It's perhaps it's you. Gather round, friends, enemies, people that are listening to this by accident. My name is Liz. My name is Samantha. I don't think we did that last time, but here we are. We're back. And thank you for everyone that was excited. The hiatus is over. Do you think that was anyone's first episode they've listened to? I feel like we've said this before. There's no way someone's listening to this for the first time, right? They don't know who we are? No. That poor person that listened to our one sponsored episode and was like, what is this? Probably if we were good at this, you know, things would be different. We would have some new listeners, but I don't feel like at this point. I'm sorry, Samantha, we're not good at this. We're excellent at this. How dare you? That's what I meant to say.
unless you mean like promotion and stuff like that because i don't know how to do that what this podcast pure gold it's really the best one out there let's be real yeah okay so oh i should have looked this up there is one like serious update which is that unsolved mysteries is back and it's gonna have new episodes in july let's see what date that was um so we will not be covering that on that we'll be coming that on our patreon you gotta face like a whole dollar to hear us talk about that You can hear that in August. July 31st. Yeah. So we will not be talking about that until the August Patreon. If you want to wait till then to sign up, it's a dollar in tax or you can give us $5 and get a coloring sheet or Richie Rich, give us $10. And then every quarter you get like a cool gift. Obviously you want to join in July and hear us talk about the Puss Buss. I literally just posted it. It'll have been live for a while by the time you're hearing this, but.
um i literally don't remember the actual name of that x-files episode i've been calling it simply puss bus so if that doesn't make you want to give us a dollar listen i don't know like you didn't initially say it was an x-files episode you're like you'll want to hear us talk about the puss box and we're like what is that well it's an episode of the x-files involves a lot of puss and also a bus and also a bug and that's the name of the episode but it's made up so it's puss bus now Uh, yeah. So, uh, if you haven't canceled your Netflix subscription already, which I debate doing that on a regular basis, they will have new all in self mysteries. Volume four is dropping July 31st. I don't know if that is all of the episodes for that, or they're doing like a once a week thing. I can't remember what they did last time. Um, hopefully we get some, did they drop two a week? I think they did like two, it's something weird. That's, I think that's why I can't remember as I was like, whose decision was this? This makes no sense. It was like, they did two and then they did like another two, but then they, maybe they just did one. Cause I think there were five, you know, it's like, um,
I'm hoping we get like a good haunting this time. Yeah. What's on our wish list? We're going to finally get a lake monster. Maybe Pressy will make an appearance. If there's going to be a treasure, which they have not done a treasure yet for the new ones, I would like it to be an under the sea treasure. Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I want it to be one of those things like billionaires are like, we got to go under the sea and find the sunken ship that has all this gold. And then, you know, they explode an old submarine or whatever. I'm interested in that. What do you think is going to happen to that new billionaire? That's like, I'm going down. Well, you know, there's what we think might happen. What we hope might happen. Yeah, we probably shouldn't say.
but i mean i people do that like james cameron i feel like is under the sea more often than he's not under the sea so i don't know why billionaires are acting like no one's been to the titanic when james cameron exists he was like having a meal on the titanic when 9 11 happened like that's how frequently he is just like hanging out by the titanic for some reason that i don't really understand but i guess if you have that much money that's just like what you end up doing not me i would be buying a castle and turning it into a caffi barrett ranch we've already discussed this but that's apparently what some rich people want to do their money i guess i just feel like it would get old and i suppose some people are just trying to do it like one time but i can't imagine being like and again Yeah, I don't think I want to be in a tiny soup can at the bottom of the ocean. I don't really care how well designed it is, allegedly. What if it's using a PlayStation controller, though? That's the finest of technologies. Yeah, no, that's not, it couldn't be me, you know? When that tragedy happened, I saw a lot of people being like, well, you should be mean about this. That could have been you. And it's like, actually, no. No, it literally could not. It's like if I was making fun of two super yachts congliding and someone was like, that could be you. It's like, no.
actually no anyway uh we do have a snacks with stack today samantha very graciously tracked down the chocolate frosted donut kitkats which only come in king size apparently no complaints about that um These are new. I also am washing it down with the new summer bubbly flavor. This is melted ice pop, which I highly recommend. It's only available at Target. It really does smell like a melted ice pop or tastes like a melted ice pop. It smells like it too. It's weird to me that KitKat in the U.S. is from Hershey by way of Nestle. Like, that's weird. Nestle is one of the most evil corporations of all time. We probably shouldn't promote them, but I do want to eat this KitKat. So let's see how it goes.
Oh, the color is weird. It's like light colored on the bottom. I guess that's the donut part. Okay. Okay. It's the color, like, I don't know if this means anything to anyone, but this is the color with Asian candies. That means it's coffee flavored. So it's confusing me. Okay. I didn't try them, but you had the hazelnut. Okay. This is way better than hazelnut. Hazelnut tastes like basically just a Kit Kat. This kind of tastes like hazelnut to me. This is way better. It's good. I don't know that I taste frosted donut, but I like it.
I will say, I sort of thought Frosted Donut was just going to be an excuse to, like, repackage chocolate KitKats. Like, what possibly could be different about it? But this is actually really different, and I really like it. And I can't really explain what that flavor is. It's not Hazelnut, but it kind of gives me Hazelnut vibes. I don't know if that's helpful. Yeah, because it's like a lighter, but also a sweeter KitKat. It's like a cross between butterscotch and hazelnut. Yeah, there is a little hint of something butterscotchy or almost caramelly, but not quite. Yeah, that's good. Maybe, like, de leche. Yeah. Yeah, I like it a lot, actually. Damn. Good thing we got a king size. Yeah.
chocolate wafers and donut flavored milk chocolate and cream so i like that you get two different types of coating with these usually you either get like a sort of flavored white chocolate coating or you only get flavor on the inside part and because they did this bottom part as the donut i think it's a lot more flavorful and that's what i really like about it it's good now you can listen to us chop for the rest of the episode yeah yeah really be sure to shoplift these from your local store because damn they are good Big businesses only. Oh, be super careful shoplifting from Target. Their security is bonkers. Police departments, contact them for help. It's wild. Anyway, little tip for the shoplipters out there. Okay, so I think that's it. Do you have anything else, my dear? No. You're like, let's just get this over with. So we're on what? Season 8, episode 16? Sweet 16, I think. Yeah.
And right off the bat, this episode sucks. Yeah, this is not as good as the last one. No, I texted Samantha like, okay, let's go back to that hiatus. I practically slept through your mysteries. At least I got an interesting true crime story. You really got the short end of the stick on this one.
fucking baseball mystery and a wild west mystery oh no not cool at all robert stack he gets well he doesn't control anything but i'm it's gonna be reflected in his score you'll see the only good thing about this episode is there's so many mustaches and not even on all cops we just see like a lot of old italian guys who have mustaches for some reason they're all in this episode that's true so lots of mustaches there's always a silver lining Yeah, that's me. I really see the positive in things. I often say that about you. Yeah. I'm one of those, like, I don't even say the glass is half full. I'm like, it's overflowing, you know, with a bountiful goodness of life. That's what I think of when I think of you. Positivity. Just radiating, bubbling, overflowing positivity where you're like, whoa, Liz, reel it in. Like, it's a little much. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's talk about murder. So this is the unexplained death of Joan Jeffries. This segment is...
This sounds rude, but like too long. A little bit. I kind of want like a dateline about this. I don't know why it didn't work for me on self mysteries. Cause it is really interesting as far as a true crime story goes. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood for it. I just knew there was a baseball mystery coming up. Maybe my headspace was wrong. No, that does not help. Yeah. It's not really a reflection of how interesting Joan's case is. Anyway. So.
On the night of November 29th, 1994 in Webster, Texas, 58-year-old Joan Jeffries died alone and scared in a suburban parking lot. The killer shot her twice in the head at close range. Then he fired two more times. Both bullets pierced Joan's heart. No one has ever been charged with murder, but Joan's family is sure they know who killed her, a former business partner named Sam Patel.
So we hear from Joan's daughter throughout this segment. And she's like, Sam Patel had motive. He had opportunity. The facts speak for themselves, is what she says. She's also gorgeous. I know that's totally irrelevant. No, she is. Drop the skincare routine. I need to know. Yeah, no, she's beautiful. What's interesting is, we've seen this a couple times. The accused killer, allegedly, is in the episode, interviewed by Unsull Mysteries. So Sam Patel denies involvement. He says, to Unsull Mysteries, I did not kill Joan. I had no reason to kill Joan. I had no reason whatsoever. I did name Sam's mustache, but I'm not sure if he's a dirtbag or not, because...
Maybe he's a dirtbag, but what's the name anyway? Give us the name. It's called the Oops I Overcorrected because I can tell that before coming onto the show, he like trimmed his mustache and then trimmed it a little more. And then it was too late. Yeah, like the sides are uneven, Sam. And we can all tell. And you were telling yourself that no one was going to notice, but here it is however many decades later and I fucking noticed. We noticed. We noticed. Just so you know, Sam. If you're listening. Yeah. If you're wondering if people are speaking ill of you, look, I'm not going to speak on your guilt of innocence right at the second, but I am going to comment on the mustache and it could have been better. Yeah, definitely.
Too small. It's like smaller than his lip. It's so weird. Yeah. I'm not a fan. I'm over it. I'm over it now. Not a fan of the mustache, Sam. So Joan was a clerk at an aerospace firm in Houston. Sam worked there as a software engineer, but he had bigger plans. So he makes this company and he approaches Joan about it. He calls this company Best Aviation. And I don't really know why this is something that's needed, but it was going to be a commuter airline for gamblers. That's kind of fascinating. I don't know. Is he a gambler? Does he know a lot of gamblers? Like why do gamblers need their own airline? I have so many questions about this that are not covered at all in the segment.
is it just like flights to las vegas from various places maybe that's maybe they prioritize places where you go gamble that's actually i would like to go on this airline i'm not a gambler but i'm just fascinated by this concept and why it's super low fares to las vegas because i'm in let's go gambler airway yeah who is considered a gambler like are we talking high rollers or are we talking anyone who goes to a casino is this exclusive so many questions high rollers get their airfares comps anyway casinos So they don't care. They wouldn't need them. So this is just like schlubs who always lose and don't have that much money. I don't know. They just want to feel like they're High Rollers? Yeah, probably. I hate the name. You need a much more glamorous name. Best Aviation. No, I agree. Yeah, boring. It needs to be called like High Rollers Air or something. Do you remember when Hooters tried to have an airline? No. That's a real piece of American history, everybody. Yes. It was supposed to be like, because you know how once upon a time, you know, flight attendant, stewards is dressed like really cute and sexy.
well at some point people were like um that actually has nothing to do with that job and it's actually unsafe so let them wear reasonable clothes and men were like boo boo well not all men pigs were so hooters saw saw as capitalism tells you like wow there's a hole in that market we could get just people who are absolute freaks to fly our airline where the girls dress like hooters waitresses but guess what there's just like not that many chauvinist pigs i guess chauvinist pigs air didn't it didn't work out Imagine that. Surprise, surprise. There is no best aviation commuter airline for gamblers, to my knowledge. So I don't think this worked out either. Also, I know that some people who work at Hooters make a lot of money and that works out for them. Yeah, good. You deserve every cent. Peel away every penny from those diamonds. But imagine being stuck in the air with those guys. Oh, God. No, thank you. So he wants to start this commuter airline for gamblers. In April of 1984, he asked Joan to help him start the company.
Joan's daughter says that her mother was thrilled, that she thought that she was flattered by the offer, and then she also was excited because the money was apparently going to be very good. Yeah, yeah, well. So Patel also put Joan on the company's board of directors, which is strange. The whole thing is strange, and not some mysteries doesn't give us a lot of insight, but weird things were going on. So Patel was married. He apparently, according to Joan's daughter, had an arranged marriage, but he was married. He and Joan had meetings at the home of his girlfriend, who was not his wife, obviously.
Okay. So I don't know. What Joan's daughter says in the episode is that he had arranged marriage. Maybe, and I'm inferring, but maybe that marriage was like, there wasn't a lot of love in the marriage, but they couldn't get divorced. And so they sort of lived, I don't know, whatever, roommate situation. And then he had this other romantic relationship with this other person. I don't know. Seems complicated. But anyway, so they had business meetings at this girlfriend's house. Oh my God, book over at the library. That's not professional at all. It doesn't seem to have bothered Joan that he had a girlfriend. Maybe he understood what his marital situation was. Maybe the wife and mine, like who knows? We don't know.
But just having business meetings at your girlfriend's apartment is... I don't know. That would make me uncomfortable. It's not clear to me why they couldn't have business meetings at his house. Like, is his... Does his wife not know that he is starting this business? You know what I mean? Like, that's weird. It makes it seem sketchier. Yeah. The thing seems sketchy from top to bottom, but this is just another thing. He's like, well, we can have... We have to meet for our business, but we can only do it at this motel and only late at night. You'd be like, no. That's actually how we run our business. I mean, that is how we run our business, but, you know, in general, I wouldn't recommend it. So Patel told Joan that overseas investors would be funding Best Aviation within a few months.
um meanwhile he wanted to get life insurance for the company's key employees and joan was subsequently insured for a quarter of a million dollars that's a lot yeah i don't look i don't know anything about business whatever i don't know if this is normal but it sounds weird to me he explains should i get that much life insurance on you considering how hard it was for us to get a bank account i'm guessing oh my god do not remind me i'm guessing taking out life insurance on each other in case our very lucrative business goes down or whatever they're like great so how much money does this business make a year and then you just go oh we don't make any money is that important is that what businesses are supposed to do i didn't realize you would ask that question so he explains that the initial idea was presented the initial idea to get life insurance that is was presented from the investor group because they wanted assurances that if something happened to one of the key people in the organization the company could function would recover their investment um i don't understand this at all like would you just hire some if joan if joan i guess gets sick and dies like why would your company lose money yeah what is she providing for the business that literally no one else can you would just hire someone else yeah right like i don't is this norm business people there's a lot of you business people listening why would you need life insurance if you were an investor in a company on they do this on shark tank i missed that episode um i mean i think it does happen but it's for like
you know, people that literally the business couldn't function without. Like, I'm sure there was life insurance on Steve Jobs. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, yeah. I don't think there's life insurance just on like anyone that works there or just investors. Like that's, I don't know. It seems highly weird. And you can understand why the family has questions given what happens. So Joan's son, Daryl Jeffries, thought the move was suspicious. He said, quote, basically she's a secretary and I can't see that as a key point person. Nothing sounded right about that. And I don't think he's meaning it to be demeaning, but it is true. Like what, like you said, like what does she have to offer that nobody else could if she were to pass away?
i think i said it in a much nicer way i hate the phrase basically she's a secretary so much that's what i named that guy's mustache basically she's a secretary yeah because i was like that's kind of rude it is rude i don't think he meant it that way but you know i'd agree i don't basically down on work that's seen as administrative or secretarial despite the fact that most organizations could not run without those people yeah exactly they're literally the most important people yeah they're doing everything so yeah it's so can kind of see why she was so flattered that he wanted her as an investor in his business and was treating her like she was very important because i bet a bunch of people she worked with did not see her that way and saw her as very expendable and not valuable so she was like finally someone is taking me seriously you know unfortunately i don't think he had very good motives for that but she did deserve to be treated well so no completely and i think to be put on the board of directors she was really flattered by it um and probably she wasn't making very much money as a secretary so i'm sure the claims of you know this is gonna be a lucrative business and you're gonna make a lot of money you're probably also really appealing um
Speaking of. For someone to be like, I can't do this without you. Like, I need your valuable input. You're like, oh, my God, you're right. You know, like, finally someone's recognizing my talents. Yeah. And you wonder if he knew that and took advantage of it. But. Right. So Patel agreed to pay Joe on a monthly salary. But in the next seven months, she received only one check and it bounced. Kelly claims that her mother wanted to quit, but Patel convinced her to stay. Patel denies this.
He says that Joan never approached him saying that she wanted to leave the business. He said there was a time where she basically said, hey, look, this isn't working out and I don't like it. But they came up with a compromise, which was that she could continue to be part time until she felt comfortable. And then they would get someone else to work like the other half of the part time position. But he's not paying her. Yeah. Which is illegal. Yeah. I don't really understand how this arrangement was supposed to work. So by then, Joan's back wages totaled close to $4,000.
Two weeks later, Patel showed up at Joan's apartment late at night. According to Joan's daughter, Kelly, he told Joan that he had a certified check for her. And for some reason said that he had to get the certified check Xeroxed. okay my knowledge that's nothing to do with checks jones daughter was like that seemed odd to me and her it just he would have done that before going to her house well okay say he did need a copy for his records fine why why is he at her house then she doesn't she's not a kinko's like she doesn't have a xerox machine in her home i don't know he's just doing this really weird behavior that is freaking out her daughter and freaking out her um also everybody if your boss shows up in your house late at night just pretend you do not see them okay oh don't answer that door no that's very weird and like you know protect yourself before protecting your job do not let them in yeah and then the next day when you see your boss or whatever be like that was you i had no idea yeah i never thought you would just come to my apartment in the middle of the night because that's so inappropriate it never occurred to me that could be you so he claims that he wanted to give her this he had the certified check don't worry i just had to get a xerox later he showed up claiming that he couldn't find a xerox machine and that he needed to use because it's the middle of the night he could have gone to the library if it was like during the day but no
he's making shit up that doesn't make any sense yeah patel told jones that he was on foot that night and couldn't get a ride perhaps she could take him home kelly was on the phone with her mother when this was all going down and kelly was like do not get in his car uh absolutely not do not do it and she heard her mother say absolutely you know no so kelly's uh jones daughter kelly is getting weird vibes from this guy and her spidey senses are tingling um according to kelly she was on the phone um when he showed up so so three times total he showed up at her night there was the first time he showed up with claiming that he had a certified check for her, but he had a Xerox machine. There was the second time he showed up saying he still has a certified check, but he couldn't find a Xerox machine. That was the time he asked her for a ride home and Kelly insisted he say no. And then...
Actually, I think the second time she wasn't on the phone with her. Her mother just told her later that he had asked for a ride home and she said no. And then when Kelly was talking about this after the fact with her mother, she was like, do not ever get into her. Let him into your car. I'm sorry if that wasn't very clear. So the third time he showed up at her house in the middle of the night. This is the time that Joan was on the phone with Kelly when it happened. She told her mother to not let him in and Joan did. She refused to let him in. Patel has a different interpretation of what happened that night. But he also says that...
the way Kelly described her mother that night to the police, he was not true. Joan was not telling him to leave and refusing to let him in, etc. So there's conflicting Kelly's account of that night and Patel's account of that night conflict. I'm going to believe the daughter over the alleged scammer, personally. Yeah, I sort of agree with you. So what Kelly says is that she believes Sam was conducting a dry run for the murder. She thinks that the only reason he didn't kill her mother that night was because she was on the phone.
And continued to say, Kelly, it's Sam. So he knew that she was on the phone listening. That is Kelly's belief. Two weeks later, after a business dinner with Sam, Joan Jeffries was murdered. So Joan told her daughter that she planned to meet Patel and his wife for dinner. Joan expected to get a check for her back wages at this dinner. She also planned to hand over the company files.
and sever ties with Best Aviation. So she was going to get her a check and say, I'm done with this. Here are your files. I quit. Patel, however, insists that Joan was not planning to quit, despite what Kelly says her mother told her. So he says that, yes, they were going to have dinner. Yes, he was going to give her a check. And yes, she was going to give me the files. But they had decided to arrange a meeting with the investor group and she was going to be there. And so the purpose of this dinner was to plan that meeting. So Patel and Joan left the restaurant. It's all very suspicious. Look, I can see why.
The family is suspicious of Patel. He was the last one to see her alive. He owed her a bunch of money that seems like she wasn't going to get. She was going to quit. Maybe there was some other sketchy stuff going on. We don't know. But the whole thing, the things we do know are sketchy. And also, like, who else would want this sweet woman dead? Yeah. And it's not like he started Best Aviation or whatever. It's not like there was a gambling airline later. Like, the whole thing seems like a scam. Yeah. No, it seems like a scam.
Don't know if it was, but she certainly never got her money, and then she ended up dead. So they left the restaurant together around 10 p.m., but Joan never made it home. By 9 a.m., detectives were at the parking lot crime scene trying to piece together what happened. So Joan's purse and keys were missing, but she was still wearing her gold and diamond necklace. So robbery didn't seem to be the motive. Sam said that after Joan and him parted, he went to his girlfriend's house and then rode his bike around the block a few times. At, like, midnight, I guess.
The investigators were like, you did what? He's like, you know, when you get home and you just decide to ride your bike. And then he was like, well, I sweated a lot because I hadn't worked out in forever. I was in really bad shape. And I was like, then why? You're like, God, I haven't worked out in a while. But midnight, right now, that's the time to do it. Yeah. So what's weird is that investigators talked to the girlfriend. And she said that when she opened the door, Sam was there with his shirt off wrapped around his neck. And it was apparently a cold night. And so she was kind of like, why are you shirtless? And why have you been riding my bicycle? Because he didn't ride around on her bike. And then he took his shirt off.
He needed an excuse to not be wearing a potentially bloody shirt. Right. And so what Kelly points out is that if he had shot her, because like the projection of the bullets, you can kind of tell that whoever shot her was standing outside the driver's side window. So if he shot into the car in order to get the keys, he would have had to, the killer would have had to reach over her and probably got that part of their sleeve bloody in order to get the keys out of the ignition. So it could explain why he had his shirt off. The family is basically like, give the shirt to the police. And he's like, I'd give it to them if they asked me nicely.
Weird. This is why you should always keep a bottle of marinara sauce in your car and then just claim it exploded. Yeah, yeah. They can't tell the difference between marinara and blood. Well, the girlfriend maybe can't. I don't know.
You're like, wow, weird thing happened on the drive home. I, there was just this bottle of barnair sauce rolling around the car and you know, yeah. So obviously the family believes that he was out riding the bike around because he was hiding evidence, including her purse and keys and that the shirt has actually never been found, but he claims that he has it and would give it to the investigators if they asked for him nicely. Well, it's just not going to be the same shirt. Like there's no way to prove that's the same shirt at this point. No, you wouldn't be able to. He was just going to his closet and it's like, uh, here, I was wearing this one.
So he says that the very next day after her death, the board of directors all got together and decided that they would take the entire proceeds from the insurance money and either give it to the family or donate it to a local charity that would leave a lasting memorial for Joan or a combination of both. Which did they do? I don't know what they said in the episode. They didn't. And that's very suspicious. I was looking in the. Which did you do? I was looking at the Unsell Mysteries wiki because sometimes they have extra information and I don't see it. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So they got $250,000.
And it doesn't say what they actually did. Yeah, the Unsolved Mysteries Wiki says the same thing. They were going to donate it to either the family or charity. So this is Unsolved. According to Unsolved Mysteries Wiki, in January 1996, Joan's children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Sam. No one knows the outcome. No charges have ever been filed in the murder. And sadly, April 18, 2020, Kelly passed away at the age of 59. So the Unsolved Mysteries curse strikes again. It's weird. We don't know what happened to that lawsuit. I guess it's sealed. Maybe.
maybe they settled out of court I don't know I hope they got a lot I hope they at least got that fucking life insurance Jesus what a sad one it is it is so weird to me that he goes on the show such a bad idea hello jinx like no don't do that and then just to be like i have this shirt just ask i don't know i hate the whole thing he's look he doesn't make himself look very good coming on the show uh i think it's kind of like testifying right like they say you shouldn't testify because you're not gonna come out looking good and i feel like this is the same like don't go on self-mysteries if you're accused of murder it's not gonna work out for you you think you're gonna clear your name you're really not gonna you're not that charming first of all he doesn't seem upset at all that doesn't mean he's guilty but it's not a good look he doesn't seem upset that she's dead and he seems very smug about being on the show so that's a really bad combination yeah and your business allegedly seems like a scam so yeah for him to be like there's i had no reason to kill her it's like well you had a quarter of a million dollar life insurance policy on her that's a reason i'm not saying you did it but that is a reason you someone could point to yeah
Oh, great. Okay, now let's talk about baseball. Baseball amnesia. Yeah, I mean, I'm always, maybe happy is the wrong word, but it's nice to talk about an amnesia case once in a while. Just to, you know, add a little something different to the mix. This is the case of Tony Marbella, who started playing baseball in 1989 when he was just 16. By May of 1994, at the age of 22.
He was a minor league baseball player. Okay. So the thing is, whoever wrote the Unsolved Mysteries wiki for this case was clearly a baseball fan and clearly incredibly salty because everything in here is like scathingly mean about Tony for like no reason. So it's, I don't know, but it describes his career as quotes stalled out. Okay. Like, why were they so mean to this guy just because he wasn't in the major leagues? He was fucking playing baseball for a living. Like, nothing is good enough. Anyway, his career had stalled out, according to Unsolved Mysteries Wiki, due to a series of injuries. So he, at the time of this segment, was playing third race for the Harrisburg Senators, which was a double A team.
So, Stack talks to us for a little bit. He seems, like, real happy he got to go to a baseball field, but I'm sure it has actually, like, nothing to do with the story. He's just, I don't know if it's, like, the same baseball field. He's just, like, whichever one's closest to the studio, you know? He's just, like, happy to be outside for a little bit. And he calls Tony a walking, talking, medical mystery. Because one day, during batting practice, he had this increasingly bad headache that just kept getting worse and worse.
until he ended up collapsing on the field and he was immediately taken to the hospital later that day when he woke up at the hospital he didn't understand where he was what was happening his team trainer was there like waiting for him and he didn't recognize him and that's someone he probably saw i'm guessing like basically every day right yeah um he didn't remember where he lived he didn't remember his girlfriend's name like he barely remembered his name right like when they told him he was a baseball player he was like oh cool which is kind of amazing he also like they showed him a picture of his girlfriend isabel he was like whoa she's hot so like that's good but he didn't like remember her or anything they had done to get like it was all new information to him um yeah he didn't remember his baseball player he didn't remember his girlfriend his family he didn't remember his own name a bunch of tests were run but could not determine the cause of his memory loss or the headache that happened prior when his girlfriend arrived at the hospital he was embarrassed and sort of like pretended to remember things that he didn't which is probably not a good strategy but i'm i could see myself too i'm being like oh yeah yeah no i did i do remember that he didn't want to upset her but it's also like he didn't really remember her or anything about her um essentially
the doctors say that this is probably stress related that like he was putting so much pressure on himself to like move forward in his baseball career that his brain just like shut down um but the way that the doctors say it it's like basically like well this guy was such a failure that he ended up having amnesia are we sure it wasn't a head injury like did he get hit in the head with a baseball and we're just we just haven't started talking about concussions yet yeah we did not take concussions seriously at all at this time um like very very cursory right like it was like oh that's sort of whatever i realize every time something's wrong with a woman it's it's stress or anxiety we don't often see this with men uh but i feel like maybe there's something else going on here i think it could be like i think he was at this moment i mean we'll find out that that his career what the segment is saying is like amnesia made him ever even better at baseball but by the time the segment aired he was no longer even playing baseball because you know, his career was essentially over. So maybe the stress of that and like not knowing, like fuck, that's what he was going to do with his life. Now what is he going to do? Like, you know, maybe that did cause a medical episode or yeah, maybe he just got hit in the head a bunch. Who knows? Anyway, the doctor had a mustache. This is one of my least favorite mustaches that we've seen. It is like dense, light, different colored. I called it Mr. Shredded Wheat. And I think that gives you an exact visual image of what it looks like shredded wheat. I cannot imagine kissing that mouth.
ew ew so rough anyway um so one day while he was in the locker room talking with his teammates about some previous games that ended up like jogging his memory and it sort of started to help him his memory come back i don't know if it all came back or not because what the segment focuses on is like that improved his play and maybe that's going to take him to the major leagues except how bad he was I think it was supposed to be like he could now just enjoy it in a different way without the same kind of pressure. But I don't know that that's even really true. They said that he was playing the best baseball in his career. If we just lobotomize all our players, they'll be great. You know what? That's probably true. I'm hitting those balls.
Tony's dad had a mustache, which is what I called the what I expected, which is just like the Italian dad mustache. You're right. This is the most mustaches we've gotten in a hot minute. So many mustaches. Okay. So this case first aired in April of 96. It is solved, except not really, because the cause of his amnesia remains a mystery. And according to Unsolved Mysteries Wiki, the effect on his play, if any, was temporary at best.
It goes on to say he never made it to the major leagues, topping out with a 89 mediocre at-bats at the AA level. Why are you so mean to this man? In fact, by the time the case aired, he had already been released by the Expos. Three years later, he retired from baseball. Like, who wrote this? And why are they so cruel? None of that is, like, said in the episode. You just, like, took it upon yourself to, like, look on the back of his baseball card or whatever and put that stats in, like, the meanest possible tone.
Okay, so here's a little twist for you, Samantha. Oh, I love a twist. From the Unsolved Mysteries Wiki, I did not look this up at all. But it says, Tony's brother Mario later became involved in mafia-related activities. In 2008, he was kidnapped for a gas station and never found. What? It is not known if Tony was involved in these activities that his brother was involved in. Which, just because it's his brother, doesn't mean... What? But anyway, Tony's brother was kidnapped and never found. So, sorry, Mario. Wow, that is a twist. It has nothing to do with amnesia, really, but... Well, you know what? Unsolved Mysteries Wiki is always out here breaking the news.
this is so we're so mean to people who do something but it's like he wasn't Babe Ruth so it wasn't good enough the man got paid to play baseball you think he could just enjoy that but no yeah I don't think like you have to get to the major leagues in order to like have a valuable career or whatever yeah it wasn't good enough just like this podcast is never gonna make it Samantha you know well I mean that is just a fact but that is a true fact you heard it here first okay we have one more Actually, a few more. I almost forgot about the Wild West. Everybody's on the edge of their seat waiting for the Wild West mystery, but you gotta get through one more. Okay, this is an armed robbery and a kidnapping. It's a wanted. On August 25th, 1994, a security guard who unsaw mysteries is calling Jim, who's in shadow and has his voice changed. Not sure why. It's because this guy's still out there and Jim thinks this guy's gonna come get him. I don't know. Don't try to find Jim. You will never find him. He is an enigma. He's a master in disguise. He's practically in the Witness Protection Program. So Jim...
who had worked for the Virgin River Casino for six years. Maybe he needed the best aviation. I don't know. Gambler's episode. He was an assistant cage manager. He was driving in a van that transported the payroll from a local bank to Mesquite, Nevada, where the casino was, when an unknown gunman appeared and announced that it was a holdup.
So he had Jim drop his gun and told the two who were in the car, it was Jim and like some payroll person, not to look at him or else he'd kill them. He then ordered Jim to drive off the main road and go to a deserted area outside of town. He had the two get out of the car and then he drove away, leaving the two employees, Jim and the other person, unharmed. The robber had taken a total of $220,000 in unmarked $100 bills. Soon afterwards, police and the FBI began to... If that robber is listening, our Patreon is patreon.com slash perhaps it's you. Throw us a few unmarked hundos. Sounds like you have the money. We'll send you some stickers.
which are priceless so what's interesting about this is that the police and the fbi for a minute suspected that the two guards that drove the van may have orchestrated the robbery um and that they were like in cahoots with whoever ran off with the money um you know i don't know there's it doesn't seem like the most implausible thing considering they were just like left in the desert unharmed it kind of seems like a good scheme but um the guards also that saves them from having to go find anybody so well yeah like well what if it was just these two uh i mean i guess they have to find the money but maybe i don't know um the guards claimed they had nothing to do with the robbery of course the gunman was either tipped off or was very lucky um i guess like part of it is that Like no one was supposed to know when they moved. It's like they moved the money on a particular schedule. They did it at random times so that people wouldn't learn and rob the van. So either like, I don't know, he had an inside source or he was just lucky. Who knows? Again, that's patreon.com slash perhaps it's you. So the day of the robbery, there were actually a few coincidences. The cage manager and the security chief who normally handled the bank runs were gone. The assistant manager decided to make the bank run two hours early. See, this makes me think actually that they can't be in cahoots because they wouldn't have even known that was going to happen.
Like the people driving. Yeah. Did they know what was going to be two hours earlier? It seems like these were all things that like happened very unexpectedly. Yeah. Like I think they're like, oh, the usual people who do this can't do it. So why don't you guys? Like it seems like it just happened very last minute. Right. So I don't see how they could actually, I get why you'd be like, oh, then maybe it's an inside job because how else would they know? But actually, I don't think they even knew. Yeah. Also, Jim never did this job. This was actually the first time he had ever been assigned to do this payroll transfer. And then the last thing is that the van they used this day was not the normal van that they used to make the payroll runs. I think someone just got real lucky. Yeah. Jim claims that he and the other employee were being unfairly accused.
Only an hour after the robbery, the van was located, abandoned about a mile south, and Jim's gun and radio were missing. Police took plaster casts of tire and footprints that indicated that the robber walked to another vehicle and then drove away. The case stalled until about a month later when a man who was involved in a domestic dispute used a gun that belonged to one of the guards. Whoops. The man was ruled out as a suspect in the robbery, so the FBI turned to the man who sold him the gun, who was a man named Luis Alfonso Ochoa, a local pizza parlor owner. I named this guy's mustache also.
But he's sort of a dirtbag, though. His mustache has that gap in the middle. Yeah, well, I called it Mamma Mia. Of course. He owns a pizza restaurant. And I have incensed him.
Look, we've been over this before. The names of these mustaches come to you from the ether. This is what the universe wanted this mustache to be called. If you were a guy running a pizza restaurant and you have a mustache, then your mustache is called Mamma Mia and there's just nothing I can do about it. We don't make the rules, alright? So when Ochoa was questioned by police, he appeared nervous and defensive and wouldn't allow them to speak to him inside of the pizza parlor. I don't particularly think that's strange. That's probably how I would know if the police came to talk to me about a robbery. However, an officer recognized the tire from Ochoa's truck.
practically matched the tires that were believed to be used on the getaway car. Authorities then searched his home and found $5,000 hidden in a cowboy boot. That's a great little tip. For some reason, a shoe wouldn't be funny, but a cowboy boot, it really sets the scene. Seems like a great place to hide your money. In his truck, investigators found a bullet that was used by Jim's gun. As police prepared to arrest him, he vanished. He has been charged with robbery and kidnapping, but authorities still believe that the robbery may have been an inside job. So the result is that he was captured. Choa was eventually arrested in Los Angeles. He pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to the case and served a three-month sentence. It is no longer believed that the two guards or anyone else was involved in the robbery. So here is the thing. This man got...
potentially, allegedly, $220,000 had to spend three months in jail. That sounds like it pretty much worked out. I think he got, you know what? Yeah, good for him. I hope he upgraded his pizza parlor. I don't know. And again, that's patreon.com slash what happens to you.
Also, we love pizza, so I don't know. And there's a pizza and a couple unmarked ingredients. Yeah, exactly. Okay, God, now it's time for a legend. A legend. Yeah, a legend. Is this not really a legend? This is a historical event. Yeah, it's a historical event known as the Wickenburg Massacre. I don't know if it's really a legend. I guess it's kind of a lie. So back on November 5th, 1871, supposedly 15 Apache Indians attacked and killed six passengers on the Wickenburg stagecoach westbound for San Bernardino, California, on the La Paz Road.
One of the victims who died was Frederick Loring, a famous writer from Boston. Two people survived this attack, William Kruger and Molly Shepard. who made it to stafie though molly supposedly died of an infection months later i will say i do really like the reenactment of this segment because they sort of go back and forth between the guy telling the story and the reenactment and the guy telling the story really hams it up and he tells it in this very like old-timey way which i can't even do an impression of but it's sort of like well you see theirs was i don't know it's very silly like if you've ever gone to like an old west town and there's been like a show it's very that he gets like super into telling the story um so it is from kruger that we are told that 15 apache indians attacked them as they were coming through the area um sorry he's saying that they were the stagecoach was fired on that they got the people on top first the people in the stagecoach were firing back that him and molly managed to like make a break for it out the back and they ran and somehow were just fine of course somebody was scalped like yeah of course um the evidence was extremely circumstantial but it did lead to a retaliation um
god what was that called the territory led the territorial army to have a uh retaliation where they went to the dale creek reservation and just killed a whole bunch of people um yeah what i didn't take like great notes on this because it's like so boring and also i just like don't believe it i just i think it's pretty clear neither does any historian we hear they try to they try to do that thing where they're like let's hear both sides of the story well that doesn't always make sense when like most people believe one thing to show the other side of it like kind of implies that you could look at it but i don't know you know what i mean it's not that balanced so we hear from some people that are like oh yeah that makes sense because something about okay one guy seriously says that something about the footprints is consistent with quote the way native americans walk okay Okay. Most of the evidence actually points to that the reason William Kruger and Molly Shepard get away is because they were the robbers. There are several things that are suspicious about this. One is the fact that William and Molly live, to tell the tale. Why? There's the fact that...
Lots of things from the stagecoach were not stolen, like the horses. Other things that are useful weren't taken. Only money was taken. So if you were thinking, oh, maybe these were desperate people who really needed some stuff, they wouldn't have taken the stuff. They wouldn't have just taken the gold.
Also, there was a bag of mail on the stagecoach that someone had gone through. They would not care about the mail. They would not open and read all the mail. They read English? They're interested in people's correspondence? Like, oh, dear sister, I have fallen ill these many months. Like, well, they don't give a shit. Why would they be going through that? No. There's also some debate of like, oh, maybe it wasn't really the Apaches. Maybe it was this other peaceful tribe. It's like, shut up. That makes even less sense.
That's not really the issue that set debate. What I thought was super interesting was that according to this episode, look, I haven't confirmed this anywhere else, there were only, there are only in all of American history, six examples of any Native American tribe attacking stagecoaches. And that in every other story about that, it was either people just lying because they wanted to go kill people and they needed like a rabble rousing tale, or they were the robbers and they wanted an easy scapegoat. Yeah, I thought that was very interesting. Like it very, very rarely actually happened. So probably.
know this isn't just that i have the woke mind virus which is more likely you know like is it more likely that william and molly happens to get away from the horrible scalping apaches or that they orchestrated the robbery themselves and knew that everybody would believe that the apaches did it and that they would get away with it because molly conveniently dies a couple months later and then william just like disappears um this is also like a secret treasure mystery which i do not appreciate because um okay yeah god i'm not even telling this well because it just infuriated me and is also boring but the theory is that william and molly rob the stagecoach they kill some people they bury the gold in the desert and that they wanted to go back for it however their story was like more convincing than they expected it to be and so people are like okay now we have to go kill a bunch of apaches and they were like oh you know it's too hot we can't go into the desert and dig our gold back up right does that mean people are out there looking for that gold
I guess. I don't know. There's lots of debates about, oh, maybe it was actually Mexicans disguised as Apaches. It's like, okay, maybe, I guess. But again, it's like most likely that we know the two people who did it, and you just didn't think it was them because they're white. Yeah, no, I agree completely. So frustrating. Okay, so yeah, after the massacre, records on Molly Shepard are unavailable. Kruger, the only person we know...
to say it is also supposedly her accomplice william he was like oh yeah she died from her wounds like there's nothing else to support that in 1872 the last we hear from him is from in 1884 when he attempted to sue the government for the money he supposedly lost in the massacre okay To this day, there is still debate as to who was truly responsible for the Wickenburg Massacre. I mean, I can't prove it was William, but I strongly suspect it was William. Well, allegedly. Allegedly it was William, but you know what? He's dead. And this actually ends with Robert Stack pointing out that because of the retaliation, while the Wickenburg Massacre is usually talked about as the death of six people, it actually caused the death of a lot more unnamed people that were killed in this retaliation, possibly retaliation for nothing. So my notes for this episode actually end with, that's right, Stack has gone woke. He wants you to remember.
The whole thing is just, I hate the Wild West ones. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. It's so boring. I don't like them. The way Native Americans walk. Oh my God. It just makes me rub my temples. I don't even know what to say to that. I'm not qualified to even address the levels of racism going on there, but we're done. The point is we're done with this episode. Let's rate it. Let's rate it. Mysteriousness.
Okay, actually, your first mystery is pretty mysterious. Amity is just, sure, I don't know. I guess mysterious? I guess. It's like the most reluctant thumbs up of my life. Yeah, I'm with you. Reenactments? Okay, I did actually kind of like the old-timey... I liked my Western reenactment because it sort of lends credence to the idea that this guy's just spinning a yarn. That he's just lying out of his ass and...
he tells it in this very silly way. I don't know if that's enough to get it a thumbs up. Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, I feel like a lot went into these reenactments. I mean, they had like horses and a stagecoach. That's true. Reenactment baseball guy was really hot. I don't know if you need any complaints for that. But it was okay. It was all right. I hate them all. Fashion? Okay, obviously the fashion includes the mustaches. I think we have, actually, despite this episode sucking, I think we have to say thumbs up again because there were so many mustaches and they weren't even all on cops. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like...
you know that's a that's a thumbs up and then Robert Stack goes woke so actually I'm gonna say thumbs down because I'm out of him for this episode okay fair enough why do you go woke I don't know oh I'm so Well, this would not be the first time. I feel like we're going to rate this episode low. And I think this is also not going to be the first time where we've given all thumbs up and then given it like a two. That's exactly where I'm at. This is a two. This is a two out of five Robert Stacks. You might say, listen Samantha, your rating system makes no sense and it's completely arbitrary and you would be correct. It doesn't matter. That's the thing. That's the thing, folks. It's a thumbs up and it's a two.
It's all arbitrary. That's the secret of it all. Yeah. I feel like I did not do justice to that Wickenberg thing, but it's stuck in my craw. I hate it. Who cares? Okay. I do have a found love that I want to talk about. Okay. Which is the movie May, December.
it came out last year it is currently on netflix this is a todd hayes movie that is loosely based on this scandalous story from the 90s where a teacher had an affair with her student an affair quote quote and got pregnant and then so this movie is like kind of about that but then natalie portman is like the act is playing an actress who's there to like capture their story and so she's julianne moore plays the you know treacherous sex offender i guess and um charles milton plays the younger man who was her student but like you know 20 years prior And the acting in that movie is so fucking good. I cannot believe Natalie Portman didn't get any recognition for this because like as she's like studying Julianne Moore for her role. And like there's a point where she basically is just talking to camera like as Julianne Moore. It blew my mind how fucking accurate it is.
There's a lot of movies about movies and it's kind of an annoying genre. It's like a self-congratulatory, like, oh, the magic of the movies. It really changes our lives. This is the first time I've seen a movie about a movie that's like, it's pointless. I've never seen a movie about making movies that's like, we will, why am I doing this? It's like an identity crisis. We'll never really achieve anything factual. So like, what is the fucking point? Fascinating. Super interesting. Yeah, I highly recommend it. The acting is just like out of this park. Everybody just nails it.
Nails it. It's super fascinating. Definitely give it a watch. And you said it was on Netflix? It is currently on Netflix, yeah. Cool. Well, I have A Found Love as well. Okay. This is a book that I think I've already recommended to you. I read it like last month. Okay. This is the book Foe by, I think the author's first name is pronounced Ian Reid. Don't come for me if that's wrong. There is a, I'm not sure if it's a series or a movie adaptation on, I think you can watch it on Amazon. So you may have already watched that. But if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it because I really enjoyed it. I don't really know what genre this is. It's like.
sci-fi horror maybe suspense kind of a hybrid of all of those it's very interesting it's not like any book i've ever read before um it's pretty short it's very fast-paced um the basic premise is it's set in a we're just told a near future so it's and it doesn't really matter like how far in the future we never really find out um basically the whole plot takes place inside this farmhouse where the main characters live um there's two main characters there's a husband and wife and the book opens with they're at their house they live kind of in the middle of nowhere which is unusual for this like futuristic world most people live in cities they're one of the few people that still live on like the outskirts of town in this rural area um and they get an unexpected visitor and at first we think it's like a government official But we come to find out that it's like a private, I don't know, aerospace company. I sort of thought it was an Elon Musk comp, which I think is really funny. Or at least the company is. I'm not sure if this character really is. And he comes to tell the main character that he has been selected for a mission to outer space. That's about all I can say about it. And so you follow this character as he goes through this, preparing for this mission. And things start to be kind of not as they seem. And the ending is very unexpected. I did not see it coming. I really, really liked it. I found it.
entertaining and suspenseful and i've been sort of in kind of a reading slump for like the better part of a year i feel like i just i keep reading things that are like even if they're good i feel sort of mad about them i don't know it's a me problem but this book i really liked and i think it's because it was interesting well written fast-paced um not very long and the ending was very good and very surprising so i highly recommend it i really enjoyed it i'll probably watch the adaptation i haven't yet but i probably will um the book though i will say this is very good highly recommend they wrote um this author wrote i'm thinking of ending things which is also a really popular book i haven't read but i think i'm going to because i like this one so much yeah it sounds great And that's my found love. Wow. Do you think that Robert Stack is in heaven reading our found loves? I assume so. He's on his yacht in the sky, his big yacht in the sky and watching all our shows and he's squirting the perfume that you recommended on and eating some novelty kit cats. Oh, what a life, man.
Well, what an afterlife. Okay. Wow. Let's end it before I say another joke like that. Okay. It's perhaps it's you. We would love your five-star reviews. Please take advantage of the summertime to hook up with people and borrow their phones to rate our podcast. Someone find out if you can rate shows on YouTube podcasts because we're newly on that platform. And I feel like if there's anywhere where we don't have a lot of reviews, it might be YouTube. So figure it out.
Figure it out. Get back to us. Let us know. If you have a spooky story of something that's happened to you, like maybe you saw a ghost or something darker than the darkness, or you were once playing with a Ouija board and your friend got possessed. I don't know. Did you go to West Virginia and put a quarter between Mothman's buttcheeks? That we also want to know. So that's perhaps a new podcast, gmail.com. Send those in. We will eventually get to the end of the season and we will want to read your listener stories. So eventually. And so I don't know. You met Robert Stack at a mall one time. Send that in. If you have an uncle and he's convinced he saw Bigfoot on a hunting trip.
get them to write it down and yeah we want to know um yeah i already plugged our patreon plenty so i think that's pretty much it that's it yeah you can join our facebook group we're on there we don't really go on instagram that much anymore twitter's dead um everything's dead everything is and now I am middle-aged. I am not going to start making TikToks for this. I can't even say it. I am not going to start making TikToks for this podcast. That is never, ever happening. Sorry. We are never recording this podcast so you can see us while we're talking. Don't know why you would want to. That's not happening. And I'm never going to, like, I don't know, have us do little dances or some shit. That's not happening either. No, this is called boundaries, folks. You can hear our voice. That's plenty. The end. The end. Goodbye. Keep working. Bye. Free Palestine.