482: The Secrets We Bury

Summary

True Crime Obsessed – Episode 482: “The Secrets We Bury”

Release Date: January 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this riveting recap, Jenny Mandavalli and Patrick Hines bring their signature humor, empathy, and sharp analysis to HBO Max's "The Secrets We Bury," a true crime documentary centered on Mike Carroll and the decades-long mystery of his missing father, George Carroll. Through interviews, home videos, and personal anecdotes, the story uncovers intergenerational trauma, family secrets, possible murder, and the lengths to which family members go to protect—or avoid—the truth. The hosts dive deep into the psychological and emotional fallout of the case, the complicated family dynamics, and the haunting discovery that finally brings some answers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet the Carrol Family and The Long Island Mystery

• Mike Carroll:
  • Has lived in the same Lake Grove, Long Island house for 63 years ([03:39]).
  • Self-identifies as a "QAnon patriot" and “collector” (hoarder) ([03:53]), but is oddly likable and deeply honest about his flaws and traumas ([04:13]).
  • The house is dubbed “the main character” given its central role in the family’s story ([06:34]).
• Family Trauma & The Disappearance:
  • The children were told their father “went out for cigarettes and never came back,” a trope that papered over decades of questions and pain ([10:02]).
  • No police report was ever filed; George’s car and wallet were left behind, and his last paycheck was never picked up ([18:34]).
  • Patrick: “That is crazy.” ([18:33])

2. Childhood, Abuse, and Hoarding as a Coping Mechanism

• Household Dynamics:
  • After George Carroll’s disappearance, mother Dorothy quickly remarried Richard Darris, who the siblings describe as deeply abusive ([12:58]).
  • Mike describes growing up wishing daily for his father to return, while being told by his mother not to speak of him ([13:39]).
  • The toxic atmosphere leads to trauma manifesting as hoarding for Mike after Dorothy’s death ([27:53]).
  • Jenny: “When the hoarding starts… he starts holding onto things.” ([27:51], [28:09])
• Sibling Relationships:
  • Differences in memory and experience, especially between Mike and eldest sister Jean, create ongoing complexities ([09:52]).

3. The Chain of Secrets and Suspicion

• Fragmented Family Ties:
  • Over time, the siblings discover holes in their family’s narrative, like the lack of a missing person’s report ([18:21]).
  • Dorothy’s word is considered gospel, and the kids struggle with questioning her authority and intentions ([19:20]).
• The Grandmother Next Door:
  • Mike learns his estranged grandmother lived on his paper route all along, never acknowledging him ([17:13]), increasing the sense of betrayal.
  • Mike: “My grandmother was there. She never said hello to me.” ([17:09])

4. Digging Into The Past (Literally and Metaphorically)

• The Psychic Revelation:
  • Jean and Mike consult psychic Reverend Angela Heil in 2010. Though initially skeptical, Mike finds the reading eerily accurate, especially when directed to “the basement, to the left, in the back by the target”—a former shooting range—where his father might be buried ([39:56]).
  • Jenny: “We’re gonna meet a psychic who knows real shit.” ([31:18])
• Initial Failed Search:
  • Mike spends over a year digging, alone, in the basement to no avail ([47:08]).
  • His emotional and physical decline—marked by hoarding and a stroke—leads his sons to rally the family, use ground-penetrating radar, and restart the dig ([49:23]).

5. Shocking Discovery & Police Response

• Unearthing the Truth:
  • After months of digging, Chris discovers a human pelvis behind a cinder block wall eight feet underground—the remains of George Carroll ([52:45]).
  • The family delays calling police to gather everyone, and initially, the police suspect a Halloween prank ([53:48]).
  • Mike (to police): “I was one and a half years old. I didn’t do it.” ([55:36])

6. Aftermath and Unanswered Questions

• Official Inaction:
  • The cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head. The police close the case, citing its age ([56:23]).
  • Hosts criticize both the original lack of investigation and modern law enforcement's shrugging off such a grave discovery ([56:49]).
• Theories & The Family’s Divide:
  • Richie (half-brother, son of Richard Darris): insists it could be a tragic accident ([57:37]).
  • Others suspect a cover-up: either Dorothy knew everything and covered it, or Richard killed George and Dorothy never knew exact details ([59:06]).
  • Jenny: “This man is a monster.” ([59:24])
• The Shadow of Sexual Abuse:
  • Pat, the “complicated” sister, is revealed to have run away at age fifteen to escape ongoing sexual abuse by Richard Darris ([61:02]).
  • Mother Dorothy is shown to have refused to believe or protect Pat, turning other siblings against her ([63:26]).
  • Jenny: “When you create a completely unsafe space for your daughter…that is evil.” ([66:25])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Hoarding and Trauma:
  • Patrick: "There’s, like, a lot of abuse and trauma… hoarding is a psychological disorder. And as far as I’m concerned… so is being in QAnon." ([04:33])
• On Family Denial:
  • Jenny: “They don’t really talk about this enough in the documentary, but the house is the main character… Mike can never leave this house. Mike will die in that house by design.” ([06:34])
• On the Psychic Experience:
  • Mike (describing the psychic’s words): "She’s like, hey, cool. So your father’s buried in the basement. That’s where he’s been this entire time." ([39:56])
• On the Discovery:
  • Jenny: "It’s the day before Halloween… the shovel hits something hard." ([52:38])
• On Police Apathy:
  • Patrick: “So they have to call [police] multiple times… these ‘keystone cops’ get there, and they’re not taking this seriously at all.” ([54:07])
• On Maternal Failure:
  • Jenny: “When you create a completely unsafe space for your daughter…that is evil. I couldn’t agree more, but I just don’t think it’s as black and white as, like, it’s just an evil woman who decided to, like, be evil to her daughter. I think there’s more to it than that.” ([66:25])
• The Eerie Ending:
  • Dorothy is shown in a family “skit night” home video, dressed as a skeleton, dancing over the grave of her husband, as the case ends with more questions than answers ([73:14]).

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Family Introduction & House as Main Character — [03:39] to [07:00]
• The Disappearance of George Carroll — [08:10] to [13:48]
• Sibling Experiences and Family Myths — [09:52], [18:21], [17:09]
• Discovery of Psychic Clue — [39:56] to [40:46]
• The Dig (first failed attempt) — [47:00] to [47:54]
• Sons Lead Renewed Dig & The Shocking Find — [49:23] to [52:45]
• Police Response & Media Circus — [53:42] to [56:30]
• Theories & Family Division — [57:37], [59:06], [61:02]
• Revelation of Sexual Abuse & Sibling Fallout — [61:02] to [63:47]
• Eerie “Skit Night” Ending — [73:14] to [74:15]

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Tone and Language

The hosts maintain their trademark blend of irreverence and heartfelt honesty. Humorous asides about drag bingo, “funnest night of my quarter” ([01:55]), and jokes about paper routes balance the gravity of family abuse, murder, and generational trauma. The conversation is frank, sometimes raw, but always empathetic, shining a light on uncomfortable truths.

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Final Thoughts

“The Secrets We Bury” is as much about the literal search for a missing man as it is about the emotional legacies we inherit, the secrets families keep, and the cost of silence. Patrick and Jenny expertly analyze the ripple effects of denial, abuse, and trauma, questioning the boundaries of forgiveness and the possibility of closure. The episode ends on the unsettling note of a family still haunted by its ghosts—both literal and figurative.

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Next Episode Teaser:
Murder in Monaco on Netflix—the hosts promise it’s a “mess,” but a juicy one.

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For full context, listen to True Crime Obsessed, Episode 482: “The Secrets We Bury”

Transcript

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't know what to say about this one.

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, I have plenty. I'll help you out. Do you need.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No, that's all I need.

[Patrick Hines]

Thought starting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. I have ideas.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Okay. Yeah, sure.

[Patrick Hines]

I'll help you out.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Okay.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Thanks. Hi. Jenny Mandavalli.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Hello.

[Patrick Hines]

Patrick Hines, fam.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I said this last time. I'm not gonna stop saying it. We're up to 205,000 YouTube subscribers. 205,000. Hi, Ubisoft. If you want to watch us do this, for better or worse, I think it's really worthwhile. It's very fun. We're very animated. It's True Crime obsessed podcast on the youbs. Oh, we also have a Patreon. We have over 500 full ad free bonus episodes to download and binge right this second. You get them all when we sign up. Name three of your favorite series.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, right now we're doing that Philly Mob thing on Netflix.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It is join just for that and quit right after if you want to, but it is banana pants.

[Patrick Hines]

It's absolutely bananas. We also did Stalking Samantha, which is excellent. Hard, like very hard to cover, but awesome, awesome stuff. We love Samantha. What else have we done?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

We did the murder of Ellen Greenberg and then we did an after party about, like, the things that were left out. There's so much there.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Go to the show notes and click on the Patreon link or it's patreon.com/true crime obsessed.

[Patrick Hines]

That's right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh, fam. One quick thing we wanted to mention. So we on patreon at the $5 level, we've been doing drag bingo every month for the last like two years.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. We are moving to a four times a year drag bingo situation.

[Patrick Hines]

So this year it's going to be March, June, October and December.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes. Now tell them why. Tell them the thinking.

[Patrick Hines]

So we, we want this to be more of an event.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

We want you to be able to plan around it because there are time zones at play here.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes. Which we have people from Australia, you.

[Patrick Hines]

Know, and we've gotten a lot of feedback that sometimes like even a couple of weeks notice, like if we tell you at the beginning of the month, it's not enough time for some people. Everyone's very busy. So we're doing it once again. March, June, October and December. You will have plenty of time. Time zones be damp.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly.

[Patrick Hines]

We're all hanging out and it's the best ever. The playlist is fun.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Drag bingo is. Was always the funnest night of my month. Still is. So now it's gonna be the funnest night of my quarter.

[Patrick Hines]

There you go. Of the season.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Of the season. What are we. What are we screaming about today?

[Patrick Hines]

It's called the Secrets We Bury. It's on hbo, Max. And it's a whole. There's, like, a lot going on here. There's no other way around it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

This story is wild. There's psychics.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Who turns out to be right.

[Patrick Hines]

Super right. There's a whole lot I know.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I grew up in what I thought was a pretty normal family.

[Additional family member or narrator]

One morning, dad went out to the store to get a pack of cigarettes, and he never came back. He disappeared off the face.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

On her deathbed, I asked her, mom, can you tell me anything about that before you leave? My mother literally turned her head, winked at me, and then passed away. Maybe he was involved with organized crime.

[Additional family member or narrator]

There was no police report he left.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

But the car was there and his wallet was there.

[Additional family member or narrator]

I asked Mike to come to the psychic with me.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

And I said to myself, this is bull crap. I just want to know where my dad is. The psychic goes, oh, the N word. Murder. He is in the basement. I lived in this house all my life. That's when I made this decision. I said, I'm going to go find him. I'm going to dig. I had a mission. People looked at me like, you're crazy. We were digging for months. There was nothing. All of a sudden, I hit something with the.

[Patrick Hines]

We're in Lake Grove, Long Island. We meet Mike Carroll. He's lived in this house his entire life for 63 years.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

There's a lot of reasons why that is. That we'll get into.

[Patrick Hines]

He gives us a tour. He goes, this is where I grew up. You know, we play wiffle ball and all kinds of crap. Mike Carroll is a trumper.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I just want to let you know I'm in Q. I am a QAnon. I am a patriot. I'm a crazy bastard.

[Patrick Hines]

He describes himself as a crazy bastard and a patriot, and he's also a hoarder. He says collector, but he's a hoarder.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Let me say something. Let me just say this. There's something likable about this guy.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, look, he is very honest. Well, no, not really. I mean, about some things. But there's. There are parts of him where it's.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like, he's very emotional. He's been through it. He's here to tell the story.

[Patrick Hines]

We will eventually learn how Mike got here.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

There's, like, a lot of abuse and trauma. Trauma in his life. And hoarding is a psychological disorder.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

And as far as I'm concerned, my opinion, like, so is being in QAnon.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes. Are people still doing that? Don't we have bigger fish to fry at this point?

[Patrick Hines]

I think they've all.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, they're. It's, it's around.

[Patrick Hines]

I think they all joined a certain.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

A certain other cult.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. So wait, we're only two minutes in, girl. Like, it's gonna be a long. But all I'm saying is when I first watched this documentary and I heard that, I was like, well, how am I gonna be on this guy's side? But then it doesn't take long to sort of be on his side.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, remember in Kings of Tupelo, also on Patreon.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Where this guy, like, had all the time in the world to just like go down Internet rabbit holes and go to the, like, you can kind of see based on everything we've covered, even the Flat Earth documentary, like how someone can get here 100%.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And it's like, when you're sad, the Internet will feed you the stuff to make you sadder.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. You know, so plus hoarding, it's like a whole thing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, Mike's sons are here, Chris and Michael.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

They are wonderful. And they are the first to be like, we don't really agree with our dad on a lot of stuff, but we love him anyway.

[Patrick Hines]

Michael says he has very abstract beliefs. And I'm like, that's one way to put it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

But look, they've. They've tried to help him with the house many, many, many times. And they explain, we'll clean it up. It'll stay that way for like a week or two, and then it will just come. Become a mess again.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. I mean, when you are living like that, if you don't want to fix it, it's not going to get fake. Your family can come in a million times and clean it up. But if you don't want to change the way, then it's not going to change. Well, because it's like me and the coffee creamer.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. And we'll learn why it gives him a lot of comfort to live this way.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And we'll like, no one talks about the trauma. Like, we'll talk about it. But like he. Him calling himself a collector.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, he says, he was like, okay.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I am a collector. I don't believe on throwing things out because you're going to need it like 10 years down the road. That screw that doesn't go Anywhere. It has to go somewhere down the road.

[Patrick Hines]

It has to go somewhere. And that's why I'm saving it. I'm like, oh, there's a method to this madness, for lack of a better term.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And also, like, we don't. They don't really talk about this enough in the documentary, but the house is the main character of this documentary. Mike can never leave this house. Mike will die in that house by design.

[Patrick Hines]

I think, you know, he doesn't want to leave it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And just to be clear, we'll get there later. But, like, this is a house he grew up in that he eventually buys from his mother and, like, lives there and raises his family there. And now he's in a. Like, like, an older man living there like this. He literally has lived in that house from the time he was born.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Girl.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Rocket Money is back.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. So Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bill so you can grow your savings. Girl.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It tells me if we have any, like, unusually large transactions, it follows up with me if it thinks that I have something I might want to cancel.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. And my favorite thing, as you know, I say this every time, is the dashboard, where you can see everything in one place. So that's where you can see where your money's going or what subscriptions you have, if you're even using it, if it's worth it to you. And then they help you cancel, because, as you know, sometimes companies make it a little tricky to cancel.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Can I just talk a little bit more about the dashboard? Because the dashboard consolidates your checking, savings, loans, and investments into a single, like, you know, like, if you go to your bank account, you've got to, like, click in and out of the. Everybody hates facing their finances, but when you do it and you see it all in one place, it is so easy to understand.

[Patrick Hines]

And that's important if you have, like, financial goals or if you want to change where certain money is going. Seeing it all in one place is super, super helpful.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, I love it. I use it all the time I live by. So, fam. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster.

[Patrick Hines]

Join at Rocket Money.com/Obsessed.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's Rocket Money.com/Obsessed.

[Patrick Hines]

RocketMoney.com/Obsessed.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You heard her.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. And I'll say it again.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Thank you so much.

[Patrick Hines]

Rocket money dot com. So, Mike's childhood, he explains, like, they grew up in a nice neighborhood. He's the youngest of four kids. We will meet Gene, you Will meet Steve. We will not meet Pat. We hear about her, but Mike says she's a little complicated, but that's a different story. That is a total mischaracter of what happened. We will get to it later.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And I would like the Pat documentary while we're on this.

[Patrick Hines]

I would love to speak to her and tell her that she's seen and heard. But that's a conversation seen and heard.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And I would like to give her the platform to tell her story.

[Patrick Hines]

I agree. So there's a guy named Richard. Mike Carroll says he grew up thinking this was his dad. This is not his biological father.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Richard.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No.

[Patrick Hines]

George Carroll is their biological father.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. And then we meet Jean. Jean is Mike's sister. Very complicated character. She's. Mike is seven years younger than her. She says, now, I want to say one thing about Jean, because she's complicated. I know we're gonna have a lot of strong feelings about her. I do think there is something to being the oldest, and I've gone through this a little bit with my older sister, where we had a really hard time for a really long time because we remember our childhoods very differently because she was the oldest. She was right in seventh grade when our parents got divorced, when my mom came out as a lesbian, when we went from being, like, middle class to being very poor. Like, my point with Jean is I have a lot of trouble with some of the stuff that she says at some points, but I give her a little room for being the oldest and remembering more than everybody. El.

[Patrick Hines]

Sure.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And, like, you know, she says experiencing more. Yeah, yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Because she says, Mike, our, like, main narrator here, was too young to remember their father, but she does.

[Additional family member or narrator]

And she says, I remember him around me all the time. I know I was daddy's girl. You know, my dad was there, and then all of a sudden, my dad wasn't there. My mother would say to us that dad went out to the store to get a pack of cigarettes, and he never came back.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

These kids are really struggle with the abandonment of their father and the stories they were told about that abandonment during their growing up from their mother, from their mother and the mother's new husband, neither of which had anything nice to say about the dad that vanished.

[Patrick Hines]

I mean, their mother literally told them, like, a stereotypical, like, the trope, like, what you see in the movies. He went out for cigarettes and never came back. That's what the mother tells the kids.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And Mike says, like, as they were growing up, there were a lot of rumors over the years of, like, what happened to him, like, was he killed by organized crime? Or, like, did he meet a woman in the Korean War and go back to, like, live with her? You know? And, like, at some point they say, like, he left us because he didn't love us anymore, and he loved whoever he left us for more than us.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. And so Dorothy, the mom's like, look, this George is a super bad guy. Don't miss him. Don't even think about him. Like, he sucked. Really. Which is completely not fair.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And it's also not how it works.

[Patrick Hines]

It's not how it works.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And the kids, like this woman, Dorothy, the mother. We're going to learn a lot about her. The kids, no matter what she can do no wrong or even if she has done wrong, they forgive her and they love her. And, like, she really, like, saying these things about the dad really mess these kids up. Now we're gonna.

[Patrick Hines]

Their kids. Of course they were gonna believe her. It's formative years. They're already traumatized, and nobody talks about the trauma. Really?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yep. And we will learn later that according to some people, the dad, George, was abusive to the mother. And I want to say that that's very real. It's qu. Like, it's quite possible that he was not a great guy, but she just expects that, because she's happy that he's gone, that she can tell the kids to just forget about him and that they're just gonna do that.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. It's not. I've said this before. There's someone incredibly close to me who lost their dad at a very young age and was not allowed to mourn him because it was, like, a bummer for the rest of the family. Not that his dad was an awful guy, but, like, all the pictures came down, and then they had to not talk about it at home. And as a child, when you're eight years old is fucking awful. And that is sort of under the same umbrella of, like, well, don't talk about him. You should hate him anyway. And it's like, wait, that was my dad. Like, what?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And this was obviously, like, decades before. Kids were just, like, thrown into therapy, as they should be when their parents get divor. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Like, no one's talking about any emotional trauma.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And basically, the mother just doesn't want to talk about the dad at all.

[Patrick Hines]

And so the mom marries Mr. Daris almost immediately. And so Jean explains, Look, in the.

[Additional family member or narrator]

60S, 70s, most women didn't work. So for my mother, when my dad left, how was she going to survive through that time with no income coming in. My mom had to do what she had to do. And that's how the relationship between my mother and Mr. Daris developed.

[Patrick Hines]

Her mom did what she had to do to provide for her kids.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now, that's also real.

[Patrick Hines]

Sure.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean? Like, this guy turns out to be so fucking awful. He is awful. But I think it's really true that a lot of women really were stuck in a position of, what do I do? I don't. I haven't worked. I can't work. I have four kids I need to take care of.

[Patrick Hines]

Right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

What do I do?

[Patrick Hines]

And so this Richard Darris guy, we're told, like, he was just some dude from the neighborhood. It was convenient. It was seamless. He just swooped in, replaced the dad. And everybody says, every. All of these siblings here, he was not a good guy. He was super mean. Mike, our narrator, starts crying, talking about it. Everyone was miserable.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

When Mike started crying, like, that was the first moment I was like, oh, you know what I mean? Like, can I make you. Can I give you a hug?

[Patrick Hines]

Like, everyone is miserable, but they're immediately like, cue Book of Mormon. They shove their feelings way deep down. They turn it off. They, quote, moved on. And let me tell you, not a single person here has moved on.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No.

[Patrick Hines]

To say that they have, because they probably weren't allowed to feel anything because their mother was a narcissistic, abusive asshole.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. And Mike even says, like, throughout his childhood, like, he would spend all his days wishing that his dad would come back and it would be the best day of his life. But as they get older, they have to just accept that that's never happened.

[Patrick Hines]

But they had to act like everything was fine. So, like, don't miss your dad. Don't be sad about being abandoned. Love this mean new stepdad and act like everything's fine.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly, exactly.

[Patrick Hines]

That's not the first time you'll hear me say, woof.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No, I love this woof on you, though.

[Patrick Hines]

Thank you.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So Mike had a paper route as a kid, and he's you kind of. I remember I had a paper out as a kid as well.

[Patrick Hines]

Coolest gig ever.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, because, like, you know everybody. You get tipped sometimes, whatever, and people recognize you.

[Patrick Hines]

He loved the recognition. He was like, I knew the streets. I knew the people. He was like a man about town.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He's a man about town at nine years old. But he said there was one house on his route. Is it route or route?

[Patrick Hines]

I never know. I think it's interchangeable. It's like data and Data. Yeah, I go back and forth every.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Time I had to say it in my audiobook, and I didn't know which way to go. I gave them two options. Yeah, paper route. Paper route.

[Patrick Hines]

But they do.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't remember even. I listened to my own audiobook on doll speed.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, you don't have to listen to it. You lived it and read it, and that's true.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And then I recorded it, which I thought was gonna be fun, but was not.

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, I can imagine.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Recording your own audiobook. It wasn't a. I would do it again if I ever wrote another one, but it wasn't a fun.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, it's not as easy as you. I can imagine that my voice was going.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I had to stand the whole time. It was kind of exhausting.

[Patrick Hines]

And then you have to make it sound like you didn't just stop, you know, it has to sound like a. Like a telling story.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Can I tell you one more thing about it? I read the book at the pace. I thought that it should be like, you. You write comedy, you read it at. The audible has a thing that they do where they put it through a program. And all of their. Their books are equally paced. So it doesn't matter the speed you read it at. They pace. And then people can decide to go, like, 1.25 or 1 slowed you down. I think they. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they definitely slowed me down.

[Patrick Hines]

But then your voice and then I guess change the pitch or whatever, because when you slow down, like, people have done that too, because they're like, why? Why do Patrick and Julian sound hammered?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And why are their voices so low?

[Patrick Hines]

And then they're like, oh, I changed the speed of mistake.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So interesting, the magic of the Internet. I don't know what they did, but it was not as fast as I wanted.

[Patrick Hines]

Whatever. Anyway, so there's this yellow house, and it stuck out to Mike as he was delivering papers.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

It had a pool with white fence and a big, big freaking yard. It was a very pretty yard. It. It. It stuck out. Okay? I just said, they got money. Mr. Jaeger, who owned that house, he gave the worst tips, man.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Mr. Yagle, shittiest tipper on the block.

[Patrick Hines]

Worse. That makes me crazy.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

So Jagle sucks, right? And so one day, years later, Mike is at home, he's hanging out, and Mr. Yagle from the yellow house comes over to talk to Mike's mom and give her this box. And Mike's like, wait, what is he doing here?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And just to be clear, the Jagle estate was, like, just a couple doors down. Like, these people. The Jaggles lived close enough to Mike that he was on his paper route. Right.

[Patrick Hines]

And so, like, years later, he's like, what the hell is Mr. Yagle doing here? Why is he giving my mom a box? And why are they having this heated conversation on the front porch? Like, what exactly is going on here? He says there was anger.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

What?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And so it turns out the box is full of Mike's misleading dad's stuff.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And it turns out the mom just says nonchalantly that this guy Jagle used to be married to your dad's mother, meaning this guy was married to your grandmother.

[Patrick Hines]

And the grandmother that you never met, even though she lived down the block and didn't tip you well, you delivered her papers, just died. And now I have all of the belongings that belong to your dad that you're not allowed to care about, and you have to hate him and don't even think about it. And everybody shut up.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I mean, the. The thing that Mike is going through in this moment is, like, I collected.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

From that house for years, and my grandmother was there, and she never said hello. And I said to myself, what happened here? Like, you know, something happened to dad. There's something drastically wrong with this story. And. And somebody's lying.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

My grandmother was there. She never said hello to me.

[Patrick Hines]

She like. Yeah, like, in the neighborhood. And they were bad tippers to this kid that they KN. Was her grandson.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like, when we start to get answers towards the end of this thing. And I want to come back to this moment, because I have a lot of questions about what is going on.

[Patrick Hines]

These people are awful, awful, awful.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And so Dorothy, the mom, was on a very, very, very high pedestal. All the adult kids here are very protective and defensive of her. Even now, they will not say a bad word about her, even though they absolutely should.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

But she also, like, perpetuated this, like, growing up, up, Mike says everything she said was gospel. So when she. When they're kids and they're emotional and they're vulnerable and they're going through this horrible thing, and when their dad left and she tells them he was a bad guy, don't worry about it. Like, that's their mom, their children. They're gonna believe her.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Right. And so as they're getting older, they say they start to ask questions. Now, Gene is the first one to realize there was never a police report filed for her dad. And there was. And nobody reported him missing.

[Patrick Hines]

Missing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That is crazy.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. And what's crazier is that even though he left his Car was still there.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

His wallet was still there. And his last paycheck was never picked up. Not by him or anyone else.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. And it's like. And then when Mike, like, armed with this information, would go to his mom to talk to her about it, she'd get, like, mad at him.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know, hiding Dorothy everything. Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

She sounds like a fucking nightmare. And like, this whole.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Say that to Mike, he'll get the case. Like, okay, I know.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, that's the truth. And if you don't, if you want to hoard stuff instead of going to therapy, that's on you. Like, honestly.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Because there's a lot here. And I hope that maybe after they talked about it and sat down and watched this, they realized, like, wait.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, and I will say that when.

[Patrick Hines]

We think it's easy.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No, of course, when we get to the end of this, they do start to question the mother's pedestal. I think at the end, which I.

[Patrick Hines]

Think is good, because I think they're calling it something that it's not. They're saying pedestal. Her word was gospel. She was a tyrant. She was abusive, she was controlling.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And they're not using those words.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No. But also just to. Just to like, play devil's advocate, she's also all they have. Fine. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

And she's using that against them to wield her power.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, as we learn more about Richard, the new. The new husband and how awful he was, it was sort of like they're all living in this world where we're all kind of in this together, girl. Momentous is back. This is all about the creatine, I'm telling you. Since I started my weightlifting journey, I've been taking momentous, and I absolutely love it.

[Patrick Hines]

And also, I was one of those people who thought that creatine was only for gaining muscle. No, that is wrong.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

It's essential daily fuel for your brain, your body, and long term performance. Performance. I got my face.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I was like, a little bit. I didn't know much about it. When I looked into it, I was like, I get all of those benefits. That's why I started taking it. And also fam, this momentous creative creatine is backed by leading performance experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Stacey Slims. It's sourced exclusively in Germany, and it sets the gold standard for creatine, delivering the purest form, creatine monohydrate that's rigorously washed and never cut with fillers. Just like how I describe you, girl.

[Patrick Hines]

Thank you so much. And Much like myself, every batch is independently tested for your purity, safety and label accuracy, literacy, and NSF certified for sport. So that's why it's trusted by Olympic athletes, pro teams, and even the military.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And get this, they've got their travel packs now with a lemon flavor that I'm obsessed with, by the way. So it makes staying consistent effortless. Take it with you everywhere you go.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. With Momentous, the fundamentals are done right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So, fam. Right now, Momentous is offering our listeners up to 35 off your first subscription order with promo code TCO.

[Patrick Hines]

Go to livemomentous.com and use promo code TCO for up to 35 off your first subscription Order.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's livemomentous.com promo code TCO. Oh, but you got to do with vibrato.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, of course. Obviously.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Thank you so much.

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, my gosh. What's the point?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So Mike tells us he graduates high school at 18 years old.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I was the first person to go to college in this family. I ended up being a respiratory therapist working critical care. Now I'm making money. I was living my life.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He became a respiratory therapist. Mike is a smart guy.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. He's working in critical care.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. I mean, like, really hard job and, like, takes a certain kind of person. And, like, Mike. Mike is an onion. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

He's got a lot. This is what I mean. Like, you don't wake up and decide.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

To be qanon. Like, things lead you there. We're seeing that slowly. And, like, that's a lot of what this documentary is about, too. Like, unchecked mental health.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, the things we bury, like, that's, like, that's quite the secrets we bury. It's called, like, what a. What a. I was really thinking about the nuance of that today, because how.

[Patrick Hines]

Many times do all of these now grown adult children say, like, oh, I just pushed it down. Oh, we just moved on. Oh, everything was fine. Like, oh.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Which is honestly not unique to them. Like, it's so a product at the time. But, you know, Gina's saying that around that time, like, around the time that Mike is, like, living his professional life, mom and Richard get a divorce.

[Patrick Hines]

The mean stepdad.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Richard, the mean guy. So they're. They're all kind of like young adults now. And he was cheating on her. She took his suitcase and threw it out the front door. Go, Dorothy.

[Patrick Hines]

Mike says, that day. He goes, it was a good day. And then he paused, and he says it again. He goes, it was a good day. These kids hated this man.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But also, it's no coincidence to me that the kids are now old enough to take care of the mom. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Of course.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

To me, this is all very. It's like a. They have. It's like a checklist.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

You know?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. But she says like after Richard left, mom was a completely different person. She felt free, she was fun. She starts doing skit night.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

SK night's freaking awesome, man. It was right in this, this room. This was a four car garage. It was a freaking auditorium with seats and. And shit. My mom, she was the queen of the night. Because she was a frustrated actress.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

She was a frustrated actress. She would put on skit nights.

[Patrick Hines]

Those are Mike's words.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Frustrated actress, frustrated actress. And we see a home video of these skit nights. They're wild.

[Patrick Hines]

They're wild. You know, seats, curtains, like performances. They taped all of them.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I mean, like, would you be into that if your family.

[Patrick Hines]

I mean, well, so Debbie is Mike's ex wife and she met. The first time she meets the entire family is at one of these skit nights.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Right.

[Patrick Hines]

It's a, it's a big ask.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh my God.

[Patrick Hines]

Meet them during this big night where, you know, Dorothy was being a fucking nightmare.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Skid night is totally up my alley. Like if. If you're out there, fam, and you're having a skit night, invite me, I'll be there.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. I just don't want to go to this one.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No, truly.

[Patrick Hines]

Truly.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Because Debbie's like, no. It was fun. Yeah, it was fun. I'm just so shy. Debbie wouldn't do it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Debbie doesn't last super long in this family.

[Patrick Hines]

I don't think Dorothy was very nice to Debbie, of course, you know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

So Mike and Debbie, they get married in July of 1989. Debbie gets pregnant right away. And now that Dorothy, the mom is not married, she's strugg financially. Understandably. Right. Like she's having trouble paying the bills and she's scared she's gonna lose the house. And this is when she gets really like, I'm not leaving that house. I've been here for 50 years. And one of the kids says she was very, very attached to that house. Which could be like, well, of course she is. But then it could be for other reasons.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Mike swoops. Mike and Debbie swoop in. They buy the house. Now, I was surprised to hear this.

[Additional family member or narrator]

We moved into the upstairs. She was downstairs.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

It was tough. It was not easy. One day Debbie told me she was Unhappy. And I said, I can't make you happy. I was divorced in 95.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Mike, the look of dread on his face, talking about how awful this living situation was. It doesn't have to be like, it seems like.

[Patrick Hines]

No, Dorothy made it that way. I guess she wasn't.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I mean, the baby probably didn't help.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. But she.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I'm surprised with all the people in this example you're taking, you're blaming the mama, not the baby.

[Patrick Hines]

100%. I'm blaming Dorothy for pretty much all of this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, I can't imagine she was helpful or nice or kind or warm or. Well, that fucking tyrant. Because it's still her house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know. And that, to me, was what was surprising. It's the warmth. I feel like there was absolutely freezing.

[Patrick Hines]

Cold in that house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Freezing cold. I'm sure there was a lot of criticism about the way that Debbie, like, ran her family, you know? So it was. It was a miserable living situation so much to this point that Debbie in 95 was like, I'm out of here after six years. I can't do this. Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Out. So soon after that, Dorothy, the mom, is diagnosed with cancer, and she doesn't want to die in the hospital. She still wants to stay in the house. So she begs Mike, and Mike's like, all right, I'll make it happen.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Can I just ask you. And I mean this truly, not like, I'm not being funny. Like, what's so bad about dying in the hospital? Is that where they have all, like, the pain, Drugs?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. You know, she doesn't want to leave the house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, she doesn't want to leave. Erin, can we get a slow zoom on Jillian?

[Patrick Hines]

She doesn't leave the house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like, not until she's gotta. You know what I. I mean, surely doesn't want to lose the house.

[Patrick Hines]

So she kind of frames it as, like, I just want to, like, die in this house that I love so much. And I guess Mike. They don't elaborate, but I guess he, like, sets her up in the house because he has all of this medical experience.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He says he'll take care of it. We get the sense it. The end is nigh. Like, it's not. You know what I mean? It's not going to be a protracted.

[Patrick Hines]

And I think, to be fair, like, in a situation that's not this specific one, it can be very sterile. It can be. Not warm in a hospital. Like, you can be.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I want to say again, I wasn't being glib. I've had. I've seen older people that I love very, very much. Die. And they died in the hospital comfortably. And I just remember thinking like, that they got you there. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. If we didn't know the end of the story, I'd say, like, well, I think she, she does want to be in the house that she loved the house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Steve, get me to the hospital as soon as my fever gets to 101. Yeah. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Those fluorescent lights.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

So on her deathbed, on her deathbed.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I asked her, mom, can you tell me anything about that? Can you tell me anything about that before you leave? My mother literally turned her head, winked at me, never said a word, and then passed away.

[Patrick Hines]

She never said a word, and then she passed away. Woof again.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Woof again.

[Patrick Hines]

So, but the wink is very like, what the Dorothy. I know, like, once we're at the end of this, remember that wink. Cuz it's like, oh, she's just a cruel, evil. She's playing an evil game of chess with all of these emotions here.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I agree. It's also, the kids at the end of this are very, very thoughtful about this decision of Dorothy's. And I have thoughts on their thoughts. Okay, so we're back with Chris, Mike's son, and he's saying that, like, Mike's mom's death devastated Mike.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, this is when the hoarding starts.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And that's when the hoarding starts.

[Patrick Hines]

And so once again, though, Mike is here to tell us how he let go of all of the things he was feeling, especially about his father. And once his mother died, he figures he's never going to get that information. So he, quote, lets it go. And I'm like, he does not let it go. In fact, he starts hoarding. In fact, he starts holding onto things.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes, yes. But people who haven't been through therapy and don't understand that that's what they're doing. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, of course. It's very easy for me to sit here and say this and I.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, I'm not saying that I know you have the biggest heart in the world. I know you weren't trying to say anything mean, but like, my thought, and I don't know anything about this, but, like, when you're doing the hoarding, does that feel good? You know what I mean? No.

[Patrick Hines]

I think it must get to a point where you feel consumed by. Because it is a compulsion, Right?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

It's an actual, like, psychological disorder. It's like classified as such.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, I think you must kind of Feel like any addiction maybe where it's like I hate this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

But this is where I live now in, in all senses, you know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I guess that's true. I guess that's true.

[Patrick Hines]

I would, I would think that eventually there becomes a point like I don't think anyone is enjoying when you see like the ultimate extreme, extreme, extreme cases where there's like feces everywhere and like dead animals. Like I can't imagine everyone's like, ah, home sweet home. Like I think, I think it's like everything, they're like trapped.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well anyway, Mike tells us a few years later he gets called into work at 3am Remember he like works in the emergency room. This guy's got like a serious medical job. He says, I was thinking of you.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Three o' clock in the morning is kind of like the beginning of the witching hour. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but 3, 4, 5 in the morning, you start to get a little weird.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

3Am is the beginning of the witching hour. Starts to get weird.

[Patrick Hines]

He's 100% right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I think about this and I am, I'm just saying I am often walking golden at 4 in the morning. And it's dark.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And it looks like Gotham City. And I'm like, my workday is just starting. But like this is the witching hour. Yeah. And it is witchy out.

[Patrick Hines]

It is like 3am is supposed to be. You know what? How take this however you want.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

When you and your girls go into the, into the woods with your cauldrons.

[Patrick Hines]

It's cuz when, like that's when the veil is thinnest. Like sort of the barrier between the living and the dead is sort of not as strong as it is that maybe now at 4:50 in the middle.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Of the day, basically Times Square, New York City.

[Patrick Hines]

You know what I mean?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's, you know, the veil is pretty thick right now. Pretty thick.

[Patrick Hines]

You're swimming through that. So Mike gets called, called into work to do something I had to google. He gets called in to give a blood gas test at the emergency room.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You googled that?

[Patrick Hines]

I googled it because I was like, I feel it scares me.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Like the idea of it, the visualization I have is like not good. So I was like, I need to calm my nerves. Like I can't add this to my funny.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So you have to see it.

[Patrick Hines]

I didn't have to. I don't want to see it. I just need to know what it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Was, what it was.

[Patrick Hines]

A blood gas test measures the Amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in a sample of your blood. So respiratory therapists, which is what is registered nurses and physicians can administer the the test, often in critical care or ER settings. So there you go.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Great.

[Patrick Hines]

He's just doing. I don't know, he's doing a thing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

While he's sent to bed number three.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

I check his band and it says Jagel on it. And I'm like. Something hits a button, I'm like, whoa, that's the same name as the guy that brought the box to my mother's house with my dad's stuff in it. I'm like, what the heck's going on?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

She.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

So I go, did you live around Conquermore? He goes, no, my parents did.

[Patrick Hines]

The guy in bed three is Mike's uncle. He goes, hey, I'm your dad's brother.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Hello. This guy can't catch a break. It's like surprise on surprise. And they're always big bombs when he learns about his family.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Let me tell you, like, the psychic is gonna be correct in this. The universe was making this happen. Well, like, you know what I mean? Like, we're gonna meet a psychic who knows real shit.

[Patrick Hines]

Mike didn't even know that his dad had a brother.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Right.

[Patrick Hines]

So to hear, like, to just be like, yagle, like, how do you. Or like, how are you connecting? It's like, oh, I'm your dad's brother. I'm the closest relative. Like, what.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Girl?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Fabletics is back. We love them.

[Patrick Hines]

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[Jenny Mandavalli]

So, like, this is the workout gear.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. It's amazing. So I just want to let you know I have the cozy fleece crewneck and the cozy fleece wide leg.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

When I tell you cozy fleece is not just a clever name.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

I look adorable in it. And I never say that.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And that's true.

[Patrick Hines]

You never say that. It's like a really cute, like. Oh, it's not. You're not like swimming in it, but it's super, super comfortable at the same time.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes. It makes you want to go to the gym.

[Patrick Hines]

It also makes you want to be cozy. It makes you want to do both, which never happens.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Tell me about the quality, girl.

[Patrick Hines]

So Fabletics pieces, they feel like that kind of high end activewear that you could easily pay like several hundred dollars for.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

We know what you're talking about.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. But you get that same premium fit and durability for a tiny fraction of the price. Like, when you feel it, you're like, wow, this is really cozy. But also, you know, it's durable, it's going to last a long time.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And I want to point out this is not just for the gals. This is for everybody. They've got genders.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

They've also got over 2 million VIP members and more than 100 retail stores. So they're not just like some random athletic company floating out there in the void that we all get served on. All the apps, you know?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, exactly. Like, the quality is so good. So the VIP membership basically pays for itself.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. We love it so much. Fam. Fabletics already has incredible deals and we've got an exclusive offer just for TCO listeners.

[Patrick Hines]

Get 80% off everything. When you sign up as a VIP. Just head to Fabletics.com TCO take a quick style quiz and be sure to select TCO when prompted to unlock your 80% off.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, that's Fabletics.com TCO I love a quiz, so it can help you figure out exactly what you want.

[Patrick Hines]

Look, I love it because all you know, all the right answers.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly. You know everything. It's basically open book.

[Patrick Hines]

And then you're going to look amazing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly. This Jagle guy is telling Mike all about his dad. And the guy says, all I can tell you is that your dad never, ever would have left his four kids. We have a suspicion that something happened. There was construction being done at your house at the time. It would have been a perfect opportunity for somebody to do something to your dad.

[Patrick Hines]

And we think your father, my brother, is buried underneath the house you've been living in your entire life.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now, here's my question.

[Patrick Hines]

Buried underneath the house, the house that.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You'Ve been living in for 63 years, but why did his own family not file a missing person's.

[Patrick Hines]

That's my question written right here. You know, tell police about this, that they. I mean, I'm sure it's like, okay, sure, Jan. Like, I don't know, but.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

At least file a report. Like, no missing persons report for this guy.

[Patrick Hines]

We have no information on what and.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

We never get it. I can just keep asking it at higher octaves, but we're never going to know, I guess.

[Patrick Hines]

And we also have no idea anything. Like, maybe we could get information. But Mike ends the conversation.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

But then he starts talking about my mother. He got negative on my mother, and that's when I decided to shut the conversation down.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Mike didn't like him. From that moment on, he didn't want to hear nothing, didn't want to know nothing.

[Patrick Hines]

Mike hates this guy and he's like, I don't want to know anymore. I spent my entire life wanting to know the truth. I was like, but actually not really. Well, because once someone tells him the truth about his mother, he ends the conversation. So he doesn't really actually want the truth.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But I think that might be it. You know what I mean? I think that, like, it's. I think it's hard to put ourselves in the mindset of, like, do I really want to deal with this? Do I really want to know? Maybe deep down Mike knows his mother actually is a piece of shit and doesn't want to be confronted with that.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, maybe. You know, like to say, I've spent my whole life searching for the truth. Like, no. Yeah, because now that someone is here.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

The truth is in front of you.

[Patrick Hines]

Or like, questions are coming up and it's like, well, once you say anything negative about my mother, I am ending the conversation and I hate you. But also, maybe my dad is buried underneath the fucking house. Like, come, you guys.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know. And that's the other thing too, where it's like, nobody takes that real seriously at first. And I'm like, I'm not sure I'd go home because it sounds insane. 3am is when you say the Village.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Okay.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know, sure.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, who are you again?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Right.

[Patrick Hines]

Also, I hope this blood gas exchange or whatever went okay. Wouldn't you be like, I wouldn't know what to do.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You just seem like, what, Turning up the blood gas.

[Patrick Hines]

I hope this, like, really emotionally charged conversation happened after the procedure that only, like, three people can do.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

There is a real conflict of interest being presented here. I feel like.

[Patrick Hines]

So now Gen sister takes over the storytelling.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You hate her.

[Patrick Hines]

I resent it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I. The. The look on your face like. I know.

[Patrick Hines]

And I know she's also complicated. I know everyone here is complicated. I understand that. I know that these kids were abused in many different ways. They had a narcissistic, controlling mother. I know that it sucks. I'm not saying any of this is easy. It's really easy for me to talk about it here. I know these four walls. I get it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Also, the culture of the family. It's like, Mike is like, they're all really close, and it's like, if m. Mike finds out, then everybody. He's going to tell. Do. Do they want to know? Like, I think that this is a. This is worldly. The story is wild.

[Patrick Hines]

I know it's. It's a lot. And I know there's a lot to it. I'm not trying to Be like a heartless asshole about it. But it's hard.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Try to remember, fam, that we are responding to the documentary about it. So we are being given all the information at once. So we. That's what we're reacting, you know? Sometimes you like it, sometimes you don't, you know, so.

[Patrick Hines]

But Jean says, like, she left the house at 17 years old. She goes, I had to get away from it. And I'm like, get away from what? Hold tight.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

She says, my sister left even earlier than me.

[Patrick Hines]

We will get there.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Y Gene goes to a psychic I consider a median. My telephone call to my mom. I wanted to know if he was able to give us anything more that we didn't know. Some new fact or some new evidence.

[Patrick Hines]

She calls it a median, but it's a median.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I was gonna let it go.

[Patrick Hines]

I know we have bigger fish to.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Fry, but do we? You know what I mean? Sometimes this feels like the motherlode of the thing.

[Patrick Hines]

And she says it every time.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

She Sundays median, like nine times, like.

[Patrick Hines]

With her whole chest.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I.

[Patrick Hines]

And it's medium.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Jean calls her the median. She goes to the psychic. She wants her family to go with her.

[Patrick Hines]

All the men in the room hate the idea of going to a psychic.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Especially Mike, because he's a Christian.

[Patrick Hines]

But Mike goes anyway.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, and. But. But thank you, Mike.

[Patrick Hines]

Yes. I. Look, I get it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't know why I need you to like him, but, like, you know what I mean? It's one of those things where Mike is. I feel like if I met Mike at a. At a picnic, I agree. I'd be like, oh, God, I have to talk to the QAnon guy. And then two minutes in, I'd be like, do I. Do I love you?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

I hear you. I do you like. So they go, see. It's 2010. They go see Reverend Angela Heil. Oh, oh, oh, she's still doing her thing. Oh, she's an interfaith minister and does a lot of weddings. Oh, she does tons of weddings. So the session is a full hour, and they thought they were going to talk to their mother. Now, this is a very interesting choice of words for someone who supposedly doesn't believe in this, Mike. He says, well, she didn't come through. She was being very stubborn. I thought you didn't believe in it, Mike.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly.

[Patrick Hines]

But you're like, oh, she's being stubborn. How about, oh, this median is full of shit? But I thought it was a very interesting choice of words. I was like, he believes in this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He Totally believes in this.

[Patrick Hines]

He has to say that he doesn't. But first he has to go kicking and screaming a little. But he's super into it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, he's also mad because it's been the entire time talking about Gene's daughter or whatever, right? And at the end, so the lady.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Looks at me and goes, did you like the reading? And I go, no. She goes, why? Because I just want to know where my dad is. Just. She goes, oh, when it comes to the N word, you normally don't say anything until you give me the permission to do it. I said, what's the N word? She goes, murder.

[Patrick Hines]

When it comes to the M word, I don't say anything about it unless you give me permission. Mike goes, the M word. She says, murder.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

If you were a median, would you. And you had. You had murder information on a client, would you just. I would just tell them.

[Patrick Hines]

I think that's.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't know, it's a can of worms.

[Patrick Hines]

I don't envy that part of the responsibility. If you're real and you actually know and you're getting like a holy. Like you should not, you know, if you.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But you got the dead mom screaming in your ear, like, tell them where I am. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Who's your dad? Not mine.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Well, I'm just saying in general, like, who's your responsibility to the ghost or the person who's paying you?

[Patrick Hines]

But some people don't want to hear it. You think? They think they do. And I don't know. I have no idea what the right move is.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, Michael's like, so tell me. So she gives them another Reverend Heil, you say? Gives them another hour for free so.

[Patrick Hines]

They can ask her no less than the 10 million questions they have.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

And she's like, hey, cool. So your father's buried in the basement. That's where he's been this entire time. Go down there to the left, and it's in the back, like in the.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Rear under the target. And Jean doesn't know what this means, but Mike immediately knows what it means. When they were little kids, there was like a shooting range down there.

[Patrick Hines]

50 years ago, we're talking like a.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Shooting range in the basement.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

How.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

How hard would it be to accidentally point your gun up into the kitchen?

[Patrick Hines]

Well, he said it was like pellet guns.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh, I got dark. Yeah, I got real dark.

[Patrick Hines]

It was just like on the wall.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like, I'm thinking shotguns in five year olds. No.

[Patrick Hines]

And they would shoot pellet guns at it.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

It was taken out of there, like when I was very young. So she knew something that was like 55, 60 years ago that nobody knew about. And that was impressive.

[Patrick Hines]

He's like, how would she know this? It's really specific. And the directions go down, make a left. It's in the back by the target. He's like, okay, I just.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I want to believe this story and that we have no information other than this. But it's like, what did she really say that they interpreted. Did she really say exactly that? Maybe. But like, I was just like, over the. To sell it, the documentary to hbo Max, you got to give this story.

[Patrick Hines]

A little, I guess.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

But even more when they ask her, like, who killed our dad, she goes, richard, this super mean stepdad, Richard.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Has all this information now, was any of that googleable? Who knows?

[Patrick Hines]

I don't know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

I mean, the target underneath is crazy.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

That Gene didn't. So even if Gene has seen this woman regularly.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Right.

[Patrick Hines]

Jean didn't know to mention it or maybe if she's lying to us. I don't know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know, I know. We just have to go with it because it's. And. And. And who's to say they're li. Maybe it's all true. It just. It's a little bit like, wouldn't this be everywhere if the psychic, like, nailed the exact location of the body?

[Patrick Hines]

Well, it's on a documentary.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I guess that's true. We're talking about it.

[Patrick Hines]

Enter Richie. Richie is the son of Dorothy and Richard, the mean stepdad. And he's the half sibling of everyone we've been talking to. And he's here with us.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's important to note that they've kept this information from us until this moment that Dorothy had us son with that asshole of a man that she married. And it's Richie. And you know, Richie is saying that, like, he was raised with all of the Carol kids, but he's a Darius. He always kind of felt like an outsider. Cut to Mike. We always treated him exactly the same.

[Patrick Hines]

Well, you know, we get two conflicting views here, which I think is understandable.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

And you know, the Carol kids are very close. I don't think it's that far fetched that Richie felt like an outsider. Like that makes sense for.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

For sure.

[Patrick Hines]

There's four of them, one of him. They also hated his father, and he's like the spawn of fucking evil.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I wonder. Like, we never hear Richie talking about the abuse from the dad. I wonder if the dad was nicer to him than he was to the other kids.

[Patrick Hines]

I don't know. Maybe it's one of those shitty things where it's like, oh, they weren't like his kids, so he wasn't nice to them or whatever. But Mike is like, oh, this Richie, he's very defensive about his father. I'm like, the same way the Carols are defensive about their mother. Get real well, especially because when you.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Come home from a psychic and you say, hey, the psychic lady said, our dad's buried in the basement and your dad killed him, like, I can understand Richie being slightly defensive, right? You know?

[Patrick Hines]

So Gene tells us a story about how this Richard mean stepdad guy, like, even came into their life.

[Additional family member or narrator]

I was, I would say, around 7, 8 years old. I remember getting up one morning, getting dressed to go to school, and I saw this man sleeping on the couch in the living room.

[Patrick Hines]

This Richard guy is sleeping on their couch.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And, like, this is when, like, the mom and the dad, he's still in the picture and they're married.

[Patrick Hines]

This is a big reveal because George Carroll knew him. The. The dad who's missing. So what happens is Richard Darris is sleeping on their couch, and he just got out of jail. He was 18 years old. He stole some radio from the federal government. It was a stupid, embarrassing thing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He stole a ham radio. We're going to go right past that. Why? I don't have any idea. I feel like that's the kind of thing that you have under the sink for hurricanes.

[Patrick Hines]

Like a war thing. I don't know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It feels very worrying.

[Patrick Hines]

It's something from the federal government. He was an idiot. 18 year old, like, whatever.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's a weird thing to steal.

[Patrick Hines]

So he, like, goes to prison for a while, I guess.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Talk about it for an hour.

[Patrick Hines]

I don't know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't even know if you can make a radio. You can make, like, a clock out of a potato. You can make a radio out of a ham, I'm sure.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Make a bong out of an apple.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's an actual ham radio.

[Patrick Hines]

It is a ham radio.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's. And now I'm a ham podcaster.

[Patrick Hines]

There you go. You sure are. So George Carol is like, look, I'm doing it at full Reno. I'm doing a ton of work on my house. If you can help me out, you can crash on my couch while you get back on your feet. So this is a big reveal. They knew each other. The mean stepdad knew the father for years.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

And he's in the house. He's living in the house, working at the house when my father disappeared. Soon, along the line, my mom starts talking to him, he starts talking to her.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And somehow something blossomed when George Carroll goes missing. The mom, Dorothy, ends up with Richard and, like, they get married and who's.

[Patrick Hines]

Living in the house?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Exactly.

[Patrick Hines]

So, like, yeah, it was seamless. That was the word they used earlier. Like, no shit. But the timeline is very blurry. Like, was the mom having an affair? Did she dump the father for the mean guy? No one knows the truth, which is the theme of this whole thing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. That's kind of the enduring mystery, right? It's like, yeah. The nuances of Richard and Dorothy's relationship is very important to knowing what happened here. And we'll never know.

[Patrick Hines]

We'll never know for sure, but we can have opinions about it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's what they pay us for.

[Patrick Hines]

Girl.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Girl. Miracle Maid is back. Is it time for bed yet?

[Patrick Hines]

It almost is. Let me tell you though, the worst kind of sleep is when you're uncomfortable. If you're like, sweaty and or freezing or just like, I can't get comfy. That's the worst.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, that's the whole thing. Miracle made has the perfect temperature because they're crafted with NASA inspired silver infused fabric that helps regulate your body temperature. So if you're a hot sleeper or cold sleeper, it doesn't matter. These sheets help keep you in the perfect comfort zone all night long. I am obsessed.

[Patrick Hines]

That's what used to happen to me. I used to start cold and wake up hot. Now I'm just totally even.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, also, no more of those, like, dirty, gross sheets. You stay clean longer because thanks to their antibacterial silver technology, Miracle made sheets stay cleaner and fresher up to three times longer than those regular sheets. No more of that sheet stink.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, we're talking about fewer odors, fewer wash cycles, way less laundry. And that means it's really good for your skin too.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Do you know these are the only sheets we use anymore? We've ordered, like, extra sets of them because they are like, getting into our bed at the end of the night is the most sacred thing you can. Like, I just, I said to Steve last night, I love our bed and our sheets and the whole thing is so.

[Patrick Hines]

It is so nice. And you also know you're like, not sleeping on anything dirty.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

And your temperature is regulated.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know. I know. So fam. Upgrade your sleep or give the gift. Gift of better rest.

[Patrick Hines]

Go to try Miracle.com TCO to try Miracle made sheets today.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, you'll save over 40%. And when you use the promo code TCO, you'll get an extra 20 off, plus a free three piece towel set.

[Patrick Hines]

They make an amazing gift. And with a 30 day money back guarantee, there's no risk.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. So that's try Miracle.com TCO code TCO at checkout.

[Patrick Hines]

Thanks Miracle made for sponsoring this episode.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And for, like, my good night's sleep.

[Patrick Hines]

I know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

For regulating my temp.

[Patrick Hines]

See you soon, sheets.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

See you very soon.

[Additional family member or narrator]

Soon.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

She's.

[Patrick Hines]

So Mike Carroll decides to start digging, literally, in the basement. To the left in the back, under the target.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now, this is not as easy as it sounds.

[Patrick Hines]

No.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean. Like, he's an older guy. It's a concrete floor. He's got to figure that out.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. He digs for a year and a half. He goes, no one else helped. No one even offered to help.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And after all that time, he doesn't find anything. He almost destroys the house. And for what?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Nothing gets in there. And like, the family is coming over. They're like, girl, you're destroying the foundation of your house. The house is going to come crash crushing down on you.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. And so after all of that, all this destruction and like, the emotional toll and all that stuff, like this takes a very big toll on Mike that nothing was found because he's already in a bad place. Yeah. He's letting the house go more and more into disrepair. His son's left for college. He's sad, he's lonely. He's not working through his feelings.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I'm also just like, Mike, it's a big basement, girl. Maybe the psychic was off by a foot or two. Maybe she thought the target was somewhere else. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Like, instead of, we don't have to.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Go right to despondency.

[Patrick Hines]

No. But, like, now he's like, hoarding old coffee cans and scrolling QAnon like, this is a recipe for disaster.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, and it's. It's more to what you've been saying about. I think him going into the basement and digging was hope. And when the hope was dashed, he had to confront the fact that he actually really does fucking care, you know?

[Patrick Hines]

And then it's like, well, now he.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Says, he told me that he will never leave that house unless he found if his dad was in that basement. I think down deep inside, I had a mission. And I wasn't gonna leave here until I tried.

[Patrick Hines]

Never gonna leave the house. Like, unless. And until he finds his father, now he's really in the house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Who does it Sound like. It sounds like your mother.

[Patrick Hines]

Cuz I don't know. You know, depending on what she knew, right?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But that's what I'm saying. It's like, especially now, it's like being at like, maybe he's going to bed every night thinking he actually is close to his dad. He doesn't know, but like, maybe he is.

[Patrick Hines]

Maybe, you know, so his sons are like, we got to step in and help him here.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I love these kids.

[Patrick Hines]

And so they get organized. They Google penetrating radar companies. The entire family is now involved. That's all it took. So they have to clear out the basement first. Everyone's down there cleaning. They get the radar thing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

What? Now here's the thing. I've always imagined that, like, dental technicians love their jobs because they get the water picking, they get to clean all the gunk out of your teeth.

[Patrick Hines]

Okay?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what I mean? Very satisfying job. I was watching this family because it's all. We see all the home video of this, tons. We see every second of them clearing out this. How satisfying that must have been, you.

[Patrick Hines]

Know, finally being like, yeah, dad, I'm gonna take this. Oh, it's like old coffee can that's 15 years old.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's like going into Daisy's room every day after she goes to school. What are the five things we can get rid of that she'll never notice that she won't let us get rid of when she's home?

[Patrick Hines]

Well, this radar thing finds a, quote, disturbance in the ground, and that's where they start to dig. And you if in the middle of this, Mike has a stroke, I mean.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It'S one thing after another with this.

[Patrick Hines]

Guy just keep on coming.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So like, he can't do it anymore. He thinks it's going to be over. His sons decide they're going to do it for him. These sons are awesome. They love their dad.

[Patrick Hines]

They really want to help him. They really want to, like, get him out of this. This despair that he has been in seemingly for decades now.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I want to just say one thing right here because somebody needs to get his propers. Mike Jr. Says he let his brother Chris do most of the digging. Mike Jr. Was going to be the documentarian. I don't wanna give the sons too much credit because it was really Chris who did like the heavy lifting.

[Patrick Hines]

And this is where I was. So they say, like, I just went.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Down there with a hammer and I found like a little like chisel type thing and I just started chipping it away. Well, you know, it. They were digging like twice a week, three times a week till 10 o' clock at night. And I'm like, wow.

[Patrick Hines]

They would dig like two or three times a week for 10 hours at a time, like using regular shovels, nothing professional. And it's crazy because at first when they say, oh, we're going to dig, my initial idiot thought was like, well, you just dig until it's done, right? Like it's one single occasion, even if it takes forever. But like I never imagined that this would take months and years. Yeah, maybe a week or two. Like I assumed you dig, rest for a few hours, but you just like work through it until it's done. But I'm like, no idiot. People have lives. This is a major undertaker.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's how you and I would do it though. There would be like a weekend and we'd be in the basement and. But like it's also a big hole. They're digging like a six by six.

[Patrick Hines]

Foot cement in a basement. Like, oh, you're a fucking idiot. Like, that's not how this works at all. Can you be caught?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Can you settle down on my French alien? I have to stop.

[Patrick Hines]

Mike like gets. He doesn't like when he hears me.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Say, that's a fucking moron.

[Patrick Hines]

And I'll say it like to myself when I think he can't hear me and he's like, can you.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Your Heather Chandler spitting water at herself in the mirror.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, so mean. I have to stop only to myself. So anyway, after months and months and months, they dig eight feet into the ground.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And there's like a wrench, some scrap metal.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't like it. I find it all very creepy and spooky. Like, why is that wrench down there? Know what I mean? Why is that like water handle down there?

[Patrick Hines]

I don't like it, I guess, like, I don't know. I think people on construction sites are like, that's going to get built over anyway.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like, yes, exactly.

[Patrick Hines]

Until however.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

But in the process of digging, there was a cinder block wall that got exposed right on the edge of the, of the chalked out area of the radar. My son came up and said, there's a wall on the ground. Like, what's a, what's a wall doing under the ground? I said, you need to go break that wall.

[Patrick Hines]

They find a cinder block wall 8ft underground. Like there's a wall underground under 8ft.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And behind the wall is like an open cavity. Like, this is a major. There's no reason a wall should be that far underground of the base of this house.

[Patrick Hines]

Right? So it's October 30th. One of his sons is there digging alone, and he finds this fabric that is decomposed. Like it's disintegrating when he's touching it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Can I tell you what my note here is? Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. It's the day before Halloween.

[Patrick Hines]

Day before. Okay. It's probably 3:00am yeah. Literally, the shovel quote, hits something hard.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

No.

[Patrick Hines]

And he calls his dad Mike downstairs, because his dad, like, knows medical shit. Right, Smart guy. It's a human pelvis.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

They find a human pelvis under the ground behind this wall.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

They also, without any warning, morning, show it to us. They do, and it's a lot.

[Patrick Hines]

I believed you.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, I totally believed you. By the way, the dad at first didn't believe it, told Chris to get down there and dig with his hands. This is your son who's selflessly been digging this hole for you and your basement for months now, right? He hits something hard where we think there's a body, and you're like, no, go prove it to me. Dig it out with your hands. What?

[Patrick Hines]

And then once it's proven, Mike feels very validated, and we haven't talked about this yet, but this is like, for the third or fourth time, I know, very smugly, is like, I win. I always do.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I always do.

[Patrick Hines]

Like that. That explains a lot, this obsession with, quote, winning.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And at one point, he trump impression winning. Like, it's. It's bad.

[Patrick Hines]

It's disgusting. So everyone is shocked. Everyone's hysterical, but nobody calls the cops. No one can believe it. The questions keep coming, but they want to wait until the next day. They want everyone to, like, get their asses there.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

The problem with that, we report the body. They don't respond. We report the body.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know, nobody responds.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

What's going on? Why? The day we reported, it was Halloween, 2018, October 31st. They find a skeleton in the basement. Yeah, right. There's no way we're going to waste our time. We're getting prank calls all over the place for bodies. So they didn't show up.

[Patrick Hines]

So they have to call them multiple times to be like, no, but actually, we found a body in the basement. And then these, quote, keystone Cops get there, and they're not taking this seriously at all. I'm like, what is this? A missing sex worker?

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

What is this?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

A woman of color? Oh, God. I know.

[Patrick Hines]

Is this an abused woman?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know, I know. I want to just go back one second and say one thing. When Richie, who is the only one who's not the son of that dad, he's Richard's son. When he finds out that the body was found, he's on a work trip in Chicago. He cannot get home to his family fast enough.

[Patrick Hines]

I mean, of course.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Which I think is really. Even after he knows that they think that if their dad is dead, that his dad killed their dad.

[Patrick Hines]

I mean, some things just sort of.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He still could not get home to his family. And that was. That meant something to me.

[Patrick Hines]

That's also the right answer.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Of course.

[Patrick Hines]

It's the only option.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

If you're not an.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

So once the cops see the basement, they're like, oh. They call out everybody. Forensics and archaeologists. Now tons of people are showing up at the house, including trick or treaters. And we get a shot of like Mario and Luigi and Rex.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

Surrounded by police cars because like the day is still happening for these kids outside.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know you don't want to hear it, but this could be a plotline of Modern Family. Like they always do amazing Halloween episodes.

[Patrick Hines]

That makes. It's a very sitcom.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Finding a body in a basement on Halloween and the cops don't believe you.

[Patrick Hines]

Once again, six times.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I'm not making light of this, but like it's.

[Patrick Hines]

I think everyone here is like, this is insane.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's insane.

[Patrick Hines]

So the cops don't know what to think. They're like, well, they don't know how long the body was there. Everyone else knows this is a 60 year old body. But the cops are being shitty to Mike because it's his house. And at one point, the way he says this is so funny and so Long island.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

He was like, I wasn't the one downstairs. I'm like, wait a minute. I didn't kill him. I was one and a half years old. I didn't do it.

[Patrick Hines]

I was one and a half years old. I didn't do this. But he says to the cops, like, I know this is my house.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

I know there's a body in my basement that I just dug up. And I know that it's Halloween, but I didn't. I was. He was. I was one and a half years old.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I know.

[Patrick Hines]

I don't do this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Really. The circumstance really is ridiculous.

[Patrick Hines]

And you got it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It's really, really crazy.

[Patrick Hines]

So of course this is all over the news presses everywhere. Flying.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. And the other thing about this too is that the family is like, we are not going to talk to the press about this. Except to say that we definitely think we know who did it, but we're not going to tell you who? But it was definitely a marital dispute between my mom and somebody. But we have no name. We got no names for you over here. Like, my brother did get on a plane and fly home from Chicago. He's a good guy.

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, my God. So the cause of death is rul. Blunt force trauma to the head. And after they. They get this information, the case kind of ends.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I thought that that was a pretty. Even having seen this once before, I forgot that.

[Patrick Hines]

And I was like, oh, there's that broken system. We know. I know, because the cops are like, this case is so old, like, it's not worth pursuing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But, I mean, it's also like, this case has been like that from the beginning. Nobody ever filed a police report. Nobody ever looked for this guy. Now we found him. Nobody wants to. Nobody wants to investigate at all.

[Patrick Hines]

And even though. Yeah. Even though this body was buried in the basement incredibly deliberately, eight feet underground behind a wall that was dug down there. Give me a. Like. And the cops were, like, too old.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now that I'm thinking about it. Cops. Do we want to make sure there aren't other bodies down there?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. Is it connected to another crime, maybe? Like, nope. Doesn't matter.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, it's wild.

[Patrick Hines]

And so now we get all these theories because we will never, ever know what actually happened. Anyone who has answers is dead.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But I feel like we'll get close.

[Patrick Hines]

And the people alive don't really want the truth, no matter how much they. They say they do, because so many people involved are trash. And no one is saying that they're trash. Really. Like, no one's really admitting that.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, because Richie is saying, like, over and over and over again, my siblings are saying, your father did this.

[Patrick Hines]

Poor Richie thinks this is a tragic accident. Richie.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Richie literally says this could have been an accident.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Like, did he trip in the hole, hit his head on the cement, and now he's. You know, I'm just. There's other possibilities, but I talk to my siblings. We have to look at all the different stories.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I don't know. He could have tripped on something and fell and hit his head and fell into the g. Because we learned. One of the important things to note here is that there was a well where the body was found. So what. What happened was. Remember, the house was an active construction zone, and so there was a water well down there. So basically, they put the body in the well and then walled off the well. That's why that cavity existed. That shouldn't have been there.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, sure.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And that's why the. The family that's like, we, like, the house is a construction zone. Been easy to bury a body. They're right about that, you know.

[Patrick Hines]

Right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Like crazy, inexplicable accident. Accidents do happen.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. But let's go through some details and basically say why that's not.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, yeah. You know how I don't really care for evidence?

[Patrick Hines]

George Carroll, our victim. Right. Or the missing dad.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Dorothy, the mother, told everyone that he had, quote, heavy hands. And she said that after he came back from the war, he was violently abusive. So one of the theories is that Richard, the mean stepdad, killed George Carroll because he was defending Dorothy. He walked in on violence, he stepped in, one thing led to another, George Carroll was killed, and Richard, the mean stepdad, is a hero.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now, this makes no sense for a million reasons. It's like we are going to. Like the rest of this documentary is going to be about what an abusive piece of shit this man was in all of the ways to children.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You're going to tell me you act. Not you, you, you, Richie, or you. Anybody who thinks this is going to tell me this man, this. This act of altruism came in and had to save this woman that. That he loved. Kill this man, hide the body, because no one will ever believe it. And then what? Like. But then went on to be this abusive? No. This man is a monster.

[Patrick Hines]

No. And like, regardless, Dorothy, the mom, 100% knew he didn't leave.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, she didn't file any reports of the guy's brother.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Here's the thing, though, I mostly agree with you, but just to play the devil's advocate here, I do think that there is a situation in which Richard killed him. Never told her on purpose. She probably thought that he was dead and that Richard did something, but didn't have confirmation with her own eyes.

[Patrick Hines]

But she still kept the kids away from their grandparents. And there was a major rift with George's family.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And there was all this shit, like, and the wallet was left behind, the car was left behind.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I'm gonna put some of this on George's family. Like, why didn't you guys raise hell? If you guys thought that he was down there, why didn't you fucking raise hell about it?

[Patrick Hines]

I don't know. You know, I mean, we don't hear any of that. I don't know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But I do think it is possible that there is a world in which Dorothy didn't know exactly what happened. Okay.

[Patrick Hines]

I'm just saying, I think it's a small fine.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

The same percentage that he, like, tripped and Fell into the water.

[Patrick Hines]

Right. We can't say 100% anything, so we'll never know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But fine.

[Patrick Hines]

I want to talk about Pat the sister.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

Pat the sister is the only one who's not here with us. And earlier Mike said she's a little complicated, but that's a different story, which is a total mischaracterization of what the truth is. So Mike's son does his own investigating. He wants to talk to Pat and he says to us, Pat decided she wanted to tell her story and she wanted to tell it to me.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

My aunt Pat confided in me about a lot of the abuse that she got from Richard. How he molested and raped her and was able to get away with it. Nobody would listen to her. Even her mom refused to acknowledge it.

[Patrick Hines]

Pat ran away from the house at 15 years old because Richard Duras, the mean stepfather, was sexually assaulting and raping her on a regular basis.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And we know this because she told this to Mike's son Chris.

[Patrick Hines]

And after we hear that, then we get the sibling saying, oh, she's complicated. She's a black sheep. She made decisions we never would have made. She followed her own path. No, no, no.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And not just that. Gene straight up doesn't believe it.

[Patrick Hines]

So, like Pat was being sexually abused. Their mother, that they can't hear a bad word about, did not protect her. Pat told their mother and her mother ignored her. And then Jean, this is insane. Jean says, I never believed my sister story. This whole documentary, it is many things. Things.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

It is a study in how in trauma and how trauma combined with narcissistic abuse completely rewires your brain. Yeah, because Jean doesn't believe that her sister was abused because Jean herself was abused by Richard the stepfather.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

And Jean today says, well, Pat knew it was happening to me, so she lied about it to get out Gene now.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And that's wild that like Mike will eventually. Mike 100% believes Pat Story, by the way, as does Steve and as does Richie. But Gene 100% does not. And Mike will say later, what kind of 15 year old wants to run off and live on their own? Well, you know what I mean, Again.

[Patrick Hines]

Their mother was an asshole because this is as Jean is like, well, I don't believe her. I was abused, she wasn't.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

This is intercut with Steve the brother saying that their mother was telling all the siblings not to believe Pat.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Steve says, a lot of what my mother said to me about her made me believe that she wasn't believable. Patience, you know Was a bit. I think she stretched the truth about a lot of things.

[Patrick Hines]

A lot of what my mother told me about her made me believe that she wasn't believable. And I think Pat stretched the truth about a lot of things. That is fucking evil.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Now, Richard, the husband was manipulating the mother also to tell her she's lying. She's a troubled kid. She's coming on to me. I don't like, I'm just trying to say that, like Mike is going to say at some point that mother Dorothy was also abused just like we were. I don't know the dynamics of that. I don't know. I don't know how a mother could not believe their own child when they're being told that these things are happening to them.

[Patrick Hines]

Both of them. From where I'm sitting, this man was raping both of your daughters. You ignored it, you let it happen, and then you turned everyone against the one who spoke up about it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

Like, you're evil.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

And so on top of that, he was abusive in other ways to everyone in the house because Mike was like, that was the best day of my life. When he left.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Mike tells a story about how he would beat them with a switch or like a belt, but that we quote, had to be fully naked while he.

[Patrick Hines]

Was doing it as young as five years old.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

We don't go any deeper into that story. But that is also crazy.

[Patrick Hines]

It's. This guy was abusive from top to bottom and.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But like, but like sadistically abusive abusive.

[Patrick Hines]

You know, for the mother to hear from a 15 year old girl, I'm being raped by that evil, violent man. And the mom not only doesn't believe her, but tries to turn her other siblings and successfully turns her siblings against her. Is so fucking vile. It makes me sick.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

But Mike Carroll says, today, I believe both of my sisters 110% and I will not budge on that. That is the only.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

And so before Dorothy died, the mother, she proved how awful she was.

[Additional family member or narrator]

I don't know what my mother knew, but when my mother was dying of cancer, she actually approached me before she died and she asked me, was I in love with him? My mother actually asked me that if I was in love with them.

[Patrick Hines]

Were you in love with him?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But is there not a conversation to be had about like the mother being abused and brainwashed as well? Sure.

[Patrick Hines]

But like, this wasn't like, are you jealous of your. Like, were you in love with him? Feels like, no. No, this wasn't an affair, Dorothy.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But I think two things can be True. I think the mother not believing her daughter is awful and evil. I totally agree with that. But I also think that there is a world in which the mother can have been manipulated and abused to believe the story that he was telling as well. You know what I mean?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. And I, absolutely, there's always room for that. I hear that. And the cycle of abuse, and I totally get that because this was the.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Moment that made me think that the mother did believe that, that whatever story Richard had told her, he had convinced her to believe that, that Jean was in love with him, Jean was coming on to him. He didn't want anything to do. Again, I have no idea. But for the mother to ask that question on the, the deathbed feels to me like she believed the, the manipulation that he had drilled into her.

[Patrick Hines]

First of all, to me, that all hinges on how much she knew about the murder, which is something we'll never have the answer for. Yeah, but I heard that as like, what a fucking narcissist to be like.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

A horrible, horrible question.

[Patrick Hines]

Of course, like, it wasn't an affair, it was abuse regularly that you not just didn't believe, not just ignored, but actively turned other, other safe spaces in Pat's life against her.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

There's no disagreement coming from me on that. I, I couldn't agree more. I just, like, I'm just trying to put myself in the position of a woman in the 1960s who's being told by her husband this, and like, if she disagrees with him or doesn't believe him, the entire life falls apart. She lose all, loses all of her kids. You know what I mean? I'm just, it's not even like I'm trying to have grace for her, but I, it was this moment when she asked Jean that, that question that I was like, oh, my God, you believe whatever he told you.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

But it is equally true that when you create a completely unsafe space for your daughter, who is telling you about the abuse, and she runs away at 15, that is evil. I couldn't agree more, but I just don't think it's as black and white as, like, it's just an evil woman who decided to, like, be evil to her daughter. I think there's more to it than that.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, I'm sure this has to do with the cycle of abuse a little bit. But like, like we always say, at what point is it your responsibility to protect, protect your kids?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah, I, I, I'm not arguing that at all. I, I agree, but I think the reason that we're here is because she never knew what to do. I think once. I think once the husband was dead, this man had complete control over her. Because if she did know and she did anything that he didn't, like, you know, he's going to go and say that she killed her husband or she was at least an accessory to it. Then all the kids are lost. All the kids go into foster care. Their dad is already gone. I think. I think that she does a lot of really evil things here. But I also do think. Think that, like, once George is dead, and if she knew anything about it, Richard had complete control over everything that she did.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Chris is Mike's son who's doing the research.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And he found that this evil stepfather, Richard, had a pattern of abuse.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

He went to a new family. He did the same thing there. He was sexually harassing the daughter. So it shows what kind of person he is and that he repeatedly show this behavior. My aunt told my father that Daris was exposing himself at the house. He was exposing himself to the. To the girls.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Richard was exposing himself to one of his cousins, to one of Steve's cousins, and that the mother of that cousin called Dorothy and George to say, like, hey, this guy that lives with you, this guy that's working on your house, he was exposing himself to my kids today. Like, this is fucked up. And Steve is wondering, like, was that the night that my dad confronted Richard about this and Richard killed him?

[Patrick Hines]

Right. And then it kind of makes you think, was the violence from George Carroll even real, or was it another lie? Like, of course, it's extremely likely.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

That he was a violent guy, but we will never know for sure.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Because the Only. The kids don't say, I remember my dad being violent. They just say our mother said.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And she only told them after he was gone as a. As a reason to not miss him and not talk about him and not think about him and not ask too many questions.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

So.

[Patrick Hines]

So there is a question. Was this even real? And I would think that the. Of all the theories, it feels the most likely that maybe George Carroll goes, I'm letting this fucking sexual predator on my couch? Like, what is going on? I have daughters here. Like, what is happening?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And if it was blunt force trauma, like, I guess he would have come up behind him and hit him over the head with something.

[Patrick Hines]

And based on what I'm hearing, the abuse started after he's dead, right?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

So maybe this Richard asshole was only taking advantage and abusing people outside of their. This house. Then Kills George Carroll, and now it's a fuck free for all, and the mother's letting him do it.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Or it could have been anything. It could have been that it was a completely different day. And maybe George found out that Richard was abusing his kids and confronted him about it. I mean, this Richard guy is pure evil.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. Like. Yeah, I. I'm just. Like, I'm just having a hard time with the mom. I really am, because, like, I just. There's so much of me that's screaming. She knew everything.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And we also get these home videos from Richie the half brother's wedding and the 90s. And, like, Richard, the evil stepdad and Dorothy the mom are having a grand old time, dancing and laughing.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

They're long divorced by this point, Right?

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah. And, like, she could. Their long divorce.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

So, like, she did get out of it somehow.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Yes.

[Patrick Hines]

Now here she is in the 90s, dancing and laughing with the man who at the very least, was raping her daughters on a regular basis.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Acting like everything's fine. She could have. She could have just said, put me at a different table. I'll be civil. It's your wedding. Yeah, but I don't. But the way they're laughing and dancing on that dance floor.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. I mean, we don't know anything. It could very well be that there was the final straw where she said, you have to get out of my house or I'm going to go to the cops and tell them that we murdered my. Anything to get you away from my kids. And maybe he said back to her, you know what? I'll get out of the house. We'll keep this secret. I'll leave you alone.

[Patrick Hines]

We'll never know.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

We will never know. But, but, but Richie, the son says, because we see the video of them dancing, and he's like, I get emotional.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Because they're just talking about me. I grew up. We raised a good kid. You know, good, Good life, good family. Or were they talking about, hey, we potentially got away with murder at this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Point, or are they looking at each other and smirking and saying, like, we just got away with murder.

[Patrick Hines]

Got away with murder.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

It could be either. We'll never know.

[Patrick Hines]

Also, Q, dog alert. Mike has two dogs. That's all. So we're back with Jean.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Who has her father in a wonton soup container.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I was glad she at least acknowledged it, because the first time that I watched it, I was like, girl, is that. Is your dad in a wonton takeout container?

[Patrick Hines]

Which, look. Yeah, if it works, it works.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

No judgment here.

[Patrick Hines]

Do you know what I mean?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes, I do.

[Patrick Hines]

There are some people who fully, fully believe that the whole funeral business is a total scam.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh, really?

[Patrick Hines]

Just like the fact that you have to pay so much money for something, you know what I mean?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Are expensive.

[Patrick Hines]

Super expensive. And so I think there are some people who leave me in the woods.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And let me rot, who will actively.

[Patrick Hines]

Be like, fudge the $10,000. Urn.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

Put me in a wonton soup container.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

If ever there was a person. Jeans the one.

[Patrick Hines]

I think there are definitely people in the world who are pro. Wonton soup container.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah. Because, like, the ashes come in a bag, you know what I mean? You got to put them in something, you know, like, they don't come in that fancier. It just.

[Patrick Hines]

It fits.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

It has that top that's hard to get off. Like, if it's working, it's working well.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And then Steve, the son.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Well, there wasn't much that I ever had that my father actually owned or gave to me. I guess that the shoes just kind of give me some connection. This is all I have.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

He's decided the memento he's going to keep of his dad are the boots that the dad had been buried under the house in for 65 years.

[Patrick Hines]

Right.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And we see them and it's. They are kind of an amazing artifact.

[Patrick Hines]

They are. And I think it's where I. I think we're talking to a lot of, like, deeply hurt people.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Well, who never had a single thing that their dad ever gave them, ever. They never had anything that belonged to him.

[Patrick Hines]

Who are taking what they can get. And they're also sort of now reckoning with the fact of, like, everything we've been told for decades is probably not true. And so they could have been missing him and mourning him in a way.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh, yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And we could have had belongings. But then, like, why. And then it's like, well, why didn't we? And why did she want to live in the house? And why weren't we allowed to?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Just, like, the. Knowing that he was there all the time. He was right there.

[Patrick Hines]

It ends with footage of one of the skit nights.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yes. This is so ghoulish.

[Patrick Hines]

And Dorothy, happy as a clam, by the way. Like, thrilled. Not, like, sad about any abuse or sad. I'm not saying that that's not.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Her dead husband is buried 10ft from where she's from.

[Patrick Hines]

She's dancing on him. Yeah, she's dancing on him.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

So she's lip syncing to that song. So Alive by Love and Rockets.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And they also. I don't know if this was a documentary thing, but they give her, like, the full MTV treatment in the corner. The old mtv, actually. So. But she's dressed as a skeleton and her face is painted white as a skeleton. And I find it so unsettling, and I feel like it's just sort of a button of, like, I to me. And maybe we can ask the filmmaker this. It feels like that's sort of a statement on what they believe or what they think about her. Because it's a really damning way to end this with all these questions of, like, what's real, what's not?

[Jenny Mandavalli]

And, like, literally dancing on a grave.

[Patrick Hines]

As a skeleton to a song called so Alive.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Yeah.

[Patrick Hines]

And I found it, like, really eerie. It is so eerie. I don't like it at all.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Oh, my God, girl. We did the secrets we bury.

[Patrick Hines]

Secrets we bury.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

I really like it when you and I get to, like, really, in real time, like, dissect how we feel about a thing.

[Patrick Hines]

Yeah, I did have a lot of feelings with it, and I just. It's probably, like, my issue that I sort of.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

What do you mean?

[Patrick Hines]

No, I do sort of get blinded when there's, like, sexual assault happening that are, like. I can acknowledge that that puts blinders on me in some ways. Like, that's a thing that I'll own.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

You know what? It's really cool of you to say that. I didn't think of it like that. I think that you're, like, righteous indignation is totally warranted, and that could be.

[Patrick Hines]

Wrong of me and something I have to work on. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But I'm in my feelings.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Maybe, like, if we were a married couple, I would say we just made big progress because I didn't know that really about you. But now that I understand that, when we have the conversations like that, I will totally get it.

[Patrick Hines]

No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, like. I guess I'm sort of realizing it too, where I'm like. I'm just not like. Yeah, I will not budge on this.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Good. Don't budge. Not for me, fam. We love you so much. We'll just leave you. On that note, what are we doing next?

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, God. Murder in Monaco on Netflix.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

What is that?

[Patrick Hines]

I personally, personally think this documentary is a mess. Like, everything about it, the story, I think it's a mess. But it's huge on Netflix right now. It's about the murder of, like, one of the most richest people on the planet in Monaco. And, like, who did it and who did it? Was it his wife? And the Russians and the nurse and the whole thing. It's, like, crazy.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Okay, great. Murder in Monaco. Coming up next week, fam.

[Patrick Hines]

Netflix.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

All right, we love you. Go have a drink, please.

[Patrick Hines]

Oh, my God. Whatever that may be. Stay hydrated, everybody.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

That's not what I meant, but do it if you want. All right, bye. There is a murder mystery to report to you tonight. The victim, an elusive billionaire banker. It raises a whole lot of questions, like who wanted him dead and why? Edmund Safra. Edmund Safran. Is unfolding at the favorite playground of the rich and famous. Monaco.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

Monaco. Oh, God.

[Patrick Hines]

Monaco is less than a square mile. Is a sunny place.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Place for shady people. It's one of the safest countries with surveillance in almost every corner of the principality. How could one of the richest men.

[Mike Carroll's family member (possibly Chris or Jean)]

In the world be killed in one.

[Jenny Mandavalli]

Of the securest countries in the world? Who had any benefits for that.