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00:01:40
Own the dream. hello and welcome to my favorite murder that's georgia hardstar thanks that's karen kilgara
00:02:08
you're welcome goodbye and we're done easy that's all it takes to podcast light lifting this week
00:02:18
podcasts are easy people who complain about them do people complain about podcasts just us
00:02:25
You know, there's been a lot going on. Absolutely. And a lot. And that's the only explanation of all the things going on in the world that I would forget to bring up last week.
00:02:43
That the Sherry Papini disappearance and reemergence case has come back around. Do you know that that case happened in 2016?
00:02:53
That was the year one of this podcast. And you fucking called it then too. Now I and the rest of America called it along with People Magazine who brought, I mean, that's the article I kept seeing posted on social media.
00:03:09
Yeah. But they finally found through DNA testing who the undetermined male DNA was on her sweatpants and in her underwear.
00:03:20
I forgot that that was there. Okay. That was there. And it was an ex-boyfriend that she...
00:03:27
Did you read that article? Yeah. She went and shacked up with an ex-boyfriend for how long?
00:03:32
Like two weeks or something? Yeah, but like, it doesn't make sense. He said in the article that she claimed to him, sure, she alleges that she was being abused.
00:03:42
And that's... But then the entire time she was there, she was planning this. she was not eating and hitting herself and doing stuff to look abused when she got back.
00:03:55
Yeah. I think she just wanted to hang out with an ex for a little bit and chose a really bad way to do it.
00:04:03
But like, and truly, like for when you say for a little bit, it's like 29 hours.
00:04:09
Like, it seems like. Was that it? It seems like she, like the hookup part, the fun part happened.
00:04:16
And then she was immediately like going into false, racist, hostage accusation plan.
00:04:25
Yeah. Yeah. That is, that still boggles the mind. It's bonkers. It's bonkers. There's no, I think maybe she wanted to be famous in some fucking weird way.
00:04:38
Yeah. You know what I mean? Like. Which worked. Yeah. Let's acknowledge that it worked.
00:04:43
It sounds like her husband had no idea and was like, obviously he's not, I mean, not obviously, but he's not in La Plame if he's like sending her off to the old fucking Steve's house or whatever, who she used to date.
00:04:55
No. And he was the one that was on like whatever the, whatever the magazine show was where he was the one telling that story. And he was the worried, like what a disaster plan.
00:05:07
Yeah. What a stomachache of a reminding me of my late teens, early 20s type of plan.
00:05:15
I'm going to go, I'm going to do this and it's going to work. No questions asked. Goodbye.
00:05:20
And maybe I'll seem kind of popular and get some attention, but also make incredibly racist
00:05:26
allegations, which I think from the beginning we said, yeah, where it's like one was old and one
00:05:33
was young and one had long hair and one had short hair and one was mean and one was nice
00:05:38
no tied me to a pole yeah well it'll be fun they're definitely gonna press charges against her
00:05:47
right well that's what it seems like because that's what they it seems like that's what they
00:05:52
were waiting to do they just were waiting for some kind of evidence to come through that was pointing in some direction and then once they got that guy name he was like sure i tell you all about it because you can you imagine being that guy then then watching this whole thing explode in the media man it like makes me cringe because it
00:06:12
like did she really think no one was gonna figure it the fuck out she oh maybe she's one of those
00:06:17
people like everyone's i'm smart and everyone's stupid so no one will fucking understand like
00:06:22
think this and I'm too pretty to be victim blamed and like, you know, just some fucking delusional
00:06:27
excuse for very, very bad illegal behavior. Yeah. Just remember if you're going to go try to put
00:06:37
some kind of a national plan into place. Well, I think people now realize, cause it's, I mean,
00:06:43
six years later where it's like, no, people will analyze your whole life. They will absolutely boil
00:06:51
that thing down and look into it further than you've ever wanted. And also because we live in
00:06:57
a world now where you, people can look into your life as far as they would like to through social
00:07:02
media. Yeah. So crazy. Well, that's a, you know, Hey, it's fun to close the loop every once in a
00:07:09
while. It is. I love those. I love those full circle moments that because we've been doing this
00:07:16
for six second years of our lives get to happen here. You've heard it here last.
00:07:21
Here, not live on this not live podcast six years later. After the fact that it came out, you get to hear it here in our hot take.
00:07:31
And when we talked about it originally, I remember feeling so, I just wanted to know
00:07:36
so bad at the time. And then of course, which I don't know if we said or not, but of course,
00:07:40
once you learn the real story, I bet you said this, once you learn the real story, you're like,
00:07:44
No. Okay. Well now I just don't care. That's just dumb. This woman sucks. That's boring. Bye. Bye.
00:07:52
Well, unfortunately I think there's kids involved, right? So like that's going to be a real whopper to bring into therapy.
00:07:59
Right. Hopefully sooner than later for those kids. It's just pointless. It's like, Oh,
00:08:04
I hope you had fun for those first three days. And then you starved yourself and found chains to put around your chains.
00:08:12
if you want if you want attention fucking do something good really good and get some people
00:08:19
to like you i don't know how to do it obviously so i mean good advice but or start a podcast
00:08:25
yeah start a podcast for sure but also i think when you're pining for the like the old days and
00:08:31
some exes that's just a red flag to yourself right like there's something else i need that it that
00:08:37
none of that has really anything to do with that i'm just projecting yeah i'm unhappy with this
00:08:42
life so i'm fantasizing about an old life that isn't what i think it is yeah goodbye oh goodbye
00:08:50
speaking of exes uh what are you watching what are you up to speaking of exes i don't know
00:08:58
so a friend of the family stephanie beatriz oh my god yes who is one of the stars of
00:09:06
Encanto, which we watched over the holidays and is a wonderful musical, is now the host of a new
00:09:12
podcast. Have you heard of it? No. Called Twin Flames. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. You have
00:09:20
to listen to it. I can't believe it's real. It is so upsettingly and so like, talk about cringe.
00:09:29
I haven't listened yet. There are people who make up this concept that you have a twin flame. There's
00:09:34
one person in the world for you. That's it. And when you find that person, whoever it may be,
00:09:39
is it a 22 year old man at your work? So be it. Or some for you. It's so close there.
00:09:47
And he's young. He's right there. You don't have to go anywhere. He's not in Egypt or something.
00:09:54
But once you find that person and you know, and you do some, I guess the exercises or classes,
00:10:01
classes, then your whole thing is that you have to go get your twin flames. Wait, so who finds it out for you?
00:10:09
Who picks it? Well, you, I think, arrive. I think this is, it started where basically it's like, can you not get over the person
00:10:17
that doesn't like you? It is maybe the banner, the unspoken, unwritten banner over the conference room that was the
00:10:26
online class called Twin Flames. You have to listen to it. Okay. It's a couple. So they found their twin flame and they're there to teach you how to find and land yours.
00:10:38
Any of those let us show you how fucking seminars or whatever the fuck is like, just run the other way.
00:10:44
They don't know how and they're not going to teach you jack shit, but how to fucking get rid of your money real fast.
00:10:49
Here's all I'll say is these people have no fear of restraining orders. They think that a restraining order is a good sign.
00:10:58
Oh, no. Dude, this is okay. I, uh, full credit to Jacob Tierney, my Canadian friend that no one thinks is real, but is of letter Kenny fame, who is the one who was like, you have to drop everything and listen to this right now because it's really, you can't believe it's real. And then you can't believe that people, because people basically join a cult in quarantine, like on zoom.
00:11:26
Yeah. So they start going to these classes and then there's a bunch of other people that are like, I'm also in love with somebody who does not love me back. And we're all together going to believe in ourselves and do what's right for us. And they, it's like a thing called claiming. So they literally go to the people like, and you have to say to the guy, I claim you.
00:11:47
no claim you yes and they're doing all this super what would ordinarily just be really embarrassing
00:11:54
if you were like in junior high but these are fully grown adults who are walking up to people who like they hung out with a couple times with you know like from near their grocery store wherever
00:12:06
I mean, you have to listen to the podcast. I can't believe it. And then it gets crazy beyond, like beyond.
00:12:15
And also Stephanie is such a good narrator host. Yeah. She's so good. She's so multi-talented.
00:12:22
Yeah. I met her on a plane and she was the loveliest fucking person. Yeah. And she was at our, wasn't it our Vegas show?
00:12:28
That's right. She was there with us. Yes. Yeah. That's such a red flag where it's, you get people at their most vulnerable.
00:12:35
So you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back. So you're heartbroken.
00:12:39
You're, uh, you're probably feeling a little low about yourself, a little worthless maybe.
00:12:44
And like, that's how that's the perfect time to get for someone manipulative to get you to listen and follow their command.
00:12:53
Yeah. And not think it through. Well, also, it's people telling you exactly what you want to hear instead of like my mean older sister who'd be like, no joke.
00:13:03
Shut up about this guy. Sorry, you're right. Or like, he sounds like a dork or whatever.
00:13:08
Like nobody that's going to help you out with the hard, cold truth of like this, like this is about something else.
00:13:16
Like you like this person, but you also don't know him. So clearly, again, red flag.
00:13:22
You have to listen to it because I'm just talking about the beginning. It's called Twin Flames.
00:13:28
All right. I'm in. I'm in. Yeah. Are you watching Severance on Apple TV? I have not.
00:13:34
I've heard a lot about it and people really like it, but I haven't watched it. It's good.
00:13:38
Adam Scott speaking of Scranton no he wasn't on the office you're thinking parks he was in Pawnee
00:13:46
that's right uh it's like this okay it's totally sci-fi but it's also like a dark
00:13:51
I wouldn't say comedy but like a dark I don't know it's fucked up it's really good and he's
00:13:58
great in it and uh he kind of looks it's he looks distractingly like Tig Notaro in it
00:14:04
which is my only my only problem with it i'll send you the screen grabs they look very similar
00:14:11
they're very they could absolutely be siblings yeah yeah that's hilarious but other than that
00:14:16
it's really good and like it's got that sci-fi and like fucking christopher walken and then uh
00:14:21
what's his name from john totoro john totoro was in it and like they have a fucking like scene
00:14:26
together that's so good like just it's really good i'm not done with it yet but i fucking
00:14:31
Vince and I are really into it. People were talking about it on Twitter. And I, of course, love Adam Scott.
00:14:38
Friend of the Karen. Friend of the Karen. And also his aunt has been a teacher with my sister for like years and years.
00:14:47
Yeah. So we're basically cousins. Not in the least. John Turturro is great. Fucking Patricia Arquette is like, it's just good.
00:14:57
It's just creepy and good and sad. and it's a ben stiller joint yeah weird right yeah i mean no he's a good director i mean yeah
00:15:07
i just wondered like why isn't he in it but it's great well and also it seems like a true departure
00:15:13
from his usual like either comedy or you know what i mean like that's it's a different thing so
00:15:19
yeah he's branching out he couldn't be in it because he had to concentrate yeah our
00:15:24
We're so proud of him. We don't have him. We're so proud of him. Now, he's grown up so much.
00:15:31
Right before our eyes. Let's see. Do we just have two wrecks? We can do that. We don't have to, like, go forever.
00:15:38
We don't. But I see something behind you that I just remembered. We have to talk about.
00:15:44
Oh. We don't have to. That's right. We don't have to do it this week. Well, I can't have just an anonymous box in my house that I don't know what's inside of it.
00:15:52
you're not allowed to open that says for Karen on it but it's also surgical masks so it's a little
00:15:59
a little daunting look I just want to explain to you that in the vein of the Thanksgiving flavored
00:16:06
candy corns that we ate on air yeah a podcast first eating on the eating on air I found these
00:16:14
and now or another time whenever we want to do it we need to try grant rocks late night taco truck
00:16:24
jelly beans we gotta do it now okay we gotta let me tell you what flavors are i'm gonna read them
00:16:28
to you margarita churro horchata okay we're off to a good start yeah then we go to salsa guacamole
00:16:36
and beef taco these people the people at brock's clearly had some youngsters take over i don't know
00:16:44
if the grandchildren have come in whatever they're doing they're doing it right you know what i think
00:16:49
take a handful and then i'll tell us what what i think we should eat the guacamole salsa and beef
00:16:55
taco at once that sounds like torture yep but you know you mean like so it's like eating a taco
00:17:02
you're saying yeah okay hold on let me separate it it looks like brown brown there's a brown
00:17:09
brown so the brown one that looks like a root beer jelly belly is is churro okay so and then
00:17:16
the yellow what's there's no yellow what's yellow wait a second are there other flavors as well
00:17:24
no i'm so i'm gonna roll the dice and eat a yellow all right i'll eat a yellow too oh oh no
00:17:29
beef taco i don't know oh no i don't know beef taco jelly bean let's do a green guacamole
00:17:37
i don't mind that one no avocado can be sweet i don't personally care for avocado myself but
00:17:46
i gonna try what i think is salsa okay me too oh it is oh oh that very accurate that is so salsa But it whatever Gen Z as you said Brock grandchildren are good at the flavors I actually kind of like the salsa The salsa is more I would say along the lines of paste picante sauce as opposed to like a fire roasted salsa
00:18:11
It's a real classic grocery store salsa. I get a little, yeah, and I get a little Bloody Mary in there too.
00:18:18
You know what I mean? Like a sweet tomato. Okay, now we get to eat the good ones.
00:18:23
thank god that although i have to say compared to thanksgiving those three were not that bad
00:18:29
horchata baby okay look horchata jelly bean is the best fucking thing i've ever had oh margarita
00:18:36
is helping me it always does and then churro oh yeah everyone loves a churro horchata is a great
00:18:44
palate cleanser to get into that churro rocks we just need a whole thing of horchata jelly beans
00:18:51
please. All right. Well, we had taco truck jelly beans on a true crime podcast. I gotta say that
00:18:56
I feel like Brock's maybe took some notes from the public and made these jelly beanier. So even
00:19:03
if you're having like a salsa taste, there's still a sweetness where you can enjoy it. It doesn't feel
00:19:11
as much like a prank as Thanksgiving dinner did. Right. Which I loved. I love that. I love that.
00:19:17
The only prank one was the beef taco, which wasn't good. Shockingly. Yeah. I think we would all know that.
00:19:25
I love that. A lot of people posted this on Twitter to me saying, did you know, did you know?
00:19:32
All right. Well. That's what I was hoping was in that mask box. You were? I was hoping, but then I was like, keep your expectations, you know, in check in case you're
00:19:42
just like, hey, here's some leftover masks. don't look in it no i tell you don't look but here's some old masks they're used
00:19:52
cookie licked each and every one of them enjoy yeah i say brock's welcome to the 2020s yeah and
00:20:02
they sent by the way i think we said that they when we did the brock's thanksgiving candy corn
00:20:08
This is not an ad in any way for them. Not at least. But they sent us a huge box of candy around Halloween, which was like awesome.
00:20:16
And they're friendly and nice and friendly. Don't worry. They're friendly. You can approach them.
00:20:21
I still have Harvest Mix in the back of my like doodad's drawer that it's in the kitchen
00:20:27
where it'll be like soy packets and then like an old Twix and like just random stuff.
00:20:32
Yes, exactly. And there's a bunch of like candy corn harvest mix that just the pumpkins, like we got all of it.
00:20:41
So good. They spoiled us. They did. Thanks, Brocks. Hey, Brocks. We love to be in partnership with you, Brocks.
00:20:49
I just belched. Oh, you know what episode that is, is the one you covered the Brocks heiress murder.
00:20:54
Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's God, if we could get it together to really align all of our sponsorships and integrations, could you imagine how slick this fucking podcast would be?
00:21:05
Yeah, the hair dye murder brought to you by Madison Reed or whatever. Is there a hair dye murder?
00:21:13
There's got to be. Yeah, there's got to be a mid-century modern Scandinavian design murder.
00:21:19
That's cut out the middleman. Yeah. Literally. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. that's exactly when we will cancel this podcast right right when we get good at stuff like that
00:21:29
let us go we don't need to be when we're professional at this that takes all the
00:21:34
joy out of it yeah no thanks we're not here for a job guys we're not we're and we're certainly not
00:21:40
here to impress we i think we've made that abundantly clear should we do some exactly
00:21:47
right highlights please yes guys over on the exactly right media network which is our podcast
00:21:53
network where all our friends and acquaintances have podcasts for anyone we've ever liked slightly
00:22:00
just whoever but people who we like a lot yeah on bananas this week kara clank and lisa trager of
00:22:08
that's messed up an svu podcast will be the guests so kurt and scotty kara and lisa it's a party over
00:22:17
on bananas crossover they're doing it that's our crossover song yeah crossover and iconic actress
00:22:25
samantha mathis who's in pump up the volume and american psycho is on that's messed up and svu
00:22:31
podcast to discuss season five episode nine a classic what if we just kept talking about that's
00:22:38
messed up just over and over that's right and lisa trager is on kara clink's other podcasts
00:22:43
i love both of those women i do too oh also on this podcast will kill you this week aaron and
00:22:50
aaron discuss the ins and outs this is how it's phrased on this i think this is hannah
00:22:55
creighton being funny the ins and outs of lightning strikes what a cool topic like it
00:22:59
fits in there it fits in their little their their world but it's so like unexpected and cool
00:23:06
i know it's because it will kill you it can kill you it has killed it's killed for sure and why
00:23:13
not talk it through because also i think storm season is coming around so get aware everyone's
00:23:19
scared of getting struck by lightning right yeah they should be they will be after they hear this
00:23:25
podcast will kill you okay um the mfm store is restocked with we're all indoor cats now
00:23:31
merch that was all previously um out of stock but it's now in in in in yes the uh indoor cat
00:23:40
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That's K-N-I-X dot com. Code FLOW15. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:25:52
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Divergent author Veronica Roth to talk about her sprawling new novel, Seek the Traitor's Son.
00:26:00
It's a sci-fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted.
00:26:06
My first book was Divergent. And when that came out, like, because it was so popular, I think it attracted, like, mostly positivity.
00:26:14
but the negativity I sucked in like a sponge. And I think it was like critiques of things I liked
00:26:21
when I was like, you know, I was 23 and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy
00:26:26
or maybe unrealistic loves in it. And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things.
00:26:33
And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little things that like make you feel pleasure when you read.
00:26:41
But I also was like saying no to these parts of myself that I then was like, screw it.
00:26:49
So that's this book. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:00
All right. Well, we did it at the top and we're going to do it at the bottom now.
00:27:06
Here we go. Oh, yes. Are we a book ending podcast now? That's right. We're like a sinkhole. It starts up here and then collapses beneath our weight.
00:27:15
Then we'll see you down underneath the pipes, down into the hidden spring underneath your street.
00:27:22
We might take a car or two with us. You just never know. You don't know. This week I am going to start.
00:27:28
And my story is the Cokeville Elementary School bombing. I don't know if you know anything about this.
00:27:34
It happened in Cokeville, Wyoming in 1986. It's an unbelievable, horrifying, and amazing story.
00:27:44
And the first time I ever heard of it, it was because I saw a great episode of I Survived with an adult man who tells the story because he was like eight years old and he survived this.
00:27:57
And it is kind of mind-blowing. Wow. Okay, I don't know this one. The sources for this story are the website Wyoming History, which is yohistory.org.
00:28:08
There was several articles there. And then there's the Unsolved Mysteries Wiki. There's a New York Times article by Ivor Peterson.
00:28:16
And there is an article by Ryan Morganegg from the Desiree News. Okay. It starts in Cokeville, Wyoming on Friday, May 16th, 1986.
00:28:29
So Cokeville is a very small, quiet ranching town in Lincoln County, Wyoming. There's about 550 people that live in Cokeville.
00:28:39
And just over 100 children attend the town's elementary school. So essentially what I'm explaining to you is this is a tiny town.
00:28:47
Okay. So the school secretary is named Christine Cook. Everyone calls her Tina. And she's working in the office at Cokeville Elementary.
00:28:55
and just after 12 noon on Friday, May 16th, the kids have just eaten lunch and she sees a couple walking toward the school
00:29:04
and coming inside the school. This is David and Doris Young. David's 43, Doris is 47
00:29:11
and she sees that they're pushing a shopping cart. She can't see what's inside and she's just confused that this middle-aged couple
00:29:19
is coming into the school like that but of course it's the mid 80s so you could go to schools if you wanted to.
00:29:25
You could kind of just do whatever you wanted. Yeah. So they walk up to the counter and lean against it and just stare at her.
00:29:31
And they don't say anything. So she gets up and says, may I help you? After a beat, David says, yes, Mrs. Cook, this is a revolution.
00:29:41
And I'm taking your school hostage. Don't set off any alarms or make any calls or the children will all die.
00:29:48
Oh, my God. So then he basically does a reveal of what's in the shopping cart. And it's a makeshift bomb.
00:29:55
So essentially this bomb is composed of two gas filled containers stacked on top of each other and then a bunch of rifles So he basically shows that the detonator is rigged with a string tied to his wrist and then it connects to a clothespin on a blasting cap that affixed to the top of a gallon milk jug that filled with gasoline
00:30:20
The bottom container holds two tuna cans filled with flour and aluminum powder that are there to create a large flash explosion.
00:30:29
And each of those cans also has a blasting cap. There are chain links, gunpowder and boxes of ammunition all positioned around the bomb inside the cart to act as shrapnel for when the bomb goes off.
00:30:42
And then David explains that if he connects the two metal pieces on either side of the clothespin that's tied to his wrist, all three blasting caps will go off and the whole bomb will explode.
00:30:54
So it's very thrown together. Yeah. Which I'm sure made it even scarier. Yeah. Like, because it probably looks crazy.
00:31:04
Yeah. So David and Doris then pull a gun on Tina and tell her to unplug the office phone.
00:31:10
They then lead her at gunpoint through the school's halls. And as they do, they round up any teachers or students that they find along the way and have them come with them.
00:31:21
And they choose a first grade classroom and start directing the hostages inside.
00:31:27
David positions himself and the bomb filled shopping cart in the center of the room while Doris goes to the other classrooms and rounds up anyone else that's still in the classroom.
00:31:38
So in that I survived, the boy that tells the story says that when Doris came into the classroom, he was just a kid.
00:31:46
So it's an adult coming in and saying there's an assembly in the first grade classroom and everyone has to come.
00:31:51
And the teacher's confused, but she goes out to see what's going on. And then she basically is like, come on, children, we have to go.
00:31:59
Yeah. So they don't really suspect anything until they get into the classroom. So this normally the maximum capacity of the first grade classroom is 30.
00:32:10
Now there's 154 children and teachers and school staff total crowded inside. And everyone is staring at the strange man with the guns in the shopping cart full of explosives.
00:32:23
Wow. So we'll talk a little bit about David and Doris Young. David Young starts life as a very bright child, but he has a hard time communicating.
00:32:31
He has a hard time making friends. He grows up in Grinnell, Iowa as a lonely straight A student.
00:32:38
And he goes on to study criminal justice at what I believe is pronounced Chadron State College in Nebraska.
00:32:46
But I'm probably wrong. And he earns a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Somewhere along the way, he fathers a daughter, but he doesn't stay in her life and he doesn't marry the mother.
00:32:57
He does marry an unnamed woman who he has a second daughter with later on. and they name their daughter Princess.
00:33:05
And David has partial and then full custody of her princess. So in the 70s, David moves to Copeville, Wyoming,
00:33:13
and gets a job as the town marshal. He's the only police officer in the town at the time,
00:33:19
which is around 1975 or 76. But he gets fired just six months after he's hired for misconduct and for incompetence.
00:33:29
Those are the only explanations. It doesn't go into detail of what exactly. Yeah.
00:33:35
Why? Oh, no. So it's during this time he meets Doris Waters, who's a waitress and a singer who works at one of Cokeville's local bars.
00:33:44
Doris has a daughter of her own named Bernie, and that daughter is from a previous marriage.
00:33:49
So David and Doris, they get married pretty quickly after they meet each other. They move to a mobile home in Tucson, Arizona with their two daughters.
00:33:56
So in Tucson, David falls deeper into isolation and potentially delusion. He takes a strong interest in philosophy. He starts writing a manifesto of his own that he calls zero equals infinity.
00:34:12
Some of his influences include the novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which piques his interest in reincarnation, as well as much darker material like propaganda from white supremacist groups.
00:34:23
So the hate groups give him the idea of a quote unquote brave new world, or he refers to it as BNW in his manifesto.
00:34:33
He believes that there is an ideal world that can be achieved through ethnic cleansing.
00:34:40
Boring. I mean. It's been done and fucking taken down before, dude. It's been done.
00:34:45
It's been done. And it's been proven by the people who believe in it, that it just simply ain't it.
00:34:52
Can we move on? Fucking racist piece of shit. Can we evolve? Will we ever evolve as a people?
00:34:59
That ain't it. If you need it to be everybody else, that's when you must turn to yourselves and say, what am I doing?
00:35:08
If you can fucking pinpoint the problem as a certain people, you got to fucking turn that pointing finger back up your fucking end of your eye.
00:35:19
Stupid idiot. You already got the three. you've got the three pointing back you're pointing out here three pointing back with a fourth if you
00:35:27
can turn your thumb around pointing out there you've never heard that one i'm trying it it looks
00:35:33
silly let's move on let's move on hopefully that did it hopefully that cured yeah that delusion
00:35:40
gotta hope that people have okay so david who never really wanted to work Hmm Oh he relies on Doris house cleaning and waitressing to support the family He tries to come up with get rich quick schemes but none of those work out This is like so much like the hostage the airplane hostage story that I told last week Totally totally Same personality type His idea his first idea was to take a jetliner and hold that hostage for ransom
00:36:08
But he couldn't make that happen. In the 80s, he concocts a plan that he calls the biggie.
00:36:15
He thinks this is his best plan yet. He refuses to discuss any of the details until the day of its execution, which is Friday, May 16th, 1986.
00:36:23
And not even his two friends, Gerald Depp and Doyle Mendenhall, who he's roped into helping and investing in this plan.
00:36:33
He doesn't even tell them what the plan actually is. They just believe in him. They think David is really smart.
00:36:39
They're mesmerized by his rantings and his belief systems. And David has somehow convinced them that he has come up with a new energy that will revolutionize humanity's existence.
00:36:53
I'm sure he had that all well thought out and it was clear and concise. Yep. He's smoking with his red string.
00:37:00
Yeah. So when David tells them he's got a master plan and that he needs their help,
00:37:06
Gerald and Doyle are all in both physically and financially. They want to help him do it and they want to help him pay for it.
00:37:14
Great. Guys. Great. Guys. Have you ever heard of air hockey? It's down at the bar.
00:37:21
It's really loud. It's really fun. Invest in that. Something. Invest your Bitcoin in air hockey.
00:37:29
Okay. So two days before the takeover, Wednesday, May 14th, 1986, David and Doris drive from Tucson to Cokeville in separate cars, bringing the now 19-year-old princess, their daughter, along.
00:37:42
They all meet up at a friend's house where they stay for the next two days, waiting for Gerald and Doyle to join them.
00:37:48
On the day of the attack, Friday, May 16th, David Doris, Gerald Doyle, and Princess all pile into David's van and they drive to Cokeville Elementary School.
00:37:59
Inside the van, David finally reveals the biggie, his full plan. They're going to enter the school armed with guns and David's makeshift bomb.
00:38:08
They're going to hold all of the kids and teachers hostage, and they're going to demand $2 million for each hostage, which will eventually amount to $308 million.
00:38:20
But once the demands are met, David doesn't plan to run off with the money. He wants to detonate the bomb anyway.
00:38:27
And that way, the group and the hostages and the money will all be transported via reincarnation to the brave new world and idealized white supremacist world where David will be God.
00:38:43
So imagine someone's telling you this is the plan for the first time right outside the school.
00:38:48
And then he's like, now look at the shopping cart. And then slowly back, back step, back step.
00:38:56
they're just like we should have known because of this van so gerald and doyle as delusional as
00:39:02
they might be about how brilliant david is yeah they they know this is not a good idea so the guys
00:39:09
say they refuse to participate they just immediately are like absolutely not right david becomes enraged
00:39:14
he holds them captive inside the van at gunpoint he wants to make sure they don't read him out so
00:39:20
he instructs doris and princess to handcuff gerald and doyle inside the van so they can't get away
00:39:26
So once they're restrained, David and Dora start unloading the guns and the bomb.
00:39:30
But Princess starts sobbing and she's she thought they were going to rob a bank, not take children hostage and not blow children up.
00:39:39
So she stops helping. She basically just is like not into it. She doesn't want to do it.
00:39:46
David gets mad at his daughter, but he doesn't restrain her. Instead, he throws the keys to the van at her and says, if you don't want to go with me, that's fine.
00:39:54
You're no daughter of mine. And she was probably like, phew. So then David and Doris are off into the school.
00:40:02
So that's basically what was happening like five minutes before Tina, the secretary at the front desk, was like, who are these two?
00:40:09
Like, that's what was going on outside. So the good news is that Princess takes the keys, speeds off to City Hall with Gerald and Doyle, and reports her father and stepmother for what they're about to do to the authorities.
00:40:21
Good for her. She goes right there. Yeah. Imagine how horrifying that is. words just like children yeah no so back inside the school all the hostages are gathered inside
00:40:32
the classroom and around 1 30 p.m david addresses the group and he says this is a revolution and
00:40:39
you're being held hostage but we don't want to hurt you children we will watch you we don't want
00:40:44
you to run we don't want you to try and do anything we want you to stay away from the cart stay away
00:40:49
from the guns but if you do try to run we will shoot you in the legs we don't want to kill you
00:40:54
but we will shoot you in the legs so that you don't run. As far as you adults go, we'll shoot you and kill you.
00:41:00
We don't care. We have no use for you and we can kill you. Oh, my God. Then he starts handing out copies of his manifesto,
00:41:08
Zero Equals Infinity, and tells everyone to read it. He also says that he sent a copy of it to the president
00:41:15
of his alma mater, Chadron State College, to several media outlets, and to President Ronald Reagan.
00:41:23
Boo! David's hope is that he can get the word out to Reagan so that the federal government pays the ransom fee.
00:41:31
But if not, he figures because Cokeville. So this was the thinking of why he went back to Cokeville, which I'm sure underneath it all was sour grapes from basically being like the sheriff for six months and then people going, get the hell out of here.
00:41:45
Right. He says he figures because it's a predominantly Mormon community and that the Mormon church has a lot of money.
00:41:52
The Mormon church will step in if President Reagan doesn pay the ransom the Mormon church will So of course when this group of children hear this man say this they start to panic Many start sobbing Many start saying they want to go home
00:42:08
People are already getting headaches because there's gas in these gallon milk containers.
00:42:13
Some start throwing up because of the fumes. So David gives permission for the teachers to crack
00:42:19
the windows to air out the fumes. And Doris tries to calm the kids by telling them that they need to
00:42:24
think of this as an adventure movie, but that doesn't help because apparently she was kind of
00:42:30
scary looking. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So then the teachers step in and they know that they
00:42:37
have to, first of all, they have to keep these kids safe. They have to keep the kids calm and
00:42:44
they have to keep the kids away from that fucking shopping cart in the middle of the room because
00:42:49
if a kid walks by and bumps it accidentally, it could go off. So the teachers immediately,
00:42:56
they make a big rectangle around the area that David's in, in the center of the room,
00:43:01
and they call that the magic box. And they say, you can't go anywhere near the magic box,
00:43:05
and you certainly can't step inside the magic box. So we're all going to, we're going to line
00:43:10
up around the, you know, the outside of the classroom and we're staying away from the magic
00:43:14
box. They start doing a really good job of keeping the kids calm and distracting them because they're
00:43:19
little kids, you know, reading them stories. One of the teachers tries to say, oh, wait,
00:43:24
it's so-and-so's birthday. We didn't sing them happy birthday. But of course, that's the most nauseating idea. Like no one wants to sing happy birthday. No, no,
00:43:34
no one's going to fall for that. Meanwhile, police and parents are gathering outside the school
00:43:40
and they're trying to figure out how to diffuse this situation, but they know there's, they can't
00:43:46
make any sudden moves. There's nothing they can really do. They just basically have to sit there
00:43:49
and wait to see what the demands are, like what the hell is going on. So here's what's funny.
00:43:55
The one person that they missed in the school when they were rounding everybody up was the principal.
00:44:00
So the principal must have been in his office with the door closed or something.
00:44:03
So he basically comes out, is looking around, sees no one anywhere and finds his entire school
00:44:09
being held hostage in the first grade classroom. So when he opens the door, David basically says,
00:44:16
okay, you go back, you go to your office, call President Reagan and the FBI and let them know this is a hostage situation.
00:44:23
I want $2 million per hostage. And the principal's like, I will go do that right away.
00:44:29
But of course he runs and calls the local police, lets them know what's going on, what the demands are.
00:44:35
He relays as much information about what's going on as he can. So meanwhile, David's growing angsty.
00:44:43
They've been in this room for like an hour and a half. And suddenly the school bell rings at three o'clock, signaling the end of the day.
00:44:50
So a bunch of the littler kids get excited because they think they get to leave.
00:44:55
They think, oh, well, that's right. We all we get to leave. This is that's the official thing.
00:44:59
So when David basically says they're not going anywhere, they all start crying again.
00:45:05
Like that part starts all over again, of course. secretary tina cook watches as david is pacing around he's wondering aloud when his money's
00:45:14
going to get there and she also notices that doris is trying to tend to the children trying
00:45:20
to calm them down and that's when she realizes that like david might be the evil one because
00:45:25
she's she would later describe him as being like empty in the eyes but that she that she was even
00:45:31
more repelled by Doris because she was actually like trying to be nice to the kids, which she was
00:45:38
just like, that's just so creepy. Totally. So one of the third grade teachers who is named Pat leans
00:45:44
over to Tina and asks her if she thinks that this is, if this is real or if this is a hoax, like
00:45:50
it's so strange, like what's going on. And Tina says to Pat, look into his eyes. You'll know this
00:45:55
thing is very real. So then just before four o'clock, David decides he needs to go use the
00:46:01
bathroom, which is basically there's a door that's accessible inside this classroom. So he turns and
00:46:09
he ties the bomb detonator to Doris's wrist to put her in charge while he's gone. As Tina later
00:46:16
remembers it from the moment David goes into the bathroom, this is a quote, it just seemed like
00:46:21
there was all of a sudden just a little bit of calm peacefulness. The kids got quieter. They
00:46:27
seemed to calm down. There was just a feeling in the room like things had changed. It was almost
00:46:31
like the evil walked out of the room. Before I'd been thinking, I'm never going to get a chance to
00:46:36
say goodbye to my husband and my children because I knew we'd never walk out of that room. He told
00:46:40
us we wouldn't and I believed him. And all of a sudden I almost had this feeling of hope. I don't
00:46:46
know how to describe it beyond that. But soon that would disappear because just after four o'clock,
00:46:52
while David's still in the bathroom, Tina hears Doris say, it's getting too noisy in here. It's
00:46:58
just getting too noisy. And then she complains about having a headache. She reaches her hand up
00:47:04
to wipe the sweat from her forehead. And when she does, it's the hand with the wrist tied to the
00:47:10
clothespin detonator. The wooden piece is pulled from between the two metal conductors and the
00:47:15
bomb goes off no i was yes oh my god i was thinking someone was gonna stop her oh my god
00:47:22
it explodes inside this classroom filled with children and teachers and the boy in the i
00:47:29
survived episode is just like all of a sudden the room was on fire oh my god so these teachers
00:47:36
who had been kind of like you know obviously watching everything communicating they know that
00:47:42
these two people have been like on the edge this entire time. So they just start picking up kids and throwing them out the window because it's a first it's a one story classroom.
00:47:53
So it's, you know, four feet out. They just start picking them up and throwing them out over and over.
00:47:57
Some kids actually run because. As they know, there's several doors to the hallways to like there's exits.
00:48:05
And then there's also just the little kids are just going out the window like handfuls of them.
00:48:10
And there's teachers just like standing there. There was smoke everywhere. There was fire.
00:48:15
But these teachers basically almost like unspoken had this thing going. And some grabbed a bunch of kids and like ran to an exit with them.
00:48:23
It was total mayhem. I mean, a bomb went off inside the room. so david comes flying out of the bathroom at the sound of the explosion he finds doris alive but
00:48:34
covered in black soot and severely burned and he walks up pulls out a gun and shoots her in the head
00:48:41
holy shit yeah so he then turns and sees the teacher throwing the kids out the windows
00:48:49
and he he realizes everything's out of control and his whole plan is lost and he just shoots
00:48:56
a teacher, a man named John Miller, who was the music teacher, he just shoots him in the back.
00:49:02
And John Miller, it slows him down. It does not kill him. And he keeps, he keeps helping the kids.
00:49:10
Oh my God. And then when David sees that he can't stop it and that everyone's escaping and that this whole
00:49:16
thing is over, he brings the gun to his own head and shoots himself. So now with both perpetrators
00:49:22
dead, the hostages can safely flee the burning building. So there's first responders on site
00:49:28
already waiting to treat these injuries. There's triages set up in the surrounding areas.
00:49:34
There's hospitals across Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho waiting to take patients from the blast.
00:49:39
But here's what you won't believe. Oh, no, no, no, what? All 79 hostages, which were mostly children,
00:49:48
are treated for severe burns and smoke inhalation, but every single one of them, including John Miller,
00:49:55
who was shot in the back, survived. Oh, my God. Every single one of them survived.
00:50:00
This is a stressful story. It's a stressful miracle. Oh, my God. So it's like impossible to imagine and think,
00:50:14
like that there wouldn't be, But it was because it was so it was a lot of reasons. First of all, obviously, the magic box truly was magic. And it held in all of that horror and that evil. But also, of course, David's shoddy handiwork building that bomb. So basically, the milk jug that had the gasoline in it had a leak. So there was gas dripping down into those tuna cans, which instead of that powder going off when the bomb went off, it was just a muddy paste at that point.
00:50:45
So it was flammable, but it didn't make the ammunition or any of that other stuff explode like it was supposed to.
00:50:53
Also, the wires leading to the tuna cans blasting caps had been cut. They don't know who cut those wires.
00:51:01
They don't know how that happened. It remains a mystery to this day. Wow. I mean, it had to be one of them, right?
00:51:08
Or one of the dissenters that didn't want to go in with them. I mean, I like to think it was Princess just because I love her name so much.
00:51:15
And I love the turn she made, but I think it would be, I don't know if there was time for them to be able to dismantle that bomb or even make that move.
00:51:26
Who knows? So along with the faulty bomb structure, the teachers who opened the windows for relief from the gas fumes unwittingly helped diminish the bomb's effect because they created enough ventilation to reduce the power of that blast.
00:51:41
In the days after the bombing, news coverage recounted the events with the appropriate horror, of course.
00:51:46
But when newscasters spoke to the survivors, they quickly turned the narrative on its head and told their stories as stories of hope, faith and perseverance.
00:51:57
Because so many residents of Copeville were religious people, many survivors preferred to look at things through the lens of their faith, thanking God for helping them live through what should have been a death sentence.
00:52:08
some remember seeing angels who helped guide them out of the burning classroom lots of kids
00:52:15
okay so really uh-huh there's a student survivor who is named jenny she was seven years old at the
00:52:21
time of the bombing and she'd later say quote many kids testified of their ancestors running with
00:52:27
them leading them out of the school or helping them hide in a closet oh my god end quote she
00:52:34
says after the bomb went off I thought one of the teachers at the school was helping me I didn't
00:52:39
recognize her but she led me out by the hand and told me not to go back and it wasn't until a few
00:52:45
years later when Jenny was in the fifth grade that she recognized this quote-unquote teacher
00:52:51
from a family photo album it was her aunt who had died several years before the bombing oh my god I'm
00:52:57
gonna cry yeah another boy recalls seeing a woman in white in the classroom who's who quote said the
00:53:04
bomb was going to go off, if I stood by the window, everything would be okay. And then he
00:53:13
would later identify this woman to be his late grandmother. School secretary, Tina Cook, she
00:53:20
later says, quote, I know the children say they saw angels. Do I believe it? Yes, I do. I didn't
00:53:26
see any angels, but I felt the peace and the calm and I felt the difference in the room after David
00:53:31
left. I felt the change, but it was nothing I could physically see or touch. There was just
00:53:36
absolutely a difference. So with the help of local doctors, parents, and their faith,
00:53:41
Cokeville rebuilds the damages to its elementary school and the kids and the teachers return to
00:53:46
normal. Kids who suffered burns and other injuries show up to school in their bandages,
00:53:50
and many of them seek the help of therapists to cope with the trauma But by banding together as community Cokeville Elementary School story lives on as one of hope instead of one of tragedy The story of the hostage takeover and the bombing is documented in a book entitled The
00:54:06
Cokeville Miracle, When Angels Intervene, written by Hart and Judene Wixom. There's also an unsolved mysteries and unexplained mysteries.
00:54:16
And of course, a really good episode of I Survived with adults who were children in that
00:54:21
classroom in 1986. And that is the miraculous story of the Cokeville school bombing.
00:54:28
Holy shit. How have I never fucking heard of that? Right? Right? That is wild. It's beyond.
00:54:36
It's so awful. And so you absolutely have to look up that episode of I Survived because the people and there's employees, there's teachers and people that talk about it.
00:54:48
And it's just the most unbelievable, for little kids, the most unbelievable firsthand experience, like what they went through and how they got through it.
00:54:58
And it's just like, it's mind blowing. Wow. That is wild. Totally bonkers. Wow. Good job.
00:55:06
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That's K-N-I-X dot com. Code FLOW15. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:57:16
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary,
00:57:24
massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
00:57:33
I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary.
00:57:38
as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent?
00:57:42
And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust
00:57:47
the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:57:52
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:57:59
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end.
00:58:03
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:58:14
All right, so I'm not going to give you too much information about this story, but today I'm going to talk about the abduction of Carrie Swenson, a world-class biathlete.
00:58:24
My information from today's episode, a heavily used Sports Illustrated article by Robert F. Jones,
00:58:30
two Cinemaholic articles written by Kriti Marotra, a Daily Beast article by Tarpley Hitt,
00:58:38
a Los Angeles Times article by Anna Dipenga, a Bozeman Daily Chronicle article by Amanda Ricker,
00:58:45
a KBZT staff article, and an AP article written by Marsha Dunn. So on July 15, 1984,
00:58:52
24. 23-year-old Carrie Swenson is working a summer job as a waitress at the Lone Mountain
00:58:59
Guest Ranch in Big Sky, which is in southwest Montana. So obviously gorgeous. It's the gateway
00:59:06
to Yellowstone, lots of nature. Big Sky is this beautiful outdoorsy place. Tourists come to have
00:59:14
these outdoorsy adventures and experiences like skiing, whitewater rafting, hiking,
00:59:20
that kind of thing that people who are not like me go horse camp or I'm sure there's horse camp
00:59:28
ranches, ranches, horse camp, all the things. So, um, getting off work that day after lunch
00:59:36
and being a seasoned biathlete, Carrie uses her afternoon to go on a six mile run
00:59:42
on Jack Creek road. I know like you and I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, sometimes after I work,
00:59:49
I just like to go for a run. Six miles like both ways or like three and three and three and three But it like through the wilderness So I sure there a fucking incline You know there hills An element of incline It not flat
01:00:05
No. So it's, oh, it's a logging road. So Carrie's boss, Bob Schaap had seen a grizzly bear on that road the day before.
01:00:15
But instead of deterring her, Carrie, who I right off the bat, she's a total badass.
01:00:20
she makes this adventurous decision to head in that direction because she's like oh i want to see
01:00:26
a grizzly bear in person carrie why in person you can see it on any national geographic
01:00:34
they have their own channel now it's a moving magazine you can david attenborough i'm sure has
01:00:41
narrated one million documentaries you don't need to see them in person she's like i run
01:00:48
during my lunch break uphill and I'm a biathlete and I want to meet a grizzly bear and shake hands.
01:00:54
And I want to live the revenant. And that's my prerogative. I'm 23. Guess what? I get to lift. That's her girl bossing around Montana. That's the definition
01:01:05
of a Montana girl boss. It's like, I will go and let the, let the grizzly bear know that I'm here.
01:01:12
Yeah. High five a grizzly bear. Check it off my bucket list. Check. Great. All right. Let me tell
01:01:17
you a little bit about our protagonist, Carrie Swenson, born in 1961 in Pennsylvania. When she's
01:01:24
nine years old, the Swenson family moves to Montana because her father, Bob, got a job at the Michigan
01:01:30
State University in the physics department. Carrie's mom, Jan, works as a registered nurse and
01:01:35
volunteer for the Nordic Ski Patrol, which takes part in, quote, high country rescue missions. So
01:01:42
her whole family is like smart and adventurous and badass. They just love to get out there.
01:01:47
Yeah. They're not the TV couch people that I'm from. Neither. Couch stock is what you and I are from.
01:01:57
We're couch people. You're mountain people. We're couch people. Couch stock almost made me spit Diet Coke on my own microphone.
01:02:05
Couch stock. We're of great couch stock in California. We're of couch stock. After they moved to Montana, takes up Nordic skiing, and she's really good at it.
01:02:14
Of course. She continues honing her skills throughout adolescence. And right out of high school, she starts training for a biathlon, which according to the Daily Beast article is, quote, kind of a winter race that combines cross-country skiing and shooting targets with a small bore rifle.
01:02:31
So skiing and shooting. Sure. You know? Get out there. Yep. That's why she was fine with a grizzly bear.
01:02:38
She's like, I'm bringing a rifle with me. I don't think so, man. I think she just wanted to fucking high five a grizzly.
01:02:44
Because I'm sure it's like there's laws around it in that area of shooting bears, right?
01:02:49
Whatever. Yeah, you just can't go pick them off because it's ruining your job. Right.
01:02:55
Because it's like, oh, it's my lunch break. Okay. When Carrie's 19-year-old, she's recruited for the first ever U.S. Women's Biathlon program.
01:03:04
And she joins a three-person relay team. And four years later in 1984, Carrie and her teammates compete in the first ever women's biathlon world championship held in France.
01:03:17
Carrie's team wins the bronze and Carrie herself places fifth in the individual race, breaking multiple records.
01:03:25
Nice. According to Sports Illustrated, quote, it was not just the best finish for an American that year,
01:03:31
but the best finished ever for a U.S. biathlete of either sex in 26 years of international biathlon competition.
01:03:39
Nice. She broke that the glass biathlon ceiling. That's right. So clearly, as I said, she's a total badass.
01:03:47
Following these milestones, Carrie, quote, emerged suddenly and dramatically as America's best female biathlete with promise of becoming a superstar in the grueling sport, unquote.
01:03:58
With her future promising, but that biathlon season over in 1984 in July, Carrie takes a summer job as a waitress.
01:04:08
And so we're back to her lunch break from said job. All right. So she goes, gets off work that day, decides to go and run, chase a grizzly bear.
01:04:18
And around 3 p.m., Carrie is still running when she notices something off in the distance on the trail she's on.
01:04:25
And there's what she sees is two sleeping bags spread out on the trail, which is odd.
01:04:31
As she approaches them, suddenly two men walk out onto the trail in front of her.
01:04:37
There are these unshaven, like grizzly dudes wearing grimy, quote, wearing, quote, grimy smoke reeking clothes like from bonfires and shit.
01:04:47
And they're carrying rifles. The older of the men tells Carrie that they just want to talk to her, explaining that they don't get many women up in the mountains.
01:04:58
And Carrie is afraid of what could happen if she tells him to fuck off or whatever and runs the opposite direction.
01:05:03
But she senses there's something not quite right about these men and she agrees to talk to them.
01:05:09
But her instincts are right. as after the three talk for a bit, the men tell her that they're taking her captive
01:05:16
as the younger man needs a mountain wife. A struggle ensues and the older man hits Carrie
01:05:24
on the left side of her jaw very hard, grabs her by both wrists and throws her to the ground.
01:05:30
Then the men overpower her and tie her up, all while threatening her with her guns and knives.
01:05:37
All right, so who are these? unshaven, grimy mountain men. Let me tell you. The older one is 53 year old Don Nichols,
01:05:45
and the younger one is his 18 year old son, Dan. Dan will later tell police that his father didn't
01:05:52
quote believe in the system society civilization So when Dan was seven his dad took him to the mountains near Ennis And for around two months they lived there while Don taught his son how to live off the land Dan said quote
01:06:09
Dad taught me how to cope, how to hunt, stay alive in the winter, make things pleasant.
01:06:15
Living in the mountains is a natural way of life. In society, you go to work, get money and buy food.
01:06:20
In the mountains, you go get your food. You don't go through the machine of society.
01:06:25
End quote. Mountain men. It's just so self-serving. Yeah. It's just so self-serving. The men in these stories are real dicks. It's not great examples.
01:06:37
Hmm. Since then, the Nichols had spent a good part of the previous 12 summers living off the land of the Spanish Peaks Wilderness, an area set off from the rest of the Madison Range area.
01:06:50
area. Around five years before encountering Carrie, Don, the dad, had purchased a chain
01:06:57
and started looking for the perfect, quote, mountain wife. For years, he dreamed of starting
01:07:03
his own tribe in the mountains, but he knew that most women likely wouldn't want to go along with
01:07:08
his dream, at least not willingly. Investigators later theorized that prior to the kidnapping,
01:07:15
Dan had grown bored of the mountain lifestyle. The son, he's like 18 at this point and wanted to leave it behind.
01:07:22
But his dad didn't want his son to leave. So in hopes of getting his kid to stay, he decided to find that mountain wife for his son.
01:07:30
So Don and Dan came up with a plan for kidnapping a woman. Okay, so after they take Carrie hostage for the next 18 or so hours, the men lead Carrie through the woods deeper into the mountains.
01:07:44
Carrie's tethered by a rope to Dan while Don walks behind them keeping his rifle aimed at her back
01:07:50
according to Los Angeles Time, Carrie risks her captor's rage by dropping items such as her
01:07:58
wristwatch and headband to leave a trail for search parties. Smart. This chick's fucking smart and she
01:08:06
deliberately presses the imprint of her running shoe into the soft dirt of gopher mounds and anthills to leave
01:08:12
trail. Wow. That's really smart. I know. At one point, the men stopped for the night and Carrie
01:08:20
is chained to a tree and put inside a sleeping bag. And the men discussed taking her even further
01:08:28
into the Spanish peaks, which area they're very familiar with. And Carrie's right, of course,
01:08:34
to assume that search parties will be looking for her. So that same evening, Carrie is supposed to
01:08:38
go back to work after her break, I think for the dinner shift. She doesn't show up. And so her
01:08:42
boss, Shapp, the grizzly bear dude, he's worried that she was maybe attacked by that grizzly bear.
01:08:49
Right. So he, which is like so convenient because would he have worried as much? How do you not
01:08:56
talk? No, it's kind of perfect. Yeah. Even had that discussion. Yeah, totally. Um, he later tells
01:09:01
sports illustrated quote, I knew Carrie couldn't get lost in that country, not with her knowledge.
01:09:06
And even if she'd fallen and broken her leg, she was tough enough to crawl out. I mean,
01:09:11
this was a woman who could take care of herself. So he knew something was off. He also knew that
01:09:17
she was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and a windbreaker, which meant she was at risk for
01:09:21
hypothermia due to the high elevation. So he contacts Carrie's parents and the county sheriff
01:09:27
office, and then they all form a search party. Carrie's dad, Bob, borrows a friend's plane to
01:09:34
search for his daughter from the air. And meanwhile, her mom, Jan, supervises a search party on the
01:09:40
ground. Carrie's brother Paul goes out with the first group and they searched until just after
01:09:44
dark. They have no idea that just over the ridgeline they're searching is Carrie. And
01:09:51
actually Carrie, they're kind of near her at that point and she can hear them searching for her,
01:09:56
which is so horrifying. But she doesn't call out for help because the Nichols had repeatedly
01:10:01
threatened to shoot her if she called out to any searchers. And if anyone tried to save her,
01:10:05
They said they'd shoot them too. So with no sign of Carrie by the search party, they spend the night hours coming up with a strategy to find her the next morning. They pour over topographical maps and create sectors for each party to focus.
01:10:19
In the morning, the search party is around 40 people. They head out and included our two friends of Carrie's, a man named Alan Goldstein, who's 36, and a man named Jim Schwalb, who's 30.
01:10:33
The two of them head out together to a ridge near where Schaap had seen the bear, like following in that direction.
01:10:39
And they separate and they begin going downhill in separate areas through heavy timber.
01:10:45
So just before 8 a.m., Schwalb comes across the Nichols camp. oh uh-huh carrie who's still chained to a tree sees him and yells watch out they've got guns
01:10:57
dawn tells dan to shut her up and so dan turns and points his gun at carrie and the trigger goes off he pulls the trigger at close range um the bullet enters at a downward
01:11:10
angle two inches below the right side of her collarbone strikes her lung and then exits her
01:11:16
back 10 inches lower. Schwalb approaches the campsite. And he later says that Dan looks like
01:11:24
he wants to cry. He keeps repeating, I didn't mean to shoot her over and over again. Don tells his
01:11:30
son to shut up and calm down and then points a rifle at Schwalb. That's when Schwalb sees his
01:11:36
companion Alan Goldstein. He's still coming down the ridge and he's heading towards the camp.
01:11:41
And Schwab later recalls what happens when he said, quote, I yelled Al call for help.
01:11:47
Go get some help. Al had this walkie talkie with him and he said something over it.
01:11:52
Then he pulled off his day pack and dove into it with his hands. He came out with something.
01:11:57
I didn't even know he had brought along a gun. Oh. Mm-hmm. So Goldstein runs behind a tree around 20 feet away. And at this point, Schwalb is trying to treat Carrie's wounds. He had reached her. From behind the tree, Goldstein tells the Nichols to drop their weapons. Don raises his rifle and is able to shoot Goldstein in the face.
01:12:19
Oh. I know. Schwab runs over to his friend and finds him already dead. So he decides to run for help at this point, seeing the situation obviously is intensified. He runs a mile and a half. His muscles are aching. He finally reaches a trail and thankfully the sheriff and his search party are right in that spot.
01:12:40
So for the next four hours, the search party tries to find the Nichols camp again, but it's a slow process.
01:12:47
And they know that the Nichols are armed and clearly fine with shooting. Yeah. So they walk slowly with point men in the front, rifles ready to fire.
01:12:56
They don't find the camp. And so then they take Schwab up in a helicopter. So and I'm sure he's traumatized at this point, seeing two of his friends shot and they spot Goldstein's red day pack.
01:13:07
And authorities are able to pinpoint the area. and swoop in. Meanwhile, back before this, when Schwalbe had taken off, the Nichols had realized that
01:13:17
the jig is up and they'd been located. They need to get the fuck out of there. So they start packing their belongings.
01:13:23
Carrie is still alive and she realizes what's happening. And she asks the Nichols, who are clearly going to leave her behind to die, if they
01:13:32
could leave her a sleeping bag so she doesn't freeze to death. But instead, they just dump her out of the sleeping bag she was in, untie her and fucking take off.
01:13:41
Wow. So they leave her alive. But Carrie is barely able to move due to her injuries.
01:13:47
And she knows it could be a long time before anyone finds her. And she knows she'll either die from blood loss or hypothermia if she doesn't do something quickly.
01:13:57
So she starts going into shock. And she then removes a sleeping bag from the backpack that Schwab had left behind.
01:14:04
crawls into it to stay warm and then attempts to eat a chocolate bar from the pack of his backpack
01:14:11
for energy but she's too nauseous so she just drinks from a canteen of lemonade to stay hydrated
01:14:17
but she's losing too much blood and she knows that if she panics her heart will race faster
01:14:24
leading to more blood loss so she knows she has to put her biathlon training to work
01:14:31
According to Sports Illustrated, quote, the most crucial point in a biathlon race is when the athlete makes the transition from cross-country skiing to shooting on the rifle range.
01:14:42
So basically, the skiing portion of the race, cross-country, makes your heart and lungs go super fast.
01:14:47
It's really, really strenuous. And then you have to jump right from there into shooting a rifle, you know, I'm sure very accurately.
01:14:56
And so that requires a steady heart and the control of your breathing. So it's part of it is that it's these two extremes that biathletes train to control their pulse and breathing rates almost at will.
01:15:08
Oh, wow. I know. Carrie maintains this, quote, yoga-like discipline for four hours as the search parties try to find her.
01:15:16
When rescuers reach her, she's still conscious, calm, and in control, but her vision is blurring quickly.
01:15:23
a helicopter transports her to a hospital 40 miles away where she undergoes surgery and spends
01:15:30
days in the icu eight days later she's released from the hospital oh you're setting me up that's
01:15:39
why i didn't want to give you that much because i was just like there's just no way she's done it
01:15:43
perfectly like she's handled this so perfectly there's she wouldn't die at this point that's
01:15:48
i didn't want to tell you it's a survivor story i wanted to be like mine's a survivor story too
01:15:52
no but you're right that's like getting shot in a lung i mean it went through her i feel like those
01:16:00
are always fatal i mean i don't who knows but but the idea like that you would have to be doing you
01:16:07
it's not just like a flesh wound right i mean oh god it impairs your breathing and you're panicking
01:16:14
And it's like, she fucking, she was the Zen master. Yeah, she was. So meanwhile, multiple law enforcement agencies launch a manhunt to find these two men responsible for Carrie's abduction and attempted murder and the cold-blooded murder of Alan Goldstein, who's just 36 years old.
01:16:33
After figuring out the assailants' names, authorities work to learn everything they can about them.
01:16:38
And knowing that they frequent the Spanish peaks, they search the area every day later after not finding them for a while.
01:16:47
The search is moved to weekends only. It seems like it's such a huge area that it's impossible to find just two people who know what they're doing in the wilderness.
01:16:58
Right. Yeah. But finally, on December 13th, 1984, five months after Carrie's kidnapping, the Nichols are caught.
01:17:06
basically this man named Roland Moore, he is out riding on his property and he sees smoke rising off in the distance,
01:17:13
uses binoculars, sees that it's two men. He obviously knows what's going on and knows about the manhunt.
01:17:19
He calls his brother, who happens to be the Madison County Sheriff, Johnny France,
01:17:24
and knows the ranch like the back of his hand. So he tracks the Nichols for two hours
01:17:30
and finally locates them around 90 miles from where Carrie was kidnapped. I know.
01:17:36
They really made, like, put some distance between them. 90 miles. 90 miles. Yeah.
01:17:43
Mm-hmm. Finally. How great would it have been, though, if they'd gotten killed by the grizzly bear, though?
01:17:47
Oh. How satisfying. That came in and was like, I will seek revenge. Nope. But no instead Sheriff France is our grizzly bear And there a little back and forth between the men but he able to arrest them without incident They charged with murder kidnapping and assault
01:18:05
So Don and Dan Nichols are tried separately in May 1985. Dan, the son, he's considered to be more of an accomplice and is convicted of kidnapping and misdemeanor assault.
01:18:19
But the jury feels like he had been brainwashed by his father. So he's not found guilty of murder.
01:18:25
Yeah. He also claims that shooting Carrie was an accident, that the gun had unexpectedly gone off. But according to Carrie, he had looked directly at in her eyes before shooting her.
01:18:37
Well, if anybody knows whether or not that was an accident, it would be the person who got shot.
01:18:42
Definitely. And also, he's an experienced gun person. So I feel like accidentally firing isn't something that happens. You don't put your finger on a trigger if you don't plan on shooting someone.
01:18:53
But also it's an interesting thing to think about where you're being raised by this, by basically a doomsday prepper.
01:19:02
Right. Who has moved you into the woods slowly but surely over the years through your adolescence.
01:19:07
Yeah. The one person in your life that's an adult that you're supposed to follow is essentially not all right in any way and is is crafting this world around you that you have to believe in because he's all you have.
01:19:23
So it could have been that thing where like he thought, yeah, I get my wife and this is the right way.
01:19:29
That's how those things always work until it could have not been that it was an accident that it went off.
01:19:35
But that once he actually did it, he went, what in the fuck am I doing? And what is this? Right. Right. I mean, I don't know.
01:19:42
Yeah. He definitely had had to have some brainwashing going on and it was not in his right mind.
01:19:47
Yeah. So he's sentenced to just 10 years in prison. then in september 1985 don is convicted of kidnapping aggravated felony assault and
01:19:58
deliberate homicide and he's sentenced to 85 years yeah meanwhile carrie remains a badass
01:20:05
and thrives according to sports illustrated the bullet left nerve damage and some scar tissue
01:20:11
um quote raising concerns about her ability to resume her athletic career at least on the level
01:20:17
she'd reached before the shooting. But within three months of the attack, she's able to start training for the biathlon again,
01:20:24
however, on a limited basis. Three days after the arrest of her attackers, Carrie competes at the U.S. Biathlon Association's
01:20:33
pre-trial race in Big Sky, Montana. What? I know. She later recalls, quote, we didn't do that well, but it was great to be back.
01:20:42
Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. It's a miracle that she's back. that's amazing three days after her attackers were caught which means five months after this ordeal
01:20:52
i know we all need to be like carrie what would carrie do get out of bed earlier and run six miles
01:21:03
a few weeks after that happens she competes for the u.s national biathlon team and places third
01:21:10
whoa now she's now she's really like um she's got i mean you know obviously before yeah her focus is
01:21:23
one thing but now it's like that idea she's coming up from under she is the you know she's been she's
01:21:29
been quote unquote sidelined and quote unquote traumatized and whatever but then her whole thing
01:21:36
is like, nope, I'm that I'm going to go do the thing that I'm meant to do. You can't stop me.
01:21:42
It is hard for her. She later describes the pain she faces. Quote, when I breathe deeply,
01:21:47
there's like a band of pain about four inches wide around my thorax. And she can't ski for more than
01:21:53
45 minutes, which is a lot shorter than she used to be able to do it for two hours nonstop.
01:21:59
Um, nothing helps her pain, but she keeps training anyway. And for years to come, Carrie undergoes biofeedback and physical therapy to help control the pain caused by the nerve damage to her back and chest.
01:22:13
She has shrapnel in her chest and she wears a metal band around her front teeth to correct a jaw problem she suffered when Dawn first hit her.
01:22:23
God. I know. and she often sees a psychologist to help with her PTSD as the only way she can handle the trauma
01:22:31
she endured is by pretending it didn't happen which we all know is a great way to have it come
01:22:37
back and manifest in other ways yeah you can do that you can only do that for so long yeah and
01:22:43
you go deal with it like totally works for a while and sometimes that's what you need but
01:22:48
But yeah, that's not the it's not a it's not a solution. Well, and for someone like her that clearly has no problem facing humongous and threatening challenges.
01:23:00
Yeah. You know, that's like, yeah, therapy. Yeah, you can you can fucking you can stare down that mountain and then.
01:23:07
Yeah. Hell yeah. Climb it and meet a grizzly bear on it. Yeah, you can do all those things.
01:23:13
This is Montana. You can do it all. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Kidnapping. Okay. In 1986, two years after her kidnapping, Carrie competes at the World Biathlon Championships in fucking Norway.
01:23:28
She places fourth. Ugh. I know. And then she announces her retirement. She has multiple reasons for retiring, one being that her injuries from the kidnapping, of course, still cause her a lot of pain.
01:23:40
But the other is that she's enrolled in Colorado State University Veterinary School.
01:23:44
So she's like, oh, moving on with my life. Carrie! She's like, I don't know if I'm going to be a world-class athlete anymore.
01:23:55
I think I just going to be a world veterinarian I did it I moving on So now I going to tackle true grizzly bears That right Throughout the trial the Nichols and after she is trying to get back to living her badass life
01:24:08
But she has to deal with the media, who, according to the Daily Beast article, has romanticized what they call the, quote, Nichols boys as, quote, survivalists.
01:24:19
So suddenly these fucking doomsday dudes are being put on this like, like heroic pedestal.
01:24:26
For example, Esquire paints them as, quote, some rowdy mountain men trying to snag a wife.
01:24:33
Oh, uh-huh. And one media outlet victim blames Carrie by describing her as being, quote, a proper bell of Bozeman, which is the location, the perfect flower of the new West.
01:24:44
as if the Nichols were trying to take her on a fun fucking romp through the wilderness.
01:24:49
But she was too prim and proper to appreciate it, basically. Wow. So like they're totally romanticizing these kidnappers and murderers.
01:24:58
These grimy weirdos that were like couldn't handle regular life. Right. And so they were like, we have to be in the woods and you have to be here with us.
01:25:06
Where it's like, hey, look, if you have to be in the woods and you need to eschew society,
01:25:11
God bless, that's your American right. Yeah. But you don't get to take other people with you and you're not, you're not somehow cool because of it.
01:25:21
Yeah. You shit in the hole and then cover it up. And like, you're not special. And many locals of the area agree with the media.
01:25:31
And they feel like the Nichols are some of the last men out there truly living free away from the controlling government.
01:25:38
Some locals even lined up at the trials, I know, to get autographs from the, quote, mountain men.
01:25:44
Well, you know what? That's just like women falling in love with Richard Ramirez.
01:25:49
There are people that take their, what's the phrase everybody loves to use these days?
01:25:55
Parasocial. They're parasocial relationships that they're projecting onto these people.
01:26:00
Like, yeah, that's a real man. It's like, it's just not. Yeah. It's just not. Yeah.
01:26:04
And it's just, I mean, yeah, to have to read about, for Carrie to have to read about this and the media is like trying to track her down.
01:26:13
The family and her are like absolutely not interested. Well, and also sorry, but if the media actually wanted to romanticize or blow up anybody in that story, aside from Carrie, how about the two dudes that ran into that camp?
01:26:28
Yeah. and like and one lost his life for the bravery and the strength of going in and trying to help
01:26:35
and be there like that's it's they're right there yeah like they're right there in the story that
01:26:41
you could you could focus on and instead it's the actual murderers i know insane it's them and her
01:26:48
who fought for her fucking life like they deserve all the accolades in 1989 carrie's mother publishes
01:26:54
a book called Victims, the Carrie Swenson story. According to Los Angeles Times, quote,
01:26:59
the book, which was dedicated to Alan Goldstein, was written because Carrie and her family
01:27:03
are haunted by more than the memory of her ordeal. They feel that Carrie was the victim,
01:27:09
not only of a crime, but of a bizarre myth-making process that turned the criminals into folk heroes.
01:27:16
Saria, what, and that happened in what year? 1984 is when the kidnapping happened.
01:27:22
And then the media, like the resulting media was basically mid 80s. I mean, that makes perfect sense.
01:27:28
That is like, yes, that's like the most unanalyzed, like dudes in charge era, like before anyone even thought about it.
01:27:40
I bet you there wasn't one woman in that newsroom to go, excuse me, what are you doing?
01:27:45
You're calling her a damsel in distress or whatever. It's like, no, no, no, not at all.
01:27:50
In 1991, Dan Nichols, the son, is paroled after serving only six years of his sentence.
01:27:58
And then in 2017, Don, now 86 years old, and having been up for parole four times, is released, having served less than half of his sentence.
01:28:10
Carrie later writes an op-ed for the Montana Pioneer that reads in part, quote, We the victims have a life sentence, not Don Nichols.
01:28:18
They invoked a death sentence on Alan Goldstein. That is the ultimate sentence. The life sentence for me is that every day of my life, I have to deal with the death of a friend, the memories and horrors of being kidnapped, being chained up like an animal, being shot in the chest and then left to die.
01:28:36
That day, I lost my freedom and my athletic career. They took away my rights to live freely without fear.
01:28:43
Victims of violent crimes are victimized over and over again by the justice system and the media.
01:28:51
Despite her struggles, traumas, and injuries, Carrie followed her dream of becoming a veterinarian.
01:28:57
Today, she continues to work in the field, focusing on small animal medicine. In her spare time, she spends time in the outdoors with her family, friends, dogs, and horses.
01:29:07
And in fact, Karen, in 1986, Alan Goldstein and Jim Schwalb were honored by the Carnegie Hero Fund, which recognizes persons who perform extraordinary acts of heroism in civilian life.
01:29:24
Wow. Yeah. So that's good. Outdoors, dogs and horses. She's still involved in biathlon by coaching and mentoring young athletes.
01:29:33
And in 2015, Carrie and her 1984 biathlon teammates were inducted into the U.S. Biathlon Hall of Fame.
01:29:43
Whoa. And that is the story of the kidnapping of the badass Carrie Swenson. Wow.
01:29:51
Had you ever heard that? I didn hear that until I was doing research on more stories It sounded familiar but there are several Yeah I survived episodes with people and a lot a lot of times in the Appalachian mountains with people coming upon
01:30:08
a grimy, weird guy that's clearly been out there for way too long and having horrible experiences.
01:30:14
So I couldn't figure out, I was like, do I know this or not? And I don't think I did.
01:30:20
I don't know if there was an I survived. I don't want to know because then I'm like,
01:30:23
oh fuck i should have watched that no no no i think it just reminded me of other ones i've seen
01:30:28
where like a woman but is taken by a single guy the fact that it was a father son i feel like i
01:30:33
would have remembered yeah because that's just so twisted and weird and like such a bummer yeah
01:30:40
yeah i mean jesus she wow she's a fucking badass yeah she is that was amazing totally great story
01:30:51
Thank you. And a survivor story. Yeah, it's great. Oh, we have an announcement. Oh, yeah. So this week, I think we talked about this a little bit last week, but there's so much going on in the world. There's so much that's stressful and scary. But one of the things that I think that's really upsetting lately are these laws being passed against transgender youth, against transgender treatment, against transgender, like families seeking care for their transgender children.
01:31:19
And it's really upsetting and it's really odd. It just doesn't really make a ton of sense why it's just a really extreme, scary thing that people need to really start paying attention to. And I've read a bunch of stuff about it. And one of the things someone someone sent me an article on Twitter. And it's basically saying this is how the Nazis started.
01:31:41
The Nazis started basically attack and discriminate and pass laws against people that everybody else, quote unquote, would think, well, that's fine with for them.
01:31:53
Right. That's that kind of othering thing where it's not a big deal if it's happening to them because that's not my life and that's not my family.
01:32:01
It doesn't affect me. And so and I'm also scared of this, you know, this other anyway.
01:32:08
So I'm not going to pay attention to it. Or I feel the need because I think that I'm a faith based person that I'm going to judge these other people or that I somehow have the right to to to make up stories about people I don't even know.
01:32:21
And the truth of it is that whether or not someone is trans is that person's business.
01:32:27
It's that person's life. And nobody outside of that person can tell them or can judge anything about them.
01:32:34
It's a ridiculous idea to sit outside and pretend that you can decide how another person should live their life that way.
01:32:43
And this is it's one thing to talk about it, you know, at work or when you're a bar and be a bigot.
01:32:50
But the idea that there are passing laws in Texas and Idaho and all these places that are really extremist, they're really like crazy right wing and they're really dangerous and humane.
01:33:03
I mean, it's fucking inhumane the way they want to treat people that aren't like them.
01:33:08
It's also based in ignorance. There's just so much ignorance around it that they're trying to their the story that's being told is one based in ignorance.
01:33:16
So all that is to say we're going to donate ten thousand dollars to the National Center for Transgender Equality.
01:33:24
This is an organization that advocates to change policies and society to increase understanding and acceptance of transgender people.
01:33:31
So in the nation's capital and throughout the country, NCTE works to replace disrespect, discrimination and violence with empathy, opportunity and justice.
01:33:42
And this is a very big organization. And so they actually asked us if there was anything specifically that we wanted our money to be put toward.
01:33:51
And we said fighting these transgender laws that seem to be popping up and being passed, you know, like with nobody knowing about them.
01:34:00
So if you want to donate to the National Center for Transgender Equality, look them up at trans equality dot org.
01:34:08
Yeah. Trans rights are human rights, as as we always have said, as you well know.
01:34:14
But it feels like other people need to start learning, too, because it's so extreme.
01:34:19
Yeah. It's just really insanity. It's not the world we want to live in. And I'm horrified that the country we live in is fucking making these decisions that have so many huge consequences for so many families and so many people.
01:34:31
And we're horrified by it. So, yeah, give two if you can. And, you know, just fight the good fight and keep that love in your heart.
01:34:42
That's right. We appreciate you guys listening. Thank you so much. Don't forget to buy your Brock's taco truck jelly beans.
01:34:49
This is not a paid advertisement. No. This is a sincere endorsement of Taco Truck jelly beans.
01:34:57
Yeah, jelly beans. They were jelly beans. Oh, also stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
01:35:03
Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:35:15
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:35:23
Our researchers are Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
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Goodbye. We'll be right back. for a minute now, and I've seen them pull the same play
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