Episode 665: Florida Files - Pain in the Everglades

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left – Episode 665: Florida Files - Pain in the Everglades

Date: May 22, 2026
Summary by [Expert Podcast Summarizer]

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Overview

Episode 665 of Last Podcast on the Left, "Florida Files – Pain in the Everglades," is a darkly comedic and deeply researched journey into the bizarre and horrific realities of Florida’s Everglades. Led by Henry Zebrowski (with Ed Larson as a special guest), the crew explores the Everglades’ reputation as a dumping ground for bodies, the unique dangers of the terrain, notorious plane crashes, local legends, the story of Everglades serial killer Edgar J. Watson, and the human rights atrocity of the "Alligator Alcatraz" (aka Alligator Pelican) immigrant detention camp. With a signature mix of irreverent banter and serious investigation, the team exposes the tragic, haunted, and politically charged pain lurking in Florida’s swamps.

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Key Discussion Points & Segments

I. Introduction: Dangers and Legends of the Everglades

[03:03 - 12:00]

• Everglades 101: Henry introduces the Everglades as both a natural wonder and a sinister dumping ground, where the environment makes it ideal for hiding bodies.
  • “It’s a great place to be.” – Henry [05:26]
• The coexistence of alligators and crocodiles is compared humorously to the Crips and Bloods truce.
• The hosts share personal anecdotes about their Florida experiences and introduce the area’s wildlife and local culture.
• Murder as a Topic: The Everglades’ function as a graveyard: Over 175 unsolved murders, corpses rapidly decomposed by animals and bacteria, and the inherent dangers for both wildlife and people.

Notable Quote

“If the crocs and gators don’t eat your body, your body will eat itself, and the water will help you become human soup.”
— Henry Zebrowski [14:01]

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II. The Everglades as the Perfect Cover for Crime

[12:00 - 15:00]

• The geography (vastness, marshy terrain, lack of roads or offramps) makes it ideal for hiding bodies, as explained through anecdotes and references to serial killers.
• “No bends in the road and no off ramps... that’s a serial killer’s preferred spot.” – Ben [12:38]

Gory Details

• Rapid decomposition: Warm, fresh water and a variety of scavengers (alligators, vultures, snapping turtles, fish, even bull sharks).
• One memorable tangent about snapping turtles and their viciousness.

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III. Plane Crashes and Hauntings: ValueJet 592 & Eastern Airlines 401

[20:37 - 40:00]

ValueJet Flight 592 (1996)

[20:37 - 29:35]

• Catastrophic crash due to expired and improperly stored chemical oxygen canisters; all 110 people aboard are killed.
• Henry recounts hearing the crash as a child, discussing the rescue aftermath: body parts scattered, 4000+ fragments later identified, many victims never found.
• Shocking aftermath: quick dissolution of ValueJet, which becomes AirTran and later merges with Southwest Airlines.
• The Everglades' environment destroys nearly all evidence, posing a nightmare for recovery crews.

Eastern Airlines Flight 401 (1972): The Ghost Pilots

[29:35 - 41:14]

• The crew explores the infamous flight that crashed due to a distracted flight crew; 75 survivors, many with harrowing stories.
• Dark humor surrounds descriptions of trauma and survivor’s experiences (e.g., “waking up buried up to his neck in muck, completely naked except for the elastic on his socks...” – Henry [33:54])
• Survivors’ psychological scars: a flight attendant sings Christmas carols to keep morale up.
• Urban legend: After salvaged plane parts were reused in other aircraft, reports of paranormal activity and “air ghosts” begin. Pilots Loft and Repo are repeatedly seen warning crews of danger, cementing their legacy as benevolent (and sometimes mischievous) ghosts.

Notable Ghost Story

“A captain was asked to check on a passenger not on the passenger list... turned out to be Bob Loft.”
— Henry Zebrowski [39:42]

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IV. The Original Everglades Killer: Edgar J. Watson

[43:17 - 54:17]

• Background: Edgar Watson, Civil War-era killer and entrepreneur, infamous for murdering workers to avoid paying them and hiding bodies in the swamps.
• Stories abound about his early kills, including rumors of his first murder at age 9, to confirmed kills of business rivals and employees.
• He is eventually killed by a mob, buried in the swamps (his own trademark disposal method), and his ghost is reported to haunt the Smallwood Store.
• Ghostly activity is described as “making mean faces” and the sounds of sugar cane being processed intermixed with screams.
• Points made about the blending of Florida’s violent past with modern lawlessness.

Notable Exchange

“So, instead of paying his workers, just kill ‘em.”
— Henry Zebrowski [51:35]
“That’s so smart. But so hard to rehire.”
— Ben Kissel [51:41]

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V. “Alligator Alcatraz” (Alligator Pelican): The Atrocity of Florida’s Everglades Detention Camp

[59:56 - 94:17]

Introduction and Background

[59:56 - 62:16]

• Ed introduces Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” (officially named ‘Alligator Pelican’), an immigrant internment camp constructed on stolen Miccosukee land, with little infrastructure and rife with human rights abuses.
• Deep criticism of Florida politicians: “Alligator Pelican is the brainchild of James Alfmeyer, Florida’s Attorney General, and Ron DeSantis...” – Henry [62:33]

Conditions and Atrocities

[62:16 - 87:10]

• Transparently built in two weeks; more “Fire Festival than island prison.”
• Stats: Capacity for 5,000; currently 1,383 detainees, most with no criminal record; cost per detainee 3x higher than standard ($249/night vs. $87).
• Severe abuse: Beatings, pepper spray (“pepper bombs”), the inhumane "box"—a 2x2ft outdoor cage used for torture under lethal heat.
• “Mosquitoes in the Everglades in August are big enough to rape a hummingbird.” — Henry [68:41]
• Hunger, maggot-infested or uncooked food, derisive time limits on meals ("five minutes, or it’s trashed"), non-functioning toilets (one roll of toilet paper per 36 people), showers only every 3-4 days, and a climate of extrajudicial disappearance.
• Guards are largely untrained contractors, some living at the site in dire conditions, with high turnover between the too-abusive and those who quit out of conscience.

Legal and Political Machinations

[84:39 - 91:44]

• Family members, lawyers can’t locate detainees due to intentional “lost” records; power/internet outages are routine.
• The entire setup is described as a "propaganda piece"—designed to break spirits, drain legal resources, and maximize suffering.
• Hosts stress bipartisan failure and systemic cruelty, decrying both state and federal government complicity.

Environmental Destruction & Indigenous Impact

[88:30 - 91:20]

• Indigenous Miccosukee land is violated, environmental laws ignored (“1,000+ NEPA violations”).
• Facility threatens the local aquifer, risking water for over 8 million Floridians.
• Tribal activists like Betty Osceola are surveilled while protesting, and the tribe sues to block further disaster.

Financial Corruption

[91:20 - 93:11]

• $1.5 billion spent so far, draining Florida taxpayers and hurricane relief funds, with no federal oversight.
• “Mediocre white people really, really upset they aren’t kings and queens of the universe automatically—and they love the punishment.” — Ben Kissel [92:37]

Harsh Critique of Politicians

[69:52 - 72:41]

• Politicians’ response limited to “letters” and empty public statements.
• “I believe every single member of government should be arrested... put in a fucking cage.” — Ben Kissel [69:52]

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VI. Hosts’ Reflections & Calls to Action

[94:17 - 96:10]

• Hosts emphasize the need to keep discussing and exposing these atrocities.
  • “We have to keep [talking] about this shit. We have to let people know this stuff happens. This is 100% within the Last Podcast area.” — Marcus [94:41]
  • “Don’t let anybody make you feel crazy for being outraged about this – they’re gaslighting you. Yes, it is happening.” – Marcus [95:49]
• Every politician, except named activist Betty Osceola, is called out for complicity or direct action.

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Most Memorable Quotes

• “If the crocs and gators don’t eat your body, your body will eat itself, and the water will help you become human soup.” — Henry [14:01]
• “Mosquitoes in the Everglades in August are big enough to rape a hummingbird.” — Henry [68:41]
• “I believe every single member of government should be arrested… put in a fucking cage.” — Ben [69:52]
• “They love the punishment. The people who like this... it’s because you hate other people.” — Ben [92:37]
• “This place is used specifically as propaganda... to make people fear and demoralize us.” — Marcus [76:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |------------|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:03 | Everglades overview, dangers, and body disposal | | 14:01 | Decomposition process, scavenger animals | | 20:37 | ValueJet 592 crash and Everglades as graveyard | | 29:35 | Eastern Airlines 401, survivors’ accounts, and ghost pilots | | 43:17 | The story of Everglades killer Edgar J. Watson | | 59:56 | “Alligator Alcatraz”/Alligator Pelican Detention Camp | | 68:41 | “The box,” torture, mosquitoes | | 76:54 | Propaganda/psychological warfare of the detention camps | | 88:30 | Environmental devastation, indigenous protest | | 91:44 | Financial corruption in Florida & draining hurricane relief | | 94:17 | Conclusions, calls to action, listener affirmation |

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Conclusion & Tone

Blending gallows humor, personal stories, and scathing social criticism, the episode presents the Everglades as a uniquely American morass of beauty, violence, historical ghosts, and contemporary evil. The hosts, especially Henry and Ed, treat horrific law enforcement abuses and environmental disasters with both anger and comedic absurdity, calling listeners not only to recognize but to resist such inhumane systems. Listeners are urged not to accept the normalization of cruelty and not to let themselves be gaslit by those in power.

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Attribution & Research Acknowledgments

• Special research shout-outs: Rachel Burke and Pat Barker, plus activist Thomas Kennedy and Miccosukee leader Betty Osceola [96:10, 99:43]
• [96:10] “Every name I mentioned should be in prison – except for Betty Osceola.” – Henry

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Further Resources / Calls to Action

• Follow Betty Osceola and Thomas Kennedy for advocacy on indigenous and detainee rights.
• Support lawsuits and advocacy groups like the ACLU and Americans for Immigrant Justice.
• Stay critical of local and national political narratives regarding immigration, environment, and privatized detention.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Ben Kissel]

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[Marcus Parks]

There's no place to escape to.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is the last on the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that?

[Ben Kissel]

Lord, Lord, Lord.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh my Lord. Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.

[Ben Kissel]

I just want to say today, give us the strength, the podcast. Oh Lord, please give us your blessings today, Lord. Try to make podcasting easier. Try to make podcasting more fun and more fulfilling, Lord. Fill it all. Fill it with sounds, Lord. Fill it with ads, Lord. Fill. Oh Lord, please do our sell through rate on this on this here episode, Lord. Please give us our sell through rate, Lord. Woo.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I feel the retention rates going high. Oh Lord.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, will it be sticky enough for them, Lord? Oh, pray, Lord. Pray, Lord. We keep them to the final quadrant, Lord.

[Marcus Parks]

Man, I wish I could play a big old organ right now.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with God's right hand man, Henry Zabraski.

[Ben Kissel]

But I'm gonna stab him in the back for a piece of silver. Yes. I am revealed to be Judas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes, I tricked God. I try act like I'd be his best friend and then I took the fish and then I sold him to the Italians.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You had the balls, you'd stab him in the front.

[Ben Kissel]

Honestly, I tell you what, I never even believed that Jesus was the son of God. I just thought he was full of fucking shit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

If you look at the cross, if they took him off, he was.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. And the man who is in charge today, it's Ed Larson, Lord.

[Ben Kissel]

Protect Ed Larson, Lord. Let Ed Larson's lead episode be successful and be comparable to his other very successful episodes, Lord.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I got a good feeling about this one because today we're talking about pain.

[Ben Kissel]

Good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

In the Everglades? Yes. Have you.

[Ben Kissel]

I got a cramp.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What happened to you?

[Ben Kissel]

Jesus.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Immediately.

[Ben Kissel]

I got a cramp.

[Marcus Parks]

You got a cramp?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Where your whole body. No, give me a second.

[Ben Kissel]

Water.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's your mouth. I say cramp. This isn't like winded from your spirit? Is this God attacking you?

[Ben Kissel]

No, my body's tired. My body is tired.

[Marcus Parks]

I like that scene in the Distinguished gentleman where the man says he has a cramp, then he has a whole heart attack and dies. Did you fart, marm?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm Al M A R M. Back

[Ben Kissel]

to our regular scheduled programming.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. There's pain in the studio. There's pain in the Everglades. Today we're going down south, baby. I hope you're ready. Have you guys ever been to the Everglades? No.

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's crazy to me. You would love it, actually.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah?

[Marcus Parks]

You think so?

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like the only thing that I think you would like about something. South Florida.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All right.

[Marcus Parks]

Is it just because it's a beautiful.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is gorgeous. There's lots of. You know. It's great. The Mikasuki tribe is very cool down there.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's lots of great airboat rides you can go on. It's a beautiful time. The sunset's probably the best in the world. Comparable.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm extremely frightened of it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, you should be.

[Ben Kissel]

And I mostly have been in Miami.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

But that's largely concrete and Maduros.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I went to the. I went to the Everglades with your sister. You.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, you know. You went out because you were there at the time for the Super Bowl.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. Yeah, we went during the Super Bowl. I got this shirt and we went airboat riding. It was a lot of fun. At Everglades National Park.

[Ben Kissel]

But you lived.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I lived very well because I didn't get off the boat. So what if I told you that there was a place where alligators and crocodiles coexisted in peace?

[Ben Kissel]

I would say, nice cope. You fucking. You cuck.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I thought you'd probably say something to the effect of. I didn't realize that they couldn't coexist in the first place.

[Ben Kissel]

I didn't realize that they couldn't coexist in the first place.

[Marcus Parks]

I actually had no idea.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, they can't. They're basically the Crips in the bloods. Okay. Remember the 1992 Watts truce?

[Ben Kissel]

I do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Where the red and blue. They came together to stop the violence after the LA riots.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. They had set me in negotiate. Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, this place Is like that, except with alligators and crocodiles. I'm talking about the Florida Everglades. God, I love the Everglades. I grew up down there. The lake behind my house, the water was fed in from the Everglades, so it was just filled with water moccasins and gators. It was really cool. It's a great place to be.

[Marcus Parks]

Now I understand growing up in like you grew up in the Florida Everglades, which are extremely dangerous. I grew up in West Texas, which is also very dangerous. Plenty of rattlesnakes everywhere.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Lots of rattlesnakes in the Everglades.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, I, I would say you definitely, you have the danger over me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yes. Cuz we got all these other animals and plus the people.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, I, I also grew up in the Italian American streets of Queens, New York City. And I had to deal with organized crime and stickball.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Gators in the sewers.

[Ben Kissel]

Yep, gators in the sewers. Gators on my feet because I was given shoes by the local mobster.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now I know Crips and bloods, weird way to introduce the topic, but the Everglades are a weird place. Covering 1.5 million acres of wetland forests and marine habitats, the Everglades are a great place to escape reality. Taking a perfect purple sunset over the sawgrass and hide someone you just murdered. Whatever floats your airboat, you know what I'm saying?

[Ben Kissel]

I like to hide bodies of the people I murdered.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right, Henry. Let's say you murder someone and let's pick a random city. Cincinnati.

[Ben Kissel]

Great.

[Marcus Parks]

Where we just were.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, we just were. I got family there, you know. So what you're going to want to do with that pesky old corpse is you gotta hop on I75 South. Keep on driving. Go, go, go, go, go. You hit the swamp, no muscle fuss.

[Ben Kissel]

Can I also give a bit of advice?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, sure.

[Ben Kissel]

Use a circular saw to cut around the joints. Right. First you're going to want to cuddle the meat around the joints. And then you're going to use a littler knife to actually work your way into the joint of the knee on both sides. You're going to want to take that off. You're going to want to take the arms off at the shoulder. You're also probably going to want head off at the neck. That's going to require a bigger saw because you're going to get to the meat that you get to the bone itself. Then you're going to chop into the little spinal cord thing and then you're slowly going to Work the head back and forth till it pops off. I would then wrap those pieces in tarp, put that in a giant cooler, then drive that to the Everglades and then feed them piece by piece.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now we're going to get to it a little bit and I'm going to tell you why you're wrong and you're working too hard.

[Marcus Parks]

Working way too hard. Work smarter, not harder.

[Ben Kissel]

Thank God he stopped.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, it's another example. Maybe you're a. A local South Floridian, a. A Delray beach bro. Dude named Randy, red faced and driving drunk home from a Flanagan. Wow. Like many Randy's do seven nights a week, you know.

[Marcus Parks]

Never knew a sober Randy.

[Ben Kissel]

Not one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

By the way, when you visit Flanagans, they got phenomenal wings. The ribs ain't nothing to turn your nose up at either. And don't sleep on those dolphins fingers. They let you keep the cup.

[Ben Kissel]

Also Flanagans, that's a big Casey Anthony spot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, I bet. Oh yeah, she'd do really Flanagan. She does do very well at a plan. Do you know which one she goes to?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know but it's a regular. I mean she's welcomed that Casey Anthony is welcome at Flanagan.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They don't give a what you've done at Flanagan.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm pretty certain I've got a lot of messages that Casey Anthony has like a mean girl group that sort of runs. I want to say it's the Flanagans of Fort Lauderdale.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's a couple in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And so she runs like a mean girl. Click. That has to like people like she's like taking over the scene. Like you have to be in with Casey Anthony to get a good table at Flanagan.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well anyway, so you're cleaving Flanagan's, you're swerving and scooting, listening to Buffett's A1A album. It's fucking kicking, you know. All right, you pull into your gated community out west, just past 4:41. You wave hello to the stoner gate guy. You turn left while tearing up to a pirate looks at 40 and you clip a teenager on a scooter. Oopsie doodles.

[Ben Kissel]

Thanks for clipping me. Now I don't have to go to homeschool.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And he's screaming. He recognizes you. He says, randy, did you do this?

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna everyone. You're gonna spend the rest of your life in prison, Randy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. So you grab a handful of Bermuda grass and you just jam it down his throat. You pinch his nose till he stops moving and all you hear is the chorus of green tree frogs while you realize your life has changed forever. It could happen to anyone.

[Ben Kissel]

That's a Buffett story.

[Marcus Parks]

There's so many scooter boys around.

[Ben Kissel]

Scooter men, scooter adults.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What you're gonna want to do in this situation is you're gonn throw a ball cap on them, stick them in the passenger seat, take the carpool lane south, swing a right on Old US 41, aka Alligator Alley. Ride that till the radio stops working. No must, no fuss and shit. Miller's Ales house is open till 2. So you got some time to get some zingers in a nightcap because you're pretty sure that cute bartender Stephanie is working tonight and you gotta harass her anyway. You have plugged more restaurants and bars

[Ben Kissel]

than we have talked about.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dangers of the ever Everglades. So far the Everglades saved the day again. Over 175 unsolved murders.

[Marcus Parks]

My God. And is that 175 just bodies?

[Henry Zebrowski]

They've found murdered bodies.

[Marcus Parks]

Murdered bodies, yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Plenty of people go there to just commit suicide. Okay. Or just get lost and die, sure, yeah. But these are murders that they know are murders and they have no idea who did them because they left the body in the Everglades.

[Ben Kissel]

Is there ever been a case of somebody so terminally ill that they would just lay down and wait for an anaconda to take them?

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's no anacondas in the Everglades. Just pythons and boa constrictors. And those are relatively new.

[Ben Kissel]

Interesting.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm sure they'll show up one day though. Yeah. We do have Nile crocodiles now though, so that's good.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey. Well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow. Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

I guess the state in Florida is in the. They're in the. Actually in the state of denial.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And look at this. You take in my role today. That's really nice. I like that you move the words around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

[Ben Kissel]

I stole that joke from a sticker.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Listen, you ain't finding nobody dumb something. The Glades. This area is perfect for making bodies disappear thanks to a number of environmental factors. Yeah, first off, there's the terrain. This thing spans 4, 300 square miles and is visually repetitive. Marsh, sawgrass swamp, Repeat.

[Ben Kissel]

And what do we learn from the police detective that worked on the Rex Hewerman case that I thought was really interesting? That one of the one detail that they noticed more than anything when it comes to serial killers or organized crime members hiding bodies is that one key is no bends in the Road and no off ramps. You need a clear view all the way down. Like you need an empty. With it, you can go down and has a hidden area. Yeah. Which is what? The Everglades is perfect.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Alligator alley particular. There's no gas station.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like three hours.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And you see, the idea is that you want to be able to look miles down the road in either way before you could see somebody coming. So that's a serial killer's preferred spot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Also in the middle of the Everglades with the sawgrass and everything. These conditions make bodies really hard to spot from an aircraft, which means rescue teams need to use airboats and waiting crews. And to quote the great Kimberly Sweet Brown Wilkins. Ain't nobody got time for that.

[Ben Kissel]

No, I mean, they pay them, but it's awful work.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's awful work.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They don't know. I think a lot of times they're actually volunteers.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. If there's a disaster or something like

[Ben Kissel]

that, I would not count on volunteers to find me. I'd really want professional guys.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Think you get to choose.

[Marcus Parks]

Damn.

[Ben Kissel]

Can I put that in my living will? Funny.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Henry's last words.

[Ben Kissel]

People got to find me. Young, entertain people.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what? I could really see that being your last words.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Please hide me.

[Marcus Parks]

Young entertain people.

[Ben Kissel]

Comedian.

[Marcus Parks]

Three words. I have money. And then.

[Ben Kissel]

No, I'm sorry. It's not liquid.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So here's why your cooler thing is so unnecessary, Henry. There's the. Also the water itself. The warm, fresh water of the Everglades provides an environment for bacteria to thrive, which helps accelerate the rate of decomposition. There's a whole scientific explanation with this, with lots of big words, but to summarize, if the crocs and gators don't eat your body, your body will eat itself, and the water will help you become human soup.

[Ben Kissel]

Cool.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, the word sloth is definitely going to apply here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Quite bad. Oh, yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah. When the sloth gets thick, the sloth gets good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the bodies, they just don't decompose faster down there. They also decompose differently. See, the result is bodies that within 24 hours are almost unrecognizable to the naked eye, thanks to quote skin slippage, tissue softening, and severe bloating.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, is that what happened to Russell Crowe? Did he fall in there?

[Henry Zebrowski]

He hung out for way too long. There was a buffet.

[Ben Kissel]

And

[Henry Zebrowski]

so anytime the water conditions sound like the side effects of an. Of an ssri, that's probably going to be a bad sign.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what I'm Saying the Everglades may cause skin slippage, tissue softening, and severe bloating. Ask your doctor if the Everglades are right for you.

[Ben Kissel]

I tell you what, they weren't really kidding about the bloating. I'm full of water magazines,

[Henry Zebrowski]

you know, and finally, we get to the animals. You know, I know. We all picture an alligator eating a body the same way. Fancy candle lit dinner at a table with a napkin around its neck, fork and knife in each hand.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, dude, I want him to have a wine pairing. I want him to be restaurant week.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, but this ain't Tiana's Bayou Adventure, man. It's real life, okay? And in real life, they don't actually eat the whole body. They bite at it and disfigure it and drag it and toss it to other gators and then submerge you completely and put you under a rock and eat you a week later. They just generally. Anything that'll make it really hard to identify you. Yeah, it's cool.

[Ben Kissel]

It is cool. I feel like alligators are like sea criminals.

[Marcus Parks]

Are there any other, like, scavengers out in.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, there's plenty of vultures, you know, there's lots of you, pretty much any. Snapping turtles will eat anything that's just sitting there, Joe.

[Ben Kissel]

Exotics, cousins.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then the fish. The fish will straight up eat you, of course.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, so it's. There's going to be a million ways for your.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's alligator gar. There's regular gar. There's like. And then, like, it's the only place where, like, at certain points you'll get, like, saltwater fish. So sometimes they'll find, like, bull sharks will make their way into the Everglades. Sometimes, like, it's because a bull shark, as we learned from the attack in New Jersey, which one day I'll cover, but they can live in freshwater for up to two years.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, wow.

[Marcus Parks]

And snapping turtles slouch.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There was a. They're scary and huge.

[Marcus Parks]

There was a girl who died in a. Was some sort of, like, water tank when I was a kid. It was like our local, like, mysterious death.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And the snapping turtles got to her and ate up that body pretty fast.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah, yeah, they can. They'll rip your toes off. They'll straight up, like, they'll. You can bite through your fingers. They're. They're badass. Yeah, they're very scary. They're huge. They'll get like this big.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No, we had snapping turtles around all over, over the place.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yes. Gonna Jump in the shower now. Oh, taking off my pants. There goes the underwear. Oh, my shirt's off now too. Yes, those are my breasts.

[Ben Kissel]

Hello. Hello. Who's that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Who's looking at me? Hey, hey, don't look at here. It's my bathroom. Hey, keep your eyes all at sleep for you to just look from your house into my house. Oh, man, I gotta get some blinds. I'm gonna go to blinds.com. that's right, because I heard that blinds.com, they've actually been selling blinds for 30 years. You believe that? 30 years I've had no blinds. What's wrong with me? I'm so stupid. But now I'm getting blinds. That's it. I'm going to blinds the stock Blinds dot com. I'm gonna get these. Yeah, the sideways ones. Or maybe I should do the ups and downs. You know what? I'm gonna ask a professional. Oh, I can go full DIY or bring in a licensed or vetted pro. That's amazing. I'm gonna finally have some privacy so I can play with my privacy privates in private. Right now, blinds.com is giving our listeners an exclusive $50 off when you spend 500 or more. Just use the code left at checkout. Limited time. Offer rules and restrictions apply. See blinds.com for details.

[Ben Kissel]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

So the Glades aren't just there for murderers to ditch bodies. Sometimes. Sometimes planes crash there and the bodies ditch themselves. So let me tell you about May 11, 1996, value Jet Flight 592. Now, before I get into it, I know this sounds like victim blaming, but anyone who flies on something called Value Jet is kind of asking for trouble.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it does feel like a little dollar store.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, I mean, you're definitely full of gamblers, I'd say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Oh, God, yes. Now, I know we're trying to save a few bucks on vacation, but I think you should should steer clear of any airline that sounds like it's a dollar store. It was a horrible airline, man. All middle seats. You know, I don't even know how they did it.

[Marcus Parks]

Mannequins, like, strangely enough, like they spent all their money on mannequins.

[Ben Kissel]

Super chubby employees just sit there, just take up the aisles.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, obviously you've never heard of Value Jet, most likely. But after the crash, Value jet rebranded as AirTran Airlines, which merged into AirTran Airways, which later integrated into Southwest Airlines. So the legacy of the worst plane ever still lives on today. But back to 1996, where 105 passengers and five crew members boarded a flight from Miami to Atlanta. And 10 minutes into the journey, disaster struck.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I actually didn't realize how close the Everglades were to Miami.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yes.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah, they're right there.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I had no idea.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, you just go. It's literally like it's the city and then it's Everglades and then the rest of Florida. Florida.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, it's just like the through all the way to the Gulf Coast. So this plane crash I'm talking about, I actually heard this plane go down. I was at a car dealership and some horrible cracker was taking my dad to the cleaners on a cherry red Chevy Cavalier.

[Ben Kissel]

You mean your dad was an incredible negotiator. I have a feeling your dad is kind of like my dad, where he's just like, Hey, 75,000, I'll give you 80. You know, like that style. Okay, I'll get you up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love the Cavalier. It was a convertible. It was very nice. You know, it wasn't a great car, but at least it wasn't a freaking RAV4, if you know what I'm saying.

[Ben Kissel]

Those anybody that wants to sell your RAV4 is an Iranian sleeper agent. That's what's happening. They're from the North Korea and they're trying to destabilize the country.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So I'm sitting there just waiting for this to go over because you know how long it takes to buy a car, especially when they're stealing from you.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh yeah. They really let you know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So suddenly we hear this loud plane go overhead and it shook the whole building. We're like, whoa, that one was close. And a little later, we're in the lobby and we saw the crash on the news. Wow, it was crazy. Yeah, no come up. But I've gotten to see slash hear a couple cool disasters in my day.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Challenger. Miracle on the Hudson. Still don't make up for sleeping through 9 11, but 910 was worth it.

[Marcus Parks]

You saw the Miracle on the Hudson?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I was working at a IAC building on the 9th floor and I was restocking all the candy and then all of a sudden there was some chick up there and she just starts screaming. And then look up, the thing hits the Hudson. And then we had a like a telescope. And I'm just looking at the people standing on the wing. I'm like, these are dead, cuz it was February.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. They all live.

[Ben Kissel]

They all live. Most disheartening. Just you in that monkey suit. They put you in that suit. Just you just sit there going, those are dead.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I got like two hands full of Reese's cups.

[Ben Kissel]

God damn it. Another pile of corpses. All right, you want some Charleston shoes? Carol wants her pink paper.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, Mr. Barry Diller. Come on over and look at the corpses.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, excellent. Now I can finally get hard and my fake wife.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So here's how the plane went down. The oxygen masks, they're supposed to help in the event of emergency, but what if I told you that they caused the emergency. I believe you. That's what happened here. As144 chemical oxygen canisters were not only expired, but also improperly secured in the cargo bay.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the Value Jet promise.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And you know, dude, this flight Value Jet was done like the next day. It was so funny.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It feels like whoever ran Value Jet was quiet quitting. I don't feel like doing this anymore.

[Ben Kissel]

Just stop.

[Marcus Parks]

But just stop with the oxygen tanks and someday gonna explode. Gotta do it anymore.

[Ben Kissel]

I need to fight for my own mental health. And this is a boundary I'm setting. The oxygen tanks will just be loosely in the plane and I'm doing that for my own mental well being. Okay. The boundary is here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Like to this day it kind of changed everything. You know when you check in for a flight and then ask you if you're bringing any of the combustible materials on the plane and you think, why would anyone fucking do that? The answer is ValuJet. The canister started a fire on board and the pilot tried to reverse course back to Miami. But before they could make it, the plane crashed nose down in the Everglades, killing everyone on board. The plane landed in the mud and shallow water where the impact on the limestone floor shattered the aircraft and sent bodies flying everywhere. Crews responded immediately to search for said bodies. And to say they face an uphill battle is an understatement.

[Ben Kissel]

It's like more of a down swamp battle.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. So they have waiters. Waiters. Not waiters

[Ben Kissel]

in there.

[Marcus Parks]

Maybe we had to. We can call them waters.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, but that sounds. Waters. Yeah, yeah. Well, water waiters.

[Ben Kissel]

No, I do not think I should not be up to my waist in the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Okay, here's your helmet specials.

[Ben Kissel]

What about the daily special?

[Henry Zebrowski]

So they enter the muck in the biohazard gear and masks, their sleeves and pant legs securely taped to their bodies to avoid coming in contact with all the bacteria or jet fuel. They went in teams of six for 20 minute shifts bound together by a safety line in case one of them fell into a deep hole. I forgot to mention the Everglades just has a bunch of random deep holes.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean, that makes total sense. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So when you say like the shallow water on average, do you know how like deep Everglades, like up to your tits. Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You can usually walk around about four

[Marcus Parks]

and a half, four and a half, five feet.

[Ben Kissel]

You're walking on limestone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Limestone. Well, there's a lot of mud and limestone. But like, just like I said, there's deep holes there's. You could be stepping on gators, you could be stepping on snakes. You don't know what the fuck's going on. Not to mention the sawgrass. They call it sawgrass because it looks literally cuts your skin as you walk through it.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm not going in it. I'm not going to go there.

[Marcus Parks]

It's just, it's incredible how America is filled with places like this.

[Ben Kissel]

Like this.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Or, or like in the opposite side of the biome. We've got the Everglades and Death Valley in the same country.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We got everything.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh yeah. And we have genuine jungles up in Oregon and Washington. Rainforest like it's kind of. It is. I mean America's a beautiful place.

[Marcus Parks]

It is, it is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hopefully we get it back one day.

[Marcus Parks]

One day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. As if it wasn't bad enough they had to be monitored. So listen, so they're like worried about the deep holes. They had like fucking helicopters equipped with snipers to shoot alligators and crocodiles and other assorted swamp monsters that would try to attack the waiters.

[Ben Kissel]

Do you know that? That's kind. That is a fun job. That's a fun ass job. Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just strapped into a helicopter.

[Ben Kissel]

He's like yes, I knew that. I knew I'd do something cool that wasn't just shooting villagers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All right, here's what all of it. Here's the results that all reflected in. In the first three days, the searching yielded 40 body parts. Not bodies, body parts. The biggest one was a kneecap. Which should put in perspective just how badly these bodies were destroyed in the first 72 hours. Wow. The search lasted for seven weeks and eventually produced over 4,000 body fragments which were used to positively identify 60 of the 110 bodies. 42 of the people on board were never ID'd from remains. I assume their identities were known from the tickets purchased. But that's operating under the assumption that ValuJet even checked IDs or log purchases or owned a computer, which might be a stretch.

[Ben Kissel]

We do it the old fashioned way with graph paper.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

It's supposed to be Xerox machines. Graph paper.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When you took ValuJet back in the day, it was like Greyhound. You just kind of tossed your luggage in a plane going north and hoped for the best.

[Ben Kissel]

I'll get off on one of them stops my guts.

[Marcus Parks]

A body fragments. It's just flesh

[Henry Zebrowski]

bone that they found. It's just. Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing. It's an island. But you know, so this wasn't the.

[Ben Kissel]

Gotta be a fun like look what I found. It's an island.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Don't eat it.

[Ben Kissel]

Like, oh, wow. I've never seen an island on its own. That's so fun.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But this wasn't the only Everglades plane crash. December 29, 1972. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 was wrapping up from a flight from JFK to Miami. When I say wrap it up, I mean the black box recorded Captain Bob Loft welcoming passengers to Miami, telling them that temperatures were in the low 70s.

[Ben Kissel]

You got a low. Pure, perfect. Miami coming in, low 70s. Now, if you could see, you're outside of your windows. You can see it's quite a beautiful night out there tonight. Hope you can enjoy. Oh, my God.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Basically, yes, they were. They were in the home stretch. Then Loft noticed that the nose gear light didn't indicate down and locked, which was, you know, necessary for a safe landing. So there's a little.

[Ben Kissel]

Maybe there's a problem with the light bulb.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So he sent the second officer, Bert Stock still, to the electronics bay beneath the flight deck to inspect and got permission to circle the height of 2,000ft while they figured out the issue. Burt Stock.

[Marcus Parks]

Still, that guy wasn't being anything but a pilot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dude, all these guys have great pilot names. Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Second Officer Bert Stock still checking in.

[Ben Kissel]

Doing everything I can do to keep us in the air. And I know my wife's cheers waiting on me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like when you get a pilot's license, they change your name.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, your name's Barney Krasinski. No, your name is now rock Jetson.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But 2,000ft sounds like a safe height for an aircraft. If everything's handled correctly. Sure. Ultimately, though, it's way lower than you think. This. If the craft starts to slowly descending without anyone noticing, the ground will approach extreme extremely fast.

[Ben Kissel]

How do they not notice? Aren't they pilots in the cockpit?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, yes. And then that's what happened.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The ground approached very quickly.

[Marcus Parks]

Remember, it's night time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. And in the 70s. So, like, it's all different machinery. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And everybody's skinnier.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Everybody's smoking, so.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But we're getting Ozempic back, so now we're gonna be skinny again.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it's me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's for everybody. After about six minutes of trying to find the nose gear issue, an alarm went off to indicate that the aircraft had deviated proper altitude. The alarm was either unheard or ignored. And two minutes later, they noticed how low they had gotten. By then, it was far too late. The black box recorded Loft saying, hey, what's happening here? And then Seven seconds later, the plane crashed into the Everglades.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, it's a snake. Why is he close?

[Marcus Parks]

Most black box recordings are like that. You can't listen to them. It's mostly them just calmly talking. Looks like we have a little problem here.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, boy. That doesn't look right.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, they're built. Because they're built to be that way. Pilots are supposed to. Because that's all the Chuck Yeager.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You gotta stay calm.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, they stole that. That's the whole thing from that. The Chuck Yeager voice. That's what every pilot is doing. Ah, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Chuck Yeager.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But here's where it gets crazy. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The right stuff. I remember Chuck Yeager. I remember the ride at Six Flags Over Texas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

It's a cool guy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. I don't remember him.

[Ben Kissel]

He broke the sound barrier.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, that guy. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Chuck Yeager.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They named Jagermeister after him.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Traditionally, the fastest alcohol.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I am the Jaeger, mister. But. So the aircraft fucking disintegrated and sent wreckage flying across the area. Almost 500,000 square feet. But amazingly, there were survivors. And here's the math. 176 total people on board, including the crew. 101,000 deaths. So that means 75 survivors, with 58 of them suffering serious injuries. But that means that 17 people walked out of this thing relatively unscathed, which is unbelievable. So that's not to say the survivors didn't suffer, though they did. One survivor described waking up buried up to his neck and muck, completely naked except for the elastic on his socks, unable to move to multiple industry injuries, hearing snakes and gators thrashed in the water around him. He was rescued five hours later. Hot, right?

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

What happened to his clothes? Why was he naked? Did the. Everybody disintegrate his clothes immediately?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I guess so. I have no idea.

[Ben Kissel]

Who knows?

[Henry Zebrowski]

It could have burnt off. Like, who knows what manic happens?

[Ben Kissel]

But, you know, they talk about that. You remember how when we went through the Murdoch cases, the part of how, you know, he wasn't the. The Stephen Miller part of it, when he wasn't killed. Like, we know the fact he wasn't hit by a car. Because one thing they do say is that people fall out of their cloth all the time in an impact kill. And how, like, that style of. It's weird. You just, like, your clothes rip.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And all of a sudden, you. Naked as hell. You're naked as hell. You're a swamp. You survived a plane crash and you've just become a feral child. Like, from the 1700s in the forests of France.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He could have bought one of those new newspaper suits.

[Marcus Parks]

Maybe his clothes burned off of him when the plane caught on fire. But then when it hit the swamp, put him out again.

[Ben Kissel]

The wicking. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then the muck of the mud helped heal.

[Ben Kissel]

And then his skin was moisturized.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Although if it was the 70s, he might have been wearing. Now, that wouldn't work because he would have been wearing polyester and that would have just.

[Ben Kissel]

Polyester burns. It turns into like a. Like a. Almost like a. What do they call?

[Marcus Parks]

Like a. Napal.

[Ben Kissel]

Napalm.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Yum, yum.

[Ben Kissel]

Now that was a big thing that happened to Michael Jackson.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

At the Pepsi commercial.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He really could have become Freddy Krueger in that moment.

[Ben Kissel]

He did.

[Marcus Parks]

Kind of did.

[Ben Kissel]

Without the out the mercy of killing them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The dreams.

[Ben Kissel]

I invite him into mine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You already had the hat and the glove, so not all the damage was physical. Some of it was psychological. Eight of the ten flight attendants survived. And Beverly Raposa was hailed as a hero for her efforts rescuing survivors. One of her strategies was to sing Christmas carols to boost morale and draw attention to the rescuers. Just imagine being half paralyzed, butt naked, soaked in kerosene, surrounding, surrounded by electric eels. You're expected to join in on an impromptu rendition of Santa Baby.

[Ben Kissel]

Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle bells.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Do you hear what I hear?

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, that's an alligator.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's a gator. That.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that's what Frankie's. That's the sound Frankie makes when a monster comes on the television.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Very protective.

[Ben Kissel]

Very cute.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So one fun Everglades specific tidbit is that the first responders were Bud Marquis and Ray Dickinson, two friends. They were out for around a late night frog gigging. And frog gigging, of course, is when you go out and hunt bullfrogs with a long spear and secretly have sex with your best friend.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Why else would you do that? What else could possibly be fun about that? That sounds horrific.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So these guys are out there fucking each other and stabbing frogs.

[Ben Kissel]

Maybe we should get back to stabbing frogs. I've already already come three times.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The plane crashes and then they immediately leapfrog into action and started rescuing people. They were later honored for their heroics and their efforts helped save the lives of 75 people and countless frogs who were able to escape the spear to the head while Bud and Ray were preoccupied.

[Ben Kissel]

I imagine whatever frogs they missed were murdered by the plane. They were very handily destroyed entirely, entirely by the plane crash.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dude, toads down there, they huge.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, you don't like those.

[Marcus Parks]

You hate toads.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They'd be waiting by your front door like when you get home and you just be like, they'll bite you.

[Marcus Parks]

They waited by my front door when I was a kid.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Everywhere when you hit them with the car, they must explode.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they do. I remember seeing a video in college about also, it was Australian toads. Like it was about invasive species, environmental sciences class. And they showed a guy driving down a road that was covered in toads and it was slipping and sliding all

[Ben Kissel]

over because it actually causes.

[Marcus Parks]

It causes wrecks because there's so many of them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, they're slippery before you run them over.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, they're little gushers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So the three main crew members remember them. Captain Bob Loft, second officer Bert Stock still and engineer Don Repo. They were all killed in the crash.

[Ben Kissel]

It names.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hi.

[Marcus Parks]

John Repo, plane engineer.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, that's what I do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, just cuz you're dead doesn't mean there isn't still work to do. And Loft and Repo began new career as air ghosts. Yeah, this is fun. All right, now we're getting a little spooky.

[Ben Kissel]

Air ghosts are a topic I've wanted to cover quite a bit before.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, here you go. Face. They started haunting various flights and they didn't choose them at random. There was one thing that all the haunted flights had in common. This is honestly pretty cool. The aircraft that it crashed was a Lockheed L1011 TriStar. After the wreckage had be recovered from the swamp, they realized that some of the parts of the aircraft could be salvaged and refitted into other L1011.

[Ben Kissel]

They do that. They've done that all with every single plane crash. They did it with the. The Twin Towers. They really. Yeah, they took the metal. They use a lot of stuff for them. Using that met, I mean pro.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This saved Eastern Airlines like hundreds of

[Ben Kissel]

bucks, almost dozens of dollars.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the con is that the refitted parts also contained the lost souls of Loft and Reaper. Half a dozen in the other. In one instance, a captain was asked to check on a passenger in first class who was not on the passenger list. This man was wearing a pilot's uniform and appeared dazed and unreleased, responsive. When the captain got closer, he recognized who it was. Bob Loft.

[Ben Kissel]

Bob.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he knew him.

[Ben Kissel]

Find my journal and throw it out.

[Henry Zebrowski]

On another flight from New York to Miami, the same exact path of Flight 401. A flight attendant opened the overhead compartment to see Bob stares back at her from the side.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, How.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hey, how you doing?

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, how you doing?

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, what's going on here? What do you got? What do you got going on here? What do you got for snacks?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Bob does seem like a fun ghost.

[Ben Kissel]

He does, dude.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just getting hammered in first class and hiding in overhead bins. He's like Saul Volcano.

[Ben Kissel]

He's having a little fun now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Don repo not quite as silly. He was much more productive. On one flight, an attendant saw his face appear in the oven and he and he warned her to watch out for fire on the plane. On the return flight, the engine failed and had to be shut down before. Before it caught fire. Another flight attendant on the aircraft saw an engineer fixing the oven shortly afterwards. On another flight, Don was seen sitting in the cockpit where he warned of a faulty electrical circuit. And I'll be damned. Don was right. The crew found and replaced the circuit before anything could go wrong.

[Ben Kissel]

That ghost is the best employee this airline has.

[Marcus Parks]

I hope they came in like that. They he like that. It wasn't just like fire on the

[Ben Kissel]

plane, like I come bringing warnings of d consequence. You just know it's going to really help him there. Thank you so much, Doug. We'll look into that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And if his ghost was in the oven, was it like a tiny version of him? That little gnome is trying to warn us of something. Oh, man. Eastern Airlines hated these stories, though. When they started circulating, they privately warned employees that if they were caught spreading ghost stories, they'd be be fired. They publicly denied that these flights were haunted, which is objectively hilarious. Press conference to have to hold.

[Ben Kissel]

We have investigated each and every flight and we have determined no ghosts. Like, you know, like, we will assure you every single flight you take here on Southwest will guaranteed to be ghost free. I don't care what anybody says how

[Henry Zebrowski]

scared flying Eastern Airlines.

[Ben Kissel]

I don't care how scared these flight attendants are. They're not seeing ghosts. They're seeing what we call temporal imagery. Like he tries to create new signs.

[Marcus Parks]

Eastern Airlines was founded on the promise that the undead do not belong in the sky.

[Ben Kissel]

We here at Value Jet are doing our best to kill the spiritual world one plane at a time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

One nice thing about having two horrific plane crashes is that the victims don't appear to be causing any trouble in the the afterlife. Other than the two pilots that are messing with people aboard the other aircraft, everyone's minding their P's and q's and not haunting the Florida Everglades. That's not the case, however, for Edgar J. Watson. Ed Watson was known as the Everglades killer. How do you think he got that name?

[Marcus Parks]

Killing people in the.

[Ben Kissel]

Killing people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nowadays his ghost haunts the area, particularly near a convenience store.

[Ben Kissel]

How convenient.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which is ironically pretty inconvenient for shoppers because it's in the middle of the ever. Everglades. Actually. If you need something though, it's probably is convenient.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, Especially Everglades. I have, I can, you know, I've got acid.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

You know, where am I going to get my, my pepsid?

[Marcus Parks]

The ghost is inconvenient.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, I want to get my malt liquor.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, let's start Ed Watson's story from the beginning. On the first day there was light. Watson was born on November 11, 1855. You know, back when America was great. His father, father Elijah, was a Civil War veteran and an abusive drunk, which is redundant for sure. Elijah would routinely beat Edgar and his mom. And after about a decade of that, they fled to Fort White, Florida, where Edgar would spend the rest of his childhood. Because of the inconsistent recordkeeping back then, there are a lot of question marks in Edgar's timeline. There's a, A lot of unverified stories, and they start with his departure from Southwest Carolina. One version is, the story goes that his mom, Minnie got tired of dealing with an alcoholic maniac, so she left. That makes sense. The other version had Edgar committing his first murder at the age of nine.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Prompting the move. That one kind of almost makes sense once you hear the rest of Edgar's story.

[Marcus Parks]

Nine year olds commit murder every day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Have you guys ever heard about Edgar Watson?

[Marcus Parks]

I never have.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I've never heard. This is great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fun, fun characters in this story.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So either way, they settled into Fort White and Watson would eventually grow up and meet a nice young lady and get married. Unfortunately, Watson's wife would tragically die during childbirth with a baby passing away as well, which made Edgar super easy to get along with. Watson's first confirmed killing would come a bit later. The victim was his unnamed cousin. Edgar's cousin made one fatal mistake. And that mistake was when he said the words, edgar, calm down.

[Ben Kissel]

Never do that. No, I'm gonna need you to calm down.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, that actually triggers a lot of people.

[Ben Kissel]

It does seem to accelerate.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

The scenario.

[Marcus Parks]

Can't name a single time when I've said that. And it's worked.

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Once you don't believe it, try it with your wife when you come home at 3am hammered.

[Ben Kissel]

Lady, I gotta say, you're. First of all you're overacting. Second of all, I'm underappreciated in this house.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So you're gonna have to calm down.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna have to. All right. I'll be moving out.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm gonna have to ask you calm down. Go to sleep. Because time for sleep. Time for sleep. You calm down.

[Ben Kissel]

You calm down.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sleep time.

[Ben Kissel]

You calm down.

[Marcus Parks]

Down. Cuz I'm calm.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Why are you still up? Why you still up?

[Ben Kissel]

Crazy Eddie said the funniest thing about ladies earlier. You believe the funny things that said about ladies earlier?

[Marcus Parks]

Let me see if I can remember it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Let me see if I can remember.

[Marcus Parks]

I think he said, calm the down.

[Ben Kissel]

Calm the down.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So anyway, Edgar kicked his cousin in the head till he died.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Should have been a soccer player. Edgar then split to Oklahoma. While in Oklahoma, Edgar met a woman named Belle Starr.

[Marcus Parks]

This woman's incredible.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Belle was eight years older than Edgar and had committed quite a bit more of crime as well.

[Marcus Parks]

Do you also see her as Mae West?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, my God.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, my name's Belle Starr.

[Ben Kissel]

Bella Riccia.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, your name's Aga. I'm going to call you Little Eddie.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, my little Eddie. I love you, baby.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So she was associated with the James Younger gang, made famous by Jesse James. And that was hardly her first gang. She switched gangs and husbands constantly. Constantly. Almost always making the switches. Simultaneously, she put together a lucrative criminal enterprise, planning and facilitating the exploits of bootleggers and horse thieves and all the various troublemakers of the era. Pretty cool chick. In a horrible sort of way.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no. That definitely resulted in the deaths of many people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, for sure.

[Ben Kissel]

She's fun. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But, you know, great for the show.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, Oklahoma. And the 18th, 1800s. It's fine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. No man's land.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think it was actually still just a territory at that.

[Marcus Parks]

No. At that point.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

I can't remember when the Sooners were and like. And when Oklahoma was actually settled.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Later.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. My answer, Sooner or later.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

My ancestors weren't. They weren't in Oklahoma just yet. They didn't show up until, I think, the 1900s. They were almost there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I wouldn't have come across old beloved Edgar. The Bell Stars Run came to an end on February 3, 1889, when she was violently murdered, allegedly by Edgar Watson. The killer shot her while she was riding her own horse. And then when she fell off, the killer shot her again. She officially died of shotgun wounds to the neck and back, which would later be the inspiration for the 2002 song My Neck. My Back by Kia.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, I wonder what happened happened with her in her crack.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is not. You really don't know if she was shot in the other locations.

[Ben Kissel]

But you know, the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The time, you know, the recordkeeping wasn't the best. We know. As we established earlier. Yeah. One theory, though, is that Belle was using her knowledge of Edgar being a killer on the lamb as leverage. She planned to use the info to reduce her sentence next time she got in trouble. And Edgar got wind of the plan and shotgunned the out of her.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that's gonna happen when you hang out with men like Little Eddie.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm not so little anymore.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, hey. Hey there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, you're little.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm gonna call you Big Boy.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, Big Boy. Big Boy.

[Marcus Parks]

Don't put that shotgun down.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, my.

[Marcus Parks]

And my crack.

[Ben Kissel]

My cracker become one thing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So Edgar flees back to Florida. And I think a whole bunch of poor bastards must have been telling him to calm down or something because he started killing all types of motherfuckers. He killed a man named Twin Bass in self defense and was acquitted. A short while later, he got into a dispute with a man named Sam Toland and shot his ass and got acquitted again. Despite the acquittals, the sheriff had enough and ran Edgar out of that town. So at this point, Edgar needed something new in his life. He figured the Everglades was the perfect place to hide out in plain sight. But he didn't exactly lay low. He started a very profitable business raising vegetables. Buttonwood trees for lumber and sugar. Hurricane. He would take his product on his boat and sell it in Fort Myers and Tampa, Key West. You know it's going well. Just do that, Edgar.

[Ben Kissel]

No, but that's not his passion any. That's his job.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So one day he gets in an argument with a local resident named Adolphus Santini and slit his throat. But Santini survived. So Edgar had to pay him $900.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow. He didn't really do that well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, you know Florida rules.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, you gotta pay me $900. You have to pay me 900 dol. Listen, I know that's the contract we made. Catch your step.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I gotta sharpen this fucking knife.

[Ben Kissel]

God, I gotta go deeper. Stop doing just the tip.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Edgar expertly maneuvered all the difficult situations that would face a young entrepreneur slash murderer. And his business continued to thrive. Edgar expanded his Everglades empire, buying land around the Lost Man's river on Chokoloski Island. He also started hiring workers from Tampa and Key West. Now, another potential hurdle when you expand your business is the added expense of payroll. You boys know?

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah. However, check this out. Think about this. Edgar figured out how to limit the burden of those expenses by using one simple trick. Instead of paying his workers. Just kill him. Oh.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, that's so smart. Yeah. Yeah. But so hard to rehire.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

That's the worst part, is all the interviews after.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, Edgar had a plan for that. He found workers without families because he knew no one would miss them or come looking. That's a great idea. That's what he was. Someone no one would come looking for.

[Ben Kissel]

You know, we got to find orphans.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Check this out. Promise them a salary, make them work until they eventually ask where the money was, and then kill him.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then he'd bury him in a shallow grave or simply dump their bodies in the river tributaries. No muster, no fuss. You know what I'm saying?

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Edgar's plan worked like a charm for some time until he eventually got into a land dispute with the Tucker family. The Tuckers were well known on the island and had grown crops for years in the area around Edgar's territory. He confronted them and told them to get out. And they replied that they would when their crops had finished harvesting. The timeline was not acceptable for Edgar. They didn't have fast growing trees back then.

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So he turned to his trusty plan B and just killed them. Dump their bodies in the swamp. Not good to do.

[Marcus Parks]

He really just. He's got one move.

[Ben Kissel]

He's got the only. I mean, it's all he knows.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See. But this time, he broke his own code. He murdered well known members of the local community. And then Edgar opened the door for retribution. And that's exactly what he got. After a hurricane killed over a hundred Floridians, Edgar took his boat to the small wood store on Chakoloski Island. And while there, he was confronted by an angry mob. He attempted to shoot them, but his shot shotgun misfired. And before he could grab his revolver, the mob had shot him several times. They dragged his body to a secluded area, the Everglades, and buried his body in a shallow grave. And to quote Robin Williams, at the end of Goodwill hunting. Son of a. Stole my move.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, yeah. He was so sad during that shoot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. But with the hundred flurry, everyone's losing their mind. Because like back then, like the. Everything's built on sticks, you know? Yeah. Hurricane comes through and it's like it's impossible to control.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, it's the same as the. You know, the hurricane that ripped through Galveston that killed thousands. So it's. They found out about the murders and they had to wait out the hurricane before they could go run after him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's incredible. It is a crazy ass story now.

[Marcus Parks]

Hell of a week.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, when you watch 100 people in your town die, it's good to take another one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So now nowadays, though, Edgar Watson stays busy by haunting the Everglades at the Smallwood store. There have been countless reports of these hauntings, and they sound pretty chill, all things considered. Mostly just alternates between making mean faces at people and wandering around aimlessly, seemingly unaware of the people around him and just focused on his ghost business.

[Ben Kissel]

How is that any different than any of the other customers at the convenience store near the Everglades?

[Henry Zebrowski]

There are some people, however, who say they can hear the sounds of sugar cane being processed far away, Accompanied by the horrible screams of Edgar's victims.

[Marcus Parks]

Are you sure that's not more people being murdered? Sugar cane being harvested? That's like machetes in the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, it probably could just.

[Marcus Parks]

Someone could be killed by machete.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's just a ghost. It's a ghost hunting around here.

[Ben Kissel]

You hear that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Other people have reported hearing shotgun misfire outside the small ward. That's cool again.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that just sounds like an unreported crime.

[Ben Kissel]

It's ghost.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It has to be the small wood store, by the way. Average rating of 4.5 on Google with over 700 reviews.

[Ben Kissel]

Actually, that is quite surprising that has that many reviews.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. So whatever haunting Edgar Watson is doing doesn't seem to be bothering the people

[Ben Kissel]

that much, does it not do using an old milkshake machine?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no.

[Ben Kissel]

They have a milk chicken machine there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Probably an icy machine.

[Marcus Parks]

You don't want milkshakes in the Everglades. Dairy in the Everglades don't mix.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You just can't have it out for too long. But there's plenty of dairy in the Everglades. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

I want to eat ice cream and watch a python eat a.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Eat a person. You'd be surprised how unhealthy everyone is down there.

[Marcus Parks]

No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be. Yeah, I'd be. My expectations would be met.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Everyone's so sunburned, you can't even tell what race they are till they start saying racist, you know?

[Ben Kissel]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

Safe. Rise from your grave. So, before I get too far into the sawgrass on this one, I feel like, legally I should say that the DeSantis administration and the state of Florida says most of what I'm about to talk about is not true. But I personally don't believe anything those say.

[Ben Kissel]

Why would you?

[Marcus Parks]

Agreed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. You know what else delivers pain in the the Everglades? Alligator Alcatraz. And I know what you're thinking, Ed. It's towards the end of the episode. You can't open this can of worms right now. Well, these worms I got here ain't

[Marcus Parks]

even got no can.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And plus, as of the recording of this episode, it's still very much open. Alligator Alcatraz. Though many have tried to close it many fucking times. But before we're wading through the swamp too far, the name is extremely flawed. All right? It makes. Makes no sense. Alligator Pelican. Are we supposed to take this seriously? All right, you know, they. They hardly even interact with each other, even though in some cases are living less than a mile from each other. Alligators and pelicans, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, they don't eat pelicans.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no. Because they don't go to the salt water. Interesting. They don't go to the salt water. So the pelicans are in the salt water. But if they did meet, I'm sure they'd be mortal enemies.

[Marcus Parks]

Come on, Pelican. Come on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So, as we know as last podcast on the left span, Alcatraz is Spanish for pelican. Pelicans.

[Ben Kissel]

Pelican.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And since I'm a real American who only speaks American, like Jesus Hubert Christ

[Ben Kissel]

intended that I'm white American.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Jesus, I'll be Referring to Alligator Alcatraz as Alligator Pelican for the rest of the episode. Because I'm the only one in this goddamn forsaken country who's got a pair of male breasts. Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Definitely not the only one.

[Ben Kissel]

You got a parachute right next to you, Fred.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, baby. They are juicy and hairy. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

If you. If you shave me, man, you could suck on my tits. You come your pants.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

You don't have to shave you. Actually you would.

[Ben Kissel]

You would ruin the illusion.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's actually going to be a kind of serious subject here.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, you know, this isn't the time for humor shaving. You suck on my t.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So Alligator Pelican is an internment camp built on top of an airplane landing strip on stolen Miccosuki land that is inhumane, devastating to the environment and potential money laundering scheme and just flat out cruel and unusual.

[Ben Kissel]

What else is wrong with it?

[Marcus Parks]

Doesn't. It's Florida.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucked up. Alligator Pelican is the brainchild of James Alfmeyer, Florida's Attorney general and Ron DeSantis, former campaign manager. Althmyer is also a prick face suck bag who was involved in the Hope foundation scandal involving DeSantis sunken eyed bitched mouth wife Casey. They love stealing money.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, no. I think that they like degrading LGBTQ children more. First.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Their first.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Their first love.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So alligator pelican opened July 3, 2025, which is not only my wedding anniversary, but also a dreadful time of the year to be in the Everglades.

[Ben Kissel]

The Alligator Pelican camp that he tossed his anniversary in. Julie listens. He just knows he has to say it because he's afraid to get in trouble. But she he doesn't want this connected to it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love you, baby.

[Ben Kissel]

It's you suck on my tips till you come your pants.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Julie. If you want, it's. It's offered to you. The Alligator Pelican camp was erected in exactly two weeks. They put this whole thing together. There really isn't much to it. It's all tents, trailers, porta potties. It's more fire festival than island prison. There's zero infrastructure. It was always meant to be temporary. A one stop shop for holding, processing and deport immigrants. Ron DeSantis, he confiscated the airplane landing strip inside Big Cypress National Preserve land from Dade county and the Miccosukee tribe through a state of emergency order he placed on maritime migration all the way back in January of 2023. Now we're 10 months in on Alligator Pelican and there's no End in sight.

[Marcus Parks]

It's insane that we're still stealing land from Native Americans to this day. Yeah. Still just doing it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it's just swamp. It's just so crazy to me. So it was built by companies IRG Global Emergencies, who is a Texas company that got hired just weeks after they donated $10,000 to the Florida Republican Party, thus since given multiple contracts in the millions alongside Gotham's llc, who were offered the contract to start rebuilding Gaza. By Jared Kushner. It's fun, right?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Ye. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

All the same. Making money off of pain and misery.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Just loving life and death.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So Alligator Pelican was meant for the worst of the worst, but truth is, it's mostly everyday people who just found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, the first group of detainees were there solely on immigration violations and none on state criminal charges. Now, about 72% have no criminal record, according to the Americans for Immigrant justice. As of April 2026, there 1383 human beings held captive at Alligator Pelican. But the capacity is 5,000, so they're looking to grow. Current projections say that it has cost the American people $1.5 billion already and has an operating cost of $1.2 million a day, which breaks down to about $249 per person per night. The average cost per person at a normal ICE facility with, like, walls and plumbing and grounded electricity is $87 a day.

[Ben Kissel]

Yep.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So we're just wasting money to torture people?

[Ben Kissel]

No way. And I feel. But, well, I think it goes good. I'm glad we're spending money here instead of investing in any form of educational infrastructure or anything, because I like the fact that the pressure is off for us running the world. I think that's the key, is, like, we just, like, ease off on educating our kids and just arresting a bunch of people that are here to make a better life for themselves. And I think that that's really going to give us the room we need to finally. To master the chicken san much. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Back then, I mean, like, in the winter, it was so easy because they took all the books from the schools and then they burned them for heat.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, great.

[Marcus Parks]

Kids don't need to learn how to read. They don't need to know how to read at all.

[Ben Kissel]

Do you see this girl was posted a video of all these seniors in a spicy. The senior class who literally couldn't read a sentence, and then she got expelled for exposing it. Well, they want to.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they want to expel it because the kids Couldn't recognize the word extraordinary.

[Ben Kissel]

In silhouette.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, in silhouette. And I think it might have been Florida.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Y. Yeah, of course, man. It's up, down. It was up when I went to school there and it's way worse now. Yeah, so now I'm not Anderson Cooper or some other uptight pussy, but. So let's talk about what the title of the episode says. It is the pain of it all. All right? Now, the Department of Homeland Security and dumpy faced High heeled Ron DeSantis have called reports of guards beating and pepper spraying incarcerated people, toilets overflowing, flooding, rotten food, hunger strikes, and something called the box as hoaxes.

[Ben Kissel]

But let's not come at his healed boots. I. The best part about him. Continue. I do like the boots.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, you do.

[Ben Kissel]

I do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But there have always. There have been enough reports to take all of these allegations very seriously. All right? And if you never seen Cool Hand Luke and lack an evil imagination, here's how the box works. All right? It's a small cage placed out in the swamp where a person is handcuffed, shackled, and left in the Everglades sun or pouring rain in a cage for hours at a time without food or water. Water. All right. It started the month they opened. July. Not sure if you fellas have been to the Everglades in July or not, but it's a brutal bastard, especially if you're in a cage at 2ft by 2ft, the box is big enough to stand in, but not sit down. And with temperatures in the high 90s, with a feels like being a temperature of go yourself, it is by definition, torture. Everyone concentrates on the gators and the crocs and the snakes, but the animal that has the most kills in the Everglade is actually the mosquito. Mosquito. All right. The mosquitoes in the Everglades in August are big enough to rape a hummingbird.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can I say that? Is that offensive?

[Ben Kissel]

I don't know anymore. You said it. Yeah, but also, I don't think that that's off limits.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it doesn't matter. So if that's the thing that someone takes from this episode, that that's what they're upset about and your priorities are out. Out of whack.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So is the box still currently in use? We don't actually know. But don't worry. A couple of senators sent a letter, so I'm sure it's all fixed.

[Ben Kissel]

You know who does that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Who I love?

[Ben Kissel]

It's to Chuck Schumers, Nancy Pelosi. They just said those letters. Embarrassment is Enough of a punishment for these people.

[Marcus Parks]

Letters. Did they send any strongly worded tweets?

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. What are we going to do about this? Us as members of the government you voted for.

[Marcus Parks]

So have they condemned? They've condemned. They've condemned. They've disavowed. They've disavowed. Have they said, this is not America?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, that'd be great because you just keep buying stocks and making money off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Just so you know. Yeah. Because every time someone says this isn't. Every time a Democrat says, this is not what America is about, it fixes everything. It's like a magic spell.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. I do want to just point out we've been coming out.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's not.

[Marcus Parks]

It's not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right.

[Marcus Parks]

Fucking close it.

[Ben Kissel]

We've been coming hard at the duly elected President of the United States quite a bit recently. But I don't to fucking hesitate to say I believe every single member of government should be arrested. Okay. I want you to. I want to remind you of that. I think every fucking one of them should be in a fucking cage.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's just an order. You know, Bernie's last. Hopefully he dies before we get.

[Ben Kissel]

I hope he dies before his tribunal comes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, the guards there, well, they ain't no fun boys neither.

[Marcus Parks]

All right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Most of the guards. Guards come from not so friendly private firms with names like Delta Foxtrot Solutions Incorporated and Garda World. By hiring from private firms, most guards don't have proper training. The really bad guards turn their ID badges around so their names don't get reported.

[Ben Kissel]

No way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, there's a. There's a really high turnover rate as well. The bad guards, they get fired for being too abusive. And the good guards quit because the pay sucks. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And the place sucks.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, man. It's 21 to $26 an. And it's a two or more hour commute because it's not even like. Remember when I was talking about Alligator Alley?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like take a left.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, and then actually it's ticker. Right. Well, depending on which way you're going. But yeah, yeah, and then. But yeah, and then it's another hour deep into there. It's not. No one's supposed to be there.

[Ben Kissel]

No, it's not for humans.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. No, the only people there that are supposed to be there are the Miccosukees. Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

And they don't even like it. They're forced there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They like it a lot. They're fine.

[Ben Kissel]

I bet you they would much rather a little piece of land in the San Fernando Valley. You know what I mean? I bet they're like, oh, I wish our land was in, like, you know, the beautiful blue mountains of Tennessee or something.

[Marcus Parks]

Tell them what they want.

[Ben Kissel]

They know what they want. We don't know what we like, you

[Henry Zebrowski]

know, they're a lot of like. We'll get into it a little bit and you can explain yourself to the wonderful Betty Osceola.

[Ben Kissel]

I will talk to each one personally.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So it's in the middle of the swamp, which makes it not worth it for anyone who can get any other job. So some of the guards also, they just live there in a shared trailer with no hot water. So they're essentially prisoners as well. Well, I'm sure it makes them super nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, man. If you are living in a trailer, you have up. If you're living in a trailer at Alligator Alcatraz with a bunch of.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're sharing the trailer. Yes. You're sharing the bathroom.

[Ben Kissel]

You are wrong.

[Marcus Parks]

You have up. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Your life is garbage.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. There's no. Because you say, like, good guards. There are no good guards. Like, if you decide to work this job, fuck yeah, you're done.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, you're done. You're a moron. It's like ice. It's all of these things. You've specifically chosen a dumb fucking job and now you are reaping the goddamn benefits of it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, man. And you know the fucked up part is, is there's a lot less jobs nowadays in South Florida as well. So there's nowhere for people to turn to fucking support their families. That's why a lot of, like, decent people are taking these horrible jobs against their will.

[Ben Kissel]

I just can't believe that there's no form of, like, cottage industry that could be legalized in fl that would actually create a lot of taxed money that would do really good for the state.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's not like stuff grows well. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

It's not like there's, like, specific crops that you could build green plants which would create so much money for your state that you're specifically saying no to because you're a bunch of morons.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because it makes people nice.

[Ben Kissel]

It does. And that's the problem.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. So as far as the abuse goes, the box isn't the only thing these American SS officers use as punishment. They have been reports of guards beating and pepper spraying the men and held in the cages. The few people who've come forward to talk about these incidents say how most of the beatings from the guards come at night as a form of Retaliation for complaining about mistreatment, which includes, but not limited to the showers being fucking filled with bugs, low amounts of food, and other inhumane conditions. Another report I hated had a detainee complaining about expired food and then was stripped naked, spray strayed with a hose, and beaten. This is what's going on down there. And then. And if you talk about it, it just escalates. Yes. You know, or they deport your ass. Yeah, it's crazy. And it's.

[Ben Kissel]

I'd say that point you're like, all right, deport me. I just feel like, just send me back now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, a lot of people are going back to places like where they're running from gangs that are trying to kill them.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. They've come to America to make their lives better, and we're punishing them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dude, they're literally fucking deporting Palestinians back to Israel. Yeah, it's crazy. So not only are the meals not large enough for a small child, even if you do include the maggots, but half of the time, the food isn't even cooked. A regular meal for a person at Alligator Pelican is either boiled tofu, half frozen chicken nuggets, or just a couple of spoonfuls of undercooked rice.

[Ben Kissel]

And that's just mostly what my wife eats. And that's just because she's got girl dinner on her. But you shouldn't be giving girl dinner to a bunch of prisoners.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And plus, they only give you five minutes to eat, and if you don't finish your food in that amount of time, they make you throw it in the trash.

[Marcus Parks]

Only five minutes. What else do they have to do?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nothing, man.

[Ben Kissel]

It's just punishment for punishment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, they're just. It's. It's specifically cruel and unusual.

[Ben Kissel]

It's like, I. Whatever. I know it's technically, yes, if you're here illegally. Yes. I know it's against the law. What I do not understand is this idea that then you would be. Be punished so harshly for something that should be like a matter of paperwork. Like, it should literally be a holding process in which we figure out why are you here or not? Like, are you here to work?

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they wait at their hearings when they're doing it the right way. They wait for them to show up for their hearings and then kidnap them. Yes. So it's not even like there's no.

[Ben Kissel]

Again, we're talking. Every time we talk like this, we act like there's like a good faith argument for any of this. Right. We act like. Like that's one of the issues with this entire administration is that every single argument against them infers the fact that they have an argument that can be defended. Which they don't have.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So remember when I said there was no infrastructure there? Well, that means there's no plumbing, there's no private phone lines, and all the electricity for this prison is all generators. And those generators need generators, so the power goes out regularly. Which means that the shitty AC units stop working, the lights go out, and the food can't cook or stay properly refrigerated. And not just that pollution. And they're trucking in gas regularly just to keep these generators going because there's

[Marcus Parks]

nothing there and there's no reason for any of it. No, it's far. It's far more.

[Ben Kissel]

It's purposeless.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No. Well, I mean, the purpose is to have hurt people. Fear. Like, it's. This place is used specifically. This is a alligator. Alcatraz is a propaganda piece.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

That's all it is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they're getting rich down there because of it. Everyone down there, they have. All right, so there's this other guy I found out about. I was calling people. I was, like, really doing, like, investigative shit. So I. The. There's this other guy, Carlos Duart. He's the chair of the board of trustees at Florida International University, fiu. He sent a couple of mobile command centers over there to help with the surveillance. Just donated them from the university. These things are millions of dollars a pop. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

These guys are all fucking. So corrupt, it's fucking unbelievable.

[Henry Zebrowski]

His wife is the CEO of CDR Health who was contracted by Alligator Pelican for 70 million to provide basic health care care to the inmates. Still, no one seems to see the conflict of interest here. It's just crazy what's going on. Incarcerated people are given.

[Ben Kissel]

I feel like, Eddie. They don't want to.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

I don't know why. They don't want to look too deep into it. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It seems like the people who voted for this just suddenly just don't want to hear about any of it. They just want to ignore that all of this horrible has happened. Still happening to this day because of the.

[Ben Kissel]

They actually looked at it. They actually looked at it, and they looked at the people that were going to these places. They might have a weird feeling about it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Guilt. Yeah. Yeah. Remorse.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Regret.

[Marcus Parks]

It's fine. It's okay. It's okay if you up. It's okay if you made a mistake, but now's the time to say, I up. I made a mistake. Let's Change it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And then I might think about liking you again, maybe. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Incarcerated people are given one cup. Without plumbing, they're unable to clean said cup. So over time, the cups get covered in mold, especially when it's hot as fuck. Are you getting sick from the cup? Is your face and body getting covered with sores from malnutrition? Are you complaining about this cruel and unusual abuse? Pepper bomb. Yeah, that's right. They got these things called pepper bombs that are like. Yeah, they're like pepper spray, but replace the word spray with bomb.

[Ben Kissel]

It's to keep it from getting on. Police officers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. They toss these pepper bombs into the cages of bunk beds indiscriminately. And these merc employees just deem it to be necessary.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the.

[Marcus Parks]

The pepper bombs recently showed up in the Minnesota protest.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

But all of the ICE officers were improperly trained because they're a bunch of cowards. And the pepper bombs kept exploding in front of them instead of the protesters. Multiple journalists saw it happen multiple times.

[Ben Kissel]

You might want to up that training to 50 days.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So they'll just, like. It could just be one guy that they're trying to, like, punish, but they'll just throw it in the cage and then the cage, it'll. It's no ventilation, so there's 72 people in there, and they just got to sit in the pepper bomb musk for hours.

[Marcus Parks]

And these are in the. The tents?

[Henry Zebrowski]

In the tents, yeah. You know, and then it's a fucking goddamn nightmare. A couple of fellas got so sick, they were hospitalized. They are now missing, and their families have no idea where they are. That was a couple of weeks ago, as of this recording.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And. And that unfortunately, they're dead. Yeah, they died. No telling how many people. We're like, we. It's. We're going to find out, I think, one day how many people died in these detention camps all across America. Because Alligator Alcatraz is by far the worst. But it's not the only place where inhumane conditions are happening. I mean, these are people that are going. They have the same health care needs as all the. As every other fucking person on this goddamn planet. And they're not. If you don't get the health care that you need, you're going to die. You put pepper spray into a room, a bunch of 72. Couple of those people are going to have asthma and they're going to fudgeing die.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

They are never going to stop writing books about the corruption of this time period. Yeah. It is like we are just going to, like. That's what none of these people even understand is how deeply unkindly history is going to look on this time period. And they. And I can't wait.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

For their punishment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, everything that happens at Alligator Pelican is fudgeing. Just like, it's all secret. It's all. It's all like. They don't. They turn the cameras off. No one. There's no reported deaths there. I mean, will say that, but we don't.

[Ben Kissel]

They just don't know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's no way to know. Because if you do rat, you get in trouble. The cops follow you. Like, they, like. They harass you. They, like, go to your home and raid it and. And it's like, oh, there's nothing here, but all your shit's broken up just because you try to do something about it, man. And there are so these cages. Let me talk about the cages. The detainees are held in cages. Each cage holds 36 people. It was 30, but they figured out how to cram another three bunk beds per cage. People are literally l. Living on top of each other. And then there's up to 300 people in each tent. All right, And I'll. You guys. Have you guys seen pictures of this?

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

It.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Look, it's looks like Auschwitz. Yeah, it's. It's terrifying.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. It's why we're calling it Alligator Auschwitz.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. There isn't enough water for the toilets. Rob, what happens when you don't have enough water for a toilet? Does not flush. It doesn't flush. All right, Reports of the toilets, then.

[Marcus Parks]

It's just a. It's a hole.

[Ben Kissel]

It's a hole.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Because they're all Porta Pot potties.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's no plumbing. All right, Reports of the toilets are overflowing. Men having to use their hands to remove from the toilets just so they could. In the toilet. All right. Supposedly each cage is given one roll of toilet paper per 36 people per day.

[Marcus Parks]

It's not enough.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's not enough. There's three toilets per cage. All right? Showers are, you know, I was like, oh, that's not that bad. You know, I was thinking about. About it and then. But I'm like, no, I have two bathrooms in my house. One for me, one for Julie. And sometimes that gets up.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it does.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, seriously, like, you have a party, like, just talking completely practically. Yeah. You have a party at your house, you invite 15 friends, you're going through two toilet paper rolls just that night.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Not to Mention you're.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Depending on how much people. How fat they are. Yeah. And how big and dumpy they are and how much they eat and. Or how much they waited and.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay. Well we don't need to go that far on the analog.

[Ben Kissel]

Sometimes I'm waiting to go to your house to. Because I'm like it. I don't want to do in my house. I'm sick of my bathroom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And at Marcus's house, Henry does at other people's houses more than most people.

[Marcus Parks]

Almost every he. It's almost like he's an animal marking

[Ben Kissel]

his territory four times a day. Yeah. But that's regular for me. That's not. That's just because that's must work. So I'm just making stuff. Always producing. Right now even as we just sit here right now. I'm making shit. Dude.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What's next?

[Ben Kissel]

I got a shit. Honestly. I do have to go to the bathroom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Do you need a break?

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Showers are allowed only once every three or four days depending on the water supplies. There's little or no access to medicine. Diabetics have restricted access to insulin. There are no clocks. And guards refuse to tell the inmates what time it is. They never turn the fluorescent lights off when the electricity is working. And so they're inside the tent. They don't even know what time it is. It makes it all that much more confusing using. There are no private phone lines for inmates to call lawyers and families. Confidentially. There are. There is someone always listening. And guess what happens if you get caught spilling the beans about the abuse and maltreatment you're currently receiving. Facts. ACLU currently has a lawsuit with the state of Florida that says they need to give access to unmonitored phone calls. That was something I read last week. But who the knows?

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Because there's no phone lines.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. God knows.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it's. And it's like you're sitting there and you're like borrowing a someone's phone or

[Ben Kissel]

how do they call a lawyer to figure it out? How do they go to get themselves legally extricated from the scenario now not

[Henry Zebrowski]

just that they do this really up things where they don't always register you as an inmate of Alligator Pelican. Hypothetical. Let's say your mom and dad were born in Cuba. They get taken by ice. But they don't have. But they don't take you because you were born in America. You want to find where they were taken to. It could be any number of places in Florida.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It could be the. The chrome Detention center or the not so cutely named Deportation Depot in North Florida that just opened. They have. They literally got sued by Home Depot because they stole the logo and were selling merch.

[Ben Kissel]

These guys are just such fucking pricks. And anybody who's got anybody that's into any of this can absolutely blow me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Alligator Pelican has regular power outages that we talked about. And they have Internet issues. So you're not always logged in in the DHS detainee locator, which the web page looks eerily similar to the DOJ Epstein file site.

[Ben Kissel]

Same designer, same webmaster.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You just don't know where your family member, friend or co worker was sent. And this is where the 1800 missing people come in. Yeah, 1800 people went missing digitally, which is either negligible or intentional. Either way, go fuck yourself. DHS say your lawyer finds you and places a writ of habeas corpus, which for those of you who don't know, is a fundamental legal action used to challenge unlawful imprisonment. They'll then transfer you over, often in the COVID of night, to another facility, which cancels out the writ of habeas corpus. Your lawyer then has to find you all over again and place another. Another writ. And this process can go on for several transfers.

[Marcus Parks]

This is what they're doing instead of fixing the roads. Yes. This is what they're doing. Instead of making this country and actually better, a better place to live. This is what they're doing instead of building hospitals and schools and trains and

[Ben Kissel]

fucking and fixing the bridges and fixing everything that they need to be fucking doing health care.

[Marcus Parks]

This is what is happening. This is where your money is going.

[Ben Kissel]

And it's hemorrhaging. It's costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. Millions of dollars fucking us over.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You see, the torture is the idea. They want to break you. They want you to run out of lawyer money.

[Ben Kissel]

Of course.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They want you to give up your immigration claims so they can send you back to whatever country they think you should go back to. Administrative disappearances. Demoralize the families and detainees with no remorse.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And it's not just the people that they're also doing it to all of the rest of us. Yes. The point is to do so much horrible shit that it overwhelms all of us. It overwhelms anyone with a fucking soul, Anyone with any sort of empathy for other human beings. That's. They're doing it on purpose, specifically to demoralize all of us. It's just the people that are actually in these facilities, they're getting the worst of it. They're using them as. As.

[Ben Kissel]

As batteries and as examples.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Too.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they overload it and they do it to make you emotional and sound crazy. That's why it's. I'm glad I got to, like, sit down and research this and talk to people and write it all down in a row so I could put it all together, because I knew it was bad down there, but I didn't know it was like this.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. And I also. When you talk about it in this way, what's nice is, is that all the people that I have, like, currently, all the bots currently fighting me on the last episode of Side Stories, and Marcus and I went ham on the fucking President on, like, all these bots are coming after us saying all this stuff about illegals and blah, blah, blah. And it is just very obvious that no one has any clue what the real issue is. Yeah, they really don't. They really are fought this. They sold this line that. The idea that people come here illegally to what, become a lawyer so you can't be one? Or are they fudgeing, picking fru. Are they fucking working on the highway? Are they doing all of this shit that you don't want to fucking do?

[Henry Zebrowski]

All right, so after all that, okay, now there's the environmental impact, which is, you know, obviously something I care a lot about. I started following the work of Betty Osceola. She's a leader amongst the Miccosuki tribe, and she lives in. And the Miccosuki tribe lives in and around Big Cypress. Big Cypress also isn't technically in the Everglades, but it's, like, across the street. Okay. The Miccosukee people have been in Big Cyprus since the early 1700s. Betty is worried about many aspects of tribal privacy as well as the potential for environmental disaster. The Miccosukee people live less than a half a mile from Alligator Pelican, and there are cameras pointing from the facility at their land and homes. The cameras are pointed towards their ceremonial grounds where they hold private ceremonies. Is deep DHS spying on them. Probably because they're out there protesting Alligator Pelican almost every fucking Sunday. And as much as possible, reminding people that it's not just about the abuse of the detainees, but it's about the rape of the land as well. There is currently a drought in Florida, and the Everglades in Big Cypress is drier than ever. Okay. There is. This facility could destroy a nearby aquifer that supplies water for 8 million people in South Florida. Not just the tribe So I guess Republicans really are trying to drain the swamp.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, also, and oranges are about to not be able to be grown in Florida as well because of the choices that they've made around the environment there. There's a whole drought. They literally are going to lose that entire crop. That drives a large chunk of their economy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

A lot of the airboat rides can't even go right now because the water's too low because of the current drought. How is Florida out of water?

[Ben Kissel]

It's because they've. It's. God's coming. Because God's coming because God's angry at you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So also in Cyprus, there's a dark sky order. If you don't know what that means, that means no illumination is allowed because of how much of the wildlife is nocturnal. They don't give a about that. With trucks, buses, cars, helicopters, generators, and even Air Force One landing there occasionally. They're violating noise pollution orders. This is indigenous land, environmentally protected land. Every day, DHS is trucking in people, water and fuel and trucking out piss, shit and trash. The Miccosukee tribe currently has an environmental lawsuit against the state of Florida to try and shut this facility down. There are about a thousand violations of the National Environmental Protections act, or nepa, happening over there. So hopefully this does something. But with the state of Florida being run by the fat face demons that run it now, I am not optimistic.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Finally we get to the money. There's a lot of money being spent in this albatross of a project. Who's paying for this? Originally, because it was the result of a state of Emergency proclamation from DeSantis. FEMA was supposed to fork over the money, but they have yet to do so and are refusing to do so with good cause. And for some reason, this immigrant detention center isn't funded federally because it's all

[Ben Kissel]

being done illegally and it's all been done slapdash. And it's being used as a place to disappear people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right. And the bill is given directly to the people of Florida.

[Marcus Parks]

Florida.

[Henry Zebrowski]

$1.5 billion currently estimated. And so Alzheimer and DeSantis family specialty is making this money fucking disappear.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it's coming right out of your state. It's coming right out of it. Making sure that you guys, that your schools don't have proper stuff and it's making sure that your hospitals are understaffed and it's making sure that there's not enough people working on the traffic, like all the Department of Traffic where they're

[Henry Zebrowski]

getting most of the Money, they're draining the hurricane relief funds. So if there's hurricanes this year, everyone's fucked.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean, just imagine just anybody who supports. Imagine anybody who supports this shit. Imagine what $1.5 billion could do for your county. Yeah, like just not even your. Your town think about what it could do for your county. Like just what $1.5 billion could do. And this is what they're doing instead.

[Ben Kissel]

See, what it is, is mediocre white people really, really upset that they aren't kings and queens of the universe automatically. And they love the punishment. The people who. Like this. If you do like this and you think that this is just. It's because you hate other people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Some of the money meant for alligator pelican has been used on private jets for politicians. Lavish dinners in Tallahassee.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, you know, that's where you spend your money for lavish dinners.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, my. Overpaying for food in Tallahassee. You up?

[Ben Kissel]

Seriously?

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're a.

[Ben Kissel]

Not even. They even.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Even.

[Ben Kissel]

Just you saying that makes me so enraged. You would go to Tallahassee and spend that kind of money, you idiots. When you have Miami, it's a state house. He sucks dick. We all know it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, I like, it's fine. Great time there. But yes, they could use a little help.

[Ben Kissel]

You know what I'm saying?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Could use a once over.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm just saying, if you're gonna go blow your money, blow it and blow it in Miami.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, man. So they're spending all this on all these things and not involving getting these people proper care and the respect they constitutionally supposed to receive. So, like so much else involving this administration, this giant ecological, nightmarish torture device is just another way for these monsters to make themselves richer at the expense of the less fortunate and the expense of people trying to make themselves a better life at the expense of our neighbors. So I guess when we said, give us your tired, poor and huddled masses, it was just so we could fill as many private prisons as humanly possible. That's Pain in the Everglades.

[Ben Kissel]

Good work.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you, Edward. Thank you very much.

[Ben Kissel]

Good work. And he. Really, really good stuff.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Shout out to Rachel Burke, who did an amazing job researching this, and Pat Barker, who helped me write this beast. It was fucking. It's a lot.

[Ben Kissel]

Really good work, man. Really good work. Really tough stuff. But also, when it comes down to it, that we will all be revealed and it will get to it. And I. Hopefully eventually the snakes will overtake it. Literally. The actual snakes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. We have to keep talk about this shit. We, we have to get let people know that this stuff happens. I mean, and this is 100% within the last podcast area. Like, this is the stuff that like people. Why are you talking about politics? Like, because the politicians we have never before been in, or at least not in our lifetime have been in a situation where the politicians are actually doing the things that we used to cover happened decades ago. Centuries ago.

[Ben Kissel]

That's why it is current.

[Marcus Parks]

Like we are living in a last podcast fucking timeline.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And we're doing this because it's fun. We're not talking about this because this is funny. You hear how much laughter we're doing here. Like, no, we're talking about this because unfortunately is three weird middle aged white dudes. No one else in our category is necessarily talking about this. So we are. Because they're all afraid. Everybody's afraid now everybody wants to keep every, every cent because everyone's so afraid of losing market share of whatever it is they're working on because that we have these people, them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This.

[Ben Kissel]

We are going to keep talking about it because we have to. And it's true crime.

[Marcus Parks]

It is. It's true. And don't let anybody make you feel crazy. Like, that's that. We got so many emails from people after we did side stories last week of saying like, thank you for talking about this because everybody, every time I talk about it, I feel crazy. Don't let them make you feel crazy for being outraged about this. Like, don't make gaslighting you. Yes, it is happening.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Other than Betty Osceola, every name I mentioned should be in prison.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except for the ghost.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

That ghost is already free.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, the Ghost Pilots as well because they sound like fun.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They are fun.

[Ben Kissel]

They are free. They've never, never done anything wrong. Good work, Edward.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, good work. Great work.

[Ben Kissel]

Patreon.com Last podcast and left give us money for ad free episodes. Yeah, I've been talking a lot this week and it'll be on the left is all the social medias you're going to want to look at that. Our Halloween Halloween album sold out. You'll never get it. We are gonna do it. Don't worry about it. We're gonna do. You're gonna say we're gonna have a lot of special announcements about our Halloween album. So don't worry about that. But it. Thank you to everybody who already purchased it. I can't believe it. Thank you so much. Go to YouTube to see our new stuff over there someplace underneath LPN Romantasy. The Foreign Report. No. Dogs in Space is coming back. LBN TV's got HGX2, the second season. It is up there rolling out every week, every Thursday. And it is after the last stream episode drops, that drops over on LPN tv. Go check it out.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The playoffs started this week.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Also on YouTube. Go to the Brighter side, LPN. Follow our new page. You can watch our episodes there. It's a lot of fun.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I believe it was my episode where. In which I was a judge on hc. I believe that premiered this week.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It did. It did. Yeah. Dude, you were so fucking. I watched it last night. Fucking stone to the gills. I was laughing. I never. Full disclosure, I don't listen to our show. No, I don't watch anything. I do. I hate it. I can't. I don't like my voice. I don't like seeing myself. It's just like, you know, just people are bad to themselves. But I watch this and I'm. And I'm laughing and I'm having a great time and I hate everything I do. So you guys, please go watch HDX2. I can't tell you how much I love it.

[Marcus Parks]

I based this character off of my brother Thomas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's so nice. It's great.

[Ben Kissel]

But he's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, you know, he's marathon.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Come see us on the road. We're going to be in pits Pittsburgh, May 29, that's going to be at the Carnegie Music hall, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 27th over at GLC Live at 20 Monroe. We're gonna be at Tulsa, Oklahoma, July 17th at Kane's Ballroom. And on July 18th, we're gonna be at the Tower Theater in Oklahoma City. Also, I'm hitting the road. I got a lot of shows. Henry and I got some shows. Most of our stuff sold out. We got more stuff coming down the pipe. But June 7th, I'm going to be in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Desert Ridge Improv. Make sure you check that out. And I got a show at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a salute to Bethlehem. That's July 10th. Newark, New Jersey, July 12th all. That's where Jesus was born. Jesus from Pennsylvania.

[Ben Kissel]

I knew he was from Pennsylvania. Could tell by his skin color and

[Marcus Parks]

all the casinos there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Plano, Texas. I got a show at the Comedy Store and. And in July. And also Denver.

[Marcus Parks]

I saw Mitch Hedberg at that club.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, really?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, when I was in. When I was in college.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, we drove to Plano.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Saw Mitch Hedberg there. Was incredible.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's really cool.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, I love that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Man, that makes me so happy. Well, guys, I love you. Thank you so much for listening to me rant about Florida. It makes me happy to spread the word about what's going on down there.

[Ben Kissel]

And we'll be coming back, I Believe, with some true crime.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

No, no, no, no.

[Marcus Parks]

We're coming back. Next episode, I Believe. Oh, is number 666.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Whoa. Really?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

We'll see.

[Marcus Parks]

We'll see. Well, there might be a little bit of true crime in there.

[Ben Kissel]

Wink.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sex, sex, sex, sex.

[Ben Kissel]

Hail Satan, everyone.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, hell geek.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Speaking of hail, Thomas Kennedy, who talked to me on the phone for a very long time time. He's an activist down there. He gave me a lot of inside information on Alligator Pelican. Shout out to you, Thomas. Thank you for everything.

[Ben Kissel]

Good working Alcator. Alcatraz. They can go themselves.

[Marcus Parks]

All of them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast. Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained. From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends. We cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives. It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird. Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month. Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yay.

[Ben Kissel]

Woo.

[Marcus Parks]

Stitch fix. Stop shopping. Get styled. Not today, sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit. Wow. No photos, please.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm just a regular dad who happens

[Henry Zebrowski]

to have a stylist. I really look my best when someone else makes the decisions. Hey, we can all see you.

[Marcus Parks]

Two way mirrors, Jeff. Just share your size, style, and budget, and your stylist sends personalized looks right to your door. Stitch Fix. Get started today@stitch fix.com. i want to hug you. I'm gonna hug you. I'm coming. I'm coming in for a hug.