Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+.
It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes.
So don't wait. Try Wondery Plus today. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators I love Audible.
There's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. visit audible.com slash morbid.
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That's greenlight.com slash wondery. Hey, weirdos.
I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a Listener Tales Morbid.
🎵 Thank you. It's your November listener tale.
Doo-dah, doo-dah. It's almost the end of November and it's a Listener Tales episode.
Dude, who the fuck knows? I knew that Thanksgiving was next week.
Yeah, guys, that was a real shocker to me when my kid's dentist actually, which I keep talking about, I'm sorry.
I don't really understand. It's because it's the only time I've been out of the house in the last month.
Yeah, that makes sense. We're holding on to that.
So I'm like the only other person I've seen. uh they were like oh what are you girls doing or like what's your favorite thing to eat for thanksgiving are you gonna have it next week and we were like What the fuck?
And I was like, next week? What? No, it's two weeks away.
And she was like, no, it is not. And I was like, what?
Somebody said something to me, and they were like, oh, yeah, are you doing anything?
And I was like, next week? In two weeks?
What? Excuse me? Yeah, you're like, no. So that's weird.
This month has just seemingly disappeared before our very eyes.
36 days till Christmas, motherfuckers. Wow.
Yeah, I have a countdown. I have a little tree.
I hate that you did that actually. And it has like blocks.
I feel ill prepared. I already got your Christmas gift.
Damn it. I know I'd shout out the person that I'm getting it from, but that would give it away.
So damn it. Well, either way. The holiday is upon us and we wanted to gift you.
Oh, here it comes. The holiday season. I have to do it every time. and we wanted to gift you a listener tales episode we did because they're so much fun they're literally the You guys gift us with your tails, so we're going to gift you with recording them back at you.
Back at you. Just back at your faces. That's what we're going to do.
Back at ya. So let us start, shall we? Shall we? begin.
Alright, so the first one we have is entitled Nice try, Fate.
Dad taught me better. We love Dad. We love that.
All right. So it says, hi, Ash and Elena.
I discovered you guys a couple of months ago.
But I'm already almost caught up on all of the Morbid episodes.
I'm always so amazed by that. I know because I have like other podcasts that I love and I just can't listen to them.
It's very impressive. I appreciate it. Hold on.
Who's calling me? I don't know if everybody can hear the Halloween music playing.
Are we going to get sued for that? It's a ringtone.
It's fine. Is that Ma? No, I don't know who that is.
Maybe it's the dentist. Maybe it's the dentist calling.
She heard you calling. We're going to say no to that.
All right. So sorry, everybody. Here. Here we are.
I guess you could say I'm hooked. I'm a longtime true crime junkie, but Morbid is my favorite podcast by far.
Thank you so much. And they spelled favorite with the U, which I think is so sexy.
Very, so sexy. You have the perfect mix of true crime laughs and spooky ghost stories, and the listener tales are a great bonus.
I can't thank you enough for all the spooks and entertainment and would love to see you guys live when the world resumes.
I hope that. My name is Dre, short for Andre.
In French, Andre with two E's at the end is a female name.
Love that. Although I was teased as a kid for having a quote-unquote boy's name, I'm grateful for its uniqueness now.
Me too. Not the boy part, but... Having a unique name is tough when you're younger and you get shit for it, but later you're like, yeah.
You know a lot more Elena spelled A-L-A-I-N-A?
No. Do you? No. No. Just saying. I know.
Solidarity, sister. I had a math teacher that used to call me Ashley.
So Ashley. Last night while driving down the dark country road to my family college with an episode... Oh, cottage, sorry, not college.
With an episode of Morbid playing, duh, I realized I have a listener tale of my own.
It likely dawned on me in this moment as I was passing by the location of this story, although I locked it up emotionally some time ago.
It was the summer of 2013. I was 18 years old and stressed as all heck living in Montreal.
I had just completed my very first year of a very demanding fashion design program at university.
Oh, I'm so jealous. That's so cool. That's amazing.
My anxiety levels were through the tits.
And I really needed a nice, quiet summer break to relax and reset.
My family has a small cabin on a lake in Minden Hills, Ontario.
And that's where your family went wrong.
Something bad's happening. No small cabins.
No. I had some serving experience, so I applied at the bar of a spooky old inn.
That's amazing. That's incredible. Perpetually vacant.
The watering hole for a bunch of the locals.
To give you an idea of how big this town is, Minden Hills has a population of about...
4,000. Having grown up in downtown Toronto, like many other people, I didn't have a driver's license as commuting on public transit made much more sense.
Unfortunately, that meant that I didn't have a way to get to and from work other than my bike.
Uh oh. My dad worked in the city during the week and would only be up at the cottage with me on weekends, so I was left to fend for myself during the week But I didn't mind as I love the challenge.
I also love being alone. So I feel like that'd be great.
We love the solitude. Generally speaking, not too many people bike up here.
There is no soldier, soldier, shoulder. I'm having a moment.
I really am. There is no shoulder on the road and no lights at night.
It was a 40 minute ride from the cottage to the bar where I worked, but it wasn't an easy ride.
Winding, hilly, not so well paved roads were super difficult to navigate regardless of whether it was the blazing sun or in the dark of night.
A lot of folks drink and drive in small towns, and I had a couple of scares sharing the road in the pitch black with oncoming cars.
On one or two occasions, I dove off my bike into the ditch out of fear I'd be hit.
Wow. My father is super safety oriented, and since I was still a teenager, he barely allowed me to do this.
I talked him into it, though, as I can be quite persuasive and strong-willed.
After all, I've spent loads of time up here and know the area quite well.
Sure, the pitch black forest is spooky to say the least, but probably no less than ten times safer than the city.
I put on a brave act because I really wanted this summer of independence.
For the first couple of weeks living up at the cottage by myself, the black sky and no neighbors within screaming range really freaked me out.
I'd stand on the front porch smoking a joint and felt like I could see shapes coming towards me in the darkness.
I'm sorry about my phone. You're my CNN and like voicemails and all that.
I don't know why. Your mind plays tricks on you in the dark.
It's almost like the more spooked you get the more potential there is in common things to spook you.
I'd hear noises and branches cracking in the forest nearby.
I kind of just accepted that if a bear or worse, a ghostly creature of some kind came at me, I probably deserved it for putting myself in this situation, but then again it didn't help that I was high.
Never does. I eventually got used to the environment and being alone up here. even the nightly bike rides that felt like floating into an abyss became less daunting.
So let me tell you a little bit about my job that summer.
I usually worked the evening shifts at the bar.
Usually I worked with another server or two. but only one of us would close up there and there weren't many customers left at the time.
I became fond of closing up. Other servers enjoyed going home in decent time.
I wasn't making nearly as many tips as I would be in the city, so I wanted to earn as much as I could. by staying as late as possible.
There were four regulars who sat at the bar every day.
Their names were Mike, Dave, Gary, and Steve. because they always are i was gonna say i would not expect anything less I basically knew all the locals that would come into the pub and they'd talk shit about the cottagers who would just stumble and drunk on weekends.
Oops, I think technically I belong to that group.
For this summer though, I had been adopted by the locals.
I'm so jealous. I know, that's a great feeling, I bet.
It was interesting to humor four middle-aged small-town men who sat at the bar every night.
Mike hated his wife and she was probably going to leave him soon.
Steve would get belligerent and hit on me.
Dave would make very inappropriate jokes.
Actually, they would all make pretty inappropriate comments.
Par for the course as a female bartender.
Unfortunately, I would try to take the sexual comments and jokes about my short shorts with a grain of salt, laugh it off, and hope for a tip. but there's only so much harassment you can put up with before just walking away.
Gary was the only one who cared when I was getting a little irritated.
He would tell the other three to shut up.
Gary was a good guy. Oh my God, this is giving me like...
I'm very stressed. The cum I used to work at vibes.
I'm very stressed. I began to feel like Gary was trustworthy.
He wasn't. Oh no. He's not. I just know it.
No one is trustworthy. He obviously had some basic morals and honestly seemed to care about my well-being.
He started pointing out how crazy it was that I've been riding my bike home on these dangerously dark roads after closing the bar.
He often offered me a ride home in his pickup truck.
Oh, don't do it. Nice try, fate. Dad taught me better.
Oh, yes. I made friends with another server, Shauna.
She was renting an apartment on the Main Street in Minden, which was aptly named Main Street.
Not just a clever name, this town just has two streets, Main Street and Water Street.
That's incredible. Water Street followed the river, of course.
Fitting. I would stay over at Shauna's house if we had a few drinks after work.
I tried not to make a habit of this. We weren't really the same size, so it would cause the rumor mill to spin up when I arrived at work the next day in the same clothes.
One night as I was closing the bar, it started pouring rain.
I'm talking about Water Street and the river almost becoming one big pool kind of rain.
Gary was the only customer left at the bar.
Uh oh. Which was beginning more common.
Becoming. He wanted to, what? Which was becoming more common.
Wow, why couldn't I read that like the second time I read it?
Like, I looked at that word twice. I think we switched.
I think you and me switched. I was like, that word says beginning.
There's no G. sorry guys i don't really know what's going on i can't read things today it's not it's all thank I haven't gone yet.
That was so sweet. It's okay. It's okay.
You're okay. It's all right. Aw, encouragement.
All right, so which was becoming more common?
We know. because Gary wants to like kill you.
Gary's making this become more common. Gary likes her skinny like as a suit.
I'm very upset. He wanted to make sure I locked up and got on my bike safely.
No he didn't. No he didn't. Gary's a fucking liar.
He didn't. Of course he'd still offer me a ride home, and I'd still politely decline.
Really, on a night like this, I wanted to take the ride.
He offered again, and I really considered it this time.
I eventually declined by explaining, I promised my dad I wouldn't take rides from anyone.
I don't think this promise was ever actually made.
It's more likely that the whole scene was just triggering my basic sense of self-preservation.
That's great. Yeah, girl. That means your dad taught you right.
Mm-hmm. Really, the ride home is just a classic no, but the thought of someone knowing where I lived and knowing I was all alone in that cabin five days a week with no one near enough to hear me scream, that's a no thanks all the way up and down.
Despite the fact that I liked Gary and he was genuinely very kind, I just couldn't.
So I told Gary I had a few things I actually needed to do to still clean up inside.
I was praying by the time I was done the rain would have slowed down.
Gary said goodnight and left. No we didn't.
I'm so nervous. About 30 minutes went by and I was all out of time killing tests.
Unfortunately, the rain hadn't let up at all and was coming down just as hard.
Sleep at work. I put on a tough face and headed out into the squall to get my bike ready for our journey home.
To my surprise, Gary's car was still in the parking lot.
You shouldn't be surprised. God! Suddenly the lights flashed.
He was signaling to me. This kind of startled me, but I was honestly a bit relieved he had come back.
As I walked over to his truck, it dawned on me that he hadn't left.
I was gonna say. He rolled down his window and more desperately now assured me it would be no trouble to drop me off.
This was no weather to bike in. I took my bag off, considering my actions in slow motion.
I'm getting in the truck now. Then I stopped.
Then I just stopped. It was involuntary.
Something told me I couldn't. It was the same feeling I got when peered out from the porch late at night, all alone, slowly roasting a bone.
Getting an eerie feeling from the way the darkness moves.
Ooh, what a picture you just painted. I know, sister.
An eerie feeling from the way the darkness moves.
Darkness does move. It does move. I apologized that he had waited for nothing.
I stuck to my guns and told him I preferred the bike.
This time, I watched him drive away. It was a brutal ride home.
If you recall from the start of the story, these roads have no shoulder and no lights.
The whole thing was a mud pit. I was peddling grainy mud into my eyes whilst being completely bitch slapped by the rain.
I couldn't see the road at all. I actually tried putting on my sunglasses to stop the dirt from slapping my eyes.
But it wasn't long before I realized I had to walk the bike.
Fuck. I should have just taken the ride from Gary.
No, you shouldn't. Nope. Now I'm looking like a busted ass Corey Hart with my sunglasses on at night and little soggy feet.
Busted ass Corey Hart. That's incredible. oh an hour and a half later i was home filthy wet and exhaustion I had a shower and went to bed.
That was near the end of the summer and I was becoming sick of that treacherous 40 minute there and back bike commute.
I guess I was mentally ready to go back to school.
Fast forward to about eight months later, almost time for summer.
I was trying to decide if I wanted to live at the cottage again, stay in Montreal for the summer, or go live with my mom in Toronto.
I checked my phone and saw a message from Shauna, my server friend from the pub in Minden.
I was excited to hear from her. I opened the message, and my excitement turned... to pure terror.
A screenshot of a news site read, Minden Man, Gary Taylor Hansland, Charged in child murders.
Girl, we already knew, though. We told you.
Without you. It turns out Gary was on the lam.
Yeah, he was. Mm-hmm. He had murdered two girls in British Columbia in the 70s.
He was hiding. In Minden, Ontario. He had gotten away with it.
These girls were 11 and 12 years old. He murdered them and buried their bodies.
Wow. The man I trusted the most out of all the regulars.
The one who acted like my protector. You're all hyped up.
The man I regretted not taking a ride from.
My hands shake as I write this alone in the dark at my cottage yet again.
Branches in the wind are scratching loudly at the walls of my cabin as I ask myself, Why not me?
This is like so like Carrie Bradshaw horror-esque. holy shit she's like I'm in my New York apartment as I ask myself I wonder why I haven't been murdered yet Why not me?
But you're just in a cabin. And you're smart.
Where's big? You listen to your gut. My God, I love it.
And you weren't 11 and 12 years old. You're not a baby.
Oh my God. P.S. I've referenced a couple of articles below.
Thank you to my boyfriend Adam for helping me edit this.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed getting the story on paper.
Stay weird, my friends. Oh, but not so weird that you take rides from strange men.
Or even nice men. Wow. There's no nice men.
The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
Monsieur le maire... As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.
We will post a screenshot of the article in the Instagram story when we do this, just so you can see the... article about it but oh that just shows you seriously you cannot trust anybody no because that's the thing because every time you think that you can trust somebody You're proved wrong.
They go ahead and be a child martyr from the 70s.
It might take some time, but Gary gonna prove...
You wrong. Gary gonna prove you wrong. Gary gonna give it to you.
Gary gonna give it to you. Gary tried to give it to you and you were like, no, no.
Do you think he would have killed her? Do you think he was reformed because he was hiding?
No, he was going to kill her. You think so?
He was 100. That persistence, that's what would have shook me, honestly. no grown-ass man gives a shit enough about you a random bartender to take that much effort to be like no let me drive you home I
I wonder why he didn't just follow her and like pick her up on like that road though. in hiding and I think he had to be like kind of smart about it so I think he was and maybe maybe he also was like this is a sign maybe that i shouldn't do this weird and who knows maybe he killed someone else and we don't even know it he might have it could be someone that hasn't been found yeah Or reported missing.
Fuck you, Gary. Asshole. Wow. And also, fuck the other guys that were like inappropriate to you.
Oh, that's literally every regular. Honestly, fuck the other three guys who made Gary the child murderer look like the good guy.
Seriously. I want you all, all three of you out there, I want you to be sitting with that.
I'm just thinking about the bar I used to work at.
I'm like, yup, makes sense. There was this dude that used to grab my hand and say, may I?
And then put his like nasty ass T-Rex lips on my hand and kiss my hand every time I saw I'm shocked that you did not knock his teeth out because I definitely would have.
You're shocked that I didn't knock his teeth out?
No, I'm not shocked that you didn't. But I definitely would have been like, you're going to lose teeth today.
Here's your take out. Bye. And also, may I?
And then just does it. Yeah. So what the fuck did you ask me?
So nasty. I have PTSD from that. So that's good.
Anyways, my next story is called The Girls and the Gays Curse a Bitch and Meet a French Speaking Ghost.
I mean, clearly this was written to me. I saw this and I was like, yep, that's it.
Hi, Elena. Hi, Ash. Whoa, it must seem hella weird to have some stranger using your name.
I love you. I love you so much. My name is Dean.
Go ahead and use it if you want to. Hi, Dean.
Hi, Dean. And I'm a 14-year-old high school freshman from Reno, Nevada.
Nevada. You did it right. Okay. We listened to you, Dean.
We listened. I don't know how many teenage boys like to listen to true crime, but you have me.
I absolutely love your podcast and I've been listening for about a month and a half.
I'm already on episode 126. Damn. Wow. I always listen to your weirdness on my 45 minute walk home from school and during boring study hall.
Oh, I don't miss that. I'm technically supposed to be working, so I have to hold in my laughs all the time.
The one problem is that you say Nevada wrong, because normally we say Nevada.
It's the second A. It's not Nevada. Nevada, like top.
It's Nevada, like bad. Now that we have that out of the way, I heard you.
Now that we have that out of the way, I can tell you my weird, amazing true story.
There's a whole bunch of characters, but I changed everyone's names for... Oh, there it is.
It's so funny. I was thinking about how good I was doing and then I did bad.
I went ahead and passed the baton. But I changed everybody's names for privacy.
So about a week before Halloween on a Friday afternoon, I invited some of my friends over to carve pumpkins.
My friend Ruth and I walked from school to my house stopping to get pumpkins and a bottle of kombucha.
Disgusting. Sorry that I judged you. Ew.
Afterwards, we walked to my house where my friends Valentina and Brooke met us.
Oh my God, I wish your friend's real name was Valentina.
I love that you, that's a great made up name.
Hell yeah, it is. Good for you making these names up.
I love it. The four of us carve pumpkins together while chatting about stupid teenage drama.
Are you guys ready for this I'm so excited this is my favorite and I like I'm being taken back I think Jack is extremely cute.
Why did Ruth ever decide to date Nathan?
McKenna is a bitch. I asked Brooke, didn't you say that Antonia was dating Grace?
I don't know how I feel about that. And I was immediately met with, ew, Grace dated Antonio?
No way, from Ruth. Okay, that was great.
It's great. Everybody just got taken back.
Wow, I love that so much. So last year...
Antonio told Grace he liked her but was rejected.
We call Grace to see what the heck's up with this, and she told us, Antonio was bothering her like crazy after she blocked him.
He was pestering her on Instagram and making multiple accounts .
Grace ended up deleting her social media after Antonio said he would kill himself if they wouldn't date.
That's not fair. Antonio is a garbage person, so we decided to put a curse on him.
Using an empty kombucha bottle, we wrote Antonio's name on a slip of paper And put it in with a jalapeno from my garden.
A bunch of thorns and a feather. I found a curse on Pinterest.
I found a curse on... Pinterest. Oh my god.
Wow, my witchy ass is like both proud and astounded.
I'm... screaming. Never have I ever found a curse on Pinterest. found a curse on Pinterest is the greatest statement I have ever heard. need murder apparel to turn that into a shirt murder apparel are you listening erin here's your time oh my god Okay, that's everything right in this world.
You gotta get like a book. Buy like a witchy book.
You guys are the best. I'll send you one.
You keep me young. I love you so much. Seriously.
What kind... Pinterest has curses now? I didn't know.
I just stuttered. I'm so sure. Curses? I did.
I did. I'm like holding my pentagram necklace like, what?
They have curses? Clutching my pentagram?
So they all they held hands in a circle and chanted.
After we chanted, we dropped a match in the bottle and poured the ashes down a gutter.
The tutorial said running water. That makes sense.
We sort of laughed it off and didn't think any witchy shit was going to happen.
So that's when you know some shit is going to go down. when you have a pinterest curse any curse and you don't think it's gonna work it's gonna fucking work yeah So on Halloween night, I went to a small get-together at Brooke's house wearing my amazing costume, pic included.
And let me tell you, incredible. It far out passed my expectations.
Full serve. Phenomenal. Incredible. Brooke's friend, Michelle, came as well as Valentina and her boyfriend, Leman.
We wanted to be coronavirus conscious. Good job.
So we sat outside wearing our masks. Good, good, good.
And started to watch Scream on Brooks Projector.
The dream. That's what we wanted to do on Halloween, but we couldn't.
We did. But it got cold really fast, so we went inside.
Inside, Brooke pulled out a Ouija board to play with.
Well, that's where you went wrong. We turned off all the lights and decided to have a seance.
At candlelight under the full moon, we sat there with our hands on a planchette, or however it's spelled.
I think you spelled it right. Yeah, you got it.
The plan chat started moving and we asked it questions.
The ghost was a blonde girl. Heyo! Who choked on her food 186 years ago.
That's probably how I'm going to die too.
Heyo. On March 5th. Brooke, Valentina, and I took French class, so Valentina jokingly asked the ghost exequitur parlor Francois.
Ash took French too, guys. I don't know if you could.
Is it est, say, quai, to parlor, Francois?
I don't think you did that much better than me.
You said Quay. So let's... Let's all put our feet on the ground here.
You said quit. Me and this girl, Lindsay, we were juniors or seniors in a class. a Spanish class with freshmen and we used to leave our books out to take the tests.
When we had the midterm, our teacher was like, and you can't leave your books out for this one, girls.
Go put them in your lockers. And you were like, quay?
Quay? Quay? I was probably just like, no, no, understand.
And the board spelled out one word, we. I know how to say that.
We. We. I started becoming stupid and asking dumb questions.
It kept answering our questions, but in French that we couldn't understand.
Lehman decided to ask, what's happening in the future?
And the board said, Tu copain est un futur mal.
That means the future is going to be bad.
I know that. I know that. Basically, our friend has something bad coming.
I asked it what bad things I asked it what bad thing was coming and the board said, case, casse.
Which turned out to mean broken in French.
So a mega ominous answer. Yeah. The next Monday, Brooke and Valentina texted me and told me that Antonio broke his ankle after he slipped on the stairs at school.
It was hella creepy since I literally cursed him.
Also from the time I cursed Antonio to the time he broke his ankle, I was literally seeing crows everywhere.
Oh, I live for that shit. They're not the most common thing in Nevada, so it's kind of weird.
Like literally every day I saw a raven. There's ravens that live at your house.
Yeah, we have ravens that literally, I named them Ted and Eileen.
Yeah. I haven't seen one since. I know the curse was a low key joke and it's probably migration stuff, seeing the Ravens, and totally a coincidence that Antonio broke his ankle, but it doesn't feel like it.
I know it's crazy, but I swear I'm not making it up.
That's my stupid ass teenager story. Thanks for reading it.
I don't know if this will go on the podcast or not.
It did. But it's amazing to imagine that you guys are even reading this.
Keep it so weird, but not so weird that you could. you curse a bitch who is super mean then meet a ghost that speaks french and get stalked by ravens and cause a freak accident i love it That's incredible.
Dean, we love you. Dean, you're everything right in this world.
You truly are. We love you so much. But remember, everything comes back times three.
It does. No more Pinterest curses, okay?
All right, so my next one is called, Ho, you were supposed to be our religion teacher.
My god, religion teacher. You just summoned me right in with that.
I didn't even know that was a thing. Amazing.
My name is Beck. Please don't use my surname for my story.
I just did and then had to go back and delete it.
So I'm here for you. I love it. This may be a new one for you but I discovered you guys after getting hooked on Crime Countdown.
Yay! and started listening to Morbid, even powering through the early shitty ones where Ash sounds like she's motherfucking Ariel being under the goddamn sea. shine on ash i got my legs you're a beautiful fucking trash mermaid oh yes You guys both are just awesome and so chill.
I feel like I'm shooting the shit with friends and listening to true crime stories.
That's my favorite compliment when people feel like they're listening to their friends.
That's my favorite. Because I want to be all your friends.
We're your friends. And like normally I don't even like banter, but you guys are awesome and so respectful of the cases that you're the exception for me.
And I won't lavish you with too much praise because I know it makes you both uncomfortable.
Same. hard same. Also, sorry for the length.
Please edit at your discretion. Never. Anyway.
I've been hopping around through your back catalog, and the listener stories are my favorite episodes.
My true crime and paranormal love runs deep and true even though no one in my family can pinpoint where exactly that interest came from.
May I suggest that's spooky? Ooh, yeah, that's really good.
That's perfect for a paranormal lover. Though, according to my dad, I liked to play French Revolution with my parents who all ended up like me-
Marie Antoinette. So I was just a weird ass little girl who became a weird ass 28 year old entertainment writer.
Sometimes, when not having to write about BTS or memes, I get to work on true crime shit and that's the best.
Oh, where do you write for? Because I was an entertainment writer once for Bustle.
Working from home and getting a giant stuffed plague doctor because, you know, it's the apocalypse and my stuffed cerebrus needed company.
I love this so much. Yeah. Cerberus. Sorry, I said that wrong.
What is that? We just looked it up and it's in Greek mythology.
It's that three-headed dog like in Harry Potter.
Heyo. So that's awesome. He did need company.
Obviously. Now, this isn't a very scary listener tale, but for everyone who has ever had one shitty-ass teacher who made you feel like literal scum on the bottom of their shoes, well, this one is for you weirdos.
Because I have felt some schadenfreude. Oh, I can never say this.
Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude.
I can never say it. Asterinda. There you go.
In my life. German word that means taking enjoyment from the misfortune of others.
That's what Ramona is. I love the name. I love the word.
I can just never say it right. Schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude. There you go. Schadenfreude.
But this time I felt it so fucking much that I practically got high from it, and what I imagined getting high would feel like.
Note. Not that I've ever gotten high. I fucking went to film school, aka Weed Central.
But the hardest thing I'd ever do is my daily soda or frappuccino because if I drink water the rest of the day, so I'm allowed this one fucking thing.
But yeah, LOL, I live that straight edge life.
How do you go to film school and not smoke a dube?
Amazing. We're hitting the way back machine back to my seventh and eighth grade years.
Fall 2004, spring 2006. Oh, boy. I was graduating high school. school yeah and i was uh how old i don't know i was 10 okay gross uh at an all girls catholic school No, I didn't.
Fuck that. I was eight. Yeah. Because you had just graduated high school.
Yeah, let's make it worse. Now, I've been in Catholic schools my whole life, which is probably why I'm a lapsed fucking Catholic.
I don't know if you've had any friends who went to an all-girls school, but if they said that shit was quote the best time of their lives, those bitches were lying.
My school was Lord of the Flies, except there were nuns.
More lip gloss because lipstick was for harlots or something.
And me praying for the sweet release at the end of eighth grade so I could peace the fuck out and go to a different school.
This school was pre-K to 12, and thank fuck I went to a different, better high school with Jesuits, aka the badass priests who become the exorcists. in the church.
There was a rumor in my high school that our school's president was an exorcist, and he inspired the younger priest in, well, the exorcist. but that's for another story for another day.
Send that one too. a girl from the bottom of my soul.
Never send your daughters to an all-girls school.
No. You know what? I 100% agree with that.
I don't think that's anything you would ever Knowing my experience with a shit ton of girls in school, I'm good.
Yeah. Yeah. So since this school was pre-K to 12, it was divided into the primary and secondary schools.
Primary was pre-K-6 and secondary was 7-12.
So technically, I never went to middle school but had all the fun awkwardness of the middle school years where my fucking goddamn classes were in the basement And we had to share a homeroom with the other grade and got yelled at all the time because no one fucking shut up except me because I was devouring different books every day.
Aw. Anyway, it's seventh grade and the year was decent enough.
In the month before school started, my mom died from brain cancer.
Oh, my God. It was terminal and we were prepared for her to go out but like the badass bitch she was my mother lived four months longer than the doctors expected her to.
Oh, I didn't see her much in her final months because early on she and I decided that she wanted me to have memories of her as herself and not sick and out of it. oh wow destroy me why don't you but despite this we said our goodbyes and yeah it fucking sucked going through these years without her but I always try to be the good, compassionate, kind person that I know she would want me to be and I'm always trying to chase my dreams.
Also, fuck cancer. Yes, fuck cancer. And also, sending you the biggest, like, COVID-free hug right now.
Yes. Oh my god. Same with most of the girls in my class who I've known from grade three to six.
And yeah, some of them made my life hell in grades three to four because bullying.
But like another story for another day. Seriously, looking back, I fucking hated this school. now the year before one of my new teachers got some death threats from one of her students we'll call her mrs shut your face oh my god incredible Like, seriously.
There were police around the school for a couple days.
The girl was eventually caught and expelled.
Apparently she wasn't mentally well either, or that's what I heard.
Anyway, Mrs. Shut Your Face, got a lot of attention from everyone for it, but it stopped when, you know, the girl who watched her mother die for eight months came to school.
Now, like she was catty to me in English, but I was like working through my own shit that I barely realized it at the time.
English was my favorite class because I loved reading and coming up with stories and would read ahead in my textbook.
I wanted to major in English lit in college and become a writer.
And hey, I fucking did both. So fuck you, Mrs. Shut Your Face.
It wasn't until eighth grade when things got worse.
By that point, I was a little bit better.
The thing during eighth grade, my dad got a job, a good job that required him to required him to travel two and a half hours out of where we live to work there.
Now, this goddamn prince of a man who is the best fucking dad, and so was my mom, it was other family members that sucked ass. traveled those two and a half hours every week for like most of the school year so I could finish out and not transfer halfway through.
My paternal grandma who lived in the area where my dad worked would drive those two and a half hours down so there would be someone with me during the week.
Oh my goodness, that's so sweet. Seriously, can we get a fucking men for those amazing people?
Because they did so much for me during that time.
A fucking men. And while I appreciate and respect their sacrifice, we probably should have got a house and transferred me into the Catholic elementary school up there.
Seriously, are there no Catholic junior highs?
What the fuck? So finish up grade eight because that's when Mrs. Shut Your Face became the worst fucking personal nightmare. of a human being.
She was the human equivalent of genital warts or something.
We have all had a teacher like that. We've all had that.
In eighth grade, she taught English and religion.
Why didn't a nun teach us? I don't know.
The nuns were a little known order of a saint that no one outside of that hellhole ever heard of.
And most of them were like, Hella old. It was a yearly tradition that we went to the nunnery that is on campus to visit them around Christmas time and it... God.
It smelled like death and old people in one of those rooms was just entirely velvet.
Why the fuck was it velvet in there? Red velvet like a cheap porno, except it was in a fucking nunnery full of old duds.
You know what, though? I'm like kind of here. for that.
I love this story. I'm really here for the red porno room.
You just brought me into a red velvet porno nuttery.
I love that. And then just, sorry, sidetracked.
So, yeah, I was still... Stuck with Mrs. Shut Your Face for not one, but two classes.
Now that I was outside of my grief-induced state, I was really noticing the cattiness.
Like she had her favorites, all teachers do, but then there was me and it was like every little flaw she saw and picked at.
I fucking hate teachers like that. I know.
It's like, why are you a teacher? Like, dick.
I worked my ass off in her classes and never got higher than a B.
While I vented to my dad about it, there was not much we could do.
So seeing as how he was two and a half hours away, So he just asked me to be strong and tough it out because in months I was going to be out anyway.
And I took it. I did well in my other classes.
I had some friends, including a girl we'll call Rika.
Rika and her mom, Mrs. Awesome Sauce. were totally great when my mom was sick and in the aftermath of it.
Like they would let me hang out at her place and help my dad.
Mrs. Awesome Sauce was a cosmetologist and her husband was a hairstylist.
Yes. During my mom's cancer treatments, Mrs. Awesome Sauce would give her facials and manicures while her husband would help with my mom's hair even though it wasn't the best because chemo.
We fell out of contact after the move, but seriously, if Rika and her mother called me... at 3am to ask me to help them hide a dead body, then I would fucking drop everything, no questions asked.
So Mrs. Awesome Stuffs heard the stories from Rika about what was happening. do much either, because remember, this was the teacher who got death threats before I met her, so the administration was soft on her because of that.
Instead, she made me bomb ass pepperoni cheese bread and told me that people are just spiteful bitches and that you need to be a motherfucking phoenix and rise from those hatreds.
I love it. And I was doing my best during it.
It was a confusing time, like the grief had lessened, but I was questioning my sexuality dealing with family drama, missing my dad, and then there was the rest of the shit show of just being a 14 year old girl.
Yeah, that is a shit show. I took a lot of comfort in books during this time.
For English class, for some reason, there was a living wax museum project. because we picked a famous woman that we admired, write a research paper on them, and then pose in a living wax museum over the course of two days in the library with them.
It was... Wow, that was a weird ass project for English looking back on it.
Yeah, that's weird as fuck. i left it in the middle of writing she's like wow that was a weird project I picked Meg Cabot, aka author of The Princess Diaries.
Hell yeah. was tricky, but between her website and notes in the back of her various books, I wrote something I was proud of.
Her books brought a lot of joy to me during this time, so I was happy to do the thing, you know?
Anyway, we did it and rocked it. And then I got the paperback and she gave me a fucking D.
Oh, what the fuck? She gave a lot of bullshit reasons, especially saying that I should have picked someone that had written... uh that i that had more written on them or what the fuck ever but i was devastated like i had started a crying class and she called me the fuck out for it She also added that I had no future as a writer.
What the fuck is wrong with this lady? Present me wants to shove the fact that I placed finalists in a couple of screenplay competitions right in her fucking stupid face.
And I work as a writer professionally. So, you know, fuck her.
Yeah, fuck her. I booked it out of the room, humiliated. and sobbed in the bathroom until a girl that I was sort of friends with Maggie came and checked on me She gave me a hug, said that they all noticed how Mrs. Shut Your Face was so fucking mean to me, and that I deserved better.
She thought that Mrs. Shut Your Face was jealous because of the attention I got back in seventh grade. which was like, how fucking petty and cold-hearted could you be?
Seriously. Anyway, a few months later, I peaced the fuck out of there and was preparing to move up near my grandma and where my dad was working most of the week.
I got a D for my fourth quarter in English class, but dad was not pissed because he knew what a petty bitch Mrs. Shut Your Face was.
So my other grades were fucking stellar, by the way.
And just putting it out there, I was National Honor Society in high school, too.
So again, Mrs. Shut Your Face was a petty ass bitch.
My dad and I were getting things packed when Mrs. Awesome Sauce called him.
Now they talked from time to time because grown-up stuff.
I was packing like dishes or some shit when my dad hangs up and books it upstairs to our office with a computer was, which was impressive because my dad had arthritis and doesn't always move fast.
Curious, I followed him. I found him paying for an article from the crime blotter of the local paper.
Mrs. Awesome Sauce apparently saw this wonderful ass thing in print and called him to let him know.
And he brought the article to show me, and thus, I knew the joy in taking the most vicious fucking pleasure out of another person's misfortune.
Again, I was almost fucking high with it.
Mrs. Shut Your Face got arrested. For what?
The woman who is more pers- my personal tormentor for eighth grade, maybe she was trying to be in seventh grade seven as well, but like I didn't notice because it was mainly in eighth grade, had fucking gotten arrested.
I was screaming. Now her crime? That shit is hilarious.
What'd she do? This bitch. This hoe got fucking arrested for shoplifting towels from a Starbridge's. which is like going out of business at the time.
So everything was like bargain bottom prices.
Now, apparently she said that she got a call, had to step outside and take it and forgot that she had the towels.
Who steals towels? Yeah, fucking right. Oh my God.
I was living. My dad just grinned at me and said, see, people who put hate into the world get what's coming to them in the end.
He still calls her old sticky fingers to this day when referring to her because my dad will carry on a grudge against people he feels like did his daughter wrong to the grave.
And we must respect a man who will do that.
Yes. Apparently. There was a meeting about whether or not Mrs. Shut Your Face would stay on at school.
She did, but eventually went elsewhere. But everyone knew that she was a thief.
The funny part was I looked at the date of her arrest and then at my syllabus as I was trashing my notebooks and I realized something.
She was arrested for shoplifting around the time when we were talking about the Ten Commandments.
Specifically the one about how thou shall not steal.
Put that in an Alanis Morissette song, I guess, because that shit is actually ironic.
Anyway, over a decade later, I have two master's degrees and I'm making a decent career for myself as a writer. with the hope to transition into screenwriting or audio drama or being an actual author.
So, you know, fuck her. I won. And that's what I'm going to put in a dedication page because I'm a petty ass bitch who is doing the best revenge of a life well lived.
Thanks for reading my not scary story. I hope it made you laugh.
If you read it and wanted to hear more, I'll send you a story about my camp friend turned stalker who wouldn't stop calling my house until I threatened to sick the police on them via PM on fan fucking fiction.
.net or a haunted dorm I stayed in at a theater camp or my haunted sex ghost building when I lived in Boston getting my screenwriting MFA.
Give me the I want all three. Give me them immediately.
I specifically want the stalker one. Want it, want it, want it.
I want that haunted sex ghost building immediately.
What does that mean? Don't know. Want it, though.
And it takes place in Boston. I know. I'll take anything Boston.
May you always keep it weird, but not so weird that the student you were essentially bullying got so much serotonin rushing into her brain from your pathetic ass arrest that they got a little high on it.
Oh my god. Sincerely, Beck. Beck, you're a fucking legend.
I love that. It wasn't like scary, but it was just like...
Good. No, that was great. Yeah. All right.
My next one is called, is that you Pennywise?
Uh-oh. that scares me because is it i i don't know i tweeted the other day i was like laying in my bath and then i like pulled the plug and i literally all of a sudden just like got like a rush of fear and ran out of my bathroom because I thought Pennywise was in my dream.
Maybe he was. Maybe he was. I also was a little bit stoned, so that's probably why.
There you go. It's fine. Hi, weirdos. First of all, I just wanted to let you know that I recently discovered your podcast and introduced my BFF to you guys, and we are obsessed.
Aw, thank you. Love you. It's a constant text message conversation of, oh my God, have you listened to this episode yet?
Yes. So good. Have you listened to this episode?
Oh my God. That makes me so happy. I love that.
So yeah, we think you're amazing and you really feel like friends.
We are friends. We are friends forever. let's get necklaces yay there are so many listener tales i want to share with you but i've narrowed it down to this one for now I tend to get wordy, so edit if necessary.
Never. We're wordy too. So here's a little strange and unexplainable spooky tale.
Hold on to your butts because this is weird.
My nephew... Brant, is that how you would say that?
Yeah, that seems right. Brant is 12 and a half years younger than me and our relationship reminds me so much of you guys' relationship.
His mother is an absolute cuckoo nut crazy lady.
I'm literally in the process of writing a book about her amazing an evil narcissistic witch and that's putting it nicely wow That sounds just like my mom.
That's unbelievably familiar. I've literally thought about writing a book about that woman, but I think she'd suit me.
Yeah. And also, it would just be the saddest book of all time.
It truly would. So Brant was basically raised... by my mother with a little help from me and feels more like a strange mixture of brother and son than my nephew.
I feel like that's what I am to you. This is really scarily familiar.
I know, because I said to Alayna this morning, I was like, you know that you basically raised me?
Because like mom and papa were just kind of like older at that point.
Yeah. So they did whatever they could. Yeah.
They like fed me good shit. And you were like, don't go to that party wearing a crop top.
And I was like, fuck off, Alina. But anyways, I tried.
He's now 23 years old with two adorable babies and a precious little fiance.
So despite his. piss poor example of a mother and his unconventional upbringing, I think he turned out pretty great.
Oh, I love that. I do too. So when Brant was 9 or 10 years old, I decided to introduce him to the 1990 version of It.
Ooh. I love the new version, but Tim Curry is Pennywise, the dancing ass... I just added that in.
The dancing ass clown. The dancing clown is where it's at.
Fight me. I will not because I'm fully on your side with that it's terrifying and Tim Curry Yeah.
Never. No one can beat Tim Curry. No, he's got like that hairline too.
That's like very clowny-esque. He's just, He just has it all.
It just works. He's just perfect. Anyway, we watched the movie.
He loved it. And then we decided to go for a ride on a four wheeler.
I believe you Northerners call it a quad or an ATV.
Yep, we do. I think we call it four-wheeler in this family, though, because like JP will say four-wheeler.
I don't think so. I don't know. Anyway, I don't ride one.
Now, we lived on 100 acres of family farmland and had a four-wheeler trail cut out in the woods way back behind my grandfather's barn.
This is not a trail that is easily accessible to anyone but us.
This is important because there's absolutely no way that anyone could have gotten to this spot without us or my grandparents seeing them.
Okay. Uh-oh. I'm nervous. That means someone got back there.
Mm-hmm. Riding this trail, I'm driving and Brant is sitting behind me and he suddenly screams for me to stop.
I stop and he's frantically pointing to a lone tree standing in a small clearing smack dab in the middle of a dense forest.
Tied to that tree is a bunch of helium-filled brightly colored balloons.
That's... the most ominous shit I have ever heard.
Now, these balloons were not just tangled into the branches of the tree.
They didn't just randomly float into the woods and get stuck there. no they were tied in a nice neat little bow to the trunk of the tree what the That's like, I always hate when like really happy things are in a really ominous place. place yes because it's like extra fucking creepy absolutely oh i hate it And the moment I see them, the engine to the four wheeler instantly dies and try as we might, we can't get the goddamn thing to start back up.
No, thank you. Oh, my God. So we do what any logical 10 and 23-year-old person would do.
We run screaming down the trail, through the field, past the barn and straight up to my grandparents' door in a blind panic.
Yes. You did the right thing. That's exactly what we would have done.
My grandfather tried to listen to our babble about the evil child eating clowns and balloons in the woods.
But he's a logical, straight-laced southern farmer, and he just laughs at us.
Sends Brant inside to my grandmother. and tells me to come with him to see if we can get the four-wheeler started again.
So Brant goes inside where my grandmother probably gave him some hot chocolate and a slice of pie straight from the oven because that's the kind of grandmother she was.
R.I.P. Sweet Nanny. Oh, I love that. That's what we called my great grandmother.
And your grandma, yeah. I reluctantly and timidly followed my grandfather back into the woods, expecting my soul to be eaten straight through my mouth by Pennywise himself.
We got to the clearing and I know it's the same clearing because the four wheelers parked right next to it.
The balloons are gone. Nope. Not only are they gone, They are gone without a trace.
There isn't a single fragment of ribbon to be seen.
Not a glimpse of brightly colored latex to be found.
They're just gone. So somebody had to literally untie them from the tree.
Yes. Neatly. Neatly. Like carefully. My grandfather chuckles, goes to the four wheeler, toolbox in hand, and tries to crank it.
It starts on the very first try. Fuck that.
Oh, terrifying. To this day, I have absolutely no explanation about what happened or how it happened.
It could have been my little brother trying to scare us.
It could have been a neighbor being weird.
And it was just a coincidence that we had watched that movie the same day.
That's a big coincidence. And not the four-wheeler died, but it could have been a demon sent from the very depths of hell to torture us.
I don't know. The latter. I do too. What I do know is that there is a bunch of freshly filled hilly... helium helium what i do know is that there was a bunch of freshly filled helium balloons tied into a bow to that tree and they were gone, disappeared without a trace when we went back only moments later.
Neither Brant nor I slept a full night for the rest of the week after this happened.
And that's it. The story of Pennywise scaring the poop out of us in rural North Carolina. enough wow thank you so much for reading i absolutely love you guys and if you'd like to hear about the mysterious disappearance of my great aunt ruby or about the time I lived in a haunted hotel, just let me know.
Consider this us letting you know. Lots of love from NC.
Hannah S. P.S. You guys should totally look into the Susan Smith case.
Yep. That's a good one. It happened when I was 10 years old, very close to where I live, and it's a bonkers case.
Holy shit. Wow. That was, that gave me all the chills.
Yeah, that was fucking creepy as hell. I don't like it.
Hoo boy. All right, so my next one is called I Cycled Home with a Drunk Murderer.
Whoa. Yeah, that tells you a lot in just one line.
Here it is. Whoop, there it is. Hi there, weirdos.
Hi. First of all, I would like to mention that I'm from the Netherlands, so English is not my native language.
Please forgive me if I make some mistakes while writing this down.
I will try my best for you guys. Also, I would like you guys to know that I will not mention my name. and the name of the city where these events took place because I and the relatives of the victim still live there.
Now let's jump into the story. I love that you're from the Netherlands.
And also this is written perfectly. I was going to say, you're doing amazing.
There's like not one mistake in this. Yeah.
The first part of my story took place when I was 10 years old in an elementary school.
At a certain moment, the news spread that the mother of a four-year-old kid that also went to my school was reported missing.
Oh my god. Of course, all the kids in my school, our teachers and our parents were really concerned about the situation.
During the time his mom was missing, the four-year-old still came to school and his father kept dropping him off and picking him up.
I remember that everyone in the school felt terribly sorry for the family.
I also remember I was too afraid to look into the father's eyes because I had no idea how to act around him.
I felt so sorry for him missing his wife and his children missing their mom.
The father even appeared in a popular TV show to raise national attention for the case.
Of course, the police were investigating the entire thing and about a month after his wife was reported missing, the police found her body. uh oh her remains were dumped next to a high road it turned out that the father had killed her with an axe I knew it chopped her body into pieces with a handsaw and divided the body parts into a suitcase and several garbage bags.
Like you just had a baby seven months ago.
Seven months ago. Your wife gave you a fucking baby and that's what you do.
That's supposed to be like that. the time when you feel the closest to each other.
Right. Holy shit. You might imagine the entire town and especially all the kids, parents, and teachers in my school were incredibly shocked when they heard this horrific news.
Now in the Netherlands, punishments for murder and manslaughter are very different from the ones in the United States.
The father was eventually sentenced to only eight.
And then he wrote in parentheses, WTF, years in prison.
Eight years in prison for chopping his newly mothered wife?
I cannot. I cannot. Now let's jump to nine years after this case happened.
I was 19 years old and in my second year of university.
During the weekends, I worked as a bartender to earn a little extra money.
My shifts usually ended around 5am and I had to cycle about 10 minutes to get home.
Why is that the theme of this week's listener tips?
I don't know why I picked so many bike stories.
I was never scared to cycle home this late because the security guards at my workplace taught me how to defend myself in case of an emergency.
I also carried a can of pepper spray and a big pointy umbrella with me when I cycled home after work.
I was cycling home one night when I noticed a man cycling a little close behind me.
He was cycling closer and closer, almost touching the rear tire of my bicycle.
I cycled a little slower so he could pass me if he wanted to, but he did not.
I guess I was still in my badass bartender mood so I told him, please stop being a creep.
I carry a weapon and I'm not afraid to use it.
I love that. I love it. I love the please stop being a creep.
It's polite. He started laughing and said, I'm sorry, girl.
I didn't mean to scare you. I drank a little too much so my coordination is a little shitty right now.
I'm on my way home, nothing to worry about.
I looked at his face and immediately felt he had no bad intentions.
Bartending makes you an expert in reading people's vibes.
Except maybe not based on the last story.
I know. I'm not feeling good about this. asked me where I was going and I told him I was also on my way home and that I was almost there, which was the truth.
I was two minutes from my house. Aren't you scared cycling here all by yourself at 5 a.m. in the morning?
Ooh, nope. Also rude of him to say 5am in the morning.
Right? Very rude. It's a given. He asked me.
I told him I was not and asked him as a joke to change the subject. how his wife felt about him being away from home and drunk at 5am in the morning.
Well, I don't have to worry about that because my wife is dead, he said.
I apologized and told him I felt sorry for asking him this question.
He said something like girl, never mind.
You couldn't have known that. I saw his face turning sad, so I asked him if he wanted to tell me what happened.
That's a long story, girl, but the short version is I killed her and I've served my time.
Wow. Imagine you're just biking with some stranger in the woods and you're like a little like and then he's like you're like oh okay his wife died that's sad and he's like I killed her he's like I killed her but I served my time no you didn't you're like oh Of course, this made me hold my umbrella and pepper spray as tight as possible. immediately change the subject and have no idea what we talked about after he said he murdered his wife.
I focused on appearing as polite and non-judgmental as possible to not piss him off.
We friendly said our goodbyes and I cycled home, wondering about what the hell just happened.
The day after it finally hit me. This dude was the father of the four-year-old kid at my elementary school. i didn't recognize him after all these years but i'm 99 sure it was him wow well I hope you guys enjoyed this little weird story.
P.S. There's a very interesting documentary about this murder case called Anatomy of a Murder.
That sounds familiar. Yeah, it's made by the victim's brother-in-law and this is how he describes it.
Anatomy of a Murder reconstructs the murder, its background, and its consequences.
The culprit, the foster mother of the children, the family and her friends, police and state attorney take the floor again.
Not to condemn the killer one more time or to come to final or common conclusion, but to do justice to the complexity of a family tragedy like this. the documentary is spoken in Dutch but there's a version with English subtitles in case you guys are interested they left the link holy shit that can you imagine knowing like Somebody just says that so casually.
Seriously, and you're like literally cycling in the middle of the woods by yourself? like oh what happened and they're just like well it's a long story girl but I killed her and I've served my time you're just like oh oh Okay, sir.
Thank you for that. Stay away from my rear tire.
Sounds like it's kind of a short story and you just told me the whole thing, but okay.
All right. That's all I need to know. Let's wrap this up.
Wow, guys. Be careful on your bikes. And your four wheeler ATV things.
Be careful on your weird vehicles. Yeah, just careful of it.
Careful in your regular vehicles too. Yeah, just careful everybody.
Careful, careful. It's a scary world out there.
It is. Wow, guys, thank you so much for sending these in.
We, honestly, we could do a Listener Tales episode like every other day.
Because we have so many that we want to get to.
So if yours hasn't been read yet, it's definitely going to be because you guys are just killing it.
Yeah, just maybe like five years from now because there's so many.
We're trying. But thank you so much and keep sending them to morbidpodcast at gmail.com.
And make sure you put Listener Tale in the subject line before you put an awesome title.
That'll make us want to read it. Awesome.
Awesome. All right. Well, in the meantime, you could go ahead and follow us on Instagram.
At Morbid Podcast. Hit us up on the Twitter. at Amorbid Podcast.
Don't tag us on a story. We're against those.
Yeah, don't do that. I don't even know if you can do that.
I think they're called pleats. Fuck that.
It's a story. Also send us a Gmail if you'd like to.
Formidpodcasts at gmail.com. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it. Weird. But not so weird that you travel into the middle of the woods and there's a clearing with balloons after you just watched the movie.
That's really scary. Not so weird that you put a curse on somebody, and then they break their ankle.
Be careful, because things come back times three, but your Halloween costume is really good.
Not so weird that you take a ride from a murderer, and I'm so happy that you didn't.
And not so weird that you cycle home with a drunk murderer that tells you that somebody, that they killed their wife, because I hate that for you. yeah that's not good i think i covered them all did you i don't know Oh, and that's so weird that your fucking religion teacher is like a mean asshole and gives you a D for a great paper, it sounds like.
And then gets arrested. And then gets arrested.
But you know what? You got yours because you're a famous writer now.
That's right. Get it. Get it. Get it. Bye.
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