
like the cartoon aroma finger that goes under my nose and goes, Oh wait, tea. It's just like
00:03:51
dipping a cookie in tea. Like that's the best. It is the actual action of it. But my thing is
00:03:58
oftentimes when they try to recreate those things as flavors, as we've experienced with a lot of our
00:04:03
like Thanksgiving jelly bean experiences or whatever, we're just like, what is in my mouth
00:04:08
right now? Because this isn't dipping. And I have strong tea feelings anyway. You know, I haven't finished the bag yet. And usually when it comes home,
00:04:16
those mint ones, I finish them within two nights. So easy. They're the easiest cookie to eat. They literally melt in your mouth.
00:04:24
They crunch. They're so crunchy. I'm sure I've said this at some point in these past eight years.
00:04:30
They were the cookie that my mom had her fancy. We've talked about this, right? The fancy dessert
00:04:35
was a scoop of ice cream, mint Milano cookies, and some sort of raspberry drizzle.
00:04:41
Yes. That's amazing. Except for Laura and I would go in and eat the two levels of cookie underneath and just leave them
00:04:49
empty. And so when she'd go to make it, she'd be like, there's literally four or three of these
00:04:55
cookies left, you assholes. And we'd just be like, well then buy better treats. Buy more bags next time.
00:05:02
Yeah. How about getting two? Thinking of your children. So anyway, that's a precious,
00:05:06
plain Milano to me is like, company's coming over, show off time is about to begin.
00:05:13
Oh yeah. Everything's great. The mint just elevates. It's like an Andes mint, but like in a cookie form,
00:05:18
which I thought was the classiest fucking thing I'd ever seen in Andy's Mint when I was a kid
00:05:21
on the way out of a restaurant. So thin. Oh my God. Oh my God. Folded in foil. Foil? What do you have? I have a bag of foil that I've kept since 1981.
00:05:34
I wonder if there are people who are like Andy's candy experts. Also, what are the other candies
00:05:40
that Andy's makes? I don't know. I think it'd be pretty easy to be an expert on those. You're just
00:05:45
like look it's a tiny bar it's chocolate and mint it's a mint tiny chocolate bar i don't know what
00:05:52
else you need trying to complicate things what else do you need oh wait i gonna tell you about something because we watched a tv show last night that genuinely scared me but on regular not on regular tv it was streaming but it a it a tv
00:06:09
show called them the scare and it's about a woman who is a lapd detective right during the rodney
00:06:17
king riots and there's a serial killer in the neighborhood and it is so unnervingly scary like
00:06:23
there's just a couple scenes where you're like it's like so good and so it's like horror series
00:06:30
like it starts off like oh I get it this is gonna be it has a little bit of a Jordan Peele movie
00:06:36
vibe where you're like you know like it's creepy and it's like unnerving but there's also commentary
00:06:42
and you're like holy shit I never thought of it this way but it's this is way scarier is it like
00:06:49
always nighttime. I'm thinking like it's always night and dark. Kind of. I mean, because that's
00:06:54
like the vibe, the overall vibe is that you have if, well, I don't know. It's more for the people
00:07:00
who are closer to horror fans because it's like much closer to horror. I watch it. Yeah. I don't
00:07:05
think things can watch it then. No, no, it's very, it, there was one scene that scared. It was me and
00:07:11
Zach Noe Towers and it scared both of us real bad. Like I was like, should we turn the lights on and
00:07:18
like stop watching this for a second. It was like so creepy. Yeah. It's really good. I want to watch
00:07:25
it. And then I do the dumb thing of like, well, Vince doesn't want to watch it. So I'll watch it
00:07:29
when he's gone. And then I watch it when he's gone and fucking scare the shit out of myself.
00:07:34
For this one, do not do that because it takes place in Los Angeles, even though it's the past.
00:07:38
It's very, it's very like familiar and you know what's going on and you know the bad things that
00:07:44
going to happen. It's, oh my God. Okay. Here's one you can watch while Vince is gone. It's an
00:07:50
Olivia Colman movie called Wicked Little Letters and it is so good. And of course it is. It's
00:07:56
going to seem familiar when you start watching it. It's real good. Okay. Okay. That's the one.
00:08:02
That's the one. Yeah. That's the one you got to watch. It's Olivia Colman and Jesse Buckley,
00:08:09
who you've seen her in a bunch of stuff and you love her and stuff. So interesting.
00:08:13
Okay. She's great. Yeah. Should we just move on? Do we have anything? Sure. Okay.
00:08:19
That's all I have to report. Do you have any recommendations or? Just cookies. Just a Milano cookie.
00:08:24
Milano. The Jinx is good. I don't know. There's, you know, the use. Let's move it on.
00:08:31
Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.
00:08:35
This week, Kurt and Scotty's guest on Bananas is comedian Megan Gailey. and they're going to discuss all the world's wackiest news over there.
00:08:44
You have to listen to Bananas. If you haven't listened to it, it is your go-to. These are things that are happening in the world,
00:08:51
but they're so obscure and crazy and bizarre that they really do. It's the news, but it's like an escape from the news.
00:08:58
It is. Also, Karen mentioned this last week, but the 12th season of Tenfold More Wicked with Kate Winkler Dawson is here.
00:09:05
It's called A Blessing and a Curse, and it covers a host of atrocities in Fall River, Massachusetts, years before Lizzie Borden made the
00:09:12
town famous. Also, America's sweetheart Bridger Weininger is in the car with Chris and I on Do You
00:09:19
Need a Ride this week? And he's also hosting a live show at the Dynasty Typewriter. That's coming
00:09:24
up on June 26th of this year, 2024. So go get some tickets if you want to see that live. Bridger and
00:09:33
all kinds of guests. He has such good guests on that show. And of course, gifts.
00:09:38
And some exciting news for listeners who like to shop the promo codes for all our advertisers.
00:09:43
All those commercials we do where we're like promo code, blah, blah, blah, and you're driving
00:09:46
and didn't write it down. And now you don't know how to get a discounted article furniture.
00:09:50
They're all now available online. So you'll never miss them. The website is myfavoritemurder.com slash promos. And lastly, in our merch store, our beloved designer, Vanessa,
00:10:01
has created some new bumper stickers. So go look. There's one that reads Sweet Baby Angel on board
00:10:08
and another one that says, for the math fans, Sweet Baby Angel. So you can go shop those
00:10:14
at exactlyrightstore.com. Hello, hello. This is Malcolm Glabal from Smart Talks with IBM.
00:10:24
Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development
00:10:29
for Scuderia Ferrari HP. Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.
00:10:37
I'm still working on rolling my R's. But what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi,
00:10:44
the Ferrari superfans in the digital age. Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of something,
00:10:51
want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
00:10:58
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history. And now you're interacting in a kind of digital space.
00:11:08
I'm curious how you balance those two traditions. When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels
00:11:16
are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans. To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans,
00:11:25
visit ibm.com slash Ferrari. It just organic castor oil frankincense and this rose quartz roller that feels so good on tired stressed skin I look for anything that can de me and this really did
00:12:07
my under eyes look brighter. My face looked way more refreshed. It's almost like my face just
00:12:13
exhaled. So try the Holistic Goddess Organic Castor Oil Roll-On with frankincense yourself.
00:12:19
Use my promo code Ashley at tryhg.com slash Ashley for 15% off promo code Ashley at tryhg.com slash Ashley.
00:12:32
This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. If you are ready to refresh your wardrobe for spring, Boehm is one of my go-to spots.
00:12:41
They have the best everyday pieces. Think really good denim, easy dresses, and outfits that you can actually wear on repeat.
00:12:47
Everything feels current without being over the top and you get great quality without the high price tag.
00:12:55
Whether you're getting dressed for work, errands or weekend plans, Boehm makes spring outfits feel simple.
00:13:01
Shop Boehm's new arrivals at Boehm.com. That is B-O-H-M-E dot com. Okay, you first, right?
00:13:10
Yes. This is a truly horrible story. Just awful. So it starts on August 7th, 2000.
00:13:21
There's a man out jet skiing on the McCollum-y River, just south of Sacramento, when he sees a black duffel bag bobbing in the water.
00:13:31
He rides over on his jet ski. He grabs the bag, unzips it. He finds a human torso inside.
00:13:39
Oh, my God. hours later, half a mile away, there's an employee at a local marina and they find a second black
00:13:47
duffel bag floating under a dock. Inside, they find a human head. And then there's a marine
00:13:55
biologist surveying an island in the same river and they find a third black duffel bag that also
00:14:01
has human remains inside. So all three of these people contact police who conduct a search of the
00:14:07
river, divers find a total of nine duffel bags, all containing dismembered body parts. And they
00:14:14
ultimately identify these remains as belonging to three different people. An elderly married couple
00:14:20
named Ivan and Annette Steinman and a 22 year old woman named Selena Bishop. The police are baffled
00:14:27
because at first the Steinmans and Selena Bishop have no connection. But when they start questioning
00:14:33
Selena's friends, they zero in on one person all three victims have crossed paths with.
00:14:38
That's Selena's charismatic boyfriend, Jordan, except his name isn't Jordan. His real name is
00:14:45
Glenn Taylor Helzer, and he believes himself to be a cult leader. This is the story of Glenn Taylor
00:14:53
Helzer and the Children of Thunder. Oh my God. So the sources used for today's story are an article
00:15:01
from Cracked by a writer named Dan Fritchie, and an article from the Mercury News by a writer named
00:15:08
Cameron McDonald, and an article from SF Gate by Damian Bulwa. And the rest of the sources are in
00:15:16
our show notes. So the man that we're talking about today is named Glenn Taylor Helzer. He's
00:15:23
born on July 26, 1970 in Lansing, Michigan. Soon after his family moves to Martinez, California,
00:15:29
He is the oldest of three children. He has a younger sister named Heather and a younger brother named Justin, and they are all raised in the Mormon faith.
00:15:39
So Glenn grows up and he is very charming and outgoing, so much so that he starts going by his middle name, Taylor.
00:15:47
Very 90s of him to change his name to Taylor. His little brother, Justin, is actually more of an introvert and Taylor is not very nice about it.
00:15:57
he constantly tells Justin that he's number one and Justin's number two. Like he's clearly he's
00:16:04
probably a sociopath. He has that kind of like, I'm going to beat you at all costs energy about
00:16:10
him, but he's also like, everybody likes him. People seem to be very drawn to him.
00:16:16
So after high school, Taylor has a brief stint in the national guard in Texas before he serves
00:16:21
his two-year Mormon mission in Brazil. When his little brother, Justin, serves his two-year mission,
00:16:27
he's sent to Texas. And afterwards, he gets a job as a cable installer. So when Taylor completes his
00:16:34
mission in the early 90s, he moves back to San Francisco and gets a job working as a stockbroker
00:16:39
for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. And then in April of 1993, he marries his wife, Anne, who is also a
00:16:47
devout Mormon. They have two daughters together, but soon Taylor feels very confined by leading
00:16:55
this strict religious kind of typical life. He doesn't want to be so penned up in the Mormon
00:17:02
faith anymore. He wants to go out and like be with like normal people in his mind, which is
00:17:09
basically people who don't have to live within the strictures of the Mormon faith. So unfortunately
00:17:15
for his wife, Anne, that means him living a life filled with affairs and drug use, and he stops
00:17:23
bathing as much. He starts wearing all black, which definitely stands out in the Mormon community.
00:17:30
And basically three years into their marriage in 1996, Taylor and Anne get a divorce.
00:17:36
Basically, the drug use kind of elevates, and it's in this time that Taylor decides
00:17:42
that he's developing his own religion, his own belief system. And he likes to talk about it and
00:17:47
talk through it when he on drugs Oh God Right Just the worst The quickest way to make charm wear off Let talk about the religion Pitch your new religion when you high The main premise of this philosophy he developing is that good and evil don actually
00:18:07
exist. And most of society is primitive for thinking that they do. Taylor has a cousin
00:18:13
named Chai Hoffman, who he gets high with, even though he knows that his cousin struggled with
00:18:19
his mental health and has actually been hospitalized for it in the past. Taylor's
00:18:24
actually very fascinated by Chai's experience in a mental hospital. And Chai later recalls there
00:18:29
was a few times when he would act really crazy and then stop and ask, was that how the people
00:18:34
in the hospital acted? Creepy. That's very psychopath, like trying on masks, weirdness.
00:18:42
Totally. But I'm not an expert. So then in August of 1998, Taylor has a nervous breakdown. He is
00:18:49
diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He chooses to ignore the doctor's treatments, and instead he
00:18:55
begins to self-medicate. So because of this, he loses his job. He's excommunicated from the LDS
00:19:02
church. And basically all of these drastic life changes happening so close together seem to kind
00:19:09
of radicalize Taylor further. And soon he starts telling people he's actually a prophet who can talk
00:19:16
to God. So despite all of that, interestingly, he's still in touch with some members of the
00:19:24
Mormon community that he used to know. So he and his brother Justin are actually invited to a Mormon
00:19:30
hosted murder mystery dinner party on Memorial Day, which is May 31st of 1999. They do that?
00:19:38
I mean, I guess so. I guess it's good, clean fun in a way. Sure. So they're, of course, welcomed to this party, but Taylor arrives dressed in all black, which is very uncommon for people in the LDS.
00:19:53
And he also keeps bringing up his strange new religious beliefs, which is also frowned upon.
00:19:59
And his little brother, Justin, basically looks up to his older brother, wants to be just like him.
00:20:04
And so he's also going along with this idea that Taylor is a prophet. He's yes-anding him all the way through this party.
00:20:11
So basically the two of them just kind of become like the weirdo outcasts at this party.
00:20:16
But there is a third person who also feels like a misfit at this party. It's a 26 year old woman named Dawn Godman.
00:20:24
Dawn grew up in Sutter Creek, California, which is a tiny little town. And she has always been on the social fringes.
00:20:32
She got married at age 18. She had a son die soon after childbirth. And then she lost custody of her other son when her ex-husband reported to a judge that she was living in her car.
00:20:46
She attempted to take her life overdosing on pills. She'd just been through a bunch of horrible stuff and had a very hard time of it.
00:20:56
So in the wake of this ordeal, she decides to move in with a family member in Martinez to get out of the area and, you know, kind of start over again.
00:21:04
And she's looking for a new community. And that's when she starts, she basically goes to the Mormon church and she starts hanging out with them.
00:21:14
But she isn't really accepted into the circle. She's just kind of hanging out. So when she first sees the Hilzer brothers at this party, they start talking to her.
00:21:27
And Taylor starts explaining his religious theories. And he actually has a name for it at this point.
00:21:34
it's developed enough. He calls it the 12 principles of magic. And they are these. One,
00:21:40
I'm already perfect and therefore can do nothing wrong. Two, there's no such thing as right and
00:21:45
wrong. Three, I'm all powerful and therefore the creator of and accountable for everything that
00:21:50
occurs in my life. Four, life is always right. I embrace all of my results. Five, all of my results
00:21:57
I've created to learn from at some level. Six, I know nothing. I believe nothing. I simply perceive
00:22:03
without fear. Seven, it is of no concern to me how accurate or inaccurate my perceptions are,
00:22:09
and therefore I am always right. That's a little theme running through here. Eight,
00:22:14
unconditional fearless love is the most powerful force in the universe. Nine, spirit knows. Ten,
00:22:20
I gain control by losing all control. I mean, we're like, we're going from like a plaque at
00:22:26
home goods to like a teenager's notebook that they're writing like, you know, in rock and roll
00:22:32
letters. It's like, uh, 11 life is such a precious gift. And when I give back to life,
00:22:39
I immediately life gives more back to me. And therefore I am forever in its debt.
00:22:43
What goes around comes around 12. There's a higher power than mine. And that is my savior,
00:22:49
Jesus Christ, the son of my father. So he is doing a little, okay. A little bit of the classics.
00:22:54
There's that guy. Yeah. Yeah. But Jesus, he was kind of anti, there's no such thing as right and
00:23:00
wrong. That was not his thing at all. Right. Yeah. You should have let an editor look at that
00:23:05
before you published it. Yeah. Or you shouldn't be an editor if you claim to care about these
00:23:11
thoughts in the first place. But overall, I mean, I don't have to tell you this. Dawn is immediately
00:23:18
hooked on Taylor's religion and his vision. And then she and Justin start dating. And eventually
00:23:25
the three of them move into a house in the nearby city of Concord. And Dawn and Justin basically
00:23:31
become Taylor's followers, calling themselves the Children of Thunder. Part of Dawn's initiation
00:23:37
into this group requires that she take a self-awareness seminar that's being run by an
00:23:43
acquaintance of Taylor's. And it'll sound familiar too. She has to join a small group of people who
00:23:48
are locked in a windowless room for four days while the leader badgers them with intrusive
00:23:53
to confront their inner demons. No. And many are pushed to the point of emotional breakdown and leave.
00:24:00
sobbing. So that's just all that Synanon started. It's the thing that ran through
00:24:07
from like the, I guess that was the late sixties on where it's like, we're going to do the opposite
00:24:13
of what most psychologists say is good for people. We're going to confront you in front of a group
00:24:20
and break you down and that'll get, that's best for you. But ultimately I think what we've learned
00:24:26
over the past 60 years is that's actually the beginning of a cult almost every time.
00:24:30
Right. Like this is radical therapy and it's totally different. It's like, no, it's actually like ancient you screaming in someone's face, you know, and it's not helpful.
00:24:41
Yeah. So Dawn reaches the third level of this seminar and that's when Taylor jumps in. He's
00:24:48
going to personally facilitate her lessons. So basically Taylor now has Dawn completely under
00:24:54
his spell. He already has his brother under his spell. They all live together. They abide by his
00:25:00
every word. He's completely in charge. Then in January of 2000, Taylor tells Don, quote,
00:25:06
spirits telling me it's time you get to know everything, end quote. And by everything,
00:25:12
he means that he's going to explain the ultimate mission of this religion he's made up. And that
00:25:18
is to assassinate the leaders of the Mormon church, take over as the church's sole leader,
00:25:23
and start a self-help group called Transform America to defeat Satan and expedite the second
00:25:29
coming of Jesus Christ. Expedite the second coming of Jesus Christ sounds like something that's like
00:25:35
you're in an office setting and they're like, we need to make this happen. Like, can you actually
00:25:39
do that? No, you can't expedite. No, the Lord's plans. I mean, like, yeah, this isn't UPS. It
00:25:46
doesn't. Yeah. A lot of it doesn't make sense, but it's also like he's going to kill the leaders
00:25:52
of the Mormon church, but then he's going to take over. Like everyone's going to be like, great. Now
00:25:56
you're in charge. And self-help. I'm sure you're going to be great at that after you kill the
00:26:00
leaders of the Mormon fucking temple. Like what the fuck? Right. A self-help group. Cause that's,
00:26:05
people will need that. So basically Taylor's planning on using his connections from when he
00:26:12
went to Brazil for his Mormon mission, his idea, he's going to recruit Brazilian children. He's
00:26:19
going to bring them to California, traffic them to California. He's going to train them to carry
00:26:24
out these assassinations. So basically some child soldiers will come and do the dirty work for him,
00:26:33
I guess to be extra creepy, but to do this, they're going to need money. So before Children
00:26:40
of Thunder can begin their work, they need cash to pay for the training and for the travel. So
00:26:46
they start brainstorming ideas of how to get money. So Taylor comes up and this is going to
00:26:53
blow your mind because it's very different than the other ideas he's had. He says, why don't we
00:26:58
start a drug and sex trafficking ring that targets wealthy businessmen? Perfect. Oh, let's expedite
00:27:05
that. I love that idea. Right. Let's get God to expedite your drug and sex trafficking ring.
00:27:11
Okay, so they actually go, and this part made me laugh and made me think of you, they actually go, the three of them, to raves and start handing out flyers to women who they think would make good sex workers to work in this trafficking ring.
00:27:27
Holy shit. 1999, I think I was done by then. Okay, good. That's actually a relief. And it's also a relief. No one takes them up on this. They're clearly three weirdos acting weird everywhere they go, whether it's at a rave or a rave.
00:27:41
Or at a Mormon dinner party, everyone's like, huh? What? This ain't it. Who would play them in a made-for-TV movie?
00:27:49
Like, what do they look like? I mean, I'm loving a Michael Cera for the part of Taylor because you wouldn't expect it, right?
00:27:58
Oh, the main, like the cult leader is a Michael Cera. Unassuming, it seems. And kind of charming with a gleam in his eye, but then like also dead eyed and wanting to hire Brazilian child soldiers.
00:28:12
Yeah. Wow. And then I guess also maybe from Arrested Development, it could just be Arrested Development.
00:28:18
That's the job. That's who I'm casting. I love it. Let's do it. Let's make that.
00:28:23
Let's do it. So no one takes them up on this. That kind of gets, you know, waylaid. That whole plan gets waylaid.
00:28:30
Taylor's next plan is to invest in fast food restaurants and then manipulate the stock market
00:28:35
by vandalizing the restaurants and shorting out their stock. Wow. I don't know much about the stock market.
00:28:42
I don't think that's a way to short stock. No, I don't think you fuck with a franchise and the whole stock falls apart.
00:28:48
I don't think that's how that works. No, because if that were true, McDonald's stocks would be in the gutter because the
00:28:54
ice cream machine is always broken. Am I right, ladies and gentlemen? Local jokes get local work.
00:28:59
Okay. To make that plan happen, he would have to buy some franchises, which means he needs seed money. So he decides to abandon that idea. Then he comes up with plan number three. So he knows and remembers that he had a lot of elderly clients at his old stockbroker job.
00:29:17
So he thinks he'll extort former clients that he's already earned the trust of so he can then rip them off.
00:29:26
And that's his fast track to money land. But of course, he's going to have to launder that money.
00:29:33
If they write him checks, he's going to have to launder it somehow. So he turns to an unsuspecting outsider for help.
00:29:40
And that is his very young girlfriend, 22-year-old Selena Bishop. up. The two met at a rave in the spring of 2000. And Selena is a waitress at the local Two Bird Cafe.
00:29:53
And she like most people is very charmed instantly by Taylor except for she thinks his name is Jordan He tells her his name is Jordan Selena friends and family don see it They don get it She head over heels
00:30:07
in love with this guy. He seems uninterested in meeting the people in her life. He's just kind of
00:30:13
mysterious and never around. And then when he finally does show up to a friend gathering,
00:30:19
he gives everyone the creeps. So everyone's kind of confused. I've met those guys that my friends have dated before for sure.
00:30:26
Yeah. They're everywhere. Everyone does that where you're like, I have vision. I'm dating someone interesting.
00:30:34
Yeah. You don't know what it's like when it's just me and him alone. He's different.
00:30:38
Right. So Selena and her mother, a woman named Jennifer Valerin, they're very close.
00:30:44
So Jennifer's genuinely like perplexed when she can't get to know Jordan, who's actually Taylor.
00:30:51
so jordan helps selena move out of her mom's house and into her own one bedroom apartment
00:30:56
in june of 2000 so jennifer drops by unannounced just to be like hey how are you like just to get
00:31:03
her eyes on this person yeah gotta right they speak briefly um and in that exchange jennifer
00:31:09
decides that her daughter's new boyfriend seems like a real nice kid she gets good vibes from him
00:31:14
she's like great i just wanted to before you went out into the world you know give a little approval
00:31:21
So in July of 2000, Jordan tells Selena, it's Taylor, tells Selena that his grandmother has just passed away and that he's about to inherit a ton of money, but he doesn't want his ex-wife making a claim on the inheritance.
00:31:36
So the best way for him to hide that money would be if Selena would open a couple bank accounts that Jordan can have some access to.
00:31:45
She is like, yes, she buys everything he says. She wants the best for him. she goes and does it and when she does the final step of the plan is in place for him to be able to
00:31:58
launder the cash so taylor now is able to begin stealing money from his old clients so this is how
00:32:05
they do it and it's you know clearly drugs are at play here clearly mental illness is also at play
00:32:12
here where there's just a his vision of reality is not aligned with reality and you know the
00:32:19
beginning of the story, it's kind of funny or it's like, oh, that's so quirky and weird.
00:32:23
This is the part where it just gets absolutely depraved and awful and depressing.
00:32:29
Oh my God. Okay. So on July 30th, 2000, Taylor and Justin knock on the door of their first intended victim,
00:32:37
who was a former client of Taylor's living in Walnut Creek. But by the grace of God,
00:32:43
that person is not home when they knock. So the brothers move on to the next one on Taylor's
00:32:49
list. And that is Ivan and Annette Steinman. They are an elderly married couple and their home is
00:32:56
in Concord, California. And it's actually just down the street from the rental home that Taylor
00:33:02
and Justin and Justin's girlfriend are all renting together. So it's actually close by.
00:33:09
And they show up wearing suits, you know, trying to be professional. So the Steinman's,
00:33:15
there's a knock on the door. They open it up. They see their old broker standing there and they
00:33:20
welcome him inside the home. Why wouldn't they? What they don't know is that Justin's girlfriend,
00:33:26
Dawn, is waiting in a truck outside. So once Taylor and Justin get into the Steinman's home,
00:33:33
their demeanor completely changes. They force the Steinman's back out into the Steinman's minivan
00:33:39
and drive them back to their own rental house. And there they force Annette to call the manager of the Concord branch
00:33:48
of the office where Taylor used to work, the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. And she asks to liquidate her retirement fund.
00:33:57
So they kidnap them and they're like holding them hostage and make, holy, that was the plan.
00:34:02
Yes. It's chaotic. It is ridiculous. And the manager would later recall that Annette sounded nervous over the phone, but he does fulfill her request.
00:34:14
So that goes through. And then they force feed the couple a large dose of Rohypnol and basically demand that they write two checks, one for $33,000 and another for $67,000.
00:34:31
Both made out to Selena Bishop. up. So Taylor gave the Steinman's such a huge dose of drugs that he thought that the dose would kill
00:34:42
them both. But then he sees that they are not dead. And so he tells Justin they have to finish
00:34:49
the job. And the details are just awful. There's no point being detailed on it. They're both
00:34:56
murdered. And like they just purely for money, just doing it. They have this plan that is just
00:35:02
as ridiculous. They actually adopt Rottweilers because they think that their Rottweilers will
00:35:08
eat human flesh and they think that they can, once they kill people, just feed the bodies to
00:35:14
these dogs. Of course, that is not something those dogs would do. So when that doesn't work,
00:35:22
Taylor tells Justin that he has to dismember the bodies and put them into several black duffel bags.
00:35:29
and he's going to do it while Taylor goes and meditates and listens to the spirit.
00:35:34
So Taylor doesn't have to get any blood on his hands and he just makes his brother do it.
00:35:39
So then Dawn puts on an insane disguise and this doesn't even make sense. It makes me think that somewhere in her mind she wanted to get caught
00:35:48
because she has to go in into the bank to deposit those checks. So she wears a lime green track suit red boots a gold cowboy hat and large sunglasses Oh my God Uh And she goes in in a wheelchair Wow
00:36:05
And she tells the bank teller she's a friend of Selena's, that Selena got this money from
00:36:09
her grandmother for a heart surgery that she's having. And that Dawn is just trying to be a good friend and help her by depositing the money
00:36:15
while Selena's in the hospital. The dumbest story of all time and the weirdest outfit of all time.
00:36:21
Drugs. And the checks are successfully deposited. No. It works. It smells like drugs and no sleep. Right? It's drugs to a degree where
00:36:34
they should have been caught multiple times because it's ludicrous. Yeah. So then a couple
00:36:40
days after that, Selina is able to withdraw the cash with no problem. So even though it's,
00:36:46
you know, obviously very rudimentary, their money laundering scheme actually worked.
00:36:51
Yeah. I mean, I guess in the year 2000, it was probably a lot more simple, right? The bank system,
00:36:56
getting money out and everything. Yeah. Right. That's, I think it's like on the cusp of the internet right at the beginning.
00:37:01
Yeah. So nothing is really, I mean, maybe I'm, I have no idea, but it's just the costume,
00:37:09
that whole thing. And just like, what are we talking about? Yeah. But also I think maybe it would have been harder for her to do if she was trying to
00:37:17
get a withdrawal out of the bank. But since she was just depositing money, maybe it was just like,
00:37:23
well, I don't know. So a couple of days later, Taylor and Selena meet up for a date at the Bison
00:37:30
Brewing Company in Berkeley. They are planning to leave for a camping trip to Yosemite the next day,
00:37:36
but they're meeting up now so that Selena can hand over the cash that she's just gotten out of the
00:37:42
bank. And according to a bartender who saw them that night, Selena seems far more interested in
00:37:49
Jordan Taylor than he does in her. She doesn't notice this at all. She seems very happy to be
00:37:55
with him. The next morning, August 3rd, 2000, Taylor and Selena stop by Taylor's house to
00:38:01
quote unquote grab supplies for their camping trip. But while they're there, Taylor suddenly
00:38:06
offers to give Selena a massage. He has her lay face down on the living room floor.
00:38:11
and he begins massaging her and then justin walks in with a hammer and hits her over the head and
00:38:19
then taylor drags her into the bathroom and he slits her throat oh god so he was of course
00:38:29
planning to kill her all along like oh my god it's it's just so dark she's so young yeah and
00:38:36
And just like in love with her probably first or second boyfriend of adulthood. It's so dark.
00:38:43
There's some really disturbing, like Dawn witnessed all of it and went on to testify about it.
00:38:50
And it's very awful and dark. So basically, back at the Steinman's, the Steinman's daughters haven't heard from them.
00:38:59
They've been calling the house repeatedly. No one's answering. Their next door neighbor noticed that their minivan is gone.
00:39:05
and it's normally parked in front of their house, like the Steinman's are missed immediately
00:39:09
and people immediately file a report. Meanwhile, Justin has to dismember Selena's body
00:39:18
like he did with the Steinman's and put it into those duffel bags also. And then he puts rocks in all of the duffel bags
00:39:28
and he drives out to the Sacramento River in the middle of the night and he dumps the remains of all three victims.
00:39:34
And so that was the multiple, I think it ended up being nine total duffel bags, I believe.
00:39:42
Horrifying. So, meanwhile, Selena's mom, Jennifer Villarin, and Jennifer's boyfriend, James Gamble,
00:39:51
they're house-sitting for Selena in her one-bedroom apartment while she is on this supposed camping trip with her boyfriend, Jordan.
00:39:58
Don later explains that it was always Taylor's plan to kill Selena, But after her mother's surprise drop-ins and their constant conversations, Taylor started getting worried that Selena's mother, Jennifer, might know too much.
00:40:12
And he figures it's only a matter of time before Jennifer realizes that Selena is gone and the first person she'll suspect a foul play will be him.
00:40:22
Oh, no. Yes. So Taylor drives out to Selena's apartment in the early morning hours of August 4th, 2000.
00:40:29
It's like three in the morning. He lets himself in with a key Selena gave him, creeps into the bedroom where Jennifer and James are asleep in Selena's bed.
00:40:39
He pulls out a nine millimeter pistol and shoots and kills both of them at point blank range.
00:40:45
Holy shit. Immediately Selena's landlord, a man named James Soliday, he lives upstairs.
00:40:50
He's woken up and immediately calls 911. So police respond to this double homicide.
00:40:56
And while that's happening, Selena's co-workers at the Two Bird Cafe are realizing that she hasn't shown up for her shift and no one can locate her.
00:41:06
When they can't track her down, they report her missing. So two days later on August 6th, the police find the Steinman's abandoned minivan in an industrial neighborhood in Oakland.
00:41:17
The keys are still in the ignition and there's a chainsaw in the back. So forensics are able to pull some fingerprints from the van's interior.
00:41:25
and because they both have drug-related priors, they easily identify the fingerprints of Justin Helzer and Don Godman.
00:41:34
When police search the Steinman's home, they find a note Ivan wrote mentioning Taylor Helzer.
00:41:41
So basically, police are able to make that connection that Taylor was Ivan and Annette's old stockbroker,
00:41:50
and it all kind of falls together. When police show Selena friends a picture of Taylor Helzer they all identify him as her boyfriend Jordan So the loop is closed and now armed with a search warrant police arrive at the Helzer rental house on
00:42:06
August 7th and they're looking for evidence for the Steinman's murders, for Selena's murder,
00:42:12
and maybe even trying to find the nine millimeter pistol that Jennifer and James were killed with.
00:42:18
They find no evidence linking Taylor, Justin, or Don to any of the murders at first. They do find
00:42:24
a ton of drugs though, specifically ecstasy and mushrooms. So they arrest all three on drug
00:42:31
possession charges. How can there not be more evidence? Because there's a lot of scheming,
00:42:36
plotting and scheming and planning. So they're sloppy. Like they left their fingerprints in that
00:42:42
minivan plus the chainsaw. Like they're sloppy and on drugs clearly. So Taylor escapes out of
00:42:49
the house and out the back door and he runs over to a neighbor's house. Her name's Mary Mizachi
00:42:55
and he's frantic and he tells Mary she needs to give him a weapon. So she panics. She gives him
00:43:02
a steak knife and a pair of scissors. He immediately cuts his ponytail off with the scissors. He then
00:43:09
changes into her husband's clothes and he slips out the back door. And before he does, he threatens
00:43:14
to kill her if she calls the police. But Taylor only gets a couple blocks down the street
00:43:20
before the police catch up to him. He's arrested. He's put into the back of a squad car.
00:43:25
He somehow manages to escape out the window of that squad car. What? No. Yes, but he's immediately recaptured and taken into custody.
00:43:34
So now with Taylor, Justin, and Dawn all in jail, police conduct a deeper search of the rental home,
00:43:39
and then they find the more damning evidence that they were looking for. They actually find videotaped news stories about Selena's disappearance. They find items stolen from the Steinman's home. They find handcuffs and shackles inside Justin's white pickup truck. And they also gather witness accounts from the pickup truck being seen outside the Steinman's home the day of their disappearance.
00:44:01
But the most damning evidence would come just a few hours later as the black duffel bags surface on the Sacramento River.
00:44:10
Right. So Don and Justin maintain their faith in Taylor that he and his work with the angels, quote unquote, will get them free.
00:44:20
But they have a defense that the wheels fall off of very quickly. and that defense is supposed to be that their friend, it's a friend of Dawn's named Deborah
00:44:31
McClanahan, and she's claiming that they all went to the movies together the night that the Steinmans
00:44:37
disappeared so that those three could have nothing to do with that. But when the police tell Deborah
00:44:42
what those three did to the Steinmans and to all the other people, she immediately says,
00:44:49
I was paid to lie. And then she tells them there's also a safe where the nine millimeter
00:44:54
pistol is hidden that was the murder weapon used to kill Jennifer Valerin and James Gamble.
00:45:00
And that nine millimeter is registered in Justin Helzer's name. It actually takes Dawn
00:45:08
two years of deprogramming with a specialized therapist before she can come to terms with the
00:45:14
fact that she was brainwashed by Taylor Helzer. She takes a plea deal testifying against the Helzer
00:45:21
brothers in exchange for a lesser sentence, she gets 38 years to life in May of 2005.
00:45:27
Justin Helzer goes into his trial ready to argue that he was under his brother's spell,
00:45:32
but before his lawyers can argue his delusional disorder defense, Taylor Helzer, the prophet,
00:45:38
pleads guilty to all 18 charges, including murder, kidnapping, and extortion, and this
00:45:44
cements Justin's case. And on June 16th, 2004, he is convicted on all 11 counts, including murder,
00:45:51
kidnapping, and extortion. And on August 4th, 2004, Justin receives his sentence, three death
00:45:58
sentences for the murders of Ivan Steinman, Annette Steinman, and Selena Bishop, and two life sentences
00:46:04
for the murders of Jennifer Villarin and James Gamble. And then on December 15th, 2004, Taylor
00:46:10
gets his sentence, which is five death sentences. He tries to appeal it in 2008 and he's denied.
00:46:18
So in 2010, while he's in prison awaiting his death sentence, Justin Helzer tries to take his
00:46:24
own life in one of the more disturbing ways that I have seen in a while. He survives that time,
00:46:31
but then on April 14th, 2013, he takes his life by hanging. His brother Taylor tries appealing his
00:46:39
death sentence once more, but is again denied in January of 2024. So just this year. He's still on
00:46:46
death row in San Quentin. For the victim's families, the only silver lining in this ordeal
00:46:51
is the swift delivery of justice. As Jennifer Villarin's sister, Olga Land, remarked on her
00:46:58
way out of the courtroom after the last guilty verdict was doled out, she says, Taylor Helzer
00:47:05
is the second coming of Manson, not Christ. And that is the story of Glenn Taylor Helzer
00:47:11
and the Children of Thunder. Oh my God. I had never heard that before. What? Monsters. Yeah. It wasn't a cult. It was like three losers doing way too many drugs and
00:47:23
listening to the craziest person in their group. Yeah. And then kind of just going on a murder
00:47:30
spree. Yeah, they went and they just laid waste to these families that had nothing to do
00:47:36
with their fucking scheme. That's wild. That was so wild. So, so awful. Just a really
00:47:42
bad one. Hello, hello. This is Malcolm Glabal from Smart Talks with IBM. Today we're diving into
00:47:52
a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari
00:47:58
HP. Your pronunciation is It's strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari. I'm still working on rolling my R's.
00:48:06
But what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi,
00:48:11
the Ferrari superfans in the digital age. Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of something, want to belong to something.
00:48:19
So they want to be part of a community, and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
00:48:25
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history. And now you're interacting in a kind of digital space.
00:48:35
I'm curious how you balance those two traditions. When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels
00:48:43
are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans. To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans,
00:48:51
visit ibm.com slash Ferrari. It's just organic castor oil, frankincense, and this rose quartz roller that feels so good on tired, stressed skin.
00:49:30
I look for anything that can de-puff me, and this really did my under eyes look brighter.
00:49:35
My face looked way more refreshed. It's almost like my face just exhaled. So try the Holistic Goddess Organic Castor Oil Roll-On with frankincense yourself.
00:49:45
Use my promo code Ashley at tryhg.com slash Ashley for 15% off promo code Ashley at tryhg.com slash Ashley.
00:49:58
This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. If you are ready to refresh your wardrobe for spring, Boehm is one of my go-to spots.
00:50:07
They have the best everyday pieces. Think really good denim, easy dresses, and outfits that you can actually wear on repeat.
00:50:14
everything feels current without being over the top and you get great quality without the high
00:50:20
price tag whether you're getting dressed for work errands or weekend plans bohm makes spring
00:50:26
outfits feel simple shop bohm's new arrivals at bohm.com that is b-o-h-m-e.com well i'm gonna go
00:50:37
the other way thank fucking god and yeah take us out of here please i've got you jump on my back
00:50:44
Get on my back. I'm going to piggyback you out of here. I'm up there. I'm going to crab walk you out of here.
00:50:50
Wow. Okay. So this is a story that was on a hometown episode a while ago, but I thought it deserved more
00:50:55
attention because it's one of those stories that stuck with me since I was a kid and saw
00:51:01
it on Unsolved Mysteries. It comes into my brain at random times, falling asleep or in the shower or whatever it is.
00:51:07
It's like that happened. Life is fucking crazy. So today's story is a scientific mystery that's never been solved.
00:51:14
It might be an unexplained natural phenomenon, or it might be a government conspiracy.
00:51:19
This is the story of the Oakville Blobs. Oh, uh-huh. You know this one? I think so, but I'm not sure.
00:51:27
Okay. The main sources I used for the story are a 1997 episode of Unsolved Mysteries and an
00:51:32
episode of the Netflix show Files of the Unexplained, and the rest of the sources can be found
00:51:36
in our show notes. And shout out to Allie Elkin, my researcher right off the bat, because the subject line of this paragraph is it's raining blobs.
00:51:45
Hallelujah. Appreciate you, Allie. Okay, so the town of Oakville is in Washington state.
00:51:52
So here we are Pacific Northwest. It's in the southwest part of the state, about 90 miles from Seattle and about 40 miles inland from the coast.
00:52:01
It's a small town with a population of like under 800 people. it's kind of like a hub for the surrounding farming communities so it's that kind of town
00:52:11
so a very small rural town it's august 7th 1994 there we are an oakville police officer
00:52:19
david lacy is on patrol when it begins raining heavily at 3 a.m and this is an area that gets
00:52:26
about 150 days of rain a year so no big deal except today is different so david and his friend
00:52:33
who is riding along with him. He's not a cop. That's like what a small town it is.
00:52:37
He's just like, hey, Larry, do you want to just go for a patrol, like drive with me?
00:52:43
I don't think you could do that in LA, you know? Probably not. And also there's a very specific person
00:52:48
that like likes to do a ride along with cops. That is a thing that at least back in the,
00:52:53
in the heady days of the nineties, where it was like people that want to be in, in on that kind of stuff.
00:53:00
Totally. So they're driving around and they realize that what's falling from the sky isn't rain, or at least it's not just rain.
00:53:08
It's clear, but it sticks to the windshield in little blobs. And once they turn on the wipers, it smears all over the place, making a gooey mess.
00:53:16
So it's not just rain. It gets so bad that they can't see through the windshield.
00:53:20
So David and his friend pull into a gas station to wipe the goo off. David puts on gloves, but he touches the goo.
00:53:26
I hate the word goo, but I have to say it a lot during this story. You know what I mean?
00:53:30
Yeah. Do you want to say materials? Materials. Sure. And finds that it's a similar consistency to Jell-O.
00:53:37
That's what it feels like. David says, quote, the substance was very mushy, almost like if you had Jell-O in your hand,
00:53:43
you could pretty much squish it through your fingers. We knew it wasn't something we would normally see because we had never experienced before.
00:53:50
We had some bells go off in our heads that said that basically this isn't right.
00:53:54
This isn normal End quote So when the sun comes up the blob storm has ended and an elderly woman named Dottie Hearn walks out her front door Dottie lives on a small farm with her adult daughter Sunny And
00:54:07
Dottie is a bit of an amateur weather enthusiast, which is like, hell yeah, grandma, let's do this.
00:54:13
And she knows her stuff. Yeah. She knows what she's fucking talking about. And she keeps a
00:54:17
close eye on storms because she's interested in them. And she and Sunny both noticed the rain on
00:54:22
the windows had looked oddly thick that morning. So they're noticing something where it's going on
00:54:27
too. They're like, hey, wait a second. Yeah. Hey, wait, I'm a weather expert and rain is rarely this
00:54:34
thick. Right. So gross. Right. It's so gross. Dottie sees what looks like small hail pellets
00:54:40
strewn all over the property. Each one is about the size of half a grain of rice. But when Dottie
00:54:45
touches them, she realized it's not hail. It's soft and squishy. Dottie goes inside and tells
00:54:52
her daughter Sunny about the blobs. Now Sunny's background is in occupational safety. So like,
00:54:58
we're at the right house today. Her alarm bells go off immediately when she sees the blobs. Her
00:55:03
brother, who's a paramedic, is also concerned. They put on gloves and collect samples from the yard.
00:55:09
Smart. I know. Sunny starts running her own experiments on the blobs. Like what,
00:55:13
How fun would that be? You know what I mean? Like you'd live your whole life for an experience like that.
00:55:19
Until you find out it's like waste from an airplane that was flying above. You just wait, hold on to your horses.
00:55:27
Okay, sorry. You're just like, I did people just like holding it and holding it up.
00:55:32
What is this? Smelling it? Tasting it. Yeah. So she puts the blobs in water. They float.
00:55:38
She tries to dissolve the blobs in alcohol and they won't dissolve. She lights one on fire.
00:55:42
She's a fucking scientist. It doesn't burn. Sunny calls multiple government agencies expressing concern about the blobs touching the food.
00:55:50
Her mother was growing on the farm, you know. Yeah. And they, of course, are like, don't worry about it, little lady.
00:55:55
You know, everything's fine. Don't we don't know what you're talking about. Don't worry about it.
00:55:59
You're overreacting. Right. That afternoon, David, the police officer, becomes very ill.
00:56:06
He's having intense flu-like symptoms that he's never had before. He says it's difficult to breathe.
00:56:11
he said quote i started to put together that possibly whatever the substance was it made me
00:56:16
violently sick oh and so dotty also becomes violently ill sunny her daughter finds her
00:56:23
lying on the bathroom floor in a cold sweat and barely conscious and these people don't know each
00:56:27
other it's not like you know word of mouth these are separate experiences yeah dotty had been
00:56:33
throwing up and has vertigo and blurry vision and it appears that multiple people all over town
00:56:38
become ill with flu-like symptoms. One Oakville resident says, quote, everybody in the whole town
00:56:43
came down with something like the flu only. It was a really hard flu that lasted from seven weeks
00:56:49
to two or three months. That's not a flu. No, that's poisoning, isn't it? Yeah. Good question.
00:56:56
Good hypothesis. Oh, thanks. Reports from the Times say some 30 residents report flu-like symptoms.
00:57:02
And considering there's like not more than 800 people in town, 30 is a big percentage of people
00:57:07
to get sick from this stuff. Also animals fall ill. So on her way up the door to take her mother
00:57:14
to the hospital, Sunny has the presence of mind to bring some of her samples with her.
00:57:19
And at first, you know, she gives them to the hospital and they're tested and the hospital
00:57:23
lab technician believes it contains human white blood cells, which is very puzzling.
00:57:29
This winds up in a lot of initial reports, but it will eventually be disproven, which sucks because
00:57:34
that would be so interesting. Doctors wind up coming to the conclusion that Dottie's illness
00:57:39
is unrelated to the blobs and it's just a virus. She's discharged from the hospital after four days.
00:57:44
It's unrelated to the blobs, but is it related to the cop getting sick? Yeah. Right. And four days is a long time in the hospital for a flu. Yeah. A few days after the
00:57:54
first blobs fall, more blobs and goo. I just can't. This is a hard one for me. You picked
00:58:00
this story. I know I did. I just didn't realize how much. Blobs and goo is absolutely the name
00:58:05
of this episode though, isn't it? No one will listen to it. No, thank you. It's only for the
00:58:12
strong. How about moist blobs and goo? Then it'll be a hit. More blobs come down a few days after
00:58:21
the first ones in another rainstorm. This time there's no illnesses reported. And over the next
00:58:26
three weeks the blobs rained down on oakville four more times for a total of six rainstorms
00:58:33
with this gooey substance jesus right like get pack your bags and move goodbye because also
00:58:39
a rainstorm of it yeah it's not like that's pretty scary coming down from on high
00:58:45
you get caught in that you get slimed a scientist from the health department named mike mcdowell
00:58:53
investigates the blobs more thoroughly than anyone else. In his report, he says that when
00:58:58
cultured, the sample grows two kinds of bacteria that grow in the human digestive tract. Strange.
00:59:05
Additionally, he finds that the cells in the sample are sort of like an envelope,
00:59:10
which makes it seem like they could function as a delivery system for other cells. Almost like
00:59:16
someone scientists created an envelope type structure to rain down and then melt, you know,
00:59:23
And then whatever was in that envelope, let's say the poison then is there. Kills everyone.
00:59:29
I don't know. Theories real quick. Yours is right on top, the airplane toilet theory.
00:59:35
Of course, that presence of bacteria that's found in the human digestive system is found there.
00:59:40
So of course, the theory emerges that the blobs have been human waste released from an aircraft, probably accidentally.
00:59:46
That's called the Dave Matthews theory. Exactly. A la Dave Matthews. It's exactly.
00:59:52
That's right. The waste may have become gel consistency by mixing with antifreeze And maybe that what made people sick too which is interesting But there are some problems with this theory First is that the FAA requires all human waste to be dyed blue Oh which I didn know The blobs are clear
01:00:11
Also, it's obviously against the rules to just dump waste in midair and the blobs fall on six
01:00:16
separate occasions over three weeks. So it's probably not an airplane accident. Okay. So the
01:00:23
next theory is jellyfish, if you can believe it. Oh. In the lead up to the first blobs falling,
01:00:28
the Air Force had been conducting practice bombing runs off the coast of Washington,
01:00:34
about 50 miles away from Oakville. I mean, this could be an episode of Stranger Things.
01:00:39
I don't know. Do they do stuff like this? But it is a thing. It's like you have this testing
01:00:42
facility in town and weird shit's happening and you won't admit that you're connected.
01:00:47
Wouldn't it be more of an X-Files? Yes. There you go. I only watched a couple episodes of
01:00:52
Me too. And I meant the X-Files. Is that what you meant? No, but now I do. So some people
01:01:01
theorize that they may have blown up a large school of jellyfish and the jellyfish bits were
01:01:07
sucked up into the atmosphere by a strong storm carried over to Oakville 50 miles away,
01:01:12
where it then rained down. One biologist in the episode of the Files of the Unexplained says this
01:01:17
is possible and does happen sometimes. Oh. Yikes. I mean, keep your eyes peeled.
01:01:23
For example, there are known instances of strong storms sucking up sardines and frogs
01:01:29
and then dumping them inland. Yeah. Bible style. Yeah. Yeah. Many people see a lot of holes in this
01:01:36
jellyfish theory when it's presented by a reporter to a sergeant from the Air Force.
01:01:40
He has to stifle a laugh. Dottie and her daughter Sunny are also skeptical. In the Unsolved Mysteries
01:01:47
episode, Sunny calls the idea that such a large amount of blown up jellyfish would be carried so
01:01:52
far and rained down six times over a three week period, quote, pretty preposterous. Yeah. Also,
01:01:58
Dottie points out that the blobs were odorless and three week old dead jellyfish probably would
01:02:03
have smelled bad. Would it though? What does that smell like? Oh God. Terrible. I mean,
01:02:12
terrible and also wouldn't the sickness that dotty got be more like a sting than it would be like a
01:02:19
poisoning or a flu i don't know unless it was i don't know yeah for sure unless she's allergic to
01:02:26
shellfish it's not shellfish you're right quite the opposite there goes your theory your theory's
01:02:35
blown out of the water. The next theory is a biological weapons test. There are a lot of
01:02:43
military bases in the area. What's up, X-Files? In the lead up to the blobs falling, Sunny and her
01:02:49
mom noticed helicopters that look black. And of course, black helicopters have documented official
01:02:53
uses, but are also linked to a lot of conspiracy theory about the military. Sunny says that a few
01:02:59
years after the blobs fall, three strange men come into the soda shop where she works. Oh my
01:03:03
God, I want to go to Oakville in a soda shop. Doesn't that sound perfect? I know.
01:03:07
They ask her questions about the blobs. And then if she's seen black aircraft in the area,
01:03:13
and then they leave not long after. Sunny gets the license plate number of the car they left in.
01:03:18
And when the local police run the plates, they're registered to the Fort Hood military base in Texas,
01:03:24
which we know has since been renamed Fort Cavazos. That's right. So it was a military car somehow.
01:03:32
That's interesting. I love that the local PD is like, yeah, let's all figure this out.
01:03:36
Totally. What the hell's going on? I'm sitting in your soda shop with nothing else to do.
01:03:39
Let's fucking do this. But also that is interesting. And it's like the military operating in that kind of what we all believe could be the CIA style.
01:03:50
Yeah. Who knows? All of this used to be so kind of fantastical talking about it because it was the 90s.
01:03:58
Yeah. And every, it was like, isn't that crazy that they would think? And it's nowadays, it's just like, yep, they all did it.
01:04:04
Right. It's all real. It's like, you know, we're in this place where it's just like all conspiracies are proven true.
01:04:11
Everything's real. Yeah. I mean, don't tell that to my mom. She'll fucking get so excited.
01:04:16
Okay. That you agree with her. Oh, Janet knows I agree with her on a lot of the major topics.
01:04:23
Those lasers, those space lasers. Okay. Okay, so Mike McDowell, the scientist, and Sunny wind up coming to the conclusion that the most plausible explanation for the blobs is that there was some sort of biological weapons test.
01:04:36
And here in my mind, it's a meet cute. It becomes a movie. I've cast them because it's the 90s.
01:04:41
They are Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser. Yes, and they're going to fall in love?
01:04:46
Yes. Yes. Over the blobs. I love it. Yeah, the blobs are gross, but the love is beautiful.
01:04:52
Oh. We'll work on that for the poster. And it has to be shorter. Yeah. I'm trying to think of something like a...
01:04:58
I love goo. No, that's stupid. You're goo. The military has conducted biological weapons tests in the past over civilian areas, as we know,
01:05:11
using stand-in substances that wouldn't actually cause infections. So they're just like, does sprinkling this work?
01:05:18
And since these envelope-like cells appeared not to be carrying anything, it looks to McDowell like this is one of those tests.
01:05:25
But in 1994, such a test would have violated international laws. So there's no way our military did it because they follow the laws.
01:05:35
Also, the advantage of bioweapons is that they are difficult to detect and the blobs are very conspicuous.
01:05:41
So it makes a lot of people doubt the bioweapon theory. Someone else thinks it could be an agricultural research experiment gone wrong.
01:05:50
Maybe contained experimental pesticide. pesticide There also the fact that throughout history there have been other instances of gelatinous goo falling on the ground or at least appearing on the ground In scientific writing and poetry dating back to the 17th century Karen so long ago
01:06:07
there has been reports of a gooey, clear substance appearing on the ground overnight, which people refer to as star jelly.
01:06:16
Your favorite strip club. What kind of drunken fools did you see the star jelly on the ground?
01:06:24
It's beautiful tonight. Don't touch it. If you eat it, do it in a drunk voice. Oh, star jelly.
01:06:33
Fairies. It's delicious. This has later been theorized to have been frog spawn, the little blobby eggs that tadpoles hatch from, or slime molds, which sounds awesome.
01:06:45
I love mold. But since people actually saw the Oakville blobs, like, raining, these other ones, they found it on the ground.
01:06:51
But this is fucking raining. A cop saw it. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So it seems unlikely.
01:06:57
So this is possibly the most mysterious part of the entire blob affair. Mike McDowell, the scientist, played by Brendan Fraser in our movie,
01:07:06
from the Washington Department of Health, never gets to finish his work with the sample that Sonny, Sandra Bullock, sent to him.
01:07:13
He arrives at work one day and the samples are gone. He tells Sonny it's the only time in his career that he's lost a sample.
01:07:20
And his supervisor had advised him not to ask questions about the samples whereabouts. Shut your mouth. The three guys that were at the cafe, they went over and took all that
01:07:29
stuff. Yeah, that. Mike says the receptionist at his office says, quote, black suits came and took
01:07:36
it, end quote. Mike's kids say that this bothers him until he dies and reinforces his theory that
01:07:44
there is some kind of military or government connection. And that is the story of the mysterious
01:07:50
various Oakville blobs. That's as close as we get. That's it. I trust Mike. Damn it. I trust
01:07:58
Mike too. But I mean, that just feels like it's the prequel to Men in Black because it's like,
01:08:03
clearly the three suits know that this was like an alien accident. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean,
01:08:11
if aliens don't exist, I don't know what to tell you. Like then. What are we even doing? Yeah.
01:08:16
we're living in a simulation in that case. Like it's one extreme or the other. Cause I,
01:08:20
cause it's not just no. I mean, and why should it be at this point? As long as it's not like
01:08:25
the movie signs, that's all is I just don't want it to be like that. Scary scene where Joaquin
01:08:31
Phoenix is in the closet and then the kid's birthday party. I just saw that recently on
01:08:36
an Instagram and I was like, that still scares the ever. And it looks stupid now too. It's like
01:08:41
just this like long gangly alien, but it's still, it's fucking terrifying. It's so perfectly shot
01:08:47
though. It was like, he got that perfect, like what a viral video would actually look like.
01:08:52
Handheld camera, children screaming. Screaming birthday party children. Oh my God. Yeah.
01:09:00
Blobs. And I wonder if they did like a 30 year test to see how many people have cancer in the
01:09:06
Oakville area or absolutely something like that. I'm obsessed with those stories of the towns where
01:09:12
it's like, you know, like Love Canal where like everyone got some kind of cancer in that town
01:09:17
because of the fucked up government practices of getting rid of waste. It's so upsetting.
01:09:24
So upsetting. There's a really good John Travolta movie where he plays a lawyer that
01:09:29
fights one of those chemical companies. Aaron Brockovich? No, it's it's it's the sequel to
01:09:36
Erin Brockovich, where John Travolta just redoes. He plays every character. He plays her, yeah.
01:09:42
Her, Albert Finney. But I mean, it is, you know, for a long time, like before they set up the EPA,
01:09:48
and I'm sure we don't have it anymore. I'm sure we don't have it anymore, right? Yeah.
01:09:51
So just like that whole thing where you had to like get companies with chemical spillage and all
01:09:57
that shit to be like, hey, could you not kill everybody nearby so that we can all have this
01:10:02
weird plastic item. The government can barely regulate fucking supplements. And you think that
01:10:08
they're trying to regulate these billion dollar fucking agriculture companies and, you know,
01:10:13
processing plants to not do things that they shouldn't do. Come on. It's just like the problem
01:10:19
is how do you go backwards into regulation? Like when Reagan made these decisions and that his
01:10:27
administration just started slashing all that stuff. It's like, but now they just get more
01:10:33
powerful and that's all. There's no going backwards. Yeah. No. Until the children rise up.
01:10:39
That's right. Rise up or infiltrate the system. Rise up on TikTok. Wow. We solved it. I think we solved it. We solved it by bringing up something else and,
01:10:50
and basically not talking about it anymore. I mean, if Reagan isn't brought up at least one
01:10:55
episode, then have we even, have we even done our jobs? Then my mother cannot rest.
01:11:01
Mine can. Should we find out? Oh shit. I forgot. What people are even doing right now while they're
01:11:09
listening to this podcast. God, we have a new ending. I love it. I was just like, anyway, bye.
01:11:15
No, we have a fun thing now. Yeah. Fun thing. Yeah. Let's see. Some people are such good people
01:11:21
that like when they write in this one person's like, I'm delivering groceries to the lovely
01:11:26
senior population while listening. You're like, oh my God. And also that seems like the kind of
01:11:32
thing that would be easy and fun to volunteer. You know, my dad used to do that. He used to be
01:11:35
the food guy and he would just drive groceries around to people. Hell yeah. I've been a school
01:11:39
lunch lady. I could do that. Yeah. That was from Lisa McElroy art. I guess that's mine.
01:11:44
It says delivering groceries to the lovely senior population while listening to tales of mayhem and
01:11:49
horror is the balancing act I need to drive all morning. I'm not even close to enough sleep.
01:11:55
Thanks Lisa. Oh, that's a great, I love that one. What's that person's name? Her name's Lisa McElroy.
01:12:00
I love the idea of her partying all night, like at a rave and then being like, I gotta go to my job.
01:12:05
She's just living a full life. She's like volunteering and volunteering for herself.
01:12:10
Yeah. This one says, there's the actual post and then somebody commented on it because this is from Instagram.
01:12:16
Allie Finch wrote, what am I even doing right now? I was plucking my own eyebrows
01:12:20
exactly when Karen mentioned I should not be. Wow. That's funny. And then Megasaurus Rex, W-R-E-X, wrote back to Ali Finch and said, make sure you take one all the way off.
01:12:37
That's how I did it. Yeah, you got to get rid of one. Pluck it back to iris distance.
01:12:44
See how seventh grade treats you then, cowards. I pierced mine with a safety pin one morning before eighth grade.
01:12:52
That was a mistake, too. Did it hurt all day? No, they sent me home to take it out.
01:12:57
Oh, yeah. Too rebellious. Yeah, that's me. Now it's like, we'd just love for you to be here.
01:13:03
You can have whatever in your eyebrow that you want. Put your phone down, please.
01:13:07
Please, just participate. Thank you guys for participating. I mean, I feel like this week we all really participated our asses off.
01:13:14
It's been a participation, like, goo blob extravaganza. You're doing it to yourself.
01:13:22
I know. I can't stop. I can't stop. Thanks for being here. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
01:13:30
Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! Clashen and Allie Elkin Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder
01:14:03
Goodbye! Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project.
01:14:13
One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales. And somehow, none of them talk to each other.
01:14:20
That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together.
01:14:27
From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform.
01:14:32
No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets.
01:14:38
Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system.
01:14:43
Try for free today at odoo.com slash iHeartRadio. That's O-D-O-O-O dot com slash iHeartRadio.
01:14:52
It's called soccer. It's called football. Uh, soccer. Football. Domino's best deal ever lets you get any pizza, including stuffed crust, with any toppings for $9.99.
01:15:06
We can agree on that. Yeah, fully. So, pineapple? Don't ruin it. Get any pizza, including stuffed crust, with any toppings for $9.99.
01:15:15
finally something everyone can get behind. And if the refs disagree, that's between them and Domino's,
01:15:20
which means the only thing left to fight over is who's ordering. Domino's. Prices higher for some locations.
01:15:27
Excludes XL and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from 615 to 726. Online only.
01:15:31
Size availability varies by crust type. Max seven toppings. Six for pan and New York style crust.
01:15:36
Minimum purchase required for delivery. Prices participation delivery area and charges may vary.
01:15:40
Across America, money is being abandoned. By taking a few seconds to check lift before your next ride, you can give money a better home.
01:15:50
Inside your wallet. Save the money. Check lift.