E408 A Charles of All Trades and ADHD Funeral Plans

Summary

Podcast Summary: "And That's Why We Drink" - Episode E408: A Charles of All Trades and ADHD Funeral Plans

Release Date: December 1, 2024
Hosts: Christine Schiefer and Em Schulz
Title: A Charles of All Trades and ADHD Funeral Plans
Description: Murder and the paranormal collide in this chilling episode. Join Christine and Em as they explore haunting ghost stories intertwined with a terrifying true crime case. Grab your favorite drink and prepare for a spine-tingling journey every Sunday!

---

1. Introduction

In Episode E408 of "And That's Why We Drink," hosts Christine Schiefer and Em Schulz delve into the eerie blend of murder and the paranormal. This episode, titled "A Charles of All Trades and ADHD Funeral Plans," takes listeners through the fascinating history of the Hampton House and a gripping true crime story involving the mysterious disappearance and murder of Sarah Stern.

---

2. The Haunting History of Hampton House

Construction and Early Years ([27:30] - [35:00])

Christine and Em begin by tracing the origins of the Hampton House, built between 1772 and 1790 by Colonel Charles Ridgely. They highlight Ridgely's success in ironworks during the Revolutionary War, which financed the sprawling Georgian mansion. Em shares a notable moment at [27:40], stating:

"They paid him $6,000 in the 1700s, which is around 200 grand today, and 17 gallons of rum."

This anecdote underscores the opulent and somewhat whimsical nature of the period's transactions.

Architectural Significance and Legacy ([35:00] - [47:00])

The conversation shifts to the architectural grandeur of Hampton House, modeled after an English castle and boasting thousands of acres. Christine remarks at [32:00]:

"It's a nice house. Great."

Em discusses the mansion's numerous state champion trees and its vast estate, emphasizing its status as one of the largest private residences of its time. They also touch upon the darker aspects, such as the enslaved individuals who worked on the property and the family's legacy spanning seven generations until its eventual sale in 1948.

---

3. Ghost Stories and Paranormal Legends

Priscilla Ridgely ([52:46] - [70:00])

Em introduces the ghostly tales surrounding Hampton House, focusing on Priscilla Ridgely, one of Colonel Ridgely's wives. At [52:46], Em recounts:

"She would be seen with an old, frail appearance in 1900s garb."

Listeners hear about Priscilla's encounters, including her hearing faint knocks at the mansion's doors and witnessing apparitions roaming the halls. The hosts discuss the eerie sounds of sweeping dresses and the haunting presence Priscilla maintains within the mansion.

Additional Spectral Sightings ([70:00] - [110:00])

Christine and Em narrate other ghostly encounters, such as the phantom butler Tom and the ominous chandelier crashes that precede the deaths of housewives. Em shares at [70:14]:

"Anytime someone has heard a chandelier crashing, it predicts the upcoming death of the wife of the owner of the house."

These stories weave a tapestry of unsettling phenomena that contribute to Hampton House's haunted reputation, despite the Park Service's official denial of any paranormal activity.

---

4. The Mysterious Case of Sarah Stern

Background and Disappearance ([76:05] - [95:00])

The episode transitions to the true crime narrative of Sarah Lee Stern from Neptune City, New Jersey. Sarah, a vibrant artist with aspirations to move to Canada, disappears in 2016 under perplexing circumstances. Christine outlines Sarah's background, noting her passion for art, her supportive relationship with her father, and her close-knit circle of friends, including Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor.

Investigation and Unraveling the Mystery ([95:00] - [126:00])

Christine and Em detail the investigation following Sarah's disappearance. Key points include:

• Discovery of the Abandoned Car ([90:00] - [95:00]): Police find Sarah's Oldsmobile abandoned near Shark River Bridge, igniting theories of suicide or foul play.

• Financial Secrets ([85:00] - [95:00]): A shoebox containing over $25,000 in old bills is discovered in Sarah's possession, raising questions about her intentions and connections.

• Interviews and Suspicions ([95:00] - [126:00]): Interviews with friends and family reveal conflicting narratives. Notably, Liam's fabricated confession to his friend Anthony Curry about murdering Sarah for money surfaces at [126:44].

Em emphasizes the gravity of Liam's actions:

"Liam was sentenced to life without parole, a testament to the strength of the evidence."

Trial and Conviction ([126:00] - [138:00])

The hosts recount Liam McAtasney's trial, highlighting his eventual conviction based on damning evidence and witness testimonies. Preston Taylor's cooperation and confession play crucial roles in securing a conviction against Liam. Despite Liam's defense attempts to portray his confession as an audition for a horror film, the jury remains convinced of his guilt.

---

5. Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, Christine and Em reflect on the intertwining of Hampton House's ghostly legends with the tragic true story of Sarah Stern. They ponder the lingering spirits of the past and the unresolved mysteries that continue to haunt both the mansion and the communities connected to its history.

Em concludes with a poignant thought at [138:00]:

"And that's why we drink."

This remark underscores the hosts' acknowledgment of life's dark and unsettling moments, balanced by their shared camaraderie and the comfort of their favorite beverages.

---

Notable Quotes

• Em on Historical Payments:

  "[27:40] 'They paid him $6,000 in the 1700s, which is around 200 grand today, and 17 gallons of rum.'"

• Em on Ghost Priscilla:

  "[52:46] 'She would be seen with an old, frail appearance in 1900s garb.'"

• Em on Shoebox Money:

  "[85:31] 'If someone ever tells you they found a million dollars in a shoebox, they are lying.'"

• Em on Liam's Conviction:

  "[126:44] 'Liam was sentenced to life without parole, a testament to the strength of the evidence.'"

• Em's Closing Reflection:

  "[138:00] 'And that's why we drink.'"

---

Final Thoughts

Episode E408 of "And That's Why We Drink" masterfully blends historical intrigue with a gripping true crime narrative. Christine and Em's engaging storytelling not only illuminates the haunted legacy of Hampton House but also immerses listeners in the emotional and investigative depths of Sarah Stern's tragic story. This episode is a testament to the podcast's ability to intertwine chilling ghost stories with real-life horror, all while maintaining an inviting and conversational atmosphere for its audience.

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini.

[B]

With the Gemini app, you can talk.

[A]

Live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant.

[B]

It's great for all kinds of things.

[A]

Like if you want to practice for.

[B]

An upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city.

[A]

Or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live. This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks. Dutch Bros is all about you. Choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our Rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for new app users only. Free medium drink Reward upon registration 14 day expiration terms apply. See DutchBros.com.

[B]

Pass the Cranberry Sauce where having mash potatoes. Ooh, the turkey looks great. Thank you for being there. Thank.

[A]

Wait. Thank you for loving me.

[B]

Thank.

[A]

Wait. I thought I'd say.

[B]

Okay, try again. Try again. The cranberry sauce we're having mashed potatoes. Ooh, the turkey looks great.

[A]

Thank you for lovin me.

[B]

Thank you for being there.

[A]

Everyone's thank him.

[B]

The whole world banking you for thinking us for thinking you Kill the turkey.

[A]

Wow. It's just like it was when we did it in person. Just. Just as seamless. Man, that is what teased me. Oh this week because honestly I forgot and you said don't forget but then you got in my head and then I forgot.

[B]

Oh but then I totally forgot and then I had a bunch of reasons to list off of why I am not thankful today. So.

[A]

Oh oops.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you Thanksgiving Santa Claus for reminding me of the spirit of today.

[A]

Next week you know what's going to happen. But we're not doing it yet because we have to give pass its own pass the cranberry sauce its own little breathing room since we accidentally missed his birthday this year.

[B]

What are you. Are you thankful for anything right now either?

[A]

That's a joke. I'm very thankful. But I'm also very sleepy. And that's the hard life we live.

[B]

I'm very sleepy. I. I have a few reasons I would like to read to you why I drinked in this exact moment.

[A]

To me I did what?

[B]

I have wrote a list because I knew I'd forget.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Gosh.

[A]

I think this is the first time we've ever written it down.

[B]

That's the first time in 408 episodes we've had notes. Maybe.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, that's true, too.

[B]

No, the first one is that I planned on making my day extra special with getting a drink delivered to me. Instead of having my usual ld, I fire up the Uber Eats. And what do you know it, My item is sold out and it never has been sold out. Today's the first day and it's the one where the person who owns the coffee shop. So I'll give them a shout out. Three Sisters, Coffee and Tea. They don't know where I live, hopefully. But I do order from them often. And I think when they see M in Burbank and I was ordering a shitload of London Fogs all at once.

[A]

Right. It kind of clicked for somebody.

[B]

It did. And so whenever they send me drinks, they write like a fun little note on it and it always makes me happy. And so I was like, oh, I'm going to cheer myself up and have. Have a little London Fog today. Sold out. So for once, I don't like them.

[A]

Oh, sorry, you have that delivery of London Fogs. Yeah, all 468. I'll be. I'll be drinking them later. Sorry, I muted myself for a minute. What was that?

[B]

I do usually get, like three at a time.

[A]

Keep all the nice notes for me. Like, set them aside so that I can read them later. I know they're going to know who I am and write me some nice messages. Okay, thanks.

[B]

It always makes me feel so good. I've never asked them back, but, like. Because I don't want to let them know where I live and I'm obviously.

[A]

Ordering at this point. I feel like. I feel like they could have checked by now. I mean, I'm not saying I don't.

[B]

Know if on there and they can see the address because they're the restaurant, but maybe they can.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

[B]

But so. And since I want to, like, still have correspondence with them, I leave notes in the correspondence. I leave nice notes back to them. And the additional comments on my Uber Eats order.

[A]

Very thoughtful.

[B]

So it's kind of like.

[A]

So today you just sent a middle finger. You were like, thanks for nothing.

[B]

If I could have. Yeah, but so I'm mad about that because I thought I was going to have a better. A better day today because my taste buds would be a little more ecstatic. So that's number one. Number two, heartbreaking. Thank you. I thought so. I felt it. Number two is that I have been looking everywhere for, you know, the company Neato that does. Like the sensory squishy balls.

[A]

Yes, I've been seeing those everywhere.

[B]

Okay, so they had a release drop for a while ago called the Gumdrop, which I was very excited about. It comes after the Nido Nice Cube, which I was much more desperate to have. But everywhere I went, they were sold out. I finally got my hands on one yesterday. The Neato Nice Cube. It is a dream come true if you have an oral moral fixation like I do, where you want to chew on it so fucking bad.

[A]

Or molar.

[B]

Oral. Oh, sorry, you're right. Molar. I said oral and then my brain got tricked.

[A]

Oral molar.

[B]

Jeez, that's.

[A]

That is a really tricky combination of words, to be fair.

[B]

If you have the fixation I do of like wanting to chew on Dr. Scholl's, the needo Nice Cube will absolutely floor you.

[A]

Seriously, that's great.

[B]

Absolutely floor. If you throw it in the freezer for 10 minutes.

[A]

Oh, it's like you're teething like a little baby.

[B]

I literally was gnawing on it like a caveman last night.

[A]

Holy shit.

[B]

It was disgusting. But it was felt so fucking good. But here's the thing. I broke it.

[A]

You wait, hold on now. I'm immediately imaginative. I'm immediately imagining that you, like, bit it and like whatever gooey contents or something came out, I'm lucky. Thank God.

[B]

No, it might have because a Dr. Scholl's.

[A]

I've thought so many times about the one day that you bite into a Dr. Scholl's or whatever and it'll just like the goo will get everywhere and it'll probably just kill you on the spot. I do worry about that.

[B]

I am lucky that the biting. I was actually impressed because I was trying to bite it really hard and I was like, it's not even breaking. Maybe this thing is like a solid gel that I don't. I've never heard of in my life. I was blown away. But then I was doing the thing where you twisted like a balloon animal and that was what gave it no critical mass. And so can confirm. Inside is a very, very thick and very. Can't get it off your finger. Sticky glue.

[A]

Like a viscous situation.

[B]

Yeah. And like once one little hole broke. Like once it had a pour, it started like coming out really quick.

[A]

It's just like spouting.

[B]

So usually I would be. Usually I got it yesterday. What I would have liked to do is play with it while we were recording today. But I will have to settle for the gumdrop which is fine. But I really love that nice.

[A]

Can I see you squish it? I've never seen somebody use it before.

[B]

Yeah, let me, let me. So my favorite thing about the nice cube and the gumdrop is that they always go back to their form. Like so. Like, it always stays like gumdrop.

[A]

That's nice.

[B]

And then it has the. It has the same consistency as the nice dough, but it has little textures.

[A]

On it I've never touched, I've never seen. I've never held a nice dough or knee dough or whatever.

[B]

It's basically a stress ball, but it's, like really tough. Like, it's almost like a resistance.

[A]

So you don't band well, I was gonna say so you don't feel like you're gonna ruin it, but I guess you do.

[B]

Now, this one feels a little tougher than the nice dough.

[A]

Yeah, you tell your that.

[B]

Yeah, I'm definitely. I've learned to not do the balloon animal thing. But no, if you bite it. Wow. It's delicious. It's amazing.

[A]

Somebody somewhere just found their kink watching you do that. Like, whoa.

[B]

That's fine. If I'm your awakening with the Neo gumdrop sensory children.

[A]

Now. It's literally all I want is now to touch one of these. I can't believe I've never touched one of these.

[B]

You want the nice dough, you don't want this and then not the dough. Sorry. The nice cube.

[A]

Isn't it neato? Oh, nice.

[B]

The brand is. The brand is neato. Because playing with them is neato. Right.

[A]

But it's a nice cube. Not.

[B]

The nice cube is the one you want or whatever.

[A]

Okay, yeah.

[B]

Not. This isn't great, but the nice cube does something that I've been waiting for my whole life. So that's the second reason I drink. The third reason is because I just bought 10 flights for the rest of the year. Because I have.

[A]

I wish I were surprised, but. Yeah, me too.

[B]

Just the way that we travel, it's just. I wrote it all down and I went, oh, my God. So I'm going from, like, here to there to here to there. Because I have. I just have so much between tour, which luckily half them are covered by, like, the podcast, but the other half are still like, I'm going to a baby shower. I'm going to cover for Home for Christmas.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I just added it all up and wow, I can barely afford one more nice cube or a lemon fog.

[A]

From this fucking drop chewing on it.

[B]

So for that reason, I drink ld.

[A]

Wow. That was quite A presentation.

[B]

Thank you. Your turn. Why do you drink?

[A]

I mean, it's hard to beat all your trauma over there, to be honest.

[B]

I'm telling you, with this list of flights, my. The London fog and the nice cube would have both been a real help today, so.

[A]

Well, I guess I'll keep it out of frame because I did bring up my Aaron's Putty to play with, but now I feel. I feel that maybe I should just not rub it in.

[B]

It's fine. What Aaron's Putty do you have?

[A]

I got Leona one that has, like, little faces, like the little smiley faces where you have to find the different emotions. And then I got myself the Bumblebee Honey one.

[B]

Lovely. Yeah, I like, I was a fan for a while of the liquid glass, but she gets dirty so fast.

[A]

I was gonna say I saw that and went, em would like that, but I know that it'll end up on my carpet.

[B]

I also like the one that comes with a little black light and you can draw on it. But, you know, after a while, I was like, I'm gonna lose this little keychain. I already know.

[A]

Yeah. I wanted it to be as simple as possible because I knew I would just get overwhelmed anyway. But why do I drink this week? My, oh, my. I mean, there are many reasons. So many, so many.

[B]

Do you want. You want to borrow one of mine or you?

[A]

I'm trying to think of if any of them are.

[B]

Interesting enough.

[A]

Oh, no, they're interesting. They're just maybe off air conversations.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

I'm trying to think of how to approach this. I mean, you know, a lot of it, but they're just having some interesting turns of events and stuff. When it comes to, like, people in my life, I'm trying to be so big.

[B]

Oh, are we talking about a family situation?

[A]

Yeah. And it just am. I have so many updates for you when I see you next or talk to you next. Ah, it's bad. Okay. It's not bad. It's just. It's just like, a lot. And I had to do a breathing test. This breathing test, not a breathing test. I had to do a breathing exercise this morning because I didn't know how to stop breathing or start breathing. Oh, my God. This morning I woke up and had a panic attack. And then, like, just out of the blue, and then my ring was like, you didn't sleep last night? I was like, yeah, no. And so then I tried to nap, and I was like, man, why can't I fall asleep? And then I looked at my watch and My heart rate was, like, 96 beats per minute, and I was like, I'm lucky. I've been lying in bed for, like, four hours. Why is my heart racing? So I was like. I went on Instagram to just, like, distract myself in. The first meme I saw was like, how do I tell my nervous system I'm not being hunted for sport? And I was like, great question. And so I tried to breathe, but then I couldn't breathe anymore. Anyway, it's just been one of those days where I'm like, can everybody just give me a fucking break for a millisecond? Because I need to sleep more than five hours a night, and I can't because no one's really let me do that. So it's fine. Everything's fine. We're going to record also the Listener episode after this, and I've already put some wine aside because that'll be prime drink an hour. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. But mostly, let's just say there's just some. Just some drama. But there's always drama, you know? And I just. I'm so sick of it. I'm just. I'm just so sick of it. So.

[B]

I know exactly how you feel. One time I had this thing called the Neo Nice Cube, and it broke, and it's just been a really bad life since, so I thought you were.

[A]

Going to be like. Well, one time I was in an ambulance because of my heart, and I was like, I know, I know. But usually I only have one health thing to work. Well, not one, but three health things to worry about. Today it feels like, oh, my gosh, M. It's so bad. And then my intrusive thoughts have been getting so much worse, and I'm like, oh, my God, is that why I'm not sleeping?

[B]

Like, what?

[A]

You'd say, good.

[B]

Like what?

[A]

Oh, it's mostly just about, like. Well, I did a whole thing on Instagram. Mostly it's about, everyone's gonna die. No, it's just me hurting people and then, you know, that kind of thing. Like, a lot of people, it's hurting themselves. Mine's hurting other people. I don't know which one's worse.

[B]

Like, you fantasize about it, and not, like, in a way that you want it, but it's, like, stuck in your head.

[A]

It's like, so it's. How do I. Do you have any intrusive thoughts? Really or not, like, really, like, stuck, sticky ones or not really.

[B]

Sometimes I feel like I do, but then I gaslight myself into thinking maybe they're not intrusive thoughts because I don't. I think. I don't know the definition or I feel like other people have more intense ones. So then I feel like I, like, don't have the right to be claiming them as intrusive thoughts. I don't know.

[A]

I'll just. I'll just tell you. I mean, I think it's just something you can only determine for yourself. But they're unwanted, repetitive and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that cause distress or anxiety. And a lot of mine are very in a. Like, they're marked by being like, so outrageous. It's almost like you're tricking your brain into being like, look how fucked up you are that you're thinking about this. And it's like, no, it's not me. It's just my brain and it, like. I don't know, for me, it finds like my biggest fears and then decides, like, right as I'm falling asleep to be like, imagine if this happened. It's like, oh, fuck you. But that's more like anxiety thing. I think that's more anxiety.

[B]

I don't think. I think I have intrusive thoughts in where I think about, like, really fucked up things and then I feel bad about even having those thoughts in my head.

[A]

Well, yeah, that's part of it. It's a very, very vicious cycle because.

[B]

But I don't think about the what ifs. Like, I just think of, like, you know how when we, like, the Internet was a lawless land and we would see really fucked up videos as kids, they. Sometimes they'll replay in my head and I can't get them out of my head. And then I'm like, why?

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

That just sounds like trauma. Like, that just sounds like.

[A]

I was gonna say it sounds like you're just having memories, flashbacks.

[B]

Yeah. But then I think like, oh, why can't I stop thinking about it? And then I freak myself out where I'm like, do. Like, why do I. Do I like it? Or like, why. Why can't I just make myself stop thinking about it? That's kind of the furthest it goes, though. I don't.

[A]

I mean, yeah, I don't know. I. Listen, I'm no die. I'm no diagnostic expert, so I can't. I can't say. But yeah, it's. Anyway, it's fine. I just need to, like, chill out. I don't know how to chill out.

[B]

Yeah, I gotcha.

[A]

That's all.

[B]

No, the only thing that really happens to me Is I panic. I'm like, do I actually, like. Like, I know I don't, but I'm like, then why else would I be thinking about non stop? But then maybe it's just something that I. It's like a earworm, but a brain worm where I just can't stop. It just keeps replaying and I can't escape it.

[A]

Is it like a visual too, if you're watching?

[B]

Yeah, just like those really like, fucked up ones everyone saw when we were kids.

[A]

Like, I. I'm like trying to imagine. What, you mean like two girls, one cup or something?

[B]

Uh, kind of. It was more like really violent videos. Like they were just like. They would just pop up on your feed back in the day. It was like on like Ebaum's World and stuff.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

And sometimes I end up thinking about those and I just can't get it out of my head. But maybe I can't get out of my head. Cause it's like so fucking traumatic that like, it won't escape easily.

[A]

It sounds like it's in there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, but I don't. I. I guess I luckily don't suffer from too many tendencies. I'm sure I've got like a quirk. Like, like one ocd. No, but I don't. I don't suffer. Suffer from it.

[A]

So you're not a quirk. You're not full of quirks. You're so.

[B]

I know I would. Look, if I had my nice cube and it was in my mouth, you wouldn't be able to hear me agreeing with you. But you're right.

[A]

I'm drinking water out of the mug you gave me when I got engaged.

[B]

Oh, I'm surprised you still have that. I feel like we.

[A]

Of course I still have it. You know that. You know that I hold on to things. It's a dangerous game to play. Giving me presents they'll never escape.

[B]

Oh, thank you. Okay, well, no, I feel like every now and then when it comes to mugs, you're allowed to be like, okay, we got a whole new shipment coming in of like 30 new mugs that I bought recently.

[A]

I just clear out the old ones. This one's too special.

[B]

That's nice. Wow, I'm so moved.

[A]

Well, I wish you put your nice cube in your mouth when you said that. I'm so moved.

[B]

It sounded like this. Wow, that's so nice. I can't believe you're doing this.

[A]

This is actually now. No, everybody's finding their anti kink and it's including me, right? Now. Oh, my gosh. And then you pulled a hair out of your mouth. I'm gonna throw up. All right, go on.

[B]

I thought. I thought I felt a hair.

[A]

I'm the one who eats stuff off the ground. If I'm grossed out, there's a problem.

[B]

It. We're fine. It's a big gumdrop. We're okay. I could have put so many worse things in my mouth. Okay, let's do a story.

[A]

So it's the holidays, and that means a lot of gifting and happiness. But also, of course, that all means a lot of spending. There are holidays where you have to rebound, and it sometimes takes a little while to rebound. We've all been there. But you can take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no monthly or maintenance fees fee, free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit.

[B]

To date, Chime has spotted members over $32 billion in transactions through Spot Me. Friends give friends a boost. Eligible members get complimentary boosts to temporarily increase a friend Spot Me limit. And when you give a boost, they can boost you back to temporarily raise your limit.

[A]

This sounds gamified, and I'm all about it. After a qualifying direct deposit of $200 or more, Chime will notify you to enroll and Spot Me with an activated debit card. Chime will spot you up to $200 when you exceed.

[B]

Enjoy the holidays while keeping your financial goals on track with Chime. Open your account in two [e-mail] drink. That's chime.com drink. Chime feels like progress.

[A]

Banking services and debit card provided by The Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members, FDIC SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Direct deposit timing depends on submission of payment file. Oosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in Spot Me and are subject to monthly limits. Fees apply at out of network ATMs and for OTC withdrawals.

[B]

This is from. I always say this is from as if it's a person, but I mean, the location.

[A]

Yeah, this is from.

[B]

From my friend who sent in a request.

[A]

My Google Docs.

[B]

Yeah, this is from Google. This is called the Hampton House and it is 10 miles from Baltimore.

[A]

Ooh. It's not in the Hamptons.

[B]

You know, here's the thing. It's so weird that this.

[A]

Sorry, that's.

[B]

No, but the reason you're thinking that is because I mentioned the Hamptons on our last leg together.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I don't remember why, but it.

[A]

Was because you were invited to go to the Hamptons.

[B]

Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Well, it came. It ended up turning into another conversation. It turned into another conversation where my mom and I are thinking of going, because I was like, we. I've. I've never been to this place. It sounds way out of my league, but I think for observation's sake, I need to go. Like a. Like a sociology.

[A]

That's what I said. I was like, you better do it.

[B]

So I have asked.

[A]

Someone invites you to the Hamptons, you say yes. You know, especially if it's not on your bill.

[B]

Well, so we're gonna probably. We're. I. I told her we should go probably at the end of this year or something. By the way, fun fact. My. My mom is retiring soon, and so congrats, Linda. And so I have a feeling I'm about to be her travel buddy to a few new places, so.

[A]

How exciting.

[B]

Okay, here we go. This is not in the Hamptons, but let's pretend we start in 1790.

[A]

Ah, good year.

[B]

I know Christine thought that she was, like, gonna get away without having to talk for a second, so she shoved her mouth full of M&Ms. Or something.

[A]

Pretzels. It's Doc's pretzels. And then I muted myself. And then I was like, oh, I have a great joke for this. Hold on. I had to wait.

[B]

Every time I say the year, I know Christine's got to say, like, oh, I remember her fondling.

[A]

I remember it well. Yeah. So stupid. It's. Talk about, like, intrusive thoughts.

[B]

So, okay, 1790. That is when the Hampton house is built. It took, like, 18 years for this thing to be built. They started in 1772. So before America existed, before the United States was here.

[A]

What year was that? 1776. Six? I thought it was two. 1772. Columbus sailed to ocean blue.

[B]

That's. That's 1492.

[A]

Oh, yeah. That's a different thing.

[B]

And then on the 500th anniversary of that, I was born.

[A]

I wish I muted myself again. That was really stupid, that part.

[B]

The microphone should have been off, and.

[A]

You should have had a bunch of damn pretzel bars.

[B]

Do you remember the rest of that song, by the way?

[A]

What song?

[B]

The Columbus song.

[A]

Oh, no. I don't know any of. Apparently, I don't even know the first line of the Columbus song.

[B]

Like, we just determined that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He brought three ships. Their names were these. The Santa.

[A]

The what?

[B]

The. The something. The something. The Santa Maria. It was like. So you knew all three of the ships.

[A]

The Mayflower. Are those right? Wait, no. One of those is Pilgrims. Wait, hold on.

[B]

What's a Pilgrim?

[A]

Having a mental breakdown, obviously. A mental breakdown.

[B]

At all. At all stages of the education system, we've been failed. Okay, listen.

[A]

I've been trying to erase that Columbus motherfucker out of my mind for. For decades. He's one of my. He's one of my Ebombs World videos that I can't get.

[B]

I was gonna say thinking of intrusive thoughts. I hate that, man. And that song will always be.

[A]

The song is definitely gon be haunting us for the rest of our lives.

[B]

Yeah, I got to remember that. Those three damn ships are. It's going to kill me. Hang on.

[A]

Santa Maria, Pinto, and Mayflower. Am I crazy?

[B]

It's not the Mayflower. The Santa Maria. The Not Pinto. That's a bean. Let me see the Pinta. You okay?

[A]

I was close to. You freak. You freak. That's a bean. You freak. I was one letter off.

[B]

Okay, but if you and I had a boat today, though, we would name it probably Beans, like the SS Pinto.

[A]

I would call it the SS Pinto and be like, get it, guys? And nobody would get it. And I'd be like, like the boat. And they'd be like, that's a bean. And I'd be like, maybe like the.

[B]

Boat with the pilgrims on it, or. Yeah.

[A]

Wait, what's the Pilgrim again? Anyway, it's fine. I feel like it's okay that we don't remember about Pilgrims, you know?

[B]

Yeah, I'm trying to. And what a Thanksgiving episode this is. Okay, so you're right.

[A]

But the fact that we did this after Thanksgiving is even stupider because it's like. It's not even gonna come out. Whatever. It comes out in December. Oh, gosh.

[B]

Just know that as Thanksgiving season entered for us, as it was upon us, the first thing Christine asked me was, what's a pilgrim?

[A]

I mean. And I still stand by it is what I say. And I'm glad you didn't tell me.

[B]

I don't want to know. I also don't know.

[A]

I don't know either.

[B]

The end of the year is coming around, and it's. It's a good time to celebrate a lot of things going on in the world, and it. It feels like a good time to step back and look at life in this moment and commemorate it with something beautiful, something sparkly.

[A]

Maybe if you're thinking of buying jewelry, there is no better place to do it than blue nile.com whether you're looking for a bit of special sparkle for yourself or you know, just imagine m if you were to gift me your wonderful co host a beautiful anniversary locket.

[B]

With my face in it.

[A]

Yeah, with your face in it. Obviously Blue now offers some of the highest quality standards in the industry at prices significantly below traditional retail.

[B]

If you have questions about what to get Blue Niles jewelry Experts are on hand 24, 7 via phone or chat. You also get 30 day returns and a diamond price match guarantee.

[A]

That's what we offer here too at and that's why you drink a diamond price match guarantee. I was looking for a new ring style when I was pregnant with Leona and I wanted like a very specific style of jewelry. And so I did reach out to several companies and I remember Blue Nile being very to the point knowledgeable. They also showed me the pricing right away which was very useful. Whereas some places kind of were hemming and hauling about it.

[B]

Go to blue nile.com to shop Blue Nile, the original online jeweler since 1999. That's blue nile.com blue nile.com so here's the thing. 1772, Columbus had already sailed the ocean blue about 300 years before.

[A]

Like, like 300 years off. It's really embarrassing.

[B]

And I wore a shirt yesterday that said Harvard on it, which is so funny.

[A]

Oh, that's bad, that's bad. I didn't. So at least I'm in the clear.

[B]

So for those 18 years 72 to 1790, this house was being built and it was built by a guy named Colonel I'm pretty sure Colonel one source said Captain. But every other source of Colonel by Colonel Charles Ridgely. And the like most bittersweet part of this is the house was finally built 18 years later and then Charles died.

[A]

But they always goes like that, right? Because it's like the second may have the money or like the year they finally have the money to like build a nice house. All of a sudden they're starting construction and then it takes 20 years and then they're dead because they're like 50. Yeah, in the 1700s it's just like.

[B]

Oh man, I think he did die by like 56. Yeah, you're right. See man, so he did not get to enjoy the 18 years of money he spent towards construction.

[A]

That's too bad.

[B]

And speaking of which, but I just thought this was a funny little thing. The carpenter that built the house, I want you to ask me how much they paid him for the build.

[A]

Oh, how much did they pay the Carpenter who built it.

[B]

Good question. So they paid. They paid him $6,000 in the 1700s, which is around 200 grand today. And also 17 gallons of rum.

[A]

That was like, I would love to see the negotiating on that. Like, I. I feel like they were 15 gal. No, I won't settle for anything less than 17.

[B]

I feel like they were like, oh, you do owe me more money. And he was like, yeah, I can't find any more cash in my wall. Will you take, like, 17 gallons of rum I've got in the back?

[A]

Was that good Costco, like, over. Over shipped Instacart. But he misunderstood what I ordered. Do you want to take 17 gallons of rum?

[B]

I just need, like, 17 shots of it, and I have gallons.

[A]

That's perfect.

[B]

Fun fact. Not so fun fact. Apparently he drank too many of those gallons in one sitting. And this carpenter ended up dying by drunk driving his own horse into the river.

[A]

No, that means his horse died. Probably. Maybe.

[B]

Probably. Maybe. But I didn't look it up because I didn't need to know.

[A]

Carriage. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't.

[B]

I like to think he was like. Like, cowboy riding it just for fun.

[A]

And the horse got away, and then he fell in the river, and the horse was like, what the did you think you were doing?

[B]

That's the hope.

[A]

That's. I like. I like that version better.

[B]

I feel like the horse was like, I'm dropping you off in the water. You can figure it out from here. And then. And then he didn't. Okay, so Charles Ridgely is the one who built this house. Then he ends up dying. He was able to afford this house. I mean, this is a massive house. It was the largest Georgian, like, Georgian architecture. It was the largest Georgian house around after the Revolutionary War, which Georgian, to me, just looks like older colonial houses. I don't know. I don't know the difference.

[A]

There's some of those in my neighborhood. And I'm like, oh, it's a nice example of Georgian architecture. Like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

[B]

I'm like, okay, it's a nice house. Great.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The way that he was able to afford this house is he got into iron working, and he ends up. It was. And it was right before the Revolutionary War, and then all of a sudden, they needed all of his ironworks operations for, like, helmets and artillery and weapons or smart guy bullets and so cannonballs. I think all the cannonballs were made by him in the area. And I think it's him being there and running this ironworks operation. The economy blew up in Baltimore, and that's how Baltimore became like a major city at the time. So he quite thrived from the Revolutionary War. And the mansion. Oh, right. The man. Sorry. The mansion. Because it was so big, it took 18 years to build. It was the largest private residence in the country at the time.

[A]

Although, remember, okay, so that's on him for dying because, like, he could have built it half the size and then lived there for 10 years. But no, he decided it had to be bigger, bigger, bigger. Then he died. Well, you know, that was gonna happen.

[B]

I will say the country was like 10 years old. So, like, he didn't really have a lot of competition in the largest private residence.

[A]

Such a good point. And also, what's the country at this point? Even just Baltimore country. Yeah, the country. I thought that didn't happen until 14. What was 1776.

[B]

Yeah. And he started. Actually, it was perfect timing for building a house and wanting to make sure you beat everyone else size wise. Because if the building started before the United States existed and only finished after the country existed, you had. While the country is being built, you had a contractor next to you going, oh, we could do it a little bigger. Right. Because I heard someone over there has a big house too.

[A]

Yeah. And like, I can just use this Elmer's glue. Right? There's no, like, laws that I have to actually make this thing stand up straight. Right. Like, it's. I can just cut corners.

[B]

You can use the needle. You just pop it with your teeth, and it's really sticky. So that'll do. Okay. So, yeah, the mansion took forever. And it was modeled after. After a castle in England.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

It had thousands of acres. One of my favorite rooms in the house is a snack and tea room.

[A]

No, I love that.

[B]

And apparently it had six state champion trees. Do you know what a champion tree is?

[A]

I mean, I'm assuming it has, like, it got like, a ribbon and some state fair, but I have no idea.

[B]

Kind of it. So a champion tree is the largest tree of its kind.

[A]

Remember that giant thing when we. That thing when we talked about mulberry bushes and got, like, really, sorry to say, in the weeds, but pun not intended. But remember when we got really in the weeds about, like, what a mulberry bush was and whether this was like a.

[B]

To this day, I'm more certain about a pilgrim than a mulberry bush, which.

[A]

I thought that was a tree. I thought that was a. And they would literally be in, like, the prison yard. I don't know. I have very vague memories of that episode. But I remember being very concerned that, like, this tree got beat out by some other tree with a blue ribbon. And I was very hurt on its behalf. So, okay, so it's a.

[B]

People listening. That was the episode where I was covering the origins. The spooky origins of nursery rhymes.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the mulberry bush. And that mulberry bush song, apparently, is a mulberry bush that's just sitting in a prison. And all the. And all the prisoners would just go around it to kill time.

[A]

There's nothing better to do. It's like the sad. That's probably one of the most haunting backstories.

[B]

Like, okay, just walking around a tree until I get to leave. But no. So a champion tree is the largest of its kind. So out of six different species of tree on his property, the largest of its kind happened to be on his.

[A]

Property, like, to this day. Because, like, how did they even know that? Did anybody go wander west and find out?

[B]

Like, that's exactly what I was thinking. Thank you.

[A]

Because, like, you could say that. And who's gonna test you on it?

[B]

Yeah. Back then, like, you could just say, like, oh, it's the biggest tree I've ever seen. So I guess that makes it the biggest.

[A]

Yep. It deserves accolades.

[B]

I guess I will say it is apparently taken very seriously these days. The state fun fact with the big. With the most champion trees is Florida, and then Virginia is second.

[A]

Really?

[B]

And they measure them based on their height, obviously, and then their crown spread.

[A]

Which is the bushy part.

[B]

The bushy part. And how far it reaches over and trunk circumference.

[A]

I love. I was going to say, you got to get the girth in there.

[B]

I love the girth, obviously. Obviously, I do before everyone else. So. Yeah. Six. Allegedly at the time. I don't know how true it was, though. The property also, to this day has multiple buildings on it. I mean, this was thousands of acres. So there was. It was. It basically looked like a little neighborhood.

[A]

He was being a little bit selfish with his, I guess, acquisition of property, but whatever.

[B]

There's also, like, one other person in the whole country. I think he, like, you know, I will say that very few sources talked about this, and I don't want to be one of those people that, like, sugarcoats over history. So I am going to say that of the multiple buildings that are still on the site, many are living spaces for enslaved people or were. Were. Again, very few sources talked about it, but one source was able to Give a number that in the property's history, over seven enslaved people work there. And we do know that some of the original owner's children were of color. So think about how that came to be. Anyway, I just didn't want to be one of the other sources that just like floats away from that.

[A]

Yeah, totally.

[B]

It's shocking how few historical places cover it.

[A]

That's like really upsetting fact. Yeah, I don't like that.

[B]

A lot of times I don't even know and. But if I. If I see it, I'll say it. I just very rarely even struck.

[A]

It doesn't even come across. Yeah.

[B]

But at the same time, if you think about it, I mean, this guy may be a fucking pilgrim at this point. I don't know.

[A]

I know, right? It's basically.

[B]

But he was building this massive plantation at the. At the turn of the literal sun of the turn of the countries, the turn of the country.

[A]

So, you know, we. I get it.

[B]

You push together. There is nothing my mom likes more than looking at my face. So one of the things that I recently got her was an Aura digital picture frame where you can upload all sorts of pictures. She picks the ones of me and it was one of her most recent presents. But I'm kind of thinking about getting my stepdad a second one for Christmas.

[A]

Okay. They're really fun too, especially because you can, like, when you gift it, you can already preload pictures on it, which is really cool. So when I, like when I gave mine to my parents, it was like, now turn on. Of course, instead of my face, they just want to see Leona. But it's really cool because like from afar you can keep adding photos.

[B]

Not only is it beautiful and super easy to use, but Aura is also the only digital photo frame with unlimited photo and video storage. So endless pictures of my face. Mom, are you listening? Are you listening? Are you listening? Plus you can personalize and preload like you said, an Aura frame with a gift message. Also, on top of everything else, it's easy to set up. It takes about two minutes to set up a frame using the Aura app and you get free unlimited storage. You can add unlimited photos and videos and invite as many people as you want to a frame.

[A]

I revealed I was pregnant through one to my to my blazes grandma by sending an ultrasound to her frame. For a limited time, visit aura frames.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling carver Matte frames by using promo code Drink at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Drink this. Exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so don't miss out. Terms and conditions apply.

[B]

So this. Like I said, the family's name was Ridgely. There are seven generations of Ridgelies who lived here back to back. They lived here from 1790 to 1948, which is such a wild time. Like, such a. Such a big range.

[A]

It feels like a big range. Yeah.

[B]

And how it got the name Hampton House is that before the Ridgeleys lived here, the land belonged to another guy he was related to. Like, Lord Baltimore. I'm not even gonna ask you if you know who that is.

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Oh, wait. Didn't they name a city after him in Maryland first? I know.

[B]

For a second, I felt it.

[A]

It felt really bad.

[B]

Baltimore.

[A]

It felt really bad. I'm glad we're moving on.

[B]

I will say, when I hear Lord Baltimore, all I think of is Ms. Baltimore crabs from Hairspray. So.

[A]

Oh, I think of Lord Byron, but I still don't know jack about him either, so I don't know what good that is.

[B]

How we made it is amazing.

[A]

I think Lord Byron was, like, very questionable dude, is what I know. I think maybe.

[B]

I think anyone with the name Lord, Including Lord the musician.

[A]

Oh, I think including the Lord.

[B]

Especially that fucking guy.

[A]

Especially the Lord.

[B]

Especially that guy. I got a few words for him.

[A]

So stupid.

[B]

So the guy who's related to Lord Baltimore, he originally owned this land before the ridges ever got there. And this piece of land is a part of. So much like, if you think the Ridgelies had a lot of acreage by owning this property, the Lord Baltimore guy had basically the entire state of Maryland, it seems. And this was just a sliver of his land.

[A]

Right. So.

[B]

But. But each part of his land that he owned, he somehow, like, found a way to insert the name Hampton into it. So he had Northampton, Oakhampton, and Hampton Court. And those were. Those were his properties. So this. This land we're talking about today, where the Hampton house sits, is on Northampton.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He ends up. It ends up being sold in the 1740s, about 300 years after Columbus, just so you know.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

And it gets sold for 600 pounds sterling, which, I did the math for you, that at the time was $750, but in today's world, that's about 50,000.

[A]

Okay. 600 pounds sterling.

[B]

I don't know what that means to this day. Please don't ask me.

[A]

But it sounds like they meant literal pounds of silver.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Not like pounds as in the British Currency, But I don't know.

[B]

I don't know either.

[A]

Maybe it didn't mean British. We were British back then. I don't know, man.

[B]

Yeah, Also that means, like, a pound of sterling is, like, essentially, like, around a dollar. A dollar for a. I think. I don't know. I don't know which pound they mean. All I know is it equates to 50 grand today.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The Ridgelies then bought. Bought it maybe for that 50 grand, and they built the mansion on it again on the part of the land called Northampton. So I'm assuming that they named it Hampton House as an homage to the original name, right?

[A]

That would make sense. Yeah.

[B]

I have to assume, because I saw one website where I was like, how did it get its name? And then it only told me, like, what feels like half the story, so.

[A]

Okay, we'll just fill in the blanks.

[B]

The first Ridgely, Colonel Ridgely who I mentioned, he. Their family fucking loves the name Charles, by the way. I'm so fucking over it. And they also love the name John because, remember, I told you there were seven generations of Ridgelies. It goes Charles, Charles, John, Charles, John, John. And I think another Charles. And then one of those Johns, Jekyll.

[A]

Hi, Jekyll. Hi. Hi, Jekyll.

[B]

And one of those Johns, by the way, had two sons, both named Charles.

[A]

So you got to get it. Give it a rest.

[B]

People like, try Edward or some other old name. Just like, come on, George. George. So the Ridgelies bought it. This is the first guy who owned it was a Charles. And on top of that, not only is he the first Charles of the many Charles to own this house, his father was also Charles, so he's technically Charles ii, but he's the first in house.

[A]

Chuck Junior.

[B]

Chuck junior. He actually did have a nickname, apparently in town called Charles the Merchant.

[A]

He was also so clever and original and catchy also and not at all.

[B]

Vague since we had our conversation about the word merchant last time. He was also apparently called Charles the Builder, Charles the Mariner. He just insert an occupation, and he.

[A]

Should have been Charles of all trade, something Jack of all. Like. They could have come up with so many better names than Charles the Merchant.

[B]

Charles the businessman, Charles the handyman.

[A]

Yeah, Charles the entrepreneur.

[B]

And his father, by the way, Charles number one who had nothing to do with this property. His name was Charles the Planter. Can you imagine? Like, you're a planter and your son's a builder. It sounds like we've really upgraded. So he was the one who ran the iron operations during the Revolutionary War. So he is very successful. That's how he can afford to build this thing. He dies right as it. As it's opened for the first time. And by the time he died, he owned like 25,000 acres of land. So that's what I'm saying. This place is fucking massive.

[A]

Right.

[B]

When he dies, his nephew tried to throw him the largest funeral any country had ever seen.

[A]

I'm so tired of these. I mean, come on, really, is it. You're just trying to one up each other now.

[B]

Like, we get it. You have money. Like you just get it. And also, again, you don't have to try that hard. This is a new country.

[A]

Also, he said he can't. You don't. He won't even know.

[B]

It's not like. And also, I don't know if he was trying to impress him to like get in the will, but spoiler alert, he ends up in the will. So maybe it worked. I don't know.

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

But he tried to throw the largest funeral. And then again, here's a source that gave me the first half of a very interesting story and then didn't tell me the rest. I don't know if how successful this funeral was.

[A]

Oh, I see. So we just don't know what happened. We just.

[B]

We just know that he wanted to.

[A]

There was a plan for a party.

[B]

There were concepts of plans, yes.

[A]

Right. Depending on like the level of ADHD and or other mental illnesses he had. Who knows if it ever happened? Like, we just don't know. There's no way to know.

[B]

I saw this is like so chronically online of me to say, but there was a tick tock I saw of another podcast and I don't know the name of this podcast, but I saw like the little clip float by. And I thought it was funny that they were saying every. The reason why our country has the most people with ADHD is because we are descendants of the people with the most ADHD from England. And they were all just like down to like, just get on a boat.

[A]

They're like, oh, bring the kids.

[B]

Like, I'll get on a boat. We'll figure it out later. That's fine. Let's just go. Let's just see what happens.

[A]

What'll be on the other side? We're pilgrims. Oh, it all makes sense. I'm getting it now. Okay.

[B]

It's all, all connecting. Anyway, so he wants to. This guy maybe had ADHD because he's like, the party I'm gonna throw for you when you die is insane. But then like, then he never hear.

[A]

About it, which actually is even smarter to just like talk big game about the party. And then when he's dead, be like, canceled, Sorry, I'm not feeling well.

[B]

Anyway, that same nephew did help fulfill part of the will, which was to build a family cemetery on the property. And then that original Charles who won the house is the first person to be buried there. He, the guy who died, he also gave his wife eight acres of like 25,000, by the way. Eight acres, quote, for a garden with as many outhouses as she thinks necessary.

[A]

Wow, that's thoughtful.

[B]

So she gets a bunch of outhouses and his nephew gets everything else, I guess.

[A]

Yeah. But she gets as many outhouses as she thinks is necessary.

[B]

So though that's true. You know what? She will be convenienced in that garden, I'll tell you.

[A]

Would that be. Wouldn't that be nice?

[B]

The wife, I guess she also was like the first in line to inherit the rest of everything, but I think she just didn't want to take care of a modeled after a castle building.

[A]

No.

[B]

And she was like, that's a lot of work. You have adhd, you might be better at this than I am. So here, nephew, you take the keys.

[A]

I'm going to go somewhere else into my outhouses.

[B]

For people who care and are near Maryland. Apparently she moved to a property called Auburn, which is now on the Towson State University campus. It's still there.

[A]

Oh, I wonder if that's haunted.

[B]

It sounds like it, but that's where she moved instead of the Hampton house. So the nephew now is the second owner of this house. His name is also Charles, of course.

[A]

Of course.

[B]

He was the 15th governor of Maryland and he with it, which comes into play later. But he's the governor of Maryland, he has 11 kids. And after him, descendants kept the house and the family for as long as possible. But that sometimes meant having to sell off pieces of the land or adding side hustles on the property just to make ends meet because it was so big, it was so hard to maintain. So like one time they opened a dairy and they like sold. Sold milk in the area. They had their Iron Charles, Iron Man Charles the milker.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

What else? They. Oh, they had an. An apple cider press where they would just press cider. That was. That sounds lovely.

[A]

That's nice.

[B]

So in 1948, I'm surprised they were able to survive through the depression with how much that thing cost. But I guess it sounds like they were struggling for money at this point. Like the money didn't make it all seven generations.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But they were still able to make it through the Depression. That's pretty impressive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So by 1948, it just finally became too expensive. And so one of Johns of the family line, he sold it to the Avalon foundation, and they gave the house over to the government, who made the property a national historic site. So they had a preservation society come in in the 70s who took care of it. They also did ghost tours in the 70s, so.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, I bet those were cray. I bet those were wild. I bet there was no, like, rules, you know?

[B]

No. Just.

[A]

Who knows what they were doing.

[B]

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll and.

[A]

A couple of ghosts at the ghost hunt. Yeah.

[B]

And I will say the turn of the decade, though, in 1979, the Park Service took it over from the preservation Society originally handling it. And the Park Service really whipped that thing. And they were like, no sex, drugs, rock and rolls, and ghosts.

[A]

Oh, I see. Okay.

[B]

They took over the mansion and the surviving 60 acres used to be 25,000 acres, but now we have 60. So they were really slowly selling off each piece of land just to keep this thing moving. And they do not like the idea that this is haunted. The Park Service denies that the ghosts exist altogether.

[A]

Lame.

[B]

I know. However, here are the listed ghosts.

[A]

Okay, good.

[B]

Managing finances can feel complicated and time consuming, but it does not have to be because Rocket Money simplifies everything, making it so easy to see exactly what's happening with your finances, track your spending, and give you full control of all of it right from your phone.

[A]

Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money, thank you for saving me so much moolah over the years. I appreciate it.

[B]

You can see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going. For any subscriptions you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them with a few taps. I mean, that's the amount of times that I have realized that I still subscribe to something. I. It's been bad. Um, and thank God, with Rocket Money, I don't have to worry about that.

[A]

Well, yeah, and then you just click, and they're like, handle. And you're like, oh, I didn't even need to talk to anyone or a chat bot or anything. I mean, it's really great.

[B]

No phones necessary for Christine's phone anxiety.

[A]

It's about time. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

[B]

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com Drink. That's RocketMoney.com Drink. Drink. RocketMoney.com Drink. So, I'm sure there are several other spirits here that we're not going to cover. I mean, there's literally, again, 700 enslaved people lived here, right? Then there's the several relatives of the Ridgeleys who grew up here or would visit often. The carpenter who drunk drove his horse. There's.

[A]

There's a lot of people here. Sorry.

[B]

If you see me, a phantom, a lady in white is walking through. Remember when we thought Juni was a.

[A]

Lady gendering my cat? You.

[B]

You know what? In the first six months of that cat's life, I was properly gendering the cat. So back when Junior was a she. Her.

[A]

I don't know about that. Remember when I told you on the podcast that Juniper was changing his pronouns and you were like, what the.

[B]

Before me? Hang on.

[A]

Yeah, no, it was definitely after you. It was like, oh, you're changing your pronouns. Same with my cat.

[B]

Cat. Sweet little kitty cats. Oh, my God. I have to tell you, Christine, you've heard of Spark Paws, right?

[A]

No.

[B]

It's a. This is not an ad, by the way. I just. I just love them.

[A]

That would be such a good segue, though.

[B]

Such a good.

[A]

That was mad.

[B]

Juni is a paid actor. No, Spark. Spark Paws is a website where you can get matching, like, sweatshirts with your dog.

[A]

Stop it.

[B]

I have. It's been on my radar for a very long time. I'm just.

[A]

I can't believe you've never told me about this. This is. I can't believe the world hasn't told me about this quite yet.

[B]

I will tell you. I have bought sweatshirts from that place for myself and just didn't get the dog one because I don't have one. But I'll tell you, if you get one, sensory wise, the softest, butteriest, easily one of the softest sweatshirts I've ever owned. Yeah, okay.

[A]

Sparkpaws. Are you listening? We'd love to work with you.

[B]

I guess I only mention it because yesterday, Allison and I were out and we saw a dog and their owner in sparkpaws hoodies. They were in Tie Dye Green hoodies together.

[A]

Come on.

[B]

And this little puppy dog was the sweetest, sweetest little puppy. I've ever seen in my entire life. He did the nose boops. He gave tiny little licks.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

He, like, immediately flopped over and showed his tummy. Oh, my God.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

And I remember thinking, life is worth living. I just was like. He was just this sweetest little puppy.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

His name was Moose.

[A]

Oh, God. That's a good name.

[B]

Anyway, I'm looking at their Christmas lineup.

[A]

Right now, so don't worry.

[B]

I'm not kidding. I promise you. I promise you. You've never felt a softer sweatshirt? This is not an ad. I swear to God it's not an ad. But, like, it's really. If anyone wants a sweatshirt, whether or not you have a pet, as someone who has done this, please go look.

[A]

At one, because I'm so intrigued. Okay.

[B]

It's a dream.

[A]

Yeah. There's a human hoodie and a dog hoodie. I love this. And they're having a sale, so let's get on it.

[B]

If we do ever do an ad for them, just know that it was because of this conversation.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah. That would be way too outrageous if it was some other reason.

[B]

Okay, where were we? Sorry. I saw your cat, and then I thought about that little puppy.

[A]

Oh, now I can't. Other people. Just puppies. My Lord.

[B]

Let's see. Where were we? Oh, about the ghost. I was about to really get into the ghost. Okay, the first ghost I'm gonna tell you about, her name is Priscilla, and she was one of the wives who lived in the house. She was married to a Charles, and one time there was a family member at the house, and she heard a faint knocking at the door of the mansion, which I imagine the faint knocking of a mansion door is.

[A]

Yeah, I was gonna say probably because she's 30 rooms away, but. Okay.

[B]

When she got to the door, I guess they didn't have peepholes because she just opened the door for anyone storing it on open. And it was this, like, old, frail woman in 1900 or 1800s garb. Like, what year was this? I don't know. It said an 1800s garb, as if that's supposed to be shocking. So let's say this was in the 90s.

[A]

That's what I was wondering. I was like, is that. Was that bat? Was that.

[B]

Was that. Was that scary?

[A]

Alarming? Yeah, maybe that was actually like, oh, hey, Doris. You know, it was like, girl, you.

[B]

Are ahead of your time with this dress.

[A]

Girl, we told you to stop dressing like that.

[B]

So they found this frail old woman, and I'm assuming old clothes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just staring at her and not saying a single thing.

[A]

That's nice.

[B]

The woman is like, do you want to come in? Are you okay? What's going on? And then the woman vanished.

[A]

Okay, that's weird.

[B]

And I guess after enough descriptions, it's been discovered that this woman was Priscilla Ridgeley, wife of Charles Ridgely. And people still see her in the mansion, I guess. Oh, my God.

[A]

I thought Priscilla was the one opening the door. I'm so.

[B]

No, sorry. No, I made that. Confused.

[A]

No.

[B]

Priscilla's the ghost, but I guess, like a vampire once she was invited in that one time. People now see her in the mansion all the time.

[A]

Well, what did you think was gonna happen, people? You know, I told you not to open the door, and you don't listen to me, and look what happens.

[B]

So people now see her in her either really old and ugly or really slamming 1800s dress.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

And she's heard, like, because she. It's a long dress. You can hear it, like, sweeping across the street.

[A]

Yuck, that's freaky. Imagine, like. Like coming down the hallway.

[B]

Forget, like, close handheld. Like this. Like this. Like this. Everybody.

[A]

The Spark Paws hoodie is coming towards you.

[B]

We all know if I were a ghost, there would. I would never just be a black shadow.

[A]

Your glowing wardrobe would be so annoying. You'd be, like, in a different outfit every day. And then everyone would be like, is it the same ghost? And I'd be like, it is.

[B]

I would be bioluminescent for sure.

[A]

Remember adhd?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ghosts can have it, too.

[B]

I'm still waiting for there. For someone to have a ghost of a shadow figure who forgets that he's naked in front of you and, like, has to, like, cover himself and then runs away.

[A]

Wasn't that a thing in the White House?

[B]

Oh, no, no. What you're thinking of is the guy.

[A]

Who Winston Churchill was like, yeah, he.

[B]

Saw a ghost while he was in the bath. But I would like to see a ghost who forgot his ghost clothes. Oh.

[A]

And is, like, not a kid.

[B]

And then we're both scared.

[A]

You know, Right then I'm really scared. Yeah, that's true.

[B]

That ghost also has to go to bed not being able to stop thinking about me because I'm already not gonna stop thinking about him. But now we're both traumatized.

[A]

You just flip the script. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay. And here's.

[A]

I think maybe he will not be invited in. By the way, if he's standing there naked, I'm not gonna say, well, you want to come on in? Like, no, yeah, let me give you. People better listen to me. Don't open the door. If there's a nude man there, certainly don't invite him inside.

[B]

Oh, my. Yes, yes.

[A]

That's good advice, I think.

[B]

Famous, famous words.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Another time in the 1920s or 1930s, we're unsure. One of the. Oh, there was a woman who I guess was a friend of the family, and she had been told to stop by whenever she wants. Or I think they knew that she liked historical homes.

[A]

She had seems like something. A lady makeup. Like, oh, no, they. I know the family. They told me I can come anytime I want. Like, okay, lady property.

[B]

It works. I'm sure. Because. And also, this was the era where people just popped by. It's true.

[A]

So I don't know, the boundaries weren't quite there yet.

[B]

Part of me wishes we still popped by each other's houses, but then in. In actuality, I'm like, oh, never mind.

[A]

One time you said that in front of me and Blaze. And that night, Blaze was like, is m going to come over to our house in the middle of the night? And I was like, honestly, maybe so.

[B]

At this point, I have earned that.

[A]

Well, yeah, this is way at the beginning when Blaze was like, so what's the deal? And I was like, it seems like Emma's very serious about just occasionally popping by some places.

[B]

Like, okay, and then you moved across the country.

[A]

I know. Well, maybe we should do a little. Little puzzle piecing, you know, figure it out.

[B]

Well, I'm saying I think I scared you away. So that's.

[A]

That's. That's maybe it. Maybe not. Not.

[B]

So a. She popped by and this butler answered the door and said, oh, the family's not home. But he would give her a quick tour since I guess she'd gotten the initial okay from them.

[A]

He's like, gullible fucking butler.

[B]

Well, so I guess he gave, like, really very insightful information about the property. He was telling her about the family and told her different stories about all of the Ridgelies that have lived here. And so when she tried to tip him, he refused to take it. And then days later, when she called to thank the family for like, having such, like, a knowledgeable butler, they were like, we don't have a butler.

[A]

I wish we had a butler, but we don't have a butler.

[B]

Do you imagine if it was just someone else who also broke in and now he has to, like, play the game now?

[A]

I'd be worried there's a man in my house. But I guess. I guess maybe on that property, a ghost butler. Just makes sense, I guess.

[B]

They. The. The woman who had stopped by described the butler to them, and she said, oh, my God. That was our last butler, Tom. He died 30 years ago.

[A]

Oh, shit. He's still doing his. Doing his job, man.

[B]

Yeah, that's creepy.

[A]

That's very creepy. To be like, get a whole tour from somebody now.

[B]

That's an intrusive thought. I would be like, what if I am just working mode for the rest of.

[A]

I would just be like, wow, okay, who's real? Who's not?

[B]

Yeah. I really feel for Tom. I feel bad for him. In the 1800s, remember I said that one of the Ridgeleys was a governor? Governor, yes. So I guess he was friends with other governors, and one of his friends was this guy named Governor Swan. And Governor Swan had a daughter, which, finally we can agree on the world's worst name. Oh, this is Cygnet. C, Y, G, N, E, T. Oh.

[A]

Yeah, that's a name.

[B]

And I will say this is a fun fact. I almost am wondering if this isn't her name and, like, the Internet created it because their last name is Swan. Her first name is Signet, which apparently means young swan.

[A]

Yeah, that's a baby swan.

[B]

In my mind, I'm like, that's either really precious, or people have just labeled her Signet as, like, Jane Doe.

[A]

I wonder if that was just her nickname. Like, she's just a baby swan. We call her Signet. I don't know.

[B]

Well, at any. At some point, Signet contracts some sort of mysterious illness, probably tb. And the Ridgelys offer Signet to move onto the property because of all their open fields and fresh air.

[A]

Here, use this field.

[B]

Use this field. My wife is in the garden with her outhouse a few days.

[A]

There's so many outhouses. Don't worry.

[B]

One morning, apparently, she woke up after having a really bad dream where a man with a scythe was chasing her through a field, screaming that he was going to kill her. And by the way, a man with a scythe is the Grim Reaper.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By the way, to cheer her up, the family threw her a party. I like how they're like, what? I can't imagine having a bad dream. And then Allison throws me a party.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

They'd be like, okay, get over it. It's fine. You're right. You had it.

[A]

Yeah. I feel like that's an interesting reaction to have. I feel like I'd be like, but please don't throw me a party. I'm just had A bad dream. That's it. Like, please. Oh, no. Balloons again. Like, we don't need a party after every fucking bad dream I have.

[B]

Can you imagine if you then go to somebody else's house and you're like, oh, I had a bad dream. Sorry. Please don't throw me a party. They'd be like, why would we?

[A]

I wasn't planning on it, you weirdo.

[B]

Well, so anyway, she has a bad dream. They decide that they're gonna throw a party. Maybe she was just inconsolable. And they were like, we'll give you whatever you want. Shut the fuck up.

[A]

If you stop talking about the man with the scythe, we'll throw you apart. Party.

[B]

Yeah. So when people start arriving, Signet never came downstairs. And remember, she had that mysterious illness. As I cough. So that night, the woman who was throwing the party for them, for Signet went upstairs to be like, hey, your friends are coming in. Like, get ready. Or are you coming downstairs soon? And they found Signet sitting at the vanity holding her hairbrush, slumped over, dead. Dead.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

And so, awkward ending to that party. Having to go tell everyone, time to go.

[A]

Oh, no. And now you have to throw a party for all the people who are set.

[B]

You know what? This actually might have been the largest funeral that the country had ever seen. Took a few generations, but we got that.

[A]

I'm not meaning to laugh, but, like, oh, my God. This is just that. Talk about this feels like a Modern Family episode, but, like, escalated. It, like, escalated out of control. Like, let's.

[B]

You know, it would be Cam, too. Cam would. Right.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Dead at the vanity, upstairs.

[A]

Foibles, you know, and it's like, oh, gosh. I mean, this is just ridiculous. And then they had to. Oh, man. All of this is just making me cringe a little bit. It just feels like a lot.

[B]

Well, to this day, people now see Signet in her room in her dress, brushing her hair, like, getting ready for her party.

[A]

That's. Wait, that's okay. Well, that's really fucking sad.

[B]

People also hear music playing in her bedroom, and they don't know if it's, like, music she was listening to to get ready. Or maybe it was music that was playing downstairs when she passed. People now hear harpsichord, specifically music.

[A]

Oh, you're probably right that it's, like.

[B]

Music connected to the story.

[A]

Yeah, that's sad.

[B]

Is a harpsichord the same as a harp?

[A]

No, a harpsichord, I believe, is like a piano.

[B]

Why wouldn't you just call it a fucking piano? Why would you call it that's? Like, that's like saying, I'm going to play the triangle. I call it guitar. Like what? We already have one of those. What are you talking about?

[A]

Okay, well, it's like, it's like a harp that's shaped like a piano. Like you hit the key and it like strums a harp instead of like. Okay, you know what? I don't know. Stop asking me questions.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, I play the xylophone. I'm gonna call it the drum because it looks like a drum. But we haven't had one of those yet, so.

[A]

Oh God.

[B]

[e-mail] It doesn't matter if you're in a long term relationship or one that is still new and exciting. That's monogamous, open, or just taking some time with yourself even fun love.com is where you can explore a variety of possibilities.

[A]

Yes, funlove.com is a leading retailer of sensual, health and wellness products offering a wide array of premier brands of toys, lingerie and accessories. It's sort of like a one stop shop.

[B]

They take pride in curating a selection of the highest quality products offering everything from soft and sexy to hot and and spicy. So you're sure to find what you're looking for@fun love.com.

[A]

Let them help you discover, indulge and satisfy your desires. There is so much on this website, folks. You will find something that you appreciate, I promise. Come and find the vibe you're looking for to make love fun by visiting funlove.com and if you live in Arizona or Colorado, lucky duck, you get to check out one of their 18 store locations.

[B]

For a limited time. Save 30% off your first order. Just use the code drinkunlove.com Go to funlove.com and use code DRINK at checkout. To save 30 off your first order order. Visit funlove.com today. Another or one person who had a specific encounter there was a former park ranger because remember the park rangers are now in charge of this property. One like former park ranger when he used to work there, I guess he was often the one that was requested to go check out the property after like someone had paranormal activity.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Which I love.

[A]

Which he didn't believe in because he's the parks. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

It's interesting that they deny activity but also they have like a man on the ground in case someone ever has a report.

[A]

I wonder if he's like the most staunchly anti ghost one. So they're like you go do it then Bill. If you're so fucking convinced there's no ghosts. Every time something happens. Why don't you get on the ground and go check it out? And you know what? I mean? He's like.

[B]

I would think it's the opposite where, like, he's the only park ranger, like, desperate to talk about the ghost. And they're like, look, we'll throw you a bone. Just go see if there's a ghost.

[A]

Yeah, he's just the intern. He just wants to talk about ghosts. And they're like, just get out of here. Of the office.

[B]

Well, so when he worked there, he had to actually stay. They, like, hired him as, like, additional security one time for the house because a needlepoint exhibit was in town.

[A]

I mean, listen, I'm in.

[B]

Yeah, and so they needed security for the needlepoint exhibit.

[A]

There's a lot of sharp objects. Em, come on.

[B]

You know what? You could get stabbed. Someone could.

[A]

And honestly, imagine all these. All these passionate ladies under one room. I mean, come on.

[B]

Yeah, it's. Their yarn will be flying for sure.

[A]

Things will go wrong. There's no yarn in needlepoint. Now, let's not be ridiculous.

[B]

Thread.

[A]

I think it's called thread. Now, I don't actually know what it's called, but I think. I mean, actually, I'm not.

[B]

It's like guitars and harps, you know?

[A]

No, but I think it's actually called. No, I'm serious. And you're gonna think I'm making that up. Yeah.

[B]

We also already had floss. Why are we.

[A]

So Anyway, but I think maybe we named floss after the thread kind.

[B]

Dental floss.

[A]

Exact. That's it. You nailed it. You got there. I didn't get it till that. Yes. Dental floss. It's like.

[B]

Would a harp accord be like piano Harp?

[A]

A harp, Piano, or dental. Oh, yeah. Piano harp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like dental dam. Well, okay, let's talk about something else now.

[B]

Yeah, interesting.

[A]

I'm thinking. Now I'm thinking king.

[B]

Okay, so he needed to be extra security, so he stayed at the mansion while it was having this exhibit. And so he stayed at the mansion. He was staying on the third floor. And the room next to him had a bunch of hooks on the wall that were holding, like, old racehorse harnesses. The family was into racehorsing because of course they were. Of course. And I guess this is an actual quote from this park ranger. He said, we had just laid down to. To attempt to sleep when I heard what sounded like footsteps entering the room next to ours. There was a sound as if someone had taken their hand and Run it down the wall of horse harnesses, causing them to swing on the pegs. This was followed by footsteps exiting the room. That feels like an older brother. Like they come in just to piss you off and then leave.

[A]

They're just like, touch your stuff. I touched everything. You know, and then walk out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's like you heard more like her brother. Yeah. You heard footsteps go in and then leave. And the only difference is that all your Is being moved around apparently, or something. The park ranger heard the sound of these horse ra. These horse harnesses swinging around, jumped out of bed. He ran to the hallway and looked into the room, and the harnesses were still swinging on the hooks. And right after that, a grandfather clock, which had not worked in a century, began to chime.

[A]

Ew, sorry. That was so loud. Oh, that's unpleasant.

[B]

So he was like that, and he left. Other than that, doors, of course, open and close, latch and unlatch. The apparently latches lifting is like a big thing there. That happens a lot. People will hear chains hitting walls, which.

[A]

Oh, maybe it's that horse harness thing.

[B]

Maybe it is.

[A]

Maybe for this thing.

[B]

Apparently the bar that, like the iron bar that opens the great hall is heard opening itself. So, like, the great hall just, I guess, opens itself up for the gun.

[A]

For this poor security guard. He's like, I just. The needle pointers. It's not even about them anymore.

[B]

You know what? Maybe that's why they need more security, because now there's, like, new energy in the house or something. Yeah.

[A]

And things keep opening and.

[B]

Yeah, but the park rangers would never admit that, of course.

[A]

No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.

[B]

So the. Oh, and then one time, this was like a major thing, is that a display rack got knocked over, but apparently not just knocked over, but everything, like, flew off of this display rack. The entire room was a mess after this display rack had finally been perfectly pieced together. And then every item just went flying across the room.

[A]

What could that be?

[B]

I don't know. Another little brother move for sure.

[A]

Yeah. Like this. Starting to tick t me right off.

[B]

You know, Freaking to.

[A]

Freaking to is what I'll tell you. Yes.

[B]

One especially weird thing is that people have heard the sound of a chandelier crashing. When there's no chandelier or there's no chandelier crashing at the very least. But people will hear it smashing to the ground. And when that's. When that's heard, apparently it's a bit of a harbinger for death. That's. It's a Bit of an omen. Because anytime someone has heard a chandelier crashing, it predicts the upcoming death of the wife of the owner of the house.

[A]

Of, like, the current owner of the current owner.

[B]

Can you imagine, like, every time the chandelier rattled at all, you'd go, oh, my God.

[A]

Oh, my God. Imagine an earthquake comes through, and you're like, this is the end. I mean, oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.

[B]

Apparently, one of the wives heard the crash, and within 24 hours was.

[A]

So you hear it too? Like, as the wife, you would hear it.

[B]

I guess she heard it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know. I don't know. It seems like there were, like, the source. I read. If I'm reading it correctly, it sounds like this happened to five of the wives of seven generations.

[A]

That's gotta be unsettling every single time. Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I can't. I would just be like, get rid of all the chandeliers.

[A]

I'd be like, I know a loophole. It's called let's not get married, but pretend we're married. Then they can't kill me.

[B]

How about you buy me a different mansion and I'll live there? Al.

[A]

Yeah, that's. I'll live in the outhouse for a few years until we're past this.

[B]

And part of me is like, was, is that supposed to be scary, or is that, like, some ghost being, like, a homegirl being, like. Just wanted to give you a heads up. It's coming, right? Like, we're watching.

[A]

Is it the guy with the scythe and he, like, cut the chandelier down with his.

[B]

Oh, wait.

[A]

And then, remember, she saw the scythe guy and then she died.

[B]

Oh, that's true. Yeah. And she was just a little girl, too.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Her name was Signet. I could never forget. Don't worry.

[A]

That's right. I knew that.

[B]

What was her name? It's the.

[A]

Okay, but I'm gonna feel so sad if there's a Signet out there listening and feels like we are bullying their name, because I think it's a cute name. I'll be on the side of Signet. That's great for me. If. If. If there is someone out there named Signet, I want you to know out there that I actually do like the name. And if you're a Scorpio, I'm also fine with that. I feel like I need to.

[B]

That's a lot of.

[A]

I need to make you understand something.

[B]

Brown on your nose. Christine. That's weird.

[A]

No, I know, but it's like, I. I Have to balance out. Out all the anger.

[B]

I will say the one hatred that.

[A]

You bring to the table.

[B]

The one thing I liked about the name Signet is when written out, it looks like the word cyber. And I do like that. Doesn't the cy. My first thought is I want to pronounce, like, cyber, I guess. Yeah, you know what? Sorry. You're right.

[A]

It has two.

[B]

I'm wrong. Therefore, there's actually zero reasons why I like the name. How about that iPhone?

[A]

Now who's brown nosing? Oh, well, it looks like cyber. Okay, sure.

[B]

That was my first thought when I first saw it. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And then I heard it was pronounced signet, and I went, oh, never mind.

[A]

So like it anymore.

[B]

When one of the owners of the house, one of the Charles, when he was out of town, a. So the. The chandelier sound didn't happen for him. But when he died and he was not actually in the home, he died somewhere else. The caretaker of the house found out about his death because they heard the sound of a phantom carriage coming home, and they heard bells on the carriage. They heard horses running up to the house as if the coach was approaching. And when they looked out the window, they saw nothing. Nobody was nearby. But the next day, they heard of Charles death. So it sounds like the women get, like, preemptively warned, but then.

[A]

Right.

[B]

At least one of the owners of the house still found a way to let them know that he had died. Geez.

[A]

I mean, it really feels like there's a lot of, like, grim reaper energy at this place. Like, they're always kind of, like, letting you know that death is lurking. You know, like they're. It's just.

[B]

You're never alone. Yeah. And of course, the park service claims that it's not haunted. One of them, literally, when asked by a reporter, said, we don't discuss it. So sounds like they actually do think it's haunted and they just don't want it.

[A]

Seems like they can't. Yeah, they probably. Probably can't avoid it at a certain point. Yeah.

[B]

Anyway, that is the Hampton house.

[A]

That is something else. The. The. The omens of death are. I don't know, give me a little bit of the creeps. But would you want to know that you were about to die? I guess it's a stupid question. I don't know.

[B]

I think about that all the time. I think about that all the time. Yeah. I don't know. I think. I think it would certainly ruin my quality of life while I Had for the last. A mess all the time. Think. Even if I had only one piece of information, like, oh, this is how you die, then I'd be terrified of every moment I was nearer that thing.

[A]

I totally agree. I don't think that. Talk about intrusive thoughts. That's a lot of people's intrusive thoughts, like, what's going to kill me? So I think maybe it's top. You're probably right. It's probably safer to not even go there.

[B]

I will say I have intrusive thoughts about. Or what my. My version of it. I guess I've told you about this before, I think, but my therapist has told me about that I am constantly in a state of pre grief, because I am. Oh, good.

[A]

That sounds really bad.

[B]

But I think that's one of the reasons why when people pass away, I have a really weird reaction to it. I don't seem to respond the same way people do. And I think it's because I'm always constantly prepared for it to happen. And then when it does, I'm like, okay, that's exactly what happened, what I saw coming. But I'm so like, I. And I guess in that way that's an intrusive thought, because I do. I am constantly assuming when I see people, I'm like, oh, this is the last time for sure. Like, I just. Yeah, I'm always thinking that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Anyway, people look up pre grief because it's rocking my shit right now.

[A]

Well, I gotta look that up later because I'm having some tummy aches now. Okay, I have a story for you today. This is the story of Sarah Lee Stern. And it takes place in Neptune City, New Jersey, and it is on the Jersey shore, your favorite place.

[B]

I love her in the world. And besides the Hamptons, look, I. I'm a Gemini, okay? We have a lot of things going on.

[A]

Sarah and her parents, Carla and Michael Stern, were well known and well liked in town. Sarah was just like every other kid in town. Very happy, very social. Kind of like they described the town. I listened to the Dateline episode. So when I say they, I mean, Keith Morrison described the town as like a picturesque little village. I don't know how. I don't know how he did it, but he basically said, like, all the kids, you know, would go to each other's houses for pool parties and talk about, like, just dropping by. This seems like this kind of neighborhood. Neighborhood. Okay.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

So all the kids knew each other, you know, etc. And one of her best friends was her Neighbor, Carly Draper. So Sarah was passionate and creative. She was an artist. So by seventh grade, there was this boy named Liam McAtasney who had transferred to Sarah's school, and they immediately bonded, and Liam became one of Sarah's best friends. And fun fact, Liam had a twin brother named Seamus. So very Irish. I'm. I'm assuming streaming.

[B]

How do you say that? Seamus with the last name.

[A]

Oh, Seamus McAtasney. Yeah, it's like an MC, you know.

[B]

That'S a. A1 search only on Facebook, I'll tell you.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. That's an easy, easy stock on cyber stalking situation.

[B]

That's what everyone hopes for when you're dating a toxic boy. It's like, oh, let me see. Let me just do one quick goog.

[A]

It's not a Smith, is it can't be a Smith. I don't have time for that today. I have things to do. So in high school, Liam became close with another one of Sarah's best friends named Preston Taylor. So Sarah was an athlete. She played softball and some other sports, but she was more drawn to the arts. She always loved visual arts, but in high school, she became really into drawing and photography, and she had just like, sketchbooks upon sketchbooks of colorful illustrations, and she would go out into nature with her camera and, you know, like that thing we would do back in, like, the 2000s, which is so cringy. And I feel bad that I'm even talking about it, because I am. Imagine that she's probably cringy about it, but, like, where you'd, like, set a timer on your digital camera and then, like, take a photo yourself. Yeah. Oh, so she did a lot. She did that kind of thing, like self portraits. Probably a lot artsier than mine were. And unfortunately. Well, I will also add that I got a. This little tidbit from the Dateline as well, that her dad described her as a miracle child because her. His wife believed she could not get pregnant. And so when Sarah came along, they were, like, totally shocked and excited and thrilled. And so Carla gave birth to Sarah, and this was their miracle baby. But When Sarah was 16, in 2013, her mother died of cancer. And so this was really hard. But despite her grief, instead of, like, turning inward like a lot of people do, she kind of went outward and started, like, reaching out to people and getting close with her grandma and, you know, trying to forge bonds, ones where the. Her mother had, you know, once been when she was alive. She often told her friends she practiced something called reckless optimism, which I really I just like the sound of that. She called it the unapologetic hope that things will work out even when it may seem naive to others. And she had that kind of theme throughout her artwork as well. And when she graduated from Neptune High School, she began studying at Brookdale Community College and lived at home with her dad and her beloved dog, Buddy. In her free time, she kept making art. She would still hang out with all her childhood friends from town. Liam and Preston also stayed nearby after high school, and the two of them actually moved into an apartment together. And so everyone was still kind of in this, like, tight knit circle, even though they had graduated from high school. But as the years went on, Sarah and her friend, Sarah's friends, and her dad kind of started to notice that she was getting restless, like, in the small town. And she went up to Toronto for vidcon and got to meet Jenna Marbles. And after. I know the dream. And then after that, she fell in love. This sounds familiar. With Canada. And really wanted to move to Toronto.

[B]

I thought you're gonna say fell in love with Jenna Marbles. I was like, I mean, it sounds.

[A]

Like she was already in love with Jenna Marbles. She's a step ahead of us. They got to give each other a hug.

[B]

Oh, so jealous.

[A]

If only. But, yeah, she. She became really into the idea of possibly moving to Canada, you know, someday. Sure. And she didn't necessarily have the plans yet. Her dad was like, you're still figuring things out. And she was like, I know, dad, but, like, this is my plan.

[B]

You understand me?

[A]

You don't get it.

[B]

I didn't take a timed selfie enough in Canada for you to understand. All right.

[A]

Yeah, you wouldn't get it. Okay. Jenna and I are great friends and maybe lovers now, and I'm moving up to. Oh, gosh. Okay. So anyway, she wanted to make sure that when she went to Canada, which she really planned to do, that she had the money for it. And, like, she just didn't have that yet, being 19 years old. So Sarah's family owned a second property. And one day, Sarah was over at the other house, and she was just going through, like, her mom's old stuff and kind of like, some nostalgic stuff. And she found a shoe box full of cats cash.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

This box had tens of thousands of dollars in it.

[B]

Oh, my God. How big can a box. How small can a box be and still have thousands of dollars in it?

[A]

Well, it sounds like a shoebox, so.

[B]

I wonder how many bucks, like, if you took the biggest buck, like, A hundred dollar bill. How many fit in a shoebox? And then that's how much money you can fit in a shoebox.

[A]

Well, it depends on what size shoe you. You are.

[B]

Okay, you're right. Well, no, I feel like there's a standard shoe box size, right? Or no, I don't.

[A]

I mean, maybe, but I'm sure some like a size 11, probably different than. I mean, maybe not.

[B]

You know, I just always forget that.

[A]

Or if you're buying boots versus, like, combat boots versus heels or flats. Some of them are skinny. I don't know.

[B]

In my mind, it's like a Converse shoe box.

[A]

But how many bills fit in a. Oh, my God. Let's see what people asked. A money, gun, a wallet, a briefcase. That's an interesting one.

[B]

Oh, that is.

[A]

How many bills fit in a shoebox? Oh, people have asked this. Okay. Oh, 7,400 bills.

[B]

7,400. 7,400. So then add two zeros. So that's. That's 740,074.

[A]

Wait. Yeah, you're right. What? Really?

[B]

Wow. You could have literally almost a million dollars on shoebox in bills. That's crazy.

[A]

This is literally a New York Times article. 7, 400 bills fit in shoebox. A detective proves in court.

[B]

Hell yeah. All right.

[A]

Can you imagine, though, sitting there and he's like, One, two, seven, four hundred.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

74. 7,400. Boom, boom. Yeah, yeah, seven, yeah, seven, seven hundred and forty thousand.

[A]

Jesus. Okay, so a lot.

[B]

So if someone ever tells you they found a million dollars in a shoebox, they are lying.

[A]

A million. Yeah. Then they're lying.

[B]

Just so you know.

[A]

Or. Or they're exaggerating. Or they bought some nice winter boots and have a bigger shoebox than most people.

[B]

Right? Yeah. They have to have a very specific shoebox.

[A]

Okay, right. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Anyway. Oh, my God. Here's a YouTube video. It's suggesting. Now, will $1 million fit in a Nike shoebox? Find out. Okay.

[B]

Can you imagine having $1 million and then also running a YouTube account where you just pull all that money out of your bank and then go fit it in a fucking shoebox.

[A]

Okay. I think it's probably not a real million so that they're just like the size and weight.

[B]

I was like, that feels like a Mr. Beast or something where it's like, here's a. I love.

[A]

It does. I know, I know, but like, oh, my God.

[B]

Sorry. I think like a 12 year old.

[A]

You would be that teenager.

[B]

I know.

[A]

You would be that teenager. Like Holy crap. He has a million dollars. I should sign up for his online course on how to be an influencer.

[B]

Yeah, he needs my money for only.

[A]

16 payments of my mom's credit card. I can, I can learn. Oh, gosh. Okay. I'm so sorry. Rewind. Okay, so anyway, she wants to move to Canada one day. She's just at her parents other house. Remember her mom has passed of cancer when she was, when Sarah was 16. She's at her parents other property and she finds a shoebox amongst her mother's old stuff and it looks like her mom had been hiding some cash. Not hiding, but like kind of just sitting aside. Yes. Putting it aside for her, for her daughter.

[B]

Would you take it? Like if you didn't know it was for you and it was just your dead moms in a house that no one left love said. Yeah, I would take it too.

[A]

I mean if it were, if I, if it were in a box that my mom of my mom's stuff and she was dead, I'd be like, okay, this is mine now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, unless there's like some reason not to. But I mean, I wouldn't like go buy a. I wouldn't like go put it in another shoe box or like put it on YouTube, but I would probably put it in a bank or something. I don't know.

[B]

Okay, cool.

[A]

Or I'd like make a TikTok. Like I just found the craziest thing inside my walls, you know, I don't know. What would you do you take it?

[B]

I would obviously I would make a YouTube channel and I would try to put it in a shoebox and film it for a bunch of 12 year old boys.

[A]

Honestly, it sounds like that might be a really good plan.

[B]

I mean it would work. It would certainly work for me.

[A]

It seems like it's effective. Okay, so anyway, she's itching to move to Canada and then all of a sudden she finds like 20 grand. Grand. Okay, so like holy crap. So the money itself actually ended up being like very brittle and so which is like a thing I never really thought about, but I guess over the years it had really worn down and so some of the money like disintegrates when you touch it apparently.

[B]

Holy. Wow. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought that. Especially when like, isn't it like kind of made with like cotton or something in the paper?

[A]

You, you'd think, right? Like fabricy. Yeah, I thought it. Yeah, I don't. So I don't know, maybe it was like stored in like an attic or Something or got flood. Like, who knows? I don't know. But yeah. So she found this money and she decided to put it in a safety deposit box at a local bank. She actually called her Aunt Linda, interestingly enough, right away when she found it, and said, like, hey, I found, like, mom's money, all this money. And her aunt told Sarah to keep it a complete secret and to never tell another person about it.

[B]

That's a good aunt. That's what I'm talking about.

[A]

Well, yeah, so. So. So Sarah spent a few thousand dollars, and then she put the rest in a safety deposit box at a local bank. And she kept one key, and then the bank had the second key. And you needed, like, I think most banks, you need both keys in order to access, because you need somebody to come with you with the second key or you need to use the second key to open the box. And then when she was ready to leave home, the money would be there for her when she went up to Canada. And in the meantime, life just went on as usual. And I will add right now, she did not tell her dad that she had found this. This money.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

In late 2016, Sarah's dad was actually vacationing in Florida with his new wife. And apparently, which I think is pretty sweet. Oh, well, her name's Christine, which is also pretty sweet. But apparently Sarah and Christine really got along. And Christine said she lost her mom when she was young, like around the same age. And so they really bonded. And I thought that was very sweet. But. So Sarah's dad and his wife were in Florida, and he was feeling a little bit on edge because Sarah's grandma had texted or called him and told him she hadn't heard from Sarah all day. So Michael started texting Sarah, being like, hey, please call me the second you see this. Why is your phone off? And she just wasn't responding. In the middle of the night, 3am, his phone rings again. He's on vacation in Florida, but, like, he lives in New Jersey. And so he answers the phone and all he hears on the other line is this man. And he's says, did Sarah drive the Oldsmobile or whatever it was, this Oldsmobile that belonged to her grandmother? Did she. Was she known to drive it? And Michael said, yeah, she. She occasionally drove it. They hung up on him. This was a police calling. They were. They basically were calling to see if they asked him, does, was your daughter known to drive her grandmother's car? And remember, her grandmother is the one who's been texting him all day saying, I haven't heard from her.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Well, they find this car. Police find this car on the side of the road. By the way, the dad has to call the police station back to figure out A, who called him and B, what was going on, because they just were like, we have a question for you, and then hung up. And so he calls back and of course as the line picks up, it says, this is the whatever county police department. And he went, oh, shit. You know, they were the ones calling asking about if my daughter drove her grandmother car. Turns out the reason they asked is because they had actually found an abandoned car on the side of the bridge on Route 35, which went across Shark river. And basically feet from the car is just this steep drop into the river. They found it there in the middle of the night. An Uber driver actually called police and just said, hey, there's this abandoned car here. So they sent out a car to check and the key was in the ignition and the car was working just fine. So it wasn't an issue of the car breaking down. But the owner was nowhere in sight. And when they ran this Oldsmobile, they found out that it was this grandmother, this 90 something year old lady in town. And when they called her, she said, oh, my granddaughter Sarah borrowed the car from me today and I haven't heard from her all day.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So now they're calling everyone they can think of to try and contact friends and family. Nobody seemed to know where Sarah was. Michael, at that moment, 3am when he got this phone call, he and Christine got in the car and started driving home. It was like a 17 hour drive. They just started booking it home.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And Christine drove while basically he was just frantically on his phone the whole time trying to get a hold of Sarah. So the police searched Sarah's house, but nobody was home. And they already started to feel pretty concerned that something was wrong. In the footage from police body cameras, when they entered Sarah's house through an unlocked door, one of them said, I want to make sure. I want to make sure we don't have a jumper.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So they were very worried that this was some sort of suicidal, you know, situation. And they didn't know if they were able to find clues in her house and see maybe like if they could find a journal or something that would tell them if she was having these kind of ideations.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But pretty soon they were able to talk to Robin Draper. And I know I mentioned her very briefly, but Carly is her best friend and she lives next door. And Carly's mom is Robin Draper. And they're also neighbors. They're like childhood friends. So Robin comes outside, is like, what's going on? They tell her all they found inside the house was Buddy, Sarah's dog, who was still locked in his crate. And she was like, well, that's weird. Buddy has free roam of the house even when Sarah's not home. So I don't know why he would be in this crate.

[B]

Home invasion.

[A]

So the police are like, what is going on? When is the last time you talked to Sarah? And she said, actually, yesterday afternoon. And they said, okay, what was the. What. What was the context of that? Apparently, Sarah had come over to the Draper's house, her friend Carly's house, with Liam. Her friend Liam. And she was carrying, like, a box of stuff, just, like, her mother's items packed into these bins. And she asked if she could store some of her mother's stuff at the Draper's house. And they were like, I guess, sure. I don't know why you would want to store your mom's stuff at our house, like, instead of just where it already was at your house. It was just strange. And at first, because it was just kind of, like, trinkets and, like, sentimental stuff. The police were worried because they're thinking, oh, gosh, like, was she giving away her nostalgic stuff?

[B]

Right, because she. For.

[A]

Yeah, a suicide attempt. And so there was this big red flag immediately. And they asked Robin. You can, like, hear this interview on Dateline. They asked Robin if Sarah had seemed depressed. And Sarah had known Robin or Robin had known Sarah, rather, for her basically her entire life. So she has a pretty good, like, grip on. On Sarah's behavior and mood. And she said, yeah, actually, it's possible. Sarah was pretty down lately and has been kind of struggling. But she also said there's something wrong about the dog, though I don't think she would have just left him in his crate if she was planning this ahead of time. Like, something just seems wrong.

[B]

She would have absolutely made sure the dog was okay.

[A]

That somebody was with the dog or that. Yeah, exactly. There was some sort of plan for the dog. So if the police never came, Buddy could have died right in this crate before. Before she got back. It just did not track. And so it just seemed impossible, especially with Michael out of the state, like her dad in Florida. It just seemed impossible. But if she had been in some sort of mental health crisis. Right. Like, we don't know. I mean, you don't. You can't necessarily imagine that You' be as logical as you want to be when you're in a state of crisis. And so it's very possible perhaps she made a wrong judgment call. Perhaps she forgot about the dog and went forward with her plan anyway. You know, there's. It. There's no way to say for sure, black or white, that. That it's not a possibility. So they kept it on the table. Now, about 4am the police arrived at the apartment where Liam lived with Preston, because she had been with Liam earlier in the day when she went to the neighbors and brought all of her mother's stuff over. So they went to Liam's house. Liam let them in, and he said, yep, I saw Sarah Friday afternoon. We went and got lunch at Taco Bell and hung out, and then I went to work. So the police asked Liam about Sarah's, like, mindset when they hung out. And Liam was like, well, she seemed extremely stressed. And he told police that Sarah had been talking about getting away and, like, something about Canada, but he wasn't really sure. And he also said that Sarah had a volatile relationship with her dad. Dad. And he described her dad as unstable and emotionally abusive, using the term actually crazy. So now investigators were like, oh, well, maybe there's some optimism here. Maybe she didn't jump off the bridge. Maybe she left her car there as kind of a distraction and then took off to Canada. Maybe that. Maybe that was her plan all along. And if she were fleeing an abusive situation, for example, she might have felt like she wasn't safe to tell anyone where she was going and perhaps why. Yeah, why? She left town with no word to anyone. It would also make sense that she asked the Drapers to store things in their house if she couldn't trust her dad to watch the stuff she cared about. Right.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

So now they're thinking, okay, okay, well, maybe somebody else she knows she's friends with knows about these plans and can help us locate her. So Liam was like, I don't know. I'm one of her closest friends. And I. She didn't confide in me, so I don't know who else to turn to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So police were like, all right, well, we'll just basically ask everyone in this small town. So they start questioning Sarah's other friends. And they all agreed that Sarah never spoke of, like, a long distance relationship up there. Like, never spoke of, like, a friend, a pen pal she had that she was going to, like, move in with temporarily. There was just nobody they could think of that would, like, be there in Canada with her. But they had heard her talk about trying to get to Canada eventually. So they were like, I guess that's possible. Possible. She'd always seemed pretty uninterested in dating. And even though she went to prom with her friend Preston who lives with Liam, Preston and Sarah's other friends were like, it was not romantic, like they just went as friends. But Leah mentioned that Sarah tended to date women and that he noticed she sometimes became obsessed with her ex girlfriends. And so now they're thinking, oh Jesus, they're like a love, like a love romance gone wrong situation happening. And he further explained that once she had had an argument with a woman named Maddie Maggie, and became really manipulative. And Liam said that Sarah told Maggie, if you don't come over right now, I'm going to kill myself. So he's telling all these things to the officers and they're going, oh geez. Like this could go any of a number of ways. Like this could go really bad or like more hopeful, we don't know. He said there could sometimes be self destructive tendencies that she had. She had recently been fired from her job, which is, you know, a big stressor when mental health crises come into play.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he worried that maybe she had hurt herself, but he was, he didn't want to believe that. So now they're thinking, oh Gez, like maybe there was a bad breakup, maybe her father didn't treat her well because she was, wasn't straight. Like maybe she had a secret relationship she couldn't share with people. Maybe she went with that person to Canada. Who knows? So police then asked Preston, the roommate and Sarah's other friend what he thought happened to Sarah. And he said I think she jumped. And when they asked why, he said he was really worried that she had died by suicide because of the stories he had heard about her dad.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So police are questioning Sarah's social network. Meanwhile her dad is like booking it up from Florida and they set up this massive air and sea search and rescue boats, recovery divers. They're scouring the Shark river for any sign of Sarah. Helicopters are looking from above. Apparently this was one of the biggest searches in Jersey Shore history and this was in 2016. So you know, relatively recent. There were two cameras on the Route 35 bridge but police of course discovered they were non functional. So there was no way to see what had happened on the bridge. Which is so infuriating because how easy would that be to just rewind and take a look? Oh, it's so infuriating.

[B]

It's almost as if that's what it Was made for. For.

[A]

It's almost as if that's the point of it. Yeah. They searched along every route from Sarah's house to the bridge to see if anyone else had, like, seen or captured footage of her on their doorbell or. Or some other way, but they just could not quite figure out. They did find one camera at a neighbor's house that faced Sarah's driveway, and they watched Liam leave for work, and then hours later, Sarah left in her car. So it was, like, that's all that. That they could tell.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

They put together a timeline and determined that Sarah drove to the bridge just before midnight and several hours. And that was several hours before authorities responded to the Uber driver who called and said, I found this abandoned car. So there would be. There were basically several hours where they don't know what took place between, like, midnight and, like, two.

[B]

But her driving to the bridge kind of confirms or validates their. Their suspicion that maybe it was suicide.

[A]

Mm. Because the car was not broken down. It was fully functional. The keys were in the ignition, like. And there was.

[B]

They just say, you're driving to a bridge, and they're like, okay, well, that's.

[A]

And that's. That's the last trace of her. Yeah. So the Shark river went right into the ocean. And the scary thing is, you know, if the tide pulls you out within hours, you could be in the ocean and never found again. So, you know, they're searching and hoping they can find anything, any clue, or, I guess, also hoping they don't find anything. But the bad news is, like, even if they don't find anything because it feeds out into the ocean, there's no way to know, you know, whether that's what happened or not. And now they're thinking, well, okay, hopefully what happened is she ran away and somebody picked her up on the bridge, and maybe, you know, they met, and then she hopped in their car and then kept driving. You know, that's a possibility facility. If only we had a camera to look at. Anyway, on December 6th, Sarah's family organized. I like how I say that when, like, we're filming stuff and we always, like, forget to turn our cameras on or our audio on. I'm like, who am I kidding? Like, the number of times I've forgotten to record when I'm intentionally trying to record, I have no room.

[B]

That's true. But none of our episodes, like, solve a murder.

[A]

Okay, fair point. I'm waiting for the day one does. But you so far. No, you're right.

[B]

And it'll be the one where we forgot to film, so.

[A]

Oh, you're not even kidding. That's actually so true. Oh, gosh. Okay, so on December 6, her. By the way, her dad comes home, basically finds the house full of people trying to figure out where his daughter went. He's basically in shock. He's trying to figure out what happened. And on December 6, Sarah's family gets together and they organize their own search effort. And hundreds of people from Neptune and nearby communities gather. People who knew her, people who didn't, people from her high school. And Liam and his twin, Sheamus, joined Sarah's other friends on the streets of Neptune City, just looking anywhere and everywhere, putting up flyers, trying to figure out if they can find any clue of where she had been and what she had done. And while they were searching, police got a tip from her cousin, who had been contacted by the assistant manager of the bank where Sarah kept her money in a safety deposit box. He told Sarah's cousin that Sarah stopped at the bank. Bank just hours before she disappeared.

[B]

Oh, that girl did not die.

[A]

She opened her safety deposit box and found just over $25,000 inside.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Strange.

[B]

Yeah. I thought that was going to be empty.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. That put another wrench in their whole theory. The old. They were, like, really old bills, like I was saying, but they weren't, like, totally unusable. So it's not like she just left the ones that were, like, decrepit. A lot of them would have still been fine to use. Were confused why she wouldn't have taken 25 grand with her.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The police had also found Sarah's passport, her Social Security card, and U.S. and Canadian currency in her bedroom. So she wouldn't. She didn't take the Canadian currency she had collected.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It was also difficult to imagine that Sarah ran away to start a new life without all of this stuff and then without a car and not knowing who would have taken her there. So it's starting to add up, like, oh, maybe that's not as feasible as we had thought.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But detectives also reviewed footage from the bank's cameras. And so they looked, and they did see, indeed, that she went to the bank. And she was smiling, looked like she was in a good mood. She. The assistant manager said she seemed normal, happy. And, you know, this is a small town. So he knew Sarah pretty well. And he knew, like, enough. He had met her enough times to be able to say, oh, she seemed perfectly fine.

[B]

So it wasn't like she was, like, being held hostage and, like, forced to go into the bank and take money. Out?

[A]

No, apparently, like, to the point where they were such close family friends that as she left, they, like, blew each other a kiss and said, love you.

[B]

Like, she's totally fine.

[A]

Close of friends. And he said, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She seemed just perfectly happy. But investigators did notice something very out of place when they were going through the footage, and they noticed a shot of Sarah's car that came into frame very briefly, outside side. And they were like, who is in the car with her? There's somebody in there. And I can only imagine they went, enhance, enhance. Like they were doing CSI and it just happens. But no, they were able to look at it and realize the person in the car with her was Liam.

[B]

They were together earlier that day, right?

[A]

They had been together, but then they saw Liam leaving her house, and then they saw her leaving the house, and he had a. He had a shift. So this would have been like, after his work shift, I assume.

[B]

So they got back together.

[A]

It seems like it is what they're figuring out, because if she went to the bridge around midnight and they had Taco Bell at 2, and then he went to work, it seems like after his shift, they got back together is what it's. What it's seeming like. And the reason this is odd is not because they're friends or anything or hanging out, but because Liam did not mention that when they had interviewed him.

[B]

I wonder.

[A]

I saw her at lunch.

[B]

I wondered, like, when it was when he was the first person that was answering all their questions. He was like, oh, but. But Preston. Like, she went to homecoming with Preston. And, like, I feel like. I don't know. I was like, why is he getting kind of overlooked? Maybe it's because he's being really helpful in giving information. So which one?

[A]

Sorry, which one?

[B]

Liam. He was, like, one of the first people that the police talked to. And I think maybe because he was just being helpful, they, like, overlooked him. But I remember thinking, like, she was literally with a guy. Isn't the whole thing that you asked the most recent man near a woman? Anyway, it's okay. Interesting.

[A]

Yes. So they asked, when did you see your last? He said, oh, lunch. And then I went to work. And right now that they're kind of looking at the footage and seeing him again, they're like, well, that's strange. Why wouldn't you say that? You know, again and again, Liam had repeated the same timeline of events from Taco Bell, blah, blah, blah, playing video games at Sarah's house, then leaving for work. And he never mentioned going to the bank with her. So now they go and. And ask, and he says, oh, I have no idea what Sarah did inside the bank. I didn't think it was important to bring up. Okay. Strange. So this is a huge red flag in his story, and it raised concerns among the detectives, obviously, but they might not have proved anything at all if it weren't for another tip from Sarah's high school classmate, Anthony Curry.

[B]

That Liam's in. In love with her.

[A]

That Liam's in love with her. Oh. Oh, no. But interesting plot twist. Like, Sarah, Anthony was an artist, and he was voted most likely to become famous in their high school class.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And he had actually moved to New York and was directing films with friends and a lot of horror movies, and he spent a lot of time writing. Just a very, you know, filmmaker type. And Liam, his friend, was sometimes involved in Anthony's creative project, so they would spend time together. Anthony contacted the police once he'd heard about Sarah's disappearance because he had a very, very, very, very. About a conversation he and Liam had had several months ago.

[B]

What?

[A]

Liam had proposed a fun plot for a film, too.

[B]

I was gonna say. You said horror film. I was like, what did he do?

[A]

You know, Keith Morrison ate that up. He was like. Like his own sort of horror. Was this a horror film that he was this.

[B]

Or was this pitch for a horror movie? Was he creating a crime so that he could then film. Film a film about the crime he committed for the film?

[A]

Should I take my shirt off? Wait, I didn't mean to say that out loud.

[B]

And then Zach Baggins is like, behind the teleprompter.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Oops. So anyway, so Liam had proposed a fun film drama plot. Okay. To Anthony, and the plot included a murder. And when he's like, okay, go on. Liam says, okay, well, it's about killing this woman and then dropping her body off the Shark river bridge to stage a suit suicide. And once Sarah disappeared, guess what? Liam reached out to Anthony again and said, have the police talked to you? And it was that moment that Anthony went, oh, oh. Because when he first talked to his friend that he'd known since first grade, he was like, oh, well, he's just trying to be, like, come up with an idea. I'm sure if you're, like, a filmmaker, all your high school friends are always pitching ideas. Right. Like, it's.

[B]

Especially if you're a horror filmmaker.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

You're supposed to come up with that. Posted things and pitched them. Yeah.

[A]

So he kind of just, like, brushed it off. But then when the disappearance happened. And he remembered his friend telling him this, like, murder plot. And then he realized, wait, Liam's friends with her? And also then Liam called him instead of the police talk to you yet? He was like, ah. So actually he called his dad and was like, I need help. I need advice. And his dad was like, we are calling the police right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they call the police and they bring. They bring Anthony in from New York, and they basically. Basically ask him, like, his own personal horror film to put on a wire and go undercover and try and get Liam to talk.

[B]

Beautiful.

[A]

Yes. And they set up this sting operation, and they wire up the car, they put cameras in there. They Wire him up. January 31, 2017. Anthony drove to meet with Liam under the pretense of asking Liam to borrow money for a new camera. Camera. So they played. They played the clip of. Which is so crazy. They play the clip of him talking to Liam. And, like, you know, obviously, we know he's, like, wired and, like, the police are listening, but he sounds so chill. Obviously, this, like, are you serious right now? Like, he is wired up, talking to a potential murderer and also one of his closest friends. And he's just like, yeah, man. Like, he was.

[B]

He's in the movie world. Maybe he's an actor.

[A]

Actor. I know. I was like, this is an actor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

An actor, no less. And apparently, which I thought was very creative. I don't know if they said the police helped him write a script or wrote up a script for him. I like to think he went a little off script because apparently he explained that one of his cameras broke because he dropped it in a bucket of fake blood. And, you know, the police were like, that was not part of the. That was not one of the lines.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

But he asked. But. And he said, you can spot me right from that girl's money. And kind of hinted, like, because I know, I know. I know there's something there. And I know you have money because you were talking about killing someone and taking the money and staging it like a suicide knife, kind of. Just kind of hinting at it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So Anthony and Liam are in the car. And first of all, which is, like, really distressing and apparently made the police basically poop their pants, is that Anthony goes, well, let me check you for a wire first.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And he's like, okay, man, whatever. And I'm like, how are you so chill? Like, I'd be freaking the out. And so you can hear him getting patted down, but he doesn't catch the wire. Like, he just doesn't, like, find it.

[B]

He said, oh, wow, okay.

[A]

He just missed it.

[B]

You know that as chill as he's being in his head, he was like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, oh, my God.

[A]

Oh, my God. And police were like, oh, that was not part of the plan. But, yeah, they. He checked him, and you can hear him. You say. He says, dude, you can't blame me for doing this, right? I got to fill you up, bro, real quick. No disrespect, no homo. No homo. Which, like, embarrassing.

[B]

I am surprised in 2024, there is not a wireless wire.

[A]

Like, well, it was 2016. I don't know if that makes a difference to you or not, but I'm.

[B]

Still surprised with all of our technology that, like, there's a literal wire that needs to.

[A]

I mean, but look at us right now. How many fucking wires do we have? And we're just inside. Imagine if you have to go into a car.

[B]

No, you're right.

[A]

You know, I mean, I'm surprised there's.

[B]

Not some, like, alpha male podcast bro who's come up with something. You know, they've got, like, the little tik tok microphones. I'm surprised there's.

[A]

Yeah, you got, like, a wireless. Yeah, but, like, I feel like a lav mic isn't going to do the trick when someone also wired. I guess you can have a Bluetooth one.

[B]

But anyway, I'm just surprised that technology hasn't come up with something.

[A]

Well, apparently it did, because he didn't find it.

[B]

It's a good point.

[A]

You know what? Maybe it was an invisible one, and it was a state of the art, you know? So in that moment, of course, Anthony was probably also peeing his pants, but had to play it cool because he's thinking, if Liam did kill Sarah, now I'm alone with a murderer, and if he finds out that I have a wire on me, I'm. And of course, the detectives, like, were listening and. But they couldn't really intervene unless, right, something happened, and then it would maybe be too late. So it's all just very scary. But you can. In the footage from the vehicle, Liam seemed calm and a little frustrated, like, as if he were kind of inconvenienced. I know. You know what that's, like, very bad, right?

[B]

Worst thing that can happen to you.

[A]

And he goes, oh, what's wrong, man? Like, what's. What's up? He goes, yeah, I got the FBI on my ass, dude. It's just so A minor inconvenience. You know how that happens sometimes? And he's like, about what? And Liam said, killing Sarah.

[B]

Oh, he didn't even say, like, they think I did it. That's crazy that they would think that, right? He just straight up said, killing her.

[A]

He just straight up said, killing Sarah. He then. And he goes, oh, wow, what happened, man? He then described in vivid detail ambushing Sarah in her house, choking her from behind with his arm until she went limp and dropped on the floor. Then she bec. Began to have what he described as some sort of seizure.

[B]

Oh, fuck.

[A]

And so he gagged her mouth with a T shirt and pinched her nose shut with his hand until she asphyxiated.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And Anthony was sitting there just like, cool, man.

[B]

Cool, man.

[A]

Right, right. And, like, getting probably deeply traumatized. And he then went on. Liam went on to tell Anthony he was surprised by how long it took to kill Sarah. He thought choking her would take a couple of minutes, but he said it took nearly half an hour.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

To asphyxiate her.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And he said, this guy's a sicko. He said he knew how long it took because he turned on his iPhone stopwatch just to see.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Just to time it. He said the only complication he had worried about was the dog, Buddy. But he said, buddy just watched in his crate, and I just left him there. What is wrong with you?

[B]

I can't even. I can't even imagine being a dog, watching that, knowing that there's nothing you can do.

[A]

It's horrific. It's horrific. I. Yeah, the thought. I don't even like to think about it, but if you also think about it, which is so dark. Buddy had known Liam since they were, like. Since he was a puppy, like, forever, because Liam was always over. They were, like, close friends, and so he wouldn't have even considered him an intruder. Like, he would have just been like, oh, he's here, you know, Even while Sarah was in distress. So as Liam described killing this woman who considered him, by the way, her lifelong best friend, he just, like, spoke so unaffected by. It was kind of like, yeah, it was weird. I timed it on my stopwatch.

[B]

Unfazed is like, is Anthony, like, laughing along with this? Like, they're bros? Like, ah, no way.

[A]

Basically, Anthony was like, whoa, man. Yeah, well, like, I think just letting him talk, basically just kind of like, you know, just letting him keep going. And I think they also prepped him for what to say, you know, I mean, they clearly didn't prep him for what to do if he was getting patted down for a while. But I think they did script out, like, possible conversation topics, you know, to try and get to the right answer. But it sounds like right away he just started spilling in his guts and so much so that he also mentioned, hey, you know, my roommate and buddy Preston, who's also one of Sarah's closest friends. He was. He was involved, too.

[B]

Oh, also, he was really gonna let, like, Preston hang. Hang dry.

[A]

What? What do you mean?

[B]

Well, like, they were, like, hang out to dry. Like he was going to blame it all on Preston.

[A]

No, he just said Preston was like, help. Like, was part of it.

[B]

Oh, really? Because I. In, like, the. When the police were first talking to him, and he said, like, oh, yeah, well, she went to the dance with this guy Preston, but.

[A]

Oh, no, no, sorry. That was me saying, like, years ago, they had gone to a dance together.

[B]

Oh, sorry, I thought you were saying that he, like, like, tried to redirect them to Preston.

[A]

No, no, no. I was just saying Preston, his roommate, who also was one of Sarah's friends, they even went to, like, homecoming together, like, in high school, but only as friends. And got.

[B]

Okay, it was just context for me.

[A]

Yeah, just context, because she was very close with both of them and they lived together, so.

[B]

But then he also said. Didn't he also say she would. He would get really. That. Sorry, didn't the killer. I forget his name all of a sudden?

[A]

Liam didn't.

[B]

Yes. Didn't he say, like, oh, well, Preston used to get weirdly jealous of her love interests and stuff like that?

[A]

No, no, no, sorry. She. None of that was about present. She. She dated girls and she had these, like, fixations on her exes and would get kind of manipulative sometimes, is what he claimed that she would sometimes, like, tell an ex, you know, if you don't come over here, I'll kill myself. That kind of thing. And he said, you know, she was a little troubled. She would make comments like that. But we don't even know if that's true because now we know he had an ulterior motive to say shit like that. But he basically painted her as looking very unstable and, like, having a very abusive father in her life.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

That he was trying to lead them to believe she had gone to Canada is what, like, his. He was like, well, you know, she dates girls and, like, her dad is very abusive and, like. And then Preston's like, yeah, he is.

[B]

Right. But meanwhile, the dad is, like, racing home because he is very. Maybe not so toxic as I Don't think it was.

[A]

I think they argued, but her friends were like, everyone argued with their parents. It wasn't anything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Out of the ordinary. So it seems like they were maybe putting some emphasis on leading the police in the wrong direction. So, yeah, he's basically like, oh, by the way, my buddy Preston also helped me out. Like, this was his plan, but he's basically now saying, oh, yeah, my buddy Preston also helped. So Anthony's just sitting there, like, letting all this kind of happen and probably thinking, like, how soon can I get out of this car? But apparently when he asked, like, well, what happened, man? He said Sarah had told them about the money she had found. And remember when her aunt told her, don't ever say a word because people are gonna come after you? And lo and behold, she told her lifelong best friend, and look what happened. Just so sad. So apparently, the two of them, Preston and Liam, spent months planning how they would rob Sarah of this money. Like, the second she found the money and told them, they were like, okay, well, let's steal it from her.

[B]

How do you even begin a conversation like that with somebody else to see if they're game? Like, how do you go? No, Wouldn't it be funny if we, like, robbed her?

[A]

I always wonder that, like, how do these people even find each other, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, to be willing to do that for, like, which is like, what, couple thousand? 10 grand? 20 grand, whatever.

[B]

It was like your dead mom's money. Like, right.

[A]

Like, really, there's no better way. So they basically spent months, and then he contacts his friend who's a filmmaker and is like, I have a great plot for you. You like, okay, guy.

[B]

And also, you think about, like, seriously, $25,000 split two ways is like, 12 grand. Like, 12 grand is all it takes to kill your friend.

[A]

That's exactly his best friend. Right.

[B]

And I try to think of how much money it would take to kill you. Not 12 grand.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

You're at least worth 12 grand to make.

[A]

Hey, listen, when that. What is it called? Super Paws. Sparkle Paws. What's that? Oh, Sparkle Website.

[B]

Spark Paws.

[A]

When Spark Paws money comes, comes in, and nobody hears from me again, you'll know what happened. You'll know what happened. No, but I moved to Canada is what happened. Because you know better. Better health care, you know? No, but seriously, like, the fact that you would have this horrible thought with your friend. You've already got somebody who's on the same page as you somehow, and you're both close friends with this person. And then on top of that, you're like, oh, now let me call my other friend and tell him about this great idea so that he can make a movie about it. God, so embarrassing. God, so douchey and so embarrassing. It just. Okay, so apparently Sarah told them about the money. They were trying to figure out, you know, how to get the money from her. And he said, but the bummer is on the day. I don't know if he said the bummer, but he basically told in the same, you know, vibrato, as he mentioned the FBI being on his ass. He told Anthony that the day he killed Sarah, Sarah, she only withdrew ten grand from her deposit box, not the full amount. So basically m. They killed her for 10 grand total.

[B]

So five each.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Also the.

[A]

To be fair, they believed she had more money than that, but it doesn't matter. I mean, not that that but also.

[B]

Matters, but like, how. What's the story behind her taking ten grand out of the bank that day? Like, did he say she should do that? Or like, like, because why would they have thought she would take all that money out all at once once? Like, what's their story? Why was he at the bank with her? Did he suggest, like, you should totally go just like, take all the money out of your bank?

[A]

Hahaha, that's a very good question. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, I wonder what the story is where he's like, oh, she only took out 10 grand when I was expecting the 25. Why were you expecting 25? Why were you expecting her to go to the bank and take any money out? Like, what's the story?

[A]

Agreed, agreed.

[B]

And also, like, you're obviously talking about it with her for her to go, oh yeah, I just took out ten grand. Like, how? Like, why'd she even take ten grand out? Where were you going? Maybe he was convincing her to actually move to Canada and was like, I mean, maybe.

[A]

Maybe he thought he could like get her to start taking money out and prep for her.

[B]

Yeah, maybe he was being super encouraging about moving to Canada and she was like, okay, I took out ten grand to get started or something. And then he was like, fuck, not the whole thing.

[A]

Well, he actually said quote. And I fucking quote. The worst part of it is I thought I was walking out with 50 grand, 100 grand in my pocket. Like, he didn't even know how much money there was. So he's just telling himself, oh, I'm gonna make like 100 grand off this. And he basically felt cheated because he only got like five grand.

[B]

Well, That.

[A]

I mean, I know, right? That's the worst part is what he says. Jesus Christ. I mean, I can't. Liam told Anthony. He's the only person who knew about Sarah's murder and made it clear that he and Preston would kill Anthony, too, if he became, like, a liability. Anthony's like, no, man. I would never say any. Something. Oh, my God. Imagine, like, thank God he didn't find a wire.

[B]

Last thing I'm gonna say. Sorry. I know. I know. We just stepped away from this conversation about, like, how much money there was, but, like, so he knew that she had only ten grand, and he still killed her, like, for being that disappointed that it's not 100 grand and, you know you're about to get five.

[A]

Well, I don't know if he knew how much she took out until he killed her and then went through her stuff.

[B]

You know what I mean? Okay, you're right.

[A]

Like, he basically said, like, she went and got money. Money out, then I killed her and realized it was only five grand. So I think, like, he thought she took out some massive quantity of cash and didn't find out until after he had killed her.

[B]

Gotcha. Okay, Sorry. Going back. So he has now threatened Anthony. Yeah.

[A]

Now he's like. Now he's like, you're on the hook too, Preston. I will kill you if you become a liability. And he's like, I would never do that. Please don't look at my lapel mic that I am wearing right now.

[B]

If you hear any radio interference, know you. I didn't.

[A]

It's. It's. It's a bucket of fake blood. I dropped my camera in it. Don't worry about it. It's just how it. This is what it sounds like. The detectives basically are listening to this. Like, holy. He then thanked Anthony for meeting. Like, it sounds like he wanted to, like, tell him because he had asked him to meet up a few times, and it sounded like he wanted to either tell him or, like, make sure. Maybe make sure he didn't have any loose ends.

[B]

I think that's what it was.

[A]

Yeah, that must be what it is. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the detectives arrested Preston immediately, and they basically took him in because they didn't want to, like, swoop in and say, oh, you're under arrest. He was wearing a wire. Like, you know, Anthony was working with us. So they let that be for now and let Liam think that Anthony was not. Yeah. That he was in the clear. And they went and arrested Preston, who confessed immediately. And one detective actually said it was the fastest Anyone had ever confessed in his entire detective career. So.

[B]

Damn. Like, before the handcuffs were even on.

[A]

Yeah, just like, okay, I did it. So Preston told them that Liam had come home that night after work and said he, quote, did it. That he had done it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Liam had killed Sarah and had gone to work, and now he said, I need your help to move her body. And Preston went with Liam to move Sarah into her car, then drove a separate car while Liam drove Sarah in her own car to the bridge, which.

[B]

Was where, like, she.

[A]

Yes. Went there and left it alone. Exactly. There. They were going to push her body into the river while Preston drove by, and then Liam would just jump into Preston's car. But Liam wasn't strong enough to lift Sarah himself. Himself. Loser. Again, Just. I can't stand this guy. I. I just.

[B]

He wasn't even strong enough to lift her, but he's like.

[A]

He thinks he's, like, such a badass. It makes me crazy also.

[B]

Well, like, who are his friends? Where he just, like, went to two different people unprompted and said, oh, yeah, I killed her.

[A]

Like, and why is everyone so shocked? It seems like this guy is a bad dude. Like, has he never shown this side of himself before? You know what I mean? Like, has nobody been. Like, that guy kind of sucks. Like, it seems like everyone likes. Liked him so weird.

[B]

That's so.

[A]

And found him pretty normal, you know, I never. He also didn't have any. Any record. Any criminal record. Like, nothing. Just so weird.

[B]

I do feel like Preston probably watched him from, like, his own car. Watching this guy trying to lift the body, not even be able to do it. Then he's just like, oh, my God.

[A]

Like, how did I. How did I get roped into this? You know?

[B]

Yeah. Like, he. Watching him struggle through something that, like, if you're gonna try to get away with us, you have to be weirdly seamless with it.

[A]

Right? It's not well planned. It's not. No, it's. It's. It's just so tragic.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. Right. So Preston basically has to park his car and get out, and then they're both putting Sarah into the river. So.

[B]

That is so sad.

[A]

It's so sad. It's like, when you think about what ha. I mean, it's. It's honestly sickening.

[B]

And also, poor Preston, like, he was just probably, like, eating Mac and cheese at home, and then all of a sudden, he now has to go help lift a body in. Into the river.

[A]

To be fair, he had spent months plotting how to. To steal all this Money. So he knew this was coming, or he at least knew for the most part it was coming. He's very much involved. Do not worry. No, poor Preston here. Okay, got also he picked up a body and dumped it in the river. So.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Either even if you were surprised and eating Mac and cheese, that was not the right move, you know. So police take Preston, who had confessed, immediately to the bridge. And they actually put him in a life jacket. Like they forced him into a life jacket because they were worried he would try to jump. But he was just really calm, like, eerily so. And just like Liam in Anthony's interview, he just seemed like completely emotionless. So either these two psychopaths, like, happened to move in together, and we're like, great, we're both the same. Let's some up, you know, I. I don't know, because they just seemed completely unfazed by the. By killing one of their closest in longest friends. It's just bizarre to me. Then Preston took investigators to the Sandy Hook Lighthouse where they had buried a safe filled with some of Sarah's money. And Preston agreed to testify against Liam. And he pled guilty as part of a deal to multiple charges, including disturbing or desecrating human remains, conspiracy to desecrate human remains, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, and tampering with physical evidence. But in exchange, the murder was basically off the table, and that, you know, any sort of additional charges were off the table, and he would testify against Liam as part of the steal. So the trial began January 23, 2019, and before the trial, Liam's defense team tried but failed thankfully to suppress the video confession that he had made to Anthony. Because that's not a good look for your client to have a video saying, oh, the work. The. The suckiest part is I didn't get as much money as I wanted, you know, and so they were not able to keep. Keep that out of the trial. So that's good. And once it was played at the trial, the defense argued that the confession was actually an audition for a film. Isn't that creative?

[B]

Are you fucking kidding me?

[A]

No, I'm not kidding. They claimed Liam was only acting and was just trying to impress Anthony and get into another, you know, into one of his movies. Are you insane? I mean, what are you even talking about?

[B]

Did the whole jury just roll their eyes? Like, sometimes I wonder what the defense thinks the other people are going to think.

[A]

I know, I know, I know. I would stop with this shit.

[B]

It's another one of those things where I'm like, I know A defense lawyer. Like, I know this is your job, but like, at some point don't you just look in the mirror and go, like, I don't like that this is my job.

[A]

Sometimes it's got to feel really bad. Sometimes. You probably do really believe, like, I'm doing the right thing, whatever. But sometimes you got to. To be like, oh, but yeah, I mean, listen, everyone's has a right to a fair trial, so someone's got to stand up for you, you know, someone's got to do it. So Liam's mother even testified that Liam wouldn't have been so stoic and like, unemotional if he were actually confessing to a murder. And I'm like, or, or he's just a sociopath and he doesn't care, but whatever. And Anthony testified that there had never been any discussion about an audition or a movie and was like, no, that is not what was happening. Liam had gotten into Anthony's car, searched for a wire, acknowledged he was being investigated by the FBI for Sarah's murder, and then described the crime in detail. It's not a movie audition. This is literally what happened.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

And then Preston said, yeah, that is what happened. You know, it's like, okay, nice try with the movie audition. But anyway, there was simply no reason to believe that this was like a fake confession. And and so pretty much the jury did roll their eyes and say, okay, we see what's happening here.

[B]

Yeah, this feels stupid.

[A]

Yeah, this feels like a big lie. So detectives also discovered the key to the buried safe containing Sarah's money on Liam's key ring. When he was arrested, he literally had the key to her safe. Safe with her money in it on his key ring, dumbass. His early interviews. Oh, by the way, so now they go back. Remember how they had done all those interviews with him? Well, of course they had filmed them all. And so now, now that they're, they have much more context, they go back and rewatch all those interviews they did with him and they're starting to like, realize things aren't adding up. So they go back and they listen to these interviews and he talks about like, how abusive her dad was and like how that must be why she left. But then they're thinking, he's the only one that said this. Like, nobody else mentioned an abusive father relationship. And like her best friend Carly who lives next door and Carly's mom Robin did not seem to have any idea what they were talking about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Aside from just like an occasional argument or something from a 19 year old and her dad. But text messages also corroborated that because when they looked at their phones, Sarah and Michael had sent very, like, loving and like, I miss you type messages when he was going to Florida with Christine, 16. And there was just only proof that they had a perfectly normal relationship.

[B]

Imagine the rage in this dad who wants to like, I know. Beat the dog out of this guy.

[A]

I know, I know. It's just like one thing off of another. Sarah's aunt testified that Sarah did plan to move to Canada, but she had agreed to wait until the summer of 2017 so she could, like, make more solid plans because her aunt knew she had found that that money. And her aunt was like, why don't we just like, sit on it for a minute, like make real plans before you just up and leave, you know? And so she testified, and Sarah also had decided to stay in Jersey a little longer because her 96 year old grandmother had been planning to move to Florida. And she's like, I want to be here with her while she's local, you know, before she moves to a retirement community or whatever.

[B]

So she'd like a good head on her shoulders and was responsible for this money.

[A]

Like, yes, yes. And it just all seems. It was just all so thrown out of context, you know, Sarah actually made plans to go to bartending school because she wanted to work at night and make art during the day. She had also already planned a trip to Broadway in New York just after Christmas. She had gotten Christmas gifts for her grandma. She was planning a short vacation with one of her friends to go to Canada and scope it out and see, like, potential neighborhoods.

[B]

It's just hard doing the long game of this though. Like, she was.

[A]

And she was like spontaneously joyous seeing it. Yeah. And she was like, I just want to, you know, make art and like, explore a new country. It's just so heartbreaking. And so, you know, it was just obvious to everybody that knew Sarah that she was like, making plans and, you know, like, having ideas of Christmas gifts even though it was weeks away. Like, there's no it. There was not a plan or an immediate obvious plan for her to run away or die by suicide. All of these testimonies, of course, painted a completely different picture than what Liam had described, which was that this young woman was depressed, manipulative, obsessive, afraid of her father. Like kind of that psycho girl, ex girlfriend vibe he tried to paint her with. And he'd even lied about Sarah being fired from her job. Remember when he said, oh, she's been fired and Police were like, oh, you know, that's often a trigger. Well, no, yeah, yeah, exactly. So her former boss actually testified that she was a great employee and she had quit her job to focus on art. But, like, there were no hard feelings and, like, there was nothing there that was sketchy at all. Although they were not able to find a body in the case, which is always, you know, a questionable, like, outcome. Like, can we convince a jury without a body? It was Liam's taped confession to Anthony and Preston's testimony against Liam that were compelling. Compelling enough proof that Sarah was indeed dead.

[B]

Yeah, there's no, there's no evidence quite like being wired and having your own best friend go against you.

[A]

Right. A full first person confession on camera a la a movie audition. It's just an audition and your roommate being like, yeah, no, we did it. Yeah, it's just not a good look. However, that's the, it's nothing. I, I, it's not a plot twist. It tries to be in an attempt to cast doubt on Sarah's death altogether. The defense, you remember how creative they are, right?

[B]

Huh?

[A]

They call a witness to the stand who claims he saw Sarah Stern alive the day after she was killed. And he claims so vividly, he drove past her with his son. She was walking down the street. And he apparently told his son, that is an awfully good looking girl to be walking on the street at 5 o'clock in the morning. And days later, first of all, why would you say that to your son? And why is nobody saying, that's weird, but okay? And then days later, apparently he saw a picture of her, flyer of her, or saw her on the news and recognized that he had seen her. And he said there was no doubt. He was 100 sure he absolutely had seen her and was completely confident. But despite that recollection, he did mix up the day he claimed to have seen Sarah and had to be corrected on stand, which is not a good look. Awkward and awkward. And he also testified that he had not spoken to any detectives about seeing Sarah that day. And in response, detectives played a recording of the interview they did indeed have with him for the courtroom. And his credibility fell completely apart. And the defense was like, oh, darn it. So Liam did not testify. That's probably for the best. And the jury, just keep your mouth shut.

[B]

At this point, everybody you talk to is an enemy for you.

[A]

This is not a movie audition. How many times we have to tell you, you're in a court of law, okay? On trial for murder. So Liam was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And that's actually the most severe sentence in New Jersey now that the death penalty has been abolished.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Preston, meanwhile, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his involvement, and he is required to serve at least 15 years of the sentence. Liam's team appealed for a retrial, arguing once again that the video confessed confession to Anthony Curry was not admissible in court. They. They didn't say the audition thing again, I don't think, but they were like, even.

[B]

That was too stupid. Even.

[A]

That was still. Even. We know that's silly. Yeah. Likewise, Preston appealed for a shorter sentence, and both were denied and are both still in prison today. And, of course, Sarah is the, you know, the heart of the story. She has been remembered as a wonderful artist. Apparently they. They held a memorial service in her honor where a thousand people attended. Did. And they founded this scholarship in her memory. And the whole building. I have chills. The whole building was decked out in all her art. They had just displayed it throughout the whole memorial service. And a thousand people came, and one friend, they. They played. Oh, my gosh. They played clips of different friends and what they said at the memorial service. And, like, people were laughing and crying, and it was just really beautiful because, like, her dad said, he just sat there and watched all these people talk about his daughter and, like, how. How much she had meant to them, and it was just very moving. And. Yeah. One of them just said, you know, I've never seen anyone love an animal as much as Sarah loved her dog, Buddy. And that one kind of stuck with me. So.

[B]

Poor Buddy.

[A]

That's the story of Sarah Stern.

[B]

Wow. Certainly plot twists and. Yes, yes, yes, certainly.

[A]

I wished. I wished for a better plot twist. I wished that there was a Canadian plot twist. I wished. But there was not.

[B]

I wish the podest was that she was alive.

[A]

I know. Me too. That would have been really nice.

[B]

Audition 1. I mean it just once again, the narcissism of men is just insane. The cockiness of, like, it's.

[A]

It's.

[B]

I can tell anyone I want anything. I'm thinking, and I'll get away with it.

[A]

I'll just say it's a movie idea. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, sure. And all. And it was also her fault because she should have had more money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It wasn't to make me killing her worth it. Like, she. She deflated my fun in killing her. What a God.

[A]

It's just so dark. It's so dark.

[B]

Yuck.

[A]

Anyway, so what do you want to talk about in the yappy hour today.

[B]

I don't know. I was going to say, at least we're recording our listeners episode after this, so you can drink after.

[A]

Thank God. Oh, you're right. Wow. It's 4:30pm I'm ready.

[B]

All right, we'll figure it out when we get there. I guess we'll talk about our whatever. Whatever finds us. I suppose we'll chat about.

[A]

Ooh, whatever the muse brings to the table.

[B]

Yes, and that's why we drink.