Hello and welcome. It's Perhaps It's You, your favorite unofficial Unsolved Mysteries rewatch podcast. I'm Liz. I'm Samantha. And this is the second part of a very special episode. So we are joined by Angela. Hi, Angela. Hi, I'm still being held hostage. Yeah, we're keeping her here for her expert opinions that she brings to the podcast and we won't let her leave. And I think that that's I think that that's fine. I don't really see any problem with it. And the authorities have yet to get involved.
So let's get this over with before they show up. Yeah, exactly. Where we left off last time, Samantha was going to tell us about Agatha Christie and her mysterious disappearance. I love this episode of Unsolved Mysteries because there's such a smorgasbord of mysteries. We went from talking about the circle of letters to the disappearance of Agatha Christie, of course.
Maybe they saved some good ones for this two hour special. I think so. I was going to mention is that what we, I don't think we mentioned last time is the reason this episode is so long is because this is a very special episode of Unsolved Mysteries where they're celebrating their 200th solve. Oh, right. Of course. So that's why it's a two hour special. We're going to talk about the mystery that they solve their 200th solve. And then, yeah, I do think maybe they saved some like special mysteries for this, this episode.
And we didn't do any ratings last time because we're going to do it at the end of this because it's really one episode. It is just one super long episode. We're just milking it. We're milking it for all it's worth. And also so we don't release a like five hour long podcast. I'm not sure anyone wants that. It doesn't exist. So you're out of luck. Okay. Yeah. So this is the mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie. What do they call? I don't remember what they called this. Oh, I don't know actually. I didn't write that down. Well, anyway. It's probably Psymed. Probably.
So Agatha Christie is the best-selling mystery writer of all time with over 2 billion books sold, which is amazing. Power to her ghost. Absolutely. However, at age 36, Agatha suddenly disappeared only to become the central character in a real life mystery. This is such a power move.
I do. I am kind of fascinated about this. And honestly, the other thing I feel like I love them. This one in particular has such PBS vibes. Oh, absolutely. There's comedy. There's characters. It's fantastic. On the morning of December 4th, 1926 in Newlands Corner, England, Agatha Christie's car was found abandoned about an hour's drive from her home.
It appeared she had vanished into thin air. Some suspected the worst that her husband Archie had done her in. Let me just say, I hope this doesn't apply to any listeners, but don't marry someone named Archie. His name was Archibald. Archibald, go with Archibald. I mean, yeah, not Archie. Is anyone naming their kids Archibald anymore? I mean, people are naming their kids Agatha now. I mean, I gotta admit, I've come around to the name Agatha. Actually, I was watching this telling Travis that I kind of want to have a baby just to name an Agatha. I kind of love that name. Yeah, I have a note.
Archibald, Agatha, and Rosalind. What a great name trio. It's just too bad that if you name your kid Archibald, they might grow up to be called Archie. I don't think it's a risk anyone wants to take. I think I'm just saying that as a Riverdale viewer. Don't marry Archie. But is it one of the royal babies? There's Archie, right? It's just Archie, I think. I don't know if it's the full bald.
we're calling this episode the full ball i don't i feel like that's a mistake just just yeah no you need to have that needs to be a nickname archie's not a name no that's a nickname no so anyway this story became a sensation how could one of the best known women in england simply disappear so now we get a little bit of uh the life of agatha christie she was born agatha miller in 1890 and raised in the wealthy upper middle class of english society when she was 24 she married colonel archibald christie uh what robert stack refers to as a handsome pilot in the royal flying corps reenactment is kind of handsome I didn't look up what he like looked like in real life but I was like I get it I tried to figure out who the like the actors and actresses were in the segment I couldn't figure it out he's really good and I feel like he was some he had to like bend somebody he's probably he probably is usually in like Agatha Christie's like probably a Miss Marple viewer is like oh I know that guy probably yeah like they just took a day on a Miss Marple set and we're like hey could we borrow you guys for a little bit hey we need someone real tall with a great accent get over here so
Okay, so apparently many people opposed this marriage, but Agatha and Archie got married anyway on Christmas Day 19th. Why? Were they just like, this guy's kind of a dick? They don't say it on some mysteries segment, but I have to assume that he was kind of just an asshole. Yeah, and they also said that she had broken off another engagement, but had referred to, then the woman referred to the Christmas Day wedding.
With him, like, then going off to war, like, isn't it romantic? I was like, no. No, that sounds terrible. Not really. Yeah, that fucking sucks. No, thank you. I'm going to pass on that. Yeah, I think that's true. I think maybe her family maybe wanted her to get with the other guy that she dumped for Archie, but it wasn't to be. They were like, this other guy's not named Archie. Would you please marry him? Yeah, I think that's it. They didn't want a son-in-law named Archie. I get it. I get it. I mean, I kind of do too.
Yes. Archie was immediately sent off to war. Kind of a bummer. While he was fighting in France, Agatha launched her writing career, creating the famous Belgian detective. Yes. You have to say it while twirling a mustache or it doesn't work. I think that's true. I think that is the only way you can say this. Each book that Christie wrote had slightly better success than the one before. And in her fifth one, The Murder of Roger Aykroyd was by far her biggest hit.
That's a really straightforward title. Yeah. That's true. But what's this book about? Oh, okay. Are either of you Agatha Christie fans? I've read a couple, but it was a really long time ago. Same. And that's why they talked about a few of her books in the show. And I'm like, oh yeah, I don't know what that book's about, but I do recall it. Yeah. I've been, I'm a PBS Agatha Christie fan. I've never read any of it, but yeah, the Poe and the Miss Marple. I've seen a number of those. But yeah, no, I don't think I've ever actually read one of her books.
I think she's kind of the originator. They refer to a book called Ten Little Indians. It's now referred to as Then They Were None. I think she's the originator of that trope of a bunch of people are invited to dinner and they are picked off one by one because that's what that book is. And she might be the first person that did that.
Trailblazer. In 1926, 12 years into their marriage, Agatha, Archie, and their young daughter, Rosalind, moved into a mansion. They called it Stiles after Agatha's first novel. Archie was now a successful investment banker. His qualifications. So did you all catch the description that Agatha was given when they were first talking about her books? What I can only describe as just like the old windbag. Oh, yeah. Yes, the plump, placid, ordinary girl, which is a moniker that I am going to embrace.
write down that this woman is surprised she could be a good writer and plump. I'm not sure exactly what she thinks writers are. Most writers do 200 crunches a day, but not Agatha. They're very athletic. Writing is notably a sedentary career. What are you talking about, lady? I love that that woman has a silver bob, and this is a thing you don't see anymore, but there used to be this, I don't know if it was shampoo for silver hair, that made it purple.
It's honestly a great look, the silver purple. Yeah, when you use too much purple toning shampoo, your hair might just turn purple. Actually, once a week or every couple weeks. That's Gwen Robbins, I believe, who wrote a book about Agatha's disappearance. Okay. She wrote a book about Agatha and then was like, what a chubbo. Thanks. Thanks for that insight and body shaming. We appreciate it. So later in 1926, Agatha's mother, Clara, died. This was a really dark time in Agatha's life. They describe her as falling apart. She took Rosalind to the home where she had grown up to sort through her mother's belongings.
Can you imagine? Okay, I don't know if this reenactment is accurate at all, but they say she grew up in a rambling Edwardian home. What? What? I don't fucking care! Yeah, and then they're saying, like, it took her, like, then she was taking too long to go through her possessions. That is a huge-ass house. Like, what did she have to do? She didn't have a nine-to-five job. It was the rush. She's making all this money off books. I don't think she's, like, even expected to work, right? Like, she's married and she's, like, upper-crust. Yeah. Yeah, what the fuck does she have to do?
impression that's given and everyone just assumes is that at this point her and archie's marriage is not going well it seems like he's a giant dick and it may be that she was just enjoying being away from him for a while yeah also she's like very sad about her mom and clara is such a good name too oh it is all the names in this are amazing well yeah that's a huge house and she has to go through every single one of those things and see if it sparks joy that's going to take a really long time yes yes it is she needs the space to do that and then sort out the edwardian home and yeah see whatever's going to the goodwill or i don't know Oh, yeah. So this process of going through her mother's belongings seemed to drag on and on. At this time, Archie stayed away and Agatha fell into a deep depression. When he finally did come to visit, he brought bad news. He became involved with a woman named Nancy Neal and he wanted a divorce.
So just kicking Agatha while she's down. And the free enactment made it sound like it was like Rosalind's birthday. Like, happy birthday, Rosalind. Oh, by the way, Agatha, we're getting a divorce. I met this woman named Nancy. I'm going to go live with her now. Yeah, it was brutal. So in a last ditch effort to save her marriage, Agatha took Rosalind and moved back home. On December 3rd, 1926, Archie took off a loan saying he was going to a weekend house party, but it was most likely a rendezvous with his mistress. I suppose.
probably is something that rich people used to do but the idea of going to a weekend party i was like what i would rather die what gatsby-esque shit is that you have to stay overnight because this party is so hopping like but it's probably luncheon and tennis and i don't even know oh probably yeah according to different reports either around 9 30 or 11 o'clock that night agatha left the house visibly upset the maids were alarmed when they saw her leave with a small travel bag and a fur coat She left a note to her secretary and asked that all her weekend appointments be canceled. In another note of unknown content, she left addressed to Archie. Archie, you suck. No one likes you. Why are you such a dick all the time? Why did you wait until my daughter's birthday to be like, here's a gift for Rosalind. And Agatha, I have a gift for you too. It's called Divorce Papers.
Yeah. Well, and what a scandal divorce was at the time, too. I don't know. And the woman that heard the story about this was like, she probably would have been fine with him having a mistress. She just didn't want the, like, scandal of divorce. Right. Yeah. Just go bang Nancy and come home, Archie. So the next morning, Agatha's abandoned car was found just an hour's drive from Stiles. It had simply gone off the side of the road. I believe her fur coat, it was, like, cold and her fur coat was left in the car, too, which was unusual and definitely suspicious.
Archie Christie was tracked down at the house party he was staying at. He had the unfortunate timing to meet with authorities just as they were beginning to suspect foul play. Whoops. Yeah. So the search for Agatha began a nearby pool called the Silent Pool, which Agatha had used in one of her previous stories. And I'm not sure if that's the actual pool in Unsolved Mysteries, but it looks idyllic and amazing. It does. Yeah. And I think that they, yeah, I think they just wanted to spend some time around there. I don't think they really thought she was in there. I think they just wanted to spend a day on the lake. Obviously, maybe. I mean, so it seems like they launched like a very extensive search for this woman, kind of assuming that she might not be alive anymore. They dragged this pool, which I'm not even sure like how they did that, but apparently they did it like three times just to make sure that she wasn't at the bottom of the pool.
Just boating around and with a long stick, poking, I think. Poking, again, like it's all about proper poking technique. Well, and additional poking was done. They got a huge group of people to do a ground search of the surrounding areas. And they, yeah, just like literally took sticks and kind of beat on bushes to see if anything came out. So I did copy down the headline that they showed. It just said, because it was just a great headline. 15,000 hunt for Miss Christy. Next line, result and dash a blank.
Oh, I mean, honestly, if you live in this area, this was probably just like, I don't know. This was the talk of the town. I'm sure. Nothing could be more exciting. Yeah. This famous, famous rich author has mysteriously disappeared. I mean, I did the Bush for Agatha. I mean, yeah. So the press, of course, spun Christie's disappearance into a tale of murder, suicide and infidelity.
Gradually, eyewitnesses came forward to describe encounters they had with Agatha before she disappeared. The first was Ernest Cross, who was walking to work the morning of Agatha's disappearance. Cross said Agatha seemed upset. She wore only a thin dress despite the cold weather. According to Cross, Agatha drove off into the opposite direction from Newlands Corner, the village where her car would later be found. Every village in England sounds made up. That's not a real place. Yeah, not at all. And also, like, the guy, what was his name? The one who stumbled across the car?
Oh, he has the best accent ever. Who is this guy? I don't remember his name. I think that they pulled him off the set of some kind of, like, Charles Dickens. Like, yeah, I think. He was sweeping a chimney five seconds earlier, and I'm in love with him. Absolutely. The other very well-casted person is, like, the lead investigator. Oh, yeah. I mean, of course he looks like this. It's amazing. I also love the scene, like, right after her car is found, where they're at the house with all the maids, and the reporters are, like, clamoring through the window, trying to get the maid to answer questions, and she just, like, slowly closes the window.
I thought you were going to talk about when the two investigators are at the car and they're looking through her suitcase and the junior investigator pulls up a slip. Oh! Scandal! She wouldn't have left that behind. No, goodness. She's out there slipless.
Could there be anything worse? Yes. Foul play is suspected. So two railroad porters also spoke with Agatha outside the station and thought that she had boarded a train. Eleven days after Agatha Christie had been reporting missing, she was seen at an elegant spot 200 miles from her home. I want this life. Me too. So she was registered under the last name Neil, the same name as Archie's mistress. It's bold and it's great. Burn. Yeah. I do love it. So the chief inspector wasted no time bringing Archie up to the spa. For reasons known only to herself, Agatha at first identified Archie as her brother, not her husband.
soon after they were reunited Archie and Agatha quickly left they would never make a comment about Agatha's mysterious disappearance again the press concluded that Agatha had suffered from amnesia but experts like author Jillian Gill have their own theories she says actually I don't remember there was two people interviewed for this show I can't remember actually which one if it was Jillian or Gwen who was the gray haired lady but anyway Jillian says That she's certain that Christie had a definitive and terrible fight with her husband that drove her over the edge. She had become depressed and she becomes not herself. She takes on another identity and wanders off. She gets on the train, takes another name and goes to a hotel to live another life. I'm not sure why. I mean, that's a cool story. I don't know. I'm not sure. The other theory floated is from author Gwen Robbins.
who posits that the whole thing was planned from the start, that she would use the media to push only the things she knew, which was revenge, mystery, and the possibility of murder. She checked into the hotel under the name Neil, her husband's girlfriend name, which hilariously Gwen says, quote, I think it's just madly funny. I hope people are like, it's the only things Liz knew. Mystery, murder, revenge. I love it. It is all I know. It is all I know. I mean, this remains a mystery to this day, but I kind of am on board with Gwen's theory because she says that Agatha took endless delight in the fact that the police shadowed Archie. He couldn't go anywhere because they suspected him of murdering her and that she took marvelous delight in reading this in the papers. All the while she's enjoying being at the spa by herself.
uh it's amazing and i that's honestly what i want to i mean there's no evidence either way but that's what i kind of want to believe to be honest i mean she seems to have gone on with the rest of her life with no memory issues so yeah i'm just gonna i like the idea that she was just like fuck archie and i'm gonna get back at him by pretending to be dead for a little while and i love it just feel like like why does Archie even have like such a lead role in this why can't it just be a woman who like yeah her husband's you know having an affair like her mother just died she's this rich woman who's just had enough I'm gonna leave go to a spa for however long like I'm not gonna keep up on the papers or anything like that like I don't know just like screw it I need like I need some time off I'm gonna go and have a nice spa time and not think you know twice about Archie like I would like that too I mean, yeah, she let her kid know where she is. But, you know, I feel like Rosalind's probably being raised by the nannies. So, I don't know. Yeah, the kid was fine. I mean, it seems like they had a whole staff to take care of her. I have a feeling that that note she left to Archie was just like, fuck you, I'm out for a while. It seems like, you know, the car, as far as the car being abandoned, it seems like she maybe was just like, well, shit, I can't get it to work again. Like, you know what? I'm still going to walk. It's nice, you know. I don't know. I got money. I can check into a spa and stay for however long I like. Yeah. I don't need to slip. What a dream. I know. It is.
This is that Agatha and Archie did soon go their separate ways, and they each married different people. Agatha married archaeologist Max Malewin. That's not a real name! That's not a real name! There's an archaeologist's name. Well, there was, and he married Agatha Christie in 1930. Hilarious. I don't know how I missed that. That's so funny to me. That is a cartoon name for an archaeologist. I mean, he kind of looked like a cartoon archaeologist, too, if we're being real about it. I mean, they show pictures in Unsolved Mysteries.
it's all he needed to like complete the look so Archie did marry Nancy Neal and by all accounts both couples had long happy marriages from there on out so yeah I love it good for her this was a great segment actually I really enjoyed it It's got so much class. It's just, and yeah, you're right. The production values are way better than usual. It's like, there's almost like a light fog to everything. Honestly, the pool, the silent pool or whatever they called it, that was beautiful. And exactly how you imagine, like you imagine the set of Agatha Christie. Yeah, they did such a good job. Okay. I have us, we have, okay. Now we have a really long unnecessary update. That's about how they solved their 200th mystery. And it's that really cute story about two soldiers who were friends in Vietnam and they got reunited after one of them saved the other's life. And then they never saw each other again.
Then they hang out in Hawaii for like five straight days because their bromance is so pure. But we've already talked about that. We don't need to talk about it again. Like, I'm glad. The guy that they got to play, the guy from Hawaii.
Yeah, he was hot. I hadn't seen it before. So I just wanted to say that. Both of them were really hot. That was our main takeaway from, if I remember correctly, from when we covered that segment. It was very attractive. Very much enjoyed it. I will say that they do a little like toot their own horn segment where they talk, they do a little montage. They talk about all the cases. It's not all the cases, but they talk about the cases they've solved. They apparently solved like 60 or like 63% of all their last loves.
That's pretty good, which is amazing. Love it. I think it was too busy. I didn't listen to the stats because I was too busy looking at the Unsolved Mysteries call center and just was wondering why nobody was actually on the phones. That is interesting. It doesn't seem like they have a lot of cubicles that don't have people working in them. I love the purple walls though. That's amazing. Yes. Dream job. Oh my God. That stack actually comes to film. Everybody's like, Oh, he's actually here. Nobody can get like within 10 feet of stack. So you all have to like get up out of your cubicles and go stand on the back wall. Don't look at him directly in the eye. They've got to talk about how they're not allowed to speak to him or make eye contact. So everybody's like, I can't actually work. I'm too nervous.
That's probably what happened. Okay, so now we have a sad one. This is an unexplained death. This is the case of Tommy Burkett. When he went missing, he was a...
Well, okay, he's dead, but whatever. When they say when he went missing, he was a 21-year-old student at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. He was never missing. I know. He was definitely found. He was definitely found and he was definitely deceased. So maybe that's just an error in my notes. I'm not sure. But anyway, when this takes place, he was a 21-year-old student. His parents lived only 20 miles away from campus. His mother was actually an instructor there. So this takes place December 1st, 1991. His parents come home during the Thanksgiving weekend when Tommy was staying with them. They've been out for the afternoon and around 6 p.m. they come home to find a tragedy.
Tommy is dead in his room, seated upright on a sofa, and he's been shot once through the mouth. He is holding the revolver. The police immediately concluded that Tommy committed suicide, but his parents, Beth and George, do not agree. So then we go into the findings and their theory. Upon finding the body, Beth touched her son's hands, and they were already stone cold, is what we're told, and that George also picked up the revolver and found it unlatched.
which would have prevented firing. So they find the body around six. At 6.20, the paramedics reported that he had been dead for several hours, which fits with his mom touching his body, which is already stiff and cold. When a police officer arrived shortly afterwards, he rushed into the house in a hurry, which they apparently thought was weird because it was like, our son's dead. you don't need to be you don't need such a rush he's not getting any debtor and he he told beth not to blame herself and she just kind of was like i don't which which they're putting is like sort of as a conspiracy and i think that's more just like an awkward interaction at this horrible time where this guy's like i've seen a lot of these cases i don't want you to blame yourself and she's just like why would i yeah i agree it's like thanks but also that's irrelevant okay so at that point the lead office investigating officer arrives And he goes into the room and comes out with a bank deposit slip where written on one side was just the words, I want to be cremated. According to his parents, that was not Tommy's handwriting. Unfortunately, we don't have Angela there to verify this. But I feel like in general, your family would know your handwriting, but maybe not.
uh the parents mentioned to the police officers that tommy had been dead for several hours and the detective said no this just happened possibly while you were coming up the street and they're kind of like okay we know we're not professionals but we looked at his body and it's like not freshly dead so what are you talking about which is very weird um we hear a few times from a spokesperson for the police department i did write down this guy's name this guy is in like a cold fucking sweat he did not i'm sorry yeah because i wrote down that is major art mabry and could fairfax county not find a better spokesperson oh my god he has the flop sweats guessing they literally they literally picked straws because nobody wanted to do this and he got the short straw because he is so unhappy to be there and also is not convincing at all um he like makes it worse like it'd be better if you didn't hear from the police department because this guy being like look uh uh uh we did everything by the book you're like but did you why are you sweating so much about it like it's just suspicious yeah okay so he said he this is when we're first introduced to him and he just wants to say that the crime scene whatever was processed normally like
They did it by the book. He had an autopsy, blah, blah, blah. There's nothing suspicious about it. However, the parents want you to know that when the body is found, Tommy's wallet, driver's license, and glasses were missing, which is kind of weird. Two days later, his parents go to his dorm room to collect the stuff, which, oh my God, what is just like sad, horrible. I was like, couldn't you get someone else to do that for you? That's so fucking sad. Anyway, so they're at his dorm room packing up his stuff and a school administrator stops by to offer her condolences and then hands them Tommy's driver's license, which had been turned in by a student. Like, oh, by the way, we found this. And they were like, who turned this in? And the administrator refused to say.
which is odd so at this point they were like ah this is a little bit weird so they decided to canvas their neighborhood and find out if their neighbors had seen anything suspicious that day and you wouldn't think that people might be you know very next door be like oh i saw a car but they literally saw a car chase Not like, oh, I saw a car I haven't seen before, which is not suspicious, everyone, by the way. The existence of cars is not suspicious. But they saw a literal car chase where Tommy's car was being chased by a larger, darker car. And at one point, one of the cars even drove through someone's fucking front yard because it was so fast. Tommy's car was eventually run off the road and he was assaulted.
It sounds like the neighbors witnessed this and went, huh. Yeah, one of the neighbors said, like, it looked like life or death or something. It's like, but did you call anyone about it? He was like, I'm pretty sure it's none of my business. Tommy's about to get fucked up. Well, he was a little shit. Yeah, yeah. He fucked out and he found out. Anyway, so, yeah, his neighbors apparently see him assaulted. He then makes it away from them and back to the house. One witness reported that later that night, she's, her, actually, we're hearing from someone who heard it from her friend. Her friend didn't, like, want to be on Unsolved Mysteries or something, so it's a little bit.
But her friend saw Tommy's car just driving around the cul-de-sac erratically. It seems like at a slow speed. And they couldn't see who was actually driving the car, but the lights were off. And the two of them were kind of like, that's weird. And it is. It's weird. So later on, his parents noticed small red dots downstairs. So this is a two-level house. There's like a staircase leading up to the second floor, obviously. And sort of along the wall of that staircase, they noticed that there's these really small little red dots. And they go, huh, I wonder if that could be blood splatter. So they call the police to look into it, and they never do.
Which I feel like in a lot of these cases where like, look, the family doesn't want to accept that their kid committed suicide. You know, they're part of this grieving process. It's really hard, blah, blah, blah. But I... understand why this family is very dissatisfied with the police investigation of this where they're like look we literally found fucking blood spider and the police are like yeah yeah we'll get to that and then just nothing happens yeah it's ridiculous um so tom they then decide to have tommy exhumed for a second autopsy this autopsy unlike the first one showed unexplained abrasions bruising around his ear and even a broken jaw yeah but if you're shot in the mouth you're gonna have a broken i mean yeah it's not unusual for those for yeah broken but they never say yeah yeah was he was there a bullet wound like did they ever actually say that They found a bullet wound? No, we never hear. We hear a little bit about the bullet later, but we don't hear anything about a bullet wound. Or if, like, that lines up with him shooting himself or... Well, it seems like the broken jaw should have been mentioned in the first autopsy. Yeah, that is weird. If you're shot in the mouth, maybe your jaw will be broken. But, like, for that just to not be in the first one?
Yeah. It does seem like they didn't do, I don't know, okay. They said that there was, you know, fraction or broken air, like, you know, they named the bones that, you know, had some kind of breakage or, you know, they, I mean, I could see that not, they're not reading that as a broken jaw, but yeah, I think that, that would be in there. Like you would think. It sort of sounds to me, I don't know that there's like a true conspiracy, but it sounds like they didn't do a very thorough job. Yeah. Investigating. And then.
Like that just keeps making everything suspicious. It's like, well, why didn't you mention that he had a broken jaw in the first place? And it doesn't necessarily mean like they were trying to cover it up. It just means, I don't know, they really, they were just like, it's a suicide and they didn't really. They concluded it was a suicide and maybe didn't do as thorough of an investigation as they would have otherwise. Yeah. His parents at this point hire their own forensic examiner who determined that the spots in the hallway were indeed blood, but there wasn't enough to determine if it belonged to Tommy because it's just a tiny bit of spatter. He determined that some other violent activity took place, one with a lot of force that would be required to cause the blood spatter. Does that sound true to you, Angela?
Um, I mean, I have seen some, well, gosh, I had a case where a man was beat with, they said it was a bat, but when I arrived, it can only be called a like beating stick. It wasn't even a baseball bat. Like it looked like a club that a caveman would have. And there was the blood spatter pattern around this area. Like you could literally see where this man's head was. Yeah. And it was on the wall behind where he had been hit and you could see the void that his head left and then everything. So yeah. And it was pretty.
Yeah, pretty small cast off from it. But yeah, again, it's like, you know, I don't know what their wall actually looked like. I mean, if it was that small amount of blood, I mean, you would think there would be more blood, too. Right. I mean, I guess I don't remember what year this was. I mean, yeah, DNA was it. It's not like they were doing DNA tests. This is from 1991. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it kind of makes me think maybe he was beaten up in the hallway, but not killed.
yeah i could see that yeah like maybe he's punched in the face or something yeah okay anyway um this guy also examined the lead core of the bullet that was taken out of the wall near tommy's body and he found no trace of tissue or blood yeah that didn't seem suspicious to me okay yeah all right good enough um his mom then looked into phone i like that his parents are just like well we are detectives now we have to like please the police aren't doing shit we have to look into everything ourselves so she looks into the phone calls that are made that day and she found that he called 911 twice When she's talking to a 911 operator, she says that there's two logs. However, the message from those calls, like there should be a recording of those calls, those have been deleted. She also found out that he had filed two complaints in the months prior to his death. She asks for if there's a way to get any more information about that. The person she's speaking to gets off the phone, talks to her supervisor, and then comes back and says she's mistaken. He didn't actually call.
Yeah, that's weird. Don't love it. The very sweaty spokesperson from the police department says that calls are routinely deleted after a month. So there's not actually anything. Oh, a month? Yeah. I mean, I know that maybe...
It was a different time. Maybe they digitized records differently now. I have no idea how any of that works, but a month? Does that seem like a long time as far as a retention policy goes for 911 calls? Yeah, but that's a lot of, I mean, I imagine if it was something like a, if they had determined that it was something more suspicious, they would have kept it or, but also that's a lot of space. Like, I mean, you know, that was analog. Yeah. And a lot of. Yeah. If it wasn't associated with an open, like an open case, maybe that is classified differently and they have to re-record over those tapes. Right. Yeah. I do think it's weird that they didn't just tell her that at the time. Right.
Yeah, you don't keep calls that long. Like, I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't know what your son called about. I do have a record that he called twice. Like, that isn't suspicious. Just explain it. The tapes are reused. Like, don't come back on the phone and be like, I'm sorry, ma'am. I regret to inform you that I was incorrect. This isn't the police office. I reached the Pizza Hut. Yeah. So then the question Robert Stack asks if he had called 911 twice, why were these calls ignored? And I'm like, Stack, have you ever fucking called the police? He has his own bodyguards.
Like, they don't show up all the time. That's totally normal. Okay. So then his parents start retracing the strange incidents that led up to his death. It began from a phone call from Tommy to his parents, possibly on November 12th, where he was extremely upset. He said that someone had smashed into his mailbox and taken his paycheck. His mom told him to calm down and just contact payroll and tell them to stop payment on the check. And he said that that's not what he was worried about, that he was worried about something else that was in the mailbox. But he didn't want to say what. And in talking about it, he said he was worried that, quote, they figured out what I'm doing. Yeah.
Yeah, anyway. So a couple days later, his mom, Beth, who worked on campus, is walking along, and she has this weird encounter where three guys walk up to her, and she says, oh, have you seen Tommy? And they say no, but if you see him, tell him we're looking to beat him up. I will pass that message along. Yes, I will tell my own son that you're looking to kick the crap out of him. Thank you, sirs. Incredibly odd. Okay, so apparently, this is just like rumor on campus, but apparently these men assaulted Tommy off campus a couple days later. Tommy was also seen confronting one of them in a dorm and asking to be left alone, only to get beat up again.
Clearly things really sucked for Tommy right before his death. This is also reportedly the student who turned in the driver's license. So it seems like Tommy had a beef with at least one guy who had two friends willing to beat people up and that that guy at some point kicked his ass and possibly he lost his driver's license in that altercation and that guy had it. This is when his parents put forth a theory that Tommy was involved in a drug investigation on campus as a paid DA informant. I'm going to say that there's absolutely no evidence of this. This seems to just be a rumor. And it does sort of explain things, but I sort of feel like it's also a way to explain things that makes their son look good. That they're like, oh, these people found out he was working for the DEA and they were dealing drugs and they thought he knew too much and so they had to take care of them. And I was like, or your son was dealing drugs. Or he was just being mercilessly bullied because, I don't know, sometimes people are dicks and that's what they do. Right. They seem very attached to that one explanation, but...
And then they're like, well, the DA won't admit it. And that's why there's this cover up. And I was kind of like, well, or the police just did a crummy job, which we see in these cases over and over again, where they just don't really care. They don't put forth a lot. They jumped to the easy conclusion, which was he committed suicide. They didn't look into the rest of these leads. And yeah, it does seem like someone was after your son and kept kicking his ass. So I would look into whether or not that person killed him. But I don't know that this DA informant thing really has a lot of credibility. Yeah. So anyway, the segment is now telling us that it seems that the car chase was his killers pursuing Tommy for knowing too much that he ditched his car and made it home to make the 911 calls only for the killers to still get into the house.
The rumor is that they beat him to death with a baseball bat using a phone book to limit bruising. Yeah. Would it work that way? Would you not bruise if someone beat you with a phone book? I mean, you would, but it would, I mean, it would be more, I mean, it wouldn't look like an obvious baseball bat and it might not lacerate the skin. But yeah, no, I just don't, I don't think that that's, yeah, I don't think that there'd be the care to like hold the phone book there. And that just seems weird. Well, according to the parents, this lines up with everything that they had noticed, including that some of their phone books were missing after Tommy's death. Like four of them. Like, I don't think that they're, yeah, like they just lined up four phone books on them and started willing. Like that's, yeah.
It takes more forethought than we're seeing in any other action from these people. They're literally beating him up in front of witnesses, but then when they bring him to their house, they're like, okay, now get the phone books. I don't know. They also noticed that the baseball bat in Tommy's bedroom, the gripping tape had been removed. It's interesting that they would take the time to take the tape off, but not just, like, fucking take the baseball bat. I don't know. His parents were told that the students had helped staging the crime from someone that seemed more knowledgeable. I think this is just, like, rumor mill bullshit. I don't really believe that. I just wrote down, the police spokesman seems really nervous, but says they will examine all credible explanation. Information, I mean. The parents come to the conclusion that the cops didn't do anything, and I was like, yeah, that's true. The DAA has denied any connection to Tommy, and the local police still consider his death a suicide.
I do think there's something weird about this. I don't know that their explanation is correct. Yeah. I mean, and the photos that they show of Tommy, I mean, he looks just like his mom, you know, like it's heartbreaking. And you can tell that his parents are really torn up, obviously, over his death. But yeah, I feel like it's just really shitty police work. And yeah, they're like, this goes all the way to the DA. And I was like, I think just you. Yeah, this is just bad police work. And they were like, oh, shit, we got to cover our tracks because we didn't do a very good job on this. I get while they're suspicious, like stuff about it is weird. I just don't know that there's like.
a whole massive i don't know that like the whole all uh law enforcement in the area wanted their son dead or like or whatever it would take for this like massive conspiracy but okay now samantha's gonna talk to us about her favorite topic which is treasure treasure treasure treasure of course unsolved mysteries okay so we've had an amnesia maybe an amnesia in this episode and now we have a treasure because of course that they would need these are we have to include these in the in the 200th solve episode so yes we have a treasure not a good one i mean okay I don't like any treasure segment, so maybe that's, you know, whatever. But this is not a good treasure segment. This is the treasure of Poverty Island. I mean, just the name. You know, it's not going to be a good one. Yeah, I mean, it's a little ironic. Yeah. Of all the things it could be called. Yep. I mean, if it was like Gold the Balloon Island, maybe. Right. Sunken Treasure Island. No, this is Poverty Island. Is there a sunken fortune hidden in the bottom of Lake Michigan? I mean, probably not. So go on. Hunts of Mysteries calls this a speck of rocky land just east of Wisconsin, surrounded by the chilly waters of Lake Michigan.
Yeah, this is Poverty Island. Lovingly named Poverty Island. Robert Stack says it's an apt name because when treacherous storms sweep across the lake without warning, furious winds and lightning swift currents spawn a graveyard of sunken ships. And over the years, intriguing tales of lost treasure. What does that have to do with poverty, Robert Stack? I guess you'll...
You'll be poor when your ship is full of treasure sinks. I'm not really sure, to be honest. So one legend in particular has claimed that just offshore of Poverty Island, there are five chests stuffed with gold, bullion, and coins, which would today be worth more than $400 million. Any word on the amount of pigeon blood rubies in these chests? I got to think at least a couple, but they don't say.
So Richard Bennett is a professional diver and author and has spent more than 20 years and $100,000 of his own money searching for this sunken fortune. You know what treasure I would like to find? $100,000. Yeah. Oh my God. If I had $100,000 to just like put into my hobby, geez. That would be great. It also is just like, I don't know, very ironic that you've lost $100,000 looking for sunken treasure. That's why it's property island. I mean, this is his personal property island, I think.
Pursuit of treasure equals poverty. So Richard Bennett tells us that any story that survives 100 years has to have some validity to it. Shut up, Richard! It has an 80-85% chance of being true. What? No! Stop it, Richard! Yeah. Cite your sources! Where did he get those numbers? The source is his butt, because he pulled it out of it. Yep.
Any story that survives 100 years has to have some validity to it. Wow, that's amazing. Okay, Richard. But Unsolved Mysteries asks, how could $400 million worth of gold end up at the bottom of Lake Michigan? So this treasure story begins in 1863 when the tide of the Civil War was turning in favor of the Union. The beleaguered South, strapped for capital, put out a desperate call for relief to France. And according to legend, the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte III, secretly dispatched a shipment of gold across the Atlantic to Canada. Why? Why? Why would he do that? Aw, that crazy Napoleon.
I don't know. Get extra gold, I guess. I have no idea. I mean, this is a legend. I don't know that there's any validity to it. It's over 100 years old. Over 100 years old. I mean, there's an 85% chance of it being true. According to the story, this gold was then spirited down the St. Lawrence River and into Lake Michigan. But some believe that while traveling inland to Chicago, the ship was attacked and sunk. This is so made up. Liz has an 85% chance of being true.
So why, why would any of this happen? Why Chicago? Chicago is not part of the Confederacy. This was my question too. I'm not really sure why this is the route they would take if they were trying to get, like they were going through union territory to take this goal to the Confederacy. That doesn't make any sense. The goal from Napoleon. Don't forget that. Yes. The Napoleonic seal of approval. It seems like there was probably easier ways to get this to them, but anyway.
So yeah, so maybe the ship was attacked and sunk. Others believe that it was shipwrecked in a storm. In either event, the chest of gold never arrived at its destination. Because it's not real! Or it's in the bottom of Lake Michigan just waiting for Richard to find it. You're right, you're right. So we meet another guy. This is Steve Harrington. He's a maritime historian, and he's convinced the treasure is still located off the coast of Poverty Island. I feel like that's the worst type of historian to be. A maritime historian? I had the same... Yeah. This is the most old man job I could think of.
the part of history like not only is it about war the most boring part of history but it's like particularly about boat war no thanks yeah not boat war so he says I think that one of the most intriguing things about this legend is that it's consistent in the loss is always at poverty poverty island and there's always five chests and it's always the same scenario I think it's always at poverty island because everybody can remember that stupid name yeah I think so it's also like I mean how many landmarks are in the middle of Lake Michigan right so I don't know but however historian Chuck Feltner disagrees he has spent many years in the Great Lakes searching for shipwrecks and Feltner believes that the legend of the treasure is a good story but holds no truth Do you think he's seen any lake monsters out there? He probably would have told us, right? He doesn't say, and it's unfortunate that he doesn't, because I want to know, but sadly not. He says that records of shipwrecks on the Great Lakes in the year 1863 are extremely good. They have not been able to find any evidence that any of those vessels... Came from Napoleon himself? There's not even any record that there were any vessels sunk in the vicinity of Poverty Island, or that any of them were French vessels. There's no evidence of any of the details of this legend. They were, like, you know, sneaking it in, duh. True, true.
Napoleon was a historic figure that lots of people had researched. But sadly, he's been largely overlooked. I'm surprised I haven't even heard of him. Yeah, I don't know a lot about French history, so that is a miracle. Have either of you seen the episode of Nailed It where they make a cake, a Napoleon cake? No. I don't think so. It's extremely funny. The best episodes of Nailed It are when they have to make a face out of cake because it always looks absurd. Yes. It's also just so random. But yeah, there's an episode of Nailed It if you want to see Napoleon made out of cake badly.
which of course i do yeah so despite the lack of a paper trail the legend of the secret shipment has persisted in 1929 a group of sailors were said to have snagged the five chests with their anchor but just as it was coming up uh seconds away from fortune and gold suddenly the chains broke and the treasure plummeted back to its watery grave wait all five chests were attached to the anchor apparently all five of them the big anchor is i don't know yeah huge chests are big anchors one or the other yeah i mean that's why i broke the chain you know this is really funny where they're like no not my gold well, we can't like dive down and get it or something. So nevermind. She gets deep, right? I don't know. So a few years later, a group of investors in Chicago raised $50,000 to try their luck at the poverty Island search. According to Richard Bennett, a young boy named Carly Jessen, whose father was the local lighthouse keeper. Wait, what? I had my subtitles on, so his name is spelled K-A-R-L-Y. Okay. Carly. Carly Ray Jessen. All right. Carly Jessen. His father was the local lighthouse keeper and he was said to have watched the salvage operation for three consecutive summers.
Because his job is so boring. I mean, yeah. Well, it wasn't even his job. His dad was the lighthouse keeper. He probably just had to sit there and kick rocks. Oh, my God. Your dad is the lighthouse keeper on Poverty Island. Like, could that sound any more bleak? Yeah. For three summers in a row, he just watched the salvage operation. This kid's best friend was like a muscle or a clam. So sad.
According to this boy, Carly, a storm hit one night and the salvage ship sank with all the men on board. That's terrible. This guy's a bad lighthouse keeper. Robert Stack says the heartless tides of Lake Michigan had once again reclaimed the poverty island treasure. Wow. So what this kid says is that he saw, he witnessed a big celebration happening on the ship as if maybe they had got the treasure up and were celebrating having found it. And then that night the ship sank. So maybe this treasure is cursed or something. Or someone had like a really good playboy on board. Like you don't know what they were celebrating. They found it one night. Yeah. They're like, look at this centerfold. And they all started cheering. That's a treasure in a way. The real treasure is the nudity. The real treasure is the playboys we found along the way.
This is a very analog experience for the older millennials and Gen X out there, but did you ever find porno in the woods? I swear that's a universal experience for a certain age, is that you just stumble upon some porno that some creepy old man hid out in the woods. We don't have to do that anymore in the digital age. But anyway, the true treasure is the porno that we found in the woods. I feel like Robert Stack is casting a little bit of shade Richard Bennett's way because he says, quote, today Richard Bennett feels confident that he will succeed where others have failed. Robert Stack's like, good fucking luck with that.
Bennett has devised what he calls an ingenious underwater sled to comb the murky depths of Lake Michigan, which looks like just a PVC pipe. Yes. Yes. That is what I was going to ask. It's an ingenious sled. I think it's just a pipe on a chain or something. That's one step off from poking things with sticks. It's basically a long stick. They're just dragging across the bottom of Lake Michigan. I'm trying to hit four, five chests at once. Yeah.
he says that the only way to really find this treasure is have human beings on the sled visually looking at the bottom. He says it's cold. It's deep. The area is very treacherous, but I'm a dreamer and I'm a gambler. And as long as I have those things working for me, I'll continue to search. I feel like those are things that don't usually really work for people, but yeah, I feel like that man is definitely divorced. He does have divorced energy. That is very divorced energy. Yes. Yeah. So that's the end of the segment. Let's see if Unsolved Mysteries Wiki has an update. Samantha, would you describe yourself as a dreamer and a gambler? I'm definitely not a gambler. Oh, okay. Bad news, everyone. This is unresolved.
No. Oh, man. That only means that the treasure is still 80 to 85% out there and that we can find it. So if it's like 200 years old, does that like raise the percentage? That goes up to 87%. Wow. Yeah, yeah. We should look at investing in some poking sticks around there.
All right, sign up for our Patreon. We're going to need money for some PVC pipe and some boats so that we can go out. And make our fortune, Poverty Island. Yeah, we'll make Mac do the swimming underwater part. He's really good at that. So he can do the part that sounds really cold and terrible. And we will be partying on the boat with our Playboy magazines, which I'm not entirely that they still print those anymore. But I'll get some old ones, I guess, just for authenticity. And yeah, that sounds great. Who would I want to do that? Oh, me.
We're not really boat people, I gotta say. Especially when it's really cold and ships keep sinking around you. You don't want to go hang out on Poverty Island and meet that kid's best friend, the clam. That could be exciting. Okay, we have one last case. It's a wanted. This is also wild. Okay, so this goes back to April 25th, 1979, when an intoxicated 29-year-old Timmy Berry went to a Catholic church in Everett, Massachusetts. He wanted to make a confession. He had kidnapped his sister-in-law Nancy. What a name for an adult. Tim Berry. Timmy. Timmy. Timmy Berry. Can adults go by Timmy? Is that loud? It does sound illegal, but not compared to the rest of the shit this guy did. Yeah.
Yeah. So 23-year-old Nancy Brown had disappeared 16 months earlier. I feel like in this area, everybody was aware of this case. And when this guy showed up at the church, like, I have a confession to make. I'm the one that kidnapped Nancy. That priest was like, oh, shit, it was you? Like, I think everybody knew about this. She had vanished from the house she shared with her mother and sister. So the question is, did he murder her? Oh, surprise. Yes, he totally did. Timmy was married to Nancy's sister, Andrea Brown. When her father died, Tim sort of became the unofficial head of the family, which is disturbing in retrospect, acting like an older brother to everyone. There was four.
girls that seem to be in their late teens, early 20s, and then also a mother. On October 6, 1977, which is when Nancy disappeared, she was doing laundry at home while her sister, Maura, was homesick from school. Early in the morning, Mora heard the back porch door slam and the radio turned on in the kitchen. This seems to be taken at face value that that was Nancy. I don't know why, but that was the last that anybody had heard of her. It's like other people can slam doors, but whatever. No, just Nancy. Just a certain way of slamming the door, maybe. But nobody saw her that day, which was unusual. So by the end of the day, Tim, Andrea, and her other sister, Allison, began making phone calls to her friends to see if anyone had seen her, which is like literally you have the phone on the wall, Stranger Things style. They're like getting her a dress book out to call everybody and nobody has seen.
nancy also both andrea and allison were eight months pregnant at this time yeah so they're trying to stay calm oh my god it just seems terrible in retrospect tim was the most nervous but anyway so they do a search of the house also and in the basement her mom found nancy's glasses on the cellar which is not good because she literally couldn't see it without them and also her car was gone so she wouldn't have gone anywhere with her glasses and she definitely would have been driving without her glasses like that's just not how that would work i can't imagine like just oh how heart-sinking that must have been yeah because it hasn't actually been that long that nobody has seen her at this point like it is unusual but it's maybe like dinner time so you're hoping like oh she went out she got caught up in something like you're hoping she's still gonna come home but when she finds those glasses she knows yeah car is gone yeah yeah it's so sad okay so when she didn't show up to work the next day that's when the police got involved her car was found in a mall parking lot about a mile from her home it just so happens that it was tim who suggested to the police that they check that particular mall Great. Interesting. Why do you think that, Timmy? Yeah. Timmy, do you have any other insights for us? It is terrible. It is terrible that his name is Timmy. It just makes it all creepier. Okay. So the car was unlocked and the keys were under the seat. And at that point I was like, well, I don't know. It's the 70s that people do that. But she actually had a car alarm on her car, but she always sat. So this was very out of character. Yeah. That surprised me. Like I had no idea about 1970s car alarms. Yeah. You're just, I saw mystery is such an educational experience. It is. I mean, if I lived, yeah. There's so many serial killers running around in the 70s. Oh my God. Seems like a real good idea.
I don't know how the species survived past the 70s. It is baffling. Okay, so her car was not, the alarm wasn't set, so that was weird. We also hear of a time that her sisters obviously are extremely worried about her. So the three of them are talking like, oh my God, what do you think happened to Nancy? Like, blah, blah, blah. And Tim just screams at them. She's gone. There's nothing we can do about it.
Yeah. No normal behavior, Timmy. Yeah. And they described it as like him being moody. And I'm like, no, Tim was just being a dick. Like that is, that's not moody. He was so crabby. He screamed at these women that are noticeably just worried about their sibling. Yeah. That are obviously distressed and pregnant, you know, good job. She's gone. There's nothing we can do about it. He's described as moody, withdrawn. And he also started to drink a lot at this time. So while the family didn't suspect him, the police clearly did. They asked him to take a lie detector and he didn't have refused. Honestly, he should have. That's fine.
The police did look into him, however, and they found out that while this is this was a twist I did not see coming, that while he was serving in the army and stationed in Germany, he had been charged with the murder of another soldier. Wild. Yeah. Because apparently just murdering people in the army wasn't enough for him. I don't know. He was actually found not guilty. I'm not sure how military courts work. They said he was found innocent. And I don't know if that's a thing. But anyway, did they also bring up his clairvoyance?
Yes, he is the one. Yeah, they refer to this as clairvoyance because he was the one that led the military authorities to both the weapon and the body. Wow, I wonder. Wow, that is a gift. Yeah, he really does have a clairvoyance when it comes to murders that happen around him. Yeah, he found the car. I mean, wow. Really impressive. Let's get him on Montel Williams. And when the police learned about this, they did go, hi, it is him who pointed to the car. And that is weird. So I will give the police department some credit in this case for actually fucking looking into this and being like, yeah, that's not right. What's up with Timmy? But I don't think they had any.
basically they basically suspected him but didn't have any hard evidence so i think it's like 16 months past before tim goes to the church at night and like blurts out this confession to a priest and at the time he said that he knew lancey did laundry at his mom's house on her days off so he knew she would be there he broke into the house at 5 a.m which i was like this guy is really motivated why why that we never get an answer to so he breaks into her house at 5 a.m he's waiting under the stairs it seemed to be like this was the stairs in the basement like they're washing dryers in the basement he's like crouched behind there she comes in to like put in another load or whatever and he jumps out um and what is he oh yeah he grabs her and blindfolds her by before putting her in her own car at the time he was wearing a fake mustache to hide his identity from people in the neighborhood dude that is not gonna do it that is asking a lot of that one mustache These are people that apparently see you like every fucking day. You think just putting, like you could grow a mustache. They would still fucking recognize you. What are you talking about? As soon as you put a fake mustache on, your entire face changes. Obviously somebody who's named Timmy is not old enough to grow a mustache. Oh, that's definitely. Okay, fair. They're like, well, I had Timmy's hair color. It was Timmy's height. It sure looked a lot like Timmy, but I don't know. He had a mustache. It seemed like he had a different nose too and he was wearing glasses suddenly. Does Timmy have a brother?
Okay, so he drives, he puts Nancy in her own car and drives her to the beach where she is forced to walk over dunes and into the woods. He says that, this is terrible. So apparently he said that when she, she like figured out right away that he was trying to like take pains that she wouldn't recognize him. But when she was in the car with him, she was saying, I know who you are. Why are you doing this to me? I don't know why he thought a woman that sees him every fucking day of his life is going to be fooled by a fake mustache. I think he was also wearing a ski mask, maybe while driving the car. I'm not clear if that was actually something that happened or not, but also. She's also blindfolded.
Like, it's gonna smell like him. It's gonna, you know, like... Your voice is gonna sound like you. Yeah, there's a voice. He has, like, a walk. And you just fucking recognize people from all sorts of shit. I mean, in your house, Nancy slammed the door. Like, they're going to know it's him. Right! Right! Ugh! So she's like, yeah, I know it's you. Apparently, at some point, in him forcing her to walk into the woods, she tried to stand up to him, and he decided that he was gonna have to kill her. That makes me think that his original plan was not to kill her. Maybe? Except that he's fucking carrying a shovel with him, so... Yeah. Yeah, I think... This is probably him trying to, like...
make an argument that it wasn't as premeditated as it might appear. Yeah, you're totally right. Because, dude, he hits her with a shovel that he's carrying to commit this crime that he, you know, got to the house before 5 a.m. so he could hide under the stairs. That he bought a mustache for to hide himself. He went to the fake mustache store. So, yes, he hits her on the back of the head with a shovel before slitting her throat. He buries her and went on to throw the shovel away and bury the knife. What a dirtbag. To do this to someone who you are like a brother to. Yeah. I know. It's so sad.
Yeah, God. So the priest convinces him that he should confess to the authorities, which he apparently did willingly. When they asked him why he hadn't confessed earlier, he said because no one had asked. Okay, that's not... Timmy, that's not good enough. Yeah. If they want to do the lie detector test, I mean, he might not get the subtle implication.
That's kind of asking. It's kind of asking to me. Yeah. Did you need someone to literally be like, they didn't even know if she was dead also. While you're sitting there, you know, did you, did you kill Nancy? That would have been asking. So yeah. He then led authorities to her body in a shallow grave using the stars as a guide. And they seemed real impressed by that. Yeah. They were really impressed. He told the officers that because of his army training, he could live in the woods forever and they would never find him, which is just a total and normally normal thing to say. He did ask him repeatedly why he had done it and he didn't have a motive.
He's just a sicko. In 1980, Tim was convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping. He received a life sentence plus five to ten years. They go on to say that he was considered a loving father behind bars, and I was like, I would never let that man talk to my children ever again. What are you talking about? Absolutely not. What are you talking about? This guy is convicted of murdering someone that loved him, that knew him, his family, and you're letting him still see his children? Yeah, no. Anyway, but...
Like so many of these places, he was a model prisoner. He was eventually part of a work program where he was painting the Department of Corrections offices in Boston on Election Day in 1988 because the Department of Corrections fucking loves free labor. Yes. Which, not great. He left the work area to use the restroom and after 15 minutes they noticed that he had never come back and that he just blended in with the crowd of people that were there to vote because it was Election Day. Yes.
This is, yeah, I mean, this is in my notes where it's just, are you fucking kidding me? Like, I, yeah, it's like, oh, wait, why is he, why are they showing him how this work program? Why, what, oh, yeah, yeah, this is why it's called Unsolved Mysteries. He literally just walks, this is another, there's one in the new episodes, too, where this guy's in a, he just literally leaves. He's like, bye, and like, nope, he's part of this work program. I mean, there's so many people in prison that are not a danger at all, and then this guy, they're like, sure, we need someone to paint a room. He brutally killed somebody who was incredibly close to him, and they don't even know, like, he couldn't even give them a reason why. Like, I mean, not that that would matter any, but like, yeah, obviously this man is.
Yeah, you can't really count on him, you know, to not murder people. Who knows what he's going to do, right? Right. Okay, so then, this is another thing where I was like, holy shit, a year and a half later, so he walks off. Department of Attractions, police, whatever, they have no idea where this guy is. And you just go, whoops, I guess maybe it wasn't worth it to paint that room. A year and a half later, he just walks out of the woods in Vermont, where his children are to visit some family member. And he knows, first of all, he knows that, which is creepy. His children are now 12 and 17. In the reenactment, they're like playing a board game, and one of them looks up and is like, is that dad?
Oh my God. What? These poor children are traumatized for life. So they go outside and like hug their dad, which, and then he tells them that he's never going to see them again because he needs to be on his own for a while, but they should obey their mother. We got a, this is my MVM for this episode. We get a huge mustache on Captain Curtis M. Wood, which is like, it's like the size of a flipper.
it's gigantic and it is called two hours too long because oh god yes because that's how long this episode is yes yeah because we're at the end of the episode now um okay so when unsolved mysteries originally aired this guy was wanted uh he hadn't been seen since contacting his children but you'll be happy to know unsolved mysteries did it again he was captured because of someone seeing this segment he was arrested in ohio where he had been working as a truck driver under a fake name and he was sent back to serve out the rest of his sentence i don't think he ever really provided a reason for murdering his sister-in-law though Yeah. I mean, what reason would be good enough? But it's incredibly scary and weird. And yeah, I mean, he was a truck driver in Ohio and you know that this man has killed more people. I mean, if they think he killed somebody, the soldier in Germany and then his sister-in-law. Yeah. I have a feeling that this guy is not the most stable. Yeah. I just, I just got so mad at this segment. I would be interested to know what else happened to him in the army because like, I don't know. Is that like, is some sort of trauma from that? I don't know. Like, I feel like there's more there that we don't know about. Yeah.
Because this guy's really, like, really not aware. And his mugshot is so creepy. I mean, it would be. But, yeah, I don't know. He's now serving out the rest of his life sentence. So we don't have to worry about him. But I think you're right. He probably has killed other people. Yeah. One dirtbag.
Okay, that brings us to the end of this very long episode. Woo! Finally. All right, are we ready to rate it? We're ready. Let's go. Okay, so our first category is, and we are going to include both parts in this in our ratings because we didn't rate in the last episode, so we're going to include the circle bill letters. So, mysteriousness. I think high. Yeah. Extremely mysterious. Yeah, especially if we're including the circle bill letters. Thumbs up. We don't really know what happened with that. Yeah, was she just fucking with people or what? Yeah, did she have amnesia? Did she bonk her head in her car? Is there a treasure off Poverty Island? I mean, that's probably the least mysterious of all these, but I mean, there's a chance there could be. Right. I mean, yeah, we know that.
We don't really know if Tommy committed suicide or not, so I'm going to say thumbs up. Two thumbs up from a seriousness. Reenactments. I think we have to say thumbs up just because of the Agatha Christie ones. They were really good. I really enjoyed them. There weren't any that were really bad either. They were all pretty high quality, but those ones were excellent. The plank in the woods in the circle. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best, but in general, I think they were good. We didn't have one of those cases where the casting was so bad, it honestly makes it confusing. Like the last episode. Yeah, where you're like, wait, who is that supposed to be? Yeah, no, thumbs up, thumbs up.
Thumbs up for sure. Fashion. I'm remarkable. Oh, there's the Agatha Christie stuff. I don't know. It still is not so great. Yeah, I don't know. I mean... No, thumbs down. Yeah, I can't think of anything that stood out. And as far as mustaches go, for such a long episode, I feel like we should have had some better mustaches. Yeah, I agree. There wasn't two options too long, but that came at the very end, and I don't know. I mean, there were some decent mustaches in the Agatha Christie one, I guess, but not like... Nothing like remarkable. Just your typical English period piece mustaches. Yeah, there was one fake mustache, but...
That was a dirtbag. Big, big dirtbag. You're right. He didn't count. Not only is it not real, but he's the absolute worst. Yeah. And Robert Stack.
I feel like he should have been in this more. Yeah, I mean, he came in the middle to sing Unsell Mysteries praises. He did a good job with that. They did have him go into a bunch of different places. Like, he was in the mailroom. He was in the call center. At some point, it looked like he was in a church. He helped me get that letter that was sent to them. That's true. He probably should be in an evidence room somewhere with those glasses. True. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. I mean, what do you think? He was present. It seems like a sideways then. Yeah, I agree. I agree. A sideways for Stack. Okay, so we have our Robert Stack rating scales. 0 to 5 Robert Stack. How are we going to rate this one as a whole?
I mean, it's too long, which always bumps it down for me, I gotta say. But I think that if I had just been watching this, I would have been happy this long. But because I had to take notes on that, I was like, oh my god. But I think actually the mysteries are very solid. And at least the treasure one is very short. That's true.
I might even say four. I love the Agatha Christie one. I thought the Circleville letters was a fascinating story. The true crime ones were decent. So yeah, I think a four sounds solid to me. Angela, what do you think? Yeah, I agree. I'm good with a four. All right. Four Robert Stacks out of a possible five Robert Stacks. We have a consensus. Yeah. So I have nothing to recommend this week. How about you two? I know, Angela, we said if you wanted to recommend something, you could bring one. No pressure. Yeah, so I live in Texas. So I just want to put out there that, yeah, I was on fire about the Six Weeks Cup fortune ban and how like...
reproductive rights are being taken away. And now we have this stupid Greg Abbott talking about trying to deny transgender kids gender affirming care, even though it is medically promoted, even though it is, you know, the best thing to do for these children. So yeah, just pay attention to, you know, your local elections and try to, I know there's a lot of stuff happening nationally and happening internationally and, but yeah, pay attention to your local elections. Yeah. Your local judges who are the ones that can let evidence in and out of the courtroom. Yeah.
Yeah. God, I'm just, I'm just so angry right now at the government here in Texas. So yeah, just if you can, you know, try to support trans kids any way you can support women who are trying to seek reproductive care. That's always what's going to be irritating me. But if you also need like a little bit of a breather, but still want to stick it to the man, I don't know if you guys have been following the Jorts, J-O-R-P-S. I love Jorts. Yes, the Jorts and Jean drama. They are adorable cats. It started off with a, am I the asshole on Reddit for, you know, somebody was,
basically calling their little ginger cat, implying that he was kind of stupid. you know, buttering him to promote grooming habits and stuff like that. And then it spawned off into like, just the cutest, um, Twitter account where, um, Jorts is very like pro union and pro worker and trying to, um, and then just like, also just like daily, like affirmations of like, Hey, you know, sometimes you act like a Jorts and it's okay. And you know, life is going to be good. And then jeans, you got your trash can. Yeah. And you have your gene there to help you when the door closes and like, you know, it's all going to be okay. So, um, I love when the day that Jorts,
drama blew up whatever day that am i the asshole was posted on twitter my i am married to a man who's extremely offline and he's aware of reddit so he knows am i the asshole so he has that context but trying to explain to him the jorts I mean, he was like, and butter? They put butter on a cat? And I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's funny. Yes. You don't understand. This is the most amazing thing to happen so far this year. Yeah, it's amazing. That's a great recommendation. Yeah, that's quality. I don't want to distract from that. I don't have a good one anyway. So I just want to second that. And if Greg Abbott wants to just fall in a hole, that's my recommendation for him. Yeah, he's welcome to do that. I think that's fine. If he wants to go look for the treasure at Poverty Island and never come back, that's my recommendation. We have a great place for Greg Abbott, and it's the bottom of Lake Michigan. Yeah, I mean, I would love it.
I was so upset that, you know, that Ted Cruz came back from Cancun. I mean, he should have just stayed there last year. I mean, I don't know why people were so upset. Yeah. It's not fair to the people of Cancun, but if he could have just like gone scuba diving and I don't know, never seen again, never really knew what happened to him. Yeah. Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz need to go and try to find the treasure off of Poverty Island and yes, leave us alone. What would be the best Unsolved Mysteries reboot episode? It's like these two Texas politicians were never seen again. What happened to them? And we would just be throwing parties and like dancing in the street.
I think that wraps it up. Angela, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for giving three hours of your life to this podcast. We can never repay you. Much appreciated. You're extremely helpful insights and always good creepy stories. Love it so much. Thank you. Is there anything that you want to plug or do you want just people to leave you alone?
Yeah, I guess, you know, leave me alone until COVID really for sure blows over. But yeah, no, I mean, really, the only thing that I keep updated. Yeah, the only reason I have Facebook is because of y'all's Facebook page. And and yeah, Instagram is pretty much just cats. So that's that's not it. I mean, that's always good. Yeah. Yeah. Angela cannot be reached. She's at a spa for an indeterminate amount of time. Yes. So don't bother. OK, so let's see. We have a website. We have the social media. We have you should definitely download Repod. The only.
uh app with the decency bravery and integrity to give us money and also also that so you can both play and comment on or talk about podcasts on there and it has a cool feature where you can um timestamp your comments or also like post little clips so i need to start doing that more because i feel like we have some really good quotable quotable moments that need to be clipped so be sure to follow us on repod and uh i don't know give us a five-star review it's required by law we could use a few five-star reviews really helps our egos so yeah and then sign up for patreon so you can hear us talk about the exiles yet again from my extensive well of knowledge allow us to be patreon allows us to be the exiles podcast liz always wanted i can fulfill my childhood dreams and finally put that all that knowledge that's still somewhere in my brain to use yes even though i never went on to become a csi or whatever i can still live on i do have a scully barbie also in my in my office at work it's oh my god yeah i had one of those yeah yeah jillian anderson wherever you are we love you yes and drop drop your skincare routine oh for sure yes please yeah okay all right thanks everybody thanks for listening keep working bye