2: Why We Die

(soft piano music) On January 7th, 1982, a girl who gave herself the screen name Emmy joined the BBS called Samite and introduced herself. She was almost immediately greeted by Sam, the older man who started the board, and Terry, a boy who was a little younger than her, but who would end up being the leader of the group. Sam was boisterous and welcoming and Terry was reserved and considerate. Over the next 12 hours, the two other boys on Samite, Curtis and Rocco, would pop on, welcome her, and make a few tentative jokes. Finally, last of all, the only other girl in the BBS, Marygold, logged in and was insanely excited to greet her new friend. It's one of the few times Marygold gets super excited and she quickly becomes her usual shy self. In response, Emmy is quiet, considered, and smart. In this moment, you can see the beginning of it all. Everyone's personality is there, already formed and clear. And when it seems like the last person is dialed in for the night, Sam types those famous lines from the first time, like he knew this was his group. That first conversation ends like many after it would, with Sam's stamp of approval. Good night, faithful friends. Good night, faithful friends. He would end conversations that way for the next nine or so years, until his death in a tree, far from his home. This is Samite, a podcast about horror from before the dawn of the internet. (upbeat music) Early on in exploring the BBS, I came across an intriguing conversation. It takes place in June of 1988, which means that everyone in the group is either 19 or 20. And it happened on the Contemplating the Glory Board, which, as far as I can tell, is the central board of the whole system, despite it getting infrequent activity. The off-topic boards are much more active. This is the longest conversation that's ever had there. They started talking about this book called A Trail Through the Forest by Ellen P. Sherman. And since you can't find the book anywhere, I can't really tell you what it's about, except for the following summary, which I've gleaned from their conversations. In A Trail Through the Forest, a young girl named Willow, who Marygold mentions is black and that she appreciates that, leaves a tumultuous home one day to find a castle on a hill. They never name who lives in the castle, but I'm pretty sure that it's a queen. I'll come back to that later. Anyway, Willow enters a dark forest and is immediately terrified by the old, dry, gnarled trees. Then, some things happen. Yeah, I don't really know much about this part of the book. Anyway, she makes it through the dark forest and gets to a brighter area where the trees reach upward towards the castle, or towards the sun. It's hard to know which. And at one point, Willow is tempted to remain in a place where she can see the castle, but it's still really far away. So, she trudges on. Eventually, she makes it to the very foot of the hill and reaches her arms up. And then, I'm fairly certain she becomes a tree. Yeah, I don't know what that's about. What I do know is that they all went out to their local bookstores and bought a copy the weekend it came out. Emmy even went to a book signing a week later and met the author. She goes on about this off and on for the next year. But in that first week, they talk about a trail through the forest in a way that makes me think that they saw things in it that other readers wouldn't, as if it used language that was encoded especially for them. The conversation reads like a mixture of literary criticism and metaphysics. Everyone talks about the impossibility of the trees to reach the castle. And I get confused sometimes because it seems like the sun is the castle or the stars are the castle or just the castle is the castle. It's pretty abstract stuff. What I can say is that late on Friday night, Sam jumps into the conversation. He's been signing it most of the week, pumping in to say hi, answering questions, and here and there complimenting Curtis on a joke. But it's a quiet week for Sam until he comes on and writes for about an hour. Everyone's going on about how moving the book was for them and how rich the symbolism is. They talk about Willow and how brave she is and how much she has to sacrifice to get all the way to the foot of the hill. They talk about a moment in the clearing where she can see the castle from far away and is tempted to remain in that spot where the view is distant but clear. Terry is especially moved by the book and he writes more this week than almost any other week in Samite's history. When Sam gets on, he takes the conversation over. He begins with, I've been talking about this with some of my friends and I think this might be the most important book I've ever read. Thank you for introducing it to us, Emmy. And then for something like 130 messages, Sam expounds his feelings about Willow, the forest, and her journey toward the castle. He talks about how he loved that the author didn't just spell everything out for them, that she let them discover things for themselves, together, as a group. He talks about what he and his friends saw as the underlying theme of the whole book, Willow working to find how she can express the glory of the castle and by expressing it, receive more of it. And towards the end, that's all he talks about. The book practically falls away. He waxes eloquent about that one word with about a dozen metaphors, as a river, as the sun, as a field of statues, as a castle, the glory. The glory that brought them all together, the glory that they keep returning to. He talks about how Willow reflects that glory for them and how she somehow points to that glory and confirms for them that it's real and true in a new way, an unexpected way. And then Sam writes this, "The glory, we've all seen it and we've all seen it in different ways. Terry and I, we saw it first, I think, then the rest of you. That glory moves us, it binds us, it frees us. It's why we live, it's why we die. It's why we die." And in response to this, there are five messages, all the same. Each of the other users simply write glory. I admit it, for the first few months I was looking at the same light, I made an assumption. Maybe it's the same assumption you made, but if not, hopefully you can forgive me for making this leap. I thought, despite the fact that the BBS seemed very happy to support Rocco's journey into finding himself as a young gay man in the '80s, that they were talking about the glory of God, or Jesus, or the church. I thought that Samite was a Christian server, and this assumption was helped along by the fact that God does come up now and then. God is not, as far as I'm able to tell, either the same as or in opposition to the glory. Sam admits that he's not quite sure how God fits in with the glory, but he does seem to know that whatever is bound them together, whatever this glory is, it must be part of the bigger plan. But there are other telltales. No one ever talks about church. Sam never preaches to them about their morality, and once people start mentioning that they've had sex in the late '80s, there's no concern other than for people's health, especially around HIV. What there is is a sense of mission. People are reminded to stay strong, to keep their chins up, and to remember that the glory is waiting. Terry reminds them not to rest in the distant clearing, but to keep pushing towards the hill. They are all traveling forward together, though for the most part, they all live hundreds of miles away. And in this sense of mission, they support each other in their own ways. It's really kind of heartwarming. Terry, the first user, appears to have taken on a kind of leadership role early on. Everyone who comes after him defers to him unless Sam takes charge, and Sam is definitely in charge. But Terry seems like the kind of natural leader that Stephen King inserts into a group of kids. He's smart, brave, and serious. Terry doesn't joke a lot. He leaves that to Curtis and Rocco. They are amazing at tearing everyone else down. Marigold is maybe the most innocent, but every now and then she delivers a devastating one-liner, and those one-liners almost always come immediately after she logs on. I imagine that she would think of them earlier in the day, and could barely wait to log on to deliver a crushing zinger to Rocco, or a major your mom joke to Curtis, who was pretty adept at your mom jokes. And yes, I went in and checked those dates and times to see about Marigold's one-liners. I did it because I wanted to get a picture of her, of all of them, in my imagination. These are people who were older than me by about 10 years. They were in fourth grade when I was born, and they were graduating college when I was in middle school. Over the last year, I got to know them as kids, teens, and young adults. But they were the kids who were just beyond me. When I was the age that they were when they found Samite, I was logging on to America Online. They were pioneers, and I was just the next wave. And in my curiosity, snooping, inspiring, I feel like I genuinely got to know them. I haven't mentioned Emmy much. When I picture Marigold, I picture a girl with a big curly afro, glasses, and Mary Janes. But when I picture Emmy, she's like some combination of Molly Ringwald and Ellie Sheedy, not breakfast club Ellie Sheedy, war games Ellie Sheedy. She's smart, boisterous, and self-confident. She's funny, but not abusive like Rocco and Curtis. She makes real jokes and has real insights. Sam takes a lead in the philosophical discussions, but Emmy is only a step or two behind him. If I was in fourth grade, and Emmy had been my teacher's assistant or babysitter, I'm pretty sure I would have been in love. Innocent, absolute, devoted, lifelong love. It's hard to express the feelings I got, and sometimes still get reading their conversations about a local baseball game, or which colleges they were going to go to, or their first jobs. It's a longing. I wish I had a friend group like this. I wish I had what they had. I mean, I had friends, but I admit it, my friends were pretty terrible. We made fun of each other, but not like Rocco and Curtis. My friends could be mean, genuinely mean. I don't think I had real friends until high school. Not people who really cared about me. This group, the same-eyed BBS, they cared about each other. So many times the board would have late night conversations between two or three, or even sometimes all six of them, and they would always sign off with, good night, faithful friends. I mean, the first time I saw that, and of course the whole Sam, Emmy, Curtis, Rocco thing, I got it, but it still made me tear up. I saw this super cut of Sam, the real Sam, though the same-eyed Sam is also a real Sam. Geez, that's a confusing sentence. I'll start again. I saw this super cut of the Sam, you know, the one we all know saying, good night, faithful friends, across decades from when he was a kid, all the way until now. And someone sent some music behind it. I bawled like a baby. And the feeling I get seeing Sam with his faithful friends, that so many of us got when we were kids, that's the feeling I get when I see the same-eyed users say it. They see each other as the faithful friends, and Sam is their wise leader. A leader who is willing to set up five phone lines into his house to let them all call in at the same time, late into the night. I want you to hold on to that picture for a moment, that picture of five adolescents working their way through to adulthood, joking, laughing, supporting each other, and crying together. All led by a kind, older man who devoted time and money to creating a safe space for them. A man who never, as far as I can find, crossed the line. Who never said an inappropriate thing, and who never tried to exploit them in any way. And I want you to picture me, sitting at my computer, crying now and then while I read their messages. A full-grown man pining for a childhood he never got. And I want you to feel what I feel. Longing, deep, terrible longing for a place to be, a place to belong. I have this dream, not like a sleeping dream, but a dream for what it means to be me. I dream that I live in a place where people know each other and where there's a little bar, or pub, or even a coffee shop. I dream that a few nights a week I walk down there, and I know that I'll see a friend once I get there. Maybe I'm the first one there that night, so I crack open a book and wait. Or I flirt with a bartender until the others start to show up. And then, sooner rather than later, they do. And we talk, and we eat, and we drink, and we laugh. We solve the world's problems, and we can't figure out our own. And at the end of the night, we make sure everyone gets home safe, because what we have is precious. I've come close to this a few times in my adult life, but I think I'm still looking for it. A place to be among faithful friends. That's what Simeit was for these kids and eventual adults. And I want you to hold on to that picture, and maybe come back to it later, if you can. Because I'm gonna take you away from that safe little BBS, to a hill in West Virginia in 1991, a hill where five people died. There are a few moments in the BBS that stand out. The beginning and the ending are obviously interesting and curious. How did Terry find the BBS? How did the others? I don't know the answer to these questions. In the ending, well, the ending I'll get to in the next episodes. But there is this fascinating and terrifying moment, a third of the way in, that extends from early 1990 to the middle of 1991. It's a time when things are about to change for the BBS and the people in it. In early 1990, Sam suggests that they all figure out a way to meet. He makes a few recommendations about conventions and vacations, and the others start to put their own suggestions in. The conclusion is that they should meet near the center of America, in Branson, Missouri. And if you're wondering how they convinced their parents to go to Branson, remember, it's 1990. They're all in their early 20s by this point, and they basically just had to tell their friends and family that they were going on a road trip. Which is what they did. And in August of 1990, the group met up in Branson for three days. Interestingly enough, there was no uniform response to everybody heading out onto the road. You get a couple on my ways, one heading off, and one, I can't wait to see your faces in person. Not a single see you soon. Without context, that might not seem unusual. But I think it's a clue. And there are the regular messages when everybody gets back. It was amazing to see you all in person finally. I feel like we're closer than ever now. It was like meeting family and things like that. You get the real sense that these aren't just things that they're saying, they mean it. They really mean it. Then things go on as normal until May of 1991. People are as warm and excited as they always have been. Emmy gets a boyfriend and then loses him in the span of five months. Marigold jokes that Curtis is jealous. Apparently there was a little chemistry there when they met in person. Rocco jokes that if Emmy is done with a guy, which he might if he gives him a call, Emmy isn't too broken up about it. Otherwise, he wouldn't make jokes so soon. But they go on like this. Happy Halloween. Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. What'd you get? Thank you for the card. Happy New Year. On May 3rd, everyone logged in to wish Rocco a happy birthday. On May 4th, Samite goes down for maintenance and comes back up five hours later with a message. Only two lines now, folks. We'll see what we can do about that later. And from then on, for about 20 years, only two people can call into Samite at a time. Then on Tuesday, May 7th, 1991, Terry logged in and wrote the following. "Sam, you've been like a second father to me. "Rocco, you're my brother. "See you soon. "A few hours later, Curtis signed on and wrote, "Sam and Rocco, I love you both. "Glory. "And soon, both Emmy and Marygold would do the same. "They would express deep love for both Sam and Rocco. "And toward the end of the day, Rocco signed in to write, "I have had the best brothers and sisters in the world. "I love you all." And finally, Sam would write, "I don't have words. "I'm crying so hard right now because I got to be your friend. "Stupid, clumsy Sam got to be your friend. "All of the love, all of the love, "all of the love in the world. "Glory, glory, glory." And then the last thing Sam ever wrote on the server was this, "Boys, I'll see you soon." And the last thing Rocco ever wrote was, "See you soon." Three days later, Terry posts again, only writing, "I have once more seen the glory. "And over the next two days, Marygold, Curtis and Emmy, "all respond with just that one word, glory." Then there's a lull in the conversation, each checking in with the others every few hours. "Are you okay? "How are you feeling? "I'm okay, it's really strange." And things like that. But not much is said for about a week. And then things return to an approximation of normality, though the server would never be the same. A third of its members were gone and wouldn't return. (dramatic music) It would go on like that for 30 more years, with just those four users. And I'm gonna talk more about that in the next episode. But I wanna hone in on May 7th to the 10th of 1991 for a bit. Because after a lot of searching, I believe, no, I'm certain that I found the event that was connected to those strange messages. In the abrupt exit of both Sam and Rocco from the BBS. It took a lot of searching, months really, because I didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't know at the time that what I was hunting for was a murder scene. But after scanning paper, after paper, and paying for countless subscriptions to regional newspapers to read their online archives, I found something that struck me first as odd, then as promising, and finally, as terribly and gloriously relevant. A headline in a West Virginian newspaper from May 10th, 1991 read, "Hill Top Murder Suicide Leaves Five Dead." Two things made this horrific event stand out among the many that I came across in my search. The first was that the person who allegedly killed four other people was a 50-year-old man named Samuel McCormick. The second was that among his victims were three people who were all within a year of Samuel's age. And one younger man who had just turned 23 a week earlier. A young man from Shade Creek, Colorado named Victor Everett. Each of the four victims was posed in front of a large rock, sitting with their legs crossed in a book in their hands, as if they were reading. Victor's book, by the way, was the autobiography Among My Faithful Friends, 25 Years of Glory. Samuel was propped snugly on a branch, secured there with a large belt around his right leg, and another around his left arm. He had cut himself and slowly bled to death, looking down at the scene he had set up, an artist appreciating his art. The name Samuel, the ages, and the book, they made me go over the story a dozen times. And then I looked for every reference I could find to the event. I found articles about the victims, Elton Robillard, Tammy Liptak, and Sean Earling. They all seemed like normal people who had lived normal lives far from that hill in West Virginia. And there were a few articles about Victor, a young man who had few friends, but who loved comic books and movies passionately, a young man who had recently won an award for some of his artwork, a young man who liked to travel, and who had just spent some time away from home for the first time last summer, sketching in Branson, Missouri. Samuel McCormick, there were lots of articles about him. A single man living in his mother's home, working with computers, playing video games, and obsessed with children's toys. And, added to all of that, he lived in a finished basement. Samuel, or Sam, to his few friends, was a quiet man with mostly cordial relationships with his coworkers. He had worked a number of jobs, never keeping one more than three or four years at a time, a real loser, a real monster hiding in plain sight. Sam. I have a lot of doubts about things surrounding this event. I have a lot of doubts about things involving Samite in general. But there's no doubt in my mind that the Sam sitting on the tree branch is the Sam from the BBS. There's no doubt in my mind that Victor Everett was Rocco, a foul mouth and kind young man who struggled with his sexual identity, and had found friends who helped him through the rough moments. I have no doubt that the man in that tree killed that young man and posed him with a book. This moment in Samite's history is so dark that I don't know how to really end this episode. It's dark because of what happened, but it's also dark because, if I'm right, then Terry, Emmy, Marigold, and Curtis, they were all okay with it. They took a few days, checked in with each other, and then went home with things. They went forward to glory after their leader murdered their friend and then took his own life, not to mention the lives of three other people. There's nothing that I can find in all the discussions that suggests the kind of Manson family as callousness or madness you'd have to have to react that way. There's no sense of coltishness, no sense of brainwashing, no sense of grooming. Sam doesn't nudge or prod or condition. Not that I can see. And yet, he must have, right? There must have been other conversations not on Samite, but where and to what end? So that he could die in a tree while the others went on living? I just don't know. What I do know is that that isn't the only hill in this story. There's another one, a few hours drive away. And we're gonna go there in the next episode. There are only two left. Don't leave me now. No guts, no glory. (upbeat music) Samite stars Armando McLean as Michael Walling Breyer with music provided by Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to A.J. Hamilton and Path 9 Studios.