543 - Live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (Portland Early Show)

this is exactly right everyone loves the idea of spending an afternoon curled up with a good book well grow up because it's almost impossible luckily you can take your next great story with you on audible audible has a massive selection of titles to choose from including this american life new books by michael connelly along with classics from agatha christie and so much more whether you want a mystery a true crime story or something completely different there's always something new to listen to new members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.com slash mfm audible stories that speak to you goodbye we know so much more about our skin than we used to and we know how important it is to take care of it with cera v cera v facial cleansers don't strip the skin they strengthen the skin barrier from day one i've always used cera v they have little samples at my dermatologist as i'm leaving and they don't do that with just anything cera v is the number one dermatologist recommended cleanser brand and offers a range of facial cleansers for all skin types find yours goodbye get into the hyundai getaway sales event and get away with a deal so right it almost feels wrong right now you can get great deals on hyundai's most popular models including the adventure ready suvs like the hyundai santa fe or santa fe hybrid and the tucson or tucson hybrid plus there's the bold and stylish elantra loaded with the latest tech or go all electric with the ionic 5 or the ionic 9 so get down to your local hyundai dealer and get away with a deal you'll love during the hyundai getaway sales event visit hyundaiusa.com for details what's up oh my god of course of course you did of course you won the noise contest you blew back my things they were so loud blowing behind the scenes you purely from noise yes so good to see you again portland it's been a while how are you yeah we knew we had to add you guys on this little trip that we're taking of touring because you're so always so supportive of us and we appreciate that so much day one yeah you know that because they're the cool kids too they're the ones who know yeah they're the ones who drink the drink special and get all fucked up and then like fight in that aisle and shit like they're the ones riding their bikes naked down the street in protest you gotta rise up naked and get on that bike was anyone that's here today at the naked bike ride today are you still naked oh my god it'd be so amazing if four people were just sitting there kind of weirdly naked in a grand theater like this oh my god um i just took a uh-oh what's it gonna be there's like a pill wheel of fortune where you find out on stage what you took two of my best friends in the world kate amatics and carrie sullenbetter are here and they were backstage we were being very loud i'm sure everyone noticed and kate whips out a thing of nicotine pouches oh my god and she was like put one on you'll be up all night because we have to do two shows tonight it's like a lot and i've already had like a red bull i'm so sorry to say this but that's such a like 40 year old way of partying where it's like keep that i'm high on nicotine patches it's like either a 12 year old way or a 40 year old way i mean it works either way i think but yeah it's so funny or it's like no no we're not doing lines of coke before the show that's crazy doing nicorette so if i'm obnoxious it's her fault it's not true it's my mom's fault really but i mean ultimately it's always the mother's fault yeah ultimately janet should i tell them about janet and uh boston absolutely oh my god so we went to boston and i flew my mom in for live shows my mom and stepdad it was really exciting and it's being filmed for something and like really exciting that we can't talk about so i meet her in the lobby we'd all just flown in and her fucking front tooth is missing it's like the nub her cap fell off and the way just as a like outside non-family member person janet janet is a pulled together fancy lady with a blowout that goes on for days like this is not this is not a whoops i don't have a front tooth type of person we know those people those people that's fine that's a whole almost better way to party yes it's totally fine but i got my vanity from my mom and she's got a lot to give so i was like i know you're not going to want to be on this very important special filming thing without your front fucking tooth so you're not sightseeing tomorrow sorry mom you gotta find a dentist she did do it now and then i said can i like can i talk about it on stage and like make fun of you and she was like yeah you can embellish i don't care she was so cool about it and i was like if we'd only found out in time we could have gotten some tooth black and then both turned around and been like us too see we didn't have time for the comedy no we've got to make time for the comedy speaking of making time this is my favorite murder of the black house thank you that's karen kilgara that's georgia hard start show them your outfit your beautiful outfit listen listen before i do this i'm going to tell you one thing this is a tour each city two nights it's a lot of dresses it's a lot of dresses no you didn't have that many to begin with had to do a lot of speed shopping and kind of like care about a thing this dress does not have pockets and i swear to god if you make a noise at me no you don't get to boo me i taught you how important pockets fucking are yeah pretend do you know that one time after and i can't remember what city this was in a woman at a meet and greet gave me and and you i think there were two sets but they were very vintage tie-on pockets so that if your dress didn't have pockets you can like one of those old-fashioned period band things you could tie pockets under your dress and have them waiting there for you if need be that's how bad it was for women we were just like can we please have rights no but you can have tie-on pockets yes thanks patriarchy they cost 25 and the men's tie-on pockets cost 7.99 look we're not going to get it all done in one night but we can address a lot of it we can would you like to do your modeling look at this thank you look at these weird what are these tails they're called flaps yeah they're called flaps are they fat in fashion i lost my mind over this dress when i saw it it's definitely vintage i was um tailoring it backstage because it was ripping with a stapler so she was tailoring it that's what i do i heard her down the hall go um do you have a stapler and i was like what in the world it can't be paper there's no way it's paper it's not what is she doing over there i literally stapled my like crinoline up so it wasn't like hanging down and then i forgot my jewelry in the town where my best friend carrie like sells jewelry and i forgot to bring the jewelry that she gave me the beautiful stuff so she she called her sweet husband alan and was like don't leave go to my jewelry box facetime me and like i was like carrie you don't have to do this but she's like yes i do and she's like because you know what this podcast is all about the gems that's right gems gemstones fancy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah here's the thing i walked around today just trying to find a cup of coffee just trying to find a craft beer the fuck is wrong with this nowhere to be found can't find can't find a hot dog can't find an antique to save your fucking life it's literally coffee coffee coffee craft beer yeah coffee a different kind of craft beer it's a different kind of craft beer it's a different kind of craft beer hop it's a different type of bicycle that this one's named after okay should we sit down oh yeah let's do it oh thank you i thought the short table was a one-off i thought yeah this is the exact same table you always have except oops it's short but i mean it's a table in this economy we can't complain about a fucking low table no not in the least but i do love that you said but oops it's short like oops all berries captain crunch or just like but oops um do you want to tell the people who don't know why we were applauded for sitting down what's going on now although i cannot imagine that they're yeah thank you i hate it so much but i appreciate you applauding my allergies there's no one in this room that doesn't get what's happening i just can't imagine but yeah just in case there is just in case somebody tortured their partner or their parent or we've met a couple people where it's like oh that's my mom she has no idea what's going on it's like not the mom hasn't she suffered enough she already hates you so much this is uh my favorite murder it's a comedy true crime podcast and that's because when georgia and i first met each other we realized that we were two people who had similar trauma and we dealt with it with the same coping mechanisms which was uh in adjusting true crime and humor so humor so that's why we started this podcast that's why it started the way it did it's developed over 10 years which i'm let us just thank you thank you but also let us just tell you right now that's like triple too long for a podcast it's so long for a podcast for a homework podcast homework podcast i just i always think about what if we were talking in the cafe before we started and we were planning it and i said and every week one of us will tell each other a story instead of both of us oh oh sorry i didn't listen to the whole thing wait do it again one of us will tell a story oh that's a great idea yeah every other not both of us will tell like it just could have been so simple but we didn't even like i literally thought in the beginning that i was gonna be able to tell these fucking stories off the top of my head what i don't remember what day it is today how would that be possible anyhow this isn't in the speech sorry that was just like personal uh realization so anyhow um uh we don't think murder is funny we think we're funny and so we enjoy talking to each other about the thing that actually is very upsetting and difficult and bad because that's what life is like horrible things happen and you process them the way that works for you ultimately what i'm saying is if you don't like it you can get the fuck out unless of course you work here and then we're deeply deeply sorry deeply sorry our apologies to you yeah they can't get out don't even know what a podcast is and now it's so podcasts are women swearing at each other okay i guess i am glad last whatever show we just did i don't know where the fuck we were where were we i don't know um san diego san diego san diego the fog machine broke and not in a it turned off way in a it turned all the way on way and suddenly we were like in a fucking cemetery at night it was kind of awesome it would have been amazing if when the fog machine broke someone ran out two lanterns and we could have just been like oh my god we're gonna be like oh my god we're gonna be like oh my god we're gonna be like ahoy or something it could be steven steven's a lantern boy steven r.i.p no he said no they know he's alive he's right there on social media he is yeah um i'm first i think so okay excited about this one and maybe three other people will be too because it's a story that was an enduring mystery it was a cold case for over six decades it's haunted reporters investigators and oregonians that entire time until recently oh uh-huh dude the perseverance and ingenuity of a civilian we love civilians yes that's right yep that's right it seems like this is no longer a cold case so you're gonna get your wish okay this is the story of the martin family disappearance oh wow yeah this one i mean late night scrolling for me for sure the main source of the story is reporting from the oregonian so thank you they know their stuff they do i'll never forget faces of meth i'll never forget it as long as i live no joke is that god i wish i could throw to a clip right now it's me i'll just explain little baby georgia little baby georgia yeah wait did it you know what it is well i know faces of meth what it is but what does that have to do with the oregonian tell me well are you thinking of faces of death no oh where it's the picture cyber side the oregonian did that that was your that was that was that that was your work how did you know i didn't know that it was great work it's horrifying work don't do math no oh that for drag alongs that's another big theme of this show a no joke don't do math yeah do not do everything else anything you want nicotine pouches all the things oh my god cover your body in nicotine pouches though i'm talking about the one that goes in your gum not a patch oh i'm talking about i had a fucking pouch in my gum like a baseball player hold on hold the phone that is not a nicotine pouch or patch what is it cha chew but it was in a little pouch mouth cancer i can you really quickly tell me what you're talking about there's these little pouches that look like little pouches of cocaine i mean let's be honest okay and you take it and you put it under your lip right here and you just kind of hold it in your in your like here you your gums for like 20 minutes spitting out the gross stuff i'm serious it's like cha it is like but it's in a pouch so it's like orderly it's like ocd people holy shit yeah that's incredible i mean yes absolutely will you bring one backstage that would be so funny what's karen like on nicotine pouch stop it we're here stop it stop it this we're trying to start the show i could just can i say this yeah go ahead always some of my best memories of live shows took place in portland oregon now i'm trying to pressure you guys you've already done a great job but i'm just saying we've done so many fucking unbelievable live shows here and the one that was at the schoolhouse that's right i mean don't jesus christ so if you guys don't want to laugh you don't have to but it's going to be a shitty show in that case and it's all your fault and if you don't want to get so drunk that you and your sister come on stage that's your choice we're just saying we have standards and we're back and we're pouched and ready to perform it's december 7th 1958 and the martin family piles into the family car it's uh the family is ken and barbara yes ken and barbie so cute and their three daughters barbara who does go by barbie and sue um barbie is 14 virginia is 13 and sue is 11. the martins also have a son in the navy stationed in new york at the time away from the family um let's look at a picture of the family shall we i know those i'm older than those parents yes you are insane yes you are well what's funny is like that's real time yeah we're the future yeah we're the future we're it's like hey what's up i'm 55 yeah they're just like what the fuck sorry i've had a lot of work done this is not natural in any way these teeth are gigantic but the point is they didn't have that kind of science they didn't no so sad yeah like i'm older than him i promise he's 38 yeah probably for sure but also that that black dress with polka dots is what i'm looking for at every vintage store that i work in gorgeous okay so the martins are really really into christmas every year ken makes four foot wooden candy canes to give out to the neighbors so they can all put it on their houses and decorate which is so nice you can't just like order stuff online back then no no it's like to make it the martins and their neighbors go all out decorating and their street is nicknamed candy lane because of all of ken's candy canes and everyone going all out it's like sweet yeah ken dresses up every year and it's a beloved holiday tradition in the neighborhood he he says hell no to store bought um santa costumes he's like so into it that he convinces a friend or sorry his sister to sew him this like perfect exquisite santa costume like they take it seriously i just like the idea that there were santa costumes back then and it was like the quality was a question where it's like sir just you wait just you wait until 2025 yeah and they were so flammable - Probably too, like you stand near a candle. okay so this holiday spirit has inspired the family to leave the house on december 7th the martins are driving east into the countryside from their home in northeast portland it's beautiful this time of year to collect evergreen boughs to make wreaths and garlands to decorate their house so the martins leave the home around noon just around the neighborhood like they're just going to cut other people's trees no no no no there's a couple pine trees christmas vacation when they drive out to cut their tree down like it's like that oh but they're going out into wilderness to like get nice things to make it with so they're not like you know stealing right okay there's no craftsmen's that a young couple is just remodeled that are sitting there right it's no um so they leave their home around noon they stop to eat at a place called paradise snack bar it's not there anymore unfortunately uh it's about 60 miles from portland and this is sometime between 2 and 4 p.m and they also stopped to get gas at cascade locks you guys love okay so what i just love and name any area and people are like i know it heard of it why didn't someone yell maybe oh it was you said the name stephanie and someone lost their mind just like just like shut the fuck up stephanie here's a picture of their car whoa well not their car but like the car that they were kind of you know what i mean you have to put not actual not actual photo yeah i fucked that up that's on me no no it's cool though it's like a what type of car is it do you know it says right there but i can't read it i think it says cordo espresso so you get cert spirit this is fucking ai it doesn't say anything so as many as you probably know cascade locks is named after a series of locks in the columbia river which were constructed to change the water level of the river in sections to help steamships navigate through the area yes yeah love a lock love a lock vince and i went to look at a lock in michigan and it wasn't running that day so that was fun it's kinda dry it must have been um here's a picture of a lock the locks this is the lock this is the cascade locks the real one for real yeah back then the real one not ai great so finally um so the two sightings at the gas station the snack bar are the last time anyone reports seeing the family on monday december 9th ken fails to show up at work and the girls are marked absent at school and this is when people realize that something is wrong ken is officially declared missing by his boss that evening and police searched the martin family home there's nothing abnormal nothing out of place there's laundry in the washing machine dishes on you know they didn't take off normal life yeah investigators start looking at everything that was going on in the area around hood river and cascade locks around the time the martin family was there and on the day the martins disappeared a stolen white chevrolet is found in cascade locks near the river so it's a stolen car in the bushes near that stolen car a handgun is also found the handle of the gun has a lot of dried blood on it and it looks like it was used to bludgeon someone it sounds like the blood wasn't saved and later tested but didn't happen and in fact the man who found the gun in the bushes eventually just gets to keep it he's like finders keepers you should wash this so it's a dumb question but so it wasn't a policeman that found that gun it was just a person that happened upon it a gun yeah well that's yours then too bad he didn't get the chevrolet too i mean he found that i mean for real jesus um so this next detail is so fucking weird and it would drive you crazy if this was still technically a cold case but the serial number on the handgun matches with the gun that had been stolen from a department store in portland years earlier and the martin's eldest son who's away in the navy had actually been an employee of that store and had been accused of stealing that fucking gun that gun and you're telling us that's a coincidence it's a fucking coincidence no way it's a fucking coincidence it's unclear if he was actually ever charged for theft but according to the records from the store he admitted to the theft including which included other items and was fired um but he was across the country at the time it has like nothing unless i don't know um but it's the same freaking handgun like serial number and everything and it's extremely weird and people fixate on it of course when they're talking about this case and um it looks like we're not sure what happened to the gun after he stole it but it looks like he sold it to someone else so it's just a fucking coincidence that's so wild and it reminds me of the um cufflinks thing in in the golden state killer case where like people and especially citizens sleuths were like obsessed with these cufflinks and tracing them and the whole thing where it was like and it just feels so great to think you're about to figure it out yeah and you're not and that's what this podcast is about and that's what it's all about so on december 8th the day after the martin's were last seen two ex-convicts are arrested in cascade locks in connection with that stolen vehicle and witnesses who saw the martins at the paradise snack bar in hood river say that those two men were there at the same time as the family the witnesses say that the men also left the snack bar at the same time as the martin family but no evidence is ever found linking these two men to the martin family at the end of december a woman's glove is found in the area where that stolen white chevy had been and friends say the glove looks like something barbara would wear but like what if it's like she would never wear like it's a white glove but i don't think it's that like it's the 50s and it's a white glove exactly it's like barbara every other woman every area and mickey mouse every we got it there's it's not uncommon to wear a white glove exactly and they hadn't searched that area before and hadn't found it so it it doesn't seem like you know a clue now that we know it's not a clue over the next several months searches are conducted in various locations mostly along the columbia river in february of 1959 the Dow-less. Dowls. Dowls. Dowls. They got a couple gotcha titles in this town. I would have said Dow-less if Ali hadn't written Rhymes with Pals. Which just trips me up so much more when I'm like. It's like saying in red, like, you're about to fuck this up and they're going to boo at you. Yes. Yeah. It's a little warning, a red light of get ready, you're going to blow it. Yeah. Instead of just reading what it says. Right, right, exactly. So, anyways, there, a man finds. Right there. Right in red, a man finds tire tracks leading off a cliff into the water, and the cliff is maybe about 30 feet high, and we have a photo of the tracks that they found. Kind of. That's just, yeah. The area, that's the area. It's Columbia River Pool near the Dalles. Right, Dalles, like Pals. Yeah. Never forget it. Until this evening. Later. Until I have to say it again. Investigators don't find any return tracks, and so they're certain that the car went into the water and it either drove in or was pushed in, and they also find the track tires match the Martin family car tires, and the paint sample on a rock along the tracks matches the paint that would have been on the car. So, this spot's about 20 miles, 20 miles farther than Hood River, and 40 miles further east than Cascade Locks, but, you know, they, for some reason, still put them together, you know? And then months later, a barge will drop an anchor in the spot and hook onto something heavy, and when they try to pull up the object, a deckhand pokes down in the water, and he's sure what he strikes is metal, but they can't lift it with the anchor, and it sinks back down, but the people on the boat are sure that it was a car. So, May of 1959, we get our last solid development in this case for 60 years, and it's a tragic one. The bodies of Susan and Virginia Martin are found floating down the river. Susan had been 13, and Virginia was 11, and they were found in the water. A fisherman and his wife see the bodies, and they're identified through dental records. So, over the next 60 years, there's basically a debate between two people, two theories. Either the Martin family tragically, accidentally drove into the river as conditions got darker in the evening and the area, or they were somehow pushed into the river off the cliff, and the stolen car and those convicts and the gun have something to do with it. Those are the two camps. And this question haunts investigators, journalists, and civilians for decades. Dumb Martin gets married. The son has three kids and passes away, in 2004, never knowing what happened to his family. Okay. Now, cut to 2018. There's a diver from here named Archer Mayo. Is he here? Is he here tonight? this guy is fascinating i'm like talk about i don't want to work a desk job so i'm just gonna fucking do what i love like this is the guy he's like an artist and a sculptor but he's also really into diving into or like rivers to find lost items that's his hobby i would do that hell yeah fun i know so he gets super interested in the case and he starts working on tracking down the martin family car and he becomes obsessed with this case and his obsession eventually leads him to the oregon historical society and this is where i would stop and be like i guess i can't find it you know i see a lot of books in that building i'm gonna go this way right right to the bicycle brewery exactly that's right do they have a blonde they have a great blonde um he becomes obsessed with it goes to oregon historical society starts pouring over images and plans from the construction of the cascade locks back in the late 1800s he goes all the way back to the construction he discovers that there's an area in the locks called the pit and it's a 20-foot deep depression i have one of those too thanks nice one off the top of this fucking head yeah off the dome you know what it is nicotine it's maybe we're gonna be so pouched up for the second show it's gonna be fucking insane firing on all cylinders tonight baby okay he there's a deep depression that runs for 90 feet at the bottom of the columbia river he feels in his gut archer feels in his gut that despite all the theories around foul play that the martin family died in a tragic accident from accidentally driving into the river near this spot and that this is where the car will be found i know i'm obsessed with these cases i feel like half of missing person cases is going to be found in this spot i feel like half of missing person cases is going to be found in this spot i feel like half of missing person cases is going to be something similar happened yeah you know and i love that there's like just independent divers because the cities can't afford that looking for them now can't afford it right they're busy with their money right now they're busy with their yes um so he then he goes on to construct a diorama of the locks and measures the effect of water displacement using rice like he's in it he loves science talk about homework hey yeah relax somehow he comes up with a theory that the car wound up in a very specific spot in the pit and he says he's never bought the theory that that was the car was in the other area where the tire tracks were um and furthermore the spot he's found is just a little bit down river from a parking lot and in the 1950s there was no guardrails or barricades blocking off the drop into the river because they were like go ahead at your own risk it's it's not our problem we don't care so this guy actually went and did research like the deepest of research to be like here's my theory and here's how i think and then went and like actually looked up where blueprints of old parking lots or whatever yeah damn crazy right yeah but wait there's more oh um okay so armed with this new information i'm going to show you how to do it and i'm going to show you how to about the pit starting in march of 2024 so it's past march he starts searching the area no that's not right it's 2025 isn't it listen look sometimes sometimes the uh bingo sometimes the nicotine it recoils on you you know what i mean it's like you can go too far you can over pouch i'm gonna what if i become an advocate for too much nicotine pouches like 15 minutes is all you need but you do forget how time works yeah so party how you want i mean that'd be great i would love to forget this time period right now honestly right it's a real fucking mess that's what we're doing right here right now we're just like what a crazy show in a building where there's no outside beautiful okay um march of 2024 is like a year ago he starts searching the area he dives three times a day for 20 days like this guy lots of nicotine probably he uses machinery to suck debris from the pit and in on one of his dives he pulls up a hubcap when he goes home and looks it up he finds that it's a match for the type of hubcap that would have been on the martin family car archer keeps diving to the spot ultimately locating a car and takes measurements proving that it is the correct make and model nobody knows what kind oh no wait sorry here it is an early 1950s ford county squire a county squire that's what it fucking said i never i don't i don't i've never heard of that before so armed with all this evidence archer is able to get the hood river county sheriff's department to hire contractors to pull the car out of the water okay here's the thing this sucks but the car is upside down and they wind up just detaching the undercarriage and pulling that up i have there's a picture of it oh no is that a chassis is that what they call that is it what is happening with you this is the drug the math thing is all mapping what's that a chassis what's that about a v8 i don't know so v12 what's happening they just fucking break it in half it'll it happens you know still i mean still they're doing something yes something's happening yes that's great it's good um so he keeps diving because he's just determined to find irrefutable proof that this is the martin family car and so just this past august i swear to god it was 2025 i'm not fucking with pass the paper around yeah archer dives one last time to the site where he had found the car and on this final dive he hopes to conclusively link the car to the martins so he brings up various artifacts and i'm like we can't show you the pictures because they don't let us it's really annoying um he brings up what they say we won't tell okay he brings up various artifacts that link the martins like the remnants of shoes barbara martin was wearing that day it's just the soul the canvas has disintegrated but it's the shoe that she was wearing and also a camera and the camera case that has ken martin's name and their address on it oh shit so yeah fucking game's over so that was on that day or like later but same team no that was his last dive that was his like i'm like that happened and he was like okay i'm gonna go in one more fucking time and he's also able to bring up human remains he should have left i know yeah yeah disturbing maybe crime scene but i mean you know we're not judging we're judging um he hands the the remains over to a hood river sheriff's deputy and they are now with the oregon state forensics investigators and there's hope they'll be able to find clues as to why and how they ended up in the at the bottom of the cascade locks for archer and many oregonians it's clear that the family drove into the water in a tragic accident the martin family is still very much in portlander's heart the story has stayed um in the news pretty much consistently over the past almost 70 years 60 it'll be 67 years this year in december there's been books written and documentaries made about the mystery the daughter of one of the oregonian reporters who had tirelessly covered the case has one of ken's candy cane decorations and keeps it out on her porch in memory uh-huh archer says he plans to hold a memorial service this december at the spot where the car was found in Cascade Locks. And that is the story of the Martin family disappearance. Wow. Wow. Thank you. I mean, thank God. I know. It's just so tragic. And it's tragic, but then it's such a beautiful thing that, like, one person, so many people, but, like, this one guy that cares so much that he's just like, look, I'm going to fucking take care of this. Like, I'm doing it. Like, one person can make such a huge difference. Yeah, that's lovely. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. I'm sweating. Am I having a hot flash? Take a break. Take the pouch out and just relax for a second. Just relax. We know so much more about our skin than we used to. Ten years ago, no one in America knew what a skin barrier was. It's time to take care of your skin with CeraVe. CeraVe facial cleansers don't strip the skin. They strengthen the skin barrier from day one. Formulated with three essential ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide to provide long-lasting hydration and 12-hour oil control. 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From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your skills with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone can build a beautiful, professional online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Get paid on time with professional invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Head to squarespace.com slash murder for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code murder to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Goodbye! Bye! Let's see. This story starts in 1997. A string of armed robberies have rocked northeast Portland over the last year. Nearly 20 businesses in this part of the city, including mom-and-pop stores, have been hit, and their employees terrorized by thieves robbing them at gunpoint. Thankfully, no one's been physically hurt in any of these heists, but the police have no idea who's responsible. Then, in November of 1997, they finally get a break when the rest of the city is in a state of shock. An Italian cafe on northeast Broadway and northeast 17th Avenue is hit. It's now the Broadway Grill and Brewery. Of course it is! Had to shove a brewery in there. So during this incident, shots are fired, and for the first time, someone is wounded, but it's not an employee or a patron of the cafe. It's one of the thieves. He still gets away, but this time, he'll leave behind DNA evidence that will finally give police the big break they need in this year-long crime spree. And when those tests come back, they'll identify two very unlikely culprits, because the thieves terrorizing the area are not hard-indexed cons or members of a crime syndicate. They're two of the most popular boys at Grant High School. Oh, my God! And Grant's principal at the time will tell Time magazine that, quote, they were feisty, defiant, I don't want to say it, but okay, borderline assholes. Finally, someone says what we're all thinking. Someone says it in Time magazine. And then the final line of that quote is, together, they were bad for each other. This is the story of star students turned armed robbers, Tom Curtis and Ethan Thrower. Wow. I don't know this one at all. I was so panicked to get through that without everybody knowing that I picked it up, didn't even take the paper clip off. I was just like, I will shove this into your ear. Okay, the sources for this are a 1999 article entitled Most Likely to Succeed by writer John Clout for Time magazine, a 1998 article entitled The Boys Next Door by Maureen O'Hagan, which ran in the Willamette Week newspaper, and a 2020, I always want to say Willamette. Willamette, yeah. And it's, I've been stressing about Willamette all goddamn day. I would have said Willamette. I've been kind of whispering it to myself, where it's like, it's logical, Willamette, Willamette, Willamette. And a 2023 article entitled Runners High by Julian Balsey, and that ran in Grant magazine, which makes me go, does Grant High School have their own magazine? I would love that more than anything. Yes, they do. They do. It's a nice glossy, kind of like people, but with local gossip. Is there a word jumble? I love a word jumble. Who wore it better? Disarmed robber, turned senior. Okay. So when our story begins, Tom Curtis and Ethan Thrower are both in high school, good friends with similar upbringings, with loving families, middle-class homes. They're both in the same class at Grant High. And that's also the high school where Mr. Holland's opus was filmed. Have you ever? Have you ever? It's picturesque. It's beautiful, you guys. Absolutely gorgeous. It's truly gorgeous. My high school did not look like that. And yet, robbers, armed robbers coming out of it day and night. True, true. Overrun with robbers. Both Tom and Ethan are at the top of their class, and they have a long list of impressive extracurriculars. What did you do for extracurriculars in high school? Are you serious? Yes, I am. I went to raves, took ecstasy. And then I'd go straight from the rave to my 6 a.m. bakery job, still kind of high. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Soccer, I did soccer. I was a track runner and a soccer player. Soccer and track, yeah. Very athletic. What did you do? In high school, I did speech and debate. Oh. And then I realized, I don't like school, and I don't care about extracurriculars. I'm not staying here for very much longer. Yeah. Yeah. I realized everyone was on this, like, a track of, like, I have to do this, this, and this. So I can get to college. And I was like, wait, wait, wait a second. I don't want to go to college. No. I was like, I just want to dance. Yeah. And look where it got me. Look, it worked. Look. It fucking worked. Dropouts. It works. Dropout, it works. Molly, please edit this part out. It's wrong to tell the children. Okay. Okay, so both boys are track stars. Ethan sings in Grant High's elite choir, the Royal Blues. Anyone sing for the Royal Blues? Liar. That's stolen valor. If you're wooing as if you sang in the Royal Blues, I will call the FBI on you. Tom is an Eagle Scout, and he is also crowned the homecoming king. Wow. Which has never happened in history. What? Just kidding. Which part? Sorry, that was an Eagle Scouts or nerds joke. And I guess you're all nerds. So, Eagle Scout, homecoming king, while Ethan is on the homecoming court, so he was nominated, but he didn't win. Bummer. They've been described as the most popular kids at Grant High, and both win senior superlatives, Tom's is funniest, and Ethan gets best dressed. Which one would you want? I mean, like, which superlative would you rather have? I won funniest, girl. Hey! Hey! But I was working. Day and night for that superlative. I mean, I never shut my goddamn mouth. I couldn't. I literally couldn't. The teachers hated you, girl. They were just like, please, we beg you. But nuns begged me. I didn't. I was like, I'll be quiet when I feel like it, Sister Muriel. But Tom and Ethan also have their differences. Ethan's more laid back. He's like a chill guy personality, whereas Tom is the class clown. Bit of a shitster. In old reports, people often describe him as the class clown. They describe him as having issues with knowing where to draw the line. Hmm. Which seems very generous. So, Tom, when I was reading this, and it isn't true, but I was like, this guy sounds short. Oh, my God. Sorry. I don't think you can say that. You know those short guys where you're like, what are you fucking doing? Hold on. Let me tell you the rest, and then you can argue with me. I'm saying this as a. As a girl who spent all of high school fat. And so, like, plenty of people said that to me. Let's all name it as we see it. What am I talking about? I'm 55. Okay. For example, Tom runs for student body president, and he gives a speech that is juvenile and mean-spirited. Now, it is 1997, and that's all anything was ever. Yeah. Very much the pre-internet, where everyone. Everyone became best friends, but, like, literally eight years before, it was, like, as toxic as it could be. Yeah. So, he basically gives a campaign speech where he just makes fun of what every faculty member looks like at the school. Bro. Super mean, right? And the teachers are humiliated. I mean, he, like, takes them down, but of course. To be a teacher, and you're like, I'm just trying to help, and then this fucking kid comes along. Yeah. It's a little shit. You and your teeth, or whatever, where you're like, I didn't realize. All right. But of course, his classmates eat it up and he wins the election. And this is the definition of life in the 90s. Around the same time, August of 1997, Tom and Ethan and some of their friends are at a 7-Eleven when they see the line gets really long. They don't want to wait in the line, so they just walk out with the shit in their hands. The cashier goes out and confronts them and she's like, hey, what are you doing? And things escalate, the way it's written is, things escalate, Tom ends up punching her in the face. And after acting belligerently to the responding officer, resisting arrest, and getting bitten by a police dog while trying to run away, holy shit. Short, right? Tom is arrested and multiple charges are filed against him. So we don't have any details about how this case progressed through the courts because, of course, it's juvenile court and so it's all sealed. What we do know is that Tom eventually does apologize to the clerk. My guess is that he was compelled to by the judge, essentially, to be like, we can get these charges dropped. All that is to say, Tom is the more confrontational of the two buddies. And as that vice principal said, Tom and Ethan bring out the absolute worst in each other. So little does that vice principal or anyone else know, that the year before these boys win their yearbook superlatives, before the incident at 7-Eleven, Tom and Ethan have been knee-deep in very serious escalating criminal activity. And that begins in November of 1996 when they are both juniors. The two of them start stealing cars and taking them for joy rides around Portland and they never get caught. So they just keep doing it and they just keep loving it and they're just like, this is it. Yeah. This is the way for us. So, of course, they're emboldened by that. And a few months into stealing cars, they decide they're going to take it up a notch and see if they can pull off a robbery. Fuck. So, right? So they target a Howard Johnson's that's close to their high school. Smart. And using a handgun that Ethan took from his dad. So basically. A real gun. A real handgun. They put on ski masks and they run into the Howard Johnson's. And they rob the manager and then they run away. Holy shit. Fifteen days later, the two of them hit a Baskin-Robbins. A few weeks after that, they hit the Burger King where Ethan works. They're not going for like high. Where he works? He works there and they're like, you know what we're going to do? Come back later. You'll take that shirt off and the hat for sure. And ski mask for sure. But you smell like Burger King french fries. We can tell it's you. Most robbers don't smell like oil. So they rob that and then they go back to the same Baskin-Robbins and hold that same cashier up for a second time. Come on, leave her alone. Yes, for real. And it is a woman. It is. Of course. So now it's a spree and they continue on. They rob a small natural food store. We're not sure which one. A new agey shop. Could be fucking anywhere. A Barnes & Noble. Closed now. Not really. What did she say? She goes, no. Oh my God, spoiler. We have bad news about the Barnes & Noble franchise, my friends. I won't even get into Bed, Bath & Beyond. My God. It's totally not. It's totally not. It's totally not even on this page. Okay. There it is. An ice cream parlor. So a non-Baskin-Robbins, I guess. A Wendy's and a Taco Bell. They even pull in fellow students on some of these robberies. So a couple of them, they're not alone. That's how, like, they get so emboldened by not being caught that they're like, guys, come hang with us and rob people. So according to the Willamette Week newspaper, they net between 50 to 60, sorry, 60 to 50,000 dollars. 60 to 500 dollars in each robbery. Do you want to guess? Oh, in today's money, 1997, 60 to what? 500? Between 60 and 500. Okay, it's going to be between 1,200 and 1,450. Not even close. It's so disappointing. It's just difficult. It's just random numbers guessing. That's what we call this part of the show. You say numbers to me and I'll say numbers to you. And I'll tell you you're wrong about the numbers you said to me. Every time. It always hurts and yet it's meaningless. But also, like, fast food was like 59 cents back then. It was so cheap. I don't, why would you, you know what I mean? If you get me started about the price of the groceries and how nobody can fucking survive these days and what the fuck is actually going on. How do people buy gross, how do people buy anything? No. It was, thank you, it was between, someone yelled numbers. It was between 120 and 1,000 dollars in today's money. That's stupid. Such huge risk. Yeah. For, you could barely buy any nicotine pouches for that. Okay, so all the while these boys are telling themselves what they're doing isn't that bad because they're not hurting anybody. And they get to feel like badass gangsters. The police noticed the uptick in robberies directly around Grant High School pretty early on. But the robbery unit, which would have been the unit that tracked all of these robberies, and kind of went, hey, I see a pattern here, it had recently been cut. So, they're all investigated kind of in a vacuum as individual robberies and no one looks at the big picture. And if someone on the force had been looking at them collectively, they would have noticed the similarities in M.O., not just the area, but the M.O., the witness descriptions of the thieves themselves, and the fact that all the victims report the perps are both young men, one is white, one is black, and they're all black. And they're always wearing ski masks, so, pretty consistent. - Yeah. - Um, but for months, police-- - I just said one short. - You usually don't allow audience participation, but that was good. - But goddammit, I know. With Portland, I allow it because they don't fuck around. They're not just gonna be like-- - No, it's not like a woof or something. - My sister says hi, or whatever. They don't do that. - It's not a Stephanie woohoo, it's like a fucking actual-- - No, hard jokes. That's how you do it, thank you. So, for months, the police have no idea who is behind these robberies, until Tom and Ethan decide they're going to case a local blockbuster for a future cross. - This is so vintage. - Right? - This is also, I'm the exact same age and, like, school whatever as them, and so I'm just, like, there. - Yes, you're feeling it. - In my mind. - They've got their hyper-color shirts on. - JNCOs, JNCOs. - JNCO jeans. Some puka necklaces here and there, even though it's the Pacific Northwest. You're not in Hawaii, take that off. Or were you just? - Right. - Okay, so someone sees them casing the blockbuster, calls the police. When the police arrive, Tom and Ethan just outrun them, 'cause they're track stars. - Oh my God, have you ever run away from a cop before? Or a security guard? - No. - Oh. Me neither. - Tell it, tell it. - Nope, my juvenile record is sealed. And it's going to stay that way. - I'm gonna have to have it reopened. I'm gonna say it's for the podcast, it's really important. Did you run from police? - Yes, I've run from, oh yes. - No one's here. - Yes. - No one's here. What, what were your? - I don't, I, I-- - What were your pockets filled with? - Cigarettes and meth, yeah, no, it's fine. - Wait a second, can I just say, we went to an amazing, like, vintage antique store place, and the owner wasn't, she wasn't there. It was her partner that worked there and told me, I bought five, you know, Lucy cigarettes, they, when they sell 'em loose. She knitted Lucy cigarettes, and some of them are full, and they have a pipe cleaner in them, so if you hold up, you're holding a knit cigarette that looks like a real cigarette. And I looked, and I was like, what? Like, my eyes, I was like, there's no way that this is what I'm seeing. And then I picked it up like this, and I was like, is this a knit Lucy cigarette? And he's like, yes, they are, and some of them are knit to look like they're halfway burnt down, so they have ash at the end. - That's a lot of effort to fuckin' smoke a little dube. You know? - It's just a, like, it's just a prop. - Yeah. - There's no reason to do it, except for to have a half-burnt-out cigarette, and hold it, and be like, what? - And it just smells like weed, and it's just like, yeah. - Yes. - It's amazing. - I'm so excited about my knit cigarettes. - You bought one? - I bought all five. Yeah, that's art. That's fucking art. - Yeah, yeah. - Actually, Marcus, will you ask Craig if he would grab some of those Lucys? Maybe, ooh, maybe if the hometown is good enough, someone will get a Lucy. Okay, listen, I have a story to tell. So, okay, so now it's 1997, late 1997. halfway through their senior year at Grant High, Tom's won a track scholarship to a college in New York State, and Ethan's been accepted to a school in West Virginia. So their futures are laid out and ahead of them. And it's been a year since their foray into armed robbery. They've robbed 18 businesses so far, all while leading double lives as star students. Now they're starting to feel like, I don't know, maybe this might catch up with us, and it could affect our future. And ruin prom. So Tom and Ethan decide they're going to do one last big crime together. Come on. They've got to do it. Got to do it. It's like no one reads or watches TV. They're like, we're the ones that are going to do the one last big crime, and it'll be fine. This time. Yep. So they start by stealing a Chevy Suburban and driving it to a local Italian restaurant called Rustica. When they get there, the boys put on their ski masks. The boys put on their ski masks. And they take the gun, and they storm in, and shocking diners and staff. It's just a lovely little Italian restaurant in a neighborhood. And it's like full of people? Yeah. Bananas. Okay. Yeah. They demand money from the register. They threaten the staff. They run out with about $500. Want to do a fast one? $1,200. Close to $1,000. Okay. Yeah. So. So they, Tom and Ethan, then climb into the stolen Chevy Suburban, and they speed away, looking for somewhere to ditch it and, like, switch cars and be badasses, thinking that they've just gotten away with their last big robbery. But while Tom is driving, Ethan decides, and this breaks my heart, because this is absolutely something I would do. Ethan decides that he is going to take his father's gun and put it in the waistband. Of his pants. Oh. Like a badass gangster, right? That's something you would do? What are you talking about? You don't know me. I contain multitudes. No, I mean, I just mean in the way of, don't think that I'm trying to look cool thing all the way through to what's the bad thing that could happen. Like, for example, Ethan shooting himself in the balls. No! Yes. No. It's horrible. It's like a bad thing. It's a bad joke. It's worst case scenario for a lot of people. Oh, my God. They just think they're like kind of, you know, amped up, right, of like getting away. Yeah. And suddenly it's turned into, I mean, first of all, just the, it's the idea of a gun going off inside a car. Yeah. I don't care, that alone. Yeah. And then secondly, it's your friend like staring at each other. Because you know there's the seven seconds of I can't feel anything, maybe nothing happened. I guess. I don't know. I've never been. I didn't tell you about when I got shot in the balls. Senior year was crazy. We can only assume it was insane. What we know is that it didn't involve a lot of linear thinking, what happened next. All we know is Tom immediately pulls the car over at Northeast 27th Avenue and Halsey Street, right? It's just basically, it's literally blocks away from the restaurant they just robbed. Oh, no. So he immediately pulls over. Okay. They ditch the Suburban. Tom then calls 911. It's unclear how they get there, but they end up at the hospital. But it's not via ambulance. He walks then, maybe. I mean, some nice person picked up two high school boys, one bleeding terribly. Yeah. I don't think so. That's a story. I don't know. I'll delve deeper into this and get back to every single person in this room. But thank God they end up at the hospital. That's when, you know, everybody sees what's happening. The boys are separated. The police are called, and they both start getting questioned. So Ethan says that, at first, Ethan says that he was shot by gang members. And Tom, the old, the old little get you out of it. And Tom backs him up. Tom backs him up so much that he takes the police down to the spot where he claims the gang members shot Ethan. Meanwhile, while they're doing that, Ethan cracks and immediately tells the police it wasn't gang members. It's my dad's gun. We did it. We did it. Dude. And totally, yeah. He basically is like, I lied. I can't have my parents find out, like, it's all falling apart. Too bad. Well, so they both leave out the part about robbing the restaurant, obviously. But the police can connect the dots pretty quickly because Tom's 911 call came minutes after the 911 call from Rustica. And a Chevy Suburban had been reported missing earlier the same day. And it's then found right where the teens left it, not far from Rustica, with a bloody front seat and a discarded ski mask lying near it. Whereby. Guys. You've got to go to college before you become a criminal, you know? For real. That's one of those, like, your mom isn't going to come through here and pick up all your ski masks after every robbery. But without an admission from Tom or Ethan or any other hard evidence connecting them to the Rustica robbery or the Chevy Suburban robbery, the investigators don't really have much of a case. All they can do is take a blood sample. A blood sample from the Suburban, send it off for testing against Ethan's DNA and hope a match will justify an arrest warrant. It takes several months, but in April of 1998, when Tom and Ethan are weeks away from graduation, those test results come back. The DNA in the Suburban matches Ethan's own. And police also find witnesses who remember seeing a Suburban fleeing the scene after the Rustica robbery. It all gets tied together. At this point, police also have built. built out a crime map of the 19 businesses that have been targeted around Grant High School, and they're finally connecting them to Tom and Ethan. We have that map. There it is. What's Synergy? It's almost like a clock. It's the numbers, the center of it right there. Just like, boys. What's Synergy? Is that a yoga studio? They didn't have those then. Please don't tell me you robbed Synergy. Not Synergy. Wait, do you know what Synergy is? No. Like a store or anything? You've never heard of it? Is anyone here. You know what Synergy is? Nobody knows. Oh, they're not. They're not even listening to me. Those two women, I thought you were raising your hand. They're talking and pointing at the map and talking to each other. I live there. I'm talking into a microphone. It's the loudest thing. What, is there a key or something? That's where your house is? I live right there. I live behind the door. Fine, Synergy. All right. Well, that didn't work. I showed you the map. They even find witnesses at one of the earlier crime scenes who saw a distinctive getaway vehicle, a red Volkswagen Bug. That's the kind of car Tom drives. Uh-oh. So, very suspiciously, the robberies in this part of Portland stop right around the same time that Ethan shoots himself in the balls. So. So, on April 16th, 1998, 19-year-old Ethan Thrower is arrested in connection with the Rustica armed robbery. This is what sucks. Ethan is arrested at school one day before senior prom. So, when I wrote and ruined prom at the beginning of the story, I was just writing a joke. I hadn't gotten to this part, and then when I read this part, I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. It literally ruined prom. Oh, man. I mean, and then I started picturing, like, what happens when one of the most popular boys in high school gets arrested at school, and it was like, do you get a reverse spirit tunnel out? Like, do the cheerleaders line up on either side and then cry you out, or.? I'm just. I like to work through possibilities. Since authorities are trying to secure an arrest warrant for Tom, he does, he does end up going to prom. Shut up. I swear to God. All right, good for him. Most beautiful night of your life. Right? He still deserves a beautiful night of dancing. The theme of the prom that year was the psychological damage of gun violence on the victim. That's a weird coincidence. What were the decorations? But once prom is over, Tom vanishes. Oh. That's right. The fact that a high schooler is able to slip through the Portland PD's fingers is incredibly embarrassing for them. Sure. He's like, I just want to party one more time. Can't you guys leave me alone? They're like, you know what? Yes, we will. And then he's gone. So now it's graduation day at Grant High, and two janky white plastic folding chairs sit empty on the football field. Why always the hardest folding chairs to sit in? Truly. grass that's sinking because it's always wet. oh god i look at that's all me just writing jokes we're not uh oh here it is it's worth it you know that type a valedictorian girl was so pissed she had to rewrite the top of their speech like today we're here to honor our hard work and dedication of these past four years while some people want to upstage our day by committing a bunch of felonies they cannot upstage our determination that was worth that was actually really fucking great okay thank you yeah i just put myself in the mindset of a person who did do homework yeah then in june of 1998 the story comes out that tom was not actually on the lam when he disappeared he just went on the big mexico trip his buddies planned for graduation yeah like walked right through with his passport and everything yeah okay um of course now there's even more outrage in portland because because already when this story broke the people of portland are just like what the fuck's wrong with these kids like what is happening and then it was just like here's a further update on that story and you're not gonna like it yeah it's like insane so um also his friends on this mexico trip knew he was he was supposed to get arrested in portland nobody snitched on him because yeah yeah um because broke code right so once the trip is over tom then does actually go on the lam he gets himself to mesa arizona he gets a job at a local cafe he starts renting a room there and he basically just kind of starts life over in mesa um neither his landlord nor the couple who owns the cafe he works at have any idea that he's a fugitive and a criminal the landlord will later describe him as quote the best man in the world the best tenant i ever had wow and the cafe owner will describe him as quote just wonderful wow i mean okay it all could have been so great in mesa arizona but that summer the tv show america's most wanted runs a story on tom yeah snitches america's most wanted such snitches the ultimate snitches and they never got any stitches the owners of the diner see the episode oh no i thought it was wonderful and they are snitches yeah so through uncontrollable sobs they call in and report their beautiful tenant i mean employee to the police uh tom somehow though gets wind of it or like is just smart enough to know and he leaves before the police arrive um the next time anyone hears from him he it's him calling his father from the tropicana hotel in las vegas um and uh tom tells his dad he wants to surrender and basically they talk and then he ends up turning himself in to the fbi in las vegas tom is eventually extradited back to oregon he will ultimately plead guilty to 19 of the 100 counts filed against him damn uh so nuts and then there's a very long paragraph from marin explaining why she didn't try to do the then math of how much money they made from all their robberies where i'm just like girl do not worry about it uh she thinks it's around ten thousand dollars um so here's where a woman named donna nelson who owned one of the businesses that tom curtis and ethan thrower targeted she will go on to say and tell a reporter quote they were not able to get a job because they were terrorists they held a gun to the head of our clerk and counted and asked him if he wanted to die oh my god and end quote and the kish that cashier at baskin robbins who they robbed twice is one of the many victims who afterwards reported sustained psychological trauma because of that experience including recurring nightmares so nothing can fully erase the harm that these boys did but this is one of those stories where both men go to jail and we do see some change which is pretty amazing uh definitely of course a lot of growing up horrible that they they're tried as adults and they go to jails the youngest adults that can go to jail um tom has a rough time at first which is a hilarious thing to say about going to fucking prison yeah um uh but he eventually becomes a model prisoner he's known for his big personality and his charm just like in high school does he get do they do some relatives in prison yeah and they your prison yearbook is there a prison yearbook there's in a way um he ends up actually taking advantage of a program that helps inmates um get their college degrees and then he's released in 2009 when he's 29 years old so he serves his full sentence um he would be in his 40s now he seems to prefer living a very quiet life uh one of the few public comments he ever gave over the years was um in two the year 2000 he's still in prison and he declined an interview with the oregonian but he did tell the reporter that he quote would like to dissuade kids from acting as mindlessly as himself um ethan meanwhile is released in 2006 a few years before tom now in his mid-20s he enrolls at portland state university he graduates in 2009 um he is a family man now and uh he works here in portland as a youth social worker and he has also this i love he's written a children's book called a kid's book about incarceration where he talks about his time in prison and in the book he writes quote today i reflect on the people i hurt and the choices i made i know i can't take them back but i can talk about it listen and be part of helping others i am here to tell you change and growth are possible in people i am glad i never lost sight of this and that i got a second chance and that is the story of the grant high school star students turned criminals tom curtis and ethan dweller holy shit we know so much more about our skin than we used to 10 years ago no one in america knew what a skin barrier was it's time to take care of your skin with sarah v sarah v facial cleansers don't strip the skin they strengthen the skin barrier from day one formulated with three essential ceramides hyaluronic acid and niacinamide to provide long-lasting hydration and 12-hour oil control i've been using sarah v for like over a decade i would think and now it's 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today at cheapcaribbean.com goodbye that was great good job thank you wow time for our hometown yes vince yo yo yo yo vince abril ladies and gentlemen oh yeah there he is correct me if i'm wrong i think this is the first time you've done a show in an active war zone yeah so i'm gonna try to get you guys some empty bottles of mountain dew to spit your dip in okay vince is on this side guys look can you see oh my god they're so cute can you see these oh you you you , tell them about the hometowns the rules okay it's hometown time you know all these rules here's the first rule i'm going to say to you guys holy Holy shit. Don't fucking threaten us. Oh my God, was that so satisfying? It felt pretty great, it did. And the first thing I thought of when that was like, is this, there's beautiful like porcelain something inside that thing as I kicked it. There was a cat. There was a cat. Do that. This is the part where you tell your hometown, it's gotta be local. If it can't be Portland, it should be Oregon. People get mad when it's not. Don't be so drunk you can't tell your whole story. What are the rest of them? Beginning, middle, end. Beginning, middle, end, and you know. Just don't, don't, shit, don't be shitty. And you're picking. I think you're gonna do it. I think this is your big time. I have to pick? Do it, you can do it. I hate this, I hate this. I'm so sorry everyone. Please forgive me. Oh my God. Yes, right here, yes. Yeah, come over there, Vince. Sorry. As a people pleaser, Karen. As a people pleaser, that's really fucking hard. So, it's just 'cause I have good vision. That's literally the reason. Everything gets so intense at that part. And people who are like, like this, and suddenly they're like. It's like, "Okay, lamb of God." Hi. Hi. What's your name? Guys, this is Honor. Honor. I live in Santa Barbara. Oh. She lives in Santa Barbara. Can you stand right in the middle there and pick up that microphone? Stand here, hold that. Here we go. So, the friend that I'm with is super embarrassed right now. She's like, "Ugh." So, my name's Honor. My name's Honor. And I-- Where are you from? Southern Oregon, Roseburg. Those people are not from Roseburg. Like, no. Wouldn't share. You wouldn't share. There's not a lot of sharing for Roseburg? Okay. So, I, obviously, I grew up there. And in, like, grade school, we had someone transfer to our class. And we'll call her Jennifer 'cause there were, like, 19 Jennifers in our class. And it was super concerning because she lived with her aunt. And everybody-- Oh, sorry, I'm old. So, this was, like, the, like, mid '80s. So, you know, we were watching the evening news as a family. And I'm not drunk. I'm just-- No, you're fine. You're fine. So, like, my family will tell you, she falls all the time. Anyway, so, she and her brother transferred to our school. And they live with their aunt. And we knew that her mom had passed away. And her dad was in prison. And, yeah, exactly, shit. 'Cause we're children and you shouldn't tell us things like that. Yeah, that's true. So, it just moved along. It was, like, okay, like, that's your family. I have a stepdad. Like, we're all just different. It's fine. Like, we're moving along. And then, like, I think I was, like, somewhere in high school. And the front page of the news review-- you're welcome-- said, like, Jennifer's dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was released. And I was, like, oh, look at this. And my parents were, like, I'm, like, what's happening? And so the story was that her mom had passed away because she hadn't read the instructions on the hairspray. And she had lit a cigarette at the same time. Exactly. And so-- Yeah. And I was, like, what? I don't understand. But in the '80s, you don't ask questions. You just are, like, OK, that checks. Let's go to Boy Scouts or whatever. So years later, I googled it. And yeah, she definitely-- there was a fire. But she had passed away after a gunshot wound. And I was, like, um-- So does anybody else see this? Like, is anybody talking about this? Are you in counseling? Like, let's unpack this. And so it was-- yeah, it was very awkward. Because it was, like, in college and, you know, Portland State. Whose mascot? You guys need to know the name. It's a Viking. And his name is Victor E. Viking. Wait. The hometown's over now, right? Sorry. No. Don't apologize. No, I'm perfect. That was great. So I understood later that she was in foster care. And if you have the opportunity, please become a resource parent. Because, like, we need you. Oh, yes. Yes. So, yeah. Beautiful. Honor. That was great. Yeah. Honor, everybody. Honor. Look. Now, Honor, you get your choice. Which Lucy would you like? Definitely one that's been burned. Yes, obviously. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Honor, everybody. Honor. Let Roseberg know. Let Roseberg know how you feel. Oh, my God. Portland. What a joy to be back here with you again, live. There was a while there where it felt like it was never gonna happen, and it's a really a dream come true that we're here and that we get to see your faces in person. It really means the world to us that you give a shit about this podcast after ten years. Yeah. It's incredible. Thank you so much. Thank you. We love you, Portland. We support you. We love what you guys are fucking doing and, you know, kick ass. Yeah. Kick ass. Yeah. And also stay sexy. And. Thanks, you guys. Thank you. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Kelly Gleason. This has been an Exactly Right production.