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Data accurate as of 220-26. Let me do this. Let me put this away. This and then that.
00:02:14
Phone is off. Okay. I'm going to scoot so I can see your face. I know. Okay. Good.
00:02:24
My favorite world Hello! Welcome back. Welcome back, everyone. It's season five.
00:02:46
We all took two months off together. What did you guys do on your spring break? Oh my God, we're on vacation.
00:02:51
Was it the best? Did you drive all around? Oh, my God. Did you have the top down and listen to Britney Spears?
00:02:55
Did you flip off cops? You nut. What are you doing? Don't do that. That's crazy.
00:03:01
Gosh. So it's been two months. No. Yes. Yeah. Since we recorded a real episode. Two full months. And that was wild. And I missed it.
00:03:12
It had been three years since we had taken a vacation. That's right. Since the very beginning of this podcast. Yeah.
00:03:19
We had not taken a meaningful break. Sure. I went home for Christmas. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:25
Once or twice. And we take a week off here and there and put up a live episode. Sure.
00:03:29
Which, by the way, we also had to do work on those shows, too. So it's not like we didn't work on those.
00:03:35
Yes. The live episodes are harder because you have to stand up the whole time and wear an outfit.
00:03:41
And be charming as best as you can. Keep an audience with you for a low, about two hours.
00:03:46
Sometimes four hours. I mean, it depends on what city we're in and how long we want to talk to those people.
00:03:51
And listen, if the hometown goes long, then the hometown goes long. We just stand there.
00:03:56
But here we back are. Yeah. Here we are back. We back are. I should let everyone know.
00:04:02
I just took a shot of Paul Holt's McClellan 12. That's right. We're here at the Exactly Right Studios.
00:04:08
That's right. That we share with Billy Jensen and Paul Holt's Murder Squad. Well, we let them record here.
00:04:14
We share the space. We share it. We lovingly share the space like family where you steal people's stuff and don't tell them about it.
00:04:21
Because I went over to look at our alcohol selection and I see hidden behind a thing of Knob Creek.
00:04:26
Oh, a little bottle of McClellan 12 hidden. And I'm like, no. No, Paul. You don't hide.
00:04:31
I pay right here. It ain't that way. I'm taking a shot. That's right. And then Jay goes, you won't notice.
00:04:38
Sorry, Paul. Jay's sitting in his kitchen office. I just stole a cop's whiskey. He's retired.
00:04:44
He can't do shit. That's true. I feel badass. What's your what do you want to share?
00:04:50
I have a whole thing of just, you know, updates. I mean, two months worth of updates.
00:04:54
This is going to be the longest update section we've ever done. Let me just take another shot.
00:04:58
Hi. How are you? Okay. Well, here's some news. We drank all your McClelland's. Don't be mad.
00:05:05
Don't be mad. And if you are, that's fine, too. You're allowed to have your emotions, but you're fired.
00:05:11
As a fired person. And then we hire you back. That's right. At a lower rate. Do it.
00:05:16
What's the most exciting thing, I guess? live shows. Should we talk about live shows?
00:05:21
Sure. So we're doing the Santa Barbara weekend, myfavoriteweekend.com. You can go and get all the information there.
00:05:26
It's November 1st and 2nd. It's going to be freaking awesome. It's going to be like
00:05:30
MurderinoCon. Is that a thing? Yes. It's going to be a small, beautifully appointed
00:05:36
MurderinoCon where we get to hang out with roughly how many? A couple thousand? A couple thousand people who feel like
00:05:44
hanging out in a weekend in November. In Santa Barbara. In Santa Barbara watching
00:05:48
live shows live podcasts from the exactly right network yeah um you know arts and crafts and then you guys are going to have your own meetups too which i think is going to be great like you know everyone going to be saying there like participating hotels So you just going to be like overrun by your friends It going to be great That right And friends you haven met yet
00:06:05
That's right. I have a pitch. And listen, Marty is totally down for this. What if Marty and Jen.
00:06:11
I already have like weird chills. No, I know. I'll say no now, but keep going. Host a bingo night.
00:06:17
Just absolutely not. Ben said he'll emcee it so that anyone can understand what they're saying.
00:06:22
And the whole time, neither of them can hear anything. so they're going to be yelling what?
00:06:26
You know what? It's going to be a silent bingo. I shouldn't have said no before you got the idea out.
00:06:32
That's my bad. That's fair. Why do you think I'm saving it for recording and not telling you in a text,
00:06:36
even though I was so excited about it? You know what? Here's what I'm thinking. It's only mid-August.
00:06:41
Yeah. That means we have three months to try to convince Jim to come down for this weekend.
00:06:46
It could happen. He should come. Marty's already coming no matter what. Of course Marty's coming.
00:06:50
But Jim is the anti-Marty. He is fiercely private like my dogs. What if they get in a brawl, like a barroom brawl?
00:06:59
Marty and Jim? Jim would beat the shit out of Skinny and Marty. Listen, Jim has spent his life beating the shit out of people.
00:07:05
I heard some stories. Just as a sidebar, when we went on our 10-day Hawaiian vacation, we forced my dad to go on.
00:07:13
He won't even go on a Hawaiian, a tropical Hawaiian vacation. I don't need that.
00:07:20
I don't like this. I heard some stories yeah he's a street fighter that Jim Kilgar
00:07:27
but I'm sure he loved Marty and I'm sure he might be into this hang I don't know
00:07:32
well my dad is a badass too one time he and his friends dressed up like the Pointer sisters and did a lip sync
00:07:37
so I'm so excited so I feel like it's an even fight this could be an anything can happen situation
00:07:44
my friend Doug who's going to be DJing his incredible French pop where he also projects the videos
00:07:51
the old French pop music. Love it. He wants to do a karaoke night, too. He's obsessed with karaoke.
00:07:55
Amazing. Isn't that great? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. I think we're going to have all kinds of cool things planned.
00:08:00
Yeah. I personally love the bingo idea, genuinely. Yeah. Because you know how I feel about games like that.
00:08:06
I think that's the best. How about an Uno tournament? I have Uno in my purse right fucking now.
00:08:12
Uno to the death. I also wouldn't be against a trivia night, which clearly I've pitched many times and
00:08:19
no one answers when I say it. So I don't think anybody else is really interested in organizing it.
00:08:24
Vince will do it. Yeah, but I mean, you'd have to like write questions and stuff.
00:08:28
It's like a whole thing. Okay. But look, look, look. Steven, listen. Get your pen and paper out.
00:08:32
We can do it all. What we're saying is, won't you join us on this amazing weekend in Santa Barbara?
00:08:37
My favorite, weekend.com, gives you all the details, etc. See if you can come. And then we're also doing our next show after that is a UK and Ireland tour.
00:08:47
Yeah. And we added a Dublin show on November 25th and a London show on November 28th.
00:08:53
So there's going to be two shows in both those. There's also Manchester and Glasgow.
00:08:56
I don't know what's sold out yet, but you can go get those tickets. Cool. And it's going to be really fun.
00:09:01
Yes. Yeah, there's still tickets left for the UK and Ireland. That's right. They're different places.
00:09:08
They're not the same. Deal with it. Yes. We know. We know because we went there and we're wrong about things.
00:09:14
Never. This is how you learn. This is how you grow. take another shot the fan cult is fucking booming
00:09:21
our website in general and our fan cult have become next fucking level myfavoriteburner.com check it out but the fan cult
00:09:27
is going to now have an exclusive merch store where you're going to get shit that you can only get
00:09:33
on the fan cult all new stuff it's going to be fucking awesome specifically developed
00:09:38
with you in mind fan cult members for you in mind yeah we were very passionate about what we picked out
00:09:43
and we're also doing videos every fan cult Friday. There's one up right now that anyone can
00:09:49
watch with Steven and Jay of a Would You Rather. And then there's also, we're doing like
00:09:55
unboxings and we're doing question and answers and Would You Rathers and it's a lot of fun.
00:09:59
So check that out. MyFavoriteMurder.com .gov And then I finally want to talk about Exactly Right
00:10:07
Network real quick. Oh yeah. The Perkast, their episode this week is they talk to the rock stars of the trap and release
00:10:13
community. How fucking cool is that? I love it so much. Oh, you're doing like a TV guide for Exactly Right right now.
00:10:19
That's right. Great idea. Okay, TV guide. Season five of The Fall Line is up. You can
00:10:23
hear episode one on our feed and make sure you subscribe to The Fall Line. It's a
00:10:27
fucking great season and really important. Yes, they do amazing work on The Fall Line.
00:10:31
Jensen and Holes, Murder Squad, The Booze Hounds, they have Morgan Bauer, her missing persons case, this week.
00:10:39
This podcast, Will Kill You, is doing a wildlife disease called chitradomycosis, probably.
00:10:48
And all the chitradomycosis fans out in the audience are like, what? She said it wrong.
00:10:53
They're doing our thing. And tell us who the guest this week is on Do You Need a Ride?
00:10:57
Do You Need a Ride? Is it this week? On Monday, it's our solo night ride episode.
00:11:03
Oh, that's right. Chris and I and Steven go out into the night. It's scary, though.
00:11:08
Turn the lights off? Yeah, we drive around with no headlights on. and we hit 16 bird scooters.
00:11:15
No, we just had to. It's that kind of thing where when we all plan stuff out, no one ever thinks, oh, we record everything on Monday.
00:11:24
Like Stephen is sitting there going, well, I could record with you guys at either 11 in the morning
00:11:27
or 8 o'clock at night. Those are your two choices because I got stuff all day long,
00:11:31
which is brand new and exciting. So we did an 8 o'clock at night and then in the future
00:11:36
we're going to record on different days than, like, say, the Murder Squad or whatever.
00:11:42
Oh, but do you know, Stephen had just finished recording a murder squad. This is future episodes.
00:11:47
I had to do them all at once because Paul Holes is in town. And it's the case that I did.
00:11:54
Yes. Yeah The Neil Falls is the person that we talked about who you covered at the Las Vegas live show The guy that worked at the Hoover Dam that creeped everybody out and got killed by a sex worker who picked up the gun and shot it
00:12:07
They talk to her. No, they don't. Heather saw. We had her on as a guest. And that comes out sometime in the future in the next couple of months.
00:12:15
So that's kind of a teaser teaser. They might not want us to put that in there because it's a future teaser.
00:12:19
Do it. But I am so excited to listen to that episode. That's incredible. Because Stephen said, oh, we just had this interesting one about a guy.
00:12:26
They're not sure if he's a serial killer. And I was like, what's this? Like, finally break out of my own bubble.
00:12:33
They're doing such important shit. I'd have chills if I wasn't lightly sweating in this really hot fucking office.
00:12:39
But also, it's the cool thing about Murder Squad is because they need help. These are cold cases.
00:12:44
They need help. So they have, you know, that guy in particular, it's so frustrating.
00:12:48
because clearly when he attacked Heather, this was not the first time that he had attacked or killed anybody.
00:12:55
He had a kill kit. He creeped out everybody that was anywhere near him that there's information to be gleaned about who else this guy did it to,
00:13:04
the people who aren't being spoken for. I'm so excited to see where that goes. It goes me too.
00:13:10
Yeah, it's very, very exciting. Citizen sleuths, that's what they call them, right?
00:13:15
Yep. I have one in my story today. Do you really? I'm really excited about it. night. Haven't you been like chomping at the bit? Yeah, do this again. I've been really excited. And
00:13:24
then I've also been really nervous about what story I'm going to come back with. Right. And as
00:13:27
soon as I started doing the research, I was like, Oh, I forgot how much fucking fun. I mean, not fun.
00:13:32
This is terrible and horrible. But I'm enjoying like research is so much fun. Well, it's, it feels
00:13:38
great to have your mind occupied by something that you're genuinely fascinated by. You're using the
00:13:44
word fun because actually it's you're fascinated fascinated you're you're unbelievably upset yeah
00:13:51
yeah but passionate you're passionate if passionate started with an n that was my acronym fun passion
00:13:57
what it really stands for passion net um with a capital this is like what school must have been
00:14:01
like for other people that enjoyed it for smart people who were encouraged right it's like writing
00:14:07
a book report of a book i actually like that you actually read yeah no it's like into instead of me
00:14:11
looking at the cover of Silas Marner and going, this is about an old man for sure. This we know
00:14:18
for a fact. An old man is in this book. Keep writing about that. And just what are old men
00:14:22
like? Yeah. Well, this guy is especially bent over at the shoulder mid back area. I did want
00:14:29
to bring up a couple things that have happened while we were, I was going to say out of town.
00:14:34
but that's not the case and the most exciting I would say is when we were on tour
00:14:42
last time in the UK the last time we were back there we did, Stephen, was it 2016?
00:14:49
no, 2018 it was definitely 2018 I always remember the great Elvis throw up laptop of 2018
00:14:55
oh, that's right that's how Stephen marks time I blocked that out, we were in Sweden
00:15:00
then I get a text from Stephen saying Hey, so Elvis threw up on my laptop and I'm taking it to the laptop doctor, but it doesn't seem to be working right now.
00:15:10
Elvis throwing up on someone's laptop is the height of like cat aggression. Oh, yeah.
00:15:16
Why not throw up into Stephen's mouth, Elvis? He did throw up. Okay. Nothing ever happened.
00:15:22
Okay. Gross. Okay. So we know for a fact it was 2018. We had an amazing show in Manchester at St.
00:15:30
I want to call it St. Mark's. But it was this it was a converted church. Cathedral.
00:15:35
Gorgeous. That was just bewildering to do a show. And it felt amazing. The audience was incredible.
00:15:42
And then after the show, we had a hometown from a woman named Chloe. Chloe. That was among the greats.
00:15:51
Truly a great storyteller. A really fun person to spend time with. And she tells the story of a woman named Helen McCourt who was murdered.
00:16:03
And at the end of the story, she starts talking about how Helen's mother, Marie, is trying to get a law passed so that murderers who are convicted will not get parole if they refuse to reveal where the bodies of their victims are buried.
00:16:19
It's an incredible concept. It makes so much perfect logical sense, and yet it's never been enacted, I don't think, anywhere.
00:16:27
And on July 5th, 2019, Marie McCourt and all the people that signed all of those petitions.
00:16:36
Which a ton of murderinos did after we posted that episode, which is fucking incredible.
00:16:39
That's right. All kinds of people got active and let their voice be heard, and they passed Helen's law.
00:16:45
and now in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it is the law that if you don't reveal where your victim is buried
00:16:51
you don't get parole. Fuck yes. Amazing, amazing work. Congratulations. Good job you guys. That's incredible.
00:16:57
That's the kind of thing that like how exciting to be even adjacent to that. Yeah.
00:17:03
So great job Chloe. Powerful. Chloe is the person who brought that to everyone's attention and then
00:17:09
of course everyone else that actually got it done. That was such exciting news to get in the middle of vacation.
00:17:16
That's when I was like, ooh, I wish we were back so we could talk about this right now.
00:17:20
For sure. So exciting. Then, you know, like, season two of Dairy Girls premiered.
00:17:25
The girls who live in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Not Belfast? No. Totally different town. Different? Like, they don't even like each other.
00:17:32
No! It's a real problem. Anyway. Have you been watching Euphoria on HBO? Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
00:17:39
I love it so much. It's so good. Friend of the show, Maude Apatow, is in it. And she's so cute and funny.
00:17:48
Everyone is dressed up. It's Halloween. Everyone is dressed up as a sexy whatever.
00:17:52
And she dressed in full Bob Ross costume Full on Bob Ross drag And I just love it It just the perfect character it so good and she darling I love it it such a good show the character cat is groundbreaking watching
00:18:10
the trajectory now have not watched the end I haven't either okay so I have to I still have to
00:18:15
watch the last episode I'm sure there's something terrible yes coming for all of us terrible but um
00:18:20
And I just as a girl who grew up fat, watching that girl have this renaissance is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
00:18:30
I love her. She's the coolest. She's gorgeous. But she's also like high school broken.
00:18:34
And I can't wait to see her. Like, I want to see her in her 20s. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?
00:18:39
Like, get it. Like, so finally she has it. Like, I love her. She gets it all together.
00:18:43
I want to protect her. Yeah. But I love the way that show is like, here's all the different ways you can be a girl.
00:18:49
Here's all the different versions. And here's all the different things that might happen to you.
00:18:53
And here's the way that you don't have to be victim to it. Here's the way that you can rise up within it.
00:19:00
I find it so, I find it inspirational. I find the eyeshadow unbelievable. The one that looks like tears with the glitter?
00:19:07
Oh my God. These kids are so good. How about a simple neon pink top line? Dude. Just why not go for it?
00:19:15
I'm doing it. You know, I decided to be a wig person. On my break, on my summer vacation, I decided to become a wig person.
00:19:23
Uh-huh. Maybe because of that show. And so I bought some pink wigs. Mm-hmm. And they look like wigs.
00:19:28
Yeah. They don't look great. With the little bob, like, hot pink? Yeah. Sure. I just need better quality wigs.
00:19:34
But I feel like the show is, what's the word, making me want to do stuff like that.
00:19:40
Inspiration? But it turns out I'm not 16. That's true. I'm 39. But look. That's the opposite of 16.
00:19:47
Listen. Hey, it's all in your mind. This is, we're on a timeline that goes by so fast.
00:19:53
The difference between 16 and 39 is a blip. I don't feel any different. I do. You're not different.
00:19:58
I'm not. None of us are. I mean, these chits are still perky. You know what I mean?
00:20:02
They're not going anywhere. They're not. Until you're almost 50. And I'm just like, how are these getting lower?
00:20:09
There's nowhere else for them to go. Yeah, the wrinkles in the morning are staying a little longer in my chest.
00:20:14
There will be a day. there will be a day when you wake up and they don't go away
00:20:19
that's what happened that was also from gaining weight I got this red line where I was like what's this a cut
00:20:25
and it just was the like double chin line guess what we're here to stay we're moving in
00:20:31
we're renting property the pain has arrived here's a great pubic hair to make it even worse
00:20:38
goodbye be more upset is there anything else that we've missed. That's all I want to talk about.
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00:21:48
Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill? Because this is our life.
00:21:53
Backstage, on the road, it's loud, messy, real. And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving.
00:22:01
Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks, real life scenes.
00:22:06
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00:22:15
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Data accurate is of 220-26. I want to say, okay, so I don't know who's first, and I know Stephen knows, but I feel like we, I saw him.
00:23:08
I'm reaching for his fucking mic. I know, I know, I know. But I feel like we can do whatever we want.
00:23:14
I feel like this is like a new season. It's so true. We can do whatever we want.
00:23:18
So let's pick who we want to go first. And then let's ask Stephen if we're right.
00:23:22
Okay. Let's throw the runes. Do you want to go first? I don't care. Do you want to go last?
00:23:28
I don't care. Mine's long and sad. Okay. And yours is? Mine's sad, but hopeful. Interesting.
00:23:36
Yes. Okay. Then I'm going to go first. Is that okay? Okay, absolutely. Okay, Stephen?
00:23:40
Well, if we went off of our Mary Vincent episode, then you would go first. Great.
00:23:46
Which technically is last week, but if we went off the last time we recorded. Too much information.
00:23:50
Yeah, that's it. Can I just say a really quick thing about the Mary Vincent episode?
00:23:54
First of all, the fact that, thank you everybody for voting and giving a shit. So yeah, in the fan call, we had a,
00:24:00
Vote for the top three episodes. And those are the past three episodes that we've posted.
00:24:04
It was so fucking cool to see what you guys like the most. Yeah. There's a couple of people who piped up on Twitter to argue those where I wanted to go,
00:24:11
hey, friend, that's not our decision. It was it's called voting. Yeah. Get out there now and in 2020.
00:24:19
That's right. But I would like to say this about Mary Vincent, who is a living, breathing human being today.
00:24:24
If that story moved you If you were inspired by her strength And her fortitude And everything about that story
00:24:34
Please donate to a local Victims' rights charity Amazing Because I think about that sometimes
00:24:42
There's lots of people who like to ask us About victims And comedy and murder And all these different things
00:24:49
Somehow we are supposed to answer For all of that when we just are talking about true crime.
00:24:55
But with things like that, when we are talking about real people and living people,
00:25:00
those people do something in their name to make them feel like this is the good intended show that it is.
00:25:09
Or at least if you feel like you want to, I guess, is what I want to say. Yeah, it's a good way to acknowledge what that person went through
00:25:17
and what people who didn't survive went through. And it seems like you're just throwing money at it,
00:25:22
But you're helping those people by doing that. Also, I don't know who came up with that phrase, throwing money at it, because money is what makes things go.
00:25:29
It works. It's what makes things work. It's a great solution. And it's what charities need when they're trying to help other people who go through really difficult things.
00:25:37
So if you can do it, and we realize that these days you either can do it or you can't.
00:25:42
But if you can, that'd be a great thing to do in Mary Vincent's name. Or you can volunteer.
00:25:47
Oh, I'm scared. I'm nervous about this one because I want to come back with a bang.
00:25:50
This is one I didn't want to do live. Minnesota's most famous crime, arguably Jacob Wetterling.
00:25:56
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yes. Yep. Let's do it. This is the story that I started to research, and there's so many twists and turns in it.
00:26:07
And of course, a lot of that information is from the incredible podcast, In the Dark,
00:26:11
hosted by Madeline Barron. She's incredible. The first season of In the Dark is about Jacob Wetterling and the disappearance, and it is
00:26:18
fucking incredible. Yeah. Second season's insane, too. she's so talented or they're the team that makes us so talented and i got information from apm and
00:26:27
from a blog called by a woman named joy baker but i'll get into her later okay so all right here we
00:26:34
go uh 11 year old jacob wetterling was a totally normal american kid on a fucking totally normal
00:26:41
midwestern fall weekend picture it leaves it's beautiful in 1989 so he's 11 years old 1989 i
00:26:48
I think I was I must have been nine years old. So totally fucking remember this happening.
00:26:52
And St. Joseph, Minnesota, is a totally normal American small town. It's just an hour from Minneapolis.
00:26:58
The population is just about twenty five hundred people. So it's a small town, Midwest town.
00:27:03
It's considered safe. Kids are allowed to play out on their own, left to their own devices until dark, which
00:27:07
we all were. And I want to stress for our younger listeners that helicopter parenting is around because
00:27:13
of stuff like this story. Yes. They had to be helicopter parents because they realized all the crazy things that happen when you let your kid just go live their lives.
00:27:22
Go be in the world. That's right. Yeah. So on the outskirts of town in a less populated, a little more rural area, dirt roads, cornfields, long driveways, that kind of thing.
00:27:32
But it's not like it's not secluded. It's just outside of town of the small little town.
00:27:37
At the end of a cul-de-sac live the Wetterling family. Patty and Jerry Wetterling had four kids.
00:27:43
and Jacob, he's born February 17th, 1978. He's the second oldest. And on the evening of Sunday, October 22nd, 1989,
00:27:52
Patty and Jerry are out at a function and the kids are home alone, which is a totally normal thing back then.
00:27:58
Constant, yeah. And since there wasn't school the next day, a friend of Jacob's is over
00:28:01
and the two of them, along with Jacob's little brother, who's just 10, they want to go rent a movie at the local Tom Thumb.
00:28:08
It's about a 15 minute bike right away. So they call Patty to get permission. She's like, no fucking way.
00:28:14
And then they're like, you know what we should do? They call back and ask to speak with dad.
00:28:18
And he's like, OK. But they're worried that the thing that they're worried about is that they'll get hit by a car because they live in this rural area.
00:28:26
There's no streetlights, that sort of thing. So they make them bring a flashlight, wear a reflective vest.
00:28:30
Like that's their worry then. Right. You know, because that's that was the worst that could happen in there in their knowledge.
00:28:36
Right. Yes. Yeah. And so they let the kids go. So it's just around 9 p.m. It's just getting dark.
00:28:42
The boys leave the Wetterling home and on the right of the store, they hear some rustling in an overgrown area, but they don't think anything of it.
00:28:50
And on their way back, though, it's now dark and they rented Naked Gun, which is like the most normal fucking 1989 thing to do.
00:28:59
And just as the boys are about to ride by a long gravel driveway, a man steps out of the shadows, pointing a revolver at them.
00:29:06
And it's just so crazy because you think of like a kid being alone as the thing you need to worry about, not with two with two people.
00:29:14
Right. Well, and that's where the buddy system kind of broke down. Right. That's where that's how helicopter parenting came in, where it's like if there's not a mom within, you know, eyesight.
00:29:26
Yeah. And then you have to figure out where another mom is. Yeah. It turns out kids need to be watched and kept safe from predators.
00:29:33
But we didn't know that back then. Right. you know well in this idea of predators
00:29:37
I think that was kind of the dirty secret yeah that was the thing people weren't talking about because it was
00:29:42
inappropriate or it was wrong or whatever or like not in our area there's not pedophiles
00:29:47
in our area now of course we have what's the one that you can find a pedophile yeah in your neighborhood
00:29:52
like perv net or whatever yeah and it's like they're just dotted everywhere they everywhere yeah but we didn know that back then it was an innocent time it was So the man has his face obscured by a black stocking cap He short and stocky and in a raspy voice that one of the boys later describes as sounding like he has a cold
00:30:09
He orders the boys to throw their bikes into a little ditch and then lie face down on the ground.
00:30:14
He asks them how old they are. And when Trevor, the little brother, says 10, the man tells him to run into this kind of nearby wooded area and not look back or else he'd get shot.
00:30:24
So Trevor takes off running. Then the man forces Jacob and his friend Aaron to face him.
00:30:30
And he tells Aaron to run away and not look back or he'll be shot as well. And Jacob Wetterling is now alone with the man.
00:30:38
And when Trevor and Aaron finally reach the woods and look back, Jacob and the man have vanished.
00:30:43
The boys run home. They tell a neighbor what happened. And the search begins. But only the abandoned bikes are found.
00:30:51
and the search is called off by 3 a.m. and doesn't start back up until the next morning at 8 a.m.
00:30:59
Oh, no. So there's all this fucking, you know, this like police fucked up. It's so horrible, all the problems that went on with this investigation.
00:31:09
But you can hear all about that in the dark. I just kind of, I touch on that. Well, also wasn't it, I mean, I haven't listened to In the Dark yet,
00:31:17
but wasn't it a thing where these are small towns that have never dealt with anything similar to this.
00:31:22
So to them, they don't know that thing of the first 48 hours. They don't know all of the things that now,
00:31:29
simply by the forensic files education we've all gotten in the past 20 years, these are the things that seem standard.
00:31:35
But back then, they didn't know. The problem with that, though, is that the FBI are called in
00:31:39
and people who should have known stuff are called in and didn't do basic things like question surrounding neighbors
00:31:46
for over a week, if at all, ever. Yeah, you know, which is what you're supposed to do. You start in this small circle and you go outwards. I mean, that's what you hear. Right. So they didn't do a lot of those things. And it's partly because this became such a crazy media circus. And there were so many investigators and so many different departments on it that it just became bungled.
00:32:04
bungled. So the next day, FBI and other agencies join the investigation. Hundreds of tips are
00:32:11
called in and officers and volunteers conduct aerial and ground searches. The story goes
00:32:16
fucking viral. And the search becomes the biggest search for a missing child in US history.
00:32:21
And at the time, things like Amber Alert don't exist. That doesn't happen until 1996. And we
00:32:27
covered that in episode 52, actually. And there isn't even the kind of laws necessary to deal with
00:32:32
such rare crimes like stranger abductions, because that kind of is rare. Yeah. There's no
00:32:38
national registry of sex offenders. So there's no way for investigators to even monitor or track
00:32:42
sex offenders even a town away. So, you know, everyone sees Jacob's sweet face on the flyers,
00:32:50
it's on pizza boxes, it's sent through the mail. And everyone, you know, feels like he could be
00:32:55
their kid. And the horrifying way in which he was taken really strikes people and scares
00:33:02
them. So they rally around finding him. They wear white ribbons pinned to their shirts. They form
00:33:08
mile long human chains just to pray for his return because you just feel so fucking helpless,
00:33:13
probably. Yeah. And I fucking totally remember this. By the end of the first week, nearly 100
00:33:18
officers from various agencies are working the case. The searches are putting in 18 hour shifts.
00:33:24
And Patty Wetterling says at one point she looked out her window and the people all wearing black,
00:33:28
All the investigators, they were searching shoulder to shoulder, you know, doing that ground sweep.
00:33:34
And she said it reminded her of a Stephen King movie. Just so horrifying. But somehow it took more than a week before authorities began to question neighbors and fully canvass the neighborhood.
00:33:45
And that's known to be one of the most crucial moves in an investigation of this nature.
00:33:49
And despite the massive search, the only evidence found are footprints and tire tracks at the abduction site, which are casted.
00:33:56
Is that the right word? when you do a cast i'm not it's cast or casted great i think well that's what they did okay with
00:34:03
the prince one of the problems that arises that the story goes national remember a current affair
00:34:08
oh yeah like they fucking loved it um what's his name uh maury povich no wait what's the guy's name
00:34:14
with the mustache pato brian no more heraldo heraldo thank you heraldo fucking milks the
00:34:21
shit out of it in a really creepy way um and the story goes national and the law enforcement asks
00:34:27
the public in the nation for tips and help, which is a bad fucking thing to do because it's probably
00:34:33
local. And now what happens is people from all over the country call in these crazy tips that
00:34:38
now investigators have to follow up on. So they have all these leads that probably go nowhere.
00:34:43
You know, some guys like I saw a kid that looks like him in fucking Alabama, they have to look
00:34:47
into it. Right. But none of those tips lead anywhere. So then two months later, after Jacob's
00:34:52
abduction, another boy comes forward to law enforcement with information that he thinks
00:34:56
is relevant to Jacob's kidnapping. So nine months and 10 miles away from Jacob's abduction, nine months ago, this boy, he's
00:35:05
12 year old Jared Shirell, and he's he had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted and physically
00:35:10
threatened by an unknown assailant. And this fucking 12 year old boy comes forward and is like, I think this is connected to
00:35:17
Jacob's kidnapping. It's unbelievable. this guy, Jared, is the fucking hero of the story. We'll get into it. So Jared had been walking home
00:35:26
in the dark by himself from an ice skating rink in Cold Springs, which was just 10 miles away,
00:35:30
in January 1989, when a man had pulled up and asked him for directions. The man then got out
00:35:36
of the car, had grabbed Jared and forced him into the backseat of the car, telling him he had a gun
00:35:41
and wasn't afraid to use it. And he drove Jared to a remote area, sexually assaulted him, and then
00:35:46
later let him go. And the man told Jared if the authorities ever got close to finding him,
00:35:52
he kill Jared first And then he told him to run and not look back or he shoot Yeah So the family had reported the kidnapping and assault to the police at the time And based on Jared description of the car and the man authorities were able to connect it to a man a local man that was on the police radar due to burglary charges
00:36:12
And he'd been caught driving with a police scanner in the same kind of car that Jared described.
00:36:18
And he said that the man had a police scanner. So they're like, let's fucking talk to this creep.
00:36:23
Yeah. Um, and, but he's unable to pick him out of a lineup. And because of Jared's description of the man's car, it didn't totally match up.
00:36:30
He said that the car had a sports rack on top and the car like didn't, even though it was
00:36:35
like a fucking, the same fucking car. Yeah. The man is released. Okay. Okay. But now nine months later, when Jared tells a story to the FBI, they believe the cases
00:36:45
are connected because of the details. Jared's story leads FBI agents back to the original suspect in the case.
00:36:51
He's an unemployed man who lives in the town of Painesville, which is about 30 miles from St. Joseph.
00:36:58
And his name is Danny Heinrich. He denies any knowledge about the abduction of either Jacob or Jared, but he fails a polygraph test.
00:37:05
He agrees to provide investigators with his tennis shoe prints. And the soles match the prints taken at the Jacob abduction site.
00:37:12
And it's also found that Heinrich Sears brand tires on his car match the plaster cast of the tire at the scene of Wetterling's abduction.
00:37:21
Oh, my God. Right. And then the other thing to that I found interesting is that they didn't see Jacob driven away in like a getaway car. And maybe it's because nine months earlier, the car had been described. So this time he learned to hide the car and it was hidden up the driveway behind some trees. So he walked him to the car. Makes sense.
00:37:40
so they have this is the fucking like talk about re-traumatizing a victim they have jared sit in
00:37:47
heinrich's car in the back seat to see if he can recognize it as the car he was abducted in
00:37:52
and this fucking strong as hell boy says that on a scale of one to ten the vehicle is an eight or
00:37:59
nine in terms of how similar it was to the car in which he's abducted in a year earlier but they
00:38:03
don't do fucking semen tests on the back on the back seat none of that shit um and but heinrich
00:38:09
is put under surveillance he shakes the tail with uh several times with evasive maneuvers which is
00:38:14
like if you're innocent yeah you're not trying to get away from the fucking cops yeah just go to 7-11
00:38:18
and come back yeah but obviously right but for some reason after two days they stopped trying
00:38:23
to find him with or follow him with no explanation so during a search of the home where danny lives
00:38:29
with his father investigators find the police scanner and they find a locked trunk containing
00:38:34
two photos of little boys, one with a towel wrapped around him and another in his underwear,
00:38:39
both taken in Heinrich's home. But he says to them, those photos make me look bad and you can't
00:38:45
take my property. So they give the photos back to him and he burns them. They give him the photos
00:38:52
back. They do convince him to stand in a lineup for three boys, which I think we'll put the photo
00:38:58
on the post of this. You can see it. He's in a lineup and they show the lineup to three boys.
00:39:06
Two who reported seeing a suspicious man in the car near Wetterling's house in the week before
00:39:10
the abduction. So who the fuck knows who they actually saw. And they also have Jared look at
00:39:16
the lineup and none of them pick out Heinrich. But the kids who aren't brought in to see the
00:39:20
lineup is fucking problematic. Aaron and Trevor, who were with Jacob when he was fucking abducted,
00:39:25
and they're not brought in to look at the lineup. And it's also criticized that the investigators didn't have Heinrich speak
00:39:33
since he was said by everyone to have a low, raspy voice. So that didn't happen.
00:39:39
And also, I wonder if anyone thought to put a mask, like a nylon over his face to see what that would look like.
00:39:46
Definitely. Because clearly it wasn't a guy that was just standing there. And there's so many other things, too, that when you listen to In the Dark, season one,
00:39:53
You'll know, like, he was known to wear camo around town and all the victims were saying that this man had camo on, like, same kind of clothes, that sort of thing.
00:40:01
Like, so many little fucking things that just made him a probable suspect that should have been looked into further.
00:40:07
Right. You know? So Heinrich is released, though they take some hair from him, hair samples from him.
00:40:13
Then on February 9th, 1990, an event that has been called the most fatal flaw in the Wetterling investigation occurs when a drunk Danny Heinrich is arrested and questioned by two inexperienced FBI agents who didn't really know the details of the case.
00:40:29
They questioned him about the kidnapping and the molestation of Jared Shirell, but they didn't know he was connected possibly to the Jacob Wetterling case.
00:40:37
The agents allegedly tell detectives that they don't think Heinrich is guilty and he is released again.
00:40:43
I know. And then a man, a fucking pedophile, convicted pedophile named Dwayne Hart comes forward in 91.
00:40:50
He's a suspect in the case and they go after him and he's like, I'm friends with Danny Heinrich.
00:40:55
And he asked me how to that month that Jacob Wetterling went missing, asked me how to fucking hide a body.
00:41:00
Like this fucking pedophiles, like I'm telling you who the person is right now. And so the investigators don't follow up on this.
00:41:08
and that's the last we hear of Danny Heinrich in the Wetterling investigation for more than 20 years.
00:41:16
It's easy to sit here 30 years later, however long it is. And put all the pieces together.
00:41:22
I know that. It's all so clear. But these are those things because the first thing it made me think of is JonBenet.
00:41:28
How are you assigning any inexperienced anybody to a case like this? Yeah. And, you know, everyone wants to blame a simpler time, 1989, but it's like the FBI and and fucking criminal profiling existed.
00:41:42
It wasn't like fucking there weren't homicide detectives like those people existed.
00:41:46
Right. They you know, they and I know that there were so many leads and this was a really emotionally charged investigation.
00:41:54
High pressure High pressure But they had him And there more Right I going to tell you all about it Easy for us Easy for us But goddammit it frustrating But I think it and I tell you it acknowledged that they fucked up by them So here we go
00:42:07
Well, and also these are the things, not that it counts, but these are the things that then later on make it
00:42:13
so much better because it's that thing of never again. Yeah. Next time they don't repeat the same
00:42:19
problems. You gotta hope. Yeah. Okay. Meanwhile, the Wetterlings established the Jacob Wetterling Foundation
00:42:24
which works to help communities and families prevent child exploitation. And Patty Wetterling becomes a national advocate for missing children.
00:42:32
This woman is a fucking badass hero. Like I just you watch these interviews with her and how she stays so strong and centered
00:42:40
and just, you know, thinking positively and knowing what her fucking goal is, which is to help children and victims not, you know, get exploited is unbelievable.
00:42:49
And I don't know how she has that in her. It's fascinating. And she's just so incredible.
00:42:54
In the summer of 1990, the Jacob Wetterling Foundation offers a national database assistance program to help families of missing children.
00:43:02
And legislation for the Jacob Wetterling Act, a national registry of people who committed crimes against children, is passed.
00:43:08
So that's when the sex offender registry comes into fucking play. Love it. Amazing.
00:43:15
People take their horrible experiences and turn them into something that can help future victims and future families.
00:43:23
Yep. is I'm just in awe of them. Well, it's also kind of like maybe it's a way to go.
00:43:29
There is a there is a not a point. Yeah. But it is that the good that can come out of the ultimate darkness, the worst thing of all time, that there still is something beneficial that can come out of it.
00:43:42
Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So early 2000s, investigators zero in on a man named Dan Rassier, who becomes a fucking person of interest.
00:43:52
Dan is an elementary school teacher and he lived at the house at the top of that gravel fucking driveway
00:43:57
all I can think now is now that we live in the world where exposed pedophile ranks
00:44:03
basically every conspiracy theory has been proved correct there's no longer conspiracy theories
00:44:08
now they're just fucking theories about the way power works in this world and that idea that they are all friends
00:44:15
or know each other which used to be so crazy and insane is so believable now Hold on.
00:44:21
He has nothing to do with it. Oh, damn it. I was going on an Epstein. I'm on an Epstein turn.
00:44:26
Dude, I can't stop reading about that fucking creepy piece of shit. He had an island that the locals called Pedophile Island, but no one could touch him because he's a billionaire millionaire.
00:44:38
How was he able to kill himself after attempting it a week earlier? He either is not dead or was murdered.
00:44:48
I'm telling you. What else could it be? It could be an aptitude. It's so simple.
00:44:53
There's so many things it could be. Okay, let's get back. Let's get back off Pedophile Island
00:44:59
into this terrible story. Jay, go get me another shot, please. Eight of them. Paul,
00:45:05
we're drinking your... Paul, I'm going off the wagon and we're drinking your McClellan's.
00:45:09
I'd like to point out that I'm not forcing Stephen to get me drinks anymore. That's nice. He's been promoted. That's right.
00:45:14
Stephen's the engineer. He doesn't get drinks anymore. Stephen gets a drink with me. He takes shots
00:45:18
together yeah and then everything some would call you peers no we're not okay and dan rassier so dan
00:45:31
is an elementary school music teacher and not a pedophile damn it sorry sorry dan dan sorry i went
00:45:36
crazy yeah no he lived at the top of the gravel driveway where the abductor the doctor had hidden
00:45:40
when he took jacob so they were like maybe it's him like let's go after him the way i just did yes
00:45:46
Well, understandable. And I remember when he became a person of interest because like most murderinos, we kind of kept up with the updates of news and shit about this case.
00:45:54
Right. And you're like, yeah, it's fucking him. It's that guy. It's obviously him.
00:45:58
Yeah. But investigators search the farm. The house is his parents and he lives there with them.
00:46:03
Another like fucking pedophile red flag for most people. Like you live with your parents.
00:46:07
Yeah. Like maybe they have a nice fucking house. Maybe they have an indoor jacuzzi.
00:46:10
You don't know. Teachers do not make money. No, that's right. They need to live somewhere.
00:46:14
Music teachers. Come on. He's not. so they fucking like of course make a big deal of digging up the property looking you know and
00:46:20
like make it look like they have information that's leading them to do that so they just kind
00:46:25
of hound him for years they ruin his life trying to get him to break at one point they have patty
00:46:30
wetterling wear a wire and confront him in public and be like tell me if you took jacob and what does
00:46:36
he do he's like he just denies it he denies it the whole time and he does interviews and he's
00:46:40
just really forthright and is like, I didn't do this. And he didn't. Yeah. Okay. So let's jump to
00:46:46
2012. Now, here we are. There's this fucking amazing woman named Joy Baker. She's a blogger.
00:46:53
She is from a town not far from where Jacob had been abducted, and had been obsessed with finding
00:46:58
out what happened to him. And since 2010, she just had this like, I read a lot of her blog posts. And
00:47:04
it's just that she had this pull and she always thought about him. And she was just obsessed with
00:47:09
the case, it sounds like she was just really into it, to true crime and wanted to see if
00:47:14
the investigators had missed something and maybe she could help find it. So she, since 2010, had been researching Jacob's case, interviewing witnesses, digging into
00:47:23
archive news stories, and had been writing about the case on her blog, Joy the Curious.
00:47:28
It's joybaker.com if you want to check it out. In her research, she stumbles upon articles from the mid-1980s.
00:47:35
And I'm looking at, I'm fucking picturing microfiche. and this is just like a movie waiting to happen.
00:47:40
Yeah, because that means Joy had to haul her ass down to the library or wherever, or the
00:47:45
police station or wherever to find all those articles. That's right. Who would she be played by? She's like a young
00:47:52
Martha Stewart, I would say. So let's get Laura Linney on that job. Laura fucking Linney!
00:47:58
Bring it. She can handle it she's salt of the earth yeah very emotive yeah yes um so in her research she stumbles upon
00:48:07
articles from the mid-1980s there's like a two-year period where all these cases of a strange
00:48:13
stocky man with a raspy voice start is grabbing boys off their bikes and sexually assaulting them
00:48:18
at night in the downtown area of painsville minnesota what remember painsville it's where
00:48:23
our friend jared is from right um the man even asked about the boys ages before grabbing them
00:48:29
and threatened to shoot them if they looked at him. And one boy, this is such a creepy fucking little sidebar,
00:48:38
said that one boy from Cold Spring said his attacker had, quote, cheese teeth, like Swiss cheese kind of, which is such a kid thing to say, you know?
00:48:48
And it's so sad. And it turns out Danny Heinrich had chewed tobacco for several years
00:48:53
and it affected his teeth and made holes in them. Oh, yeah. So it turns out that on October 24th, 1989, less than 48 hours after the abduction of Jacob,
00:49:05
one of those victims from fucking Painesville had come forward, another one, not Jared,
00:49:11
had come forward about his assault and told him that it was very similar to the description
00:49:15
of the abduction of Jacob and that he thought it was the same dude because of the, quote,
00:49:19
quick military and proficient way it was done. And he said that he saw two other ambushes by the Painesville perpetrator.
00:49:26
And so Madeline Barron interviews a couple of these now men about their abductions and assaults.
00:49:35
And they talk about how it was just known. Watch out for the pervert around town.
00:49:40
Everyone knew what was happening. And one kid's like, yep, he got my friend. They all knew about it.
00:49:46
and and yet be i think because of like the stigma the stigma of it the pain of it the horror those
00:49:53
families went through instead of like coming together and being a forthright which would be
00:49:59
a very difficult thing to do anyway yeah everyone just keeps it to themselves and also don't you
00:50:04
think it's a little bit about boys men sexual assault that the complete taboo yeah and like
00:50:10
unspoken shame of that it happened in my little tiny neighborhood when i was like
00:50:14
six or seven, there was this kid who was molesting other boys. They one of them took him to trial.
00:50:23
And we never fucking talked about it. It just was not discussed. There was no don't, you know,
00:50:29
warning, don't go into bushes with weird fucking creepy kids, right? Like there was no warning
00:50:33
because I didn't talk about it. I mean, I feel like that's the other change aside from that.
00:50:38
That's the newest version. It's like we're all now helicopter parenting each other by being honest
00:50:44
and telling these stories. That's right. That's kind of the point. Well, that's why this guy, Jared, is such a fucking hero,
00:50:49
because he came forward time and time again, trying to find out who did this to him,
00:50:54
and knowing that Jacob was probably attacked by the same person, and he didn't let that get in the way.
00:51:00
You know, he just, like, he went full fucking force. As a child. As a child and as adult again.
00:51:05
Oh, God. So, this other guy came forward. He said that he saw two other people it happened to,
00:51:12
and he gave the deputy the name of the officers in Painesville that he had reported it to.
00:51:18
So he said to them, go talk to these officers. But this lead wasn't checked out until January 5th, 1990.
00:51:25
So like a year later. No, that's like three months. OK. So three months later. Time is crazy.
00:51:33
And it never led anywhere, though. Right, right. So they kind of didn't know that this had been happening and Joy was able to find this out.
00:51:40
she fucking reaches out to Jared on Facebook and is like did you know about these and sends him the
00:51:46
articles he didn't know about it this is all interviewed in in uh in the dark um and together
00:51:52
they dig into the articles find new leads and they track down the boys now men who had also
00:51:57
been assaulted by the same man oh my god and Jared uh convinces them to tell them the story
00:52:02
convinces them to band together and go to the um police and tell them what happened and uh they
00:52:09
they all think it's the same man who took Jacob as well. So after hearing each other's stories and piecing various descriptions together,
00:52:15
the perpetrator, Jared, and the men reach out to Jacob's case investigator to reveal what they knew.
00:52:20
But it took a few years before investigators began listening and making the connections.
00:52:25
So it's not until July 2012, a DNA profile is lifted from the wrist of the sweatshirt
00:52:30
that Jared had been wearing the night that he was assaulted. and in 2015 it's confirmed that the the dna that's found on the sweater that's not jared's
00:52:42
matches the dna hair samples taken from danny heinrich in 1990 oh my god uh-huh but guess what
00:52:48
he's dead no oh statute of limitations oh no you can't take someone who sexually assaulted you and
00:52:59
kidnapped you when you were 12 years old to court when you're an adult because they got away with it
00:53:04
because of statute of limitations now that got to change that just doesn't it it doesn't make any
00:53:10
sense it's such a fucking it's like being victimized all over again yes and also it does it doesn't
00:53:16
make sense the idea of like you got away with it yeah to me is such laws made by men right about
00:53:25
things that happen to women. And I understand that this is a different situation. But I honestly feel
00:53:29
like that's the that's part of the blowback from that. It's like, Oh, well, if they raped you in
00:53:34
seven years later, too bad. Yeah, they're a different person now. I don't know what the I
00:53:37
don't know what the thought is on that. Well, I think it's not understanding these predators.
00:53:41
I think it's genuinely whenever these laws were made, they didn't understand the way these people
00:53:46
work, how they never stop, how you can't, like, you have to put them in jail forever. And you don't
00:53:52
think of the woman and how she doesn have a statute of limitations on her fucking trauma and horror and the pain that was caused Right That not going to end in whatever five seven years because time has passed That with her forever Right Or the victim Or the victim Yeah
00:54:05
Obviously, we're talking about men here, too. And then it's also like, okay, well, if the police didn't do their job correctly and fucked
00:54:10
up and didn't find the suspect, and like the statute of limitation, you're just fucked.
00:54:16
Right. It doesn't matter. Yeah, I know. All right. Okay. But they are able to use this to search Heinrich's home and they find 19 binders that contain child pornography.
00:54:27
Oh, my God. So this motherfucker is still alive. Yep. Just hanging out in Painesville.
00:54:32
Mm hmm. Oh, like a town over. But basically. Yeah. They also find numerous videotapes that he had made around town, of course, of like kids playing baseball and news.
00:54:41
You know, he's just a fucking pedophile pervert piece of shit who has been allowed to be on the street for like 30 fucking years.
00:54:47
OK. They arrest him. He's now 52 years old and they arrest him on possession of child pornography, which is like the only thing they can get him on.
00:54:55
Right. Month before he is set to go to trial on those charges. It's like 25 charges of child pornography possession.
00:55:02
He agrees to a plea deal. And the plea deal is that he finally admits that he was the one who kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered Jacob Wetterling.
00:55:11
so on september 1st 2016 heinrich leads investigators to the burial site located on a
00:55:18
pasture near painsville and painsville again is a it's next door to saint joe but it's a tiny town
00:55:24
2500 people lots of farmland about 30 miles away from wetterling's home and abduction site
00:55:31
and a short distance from where heinrich was living in 1989 the remains are confirmed through
00:55:36
dental records to be Jacob Wetterling's after 30 fucking years. Jacob's mom, Patty Wetterling, says, all I can confirm is that Jacob has been found and
00:55:46
our hearts are broken. I am not responding to any media yet, as I have no words.
00:55:51
I know. In the plea agreement, Heinrich agrees to plead guilty to one count of the 25 federal
00:55:59
child pornography charges brought against him. in addition to revealing the location of the body and pleading guilty he also agrees to testify as
00:56:07
to the details of the wetterling crime so his family finally fucking knows what happened but
00:56:12
um even though he won't be ever charged for them that's part of the plea deal so he admits to
00:56:18
murdering a child and he's never going to be charged for it now yes okay so yes my thing is
00:56:25
i know do you know what i'm gonna say what the jail that maybe all these people that work on this
00:56:30
side of the law or like how about how about we know for a fact pedophiles get jailhouse justice
00:56:35
the second he goes into that can't be true because there's so many pedophiles in jail
00:56:41
and he's probably a high risk fucking because of that is high risk but at the same time it's like
00:56:46
i'm sure they talked they got epstein did they no they probably didn't they probably didn't um you know i'm sure they talked to the
00:56:56
Wetterlings and we're like, we can find out where he is and bring him home. So you can have a proper
00:57:00
burial for him. You can visit his grave, like know where he is, at least. You have to have the faith
00:57:06
that they did consult the family. Yeah. And so he's never going to get out of jail. So he got
00:57:11
like, it was like 19 to 20 years on that one count of child pornography. So he'll be in like early
00:57:16
70s when he gets out. But they did it in a way that was like, because of that child pornography,
00:57:19
he like they can just keep putting him in the system right because he's dangerous they did
00:57:26
basically a workaround exactly to get around the fact that the laws do not reflect how things should
00:57:31
actually go they couldn't have done this like not knowing that he was going he's not just going to
00:57:36
get 20 years or whatever for good fucking behavior hopefully you know yes at the court hearing heinrich
00:57:41
testifies that he kidnapped and handcuffed jacob drove him to the gravel pit near painsville
00:57:46
sexually assaulted him and when he heard a patrol car nearby he freaked out and so he shot jacob in
00:57:52
the back of the head and killed him um he buried his body in a nearby construction site he stole a
00:57:59
bobcat from the fucking site to dig a grave um he said he returned a year later when it was dark and
00:58:05
found jacob's red jacket sticking out of the dirt and some bones so he took those and buried them
00:58:10
close by as well um during the court hearing heinrich also admits to kidnapping and sexually
00:58:16
assaulting Jared Shirell earlier that same year. So Jared finally gets his fucking confirmation.
00:58:21
He was exactly right. He was exactly right. The entire time. Right. Heinrich sentenced to the
00:58:25
maximum prison term for the child pornography charge, 20 years, blah, blah, blah. And in a
00:58:29
recorded prison call with his brother, Danny Heinrich told him that he, quote, hasn't touched
00:58:34
anybody since the 1989 kidnapping and murder of Jacob. I know. So who cares? Yeah. Who cares what
00:58:42
anything about what that guy is right but at least there isn't that thing of like you didn't find him
00:58:46
quick enough and he killed all these other people true very true but how do we know that we don't
00:58:51
know that we're gonna believe this fucking monster he knows he knows for a fact that his calls are
00:58:54
recorded in jail totally yeah um months after the first season of in the dark was released the then
00:58:59
the sheriff of the um county at the time abruptly resigns and he and his uh chief deputy replaces him
00:59:07
That same year, 29 years after the abduction, the new sheriff, Don Gunmanson, holds a press conference commenting on the botched investigation.
00:59:16
And they also released the state's 41,000 page investigation file, which you can fucking read online.
00:59:21
Wow. He acknowledges that the Stearns County Sheriff's Office lost control of the investigation and should have caught Heinrich much earlier.
00:59:27
And he takes responsibility for ignoring key evidence related to Heinrich and for making critical errors that allowed him to avoid being caught.
00:59:34
Amazing. Yeah, he says all of us failed. oh there was a lot of manpower most of it was squandered he said what a huge symbol that is it
00:59:44
is that's incredible and i think a lot of people like the fbi were pissed at him for saying that
00:59:49
shit but like fuck them then because that what you do that what a professional does is you cop to your shit you talk about what got fucked up yeah so that it doesn get fucked up again that what a kind human does is acknowledge that you fucked up and people are hurt because of it yes and also someone who good at their job because how do you change
01:00:09
how do you how do you fix and and better the system so that it doesn't happen again if you
01:00:15
never cop to your shit right or if you just like give out awards for the people who like finally
01:00:19
did it it's like well that's not acknowledging the 29 years that right that he wasn't found
01:00:24
It's that kind of it's a tiny bit of touching on breaking down that fraternal system that there seems to be where if in that in criminal justice, if people can't go, it shouldn't have gone this way without having their whole souls be destroyed.
01:00:40
It's just like everyone else has to do that. Why shouldn't you have to do it, too?
01:00:44
Yeah. And it wasn't it wasn't like he was a diabolical fucking person that got away for 29 years and eluded police.
01:00:50
He was just right there waiting for the dots to be connected and the dots to be found.
01:00:54
and they weren't. And they weren't. So in 2018, a judge awards Jared Shirel, now 41,
01:01:00
more than 17 million in damages in a civil lawsuit against Danny Heinrich. Shit, yes.
01:01:05
At the trial, Jared's friends and relatives testifies to the damage that was done to him
01:01:11
and his life by Danny Heinrich and Patty Wetterling, who's close friends with him now,
01:01:16
I know, also testifies on his behalf and said that his fortrightness about what happened to him
01:01:21
is what ultimately resolved Jacob's case. Ugh. I know. I can't. I know. I can't continue to cry on this podcast.
01:01:28
I know. It's all I do. You're going to short circuit the... Jared Shirell, of course, is unlikely to see any of the money since Heinrich filed for bankruptcy in 2011, of course.
01:01:37
But it's a symbolic thing. Yes. He wanted his stay in court and, you know, he wanted acknowledgement of what happened to him.
01:01:44
And Jacob's kidnapping changed the lives of children and parents across the U.S., of course.
01:01:49
Helicopter parenting, just stranger danger, all that shit. Yeah. Joy Baker, the blogger, wrote that, quote, Jacob's abduction changed the way we raised our children.
01:01:59
We taught them to be wary of strangers, to be home before dark, and to scream and fight back.
01:02:03
Yeah. And Jacob Wetterling would have been 41 years old today. Wow. And that's the fucking Jacob Wetterling case.
01:02:09
Amazing. Please listen to In the Dark, season one. I can't wait to. It's so good.
01:02:13
I can't wait to. You know what's funny? It's not funny. Because you've told me about In the Dark a bunch of times.
01:02:20
I thought you read or listened to it. I'm glad you... You know what I listened to?
01:02:24
What? Cold. Oh. Which is the one... It's a different one. Yeah. And it is a huge bummer.
01:02:31
A huge bummer. What is it about? That's the one about... Cold is the one about the murder of Susan Powell and her two sons by their husband, Josh Powell.
01:02:42
And... It is so fucked up. It's so fucked up. And also, they made recordings. He made recordings of himself.
01:02:48
he made audio diaries of himself so it's it's listening to the killer talk which i hate and so
01:02:55
i basically had to bail on it and i think i got them confused and then forgot there was a other
01:03:00
one that was right oh essentially well i did love cold not to talk too much shit on them i i don't
01:03:05
mean to talk shit no no no it's hard it's a really hard to the killer talk it fucked the whole that
01:03:10
whole season in that case fucked me up when i listened to it it's just like i can listen i can
01:03:15
listen to that but not dr death right well that's a different thing we all have our we all have our
01:03:21
areas cold is an amazing and very well produced podcast that this subject of which so fucked up
01:03:29
on when i was driving up and down the five alone yeah didn't help me out no i can't imagine in any
01:03:34
way it was spending time with a bunch of creeps well the second season of in the dark is the one
01:03:38
about curtis flowers uh was has been convicted and he's been tried it was like something like
01:03:44
six times for this murder in this furniture store. And it's just like by this racist fucking
01:03:49
county prosecutor. It's just this saga of what happened to this poor man, Curtis Flowers.
01:03:56
And it's just incredible investigative journalism. Amazing. By the team. Yeah. Yay. God bless investigative journalism so that we can have our show. Exactly.
01:04:05
Wow. That was amazing. Thank you. Good story. Thank you. This is Kristen Davis from Are You A Charlotte?
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01:06:24
And with that, I'm going to change gears on you. Great. As I want to do. Only because, for me, it's still summer.
01:06:33
Yes. I don't want to let go of that endless summer feeling yet. No. And so, my story this week is going to be partly, it's actually partly a disaster story.
01:06:44
But then it's also partly a cryptozoology legend. That's right. I'm doing the Mothman story.
01:06:51
What? That's right. Tell me everything. Now, how much do you think you know about The Mothman?
01:06:57
Literally zero. Is that true? I don't think so. You haven't even watched The Mothman Prophecies, the movie I've told you to watch about 20 times?
01:07:03
I've not watched a single movie you told me to watch, ever. I keep meaning to have a night and just watch all Karen's movie recommendations.
01:07:13
I'm going to make you a list. Oh, I have something for you. Oh. My friend Doug Jones, who's going to be DJing the night, who I write about in the book Stay Sexy, Don't Get Murdered,
01:07:21
as being someone who likes to share weird, obscure things like Mr. Show. Oh. And Largo made us a movie from the TV, Murder in Texas,
01:07:31
the 1981 TV movie about the murder that you covered. Yes. What was it? Oh, God. This could be the one about the rich woman and her shitty husband.
01:07:42
Yes. The husband killed her. She was into horses. What episode was that? And the father killed him.
01:07:47
Yes. This was a live show that we did. I don't know if we've posted it. We must have posted it if he knows about it.
01:07:52
I think it wasn't a live, Stephen. What were we talking about? Yeah, I know it was because we did it in...
01:07:57
Oh, that's right. It was like Texas? Yes, Texas. You did? Good. Oh, and it's called Murder in Texas.
01:08:07
Oh, my God. I shouldn't have taken that eighth shot. This is amazing. I know. Doug Jones, thank you.
01:08:14
Thank you, Doug Jones. What? Joan Robinson Hill. Yeah. Joan Robinson Hill. Yes. and her father had a
01:08:21
like a Texas guy's nickname Bucky Bud it was dude Hat Ash Ash Robinson I was close
01:08:35
you were close with Hat I want my nickname to be Hat from now on promise because you wear hats so much
01:08:42
thank you Doug I'm so excited I think this might star either Farrah Fawcett. Farrah Fawcett, that's right.
01:08:51
And maybe a Tommy Lee Jones is in there? I think so. And I think we posted this.
01:08:54
No, it was the guy who should have a mustache all the time. Sam Neill. No, no, sorry.
01:08:58
Sam. Sam. Elliot. Elliot! We got there. We got there. And it wasn't a live episode.
01:09:05
Was not? Shit. What episode was it, Stephen? 172. Okay. Was it, we had just come back from Texas and it was one I hadn't done there?
01:09:15
Correct. Thank you. You can have that. Okay, thank you. I'll give you that. I appreciate it.
01:09:19
I'm going to get that one on a technicality. Okay, so we're talking now about one of my favorite stories.
01:09:26
And I have referenced on this show that to me, of all things that are scary, the scariest one is people talking too fast on the phone.
01:09:36
My sister and I talk about this all the time. And there's a part in The Mothman Prophecies where Richard Gere, the star of The Mothman Prophecies, which is basically an amalgamation of all of the witness stories put together in one.
01:09:49
Creepy. So they kind of made it. And it's based on a book by an author named, hold on front back.
01:09:56
Simply named. Simply named, and I quote John Keel. He wrote the book The Mothman Prophecies in 1975.
01:10:02
And then they made this movie in 22. And Richard Gere is like, I'm on board. Richard Gere is like, this is my jam.
01:10:10
Yeah, I'm going to. This is my vehicle. So these creepy things are happening to him as a reporter.
01:10:15
It's completely this version of it is not real. But at one point, he's staying in this weird little hotel and he picks up the phone and there's weird feedback and electrical noises.
01:10:26
And then there's a voice that goes, like that fast, creepy talking. And my sister and I decided one day, because I did it to her on the phone just to be funny.
01:10:35
Never do that again. And she got so mad. And we decided that way too fast talking is the scariest thing.
01:10:43
It's so scary. Yeah. And otherworldly. So anyway. Yeah. If you haven't seen the Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Gere.
01:10:49
Oh, we're all going to watch it together. Please stream it on your local streaming services.
01:10:53
Also, I got most of my information from an article on Ranker, the website that works so hard and gets almost no credit.
01:11:00
Such a good website. God bless you, Ranker. And then they're like, oh, you like this article?
01:11:04
Well, here's 10 other ones you're going to fucking stay up all night reading. Yes, you're going to like all the rest of these articles as much, if not more.
01:11:10
So good. So God bless Ranker. Rabbit hole. And also the website, which I'm starting to use more and more, Weird US,
01:11:19
which basically there's a book series that I used to read in the 90s called like Weird Los Angeles, Weird San Francisco.
01:11:25
And it would have all the haunted places, creepy places, murder sites, whatever.
01:11:30
kind of creepy of interest areas. So now they're all on one website called Weird US.
01:11:37
Love it. And then, of course, the Mothman prophecies. Okay. So this story took place
01:11:43
in and around the cities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio, which I can't believe
01:11:50
that's the way it's pronounced when it looks exactly like Gallipoli. Unacceptable.
01:11:55
It really made me really mad when Stephen looked it up for me. From November 11th,
01:12:00
1966 through December of 1967. So this started happening November of 1966 and went on for a year.
01:12:09
And these two cities sit directly across from each other across the Ohio River and or the northern
01:12:17
part of Gallopolis. It sits directly across from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Got it. So the West
01:12:23
Virginia side is best known for Mothman sightings, but it actually also happened over on the Ohio
01:12:31
side as well. The Ohio River is between, and it also kind of acts as the state line between West
01:12:37
Virginia and Ohio. My mind just blanked out. Geography. Don't resist geography, because here's
01:12:42
the thing. This is how we're learning about our great nation, the thing we know nothing about.
01:12:46
And also, did you even know West Virginia and Ohio were next to each other? No. Of course I didn't.
01:12:51
And I failed that class. I stared at this map for so long. Okay. So the story begins November 12th, 1966, 80 miles southeast of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in a little town.
01:13:06
Oh, I didn't look up the name. Okay, I'll just pronounce this how I feel. Let's hear it.
01:13:10
Clendenin. That's right. C-L-E-N-D-E-N-I-N. Clendenin. Or it could be Clendenin.
01:13:16
Or it could be Clendenin. But this is a little sleepy burg of about 1,500 people in, Wikipedia says in 2010, over 1,200 people.
01:13:26
It's probably tripled. I would like to think. Okay. So this is what happens. Cut to.
01:13:33
We're in a cemetery. Five grave diggers are digging a grave. Why are we here? Cut that out.
01:13:40
No, leave it. So gross. It's like a weird thing coming out of my throat. I belched in the microphone, so it's only fair.
01:13:47
Okay. Five grave diggers Digging a grave They look up They hear noise In the trees overhead
01:13:55
They look up To see a man-sized Black bird With huge Glowing red eyes Fly out of the treetops
01:14:02
And then down Low to the ground Near them And away Okay so it's not a man It's just the size of one
01:14:08
And it's a giant bird Yes Okay I think I think the word man Being thrown in there
01:14:12
Is confusing Man-sized It was a hyphenate Okay got it A man-sized bird Got it So he didn't have like hands and arms.
01:14:20
No, he didn't. He didn't have like weird eyebrows that need to get trimmed. No, it was just size wise.
01:14:27
You know, birds are usually the size of your arm or smaller. Not my man. Not Vince sized.
01:14:35
OK, so for me immediately kicking this off, my cynic mind goes, when have there ever been five grave diggers anywhere?
01:14:42
Unless this was a unionized cemetery from the late 60s. Yeah. two max totally three maybe
01:14:48
what is this fucking family annihilator yeah what how do you get five why are you all together
01:14:54
and they're probably also kind of freaked out a little because they're in a fucking grave
01:14:57
yard digging they might be used to it if it's their job that's true unless they're just
01:15:03
digging a grave and they're not professionals ooh we don't know it was the late 60s
01:15:08
speculation anything could have happened back then but then the fact that so I was saying
01:15:13
con that it's five because I'm not buying it That con that it's gravediggers because, oh, it starts on a dark and spooky night or whatever.
01:15:20
But then pro is the fact that five individuals came forward. So that's meaningful.
01:15:26
Yes. Although I'm sure they were ignored and humiliated by the authorities. But three days later, on November 15th, two young couples in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
01:15:36
Their names are Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Millett. They report seeing a, quote, large flying man with 10 foot wings.
01:15:45
Now, that's different than a man-sized bird. That's right. This is a man that flies with huge wings.
01:15:51
I think someone wrote that down wrong. So, but this huge man-sized bird was following their car.
01:15:57
Wait, man bird, though. Yeah. Okay, was following their car. Was following their car in an area known as the TNT area, which was the site of a former
01:16:06
World War II munitions plant near Point Pleasant. They said his eyes glowed red when the car's headlights picked up, like, shone on him.
01:16:15
Like a big man-sized deer in night vision. But a moth man. Got it. I'm here for this.
01:16:24
That didn't help. Okay. You just said a bunch of words. Right. Then more sightings start coming in.
01:16:29
On November 17th, so that's two days later, a teenage boy is driving down Route 7 near Cheshire, Ohio.
01:16:35
And he sees a gray man-shaped 10-foot tall creature with red eyes. based on the pictures
01:16:44
I think the reason they're saying man shaped and man sized is because it's got wings
01:16:49
but two legs and also the head stops mid wing and doesn't go up above it so it doesn't look like a man wearing wings
01:17:00
like a hawk who's got a head in here the head's down low almost like below the wingspan
01:17:05
but it's a bird head not a man head the head part is a question mark Okay. Okay.
01:17:10
Oh, Stephen has... Great. Stephen has a bunch of pictures. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:17:13
Let me take a look. Oh, God, I just closed it. Stephen, what's your password? I'll say it on the...
01:17:19
C-A-T-Z. Cat. 5-5-5-cat. It's like an owl who has eyes in his chest. Yeah, we'll come back to that part.
01:17:28
Okay, that's creepy as fuck. We'll post that on... It's very upsetting. My favorite murder on Instagram.
01:17:34
My... All our socials. Go on. Okay, so... So this teenage boy driving down Route 7
01:17:39
sees this tall gray man-shaped 10-foot tall creature. That's bad enough. But then he tells the authorities that as he sped away, it followed his car.
01:17:51
Yeah. So very creepy and spooky. Then about two weeks later we back over in Ohio at the Gallopolis Airport and or Gallopolis Sorry Gallopolis Airport Thank you
01:18:05
Five pilots. Five. Circle in red and put a question mark above. Five pilots see what at first they believe to be a weird airplane flying at 70 miles an hour.
01:18:16
Then they realize is a some sort of large bird with a long neck. Why are there five pilots on one plane?
01:18:23
is well we don't know if oh if they were if they were separate and it was five reports okay if they
01:18:30
if they just loaded a plane filled with pilots of like we have to get this thing where it's going
01:18:35
everyone's a little sleepy so if everyone takes a turn it'll be great one awake a co-pilot equals
01:18:42
four sleepy co-pilot also back then did all men spend time in groups of five and is that why things
01:18:49
are so fucked up now. I trust pilots. I do too. Do you? I do. Except when you find out like one
01:18:55
of them, they get arrested because they're drunk trying to fly a plane. Yeah, but that never happens.
01:18:59
Almost hardly yet. I'm joking, JK. So then it is credible because they see a lot of stuff.
01:19:09
Sorry, gravediggers. I trust you too. We absolutely trust you. But you see creepy stuff. You're
01:19:15
creeped out a lot. There's a Scooby-Doo element to being a gravedigger that When you're a pilot, you're just like, I've got everything on lock.
01:19:22
Yeah. And I must. I'm from the Air Force. So, so then on December 7th, four adult women, because it's women, so it has to be one less.
01:19:31
Four adult women are driving up Route 30. I'm saying these roads like we know them at all.
01:19:35
Oh, sure. Route 30. You know Route 30. I take it to the 110 to the Route 30. To the Route 30.
01:19:42
Okay. Okay, so they're driving up Route 30 and they see what they report to be a brownish, silver, man-shaped creature with glowing red eyes.
01:19:49
Great. So you can rely on the woman to get accurate about that color. Maybe the sun was setting.
01:19:54
Crimson. They're like crimson. There's like, he was either super tan. Big apple red.
01:19:59
That's what I paint my toenails. So, okay. So authorities are baffled, probably very scared, because they keep on hearing these stories of people seeing creepy shit.
01:20:09
Yeah. So the Mason County, West Virginia sheriff comes up with a totally logical answer to this mystery.
01:20:17
He claims that everyone's seeing an unusually large heron that has gone off of its normal migration route.
01:20:26
And he refers to the bird, whether it's local terminology or he's just mad. He calls it a shit shite poke.
01:20:35
Shite poke. What's that? I don't know. I know. It might be slang. Okay. Then a wildlife biologist at West Virginia University tells reporters that the descriptions of the Mothman all fit the Sand Hill crane,
01:20:49
which is a large American crane with a seven-foot wingspan that's as tall as a grown man with reddish circles around the eyes,
01:20:58
and that it could be just this type of crane that's somehow lost. Say you're taking a fucking shortcut down an alley.
01:21:05
Steven is showing me this crane. That is a fucked up crane. Let me see. I haven't looked.
01:21:11
What if you run into that crane in an alley? Holy fuck. That's a fucking ugly creepy ape.
01:21:15
I don't like the shite poke. The Sand Hill crane's pretty serious. Yeah. They're big.
01:21:21
Big. And he has like an eye, it looks like an eye mask, like a sleep mask that's red.
01:21:26
That's bright red. Yeah. So, okay. Frightening. Frightening. Here's my problem. This bird is white.
01:21:33
As are many cranes. these are white gray a little bit brown i'm not i'm not buying it okay maybe everyone was on acid
01:21:42
i mean this was definitely when acid started getting popular so i would not argue you maybe
01:21:48
it's like the salem witch trials where there was mold on the grain that they were that made their
01:21:53
head did you hear about that why that's one of the theories and i fucking love it because i'm
01:21:57
obsessed with mold aka what hence fucking uh this podcast will kill you being on our network yeah
01:22:03
amazing um that there was mold this mold on the grain that they used to make the bread and everyone
01:22:09
went fucking hallucinogenic psycho psilocybin style exactly yes hell yeah read read about it
01:22:16
okay people um not now right no please listen to this podcast okay so essentially now we've got the
01:22:23
crane theory in the mix and people are like phew it's just a crane right it's just a huge man-sized
01:22:28
crane yeah calm down okay but none of the witnesses who hear this say they saw a crane they're like
01:22:34
no it's it's simply not that fucking crane is yeah don't you dare condescend to me professor
01:22:40
so including a man who's a contractor named neil newell partridge and he argues that the theory
01:22:47
doesn't explain all these weird electrical um interferences that he's been getting at his house
01:22:53
since he spotted the Mothman in a field on his property. And he basically saw it in a field and put up a flashlight,
01:23:02
saw the glowing red eyes, and was like, that was no crane. And here's how I know.
01:23:07
Because since I saw the Mothman, my German shepherd has disappeared. What? That doesn't mean anything.
01:23:14
Yeah. It ate the dog. Oh, got it, got it, got it. Or did it run away and join the Mothman?
01:23:22
Join that crane. And they became a fucking dynamic duo. The crane carries the German shepherd like a little baby, a newborn baby.
01:23:31
In his mouth. And they're like, fuck migration patterns. We're going wherever we want in West Virginia.
01:23:36
We're going to do it. Let's do it. Okay. Noel Partridge is like, no, something weird is going on.
01:23:44
I know it. My dog knew it. Do something about it. So now there a reporter named Mary Heyer who is a correspondent for the Athens Ohio newspaper the messenger in the 60s She wore the highest of heels So she begins writing about all these strange sightings that she seeing coming over the telegraph
01:24:05
I don't know if that's what it's called. Is that the telegraph? What? A Mothman, you say?
01:24:11
Why? Why? There hasn't been a Mothman around here in about 25 years. A really short amount of time.
01:24:19
People start calling. So she starts writing about it in the messenger, the Athens messenger.
01:24:24
Sure, sure. Then people start calling her and telling her when they see UFOs, experiencing odd electrical interferences like Newell did.
01:24:33
They also start hearing weird humming sounds coming up out of nowhere. On one particularly busy weekend,
01:24:40
she got over 500 calls from people in the area saying that they had been seeing strange lights in the sky.
01:24:47
500? 500 calls in one weekend. Holy shit. She's like, leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep.
01:24:53
How'd you get this number? She's like, I'm just trying to report the news. Look, so here's this is John Keel, who I already told you is the author of the book, The Mothman Prophecies from 1975, upon which the classic Richard Gere film is loosely based loosely.
01:25:07
And he is basically considered to be the foremost authority on these Mothman stories.
01:25:12
he claims that between November of 1966 and November of 1967 at least 100 people personally witnessed
01:25:21
the Mothman in the Ohio and West Virginia area now on the Wikipedia page it goes on to
01:25:29
when it gets into the debunking stage talk about how none of these people nobody could
01:25:34
track them down but I just told you people's names because they were like there's no real names and nobody and you can't
01:25:41
track them down but it's like just because people have died since 1967 doesn't mean they didn't have
01:25:45
the experience they had right so fuck you professor why are we mad at this the scientists always take
01:25:52
the most shit okay and this the sightings of uh strange creatures in the sky is not new for this
01:26:00
area um in the early 1900s that area was known for reports of thunderbirds which in cryptozoology
01:26:09
are known as they're giant birds with 12-foot wingspans that were spotted flying up and down
01:26:15
the Ohio River Valley. Stephen, do you want to look up Thunderbirds? Because this is a real thing.
01:26:20
Now, the pictures that you find on the internet, they could very well be hoaxes, but Thunderbirds
01:26:26
are kind of legendary. Tell me what they are again. They're humongous birds. A lot of people
01:26:31
think that are somehow holdovers, kind of Loch Ness Monster style. Or like pterodactyls. Exactly.
01:26:37
They're like leftover dinosaur birds that come in and are just like, what's that, a toddler?
01:26:42
Goodbye. Oh, no. And it happened to like the pioneers and stuff. Oh, shit. Yeah.
01:26:47
So this is a story that's been going on for a while. There's also stories of similar types of creatures that would ascend from the sky that Native Americans and First Nation people have always told.
01:26:59
Right. Where if a certain type of cloud would come in, they'd be like, get all the kids inside because those evil things.
01:27:07
Now I can't remember what birds. Those evil Thunderbird type animals are coming.
01:27:11
Oh, this is not this isn't new. Yeah. In any way, is my point. Wait, Stephen, let me see.
01:27:16
This is it. Like a drawing. There was some car showing up. The Thunderbird. Of course there were.
01:27:21
You can't tell the size, but it is real ugly. Majestic. Ugly in a majestic in an ugly way.
01:27:27
This looks like if your high school mascot is the Falcon. Yeah, it does. There's nothing.
01:27:32
Steven, there was actually a picture I was talking about. Wait, is it the science picture with the scientists?
01:27:38
Read his text. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what? Read his text. Seriously. Steven, can you bring up that picture?
01:27:44
He brings up a pencil drawn. It might as well say Alex P. underneath it. That's the one I was looking for.
01:27:53
Look at that big-ass bird. Holy shit. Steven, will you post this picture also? And also, Stephen, we find out if that picture is a hoax.
01:28:01
That's insane. Oh, if it's a hoax, they'll tell us. That's a hoax. There's no way there's that big of a bird.
01:28:06
This is the fun part of the show where we're going to say something's real and it's your job to tell us if it's a hoax.
01:28:11
But say it angrily. Yes. Make sure that you act like we are always supposed to get everything right.
01:28:15
That's right. We should do better. We're your primary source of news. Okay, so what we're saying is just that big, huge, bird-like things in the sky is not new for this Ohio Valley area.
01:28:28
Get with it. Ohio River Valley area. I don't know if it's a valley. That's how I go wrong is adding in words like that.
01:28:35
Okay, so all of the witnesses. Here's the difference, though. In this period between 1966 and 1967, all the witnesses who reported seeing the Mothman gave similar descriptions.
01:28:46
It was whiter than a man but had human-like legs. that its eyes were set near the top of the shoulders, which is the creepiest aspect of it.
01:28:55
Yeah. And that it had bat-like wings that glided rather than flapped when it flew.
01:29:01
And when it flew away, it ascended straight up into the air like a helicopter. And it flipped you off on the way out.
01:29:09
It said, bye, bitches. Bye, bitch, bye. Every time it said, bye, bitches. Which is rude.
01:29:14
It's like, well, they didn't know at the time what it meant, but hashtag, bye, bitch.
01:29:18
Bye, bitch. What's a hashtag? It said it really fast. Touch her bag. Scary. So scary.
01:29:23
Witnesses also described the murky skin as either being gray or brown and that it emitted a humming sound when it flew.
01:29:32
Like that? Like it was nervous in the grocery store? Again, and I probably said this before, if you're ever near a person who just starts whistling or humming, you're getting your pocket picked.
01:29:46
And you need to keep your eyes open. you need to get put that head just start punching I think is the answer but first start by punching
01:29:54
behind yeah you be the weird one if someone humming near you become the weird one and just start punching yeah because you can just you can always stop and walk away They still the weird one that humming We are so back baby
01:30:05
Okay. Can you feel it? Can you feel the energy of it? Okay. So, oh, this is my favorite sentence of this, of all of this research.
01:30:13
The humming sound when it flew. And then it says, it was also incapable of speech.
01:30:18
It communicated with a screeching sound. Me too. So thank God it didn't land in front of your car with its red eyes.
01:30:27
I was like, what's up, Jerry? I'm here to freak the fuck out of you. It's never like that.
01:30:32
You mean it talked like a bird? But I bet it hummed. Anyway, what's up in your car?
01:30:42
Okay, so all this is fun and creepy and weird and cryptozoological, which is kind of my favorite, as we know.
01:30:50
And maybe not true, as also my favorite. I believe it. But here's the part that's interesting and factual.
01:30:56
These sightings continue for a year up until disaster strikes. The evening of December 15th, 1967.
01:31:07
And all these commuters are sitting in their cars in traffic waiting to cross the Silver Bridge, which connects Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
01:31:17
And Gallopolis. Gallopolis? It's Gallopolis. Yeah. And Gallipolis, Ohio, which are on either side of the Ohio River.
01:31:28
Got it. So the Silver Bridge is a span bridge. It was built in 1928. And about 4,000 cars a day cross it.
01:31:37
Wow. And that is very different since the 40 years ago when it was built. I wrote since its erection.
01:31:47
Shut up. but the bridge has never been updated or rebuilt to accommodate the increasing drive time congestion.
01:31:54
So here's the way it happened. And I found this story, these stories from a website called timeline.com
01:32:01
because I just put in silver bridge disaster timeline. And then there's a website called timeline.com.
01:32:07
God bless it. And it had these stories on it. Okay. So around 5 p.m., there's a woman named Charlene Wood,
01:32:13
who's getting on the bridge to get home from her job at a hair salon. She's pregnant.
01:32:18
She's been working all day. She just wants to get home. Oh, her fucking feet. All around her, there's trucks, there's commuters,
01:32:24
and there's people shopping for Christmas because it's almost Christmas beginning in December.
01:32:30
Suddenly, she feels the bridge shake. Now, apparently, because this is a span bridge.
01:32:36
What does that mean? A span bridge is kind of built similarly to... It's one where it goes over a river, over a body of water.
01:32:42
So it has to suspend itself. But I guess a span bridge, I'm not going to be able to explain this correctly, but like the Golden Gate Bridge is technically a span bridge, but it's the cables on it that hold it up and keep it out.
01:32:56
And that's not like pillars. Instead, it's like holding itself up with tension. Exactly.
01:33:01
But the way this bridge was built was flat pieces of metal that were a foot wide and like two inches thick.
01:33:09
Okay. As opposed to, you know, the Golden Gate Bridge is just all those cables. So there is a tiny, and I think in the end they found out that it was like a three millimeter wide flaw in the steel on one of the spans.
01:33:25
But it had been there for so long. there was no way to inspect it unless they would have to like look at every single inch of the
01:33:31
bridge right but it but but nothing had ever been checked or updated or ever so over the years and
01:33:37
the way this bridge it would move with the cars and with um whatever so people said it was very
01:33:43
common to be on the silver bridge and have the whole thing move and shake and do stuff yeah it
01:33:48
was just kind of people were used to it but over the years this thing kind of wore away and wore
01:33:52
away until this day. So Charlene is sitting there and she feels the bridge shake really hard.
01:34:03
So she real quick decides to throw her car into reverse and back up as far as she can.
01:34:09
And luckily she can, because one minute later, 60 seconds later, the cars in front of her
01:34:15
begin sliding down off the bridge and into the river that the the bridge had collapsed
01:34:22
and the cars were just going in. And she had somehow miraculously been able to back up to solid ground
01:34:28
and get off the part that had collapsed. Oh, my God. Yeah. And she said, and the water, of course, it's December.
01:34:36
It's freezing. The water's 40 degrees. She said, it was like someone had lined up dominoes.
01:34:42
I could see cars light flashing as they went tumbling into the water. The car in front of me went in and then there was silence.
01:34:50
So she was the last car. before they stopped going into the water. A truck driver named Bill Needham is midway across the bridge when it collapses.
01:35:01
He's thrown into the water, but he's able to escape because he has a half rolled down window.
01:35:06
Oh, my God. And he was quoted as saying, I didn't know how far I had to go up when he means like swim back up.
01:35:12
Yeah. He says, but I could tell that the water, I could tell the water kept getting lighter.
01:35:18
So that's basically how he knew what direction to swim. Holy shit. He used a box that was floating in the water because basically there's all these trucks and all these cars.
01:35:26
So there's just stuff in the water. So the people that were able to get out of their cars and get to the surface were grabbing things to hold on to because he Bill didn't get rescued out of the water for 15 minutes.
01:35:38
Oh, my God. He was in 40. I think they said is 40 degree water for 15 minutes. His partner, Robert Toe, did not make it out of the truck.
01:35:47
He died in that truck. and so did 18 year old Marjorie Buggs who was driving her husband
01:35:53
Howard and their 17 month old child across the bridge when it collapsed. Howard was
01:36:00
pulled to safety by a rescue boat. And the first thing he said to the crew when he got on board was,
01:36:04
I just hope to God Marjorie and the kid got out okay. Marjorie and her baby and Howard's baby's bodies were found six weeks later in the car in the river.
01:36:16
State Trooper Rudy O'Dell, who was 31 years old at the time, was one of the first officers to respond to the disaster.
01:36:23
And he said, quote, I could hear them hollering for help. I didn't know how many there were at the time.
01:36:28
there was absolutely nothing I could do. It was a long way out into the water. So he's basically on one side of the river looking out at these people.
01:36:37
What is he going to jump into 40 degree water and try to sleep? Yeah, and that's not the way you save people when they're drowning.
01:36:43
So in all, 31 cars went into the Ohio River that day, sending 64 people into its 44 degree waters.
01:36:51
Oh, so it's 44 degrees. Of the 64 people who went in, 46 of them died. Holy shit.
01:36:58
The Silver Bridge collapse remains the deadliest bridge disaster in United States history.
01:37:04
President Lyndon Johnson released a statement saying all Americans were shocked by the cruel tragedy and loss of life and assembled a task force, the task force on bridge safety to mount an investigation.
01:37:17
And forensic analysis traced the problem to a small stress crack inside the bearing loop of I-bar 330.
01:37:24
So the I-bars were the things holding it up. No sightings of the Mothman were reported again in the Point Pleasant area after that day.
01:37:32
Yeah. So that's why people connect. There's the the theory is that the Mothman appeared trying to warn people about this tragedy that was coming.
01:37:42
If that is the case, he did not do a good job. I mean, it must have been the only I can screech.
01:37:49
Yeah. Why write something down? Yeah. Speak in human tongue. Yeah. Sorry, Mothman, it's just the truth.
01:37:58
Whatever you did, all you did was freak people out, and you were not on message.
01:38:02
Look at that. In 1969, the Silver Bridge was replaced by the Silver Memorial Bridge, which was a mile downstream of the original.
01:38:10
And there is a memorial installed in Point Pleasant to commemorate the 46 bridge collapse victims.
01:38:19
That's so sad. It's horrible. But and I think I think the reason that legends like this pop up because a lot of, you know, the theories are that there's always been this legend in like these stories and that it comes it comes up after the fact.
01:38:36
Right Because people want to lace some kind of that that there would be help or something out of this just senseless tragedy where in the middle of the day at Christmas time all these people just got dumped in the river and died so it this there is a lore and a legend around it like something was there and
01:38:55
it could have helped but also i think it's that idea that like that maybe some somebody's watching
01:39:01
us could help us prevent these tragedies in the future we just knew how to pay attention to them
01:39:06
correctly. Right. And understood screeching. Yeah, exactly. Now, on an up note, Point Pleasant
01:39:13
held its first annual Mothman Festival in 2002. Oh, really? And a 12-foot tall metallic statue
01:39:20
of the creature created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach was unveiled in 2003. Yes, there are
01:39:26
pictures. Wow. And it's much more silver and beautiful than any of the drawings or illustrations
01:39:33
and also much, much taller than the way people described it. The Mothman Festival is a weekend-long event
01:39:41
held on the third weekend of every September, and there are a variety of events that go on during the festival,
01:39:48
such as guest speakers, vendor exhibits, a Mothman pancake-eating contest. Yes! Can we go?
01:39:55
Could we please? Can we be the speakers? I mean, we have to hit the Circleville Pumpkin Festival first.
01:40:01
Right. I think this should be number two. Yeah. Oh, and then also the Cheese Festival in Wisconsin.
01:40:06
Yes, that's right. In Athens, Wisconsin? I think so. Isn't it some kind of other foreign city name?
01:40:13
You're so smart, Stephen. Thank you. I just love that it's a Mothman pancake eating contest.
01:40:20
Like moths love pancakes. If you're going to have a legit, you have a wool suit eating contest because that's the real deal.
01:40:29
My vintage dress eating contest. Yes, exactly. It'd be way harder, way longer, but much more accurate.
01:40:36
There's also hayride tours focusing on the notable areas of Point Pleasant. And there's now a Mothman Museum and Research Center that opened in 2005, run by someone named Jeff Wamsley.
01:40:49
Good job, Jeff. Jeff, if that's still open, God bless you. It'd be amazing to go look at that.
01:40:54
That's right. And that's the legend of the Mothman and the tragedy of the Silver Bridge collapse of 1967.
01:41:00
wow that was not what I was expecting great job right I didn't feel like getting
01:41:05
fully back into the full tragedy no I get it that was a good one and you know just a touch of it at the end I feel like you know
01:41:11
we can do stuff like that now and we do this at live shows a lot of times too of like urban
01:41:17
legends and stuff like that yeah I feel like let's now that we're back it's storytelling it's storytelling this is
01:41:23
new we don't need to find the world's worst murder every week it can also be stories like this and I like that fucking hooray oh yes so let end this on a positive note let do it do you have one for the past two months do you want me to go first absolutely yes you go first okay we three weeks
01:41:42
ago finally moved into my first home i keep calling it my apartment because it's so fucking
01:41:49
weird i don't get it but i love it yeah i'm just really happy uh about it and i one of the things
01:41:56
that brings me so much joy about it is watching the cats experience it. Because I've just always had an apartment that faces a stucco wall,
01:42:03
and that's like it. But now we have like a view of trees, so they can watch the birds.
01:42:08
And there's this one giant beetle that keeps clonking against the window, and the cats lose their shit.
01:42:14
And because of the windows, we also have sunlight in the afternoon. Isn't that nice?
01:42:18
Yeah, I love it. And so the cats have been laying in it in the sun, and it's just so nice and comforting to watch.
01:42:25
But Elvis has this pink, like he lost some fur on his chest because he's getting older.
01:42:31
And he's been laying in the sun for the first time in years because we have sunlight.
01:42:36
And he's gotten tan. So now his pink belly is like a little bit tan. And it's just making me really happy.
01:42:45
Oh, that's good. It's really funny. That's what's bringing me joy. That's so good.
01:42:49
Now this... Now, be quiet. Now, this my fucking is so has nothing to do with me directly.
01:43:00
But I am so deeply proud that Schitt's Creek was nominated for multiple Emmy Awards.
01:43:09
I love it. They're going to be at the Emmys this year. And now I mean, it's so it was like for comedy series, lead actors, Eugene Levy, lead actress, Catherine O'Hara and costumes.
01:43:22
Huge. oh right yeah i mean but but the idea that they didn't nominate dan levy who his whole acting
01:43:31
style is the reason that that show like like sizzles the way it does it's like his style
01:43:37
and the realness and whatever but all that is to say uh when i saw that i was it just like i felt
01:43:43
so proud because that's the kind of show i've re-watched it probably four times and it just
01:43:49
keeps on giving. It's funnier every time you watch it. I love it. It's just so good.
01:43:54
So, if you haven't watched it, please watch it. And if you watched it a while ago, re-watch it.
01:44:00
Like, if you're in a bad mood or things get scary, it feels... It's just so great. I never finished
01:44:06
watching it, so I need to get back to it. I mean, look, it's not for everybody. I like to make very strong recommendations on
01:44:11
this show and tell everybody things are exactly the way I think they are. Like Mothman prophecies?
01:44:19
But yay hooray for Schitt Creek and how exciting because that means that they going to be in our town That awesome I love it I know Me too
01:44:29
Cool. Thanks, you guys. Welcome back to everyone. Oh my god. We're so excited to be back
01:44:35
live and in studio with you. We missed you. This is the most fun job we've ever had. It's the best. I can't believe
01:44:43
we get to do this for a living and I'm just thrilled to be back. And now we have to do it
01:44:46
for a living. God damn it. Now we have to make a living. Now we've got to do this thing.
01:44:51
That's right. Thanks for being here with us. Thank you. We hope you had a great summer vacation, too.
01:44:56
We miss you. We love you. Sorry, you have to go back to school now. That's right.
01:44:59
But sign your buns until then. Today, Nora's her first day of seventh grade. Oh, my God.
01:45:05
She's a grown up. Yeah, and her braces are off. Yeah, bitch. I'm going to call her a bitch.
01:45:10
I'm sorry. I'm not calling your niece a bitch. No, no, no. You were doing that Mothman style.
01:45:14
Bye, bitches. Bye, bitch. Bye. Hashtag. um so yes stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye bitch
01:45:24
Elvis you want a cookie why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody plans anything bro
01:45:33
good thing the rug's ready like that for real rain dirt whatever available all-wheel drive
01:45:39
five modes we still outside and they got some kick too that turbo torque is crazy the most in
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class. It moves, moves. Rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space. Merch on merch, gear, mics,
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all of it fits. Load up, we out. 2026 Nissan Rogue, built for all of it. Auto Pacific segmentation,
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2026 Rogue versus latest in-market competitors in the ex-SUV mainstream mid-sites class,
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