E325 Last Minute Lasik and Nonsense for Your Mind
Topics: The Union Screaming House, Jared Fogle aka The Subway Guy
Image on the left is the book cover for "The Uninvited The True Story of the Union Screaming House" by Steven LaChance with Laura Long-Helbig. Image on the right is of a young Jared Fogle holding his famous pants from before his weight loss.
Welcome to episode 325 where Christine gets last minute Lasik and Em is in the know about a true crime story for once! First Em tells us the haunting tale of the Union Screaming House. Then Christine brings us a doozy of a stomach-turning true crime story: Jared Fogle the illicit Subway spokesperson. We very much regret the gas station Subway tuna sandwiches we got while road tripping to a live show once... and that's why we drink!
Transcript
[intro music]
Em Schulz: Welcome to And That's Why We Drink where I think I accidentally bummed Christine out a little too hard.
Christine Schiefer: Sorry, I literally am crying. I need to stop and get it together.
Em Schulz: I think that was the first I've ever seen Christine cry as if on cue. It was wild. You just immediately went into the water works.
Christine Schiefer: My tears started flowing down my face. I just feel so bad, Em.
Em Schulz: It's okay. Well, they don't know what's going on because it's been a week.
Christine Schiefer: I just ruined Em's entire family vacation.
Em Schulz: I had plans to go to Iceland with Allison's family, but this... What'd you call it? What's it called? Foot.
Christine Schiefer: Hand, foot, and mouth disease.
Em Schulz: Apparently I'm reacting a little wildly to it and I have about, last I counted, nearly 60 blisters all over my body.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it's like a plague.
Em Schulz: It's pretty bad and I can't even walk. And the whole point of this Iceland trip was to probably be outdoors and hike, which I already, God forbid, but now really I can't actually do it, more than usual. So we haven't decided. We still have 24 hours for me to decide, but it's not looking good. And also we are worried about spreading it to maybe Allison's family not getting it. So Christine feels a little guilty, but it's-
Christine Schiefer: Now I'm crying again.
Em Schulz: Christine, it's fine.
Christine Schiefer: I feel so bad.
Em Schulz: It's fine. I'm not trying to make Christine feel bad.
Christine Schiefer: I know you're not.
Em Schulz: I was just updating. But I think Christine's feeling a little sad today. It was not meant to make you feel sad, Christine. It's okay.
Christine Schiefer: I just know it's been planned for a long time and now... I don't know.
Em Schulz: It's okay.
Christine Schiefer: I just feel bad.
Em Schulz: It's okay. You didn't know. We didn't know. I didn't even know that I hadn't had it before. It's just now we know.
Christine Schiefer: You should have gone to a hand, foot, and mouth party when you were a kid.
Em Schulz: I know. I should have gone and then we should have all just hugged really tight to make sure that we really got it.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, all just high five each other.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yeah. Ugh. No, it's a weird... I'm usually not someone that gets skin things, so I think my body's just also weirdly sensitive to it. But anyway, that's the update. And poor Christine is really somehow going through it more than I am right now.
Christine Schiefer: I just feel so bad. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to text Alison later.
Em Schulz: No. Well, no, you don't have to, but I know you're going to because you're you. But you don't have to.
Christine Schiefer: I literally have tears streaming. What is wrong with me?
Em Schulz: I appreciate the empathy, but I wasn't trying to put you on blast or anything. That's not-
Christine Schiefer: I know. I know.
Em Schulz: It just happens. And I already told Christine, my baby's going to kick your ass one day and karma will fully blend out. But until then, your baby's winning.
Christine Schiefer: If your baby is a flea on a rat that gives me bubonic plague, then I'll understand. Do you know what I mean?
Em Schulz: Yeah, I understand.
Christine Schiefer: I'll just take it.
Em Schulz: Okay. Well, thank God, because I was already worried about the type of baby I'd have and a flea on a rat for the plague-
Christine Schiefer: You're adopting a flea on a rat.
Em Schulz: It's like Stuart Little or something. At least we can't get worse than that.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: Even if my little baby one day is a flea on a rat during the plague, my baby had a purpose on this earth.
Christine Schiefer: To kill me. Yes. Thank you.
Em Schulz: To eliminate Christine. Anyway, I was going to ask why you drink, but I think I gave you one by accident.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, what the hell? The last two episodes I've been prepared with a good reason and then I'm like, "Now I'm crying for a totally different reason."
Em Schulz: What was your good reason? What was your actual reason?
Christine Schiefer: My actual reason was that I got a LASIK eye surgery, but that just feels now like I'm bragging about my good fortune and good experiences.
Em Schulz: Well, you're putting good work to them with the tears and everything in them.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, apparently. That's true. Maybe they've reconstructed my tear glands or something.
Em Schulz: Let's talk about Christine getting LASIK because if you were at our Cleveland show-
Christine Schiefer: Columbus.
Em Schulz: Columbus show. I found out on stage with everybody else-
Christine Schiefer: Oops.
Em Schulz: ... that Christine got LASIK that morning and didn't tell me.
Christine Schiefer: Oops.
Em Schulz: And that was during our show, we do a drinking game and Christine found a way to write it into the script without telling me that she was going to do this. She went, "Oh, by the way..." And it's a scripted show, I know what's not supposed to be said. And when I heard, "Oh, by the way, guess what?" I went, "Oh God-
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no.
Em Schulz: ... we're going off script. What happened?" And that was when Christine let me know that lasers had been in her fucking eyes and then she came to work.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, God. It was a very not a smart idea. I recommend, if you're considering-
Em Schulz: Was it not?
Christine Schiefer: ... LASIK eye surgery, do it. Don't do it a few hours before you have to drive to another city to perform on a stage.
Em Schulz: Did you actually not feel very good because you pulled it off really well?
Christine Schiefer: No, I actually felt totally fine. It just was one of those things where I had to just finagle my way into this because they were like, "Well, take a day or a couple off work." And I was like, "Well, what if I have something like the next day?" And they were like, "Well, that should be okay." And then I was like, "Well, that's close enough to a few hours."
Em Schulz: So by finagle you mean you had to lie to every person that-
Christine Schiefer: Just a few, just a couple.
Em Schulz: Anyone that was going to be an obstacle on your own plan-
Christine Schiefer: That's right.
Em Schulz: ... you've already written for yourself.
Christine Schiefer: Right. So I don't see what the problem is. And so I did it anyway. And then lasers-
Em Schulz: You're just a human bulldozer. It's amazing.
Christine Schiefer: That's right. Thank you. Finally, somebody gives me the recognition I deserve. No, they did know. I did tell the doctor I had a show that night and he was like, "That's fine. Just don't wear eye makeup." So I was like, "Well, that's not going to stand." No, I'm just kidding. So I was like, "Oh." I went in on Saturday and they were like... First of all, I'll explain why real quick. I had a reason. I'm not saying it's a good reason, but I had a reason to do it the day of our show and that's because they were having a $1,000 off sale until the end of March. And it was the end of March. And I was like, "Well, shit."
Em Schulz: It really was the last day or something, wasn't it?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it was the 30th, I think. And I thought, "Well, tomorrow I'll be in Cleveland, so got to do it today." And so I asked for their earliest appointment, which was 7:50 AM and I went in and it took literally three to five minutes and then I went home.
Em Schulz: You said seven to eight seconds per eye.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah. Seven to eight seconds per eye. Exactly.
Em Schulz: That's beyond.
Christine Schiefer: And they count. So I'm like, "Okay, this one took six, this one took eight, whatever." And then three minutes later, my mom drove me home and I put in eyedrops and went to sleep for four hours. Blaise drove me to Columbus and we did our show. And now I can see because these are just blue light glasses. I've tricked you all.
Em Schulz: I actually forgot that you had LASIK and were still wearing glasses because I would've been like, "You're so stupid."
Christine Schiefer: No. It's very exciting because I feel like I always had to wear contacts to put the blue light glasses on.
Em Schulz: I understand completely.
Christine Schiefer: So now when I lay in bed at night and look at my computer, I can just put these on. It's just wonderful.
Em Schulz: There's nothing worse too than the... I know they've got those websites where you can trade out the... They're magnetic.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, yeah.
Em Schulz: But there's really nothing worse than having to have a collection of glasses and you bring them with you-
Christine Schiefer: And then they're downstairs, they're upstairs, they're in my bag. Exactly. Exactly.
Em Schulz: I never wear sunglasses because it would require me to bring sunglasses because I can't just...
Christine Schiefer: And you have prescription, you need to trade them out. It's such a pain in the butt. And that's the other one. Now, sunglasses. I don't have to wear contacts to wear sunglasses. I just put them on my face. It's unbelievable.
Em Schulz: Wild.
Christine Schiefer: To wake up for the first few days I thought I accidentally slept in my contacts, which is a scary feeling, and also my eyes were dry from the procedure. So I was like, "Oh, shit." And then I was like, "Wait, no, I can just sit up and look out the window and see leaves and trees." It's amazing. It's amazing. So if you're considering it, highly recommend. I am so thrilled. It was cheaper than I expected. It was also $1,000 off so ya know, look for sales. It was so easy. It didn't hurt one bit. I don't know. I highly recommend it. I'm not saying go to work a few hours later because if you have the option, fucking take a couple of days off. Hello. Of course I'm going to recommend that.
Em Schulz: But if you're a Gemini bulldozer like Christine, you could probably figure it out. What color was the laser?
Christine Schiefer: It was these red blinking light. Well, no, it was a blue circle that you stare at and then there are a couple red blinks.
Em Schulz: Interesting.
Christine Schiefer: You don't feel anything. Don't even feel like something's on your eye. You just look at a pulsing light. And they were so kind. And they were like, "You are doing such a good job. You're nailing it, Christine. Good job." And I'm like, "I'm just laying here, but thank you for all of your motivation." And then they count down.
Em Schulz: I'd be like, "Give me more."
Christine Schiefer: They're like, "Two more seconds, one more second." They're just so gentle and kind. And it took literal seconds on each eye. And now I can wake up and see.
Em Schulz: Technology's fucking crazy.
Christine Schiefer: Like what? And my mom did this 18 years ago. And her-
Em Schulz: With the knife.
Christine Schiefer: With the knife one, with the blade. So a lot of places do just lasers now. And they kept saying a word that I'm not going to say because it's one of Em's least favorite words. I've already injured Em enough today, so I'm going to not. But it starts with a F and it's four letters, but it's worse than fuck. So I'm not-
Em Schulz: It starts with an F and then ends with an L-A-P.
Christine Schiefer: Oof. They said it so many times. Oofa doofa. I was like, "I can't hear this word anymore, please."
Em Schulz: And guess what that flap of yours was? It was moist.
Christine Schiefer: Not anymore. It wasn't for a few days, but all these eyedrops and now me crying all over myself, it's really they're back.
Em Schulz: Moist flaps. Just explain it to me.
Christine Schiefer: Wait a second, you have said on the show how that's your least favorite combination, and here I am.
Em Schulz: And so many people say, "When will you ever use the phrase moist flaps?"
Christine Schiefer: When would you use it? Well, right fucking now.
Em Schulz: A medical professional uses it so shut up. That's when.
Christine Schiefer: I did it for you.
Em Schulz: Thank you. Well, I'm impressed. And I bow down to you because I don't plan on ever doing that. I don't think I could. So I know you say it's-
Christine Schiefer: I think you could. I know you could because it really was so easy and it can suggest you take a Xanax beforehand or whatever. And it also helps you nap. And they gave me two Tylenol PM at 7:30 in the morning, which I was like, "This is a weird feeling."
Em Schulz: Well, one, I never need help to nap. Let's be clear.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, fair
Em Schulz: Two, I think the only thing that's in my head is the fact that F-L-A-P, there would be one being created on my eyeball.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it's a scary thought. And I will say when I went in, I told the doctor, "I don't like that. I don't like it at all." And he was like, "Yeah, most people don't like it and are freaked out by it." And he said, "I've done about 35,000 procedures." And I was like, "Have the numbing drops ever not worked on someone?" And he was like, "No, they've never not worked." And I was like, "What if I'm the first one?" And he's like, "Biologically, that isn't possible because of the way..." He really was like, "Because of the way your eyes are, the drops are going to work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Okay. I guess that's all I need to know."
Em Schulz: I guess it's all you will know.
Christine Schiefer: The end.
Em Schulz: Oh, geez. Well, I am proud of you. That's a big step.
Christine Schiefer: Thank you. I've been considering it for many years. So if you're out there and you're considering it, this is your sign. I say go for it. I'm not liable for any lasers or flap situations, but I say go for it.
Em Schulz: I also never want to be responsible for a flap ever.
I guess that's it. Christine, I've got a good story for you this time around.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I have a good one for you too. I'm excited for this episode.
Em Schulz: Sorry. That was a very nice gulp of London Fog. Sweet Allison made it for me, the little witch. Okay, so here's the story this week. I found it very last minute because we discussed stigmatized property laws last week and I was like, "Huh." And in one of the articles below one of the sources was like, "You might also like this." And I went, "Well, surely I will because the title is The Union Screaming House."
Christine Schiefer: What? That's funny because my reaction when they're like, "You may like this," I'm like, "you don't know what I like." And then it's always obviously something I will like. And I'm like, "How did you know that?"
Em Schulz: Ya know after, I used to be that way, but after TikTok, it's algorithm is-
Christine Schiefer: Oh, sure. You trust the algorithm. Right?
Em Schulz: It's just too strong at this point. I used to fight it and now if someone says, and by someone I mean TikTok, if TikTok says, "You'll like this," I go, "you already fucking know I will."
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I can't even fight you on this.
Em Schulz: TikTok could tell me I have the most unhinged illness that no one's ever heard of and was eradicated from-
Christine Schiefer: It's called hand, foot, and mouth disease.
Em Schulz: And they would be like, "Hey, by the way, you have this exact thing. The symptoms haven't shown yet, but trust us." And I'd be like, "Oh my God, I need a doctor."
Christine Schiefer: That's really bad, Em.
Em Schulz: I know.
Christine Schiefer: I hope you hear yourself saying that and realize it's just slightly problematic for yourself.
Em Schulz: It is. I, at the very least, would be like, "Why did you put me here? What's coming?" I'd be like, "What's-
Christine Schiefer: You'd be like, "They know something I don't know." Yeah.
Em Schulz: Every day, every day I wonder how I end up in certain places in the world of TikTok. Anyway, the algorithm brought me to the Union Screaming House-
Christine Schiefer: I can't wait.
Em Schulz: ...I guess this time around. And by algorithm, I mean Google. I don't know if their algorithm is as advanced as TikTok these days. But I don't know. Here's the situation. One of my favorite things about this location is that I would say 90% of these notes, 90, let's stick with 90% of the notes are the firsthand account of the guy who dealt with this.
Christine Schiefer: Oh! I feel like we don't often get a firsthand account. So that's nice.
Em Schulz: It's so hard. I really applaud you all the time with all the true crime nonsense you have to read because-
Christine Schiefer: Nonsense indeed.
Em Schulz: Well, nonsense for your mind because I feel like that has to be deteriorating you in some way.
Christine Schiefer: And That's Why We Drink: Nonsense for Your Mind. That's good, Em. I like it.
Em Schulz: Thank you.
Christine Schiefer: TM, TM, TM.
Em Schulz: But I do envy you a lot in that you get so many firsthand accounts and mine are always just rooted in alleged folk lore.
Christine Schiefer: I see what you're saying. Yeah.
Em Schulz: So when I don't get a random legend from he said, she said, I'm always impressed with myself that I even found it, but really Google found it, so.
Christine Schiefer: The algorithm did it for you.
Em Schulz: The algorithm.
Christine Schiefer: For once.
Em Schulz: Yeah, for once. So the guy's name is Steven LaChance and I'm just going to start with a quote from him.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: "Do you believe in ghosts? I used to be like many of you. I was a true skeptic. A true-
Christine Schiefer: Is this the start of a Nickelodeon show? Do you believe in ghosts? I used to be like many of you.
Em Schulz: *Rewind tape noises*.
Christine Schiefer: *Rewind tape noises* it sounds like we're starting-
Em Schulz: You've probably wondered how I got here.
Christine Schiefer: ... a comedy of epic proportions.
Em Schulz: Well, so it is a book that he wrote.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, okay. I was like, "Who is he talking to? It sounds like he's talking to me as a 15-year-old watching the Disney Channel."
Em Schulz: He's got a little-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I was a little old when I discovered the Disney Channel. Sorry.
Em Schulz: He's got a little green screen stick that he's-
Christine Schiefer: Yes. Yes. Precisely.
Em Schulz: By the way, I found out that that was literally a drumstick wrapped in green screen tape.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: I wanted it to be something so much cooler, but it makes so much sense they would just schlep it together.
Christine Schiefer: Well, of course. I never thought of it, but it does seem like it would at least be a cool lightsaber toy or something.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Well, go figure. "Do you believe in ghosts? I used to be like many of you. I was a true skeptic, a true disbeliever. That was me until three years ago. Now I do believe, I wish I didn't, it would be easier for me to sleep at night. Even now, three years later, I'm still woke up in the night by the memory of the screaming man, the child in pain, and the dark ghostly image that turned my world upside down and changed my beliefs forever."
Christine Schiefer: You're probably wondering how I ended up here.
Em Schulz: That's me.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no, he literally said, "That was me." Oh my God. Okay, that got dark.
Em Schulz: But he knew the shtick, he knew that that captivates people and he went-
Christine Schiefer: Totally.
Em Schulz: ... "I'm going to fucking lean into it."
Christine Schiefer: I'm captivated.
Em Schulz: And I've got to say, some of his writing was actually pretty funny.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, good. I told you it sounds like we're starting a comedy. It got dark pretty quickly. I didn't expect that. But yeah, he sounds like he's a good communicator. He's a good writer.
Em Schulz: He did. And I watched a few of his interviews. I don't know too much about him, but based on his interviews, he seems like just a very lovely guy.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, that's good.
Em Schulz: So now we're in May 2001. This is in Union, Missouri. And Steven and his three kids were looking for a new place to live. The kids, I found out their names were all forms of Eli.
Christine Schiefer: Huh?
Em Schulz: So Eliza, Elliot. And then I thought maybe the next one would be Elijah, but it's just Eli.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, they were like, "We ran out. Just cut off then end."
Em Schulz: I wonder if they had a problem with the Jah part or something.
Christine Schiefer: So it's Eliz... Sorry, say it again.
Em Schulz: Eliza, Elliot.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, oh, oh, okay. That's probably why they didn't do the Elijah. Eliza, Elijah.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: It's super close.
Em Schulz: Maybe if they were twins, that might have been fun.
Christine Schiefer: I feel like it'd be the least fun because you'd be like, "Elijah. No, Eliza." It sounds incredibly complicated.
Em Schulz: Also, I feel like in some languages or dialects maybe the Jah and Za are a little too close.
Christine Schiefer: They're probably similar. Yeah.
Em Schulz: So Eliza, Elliot, and just good old Eli so I like how the buck stops here with just-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, we're done.
Em Schulz: So it's the three kids, and I tried to figure out their ages. I know one of them was 11 and I don't know if that was the oldest or the youngest though. I'm very confused about that. But they're all living at home age and I think they all seem to be around maybe middle school, early high school. That was the feeling I was getting. They find out about this one large house, which they had just come from an apartment and it was a guy and his three kids and he was like, "We need to expand for sure." So they find this big house and they're kinda at their wits end. It sounds like they had been looking everywhere for a house for a while and they needed a place right away. They found this house, it was two floors with three bedrooms. So he goes to check it out with one of the kids at an open house. Apparently this house is huge. It's very ornate, it's very elegant. There are literal cherubs lining the walls, someone painted them on there. In the basement, it had a fruit cellar and it also had a butcher shower. Do you know what that is?
Christine Schiefer: Ew, no.
Em Schulz: Okay. I had to figure it out too.
Christine Schiefer: Is that where the butcher showers after he cuts everything up?
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Fuck.
Em Schulz: So if you have an older house and you have a concrete shower in your cellar for some reason and you don't know why that's there, it's because that used to be... Especially in maybe more rural areas, I think a lot of houses still have that if you are in the hunting culture.
Christine Schiefer: I see.
Em Schulz: But it seems like it was kind of from a few decades ago, but a lot of people just still randomly have a cement shower in their basement that maybe is near a back door. And it was so you could... If your cellar was fully concrete at the time with a drain in the floor, it was just easy to slaughter your animals and then you could shower without dragging blood through the house. Cute.
Christine Schiefer: That's thoughtful I guess. I mean I understand it. I do. I just am pretty grossed out.
Em Schulz: We're just so not of that life.
Christine Schiefer: No, we're not. And I'm just picturing the smell and it's just gruesome.
Em Schulz: What's it smell like, Christine? Blood.
Christine Schiefer: Just blood, blood, blood, blood, blood. Just nasty.
Em Schulz: Gross. It made me want to literally blow my nose it was so-
Christine Schiefer: You asked me. I didn't want to say it.
Em Schulz: The smell of blood is such a... Once you've smelled it, you can never not smell it.
Christine Schiefer: Eughh. Once you've smelled it, you've probably dealt it. So check yourself because you might be bleeding.
Em Schulz: I don't have a witty repor to that.
Christine Schiefer: That's my PSA for today.
Em Schulz: You said what?
Christine Schiefer: I don't know.
Em Schulz: What'd you say? That's your saying for today? What-
Christine Schiefer: My PSA.
Em Schulz: Oh, well, thank God you found one. We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, we were lost. We were the... What was it? The nonsense that ruins your brain or whatever.
Em Schulz: I think if our tagline is something about nonsense rotting your brain, it makes sense that our brains would slowly forget-
Christine Schiefer: Our brains are just devolving. Yeah. We change the slogan every time because we can't remember. That's a good point.
Em Schulz: Something about nonsense every time.
Christine Schiefer: Every time.
Em Schulz: Okay, so there's a butcher shower, which I had to learn about, then I didn't really enjoy learning about that. There was a fruit cellar in the basement. And then the cherub. So interesting about the cherubs is that this place, this home, if you can't guess from my side of this paranormal podcast, this house is haunted. So it's interesting that there were chairs lining the walls. And in an interview Steven responded because they were like, "Oh, isn't that weird?" But maybe they already felt like they needed to put angels around the house to make it safe. His comment back was, "People don't realize that Satan was a cherub."
Christine Schiefer: Oh god, what the fuck? You just gave me goosecam out of nowhere.
Em Schulz: And I was like, "Steven, you came back real hot with that answer." That was-
Christine Schiefer: I knew this guy was something else, this Steven.
Em Schulz: He said, "I'm ready for that comment. I've been thinking about this one for a while. I've been sitting on-"
Christine Schiefer: He literally was so prepared for someone to finally ask him about those cherubs.
Em Schulz: In his head he was like, "This is my moment. This is it."
Christine Schiefer: This is it.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Steve, you've got this.
Em Schulz: Anyway, he didn't know at the time. He just saw cherubs and I guess his daughter was in an angel phase and so he was like, "Oh, that's great. She'll have a good time with this."
Christine Schiefer: Does he mean a satanic phase or an actual angel phase?
Em Schulz: No, that's your daughter.
Christine Schiefer: Oh right. Sorry. I got him confused.
Em Schulz: When all of a sudden there's melted candles and pentagrams by the butcher shower, we'll know-
Christine Schiefer: By the butcher shower, oh, no.
Em Schulz: ... where others stood.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: So he was very excited about the house. They were really blown away by the size of it. I don't know what the situation is. Maybe I looked up the wrong address, but I Zillow-ed it because that's what we did last week. The house didn't seem that big in comparison to what I usually hear are big houses. But I am also aware that they just came from an apartment and it probably seemed massive.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, say it's a one or two bedroom apartment, they're all sharing bedrooms.
Em Schulz: Yeah, they're probably really cramped in there.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. For three kids and a grown up.
Em Schulz: And this was a huge change.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It feels like a big adjustment to probably have your own walls around you. Your own address. Your own yard. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Well, I was just actually going to say one of the things they were really excited about was the yard because they didn't have one. So I think it all felt really big.
Christine Schiefer: Sure.
Em Schulz: And so Steven said that he asked the land lady for an application and the landlady has the goddamn nerve to say this right away, "You understand the responsibilities that come with living in an old house such as this, don't you?"
Christine Schiefer: Was that Cindy. She was like, "I-
Em Schulz: This landlady, by the way... For those who are listening backwards for some unknown reason, Cindy is someone we talked about in our last episode where she runs, I don't know, some consulting business for people who are trying to sell their haunted homes.
Christine Schiefer: Right. She basically helps you sell your stigmatized property, your haunted home. And I feel like that's kind of what she's doing here. She's like, "You're accepting all liability for this old old house."
Em Schulz: And this landlady probably could have taken some tips from Cindy. But this landlady, as I heard in many interviews, is a real fucking character and maybe not in the best way.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no.
Em Schulz: She seems a little too erratic.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: And if they made a movie, I think they would dress her in a feather boa. She seems a little-
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: ... unhinged in some ways.
Christine Schiefer: Gotcha.
Em Schulz: That's the vibe I'm getting I can't be sure.
Christine Schiefer: She got LASKIK eye surgery that morning and people were like, "She cannot get a fucking grip."
Em Schulz: That's so weird because my next bullet is he calls her a Gemini bulldozer. That's why.
Christine Schiefer: Oh boy.
Em Schulz: So she says, "You understand the responsibilities of what a house like this entails?" Basically. And he didn't know what that meant. He was like, "Yeah, that it's old.
Christine Schiefer: Sure.
Em Schulz: ... okay, sure. So he said the land lady showed the house off in a weird way. It was almost a museum. And pretty much within the week she said, "Oh, we want you to move in."
Christine Schiefer: Ugh.
Em Schulz: So they move in memorial weekend and as Steven is grabbing some of the last boxes out of the moving truck to bring into the house, a car slows down in front of the house and the passenger shouted, "Hope you get along here okay." And then the car just drove off real quick.
Christine Schiefer: And that's when the dad was in the car was like, "Now we wait to see how they react to that." What a fun prank.
Em Schulz: See, I would be holding those boxes that I just took out of the truck and I just put them right back down and I'd go.
Christine Schiefer: You'd be like, "And on that note..."
Em Schulz: I'd be like, "Okay, well, I guess I'm not moving in here." So this is a quote from Steven. I just threw a lot of his direct quotes in because it just otherwise I was going to just be summarizing what he'd already done. So he says, "The first night in the house went by without fanfare, maybe because we were so tired from the move, or perhaps because the house wanted to draw us in a little closer before beginning its series of attacks and assaults upon me and my family." So the first morning I guess starts a little weird because he notices now that he's getting a better look at the house, he's going in and out of the rooms, he notices that each door had hooks and latch locks on the wrong side of the doors.
Christine Schiefer: That's never good.
Em Schulz: The quote from him is, "The latches were on the outside of the rooms as if to keep something in."
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. That's like the Skinwalker Ranch house.
Em Schulz: Immediately I'd be like, "Where are those boxes? I meant to put back them back in the truck."
Christine Schiefer: Serious. They're still in the trunk probably.
Em Schulz: Yeah. So later that day, Steven is hanging up a picture and it had two angels in it. And he was like, "Well, I'll hang this in the cherub room, I guess." So he tries to hang it on the wall, then he walks away and as he's walking away it crashes to the ground.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: And he hangs it up a second time, crashes to the ground. Third time he's walking away and he feels something hit his ankles and the picture had flown off the wall and hit him.
Christine Schiefer: He was like, how many times do I have to tell you?
Em Schulz: Yeah. It was like, are you fucking kidding me?
Christine Schiefer: Geez.
Em Schulz: So Steven was, yeah. He was like, oh my God, stay on the fucking wall. So he hangs it up again.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. Wow. He's really fucking commit- He's stubborn. It sounds familiar to me, but I can't think of who it might be with this bulldozing kind of characteristic.
Em Schulz: Yeah. It's crazy. I wonder, I wonder.
Christine Schiefer: I wonder, too. I wonder if he nailed the curtains to the wall also just to see what would happen.
Em Schulz: I wonder if he just nailed this picture up through the canvas or something.
Christine Schiefer: Through the art. Yeah.
Em Schulz: So he hangs it up again, and this time it doesn't move. So he's like, "Okay, I'm going to slowly back out of this room," and he hears the daughter on the porch, say, "Dad, come look at this."
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: And this is a separate instance. It's just weird that they overlapped. But he now goes outside to see his kids on the porch, and they're watching the neighbors, because the neighbors that are on their side of the street, anytime they're walking towards the house, they will cross the street before continuing to walk past the house.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no.
Em Schulz: And he's like, of course, his daughter, who I imagined before, I tried to figure out their ages. I imagined she was like four, so it was extra creepy. But the daughter says "They don't like walking in front of our house. Isn't that weird?" And so Steven then spent the next three hours watching neighbors do this. And then if he tried to say hi to them or wave, they would literally dip their heads and ignore him.
Christine Schiefer: This is the definition example of what you talked about last week, the stigmatized property. People truly are stigmatizing the whole family, and they didn't even know.
Em Schulz: I'm telling you, that algorithm knew. They're like-
Christine Schiefer: They knew.
Em Schulz: If you like these types of these things like stigmatized property, this'll do, this will do.
Christine Schiefer: This will do.
Em Schulz: But yeah, the whole neighborhood is against this. They're like, we don't even want to look. We don't want to know them. And so at the same time, the kids are starting to notice things too. The son, he's noticing that he's waking up to things, walking in the hallways, and he thinks it's maybe his dad. There's a box of toys that he still hadn't unpacked, and they would move by themselves. The toys would get taken out of the box, and he'd think it was his siblings. He would wake up feeling stared at, and no one was in the room. But anyway, so one of these days, they decided it's going to be a big work and play day out in the yard. And again, this was a big deal because they hadn't had a yard before, or at least not at their last place. And Steven noticed that the trees were acting weird, which I didn't even know to pay attention to plant behavior.
Christine Schiefer: What are they acting like normally?
Em Schulz: He said that the leaves were dropping, like it was about to get really cold out. The seasons were changing. And so I think that was kind of a nod to the fact that even plants were dying on the property.
Christine Schiefer: Oh.
Em Schulz: It doesn't really get mentioned again. But I did think it was weird that now that as he was writing the book, he was probably thinking back and everything just felt like a fucking symptom.
Christine Schiefer: Sure.
Em Schulz: So anyway, he asks one of his sons, or maybe both of his sons to, I think it was one of his sons, to go get the garden hose from the basement. And kid runs down to the basement with the butcher shower, of course. And a few minutes later, Steven hears his son screaming in the house and runs to find him shaking in the kitchen. And he, I think, well, it says it. He peed himself. He was so scared.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no, poor baby.
Em Schulz: And he said something chased me up the basement steps. And when Steven asked what it was, the son said, "I don't know daddy, but it was big."
Christine Schiefer: Oh, buddy. That's so traumatizing.
Em Schulz: And terrifying to an adult. Can you imagine if Leona said it was big? Like it was-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: So they didn't find anything in the basement, obviously. And after this, nothing really happens for a few days, but soon Steven catches on that every time they come home, all of the lights in the house are on.
Christine Schiefer: Whoa.
Em Schulz: He thinks it's the kids. It's like it feels mocking because it's literally every single light and he thinks it's his kids. And eventually, he walks through the room and turns off every single light before they leave one night. And when he comes back, they're all on.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: While he was walking through the house and trying to figure out why all the lights had come on, he realized it was so hot that he was sweating, but his daughter was in the living room and said, "Daddy, it's cold."
Christine Schiefer: No, no, no.
Em Schulz: He goes into the living room and it's dropped 30 degrees. And then Steven says, that was the first time I felt its presence.
He said it felt like an electrical current coursing through his body. And after that, it left and he didn't have that feeling anymore. And the temperature rose back to normal. And he even watched the thermostat go up 30 degrees.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no. Oh, no. No.
Em Schulz: Soon after that, the family is talking all in the same room together. And it's right before bedtime. And the kids' backs, their backs were facing the living room. Steven was looking into the living room, and he even was quoted saying, thank God, because... Or something like, I'm so glad that they didn't see what I saw. Because as he's talking to them in the living room, he sees a man standing there. And this is a quote, except there was a moving, churning, dark gray, black smoke or mist that made up his form. A few moments pass. And I was sure that when I looked up again that it would be gone. But he was still there, and he began to move. Moving into the family room and pausing in the center of the room. His form was still a mass of churning, turning blackness. He stood there for what seemed an eternity, but in actuality, it was only a few moments. And then he melted into the air.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, God. I mean, it's such a fucked up thing because it breaks the cliche of I glance back and he was gone. It's like, no, you glance back and he's like, I can move closer.
Em Schulz: I can't think of anything more convincing of an intelligent being because I feel like if you glance up and it's gone, then, oh, maybe I caught something. Or, oh, that wasn't for me, we're just existing in the same space. But when you look up again, just to me, it always feels like it wants you to see this.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. And it knows that you expect it to be gone is what it feels like. And it's like, surprise.
Em Schulz: I feel like even ghosts that you love and that you wish you could see more of, they're still polite enough to not freak you out, that they're gone when you look up.
Christine Schiefer: They're like, we'll just make this really brief.
Em Schulz: Even there are times where I've glanced and I thought I saw my grandpa or something, and I wished that when I looked up again, he was there. But even they don't do that. So I feel like if you look up and see something, it feels sinister immediately because it's breaking the rules.
Christine Schiefer: Another thought. It's breaking the rules. Exactly.
Em Schulz: Breaking the etiquette, breaking the etiquette.
Christine Schiefer: The ghostly etiquette. And I will say on that note, when you say, oh, if a good spirit is around and only shows itself briefly, that also makes me wonder, does this thing just have so much more power that it can hang around for as long as it wants? Versus, maybe it takes a lot of energy for a spirit to present themselves even for a moment. But then if he's like, "No, I can even walk around a bit," does that mean he's just super strong too? I don't like it.
Em Schulz: Yeah, I hate that. Or maybe what if you have good spirits next to you and it's sucking up their energy and it's-
Christine Schiefer: Oh God. He's like, yeah.
Em Schulz: Hey, let's keep making it worse.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Let's just theorize on how bad this could get.
Em Schulz: Well, so he sees this moving black mass who is aware of him and wants him to see him.
Christine Schiefer: Cool.
Em Schulz: Presumably. And this is where some of his writing was really funny because he was in my calmest dad voice. I said, "Let's go get a soda and see grandma."
Christine Schiefer: Oh, he's like, "Want to get ice cream?" And they're like, "Why?" No reason.
Em Schulz: I appreciate the vulnerability because I feel like we've already started in a space, that's, ya know, not the cookie cutter. We've got a single dad with his three kids. You don't get that a lot. And he seems to be incredibly close with all of his children. And then also in interviews I've seen recently, he's so proud of all of his kids. I really like this guy. I really hope that there's not something about him I'm unaware of, but he seems very kind and wonderful. And I think it's also really interesting that he was so quick to be like, I was freaked the fuck out because I feel like a lot of dads would be like, I'm macho and have to protect, ya know?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I thought I could fight it.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Zak Bagans with three children in the house.
Christine Schiefer: Oh God. No. I don't want to see that. I don't want to know.
Em Schulz: But no, I like that if he feels a little human of the second I saw that, I also did not want to fucking be there. Let's get that-
Christine Schiefer: Let's skidaddle. Yeah.
Em Schulz: I just appreciate the honesty. So he was in my calmest dad voice, he said, let's go get a soda. And I guess even his kids were like, "It's about to be my bedtime and I get to go of a soda. I mean, no questions asked. I am following you to the car."
Christine Schiefer: Good choice. Because honestly, you wouldn't have liked the answer, so just go get the ice cream.
Em Schulz: So they all heads to the door. Before they can get to the door.
Christine Schiefer: Oh fuck.
Em Schulz: They hear a man in the house screaming in pain at inhuman levels.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no. Oh my God.
Em Schulz: So loud that the neighborhood can truly hear the. Since, since his time there, neighbors have reported like, oh yeah, we could all hear it. We all heard it.
Christine Schiefer: What?
Em Schulz: Steven yells at the kids to run to the car. He's like, "Fuck the soda thing. Get out of the house."
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: And as he drove away, we just sped off into the night. One of his sons in the car said, "Daddy, the basement monster is standing in the upstairs window." Steven looked at the window and he saw the same figure he'd seen downstairs looking back at them from the window.
Christine Schiefer: And the kid is like, yeah, that's the big thing that chased me out of the basement.
Em Schulz: Yep.
Christine Schiefer: Fuck.
Em Schulz: So they stayed at grandma's for the weekend.
Christine Schiefer: Good.
Em Schulz: And then the kids ended up, they were already planning on being there for a week because Steven had to leave town for work. But while he was gone for work, I think he just had enough time away from the house that he was able to, I guess, convince himself that it wasn't as bad as he thought. And so-
Christine Schiefer: Which I think we would all probably do or at least try to do.
Em Schulz: Especially, I mean, this is the classic family who moved into a haunted house that they spent way over budget just trying to make things work. They invested all their money and time-
Christine Schiefer: This is a forever home.
Em Schulz: They really need this to work because they don't have any other options. It sounded like he didn't have much of a choice and he had to convince himself.
Christine Schiefer: It's shame. And I understand mean even if we did have a choice, I feel like our natural reaction is to try and rationalize it.
Em Schulz: Definitely. So he's like, okay, I'm going to grab the kids from my mom and we're going to go back to the house. Everything's going to be fine. Well, now that he's back at home with the kids, he is looking through the shed one day and he finds a bunch of items that the last tenant or tenants had left there in the shed, and he's like, his mom. I also love that he's very close with his parents.
Christine Schiefer: Me too.
Em Schulz: He was telling them what was going on. So even they were like, I guess, getting updates about how haunted this house was. And his parents were like, "You need to call your landlady and be like, what the fuck is going on?"
Christine Schiefer: Seriously.
Em Schulz: Is this place haunted? Which if there were more protection laws about stigmatized property maybe-
Christine Schiefer: Great point.
Em Schulz: If he asked in advance, he would've gotten a response. I don't know. She seems still, again, a little like, she would be the person who would not honorably answer that.
Christine Schiefer: And so we're in Missouri, so they would have to jump on the New York New Jersey bandwagon. Is that right?
Em Schulz: Yeah. I don't remember what I said about Missouri, but it wasn't one of the four states that have anything directly about the paranormal in their disclosure laws. So I think he could have asked and still not gotten anything. So it was by the book. But I feel like a story like this is a perfect reason why there should be more disclosure laws about the paranormal.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, to be honest, I would just ask, what is this shower for? And if they were a butcher in the shower, butcher shower, I'd be like, actually, I'm not interested. I'm stigmatized against this property now. Thank you.
Em Schulz: Well, that's fair.
Christine Schiefer: Would've saved us all a lot of trouble, folks, just saying.
Em Schulz: I hear ya. I honestly, I would've tried to piece that together. I think I would've seen a whole cement cellar, and been like, I know some bad shit happened here.
Christine Schiefer: You would've looked at this thing from 10 miles away and been like, Nope. It's haunted.
Em Schulz: I just beg to differ.
Christine Schiefer: I think the angels would've made me feel uncomfy.
Em Schulz: Me too. I'd be like, "Why do you need to be here? What's the situation?"
Christine Schiefer: What are you doing here? What are you looking at by the way? Just going to eat my fucking chicken pot pie. Marie Calendars, leave me alone.
Em Schulz: So, oh, so his parents' like, you need to call the landlady and ask what's going on. So he got back, he sees the stuff from the shed, and now that he knows that there were previous tenants and he never heard their stories, he's going to call the landlady. He asks her about any ghosts, landlady conveniently can't remember.
Christine Schiefer: Oh good. She takes her boa. She's like, Hmm. Flick it behind her.
Em Schulz: Her scroll and quill to like, Let me check my notes.
Christine Schiefer: Ghosts? Ghosts? I don't think so.
Em Schulz: But she does say, oh, you know what's so interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting, is that I don't know about any ghosts, but I do know the stuff in the shed belonged to former occupants who just casually fled in the middle of the night.
Christine Schiefer: No, come on.
Em Schulz: And when Steven asked how long anyone had lived there before him, this was in 2001. The house was built in the early 1930s. And I don't know how long this landlady has been in charge, but to her knowledge, how long has anyone ever lived here? And she again, very casually, basically said a year.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no, that is not a good sign.
Em Schulz: His parents are still in the know about this. They've come over, his dad said that he would hear quote, "a herd of elephants upstairs". He would hear the screams of a little girl in the house. Also, one of the sons, this is fucking crazy. One of the sons got brave to go to the bathroom by himself, which the fact that he's already scared to go to the bathroom by himself.
Christine Schiefer: That's sad.
Em Schulz: He walks down the hall and he sees this smokey figure appear in the hall, and he's staring at the smoke, and it begins to morph into the face of a clown with no eyes.
Christine Schiefer: This is so messed up. This is like when they say that they know what your fears are, and they just manipulate that.
Em Schulz: Oh, clown with no eyes. It sounds like it knew my fears and I didn't even know my own fears.
Christine Schiefer: Sounds like it knew... You're right. It's probably everyone's deepest fear, honestly.
Em Schulz: A few days after this, Steven is on the phone with his mom while the kids are in his room, and he starts to hear the doors rattling and he thinks it's the kids from the other room. He tells them to stop playing games. The doors rattle a little harder. He says to stop. He's on the phone. They rattle even harder and the doors are shaking like crazy all of the doors. So he already... He's like, I have only three kids.
Christine Schiefer: 1, 2, 3. Oh shit.
Em Schulz: But the doors are freaking out. He scolds them, still thinking they did something or are playing a trick on him. So he scolds him and says, cut it out. And then the door starts to rattle again and he hears his daughter say, "I'm reading and my brothers are asleep."
Christine Schiefer: Well, they're not anymore, tell you that much.
Em Schulz: Yeah. And as she said that, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and just like last time, with the temperature drop came an electrical surge that hit Steven's body. And this time it was paired with an awful stench, which we've talked about before is ingredient number one for a demon.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It's pretty obvious formula there.
Em Schulz: And as Steven is feeling this energy smelling this stench, it's cold and the doors are shaking. He begins to hear a scream, and the scream gets louder and louder and louder until it's impossibly loud. And the doors are shaking, the floor is shaking, the house is booming. He's hearing the screams and his mom is still on the phone, and he screams into the phone. I don't know if he can't grab the phone, he's paralyzed or if he's still on the phone with her. But he says, "You need to come over, help us. We're leaving." And as he says, "We're leaving", quote, then the whole house began to come alive.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no. I thought it was all going to stop, but it just kept going.
Em Schulz: The house freaks out. It's rattling everywhere. The man screaming is getting louder. He's hearing boom, boom, boom of something running down the stairs at him. Then Steven sees the floor shaking and he tries to get to the bedroom to grab his kids. And he says, I felt something behind me. And I knew I didn't want to turn around to see it. Boom, screaming boom. A new scream mixed into the man's scream. This one was from a child. Boom, screams, boom, screams.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: I made it to my bedroom door, but it wouldn't open. And by this time, I too am screaming, throwing myself against the door, and it's still wouldn't budge. So now, he can't get to his kids.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no. Oh no.
Em Schulz: He's throwing his body into the door to get to his kids. Finally, the door opens and he tells the kids to run to the car, house still shaking and screaming everywhere. He grabs his daughter and tries to run for it, but then the door behind them flies open as if something was trying to follow them through the house.
Christine Schiefer: Holy shit.
Em Schulz: He says, this is a quote from him. It was on our trail, and I knew I couldn't let it reach us. Chase them out of the or follow them out of the house. The whole house was shaking and alive with noise and something big on our heels. When we reached the front door and out onto the porch, I slammed the front door behind us. As we got in the car, we could still hear the noise coming from inside the house. I drove away and parked at the top of the street where I could still see the house and wait for my parents to arrive. We could see it searching through the house.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: Searching for us. It's blackness moving from room to room methodically. That was our last night in the house.
Christine Schiefer: I sure hope so.
Em Schulz: Which I like that he straight... Again, this makes it feel a little more human that, because we always say, which I know it's a privileged thing to say, why didn't you just leave? And there's always all this laundry list of reasons that are all valid. But I like that this guy was like, I fled once and I came back. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. I'm the fuck out of here.
Christine Schiefer: I'm not participating any longer.
Em Schulz: And so Steven would... So that was their last night in the house. That was the last time the kids went there. But there were a few times where Steven had to go back to grab things, but he never went-
Christine Schiefer: That's the worst.
Em Schulz: He never went back alone. But something would always happen while he was there. People would either hear whispers or breathing or, anyway, so he goes to the landlady to turn his keys over, literally covered in bruises from trying to break this door down. She gaslights the shit out of him. She says, some people are meant to live in an old house like that, and some people aren't. And I never thought you were the old house type.
Christine Schiefer: She's a lunatic and she's not very nice.
Em Schulz: Like girl, you live there.
Christine Schiefer: Right, why don't you move in lady?
Em Schulz: You love this house so much. So it only took, that whole story was only 13 days, not even a full two weeks.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. I assumed it was spread out much longer.
Em Schulz: So that was bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. It started very hot. And so it only took 13 days for the family to flee. And to this day, he says the scariest thing to happen to him in that house was just the constant sound of someone breathing over his shoulder, which is so weird because all the other things did not freak him out the same way, but the breathing freaked him out.
Christine Schiefer: I can see that though. I feel like that would be just a fear that you have every day now, is someone just going to start breathing behind me and I know it's going to all start again?
Em Schulz: Well, I guess it was a more sinister, and it's letting you know it's there. And if it wanted to do more, it could at any moment.
Christine Schiefer: So what I'm saying is maybe he still fears it, if I hear that sound again, I know it's followed me and can do it in this new place.
Em Schulz: So a month later, a friend tells Steven to look up John Crow, Captain John Crow. And this guy apparently used to be the property owner. And we found out that when he lived there, the land dated back to the Civil War, and he was a slave owner. It doesn't say it in that few of words, but they danced around it nicely that-
Christine Schiefer: Don't you love that?
Em Schulz: He definitely had enslaved people on his property. And so also nearby, they were trying to... There was one source that tried to look up the property or the land near the property to see if there were other reasons for all this. They found out there was other violent death activity in other houses nearby that could have been on John Crow's original property. It could have all been the same plot at one point, but someone else was homicidal, someone else was suicidal, which that could be anything else, but people were trying to piece as much together as they could. Also nearby is Union City Park, which is said to have several mass graves on the property, so that can contribute to the spirits. Apparently, after Steven, the next family very quickly fled in the middle of the night. Other families had moved in there. For a second, I guess the land lady gave up and it became a dog kennel, which I can't imagine those poor fucking dogs.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: I don't think it's a dog kennel anymore. I think other people have tried living there also. Allegedly, at some point, the Roman Catholic Church put out a 156-page report about the house. They classified it the union screaming house haunting. And they called the house quote, "a demonic infestation, oppression, obsession and possession". But nobody asked them to do this. Apparently-
Christine Schiefer: That's very weird.
Em Schulz: Steven did not. He found out after it already happened.
Christine Schiefer: That is so odd. Why? For what?
Em Schulz: And then I obviously, I couldn't find the reports. I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Maybe they found out there were angels on the walls and they were like, we got to put this straight. Okay.
Em Schulz: Yeah. They were like, well, hang on. If we're talking about cherubs, all of a sudden Satan was cherub.
Christine Schiefer: Let me get in on this.
Em Schulz: So that's when we get to the quote, Steven says, I do believe in ghosts. I still drive past that house every once in a while. And when I get enough nerve, I look up at the upstairs window and it's still there, watching, waiting, angry. Sometimes its screams still wake me from my sleep. And in my dreams, I see a faceless man standing in that basement washing away blood from his naked body. Grunting, panting, breathing.
Christine Schiefer: Oh God. Oh my God. I just got chills from the scalp all the way down.
Em Schulz: So he's become pretty well known for this house. And neighbors still reach out to him, or people who have lived in or near the property or on the property have all reached out to him. And he's built up a little community. But he's reached out to his old neighbors and asked why they never warned him. And they all pretty much said, because I knew you wouldn't be there for that long anyway.
Christine Schiefer: They were like, we didn't want to become friends. We knew you'd be gone by the end of the week.
Em Schulz: They're like, nobody ever lasts.
Christine Schiefer: What the fuck.
Em Schulz: And the neighbors, like I said, they did confirm that they would hear screams. They constantly still see shadows and figures in the windows. And Steven himself was like, anyone who has lived in that neighborhood knows what's going on there.
Christine Schiefer: Jesus.
Em Schulz: After he left the house in an interview, someone was like, so did anything follow you after that? And remember they left in 2001. Steven says that after he left the house, something followed him until 2011, 10 years later.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no, that's a long attachment.
Em Schulz: And very poltergeist activity. He would walk into the kitchen with his drawers and cabinets all open, and one time he found all of his knives lined up in a row on the floor.
Christine Schiefer: Oh fuck, that's really bad.
Em Schulz: Interestingly, I don't know if the connection is there or not, but I'm very quickly making a connection that in 2011, the reason that it stopped after that is he had open heart surgery and died on the table, and it pretty much all went away after that.
Christine Schiefer: But survived. He died on the table, but then came back to life.
Em Schulz: Died on the table and came back.
Christine Schiefer: I was like, well, yeah, he's dead, Em, of course it stopped.
Em Schulz: But then no. So after that, nothing's really followed him. And so I wonder if this thing had some sort of commitment to follow him until his death, and then he came back and gets to redo it. I don't know. I don't know what the rules are.
Christine Schiefer: What the fuck. Yeah, maybe he severed some connection. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Maybe in that life they had a connection. And in this life, I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: It's a technicality. The guy had to move on.
Em Schulz: Yeah, it's a technicality. Yeah. I don't know. That's my guess. But it's interesting. He did say that something still follows him a little bit, but the lights go on and off, and that's really it.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my gosh.
Em Schulz: He was talking about his open heart surgery and terrifying for me. He said, I've noticed that a lot in the paranormal community. A lot of people in the paranormal world have heart problems.
Christine Schiefer: Ah! Em, stop.
Em Schulz: So I don't know. Anyway.
Christine Schiefer: Fucking fantastic, great news.
Em Schulz: I had to stare into the void a little bit after that. In 2008, Steven wrote The Uninvited: the True Story of the Union Screaming House. And later he wrote, Blessed Are The Wicked, which is the sequel to that. He's also written other books, but those two are about his experiences in the house. And after writing the book, he gained some notoriety online. He got in touch with one of the newer tenants who lived there, and her name was Helen. And she was being terrorized at the house around the time he wrote this book. Besides hearing noises like breathing next to her and someone coming up and down the stairs, some of the things that she experienced were quote, light bulbs keep blowing, the gutters catch on fire. The transformer in the front of the house blows up every few months. The hair is cut off of her daughter's dolls, though the girls and knives doing it herself. Oh, and far far worse, I'm so sorry, Christine, they got a new kitten.
Christine Schiefer: No. What?
Em Schulz: When Helen takes her granddaughter upstairs to see it in a bedroom, the granddaughter said, I found the cat dead on the floor. Its neck and back were both broken.
Christine Schiefer: Em, what the fuck?
Em Schulz: Her grandson, I don't know if it was the granddaughter or Helen who said that, but that's what they found. Her grandson says something tried to push him down the stairs, injuring him. The police turned up in the middle of the night, claiming someone had made a suicide call from the house, and Helen was the only one home and had not made the call.
Christine Schiefer: What the fucking fuck?
Em Schulz: So she's somehow having an even worse-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I wonder if she's been there longer.
Em Schulz: I think she had been, I mean, longer than 13 days. And even worse, she claims that she was being R worded by this thing. And eventually, it gets so bad that Helen spirals mentally, which again, I will caveat. This could mean an attachment. It could also mean actual mental illness that needs to be taken into account.
Christine Schiefer: I'll be honest, I'm kind of worried about this daughter too. If it's her doll's hair's getting cut off and then her cat die. I'm not saying she did it. I'm just saying, seems like some sort of psych evaluation should also be undertaken on the child.
Em Schulz: I think all facets should be looked into. Apparently, she really did start spiraling after living in the house. She started having homicidal thoughts. She started using language that was out of character. Her eyes became black.
Christine Schiefer: What?
Em Schulz: The entity not only affected her, but her friends. I guess Helen was starting to wonder if her husband was cheating on her and her friends were encouraging her to stab him.
Christine Schiefer: What?
Em Schulz: This whole friend group is-
Christine Schiefer: What's happening?
Em Schulz: All of them need to be... They need a Groupon for therapy just to-
Christine Schiefer: They need to just fly to different states and not talk again, I think.
Em Schulz: I think so. And eventually she was so possessed that she holds Steven at gunpoint.
Christine Schiefer: The Steven, the former owner?
Em Schulz: Yeah. Because he decided he was going to try to help her.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no.
Em Schulz: Because he had been there and he knew what the terror of that house was like. So he tried to help her, and then she held him at gunpoint. She ended up going to a psychiatric hospital, by the way.
Christine Schiefer: That's probably good either way.
Em Schulz: Before any of that happened, Steven did really want to help her. And so he tried to dig into the property's history. Not only do they at first find very little, but they're convinced that the library's archivists were withholding information about the house because there was so little about it.
Christine Schiefer: I don't like that.
Em Schulz: After all this, his career in the paranormal world also took off. He founded the Missouri Paranormal Research Society. He became a lecture speaker. He's been featured in docu-series. He has a radio show. They did an episode called... Well, an episode of a haunting called Fear House about his family. And in that, actually, the story expands even further to after him, where the tenants after him eventually met with Steven because Steven had a bad dream after he moved out of the house and felt like he needed to warn the next family. And all that apparently is real because even that family was interviewed on the show.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, wow.
Em Schulz: So the story continues, I guess, but it seems like no one stays longer than a year. And eventually all of them seem to find each other. And now they've got, I'm sure, they're all texting each other in a very scary group chat.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no.
Em Schulz: But it seems like they find each other very quickly. So I will say there have been skeptics who say that his book is incredibly vague. It has no witness testimonies. The random 156-page report has not really been seen by anybody. A lot of people think this was just to boost his career in the paranormal world. But I do think this is interesting, just to validate his experience is that quick, fun fact. He does do lectures about the house, and one time he opened up a Q and A to the audience, and the first person to raise her hand was the landlady.
Christine Schiefer: No, her boa just flew through the air when she stood up.
Em Schulz: And she went, Dear Lord!
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, the smell of Chanel No. 5 wafted through the crowd. What did she say?
Em Schulz: She was being very snooty with him and ready to call him out because it was making her look bad. But what she and Steven did not know was that apparently in the audience, they were almost all other previous renters.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. She was among her own tenants?
Em Schulz: Yes. And so some people pretty much went after her when she tried to attack Steven. He literally said the phrase, They took care of it.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: And then I guess just to add salt to her as a wound, apparently, Steven said that she also used racial slurs and people, quote, " People really took her down for that".
Christine Schiefer: Well, yeah.
Em Schulz: Yeah. So she's not favored by a lot of people.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: Especially all those fucking people were like, because there were no disclosure laws protecting them. All of these people, all these renters probably are like, are you fucking kidding me? You would let us in the house and knew we would leave within the year and-
Christine Schiefer: Whether she believes it or not, you'd think that if you can't even hold a tenant for more than a year, that you should at least let the next renters know. I don't know.
Em Schulz: Exactly. So the investigators, or they've had investigators come to the house if they've like wanted that. I guess in times where nobody's living there, they've had investigators, or maybe they pay the people to leave for the night. I don't totally know. But investigators have gone, they've been pushed, they've been bitten. They also smell the same stench, just driving by, it feels really weird. At least one of them has gotten a vision. I'm so sorry. They saw in one of the trees, a baby hanging by its foot.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, Em. What the fuck?
Em Schulz: And this apparently happened to a lot of people. People have had really terrible dreams, and then when they woke up, something really bad happened to something or someone that they love.
Christine Schiefer: Wait, people who are living there or just these investigators.
Em Schulz: Just the investigators will get attachment to the house.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no.
Em Schulz: So one person told their story where they had a dream. This is really going to be, I think, hard for you.
Christine Schiefer: Em it's already been so hard. I don't like the things you already warned me about.
Em Schulz: Do you want me to skip this part?
Christine Schiefer: What's it about?
Em Schulz: It's more baby stuff. She had a dream that a clown was harming babies, and then she woke up and a baby she knew was not doing hot.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: That's as vague as I can keep it.
Christine Schiefer: I appreciate that. Thank you. Sorry.
Em Schulz: And then there was an investigator named Tracy who said, the house caused a... But also, let's go back for a second and remember another clown thing, right?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I remember.
Em Schulz: All right. So an investigator named Tracy said the house also caused a group of people to absolutely deteriorate within six months from each other, people were having horrible marital problems, personal problems, mental issues. They just turned into not nice people. And for some reason, everybody turned against each other in this group that we had. In a matter of weeks, everybody was hating everybody and personally attacking everyone. This house has this effect on people. It's depressing, it's oppressive, and I think that's how it works. It just wants to suck the life right out of you. It just destroys anything good that you have.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. I mean, I'm not usually one to say I'm too scared to go somewhere. I do not want to go near this fucking place.
Em Schulz: I also don't want to go there.
Christine Schiefer: I feel like typically I'm like, "Oh, I'll check it out even if I get scratched or bitten or whatever." This is a no-go. Like the curse and stuff and attachments and hurting people you love. No.
Em Schulz: I also heard something about how there used to be sacrifices on the property, but I heard that from one kind of vague source. So I don't know how true that is. But there were also a lot of enslaved people on the property. And then I heard one source say that all of the male enslaved people, or all the enslaved men were killed on the property at one time because that Captain Crow guy thought that his wife might be sleeping with them, aka fully R wording them. Let's be clear. And so when he felt threatened, he probably did some really horrible things to them. So the only good... I tried to find something with levity here and all I could find, I know. All I could find was that this house was built using a building kit from Sears. That's all we got.
Christine Schiefer: Are you serious?
Em Schulz: Yeah. They just bought it out of catalog.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. That actually works for me because I have a picture of it, and I think it's so cute, and I know you've seen it, but I'm sending this to the group chat because you would not expect it to look this way. I mean it's adorable, I think.
Em Schulz: I don't know what picture you're going to show me.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, I'll send it to you.
Em Schulz: I think it was a cute little home.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, it has little, you can see that it was in a catalog, like Sears catalog. It's this tiny little, it just looks like a little cottage. It has little white-
Em Schulz: Gingerbread.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it looks almost like gingerbread-y. It has shutters and little white trim, scallop trim around the rooftop. And I see now what he's saying when he says, we would look at and see it upstairs, there's only one window you can see street facing upstairs. And so if you were driving past, you could look in that one window and I guess presumably, see a figure in there.
Em Schulz: And also, how did you find this address? Did you just look up Union Screaming House?
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: I must have looked up something else then, because the house I saw earlier wasn't this, but I also felt like something was off about that. I think you're right.
Christine Schiefer: The John Bauer house is what Wikipedia tells me.
Em Schulz: That's weird. I didn't even hear anything about John Bauer.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, wait, maybe that's the wrong house then.
Em Schulz: Hang on. Let me see. Because that house would make sense why they were impressed with how big it was.
Christine Schiefer: That's not right. That's not right. This is in Illinois, I'm sorry.
Em Schulz: Union Screaming House.
Christine Schiefer: I did type in Union Screaming House. So apparently Wikipedia misled me here. I'm sorry about that.
Em Schulz: Let me see address. So I have a link too.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I see it now. I'm sorry. You were right, yeah.
Em Schulz: Is it a little white house?
Christine Schiefer: It's a big, actually a big white house.
Em Schulz: Jesus Christ. We cannot find this thing. Okay, hang on.
Christine Schiefer: It looks big to me.
Em Schulz: Send me the link.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, wait. No, that's the picture of the set that they used in the haunting episode.
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: I have a real picture of it. I'm pretty sure. And it is a small white house. Is it *audio bleeped out*. That's the one.
Em Schulz: Yeah, so that house.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. It's not quite as adorable as the one I found in Illinois, but it's not... I can see now, because when I saw that other house, it looked like out of a Sears catalog, and it looked like quaint and precious. This one does look a little more ominous to me, but maybe it's just because I'm biased.
Em Schulz: Okay. So if you type that address in to Zillow, it's on Zillow.
Christine Schiefer: I'm also looking at it on Google Earth. And there's this sign on the door that says No trespassing.
Em Schulz: Yep. So this is what I saw. Let me just send this to you. The Zestimate is 130,000 compact here. Okay. Here's just the link to the Zillow.
Christine Schiefer: Man, I wish it was this other cute house I found.
Em Schulz: You made it look real cute for a second.
Christine Schiefer: Wow. Scallop lace trim on that house. That's called the Union House in a different place. All right. Let me see what you sent me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one. Oy, it's scary.
Em Schulz: Anyway, that's what the house looks like, but it's... Yeah, scary time man.
Christine Schiefer: It's off market, so.
Em Schulz: Apparently it's being remodeled, but I don't know when that post was made, so-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, I saw that. Wow.
Em Schulz: Anyway, that is the Union Screaming House.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, Em. What a frigging story, man.
Em Schulz: Thank you.
Christine Schiefer: I don't like it. I don't like that. The story was probably one of my favorites you've ever done, but-
Em Schulz: Oh!
Christine Schiefer: It scared me. It scared me a bit.
Em Schulz: Well, yeah, I watched a few of his interviews on YouTube. He has his own YouTube channel, of course, because he's like a dad. You can guess how the channel looks. It's about three videos and nothing else, but he's very, I think one of them is a compilation of times they've had done interviews. He's very, I think, proud of it.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, good for him. I'm glad he made the most of it. I guess I just always wonder, because I've been watching a lot of the Dead Files, which is one of my favorite ghost shows. It's on Discovery Plus. And basically what it is, is there's one psychic medium named Amy. And she-
Em Schulz: I love Dead Files.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Oh, you do? Okay. And then there's the guy.
Em Schulz: Who's like a cop, a New Jersey cop or something?
Christine Schiefer: New Jersey cop. And he basically has this accent, this New York, I guess he's a New York, sorry, he's NYPD, I think. But yeah-
Em Schulz: He's a tough cookie to crack.
Christine Schiefer: Literally. That's how he speaks. So it's hilarious because you have this psychic medium who's all kind of woo and like up, and ya know, just spooky.
Em Schulz: And this man's like real ass Elliot Stabler. He's-
Christine Schiefer: Literally, and they show his NYPD ring, and he's like, "I get to the bottom of the case."
Em Schulz: You want a knuckle sandwich? Last I checked-
Christine Schiefer: It's like a delight to watch because of their dynamic. It's so weird. But I'm only on season nine. I've watched every single episode through, like a crazy person. But there are times when Amy's advice, oh, sorry. So just to clarify, she does a reading of the house without knowing anything about the family or the property. And then he goes and finds genealogists and goes to the library and pulls out the actual information about the property. And then they kind of compare notes at the end with the family.
And she gives advice to the family of what to do next, whether they need to talk to a local shaman or just leave the property altogether, or one child has an attachment and that's what's causing the issues. But what I wonder is when Amy's advice is, you just need to leave. I'm like, but what about the next people? I don't understand how that works. What would you do? Because you can't just leave and not sell the house. You can't just leave it abandoned. So do you tell... I don't know. I just always wondered about that because there are times where she has said, 'This house is, this property, this land is cursed. You can't be here, no one can be here. It's just nothing good will happen on this land." And I'm like, well, so now who's going to buy it?
Em Schulz: Yeah. I feel like just how we were saying we should have some sort of spiritual Avengers team. I feel like they definitely need one of, let's point you in a direction of what to do after this.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. That's what I wonder, right? Because I feel like that's just creating trouble for now, the whole other family.
Em Schulz: Who would fucking know? Cindy.
Christine Schiefer: Cindy. I swear to God, I need to talk to this Cindy person.
Em Schulz: She would at least know. Because even if something was so haunted, you didn't morally feel like you could sell it, she probably would at least know a lawyer on how to get yourself off of having to deal with it.
Christine Schiefer: Sure. Or somebody who would want to buy it for that reason or something.
Em Schulz: There just need to be more Zak Bagans in the world, who the Amazing Crentist?
Christine Schiefer: All right, you take that back.
Em Schulz: Wait, the Amazing Crentist that was fucking The Office.
Christine Schiefer: We need more Amazing Crentist and not more Zak Bagans.
Em Schulz: Creston. Crentist is the dentist in Scranton Pennsylvania.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. You're totally right.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: The Amazing Crentist.
Em Schulz: Okay. Yeah. We need more Crestons to buy up those houses so we don't have to worry about it.
Christine Schiefer: I agree to just make the most of it. Because what if they move in and they have an infant and it's like, oh, this is just such a bad idea.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Anyway. Okay. So, Em, I have a story for you today that I'm very excited about. This is a story of Jared Fogle, AKA, the Subway guy.
Em Schulz: Christine, shut the fuck up because-
Christine Schiefer: So have to.
Em Schulz: No, no, no.
Christine Schiefer: What?
Em Schulz: I'm saying shut the fuck up because, does he have? I know there's a documentary. Was it on Discovery Plus?
Christine Schiefer: Did you just watch it?
Em Schulz: I was on your account and just watched it. So I think I put it on your queue by accident.
Christine Schiefer: No, I've been watching. I watched it months ago.
Em Schulz: So you put it on my queue. I literally watched it two nights ago.
Christine Schiefer: I put it on your queue. Wait, what?
Em Schulz: Because I forgot to... Because I logged into your Discovery Plus account, and then I forgot to switch it over to a-
Christine Schiefer: To a different profile.
Em Schulz: Yeah. So I was on your profile.
Christine Schiefer: Oh! I watched it a long, I mean, not a long time ago, but at least a month or two ago.
Em Schulz: Well, it was there, and I went, oh, I'm going to watch that. I'm sorry. I'm so excited. No, I'm so excited though, because I can finally fucking contribute because I never know where things are going. And now I can talk about it and Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Stay off my Discovery plus,
Em Schulz: Honestly, I'm so glad of all the topics that at least I'm warned ahead of time, because talk about fucking graphic.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it's not good.
Em Schulz: I mean-
Christine Schiefer: Damn it, I was so excited for my plot twists.
Em Schulz: No, no, no. I'm glad, this is going to work out just fine. Don't worry.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. Okay.
Em Schulz: This is going to be a good time.
Christine Schiefer: I finally know how you feel when I'm like, I know about this.
Em Schulz: Yeah, if anyone wants to watch that documentary, I'll tell you, if your stomach churns easy, maybe look out for the later episodes.
Christine Schiefer: It's disturbing. But I mean, I watch a lot of true crime, so I would argue in the scheme of true crime, this is one I would recommend above many shows I watch.
Em Schulz: Oh, really? Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Oh yeah.
Em Schulz: So I mean, I know it blows people's minds a lot, but what I am part of a true crime podcast, which I'm very grateful for. But the whole thing is that Christine teaches me about this stuff. So I really stay off of, I don't watch true crime shows.
Christine Schiefer: Until now.
Em Schulz: So I think I had some virgin eyes and watching that was really shocking to me. So the fact that you're just like, oh, that's my every day.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one that I've been just recommending to people because I'm like, oh, well maybe... I mean, I might just be kind of fucked up in that way of like, well, it's disturbing, but...
Em Schulz: They're all disturbing. But-
Christine Schiefer: It's all disturbing.
Em Schulz: But I never sit down and watch anything true crime. So I was like, captivated. So this is-
Christine Schiefer: Well, this is probably going to be now your gateway drug. Now you're going to be logging into my discovery and stealing all my inspiration.
Em Schulz: No, I'll be sneakier and do it on my profile.
Christine Schiefer: I watched that so that I could prepare this episode. And then you were like, I'll watch it too. Oh man.
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. That's okay. This is good. You're right. This is going to be a new fun little way of doing this. So, okay. First of all, I listened to the Red-Handed podcast episode about Jared Fogle, and if you tell me right now that you don't listen to podcasts, but you listen to this episode of Red-Handed, I'm going to kill You.
Em Schulz: I did not.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. They live in the UK and it was so funny because they had to describe what Subway was.
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: In their notes. And I was like, well, duh. That's obviously...
Em Schulz: Wait, how did they describe it? What'd they say?
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I don't know. It's a fast food chain where people order sandwiches. It was just so trippy to hear another country discuss our food and have to explain it to each other and themselves.
Em Schulz: That's very-
Christine Schiefer: And I know there are Subways internationally. I know that. But I think it's just not as... This whole Jared and all this is not really an international thing, it's a US thing.
Em Schulz: It's wild though, because that feels like a culture shock to me that people would be shocked that there's a fast sandwich place.
Christine Schiefer: Well, I don't think it was, they were shocked. I think they just had to explain what it was. And it was so weird for me as someone who has basically always known what Subway was to be like, oh yeah, I guess some people haven't heard of Subway.
Em Schulz: Gotcha, gotcha.
Christine Schiefer: I don't think feel weirded out by food. I think it's just weird to hear people describe something so obvious to us.
Em Schulz: It's to hear the mechanics of something that feels so natural at this point.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. And Subway feels so natural to me. So I was like, we have gotten Subway together on the road. I don't know what we were thinking. We were probably in a gas leak or something.
Em Schulz: Oh, Christine, you know what? Don't even with me, because I think you are confusing it with, I don't know what you were thinking, because we would go to Subway. I would get a normal, and I said normal sandwich. And then Christine on the road at a gas station would get the tuna fish, which has-
Christine Schiefer: No, we both got the tuna.
Em Schulz: Did we? Shit.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. And then Eva was like, I'll try it. And then we all got in the car and sat there and went, "What have we done? Why did we do this on a show day in the middle of Texas?"
Em Schulz: I think I was so ashamed that I removed myself, obviously, from my own memory. But also-
Christine Schiefer: I was like, Eva and I just discussed how we all realized we ordered tuna. Not one of us was safe.
Em Schulz: From a gas station Subway.
Christine Schiefer: If something was wrong from a gas station Subway in the middle of nowhere Texas.
Em Schulz: Well, I think, I also since right around that time I started personally stopping eating the tuna there, just because I've heard enough of-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, we know it's not real tuna, all that. Don't worry. I know. And I ate it anyway. Okay.
Em Schulz: I got scared because I didn't know what was in it. And the mystery meat freaked me out. So I was like, nah, not my thing anymore. So now I'm like, I'm sticking with Turkey for a little bit.
Christine Schiefer: But I mean, you're making probably the right choice. I sometimes get through a really intense subway craving, and I'm like, why? I don't know why. It just happens.
Em Schulz: Sometimes it gets ya. They have a rotisserie chicken option there that really can fuck you up in a good way. But you know what? How dare I say like, oh, I'm not going to eat the tuna at Subway, but then I go to fucking Taco Bell and eat whatever-
Christine Schiefer: No offense. You were like, oh, it's just mystery meat. And I'm like, well...
Em Schulz: There's something about mystery fish that's worse in my minds. And I don't know why, but
Christine Schiefer: I understand. I think most people had that reaction about the tuna. Eughh, then what is it? It's an alarming... It is alarming. You're not wrong. And I can't cast dispersions because I know how sick it is, what I do. Anyway, so let's get into this. So I heard the Red-Handed podcast episode, and I was like, Ooh, interesting topic. And then I listened and they did a two-parter, maybe even a three-parter. And this was before the docu-series ever came out.
Em Schulz: Oh wow.
Christine Schiefer: And I remember going, oh my God, this is so much worse than I thought. So much worse than I ever knew.
Em Schulz: So I only know about the documentary. So if there's any twists and turns outside of that I don't know them.
Christine Schiefer: Not really. I feel like then the documentary came out and I was like, okay, now I can put a face to everything. And really, by the way, if you guys want to see it, I thought it was really good. It's called Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster on Discovery Plus. So if you want to check it out, I recommend it. I think it's good. But I will say there were things in the Red-Handed podcast that did not make it into the docu-series. Just more detail basically about the specifics of what he did. So talk about stomach churning, those episodes are deeply upsetting and definitely more in depth as far as the detail of what went down. And so I remember listening to that and going, oh my God, I had no idea how... They go into all his international escapades and all that, which I don't think the docu-series really touches. I mean, they touch on it, but they don't...
Em Schulz: They let you know what happened, but they don't...
Christine Schiefer: I don't think they had room to really break it down that far. So it was just a different angle, but I thought they did a really good job. So shout out to that show. And then the docu-series. Here we go. And I'm excited, actually now. I'm sorry that I got flustered. I think I got nervous.
Em Schulz: I like when you get flustered because it means in about five minutes you'll be really jazzed.
Christine Schiefer: You're totally right. You're like, you ruffled my feathers, so to speak. And then I was like, hell yeah.
Em Schulz: But I ruffled them how you ruffle a puppy dog in the ears.
Christine Schiefer: And they get all bent out of shape.
Em Schulz: And then they get the zoomies.
Christine Schiefer: They get the zoomies. Okay, we've nailed it. I got the zoomies. Here we go. Jared Fogle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1977, and as he was growing up, he was pretty introverted. He spent most of his time playing video games indoors. He spent a lot of his time eating as kind of a coping mechanism for feeling lonely. And he gained weight steadily throughout his childhood, and this just fed more isolation and made him feel more just alone than before.
Em Schulz: Also, I like to pretend that kids are better today. I hear that maybe they're not, but that was also a time where bullying people for how they look was very okay.
Christine Schiefer: I was going to say, I think this was definitely, it's hard to say a different time, and it's not an excuse, but it is, you're right. An explanation of it was definitely more normalized to bully people and to be fat phobic. It was just the way it is the way it was.
Em Schulz: There was no one trying to correct that later in life. It was just-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it was just part of childhood. And I think bullying, even since we were young, has taken on a whole new meaning nowadays. And I know that yes, kids are still... Bullying's still a huge issue, so we're not downplaying that, but it's definitely more, I think, more adults are concerned about it now than they may have been back then.
Em Schulz: Well, because they probably got fucking bullied for it and now know what it's like.
Christine Schiefer: It's sort of finally people are coming to realize like, oh, that's probably not normal and good for our kids. And fat shaming was much more, still obviously an epidemic, but it was considered just more normal, I guess, or more normalized. And I know even teachers were given a lot more freedom to be teasing or joking with their students and that kind of thing. Even physical punishment, all of that. So it was a different time, so to speak. And so yeah, he felt really isolated. And so in 1998, he was a college student at Indiana University, and he felt like his weight was really getting in the way of him living a full life. So he was 20 years old, he weighed 425 pounds, and this made mobility really difficult for him, so it was difficult to walk more than a few steps. He was suffering from sleep apnea, which can really harm your way of life.
And I know cause many issues down the road health-wise as well. So he was exhausted. He was not getting good sleep. And so as a result, he started to fall asleep in class and fall behind. And it's just that vicious cycle that health can have, bad health can have on your life. Finally, the breaking point, the tipping point was when he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and he veered over a grass curb onto the sidewalk. And fortunately, nobody was injured, but it scared him badly enough that he was like, I need to make a drastic change stat, if I want to live a long and happy life. So on his own, without consulting a professional or anything, which I definitely don't recommend to anybody, Jared decided to go on a weight loss journey. And so the way he did this was that he cut his calories drastically. He kind of cold turkeyed it, so to speak, and began eating only 20% of the calories that he had been eating previously, which is a massive cut. And it is not good for you typically.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I feel like if he did that in today's world where people, I don't know. I like to think in today's world it would be different, but maybe not. But I feel like if-
Christine Schiefer: I don't know, have you seen those juice cleanses? That's basically that wrapped up in a really expensive fucking-
Em Schulz: That's a good point. I'd like to think someone would be like, Hey, why are we, especially since Subway ended up sponsoring him, it's like, I wonder in today's world if they would want to brag about, Hey, someone did a really unhealthy thing.
Christine Schiefer: I don't think that they framed it that way. It's like a juice cleanse. They're like, oh, well look at how many veggies you're eating and you're cleansing your body. I think it's just... It's the same.
Em Schulz: That's true.
Christine Schiefer: It's just a different packaging of a crash diet.
Em Schulz: Good point.
Christine Schiefer: It was a crash diet. And to be fair, the amount he was eating in a day wasn't three grains of rice. It was 20% of what he had been eating when he was at his heaviest. So it was still a massive cut, very dangerous. It's a crash diet, but it wasn't like... He was still eating multiple meals a day. So it didn't look on the outside as probably drastic as it seemed. But so for whatever reason, his body handled this dramatic change just fine. He lost more than half his body weight in one year, which is just shocking.
Em Schulz: Oh God.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Talk about crash diet. And so people obviously noticed this. This is really jarring. And so his campus newspaper asked to feature him in a story about his weight loss. And that is when Jared revealed his secret. And Americans love a good secret to weight loss. It's all everybody wants. I've been there, it's really tough out there, man. Everyone's got a secret. So this is his secret. Every single day he would eat the same thing. He would have a six-inch Turkey sub from Subway for lunch and for dinner, he would get a foot-long veggie delight sub. He also ate a small bag of potato chips and a diet pop. And on his sandwiches, he would keep mayo, oil, and cheese off his sandwiches. This is his meal every single day. And that is how he cut his calories, and that is how he lost half his body weight.
So when they asked why Subway, he said, "Well, it was right next door and it was easy to access." Okay, good enough, I guess.
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: He said he craved pizza and other fast food, but he forced himself to stick to his plan, and that is how he had lost all this weight. So next thing you know, Men's Health Magazine picks up this article and they featured Jared in a segment called Weird Diets That Actually Work. And when they publish that Jared's story took off majorly. He ended up on the news and then ding dong, Subway's calling. They have found the story and they are very excited.
Em Schulz: I'm sure, especially, can you imagine if you're looking for a new angle and someone just literally just says how about this?
Christine Schiefer: On a silver fucking platter. And that's what he did. It was 1999 and he filmed his first commercial for Subway, which aired January 1st, 2000. So let's think about new century, day one weight loss. I bet the gym ads and diet ads on the 1st of January 2000 were at a peak. You have to imagine. If we survive Y2K into the new millennium.
Em Schulz: Oh yeah. Okay. I mean, can you imagine the... Because they always say like, oh, if you're going to go to the gym, January and February are the worst, because that's when everyone's doing their resolutions and then eventually they taper off. Imagine when people thought that the world was truly going to end, and they were like, if I make it, I promise I'll do this. If I make it, I'll do that.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God, the resolution, you're right. It's like you're bargaining. Oh, I didn't even think of that-
Em Schulz: The resolutions of the turn of the millennia, I can't imagine how many people were in the gym on January 1st.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, because you wake up and you're like, "Well, I'm still here. I guess I have 50 more years to live. Might as well join a gym"
Em Schulz: "I guess I have to go to the gym like I promised I would."
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. That's a great point. I hadn't even thought of it that way. But yeah, so he basically started off the new millennium hot with a Subway ad that aired the first of the year. So the commercial's goal was to rebrand Subway as a healthy fast food... Well, the healthy fast food option for Americans. And it fucking worked. Of course.
Em Schulz: It did. It did. I grew up thinking Subway was healthy.
Christine Schiefer: I did not, because my mom is crazy and was like-
Em Schulz: Well, maybe not.
Christine Schiefer: ... Well. Okay. Okay, great point. But it was sort of anything where I was like, "Oh, that's healthy." Or, "That's X, Y, Z." She'd be like, "No, it's not." I'd be like, "Okay."
Em Schulz: Well, I mean, compared to McDonalds and Burger King, I mean, you can quickly go to like, "Oh, well this place has deli meats and produce." So-
Christine Schiefer: No, you're totally right. And yeah, exactly. Compared to a Taco Bell crunch wrap supreme. Sure. Yes, you're totally, totally right. And, to be fair, we ate Subway way more than any other fast food growing up.
Em Schulz: ... Me too.
Christine Schiefer: So, my mom probably also believed that.
Em Schulz: I ate it all the time. If you were on a sports team or something, somehow it would end up at games, or on buses, or for lunch at school sometimes. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. And I remember we would go... So, even when I was on, I guess we can discuss this because it's sort of topical to the story. But, when I was on Weight Watchers, which is now WW, very toxic folks, just be careful out there. When I was on Weight Watchers, I would go eat a six-inch veggie delight with no cheese, and it's basically just whole grain, whole wheat bread with a bunch of mediocre lettuce, and tomatoes, and vinegar on it. And I would just eat that and be like, "Yum, I'm eating fast food." And it was six points of my allotted eight points of the day or something insane.
Em Schulz: You might as well just eaten a bag of carrots. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And I remember being like, "Look at me." I know. It was really sad. And it was like, "Oh, look, I can log my six-inch veggie delight with no..." It just is sad to think about, but it was still prevalent. And that was when I was in college. So, that tells you something. That was after all of this scandal went down, and I was still just looking at it as a healthy fast food option. So, that tells you something.
Em Schulz: I mean, even their chip options, they try to always have the baked chips.
Christine Schiefer: And I think I misspoke. That was what he ate a baked chip.
Em Schulz: Ugh, they suck. Sorry. But, I really-
Christine Schiefer: I think they're fine. But, they're not as good as regular chips.
Em Schulz: ... I think that's why. Because I'm sure they don't suck, but they're not amazing.
Christine Schiefer: Right.
Em Schulz: They're not a burrito.
Christine Schiefer: I'm always, that's not worth it. I'd rather just eat a regular bag chips or not eat chips. I don't know. Anyway. Okay. So, he was suddenly skyrocketed to super stardom in corporate America's sense of the word. So basically, he was like the Geico Gecko. I don't know. I don't another Flo from Progressive, where everybody just knows who that is.
Em Schulz: I mean, we also grew up in the time where we unfortunately were his victim demographic.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: And, without giving too much away, he becomes very active in children's organizations and stuff like that. But I mean, the whole thing was, they promoted to kids, "Look at Jared, the Subway guy. He's going to lead you to healthy eating."
Christine Schiefer: Oh, we're getting there. Don't you worry.
Em Schulz: And I remember his face so well as a kid being like, "Jared, the Subway guy made Subway healthy. Jared, the Subway guy tells me I can have fast food and not feel bad about it. Jared, the Subway guy..." And I remember his cardboard poster everywhere.
Christine Schiefer: Everywhere.
Em Schulz: I remember every commercial. He was in all the posters. We were very-
Christine Schiefer: Do you know how many years he was on TV doing this?
Em Schulz: ... Of the market. At least a decade.
Christine Schiefer: 15 years of this.
Em Schulz: Yeah, I remember him so well. And, I feel like usually when you tell stories about, "This guy was an icon." I wouldn't fucking know. Jared, the Subway guy, I know.
Christine Schiefer: Isn't that wild? And, I wonder, because I feel like my sister... I'm just wondering if I had asked her, she'd be like, "Oh yeah, he's familiar." But I don't think it would be as prominent, because we were that exact age where we were preteens, this came out. It was just a huge deal. And also, noting that at the time that we were that age, we couldn't just skip commercials. Commercials were on-
Em Schulz: Yeah, you had to watch them.
Christine Schiefer: ... Constantly. We had to watch them. And so, if it was on TV, you had to sit through it.
Em Schulz: But also, he started some organization, I remember they did promos in Nickelodeon and Disney. So, it was fully targeted at children. Again, at a time when you had to watch the commercials. I mean, everyone knew Jared, the Subway guy, everyone.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. Yes. And we're not trying to gaslight you. If you're like, "Who's Jared, the Subway guy?"
Em Schulz: Allison, if you're listening, my poor girlfriend.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God,
Em Schulz: My poor girlfriend, she's always the last on pop culture. So, I bet she would
Christine Schiefer: She doesn't seem to mind, to be honest.
Em Schulz: Let me text her. I'll give you an answer at some point in the show.
Christine Schiefer: Well, I think she'll know. I think she'll know. She had to witness me eating my six point veggie delight sandwich. So, I think...
Em Schulz: Let's see. You never know.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. Listen-
Em Schulz: Who is the Subway guy? That's what I said.
Christine Schiefer: ... She's going to Google it.
Em Schulz: I said, "Do you know Jared, the Subway guy?"
Christine Schiefer: Oh, okay.
Em Schulz: Okay. Anyway.
Christine Schiefer: So anyway, he becomes this sensation. People are suddenly totally on board, not just for the subs, mostly for Jared himself. Overnight he became a beloved celebrity. He was on Oprah, he was on all the talk shows, he was doing circuits, he was doing ads for all these different commercials. It was crazy. And it was this bizarre phenomenon, because usually people don't just become famous from being in an ad, but.
Em Schulz: For eating sandwiches, that's my dream. Are you kidding me?
Christine Schiefer: And, I know. And to clarify also, he's not super hot, or it's not like, oh, you would see-
Em Schulz: He's a dude.
Christine Schiefer: ... He's just your average Joe. And I think that was why this worked so well, is everyone was like-
Em Schulz: He was human.
Christine Schiefer: ... "Oh, I can relate to that."
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: I could be that guy. I could lose 200 pounds. And so, it just seemed to really hit America in that right spot somehow. It was a story people aspired to. And at first, for obvious reasons, Jared was like, "Well, these are my 15 minutes of fame. I'm sure they won't last." But, as we know, his momentum did not slow down. He signed a contract with Subway for an annual 1 million dollar salary in exchange for ads and public appearances.
Em Schulz: Damn.
Christine Schiefer: I know. Immediately getting a million dollars a year just for that. Over the next 15 years, he would do 300 ads for Subway. And, I mean, also they show them in the docu-series, but he was doing commercials with famous athletes.
Em Schulz: Oh yeah. The NFL.
Christine Schiefer: Big celebrities. The NFL.
Em Schulz: I remember seeing football players with him, and he would throw a subway with them. It was like-
Christine Schiefer: Yes. And it was so cheesy, but people ate it up, because it was just... I don't know why, but it worked.
Em Schulz: ... I ate it up. I ate it up.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, me too.
Em Schulz: I think it really was just because we all knew him, as you're saying, he was so human to us, and he just stumbled onto the television.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. You know what? That's also part of it. And remember American Idol came out right around this time, and people just loved the concept of the girl next door, "You could be this instant celebrity. You could just be plucked from a diner like Kelly Clarkson and suddenly skyrocketed to fame." For whatever reason, in the early 2000s, we were so obsessed with that concept.
Em Schulz: It was very wild. The early 2000s really was a time where before that nobody processed anybody could be someone.
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: It didn't even occur. And then all of a sudden... Even High School Musical was like, "You can be a basketball player and sing?"
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: It blew people's fucking minds.
Christine Schiefer: Whoa, that's so true. And also, I feel like we were of the generation where our parents generation was saying to us, "You can be anything you put your mind to. You can be the president. You can be a rockstar. You can be the next, I don't know, famous math guy." I have no idea.
Em Schulz: You could literally eat a fucking sandwich enough times and then end up throwing a football with a NFL player. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yes. You're totally right. And even the sweepstakes at the time, remember, were always on cereal boxes. Like, "You could be flown to Hawaii and meet Tony the Tiger and be featured in a commercial." And people were like, "I want that."
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: I don't know what the psychology is there, but we were obsessed with it. And I guess now with people going viral and stuff, it's kinda the same, but.
Em Schulz: I mean, hello TikTok.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: I mean, to go from exactly the early 2000s of shocked that anyone could make it, to people make it every fucking day now.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It's such a weird turnaround of now we just assume anybody can be famous.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Just a wild thought. So, yeah. Anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to go on a tangent, but that was the best way to put it. People were just so enthralled with this idea, you could just be suddenly skyrocketed to fame. And, it happened. And so, just to give you an idea of how successful this was. In 2013, Subway's chief marketing officer credited Jared with up to one half of the entire corporation's growth in that time.
Em Schulz: Holy shit.
Christine Schiefer: Massive.
Em Schulz: Which by the way, going back to what you just said too about how at the time people couldn't understand that anyone could just make it like this, I think the only reason that he had profits like that or stats like that is because at the time that was so rare.
Christine Schiefer: Right.
Em Schulz: I think today, if someone lost a bunch of weight eating Subway, best they would get is Subway would collaborate with them on a TikTok. And I think-
Christine Schiefer: Yes, I was going to say, it would be a blip on the social media radar.
Em Schulz: ... You'd be like, "Oh, did you hear that one guy? Did you see that one viral video?" So I feel like maybe now it's-
Christine Schiefer: If you were sick and were sleeping through it, and you woke up next week, you've missed the whole thing. It's too late.
Em Schulz: ... And also, if you posted at the wrong time, no one would even fucking see it.
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: So, I think maybe it was a bigger deal then, because there was no such thing as oversaturation.
Christine Schiefer: That's a great point.
Em Schulz: There wasn't internet. There wasn't-
Christine Schiefer: And again, because we didn't have a choice, we just had to watch what was in front of us. So it wasn't like we could change channel... Or you could change a channel, but you couldn't just skip anything you wanted or avoid anything.
Em Schulz: ... There wasn't an algorithm. I mean, I had Direct TV, so I was privileged.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, lucky duck.
Em Schulz: But there were some people where you only had so many channels. What was there-
Christine Schiefer: "Some people," yeah me. I got PBS Kids.
Em Schulz: ... Well, either you watched it, or you didn't fucking watch it. Either you were in the know or you weren't. And there was no swipe for a half an hour and find a hundred different people getting famous right now.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah,
Em Schulz: It's just beyond.
Christine Schiefer: It's out of control. It feels so distant and different. And I'm sure a lot of you listening are like, "Oh, yep. Been there."
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: It's probably very familiar. So, just to give you an idea, and Jared's first year with Subway, Subway's profits grew 18%, just in that one year.
Em Schulz: Ooh. Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: Then the following year, an additional 16%. So just to recap, 34% profit increase by bringing Jared Fogle into their branding in the first two years. Yes.
Em Schulz: I also wonder if that was because, like we just said, this was the 2000 Y2K resolution where everyone was really dead set on losing weight.
Christine Schiefer: But the only reason they said they were healthy is because they brought him on. They had never branded as that before. So you mean a combo of him coming on board and the 2000s? Oh, for sure. I think it was the timing.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I think it was a perfect storm that all of a sudden, a bunch of people, probably more than usual, even if by 1%, all these people now want to lose weight because they have this big resolution. And then this one guy shows up and is like, "Well, you don't have to do anything but eat sandwiches from Subway."
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly. I think it was a combo of the two. So 34% profit increase in the first two years, which is just outrageous. So, America just fucking fell in love with this guy. And, Jared's ads usually featured what they called, this is the official name of them, his famous fat pants, is genuinely the name of them. He would hold them up to show how big he used to be, and I think the cardboard cutout had that as well. And-
Em Schulz: Yup. There were cardboard cutouts of his pants and you could stand in them.
Christine Schiefer: ... Stand behind them. Oh yeah, that was a big photo op. God, it's outrageous. So, they would obviously compare his current size to the pants, and that was the big thing, the big shtick. And, Jared was marketed as this inspiration to aspire to, but really he felt just a lot of shame about his weight previously. And, when describing his fat pants, he said, "It's a good reminder for me obviously. People are always fascinated to see the pants. It's a great visual aid, especially when I'm talking to kids, to have a good message for them about the mistakes that I made." So, it's really fat phobic, obviously, very shame filled rhetoric.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And like, "Oh, well, I made all these mistakes and children shouldn't make these mistakes."
Em Schulz: "And I was wrong and bad." Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And it's just very already kind of fucked up. But people were eating this up, so to speak, and Jared ended up founding a charity called The Jared Foundation. Love that for him. The Jared Foundation. I guess, you have to go with that, because everyone knows you by your other name. But, The Jared Foundation.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Subway guy or fat pants.
Christine Schiefer: Right. Yeah, you're right. I guess, out of the three options, this is the least bad. And so, what he would do, the goal of this organization was to combat childhood obesity in the United States. And so, he would travel to schools with his "fat pants" to teach children how important it is to eat healthy. And, this foundation ultimately became not really helpful to anybody. More just a tax write off scheme for Jared. He actually pledged over 2 million dollars in grants to combat childhood obesity. And in the end, the charity only gave out $100,000.
Em Schulz: Oh, okay.
Christine Schiefer: And he had pledged 2 million.
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Does Allison know who the Subway guy is?
Em Schulz: I just saw something come through and it was not her, so.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, bummer.
Em Schulz: Oh, well.
Christine Schiefer: So people, like we said, thought of him as the every man, "If he could do it, so can I." And he had this average Joe look, he was even considered inspiring and dedicated because after his talks at different schools, he would stay, he would answer questions, he would hang out with the kids, play ball, chat with them, answer any questions they had, take photos. And, throughout this, of course, he's doing circuits of the United States, and he's meeting all these different people. And, in 2001, he married his first wife, whose name was Elizabeth Christie, and they eventually divorced in 2007 when Elizabeth reportedly fled and filed a restraining order against Jared. And, all we know about that is that Elizabeth's friends told the media that Jared had a "mean streak."
Em Schulz: Really?
Christine Schiefer: Which is a scary and alarming red flag. And unfortunately, we don't know more.
Em Schulz: They didn't talk about that in the documentary either.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. I was going to say, I'm not sure what of this is from where, as far as like, a lot of it is just from my head, not the stats, but some of the stories and stuff. So I don't know what's from docu-series, what's from the podcast.
Em Schulz: I mean, I do also wonder, was it because of his skyrocket to fame or going from a "loser" to all of a sudden-
Christine Schiefer: Well, no. Oh, you mean that... Because he met her several years into this.
Em Schulz: ... Yeah, I'm saying, I wonder if where his anger issues started from.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I see. I see. I see.
Em Schulz: Was it because he's now a diva, or was he always this way? Or, I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. Is he now finally acting out his mean streak he's always had? Who knows? But, either way, all we know is that he apparently had a "mean streak" and his first wife fled. So, not many people talked about this. And, Jared just continued to bask in his success. One day while traveling for work, Jared was struggling to write up a speech he had to give the following day. And he met this man named Russell Taylor, who worked as the youth market director for the American Heart Association. And Jared was like, "Oh, perfect, somebody who can help me with this speech." So, he asked for help writing this last minute keynote. And Russell wrote it, and it turned into this smash hit. And Jared was like, "I need you to work with me from now on. Come join me. Join the Jared Foundation." And, from then on, Jared and Russell worked together on events, and eventually Russell became the director of the Jared Foundation.
So, as Em knows, and if you've watched this docu-series, you know, they had a really weird relationship. I don't, again, remember how much of this they talked about on the actual show, but they had a really weird relationship. They traveled together constantly. And according to Russell, Jared required him to drink heavily. He spent thousands of dollars on wine just to basically pressure Russell into drinking a lot as part of the job.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Jared would rent hotel rooms for them to share when they traveled. And, one night, this is the start of the downhill in this relationship, he took Russell to a strip club, and after spending thousands of dollars on dancers, he told Russell he would pay him to convince a dancer to come back to their hotel for sex. So, Russell worked it out with one of the dancers, and they both paid her for sex that night. And from then on, the two consistently engaged in sexual activities with other people, but together.
Em Schulz: Yeah, it sounds like he was into watching or something.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah, he had some proclivities. And, it seems that that was one of them.
Em Schulz: Well, it sounds like he liked either watching or being watched and-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, there was definitely an element of that. So that's probably exactly nail in the head of why he would force him to share a hotel room.
Em Schulz: ... Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: And so, Jared was just strange in general. It sounds like, of all people to rocket to fame, this is not a good one, because he took his power, and money, and influence and just fucking ran with it. And suddenly, all the shit that was probably buried in his subconscious just came tunneling forward. And okay, I'm not get ahead of myself, let's get back to the notes, Christine. Okay? So, Jared was a seriously strange man in general. He liked to hold power over people. He would make really weird demands of Russell, forcing him to eat gluten even though he had a really severe gluten allergy, or gluten intolerance. And it made him so sick. But Jared just forced him to eat it, which is bizarre.
Em Schulz: I don't know if this is a psychology thing, but I'm getting a vibe that it feels like maybe he just felt like... This isn't justifying it, I'm trying to analyze that. I feel like maybe he never got to be in control or be seen as, gross, the alpha before, because he was always "the loser," so maybe he's really into this dominance thing or something.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Ew. Okay.
Em Schulz: Finally having power. I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, forcing a grown man to-
Em Schulz: Hurt himself.
Christine Schiefer: ... Eat a food that hurts his tummy. What a weird thing to be so aggressive about.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: But yeah, it was just a very, very toxic situation. Jared also would call himself daddy when he spoke to Russell. So, there's clearly a power dynamic there of like, "This is what I consider myself around you. You have to do what I say." Just very weird. And at this point, Jared started making jokes and dropping hints about, "Here we go, if you haven't caught on yet, here's the big gross twist."
Em Schulz: The aha.
Christine Schiefer: The what?
Em Schulz: The aha moment.
Christine Schiefer: The aha moment. He starts making jokes and dropping hints about being attracted to children. And, Russell would just laugh it off at first, even though he knew Jared was serious about this. And then, Jared took it further and started getting Russell to find him child pornography on the internet.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: And whenever the pair would hire sex workers from then on, Jared would offer the women that they hired even more money to find him children who had been forced into sex work. And Jared would tell them, "The younger, the better." So, the pair of them took the Jared Foundation International. And, I alluded to this, but basically he told people his, I don't know, investors, that it was time to fight childhood obesity on a global scale. So, they went straight to Southeast Asia, countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and immediately began participating in exploitative sex tourism, where they would go and pay sex workers premiums to find them victims of child sex trafficking, and would just openly engage in this and discuss it with one another. And, it just became their norm when traveling. But of course, as we've also alluded to, Jared had access to children in the U.S. as well, because he had a little something called the Jared Foundation for fighting childhood obesity.
And so, his whole thing, his whole premise was, "I'm going to elementary schools, middle schools, and teaching kids about how to be healthy, and playing basketball with them, and answering their questions, and giving them hugs, and letting them stand in my pants, and taking photographs together." It's just sick.
Em Schulz: Well, as you were saying earlier, is that he would stay later too.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: And he was-
Christine Schiefer: He was so dedicated and engaged with the children.
Em Schulz: ... And I'm sure he would call it for some reason, networking or connecting with a client. He could come up with whatever he wanted, and it was just-
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, he's working overtime to make sure that he's saving all these children from the mistakes he made. It's so sickening. And, of course, of all people, it's like devil and disguise, he's just there "helping children."
Em Schulz: ... Again, he's just an average Joe. So, he's unassuming in both ways.
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: No one thought he'd be famous and no one thought he'd be dangerous.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly. Exactly. He looked just so average. And I think nowadays we'd be maybe a little more heightened awareness, I like to think. But, who knows? I mean, people get by all the time without getting caught for things. So, he of course, began victimizing children that he met through the Jared Foundation, Russell Taylor, his cohort, had recently married a woman named Angie Taylor. And, Angie Taylor now goes by Angie Baldwin. And she had two daughters. So these daughters were interviewed on the docu-series, I just found them very, I don't know, engaging to watch. They were very... What's the word? Just well-spoken. They were just very great at being interviewed. So, at the time, Hannah was 10, and Christian was 13 when their mom met Russell, their new stepdad. So, they moved into a beautiful home with Russell, and things seemed great at first. I don't know if they talked about this, Jared actually owned Russell's house.
Em Schulz: Oh, no, I didn't know that.
Christine Schiefer: And would use it as leverage, of course, against Russell to get him to do what he wanted.
Em Schulz: Well, I also feel like if you're making him get really, really drunk, I feel like he's doing a lot of shameful things you're later holding over his head.
Christine Schiefer: Right. Exactly. Right. He has a lot of-
Em Schulz: Well, what's shameful when you're already r-wording children?
Christine Schiefer: ... Well, that's different.
Em Schulz: God, okay.
Christine Schiefer: I know. So, Hannah and Christian said in an interview that their childhood looked idyllic from the outside. According to Hannah, it looks like we were all doing well. We were going on vacations, we were moving up in the world, but all of that was a facade because our lives really started to take a turn for the worse. So at first, they thought Russell was pretty cool. This is their new stepdad. He's moving them into a really cool house. He worked with the Subway guy, and they're that exact age where all their friends are like, "Oh my god, you know Jared, the Subway guy." And they're like, "Yeah."
Em Schulz: I totally would've. I mean, we were also that demographic. I would've been like, "Wow. You know him"
Christine Schiefer: Absolutely. A celebrity.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And, they're in Indiana, so it's like, how many local celebrities are around? And so, they thought, "This is pretty cool. We're getting social points. And, he's making good money. We have this beautiful home." And, this is pretty quickly going to become a nightmare for them, because their mom, Angie, and their stepdad, Russell, start grooming them to ease them into, let's call it an all adult world. So, apparently their family motto was, "Age is just a number. As long as you're mature enough to do it, you're going to do it."
Em Schulz: I want to vomit.
Christine Schiefer: That's fucking sick. It's sick. So, their mom and stepdad would host parties where they encouraged the girls to drink and do drugs. I mean, these kids are preteens. They're in middle school. They're very young. It's very disturbing. Russell would constantly tease the girls for being virgins as children. He told them... It's sick. He told them at their age, they should be exploring more. I mean, they're just fully grooming these children. In the meantime, Jared became more of a looming presence in their lives. He would make sexual remarks about them. He would make inappropriate comments about their friends, some of whom were as young as eight years old. He would look at photos of their friends and rate them all by who he thought was the most attractive, and ask them to send more photos of their friends.
Em Schulz: Well, he also, at one point, I think, they said in the documentary too, when you were saying the stepdad was picking on them for being virgins, he started leaving sex toys in their room for them with... He started leaving a note saying, "Have fun." Or some horrid something.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, he would leave vibrators in their room. And write notes that said things like, "You should try this out." And then when they would be like, "What the hell?" He'd be like, "It's just a joke. Ha ha ha." And, their mom was like, "Oh, whatever." It just was so grotesque. I mean.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: Yes, yes.
Em Schulz: Also, I'm sorry for speaking over you so much, I just never get to contribute, so.
Christine Schiefer: No, I love it. Because honestly, I'm glad you mentioned that, because it'll come back, but it definitely fits here better.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: And so, yeah, they were getting fully groomed into this. Of course, as children, they're like, "What the fuck is going on?" They don't know what's happening. And they're being pressured to drink and do drugs under their own roof. It's all very, very toxic and abusive. So, in late 2013, captain of the Indiana State Police, Chuck Cohen, got a call from a state trooper whose friend had concerns that someone they knew was distributing bestiality porn, and that someone's name was Russell Taylor. So at the time, possessing images and videos depicting bestiality was actually not a crime, only the act of bestiality was. So, investigators looked into this and they saw that the messages had been sent from Russell Taylor, and it was a woman performing sexual acts with a horse. And so, they took this to get a warrant to search the Taylor's home, and that's where they found images of his wife, Angie, engaged in sexual acts with animals.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: And they thought, "Wow, this is pretty bad." But little did they realize it would get far worse than that, because they also, as they're going through the house discover hidden cameras built into different facets of the home, clocks, other things, just places where you wouldn't know they were there. And so, of course, Russell's like, "Oh, it's for safety to prevent theft." Which is super weird considering the cameras were pointing at his stepdaughter's beds.
Em Schulz: Oh, that's a rough explanation he's going to have to put together.
Christine Schiefer: Yep. Precisely. And this is where I was going to mention, he would leave sex toys on their beds, and when we think, "Oh, there were cameras pointing at their beds." You could conclude what's happening here. He had cameras... Investigators describe the places where cameras were located as, "Places that were intimate for children, such as beds, showers, and any space where they might be undressing." So I mean, talk about absolutely violating... Just to find this out. And, ultimately, investigators did find a video produced of clips from all of these different cameras put together of children involved in sex acts, children just undressed, changing clothes, just a big back to back montage of this. And so, this is just horrific to hear Christian and Hannah explain, they were brought in to identify not only themselves, but their friends in these videos. So, police basically brought them in, they didn't know what was going to happen, and then they pull out these videos and are like, "Who's this person?" "Oh, it's my best friend wearing no clothes." It's just so violating, so horrific.
Em Schulz: And I'm assuming this eventually got into the hands of Jared. Is that where we're going with this?
Christine Schiefer: Not yet.
Em Schulz: Okay. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: So this is the point where the kids are kind of putting it together like, oh, okay. It's starting to click why our stepdad is such a creeper, why our friends are so uncomfortable around him in our house. This is what he's been doing this whole time. The police blurred out their bodies in the videos, but they had to identify the faces of all these different victims who were themselves and their friends. And at first, one of the girls said she was frozen because she couldn't believe what was happening to her. And then she remembered, "I think I was starting to reconcile what was really going on. Everything that ever happened with Russell finally made sense." So Russell Taylor at this point was arrested, and immediately Jared and the Subway corporation released statements. And Jared's statement read, "I was shocked to learn of the disturbing allegations against Mr. Taylor. Effective immediately, the Jared Foundation has severed all ties with Mr. Taylor." So basically, yes.
Em Schulz: Covered his own ass.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly. And you were totally right. Jared was a big part of this grotesque operation that Russell and Angie were enacting under their own roof. Jared was instigating and perpetuating and getting the content from them as far as...
Em Schulz: Well, because you said earlier, because I don't remember this part from the documentary, you said that he was paying him to collect child pornography for him.
Christine Schiefer: Yes.
Em Schulz: So that was what this was, like a home project to then give it to him?
Christine Schiefer: Yes. He was funneling this back to Jared and since he was also part of this whole underage operation as far as going abroad and also engaging with children, minors, he was also part of this, but ultimately, yes, this was being sent then to Jared for his consumption.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: It's just sickening. It was like Jared had access to these children, was like, okay, I'll exploit that. And their stepdad is totally 110% on board. Great. And then he gets caught and Jared's like, "That's sick." So Subway was like, oh God, I cannot believe this has happened. They said they had no affiliation, they were disgusted by these claims, they were so glad Jared had taken such swift action. And then they were like, phew, glad we dodged that bullet. And once again, they had no idea what they were getting into because pretty soon the other shoe dropped. And that's when investigators were going through Russell's correspondence while building his case, and they found that Russell had texted an explicit image of a child to, da da da da, his boss, Jared Fogle. And they were like, uh-oh part of this.
So turns out, Jared, actually, this is very fucked up, knew this child personally through the Jared Foundation, and so they could very easily link this directly back to Jared. And Jared had received this picture in the text and replied enthusiastically. And thankfully, that's all the information I have on that. Russell told police that he was only committing some of his crimes to meet Jared's demands, which is not a good... Yes, I believe that. But I don't think that that's an excuse at all.
Em Schulz: Right, not as helpful as you thought it was.
Christine Schiefer: Right, exactly. It's like, yeah, I know.
Em Schulz: I only half mean it.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. He's like, well, I did it for that. Does it matter? Fucking A. So on July 7th, 2015, investigators raided Jared's home and they tried to avoid media attention. The people leading the investigation didn't even tell the officers whose house this was because they wanted to keep this under wraps. But of course, the media found out, even though they went super early in the morning, the media found out, people gathered in the street. I mean full, helicopters, vans, full circus situation. And there are videos of them carrying out just stuff from his house. They removed 5.6 terabytes of information stored on thumb drives, computers, multiple phones, and the nation is shocked, but they're kind of like, I don't think he would do that.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: Public opinion is like, Jared wouldn't do that.
Em Schulz: In today's world, QAnon would be like, it was planted.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no. Yes, Q... You said QAnon. For some reason I was thinking Anonymous, and I was like, I don't think they would say that.
Em Schulz: Oh, no. Okay. Anonymous would absolutely help us get this guy.
Christine Schiefer: Anonymous is the one who found it. Okay, got you. Yes, QAnon would be like, "Hillary did it. It's the emails." My nurse said that to me the other day. I was like, "I can't do this right now." I was like, "You just put a needle in my arm, I'm vulnerable to you right now. Please don't tell me more about Hillary."
Em Schulz: Yeah, exactly. Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: So anyway, the nation was shocked. People were on Jared's side. Alot of people. One investigator said, "In the public's eye, people were still siding with Jared and believing he had been duped." And I mean, to be fair, they had Russell Taylor to point at. They could be like, "Oh, it was that creepy guy he worked with, not him." So one journalist even said when the story broke, she didn't believe it because Jared Fogle was considered one of the most trusted people in the country. That's so alarming.
Em Schulz: Well, also on top of it, think of all of the parents that would have to reconcile with the fact that they left their kid with him, which is like, I know that's not at all how they should think about it, but they would have to... There's got to be a bit of mob mentality, denial of like, "But I would've been able to spot that, and my kid..."
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: I want my kid to be safe. I didn't fail my kid.
Christine Schiefer: Nobody wants to feel like they've been duped or tricked by somebody they trusted or especially let their children trust. Yeah. So exactly, people wanted to be in denial of this, and they were. And so as Jared's house was raided on national television, a woman named Rochelle Herman, who is the main character pretty much of the docu-series, calls into her local Florida news station, ABC7, and says, "I have something to say." Now, Rochelle had met Jared Fogle years earlier when she worked as a radio station host and had interviewed him. And this is from an article on investigationdiscovery.com, just to give you an idea. So this article said, "Herman got her first disturbing glimpse into Fogle's mind as they shot the interview at a middle school." According to the journalist, Fogle whispered into her ear at one point, quote, "Jared leaned over just out of the blue and tells me how hot he thought middle school girls were."
Em Schulz: Like, the boldness, you don't even know this fucking person.
Christine Schiefer: Shocking.
Em Schulz: It's not like this is Russell Taylor where you have built some weird connection.
Christine Schiefer: Like rapport.
Em Schulz: To go up to a stranger like that, that's the level of the narcissist cockiness that I think must have come from fame, because he really thought he was untouchable enough.
Christine Schiefer: Untouchable.
Em Schulz: With all of the... how quickly he could have gotten fired, but he thought, there's no way I'll ever get fired. I can go up to a stranger and say, I like middle school children and nothing will happen.
Christine Schiefer: And nothing will happen. And he did that and she recalls, "I just shut down. It was such a shock to me." She was so shocked. Basically, her reaction was, "I know I need to do something. I can't just let this sit here." But she knew no one was just going to believe her or say like, "Oh, you must have misheard." So her plan was, which has gotten a lot of controversy over the years, it was to start a relationship with Jared and ultimately try and basically go undercover and try to get the proof she needed to go to authorities.
So according to Rochelle, "I knew I needed to get Jared on tape in his own words, his own voice expressing his desires, his confessions, and especially even his plans for children," she explains. "It wasn't the most thought out plan, but once the evidence was acquired, I could hand it over to the authorities."
So Rochelle claims she maintained their relationship to gather evidence. And to her credit, she does have now infamous recordings of Jared discussing very dark shit about children, and they play these in the docu-series as well. They're deeply disturbing. Rochelle submitted these recordings to the FBI, but they were like, "Well, it's not enough evidence. He's just talking about it." You know what I mean? He's just saying stuff that's in his head, it's not proof that he really did anything.
So in May, 2013, which was two years before Jared's home would be raided, Rochelle went to local police in Sarasota and was like, "The FBI's not doing anything. I gave them this information, and this guy's still running around out there." And she showed them the recordings. And of course they were disgusted, but they were like, "This guy lives in a totally different state. We have no jurisdiction. We're sorry. If the FBI has this, that's like all we can do."
So Rochelle told them if the FBI failed to act for much longer, she would go to the news herself. And it wasn't much long after that that the FBI showed up at the radio station and confiscated all of the evidence she had collected against Jared. So she basically had no recourse. So they raided her home as well, and they told her to stay quiet or she would be charged with impeding an ongoing investigation. So now she is just in the worst possible spot because...
Em Schulz: Well.... Go ahead, sorry.
Christine Schiefer: No, no, no. I was just going to say, she knows all these things, there's just nothing she can do.
Em Schulz: Well also, and the first time she went to the police, I think they also forced her to continue going undercover because I think she was so fed up with having to hear all these, she didn't want to do it any more.
Christine Schiefer: Sick things.
Em Schulz: She was like, this is where I've left it. And then they said, well, under this law, you have to get permission. You have to get permission to record somebody. And since you didn't do that, you technically came to us and admitted you broke the law. So if you want to stay out of getting arrested, you are now going to be an undercover informant for us, and you have to keep this up.
Christine Schiefer: I cannot believe I forgot that. They basically coerced her into being their undercover pawn.
Em Schulz: And then just to do nothing with the recordings until she threatened to leak them. And then they stole them and then still seemingly did to nothing for a while.
Christine Schiefer: And there were times where she said she had to leave her children at home alone because the FBI were like, you need to bring this to us right now.
Em Schulz: And it'd be like 02:00 in the morning.
Christine Schiefer: And she's like, my children have nobody to watch them. And they were like, "We don't care." And so she was put in this horrible position. And to be fair, yes, she was like, I'll do this cool undercover thing, which probably not the wisest, but I mean, I think she did have... I think she had good intentions. It's hard to know. But I mean, I see where she was coming from. It's a little hair-brained, something I would do, bulldozer, I get it. But it did not work out well for her ultimately.
So she basically just had to sit there and watch Jared thrive on television all while she knew everything about him, but knew no one would believe her. And this whole thing was so stressful that it tore Rochelle's life apart. She said, "When someone undergoes such a stressful situation for so many years, it makes you susceptible to other things." And she was diagnosed with a chronic pain disorder, which has been nicknamed the Suicide Disease because of how painful it is. And she had to quit her job. She had debilitating PTSD.
And so finally, when she sees on the news that his home is being raided, she's like, finally, finally this is happening. Someone is taking him down. So that's when she calls ABC News and says, "I have something to say." So investigators needed her to build their case, but because they worried that the public opinion would be so on his side, that they needed people to basically come forward as anti character witnesses and be like, "This guy fucking sucks."
So the Assistant District Attorney said, "My conclusion was that Jared Fogle was fully involved in criminal activity with Russell Taylor. My question was, was I going to be able to hold him accountable for the totality of what he did?" So the defense didn't argue that Jared was not a pedophile, but they said he was a good candidate for treatment. And a psychologist testified that Jared became a sex addict when he gave up his old eating habits, like trading one addiction for another. That's not how that works. They also said Jared was only guilty of mild pedophilia because most of his victims were 16 or 17.
Em Schulz: Oh my God. I thought you were going to say something even more fucked up that, well, the others were international or something.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no, no.
Em Schulz: But I feel like some sort of bullshit like that is going to be part of the defense or could be part of the defense. But I mean, he's been part of the Subway thing for 15 years. I don't know when his first time with a child happened, but it seems like for the last 15 years he's been causing a lot of fucking problems. This isn't a minor issue.
Christine Schiefer: Deep-seated damage. Yeah, mild pedophilia is a wild thing to say.
Em Schulz: And one kid, by the way, would be more than minor pedophilia.
Christine Schiefer: Too many. Not mild. Right, exactly.
Em Schulz: It's like, well, some of them were 16.
Christine Schiefer: There's no such thing as mild pedophilia.
Em Schulz: Well, some of them weren't.
Christine Schiefer: Right, exactly. It's an insane thing to argue. It's like they had nowhere, they just needed to persuade enough people. But of course, the AD was not buying it. He said, "I think you can have a number of addictions and you're not suddenly going to find someone underage sexually attractive." Yes. So texts and recordings, like the ones Rochelle took, also proved Jared was attracted to children as young as six. So they had this on audio. This wasn't going to help his case any.
Em Schulz: Younger than six, or as young as six. But also it's just minor pedophilia, so.
Christine Schiefer: But it's just mild.
Em Schulz: It's not that big of a deal, and everyone's being dramatic.
Christine Schiefer: It's not a big deal. He's just like you. No, he's not! So multiple women like Rochelle came forward and said he had talked openly to them about his attraction to young children. So he's doing this all over the place.
Em Schulz: Well, he's so willing to do it to a stranger.
Christine Schiefer: To strangers.
Em Schulz: Right before she interviews him on television.
Christine Schiefer: Least shocking thing ever that he's telling other people too.
Em Schulz: Which also feels like a dominance play, right? Because she's about to have to interview him and be on, but he knows...
Christine Schiefer: And fucking push her... Yeah.
Em Schulz: He knows he's in her head now.
Christine Schiefer: ... off kilter. Yeah, exactly. So in the recordings Rochelle has of their phone calls, he said things like he would love to put a video camera in an elementary school locker room, quote, "at the very least." So prosecution said this demonstrated a long-standing and persistent pattern of behaviors, not just one moment of bad judgment. They said, "This is about using wealth status and secrecy to illegally exploit children." So in the end, he was charged with conspiracy to distribute and receive child pornography and victimizing, quote, "prostituted minors." The judge sentenced Jared to 15 years and eight months in prison with a minimum of 13 years served. And prosecution had recommended a shorter amount of time, and the judge was like, nah, I want to do longer, which is really rare for a judge to do. But Jared said this was absolutely unfair because the judge had two young daughters, and Jared felt the judge was, quote, "prejudiced against pedophiles."
Em Schulz: Guess what?
Christine Schiefer: Hello?
Em Schulz: Most judges are, and all judges should be.
Christine Schiefer: I would hope. At the very least, I would hope so.
Em Schulz: It's like, well, he doesn't like pedophiles, so I think this is a bias case because he's judging a pedophile.
Christine Schiefer: It's like saying I murdered someone's dog, but that guy has a dog, so he can't judge me fairly. It's like, wait, that argument is insane. It doesn't make any fucking sense.
Em Schulz: Also, he literally said, why is he judging a pedophile? He's literally a judge and you're a pedophile.
Christine Schiefer: He's been really hired to do that and that only. So he was also registered, of course, as a sex offender and had to pay out a million dollars, not very much, in my opinion, since that's what he made the first year with Subway, in restitution to 10 of his victims. So each of them got like a hundred thousand dollars, and that was only 10 of his victims. We don't even know how many there are, and we also don't know how many didn't get paid at all or didn't get any. We don't know. It's just really sick. He just gave a hundred thousand dollars to each of the 10 named victims and many more got nothing.
Em Schulz: I'm honestly surprised he didn't do any hush money situations, that we know of, I guess.
Christine Schiefer: He probably tried. This is too late now. Oh, you mean... I mean, maybe he did? But it's not going to stand up in court.
Em Schulz: Yeah, no, I know. I'm surprised we didn't hear about anything like that.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, I don't know. He probably felt like he was too good for that.
Em Schulz: Untouchable for that.
Christine Schiefer: So his second wife, Katie McLaughlin, filed for divorce as soon as the trial began, and also filed for custody of their children. And when she spoke out publicly, she was absolutely devastated. She said, through tears, "Finding out that your husband and the father of your children is a child predator is devastating." Cannot even begin to imagine. She actually filed a lawsuit against Subway when it came to light that several reports had already been made to Subway about Jared and...
Em Schulz: Oh, shit.
Christine Schiefer: His sexual misconduct, and they did absolutely nothing. So that's cool.
Em Schulz: Well, he was the cash cow, and apparently that matters more.
Christine Schiefer: That's exactly right. Apparently a Subway franchise owner named Cindy Mills had reported Jared in '08. She had met him at her franchise grand opening, and they had started a sexual relationship, and the requests he had made, sexual request, became so strange and uncomfortable that she felt unsafe. So she approached the Subway CEO, and he said, Jared would just be banned from her franchise, and it's fine now.
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: He also told her that Jared's new wife Katie, would, quote, "keep Jared grounded." Oh my God.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: Allegedly, there were two more reports made to Subway about Jared's behavior, which were never addressed, and the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. Jared's accomplice, Russell, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his part in this whole nightmare. And a lot of people think Jared got off easy. Russell's stepdaughter, Hannah, said, "Now looking back on it makes me angry. Jared was completely complicit in taking videos of us when we were in our most vulnerable moments. He was a puppet master, and Russell was the puppet."
Em Schulz: Geez.
Christine Schiefer: So disturbing. In 2020, the case was reopened to investigate their mother, Angie, and both girls were asked to testify against their mom. Christian said, "You exposed me. I'm going to expose you."
Em Schulz: Okay. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: I just got full body chills.
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Hannah said, "I've asked myself many times, why would our mom do this to her children?" And Christian said, "You just feel so unloved. Someone who is supposed to love you and protect you, supposed to be your mom, is dangerous." It's just heartbreaking.
So in 2021, Angie was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 33 years in prison. And Christian and Hannah, for what it's worth, finally feel like they've been able to start to move on now that they're adults. And Christian has her own child, a daughter. So in the documentary that aired this past month or two, Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster, it's called, Christian said, "Having a child has changed my life. I've never loved somebody so much. I just want to give my daughter what I didn't have," which just makes me want to cry.
Em Schulz: Heartbreaking.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Hannah said, "Our entire lives, we've just been surviving. I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and now I can finally see that light. I can finally get a little bit of the taste of freedom and happiness, and it tastes so good. It really does." Both women are really thankful for Rochelle and the role she played in taking Jared down and Rochelle has said, doing the right thing is very important to her, but she regrets how much she's lost as a result of this. Her son was also interviewed and he says he and his sister both struggle with anxiety and depression. Their family relationships are severely damaged.
One issue that she discussed in the docu-series, which I don't know if you remember, is her daughter finding a journal in which Rochelle had documented her conversations with Jared. And so she told her daughter like, no, I was just saying all these things because I was undercover. But it's hard to unsee that as the child and some of the conversations were about Rochelle's children, like Jared would ask her to describe her own children to him. And she's documenting all this, and her daughter finds it like. Of course, that has a devastating impact on you and your relationship, and it's deeply disturbing.
The last I heard, Rochelle and her daughter are still estranged. I don't know if anything has changed. But Rochelle's son, Thomas, moved to Taiwan. He never came back to America. But despite that, he has said, "I'm very proud of my mother. She did something heroic, and it was selfless because she lost a lot in the process." And Rochelle has spoken out in the docu-series as well to Jared's victims. And when asked if she had any advice, she said it would be, "Do not give Jared the power to define what he did to you as who you are, because that's not who you are. And love yourself because you survived. And I personally thank you for coming forward to help stop a monster."
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: And that's the fucking outrageous story of Jared Fogle, the Subway guy.
Em Schulz: That's wild.
Christine Schiefer: It's dark. It's dark. It's fucked up.
Em Schulz: Ugh. No one would've known.
Christine Schiefer: It's just hiding in plain sight. Shocking.
Em Schulz: And also hiding right on your television screen.
Christine Schiefer: Right in front of you.
Em Schulz: Boy. Well, great job, Christine. I'm glad I got... I'm sorry. I really felt like I kept interrupting you.
Christine Schiefer: I'm glad you got to add to it because I feel like I totally fucking forgot about the whole FBI being like you...
Em Schulz: Like, trapping her.
Christine Schiefer: you got to be ours now. Yeah. It's so fucked up.
Em Schulz: Well, no, I'm glad I could contribute, but for the people who don't like me stopping you every five seconds, I'm sorry, you probably hated this episode, but. Whoops.
Christine Schiefer: No, no. I feel like it was probably fun to hear the back and forth, but I have a lighthearted thing to say how you had a fun fact at the end of your story.
Em Schulz: Okay. Was Subway, did it start in a Sears catalog?
Christine Schiefer: Sears catalog. No, but there's a butcher shower in the basement. Just kidding. No, but on Beach Too Sandy, I made my brother play a game where I read reviews of either subway stations or Subway restaurants and he had to guess which one was which.
Em Schulz: Did he do well?
Christine Schiefer: He did. You know what? He did surprisingly well. I remember being surprised at how well he did, but it was a fun game for me to put together because I was reading reviews of New York subway, subway stations and being like, "Oh yeah, this could probably be a subway restaurant."
Em Schulz: I mean, both could probably have rats and weird people.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: It's actually like... Yeah, you nailed it.
Em Schulz: There was in college, the sandwich place everyone went to, it happened to be called The Subway Station, and it threw so many people off because it was...
Christine Schiefer: It's confusing.
Em Schulz: It was a sub place called Subway Station.
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: And it was next to an actual fucking Subway.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, well see, there you go.
Em Schulz: And so people would be like, oh, let's, let's go get Subway. And you never knew which one it was and it'd be like, oh, Subway Station. But they made the same sandwich.
Christine Schiefer: It's really a rude thing to do, in my opinion.
Em Schulz: I think, in my mind, it was like before Subway was a chain and they were like, we're going to dig our heels in and we're committing because we've been here longer. And then Subway built a fucking Subway next to them just to piss them off. I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Just to be like, let's settle this once and for all. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Okay, Christine, let's end on this for the episode. Go-to Subway order.
Christine Schiefer: I want to say the tuna sandwich, but I feel like I can't say that anymore.
Em Schulz: You can say it.
Christine Schiefer: Here's the thing, I don't eat meat really. At least I try not to.
Em Schulz: So a Veggie Delight?
Christine Schiefer: I do love Veggie Delight, but I put on mayo and cheese and I get a foot long, and I don't log any of the calories.
Em Schulz: Sometimes I get the, is it the spicy BMT, Spicy Italian? It's got salami and pepperoni and all that on that.
Christine Schiefer: Oh yeah.
Em Schulz: So it's the exact opposite of what you do.
Christine Schiefer: It's like go straight to the butcher shower. I know.
Em Schulz: Cheese, spicy mustard, all that good stuff.
Christine Schiefer: Yikes. Yeah, I love a spicy mustard. That's probably the only thing that we have the same on our sandwiches, unless we shamefully order tuna, which has happened despite your flawed memory.
Em Schulz: I think give it a couple more months and after a full year I'll be like, oh, I could really try that tuna again.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, maybe when we're on tour next I'll be like, What do you think?
Em Schulz: I will tell you they got a mean chocolate chip cookie, so.
Christine Schiefer: They do have a good cookie.
Em Schulz: I'll least see you at the cookie counter, the exact opposite of their health campaign.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, we'll be wearing mustaches since I don't really want to support them after all this. Yeah. But I will eat the cookie. I will.
Em Schulz: Alright. Well I guess if you want more, you can go over on Patreon and join us for an After Chat to see us probably giggle about sandwiches. I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. What else?
Em Schulz: Until then, I guess I see you next week.
Christine Schiefer: And- Do you want me to start it?
Em Schulz: Oh, I thought you were going to say, "Yeah, I'll see you next week."
Christine Schiefer: Okay. Yes. See you then.
Em Schulz: Well, because no, you and I are actually going to see each other next week because of Florida, right?
Christine Schiefer: Oh, yes, yes. I will see you next week. Yes.
Em Schulz: I'm excited for it. God damn it Christine.
Christine Schiefer: Oh well, it's not next week because you're supposed to be traveling, but yes, in a couple weeks, yes, I will see you.
Em Schulz: I don't know days anymore. I'm excited to see you and maybe your baby if I'm all healed, so.
Christine Schiefer: I don't think so because I feel like last time, like we said, she's really done a number on you, so I don't want you to...
Em Schulz: We'll have to restart the relationship. It's only been like a year, so we can-
Christine Schiefer: Square one. Okay.
Em Schulz: We can come back quick, so.
Christine Schiefer: Alright.
Em Schulz: And
Christine Schiefer: That's
Em Schulz: Why
Christine Schiefer: We
Em Schulz: Drink.