00:00:00
This is exactly right. of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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10-10 shots fired in City Hall building. How could this have happened in City Hall?
00:00:41
Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events
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that really ever happened in New York City politics. I screamed, get down, get down.
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Those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten. And a mystery. that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
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Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:10
I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.
00:01:20
Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.
00:01:31
I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:54
And be Gwen. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, The Minnesota. Where we read your shit to you.
00:02:05
Do you like it? We like it. So last week we did all of our people that were hiding secret lives, which was super fun.
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And we got so many that we will definitely continue to do them. But at one point we veered off into a basically an interesting anonymous donors,
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people that are doing positive things with their secret lives. Yes, I remember. Not everyone's starting a multiple family.
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There were some good parts. And my beautiful friend, Jason Lopez, who, Stephen, you know him too,
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who listens to every single episode and always the day after anything of ours comes out,
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he'll let me know what his observations are on the episode. And so after that last minisode, he wrote to me,
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Ethos, the music program for kids here in Portland. is a non-profit that provides group lessons, music camps, etc.
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And after Prince died, they found out that he was one of their anonymous donors.
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Isn't that amazing? And then he said, isn't that random? Just a little music school here in Portland.
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And I said, that's because that means he was doing it everywhere. I bet you everywhere Prince went.
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Because Prince was like a kid in Minnesota. Yeah. Like, he knows what it's like to be a super talent that's out in the middle of nowhere,
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just kind of waiting for your chance. Yeah. So you know that he just sprinkled his shit around anonymously.
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I love that. That's beautiful. Prince. Thanks, Prince. Let's all take a moment to thank Prince.
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Okay, do you want me to go first? Oh, sure. The headline of this is, the subject line,
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My mom's ex-fiancee tried to blow up her house, and that is how she met my dad's South African hometown.
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Cool. brand new we've never had one from south africa i don't think we have um dearest karen georgia
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steven and animal compadres don't mind it when my mom was in her 20s she started dating a guy and
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they eventually got engaged and move in together my grandparents were always a bit skeptical of
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the dude and thought he was a creep but they went along with it out of respect for my mom
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as an avid gym bunny in the 80s my mom wore spandex body suits and tights to her workouts
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accompanied with a hairsprayed brush of curly hair and neon socks. Amazing. We could stop there and I'd be great.
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Yeah. When she arrived home one day after a gym session, her then-fiancé started beating her up for, quote,
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dressing like a slut to the gym and accused her of seeking other men's attention.
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In parentheses, it says, toxic masculinity ruins the party. Again. My mom stayed sexy and noped out of there,
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broke off their engagement, and drove her little Volkswagen Beetle back to my grandparents' house
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where she endured many I told you so's from my gran. That night, after everyone had gone to bed,
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my mom awoke to a massive crash and smelled smoke. She saw an orange flicker through her window
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and saw smoke coming out of the area where the car was parked under my granddad's little car park outside.
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My grandparents, my mom, and my aunt rushed outside and found my mom's ex-fiance speeding off down the street.
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He had thrown a homemade bomb into the car park and blown up half of my grandparents' house.
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Holy shit. Luckily, everyone was safe, including my mom's cocker spaniel, Jason.
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Jason. Jason the cocker spaniel. Sorry. The police alert. Jason. Also, I just talked about my friend Jason.
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Oh, yeah, that's fair. The police were alerted and they arrested the ex. They requested that my mom get a report from a medical professional with regards to her physical injuries so that they could include that in her indictment against the ex.
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As fate would have it my dad was the doctor on call that day And that how he met my mom The rest is history They been happily married for 27 years Have two kids ten dogs and three cats together
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Oh, I love it. I really hope you enjoy the story as much as I always do. Keep up the amazing podcast.
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It's so great to find a community of true crime lovers. And your podcast feels like home.
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Hope to catch you live someday. SSDGM Kelly. Kelly. That's the best. That was great.
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For some reason, I read that headline. I read pre read the email and I didn't really,
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it's like, I didn't notice the part with the doctor until I just read it this time.
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Yeah. I love it. I just want to know like their, their first meeting was like, you know,
00:06:38
well, you know, she wore that same workout outfit. I was wondering if she was in her fucking spandex outfit.
00:06:43
Like she's going to stop by the doctors real quick. And then she's going to go to the gym.
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She's going to pull on those leg, leg warmers. Yes. Neon green. All right. This one's called my grandmother was kidnapped.
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and then in parentheses it says she's okay um hi wonderful women pets and steven my grandmother
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used to work at a as a nurse's aide in an insane asylum in connecticut in the 60s fairfield hills
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was a psychiatric hospital in newton connecticut newtown connecticut that opened in the 30s and
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closed in the 90s the massive campus still stands vacant and of course there are stories of hauntings
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Because, I mean, it's an empty former insane asylum, for Christ's sake. When my Nana worked there, each employee would go to a central building to clock in every morning and then report to the building they worked in.
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This is a sprawling campus with dozens of buildings, and it was the middle of winter.
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So my grandmother ran into the main building, leaving her car unlocked, checked in, and ran back to her car to drive to her assigned building.
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After she turned on the car, she was suddenly shocked when a man popped up from the back seat,
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wrapped her neck with a piece of rope and said drive no she did as she was instructed he gave
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random orders to turn left right seemingly not having a destination in mind but he ended up
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having her drive about 20 minutes to north waterbury connecticut where he jumped out of
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the car and bolted thankfully because she had checked into work but didn't show up minutes later
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to her assigned building the staff immediately knew something was wrong apparently this man was
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one of the patients who had escaped his room and was looking to get as far away from Fairfield
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Hills as possible. My Nana was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Listen to this fucking
00:08:21
thing right here. Ready? Okay. They never did find the guy. Oh, as far as I know, but the rope he used
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to hold my grandmother was raw. It was a raw ragged thing and it wore down the skin around her neck to
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the point where later on an EMT told her that if had worn even a tiny bit further, it would for sure
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have cut her corroded artery. Wow. Carotid? Carotid, yeah. Corroded artery. It's a well-known
00:08:44
corroded or carotid. Exactly. My nana is one of the most badass women I know whose favorite phrase is
00:08:49
I don't get mad, I get even. She turned 92 years old this year and would still manage
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to stay sexy and not get murdered in any situation she was in. Finally, even though this story
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is about someone breaking out of an insane asylum, I don't want to diminish mental health issues in any way.
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So I just want to thank you both for normalizing and being so upfront with your mental health.
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Fairfield Hills was a place where people like you or me would be locked up and forgotten.
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That's right. And I'm glad that it's closed and we're slowly moving toward a point where people can seek
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help without the threat of stigma. And that's definitely thanks to women like you.
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Oh. SSDGM Lauren. God, that's so scary. Fucking terrifying. Nana. Did that happen at night?
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It doesn't sound well. she got, I mean, she, I got to work in my mind. It was the daytime. Yeah.
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I mean, but I was just immediately, cause you know, there's that, it made me think of that. Um,
00:09:44
there's the urban myth that was going around for a little while warning people at the mall, like to check because there was that story of the girl that gets
00:09:51
into the car and there was a guy in the backseat or whatever. But that, that idea, like my car, I can see in. Yeah.
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And even when I get into my car, I'll still look back and just make sure. I do once in a while when it's really dark, do a little check each other.
00:10:06
Yeah. Just in case. Yeah. Okay, now you go. How about the subject line? Whose toenails are these?
00:10:15
Love it. Hi, Karen. Hi, Karen, Georgia Karen Associates. Yeah, that's right. I got two.
00:10:24
I really, I really like that more than I should have. I'm almost 50. I need to set the scene before I try to explain the thing I found in my basement wall.
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I live in a big Victorian house that has been transformed into a co-op housing unit for university and college students.
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We have eight housemates. Plus, we usually have a couple of couch surfers crashing in our living room.
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So much fun. Oh, I was going to say, what a mess. Fuck that shit. Yeah, but you get up in the morning and you make some coffee and you may or may not smoke a joint.
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And then you start playing cards. And there's like four people. You could immediately just start playing games.
00:11:00
You just want someone who always wants to hang out. Yes. All the time. You should join a commune.
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I really should. Or you know what I should do is be a super creep and like open my house up to borders.
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Do it. And just like pick. Don't do it. Pick people. Do it. And be like, you're here.
00:11:14
You have to play Uno with me. Okay. It's not about me. And since the co-op has been operating since the 50s, a lot of people have drifted in and
00:11:25
out of our house. The basement is an amalgamation of all the strange shit that's been brought into our
00:11:29
house by generations of weird hippies. It's also an expansive basement with a lot of unfinished walls twisting into dark little rooms and hallways going nowhere in particular.
00:11:39
It gives me the creeps and I hate going down there. Recently, when I was looking in one of those weird little storage rooms for a bike pump, I saw something highly fucked up.
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It was a glass jam jar sealed with a cork and sat down on a beam in an open wall and it was filled to the top with human toenail clippings no no no no no no no no no no no see it in your mind oh look at all the yellow crescents stop it the hard yellow
00:12:10
crescents i've asked many current and past housemates if they know anything about the
00:12:15
toenail jar one past housemate has seen it before and actually told me about the jar last year but
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And I hadn't believed them. In any case, no one has any idea who put it in our basement, how long it's been there,
00:12:28
why it was put there, or whose toenails are in that jar. I wish I could say I threw it out, but I was ready to touch it.
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And so is everyone else who has ever looked at it. SSDGM, Emily. That's awful. It's so disgusting.
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So weird that I really want to go through that basement. Oh, with like a big old fluorescent, like a fluorescent beam.
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I just want to go through all the boxes. I lived in a house like that for a little while, like in Echo Park, where like, I think
00:12:56
that someone told me that the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the band used to like, that was
00:13:00
their house. Oh, I'd actually been to parties there when I was younger. And they so the basement was filled with like, fucking people's shit who had to like jam
00:13:09
and get the fuck out of there or whatever. Right. Just I didn't take it. It was just like fun to look through people's shit.
00:13:14
I love it. I'm a monster. I love communal living. Not the life for me. Your husband is not who you think he is.
00:13:20
Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.
00:13:25
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
00:13:33
Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle.
00:13:43
Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships,
00:13:49
and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know,
00:13:56
but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything.
00:14:00
And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
00:14:06
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.
00:14:10
Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:18
This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security,
00:14:28
one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS
00:14:35
and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:15:10
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm not going to tell you the name of this one,
00:15:23
but I will tell you that the theme of my story is today as grandparents. Okay. Because here's another one.
00:15:28
Hello, all the wonderful people and animals of MFM. Hey, that's one of the best ones yet.
00:15:34
Easy. Love it. I have quite the slew of stories I've been meaning to write into you.
00:15:38
murderous great uncle, survivor friend's mom, high school murderers. However, once you mentioned
00:15:44
writing in stories about secretives, my cousin, can't be right. No, I get it. She wrote secret
00:15:52
lives, but it was in one word. Oh, she forgot to do this. Secret lives. About secretives,
00:15:58
which is the professional name for it. That's right. My cousin, who introduced me to your
00:16:02
podcast, insisted I finally buckle down and write this thing. So here it is. Around April,
00:16:07
I was cleaning out my grandparents' house where they lived for 62 years now. They didn't pass, just had a lot of shit that needed to go
00:16:15
and came across some interesting things in the process. My grandmother, who we call Batchie, has always...
00:16:22
It sounds like batshit. It does. B-A-T-C-H-I-E. Batchie. Batchie. Okay. Has always been known for the insane amount of photos she takes.
00:16:31
So naturally, a lot of what I found was pictures. Lots of family from growing up.
00:16:35
Some of my mom and her sister. when they were kids, etc. As I was working in the living room, cleaning all the wine glasses on
00:16:43
display with Batchy, she was telling me about the good old days and how all her quote, intimate
00:16:48
friends would come over and they would have a great time. But quote, of course, not when the
00:16:54
children were around. I was taken back by that statement. But I chalked it up to an 84 year old
00:16:59
woman with dementia talking about throwing crazy parties with her friends getting drunk playing
00:17:03
cards listening to Elvis records. I'm into all of those things. And so is Elvis.
00:17:08
In the next few days, I found some interesting birthday cards from my nanny and grandpa Meatball.
00:17:13
What the fuck? My cousin's grandparents. Is this a cartoon character writing into us?
00:17:19
I just love that. Like, funny names are the best. In the hall closet, which I again was like, hmm, they have a very uncomfortable sense
00:17:29
of humor, but chalked it up to nothing other than that. and then the next paragraph says
00:17:34
okay so I was wrong it certainly wasn't nothing I moved on to clean their bedroom
00:17:41
at this point my Bachi and Papa were staying at my mom's house so I could be slightly
00:17:45
more productive and found a box of pictures under the bed not being at all surprised
00:17:51
by this because they were quite literally boxes of pictures everywhere I opened the box to look at the photos and possibly have a few laughs about my mom old boyfriends or whatever All caps Nope Not pictures of my mom old boyfriends or photos of us growing up
00:18:05
Instead, I found photos of my grand, but from my grandparents. All caps. Swinger parties.
00:18:11
No, no, no, no. Steven is pointing at the. You have photos. What? Holy shit. Oh, my God.
00:18:20
Oh, no. What I'm looking at right now. She sent them to us? Oh, no. She took them and sent them to us.
00:18:27
I love her, love her, love her. Are they old people or are they young? They're middle-aged people, but it's in the 60s or 70s.
00:18:35
I mean, 70s or 80s. But look, they're all in one bed like Charlie Bucket's grandparents.
00:18:41
It's a bunch of adults in a bed under a sheet together, smiling like little devils.
00:18:46
Oh, my God. They are having so much fun. Oh, she's touching his penis in that photo, but you can't tell.
00:18:52
and laughing her ass off too oh my god they are they're like all like in one bed together
00:18:57
let me see more let me see more holy shit there's a lot of them you guys oh my god they're like all
00:19:07
naked and how many of these can we post i don't i feel like we can't post these i don't know
00:19:12
unless steven goes through and puts tiny black bars across everybody's eyes look at this one
00:19:18
The thing is, like, they're in these suggested positions, but they're cracking up.
00:19:22
They're just being kind of funny, dirty, drunk. Yeah. That's kind of what it seems like.
00:19:27
But also in a room that's paneled in twaile wallpaper and then wood paneling on the bottom half.
00:19:36
It's a 70. This looks like 1980 to me. It's so brown. And they look like 1980s, 40s.
00:19:43
You know what I mean? Like, they're in their 40s. Yes. But they look old to us. Okay.
00:19:45
It also looks like people who probably drank a ton and were bored. Yeah. And they were like, well, you look, you all have a mustache or a beard.
00:19:54
Right. We might as well just fuck each other. Like you two fucked each other in high school.
00:19:58
Like you've already seen his dick. Let's just all, I want to see your honey's dick or whatever.
00:20:03
Yes, exactly. Okay. Let me finish this. No, don't put that away. I want to keep looking at it.
00:20:07
Okay. So my grandparents, so those are her grandparents, swinger parties and a few sex toys from way
00:20:15
back in the day when my mom and aunts were growing up. And then I was mortified. I immediately took
00:20:23
pictures of the photos and sent them to my cousins so they could be just as scarred as I was. That's
00:20:29
what I would do. And had to take a break from cleaning the house for a little while. Yeah,
00:20:32
I bet you did. As I pieced all these things together, I realized what I had just stumbled
00:20:36
upon. These were all old people that I knew. All people I had dinner with and played cards with
00:20:41
when I was young. My nanny and grandpa Meatball were both featured in these photos.
00:20:45
as well as a few other close friends of my grandparents. Needless to say, I can never really look at my grandparents the same way ever again.
00:20:53
Oh shit. The grandparents are still alive. Yeah. She was just cleaning their house.
00:20:57
I thought no, no, their battery's fucking kicking it. And I took my cousins down with me.
00:21:04
There's still a lot of that house that needs to get cleaned out, but quite frankly,
00:21:07
I'm horrified to do so. Yep. So yeah, that's the story of how I learned my grandparents were swingers.
00:21:12
Stay sexy and don't look under your grandparents' bed. delaney okay delaney delaney like melanie but with a d okay oh i'm just saying she just blew
00:21:24
up her grandpa her grandparents spot so hard like because not that many people call their
00:21:29
grandmother batchy yeah totally so people are gonna know there's gonna be people in that hometown
00:21:34
that are like excuse me oh yeah that's really insane this is just like it's just they're having
00:21:41
so much fun guys sex is natural and sex is fun and everyone does it and everybody everyone's
00:21:47
grandparents do it and take pictures of it oh my god it also looks like they're doing it just to
00:21:52
be like yeah just take a picture of this we're being dirty on purpose could be um and what a
00:21:58
gorgeous expression of human love that was fun and then just the photo like the fact that there
00:22:03
are photos just made it i mean i was i'm shocked do you want to hear this last one absolutely
00:22:09
Society mom or covert criminal? Lighthearted. Hello, MFMists. Oh, no. MF feminists.
00:22:17
Oh. MF feminists. Nice one. I'll take it. You know what? That just moved up to number one.
00:22:23
My daughter turned me on to your show, and now I never miss an episode. The Murderino community in Denver was a great support system for her when she moved across the country.
00:22:32
So this dad thanks you all. You too, Stephen, from the bottom of my heart, for creating such a wonderful movement of awesome people.
00:22:39
That's great. Thank you. I have a family story that I've never told anyone until now.
00:22:43
My mom has always appeared from the outside as a very cultured and sophisticated woman.
00:22:48
Now, in her 80s, she still runs volunteer organizations and goes to the theater and other fancy events.
00:22:54
But people who know her history know that she grew up dirt poor in Chicago and has always been a scrappy badass.
00:23:00
When I was in high school, I bought my first real car. It was a Datsun B210, a little beater that cost like $250.
00:23:09
After owning it a few months, I took it to a mechanic who said that the whole underside of the car was rusted out.
00:23:15
And it was amazing that it was still holding together. A couple of days after that diagnosis, I woke up early one morning to find my mom trudging into the house out of breath with her clothes all dirty.
00:23:26
She told me to get dressed and then she drove me to the local mall where she told me to call the police and tell them my car was stolen.
00:23:33
I did and made a police report. And a couple of days later, the cops found the car deep in the woods about a quarter mile away from our rural Virginia house, banged up and a wreck.
00:23:42
Apparently the victim of kids taking it out for a joyride. Only after the car was found, did my mom tell me the real story?
00:23:49
She had taken my car out, found some secluded dirt road, and tried repeatedly to crash it into a tree
00:23:55
in an attempt to total it. What? But she was too scared to really commit to it. before airbags. So after three or four good bangs, she thought she'd done a good enough job
00:24:04
and abandoned the car. The thought of my society mom careening through the woods, trying mostly
00:24:09
unsuccessfully to wreck my car made me laugh out loud, but she was very serious about it and made
00:24:15
me swear that I wouldn't tell anyone, particularly not my dad, since it would technically be fraud or
00:24:21
some shit and we could all get in trouble. Even though it happened 40 years ago, I've never told
00:24:26
anyone that story until now. And now that it's out, I'm looking forward to revealing to my kids that
00:24:32
their sweet old grandma is really a badass, car-smashing, insurance fraud-perpetrating criminal.
00:24:38
Oh my! Stay sexy and don't be fooled by sweet old grandmas. Love, David. Oh my god.
00:24:47
That is unbelievable. That's like an old-school version of a helicopter mom where she's like,
00:24:54
you got ripped off. Yeah. I'm going to take care of it. Shut your mouth. Don't worry about it.
00:24:58
I got this. Oh my God. So funny. Please send us your emails. My favorite murder at Gmail.
00:25:06
We enjoy them so much. Please keep sending us these fucking hilarious, wonderful stories.
00:25:10
And also please stay sexy. And don't get murdered. I go. Bye. Elvis, you want a cookie?
00:25:17
Good boy. Nice one. Oh, come on. I know. Your husband is not who you think he is Your body is not what you thought it was Your identity is formed by a secret history I Dani Shapiro and these are just a few of the stunning stories I be exploring
00:25:35
on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
00:25:40
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.
00:25:45
Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:52
I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. This podcast is all about going deeper with the
00:25:57
women shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success,
00:26:01
but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations and the real work behind it all.
00:26:06
As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are and your integrity. You know,
00:26:15
I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:25
Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence.
00:26:34
Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotb. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.
00:26:45
Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb is presented by CBS.