Morbid - Episode 601: The Strange Death of Cindy James

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

On June 8, 1989, a municipal worker discovered the body of forty-four-year-old Cindy James in the backyard of an abandoned home in Richmond, British Columbia, hogtied and with a woman’s stocking wrapped around her neck. Two weeks earlier, friends had reported Cindy missing when she failed to show up for a game of cards and when the authorities searched Cindy’s car, they discovered blood and other signs that indicated she may have met with foul play.After opening an investigation into Cindy’s death, investigators learned that, for nearly a decade leading up to her death, Cindy James had repeatedly reported to Richmond Police that she was a victim of harassment, stalking, and assault, and had even turned over threatening letters and answering machine messages as evidence of the harassment; yet local police were unable to verify her story or intervene to protect her.At first, Cindy’s death appeared to be the inevitable and tragic conclusion of a years’-long campaign of harassment and terror by an unknown stalker; however, when investigators began digging into Cindy’s personal history, they discovered evidence that contradicted their initial assumptions and pointed towards a far stranger explanation for her death.Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Axe Podcast for research and writing support!ReferencesGraham, Patracia. 1989. "We could have done better for Cindy." The Province, June 16: 37.Hall, Neal. 1989. "Body believed to be missing nurse's." Vancouver Sun, June 9: 1.—. 1990. "Ex-spouse angrily denied woman's lurid charge." Vancouver Sun, March 7: A12.—. 1990. "James' ex-husband tells of fear police would frame him." Vancouver Sun, March 8: 19.—. 1990. "James felt abandoned, ex-husband testifies ." Vancouver Sun, May 8: 16.—. 1990. "James inquest hears of 1984 kidnap claim." Vancouver Sun, March 2: 15.—. 1990. "James recalled bloody tale." Vancouver Sun, March 6: 19.—. 1990. "Under siege." Vancouver Sun, March 24: A9.Horwood, Holly. 1990. "James inquest a strain for jurors." The Province, May 31: 4.—. 1990. "Nurse changed her story." The Province, February 28: 6.—. 1990. "Threats, attacks preceded death." The Province, February 27: 2.Jiwa, Salim. 1989. "Body is nurse's." The Province , June 9: 5.—. 1989. "Somebody tailed Cindy." The Province, June 1: 4.Mulgrew, Ian. 1991. Who Killed Cindy James? Seal Press: New York, NY.Pemberton, Kim. 1989. "Strange ordeal of Cindy James." Vancouver Sun, July 13: 17.Vancouver Sun. 1989. "Abduction feared by nurse's dad." Vancouver Sun, June 2: 37.—. 1990. "Conflicting evidence fabricated tangled puzzle for inquest." Vancouver Sun, May 29: 9.—. 1990. "Coroner's jury to hear of mysterious incidents." Vancouver Sun, February 26: 21.—. 1989. "Police ask help in locating missing nurse." Vancouver Sun, May 30: 33.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Polina. And she refuses to answer in SpongeBob terms, but this is morbid. This is Mormon. I asked her, I said, are you ready kids? And she said, yep. But I said, nope, the correct answer is aye aye captain. And she said, yep.

Which is also incorrect. But it shows that I am ready. Not in my terms. I answered in the affirmative, which means I am ready. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Guys, it's spooky season.

It's spooky season and our spooky season is off to the most glorious start because the other night we got to go see something motherfucking corporate. Guys, this, I mean, the first tattoo I ever got when I was 18 is the something corporate little C like copyright symbol. Yes. On my wrist. Nobody can copy Elena. First one, first tattoo.

I literally lived and died by something corporate, lived and died by Andrew McMahon. Can attest. I started listening to Andrew McMahon when I was about five years old because Elena was 15 and she said, we're listening to this. I have no choice. She said, we're going to the grocery store. Let's listen to Constantine.

And I said, you betcha kid. So they obviously haven't toured in a while. And I think the last, I mean, the last time I saw them was... I've never seen something like that before. I can't even remember. We used to see them all the time in high school. We went to every single, they used to play in like random gymnasiums and shit.

Auditoriums. And we would go see them auditoriums and like we would see them all the time. So I've seen them countless amounts of times in high school. And then after high school, they got back together. We saw one, I saw one with John, and then they just stopped. Yeah. And we were touring.

See Jax like all the time. Yeah. But it's like something about, and Jax is amazing, but just like something about something corporate, just. The nostalgia. Yeah. And so they were coming back around. We immediately got tickets.

I got tickets. I'm not kidding you, the day they went on sale. Second they went on sale. Like within seconds. Yeah. And it was me, Ash, and my nephew, Aidan, who's awesome. Shout out to Aidan. Aidan.

And we got to go and we, so we got into, I'm too excited. I mean, I'm still like coming, I'm still dealing with it. It was like a, what was it? A week ago? Yeah. And I still feel like it's in my veins. Yes. Oh, it is. It lives there. It lives in me. Yeah. Their tour manager, Connor, shout out to fucking Connor and his girlfriend, Molly. Molly and Connor, Molly and Connor forever guys. Two of the nicest people we've ever met in our lives. Connor reached out and was like, hey, I'm going to get you in to meet Andrew, because he wants to meet you.

And we said, I'm sorry, what? And I said, Connor, say it again. What do you mean? What the fuck does that mean? And he was like, oh, yeah. So we're walking in with Connor, who's a sweetheart. And I was just in shock that we were like, I was like, I'm sorry, what?

Because we were like backstage. We'll get you to meet Andrew. And I was like, holy shit. So I'm thinking after the show. Because we just thought we were going to our seats. We're like, it's like a backstage tunnel sort of. To get up to this like balcony area. So I thought he was taking us there.

He takes us into a room. I wish that it was on camera, the face I gave to Ash. It is in my mind. It's in Ash's mind because we walked into a room and I just looked over and I go, oh, that's Andrew fucking McMahon's back, like the back of his head. Like that's just, he's right there.

We walked right into a room and he was just like, oh, here's Andrew. He's like, I had no idea that we were. No. I had no idea that we were. No. Also, just for everybody, one of the last times that I met him was when I was, I think I met him once when I was like 18 at a concert and I was very like normal and I was like,

oh, like I love your music, la la la. When I was 14. You're like, I was cool, guys. I was cool then. But when I was 14, I met Andrew McMahon and I was not very cool. And he had lost his voice after the show. It was like the, I think it was the Guster.

Yeah, it's the one they played with Guster. Yeah. And he lost his voice and we got to meet him after the show and he was like signing tickets and I walked up to this man and I just screamed in this man's face, I love you. She went, I love you. I literally, I didn't know what the fuck else to say. I was, it was, he was so nice. If somebody did that to me, I would probably be so nice, but I'd be so overwhelmed. And he did not seem overwhelmed at all. So this time I said, you got to play a cool bitch. You got to just nod and smile. He is so kind. So nice. He

said he gets hit up constantly when we mentioned him or something corporate or Jack's mannequin on the show. Which is why you guys are the fucking tit. Shout out to you. Anybody who has reached out to him to make man and told him. And I mean, I'm forever in your debt because when he brought that up, I was like, that's my motherfucking listeners right there. Like that., those are my homies right there. Those are the boys. Doing the Lord's work. Yes.

Getting me to be in Andrew McMahon's orbit. So that was bonkers bananas. Like truly bonkers bananas. He was so sweet. That was before the concert even started. So I was already like in a place,, we got to chat for a minute. We were floating. And he was like, oh, come back after the show. Come hang out. And I was like, what?

We said, threaten us with a good time. What do you mean? What do you mean? What are you talking about? What? So we went, the show was fucking amazing, guys. If you were at that Something Corporate show, how fucking awesome was that?

Winnie Crowdsurf. Oh my God, it was at the Roadrunner. It was so good. He crouched. Every single one of us in that room returned to a 16 year old. And or six. Like, and or six if you are Ash and Aiden. At one point he said like, I want you to like rock out like you are, whatever age you are

when you heard us for the first time. So I was like, 16. And Ash goes, I'm going to rock out like I'm six. And Aiden goes, I'm going to rock out like I'm six. And Aiden goes, I'm going to rock out like I'm three. Alina really indoctrinated us. I really did. But yeah, we got to talk to him after he wants to be on the show and I lost my mind. I love that he wanted to be on the show and was like, I shouldn't have asked that.

Yeah. I was like, oh no, I was going to ask you to be on the show. He's like, no, I shouldn't. I shouldn't have said that. We're we were like, I was like, oh no, I was going to ask you to be on the show. He's like, no, I shouldn't. I shouldn't have said that. We're like, no, you absolutely should have. Guys, he's so nice. He's so cool. Meet your heroes. And it was so lovely.

He might be on the show. He might be on the show. Hit him up. That would be great. Hit him up some more. I want to I feel like we could do something like fun with him. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I have some ideas.

We could do a spooky thing with him. I think it would be a lot of fun. Talk about the inspo for me and the moon. I need to know what the inspo is for that. It's Andrew McMahon and Something Corporate is very much the only other time besides Ghost that I felt that way about music. Which is so funny because apples and oranges, zebras and apples. They both hit the same way. Zebras and apples. They just, they both hit the same way. Yeah.

Tobias and Andrew both hit in similar ways. It's true. It was great. Oh my God. Andrew McMahon's really, really kind. Connor and his girlfriend Molly are beautiful humans. They're our favorite listeners at the moment. So step it up everyone.

We just, we just. Just kidding. We really, really appreciate it. It was just such a cool experience. It was really fun to be able to be 16 again and belt out songs about angst. Oh, my God. When they played If You See Jordan. Oh, my God. Felt right.

Iconique. Felt right. So, yeah, that was awesome. And again, thank you guys for, you know, letting him know when we mention him. Like, you're the real ones. So we appreciate you. We're so thankful for you. Yeah, you rock. It's a cool life.

Walking into that room and seeing Andrew McMahon just sitting there, I was unprepared. Yeah. It's the understatement. It's not lost on us how lucky we are. It is not lost on us. When he said Andrew wants to meet you, I said, that's not real.

That's not real, Connor. Excuse me? And literally when he said Andrew wants to meet you, I said, that's not real. That's not real, Connor. Excuse me? Literally, when he said it, I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Connor. You shut your mouth while you talk to yourself. Don't you lie to me, boy. And he was like, what? He's like, I'm not. He's like, he's right there. And then we got to see our friend Jessica, who used to like, we used to, we met Jessica and Kristin and Tanya. At a Jack's Mannequin concert years and years and years ago. It was the one when I was like 14 and I screamed, I love you and Andrew McMahon's face.

And we went to concerts with them a bunch. For like years. Like Jax Mannequin concerts, like it was our thing. Like we would go every year to one or something like that. And then we got to see our friend Jessica. So it was great. Hi Jess. Hi Jess.

So it was just, it was such a good night. It really was. Like start to finish. I'm surprised I didn't cry. Yeah, I'm still, I'm not over it. No, I don't know that it will ever be. I don't think I'm going to be over it. It was a very, very cool experience. Yeah. And we just had to gush about it because we like to tell you about fun things. And we wanted to say thank you because...

Yeah, because you guys are the ones that are hitting them up every time we mention them. Which is just fucking wild. All right. Well, I have a very, very strange case today. I remember... I know it really did. I'm sorry. But I remember hearing this case, like, years ago, for the first time on My Favorite Murder. Shout out to Georgia and Karen. Shout out to Georgia and Karen.

It's the mysterious slash very strange death of one Cindy James. I know you know this one. Yes. Yes, I do. And if you are like a true crime fan, true crime aficionado, I'm sure you've heard of this, but I haven't listened to this case in a while. I haven't like looked into it in a while. And then I decided I wanted to and me and Dave were just like, what the fuck happened here?

Yeah. And this is a very distressing case. Yeah. And I'm sorry, there's no answers. But it's still it fascinates me and I want this case to be solved. And again, it's very horrifying. You always say there's always there's always hope. There is always hope.

We're going to do this in two parts. Otherwise it would be like mind bogglingly long. So I'm going to give you part one today and then part two will follow up, what is it, Thursday, Friday? Thursday, right? I don't know where I am. What planet do we live on? Who knows?

I'm in outer space right now. Retweet. All right. Well, let's get into it. So on June 8th, 1989, oh, June 8th, 1989, so I was not alive yet. We're not here. And this isn't good.

On June 8th, 1989, a municipal worker discovered the body of 44-year-old, 44. So young. Wow. Cindy James in the backyard of an abandoned home in Richmond, British Columbia. Her body was found hogtied,

and she had a woman's stocking wrapped around her neck. Sorry, I sneezed everybody. That's okay, bless you. Thank you. Two weeks earlier, friends of Cindy had reported her missing when she failed to show up for a game of cards that they had planned. And when authorities searched her car, they found blood and other signs that indicated she probably met with some kind of foul play.

Yeah, she's found hogtied. Hogtied and with stockings around her neck? Yeah, she's found hogtide. Hogtide and with a stocking around her neck? Yeah, like what the fuck? How horrifying. So after opening an investigation into Cindy's death, investigators learned that for almost 10 years leading up to her death, Cindy James had been repeatedly reporting to Richmond police

that she was a victim of harassment, stalking, assault even. She actually even gave police threatening letters that had been sent to her and answering machine messages as evidence of what was happening. But local police could never verify her story and they never really intervened much to protect her. Nicole Soule And it's like, why isn't any that like, again, I always say like, I feel like it's better to overreact. That's the thing. Just overreact.

I think it was. If it ends up being nothing. Yeah, you've expended some time and some resources for sure. That's not lost on me. No. That's not a small thing. But it, I mean, there's a chance that you're going to save someone's life. Yeah, exactly.

And I mean, if it goes the other way, that's a lot of bad press for your agents there. Yeah. But at first, Cindy's death lot of bad press for your agents there. But at first, Cindy's death appeared to be the inevitable and obviously tragic conclusion of this years-long series of harassment that she'd been going through with an unknown stalker. But when investigators started digging into her personal history, they found evidence that completely contradicted their initial assumptions and pointed toward a much stranger explanation for her death. Interesting.

I don't know. Here's the thing, I know the very like, and this happened to me, I know like the generalized version of this. I don't know a lot of the detailed details. Yeah. So I'm interested to see. I don't know how I think it's just like my mind trying to preserve itself. I had forgot about some of the details in this case.

And there are, there's something, there are some lurid details in this case that are just like, whoa. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I feel like kids are always learning, growing, learning new things, excited about the whimsy of life. But as adults, sometimes we lose that curiosity. We lose that whimsy. I am trying to like learn one new thing every single year. Maybe like gardening, a new language. I don't know, just different things to learn. And guess what? Therapy can help you reconnect with your sense of wonder, because your back to school era can come at any age.

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and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. I feel like therapy gives you a really good way of starting to believe more in yourself, and that can be so important when you're learning new skills. Rediscover your curiosity with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash morbid. It is officially vacation season. Whoa! Personally, I am so, so, so, so, so excited to go back

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That's code morbid at L-U-M-E-D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-T.com. But let's back up a little bit and talk a little more about Cynthia's early life. She was born Cynthia Elizabeth Hack on June 12th, 1944 in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada. She was the second of six children born to Otto and Tilly Hack. Otto and Tilly. Aren't those great names? That's adorable. And a great couple name. Yeah, just Otto and Tilly Hack. Otto and Tilly. Aren't those great names? That's adorable. And a great couple name. Yeah, just Otto and Tilly over there.

Yeah. So Otto grew up in a rural farming family. His childhood was particularly hard. He didn't really grow up with a lot of opportunities. And as a pioneering family in the Peace River country of Alberta, the Hack family suffered some serious hardships, including the loss of several children.

Not one of the Hack girls survived infancy. Oh, that's so tragic. Not one of them. Because of that, Cindy's birth was an especially exciting event for Otto and Tilly. She was the first Hack girl to survive infancy since the beginning of the 1900s. Oh my God. Isn't that- And look what she went through.

I know. Oh my God. Isn't that? And look what she went through. I know. That's awful. I hate to get like paranormal and like supernatural here, but it makes you think that there's some kind of like curse. Like a curse or something. That's all I could think. Yeah. And it's like, that's not trying.

Like that really, it's like, holy shit. Just that many years. And then the first girl to survive infancy dies in such a tragic manner. Yeah. After an ordeal. That really is awful. A years long ordeal too. But after leaving the army in November of 1945, Otto and Tilly moved to Richmond, British Columbia where Otto attended university and Tilly ran a small corner store.

Tilly would later describe this period of their lives as difficult, especially after the birth of two more children at the end of the 1940s. After Otto graduated with a degree in 1948, he took a job teaching English in Vancouver, but just one year later, a friend told him, they pretty much convinced him, to re-enlist in the military. Luckily, during the time that he re-enlisted,

there was more like peacetime opportunities available, because there wasn't like a ton of war going on. And once he re-enlisted, there was more like peacetime opportunities available because there wasn't like a ton of war going on. And once he re-enlisted, Otto took a position teaching at military training facilities in Canada and in Europe. It turned out that he really loved his position and he turned it into like pretty much a lifelong career. He'd spend the next 25 years committed to this until he retired in 1975. Wow, Otto.

Yeah. Good for him. But his career in the military meant that the Hack family usually traveled from one place to another pretty often, and a lot of times with very little notice. Yeah, they could. There was probably not a lot of time to sit the kids down and explain every single time.

No, not at all. And sometimes they would only get to stay in one place for as little as one year before having to move on. That's tough. Yeah. In some cases, the kids would stay in one location with their mom or a nanny while Otto lived somewhere else.

But in all cases, like we were just saying, it was a pretty destabilizing existence for the kids. And the lack of parental supervision prompted Cindy to take on more responsibility than she probably would have otherwise. Yeah. She became really, really protective over her brothers and sisters. And a lot of times she would take blame or she would take on punishments for things that they did wrong so that they didn't have to face it.

Yeah. Outside of the home, she was a really good student, took a lot of pride in her grades. She was also very stubborn, very driven to succeed. Her father said, I don't know whether it's stubborn or determined. She always wanted to be a nurse from the time she could crawl. She had a gentle kind of attitude, feeling, personality.

Oh, she sounds lovely. She really does. So while Otto and Tilly looked back on their family's early years as, you know, relatively normal for a family in the 1950s, 1960s, Cindy felt a little bit differently. She told a psychiatrist that there was a quote, strong discouragement to even have friends at all. Oh. She said we weren't allowed to bring them home or go to their place.

Huh. And in her memory, her early life was overshadowed by all that responsibility that she had to take, like constantly taking care of her younger siblings, keeping up with housework. She was kind of like a little mom at a really early age. And it wasn't low stakes chores like doing the dishes, taking out the trash.

She said, my father would run his fingers along ledges to check if I had done the job well enough. Oh, that's very military, it feels like. It's super military and it's like, leave that in the military. I feel like you don't need to bring that home to your kids. Like that's a lot of pressure. Yeah.

Obviously a very different time. Especially when they're moving around so often, it's like that's added pressure to keep everything like that. All like prim and proper. Yeah. And it's also like kids are messy, man. Let kids be kids. It's just the way of the world.

You've got to let them be a little messy. You teach them how to clean up after themselves. Yeah. And that's the way it is. Things are going let them be a little messy. You teach them how to clean up after themselves. Yeah. And that's the way it is. Things are gonna spill, accidents are gonna happen. Eventually you're gonna have your clean house back. Right. But enjoy the messy house while you can.

And it shouldn't all be on the oldest girl to clean everything. No way. Like that's stupid. You teach them to clean up after themselves to the best of their age's ability. Yeah. But again, very different time. Yeah. But in addition to all that, the transient lifestyle

of growing up in the military family made it really difficult for Cindy to make friends. So she grew up feeling really lonely, especially when both, one or both of her parents were gone. Because sometimes it was just Otto and the mom would stay back to kind of finish out until they could go on to the next place. Sometimes both of them.

But sometimes the mom had to go, and then they were just with a nanny. And that must be tough. Yeah, you know? Yeah. Another prominent feature of the hack household was Otto's anger and occasionally explosive temper. Oh, no.

Which got even worse when he was drinking heavily. Oh, no, Otto. And he usually was. Here I was being like, good job. I know. Not so good. Not so good. Not so great.

Cindy's brothers had a little bit of a different opinion on their dad's drinking. They just felt like it was one of those things that was like of the time and a part of military life, which I guess I can see that. I see why they thought that. They just, yeah, they felt like it was one of those things that was just like part of it all. Yeah. Her brother Doug said, it's something in the military, the thing to do. I didn't make a value judgment out of it.

But Cindy, on the other hand, always struggled with her father's presence in their life. To her, it felt like he was really detached and really aloof when he was around. And when he wasn't, it was just like kind of more peaceful. But also she missed him. Yeah, it was one of the... that's really, that's hard. Yeah. Because it's such a catch 22. It is, exactly.

And the day her sister Melanie got married, Cindy wrote in her diary, the tension in the house was unbelievable. Dad put on his affable host act and everybody congratulated him on having done such a good job. Oh, that's really sad. And she probably felt like, oh yeah,

like he did such a good job. Meanwhile, like I'm the one that really like raised these kids, you know? As they grew older, Cindy and her siblings, they found ways to cope with their dad's drinking and sometimes abuse. But it was still a big part of their lives and a frequent topic of discussion among them. A few of them, like Cindy's older brother Doug, kind of found ways to justify or excuse Otto's behavior, which in and of itself is a coping mechanism.

Yeah, for sure. But Cindy and her sister kind of slowly put these emotional and eventually physical walls up between themselves and their parents. Anne Mulgrew who wrote, who killed Cindy James said, Cindy had built an emotional wall to keep her parents at bay and never demolished it. The rift between Cindy and her parents opened in her adolescence and became unbridgeable in her adulthood. Ooh, that is really sad.

Yeah, I wrote, so that's good. But the biggest shift in Cindy's relationship with her parents came in 1962 during two life-changing events. First, Otto was given the opportunity to move the family to Europe for a long period, which was something that he had actually dreamed of for a really long time. But right before they were about to start prepping for this move, Otto got a telegram letting him know that his father, brother, and four nieces and nephews of his had been in a car accident and not one of them survived.

Oh, that's awful. So he lost multiple incredibly important family members in an instant. The news was obviously devastating and it made Otto pull away from his family even more. And I'm sure, you know, drink a little bit more. Yeah, that's, that's awful. Because they probably just wanted to help him through it. Yeah, exactly. But I think the only way he knew how to deal with that was by isolating himself. But then not long after the accident, Cindy graduated from high school and she told her

parents she was not going to move to Europe with them. She didn't want to go. Her brother Doug, who was in college at the time, was planning to stay in Canada. So Cindy saw no reason why she shouldn't be allowed to do the exact same thing. Yeah. But this decision that she made caused a huge argument between her and her parents. They absolutely refused to let her stay in Canada. The fighting went on for months about this topic until Otto and Tilly finally relented and agreed to let her stay behind on the condition that she enroll in school for the fall semester. Okay.

So she agreed. She enrolled in the nursing program at Vancouver General Hospital's nursing program. But by the time she enrolled, the program had filled up, so she was placed on a wait list. A little bit of a loophole there. Oh, and you wish, you want to know though, like, would things be different if she had gone to Europe? I wonder.

Would she have liked it there? Would she have stayed there? Yeah. You know, would this whole thing have happened? I know, that's honestly a really good point. I wonder, yeah. I don't know. I just always wonder those things.

Because I still don't know exactly what happened here. I'm not. My mind goes like back and forth to so many different possibilities of what could have happened. But in the meantime, the hospital offered Cindy a nurse's aid job until she was able to begin classes.

So at least she would get a little bit of experience in the industry. Yeah. It seemed like a pretty reasonable compromise for everybody involved. But Cindy still resented her parents for trying to control her life, especially when they weren't really trying to control her brothers.

Yeah, I know. That's hard. Yeah. So she started cutting off a lot of communication with them. Despite that distance, she did still check in occasionally in the years that followed, usually through letters and through phone calls. Tilly recalled one letter that she got in early 1965 that made her question if Cindy was actually doing as well emotionally as she said she was doing.

In the letter, Cindy said she met a young man at the hospital and they had gotten engaged, but he recently found out that he had terminal cancer. Tilly said the letter was just strange in its detail and went on, she said, there must have been 10 pages to the letter she wrote saying that one day they were skiing. He went up into the mountain skiing and didn't come back.

What? According to Cindy, a search party eventually found saying that one day they were skiing. He went up into the mountain skiing and didn't come back. What? According to Cindy, a search party eventually found her fiance in an abandoned cabin on the mountain where he had shot and killed himself. Holy shit. Yeah. So Otto and Tilly found this letter

not only disturbing, but remarkably strange. First of all, they had never heard Cindy mention a fiance before, and they had just seen her a few months earlier during the holiday season. Otto said, whether they were even engaged or not, we don't know. Cindy's brother Doug visited her in Vancouver a lot and actually even hung out with her and some of her friends, and he had never met or heard of the supposed fiance. That's interesting.

Now, years later, he would say he never met the man, but he did eventually hear the story about the man's supposed suicide. And all Doug remembered was Cindy telling him about the incident and, quote, discussing suicide as a legitimate option for escaping an existential crisis. Interesting. Which is important to remember. Yeah. So, if Cindy had been engaged to be married in the winter of 1965,

she did manage to get over the loss of this mysterious fiance pretty quickly when she met one Roy Makepeace in the summer of 1965. He was almost 20 years older than her. He had come to Canada from South Africa where he left behind a wife and a career as a psychiatrist. Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's something. Oh, boy. Cindy and Roy dated for about a year before they got married in December of 1966, just after she graduated from the nursing program

at Vancouver General Hospital. When Otto and Tilly received Cindy's letter about the marriage, the letter about the marriage, they immediately disapproved of their daughter marrying someone almost twice her age. Otto later said he took advantage of her. He saw this pretty girl, and even though he was married with two kids, he zeroed in and made it his principal objective to get her. Oh, that's really upsetting.

Yeah, and they were also pretty pissed about the fact that Cindy had gotten married so quickly, first of all, but hadn't even invited them to her wedding. Yeah, just told them after. Just told them afterwards. They didn't know she was even dating this guy. Wow. [♪ music playing, chimes playing, and chimes playing in background. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.

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So there was physical distance and there was emotional distance. Definitely emotional distance. Otto wrote in a letter to Doug, Never before in our 25 years together have I seen your mother so disturbed and heartsick. What really hurts us is the fact that our own child decides to get married without seeking our counsel and most significantly, without sharing with us the joy of the monumentous moment. Let me tell you, when that happens, it is a blow.

We had that happen in our family. Something very similar happened in our family. It's fucked up. I don't know how you do that to your parents. I mean, I didn't invite my mom to my wedding, but that's very different. That's a very different. But when you have like an actual relationship with your parents. You have a communicative relationship.

I mean, we are only seeing this from what we can gather and from a side where she cannot say all the details. So I will take it with a grain of salt that way and say, I don't know all the ins and outs of their relationship. So perhaps there was more to that story. There was something that is valid there. I can only speak from the experience of being on the other side of it when there wasn't a valid reason for it. And when it was like,

holy shit. That's actually funny. Like not funny, but you know, that you've experienced it one way and I've sort of experienced it the other. With the same person. So that's even funnier. Wow, imagine that. History repeats itself. But while Cindy's parents may have been excluded

from her life at that point, Doug, her brother, still lived close by, and he saw Cindy pretty often. He actually got a good impression from Roy Makepeace, and he said he was a, quote, real neat guy, he was easy to talk to, he really enjoyed life, he had a curious curious mind and was into everything I was into. We hit it off right from the beginning.

Well, that's nice that her brother liked him. Yeah, at least there was that, you know? So to Doug, Roy seemed like a pretty good match for Cindy, too. He was stable, he seemed happy, and most importantly, he wasn't at all like their father. That was one of the things that they noted immediately. Like he wasn't like aloof or detached or anything like that. Yeah, exactly. He didn't seem to have any kind of like issue with alcohol.

I think that was a big thing that Cindy didn't want to get involved in. Cindy only had a few close friends. So a lot of nights she and Roy spent together were also like she would play cards with Doug and his wife, Barb. Like that was kind of their friendship. Or they'd have a quiet night alone at home. So they didn't have like a lot of social friends. A big friend group or anything like that. Exactly.

When Roy talked about the early years of their marriage, he said, we were tramping around cloud nine together. All right, that's adorable. I know. I mean, I'm having trouble. I know. Because of how this all began. But like, that's a cute statement.

It's kind of like a roller coaster that's like, whoo, whoo, whoo. Okay, yeah, because I was like, ooh, and then I'm like, oh. And then you might go, ooh, brother, ooh, again. Ooh, brother, ooh. Because unfortunately, that happiness that they had early on in their relationship didn't last very long. Roy said eventually that, quote,

we were grossly in debt at that stage of the game. And obviously that took a toll on their relationship. When things did start to improve for them financially, it was when Roy found work as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. But it also seemed that the financial security didn't do a lot to improve their relationship. He said, when we only had each other,

we had a wonderful life. As we started to get solvent and acquire some possessions and things, we had time and money for recreation and our interests, unfortunately, were slowly shown to be 180 degrees apart. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. That like when they were only the two of them, everything was fine, but as soon as like, and it's like, you never discussed your interests. Yeah, well, I mean, they only dated for one year before they got married. Which, like, I mean, that happens and it works out, but...

That's the time to, like, discuss what you like, what you don't like, what you're into, what you're not into, like... But even the amount of stories that we've covered where, like, a couple gets married and one of them wants children and the other doesn't. Yeah. And you're like, why didn't you discuss that? That's a big thing before you get married. But again, everybody's different. Yeah, exactly. But Cindy and Roy's social life had always, like I said, been limited

by Cindy's inability to make close friends because remember, she didn't really grow up learning how to make friends because it's a skill. Yeah, it is a skill. It really is. And it's one thing she wasn't encouraged to. In fact, she was kind of discouraged. And like we know she was always moving from place to place before she really even had a chance to make friends. And was taking on more of like a caretaker role at a young age than being a kid.

Yeah, she was like a little woman. You know? Yeah, it's important. Yeah, definitely. So Roy hoped that that wouldn't be a problem once they were able to get out into the world and enjoy the money that he was making. He thought it might come a little easier.

But Cindy didn't really seem interested in outdoor activities or any of the other things Roy liked like skiing and swimming. Yeah. And the conflict in their social priorities only increased the tension that was growing in their marriage. Anytime Roy would comment or criticize Cindy's housekeeping, she would literally just walk

out of the house and disappear for hours instead of actually communicating why she felt so criticized and probably triggered to when she lived at home. I was going to say, and I think she was also, it sounds like that that was kind of like her parents way of dealing with things was very aloof, very detached, very, if I'm mad about it, I'm just not gonna tell you why, I'm gonna move on, or I'm gonna remove myself from the situation. So it sounds like that's just what she knew.

Exactly. But never leave during a fight, never leave mad. That's my motto. Like never go to bed angry, never leave angry, because you never know what can happen. Yeah, you really don't. You get hit by a car and then the last thing you have with somebody that you love so much

and they love you is a fight. Yeah, and I know there's some people that fucking hate when I give advice, like life advice, they hate it. Really? But if that life advice bums you out, like you're the problem. I feel like that's pretty good life advice. You're the problem.

And also that's life advice from both of us. It is, that's from Ash too. You're the problem, it's like that's pretty good life advice. It's the problem. And also that's life advice from both of us. It is. That's from Ash too. You're the problem. It's you. Oh, we love you anyway. Exactly. But I think that's pretty decent generalized life advice. Don't go to bed angry. I feel like a lot of people like live by that advice. People have shit that says that over their bed. Don't they? That's right. Like always kiss good night. Oh, okay. Yeah. Don't go to bed angry. That's the subtext.

Don't go to bed pissed. That's what it says over my bed. When you're still mad. Anyway, before long, tensions turned into arguments, obviously. Arguments turned into yelling fights. Shit was getting bleak. Roy realized that Cindy was triggered though. And he said, in her mind, I was being like Otto.

I thought I was arguing with my otherwise rational, provided wife, my other adult. But actually, I was arguing with an irrational little girl who had been terrified. And I simply couldn't get her to listen to any reason at all. That's really sad. It is. After almost 10 years of marriage,

the tensions finally spilled over between them one evening after Cindy had been antagonizing Roy. He recalled that he probably said, you stupid bitch, shut up. Oh, fuck you. And then hit her. Yeah, fuck you, Roy. Yeah. Like, straight up fuck you, Roy.

I can see why things spoiled over at that point. That's so fucked up. Yeah. You stupid bitch, shut up. I can't imagine hearing either of those things. That... People, I don't know if I of those things. That... People, I don't know if I've talked about this before, people say shut up so flippantly.

I think shut up is like one of the meanest things you can say to somebody. If you're being like, oh my God, shut up. Like in Mean Girls, that's one thing, but when you're in a fight or like, you don't want to hear what someone is saying and you say shut up. Oh, I think it's so degrading.

It is. It's such a nasty way to shut someone down. Yeah, and I grew up hearing shut up, so I think I specifically have like a... Like my nervous system has a response where I like want to fight immediately. Yeah, that's fucked up. But then to add you stupid bitch onto that.

Like what? You're... I can't imagine my husband ever calling me stupid or a bitch. And I definitely can't imagine my husband ever calling me stupid or a bitch. And I definitely can't imagine the combination of both. The earth would swallow me. Like I... The earth would swallow someone. Yeah. Like that's... I can't imagine that. Yeah. How awful that would be to hear. No, I can't either. From someone you care about. And really that was when Cindy was pretty much... And he hit her....done with the marriage. That's the thing. When he hit her. Yeah. She never forgave him for hitting her, which I wouldn't either. And

from that point forward, their relationship was just in a downward spiral of accusations and anger and finger pointing. It was toxic. Throughout the late 70s, Cindy wrote about her rapidly evolving feelings toward her husband and her diary. One day she wrote, Woke up with a pounding headache and feeling very listless. I hate Roy for destroying that for me too. He destroyed everything that was important to me, just like he said he would if I left. In that same diary, Cindy accused him of violent abuse and actually sexual assaults. Accusation she would later repeat to the police, among other claims that she would make against

him, including murder. Holy shit. Yeah. By 1980, any love between Cindy and Roy had completely evaporated, at least as far as Cindy was concerned. She wrote, "'For some reason, images of Roy's face contorted in anger keep intruding on my thoughts.' By then, she had come to see him as this, like, domineering force

that was actually even worse than her father. Yeah. And that perception of him would only twist into great as time went on. Damn. That's horrible. Now, it should be said that despite what Cindy ended up writing in her diary about Roy and what she told police and her family about them, it's hard to know what's based in 100% truth. He did hit her. Like, he...

He admits that. He admits that, which you're done in my book. But there are some things that seem to have been exaggerated based on some people's beliefs. I don't know necessarily if that's my belief because I don't know enough about their relationship, but some people felt that way. According to Ian Milgrue, there's no doubt that Roy loved Cindy very much. He said, but Roy carried emotional baggage that weighed him down and made normal relationships difficult throughout his life. I mean, he left a wife and two children. Yeah, in a completely separate country. He's got some emotional baggage that we don't even know about.

Exactly. He also was an enthusiastic gun collector and was paranoid sometimes to the point of being delusional. And his interesting, like, fringe psychology and bizarre beliefs tended to make him an outsider, not only in his personal life, but in his professional life, too. And like we were just saying, he also had a lot of guilt and regret for leaving his ex-wife and children back in South Africa. Yeah.

And those feelings would only get worse once his relationship with Cindy started to disintegrate. Because then it's like he left them and what for? For what this situation? Exactly. Obviously, not saying he was a great guy, not saying he was innocent when it came to the abuse, because he literally had been hitting her. But just highlighting that Roy's history and sometimes bizarre behavior would make

it easy to believe everything that Cindy said about him and eventually it would muddy the facts with what happened next. Yeah, I can see that. So in the summer of 1982, after an especially bad fight between Roy and Cindy, they decided to separate temporarily with the hope and intention of working to repair the marriage. Just a few months after separating though, Cindy became preoccupied because she started getting these obscene phone calls right around early October. I just want to trigger warning ahead of time. Some of these get very sexual in nature

and kind of upsetting. Disturbing. Yeah, disturbing, upsetting, definitely. So just be forewarned. She told the police, sometimes the caller breathed heavily, sometimes he spoke of sex, sometimes of mutilation. And the caller, who always sounded like a man,

always referred to her by her first name and spoke like he knew her. So Cindy reported these calls to Vancouver police on October 12th, but there wasn't really a lot they could do. Remember, this is the 80s. So the phone calls just persisted. In one call she received after she reported the harassment, the caller said, So you think the police will keep you safe? You wait. I've got my zipper open.

Eww. Yeah, like I told you, obscene. But Cindy hung up before he could go any further. On October 13th, just one day after reporting the obscene phone call, she called the police again, and she reported that she had gotten even more of these phone calls since the previous night, and now she actually believed that there was a prowler outside of her house. Holy shit. According to Cindy, she woke up when her dog started barking, and she heard the knob on the back door rattling.

Oh, fuck that. Like somebody was trying to get into the house. So this time, two patrol cars were dispatched to the house, and officers searched the area, but they didn't find anything unusual and didn't find any sign of a prowler whatsoever. But Cindy was still terrified, so that night she packed a small bag and went to stay with her friends.

She was like, fuck that, I'm not staying here. Now, there were several more reported incidents of harassment in the days that followed. On October 15th, she reported to Vancouver police that somebody had thrown a rock through her kitchen window. Holy shit. On the 19th, officers were again dispatched to Cindy's home, this time for a report of somebody actually having broken into the house. Imagine you're walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench.

You report it to the police and upon investigating, they discover two live pipe bombs inside. You rush to clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment until everything changes and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security guard Richard Jewell. After the Centennial Park bombing killed one person and wounded more than 100, public pressure and a media witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI, security guard Richard

Jewell was under pressure to confess. I'm Aaron Habel. And I'm Justin Evans. Join us as we explore the aftermath of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing and the newest season of our podcast, Generation Y, the Olympic Park bombing. Follow Generation Y on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. They searched the house and the only evidence they found was a pillowcase of some sentimental value that had been slashed with either a knife or scissors.

Which is so bizarre. Yeah. When officers asked if there was anybody she could think of that would be targeting her for this harassment, she mentioned that she just separated from her husband, but she did say she couldn't imagine Roy breaking in just to do something that trivial, like, and petty as destroying a pillow case. In the report, the responding officer noted, there was no indication of forced entry and no dust has been disturbed on window sills.

Apparently, the only possible entry would be with a key or by slipping the front lock. Nothing disturbed or taken." Which I wouldn't say nothing's disturbed because the pillowcase is hella disturbed. Yeah. It's just very weird. It's also very chilling. Yeah. And that it's like a sentimental one. It's like somebody knows that. Yeah, exactly. That's somebody who knows you. Right.

And knows that that pillowcase is sentimental to you. That's so specific. Yeah. So according to Ian Mulgrew, the responding officer on the breaking call, Pat McBride, was, quote, smitten by the shy, timid woman who was obviously shattered by the break-in. In fact, a few days later, McBride

returned to Cindy's house, this time on a social visit, where he installed new deadbolts on the doors for her. He returned to check on Cindy several times in the days that followed, and in no time they started dating. Oh, McBride was careful to keep a low profile, obviously given the circumstances of their first meeting. But one week after the alleged break-in, Cindy found the first of many notes waiting for her on her back porch when she got home from work one night. The note read, and it doesn't really make any sense, but it's gross. It says, us you love, want rotten love, silence, hot sex. Whoa. Yeah. That's a lot of different feelings. All at once. The rotten part of it is rotten

and silence. Rotten and silence stick out to me a lot. Yeah. Forensic investigators checked the note and the envelope for fingerprints, but there were none to be found. After discovering the note, Pat McBride asked Cindy if he could, quote, stay a few days with her until he found a place, and she agreed. Okay. They had only been seeing each other for a few weeks at that point, but things had been going well between them. And if nothing else, she figured she'd have somebody there to protect her if the prowler was going to return and a cop at that.

So yeah, I get it. Probably good. But it turned out that Cindy and Pat McBride wouldn't have to wait very long for another suspicious event. Just a few nights after he had moved in, McBride found Roy Makepeace sitting in his car in an alley behind Cindy's house with two loaded guns. What? Cindy had told Roy about the harassment that she was going through. sitting in his car in an alley behind Cindy's house with two loaded guns. What?

Cindy had told Roy about the harassment that she was going through, so he had come by in the hope that he might catch whoever was harassing her. This wasn't the first time that he had tried to catch whoever was doing this to Cindy. A couple weeks earlier, she woke up in the middle of the night to find Roy knocking at her bedroom window, armed with a rifle and a large hunting knife.

According to him, he was quote unquote, on guard and planned to protect her should anybody be working around the house. McBride told Roy to go home and to not come around with guns anymore, but the incident actually just made him think that it was Roy who was responsible for the notes and phone calls. Yeah. I mean, I can see why that would be a little concerning. Yeah, absolutely. Me too. Yeah. So for the first few weeks, Cindy alone experienced the harassment, but eventually there were,

I guess you could say like witnesses to her ordeal. At various times in late 1982 and early 1983, neighbors were called seeing unfamiliar men in the neighborhood and one neighbor saw a man enter Cindy's yard. But none of them reported seeing the men do anything suspicious beyond lurking. Men? Like several? Yeah, several, several unfamiliar men in the neighborhood and one man enter her yard. Weird. And they said like they didn't see them doing anything suspicious, but lurking is suspicious in my opinion.

Pretty suspicious. Now, similarly, Pat McBride was at home when one of those harassing no-talk calls came in. Later, he suggested that, quote, the call may have come from the airport since he heard a woman's voice on a public address system in the background. Oh, interesting. But the caller never said a word. The calls and notes continued for about a year while Cindy and Pat were continuing dating. Until that point, it hadn't occurred to him that dating a woman who was regularly making reports of crimes to the police might be a conflict of interest.

But eventually it became impossible to ignore. It became impossible to ignore the ways where his personal and professional lives were having a negative effect on one another. For example, every time Cindy would report a harassing phone call or a new obscene or threatening letter, he couldn't help but notice the lack of evidence or specificity in the harassment. According to Ian Mulgrew, whenever McBride would point out the lack of evidence to support her claims, Cindy, quote, acted like a petulant little girl at the slightest insinuation he didn't believe her. Okay. Which I mean, I get, because if you're dating me and I'm telling you this is happening,

and I'm terrified, and I don't really have any answer as to why there's no evidence, but I still feel like it's happening. And you're telling me it's not, or it's weird. What the fuck are you doing to help the situation other than just making me feel bad about it? That's the thing. Like I feel like it's, I feel like sexism is a, is a theme in this story. Yeah. Like calling, like, like calling her a petulant little girl. I don't think that's fair.

I don't think that's it. I think she's pissed that you don't believe her. And I think she's a woman who's scared. Yeah. And if you're dating her, especially, yeah, you should be like, you know what? I believe you first and foremost until there's reason not to. And I'm sorry, but you signed up for this knowing full well what the fuck was going on.

You were the responding officer. Yeah. So you know what you like, you knew what you were getting into. That's shitty. So in December, 1982, a little over two months after meeting, Cindy asked Pat to move out, telling him the relationship was quote unquote becoming more than she was ready to deal with. He was heartbroken, but he respected her decision and he moved to his own apartment. But he did keep a key to the house so that he could check the mail when she was out of

town or working or something. Even though they weren't living together, they did keep dating. And at the same time, Cindy did also carry out a casual relationship with her husband, Roy Makepeace. Oh, boy. Because they were still married. Yeah, forgot about that. It's complicated.

So the obscene calls and letters continued into the new year, when according to Cindy, the harassment escalated to violence. Oh. This is very dark and trigger warning. Okay. In her statement to the police, she had been at home on the night of January 27th when there was a knock at the door.

She thought it was Pat coming by for a visit, so she opened the front door and was immediately grabbed by a man who dragged her into the garage where there was a second man waiting. She said that she struggled with both men, during which her hand was slashed with the knife. Once they knocked her to the floor, one of the men wrapped a black stocking around Cindy's neck and started choking her, she said, until she passed out. She told Polly she really couldn't remember what happened because she was kind of slipping in and out of consciousness. And this is specifically rough, so just so you know. She remembered, quote, one of the men inserted what she thought was a knife into her vagina

and threatened to slice open her abdomen. Holy shit. Yeah. And she passed out after that happened. And when she came to, they were gone. And she was just lying alone on her garage floor. Was there evidence that that's what happened? So when the report was made to dark, dark dark dark and awful.

When the report was made to police, Cindy was asked to be evaluated by a physician to collect any evidence of sexual assault like you were just asking. But the doctor later reported finding no evidence of assault or injury at all to her vagina. But still the escalation in the harassment gave the case more priority within the Vancouver Police Department and the assault case was assigned to Detective David Bowyer Smith, a veteran detective with the force. He was immediately suspicious of Cindy's reports, including the assault, due to the fact that they all lacked evidence and none of them could be verified.

Yeah, it's very interesting that there's no evidence. No evidence whatsoever. I mean, when somebody is violated in that way. When she said a knife. Yeah, what she believed to be a knife. It's hard because it's like, well, was it something else? Yeah. But then it looks like there was no evidence of that. But then there's no evidence of anything. And I don't really know what other thing you

could not leave evidence with. So there's no injury. You know? Well, no injury. Right. If you're, yeah, it's just awful. It's strange. Like, oh, that is awful.

But that's the thing. And even the violent assault, which should have left more than a superficial scratch on her hand, was missing any physical evidence of having occurred. So Bowyer Smith trusted Pat McBride, who vouched for Cindy. So he was willing to set aside his own skepticism and proceed like the reports were all genuine claims. Which is, I guess, how you should go about it. Definitely. I think so.

There was also the matter, though, of Cindy's very believable fear of another attack. In fact, she was actually so terrified of anything else happening that she refused to return to the house, and she actually moved back home to where she lived with Roy, where they shared their house together, and he moved into the basement. Oh.

So, unfortunately, the move to Roy's house didn't improve the situation. Within a few weeks, the threatening notes began again. They said all kinds of fucked up things. And Cindy reported this new batch of notes because there was more than one. They were coming like every, every couple days, it sounds like. So she reported the new batch of notes to Bowyer Smith, who was again suspicious and unable to shake the feeling that something about Cindy's story just wasn't quite right. The thing that he couldn't get past was her

unwillingness to even consider that Roy Makepeace could be the perpetrator. Because to him and nearly everybody else she talked to about the harassment, Cindy's ex-husband wasn't just the most likely suspect, but he also had the means and he knew her schedule well enough to perpetrate these crimes without being seen. And he wouldn't have been like, it wouldn't, his presence wouldn't have been alarming to the neighbors. They know him. Yeah. The alternative though, was that Cindy had been targeted by an obsessed psychotic stranger,

which even in 1983, law enforcement's knew was unusual. Yeah. So they didn't really know where to go with this. And that's where we're going to wrap up for part one. Part two gets absolutely fucking bonkers. Please hold on to your butts. It gets- This is already like, what the hell's going on here?

And I still don't know. It's a case, I remember the first time I heard it. I was listening to My Favorite Murder. It was years ago. It was when I first started listening to them. And this case has just stuck in the back of my mind for so long. I was like, oh my God, we've never covered that one. It's just interesting. And I'm interested to see what people have to say about it,

listening to our coverage. I want to... I wonder what people think. Yeah, I just want to know what the have to say about it, listening to our coverage. I want to... I wonder what people think. Yeah, I just want to know what the weirdos, like what their theories are. Because I am just... Flabbergasted. I'm flabbergasted. I have no idea what to think.

I'm horrified. And I remember when I first heard about this, I was like, well, it's probably your ex-husband. But then I remember at a certain point, I was like, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's too weird. Yeah, this is a strange one and a very upsetting one.

It is very upsetting, I'm sorry. Luckily, I think this one is gonna be followed by a fun guest collab and then a listener tale. Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, it'll be a nice little break for you guys. You'll be able to breathe for a minute. Yeah, so with that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you. Keep. And we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that you don't believe somebody when they tell you that you're being attacked or that they're being attacked. Yeah, just believe them. Yeah. And don't hate your life. Yeah, don't hate that. So Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.