Before we get to our show, here is a podcast we think you're going to love. Hey guys, it's Brendan Shea. And Annie Weaves, and we're the hosts of Serial Spirits Podcast. Serial Spirits is a combination platter of true crime, paranormal, mysteries, and conspiracies, all rolled into one platform that is not for the faint of heart. Listen in each week as we bring you original investigative series, interviews, chilling stories of the supernatural, and more. Subscribe to Serial Spirits on iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and all your major podcast platforms. You can also tune in weekly by listening online through our mothership, Paranormal Warehouse, at paranormalwarehouse.com.
For extra content, early access, and exclusive merch, become a Serial Spirits patron by subscribing to Paranormal Warehouse's Patreon page. Find us at patreon.com forward slash paranormalwarehouse on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Serial Spirits. The Serial Spirits podcast. Enough with the boar. Let's get down to the gore. Hello, mystery solvers! It's time for Perhaps It's You with your two cool mystery ants. Why, it's Liz.
And Samantha. And this is an unofficial Unsolved Mysteries rewatch podcast where we watch a show from the past and then we complain about it and rate its mustaches. That's basically all we do. Yeah. We're both in kind of sour moods right now. So I felt like I should just set the scene. Yeah. I'm tired. I am worn out. Pandemic is hard. Life has taken a lot out of all of us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm very fortunate to be safe at home. I feel very lucky, but it still takes a toll.
And I'm feeling that toll right now. I'm feeling just depleted. But I did want to dedicate this episode to all the sex workers out there because I feel like they are holding the country together even more than usual right now. I feel like OnlyFans is what's putting food on the table. So thank you, sex workers. Thank you for all your hard work. Also, I don't know if you know this. This is appalling to me. The stimulus check. If your work is of a sexual nature, you did not qualify for the stimulus. What the fuck? Even if your work is legal and you pay taxes because this country is run by a bunch of prudes. So if you would like to stimulate yourself and the economy, be sure to pass along your stimulus check to your favorite cam girl because I find that grossly unfair. That's outrageous. I mean, what about the language of it? It's really fucked. Yeah.
What the fuck? Yep. So, and you're telling me the people that wrote that don't look at pornography, please. Please. Give me a break. Ridiculous. So this episode is for sex workers. Other people, normies, such as myself, you're allowed to listen, but just know it's not really for you. It's not dedicated to you.
Do we have any updates? I have a couple. Okay, I have nothing. So go ahead. I should have looked up the source on this before I started talking, but did I know? Is this homework? No. I learned that the phrase Stockholm Syndrome is very questionable this week. Oh, I saw that on Twitter. Yeah, I think you were the one that drew my attention to that, actually. Let me see if I can find that so I can cite my source. Okay, so I saw this tweet from Sarah Muhammad saying that she was reading a book that included the origin of Stockholm Syndrome and that she learned that it is a myth that's basically...
was invented to discredit women of violence by a psychiatrist who didn't even talk to the women that he made the diagnosis for. It is from the book, See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill. And here's one quote from it. The psychiatrist who invented it, Niles Bergeau, that's probably not how you pronounce that, never spoke to the woman he had based it on, never bothered to ask her why she trusted her captors more than the authorities. And then it goes on to later say in 2008, a review of the literature of Stockholm syndrome found that most diagnoses were made by the media, not psychologists or psychiatrists, that it was poorly researched and that scan academic research on it could not even agree what the syndrome was, let alone how to diagnose it.
So, there you go. I found that very interesting. And I was like, oh, I should probably stop saying this on the show since it seems like it's not real. Yeah, it seems dubious as fuck. Yeah, apparently he wasn't taking into account that plenty of people don't really trust the police. So, yeah. Something to keep in mind. That's something I learned last week. My other two updates are that, yes, we are still looking for contributions for our zine. We've gotten some cool fan art. I'm very excited about it. This is probably going to take a little while. So, you've got some time to make something. If you've already made something before, you'd be...
interest is including, please send it in. Perhaps it's you podcast at gmail.com and you will get a free zine and you'll get free three months of our Patreon episodes. I think it's gonna be really fun to see this different stuff everyone makes. The fan art I've seen so far is amazing. It's extraordinary. It's so good. Yeah. Amazing. I want to put together it kind of like, just like an old fashioned zine, kind of like a collage of all the different stuff. I think it's going to be really cute and fun. So if you have anything you want to contribute to that, I don't know, a story, something, some art, if you want to make a poem, a crossword.
If you want to draw what you think Mac looks like based on his voice, send that in. I'm definitely not telling Mac I'm telling you to do that, but he doesn't listen to this podcast and that's his own fault. Okay. So that's perhaps it's you podcast, gmail.com. The other thing I wanted to say is that we came up with a new benefit for our patrons that is going to be true for all of our current patrons. I'm going to send them out an email, but also if you sign up in May, you can get in on this. We wanted to thank people for sticking with us right now in these apocalyptic times.
So patrons are going to get a free 30 minute ad spot at the show to run at the end of the show. Did I say 30 minute? Whoa. Let's go with 30 seconds. You can have another podcast. You can put your own podcast at the end of our podcast. No, I meant 30 second spot. And you can use that to promote your podcast, your business, to wish someone a happy birthday. It doesn't really matter. As long as, you know, it's not objectionable. It can be whatever you want. And we will, everybody that's a patron will get one 30 second spot. We'll put that on the show. I think it'll be fun. You can plug your OnlyFans. Yeah, sure. We are way more accepting than the federal government. So if you want people to check out your OnlyFans, make an ad. Absolutely. Why not?
Is there anything else I can say about that? If you have any questions, you know, you can email us. I just want to emphasize that every tier. So if you give us $1 a month, this is for you. If you give us $100 a month. Yeah, of course you get this. You should get so much more if you give us $100 a month. Yeah, I think it'll be just like a fun little bonus for people that are sticking with us right now. And we'll get to learn about like other creative things that are happening out in the five. So yeah, I'm excited. That's going to be really fun. I'm excited.
So yeah, you just need to record you talking for 30 seconds. A good way to do that is like, I know I have an iPhone, so I don't know for Android, although I'm sure there's an app for this. There is like a voice note and you can email that to us and you can put it, we can put that into the podcast. If you're not sure how to do that, just open up your phone. If you have an iPhone and it's like one of the native apps or whatever, it's voice, I think voice notes. And you can just from the app, hit email and just email perhaps it's you podcast at gmail.com. And I'm sure there's other apps that'll do the same, same fricking thing, but. Perfect.
yeah or anchor that podcasting app anchor is probably overkill but you could use that too if you don't have an iphone yeah um yeah okay so that's all my updates did we have any just like complaints i do have something that i think i need to acknowledge which is our last episode the psychic dream segment i failed to mention that there was like a makeout sesh oh yeah catherine webb and her her ex-lover i don't remember yeah her in the church in front of his coffin yeah a long time i think i like blocked it i don't know i for some reason i didn't even i didn't even remember when i was talking about it but then someone in our facebook group was like uh how did you not mention this and i was like oh yeah they totally went like hot and heavy in this church in front of his his cat his body his dead body yeah it was weird weird that she's basically admitting that she doesn't love her husband and she actually loves this dude yeah and you know that guy watched unsolved mysteries was gonna like hey she's in love with a ghost and made out with him in a dream uh
think it was just so much to talk about that we forgot to get to the making out in front of a coffin because there's a lot going on in that dream a lot yes i feel like i had something else to address i even wrote down my updates today but i feel like there's now something i'm forgetting you know what it doesn't matter because it's the apocalypse and nothing matters as usual yeah I hope you came here for some uplifting rhetoric. We're here to inspire you. It's probably not what you're going to get, but I hope you came for it. It is a Halloween episode. We're on season five, episode seven of Unsolved Mysteries. Fucking don't watch it on Amazon. You know those people are gross. You can watch this for free on YouTube because fuck Jeff Bezos.
That's just me nodding now. Sorry, I was pulling up my notes. Yes, fuck Jeff Bezos. So watch this for free on YouTube. Oh, Netflix has added a little thing for the Unsolved Mysteries reboot. The little screen can come up, but you can't watch it yet. So it looks like that's dropping very soon. I don't know why they're teasing us. Give us Unsolved Mysteries. We see it. We know it's there. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to figure out how we're going to incorporate that in the show when that happens also. I mean, I think we'll have to do it as a Patreon, right?
At least? Like it'll have to be our bonus episode for a month? We'll have to see what there is. I don't know. Okay. I have the first segment. It's Halloween. Robert Stack is there. He tells you, oh, this one's unexplained. It takes place at the Moss Beach Distillery, which used to be an old speakeasy. Now this place is haunted by this woman who wears a blue dress and like a hat with a scarf around it. But there are three different stories of this woman's past and how she became a ghost. So we have to go through all three of them.
To decide which one is true. So, you know, look, the place seems haunted. The waitstaff experience wind when the windows aren't open. I don't know if that's too impressive. But objects fly around. The main complaint was that doors lock by themselves. Look, we've watched Paranormal Home Investigators. This sounds like bad HVAC and some unlevel doorways. You know what? It kind of does. I feel like if Brian was here, he could check a lot off his list. But we're still going to go through these three stories of the woman in blue. I'm sorry. So back in 1927.
The Moss Beach Distillery was known as Frank's Roadhouse, and it was a speakeasy. And we get this like very silly reenactment of a bunch of like bootleggers rolling up barrels of stuff. There's a piano player who's smoking and like playing some honky tonk. And there's a woman in blue who would sit at the bar. And we learned that she is in love with the piano player despite being married to a bootlegger. And that they had a secret series of symbols or signs like when they were going to hook up, which seemed to mostly be like her winking at him. So I don't know that's really that secret. And so she like raised an eyebrow as he's playing the piano. This reenactment is hilarious.
And he's like wearing his little vest, smoking his very tiny cigarette. And then she's like, what was that? That was the honky-tonk piano playing. Oh, okay. Obviously. We're not in the room, so thanks for clarifying. I know. Things get lost. It translates. I can only imagine you at home not knowing us having any idea what we're talking about ever. So yeah, this guy's in his vest, this tiny cigarette, hunched over, playing that beautiful music I just made. And this woman in like a full-on flapper outfit at this like not particularly nice bar.
Doesn't seem right. She like raises an eyebrow to him, which apparently means come make out with me on the beach. So he stops playing the piano. Universal language of love. Yeah. An eyebrow means come make out with me on the beach. And he was like, oh, I know what that means. Hubba hubba. So then they're out on the beach making out. But apparently they can't even notice when other people are around. Like a lot of people? Dragging huge barrels? Because her husband and like the entire mafia are rolling up big barrels of booze onto the beach while they're just standing there making out. They're not even like, I don't know, under a tree or something. They're literally just.
completely visible to everyone. So, of course, her husband, I don't know, he's not a very open-minded guy. He doesn't like that. This is not part of their arrangement. Yeah, they didn't have an arrangement. So he gets quite huffy and she throws herself in between the two men she loves, says Unsolved Mysteries. So I kind of got the impression she didn't even like her husband, but whatever. And she ends up shot. Well, the one guy pulls a knife and the other guy pulls a gun, which maybe all he had was a knife, but the odds are it gets you.
Yes, the husband, Unsolved Mysteries Wiki says, the husband and lover fought. One pulled a knife, the other pulled a gun. The woman threw herself between the two. Oh, she was, she was, you're right. She was actually stabbed. I thought she ended up shot because, you know. It's a little confusing. But she ends up stabbed by the piano player who, I don't know, is not good at stabbing. This is nice.
There's nothing to back up this story at all. I'm sorry, what were you going to say? That I'm great at stabbing? Well, no. Well, I don't know. I've never stabbed someone, so I can't say. Maybe I'm a protege at stabbing. Who knows? But it seems like to accidentally stab someone. To death. To death. Not just cut someone.
He stabbed her and she died. Seems like an accident. I think he's really bad at stabbing. I think he sucks at stabbing. So there's absolutely nothing to base this story. It's just kind of a myth that people have passed out. And they claim that she still haunts the restaurant. Breathing down the necks of women she sees at Rivals. Because women are catty. All of us. All of the time. This is what I guess I don't know. Even in death. Even in death. When I'm a ghost, if I see a hot woman, I'm going to go breathe on her. Because I can't handle it. I can't handle her hotness. How dare you?
It's going to be me as a ghost. You look great. Just a hot breath on your neck. Like what is that? That's what they claimed. And that she'll seductively call out men's names when they're alone. All right. Okay. She was just real horny for everyone. And one waitress wants to tell us that she's not malicious. She thinks these pranks are lighthearted. And I was kind of like, okay. We don't get like a good example of what those pranks are unless they're hot breath. That's a prank as old as time.
I mean, it literally is. The first human breath was a hilarious prank. So then we hear from the foreigner owners, Patricia and David Andrews, who claim they've had many encounters with the blue lady and that they used to live there on the ground floor and they're the people that were always getting locked out of stuff. Okay. And that she would play tricks on them, like lifting up checkbooks, which would then float through the air. And then when you told the ghost to put it back, it would.
That's nice of the ghost. Yeah, this ghost is very accommodating. I feel like on Unsolved Mysteries, there's a lot of ghosts moving checkbooks specifically. And I wonder if ghosts are sad. We've moved into a more digital age. They have nothing to move. Yeah. What can I pick up and put back on a shelf if not a checkbook? John, one of these former owners, wants you to know that he was very skeptical about ghosts. And that on a scale of 1 to 10, he would have been a 1 because he doesn't believe. But now he's like an 8 or something. Even though he literally believes in this ghost, that only makes him an 8.
What would make him a 10? I don't know. I don't know. I was like, he was like, I'm a 10. I'm an eight in general, but a 10 when it comes to the blue ladies. I was like, so you only believe in you are a ghost. Is a 10 like lizard people? Like he believes that the government is lizard, would believe that the government is lizard people? I think this scale only applied to ghosts. Oh, okay. So then what would 10 be? I don't know. That's my question. I'm at a loss there. I guess he will only give a 10 to ghosts he's personally seen, which seems a little self-centered, John. I don't really like the way that this segment is structured. It kind of goes like back and forth between the different stories and real life, the past.
I mean, I guess we just don't have some great answers. But the next thing we see is some children are playing by a cliff as children are want to do. And the blue lady appears and tells them that that's dangerous because she's actually very helpful and not just a wanton hussy. Then we hear from Consuelo Keelan, who is one of the housekeepers. And she says that she has met the spirit that one night she came to her while she was in bed with a fever. And the ghost appeared at the foot of her bed and was like, I'm here because you have something that's mine. And she was like, no, I don't go. Leave me alone. But then the ghost appeared when she got out of the shower, which I feel like is.
That's a faux pas, right? Yeah. The shower has to be off limits. The ghost appears in all the shower steam. And I was like, maybe not the best time. Also, she's wet and nude. She's not going to go get your thing. Leave her alone. But anyway, she's like, you have something of mine. It's my music. And then the ghost also said her name, which was Alma Reed. And that triggers Consuelo's memory. And she realizes that her father was given some sheet music by one of his close friends, Ricardo Palmyren.
who was a famous musician, and that he had a song in there that was dedicated to his beloved, Alma Reed. Ooh, spooky. So, and according to the woman that saw these ghosts, they were star-crossed lovers, but Alma had already married another man when she fell in love with Ricardo. And then in 27, she walked into the sea preferring death to a life without Ricardo. Uh-huh. So that would have been not far from Moss Beach, Samantha. Okay, so she's the lady in blue. I kind of don't understand, like, I kind of don't understand what she wanted this woman to do with the she music.
That was never made clear. I think it was just to help her realize who she was. She was like, you have something of mine, my music. And then she's like, okay, here it is. And the ghost is like, good job. I gotta go. Like, I don't know what's supposed to happen next. The ghost just wanted a friend. The ghost was like, burn that. You're not entitled to my music rights.
I don't leave those to you. I'm going to ghost sue you. I'm going to sue you in ghost court. You're going to hate it. OK, so we're on to the third story already. And that is that in 1992, the current owner of the Moss Beach Distillery contacts the psychic Sylvia Brown and says, we got to get to the bottom of this ghost mystery. Who is the real blue lady? And Sylvia came in. And unfortunately, instead of saying, oh, she's this flapper that loves piano players or she's all Maria. She was like, no, no. Her name is Marianne or Mary Ellen Morley.
And I think everybody was like, what? A third identity? That's not helpful at all. And she was like, yeah, the ghost's wear is all blue. And that she was killed by crushing blows to the chest and head. And for some reason, the employees decided they were going to look this up instead of saying, get out of here, Sylvia Brown. They went and they took this information to the San Mateo County Vital Statistics. And they researched documentation between 1910 and 1930 and discovered that Mary Ellen Morley actually existed. And that her maiden name was Reed because her sister was Alma.
Whoa. And then they discovered the events that led to Mary Ellen's death, which was that she lived in Redwood City near San Francisco Bay. And on the day of her death, which was November 6, 1919, her and her husband, Frederick, were driving some old-timey car down the road to go visit her mother's grave. And the cemetery was 15 miles from Moss Beach Distillery, which kind of is not that close. And returning home that same night, Frederick lost control of the automobile, which flipped over, and she ended up being crushed to death. Just like the psychic said.
I didn't hear your shock of awe when it all came together. And then at the end of the seance, the ghost of Mary Ellen said there would be a fire in the restaurant soon. And there was five days later. Okay. So basically people can't agree who the blue lady is. People that work there seem to go. Yeah, there's for sure a blue lady. She definitely breathes on us. She definitely says her name in a real sexy voice, but we don't know which woman died to make her.
I guess it's up to you, dear listener. It's an interesting way to describe a ghost as someone dying to make the ghost. Well, that's kind of the situation we're left in. Who was on this mortal coil to create this haunting? They don't know. They don't know. I will say. Could be me. Could be you. Could be. It could be. I will say that seeing Sylvia Brown was kind of a blast from the past. I used to watch the Montel Williams show every day after school. I was a really cool child. The coolest. Yes. I would watch Montel. I think I remember Montel being the earliest. It was like Montel, Dr. Phil, Oprah. And I would like watch all of them. But the Sylvia Brown episodes were always my favorite. And then as an adult, I realized that she was a horrible person who lied.
She was a scam artist that actually did untold damage to parents of missing children. But as a kid, I was like fascinated by the Sylvia Brown episodes. I thought she was 100% legit. And those were always my favorite episodes. So what now look at you? After all that time watching the psychic on television, now you're investigating these unsolved mysteries. I think investigating is generous, but yes.
It looks like it was foretold. Maybe it was. Maybe it was. I have no other observations about this. I think this segment is a sloppy mess. It was a bit confusing to me. It was not my favorite ghost story on Unsolved Mysteries. And speaking of not my favorite ghost story on Unsolved Mysteries, we have another one. Okay, I'm going to be honest. I barely paid attention to this. Robert Stack said the words Civil War and I think I just blacked out for a minute of boredom.
Yeah, so we're doing, this is a Civil War haunting ghost situation. There's a bunch of ghosts in it, but it does involve the Civil War. There's a bunch of really crabby ghosts. Okay, so we're talking about the Drum Barracks, which is now a museum. It was a military outpost built near Los Angeles Harbor in 1862. It was a key center for training and processing troops during the Civil War. Today, all that remains is a single building, which is now a museum. And we meet Marge O'Brien.
So I'm reading off on self-wiki and I'm also looking at my notes. However, my notes are only quotes from Marge because she is a funny lady and almost everything that came out of her mouth was a quotable. So. Oh, wait. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I have to completely interrupt you and derail you and be a terrible podcast host to point out that in the last segment, Robert Stack really snottily said about the Moss Beach Distillery. Now I've been here all day and I haven't seen a single ghost. Oh, my God. I'm so glad you interrupted me because I.
was gonna write that down and then i was like oh there's i'll 100 remember this because it's so hilarious and i didn't remember it was super pissy about it and then was like yeah yeah yeah it's halloween keep an open mind but he definitely was like there are no ghosts here i haven't seen one so funny Yeah. Hilarious. Robert Stack Snark. Amazing. My favorite. Go on. I'm so sorry. So Marge O'Brien is the museum's director and curator for the drum barracks. She also believes that the place is haunted. Marge and her employees have experienced paranormal activity. She describes how she goes around every night and locks all of the rooms. She checks them all. She makes sure that they're locked. The lights are off. The shades are down. But then she'll come back at like eight the next morning and the light in the parlor might be on. The shades might be up. This is what her first.
Quote comes in. She says, I go into a room and there may jolly well be a light on. Yeah, that's a real person. It's not an impression of Ned Flanders like you thought it was. It's a real woman. Marge O'Brien. The museum world really does attract some characters. Particularly the smaller museums. And this seems like an extremely small museum. Extremely. She's perfect. I'm sure this is her life's work and she'll never do anything else. Except live with these Civil War ghosts.
So she goes on. She says she'll be sitting in her office and something will take her attention. Either a window will rattle. The rose bush outside the window will suddenly hit the window. I don't know how that's ghost, but apparently that'll happen. It sounds like wind to me, but okay. But then suddenly she'll say, oh, I need to check something. And she'll walk over to the parlor. And then she says, nine chances out of ten, I have this feeling. And I open the door and more likely than not, the lights will be on. When she knows the day we're on. So you may think there's just bad wiring in this old building, but it's probably ghost. That's definitely what I think.
So she also talks about how she'll go upstairs and check the gun room. And very often that too has lights on. The window blinds will be open, even though they were closed and down. Does she just have a volunteer that she doesn't know when they come and go? Because that might explain all of this. I don't think there's a lot of staff at this museum. I think Marge does most of the tours.
I don't think so. Why don't they have the ghosts give the tours? Well, at some point, Robert Stack does say that. He says that for those that have had an unguided tour through the museum, their minds will never be changed. So basically, she goes on and on and on about telling, you know, the lights will come on and blah, blah, blah. Oh, so we also mean Fred Duran.
who is an exterminator for the city of Los Angeles, and the museum is one of his regular stops. He says that he didn't believe in ghosts until one day he was in the kitchen and a man asked to get some water. Fred said that the man was in some sort of Civil War outfit and asked for someone named Maria. At the time, Fred thought he was some sort of employee, but Marge told him that no, that was one of the ghosts. Okay. Then we also meet... No reaction at all. Oh, okay. Yep. I'm just looking through my notes. Oh, at one point, Marge says that she'll be sitting in her office doing the proverbial paperwork.
which is a funny way to describe this woman is really a hoot yeah um and then we meet psychic barbara connor who has investigated the drum barracks and believes that the location is full of restless spirits she claims that she once saw several of them playing cards in the officer's lounge and that one of them has like nine ghosts in it Literally a room full of ghosts. And then she says that one of the ghosts like turned to her and yelled at her because he wanted his chair closer to the fireplace because he was cold. This ghost seems particularly crabby throughout. Every encounter she has with him, he's kind of a grump. And for some reason. I can't wait until I'm a grumpy ghost. Just yelling at people to move their chair closer. You can get up and move it yourself. No, because I'm a ghost. Sure. I don't know.
I don't know. This guy did have a foot issue. The psychic said she sensed that his shoe was too tight. And Marge was like, oh, that's funny you mentioned that. This guy named Freeman Curtis had his foot frostbitten while he was in Washington fighting indigenous people. And so then he would wear a boot that was a size too small because he had pain from his frostbite. It damaged some nerves. And so he would wear this tight-fitting boot. I think he deserved that frostbite. Kind of did. And then now he's...
being a grumpy ghost in the afterlife he seems like an overall dickhead uh even in death like why are they haunting this place did they ever say so the drum barracks was like i don't know a lot of people went there uh to like be processed so like lots of troops moved through these barracks and i think they stayed there for a time okay there's a lot of turnover um so i guess just because it existed during the civil war that makes it haunted there was never like an inciting incident like someone was murdered it was just like well it was civil war that was the past and now there's ghosts i don't There was never a theory put forth for why this place is haunted. It's just like, oh, it's an old building. And so therefore it must be haunted. If a building is more than five years old, it has ghosts. Speaking of the building, there was a point in the segment where Marge was talking about when they first acquired the drum barracks before it was a museum. And she said that she was walking around and she was like, you know, it was just a building. Like nothing special. It was just a building. I was like, oh, Marge. But now you see it's a very personal museum. She didn't know that it came with like nine or ten ghosts is the thing. A lot of ghosts. Because ghosts are see-through.
At another point, Psychic Barbara said that the same crabby ghost, Freeman Curtis, like pointed at a wall and yelled at her that he wanted his award to be on the wall. And like shouting at her that he wanted his award to be on the wall. Like, who do you think you are, Freeman Curtis? But he wanted an award winning Freeman Curtis. Thank you very much. He won an award. When is this podcast going to win an award? Never?
Probably never. We can't even get our sound right. I want to be a ghost demanding my award is on the wall. And people are like, Liz, you never won shit. We can't put an award that doesn't exist on the wall. Now I'm sad. I mean, it is kind of sad. I'm looking at the Drum Barracks website right now. It's still a museum. I mean, there's a thing that says they're currently closed to visitors and whatever due to COVID. But it is still a museum. You can go on a tour. They have a very beautiful flowering tree in their courtyard. It looks very pretty. That's probably haunted too.
I'm not seeing anything on the website about ghosts, but you can ask them if you go on one of their tours, I guess. Okay. Maybe I will. Yeah, that's it. I'm so sick of doing this remotely. I hate it. It's not fun. It's not. Come back. Come back.
I wish I could. Maybe at some point this summer we can record ourselves like 10 feet away from each other in a park shouting at each other. People will really like that. I'm just looking at your like spot across the table. So sad. Now, unfortunately, this is not an all ghost episode. I was a little disappointed. This was supposed to be a Halloween episode and now we get a sad lost love. Can I just say that I'm looking at this website. Sorry to derail you now, but you can get a tour of the drum barracks for $5. That's a steal. That is very low. I kind of feel like we have to go now. But they're open again.
Bring your $5. Where is this? Where is it? It's in Los Angeles, I think. Yeah, that's a total steal. We're going. Okay. So now we're going to talk about the crimes of a baby seller named Ethel Nation.
Which I feel like I say this a lot, but that doesn't sound like a real name, right? No. Well, she committed her crimes in the 60s from 1960 to 66. She was a nurse in San Antonio, Texas, and she would trick people, steal their children, and sell them. Cool. I told Mac that I had to do a segment about baby selling, and he was like, oh, that one woman people always talk about. And I was like, oh, no, multiple people did this. My only note on your segment is that Robert Stack called it a questionable enterprise. Ew. It's a little bit...
more than a questionable enterprise robert stack i would call a questionable enterprise like i don't know selling like black market movie theater popcorn or something like if i was like selling girl scout cookies out of season and i'm not a girl scout that might be a questionable enterprise yeah selling stealing children and selling them uh that's pretty evil i can't really think of much more evil than that i guess he wasn't stealing the babies and then making them into soup and eating them but other than that it's pretty bad questionable we're gonna find out robert stack like bought three children okay so we hear from three of the children that she stole now grown up um the first one is dailene zolikoff Oh, wait, no, sorry. That was her mother. So in 59, 18-year-old Dylene, you know, she was a teenager. She was alone. She was seven months pregnant. And Ethel offers to take her in and help her, right? Well, of course, she gives birth to her baby. Not of course, but you know what's coming because it's a segment. She gives birth to the baby. Ethel steals her baby and then denied to have anything to do with it.
What? Okay, this is the part where I was like, did she keep living with Ethel? She, like, accuses Ethel of stealing her baby. But then in 68, finds a picture of the baby in her house. I did not understand. I was like, so you literally went to the police. You were like, this woman stole my baby. And Ethel went, oh, yeah, bitch, prove it. And she was like, oh, I kind of can't. That's kind of hard to prove. And Ethel was like, all right, let's go home. And then the two of them go home? I guess. To the same place?
I don't understand how that works. She spent years trying to tack her down. And then more than 20 years later, they were actually reunited on the Oprah Winfrey show. Samantha probably saw it after Dr. Phil. Okay. So that was just an example. Just to be clear. In addition to Sylvia Brown, I no longer support Dr. Phil. Oh, I thought you did for sure. I thought you had a Dr. Phil rewatch podcast. Is that not true? Could you imagine? God, I hope that doesn't exist. It's still on. I don't know if that would be, well, I guess the old episodes would be. You'd have to start at the beginning. Yeah. What would you call it? Filibuster?
That would be kind of amazing if you were watching it with, like, a skeptical lens or whatever. How is this going to be a doctor? This is all terrible advice. Oh, my God. If someone starts a Dr. Phil debunking podcast called Filibuster, I get 10% of the profits. 10% go to me, okay? Thank you. All right. Let's go back to talking about this horrible monster. Sorry, I derailed you once again. Her questionable business.
I didn't remember him saying that, but he's acting like she had more garage sales this summer than you're supposed to. A questionable enterprise. I was like, I don't know, she does have a yard sale almost every weekend and doesn't collect sales tax. Questionable. No! This woman is tricking this person into staying with her in her care just so that she can steal her baby. Okay, so that first case had been resolved, but that was just an example of Ethel's dubious nature.
So we hear from two people who are looking for their birth families. The first one, Scott Merce, was born in 65 in San Antonio and was given by Ethel to a couple who are unable to have children who paid $1,200 for him. Because this is Unsolved Mysteries, we of course have to talk about his dreams. When he was 10, he began having dreams that he's in this like white... medical-ish hallway and he goes into a white room and there's like a doctor and a nurse over a table and he's very scared. And he's convinced that's his own birth. When he turned 18, him and his adopted mother, Mary, begin searching for his birth mother. They visited Ethel like six times to try to get some information out of her. And every time she would change her story, like she would send them on a wild goose chase. And when they came back and they're like, why did you say Santa Rosa? They don't have a birth record for me. And she'd be like, no, you must be mistaken. I never said Santa Rosa. And then the adopted mother would be like, well, I was right there and you did. So at that point, she starts like just saying that Scott's mom was a whore and didn't want him.
And starts yelling about how his mom was a slut. Yeah. She gets caught in a web of lies and then gets really defensive or offensive, I guess. And is telling him that like his mom wanted to have an abortion and didn't even want him. But it was too late. The reaction to that also is so like, I still want to find her. Like, that doesn't change the fact that you're lying. That he still wants to like, oh, so it sounds like she had a really hard time. And what's her name again? Like, who cares?
Okay. Anyway, so you can't trust Ethel. They didn't give up, and they went to one of... So they went to all the places that Ethel claimed he was born, and one of them was the Community Health Center, which used to be known as the Woodlawn Clinic. And when they walked into the hallway, he had this overwhelming deja vu that he had been there before, and he realized it's the place for his dream. However, he has yet to find his birth mother. While he was looking for his birth mother, he found the story of a woman who was in a similar situation named Donette. So Donette Baker was born in July of 66, and she was sold by Ethel to a childless couple in San Antonio. And they recounted that when they went to buy her...
they were given the option of either her or two twin boys. And Ethel was like, well, I kind of want to keep the boys together since they're twins. Which is the first time we've ever even heard that on some mystery. Not that it makes Ethel a good person, but I was kind of like, they normally separate twins. Yeah, that's true. But also, I feel like for an extra pack of smokes, you probably could have gotten one of those twins. Or they could take Donette, which they ended up buying Donette by trading in a boat. There's just something particularly sad about that to me. I don't know. It's all sad. Yeah, they traded her for a 14-foot ski boat. Cool.
did my parents trade me for a 14-foot ski boat? Time to pass out, Mom and Dad. I want to know the truth. So when she was 18, she also started searching for her birth family, and she found out that her birth mother's name was Gloria Cantu, and that her illegal adoption papers had actually been notarized by Ethel. So Donette went to speak to Ethel several times and got the same runaround that Scott did, and then Ethel again freaked out and started telling her what a tramp and the horrible person her mom was, and Donette started crying, and the reenactment was very sad. But again, so what?
Guess what? Your mom was a tramp. Okay. And what hospital was I born at? Like, that's just to, you know, muddy the waters or whatever. It's not, whatever. It's irrelevant. It is unknown how many children Ethel abducted and placed with other couples. She died in 91, taking her secrets to her grave, which she was never, it doesn't seem like ever prosecuted for anything. And the whole thing is just gross. So they were trying to find out Scott and Donette's family. Scott was born August 5th, 1965 in San Antonio. And his mother's birth name was listed as Joyce.
and she may have been 22 years old at the time. His adopted mother actually met her once and said that she was thin with dark hair and an olive complexion. We also learned that Donette's... Her birthday was listed as July 21st, 1966, even though that may have been inaccurate. She might have been born a couple weeks earlier. I'm not sure why they thought that. And that her mother, Gloria, was 23 years old at the time. So the good news is that when this airs, viewers tips lead Donette to her mother, Gloria, who I think was still in San Antonio. And so they are able to meet at the airport, which they show, which is really cute. And then you get to see Gloria meet Donette's children, her grandchildren, for the first time. Donette has four children. So they were reunited November 9th, 1992. So like right after this aired. This aired October 28th, and they were reunited by November 9th.
Yeah, it's really cute. Unfortunately, Scott, who seemed like this nice, cool guy, he never found anything about his birth family. Oh, that's a bummer. I know. Which it just seems like in this day and age, it wouldn't be that hard to find. But the Unsolved Mysteries update says that he has not found any closer in his search and that his adoptive mom passed away in 2009 at the age of 68. Bummer. Well, I hope Ethel is rotting in hell. God, I just can't imagine that life where you're like, I really could use it a few extra bucks. I think I'm going to steal a baby. Sell it. Yeah.
That's what I'll do. I'll sleep great at night. My conscience clear. It's only a questionable enterprise. A questionable enterprise would be like if your restaurant sometimes drops food on the floor and washes it off, puts it back on the plate.
That seems like questionable to me. Not baby selling. Not baby selling. Baby selling is on a different level for sure. Okay. So that's my last one. We have one last one from Samantha. Yeah. We get an unnecessary update about that French Canadian man who had amnesia. And a mustache. Amnesia and a mustache. You have a very weird mustache. Do you remember what you called it? I don't at all. It was super weird. Because my life is a blur now. But that leads us into another amnesia case. More amnesia. More amnesia. Why did they call this segment amnesia, by the way? They have a whole.
category just for fucking amnesia but this is a special alert okay i think it's because the police reached out to them specifically and they're not just profiling it as like a oh i don't know curiosity yeah i think i guess more amnesia more amnesia it's like america's most wanted but with someone's memories We're currently searching for memories. So we are trying to find the identity of a woman who calls herself Sandra Evans. She has amnesia. On May 14th, 1992, a woman fainted at a bus station in Richardson, Texas. When she awoke in a hospital, she had no idea who she was or what had happened to her. Investigators received several leads about the woman, but nothing could be confirmed. She told the hospital workers that her name may be Sandra Evans, but now she is unsure if that's actually her name.
Interestingly, the tags on the luggage found with her have the name Linda Kennedy on them. She believes that the handwriting is hers, but that the name is not. She doesn't know why, but she thinks that. She's like, Linda's a terrible name. I really hope that's not me. Yeah. She had several...
I choose Sandra instead. Yeah. Linda, no thanks. Sandra from now on. She also found with her were photographs. One was her as a bride, another as of two small children, and then another as a teenage girl, which could possibly be a high school graduation portrait. Despite the clues, nobody could identify her. Doctors believe that her amnesia is the result of some sort of trauma, but Sandra has no idea what the trauma may have been since she has no memories of her past. No one filed a missing persons for this person that fainted at the bus stop?
Apparently not. That's so weird. Yeah, I don't know. She fears that something bad could have happened to her several months ago. She's interviewed for the show, so she's sitting on a couch talking about how she's scared that these kids in this picture are hers and that they're wondering where their mom is. And even when she does find them, she's going to have to explain that she doesn't know who they are. It's kind of horrifying. Yeah.
And she also says that she's afraid to find out what happened to her, given that the doctors think maybe she had experienced some trauma. And she's like, it had to have been bad to make me forget who I am and everything about my past. So I'm a little worried about that, finding out what happened to me. But I do want to find my family and figure out who the heck I am. So this is solved.
Sandra's sister saw the broadcast and identified her as Carol Ann Rosick, a native of London, Ontario. That night, she spoke with her sister and her 13-year-old daughter, who was the teenage girl in the photograph. Carol learned that she was divorced and had inexplicably vanished six months earlier. So she was from Canada and was found in Texas. So that may be why, you know, maybe there was, they didn't say it on Some Mysteries if they had filed like a missing person report in Canada.
They wouldn't have been looking for her in Texas anyway. Yeah, it seems like they were wondering where she went. So she also learned that the small children in the photograph were her sons, who are now teenagers. Although the information about her past did not bring back any memories, she immediately prepared to leave and return to Canada, where her siblings and children were waiting. On October 30th, 1992, she left Texas and flew to London, where she was reunited with her family. She now lives with her daughter in Milton, Ontario, and is undergoing therapy in hopes of recovering her lost memories.
and that's it there's no update beyond that i don't know if she ever did recover her last memories but that's kind of a private manner with her yeah it's not really any of our business um but at least she was reunited with her family and they're you know they show a picture of her with her family and yeah mystery solved another good deed by unsolved mysteries thanks robert sack And that's it. That's the whole episode. And we're done. Good night, everybody. Well, we should probably read it. Oh, yeah. This is the part where, by law, we have to read it. Let's see. Mysteriousness? I'm going to say not that mysterious. No. And I was really looking forward to the ghosts, but I didn't really enjoy either one. And I don't know how mysterious they are. They all seemed like they could kind of be explained. It was like lights turning on in a super old building.
yeah i don't know that i was very impressed with the civil war story is just too boring even though that curator is a kook and the lady in blue segment because there's all these different versions of it it kind of just meanders and i don't know it's not very compelling um And I wish we knew where Scott's biological mother was. But other than that, I don't know that we have a lot of mysteries. Yeah, no, not super mysterious. So thumbs down for me. What did you think about the reenactments? I thought the ghost reenactments, the Lady Blue reenactments are very silly. Yes, her outfits. They put her in a hat that looks like you would put on a child when they're out gardening. It looks like an adult sized toddler playing in the beach hat. What was that?
I think I was supposed to make her look glamorous. I guess people saw her in a blue dress and with this, like, blue scarf over a hat. So they wanted to be very faithful to that. It looks pretty silly. The, like, flapper raising her eyebrow thing is, like, so funny to me. And you get to see an entire room of Civil War ghosts. So I guess I'm going to give it a thumbs up. But it's a, like, weak thumb. It's a thumb that could really use some physical therapy, yeah. Were you reading the reenactments or the fashion?
Oh, that was me writing the reenactments. Okay, so how do you feel about the fashion? I remember Scott wearing a particularly good 90s button-up shirt that was just every single color on it in, like, paintbrushes. Yeah, I can't say that a ton of it stood out to me sideways, I guess. I actually don't like the Lady in Blue's ghost outfit. It was pretty ridiculous. Sideways. Sideways. Leaning down. And Robert Stack, we get some sides of Stack we haven't seen. We got some snark. Okay. I feel like as we go on, we take Robert Stack more and more for granted. And he has to do more to kind of stand out. But this thing where he's like, I've been here all day and I haven't seen any ghosts. That gets a strong thumbs up for me. That did make me laugh. So I agree. Thumbs up.
And then how do you rate the episode overall? Three, I think. This is a middle of the road episode, for sure. I was a little disappointed because they said last time it was going to be a Halloween episode. I was expecting it to be a little better. I was a little let down. Yeah, I agree. For some reason, an entire room of Civil War ghosts is funny to me, though. That's just one shot. They walk in the room and it's like, oh, you wanted to see a ghost? Here are nine ghosts, bitch.
And then the one being so crabby. Yeah. That actually kind of makes it for me. But it's still just a three. Yeah. Overall. Yeah. It's not a standout episode in my opinion. Particularly your last one is so short. Yeah. I agree. And the lady in blue is so meandering. Yeah. Meh. That's what this episode gets. Meh. I hope that was pitchy enough for everyone. That noise. All right. We should maybe recommend some shit and then we can wrap this up. And then take naps. Okay.
I'm actually going to recommend our book club book. So Samantha knows what it is. This was our book club selection this month was the book Parkland. Parkland. I feel like I said that in a way that was impossible to understand. Parkland by Dave Cullen, which is about the Parkland school shooting, but it's more about the movement that came afterwards. And in fact, maybe this has a subtitle if I open it up.
Oh, it's called Birth of a Movement. So he is the author of that very acclaimed book about Columbine, which I know Samantha has read, but I've never read. And this is also about a school shooting, but it is really about how quickly the students got organized and made political headway about gun control with the media attention from their tragedy and how they... I'm stopping mid-sentence, but it is a surprisingly optimistic book, particularly for something sort of true crime genre. It's really more about activism than it is about crime. There's very little about the actual shooting in the book, and it focuses a lot more on the students in the March for Our Lives or Never Again movement.
It's a very enjoyable read, actually. I really liked it. I think it's really well put together. It's very thoughtful. He sort of considers different angles of things. I think he is inspired by the kids and you can sort of feel his optimism in it, but it's not sappy. It's very well done. And I found it pretty pleasant and enjoyable to read.
I would recommend it. Yeah. Like Liz said, that is, that was our book club book for this month. I did not read it. Cause I have read no books this month. I haven't been able to focus, but I intend to like you. You're usually like, since the last time we talked, I read three books about the plague. And now you're like, it's animal crossing or sleep for me. I'm sort of the, I feel like a lot of people will say that they read as escapism and in a way that's me, but in, I'm also sort of the opposite in like, I can't focus on a book right now. Like my brain is so like all over the place that I can't even like focus on one thing that I need to concentrate on. And so I've been able to like, not get into it. I understand that.
So I intend to read it because it sounds really good, but I will probably hold off. Yeah, it surprised me in being just a very different tone than other stuff that we've read for Book Club, but still really thoughtful. I enjoyed it a lot, actually. I would give that four and a half Robert stacks. Nice.
So I just said that I haven't read anything. That's true. I didn't read anything in April, but I did read a few books in March. And so I'm going to reach back in time to recommend something because I really have nothing else to recommend. Time travel is allowed. Yeah, I really have nothing else to recommend because like Liz said, all I've been doing is playing Animal Crossing. I've pretty much already recommended that. So I'm recommending the last book that I finished, which was Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.
This is a very data heavy. So if that's not your thing, you may not enjoy it, but it is written in a pretty accessible way. It's all about what she calls the gender data gap, which basically exists in like every element of our lives. And most of them, if you identify as a woman and you're going through life, you have experienced them. Like office temperatures being mainly designed for men. And so women are always cold in the office is one of them. And some others that are a little bit more serious would be like they don't like.
drugs and therapies are typically not tested on women because scientists say that it's too complicated to deal with like menstrual cycles and so they just don't often test new drugs and new treatments for medical conditions on women which women's bodies are not the same as men um so her thesis things are hard so you just don't do them yeah you know just by the fact that 50 of the population has a menstrual cycle and you know whatever uh so her thesis is generally is basically that almost the entire world is designed with men being the default human and so for half the population um there are these real world consequences whether it's physical your health and well-being um cars for instance that's another one she talks about that crash test dummies are typically not they're typically just if the female quote-unquote crash test dummy is usually just a smaller male crash test dummy which is like not acceptable at all because the even the even the male like crash test dummy does not actually look like most males right so like just using a smaller version i think that looks pretty much like a human so just using a smaller version of that and saying it's a woman and then designing your car it's like very like most cars are actually pretty dangerous if you're not the
average male i guess um you have to sit closer to the steering wheel it makes it like basically you're in an off position and you're more likely to get injured in a car accident and if you're pregnant forget about it like they don't even go there so it's like pretty dangerous for pregnant people to drive a car because the cars aren't designed for that body in mind um so i what i don't think this book is like has everything she does not talk at all about issues with trans people for instance and how they have to navigate the world and that's i think where the book is really lacking however she brought up a lot of things that I just had never considered. And I do have to navigate this world that's just not designed with my body in mind, with my lifestyle in mind, you know, whatever. And so I found it to be a very interesting book and it was extremely well researched.
yeah i'm interested to read that but i'm also um scared of my own fury that's kind of the danger in this because it does make you because the other thing is that she will cite countries that do things well or better than others i mean in some cases you're not doing it well but there are like countries that have figured out some of these things and done them well and it like benefits everyone when you do this right it's like not just like it benefits the economy it benefits when you're like you know designing the world for half the population yeah yeah it like benefits everyone like there's like clear based on like studies right because she's well pretty well researched and so there's like clear evidence that certain things if you just change the way you do something even in some small ways you can have these like positive impacts for like everyone and it's like well we're not doing that though you know you know maternity things that is like kind of a no-brainer especially when there's like other places that are doing it and like clearly seeing benefits and then we just don't so if you don't want to be filled with rage maybe don't read it this is not the time where i want to be filled with rage uh but i did enjoy it when i read it last month it was the last book i read that i really enjoyed so i figured i would recommend it
I think it's a good reminder that feminism is not about men versus women. It's about all of us versus patriarchy. Yes. It's a great reminder. Okay. I think that brings our episode to a close. Sounds good. Yeah. I mean, another episode of Unsolved Mysteries in the books. Throw it away. So there's social media. You can follow us on Twitter, on Instagram. We have a Facebook group. You should be in there to chat about stuff. We have a Patreon. We do a special bonus episode every month for only a dollar because we're amazing.
You should get that in your feeds this week. If you are a Patreon supporter, we are talking about celebrity ghost stories. Yes. Should be spooky and exciting. Maybe. What else are we supposed to talk about? You can email us. Perhaps it's you. Podcast. Gmail.com. We have a website. Perhaps it's you.com. There's a form there to fill it out. Things. Send us your spooky stories. And your psychic dreams. Yes. Please send us your psychic dreams. I want to hear about them.
I think that's it. I think so. Oh. And we only accept five-star reviews. That was the last one. Please do not forget that. Thank you to everyone who sent in a five-star review. There's a few of you in response, I assume, to our two-star horrible review. Yeah. We do appreciate it. Thank you very much. And I think that's everything. So we will see you next week. All right. And take a break from solving mysteries and just, you know, stay home, work on yourself. Sounds good. Take some naps. Eat some snacks. Bye. Bye, bitches.