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00:01:58
blithe observations about the world around us. Oh, I like that description. Thank you.
00:02:04
It's from a play. Is your monologue? Are you auditioning? Yes. This is, I have one dramatic and one comedic.
00:02:12
Have you ever had to do that? Oh, yeah. That's what I did all in. I was a theater major before I flunked out of college.
00:02:18
That's right. And I have, I never told you the story of you had to audition. You got in as a theater major, but then you had to audition for all the directors of
00:02:28
all the fall season plays and musicals. So you had to go and do a monologue, House of Blue Leaves.
00:02:35
Thanks for asking. I was going to ask. And then you had to sing a song. Oh, God.
00:02:40
So I went and got the sheet music. What good is sitting alone? Are you serious? No.
00:02:46
Oh, man. I was hoping I was right. You were feeling the psychic. Yeah. No, I tried to sing What I Did for Love from I Believe, A Chorus Line.
00:02:57
Oh, yeah. I went and made my sister drive me over to Tower Music in Sacramento and got the sheet music.
00:03:04
Wow. But I didn't play the piano or know anyone who did. So I just gave the piano player at the place the sheet music.
00:03:11
And then he, you know, played the first couple chords for me and looked like, is that OK?
00:03:15
And I said, that's too high. Can you make it lower? And he goes, no, I can't transpose all of this right here, sitting here.
00:03:21
And I was like, oh, OK. Oh, I get it. So I was like, all right, well. And so it was like kiss today.
00:03:27
Goodbye. It starts there. And then at the end, it's like, won't forget, can't regret.
00:03:33
And it's so fucking high that I started laughing as I was singing it. And I was like up on my toes and like my shoulders.
00:03:40
As high as possible. They were all fucking laughing their asses off. So it was comedic.
00:03:44
It was it turned out it wasn't supposed to be comedic. It was supposed to be very moving and beautiful.
00:03:49
But and I also sang like Annie. I just was imitating Andrea McArdle, which is how I learned how to sing.
00:03:55
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I didn't get a part. Oh, man, I was hoping you get the lead role.
00:04:03
Just out of pity. Not pity. Karen can improvise. Look, she can take a bad situation, turn it on its head.
00:04:11
I turned to that piano player. I said, amateur. And then I turned around and said, let's do this thing.
00:04:18
What about you? Did you ever audition for plays? I auditioned for like a student film in the back of that Cuban coffee shop on Sunset and Silver Lake.
00:04:29
El Tropical. Yes. When I was like 19, had the shittiest headshot. It was like resume.
00:04:36
And so I didn't know how to write a resume. A and B didn't have one for acting in any fucking way.
00:04:43
So you lied? I don't even think I said I forgot my resume. Smart. Perfect. And there's no such thing as I can't email to you.
00:04:51
No, there's no email. It's the 90s. It's the fucking 90s. Did a monologue from 200 cigarettes.
00:04:57
Remember that? Yeah. I don't know. What did you watch the movie and write down what someone said?
00:05:03
I did exactly that. I think it was a Martha Plimpton quote. She did a whole thing when no one came to her party.
00:05:10
I'm so sick of 199 cigarettes. That kind of stuff. I got 199 cigarette problems.
00:05:17
And you're one more. You're one extra. And that's why they call it 200 cigarettes.
00:05:22
Then you turn to the rest of the cafe. Yeah. 200 cigarettes. That's right. It's 1999.
00:05:27
And here we go. I didn't get the part, obviously. Did you get to be in it at all?
00:05:33
No, I think they were like, oh, she's an amateur. Oh, she tried. That little thing.
00:05:38
And it turned out that director was Quentin Tarantino. So I just did extra, became an extra instead.
00:05:45
That's you were just going to get in there and work your way up. That's right. And here you are. Thank you
00:05:51
It took me to be to 40 to get to do it and I did it Yeah that showbiz baby Yep It the middle age when it really hits the good stuff Yeah Because you not a stupid idiot anymore Sweet sweetheart I mean that in the sweetest way
00:06:05
Bet you're a stupid idiot right now when you're like 35 and lower. Yeah. Sorry. You don't think you are.
00:06:11
No. Shit. Sorry, Steven. Hey, Steven's in the room with us. Steven's here in the room.
00:06:15
Hello. I'm very excited to be here. It's so weird. This is our first time as a threesome back together since the COVID started.
00:06:22
Yeah. It feels good. It feels good to me too, Steven. And thanks for coming up. Of course.
00:06:25
I mean, it's almost like I purposely forgot my equipment just to get Steve. I needed to figure out a way to get Steven in the room.
00:06:32
So I forgot pretty much all my equipment. You did it. I did. It was very sweet of you.
00:06:36
Thank you. You're welcome. She cares about you. Very nice. Anything to go over before we start?
00:06:43
Yeah, I have a couple quick cold case updates. Oh, great. That two does have been identified, both from cases that we've done.
00:06:53
So one of the victims, the unnamed victims of Alaska serial killer Robert Hansen, who you covered, has been identified.
00:07:03
The baker, right? The baker butcher. The butcher baker, yeah. Her name is Miss Robin Pelkey.
00:07:09
So I'm glad she has her name back. Yeah. And then another one is one of Gacy's victims.
00:07:16
I just saw that article. Yeah. So I saw it on the Fall Line podcast Instagram that his name is Francis Wayne Alexander, and he's from Chicago, Illinois. And he's finally been after all this fucking time. It looks like in 1978 is when he was discovered and he's finally been identified.
00:07:34
Wow. I know. Love that they were still working on that. Yeah. They got it done. It's so important to give these does their names back and their history and their identity.
00:07:43
So their families actually have at least an end to the story and a way to process their grief.
00:07:51
That's thanks. That's good news. Yeah. In how horrible. In tragedy, Bill. I mean, yeah.
00:07:58
How it always is, it seems like. Yeah. You have anything? Good news? Good news or bad news?
00:08:06
Well, I have to say that I started watching a series. So and I've talked to other people about this, too.
00:08:12
There's something now the addiction left over from quarantine is I want a television series with several seasons so that I have something to return to at night.
00:08:23
Like a ritual almost. Yeah. Like a familiar, reliable. Relaxing ritual. Got it. And I have been watching a lot of comedies because I've needed it.
00:08:36
Sure. I found this one that I love so much and it's called W1A. It's a BBC series that has three seasons.
00:08:45
It stars Hugh Bonneville, the dad from Downton Abbey. Okay. They call him dad. Joe, what am I saying?
00:08:55
It has... Oh, wait, sorry. I actually printed up this cast because it really is a cast of all the great British actors.
00:09:02
Yeah. And it's about executives at the BBC. You know, it's very satirical. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:08
But very hilarious. And one of the people in it is an actress named Monica Dolan.
00:09:17
I know that name. Yes, because she played Rose West in Appropriate Adult. That fucking unbelievably disturbing.
00:09:25
It's about the Fred in Rose West. Dominic. I want to say Monaghan, but that's not the right name.
00:09:32
The guy from The Wire. Okay. Who nobody could believe was actually British. I love when you keep telling me things as if I'm going to get it
00:09:42
You were so generous to me as if I've ever gotten a name in my fucking life when we've done this
00:09:48
And also it's always, I'm sure to you, obscure Whereas to me I'm like, it's the stars of British television
00:09:55
And you're like, uh-huh I try to play along But here's the thing about, okay, so Monica Dolan plays Rose West in Appropriate Adult
00:10:03
If you haven't seen Appropriate Adult, it is the true crime story of when Fred West got arrested for the murders that the West, the West as a couple committed.
00:10:14
They murdered, I think it was over 10 young women. Horrible, horrible story. And they buried them
00:10:22
in their house near in the backyard. Yeah. Horrifying. So Monica Dolan plays Rose West,
00:10:28
and she is so disturbing. Yeah. And so horrifying, like you don't forget it. And she ended up she
00:10:34
won a BAFTA for best supporting actress for that role. But in W1A, she plays the senior
00:10:41
communications officer named Tracy Pritchard, who's Welsh. And she starts every sentence by going,
00:10:47
I'm not trying to be funny or anything. And it is so hilarious. She's super serious, but she
00:10:53
is so funny. Okay. And there's all these other people in it that you know from all of your favorite British television shows.
00:11:01
Me? W1A? W1A. Okay. It's a great workplace comedy, but it's also very much like,
00:11:07
it's so culturally British that it felt like I was on... A cozy Pendleton, wrapping yourself up in a cozy Pendleton.
00:11:14
In British culture and accents. That's right. Yeah. I have a show to suggest, totally not funny,
00:11:21
and completely on a left-hand turn with a signal. With no signal LA style? Yeah.
00:11:27
dope sick on hulu wow it's based off this book that's true um but this is a this is like
00:11:35
dramatized and it's michael fucking keaton who's like so incredible it's the story of how
00:11:41
oxycontin was fucking tricked into the mainstream yes and how evil the sackler family is and how
00:11:50
fucking evil like it is that oxycontin was even fucking introduced yeah into the society and so it all it caitlin dever who I such a huge fan of And Michael fucking Keaton Oh and fucking Peter Sarsgaard with the worst toupee I ever fucking seen
00:12:09
I mean, it's distracting. Great. Just let the man be bald. Like it's sexy. Is he bald?
00:12:15
In this photo he is. Oh, yes. Okay. I find it very sexy. Obviously my husband is without hair.
00:12:23
Oh, we over here at the My Favorite Burner podcast are number one fan of bald men.
00:12:29
That's right. And people across the nation. When you start turning down guys because they're losing their hair, because they're short, you're missing out on a whole population of good people.
00:12:39
You know, you are a dummy. Me? No. That sounded like you disagreed with me. I was doing a callback to you calling people under 35 dummies.
00:12:51
Maybe I'm just reading too much Reddit. Uh, we're just like, you know what you are?
00:12:55
A dummy. Sorry, this is another left turn with no signal. We refuse to let people know where we're going.
00:13:03
Uh, dope sick. Dope sick. I'm going to watch that. Sad. Depressing. Good. Uh, yeah, there's so much.
00:13:11
There's so much of that out there these days. It's sad. But you know what? I'm going to switch this to a book that I've read recently.
00:13:18
My therapist recommended it. I told my therapist I was having lots of like feelings real time, which I'm not used to and do not approve of or like in any way.
00:13:29
And she was like, oh, it's so good. That's so good to hear. It sounds like. Is it?
00:13:34
Yeah. She's like, oh, your vulnerability is catching up with you. It's very good.
00:13:38
It's going to keep you in the moment. She goes, here's the book you have to read.
00:13:41
It's called The Whole Language, The Power of Extravagant Tenderness by Gregory Doyle.
00:13:46
So Father Gregory Doyle is the priest who started the Homeboy Industries Foundation.
00:13:54
It's the most successful gang intervention program in the world. And he started it right there in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles.
00:14:02
And a lot of people in L.A. kind of know his work or are even slightly familiar with the kind of work he's been doing.
00:14:09
You have to read or the audio book is even better because Father Gregory is the one that's narrating it.
00:14:16
So he's telling his own stories of just it. And they go from, oh, my God, it's like I just was crying the entire time because there are these beautiful stories of like people trying to turn their lives around redemption, forgiveness, people who are in rival gangs working side by side and putting their differences aside and putting their lives together.
00:14:38
Yeah. And it's just beautiful. I couldn't believe how amazing this book was. Sounds like a lot of hope, which I think we need right now.
00:14:46
For sure. If you're in an especially sensitive place or even in a dark place, I promise you, listen to this book.
00:14:55
It's so great to hear him talking. Yeah, okay, I'm going to download it. It just gives you really an amazing sense of perspective.
00:15:02
And also, it's all these stories about people who are just trying against all odds and succeeding.
00:15:11
And it's really beautiful. Okay, I'm fucking on it. It's great. Say the name of it again.
00:15:15
It's called The Whole Language, The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. And it's just kind of all about, you know, he is a Catholic priest.
00:15:22
Obviously, he's a Jesuit priest. But his whole thing is just kind of about God as a loving, accepting God and not this kind of weird way people who are, quote unquote, religious like to use the concept of God against each other and to other people and to keep them out.
00:15:40
and how the point of all of it is to include people and let them redeem themselves.
00:15:45
It's very, it's really eye opening, especially in a lot of the stuff that we talk about.
00:15:50
It's so easy to be up on like, you know, our high horse or way the fuck away from any truth
00:15:57
of what people's lives are like when they get into crime. Right. Although we're usually talking about serial killers, which is a completely different thing.
00:16:06
joining a gang is so much more nuanced than I think what people expected and think and have
00:16:12
these judgments over it. It's really coming from a place of trauma and, uh, just options,
00:16:19
hard lives. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that. I, I, as someone who's not even religious,
00:16:26
I love, I love that. I love the AA kind of thing of you have to find a higher power. It doesn't
00:16:32
have to be God. I think so many people need that and good for them. And who am I to argue that?
00:16:37
Right. Hope. It's so important. Yeah, it really is. These days, especially. I think it's like the whole vibe behind this book
00:16:44
is really moving and really kind of feels like it actually could change things. It's really cool.
00:16:50
Rad. Speaking of changing things, I want to change the subject and talk about exactly right.
00:16:55
I really hate that segue so much. You love it. No, it's corn ball. Come on. You're a dummy.
00:17:02
you meant it that time that's what it sounds like when you mean it and i should have it's just
00:17:09
louder that's all uh nick terry put up a new mfm animated it's halloween based it's fucking
00:17:17
hilarious it's based off of a hometown episode i mean go to our youtube exactly right media
00:17:23
channel to check it out and all the fucking nick terry's are up there too yes oh and also we have
00:17:28
now in the merch store we have magnetic poetry kits and i never before has a magnetic poetry kit
00:17:35
had the word fuck in it so many times i apologize to everyone in my family and my extended family
00:17:42
but it's hilarious um who are getting it for christmas denton sent me one and i was just like
00:17:47
this is this is what kind of poems do you write with the word fuck in it that many times and all
00:17:53
All our animals names are in it too which is great And like a bunch of the quotes of that you know that that you know and love love from the podcaster in there It pretty funny I think you could do some and then so tag us on Instagram when you do post something
00:18:06
And then the most exciting thing that we have to announce to you is we're starting a brand new,
00:18:11
it's basically a new mini sode and it's the new series celebrity hometowns. So basically,
00:18:17
we get our famous friends to come on and tell us their hometowns and we kick it off with NBC
00:18:23
Dateline's legendary host, Josh Mankiewicz. Josh Mankiewicz is so rad. He's totally a friend of
00:18:30
the family. And so he's so fun to talk to. He's fascinating. The story he tells on this minisode
00:18:35
is freaking awesome. We could have talked to him for hours about it. And we have some great ones
00:18:40
coming up. We have a bunch of really cool people. So the newest Celebrity Hometown started in your
00:18:46
feed yesterday. And we'll continue through the end of the year. We're super excited. It's all
00:18:50
on Wednesdays and what a fun it's just an extra episode really an extra mini so be sure to rate
00:18:58
review and subscribe to these that really helps us out and also follow exactly right on Instagram Twitter
00:19:04
and Facebook for updates on all of our shows all right business portion done I think I should pee
00:19:12
real quick do it are you mad I called you a dummy no I think you're a dummy for calling me
00:19:18
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I am a fan of Quince. Yeah, Karen's wardrobe is Quince. I'm a lazy basics person, and the things that I get from them, I always go, oh yeah, now I'm wearing these.
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They work, they're cute, they're stylish. And they're classy. Like it doesn't look lazy, it looks classy.
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head over to article.com. Goodbye. it's you great well here we go as you know this weekend is spooky trademark trademark so i thought
00:22:51
it'd be fun to do a spooky themed story yeah so this is the mysterious death of edgar allen poe
00:22:58
whoa yeah nice even just got visible chills um yeah you know about this his mysterious death
00:23:07
Was it the thing where he buried his heart under the floor and then he kept hearing it beating?
00:23:12
No, that's a different. That's another story. That's a different author's death.
00:23:17
The sources I use today are the Smithsonian Magazine, the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum,
00:23:23
the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, a PBS American Masters documentary, which I highly recommend, and the Poe Museum.
00:23:33
So, as you know, there's so much out there about Edgar Allan Poe. There are multiple biographies about him that are over 600 pages long.
00:23:41
So there's a lot to say about him. And I have 600 pages of info about him right now.
00:23:48
Let me sit back. Settle in. No, I'm just going to go over some basics and then get to the mysterious death.
00:23:54
So let me tell you. Let me tell you a little bit about Edgar Allan Poe. Okay. On January 19th, 1809, Edgar, which is a great fucking name, it should come back, don't you think?
00:24:06
Nope. Okay. Is born to parents Eliza and David Poe. Eliza was a well-known actress at the time.
00:24:14
And they have three kids together. And then David abandons her and the family, which is shitty.
00:24:22
And then by the time Edgar is almost three, his beloved mother dies of tuberculosis at just 24 years old.
00:24:29
Oh, no. I know. So number one and him being a macabre, right? Yeah. First hit. Luckily, an, quote, elite upper class couple, John and Francis Allen, take Edgar in.
00:24:44
Hence, Edgar Allen Poe. Got it. He adores his really kind foster mom, but his foster dad is a fucking hard ass dick who never really accepts Edgar as his, like, kin.
00:25:00
He moves with them to Richmond, Virginia, and his name becomes Edgar Allan Poe, but he doesn't
00:25:04
actually ever use the name Allen himself because of his hatred of his foster dad. So actually,
00:25:10
when he writes letters and signs them, it's Edgar Poe, which is interesting. So he's intelligent and rebellious. He begins writing poetry at a young age. By 17,
00:25:20
he's engaged to marry a woman named Elmira Royster. But he's also set to attend the
00:25:26
University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Elmira swears she'll wait for Poe to finish college,
00:25:32
you know, as you do when you're young and in love. So he heads off to college and soon finds out he
00:25:38
doesn't have enough money to pay for college because his stepdad's like, or his foster dad's
00:25:43
like, fuck you. Why should I fucking pay for it? So Edgar Allen Poe goes into gambling debt,
00:25:49
trying to earn money to pay for college. He isn't able to earn enough. He becomes
00:25:52
like creditors coming after him, bad people coming after him. So he moves back to Richmond.
00:25:58
Once he's home, Elmira, he finds out had broken her promise. So yet another heartbreak. She was
00:26:04
engaged to someone else. Heartbroken, Poe moves to Boston. And there he eventually publishes his
00:26:09
first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. After a two year stint in the army,
00:26:15
and even joining and quitting West Point for a while. At 22, he moves to Baltimore. Did I already
00:26:22
say that? Where he lives with relatives, including his aunt Maria Clem and her daughter, Virginia.
00:26:28
He's actually happy here finding a real sense of family in his relatives. During his four years in
00:26:34
Baltimore in the early 1830s, he switches from poems to short stories. So this is the Gothic,
00:26:43
like Victorian era, where the culture of death is pretty normal. It's romanticized. People were
00:26:50
dropping dead all the time from sudden illness or slowly withering away from TB and women
00:26:56
died in childbirth regularly. And so did their babies. So it's a time period where death is really the norm.
00:27:02
And you see a lot of those portraits of people of dead people before they're buried.
00:27:08
You know, those creepy ones we all see. Yeah. Memento mores. So little mementos of the dead.
00:27:14
Like you get like a ring that has the dead person's braided hair in it, which you can
00:27:19
still find on like Etsy. And elaborate Gothic cemeteries become the norm. So there's that
00:27:26
macabre feeling in the air. And so stories that he writes that are super macabre just flourish.
00:27:33
So Poe publishes his first horror story, which leads to him accepting an offer to be a writer
00:27:39
for the periodical, the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, in which he kind of gets
00:27:44
to do whatever he wants. And once he settled in Richmond, Poe's aunt that he had lived with
00:27:49
Maria Clem and cousin Virginia move in with him. Does he marry his cousin? Sure. Is she 13 and he's
00:27:56
27? Oh, yeah. Of course all that happens. What a time. What a terrible time for 13 year olds.
00:28:06
So in 1837, Poe leaves the messenger, moves to Philadelphia, publishes many of his famous pieces
00:28:13
at this point, like The Telltale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue,
00:28:19
which is the world's first modern detective story. In 1845, Poe publishes his most famous work,
00:28:26
The Raven. It's an overnight success, and he becomes a household name. He's invited to take
00:28:32
on literary clients and give lectures, and he's the first American writer to live completely off
00:28:36
the money he makes writing. Wow. I know. He becomes like a famous fucking author,
00:28:42
Obviously, that's what I just said. According to the Poe Museum, quote, Poe wrote in many genres, but his contribution to horror
00:28:50
is what makes him famous today. Poe revolutionized the genre. He was one of the first to involve deep, intuitive, psychological horror.
00:28:58
Sadly, two years after The Raven is published, Poe's wife, 15-year-old Virginia, I know,
00:29:04
dies of tuberculosis. he never recovers from her death having lost the person he relies on for mental and emotional
00:29:11
support so all these women in his life his foster mother from before had died just all these
00:29:17
tragedies in his life he moves back to richmond and there he starts remember remember old elmira
00:29:24
who had a name yeah he starts seeing her again oh yeah she broke up with the they both were widowed
00:29:30
so they were like hey what's up yeah let's rekindle this thing in 1849 they get engaged
00:29:38
on September 27th 1849 Poe leaves Richmond and heads to New York he's going to grab his aunt
00:29:45
Maria Clem who he still of course loves and bring her back to Richmond for the wedding
00:29:50
the day after leaving Richmond Poe's boat arrives in Baltimore however he doesn ever make it to Philadelphia or New York because tragedy strikes Mysterious tragedy How does that sound Mysterious tragedy befalls him
00:30:09
On October 3rd, a local election day, a man named Joseph Walker finds 40-year-old Poe lying in a gutter outside a Baltimore polling site slash tavern.
00:30:21
At this time, taverns are used as polling locations and voters are rewarded for their vote with alcohol.
00:30:29
Hey. I mean, get get into the poll any way you can. And then shots, shots for everybody.
00:30:34
Shots, shots, shots. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, when Walker finds him, Poe is, quote, delirious, semi-conscious and unable to move.
00:30:43
And instead of his usual like fancy black wool suit, he's dressed in shabby secondhand clothes, including a coat that's ripped, stained, faded and ill fitting.
00:30:54
His pants are in the same condition and his shoes are worn out at the heels, almost like someone switched his clothing on him.
00:31:01
To top it all off, Poe is wearing a tattered palm leaf hat for some reason, which he never wore.
00:31:07
Walker asked Poe if there's anyone who he can call to help him and Poe call probably call on
00:31:13
he hands him a cell phone and says I am a time traveler tell no one of this exchange
00:31:19
Poe gets enough energy to to say the name Joseph E. Snodgrass another great name
00:31:26
so Walker calls him he's a magazine editor who has like medical training as well Snodgrass arrives
00:31:34
and sees that Poe is in bad shape. Poe's taken by carriage to the hospital. He's delirious.
00:31:39
He's in and out of consciousness for the next few days. And sometimes he's alert.
00:31:45
Sometimes he's just screaming into the air. So delirious. However, he is never alert enough to tell anyone
00:31:52
what led him to be wearing different clothes and be in the gutter. And on October 7th, Poe dies.
00:31:59
But what caused his death, Karen? It seems like no one really knows for sure. In articles from the time of his death, there's only one reference to a cause.
00:32:08
The Baltimore Clipper reported that he died from congestion of the brain, basically swelling
00:32:13
of the brain. And according to the Edgar Allen Poe Society of Baltimore, death certificates weren't required
00:32:20
at the time. And it doesn't say that anyone filed one for Poe. So swelling of the brain is commonly ruled as the cause of death for someone when the
00:32:28
examiner was unsure of what really happened. So, yeah, cool technology. Yeah. With all that being said, there are many people who refuse to believe swelling killed the famous mystery writer. Instead, they believe the truth lies in one of at least 26 published theories. I'm going to cover every single one.
00:32:46
Do it. I'm going to sit back. I'm going to cover a few of them. Many theories involve alcohol.
00:32:52
So it was well documented that Poe couldn't handle his liquor. He'd get like shit face staggering off just one drink.
00:33:00
However, any theorists blaming alcohol consider that months before he died, he also became like big in the temperance movement.
00:33:09
So he wasn't a drinker. So him having died from alcohol seems unlikely. But the most likely reason people started assuming Poe died from alcohol abuse was due to this dude, Joseph Snodgrass.
00:33:21
He used Poe's death as a way to spread the temperance movement himself. So he traveled the country and gave talks where he exaggerated the story of Poe's death and blamed it on alcohol.
00:33:34
The people who were with Poe on his final days agree that alcohol was involved. but it's unsure of like how he got to that point since he didn't drink.
00:33:44
And it also fails to explain his five day disappearance or the fact that he had his
00:33:50
clothes changed. Right. So samples of Poe's hair were tested recently to see if he was drinking before his death
00:33:57
and results showed that he had low levels of lead in his body, meaning that he was most
00:34:01
likely sober when he died. Then one of the first theories to stray from alcohol came from biographer E. Oaks Smith.
00:34:09
In 1867, she wrote an article where she theorized that he was the victim of a beating.
00:34:16
She called that like ruffians maybe beat him up to avenge that he possibly had beat up a woman himself.
00:34:24
Oh. But there's no proof of that at all. And then there are other theories around medical problems.
00:34:30
Cholera is one of the big ones. Also, when Poe's hair was tested for lead, scientists look for mercury as well.
00:34:37
And they found that he had elevated levels of mercury in the months before he died, which makes sense because in July of 1849, after he was exposed to a cholera epidemic in Philadelphia, a doctor prescribed him like mercury chloride, which would have given mercury poisoning.
00:34:54
It feels like back then with a mystery like this, there are so many things that could kill you.
00:35:00
Legit, legit. theories. Yeah, like, wasn't there, there was a thing where, like, the color green, they would
00:35:06
dye dresses with the color green that would poison you if you wore the dress? Yeah. Or wallpaper that
00:35:11
was a certain color green. I don't know if that was in the United States or in England. But I mean,
00:35:16
like, it just seemed like the mercury was like, oh, do you have a toothache here? Yeah, it's also
00:35:21
the character of the Mad Hatter. There were Mad Hatters because of what was it, the glue they used
00:35:26
to make hats made them go fucking insane. Yeah, it wasn't the safest era. There wasn't a lot of workplace safety protocols.
00:35:36
Is your baby crying or lethargic? Give him some cocaine for babies. And it would also explain the hallucinations and delirium before he died.
00:35:47
But some say it's possible that Poe had a brain tumor. So 26 years after he died Poe coffin was dug up so it could be relocated to a different part of the cemetery His coffin was in bad shape And so when the workers tried to move it the coffin fell apart Which you know they kind of probably did on purpose because some scientists gave him some money to be like we want to we want to look at his body
00:36:08
Yeah. Hey, why don't you drop his coffin? Then that makes me think of. Did you watch the most recent season of I think you should leave?
00:36:17
It's Tim Robbins. Yes. Coffin drops. Coffin drops. Coffin flops. Right. it's the reality show
00:36:23
the like prank reality show where bodies just fall under the bottom of coffins coffin flops or coffin drops
00:36:32
Steven and why are they all naked so insane it's coffin flop coffin flop so okay so
00:36:43
his remains fall out super fun and when a skull was picked up there's a mass rolling
00:36:50
around inside of it And at first they were like, oh, this is the brain. But no, the brain's like the first thing to deteriorate.
00:36:56
And so one doctor speculated that the mass could have been like a calcified tumor.
00:37:01
Still, it just seems like that, like from afar, a theory like that after with a body that had been buried isn't super reliable.
00:37:10
You know what? A mass is a hard mass, also called a rock. Yes. I mean, other theories include tuberculosis, pneumonia.
00:37:21
epilepsy, diabetes, even rabies. But the most sinister theory for this spooky Halloween
00:37:28
is that Poe was murdered. This comes from the author John Evangelist Walsh, who believes that
00:37:36
the brothers of Poe's fiance, Elmira, killed him. He thinks that Poe did make it to Philadelphia,
00:37:42
but was ambushed by Elmira's brothers who told them not to marry their sister. and so he was so scared that he disguised himself in a new outfit to like thwart them and hid in
00:37:52
philadelphia and then went back to richmond so he could marry elmira but in baltimore her brothers
00:38:00
found him beat the shit out of him and forced him to get shit face knowing that he couldn't
00:38:05
drink and that's what led to him dying in a gutter so that's very involved the might it is very
00:38:12
complicated. Yeah. But it would. Yeah. No. The most commonly accepted theory is that Poe was a victim
00:38:18
of cooping. Now, this to me is the fucking I've always just been so troubled by this idea. I've
00:38:23
never heard of this. OK. Cooping, according to the Smithsonian Magazine, was an actual method of
00:38:29
voter fraud practiced by gangs in the 19th century. So this is a known thing that would happen. And he
00:38:34
was found outside of a tavern, which was a polling place. So basically, they take a victim. The victim
00:38:41
would be kidnapped, forced to go vote. And then they'd get their reward of a drink. They would
00:38:48
make them drink that. Then they would change the guy and do a disguise so he could go back and vote
00:38:54
again. And so these would be hired by politicians to make sure they got more votes, essentially.
00:39:00
But they would force them to drink every time, which doesn't, I mean, just that doesn't seem
00:39:05
like it. But that's what they did. It's like undisputed. Well, you know what it makes me think
00:39:09
of is like then then if the person's drunk they're automatically there's not a lot of empathy
00:39:15
it's the same thing as when you've heard of like stories where people get kidnapped and then they
00:39:20
shoot them up with drugs so it's like well you're a drug user so what you say doesn't have any merit
00:39:25
right or you're less you're more pliable and less able to to do whatever they say and yeah he's more
00:39:31
easily confused yeah i mean that seems right on the money with all the details right of what you've
00:39:36
described. Exactly. And it was a known thing. It wasn't just a made up, you know, theory. So many
00:39:42
cooping victims would consume tons of alcohol since they were voting multiple times. And once
00:39:47
the Coopers were done with the voters, they just let them wander off completely shit face.
00:39:52
So if he had more than one drink, he was exactly totally screwed. So he could have died from
00:39:57
alcohol poisoning because he had been kidnapped by Coopers. Many think this theory is plausible
00:40:02
because the gutter was he was found in was outside the polling site. And it was a polling
00:40:07
site where Coopers were known to bring victims. Not to mention Poe was found on an election day.
00:40:15
So but in the end, Poe's cause of death, like what most people think is that it was swelling
00:40:20
of the brain. But who knows why, you know, and it seems that many people want Poe's death to be
00:40:26
mysterious, you know, because of his work. And he's still an icon. His story has completely
00:40:31
changed literary word and dying from brain swelling just isn't that romantic. Yeah. For
00:40:37
someone as legendary as Edgar Allan Poe. But one last mystery, just to keep it on that note,
00:40:43
the attending physician, Dr. John J. Morgan said that the night before he died in his delirium,
00:40:49
he called repeatedly out for someone named Reynolds. But to this day, the identity of
00:40:55
this person named Reynolds remains a mystery. Ooh. That is the mysterious death of Edgar Allen Poe.
00:41:02
Wow. That's good. Yeah. I knew nothing of any of it. Oh, you're such a literary master.
00:41:09
Yeah. Clearly. I mean, no, that's fascinating. Yeah. Also just that idea of like,
00:41:16
all now we have to add cooping to all the ways you could die back then. What a shitty way to die.
00:41:22
What a shitty. Yeah. What a time. just roving gangs you know in their fucking cool clothes yeah it's like was it gangs of new york
00:41:31
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00:44:26
Goodbye. Well, my story has nothing to do with your story whatsoever. I can't connect it or do an interesting segue.
00:44:36
Good. There it was. Yeah. But it is. It's a story most people have heard about, but I didn't know any details of.
00:44:43
So this is the case of Cyntoia Brown. Okay. Sources for this Wikipedia, an NPR article by Bobby Allen, a New York Times article by
00:44:55
Christine Hauser. Time article by Katie Riley. Lainey Barron wrote an article for Time magazine or time.com. Sharon Lynn Pruitt wrote an article for Oxygen. Mahita Gajanon wrote an article for Time. Rebecca Seals wrote a BBC News article. Samantha Max wrote an article for the WPLN News Nashville Public Radio. And John Garcia wrote an article for the Tennessean.
00:45:26
And all of those articles have very long titles. So I figured I would just cite this source and the journalist.
00:45:33
And then that's what matters. You can go and look this up. OK, so this starts with the murder of Johnny Allen.
00:45:42
So on the night of August 6, 2004, 16 year old Centoya Brown stands in the parking lot of a sonic drive in in Nashville, Tennessee, when she's approached by 43 year old Johnny Michael Allen.
00:45:55
Allen is an army veteran turned real estate agent who also serves as a youth pastor at the Lakewood Baptist Church, where he's also started a homeless ministry.
00:46:05
But tonight he is propositioning a 16 year old girl for sex. I think I know this one.
00:46:12
Yeah. So Johnny Allen asked Centoya if she's hungry and if she's, quote, up for any action.
00:46:20
They agree on a price of $150 and Centoya gets into his truck. But instead of going to a local motel, which is the standard practice, and in fact, Centoya lived at a motel with her pimp and boyfriend.
00:46:35
Instead, Alan takes Centoya to his home. And once they're there, he shows her his very large gun collection, telling her that he used to be a sharpshooter in the army.
00:46:46
She will later go on to say that she felt that this display was very threatening.
00:46:51
Yeah. But that's impossible to prove because she's the only one that was there. Right.
00:46:57
The two eat together. They watch TV. And then, according to Centoya, Allen takes her to his bedroom where he, quote, grabs her in between her legs real hard.
00:47:08
So basically, he initiates sex very violently. She already feels threatened. It then turns violent.
00:47:15
He reaches under the bed for something. She will later go on to testify. And Centoia believes that what he's reaching for is a gun.
00:47:24
So she pulls a 40 caliber handgun out of her purse and she shoots him in the back of the head.
00:47:29
Oh, my God. She's just 16. 16 years old. So she then grabs the cash that's in his wallet.
00:47:36
She takes two of his guns, jumps in his truck and drives away. She gets to a Walmart parking lot and ditches his truck there.
00:47:44
She then hitches a ride with someone back to her home at the in-town suites motel.
00:47:50
And that's where her pimp, Gary Ann L. McLaughlin, whose nickname is Cutthroat, is waiting.
00:47:56
So the next morning, August 7th, 2004, the police come to the hotel. the motel room, and Centoya is arrested and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated
00:48:04
robbery, and illegal possession of a handgun. Three months later, on November 14, 2004, a judge rules that 16-year-old Centoya can
00:48:13
be tried as an adult, claiming that she is too dangerous to be tried in the juvenile court
00:48:17
system. So, Centoya never denies killing Alan, but she argues that she did it in self-defense.
00:48:25
The prosecution claims that Centoia planned to rob and kill him all along. Their first piece of evidence is the forensics report that shows Alan's body was positioned laying on the bed and that his hands were interlocked behind his head, which contradicts her claim that he was reaching under the bed when she shot him.
00:48:45
The prosecution also introduces Centoia's August 14th, 2004 psych evaluation into evidence.
00:48:51
It states that while at the Western Mental Health Institute, Syntoya asked to call her adoptive mother, but the nurse would not let her.
00:48:59
And then, according to this nurse's account, Syntoya responds by leaping over the desk, grabbing this nurse by her hair, hitting her and saying, quote, I shot that man in the back of the head one time, bitch.
00:49:11
I'm going to shoot you in the back of the head three times. I'd love to hear your blood spatter on the wall, end quote.
00:49:18
And another hospital employee corroborates this story in court. So they also present allegations that Centoia told a fellow inmate that she killed Allen, quote, just to see how it felt to kill somebody.
00:49:32
And that she even wrote a note confessing to the crime. A forensic document examiner tells the court that they believe the note was indeed written by Centoia's hand.
00:49:42
But the defense paints a much different picture. They argue that Johnny Allen was not the good man of faith that his friends and family believed him to be, but that he was a predator who exploited and threatened underage sex workers.
00:49:56
They claim her shooting was a clear cut act of self-defense. So the defense has several witnesses whose experiences with Allen corroborate this dark side of him.
00:50:06
One woman who once went on a date with Alan testifies that after accepting an invitation to go back to his home, he began to kiss her.
00:50:15
And when she told him she didn't want to have sex, he raped her. The defense also has a story from a 17 year old girl who says that Alan frequented the restaurant where she worked.
00:50:27
But he was so inappropriate and basically creepy with the young waitresses that she and her co-workers would argue over who had to go to his table.
00:50:36
God. And once he left her a note on the back of a business card saying, quote, you're gorgeous. I'd love to take you out sometime. So let me know. The judge, however, doesn't let this witness testify in front of the jury, calling her testimony irrelevant to the case.
00:50:51
I'm sorry. Cyntoia Brown does not take the stand during her own trial. And when it ends in August of 2006, Cyntoia Brown is found guilty of first degree murder and aggravated robbery.
00:51:04
So in October of 2006, she's sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after serving at least 51 years.
00:51:12
So the possibility of parole when she's 67. She's placed in a maximum security prison, the Tennessee prison for women in Nashville.
00:51:22
So we'll go into her background a little bit. Cyntoia Brown was born on January 29th, 1988 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky to a 16 year old young mother.
00:51:33
And her mother's birth was the result of a rape that her mother, Cyntoia's grandmother, had endured.
00:51:39
Oh, my God. So she had a hard life from the beginning. centoya's mother struggles with alcoholism and addiction to crack cocaine and she drank while
00:51:49
she was pregnant with centoya giving centoya fetal alcohol syndrome because centoya's father
00:51:55
is not around and because her mother is in and out of prison centoya is put up for adoption
00:52:00
so she's placed in a loving supportive home but the trauma of her early childhood is more than
00:52:06
she or her adoptive family can manage. As a minor, Centoya commits various crimes,
00:52:12
and she's taken into the custody of the Department of Children's Services from April 2001 through
00:52:18
September 2003. She's placed in various youth development centers around Tennessee,
00:52:24
and she almost always runs away. She's found, returned, and then finally, she eventually just escapes entirely. And by August 2004, she's living on the streets of
00:52:35
Nashville. And that's when she meets Cutthroat, a pimp with a long criminal history of his own,
00:52:40
including drug use, assault and rape. He claims Centoya as his own. He beats and rapes her into
00:52:47
submission and then traffics her for sex as a minor while the two live together in their motel
00:52:52
room at the in-town suites. Okay. So while Centoya is in prison for this murder, she earns her GED
00:53:01
through an in-prison schooling program in March of 2005. She's also described as a model prisoner.
00:53:08
And then in 2010, or between 2010 and 2011, a documentary filmmaker named Daniel Berman contacts Syntoya.
00:53:17
He's been following her case since her arrest, and he wants to profile her for a PBS special.
00:53:23
So she agrees, and in March of 2011, the film Me Facing Life, Syntoya's Story, airs.
00:53:30
And it gives Syntoya the chance to present her side of the story to the public. The documentary, which aired nationally, brings more attention to Syntoya's case.
00:53:39
With the new information about her background being brought to light, her defense attorneys push for a new trial in November of 2012.
00:53:47
They hope to use the fact of her fetal alcohol syndrome and the abuse she suffered as a child to make the case that she is also a victim The attempt is unsuccessful In jail Centoya focuses on her studies And in December of 2015 she earns an associate degree in liberal arts through Lipscomb University prison schooling program
00:54:08
She has a 4.0 GPA. Wow. Yeah. Later in May of 2019, she gets her bachelor's of professional studies in organizational leadership from the same school.
00:54:18
And again, with a 4.0. I know. She also uses her experience to mentor other young girls who are in prison.
00:54:28
Wow. So in between 2016 and 2017, Dan Berman releases another documentary. This time it's a seven part series in partnership with PBS and a reporter for the Tennessean named Anita Wadwani.
00:54:42
And this series is called Sentencing Children, in which they follow up on Syntoya's case.
00:54:48
This time it's right. This basically this documentary comes out right as the Me Too movement is really starting to gain ground, both in Hollywood and on social media. And the release of sentencing children helps in Toya's case again, get support, but this time from celebrities.
00:55:08
So Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and LeBron James are all retweeting and and like promoting the hashtag free Santoya Brown.
00:55:19
So basically her whole story goes viral and people really start paying attention.
00:55:24
So petitions calling for her release gain hundreds of thousands of signatures. Nearing the end of his term, Tennessee Governor Bill Hulson starts feeling the pressure to grant Santoya clemency.
00:55:36
Wow. So the push for commuting Centoia sentence gains legal footing in June of 2012, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits giving life sentences without parole to minors.
00:55:48
Yeah. So even though Centoia was technically eligible for parole after 51 years, that five decade wait is deemed unreasonable.
00:55:58
Yeah. So given the mounting pressure, the Tennessee Supreme Court holds a public hearing on May 28th, 2018 for Syntoya's clemency petition. Now, this is incredibly rare. Yeah. Only 2% of people in that position ever get this kind of second chance.
00:56:17
So at the hearing, a long list of people testify Sintoya's defense. Her fellow inmates vouch for her good character.
00:56:26
Her professors from Lipscomb University say what a great student she's been. Prison staff attest to her good behavior.
00:56:35
Even the prosecutor who put her behind bars, Preston Shipp, comes forward to speak on her behalf.
00:56:41
Wow. Unprecedented. So the few people who testify against her at this hearing include a friend of Johnny Allen's and the lead detective on this case, Detective Charles Robinson.
00:56:56
He says, Robinson says that she still presents a danger to society and that there's, quote, no evidence of her being trafficked as a child.
00:57:05
If you have a pimp when you're 16, that's evidence. You live in a motel. You live on the streets.
00:57:11
With a guy named Cutthroat. So by the end of the hearing, the parole board is split evenly in three with two members in favor of granting her immediate clemency to in favor of reducing her sentence so that she's eligible for parole in 25 years rather than 51 years.
00:57:29
And then two flat out denying any change in her sentence with a split decision, leaving things up in the air.
00:57:36
Advocates for Centoia pushed the Tennessee Supreme Court to commute her sentence on the grounds that it violates the ruling that was made in June of 2012, which prohibits life sentences with no parole for juveniles.
00:57:49
But on December 6, 2018, the court rules that because there is a chance for parole after 51 years, it still falls within the legal guidelines of the statute.
00:58:00
But the public outcry for Centoya's freedom continues and Governor Halsam gets an overwhelming number of phone calls and letters calling for him to grant executive clemency before his term is up in 2019.
00:58:15
Detective Charles Robinson writes to Halsam, urging him again not to grant clemency.
00:58:21
In his seven-page letter, he writes, But the support and the evidence for Centoya far outweighs the naysayers.
00:58:42
And on January 7th, 2019, Governor Halsom commutes her sentence to 15 years. So he says that she'll have 10 years of supervised parole.
00:58:54
But on August 7th, 2019, exactly 15 years from the day of her arrest, Syntoya Brown is released from prison.
00:59:02
Wow. Noting the, quote, extraordinary steps Miss Brown has taken to rebuild her life,
00:59:08
Halsam states that, quote, society is better off with Syntoya out of prison. Oh, my God.
00:59:15
OK, so in the immediate aftermath, Syntoya limits her interviews, making only a few public
00:59:20
statements. She says, quote, I look forward to using my experience to help other women and girls
00:59:25
suffering abuse and exploitation. Then a few months after her release, she's interviewed by The Today Show, by CBS News
00:59:33
and by the Associated Press. She also writes a memoir that's published in October of 2019 with the hope that it might lead to meaningful criminal justice reform.
00:59:44
Since her case hit the national news, Tennessee has changed its laws so that there's no longer legal consideration for the term child prostitute.
00:59:54
Anyone under age who is engaging in sex work is now considered a victim of child sex trafficking and will be treated as such even when they commit a crime oh my god yeah so it actually did like the whole thing
01:00:08
actually did like basically events change yeah so yasmin vafa from rights for girls which is an
01:00:17
organization that fights against the sexual abuse to prison pipeline notes that centoya's case
01:00:23
is a quote, really important reminder that we have to take a very nuanced approach to issues
01:00:29
around criminal and juvenile justice reform. We have to understand the histories and backgrounds
01:00:35
of young women and girls and what it is that's actually propelling them into the system.
01:00:40
Right. A Netflix documentary is released in April of 2020. That's about Syntoya,
01:00:45
but she did not authorize it. And she didn't. She was very unhappy at its lack of focus on
01:00:51
criminal justice reform. Today, Centoya lives with her husband, Jamie Long, and they've started
01:00:56
a nonprofit called the Foundation for Justice, Freedom and Mercy, which works to empower those
01:01:02
who might be exploited by the criminal justice system. Centoya Brown will remain on parole until
01:01:08
2029. So this past February, Centoya gave a talk at the University of Tennessee, which was covered
01:01:16
by the school newspaper, the UT Daily Beacon, and an article written by the editor-in-chief,
01:01:21
Alexander DeMarco. And this is a quote from that article. Quote, Brown's journey in the judicial system is not a rarity. Oftentimes, a child's introduction
01:01:31
into the juvenile court system begins through school. Then the choice to send that child to
01:01:38
a facility, such as a juvenile prison, rather than enroll them in preventative programs,
01:01:43
only furthers the child's involvement with the legal system. And then Cyntoia Brown is quoted as saying at this talk,
01:01:51
stop always thinking that you have to put a kid in a facility. That should be the last resort.
01:01:56
Facilities are horrible. They are horrible. So the first time Cyntoia Brown was arrested was when she was 12 years old.
01:02:04
And that charge was for skipping school. What the fuck? And she was immediately sent to a juvenile facility.
01:02:12
No. OK, so that's the story that that I wanted to do and wanted to cover. Yeah. But what's fascinating is a couple of weeks ago, ProPublica, the website ProPublica. Yeah.
01:02:26
They published a very disturbing story by journalists, Maribah Knight from Nashville Public Radio and Ken Armstrong from a reporter for ProPublica.
01:02:38
And it took place in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in April of 2016. So police officers went to Hobgood Elementary School and they arrested four little girls, a sixth grader, two fourth graders and a third grader who had been seen in the background of a YouTube video of an after school fight.
01:02:59
So there was little boys fighting a five year old and a six year old trying to fight an older boy.
01:03:05
And then there was some kids standing around and some of them are yelling, no, no, no, don't do it.
01:03:10
But basically, they decided to try to arrest all the children in this video. All of these little girls were black.
01:03:19
The youngest one was eight years old. Jesus. And the charge they were arrested on was, quote, criminal responsibility for the conduct of another.
01:03:29
And that is not an actual charge. OK. So, of course, there was uproar over this decision to arrest these children at school.
01:03:37
A couple of them were actually handcuffed. one little girl threw up one drop to her knees like complete trauma yeah 11 children and all
01:03:47
were arrested for being identified in this fight video this it's this is all in the pro publica
01:03:53
article yeah they they were able to identify these children because they found one of the kids whose
01:03:58
name they knew and they went and said no one's going to get in trouble just tell us who else
01:04:03
who else is standing around in this circle so we can tell we can basically tell them not to do this
01:04:08
anymore. So the one kid was tricked into giving names of all the other children in the video.
01:04:14
And then they were all arrested by the cops, like at school. One of the cops was wearing like a
01:04:21
flack jacket, like, like they were actually like, they were criminals. Yes. So basically,
01:04:28
11 children and all were arrested for being identified. And they all eventually sued in
01:04:34
federal court and got settlement. Basically, it got worked out. You have to read this article.
01:04:39
Yeah, it's unbelievable the way this story like shakes out. And what you come to find is this
01:04:48
shocking statistic that's that these reporters uncovered. So this is from the article, quote,
01:04:54
among cases referred to juvenile court state, the statewide average in Tennessee for how often
01:04:59
children were locked up was 5%. In Rutherford County, it was 48%. Holy shit. So Rutherford County also detains children
01:05:09
from other counties in Tennessee and they charge $175 a day. Fucking racket. Lynn Duke, who runs Rutherford County's
01:05:18
Juvenile Detention Center, once said at a public meeting, quote, if we have empty beds, we fill them with
01:05:24
a paying customer. Ah. End quote. So there was also in this article a statistic about the county's budget.
01:05:34
In 2005, the budget for juvenile services, including court and detention center staff, was a little under a million dollars, $962,444.
01:05:45
By 2020, it had jumped to almost $4 million. Holy shit. In Tennessee Davidson County where Centoya Brown lived and Rutherford County where this story took place share a border And so basically there is a business that taking place
01:06:06
This is the for-profit jail system that's starting with children. And people are making a profit and happily making a profit by sending children through these juvenile facilities.
01:06:21
And especially at risk children who are already living these, you know, trauma filled lives of of little to no possibilities.
01:06:31
Well, and what it seems like in this article is the only reason these kids that the 11 that were arrested in this video, the only reason they all of this became an uproar is because all these parents were like, what in the hell do you think you're doing?
01:06:44
Right. And they had people to advocate for that. right syntoya brown skipped school got arrested went to a juvenile facility and was in the pipeline
01:06:54
and that is the harrowing case of syntoya brown karen amazing i had did not know all that
01:07:03
information that is fucked up it's really dark but i think everybody has to read because now
01:07:10
the pro public article came out on october 8th okay and definitely like i retweeted it lots of
01:07:17
people engaged with it. It was, I don't know if it went viral per se, but when you read the whole
01:07:23
article, cause it is a long read and it's basically, they start talking about this.
01:07:28
There's a judge in that County that is basically has this system set up, this woman who's been,
01:07:34
who got voted in and has been there for like 20 years. And they have rationalized how that
01:07:40
basically uh for truancy for like they basically have decided why they get to arrest black children
01:07:48
and get and like it's quote they've decided it's for their own good right it's they've
01:07:54
rationalized all this well meanwhile all the numbers are saying is they're all making a ton
01:07:58
of money off of it and it is it's the kind of thing like you know this is the criminal justice
01:08:05
reform issue that like we don't talk about stuff like that because serial killers are serial
01:08:13
killers that's like the specified kind of area that that i got true crime that's true that you
01:08:19
think of as true crime right and what i think is kind of amazing in 2020 in you know currently
01:08:25
is how much that's changing where it's like you whatever your interest might be in the
01:08:31
can you believe Ted Bundy got away with it for so long? It's now everyone's kind of turning
01:08:37
their eyes to the rest of criminal justice. And like all those murderinos we've met
01:08:41
who are like, I'm getting into criminal justice because of this interest. It's like people have
01:08:47
to get into these systems and start making change. Because the idea that people make money off of
01:08:54
children going to juvie is insanely fucked up well they make money it's a revolving door so then they
01:09:01
become criminals as adults and the for-profit prison just continues to make money it's it's a
01:09:10
self-perpetuating system i mean honestly as someone who was a 13 year old meth user in suburbia and
01:09:20
white, I am very fucking aware of my privilege that when I got caught with it, I was given the
01:09:27
option by the police officer. My mom was given the option to go to rehab. And if I didn't go
01:09:33
directly to rehab, I had to go into juvie. And it's like that I know that that decision would
01:09:37
not have been hers to make had I not been in a suburb and white. Yeah, 100%, you know,
01:09:43
and then when I went to rehab, it was all, you know, underprivileged girls. Well, also, it makes me think of like the whole story of Syntoya's, like her case and all the people that were testifying against her, who would testify for her?
01:09:59
Right. She's a she's an underage sex worker who's been in the system and has a record.
01:10:05
Right. So it's almost like the justification and the rationale is already there of like, oh, she's she started bad and she got worse.
01:10:14
Right. It's like if she stays out, she's going to continue to do bad things. very incredible for sharing that. Thank you so much. So important. Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:28
So it was upsetting as that story is, we thought it'd be a good idea to donate to Rights for Girls.
01:10:34
So we're going to be sending them $10,000 to help them out with their very important work to try to
01:10:40
make a difference with such an incredible and overwhelming issue that we have in this country.
01:10:45
Yep. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. We, as always, appreciate you coming around.
01:10:55
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01:11:00
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