Behind the Scenes Minis: Villas and Tirades

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Missed in History Class

Episode: Behind the Scenes Minis: Villas and Tirades
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson
Date: October 31, 2025
Publisher: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This behind-the-scenes minis episode gives listeners a candid look at how Holly and Tracy researched and produced recent episodes on two very different topics: the story of the "most haunted house in Italy," Villa de Vecchi, and the Hammersmith Ghost murder case. The hosts share extra anecdotes, dissect research challenges, and discuss how folklore and law intersect with history and social issues. The tone is conversational, honest, and occasionally witty, offering both serious reflection and light-hearted moments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Researching Villa de Vecchi: Sorting Fact from Fiction

Timestamps: 02:38–13:06

• The hosts reflect on the process of vetting information about Villa de Vecchi, a supposed haunted villa.

  • Holly removed some rumors from the episode due to lack of substantiation, including alleged fires and accidental injuries at the villa (03:12).
  • "I just could not substantiate them. And they were odd enough that I would have felt weird even trying to." — Holly (02:43)
  • Both hosts emphasize a responsibility to avoid repeating ghost stories or rumors as fact without evidence.

• The challenge of researching historic properties rumored to be haunted—especially when sources differ between languages.

  • Tracy notes: "…finding the Wikipedia page for the country where that place is and looking at it out of curiosity and sometimes finding wildly different information…" (05:11)
  • The hosts discuss how rumors, local legends, and myth-making by locals (sometimes to amuse tourists) can quickly become “facts” in English-language coverage (06:53).

• Wikipedia’s Role in Research:

  • Tracy shares her method of using Wikipedia’s source lists to find new reference books, since general search engines have become less helpful (08:13–09:33).
  • Holly clarifies they're “not anti-Wikipedia,” but strive for primary sources when possible (09:42).

2. Emotional Reactions to Historical Sites

Timestamps: 10:09–11:49

• Holly expresses melancholy when viewing abandoned homes:

  • "I just like, I don’t know if it’s that I’m too empathetic about the whole thing…and now it’s just junk. And I find that very depressing." — Holly (10:27)

• Light-hearted moment: graffiti inside the villa advertising a SoundCloud account cracks Holly up:

  • "To very carefully spray paint an entire URL is very funny to me – that's just inherently hilarious. That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time..." — Holly (12:39)

3. Ghost Stories, Rumors, and the Spread of Misinformation

Timestamps: 04:41–07:34

• The hosts discuss how ghost stories and urban legends take root, especially in places where history is murky and local storytelling is vibrant.
  • "I understand the impetus to want to look at a place that is overgrown and was once beautiful and is now a mess to make up ghost stories about it." — Holly (04:41)
• Recounting their own experiences taking ghost tours and researching stories that evaporate under scrutiny (07:34).

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4. Hammersmith Ghost Murder: Legal and Social Context

Timestamps: 16:47–32:49

A. Legal Nuance and Societal Implications

Timestamps: 16:47–22:40

• The hosts critique legal language that allows for a defense based on “mistaken belief”:
  • Tracy's impassioned tirade: "If you think wildly, with no basis, that someone is a threat to you and you shoot and kill them, you can still use that thinking they were a threat as a defense, even though it was unreasonable." (17:34)
• Tracy relates these legal principles to racial biases and the use of "fear" as a defense in U.S. courts:
  • "We are living in a society that for centuries spread racist misinformation…That has been used as a defense so often in people murdering unarmed black people." (18:37)
• Discussion on the British vs. U.S. legal standards—British courts may require more substantiation for such defenses (19:28–20:57).
• The tension between legal definitions of "reasonability" and actual justice.

Notable Quotes:

• “Taking, you know, an unwise risk is not grounds for being summarily executed in the street.” — Tracy (22:14)
• “Even if he had been on purpose pretending to be a ghost, that's not…something you kill somebody over.” — Holly (22:31)

B. Community Hysteria and Group Fear

Timestamps: 26:32–30:13

• Holly is fascinated by historical and modern examples of mass hysteria and “group fear.”
  • Hammersmith saw locals so whipped up over the ghost stories that they actively patrolled and hunted for ghosts (26:32).
• Tracy observes that community patrols could be a reasonable response to widespread rumors, but the escalation to violence reveals problems (27:34–28:23).
  • "To me, if you are in this community that has been gripped by the possibility that there is a ghost...it's reasonable to me for the community patrol to question that person…The fact that it jumped immediately to shooting him, I'm like, I don't fully follow." — Tracy (27:34)
• Holly and Tracy reflect that reactions—even centuries ago—might be understandable given fear and context, but not excusable (28:38).

C. Aftermath and Morality

Timestamps: 30:13–32:49

• The real "ghost" who started the hysteria (Graham the shoemaker) faced no consequences, despite scaring and even physically accosting people (31:08).

  • Holly: "If he's putting his arms around someone. If he's putting his hands on someone's throat, that would be considered assault in my book. But he didn't seem to face any repercussions for any of that." (31:10)

• Holly’s Halloween wish:

  • “I hope that you have so much fun that involves no violence whatsoever, that no one assaults you in any kind of way … We all need each other to be cool.” (32:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Urban Legends:
  • “I’m sorry. Most haunted house in Italy. I don’t believe you are.” — Holly (04:42)
• On Legal Defenses:
  • “I do think that it is incumbent on all of us not to kill one another. And so having to read this language that was like, oh, yeah, this is actually fine, if not fine, but, like, this is appropriate to use as a defense. I was like, no…” — Tracy (18:16)
• On the Spread of Rumors:
  • "Visitors will go there and locals will tell them stories to goad them on that then get repeated as though they are fact, while those locals are probably snickering at the ding dong tourists…." — Holly (06:53)
• On Wikipedia:
  • “Wikipedia has uses is what I'm saying. Yeah. Even if those uses are not, you know, researching episodes of the show.” — Tracy (09:33)
• On the Villa Graffiti:
  • “That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time. Are you going out tagging? Yeah. Let me make sure I spell check it first.” — Holly (12:39)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:38] – Start of Villa de Vecchi discussion
• [03:12] – Holly on unverifiable rumors (fire, collapse)
• [06:53] – How tourists and locals spread ghost stories
• [09:42] – Discussion on Wikipedia’s usefulness and limits
• [10:27] – Holly’s sentimentality about abandoned homes
• [12:39] – SoundCloud URL graffiti story
• [16:47] – Beginning of Hammersmith ghost murder discussion
• [17:34] – Tracy’s legal tirade about mistaken belief defense
• [22:31] – Reflections on risk, justice, and execution
• [26:32] – Community hysteria and mass fear
• [27:34] – Community patrols and escalation to violence
• [31:08] – Graham the shoemaker avoids responsibility
• [32:26] – Halloween wish for peaceful celebration

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, candid, and humorous: Holly and Tracy blend serious historical critique with personal anecdotes and comedic asides.
• Transparent: The hosts are direct about research challenges and the responsibilities of representing history accurately.
• Reflective and empathetic: They discuss not just the facts, but the emotions and morality behind historical events and their modern-day parallels.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Heard the Episode

This “minis” installment pulls back the curtain on how Holly and Tracy approach folklore versus fact in history podcasting while also providing thoughtful takes on the ethical complexities of law, social hysteria, and the power of rumor—past and present. The hosts’ mix of honesty, humor, and insight makes this a valuable listen for fans of historical deep dives, skeptical investigation, and critical discussions about justice.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio. Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

We talked about Villas de Vecchi this week.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Two of it.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, two of it. There were a couple things that I didn't include. The episode ran a little bit shorter than usual and I had had these things in and I pulled them out. One Is a thing that I didn't pull out. It's just a random thing. But I just could not substantiate them. And they were odd enough that I would have felt weird even trying to. I mean, just trying to talk around him. I was like, surely there should be a record of this. Like, it just became a weird thing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

One was that allegedly there was actually a fire there at some point. I don't know if this is true. I never found any news stories about it. Nothing. And the reason why I was like, I don't know that this is accurate, is that when you do look at pictures I haven't seen anywhere, it looks like there's charring or, you know, fire damage that you would normally see. It's possible there is, and I just haven't seen pictures, but I just do not know. The other was that there was a report that the reason the government finally took some steps to try to close the site with like wire fencing and whatever is that somebody had actually fallen when the upper floor caved in. Cause the upper floor is not there anymore. And that they were injured. And that's why. Also could not find any substantiation of that one. Although that would certainly make sense as a catalyst to take steps. But it also could have just been that they got around to it on their list of things to think about. I don't know. Yeah. I understand the impetus to want to look at a place that is overgrown and was once beautiful and is now a mess to make up ghost stories about it. Sure I do. But I really think these ones are unfounded.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

I'm sorry. Most haunted house in Italy. I don't believe you are.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When the, like, the origin story of the ghosts is apparently just not really a thing. That does make it a little weird.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. Ironically, there is no. I found zero mention of the ghost of Sedoli being there, which would have made more sense.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Sure.

[Holly Fry]

Since he was the architect that was there working.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. I have also had the experience of trying to research something for the show. Having like one set of information of what's available in English and then finding the Wikipedia page for the country where that place is and looking at it out of curiosity and sometimes finding wildly different information and often more just the amount of information is much different. Which is not. I mean, it's not surprising that a person who was really important to the history of a particular place that is not the United States where we live and is also not a place that has a lot of cultural and historical ties to the United States.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Totally reasonable and normal for there to be way more information about that person in that other place than here.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But occasionally when this happens, I'll like see the Wikipedia page in this other place and I'll do the same thing. I'll look at it and I will like, translate it just to be out of curio. Like, what does it say? How is. How does it compare? And occasionally go, yeah, this is. This is very different. And trying to sort of figure out where. Where. Where the divergence happened in like the factual. Yeah, like, where. Where did that come from? Not so much where did the ghost stories come from, but like, where did this completely different story about a murderer arise?

[Holly Fry]

Right. And this is a case where, like there. I feel like places like this have this unique problem in terms of finding the root of that, because especially if they are in a foreign country from where native English speakers live, visitors will go there and locals will tell them stories to goad them on that then get repeated as though they are fact, while those locals are probably snickering at the ding dong tourists who bought everything hook, line and sinker. And so it becomes trickier to be like, okay, but then there are also allegedly locals that believe it's haunted, so.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right. Yeah. Well. And I mean, I've had that experience in the United States. We went on a ghost tour one time in New Orleans that I feel like that ghost tour was a lot grounded in reality most of the time. Yeah. But there were a couple of particular stories that after we returned to our respective homes from our visit to New Orleans, I was like, that would be a great podcast episode. And I went to look it up and I was like, oh no, that story was made up same. But I can't even find, you know, an origin point for something that could have been distorted into that story. Yeah, I also that we.

[Holly Fry]

You.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You said in the episode that like the, like, Wikipedia articles are not a source that we use for the show. One of the things that I do do on Wikipedia sometimes is scroll immediately to the bottom of the article to see if there are books that I am not aware of.

[Holly Fry]

Yes.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Because as the quality of search engine results has gotten worse and more driven by ads and whatnot, and sometimes I will find a reference to the book in the source list of a Wikipedia article that I might not have found otherwise.

[Holly Fry]

Same do it all the time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I am now using a plugin for Chrome that just strips out all of the AI summaries. Nice. And ad links, which is very helpful. But still like the results themselves sometimes are less helpful than they used to be. In my personal life, I use Wikipedia for stuff like looking at the list of TV episodes from specific television shows. When I'm trying to figure out, like, where did I leave off watching this? Yeah, my watch history has gotten cleared somehow. That kind of thing. Anything that has a fandom associated with it, a lot of times the Wikipedia page will be incredibly robust about, like, that particular entertainment property or whatever.

[Holly Fry]

Very helpful.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Anyway, Wikipedia has uses is what I'm saying. Yeah. Even if those uses are not, you know, researching episodes of the show. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

I'm not anti Wikipedia at all. We just always. We try to do primary sources as often as possible.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right.

[Holly Fry]

And then you go to secondaries, et cetera. And we've always said, like on the Halloween episodes, that's a little. Especially when you're talking about paranormal things or haunting stories. We're not as hardcore about those rules. But this one, even. So I was like, I literally took this from a Wikipedia article and I wanted transparency about it. Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, for sure.

[Holly Fry]

We'll talk about a depressing thing, sort of. And then a funny thing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Okay.

[Holly Fry]

I have. Looking at pictures of places that are dilapidated, particularly homes, is very melancholy for me.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Because on the one hand, I'm fascinated and it's like, ooh, spooky, yooky. And on the other, I'm like, it happens less with smaller or it happens less with big palatial homes like this and more with smaller homes. But I just like, I don't know if it's that I'm too empathetic about the whole thing. And I'm like, this was a place that somebody loved once, and they felt like this was their special place and their, like, you know, their hopes and dreams were into this space and now it's just junk. And I find that very depressing. Yeah. Because I am sentimental about inanimate objects. It happens all the time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Listen, I see one sad shoe in the road and I'm sad because, like, where is the other shoe? What happened here? That's me. Here's the funny thing. I was looking at pictures from inside Villa de Vecchi in Greece, which again, you are allowed to go into and you can buy tickets to go visit, but it also does have a lot of graffiti. But I don't know why it cracked me up. While I was looking at these pictures, somebody had very, very carefully spray painted the URL for their SoundCloud.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh, that's hilarious.

[Holly Fry]

The waltz. And I'm like, on the one hand, I'm like, honey, do you think people are like taking this down or taking a picture to go visit your SoundCloud because you did a graffiti. But then on the other hand, I'm like, is this very astute because they know this is a place that's photographed a lot and. But presumably those photos are going online and now everyone will know about their SoundCloud. Yeah, I didn't go to their SoundCloud site, but I did think it was funny. I'm waiting for the time. There's like a graffiti QR code. I'm sure someone's done it already with a stencil, but it seems like that would be very arduous. You gotta get out your cricut and custom cut that biz. But I'm waiting. I'm waiting. The age is coming. Soundcloud graffiti. I don't know why that cracked me up. To very carefully spray paint an entire URL is very funny to me that's just inherently hilarious. That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time. Are you going out tagging? Yeah. Let me make sure I spell check it first. Like, I don't. Yeah, I love everything about it. Listen, we need our giggles where we can get them.

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[Sophia]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[Dakota]

Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

[Sophia]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm Not Afraid of a Scary story week on the ok Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult.

[Dakota]

Hold up, Sophia. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual?

[Holly Fry]

No clue.

[Sophia]

But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with their ceiling and her neighbors are not happy.

[Dakota]

Well, she needs to report them asap.

[Sophia]

She did, and now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways. All the time.

[Dakota]

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not?

[Sophia]

To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hell in Heaven Podcast Narrator]

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[Holly Fry]

They lose it.

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[Holly Fry]

They sort of went nuts.

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[The Crying Wolf Podcast Narrator]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

White victim, female, pretty, wealthy, black defendant.

[The Crying Wolf Podcast Narrator]

Chicago, a white woman's murder. A black man behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.

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I had 90 years for killing somebody I have never seen.

[Bloomberg News Host]

He says the police are his friends. And then that's it. They turn on him.

[Holly Fry]

A corrupt detective, how he was interrogated, the techniques.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That's crazy.

[The Crying Wolf Podcast Narrator]

A snitch and a life stolen.

[Holly Fry]

They got the wrong guy.

[The Crying Wolf Podcast Narrator]

But on the inside, Lee Harris finds an ally in his celly, Robert, who swears to tell the truth about what happened to Lee and free his friend.

[Kal Penn]

If you're with me, your goal, I'll.

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Take care of you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm gonna be with you.

[Holly Fry]

You stuck with me for life.

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Listen to the Crying Wolf podcast starting on October 22nd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

We talked about the Hammersmith ghost murder this week.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We did.

[Holly Fry]

And I stopped you as we were recording. Cause you were about to be real tiradey in a perfectly valid way about the language of the law that allows for the nuance of mistaken Understand. Understanding.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Which I completely agree with. Although I feel like in Great Britain it may work differently than it does here.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right. So we live in the United States. I don't know why the word United States didn't want to just come out of my mouth just then. But we live in the United States, so we. Like that's the context we're operating out of. But when I was reading that whole all the legal Language, it made me super angry.

[Holly Fry]

Because.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The basic idea of what that boiled down to is that if a person believes that someone else is a threat, even if that is an unreasonable belief, if they were genuinely laboring under that unreasonable belief, they can use it as a defense. So if you think wildly, with no basis that someone is a threat to you and you shoot and kill them, you can still use that thinking they were a threat as a defense, even though it was unreasonable. And we have similar laws in parts of the United States. And when the United States. We are also living in a society that for centuries spread racist misinformation about really anyone who was not white. But especially about black people and very. Especially about black men.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Presenting black men as uniquely dangerous to everyone else. And that has been used as a defense so often in people murdering unarmed black people in particular, also unarmed people of other races saying, well, I thought that this person was dangerous. Right. And I don't think that is a good defense. I do think that it is incumbent on all of us not to kill one another. And so having to read this language that was like, oh, yeah, this is actually fine, if not fine, but, like, this is appropriate to use as a defense. I was like, no, I think if you are under the absolute unfounded misapprehension that someone is threatening you and you kill them because you're scared, that's not a good defense.

[Holly Fry]

I think I agree with you 100%. I think. And I could be wrong. So any of our listeners from Britain who want to set the record straight, the way that it is handled in courts there is different than here, insofar as there has to be enough evidence that it would be reasonable for them to have come to that conclusion. You know what I mean? They can't just say, this person looked scary and they happened to be in my yard, so I got scared and shot them. There has to be. And he did this and this and this. And there has to be evidence behind it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

You know, in that case, that 1983 case, there's all this stuff about, like, that guy told me he was a police officer, but then he. He couldn't produce any credentials that proved that.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right.

[Holly Fry]

And he, you know, he obviously was lying to some degree, which kind of fed the problem that he was just. That he was, in fact, doing what you're talking about, going after a young black kid, that he was doing that kind of profiling. Wrong thing. So it's. I think there is more room for that kind of discussion and nuance in courts in Britain to establish a reasonable. Like that. Yes. A reasonable person might think this was the situation versus the way it is often handled here, where you just have to say, they were on my property and I was scared.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Well, and part of my frustration here is that, like, because of the centuries of propaganda that has been steeped throughout society in the United States, it's possible to build an incredibly racist argument that someone was reasonable in feeling that they were threatened.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Which is like just a whole other layer of it.

[Holly Fry]

The definition is really like how you perceive reasonability, I think, at that point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Not to make light of it, but I really do think, like, what is considered reasonable to some people is not reasonable to others. And I think some municipalities are a little more stringent in their assessment of that. Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Anyway, that was my tirade, I guess. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

It is wild to me in this, that. I mean, it kind of speaks in this story to how well liked Francis Smith was, that even the victim of his accidental shootings. Family members were like, nope. Yeah, he really was purposely taking this dumb risk.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Which is interesting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That kind of feeds into some, like, similar, similar things that continue to happen today. That it's like taking, you know, an unwise risk is not grounds for being summarily executed in the street.

[Holly Fry]

No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Which is like a point that was made in the trial was that like, even if he had been on purpose pretending to be a ghost, that's not.

[Holly Fry]

Something you kill somebody over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very interesting case.

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[Sophia]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[Dakota]

Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

[Sophia]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm Not Afraid of a Scary Story week on the OK Storytime Podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be Part of a cult.

[Dakota]

Hold up, Sophia. A real life cult. And what is a dirt ritual?

[Holly Fry]

No clue.

[Sophia]

But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling and her neighbors are not happy.

[Dakota]

Well, she needs to report them asap.

[Sophia]

She did, and now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time.

[Dakota]

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not?

[Sophia]

To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hell in Heaven Podcast Narrator]

In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Ric jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder not once. People went wild, not twice, stunned, but three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble and our couple retreat from reality.

[Holly Fry]

They lose it.

[Dutch Vet Service Advertiser]

They actually lose it.

[Holly Fry]

They sort of went nuts.

[Hell in Heaven Podcast Narrator]

Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dakota]

Here we Go.

[Kal Penn]

Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions, like, are we heading towards another financial crash? Like in 08, is non monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands, like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lilly Singh, and Bill Nye.

[Holly Fry]

When you start weaponizing outer space, things.

[Kal Penn]

Can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Kal Penn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

I'm so fascinated. Fascinated by scenarios as evidenced this year, maybe of, like, mass hysteria and, like, group fear. Yeah, this one was Very interesting to me. Like where an entire community can get so heightened. Where. But what's really fun. Fun is not the right word because it does involve a murder. But what's really, really interesting is how Hammersmith had enough people that were really amped up over this that they were sending, you know, people were going out and hunting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Patrols were happening.

[Holly Fry]

And at the same time, like London was like, ugh, Hammersmith. I mean, those ding dongs think they're ghosts in the rain. It's an interesting thing in like cultural pockets within larger metro municipalities.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

That just have their own beliefs or, you know, they get caught up in the. The thing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Now we have that. But it's all segregated out into communities online. Right, right.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. To me, if you are in this community that has been gripped by the possibility that there is a ghost and it seems likely that if not a ghost, there is at least someone all in white who has been scaring people on purpose. And the way such things are handled is often with community patrols, it's reasonable to me for the community patrol to question that person.

[Holly Fry]

Well, yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

To question the guy that happens to be out at night in all. In all white clothes. The fact that it jumped immediately to shooting him, I'm like, I don't fully follow.

[Holly Fry]

Well, he called out for him twice and he didn't answer. Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And to me that's still not a reason to shoot.

[Holly Fry]

Well, no, but like, I mean, I think in that moment of fear.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Again, keeping in mind that this was 200 years ago when our understanding of the world was a bit different.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

I can see where in that moment of fear somebody might do that. I'm not happy about it. I don't want that to happen. But I also am kind of one of those people that's like, you know what? This man had the pants scared off of him and he reacted in a way that was not great, but is understandable, particularly because he did say like, hey, who are you? And Thomas didn't want to reply. And the fact we kind of glossed through it, but that in that testimony that his mother in law gave about his previous altercation with someone thinking he was a ghost, his response was not, oh, no, I'm so sorry. It didn't even occur to me that I would look like a ghost. It was, I'm going to punch you in the head. Like, clear. He was not participating in trying to ease anybody's minds about the situation either. Sure, sure. Like that is a man that seems real ready for like, oh my gosh. I thought you were a ghost. Really? I will punch you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Like, what is the.

[Holly Fry]

That's not a logical reaction either.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right?

[Holly Fry]

It's a lot of problems.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Don't punch people. Don't shoot people is the moral of the story.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Don't do it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At least don't punch people for wearing white work clothes at night.

[Holly Fry]

Well, he was gonna punch the guy for thinking he was, you know, a ghost, even though he. Yeah, yeah. So don't everybody be cool. Which is the problem is that we don't. We live in a world where everybody can't be cool.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And there's guns.

[Hell in Heaven Podcast Narrator]

Everybody be cool.

[Holly Fry]

Just mind. You mind your business. We could all just be hanging out, having snacks, trick or treating. I don't know. The other thing that I think is germane here is that Graham the shoemaker came forward. Nobody believed him because they didn't want to. There may have been a perception that he. Because he did it the day after the sentencing, that he was trying to help mitigate the final outcome for Francis Smith, but also because people didn't want to. But what's interesting is that he faced no repercussions whatsoever. Even though, I mean, it sounds like, according to a lot of accounts, he was out there not just scaring people, but touching them in ways that might be considered assaultive.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh.

[Holly Fry]

You know what I mean?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Like, if he did. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

If he's putting his hands around somebody. If he's putting his arms around someone. If he's putting his hands on someone's throat, that would be considered assault in my book.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

But he didn't seem to face any repercussions for any of that. So the whole thing has problems.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That's annoying. There's layers of things.

[Holly Fry]

Everybody be cool. So this Halloween, I hope that you have a wonderful celebration, however you celebrate it, if you do. I hope that you have so much fun that involves no violence whatsoever, that no one assaults you in any kind of way. With the one very niche exception of if you pay to go into some sort of haunted attraction where you know that you are likely to be in some way assaulted by someone in the spirit of fun that you have consented to. That's my one very niche exception. I hope that you have a wonderful time and that you celebrate with delicious things. Maybe a yummy candy corn flavored cocktail. I'm working on one right now. I'm very excited about. And that as you go into this weekend, you have some. Some relaxation time, maybe you're gonna recover from your Halloween revelry. If you don't have time off. Maybe you have to clean up the yard after your Halloween decorations. Or just be like me. Leave that stuff up year round. It's great. I hope everybody is kind to one another and that we all take care of each other rather than initially, rather than immediately jumping to violent reactions. We all need each other to be cool. We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode and then on Monday we will have something brand new.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Kal Penn]

Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly high on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sophia]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[Dakota]

Wait a minute, Sophia, how do you know she's a cult leader?

[Sophia]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm Not Afraid of a Scary Story week on the OK Storytime Podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult.

[Dakota]

Hold up A real life cult and what is a dirt ritual?

[Sophia]

No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kal Penn]

Hey, I'm Kalpen and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lilly Singh and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics.

[Holly Fry]

Put it another way, are you high?

[Kal Penn]

Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, but my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Kal Penn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bloomberg News Host]

The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day, my fellow Americans. Liberation Day, stories that move markets.

[Holly Fry]

Chair Powell opened the door to this.

[Bloomberg News Host]

First interest rate cut, impact politics, change businesses. This is a really stunning development for the AI world and how you think about your bottom line. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.