E489 Cartwheel Trauma and an Oenophile Ghost

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I'm, like, wrapped in my lucky cocoon, my chrysalis. I was going to say, you really, like, are manifesting today that only good things come right. Although, a lot of those horseshoes are upside down. Hold on. Yeah, just do, like, a constant. Like, be that girl on the beach that does cartwheels over and over and over, and it should all stay full. Do you know what happened to me at the jujitsu gym? Show me. I won't be showing you. What happened? I was told to do a cartwheel. Ew! I would. I know! I would cancel. And by the way, that would have been exactly the reaction I gave them, too. I'd have been like. Oh, I'm already sweating, and I did, and I was like, no. And then they were like, yes. They just. And was this, like, a litmus test of, like, mind over matter? Like, you can do it if. I think. I don't know. I think it was just, like, I was being a little. I was being a little bitch, and they were like, just fucking do a cartwheel. Like, stop it. And I was like, I can't. I'd be like, that's actually ableist. I, like, literally. You're acting like I have muscles in my arms, and I was not gifted that. I was like, I'm not doing this. Okay. Then I realized. I brought it up to my brother, and I was like, I behaved really inappropriately when they asked me to do a cartwheel. I would have. There's no other way. I was like. I reacted extremely strangely when they asked me to do a cartwheel. And my brother goes, well, of course. And I was like, why? And he's like, well, that's what happened to you when you were a kid. Like, that exactly. That's the exact thing. And I was like, what? And he goes, remember, we. He's just whipping out the trauma, and you didn't even ask for it. I know. I was like, why do you remember this? He's like, because mom made me go. We brought you to gymnastics, and you were the only one who couldn't do a pushup or a cartwheel. And so they had me. It was so embarrassing. They made all the kids sit down and watch, and then they, like, tried to make me do a pushup, but she put her hand, and she's like, you have to lower your nose all the way to my hand. Oh, Christine. She made me do it in front of everybody. And then I just, like, failed so tremendously that everybody laughed. And then my mom overheard them calling me, like, oh, these fat American kids nowadays. And my mom, you know, taking it upon herself to make it about her, went in and started screaming, like, we're never coming back here. We're not even American. She's a chubby German child. Ha-ha, joke's on you. You're on top of it with the fat comment, but. Right, exactly. And so my brother. My brother said, oh, like, we witnessed all. Like, all of us witnessed this. And I was like, oh. So when poor Skylee was like, hey, can you do a cartwheel? And I was like, why would you say that? And I was like, oh, that's why I behaved. So I didn't actually react that way. I actually said, um, no, thank you. And she said, okay, but it's, like, the next thing. And then just because I panicked, I did a cartwheel. And she's like, great job. I mean, it is incredible what adrenaline will do. That is the equivalent of lifting a bus off a child. That's. You've proven it works. By the way, she said, great job. I probably, like, didn't. I did this. I probably, like, hopped over by, like, a foot. Honestly, I bet the assignment was you had to cartwheel three times. And she went, one was enough. I've seen what I've needed to see. And she's like, is there, like, an even more fundamental class that Christine could take where it's like, you know, don't worry. We're not all, like, staring at. We're not going to gossip about. It's just, I just. I, like, got. I got so fucking triggered by it that I was like, what's wrong with me? And my brother's like, well, you were once made to cartwheel and do push-ups in front of, like, 12 children who laughed at you. And I went, yeah, that'll probably do it. That'll probably. That'll probably settle somewhere deep in there. You know, the only memory I have of any gymnastics was actually loving gymnastics. And then I don't know what the fuck happened because you would think my parents would, like, want to encourage my interest in sports. But, like, when I was a little kid. And by the way, I say when I was a little kid, but if I were to start it up right now, I would need the exact same help of, like, all of those, like, oversized, like, triangle-shaped pillows that, like, all help you, like, learn how to fall backwards and not hurt yourself and stuff. Yes, yes. But I remember getting to a point where I was literally leaping over stuff in a flip. I remember this. What? But maybe it's actually from another life, now that I'm saying it out loud. Maybe it actually just reincarnated. When you were just, like, a Russian gymnast and it was just, like, your passion. Maybe it was actually. And you got a glimmer of it as, like, a little kid. Just a glimmer of it. And then it just faded. And all honesty, it's as real to me as the memory of, like, flying around my kitchen when I would fall asleep at night. So maybe. But that's real. That did happen. I know it happened. With fervent confidence, I know it happened. Oh, so you're saying it could be, like, a real memory from a past life. I know it existed sometime in the universe, but I don't know if it was this timeline or Hey, may I offer one suggestion? Could it be that at some point you were astral projecting around your kitchen and you went, I know, I'll stop by the gymnastics studio. Or as I was flying, I halted in midair and just did a little flip and then kept it moving. It could be. Like, I mean, it could be. Oh, yay, yay. Well, I remember having fun, even if it was just a dream. But I'm proud of you for doing a. I could never do a cartwheel. I'll tell you, I could flip in the air and fly in the sky, but I could never. I, like, blacked out the incident. I did. I don't recall what happened. Everyone said, nice, and moved on. And I was so sweaty that I, like, couldn't function. Yeah, I need so much therapy. I would feel like if I were in the room and saw you do it, I'd feel like I was on the chopping block. Because I'm like, thank God they picked her, because, like, it could have been me, you know? Oh, my God. Everyone else was just running around doing cartwheels. I'm like. Is this a thing we do here? Yeah, why is everyone acting like we haven't. We should have discussed this prior. I should have known this going in. I have. Should have signed a waiver, because I'm way too delicate for this fucking sport. Not really. I just. I just am too. Mentally, I need to get my shit together, you know? Well, okay, so do you don't have any recollection of your actual, like, how well it went? The quality of the cartwheel? Well, I tried it again the next day, because I couldn't really believe my own memory of the incident. And Blaze said, that was pretty good. And I went. Maybe you're a gymnast. Oh, fucking okay. Fucking okay, I'll take it. Maybe my mom and that gym teacher really just halted what could have been. Maybe we were both meant to be gymnasts, and then when I got all screwed up in the head, the universe was like, alternate plans, Em and Christine are going to be podcasters instead. So then you got pulled out of your gymnastics, because I showed up and did one class, and they were like, Christine's never going to fucking live up to this. I feel like the universe was like, no, no, Simone Biles needs. I feel like the universe needs this, so, like, let's move you somewhere else. Yeah, please, get rid of these fucking clowns. You know, in another world, Simone is the podcaster. Yeah, and that should be the world, I think. Maybe she'd do both, you know? But anyway, we're here, I'm alive, I did a cartwheel, allegedly. Is there a reason why you drink? Is that why you drink? Well, right before we recorded, Gio and I both heard some sort of footsteps come in from above me, but that's the roof, so I'm like, there must be an animal up there. Santa? Santa? I don't know, it could be either one. But it sounded almost in the walls, but not, but I gotta say, it sounded like footsteps, so I actually thought maybe Blaze had, like, gone into the crawl space, and so then I called for him. Is that, like, something he does? Like, for fun? No, no, and so I was like, what is that? But Gio's face was like this, too, and I was like, well, he sleeps up here, so if he's not used to the sound, then, like, I don't feel great about that. So I couldn't find the source of it, but it was right here, kind of, in my vicinity. You just gotta hope. You just gotta hope. hope and so we'll wait and see but if you hear a loud like if i jump out of my skin and like you hear banging sounds it's a squirrel are all of your cats accounted for no and because juniper is as a frequent flyer up there right he's a menace you know i've never heard him get up there but i wouldn't put it past him he goes outside on the roof i mean that could have been laggy oh you did get laggy just now fuck maybe it is a ghost i don't know juniper just cut the red wire on the roof oh my god he chewed it up for sure i think you're good now okay um well my apologies for whatever's about to happen sounds like someone's totally not good it's probably christmas in july let's just go with that yes i love that um why do you drink by the way oh i don't know i feel like uh i feel like a bruise again this week oh um it's just i i'm about to i was just like christine off air i'm about to do a lot of traveling and i think i'm just mentally prepared for like the weight of the travel we're like i'm happy to i'm i'll be happy once i get to my destinations but like i haven't packed in a while so i'm a little um out of practice on yeah back when we were on tour i was just like so used to living out of a suitcase and it's bizarre it's a it's a weird feeling to have to pack now i just feel like it was such a muscle memory for a while that i didn't have to think about it but now it's it's back to being a task and so yeah um and it's a long i'm gonna be gone for like at least two weeks one of them's a wedding one of them requires a rented tux but then i'm also kind of panicking about like well if i'm about to leave and i need the rented tux a certain time i need the rentals with travel it needs to be delivered to another location and will it get there on time and if it doesn't should i bring a backup something ship it back and all that um it's just it will it's just a silly time with a lot of to-dos lists of to-dos also i told you about the recipe book i'm working on no i don't think so did you i don't know i don't know anymore um remind me remind me i uh found a bunch of old family recipes but when i say a bunch i mean like 300 oh my god no i talked about this somewhere i know you've talked about this i feel like is this like you've collected them i went i can't say exactly where because i went searching through a filing cabinet when it wasn't my business oh i see okay yeah so i don't know who listens um but uh i and by the way i don't feel bad about that god knows my heart so i okay and he's listening we know that i mean she yeah they are somewhere and they didn't stop me by the way if god is all powerful didn't strike me dead you know i'm saying yeah i think he wanted this so i think that's a good sign and by the way when i went snooping through a filing cabinet it was a thousand percent four family stuff it wasn't like oh how much think how many things are they hiding i wasn't going for how many were they hiding though i i as we know i'd like to try to collect all the family stuff and how many were they hiding only only the recipes and i don't even think they were hiding it it just never came up and so you didn't find any ancillary secret any collateral secrets no when i saw the recipes i stopped my search and i went jackpot this is what i this is the kind of shit i was looking for bummer okay so i wasn't looking for anything juicy um except that steak recipe and i ended uh three of them i found i found three steak recipes i um basically i anyway i i'm trying i'll just go get to the good part so i ended up taking pictures of everything and then putting all the recipes exactly back where i found them and then rappelling out of the room on a fucking what are you doing you're like in oceans one and it's just basically i there is no doubt in my mind the house i was at they would have absolutely let me take all the pictures i wanted i just felt guilty once i found it that i had been looking at all and so i didn't know how to tell them that i found them at period yeah you're like well now i found them and i can't even tell you how yeah i just feel bad i the guilt has happened don't worry i just feel because i i was snooping but with good intentions but still snooping you know what i mean so i feel a little icky about it um but didn't stop me from taking a picture of all the recipes ends up somewhere else or with a different family member now i'm not asking for the highest good god knew i for the sake of ancestry it was good because you know what now all those recipes aren't just going to be in a filing cabinet they're safe hands and safe hands so i'm transcribing them for myself i love that and yeah it was um anyway i just i i knew that there was like family stuff uh in the room and i was like oh i just want to like see if i can find anything and i and so i'm not doing anything with it except just like i just wanted a copy for myself and i didn't want to like say like let me take all this from your home and said i just yeah i feel like i did the most ethical way about it as possible you had like a big um potato sack with a dollar sign written on it and you just put all the recipes in that and you threw it over your shoulder like a burglar and like walked out yeah no and by the way my snooping i will say was like i literally saw a i like i i i'm not saying and that's why i look through it i'm just saying like the level of my snooping it's not like i spent all night like in that room it really happened where like there was a filing cabinet that was open and i was just going to close it for them and literally right there it said recipes snooped we've all snooped and we've all we've all had only the best intentions right guys all of us i mean i'm saying what i did is not is not 10 out of 10 but i will say it was not like a long hunt for anything like i really stumbled upon it and went are you starting to worry this person listens i feel like you're backtracking i feel like now you're like oh i am i i really am filing cabinet that is that is the honest truth but uh i also i don't i don't think they listen but i don't think they're gonna care or listen i think getting family recipes is a very noble sorry my computer just threw itself off of the stand that's nice disagrees with us cool cool cool anyway i the reason i drink is uh traveling and also uh the i did not just how many recipes there were and some of them um are in like different languages which is crazy so cool it's very cool and it's like they're handwritten they're all handwritten um so anyway that was that's fine though it was very cool to see um but yeah anyway so i'm just i just got a lot of projects uh on my desk at the moment just came across your desk i love it across my desk and i'm drinking just like a chill little tea just a little black tea what are you drinking well i morning jolt what happened but it had but it arrived it arrived uh has it arrived oh a few minutes ago but it took forever to get here so that's probably blaze's problem when he gets home okay can you bring me is that your that's your brown drink with the blue straw um is it yes hey you want another reason why i drink yes it's a gross one tell me i think i have contracted i'm so embarrassed i'm so embarrassed a nail fungus oh no i've never had that before don't be embarrassed i just never had it before and it sounds like something that like someone like many generations higher than me would get like it feels like a bunion does that help well it's just and i always noticed that this one toenail was just a little discolored and now it's like a bit noticeable and so i'm like but i've heard i i mean i'm gonna go to an actual doctor everybody but i have been obviously also looking up like home remedies and everyone is like soak your foot in listerine and yellow listerine listerine apparently yellow listerine has like match that's because it'll match the rest of your foot i've never had anything like this and i'm like is my nail gonna fall off or something like what have you done any like is it your nails not gonna fall okay i can't even actually hear about it oh my god his nail fell off but it was because he slammed his foot in he was wearing he was going barefoot walking barefoot into a blockbuster video well that was kind of i'm not saying he asked for it i'm just saying you that's what i said just saying the the toe was there yeah and we did get dude dude where's my car that evening so it you know it ended up being fine he's fine he should have said dude where's my toenail that's what the should have made a sequel he may have and i probably didn't laugh anyway i am i think a doctor visit oughta oughta happen soon so i'm just a little paranoid about it and i'm a little freaked out i'm skeeved out by it because i've never like had any feet problems before and you know how i feel about nails yeah yeah i know you'll but as long as you get it looked at soon like someone will they'll be like easy fix i hope so anyway it'll be those are that's my top three this week folks no one asked well blaze said he would bring you my smoothie slash coffee it's sort of like a mixture of both when he gets home he said but it might be a while so probably halfway through your story i'm gonna get like jump scared yeah so just a heads up is it a smoothie or why so it's like a cold brew smoothie thing so it's like a chocolate and coconut and stuff but it has like coffee in it yeah like yes and it has like blended it's like a blended coffee type thing yeah precious precious precious i wish many good tastes for your mouth thank you so much this episode is brought to you by angry orchard hard cider and they have done us the kindness of sending us some angry orchard and so what we're going to do today is tell you some of the gripes that we have in life but we are going to use this as a lovely baton where i can i can air my grievances and then i'm going to pass it over christine through the power of technology that's right our backward back back rooms liminal space we have a mini fridge back there yeah we have a mini fridge in the back rooms and so m's gonna go pop one and by the way angry orchard sent us more than one angry orchard to be clear but it's way more fun to to like pass the baton you know it's very fun so i'm gonna i'm gonna go first one of the things that gets me angry these days i have to take hank to the vet his he's doing the boot scoot at the dog park lately and i'm not loving what i see and or smell um it's pretty disgusting and also i have to go to the doctor myself my my feet are not acting right these days i don't know how old i am i feel like i'm a thousand so we're falling apart falling apart i just don't like it anymore remember when we started the show we were 20 f and four we were 24 20 f and four you know it's incredible we had just as much to complain about then as we do now that's exactly right well so so today i complain that i'm i'm not 24 anymore but my dog's acting like he's 24 in dog year so all right i'm gonna pass it to you now christine this is your turn so give it a reach and what are you what are you angry about today that the number one hard side in the country can can heal can help you aid from thank you so much for asking um you know i got my nose done as i can show you as i show up this crisp refreshing cider um and i sat down and the lady looked at my hand and just said what happened and i was like excuse me i think they look evil and then she said that'll be two extra dollars too and i was like i don't know anyway i didn't get angry i got orchard um it really is like a staple at our house especially when we have game nights things like that um so you know it's called it's called the payment of my pride getting wounded and also the bunion on my foot so i'm also old sorry angry orchard we're also just kind of old here you go yeah oh thank you hang on thank you well anyway it's it's nice to air our grievances but also i'm sure you've got some grievances but you don't have to get angry you can get orchard angry orchard is made with two real apples in every cider which is why it has a real fresh apple flavor instead of being overly sugary um it's gluten-free it's crisp bold refreshing as christina said uh and tried and it's um it's it's really helped me make some friends the dog bark as well yeah i love that don't get angry get orchard near you visit angry orchard.com and use a cider locator to find angry orchard near you maybe in our liminal fridge maybe uh in someone's trunk at the dog park i don't know could be angry orchard cider company llc angry orchard is a hard cider with other natural flavors please drink responsibly clink there's one thing i don't like at all in this world and it is being inconvenienced i cannot stand it if there is ever an opportunity to multitask i will do it i am just always trying to make as much free time for myself as possible you know we all have our own time-saving 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great candidates sooner with zip recruiter four out of five employers including us who post on zip recruiter.com get a quality candidate within the first day so try it for free at zip recruiter.com slash drink that zip recruiter.com slash drink meet your match on zip recruiter okay i have a story for you today christine and you have heard it before because it was covered in our second book oh my goodness okay i just know you don't remember a single thing that i'm about to say that's fine and by the way neither neither do i because we were supposed to record a while back and so these notes are also new to my eyes which i love you guys i love you guys i love when that happens because then we get to explore together it's like wow what who knew um apparently i did five days ago but yeah uh who could have known i know it's crazy but i will say that proves though i know we say this all the time but like we both wrote and read our book at least twice because we had to write it and read it and then read it aloud for the audible and read put our commentary so it's like if i can forget that like please please understand and my brain it cannot hold so much i did use my my own book as a reference which is interesting that's a weird one yeah but like you just said it is odd when it's the reference and also you wrote it and also you don't remember it so it really does feel like a you better source my work accurately because i'm gonna sue you otherwise uh your blurb does show up don't worry hell yeah okay so this is woodburn mansion oh it does sound familiar it does sound familiar but i don't even know if that's true anymore because i feel like everything and i'm not trying to like poopoo my own stories but when you could tell me that was from like schitt's creek and i'd be like oh okay well i was gonna say everything is either like a hotel or a manor like woodburn just feels very it's always an old last name and i that's not to say like all of my stories sound exactly the same but you know when it comes to like buildings that have stood the test of time long enough to become haunted they are kind of all they do fall into very similar categories right exactly so i don't know if you have if it actually does remind you of anything or just sounds haunted hmm you want to take a stab in the world of where it is is it in georgia that's a close guess it's in delaware um i really believed you hey east coast you were right same time zone same time zone same time zone um it's in dover delaware okay which i feel like i wanted to cover the dover demon yeah for our book but isn't dover is is it like dover massachusetts or something that the dover demon's in oh didn't you write that in the book i must be like i don't know listen don't ask me to do a book report on this spot right right right why did i even say this okay so dover delaware uh it's a mansion from 1790 it was on the national register of historic places in 1972 and since the 60s since 1965 but just to make it easier on your brain since the 60s uh it has been the home of the sitting governor so if you're the governor of delaware or yeah of you get to live here is this the one with the ice cream maybe no i don't know i don't remember the story anymore okay okay okay what do you take what do you mean the joe biden ice cream oh no i don't know what's happening here oh okay good because you covered a story in delaware and they had like joe biden themed ice cream or something fine yeah and then we read the recipes of it so i was like uh-oh i hope we're not doing the same story again no sounds like we are not okay gotcha would love to hear that though because once again i don't know what the fuck you're talking about that sounds great that sounds it was a good one sounds like i really nailed that episode okay um i i love when there's a governor's house uh in virginia there was a mayor's house that i used to work next to when i did my segwaying and my ghost hunting um and it was like if you became mayor of yorktown then you got to live in the house i don't know if that's still the case but i remember always thinking like i can't imagine moving into a house and knowing that in four years whatever the term is it's kind of weird yeah um well it's probably like furnished and stuff for you i would hope so can you imagine if it's like now buy a shitload of furniture on your mayor well the mayor had of course has fabergé like honestly if he doesn't out trust him with our yeah oh true i only but my mayor and i'll tell you mayor max collector he is he loves an egg i'm sure he loves his bad boys so this is where the government is going to be like oh my god i'm um it's where also where he sleeps and stands i don't know why we call it the okay whatever and the fun fact that he does cartwheels sometimes probably it could be a fun fact about this which i didn't know i found out from our book thank you past me um is that this house also has a hedge maze in the garden and then of course my blurb from the book involved the shining where i'm like did we not see this coming this is an old house i remember being mad that you already did the blurb about the shining so i was like well let's do it let's do it let's do it that was my perfect entry point honestly in hindsight i wish i could tell you like you should just delete my fucking name like i wouldn't have known i could have i should have i wouldn't have known which one of us wrote it too bad i have such an intake so much integrity that's very nice of you i would have been like just steal my line please no like uh charlie would be like who the fuck is deleting christine who's actually copypasting their own avatars into the middle i literally see christine in there in the google dot moving shit around um so this house was built in 1790 it was built by charles hilliard the third and he bought the land fun fact i know you love a number conversion yep he bought the land for 110 and 1790 which was what a bargain four thousand dollars today i just feel like that math can't even equate because it's just like great 17 not like what do you even it money doesn't even mean the same thing probably also like over 200 years later and it's only like four times like who back then had 110 dollars you know what i mean so it's like 40 probably nobody i don't remember math i hear i hear someone judging me for how bad that math was please don't laugh i think it was actually really spot on thank you um but i'm with you it does it feels like it should not if it should be more or so anyway he bought it for the equivalent of four thousand dollars i think it's shocking because in today's world i couldn't buy a house for four thousand dollars so i'm like how right how did you do that kind of thing today anyway so he built it in 1790 and when he died his daughter's family inherited it so then that's the second generation of hilliards they ended up renting it out this is actually a very fun fact to me and nobody else he they rented it out to a governor and this was in the 1820s but this was before it ever became like the house that the governor lived in oh that's cool this is something only like the person running the tour at the museum you would giggle about and every kid on the field trips like i don't fucking care at all about this information but i think it's a fun fact that like even though this is now the governor's house when they started that system whoever the first governor was to live there still wasn't the first governor to live there does that make sense still wasn't the first governor like years later they decided that governors would be living there but that's still but there were because the other guy had stayed there before yeah oh because he rented it out okay gotcha he had lived there just not officially right so in the 1820s the first governor to live there although it was not technically the governor's house and would not be for a while ah okay the first governor that lived there fun fact was jacob stout and um so he lived there before it was even the governor's house and throughout the decades it did switch hands many times to people who were not the governor um until 1965 and that's when the state said actually the governor should live here i guess they're like that jacob stout had a good idea and i miss those good old days when jacob lived here big jake he fucking loved this house he would want other always had a keg tapped in the backyard a guy what a guy i love how sensitive all of the governors who are obviously men um they all love the fabergé love a fabergé they just don't like to admit it they don't tell you that's what's going on in in male circles that's right um another fun fact the first governor to live there a hundred years later when it was the governor's house his name was governor charles terry okay you'll never hear his name again but i thought you'd like to know thank you another chuck another charles yes that's exactly right so um i'll i'll bullet point it so in 1790 charles charles hilliard had it his daughter inherited it she then gave it to him and he gave it to the governor who was the first person to rent it out from her over time it then ends up becoming the governor's house so um in between governor jacob stout having it and it officially becoming a governor's house one of the people who lived there was a family called the bates of all names of all names they um they also were renters from the hilliards so this was pretty early on in the house's history um the bates then ended up buying the house and then they sold it you don't have to remember all these names but this they their history is important but you don't have to like remember names i'll just i'll keep summarizing governor stout had it then the bates had it the bates ended up buying the house and selling it to a guy named daniel cowgill and daniel he was a quaker and an abolitionist he would actually use the house to hide enslaved people here as part of the underground railroad oh wow and although he helped enslaved people escape here the mansion was of course also previously used to enslave people uh yeah right sure so i or at least i don't know if uh this was actually like a working like plantation or anything but it was used by traders of enslaved people um so it did not have the world's best history at all uh daniel cowgill is trying to just save that history one day at a time trying to reverse it and during uh during renovations they did find in the cellar um chains and shackles that were bolted to the walls which i think confirmed because i think people talked about it because of course we try to like erase that history and people like i think this used to be involved in in the enslavement of people in some way and then they found these chains and shackles and it kind of confirmed it for people jesus okay so when daniel cowgill lives here quaker and abolitionist and he's helping with underground railroad he would regularly scare off these southern raiders who were looking for people who ran away and they'd come to the house and be like is anyone hiding here and they'd be like oh my god i don't know and daniel would go no get off my fucking property meanwhile many people are hiding there um well one day one night the raiders come to his house and he the story goes that he scared them off i don't know if it was that he scared them off or just told him to leave but one of these raiders was in his tree i'm assuming to get like an aerial view of the property to see if anyone was hiding and on his way out um whether it's because he was scared or because he was scared or just told to leave he slipped out of a tree he slipped out of the tree and uh his head got stuck in a hole in the tree and he ended up strangling himself to death my blurb in the book whoa my blurb in the book from here because it was um good for her which was a quote from lucille bluth that he strangled oh for the tree oh good for her yeah oh my god lucille bluth yeah whoa whoa whoa oh whoa so that's just quite a that's one that's one death that turns into a haunting later is that there was a southern and like i mean i'm not trying to like be like whoo people died but also like you're a southern raider trying to like yeah but i don't want that ghost near me either you know like get off my property like i don't want that ghost around at least he's in the tree you know what i mean like at least like he's not like in your house i sure hope not so um that's one of the major stories of what happened here another one is that um before daniel calgo lived there remember he bought it from the bates family so the bates family they lived there in the 1820s and they have the first ghost on record from the 1820s like the ghost story is from the 1820s so the bates were living here um this is charl hilliard's daughter and her husband her husband by the way here's like his quick little resume he was a doctor merchant lawyer and a senator and i'm like okay go to bed same fucking relax it was probably like two dollars to get your fucking license back then yeah you had to pass like a five multiple choice questionnaire to be a doctor and they'd be like which what is good for this cocaine yes it is blood seeping out of good or bad leeches we love them yes um a traveling minister was staying with them this traveling minister his name was lorenzo and he was staying in the house he uh was going to go downstairs and have breakfast with the bates and one morning on his way down he uh meets a man on the stairs and when the bait he i guess i don't know if they spoke to each other or anything like that but they definitely interacted in some way and when lorenzo finishes going downstairs he gets the dining room they're setting up for breakfast and the bates ask him to pray before they eat and lorenzo's like oh should i wait for the other guy who i just saw on the stairs and they're like who the fuck are you talking about and uh he basically described the guy he just saw he rude said he was in outdated clothing um that he had a wig a roughly puffy shirt he had britches and i guess after enough description um mrs bates realized that that was her father charles hilliard the third and how dare you call his clothing outdated literally what i have next is your blurb which was oh a man with outdated fashion sense that must be my father oh oh no because i was trying to pretend like joke no i was pretending that that lady said it i was like what i love that we wrote a whole fucking book and i didn't know until years later no i think i was saying like she was like oh that's oh the frilly the frilly britches oh that's my dad i literally took it as like you being like oh that must be my father i should have uh no no no my dad loves uh i mean he does love a frilly whatever but he's more he's pretty he's not he strikes me as a man who would own a wig and britches and i don't know why true yeah you never know with that one but uh no i was yeah i was trying to kind of make a joke about that lady being like oh that's just my father with his curly old fashion clothing i love that either way it lands thank you you very rarely get a double joke i guess not i mean people in general not just not just you but that's okay well i'm hey i learned something i listen we're still learning our own fucking book congratulations to us so since then people still spot charles and his uh his wig and his britches on the stairs and also in the hall i think the upstairs hall was specifically but in the hall near the stairs so i guess they something pivotal happened in that moment where he was in his own like foyer yeah one former resident said that he uh that charles hilliard passed by him on the stairs and he was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry multiple times um others checked the stairs before uh or other people who ended up living there would regularly check the stairs before using them because they were afraid to actually run into him but that one former resident who said he would pass by him on the stairs all the time is crazy like i'm like how do you just get used to seeing a man you know is dead what do you mean it's so weird i wonder if like you just see him out of the corner of your eye and you're like whoa i don't know i i guess i but i mean it sounds like he was just at least for the first guy lorenzo he was like it's a straight up man and we made eye contact and he just stood there long enough for me to not realize he wasn't a real person yeah you know if we were kids that lived in that house we'd be like no no people see him and i would just camp out on those stairs we would be setting booby traps and of course time and time again we have told you that you have to get rocket money every person i've talked to that has rocket money has gone thank god i found rocket money my own mother who did not 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subscriptions are all paying for you might not know rocket money is going to save you let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster join at rocket money.com drink that's rocket money.com drink rocket money.com drink so those the two uh i haven't gotten to like all that they haunt or all that they do but the so the first two stories are the southern raider and the tree then we've got um uh charles hilliard on the stairs another ghost who's there uh loves wine which is like this is so interesting it's literally officially documented in security reports this ghost that loves security reports oh that's for me too there are certainly security reports out there that have documented how much i love i'm telling i mean like i'm sure like in the first draft of our book it was like i just made a bunch of christine jokes i'm sure there was plenty of people who were like i'm sure there was plenty of people who were like plenty of christine uh wines they were these good uh graphics where they would spill wine all over the pages i was like i never knew if that was my wine that i spilled it's really perfect or like just a graphic the best part about our book was if you're drinking wine while you read it and you spill wine on it we've we've pre-dirtied it for you so you don't have to feel bad it to be a coaster because like you always need a coaster you know this one's already has rings on it the dream is if we made our book out of cork and then you every page was a coaster well we also had dreams of making our book out of cork and then we every page was a coaster well we also had dreams of making the book a ouija board so we've had a lot of dreams we've had a lot we could do with this fucking book in another lifetime maybe the best we could do is spill stuff on it so um the ghost who loves wine uh by the way our home girl is uh this uh this woman she's oh she was governor and lived there for eight years her name's ruth ann minner not minner or minor um governor governor minner okay lived in this house for eight years she did an interview in 2004 and i don't know if it was fully exactly about the ghosts or like about her fucking policies but the ghosts were heavily mentioned in this interview okay and she said the ghosts are absolutely real especially this fucking guy who loves wine she was like this guy beyond exists like this is a this is a very real ghost so it might be charles hilliard it might be there's another ghost that people see in a revolutionary war uniform so it might be him they're all drunks who knows all luscious all luscious but she made it clear if the wine is left out in this house it will be drank by someone who is not alive it like you there is a leak and they are drinking it up that is bizarre some residents have intentionally left wine out which i love that there's just like governor after governor after governor it's become a thing where they're all trying to booby trap these ghosts with wine in the same house seriously they're like i guess i'll appease you it's like well the last one said that you like wine so i guess i'll also put wine out and because you know every single one of them has heard the rumors and when they finally become governor and get to move in they're like first thing on the agenda is find this fucking ghost you know they sent their assistant to to wawa or whatever to get like a box of wine be like just to keep the supply coming i i just like it's so funny to me just that there's just politicians who are just lining up to live in this house and probably at least one of them was it was mainly it's like i only want to live in the house to see if this ghost tree but do you think any of them were like i'm not gonna do that and then the ghost was like some fucking boring one maybe i don't know it was like here's bourbon and the ghost like i don't want bourbon yeah they tried to put a real spin on it yeah um some residents have intentionally left wine out to try and catch the ghost drinking it um i will i'm gonna ask you now that you are no longer uh a wine drinker what is the new thing food or wine or anything or food or drink or anything if you were a ghost and someone had trapped you with a ghost you would have been a ghost you would have been a ghost you would have something what's your thing now like the people want to know christine it's just candy i think candy like i just love sugar now because it's like i have so much sugar in my diet and now it's like oh that's all gone so now i just love like peanut tropical skittles oh i'm like in a very like chewy candy so like interesting sour gummy worms and stuff like that okay that's easy and cheap to try to catch you then i oh cheese you didn't say cheese but that's another one you could do that okay i just want to know what's your thing now like the people want to know christine it's just i know you love a charcutte i love that honestly just do that so you'd still be in the same circles as the wine drinkers i imagine you're just finally on my end of it where it's like everyone's drinking wine i'm eating the salami yeah and like i'll drink something that i'm a mocktail this time yeah which might i say christine if you're looking for a mocktail i am currently having a real fix with um ginger beer and pineapple juice mixed together oh that sounds nice i'm not usually like a huge ginger beer person but i feel like with pineapple that actually sounds very refreshing i'll tell you i also don't like ginger beer unless it's pineapple juices involved and if you do a little a little a little squirt or a little couple like jalapeno seeds and it's sweet and spicy okay hey i'm into this do we need to do oh my god oh my god that sounds so good um okay so you would be gummy worms or cheese yeah i don't know what i would be but it'd have to be something carb heavy um yeah what about like chicken pot pie like right like really heavy on the yeah i'm already dead like just a stick of butter will probably do it get me a get a bread bowl i'm already dead exactly um put some mac and cheese in a bread bowl stop being ridiculous so they would like leave wine out hoping to catch uh this ghost um if literally all the way to like they would fill decanters and the whole decanter would be gone like what the fuck the canter would still exist and it all the wine would be gone i just wonder like how is it one ghost are they trying to share because i'm like how much should i be leaving out like do you want all this or is it like you have to drink however much is out like i don't know like are they have is in the other realm are they having a bunch of like are they partying and it's like 20 people there or is it someone like me with it but instead of carbs it's wine where it's like i'm already dead i might as well just be blasted out of my mind yeah just keep it coming i can't leave the house so yeah and also like if you're gonna leave me wine i'm not gonna not accept your offer you know right right uh decanter well don't mind if i do again i'm sure on in early versions of this book there were a lot of jokes about how like maybe it wasn't actually any ghost it was just like just every governor was like sneaking way too much wine and blaming it on a ghost i probably said i was just living in the basement although that's kind of spooky probably like christine just comes out christine's living in the walls yeah she heard there's free wine sometimes like every night because everyone's trying every night yeah well one resident would leave a decanter filled at night just to test it and wake up in the morning and it would be gone um it's a waste of wine i was gonna say think of the how much money just in the governor the governor's budget is seriously just wine wine wine for the ghost instead of like on like wine wine wine for the ghost like and then what instead of social services or anything like important it's like seriously well the ghost we have to prove the ghost is real first he's the ghost one ghost there's an apparition of a man in a wig again might be charles hilliard might be another guy he has my dad might be your father and he has literally been caught by some people actually sneaking wine in the dining room see oh my god it's him um so it might be him he's like if you were all gonna use my house um wine bottles have literally been found empty in the cellar that nobody has drank oh so he really is just a lush i guess he's just i mean he lives in that house and lets you know i i do wonder if he's if wine bottles are empty i would love to know the labels of which ones are which ones is he picking when he has a selection right does he like go for the like the really expensive does he know or does he just pick one you know yeah like is he a wine or is he only picking ones that are like the year he was born or something right like is he a snob or not i don't know and then i would do another test where i'd be like okay well these are the labels that he was he seemed to like and i would put those out in a decanter versus like like a random remember when you didn't understand why you were a virgo rising that's why is that yourself right now like i'm gonna put this one here and then i'm gonna put this one here and then i'm gonna put this one here and this one here, and then I'm gonna test which one he likes it's like you're doing like a science experiment i feel like that would be so interesting to be like does he keep going back for the same wine or it is interesting it just makes you very virgo to me good to know i had no idea um so that's another ghost the wine drinker then there's a ghost of a little girl maybe she's the wine drinker i was gonna say could it be technically she's like 300 years old she's legal to drink true she's like i'm dead again like let me have some uh she is seen in a red gingham dress and she's most often by the garden and the reflecting pool outside and then disappears by the hedges and i don't know if that means she fades away or like runs into the hedges and then you don't ever find her or like the homer simpson yes or yes exactly she's also been seen in the mansion during parties but apparently not like partying it up she's more like standing in the corner and has like a little kid like watching a party or something yeah and she's also been seen um or felt sorry tugging on people's clothing like to get their attention at the party she's been seen a lot in the kitchen this i remember the governor her interview about the ghost this this was in that interview she's been seen a lot in the kitchen um she's been seen in the middle of the day by tour guides and fades away moments later after the tour guides are like left alone with her in the kitchen people have seen her peeking around corners of course horrifying people have heard her giggling in empty rooms and then people get evps of a little girl saying things like play with me like please again there's the man in a revolutionary war uniform um there is actually the ghost of the traveling minister who first saw charles hilliard's ghost he is now also no way he's like i know where i'm headed yeah he's like well now i know it's possible um but he's seen in the library and apparently he's like the the least warm of the ghosts i guess people have said that they get a really like stern vibe from him it's his fucking problem um i mean i'd be if i'm a traveling minister and i clearly didn't like make it to heaven like i'm just stuck in this fucking house you are imagine traveling like just traveling for work and you're in a hotel and somebody tells you when you die you're gonna be stuck in in this fucking place for the rest of your life take a look around yeah take a look around this you're fucking forever god i really god that makes me wonder i'm like all the all the places i've been that's horrifying will i be visiting in the afterlife um yeah it's like welcome back to the afterlife to your college dorm room no you know like you please don't make me haunt that you know how like mobsters and like every like i don't know about every dad but certainly my dad they all uh people who cosplayed as little mobsters uh whenever they go to a restaurant they're like i have to sit with my back facing the wall just to make sure there's no danger have you ever heard about this my fucking dad always said that no and that's that's like the mobster rule it's like i gotta have my back to the wall so i know that nothing's gonna come my way and i can keep my eye out on everything i feel like i need to start having a little mobster rule for myself where every new building i go into i take a scan and go that's where i'll haunt if i have to be here that's right that's my i call that corner called dibs yeah exactly um people also hear the the raider stuck in the tree who accidentally hanged himself the irony they hear him screaming for help and then my next blurb in the book was another quote from lucille bluth that says i want to cry so bad but i don't think i can spare the moisture oh yeah you see yeah good double good callback a callback yeah yeah good callback um but i mean that's i mean luckily it's someone i don't particularly care for but either way like i can't imagine just like walking like bringing the groceries in at night and just hearing screaming from a tree gruesome like from a tree and then being like oh that's just the ghost of the yeah fucking enslaved person yeah seeker well i don't know what he what was he called he was a a raider a raider oh for god's sake yeah i um give me the chills yeah i don't know that's uh give me the creeps yikes right there um people also hear footsteps both intentional and they hear um separately like heavy bootsteps and then even worse this is a quote that people hear scampering through the dining room ew scampering i don't like that in in the deck because in the walls it's like squirrel immediate squirrel yeah dining room just an open floor plan of scampering absolutely not it's always when it's a different type of walking than just normal fucking walking like it's always either you're way too slow you're way too fast you're way too peppy you're way too mad the slow is so creepy like slow bootsteps like it's bad it's all bad when there's a motion to the footsteps that's when i hate it the most yep um the chandelier has been seen swinging tobacco is smelled in the library people hear mumbled voices speaking to you in the cellar don't go to the cellar people get grabbed and touched or grabbed and shoved um you hear oh this is so sad you can hear the sounds of the rattling chains downstairs which means someone's probably stuck there um people feel severe cold spots people see shadow figures throughout the house and they've also seen shadow figures standing over their bed at night uh furniture rearranges itself objects move themselves items go missing altogether equipment malfunctions when they do try to go ghost hunting including fresh batteries dying we have had that happen before and it's always freaky and inconveniencing uh doors open and close by themselves door knobs are seen turning themselves um doors are seen this is the fucking craziest one because any door can open and close by itself but one person one security guard said that in the woodburn mansion he watched a whole floor of doors one open and slam the next one open and slam the next one open and slam as if someone was going in and out of every room and that feels a little like a security guard like oh this is what you should be doing now i'm over here now i'm over here oh oh yeah like i'll do your job for you it's like yeah like you're you're like doing the room checks yeah in front of the secure oh that's so creepy and also it's like oh and no room in no room you're safe yeah cool cool great awesome the mansion is open to visitors that make an appointment which i love that you can just like call the governor and go i'm coming over yeah bring a bottle of wine it's so small town to be like oh i just i have to go i have where are you oh i have to see the governor um i'm popping over to the governor's place yeah yeah it's uh although it is a it is a functioning government building you can make an appointment to go at least to the house i don't know if you're going to see the governor it's kind of like when all the kids in dc go on field trips to the white house and you don't actually see anybody except security wow i'm meeting the president that's what i thought uh during october the building also houses paranormal investigations for people uh or hosts paranormal investigations they've said which is no real surprise but in case you're curious they've said that paranormal activity is the best from 11 p.m to 4 a.m okay okay one governor actually one time just let students come investigate overnight which i love this is literally oh i'm gonna go see the governor he invited me for a sleepover uh to hunt ghosts and they said the creepiest thing that happened was they reported a woman in a painting smiling at them all night long what does that mean wasn't she a woman i don't know if she was already smiling i'm imagining it's like one of those old paintings where no one ever smiled because you had to sit still for the and then she just like people kept seeing her smiling i mean that's spooky i wonder if she just it was just a permanent smile in which case it'd be like yeah that's just how the painting is or if like every now and then she would just she would start stern until she caught your real icon like made real eye contact with you and then went you know which would be very frightening yes anyway that is the woodburn mansion remember when i was like i remember that you said ice cream and i went i'm about to break your heart because i don't know what the fuck you're talking about no i was so relieved because we've done the ice cream one and i was like i hope this isn't the same one that we've already done um i just remember it being delaware because of joe biden and i remember that his dessert was like not ice cream and i was like is and you were like isn't that his whole thing why didn't they make ice cream for joe biden anyway that was when i covered um it was a haunted haunted president's themed restaurant that's what it was and it was in delaware i don't know where it was but i remember like you said you really lean you what's the right word um you your your commentary led right into my next whole thing which was like i actually looked up all the president's favorite food and you were like oh well i would think it's like squirrel or something i went don't worry i checked oh thank god i remember that that was so good yeah yeah we barely one day we won't remember it at all isn't that the craziest oh my god and then we'll get to get excited about it all over again sometimes which is just thrilling i like to think in the retirement home someone's gonna play my podcast for me and i'm gonna go this sounds really bad um what is this i was like i was gonna be like uh get this get this one signed to an agent you know and it's like that's you idiot well i'll let you know actually i won't because i will i don't think i'll even really um be aware of what's happening but in the event if if someone's listening and you end up being my nurse one day oh my god give it a play give it a play you're gonna get to have a heart attack when you hear me shrieking in the background you're like not her again oh my god gee i thought i got rid of her currently going through it with my glasses i've had these glasses for a very very long time and now it's getting to the point where they are just like a little too flimsy where i'm being very tender about putting them on my face luckily we are working with zenny if you have seen christine's heart-shaped glasses you know already why i love them zenny zenny makes every type of frame you can imagine they got all sorts of shapes um and they are at an 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It is a dream come true for people who just do not have the time or care to shop for themselves. How it works is simple. You fill out your style quiz. You know I love a quiz. And including in it, you mention your price and lifestyle preferences. You get up to 12 hand-selected items delivered to your home. And then you buy what you love and send back. It's lovely. It's time to get your own personal stylist with Daily Look. Head to dailylook.com to take your style quiz and use code DRINK for 50% off your first order. Once again, that's dailylook.com for 50% off. And make sure you use our promo code DRINK so they know that we sent you. One last time, dailylook.com and promo code DRINK. I wanted to add real quick before I forget. The reason I drink this week today actually was going to be because I took little G to the vet and I was sitting there and the vet was like, vet comes in and she goes, do you have a podcast by chance? And I was like, shut up. And it'd been a long time. I feel like since anyone said anything like that, she got recognized. And she goes, I saw Gio's name on the thing. And I looked up your name and was like, that sounds familiar. And I was like, you recognize Gio. I know. And then she gave him a bunch of shots. And so now she's his worst enemy, but I'm sorry. It's her fault. I didn't do it. What a way to butter butter. Like if I got recognized by like someone who's about to draw my blood for a second, I'd forget they were about to take my blood. I'd go. She really did. She really did just stick the needle in. And then I will say she did a great job and was really sweet. Her name was Marisa or Dr. Hernandez. Thank you for your kind work with Gio. You're so good with him. And also shout out to your sister, Allie, because apparently Allie is the one who who showed the podcast. But I just was like, this is so special. It was like 9 a.m. and I was like, that's really I was just like, poor Gio was all anxious. And I was like, totally like taken aback. So anyway, Marisa and Allie, I wrote their names down because I was like, I'm going to forget. Was this was this Gio's first time being recognized or did he get recognized? He got recognized once in a couple of times. Actually, the butt curtain got recognized. Like someone was like, I saw the butt curtain at the dog from afar at the dog park. Iconic. But the name, this is the first time I think the name really has caught someone's attention. That's so cute. Hank hasn't yet to be recognized. He's recognized once they recognize me and then they go, oh, in that tank. But. But he, I don't think has the same play as Gio. Gio's an OG. He's, you know. And he has that feature of that tail that really gets people wondering. He's such a cutie pie, that little GG. Where is he? What's he doing? Right here. He already ripped off his little bandaid. Oh. A little bandaid. Baby, oh. I was like taking selfies with him at the vet. I'm like, oh, my God. Anyway. He's so cute. OK. I wanted to shout that out before Yappy Hour. I got my coffee situation and. I'm ready to come back to life and do a Yappy Hour. So meet us there. OK. So speaking of World War Two. Hi, everybody. Yes. You missed Yappy Hour. Did you? Well, don't worry. We were talking about World War Two. So you really did miss out. For like an hour. Yeah. For a full hour. No, no, no. We talked about ancestry and like the darker sides of ancestry and how I've been uncovering some stuff because I was respectful of my family's wishes to not look into their history until they. They disowned me. And then I said, well, if I'm not part of the family, I guess I can do whatever I want. So then I kind of went rogue and I found out some like really wild stuff. But I'm kind of like Emma and I talked about like hitting walls where you're like, oh, I really want to know more about this one interesting piece. And then you're like, can't find the missing piece. So we talked about that for a while. But I say speaking of World War Two, because this story that I'm bringing today also takes place during World War Two, which is when. Something called the Birmingham Blitz was causing massive chaos in Britain. OK, and there were there. They were being bombed. People were being displaced. I give you this context to say, like, it was a crazy time that this incident took place. This is the story of Bella in the Witch Elm. Couldn't even. I have no clue what you're saying. Bella in the Witch Elm. That sounds like something I would cover. I know. I know. It's one I've wanted to cover for ages. I remember Creeps and Crimes got like way into it and like did an awesome coverage of it. So definitely go listen to that after anybody who wants more. But this is I've been waiting to cover this for years. It's one that like. I've meant to cover since the beginning. So cool. OK, I know. Let's get into it. So we're in Worcestershire. OK. During World War Two. OK. And there is a Birmingham Blitz. It's causing chaos, displacing people. In other words, it's a bit too easy for someone to be displaced and go missing compared to what it might be like nowadays. OK. Local police were completely overwhelmed with air raids, civil defense, national security. So missing persons registries were backed up. Right. Like we're in the middle of war, like active warfare. There's just too much going on. And because of all that wartime confusion, if someone, for example, was a traveler or had come from out of town, it would be even easier for them to go missing without a trace. And never be found again. So the setting for all of this is Hagley Wood. Hagley Wood is a dense private patch of woods on, get this, Lord Cobham's massive Hagley Hall estate near Witchbury Hill. That's some shit that like only exists in England or something like that. They made it up. Like it just sounds like cottage talk. Like that's just some shit. They made it up. But like good on them. Like if there's not a cobblestone. If there's not a cobblestone in sight, it's a lie. Like that's your lie. It's all it's all fabric. Like this is this is the only real place. This is the only real place cobblestones should be allowed to exist. I mean, just it just sounds like cobblestones. Hold on. Say it again. Say it again. Just everyone imagine a cobblestone. Just imagine, if you will, a cobblestone. The setting for all of this is Hagley Wood, which was a dense private patch of woods on Lord Cobham's massive Hagley Hall estate right near Witchbury Hill. It's like I heard the horse. Oh, my God. Wow. Oh, my beautiful. I'm telling you, like you have set the scene quite effectively, Christine. Thank you so much. OK, so this estate, if you will, was heavily patrolled by gamekeepers because it was known for poachers and trespassers to kind of wander onto the land. One afternoon, April 18th, 1943, four local teenagers, Robert Hart, Thomas Willett. Bob Farmer and Fred Payne snuck onto Lord Cobham's private land. Now, the reason they're doing this, they're hunting for wild bird eggs. Faberge. Not Faberge. Not Faberge eggs. Not yet. Not yet. Because, of course, at the time with rations, wartime rations, people were hungry. And so people would go looking for eggs as like nourishment, some extra food or poaching rabbits. And that's why this land. Because, you know, Lord Cobham doesn't want you poaching anything on his land. I know that. I know. So it's like patrolled so that people aren't doing this. But of course, these four dumb teenagers decide they're going to do it. They're looking for they're desperate, though. They're looking for food. Bob Farmer decides to climb the big witch elm near Witchbury Hill because he figured the hollow trunk would be a great place to find a bird's nest. Smart. Now, a witch elm. This is a specific type of tree. It's spelled W. Y. C. H. Witch elm. It's native to Britain and tends to rot from the inside. And so it leaves deep, hollow cavities in the trunk. And so it's known to have a hollow inside once the tree dies. OK. Looks like a tree. Just Googled it, everyone. Don't worry. Looks like you've got you've got the report. It just looks like a tree. OK. It looks like a like a thick, funky tree. Yeah, it's like a funky tree. But then picture that it's hollow. It hollows on the inside because it rots from the inside. And so then the inside is a great place for animals to burrow. and that kind of thing you know cool so this is the kind of tree that they're looking in so bob farmer decides to climb up there and look down into the dark hollow and when he does he sees something pale and round he reaches down thinking it's a nest or an animal skull but he realizes it is a human skull that he has picked up oh oh my god see that that's not the sign for all four of those teenagers to go we're good we're just leave the property immediately crazy since they were trespassing and poaching illegally the boys panicked worrying they'd get in trouble with gatekeepers or cops and vowed secrecy to one another yeah that's all you can do that's literally i mean four teenage boys frontal lobes soft as ever and in 1843 where there's no dna evidence are you kidding right right call it a night no dna evidence they don't even know what that is they don't even know what just happened like they're just looking for bird eggs okay yeah i'm just hungry i don't want a single other problem okay but the poor tommy tommy tommy couldn't tommy couldn't keep a secret tommy i fucking knew it i knew he was gonna be trouble okay he's the oldest too and he just had a conscience and like i would be that kid i can't i mean it would eat me alive there's no way that like there's no way a kid can be like as much as i say of course it's what you would do as a teenager i'm not condoning that i would say please as a teenager tell see something say something right and i'm not condoning that i'm and like thank god top little tommy did but uh i do understand the inclination to be like whoa okay yeah out of my depth and i'm so young that i can just pretend this never happened it's probably the first real trauma he's ever ever had yeah well i don't know you're starving during world war ii that's a good point looking looking for looking for eggs on a trespassing property i'd be pretty hungry to be looking for eggs in the dirt uh i would say okay yeah i would say but yeah i mean i would say this is a pretty significant trauma on a scale of despite the war we'll reverse this must be his second trauma this wow it's only his second major trauma in life um yeah so okay this poor kid uh anyway so they find this skull they freak out um he pulls it out he freaks out uh the what had happened is the tree itself had made a perfect natural coffin like it it became this almost hollow space that fit a body perfectly honestly science is fucking rock and roll sometimes right like it kept it hidden there uh for over by the way we'll find out over a year and a half oh the skull oh and like this talk about trauma really i mean this really is upsetting okay remember this kid picked it up yeah the skull still had patches of matted hair attached some crooked teeth and a very it's like a noticeable uneven dental pattern so they see this skull i mean it's out of like a movie right like something out of a prop like a prop out of a movie so because they were trespassing and poaching illegally they panicked um farmer just dropped the skull back into the tree they made a pact of silence and they ran home but tommy like i said was too uneasy and he told his mom and dad and they called wouldn't you just tell me what's you know it the worcestershire county constabulary can somebody give me a trophy thank you that's crazy okay so the constable you could have just said that you know i could have but i could have said whatever i did say constabulary that's crazy that's i've never heard that word before constabulary that's constabulary just curious how because i i told you at the dog park i'm hosting a spelling bee i would love to use that word how does it spell oh of course c-o-n-s-t-a-b so con stab uh you larry u-l-a-r-y it's a classic concept stab you larry typical constabulary tip yeah but also i want to say it has a red squiggle underneath so i wouldn't i would perhaps consult the oxford got it so you'd be out at the uh at the spelling bee you know where i would be at the judge's booth throwing a fucking hissy fit is what i'd be doing i would be throwing tables over i would be doing cartwheels down the fucking aisles oh my god okay okay sorry my face is like red that was so funny okay i'm just sweating all over again oh my god constabulary because fuck off what's the show i'm talking to myself sorry what's the show so hard on the worst shirt okay you killed it thanks when the police went into the woods and so this kid feels so much guilt and i'm sure this was probably hard for all the kids but one of them spilled the beans right away i'm assuming that was going to happen no matter who it was uh mom and dad call the police and i'm sorry the constable and the constable goes out into the woods and when they search the tree as indicated by the kids they do pull out not only a skull but a nearly complete human skeleton inside the tree they also found a gold wedding ring torn fragments of clothing a single crepe sold shoe and a small glass bottle when they searched the ground outside the tree they found the bones of a hand scattered on the forest floor and a shin bone buried close to the tree trunk oh my god it's weird they sent all the remains to birmingham where a famous uh pathologist named professor james webster did a forensic autopsy and they found a gold wedding ring torn fragments of clothing and he figured out that the body most likely belonged to a short slender woman who was about five feet tall so relatively short he estimated she was between 35 and 40 years old and looking at her pelvic bones he could tell she had given birth to at least one child he could tell that she had been dead for at least 18 months which put her time of death in or before october of 1941 which would have been during the wartime craziness so that's why one of the main theories is that perhaps this was just somebody who was startled by an air yeah airtime siren you know a bombing and randy woods and the wrong person oh oh yeah i was gonna get to that okay yeah i was gonna say hit and then got stuck yeah that that would be um nicer that would be nicer okay she had actually died of suffocation not being stuck because they found down her throat a tightly packed wad of fabric oh man so she was definitely killed taffeta yeah she was murdered some sort of taffeta or something like that um webster measured the opening of the tree and realized the killer must have put her in there immediately after the murder while the body was still warm because if they had waited for rigor mortis to set set in her stiff limbs would have not allowed her to fit into the kind of narrow shape as for the missing left hand that they had found nearby uh webster and the police concluded that wild animals had chewed off the bones and dragged them out of the tree although some people maintain that this has a more maybe ritualistic or witchy explanation the victim had a uh really irregular like i said dental pattern and uh the jaw was a bit crooked and some missing teeth and so they thought like okay well hopefully that will at least help us identify her through dental records but checking all the local dentists turned up absolutely nothing and because the wartime registries were such a mess there was not really like a reliable local missing persons report that matched her description and so the investigation kind of just stalled at first but then around christmas in 1944 things took a bizarre turn now remember her death would have been october 1941 so now we're in christmas time 1944 okay cryptic graffiti starts showing up in the area okay and i have a picture for you uh okay here's the photo i'm gonna send this to you so cryptic graffiti began to show up i know i know i know oh it's so creepy m can you read it please yeah so we don't know who wrote this this just showed up near the area yes okay yuck who put bella down the witch elm haggleywood so okay so now we know her name is bella so somebody definitely knows exactly who that person was and that she was hidden there so that's what the graffiti said on the same day nearby um by the way that was written on an empty building on hayden hill road in the town of old hill nearby it was written in three inch white chalk block letters that was discovered march 30th um there was another one uh found the same day uh who and this one though said haggleywood bella then on march 31st they found another one that said who put lubella in the witch elm okay so lubella maybe it's just like the longer version of that name exactly okay so the message um had changed a little bit but it appeared several times in the same handwriting and it was unknown you know who this author was and why they were these messages around and i and immediately i'm curious about like what is like what do you want out of this because you have been i'm assuming right now it was like it's the murderer themself or someone who witnessed the murder i would think and my first thought is like you've gotten away with it for so long and now they have a lot of evidence why would you add to that evidence unless exactly but then there's the typical if you're the killer you have to like run back to the crime scene as soon as you're caught it's like it's like the ego like the taunting the police stuff that makes me think like maybe it's an egomaniac thing like oh i just need the attention or i need to stir the pot and like get some more attention you know yeah like this is like really if i ever hit a body and then someone found it that's when you just absolutely don't make a goddamn peep let alone tell them exactly the name and the longer version of that it's also weird is that it was like years later right i don't know what to do with this you like that's weird right so okay yeah so i mean i was like let me clarify no there's not going to be any clarity but let me just add more confusion i guess um okay so there were several messages uh haggleywood bella one said who put bella down the witch elm haggleywood oof just so creepy um but the message that shortened the name from lou bella to bella and added uh the location is is the one that kind of got the public using calling this unknown victim bella like we don't even know if that's her real name we don't know if somebody made that up we don't know if it's a nickname you know like we don't even necessarily i was so quick to assume that that was actually her fucking name but yeah someone could just be trolling everybody yeah yeah it's it's weird uh according to someone on reddit so grain of salt uh the original name gave given to the lore was lou bella and they said they knew from growing up in the area that like their aunt would say that she was a witch and she was a witch and she was a witch and she was a witch say lou bella in the witch elm not bella so you know there's at least some account that says lou bella was kind of like the original lore um and then it was shortened to bella because today we it is bella down the witch elm okay okay so the graffiti of course became a massive local phenomenon um of course then it like was copycatted all over the area the midlands uh it written in white spray paint on something called the witchbury obelisk because of course this town called witchbury has an obelisk that's this historic 18th century monument of course by witchbury hill and in 1999 somebody spray painted who put bella in the witch elm and they spelled witch instead of wych they wrote it like witchcraft and that has kind of like furthered further sure i mean that was just meant to happen eventually yeah exactly a ritualistic kind of witchiness to it so now nowadays it's often referred to as like the witch elm instead of the oh like all trees in general because of that no just the story oh okay i was like yeah fun like a change no i think the the that poor botanist who named it the witch elm is like damn it it's spelled it's like i intentionally used a w or i mean a y instead of an i i did that on purpose yeah so it kind of matched like local witchcraft rumors and then that of course like stuck um as did the spelling of bella rather than lou bella so nobody ever figured out who this artist was and because they couldn't identify the victim people started coming up with theories um one of the main theories um was that they had found the body of a real german spy named clara and her name was clara bowerly a 35 year old german cabaret singer actress and unfortunately up via agent nazi intelligence agent in training and how did her name come in here well clara was actually the lover of an active german spy uh named joseph jacobs joseph jacobs who had this like this sentence feels like i'm having some sort of an episode but it's i'm just gonna say it okay he had parachuted into cambridgeshire been captured and been executed at the tower of london in august of 1941 so he's a spy and he that's what happened to him okay when he was arrested he had a photo of clara in his pocket because she was his lover and because she was also a spy he basically told mi5 that she was a secret agent who was scheduled to parachute into the midlands on that same mission where he was captured and he was arrested and he was arrested and he was captured so theoretically he's saying clara parachuted into the midlands around that time okay and then he was executed at the tower of london this does feel like a drunk ramble or something and then the tower of london does make an appearance in this interesting okay did i say tower i meant bridge no i didn't even know parachutes existed in the fucking 1800s okay it's not the 1800s wait i thought this was 1840 something no 19 did i say 1840 no 1941 it's 1941 sorry i keep making it 1840 in my head sorry blitzkrieg bop you literally keep saying 19 in my head i keep saying 18 sorry well that's okay basically what happened is this one spy i mean it because it sounds so nuts but this is really what happened okay okay this german spy i'm gonna say it like the english way because otherwise i'd trip myself up this german spy joseph jacobs he is caught when he's parachuting into cambridgeshire which is like two hours away from where this witch elm is when he's caught he tells british agents like mi5 he tells them oh this photo in my pocket that's my lover clara she's also a secret agent for germany for nazi intelligence which she was clara bowerly and that is who's in his pocket okay and she was scheduled to also parachute into cambridgeshire which is like two hours away from where this witch elm is and he's but in two hours away into the midlands area so where she did where she did actually where the witch elm was and where the body was found so this is now the connection that's being made here that already is a lot of like weird coincidence that she and basically his tale was that she landed she supposedly was supposed to meet him he was caught and she was never heard from again so the theory is that she got killed along the way maybe yeah like like the opposition up in something yes yes yes okay so yes keep that in mind actually because that that's sort of kind of the broader picture that starts to develop actually okay so wait before we go any further am i still thinking of this as just one of many theories or is this the standing theory um or do you not want to tell me yet it's sort of like they all kind of blend together i don't know how else to put it okay yeah it's it's sort of i think that they're all connected in like a broader scheme okay i think there's some sort of spy angle here but i could be totally off like the other theory being that like somebody was just in the wrong place at the wrong time during an air raid and the air raid sirens going off and were startled and were confused and lost and met met somebody who harmed them so you know that's also a theory so there is so bella is just like the um the mythical name to this lore but not not actually that we don't find out later that there really was in fact abella because i'm still thought i'm still thinking about the the graffiti and like it feels like someone knew her name was bella but maybe they were maybe this was just like baiting people okay see this is exactly why i couldn't give like a straight answer on how many theories there are because listen to this clara the spy okay remember her who was supposedly supposed to perish you into the midlands and then was never heard from again uh she had actually performed in west midlands music halls for two years before the war and she actually spoke english with a perfect birmingham accent and her audiences so she's a spy right but so she was like really in character like she that is like someone she was able to portray very well and her audiences in in england knew her as clara bella or bella oh shut the fuck up i know so this was like it was like either her stage name or like her um what's it like an agent name your alias yeah something like that okay yeah but in 2016 researchers dug into german public archives and completely debunked the theory when they proved that clara bowerly actually died of natural causes in a berlin hospital in december of 1942 that adds an extra layer okay and that was before the skeleton in the tree was ever even found however i want to say remember what we were saying about wartime records and what are you going to tell me about spies like i don't believe you you know i don't know how much am i supposed to believe about spy records being accurate especially when it comes to like nazis being involved you know i don't know i don't know i'm just saying i still find it a bizarre coincidence all of this if if it wasn't her it's summer outside and a lot of people are trying to get that close shave so their legs are extra silky smooth and unfortunately when it comes to shaving your legs. A lot of people deal with irritation and red bumps and they feel like the razor isn't really meant for them or it's flimsy, especially, you know, women's products with the pink tax. A lot of women's products are double the price of men's products. But luckily, when it comes to Harry's, Flamingo came out of that. Basically, the women who helped build Harry's found themselves rolling their eyes when other companies were just shrinking men's razors and making them pink. So they decided to create Flamingo. Flamingo was born to give women shaving solutions made with their bodies and minds. So there's no pink tax pricing. There's no bumps, no irritation. It's a closer shave and the razor feels like it's working for and with your body versus against it. You don't have to worry about that when it comes to your razor. You can have a close shave from a razor that's meant for you. And for a limited time, our listeners can get the Flamingo starter set for only $7 at shopflamingo.com slash drink. This set includes the Flamingo original razor, one five blade cartridge, a one ounce foaming shave gel and a shower holder. Just head to shopflamingo.com slash drink to claim this offer. And after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you another spy theory that I think that some people claim is like another a separate theory altogether. But I think kind of goes with this other theory. Like I think they may be talking about the same person, which is why I said like, maybe to multiple theories, maybe to one big one. In 1953, a journalist and like, keep in mind, this is nine years later, a journalist named Wilfred Byford Jones got a letter from someone using the pen name Anna. And this Anna claimed that Bella down the witch elm was actually a Dutch woman named Clara Bella. I'm sorry about the last name. Clara Bella. I can't wait. I just whatever it is. I know she was bullied in high school or something or would have been Clara. Clara Bella drunkers. Drunkers is crazy. But you know, in high school, they called her Clara Bella drunkers like she was. It could be worse. It could be worse. But you could definitely make fun of that. This is like the time on Beach to Sandy. I couldn't say there's this woman named Dorcas. And I like could not for the life of me say the name out loud because just crying laughing. Deirdre had a grandma named Dorcas. And I remember being like, oddly insensitive about it when I first It's so rude, but I was like, what? I was like, everyone in this family is talking about Dorcas. Why is nobody acting about how crazy that name is? Like, it's not okay. You're gaslighting me. It's like, oh, Aunt Flatulence. And I'm like, what? Like, I'm like, like, but I remember hearing Dorcas and everyone was talking about it. And I was like, this is a joke, right? We're all like, you're punking me. Yeah, 100. Yes, 100%. And then by the way, someone wrote in and they were like, okay, wait, so no, okay. No, I forgot. It wasn't someone wrote in that's my brother would just be so mortified. It was a review. Okay. That I brought and the reviewer was so upset because the tour guide kept making fun of the name Dorcas. But this reviewer had like a great aunt named Dorcas. And so they took it really personally. Like, how dare you in like a Yelp review? I mean, um, I like, when I was when I heard that from Deirdre's family, and I made a comment. First of all, they gaslit the shit out of me and made me think that I was the crazy person. No, you're right. You're correct. All they were like, what? It's just a name. And I was like, no, I know you're right. But I think I'm right, too. No, I was right. I was seven to be fair. But I do think it's like, I've never even heard that name till I was like, 33. And I literally couldn't say it because I was laughing so hard. I cried. And I have to assume the the term dork came from someone named Dorcas. Like, you know, when there's no in the office when they're like, Oh, he totally shrewded it. It's like, yeah, but they're like, Oh, she's a real Dorcas. You know what I'm saying? Talking about Dorcas is such a good like little Oh, man. I that I mean, there's a reason people often choose actively to not use that name anymore. I guess so. I guess so. I wonder if Deirdre ever has a daughter. She'll she'll say what do you mean? It's perfectly nice. I know. Then I'll go. It's beautiful. Listen, the world will say something. Don't worry. I mean, I feel like that's how a lot of probably people in the UK probably see the name Fanny, right? I was just thinking that too. So I'm sure there's probably a lot of those instances. Yeah. Right. So now this Anna claims she knows who Bella is. And then she's a Dutch woman named Clara Bella Dronkers, the wife of a Dutch spy. Now, this is the letter that Anna wrote to the journalist. Okay, I'm going to read to you. You will never solve the mystery. The one person who could give the answer is now beyond the jurisdiction of earthly courts. Jesus. Yeah, I feel like that's a notification I would get on my ancestry.com tree where it'd be like, there's nothing left that you'll never find. Yeah. You've reached the end. Yeah, I hope you haven't had a terrible time. Uh, yeah, he, uh, the only person who could ever give the answer is now beyond the jurisdiction of earthly courts. The affair is closed and involves no witches, black magic or moonlight rights. The person responsible died insane in 1942 and the victim was Dutch and arrived illegally in England about 1941. Anna. Respectfully. I feel like this is what your family would tell you. So you'd stop looking for your family members. Go. She's gone insane. Don't look any further. You know what I mean? Okay. No. So, so actually she was referring to her husband. Oh, I know because Anna was actually a woman named Una Mossop. And when she was kind of called out, like they were able to figure out who this was, they determined that she, the, the, the real story is that her ex-husband, Jack Mossop was a black marketeer, civilian black marketeer who occasionally liked to wear a stolen RAF uniform. And run around and cause trouble. And she said that back in late 1941, he went drinking at a pub in Hagley with a Dutch guy named Van Raltie and an unnamed Dutch woman, which would be this Clarabella person. She said the woman got wasted, passed out in the car and either to, I mean, I'm going to go with like, I'm assuming worst possible case scenario, cause I know men, um, it says to either teach her a lesson or frighten her or play a prank on her. I'm assuming to a sort of, I mean, this is assault in some way or another. They put her supposedly into the tree and then she got stuck and died, but it's like, why was there something stuffed down her throat then? Like, that doesn't even make fucking sense. Um, that, yeah. And, and not long after that, which this is the part of the journalist track down, Jack Mossop had a massive mental breakdown and he had to be institutionalized. So it's like, I mean, and she was using a pen name. So it's like, I don't know. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. Uh, he was admitted to the Stafford mental hospital because he kept seeing hallucinations of a pale woman staring out at him from a tree trunk. Oh my God. Okay. Well that's, I mean, we'll never know, but that does feel telling, a little bit. It's weird, right? Yeah. It's a weird overlap. So modern investigators are pretty skeptical of the story, even though I find it pretty like, I don't know, jarring. Um, mainly because she waited 10 years after his death to say anything. And it doesn't explain how the hand bones got scattered on the ground. But then I'm like, I thought that was an animal. So why are you saying it was something different? I don't get it. I don't know. Like, then what do you think the hand bones like, not you? I mean, then what are they? What do you think the hand bones are there for? It's just weird. Um, then you have like the occult side of things, right? So this came mainly from a famous anthropologist and archeologist named Dr. Margaret Murray in 1945. And boy, did she cause quite a fucking stir. Uh, she claimed that Bella, the victim in the witch Elm was actually killed in a ritualistic witchcraft execution. Whoa. She argued that her hand being cut off was done, um, to create a hand of glory, which is like an artifact that was historically like a magical object that you would make from a dead criminal's hand. And then burglars would use it as a totem sort of to put the homeowners to sleep before they robbed them. Hang on. I feel again, like maybe I'm having a stroke. Can I repeat that? I feel like, yeah, but start where you parachute out of the sky and then you get captured and you die. the tower of london but you've got another spy in 1841 but there's also parachute yeah this is all a little um okay okay i mean i'm like is this normal in england like maybe i'm just like maybe they're just new words to me yeah they're like fanny is crazy but this shit we do all the time yeah um yeah so this anthropologist and archaeologist like concocts this theory that this is witchcraft right and that i mean which like i i don't know it feels like a bit of a stretch because if they were creating a hand of glory why did they leave it there on the forest floor i don't understand as it feels like it was important to to be with you or a place somewhere or it's strange that you would say that and then like it would be there on the ground i feel like anyone i feel like a lot of people just throwing their hat in on their ideas of what happened i think so too i think so too um she also said putting a corpse in a hollow tree was a classic occult way to lock away a witch's spirit so she couldn't escape or curse her killers um the media of course fucking loved this theory and they splashed it all over the newspapers and they even linked it to another unsolved local murder of charles walton who was killed in lower quinton in 1945 and we're like there's like a spree of ritualistic which i mean it's basically like um satanic panic but in the 40s i mean also like i feel like let's not forget that it's literally called a witch elm like of course the story was a witch in the witch elm that's and the graffiti appearing i mean it is very creepy like it does totally lend itself to like a if you told 10 year old me oh there's a tree called a witch elm which i've never heard of before so i have to assume it's the word witch and there was a woman found in there and maybe for some sort of ritual of course i'm gonna think she's a witch immediately and like the way to be fair the way it was presented also which like i don't know you think i don't know anything about fucking i was like what field any of them you're like you think i don't know you don't know what calculus geometry i don't know i could go on and on the list goes on forever um but like like farming agriculture i don't fucking know but the theory was that apparently some local people native to this land would put a body in the witch elm to bring about a good harvest and i'm like i don't know because it's like then why didn't we find a bunch of them in trees like what are you talking about i think this i think like there's just too many very out there theories that all of them sound even more ridiculous than if it was just one theory by itself yeah i don't know i i i want to believe like i mean for some reason like a spy going missing and getting murdered is like the most believable all of a sudden exactly and that's why i'm right usually that has to be like that's why i'm so thrown i feel like in every other story you've covered like them being a spy is like the wackiest thing that could happen right and it's almost like weirder that somebody would just randomly accidentally run into someone in the woods during during an air raid and like i i don't know i don't know i don't know what's weirder i honestly so it's very confusing um but yeah so she basically claimed that this was like a ritualistic thing and the media like ran with this and then said there was another one even though the police were like no it's wild animals that the hand is missing in which case i'm like then why did you dismiss that other theory but whatever okay um they were like it's wild animals for the missing hand of course the witchcraft part like caught on and became like one of the main focal points of the story because like you said it's it brights itself like there's no way yeah it wasn't gonna become part of the story uh there were a couple other minor theories like uh for example a birmingham sex worker who told police that one of her colleagues named bella who was who worked on hagley road had vanished in 1941 like that i think makes a lot of sense that makes the most sense the most sense and that's like that's considered like a minor possibility and i'm like okay i guess yeah let's just gloss over that i guess so another simple theory was that it was just a local woman who like somehow got trapped during an air raid and the bomb scared her and she climbed in like like you said earlier but again with like the finding that things stuffed down her throat and that's odd that tells me immediately that someone did this it's bizarre like i just don't feel like that's and it's like she choked on her own fabric and got scared so she ran into a tree and then got stuck that didn't happen climbed into it right no or like she got stuck and decided to try to eat her own fabric to stay alive that's not that didn't happen exactly i don't think that's it so i exactly thank you i agree someone did this to her i agree i agree um so just super super weird and like of course over the years people have like thrown around different theories and none of them quite lead to like a satisfying conclusion um the biggest tragedy is that the physical evidence as in the body is completely gone it's missing what right after the autopsy in 1943 pathologist james webster sent the bones to his friend okay his at the university at the university at the university at the university at the university at the university at the university at the either this guy was also a mob guy who keeps his back to the wall when he goes to restaurants or can you imagine if he really thought like oh i'm like an amateur who really wants to get into this field and then he loses a fucking body that'd be crazy it's only one of the two either he was paid to do it or it was an accident either way he should feel like shit i think what i think i have like a totally other take on it what is it i mean i think he just they they were like they like the occult theory i think and they wanted to keep the body i think they or maybe i think they wanted to keep it just to like you know how people just you know how white men like to just take stuff just like a drink just like a trophy yes just like a little trinket yeah they love to have a little trinket especially when it's a woman's body so i think maybe he sends it to his friend at the university of birmingham for some unofficial tests whatever the fuck that means and then her body we have no record of it disappears vanishes you're totally right yeah so apparently the skeleton for some time was kept in uh the birmingham city police's private museum at their at their tally ho training center okay that's better it's better proceed the skeleton was kept in the birmingham city police's private black i don't know what it means private black museum i at their private museum at their tally ho training center until the 1960s or early 70s but during a big reorganization of police archives the remains vanished and nobody knows where they are um so anyway and still nobody knows okay even though police are not able to find the body they are still trying to solve it to this day in 2018 um something what oh my god is dork is black of tally ho involved i literally wrote these sentences i'm like i must have thought them weird at some point right like you did the notes and kind of like fell off and like just kind of like i must have but i think it's autocorrect just how british people are british people are so like unintentionally funny like what are you doing like listen to this tally ho training center by the way tally ho has an exclamation point and then it says training center like that's important that feels like a kid's zone it's like tally ho tally ho uh pizza and laser tag exactly yeah okay so i tm tm tm i'm gonna read the sentence again because really it just sounds insane in 2018 face slab at liverpool what in 2018 face lab at liverpool john moore's university used old autopsy photos of the skull to create a digital 3d forensic facial reconstruction of what bella looked like and then um an artist was able to create a rendering um and so i do also have a picture of like what i can send you of what bella might have looked like today now they really want to find any remains that they can um unfortunately they've had no luck even though in 2023 the bbc launched a massive appeal alongside its podcast the body in the tree which was about bella in the witch home asking museums and private collectors to search their storage rooms for the missing bones because like they're just somewhere you know which is crazy like someone just snagged them and also put them somewhere yeah you i mean there are people who just buy storage storage units without even knowing what's in there and yeah exactly you could accidentally have a body in there i aspire to be one of those people i mean the dream is like to just like have treasure and the treasure hunting all the time um but yeah so they've asked but nobody can find anything but if they are able to find the skeleton uh modern labs could finally run like isotope testing to see where she was from run dna to see who she was if we can be so lucky um but of course this legend whether we discover who she actually is or not has become um you know very very famous there have been lots of there have been opera operas and plays and movies and stories and podcasts and comic books all sorts of stuff um even a ballet i believe oh no i'm sorry contemporary dance piece called bella um so yeah lots of lots of beautiful art but it's just tragic that we don't know i also have a picture of the skull which i i'm not i mean unless you want to see it but i mean i'll see it we don't have to make it public but i'll okay it's it's just like disturbing to think a this is what these people are doing and i'm not sure if it's true but i'm not sure if it's true but i'm not sure if it's true but also be that somebody like took this and like wanted it as like a like a trophy or something you know and and kept it like that just that just gives me the ick you know okay well it's not gonna let me maybe i'll get it in the middle of the night and oh my god like finally and it i'll i'll click notify anyway just to be evil okay hold on i'm gonna send it so that the bottom is the is the skull and then this is the picture above is the reconstruction right from face lab science is crazy i kind of like i kind of call bullshit on science sometimes i'm like i don't understand how that like you must just have put a face up there and just gone see and like i don't know how scientifically you would even be able to haven't you seen those videos where they like take the cartilage and mold it like how crazy it's amazing wow okay well that's been i mean that's fascinating it's just so sad you know though we still don't know yeah you think i like at some point do you kind of a dark question do you just give up on some of these cases right because like if it's me yeah well like when you think about the theories of it because i sit there and i think like like almost 100 years old anyone who would know anything about it is gone like i wouldn't like i could never be the the cop in the department where like they do cold cases because i just every day i would be just so discouraged i'd just be like oh no i mean i'm just fortunate that i get to do something new every day but i definitely believe that the right person just has to have an estate sale and they're like here are the bones that's a good point like i just i feel like shit like that happens you know yeah i mean zodiac killer like some i guess like no reason for golden state golden state um i guess anything's possible but at some point i would just i'm i like i think i get so focused on like wanting to figure it out and if i can't within a certain time frame then i'm like oh then it just must not exist um yeah it does not exist it's just how my my brain operates so um man congrats to the people out there who uh don't give up i do no seriously because i do yeah um wow yeah well what a great story everybody and thank you um yeah i've been wanting to do that one for a long time because you know i love an unsolved mystery i love when you do an unsolved mystery do you love it or do you hate it you kind of hate it i hate that i um never love to hate it yeah yeah there you go we have a we have a bit of a a dance me in those cases because i i really do for some reason there's a pinch of me who thinks can you imagine if we solved it right now i mean someone has got to eventually right so like what if we came up with the theory that just like nobody else had thought of i don't know why i think i'm i would be on that level but then at the end by the time i haven't figured it out i'm like oh well but you did a great job telling it well thank you and um ditto thank you my well i already i retold it technically because mine was a from that book both both tellings were great and my double joke made it even better i thought that was so funny i love how i didn't and actually i love that like that the double entendre as you know i like to say it's so um not a good feeling often when people don't get your joke but it worked when the joke works either way it actually like sure we can take it that way too correct it itself oh my gosh oh man well what are you up to for the rest of the day week what are you doing you're i gotta get out of here it's like 90 degrees in here i believe it's sweating i'm sweating what are you doing i don't know i guess i'm just enjoying my last weekend before i have to pack everything up and head on out of here so i'm going on a bunch of family trips and weddings and i'll be busy i for all i know the next time you see me i'll be in a hotel i don't even know if i'm gonna bring my microphone just in case i don't know we'll see yes we're gonna try to record monday and then yeah if not well i have i i know i mean i have so many trips coming up all back to back you might bring it i might just bring it for for a bunch of reasons because i have this then a wedding then i have another wedding right after and then from that wedding i'm treating it as a trip so i'm gonna stay a couple days so i think i'm just gonna start bringing my microphone everywhere because i just don't know wow how our schedule look versus traveling and anyway it'll be a bit of a headache but whatever i think i'm just gonna i need to just buy myself a pelican case and just like have like an official holder of all the equipment your to-go kit yes exactly you can have a go bag yeah you know how like after we traveled so much our suitcases like we just had double of everything so we never had to like keep packing our toiletries i think i just need a double microphone so i've just always got a box with all my working equipment instead of thinking about like i have to bring this wire and this wire oh i have two microphones i bring what i have a travel mic yeah what do you say i bring with me i don't take this giant boom mic off you used to have a normal boom mic one and that was your travel one that's true that's your wireless mic that's true what the fuck happened to that i don't know uh but yeah so anyway i that's what i'm doing are you having any fun this weekend oh my god i don't know well let us know but we'll find out blaze is coaching a bunch of jujitsu so leona and i are going to be on our own which means we're going rogue and probably getting ice cream that sounds like the best way to go rogue we're usually just eating ice cream on weekends like we're just eating ice cream on weekends and we're just like the whole time little mommy daughter date that's we have a lot of fun i love it okay well we'll see you guys next week and that's why we drink i didn't like what you said odin pauses about the future this is the love story of real hinge couple odin and edward written and read by me curtis garner listen to the free audiobook now you to refresh and reorganize your space at the home depot find power tools and tool sets starting at fifty dollars to help tackle diy projects home updates and more whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder the home depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list shop labor day savings at the home depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving