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P21 Christmas time is here. We are doing a gift exchange as usual. We are behaving pretty excited about it and we decided we were going to do it the twenty seventh of December. It's for Patreon. Yes, that's the day our Christmas episode releases.

So, so it's a little, it's a little dual duo. Double action. Double trouble as I like to say.

Double. Triple, yeah. So we will be on Patreon. We'll post the details there as far as time and stuff, but it'll be a live stream on YouTube, so we cannot wait to see you there. And hopefully, yeah, hopefully you can pop on and then watch the ridiculousness ensue because I definitely got Christie in some very weird presence and I'm assuming something odd will come my way. Likewise, yes.

So go to Patriot dot com sludge podcast and we will see you there.

Hello and welcome to you, and that's why we drink podcast with Emma Christine. Oh, that was fun.

I'm trying to make it more professional. Waited a little too long. I think I try to do that. Or too late to be who you want to be.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. Oh. Oh, wow. Really? Your mother has that embroidered on a pillow, so I memorized it. OK, what do I have on any. I don't think I have anything. But you have a picture of Joe on a pillow, so I think that counts. OK, that's fair. I actually inspiring.

I have a lot of things with your dog's face on it who doesn't even live on this side of the country anymore.

But, you know, the embarrassing part is I buy them and then like, make you put them in your home. So it's quite embarrassing, though. And I graciously accepted with open arms.

So thank you anyway. How is you know, I'm sure a lot of people would like an update on him. Oh, my goodness.

I am. He's well. Oh my God. I haven't even told you this. We literally hired a dog trainer here in.

Wow. You really are becoming a totally different person.

It's it's hard core because I'm just it's I'm desperate because I mean, he's here right now because we're recording too late in the day to put him in daycare. So any time anyone comes over, we have to put him in daycare, even if it's like my dad, like he's just so bad when people do.

He just like barks and gets territorial and like tries to get them out the door and like, really fine. Yeah. It's only people he like really knows he's fine with. But I think after moving to a new house, he's gotten like more sensitive. I don't know.

I don't know. But it's just like driving me crazy. If anytime the male comes, as you know, it's like a, you know, male, there's always a big, big moment for the whole house.

Yeah. And now that we're getting packages for, you know, instead of like insta car or whatever I'm doing, like things are coming to the front door and like I'm like after Korona.

How am I supposed to have, like, anybody over ever a or like, how am I supposed to. It's just a nightmare. So we hired a dog trainer who came two days ago and today is the first day of training. And I'm already so bad at it because he's not allowed to be on furniture for like two months to kind of like establish they're like he's the alpha in this house. And you need to that's for damn sure.

Like he is in places like, well, he's a Scorpio, so let's start. Yeah.

Like he's the alpha in the world. So you not just me, but. Yeah. So we're doing all this. We have to have like a three page notebook or three page list of like every day we're supposed to do training, doorbell training, knocking, training, like I mean it is a whole like stranger training where I'm supposed to have my dad come over and like give them treats.

I mean, it's just a lot. So anyway, he's fine. But like, if he barks during this, please know that I'm trying my best to get it.

It's like having it's like having a toddler. I get it. It's OK. Yeah, I people don't like when I say that because like I'm sure having a toddler is a whole different ball.

I know in terms of volume volume there is the volume. It's a lot.

OK, in terms of interruptions of like recording a podcast, they're very probably similar.

So I got to tell you, it's probably my fault. I probably should chip in with your trainer. I think I really I started the the curve with that popcorn. Oh, yeah. I sent you a bill.

Right. OK, I get a geo envelope with his face on it. I gave it to even said, get rid of this.

That's what happened. How are how are you doing? Are you doing well.

Oh, I'm fine. Am thank you for asking. I am finishing up all your Christmas gifts and wrapping them and they're right behind a computer so I can't show you, but I'm very excited.

I'm so close to them. Who? Oh by the way, everybody, this comes out December.

What, like the week of Christmas? Yeah. So we decided to do we needed some extra prep time. So we're doing like our quote unquote real holiday special next week, if you can even call it that.

So I have something planned for that or like a fun story. But just in case anyone's wondering, too.

Yeah, man, how are you? I miss you. I miss you. I wanted to tell you if you'll indulge me always. So this and we're a lot we don't need to make this. We're we're allowed to just have casual, normal conversation. OK, I'm going to take my antidepressants.

Will you tell a story just in case in case the camera comes back to me.

That's what's happening. I just wonder if people are like, why is Christie popping pills?

It's damn Christie. What I'm about to say is not that bad. I need to I need to bolster myself for your story. I appreciate that.

So for those of you who know by the time so this comes out on the 20th and as we're saying, this had already happened a few weeks ago. So probably like a month ago, you probably saw on my Instagram that I lost my Gammie. And so today and yesterday because it got split up yesterday was the memorial service.

And then this morning at 6:00 a.m. here. Thanks, Gammie.

It was keeping you on your toes. It was the the wake or.

No, yesterday was the I don't this was my first funeral. I don't know what's going on. But today that was the burial. I think that's oh, yeah, I don't know. Forget it, yesterday was like the open casket experience yesterday experience the trademark. It was an experience and you need to buy a special priority ticket.

Today was like the mass and the burial. So three days ago went by. The time you're listening to this, three days ago, December 17th would have been her 80th birthday.

Oh, and for those of you, I appreciate everyone saying very wonderful, kind things to me. When I first lost her, she was the best woman in the entire world.

She was the best grandma.

If you're thinking in your head, OK, well, you have my grandma. You're still wrong. My grandma.

This was the coolest Gammie in the whole world.

I'm concealing this from day and you could see them.

As you see, she was just the it was the thing that was the weirdest because it was. Well, Technol. Hang on a second.

Let me just give you this whole story I like and starts yelling at everybody like you have the stage and the microphone, like everyone calm the fuck down. Give me a minute. Jeez.

Well, so she just so everyone knows because I don't know if anyone is asking this to themselves, but so she ends up passing from covid. She had she was the one that I've discussed before who had a pretty gnarly Alzheimer's. And I'm really lucky that when we were in New York last year, I got to see her or maybe was two years ago. Now I got to spend one last real day with her. And that was very delightful. And so she was already, I think, on her way out, she had not been doing great.

And then she got covid and the nurses called us and said she's not going to make it through the weekend. So this is the time for everyone to call her through speakerphone and say your goodbyes. And a lot of my family still in New York where my gammy was, and me and some of my cousins are in North Carolina. So for those because of covid, we couldn't go to the funeral. I think they had like a limit to who could go.

So we ended up doing everything through Zoome, which, by the way, being a part of that through Zoome was wildly awkward.

Yeah, I mean, it's such a weird new experience. It was. It was. I kept trying to like. Make people feel better. I was like a moat or something. I was trying to keep like energy high, like because everyone was like obviously very somber. I'm one of the very lucky people. When it came to my relationship with my Gammy, where, like I the grieving was very easy for me because I got closure a long time ago with that relationship.

And she we both knew that we were each other's homies. Like, I have nothing I never got to say to her.

So I was trying to be and like, what would be good spirits during her during all of this on Zoome.

I really fucked up earlier today too, during the lot, during the shit. You know, I wasn't going to say this part, but I told Eva and then that was just OK. So me so I was everybody else.

Plug your ears so I plug your ears. I guess you already have headphones and so like you're just going to hear it louder.

Danny, I'm so sorry.

If you can have the I, I was trying to like not necessarily keep things light and not like I wasn't taking this seriously, I was just trying to be more jovial.

One of the things that everyone knew about my Grammy is that she was just such like she walked in the room and she was always the smile. Just happiest. Yeah, like her laugh. The one thing I'm going to miss the most about her was her laugh, because it was just like you'll never hear anything like it again. And the thing that was so weird for me at the during this week was that like she wasn't smiling, like she didn't look like herself, not because she was dead, but because she wasn't smiling.

And so just I was trying to kind of keep spirits high because I know that's what she would have wanted. And if it were awake for someone else, she would have a master funeral.

She would have done the same thing. So I was like, OK, forgive me, I'm going to try to be the more uppity person. Other people are grieving more than I am. So I'm going to be that that energy.

And my cousin came up to me on Zoome. I was on I was on Zoome and then my cousins from North Carolina were also on Zoome, and they my uncles were doing a great job of like kind of leaving the laptop, like on a pew in the church and then, like, leaning it against like something else during the the memorial service. And so they left it running. So we were just kind of almost sitting with the audience or the audience.

Yikes. Our family.

And I'm like, oh my God, I didn't even realize. I was like, what about it? Oh, God. Where the technically I was an audience member, but so one of my cousins came up who like isn't handling it very well. And he was like, hey, how are you doing? And like and I was in my room at 6:00 in the morning and I said I was like, well, if you told me a year ago that I wouldn't wear I would wear pants to my grandmother's funeral.

I would have thought you were crazy.

And then I thought he would laugh and like my animals also, I thought she would laugh and no one left.

My other cousin, who was on Zoome with us, I saw her go look government.

I believe that this is a Japanese worst nightmare. Like literally I was like that guy at a funeral. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.

I was it tried to, like, come home. I know. I know that for a fact. So I'm just like, this happens to be a funeral.

Wear pants were optional whether or not it was addressed openly.

And so I feel like I would have left in the church and then everyone would have been like I would have been the asshole. So, I mean, maybe they were like, well, maybe we're not supposed to laugh at my hilarious joke.

Maybe, you know what? I think my game. You would have laughed. She probably laugh.

She was such a happy she loved, like, little pranks and being jokey and stuff like that. So I think she would have been very happy that someone said something like that. But anyway, I wanted to I really went off on a tangent.

Sorry, I was not going to address that.

I said that you didn't wear pants here. But, you know, this is a weird fucking year. I don't know. That's like such a topper. Happy Christmas. I guess.

There it is. But so one thing that I wanted to the thing that I wanted to say, but I felt like I needed to, you know, judge this up.

So I had some context.

I wanted to officially tell everyone a very personal, quote, ghost story. You already know this one. And a but but it's one of my games.

And so how is this the one? Yeah. Yes. Oh, my God.

I was going to say it, but then I was like, I don't know, like, that's the thing and wants to talk about. So my my Gammie, I will say I don't she was always really, really embarrassed about it because she didn't think people would believe her, so she didn't talk about it a lot.

But I think this is the exact platform she wished she had.

Yeah. And I'm abs-cbn became Gammie.

We will this is a safe space. This is a safe place.

And so she one of the things that she always had with her growing up, every time I was at her house, I would look at her, I would be in her bedroom and I would see on her nightstand on like, you know, tables have like that bottom shelf, like put something.

There was always the shoe, like a white shoe. And I was like, what is the story to this? Totally. And my whole family knows the story.

I'm very lucky that I inherited the shoe. I'm very happy about that. And my gammy had this story. I hope I'm not butchering it, but the gist is that she got it back in like the 80s when her and my grandpa were getting divorced and they were gardening. She was my gamelike to garden a lot. So she put the shoes on. Oh, there's G.O..

Sorry, I tried to warn you of something. Even Gammie can't stop Gio's nonsense. I'm so it's not even for a second that one.

I would also be so disrespectful to this one. I mean, you and I would be just like a nightmare duo to have at a funeral.

Like you forgot to mute and then you're back.

And I would be screaming at my dog like, well, so I will say one of my favorite fun facts about my Gammie, since we're killing time waiting for him to stop barking.

My Gammie was in a barbershop quartet called the Afternoon deLites. I mean, come on, come on.

She was happy that you can't. So she was gardening and she had just had this like, I'm assuming a really nasty split.

I know that her ex wasn't tops.

And I think it was so much harder back then. Sure. A divorce even even for our parents generation.

And they got married real young, I think, like when she was like eighteen or something. So she even if it was like not the greatest relationship, it was all she knew. So I think she was really scared.

And she had just gotten these like brand new gardening shoes to, like, make herself feel good. And while she was gardening, she was my my Gammie was more or less religious and. I talk to her parents who had already passed on, kind of praying, but kind of just chatting with them and she Christian, she was Catholic. Yeah. You know, so my while she was gardening, she was talking to her mom, who she was really close with, and she was like, Mom, I'm just really scared.

I just want this to work. And, you know, I want to know that I'm going to be OK and that you're looking out for me. And, you know, I just I just need a sign that you're here with me and I'm not alone. And as she was doing that, when she was gardening, her shoes got all muddy because she had been hosing, hosing, using the hose. And so she got all muddy. So she left them out.

She rinsed them off with the hose and then she left them on the.

Like, I guess like our front porch to dry out in the sun. And she went to bed the next day she went to go get her shoes. And in one of the shoes there, in the dried mud that was left, it embedded itself into her shoe like the mud embedded in it.

But in a perfect picture, a perfect image of a woman that we think could be her mom, or it's just like a guardian angel that something like that. But when I tell you, like, it's not like a potato chip and you think you see Jesus on the potato chip like. So I brought the shoe.

You did OK. I did. So I've seen it in photos. This is the shoe my life seeing it in photos again because I'm not there.

But, you know, so my only issue is I don't know how the what the camera sees. So I'm just going to post a picture so you guys can see what it looks like on the inside. But I know you, Christine, can see in there.

It's I've really bad quality video on you right now. For some reason. I trust and believe I've started to before, haven't I? Yes, I've seen it. I mean, it's like it's no joke. It's like, oh, no, no, no. It's like a little portrait in there. And so and it's all ripped up. And here the soul is ripped up because my was so freaked out about it. She took it like a bunch of churches and like priests were legally priests.

So all in here you can't really see. But like the the. Like the little padding, it's like glued down for the most part where it originally was, but this whole part up in the shoe is like ripped out and barely hanging on because so many priests, like, didn't believe her. They were ripping it out to try to see what was behind it. So it's like all messed up and no one can explain it. But ever since that day, this face has been here.

And so my grandma always kept it by her nightstand and would talk to it whenever she was sad. And then when her Alzheimer's got really bad and my aunt was moving her into a home, she had to kind of pick and choose what went with my grandma and what would start kind of getting handed out to family members. And my aunt. I had been begging for this one for a long time. So, yeah, I got the shoe and now I keep it on my nightstand.

And when I want to talk to Gammy, I've got someone to look at, but and great Gammy and great Gammy. So anyway, when's a great story during when Gammy passed a couple of weeks ago, I kept saying, like, you know what the coolest part is, Gammy? Like now you know who this person is. Like, you got to meet that person suddenly, you know? Yes. You probably like your look. You're the girl from the shoe who I just got Goose Cam.

So I hope that they're singing in a barbershop quartet somewhere together.

I'm sure they are. Anyway, I thought that was today was an appropriate day and three days ago would have been her birthday, so.

Oh, well, hi. Love you get Gammy.

Oh, I'm sure she's just like livin living it up. Oh, she's having a blast. She was such a social butterfly. She probably hasn't even caught up with everyone yet. So yeah.

Anyway, like, oh she didn't visit me and I was like has a lot of people to talk to so busy as hell.

She might come back later. Sure. She'll pencil me in. And thirty years especially since you've had closure.

She's I like there's plenty of people who didn't get closure with me. I'll see that look also.

So by the time she was born her parents had had three other babies and they all died before she was born. Oh no. So she's got like three whole brothers to like catch up with. So like, she's got she's got a whole slew of people that's like on it to do list right now. So I'm OK with not getting a sign from her yet, but at some point I'm going to get impatient. Gammy So wherever you are, hurry up.

Oh.

OK, am I got an email yesterday saying that Joe has a new relative? Oh, my God. I know I like building out his family tree. I wish it's so dorky, but I love that is the I want to know everything I do.

Did you do get to learn more about this?

Yes. And so, yes. So you see, like, how they're related, like the breed match you see like how distantly they're related. You could see photos and like you could contact them. This is through embark everybody.

So it's the Bredon health kit I like. This is one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do for the elderly. I love it so much. And I'm like finding his family members, building out his family tree. I was able to see, like, if he had any health conditions that go along with his breeds. And we found out he's like part tocsin, which is something we never knew. So that's a fun.

I feel like we always knew it a little. But now we know. I mean, also we know I love a good family tree. I've talked about doing my own family trees, but now you can do them for the cutest member of your family. Wait a minute. Hey, you got a second. And also with Umbach from breed traits, the genetic risk factors for health conditions. And Barch provides the resources to help you and your vet best tailor care for your dog specific needs.

So like you said, you now know more about Gio's potential health conditions or anything that could arise in the future. So it's also a safety net. It's very wonderful.

It's very helpful. And you can even learn your dog's ancestry back to their great grandparents. As I said, you can match with their relatives, which is what I'm aggressively doing. And then every dog that gets tested also contributes to their research into discovering and treating new genetic diseases in dogs to help extend the lives of dogs.

So all around, just good stuff. Let's just put it this way.

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Anyway, that's my my thing.

I'm sorry that went longer than I want. No, no. It's a beautiful story and I'm very sorry again for your loss. I know that you're so OK, but she's.

I'm doing fine. She's doing fine.

And I love you and I love your Gameboy by extension, even though I never got to meet her, she would have loved you. She would have gone. She would've gotten such a kick out of you. She would have been like, this one's a dynamo. What's wrong with this?

Like, my Catholic grandma also said that a lot. So it's fun.

But she I think she would have liked you a lot. So anyway, that was just a little shout out to her.

So my story this week, I want to get through it because I know you said that yours as long. So I want to make sure that I give you ample time. Oh, so mine is kind of a connecting story to last week, the Fox sisters that I covered.

Got it.

So this happened within six years of the Fox Sisters story. And this is the story of the Davenport brothers. Oh, gosh, I didn't know those people existed.

They sure did. So they were more siblings that were instrumental in spiritualism, not as accidentally, but I think it blew out of proportion for them as well. I think they didn't mean for it to get as well as it did.

So the Davenport brothers, there were two of them. One's name was IRA. Is that the name IRA?

OK, IRA Davenport. IRA Glass. OK. IRA, you're like IRA. IRA Glass, yeah, why don't I know what that is? Oh, he's sorry, I didn't I couldn't tell by your face. He's the host of this American Life Works for NPR.

Well, I said I said because I know that name. But then I was like, why can't I put a face? Oh, it's such like a like. Anyway, he did. He does.

He's like an OG podcasts are basically and he worked for works for NPR and does this American Life. And he got very recognizable voice.

I guess it's really telling that I don't listen to those shows.

OK, so he's the only IRA I can think of. So IRA and William, I know a lot of Williams. OK, so IRA and William Davenport and so their family. This is also weird. They were not too far away from Hitsville, New York, where the Fox sisters were.

Oh, so a lot of people think that there's no way they didn't hear about the Fox sisters and maybe the Fox sisters inspired what happened with them. Sure.

So their dad was in the police force.

He was a detective and he taught his kids I don't know why his dad had this interest, but he taught them all about like like kind of little allusions, like specifically rope magic tricks.

Oh, that's fun. I think their dad thing. Yeah. Or maybe it started with, like, here's how to tie a knot.

And then it just became more like the thing where you do like a quarter like a little sleight of hand stuff. Yeah. So he apparently was really into that stuff and taught his kids and so the kids would try these tricks at home and apparently.

It's kind of it's kind of muddled, but they ended up getting the kids ended up being so good at these magic tricks that their parents believed they like, there was no way they could have not been doing it without being powerful.

Oh, they look bigger than Dad. They got bigger than dad to, like, kind of a wild point look like.

So Houdini himself referred to their mother. OK, fucked up.

Houdini called their mom a simple woman, easily misled. OK, then again, kinda because she just believed her children had magic powers.

So, I mean, you and I are going to believe our children have you.

And you've literally said the second your future child says like, oh, there's a person or an imaginary friend, you're going to think it's like a full demonic force or you want to know why?

Because I'm a simple woman who is easily misled. So you can back off Whodini, you asshole. So what I think, though, the way that the story started was they were doing these illusions. They were getting better at them. And then I think they probably heard about the Fox sisters. There's also a different storyline that says that the father was kind of getting into spiritualism because of the Fox sisters himself. Anyway, they it influenced their house in some way where the kids were like, oh, we should try table rapping and table napping, knocking and then see what happened.

So they started doing these table sessions and trying to do their own seances. I'm like as preteens, like little little kids.

Apparently they were accidentally really good at it. That's like us in podcasting.

We're like people people listening would like. That's also me with Escapers.

Apparently, I'm like, why is this for you? This is the only one I've found so far that I've, like, accidentally been good at.

You say that you just haven't tried to make an escape room. I think you would be sinister if you decide to make it.

I think I would go in my own really bad path and nobody would ever follow your spectacular mind.

They would study it one day. Spectacular, but okay.

So apparently they were really good at this. There's like table turning rapping sessions and on their first try with the science, their little sister levitated.

Oh, OK. Yeah.

So now you're like, what is real and what is not. So also the table started. This is after that happened, they were like, wow, we're pretty good, we should keep doing this. So they started doing these seances pretty often and soon tables were moving. They were hearing raps just like like knocking on with the Fox sisters. I started to be able to automatically write and at one point all three of the children levitated at once. And I think we're thrown across the room by accident.

Oh, we're very much opposite. Yeah, I like to think the growth was like kind of nice.

So another time, I don't really understand why he did this.

But IRA, you know how kids were in the eighteen thirties, pulled out his gun and he shot at like a random corner.

Apparently there was like a legitimate side. Yeah. Look. Oh he was like twelve.

I don't know. Oh the child. Sorry, that was the dad. I was like this is all no getting the child's gotten. This is how we know this is a marathon spiritual zone. God, I understand now it makes a whole lot more sense.

You say so without his gun and he I don't know why.

Shot at the corner of the room and empty corner of the room. Apparently there was a reason to that for the reason is beyond me. The reason is he was twelve years old. OK, I might like to period end of story.

And as he fired the pistol, the second thought he fired and there was like kind of a flash from the explosion. All of a sudden the gun was in that like not even a split second, like split split second. All of a sudden the gun was taken out of his hands, almost like in slow motion. The gun was taken out of his hand and he saw a human figure in the corner holding his gun and smiling at him.

And then when the flash left, all of a sudden that figure was gone and the gun dropped to the floor. Oh, OK, that's weird, I don't even know what to make of that. I don't either. It was like an apparition that. Was like a menace a millisecond away from like keeping you from firing a gun, I guess you could say it didn't work or and also smiling. And why would he see where the bullet was going to go?

Come on now.

Yeah, I feel like that would be an excuse. Like, oh, no, I didn't shoot the gun. My imaginary friend did. But like, he didn't even use that as an excuse. He's like, no, I shot the gun.

That's like I shot at my imaginary friend, pulled it away from me because he's a square. What are you doing?

So apparently in that moment, they also had this this realizing this knowledge, this some sort of epiphany that the figure that they had seen was John King, who was their self-appointed control. So when we've talked about séances before, a control is almost like a spirit. Who comes down is like there to be the translator for all the other spirits. Oh, right, OK.

Christine, yes, so currently my my freezer and my fridge are packed like like a cartoon character, I was trying to lean into the door to slam my fridge shut because it is filled with daily harvest right now.

Yes, same same thing. I have them lined up in their very beautiful packaging. So they're all lined up like in a nice little my freezer is one of those pull drawers. And so I know we've discussed this before, but so we have a separator separation in our freezer.

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And yeah, we're big fans.

Yeah. Daily Harvest has an option for any time of day. So we've got the Blaze smoothies, I like to call them. They also have the flatbreads that I can't stop eating so good for lunch or dinner. And there's comfort food when the weather starts to cool down. So right now it is a brisk 58 degrees here today, which means I'm going to whip out one of their harvest bowls and I'm very excited about it.

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Christine, I beat you to it. I have a hunch I know what you are going to say. Do you want me to tell you a yes?

Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. My name's Christine IFAB. I'm fit. I'm fine. But what I was going to say is Dinkas.

Do you look fab in Britain? But what is going on?

I totally got called out in my recent Instagram post about my Christmas tree because I was not only was I wearing a feather boa and headband, but I was also wearing the mukluks. And so everyone was like, Krissie, like, you're literally like every accessory. And I'm currently wearing a necklace I got in a pass box. Like, it's actually becoming almost like a laughable joke.

But so a lot of people were saying, like, where those mukluks from? And I was like, check out this one, because like everything they send me, I end up just using my day to day life.

It's amazing. You know, who also uses for fun on her UFO was made of fun, actually.

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And yeah, it's I mean, it's just.

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That's coupon code. Drink for ten dollars off your first box at Fatfat. Fun Dotcom. So apparently I didn't know this, I must just be like not hip with it when it comes to spiritualism, but apparently John King, like across the nation, became everyone's control, like this guy went to every single person that ever did a science and was like, I'm your control. I'm the captain. Oh. So I say, OK, yeah.

So I don't I think he's just like the only control or something.

Is this like any one famous or is this just like some random dude from if it's someone famous I don't know him.

OK, ok. Because I'm like we talk about Ben Franklin, why couldn't he be the control. Like why couldn't like someone you want to run into, you know. Yeah.

So anyway, so they knew they had this knowing that it was John King and he was their control. So they started trying to speak to John King pretty frequently. No, no guns needed. But they were like, now that we have the spirit control and this guide with us than we can see what what they want to say. And John King, who I guess he was sitting at the table with them one night and was like, damn, you're pretty good at this.

You should perform in public. Oh, God. OK, and so they decided because the ghost told them or John King told them that they should now go and do public science is for people.

And much like Leah Fox becoming her sister's quote, Manager Seselja, their dad retired from the force and became their dad Adger.

I see a lot of similarities so far. He was probably just taken. He was like, I'm going to follow what that Leah Fox did.

She really brought them something, really brought them some room Buku bucks over there.

He was like, I'm going to follow that that hot trail. So they started the heat. They've been inspired to start working publicly and doing their stuff. So in 1854, which was only six years after the Fox sisters, the Dávid the Davenport brothers, who were 16 and 14 at this point, they began performing their illusions while also doing sciences. And so it was kind of a combination of like magic and ghosts, which is very sassy.

I love it. And they so mainly they were known for their sciences and they were doing them locally at this point. So early shows they started just like the Fox sisters. Most of it was just wrapping's on a table. It very quickly escalated, which I'm going to get to in a second. But one of my favorite fun facts of this is their one of their biggest fans was P.T. Barnum, again, who loved this guy.

It's just like he's over the place.

He's trying to recruit them, I think so. After performing and working in some local science circles, the Davenports are like, OK, we're getting we're becoming big fish in this little pond. So we're going to go to New York City and they start doing this thing called Dark Sciences, which is not as scary as it seems.

It literally means that they're doing science is on the dark. Sounds pretty scary to me.

Who so I'm sorry to be this this dumb, but like so our normal science is in the light.

I always thought so, but I guess they just like now there are other official, they're like this one, he's not anywhere in the dark because like I don't know what the reasoning was, but I always assumed you want to do it when I was darker.

Right.

Well, I always assumed because it was usually fake. And so they were like here not always, but, you know, when they were doing these like tricks, they always turn the lights off.

I always thought at that.

Well, maybe because at that point, if they were fake, it seemed like it was more fake. I don't know if they were fake it. I mean, so far, at least according to their father, who was willing to quit his, like, study paying job, that he had seen all three of his children literally fly across the road. So like, I think he was like, this is pretty legitimate.

So I like candlelight, makes it spooky, but I don't know. What do I know?

Clearly not as much as the Davenport brothers. I guess not. Apparently these were dark stances, but maybe maybe what you're looking for is this little piece of information.

So the brothers that I specifically for their sciences, their quote, dark sciences, this was the act, I guess, is the event they would tie themselves to chairs because remember, they they knew this rope, these rope illusions.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. So they were mixing their knowledge of, like, rope, rope magic tricks into their science.

Sure. Sorry. But so it was almost like it was more of an like they were trying to be a performance actress angel.

My lover kind.

Yeah, absolutely. I love her. I remember you telling me you love him.

I won't forget it.

It's a it's an oft overlooked facet of my personality.

But also everything else you've ever said. When you say Criss Angel is like my honey, I'm like, well, that checks out.

It's just OK, all right. Maybe it does fit, maybe it fits. So now I see DB for more brothers. I thought David Blaine.

Oh, well, there's a lot, there's a lot going on. Here, so the Dunbar Brothers, they would tie themselves to chairs and that's when they would do their sentences so as almost to prove that they weren't doing anything, they weren't MasterChef, and they would even have volunteers tie them as tight as possible to these chairs. So that was just kind of their shtick of like, look, we're legitimate. So they would tie themselves or they would have people tying the chairs and then they would summon the spirits at before the sand started.

They would show everyone like there's nothing going on. Like you can investigate. You can look around in the center of the room. We're going to leave a bunch of instruments. And then once we're all tied down, we summon spirits by having them try to, like, play the instruments.

Oh, I thought you meant like, oh, an MF detector. You're like, no, it's a tuba. It's a trombone. Oh, no.

It's literally like a musical instrument. Oh, my gosh.

OK, like a little like a little cowbell.

And so that was their way of being able to summon them was their music. So they they would do everything in the dark. And then what. And they also would turn the lights off.

That was kind of the shady part of like, OK, why did lights have to be off for this?

So the lights were off and by the time the sounds started, you could hear like the banjo strumming itself or the guitar playing and people started feeling themselves kind of getting touched or something weird would happen.

They hear voices from other parts of the of the corners where no one was. And when they would turn the lights back on, they were still in their chairs completely.

Taibu So that was like what really got them popular. Sometimes this was kind of funny to one of the things that they would do in their, quote, act is they would they would when the lights came back on, they would be wearing each other's clothes like they would they be tied to the chair like they never got up, but now they're in on their pants or down or something funny.

So they tried to make it. Maybe that's why P.T. Barnum loved them, because they had like, say, a circus feel to it. It feels like clown.

He almost like vaudeville, like a lot of like showy stuff going on.

So and to be fair, like I'm saying this to you and kind of like a hindsight way of like what was going on, but like people were freaking the fuck out. Like, I want you to frame this in your head of like even though I'm giving you the kind of the real parts of it. People saw this and were like, holy shit. Like they didn't know it was an illusion act.

Oh, yeah.

And especially if you're getting, like, touch or feel, things like that must be terrifying in the dark and especially like there's a ghost or not, especially when the people that are hosting you are strapped down and you know they are because you tied them down and now all of a sudden, like they're wearing someone else's coat. Like what? The banjos playing. Yeah. Where did I end up here. So one science reports on this or one they would have regularly like the press would come in like make reports about them on a fun beat to have.

Like you join a newspaper every week. You're on the science beat. It's like being on like all sorts of magazines or all sorts of paragraphs everywhere, graphs all over my room. This is full of paragraphs. Good luck. It's it's weird.

Like, I know he sounds a lot like we'd be the worst blank, but like I literally studied journalism for, like, we would have just been the worst, like spiritualism, journalists.

We would have been absolutely. Oh, if we could have, if they could have had like this is just a bunch of paragraphs, whatever that article was, if, if they had that.

But like Ghost Edition, I'd be like, here we go.

Make you write that down the whole time it was even have to write it, it was just Evers' notes. That's what it was. We just talk. Right. Wait, that's what's happening. Oh OK. So in there of making a lot of sense, one of the reports said, quote, One Davenport boy was floated in the air above the heads of those in the room at a distance of nine feet from the floor. Next, a brother and sister were influenced in the same way, and then three children floated high up in the room.

Hundreds of respectable citizens of Buffalo are reported to have seen these occurrences. So as you can tell from that quote, they're also not just doing this. Yeah, the sitting in the chair thing. They're also adding levitation to it.

And then eventually they started putting like phosphorus chemicals or something.

They start painting items in advance with all this like glow in the dark stuff, basically, so that you would see these items and like the musical instruments, like floating on the ceiling and shit.

And so it was like almost like I think this is your answer to the dark. Sansing It was almost like a light show.

So because the lights were off, all of a sudden the music is playing and now the all of the musical instruments are glowing and flying around the room and also like so wild also children are like getting levitated.

So it's like Cirque de Soleil. It's like Blumer. It's bigger. Yeah, it's EBITA Blue Man Group.

It's the B.W. Man Brothers. OK, so part of the show beforehand, which like in hindsight, we know that this was an act. I usually don't start with telling you guys the truth, but I. I don't know how to frame the story properly without I don't know how to give you all the information without just being direct. So I'm sorry, I usually like to tease you guys, but here we go. So part of the show beforehand was that they had this guy, Reverend J.B. Ferguson, where you're from, the South.

He's a very famous person, least like I think Nashville or somewhere in Tennessee. You don't know the name.

So he he loved them.

And he he was one of those people who, like, was a devout believer, like they were legit. Like the Davenport brothers are not doing anything other than just tying themselves to chairs. And now ghosts are here. So they asked him to be a part of their show and he would basically like M.C. like he like you would never get on the stage or anything.

But it was almost like they kind of planted him. It was like they they found someone who really believed in them. And so they used it to their advantage and they would always have him in the audience and in this reverend would just go around and just like like be like guys that are so real. There's so real. Like you're about to have your mind fucking blown.

That's like when we tell our parents to come to us or when our parents or friends are coming, we're like, laughed so hard.

But like everyone will think we're funny.

We have actually done that when we know someone. We do that often. When we know someone in the audience, we will tell them in advance, like, please, God laugh.

So at least we hear one laugh, like even if it's alternations laughing. Yeah, we'll feel better. You can text me as you're laughing, saying this isn't fucking funny, but like I need to hear the laugh just if even if I know that's my stepdad, just go with it.

If you're if you're if you're wondering what you should do at our in our audience, if you're like kind of bored and trying to figure out what to do besides watch us please laugh, make laugh.

If you're so bored that you can't laugh for real, you know what hurts my feelings is like Alison's fake laugh is like so much more believable than her real laugh because, oh, there has been a few times where, like, I tell a joke and then she literally just deadpan doesn't care.

And and then I'll be like that are my feelings. Can you just like fake laugh so I feel good about it. And then her real laugh I'm like that felt so hardy and real. So now I'm nervous about when you actually laugh because you just taught me that you know how to fake laugh very well.

Good. A fake laughing. Either I go like, oh that's a scary that's a scary power that she has because now it's very powerful.

Now I don't know.

Oh well so so the Davenport brothers, they had the reverend with them and he was like hyping everyone up.

He's basically like like a live audience hype man. Yes. Oh my gosh. But he also like they weren't like paying him to like to trick anyone. He was deadly, believed it. And so that was why they, I think, used him because they were like, we don't even have to lie.

Like this guy thinks we're legit. And so he went on tour with them for a while, too, like they brought him everywhere they could.

And so the brothers were actually eventually right when they were about to get super big, they were caught one day, OK, one day someone came to one of their senses and snuck in a lantern and in the middle of the science turned the light on. Oh, and it was found out that the brothers were running around the room with instruments in their hands.

And what a sight to see, like because one of their pants is off and it's like holding a banjo like strategist's. It feels like watching like Dwight and is out in the cornfield or something like this, just like we are. How they explain this to your own mind, I don't know.

But so apparently they got caught, like, busted that like, OK, so you're the ones doing this. And then before the lights come on, you like shit like jam yourself back ends of the ropes.

Right. OK, so they had been found out and then their reputation was kind of crushed. So they ended up moving back home to Buffalo.

What do you think the reverend felt he must have been like in that moment when he's like, no, this is crazy. They turn on lights. His heart must have just saying, well, so bit.

So I don't know about him. I would guess the only quotes I found about from him, which, by the way, were a lot and they were very in-depth and very flowery. They were like love letters he fucking like.

Well, but I don't think he I think he was one of those people were like evidence had been thrown into his face and was like natural fake news.

He was going to find a way to get news. Yeah.

He was like he was like they just they're just jealous. They just, they just they wish they had powers or something.

So, OK, so they moved back to Buffalo and they continued to hold circles wherever they could like, given that their reputation wasn't too damaged and they just kind of hung back for a little bit and regrouped. And that's when they were like, OK, we're going to go back out there.

This time we're going to really rock their socks off.

And that is when they created the Davenport Spirit Cabinet.

So, hey, do you have a laptop near you or your phone? Yes. Can you can you Google it?

Because I'm going to try to describe it for you, but I might need backup because. Picturing a big box, is that not right? Imagine that, but like for humans to be able to fit in, what is it called? Sorry, Davenport, a Davenport Spirit Cabinet Cabinet.

It was basically a massive wardrobe that they were able to hollow out for themselves.

So I'm going to try to describe it and then just tell me if I kind of nail it and I see.

Oh, I see it. Yep. OK, got a photo.

So it's basically a giant armoire of sorts or like a cabinet where the door like fridge sized cabinet. Like a wardrobe. Yes, like a wardrobe. And there are three doors to it. So there's a left, a middle on the right, the left and the right sides have benches on them so that from either end of the wardrobe, the brothers can sit down on the benches facing each other. So in the middle section, because there's three doors.

Right. So in the middle section there is at the very top, there's a little window with a curtain. OK, so from there, this was the spirit cabinet.

So how it would work is volunteers would be called onto the stage from the audience and they would tie up the Davenport brothers. They were sitting on the benches and they would be tied up on their wrists and their feet to the benches, and then they would close the doors and then the volunteers would go sit back down.

So basically, they were only brought up there just to tie them up, close the doors and then go back to their seats, get a little clap, get a little embarrassed, go a little hehe.

Yeah. So a little moment, a little clout, a little for the inStar, you know. And so what would happen next was it was a series of the doors would open and now they're untied, the doors would be closed again, they would open another side up and then open, close, open, close. They're untied, they're tied, they're untied, they're tied. But every time would be like a little more ridiculous. So like it'd be like, oh, now they again don't have pants on.

They really like to close the stuff while they like to take the stripping into the whole mix.

Well, the main thing is in the middle portion, it was, I guess the way to describe it, it was it was almost like they were taking their dark science acts on tour. So they made they had all the musical instruments in the middle part of the cabinet.

So where they were tied down once they were closed in, in theory, they shouldn't be able to play the the music. But when you were sitting outside, you could hear music, like going like crazy, like you could hear like a million spirits playing a band. And there's like three sections. Right.

So, like, they can't presumably can't access the middle section. Even Exotica got it.

And and so it was like, oh, you can hear all this music, but how they're tied out and then you would open the door and see they're still tied. And then later they would all of a sudden be untied, even though how could that be? So it was just kind of a back and forth thing like that. There was also a version where they for like the second part of their act, they would have a volunteer actually go into the cabinet with them.

Oh. And be in the middle portion, OK. And then usually it ended up being some sort of vaudeville thing where, like, their pants were down or they had like a but can you imagine you're like, oh, get on stage.

And they're like, hold on, let me unbutton your pants in this dark place.

But at least they think it's like a ghost or something. But then I went up to the Chippendales, remember? I got called up to Chippendales. Do I remember Christine?

That was I called a therapist. I remember. So did my brother.

I watched Christine basically in a porn.

It was it was it was like next level, like most. And it was, I will say, shower one. Right. The shower. No, that was Lisa got to do the shower bit. I was in the Fifty Shades of Grey sequence, so. Right. Yeah. A lot of devices. Yeah. It was a whole thing.

And I want to add because every time I feel like I should say this, is that I got up there and they were like, they were like, you know, we're never actually going to touch you first, second like this. The moment you feel uncomfortable or you're like, I don't want to do this, literally just say, you know, no or stop. They were really respectful. Done. Yeah.

And they were like, you know, any any time you feel like I don't want to do this anymore, like just say the word, it's over. They explain like every step of it. And so I was like, they're like and then we're going to reach through your legs. And I was like, oh God. I was like, OK.

And then like I said something like in the audience, they said something like, oh, we're going to we're going to blindfold you and send you over. Yeah, they blindfold you, then you overreach through your legs.

And I was like, my mom and brother Lisa are in the audience.

My eyes don't.

Even if my eyes were on fire, I, I remember it being like I, I was I was having an out of body experience. Right. I was like, I can feel the trauma.

I can I can you feel like folding into the folds your brain just like I could. I could feel like going into the folds then going even deeper where I won't be able to remember it until like twenty years from now when a hard age. Yeah. Oh yeah. Repressed. I wake up in a nightmare. Yeah. Anyway so that's even when they're whole people. Oh poor. But when we we had. You heard that year, so she was like, OK, it was October and we hired her April, right?

No, it was July because this was a bachelor bachelorette.

Oh my God. So we knew her for eight weeks. No, no.

February we heard right around her birthday, March.

It was April 18th. Homi oh, April. OK, I think April, May, June, July. Yes.

That was your final test of her interview. Actually it was. Just see if you can tolerate and she passed better than you did.

So the very first picture I ever took of her on my phone is when we got to go backstage at Chippendales and she's like holding like a leather crop. And I was like, this is odd.

I was like, yeah, I'm and I just signed a document that says, I'm your employer. This is like probably it was.

So I was like, I'm so sorry. Oh, what a good oh. I've had word when you said the guy was in the wardrobe and they took his pants off, I was like, well, I've been there.

So, yeah, hopefully they hopefully they were as kind and respectful. I doubt it.

But maybe I'm glad you had a great experience because I, I had to watch it.

So I kind of like especially because I was blindfolded. So I was like, I don't know what they're doing. I'm just standing here. You would have tied me up to this is very similar to the story they like literally tied me up with ropes, actually.

Wait a minute. Where are they? Are they. Wait a minute. They're the original Chippendales.

Oh, my God. I thought they're the Blue Man Group. But but no sexy in Vegas.

I think they're actually the same people. This is horrifying to me. All of it. I think the Chippendales people just paint themselves blue and then go on stage again.

I would rather never see that happen. I would rather never see you on stage with the Chippendales. But guess what happened. Too late. Too late. You owe me a lot of money because it's been going straight to better help and.

Yeah, OK, well, you owe me money for dog for dog therapy or for dog training, so I guess I call it even.

OK, so they would have I brought the pants thing again just because I'm still like having my own, like, hilarious anxiety about the comment at the funeral about patience.

Oh, that's right. Oh, my God. This is all very fitting. Well, but so they would do a lot of things, like they would put like a like a tambourine on your head or your necktie would be on your leg or like something kind of goofy. So they're sure they bring the volunteer in and then you'd hear a bunch of sounds and then all of a sudden the volunteer is like looking crazy, but the brothers are all tied up.

So how did that happen? So that was the second part of their act with the cabinet. So this is actually a quote from the book called The Spirit World Unmasked. And it says this was describing like someone this is the person who wrote this was actually an audience member who saw this happening. Pandemonium reigned. That's what this podcast should be called.

I love that the Virginia bells were rung, horns blown, tambourines thumped, violins played and guitars vigorously twanged heavy wrapping's also were heard on the ceiling sides and floor of the cabinet. And then after a brief but absolute silence, a bare hand and arm. Remember, there is the window with the curtain. Oh, yeah, a bare hand. An arm emerged from the window and rung a big dinner bell.

OK, but it's also like, OK, so what they're hoping people will think is like these can't possibly be their hands. It's like a spirit manifested in there.

And you're seeing a ghost hand, a ghostly hand wringing time for Dundon.

Yeah, time to eat. And then after. And so that was that was the whole thing.

So it rang a dinner ballots with the who was warm. So the the brose cite the phone. I wrote Burrow's to make my notes shorter. So everything says either brose or the DVS Davie's. Here's another quote about when the volunteers would go into the cabinets with them.

I have at different times seen at least 300 people enter that cabinet, all of whom certified that there was no movement on the part of the brothers because I was supposed to be the other part where you're pulling a volunteer out from nowhere and they can confirm for you later, like all this wild should happen to you. But we were tied down and we didn't do this. So then it would almost be a word of mouth marketing or there are like I was in there and I don't know what happened because they were tied down firm.

I didn't feel them touch me. Nothing happened.

I just all of a sudden had this my pants were down so long. So now what convinced the audience that there wasn't any. I guess like let's say the the final piece of evidence that they had not been doing anything and they had been tied down this whole time, the real to me trick to this was that the Davenport brothers, when they were getting tied down to the chairs originally at the beginning of their act, they would be given a handful each of flour, OK, and then they'd be tied down.

And then by the end of all of this were like tampering on the head, necktie on the leg. By the end of the whole act, they still had flour in their hands. There's no way they could have touched.

And that's funny. What a random what a random thought. I love that.

And what a smart way to, like, try to prove, like, my hands are close. I'm not doing any of this. That's really clever. So we'll get back to the flour and a little bit. But I want to make sure I said that because I kept thinking, like, of course, like for all, you know, like these ropes are like little magnets and they're just bracelets, but they look like rope or something. Sure.

But if you're if you have flour, like if you even let go of that, like your clothes are covered in it, so like you would be busted right away, it's everywhere.

So they would then and each show still holding the flour in their hands. So the audience obviously went fuckin bananas for this. So the New York Daily Tribune and 1869 reviewed their work and said this arm and these hands may have belonged to the Davenport brothers from like the one from the window. But if they did, the Davenport brothers are the cleverest jugglers of this age or of any age in which juggling has been known, like, OK, wow, what a statement.

It's like it's like us again with a term paper where they're like, it's five thousand words and you're like juggling has been known.

I love juggling kids. Juggling is fun and juggling a spell, juggling, you know, to spell it, you know, how many centuries it's been around me. But I thought I ask.

So after the Cabinet Act, the Davenport brothers would then hold a seance like their old routine where they now we're using phosphor phosphorescent oils on the instruments. So they are floating around. So you kind of got an act where they were in the cabinet together that an act where a volunteer joined and then an act with this with the the music instruments everywhere.

Wow.

So here's the real question that like, if I knew how to have phrased the story differently, we would be having a different conversation.

Here's here's the big question I was going to ask you. Are the Davenport brothers, magicians or mediums? What do you think, Christine?

Mediums?

I personally think they might have had a little bit of help with magic.

I think they're kind of like future TLC stars, you know, like a like a Penn and Teller kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like some sort of TV show where they really try to trick you. They're, you know that they're magical, but they're just really good. It actually.

Isn't that a pantalla show. Very like I think rather to kind of tell her a very up front that they don't believe in anything supernatural or paranormal.

Yes, but I'm like specifically with allusions. I'm not the. Oh, yeah. Like illusion wise. Yeah. It feels very Penn and Teller. They have because they have like they're basically like America's Got Talent, but it's just magic tricks and then they.

Right. Right, right. Right. I totally feel like that. I do know that Penn and Teller are wild skeptics. And that's because I was very lucky that for undergrad, my senior thesis had to be in a class called like weird beliefs. It was going to love that lucky. And it was literally my teacher who was a massive skeptic, was just ripping apart ghosts the whole fucking time. Every every every chapter was a different, like weird phenomena like near-death experiences or this is debunking.

And he just debunked it the whole time.

But our entire class, like when we had to watch, like, educational videos about like, ah, we had to watch Penn and Teller because I like it's so funny because I have a weird connection to them too, because when so Lisa knows them really well. And so when I was in Vegas on the way, not for Bachelorette, that was a whole nother experience with Lisa. But when Bleys and I were driving to L.A., we were in Vegas for night and Lisa was like, here, I'll get you tickets to the Penn and Teller show.

And we went. And the whole time I was like because he was like, I want to be very clear that, like, I think, you know, people are taking advantage when they're doing, like, cold readings. Like he was very upfront about being in traffic.

And I was like, oh, no, that hurts my feelings. And then afterward I went up and was like, oh, I'm like, you know, we're Lisas. Yeah, nephew and wife and stuff and talked to him for a little bit, but I was like, this is before we had the podcast. So nowadays I think I would have been like, I'm going to leave that fact out because he seems like no thanks. I'm not interested in that.

But yeah, he was a nice guy, but yeah, definitely a skeptic. Well, now we can tell him that we work at the same studio as him.

Oh, that's right. He's honest. He's on this network. Yeah. So. Oh my God. She's not like that. Those people that we took in real. Oh my God. She's putting we thought I never see her again. Well.

Well I. What was I going to say. Shit. Oh I'm sorry. Here's my thing.

This was my favorite part of that class. So basically you had to pick a topic that was like a quote, weird belief and then you had to talk about it in any way you want to based on your beliefs.

You had to back your argument, OK? And that was your senior it had to be like 40 fucking pages. But like, you could do it on whatever you wanted.

And like, I ended up there was like a practice paper beforehand that was worth like a very large chunk of our actual senior some because he was like being very kind. He was like, if you do better on the practice paper, like, I'm going to remember that come your actual thesis paper. Ha. Yeah. And I didn't have to write a practice paper because instead I said after this class I have to go to my shift as a ghost hunter.

So like can I Bouley can I just like bring equipment from my job here and like take it, take a whole class and do a presentation for everyone on the equipment and can we just call that my paper? And he went, yeah, that's fine.

And I got there and I pulled that fucking trick all the time in college because I'd be in any class that wasn't journalism. I'd be like, well, I know how to use a camera and edit. So I'd be like, how about I just make a video and a presentation instead of a paper?

If you got like on it and I learned how to code and make websites, I was like, how about instead of writing like a 16 page paper, I just make a website and they're like, wow, oh my gosh. And I was like, OK. So I just like went on like Squarespace didn't exist. But I went on was like, here's my cool, has a bunch of pictures and people were so pissed. They were like, what the hell.

And I was like, I will avoid writing a paper any way I can.

I really well I really dug the fact that it was like the second to most important paper I'd ever write in my undergrad life. And he was like, yeah, you can just bring in your EMF detector and call it a smooth move.

And he is friends with me on Facebook now, and he definitely knows what I do for a living.

And he probably wants to probably like I didn't do my job right up a big fat argument with me. So, OK, so anyway, the question was, is he are they magicians or mediums? So surprisingly, actually, not really surprisingly, because they didn't know what we know or what you're about to know.

And I tell you how all this was done, but a lot of people thought that they were mediums. And so they really did, incidentally, further, the spiritualism movement, because so many people were convinced that they had these gifts and they were communicating with spirits. Right.

There were also, dare I say, equally, the same amount of skeptics where they were like, look, no matter what, it's a great show. But like, just be upfront that like you're not talking to spirits.

And until they died, they never confirmed nor denied either, which was kind of part of, oh, that's fun.

I like it a lot. I thought it was like maybe they're doing it for, like, cloud or like as their PR of like who's to say like it's whatever you make it, blah, blah, blah.

But then it's you get you get you make everybody kind of happy or, you know, you don't upset either party or like you can be a fan and you can be a fan.

Yeah. It was a really diplomatic way to handle it. Yes. Yes. And they poked fun at it all the time and they were like, oh, well, you know, maybe I'm a magician. Maybe I can talk to spirits. Maybe I'm a magician, like, who knows, maybe I can play the banjo. Did you do do do do do do do so. So that being said, their decision to neither confirm nor deny spiritualism because that question was always attached, like if you are asked if you are a medium, then you're confirming spiritualism is like a real movement.

We should do so. It was not just that they were covering their own asses, but they were like also making people question and consider this movement.

I see.

And then the civil war hit. Yikes. It wasn't good for many people. No, no, certainly not. And because so many people were out fighting and like, you know, they were are now, you know, nobody was around.

They ended up losing a lot of ticket sales because people weren't home anymore. And so or people like didn't want to go out and buy tickets to this kind of stuff, like they had other priorities they needed to pay attention to. So since their numbers were dwindling, they were like, well, where else could we go for spiritualised, like people who are believing this kind of stuff? And we could almost like kind of put the veil over their eyes and they like, let's go to Europe because there's like certain there's an opera singer.

There is she is waiting for you to say Sweden, like she's still over there. That is actually very funny. But this is all I went to England because they're like, well, that's more like the Society of Psychical Research is right.

It really is like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Every time I'm like, wow, so many overlaps.

Yeah. It's like I like how many of these people. To each other, I love that, so they ended up going to England because spiritualism was over there, and while the US was preoccupied with civil war, with the civil war, and after touring the US for 10 years, they started their international tour. So it went pretty well at first. But I guess everyone over there were they were much more confident or confident.

They were more willing to. Confront them about whether or not they were real, whether or not they were really medium, so people there were kind of taking their volunteer opportunities too seriously. And when they were being told, like, here, tie me to this chair and tie me as hard as you can, they were literally like cutting through their skin, like they were like making them bleed because they were trying to tie them as fucking tight as possible.

And or that's at least what we thought was happening. The brothers were like, oh, you're hurting me. And a doctor who happened to be in the audience was like, they're not doing anything. They can't cut off your circulation that bad. Just do the actually, people are being real dicks about it. Whoa.

And so they're poor little like white man, Reverend Ferguson guy. They were like they were telling him to, like, cut them out of the ties. And they're like, we're walking off the stage where people are being mean to us, like we're being heckled. People are trying to hurt us because they would rather hurt us than like just enjoy a show. Yeah.

And so they started walking off of stages and they ended up in, like, causing riots because people were pissed that they weren't getting answers out of them because they're little dodgy like, oh, who's to say what we are? England was like, no, no, no, we don't play this.

What the fuck is going on? And also, like, I just bought a ticket. Now you're leaving the stage, right? Some asshole doctor.

But also, I love that the reverend came overseas with that. And I bet he bought his own ticket. He was like, I would happily sail the seas with you there.

Like, we didn't really invite him, but I guess he can come. He was like, I'm taking this this job way too seriously. So they ended up causing all these riots, people in Liverpool especially, and then a couple other places in England, they started like destroying the spirit cabinets, like they were like rude.

They were trying to fuck things up, like they were just so mad. And it ended up being so bad that their next stop was supposed to be France. And then authorities, like, held them from being able to come in because they were afraid people in France were going to cause riots, too.

And they were. Trust me, I've been to France. They were going to cause a riot and it was going to be a good time.

They're going to be no, no, no. They're going to be really fucking pissed. So IRA actually quoted saying this regarding the riots, all of England seem to have gone mad on the subject of cabinet smashing and speculative, Sharper's reached a rich harvest selling bogus pieces of smashed Davenport cabinets. So people were breaking it apart and then trying to sell it on like basically like B, like A..

I have one of the shards of a Davenport cabinet. Give me 500 shillings. I don't know. They said the pirate. I don't know.

But so apparently all of these like fake Davenport cabinet chards, people really just going to a lumber yard and grabbing scraps of wood and saying, here's a downpour cabinet, but I have a sponge for you.

Yeah.

So that was going on. They were getting like name called and heckled. So anyway, they tried going to France, they ended up being able to get in. It just got halted for a second. There was another scandal right before they went to France where another like practising magician or like an upcoming magician spread this news that he had actually seen through the curtain and saw that they were like fiddling around with shit and they weren't tied down.

So whether or not that was a lucky guess or he actually did see it, he tried to spread it through like the gossip magic world, I suppose.

Oh, yeah.

And runs deep here, runs real deep. And luckily it got kind of like hushed away where it didn't become like a true problem, but it ended up, at least in the magic world, working really well for that like whistleblower because he ended up seeing what they were doing or at least whatever story he made up. He updated the Davenport cabinet and then put it in his act like stole their act.

Oh, so he's issued an evil one. But there were some good magicians who really liked them, because even if they were like I think it's kind of like icky that you're tricking people and making this a spiritual thing. But as illusionists, like, you got something real good here.

Yeah. And honestly, I think it's better than the people who were like, oh, I can contact your dead daughter for you. Like, that stuff is so much more sinister to me than like, oh, come out. We'll show you a fun show on stage. Maybe it's ghosts, you know.

Well, so one of the people that really liked them happened to be so his name was Hamilton. Like he didn't have he was like, no one is like one word like Hamilton.

Oh, got it. Apparently he was the son in law. He was a magician, too, by the way. He was the son in law of Robert or John. Robert who that who if you remember. Oh, that's right. The namesake of Houdini.

Yes, yes. Yes. So he was like one of the first ever, like, real illusion artists.

And when Harry Houdini was like eight years old, it was like the only book he ever read. And so he that's why he calls himself Houdini. His name's like Eric or something.

But he was already so hairy. So Hamilton, who was, I guess. Him and his father in law had a lot in common sense, I loved magic, at least you imagine, if you like, that was a thing, you bonds it up, you met your girlfriend's dad, and you are not like having like a magic war.

You know, I'm just saying the girlfriend definitely had a type where she was like, I want to marry someone just like my dad. No, like like literally just like my dad.

I'm pretty sure she was P.T. Barnum or something.

And so anyway, so Hamilton, he reached out when he found out about this, like, scandal, about like them trying to get, like, outed for not, you know, being spiritual or summoning spirits.

And he basically wrote to them being like, that guy's fuckin jealous. Like, whether or not you're like spiritualists, like you are still doing a great trick. And like, he broke the magician's code of like, oh, so like, we're still on your side. So it ends up not being too bad. And fun fact. Whodini also really liked them. So I want to give you credit because that's that's one of the things that I was thinking of, like at least people like Houdini who wanted to like lambast all of these mediums and like who are damaging people.

At least these people were like, we're not going to tell you what we are. We want you to it's up to interpretation. And I think Houdini was kind of into that. He was like, yeah, you're doing your own thing and you don't care what people think, but you're also not hurting anyone.

So and not to be like that guy again, but to totally do it. Criss Angel, I feel like has the same approach where he's not like I would say.

So who knows how it's possible.

I feel like I and I feel like that's why I always mix him up with David Blaine, because they both kind of have that. Yeah. For a while of like obviously it's just magic, but it is pretty unbelievable that it's like Kartun.

Yeah.

Like I feel like it's our brains can't totally comprehend.

Like how are you walking on water. What is going on. I read blogs. Oh my God. I was I had a problem for a while there.

Did you like the Criss Angel TV show?

Yes, I used to watch it like obsessively. And I when I learned that I guess I had dated Britney Spears and I had like a meltdown because I was like, I'll never be as hot as Britney Spears. And I wanted to marry him, you know? And so anyway, I had like I had a lot of years of really questionable waste.

He did. He did. He dated Britney Spears.

That's what was on a blog. So I could very well have just read some random user on the Internet saying that that makes sense.

So if that's the case, I really feel like it explains so much about maybe.

Hmm, I was thinking, like he's dating Holly Madison, like they're all dating these, like, super hotties.

And I'm thinking like, well, I was going to say I never understood how Britney got to like a space where she's writing things like I'm a slave and like that feels Chris and Julie. It does, doesn't it? Yeah.

I feel like that song makes a little more sense. Now, I'm going to Google it because I could totally be making that up. Let's pretend it's real. Let's just. Oh, no, I totally dated.

Oh yeah. Fun. OK, Angel intended. This is a vice article. Criss Angel intended to transform Britney Spears into birds at twenty seven p.m..

What. Sorry, could you say that again in slow motion please. Let me put up my journalism voice.

In today's news, reporting live at 10 Reporting Live, this is Christine Schiefer of Radio.

Breaking news, we just we just received Criss Angel intended to transform Britney Spears into birds at twenty seven p.m. according to Miraz magic sensation Criss Angel, you explode into a flock of birds.

At least that was his plan for Britney Spears.

Oh, my. I have heartburn because what's going on? So that was so enjoyable. I was just like, look at them. Oh, sorry.

It's a wild kismet that was kismet, can you can someone take that picture and then and then Photoshop birds to do, you know, a Photoshop picture of me with Criss Angel?

Listen, OK, I know all too much and said too much. I've said too much. Can someone hack into the computer for that picture? Only at the end. It's somewhere on Facebook. I'm going to delete it right after we finish recording. I would like a picture of you being in like a cuddle puddle, like you're in the middle of the hug, sandwiched between, like David Blaine, Criss Angel, and then like Zach begins and like and then Patrick, something like just like all four strong and gothic men holding it too much for me least you'd be so sturdy.

Wow. You would just. Oh, my God. Never you would never fall.

I would just be a big puddle of like IMO.

It would be that would be at least 800 muscles pressed into you.

While I got weird, it got exactly what I wanted. I didn't know I wanted it until it happened, but I was like, yeah, this is right.

So anyway, that being said, other magicians were who usually try to expose frauds like Houdini. Houdini himself wasn't doing it, but there were still magicians who I guess still had a vendetta. Some people, I guess, had a problem with the fact that they were claiming to also maybe be spiritualists. So surprisingly, the one magician of the time who was known to be debunking people was like on cool terms with them. And then there were other magicians trying to steal their act.

So anyway, so they got to France. They and then there was another scandal where a volunteer examined the cabinet and then intentionally tried to break off a railing from the seats and then announced to the audience that he found spring-Loaded seats in there to just like cause like a panic, I suppose. And he'd like the audience to freak out.

And the police had to, like, clear the room like that and the vandalism.

And then they ended up for the rest of their tour in France getting like a like an order where they had to limit their senses totally like 60 people or something.

Oh, my goodness. They also traveled to Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Poland and Sweden. And their first public servants in Saint Petersburg was the biggest one.

It was attended by a thousand people. Oh, wow.

So they also held seances for celebrities, royalty like emperors, very notable people. They would do it in their homes. They would do private seances for these people, and they would perform for scientists and the press who are trying to debunk them. In 1868, they returned to England and the Anthropological Society appointed a committee to investigate them. And not just that committee, but there were several scientific studies, probably like the speaker and things like that. They were trying to scientifically categorize or find data about spiritualism and like being able to summon spirits and all these sorts of things.

So they were part of a lot of new experiments to see if they could try to like analyze this or contain it in some way. But every committee that investigated them and every scientific study that they did, that was probably still a little bit trying to debunk what they were up to. Nobody could ever pinpoint them with any fraudulent activity. Oh, so one of the people actually doing a study on them said that the spirits were, quote, absolutely true and belong to the spiritual order of things in every respect.

And there was this is where it gets kind of fishy. There were some trials where they last minute just decided they weren't going to be a part of it because the the committee's standards or what they proposed to do didn't it wasn't like to the standard that the Davenport brothers wanted or like they didn't like the conditions. And so they would just decide last minute. They don't want to be a part of it. And it just sounded like, oh, all of a sudden they were being told what was going to happen and it was going to help them.

So skeptical reporters did say, like the ones that got to, like, tie the knots and things like that or investigate the knots or investigate how they were being tied down or things like that. Skeptical reporters did say all of the knots looked like you had to have been a sailor to know that profound of not tying. So they're probably not ghosts.

They're probably children who were taught rope tricks and strikes by daddy. So in 1876, the brothers toured India.

They also toured with a guy named William Mary Ann Fay, who is also an up and coming performer, and Ed Davis, who was at the time the premiere ventriloquist of The World's The World's Best Show.

So they were basically their own little illusionists.

Circus or traveling situation, I'm not sure, traveling situation. The traveling, that was what we did with Blast, it's certainly what we did. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Remember when your mom called this like the murder radio situation? She literally called it like the murder situation show. And I was like, the what? She's like, you know, your murder situation. She was like, well, that's rude.

I dare you to say she was wrong, though. So she was definitely right. But it was three weeks in. So we were taking ourselves very seriously. And now I'm like, OK, yes, she was on to something.

So these shows, though, they seemed to be the traveling situation. I mean, sorry, the so the traveling situation, even though it seems to be more about magic and an illusion to stuff, it also had like some weird, like competitions involved. There was also spiritualised stuff. It was just like a weird variety show. And then they planned on going to Australia. But once they got to Australia before they started touring, William got sick and he ended up dying at like, oh, I like 36 of tuberculosis, slash consumption said.

There was a newspaper article in the Hobart Mercury in 1877, and it wrote, The Davenport Fay Company are in the north making money fast. William Davenport, however, is not likely to enjoy it long, for he is evidently going really to the land of spirits.

And then very quickly after that, he died that summer right after marrying someone. And there was also speculation about whether he actually died from TB.

But his IRA's great grandson, Doc Davenport, which just sounds like a magical person in the woods, he says he sounds like he's a sailor, but like the scientists, like the only people on his ship are like little woodland creatures.

Yes, like a mad scientist also. So Doc Davenport, who is IRA's great grandson, he confirmed for people that William did die of tuberculosis. And he also like in this like confirmation decided like he was feeling a little zazie and decided to throw in some drama at the same time and talked about William's scandalous love life.

Oh, yeah. And said that William was once actually secretly married before he was married to his wife where that he when he died in the same year, there was another woman no one knew about named Odah or ADA.

Etta has an H at the end, so I'm not sure Etta Isaacs, Mencken, who was at the time the highest earning actress, and she herself was very scandalous because she had no problem with nudity.

And she was you know, he was taking his pants off on stage all the time. She probably saw one of his shows and went, that's the one for me. That's like I found. Apparently, she was famous for like this one place she did where she rode a horse across the stage naked. Cool.

Maybe he was like Daniel Radcliffe. Did that do that? He does Equus. I think he just stood by the horse. He did make it on, did he? To get naked on stage. It was not the same show, though. Just different naked thing.

People different horse shows. Got the naked horse situation. Oh, God, that is not our podcast, to be clear.

And so he said that they were secretly married and they they were secretly married, as in like they were never legally married because she was legally married to someone else.

And they apparently had a rocky relationship because she was married to someone else. But after he died, Ayda confirmed for people that her son was actually his not her husband's tee time Tuesday.

Oh, my God. My goodness. So his drama when William died.

So that was also just thrown in, there was like, no, no, no. He had tuberculosis also while we're talking about things went down.

So when William died, which this sounds like something I would do for you if you died, IRA allegedly, quote, ordered a magnificent memorial for him on which was carved a representation of their act. So it was like this carving shrine made of ropes, cabinets and other science props.

Oh, yeah, you would. That's an EM move all the way. I'd be like, why isn't there at least a frank Ouija board on your gravestone? I don't understand. You would just tape it on. Yeah, but apparently in Australia, I don't know if it was because it was in Australia or he died in Australia and this was all set up there. But after he made the shrine, he never got permission from the cemetery and they couldn't take the shrine.

So it's actually like placed the monument is placed outside of the cemetery.

Oh, no.

So, like, his ghost is just like looking like, oh, it looks so grave. Like I'm sure it looks awesome. Dude thinks so.

It was placed outside, inside and 1911. I also would die.

But just before he did, their friend Houdini exposed them.

Come on.

And he was like legitimately like they were pen pals. They would visit each other like they were friends. But I think he had something happen. Maybe he thought I'd already died and he like, let the cat out too early. And then, like, it was like, oh, shit, he's still alive. And just heard what I did, like.

Oh, awkward. He saw my tweet. Exactly.

So literally right before he died, he told everyone this was a quote in his book called A Magician Among the Spirits, which, by the way, was quite a reference to all of my notes.

OK, so Houdini said while on tour in Australia for himself, he was also on tour in Australia.

I hunted up the grave of William Davenport and finding it sadly neglected. I had put it in order, fresh flowers planted on it and the stonework repaired. Eira, the surviving brother, was so touched by this act that he taught me the famous Davenport rope tie, the secret of which had been so well cut. The not even his sons knew it. Oh, and so fun fact in the book. There's also a whole paragraph dedicated to IRA's love.

If people are just oh, man, which his isn't like as like negative, dramatic or like scandalous, dramatic, but it is kind of wild apparently.

I literally had like a love at first sight moment with his wife who did not speak English, and he had he was touring in France and then he saw this woman after his show and had the translator that was with him. Just say, like, will you be my wife? And then she said, yes.

And then apparently, what if the translator mistranslated it and it was just like, do you want to get coffee? And it's like he wants to marry you.

Well, figured if that's the case, then like the coffee date went real well, because apparently Udine said that he had never met a couple that were just so in love.

Oh, so they were like having a great time. So anyway, so Whodini, I'm almost done. Sorry. Whodini also wrote that Eira often said that he and his brother again never claimed to be mediums or pretended that their work was spiritualistic. They just kind of avoid the situation. But Whodini did say that IRA and William kind of let their parents die, believing that they did have superhuman powers. They never told them to think anything else.

OK, guys, here's another fun fact, which is kind of special until you realize that, like Houdini, like straight up told their secrets to people, I'm going to pretend it was like for a good reason or like a sweet reason or something.

But IRA, when he right before he died, his final words to Houdini were Houdini. We started it. You finish it.

And so I guess because Houdini was the only person he ever told his cabinet trick to and his rope trick to. Wow. So he was like, how touching. He was like, I'll fucking finish it.

And then he just, oh, I'll do it. I already did. I actually just don't check the tweets like Twitter. Put your phone on. Don't Disturb. It's OK. So the anyway, the most successful successors of Irun, William was actually the guy they went on tour with the William Fay, as well as another guy that worked for them called Harry Keller. And basically, once William died, I tried to go back out on tour with William R with a William Fay.

Mm hmm.

And apparently it was just too hard. And so he ended up leaving. But William Fay and Harry Keller ended up getting together.

And so they ended up going on tour together as like their you know, the the grasshopper becomes the master or something, whatever.

What's the thing the grasshopper is trying to say earlier when I said they got bigger than or. I don't know.

Kind of generationally speaking, this was like the second time in a row. I know that sounds like the grasshopper.

I think those are two. Maybe they're two.

So two things that I'm mixing up at the student becomes the master. And then like the grasshopper, young grasshopper, our young grasshopper becomes the birds and Britney Spears hair.

Yeah, that's right. At the VMAs. Yes. So it all makes sense.

Anyway, two of their like their proteges, I suppose, ended up becoming another successful team and they kept the Davenport Spirit Cabinet part of their act. But what they did is when they were traveling everywhere, they realized that the cabinet was like way too heavy and inconvenient to travel with. So they would literally build them for each show and then just abandon it there. And so for years, there was just all these abandoned Davenport cabinets all over the world.

Wow. Ah, I don't know if those all over the world, but it was at least in a few places like Mexico, there was apparently Kellar went back back to Mexico a couple of years later and saw it right where they left it like no one touched it. Oh, I want one so bad.

Someone go to Mexico and get me one of those.

I would love Davenport. So, ah, they ended up leaving them.

Yeah. In different towns. I wonder if some of them still exist. If you know of one, please take a picture and send it to us.

I'm, I'm pleased. Take it and send it to me. That has to be worth millions though now. I mean there was like, like it's over a hundred years old.

It's almost two hundred. I'm going to find it. I'm going to find one. Just like what, like hot spot on or something. eBay.

Yep. So after they died, Whodini took their acts on and used them in his own performances, which he did have permission for, probably because since he learned the trick, I think maybe Eira knew what he was doing when he told him the secret because he knew Houdini and he knew Houdini was there to expose frauds. And if Houdini could have had a new, really spectacular act to prove that you shouldn't trust what you see before your eyes, I think really kind of gave them the permission on this issue.

It was a line like you finish it, you know. Exactly.

So Houdini ended up taking on the act himself and doing it, and therefore the Davenport brothers.

Weren't just influential, influential in spiritualism, but also in the magic world, because they now have one of the most famous early acts of that, and this basically because they never again confirm or deny and they just kind of use their what are we as like almost Klout or a PR campaign.

It ultimately furthered spiritualism. So they accidentally did that, too. So now, before this ends, I am going to tell you how it was done, this cabinet trick, because I've been OK, great.

Letting it linger and then I'm well, I'm going to get one soon anyway, so you might as well teach me now. If not, we can just build one.

We'll just get a big ol wardrobe somewhere. Can we just make the Blue's Clues Clues wardrobe into a Davenport cabinet? It's the Blues Man Group's wardrobe.

OK, well, we're showing a workshop shop that. So here's how it was done. The volunteers were all plants.

So no, I was one that earlier got like succulents, like they were like they brought cacti and, you know, they were like they were they were a up planted in the audience. Yeah. Yes.

So I set it and there was a there was a silence and I was like, she thinks I'm talking about fucking flowers.

Wow. What a weird surprise. So the volunteers who joined them in the cabinet were plants. And so they were able to also help kind of shovel their own pants down, probably bingo. And also, like play instruments and, you know, make the whole room shake and clatter. And Ferguson was I said, was also a plant because they knew how much he loved them.

So remember, the two acts were at first they're in the cabinet alone. And the second one is when they would have a volunteer planted in the audience.

So the first one, they didn't have a volunteer. So they they how were they doing it by themselves in there then if they really are tied now? Oh, sure. So in those cases, non plant volunteers who were there to tie the knot, remember, they still had someone to tie them down.

They would just pick people who looked like really like the wealthiest ones or like people who like have who looked like other people do work for them, basically.

And so they were like, I know they don't know how to tie a knot. So all his biceps really. Yeah. Legs for arms. They don't look like they were a Boy Scout, so.

Right. Interesting.

They don't look like they're a sailor, are they. Don't look like they're strong or like a laborer. Exactly. Like they look like they've really never moved in their life. So hilarious. So they knew that no matter what they would do a a shitty or not. And then if they actually were getting like surprisingly tight with the knot, if you just go like like naturally people are going to stop. And so they would do it before it ever really hurt.

They just act like they were too tight.

And so they were just the guarantying. It was always going to be kind of like gaslighting. Everybody got it. Yeah.

And also the like the the wincing like made it look really good for the show too. So that. Right. So they were wrong. You are. Exactly.

Oh you're so strong. Yeah. Yeah. So that was basically how they did it with the people who weren't actually plants. They would just pretend that they were tight, they were just loose the the ropes and then if they for the flower I still don't understand how they did this. I'm guessing they basically had like whatever the version then of Wet Wipes was in a pocket. And so they would put all the flower. They would they had the flower in their hands, they would, quote, tie themselves down.

And then once they were able to wriggle free, they would just like put all of the flower back in the pocket, do a bunch of shit, and then wipe themselves off beforehand with, like, something wet that would collect the flowers.

Sure. And then put them back and then put it back in their hands and wriggle back into the ropes. So. For the levitation acts that they did, all of those were during the dark sciences where it was pitch black and basically they would just tilt someone's notice how everyone, by the way, that levitated. There were maybe like mostly children, right.

So they could, like, lift the chair kind of easy on their own. And you only had to lift them a little bit. And the human mind freaks you out enough to think they are all the way up at the ceiling. So if you like, just tilt one side of someone's chair and kind of brush the top of their head. They think they, like, hit the ceiling. So. Oh, my. So they would just like fuck with people like me just being in the dark, people already psyched out and they just manipulate that so well.

And there's also like instruments that I don't hear it.

It's like they're scraping or if you're like. Exactly. Yeah. So that was their levitation when it came to the actual ropes and untying themselves. Like I said, they were always relatively loose, but it was the construction of the cabinet itself because the way that they were tied in with the ropes is so that it was one massive rope. Basically they would let me make sure I read this right. So the benches had two holes in them and the brothers would be facing each other on the benches rope.

The rope would be tied first around brother number one, let's say EIRA So it'd be tied around his knees and then it would spiral downward all the way to his ankles.

So like all his whole shins, calves are wrapped up then across the way. So it would get to his feet and then that rope would keep going, keep going, keep going and start at William's ankles and go up his knee. So that way they were tied to the same rope there on different ends of the same rope. And then the same thing happened with their wrists.

And so in layman's terms, because that's all I've got for you, is they would kind of be like really tense as they were tying, like let like letting people loosely tie them.

They would superintends themselves. And then they had this kind of dance choreography down where once the door was closed, if they relaxed, there was already some slack.

But also if the way they kind of had to do like a team effort where if I removed his hands this way, there was now all of a sudden like a foot more slack of rope for William to have. And so it's almost like rowing a boat and they were in sync. So kind of amazing when they zone. Yeah.

So like, you could get yourself at least your legs free enough to wriggle if, like, both of you work together. And then when they had to when they knew the door was going to open again, they'd put it all back on and then just like stretch and tense up as hard as they could. So it looked like the rope was taut. Wow. And so here's the other things that they would do just to, like, guarantee nothing would happen before or during private performances.

Because remember, they, like, have famous people having shows like hosting shows at their houses. They would let's say this famous person was like Criss Angel, you know, Britney Spears, big Swedish opera singer.

Yeah, it's a bunch of birds.

So they would if there was like an audience of, like ten personal people at this house, they would because it caused to prevent spirit collusion.

One of the ways that they were they would keep that from happening is they would have to tie strings to everyone's button shirts.

It was it makes no sense, but they would weave string through people's like button up shirts, buttons and so and they would it would all connect almost like they were tying them up so nobody could get up to go, like exploring while the lights were.

If that makes like little yes, it makes sense tying them together, like roping them together, but with something so tiny, no one felt threatened, right.

And so they would say it like avoided or prevented spirit collusion, which makes literally no sense for sure.

They just didn't want people getting up and looking around. Next, they said that they also had they had at least 10 plants and every show. So it wasn't just like one volunteer. It was at least 10 people they could rely on. And they also placed traps in the aisles. And nobody would try to bullrush the stage and like see and try to mess with the cabinets when they were in there. And that way no one would sneak on stage and surprise them.

So anyway, that's how it got done. And that is the Davenport brothers. Wow.

They seem much more reputable to me than the Fox sisters.

Yeah, they weren't trying to they weren't I mean, I guess they were trying to like trick people, but they weren't trying to be. Part of the shtick was like you didn't really know what the truth was.

They weren't like taking advantage of like vulnerable people in my mind. And they weren't flat out lying either. Right. Right, right. Like a fox. Wow. That was a fun on em.

Thank you for our pseudo Christmas episode. Yeah. You know, Christmas is Christmas is magical.

Christmas is magical sometimes, probably not this year, but we'll see. All right, my turn. Mm hmm. OK, so I know I said that this was not really a Christmas story, but it actually kind of is a Christmas story. Oh, shit. OK, cool.

So here we go.

Happy holidays, everyone. This is a big one people have been asking for since day one.

Oh, so this is like you. Here we go is all I have to say.

How do I not know if this is OK of JonBenet Ramsey? Oh, Christine. Oh, Christine, it's it's a doozy, as we like to say, it's a boozy doozy. So get your drinks because you need it. You know what?

I have a carton of ice cream at home that now I have a reason. I have heard the story yet. I can't wait to go home and finish that off now because I'm going to need it by the end of this.

Yeah, I got my box drawers downstairs, which is happening correctly. Let me get cozy.

Let me take my orthopedic slippers off real quick when I go get someone. By the way, I. I saw you on Twitter. Someone said something about my fish fops and you were like, why are you wearing banana leaves on your feet? And I was like, hey there. I said, no, someone on Twitter. I'm saying, I saw you whoever did it, though. So I would say that my fish flaps look like banana leaves.

And I was like, they're fish.

They look like dead fish. Thank you very much. They actually do kind of look like banalities because I went and watched the episode where that tweet came out and I went, yeah, you can only see, like a little green, the little yellow. So anyway, well, orthopedic slippers off, orthopedic slippers are off.

Everybody have your drink. OK, great. So this is a wild tale. How much do you know about this?

And I'm curious, I got to be honest, for someone who has two hundred episodes of a true crime podcast, I literally know nothing at all.

I know they're pretty good about keeping out of it, like, you know, caring for the other person to do a story.

Well, even then, like, I certainly didn't actively try to not learn about her. I think I just somehow moved past it every time. Like, people are usually shocked when they hear the like. I don't really like outside of this podcast have an interest in true crime. Like, I never a lot of people during Marvelman, they'll be like, what's your favorite like? Right. Like Investigation Discovery Show? And I'm like, I literally watch none of them, I, I don't know.

So like this this stuff, unless you tell me about it, I don't know. Yeah.

Because we really I mean when we started the podcast it was very much like a divided like this is your like forte and this is my forte. Yeah.

And there's a reason we like each other about it. Exactly. Exactly.

I know it's the blonde girl and I know I guess she went missing because everyone's like, where's JonBenet Ramsey? And she was like in a Toddlers and Tiaras kind of situation. And people think the brother did it. That's what I know.

And that's it's pretty it's pretty solid summation, I will say. And when we get to the end, I think that might be just a good thing or just a good, like recap of all of the above. So got it.

I'm just going to get into it because this one confounds me. It stresses me out. It frustrates me.

I've watched every single documentary on that I can get my hands on by at least twice like at and then again for this episode. I like I just find it so fascinating and it's OK.

I want to preface to it's one of those things where a lot of people have very strong opinions and it's one of those things where every documentary has such an angle, like whether intentionally or unintentionally, that almost every time I watch a documentary, I'm like, wait, OK, so he did it or he did it.

So they do a really good job of convincing you it could be anyone. It's yeah.

It's sort of like one of those things where you could kind of go a lot of ways and I'm pretty open minded to a lot of the options, so.

Oh so do you not. You have a personal preference or a preference? I like an opinion on what happened.

I do. I do. OK, well, I did hear about it by the end. Yeah. I'll tell you at the end what I think. But again, when I say what I think, it's not like I know that happened.

It's kind of like that's where I'm leaning and apologies in advance in case this gets me as fucking wild and wild as last, because I got real fired up about that and I felt bad. I went home and was like shit like I really hope I wasn't like, too intense.

No, I felt bad because, I mean, full disclosure, everyone had to go to their funerals. So I was trying to like I was trying to, like, rush to the story.

So I hope it didn't come off. Like, I was like pushing past your comments or I really had I been here for one more minute, I would have missed the memorial service for sure.

Yeah, I know that. I was literally watching my clock, like like, oh, that's interesting. And anyway, I hope it didn't come off like that.

I wasn't trying to be like, dismissive. Not really on this one, especially, I watched four, five, five documentaries for this.

Like in the like how many hours of work do you think you put in for this? Well, I hate to call it work when it's just like because the after the notes were done, then I was like, I'm just going to like binge all the documentaries. And so if it was technically work, like prepping my mind, but it was sure, you know, hard work.

And then I'll tell you at the end to like what my favorite documentaries are if anyone's interested. OK, so if you do have questions and please ask because I am in a headspace to discuss them, ok.

Oh my God. I love and Kristine's and I Headspaces I've been in a weird space all day. I kind of dig it out though, like whatever's happening. I like that it's electric shock like. Oh good. Gojko feeling like jazzed up.

All right. So this is a Christmas tale because it occurred on Christmas.

So I was like yo. Yeah, you were like, wait, holiday all. Yeah, it's a it's it occurred during the holidays, so it technically 1996, the day after Christmas, Patsy Ramsey, mother of two, headed downstairs very, very early in the morning. She lives with her husband and two kids in Boulder, Colorado.

As she went down her spiral staircase, she noted three pieces of A4 sized paper laid out neatly on one of the stairs. OK, they had writing on it that read Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully. And this is kind of along a lot of paragraphs all over the place or whatever.

Like this is the definition of there's paragraphs everywhere, look out or whatever that thing was called.

This is a lot of paragraphs. Why don't I just literally look up what that could be more fun to make up? I know what I know the word paragraphs is at the end.

And the like gist is there's a lot of them like and it's the gist is like it's pretty chaotic. So buckle up.

That's what the article should have been called. It's pretty chaotic. So buckle up.

So that's what's happening here. And it is a bunch of paragraphs and I'm going to read it to you. And just like let me know what you think, I guess.

OK, Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully. We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your business, but not the country it serves at this time. We have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed. And if you want to see if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars from your account. One hundred thousand will be in one hundred dollar bills and the remaining eighteen thousand and twenty dollar bills make sure that you bring an adequate size attaché to the bank.

OK, thank you.

OK, so someone there is Devar got it started.

No I don't mean to stereotype but it sounded a little fashion forward. It was like the appropriate size attaché and don't you dare bring two. Yeah.

And also like no reusable tote bags, please. We need to look professional here.

Exactly.

When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between eight and 10 a.m. tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting. So I advise you to be rested.

Should we monitor? Oh, my God. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pick up of your daughter. Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for a proper burial.

The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke them. Oh my God. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police or FBI, will result in your daughter being beheaded. Hmm hmm.

What does that face mean? Does she get beheaded? No. Oh, my God, what? No, she doesn't. She doesn't. OK, not give that. Well, you know, you have a lot of power right now and you can tell me anything you want.

And I'd be like, oh, my God, OK, she could be beheaded. Fuck.

If you talk to the police, she will be beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. What? OK, so like that was just me.

Like anyone. Don't be distracted by absolutely anything.

Just like don't let this leak anywhere, even to your neighbor's dog or something.

Holy fuck. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You can try to deceive us, but be warned, we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99 percent chance of killing your daughter. If you try to outsmart us, follow our instructions and you stand a one hundred percent chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities.

Don't try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around, so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good Southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now, John. Victory signed SB T.C..

Hmm. So that's what she finds on the stairs day after Christmas. Good morning. Well.

OK, my opinion so far, this is not the thing to focus on, but I'm wondering why one hundred eighteen thousand specifically. Good.

Yeah. I'm glad you got you noted that. Yes.

This is such a at least rounded up. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Ding, ding, ding. Red flag.

If we're playing escape game rules, then species or whatever. I imagine that's like the first initial of each of their names or something. Sounds like it. Yeah. And or maybe like it's like the acronym of like a sentence that they were like a belief or something.

Yeah. Because they wrote victory before it. Yeah.

So it sounds like anonymous and it's like you expect us or whatever.

Wow. OK, so I don't know what I think I.

OK, terrifying. Good. Because I mean to this day I still don't 100 percent know what I think.

So I think the first, the first the that was the weird part. It was weird. It's we are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction.

OK, is that the party. Yeah. It was like great. Yeah it does. OK, it's just it's just odd.

Obviously, it's just like it's just wild.

So also my like my big fear, like I've just seen enough like horror movies were like the thing that I'm real panicked about, like I should be more panicked about, like a child missing who might get beheaded. But like my current fear is when I hear, like, you have a big day of like like finding her is going to be really difficult. That sounds like some saw shit like.

Yeah, like you better rest up because we're going to start breaking bones tomorrow.

It's so weird.

It's like the delivery will be exhausting for you to be rested. I would be prepared to take a nap. Like what? I would be prepared like, oh, you're going to torture me. I imagine you're going to torture me.

Yeah. Or like make this a living hell somehow. Yeah, exactly. And weird, weird. Weird.

So she finds this letter and it's three pages on the staircase like laid out handwritten and Pazzi immediately rushes she she yells she fajon who's dressing up stairs.

She rushes to check in on her daughter JonBenet, who was nowhere to be found, was not in her bed.

So she and John wake up or she wakes John up, she gets him downstairs. She's you know, they check on Burke, the brother. He's in his room. And despite the warning to not call the police and obey orders, they call nine one one.

OK, which in like.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I get it, like, I think I would have done the same. Yeah, sure I would have, you know, sorry. I mean what else are you going to do. Sorry kids by like I.

I would have. Am I might really like cynical side would come out where if I got a letter like that, I would just assume whoever was being held for ransom was already dead?

I'd be like, because, yeah, there's those sick people or it's like they died the second I kidnapped them. I just wanted to, like, fuck with you. Yeah, yeah.

It happens. And, uh, what else are you supposed to do? So she called nine one one and I'm going to read you the 911 call, a.k.a. role play it by myself.

So you look great. OK, I'll be the dispatcher, but I'm not going to interact at all.

OK, so I'm going to be the dispatcher actually and Patsy, because I'm going to say the whole conversation. But you're just gonna have to guess who's who.

OK, I think I'll figure it out pretty quick. You will. Nine one one emergency.

That's Patsy. No, I'm just kidding.

That was actually the news reporter from the bird story. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

Nine one one emergency. And then there's an inaudible noise. And Patsy says Police 911 says, what's going on? 755 15th Street. What is going on there? Ma'am, we have a kidnapping. Hurry. Please explain to me what is going on.

OK, we have a there's a note left and our daughter is gone. A note was left and your daughter is gone. Yes. How old is your daughter? She is six years old. She is blonde, six years old. How long ago was this? I don't know. I just found a note in my daughter's missing. Does it say who took her? What does it say? Who took her? No, I don't know. It's there there's a ransom note here.

It's a ransom note. It says SBT victory, please. OK, what's your name? Are you Patsy Ramsey? I'm the mother. Oh, my God. Please. OK, I'm sending an officer over. OK, please.

Do you know how long she's been gone? No, I don't.

Please, we just got up and she's not here. Oh, my God. Please. OK, please send somebody. I am. Honey, please take a deep breath for me, ok? Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Patsy, Patsy, Patsy. This was followed by six seconds of some audio inaudible sounds in the background and then Patsy hung up the phone.

Oh, OK. So that is a 911 call. Obviously it was a lot more, you know, frantic and emotional.

Yeah. Than my dry reading of it. But to give you an idea, this is the chaos that ensued that morning.

Sure. So that was a 552 a.m. on December 26 of 1996, operator Kim Archuleta was speaking to Patsy Ramsey, who's calling about the disappearance of her six year old daughter, JonBenet, from their home in Boulder, Colorado. Two minutes later, Patsy and her husband John call their family friends.

The whites and the Ramsey's had actually been over at the White House the night before for a Christmas party. OK, so at five thirty pm on December 25th, the Ramsey's had said the night before Christmas, the Ramsey's had arrived at the White's family party, which and they stayed there until eight thirty pm and arrived home around nine fifteen.

OK, JonBenet had fallen asleep in the car. So John Ramsey carried the sleepy JonBenet up to bed and they hadn't seen her since. So that was the last they had seen her.

OK, so back to the next morning, December 26th, police officer Rick French arrives at the Ramsey's at five fifty nine a.m. and the white family makes their way over to the Ramsey house and they arrive at six thirty five a.m..

So Rick French did an initial search of the house inside and outside, but he didn't find anything out of the ordinary. And so he called for backup because in a situation like this, time is of the essence, especially if it's a kidnapping.

So Detective Linda Arndt is also on the case and she arrives around eight, 10 a.m. and during this time, John was making arrangements to try and get this ransom money set up. So he and Detective Linda Arndt are waiting for this call because the letter said the call will come between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.. Right. So he's like he's called his bank. He's like, I need this money. And then they sit around and he said every time the phone rang, you know, they jumped, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Can you imagine? Like, I feel every every psycho would feel like a century. I would.

And you can't do anything but wait, which is my nightmare as the most impatient person on the planet. Right? Yeah. So the forensics team then arrive. They cordoned off JonBenet s room to prevent contamination of any evidence in her room. And by 10:00 a.m., the cutoff time for the ransom note, no one had called. Nobody had been in touch about the ransom money. OK, so at this point, they're panicking.

They're fearing the worst that these people had found out that they had called the police and had, you know, gone through with their promise of beheading their daughter, murdering their daughter, because at this point they're thinking, well, we did call them, but we broke the rules.

So well, my first found out, just like how early everyone was like while she called the police. And then you and I were both like, yeah, I would call the police, even though they said not to because, like, I Liswood I. If I found out later that something happened to her and I could have called the police, I would fuck yeah. Myself, like, you have to do something right? I mean, you can't just sit around and wait and trust that the kidnapper has your best intentions.

Right. We'll actually go through with it.

And then my my anxiety would kick in after I hung up the phone and I'd go for it. Now now I'm upset that I did it.

So it's a game of, like, hiding it. Yeah. And now, like I mean, I totally get why they're like, so paranoid about, like, shit.

We should have not yet done that. Yeah. And they cut off came and they had not heard. So they're wondering if their daughter had suffered the consequences that were outlined in the letter. Right. So in the early afternoon at one p.m., Detective Arndt pulls John and Fleet White, that's the friend's name, the dad of the other family, the white family. His name is Fleet White.

And at this point, she has been left alone at the scene. So the other officers have all left and they've left. Linda aren't alone at the scene to kind of handle things. And I guess according to her, John was so restless and agitated and anxious that she was like, I gave them a mission. I gave them a task basically to kind of get them doing something.

So she pulled them aside. He John and his friend Fleet and told them to do a top to bottom search of the home and this home. I don't know how much everybody knows about this story, but it's a it's a mansion. It has 15 rooms. It has 13000 chandeliers. No, that's the Winchester mystery house.

That's it has 15 rooms. In my mind. My first thought was like, damn, like that is eerily like Sarah Winchester.

It didn't it didn't cross my mind that you were making a joke. And I was like, oh, my God, that's crazy.

The chandelier. It's like I don't know why my brain was so slow on that update, but I was like, that's bananas in the science room downstairs, too.

Everything had 13 hooks and there was one shower. What is going on?

And the lady wandering around half stairs, you know, this is a more American, you know, new new built new build.

Only twelve thousand chandelier. Just got it. Yeah. Yeah exactly. It had fifteen rooms and it was seventh that I think. Seventy five hundred square feet. So like still holy shit. Massive. Massive.

I mean I don't know that the Winchester house but it's fine. Yeah exactly. It's, it's big for a family home.

So while they decide to work from the bottom up and they, so they head to the basement, it was during that search that John Dad, John McCain's dad opened the door to the basements, what they called the wine cellar, because, of course, they have a wine cellar.

If you've got a house that big and you don't have a wine cellar, you're doing something wrong.

Yeah, like what are you even doing? What's the point? So they have this wine cellar room. And they had also this is also where they hid the Christmas presents for the kids.

Oh. So he opens this room and immediately he spots Benny's favorite white blanket on the floor. And there is something underneath it. To his horror, it is the body of his daughter, JonBenet.

So, OK, so before you say anything else than my novice brain process that so. So there. So there was no League of Foreign Factions or something.

It was just like a or if there was they were in shopping.

Right, or they were in the house and like I'm assuming KDS are before they I imagine they brought her downstairs, killed her, and then gently place those three pieces of paper on the stairs and then left just so they could wake up and think they even stood a chance. So I was right. So by the time the kid was already dead. Yeah.

Yeah. Long story short, she had already been dead exactly when the when the ransom note had been found. Yes. She was dead.

So as far as things that we know for sure, that that's one that we know for sure. Wow. So when he found her body, her mouth and neck were covered in duct tape. Her neck was wrapped with a white nylon cord.

So when he finds her, he screams, picks up her body, runs upstairs and lays the body next to the Christmas tree in front of the detective and all the people who had been there to kind of lend support. So he brings the body upstairs, lays her out. He's crying over her. And Patsy is described as like wailing, I'm sure, like Banshee wailing like over her dead daughter's body.

And so this is obviously like just the most wild outcome of, you know, day after Christmas for a little six year old girl.

And so I guess just some background on JonBenet, because that also ends up being a huge factor in this entire story and why it's such a huge case, because so JonBenet Patricia Ramsey was born six years before this tragic incident on August six, 1990, in Atlanta, Georgia, and she was named after her parents, John Bennett. So JonBenet got it. And her mother, Patricia, which is her middle name is Patricia classI.

I mean, that's like that's a fun way. I had a neighbor across the street whose dad name was John and Mom's name was Donna. So her name is jhana.

Yeah, I love that. That's fine. Yeah, it's a fun little thing to do. My name would be Bernarda.

My name would be Larry.

Oh, well that's not that. Yeah, that's what Cockburn's. Bernardo's pretty terrible. At least Larry is an actual name. Yeah. At least it's a real name.

Oh no.

Or would be Renyard which is also terrible.

OK, and no matter what you sound like, you're part of like a bike gang. Yeah.

So I think for me I'm part of a small foreign faction actually that's.

You know what I knew it it sounded, it sounded something. Right. OK. Oh boy. OK, so she's named after her parents and John, the dad was a multimillionaire businessman. He was the president of Access Graphics, a computer system company, and her mother was a former beauty queen. She had been crowned Miss West Virginia in 1977 and had participated in Miss America pageants and so on. So this was John's second marriage. He had had two kids before.

And then he also had two kids with Patricia JonBenet and her older brother, Burke, who was nine at the time of JonBenet death. All right. Had been asleep when the note was found.

So whether because she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps is what Patsy Patricia said, or whether her mother was vicariously trying to live through her daughter, which is what the media said. JonBenet was also very active in beauty pageants. OK, that's so that's that.

I mean, yeah, that is like the big selling point of the story, the media circus, the cause of the media circus. Every I mean I remember nineteen ninety six, I was like five or six and I remember like seeing those pictures of the beauty queen on every magazine at like Kroger like every magazine had like slain murder, you know, I mean it was horrific. And I remember being like, holy crap. And it's like this, you know, very made up.

Maybe that's maybe that's why I have that one image of, like, her face, because, yes, I'm used to only like the tabloid cover of it. And then I know nothing else.

It's it's a it's a very famous photo. And we'll put some of those in the video itself here. But yeah. So she started doing pageants and according to Patsy, she said, oh, she went to a pageant with me and she said, when can I start doing that? I want to start doing that. Now, there's mixed you know, there's a lot of mixed opinions about this. I'm personally not a fan of beauty pageants.

Yes. Oh, sorry. This is where I tell you that it's kind of I'm going to make it about me. Get ready. Always. I it's very interesting that you that this is the story that you picked on the day that I talked about my gammy, because in twenty eight she was a senior in New York.

What? Yeah, she was a beauty pageant queen. Stop it. Gammy is like orchestrating this episode and we know it's true. I mean, what are the odds that I would have this feeling? I need to talk about her now. You're talking about beauty queens. That one of her proudest moments and her last. A few years where she was like totally with us, is she like she fought tooth and nail to win Miss New York and I remember it was so fun because the whole family came so like to go to her beauty pageant and, like, see like her talent and everything, obviously.

Thomas singing Afternoon Delights. And there was one woman that ended up being the runner up that she did.

Oh, I love it.

And so I got to hear, like, all like the the senior beauty queen drama. But the rich stuff, it was good.

Look, my game, you knew it was going on and she like they took it seriously, like apparently like Miss Senior America is like you actually do a lot of really wonderful charity work. So a few years after she won, she was busy all the time. They had her going to all these different events. Like it wasn't just like, oh, it wasn't just a title that happened. And then nothing ever came from it. Like she was like booked solid for like three years, making appearances so well.

Oh, I'm so proud of her. Anyway, that's my gamze, bad ass.

I love that. Oh yeah. So basically it was a scenario where, you know, Patsy said she took JonBenet to a pageant and JonBenet, like, fell in love with it. And like, that could have been the case. But she did start doing this at age like two or three. And, you know, I don't know if you've watched Toddlers and Tiaras as much as I embarrassingly have.

I didn't watch television series, but I watched the spin offs, every type of spin off with, like Mama June and Honey Boo Boo. I was the my thing for a long time.

I watched Toddlers and Tiaras for a while there.

It's pretty depressing.

But like, you really see some wild stuff parenting like and I'm not one to judge a parent. I'm not a parent, as you all know, except to my dog. So I'm not one to judge parenting, but it gets to a point where it's like, you know, they're putting like these intense spray tans and fake teeth and, you know, it gets like really wild.

And it's like very, you know, a big argument in the pageant world. But no, no, like the non like the the public, the public opinion, public opinion, let's call it. Sure. One of the big arguments was like, you know, you're sexualizing your child. She's wearing like I mean, in photos, she's six and she or five even. And she looks like she could be like twenty five. Like really. Yeah.

It's like airbrushed. I mean the make up and like super short skirts and look bikinis. I mean you know it's the whole pageant thing.

Yeah. I mean I can, I could argue though like they're, they're too young to understand, like you know, what things they should be valuing are like you know, it's when you're older I think like it's fun to do because you can kind of separate, like, oh, I'm doing this versus this is what's important in the world.

And like, if you're six and you're getting awards because you look this way or you act this way, like it can become a little and you're competing with other girls about like how you look and how you shake your butt, because again, like with the talents, it's like, sure, they do talents, but it's not like barbershop quartet talents. It's like you shake your butt to a cowboy song, right.

And you win like a big trophy. And I mean and there's all sorts of problematic stuff in there that, like, everybody kind of knows what I say.

We get it. We get yeah. You get it substantially.

She so Patsy was like the stage mom.

She was a stage mom. Sure. For lack of a better term.

So. She was JonBenet was like caked in makeup, dressed in tight clothing, and most of the images that we see of her, a lot of people argued she was being sexualized by her. The pageants by her mom and a family friend, Judith Phillips, remembered that at one Christmas party when JonBenet came down the stairs, she had this like really aggressively bleached blond hair.

And she pulled Patsy aside and was like, are you dying her hair? And remember, this girl's like four or five at this point, right?

And Patsy responded, No, it's from the sun, but like, OK, wow. Like, definitely.

Did you take her to Samar's? What did you take her to the sun. Oh, OK. Yeah, especially especially with the tan. Yeah. So it was like she was, you know, really pressing her up.

Actually I think Mars is farther away from the sun. I know you're going to say that because I was like I could be wrong. I always get mixed up with Mars and Mercury. So I was trying to say Mercury. But then I thought that Kampia and then I just said the wrong thing. What are we all into? Mercury.

OK, everyone pretend like this is going to what are they taking her to? Mercury.

I like how you say let's pretend instead of like, hey, just cut this part. It you're like, let's just all pretend.

No one no one knows Christine, we're not actually going to be here. Wow. She looks like she's from Mercury. She's got such wonderful hair. Crazy like Sunkist.

Sunkist sun smart. Yeah. Smacked in the head. Yeah. However, different to Zambonis Mom Patsy JonBenet was not showy herself. She wasn't like the typical like, you know, out go like she was outgoing and bubbly. But she wasn't like seemingly she wasn't seemingly like as in love with pageantry wasn't really passion.

Perhaps not.

I mean it could have been. But here I'll just explain. So the same friend Judith recalls that once her daughter went over to play with JonBenet and saw her room, which was full of trophies, and JonBenet didn't really want to talk about them. And then when her friend asked, JonBenet said they really belonged to my mom.

Oh, that's so like that's a good glimpse into like that's how she viewed it as far as this is my mom's thing and this is it for her with her.

You know, I am her accessory is how it kind of feels of like this is a I'm just a pawn and something that she's up to or. Yeah. Like she's in charge of this.

It's not. Yeah, I'm not leading the way in this hobby. Yeah. Like, this is not my hobby. No one asks. My opinion is what's happened. Yeah. Yeah.

And like, you know, my mom forced me to play piano when I was miserable for like literally six years, but she didn't force me to wear like bikinis and, you know, so it sure there's different levels of that.

So anyway, the Ramsey's had moved to Boulder only a few years earlier from Georgia. And pageantry, you know, is something that tends to be more common in the South. And Patsy said that although her daughter had a gift for performing, it was just one of her many hobbies. Although in the book she and John later wrote called The Death of Innocence, pageantry was the only hobby they discussed of hers.

According to CNN, the six year old JonBenet took home first place for little Miss Colorado Little Miss Charlevoix, which is in Michigan, Colorado State, All Star Kids, CoverGirl, America's Royal Miss and National Tinie, Miss Beauty, damn people.

Also, she I mean, she was a beautiful girl. Like, she was really sweet, very, you know, like the ultimate pageant girl, like you'd see in a movie like just picture perfect blue eyes, you know, blonde hair.

Also, I, I appreciate that. Like, she's like not even, quote, trying as hard or like it say it's like not even as some as investing for her as like it might be for the other kids. And she keeps like raking it in clean up shop. OK, yeah. Yeah.

People magazine also reported that Ramsey that JonBenet won the local little Miss Christmas beauty pageant. Sweet. And to be clear, like she did this a lot. So she like she a couple of days before her death, her last performance was actually singing at the local mall like she did like a Christmas concert. So like she did perform a lot. And she was like very bubbly and like into it. Yeah. So she was definitely, like, good at it.

Clearly a damn. Yeah, she's right. She's like, I'm not even trying. Oh I know this. Oh this little thing. Oh you mean all my little little Miss Sunshine or whatever their growth over. Oh I love the movie.

So there's an excerpt from a book called We Have Your Daughter by Paula Woodward. There are a lot of books on this case.

Unsurprisingly, the excerpt reads by the Monday following her body being found on the prior Thursday. The networks were already involved. It happened so fast and it was so competitive. Within a few days, we learned that the networks were interested in her child. Beauty pageant pictures had been leaked and sold to the media by the photographers who took them.

Oh, fuck off. Yeah, and it became international. So like every photographer who did a photo shoot with her was like, Oh, great. Five grand or whatever, I don't know the price, like here's her portfolio. And so now they had these, like, you know, skimpy photos of her plastered everywhere. I mean, it made for, like, the ultimate media. Yeah.

Circus, you know, for lack of a better word, like truly I used was also because, like, there's nothing wrong with looking like that sometimes, but like this was not the time. Like, this is not the place I feel like like your pageant pictures.

This is a performance. This is a crisis and we need to be paying attention to.

Yet it was sort of like, you know, wealthy white family, tiny blonde girl.

Plus, she's living her her mother's vicarious dream of being a pageant star look like she's being sexualized and now she's murdered.

You know, I mean, it's a whole a whole thing.

So let's see. So the whole world at this point is like invested in this story for obvious reasons. And Boulder itself was known as a very peaceful town, very low crime rate.

So it's actually well, it was, I guess, because there's also a fun fact here from Episode one idea, the Sheenan and Chris Watts story. Yeah, Boulder's only thirty four minutes from Frederick, Colorado, where they lived. Oh.

So I guess things went downhill since then, but it's a radius I don't want to be a part of. Yeah.

A couple like high profile things are happening here. Something in the water, something in the water.

So but at the time and probably still a boulder has a very low crime rate. And they I saw in one documentary they had like one or two murders to deal with a year like a year.

And so now they had this like wild homicide of a child. So as you can probably imagine, the police didn't really know what the hell to do. And keep in mind also that it's the day after Christmas. So a lot of people are on vacation, right.

Come in.

Not enough people are even there to properly do this job. Yeah.

And like I remember when I said they left that Lisa detective alone right at the scene. And detectives later admitted, like the supervisor said, like, I made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have left one officer alone at the scene to just kind of, like, run everything.

Well, I remember when you said, like you were when you were the dispatcher and you said like, oh, I'll have an officer out there. And I was like an officer.

I was like, could you get a squadron out there? The FBI helicopter? Yeah. I mean, the house had to have a helipad, right, for helicopters.

What else are you gonna do with all that space I get? You wanted a wine cellar, so you got a seventy five hundred square foot house to match.

But like, maybe they thought it was a science room was I don't know.

Right.

But so. Yeah. So they were stretched thin basically. And on top of that, they're not this is not a thing that they've ever had to deal with. So they're stretched thin. It's Christmas. It's already a small town. It's already not prepared for this kind of thing. So shoddy police work would forever be associated with this case, just like last week. Like police work was not top notch here. And admittedly, like from later, investigators have said, like, we made mistakes.

At least I can respect that at least. OK, exactly. Some of them. Some. So on the morning that JonBenet was found, the Ramsey. So this is just kind of a summation of all of this shoddy police work.

On the morning that JonBenet was found, the Ramsey's had friends coming in and out of the house. They were passing the ransom note back and forth to read it with each other.

Friends came over and cleaned the kitchen like this place was just tampered, tampered, tampered, tampered temper, temper. They were swarming this place. Friends were coming in and out. Yeah. They were passing the letter back and forth, trying to read it, trying to figure it out.

And police were there like that. This isn't like before police arrived. Police arrived within minutes. So they didn't properly cordon off the home basically as a crime scene. Sure.

Also, like the dad, like literally picked up the body and brought it upstairs. That's the one of the biggest, biggest ones for sure, which like if there's anything I've learned, there's two things I've learned in my entire relationship with you.

One, cyanide smells like almonds to do not ever touch anything until a proper investigation has been handled. I'm sure God is a proper investigation.

I have a new fact for you, though. Are any new fun statistics? Mercury's closer to the sun. What that the science is not saying I can help you with, but Britney Spears is birds.

Why that one? That one.

I taught you that once as far as like true crime, apparently, which I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I'll use actual forensic people out there. But apparently if you find a loved one who has hanged themselves excuse me, a human nature is to cut them down.

So a lot of times if you find a person who has been hanged and like nobody cut them down, it's a little fishy.

You're like, oh, OK.

This was just in a. In a story I read where somebody was that somebody had been killed, I don't hanged to cover it up and they were like, well, so weird that they wouldn't try and take her down.

No, that makes sense, I think. Sorry, I was trying to put it in my put myself in those shoes, but absolutely. If it makes no sense because if they're already gone, then what's the what does it matter? But the first thing you want to do is try to bring comfort and help.

So like it's like maybe they're still alive. You don't know. I mean. Yeah, and that's. Yeah. So it's human nature, I guess as far as I've read. Again, this is caveat like I just read this in a book. I don't 100 percent know that it's true.

Right. But apparently it's human nature.

So but yes. Other don't I mean check OK, potential fun fact pfv.

But also if you do come across body check if they're alive because. A lot of times people don't do that, and it's like, well, shit, now we don't know, she could have been alive still or she could have also if you're in a car crash or if you see someone in a car crash, unless it's a dire emergency, do not pull them out of the car because you move them.

You could do so much more damage to them. Skeletal there could be broken. Yeah. Or it could not be broken. And then you break it because you're pulling them out and all it needed was that one last hug.

So yeah. Or they're neckers. You could paralyze them. Yeah. Anyway, point being there's nothing you can do is correct in any circumstance. Wait.

OK, book closed. I face the class. I guess that was the secret to the entire course that I was waiting on without even a term paper. Everything you do is wrong. That's bingo. Bingo.

OK, don't worry. It goes for me too. So the ransom note, they're passing it before back and forth with people and they only sectioned off Zambonis room as opposed to the whole house being treated as a crime scene.

And the investigators, just like, you know, my opinion, should have investigated the house as rather than letting the dad and his friend investigate the house percent, just like the wildest thing, like, oh, here's a task. Go look for your go search the crime scene for your dead daughter.

If I ever saw if I ever walked into a crime scene, if there's one thing I know, it's like just fucking walk right back out and call the police like, yeah, don't touch it because you're going to tamper with it.

Yeah, exactly. Or like then I incriminate myself by accident, like incriminate as unlike now I'm added to the suspect list if I've been touch and checked. Yes.

So my, my advice is check that check if they're alive because if they are alive you could call 911 and have helped CPR and so on.

If they are dead immediately, call authorities and don't touch it.

Bingo. Exactly.

Yeah, that's my advice as a really low tier podcast.

It's not much about any as someone who has an opinion that's mine, someone who has an opinion about things that I don't deserve an opinion on. That's my opinion. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. OK, so. Private investigator John St. Augustine said on a podcast called The Killing of JonBenet, the final suspect, quote, When you're doing an investigation much like this where the initial call is a kidnapping, it is crucial that the crime scene is provided with forensic sterility. What that means as you try and maintain the crime scene as best you can. And so what happens in this case is that we have a major contamination of the crime scene.

Not only do we not move the family from the crime scene when the call comes in, we actually allow the family to introduce their friends, their pastor. So there's never really any security in this investigation. And again, like you said, he grabbed the body, carried it upstairs, laid her out. Then her mom started crying over her like nobody.

I mean, the investigator checked and said he's or she is passed. So they checked. She is she was dead, but they didn't preserve the body, you know what I mean?

They I mean, like, I would I would assume there are a lot of information that my untrained eye does not see. But like if there's a body lying on the ground, how it is lying on the ground could probably tell you a lot. Or like, yes, yeah, there's some there's some clues that people have been trained to look for, especially like it was wrapped in a blanket, like maybe there's a clue there.

How was the cord tie?

Does it look like someone's left handed or right handed so that the the that actually stays into play like that, that they were able to. Oh, they never took it off as it was like tied around her.

So and they never saw the rope was tied around her, etc.. So as much as they were like crying over her, nobody like, cut it all messed with. Nothing like that.

That's weird, because I would have to I without thinking like what logically I should do if I like saw like my mom, you know, in that situation and there was a rope wrapped around her, I would immediately want to rip it off and be like, I don't want you to look this way, you know? Yeah.

I think it was like a really thin nylon cord. So it wasn't like an aggressively big gotcha thing. But also it was like very much secure to her.

So they would have had to, like, cut through the nylon rope. I, I don't know. But that part did stay on and became evidence later. So anyway, onto the investigation and what they found. So I just want to warn you, the autopsy is a bit gruesome, especially it's a child, you know, it's upsetting.

So the autopsy revealed that JonBenet had died from asphyxiation due to strangulation, in addition to a skull fracture that was seven and a half to eight inches in length.

Only shit huge. Eight and a half inches. Yeah. And she's a six year old. Eight.

Yes. So her whole head was like eight inches like. Right, right. Right. A tiny person. OK, yeah, exactly. So there were also two stun gun marks on her face and on her back stun gun marks. Yeah.

That which is that feels like a really a really important piece of evidence.

It does. And it honestly throws a wrench into a lot of the theories.

I will say that because the stun gun is kind of like, wait, a stun gun like it just adds confusion is that I think my my first thought would be like, oh, well, then I know through what I've heard about Jon Benet Ramsey, a lot of people think it was the brother. But if the brother is nine, like he doesn't have a stun gun. Right.

Like the family didn't end up having a stun gun as far as we know. So, yeah.

Sorry, sorry. No, no. But that's exactly like why that was like a really weird piece of evidence. So, yeah, stun gun marks on her face and back and there was evidence leaning toward sexual assault as well.

Fuck. OK, yes. So there was no evidence of rape and no semen.

But the pathologist recorded that it appeared there was chronic inflammation of the vaginal wall and it was also thought that her vaginal area had been wiped with a cloth. OK, there was a garrote that was made from a nylon cord and a broken handle of a paintbrush that was tied around her neck. And I described what a garrote wasn't like Episode eight or something. Do you remember?

No, I heard paint brush and I kind of just landed on that one. Yeah.

So it's basically a gorod is when you have a rope and then you or a strangulation method and then you use a bar or tool brush or whatever to as extra leverage.

So I say strangle somebody that makes sense, like you use it as kind of a water lover. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Which is also a weird detail of like a very specific tool of murder.

Yeah. That's that's like obviously her being that is a pretty clear indication of intent, but like something like that is like, oh, you really wanted to like.

Yeah. And somebody's right. And somebody knew what they were doing. If they write a out like and by the way, the girl was made of a paintbrush that came from Patsy's art kit in the house.

Interesting.

Also, they're also like able to. No prob something like that. Yeah, so it's like if it was made in the house, somebody knew how to make it. They didn't stay home and watch Wicky how. Right, exactly. Which like, if I ever were going to be like a murderer, I would be wicky howling like how to not get caught by the police.

And I would, I would definitely be that guy who forgot to go on incognito mode and just like immediately sent it to all of my you know, I would accidentally check that link to the police and then be like, oh you'd be like, oh is this how.

And it's like your face timing the police department. No, they're going to see my Handmaid Gorod in the background. Yeah, that's us. This is why we're bad at everything.

Anyway, this way we do everything wrong as we like to say. Go. So the autopsy now this is where things just get weirder. The autopsy also revealed that in her stomach she had undigested pineapple.

OK, so that was the last thing she ate. Yes. And indicated that she had eaten it a few hours before her death as it had not yet digested. So it wasn't it was far enough along that you could tell it was pineapple, but it had not been digested in her small intestine yet.

And do we know what the time of death guesstimate is? No, I don't think so. Usually, that's the first thing I hear about on this. I know.

I know. And they don't have that. All they know is that she was dead at some point before the before the police arrived.

It just lets you know, like how like incorrect Hollywood is sometimes because like, any time I've watched Law and Order, it's like they just want to that's the first thing they always tell you. And it's always like, oh, well, she died obviously at three twenty nine. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

They smell, they smell her hair and they're like this is a six eighteen murder.

It's like there's all like an invisible clock. They like once you get your degree in forensics you like see this clock. Yeah it's a yes exactly. So I don't have I don't believe I have a an estimate time of death.

OK, but it was basically proof that she had eaten pineapple within the hours of her death, which happened sometime that night, the night of Christmas.

OK, so apparently John and Patsy were very adamant that they had not fed pineapple to JonBenet, but this wasn't she at the party, though?

I'm sure there was a fruit platter. So they found the next the next morning when I guess before the friends were all cleaning up the kitchen. The photos from the crime scene show a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table.

OK, and you're going to lie about.

Well, how it had Burke's fingerprints on it.

OK, this is where that is OK, and it also had Patsy's. But again, you know, she's the mom. She's admittedly has done dishes. So it's not that weird that the moms are on there. But Zambonis fingerprints are not on it. But Berk's are OK and go on.

The parents were like, we didn't feed her pineapple. Like, we don't remember doing that. That's not a thing we did. But so there was a dish of pineapple, apparently pineapple and milk, which I'm like, sounds great.

Sounds gross. I'm thinking of it as like. Like a. One of my favorite, like Thai foods, is like when they do like the the mango sticky rice. Yeah. You know, without it, I mean I imagine it's like pineapple stick like pineapple and coconut cream could be kind of good to me.

Like pineapple or like I hate I know you would curdle a turtle. The milk. I don't know. Never happened to me. OK, pineapples and cream. Maybe I could get on board with like milk. Just sounds.

I'm thinking pineapples and cream tastes good. So like milk isn't that far off and it makes it less disgusting to me. Yeah. I guess also they're like two of my favorite things to put in my body.

So I do a viable and I like milk so. Yeah I guess so.

They found a bowl of pineapple on the table and it was found to have Berk's fingerprints on it. Now there wasn't a time stamp on the fingerprints, but Patsy and John were certain that Burke had slept through the night and only woke up when the police arrived at the house.

And by the way, he stayed in his bedroom the entire time that the police were there.

And when they later interviewed him, he just said he was scared. Understandably, you're not sure your sister's missing.

So Patsy and John were interviewed briefly after the discovery of their daughter's death, but they refused to be interviewed separately.

They insisted on only being interviewed together at any point, which is not a great flag.

No, because, like, they need to make sure their their alibis check out their stories line up.

Yeah. So they only conducted their first formal statement interviews on April 30th, 1997, which was four months later.

I was going to say, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they because because the police were like, no, we want to you separately. So it took them four months to to get to that point. Jesus. OK, in the meantime, however much to the irritation and almost like hurt feelings of the police, they were happy to go on CNN and do news, news and press and media coverage.

However, they refused to talk to police.

So it was interesting. Not a good look. Yeah.

And they had hired a media consultant.

And I'm like, maybe that media consultant was just bad at their job, but it wasn't a good look and it honestly really hurt their case because on January 1st, 1997, you can hear so you can watch clips of these interviews and they've gotten a lot of scrutiny. And you'll see why if you watch. OK, so you can hear Patsy say we have to find out who did this before John continues, not because we're angry, but we've got to go on.

Then they say for our grief to resolve itself, we now need to find out why this happened.

And one of the most famous quotes from this interview, Patsy, makes the plea.

Oh, my God, I. I wasn't looking. And I just saw Robert out of the corner of my eye, like moving across the screen and shielding him.

I think he just wants to be seen. I think you just want to love you. He just needs a little love everyone. Let's be centre of attention. He looks so handsome.

Maybe we should just zoom in on him for the whole episode. OK, that's just no one else. No one needs me anymore. It's been like a no, no, no, no. That's all all for you.

Maybe every time it gets to me he's like, wait, he's like my turn. I'll see the quote. OK, OK.

So in one of the most famous quotes from the interview, Patsy makes the plea to all my or to everyone in Boulder. Tell your friends to keep your babies close to you. There's someone out there.

Yikes. So this interview is interesting. It did not bode well. They decided they're not going to interview with police, but they are going to go on national television.

And this backfired because people did not take well to this this look because they.

What they didn't have the most emotive response, like they seemed cold and careless to it, not careless, but definitely just like a little distanced or like composed, very composed, like like like homeboy in the last episode, the the the other Colorado.

Oh, yeah. Like how famous he was because he did a really good job for a second. Right. He had a total meltdown. But then like when they would talk to him he was like a little to me and they were like, you haven't cried once about them, miss, your daughter's missing.

Yeah. But you've cried about other things. Right.

So is it kind of like that? Yeah, it is.

And I've like mixed feelings on that because on the one hand, like, sure. You know, you expect people to behave a certain way.

But on the other hand, she's a pageant queen, like she's been trained to perform her whole life. So. Yeah, yeah. Be composed. Exactly. And she's probably rehearsed this a million times to prepare. And she knows the world is like looking at her as a suspect.

Well, like, I my big thing, too, is when, like, the way that my emotions process is, like I'm kind of like all or nothing. We're like, yeah, I have all the emotions immediately. And then I'm just numb. Like, I'm just like, I can't fucking feel anything.

Yes, exactly. And like, I can shut down and be like I'm just distancing myself from it.

So, like, I don't like when people kind of just critique it based solely on how they expect someone to react in a scenario like this, especially because they've had that.

I imagine if I were in this scenario, which I can't imagine, but if if I were in the scenario, I imagine I would get a very strong prescription for Valium, for whatever to like trinkle, like to just like not one of a thousand per week out.

And so in one of the videos and I hate to make the speculation, but I'm going to do it anyway. She almost talks in a way where I'm like she could be talking on like Klonopin and only because I take Klonopin.

So I'm like, I can tell when sometimes, like the Zombeavers there's like a little not as it is, but just like kind of a calmer demeanor than maybe would be warranted in a scenario I feel like I like when I've ever had to take like chill out medication.

I get like zombie voice, like just like brain fog voice, or I'm just kind of like not really aware of my surroundings because I'm kind of just like in another space.

Yeah. And it's like it's just harder to to like get riled up and get your adrenaline going. That's the whole point. It's like really affecting you. So I can see why you'd be like I'm upset but not like screaming, you know.

So anyway, that being said, there were some other issues with this interview that I also find questionable, which is instead of saying like, oh, we don't we're not angry.

I'm glad you said because I want yeah, we got off on a tangent, but it had there not been what I was going to say, what freaks me out out of anything is him being like, well, we're not angry, we just want to have closure. And it's like if someone killed my fuckin kid, like, oh, I want you to I want you to ask me in 90 years if I'm still not if like if I'm not if I found my child's body and somebody had threatened to behead her and left her in my basement.

Yeah.

If like that's like I don't know if you were trying to like, come off as like. Like the bigger person, but like it came off as like you're the fucking weird. You're like you're her dad. Yeah, it was she took his fuckin face off. Yeah. The public was not having it with this, especially because they said, like, we just want to know why. And it's like you don't want to know who like or or when.

I would want to know where you live and I'd want to know what your biggest fear is. And I'd want to know how slowly I can make you bleed out. I'd want to how I want to ruin tarantula's.

I can buy and kill you slowly with spiders.

How many how many little little cockroaches I could like put all over your eyeballs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

You're going to be great parents.

I could imagine myself as a kid, like as a parent being like, you better do the dishes or I'm going to put five cockroaches. I know your worst fears. I know where the cockroaches are. OK, I have a guy, I don't worry about it.

And so it was really strange. And she kind of said, like, there's someone out there and like she was warning people and it was kind of focused on that rather than like, we need answers. Who the hell is it? Come forward. Like, we want to know who you are. Like, who knows? It was a little bit odd.

And the fact that they had refused to speak to police right now, they were doing media, which involved coaching from their media coach. So it was a little bit questionable.

But Patsy and John said they wanted to warn people that there was a murderer out there.

And that's why they did the the view, the not the view, the show. They did the the public appearance.

Wendy Williams show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They went on Ellen and danced a little bit. Right.

But so there were some other odd details just aside from the weird interview and this goes back to the evidence.

So firstly, the ransom note, OK, the ransom note is one of the weirdest, obviously one of the weirdest cinematographers of this whole story.

Yes, it's bananas. So if you're looking at it objectively, the ransom note was three pages handwritten.

Right, kind of fucking ransom note is three fucking pages long. Well, what kind of ransom note is handwritten? Like that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Handwritten, totally put it in some cut out Tykerb and get some letters or print it out like, come on now, dear. It makes me think like they're definitely new to this. And also they left the book. Do you know how not that I ever want to kidnap somebody, but my my go to move wouldn't be leave the body at the scene of the crime.

Like I would just take it.

I would take it and no one, you know, and then put it upstairs. Yeah. I also want to add that the note was on the back staircase, which you wouldn't have known was the one they used unless you either knew the family very well or were in the family or watched the family like they use that back staircase.

And that's where the note was left, even though they had like a full front staircase to the front door where you would think you'd leave, like, write a note for whoever wakes up first. So a little bit odd. So it gets so much weirder. It gets so much sketchier. So, oh, my God, this it's just horrifying. OK, so you're thinking, oh, well, maybe they wrote this note at home and they're just a very you know, they like to talk.

Maybe they like to share. What's the word?

Look, I don't want to say it wrong. Look what loquacious.

No, look, anxious is what it does. I don't want a word. No, it's locution. OK, please, God, don't think I'm going to help you in this.

I think you're for them. It's not clear. I'm making the point right now because I still am having nightmares about the time I said Sister Fessey and instead of Sisyphean anyway, so I still don't know the difference.

So good on you. It was like ten S's no matter what in there. Oh my God.

Thank you for protecting my feelings.

OK, so anyway, it's three hundred and eighty words long. It's three pages, it's handwritten, it's really long, it's on the back staircase and you could think like, oh well maybe they just love to hear themselves talk. They wrote it at home and brought it with them. The note was written inside.

And do you know how we know that because the paper for the paper came from Patsy's notebook.

Oh, I remember you saying earlier that she walked down. She saw three, four saw. I was gonna be like, did she just buy a for paper?

Yeah.

I mean basically it came from their personal stash of paper.

Like it just feels so, so OK. So I want to think that it's like an outside job, but like it sounds like they it's like they were going to have, like, you know, pretending we're on the side of the ransom killers at this point.

Yeah. In this situation, it's like I imagine them going in there with like a duffel bag, a whole kit, like ready to like, you know, fuck up people's lives. But like, they lock the bag in the car and now they're like frantically trying to, like, impromptu to do everything that they wanted to. But now they're using, like, the random shit they can find because they, like, forgot their gear. It's just I feel like everything should have been done first.

Like, why wouldn't you want to write a note like that that takes a long time on a very especially if you're saying you're like some professional part of a foreign faction, you know, like you know about like the FBI and local law.

Yeah. Like we're watching Golon for. It's like you're not coming off very professional if you're writing this kind of like you're doing it like off the cuff, like.

Yeah, yeah. OK, so basically they took this note and they were able to figure out what pen, what type of pen, what brand of pen it came. It came from and guess what, they found the pen and it was in the house and it was put back where it belonged. Like there was a pen that was like in a certain spot.

There's a story about putting it back.

Yes. And after this person wrote this note, they took the time to put the pen back.

Yeah, there's something it's like just too casual. It's so odd and like time consuming.

It's such a small it's in a very small way. It reminds me of, like, the stories you've covered where someone gets killed, like someone breaks into someone's house and then kills them, but them like eats food out of their fridge. Yes. It's like you're like a turkey dinner. Yeah. So lackadaisical about it. Yeah.

It's really wild.

So they basically, by this logic, the murderer was able to find a pad, find a pen, like presumably not knowing where they would be practice.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. They also found drafts of the note in the house. Fuck off.

So they really just did this like multiple drafts, like, OK, OK, got it.

Yeah.

So basically, by this logic, they're able to find a pad, find a pen, practice the note a few times, write the whole note, then return the pad and pen to where their usual placements were.

So they were in absolutely no rush. Got it. Yeah. So this is like wildly alarming. I think, you know, you'd think if you're breaking and entering, you want to get out as quickly as possible.

Right. Especially if you have this grand plan and you don't want to get caught, obviously.

And so in the case of JonBenet Ramsey, watch the documentary, they gave a group of people the task of copying the note out and it took them on average twenty one minutes and twenty eight seconds to write them a note.

So and they practiced it a bunch of times.

So they were in that house for at least an hour and that was them copying it verbatim. It wasn't think you have to what you would have to actually as you were writing it, you were thinking of what to say, right as the ransom writer.

So it probably took even longer. Wow.

So it's like as a lot of people have pointed out online, especially like they could have gotten the message across in four sentences. We want money. We're going to kill your daughter. Don't call the police. I mean, it's we've seen a million times like, why not just do that?

It's really odd. It's really odd. Instead of being like, make sure you bring the right size briefcase, it's like what an appropriate attaché.

It's like, wow, this really is like your first outing as a as a bank robber. You're like, yeah, I'm going with the best accessories for my first moment. My heart. Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, it's also the part about the small foreign faction.

But like that you mentioned that is really red flag because like what it sounds almost like on if it's not true.

But if someone I'm not going to I'm going to pretend it's just a complete random stranger and I don't have my onion currently. It feels like it's like almost mental instability of like this. Like the government's after me or I'm I'm the government coming after you. It feels kind of like it feels kind of on that vein. But also it just feels like a flat out lying. You're trying to you're like, what sounds intense or infection. Yeah.

And I will also add that, OK, actually I'm going to mention this in a minute, but so the the small foreign faction thing too. Like what don't you say like we are from a powerful league of terrorists like you.

We're, we're, we're a little scary. Yeah. We're just like on the outskirts of of terrorism. But we're trying it's like we're on the fringe.

We're trying to persuade you that it's just weird. So anyway, within the ransom note, the author, they've they've realized made allusions to the film's Dirty Harry, ruthless people, speed and ransom. And the movie Ransom had come out like months prior.

So it was like, this is a little weird that it's coming out right after this movie came out. And it's the allusions.

It's almost like someone thought, what would you write in a ransom note and made a flowery ransom note where you were like, this is what it would say, you know, like just really dramatic, truly. So the other thing that you caught onto immediately was the amount one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

And as everybody asked, why didn't they just round it like people twenty one fifty. Anything like people ask for a million bucks, people ask for five hundred whatever. But like one hundred and eighteen is very specific. And the Ramsey's at the time were worth six point five million dollars. So it's not like they were wanting for cash, like I could have asked for two million dollars and you know, probably gotten them to do it. Yeah.

So what's most interesting and this is where things get a little like, oh, one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. Well, that month John had received a Christmas bonus from work of you guessed it exactly one hundred eighteen thousand dollars.

OK, and. Although he did get like a write up in the paper about his success at work, it didn't specify one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. That was a very specific number that you would only know if you worked with him or or maybe not even that. Only know if you were close enough that you would have had that information.

So at this point, I don't know where we really are in terms of the investigation. But do have have the police already made their own opinions of this? OK? Are they likely are they even thinking like, oh, maybe it's someone from work or are they pretty sure it's the father?

Yeah, they're convinced it's the family. They're almost immediately. And that becomes problematic, too, because they really just it's another thing where, like in the last episode, they said it's a suicide and then, like, blinders and didn't and just rode with that one, even though it could have been something else.

Yeah. So they really it was it became problematic because it was such a gung ho theory that, like a lot of things kind of got pushed aside evidence wise. And anyway, I'll tell you. But yeah, exactly.

They did immediately think it was coming from coming from inside the house for lack of a better term. Sure.

So many people, including police, just thought this ransom note was staged for obvious reasons.

And if it looks or if it were staged, so that means the family would most likely be the culprits of the crime or at least have something to do with it.

And so this is the OK, sorry.

So if they were if we're thinking, OK, the family wrote the note. Now, this immediately calls into question the chronological order of things as far as the note checking on the kids and then the 911 call. So the 911 call in the 2016 documentary, The Case of JonBenet Ramsey, a forensic linguist named Jim Fitzgerald, provides an analysis of the phone call and he questions why. This is some of my favorite stuff, by the way, when like linguists, like forensic linguists and people who look at, you know, writing samples and can, like, figure stuff out from people's verbiage, I just think it's so fascinating.

Some things you never think about. It's like, yes, how on earth did someone even make that into a job? And now it's like a successful department who will.

And it's like so powerful, like we can learn from this. So anyway, he provided an analysis.

He questioned why Patsy never says Zambonis name in the entire call, who she refers to her as my six year old daughter. She's blonde, but like doesn't say her name, which is just seemingly odd.

Right. She says instead of saying, like, my six year old daughter is missing, she says there's been a kidnapping, which I know that, like there's there's a lot more of this online where you can people really, like, study these 911 calls.

And a lot of times people who are using certain verbiage, like I I found a body, I found this or I'd like there's something fishy going on.

You're inserting yourself fascinated, focal point of the story and also deflecting. So, like not saying someone's name or saying like there has been a kidnapping instead of like my daughter's gone, you know what I mean?

Like, it's it's almost like distance. Even if there's like a like a like probable cause for there to have been a kidnapping. Because I know if I saw a note like that about you and now you're missing, I would assume, OK, that she's been kidnapped. Right.

But instead of saying like, oh, my God, I think my my daughter's been kidnapped. I think my friend's been kidnapped. She's saying there's been a kidnapping and doesn't say your daughter's name. Instead of saying, you know, instead of saying like, oh, my God, I think someone took my daughter or I think my daughter's been kidnapped or this is my songs on YouTube.

This is what is how did you learn about this? Oh, so these are basically they play this 911 call and like every documentary so you can hear the call. I'm sure it's on YouTube and the analysis is in this specific one is in a documentary called The Case of JonBenet Ramsey.

But you can find like there are sites that analyze the ransom note that I find. Oh, one of the things that I didn't write down.

So I want to mention it real quick in the ransom note, it uses the word Hense and hence is not a very commonly used word, but in a church service that had happened like really recently prior to the murder that the family had written to do a reading or something at church, they used the word Hense in that reading.

So it's another odd thing of like how many people are using Hensen like a frantic ransom note and how many people are using that twice.

Yeah, exactly. It's weird that you keep thinking about that word. That word is just like not so commonly used.

And so it's just an odd coincidence anyway. So, you know, instead of saying like, yeah, something's wrong with my daughter or she's missing or someone took her or someone hurt her, it's like there's been a kidnapping, forensic linguistics.

That's what's called. That's very interesting. Yes. OK, I'm going to look it up later.

It's so cool. I can read those all day online. They, like, highlight certain words and like say like I'm about this.

I'm about to literally go into a rabbit hole. Yeah. Do a deep dive because I've done them in the years ago. It's been a long time, I think when I first started getting into this case. But it's really interesting anyway.

So and then what's most interesting about this time, one call is Pazzi hangs up. Right.

There's and also there's like a weird pause where she doesn't sound, she's crying or anything. It's just silence.

So there's like inaudible voices. Oh, in the background. And then she hangs up. But like, if you're calling that one and you're like, my daughter's gone, somebody's taken her, you wouldn't hang up, right?

You'd be like I'd be like, I'm going to make sure you get here immediately. Also, the inaudible sounds like to me, my first thought is I like her. If her and her husband were like co-conspirators in this, then like the husband was like whispering advice and are saying, get off the phone or saying something where if if something happened to you and I was on the phone with the police, a car could hit me and I'd still be paying attention to the police.

Like, I wouldn't it be like, back off, I'm on a 911 call as you're flying. They're getting busy right now. A few months. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so actually, we're lucky to live in an age where we can enhance sound and try and figure out what sounds potentially are saying, even if they seem inaudible on first.

Listen, OK, technologies. Yeah, forensic shit like this is so interesting.

So in an enhanced version of the sound, Laura Richards and Jim Clemente figure out with the help of a sound engineer that in the muffled silence you can hear a man say, we're not speaking to you, followed by female voice saying either there's two options that it sounds like, oh, my Jesus, oh, my Jesus, or what did you do?

What did you do?

Oh, let me run something like the same thing. OK, but I know I was like, I don't know. But she also had a Southern accent. Maybe that was part of it. But and now this is followed by a different higher pitched voice saying, what did you find?

Oh, wait. So there's like a whole little a little a pack of people in here just all talking together.

So wait, was it. Hang on, wait. Was it the parents? And that party was the party and alibhai in some way or like the party. The party. The party the night before didn't they. They they came from a party and then they picked her up and brought her to bed because she fell asleep in the car. Right. So was it those people and they're the only other people I've heard of. So I'm just like, you know, so much know.

So they believe that the first voice is most likely, John S., you know, saying we're not talking to you.

Second voice is Patsy and the third is Burke.

OK, that's a lot less fun than I thought I was. I was thinking like it.

But is it because the dad says, oh, because to him he said, what did you find?

The dad says, we're not talking to you as presumably to this, to Burke.

Then Patsy says, What have you done? What have you done or what did you do? Yeah. And then Burke says, well, what did you find?

So a little creepy kid.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if that is what happened, it's not a good look, which if that's the case like Van Dam, I feel so fucking bad for these parents, like awkwardly having to cover for your kids killer because they're also your kid.

Oh.

Like now you're going to lose both kids. Right.

So then she hangs up, which is also like, why would you hang up? But I guess if if Burke walked into the room, for example, for example sake, you wouldn't want the operator to hear that might hang up before anything else could be revealed.

So let's see.

And to be clear here, also in all of their statements, including their April interview with police, Patsy and John insist that Burke was sleeping this entire time.

So even if we're not totally understanding it like there are voices there, there is a voice of seemingly a child in the background. So, OK, seems to be they're lying about something here, whether it's to protect him and he's innocent or whether he did and he's not innocent and they're protecting him. Something's up.

It's fishy. Oh, wow.

This whole time I've been like, so ready to, like, punch that dad in the face. And now I'm like, oh, maybe that guy really needs a hug.

Like, that's why this is such a crazy story, because every fucking documentary you're like, oh, my God, it's him. Oh, my God, sir. And even within the family, you're like, oh, it's a family. Oh, no.

It's like some other guy. It's it's a stranger like man. They can pull you in every direction.

So to Kim Archuleta, who is the operator, which looks good on you, Kim. And again, thank you to everyone who is a dispatcher operator because, wow, that's a lot of stress you probably deal with. Yep.

She was the operator that evening and she thought the call seemed rehearsed. And as she listened on, while Patsy thought she had hung up the phone, Kim thought she heard a gearshift in her voice. Kim believes she heard Patsy then say, We've called the police. Now what? Oh. Which will go both ways. Yeah, which could go both ways, but it sounds like, OK, we've done the next step in this plan are like what's like what's what's the what the to do list.

Yes, yes, yes. But it could also just be like now what do we just fucking wait around or like do we hide from the ransom guy.

Yeah, exactly. You're right. It could be either way.

But she did say she felt like her voice shifted from like panic to kind of just kind of like when like now in a crisis, you have to, like, be you just got to get your shit, pull it together, maybe.

But obviously, this is not like proof of anything. So the first major theory, obviously, is that the family did it. But the second major theory is that this was the work of an intruder. Seems to be most people are split right down the middle. And as the so in 1998 police detective who was like really well renowned, his name is Lou Smit. And he basically had like a 90 to 100 percent success rating in solving murder cases.

Like he was like they they brought the big guns in and he actually came in and determined pretty quickly that he did not think the parents or the family had anything to do with her death. And I'll tell you what he kind of found as far as evidence. He published a book later which argued his side of the case, saying there are substantial, credible evidence of an intruder and a lack of evidence that the parents are involved. Now, his key argument was that the in the basement, there was a window that had been smashed open and she.

Yes. And she was found in the basement.

Right. OK, so you can see photos, crime scene photos of this. There's a window that has been smashed open. However, this was not a new smash in the window. Apparently, John Ramsey had smashed it months prior because he had locked himself out of the house on a number of occasions and he just never had the window pane replaced. OK, so he had climbed in that way when he got locked out.

So just that was his new normal new nude new front door. But that doesn't mean an intruder couldn't have seen that and climbed in, but nobody knew smashed the window open.

According to Rolling Stone, there also appeared to be finger marks on the glass and an unidentified footprint on the suitcase that stood below it, a suitcase which Smith believed was part of the intruders plan to sneak Zambonis body out of the house.

OK, it was later discovered that foliage had grown underneath the metal grill that blocked the entrance, meaning that someone had removed the gray at some point and then put it back.

However, this fact is also disputed because within the smashed window there was a spiderweb.

OK, name Deb Novitzky.

I was going to say Skylar makes an appearance. OK, I remember we used to say Skylar has seen so much in this room. Skylar has seen so much in this fucking basement.

Skylar has quite a back story. Tyler knows the truth. And it's like really scary that we can't ask her.

Well, what her this whole time. Oh, what. Oh, that she's been the that she's a she. Skylar oh. Skylar, a girl in your mind. Yeah. Yes. Oh boy.

Oh well all of the scholars I've known are always girls, so I guess I just kind of assumed it was a girl. Skylar has another mystery to. Wow.

I mean, who's to say really? It's probably not for me.

It's for Skylar to say, well, well, he keeps everything really close to the chest. So I don't think about going to find out right. Or chest of there's OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.

I guess because of Deb and Skylar, I just assumed they were like a little like the little gal pal.

Yeah. A little Gopadze. So right there was this cobweb there and you can see it in the photos and it had doo doo and dust on it.

So apparently they determined it was around 70 percent unlikely that this web had been made after an intruder could have entered like it was it had been there for too long.

Yes.

So they believe if OK, so here, I'll explain it better, but because of the size of the window. So Lou actually does a demonstration and climbs into the window himself because of the size, the window and the level you'd have to crouch. There's no way someone could have gone through without destroying the spider web. Oh, OK. So basically, apparently it takes an average spider one hour to spin a web. So technically an intruder could have come in and out and then a spider created this web.

But it also had a lot of dust and water and stuff kind of builds up on it.

It was, yes.

So they determined, I guess, like a 70 percent chance this thing was there before. So nobody went through that window.

It was vintage also, like, I like how there's this like something as simple, as something as simple and as complex and as tiny as like a spider web, completely like make or break a forensic sensation.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just the wild shit that you don't ever even think of, so. October 13th, 1999, in Colorado. Colorado. Holy shit, I was going to let it happen to me when I was about to burp, so I was like, I have to get this word out quickly.

And then I just said. Colorado and Boulder, Colorado.

Boulder, Colorado, you know? Well, the grand jury decided there was not enough evidence to charge anyone in the death of JonBenet.

And this was shocking to everybody because they were like basically everybody believe that the parents did it, that Patsy did it. Patsy was like the number one Patsy. I guess she was like the number one suspect in the public's mind. So when this grand jury came back and said, we don't have proof that they did this or whatever, we don't have enough proof.

That the grand jury, whatever rollbar, people were shocked. Well, guess what, we find out later that that wasn't actually true. In 2013, it was revealed that the grand jury actually was prepared to charge the parents with fatal child abuse and accessory to a crime. But the prosecutor kind of vetoed it and said, like, nope, we don't have enough evidence to try them.

Weird. And so even though the grand jury and they're not allowed to talk about it. So even though the grand jury apparently ruled, like we believe that they were part of fatal child abuse and they were an accessory to a crime, the prosecutor, Alex Hunter, declined to try them in the case and basically said, like, we don't have enough evidence. So the public was like, wait, what? And later we find out, like everybody else in his court said, like, no, no.

Like, we want them tried.

And he just made the call. He vetoed it. OK, so really odd. So the case to this day, as probably most of you know, remains unsolved, but obviously the entire world has their opinions and thoughts. And here are a couple of highlights of what people think might have happened. So as far as intruder theories, we've already mentioned that there's a foreign DNA profile found. Oh, did I tell you that?

Oh, I think I told you that, that there was some DNA found in her underwear.

You said there was some DNA, but then I never really got that good ever got mentioned again.

OK, yeah, it was like a really brief comment.

But basically when they were going through her doing her autopsy, they found like vaginal swelling and they found like spots of blood in her underwear.

And like you had wiped like. Yes, exactly. Yeah. It seemed like it had been wiped. And they found a foreign DNA profile that didn't belong to anyone in the house inside her underwear.

Now, it sounds really damning. However, some believe the DNA might belong to the worker who made the underwear, which apparently happens. Why?

Because so it's so what they did is they use touch DNA, which I guess is controversial because it's just like when somebody touches something and you I don't know, it's very complicated.

But apparently they use touch DNA to be like, oh, my gosh, this is the same DNA that matches the ones that was the one that was also on her leggings. But apparently they only used a few markers and said and in reality they said it's possible it could be the same DNA in her leggings and in her underwear. OK, but in reality, it couldn't be or it could also not be the same DNA.

I don't know. Does that make any sense? Because I know it's just that's so I never didn't know it was controversial because.

Yeah, because well, at first they said, oh, my gosh, the DNA in her underwear. And there was also some DNA on her pants they matched. And if they did match, then it's like, OK, then that's not just some random like. Right. Interference from like police handling it, evidence, whatever. Like that's if it ended up in two parts of her clothing, like, then it must be an intruder or somebody outside the family.

Yes.

But then later it kind of became clear that like maybe it wasn't the most reliable way to determine whether the evidence was sorry, whether the DNA was connected.

But apparently that does happen where manufacturing processes sometimes like small amounts of DNA, will get into the clothing.

I had no idea that was always one of the more fun facts of today that I'm so creepy to think about, that you can wash something a million times and like there's still something from the very first in the moment who sold it or, you know, we heard Touch the Elastic or what have you.

Yeah.

OK, so neighbors apparently noticed a scream coming from the Ramsey household at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and after some testing, it was possible to hear a scream from the wine cellar room that JonBenet was found in and not hear it from the parents room, two floors up.

So really, OK, could could have been. Could have been. Could have been. She was.

Acoustics are a funny thing. I know that wine cellar had some great acoustics, but only only horizontally.

Not vertically. Oh yeah. Exactly like very specific. So John so John Andrew Ramsey, this was the son of John Ramsey. So Junior, the nine year old. No, no, sorry. That was Burke. So.

Oh, John had two kids from a previous marriage.

OK, I feel like I did not know that. Yeah. Sorry I mentioned very briefly, but I also wanted to add that, I mean, it's really tragic. So John had two kids from a previous marriage and his daughter was killed in a car accident and like twenty one or like very young, I don't know, I think twenty one or twenty four, some like very young age. So that had already happened. And Patsy had already been diagnosed with ovarian cancer before.

Oh before this event. So they are going through like hell on many levels here. Wow. OK. It's a lot, it's a lot, but so John was the other son from that marriage. He was definitely older and the there was a theory that maybe he was involved.

And the main source of evidence on this is that they had found a blanket encrusted with his semen in the basement, along with the Dr. Seuss book that was found in the suitcase below the open window in the cellar.

And it was his DNA. However, he had like a really strong alibi that he was in Atlanta that day. And I'm just thinking, like, I guess he could have been a part of this murder, but like maybe he was just like had a gross blanket from his teenage years that he, like, left in some boxes in storage. And his dad put the box or the suitcase in.

Maybe he's really into hop on pop, you know, so. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I'm not here to judge, OK?

Everybody is allowed to do it in a box. You can do with some socks. Look, it's fine. It's OK.

You can do with some socks.

Yeah. So yeah. Listen. Yeah. Anyway, so that's another random fun fact for you. That's not very fun.

Another couple. It's definitely shocking.

It's shocking and not fun and pretty gnarly. There have been a few names that also came up. So one of them is Gary Oliva. And it's one of these things where now the following two people I mentioned every time they started talking, I was like, yup, that's the one that has to be the guy. And then you hear the next one. You're like, we know that has to be the guy. Like, it just Wild's OK.

It's so frustrating. So Gary Oliver is a 32 year old known sex offender in Boulder, Colorado, operating around the time that JonBenet was found strangled to death in what looked like a potential sexual assault. Given that there was a drop of blood on her underwear and that convicted pedophile, Oliver had been living in the area on and off when police allegedly found a magazine cutout of JonBenet Ramsey in his backpack after he was apprehended on drug charges in 2000. And in that same backpack was also a stun gun.

Oh, and apparently in his home, he had a shrine to her and he admitted that he loved her to police, but he said he would never hurt her because she was his lover.

So night and remember, too, that this girl has become like.

Internationally famous because of this case, so her her pageant photo of a six year old little girl is all over the world. So any sicko's can say, like, oh, I did it or right. Or even just like, oh, I'm in love with her, but I didn't kill her, you know?

Really sorry. You can look. It's horrendous.

So there was the stun gun, though, which was odd. Then there was this other guy named Bill McReynolds and he's now deceased. And this is the Santa Claus theory. I don't know if you know about this.

Merry Christmas. I figured out how this is the holiday episode. Okay, so the Santa Claus theory, basically, this guy, he's a friend of the family, Bill McReynolds.

And he what he he was very close with the family and he would dress up as Santa Claus to entertain the neighborhood children. And every year Patsy had this huge she had apparently a Christmas tree in every room of her house. And she took it very seriously. And remember, this is a 15 room house and she did this huge Christmas bash.

She said 1500 to 2000 people went through her house in a matter of like 48 hours to like look at all her Christmas decor.

So this guy, Bill, and he would dress up as Santa to entertain the kids, and they loved him. Precious, yes. And so McReynolds was, however, rumored to have paid a little too much attention to JonBenet, OK?

And the rumors were not just rumors.

So it's nothing like. Well, I'll just tell you, oh, so he went so far as to arrange a secret visit from Santa Claus on Christmas, he said something special will happen to you on Christmas, OK?

And then he said he had chosen JonBenet to be his special friend. No. And.

She had given him a vial of glitter as a gift because she was enamored with him, she's like Santa Claus, you know, she thinks this guy is Santa Claus.

If I were six and Santa Claus right next to me and like, he's going to be like, I'm bringing him some glitter and my mom could just hire him to come over whenever I'm like, I got him on speed dial.

Santa Claus. Yes. Course in the world.

Yeah, that must be pretty, pretty fucking great. So she, like, had given him a tour of the house, her bedroom, the basement, and she had given him a vial of glitter and he had brought it with him to his heart surgery and carried it with him.

And then even stranger, he said when he died, he wanted his wife to mix the glitter into his ashes.

OK, and a little Devar, you know, it went a little far and I was going to allow it because, like. It wasn't too weird.

It's now so weird, it's too weird, it's too weird, and there's more info you can get, but like basically this guy and also within a week, he was on talk shows and he was talking to the public and he there were some lines where I went like, oh, where he was like, children are the most special creatures.

Like, he talks very strangely about children to be clear.

And so he was definitely a suspect, I don't think.

Also, another weird thing, it turns out his wife had written a play about a little girl being murdered in her basement.

See, OK. Isn't that wild? Wow. It's like there's a smoking gun in every single single person has like a Taser.

That's just like, oh, that's the taser.

No going on. I know. It's why. So I'm overwhelmed just so we're clear. Like it's overwhelming. My brain is like kind of like muddy. I'm getting my like around what's going on.

OK, yeah. So a forensic pathologist named Dr. Cyril Wecht rebuts this theory. He asserts if this was the work of an intruder, they would have had to climb into the house without causing any disturbance. They must have known where the little girl's bedroom was awake, like awoken, taken her from her room without causing a disturbance.

But again, like, if you tase somebody, sure, you could probably do that if you know where her room is because you're Santa and she showed you if you take her fucking face.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe she'll come with you. So you have to be able to know exactly where the pen, the paper where you had to know which which of the stairs they went going down.

You should be able to you had to hang out for like three hours till they come up with what you were going to write and write it all out like Jesus.

Yes. OK, Mom, you had to know it was her favorite white blanket. I feel like that was symbolic and we're not talking about it.

God, yeah, true. Anyway. Oh yeah. I even think of it.

So taking her from her room without causing disturbance and not nobody hearing anything. So then he would have had to have some sort of like whatever his intentions were sexually or otherwise would have had to do this, then kill her, then write a ransom note. He didn't even bring a pen and paper. He would have had to go find it in the house, wrote a long ass ransom note asking for money, then left the body in the house, even though the ransom note was asking for money in exchange for the body.

If I didn't if I did kill a child in their own home the last place, I would leave that child in their own home like it doesn't make any sense.

Well, you just you you were like Amber or now like now there was like halfway done. And I don't want to do man. Exactly. Yeah.

And there was there was like a really interesting point that this one guy made. Oh God. I'll tell you the documentary later.

But he said basically like it doesn't usually happen both ways.

Either somebody is attacking a child or abducting a child for sexual reasons or for ransom. And they like he said, like virtually never or they could combine.

And so he's like saying if somebody comes for sexual gratification, they're not doing this for one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

Right. Or whatever. But also usually in that scenario, you would take the body somewhere else to like.

Right. Do that. Right.

OK, so it's all just very weird and it doesn't fit that there's a ransom note and allegedly like sexual reasoning behind it too.

So now we're back to the family theory, essentially, OK, some people think and thought and still do think that this was the work of Patsy, the mother. She was like the number one suspect in the public eye for ever and still is, I think.

According to a 1999 Washington Post article, Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents concluded that for fibers on the duct tape taken from Zambonis, mouth were consistent with a jacket that her mother wore on Christmas night.

Oh, also, the item used to strangle JonBenet was a broken paintbrush from Patsy's art kit, like I had mentioned. Right.

And the ransom note.

So there was a an analyst who there were a lot of analysts who looked at this and they got handwriting samples from both of them. So the handwriting analyst said the first page, you can tell someone's trying to fake their handwriting. It's like Warnke, they're writing really slow.

And then by the second and third page, they're back into a rhythm of their own handwriting. And she said that's what happens if you're trying to fake it. At a certain point, you just fall back into your own.

A brain forgets that you're trying. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And basically, they were like, this is Patsy's fuckin handwriting.

So multiple analysts have said it's a pretty, pretty solid assumption that she wrote the note.

So pretty fair, I think had it not been her. It sounds like there were some other surrounding neighbors that could have been like they definitely had quite a little bundle of characters in their life that, yeah, sadly all look like they could be capable of.

For us, it's horrendous.

Yeah, so the other weird thing about this, too, is that like in the interviews when they interviewed John and when they finally got to interview them separately, John said, well, maybe the handwriting looks like Patsy's because it was written by a woman. And then Patsy said, well, maybe the handwriting looks like looks like mine because it was written by a woman. They had, like, the very same wording of like maybe it was written by a woman.

And so, like, you can tell that they clearly prepped that in advance, which was just a weird thing to say. Sure.

And if you look at it like it looks like her fuckin handwriting.

Interesting. Yeah.

So if a forensic handwriting analysts are saying it's her handwriting, I'm just going to trust them so that.

And then what was the other thing?

Oh, my God, her clothes. That's the other weird thing.

So it turns out that Patsy, that next day when police came and everything was wearing the same outfit she had worn to the Christmas party the night before, and they were like, that's weird.

And she's like, yeah, well, I put it on that morning before I went downstairs to make coffee.

And they're like, So you put on the sweater you wore all day at a Christmas party the night before.

I mean, like, I'm sitting here, I'm pretty disgusting.

And, like, quarantine has really, like, right. Jacked that personality trait. Like, I I'm one of those people like that. I don't really change my clothes until they're like dirty like there's like there will be two or three days until I change clothes sometimes, but no completely sane.

But I think this is a different scenario because she wore like a Christmas sweater and like velvet pants and like going out like I mean, she was at a party like she wore like a full party outfit and then and then took them off and went to sleep and went to bed in her pajamas and then said no.

And then and then said, oh, well, I must have just put them on. And they were like, well, why would you put on the same clothes?

And also she's like rich as shit, like she's worth six million dollars. Like she has like a sweater.

She has at least a second sweater. Yeah.

Like she's now it's just like weird to be wearing like a blouse or something you wore the night before at a party. Like it's gross, it's probably sweaty.

It's like smells like booze like well OK, my shirts are pretty sweaty and smell gnarly too.

I know, but it's the it's the taking it off them putting it back on thing like standards there. Yeah. I wear the same clothes for days but the second I shower I'm like, well fuck no, I need to put on new clothes like I'm not going to put on.

I guess I won't see the shirt for seven more months until I actually get through all of the shirts. Exactly.

So the weird thing was that she said she took them off the next morning and they're like and then she's like, well, I put on clean underwear and then I put those clothes back on and they were like, yeah, because maybe like if she got, like, fucked up that night and just like, passed out on her clothes and I woke up.

Right, OK, but what happened?

We did her story and she is like a fucking pageant, like she is like always Breman proper.

Like she's not like playing around. I don't want to say like vanity like image, you know, image. Yeah.

And she's not running around looking sloppy. So it was just like very odd because she clearly got caught up in it and went, well, I must have just put them back on. And they were like, that's weird. But so obviously from everyone else's eye, it looks like she didn't take them off like she was wearing them. And then if one or two in the morning this event occurred and lo and behold, the next morning she's wearing the same outfit, she never took it off, which I think makes the most sense anyway.

So some people do believe that it was John Ramsey who killed her. Some people think he might have had some sort of, like, sexual relationship with her. But there is zero proof of this. And as far as the vaginitis or sorry, as vaginal inflammation, it turns out she had been diagnosed with vaginitis, which is just like an irritation that a lot of kids get. Like you can get it from soap, you can get it from like Weiping badly.

I was going to say my my big fear was like the mom needed it to look like something else and like assaulted her own kid. That was my.

That's right. I don't OK, that makes you feel better about like she finds semen.

They didn't find it like rape signs of rape. They just found like inflammation, which they thought like maybe this is a sign of ongoing sexual trauma. But they talked to her pediatrician who basically said, like, trust me, I every child that comes to my practice, like I'm you know, this is one of my biggest concerns.

And he said she had inflammation. A lot of kids have it. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Like people are blowing this out of proportion.

And there is absolutely zero proof, according to many pathologists, that there was no ongoing sexual assault trial.

Good.

That's one good thing out of the story. And also, too, she was not beheaded.

So like, yeah, I'm trying to find the really small silver linings here. I mean, she still didn't make it, but I'm glad she wasn't, like, really horribly tortured beforehand.

Yeah, well, the the death is pretty violent, but we'll get to that. OK, so in two thousand, a patsy and John were officially cleared of any involvement in the. Murder, but basically the reason I just want to add that the reason people thought that Patsy was the number one suspect when they they were like, well, what's the motive?

Well, apparently, JonBenet had been having really bad bedwetting, incidents almost every almost daily. It was becoming like an almost daily issue. And so a lot of people said, well, you know, Patsy was like really upset about it, really worried, frustrated, like maybe this happened and she just, like, flipped out and hit her and didn't mean to, like, kill her, but, like, hit her in the head and then had to cover it up.

And that was that's like one of the main running theories is that she snapped or she flipped out, hit her with some object and like knocked her out and then had to, like, cover the rest of it up as like I say, and wrote a ransom note, the whole thing.

So that's kind of why they think she could have done it. So they were cleared of any involvement publicly.

And some people think now, as you mentioned earlier, one of the other big theories is that it was JonBenet brother Burke. OK, now, Burke was known to have had a bit of a temper that he often took out on his sister.

He had actually hit JonBenet a year before her death and again in August 1994 when he hit her in the face with a golf club and left like a scar.

So he hit her hard and left like marks. It wasn't like, oh, roughhousing is like he has hit his little, you know, four or five year old sister. Yeah.

Very brutally in the head. So not a good sign.

And according to the Ramsey's housekeeper, Linda, in Steve Thomas's book, JonBenet Inside the Ramsey murder investigation, she quote, recalled once finding fecal matter the size of a grapefruit on the sheets in Jumpiness Room, as well as she sees on one of her gifts. And like that, again, like with the bed wetting is a sign, according to the experts on the documentary of like anxiety, stress, like a stressor. You know something? Something's wrong.

Obviously, it's not normal.

And so, you know, one of the theories is maybe he was like abusing her or physically or otherwise. And another theory proposes that potentially Burke was up eating the pineapple and milk and JonBenet came down and took one out of the bowl with her fingers, which is perhaps why there were no fingerprints on it and she had eaten it.

So somehow she had ingested it. So the theory is he was downstairs eating it. She took one like maybe teasingly or whatever.

He got pissed off, took the nearest object and whacked her across the head much harder than he had planned it.

The parents wake up or he wakes the parents up and says like, oh, or and maybe the only way to keep one of their children is to cover it up. And in Birks interviews, they're a little bit off. Like sometimes he goes into a fetal position and he repeats a lot of the same phrases that his mom used that were kind of like grown up phrases that didn't seem to fit like like he said, like not that I'm aware of a lot.

And he was in, you know, phrases where you're like like Hense like really. Right. His tone is off. He he asks her he's asked if he's afraid and he says he's not afraid. And it's a little odd. A psychologist thought it was odd because his sister has just been murdered. And you'd think like if there was a maniac on the loose like that could be coming for you, you know, like as a normal child thought.

But obviously, you know, children react to things differently proof. So the question is like, how would he have hit her with such force, thus killing her?

But in the Netflix movie casting JonBenet, they did have a bunch of nine year olds hit a watermelon.

And it really. Oh, no, we got to have them do OK. Yeah, yeah. Just a watermelon. But it's really not that hard. And children's skulls are very thin compared to grown up skulls and like, fragile.

I like like at her age, like you barely have your kneecaps developed. Yes, exactly. Shots like sure.

He was nine, but he's also hit her in the face with a golf club.

So it's not like this is out of character practice. Yeah.

Yeah. So it was only on August 13th, ninety seven that the autopsy results were released to the public and the cause of death was deemed by the coroner. Initially it was deemed as asphyxiation due to the rope. But now a new pathologist had looked at the autopsy results and said because of the shape of the fracture, he believes that the blow to her head was actually the cause of death. So potentially the strangulation thing was done afterward.

Oh, now the counterargument to this is that with the strangulation, you can almost see what people argue is fingernail marks. Of her trying to get the rope off of her now. OK, but there's also no conclusive proof that that's what the marks are. So if it is defensive marks and obviously that's what occurred, OK, first, but there's no proof that that's what the markings are.

So basically, he believes that sorry, it was.

Oh, so he said the shape of the factory, it looks like it was done by a hard object.

And it was only when he was looking through crime scene photos and saw a flashlight, a large flashlight sitting on the kitchen table, that he realized that was most likely what could or potentially what could have been the weapon that killed her. And so there wasn't blood or hair on the flashlight. But Dr. Spitz, who was the pathologist, explained that a blow to the head with an object like that could break the skull, but not the skin like that support, which I had no idea, and therefore wouldn't have like broken skin and gotten blood on now, as you know.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And so he believes that due to Zambonis age and having like what he called an eggshell skull of a six year old, anyone could have caused the impact. The parents kept saying it must have been a man. But he's like, nope, a child could have smashed her head like she was small and little had, you know, thin skull.

And so the flashlight, interestingly enough, was never claimed by the family or police, so even though it's in the photos, nobody really knows what it's doing there.

Interesting. And it was right next to the pineapple.

So it's like she could have grabbed the she could have taken his pineapple, like, teased him and, you know, he could have grabbed the flashlight, swung it at her. Yeah.

She falls to the ground and he goes, oh, you know, I don't know.

And it feels like a little kid thing to, like, try to hide the the baby or the kid with, like, just throwing a blanket on to him being like object permanence, like, if I can't see it, maybe covered it well.

And, you know, like they say when bodies are covered up, a lot of times it's like a remorse thing. They don't want to see it.

And so, I mean, my thought is that this is I'm getting now into my thoughts. But basically, if if Burke did it, I believe that the parents were the ones that carried her downstairs. I don't think he could have carried her downstairs and done the whole garrotte and everything.

I think they were probably just trying to cover up, staged the scene, basically add like add like the garrote with her own paintbrush.

Cover her up with a blanket.

Yeah. Hmm. I don't know. But to me, I'm thinking, what about a stun gun to the face?

I can't imagine like as as upset as you are that your child is now not here. If you had to stage her murder for your other kid, I still could not put a stun gun to my face.

The stun gun is the thing that gets thrown in. And you're like, OK, that part doesn't fit. Yeah, don't.

I mean, it's like every solution suddenly has all these problems.

Does it have to be a stun gun or could it be something else?

They did testing on pigs, which is really sad and they determined like that. It's pretty much exactly the spacing and size of a stun gun.

OK, so OK. Anyway, he believed that they added the the strangulation as an accessory to the murder to to create a mystery as to to complicate.

Yeah. It was like I will tie this whole thing on the neck and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe make it look like somebody had strangled her Zambonis hands were also tied, tied up but they were done in a slipknot which means like she could have broken free.

So it's just odd, like it could have happened after death because. Right. They wouldn't have stayed tied if she were alive.

I can't imagine trying to stage the body of one a bit like having to like not even just stage it, but like be like aggressive and violent with that body to make it look real, like tightening something on the neck out.

That's what freaks me out for sure. Yeah. And I mean, maybe that was Burke too. Who knows, maybe he got violent. I mean, I'm not saying it was because there's literally no way to know that right now, but I just don't know who did that.

So CBS ran this documentary. And I remember when this came out, it was called The Case of JonBenet Ramsey in 2016. And it was like this intense, basically like allegations against Burke.

And it was basically the whole whole thing was like Burke did it. And I remember watching this in 2016 in my Glendale apartment and going, of course, like Burke Burke for sure, did it.

There's no fucking doubt in my mind.

And then you kind of watch other documentaries and you're like, OK, it was so extremely one sided. Like they found like the experts who are going to agree with that and the other. And he actually sued for seven hundred and fifty million dollars for defamation after that came out.

Whoa. So like they kind of did a did they have to pay him then?

I'm not sure if he won. I'm not sure and I don't know.

Maybe it could still be ongoing. Wow.

But he did go on Dr. Phil after that to try and really clear his own name.

And I Dr. Phil, I know Dr. Phil gets every fucking murderer or suspect.

I guess I really it's true. I really am just like an old trailer park, grandpa.

Like, there's nothing I love more than watching Jerry Springer more. Dr. Phil, Steve Wilkos. I mean, just like my trashiest of trash. I love it. It's like my childhood.

Just like sick from school watching Maury. Like, are you the father?

Who knows the answer is fucking. No, I know it, I'm telling you. But I want to watch it happen anyway. Oh my God.

My mom would vacuum and I'd be like, can you turn it down? I'm about to find out if he's the father. I was like, especially when they only turn the vacuum on, right?

When he says, like Bill, like he says the name, he's like you.

And then. Oh, God, my I'm like sweating already. I'm only saying that because that exact thing happened so many times right now, like can't truly it would piss me off when you vacuum.

And I'm like, that's not the point anyway. So you went on Dr. Phil and he got a lot of heat because he, I guess, was smiling throughout the whole interview.

But also like and then Dr. Phil later asked viewers to remember that like Burke. Well, that's kind of rude, but he's like he's socially awkward. He was hidden from the world after the death of his sister.

He was put on blast, like on, you know, as a child and spent his childhood under this shadow and like in this limelight of, like, my parents potentially murdered someone or they think I murdered someone. And either way, like, you're going to grow up to be kind of not right. Yeah. Yeah.

And he I just think, like, if I like if you're nine and like everyone thinks you're a murderer.

Yeah.

And if you are OK with that, you already are a little unstable. Something you're living with that first of all. Yeah.

Or you are not a murderer and the world thinks you are in your 9:00 and people think if it's not you, it is your mommy and daddy.

And that's like your identity now, you know. Yeah.

So like you're like you're not going to end up being totally 100 percent like.

Yeah. I mean, I don't like listen, I'm socially I couldn't be on Dr. Phil. I'm fucking socially awkward, so I can't imagine if, like, I'm there to defend the fact that I didn't murder my sister, you know what I mean?

So like and so anyway, he went to Purdue, he got a degree in computer science, I think, and like and he his name changed.

I would have fucking done that.

I don't think he changed his name, but I do believe that he's, like, really off the radar. Like, he lives pretty far off the radar, understandably.

OK, but no, I don't believe he changed his name.

So anyway, the case remains unsolved. People are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Patsy has since died.

She died in 2006 at the age of 49 of ovarian cancer. And John remarried and now lives with his wife, Jan in Michigan. Like I said, Berk attended Purdue and graduated in 09, but keeps to himself for the most part, there's tons of books, tons of documentaries.

I watched casting JonBenet for the first time this week, and it's very good.

But I would recommend you watch that after you watch like the other ones that go into depth about the case, because casting JonBenet is more of like a artsy look at it through the lens of other people.

Like it doesn't tell you much about the case. But I would say my favorites, my all time favorite series, it's a three part series called JonBenet and American Murder Mystery. And that is on.

Oh, God, I think I had to buy that on Amazon Prime.

But the I like casting jumping on Netflix and then the killing of JonBenet, her father speaks was on Hulu, but now it's also on Amazon.

You have to pay for it. So that's annoying.

But those are my favorites. And Wowza, I mean.

Oh, in my opinion, basically, which again, I don't like to kind of make speculations on something like this because it's just wildly, like, hurtful if it's wrong, you know.

But sure. My, my, my, my thought is that Berzerk got angry, hit her with the flashlight, parents, wake up, panic.

They're like, we need to stage this and protect our son. We just got to do it. And that's why the mom and dad, like, just stuck to their stories. I think she wrote the note. I think they couldn't think up a number besides one eighteen thousand one hundred eighty thousand because that's just what was on their mind. He had just gotten that money. Yeah, I don't know.

And I think, you know, then they shielded him from shielded brk from the press or whatever.

And I don't the thing that trips me up is the Taser and the the garrote, because I'm like one of them would have had to do that. And saying that Berk is like a fucking sociopath. Right, murderer. I'm saying like it could have been an accident. My thought it was an accident within the house and they were covering it up. But that's just that's the most common theory anyway.

That's kind of where I stand. So I have no idea where I stand.

So fucking convoluted. No fucking clue. But I think you did a good job of at least like covering like, every angle of it. So, like, anyone can have an opinion. But like, I think the parents are involved somehow. I just don't know if they were instantly guilty or if they got forced into having to do this.

Yeah, I think somebody knew. I think they know more than they let on, I think. Yeah, at the very least, I think that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Holy fuck. Wow.

Merry Christmas.

You know what? Merry Christmas. That was quite a doozy. I hope everyone is being safe this holiday. I mean, if you don't have to travel, I really, really hope you don't have to travel and everyone just stay safe. And where they are and zoom is, you know, kicking.

You don't have to wear your you don't have to wear your pants. Azem can prove it.

Listen, buddy, I'm just saying, like, the only upside and that, like, I had to go to a funeral is that, like, pants were optional pants. Yeah.

And I also want to add to it, I think it's going to be really tough on a lot of people because a lot of people are going to be alone for the holidays and aren't able to see family or have had family past or are just isolated. And it's hard to be isolated all year anyway. And now at the holidays, it makes it extra hard.

So I just want to, like, give a little like hug to everybody who's dealing with, you know, feelings of loneliness or isolation, especially during the what's supposed to be a holly, jolly season.

So, yeah, we're here for you and we're just going to keep releasing episodes. So pretend we're just, you know, gabbing away with you. Yeah.

Yeah. I've been away. That's us, obviously. At you mostly. Yeah. I hope I like. Oh, it's like I hope you don't feel lonely. So we'll talk at you and you can't contribute. Yeah.

And you have to sit there and like suffer through it which is sort of like a holiday with your family.

So I mean, yeah. Just pretend that we're where you're like really terrible family but not like the race is terrible.

I'm just like uncle but like drunk uncle.

I'm the one who's just asleep in the Barcalounger before people even get there. So no pants on. Neither neither of us have pants.

That's I'm just the one that makes everyone feel uncomfortable when they bring their, like, new partners over and they're trying to impress.

I'm the one that like you're like, don't eat, please don't even talk to them. I don't even want you to get into that.

So and I'm like, hey, do you know about JonBenet Ramsey? And they're like, oh, dear. And then they're like, oh, my God.

Yes, I absolutely have opinions on that. All right.

Oh, Christmas time is you. Oh, I know.

I rented it at the beginning, but I'll do it for our actual holiday episode next week. OK, I forgot this time around. I apologize, but we'll be here on the twenty seventh. Well thank you guys.

And hopefully you're doing hot. Doing hot. I don't know. And that's why we drink.