My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 289 - MFM Guest Host Picks #12 - Nick Terry

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

This summer, Exactly Right family members will be guest hosting My Favorite Murder! Each week a guest host will pick their favorite stories from Karen and Georgia. Today's episode is hosted by Nick Terry, creator of MFM Animated (youtube.com/exactlyrightmedia). Nick covers Stories of People Buried Alive (Episode 186) and the story of The Mothman Legend & Silver Bridge Collapse (Episode 183). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hey everybody, this is Nick Terry, a guest hosting my favorite murder, which is very exciting. If you don't know who I am, I'm the creator of MFM Animated. If you don't know what that is, you should go to Exactly Right Media's YouTube channel and check it out. I've been doing these animations officially in an official capacity for MFM just for a couple months now, but I've been doing them overall for about three years, basically since I started

listening to the podcast, which I've been a big fan of since that time. I'm super excited to be here, so let's get into it. The first story we're going to hear is from Georgia. It's from episode 186, Sprankers, and it's all about stories of people buried alive. I picked this one because, I don't know, this is one of those fears that I think we all have. There's actually a part during this story where Karen says something like, taffophobia is the fear of being buried alive, but I would call it just being a human being, and I agree with that. I don't consider myself claustrophobic, but sometimes I just think about what it would be like to wake up

buried in a coffin and I get panicky. So, let's get panicky together and hear Georgia talk about the weird Victorian panic that led to safety coffins and all the weird nonsense around that. Enjoy. But wait, but wait, there's more? Here's the weird thing. What? You did the same story? No. I'm doing stories of people being accidentally buried alive. No, you're not. Swear to fucking God. What? How crazy is it? That's why I was like, so ew. We should have saved this for Halloween. Do you think after a while we have the same brain? These won't be, this is just how it's going to be, where it's like, well, then I also. Well, I really love that we open this up a little, this, after the break, to like weird tales and

stuff that's outside the realm of just straight up murder. This is literally buried alive in a grave. How fucking great. I love it. So, sorry, this whole time you've just been sitting over there with your little sit, that's why you had that smile on your face. I was like, this is unbelievable. Okay, got, I specifically got this when I was just searching for weird shit and found a rancor article called Scary Stories of People Who Were Buried Alive. I was like, great, I'm doing this. God bless you, rancor. Also got a story from Reuters about a dead man who wakes up under the autopsy knife. Spoiler alert. Okay. Yeah. No, we got there. We'll get there. History collection, amusing planet, Popsci.com, all that's interesting.com, Wikipedia, of course. Of course.

So, Wikipedia and then research was from Lily Bellinghausen, who's been helping me with research. God bless. Amen. Amen. All right. So, Karen. Yes. Cases of being buried alive have been recorded as far back as the 14th century. Jesus. And I don't think they recorded ship before that. Yeah, there was no, had no ability to record. No. Inc. got invented right around that time. They had a, what is the thing we recorded on the beginning of this podcast when we first started? A Zoom. They didn't have Zooms before the 1400s, so it wasn't recorded. In 1308. It took too long to chisel it into a big piece of stone. Right. Forget it. And then you got to have the headphones like so you look like Steven and they have them in the mustache and that takes forever. So,

in 1308, the vault of Franciscan philosopher John Dunn's Scotus is open and his body is reportedly found outside of his coffin with bloodied hands. No. A lot of bloodied hands and nails in this story. I bet. Just want to let everyone know. Of all the things I hate, and there are many things I hate about being buried alive, the smallness of waking up in a casket, the smallness of the space that you then have to suffer in. Yeah. I think that's the fear that everyone has. Like when I was reading through this and you'll hear like the like panic that everyone has about the idea of being buried alive, I think has a lot to do with the idea that you're fucking stuck. Stuck. Once you're awake. In a tiny place and that scratching your way out is pretty much your only

hope. Yeah. Horrifying. Here we go. Great. Happy Halloween. Well, this story is considered a myth. Oh, the fear of being buried alive became a pandemic during the Victorian era. Yeah. That was fucking crazy Victorians. Everything great and the creepiest of all creepy things happened during that. Fogs that would come upon the city and fogs and bustles and pandemics. Pandemics and lots of child death. Right. Listen to this podcast. We'll kill you for more information. Yes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was widespread bacterial infections and cholera outbreaks. And in addition to the popular literature like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe's 1844 premature burial, there's also reports from

doctors about people supposedly coming back from the dead. Tapophobia, I think, is the fear of being buried alive and that spreads across Europe and the US and leads to the invention. And I've always been obsessed with this idea. Safety coffins. Love it. Okay. Safety coffins or security coffins are a coffin fitted with a mechanism to prevent premature burial or allow the occupant to signal that they have been buried alive. Yeah. A large number of designs for safety coffins were patented during the 18th and 19th centuries. And variations on the idea are still available today. Is that true? I guess. That's what Lily said. It is. And I believe her. You believe Lily. You know what's funny is that tapophobia is the name for the fear of being buried alive. I would call it

being a human being. Yeah. It's not claustrophobia. It's not tapophobia. It's just if you are alive now, you have that fear. You're like, guess what would suck? Peeing my pants, being buried alive, and then what's another one? Joking. Biting into an old sandwich. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Eating a salad and finding a cockroach at the bottom of it. At the bottom once you're all done. A live cockroach? A live cockroach. You ate that. First of all, who eats the entire salad? Yeah. You usually only get about two thirds of the way down. Yeah. This time you finish your salad and writers are like, ooh, one last crouton. No. No, it isn't. God, I want to fart. Okay. The most popular designs use some type of device for communication to the outside world,

like a cord attached to a bell that the buried person could just ring in case they woke up. That idea. I think you talked about this in another live show one time. Yes. I get to what I talked about. Okay. No, I just want to say that it's like a person who makes sets and props for a horrible play was like, what would be the creepiest thing this coffin could do? Yeah. Ring. It's so awful. What say you're the grave digger and you're standing in the cemetery in the middle of the early morning. Whistling. What's the creepiest thing you could hear? How about a bell? Ring-a-ling-a-ling. Also, how do those bells not go off when just the wind? Oh, sorry. No, no, no, you're right. And in addition to that, shit, I should have let you finish. No, no, no. Okay.

I should let you actually tell your story instead of guessing. That's not this podcast. Okay, you're right. Remember, we are buried alive in a grave. That's true. Other variations of the bell include flags and pyrotechnics. What? I don't know. That's all Lily fucking told me. And I was like, this could be a whole episode of its own. You wake up in your coffin and AMD goes off above four. And then a firework show. And then the grave digger there's like, ooh, ah, and then walks away. Yeah. It doesn't help you. Some burial designs include ladders, escape hatches, and even feeding tubes, but most of them lacked a method to provide air. Remember air? Yeah. Remember air. Also, yeah, you're buried alive. You don't want a snack. No. Don't worry about the feeding tube.

Yeah, you know, you don't want to live longer. Send me down an apple, would you? No. Or just a mush apple. Okay. In the sauce. Wait, they invented a thing? Yes. That's just a mushed apple. You don't just have to mush your apples anymore. Wait, what? Yeah. The time I'm expense I have been going to. There's a family named a mot and they figured out how to mush up your favorite apples. God bless them. Amen. Amen. In 1791, Robert Robinson, I doubt that, a man from Manchester creates the first safety coffin prototype. He was laid to rest in a mausoleum fitted with a special door that could be opened from the outside by the watchman on duty. So inside his would be his coffin and there'd be a removable glass panel. And he instructed his family to periodically check on the glass,

insert it in the coffin, basically to see if he was breathing, if there was condensation. Sure, dad. We will. No, dad will be there every day. Oh, my God. Can you imagine what his, like, living life was like? It was very stressful for all the family. Such a pain in the ass. The first true. Am I dead? Did I die? No, you're sitting here at dinner. It's fine. Yes, we can smell. Could you stop breathing in my face? You were breathing. Yes, you were breathing. The first true recorded safety coffin was made on the orders of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick before his death in 1792. He had a window installed to allow light in and air tube provided, that provided the supply of fresh air. And instead of having the lid nailed down,

he had a lock fitted and in a pocket of his shroud when he was buried in, he had keep the keys for them. Perfect. You got it. And then figured it out. And a really cute key chain. Yeah. Dolphin magic. Yeah. Here you go. The dolphin. J.K. Living. And when you turn it this way, the dolphin has a bathing suit on. You turn it that way, the dolphin's bathing suit comes off. The dolphin has a humongous erect penis. And it attacks you because dolphins are rapist. Does the penis have a bathing suit on it? And it's bathing suit after bathing suit falls off. The pen is very thick. It's complicated. It was actually the pen that killed him. It crushed him to death. He invented it. It crushed him.

What? Okay. So a German priest named PJ Pestler suggested in 1798 that all coffins have a tube inserted so that a cord could run to the church bells. And if an invincible had... Oh, what's that you say? An individual. Had been buried. I've only had one can of wine, I swear to God. Why are there two sitting there? Because I'm drinking the other one. It just hasn't been drank yet, girl. Girl, I've been my head. Check my wine. Okay. They could draw attention to themselves by ringing the bell inside. They'd be like... You're ringing the church bells now. You want the whole town to come. I guess so. Yeah. So this led to signaling systems that came around. But unfortunately,

the coffins... Oh, wait. So then his bro, a colleague of his was like, well, we should put trumpet-like tubes instead. So a trumpet instead of bells. Yes. Which is more annoying. And more haunting. Each day the local priest... I'm alive. Each day the local priest could check the state of... Oh, okay. Wait. Okay. The other thing is that they would have a small trumpet-like tube attached. And the point of that is not so you can blow your fucking trumpet when you realize you've been buried alive, but so that a local priest would go to the cemetery and smell each of the trumpet funnels and make sure that there was decomposition happening. That the smell of the odors emanating from the tube would be that of

decomp, not of a live person just shitting their pants or whatever. The priests are like, have we not given up enough by never marrying, taking a vow of poverty? I wrote above my pay grade. They don't get paid though, do they? No. Well, I don't know. They get paid by going straight to heaven. That's right. First in line, bitches. Unless. Uh-oh. It's you or me. Dr. Adab Gutsmus was buried alive several times to demonstrate a safety coffin of his design. And in 1822, he stayed underground for several hours and ate a whole meal. What? Which I'm like... What's this eating in the coffin situation? Delivered to him through the coffin's feeding tube. No. People are fools. Get up and go to a restaurant. It's a really lovely experience.

So nice. In 1829, Dr. Johann Gottfried Taburger created a more elaborate bell signaling system. So, bell's house above ground connected to strings attached to the body's head, head, only one, hands and feet, and it prevented rainwater from going into the tube, blah, blah, blah. If the bell rang, the cemetery watchman would insert a tube into the coffin and pump air in using bellows until the casket could be dug up so they'd have fresh air. That's the most... I like that one the best so far. Here's the problem. And this is at the antidote I must have fucking told because it's one of my absolute favorites and I must have read it as a child and loved so much. Well, when a corpse is decomposing and swelling and losing mass and all this

shit, everything moves and so the bells would start going off. That's right. Nope. It's not someone alive. And so, like, all the bells going off at once. Can you imagine? The first time that happened, whoever was nearby died of a heart attack. There's no way they didn't. That's right. This is insanity. Uh-huh. So, they would all activate the bell system, which led to false positives. The worst false positive in the world. Well, I don't know if I can think of the couple. Really? Franz Wester's 1868 burial case overcame this problem by adding a tube through which the corpse, the face of the corpse, could be viewed. Oh, I remember that one. Really? Yeah. If the buried person woke up, they could ring the bell like they wanted to. And then the watchman could

check to see if the person had actually returned to life or was just movement of the corpse. So, that was basically the 2.0 version once they realized the bells were ringing and then they're like, okay, well, then go look at it. Yeah. And that's preset quit because they're like, I'm not sniffing these fucking tubes anymore. Not going to smell those dead bodies anymore. Because they were always smelling a dead body. Yeah. There was no time they weren't. Right. Because it's still going to pass. In 1995, a modern safety coffin was patented by Fabrizio Casselli. His design included an emergency alarm, intercom system, a flashlight, a breathing apparatus, and both a heart monitor and stimulator. Corkscrew and a nail file. Despite the fear of burial while

still alive, there's no documented cases of anybody being saved by a safety coffin. Oh, man. What a great life lesson. They just should have kept inventing them. They'd have gotten better and better. I mean, it's like, I have this fear. And instead of dealing with the fear that I have, I'm going to continually invent things to make me feel like anything can be down if a bad thing happens to me. Yeah. Or maybe like add one more check at the morgue to just double check that the person's dead. How about you stab them right in one of the areas? Would that wake you up? That would wake you right up. A poke in the ear maybe? Ow. With a feather? A tickle. How about smelling salts? I guess it doesn't have to be violent. Tickle. A tickle. I'd wake up.

Okay. But the practice of modern day embalming has, for the most part, eliminated the fear of premature burial. That's pretty much going to solve it. Thanks. Because no one has ever survived that process once completed. Oh, I wonder how many people got embalmed when they were still like, well, I still have my spleen. Yeah. Ring ring ring ring. It's all I need. It's been thought that phrases like saved by the bell dead ringer and graveyard shift come from the use of safety coffins. Why do I keep doing that? Coffins. Uh-huh. Like you're singing a caftan or attic and attic. Yeah. In the Victorian era, but these have been dispelled as an urban myth attributed to a linguistic email hoax that was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

said that saved by the bell is actually from boxing. So shut up. But that's interesting because it really does apply. But it does sound like dead ringer could be from that. Yeah. I would love to be on any kind of a hoax email chain involving linguists. Remember all those email chains that used to be a thing? Send this to five people or you're going to get smushed. Also, there was one where it was like, fill out this thing. Yeah. Did you ever do that one where it was like you basically, you get the name of a person, you fill out all these things about them and then send it to them and then they do it for somebody else? No. We did it in our family. It was, I can't really explain that process logically, but basically, um, I got one might like ever all my cousins and

all these people did it. And then it came around and my dad sent me mine. And then, and the one thing he was like, it was something like you had to say like nice things about these people and what they're like and whatever. And like, uh, I think he said my best attribute and he said smart. He just smart. And I was like, he does a lot, but it was really exciting because all my life, he'd always been like, Hey, he's a smart ass. It was always kind of like a negative. And suddenly I was like, you liked it this whole time. You were egging me on. He was like not trying to get you to stop. That's right. That's sweet. You still have it. The email. I bet you could find it. I printed it up. I put it in a frame. Um, okay. Okay. So here's some cases of people

being buried alive. Ready? I am. Uh, in November 1656. Oh, wait. So it really did happen. It's just that they weren't saved by those coffins. Oh yeah. Spoiler alert. But these are also like they didn't, these people weren't buried in these coffins either, but these are people who were, you'll find out. Okay. Here we go. In November 1656, Alice Davies is married to William Blunder of the basking of vaccine stoke and then from a well-established local family. They're like, they're like nobles and shit like that. Sure. Um, what country does it say England? Probably. Yes, probably. Okay. William Blunder was a maltmaker and his wife, quote, had accustomed herself to many times to drink brandy. So she drank a lot. Why did he accustomed herself to it?

Yeah, me too. One evening she drank a large quantity of puppy water and fell into a deep sleep that no one could wake her from. Opium. Oh, right. Right? Oh, yeah. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Uh, it was concluded that she had died and William, being the amazing, sweet, wonderful husband he is, was like, hey, I have to go to London really quick. Keep her body there. I swear I'll come right back for the funeral. What was he doing? I don't know, but it was really important, I guess. Um, but her, her family was like, fuck that shit. It's hot out. We're not leaving her body out to rot. He's like, I got tickets to go see Big Ben. I'm stoked. I'm going to go see the Book of Mormon and I can't, or the New Fleabag

live show. Yes. Um, so they were like, fuck that shit. We're going to bury her. So then a few days after the burial, a few, some boys who had been playing nearby reported hearing a voice from the grave. They didn't think it was real, but the grave was open and her body was found. It looked like she was beaten, but in actuality, it was injuries inflicted by herself on her body and her confinement. Yeah. So, um, so being unable to detect any continuing signs of life, those present at the scene, they put Alice back in the grave overnight and the coroner some of the next day, and, uh, they had found that she tore off a great part of her winding sheet, scratched herself in several places, beaten her mouth so long it was filled with blood and she was now definitely dead.

Sorry. Are you saying she was buried alive twice? The second time she was dead. Great. That's a huge relief to me. I think in hope. I think they would have left her out just to make sure, you know. You would hope that they would make double sure, but you know, most of the stories on this show don't go that well. Yeah, exactly. Um, no one's convicted or like gets in trouble for this, although the town had a considerable fine that they had to pay because of this. The whole town. I guess the whole town. We're all going down together. Yeah, like this sucks on all of our parts. Yeah. So in 1880, here's another one, 1884, Kentucky's Hickman Courier reported that a young woman by the name of Anna Hockwalt is dressing for her brother's wedding.

She sits down to rest in the kitchen as we all do and then someone checks on her and she's just laying there with her head against the wall and appears lifeless. Medical aid arrives and the doctor thought she was dead. He couldn't revive her and she had a nervous nature and the fact that she suffered from heart palpitations was the cause of death, they said. But Anna's friends were like, this doesn't seem fucking real and her ears look pink still, her friend said. So they figured blood was still flowing through them. Her friends must have just gotten drunk at the fucking funeral, though, because they didn't tell her family about this and their assumption until after she's buried. Great friends. No. Parents. You know what I was

thinking. Remember when her ears were pink? I just think she's still alive. Her parents are like, what the fuck? They dig her back up and they find Anna's body. She's lying on her side. Her fingers are not almost to the bone and her hair is torn out by the hands. Of course. I mean, all backs are off. No. You wake up in that situation. You're like, can I just kill me? Yeah. Yeah. In 1889, a woman named Octavia Smith married a wealthy Kentuckian named James Hatcher. They had a son named Jacob, but the infant mortality rate was so high back then that they that this Jacob died in infancy. And Octavia goes into a deep depression, she's bedridden, and she shows signs of a mysterious illness. And eventually,

she enters a coma-like state and no one can wake her up. She's pronounced dead in May of 1891, just four months after her infant son died. It was super hot that year. So Octavia's buried quickly and in bombing wasn't a common practice yet. But a few days later, other people in the town began falling into a similar coma-like state that she had with shallow breathing patterns. And they wake up a few days later, though. They discover it was an illness caused by the bite of the set-sea fly. Titsy. Thank you. Titsy fly. Fearing that she'd been buried alive, her husband, James Panix, has her exhumed. And she had been buried alive. Oh. But James was too late. Oh, no. Her coffin was airtight. He found the coffin

lining had been shredded and Octavia's fingernails were bloody. Yes. Yes. So many bloody fingernails. And her face was frozen in a shriek of terror. Yes. I believe that. James is traumatized as fuck. I mean. He re-buries his wife. He wrecks a life-like monument of her that sits in the cemetery that she's still buried in, I know. Say where? I think Kentucky was where they were from. Kentucky. Yeah. I mean, that's, there's a mausoleum you want to go visit. Oh my god. Midnight on Halloween. No. Should we do it? Let's record, let's record on Halloween from a fucking cemetery. Inside a mausoleum. Want to? As many people as can fit. So it'll be like an 11-person live show. And we'll all be screaming at the top of our lungs the entire time.

What was that? Okay. Eleanor Markham is an American woman who became one of the most prominent cases of averted premature burial in the 19th century. According to news reports, 22-year-old Markham, Eleanor Markham, was pronounced dead in Sprankers, New York, which is like, what? How have I not known about that? You know what I would love if Lily misspelled Yonkers. Sprankers. If Sprankers is real, we're doing an only Sprankers home town mini episode next week. Sprankers. Stephen, do you mind Wikipedia and Sprankers? He's already doing it. When George is done, we can do a quick update on what Sprankers is all about. Oh my god, it's real. Lily, you're off the hook. Yeah, Sprankers is a hamlet in the town of Root, Montgomery, New York. Wow. Sprankers.

Notable people, George A. Mitchell, founder of Cadillac. Oh, it's from Sprankers? From Sprankers. And that's why every Cadillac has the trademarked Sprankers handle on the driver's line truck. Please send us Sprankers hometown and put in the subject line Sprankers hometown. Please write Sprankers bitch in the subject line. Please let us keep saying the word Sprankers. It's our favorite word. Wow. Okay. This is July 8th, 1894. How am I 50? And I've never heard the town name of Sprankers, New York. They're fiercely private. I'm so tired of people keeping things from me. It does feel like people are always keeping shit from us. It feels like people are talking behind our back about Sprankers. Like everyone knows about us. They refuse to tell

us. Should we go to Sprankers? This is the only podcast it doesn't know about Sprankers. It's so sad when they talk and they don't know about Sprankers. And they don't mention Sprankers every five minutes. Okay. She's dead, they say. It's warm. They're going to bury her quickly. Her coffin is closed and fastened after the family members say goodbye in the church and on the way to the graveyard, the hearse has stopped after a noise is heard coming from the coffin. Oh, thank God. She doesn't, she doesn't go underground for this. No. The lid is unfastened and she says, you're burying me alive. I love her. I'm in Sprankers and you're burying me alive. Holy Sprankers, you're going to bury me alive? You fucking Sprankers. And then the doctor who had

fucking done this was like, hush child, you're all right. It's a mistake easily rectified. Yeah, now, bro. Step off, bitch. She says that soon after she had fainted, which is when they thought she was dead, she had recovered after being administered some stimulants, cocaine. Yes, cocaine. Oh, they're every ailment. Except for getting alive. She said that she had been conscious the entire time of the preparations for burial, but she couldn't cry out. And she finally, she thought she was going to be buried alive like the whole way. And finally she was like, move your fucking body, Sprankers. And she, she was able to hit, you know, make a noise. That's the worst thing. Yeah. Knowing you're going to be. Oh my God. Yes. I'm not, I don't think I

usually have these feelings when we talk about terrible, terrible things to each other. No. Yeah. This one's getting to me. Yeah. I do not like it. Well, guess what? You're going to be buried alive tonight. Oh, I will sprank you so hard. Her case is among those included in the book, premature burial and how it may be prevented by William Teb and Edward Volem. So in 19... Teb and Volem. Teb and Volem. They wrote the best books. Yeah. So another one is in 1937, a 19 year old from France named Angelo Hayes. He goes for a fucking motorcycle ride, hits a fucking wall, fucking head first into a brick wall. His head is mangled. He has no pulse. He's so terrible to look at that. They're like, to his family, you can't see him. Yeah. You know, it sucks. He's

declared dead and buried three days later. Oh, no. But the insurance company was like, we don't, we don't buy it. Exume the body because they're insurance companies. We won't pay. Yeah. Until we see. They discovered that his body is still warm. No. And in the aftermath of the accident, his body had put him into a deep coma. Yes. And didn't need a lot of oxygen. So he's still fucking alive. After being buried alive, he received proper medical care and went on to make a full recovery. No. Away. What's his name, Angelo? Angelo Hayes. Wow, Angelo. He invented a type of security cough tin after this. Why do I keep saying cough tin? You're saying caftan with a weird accent. I am just like dying to be in my caftan. A cough tin. Cough tin. He tours across

France showing off his security cough tin. And in it is a small oven, a refrigerator, and a high bike cassette player. No. Yeah. That's what it says. So this was like in the 60s? Like a later on. No. This was in the, in 37, 1937. A high-fi, did you say cassette player? Did I hear that wrong? Is that what I meant? Cassette player. High-fi cassette player. Well, those are in quotes. So I didn't, yeah. Lily is quoting herself now. I'm questioning everything. You already said Lily's name. And I'm like, is that this? How the fuck would I know? Lily's like record campy, right? She's like 22, too, so she wouldn't know. She's like, cassettes are from 1843, right? They're vintage. Okay. In 2007, a Venezuelan man named Carlos Camajo, he's 33. He's declared dead

after an accident, a highway accident taken to the morgue. Examiners begin their autopsy. Then he starts bleeding, which you mean, guess what guys? Dead bodies don't bleed. Yeah. Right? That's day one of medical school. Yeah. Remember that. Day one of autopsy school. He starts bleeding and then he wakes up and he's in excruciating pain and the autopsy. Yeah, I bet. Because he's still alive. And that table's so cold. Oh god. They quickly stitch him up and his grieving wife had just turned up to ID him and then finds him in the hallway alive, which is so sweet. Oh, that's, yeah, good for her, right? Then as recently as 2014. So sweet. It's like to be so bummed to be like, oh, you're alive. Oh my god, you're alive. You have that

huge scar. See, that's a romance story, not your fucking, that's right. Shitty. You did great, I didn't mean you. There was also in 2014 a case of a woman being buried alive in Greece. She had succumbed to cancer and her children heard her screams coming from her grave. No. Not long after burial. She's exhumed and it was discovered that she actually died of cardiac arrest after she was buried. No. I know. You said, did you say 2014? Yeah, I did. Oh man. Yeah. Oh yeah, yay. Promise. Never mind. I don't want to jinx anything. I will. I'll come and check your grave and sniff your trumpet or whatever it was. Like poke me with a safety pin or something. I'll make sure that the fireworks haven't gone off. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Most of these

modern cases are because of unforeseen circumstances and just plain bad luck. The possibility of the possibility. The possibilities. The possibility of being buried alive today is virtually impossible because of embalming. However, if I sum you- 2014 was five years ago. I know but it's Greece. I'm just kidding. I don't know what that means. Some scientists say that you can survive up to 36 hours if you've been buried alive with the oxygen. So like keep knocking. Keep knocking. Keep knocking. Shallow breaths. Make sure you get buried with like a tasty cakes in your pocket or something. That's why I always have a protein bar. That's right. And a cell phone. Yeah. Right. It all depends on how much air is in the coffin. And those are stories of buried alive in a grave.

Unbelievable. In a coffin. In a coffin. In a coffin. In a coffin. In a coffin. There's, I love that because I really was getting upset. Really getting upset. That's, you know, there's a Ryan Reynolds movie where he is buried alive. No. And it's him and a lighter. It's very frustrating. It's not the whole movie, but it's a lot of the movie. It's called Insanity. Buried alive in a coffin. In a grave. In a grave. In a grave. In a grave. In a grave. Wow. That was amazing. Wow. Well, welcome to basically fall. We're welcoming in fall. That's what we're doing. That's right. Yeah. It's exciting. Get your shirts with bats on them. Yeah. We're get ready to transition out of summertime. What are you going to be for Halloween

this year? I'm probably going to be buried alive in a grave, I think. The film. The lead in the film. Perfect. Let's make it. Let's make it as a student film. Okay. Let's go back to school. But the whole, yeah. But the whole thing is, it's much more like, it's like a, what's that movie? It's like my dinner with Andre, where it's the discussion about being buried alive in a grave. No one has to go into a coffin. But it gets like St. Elsewhere kind of where it's like, is that the one? Or it's like. St. Elmo's Fire. Yes. Yeah. Or like someone that is like, well, I'm going to try it. Yeah. I'll try it. Robbie, you're so wild. Oh my God. You're crazy. Rob Lowe starts playing the saxophone. A lot of amazing cocaine use in that movie.

I fucking bet. I love it. Demi Moore like does way too much cocaine and she opens all the windows in her room. And then there's this insanely 80s shot of her. I'm sure I've described this before because it's truly one of my favorite memories from my teen years. And this is how everyone in my family should have known that I was a drug addict waiting to happen because that scene was like, I was like, yeah. Well, she's just doing cocaine and she did a ton of coke by herself and then was in her room holding her knees. She was like, I think she was wearing like a shirt and no pants. Yeah. Holding her knees. All the windows were open and these long white curtains were blowing. And you're like, great. That looks fun. I was like, I love this. I want to do this.

That looks lonely and cold. Her room, I think it's because she had high ceilings and the walls were painted a cool color. From what I remember. Romanticizing cocaine. I mean, the 80s. It's one of the more romantic elements in filmmaking. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions,

weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of

Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. What a collection of delightful stories. I think that collection is just prime MFM because it was equal parts joking around and riffing and discussion about a terrifying horrible thing, which is really isn't that why we're all here in the

first place. For Karen's story, we're going to go to episode 183. Here we back are where she talks about the mothman legend and the silver bridge collapse. I have obvious connections to this one just through animation. I'm with Georgia also in that I had never heard of mothman before this, even though I'm a big fan of urban legends. And here in the Pacific Northwest, where I'm at, we've got Bigfoot, you know, we've got some of the big ones. But this one, I've always loved urban legends and the idea that there's this spooky mothman creature that appears and then vanishes in the wake of a disastrous bridge collapse is just the coolest, worst, best, awful, great thing. So enjoy. And with that, I'm going to change gears on you.

Great. As I want to do, only because for me, it's still summer. Yes. I don't want to let go of that endless summer feeling yet. And so my story this week is going to be partly, it's actually partly a disaster story, but then it's also partly a crypto zoology legend. That's right. I'm doing the mothman story. That's right. Tell me everything. Now, how much do you think you know about the mothman? Literally zero. Is that true? I don't think so. You haven't even watched the mothman prophecies, the movie I've told you to watch about 20 times. I have not watched a single movie you told me to watch ever. I keep meaning to have a night and just watch all Karen's movie recommendations.

I'm going to make you a list. Oh, I have something for you. Oh, my friend, Doug Jones, who's going to be DJing the night who I write about in the book, Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered, as being someone who likes to share weird obscure things like Mr. Show and Largo with, yes, made us a movie from the TV Murder in Texas to 1981 TV movie about the murder that you'd covered. Yes. What was it? Oh, God, this could be the one about the rich woman and her shitty husband and her father. The husband killed her. She was into horses and the father killed him. Yes. This was a live show that we did. I don't know if we've posted it. Really? We must have posted it if he knows about it. I think it wasn't alive, Stephen. What were we talking about?

Yeah, I know it was because we did it in... Oh, that's right. While we were there. Texas? Yes, Texas. You did? Good. Oh, it's called Murder in Texas. Oh, my God. I shouldn't have taken that eighth shot. This is amazing. I know. Doug Jones, thank you. Thank you, Doug Jones. What? Joan Robertson Hill. Yeah, Joan Robertson Hill. Yes. Yes. And her father had a like a Texas guy's nickname. Bucky. Bud. Bud. It was dude. Pat. Pat? Ash. Ash Robinson. Ash Robinson. Oh, I was close. You were close with Pat. Pat Robinson. I want my nickname to be Pat from now on. Okay. Promise. Because you wear hats so much. I do.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Doug. This is... I'm so excited. Wait a second. I think this might start either Farrah Fawcett. Farrah Fawcett? That's great. And maybe it's Tommy Lee Jones? I think so. And I think we posted this. No, it was the guy who should have a mustache this time. Sam Neal. No, no, sorry. Sam. Sam. Elliott. Thank you. We got there. We got there. And it wasn't a live episode. Was not? Shit. What episode was it, Stephen? 172. Okay. Was it... We had just come back from Texas and it was one I hadn't done there. Correct. Thank you. You can have that. Okay, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm gonna get that one on a technicality.

Okay, so we're talking now about one of my favorite stories. And I have referenced on this show that to me, of all things that are scary, the scariest one is people talking too fast on the phone. My sister and I talk about this all the time. There's a part in the Mothman prophecies where Richard Geer, the star of the Mothman prophecies, which is basically an amalgamation of all of the witness stories put together in one. So they kind of made it. And it's based on a book by an author named... Hold on, front, back. Simply named. Simply named and I quote John Keele. He wrote the book, The Mothman Prophecies in 1975. And then they made this movie in 2020. And Richard Geer is like, I'm on board. Richard Geer is like, this is my jam. Yeah, I'm gonna,

this is my vehicle. So these creepy things are happening to him as a reporter. This, it's completely, this version of it is not real. But at one point he's staying in this weird little hotel and he picks up the phone and there's weird feedback and electrical noises. And then there's a voice that goes, like that fast creepy talking. And my sister and I decided one day because I did it to her on the phone just to be funny. Never do that again. And she got so mad and we decided that way too fast talking is the scariest thing. It's so scary. Another worldly. So anyway, if you haven't seen The Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Geer... Oh, we're all going to watch it together.

Please stream it on your local streaming services. Also, I got most of my information from an article on Ranker, the website that works so hard and gets almost no credit. Such a good website. God bless you, Ranker. And then they're like, oh, you like this article? Well, here's 10 other ones. You're gonna fucking stay up all night reading. Yes, you're gonna like all the rest of these articles as much, if not more. So good. Rub it whole. And also the website, which I can, starting to use more and more, Weird US, which basically there's a book series that I used to read in the 90s called like Weird Los Angeles, Weird San Francisco. And it would have all the

haunted places, creepy places, murder sites, whatever, kind of creepy of interest areas. So now they're all on one website called Weird US. Love it. And then, of course, The Mothman Prophecies. Okay. So this story took place in and around the cities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gala Police, Ohio, which I can't believe that's the way it's pronounced when it looks exactly like Gallipoli. And acceptable. It really made me really mad when Stephen looked it up for me. From November of 1966 through December of 1967. So this started happening November of 1966 and went on for a year. And these two cities sit directly across from each other

across the Ohio River and or the northern part of Gala Police, it sits directly across from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Got it. So the West Virginia side is best known for Mothman sightings, but it actually also happened over on the Ohio side as well. Okay. The Ohio River is between and it also kind of acts as the state line between West Virginia and Ohio. My mind just blanked out. Geography. Don't resist geography, because here's the thing, this is how we're learning about our great nation, the thing we know nothing about. And also, did you even know West Virginia and Ohio were next to each other? No. Of course I did, and I failed that class. I stared at this map for so long. Okay. So the story begins November 12,

1966, 80 miles southeast of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in a little town. Oh, I didn't look up the... Okay, I'll just pronounce this how I feel it. Let's hear it. Clendenin. That's right. C-L-E-N-D-E-N-I-N. Clendenin. Or could be clendenin. Or could be clendenin. But this is a little sleepy burg of about 1,500 people in Wikipedia says in 2010. Okay. Over 1,200 people. That's probably tripled since then. I would like to think. Okay. So this is what happens. Cut two. We're in a cemetery. Five grave diggers are digging a grave. Why are we here? Cut that out. No, leave it. So gross. It's like a weird thing coming out of my throat. I belched in the microphone, so it's only fair. Okay. Five grave diggers digging a grave.

They look up. They hear noise in the trees overhead. They look up to see a man-sized black bird with huge glowing red eyes fly out of the treetops and then down low to the ground near them and away. Okay. So it's not a man. It's just the size of one and it's a giant bird. Yes. Okay. I think the word man being thrown in there is confusing. Man-sized. It was a hyphenate. Okay. Got it. A man-sized bird. Got it. So you didn't have like hands and arms? No. He didn't have like weird eyebrows that need to get trimmed. Nope. It was just size-wise. Gotta, gotta, gotta. You know, birds are usually the size of your arm or smaller. Sure. Or fist. Not my man. Not, not, not, not Vince-sized. Okay. So for me immediately kicking this off, my cynic mind goes, when have there ever

been five grave diggers anywhere? Sure. Unless this was a unionized cemetery from the late 60s. Yeah. Two max. Totally. Three maybe. What is this fucking family annihilator? Yeah. What's, how do you get five? Why are you all together? And they're probably also kind of freaked out a little because they're in a fucking grave yard digging. Yes. They might be used to it if it's their job. That's true. Unless they're just digging a grave and they're not professionals. Ooh. We don't know. It was the late 60s. Speculation. Anything could have happened back then. But then the fact that, so I was saying con that it's five because I don't, I'm not buying it, that con that it's grave diggers because I, oh, it starts on a dark and spooky night or whatever.

But then pro is the fact that five individuals came forward. So that's meaningful. Yes. Although I'm sure they were ignored and humiliated by the authorities. But three days later on November 15th, two young couples in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, their names are Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Millette. They report seeing a quote large flying man with 10 foot wings. Now that's different than a man sized bird. That's right. This is a man that flies with huge wings. I think someone wrote that down wrong. So, but this huge man sized bird was following their car. Wait, man bird though. Yeah. Okay. It was following their car. It was following their car in an area known as the TNT area, which was the site of a former World War II munitions plant near Point

Pleasant. They said his eyes glowed red when the car's headlights picked up like shown on him. Like a big man sized deer in night vision. Okay. But I'm off, man. Got it. I'm here for this. That didn't help. Okay. You just had a bunch of words. Right. Then more sightings start coming in. On November 17th, so that's two days later, a teenage boy is driving down Route 7 near Cheshire, Ohio, and he sees a gray man shaped 10 foot tall creature with red eyes. Based on the pictures, I think the reason they're saying man shaped and man sized is because it's got wings, but two legs. Yes. And also, the head stops mid-wing and doesn't go up above it. So, it's like, it doesn't look like a man wearing wings. Like a hawk. Who's got a like.

Yeah. It's like, yes. The head's down low, almost like below the wings. But it's a bird head, not a man head. But the head part is a question mark. Okay. Okay. Oh, Stephen has a great, Stephen has a bunch of pictures. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me take a look. Oh, God, I just closed it. Stephen, what's your, what's your password? I'll say it on the, on it. C-A-T-Z. Cat. Oh, it's like an owl who has eyes in his chest. Yeah, we'll come back to that part. Okay, that's creepy as fuck. It posts that on. It's very upsetting. My favorite murder on Instagram. All our socials. Go on. Okay, so, so this teenage boy driving down Route 7 sees this tall gray man shaped 10 foot tall creature. That's bad enough. But then he tells the authorities that as he sped away,

it followed his car. Yeah. So very creepy and spooky. Then about two weeks later, we're back over in Ohio at the Gallipolis airport and or Gallipolis, sorry, Gallipolis airport. Thank you. Five pilots. Five? Circle with a circle in red and put a question mark above. Five pilots see what at first they believe to be a weird airplane flying at 70 miles an hour. Then they realize is a some sort of large bird with a long neck. Why are there five pilots on one plane? Is, well, we don't know if, if they were, if they were separate and it was five reports. Okay. If they, if they just loaded a plane filled with pilots of like, we have to get this thing where it's going. Everyone's a little sleepy. So if everyone takes a turn, it'll be great.

One awake a co-pilot equals four sleepy co-pilots. Also back then did all men spend time in groups of five and is that why things are so fucked up now? I trust pilots. I do too. Do you? I do. Except when you find out like one of them, they get arrested because they're drunk trying to fly a plane. Yeah, that never happens almost hardly yet. Joking JK. So that, so then it is credit, credible because they see a lot of stuff. Sorry, grave diggers. I trust you too. We absolutely trust you. Yes. But you see creepy stuff. You're creeped out a lot. There's a Scooby-Doo element to being a grave digger that when you're a pilot, you're just like, I've got everything on lock and I must. I'm from the Air Force. So, so then on December 7th,

for adult women, because it's women, so it has to be one less, for adult women are driving up Route 30. I'm saying these roads like we know them at all. Oh, sure. Route 30. You know Route 30. I take it to the 10, to the 110, to Route 30. To the Route 30. Okay. So they're driving up Route 30 and they see what they report to be a brownish, silver man-shaped creature with glowing red eyes. So you can rely on the women to get accurate about that color. Yeah. Maybe the sun was setting. Crimson. They're like crimson. There's like, he was either super tan, big apple red. That's what they paint my toenails. So, okay. So authorities are baffled, probably very scared because they keep on hearing these stories of people seeing creepy shit. Yeah. So the Mason

County, West Virginia Sheriff, comes up with a totally logical answer to this mystery. He claims that everyone's seeing an unusually large heron that has gone off of its normal migration route and he refers to the bird, whether it's a local terminology or he's just mad. He calls it a shit shite poke. Shite poke. What's that? I know. I know. It might be slang. Okay. Then a wildlife biologist at West Virginia University tells reporters that the descriptions of the moth man all fit the sand hill crane, which is a large American crane with a seven foot wingspan that's as tall as a grown man with the reddish circles around the eyes and that it could be just this type of crane that's somehow lost. Say you're taking a fucking shortcut down an alley. Stephen

is showing me this crane. That is a fucked up crane. Let me see. I haven't looked. What if you run into that crane in an alley? Holy fuck. That's a fucking ugly. I don't like the shit poke. The sand hill cranes pretty serious. Yeah. They're big. Big. And he had like an eye, it looks like an eye mask, like a sleep mask that's red. That's bright red. Yeah. So okay. Frightening. Frightening. Here's my problem. This bird is white as our many cranes. These are white, gray, a little bit brown. I'm not buying it. Okay. Maybe everyone was on acid. I mean, this was definitely when acid started getting popular. So I would not argue you. Maybe it's like the Salem Witch Trials where there was mold on the grain that they were that made their head.

Did you hear about that? Why? That's one of the theories and I fucking love it because I'm obsessed with mold, aka what, hence fucking this podcast will kill you being on our network. It's amazing. That there was mold, this mold on the grain that they used to make the bread and everyone went fucking hallucinogenic psycho, psilocybin style. Exactly. Yes. Hell yeah. Read about it. Okay. People. Not now, right? No, please listen to this podcast. Okay. So essentially, now we've got the crane theory in the mix and people are like, whew, it's just a crane. It's just a huge man size crane. Calm down. Okay. But none of the witnesses who hear this say they saw a crane. They're like, no, it's simply not that fucking crane is. Yeah. Don't you dare condescend to me, professor. So

including a man who's a contractor named Neil Newell Partridge, and he argues that the theory doesn't explain all these weird electrical interferences that he's been getting at his house since he spotted the moth man in a field on his property and he basically saw it in a field and put up a flashlight, saw the glowing red eyes and was like, that was no crane and here's how I know because since I saw the moth man, my German shepherd has disappeared. What? That doesn't mean anything. Yeah. It ate, it ate the dog. Oh, God, I gotta cut it. Or did it run away and join the moth man, join that crane and they became a fucking dynamic duo. The crane carries the German shepherd in like a little baby, a newborn baby, and they're like,

fuck migration patterns, we're going wherever we want in West Virginia. We're gonna do it. Let's do it. Okay. Neil Partridge is like, yeah, no, something weird is going on. I know it. My dog knew it. Do something about it. So now there's a reporter named Mary Hyer, who is her correspondent for the Athens, Ohio newspaper. Oh, a woman. The messenger in the sixties. In the sixties. She wore the highest of heels. So she begins writing about all these strange sightings that she's seeing coming over the telegraph. I don't know if that's what it's called. Is that the telegraph? What? A moth man, you say? Why? Why? There hasn't been a moth man around even in about 25 years. Really short amount of time. People start calling. So she starts writing

about it in the messenger, the Athens messenger. Sure. Sure. Then people start calling her and telling her when they see UFOs, odd, experiencing odd electrical interferences like Newell did. They also start hearing weird humming sounds coming up out of nowhere. On one particularly busy weekend, she got over 500 calls from people in the area saying that they had been seeing strange lights in the sky. 500. 500 calls in one weekend. Holy shit. So she's like, leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep. How'd you get this number? She's like, I'm just trying to report the news. Yeah. So here's, this is John Keel, who I already told you is the author of the book, The Moth Man Prophecies from 1975, upon which the classic Richard Gere film is loosely based.

Loosely. And he is basically considered to be the foremost authority on these moth man stories. He claims that between November of 1966 and November of 1967, at least 100 people personally witnessed the moth man in the Ohio and West Virginia area. Wow. Now, on the Wikipedia page, it goes on to when it gets into the debunking stage, talk about how none of these people, nobody could, to track them down. But I've just told you people's names because they were like, there's no real names and nobody, and you can't track them down. But it's like, just because people have died since 1967 doesn't mean they didn't have the experience they had. Right. Right. So fuck you. Professor, why are we mad at this? The scientists always take the

moth shit. Okay. And this, the sightings of strange creatures in the sky is not new for this area. In the early 1900s, that area was known for reports of thunderbirds, which in cryptozoology are known as their giant birds with 12 foot wingspans that were spotted flying up and down the Ohio River Valley. Stephen, do you want to look up thunderbirds? Because this is a real thing. Now, the pictures that you find on the internet, they could very well be hoaxes, but thunderbirds are kind of legendary. Tell me what they are again. They're humongous birds. A lot of people think that are somehow holdovers, kind of Loch Ness Monster style, or like, like pterodactyls. Exactly. They're like leftover dinosaur birds that come in and are just like, what's that, a toddler?

They'll buy. Oh, no. And it happened to like the pioneers and stuff. Oh, shit. Yeah. So this is a, this is a story that's been going on for a while. There's also stories of similar types of creatures that would ascend from the sky that Native Americans and First Nation people have always told, where if a certain type of cloud would come in, they'd be like, get all the kids inside, because those evil things, now I can't remember what birds, those evil thunderbird type animals are coming. So this is not, this isn't new in any way, is my point. Wait, Stephen, let me see. Like a drawing. There were some cars showing up, the thunderbirds. Of course there were. You can't tell the size, but this is real ugly. A majestic, ugly and a majestic in an ugly way.

This looks like if you're a high school mascot is the falcons. Yeah, it does. There's nothing, Stephen, there was actually a picture I was talking about. Wait, is it the science picture with the scientists? With the gents? Read his text. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what, read his text. It's seriously, yeah. Stephen, can you bring up that picture? Yeah, yeah. He brings up a pencil drawn, it might as well say Alex P underneath it or like, or have like a, look at that big ass bird. Holy shit, Stephen, will you post this picture also? That's not. And also Stephen, will you find out if that picture's a hoax? Yes. That's insane. Oh, if it's a hoax, they'll tell us. That's a hoax. There's no way there's that big of a bird. This is the fun part of the show where we're

going to say something's real and it's your job to tell us if it's a hoax. Say it angrily. Yes, make sure that you act like we are always supposed to get everything right. That's right. We should do better. We're your primary source of news. Okay, so what we're saying is just that, that big, huge bird like things in the sky is not new for this Ohio Valley area. Get with it. Ohio River Valley, I don't know if it's a valley. That's how I go wrong is adding in words like that. Okay, so all of the witnesses, here's, here's the difference though in this period of between 1966 and 1967, all the witnesses who reported seeing the Mothman gave similar descriptions. It was wider than a man but had human-like legs, that its eyes were set near the top of the shoulders,

which is the creepiest aspect of it, and that it had bat-like wings that glided rather than flapped when it flew and when it flew away, it ascended straight up into the air like a helicopter and it flipped you off on the way out. It said, buy bitches, every time it said buy bitches, which is rude. It'd say, well, they didn't know at the time what it meant, but hashtag, buy bitch, and I went, what's a hashtag? It said it really fast. It's scary. So scary. Witnesses also described the murky skin as either being gray or brown and that it emitted a humming sound when it flew like that. Like it was nervous in the grocery store. Again, and I probably said this before, if you're ever near a person who just starts whistling or humming, you're getting your pocket

picked and you need to keep your eyes open, you need to get, put that head, just start punching, I think is the answer. But first start by punching behind you. Yeah, you be the weird one. If someone's humming near you, become the weird one and just start punching. Yeah, because you can just, you can always stop and walk away. They're still the weird one that's humming. We are so back, baby. Okay. Can you feel it? Can you feel the energy of it? Okay, so, oh, this is my favorite sentence of this, of all of this research. The humming sound when it flew and then it says, it was also incapable of speech. It communicated with a screeching sound. Me too. So, thank God it didn't land in front of your car with its red eyes. I was like,

what's up, Jerry? I'm here to freak the fuck out of you. It's never like that. You mean it talked like a bird? But I thought it hummed. Anyway, what's up in your car? Okay, so, all this is fun and creepy and weird and cryptozoological, which is kind of my favorite, as we know. But, and maybe not true, as also my favorite. I believe it. But here's the part that's interesting and factual. These sightings continue for a year up until disaster strikes. The evening of December 15th, 1967. And there, all these commuters are sitting in their cars in traffic waiting to cross the Silver Bridge, which connects Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Gallipolis, it's Gallipolis, and Gallipolis, Ohio, which are on either side of the Ohio River.

Got it. So, the Silver Bridge is a span bridge. It was built in 1928 and about 4,000 cars a day cross it. Wow. And that is very different since the 40 years ago when it was built. I said, I wrote since its erection, shut up. But the bridge has never been updated or rebuilt to accommodate the increasing drive time congestion. So, here's the way it happened. And I found this story, these stories from a website called Timeline.com, because I just put in Silver Bridge Disaster Timeline, and then there's a website called Timeline.com. God bless it. And it had these stories on it. So, around 5 p.m., there's a woman named Charlene Wood, who's getting on the bridge to get home from her job at a hair salon. She's pregnant. She's been working

all day. She just wants to get home. Her fucking feet. All around her, there's trucks, there's commuters, and there's people shopping for Christmas, because it's almost Christmas, beginning in December. Suddenly, she feels the bridge shake. Now, apparently, because this is a span bridge. What does that mean? A span bridge is kind of, it's like built similarly to, it's one where it goes over a river, over a body of water. So, it has to suspend itself. But I guess a span bridge, I'm not going to be able to explain this correctly, but like the Golden Gate Bridge is technically a span bridge, but it's the cables on it that hold it up and keep it out. And it doesn't like pillars. Instead, it's like holding itself up with tension.

Exactly. But these, the way this bridge was built was flat pieces of metal that were a foot wide and like two inches thick, as opposed to, you know, the Golden Gate Bridge is just all those cables. So, there is a tiny, and I think they, in the end, they found out that it was like a three millimeter wide flaw in the steel on one of the spans. But it had been there for so long, there was no way to inspect it unless they would have to like look at every single inch of the bridge, right? But it, but nothing had ever been checked or updated or ever. So, over the years, and the way this bridge, it would move with the cars and with whatever. So, people said it was very common to be on the Silver Bridge and have the whole thing move and shake and do stuff.

And it was just kind of, people were used to it. But over the years, this thing kind of wore away and wore away until this day. So, Charlene is sitting there and she feels the bridge shake really hard. So, she real quick decides to throw her car into reverse and back up as far as she can. And luckily, she can because one minute later, 60 seconds later, the cars in front of her begins sliding down off the bridge and into the river. The bridge had collapsed and the cars were just going in. And she had somehow miraculously been able to back up to solid ground and get off the like, the part that had collapsed. Oh my God. Yeah. And she said, and the water, of course, it's December, it's freezing, the water's 40 degrees. She said, it was like someone had lined

up dominoes. I could see cars light flashing as they went tumbling into the water. The car in front of me went in and then there was silence. So, she was the last car that before they stopped going into the water. Holy shit. A truck driver named Bill Needham is midway across the bridge when it collapses. He's thrown into the water, but he's able to escape because he has a half rolled down window. Oh my God. And he was quoted as saying, I didn't know how far I had to go up when he means like swim back up. Yeah. He says, but I could tell that the water, I could tell the water kept getting lighter. So, that's basically how he knew what direction to swim. Holy shit. He used a box that was floating in the water because basically, there's all these trucks and all these cars. So,

there's just stuff in the water. Yeah. So, the people that were able to get out of their cars and get to the surface were grabbing things to hold on to because he, Bill didn't get rescued out of the water for 15 minutes. Oh my God. He was in 40, I think they said is 40 degree water for 15 minutes. Holy shit. His partner Robert Toe did not make it out of the truck. He died in that truck and so did 18 year old Marjorie Boggs who was driving her husband Howard and their 17 month old child across the bridge when it collapsed. Howard was pulled to safety by a rescue boat and the first thing he said to the crew when he got on board was, I just hope to God Marjorie and the kid got out okay. Marjorie and her baby and Howard's baby's bodies were found

six weeks later in the car in the river. Oh my God. State Trooper Rudy Odell who was 31 years old at the time was one of the first officers to respond to the disaster and he said quote, I could hear them hollering for help. I didn't know how many there were at the time. There was absolutely nothing I could do. It was a long way out into the water. So, he's basically on one side of the river looking out. Yeah. At these people. He was gonna jump into 40 degree water and try to sleep. Yeah. And that's not the way you save people when they're when they're drowning. No. So, in all 31 cars went into the Ohio river that day sending 64 people into its 44 degree waters. Oh, so it's 44 degrees of the 64 people who

went in 46 of them died. Holy shit. The silver bridge collapse remains the deadliest bridge disaster in United States history. President Lyndon Johnson released a statement saying all Americans were shocked by the cruel tragedy and loss of life and assembled a task force, the task force on bridge safety to mountain investigation and forensic analysis traced the problem to a small stress crack inside the bearing loop of I bar 330. So, the I bars were the things holding it up. No sightings of the mothman were reported again in the point pleasant area after that day. Yeah. So, that's why people connect. There's the the theory is that the mothman appeared trying to warn people about this tragedy that was coming. If that is the case, he did not

do a good job. I mean, it could it must have been the only I can screech. Yes. Write something down. Yeah. Speaking human tongue. Yeah. Sorry, mothman, that it's just the truth that whatever you did, all you did was freak people out and you were not on message. Look at try. In 1969, the silver bridge was replaced by the silver memorial bridge, which was a mile downstream of the original. And there is a memorial installed in point pleasant to commemorate the 46 bridge collapse victims. That's so sad. It's horrible. But and I think I think the reason that legends like this pop up because a lot of you know, the theories are that there's always been this legend in like these stories and that it comes it comes up after the fact, right? Because people want to lay some kind

of that there would be help or something out of this just senseless tragedy where in the middle of the day at Christmas time, all these people just got dumped in the river and died. So, it's this there is a lore and a legend around it like something was there and it could have helped. But also, I think it's that idea that like that maybe some somebody's watching us could help us prevent these tragedies in the future. We just knew how to pay attention to them correctly. Right. Understood screeching. Yeah, exactly. Now, on an up note, point pleasant held held its first annual mothman festival in 2002. Oh, really? And a 12 foot tall metallic statue of the creature created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach was unveiled in 2003. Yes, there are pictures. Wow.

And it's much more silver and beautiful than any of the drawings or illustrations and also much, much taller than the way people described it. The Mothman Festival is a weekend long event held on the third weekend of every September. And there are a variety of events that go on during the festival, such as guest speakers, vendor exhibits, a mothman pancake eating contest. Yes. Can we go? Could we please? Can we be the speakers? I mean, we have to hit the Circleville Pumpkin Pumpkin Festival first. Right. I think this should be number two. Oh, and then also the cheese festival in Wisconsin. Yes, that's right. In Athens, Wisconsin? I think so. Isn't it some kind of a other foreign city name? You're so smart, Stephen. Thank you.

Thank you. I just love that it's a Mothman pancake eating contest, like moths love pancakes. If you're going to have a legit, you have a, you have a wool suit eating contest because that's the real deal. My vintage dress eating contest. Yes, exactly. It'd be way harder, way longer, but much more accurate. There's also hay ride tours focusing on the notable areas of Point Pleasant. And there's now a Mothman museum and research center that opened in 2005, run by someone named Jeff Womsley. Good job, Jeff. Jeff, if that's still open, God bless you. It'd be amazing to go look at that. That's right. And that's the legend of the Mothman and the tragedy of the Silverbridge collapse of 1967. Wow. That was not what I was expecting. Great job.

Right. I didn't feel like getting fully back into the full tragedy. No, I get it. That was a good one. And you know, just a touch of it at the end. I feel like, you know, we can do stuff like that now. And we do this, we do this at live shows a lot of times too of like, um, urban legends and stuff like that. Yeah. I feel like let's now that we're back. It's storytelling. It's storytelling. This is new. We don't need to find the world's worst murder every week. It can also be stories like this. And I like that. Spooky. So that was the story of Mothman. Like I had mentioned beforehand, uh, my connection to that is there is an animation I did of a portion of that story where they talk about the description of Mothman hashtag by bitches and all that good

stuff. If you want to check that out, head to the exactly right media YouTube channel and you can give that a watch. This has been a delight to join you all on this episode of my favorite murder as a guest host. And now I get to end it with the iconic phrase, stay sexy and don't get murdered. Bye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?