Hey, Weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. We have a special guest today, Weirdos.
Party, party, party. It's Jodi Sweetin. Hello! You probably know Jodi as Stephanie Tanner, like, first and foremost, because iconic.
Iconic. But Jodi, thank you so much for coming on. This is, like, huge for us. We're so excited.
Oh my gosh, this is huge for me. I'm a big fan of the show. And when I first met on the Zoom, I was like, oh my gosh, like, I know these voices. So, yeah, I'm also excited to be here.
I love Morbid. I love all things spooky and weird and creepy. And you guys are hilarious. So, yeah.
Oh, thank you. We feel the same way, too. As soon as you came on the Zoom, I was like, oh my gosh. Old friend.
Yeah, so old friend. It's true. Living room. I didn't even know it, but I was in your living room.
That's wild. That's insane. Now I know the TV was on. Just there standing.
You have no idea. We're all just hanging out together. Just fives. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys were asleep. It was a little weird, but, you know, fine. We've been through a lot together. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Actual, like, cryptid of it all that Elena's going to present. But is it cool if we ask you a couple questions first? Absolutely. Go for it.
All right, cool. So, we know that you're into true crime. What would you say is the one case that interested you the most over the years? Oh, man.
I know. It's always a hard one. There's so many. I mean, God.
I was, like, the weird kid at the library when I was, like, eight to, like, checking out books on, like, the Annabelle horror and, like, all kinds of weird stuff, like, all the ghost stories and, like, weird stuff at the library. Oh, that was you in the other aisle? Yeah, that was me. I was wearing all the weird videos.
Gosh, one that's fascinating. Various shades of psychology really interesting. Yeah, totally. Because it's just humans are more terrifying than any monsters we can really make up.
Oh, so much so. For me, I think also because I'm an L.A. girl, the Night Stalker has always been a fascinating case to me because it also involves the Cecil Hotel, which I'm also fascinated by. And my friend and I, my friend lives around the corner, so we've gone over there many times trying to, like, figure out how we can be creepy again.
But the Night Stalker case in particular, because I think it was, what year was that? It was, like, early 80s. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, because I was, I mean, I was little, but I vaguely remember it being sort of in the ether and, like, being talked about.
But for me, it's just such a weird case because there's no rhyme or reason. Yes, the chaos of it all. Usually, it's, like, it's one of the cases that you go, oh, wow, man, like, some people just, it's just. There's no victim profile.
It was, there was no map, there was no plan, there was no type. That was just, that was fascinating to me that it was just across the board chaos. Yeah, it was kids, it was elderly, everything in between. Yeah, and also, that one is interesting too because you read so much about, like, his childhood and brain trauma.
Not as an excuse, obviously, but it's an interesting, it's just sort of interesting because you can kind of see this whole thing, like, piece together. And as an L.A. girl, I'm always fascinated by this. Also, the Manson murders, obviously.
Also, my friend lives on that property. No way. Yeah, so, like, it's just, I mean, obviously, the house has since been torn down and he's built a place and stuff, but yeah, it's, I mean, it's the property nonetheless, so yeah. And that's kind of, like, the only thing too, like, no rhyme, no reason, just pure chaos.
Yeah, pure chaos. Yeah, and that one had, like, a weird Beach Boys connection. And so, yeah, like, there's so, yeah, I have several weird, like, connections to that case in particular, so, yeah, it's pretty fucked up. Those are two really well.
Oh, of course, all the time. I was like, yeah, I can, okay, just checking. What were you going to say? No, I was like, those two are, like, it really is the chaos of it all that stresses me out, especially about the Night Stalker case.
Yeah. When you can go down to, like, kids and go all the way up to, like, 90-year-olds and everything in between, it's like, whoa. And no real rhyme or reason as to the way it was done, method, like, yeah, and that for me is, again, from, like, the psychology aspect of it is really interesting because it's the chaos of that mind that comes out in that way is, I think that's the thing, I'm, like, I so desperately want to understand, not understand, but, like, what, it's so unrelatable, that type of horror to me, and I think that's, like, a lot of true crime is, like, it's so beyond that I'm, like, what in the world could possibly make someone go there? And anyway, it's just fascinating to me.
And, yeah, in getting to go to, like, the Hotel Cecil, my friend and I, like, figured out how to get into the alley behind the thing there where, like, you can go to the place where, like, he's, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, did anything happen while you were at the Cecil, like, any kind of paranormal happens? No, because, I mean, we've also gone during the day, but I, I mean, I, there's so many great historic, creepy places in Tampa Bay, but nothing ever happened while we were there, but, um, they've now since reopened it again. Yeah, I saw that recently.
And turned it into, uh, they originally were going to take it and turn it into, like, luxury condos. Yeah. Imagine that. That's a choice.
Well, that thing does have everything in downtown LA, and obviously the housing market sucks, and no one has money to buy two million dollar condos downtown anymore. So, yeah, so they, I think they've now reverted it back to, um, like, low-income housing, which was kind of what it was previously. Yeah. Um, but there was also that weird documentarian that was at the Hotel Cecil.
Oh, yeah. I want to say he was Dutch or something. Yeah, I can't remember what that was. There was that guy, there was, yeah, the girl that wound up in the water tank.
Yeah, that's, like, a really sad case. That's a really wild case. And just, like, bonkers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's just all kinds of weird stuff, but they have now sistered it back into, I think it's low-income housing again, which is much needed downtown, um, but it'll be interesting, you know, that place is just such a, people say it's like a hotbed of really weird activity, and so I definitely wanted to figure out how to go in there. Before they turned it into anything, I was like, I'm going to go in your walls. Empty. Oh, yeah.
I feel like that's something that would happen, you know. Oh, yeah. So have you ever had any paranormal experience in general in your life that's been, like, holy shit? Yes, I have.
I'm like, sit back for this one. I'm like, so, picture this. Sicily, 19, no. So this was 10 years ago or a little more.
I worked in drug and alcohol treatment. I was a director of operations, and we had several properties here in L.A. that we rented, and one of which was this huge property up off of Wonderland here in the Hollywood Hills, and it, I think, it was owned, or Jared Leto bought it after we had rented it out or something. Iconic.
It takes up three addresses. It's a gigantic property, and it was originally built as a military base. It has a soundstage attached to it. They would shoot World War II propaganda films here, and it's also rumored that they held people there without, because it was in the Hollywood Hills.
It's way back there, like, way before there were houses or anything, and it goes down about three or four stories into the side of the mountain, and it's got 18-inch thick cement walls. It's a nuclear wall-out shelter. It's a whole thing. So we had it as a property, and we had it as a living, and there was, like, an art gallery attached.
I mean, it was gigantic, right? So at the time, I was looking for an apartment. It had to be out of my old apartment with my kids. It's going through divorce, whatever.
It was kind of crazy, and so there was an apartment that was on one of the lower floors of the address. It had its own separate entrance. It was, like, 400 square feet, but it was just kind of a big room with a little kitchen attached, and then this ridiculous gigantic bathroom that I call the Scarface bathroom, because it was, like, black-and-white tiled and all mirrored, and I'm not kidding you. When I lived there for, like, a month and a half with my kids, the bathtub was, like, a small swimming pool.
Like, my kids used to just, like, paddle for it. Yeah, it was crazy. Phil's mom, you love this place. Right, and it was, like, weirdly old.
Like, it was just a weird spot to be, but it was kind of cool to live there. So anyway, I was there, and when we had first acquired the property, our handyman used to go over there all the time. He would talk about how, like, creepy it was over there, and we would all kind of laugh. We'd be like, oh, yeah, whatever.
He's like, no, no, no, there's, like, a woman's voice that keeps talking, and I'm like, anyway. I feel like, whatever. Like, I mean, I didn't discount it, because, like, you know, something happens, but I was like, ah, it's probably fine. There's so many, you know, whatever, people coming in, like, well.
I move in, and within maybe the first week or ten days, I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and my younger daughter is standing there and kind of looking back into the room, and she just starts going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and I was like, what? What's happening? What are you talking to? And she was like, it's the lady in the corner again.
Again? I don't want to talk to her. She's scaring me. Oh, no.
Oh, I hate, I have goosebumps already. I don't like that at all. And I was like, okay. You're like, I have to parent through this?
Like, shit. Well, let's talk to her and let her know. Let's communicate. Because I'm always like, I don't know.
I'm always like, let's reason with that, you know? So I was like, whoever is here right now, we know that we're in your space. Like, it's okay, but you're scaring my little one right now, and so, you know, if you could leave, that would be great. Like, I don't know what he's going to say, you know?
I feel like that's the perfect thing to say. And then she said, like, oh, you know, a few minutes later that she didn't see her anymore, but we definitely would hear knocks on the door in that hallway, and there would be, I mean, it would be late at night. Nobody was there, and nobody was in that section of the house. And, yeah, like, a lot of creepy things that happened.
But the creepiest part is that, well, not the creepiest part. I'd say the lady in the corner is probably the creepiest part. She takes the cake. And in order to access the film vault, you had to go downstairs into, like, down into the thing.
And it was, like, stepping back into, like, a 1950s, like, military. It was all that weird green metal. You know what I mean? You see from, like, 1950s and 60s offices and stuff, and, like, big sliding doors that were green metal.
And the lights were the kind that were on centers. It was obviously so big. So you would walk through somewhere, and then if you were still for a while, the lights would turn off. Oh, my God.
That's terrible stuff. So I would be down, like, carrying stuff down to the vault or, like, getting stuff out or whatever and putting it back. And, yeah, there were definitely quite a few times that I'd be in there, and it was just, like, kunk, kunk. And then you'd be, like, waving, and if you're not right in front of the sensor, you're, like, okay, so waving, running up in a hallway.
Yeah, it was definitely a creepy place to live, but kind of cool, and I'm always glad that I can say that I had that experience. Yeah, that's wild. That's horrifying. Those are a couple of amazing experiences.
It reminded me of the story with your little ones. Yeah, I told this on the show before, but my little ones, when they went into their first, like, big girl beds, they freaked out the first night. And we were, like, oh, it's a new little big girl bed. Of course, it's a transition, like a toddler bed.
Right, right, right, of course. So we come running in, we're, like, what's the matter? And they were, like, and they were right next to the door, and there was a little hallway right outside their door. And one of them said, there's people that keep coming in my room, and they're trying to cut my sheets with scissors.
And I was, like, right? Right. Oh, God. I was, like, there's not.
Like, I don't know what to do here. And it's, like, you're, like, okay, I can't freak out, because I can't freak them out more. So I was, like, okay. Right, right, right.
And I was, like, are they here now? And they were, like, no, they're right there. And they pointed to the dark hallway right outside their room. And I was, like, okay.
And I was, like, they're just standing there. And they were, like, yeah, they're just there. And I was, like, cool. And this was, like, an old house.
It was from, like, the 1800s. So I was, like, cool. Right, right, right. And I just stepped into the hallway.
And I was, like, hey. And I was, like, they're around me right now. And they're, like, yeah. And I'm, like, awesome.
And I'm, like, okay, guys. Yeah, like, awesome. And you're, like, I don't know what's happening. And I feel sort of ridiculous, but this is fine.
This is fine. Like, you know, I'm going to say, I'm going to give this a try. So I was, like, hey, guys. Like, you're freaking them out.
So much appreciated. Yeah, thanks. Like, I totally get you're going through it. If you need someone to talk to me, it's fine, really.
Come try to cut my sheets. I'm not going to shit out of the kids because they're never going to go to sleep. And then I'm going to be angry. Like, I can deal with it.
They're going to be traumatized forever. So, like, just come in my room. Like, I can handle it. Right, right, right.
Yeah, look, if you need to cut sheets, whatever. Take your small ones. Yeah. Have at it.
But you're not going to get one, please. Do a craft project. Go for it. You're dead.
I can't imagine what that's like. Yeah, yeah. I get it. Go look.
Go see. Go see. Go see. Go see.
Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's wild. They were trying to recreate the scene from Beetlejuice where they cut the whole bunch of eyes of the sheets and just floated in. They were trying to get us out of the house.
So someone would notice them. Right. But they, yeah. They were like, shit.
They just went about it in a weird way. Yeah. I'm like, oh, man. The guys were just trying to get our outfits.
Yeah. It's just a fun to the linen closet. It's true. We had some sheets in there.
And they weren't Daniel Packer. So they would have been a little better. I think so. Incredible.
I don't miss the days of like everything being like a cartoon. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun.
I have seven-year-old twins and we're coming out of that a little bit with them. But my three-year-old is like, Paw Patrol. And I'm like, oh. Oh, yeah.
You're still in it. Seven and three. Yeah. I've got 15 and almost 13.
It's a wild ride. That's a different journey, right? That must be such a different journey. It is.
It is quite a different journey. I just remember who I was at 13 and 15. I'm like, sorry, mom. Sorry.
Sorry, everyone. I've called my mom and apologized so many times. Although now my kids are actually great. But it really was.
I mean, pandemic did not do any wedding favors. But my older one started middle school right when she started sixth grade. And then it hit. And then it was all seventh.
And then part eighth. Like, yeah. It was not a great experience. That's so hard.
Horrific. Anyway. Truly. I'll be glad to work out of that.
Truly, it is. Not looking forward to that at all. Talk about spooky. Just middle school.
I was just going to say. That's horror. Right there. They are horrifying.
Yeah. I would take someone cutting my sheets every single night. And the lady in the corner over having to go to middle school again. Oh, yeah.
Same. I welcome it. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I feel like all of that is like a perfect transition into the Jersey Devil. Yeah, we're going to talk about the Jersey Devil today. Or the Devil in the Pine Barrens.
The Jersey Devil. Does he do Jim Pan Laundry? Or is this a totally different New Jersey? No, no, that's Polly D.
Honestly, he might, though. Because there's a lot of different versions of him. So who knows? Maybe Jersey Shore is a version.
Maybe it is. Is this like Chupacabra type thing? A little bit. The New Jersey Devil?
A little bit. Okay. It's like lore kind of stuff. So I'm all about it.
I love a good cryptid. Nothing like it. A good cryptid. We got so many here because we're like around the Bridgewater Triangle where all that fun stuff is.
I know. I know. I remember you guys talking about that one time on one of your episodes. And I was like, I'm going to go.
We'll take you on a tour anytime. We will. Oh my God. I've done like ghost tours here.
I did a whole night at a theater in San Juan Capistrano. And I did a supernatural show here as well with a couple of people. It was really fun. But I'm the one that like goes and finds weird old creepy abandoned places.
I'm like, you guys, we should go in. And everyone else is like, some hell of a mess. No, thank you. No, you're our people.
We're going with you. We got a ticket to the Lizzie Borden house. Yeah. Close by us.
Oh my God. I want to go there so bad. We should go there. Yeah, we did.
It was wild. You did? Was it creepy? Yeah, it was horrifying.
I didn't sleep. I wouldn't let us. It has the harshest vibe in there. Like it is really very hard to relax.
You can feel it. Yeah. heavy yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah we'll make plans for that after yeah okay yeah we'll make our we'll do our ghost tour plans part two is ghost tour so can't wait so we're gonna talk about the birth of the jersey devil first so the story of the jersey devil is kind of unique to the united states for sure it's the pine barrens is where it came out of wow there's so many things that are so unique in the united states they're horrifying it's really unique is such a nice way to put it it's a unique order to the united states oh yeah yeah yeah we got yeah so the pine barrens in new jersey is a very dense forested region and it covers more than 1700 square miles which is apparently 1.1 million acres holy shit that's a lot of acres that's all that's many acres and it's in southeastern new jersey so what's really spooky about this place is that although new jersey is one of the more heavily populated states in the country according to author james mccloy quote one can travel in the pines for many miles and not encounter a single sign of modern civilization love that thank god there's weird to get over too many miles of human civilization so in addition to a large amount of timber harvested from the pines the area was also really important for being a source of iron ore and it kind of drove the iron industry and munitions production during the 17th and 18th century so it was okay interesting yeah i was i was in like world war ii but no 17th like yeah yeah i was way back yeah there's no bullets it's you know bullets we're always needing bullets again right a uniquely american horror i feel where we're going with this so it's a pretty critical part of the region's economy but when manufacturers began relying on cheaper and more plentiful iron ore from the west in the mid-19th century what was once a dense population in and around the pine barrens started to kind of dwindle down much like many industrial cities in the east exactly i'm a big history nerd i'm gonna just interject on everything honestly i love that yeah please do so who remained were this small number of really like rugged individuals who were just living off the land kind of thing they were like we're not leaving the hills have eyes the hills have eyes exactly and i think honestly that's kind of they're like from the beginning deliverance here we go here we go we're off and i think they're like the places around them who were born to like modern conveniences would derogatorily refer to them as the pineys because they were left in the pine barrens and honestly the pineys were like i don't give a shit like it's cool in here it's quiet we don't like you anyway so this is kind of a perfect setting for one of these cryptids or urban legends to come about where it's like the people in the modern civilization with the people who refuse to leave the pine barrens kind of thing i think that's it that's one of those movies you either love or you hate it i love it so much i actually that's one i actually like that one again hit or miss but sorry i feel like that was one that just hit at the end i was like all right and it took place not in the pine barrens but exactly close enough it's reminiscent for sure it's what i'm imagining it's what i'm picturing they felt very salem you know yeah yeah yeah yeah love love we gotta take it to salem too out to the list right it's right over there yes so according to mccloy one of the earliest versions of the jersey devil's origins are from a woman named jane leeds so leeds lived in esselville new jersey which is about an hour away from the pine barrens and she was a mother of 12 whoa of 12 what at the time well actually yeah 12 children i will say i mean my dad's much older in his family each have like 17 and 16 kids on their parents side so yeah i get it oh that's a lot when you're living on the pine barrens you gotta you know the kids disappear in the pines so you gotta keep just replacing them keep it by the dozen there you go and it's i wonder why but she was actually referred to as mother leads and i'm like huh where'd you get that name although it doesn't uh but and she's still referred to as that when people talk about this story and i mean i feel like the grandmother at this point but she had great great grandmother leads just nana leads old lady leads old lady leads so she discovered though that she was pregnant with another child a 13 13 and she weirdly enough was not happy about this so she cursed the pregnancy and said wait though wait what's the dad that's kind of what i'm wondering yeah where's the man where's father leads that's my question where's old man leads over here where is he in this i need to talk to him that's what i don't know i'm like what do you mean keep it in your pants you got 12 kids my guy this woman is losing her mind she's not grilling she's always out grilling he's like i'm not here sorry he's just like i've got to go i belong nowhere although this was probably in the days he's chopping that wood what time period are we talking about by the way just so i can picture what clothes are these people in my mind this was like 1700s i want to say yeah so he's chopping wood oh okay got it got it so this is these are just children coming out everywhere we are out in the wilderness it is the 1700s things are not awesome why we came here we don't know everyone's questioning it everyone's like why are we here yeah but apparently no one decided to leave so and she's like i'm just gonna have all these kids here they really settled truly they settled it was on roots yeah really settled in that's for fucking sure they created a civilization of their own but that it was that 13th child but she was not psyched about it's always it's the 13th kid that really puts you around number 13 that's the one when you feel truly outnumbered it's number 13 you're like it's number 13 right yeah i felt like i could handle this but up until then you know my personality was doing pretty well but 13th man it's just really i don't have that 13th i can't do it when she said she said i am tired of children let it be the devil let this baby be the devil she said which i have a couple questions like the baby in you yeah like what why why the devil into a child would be easier well if she's all i'm saying is she's hoping that the baby is the devil what is wrong with these kids they must be pretty bad they must she's like look i'll take a devil baby over these poor assholes you know what i mean like honestly these children must be wild and ouch what are your kids doing like showing fire in the pine barrens you know killing small animals they are like they destroyed half the pine barrens it must be just poor mother leaps is like i'd rather have a devil baby well you know what she got one she's like you know if i have one devil baby i'll be about 10 kids later there you go and she got it because apparently this beastly child came into the world on the evening of a violent storm that actually came from the direction of the pine barrens in 1735 oh yeah so people also claimed that mother leads probably indulged in sorcery as well which easily explains of course because she's a woman in the 1700s who had a complaint about having 13 babies so therefore she must be a witch get her she's gonna have a devil baby hurry quick she's saying oh she's not a witch so obviously this is easily what explains what happened because the legend goes that mother leads gave birth to a healthy very normal average child but within minutes of being placed in her arms the baby began to change into a terribly unholy thing now according to mccloy this is a quote human features disappeared the body elongated tremendously forming into a long serpentine shape hooves replaced the feet its pink chubby baby face coarsened into a long bony structure of a horse's head bat wings sprung from its shoulder blades finally it arose from the bed larger and more powerful than a fully grown man then the silence was broken by the monster's rasping snarls as he curled his forked thick tail and proceeded no no he proceeded to beat everyone including mother leads with the tail with the tail well i mean if he's look how big is this room you know i mean he might not have meant to like this baby is just born it's trying to get a hold of itself it's probably turning around like oh he's got a tail and just whacking people with his giant tail like i'm so sorry i'm oh god and it's just knocking things over he's got a lot going on he's got a lot of appendages to deal with maybe what's not to blame here you know look we've all we've seen this episode we've all seen some other babies exactly this is just a really exceptionally unfortunately stretched out child they're not cute right when they're after they're born they look weird i mean i bumped into a couple things this morning you know i walked in and i bumped into my coffee it could have been the same was it your tail he's got a whole ass tail he might not have meant to beat everybody with it he was distressed no spatial awareness you know i mean it's just like i've got a tail oh my god yes it's hard it's hard we've all seen babies babies don't have any spatial like a toddler doesn't have spatial awareness and all of a sudden this baby's going from like just fresh out of the oven baby into full-grown fucking bat wolf also i think i read this article in the new york daily news at the supermarket uh about three years ago it was that baby that's what i'm getting he's a bad boy yeah he used to be on the front of every tabloid every that right and the weird head and eyes like oh man that and that was like the days before good ai like someone really fucking photoshopped that thing someone those images they went to tell yeah his sharpened teeth and weird black and like dark blue under the eyes look really tired yeah it was wild for a thing yeah and here he was this is his beginning right here he was also loud because he had an ear-piercing bellow and then he flapped his huge wings and shot right up the chimney and out into the night damn he just went right for it he just beat the shit out of everybody in the room and then left wow that's that's the giraffe right after birth they just get up and go you know i'm impressed i am impressed he didn't even need to try and he knew that the chimney went out which is impressive straight out the oven he was like i bet that leads out i'm gonna go out there he's like you know where that goes oh the air i think that's what that is and you know what you know what i can fit through as a full-grown vacuuming a chimney so according to this account this very believable account mccoy notes several sleeping children with a jersey devil's first worldly meal which is rude other versions say that his first meal was just the entire leads family so well there's a lot of them to you know he ate his entire family all 12 children mama leads and if there was a daddy leads he was gone too or he just went out into the night and ate a bunch of sleeping kids i mean i would i feel like going with the sleeping kids would probably be an easier uh yet at first you know i mean while you're kind of still learning uh how to function in this uh weird devil body i think so you want to you don't work for it i mean my kids first meal was mashed up avocado but like sleeping babies are i guess a great first meal for a baby's mashed avocado whatever works whatever you have on hand choices all i know is i we're all canceled this is the end of this that's it this is the end i hope this was really fun what a farewell episode what a farewell the leads bad boy is going to take us all there's another version of this story too in case that wasn't good enough so this version takes poor mother leads totally out of the equation entirely the lady's creator oh yeah because now there's a totally different young woman who is also lonely it's we gotta make sure that we know she's lonely um and she's from leads point it's the 1700s for women i'm sure she is not like she's like hey let's talk about her feelings honey he's like i'm going to go cut things in the field and have another woman you're a witch so it's like yeah i think they're all lonely is pretty much it but apparently this poor woman fell in love with a british soldier during the american revolution and so the obvious punishment for that is getting a devil baby because she betrayed the american cause obviously that's what i always say yeah i mean i feel like that's also a story that i've heard recently like you know what happens a devil baby that's definitely like you know this is familiar so there are besides this one so that's that's the second way that he came about was just like oops you married a british soldier oh wait sorry quick tangential question isn't the new jersey devils the name of their hockey team sure is because now they're now we're proud of it now we're like it was a thing where everybody was scared of it and then at the end they were like let's name a hockey team after it they were like this thing is pretty rad this thing that eats children sleeping in bed we're gonna name a hockey team after it so there are other less common versions of the story that kind of incorporate like one or more of the elements of those two kind of like mix and match right but in any case they all just result in some hideous creature being born and either fleeing or being forcibly cast out into the pine barrens and that's where it would adapt and live to this very day so like any legend the jersey devil exists mostly or in large part i would say to kind of explain a variety of unfortunate or difficult events and phenomena in the region i blame it for everything i'm everything that's happening right now the echo in the zoom it's his fault the planet's going backwards all of it they would blame like droughts and crops on the jersey devil cows underproducing milk the jersey devil the absence of fish in a local stream the jersey devil it's all his fault and in one instance american naval hero commodore stephen how do you say dave decatur oh yeah yeah d-e-c-a-t-e-u-r or whatever there you go commodore stephen decatur i like it he visited the hanover ironworks in burlington new jersey just to like oversee the production of cannonballs because he wanted to make sure they met his standards and would actually work you know imagine that was your job the oversight of cannonballs truly i just gotta make sure they're cannonballs i just gotta make sure that the balls are looking good here measure the balls but that afternoon while he was readying the cannons for test firing he observed a bizarre creature flapping its wings across the range and everyone present on the range that day backed up his that his aim was perfect when he fired the cannon directly through the jersey devil and apparently literally ripped a hole straight through the jersey devil but the jersey devil just was like and he just kept going like merely a flesh wound and just flew off like it wasn't at all worried about this but everyone there was like saw it he shot a cannonball at the jersey devil so i just pictured like right yeah yeah way to test fire i fought in your general deliction yeah like they'd bring back the entire scene for mine yeah he was the original now across southern new jersey the devil was definitely a common scapegoat um he was blamed throughout this 19th century again for like loss of livestock on farms uh he became the source of howling and shrieking that would be heard by farmers which i'm also like maybe what was it if it wasn't that maybe we should investigate it i was gonna say someone being murdered and buried on someone's property so we're just blaming a cryptid but every now and then apparently the devil would make his way out of the pines and would be spotted on battlefields and more heavily populated areas like atlantic city so there we're sighting he's a tourist you know he wants to see the sights that feels also very on brand for the jersey devil like hey i'm gonna go to some battlefields and atlantic you know what i mean like i'm gonna go blow some shit up with those cannonballs and gamble exactly it really makes sense has anyone ever seen the jersey devil and a certain former president i have been thinking that the entire time do we know it's are there reports i never have are there i can say i haven't but who am i to say that's all she wrote has it been on a sentence episode because if it has it has then we know it is true then we know okay i like it but it wasn't really until the very end of the 19th century that he began to begin to appear in news reports that's when we started reporting on him got it got it he started getting interviews that's when he was like his manager was like you really need to get a quote yeah he got it look you've got to get out and find the story you've got to let people know what's going on exactly you want to you know people are going to understand me no one's going to listen they're going to take it out of context i'm just eating babies you know that's it's hard it's hard there's that whole story where i beat everyone in the room upon birth with my hair right right i just was my tail no one's gonna believe that right so i get it he's in a difficult position and we believe you i'm still sorry i've come on as a guest to your show and completely taking it off the rails oh no no this is love that this is what we need they're on a rail off the rails is where we live we rarely live on the rails our show has never ever been on the rails it shouldn't be okay good i only like to do off the rails shows because that's how it works it's our brains as well so on july 29 1899 issues of the new jersey city news reported that the beast had quote reappeared in new jersey for the first time since it warned the pioneers of the approach of the civil war which i was like wow i love that he just is like hey guys this thing is like nostradamus too it's also it's all wait wait who didn't warn about the civil war that's what i'm wondering like i need to know because someone knew that the civil war was coming from the jersey devil and didn't say shit and didn't pass it on yeah because you know the jersey devil is like pass it on and that guy was like i'm not gonna pass it on yeah he's like you can't tell people right and then now he's like i'm getting a bad name meanwhile i try to warn people he's like if i say pass it on you pass it on you know at the end of this i think that we're gonna come out that the jersey devil is uh has just been misaligned this yeah hundreds of years misunderstood he needs to do a tell-all memoir is what he needs to do i'll do it i'll do it i wouldn't doubt anything these days truly we're manifesting it it's gonna hit number four on like new york times bestseller 100 okay yeah good for him i called that he's like oh yeah i got the audio book so the article described the beast as quote a strange combination of serpentine body horse head cloven hooves and forked tail which is pretty much the origin description oh which okay we're sticking with the original original body shape yeah we're going with that i hope he's gotten to use the tail a little better at this point though i think he's gotten used to it at this point uh but he was believed to have been banished from the area many years after bringing considerable misfortune for the residents of jerse of south jersey but wait does that mean that he's there hanging out and being welcomed in and people like that's what i wonder like are you hanging out with him and then all of a sudden you're like whoa whoa whoa whoa that was one too much you crossed the line well several years later in the spring of 1905 the devil started making headlines again and this time with a slightly different story attached to him now so in the article oh exactly it's changing up right he's always evolving with the times the old story wasn't working not getting as much traction exactly change it up a little bit change it up so the article was titled story of the leads devil and a reporter for camden's morning post newspaper alleged that the devil had been born many years ago in bordentown new jersey and was the product of a relationship between an american sea captain and his wife well now it does it does involve um because they called him they called the woman a tarlatan before she married the captain which when i first heard that i was like is that like a mixture of a harlot a harlot and a charlatan a lion that's what i thought it would be but apparently a tarlatan is a village in england so i think they were just going back to that whole like it's not an american so that's what happened but like the mother leads origin story the captain's wife wished not to have a second child and was not psyched about the baby even before it was born so she gave birth to a child bearing a close resemblance to the orthodox devil oh so now we're getting the real devil into it exactly and now that this oh the bassinet the one with the horns and the bassinet like the whole he's literally right there he has he's hanging out right yeah i love him he's so cool looking he's right he's doing the whole like as above so below thing uh yeah so that's this is what that baby did he was like hey and they're like that's not okay so they're like no thank you so judgmental right you know just for your thinking that's all but apparently he became known in the neighborhood as the leads devil and i love because when this came out it was walking to school with his backpack like there's a devil right along yeah i'm just trying to get the chemistry but i love it because it said like it was a surprise to no one that she gave birth to the devil and it's like to no one like no one was i don't know i feel like i would be surprised if i was there she's tarleton i'm gonna invent tarleton though as the word that we describe and just start using it it feels like i think it's a word it's got good tarleton to it you tarleton and you can say it to people and they know they won't know what you mean at all but they'll know it's an insult that's for sure one of those great words that you don't quite know what it means but you know it's supposed to slap you yeah i love this so despite being described as looking like the orthodox devil and being described as a demon human hybrid the morning post said that the beast is not just something of legend but was actually a real creature that terrorized the town until it crawled into the fireplace and up the chimney and into the pine barrens so it's always going up a chimney but once he had left to go in the pines he would be seen by townsfolk in and around the pines and in the woodlands and desolate tracks in the southern section of the state so that was going on and then for much of the 19th century the story it appeared in newspapers from time to time but it kind of was just like a oral storytelling thing and by the beginning of the 20th century all of a sudden there was a rash of sightings in more than 30 different towns and it elevated the story to be like a full-blown like national thing that'd be okay there you go and during the week of january 16th 1909 thousands of people from southern new jersey to trenton reported seeing the jersey devil or at least seeing the tracks left behind so in trenton the devil's hoof prints were discovered in whitehorse park and in some backyards of a bunch of residence houses imagine if that was your house i'm saying i would think that was pretty cool i think that was awesome i'd be excited yeah like i want a big foot to just walk through my backyard oh i didn't say that i did yeah i want that that's your manifestation hey and just have him walk right through i would say yeah just hey hey so cool to see you yeah i get it yeah you don't want you left alone out here minding your business having your lunch no i get it i'm gonna blow up your spot i just want to say hi yeah i see your hat that says no pictures it's okay like i respect you you're dressed in disguise you're security people with you i get it carry on carry on my friend thanks for the visit yeah but one of the residents told the local local reporter i recognize the tracks from those reproduced in the newspapers they looked at me as if it was the hoof of was that of a young cult not a cloven hoof as i've heard of it being described so if it was a young person probably got murdered by the rest of the small horse i don't know though they're like you are which yeah and apparently after these reports came out in trenton letters from residents in nearby towns started reporting sightings of what they described as a one-legged one-footed bird that had been lurking about the city and attacking once you had a one-legged bird i had a one-legged bird i had a canary anyway that's my one-legged canary you had like a one-third jersey devil it's a good choice just edit all of it out just just the intro hi welcome to me and then edit everything else i said out and be like let's get to the point she was really here like never never so the attacks caused a small panic but along uh southern and northern new jersey so much so and i think this is more than a small panic they um actually closed schools and factories down at one point because they were so panicked and residents were locking their doors and windows like scared this thing was going to come into their house yeah it's amazing people are like it's coming for you it's coming for schools close the factories no more cannonball building no more cannonball building no more cannonball that was his thing he was like i don't want to be shot by a cannonball again i'm gonna shut all this shit down and i don't want these kids getting smart enough to go work in a factory so one man in bristle was actually awakened one night to his young daughter's screams in the night and when he ran into her room he saw through the window a large beast standing just outside along the banks of the river and he described the noises it was making as quote like the scratching of a phonograph before the music begins and yet it also had something of a whistle to it you know how the factory whistle sounds well it was something like that and i said no sir i don't know what the factory whistle sounds like but i can imagine what was that quote that was me that was me at the end wouldn't that be amazing if the reporter was like i don't know what that sounds like but thank you but it sounds like a phonograph like rare and then it also sounds like i'm just saying that shit sounds like the devil i'm not a huge fan of cats but that yeah i just i can't imagine what like mouth shape this thing was making to make those kinds of sounds like the like scratch sounds and then like it was like you know it's sort of like beatboxing you know you watch me like i don't know how you're making that noise in your mouth but it's like coming out yeah you're like doing it all at once that's actually not like i just did because that was terrible that was really good i liked it it was also like kind of like ventriloquism you know maybe he had like a mean jersey devil maybe he was like watch what it says now everyone from children to police officers reported seeing the jersey devil and in one case patrolman james sackville woof pause yeah just put that out there of the bristol police reported going to investigate reports of dogs howling and barking in a residence yard and when he turned to leave the area he ended up finding himself standing right in front of the jersey devil also this guy patrolman james sackville he went on to serve as the city's chief of police and he described the devil as winged and hopping like a bird but also had the features of some peculiar animal and he claimed which this is my favorite claim because i'm like no you didn't he claims that he ran towards the beast and i was like james did you whatever i don't know i don't know about that untrue if this thing is standing there looking the way it looks and it goes he had a reputation to yourself and then you ran away and changed and then you walked right after it and you did not yeah no way and he and he also said this thing ran away from him this thing retreated down the path he also said that it emitted a frightening cry or it's frightening cry until it flew out of sight so it went and then ran out of it was like remix i'm gonna leave no while most who claim to have seen the beast described it as bird like at least with the wings and all that and that like screechy sound well some use completely unique descriptions ew minister ristol's postmaster at the time described the devil as having a head resembling that of a ram with curled horns and he said his neck was thrust forward in flight so he's just living he's just living but he ended up making his way south from trenton and uh he began causing some more havoc now in the early morning hours of january 19th mr mrs nelson evans that's my birthday well a couple on your birthday they were woken up by strange noises and looked out their window to find the devil quote cavorting before their eyes on the roof of their shed which i just picture him being like like sassy on the roof of their shed cavorting to me just seems like it's like what's happening out there cavorting to me feels like was there was there a leafy devil you know i mean was it were things happening on the roof that's what i thought or was he right or was he just by himself which is weird bro come on don't do that nobody did that on my roof don't do it on a shed you've got entire pine barrens to do that in with like a lack of civilization this feels inappropriate sir it really does but in their report to the newspapers mr evans said the devil was about three feet and three feet and a half high with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse what how do you have a head like one thing and a face like another that's what i was just thinking well he did have a long neck wings about two feet long this is what's weird though he said his back legs were like those of a crane and it had horses hooves what sir i'm sorry what are you talking about this man has some chocolate before that how did how did crane legs hold this whole thing but then the feet are horses hooves like i just also love that nobody can agree what the fuck this looks like nobody can he also he also said he watched this thing for about 10 minutes in the backyard and then he opened the window this is my favorite part he said he opened the window and he went shoo and the devil turned around barked at him and then flew away i love that it took him 10 whole minutes to go what should i say to this shoo shoo and he went rough and then if the devil leaves when i say shoo i'm not scared well he wasn't done because by the end of the week the devil had made its way down to philadelphia oh wow a reporter for the morning call wrote scientists are puzzled to give a name to the beast which is a combination of bat kangaroo and pony what now he's a kangaroo like now that we're adding in kangaroo to the mix i'm like oh i get locking your doors now i don't want that yeah i want to know you just kind of kick your door down you know what i mean what part of it is kangaroo is i heard cram legs in the same uh the same article from this reporter for the morning call he said if something rather weird is not flying around the condition of mind of south jersey and south philadelphia would provide a feast for students of mob hallucination so i think this reporter is like i think you're all hallucinating but in an editorial in the atlantic city daily press one person wrote when one stops to think about how absurd is the latest jersey sensation about the leads devil which has been given much space in the newspapers of the entire country one must feel ashamed of himself to think that he stopped long enough to read the headlines less the entire article rude which i was like okay that's rude that was directly at officer officer or whatever his name was that i was like yeah that's true yeah but i'm like you know like live a little it's also like let's believe in this little devil well like are you not writing an article but can you imagine if you're like living somewhere and just every story's like a pony kangaroo collie showed up at the door and your editor's like you have to write an article about this a week later or so sightings of the jersey devil after this little article the sightings just kind of ended and everyone was apparently shamed i was gonna say everyone was ashamed but then the jersey devil the jersey devil was like you guys no like i'm not letting you be ashamed because he made just one more appearance in a village just outside salem that february before returning to the pine barrens so in the months and years that followed people all over southern new jersey and northern pennsylvania started to theorize as to what could have caused the sightings and they were blaming it on everything from a complete hoax and misidentified creatures to genuine sightings of the actual jersey devil the brooklyn meteor research society suggested it was quote a type of marsupial carnivore which a kangaroo is a marsupial correct that's what i was just gonna say or fishiped both previously thought to be extinct so we're thinking it's like an extinct creature that we're like oh shit we're wrong what is a fishiped it's just when you have toes separated to the base so it just means clothing footed oh okay that makes sense so they thought that was extinct and they were like maybe it's not and the academy of natural science on the other hand told reporters there's no bird which can make such tracks in the snow and there's no scientific record of such animals or as have been described in the newspapers so they're like shut up shut up if the academy of natural sciences was unable to find evidence of any animal that would resemble anything described in the papers it's probably because despite some of the overlap in those descriptions like you know the wings and the horse feet and the cloven hooves and all that stuff they also varied so wildly from one description to the next that it's like of course you're not gonna find something that makes sense yeah no and also you know at night reporting on a roof there's no outdoor lights not like you can look on the garage sensor light you know i mean you're just going by what you see dancing in the moonlight you just woke up too so you're groggy then many years after the jersey devil panic of 1909 had kind of ended people in and around south jersey started reporting reportedly started attempting to create additional action by making their own jersey devil footprints and reporting them to the authorities in the press they wanted to start it up again right right right because i've heard that had happened before yeah of course not all those other ones yeah and in one case a philadelphia animal trainer was hoping to bolster attendance to his performances so he kind of contributed to the press with the whole thing he told reporters his vampire bat had escaped and was on the loose and attributed that to the increase in devil sightings he's like oh sorry and actually then this leads right into one of the biggest hoaxes was from that was probably the one that norman jeffries of new york did he was an entrepreneur with a real penchant for very bizarre promotional events he wanted to capitalize on the whole hysteria surrounding the devil so he bought a small kangaroo from a friend in upstate new york and planned to pass it off as the jersey devil so there were small kangaroos in upstate new york is what i'm saying there were it's not an issue thank you why is there a kangaroo in upstate new york your guess is as good as mine and it gets worse because he painted green stripes on the kangaroo the kangaroo licked the paint off before it dried oh so then he attempted to attach a set of wings and apparently the kangaroo just demolished the wings that he made because it's a kangaroo and it's like why the fuck are you putting wings it was like i'm already cool enough on my own he's like i'm a fucking kangaroo what are you doing i'm yoked i am yoked so he made a second set of wings out of bronze and rabbit fur and that worked he put the wings on his jersey devil and then he draped the kangaroo in nets and paid about 10 like local heathens to act as farmers with pitchforks surrounding the animal in a cage oh that makes me really sad that's so horrible like fuck you man sam was like what is wrong with you i'm just a small pouch carrying kangaroo and i yeah that's all that's all he's like i belong in australia get me the fuck out of here and this whole thing happened in the basement of the dime museum and spectators were led in one by one to look at the jersey devil but they could only look at it for a second or two when the curtain would be lifted and it would be dropped immediately but throughout the 19th century residents of southern new jersey feared the jersey devil and they panicked at the mere mention of a sighting it was a big deal and stories of his presence would circulate from town to town and sometimes posses were formed to capture it and bounties were placed on his head some ranging from 100 to 100 000 and by the 1930s societal attitudes toward the devil kind of changed because all of a sudden instead of forming posses to go you know take a bottle bounty on his head they were like we kind of love him like he's kind of our guy 130 years pride and in 1938 the jersey devil was officially designated as the state demon of new jersey making it the first only state demon in the country wow i was gonna say wait wait that that feels like it implies that there's other state demons and i would like to know that i was so hoping there was more can we make more i would love to make i was like you could you know that there's some states in this country that definitely i'm like i can think of a few i can think of some demons and while sightings of the creature definitely became less common than they once were where like we talked about earlier the name became popular and even became the name of an nhl hockey team called the new jersey wow look at that foreshadowing there you go look i i can't believe i first of all i can't believe i knew the name of the nhl hockey team for new jersey that's a random piece of information um but secondly wow way to just it would be like if we had uh the bad boy nhl team the bad boys that would be a baseball team oh yeah boys oh no i don't think anybody would be very like intimidated by them i don't think so we'd be like here hold my back here hold my back as far as we know yeah what goes away when you say shoo no come on that's that's everything you know what bad boys is bad boys there you go bad boys but the jersey devil never went away he still he appears in books and television shows he's a video games he's in movies he's like you know he he is at the forefront of licensing out his imaging to ai is what he's doing yeah he's gonna be on the next one of like the hot wing show i've been trying to start my dj career all of a sudden now he's like i'm a sound cloud rapper i've got you know i've got i've got a podcast i've got an nhl team really his branding and marketing is genius and all started in the beginning she was like give a quote find him on tiktok guys yeah at the jersey devil doing trending dances that's him i would love that so that that's the story of the jersey devil that was so much fun i really like that jersey devil is fun yeah i gotta love it rarely does it wind up in the naming of an nhl hockey team you know true so yeah right 410 they gotta keep something going and that's good for them it's true oh you guys this was so much fun this was so much fun thank you so much for coming on seriously you're literally welcome back you're so fun anytime well what i'm gonna start doing now is listening to the podcast when i'm driving around my car and just interjecting my own thoughts uh that you will neither be able to hear nor will anyone else but i'll feel like i'm a part of the podcast voice note them to us i was just gonna say we'll exchange numbers and you can voice note it no seriously this has been so much fun i'm such a huge fan you guys i love i love your energy i love like the vibe everything it's great for somebody who also obviously tells stories with 1500 side stories it's really great to listen to thank you so much and we're huge fans so this is a big deal i think what was it that drew said drew goes this is my fiance he goes this is your biggest yet like and i was like i agree yes and our researcher dave who did like all of the research for the jersey devil stuff great work huge fan huge hallmark he's in the room i did great job i know you always do a lot of research you do a really great job with it hell yeah yeah yeah because i know i was having a podcast if i were left to do all of my own work it would be a shit show so yeah we did for a while and then we were like well it was like chaotic we were like help help yeah and dave swooped in like the jersey devil and said i've got you he beat us with his tail well this has been amazing well thank you guys so much for listening thank you jody for joining us we hope you guys keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you actually want it like stitching on like hoves onto a small kangaroo and playing on your roof to the board and then trying to sell it to stories and make a big thing about it and then tell hockey team like don't keep it that weird but almost yeah perfect that was fantastic all of a sudden i was like fucking blanking yes it's happening you're always a beat ahead with leah healthcare with faster access to urgent care at your nearest leah health and well-being clinic ennis 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