[intro music]
Christine Schiefer: Hello, everyone. Welcome to "And That's Why We Drink," a paranormal true crime podcast. I'm Christine.
Em Schulz: I am having a good hair day, but I'm having a bad chin day because I got me a little blemish.
Christine Schiefer: How does one have a bad... Oh, a blemish. I see.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: You know, where I had a blemish the other day? I had a gigantic zit inside my ear.
Em Schulz: Ugh! I've had 'em. Rough.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I almost went back and told the doctor that I had pierced my eardrum again, and he was... Blaise was like, that's a pimple. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Have you ever...
Christine Schiefer: Anyway...
Em Schulz: This is so messed up. Have you ever, umm, gotten a zit in your ear and you heard it in fucking surround sound pop?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Em Schulz: That's crazy.
Christine Schiefer: Good times. Yeah.
Em Schulz: But I'm always amazed, even if it's gross. I'm like, that's just classic.
Christine Schiefer: It's kind of shocking. I knew I couldn't tell my mom, 'cause she'd try to get her little... Gross little fingers in there and I was like, don't touch me.
Em Schulz: I would also. I... If you ever need a... A zit on the road, I will absolutely get it for... For you. Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: My God.
Em Schulz: Just took my breath away thinking about it. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: We're sick... We're so sick. Hello, everyone. Uh...
Em Schulz: Hello.
Christine Schiefer: We are here today to talk to you and about all the reasons that we drink. Right, Em?
Em Schulz: That's true. You are giving vibes like you wanna drink a lot for some reason. Do you have something going on?
Christine Schiefer: I do! No, not really. I, I just, I think it's just Monday and, you know, you, you think like once you have a job where it's like your own job, that Mondays aren't like a thing... Like Mondays, but, umm, I don't know. I think, I think there's just a collective societal Monday energy that's seeping into my brain, you know?
Em Schulz: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, but I hope... It sounds like you're doing okay. I mean, I hopped on and you were like complimenting me left and right and I was... I was so taken aback.
Em Schulz: I think my therapist would say, I was maybe fishing for somebody to give me a compliment back.
Christine Schiefer: Oh. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Umm, but... [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Well, as you already know, you're fishing in the wrong spot. No, I'm kidding.
[laughter]
Em Schulz: You're okay.
Christine Schiefer: To be fair, I... I cannot see your hair because your camera's a little blurry, but when you said you were having good hair day, I was like, oh God, I gotta take a look at Em's kickass hair, so...
Em Schulz: Here, let me put the spotlight on my hair. Look, she's just like...
Christine Schiefer: Okay, yes.
Em Schulz: She's got some layers. She's like, she's...
Christine Schiefer: You've got some curls. Perfectly placed.
Em Schulz: She's like, she's messy fun. Like, I look like maybe I'm a bad boy, but what you don't know...
Christine Schiefer: It's sort of like a tousle...
Em Schulz: Is that I actually am a good boy.
Christine Schiefer: A tousled look. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Well, -ish. Umm...
Em Schulz: Oh, okay.
Christine Schiefer: To the good part. Uh, I can't determine your, you know, the... The rest, but the good part, mm, well I think that... Umm...
Em Schulz: I feel like, like if someone saw me in a coffee shop, they'd see my hair and go, they look like they know how to have a little fun, you know? Like, they know how to kick it.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I, yeah, you do know how to kick it. That is for sure. If there's one thing I know about you...
Em Schulz: Thank you.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, like your hair does look great. I, I'm loving the tousled look, that looks intentional but not intentional. You know, it's like...
Em Schulz: It's like, is it...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, your hair looks good 'cause you take care of it, but not like 'cause you obsess over it. You know?
Em Schulz: Like, did I take a nap or did I use product? We'll never know.
Christine Schiefer: It's like, or, or was she born with it? Maybe it's Maybelline, you know.
Em Schulz: Mm. It's...
Christine Schiefer: It could be like...
Em Schulz: It's the secret third...
Christine Schiefer: Any of the above.
Em Schulz: It's a secret third thing.
Christine Schiefer: Thank you.
Em Schulz: I was telling Christine that I'm very, umm, uh, affection starved these days because Allison is just nowhere to be found. She's still kicking it with the piranhas or something in the Amazon. So, umm...
Christine Schiefer: Woof.
Em Schulz: Uh, I've noticed my compliments to others has heightened probably because I'm, I'm desperate to feel something.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Your, your, uh, your, uh, terms of endearment to me... Toward me have increased. I've also noticed your high-pitched squealing has increased when I'm around.
Em Schulz: Oh!
Christine Schiefer: And I did say to Em, when did I become the replacement for, or the stand-in for Allison, and Em responded, well, I think Allison's been the replacement or the stand-in for you. And I was like, oh my God, that's so deep.
Em Schulz: I, I mean, if I've... I've known you longer so I guess...
Christine Schiefer: True.
Em Schulz: By, by timeline standards, she is the stand-in. I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: And I would never let anybody forget it. Umm, I have a question. Why do you drink this week, my friend?
Em Schulz: Ugh. Uh...
Christine Schiefer: Darling friend.
Em Schulz: Oh. Stop! Umm.
Christine Schiefer: I'm trying so hard. [laughter]
Em Schulz: I know. It's not natural for you. I understand.
Christine Schiefer: No, i-it is. I just, uh, it's not natural on a Monday.
Em Schulz: Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Umm, well, to be fair, usually I think I have a case of the Mondays as badly as you, but I, for some reason this weekend, I did a lot of like work. I feel like I never actually had a weekend, so that's in its own way, a bad thing, but that also means that today doesn't feel like Monday. It feels like a Friday or something, so.
Christine Schiefer: Got it. You're like, oh, got all this work behind me.
Em Schulz: Like, I'm already like...
Christine Schiefer: Let's rock and roll.
Em Schulz: It's hump day, essentially, for me. I'm like, we've already been doing this.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: So I'm in the, kind of in the zone. But, umm...
Christine Schiefer: Good for you.
Em Schulz: One of the reasons, I, uh, I just feel very overwhelmed at this damn cruise, which I saw coming from a mile away because anyone who has ever had to travel with their adult parents, umm, knows how it is. I... It's, I feel like... Okay, so I think this cruise only happened because I have reminisced so many times with my mom about how much I missed... Like, I was like a cruise kid. I, I... I know what that means these days. It's like not very, uh, friendly at all to the environment. But I remember it... It does have like some sort of nostalgia factor for me of like, all the vacations we took and all the places we got to see because of it. And so I was... Think I was just reminiscing with my mom a little too close to the sun and she went, oh, well, we're gonna do it again. And now, I'm realizing in the thick of it that a cruise with her, when I was a child and she was in charge of everything, and I wasn't really expected to do anything, umm, is a lot different than me as an adult having to deal with all of her, like, panicked over complicated texts about how things might be, which...
Christine Schiefer: Okay. So like, what's the complex part? Like is it like planning activities? Is it like payment schedules? Like what's the part that's like overwhelming?
Em Schulz: So, my mom, I will say, uh, she has done a lot of things. She's done a lot of the planning on her own behind closed doors, so I really can't complain too much, but the parts that have seeped into my text conversations with her are just like, I can't get a damn straight answer out of here, it's the same thing about if I were planning to go to the park with her, it's the same thing.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Like an example is, uh, it's just like upped by 10, so I texted her and I said, do you fly back the same day we got off the ship? I was trying to figure out my own plans. I only asked that one question. Do you fly back the same day we got off the ship? She sent a wall of texts.
Christine Schiefer: Oh!
Em Schulz: Like by the way, this could have been, this could have been a yes or no situation.
Christine Schiefer: Yes, no. [laughter]
Em Schulz: That's my problem. Every text with her...
Christine Schiefer: You should just start speaking to her with dowsing rods or a pendulum, [laughter] so that it really limits her vocabulary, just like yes/no questions only.
Em Schulz: You know what's so annoying is one day when she passes and I try to use dowsing rods, they just won't work 'cause she'll wanna send me things like this...
Christine Schiefer: They're going to be like... And dragging you around with a dowsing rods, like trying to get you to do stuff.
[laughter]
Em Schulz: So I think this has just brought out like a panicked version of her because I... And I gotta say at the top, that like she's... I think she's stretched too thin because she's been doing a lot of this by herself, but also, if she... I think the whole family understands if they try to help her plan and it's like too many cooks in the kitchen, so there's only so much we can do...
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: We're just gonna have to watch herself get to this place and now this is the aftermath of it. But so I said, do you fly back the same day as the... Uh as we planned or as we get off the ship, and she said, "Remember your passport. The boat has to dress your best nights, it was called formal in the past. I'm telling Tom to bring a sport coat. I think they might have a Caribbean night. I have... " Here it is, "One fun dress, two baby doll afternoon or casual dress, [laughter] two pair of flowing pants... " She listed out every single thing she packed.
Christine Schiefer: What? Why?
Em Schulz: She went, "I brought two workout outfits and three pairs of shorts, I bought three bathing suits, and a coverup, I'm... "
Christine Schiefer: You, as Em Schultz, you do not wear flowy pants, capris, summer dresses, cocktail dresses. Uh, I I like, I don't understand why would she share that with you specifically when like [a] you didn't ask, but [b] like, what are you supposed to do with that information, I guess, is what I wonder?
Em Schulz: Well, that's something [0:08:48.6] ____ because then she talks about how she packed a white and black wind breaker specifically, and then she said...
Christine Schiefer: Oh!
Em Schulz: "We're gonna go out to dinner, uh and I saw some live camera shots from people, and it looks like a lot of people are casual after dinner." And then... Like, and she did the thing where like there's multiple dots...
Christine Schiefer: This is so stressful.
Em Schulz: And random commas, and like she pressed Enter too many times.
Christine Schiefer: Do I need to teach her about cruisecritic.com? Because these kind of conversations happen there, and there are people there who want know what you're bringing to wear and what, they want to know what your schedule is and your itinerary, and they will answer the most inane questions, so uh, I should send her there.
Em Schulz: All your... All, all you'd be saying is that there's more eyes for this information and not like...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, but at, but at least they're not your eyes. You know what I mean...
Em Schulz: No, no. It would just be more eyes, like it'd be...
Christine Schiefer: In addition.
Em Schulz: My eyes and other... So then she wants more comments.
Christine Schiefer: But to be fair, once she realizes that they're really engaged and want to...
Em Schulz: Yeah, you're right.
Christine Schiefer: Continue that conversation, maybe she'll drift toward that and be like, they're a better audience. You know?
Em Schulz: You know how parents will say, like just, just a, a sprawl of sentences that are not strung together?
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: Because she talks about the wind breaker, umm, she brings up that the... There's live camera shots of people dressing casual which yes, they're on fucking vacation, [laughter] and then she said, uh, uh, hang out very casual after dinner... Cruise ships normally have meetings for alcoholics. Okay. I don't fucking care about that...
Christine Schiefer: What... [laughter] What the... What... You don't even drink alcohol. This is what I'm saying like it just feels like, like I understand if it were like, hey, just pack two nicer outfits, like this is... I'm wearing a blazer but like...
Em Schulz: No. [chuckle]
Christine Schiefer: Or Tom's wearing a sport coat, that would be good information for you like, hey, if that's what you wanna wear, but the rest of it is hysterical, like... [laughter]
Em Schulz: And then she tried to do... And then she tried to do the thing where she was like super ally, but then just kinda like put her nose in places...
Christine Schiefer: Uh-oh.
Em Schulz: That were like unnecessary, not, not in a bad way...
Christine Schiefer: Uh-oh.
Em Schulz: But she, she listed the alcoholics group in case I needed to go there, and then she said it's...
Christine Schiefer: Sure.
Em Schulz: She didn't have... Had half of a sentence where she said, "Get-togethers for singles and LGBTQ," which makes me think she was searching that and it accidentally ended up here.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, absolutely. [laughter] Oh!
Em Schulz: And then she said, not sure about bringing poncho, that's how it ends. She goes, "alcoholics, LGBTQ, poncho."
Christine Schiefer: Wait. So she never answered the question, is that true?
Em Schulz: That's very true. And I... So I'm just...
Christine Schiefer: She never answered the real... The original question. [laughter]
Em Schulz: No. And so...
Christine Schiefer: I love her.
Em Schulz: Umm, so I just stopped trying. I was like, you know what, we're gonna... I'm, I'll find out where, when you fly back.
Christine Schiefer: Did you respond to that text?
Em Schulz: I did. I said...
Christine Schiefer: What did you say?
Em Schulz: I said, "It's amazing how quickly and abruptly we turn into our mothers," because that's exactly the text she would have complained about her mom sending her 10 years ago. [laughter] Exactly.
Christine Schiefer: I thought you meant you, but you mean Linda's turning into her mother. [laughter] Oh!
Em Schulz: Like, I... My whole life my mom would be like, "I just want a straight fucking answer," and she's just gonna give me an itinerary of everything she ate today or everything she's wearing...
Christine Schiefer: And the outfits...
Em Schulz: Or everything she's packing.
Christine Schiefer: She's wearing.
Em Schulz: And everything she's packing.
Christine Schiefer: Aw.
Em Schulz: And like... And then she did the exact same thing. And so I'm just...
Christine Schiefer: I can't wait for you to start texting me...
Em Schulz: Now nervous for [0:11:54.1] ____.
Christine Schiefer: Fucking paragraphs about your wardrobe. I can't wait, I'm actually gonna love it, I think.
Em Schulz: I... Mm. Anyway. Umm, so yeah, it's, I'm just a little nervous 'cause now it feels like I might be going on a cruise with my grandmother. And like, I gotta say, [chuckle] I think my mom is just very excited about the trip and just, like I get it, but at the same time, I'm like, girl, like how do you... Like the call is coming from inside the house, you were doing exactly what hated.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Like, and like, or she'll do the thing all the time where she calls me... I think every person, kind... Kind of wants a kid just, so they can complain about their parents while they do the exact same thing their parents were doing and...
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: 'Cause she'll call me just to say, ugh, your grandmother. She just won't get off the phone, I, I tell her I have five minutes and she will give me an hour and a half...
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: That's incredible.
Em Schulz: And I'm not allowed to leave. And she does the exact same thing, she'll call me and go...
Christine Schiefer: And then, and then you're like...
Em Schulz: What are you doing?
Christine Schiefer: Well, I'm working. She's like, okay, anyway, I want to tell you about my capris. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Yes. I just like, I feel like I'm in like a warp or something. Like some sort of time suck where I'm like, am I just... Is this just...
Christine Schiefer: I think it's some big prank. [laughter] Oh.
Em Schulz: So, I... She recently, umm, one of the things my grandma always does whenever we go to her house, first thing she does is she makes us take a tour of her clothes closet every time.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God!
Em Schulz: Because every time she's organized it differently than the last time we were there. And so now we have to all see where she put her shoes and where she put the fancy dress and where she put the casual dress.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: And I just went home recently and the first thing my mom did was, come upstairs, let me show you how I organized the closet. And I went, are you fucking kidding me?
Christine Schiefer: Uh-huh!
Em Schulz: I was like, how is this normal?
Christine Schiefer: Very interesting, Linda!
Em Schulz: But as soon as I...
Christine Schiefer: What if this is the moment? What if she starts, instead of looking for Alcoholics Anonymous on the boat, she's like, [laughter] she just feels like she needs another crisis group because that she... She's real, like... She's come... Where... This is an intervention, you know.
Em Schulz: How is... How are there not bigger groups of people just reconciling with the fact that they're turning into their parents? You know? I would love a group...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: A group therapy about that.
Christine Schiefer: I think that's just anyone in a group, like any group. [laughter] Proba-probably can just also add that label. You know? [laughter] Oh.
Em Schulz: Okay, that's fair. Anyway, I am excited to be on a cruise with her, but I am just like, it's, it's like all of the similarities are coming at me all at once. So, umm...
Christine Schiefer: Smacking you in the face, it sounds like.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Which means now like I'm forced to take on the role of becoming her, where I get annoyed by all this stuff just...
Christine Schiefer: Uh-huh.
Em Schulz: Then I have kids, I'm just gonna repress it all and just project it back onto them, so.
Christine Schiefer: Well, I know... And I also know that like, one of your favorite hobbies when you're really stressed is that you organize all your shoes and your fancy dress and that... And so I feel like the stress is just gonna come out with a tour of your closet when I come to LA in a couple of weeks and I... Honestly, it's okay. It's okay.
Em Schulz: Yeah. You know, when I do get stressed, I do like to organize, but it has not gone into my clothing yet. So that'll be the first red flag. [laughter] And then when I start telling people about it...
Christine Schiefer: That, that'll be when I know...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: That's what I need to know. That I'll need... I'll know [laughter] and I'll need to step in somehow. I don't know how yet, but I'll think about it, and I'll plan it.
Em Schulz: Ugh!
Christine Schiefer: Umm, but I think you're gonna have a wonderful time. You leave in a couple of days, right? As, as of recording?
Em Schulz: I do. I leave, I leave... We have one more recording...
Christine Schiefer: It's Monday...
Em Schulz: After this, and I leave after that.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. You leave Thursday, you mean?
Em Schulz: I leave Wednesday.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. Wednesday. Okay. Wow. Well, I think you're gonna have a great time. I really do.
Em Schulz: I know we'll have a good time. I'm just kind of scared about, uh, also being...
Christine Schiefer: I get that.
Em Schulz: With my mom for that long because we have like a rule on how much time we can spend together before, like.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: One of us is gonna kill the other and this is like...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Triple that amount of time. So...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Umm, if I don't make it back, it's because I made one comment too many about her damn closet and I didn't make it, so...
Christine Schiefer: You've... You were, you were forced to disembark in some, uh, island nation.
Em Schulz: I walked the plank. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, you walked the plank.
Em Schulz: Umm. What about you? Why do you drink?
Christine Schiefer: Oh gosh. Well, I, you know, we're far enough in. I don't wanna even go into my thing. I'm gonna say it on when I...
Em Schulz: No, no, no.
Christine Schiefer: When we record in a couple of days.
Em Schulz: People...
Christine Schiefer: I don't wanna talk for a million years. I don't know.
Em Schulz: Is it, is it, is it that lengthy?
Christine Schiefer: Well, it's about the psychic... Okay. I'll just say it. I went to the psychic convention yesterday, and we talked about it.
Em Schulz: Aah! How was it? You have to talk about it. You have talk about it.
Christine Schiefer: I think... Okay. I think it was at the end, it's at least on brand for the podcast, so it's not like totally off, you know, off the wall, but I went to the psychic convention with my really good friend Celine and, uh, my other friend, but her sister Sophia and, uh, Celine's partner, Nick. And we were... We did a little road trip up to the spectacular, as the website called it, Sharonville Convention Center. And, umm, if you missed this intel, by the way, folks, Em and I talked about it on, umm, an after hours, which I've been trying to name "after dark." We'll see if it sticks. Uh, and Em helped me create an, [chuckle] an entire itinerary of all the events that were happening, right?
Em Schulz: Yes.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, on the different stages and all that. So it turns out we didn't really do many of the events like the actual stage talks because they were like completely in a different part of the convention center, and there were hundreds of booths of like tarot readers and like...
Em Schulz: Oh, so you had fun?
Christine Schiefer: Psychics and aura photography. Like, it was just like so much stuff that, like, by the time you got through to a certain area, you were like, oh, I've missed the whole talk. But there was one time, uh, we decided to go have a snack, uh, downstairs. It's really funny because when I told my mom I was going to the Sharonville Convention Center, she was like, to buy a gun? Because this is where they host all the...
Em Schulz: Whoa.
Christine Schiefer: Gun shows, right? Like in Ohio, it's just like a big ass convention center in, in like suburban Ohio. And so I was like, yes, Mother, I'm going, but no, I'm going to a psychic fair. I... It's like the opposite end of the spectrum, I guess. Umm, and so I went up there and, uh, it was, so we were, they have this like cafe and I, I assume this is not the name of it normally, but they called it the Mandala Cafe. And I'm like...
Em Schulz: Oh my.
Christine Schiefer: I imagine when NRA is hosting this, it's not called the Mandala Cafe...
Em Schulz: No.
Christine Schiefer: But that's what the sign said.
Em Schulz: It's called Bullseye Saloon or some shit...
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Sports Room Plus. Yeah.
Em Schulz: No women ever allowed. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Meat only. Yeah, it's, uh, no vegans allowed. I, I just, I can't imagine what that would be like. Umm, but we went and it was like kind of expensive. So we went downstairs in this little food court and this guy... We're sitting there like eating a snack and this guy comes down and he is like, hey, I'm about to give this presentation, umm, if you wanna like, just pop in right here. And we had wanted to see something. And so I said, okay, yeah, we'll pop in. And I said, hey, I have this like reading booked for 3:30, so we're gonna have to leave in about 20 minutes. And the guy's like, oh, that's fine. Why don't you just come in? We walk in, there's like one, there's one other person in the room and we, it's like...
Em Schulz: Oh boy.
Christine Schiefer: It's like a big speaker stage thing.
Em Schulz: Oh boy.
Christine Schiefer: It's, like picture where we did our first live show at CrimeCon, right? There's one person, one person there. And so it's the three of us at this point...
Em Schulz: Ugh. My biggest nightmare.
Christine Schiefer: And we all go sit down in the second row and umm, there's this guy in the corner wearing, who... Who's with the speaker, and he looks like security, but he's wearing all red. And we're like, this is weird. Why does this guy need security? So we're sitting there and like, the presentation starts and he says, the first is a picture of a pill bottle on the first slide, and it says, medication... All. It says, "All medications are basically poison." I have a picture of it. And I went...
Em Schulz: Uh-huh.
Christine Schiefer: Well, that's... That's odd. Uh, and so do you know where this is going?
Em Schulz: It's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope, isn't it, in the, in the woo-woo world, isn't it?
Christine Schiefer: But do you know, but do you know where we're going? Like, like, the next like big pitstop?
Em Schulz: I assume vaccines are healing hands or some shit. Is this chiropractic care?
Christine Schiefer: Uh-uh.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: Nope.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: Nope.
Em Schulz: What? What?
Christine Schiefer: Uh, no. Worse. Worse. Umm...
Em Schulz: What? I can't imagine. What is this? What?
Christine Schiefer: Next slide. "If you wanna more about this, you should read L. Ron Hubbard's book, 'Clear Body, Clear Mind.'"
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: We have it up at our booth upstairs and we went... And Celine and I, growing up, Scientology was like our fucking obsession. Like we, we researched it like pre-internet days, like we were obsessed, we would call. We'd be like, what do you guys even do in there? We would take the personality quizzes.
Em Schulz: They've been waiting this whole time to get you back. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: I know. We finally, under one roof, got to see one presentation and the guy goes, "L. Ron Hubbard, our late, our leader or our... "
Em Schulz: Oh my.
Christine Schiefer: "Late Great prophet." And I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. So Celine and I are like doing that thing where we're like grabbing each other's legs or arms, just like, is this really happening?
Em Schulz: Oh yes, the Christine claw. I love her.
Christine Schiefer: But there's only... The Christine claw! But there's only three of us... Like there's four people in the audience and we're three of them, so he's like staring at us and we're like, oh my God, oh my God. And then he goes, yeah, even Tylenol is poison for your body. It's just like so inane. Right? And he goes, I bet you guys won't get this question right: Do you think too much oxygen can kill you? Raise your hand. And we were like, I mean, yeah. And he goes, well, it is true. And we were like, I know that's why we raised our hand you weirdo, like of course, you can die from... Like I don't understand your argument, that too much... So too much Tylenol can kill you, so just like oxygen?
Em Schulz: So, at this point were you just like, cancel my plans, we just, I just have to experience all of this or...
Christine Schiefer: No, I would...
Em Schulz: Were you like, how the fuck do I get out of here?
Christine Schiefer: We, we were like, we're leaving. This is insane. And also, like so boring. It wasn't even funny or fun, like it wasn't even enjoyable in, in that way, like in an ironic way. Umm and so, as we were getting up to leave, [laughter] we were like, okay, thank you, bye! And like ran away, but he knew we were leaving already, and then we get out there and Nick goes, "Did you see that guy in the red in the corner?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "You didn't see his shirt?" and I said "No." Apparently, he was wearing like Dianetics Security on his shirt and hat.
Em Schulz: Oh God.
Christine Schiefer: And was like this guy's fucking security guard. And I'm like, who let these people in here on a prime slot, 3 PM, to do this fucking talk? But thank God, like there was only one person left in there, but I just thought like, wow, they really... And then there were a few, there were a couple of booths that were absolutely slippery slopes, where it was like, the truth about vaccines.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Umm and like, cancer from uh 5G, you know, but we can heal it with our hands, you know, that kind of shit. And so there was definitely some icky kind of like the hand stuff and all, all that that...
Em Schulz: Yeah, you gotta go in there, sharp. You gotta go in there prepared.
Christine Schiefer: Prime... Yes, sharp, a hundred percent. [laughter] And so thank God we were... And we were all like, we have enough wits about us to be like, umm, this is not it. There was like Hare Krishna... There were so many groups where we... Not so many, but there were a couple where we were like, okay, we would text each other like, avoid 607, by the way, that was the Scientology booth umm... And the one... A-and the other one that was, the other issue that I felt really weird about, even when I went to bed last night, I just felt kind of disappointed, and it's not that the event was bad, I actually had a really good time and like, uh meet... Met some really cool people, and bought some really cool chachkas, as we discussed, but the thing that I bumped me out was the number of old white men called like, "White Feather." And then they were like...
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: "I'm from Belgium," and I'm like, what? Like... [laughter] You know, and I'm not in a place, obviously, to determine by looks whether somebody comes from an indigenous background, like that is not what I'm saying, but there were several people where I would then look them up, and it was like...
Em Schulz: Yeah. You could check in...
Christine Schiefer: Born in Ashtabula from a Po-Protestant... You know, and it's like, okay, Cindy, you shouldn't be teaching about like uh...
Em Schulz: Well, there was something...
Christine Schiefer: Pfft. Totem poles, you know. Uh. It just feels weird. It feels bad.
Em Schulz: There was... Wasn't there a class that we looked at on the itinerary.
Christine Schiefer: Yup.
Em Schulz: Where we were like, maybe that's not for you. Maybe that's not for...
Christine Schiefer: That was... That was Cindy. Yeah. That was Cindy.
Em Schulz: Oh, that was Cindy. Okay, so we were onto it.
Christine Schiefer: And like, I, at the time... Well, we were on to it because at the time I thought, you know, well, we don't know if somebody is indigenous or has a background or... Or, you know, whatever, but then of course, like upon reading her like bio and stuff, I was like, oh, I don't feel right about that. Umm and there was a lot of selling of native and tribal, you know, symbology that like clearly was just kind of uh adopted by some white Ohioans, you know and I...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: I know, you know, I know that happens, but it just felt so much... Like it just felt like there was so little representation of people who are actually practicing those things. You know, it felt like almost... I don't know that everyone but most of them that I looked up were like not actually you know, being rep... Being represented by people who actually have like that [laughter] cultural background or that association, so it felt a little weird, umm, but I did have two readings uh, with two mediums, which was really fun, and I believe my grandma came through, which was pretty cool. Actually, why don't we talk about that on the after hours, I'll tell you about my readings.
Em Schulz: Okay, cool, yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Then that way, that way, umm there's like a little extra bonus content.
Em Schulz: Did you uh... 'Cause you were supposed to, originally, the i-itinerary was that you have eight different places you were gonna go. Did you go to any of them?
Christine Schiefer: Umm, no. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Pfft. Damn!
Christine Schiefer: Well, yes, yes. No, I did. I did. Be... I went to one before the Scientology one and when I went to the first one, there was not a single person in the room, and I just peeked my head in, but I had to leave in 20 minutes 'cause I kept signing up for different slots for like.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Aura reading, palm reading, you know. And so, I was like, oh, I can't stay full hour.
Em Schulz: Right.
Christine Schiefer: And by the way, I would be the only person in the audience, and it's not like... Like I just felt uncomfortable being like, I'm gonna sit here and then I'm gonna leave 10 minutes into this hour-long presentation.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And then there's nobody in the room. And so I felt uncomfy.
Em Schulz: You know, I feel like that should have, that should've been like... Maybe that's something they talk about in the future about like a scheduling situation, 'cause yeah, if everybody's got different slots for things and nobody's gonna be able to go to an hour-long thing...
Christine Schiefer: It, it, it felt, it felt like it was not the best organization, and and also finding these stages took us all two hours, 'cause you have to go through the whole fucking auditorium.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Which is again like hundreds and hundreds of booths and like thousands of people, and then you have to find some staircase and then they're all in a basement. So it's like.
Em Schulz: Whew!
Christine Schiefer: It's not like very accessible either umm. But anyway, it was very cool, otherwise. Umm I had a very good time and uh... Yeah, it was neat.
Em Schulz: Nice. Very nice.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Thank you for uh letting me blab about that for a bit.
Em Schulz: I am, I am sad you didn't get to go to some of those classes 'cause I was hoping to learn on your behalf about pets being the mirrors to something... I I don't... One of them said it's pretty [0:26:48.0] ____.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. My... So we can talk about this in after hours, too. My friend went to her though, 'cause that's the other thing, all those people who did these stages had booths, so one of the ple-people that did the mediumship umm, reading that I was gonna go to, but we didn't get there on time.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: I got a reading from her, so it was like...
Em Schulz: Oh dope.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I still got to experience all that, umm even though I didn't go to the like, the actual hour-long presentation.
Em Schulz: Very cool. Okay, well then, okay, then I don't feel so bad. But I'm glad you had fun though.
Christine Schiefer: I did. Thank you and my... Your itinerary did help because I was able to say, we like this person and we should check out their booth, [laughter] this person Em and I vetted.
Em Schulz: I almost feel like convention halls, like the same thing with like, if if I ever went to ComicCon, you gotta do the two days, 'cause you gotta do one day of like exhibits and one day of like just doing like...
Christine Schiefer: Exactly.
Em Schulz: All the vendors, because the vendors are so overwhelming...
Christine Schiefer: Exactly. It was overwhelming.
Em Schulz: Yeah, yeah. Uh.
Christine Schiefer: It was so overwhelming, and there were pa-places where I was like like, oh, we gotta do that before we leave, and then before we knew it, like five hours had passed. So it's, yeah.
Em Schulz: I went to LA's Comic-Con and I was like, I can't imagine San Diego Comic-Con, like...
Christine Schiefer: Oh yeah. Imagine the, the big one, yeah.
Em Schulz: Part of me is always like I... 'Cause I think a year or two ago, I was like, you know what? One of my things this year is I'm gonna go to more conventions and like see more like exhibit halls and like do more like... And that never ended up really happening because my first thought was like, I wanna go to San Diego Comic-Con, I've never gone. And then I went to LA's to practice, and I was like, whew, I am out!
Christine Schiefer: This practice round was a lot. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Yeah. I was like, and San Diego Comic-Con, I think, is like 10 times that size. It's like Coachella for nerds. So I was like I actually don't think I can go.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, so this, this conference is going to Colorado Springs and like Sedona next. And I'm like, that's gonna be off the chain, dude.
Em Schulz: Out of town. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Like Ohio, we had some Indiana psychics, umm, you know, Michigan, but like, O... Out there, in those like real big woo-woo cities...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: It's gonna go... Go be... Or like, LA like...
Em Schulz: Or like Asheville. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Any of those like big hot spots for uh, for, for metaphysical stuff are gonna be a doozy.
Em Schulz: Well, I'm very happy you went, Christine. What do you...
Christine Schiefer: Thank you.
Em Schulz: What do you drink? Just like a, a water today? You've got a coffee [0:28:58.6] ____?
Christine Schiefer: I've got my uh, Liquid IV, which I, I'm a little annoyed because they used to send it to me, 'cause I was like doing some promo with them online umm, and over time, I guess, I just wasn't posting enough about my like code or whatever. And so [laughter] they stopped sending it to me.
Em Schulz: So they gave up on you. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. So now I'm like, shit, I better start posting about it, I don't want it... My... I think my... I don't even know what my code is. I think it's just XTINE, but it's like 20% off, so. You know, if anyone wants any, but I am drinking it, 'cause I'm trying to do umm, be more, be more active about my uh water consumption, after all of your bullying, calling me a rat.
Em Schulz: Mm. Yeah. Well, I'll keep doing it. I... Uh...
Christine Schiefer: It's working. [laughter]
Em Schulz: I literally don't have anything to drink in the house right now, except for these damn root beers...
Christine Schiefer: Huh?
Em Schulz: That keep showing up at my house, 'cause remember I got a root beer subscription as a gift.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Em Schulz: I... So unless you really drink root beer all the time, then it piles up very quickly.
Christine Schiefer: It just accumulates.
Em Schulz: So, I feel I'm, I'm, I... Part of me feels a little resentful until I can get through some of this 'cause I'm like, man, there's so much root beer. So umm, we're, we're powering through right now, at... It feels like morning for me, I guess, it's noon, so it's not too weird now for me to be drinking root beer, but I thought it was apropos because this brand is called "Capone."
Christine Schiefer: Oh! That's fun.
Em Schulz: And I was like, we could do something with that.
Christine Schiefer: We could work with that.
Em Schulz: Umm, it does feel weird to be taking my heart medication with just, like, nothing but sodium-rich soda.
Christine Schiefer: I always do that. I, I always take my vi... I took my vitamins with a strawberry Fanta the other day, I was like, [laughter] it seems like it's just counteracting my vitamins.
Em Schulz: One of them is keeping you alive, but not both. We don't know which one though.
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: The other one's just... Which one? Nobody knows.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Science has not figured it out yet, umm [laughter] but yeah, so listen, I get it, I do the same thing.
Em Schulz: Umm okay, well, before I tell my story, this is my PSA to all my thirsty little rats out there, including Christine.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: To drink some water.
Christine Schiefer: And I really... I feel bad that I just like knocked Liquid IV. I wasn't trying to do that. I'm just sad that I wasn't good enough at promo-ing them. [laughter] It's my own fault, but I will say, I think I have a link in my... Link in bio, I think uh if anybody wants the code, [laughter] I mean, 'cause I know this shit's expensive, I like... I'm like, uh... They used to get me some packets every now and then, but now Blaise drinks it and so it disappears, so I have to hide it in my office. Umm.
Em Schulz: Umm speaking of link in bio, do you know what the link in my bio is?
Christine Schiefer: Is it a picture of poop? I don't know. What is it?
Em Schulz: It is... Close. It's, to our new book that we are trying to get people to pre-order. Umm... [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Oh! [laughter] Right. That old thing.
Em Schulz: Uh it's a... Uh well, that old thing is Atlas... The Haunted Road Atlas 1. Haunted, Haunted Road Atlas sequel is called Next Stop, and uh please pre-order, it helps us with our numbers in our first week of sales.
Christine Schiefer: Please.
Em Schulz: And you can find that link in our bio or in the show notes of this episode. Thank you so much. And uh with that, here's a story for you, Christine.
Christine Schiefer: Yay!
Em Schulz: I'm excited about this one. It's not as just awful as last week's with the Char Man.
Christine Schiefer: Oh!
Em Schulz: So I'm e... I'm excited to not cringe my way through this all the way, at least.
Christine Schiefer: Great.
Em Schulz: Oh by the way, ooh, Christine. Ooh, you fucked up my algorithm so bad with that Ruby Franke nonsense, 'cause the second you said it...
Christine Schiefer: Uh-oh.
Em Schulz: Within my phone's ear, all of a sudden every single...
Christine Schiefer: Are you serious?
Em Schulz: Every single thing that popped up on my TikTok was like months old Ruby Franke content.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, it's probably all the ones that I've watched over and over that like now, it's saying, [chuckle] oh, you, you mentioned the topic? Here's Christine's fucking treasure trove of likes. That's annoying. I'm so sorry.
Em Schulz: And it tried to, it tried to mix with my current algorithm. And so I just got a bunch of the gay stuff, where it's like, they're definitely gay and here's why, they're definitely gay and here's why. And I was like, okay.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, about the... Oh about the... Oh about Ruby. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Ruby and Jo-Jodi, or whatever.
Christine Schiefer: Which, by the way, is one of the fun parts to talk about. You know, so...
Em Schulz: Well...
Christine Schiefer: Could be worse.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, here we go. This is a... A mystery, a... Maybe a mystery, maybe not. We'll see. This is the case of the Pollock Sisters, The Pollock Twins. Do you know about that?
Christine Schiefer: Why do I know that name? I go through phases where I get obsessed with twins, so maybe I just read it one time, but I don't remember.
Em Schulz: So I have not covered them for a while because I thought that they were uh another set of twins I've covered, which were Jennifer and June Gibbons AKA The Silent Twins, and that was Episode 49.
Christine Schiefer: Right.
Em Schulz: 49.
Christine Schiefer: Oh that's my lucky number!
Em Schulz: I guarantee you, you said that in the episode.
Christine Schiefer: I know I did. [laughter]
Em Schulz: And so, anyway, there's... They're a new set of twins, I confuse them myself, so that's why I haven't covered them before, but they're different. In the 1920s, this is in England... In the 1920s, John and Florence Pollock were the future parents of these Pollock twins, but they were born in the 1920s, they both grew up Christian, they both ended up converting to Catholicism later. And at a very young age, John Pollock, he read about reincarnation and was fascinated with it. Tun, tun, dun.
Christine Schiefer: Mm. Oh I'm excited!
Em Schulz: And he, despite it not aligning with his faith, he didn't care, he was like, I am obsessed with this, this is so cool. It's like if I decide to be religious, but I also threw in time travel as like a main tenet, I was like, it has to be. There is no way.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. [laughter] You were like, I get the Ten Commandments, but here's my Eleventh. And it's that time travel is real. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Uh, if it's real ever, it's real now. I just, I'm just saying because...
Christine Schiefer: No. I, full, I'm... Listen, I'm in full agreement.
Em Schulz: I'm just saying, it's...
Christine Schiefer: Because it's gotta be real. If it's real ever, right? Then like, it's real always.
Em Schulz: Yeah. If time traveling to the past is real in 4000 years...
Christine Schiefer: Think about it, guys.
[vocalization]
Em Schulz: I would be so obnoxious with a bag of weed or whatever that you guys eat it, eat it with. You know...
Christine Schiefer: A bag. Yes.
Em Schulz: [laughter] Okay. Let's move quickly.
Christine Schiefer: I'm like, what, the like gummies that I buy legally online that they deliver to me in a shiny pack? Yeah.
Em Schulz: Sometimes I think if I... Like, I really do wish I went like acid tripping, at least once in my life 'cause I would've had the best fucking time. You know?
Christine Schiefer: Listen, the night is young. You know? The... The life, your life is young. Let's, let's not, umm, count it out just yet.
Em Schulz: Uh, okay. Well let's get me a new heart first and then we'll try things like acid.
Christine Schiefer: Fine. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Umm, okay, so he's nine years old, believes in reincarnation. No matter what his religion says, he's like, maybe it's real, maybe it's real.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: And he sometimes even prays to God for proof that reincarnation is real, so he can feel validated in his own beliefs.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: Yeah. He is big on this. Umm, so in 1946, John and Florence now have a couple of kids. They got a few sons. Some sources said two, some sources said four, most sources said two. And, uh, they also have a daughter that was born that year named Joanna. And once Joanna was old enough to talk, she started regularly saying, I will never grow up to be a lady.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp. Uh-oh.
Em Schulz: Yikes. Uh, the family moves eventually to another area in England where they start running a milk delivery company and/or like a, like a milk milkman services essentially. And in 1951, five years later, after Joanna was born, they have another daughter named Jacqueline who was born.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: So Joanna and Jacqueline, they are five years apart from each other, but they are very, very bonded. They do everything together. Joanna is especially known, maybe it's because she's the older sister, but she was especially known to be very kind to people and inclusive and take care of them, and bring them into the fold. She was very doting to Jacqueline and she would just look out for the other kids in the area. And she was also known, like her favorite hobby was putting on really elaborate plays, like costumes and set deck, [laughter] like this girl put in the work for a themed play. And...
Christine Schiefer: Aw!
Em Schulz: And so that's what Joanna was known for. Both sisters also had this weird habit of showing affection to people by combing their hair. We don't really know where that came from...
Christine Schiefer: Oh!
Em Schulz: But it just kind of was an organic thing that happened for them. They both really loved...
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: Combing people's hair to show them that they liked them. And...
Christine Schiefer: That's very sweet.
Em Schulz: It's literally all precious. So this is now six years later in 1957. So Joanna is 11, Jacqueline is 6. They are walking with their friend, Anthony to mass, uh, at, they're, they're trying to go to church. This is literally, like out of a movie. The three of them are all holding hands and walking quietly down the street.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Just three little kids all holding hands together. Is that not precious? I imagine they're skipping and hoop and stick.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, but I think, I think I'm remembering this. I'm remembering this horror story, all of a sudden. I'm remembering it.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: And I don't know if I heard it, yeah. It couldn't have been on here, right?
Em Schulz: Mm-mm.
Christine Schiefer: Obviously, umm, it might have been on a different podcast once, but, uh, I'm, I'm maybe probably Astonishing Legends. I don't know, but, okay, go on.
Em Schulz: Okay. They're all holding hands. Maybe hoop and stick, maybe skipping, something, something precious. Imagine the... The cutest, sweetest thing you ever could. And then hold on to that feeling.
Christine Schiefer: Kick the can.
Em Schulz: Kick the can. Which by the way I found out is more than just kicking a fucking can back and forth. There's rules to kick the can. I didn't know that.
Christine Schiefer: I feel like I learned that on Hey Arnold but I don't recall completely.
Em Schulz: I think I saw it on Hey Arnold and thought they were kidding. I was like, they, those idiots don't know how to kick the can.
Christine Schiefer: Pfft! [laughter]
Em Schulz: I really thought kick the can was like, I kick the can and then you kick the can, and somehow we end up in another location because we've walked.
Christine Schiefer: No. It's like this whole game, I think. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Okay. You, me and Eva are gonna play kick the can when you come to LA.
Christine Schiefer: It sounds like you're not very good at it.
Em Schulz: I'm not. So you have a good chance at winning, Miss Competitive. Let's do it.
Christine Schiefer: Finally. Stop calling me competitive. Listen, you're either, uh, projecting or something. I don't know, man.
Em Schulz: I think I have seen you in a room with your brother, maybe one... During one heated conversation and I ran with it. I was like, all right. They're obviously competitive.
Christine Schiefer: Well, okay. I mean with a sibling that's different, to be fair.
Em Schulz: I just wanna know the rules to kick the can. So we're gonna do it sometime.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: And then you can go play with Xandy and then you can win over there. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: So, uh, they're holding hands. Very sweet. Nearby, there is a woman named Marjorie Winn, and she is going through it. She is apparently very riddled with grief at the moment after losing her husband. She is... Some sources say she was like forcibly separated from her own kids. I don't know what the story is there.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: But she was struggling in a lot of ways. And it seems that either she was maybe attempting to end her life.
Christine Schiefer: Oof.
Em Schulz: Or she was just really having a bad day and took maybe too many pills.
Christine Schiefer: Oh no!
Em Schulz: Some stories say she was hoping she would overdose. Some people say it was an accidental overdose, but either way, the dose was not lethal, as quickly as one would anticipate. And while under the influence, she gets in her car and starts driving erratically through town...
Christine Schiefer: Gasp. Fuck!
Em Schulz: People tried to stop her. There was literally people in their own cars like trying to chase her down and like swerve her off the road but nobody could do anything about it. She was flying.
Christine Schiefer: Hmm.
Em Schulz: And unfortunately, her car ended up jumping the curb on the sidewalk and bam! Hit all three kids, holding hands so sweetly on their way to church, and all of them died pretty instantly.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. I mean, that's a fucking nightmare, dude. Oh my God.
Em Schulz: Umm, one source said that all of the kids literally went flying. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: So all three died?
Em Schulz: All three died.
Christine Schiefer: Jesus Christ.
Em Schulz: Umm, the sisters died, I think pretty instantly. Uh, Anthony, I think, went to the hospital and then died later, which is just even worse. You almost hope that it was just instant.
Christine Schiefer: Oof.
Em Schulz: Umm, so seemingly unaware of what happened, Marjorie just keeps driving. Like she...
Christine Schiefer: Girl...
Em Schulz: Like she just thought she just hit a curb or something. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Pfft.
Em Schulz: Eventually her car gives out or someone's able to get her off the road and seeming really dazed, she was quoted saying, "What's the matter? Did I hit someone?"
Christine Schiefer: Girl.
Em Schulz: Now some other sources say that she actually intentionally hit them after having some sort of psychotic break about losing her own kids. Umm, we don't know what the real answer is, but she was basically...
Christine Schiefer: It sounds like she doesn't even know.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I don't think she knows who she was. And so she ended up...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Quickly being unresponsive. And I think probably passing out from the medication, she goes to the hospital and they treat her for an overdose, but then she is put under like intense psychiatric care, obviously. But get this, they put her under psychiatric care for her acute melancholy.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: So, I don't know, like "depression lite," even though she literally just fucking killed three kids.
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: Well, acute, acute means sudden onset and like acute means like not good. Like, it's like, remember we've talked about this where I used to think acute meant like lower, 'cause it's an acute angle?
Em Schulz: I'm still there. Yes.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. No, apparently, acute is like...
Em Schulz: Now that you're saying it, kind of, we talked about this?
Christine Schiefer: Acute is the opposite of chronic 'cause chronic is just like a constant underlying.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Acute is like a sudden onset of something.
Em Schulz: Okay. Well.
Christine Schiefer: So basically, it was probably true, whatever, acute melancholy.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Uh, and melancholy still, I feel like no one even uses that word anymore. That feels like an outdated word.
Christine Schiefer: No, I think like they used to sum up a lot of, I think, a lot of things with just like melancholia. And it was just like, was an umbrella for...
Em Schulz: Or hysteria, probably.
Christine Schiefer: Or hysteria for, yeah. That one was probably more anxiety, but yeah. Oof.
Em Schulz: Umm. Yeah, I feel like either you were too much and it was hysteria, or you were not enough and it was melancholia. So...
Christine Schiefer: [laughter] Correct.
Em Schulz: So, anyway, the she gets put away, we don't really hear about her again. So the three kids, they all passed very quickly. Uh, they were also apparently buried side by side in adjoining graves, which like...
Christine Schiefer: Stop.
Em Schulz: So the dad was obviously... Or John Pollock, the one who, as a kid, always believed in reincarnation...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.,
Em Schulz: He was like obviously beside himself. And he spent most of the time after this in his daughter's room.
Christine Schiefer: Oof.
Em Schulz: Umm, he claimed he could still feel their presence, and shortly after, Florence was pregnant. And they literally prayed for their daughters to return. So, keep in mind, immediately, the story tickles the placebo effect. But...
Christine Schiefer: Right, right. Right. Sure. There's like some bias immediately. Right.
Em Schulz: So, uh, anyway, they... And actually, while I say this, John was very into reincarnation. Apparently, Florence was like so not into these beliefs. So like, it almost actually like caused them to get divorced a few times that like, he was like really into this.
Christine Schiefer: Wow. Well, uh I mean, I've I've heard ple-people... I mean, people get divorced when they lose a child, let alone three children because they cope with grief differently or they, you know... Uh, so I can imagine like in this case, if he's really holding onto this idea that like they're gonna be reborn and she's trying to get back to, you know, focusing on her pregnancy, the other kids, I can imagine that being a big.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, a point of contention, I imagine for that, for the two of them.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I think, uh, there... I didn't see any information on before this event that, like, she was really, like, had a strong opinion of it, I think she just kind of disagreed and I think, yeah, people grieve differently and I think he was holding onto it and she was like, can you shut the fuck up and let me like, just like, get over the fact that both my daughters just died instantly?
Christine Schiefer: So like have this pregnancy without like wondering if it's my dead children... Yeah, yeah. It seems like...
Em Schulz: Yeah. Or like...
Christine Schiefer: Really... I mean, being pregnant is hard enough. [chuckle] That, that one I can speak to. Umm, so I imagine it was like, okay, like, I don't wanna keep talking about that grim thing right now. I don't know. I don't know, I can't...
Em Schulz: Yeah. Especially, like for stress on the... On your...
Christine Schiefer: The stress, yeah.
Em Schulz: Like health and everything. Or like, even your...
Christine Schiefer: Oof. That sounds terrible.
Em Schulz: Or even like he's, it almost, in some ways, like takes away from his own excitement about a new baby. It's like, oh, he's just...
Christine Schiefer: Right. You're putting a lot of pressure on. You're like, oh, I want them to be the replacement of the girls...
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah. And I'm not blaming him at all either. I'm sure I would probably honestly have this exact same reaction. So I'm not, I'm not saying like he's in the wrong, but I can see why that would be like a, like a a tense... A tension in the house.
Em Schulz: Yeah. As someone who believes in reincarnation...
Christine Schiefer: Right.
Em Schulz: I I don't think if I went through something horrible, I could get through it without assuming for a second, like as I'm getting through it, like maybe they'll come back in a different way.
Christine Schiefer: Or having to hope, at least, you know. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Umm, yes. So, they're grieving differently. It really drives a wedge between them. But...
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: She's pregnant, and in 1958, Florence gives birth and they had gone to doctor's appointments. The doctor said, oh, it's like a healthy baby, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But she gives birth to two babies.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Was never told that there was actually another baby.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp. Oh! 'Cause back then it was hard to tell.
Em Schulz: And the doctors even were like, we had no idea. Like, this is not supposed to happen.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, 'cause if one's just like high... I've watched a lot of Call the Midwife, uh, before I had a baby, then I can't watch it anymore. But, umm, when I did watch it, I was like, kind of surprised how little they were able to figure out back then, like, just because they didn't have ultrasounds, obviously, for a while. So, umm, you just have to feel around.
Em Schulz: Yeah. And I guess he only felt one baby, so what a surprise. After grieving their two daughters.
Christine Schiefer: Oof!
Em Schulz: They now have two daughters. And...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, that is so crazy! So did the... I'm sorry to ask, I know you already said it, but did the boy end up passing?
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And all three kids died. Okay.
Em Schulz: All three did. But one was just a friend.
Christine Schiefer: So they were like... Oh, it was a friend. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was a... His son 'cause I was like, does he not want him to come back, too?
Em Schulz: Oh. Oh, oh, oh.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. This is somebody else's son. Okay.
Em Schulz: No. They were just going to church with one of their friends and then the friend also passed.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: But yeah, so they ended up having identical twins.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: And even though identical twins are, are not, sorry, not identical twins... Twins in general were not like on either side. Uh, like, it, it was not common... They were, they couldn't... They couldn't have expected this.
Christine Schiefer: It wasn't like a genetic thing that they were expecting.
Em Schulz: Right. Let alone identical twins. Uh, and so they ended up having these...
Christine Schiefer: I think identical is the fluke, right?
Em Schulz: Yeah. That's why I'm saying like, either way, I guess it wouldn't have...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I see, okay. 'Cause identical twins...
Em Schulz: Mattered 'cause it was on either side.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. My friend had identical twins. And she said that's just like when your, your body just like goes like, oops, I made two of them. Yeah.
Em Schulz: It just happens. Also I heard that if you... I mean, so fraternal twins are the only ones that you can... Like maybe see coming, but it's also apparently only if, uh, on the mom's side or on the uterus owner's side, apparently if.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: Uh, apparently they're in charge genetically on whether or not twins come through. So if you are, even if you are a male fraternal twin and you know, you're having a baby, it doesn't matter... Apparently, It's just if it's...
Christine Schiefer: I see.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Anyway.
Christine Schiefer: Well, in that case, I'm, I'm in luck, 'cause I... Well, I always wanted twins, but now I think that was a bad call. [laughter] So maybe I'm okay without...
Em Schulz: I've always, I mean, we've talked about this before. I, I've always liked the, umm, the whimsy of multiples, but yeah.
Christine Schiefer: I agree.
Em Schulz: And if I found out right now, if I had three babies showing up all at once, I would absolutely pass out. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Forget about it.
Em Schulz: So, they have these identical twins and this is where, if you need to write it down, I understand. Umm, but the original sisters were Joanna and Jacqueline...
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: You writing it down?
Christine Schiefer: I am. I don't have gargoyles, so. Okay.
Em Schulz: Yeah. [laughter] An old fashioned pen will do. Joanna and Jacqueline and the new sisters are Gillian and Jennifer.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, okay. I mean, I guess at least they gave them new names.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Aw. [laughter] Yeah. I know. That's like...
Christine Schiefer: I don't mean that to be flippant. I mean, seriously, like, I didn't know if they were gonna say, you know, we'd... Mayb-maybe they compromised. Maybe he did want to name them the same, just to like comfort, have that comfort.
Em Schulz: Yeah well it's... And part of me is like, maybe they were just going for a theme, but it does feel oddly close to home that like, it's...
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: You know what I mean? Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: I will say out of these four girl J names, three of them are Duggar names. That's what made me cared.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, there you go. So they still have... Which one do they have to go? Joanna, they don't have yet?
Em Schulz: A Jo... They have a... Well they have a Joy-Anna and a Johannah that are both sisters in the family...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, close enough.
Em Schulz: They couldn't come up with anything original.
Christine Schiefer: So that... So Jacqueline is what they don't have.
Em Schulz: They don't have a Jacqueline.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: Anyway, only bring that up because it, it, it's not something I missed that there's a series of J names in a family. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughter]
Em Schulz: So, okay. So they have, the older sisters are Joanna and Jacqueline. The newer sisters are Gillian and Jennifer.
Christine Schiefer: Gotcha.
Em Schulz: And right away, they noticed that each of these sisters seems to have a weird set of commonalities with one of the previous sisters.
Christine Schiefer: Oh boy.
Em Schulz: Umm, for one, Jennifer has two very interesting birthmarks and both of them match identical spots where Jacqueline had spots. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: That's pretty weird. I was gonna say that's one you can't really imagine up...
Em Schulz: Explain away...
Christine Schiefer: Like ma... Right. Explain away.
Em Schulz: So one was a discoloration at exactly the same spot that Jacqueline had one on her waist. They both had the same thing.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: Another one was right above Jennifer's eye, which is, uh, a scar that Jacqueline once had from when she, uh.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Fell into a bucket when she was a kid or when she was a toddler, I guess.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, no. It sounds like a thing I would do.
Em Schulz: I know. So...
Christine Schiefer: Fall into a bucket.
Em Schulz: It was a scar on Jacqueline's face. And now in the exact same spot, in the exact same way, is now a birthmark on Jennifer's face.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: Uh, also, uh, Jennifer also had three birthmarks near her nose in the same places where Jacqueline got stitches after the accident.
Christine Schiefer: Pretty weird.
Em Schulz: When alive, Joanna, who kind of takes over, who is, seems to have been taken over by Gillian, if we're playing this game. Like, just so you know who's who.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: When alive, Joanna had a splay-footed walk, while Gillian also had a splay-footed walk. Meanwhile, Jacqueline, when alive, did not have a splay-footed walk, and neither did Jennifer. So they both already walk like one of the others.
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: Umm, despite being identical, Jennifer was slightly stockier, as was Jacqueline and Gillian was more slender, as was Joanna.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: And one time Gillian actually pointed at Jennifer's birth mark, the one that looked, that was like right over her eye. And she said, that is the mark Jennifer got when she fell on a bucket.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Which that was not Jennifer. That was Jacqueline.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, how weird that she said Jennifer, too. Like, she like, act like as though it happened in this life. Oh, how weird.
Em Schulz: Yeah. It's like, oh, that's where you, that's where you fell. I remember that. And it was actually when Jacqueline fell, when she was alive...
Christine Schiefer: Ooh. Ooh! That gave me chills.
Em Schulz: Umm, this one's a little odd for me. I feel like we're kind of, umm, looking for things at this point. But Jennifer as an adult, held a pencil the exact same way as Jacqueline did and Joanna did it... Held the pencil the same way Gillian did. I guess they held them in odd ways and they both ended up holding pencils the same way.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. I don't even know how I hold a pencil, but... [laughter]
Em Schulz: Uh, yeah, that one, that one, was like, okay, I guess I'll add that one in.
Christine Schiefer: Hmm.
Em Schulz: Umm, another example of... Is that the girls started to talk about places they remembered, but they had never actually been before, but Jacqueline and Joanna had been.
Christine Schiefer: That, that gets me. That gets me.
Em Schulz: So an example of this is the family moved away from their old neighborhood... When the... The two new daughters came, the family moved away before they could have gained any memories about that place.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: But years later as older kids, Jennifer and Gillian would visit the town with their parents and want to play at the park very badly, even though they'd never been to that park.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: But they remember all these memories at the park. And even when their parents said, okay, we'll go to the park, the kids led the way despite not knowing how to get there.
Christine Schiefer: Oh boy, that's weird.
Em Schulz: They also walked past... To get to the park, they walked past Joanna and Jacqueline's old school and immediately started talking about that building, calling it their school and reminiscing in ways that they should not have been able to. They even called it...
Christine Schiefer: Oh! That's weird.
Em Schulz: They even called it "our school" before they even saw it around the corner. But they said, our school's coming up...
Christine Schiefer: Shut up.
Em Schulz: And then they turned the corner. And then there was Jacqueline and Joanna's school. Umm, another time they were actually overheard talking about a car accident. They had never been in a car accident.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: But they were talking about, in detail, a car accident they had been in.
Christine Schiefer: Uh-oh.
Em Schulz: Including Gillian going over to Jennifer, holding Jennifer's head, and saying.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: "The blood's coming out of your eyes. That's where the car hit you."
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: And even weirder, John and Florence, remember when they had to go identify their daughters that Jacqueline had bandages on her eyes. And now she's saying, there's blood coming out.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. Remember, remember... I need you to listen to me very carefully. When you started the story, you literally said to me, I'm so glad I'm not doing a rough one like last week. And now you're like, anyway, these three dead children... I'm like, Jesus Christ! This is darker than anything you've covered.
Em Schulz: Yeah. This is actually pretty rough. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: The last one you said was not... Probably not even real! Oof.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I did forget I was talking to a parent here too. So it's just gotta be quadruple.
Christine Schiefer: You... Well, it... Still, I mean, I don't imagine it's easy for anyone to hear three children get hit by a car and bleeding out of their eyes. But.
Em Schulz: I mean, I, I think it's probably extra hard for, for parents. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: It's just, uh, unpleasant. Definitely.
Em Schulz: So on top of all this, the twins from the very beginning, always had a terrible phobia of cars.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: And anytime a car just drove by them casually, they would say it was gonna hit them and they'd start freaking out.
Christine Schiefer: Oh!
Em Schulz: When they were three, the girls got a box of toys that once belonged to Joanna and Jacqueline and one source even said...
Christine Schiefer: Oh.
Em Schulz: One source even said they only got this box of toys because they kept asking for their old toys back.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: And the parents had to go find like toys that they tucked away to remember Joanna and Jacqueline.
Christine Schiefer: Holy shit.
Em Schulz: Gillian immediately claimed one of the dolls that belonged to Joanna. Jennifer immediately claimed a doll that used to be Jacqueline's and they both adamantly said that these dolls came from Santa.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: And when they were given to Joanna and Jacqueline, they were originally Christmas presents.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. How weird is that?
Em Schulz: They both also named their dolls, Mary and Susan, which Joanna and Jacqueline named the dolls.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp. Shut the fuck up!
Em Schulz: There were apparently other toys in Jacqueline's... Of Jacqueline's and Joanna's that the girls also remembered were previous Christmas toys, and claimed them as their own.
Christine Schiefer: Whoa!
Em Schulz: This was the moment. Now years later, this was the moment where Florence was convinced that maybe reincarnation was at play because remember she was so against it.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: And I guess this toy moment is when she was like, okay, this is too fucking weird. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Now for everyone wondering like how much is being fed to them in passing...
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: That maybe they like, you know, were accidentally creating personas based on what they'd heard. Umm, John claims that, uh, even though he was thinking about reincarnation the whole time, he never mentioned it out loud to the family. He didn't wanna freak out the kids. He didn't wanna, like, you know, give them any bias at any point. He said he never even mentioned reincarnation with the twins in the room until like age 13. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: But well, we'll get into that. So until then, the girls continued to exhibit similar behaviors of Joanna's and Jacqueline's. They had a special bond with their grandma who once raised Joanna and Jacqueline. And they seemed to have a strong bond right away as if they already knew each other. Umm, when the first, uh, two daughters died, Florence ended up staying home 'cause she just couldn't handle the grief and she stopped working and doing milk deliveries. But later, they ended up finding her old work uniform and saying, oh, that's mommy's coat from when she would wear... From when she would be on deliveries.
Christine Schiefer: What? [chuckle]
Em Schulz: And nobody knew how they were able to know that. Umm, through the years, Gillian, just like Joanna, was known for treating Jennifer like a big sister and being very, you know, being there for her.
Christine Schiefer: Aw.
Em Schulz: Even though they were twins, not older sister, younger sister.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Umm, she was also known to be very doting to the neighborhood kids in similar ways that Joanna was. And both kids seemed to figure out on their own, that they liked to show affection through combing people's hair.
Christine Schiefer: Stop! Oh.
Em Schulz: One of Gillian's hobbies that everyone knew her for, was putting on massive elaborate plays with costumes and set deck, just like Joanna.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, how cute. Oh my God!
Em Schulz: And Gillian later even said that she had visions of playing with her brothers in a house that she never lived in before. And when she described things like the furniture, she could even describe the gardens and the orchard nearby, and the neighborhood. It ended up being the house that the family lived in before the twins were born.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: In the 1960s, multiple outlets started talking about the twins and the Pollocks', uh, church criticized the family for their story. How could you believe in reincarnation? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And the Pollocks ended up having to leave the church because it was so intense. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: Wow.
Em Schulz: But as adults, Gillian and Jennifer slowly remembered less and less of their past lives, which is another indicator that maybe it really was reincarnation 'cause they say by like five, you start kind of losing it...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah.
Em Schulz: And by, by adulthood they had no memories left of that time. Umm.
Christine Schiefer: That... See that, that to me is pretty convincing 'cause like if he was trying to keep it up this whole time, like keep talking about the doll that you, you know?
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Like, they wouldn't have kind of forgotten everything.
Em Schulz: Also, if he didn't say anything until they were 13, that it sounds like he let like eight years pass before he said anything...
Christine Schiefer: He let it... Right. True. True.
Em Schulz: Umm, but this is where I also say, a lot of people believe this could be a hoax because maybe not even an intentional hoax, but they might just be, you know, scraping the bottom for, for some sort of coincidence, wherever they can find it, to help them grieve their own, own children.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: So a lot of people say maybe John lied about never mentioning reincarnation, or they literally had older brothers who could have said something to them. Uh.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: I mean, the story was huge at the time. So neighbors could have said it in passing by just seeing them. Uh, brothers could have...
Christine Schiefer: True, true.
Em Schulz: The brothers could have also told them like the names of the dolls or told them memories that they had with their other sisters. The mom could have like been the one that combed their hair a certain way so all four of the girls showed affection that way.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: All the kids have, you know, all kids have inability to be very doting and sweet and they all put on plays and, umm, they could be scared of cars.
Christine Schiefer: Right, right.
Em Schulz: Especially if the parents are scared of cars now around their kids, it could've like rubbed off on them.
Christine Schiefer: Oh that's true too. That's, that's a really good point.
Em Schulz: Uh, and so the parents could have just primed these kids forever, without even noticing it. I mean, John was literally praying for his daughter to be reincarnated so I don't know if they are as subtle as they think they were. Umm, but this could have... I, you know, it would be interesting if it were true and I I wasn't there maybe, maybe it is true, but...
Christine Schiefer: Right.
Em Schulz: This could also all be side effects of grieving parents, kind of transferring their memories onto their daughters. And one theory which was interesting was maternal impressions, which is literally that like...
Christine Schiefer: Ah.
Em Schulz: While she was pregnant, she might have thought so much about her daughters.
Christine Schiefer: [1:03:20.8] ____.
Em Schulz: She might have... Florence might have thought so much about Joanna and Jacqueline that while pregnant, the memory is almost like generational trauma onto the other babies.
Christine Schiefer: Right. Well, and there's also, umm, that idea of, uh, trauma within the... Trauma in utero and, I mean.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: I imagine having just lost two kids, that trauma that was probably ongoing. And so, you know, they say you can pass that through DNA, so who knows? You know, maybe if she, the... Like for example, the, the phobia of the car maybe was something while she was pregnant, maybe that got...
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, I, you know, this, I think that's also a very new field of study. So I don't know too much about it, but, umm, yeah, there's a lot. I mean, but even that alone would be really fascinating if that somehow was passed in utero, or it's, even just like psychologically the story is fascinating.
Em Schulz: Yeah. So, umm, the only thing we know for sure is that we may never know for sure. [laughter] And uh... And that's the, the Pollock Twins or the... Well, they're called...
Christine Schiefer: That. Ooh!
Em Schulz: The Hexham... The Hexham Rebirth is another name for them.
Christine Schiefer: Hexham Rebirth. Okay. I swear to God, where have I heard this?
Em Schulz: Not me.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, Lore. Lore. That's where I've heard it. Lore. Umm, wow. And that was really well done and so fucking creepy. And you know how much I'm fascinated by reincarnation. And, you know, obviously the desire for your children, like, you know, that was clearly born out of grief and his fascination already with a... With reincarnation. But then it also makes you wonder like maybe as a kid there was something in him that knew like...
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: He would experience, you know what I mean? Like, maybe it wasn't that his fascination with reincarnation like led to this scenario. Like maybe it was the other way around. Like...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Somehow he knew that would affect him one day. So he got really drawn to the topic.
Em Schulz: I mean, even like think about like, one of the girls used to always say, I'll never be a lady, I'll never grow up to be a lady.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yes. Gasp.
Em Schulz: So like, again, it's like almost on both sides of the timeline, they were able to already sense each other or something.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp. Yes. Oh my... Ooh, I have goosecam. My gosh, that is such a creepy story, dude, you did a very good job telling it.
Em Schulz: Thank you. Thank you.
Christine Schiefer: I have goosecam. Well, I have to pee real quick. Is that okay?
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yes. Wow. When Allison isn't around, I'm such a piece of garbage. I'm literally just... I'm in the same pajamas. I haven't left my apartment in like three days. I'm eating a box of Nilla Wafers. That's all that's kind of keeping me alive these days. [laughter] oh man!
Christine Schiefer: I get it. I behave that way too.
Em Schulz: It's nice to have a, the the bachelor pad.
Christine Schiefer: I was gonna say, I get that way too, when Blaise is... Or when Blaise is gone.
Em Schulz: What's your, like... When Blaise is not around, what's the first thing how... What's the first way your behavior changes?
Christine Schiefer: I immediately start ordering poke bowls like daily, like DoorDash. Like I just order like sushi.
Em Schulz: I...
Christine Schiefer: It's not that he wouldn't want sushi, it's just like, we don't really, like, we'll order it every now and then, but like when he's out of town, like it's not his... Like poke and like all that is not his favorite thing. So, we don't usually, so but it's like my favorite thing, so that's definitely. And then also I just do nothing. I clean nothing. I do nothing. I just become like the ultimate slob.
Em Schulz: The place looks like a mess currently, like Allison would be having a full blown panic attack. I mean, it, umm, like it looks... It doesn't look as bad as a place that like deserves to have roaches, but definitely looks more like, if you walked into our place today versus any other time, you'd be like, oh, I kind of get why you have roaches. Like it just, it looks kinda like maybe you need to pick some, some of your clothes up off the living room floor. Why are they there? You know?
Christine Schiefer: Oh, yeah. I mean, listen, to me, that's a, that's a normal Tuesday that... My house looks like that on clean days. But I do understand that, so [1:07:21.7] ____ straighten up.
Em Schulz: How did my clothes get out there? I I literally don't know how my clothes get out there. I, like, there's literally just...
Christine Schiefer: Listen, I, I follow some accounts where they're like, these are where all my bras end up and it's like on the kitchen counter, on the, like, I don't know, you know, you just move around. Also, you have just like a one thing, like I have three floors. My shit still ends up somehow [laughter] up in Blaise's office. I'm like, why are my socks in Blaise's office? I don't know. I'm wondering.
Em Schulz: As much as I want, as much as I want a bigger space, I'm like, I know it would just give me more room to be a filthy, a filthy animal. And so...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Great.
Em Schulz: Well, I...
Christine Schiefer: I don't know what the problem is.
Em Schulz: So far it's pretty contained to at least the living room. But I'm still amazed. I'm like, how did my shirt end up here? What was I doing mid... Taking my shirt off by myself in the middle of the day?
Christine Schiefer: Well, why not take it off in your living room?
Em Schulz: I don't know how we got there though. I just, it's always a mystery. I feel like I walk around and I'm just like, couldn't tell you how... How it came to be. Anyway.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I think, I think that's more normal than you realize. I think that's pretty standard. You know, like sometimes I play that game or well I don't play it. Other people play, what's in Christine's purse and they'll pull out [laughter] like a bottle of Cholula and be like, what's this? And I'm like, I don't know. And they're like, well where'd it come from? I don't know. It's like...
Em Schulz: I like to think...
Christine Schiefer: You obviously put it there. I mean I know I put it there. I just don't know why or when.
Em Schulz: I do like to think that maybe it's more normal than I realize, but also maybe we surround ourselves with just these types of people. So maybe...
Christine Schiefer: I was gonna say, maybe it's just you and me and we're just like sick in the head and uh, I'm trying to convince us it's normal. You know? It could be... It could very well be also. Umm.
Em Schulz: Well it's nice to not be alone.
Christine Schiefer: I wish it could be clean, but yeah. Umm, anyway. Okay, so are you ready for a story?
Em Schulz: Uh, 1000%
Christine Schiefer: Also, Jack can leave that in, right? That's fine that we talk about being slobs?
Em Schulz: I think we talk about much worse normally. So.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. I just wanna make sure, 'cause you started the conversation. I didn't want you to be like, that was for your ears only. Okay. So everybody, after this nice interlude, I have a story for you. This is the story of Terry Peder Rasmussen AKA the Chameleon Killer.
Em Schulz: Oh. No.
Christine Schiefer: So I wanna add that the Sinisterhood gals, uh, talked about this story, umm, on like Episode 50-something of their podcast. So I've listened to it there as well. Umm, and then overall, because I just feel like all these places are definitely worth checking out, umm, all these sources, also, there's an entire podcast called the Bear Brook murders, umm, which...
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Is an incredibly well done, uh, podcast series, and I would recommend it. I listened to it ages ago. Umm, so it was one of those things where I was researching this story and going, why do I know about this? Oh, right. I listened to, I like binged an entire podcast about the... Just this story. Umm, so anyway, it's, uh, worth listening to, 'cause you can kind of watch it. It's sort of like serial where you can like see it kind of unfolding in real time...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: As they're getting clues and it's very cool. So I'm gonna do my best to cover it from my perspective, but, uh, just if you want more of the story, that is where you should go. So, Terry Peder Rasmussen, he was born in Denver, Colorado, December 23rd, 1943. And we don't know a lot about his early life, his early experiences, childhood, uh, what his family was like. But it's almost like no news maybe means good news, maybe like, umm...
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: Maybe just nothing to report.
Em Schulz: He was kind of a dude...
Christine Schiefer: There was one story... Just kind of a... Just kind of a dude, you know?
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: There was one story I heard, umm, on Bear Brook where he had... He had been cutting a watermelon, umm, at a, at a picnic or something with, with a family gathering... At a family gathering. And some, one of the other kids like made him mad or said something that ticked him off, and he went chasing after him with this big knife.
Em Schulz: Whoa.
Christine Schiefer: And apparently, it was so startling and upsetting to the family that they like knew something was wrong at that point. Umm, so there must have been some signs, at the very least. Uh, but overall, like, you know, that he wasn't in trouble. There wasn't anything like big that we can point to. Umm...
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Besides some anecdotes like that. So, his family moved to Arizona when he was young, and Terry attended elementary school and high school in Phoenix. He dropped out his sophomore year, which was 1960, and enlisted in the Navy in 1961. He trained and worked as a naval electrician until he left the military in '67. And now, after his discharge, Terry relocated to Hawaii, because his parents had a shoe shop there. Okay?
Em Schulz: Oh, of course. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Of course. He moves to Hawaii to work...
Em Schulz: His parents were... Did... Sorry, important question. Important question.
Christine Schiefer: Please. Go ahead.
Em Schulz: Do you think that in the 1960s, that they still called themselves "cobblers"? Or do you think he was just like a shoe store owner? I'm trying to find the... I'm trying to find the... The conversation where I can, before we get to the sad stuff.
Christine Schiefer: I think a cobbler makes shoes.
Em Schulz: Did his dad not make shoes or was it like a salesman?
Christine Schiefer: No. They just owned a shoe store. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Oh, okay.
Christine Schiefer: So I don't... I don't...
Em Schulz: In my mind I was like, damn, he's a Hawaiian cobbler. That's crazy. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: No, I think a Hawaiian cobbler's pineapple coconut, layered with sponge cake. [laughter] No, I'm kidding... Umm, but that sounds lovely. Uh, no, I think, I think it was just a shoe, shoe store. Umm.
Em Schulz: Okay, that makes it...
Christine Schiefer: So, I mean, you know...
Em Schulz: Less interesting, but okay. Good to know.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, I think, uh, may... I mean, who knows, maybe it was a fucking Shoe Carnival for, for all I know, but, [laughter] uh, they basically owned a shoe store. Imagine if a Shoe Carnival called themselves "Cobblers." [laughter] I'm... Ah, [1:13:07.1] ____ shoes.
Em Schulz: Imagine if cobblers called their, their store "The Carnival." And then you went there and you were like, this is not as fun as I was expecting.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. [laughter] That's a really good point. Uh, yeah, imagine if a shoe store called itself The Carnival. Wait, they do. And it still doesn't make sense. Umm, yeah. One time I sent my mom a, a reel or TikTok about like, oh, me walking through, uh, walking down the aisle at Payless Shoe Store so my mom can see if these sneakers fit me. And I sent it to my mom, and she goes, "I didn't take you to Payless, I took you to Shoe Carnival." And I was like, what the fuck is the difference? Anyway.
Em Schulz: That's like, truly, that's...
Christine Schiefer: Okay.
Em Schulz: That's a kind of a thing my mom would say it seems these days where you just don't ever get a straight answer from them. It's like no one asked what the store was. Let's. Let's...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I don't remember that being...
Em Schulz: Put it together.
Christine Schiefer: Pertinent to the... To the conversation. Get it together. Umm, so in Hawaii, after he moves there, he meets his first wife. They are married in July 1968 and he moved there in 1967. So this was like a very quick, uh, engagement, like a short engagement, umm, apparently, which you can probably guess based on the content of this podcast, Terry was not an easy man to be married to. Uh, it seems like pretty early on, they had quite a bit of conflict in the marriage, though we don't have a lot of detail. Umm, in 1969, the couple moved back to Terry's home in Arizona and that is where Terry began working, uh, in his trade as an electrician.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: That same year, incidentally, his wife gave birth to their twin daughters. So we've got a couple more twins today.
Em Schulz: Interesting.
Christine Schiefer: The family relocated in 1970 to Redwood City, California, where Terry continued to work as an electrician. And while they were living in Redwood City, they welcomed their third child to the Rasmussen family. And this was a baby boy. So in '72, the Rasmussens had a fourth child, this time a girl, and the relationship of the... The parents was deteriorating. They separated the same year that their fourth child was born, though neither filed for divorce. Umm, it is worth noting, by the way, and, uh, Saoirse made this note, which I was thankful for, that the first no-fault divorce law was signed in California in 1969, and this made it more possible for women to divorce their husbands.
Christine Schiefer: So basically, before 1969 in California, it was incredibly difficult to divorce... As a woman to divorce your husband. Umm, but even though this was signed into law in 1969, and we are in 1972, umm, there were still a lot of complications. Like, for example, a lot of banks denied women their own bank accounts without a husband's signature. Umm, and that went on like through the mid '70s. Umm, same with mortgages, credit cards, loans. So it was like very difficult financially, to live, uh, you know, divorced in the '70s, and not always, but in some circumstances. And so, you know, we don't know why they didn't file for a divorce, but it's possible that could have been one of the reasons. It's just speculation.
Em Schulz: Sure. She could have been like just stuck, just stuck.
Christine Schiefer: Just, just like, no. Yeah, I just don't wanna do the paperwork and need to, I don't know, find, find permission to get a bank account. Umm, so regardless, she and Terry did get back together eventually, uh, and they moved back to Phoenix in 1973, where Terry now worked both as an electrician and in a shoe store. So he's really just like [laughter] circling back to these old...
Em Schulz: A cobbler?
Christine Schiefer: He's a cobbler. Circling... Circling back to all these old, uh, hobbies of his, all these old jobs. So although we don't know the personal details of what was going on in their marriage, we do know they were struggling. And in 1975, Terry was arrested in Phoenix for aggravated assault. And not long after that, his wife took all four children and left him. So in December of 1975, that by the way, happened in June, uh, just to remind you and so now we're in December.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: So it was about six months... He shows up to visit his family unannounced.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, the wife and three kids or the ex-wife, I guess, and three kids and... I'm sorry, four kids now. Geez. Okay. So he goes to visit his family that he has not seen in many months...
Em Schulz: That does not want him. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: That does not want him. He shows up unannounced, accompanied by a random woman.
Em Schulz: Oh boy.
Christine Schiefer: Now it's speculated that perhaps he was just trying to show off like, well, I don't need you...
Em Schulz: Hmm.
Christine Schiefer: I've got a new woman. You know, that kind of thing. We're not really sure. But he showed up at their doorstep. He told his family he was living in Ingleside, Texas, and this, they were like, okay. Bye. And that was the last time Terry Rasmussen's wife and children ever saw him.
Em Schulz: Oh, damn.
Christine Schiefer: And their divorce would be finalized in '78, two years later, or two or three years later. Umm, so that was the last that they kind of, that was their, their official parting ways that first, I say first, keyword "first," family. His first family.
Em Schulz: Okay. Noted.
Christine Schiefer: So yeah, you get, you get the hint. Umm, next, Terry made his way to New Hampshire and he adopted a new moniker. He was now going under the name "Bob Evans."
Em Schulz: Like the restaurant?
Christine Schiefer: Okay. I'm, I was waiting for that. 'cause every podcast I listened to did not mention it. And I thought, well, we're gonna mention it. Obviously.
Em Schulz: Obviously.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, no hate to Sinisterhood and the other podcast I listened to, I'm sure you are being very professional, but I have to talk about the breakfast joint for a moment, umm...
Em Schulz: Fun fact, [1:18:53.5] ____ Bob Evans.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. So apparently, uh, Saoirse also knew our dumb asses would immediately discuss this because they put this side note in which says, "The Bob Evans farm and restaurant business began major expansion in 1953." So please remember that this is happening in like '78-ish.
Em Schulz: Right. So he is not Bob Evans of the Bob Evans fame.
Christine Schiefer: No, no.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: And they're commercial... They're commercial campaigns throughout the decade and afterwards. So he basically, the reason I say that is because that was already a popular chain. It's not like, oh.
Em Schulz: Hmm.
Christine Schiefer: He just picked a random name. And then later it became a restaurant; like for decades, for like at least two decades, two and a half decades this place has already been around.
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: Nationwide. It's a very odd name in my opinion, to pick like the name of a restaurant, but whatever. Okay. So he, it's an interesting choice, as Saoirse wrote. Umm, so for years, Terry or Bob Evans, would travel the country under false aliases, uh, terrorizing families wherever he went, but it would take decades for anybody to finally put together who Terry really was and all that he had done. So, now we do a little star wipe. We move to a new spot, a new setting.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Our new character is Jesse Morgan, who grew up in Bear Brook Gardens, which is a small trailer community in Allenstown, New Hampshire, surrounded by the forest of Bear Brook State Park.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: At over 10,000 acres of land, Bear Brook is New Hampshire's largest developed state park, popular for hiking, camping, fishing, mountain biking, et cetera. Today, there are over 40 miles of trail. The park has always been majorly forested and with so much to do on the beaten path, there are secluded parts of the park that are like much more remote and don't get much traffic.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: So Jesse and his friends would often play hide and seek on four-wheelers. Uh, some kids would hide, like out in the expanse of the forest and the seekers would then drive around on ATVs, looking for them. So in summer of 1985, Jesse and his friends were out and about playing their usual games when they came across a big metal barrel. It was a rusted blue 55-gallon steel drum in the middle of the remote wilderness.
Em Schulz: Hey, firm pass.
Christine Schiefer: Hey, that's not good. [laughter]
Em Schulz: That sounds exactly like the be... That feels actually kind of fake. That feels, if I got that script sent to me by someone who wanted to make a horror movie, I'd be like, that's too obvious. You have to...
Christine Schiefer: That would never happen.
Em Schulz: It doesn't feel natural. Too natural. Too unnatural.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Too unnatural. And so guess what they did? 'Cause they're kids.
Em Schulz: They opened it up obviously, and they found a dead body.
Christine Schiefer: They fuck opened up the fucking barrel. Right? So they, they try to open it up and all they, they can't really get it open fully, there... They do notice a terrible smell is emanating from this barrel, and they managed to tip it over, uh, while they're trying to...
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: Open it up and they noticed a liquid begins seeping out...
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: And Jesse being a child, described it as what he thought was rotten milk.
Em Schulz: Oh! Oh, you got me back after that... That story I told you today. Whew! Oh.
Christine Schiefer: I'm glad because you deserved it.
Em Schulz: See. Here's, here's the thing though. Like, I was a rambunctious teenager in the middle of the woods quite often. And if I found a reason to explore, you know, back before there were phones, you just had to make fun with what you had. And sometimes it was a steel drum full of a dead body.
Christine Schiefer: Absolutely.
Em Schulz: But, [laughter] if I ever found a container, and now my friends and I are like gung-ho about opening this thing.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: And that's gonna be our fun for the day, the second it smelled, I was never interested enough to keep going. I'd be like...
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: You were like, I'm out of here. I'm done with this game.
Em Schulz: I was like, it was fun until I can't breathe. All of a sudden, I don't wanna be there. So...
Christine Schiefer: Until it stinks.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Especially like, if it smells like... I mean, the smell of death is like a very specific smell...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: And it, I, I could see why someone would say something like bad milk. 'Cause it's, I mean, just such a horribly potent smell. Like...
Christine Schiefer: And it's like decomped and... It just... Pfft!
Em Schulz: Yeah, and then liquids pouring out of it now. Oh my God. And I know one of them was touching that liquid with their bare hands. I know that.
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
Em Schulz: 'Cause they were like, they were like, what is this? And they probably touched it and smelled their hands being like, I don't know what this is. Oh my God!
Christine Schiefer: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. The thought makes me wanna scream. That's horrific. So...
Em Schulz: Ugh. Okay. Keep going.
Christine Schiefer: I'm glad you find this horrifying and compelling because the... If, if anybody else does also, the Bear Book Podcast goes into like great detail about the kids, like finding the barrel and all this, and because it's like a well-documented story, so definitely, go listen to that if you wanna hear the actual interviews and like first-person accounts of all this, but yeah. So they, you know, they're kids, they're thinking like, oh, I don't know, this is just something gross in the woods. And they're like, ew, it stinks. So they hop on their four-wheelers and they just head out. It wasn't that, it wasn't until a few months later that a man was out hunting.
Em Schulz: Oof, months?
Christine Schiefer: Yep. A man was out hunting in that same area on November 10th, 1985, when he found this same barrel, but this time, as he examined it and looked a little closer, he noticed what appeared to be human bones coming out of the partially opened container.
Em Schulz: Which, like, it's so sad to think that, like, if that's like your loved one, and like someone almost discovered them months ago...
Christine Schiefer: I know. I know. I know.
Em Schulz: And then, and then just kept sitting there for months.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it makes it extra sad. And I think the kids who are now obviously adults, have had to kind of come to grips with that, you know?
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Like that they didn't do anything or say anything, but it's also like...
Em Schulz: Or the fact that they were like just...
Christine Schiefer: You're kids, you didn't know.
Em Schulz: Yeah. I mean, the fact that they were just like fucking around with like a...
Christine Schiefer: Like playing around.
Em Schulz: A container. And like, they were just jostling it around...
Christine Schiefer: Like they're little, they don't know... They don't know that people hide dead bodies in a park yet. You know, that's something you learn now when the other man finds it and tells you and you're traumatized for the rest of your life. So, you know.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: You were young and naive briefly when you found the barrel the first time. So yeah. It's too bad. So, he, of course, this guy, the hunter, realizes quickly that something is very wrong so he calls the police from the Bear Brook Gardens community and the responding officer walks right out and opens up the barrel and the plastic bag inside it...
Em Schulz: Ugh!
Christine Schiefer: And is shocked to discover the human remains of two people in this barrel.
Em Schulz: Two? Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: Two. The first being an adult woman, who is somewhere between her twenties and thirties. And the second is a young girl between ages 8 and 10 just...
Em Schulz: Oh, were they related? Oh my God, were they related?
Christine Schiefer: Horrible.
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: We'll get to it. So, the remains were largely decomposed, but investigators were able to determine that they both suffered lethal blunt force trauma to the head and that was presumably how they had passed. There was nothing inside the barrel that could point to their identities. And because only a few thousand people called Allenstown, New Hampshire home, there were no outstanding missing persons cases. And so they really weren't sure who this could be. Police began going door to door asking residents for anything unusual they may have seen, any missing family or friends in another town, who maybe could be these missing... Who matched the description of these... Of these bodies. Umm, anything that they could find... Find to point them in the right direction. But unfortunately, they got nowhere. And eventually, a local business donated a headstone, so that they could, at least, lay the child and the woman who they assumed to be the mother, to rest. Because they said, you know, even if we don't find out who this is, we wanna at least give them a proper burial.
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: And, and give them the respect they deserve, even if we don't know their names. So they were buried without names and the years ticked by and the case went cold. They just had no, no other angles to pursue. So, meanwhile, investigators in Allenstown did not know that this story was still unfolding all the way across the nation, 3000 miles away in Scotts Valley, California. This is almost like a simultaneous, uh, part of the case is going on all the way across the nation in an RV park. And in 1986, a year after the barrel discovery in New Hampshire, a man named Gordon Jensen moved to the RV community here in Scotts Valley, along with his five-year-old daughter, Lisa. The two of them lived in the small camper on the back of his pickup truck while he worked as the neighborhood's general handyman. Uh, Lisa, the daughter, was well known in the community. She spent her days running around playing with the other kids, the other families, while her dad worked. Umm, but some people, this makes my heart hurt a lot... Umm, oof. Sorry, that just hit me. Some people noticed that they would hear Lisa crying in her camper at night.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: And... Yeah. And adults started to notice that Lisa seemed underfed, uh, and that...
Em Schulz: Oh shit.
Christine Schiefer: Gordon wasn't giving her new clothes or bathing her very often. And when other parents asked about, you know, where's the child's mother? He told different stories about how she had died. Uh, he told different neighbors different things. He said she died of cancer. Then she told... He told someone else she died in a traffic accident. Umm, and so nobody had a really clear understanding of what had happened, but he framed it as like, oh, we're just all in our lonesome after her mother passed away tragically. Umm, and he can't keep his story straight, I guess.
Christine Schiefer: So one day, Gordon, uh, finds out that a neighbor of his, Katherine and Richard Decker, they mentioned their daughter has been having trouble conceiving and has been trying to have a child. And so Gordon says, hey, listen, Lisa is a little girl and you know, you know her well, why don't, like I'm heading out of town for about three weeks, why don't you guys take her under your wing for a couple of weeks? Your daughter can kind of have like a trial run of having a little kid in the house...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And you guys can watch her while I'm out of town. It's like a win-win. And so they say, you know what? That's a great idea. Uh, they drive Lisa over to their daughter's house, and, you know, they're like, it's a safe and loving home. We're gonna take great care of her until you come back. And Gordon stayed behind. So Gordon goes off on his three-week trip, allegedly, uh, and he never comes back.
Em Schulz: Oh, he just said, see ya...
Christine Schiefer: So, he just...
Em Schulz: Well, okay so... Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Bye. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Should I make guesses or should I keep quiet?
Christine Schiefer: You can guess.
Em Schulz: Uh, is this also Terry/Big Bob, and he has just ditched another family member?
Christine Schiefer: Yep.
Em Schulz: Okay. Well, sounds like he's got... [laughter] Well, he's... There's one thing he's really good at, and it's being a piece of shit. Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. You know what, Em? You're right. We do deserve to give... He does deserve that credit. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Okay. Great.
Christine Schiefer: He does deserve the credit of being a terrible person. So, Gordon says, yeah, I'll be back in three weeks. Never fucking returns. And so now that Lisa is with this kind of like, loving, protective, safe family, they notice she starts displaying behaviors common among abused children. And they think to themselves, okay, well he hasn't come back yet. Like, what do we do? Umm, so they seek professional assistance. They're trying to contact Gordon, they're trying to finalize an adoption, but like Gordon is MIA, so they're, they, they don't know how exactly to, to handle this, but he's gone. And so, authorities get involved. They start looking for this guy, Gordon, who's abandoned his daughter. They take, they go around. And since he was a handyman, interestingly, umm, they, they go around to the, the trailers that he worked on and they were able to pick up prints off of like, I think, a VCR that he had helped fix...
Em Schulz: Nice.
Christine Schiefer: In a different trailer. Yeah. So they managed to get his fingerprints, thank God. Umm, and I will say also, as this was going on, umm, they did find out, uh, they took her to a doctor, of course, because she was kind of clearly showing signs that things had been going very badly, umm.
Em Schulz: Right.
Christine Schiefer: And it turns out, he had been sexually abusing her and...
Em Schulz: Gasp. Oh fuck.
Christine Schiefer: That's why it really, really, really, really makes my stomach hurt when they say...
Em Schulz: I get it now. I thought...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Since she was crying. Oh, I really thought, you know...
Christine Schiefer: I mean, she was crying, but yeah it's like...
Em Schulz: Yeah, but I know, now we know why 'cause I think...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: I, I just thought, oh, she's just being neglected and, which is so bad, but not that.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It's bad, but it almost is like... And he did that on top of just fully neglecting her. Umm, and so of course, like they're horrified. And now, police definitely wanna find this fucking guy because [a] he's, uh, apparently abandoned a small child. Secondly, I said, "A" and then secondly, whatever, A, B, 1, 2, 3, uh, he, they also were like, well, this fucking guy, umm, has been molesting and sexually abusing this child, so we need to find him. So that is when they're going door to door to find fingerprints. Umm, and they are able to pull off a fingerprint from one of, uh, the neighbors. I think it was a VCR, if I remember correctly.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Umm and just to remind everyone, Lisa is fucking five years old. Like, this is so sick.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: It's just so sick. Umm, such a sweetheart. So she is, thank God, left with this good family. Right? And he just is out of her life, thankfully. So, they find these fingerprints, finally. Umm, and they run them through the system and they match a name. But the weird part is they don't match Gordon's name. They match the name Curtis Kimball.
Em Schulz: Oh. Goddamnit. I was expecting Big Bob.
Christine Schiefer: I know. I was waiting for you to say it. And then me say a totally different name. Umm, but yeah, they, [laughter] the name that runs through... That comes up when they run the prints is Curtis Kimball. And Curtis Kimball had been, uh, arrested and his fingerprints were in the system after he was arrested for a drunk driving incident. And that had actually happened while Lisa was in the vehicle. So, the authorities trying to track Gordon/Curtis as they know him, down, had no way of knowing that he had a third identity, Bob Evans and also a fourth identity, Terry Rasmussen. So. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: They, they don't even realize, because they have this Curtis guy in the system with his prints, they're thinking, oh, that's his original identity. They don't even know that he has two more before that. So, in 1988, he is finally captured and arrested because he's driving a stolen vehicle. And when they arrest him and ask for his information, he tells them his name is Gerald Mockerman.
Em Schulz: This man, does he just come up with it on the fly? Or like, 'cause I mean, some of these...
Christine Schiefer: He... He must, he must, he literally probably looked across the street and saw like $8.99 Homestyle meals and was like, my name is Bob Evans.
[laughter]
Em Schulz: Now, that's just about the funniest thing that could have been said on this episode.
Christine Schiefer: Like how else are you... [laughter] Like, how else could he be coming up with this shit? Like, come on. I, I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, he's making shit up. He's making up names, left and right.
Em Schulz: How do you even like, keep up with, I mean, a name like Mockerman, like you have to remember that.
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm.
Em Schulz: I feel like that's not like, my name is like Bill.
Christine Schiefer: Bob Evans. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Bill Evans, Bob Evans.
Christine Schiefer: Maybe that's why he did Bob Evans first. He's like, I can remem... I can remember Bob Evans. Like, that one is easy.
Em Schulz: Yeah. The something Mockerman, I'm like, oh, you either are getting overly confident or overly desperate, or both.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Or both. Yeah. And I will say also with, unlike the other ones with, uh, the... With Gerald Mockerman, he actually had a Social Security Number linked to that name.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: So he had actually like faked a real identity this time, not just, you know, a name. But he...
Em Schulz: Ooh. Extra criminal.
Christine Schiefer: Actually had gotten paperwork. Yeah. So his other aliases, as Gordon and Curtis, were confirmed, and he was put in jail, umm, in prison for a year and a half for the child abandonment charges. And they actually, which is kind of fucked up, and they talked about it on Sinisterhood, they dropped the, uh, they agreed to drop the sexual assault or the molestation charges against Lisa, uh, and then instead, just put him away for the child abandonment. And, you know, of course, like the way they discussed it on Sinisterhood is that Heather said... I'm sorry, that Christie said, umm, you know, that's so fucked up. Like I can't...
Christine Schiefer: Like the fact that they would just like drop the, the molestation charges and do nothing, even though they had evidence that he was sexually abusing her. But then Heather made a really good point, and she's an attorney, so, she, you know, knows more than I do about this kind of thing. But she made a really good point that like, there may have been a fear of, uh, him getting away with it, if they tried to charge him with the molestation. And maybe Lisa as a small child wasn't ready or willing to speak on the stand or, uh, testify, you know, who knows? Maybe there wasn't enough solid evidence. And so they just wanted him to be put away, one way or another, without that reasonable doubt. So, you know, I can see it both ways, but it is very disheartening that they dropped the child molestation charges...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Especially when it was pretty clear that that had happened. So...
Em Schulz: I mean, also imagine her growing up and being like, oh, so he just got to get away with that.
Christine Schiefer: And just never got any validation or... Yeah. Closure on that. Yeah. It must be, uh, a very odd feeling. Umm. And so...
Em Schulz: It's gotta be extra wild of, like, oh, not only did I not get validation, but like I actually did get validation. And then they like opted to ignore it, you know, of like...
Christine Schiefer: To do... To like dismiss it almost. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And so I imagine that was very tough. But also, you know, I can imagine it would've probably also been very traumatizing for her to go up on the stand and confront him.
Em Schulz: Sure. Sure.
Christine Schiefer: You know? As a little kid. So it's like, I don't know the details of, of all that. I just, I think it's definitely worth noting because I think it's perfectly reasonable to get like kind of, up in arms, like why would they drop that charge?
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: And not the abandonment charge. You know, like why would they not go after? So, you know, who knows? But, umm, I just thought Heather made a good point about that. But in any case, Lisa had no legal guardian. And, umm, the Deckers, despite treating her as their own child, never officially adopted her. And so they were forced to surrender her into protective custody. And Lisa's life, once again, was turned completely upside down.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: And meanwhile, uh, literally like less than two years later, Terry is released on parole in 1990, and, umm, wouldn't you know it, he immediately flees and becomes a fugitive.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: I know! I think Heather said like, he doesn't stay in contact with his PO? What? It's like... [laughter]
Em Schulz: It's like, he doesn't stay...
Christine Schiefer: He can't even stay in contact with his own fucking name for 10 minutes.
Em Schulz: Or family. I was gonna say, it's like he literally has...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Or family, right.
Em Schulz: He literally refuses to do anything right. So it would be shocking...
Christine Schiefer: He's doing the opposite.
Em Schulz: If he actually was a... A good citizen at the end.
Christine Schiefer: A hundred percent. Like he's literally doing the opposite of everything he should be doing. So I'm not surprised one tiny bit, but, yeah, he immediately flees, umm, when he's released on parole and he would remain in hiding for a full decade after this. We are skipping from 1990 to the year 2000.
Em Schulz: Oh my God. The future.
Christine Schiefer: And oh my God, we're in Y2K. Umm, what a time to be alive. And a new investigator is assigned to, get this, the Allenstown, New Hampshire barrel cold case in the woods.
Em Schulz: Oh God.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: So we're jumping back. We're star wiping the other direction. We're going back to New Hampshire.
Em Schulz: I love... Uh where did you learn the word "star wipe"? Because it is really.
Christine Schiefer: It just makes me laugh. You know...
Em Schulz: I mean, it makes sense what you're talking about. I get it. But, uh...
Christine Schiefer: A star wipe, like...
Em Schulz: Like a big star wiping across the screen. Like... Like tra...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Em Schulz: Like transitioning to another scene, but I...
Christine Schiefer: So it's like a... Yeah, it's like an actual name for, for that effect...
Em Schulz: Is it?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: I did not know that, Christine. Interesting.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. On PowerPoint, remember, when we would do like a, what do you call it?
Em Schulz: Oh, it was...
Christine Schiefer: Uh, custom effects. It's called star wipe.
Em Schulz: Yes. You know, I would give anything, Christine, to just have a day in a computer lab and just make a PowerPoint using WordArt and man, but like, if I say, like, in a computer lab...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: I do mean in the year 1999...
Christine Schiefer: Of course.
Em Schulz: Maybe to 2001. Other than that, I don't want it. But like...
Christine Schiefer: Em, we should just do that. Like, as we know, time travel's real and I feel like they'll let us do like a quaint little adventure like that. Right?
Em Schulz: You know what?
Christine Schiefer: It doesn't hurt anyone.
Em Schulz: Okay. But imagine one day when time travel is more like, you know, when capitalism pops off...
Christine Schiefer: Accessible.
Em Schulz: Imagine.
Christine Schiefer: Pops off. [laughter]
Em Schulz: One day you decide, like you pick a, you pick a theme for the day and like, that's how, that's like you're, instead of like, oh, we're gonna go on like a food tour and try a bunch of stuff.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Umm, you just do like a time tour of a category. So it's like, oh, I wanna go to a computer lab. And then you spend every day like spending an hour in a different decade, doing the same thing over and over on different technology. It would be so fun if it was like...
Christine Schiefer: And then you go back to school in 2045 and you're like, here's my presentation, here's a PowerPoint from...
Em Schulz: And I finally got that A, I finally got it!
[laughter]
Christine Schiefer: That is so fun. I can't wait for that, Em. We're gonna have so much fun.
Em Schulz: It'd be fun if you had like, you used like the very first, like Microsoft, like Windows 95 or like, we can go even further back like, what was the presentation before? You know, let's just type it out on a typewriter.
Christine Schiefer: Oof.
Em Schulz: We'd do whatever we wanted.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: And then you get to early 2000s, Y2K with the big bubble colorful IMAX, then you go...
Christine Schiefer: Floppy disk.
Em Schulz: Then you go to like the first laptop. I mean, it would be also actually, so educational 'cause imagine how like these kids these days, so ungrateful, they have no idea.
Christine Schiefer: You know. You know.
Em Schulz: Make them fucking type on a typewriter without messing up how... Like a perfect paper. And then they'll be like, wow, I'm so glad I have this thing, that I don't, I don't know [1:42:11.8] ____ who's gotten...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, no spell check, baby.
Em Schulz: We'll call it the...
Christine Schiefer: Good luck.
Em Schulz: The... Hmm. It's gotta have a name, but it's something about like, just learning to appreciate what you fucking have.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, let's call it... Let's call it, uh, The Eras Tour...
Em Schulz: Oh. [laughter]
[applause]
Em Schulz: Let's. Let's.
Christine Schiefer: Let's. [laughter] I don't think that's taken. Umm...
Em Schulz: Okay. But imagine, okay, last thing I'm gonna say, imagine if you can AI... A... AIM through different time travel situations?
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: Because what if you're someone who only gets to live up to the year where there's like the big Apple iMacs, but we get to live in an era with MacBook Pros. If you could only like message each other from across the timelines and be like, ugh, I'm so glad I'm not in your situation. That sounds like it'd be really rough on that computer.
Christine Schiefer: Ugh.
Em Schulz: Or then there'd be like, then there'd be like hijacking jobs, where it's like, hey, person from like 2030, could you actually type this up? It'd be a lot faster if you use AI, compared if I do it by hand.
Christine Schiefer: Gasp.
Em Schulz: I'll pay you $50,000, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, you've got...
Christine Schiefer: What?
Em Schulz: You've got yourself a business. Boom!
Christine Schiefer: And then you're like, oh my gosh, I've heard, I've heard about NFTs. Can you send a few my way? [laughter] I'll print them out.
Em Schulz: Oh my God!
Christine Schiefer: And it's like, no, that's not how they work.
Em Schulz: It spirals very quickly into like, oh, do you have any suggestions on stocks for the future? Like, you know, very quickly.
Christine Schiefer: Black market, like it immediately becomes like, terrible things are gonna happen. But in theory, it's really delightful.
Em Schulz: Yeah. But...
Christine Schiefer: And I actually love the idea.
Em Schulz: I would love to live in the first 48 hours of that time before someone ruins it.
Christine Schiefer: Absolutely. Just a free for all. Like how fucking... We would have... Em, we would have...
Em Schulz: It would be a lawless land.
Christine Schiefer: So much.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: It would be lawless in the best way for a little bit. And then it would be lawless in only bad ways. But... [laughter]
Em Schulz: And also...
Christine Schiefer: At first it would be really fun.
Em Schulz: Keep in mind, too, I don't know what the red tape is. If like the government can like blacklist certain days or years that you just can't travel to, but like you can skip them into further parts of the future or something.
Christine Schiefer: Oh.
Em Schulz: But like imagine, 'cause when I say, I would love to have those first 48 hours, but time travel exists, you could have those first 48 hours over and over and over and over again. Ugh!
Christine Schiefer: Wait. That's so true.
Em Schulz: Unless you only get like sick leave or something...
Christine Schiefer: Oh shit, you're right.
Em Schulz: And you only get certain days a year. Like you only get like an allotted amount of, of...
Christine Schiefer: Ay.
Em Schulz: Time that you can travel... Time travel with.
Christine Schiefer: Use the time travel.
Em Schulz: It's like, oh, I get two weeks that I'm going to use for six years and then I'll go back...
Christine Schiefer: Mm-hmm. We gotta work through this.
Em Schulz: To two weeks ago.
Christine Schiefer: I'm gonna research this later. I know you've researched.
Em Schulz: Okay. [laughter] You tell me what you're gonna look up. You tell me...
Christine Schiefer: I know you've researched time travel a lot, but I feel like I need to, uh, to catch up to your knowledge level so that I can like really get in the weeds with you on this 'cause I feel that it would be possible and I feel that it is. And I feel that...
Em Schulz: I don't think you need to research...
Christine Schiefer: We just don't know about it yet.
Em Schulz: A damn thing. I think you just need to hit that Delta-8 or whatever you were talking about and we'll come back to this.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, the delta... [chuckle] I was like, I was like a delt... Okay, Delta got it. Delta.
Em Schulz: Isn't it Delta-8? Is that what you take?
Christine Schiefer: Yes. Delta-8. Yes. Sorry.
Em Schulz: Or Delta-9 or whatever.
Christine Schiefer: My brain thought... I thought you were talking about like Spirit Airlines, and I was like, [laughter] I don't think it's that kind of travel, Em, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway.
Em Schulz: No, it's, it's that kind of travel, man. You know what I'm saying.
Christine Schiefer: It's that kind of travel.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Cerebral travel. Okay.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: So in any case, uh, let's get back to this nonsense.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: He, we time travel to the year 2000 and...
Em Schulz: Oh, right.
Christine Schiefer: In the year 2000, a new investigator is assigned to the cold case of finding the barrel in Allentown, New Hampshire, in Bear Brook State Park. So, this new investigator, he's going through, he's looking through cold case, this... The files from this cold case. And he's like, is there anything that was missed? You know, fresh eyes. And he goes, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go back to the spot where the barrels were found, and see, like maybe is there... Did we miss anything? Is there like, maybe some clue, maybe even just for his own knowledge to, to look around the area and feel like he can picture it, visualize it. So, for whatever reason, he decides to drive on down there and he returns to the site where the remains were discovered. And now, this had been 15 years ago that that barrel had been discovered. So, he starts walking around, uh, through the woods, and uh, suddenly, he discovered something, umm, that shocked him to his core. He found a second barrel.
Em Schulz: Shut the fuck up! He's gone back to the scene of the crime, just as cold case has opened it back up. Are you kidding me?
Christine Schiefer: But wait...
Em Schulz: Ugh!
Christine Schiefer: Ho-hold that thought. So he discovers a second barrel of the same type with plastic inside and inside... By the way, imagine you're just there for a cold case. Like maybe there's a shoelace I missed or so like a mat... A cigarette on the floor.
Em Schulz: And you get a flaming...
Christine Schiefer: You get... Two more bodies? Anyway.
Em Schulz: Also, like I can't, like, again, if I were reading a script, I'd be like, this would not happen. Like...
Christine Schiefer: This wouldn't happen. That's ridiculous. Yeah.
Em Schulz: It wouldn't happen once and it certainly wouldn't happen twice, 15 years apart, just as the cold case opens up. Like that's too perfect.
Christine Schiefer: So inside this barrel are the skeletal remains of two more victims. Both, this is very sad, young girls between one and four years old.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: And they, too have been killed by blunt force trauma to the head. However, based on the rate of decomp, this barrel had been there as long as the other barrel had been there.
Em Schulz: What? So, so this guy's playing a fucking game. Did, he, was he just like, was it stored...
Christine Schiefer: Nope. Nope.
Em Schulz: Was it stored somewhere and he dragged it out just to fuck with them?
Christine Schiefer: Nope.
Em Schulz: What, what does this mean?
Christine Schiefer: It was there all along. They just missed it.
Em Schulz: How do you miss a whole barrel of bodies? Where was it?
Christine Schiefer: I don't know.
Em Schulz: Was it in a cave? Like what did they... What?
Christine Schiefer: No. It was like a few... A few... I think a few hundred yards away. But it's just, there was such a, and you know, there's a lot of debate on this. Like, how could they have missed it? But, you know, and then the... The other argument is like, well this is a really heavily wooded area. And, umm, you know, we didn't, we looked in this, this many yards. We didn't look, you know, I don't know exactly where everybody stands on this, but they somehow have completely missed a fucking second barrel of bodies nearby, and from the same murder as the one from 8... 1985.
Em Schulz: Which now makes me think, I would be so damn paranoid about the entire woodland acreage. I'd be like, there's gotta be just drop points everywhere.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, I hope they looked again really thoroughly next time. [laughter] Yeah.
Em Schulz: Me too. Like, I was like, if this happened a third time, I would just lose... I'd leave my job because I'm clearly not good at it.
Christine Schiefer: Just... Just tape... Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like I'm seeing myself out. You don't even need to fire me.
Em Schulz: [chuckle] Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, but yeah, they, they basically discovered like, first of all, no, it's not a recent crime. So it, it couldn't be like a copycat serial killer, who's like just copying the same method. Umm, and it's not even recent at all, it's the same... It... It indicated that it happened when the other barrel had been dropped there. So these two children, these little girls, were victims of the 1985 murder and the barrel had just been missed. And thank God that this guy decided to go back to the scene and, like, look around, because otherwise, probably nobody would've ever found it or connected it, but they did eventually find it, thank God. And they felt this might open up some new leads. You know, now they have a mother... What they presume to be the mother and three daughters rather than just one mother, one daughter. So, now the town is like extra horrified 'cause they've already gone through this process of having a mother-daughter discovered in a barrel 15 years ago, and now suddenly, wait, there's two more children buried in the same way?
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: And so they look into it, but once again, they cannot find any missing persons reports aligned with like a mother and three kids. So you asked earlier, uh, about who was related to whom. And I will say, DNA would eventually determine that of the three children discovered in the barrels, one child was not related to the other two children.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: So one child had no DNA connection, but then the, the three... Three of them were related. The mother and two children.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: But then one child had no DNA connection with the other three.
Em Schulz: This makes me wonder, like, uh maybe you'll tell me eventually, but like, it makes me think like, what was the story to how they died? Like it feels like it was almost an impulsive, oops, I didn't see this coming and now I have to hide the bodies, versus like an intentional.
Christine Schiefer: Mm.
Em Schulz: I'm gonna go be me versus three people and maybe their friend or a random other fourth person.
Christine Schiefer: I think you might actually, yeah, I think you might actually get some answers on that. Truly.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, I don't have like a very solid answer, but I think when you hear the rest of the story, you might like get an idea of, of, how it went down.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, or we can at least, you know, uh, speculate. So, so, meanwhile, same year, 2000, as the second barrel's discovered, there's a woman named Eunsoon Jun. And she begins dating this guy named Larry Vanner in Richmond, California. And Eunsoon was born in South Korea, July 31st, 1957. Uh, she graduated from Pacific Grove High School in California. She got both a bachelor's and graduate degree at the University of California, Davis and UC San Francisco. She worked as a chemist and a medical researcher for various pharmaceutical companies. Very smart woman. She also worked at the City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles.
Christine Schiefer: She was just a very well loved person in the community. She was friendly, she was bubbly. Uh, those of who... Those friends who knew her described her as a free spirit. She loved to travel and learn about other people's cultures and experiences. And her best friend, her name was Renee Rose. Now Renee had met Eunsoon in a ceramics class and later described Eunsoon as the closest friend she ever had. They made pottery together in a community center in Richmond, California. And according to Renee, Eunsoon's adventurous spirit, uh, became a little more, uh, how do you call it? Dimmed or became less prominent when men were around. She was shy around men.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: You know, she'd be like very open and bubbly.
Em Schulz: Timid.
Christine Schiefer: But timid. Yes. She was more timid around men, but she had always wanted love and romance. She just like wished for that romantic love, that connection. She wanted a love story of her own. But now she's in her early 40s. She hadn't met the one. And her friends, as they describe it, noticed that she started kind of opening herself up to men that she maybe wouldn't have considered in the past, umm, just because she was kind of looking for a relationship. And by that, her friends meant she was kind of lowering her standards. And some of the men that she was meeting didn't quite treat her the way that she deserved.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, and as a friend, you know, you, we've all seen that. Uh, and it's not a... It's not a fun feeling to be in the middle of...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: A friend you care so deeply about. And then trying to...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Protect them, but also...
Em Schulz: To be like.
Christine Schiefer: Support them. It's, it's a messy situation.
Em Schulz: You're like, girl, you're dimming your light. The bar does not need to be in hell.
Christine Schiefer: You're dimming your light. Yeah.
Em Schulz: Like, come on. Pick it up. Pick it up. We... Love yourself.
Christine Schiefer: That's a great way to put it. But it's also hard 'cause you don't wanna like, umm, alienate them by pushing them away and, you know... So it, it's a very hard balance. Umm.
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: But either way, uh, she met this guy, Larry Vanner, and in 2000, she introduces her family and friends to this new boyfriend. And apparently, nobody fucking likes him immediately. They...
Em Schulz: [chuckle] Right.
Christine Schiefer: They do not appreciate him. They don't like his manners. Like apparently he's just gross. He's very narcissistic, very self-involved. Umm, I remember there was one story about, I believe it was Eunsoon's sister, who... It was either Renee, her friend Renee or her sister, opened the door at like a holiday, I think, Thanksgiving. And umm, said like, oh... She saw Eunsoon was so happy to see her. And then Eunsoon introduced her to her boyfriend, Larry. And this person said, I couldn't even shake his hand. I've never felt so, just in my gut, like, this is a bad person.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: Like just that like primal fear, you know, like she said, she opened the door and just thought, I've never looked someone in the eye and thought like, this is bad news. And, uh, apparently, this was a running feeling amongst her friends and family. And she really struggled with this. 'cause she was very close with her friends and family and she wanted them to like him. But, uh, they sure did not. And he apparently would like sit at the, the table and just like devour food and then just like belch, and like not offer anybody... Like he was just like a dick.
Em Schulz: Like he's almost trying to be gross, like yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Apparently he's just like a douche bag. Like he just shows up and he is like, I don't give a shit about you or your family. You know, like he just seems like a, just a self-involved shithead.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And so they're all like, girl, what are you doing? Like, you deserve so much better. Umm, but of course, as we've also seen with, I think, most people have, or at least, you know, friends of friends, uh, Eunsoon quickly started to grow distant from her friends and family.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, she began speaking to them less and less. Umm, some sources say there was, uh, you know, an argument that took place and, uh, Eunsoon left. We don't really know, like, like left the holiday party with Larry. We don't really know.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: But either way, umm, they went off and her family would never see her again.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: So pretty quickly after this kind of rocky introduction, uh, Renee was trying to get ahold of Eunsoon because they're best friends and they used to talk all the time. Uh, she would call though, and Larry would always pick up, and he always had a different excuse as to why Eunsoon couldn't speak to her. And when Renee, as you know, [chuckle] as he had, uh, hoped would not happen, Renee continued calling. Like she was not gonna be polite about it. She just kept calling and saying, "Let me speak to her." And of course, this was well before any sort of tracking or cell phones or instant messenger...
Em Schulz: Yeah. But let's be clear that's, she's a real one. Like, that's the homie you need.
Christine Schiefer: Yes, yes. Yes.
Em Schulz: It's like, get me her on the phone right now. Or else like, she's the...
Christine Schiefer: You know what? What's also...
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: So touching is like, now if you look, if you read the articles about Eunsoon, like you can see pictures of Renee, still, like giving interviews about her and saying like, she was my best friend and she's...
Em Schulz: Aw.
Christine Schiefer: You know, born in her, born in the '50s. So like, probably 70-ish now. Umm, and so, you know, it's just, it's really, uh, it's tragic, but it's like a beautiful thing. They had a very strong bond.
Em Schulz: Yeah. But she also, and she was, I am assuming, one of the people who was like, my primal instinct has kicked in that this man is bad news from the beginning. And now she's like...
Christine Schiefer: You know what's, you know what's so funny is like, some people have described him as like charming and like disarming, but then a lot of people are like, no. Like he gives off every red flag. So, I wonder if some people just like didn't see it. I mean, Renee probably strikes me as someone who's like, mm, no. I'm gonna vet this one and I'm like...
Em Schulz: Renee strikes me as you're Renee who's like... It's...
Christine Schiefer: As Renee? [laughter] I know, I know I'm biased, but I'm like, I don't think this Renee was gonna let anything slide.
Em Schulz: You do not fuck with Renees.
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: And also, by the way...
Christine Schiefer: No, no.
Em Schulz: Renee is such a powerful name 'cause also I think about like Nene, my boss, she was also like that. Like, I feel like every Renee...
Christine Schiefer: A force.
Em Schulz: Is... A force is like an understatement. It's like you don't get even a chance to fuck with a Renee. Like, [laughter] it's just not gonna happen. They're gonna light you on fire.
Christine Schiefer: Well, I've got a Leona Renee down... I have a Leona Renee downstairs and that is a frightening thought, but...
Em Schulz: That's your fault. You could have given her any name. And you said...
Christine Schiefer: I... You... I knew what I was doing. Let's be real. I knew what I was doing. [laughter] Umm, yeah. So this Renee is being a real Renee in the best way, [laughter] and she keeps calling and she's like... She's like, no, let me talk to Eunsoon. And he keeps saying, oh, actually... So he's coming up with all these excuses, right? Suddenly, he starts telling her, oh, actually Eunsoon doesn't love you anymore and doesn't wanna speak to you anymore, and doesn't wanna be your friend. Pfft! Please.
Em Schulz: And Renee went, "I will literally go over there and light you on fire." Just fucking told her she was like... [chuckle]
Christine Schiefer: I... Literally, Renee said, umm, okay. Sure, guy. And then, said, umm, how about I believe that when she tells me to my face that she doesn't wanna be my friend?
Em Schulz: That's Renee for ya.
Christine Schiefer: And yeah, he's pissed off. 'cause he is like, she will not drop it. So she doesn't believe him, obviously. And she says, I want Eunsoon to tell me she's done with our relationship now to my face or I'm calling the sheriff immediately. And Renee was like, I don't even need Eunsoon to speak with me directly over the phone. She's like, well, how about, she's like, I'm going on a 10-day vacation, how about during this 10 days, you just have Eunsoon call and leave a message on my answering machine, just like that... That that enough will make me feel better. And he's like, sure, of course, I will. Totally.
Christine Schiefer: So she goes on her trip and uh, she comes home, not a single message from Eunsoon obviously on her answering machine. So she goes straight to the county sheriff. And this guy attempts to do a routine welfare check on Eunsoon and, you know, didn't see her at the house. And so, Renee was able to report Eunsoon as a missing person. When Larry was, uh, interviewed about maybe where Eunsoon could be, he continuously changed his story. He started making up new ones. He said Eunsoon had recently discovered or had experienced a nervous breakdown. And he's like, well, you can't come over because if you come over, then she'll have another breakdown... Another nervous breakdown. And they're like, hmm. Okay.
Em Schulz: I feel like they're like, we'll risk that, but thank you.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. I think, I think we'd rather risk that to make sure she's alive, but, sure, thanks for your input. And one detective on the case said Larry was polite and soft spoken and very smart. And with his twinkly blue eyes, he could get somebody to maybe trust him. And it seems like...
Em Schulz: See, that's the thing. It says, blue eyes. It's the blue eyes. I...
Christine Schiefer: It's... Well... It's the blue eyes.
Em Schulz: Yeah. There's something about it. Y'all are privileged and there's some, I just, I don't care who you are, man, woman, non-binary, blue eyes? I'll believe nearly anything you say, there's something...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, that's a dangerous thing to, to announce to the world.
Em Schulz: And I'm telling you, I think I would've maybe fallen for the, even if I had a bad feeling about the guy, I would've seen the blue eyes and I would've had to shake myself out of the delusion. I think I would've been siren... Lulled in, you know.
Christine Schiefer: It's so funny because I only feel that way. Like I don't have a thing about blue eyes at all. I'm very much like a...
Em Schulz: The greener...
Christine Schiefer: Greener brown.
Em Schulz: The greener, the more toxic they are to me. And...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. That part's danger... The green is dangerous. Agreed.
Em Schulz: But, but blue green, I mean, it's just so opposite of what I have that any of it really works on me. But man, a green eye is just, I mean, you might as well just put me out of my misery. I'm gonna just fall for it all. You know.
Christine Schiefer: I'm gonna follow them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Green eyes will get me too.
Em Schulz: I'll follow them to battle. Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Apparently, he had very like, okay, so the way [laughter] Heather was like on the Sinisterhood, was like, he looked like he was startled awake by an alien, like in every photo, which I was like, what a very specific...
Em Schulz: Wait, do you have a picture of him?
Christine Schiefer: Visual?
Em Schulz: What's it called? What...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah. Uh, here. Let me get...
Em Schulz: Should I look him up or you'll send me?
Christine Schiefer: Oh, well you can look him up.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Terry Rasmussen. T-E-R-R-Y R-A-S-M-U-S-S-E-N. And then go to images 'cause it's like decades worth of photos. Like I, the... You know.
Em Schulz: [chuckle] Uh, you know, [chuckle] I kind of get what she's saying. I don't know if she... If he, if he woke up from an alien, but I feel like he does... He looks as lulled by an alien as I would be lulled by green eyes.
Christine Schiefer: He looks... I would say he looks kind of like he woke up as an alien.
Em Schulz: Yes. That's a good way to put it, he's...
Christine Schiefer: Like, he almost looks like he kind of came from some other planet to fuck us up.
Em Schulz: But I think we're onto something because you know what it is? I think it's like the uncanny valley of like uh, like no soul behind the eyes.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like you, you know, when some people, well maybe this is me 'cause I just do so much of this, but when I like look up, umm, when I see the picture of a person that I'm studying or researching, who's, who's done like, some really, really horrible, horrible stuff, like this guy, I will see the photo and I will like have to scroll away. Like, I don't even wanna look at it, like it's a bit like...
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: Turns my stomach almost. And some people, I feel like I kind of look at and I'm like, ugh, what a dickhead. But some people, I see their photo and I go like, I don't even want them on my screen. I don't wanna look them in the eye. Umm...
Em Schulz: That's how I feel about Charles Manson.
Christine Schiefer: And he's definitely one of those.
Em Schulz: I can't, that guy has...
Christine Schiefer: Oh yeah.
Em Schulz: It's the Wiley, something is up, look.
Christine Schiefer: I think it's also when they're smiling, I get like really upset. I'm like, I do not wanna look at you smiling, like it makes me sick to my stomach. But, yeah, I, uh, that's how I feel about this guy. Just, I don't even wanna look at him.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Looking at the one picture of him with, where his eyes are obviously blue, I would not describe them as twinkling. I would describe them as...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Blank. [laughter]
Em Schulz: A force. They're they're pulling you but maybe in a wrong direction.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Which is exactly what they did. I think. Umm...
Em Schulz: Luring.
Christine Schiefer: Like the way Eunsoon described... Yeah. They're very alluring. And I, I think Eunsoon described them as uh, and you know, being Korean, she also had darker hair, darker eyes. So maybe it's the same effect, Em, where you're, you're like, wow...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: I'm just like mesmerized by these blue eyes.
Em Schulz: Mesmerized.
Christine Schiefer: And I...
Em Schulz: That's a good Word.
Christine Schiefer: Mesmerized. And I wanna be clear to those who don't know what we look like, I'm sure many of you have not checked this... Checked out photos of us 'cause you're not nosy as fuck like I am when I listen to podcasts. But, uh, none of us have, well I don't have blue eyes. I have... I have brown eyes. So it, when you heard Em say, oh, people with blue eyes, like it's none of us on our team. So, umm, You know.
Em Schulz: Yeah. No. If uh...
Christine Schiefer: Go, go at it, go for it.
Em Schulz: If Christine had green eyes and those shoulders, we'd be in trouble.
Christine Schiefer: Oh please. [laughter]
Em Schulz: But luckily, it's only one. Thank God.
Christine Schiefer: Maybe I'll be like the guy in, uh, Pan's Labyrinth, then I'll have green eyes and I'll put them on my shoulders.
[laughter]
Em Schulz: Christine, you are having...
Christine Schiefer: Isn't this what you wanted? Raah!
Em Schulz: You're having a real day of zingers.
Christine Schiefer: Case of the Mondays. [laughter]
Em Schulz: You got... You really are pulling out all the stops today with... I mean, well done.
Christine Schiefer: I just don't know. Oh, [2:05:47.5] ____ Emethy... Umm, anyway. So, this detective, she says basically like, yeah, I could see why a woman might fall for this, might fall for his like kind of sparkling eyes that look... Umm, but being the detective on the case, she does not trust him one tiny bit. So, as the case progresses, uh, they ask, oh, do you mind if we take your fingerprints since this is just no big deal? And yada yada. We just like, we'd love to have them on file, you know, just in case. This motherfucker says, sure, you can have my fingerprints.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Like, he has to know. And again, like I know I've just switched to calling him Larry because Eunsoon knew him as Larry. But this is still...
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: To be clear, Terry, Bob, Gordon...
Em Schulz: I mean, is it just the confidence? Is it just as, like the, the cockiness that they've all got?
Christine Schiefer: So actually I believe, which uh, I've heard on a few podcasts, it's not my theory, but I believe the speculation that he didn't realize that over the years, technology had advanced enough that they could run it right there.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: And a lot of people think he just wanted to be amicable and like agreeable and then he was just gonna bounce.
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: But he didn't realize that they could take his fingerprints, go in another room on a computer presumably and actually run the fingerprints and find out, then and there. Wait, why does it say your name is Curtis? You know? And so they fingerprint him. He has to know it won't end well, but he doesn't, he... He gives in anyway. And the prints come back as Curtis Kimball and the notes about Curtis Kimball say he's a fugitive parolee, once imprisoned for child abandonment. So there's this recording of an interview and the investigators ask him like, hey, do you... Do any of these names ring a bell? They say, uh, do you recognize Curtis? Do you recognize Gordon? He says, no. And they're like, well, you are those people so your fingerprints match. You're Gordon, Curtis and Larry. Umm, however, they don't realize, he's actually Terry Rasmussen. They still have not figured out that there's like this...
Em Schulz: Damn.
Christine Schiefer: That there are more aliases behind the aliases.
Em Schulz: Yeah. You know, I always feel like, you know, my expertise extends towards Law & Order SVU but when they're like...
Christine Schiefer: Uh-huh.
Em Schulz: We got them, all three aliases. And I'm like, if he had three, why do we think there was not a fourth?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Why? What are we doing here? Like...
Christine Schiefer: Should we, should we check for more?
Em Schulz: I was like, why are we pretending like we've crossed the finish line.
Christine Schiefer: It's just only when he's arrested, he's... Yeah. Like they're just getting noted when something arrest-worthy or a crime occurs, that's it. But like yeah, who knows if he wasn't caught or did something nobody knew about, well maybe we never found out the name. So, and there are a few blanks in the years of his timeline that are unaccounted for because it was just so long ago that like, who knows, he could have had tons of aliases, but at this point, they're thinking, oh, this is really Curtis not Larry, whatever. So he's arrested for violating his parole, and the detectives decide to search his home for Eunsoon 'cause he's saying, oh no, she had a nervous breakdown, don't come over. And they're like, we're actually gonna arrest you and also, go over.
Christine Schiefer: So they did. And they're looking around, they don't really see any... See anything out of the ordinary. Umm, they do see like Eunsoon's pottery area and it appears to be untouched. However, in the house, there's no women's clothing. There's no shoes. Like it didn't appear like she was actively living there.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: And so they started to feel uneasy. Umm, the only sign of her, like I said, were those pottery projects that were unfinished and untouched in the garage, and they're looking around and they find a crawlspace.
Em Schulz: Oh God.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. And in the crawlspace they discover a five-foot pile of cat litter.
Em Schulz: Ugh. Okay. To cover up the smell...
Christine Schiefer: Next to...
Em Schulz: Right?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Yep. Next to the pile of cat litter is an ax covered in blood.
Em Schulz: Wow. He just really wasn't even trying to hide it. Like also, by the way...
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: Like talk about stupid, stupid, stupid.
Christine Schiefer: I mean, he shoved it into a crawlspace, but that's it.
Em Schulz: But like you, literally, her mean best friend is literally saying, I'm going to call the police. Like, don't you think maybe right now, while I've got these 10 days while she's on vacation before she calls the police, I should spend 10 days...
Christine Schiefer: Fair...
Em Schulz: Trying to get...
Christine Schiefer: Okay. So that's what he...
Em Schulz: Rid of it.
Christine Schiefer: This... That's what he did. This was his attempt. This was...
Em Schulz: That's the most...
Christine Schiefer: What he did when he was trying to "hide."
Em Schulz: This is the most lazy man thing I've ever... Like, oh, I'll really, I'll fool them all. Just throw it into this one obvious crawlspace, instead of like, you put everything else in the fucking woods. Like, at least try that like...
Christine Schiefer: That's true. That's true. Yeah. You know, I don't, I don't know why, uh, I can't really claim to understand the logic or the shift in logic there. I wonder... Well, okay, we'll get to it. So they're pushing the cat litter around, probably feeling like a horror movie like anything, any moment something terrible is gonna happen. They were right. Uh, they push the litter around and they find a human foot that is still wearing a flip flop sandal.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: Ugh. Of course, we know now this was un Eunsoon, whom Terry had murdered some time ago, seemingly, by blunt force trauma to the head. The cat litter, which by the way, I don't think it's in these notes, but when he went to buy that cat litter, like they also on the Bear Brook case, like have a whole... I don't wanna say a whole episode, but they have a whole section where they talk about him going to buy that fucking cat litter. And he went to like multiple pet stores because he was looking for like pounds upon pounds upon pounds of cat litter. So, he's basically carrying like 200 pounds of cat litter, home. Like that shit's expensive.
Em Schulz: That's what I'm saying like, I really...
Christine Schiefer: I mean, not expensive. I mean it is expensive, but I mean heavy, that shit's heavy. He has to like bulk order cat litter, which by the way, if anyone's picked up a cat litter thing, those things are fucking... There's like 50 pounds for those big containers and he bought like dozens of them.
Em Schulz: I... I feel like that's like, he really just lucked out by like people not noticing things because he's doing a lot of things that are really cocky like...
Christine Schiefer: Well, you know, you think about it and I guess the guy who sold him the cat litter talks about like, I mean, yeah, I thought it was really fucking weird, but what am I gonna do? Call the police and be like, this guy bought a bunch of cat litter? You know? It's like, you can't really arrest somebody for that. So it's like... And back then, you, you know, there weren't really, there wasn't access to like background checking people or like following this guy...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: And seeing what his deal is or looking him up on social media. So it's sort of like the guy who sold it to him said like, I just had to sell it to him. And later, he came forward and said, the guy bought all that cat litter from me. But like at the time, you know, he's just some weird eccentric old guy. Like who knows?
Em Schulz: I mean, I guess I just don't know how... Again, I don't know how I would get rid of a body, but if I had a 10-day headstart, I'd like to think I do pretty okay for a second, at least, not like immediately upon arrival, getting busted. It's like, I feel like...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, yeah.
Em Schulz: Especially like cat litter, like yeah, I guess it absorbs one smell, but guess what? It still smells like fucking cat litter. And if you have hundreds of pounds of that, people are gonna smell it.
Christine Schiefer: So... Okay. But I also imagine that, you know, that dust that just gets everywhere?
Em Schulz: Yes.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, and also, uh, speaking on that segment where they talk about this whole cat litter thing, he had actually told his next door neighbor, like base... Just basically, based on what you just said, I wanted to let you know that he told his neighbor, oh, umm, don't... Don't worry if you smell some really bad smells coming from my house over the next few weeks because, umm, I actually, uh, am redoing the basement... Like some area of my basement or crawlspace or whatever. And uh, you know, some rats have been getting in and since I'm patching it up, I think like they're bound to die in there. And so there might be a smell for a little while. So, he's already going around, like telling people.
Em Schulz: If I were his, if I were his neighbor, I would've been like, what do you mean, don't mind the smell? How about you don't mind bothering... Like for weeks? You're telling me for weeks there's gonna be the smell of death around my house? Get an air purifier.
Christine Schiefer: Decay. Like...
Em Schulz: Like what's wrong with you?
Christine Schiefer: That, and then also, what a weird thing to say before you even know if a squirrel has died or a rat has died, like to say, a rat might die in my house if you smell something, it's like, well why would you even say that? Why wouldn't you wait for it to actually smell and then be like, oh, sorry. A rat got in. You know?
Em Schulz: I'm telling you, I...
Christine Schiefer: It's just so weird to like preemptively tell somebody there might might be a weird smell.
Em Schulz: I really, I really think he was just like... 'Cause it sounds like everything he's done so far or like the ways he's gotten busted or the stories he's telling people, it sounds like I guess he is experienced at this 'cause he's done it so many times now, but like, it still sounds like he's kind of half bumbling around and like only, like thriving out of luck. Like it feels like...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. So...
Em Schulz: There's.
Christine Schiefer: You know what? That's a great point.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Because I feel a lot of people have described him as like kind of a genius, or I wouldn't even say genius, but people have said like, wow, he's just like this criminal mastermind, but like the way Heather and Christie talked about him, they're like, he's not fucking smart, he's just taking advantage...
Em Schulz: Yeah. He doesn't sound smart.
Christine Schiefer: Of the fact... He doesn't sound smart at all. Like he's just taking advantage of like the lack of technology at the time. He's taking advantage of people who have relationships that he can like sever, or try to sever by separating them from their families. He's finding people who are like looking for love, and he can convince them that he's charming... Like he's taking advantage of these things. But he is not brilliant. Like he's not some genius, you know. He's really actually not the, not the brightest.
Em Schulz: Like if you're a criminal mastermind, he could not be a serial killer today. He would've been found out in five seconds flat. Like...
Christine Schiefer: You know what? I hate that I keep like awkwardly bringing them up. Like, uh, I've talked to them yesterday, but they said the same thing on the podcast, like how serial killers, like the ones in the '70s, just can't operate like that anymore in a modern age because there are cameras, there are tra... Everything's traceable. And so it's like a very different time.
Em Schulz: I feel like all this did, and this for obviously, only a... A niche group of really shitty men that are serial killers, but I feel like in this...
Christine Schiefer: You know, you know that group.
Em Schulz: But I feel like in this way, like this is just evidence like of how the patriarchy happens is like, yeah. Because in the '70s you could kill someone and get away with it like you got this weird bolstered ego and then like, I feel like it just like kind of gets passed on to like, oh, there's this...
Christine Schiefer: Oh yeah.
Em Schulz: Really weird, heightened sense of confidence you have when like, really maybe it's not for this time, you know?
Christine Schiefer: Yes. Today it doesn't quite fly the same. And of course, we have our own issues with the rise of technology.
Em Schulz: Yes.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, like school shooters. So I'm not saying, oh, people can't like, kill bunches of people anymore, you know, but it... You made a good point of like the way that they operated back then and like the age of the serial killer was just like moving around, changing your identity.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, separating people from their loved ones. Like there's just some things that they could do back then to take advantage of that they wouldn't be able to do nowadays, or at least as easily. So you make a very, very good point there because I agree that he's a dumb ass. Like just putting a fucking... Like the reason that those barrels were not found is not 'cause he was a genius. It's because like he... They just happened to be remote enough that it took a while for a kid to, on an ATV to find it.
Em Schulz: I mean, he literally put it in the middle of the woods. Like he, literally, in some ways he was hiding it and in some ways he was not at all hiding it like it's...
Christine Schiefer: He was actively putting it out in the open, right. [laughter]
Em Schulz: And like, I, if... I don't know. It just... If someone who is saying, I'm gonna call the police, you have 10 days, my first thought would not be, let's take this still bloody ax and just throw it under my house. That's it.
Christine Schiefer: Just toss it down with the dead squirrels...
Em Schulz: And then...
Christine Schiefer: I'm gonna tell my neighbor about.
Em Schulz: And yeah. And then mix it up with a bunch of cat litter that everyone will notice. And like that doesn't... That's not a genius.
Christine Schiefer: By the way, and he bought it... Like, so it was 2000. And I'm just like thinking back like, of course, you know, Amazon was either in its infancy, I think it was uh, pretty early on, or at least like early stages, right? But like, he went to a local small business pet store, and was like, I need like 200 pounds of cat litter. And they're like...
Em Schulz: But here's my other thing. It's like...
Christine Schiefer: Do you have a lot of cats? No?
Em Schulz: If you are that good... If you're... First of all, if you're willing to drive hours, I assume to get from location to location to buy other stuff, if you're able to lift a dead weight 50-pound thing, why are you bringing all of it to your house? Why don't you take the dead body and fucking hide it in the woods again and get away with it like you've been doing so well? Like, why are you... You... I'm just, I think I'm just blown away by the like...
Christine Schiefer: Unclear.
Em Schulz: He literally had a headstart and just did the laziest version of it because he thought he could get away with it.
Christine Schiefer: Well, and I will say also, I'll be honest like I... This is fully speculation on my part. I do not want... I don't know... This is just my opinion. My opinion is that he potentially had more victims. Because like I said, there were periods of time where he was just kind of off the grid.
Em Schulz: Hmm.
Christine Schiefer: We don't know what he was up to. And uh, you know, he killed a lot of people and had no qualms about doing it. So what would make the years that we don't know about any different except that he was caught for the other ones? And so my thinking is like if he put them in a barrel for that one, maybe for the next one, he just like dropped them on the side of the road and we just... He just was never caught. You know, maybe this was just like, he just always did something kind of half-assed and random. But this time...
Em Schulz: I think it's just a combination of like, for the time, that was somehow easier to do, of like just drop someone off on the side of the road in plain view and get away with it.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: And I think it was just his like laziness/cockiness of like, oh, well I've done it a million times, who's gonna notice now? And I... I just...
Christine Schiefer: Well, and if you think about it, they would never have known if Renee had not kept calling and saying, I'm reporting her as a missing persons. They also would not have found her if he hadn't done a fingerprint and he didn't have to.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Like, they... He was not a... Like, he was not arrested. He was just being questioned. And he agreed to give fingerprints. If he had not done that, they would not have run his name and found out that he's this fugitive and gotten an... An immediate warrant to check his house. So I'm like, honestly, he almost did get away with it.
Em Schulz: The way my anxiety, if I were killing one person, let alone this was just like my passion project... If I were killing all of these people, the way I would be studying the updates in police technology to make sure I got away with it, and this guy's like, whatever.
Christine Schiefer: Oh, you... Uh, every time I hear about an update I'm like, oh, I hope they're shitting their pants, these old fuckers who...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Haven't been caught. I hope they're... I hope they are... I hope they live the rest of their lives in terror, that they're gonna be caught because technology. They would... You know, and...
Em Schulz: Again, the day time travel happens, they will be in big time, big time trouble.
Christine Schiefer: Big time trouble.
Em Schulz: Once you just go doopdy-doop, let's... Like, whoop! Oh, [chuckle] uh...
Christine Schiefer: Big time travel trouble. [laughter]
Em Schulz: Uh, yeah, no, but like the, the second that we could go, du du du, let's see what happened on this day in this location, bloop. You're so fucked.
Christine Schiefer: I think about that all the time. All the time.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Not even in that just like serial killer sphere which obviously is also, uh, something I probably would think about. But just in the idea of like, someday we'll be able to like go back. Well, at least I think. Someday we'll be able to go back and be like, you know those semantic arguments. Like I said this. No, you said it this way.
Em Schulz: Ugh!
Christine Schiefer: And I was thinking that the other day 'cause Blaise and I got into like, oh, not an argument but we were like, he's like, I told you. And I was like, no, you didn't. And we scrolled back through texts and he had like half told me but like... Then he's like, oh, I can see why you thought like I meant something different. And I'm like, thank God for that text that we have written down. Because otherwise, we'd sit here like, no. You are crazy. No, you're... You know. And so I... Sometimes I'm like, I wonder if one day we'll like be able to just go like, rewind and like do a replay.
Em Schulz: This is where I like to remind people that chat logs and like text history is a form of time travel 'cause you're traveling back through time just to prove something.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. Bill Nye. [laughter]
Em Schulz: So. I don't know...
Christine Schiefer: If you really think about it, we're always time traveling. [laughter]
Em Schulz: So. Blaise, Blaise pulled a Marty McFly on you, I think. But yeah, no, I guess we are always time traveling. We're, we're just accelerating into the future.
Christine Schiefer: I think I pulled a Marty McFly on him. I said, step aside, let me get the fucking receipts.
Em Schulz: Okay, fair.
Christine Schiefer: And he was like, oh no. Why do I argue with Christine? This always happens.
Em Schulz: I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: That she turns around and shouts about time travel, and having the receipts. Anyway, so... But it was nice 'cause at the end we were like, oh. I was like, oh, you did kind of say it. And he's like, oh wow, I can see why you would've thought it the other way. And I was like, wow. Is that what like a healthy relationship looks like? Like a healthy bickering looks like that. We're like, wow, I can see where you're coming from. Anyway let's make dinner and it's like, whoa...
Em Schulz: That happens...
Christine Schiefer: It was obviously... It was a very powerful moment for me as someone who has not had many years of this life experiencing that you know, in the past...
Em Schulz: Uh-huh.
Christine Schiefer: I'm like...
Em Schulz: Anytime that happens to me...
Christine Schiefer: What a beautiful... A beautiful moment.
Em Schulz: I'm like, oh my God, wait. So we're not, we don't have to be mad for the next six days? [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: I get like really overwhelmed. I'm like, I love you so much. And he's like, okay.
Em Schulz: Yeah. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: I don't know. It just makes me, I'm like, wow. It's just so nice to have a moment of, like, oh, we don't have to get our... We don't... We can just sit down now and watch a show. Like, it doesn't matter. Anyway.
Em Schulz: It's crazy.
Christine Schiefer: If you know, you know. Umm, okay. Just girly things. Ha ha ha. Okay. Where, where were we? All right. So we are here, they have this cat litter. Uh, they are finding that there is a body within the cat litter. We know it is Eunsoon. Umm, and the cat litter had apparently completely concealed any odor that would've come from human remains and it also dehydrated the remains. And they were described as almost mummified. So in some ways, Em, I've gotta say like if he had a few more weeks, he probably could have just removed her, put her somewhere like out of sight where the smell of decomp and all that wouldn't be noticeable, he could have really gotten away with it if, if, if it weren't... Wasn't... Weren't for that pesky Renee, you know.
Em Schulz: I know.
Christine Schiefer: 'Cause, uh, like, you know, [laughter] it, it had to happen just so that he was talked into giving fingerprints and that technology was... Allowed them to run it that day, and that Renee made that missing person's report. So yeah, they said it really like actually mummified the body, which is very disturbing. Umm, and Terry decided which goes toward my hypothesis, Terry decided he was not gonna fight the charges at all. And he said, yeah, okay. I'll take a murder conviction. I'll go to prison. I'll plead guilty.
Em Schulz: Yeah, he was, he was shaken, I bet.
Christine Schiefer: He was hiding something, right? Like he did not want them digging any further. He's like, yeah, sure, I did that. Send me to prison. And it's like well...
Em Schulz: No, I totally, I totally get why you would think...
Christine Schiefer: You just don't want people digging.
Em Schulz: That he's got more bodies then because you're right. Like he...
Christine Schiefer: Right?
Em Schulz: Or... And I also think maybe it was part of his like, I think it shattered the illusion of like, you're not as smart as you fucking think you are. Like...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, true, too... That's true too. Yeah.
Em Schulz: It's like, so maybe like just shut up and be happy that this is all we have on you.
Christine Schiefer: Well, and keep in mind, they still in this year 2000, think that he's Curtis, like that's his real identity.
Em Schulz: Ugh.
Christine Schiefer: So they don't even know about all the other shit that happened before that. They have not even linked it.
Em Schulz: Yeah. So he... So he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just put me to jail now. I bet...
Christine Schiefer: He's like, oh, oops, you caught me. Put me away. Umm, and so, you know, the fact that he decided to just go straight to prison, uh, don't pass go, made the detective on the case very uneasy. And she felt like, okay, well obviously he's hiding something. So she...
Em Schulz: Did you say she? She?
Christine Schiefer: I sure did.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm...
Christine Schiefer: I sure did say she, although she's also the one who said he, he had allure... Like charming eyes or whatever. And I was like, mm, I don't know if I agree with that but maybe, I didn't mean it like...
Em Schulz: I also said that maybe or something like that. So...
Christine Schiefer: I... Yeah, yeah. Right. We kind of did end up coming to that conclusion so she's probably onto something, but yeah, so she decides to dig into his child abandonment charge from the late '80s because she... Like, all they knew was that he went to prison for that, and then he fled during his parole. So she starts digging into the child abandonment just to see if like there are any threads to pull, you know?
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm...
Christine Schiefer: And it had happened in the late '80s so she begins to wonder this child, Lisa, like, is this even his child? So she doesn't... They do a paternity test and she was onto something because it turns out, Terry was not related to little Lisa at all. So this...
Em Schulz: Oh, God.
Christine Schiefer: Child he brought to the trailer park and was sexually assaulting in the back of the pickup truck or whatever, every night was not his own child. So they're like, who the hell is she then? So in 2003, they opened an investigation to discover who 22-year-old Lisa really is. And, you know, they're still... They, they have Lisa because, you know, she had been in the system because she'd been abandoned and all this. And so she also agreed that she wanted answers about her past. So investigators began considering that like maybe Terry had killed Lisa's mother and then taken Lisa.
Em Schulz: Right. Like a... Kidnapped... You know.
Christine Schiefer: And that's that how they ended up... Kidnapping. Exactly. So years went by without answers from Curtis Kimball... Uh, they... That's how they knew him and he ended up dying in prison in 2010. So, in 2015, uh, when Lisa and investigators discovered a new investigative angle, uh, forensic genealogy, anyone?
Em Schulz: Gasp.
Christine Schiefer: Uh, they discovered that they could get potentially some real solid leads. So they submit Lisa's DNA to Ancestry.com, and Lisa is matched to a few distant fourth and fifth cousins. And now there's this renowned genetic genealogist. Some of you may have heard of her. Her name is Barbara Rae-Venter, and she does some very, very, uh, just incredible work. She actually was a massive piece of the, uh, investigation into the Golden State Killer, and she was the one who helped unmask him as being Joseph or Joseph James DeAngelo. So she is like a champion at this, uh...
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: At doing this genealogy. And it's not just, you know, like matching DNA and then... She has to kind of know... Her mind works in this way where she can say, see a big picture, like, if this is your second cousin, that means we may be able to link like your, you know, great, great grandmother too. So she has like a very...
Em Schulz: Yeah. She knows the family tree inside and out.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. She like, she can read...
Em Schulz: She knows every branch.
Christine Schiefer: That, those patterns in a certain way that like, I'm sure I could never learn. And so, they get her involved. And so I just gave you that to kind of show she's like top of the top. And she had worked for a long time with adoptees to find information, uh, on their families. So, she spent tireless hours building Lisa's family tree, bit by bit and she finally... Based on just these like fourth and fifth cousins, and she finally discovers a close relative, a grandfather who lived in New Hampshire. So from this grandfather, investigators learned that his daughter, Denise Beaudin had been Lisa's mother.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: So he is learning, he's like, Lisa is my granddaughter. And Lisa's like, oh shit, that's my grandpa, my real blood grandpa. So she, first, she learns now that her mother's name was Denise Beaudin, and Lisa finds out she had actually been born Dawn, D-A-W-N. Dawn Beaudin in 1981.
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: And so she's learning like a whole new identity for herself that she did not know 'cause this Terry...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Had changed her name, and I will say, it was a relief to her, for obvious reasons, to find out that she was not related to Terry...
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: Like it must have been a moment of relief, but then also like, a little bit like overwhelming, like then who am I? And where is my dad? And like, you know, it, it just opens more, it asks more questions than it answers.
Em Schulz: Also, part of me wonders like what, what the conversations, umm, looked like when she was like just recently kidnapped by him. And she was probably saying like, "My name's Dawn," and he was like...
Christine Schiefer: "My name's not Lisa." Yeah.
Em Schulz: Yeah. Like, I don't know what, like what had to happen to convince her to play along. I just...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. And you think of the trauma that probably just blocks out the early stuff, you know, and it's just...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It's horrible. So, she finds out her, her given name is actually Dawn Beaudin. Umm, but most people referred her as Lisa, and I'm just gonna keep, keep using that name. Umm, apparently talk... In talking to the grandfather, investigators learned that Denise Beaudin, his daughter, had been dating a man that November of 1981 named Bob Evans.
Em Schulz: Okay. Well, that'll do it.
Christine Schiefer: So, Terry had been doing work in the area as an electrician and a repairman, and he sometimes worked for a camp store about 25 minutes away from Denise's home. And the camp store was located at Bear Brooks State Park. So over Thanksgiving, Bob and Denise are at Denise's family's house, and Bob tells the family that they were in some trouble because they owed people some money.
Em Schulz: Hmm.
Christine Schiefer: So they said, Bob told her family, hey, we're gonna leave town. Please don't try to contact us until we reach out because we don't wanna be compromised and put in danger.
Em Schulz: Oh, wow.
Christine Schiefer: So he's basically setting this up, like, don't...
Em Schulz: Don't call.
Christine Schiefer: Don't even try to talk to us or else you'll make, you'll put your daughter in danger. You know, it's like catch-22, you can't win.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: So shortly after this had happened, Denise's father went to her house to invite her over for Christmas. And this was, you know, right after Thanksgiving. But she had apparently already left town with Bob and her daughter without saying goodbye to her family, who was like, completely devastated because she lived nearby and said like, Hey, we're gonna leave for a bit, just wait for us to contact you. And he went over there to invite her over for Christmas. And they had already left within, I don't know, days of Thanksgiving.
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: So just really, uh, grief stricken, this family just thought, wow, they just up and left us. And when they asked...
Em Schulz: Did... Did she ever get... Did... Sorry, did the grandparents ever... They were alive to be able to tell this story so that they get to meet Lisa then and like at least find out that their granddaughter was alive?
Christine Schiefer: Yes. Yes. Yes. So she...
Em Schulz: Okay. That's nice.
Christine Schiefer: Like, basically gained a, a new family out of it, which is really cool. Yeah. So that is like the one silver lining of all this, because suddenly, "Bob" and their daughter are, are gone and the neighbors are saying they saw the couple packing up and leaving in a hurry. But Denise's family couldn't file a report because Denise wasn't legally missing and they'd already been told, oh, we're, we're starting a fresh life somewhere because we're, you know... So they can't even file a missing person's report 'cause she's not legally missing.
Em Schulz: Right.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, and she and Bob had told multiple people, they were leaving town to start fresh somewhere new. So there really wasn't much the police could do. So, Denise's family was essentially just left to wonder, like, why did Denise and Dawn never come back and see us? Like, don't they wanna meet their grandparents? Like, don't they wanna...
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: You know, it, it's just, they never knew. They never knew. Investigators showed Denise's father a photo of Gordon, uh, who was the one that abandoned Lisa in California. And he said, yeah, that's Bob Evans, who left town with my granddaughter... My daughter Denise, and my granddaughter Dawn. And so then they're like, oh boy, that's Lisa. Lisa and Dawn are the same person.
Em Schulz: Hmm.
Christine Schiefer: So a missing person's case on Denise was now open, and this was in 2016. This was 35 years after she left town with Terry Rasmussen.
Em Schulz: Oof. My God.
Christine Schiefer: A case manager at the Center for Missing & Exploited Children looked at the last known location of Denise and Dawn and suspected a possible connection to the barrels discovered in the nearby state park. So suddenly somebody is like just kind of looking through some online information and says, wait a minute, this woman and daughter are both missing... Like now that this report is out, I can see their last known location and this is right around where the barrels were found. So she's starting to link...
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: These things together.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: So investigators exhume the remains of the adult victim that they had buried like in an unnamed grave, but her DNA did not match Lisa's.
Em Schulz: What?
Christine Schiefer: So, the body did not belong to Denise.
Em Schulz: So is this Denise alive?
Christine Schiefer: Uh, I do not think so.
Em Schulz: Okay. I didn't know if that was like the plot just of the century. Okay, so then who's this woman?
Christine Schiefer: We'll get there. Okay. So investigators exhume the body. They are thinking, this must be Denise. It is not Denise. However, they still remain convinced that Bob Evans is somehow linked to these barrels. So they compare his DNA to the remains found in the barrels, and they discovered that the child who was not related to the mom and two daughters was his own biological daughter.
Em Schulz: Gasp. Oh.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Well, okay. Part of me is shocked, but then another part of me is like, well I guess we thought Lisa was his daughter and he was capable of that so...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah, that's true, too. That's true, too.
Em Schulz: Oh, wait, wait, I... Well, he was capable of assaulting her, but not killing her, I guess, right?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: Now I'm, now I'm... Okay. Whatever.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. He did not kill her. He just... Yeah.
Em Schulz: Umm, okay. I guess, I... Like parts... Part of me is surprised. Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. It was shocking. Umm, so they found out that one of the children in the barrels was his biological daughter. So they once again recruited Dr. Barbara, who made the final connection between Bob Evans and Terry Rasmussen. So they had gotten back now...
Em Schulz: Oh boy.
Christine Schiefer: Finally to Bob, and they had connect the dots and everything, but Dr. Barbara was able to say, oh, I have his like birth name. It's Terry Rasmussen.
Em Schulz: Cool.
Christine Schiefer: And so, at last, they had his original identity. In June of 2017, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit met with Diane Kloepfer, one of Terry's daughters from his first marriage. And she actually hadn't seen her father since she was about six years old and had no idea what he had done. And so to learn that was...
Em Schulz: Hmm. Yeah, she probably just was so excited to like, see her dad again and then find out what happened.
Christine Schiefer: Oof. Yeah, I don't know if she wanted to see...
Em Schulz: It's like, oh this whole time, wanted him... Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Well, I don't know if she ever wanted to see her dad. Apparently he just left when she was six. So she just said...
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: Like, okay, bye. Umm, that was when he kind of came to the house and was like, well, I'm leaving with my new woman. And they were like...
Em Schulz: Right.
Christine Schiefer: Okay, congratulations. Umm, so I don't know that she like wanted to hear from him or anything, but she was shocked to learn like, oh, he was a serial killer.
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Like that, you know, would surprise anyone. And she was very overwhelmed by this. Umm, but her mother had told her stories about her father growing up, like he had once burned her brother with cigarettes when they were young children...
Em Schulz: Hmm?
Christine Schiefer: Uh, and she told interviewers, normal people don't do that. So, agreed, one and two, it sounds like probably she wasn't interested in having a relationship with him anyway.
Em Schulz: Okay.
Christine Schiefer: And she said, I don't know if my mother knew his capacity for violence, but I don't think she knew about this, his ability to kill women and children. So, Diane had to kind of reckon with this realization that if her mother hadn't left Terry, she and her siblings might have been victims just like seemingly his other children and family members.
Em Schulz: Seems like it. I mean, now that we know...
Christine Schiefer: To find out that you have a half-sibling who was found in a barrel and your father killed them. Like...
Em Schulz: Yeah. It's not a far stretch to think that he could have also killed you.
Christine Schiefer: Jesus!
Em Schulz: And in some way, like part of you definitely has to grapple with the thought of like, maybe like, I'm so lucky my dad just left us because it could have been so much worse. You know?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like a tough thing 'cause you're like, well, on the one hand he left and killed a bunch of people, but on the other hand, like, it could have been me, you know?
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, so as more and more news started to break about this and the people he had killed, uh, people started calling Terry the "Chameleon," because he would just change these identities and just start new lives all the time in different towns. And meanwhile, Dr. Barbara continued her work. Uh, she read about a new DNA process which could extract samples from a hair shaft, uh, because now, you don't need the root anymore necessarily to get a DNA sample from hair...
Em Schulz: Oh, I had no idea.
Christine Schiefer: Fun fact. And so, hair samples from the New Hampshire victims were sent in for DNA extraction. Now, at the same time, a librarian named Becky Heath was just doing her own personal investigation of her own in her free time for fun. So she was looking into this case, she spent countless hours researching it, poring over online forums, reading posts by people looking for missing loved ones. And finally, she saw a post that she believed might be describing the woman and two children discovered in the barrels at Bear Brook State Park. So, Becky reaches out to the person in this forum, who had written this post, and the post was asking, hey, I'm looking for this woman who vanished with her children and she married a man with the last name Rasmussen, but we never heard from her again.
Christine Schiefer: She goes, well, that sounds like it may be linked to these barrels. So, Becky and Dr. Barbara didn't know each other, and they did not know that simultaneously, they were both putting together the final pieces of this fucking puzzle. In 2019, the news broke and investigators identified three of the four victims found in the barrels. They finally...
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: Were identified. The adult victim was Marlyse Honeychurch. The child found in the first barrel with her was her oldest daughter, Marie...
Em Schulz: Mm.
Christine Schiefer: The youngest child found in the second barrel was her second daughter, Sarah. Obviously tragic but also like at least names given to these victims that have been buried, uh, without names for so long. Umm, Marlyse's surviving siblings described her as bubbly, funny. They said she loved being a mom. She loved her children dearly. The two children were from separate marriages, and Marlyse was raising them after a divorce in 1978, when she introduced her family to her new boyfriend, Terry Rasmussen.
Em Schulz: Mm-hmm.
Christine Schiefer: That night, Marlyse got into an argument with her mother, uh, potentially about the age gap between Terry and Mar-Marlyse which was like 10 years. And so she stormed out of the house, left with Terry and her family never heard from her again.
Em Schulz: Wow.
Christine Schiefer: And they thought she had just like straight up left and didn't wanna be associated with the family anymore. Marlyse's sister, Roxanne, said in an interview, "I used to say, one day they'll come walking through the door or my nieces will come looking for their grandmother. But that never happened." And their mom basically lived with this incredible guilt for years thinking like, that argument we got into made her leave us forever.
Em Schulz: Aw.
Christine Schiefer: She never came back, like something I said, and I never saw my daughter again. And Marlyse's family searched for her for years, but they just kept...
Em Schulz: Oh my God.
Christine Schiefer: Hitting dead ends. So like Denise Beaudin, she wasn't officially a missing person so they turned to the online forums and tried to do their own investigation. And that's when the librarian saw this comment, this one comment in a forum, saw the name Rasmussen and went, wait a minute, I know who that is. So finally...
Em Schulz: What are the odds?
Christine Schiefer: Uh, what are the odds? And she's doing it on her own free time, just because.
Em Schulz: That's crazy.
Christine Schiefer: Like just scrolling through to see if she can link anything. So finally, we had unraveled, not we, all these people, these heroes had unraveled all of these names, identities, victims, but of course, there were still questions. For example, one of the children that was discovered in the barrel was Terry's own daughter. But we, to this day, do not know her name. We do not know who her mother was. Uh we do not know if her mother was also killed. Umm, and so, you know, we just don't know. And it's really, really sad that she has to go unnamed, but investigators have hope that somebody might come forward someday with information that, you know, will lead to a name. Umm, and just as recently as 2021, officials informed the press, that examination of the genetic composition of the child in genealogy research suggests that the mother of the child has relatives in Pearl River County, Mississippi.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: So they're starting to find a few threads and they're hoping that by saying that somebody in the area might say, oh, well we knew a guy who was in town and then took a child with him... You know?
Em Schulz: Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: So maybe, maybe, they'll be able to finally, uh, you know, link a name to this poor child. They hope that can...
Em Schulz: I wonder if like...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, sorry.
Em Schulz: Oh. Oh no. I was gonna say, I wonder if like, I feel like he has to have another victim out there and that it's like the woman he had this child with...
Christine Schiefer: That's what I think.
Em Schulz: Because there's no way that a woman isn't saying at the top of her lungs, Terry Rasmussen took my kid, unless he, I guess faked his name...
Christine Schiefer: I mean, really. Exactly.
Em Schulz: Unless he faked his name again. But like...
Christine Schiefer: And so then you think like, well, shit, so then where's Lisa's mom?
Em Schulz: Yeah. Part of me thinks that maybe she's like, maybe there was an accident and he'd... Maybe it was like his first kill, and then he like, maybe just wanted custody of his kid and then realized that he couldn't, you know, move as easily with her around or something. I don't know. But like...
Christine Schiefer: Right, right. Right.
Em Schulz: Because it's interesting that his daughter, like everybody else seems to be like, buried with their child or their parent, uh except his own kid.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: So like, where's her...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Weird.
Em Schulz: Where's her mom? It's like two different locations or like, maybe...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: He killed both. He could only carry the daughter and so brought her somewhere else, or I don't know.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. You know, and I, I wanna add too, I realized I accidentally misspoke. I said, where's Lisa's mother? But that's Dawn. Umm...
Em Schulz: The, the, the... The... Dawn...
Christine Schiefer: I'm sorry. Denise. Denise. Yeah.
Em Schulz: The, the... Yeah.
Christine Schiefer: Umm, but, but yeah, you're totally right. Like, it makes you wonder like all these missing pieces, like then who's Lisa's dad? You know, and like who's... Yeah. Who's her mom?
Em Schulz: Like, are there people that are still looking for her, you know?
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's just crazy. Uh, yeah, it's crazy. Anyway, so, uh, they hope that they can construct a family tree again, and you know, this might lead them to any surviving family she may have. Umm, but what they do know is they believe, and again, this is coming out in the past couple of years, which is just so cool that these advancements keep happening. Umm, she is likely the fifth time or sixth time great-grandchild of either Thomas "Dead Horse" Mitchell born in 1836, or William Livings born in 1826.
Em Schulz: Oh.
Christine Schiefer: So they have those clues and they're hoping like over time, they can piece the rest together. But unfortunately, oh, I was right. I'm sorry. I, I did not misspeak. We did clarify the... [laughter] I'm so sorry. The body in the barrel was not Denise Beaudin. We know Lisa's mom was Denise because his... Her grandfather said, oh, my daughter Denise.
Em Schulz: Oh, okay.
Christine Schiefer: Okay. I'm sorry. I screwed it. I, I...
Em Schulz: No, no, you're right.
Christine Schiefer: I said it right earlier, but when they found the body in the barrel, they were like, oh, well this must be Denise. And then it was not Denise because the DNA did not match Lisa's...
Em Schulz: Got it.
Christine Schiefer: So we don't know to this day where Denise is... Where Denise's body is, umm, assuming that she has been killed because...
Em Schulz: Sure.
Christine Schiefer: Again, like it's probably true, tragically. Umm, but investigators and her family believe that Terry may have murdered her somewhere between New Hampshire and California, and took the... Took her daughter and eventually abandoned her at the trailer park. Umm, but we don't totally know for certain. Denise's father recently told interviewers, "I don't think they're ever going to find her. There's always that hope, but nothing is definite." And that is the story of Terry Rasmussen, AKA, the Chameleon Killer.
Em Schulz: Hmm. Well, I think the moral of the story is that everyone needs a Renee. Because...
Christine Schiefer: Yeah. Yeah.
Em Schulz: A Renee will see something and a Renee will say something.
Christine Schiefer: Say something. Yeah. Yeah. A Renee will shout something.
Em Schulz: What's it like to know that you uh, never have to worry about people finding out if you're dead? Because Renee will make sure, make sure...
Christine Schiefer: It, it really, it really is, umm...
Em Schulz: A comfort.
Christine Schiefer: It's humbling. Yeah, it is. [laughter] It's like, wow. What made me so special, you know?
Em Schulz: Oh, well I'm sure she'll hear this and let you know that you are, in fact, very special to have her in your life. So...
Christine Schiefer: She's probably gonna be like, something incredibly rude and poop-related. [laughter] So, yeah, maybe not, but we'll see.
Em Schulz: Umm, I still remember when I was gonna do the, her scene shifter.
Christine Schiefer: Yeah.
Em Schulz: And I texted her and I was like, do you have anything you'd like to add? And within 30 minutes...
Christine Schiefer: A lot.
Em Schulz: There was a whole docket sent to me of everything she's been journaling. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: I remember when you were doing that. And I was like, how do you know that? Like, I don't share that story. And then I'm like, oh, right, okay. I should have seen that that coming.
Em Schulz: I'm not kidding. She really, within 30 minutes it was a full stack of information.
Christine Schiefer: She's like, let me get my folio out.
Em Schulz: Yes.
Christine Schiefer: I have a full binder of information.
Em Schulz: It was enough where I was like, there's no way you did this in 30 minutes. There's... You... This is an actually a record...
Christine Schiefer: You've had... You've had this waiting.
Em Schulz: Yeah. [laughter]
Christine Schiefer: You've had this waiting your... The whole time and I know it.
Em Schulz: Oh. Well. Uh, anyway. Good, good story, my little shifter.
Christine Schiefer: Good, good catching up with you in such a horrible way. Umm, yeah, let's go to the After Dark and talk about my, umm, my psychic readings I got.
Em Schulz: Ugh! Was I mentioned?
Christine Schiefer: No.
Em Schulz: Say yes. Aw. Okay. Well, I guess I'll listen anyway.
Christine Schiefer: Well, we'll talk about it. Maybe you were. We'll talk about it in that After Dark.
Em Schulz: Okay. Great. Okay. Alright. Well, uh, well, yes, anybody who wants to go listen, please join our Patreon or head over there if you're already a part and...
Christine Schiefer: Oh, yeah. You're also invited.
Em Schulz: Uh, I guess, I guess that's it for this week, but next time I see you, uh... Or no, we've got one more episode and then next time I will have departed with my mother, umm, across the seas.
Christine Schiefer: You'll be so tan.
Em Schulz: I'll be tan and probably, umm, scratched up from some sort of bicker we get into. So...
Christine Schiefer: Brawl. [laughter] Yeah.
Em Schulz: Some sort of brawl. And my poor stepfather is just wishing he never came on the boat. Okay. Umm...
Christine Schiefer: But he's got a margarita, he's fine.
Em Schulz: And.
Christine Schiefer: That's.
Em Schulz: Why.
Christine Schiefer: We.
Em Schulz: Drink.
