Hello, everyone. Hello, five listeners, friends, enemies. Gather around. It's time for Perhaps It's You. We're one of many Unsolved Mysteries rewatched podcasts watching the original Robert Stack episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. But I know that we're your favorite Unsolved Mysteries rewatched podcast. We're probably also the only deadly Unsolved Mysteries rewatched podcast. Yeah, how many of those podcasts have the power to kill? I'm guessing just this one.
You know, it's funny. Our intro where we often say hello, friends and enemies. Previously always seemed a little weird because why would your enemies be listening? Oh, I knew they were listening. I knew they were listening this whole time. But after that one star review we talked about in our last episode, apparently our enemies are listening. They're out there. And I greet them anyway. And yet they meet that greeting with nothing but disdain. Here I've welcomed them. And I get told that my voice makes them want to die.
Please. Download the download, but those one-star reviews are not appreciated. Also against the rules. Against the rules. Really accept five-star reviews. However, that review has led me to perhaps my true love, which is taking pre-Raphaelite paintings of beautiful women leading men to their watery graves and turning them into memes about my voice.
How many have you made so far? I don't know. I cannot stop. The number's going to be higher by the time you are listening to this. I literally was making one right now and was like, Liz, it's time to record. You need to stop making memes and actually record the podcast that memes are about. Fortunately for me, there's a lot of paintings of the subject matter. So, I mean. There's no end in sight. Yeah, exactly. I could make so many painting inspired memes of poor innocent men.
that go from i don't know listening to joe rogan to saying i think i'm gonna try something new today maybe oh remember that show unsolved mysteries that was pretty good maybe i'll listen to a podcast about that oh my god oh my god no it's women and they're talking i wish i wish i was dead uh yeah i mean i i feel very powerful oh absolutely i feel i don't it just seems fitting it's like yeah i do i do deserve to have this kind of power to lure men to their watery graves we're recording this episode on valentine's day which is hilarious but this is how we open the episode oh yeah also fitting fitting for our brand belated valentine's day everyone i have come to really love valentine's day after years of you know being angsty and thinking it was not for me but i mean it's chocolate and hearts and pink so I should have known that deep down, I actually love it. I like the Valentine's Day aesthetic. I agree. And you can do whatever you want. That's the trick of any holiday. I ordered myself the fancy chocolates I wanted, and I'm not disappointed. They're delicious. They're so good. Yes. Happy belated Valentine's Day to you. Actually, only our friends in this case. Enemies, fuck off. Whatever.
I don't even agree with you. Do we have any other updates? No. Yeah, I feel like no. I was going to say, we probably should have addressed this in some more official capacity, but...
Over the summer, we were talking about how the Minneapolis City Council had pledged to defund the police. So I'm just going to give a quick update that that's clearly not going to happen. I probably shouldn't have acted like that because they said they were going to do that. That was going to happen because, yeah, that's not going to happen. I was maybe a little bit naive, but I mean, I think a lot of people felt hopeful. I mean, people did burn down a police station. So it's not like it wasn't a moment that called for change. It's just that once it got cold and everyone had to go back inside.
Clearly time to be like, yeah, we're really not going to do that. I feel like I expect so little, and yet I'm still so disappointed. I feel like my expectations, low. And yet, here I am, fucking disappointed yet again. The entire world protested for the death of George Floyd. The entire world. And what is going to come of that, Minneapolis Police Department and City Council?
Oh, nothing? Oh, interesting. Bold choice, really. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I don't really have anything profound to say about that except that it sucks. Yeah, I mean, do we have to burn down more police departments? I don't know. I don't know. I saw someone on Twitter, and God, I hope this is true, saying that their French boyfriend was watching TV a little while ago, and he was like, the situation here is terrible. Why is no one burning stuff down?
And you just have to be like, French guy, I don't know. Good question. Look, we tried that. Surprisingly, the answer hasn't been burned down more shit. But, you know, maybe we're getting closer. I mean, maybe the warmer weather. It is too cold right now. I mean, I think a police station on fire would warm a lot of people up right now. It's currently negative 20 outside. Yeah, it's like comically cold. If you have not lived somewhere that can get to negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, I mean.
It's something. Apparently, I got this information from my mom. I'm assuming it's credible. With the windshield, it was apparently negative. It felt like negative 45 this morning. What does that even mean? I can't even process that. What does that even mean? Honestly, I don't know because it's just really cold. Your face just falls off. The wind touches it and you go, oh, I don't have a face anymore. I don't know. I mean, I have to put some stuff in the mail. I was like, I'm not going outside, but I do have to find a mailbox. Well, I might lose some fingers and some toes. That'll be fun.
Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm sorry for implying that things might actually get better. Don't worry. There won't be much of that on this podcast. I don't make that mistake often. So...
yeah yeah and i think this episode of unsolved mysteries if you look if you're in a dark mood right now sorry it's not gonna get better yeah i mean go find your like emo outfit that's been in the back of the closet for the past 15 years because it's time it's time for some fingerless gloves and and uh i don't know i missed that thing but put on a bunch of eyeliner get ready to be very sad I hope you're ready to be bummed out, I say once again. We are on season six, episode eight of Unsolved Mysteries. You can find that on the old YouTubes. I would not recommend watching it on, say, Amazon Prime. I love ads. Yeah, not only because Jeff Bezos can suck my dick, but because they decided, you know what this show needs? Ten billion ads. Why? You already have more money than God. We already paid to watch this because we paid for a Prime video. Now I have to watch, like, 20 ads in one episode.
yeah how can okay how can greed just know no bounds like that like how does that guy go you know what i need more money like no you don't it's hard to fathom because you don't have that much money like it's not like At that point, getting more does not affect your life at all. You will not notice the difference. No. You could lose way more than half of that money. You could lose half of your money and not even notice. Yeah. It would make no material difference in your life. It's something I can't even wrap my head around, honestly. I don't understand. I mean, I don't understand a lot of things about being rich, but I don't understand being rich and being cheap. If you're rich, don't you want to be leaving cars for your waitresses like Elvis? Don't you want to just be sharing the wealth? Throw that around. Show off a little.
As a not rich person, I would think so. You would think so, but no. Anyway. People hoarding it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how we get on that topic. I feel like every episode we're like, you know, rich people just swimming around in their gold like Scrooge McDuck. But clearly, it's not my mind.
but uh samantha has our first segment which does take place in minneapolis yeah speaking of minneapolis this first mystery takes place here this is not negative 20 degrees the day of this mystery oh my god could you imagine if it was this guy'd be dead um yeah so this is a wanted and it is about the kidnapping of john grunhoffer uh i'm gonna try to care about this okay let's talk i literally wrote down speaking of rich people i wrote down this guy deserves to be kidnapped it's one of my few notes it goes wanted kidnapping fat phobia and then this guy deserves to be kidnapped oh yeah that was my first so i wrote down what robert how robert stack opens this episode it's not great he says quote the perpetrator was an overweight middle-aged man who wore thick glasses and a floppy rain hat hardly the profile of a dangerous criminal how do you know robert stack how do you know what dangerous criminals are doing these mysteries are unsolved they could all be wearing floppy rain hats you don't know because you don't know who they are was the hat this guy was wearing a rain hat
I don't know. Can any hat be a rain hat if you wear it in the rain? I don't understand. But I think this was more like a fedora. It was like what Inspector Gadget wears. And I don't know what kind of hat that is. I think of a rain hat like a kid's garden hat. That's what I was picturing. Yeah, it's not like that. Maybe it's just like made out of trench coat material. Do you think Robert's dad is just jealous that he doesn't have one?
Maybe. I don't know why he described this as a rain hat. I can't say it's not a rain hat. Maybe he only wore it in the rain. It wasn't raining when this happened. It's true. According to the re-interactment, anyway. It was part of his disguise. You know how in Marvel movies, they'll disguise a very obvious superhero, like Captain America or whatever, by just putting a baseball hat on him? That's like this guy. As soon as he put on that hat, no one recognized him. That's awesome.
that show you when the when joe the stalker is like stalking someone he just puts on a baseball hat which i understand like maybe people wouldn't like see him but he acts like he is invisible like literally like no one would even see a person much less recognize him i'm pretty sure you're still there you're just wearing a weird like who wears a blank baseball hat with like no logo on it people you can't who can't be trusted it's suspicious as hell That's only a disguise. That's the only reason you would wear that. Yeah, you go to the store and they're like, can I interest you in one of these NFL logo hats that's worn by Rob Lowe? And you go, no, no, I don't watch that. I need a disguise hat. And they're like, oh, right this way. We have tons of just blank black baseball hats for this purpose. Yeah, so anyway, this guy, I don't know if he was dangerous. I mean, he claimed to have a bomb. We'll get there. But he was definitely a criminal, so I don't know what you're talking about, Robert Stack. Anyway, so on November 19th, 1990, a wealthy business executive named John Grundhofer arrived at his offices at 8, 10 a.m. in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
This guy's claim to fame was he was brought in to fire people, like that George Clooney movie. And he laid off 2,000 people from this bank. So kind of when they were like, how many enemies does this guy have? It was like, I don't know, at least 2,000. So I was like, yeah, he kind of deserves to get kidnapped. He lives. He lives, everybody. Calm down. I think everyone's dad called him a hard-nosed businessman or something. Okay. He ruined like 2,000 people's lives in this one place. Yeah. Imagine when the cops are like, so do you have any enemies? And this guy's like, ooh. Yeah, get out a notepad. This is going to take a while. Also, that's so many. Are there any employees left of this bank? Yeah, for real. It was called Tricky Fighter.
He was called trimming the fat. 2,000 people got laid off. Okay. Great. There's so many people. So as he exited his car in the parking garage, a man calling himself Carl approached John and tried to abduct him at gunpoint. However, John tried to struggle with this person. Meanwhile, a witness named Jeff Rasmussen heard the commotion and immediately thought that someone was being mugged. He ran over. This is so Minnesota of him, though. He sees someone he thinks is being mugged in a parking garage and is like, whoa, maybe I can go help. Maybe I. It's true. He runs over. Walk away, guy. What are you doing?
Well, he comes to his senses. This is almost a comedy tune. So they're like wrestling on the ground in this parking garage. This guy runs over and they jump up and act like nothing is wrong. Yeah, because he's got a gun on his back. So then this guy is like, oh, maybe they're not being bugged. So he says, is somebody sick? Can I help? And that's just why I love this city so much, in a way, is it's just filled with like puppy dialogue people wandering around going, oh, can I help you? Are you sick? Do they look sick? They're clearly fighting. Like, is everything okay? Yeah.
Yeah, it's a very Minnesota thing to do. It's really adorable. Carl, like, threatened him and said that he better get out of here. And that's when he was like, yeah, some self-preservation kicked in and he ran off. And he was like, well, that was just rude and uncalled for and not very neighborly at all. So then at 8.13 a.m., the gunman ordered John back into his car and forced him to drive out of the garage towards Wisconsin.
At this point, he hooks a wire around his wrist and says that it's dynamite. In case he tries to pull anything, he's going to blow up. It looks so shitty in the reenactment, though. It looks like they put three cigars in a sandwich bag and just tied that to some handcuffs and were like, watch out or you'll blow up. Yeah, I'm skeptical. They never proved one way or another whether or not this guy actually had a bomb, but I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, it's not a risk you want to take. You don't want to go, this isn't a bomb, and then it explodes, right? I mean, yeah, that's a smart thing to do. Don't take chances when someone says it's a bomb. Just believe them. It's clearly three cigars in a sandwich bag.
So I kind of, so obviously each segment has a title. This is a wanted, but I sort of wish they had like witty titles and this one was like fumbles 2.0 or something. This guy is the fumbles of kidnapping. Yeah, because at this point he's apparently dropped a note in the parking garage. They're halfway to Wisconsin when he realizes that he's left what Robert Stack describes as a cheat sheet for the kidnapping in the parking. He had it like mapped out. I'm not exactly sure what it said, but it was something, I'm sure it was something along the lines of like, okay.
Approach at gunpoint. They literally called it a cheat sheet for the kidnapping. It was not like, I don't know, it wasn't like minutiae. It wasn't details like, use this, you know, exit. It was literally like, get gun, kidnap guy, put guy in car. It was like, I think you can remember that.
I would hope. If you're going to pull off a kidnapping, I would hope you would remember the part that says kidnap. I mean, and that's sort of what the FBI agents who are interviewed for the show say. They're kind of like, this guy was probably not a professional since he needed a cheat sheet to remind him how to kidnap. I guarantee he is a disgruntled, fired employee, not a professional kidnapper, if there is such a thing. I don't think professional kidnappers need cheat sheets. I've never kidnapped myself. I feel like if I was going to, maybe an outline would be helpful. I don't know. It's weird you feel the need to deny that you've kidnapped someone.
A little suspicious, if you ask me. It kind of is something a kidnapper would say. So, a passerby found this note in the parking garage. I can't imagine finding that note. Oh, my God. I would be so tempted. First of all, I probably wouldn't give it to the police because I would think it was a fucking joke. You would send it into that art project. What is that thing? What is that called? Where people find notes and they send it in? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I would want to, like, frame it. Like, I would want a note that was like, kidnap man. Drive man millions of dollars.
Absolutely want that on my wall. I would be so sad to hand that over to the police. Can't you just make a copy? Can I have the original? Photocopy it. So around 845, John and the gunman had crossed into Wisconsin. The man asked him a few questions, which led John to believe that he had done research about his company. Or...
yeah or maybe he used to work there yeah just a thought yeah at 8 57 a.m john was ordered to pull into a secluded rest area where the gunman told john that he wanted three million dollars in ransom so he called his secretary and told her of the gunman's demands this again suggested that this was not a professional kidnapper because he asked for one thousand dollar bills which the police or the fbi whoever i forget whoever's interviewed for the show is like that's not something you can just like carry around so not sure this guy is like totally thought this through I didn't even know until recently that they used to make $1,000 bills, but it's, you know, from when wire transfers were less common. But yeah, the idea of just like sticking that in your wallet, one piece of paper that's worth $1,000. I don't know. He's like, what are you going to do? Walk into a coffee shop and get changed for a $1,000 bill? Like, what is your plan here, guy? Anyway. I mean, yeah, I don't know. And who has $1,000 bills? Are you going to walk into your bank? I think they're probably going to know. They're going to be kind of suspicious, probably. Yeah. It would be better to get some smaller bills. DB Cooper, no. Yeah.
Yeah. So the employees at First National Bank began to prepare the ransom, but when the gunman realized that he had lost his cheat sheet, he became frustrated and then had John go down a hill into the woods. I don't know. He got flustered at this point. He didn't remember what he was going to do.
We all have those days that just don't go as planned, and it's unfortunate when that day coincides with the day you've planned to kidnap someone. I mean, we've all been there. We've all had to go into a meeting we weren't fully prepared for. You know, you didn't have an outline. You didn't have your bullet points, what you wanted to talk about. Had to wing it. Didn't go super great. I had a dream last night that Samantha and I were in high school, and we had to give a presentation on the stock market crash, like, the next day. Actually, I think it was in two days, but for whatever reason, Samantha couldn't work on it the next day.
So, and we had done like no research or anything. We're just like scrambling to figure out what we were going to talk about in front of the class. And my big idea was to just like fill the room with ticker tape to distract people from the idea that we didn't really know what we were talking about. That always is a good strategy to just distract the audience. I'm sure that has nothing to do with podcasting in any way. That's so funny. Yeah, but I can't even imagine if I had to get up in front of people and talk about the stock market. That is not a dream. That is a nightmare.
I was like, okay, well, I can make some posters tomorrow, Samantha. Maybe I can find some pie charts. Oh, man. It was brutal. Goddamn. Those are the worst dreams. When you're back in high school, you have to take a test. You skipped the whole semester for some reason, and then you have to come in for the final test. I have those dreams all the time. They're the worst. I always, for some reason, have not been going to history class. I don't know why that class. But then I'll be like, wait, I have history this semester? And it just turns out I haven't been going somehow. And then it's like, oh, fuck. I got to take that test tomorrow. And I have not gone to one class. I have that same dream, but it's math.
For me, it should be math because I did not learn any math. But for some reason, it's history. I don't know. I don't know. Is it because it turned out one of our high school history teachers was sleeping with a student? And that's just like burned in my brain forever.
i don't know was my high school possibly actually on television and not real yes sometimes i wonder sometimes i wonder the way that that came yeah i was telling samantha some stories the other day about my town and i realized that i sound like my mom where my mom will be telling a story and then she'll be like and that's when we woke up on scorpions and you're like what where did that come from where i was just like and then this happened and she was like sure liz but uh yeah one of the high school uh history teachers was was dating a student i believe she was a cheerleader dating dating uh i believe she was a cheerleader and this came to light because the cheerleaders were over at someone's house you know i don't know doing whatever cheerleaders do and one of them was talking to the mom that lived at the house they were at and they were like oh you know how uh so and so is dating mr history teacher and just like thinking that was common knowledge i guess and the mom was like i'm sorry what Yeah. It's a very TV moment. Was it a big scandal? It was a hush-hush scandal. Okay. A bigger scandal was one of my middle school gym teachers. I don't know where this is going. Mr. Pomeroy, wherever you are, fuck you. That guy was abusing a student. Ugh. And I will say his name because he was convicted of that, so fuck him forever. Goddamn. Wow, that was a real tangent.
Back to Carl Fumbles Jr. This kidnapping will seem very lighthearted compared to stories of my middle school gym class. It is in a way. I mean, this guy never, spoiler alert, this guy never got his money. And I don't know. I mean, this is a crime to kidnap someone, but I kind of don't care. I don't know. Yeah, no, don't care at all. This is called reaping what you sow.
So the kidnapper is flustered at this point because he lost his cheat sheet, so he just forces him to go into the woods. At this point, they come upon... He must have placed this ahead of time. It's like a garbage bag with a sleeping bag inside of it, just in the middle of the woods. He removes the... I'm doing scarecrow. It's the dynamite. He tied up John, put duct tape on his mouth, and forced him into the sleeping bag.
Then he fucks off. He leaves. I'm not really sure what the plan was. I don't even know how he was expecting to get the money. Yeah, that's a great question. They never say in the episode how he was to get this money. I think maybe he just panicked and left. I really don't know. But I guess he could have called back, called the secretary. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know what his plan was. Seems like maybe he didn't have a plan at this point because he lost his cheat sheet. Yeah, he had a plan. He just didn't know what it was. So he was like, I got to go. Bye. So he left. And John spends about 20 minutes trying to free himself. Around 10, 30 a.m., he calls his office from a nearby farmhouse and told them to not pay out the ransom.
The kidnapping gave national news and the FBI set up a hotline. A man named John Henderson, this is unfortunate. John Henderson, this guy was identified by several people as the kidnapper after seeing the composite sketch. He just looked like this guy. Which is unfortunate. I guess it kind of resembles him, but I think lots of people resemble this guy. I don't know. I would be insulted because that's an ugly drawing. It's not a good drawing. No. I really wrote down, wow, gross drawing. So if a bunch of people called in and were like, that's Liz all right, I would not be pleased. You might be insulted by this.
This guy, Henderson, was a maintenance man and had absolutely no connection to John Grunhofer or his business, his bank whatsoever. Yeah, nothing did that. His house turned up nothing. There was literally no evidence other than the eyewitness. They put him in a lineup, and John Grunhofer does identify him as the kidnapper. However, Jeff Rasmussen, the witness from the parking garage, does not. So they continued to look for evidence, but a handwriting test did not match. They believe that Henderson's alibi was not super airtight, however.
And they did do a grand jury investigation, but no charges were ever filed. So he just had to go through this ordeal for nothing. I feel bad for this guy. Yeah, there was no evidence whatsoever. Just some random people who saw a sketch and thought he looked like him. I don't trust that guy picking him out of a lineup anyway. I almost wonder if he knows who it is. Maybe. If he didn't want to say, for whatever reason. He was just like, oh yeah, that's him. Yeah, no. Yeah. So there was a $100,000 reward. They still considered John Henderson a suspect, but they never pursued that, thank goodness.
So the case was featured... I'm looking at the Unsolved Mysteries wiki now to see if... Oh, interesting. So I don't know if this was mentioned in the episode. Two months before the kidnapping, John's daughter Karen survived being shot during the Henry's Pub hostage incident in Brooklyn, California.
Oh, interesting. Traumatic time for this family. That sounds unrelated, but... So the case is unsolved. John Henderson was later cleared as a suspect. The true kidnapper has never been identified. Interestingly, there has been some recent speculation that John Grenhoffer actually staged his kidnapping in order to gain sympathy from the public, but this theory... That would explain why he picked someone out of the lineup that didn't do it. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't put it past this guy. He seems like a dirtbag, so... Also, this kidnapper is so inept. Could anyone be that inept at kidnapping? That was my question. Like...
It's not like this plan that he did was so intricate that he needed a cheat sheet. It was just get him in a car, drive to Wisconsin. But it almost would make sense if he had staged it. He just left him in the woods. Completely unharmed. He was never in any real danger. I don't believe that bomb thing at all. It's possible. It's definitely possible. The twist I didn't see coming.
Okay. I have an unexplained death for y'all, and it is long and sad. Prepare yourselves. This is actually really fascinating. It's a good case, but it's a sad case. It is introduced as a brutal double homicide, so you know what you're getting into. This goes back to, I believe, 86. It takes place in Willow Creek, California, which is a small town, population 1,000, about 250 miles north of San Francisco.
Hans and Betty Hansen lived in kind of a remote area. This is going to be relevant later. So they live in a trailer. And then right next to their trailer is a shop for like logging supplies because they're in a logging area. And then they also have like a big warehouse where they store all the stuff that they sell. Can we clear up one thing? His name is Hans, right? Hans Hansen. Yes. Because in the show, Robert Stack and everyone else keeps calling him Hans, which means his name would have been Hans Hansen, which I mean, maybe he's OK. I've never heard of the name Hans. Like I've heard of the name Hans. His name is spelled like Hans.
We'll just see what comes out of my mouth and that's what we're going to call him. So they had four children, including two twins, Jill and Julie, who were known around town for being very compassionate and friendly, making this only sadder. Robert Stack says that life was close to perfect until November 14th, 1986. So that evening, the twins, age 16, went to bed in their bedroom. Their elder brother, Donnie, who was 21, was visiting from out of town and sleeping on the couch. At 3 a.m., Betty, who's the mom, awakes to the smell of smoke. At this point...
hands hands opens the bedroom door and sees that the hallway like the whole trailer is already engulfed in fire so he manages to grab a fire extinguisher and shoots it down the hall but it doesn't put out the fire the fire remains in like a strip because there's accelerant so at that point hands calls out to his children he doesn't get any response and he runs out of the house in running out of the house he accidentally kicks over an empty gas can around the same time betty sees her son donnie and it seems like he's yelling at someone to leave Does this ever get revisited? No. And I think it's because they only have like her kind of blurry eyewitness account because obviously she's just woken up. Her house is burning down. Right. Like I don't think she had like the best grasp of her surroundings. She's worried about her children, whatever. But she recalls seeing her son, Donnie, possibly a window yelling at someone like, go on, get out of here. I was really expecting this to come back up and it never does. And it's very strange. I think it's a very important piece of the puzzle. So at this point.
So she doesn't really think of anything of that because she's too much in a panic. She runs to the store that's on their property to grab more fire extinguishers. It is handy if your house is on fire that you have a store that sells fire extinguishers. So when she gets to the store, Donnie is already there. And Hans is getting a ladder, which he puts up to Julie and Jill's window from the outside so that they would be able to climb out. However, he doesn't get any response to them from calling. And at this point, the fire is like so large, it's not like he can go in. So fire trucks arrive about 15 minutes after the fire started.
It's kind of a remote area. And at this point, after the firetrucks have arrived, a neighbor who's come to see what's going on notices that there is a figure in the ditch across the street. This is Julie. Julie doesn't appear to be burned at all, but is holding her stomach where she has a serious wound. And at this point, Donnie is like, oh, yeah, I pulled her out of the fire.
which doesn't make a ton of sense because they hadn't like, because they've been going like, oh no, Jill, Julie, we got to get them out, right? This whole time while they're waiting for the fire truck. And then as soon as someone sees Julie, Donnie goes, oh yeah, I rescued her. Like you didn't mention that. Robert Stack describes her as nearly dead when she's found. So it's like, Donnie didn't think to mention to the first responders that she was laying in a field across the street. If you pulled her out, it's suspicious from the beginning. He doesn't tell the first responders like, hey, I want to go help my sister. She's nearly dead. She also doesn't tell his parents that are worried about them.
Oh, Julie's alive. She's not in the burning trailer. At this point, completely engulfed in flames. Yeah, they're trying to get them out of the trailer. And he could have been like, oh, we only need to save Jill. I already saved Julie. And then his parents would go, oh, thank God Julie's okay, right? We can focus all our efforts on getting to Jill. Yeah, but that doesn't happen. So Julie is holding her stomach because she has a serious stomach wound. But at the time, nobody really goes, Donnie, that doesn't make any sense because they're too worried about getting Jill out of the fire. The emergency personnel assume that Julie's stomach wound is related to the fire, as you would. Perhaps something exploded, right? Like an aerosol.
exploded from the heat and, you know, she got shrapnel in her stomach or something. But when she gets to the hospital, it turns out that it is actually a wound from a point blank shot from a 12 gauge shotgun. This segment has some twists and turns. That is a real twist. So unfortunately, once the fire department gets the fire out, like there is basically nothing left of this home and Jill's body is found in the burned remains. After her body is examined, we learn that she had also been shot, but because of her wound was unable to escape the fire.
it does make sense because so while you're watching them respond to this this fire it appears that the girls made no effort whatsoever to escape and you're like why like they just stayed in their rooms while it burned around them and now we know because she was shot and also their parents have been calling for them this whole time you know like jill julie answer me and they haven't said anything which is odd even if they were trapped in a burning room you might think they would yell help me or you know something but they haven't heard a word from them And it turns out, yeah, they were both shot. So authorities recover three shotgun shells and two gas cans and a second gas can from the records. So there's the one that dad kicked over when he was leaving. They also find another one in the burned out home. The family's business warehouse was untouched by the fire. The police search the warehouse and find a shotgun hidden behind some boxes.
Ballistics testing proves that this is a weapon used to shoot Jill and Julie. The authorities don't tell the family they found the shotgun and they watch the warehouse. A couple days later, a prowler is caught by police breaking in. It's the son, Donnie. He says that he had come to feed the family dog.
In the middle of the night, when the dog is not there, and he knows the dog is not there. Both him and the police know that a neighbor is watching the dog. The dog is not in the warehouse. I mean, maybe sometimes it was, but he knew it wasn't then. So anyway, the police immediately know that he's lying. And they believe he was trying to get back into the warehouse to retrieve the shotgun. At this point, I drew a mustache. This is on Chief Investigator George Gatto. And you'll know exactly what it looks like from the name, which is, that's a cop, all right? Okay. At this point, Donnie is the prime suspect.
We find out that Donnie borrowed the shotgun from a friend only three days earlier. He also admitted to keeping it in his car. They are able to track down the purchase of the ammo, which was the same day as the fire. Very suspicious. He also purchased two containers of gasoline that day at the local gas station. You don't say. That's when I wrote down, this is starting to sound like solved mysteries to me.
Two weeks after the fire, Julie has recovered enough at the hospital to say what happened. At first, she remembers being shot, but not anything else. But after talking to her parents for a while, she remembers seeing Donnie's face in the flash of the shotgun. We hear from her doctor that was like, well, that's not what she told me. And I was like, like, she wouldn't remember stuff later? What kind of doctor are you? Yeah, she just went through a horrible ordeal. Also, maybe she didn't trust you. Yeah, maybe she didn't want to tell some rando, oh, I think it was my brother. Yeah, maybe she was still processing that. Like, come on. That's a very traumatic thing to admit.
But he's acting like this is evidence that she did like while having surgery didn't go. Oh, excuse me, sir, sir. I think it was my brother. What? Anyway, that's apparently supposed to be evidence to me. So Donnie willingly spoke with the police. He said that he panicked and he hid the gun because he didn't want people to think that he burned down the trailer. And people were like, why would that? We didn't even know anyone had been shot.
That doesn't even make any sense. Also, you know when you're desperately trying to get your family out of a burning trailer and your first thought is to go to your car and hide a gun? Yeah, yeah. When I'm worried about the safety of my loved ones, I'm always like, what evidence should I be hiding? Yeah. So at this point, he's arrested and charged, which is very shocking to his parents at the time. Unfortunately, on December 19th, Julie suddenly dies in what Robert Stack calls a freak medical accident. Unfortunately, there was an air bubble in her blood tube that went to her heart.
Yeah, so this episode just kicks you while you're down, basically. Well, because if you recall, I had said that this was a double homicide and we only had one dead victim. Yeah, well, Julie passes away too. And obviously this is horrible for her family, but Robert Stack wants to point out it's also horrible for the case. And you're like, who the fuck cares? Well, now her eyewitness statement can't be used in court that she saw Johnny's face in the shotgun blast. By April of 1988, the trial begins and they were seeking the death penalty for this case.
Despite all the evidence against Donnie, the defense argued that the defense's argument rested on the witness statement of two neighbors. So these two neighbors lived across the street from the Hansons or nearby. And when they saw that the house was burning down, obviously, they looked to see what was going on. And they supposedly saw two men leaving the home while it was on fire. So the entire defense story rests on this idea that two men are seen leaving the trailer. It makes absolutely no sense. This is what the defense presented. So two intruders approach the trailer at 3 a.m.
One of them found Johnny's shotgun outside in his unlocked car. They decided to bring the shotgun with them. They also found two cans of gasoline because these intruders had brought literally nothing with them to commit crimes. It's convenient that Donnie just provided them the murder weapon and the gasoline. That's very convenient for the intruders. It just happened to be there. They then picked the lock and went inside the home. They very quietly, without waking anyone up, spread gasoline around.
Julie, at some point, was awakened and walked in on one of the perpetrators, standing on the couch above Donnie, who was sleeping. He shoots Julie, waking up Donnie. And that's why she would have seen his face, which I feel like is a very good explanation for that, except I thought that couldn't even be presented in court. So I don't know why they had to come up with a reason for that. But anyway, at that point, Donnie rushes to her aid, pulling her out of the house, leaving her on the porch, where she eventually crawled to the ditch herself. Why does the intruder not shoot Donnie?
The question that is also asked in the episode. Unknown. Unknown. Why does Donnie just leave his sister on the porch of a house that's burning that has two intruders inside? Also unknown. Okay. This theory also requires that not only does this man shoot.
Julie, but not Donnie for some reason, but that the other intruder or possibly that intruder waits until everyone is out of the house to shoot Jill, which is why no one heard that shot. And then while sneaking out of the house while everyone's running around trying to put out the fire, they put the gun back in the car so that Donnie can hide it in the warehouse. And this doesn't explain why Donnie felt the need to hide the gun. No. I guess it might. It makes no fucking sense. This did not happen. It did not go down this way. I'm sorry. It just did not. I mean, I guess it technically explains all of the evidence, but it also defines. Elias came down and shot these two girls and then just beamed themselves away. That also technically explains the evidence. That doesn't mean it happened that way. You can explain it all kinds of ways. That doesn't mean it's plausible. What if an experimental octopus escaped from a nearby lab with one thing in mind, the need to kill?
That tire from that weird movie rubber just rolls on through. Technically explains it. Yeah, that would be hard to prove in court, right? Okay. Yeah, it is weird that these intruders came to the house without any gasoline if they wanted to burn it down. Why they wanted to burn it down is also unknown. Unlike that kidnapping guy, these people did not have 2,000 enemies. These were, like, friendly people that ran a logging supply store. It seemed like everyone liked them. Yeah, the girls had no enemies. They literally seemed like the most popular girls in school. Like, I don't understand. Why would anyone do this? They were known for, like, including new people that moved into the area.
they they're 16 year old girls they seem extremely harmless um so but however donnie is found not guilty okay i i cannot fathom that a jury was presented with the evidence that he he he borrowed the gun three days before bought the ammunition the day of and then bought two exactly two cans of gasoline i cannot fathom that a jury was presented this evidence and still i don't understand the only thing i can think of is that do you think that in seeking the death penalty that that is what hurt their case I mean, you have to wonder. I mean, I'm against the death penalty. I wouldn't want him to be put to death for this. I do think that he's guilty. That was my thought as well. Do you think that they... That might have been an overreach or however you say that. Yeah, there's this phenomenon. I've heard it described in other true crime things where a jury can have this moral objection to the sentence and even if they believe that the perpetrator is guilty, they may still find them not guilty. There's a name for that phenomenon. I forget what it's called. But that was what I wondered here because I can't imagine anyone... Who else would have done this?
Who else? Also, they interview him for the show and he has absolutely no explanation. He's like, why did I hide the shotgun? That's a good question. I guess I just didn't want anyone to think that I killed them. It's like, well, we don't even know. Makes no sense. Yeah, I think that's an interesting point. The way Unsolved Mystery presents it is basically the defense came up with enough reasonable doubt that the jury was like, well, we don't know for sure. And maybe they were more inclined to have reasonable doubt because they didn't want to put someone to death. If there was even the slimmest possibility that a monkey...
found the shotgun and killed the twins and burned down the trailer they didn't you know it was just even the wildest most outlandish theory okay it's hard to say what you would do it's hard to say what you would do i wouldn't want to be on this jury having to decide if someone would go absolutely not be put to death i don't want to be in that position so it's hard to say but people really think an owl was involved in that staircase murder so maybe who's to say an owl didn't burn this place down and borrow donnie's shotgun Who's to say? The levels are shifty. Yeah. But the thing is, though, Betty and Hans both believe it was Donnie. That at first, Betty says she was relieved when her son was found not guilty, and she took that to mean that her son was innocent. However, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was the only answer that made sense, particularly because of that thing Samantha mentioned that we don't hear anything more about. She sees him yelling to someone. So what the parents think is that he did it, but he didn't do it alone. So some of the things that might have been hard to explain how he was the killer would be easy to explain if there was someone to help him.
We just don't know who that is. I was kind of like, but why, Donnie? But Hans, the father, says he actually thinks Donnie intended to kill the whole family and that he wanted the insurance money. Oh, okay. So that was my big question, too, was why the fuck?
But yeah, I guess getting insurance money might explain it. I mean, we hear from Donnie. He's in silhouette. They disguise his voice. Apparently, he's changed his name because of all the scrutiny from the trial. And he tells us that he loves his sisters and he has no idea who did it and that he had everything to lose and nothing to gain. And I was sort of like, yeah, what did you have to gain? But if even your dad is like, I think he just wanted money, which how much insurance money could these people possibly have had? These are just regular people. Yeah. And also, why not burn down the... I mean, I guess if their shop burns down, the parents are getting the money. Right.
I don't know. Goddamn. How much money did you need, 21-year-old Donnie? Yeah, I don't know. There's no update. The case is not still being investigated. I don't know if it's officially closed, but basically everyone thinks it's Donnie, including his own parents. So they're not really looking into anyone else. But, you know, he was not found guilty in court. So that's where that ends. It is a case that has some twists. So it's an intriguing watch. It's long, but it's not unearned.
Yeah, no, I actually, I mean, this is heartbreaking and it's pretty much just rip out your heart and stomp on it. Yeah, it's real. Horrible, horrible. But this is one of those cases where I was almost like, I want like a better production value. Like, could this case be featured in Unsold Mysteries reboot? Like, I want, there's enough turns that would make, this one case would make for a really good, like longer format, you know, Netflix doc or whatever. I'm sure there's more evidence if you looked into it deeper that either could, you know, give you a little bit of doubt or perhaps.
Yeah, and one more background on Donnie. He didn't live there all the time. He was just visiting. What was he doing? There's got to be more here. I didn't write this down because it didn't seem relevant to me, but they're actually half siblings. And so I almost wonder if there's some sort of animosity.
Sure, I want to explore that. You know what I mean? Yeah, there could be. What was their relationship like with the family? I want to know all that information. This could really be more. I could use more on this one. Yeah, it's an interesting case. It's just very sad. Yeah, super sad. Poor Jill and Julie deserved better. Yeah, they really did. Well, speaking of sad. This one made me cry. So here we go. So this is A Lost Love. We are looking for the birth father of German-born Christoph Bauer.
So Christoph Bauer is looking for his father, Michael Seymour, who is from Canada. In the summer of 1955, Maria Hoffman, a 20-year-old exchange student from Germany, found work at the Hotel Moraine near Chicago, Illinois. She had spent the past year studying in the United States. She needed money for her return trip to Germany, which is why she took this job. One day, she ran into Michael, who was also in his early 20s. They began a summer romance. I mean, this dude was pretty handsome. He was extremely handsome. I'm looking at a picture of him right now. That hair?
And the reaction after they get to play him actually looks a lot like him. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, this was like destined to be a summer romance. Like, how could she resist? Definitely. And it was. They had this whirlwind summer romance where they fell in love. And she kept this romance a secret for nearly 30 years until the spring of 1983. So after this summer, she returned to Germany, married. She became a mother and then a grandmother. Her eldest son, Kristoff, who was in the Air Force, was visiting. And she made a stunning confession that the man who raised him was not his real father.
this of course shocked him um do you know how old he was at this time that he learned this i don't but he had three kids at this point oh so he's like grown grown yeah he was yeah definitely a grown man um so of course at this point in his life to find this out is completely shocking yeah yeah and he wants to know about his father he says i believe i you know in the reenactment he says i think i feel like i deserve to know so she explained that during the summer of 1955 she and michael had fallen in love however the affair became serious when she discovered that she was pregnant She was afraid because she was in a foreign country. She had very little money. Also, she knew that Michael did not make much income either. In October of 1955, she made the difficult decision to return to Germany with her baby. Her family was there. She knew that she would have their support. It was just going to be a better, more stable place to raise her child. She was already planning to return to Germany anyway. I think she was saving for it. So it was a hard choice because she loved Michael, but she knew that she had to go. But she also has only known him a few months. Yeah.
Like she loves him, but is she going to completely like derail her whole life just for him? Right. And it's going to be a really hard life to support a baby on their meager income. She knows that she would have more support in Germany and she would have her family there. So, yeah, I mean, it probably was the right decision, but it was definitely hard and heartbreaking. Yeah. So they plan to get together after Christoph was born. However, she never saw him again. Christoph was born in Germany on May 22nd, 1956. Shortly after, Maria married a college professor who would become Christoph's stepfather and who he believed was his real father.
Uh, fast forward to adult Christoph finding out that he has a different birth father out there somewhere. She gave Christoph four letters from his father. The last was written in 1958 and they included two photographs of, of Michael. made me cry these letters are so sweet they're extremely sweet he seems like a really nice man he really really did love her so he wrote uh to the uh return addresses on the envelope christoph wrote to the return addresses on the envelope but received no response um i'm trying i didn't write down what he said in his letters but they were really sweet he talked about how christoph was the cutest baby he'd ever seen and how um i think he said something along the lines of how even if they don't like continue in a relationship he is just happy to be like connected to maria for the rest of her life through this baby it was very romantic and yes very sweet And he was like, I would really like to be involved in Kristoff's life somehow. Like, you're both so important to me. I don't know. We've seen a lot of dudes being fuckboys causing all sorts of trouble on this show. And this, I'm going to give this man credit for actually being just a romantic sweetheart who seemed very, you know, loyal and heartfelt and nice. Yep. Yeah. And he, to his credit, he continued to try and stay, not in touch necessarily, but he tried to stay, like, connected to Kristoff in a way. So he...
Government agencies in Canada and the United States had no records of Michael, and also the Hotel Moraine burned to the ground, so there wasn't any information there. However, Maria's cousin, who lived in Chicago, had received several phone calls from Michael over the years, and he would call and just check up and ask how Christoph was doing, how Maria was doing. He called for 20 years! Yeah. He called for 20 years to see how he was doing.
That's unbelievable to me. It is unbelievable. He never, he never met. He had only seen like two pictures of. Yeah. Oh, oh, so sweet. I know. So the call, yeah, like you said, the calls continued for at least 20 years. He often asked about Maria and Kristoff. Unfortunately, in 1976, Maria's cousin moved. And that was the last time anyone had contact with Michael. Sadly. Couldn't leave a forwarding number. Couldn't let him know. Jeez. At this point, you've had this relationship with this person for 20 years where you get these phone calls and update him on his son. And yeah, you couldn't just be like, hey, I'm moving. Here's my new number.
Wow. Like, goddamn. Maybe it had been a while since his last call or something. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you can lose touch, especially, you know, you can't just look people up on Facebook at that point. So if you lose their number or whatever, I mean, you're kind of SOL. So just add the loyalty of calling for 20 years. Not even the woman he loved. The woman he loves cousin. Just to be like, so how are they? I know. I know. Sadly, in 1984, Maria passed away at the age of 49. Today, Christoph is a captain in the German Air Force. Since 1991, he has lived with his family in the United States.
At this point, when this aired, he had hoped to be reunited with his father. They were planning on moving back to Germany, and he was kind of hoping that he would be able to connect with him before they moved. Unfortunately, this is unsolved. Michael's family was located in Canada, but he's still not been found. Kristoff was surprised to learn that the name Michael Seymour was actually an alias. His real name was Walter Joseph Anthony Seymour.
He was born on October 30th, 1930 in Pembroke, Ontario. He lived in Evanston, Illinois until at least 1970. He also used the names Michael B. Samore and Walter Stokwa. If he's still alive, he would now be 89.
Why do you think he needed so many names? I don't know. See, this is very mysterious. Why was he going around giving aliases? I mean, it explains why he's so nice. He's from Canada. So that part makes sense. But what is he up to? Yeah, you gotta wonder. I wish I knew. Other than falling desperately in love with German women who work at hotels, what else is he up to? I wish I knew. Like, maybe he was a spy or something. I want there to be a romantic story. But unfortunately, we have no information. And it's gotta be so hard for Christoph to find out that his father never forgot about him for 20 years. And yet, they were never able, at least as far as I know, never able to connect. I mean, I hope.
I don't know exactly what he was looking for in his search, but maybe there's some satisfaction in knowing that his father was a nice dude. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, and I think he does describe in the episode that he felt like his father really cared about him. You know, he wasn't, he didn't abandon him and forget about him. So there probably is some satisfaction there, but it's just really unfortunate that, yeah, they never got to know each other. Yeah, I know. What a bummer.
all right so that is actually the end of that bummer of an episode yeah we should probably rate it it's time to rate things let's go so what's first mysteriousness actually kind of mysterious because i want to know why this guy had multiple names i want to know did that guy fake his own kidnapping or not i'm actually kind of leaning towards he faked it and and he just like hired someone to pretend to kidnap him from that parking lot and that's why things were so zany yeah yeah um and then okay, I might personally think that Donnie did it, but who helped him? And what was his goal? Was it just for money? There's still a lot of questions. That's a mysterious case. I think thumbs way up. Yeah, this was a very mysterious episode. Reenactments? Fine. The Fumbles 2.0 was pretty funny reenactments. I actually feel like the ones from My Mystery were pretty well done. Not like spectacular, I guess, but adequate. Eh, sideways, I guess. What do you think? Yeah, I'm whatever about them. I think they were fine. I'm okay with sideways. Fashion.
Do you like Inspector Gadget outfits? Do you like handsome Canadians working at hotels? Is that fashion? Again, unremarkable, I feel like. Nothing stands out for me. Thumbs down. And Robert Stack? I think for the fat phobia, thumbs down. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I'm not really digging at Stack. The things I remember about him in this episode, I'm not liking. So, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Thumbs down. Okay, how are we going to rate this one? So, it's a scale of one to five Robert Stacks. Obviously, more Robert Stacks equals better. So, five is the best possible, but this is not a five.
It's not a five, but I will say, especially your mystery did really suck me in. As sad as it is, it's extremely sad. I think the mystery itself is actually, this was the first time in a while where I've been like engrossed in the twists and turns of the mystery, which is my favorite part about mysteries, obviously the mysterious part of them. So I do think that was good. I don't know though. Is this a four? Is this a 3.5? I don't, a four feels too high to me. I agree. I feel like it's a three wearing a rain hat. It's a, it's, it's a three and a little bit. I agree. It's a three and a smidge.
A little smidge more than a three. It's better than a three, but it's not a four. No, and I'm not even sure it's a 3.5. I was thinking the other day, maybe you have this phenomenon too, but when I rate books on Goodreads, the gap between a three and a four is huge. It's disproportionately big, I feel like. Five, I'm saving, obviously, for best book I've ever read, right? Right. So that's like, oh, this book's perfection. So four is still pretty darn good. Similarly, the gap between three and two, I feel like, is the same, but in the opposite direction. Do you feel like?
I feel like there's a bigger gap in between a three, a four is like, Oh, this is actually really pretty good. And a three is kind of like, a lot of threes. And because Goodreads won't fucking give us. Half ratings. It's really hard because I feel like if I'm going to give something a 3.5, I need to round up and give it a 4. But the 4 is like, it's not a 4. And you're like, this is not a 4 book. Do I take this way too seriously? I have that same problem. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I think about it long and hard. Do I take things I should take seriously, not seriously at all? Yes, I have issues. But I do put a lot of thought into how I rate books on Goodreads. Basically the whole time I'm reading them. Oh, is this going to be a 4? I was just thinking like a 3. Sometimes a 3 is just like, eh, whatever. This was fine. Yeah, I feel that way about this episode a little.
But it's better than 5, though. I'm giving it like a 3.25. It would be nice on Goodreads. Perhaps we could have done this on our show to give things a letter rating. So you could be like, this is really a C+. Because I would say this episode was a B-. I totally agree. But we didn't do it. That's not how we did it. Sucks to be us, I guess. Okay. It's now recommendation time. How we close off the show. Yeah, and I got a quick think of one. So you better go first. Well, I was going to say that I don't really have one.
I thought about it this morning and decided that in honor of it being Valentine's Day, that I was just going to remind you to treat yourself well. And perhaps be inspired by a reclusive corset maker that we've previously talked about on the show. Yes. It's a pandemic. It's February.
Cut yourself some slack. Be extra nice to yourself. If your friend was going through a hard time, hopefully you wouldn't just be like, well, other people have it worse. Right? Which is what you might say to yourself. But hopefully you would say to your friend, you would do something nice for them. You try to cheer them up. That's what you should do to yourself. You shouldn't just be like, well, it could be worse. No. Treat yourself nice. Have chocolate for breakfast.
What I've been doing is spraying perfume in my bed before I go to sleep. Amazing. Luxurious. That is what the corset maker would want you to do. Yes. You just need like a little luxury to make this time a little bit less unpleasant. So maybe check out some poetry from the library. And if you hate it, oh, well, you can skip back. It'll be fine. Don't save things for special occasions. You know, like you do them now.
and an example of that is my family used to do this picnic we would call the von snoot family picnic this is a great suggestion for when it gets warm warmer out we would get dressed up we would wrap up the china pack up a picnic lunch go to the park set out like a tablecloth and candles and shit and eat our picnic off china and pretend we were rich that's amazing and and to be like oh could you pass the olives The Van Snoot family picnic. It's really fun, actually. We need to have a Van Snoot family picnic. Absolutely. I want to do this. Don't be like people in my grandparents' generation that were always saving stuff for some special occasion that was never going to come. We can't use this nice dish. Why? Is the queen coming someday? No. Use it now. Do all that stuff now. Treat yourself well during the pandemic. Spray some perfume in the bed. Yeah. Have hot chocolate. I don't know. Just a little.
It's a little extra luxury. That's what we all need right now. That's a really great recommendation. It's kind of not a recommendation at all. Get some luxury to your life. Yeah. You can be your own Valentine. Exactly. Yeah. Just give yourself what you want. It's okay.
That was just turning into a self-help motivational show. I'm fine with it. That's cool. Okay, I think I did think of something to recommend because you reminded me that I've been buying a lot of shit for myself. And you deserve it, Samantha. It's something I bought. I was influenced by an Instagram ad. It happens from time to time. We all have our weaknesses. Coffee mug that I want to recommend. Yeah. Anyway, I have this problem where, and it's a very ridiculous problem, I acknowledge, but...
I have to drink my coffee like piping hot. I don't like it if it gets a little lukewarm, even just a little bit. I really like it to be hot. So what I did a couple years ago is I bought one of those Yeti tumbler mugs with the handle, the lowball. And I've been using it for a long time and it works fine. Except this is such a ridiculous complaint, but it's really heavy and it's like not a...
good shape. It's like weirdly wide and low and it's kind of uncomfortable to use. It's kind of made for like giant lumberjack hands. It kind of is. I'm like picturing your like little petite hands holding this like massive like soup bowl mug.
soup bowl mug and i use it because it does keep my drinks extremely hot i'm not sure they make this one anymore because i tried to look it up to compare the price to what i'm going to recommend to you and i couldn't find the one that i have they have like a different version that's a little bit smaller maybe that would be better i don't know but the one i have is just like not that practical but it does keep my coffee extremely hot for a really long time so like especially if you're working you probably have this i'm sure people listening have the same problem where you're working and you get into like an email or whatever and you forget your coffee's sitting there and then it's like cold so that solved my problem however instagram fed me this ad It knows all your weaknesses. Yes, honestly, it does. The algorithm has me figured out. I was served this ad on Instagram for this Tumblr company. The brand vibe from this Tumblr company is not my thing. It's a little girl boss for my taste. It served me an ad for this travel mug that was leopard print, so it has my number. I looked it up, and it's called Swig Life.
uh-huh uh-huh ridiculous ridiculous however oh samantha just living the swig life i know it's really silly however i received the mug in the mail last week i've been using it for a week and i actually really like it to the point where i'm probably gonna buy some as gifts because there's a few things about it that make it perfect they have different designs they have like the wine mug which is like of course they do the little wine tumbler They have the bigger tumbler. And then the one I got was like the middle size that has a handle. And things I like about it are it does keep my drink hot to the same degree that the Yeti does. It's a little bit lighter weight. It's still heavy because it's like the double-walled thing. I don't think you can get away from that. So it's a little, it is still heavy, but it's lighter than the Yeti. So I like that. It's tapered at the bottom. So it fits in the cup holder, which is another complaint that I had about my Yeti. Back when I used to commute, I couldn't really put it. I had to like put it on the seat next to me and always follow, you know.
And, yeah, it does keep my drink really, really hot. And also, unlike the Yeti, it has a closable top. So it doesn't always stay open. So you can actually, like, pop it closed. It has, like, a little rubber grippy part on the bottom, too. So it's not going to, like, I'm super clumsy and knock things over all the time. So all of these features make it, like, actually a pretty appealing mug to me. And they have a ton of really pretty prints. Like, I'm scrolling through. Unfortunately, the mug I got in the size I got with the leopard print is sold out. But it does say that it's going to be back in stock February 19th, I guess. But there's also, like, a rainbow leopard print. There's a marble one, a tie-dye. There's some really pretty floral prints. They're kind of expensive, but...
With how much I use mine, I think it's worth it. And I kind of wish, like, I could trade in my two Yetis for just a couple more of these because I'm definitely going to use this way more than that one now. So I do recommend this if you're in the same boat. For a while, I was seeing that coffee mug that you, like, connect to your smartphone and it'll, like, keep your drink warm. Which I could absolutely never justify that because they're so expensive. And I feel like it's one of those things where you would get it and it, like, wouldn't fucking work. But I always saw that and was like, if I was rich. Why not get that Bling Empire money? Man, oh, man. I'm going to get the smartphone-enabled fucking coffee mug. First purchase. Oh, yeah.
The first purchase would be a Cappy Bear. The second purchase would be a smartphone-enabled coffee one. Swig life. I can't even believe I'm recommending this. I almost wasn't going to because it sounds so silly. But this is like, yeah. You've overcome their branding to believe in their product. The product is actually really good. It works really nice. I like the mug. It's cute. Are you going to throw away all your just regular ceramic mugs now? You're like, I don't need this. I like a ceramic. Okay. Back when we could shop at Marshall's and HomeGoods, I could barely leave that store without a cute mug. Definitely not. Keeping those forever. Love having those around. Okay, good, good, good. But I don't ever use them. That's not true. If I drink tea or hot chocolate, I'll reach for one of those because I'll usually drink it pretty fast. But when I'm working.
I forget to, I want to like sip it for a long period of time. So I want it to stay hot. I'm actually drinking out of a, perhaps it's you mug right now, which you can get from our tea springs. It will not keep anything hot, but it does come in two different shades of pink. So you got to think about what's more important. You got to priorities. Yeah. So head over to perhaps it's you.com to see our merch options. Get you one of those. Not brought to you by Swig Life.
I also feel like I should mention that people can still get our zine, our fabulous zine, for $50. That zine is amazing. Shipped to the USA. Don't you want a recipe for mac and cheesies and all sorts of fan art and good stuff? Don't you want a pull-out poster of me and Samantha looking at Matthew McConaughey holding a catybara? Yeah, you do. If you didn't know you wanted that, you do now. Yeah, that's in our zine. All right. This is the end of the show now. We are only told you go to our website, perhapsitc.com. Yeah, there's social media. You can see me make many memes about the deadly power of my beautiful voice.
You know, we have a couple of Facebook groups. One about Animal Crossing. One about reading books. One about this show, apparently. If you wanted to email us a paranormal tale or perhaps a psychic dream, that would be perhaps it's you podcast at gmail.com. Send those our way. If you've got a few extra dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can get some bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon. It's patreon.com slash perhaps it's you. We should probably record February's episode. I think we're going to do a paranormal home inspector. Paranormal home inspectors. Maybe part of treating yourself well is signing up for a new Patreon. That sounds like the real luxurious life. You'll get over 30 episodes and that's only a dollar a month. So it's a great deal. But there's higher tiers though. If you want to get some cool shit, you can give us a little more.
money and you'll get some some cool shit like every month is your life depressingly sticker free well cough up five dollars we can fix that problem for you oh no where are the stickers my brother was once like in a very serious voice told the family that his body was dangerously low in bubble tea and they were just like all right we'll go we gotta solve this problem dangerously low if you're dangerously low in stickers i am dangerously low in bubble tea i am i am too my body is depleted Do we have anything else we need to say? I don't know. Did we mention our social media? Yeah, I think we did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all we got to talk about. So keep working, everyone, and my voice and Samantha's voice will be back to kill you next week. Yes, bye.