Citation Needed - The Spiderman of Denver [True Crime Special]

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Theodore Edward Coneys (November 10, 1882 – May 16, 1967), known by the nickname "Denver Spiderman", an American drifter who committed a murder in 1941 and subsequently occupied the attic of ...the victim's home for nine months. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Thanks again for having us over for dinner Cecil. This is nice. Yeah, no problem. It's a fictional universe so we can do that, you know. Yeah, right. Safe. Did you guys read Tom's essay for this week yet? I tried not to read the essays.
Starting point is 00:00:14 No, no, what's it about? It's like a whole collection of stories of people who lived in other people's homes without them knowing. Ah, that's creepy. Right? Do you guys, you hear that? No. There's this one story from Japan,
Starting point is 00:00:29 another from the Midwest, but wait till you guys hear about the one at the end. That one is. Oh, that smells bad. Cecil. No, no, I don't wanna spoil it for you. It's a good story. No, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:00:43 Cecil, you obviously must hear what's happening right now. I gotta get out of here. No, I'm telling you, I don't wanna spoil it for you. It's a good story. No, no, no, no. Obviously, must hear what's happening right now. I gotta get outta here. No, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, he, I'll save it as a surprise for you. I just wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
Starting point is 00:00:57 I'm telling my boss, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,? No, well, what is, what is your problem? What? Eli is pretty obviously living in your ceiling, dude. Oh, I know, I know that, yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Oh, you do? Yeah, but I've been pretending not to know so he doesn't talk to me for months at a time. Yeah, okay, smart, yep. Oh, good, good. I think I ruptured what? Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Is this the internet? And that's how it works now. I'm Eli, and I'll be leading this investigation, but first, I'll need some mysterious odors. First up, a guy who would be a part of the essay if no one loosened ahead and said yes and a man who's never had to wonder why his food went missing Keep the head, okay, I had a bathroom. I did have a bathroom Squatters rights, okay, and that food is not missing. I know exactly where I've hidden it from the kids so it's not
Starting point is 00:02:19 And also joining us tonight two men who are both firm nose to letting me live in their house no and see so you asked if you could bring your brain eating a me before i did not know that we do let you visit but the only reason we invite you is because of your plus one so that's the only reason spare spare for the end night and true i think i like that that's how you get to waiting in the patients
Starting point is 00:02:43 their plus one and Eli. Oh yeah. Yeah. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, thanks to you, we get to live in our own houses and eat our own food. And I can't emphasize this enough.
Starting point is 00:02:59 If you'd like us to continue being able to do that, stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, to continue being able to do that. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Right, and Tom, you explored the ins and outs of this topic. Are you ready to expose the truth? I've emerged from hiding for just this chance, Eli. All right. Um, so how did you choose the Spider-Man of Denver and other wall people? Well, you know, the world is on the verge of any Viction crisis and it is also almost Halloween. So I couldn't think of a better time to talk about a few people who found creative
Starting point is 00:03:47 if terrifying solutions to the housing crisis. And while those who've looked for housing in Manhattan or San Francisco might be drooling at the spacious luxury of having a whole interior wall or attic to themselves. Oh, that'd be the best. It's tough. The rest of us are likely to take our story today and
Starting point is 00:04:05 either reflect upon our good fortune, grabbing a home, or maybe begin taking notes, and differently assessing the potential crawl space opportunities in our neighborhoods. Either way, I feel like here in Citation needed, we're here to help. Okay, but for legal reasons, if you're not playing this episode to a PlayStation, the name of this one is Climbing Guy of Denver. I wanna... I wanna be... Climbing Guy. Climbing Guy.
Starting point is 00:04:32 All right, so our first story is gonna be that of Tatsuko Horakawa in Kassai, Japan. An unnamed 57 year old man began noticing strange shit happening in his house. Four months, he found that food would go missing regularly from his refrigerator. As is he lived alone, he couldn't figure out where the fuck his food
Starting point is 00:04:52 has been disappearing. Same. I, my one to check your walls. Initially, he began to wonder if maybe he was sleep eating, but since he wasn't prone to sleep problems, and where was he mysteriously gaining any weight or making any messes. I see you're already out. Heath.
Starting point is 00:05:09 We're waking, feeling strangely full. He didn't believe that was the problem. Still almost every day, food from his house would just vanish as if he lived there. It's flickering. So it became hyper vigilant about locking his doors and windows. And still every day upon returning home, his house was still sealed tight as a drum and his refrigerator was significantly lightened.
Starting point is 00:05:32 He began to wonder if his small home had somehow became haunted, but since he wasn't a completely credulous tool, rather than invest in sage and priests, he bought surveillance cameras, which transmitted images to his cell phone. Yeah, well, he was probably worried because he got his body pillow wet after midnight, you know, and then...
Starting point is 00:05:49 What happened? What happened? No, it could happen. Not how it works for everyone. Yeah. I'm not in that play. It doesn't always. Anyway, go ahead.
Starting point is 00:05:58 I so wasn't long before he caught his first images of the culprit. So imagine this, as he's staring down at his cell phone screen, he catches sight of a woman walking around inside his locked up house. She helped herself to the refrigerator. She casually plopped out on the couch to watch TV while she ate. When she was finished eating, she turned the TV back to the channel, it was originally on. She turned it off, she smoothed out the sofa,
Starting point is 00:06:22 and then she just disappears out of the sightline of the cameras. Weird attention to detail, like this guy would come home and be like, okay, I was probably hallucinating about buying half my food. That's the explanation for that, but this is the wrong channel. And I leave my couch medium smooth. This is the big one.
Starting point is 00:06:41 I was watching Drag Race. Yeah, after all that stuff, to even though they're not contributing financially, it's still better than any roommate in history. Like, a true roommate. No, shit. Really a fork in the peanut butter.
Starting point is 00:06:56 What the fuck? We're stupid now. Elated that the culprit walked rather than floated. The unidentified man called the police, who arrived to find the house was still very much shot and very much locked. Upon entry, they began a thorough search of the house, and I love this.
Starting point is 00:07:14 Initially, that search turned up nothing, though they reviewed the cell phone footage, they agreed to look again, and finally, they found Tetsuko, curled up and hiding on the top shelf of a tiny storage closet on an equally tiny food time. Oh, look at her. It's adorable.
Starting point is 00:07:33 Okay, you're under arrest. Right. So it turns out that Tatsuko had been homeless. One day she noticed the man's home was unlocked and she just Move the fuck on in and she had been living in his home on the top shelf of his closet for over a year She waited while he was home. She waited silently all day for him to leave He learned his habits and she roamed freely about his home while he was away. She showered. She watched television She ate his food and she found some other about his home while he was away. She showered, she watched television, she ate his food,
Starting point is 00:08:06 and she found some other way to get chow. She might never have been found at all. He stands home all weekend to bitch breaking band. She's just up on the top shelf doing the PP dance for 36 straight hours. He does the thing with the gun. Let's go, come on. Come on.
Starting point is 00:08:22 She's this capitalism where we share scary stories about the time an old lady got to eat and bathe. Jesus. So our next story, this time from South Carolina, involves a woman only as Tracy. One night while sleeping, she awoke to a loud thump from her attic, and she looked up and noticed some nails had poked through the dry walls if something heavy had impacted the ceiling. Since everyone knows that ghosts are notorious weight watchers, she sent her adult sons into the attic to find out what the hell was happening. Damn it boys, that chick from monsters under your bed a bunch of times. You motherfuckers owe me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:06 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they didn't find any spirits in our attic. What they did find was Tracy's ex boyfriend. That's weird. And who my ex? I mean, really, really ex.
Starting point is 00:09:19 They had broken up 12 years ago when he went to prison. A few weeks earlier, he had gotten out of prison, and I guess he decided rather than go to a halfway house, he just moved into her house like halfway. He broke in a Tracy's home, and it packed a bunch of old coats and jackets into the heating unit in the attic. And when he was up there,
Starting point is 00:09:39 he was confronted by Tracy's sons, he just smiled, and then just strolled out of the house, like this was a perfectly normal day. When they went up into the attic and looked around, they found cups from Sonic filled with this guy's body with an even more disturbingly. They found that he had positioned his sleeping arrangements so he could look down through an air vent
Starting point is 00:09:58 to Tracy while she slept. And the police still have not recaptured. Oh, she said, ooh. Okay, so he'd go out for Sonic, but he wouldn't flush the shit cups on the way out in the bathroom. Oh, something. All right, so, but to be fair, we don't know for sure that wasn't what was in the cups when he got them from Sonic. I'm sure. Yeah, obviously I'm more offended by Sonic than any other detail.
Starting point is 00:10:22 No, no, no, no, no. All right, now we'll do a little holiday themed story. In Chris Kaspar. JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING JING J doplex, he didn't leave by the front door or the back door. And said he just went up into the attic and then crossed over from one unit to the next one where he took up residence above the home of Stacey France. While living in the attic above Stacey, he would come down while the family was out to eat their food and sometimes to just steal their shit. Admittedly, I'd much rather have someone steal my shit than leave me theirs in a sonic cop. So yeah, this one feels like an upgrade. I get it. See, so I told you, you're going
Starting point is 00:11:10 to have another birthday next year. I will make up for it. She's a fucking Christ. Every time we have that amazing crushed ice in there. So good. Sonic crushed ice. Fuck you. Going to Sonic you outta here. So at first the disappearances of items were annoying but small and not worth much notice. Plus, Stacy had three kids and you just can't keep track of shit when you have kids. But eventually Stacy figured out that she had been robbed when some cash, a laptop, and an iPad all went missing at the same time. So Stacy called the police, but there was no sign of an intrusion into the home.
Starting point is 00:11:44 Herplexed and suspicious by the reports from the kids, they heard sounds coming from upstairs, the police used dogs to search the house where they eventually caught Stanley and discovered his hoard of stolen items. When he was caught, he was wearing sweatpants and a shirt stolen from Stacey's daughter, and I love this. He had a list, which he called Stan Lee's Christmas list, which detailed all the stuff he stole from the Ferrantz. What?
Starting point is 00:12:09 Family while living above the one. What? Well, I'm pretty sure that meth was on that list a bunch of times. So while Stan Lee and I compare notes, we'll take a quick break for a little ditty we like to call apropos of nothing. It's my favorite snack. Ooh, this is... Oh, oh, uh, hello. Hello there. Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?
Starting point is 00:12:49 Yeah, about that. I live in your crawl space, sort of, so. What? That's terrifying. Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. I guess it's pretty terrifying. Oh, no, I mean that you don't have a house to live in. Did you know that there are actually 59 empty properties for each homeless person in about that, I guess it's pretty terrifying. Oh, no, I mean that you don't have a house to live in.
Starting point is 00:13:05 Did you know that there are actually 59 empty properties for each homeless person in the United States? Oh, shit, really? There are. Yeah, 59 empty houses. Oh, wow. Okay, well, I've been eating from your fridge too. Just see you know.
Starting point is 00:13:20 Oh, that is disgusting. Well, come on, man, I gotta eat. I'm poor. Oh, no, not you. I just remember that Americans throw enough food away every year to feed 84% of the world's population. That's just, wait, just what we throw away? A whole world?
Starting point is 00:13:33 Yeah, the whole world. But does that factor in if we like actually tried to feed people? No, no, it does not. It does not matter. Yeah, rough. But I think of the tiny percentage of a percentage of money we'd have to take from billionaires
Starting point is 00:13:47 to make sure you and just everyone else in the world would never go hunger your homeless again. Well, give me the willies. Yeah, I bet. Also, I jerk off while I watch you sleep. Hey. And we're back. When we left off, Tom was making me afraid of my attic. Any other rooms you want to run for my sanity? Well, get a give it a whirl. The strangest story of them all in this theme is the story of the spider man of Denver.
Starting point is 00:14:33 This guy was born in 1882 in Petersburg, Illinois. Theodore Edward Coney was always a sickly kid. And I know that that's kind of the old timey phrasing that often just translates into pale, introvert, living in judge your times, but like this guy was really just not well. Okay, it feels like we're still very much in those times right now. You're talking to me with. Go ahead. All right, in fact, this guy was so sickly that the doctors told him he'd never lived to be 18. And so theodore didn't bother to finish high school, figuring I guess there'd be no point to getting education just to die smarter.
Starting point is 00:15:10 So, when he didn't die, and his parents moved from Illinois to Wisconsin, eventually to Denver, this is where Coney would live for most of his life. I'm not gonna waste what precious life I have in school, I'm moving to Denver to really live. Yeah, it seems like a to Denver to really live. Yeah, it seems like a shitty excuse to drop out. Like it's 1882, man, three kids in five don't make it to 18. So it's not at all clear what condition Coney's suffered from,
Starting point is 00:15:37 but it is very clear that he suffered. He was very tall and excessively skinny and he was described as having extremely long skeletal looking hands and figures. You can actually Google the guy. He does have extremely weird looking hands. Throughout his life, he was ridiculed and mocked for his appearance and he yearned for just some place he could live free from the judgment of others. He would sort of find that. As a result of the social isolation, his illness and his lack of education, theodore spent much of his adult life homeless and on the outskirts of society. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:09 But Tom, you said he lived in Denver. How could anyone tell he was homeless? Oh, big dig on Denver. We're not, we're not loving my Denver jokes. There's nothing like suburban New Jersey. No, no, no. Okay. All right.
Starting point is 00:16:23 Yeah. And there's nothing like suburban New Jersey. In terms of its culture. Rural. So in 1941, Connie's met Phil Peters at a guitar and mandolin club. My guitar and mandolin. That was definitely a long, aggressive argument about the instruments in the. And, and, yeah, that indefinite article seems out of place.
Starting point is 00:16:50 I don't know. I think we've been ahead of your patient for some reason. Wait a second. He was sickly. He was mocked for his condition. He was a loner, long skeletal fingers. He shouldn't have been at a guitar club. He was a bassist guy. So for his part, Phil Peters was warm and inviting to the outcast coenies. And several times, Peters invited coenies to his house for a warm meal. And the two became, if not friends, at least warm acquaintances. In September of the same year as the weather in Denver became less and less hospitable, coenies sought out Peters and went Peters' home intending to ask for some help.
Starting point is 00:17:28 When he arrived at Phil's house, however, he found that the house was unlocked and that no one was home. All right. Well, no offense to your skills as a storyteller time, but I'm guessing this pay office ain't going to be as good as most of the lonely guy meets a man with unnaturally long fingers who needs a few bucks at a guitar and mandolin club stories that I read it. Different ending for sure. Okay. In fact, Phil Peters wife.
Starting point is 00:17:54 Not a happy fallen. So in fact, Phil Peters wife had recently fallen and she'd broken her hip. So Phil was in the hospital tending to her. Naturally, Coney's slipped into the house and headed right to the refrigerator. And the food must've been good or the house must've seemed very inviting because rather than content himself with a quickly stolen snack, the iter just poked around the house until he found a loose panel, let up into a tiny space in the attic. Ah, that was a good sandwich. I should just check to see if they have a crawl space I can live in,
Starting point is 00:18:29 and then I'll leave my thank you note. Now, when I say a tiny space, I mean a really fucking tiny space. The space that Coney's found was only 27 inches high by 57 inches wide. Wow. To offer some perspective, I looked this up, a standard casket is 23 inches high and 28 inches wide. So this tiny space where Coney would decide to hold up was shorter than a casket and only about twice as wide. Okay, question. When a dead person doesn't fit,
Starting point is 00:19:05 you just like cut the feet off, are you allowed to do that? Or do you have to like find the bigger size, more money? I already talked to your mom, we're cutting your feet off. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:19:17 So people do have that fight. For some of us on this, this is gonna be a roomy situation, Heath. I'm not just flying. It's, can you just place it in my clinic? I don't not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. Toa me and that motherfucker. So while the house was vacant, Coney would sneak downstairs and he would eat just tiny little amounts of food. Now, as you'll know, that recall from the previous stories, some of these people got caught because they ate
Starting point is 00:19:40 enough that the food went missing and it was noticeable. Not so with Coney. He ate so sparingly that throughout most of the duration of his stay at the Peter's house, no one ever noticed so much as a missing crumb. What a shame with those fingers. He feels like the only one in the house capable of getting that last olive out of the jar. Maybe that's why they never noticed, right? And perhaps he could have and would have stayed living in the attic forever, but one fateful day while standing in the kitchen eating, Bill Peters happened upon and startled Coney. This would not end well for Peters.
Starting point is 00:20:15 Peters lashed out a theater with his cane, but Coney retaliated, striking Peters with the butt of a gun that he had found in the house. When the gun broke apart from the blow, Coney's reached for a cast iron stove shaker and beat Peters to death with it. Oh, wow. Okay, but technically they both lived there. So who's standing there ground in that scenario? Yeah, I'm a question.
Starting point is 00:20:35 Castle's acting as a model. No fault, no fault. Now, you might think that if you killed somebody, the smart thing to do would be to leave the scene of the crime. That is actually fairly typical after a murder. Koney's retreated back to his attic though. When neighbors came calling on the elderly Peters, they peered to the windows and they saw the crime scene and they called the police.
Starting point is 00:20:58 The police were fucking baffled. Phil Peters was an old man who went to a mandolin playing club. This is not somebody who had enemies. Stranger still, the house was locked up when the police arrived, with no leads on how the crime could have been committed, much less on who would have committed it, the case stalled. Okay, but if I'm going to leave like a puddle of water next to the corpse, right? I would do so.
Starting point is 00:21:22 So meanwhile, Phil's wife, who had been at the hospital with the broken hip, she recovered Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would do so. So meanwhile, Phil's wife, who had been at the hospital with the broken hip, she recovered enough to return home this time with a broken heart. Unaware of her husband's murdering house guest, Mrs. Peters asked a friend to move in with her to help her around. The pair began noticing strange things now. Now there was food obviously missing.
Starting point is 00:21:43 There were strange sounds. Object objects were moved around the house. Mrs. Peter's friend was convinced that the murder house she was now living in was haunted, and she ditched her convalescing friend and soon after Mrs. Peter's also vacated the house to move in with her son while she continued to recover. Yeah, I'm just gonna bounce. I ran into Jack Skellington in your coat closet.
Starting point is 00:22:13 Good. So for months, the house was vacant, but not lifeless. Neighbors reported strange sounds and a horrid stench coming from the house, but police found no one in the house each time they came to investigate until July of 1942 when the Denver police stationed two cops outside the house to stake it out for ghosts. No shit. Really? The Denver police sent two guys to watch a house that they had searched and found empty multiple times because a ghost was stinking the place up and they had to find out what the hell was going on.
Starting point is 00:22:45 All right, we're going to use a Sonic Cup as bait, but uh, just make sure you don't cross the streams when he starts using it. So with a handful of hours of arriving, one of the cops spotted a man through the window and the police rushed inside only to discover nothing. Again, the house was empty. Frantically, the police searched the house, moving from room to room, finding no one. The police were baffled until they heard a strange sound from upstairs. Dashing up, they opened a closet door just in time to spot a pair of legs disappearing
Starting point is 00:23:21 into a small hole leading into the house's attic. They grabbed hold of the man's pant leg, but the rotten cloth tore easily in their hands. Eventually the police were able to wrestle and get a hold of Coney's legs and drag them out of the hiding space. Uh, boo. No. I love that he kept fighting him at this point, right? Like if he gets his leg all the way in, they're going to be like, okay, dammit. Now who was it? Right? I'm not glue. So I love how they treat criminals back in the 1940s because over a hamburger and a
Starting point is 00:23:58 warm slice of apple pie. White, white, white, white, white, white, right? I get the 40s. Cody confesses to both the murder. white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white,
Starting point is 00:24:09 white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, Jesus, the police upon investigating the space that Coney had carved out for himself declared, quote, a man would have to be a spider to stand it long up there. During the entirety of his stay, Coney had not bathed once. His clothes were rotting off of his body and he had collected his waste in various pilfered containers. The stench of his nest caused investigators to vomit upon his discovery.
Starting point is 00:24:43 I mean, that sounds gross, but have you ever had to find the remote in your roommates' room? That is not even close. When Coney was sentenced for the murder of Philip Peters, he was given a sentence of life in prison. And actually in the 1940s, that was fairly lenient as most murders were put to death in the gas chamber in Colorado at the time. Investigators and the court pitted him in circumstances and they really did believe Coney,
Starting point is 00:25:07 when he explained that the murder had been a panicky decision rather than one made with any malice. Upon hearing about his life sentence, Coney remarked, quote, now I'll feel safe. I'll have a better home than any I'd had in years. Oh, Jesus. Which to me seemed like kind of a dig on the Peter's house,
Starting point is 00:25:23 Zach. Incapitan. Incapitan. Incapitan. in years. Oh Jesus. Which to me seemed like kind of a dig on the Peter's house act. And Captain Man and Tom, if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? Well hey, you know how you're pretty confident the story is about other people? So were the people in this story. Oh cool. We'll say a little bit about it. Gonna hit a bunch of stuff in my house with that. I'm gonna round hit in my house. Are you ready for the quiz? Let's do it. All right, Tom.
Starting point is 00:25:53 What is the name of the horror movie where the guy hides in your walls and leaves cans of shit in your attic? Hey! Stankinstein, be the poople under the stairs, see. Fantastic. Scout liners, D, turn box, E, Baba Duki. Baba Duki.
Starting point is 00:26:15 Oh, he's all so good. He's are all so good, but because bird box was so terrible, I'm going to have to go with D turn box. These are all so good, but because Bird Box was so terrible, I'm gonna have to go with D-Turred Box. Turred Box, it is. All right, Tom, what's the best pornographic poem about the one at House Guest who shits? That's very niche. Is it A, Shite in the attic?
Starting point is 00:26:38 The Smeljar. See the Scat in the hat. Or D two girls one sonic cup. Had me at the scat in the hat. You're so good. I do it the correct answer. Well done. All right.
Starting point is 00:27:00 I got one for you. How do we know that there's a creepy long long, fingered murderer living in an unknown crawlspace in the listener's house, especially the one that lives alone and is listening to this ather home at night. Hey, that time where there's a cheese, where were they left them, and then they looked everywhere. But eventually the keys wound up being just where they left them after all, right?
Starting point is 00:27:24 Remember that? P, the fact that their cat stopped mid-lipped to look into the other room. Those left in there, they're too much of a thing. See, the fact that they could have sworn they had more AA batteries in the drawer. D, what the hell else could that noise have been? All right, well Noah has scared our listeners away for good. So he is the winner. All right, nobody tried to answer.
Starting point is 00:27:56 Yeah, it's good. I think for no action to correct the answer, was E. He's right behind you. Oh my God. All right. Well, Noah stumped Tom so he is the winner. All right. Well, speaking of scary stories, I want Heath to do next week's essay. Oh, I bet it's a spooky one. All right. Well, for Tom, Noah, Cecil, and Heath, I'm Eli Bosnick. Thank you for hanging out with us today.
Starting point is 00:28:27 We'll be back next week and by then, Heath will be an expert on something else. And right, before we're gonna do last names, you're gonna add yours, but nobody else is. Heath and right. Be consistent. Between now, it's hard to spell. Between now and then, you can listen
Starting point is 00:28:39 to our other podcasts on all the places. Which if you think about it, it's like us living in your ears for free. If you like to help us keep the show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod, or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. If you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media,
Starting point is 00:28:58 or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod.com. And remember, someone's crawl space is definitely better than way cross Georgia okay New Jersey okay okay so good for for him to drop a penny right in that scenario deaf gazes has to drop just over $22,000 on the sidewalk. Wow. He doesn't pick up. Wow.
Starting point is 00:29:28 When all this is over, you think I can maybe sleep down here on the couch? I mean, you got plenty of room, maybe you can do the couch. Absolutely not. What am I, filthy communist? No, that's fair. Yeah. You're not. Yeah, no.
Starting point is 00:29:42 Free markets take care of you. Yeah, you're not yeah, no free markets taking care of you visible hand that I shit into

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.