My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 375 - Please Withhold

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

This week, Karen and Georgia cover the tragic murder of author Helen Bailey and the story of the “reincarnated WWII pilot” James Leininger.   For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is Justin from The Generation Y, and we're doing a four-part series on unraveling the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held at Rikers Island for three years without trial. This story is about a young life caught in the middle of the justice system. Listen to Generation Y on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstarr. Hi, that's Karen Kilgariff. Hello. And are you ready for some podcasting? Football. Football. Some podcasting football. This is a podcast. This is about football. And you love it. Oh, yeah. Did we tell you,

sorry, if you found this in the true crime section of your podcast app, it's been mislabeled. Yeah, this whole time. Well, no, we got some feedback, you know, and what we learned from the polls and the, you know, all these things is that people want to hear about football. And we, what's great about it is we want to talk about football. Turns out this whole time, we've both been obsessed with football. We were keeping it to ourselves. That's right. We don't want to be bragging all the time about loving football. No, we're not going to be like first down this and touch back that. It's not our style. You know, it's so funny. Look, guys, obviously we're doing a hilarious sketch. But I spent the weekend with my dad. I went home

for Easter. I watched so much golf. Oh, no, because it was the masters that by the end of the weekend, I was cheering and yelling for golf. I don't think you're supposed to do that. Are you? You're supposed to keep your voice way down and your plaid pants way up. But it was really funny. It's like if you sit in front of a humongous TV long enough, you'll kind of get into anything, I think. Totally. Or like if you sit and watch any competition, you're going to side with someone, even if it's something you're not interested in, fly fishing, let's say. For real. And I think I was observing this myself. I didn't share it with my father, but I think there's something about dudes like professional golfers because it was the masters.

So it was like a ton of like professional golfers and one amateur, old and new. Literally ask me anything about the masters. But they're so serious and intense and everyone's like you say, being quiet and kind of doing the golf clap and whatever. I am very triggered romantically by that where I'm like, oh my God, he would totally ignore me if I was there. And then you're like, now I love him. The professional golfer in her life withholding the biggest turn on. That's like if you have a bio on whatever J date, like turn ons withholding men, men who withhold their emotion. Yes, please withhold and also please have a pale from your forehead down to your upper lip is pale. And then the rest of your face is deeply tanned because they always wear the exact same

like title list baseball hat. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, now we know that was my weekend. How was your weekend? It was good. I play those crazy game. My friend Lauren Cook, it was her birthday and all she wanted to do is play this like it was like a white elephant style game, but it's hardcore and shit talky and like fast and crazy. It's like a dice game. And it was so much fucking, it was like the most fun I've had at a party. It's so long. It was just people mingling and like trying to think of something to talk about with each other. It was like running around a circle, stealing presents from people, grabbing this, grabbing that. No, fuck you. You know, dance, like dance break. It was so much fun.

Three minute dance breaks. Did she make it up? I mean, she's a writer, right? Yeah. I think like a friend had made it up a couple of years ago and they'd played it and loved it. So I just had the most fun. Like if your present got picked last, you had to wear a stupid hat and like it was just like such great rules. It was so much fun. What was the best present? Vince did come hard with a Snoopy snow cone maker. Oh shit. So people were like fighting for it. People definitely wanted that. I had like a nice plant that I put in a beautiful pot that was like luckily not, it was a little nerdy, but not too nerdy that people didn't want it. Everybody wants a plant. And I sweetened it by attaching 10 scratchers on it. I was like, that's dumb, but I

like scratchers. Yes. Yeah, it was really cool. That's, and can you say without hurting anyone's feelings, what the worst present was? I will tell you who ended up in the hat is our, is friend of the podcast, Jonah Ray. Oh no. He brought a flip cup game. Like someone manufactured a flip cup is used with plastic cups, but someone sold a kit for flip cup. Yeah. And everyone's like, go fuck yourself. I don't want this. He ended up in the hat. It was very, it was very funny. You know, that's, that's so funny. And I, that sounds amazing because every time there's ever been a white elephant, it usually it's at a job. It turns into, especially if it's like you're, you know, working on a comedy show or whatever, it gets intense because people don't, they just don't,

no one cares about being polite like at a comedy show or that obviously. So like there was, there was one like that and I had forgotten, I knew we were supposed to do it. I forgot to get something. So I just put a hundred dollars in an envelope and it turned it into, it made it crazy because some people were mad. Like that's a cop out and other people are like out of my way. I want that cash. Hell yeah. It was pretty funny. Yeah. This was, I highly recommend parties with a game instead of a fucking mix and mingle, man. And were you able to, was it like 30 people or was it like 10? It was like 20. So it was perfect amount. Perfect amount. Yeah. It was, I, yeah, it was great. You know what's really funny? Like that, first of all, we're both talking about like

a party in a positive way, which I think is great. Yeah. A lot of progress. Rare. Yeah. So flying home today and I realized I observed that this has happened a bunch before. It's Easter weekend, like after Easter weekend, I fly home. Suddenly it's hot. I had to heater on in my house and I'm like, I have to turn from the heater to the air conditioner. It's like 78 today. Suddenly it's like spring has sprung. We're done with whatever we were doing before. Totally. So LA. Yeah. And it's like, I love it. It just has that, it feels like it has that energy. Like people are, it's like, let's do this thing. Let's party. Let's wear shorts again, please. I'm excited for that, even though I don't have any shorts, but I'll buy them this year. This is the year of the shorts.

Yeah, that's right. You can A, buy them or B, you can cut your chinos off. I can make shorts. Get, go get your doctors. It's short summer. And just cut those things. So nice. That's what golfers wear, doctors. Yes, they do. Ask me that. Do they? Okay. Should we get into it? Should we do, should we do exactly right corner? Yes, let's do it. I also want to thank everyone for sending in nonviolent and non-depressing TV suggestions for me to watch while I'm doing TMS. Oh, did you get some good ones? I got some great ones. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is what TMS is. And a lot of people also wrote in about having done it. So that was really cool too. So thanks guys. Oh, nice. Oh, wait, did you see somebody? Hold on. Let me

find it just real quick. Shasta, whose Twitter handle is pinup wannabe. She wrote to us and said, ladies, new Brox jelly beans, desserts of the world. Did you see this? No. For Easter, Brox did. And guys, we, this is an independent endorsement actually through Shasta. So we're trusting Shasta. But these ones, you know, we love a Brox, you know, kind of jelly bean challenge every holiday. But because it's Easter, they did, so the desserts of the world. Oh my God. Churro. Yes. Lemon sorbet. Okay. Apple pie. Yeah. Strawberry mochi. Cute. And chocolate macarons. Oh, I need this. Right. Doesn't it look, it does not seem good. Do you know that I'm obsessed with churros in a really deep, deep way? Is that true? I kind of lose my mind when I see a churro card, like in

a really young way that is just deep inside of me. Do you get that feeling where you're afraid, if you say, I'm going to get a churro, someone's going to say, no, you can't or you're not allowed to? Maybe. I definitely was turned down for a lot of desserts as a child because I had a healthy, healthy parents. So yeah, it's not the same having a carob cookie dad as a churro. Carob. Carob. My dad was really the carob. What a fucking, oh, what a scale. Kids love carob. You know that. Because it's brown. It's also brown. It's so brown. Eat it. It's brown. Get away. Okay. Sorry to interrupt with that. No, that was good to know. Like very good to know. Yeah. Thank you, Shasta. Yeah. Okay. So this week over in the exactly right corner, this week on Buried Bones,

Kate Winkler, Dawson and Paul Holes covered the great Sheedy murder case. I actually covered this story in episode 208 that we did live at the Orpheum Theater in Omaha in 2019. So they're going to do the Buried Bones version, which is going to be thoroughly researched and actually technically spoken about. And I love when there's that kind of crossover where it's like, do you remember this story? Well, let Paul and Kate tell it to you now. I love it. They're the professionals. Yeah. And on parent footprint, Dr. Dan is joined by Mary Louise Kelly, anchor of All Things Considered on NPR. What a freaking huge get. Subscribe to the podcast. It's a parenting podcast, but it's more than that. You don't have to have kids to have it. It's about reparenting yourself.

It's about taking care of your inner child. It's about parenting as well. All ages and all, you know, all issues, anything you need. It's such an incredibly beautiful podcast. So please check it out. And they also have new artwork that we're so proud of and love so much. So please check out parent footprint. Also, so don't forget to follow us on Instagram at my favorite murder. The handle is at my favorite murder, because we are now posting the recommendations corner. So as you're listening, you know, some people panic and they're driving and they feel like they need to pull over to write things down. Well, not anymore. That's literally something someone wrote in as like, thank God I don't have to write this pull over and write this down anymore. It's waiting for you

on the Instagram. And lastly, we've launched our annual spring sale in the MFM store. Lots of classic items are on discount, including a few things from other exactly right shows, including merch from I Said No Gifts and That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. So go shop now at myfavoritmurder.com until Monday, April 24th. Before we start, I have a sad note that I wanted to bring up a friend of mine and Steven's, Ashley Morrison, known as the youngest old cat lady on Instagram. She started her own cat rescue and she was a foster of cats and she was just this amazing person. But she was also very open about her mental health struggles, which I always admired about her. I met her through this podcast. She sadly took her own life recently. And I just

wanted to acknowledge what an incredible person she was. And also to anyone who's struggling to please reach out because her book was not over. It was not over. She had so much more in life to give. And so please reach out to friends, to family. 988 is the National Suicide Hotline number where you can call or text. So please just reach out to someone. I can't, I don't even have the words. She was such a bright, beautiful person. We're going to donate 10 grand in her name to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. That's N-A-M-I dot org. So please check that out and give your cat a hug for Ashley Morrison. So sad. That's so rough. I don't know. Feel for her.

Hey there, it's Karen in Georgia. Picture this. It's a cold night in 2010. A boy is stopped by the police while walking home from a party in the Bronx. He's only 16. He's been stopped by the police before, but this time is different. In a special four-part series, the Generation Y podcast unravels the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy who was falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held without bail at Rikers Island for three years. He endured regular abuse by prison staff and inmates and was held in solitary confinement for more than 700 consecutive days. And he was only 16 years old. We say innocent until proven guilty, but where do we draw the line between due process and cruelty? To hear this four-part series on Khalif's story,

check out Generation Y wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Goodbye. And now it's time to podcast, right? That's football, baby. Are you ready to football? I'm ready to football. You throw the first touchdown, right? Yes. I'm going to quarterback it and wide receiver it to myself while you watch and ask any question. Feel free to ask questions. Thank you. You won the coin toss. Is there a coin toss in football? Maybe at the beginning to kick it off. You won it. Or it's either a coin toss or the boys meet in the center and they talk about coins that they like and then agree. Everyone has to say something vulnerable and whoever opens up the most, that their team goes first. That's a silver dollar.

Yep. That's right. Yes. See? Football expertise. No. Okay. So this story, I'm positive this story has been recommended to us by listeners, definitely by British listeners. This is a really, of course, horrible story. It's a case about a murder of a person that was really adored and well known in the UK. Today, I'm going to tell you about the murder of Helen Bailey. Okay. The sources Marin used for this story are Helen Bailey's own blog, which was called Planet Grief. Also, there was a 2017 Channel 5 documentary called Murdered by My Fiance. There was also a 2017 BBC News article entitled Helen Bailey, A Life Shaped by Death by Jodie Halford, and all the rest of the sources are in our show notes. It's Friday, April 15th, 2016,

in Royston, England, and 55-year-old Ian Stewart calls 999, which is the UK's version of 911, and he tells the operator he hasn't seen his 51-year-old fiance Helen Bailey in four days, although he thinks he knows where she is because she left him a note. He says Helen wrote that she was headed to her vacation home in a coastal town of Broad Stairs for some much needed alone time, and she asks not to be contacted. Broad Stairs is an idyllic literary haven in the southeast of England, and Helen is an accomplished author. She's written both young adult fiction. She's also written on the topic of grieving and bereavement. Her ability to convey her difficult experiences, emotions, and vulnerabilities have struck a chord with British readers. She's popular,

some would say she's adored. So Helen's friends and family members find this story of an impromptu getaway extremely out of character. For the people who know and love her, it's deeply weird. The idea that she would isolate and be out of touch just isn't how Helen works through things when there's a problem. Immediately, there's just kind of a what's actually going on here. Ian tells the 999 operator Helen must have taken the train out to Broad Stairs because she's left her car behind. He also says that Helen's docks and Boris has disappeared. So as he's telling the operator this information, he starts to get flustered. Even though Ian and Helen have been together for four years, he is struggling to answer even the most basic questions about her.

When the operator asks what her height is, he can only give an estimate. When she asks what color Helen's eyes are, he has no idea. When the operator asks for Helen's birthday, he says he has to go look it up. What? Now, that seems odd. Yes. I literally yesterday watched a TikTok video where someone's interviewing couples in the street. Yeah. And the interviewer literally asks these exact questions to husbands and boyfriends of very happy couples that are standing there smiling. These men don't know their wife's middle name. They don't know their wife's parents' names. What? Yes. They don't know their birth date. They don't know their eye color. Now, some of them are boyfriend, girlfriend. Some of those little details like eye color and height, I wouldn't

expect until you're deep in a relationship to know for sure. Yes. Or parents' names, stuff like that. But I guess I'm only bringing it up because there's always these things where we hear these stories and they're told in a certain way. And so it's always like, that's suspicious immediately. That's suspicious. It isn't really when you know that a lot of dudes aren't paying attention to anything about themselves. That's right. Maybe. Also, this TikTok video could have been edited just to be a worst case scenario. But still, it was funny and surprising where these girls are standing next to their boyfriends looking at them like, seriously, you don't know my mom's name. My middle name? Oh my God. What's going on? So anyway, that to be said, we don't know what's

questionable behavior or strange behavior when someone has disappeared. Totally. And the hardest part is this conversation that Ian's having on 999 is the beginning of what will become a nationwide search for Helen Bailey. So let's talk about Helen a little bit. She's born in Newcastle, Pontine, England in 1964 and grows up nearby Pontyland. I've been given the pronunciation, I don't trust it. And I don't want to be attacked for it. But apparently it's Pontyland. From an early age, Helen said to be incredibly observant and expressive. She would later write on her blog Planet Grief that quote, I've always loved putting pen to paper. As a child, I wrote pages and pages of loopy squiggles, pretend joined up writing, which to me were thrilling stories. But to anyone

else must have looked as if I was writing while trapped in a tumble dryer. You can just tell, you know, so personal, so charming. Like this is a person would be so easy to read her writing. So it's unsurprising that once Helen's done with school, she gravitates towards a creative career. And she starts working for a prominent London based licensing company that represents huge brands like ET and Garfield and Snoopy like gigantic worldwide brands. Yeah. And she loves her job. And then she also finds love at this job. In her early twenties, Helen falls for an executive at the company named John Sinfield. And before long, they're a couple, they move into a North London home together, and they get married in 1996. And then in 2008, they get their Dachshund

Boris and round out the family. So around the same time, Helen throws herself back into her writing. And she credits her work at the licensing company, teaching her how to develop a strong main character. So she's looking at like, why does everybody love Snoopy? Why are we still talking about Garfield? It's because they're distinctive and funny and interesting characters. At the same time, Helen has developed a distinctive, confident voice of her own. Her writing is quippy, fast, funny, and incredibly smart. And she ends up publishing over 20 books with young adult novels becoming her specialty. And her catalog includes the beloved Elektra Brown series that follows a sometimes sweet, sometimes shallow 13 year old named Elektra.

And it's a total hit with British teens. So as Helen approaches her mid forties, her life is steady, it's comfortable and creatively fulfilling. And then in 2011, it all changes that year on a trip to Barbados with her husband, tragedy strikes. One morning as Helen sits on the beach, John goes out for a swim. And as Helen watches, John gets caught in a rip current and is swept out into deeper water. She can hear him calling for help. He's struggling. And then he disappears. A group of tourists rush into the ocean and pull him back out onto the beach. But it's too late. John Sinfield is dead at 65 years old. Oh my God, that's heartbreaking. Horrible. I mean, just the worst case scenario in every way. So of course, Helen is in total

shock. Her husband of 22 years has just drowned in front of her. And she would later write about her thought process in this horrible moment. She writes quote, but I'm wearing a bikini. It was inconceivable that something so terrible could happen while I'm wearing swimwear. It was the absurdity of it. So after losing John, the absurdity of death is something that Helen thinks about constantly. None of what's happened makes any logical sense to her. In an instant, the life she had with John is completely gone. And now she just has Boris and the two become inseparable. Helen is rarely seen without him. And from this point forward, she doesn't write any more young adult books for a while. She doesn't write anything at all, which of course is horrifying

to her as a lifelong writer. And then one day she decides she's going to turn her sadness into a writing exercise. So she starts a blog and she names it Planet Grief. And she challenges herself to regularly write about how she's coping with John's death. The posts on Planet Grief are tragic and heartfelt and wistful and angry. There are posts about mindlessly watching sitcoms, struggling through holidays, and preparing meals for one. Boris regularly makes cameos. But Helen's posts are also very funny. In one, she writes, quote, I have two fantasies at the moment. The first is popping my clogs by spontaneous human combustion. There by proving it does exist. Walt's being able to join my husband. I know that one got me. The second is becoming the

sole winner of the Euro millions lottery. This isn't because I want to buy a bigger house. This one is small, but it feels depressingly empty or a faster car. The average speed in central London is 12 miles an hour. So little point in trading up to the fiat 500. But because I could live in a culinary sense like Elton John and have a team of chefs offering me a menu of tasty morsels. So soon Planet Grief has thousands of loyal readers, many struggling with their own loss. And Helen's blog becomes an online community for the bereaved. It's something that she welcomes, and she's also begun to join online support groups to connect with other grieving people. And then just months after the death of her husband, she meets a man in a Facebook support

group for widows and widowers named Ian Stewart. Ian lives in Bassingbourne, England, about 50 miles north of London. And like Helen, he's recently lost his spouse, Diane. In 2010, Diane died after an epileptic seizure while she was home alone. So Helen and Ian bond over the shared sudden losses of their life partners, and soon their online relationship escalates into something more. According to Helen's friends and family, Ian comes on very strong, pushing their relationship forward. In fact, the first time they meet in real life, Ian just shows up at Helen's London home unannounced. Normally, that might be a complete red flag to Helen, and her family is definitely concerned.

But at that moment in her life, Ian feels like a gift. He makes Helen feel special, loved, and secure. And within two years of meeting online, Helen sells her London home and along with Boris moves into a new house, enraiced in with Ian. Things continue to evolve quickly in Helen and Ian's relationship. The next year, Helen writes Ian into her will. That's unnecessary. Although I guess if you've just lost someone and you're grieving, that's probably something that you think about a lot more than most people do. Exactly. That's what most people say is she knows how it feels to suddenly not only be grieving, but having to deal with all the horrible business of like after someone's

died. So there are definitely people who theorize that was the reason. And he had gone through it too. So they both kind of understood it. They understood it. And you know, in a way, I think that is this huge kind of act of trust that we don't know how that came up. But it might have felt really good to be like, oh, this is almost like a way of committing. Yeah, it's a symbolic gesture. Yeah. A very kind of adult mature way of doing it. But also red flag. Just like down the other side of all of that. You can see it. Don't like it. So she gives both Ian and her brother, John, power of attorney also, which grants both men the authority to make

important health, financial and administrative decisions on Helen's behalf if she should be ever, ever become sick or incapacitated. So as she approaches the age of 50, Helen Bailey is worth around 4 million pounds. And she also owns like three different properties that are very valuable. So it makes a lot of sense to be arranging her affairs in this way. But she also wants to ensure that Ian, who isn't as wealthy as she is, is cared for in her absence. So a year passes. Now it's 2015. And Helen does something that just a few years before felt impossible to her. She publishes a new book. It's a compilation of her Planet Grief blog posts. And it's called When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis. It just gets me. It's so like gracefully, when you can kind of gracefully

and humorously handle the absolute shit you've been dealt in life, it's really something. I'm sorry, I didn't read the whole title. It's When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis, Life After Death and a Dog Called Boris. Even though this book is about grief and loss and the absurdity of death, there's something joyful about it. And the cover prominently features Boris sitting on top of a green animal print bikini. And inside, Helen writes about how hopeful her new relationship has made her. In fact, the dedication reads, quote, this book is dedicated to my gorgeous gray-haired widower, Ian Stewart. BB, I love you. You are my happy ending. Yeah. So the publication of When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis feels like

Helen's full circle moment. She's built herself back up after experiencing the horrible loss. And she and Ian continue to share their home. And eventually they become engaged. By early 2016, the two have been together for four years and are inching closer to a wedding date and everything seems perfect. And then Helen goes missing. So that brings us to April 2016, Ian being on the phone with 999 and basically that triggering a nationwide search for Helen Bailey. But police are totally stumped. There is absolutely no trace of Helen. No one's heard from her, no one's seen her. She has not been captured on CCTV footage near her multiple properties. And the last communication police can definitely link to her is an email sent just before 11am

on Monday, April 11th. That's the same day Ian claims he last saw Helen. And it's unclear what Helen writes in the email. We just know it was sent to one of her friends. And after that, there's nothing, no communication anywhere. So week passes and investigators who have zero leads think their best course of action is to focus squarely on Helen and Ian's home in Royston, where Ian still lives. They're hopeful something inside of the home can point toward her location. So to make sure that they're covering their bases, the police methodically search the large property over the course of several weeks. And they also interview Ian. And so Ian repeats the same story he told the operator when he called claiming his memory is hazy. He runs through his activities

on April 11. He says he'd last seen Helen in the afternoon before leaving for a three p.m. doctor's appointment. Then he ran a few errands, including dropping off an old duvet at the dump. Then he'd met up with one of his sons for dinner. When he finally made it back home later in the evening, Ian claims that Helen and Boris were gone. All that was left was Helen's note, which he has sent thrown away. So at first, Ian's very cooperative with the investigation. He's doing all the things that you would expect of a man whose partner is missing participating in searches. He's paying for missing posters to be printed. He's showing up at awareness raising events. He even makes a televised statement where he tells Helen, quote,

quote, you not only mended my heart five years ago, but made it bigger, stronger, and kinder. Together we learned to live with our grief and move forward with our lives, but never forgetting. Now it feels like my heart doesn't even exist. Whatever has happened, wherever you are, I will come and get you and Boris and give you whatever you need. That's his statement about his missing partner. That's got the staircase vibes statement. Yes, because he's only talking about himself. Yeah, and it's like so floral and rehearsed and doesn't sound like someone panicking. No, it sounds like someone's saying, isn't this terrible for me? Yeah. Yeah. Which is easy for me to say, obviously in hindsight, but right. It's a pattern. It's a habit for people like

that. Yeah. That are like, they wouldn't think to be saying other than I'm here to tell you how horrible this is for me. Right. Or I'm worried about her and I just want her home. It's not about that. Yeah. It's not about that, it seems like. But Ian's behavior is inconsistent at best. Police are already on alert because of the bizarre 999 call, not just that he couldn't answer basic questions about Helen, but police are also confused as to why Ian would wait four days to report her missing. Then he begins lashing out in investigators as they continued their search of the home. One investigator later says, quote, everything we did was questioned. He was there watching every single move. He was at shoulder length. He was very interested in what

we were doing and followed us everywhere, end quote. But his questionable behavior doesn't end there. When two months have passed with no sign of Helen, Ian renews his season pass to the Arsenal Football Club using the joint bank account he shares with Helen, and then he takes a trip to Mallorca. Oh dear. Which is like, I want to judge every little thing, but it's like, okay, if it was true and he needed to get the fuck away from this grief that he was going through. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, but I know I think he did it. So I think everything's suspicious. Well, here's what I would say. It's a valid point, except he's not in a grief stage yet. Right. We don't know where she is. So what are you getting away from? You're getting away from a huge question mark

that hasn't been answered of where your fiance is, the person that you're supposed to care the most about in the world. You're like, I really have to get away for myself. It's like, what are you talking about? Why don't you want to search every home in your neighborhood? Totally. Yeah. So meanwhile, investigators are pouring through Helen's electronics for any useful information and soon their suspicions around Ian start coming into focus. They learn that on the day that Helen was last seen alive, someone logged into her bank account. That person had edited an existing monthly payment that pulls money from Helen's personal account into the joint account she shares with Ian. So it used to be 600 pounds and now it's 4,000 pounds.

Dear. Investigators are eventually able to link this activity to Ian's computer, not Helen's. So that's not good. Right. Police also make note of what Helen had been googling ahead of her disappearance. And it includes things like, quote, I'm so tired, falling asleep at work, and quote, falling asleep in the afternoon. So this checks out with the information that Helen's mother Eileen had recently told investigators. She'd said Helen, quote, confided in me about being worried about her state of mind. The week before she disappeared, she called me at lunch time and said to me, I can't believe I just slept for five hours. I had two poached eggs and the next thing I woke up, end quote. Eileen mentions another incident where Helen had gone for a

walk with Boris at the beach. And while there, she became so groggy and dazed that when she started to head home, she almost left Boris behind. Oh my God. Which just, no. Give you a dog. No. Right. Another clue that investigators find while searching Helen's electronic devices involves her cell phone. After Helen's reported missing, it's assumed that she left with her phone. However, investigators find evidence that on April 16th, the day after Ian reports Helen missing, her phone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi network at her broad stairs house. When police investigate further, they learn that Ian had driven to broad stairs that same day after being pressured by Helen's family to go search the vacation home for her. So they're basically like,

well, you don't know for a fact she's not there if you haven't gone there. Right. Like, why haven't you gone there? So this Wi-Fi connection leads police to believe Ian has had her phone in his possession the entire time and was carrying it with him for whatever reason that day. Right. Check it into the lake or something. Right. If all of that isn't enough, it's also revealed that on April 11th, the day Helen went missing, Ian showed up to an appointment that Helen had made previously with her lawyer. It was about the pending sale of one of Helen's properties, which was about to net her hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Ian told the lawyer that Helen was, quote, too unwell to meet. And because he had power of attorney, she had sent

him to handle the transaction and collect the payment from the buyer in her place. But that lawyer refused to work with Ian and said that he'd need to hear from Helen directly first. And over the next several weeks, with Helen still missing, Ian follows up with this lawyer multiple times about this sale. But he continues to get stonewalled and eventually the lawyer calls the police to tell them about these pushy exchanges with Ian. Shit. Yeah. Not good. She feels unwell the same day she goes missing and you're not talking about any of that. Right. They have to find out from the lawyer. Love that lawyer, by the way, who's like, no. Totally. Just no. Soon investigators feel like they have enough circumstantial evidence to

connect Ian to Helen's disappearance. And the motive seems clear. Ian wanted access to and control of Helen's money. So on July 11th, nearly three months after Helen is first reported missing, Ian is arrested. All he says to the police upon his arrest is you're joking. And then just four days later on July 15th, the police finally find Helen's body. Her remains are discovered at her Royston property. She's been stuffed into a sewage holding take underneath the home's detached garage. And her dog Boris's remains are there too. Oh my God. Yeah. Police had missed the holding tank during earlier searches. Not only had Ian never mentioned it, but he had conveniently parked his car directly on top of it. So when word spreads that Helen's body has been found,

her brother, John, remembers a time when Helen, quote, mentioned there was an old well in the garage. And then there was some banter almost certainly instigated by Helen, that it was a good place to hide a body. Eerily, John claims that Ian was standing nearby when Helen said this. So the discovery of Helen's body immediately suggests foul play, but there are no signs of assault or struggle. However, investigators do learn that Helen has a large amount of zopicloan, which is a prescription sleep aid in her system. And a sample of Helen's hair suggests she's been regularly ingesting the drug for several months. But Helen did not have a prescription for it. Coincidentally, Ian does. That's right. So police immediately go to Ian with this information.

They want to see if he has any reasonable excuse as to why his prescription drug was found in Helen's system. Ian says Helen often took his sleeping pills to treat her own insomnia. But by this point, police know from Helen's friends and family and her Google searches that she'd had the exact opposite problem. She couldn't seem to stay awake. The zopicloan seals his fate. Police are now convinced that Ian drugged Helen with his sleeping pills before murdering her. He's formally charged with murder, fraud, preventing lawful burial and obstructing justice, and he denies all charges against him. So Ian's trial begins in January of 2017. It gets pretty weird. When he's put on the stand, he announces that he lied about the note that Helen left him before she vanished, that it

never existed. But he claims that he'd invented the lie in her best interest because she'd actually been kidnapped. What? Yeah. Ian claims her kidnappers. He basically describes them and then identifies them as simply Nick and Joe, said that they would kill Helen if he went to the police. But Ian never specifies why, like what the scheme is or anything that would like ransom, not even that, that would make this story plausible. By his telling, the men just showed up and took Helen for no good reason and then killed her. In response, prosecutors present two men at trial named Nick and Joe who match Ian's descriptions. Both were acquaintances of Ian's and have absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance. In his defense, Ian claims

that these are the wrong Nick and Joe. But it's an unconvincing story to say the least. So things aren't looking good for Ian as his trial wraps up. The prosecution presents a compelling and believable theory based on the wealth of evidence in the case. They suggest Ian had targeted Helen knowing she was grieving and vulnerable and hatched a plan to steal her fortune. After weaseling his way into her life, he convinced her to change her will and give him power of attorney. Then in 2016, he began secretly dosing her with sleeping pills. It's unclear what the end goal was there. If it was to murder Helen or to trick her into thinking that she was seriously ill so that he would have more control acting as power of attorney.

In any case, on the day she went missing, prosecutors believe that Ian had drugged Helen and then suffocated her to death with the duvet that he later brought to the dump. Right, duvet. Yeah, they believe he used that to drag her body into the garage and put her into the holding tank and then got rid of it. After a seven-week trial, Ian Stewart is found guilty on all charges. He receives a life sentence with a minimum 34-year prison term. Good, but this story doesn't end there. Because after Ian's conviction, police launch an investigation into the death of his first wife,

Diane. Right. Diane had also suddenly died in 2010. It was a complete shock. She was only 47 years old. She was a very healthy woman. And when he made the initial 999 call, he suggested Diane had experienced a fatal seizure and investigators just took him at his word and her death was never fully investigated. But because Diane wasn't a public figure like Helen, we don't know as much about her life, but according to her family, she was a very special caring person and a very loving wife and mother. After her passing, Ian's behavior struck many people as strange. He had her body cremated almost immediately and then splurged on a brand new sports car.

What? Ew. So gross. As with Helen, Ian stood to gain financially from Diane's death. Shortly after she died, he collected nearly 100,000 pounds between her life insurance, payout, assets, and her savings. Fortunately, Ian had consented to having Diane's brain donated to medical science. So pathologists were able to test Diane's brain tissue and they're able to determine she was suffocated to death. Yeah. Right. Erasing any further doubt, a neurologist dives into Diane's medical history

and it's revealed that she hadn't experienced a seizure in nearly 20 years. Wow. Given what's known about Diane's health at the time of her death, the likelihood that she died following an epileptic seizure is, quote, extremely low, one in 100,000. Damn. So in 2022, Ian is found guilty of murdering Diane. He's sentenced to a whole life order, which means he'll spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole. During the trial, the judge tells Ian, quote,

you successfully passed off a murder as an epileptic fit, playing out an elaborate and an indeed sophisticated charade over a period of time, a charade that succeeded at the time and would have succeeded for all time, but for your subsequent murder of Helen Bailey. So as Ian serves his prison sentence, the world continues to mourn the losses of both Diane's Stewart and Helen Bailey. And Helen continues to comfort the bereaved through her book, When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis, and the archives of her Planet Grief blog. Back in 2011, Helen ended her very first post on Planet Grief by talking about balloons she'd released in honor of John's birthday. And she says this, quote, I have a flash of terror

at the thought of my balloon being sucked into a jet engine, the plane plummeting over London, and my being responsible for hundreds of new inhabitants of Planet Grief. But then the balloons continue their gentle flight, at first familiar and recognizable, then just dots, and then nothing. As I search the sky with teary eyes, I think to myself, I know they're out there. Only moments ago I was holding them. I could feel their form and energy. I could see them and they were bright and shiny and fun. And even when I let them go, for a while I could watch them. But now, however hard I look, however carefully I scan every inch of the skyline, I can't see them. They may have gone from my sight and my touch. They may soon be

punctured and in a change of shape end up hanging in a tree or be swept up and bend. But I know that in some form they're still out there. And I'm not just talking about balloons, but you knew that, didn't you? And that is the story of the tragic murders of Helen Bailey and Diane Stewart. Wow. I had never heard that before. Somehow. Right. It's because it just happened. It just happened. It was like a quarantine. I remember people talking about it on Twitter, you know, in quarantine, basically, when it was still kind of a mystery that was playing out. I somehow missed it completely. That's so sad and tragic. Yeah. But I'm so glad he didn't get away with it. Yeah. And it reminds me, I think you may have covered this one, but it's a cold case.

There's a guy who says his wife drowns in the bathtub and they have little kids. And then when the forensic examiner, they're like, nope, she was dead before she went into this water. And then they find out that he had been married before and that wife had died. Yeah. Those stories where you're sitting there going, this is bad enough. Yeah. What we're talking about is horrifying. It's already one horrifying story. And you're telling me that this motherfucker has been doing this all along. These greedy pieces of shit who just like take and take and just, you gotta wonder how many are out there, you know? Crazy. Well, good job, Karen.

Thank you, Georgia. All right. So we're going to take a big old left-hand turn. Wonderful. We're going to go a little bit away from murder exactly into some like weird, you know, unexplained stuff. Wonderful. But this is our football podcast and we can do what we want with it. We can talk on any team we want. That's right. That's right. So today I'm going to tell you the unbelievable story of James Leininger, the toddler who believed to be the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot. Oh my God. Are you ready for this? I am beyond ready for this. Okay. The sources used in today's episodes are several scholarly articles by Jim B. Tucker,

several responses to those articles by Michael Sutter, an episode of the Netflix series, Surviving Death, an ABC primetime special hosted by Chris Cuomo and the book Soul Survivor, the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot by Bruce and Andrea Leininger with Ken Gross. And you can find the rest in our show notes. So I'm going to tell you about this toddler. You ready? Yes. James is born on April 10th, 1998 in San Francisco, California. You know that, you know it well, but his family moves around a lot when he's young. They bounced to Dallas, Texas, and they ultimately end up in Lafayette, Louisiana. James is seemingly a normal kid during the first year or so of his life. He's fun and

smiley. He's hitting all the expected milestones for his age. He's not a reincarnated fighter pilot yet. Not yet. Not yet. Right now he's just in the 90th percentile. That's right. Did your sister ever talk about her boys being in the like 80th or 90th percentile? She never got like that. She wasn't, she's not that kind of person. She's cool. Yeah. She's laid back, but she'll be, she'll tell me when they do gross stuff and that's fun. I like what she does that and, you know, or rip a loose tooth out of their head or something. It's more relatable. Yeah, exactly. His mother Andrea is a former ballerina with a warm personality who's always wanted to be a mom. James is her first and only child. His father Bruce is a traditional type

of guy. He takes his job and fatherhood very seriously. And he has four other kids who live at a state from a first marriage. So he basically, you know, considers himself an experienced father. So when James begins having nightmares, when he's around two years old, just a few weeks after the family moves into this big old house in Lafayette, Bruce brushes it off. He's been a parent for a long time and so he knows this is kind of a normal thing for toddlers to go through. But Andrea is tortured by her young child's distress. These nightmares are really intense. James will trash around while lying on his back in his crib, punching and kicking the air above him. Andrea later says, quote, I thought this looks like the exorcist. I have expected his head to spin around like that

little girl in the movie. It's got to be so hard to see your two-year-old like that. Oh, horrible. Yeah. And while he thrashes, he screams. Andrea and Bruce report losing sleep for months over these loud and frightening episodes. James allegedly has these nightmares several times a week. Doctors, family friends and friends of Andrea tell her this is totally normal. He'll grow out of it. But then James starts screaming discernible words during his night terrors. Have you ever been with someone or seen someone have night terrors before? No, I haven't. It's the fucking, my dad has them and it is so frightening. I bet. It's just terrible. And a two-year-old have them, that sounds like awful. So he starts yelling, airplane crash, plane on fire, little man can't

get out. Oh, no. You imagine hearing that from your child's crib. A baby, like how does a baby know anything about airplanes? Right. So around the time the nightmare start, James develops an obsessive interest in airplanes in the same way that some kids become obsessed with like princesses or firemen or whatever for James. It's airplanes. And he and his father visit the Kavanaugh Flight Museum outside of Dallas multiple times in the spring of 2000, which is around the time the nightmare start. And James literally has to be dragged away because he's so obsessed with the planes. And Bruce notices that James is particularly interested in the World War II plane exhibit. So during these museum visits, James is allowed to pick out some toys from the gift shop.

He gets several toy propeller planes and a VHS tape of the Blue Angels, which is the Navy's flight exhibition team. I'm sorry. How old is his baby? He's two. Right? Can you be like, no, dinosaurs? No, the Blue Angels. The Blue Angels. And he watches the video several times a day. Amazing. He also plays very aggressively with his toy planes, crashing them into a wooden coffee table so often that it's covered with deep scratches. And while playing, he opts and says the words, quote, airplane crash on fire. And then Bruce travels a lot for work. And whenever he leaves to catch a flight, James tells his father, quote, daddy's airplane crash big fire. So that's chill. That's super chill.

Yeah, it's just say goodbye. No, no, James, just say bye-bye. No, don't scare daddy. Don't scare daddy. The combination of James's aggressive play, the warnings to his dad, and the violent nightmares are freaking Andrea and Bruce out. They've tried dismissing it. They tried telling him to stop talking this way. They even hide the Blue Angels VHS and try to minimize his obsession with planes and plane crashes. But the nightmares persist. Almost every night, James is still screaming things like, quote, airplane crash, plane on fire, little man can't get out. On August 11, 2000, Andrea is reading aloud to James as he starts talking to her about the, quote, little man that he dreams about. He begins to mime more slowly,

the kicks and punches and thrashing he does when he's asleep saying, quote, little man's going like this, can't get out. Andrea later describes her hair standing on end as she hears her son's descriptions. As calmly as she can, she asks him who the little man is. James responds quickly by saying, quote, me. Oh. So then she grabs Bruce, she says to James, tell him what you told me. James tells his parents again about the plane crash and the little man and Bruce with a growing sense of unease asks him what happened to his plane. James responds that it, quote, crashed on fire. And Bruce asks why the plane crashed. And James responds with, quote, it got shot. When Bruce asks who shot your plane, James screws up his face in this

indignant way as if the answer was obvious. He tells the parents, the Japanese shot down his plane. Oh, no. Wouldn't you be like, hold on a second. Here, take this gogurt. Mommy has to step into the kitchen. Mommy needs a hot bath. Scream to a dish towel. Like, what the fuck? Oh, yeah. Yeah. A little baby, a baby that barely can talk is telling you about World War II. Yeah, you're supposed to like Elmo. Like, Elmo is supposed to be your thing. What? Yo, man. Okay. So Bruce and Andrea are totally baffled. Their son is barely two years old, but as the nights go on, they start to ask more questions. It's becoming clear that what James is experiencing are some sort of memories. And he starts providing some more baffling details. Two weeks after he says

the Japanese shot down his plane, he tells his parents he flew a Corsair, which is a fighter plane that was developed during World War II. Like, I can't even pronounce it. And he fucking Corsair. You're like, what's this now? Also, I mean, this must have been so eerie because you, they knew already. It's not like, oh, he's been watching. They can't lie to themselves about it. They have to go with it because it's not like you're like, were you watching the History Channel? Right. And then Bruce had four other kids. So he's like this, none of them were like this. Like, yeah, they had nightmares. Yeah, these, they got obsessed with things, but this isn't normal. Yeah, not consistently the same. Yeah. So then he tells his parents that he flew his plane off a

boat. They asked him if the boat had a name and James tells them this boat is called the Natoma. Oh, Jesus Christ. They've never even heard that word before. So it's not like they could have fed it to him somehow on accident, but Bruce and Andrea are intrigued enough by how specific it is. So Bruce gets to work. It's the early days of the internet. So the search is slow and painstaking. Eventually, Bruce discovers that there was a small aircraft carrier stationed in the Pacific during World War II called the USS Natoma. Yeah. He is amazed, but also a little terrified. Yes. He's slightly shitting. Yeah. So sorry, but for real. That's right. It's like the 90s website. Yes. It's got the dancing thing in this corner and the

flag, like really cool flash. Flash. Flying toasters come through. Like, Jesus. When Bruce and Andrea asked their son what is the name of the little man in his dreams, he only responds with quote, me, or he says James. Then they ask him if he remembers the name of any friends he had. And James tells them clearly and immediately quote a guy named Jack Larson. He gives them the name Jack Larson. So the Leningers are a pretty traditional Christian family. So reincarnation is not really part of their belief system. The specificity of the name Jack Larson starts to pull Andrea in the direction that these are past life memories. Well, Bruce doubles down on his research perhaps so he can prove to himself it's all made up. Either way,

the Jack Larson reveal seems to take what's going on with James the next level for his parents. And James' strange recollections begin to escalate. I mean, I wonder if they were still holding out this like tiny percentage of a hope that he's just incredibly gifted. Yeah. He's just like, has a great imagination. He's just able to pull a really believable 40s Air Force guy's name out of his back pocket. When James is two and a half, so he's a little older, little wiser, Bruce buys a book on the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. James is sitting with his father as he flips through it when James stops his father on a page with an aerial map of the Japanese islands where this military operation took place and points to a particular spot on the map. He says,

quote, that's where my plane was shot down. My airplane got shot down there, daddy. This insight combined with the Jack Larson detail is enough for Bruce. He actually reaches out to a veteran who'd served in World War II on the USS Natoma Bay and asks about its history. He confirms the boat was in fact involved in the Battle of Iwo Jima. The man also says he remembers a pilot named Jack Larson, but he doesn't know what happened to him. So he confirms this person's name. James does. James. Yeah, James does. Oh, really? Cause my two year old son does. I mean, Jesus, what if the reveal is that James rolls his sleeve up and he has like a Hawaiian lady tattoo on his. Oh my God, I feel like a birthmark right there. And it was like a Hawaiian

lady. Oh my God. At this point, the Leningers reach out to a woman named Carol Bowman. She's a counselor who specializes in reincarnation, especially the past lives of children, which is so interesting. Yeah. She's written a book which Andrea reads, which is why they reach out to her. Carol encourages the Leningers to treat these experiences like they are indeed past life memories and not just figments of James's imagination. I think, you know, don't call your kid a liar, basically is what she's saying. You'll traumatize him more. Yeah, it's real to him no matter what. Yeah. His parents follow Carol's instructions, acknowledging to him that the events he was describing had indeed happened to him before while emphasizing that they were in the past and now he

is safe. And sure enough, the intensity of James's nightmares decrease once they acknowledge what's going on and tell him he's safe, but the memories don't stop. So it's now 2001 and James is three, the ripe old age of three. He is recounting his alleged past life in the daytime, drawing tons of pictures of World War II style planes in epic battle scenes. The enemy planes he draws have the distinct Japanese red rising sun flag drawn on their wings. I've seen it. I've seen the picture. It's true. Have you ever seen like my dad has Nora's art from when she was like in kindergarten, still taped to his refrigerator? No, we love Nora. She was very talented. Always has. She was in the 90th percentile. She was absolutely the 90th percentile.

That fucking chimney is way on the side of that house. You know, the windows are big and small at the same time. Like she's two years older than this kid and can barely put a normal house together. And this guy is drawing fighter planes. Right. Right. I mean, it's it's a kid's drawing, but there are the details of those little things he's talking about. You know, it's a kid's drawing of a thing kids don't draw. Right. Right. It's like you stand, my sister has so much art from kids being a like a grammar school teacher where it's like they always have like hands with eight fingers. Sure. Like, you know, it's stupid at that. It's stupid. They're such bad artists. Just kidding. We love you. We love you. Stop. Stop listening to

this. Why are you listening to this? Why are you here? Oh, and then he starts signing the pictures James and then the number three at the end of it. So James three. And when he's asked why, he says quote, it's because I'm the third James. And even when he turns four years old, he still signs his pictures James three, not like it wasn't like his age. So James three is his name. He's also revealing relatively in depth knowledge of airplanes. He can correctly identify a drop tank. And when his mother called it something else, when he gets some GI Joe dolls for Christmas that year, he names them Billy Leon and Walter. Like those are weird names for kids to name their toys. Right. Walter hasn't been like a current name for 50 years. Not typical names for that.

No. When Bruce and Andrea ask him why he's named his dolls this, he responds quote, because that's who met me when I got to heaven. I'd be like, send this kid back at this point. I would be kicked about. I'd be like, can we just take a break for a second? Let me just go to the park real quick. Stop talking. Mommy has a headache. Jesus. In 2002, Bruce actually goes to a Natoma Bay reunion to interview some veterans, because he just wants more fucking information. Yes. Bruce has become obsessed with finding out the identity of this Jack Larson person. And so he does learn at this reunion that Jack Larson was in fact a pilot in World War Two stationed on the Natoma Bay. And not only that,

but he survived the war and is still alive and living in Arkansas. Oh shit. He's not at the reunion, but people remember him and show Bruce documentation to confirm that Jack is real and alive. So that was. Would you just get directly into your car and drive to Jack's house like that moment? Yeah. Yeah. We need this to come together. So it's around this time that the Liningers learned that only one pilot from the ship was killed during the Battle of Iwo Jima. His name is James M. Houston, Jr. Andrea has an intuitive sense that this is the person who has been reincarnated through her son. Bruce still needs more convincing. He starts posting obsessively on online forums for more

information about this pilot and how he died. So it turns out that James Houston, Jr. was a 21-year-old from Pennsylvania who didn't exactly die at Iwo Jima, but instead was killed during a strike against transport vessels in a harbor on the nearby island of Chichi Jima. And this falls under the umbrella of the Iwo Jima military operation, even though the specific island where Houston was shot down is about 150 miles to the north. So it all fucking checks out. Right. And Bruce discovers that Houston's plane was shot down by the Japanese and exactly the man are described by his son. And according to old flight path records, it turns out that Jack Larson was flying in the plane right beside Houston's when he died. And he also learns that three

squadron mates of Houston's who had been killed before him were named Billy Peeler, Walter Devlin, and Leon Connor. Whoa. So Billy, Walter, and Leon. Okay. Because here's the thing. Like, people believe in psychics or you don't believe in psychics. You believe in that kind of, that kind of connection people may or may not have. There's lots of ways to discuss it. Yeah. This is a baby. Yeah. This is a baby saying Air Force stuff. Yeah. And name checking real people, real veterans who gave their lives for this country. Yeah. Yeah. It's beyond, it's beyond. It's unexplainable. It's totally fucking unexplainable. Yeah. Yeah. So now Bruce and Andrea are like, yeah, we believe it. They publicly claim that their son is the reincarnation of James M Houston

Jr. And remember, he wrote that he was number three. So that he was a junior and James is number three. Okay. That's why he was referencing the number, which is fucking crazy. And this is when things blow up for James and his parents. They connect with Houston's surviving sister Ann, who was in her eighties and is shocked by how much this three-year-old boy knows about her brother. She is on record as wholeheartedly believing that little James is a reincarnation of her little brother in part because he knows specifics about her family and early childhood that she says no one would know. So she's buying it for sure. I mean, that's a very legitimate confirmation. Totally. The Liningers do an ABC prime time special hosted by Chris Cuomo. It's a huge hit.

The segment airs on April 15th, 2004. And the Liningers are flooded with global media attention. So they decide to write a book about their experiences published in 2009. Their book is called Soul Survivor, S-O-U-L Survivor. Isn't that pretty? Nice. The reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot. And it chronicles James and the family's journey. The book does well and even spends some time on the New York Times bestseller list, just like that celery juice juicing book. Just like celery juice, which was also a reincarnation of many diet books from the 70s. That's right. But of course, this then opens up the Lininger story to skeptics and prompts a fierce ongoing academic debate. Two particular researchers that I'm going to focus on are Jim Tucker of the

University of Virginia and Michael Settath, who is currently teaching at San Francisco State University. So smart people. Sure. Yeah. Both of these men are highly educated and specialized in the study of consciousness after death. The specifics of both of their arguments are highly technical and not easy to follow. But the main point is Jim Tucker believes that James' testimony is reliable evidence of reincarnation in the Western world. Michael Settath does not. And for almost every publication Tucker has written in support of James, Settath has written a scathing response to disprove the quote facts with his own research. So these two are like budding heads. The main points of contention are, could this be fraud? Could this be fantasy? Or could James have

acquired this information through normal means? Yep. Yep. He learned it at preschool. You know, when they're all talking about those bedtime stories that Andrea was reading him that he was in the bedtime story, you know? Yeah. Everyone loves. I want to know actually what the real argument is because it seems hard to imagine. Yeah, for sure. For Tucker, a never aired ABC news interview that James had done recorded in 2002 confirms that the Leningers are not frauds to him. When they recorded that segment, little baby James had not yet identified James Houston as the person he was a reincarnation of. In Tucker's mind, the family could have fabricated the story in a way that was more sensational and lucrative from the start. Like they would have

used the name immediately. Like he said, he told us he was this and it's like, no, the memory slowly started coming, not just like boom, boom. Yeah. The slow developments over time proved to Tucker that this family is not making up their son's experiences for attention or financial gain. So that's an interesting way to look at it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And just like kind of putting out the information or just like telling a story in completely is a more believable way to hear it as opposed to like, here's my two and a half year old's PowerPoint presentation on his past life. Right. Right. Yeah. Tucker also dismisses that this could just be James's imagination. He says that even though it is normal for toddlers to have nightmares, James's nightmares were

characteristics of having experienced a major trauma. And similarly, his repetitive and violent play with toy airplanes is an example of what he calls post-traumatic play. And then given that James Leininger has no history of trauma in his life, in Tucker's mind, the intensity of both James's play and nightmares points to evidence of trauma in a past life. Do you believe in past lives? Well, between this kid and then there's that kid that when he was little, he thought he was an agent from the 40s. Have you ever seen that one? No. No. It's incredible. It's a kind of thing where it's just like this, where a little kid giving these details, you're just like, how is this possible? And I feel like these are stories that

are, you know, we've gotten a lot of these like in hometowns where people are like, then my daughter said, grandma says, don't do that. Or I don't know that there's things that we absolutely, you know, like when we're little are open to and can have come into our brains that we can't later. I definitely believe in things like that just because we don't, our brains, our mysteries, we don't know. Yeah, for sure. So Tucker, this other dude outright dismisses the possibility that James could have learned about James Houston or the Natoma Bay through normal means. So the other researcher, Michael Suddeth, he says that Leininger's story is filled with, quote, falsehoods, factual distortions and fallacious reasoning. So he doesn't believe in it at all.

The two and a half year old is using fallacious reasoning. Yeah, he's yelling at this two year old. Sure. In his many papers, Suddeth explains that he believes the Leininger has suppressed certain facts that would make this story less interesting or believable. He says they deny the reality that James could have acquired some of this knowledge through normal means such as overhearing adults talking or the many flight museums he went to. So that's not, you know, out of the realm of possibility. He went to dot, dot, dot as a two and a half year old. As a two and a half year old after he had the dreams in Australia. He suggests that because adults wanted James's story to be proof of reincarnation. They somehow created the circumstances

in which James's story would look like proof of reincarnation. Sure. Yeah. Understandable. So even though the ongoing debate over James's past life memories continues, James and his family remain firm believers in his story. In the summer of 2006, when James was eight years old, he and his family traveled to Japan to make a pilgrimage to Chiji Jima. They're taking out a small boat to the spot approximately where Houston's plane was shot down. And there's video footage of the simple and heartfelt memorial service the Liningers hold. And it James holds the bouquet of flowers and drops them over the side of the boat and begins to sob as they sink below the water. After the ceremony, James's nightmares reportedly become less frequent and less intense,

and he reports a sense of lasting peace. After this, as a teenager and young adult, James can only remember traumatic images of the plane crash. He loses connection with most of the other details, but he still believes that he once carried the personality of James Houston inside him. In a 2009 Fox News follow-up, James says of his story, quote, I hope that it helps people understand the meaning of how precious life is, how fast it can just blow away. And I also hope that it opens people's eyes up to reincarnation. It is a possibility. It is not a lie. And as an adult, he's been featured on an episode of the Netflix documentary series, Surviving Death, and reportedly is just focused on living a normal life. And he still lives in Louisiana.

So this case and others like it, like the ones we've done on the minisodes, open the door to all sorts of questions. Like, is there such a thing as consciousness after death, but also how susceptible are very young children to the powers of imagination and suggestion? And we know there is a precedent of adults getting caught up in the stories of children, like the satanic panic, for example. But it's safe to say that even though many smart people have looked into the story of James Lininger and his connection to pilot James M. Houston, it produces more questions than answers. Maybe there are just some circumstances that just can't be explained. And that is the story of the quote, reincarnated pilot, James Lininger.

I loved that. Here's the thing, you can go through life and be like, here's what I know, and it's a fact, blah, blah, blah. You'll always end up being proven wrong in some way, because there's a lot going on. Like the thing I always love to bring up is like randomly, and my dad did it the other day where I'm like, oh, wait, I think I get this from you. Where he's like, you know, we're watching some nature show. He's like, you know, we don't know what's in the ocean. It's like it's 90% of it's unexplored. I'm like, I know. I'm watching a thing about fungi right now. And it's just like the amount of stuff that we don't understand was happening on this planet is so vast. It's crazy. And like, was it that one where

it's like all the different things, like the benefits that fungi have? Fantastic fungi. Yeah. Yes. That's such a good show. But I mean, yeah, I just think there's a little bit of humility. If you are the kind of person that approaches like new information with humility and then and curiosity and kind of interest, but I also absolutely admit that as a person who in the past watched ancient aliens and been like, oh, it's all possible. And then people are just like, excuse me, as an archaeologist, this is offensive, because there's real people who built the pyramids. Yeah. Humans do this. And then humans tell each other stories to kind of like discredit the accomplishments of certain people. And it's bullshit. But to me, this lies right in this very

innocent area of like, what's the benefit? Right. What did like, yes, they wrote a book, but like, how could they have filled the whole book if they were totally if all of this was just fabricated totally. And the like, in the beginning, they didn't believe it. They took a long time to like confirm certain things. It wasn't like they were just like, look over here, everyone. You know, they didn't even believe it. The parents didn't even believe in the beginning. Right. It's just, I don't know. And also, you know, these days, who knows what people are doing and why. Yeah. I think we like we see that a lot where you're just like, oh, oh, okay, I get it. You know, but as the more, you know, like scam podcasts that I love and adore and listen to,

it's just like, yeah, what are people doing? So it's like, absolutely within the realm of possibility. But wouldn't you wait till your son was seven or eight, so that at least it would make sense, right, right, that somebody was talking about World War Two, like two and a half year old. It's just like, no, it doesn't make any sense. They are absolutely still in diapers. They cannot control themselves in many ways. Do they even walk yet? I don't know. I think so. Here and there. They're not great at it. They're not. They can't even walk. Thank God. They're like, they're like bad at walking. I don't know. That's, I think it's hilarious and compelling to even imagine. And there's just been so many of like grandma says hi, the two year old in the

back seat where you're just like, well, yeah, send us your stories, by the way, that my favorite rhetoric email, send us your reincarnation stories for the hometowns. We got to hear it, please. Your toddler that's open to the, you know, astral plane type of shit that no one can explain. We love it. Here's the thing. I think of all the football podcasts out there. This one has been the most comprehensive, right? We've covered every possible football topic. Absolutely. Never in the history of football podcasting has any football podcast, podcasted this hard about football. Yeah. I think we've really done it. We've honored it. We've honored the sport, and we've moved the ball down the field. What you got to do is move the ball down the field.

That's right. That's, we know that about it. If there's anything we know about football. And also the one thing we really know about football that probably the most important rule of the game, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite

murder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and add free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at wanderie.com slash survey.