00:00:00
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See full terms at mintmobile.com. hello and welcome to my favorite murder the podcast the podcast that you tune into every
00:02:08
what thursday morning you do your best afternoon nowadays maybe friday maybe a friday evening
00:02:14
Sure. Life is changing. You're changing. Things are busy. Who knows what day it is anymore?
00:02:20
In this season of your life, that's what the influencers are saying now. The lifestyle influencers
00:02:27
are calling the part of your... In this season of my life where it's like you're changing. I'm going to have to ask you to check out
00:02:35
of whatever that entire culture is that you're talking about right now. It's a cult, all right. It sounds
00:02:40
horrifying. I'm picturing a lot of Felt hats. People speaking that we're wearing felt hats at the same time.
00:02:48
That's right. The word autumnal comes up a lot, probably, even when it's not autumn.
00:02:54
There's a lot of people that pull their sleeves down over their hands to talk. Yeah.
00:02:58
Yeah, no thanks. No thanks. That's Karen Kilgara. Oh, that's Georgia Hartstark. Hi.
00:03:04
Well, how are you? What's going on? Just got back from a nice trip with the fam.
00:03:08
and again in this season of my life it feels like I can't tell how much time is passing so I
00:03:17
literally one day turned to my sister and went I've been here for three weeks like she's like
00:03:23
I don't care stay here I was like no I can't I can't just leave my home and dogs and life yeah
00:03:29
but it was really nice so I got to be up there for Father's Day a lot of lovely well wishes on
00:03:35
Twitter for Home Gym, which he pretended he didn't care about but then had already looked at
00:03:41
by the time I got to his house for Father's Day dinner. No, he does. Of course he does. He cares.
00:03:47
He's now a legit Twitter lurker. Like, I can't really be myself on Twitter anymore. Oh, no.
00:03:53
Because my dad's there. What if he just doesn't follow you? He, like, lurks everyone else's stuff.
00:03:59
He's really into Chrissy Teigen and all of the things she makes in her beautiful kitchen.
00:04:03
She's fun. She's fun. She's legitimately funny. Yeah, that would be so typical. How have you been?
00:04:13
Fine. This season of my life revolves around... What season? Is it winter? It is absolutely
00:04:20
winter. It is the winter of my life and existence, and I'm in pajamas right now.
00:04:28
Fucking staying home. Right? Yeah. I mean, it does feel like a lot of people have decided they're just not quote unquote doing quarantine anymore.
00:04:40
While the numbers skyrocket out of control. I mean, it's almost like the layers of this seven day or layer dip of horror.
00:04:50
They just keep coming where it's like, I thought we already had guacamole. Now here's another one of guacamole horror where people are pretending the pandemic ended
00:04:59
because they want it to. I read like some quotes like there were these gals in Florida who like 16 of them went to a bar when they opened.
00:05:07
They all got it. And the late the gal was like, I was just done. I just needed to get out.
00:05:13
I was done. And it's like, well, but but the global pandemic isn't. So it doesn't care that you're done.
00:05:21
And also, we're all fucking done. No one likes it. OK, like no one likes. You know what I really miss?
00:05:29
I miss missing Vince I bet I bet I just like when I went down to record just now I gave him a kiss
00:05:41
and I was like I'll miss you and then I was like will you? Let's do your best to miss Vince
00:05:47
in this nice this will be our first three hour My Favorite Murder just so you can
00:05:53
miss him a little bit more That be great thank you so much It very strange it like well it was nice in Northern California They not doing that up there They been very serious since the beginning I understand the thinking of like I can do it anymore Or I need to socialize like
00:06:09
the people in their 20s. Like if I was in my 20s and I'm quarantined, I would have gone insane.
00:06:15
I would have absolutely. So it's not like there's not empathy, but it's also like too bad.
00:06:22
Are dating apps still happening or more than ever or now more than ever? Now more than ever.
00:06:30
How would I know? I don't know. I know you. I want to ask you, but you don't fucking do it.
00:06:34
I would love to know. I would love to know. I just don't. Yeah, I could never. I couldn't do it even just to be just to peek around and have the gossip.
00:06:45
No. Come on. Make up a name and let's know. I mean, look, by the end of this, I might have to simply because, you know, being cut off from humanity really it really puts your, you know, it helps you put your pride aside.
00:07:03
Sure. When you're like, oh, no. Oh, I have no no pride left. I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday when I got up and I was just like, you can't go another minute without a shower.
00:07:14
I keep looking at my hair and I'll do I have this thing where I pull my bangs back and pull my ponytail in.
00:07:19
And so it doesn't matter that my hair is a greasy mess. And it was my hair was just like, there's not another moment.
00:07:26
I forgot what a real my sister's real clean, cleaner, clean neck, real. So she her season of cleaning is abundant.
00:07:35
It's nonstop. It's year round. She did not like she'd always be like, you're going to take a shower and be like, why?
00:07:43
We're going to Safeway. Like, who cares? But she was not into it. So that was kind of it was good to be around people.
00:07:50
And it was good to kind of have that check every day of like, why not put on a little lipstick?
00:07:56
It's not, you know, why give up just because there's a pandemic and total social upheaval and the exposure of a of a completely white supremacist system and government and government and people who are supposed to be our peers.
00:08:14
And we're like, who are you? Who are you? But now we know. But, but, but we have to talk about it. We have to keep it positive because the best thing that I would have never been able to envision for this season of our lives, I've never been able to know that this was possible. And the the tick talkers and the K-poppers made it happen.
00:08:38
And they put in and everyone already knows the story, but I just want to say it anyway.
00:08:43
If you if maybe you're out on the tundra and you haven't heard about this for the Tulsa Trump rally, which was such an offense, was so gross.
00:08:54
They originally planned it on Juneteenth, June 19th of this year, and they did it in Tulsa, which is the day of emancipation that emancipation went through.
00:09:03
And in Tulsa, sorry, you were saying it. And then I know, but it's true. I mean, like, it's the kind of thing where it's almost like these facts of reality of what this these people do and how offensive it is and how gross it is.
00:09:18
It just doesn't land anymore because it's one thing after the other. But I was like, yeah, if there is some kind of serious rioting because of this, it's deserved that.
00:09:31
What kind of fucking bullshit is this that they're like, oh, oh, we're going to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the Black Wall Street massacre took place on Juneteenth.
00:09:41
And we're going to have a Trump rally. If you don't, if that is a fucking on purpose and like a fucking fuck you to black people, then I don't know what is.
00:09:51
The season of the abyss has happened and turned. Yes. Right now. Slayer song. Yeah.
00:10:01
The Season of the Abyss? Uh-huh. It was one of my high school boyfriend's songs. He was a fucking metalhead.
00:10:11
And so Slayer's Seasons of the Abyss was our song. I thought you were just making that up.
00:10:17
I'm not. I'll just bust it out on air guitar with Vince. Or he'll start singing it and I'll bust it out on air guitar.
00:10:26
Fucking good. This is the Season of the Abyss. It's so true. Slayer is right. Fuck Slayer.
00:10:32
Get your felt hat on because we're here. It's here. Get the patches sewn into your sweaters.
00:10:40
It's here. Is Slayer the one that had that S that was like a line and then a thing?
00:10:47
Yeah. That was all over. That was carved into every desk in my high school. Slayer was big in my high school.
00:10:53
Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I have a show. the perfect segue it's funny you mentioned that okay so there's a new did you know there's a new
00:11:04
perry mason like a remake of perry mason wait is it on already yeah it just started this last week
00:11:09
because it's the guy from the americans that's so awesome that matthew reese yes you think it's
00:11:15
i think he's welsh holy crap is it good oh okay first of all there's no they did not i'm gonna
00:11:21
go ahead and do what they should have done, which is trigger warning, dead baby, like
00:11:26
full on trigger warning, dead baby. Oh, no. It's very it's it's a really gruesome, like dark show.
00:11:34
British, right? No. Oh, it takes place in L.A. in the 20s. It's nothing like the old Perry Mason.
00:11:40
He's not even a lawyer. He's like a detective. Cool. OK. Yeah. It's dark and it's good.
00:11:46
And it's like noir-y and a little over the top. And then you remember that it's Perry Mason and that was a little over the top.
00:11:52
So it fits. It's not. It's good. I like it It like I want to watch all of it and get into a deep dark depression Well I feel like you know yeah like a period piece depression Yeah it yeah It reminds me of Boardwalk Empire which I really want to watch again for the outfits outfits
00:12:11
Fucking everything. It's good. Do you did where are there shots of L.A. where you're like, I know that spot that they're remaking in this.
00:12:19
You know, yeah, it's an angel's flight. They're an angel's flight. And when they show it with the buildings around it, because that's, you know, that's how it used to be.
00:12:26
It's exciting. I love it. It's good. Good old noir L.A. stuff. Perry Mason. That's amazing.
00:12:32
Oh, and then trigger warning. Enormous surprise dick. Don't ruin it. I'm not going to ruin it.
00:12:42
You'll see. Take a shot when you see the surprise enormous dick. now is it what is it a skyscraper or what kind of how big is it how big i don't want to i i don't
00:12:58
know i mean you know do you know what channel it's on hbo oh sweet yeah gritty reboot of perry
00:13:05
gritty i wish i could have been there for that pitch meeting people are like huh huh yeah it's
00:13:12
not what i expected and it's yeah it's good i should be uh to the to counter that i should be
00:13:17
talking about marcella right now because season three is out um i watched one episode when i was
00:13:23
at my sister's but i had to wait till nora went to bed because i didn't want to see anything bad
00:13:27
and of course i fell asleep four minutes in because they all have irish accents right it was
00:13:33
like it was like me me old grandmother lullabying me to sleep um or i just always go to sleep at 10
00:13:40
But I did last time start for True Escapism. There is a television show. It's British, but it's on Netflix and it's called 100% Hotter.
00:13:52
And it's like a makeover show. No. 100% Hotter. They get these British people. And I think, I mean, not to say that Americans aren't absolutely like this
00:14:04
and you couldn't absolutely cast this show in four minutes in Los Angeles. But there seem to be a lot of people in England who are like decided that they're going to be.
00:14:19
I what was that? What's that girl's name? There's you know how they have like the page.
00:14:24
It's like the page to girls or something from the tabloids. I don't know if that's the right page number.
00:14:29
But basically, like it's like super sexy where like you save up all your money to get.
00:14:33
Yeah. Humongous implant. You're like Kim Kardashian type. Right. Like perfect, but like a Bratz doll.
00:14:45
Yes, it's a Bratz doll going way over into the like performatively sexy, like beyond.
00:14:54
Yeah. And so they take, there's a couple of people like that. Then there's a couple of people who just have very strange style.
00:14:59
And there's a girl, there's a girl who's doing a full on Harajuku look where she has two different color contact lenses.
00:15:05
and like Hello Kitty stickers on her cheeks and shit. So they take people with a look with a with a really extreme look.
00:15:12
And then they make it's it's the classic like reality show where then they there's people on the street looking at pictures of them.
00:15:19
And suspiciously, all of the people on the street giving ratings because they're like, I would give this a three out of ten.
00:15:25
And the people are shocked. They're like, what? I'm really hot. How could I be a three or whatever?
00:15:30
the people on the street that are being interviewed about the ratings all are wearing scarves
00:15:37
different beautiful scarves where I'm like sorry, you're cast because this is a scarf commercial
00:15:42
is this sponsored by scars, etc you know that store, scarves, etc anyway but it's a good like, just put it on
00:15:52
here's the thing, it's an amazing makeover show because at the end of the day, who doesn't love
00:15:56
a really good haircut and really good makeup and also So the outfits are amazing.
00:16:01
Do they turn them into like, like classy, like a classier look? They basically try to take what they want to look like and just make it more
00:16:10
like if you're walking down the street, people won't run into a pole because you are stickers on your face.
00:16:16
Yeah. Or because you, there's one guy that is like the one of like an industrial goth where he has
00:16:22
a wig of like dreads made out of rubber. Oh no. You know, that kind of thing. And goggles, you know that.
00:16:31
Oh, yeah. That look, it's pretty extreme. That sounds fun. They just redo everybody.
00:16:37
But what it is, is just awesome makeup, awesome hair. It's just really satisfying.
00:16:41
The Harajuku girl, when she gets redone, because you can tell and everything is like, it gets very philosophical.
00:16:47
We're all wearing masks. We're all wearing different masks. But like the Harajuku girl, she takes all her stuff off and the makeup woman's like, look at your eyes.
00:16:58
What do you do? And then gives her this this makeup where in the girl is just like this really beautiful young girl who goes, I never thought I could look like this.
00:17:08
Like, it's the cutest thing. Oh, what's it called? One hundred percent. One hundred percent hotter, hotter.
00:17:14
And the hair guy is such a legendary hair guy where he himself has my sister's hair from 1989.
00:17:21
Like, like a spiral perm, I think. Amazing hair guy. And he gives the best hair cuts.
00:17:28
cuts. What about the show where I get turned into a club kid? That's what I want.
00:17:32
I want the opposite. I feel so fucking boring now. You want to go back? I want to go back to when I was 16
00:17:37
and had huge fucking crimped pigtails. Yeah, I can cut your bangs all fucked up. Okay, vinyl
00:17:44
pants, great. And then I would put stickers on my face too. Really? Absolutely. Now, was that the drugs
00:17:52
telling you to put the stickers on or was that your style choice The drugs were the stickers Oh they You going through the skin What that called Absorbing it through the skin Yeah
00:18:05
Yeah. Okay. What else? Well, there's season two of Dirty John has started. Okay.
00:18:11
I haven't done that yet. It's the Betty Broderick story. Yeah. Which you did. I did it.
00:18:16
She's the woman down in San Diego. Yes. And it is, it's very dirty. It's very much Dirty John season one.
00:18:24
They have this style about it that's kind of like it's outfits and it's it has almost a feel to it.
00:18:34
Yes, because this it happened in the 80s. So everyone is real 80s outfits. The problem that I have is Amanda Peet is playing Betty Broderick and Betty Broderick.
00:18:44
One of the main issues going on in that relationship was her husband was leaving her for a younger, hotter.
00:18:50
Right. Right. And no one's leaving Amanda Peay. Never, ever. Like she's she's Hollywood perfection.
00:18:59
So I got that she is a great actress and she's playing the intensity and she's really good as a character.
00:19:05
But there's a whole piece of that character that I that should be there. Yeah. And I think I wonder if it's because they didn't want to like in the year 2020 put someone in like a fat suit or fat.
00:19:17
But like, that's part of the issue and part of the story. Yeah. I wonder if she was a mom and, you know, wasn't tiny and wasn't.
00:19:27
Right. I don't know. I mean, that's TV for you. Yeah. They TV'd up Betty. And then in doing so, in my opinion.
00:19:36
She doesn't even resemble. She doesn't even resemble her. Maybe not even a little.
00:19:40
The brown hair, I guess. She was a blonde. She was a blonde. The blonde hair. Oh, yeah.
00:19:49
But it's good. Definitely watch it. It's a good story. And it's and, you know, it's Christian Slater and Amanda Peet.
00:19:55
So it's so watchable. Yeah. Guys, unless you hear the amazing music that Stephen puts under an ad, we're not this is not us pushing any of these shows.
00:20:04
We are being paid zero dollars by Amanda Peet for talking. Amanda Peet has never worked for us a day in her life.
00:20:12
Not once has she called or DMed. I've asked her to cat sit. she fucking refuses could you imagine
00:20:20
I'm scared of her she was so good in togetherness is that still on can you find that anywhere
00:20:27
remember that show the Duplass Brothers vehicle I don't know but she was so good
00:20:35
in that she's so good in most all things I see her in I don't know because I don't watch TV alone anymore
00:20:43
there's no like like neither Vince nor I watch what we want to watch because we're always
00:20:48
watching together. You know what I mean? I'd be careful of that. Why don't you get a second TV?
00:20:54
We have one, but then it's just like, yeah. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, it is weird.
00:21:01
Yeah. It means you don't want to be around me. Say if you're mad, just say it. Are you mad at me?
00:21:06
Just tell me. It's totally fine. Look, I'm going to follow you to the kitchen. If you don't admit it,
00:21:11
Can I tell you that I have cried more since I turned 40 than I did my entire 30s?
00:21:19
What's going on? Two weeks, three weeks. I don't know. PMS. And then I also found a new psychiatrist.
00:21:24
So my meds are getting tweaked a little. Oh, yeah. So that's fun to be like that.
00:21:28
Those two weeks of like, will they or won't they work? Or what kind of insane side effect is it going to give me that I that I won't remember is a side effect.
00:21:37
So I'll be like, I can't stop sweating. What's wrong with me? shit well then cry it out who cares you're at home it's been oh what i was gonna say oh but
00:21:49
you meant for vince like it's yeah because you're next to him watching tv on the couch constantly
00:21:54
yeah yeah yeah oh life oh and then um the i'm so excited for the um the golden state killer show
00:22:04
oh yeah that one Karen Kilgareth friend best friend of the podcast friend of the pod I'm an
00:22:11
insider I like to say I've been listening since episode one that's right uh I haven't seen that
00:22:21
trailer yet I'm too yeah I uh but yeah yeah I've I've heard a lot of feedback um that people are
00:22:29
excited and excited to see it. Can you watch yourself? Are you going to do it? No, no, no, no.
00:22:36
Okay, we'll do it for you. Please do. And then just say nice things. I don't care.
00:22:40
Of course. I don't care if you don't like it. Only compliments only. I used to say that after my stand-up
00:22:46
shows. I just like going somewhere with people afterwards. I'd be like, compliments only.
00:22:49
I only want to hear if you thought I was the best one on the show. Yeah. Keep it to yourself.
00:22:54
Totally. Yeah. No critiques. This isn't fucking critique time. Unless you're funnier than me.
00:23:01
No critiques. Right. Yeah. Should we do Exactly Right Corner? Sure. So our podcast network, Exactly Right, is a thing.
00:23:10
Isn't that great? We like it. And we're adding shows just by, I would say, every three months.
00:23:17
Every season. Every season. When the seasons turn. There's a new fucking show. It takes so long, guys.
00:23:25
Oh, guys. Guys. But they're coming. They're coming. They're in the works. You know, they're all great.
00:23:33
The newest, for example, the newest I Said No Gifts has the great Andrew Michon on it, who is from Podcast But Outside.
00:23:43
Right. A podcast I recommended on this show long ago. But Andrew's a great stand-up that's friends with lots of people and knows everybody.
00:23:51
And my friend Mamrie Hart is on Bananas this week. And she's been friends with Scotty for decades.
00:23:59
So decades. They're so young. A decade, probably. Sure, sure. Just one. Just one. And she's so funny. So listen to Bananas.
00:24:08
And they, oh, God, this podcast will kill you. They're talking about what's the disease that affects cows?
00:24:16
It's called Rinderpest. Rinderpest. Yeah. I haven't listened to that one. And I'm really looking forward to it because that sounds like the worst thing of all time.
00:24:26
Rinderpest. You know, it's not the worst thing of all time is from our one of our favorite podcasts.
00:24:33
Do you need a ride? Chris Fairbanks has a new stand up special that's coming out called Rescue Cactus, and it's available for rental and digital download now on.
00:24:44
What is it on? Nice one. Thank you. Well, he's a new stand up special. Yeah. Look up Chris Fairbanks.
00:24:51
He's so hilarious. He's hilarious. It's he's I'm sure it's on his Twitter or his Instagram.
00:24:58
And we can and we will, you know, we'll put it on our website so that you can find it.
00:25:03
My friend was there. He filmed it in Portland. And so my friend Jason, our stage mother, Jason, who always the day of a show.
00:25:11
Love him. Text notes. From to Steven. He went and watched it and said he it was so great.
00:25:19
And then at the end, he cried. that's how good it was because there was like a touching
00:25:23
wait Chris cried or Jason cried Jason okay good but there was like you know there was some touching
00:25:29
I watched one joke I watched just a quick clip of one joke and it was one of the best jokes I've heard
00:25:35
the masturbating one with the parents he's really legendary I mean he's Chris is the real deal
00:25:45
and he really is like one of those truly unique comedy voices you don't get the sense of it
00:25:51
on our podcast because we are constantly interrupting each other and one person's
00:25:57
trying to tell a story and then somebody else starts talking about something else.
00:26:00
But when Chris does stand up, you know, I've seen him in like, aside from being on the road and stuff, in rooms around Los Angeles,
00:26:08
like him destroying a room when he's just up to do a 10 minute set. It's one of the most like thrilling, breathless, amazing things you've ever seen
00:26:16
because it's a very hard thing to do. Yeah. People who are good at it make it look so easy. Totally. Yeah. And he's one of those people. So it's yeah. If you're looking for a good laugh, I think Chris Fairbanks, he'll help you out with that.
00:26:32
Also, please check out our merch store where we have our black and white logo pin.
00:26:38
It's a really cool enamel pin. It's 10 bucks. And all the proceeds are going to the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective.
00:26:45
So that's really exciting. And we have some new merch in there. We have a puzzle and some fun stuff to check out.
00:26:51
That's on myfavoritemurder.com in the store. Yeah, I'm very proud of that puzzle.
00:26:57
there's a puzzle for everybody that's corn that's that still believes in the quarantine
00:27:02
and the puzzles it's puzzle season it is puzzle truly puzzle season why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody plans anything bro good thing the rug's
00:27:14
ready like that for real rain dirt whatever available all-wheel drive five modes we still
00:27:20
outside and they got some kick too that turbo torque is crazy the most in its class it moves
00:27:26
moves rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space merch on merch gear mics all the fits load up we
00:27:34
out 2026 nissan rogue built for all of it auto pacific segmentation 2026 rogue versus latest
00:27:41
in-market competitors in the x suv mainstream midsides class excluding electrical vehicles
00:27:46
based on manufacturer websites hey everyone it's cal pen i'm the host of ear say the audible and
00:27:54
iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator
00:28:00
of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary. Massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science
00:28:09
and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth. I really had to make a decision because
00:28:15
I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections and it's like,
00:28:21
okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:28:33
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:28:39
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:28:44
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Data accurate is of 2-20-26. Okay. This case I'm doing, it's less of a case and more of a, it's a disaster story.
00:29:31
Okay. And so this is the St. Francis Dam collapse. Oh, shit. Yeah. I feel like I've started this one many a time.
00:29:42
Yeah. I can't believe we haven't done this at a live LA show. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's one of these stories, and I'm sure you feel the same, that I've always
00:29:50
kind of heard about in the background Everyone knows Chinatown is loosely based on the water wars that came before it And it always just been this eerie story that I didn know that well
00:30:05
But I think being from California and Southern California, you hear little things about it.
00:30:09
Yeah. But it's been forgotten kind of in history a little bit, too, because it happened right before the stock market crash and the Great Depression.
00:30:17
So nobody cared. Yeah. Sorry, I was just going to say, that would be an amazing book.
00:30:23
of all the stories that got buried by huger stories. Yeah. Didn't we just talk about something recently that it was like, but then 9-11 happened and
00:30:33
so this story got buried. Yes. Yes. It was a documentary I was watching or something like that.
00:30:39
We were like, how could you not know about this? Right. I think it was McMillions.
00:30:44
Oh, yeah. Wasn't it? It was something like that where it was like, it wasn't a horrible story or anything like
00:30:53
that. It was more of a like, huh, how could this happen? And then just got erased by nine.
00:30:57
Right. Or like or like the hearing was in late September. And so nobody gave a shit at that time.
00:31:03
Yeah. Yeah. This is like that. So let me quickly read my sources. I got some info from history dot com on lit hub dot com.
00:31:13
There was a section from the book, The Mirage Factory, Illusions, Imagination and the Invention of Los Angeles.
00:31:21
And that's why I know it's not sound good. That's by Gary Crist. And then there's scvhistory.com, Smithsonian Mag, KCET article by Hadley Mears, waterempower.org.
00:31:34
Some great information and photos from there. I called down to the DWP. They gave me a little information.
00:31:40
They let me come look at their microfiche. It was great. An article on a there's a website called Failure Magazine, and I think it's just failures.
00:31:49
just yeah it's not rad yes there's a web there's a page about the a book called flood path the
00:31:57
deadliest man-made disaster of 20th century america and the making of modern los angeles
00:32:02
they all have these fucking names that's by john wilkman um and then did you know there's a song
00:32:08
by frank black from 2001 called saint francis dam disaster no and there's these like unofficial
00:32:14
music videos a video from the disaster and photos from the disaster it's cool jesus yeah okay
00:32:19
So St. Francis Dam disaster is known as the worst American civil engineering disaster of the 20th century.
00:32:28
And it's kind of compared to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in that it kind of led to this movement of safety legislation because so many people lost their lives.
00:32:41
So before we can get into the collapse of the actual dam, we kind of need to go over some history.
00:32:46
And that is California's water wars. And that'll give us some context. By the end of the 1800s, Los Angeles was still a relatively small settlement, and it got all its water from the LA River via a system of reservoirs and these open ditches made that were made.
00:33:02
They're called Zanjas. And that had been used since the Los Poblodaros built them in 1781.
00:33:08
But by the early 1900s, there's a huge population boom in Los Angeles and over half a million residents are now living in L.A. and the city's growing.
00:33:19
So does the need for water. But it's we're in a desert, you know, so there's a bunch of drought.
00:33:25
City planners wanted Los Angeles to become a major American metropolis, like these people who had money in and stake in the city growing.
00:33:34
And that could but that could only be achieved if there is water, you know. Yeah. So greed. Right. Great. Great. Oh, I thought you said and greed. Yes. And greed.
00:33:48
Greed is a big part of it. Yes. I need to make that point. Greed and water. What more does one want?
00:33:53
So this dude, Fred Eaton, he's the mayor now and he used to be the superintendent of the Los Angeles
00:33:58
Water Company. And so he fucking knocks on the door of the new superintendent of the water company
00:34:04
and that and he's like, let's build an aqueduct. Like, that's how we get water to the city.
00:34:09
And that new superintendent is William Mulholland. Oh, I've heard of him. Yeah, you have.
00:34:16
So, you know, like Mulholland Drive, everyone knows. So let me do a quick sidebar on William Mulholland.
00:34:21
He's got this fancy storied fucking life. So William Mulholland, he's born in Belfast.
00:34:26
Aye. Yeah. And in 1855, he's born into a family of modest means and he leaves home at 15 with his brother
00:34:33
and they go to America. And he ends up in LA around 1878 at 23 years old. He's got $10 in his
00:34:41
pocket. So he gets a job in LA as a Zonjaro, which is digging those wells in what is now
00:34:47
Compton. And he uses his downtime while he's not working a fucking crazy job with manual labor
00:34:55
because he's really interested in engineering. So he starts studying engineering, geology,
00:35:00
hydrology and mathematics you know as you do weekend stuff casual stuff it was like the 1857 version of 100%
00:35:10
hotter what do you think of this engineer on the street with their scarves I'm thirsty
00:35:16
there's no water please just give me a glass of water so he actually becomes a self-taught engineer
00:35:25
which doesn't seem like it should be a thing it should not be a thing Well, that's fucking some, what's it called right there?
00:35:33
Foreshadowing. Thank you. Yeah. So for the next 20 years, Mulholland rises through the ranks at the water company.
00:35:40
He becomes a foreman and then it comes to superintendent until 1902 when the city officially
00:35:46
forms what becomes known as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, what you and
00:35:50
I pay every fucking month. And he named the chief engineer which is super impressive However I feel like maybe as a surgeon or there certain jobs you don want self You want a paper degree that says you learned all of it right
00:36:10
Yeah. And that people who already knew everything taught it to you, not you taught it to you.
00:36:15
That's right. And you're like, I got everything. I got all of it. And you're like, how do you know
00:36:19
that? Oh, it's me, Bill Mulholland. I know everything. Oh, okay. I bet he was really tall.
00:36:25
So everyone would just listen to everything. Yeah. Yeah. It always happens with tall guys.
00:36:29
I think even as a young man, he looked like a grizzly old man and people believe him, you know?
00:36:33
Yeah. So he earns a good reputation when his projects are built under budget and ahead of schedule, which I also think is bad.
00:36:41
Like, take your time and use the money and build it right. Like, don't make it quick and cheap.
00:36:46
Right. Yeah. He's he's he's like a sellout engineer because usually engineers are like, no, it has to be right.
00:36:52
And that means if we go over budget or over schedule, it still has to be right. He's like, hey, guys.
00:36:58
Hey, money men. Are you happy? Then I'm happy. Exactly. Doesn't matter. And one of those projects that he got a good reputation for includes friend of the podcast,
00:37:07
the Silver Lake Reservoir in 1906. Oh, would you agree? I think it's a friend of the pot.
00:37:14
I think it is a friend of the pot. It is Silver Lake Reservoir. Yeah. They were at our live show.
00:37:21
That's right. So back to the water wars. Mulholland is now tasked to transport water.
00:37:27
They look for water where they can divert it from a certain part of the state and bring it to L.A.
00:37:31
And they find that in the lush Owens Valley, which is located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.
00:37:37
It's about 200 miles away. Looks like it's right on the Nevada border, basically.
00:37:42
So, you know, it's over where over where no one goes ever. Exactly. Where you have to drive through to get to Vegas and it looks really hot and deserty.
00:37:48
Yeah. So meanwhile, though, the United States Reclamation Service, which was responsible for settling the Owens Valley, which is this like lush place where lots of things grow and people are fucking thriving.
00:38:02
They they had settled the Owens Valley in the late 19th century with farmers and ranchers.
00:38:08
And they are like, we're going to use the Owens Lake to build irrigation systems to help these farmers in the area.
00:38:13
Like we're going to grow this area. Yeah, we have plants. It's our it's our water and we're making plants for it.
00:38:18
Exactly. So there's this whole water war over who's going to get that Owens Valley water.
00:38:24
I mean, that's a whole book in itself. So I'm not going to do it justice. Read me the book.
00:38:29
OK, page one. Unfortunately for the farmers and the ranchers and the people who live there,
00:38:37
this dude Eaton has extensive political contacts, of course, including the president of the United States.
00:38:42
And he and Mulholland aren't above using dubious tactics like bribery and deception.
00:38:47
So after these fucking long water wars and by the end of 1905, they're able to acquire enough land and water rights in Owens Valley to block the irrigation project.
00:39:00
And they are going to build their aqueduct. Wow. And when this canal project goes public, people fucking lose their shit because everyone in
00:39:11
LA knew that like their livelihood and them staying there and working and building families
00:39:16
and more people coming to Los Angeles depended on this water. So finally, you know, there's a front page headline that Los Angeles finally has water.
00:39:24
People celebrate property and real estate prices the day it's announced double within
00:39:29
a day. Wow. Yeah. People are just squirting hoses straight up into the air. Right. Use it all you want. We got more coming.
00:39:38
Exactly. And so in 1907, with a budget of twenty three million dollars, which I looked it up and you can't even go that far back.
00:39:45
You could only go to 1913 on this calculator. I didn't I didn't look for another one, which I just realized I could have.
00:39:51
That would have been six hundred million dollars in 1913. Jesus. Yeah. But don't worry. Mahone won't use it all. You know how.
00:39:59
Yeah, that's right. He loves to come in under budget. That's right. So construction begins on the aqueduct in 1907. Around 4,000 laborers work at top speed. They use new technologies like, for example, a caterpillar tractor. Fucking new thing.
00:40:17
Wow. They set records for miles tunneled and pipe cut, which I wrote, which is like, slow down, guys, get this right.
00:40:24
also how hideously were they abusing those manual laborers that oh my god making record that's yeah
00:40:32
in the desert so they're working under the fucking blaring sun in the desert there's no such thing
00:40:37
as bottled water not even dasani yeah everyone's least least favorite water not even dasani it
00:40:45
tastes like plastic dasani and it is really i mean once i started looking into this and like
00:40:51
looking at photos and, you know, reading about it. It is a really impressive feat.
00:40:55
It's 200 miles that they were able to take from this lake in Owens Valley to the San Fernando
00:41:04
Valley. And in 1913, construction of the 200, it's 223 mile aqueduct is finished in 1913.
00:41:11
At the time of completion, it's the world's longest aqueduct and the largest single water
00:41:16
project in the world. Yeah. So it's super fucking impressive. It's a self-taught kid from fucking Belfast who made it happen.
00:41:26
He becomes this big hero. And while we're talking about it, Derry is not Belfast, although it's also in Northern Ireland.
00:41:34
And just call it Derry. Okay. I needed a pick-me-up the other night when I was watching TV alone, which I know I said I don't do.
00:41:44
So I started watching Derry Girls again. Yeah. It's just so comforting. It's so comforting.
00:41:48
It's the greatest. So the city of Los Angeles is stoked you know something like 40 people come to see the dam get you know turned on the thing What am I doing right now You doing some bathtub Exactly Turners
00:42:05
They turn on the faucet. The faucet. Oh, a big faucet. They open the big faucet.
00:42:10
During the opening ceremony, Mulholland famously says to them, there it is. Take it.
00:42:16
About the water. There it is. Take it. You know, which is like so I think he got a really big head and became really cocky about
00:42:24
all the things he could do. And it almost is like he's godlike, where he's giving them this essential
00:42:30
thing. Yeah, he made it happen. He made it happen. And it's true. A lot of people credit him
00:42:38
with Los Angeles becoming what it was, because it wouldn't have without the water.
00:42:44
And he should also be credited for how bad people have allergies here, because it's the water that then made the non-native plants get brought in.
00:42:52
And there's all kinds of weird plant combinations here that don't make sense. And you could have no allergies your whole life.
00:42:58
And you move to L.A., you're screwed. Yeah, I have them. But damn you, Mulholland.
00:43:04
Mulholland. Next time your hay fever hits, Stephen, that's Mulholland talking through your nose.
00:43:11
He was a great order. He was a great nasal order. Is that the right word? Okay. He becomes this local hero.
00:43:18
and Los Angeles is able to overcome its drought issues and virtually overnight becomes a boomtown.
00:43:25
The San Fernando Valley is transformed from a grain raising community dependent on the rainfall,
00:43:31
essentially for water. It becomes an empire and quickly becomes one of the richest agricultural
00:43:36
communities in the nation. Wow. So a lot of people make a fucking shit ton of money, essentially.
00:43:42
Because they had this is where they had at least I know when I lived in Burbank, like it was all citrus groves.
00:43:49
It was like tons and tons of orange and lemon groves. Yeah, I grew up in Orange County.
00:43:54
And that's why it's called that. Yeah. But meanwhile, back in Owens Valley and by 1924, so much water has been diverted from the area that the actual lake, Owens Lake, is drying up and the agriculture economy is fucked in the valley because they don't have access to the water anymore.
00:44:13
Yeah. And a group of pissed off farmers start to protest. And one of the things they do is that they use dynamite and blow up parts of the aqueduct, not just to sabotage it, but so they can get the water.
00:44:24
Like they blow up certain parts to get the water to start, you know, flowing to their areas.
00:44:29
Yeah. And, you know, there's all these like underhanded things like they won't, you know, Los Angeles County won't give the farmers an adequate payment for their land.
00:44:41
So they don't want to sell and they're threatened. And it's just like this. It's it's really shady and underhanded.
00:44:48
So there's just all kinds of legal action going on. And there's it's really that's that's what the water war is.
00:44:53
And because of the water wars and the aqueduct controversy and the fact that, you know, he realizes that his aqueduct could be sabotaged really easily and they'd be screwed.
00:45:06
So he thinks, you know, what we need to do is make these kind of these smaller storage systems closer to Los Angeles so that if something happens to Owens Lake or the Owens Valley Aqueduct, we'll have, you know, these little pockets of water that can sustain us while we fix it.
00:45:23
Hmm. So, so in the early 1920s, he starts to build major reservoirs closer to L.A. with concrete dams.
00:45:33
There's the one where rich people live above in Hollywood, the Hollywood Hills. Oh, yeah.
00:45:39
Yeah. I went to a rich person's party once and saw that. And it's gorgeous. It's just this like a beautiful reservoir.
00:45:46
The Hollywood Reservoir with you can walk around it and it's actually like being in nature.
00:45:50
Right. In the very middle of Hollywood. It's crazy. Right. And you can see the Hollywood sign from there, right?
00:45:56
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of right below there. Okay. And that's the one that when there was a drought here, what was that, like six years ago or something when it was really bad.
00:46:05
And I would go up there to take my dogs to that dog park, which is now no longer a dog park, sadly.
00:46:10
But I would come over that hill and that reservoir would be going down and down.
00:46:14
And my anxiety and panic was constantly going up based on the water level until a man at the dog park explained to me that that is not drinking water.
00:46:23
And it's actually not really used that way. So don't worry about that. Don't worry about the reservoir.
00:46:28
I was like, thanks. He's like, excuse me, miss. I've been seeing your face every time you come here and you look sadder and sadder.
00:46:35
You are freaking out and you don't need to take a deep breath. Here's the bottle of Dasani.
00:46:41
Don't worry. It's me, Dan Dasani, here to comfort you about the reservoir. It's the season of plenty.
00:46:49
Okay, so he built that. And then he's like, another one we need to build is in the San Francisco Canyon, which is 40.
00:46:56
It's a canyon that's 47 miles away from LA. And he's going to name it the St. Francis Dam.
00:47:02
So it took that long to get to our dam. And the reason why it's there. Construction begins in 1924.
00:47:09
and in his haste. And with he has this kind of, Mulholland has this confidence in his abilities
00:47:15
so much that he is just like plows through making this dam. He breaks ground without extensive
00:47:22
consultation with geological experts. It's just like here and, you know, points to a place and
00:47:27
they start building a dam. That's not true, but something like that. And essentially Mulholland,
00:47:33
he also keeps raising the height of the dam as they're building it. So it keeps going up by like
00:47:38
10 feet of what the plans were, but they don't widen the base of the dam to match that.
00:47:46
And so it's super dangerous and it fucks with the structural soundness of the dam.
00:47:51
So when the dam is completed in 1926, it's able to hold 12 billion gallons of water from
00:47:56
the aqueduct. So the water from the aqueduct goes there. There's 12 billion gallons.
00:48:00
of water. And it's enough for two years worth of reservoir water in case something happens.
00:48:04
And the main structure reached a height of 205 feet of this concrete, these concrete walls damming
00:48:10
this lake. And it spans 700 feet. And you can look at there's so many photos, which is fascinating
00:48:16
of before and after the disaster. And it is it's huge. It's like, I think it was like the precursor
00:48:23
to the Hoover Dam. Oh, wow. So it's a big fucking giant concrete structure. And the Hoover Dam,
00:48:29
I can assure you was built by college educated engineers. That's exactly right, Karen.
00:48:36
I mean, this is a guess for sure, but I would bet my arm on it because what in the fuck are you doing?
00:48:43
Building something that big, right? With, with no, I mean, but at the same time,
00:48:47
like the aqueduct never fell. None of the other structures fell. It was just, yeah,
00:48:52
but aren't aqueducts, don't they just go flat along the ground? They're just taking the water and running it as opposed to like,
00:48:58
barriers. Yeah, no, you're totally right. I realize I'm being highly critical of Bill
00:49:03
Mulholland. I'm not on his side. Seriously. I'm not going to argue for him. This is hubris. I'm
00:49:09
seeing it. And I know where this ends. It is hubris. So over the next two years, cracks and
00:49:15
seepage appear in the dam. But inspections show that they're all within normal range for a dam
00:49:19
the size of St. Francis. So they're just sealed up and patched. But on the morning of March 12th,
00:49:25
1928, the dam keeper named Tony Harnischfeger, he discovers a new leak during his morning inspection.
00:49:33
And this leak worries him because the leak has blood in it. There's a finger sticking out of the hole.
00:49:45
Oh, coming from the no. There's a ghost sound. There's a ghost in the fucking dam.
00:49:53
There's a damn ghost. No, because the water is muddy, which means that the water is eroding the foundation of the dam and bringing up like the muddy water.
00:50:03
And so he calls out Mulholland. Mulholland comes to the dam. He takes a look and he and his assistant are like, nope, looks good to us. All is fine.
00:50:11
And they take off and go back to Los Angeles. But Tony, the dam keeper, and as well as the powerhouse workers who live in the nearby hydroelectric power plants nearby.
00:50:22
And so there are these powerhouse workers who live there. And the farmers who live in the small towns in the valley below, they're not convinced.
00:50:30
Like they can just see that something ain't right. And they can also see that the mountain above is soaked in water.
00:50:36
So workers start joking. See you later if the dam don't break. Like it becomes a joke.
00:50:41
And one farmer is so wary that he sleeps in his barn with the door open. So that same night.
00:50:48
Why not just get out of town? You know what? That's a great point. I really wish they had.
00:50:54
But at the same time, it's like they almost live in a rural area. You know, it's so far away from anything, especially with those little cars they had.
00:51:04
Right. So on that same night, the night when Mulholland was like, all looks good.
00:51:10
It's fine. I'm going back home to eat an expensive dinner. The concrete begins to shatter.
00:51:15
No surviving human sees the dam break at about 11.58 p.m. The dam keeper, Tony, who lives in a small cottage right below the dam with his six year old son, Cotter, and his girlfriend, Leona Johnson, are speculated as the first victims.
00:51:37
So Leona's body is later found fully clothed and wedged between two blocks of concrete near the base of the dam, which suggests that she and Tony may have been inspecting the structure right before it collapsed.
00:51:50
Oh, my God. So seconds later, as the water rushes from the dam, nearby power lines are swept away, leaving the whole canyon without power and in total darkness.
00:52:02
the residents of the San Francisco Canyon are awoken to shaking and rumbling and some
00:52:09
mistake it for an earthquake. We're in California, you know. However, within moments,
00:52:14
the canyon is filled with 12.6 billion gallons of rushing water. And I've always pictured when I
00:52:22
heard this story in the past, I've always pictured like shanty towns, you know, it's like the 20s.
00:52:27
And you think it's just like, you know, tents and stuff. But no, these are you can see the photos.
00:52:32
These are communities of houses, of homes. Yeah. This is not just kind of, you know, pup tents and shit.
00:52:40
Right. It's not. Yeah. It's not like workers cabins that are just nearby. Exactly.
00:52:44
Yeah. Yeah. No, these are real homes. They're towns. They're towns. They're actual towns with infrastructure and with, you know, livelihoods.
00:52:53
So at 12.03 a.m., a wall of water more than 10 stories high sweeps into the community of 74 people at the powerhouse number two.
00:53:04
An LADWP employee, Ray Rising, who lives in that area with his wife and three daughters, remembers being asleep in his wood-framed house when he hears a roaring that he said sounds like a cyclone.
00:53:16
The water is so high they can't get out the front door and the house just disintegrates around them.
00:53:23
And Ray gets tangled with an oak tree. He swims to the surface. And then he gets wrapped with electrical wires.
00:53:29
He's able to grab the roof of another house that's floating by and jumps off. He gets onto the roof and he jumps off the roof when it floats by the hillside.
00:53:38
So he lands on the hillside. By himself? Uh-huh. He's standing there. He's got no clothes on.
00:53:45
It's a freezing cold night. There's, you know, no light because all the electricity went out.
00:53:50
And the only other person on the hill with him there is his neighbor Lillian Curtis Eiler and she is holding her three son What happened with Lillian is a few minutes before midnight Lillian had woken up in bed and noticed a strange mist
00:54:07
And she and her husband instantly knew it was the dam. I think it was a worry on everyone's mind.
00:54:12
And her husband shoved their son into her arms, pushed her through the window. And he's like, I'm going back in to save our daughters.
00:54:19
But he and his daughters are swept away with the rest of powerhouse, the powerhouse number two community.
00:54:27
And the concrete powerhouse itself gets swept away, which just tells you how strong, you know, this rushing water was.
00:54:36
And so the three lone survivors on this little hillside huddle together and wait for rescue.
00:54:42
Oh, my God. And you see this 200 feet tall dam completely collapses. It's not a hole that's punched in it.
00:54:54
There's one structure in the middle that people end up calling the tombstone. But on its right and left, these enormous concrete structures completely crumble.
00:55:05
And those big pieces of concrete also start flowing with the rushing water as well.
00:55:09
Oh, God. Yeah. So from there, the water continues to surge. It's rushing at a rate of 18 miles an hour.
00:55:17
And it's causing catastrophic damage to the towns of Castaic, Saugus, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Satecoi.
00:55:26
Wow. So, you know, when you're driving down the five to get the fuck out of town and you drive past Magic Mountain and all that shit on the right towns.
00:55:34
Yeah. Yeah. That's where it is. What's that called when you drive down the five?
00:55:38
um well i call that uh if i'm on my way up that's the first leg of the journey and if i'm on my way
00:55:45
home it's the last leg of the journey so it takes 45 minutes for the reservoir to empty completely
00:55:50
of water god the idea of 10 stories of water is very upsetting to me it's it's i really don't like
00:55:58
it fleshbloods are a big fear of mine yeah and rightfully so i mean they're it's horrifying and
00:56:05
But that idea, because it's like they didn't even have skyscrapers that tall or buildings that tall.
00:56:13
I mean, I guess they did in like downtown L.A. or whatever. But I mean, not there yet.
00:56:17
I don't think it's it's just like so monumental and horrifying. Yeah. And, you know, beyond like it's just that idea of all of a sudden something's happening that you could never imagine.
00:56:29
And in the middle of the night to wake up to that, you know, and to not know what it is or to I feel like it's worse to know what it is.
00:56:37
Yeah. Coming your way. Yep. Yeah. I mean, the chance of survival is tiny. Also, to see your neighbor naked would be I'm just and I know it's not as big of a deal.
00:56:51
Yeah. But it just be like, did she just go, hey, look, we just lived. Who cares?
00:56:55
Get over here. and I guess there wouldn't be any there wouldn't be an awkward moment if you both
00:56:59
if you and your son and your neighbor are the only people in your town that live through something
00:57:05
that you'd just be like deep shock yeah you'd have to be in deep shock beyond it's horrifying
00:57:11
it hurts because I think of so many people who woke up and immediately their lives are over you know their entire
00:57:19
the house disintegrating around you is such a crazy visual because also it's water is so powerful yeah it's scary right you have to think of it like that where it's not
00:57:31
like no you just swim to the surface no and it's carrying so much debris it's carrying all the
00:57:36
houses and all the cars and the concrete from the dam with it and wires and it's just it's
00:57:44
horrifying and it takes 45 minutes for the reservoir to empty so this fucking flood is
00:57:49
happening for 45 minutes and 12.4 billion gallons of water flood the canyon and the Santa Clara
00:57:57
River Valley. Residents who are able to get out of their house in time, grab onto whatever they can.
00:58:03
It's said that a woman, some people see a woman on top of a water tank dressed in evening wear.
00:58:10
I know a woman and her three children hold onto a feather mattress as it's swept away in the flood
00:58:15
for two miles. They hold on to it. A man named William Spring swims a mile with his infant around
00:58:22
his neck, holding his infant while his wife had climbed up an orange tree and just stayed there
00:58:28
until she was rescued. A man named Cliff Corwin of Fillmore, he's trying to outdrive the flood in
00:58:34
his car when it picks him up, picks his car up. And he had a passenger with him, I guess. And the
00:58:40
passenger said, quote, I won't be caught like a rat in a trap and jumps out of the car and is killed.
00:58:45
but Cliff himself stays inside the car until it almost completely fills with water and then he
00:58:51
hangs under the hood and he is carried to safety oh thank god I know five sorry that just reminds
00:58:58
me of remember the tsunami and that video of the car that did that's driving like this and then has
00:59:04
to do a three-point turn really fast and it just is staying on the edge in the front of oh the
00:59:09
Japanese tsunami. God, yeah. Horrifying. So five miles downstream in Kemp, a group of 150 workers for the Edison Company are asleep in their tent camp.
00:59:21
So the night watchman, this guy named Ed Locke, he sees the flood coming. He tries to wake up as many people as he can in their tent.
00:59:29
And 84 workers die of the 150 workers. workers and that people who do survive they survived because they had zipped up their tents
00:59:38
and they were able to float like what the fuck are the chances oh that because also that's such a
00:59:46
zipping up your tent is like i just don't want this to be happening right or like maybe it works
00:59:51
earlier in the night or whatever oh oh like you just never got rid of it right i thought it was like a reaction of like unzipping oh no way Later days Yeah Wow That amazing And as Locke himself dies and he considered one of the
01:00:05
bigger heroes of the disaster. Yeah. God. The first official alarm is sounded at 1.20 a.m.
01:00:12
via the Pacific Long Distance Telephone Company. So there's telephone operators,
01:00:17
Louise Geip, and she's in Santa Paula and Resell Jones in Sadekoy. I don't even think of the fact
01:00:23
that they were in the flood zone. So they were potential victims themselves. But they refused to leave their post
01:00:32
and start calling residents in lower areas to warn them to get the fuck out of their house
01:00:36
and flee to higher ground. They're later nicknamed the Hello Girls for some reason.
01:00:43
Oh, that just gave me chills. Like they understood what was happening and tried to call everybody.
01:00:47
Yeah. Holy shit. Wake up, get the fuck. So they probably saved so many lives because they called the people that were like further down.
01:00:56
Oh, my God. One of those operators, the woman, Louise, she calls this dude Thornton Edwards.
01:01:01
He's a California Highway Patrol officer. And he becomes known as the Paul Revere of St. Francis of the St. Francis flood because he goes door to door.
01:01:10
He's in his he's on his motorcycle blaring his siren, warns residents to get the fuck out.
01:01:14
And then also Deputy Sheriff Eddie Hearn rides his motorcycle up the Santa Clara River Valley toward the flood with his siren blaring, making people wake up and get the fuck out.
01:01:26
He makes it as far as Fillmore before he runs into the flood and gets swept away.
01:01:32
Many residents are able to rush to safety in the hills because of these two and the women operators.
01:01:38
And there's a monument to the officers in Santa Paula called the Watchers. Wow. Meanwhile, okay. Meanwhile, in the cozy, I'm sure opulent home of William Mulholland, the phone starts fucking ringing in the middle of the night. His daughter answers and she brings her dad the phone. And when he goes to reach for it, he says, quote, please, God, don't let people be killed. Please, God, don't let people be killed.
01:02:08
so like she must have been like the dam collapsed and he's immediately like you know yeah knows what's
01:02:15
knows what's happening the flood damages whole towns and farming communities for a 54 mile
01:02:20
stretch before emptying into the pacific ocean south of ventura whoa 54 miles uh at 5 30 a.m
01:02:29
with a wave still two miles wide and traveling at six miles an hour it's carrying debris and it's
01:02:36
also carrying bodies with it. It's thought that at least 500 people are killed. And that could be
01:02:42
anywhere between 500 and 1000, because there's a lot lots of people who were, you know, migrant
01:02:48
workers and undocumented. So it's hard to exactly say. And victims are recovered from the ocean,
01:02:54
as far south as the Mexican border. And many are never found, because they just got swept to sea.
01:03:01
the wave itself and the river it turned into was two miles wide. I mean, that's like, I can't even, I can't wrap my head around it.
01:03:15
The B school district in the area lost 13 of its 15 pupils. The Ruiz family, a family of farmers in the canyon that had been there since the mid-1800s,
01:03:26
They lose six family members, Rosario and Enrique Ruiz, and four of their children, age eight to 30.
01:03:35
And many of those who were hit the hardest were Mexican-American farm workers. And aside from the loss of life, there's also a huge devastation to the land.
01:03:44
And, you know, these are people's livelihoods. Over 1,200 homes are destroyed. Orchards are ripped from the ground.
01:03:51
Livestock are killed in the thousands. and the Red Cross quickly sets up a headquarters near the dam site
01:03:57
and men search the muddy debris as high as 20 feet in some places for survivors.
01:04:03
And there's actually video that you can see that people took of this, you know, silent video of them bringing bodies out of these cars from back then.
01:04:12
And so they sort through the rubble, volunteers wade through all of it to find bodies,
01:04:17
more bodies than survivors. And makeshift morgues are set up, some in the fucking local dance halls.
01:04:23
and crowds form at the morgue as people look for their loved ones. And, you know, they want to search through the night.
01:04:31
So actually Universal City Studios loan them giant spotlights to use. Oh. A 10-year-old girl is found under brush still alive.
01:04:41
She had been carried 10 miles from her home. Oh, my God. Yeah. She lived. She lived.
01:04:47
It's said that a baby thought to be dead starts crying at the morgue. She's still alive.
01:04:53
and a man is found stuck in the mud up to his neck still alive and a 12 year old girl is found
01:05:00
by her neighbor in a tree and she's naked yeah so news and aerial photos of the collapsed dam
01:05:07
spreads across the nation people fucking lose their shit um it's a relief fund is set up
01:05:12
and telegrams and monetary donations roll in from all over the country and then so the
01:05:17
investigation starts at least a dozen official inquiry panels by the federal state county and
01:05:22
city government are immediately set up to investigate the collapse. And eventually,
01:05:26
there's so much, of course, the collapse is attributed to four factors, unsuitability of
01:05:32
the foundation. And so actually, they later find out that there had been an ancient paleolithic
01:05:37
landslide on the exact spot where the dam had been built, which there was no way to know that,
01:05:43
actually. And then an uplift thing is called an inadequate design. So ultimately, a coroner's
01:05:53
inquest determines who responsible for the disaster And during the inquest William Mulholland says and he okay so he does seem genuinely devastated by He must be It all his fault He knows it And he takes responsibility
01:06:10
He says, quote, whether it is good or bad, don't blame anyone else. You just fasten it on me.
01:06:16
If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human. I won't try to fasten it on anyone else.
01:06:22
Which is like, yeah, you're to blame. But it's also like, I can't imagine someone these days taking that much responsibility for their obvious mistake.
01:06:30
Right. You know, it's it's very laudable for sure. Yeah. So the inquest decides that Mulholland and the governmental organizations that oversaw the dam's construction are at fault, but they clear Mulholland of any charges. But they do. They're basically like construction and operation of a great dam should never be left to the sole judgment of one person, no matter how eminent that person is. So like you got to get a second opinion, essentially.
01:06:56
William Mulholland, who's been looked upon as Los Angeles's savior for so long, is now seen as a murderer.
01:07:04
People fucking turn on him. People across the region even put up signs in their windows that read, kill Mulholland.
01:07:11
Oh, my God. So he's devastated. He retires from the Bureau of Water Works and Supply in 1928.
01:07:18
His reputation is ruined. He retreats into a life of semi-isolation. His granddaughter, Catherine, says she remembers him sitting in silence at family gatherings, just lost in his thought.
01:07:29
He dies in 1935 of a stroke at the age of 79. The victims are compensated for lost lives and land.
01:07:38
And by 1931, the tragedy is pretty much completely swept under the rug. And in fact, there's a book about California water that doesn't even mention the disaster.
01:07:49
Wow. Yeah. In later years, Mulholland's reputation is restored and the Mulholland Dam in the Hollywood Hills, Mulholland Drive, Mulholland Highway and the William Mulholland Memorial Fountain in Los Feliz, the pretty colorful one.
01:08:02
Yeah. Are all named in his honor. There are still remains of the St. Francis Dam that are like weathered, broken chunks of gray concrete at the site where the dam was that you can see today.
01:08:14
Wow. Isn't that creepy? On a positive note, in response to disaster, the California legislature creates a dam safety program and soon has some of the strictest oversight laws in the country.
01:08:26
In 1929, the California legislature also passes laws to regulate civil engineering, smart, and creates the State Board of Registration for Civil Engineers.
01:08:36
And there is no more self-taught engineers. Good. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. The collapse of the St. Francis Dam is considered to be one of the worst American civil engineering disasters of the 20th century and remains the second greatest loss of life in California history, right behind the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
01:08:57
Wow. The exact death toll remains unknown. Recent estimates say it's around a thousand. And since original counts didn't include the number of Mexican-American migrant workers or transients, remains of victims continued to be discovered in that whole fucking area every few years until the mid-1950s.
01:09:16
Wow. So they continued to find bodies. The remains of one victim is found deep underground near Newhall in 1992.
01:09:24
Oh, my God. And other bodies believed to be victims of the disaster are found in the late 1970s and in 1994.
01:09:32
And that is the story of the St. Francis Dam disaster. Wow. Amazing. Sorry, that was so long.
01:09:41
There's just so much fucking information. Well, also, yeah, you needed kind of the backstory.
01:09:45
But wow. That's incredible. Thank you. It's amazing. Yeah. Why is it always chaos when we link up?
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01:10:34
Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
01:10:41
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's
01:10:46
audiobook Project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what
01:10:54
happens when you wake up alone very far from earth. I really had to make a decision because
01:10:59
I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some
01:11:04
of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about
01:11:08
it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the
01:11:13
listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book
01:11:19
that deeply emotionally affected me, and I left it on the mic. That's great. Because it served the story.
01:11:26
People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.
01:11:29
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Data accurate is of 220-26. All right. It had been so long since I've done a survivor story that I figure it was high time, that I needed one personally and emotionally and morally.
01:12:50
And I can't go back to my old, the old ever loving well of I Survived stories because now I Survived has its own podcast.
01:13:01
They basically have taken all those stories and there's an I Survived podcast. So and now you can just go and hear firsthand the people tell their own stories.
01:13:09
I was I was the bandaid in between the time where the people from I Survived understood this was a needed thing.
01:13:17
It's happening. You're welcome, America. Yeah. So go listen to the real firsthand. I survived stories because there's so many. There's so many good ones. So when I was looking for this, I was looking for one I'd never heard of before that and that wouldn't count as an I survived story because there's there's a couple of them that are so unbelievable that they haven't only been on I survived.
01:13:39
Yeah, right. They've been on like, you know, a couple other different kinds of shows. Yeah. This is one I had not heard of. It's the girl in the bunker. It's the survival story of Elizabeth Shoff. Have you heard of this one? No. Okay. I'm I'm I get it. Let's do it.
01:13:56
So sources for this are the state newspaper that's in Columbia, South Carolina, A&E.com, the Inside Dateline blog on MSNBC.com, LA Times, Wikipedia.
01:14:11
Did I say that? Today.com and the Lifetime movie, The Girl in the Bunker. Yes. Starring Henry Thomas.
01:14:21
Who's that? Henry Thomas, Elliot from E.T. As an adult or as a kid? adult he it's a recent movie oh he played he plays the bad guy creep and he's really good at it it
01:14:33
made me really sad how good he was at it oh because i love i mean he was one of my first
01:14:37
great loves sure is elliot from et i was just like why do i love him so much when he was dying
01:14:44
i was dying totally okay so it's september 6 2006 and 14 year old elizabeth shove has just
01:14:52
gotten off a school bus and she's walking up her driveway. And so her driveway basically runs
01:14:58
through this wooded area. It's a very rural area where she lives. It's outside the unincorporated
01:15:03
community of Lugoff, which is the population is just over 8,300 in South Carolina. So she's about
01:15:12
halfway up her driveway and she hears a man call out her name and she looks over and there's a man
01:15:19
in a sheriff's uniform standing alone in the woods. Nightmare. Nightmare. Just any uniform alone in the woods.
01:15:29
No. Yeah. And he calls her by name, Elizabeth, and he waves her over. And so she complies because it's a person in uniform.
01:15:39
Totally. She's a 14-year-old girl, and she asks what he wants, and he explains that he's with the Kershaw County Sheriff's Department
01:15:47
and that she's under arrest. And she is totally confused and asks why and is really freaked out.
01:15:56
But he's already handcuffing her with her hands behind her back. He tells her that the sheriff's department has found a bunch of marijuana plants at the house
01:16:06
and that she's in a lot of trouble. So she's really freaked out, confused, scared.
01:16:12
But she also asked to see her little brother who's already home. He gets home before her.
01:16:17
And they're home by themselves after school because their mom works. So the officer starts walking her through the woods and says, that's where I'm taking you to him right now.
01:16:26
But they walk further and further away from the house and she starts to realize that something is really wrong.
01:16:35
At one point, they are walking along a riverbank and he makes a point of keeping her off of the sand so that her footprints aren't in the sand and his aren't either.
01:16:45
and she starts to realize there's something really wrong. So she finally gets up the courage to ask him where they're going.
01:16:53
And he stops and tells her, you know, I'm not a policeman. Like 14 is that perfect age of being naive
01:17:03
and starting to have an understanding of the world. Yep. But you're still so young.
01:17:10
My niece is 13 and she is so young, but she's like, but she's kind of, you know, she's definitely getting more mature by the second.
01:17:20
But they're still their babies. They really are like they really are. Totally. So at this point, he puts a collar device around her neck and tells her that it's a bomb and that if she tries to run or get away at any point, he'll detonate it and she'll be dead.
01:17:38
She says she won't and that she'll comply. When he asks her if she's a virgin, she's so scared she can only nod.
01:17:46
So when Madeline Shove calls from work to check on her kids like she usually does every day,
01:17:52
Elizabeth little brother tells her that Elizabeth hasn come home yet And Madeline doesn think much of it and says she going to call back She check back in a little while So when she calls back a couple hours later and Elizabeth
01:18:05
still isn't home, she knows that something's really wrong. So she leaves work. She tells
01:18:10
Bobby to walk down the driveway to see if for some reason Elizabeth is down there like hanging
01:18:15
out with her friends. And because she has a friend who lives across the street. When he does,
01:18:20
he sees Elizabeth's friend walking down her driveway too. She's looking for Elizabeth as well
01:18:26
because Madeline called the friend to say, do you know where she is? And so basically they started
01:18:30
looking for her. So Madeline gets home, calls the police. She waits for over an hour for someone to
01:18:37
show up at her house. And when no one shows up, she calls back and finds out only to find out that
01:18:43
they had gotten the county wrong and they had sent an officer to another county. So finally,
01:18:51
after several hours, an officer shows up only to tell Madeline that she's overreacting.
01:18:56
He says that most teenagers run away for a day or two. No parents ever think their kids the type
01:19:03
who would run away. Elizabeth's probably at a friend's house or off with her boyfriend somewhere.
01:19:08
and Madeline's trying to convince him, no, this is not her at all. Every day she comes home and takes care of her little brother, makes him food.
01:19:16
Like, this is not her at all. And the guy says, it's, you know, I see this all the time.
01:19:22
Don't worry about it. He explains he can't put out an Amber Alert for her because it's too soon.
01:19:28
He assures her Elizabeth will come back and he leaves. So we're back in the forest.
01:19:34
after walking for more than an hour Elizabeth's kidnapper stops at the side of a hill, reaches down
01:19:41
to the forest floor and pulls up a perfectly camouflaged door it's the hatch to a bunker
01:19:48
and there's a homemade ladder made of branches that lead down eight feet down into total
01:19:58
darkness and he makes her walk down into it and follows her Oh, my God. It's cold.
01:20:04
It's pitch black. As her eyes adjust, she sees it's a 15-foot long space that's dug into the forest floor.
01:20:13
So the floors are dirt. The walls are dirt. It's a six-foot ceiling. There's a well.
01:20:21
There's a bed. There's a stove with a chimney. And there's a battery-operated television.
01:20:28
The walls are lined with shelves that are stocked with canned goods, guns. other weapons, porn.
01:20:35
She would later say that it looked like something out of a nightmare. And now this man chains Elizabeth to the wall by her neck
01:20:42
and sits her on a man-made bed, a bed he fashioned out of branches, swimming floats, and comforters.
01:20:52
So it's really weird and janky and creepy. Elizabeth looks over and sees an inflatable doll in the corner.
01:21:02
and she starts to cry. But the man tells her there's no point in crying that she needs to get used to it
01:21:08
because this is how it's going to be for her now. He says that he's not going to hurt her
01:21:13
and very soon after that, he rapes her. So this man is 36-year-old Vincent Filia
01:21:20
and he's an unemployed construction worker whose father died when he was a year old.
01:21:26
So his mother remarries a man with a substance abuse problem And so Vincent begins his binge drinking at age 14, and he'll go on to be treated for alcohol abuse 10 different times.
01:21:38
And this is the drinking problem that ends up getting him fired from his job as a construction worker and will eventually leave him with alcohol induced brain damage.
01:21:48
So he's got he's got a bad drinking problem. And just a year before Elizabeth Shoff's kidnapping, he is charged with sexual assault of a 12 year old girl.
01:21:59
But when the authorities go to arrest him, he's nowhere to be found. So the authorities assume he left the state, but it turned out he was right under their noses the entire time and their feet.
01:22:12
Mm hmm. OK, so obviously after a couple of days, the police begin a search with this show.
01:22:19
Family keeps going back to them and saying, you have to start looking for our daughter.
01:22:23
So they put up they, you know, distribute flyers with her picture on it. And then they start doing searches and they start walking the forest.
01:22:32
And there is a point where they are sitting in the bunker and they can hear the searchers walking above them.
01:22:39
No. But it's so perfectly camouflaged that no one sees it or notices anything about the bunker at all.
01:22:48
So after five days of captivity, Elizabeth has built a bond with her captor. So this girl, she's 14. She's really innocent. She's really sheltered.
01:23:01
She is so fucking smart. Like, it's mind blowing. I don't know how she knew any of this stuff, but she knew that she needed to make sure that this guy knew she was a person.
01:23:13
So she would ask him what his interests were, and she would pretend to be super into what he was into, and she talked to him all the time.
01:23:21
And she basically slowly won his trust and established this bond with him. Wow. So, like, when they hear the searchers, he holds a gun to her head and tells her if she screams, he'll kill her.
01:23:35
And when the voices fade, she tells Vincent that she likes him and that she wants to be down there with him and she never would have screamed.
01:23:43
So she's basically, like, establishing this kind of, like, I like being here with you.
01:23:49
Like, you wanted me to be here with you. I want to be here with you. Yeah, getting him to trust her.
01:23:53
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. She soon builds enough trust with him that he lets her leave the bunker so that she can go take a bath and like wash dishes in a nearby pond And so yeah
01:24:05
So when she's there, she pulls out strands of her own hair and leaves it around the side of the pond so that if they ever have dogs searching in that forest, they'll be able to find her.
01:24:18
She also one time when she goes to the pond, leaves her shoes behind just in case someone might see her or the dog again.
01:24:25
If there's tracker dogs, that's so smart. It's genius. And then like when she's he says, where did your shoes go?
01:24:31
She's like, I, I, I must have left them at the pond. I can't find them. Like and he believes everything she says because she's so sweet and and innocent and like and and playing it so perfectly.
01:24:44
Yeah. The most genius thing and like of all the genius things she does, though, in this nightmare situation is building enough trust so that when she asks him if she can play a game on his phone, he lets.
01:24:57
Holy shit. Yeah. So she basically waits enough time and and, you know, basically builds the builds the trust enough.
01:25:09
And because she had gone to the pond and not run away. Yeah. So she'd done all these things and not done anything to break the trust.
01:25:16
She was convincing him that she liked him and that they had this kind of like a relationship.
01:25:21
How long after she had been there did she ask for the phone? Day five. Wow. So, or I believe day five or day six.
01:25:30
So she starts playing games on his phone. Now he figures, yeah, she didn't run. He can trust her.
01:25:35
And also there's, they don't have phone service in the bunker. Right. So it's not like he, she can't make a call.
01:25:41
So it's safe. Yeah. So she'll use his phone, play a game, give it back. And that's like a thing that he starts getting used to her doing.
01:25:49
So on the eighth night, when he's asleep, she climbs up the makeshift ladder and holds the phone out the bunker door and texts her mother.
01:26:01
Holy shit. Yep. She writes, it's so genius. She writes, hi, mom, I'm in a hole across from Charm Hill where the big trucks go in and out.
01:26:11
There's a bomb. call police. Can you imagine being a mother and getting that fucking text?
01:26:18
Especially after that amount of time where the police haven't helped you. They've argued you.
01:26:25
Then it turns out your child is missing. Then everything that happens is like they're not
01:26:31
finding anything. There's nothing coming of any of the searches. There's no results of anything.
01:26:36
And then suddenly she was actually on her way to a vigil that night. They'd started
01:26:41
holding vigils for her. She was headed out of the house for a vigil and she looked at her phone and
01:26:47
that text was on her phone. I mean, would she think it's a hoax or like someone messing with
01:26:51
her in the beginning? Well, no, she immediately was like, this is Lizzie. The family called her
01:26:56
Lizzie and she knew it was her because she knew it was her daughter. When she showed the police,
01:27:05
they called the police and showed the police. The first officer that came to the house said,
01:27:10
she might have like gone away with her friends and now she's trying to establish a lie to come
01:27:16
back. And at that point she was like, are you fucking kidding me? Like what? So, but then the
01:27:22
sheriff shows up and, and, and also the little brother, this actually happened in the lifetime
01:27:26
movie. I'm not sure if this is what was happened, what happened in real life, but it was a kind of
01:27:31
a genius moment in the lifetime movie because the first cop that says she might be trying to
01:27:35
establish like an alibi is going to call back on the phone and the little brother goes yeah isn't
01:27:41
that a bad idea because what if she's what if she took the phone and that's going to get her caught
01:27:45
and like and the cop's like oh i think i'm the one that's the policeman here and then when the
01:27:50
sheriff when the sheriff shows up he's like we don't want to call because that could put her in
01:27:54
danger and the little brother just looks the cop like um so they don't respond to the text um instead
01:28:00
they run the cell phone number and it comes up registered to a woman. And when they drive out to
01:28:07
the address of this woman's house, the sheriff recognizes the area. This is where they served
01:28:13
the warrant over a year ago for the child rapist who had fled. So they're now starting to put it
01:28:19
all together. So they end up searching the property while they continue to question the woman who
01:28:26
lives in the house. And it turns out that it's his girlfriend slash common law wife. And that
01:28:33
when they search the property, they find what they think is a trash, like a trash hole. And
01:28:39
she ends up telling them this is a bunker he dug here. And then they find there's like an abandoned
01:28:45
car somewhere on their property because it's all in this foresty area. And she admits that she'd
01:28:52
been leaving food for him. She'd been going and buying food for him and leaving in that abandoned
01:28:58
car for him to come and pick up. So now they know he's nearby. Oh, okay. So he'd been hiding out and
01:29:03
she'd been aiding and abetting him. Exactly. And so now they know he's within walking distance
01:29:08
because he's hiding out somewhere else, but near enough to come and get supplies.
01:29:13
Wow. So so but what they decide to do is they realize that the theory is that he's a coward. He's not he's going to run. And this is not he's you know, he's a child molester rapist.
01:29:30
But he's not a serial killer or whatever. So the chances are that if they leak this to the press, that the mother has actually gotten a text and that this girl might be somewhere alive and that they're going to go on a manhunt now, that he'll probably run.
01:29:47
And so that's what happens. They leak the story to the local press. Meanwhile down in the bunker when the 11 o news comes on Elizabeth and Vincent are watching on their weird little TV And he sees the entire report of Elizabeth mother got a text
01:30:05
Now the cops know that she's being held nearby. And now there's a huge manhunt on.
01:30:11
Of course, Vincent loses it. He's enraged. He's panicking. He's freaking out. And he's screaming at Elizabeth.
01:30:17
And she's like, I would never do that to you. It's so amazing. She convinces him that she didn't do it.
01:30:24
And she basically says, well, couldn't it be the woman that's leaving food for you?
01:30:29
How did you know about that? Oh, he told her that because she's getting the food.
01:30:33
Yeah. He like she knows everything. She's like in his life now. And so and basically she convinces him it's not her that she didn't do it.
01:30:42
And so then he's like he basically goes, well, then what should I do? And she and she says you should run because they're going to come and catch you and they can't catch you down here.
01:30:51
You should definitely run. Yeah. And so he does. He listens to the 14 year old girl and he collects.
01:30:59
What a gamble. He could have just fucking killed her in anger. Right. But but she's so smart. She's able to fucking.
01:31:05
She's so smart. And she later on on that. And it's a it's called Inside Dateline.
01:31:11
It's this blog on MSNBC dot com. And so she wrote a thing on there that was really it was so it was so young girl of her where she was like.
01:31:21
But she basically said he was really stupid. So she realized after a while that it wasn't like she didn't think he was going to be violent.
01:31:30
Like she thought all the things he was doing was kind of like out of desperation.
01:31:36
She realized she could outsmart him. And so she just knew basically she got him to do exactly what would get him caught.
01:31:45
So he took he took all his weapons and the pipe bombs that were down there and some night vision goggles.
01:31:52
And he told her, I really love you and I really want to marry you. And she was like, yeah, I totally want to marry you, too.
01:32:02
And he's like, OK, well, I'm going to run. But then I'm going to I'm going to find a way to come back to you.
01:32:06
And she was like, OK, sounds great. You better go. And he's like, don't leave here until tomorrow morning.
01:32:12
And also, while she had been staying there with him the whole time, he was telling her how the whole thing was booby trapped.
01:32:18
The whole bunker was booby trapped. Oh, my God. And that there were bombs and different things everywhere all around.
01:32:24
So even if the police did come, you know, he could make it blow up. So he leaves and then she waits until the next morning and then she comes out of the bunker.
01:32:36
now meanwhile the morning of september 16th authorities had set up a line search and they
01:32:43
were walking the woods to because they knew that she was somewhere in the vicinity when they hear
01:32:48
someone yelling help they find elizabeth standing alone outside the bunker and the officer got who
01:32:55
got to her first and she was like be careful there could be bombs it could be booby trapped
01:32:59
as he was like running toward her um and he later was quoted as saying i received credit many times
01:33:05
for saving her and i did not that child saved herself vincent philia is found the same day
01:33:14
kneeling on the side of interstate 20 in richland county so he just basically went and gave himself
01:33:20
up and got arrested wow holy shit at his trial uh moments before his trial happens he pleads
01:33:30
guilty to kidnapping, 10 counts of first degree criminal sexual assault, two counts of second
01:33:35
degree sexual assault, possession of explosives, attempted armed robbery, and impersonating a
01:33:41
police officer. And he is sentenced to 421 years in prison. And at his sentencing, the judge told
01:33:49
Phil Yaw, this position requires I be the conscience of the community and the community
01:33:54
is outraged by your acts. Many people have difficult paths and they don't commit the heinous
01:34:00
crimes you committed. You have preyed upon helpless victims with violence and in a savage manner.
01:34:06
Good luck to you, sir. Wow. And then, on that MSNBC Dateline blog, the great Keith Morrison writes
01:34:16
this about his experience interviewing both Elizabeth and Vincent for the two-hour Dateline special
01:34:24
episode. They interviewed him? They interviewed both. They interviewed him from jail and they
01:34:29
interviewed her. Whoa. They did a whole thing about this whole case. And here's what Keith
01:34:34
Morrison said. When Vincent snatched Elizabeth, just 14 years old, she had never dated a boy,
01:34:41
never once spent even a single night away from home without a family member. She was taken by
01:34:47
a wily wolf of a man who had just spent the better part of a year eluding the efforts of
01:34:52
law enforcement. She endured unspeakable horrors, faced what seemed to her certain death, and she
01:34:58
prevailed. The contrast Vincent to Elizabeth was quite remarkable. Where his story was self-serving,
01:35:05
claims shifting back and forth to suit whatever version he was trying to sell, Elizabeth was open
01:35:11
and brutally candid. Where his fearsome behavior wilted in the presence of a television crew,
01:35:16
Elizabeth seemed to gain strength from telling the experience and having come through it with her dignity and humanity fully intact.
01:35:25
She smiled a smile to light up the room. Every once in a while, a dark tale turns out well, and the worst in human behavior is overcome by the best, which is why it was quite an honor to tell the story of Elizabeth Shoof.
01:35:42
and that is the harrowing kidnapping story of Elizabeth Shoof the survivor 14 years old
01:35:53
14 years old oh she's so smart and strong Unbelievable. Oh, my God. Hell yes, girl.
01:36:04
That was great. Great job. Thank you. I needed that one. We held it. To find that Keith Morrison quote at the end.
01:36:13
I love him. God, those guys. Those Dateline guys. They're legends. Do you follow Josh Mankiewicz?
01:36:20
He's so funny on Twitter. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's my Twitter friend. Friend of the podcast.
01:36:25
Friend of the pod, Josh Mankiewicz. He's the greatest. Wow, great job. That was, yeah, I think we all needed that for sure.
01:36:32
Yeah, it's been a while. Speaking of it's been a while, should we do fucking hoorays?
01:36:36
Oh, yeah. This is from A underscore Gilchrist. Wanted to drop my fucking hooray here for y'all.
01:36:42
For years, my dad and I have been on separate sides of the Colin Kaepernick protest.
01:36:46
No matter what I said, he just always felt, quote, it wasn't the right venue. I don't want to talk about it.
01:36:53
I never gave up trying to help him to see, but I figured he was pretty set in his ways.
01:36:57
This morning, I got a text from him that said, quote, I was wrong. I was Drew Brees.
01:37:03
I didn't get cap. I do now. I cried and told him I was proud of him. He said, I'm proud of you.
01:37:10
So no matter how long it takes, no matter how uphill the battle seems, we must continue to push for our black community.
01:37:18
Pedal to the metal Love you guys Hashtag Black Lives Matter I love that Well mine is similar The subject line is Birmingham says fuck you and your Confederate memorial
01:37:29
This is from Shannon P. Hey there, murder pals. My fucking hooray is that in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, during their protests on Saturday, local DJ Funny Maine Johnson declared that it was the goal of himself and the crowd gathered there to finally tear down the Confederate memorial.
01:37:47
that has been an eyesore in Lynn Park for too long. This memorial has been surrounded by plywood for years
01:37:54
because last time folks tried to pull it down, that was the state's solution for protecting it, but also hiding it.
01:38:00
Kind of the perfect metaphor for American racism. Let's cover it up instead of dealing with it.
01:38:05
It is needed to go for far too long. After a few hours of protesters pulling away plywood,
01:38:11
the city's mayor, Randall Woodfin, entered the crowd to speak with Funny Main. He said he didn't want anyone to get hurt, so he would like for them to let him tear it down and promised it would be gone by Tuesday at noon.
01:38:25
They agreed and the crowd dispersed. True to Woodfin's word, the memorial was removed Monday night.
01:38:32
It's been the source of contention in the state for years. And the state's attorney general, Steve Marshall, said that he would sue if Birmingham tore it down.
01:38:41
What a dick. Woodfin said I don fucking care paraphrasing and tore it down anyway What a hero Both he and Funny Mane are I am so proud of these hometown heroes
01:38:52
right now. Hell yeah. That is, I love that that's happening everywhere. Yeah. People aren't messing around anymore.
01:39:00
It's so important. It's so important for dignity's sake. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that's
01:39:06
really good. Those are two nice ones. Please send us your fucking arrays. You can just comment on
01:39:12
our Twitter or our Instagram or send them in via the website. The fan cult. The fan cult.
01:39:19
That was good. Thanks for listening. Thanks for always being our rad friends. Yeah, I hope
01:39:25
everybody's doing good. Stay strong. Make sure you log off every once in a while and just,
01:39:32
you know, go sit by a tree if you possibly can. Please wear your masks. Please tell other people
01:39:39
to wear their masks but most of all stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis elvis you want a
01:39:47
cookie good boy that was right on the money why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody
01:39:55
plans anything bro good thing the rug's ready like that for real rain dirt whatever available
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