Expertly Done (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Today, I'm going to share three stories that are about people who have a lot of experience in a particular area, but their expertise and really their confidence surrounding their expertise is actually exactly the thing that causes them to make a disastrous mistake. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, the next time you're at the Follow Button's house, sneak into their kitchen and steal all of their forks. Okay, let's get into our first story called Protection. One evening in November of 1972, a 68-year-old man named Demetrius Matura hurried around his small room at a boarding house in Stoke-on-Trent, England, pouring salt all over the floor. And as he did this, he looked out the window and saw the fading daylight and knew he had to hurry. However, running around like this was really taxing, especially on his lungs, because for decades he had worked in this very dusty pottery factory and it had really taken a toll on him. So, moving faster was really hard to do. But he really needed to push through the pain and the discomfort and finish what he was doing before it got dark out. Because when it got dark out, that's when the vampires came out. So, Demetrius had immigrated from Poland about 25 years earlier. And in his home country, vampires were not just, you know, lore, but actually they were a huge part of the culture and were often spoken about as vampires. And Demetrius, despite now living in England, of course, he had begun hearing about a lot of vampire sightings here. A few years ago, he started noticing these news reports about a vampire that was living in London's Highgate Cemetery. And also, around the same time he began seeing those reports, he also learned about these two girls who had been attacked by a vampire in the English countryside. And Demetrius, he just couldn't believe it. Demetrius could not believe how people were just not that panicked about this. I mean, Demetrius was terrified. You know, he had grown up being scared of vampires that obviously, you know, played a role in his reaction to these sightings now in England. But still, he's thinking, like, why aren't more people scared about this? But even more than that, when Demetrius would actually talk about, you know, these vampire concerns that he had with people in England, he found most people thought it was fake. That they thought that, you know, these news reports. And, you know, all that stuff, it was just made up. It was fake. And then they would kind of look at Demetrius as sort of like an idiot for thinking that that was real. Like, come on, vampires aren't real. But to Demetrius, he just felt like, you know what? Those people who don't believe in this very real threat that obviously is getting worse here, those people, they're the idiots, not him. And so Demetrius, instead of, you know, trying to defend his position or try to convince anyone to believe what he believed. He decided to just do what he had to do to protect himself. And he knew exactly what to do. So Demetrius, he had a whole routine of things he would do to protect himself from vampires when he was living in Poland. And mostly he had abandoned that routine when he came to England. But now, you know, since these sightings, he had brought back that routine and it was very extensive. He had added on to it, made it more elaborate, but it was something he now did every single night. Because vampires only come out at night and so that's when you need protection. So before Demetrius climbed in bed at night, he would pour salt all around the room. And he would also scatter fresh garlic cloves everywhere, since those were both very toxic to vampires. And then after that, he would go up to each of the crosses that he had on his wall to make sure they were properly secured, because crosses are a known deterrent to vampires. And then typically, after checking all the crucifixes, he would go around and maybe do a little more salt, a few more garlic cloves. And then once everything was in place and secure, he would climb into bed. And the moment his head hit the pillow, he would feel his heart rate finally start to settle down. Because he knew that, at least for this night, he would be safe. And so in November of 1972, Demetrius just continued every night doing his vampire protection procedure. And even though some people thought this was very strange and very paranoid of him because, you know, vampires aren't real, right? Well, it wasn't hurting anyone, you know, Demetrius felt better when he did it, it was just sort of his own thing. And so he just continued to do it and it didn't cause any problems. Until November 24th of that year. So on that day, just before 10pm, police constable John Pye of the Stoke-on-Trent Police Department, he walked up to the entrance of Demetrius's boarding house. He was here to do a wellness check because the landlady of this place had called the station to tell them that. she hadn't seen one of her tenants, Demetrius Machura, in about a week and was starting to worry about him. So now, Pye knocked on the front door and a few seconds later, this older woman swung it open and she introduced herself as the landlady and then she let Pye inside and let him down a hallway and stopped in front of Demetrius's door. And so Pye knocked and he called out to Demetrius, announcing that he was the police and he was just here to make sure he was okay. But there was no sound coming from inside the room. So when Pye reached down and tried the handle, he found it was locked. And so after knocking a few more times and calling out and still not hearing anything from inside, Pye told the landlady to go ahead and step back because he was going to knock this door down. And so Pye, he leaned back and then rammed his shoulder against the door and actually it swung open really quickly and immediately Pye and the landlady were hit with this really strong smell of garlic that was coming out of the very dark room in front of them. And so Pye immediately yells into the room. For, for Demetrius, but there's, there's no response. And so Pye, he reaches in and tries to find a light switch and he does, and he flips it on, but it wasn't working for some reason. So Pye, he pulled out his flashlight off his belt, he clicked it on, and then he walked into the room. And right away, Pye felt like this, this small dark room was the most bizarre, creepy space he had ever been inside of. There was what appeared to be salt all over the room. Over the floor. And there were also cloves of garlic like everywhere, not just on the ground, but also up on window sills. And then at some point Pye swept his flashlight from the wall over to the bed in the back of this room. It's basically like a one bedroom apartment. And he sees the bed and he sees there was a definitive human sized lump under the sheets. And so right away he, he had a good sense of what it was. And so Pye, he walked across the floor, stepping on garlic and salt as he went. And when he reached the bed, he pulled back the sheets and under the sheets was the very obviously dead body of Demetrius Matura. Pye heard the sound of the landlady who had followed him inside by this point. She gasped because she's seeing, you know, what's inside of her boarding house here. And at this point, even though Pye was like very sure Demetrius was dead, just to be sure he reached down and he felt for a pulse, but there was none. And also Demetrius's skin was very cold and very pale. However. Despite how very obviously deceased Demetrius was, Pye looked around and couldn't really make sense of exactly how he had died. I mean, there was no denying that he was in a very strange location, but he couldn't really picture how the salt and the garlic and the crosses could have had anything to do with his death. You know, maybe it was just the, the insanity of a dying man who crawled into bed and he died in here or something, but it was like, there's no visible wounds. There's no blood anywhere. There's nothing. It's just this weird. Creepy room this guy's in and he's just dead under the sheets. It was just bizarre. But there was one thing about Demetrius that in Pye's mind was pretty disturbing. I mean, even, even more so than what he was already seeing. And that was that Demetrius, he had died with this, this terrified looking expression on his face. Like his mouth was, was wide open. Like it was frozen as if he'd been screaming as he took his final breath, which made Demetrius wonder if maybe when he died. His death had been quite painful or just terrifying. Like maybe Demetrius had seen something like as he died, was he scared of something as he was dying that caused his face to sort of freeze in this, this expression. However, that made Pye think that maybe this was a homicide, you know, that, that the victim Demetrius was scared of the attacker and that's why he looked the way he did. The attacker is attacking him and he's reacting, but Pye's looking at the body thinking, I don't think this was a homicide. Because there's just no injury anywhere. So what would the attacker have done? Like how could they have forcibly killed Demetrius without leaving any marks anywhere? Now Pye knew he was not going to get any real answers here without an autopsy, but while he was here, he could at least do a search of the room and also canvas the neighbors, starting with the landlady. So he turned to the visibly shocked landlady and asked her like, Hey, what's the deal with all the salt and the crosses and the garlic? "What's that about?" And surprisingly, she shrugged it off. Like, "Eh, it was just no big deal. deal. It's just what Demetrius did. And when Pi was like, what do you mean? She explained that Demetrius had a really serious phobia of vampires. And these were measures he took to protect himself from vampires. For a second, Pi just stared back at her like he couldn't believe what he was being told. But then he was also thinking like, all right, I'm looking around the room. This is already totally weird. So actually, in a way, that sort of tracks. However, Pi wasn't sure if Demetrius's apparent delusion around vampires really had anything to do with Demetrius's death or not, or if this is just a quirk of the case that this man died, you know, however he died, and also was scared of vampires. He didn't know. But for now, Pi was just incredibly curious and absolutely determined to get answers. A little over a month later, Police Constable Pi was sitting at his desk in police headquarters reading a library book about vampires. So Demetrius was like, I don't know what to do. I'm going to go to the bathroom. And so Demetrius's case was actually on pause while Pi waited for the autopsy results. But even though he really couldn't do much until those results came in, Pi himself just couldn't stop thinking about Demetrius's creepy room and all his vampire stuff. And so on his own, Pi had become a little bit obsessed. Now, there was a possibility that Demetrius had simply died from some illness in his sleep. Pi had learned that Demetrius had actually been sick a lot before he died. And that he'd worked in a pottery factory that really affected his lungs. So Pi knew that it was entirely possible that Demetrius had some form of potter's rot, which was a lung disease that a lot of pottery workers got from the bad air in the factory. But potter's rot was like this slow moving sort of compounding sickness. It was very progressive, but over a long period of time. And Demetrius apparently had died suddenly. And Pi had spoken to all of Demetrius's neighbors and they all said, in the time leading up to his death, he wasn't showing any obvious sign of getting sick or getting sicker, I should say. Like there was no progression happening. He seemed normal and then was just dead. So that sort of confirmed that potter's rot seemed unlikely. Additionally, when Pi spoke to the neighbors, they also communicated that it didn't seem like Demetrius had any obvious enemies. So the idea that there had been some kind of invisible foul play like this, it also didn't really make sense. And so without any other theories to work on, and without the autopsy results yet, Pi had been doing a lot of research on vampires. Now he was certainly not about to consider that a vampire had killed Demetrius, but the scene of Demetrius's death was just so weird that Pi couldn't get past the feeling that somehow vampires must have had something to do with his death. So far though, his research really hadn't helped to clear that up. But just then, Pi's phone rang. And when he answered it, his heart began to race because it was the coroner. And the coroner said the autopsy was done. And the coroner told Pi that he was never going to believe what that autopsy had discovered. It would turn out Pi had been right. Vampires had everything to do with this death. On the night that Demetrius died, he had done all the things he usually did to keep himself safe before he climbed in bed. But unlike the other nights when he had done this procedure, this night, his routine had not worked. So Demetrius, along with spreading salt all over his room, also put garlic cloves everywhere, since that was one of the most famous ways to ward off vampires. And so he did it every single night. And one of the places, in addition to the floor and the windowsills that Demetrius would put these cloves at night, one of those places was his own mouth. And he'd become really good at keeping that garlic clove under his tongue while he was asleep. But on that night in November, something went wrong. While he slept, the clove slipped out from under his tongue, went down his throat, and got stuck. And during the autopsy, the coroner literally found the clove still stuck there. And so it was determined that he had died from choking on it. So while garlic cloves may have played a role in protecting Demetrius from vampires, unfortunately, it was literally the clove itself that killed him. Our second story is called Bucktooth. One fall afternoon in the late 9th century, a Viking leader named Sigurd Eistensen rode his horse on his horse, riding on either side of him were two of his commanders. And behind the three of them was Sigurd's entire army. This field they were traveling across was about to become a battlefield. And Sigurd and his commanders were riding out to meet the leader of the opposing army who would be taking part in this battle, a horrible bucktooth man named Mael Brigta. And Mael was actually already in place at the meeting spot, right in the middle of this battlefield. And he was on his horse, and he was flanked. And he was riding on his horse, and he was riding on his either side by two commanders as well. And then, you know, well behind him was his sea of warriors that would be taking part in this battle. So Mael, he ruled a kingdom called Moray, which was a large area in the north of Scotland. And Sigurd wanted to conquer it. And so today, Sigurd and Mael were meeting in the middle of this really potential battlefield with their respective armies waiting in the wings, you know, behind them. And the idea was, is they would try to negotiate. Effectively, Sigurd would, you know, basically tell Mael, you know, give me some percentage of your land and we won't, you know, raid your area and try to conquer you. And it was sort of on Mael to determine if that was a worthy thing or not, or if it was better to just stand your ground and fight. Sigurd was not worried because he knew that ultimately he was going to win that fight. Not only did Sigurd's Viking army vastly outnumber the Moray, but Sigurd himself was just far more accomplished on the battlefield than Mael. Sigurd was actually known as Sigurd the Mighty. And he was this famous fearsome warrior who'd spent the last two decades ruthlessly conquering parts of Scotland for his king back in Norway. Mael, on the other hand, was not really feared or respected like that. Certainly not by Sigurd. Mael was really known just to be sort of impulsive and kind of untrustworthy and also definitely kind of dumb. And now, as Sigurd and his commanders arrived in the middle of the field right in front of Mael and his two commanders, Sigurd was actually known as Sigurd the Mighty. And he was known just to be sort of impulsive and kind of untrustworthy and also definitely kind of dumb. And they brought their horses to a halt. Sigurd could now see with his own two eyes another thing about Mael that he actually was known for. He was famous for. And that was his two giant front teeth that stuck out way over his bottom lip and actually had earned him a nickname of sorts, which was Mael the Bucktoothed. And so not long after Sigurd arrived, Sigurd and Mael and the other commanders began their negotiation. But Sigurd quickly realized that Mael was not there to make concessions in order to, you know, find a path to peace. He was actually trying to make demands of the Vikings. Like, he was there telling the Vikings what to do, which is just, in Sigurd's mind, totally ridiculous. I mean, you're outnumbered. You're outclassed. Like, what are you doing? In fact, Sigurd, like, couldn't believe what was even happening. I mean, as far as he was concerned, Mael was just a nobody. And his demands in some ways were just disrespectful, not real demands. You know, if Mael was smart, he would be begging for mercy here. But obviously, he was not smart. And so Sigurd quickly realized that what would have to happen here is he and his Vikings would have to just slaughter his army and seize his lands. And so at some point, while Mael was literally mid-sentence, you know, making whatever demand he was making, Sigurd turned to his two commanders and just gave the signal that they were not doing this. They were going to have to fight here. And so Sigurd just grabbed the horse's reins, turned around, and he and his commanders galloped back to his army. And as soon as they got there, Sigurd was ready to go. And so Sigurd was ready to go. Sigurd told his men that they were going to have to massacre all the Murray. But they needed to save Mael the Buck-toothed for him. Hours later, Sigurd was still on his horse. But this time, he was leading what remained of his victorious Viking army down this dirt road away from the battlefield and back towards their camp. Sigurd, like basically all of his men, was totally exhausted. But he was also full of adrenaline because the battle was over. And it had gone exactly the way he wanted it to. And he knew it would. His soldiers had completely destroyed Mael and his army. And he, Sigurd, had personally killed Mael. And so now, as Sigurd rode along here, he looked down at Mael's severed head, which he himself had removed from his adversary's body. And then he had attached the head to his saddle. He looked down at the head. And the head's dangling near his legs. And Mael's eyes are wide open and looking vacantly up at Sigurd. And his mouth was wide open as well, which only sort of made him look at Mael. And so Sigurd made his front teeth look even bigger and hang out even more. And as Sigurd gazed down at this head, he couldn't help but smile as a wave of just pure satisfaction washed over him. During their pre-battle negotiations, Mael had just been unbearably annoying and sort of offensive. And so Sigurd was thrilled he'd gotten the best of him and now had his head dangling right near his legs. Like, that is just perfect for Sigurd. And now that Mael the Buck-toothed was dead, Sigurd was one step closer to conquering all of Scotland. So he gave out this loud triumphant war cry, and his men answered him with cheers. Then Sigurd spurred his horse into a full gallop. However, just a few days later, everything had changed for Sigurd. By this point, Sigurd was now laying under a wool blanket in the stone shack in one of his Scottish settlements, and he was screaming in pain. Because over the last couple of days, he'd gotten incredibly sick. And now he was delirious, and he had such a bad fever that he was both covered in sweat and also shivering non-stop. And then at some point, the doctor who had been taking care of Sigurd came into the shack to check on him. And after looking him over, the doctor just shook his head and told Sigurd that he had done all he could, but this sickness, whatever it was, was going to kill him. And Sigurd, when he heard this, he felt nothing but rage. Not because he was dying, but because he knew that he'd actually been very wrong. He had not gotten the best of Miles the Bucktoothed. Miles the Bucktoothed had clearly gotten the best of him. So it would turn out, after the big battle, after Sigurd had won so triumphantly, as he was riding along, carrying along with him the head of his adversary, Miles' severed head, as he began galloping faster and faster, and he's cheering for his men, they're so triumphant and everyone's cheering along, as he's going faster and faster, the severed head began bouncing because of the movement. And remember, Miles got those big two front teeth. He's got a nickname, Miles the Bucktoothed, for a reason. Well, those teeth, as the head jostled around, began puncturing Sigurd's thigh. And he didn't notice it because he was so jacked up on adrenaline. He's galloping off, he's looking down, he sees blood all over his legs, and he's thinking it's got to be Miles' blood from the fact that his head's been cut off. But no, it was actually Sigurd's blood from the punctures from Miles' buckteeth. And so in the end, even though Sigurd did, you know, successfully kill Miles, he won the battle, well, it would turn out that Miles wasn't done with Sigurd. Because Miles ultimately caused Sigurd's death because those punctures got horribly infected, there was no antibiotics to cure the infection, and ultimately, Sigurd died. And the last and final story is called Paying the Toll. Around 2 p.m. on July 11, 1978, a man named Francisco Imbernon-Vileña drove down a highway a few miles outside of the coastal town of La Rapita, Spain. Earlier, Francisco had left the warehouse where he worked, and he was now driving back toward the city where he lived. And so far, this drive had been very uncomfortable and sweaty, since it was really hot out today, and he didn't have air conditioning. And also, he was just very annoyed. Because before he had left the warehouse, he'd gotten into a disagreement with another employee. So Francisco was in his 50s, and he had been doing his job for years, and while for sure he was a bit of a curmudgeon about certain things, he was also really experienced and self-sufficient. But for some reason, this other younger guy, this co-worker of his, who worked in a completely different department, had felt the need to micromanage him and start telling Francisco how to do his job. And he'd even had the audacity to tell Francisco that if he didn't listen to him, listen to this criticism, and change your behavior, if you don't do that, you're going to regret it. Needless to say, Francisco did not appreciate being told how to do his job, especially by some young idiot here. And so, in the moment, during their confrontation, Francisco had simply ignored the other employee and kept doing his work. But in reality, the whole thing had really bothered him. And even now, as he drove down the highway, it was all he was thinking about. He was just totally stewing over what this guy told him. Up ahead, Francisco noticed a sign that said a few toll booths were coming up. And now Francisco felt a whole new wave of irritation about these stupid tolls. He thought they were a complete ripoff. And so he made a point to never pay them if he could help it. And luckily for Francisco, on this particular route, he did know a way around these tolls. It was a back route that did take a bit longer, but it saved him money. Plus, it ran right by the ocean, so it was very scenic. And so at the next exit, he pulled off the highway and began taking this long cut. About half an hour later, around 2:30 PM, Francisco drove down a narrow road that ran right along the ocean. And as he did this, Francisco, if this was even possible by this point, felt even more annoyed. He had been hoping by the time he got down here that there would be some kind of sea breeze to cool him down, because there was no AC in the truck. But it was somehow, despite being near the ocean here, it was somehow even hotter than when he had been out on the highway. Just up ahead, there was this very popular camp ground called Los Alfakes. It was this expansive field right next to the beach that was full of camper vans and tents. And there were also a few businesses, like restaurants and a general store that served the grounds. And Francisco saw that this afternoon, the area was absolutely packed. There were hundreds of people just hanging around their campsites and swimming in the ocean. And as Francisco drove past, all he began to think is how great it would be if he could just pull over for a second and take a plunge in the water himself and actually cool off. And so he was letting his mind wander, sort of wishing this ride was less miserable than it actually was. But it was more miserable than it had been so far when an odd sound caught his attention. It was like this metallic groaning sound. And at first, he couldn't even place it. Like, he had no idea what it was. And pretty quickly, the sound went away. And so he just continued driving along, and then he heard it again. Except this time, it was much louder. And this time, Francisco did know what it was. But it was already too late. Just seconds later, people in towns miles away from the campground where Francisco was passing by heard this deafening boom. And from all directions, everyone turned towards Los Alfacas just in time to see this enormous fireball rise into the air like a huge mushroom cloud. It looked like a bomb had literally gone off. But before anybody could make sense of this, there was another explosion and then another and another. It was like this rapid fire chain of blasts. That boomed over the campground one after another for several minutes. And then finally, when it all went quiet, it was just like flames and smoke and ash just soaring into the sky over this campground and the beach. Within minutes, emergency response units from towns all outside of Los Alfacas descended on the campground to try to figure out what happened and to see if anyone was still alive. But when they actually got there and saw the devastation, like, they couldn't believe it. The scale was almost incomprehensible. There were all these blackened, charred bodies scattered everywhere. They were all contorted from the heat. And some were even still sitting in the remains of camp chairs, like they had been instantly cooked in place when the explosions first began. Now, that was horrifying enough, what they saw up on the field. But what first responders saw down on the beach was even worse. Because along the shoreline were bodies of people who had been in the water. When whatever happened, happened. And they had clearly been boiled alive. The destruction at this entire site was so complete, so total, that first responders really couldn't even begin to guess what had happened, beyond obviously some kind of explosion. That task of deciphering what happened would take investigators several days. And what they would discover was that it all came back to that fight that Francisco and Bernon Valenya had had with the younger employee before he left the warehouse. So, on the day of this catastrophe, it was true that Francisco was on his way back home from the warehouse. He had left work and he was going home. But he wasn't driving a regular truck. It was not a personal truck. And also, he had one stop to make before he could actually go home for good. Francisco was a long-haul truck driver, and he was driving this specialized truck to transport some specialized cargo to its final destination. That cargo was pressurized liquid gas, which is highly flammable and very volatile. So, earlier that morning, the younger employee, who Francisco was so upset that he had been micromanaging him, he had worked here for so many years, how dare he? Well, the younger employee had been warning Francisco that Francisco had overfilled his tanker. He had put too much pressurized liquid gas in his truck, which was an incredibly dangerous thing to do if he really had overfilled it. Because pressurized liquid gas needs room to expand. And if it doesn't have enough room, it can explode. And that's true on a normal day, but it's even more true, even more dangerous when you're driving this cargo around on a hot day. Because heat, like external heat on the truck, will make that gas expand even more. But Francisco, he just brushed this young employee's warning off. He had years of experience and knew that drivers like him overfilled their trucks all the time. That way they can get more fuel to their destinations. And so he just assumed that, you know, this other employee was overreacting because this never mattered. This never had any impact on anything. They just made more money. And so he just went on with his day. And everything was fine. You know, nothing happened to the truck until Francisco happened to be driving past that campground. At that point, the heat did cause the gas to expand past the point of no return. And it blew up. And it sent a scorching fireball that was thousands of degrees Fahrenheit through the campground that was full of people. The initial blast was over a mile wide. And that blast triggered a wave of smaller explosions from all the camper vans and the portable grills, basically all the gas cans in that mile radius. Those all detonated as well. And so in the end, Francisco, along with 158 other people largely at that campground, died from the initial explosion. And then some estimates, when you consider long-term disease, long-term health issues from this blast, they put the final death toll at as many as 243 people. A quick note about ourselves. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved. And some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascio. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Story editing by Evan Allen and by Luke Baratz. Research and publishing by Mr. Ballin. And fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Faciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner. Theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden.