And That's Why We Drink — Episode 474 “Amelia Bedelia Math and Iced Tea Pranks”

Date: March 15, 2026
Hosts: Christine Schiefer & Em Schulz

Episode Overview

This episode brings the familiar blend of chilling paranormal tales, horrific true crime, and delightfully personal tangents. Em shares a deep dive into the haunted Goldfield Hotel in Nevada, a Gold Rush ghost town that’s become a paranormal hotspot—especially after its starring role in the original Ghost Adventures documentary. Christine recounts the grim story of serial killer Robert Lee Yates, the “Grocery Bag Killer,” whose spree terrorized Spokane, WA for decades. Alongside the main stories, the hosts riff on everything from iced tea and microblading to Em’s eclectic roster of adult classes and adventures in self-improvement.

Opening Banter & Personal Updates

• Iced Tea & Pranks (01:10)
  • Em declares with mock seriousness, “Don’t cancel me, but I hate ice.”
  • Both riff on their drinks of choice—Em’s tea (not their preferred “straw blum”), Christine’s water (with a rat sticker).
  • Brief prank: Em pretends to have two identical teas, keeping Christine guessing.
  • Em admits their "hyperfixation" on the tea is waning: "I'm experiencing diminishing returns" (12:55).
• Beauty Updates: Christine’s Microbladed Brows (03:45)
  • Christine shares her experience getting her eyebrows microbladed by Honor at Brow OTR in Cincinnati—painful, but results are confidence-boosting.
  • Fun synchronicity: Christine discovers Honor’s sister runs a kids’ YouTube channel, Pip and Pals, which Leona loves (07:08).
• Body Anxieties & Flipping the Camera (09:04)
  • Both discuss insecurities about how their faces look on camera (“my eyebrows would always go wonk ... is that how everyone sees me?”).
  • Digression into “brow blindness,” eye asymmetries, and the perils of front-facing cameras.

Notable Quotes

• Christine: “This is my year of trying to feel like me again. I’m hibernating a little, but I just want to feel comfortable in my body, you know?” (05:51)
• Em: “If I had to change one thing about my face, it would be like my eyes don't look ... as I know everyone's with a looking at my face right now is probably looking at my eyes, but to me, they look so different.” (10:16)

Life Lately: Em’s Extracurricular Explosion

(15:13–18:40)

• Em recounts their attempt to take a class nearly every day: CPR, ASL, guitar, line-dancing, dodgeball, even math workbooks “for fun” (13:09).
• “It’s literally fourth-grade math, but it’s no different than sudoku to me.”
• Favorite: immersive ASL class taught by a Deaf instructor.
• Social experiment: Em’s quest to not just leave the house, but build community through these activities—admitting it’s getting overwhelming as the friend group grows.
• Christine marvels at the friend-making; Em jokes that their “two truths and a lie” game has endless new material.

Paranormal Story: The Goldfield Hotel (Main Story 1)

(From 23:04)

Background & Setting:

• Goldfield, NV boomed to 30,000 people in five years after gold discovery in 1902.
• The Goldfield Hotel, built by George Holsworth, was “one of the most luxurious hotels west of the Mississippi” — crystal chandeliers, leather, gold-leaf, even a champagne waterfall at its opening (28:04, 30:06).
• Eventually sold to George Wingfield, a “governor-level” tycoon with deep, shady gold, bank, and brothel connections.

Infamous Legend: Elizabeth and Room 109

• Wingfield allegedly imprisoned and chained his pregnant mistress, Elizabeth, to a radiator in Room 109, only keeping her alive until she gave birth—then murdered both her and the baby, disposing of them in the mineshaft (36:30–37:23).
  • “Once she gave birth, Wingfield allegedly had her strangled and then brought down through those tunnels to the mines and threw her down an abandoned shaft along with the baby.” (37:06)
• Christine questions the logic: “Why go to all the trouble, why not just ... kill her outright?” Em agrees, noting even historians think the timeline is weird (37:39–38:01).

Debates About Truth

• The veracity of the Elizabeth story is debated—some theorize it started as ‘80s hotel-owner hype, but townsfolk treat it as real (38:12).
• Still, it’s a fixture in local lore and TV ghost-hunting shows.

Boom to Bust: Hotel to Ghost Town

• After quick prosperity, the mines dried up. By 1920, Goldfield’s population had dropped to 1,500; eventually the town became a semi-abandoned shell (39:42).
• The Goldfield Hotel fell into haunted disrepair, featured on National Register of Historic Places, and failed renovation attempts abound.
• Paranormal tourism revives interest: In 2004, Zach Baggins films the original Ghost Adventures documentary here, cementing its place in ghost hunter culture (42:47).

Reported Hauntings & Paranormal Evidence

• Elizabeth’s Room 109:
  • Crying woman, baby’s cries in the mines, cold air, blurry photos, chain sounds like a radiator—residual energy.
  • Apparition in a white dress; poltergeist activity attributed to prankster child ghosts.
• George Wingfield’s Spirit:
  • Cigar smoke, “piles of hot ashes on the floor”—as if just left by a smoking ghost (45:33).
• The Stabber:
  • Knife-wielding ghost in the dining hall—runs at people, vanishes just before contact.
  • Christine: “Really? You don’t think he’s just a serial killer? Okay, sure.” (47:31)
• Non-Human Entity
  • In the basement, reportedly scares child ghosts; described as “non-human” rather than demonic, but described as menacing (55:16, 59:03).
• Tragic First:
  • In 2017, a man died by suicide at the hotel, leaving a note stating he wanted to be the hotel’s next ghost. Hosts are floored: “Have we ever had a hotel where somebody planned to be a ghost there? I think that’s a first.” (51:19)

Famous Investigations

• TAPS (Ghost Hunters) captured shadow figures, chilling EVPs: “get out,” and “where did the girls go?” (52:18)
• YouTube’s Ghost Club Paranormal documented: footsteps, mimicked voices, direct replies from a girl ghost “Olivia”—and chilling warnings from a “non-human” voice: “I scare people. Run now.” (55:16, 56:09)
• Christine notes parallels with the infamous Sally House voice-mimicking weirdness (56:46).

Would They Visit?

• Both hosts are unsettled by the notion of the “non-human” entity.
  • Christine: “I just don’t like non-human”
  • Em: “...the fact that even the owners are scared to say demonic … gives me don’t ask, don’t tell vibes.” (59:03–59:16)

True Crime Story: Robert Lee Yates, The Grocery Bag Killer (65:02)

Background

• Yates, born 1952, Spokane, WA. Traumatized by grandmother killing grandfather with an axe.
• Early trauma and a history of being sexually assaulted at age 6.

Double Homicide & Army Years

• 1975: At 23, murders two students in the woods in “an inexplicable rage,” shooting them in the head (71:10).
• 18 years as an Army helicopter pilot; everywhere he’s stationed, murders of sex workers rise.

Murders in Spokane

• Returns to Spokane in 1996; by then, at least 15 murdered, likely more.
• Father of five. Children later recount disturbing memories—such as unexplained blood in the minivan (“dog blood,” he claimed) (75:58).
• Befriends sex workers on Spokane’s “Track,” discusses the killer with future victims.

Method & Nickname

• Lured women into white Corvette, engages their trust, then shoots them point-blank and bags their heads with grocery bags—not to hurt, but to keep his car clean (83:10).
  • “He would tie a plastic grocery bag over the woman’s head. … Not for sadistic reasons … just to keep his Corvette clean.” —Christine (83:07)

Close Calls, Sloppy Mistakes

• 1998: Victim Christine Smith asks if he’s “the psycho killer.” She’s shot (but thinks stabbed), survives, only to discover bullet fragments in her head two years later (88:31).
• Police pursue a “white Corvette” lead, but an officer misrecords it as “Camaro,” and Yates slips away (86:39).
• Ultimately caught when a fingerprint on a grocery bag is traced to him, and he’s tripped up by correcting police about his car:
  • “It’s not a Camaro, it’s a Corvette.” (91:16)
  • Em’s (original) aside: “Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is just shut the fuck up.” (91:50)

Arrest, Confession & Trial

• Linked forensically to multiple murders by DNA, fibers, and a pearl button from a victim’s sweater (92:40).
• Leads police to a victim’s body buried outside his own bedroom window (94:07).
• 2000: Pleads guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty; sentenced to 408 years.
• 2002: Convicted for two more murders, initially re-sentenced to death, but Washington abolishes the death penalty in 2023.
• Attempts to appeal based on “paraphilic disorder (necrophilia)” as a mitigating condition—unsuccessful (95:23).
• Irony: Now imprisoned at the same penitentiary where he once worked as a guard.

Notable Quotes

• “He did not keep things clean—is that why?”
  “Yes … just to keep his Corvette clean.” (83:10)
• “By 1999, almost three decades had passed since Yates’s first known murder. He’s been doing this for three decades without getting caught…” (89:48)

Memorable Tangents & Humor

• Em’s Math Workbook Hobby
  • “I just bought that for fun … it’s literally fourth grade math.”
  • Christine: “What are you, a literal fifth grader? Your extracurriculars are off the charts!” (15:53)
• Best Friend-Making Strategy:
  • “I’m forcing all these friends to also do the classes with me. So I can kill two birds with one stone.” —Em (17:30)
• Ghosts & Time Travel
  • “As much as I want to be a time traveler, I really have to reconcile with the fact that most places would be uncomfortable heat wise.” —Em (26:20)

Running Jokes, Callbacks & Miscellaneous

• Christine’s accidental misstatement (Gold Rush in 1949, not 1849)—quickly corrected.
• “And That’s Why I Drink” becomes “And that’s why I have so many stories for two truths and a lie and at my weekly trivia.” —Em (19:49)
• Christine’s commentary on hard-to-translate paranormal sources:
  • “There are some places I want to cover things, and every source is … a totally different language ... The translation is too choppy.” (60:37)
• Em on getting surprisingly “shockingly good” at ASL: “I didn’t realize how quickly I would start saying full sentences …” (61:28)
• Final tangent: British Bake Off contestant’s “Oh my heavens!” after a thrown axe nearly hits his head (101:13), tying in with Em’s adult hobby phase.

Episode Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |----------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Iced Tea Pranks / Drinks | 01:10–03:14 | | Christine’s Microblading / Pip & Pals Story | 03:45–07:55 | | Confidence & Anxiety on Camera | 09:04–12:01 | | Em’s Class Schedule & Social Goals | 13:09–19:23 | | Paranormal Story: Goldfield Hotel | 23:04–59:41 | | True Crime: Robert Lee Yates | 65:02–98:28 | | Puppy Corner Wrap-up | 97:11–99:10 |

Conclusion

Christine and Em’s signature style is fully on display in this episode: a tapestry of chilling tales, offbeat humor, and unfiltered personal disclosure. The Goldfield Hotel haunts with murder, mystery, and paranormal activity—including a unique history in Ghost Adventures lore—while Yates’s story is a disturbing true-crime exploration of hidden evil in American suburbs. Between the haunting and the horrific, the hosts’ laughter, asides, and friendship ground the darkness in empathy, insight, and the kind of cathartic camaraderie that makes “And That’s Why We Drink” so beloved.

And that’s why we drink.