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[Assistant] This time we are going to some new territory. We are headed to Massachusetts, baby. I love it there. We're headed to the Berkshires specifically, where our ruthless serial killer, Jeremy Rose, has now fled New Orleans and is on his way up to Massachusetts to evade capture.


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[Assistant] Dr. Rand Muller, being astute as hell, you know her, she sees that there is a fresh trail of bodies that seem to be calling her back to the case. But by following that trail, is she gonna walk right into Jeremy's trap? Maybe? I don't know.


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[Assistant] This one is a truly twisted cat and mouse game, and I mean it.


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[Assistant] You've been warned, this one's twisted. And it's going to culminate in a violent clash of past and present where Ren is prepared to sacrifice everything just to bring Jeremy to justice. I'm literally so excited. This one that we got, it's longer, guys, it's longer, it is twisted.


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[Assistant] I'm telling ya, but what's really cool about this besides, you know,


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[Assistant] I can't thank you enough for being on this truly incredible author journey with me. You guys rule, you made this happen, and I hope you love all that's to come in the Dr. Ren Muller series. Yay! I said what I said!


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[Assistant] We're excited about this one. This seems like a crazy, wild, fun, spooky listener tale.


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[Assistant] I thought they were just asking like, do you wanna take a tour?


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[Assistant] That is really strange. Yeah. To see people all day, but like not.


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[Assistant] Wow. Did you ever do a whole, a phone line splitter? I think I tried to once, or I think, uhm, Peppa tried to make one happen in our house. I remember that being a thing, for sure.


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[Assistant] I talk about that all the time, the AOL CDs where you get like 23 hours of AOL and a CD. That shit was gold.


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[Assistant] I'm not kidding you, I haven't, I, can you see the goosebumps on my arm?


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[Assistant] And the fact that, like, as soon as, for your husband to suddenly be like, you know what, I want off this plane, and then for everyone else to be like, say too. Like, cause a lot of people will ignore that. They won't ignore it. They won't listen to their gut. So it's like, your grandma was being like, no everybody.


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[Assistant] So, I guess what we will do now, how do we follow up on that? Uh, we'll go to the next one is Listener Tales You Weirdos. Perfect. I like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this listener's name is Josh. Ooh, and you included some photography because you're a photographer and holy shit. Wow, that first one is so eerie. Your photography is so vibey. So cool. I love it.


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[Assistant] I'm a photographer from Toronto, Canada. We love Canadians. And poutine.


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[Assistant] I've always been drawn to supernatural and true crime stories so naturally this podcast drew me in right away. Me and my girlfriend have been listening together for the past year and you two normally join us on many trips up to our cottage. Oh I love that.


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[Assistant] This might be a little bit of a tale, but it's one of my favorite stories that I have to this day.


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[Assistant] When I never felt threatened, but things definitely happened that couldn't be explained. That's kinda how we felt in our house. Yea, exactly. My mom's house she grew up in was the opposite. That spirit was a dick. It would do things like turn on the gas stove in the middle of the night. Oh my god! Or hold a pillow down over my sleeping grandpa's face. Uh, that sounds like a demon. Yea, that's a diamond. Lots of stories there too, but this one is still my favorite.


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[Assistant] This one takes place in a more than spooky location, an abandoned asylum. To give you a little bit of a backstory, my good friend Matt and myself are photographers. Again,


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[Assistant] So we'll reach out and make sure that you're cool with it, but we would love to share it because he's killing it.


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[Assistant] So, my good friend Matt and myself are photographers. We've gone on a couple of photography trips to shoot abandoned buildings in places that are left to decay through time. I love that kind of photography too. It's like decaying abandoned buildings. I love that shit.


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[Assistant] A lot of the places have quite a bit of history behind them, and more often than not, it's not pretty. I'm talking about abandoned hospitals, asylums, churches, morgues. These aren't, you're saying a morgue isn't pretty? No, I'm just kidding.


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[Assistant] These are the kind of places where spirits tend to overstay their welcome. This particular occasion we were headed to Letchworth Village in upstate New York.


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[Assistant] This place was heaven for us. At its peak, Letchworth Village consisted of over 130 buildings spread out over many acres of land.


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[Assistant] It was closed off to the public as most of these abandoned sites were, but as usual, that didn't stop us. Party. We did our research of parties. We did our research and hopped in the car, bags packed and a list of spots to hit along the way. This sounds like a fucking awesome trip. I was like, I kind of want to play.


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[Assistant] Let's go. Letchworth opened in 1911 and was there to give care to the mentally impaired, epileptic, and poor children.


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[Assistant] That's sad. Not sure why the last one ended up there, but hey, to each their own, history is rough. Now the history in this place was dark.


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[Assistant] When I say dark, I mean like wearing a blindfold in a basement cellar with all the lights turned off while being covered up by a burlap sack dark.


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[Assistant] There was a ton of abuse towards patients and staff, which included incidents of trigger warning here. This is going to get a little rough, everybody, so skip over if you don't want to hear it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, including incidents of rape, beatings, and testing done on patients, and I'm sure there were many more things that happened on these grounds that would make you sick to think of.


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[Assistant] Despite the doctors doing testing on these patients, there was one good thing to come out of this place. It's where they developed the vaccine for polio in the 1950s. Oh wow. It's a pretty good thing. I would say so. This test vaccine was given to an 8 year old boy who was given the dose, and when he experienced no side effects, it was then administered to 19 more child patients.


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[Assistant] These experimentation trials were the first step towards a better polio vaccine, and the doctor was praised for his efforts. But just think if it didn't work and had some horrible side effects. I bet it would all be swept under the rug and more testing on innocent children would have continued. Anyways, I'm starting to get distracted because of the history here, but let's get back to it.


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[Assistant] After about 8 hours of driving, we pulled up to the area the village was close to. Since it was fenced off and abandoned, it had been overgrown and not well maintained. It was a bit of a trek to get to. We parked the car in a discreet location and grabbed our bags, hopped the fence, and started our hike into the forest.


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[Assistant] After about 10 minutes of walking, we stumbled onto our first building. This sounds fucking awesome. It sounds like a movie.


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[Assistant] The excitement and anticipation grew as we made our way closer to the decaying structure. Windows shattered and a front door swinging back and forth in the wind, paint chipping off the walls and moss growing on the roof. It was perfect. Exactly what we hoped when we first looked into this place.


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[Assistant] Once we got inside, it got even better. It was like everyone here just stood up from what they were doing and walked away, leaving everything in place for the next 50 years.


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[Assistant] I love the, that, that sentence is so great, like everyone just stood up from what they were doing and walked away. Yeaah. You can, you can just, you're there. Yeaah, you can feel that.


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[Assistant] There were bed frames lined up in a row, dirty ripped mattresses on some of them still, patient files scattered across the floor, toys left broken, covered in dirt and dust, everything left behind. It was crazy.


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[Assistant] The craziest thing was the writing on the walls in some of the rooms. Diving into the mind of someone stuck in an asylum was a chilling experience. We could have stayed here all day and explored, but seeing as the sun would eventually go down, it wasn't a spot we felt like spending the night.


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[Assistant] We continued exploring the various buildings, each one a little different, and spent hours shooting and wandering around the grounds. We decided to stop and have a smoke out in front of one of the buildings. Bad habit, I know, but we're just chatting about the exploration while going through the photos on our cameras. Looking off into the distance towards the north, this is important later.


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[Assistant] We can faintly see two figures walking towards us. Judging by the speed they were moving, it didn't seem to be security or anyone that made us feel like running, so we stayed put and waited until they got closer.


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[Assistant] Took about 10 minutes for the couple to make their way close enough to make, to us to make out who they were.


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[Assistant] To our surprise, it was an elderly couple, husband and wife, who were going for a walk together as they normally did, through the grounds of the village.


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[Assistant] This didn't seem odd to us at the time, so we chatted with them for about 15 minutes while standing outside.


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[Assistant] They said they didn't know much about the area, but frequently walked around here.


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[Assistant] They explained that they had walked together here for the last 20 years or so and enjoyed hearing about the grounds they spent so much time on.


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[Assistant] We chatted a little more and then said our goodbyes and as they continued to walk away from us, at the speed of an 80 year old couple, we waited and watched them walk south out of our view as we were trespassing and breaking into some of these buildings. Once they were gone,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We turned and walked in the opposite direction to put some space between us and headed north into the next building. I remember they went south. This was exactly the same as the last building we were in, so decided to head out and keep walking to see if we could find, what we could find.


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[Assistant] As we turn to start walking, we notice that off in the distance, to the north again, we could see faintly two figures walking towards us.


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[Assistant] I looked over at Matt and said in a surprised voice, Hey, there's another two people coming towards us. We were both a bit shocked by this as the grounds were closed off, but neither of us had any idea how shocked we were about to be in a few minutes.


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[Assistant] We continued walking towards the figures and once we got closer we realized it was the same old couple we had run into 15 minutes ago. There's no way that's them. It can't be.


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[Assistant] We passed them and waved briefly saying hi, ha, you again to the couple and watching them walk off once again into the distance. This is when it got weird.


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[Assistant] Both Matt and myself were looking at each other with confused looks on our faces. Just a few minutes before we had watched this couple walk off into the south, out of view, but somehow they made a full loop of the grounds and were walking in the same direction they originally came. These grounds were big.


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[Assistant] Hundreds of acres big. In order for this to make any sense, they would have had to have gotten in a car as soon as they were out of view the first time, sped through the closed off overgrown roads, parked, gotten out, and started walking towards us again from the north.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned before, the couple walk the speed you would imagine an 80 year old couple to walk. Slow as fuck. They wouldn't have been able to run. No, sprint all the way around to the end to end up where they did.


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[Assistant] I think it was a good 15 minutes Matt and I sat there trying to figure out how this was possible, running every possibility through our heads, but none of them made any sense. It would have been hard for us, two 30 year old guys at the time, to cover the amount of ground this 80 year old couple did in 15 minutes.


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[Assistant] The creepy thing about Letchworth Village is that when it closed down in 1996, it was extremely overcrowded. It's said that many of the patients just mingled into the surrounding areas and blended into society.


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[Assistant] What if they've been walking around these grounds for the last 20 years because they never left? Oh my god, I'm wobbling so hard right now.


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[Assistant] I recall Matt saying to me on the way that if we run into this couple again, he's gonna lose his shit. Especially after thinking that they were patients who never left the grounds.


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[Assistant] Every so often I'll have to call Matt when explaining this story to someone so he can verify what happened and tell the exact same side of things. But every time I tell it, the hair stands up straight when I get to the part about running into them for the second time.


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[Assistant] Thankfully we didn't run into them or any security on the way out and made it back to our car waiting outside the forest we walked in from earlier that day.


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[Assistant] To this day I wonder about that old couple and still can't make any sense of the whole situation. Were they patients? Were they ghosts? Are they still wandering around there today, years later? I guess we'll never know, but I got one of my favorite stories out of it and I'll have that forever.


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[Assistant] That's all for now. Maybe I'll write again, uh, maybe I'll write it again about the time we got separated in another asylum and had to backtrack alone through the tunnels underneath the building in the pitch black looking for a very expensive camera that got left behind. Oh my god. Or the time we walked into an abandoned morgue and could visibly see the breath in front of your face in the middle of summer in 30 degree weather. That's for another time, but if you guys read this one, that'll be enough for me.


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[Assistant] Yeah, the book is really, so we'll, we'll definitely reach out and make sure that you're cool with us. So we'll, we'll give you credit and all that, but we love to share them for you. So that story haunting needs to be like,


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[Assistant] I wonder who they were. I know! The idea that they're like patients that never left. It's so sad. But they're just like, you know, holding hands, walking together.


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[Assistant] Thanks for mentioning the whole author bit, and I didn't pay you to do that, so thanks. Like your check is in the mail, I appreciate it. Because the sequel to The Butcher and the Wren called The Butcher Game. Yay!


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[Assistant] It's coming out on September 17th and you can pre-order your copy at thebutchergame.com. So go claim your free poster because there's only going to be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A certain amount of free posters while the supplies last, so go get it! Is it ever going to be a tinyurl.com ever again?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I also want that. I like that. But go get your copy of it because that's gonna be a...


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[Assistant] It says, hi ladies, I have a listener tail in the attached. Please let me know if the doc doesn't come through. You know what? It came through. Uh, listener also wants to be called Betty. Betty! Betty! I think I know why. Hey Betty. I think I also know why. Hello ladies of maybes. I like it.


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[Assistant] Particularly not this experience, as you'll see it's pretty unbelievable, but it happened, and your listener tales provide a fun place.


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[Assistant] I'm from Canberra, which is actually, which is the actual capital of Australia. Oh shit, I did not know that. And she said, please tell the world. Here we are.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I, I live a couple of hours drive from the, thank you so much for the phonetic, uh, Eurobo-dell-uh-shire. Ooh boy. Yeah. Eurobo-dell-uh-shire.


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[Assistant] My family have regularly gone up to this area for weekends and holidays, as why wouldn't you?


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[Assistant] Every Christmas my family would rent a house somewhere along the coast and we'd stay there for a couple of weeks. My friend, let's call her Dee, would come and stay with us for the second week of our stay and had done for years.


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[Assistant] Being a regional area, as far as we could tell, we were the only people on the beach, slowly sipping on our beers, which weren't going down so well as they were warm and nasty. Ugh.


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[Assistant] I kept watching the light on the horizon as my friend rabided away. After 15 to 20 minutes, however, this light had gotten bigger, like it was closer perhaps, and I realized it was not sitting on the water, but significantly higher up.


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[Assistant] Hard to tell when something is so far away, but guessing at least 100 meters off the water, so it was no longer looking like a ship or a boat. Hmm.


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[Assistant] After staring at this for a while, I interrupted Dee's and then Adrian's said story with, do you see that? Indicating the light in the distance.


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[Assistant] Yeah, she says and forgets about Adrian and becomes equally as focused on figuring out this strange orb.


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[Assistant] We both stared at it for several minutes waiting for it to explain itself. It was certainly bigger than anything that belonged to a plane or ship, and it just moved weird.


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[Assistant] Still confused and not thinking about it, I decided to pick up the flashlight and flashed at this mysterious light. Well, fuck.


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[Assistant] The moment I turned on the flashlight and pointed it at this thing, it immediately responded. What? To our flashlight and to us. I woulda shit my pants. It moved from far out in the horizon to about a hundred meters away from our heads in the snap of your fingers.


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[Assistant] There was no sound, no clear acceleration or deceleration. It just moved several kilometers to a dead stop right near us in next to no time.


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[Assistant] All of a sudden there was this large bubble of light meters away. Dee and I got up and bolted. We turned towards the dunes away from the beach and just ran.


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[Assistant] When we got to the top of the dunes, we both paused and dared to look backward. It was still there, just chilling.


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[Assistant] It was big and made of light, like the light you might see from a street lamp, but it had a clearly defined outline. No metal opening or features, just opaque light.


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[Assistant] Either way it just hung in the air soundlessly, slowly moving across the water just where the waves were breaking, about 50 to 70 meters off the water. Maybe it was exploring?


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[Assistant] Now that I think about it, we really should have done a better job hiding rather than standing on the highest point of the beach, gaping and frozen. What are you gonna do? At this point we had time to think, what the fuck was going on? Is it looking for us? Can it already see us?


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[Assistant] But we had no idea. But for the next maybe 30 minutes we just clung to each other on the sand watching this thing float in the air.


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[Assistant] After a while it slowly moved upwards into the sky, and we could still see its glow beaming from behind the clouds, but we got cold and tired and headed home.


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[Assistant] Fuck you, it says. I didn't say it, she did. Fuck you, says Betty. Luckily, she has many other qualities and is still my best friend of this day, but as you can imagine, this is not a story I share with people.


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[Assistant] Since this experience, I have kept a casual eye on other encounters that might be similar to mine, but there's not a lot.


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[Assistant] If anything, this has made me more skeptical about other people's experiences and definitely YouTube videos. As soon as I hear things about saucers and metal count contraptions, I'm like, nope, that's not what aliens look like. Wrong. Though in truth, I can't say exactly what it was that I saw. But I saw it, and it was something extraordinary, though terrifying at the time.


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[Assistant] I'm only up to about episode 160 on your podcast, but catching up fast. I like how you describe the unknowns in your stories and theorize on possibilities. So ladies, please feel free to tell me your thoughts. Would love to know what your maybes and explanations could be.


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[Assistant] While you're baking your noodles, let me add this. A few days later, Dee's father and stepmom unexpectedly paid us a visit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had to give Dee the awful news that her mom OD'd a couple of days before, ending decades of struggles with heroin. Dee was very close and protective of her mom and was devastated. Related? Probably not. But that was two big events that happened very close together.


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[Assistant] Thanks for reading, ladies. I know how much you love Australia, so hopefully I have provided you with another tidbit to add to your basket of creepy Australian tales. Keep it weird. Love, Betty. Betty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, let me be clear, like I, I'm a homebody. I don't like going anywhere. So like I don't, you won't catch me out. So you're not going to catch me in an alien ship. I also don't like flying. So that's many issues for me there.


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[Assistant] I don't want to get probed. And like, yeaah, no. None of this is gonna work. I want to see them though. Get from the distance. And just give a little wave and be like, sorry. I feel like we've seen UFOs together.


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[Assistant] You know, we'll figure it out. I think Betty saw a motherfucking alien. I think so. So you can be comforted in that fact, Betty.


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[Assistant] Everybody in these stories is having like gut intuitions.


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[Assistant] It really is like an it's follows kind of vibe. Yeah. It's like she passed something to you. I don't like it. And then you were like, I'm not into this. I don't.


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[Assistant] I love a spooky-ooky moment. I think we needed some spooky-ooky moments because we have had some really, really rough cases lately, so we figured a good, you know, spooky, fun,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chilling listener tale episode was due. It was. And I loved it. Thanks so much guys, you rule.


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[Assistant] I think it's cause you have total anonymity on, on YouTube, right? It's not linked to any of your, like on Facebook, you click and then there's your personal Facebook. So you're going to be less likely to just trash a stranger I feel like.


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[Assistant] It almost seems like you cut that part off. It does.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I would never have thought to be like, have them send a picture because who with their right mind would grab the wrong shoes. Yeah.


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[Assistant] How big is big enough to where I can make these jokes? I feel like I'm there.


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[Assistant] I get John Candy a lot, who I don't really know. You're not big like John Candy. John Goodman is the other guy I get.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I don't have, I didn't have one of those, one of those, like the, like the drug commercials are always like, talk to your doctor about, I've never been in the position to like, Hey, have you looked into this prescription?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you need a doctor for that, right? Yeah. They don't, they don't let Kevin come in and do a CSA.


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[Assistant] That's one of those things I've been able to say for years. One of those claims I can make. And nobody would ever.


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[Assistant] I think there'll be a lot more relief than people being upset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't know who that guy is to begin with. Then you could have him eating the whole next podcast. You know who has the world record for glazed donuts? Who? Joey Chestnut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 257? Okay, a little higher than what I was talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a different competition. That's an endurance competition. It looks like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, those are powdered, he has a glazed donut one too. I was looking at all the world records he has. I think there's an argument to be made. He's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you consider this a sport, then like one of the greatest athletes of all time.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Kobayashi's got double the net worth of Joey Chestnut, according to that website. I think he's got more of a look, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think when you hold a world record in every food group, that's when you tap out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's got the world record for eating gumbo. He's got the, uh, asparagus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's got the Big Mac eating a Big Mac world record too. I think it was 35 Big Macs in 32 minutes.


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[Assistant] I don't think so. That gives you a really unfair advantage cause you gotta think about 32.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean that's a lot of onions. It adds up. Yea, it adds up. Yea, it's like a whole different few burgers, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there it is. 32 Big Macs. It's the world record. 32 Big Macs in I think 35 minutes. Pretty amazing.


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[Assistant] Says it on the box. I mean, that's what I'm saying, but the people who put the stuff on the box, how did they know? I guess I need to know what a calorie is before I ask that question, but I think they're just making it up.


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[Assistant] If it worked for one person, they got a before and after picture. Of just one person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would add ketchup to like, if you got a burger at like McDonald's or something, you'd add ketchup to it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I worked at a place that had like 64 different beers on tap and then we had a ton of different wines and I was supposed to learn about all of them, but I just, I learned everything about one beer and then one type of wine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when people would ask for it, I would just really sell those, cause I didn't know anything else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I were just like, the house red is great. He'd be like, Oh, this guy doesn't know. But if I say Zen Fidel, man, that's a, this guy knows what he's talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't remember if it was a house or not. What was the beer? Kentucky bourbon barrel was the one that I always recommended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's pretty heavy, it's a high gravity beer, I mean it would knock people out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] High gravity beer? Yeah. See, I know a little bit. That just means, I think it means it's 10% or higher. Yeah. High gravity. So the Kentucky bourbon barrel was like bourbon, like it tasted like bourbon and I'd recommend that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would always try to remember the whole table without writing it down. People don't like that.


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[Assistant] Cause they're just like, you sure you got this buddy? And you're like, I got it. And then if you miss one thing, they're like, we told you. Yeaah. Yeaah. Cause I would, you gotta find little ways to keep yourself entertained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She, uh, she said she's allergic to feta cheese. And, uh, I was like, okay. And they kept saying she's allergic to feta. They got a pizza that had feta cheese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was like, okay, I'll make sure. And I, and, uh, yeah, they go, she's allergic to feta cheese. Don't get it. And I didn't really know what feta cheese looked like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, and I gave her a pizza with feta cheese and she ate it and it was a real problem. So we had to comp their whole meal and they left to go to the hospital because she was about to break out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, they said don't. They said take, this pizza usually comes with feta cheese.


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[Assistant] And you know what? I remember later that night, I felt so bad. And then I was like, how did they not know what feta cheese looked like? If you're so allergic to this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I did, but I only put it once. You're supposed to write it like five times so that it comes out real, you know, in the receipt.


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[Assistant] So, you know, a lot of people share the blame, I think.


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[Assistant] That's what's crazy is it was mainstream media doing this. It wasn't people on Twitter doxxing, it was newspapers.


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[Assistant] Crazy. I feel like I've seen that clip so many times, but if he wasn't wearing exactly that, I couldn't pick him out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not looking for Steve Barton, you know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I've, I think I've, uhm, just like doing jokes at open mic, somebody will be like, so and so did that joke. And I'll be like, oh, maybe I did hear that. And then you just stop doing it. And nobody's ever approached me with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Malice, you know, like you stole this from me. It was just, you know, you might've heard me talking about this, you know, small stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you're right. If I were just looking at YouTube videos, I would think this is a rampant problem. Everybody's sitting in the back of the room with notepads, stealing each other's jokes.


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[Assistant] What percentage of people do you think don't even know that you've written this, think that you're just going out there and winging it?


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[Assistant] Cause he stopped. Well, yeah, cause it just was like overnight. It was just kind of over, right? He never saw him fade.


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[Assistant] I just- That's all we can see. That's all we can see. I'll defend them. Stars. Yeah, you see them, but you don't know how far away they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would you rather talk to him or somebody who claims, who has been in space, or claims to have been in space?


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[Assistant] This is also a month and a half after we landed on the moon for the first time. So you probably would come across like, oh, this guy's crazy. You know, cause it's like in the public discussion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a little nod? The rest of the story is they're not trying too hard not to be seen. You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're kinda just messing with us to a certain extent, so they're like by sw- something that small.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] S-switching two people in a car. That's enough to get them talking, but not enough to...


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[Assistant] Well, that's funny cause I feel like a big part of that documentary was about the shame and the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't feel like interesting, not singular events, but there are interesting things that could be explored. Not about me specifically, but just stuff in my family. Nothing, nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I can, no, it's nothing wild, I'm just, like, uh,


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[Assistant] This is morbid on this dreary, cloudy day. I know, but it's fri-yay. It's fri-yay and spring is in the air. Yesterday was gorge. Yeah, like my littlest one found some flowers growing out of the earth and she was like, that means spring is coming. Yeah. And I was like, correct. Indeed-o. Indeed-o, kiddo.


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[Assistant] I'm trying to think if there's any other fun stuff coming up. Oh, uhm.


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[Assistant] I know it's not a tiny URL and we regret to inform you. We do regret to inform you, but it gets its own thing. It's going to be the butcher game.com. Which that's cool. It's got his own fucking domain. Wow. Pretty fun. She's a, she's an adult. We're going to have some fun stuff going through the year to promote this book.


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[Assistant] Stay tuned because there's some really cool stuff and I promise you this one's longer, it's twisted, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot happening in this book so I'm telling you.


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[Assistant] Go get it. Go get it. You won't be, you won't be disappointed. No, definitely not. That's my guarantee.


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[Assistant] Take, take with that what you will. That's really cool. You know? How many do you think there will be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing a little Patricia Cornwell. Doing a little Patrish Trish. My girl, my girl Patrish Trish. Uh, I could, I could never, but I, I can only hope to. You could have the series go on as long. To look up to her and say, can I be like you someday? Me too, Patrish Trish. Me too, Patrish Trish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that's actually, that's one of those, that's one of those like, I need to meet them in my life people. Patricia Cornwell, Stephen King.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just wanna talk to both of them. I mean, you're a two time author now, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One step closer. Fancy. Fancy. I can be like, I know how both of you have, are literally prolific and have written a billion and four books together that are all iconic. Uh, you want to talk to me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's all the fun stuff out of the way because today is going to be very morbid. It usually is. Very morbid. This is a case, this is a kind of case that we don't cover often. This is a fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's an arson, a pretty horrific one as well. Yea, we haven't covered a lot of arsons. We haven't, no, and we'll sprinkle them every once in a while, but they're


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's just so much loss of life in these that it's pretty horrific to research, to be honest. And it's, this one's so sad and so senseless. Oh man. In so many ways. That's the thing. There's many layers of senselessness to this. There always is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, now when this episode airs on Wondery Plus actually, it will be one day after the 34th anniversary of this tragedy. Oh wow, timeline. Uhm, so yeaah, so it happened 34 years, pretty much close to the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and what's sad is, like, as time goes on with these kind of things, the anniversaries become less and less of a thing that people notice is happening because some of the family members are gone now, time goes on, like, you know, it's not in the headlines, all that stuff, and it's sad that it just kind of fades, so hopefully this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This can do a little bit to bring it back into, you know, people's ears at least at this time. Yea, just to recognize it. Because it's an important, it's, you know, it's about safety measures in, you know, public areas, it's about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, people not being, like cities not being concerned for the safety of mostly immigrant communities. Like they get pushed off to the side and their safety isn't really of concern for the most part. It really touches upon that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it also touches upon domestic violence and somebody trying to punish someone for not getting back together with them. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's got everything. It's got everything. So uhm, interestingly, I first heard of this fire. Way young.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very young. So this happened in 1990. Okay. Like I said, 34 years ago. So I heard about it because a little band called Duran Duran. I think I've heard of them. Yeah, they made a song about it called Sin of the City.


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[Assistant] It's actually- You loved that song. Loved that song when I was younger. My brother loved Duran Duran, shout out to JP. Hey JP. And he made me listen to Duran Duran all the time, so I became obsessed with Duran Duran. They're so fucking good. We actually saw them live like a few years ago, it was great. Uh, Simon Laban is still like, loved him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but they made a song about this, and it's actually a very good song, like go listen to it, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that's the first I had heard about this. And I remember hearing the words and being like, wait, is this like, I thought it was just like a fictional thing. I was like, wow, what a terrible thing to make a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also congratulations to Ronnie and Ben for winning Best Pop Culture Podcast at the IHAR Awards.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so again, on the evening of March 24th, 1990,


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[Assistant] Nearly 100 patrons gathered to celebrate Carnival at the Happyland Social Club.


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[Assistant] The evening took a deadly turn, however, when around 3.30am an explosion of fire


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[Assistant] All the patrons in the room rapidly filling with toxic smoke and fire.


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[Assistant] Even now, it's unknown how many patrons actually managed to escape the fire.


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[Assistant] Because there wasn't a lot of like, it was very lax with how this was all run, so they didn't know how many people were actually in the club. Right. Uh, but by the time the, they knew, they know there was at least 100 people in there. But by the time the fire department had extinguished the fire, 87 people were dead. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The arson at the Happyland Social Club remains one of the deadliest fires in New York history, and in a bizarre coincidence, it occurred on the 79th anniversary of the city's deadliest fire, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911. Oh wow, that's haunting. Isn't that strange and haunting?


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[Assistant] And is that pointed in any way or it's just a coincidence? Just a coincidence. Wow. Yeah, total coincidence. Oh, that's creepy.


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[Assistant] Social clubs are something that I'm sure, uhm, a lot of people either don't really know what they are, or maybe have the wrong idea of what they are, like I know I wasn't totally sure what they were, I've heard the term, I've just never really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so social clubs are basically meeting places where people and communities can gather outside their homes or workplaces. They're typically formed around a shared interest.


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[Assistant] One of the more easily recognizable types of social clubs found in the United States.


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[Assistant] They're often time, you know, these people come with no social networks or limited social networks and these clubs not only help them maintain a connection to their culture and heritage, but they also act as kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a, like a lifeline. Yeah, a very big lifeline and for important resources for things like education, employment, other civic and social needs.


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[Assistant] In the simplest terms, these types of social clubs can serve as a lifeline for many people attempting to settle in an unfamiliar place and just being able to like reach out.


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[Assistant] And grab onto their own community and rely on them and integrate their way into what they want to do.


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[Assistant] So it's important to recognize that while social clubs may hold dances or, you know, operate cafes or other revenue generating activities, they're not the same as like a nightclub.


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[Assistant] Or like a coffee house, that's not what they're supposed to be. Okay.


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[Assistant] So they was really the only place they could go to actually connect with that, which, which I'm like, I hate that you, that's all that they can go to. You know what I mean? You know, obviously it's changed now, but.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Migdalia De Jesus Torres, who is a professor from John Jay College of Criminal Justice said,


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[Assistant] They serve as an important role in the adaptation and assimilation process. They serve as a needed introduction to American life and they serve to preserve the culture and traditions of the home country.


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[Assistant] You know, historically have been used for questionable, unsavory, or nefarious purposes, because people are always going to be people. People going people. Wherever there's this nice...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great thing that's useful and wonderful and helping people get ahead and helping people connect.


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[Assistant] There's going to be a segment of any kind of community where they take it into a different direction. They're gonna keep it that weird. Like the weird that I tell you not to keep it. Exactly. Just people are always gonna people. At the end of the day. We find this out time and time again. They're always gonna people.


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[Assistant] Now beginning in the 1960s, the New York law enforcement, uh, and city administrators began seeing a trend of social clubs being used as fronts or bases of operation for organized crime families.


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[Assistant] A New York detective told the New York Times in 1986, social clubs are regularly used as meeting places and message centers for capos, underbosses, and their lieutenants. I find that stuff so interesting. Yeah, so while these types of operations were rare by the 1980s, like I said, people always go to people, there's always a segment that doesn't.


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[Assistant] They nonetheless highlight the complicated political and economic problems that these kind of businesses could present. This segment of these businesses.


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[Assistant] In some cases the missions of social clubs will qualify them for tax exempt status, but many are likely to be entirely unregulated, illegally run businesses, and because of that,


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[Assistant] They really don't pay a lot of attention to things like fire codes, liquor laws, occupancy regulations, safety measures.


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[Assistant] So throughout the 1970s and 80s, New York City experienced a significant boom in immigration, with more than a million new residents coming from diverse geographic locations.


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[Assistant] And as a result of this population transformation, social clubs became more important than ever.


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[Assistant] With many newcomers just trying to integrate while still maintaining that connection to their culture and heritage. So it was a very important thing to have.


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[Assistant] While the existence of the clubs themselves was by no means a problem, the increasing informality with, that some were being opened up with


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[Assistant] Was becoming an issue because they were violating a number of laws, zoning codes, and that was becoming an issue to the cops.


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[Assistant] But the growth of a much younger population also meant that these illegally run clubs, not the regular social clubs, the illegally ones were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Starting to resemble more night clubs than civic and community centers because this is a younger population that's now taking over these unsavory ones.


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[Assistant] So they're making it, they're putting their own pizzazz on it. Yeah, exactly. Like they're doing it illegally and they're putting their own pizzazz on it. Realistically, they're just making nightclubs and calling them social clubs. Yeah, exactly. So by the late 1980s, there were hundreds of social clubs operating around the city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of them were illegal in that they had no license to operate a business, serve alcohol, or host events there. Uhm, but these were minor offenses in the grand scheme of things.


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[Assistant] Casualness with regard to operations that put patrons health and safety at risk.


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[Assistant] Um, in addition to operating out of buildings that were already in violation of safety codes themselves, just the buildings, many clubs continued serving alcohol way into the early hours of the morning, like way past the point you're allowed to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're like, wait a second. It's also, I mean, we're also from Boston.


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[Assistant] And that's new. It used to be earlier than that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so this, so yeaah, so basically, you know,


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[Assistant] When people are drinking way too far into the early morning hours.


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[Assistant] But the biggest problem however was that many of these social clubs operated in spaces, like we said, that have no safety, have a lot of safety violations.


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[Assistant] Exactly, that's the thing, not everybody walks in and knows where all the exits are and knows that everything's, and as we'll see, sometimes in these places there would be more than one exit that had an exit sign over it, like an emergency exit, you would open the door and it would just lead to a brick wall or something. Oh that's fucked. So it was like, people would be running into, like it's really bad. That's scary.


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[Assistant] By the late 80s, community complaints about social clubs and their safety violations had reached an all-time high. Uh, but law enforcement were at a loss for how to deal with the problem. And like we said, it gets put on the back burner for various reasons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, like there's definitely, and uhm, one of the firefighters in the Bronx, Tony D'Angelo said we closed down a few, but some entrepreneur would just open it a few blocks away.


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[Assistant] Due to the informal nature, it's difficult to pinpoint like we said ex- like anything about Happyland Social Club when it comes to like figuring out who was- how many people were in there that night. It's also hard to pinpoint when it opened exactly as a social club. Oh wow. Uhm, as far as anyone can really tell, the building that the club was in,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At 1959 Southern Boulevard off East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, was purchased in 1985, the year I was born, by Alex DiLorenzo, who was a New York real estate developer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, this was a property development and management company run by Jay Weiss. Uhm, Jay Weiss was actually the husband at the time of actress Kathleen Turner. In September 1987, Little Peach Realty entered into a seven-year sublease agreement with many tenants who opened businesses in that building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Including Elias Colon, owner of Happyland Social Club.


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[Assistant] So that's at least the train of how it became into being. In March 1988, Elias Colon and his partners, Rafael Camacho,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Jesus David Cruz filed incorporation paperwork with the city and established Happyland Social Club.


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[Assistant] They inform their new landlords that they intended to operate this club as a bar and game room.


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[Assistant] The incorporation and other legal filings allowed the club to operate as a tax exempt tavern.


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[Assistant] But it appears that neither Cologne nor his business partners ever obtained a license to serve alcohol on the premise of this.


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[Assistant] Also a license to operate a tavern was not the same as a license to operate a social club or a dance club.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Which is very confusing. It's like these licenses, like you can operate as this, but not as this, but not as that, but this, and it's like what? I could see where that would get confusing. I could see where that could get confusing. That part, I can get, like the license thing, I can understand. Me personally is so confusing to me, so I can understand how anybody would be confused.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but it appears that everyone in the neighborhood understood that Happyland was a fully operational social club that definitely served drinks.


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[Assistant] It should be noted that following the fire, Rafael Camacho told reporters that he had no idea he was listed as an agent with Happyland. And if his name had been listed on any incorporation paperwork, he said, it was done without my consent. Oh, that's shady. So that's interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they honestly had few social spaces together, which is sad. Yeah, that is sad. Uhm, William Kornblum, who was a researcher with the City University of New York, said, So it just sounds like a place where you feel, it's like, cheers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody knows your name. Or it's like, you know, the Olive Garden, when you hear your family. So despite the club's success, the problem started not long after opening.


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[Assistant] In September 1988, just a few months after it was opened,


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[Assistant] No fire alarms and no sprinkler systems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, per the sublease agreement, Little Peach Realty had the right to evict Happyland in the event that any governmental agency complained about the business, but none of the Little Peach's executives were very involved with their tenants, so they took no action. Oh no. So, they let this happen as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six months later, however, Lil Peach did serve Cologne a notice of their intention to evict after the club had fallen more than $3,000 behind on their rent. Yikes. Uh, but they never- Well because they can't operate, they've been closed down now at this point, right? Exactly. But they never filed any paperwork in court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were gonna evict them because they didn't pay, but they weren't gonna evict them based on the fact that it was like a death trap, essentially. Right. It was just, it was a money thing. They were like, but you're not paying me now, so that's like, come on. Guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In May, while the club was supposed to be closed, Carlos Negron, a local business owner, rented out the club from Cologne for $500 to have a private party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, according to Carlos, at one point during the party, the second floor shook and partly fell apart. No. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, that's bad. Now as a result, Cologne replaced Happyland's entire second floor, totally renovating the dance floor, putting in a new lighting system, so he made renovations. Now this was, uh, this would have been a shock to Cologne's landlord because when they rented it to Cologne, it didn't have a second floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no. Now based on rumors that Happyland was still operating, city officials would routinely go by the club just to see if there was any activity going on. I was gonna say, yeaah. But each time they went, the club appeared to be closed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Interesting. They should have changed up their times. Right? In July 1989, a surprise visit from the local com- the Liquor Commission found that not only was the club reopened without approval, but it was once again selling alcohol without a license.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flick, uh, from Reese Witherspoon, from election, Tracy Flick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what it's giving me, and since you haven't seen that, that will not hit as hard with you, but it will hit with someone else. But it will hit with the listener. The listener. It's giving me Tracy Flick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but they were on hand for the visit and the Happyland bartender Santos Batiste was arrested for the violation, the bartender. According to Batiste, he was not the regular bartender at the club and was only on hand to help out with the party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Following the July arrest of Batiste for the liquor violation, Happyland was inspected one final time on November 1st, 1989, now this is only a year before the fire, at which time officials found the club closed and Cologne claimed they had not been in operation.


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[Assistant] Make it viable. Make it viable for people and like make it something that they can actually maintain and actually have.


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[Assistant] But guide someone through the process a little bit because that might be part of the issue. I mean here there's a lot of shady shit happening in this one in particular, but I mean some other ones that like, and I'm sure this one, you know, like I'm sure the atmosphere was nice, the people are nice, so it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It had a lot of potential. Right. If the people running it weren't being so shady.


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[Assistant] Now with a five dollar cover charge and just three bucks for a drink, the club gave them a place to get together, to dance, to hear some salsa, reggae, calypso music, just have a fun time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of these people are working their asses off all day and this is just a place to let off some steam. Definitely. Uhm, so club regular Frank Omino was quoted as saying we all knew each other.


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[Assistant] And he expressed that they appreciated that sense of community connection that was provided by Happyland Club.


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[Assistant] That's great. Now in the evening of March 24th, 1990, nearly 100 people, but like we said, sources vary on exactly how many above that amount.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, that's cool, cause Carnival is a period of mass celebration that occurs right before Lent. And it really is, it's such a celebration. And the costumes, and the dance. Amazing celebration, and I'm sure this was just like, this place was probably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but the real party was upstairs on the second floor in the informal nightclub. Which had not existed before. Had not existed before. The mood that night, everyone who was able to say it said it was light and happy. Everyone was dancing, having a blast as DJ Ruben Valdez played merengue and salsa records. It was just like a good time. Yeaah. Everyone was happy, having a great time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Around 2am however, Julio Gonzalez arrived at Happyland to confront his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, who was working as the coat check that night.


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[Assistant] At 36 years old, Gonzalez had been a member of the Cuban army in the late 1970s, but then he faked a drug trafficking incident in 1980 in order to be kicked out of the army and the country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, made some quick cash washing cars or peddling on the street.


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[Assistant] Just isolation. Yeah, that's like solitary confinement.


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[Assistant] Now, Julio and Lydia had been dating off and on for nearly eight years. Oh wow. Until about six weeks earlier before this.


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[Assistant] When the couple broke up and Gonzalez had moved out of Feliciano's apartment into the room that he was occupying right now.


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[Assistant] Although it's unclear why they ended things, only that she had quote, accused him of something he had not done according to him. Okay. Which I'm like, so something he did do.


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[Assistant] Uh, what is known is that Julio tended to be controlling.


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[Assistant] And frequently demanded that Lydia quit her job at Happyland. It's very controlling.


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[Assistant] A short time after the breakup, Gonzalez lost his job packing boxes at a lamp factory in Queens, which caused him to fall behind on his weekly rent, and according to his landlord, quote, was down to his last hope. So he was going through it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now after drinking heavily for much of the evening of the 24th and early hours of the 25th, Julio went down to Happyland intending to convince Lydia to get back together with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After arguing a little bit briefly, Lydia told Julio that she, quote, didn't need him and insisted that he should go. At that point, he left the coat check area, he went around mingled with some other patrons on the first floor for I think about a half an hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said I know you have a boyfriend. It doesn't matter. You and I until death. Oh.


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[Assistant] When Julio had first disappeared upstairs because of the first argument, Lydia went to the bouncer, Marvin Alicia, and told him that Julio was very drunk and had been harassing her, so when he came back the second time to confront her,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was Marvin the, uh, the bouncer that intervened and actually escorted Julio out of the club. Cause he was like, you can't harass our employees. Yeah, no, please leave. But before he left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He turned back to Alicia the bouncer and said, I'll be back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, that's really chilling. Now, having failed to convince Lydia to get back together with him, Julia wandered the neighborhood for about a half hour.


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[Assistant] Just, you know, marinating in frustration, anger and drunkenness.


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[Assistant] Uhm, in about three blocks away from Happyland, he stopped at the Amoco gas station and purchased one gallon of gas. He told the attendant his car had broken down.


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[Assistant] Now he returned to the club and he noticed someone standing outside, so he went to a nearby payphone and pretended to make a call.


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[Assistant] Once that person left, he began pouring the gasoline all over the stairs and entryway that led inside Happyland. So to be clear, he premeditated this. Yup.


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[Assistant] Even so, so far as hiding in a payphone and pretending to be on a payphone so the person wouldn't catch them. Had plenty of time to change his mind. And then he put it all over the entrance. Like, you know what you're doing. Of course you do.


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[Assistant] Standing on the sidewalk, he pulled a matchbook out of his pocket and lit two matches and then tossed them onto the gasoline that was puddled in front of the front door.


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[Assistant] Now the fire ripped up the stairs and into the building quickly, sending everyone into a panic. The other exit from the building had been padlocked.


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[Assistant] There was one other exit, but it was padlocked to prevent people entering without paying the cover charge. It's like just put someone at that door. Yeah. So the only exit was now blocked by a raging fire.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. Ruben Valdez, the DJ, recalled quote, I heard a lot of people screaming.


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[Assistant] He had been DJing in the booth at the top of the stairs and realized there was still a chance to escape so he, which I was like, heroic-y,


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[Assistant] Called out to everyone, if someone's going to leave, follow me. And he tried to lead people out. Wow, that just gave me chills. Valderes was one of only six people to escape the fire that night, and when he managed to finally get out of the building, he was engulfed in flames. Oh my god. And would, he sustained serious burn injuries. Oh my god. Serious injuries.


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[Assistant] Lydia had also managed to escape the building, slipping out just before the fire broke out, and once outside she ran down the street and called a cab and never alerted anyone else to the fire or called the fire department, which is fucked up. That's so strange.


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[Assistant] A lot of people pointed to that too and were like, what the fuck was that about? Like I realized she, you know.


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[Assistant] Maybe she was- You know that it's a pl- a packed club. If there's a fire raging in there, call the fire department. Yeah.


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[Assistant] That's all you have to do. You don't need to stick around, like that's fine, you're probably scared. Later she says she was scared Julio was going to come back and hurt her outside, which I totally understand that. So she felt immediately that it was him who had done that? Yea.


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[Assistant] Wow. And she was afraid that he was going to hurt her outside. So that tells you a lot about what was happening there. So I totally understand why she jumped in a cab and was like, get me the fuck out of here. But call. Or tell the cab.


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[Assistant] Wow, that just bothered me. I was like, oh man, not that I don't, I don't even know if anything could have been done to stop this, to be quite honest, which is even sadder.


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[Assistant] The fire department did arrive a few minutes later, uh, but by then the entire club was ablaze.


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[Assistant] Firefighter Jerry Murtha said of that night, quote, I guess other than 9-11, Happyland was the worst thing to ever happen to me as a firefighter. Wow. As one of the first responders, he had an oxygen mask on and he pushed his way through the hysterical crowd outside on the street and started crawling his way up the stairs to the second floor. Firefighters, I'm like,


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[Assistant] Uh, he said, and this is, this is horrific to think about. He said, when I got up there, it was just one after the other of people stacked up on the top floor. Oh, that's so haunting. I knew they were people and I was just trying to get off them. And the further I crawled, I was just crawling on more and more people.


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[Assistant] When he had made it back outside, he radioed the chief to report the fatalities and when asked how many, he just said, numerous, numerous. There's no way he could have counted. Aside from the six people on the first floor who were known to have escaped, there were 19 patrons who died on the first floor and the remaining 68 people were on the second floor.


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[Assistant] Because the fire was set at the bottom of the stairs, the stairway acted like a chimney, so it pumped smoking carbon dioxide right into the second floor.


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[Assistant] When the flames reached the second floor, the toxic cloud was just exasperated by all the plastic decorations and other materials that caught fire and made this like toxic, poisonous smoke that was happening. Cause it was carnival, so it was all decorated for that.


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[Assistant] Is gonna turn into like poison. Oh my god. So it's awful. It's awful.


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[Assistant] Probably became very confused, making it almost impossible to find the stairs. And it wouldn't have mattered if they had because they would have been inaccessible by that point. They couldn't have even gone.


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[Assistant] In their last moments, many slumped to the floor and held onto the person nearest to them as they died.


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[Assistant] In a statement to reporters, firefighter Richard Hardin said, some looked like they were sleeping, some looked horrified, some looked like they were in shock, some people had torn their clothes off in their panic to get out.


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[Assistant] It must have been a, I can't even fathom that scene. That would change you as a person. It was the largest loss of life in a fire in New York since the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which again, in a bizarre coincidence, occurred exactly 79 years earlier on March 25th, 1911. That's so scary. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So, we have the names of the Happyland Social Club victims.


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[Assistant] And we are going to put them, um, either on our socials or in the show notes, wherever they, cause there's a lot. So we wanted like character wise, we just want to make sure they all fit in one place. So we will likely put a link to their names as well so that you can see all of their names and how old they were.


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[Assistant] There's, I mean, there's people as young as 18 years old in this fire, like, you know, like it's, these are people in their, in their 20s, 30s.


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[Assistant] So after fleeing the scene outside Happyland, Julio went to the apartment of his friend Carmen Melendez, where he confessed that he'd poured fire around the exit of Happyland and set the club on fire.


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[Assistant] Melendez later said in court, I asked him why. He said I don't want Lydia to work there.


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[Assistant] And when she asked what he planned to do next, Tulio told her he was going to wait until the police could come get him.


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[Assistant] Then he left Melendez's apartment and went down the hall to his own room and went to sleep. He just went to sleep? Yea, he just went to sleep.


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[Assistant] It gets even worse because he watched the firefighters fight the fire. He was outside watching them.


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[Assistant] What a twisted fuck. Or he at least watched them and then went to sleep one or the other but either way.


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[Assistant] Now the following morning, investigators interviewed the six known survivors, including Lydia Feliciano.


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[Assistant] Who told them about her argument with Julio and the threats he made before leaving the club.


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[Assistant] When police officers arrived at Gonzalez's room later that afternoon, there was an overwhelming stench of gasoline that permeated his clothes and the entire room itself.


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[Assistant] And when the officers told Julio why they were there, he seemed to understand and didn't resist arrest at all.


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[Assistant] Uhm, they said it was like he was being picked up for a traffic warrant. It was nothing. He was sleeping.


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[Assistant] He said, I knew that I was going to do damage but not, not of that intensity to cause the tragedy that occurred.


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[Assistant] You lit a building full of hundred, a hundred people on fire. This is the same kind of thing of people who poison people and go, I was just trying to make them violently ill. I didn't know I killed them. Either way that's fucked. You're still an asshole. You're still an evil asshole. Like you're still a piece of shit. Like I hate that. I'm like, just cause you wanted to cause a little less damage than you caused. Oops. I caused like wild amounts of damage.


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[Assistant] You're an asshole. And it's not believable. No it's not. The action that you- Cause if you can take that one-


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[Assistant] When she refused and then asked the bouncer to escort him out, he became enraged. His first thought, he said, was to, quote, close the club for good.


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[Assistant] So she couldn't work there anymore. This is even worse. He was going to call the police and report them because he knew of the illegal operations, but he said, I went with the fire instead.


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[Assistant] But instead I went with a fire, cause I wanted to hurt people. Cause I was that angry. I was mad. Like, that's it.


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[Assistant] Now according to Julio, he'd initially fled the scene after setting the fire, but came back a short time later and quote, watched the firemen fight the fire.


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[Assistant] What is the fucking pathology there? He said it was then that he realized the extent of the damage he'd caused and left the scene for a second time.


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[Assistant] This time on a city bus to his neighborhood and he said, that's when I reflected and began to cry.


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[Assistant] It's fucked up. It's fucked up. That's not... Yea. No. No.


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[Assistant] After giving his statement to detectives, Julio was brought before Judge Alexander Hunter at the Bronx Criminal, Bronx Criminal Court, excuse me, a little after 2 a.m. on March 27th, where he was formally charged with 87 counts of arson felony murder.


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[Assistant] The judge ordered that Julio be held without bail until a grand jury could be convened and Julio was taken to Kings County Hospital and held in the psychiatric ward where he was put on suicide watch.


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[Assistant] Now as the deadliest fire in nearly a century, the tragedy at Happyland


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[Assistant] And in response to the tragedy, Mayor David Dinkins immediately activated a task force of police officers and ordered them to inspect the 173 active social clubs operating in the city and look for any code violations, which I was like,


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[Assistant] Now, among his campaign promises was legislation to crack down on the informal social clubs around the city.


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[Assistant] Funny that now that this has happened, everybody's like, oh, we got a crack down. And it's like, well, they actually tried to do that a year ago before this happened and you guys said go fuck yourself. So it's nice that you're doing it now. Okay.


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[Assistant] Uh, now in the wake of the fire, he was now vowing to put forth new legislation that imposed harsh penalties for any clubs that violated fire and safety codes.


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[Assistant] That's always how it goes. It's always after a mass, horrible, mad loss of life. And sometimes not even then. Yeah. A few days later, more than 100 New York City police officers fanned out across the city to search for code violations. Many were very resentful for having to be put on this task force in the first place.


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[Assistant] Well, many news outlets chose to focus on the illegal operation of the club and of social clubs more broadly.


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[Assistant] Or on Julio's immigration and refugee status.


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[Assistant] Jerome Ford, whose five family members died at Happyland, said, I told them not to go, but kids are kids. I knew it was dangerous.


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[Assistant] Like, oh, that hits so much harder. Five family members. And you told them not to go, like, please don't go there. And he's like, but kids, like, what are you going to do? Yeah. How many times did you go somewhere you weren't supposed to? 18 year olds, you know, like they're not listening to you.


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[Assistant] For many New Yorkers, the news about the fire victims was the first time they'd learned or even heard anything about the large Honduran community who'd made the Bronx their home. This was their first time hearing.


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[Assistant] In an article published just two days after the fire, the New York Times profiled seven of the victims whose futures were very bright.


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[Assistant] Israel Bullness told the, told the times, they were not kids who were into drugs, they just loved to dance.


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[Assistant] And his son, Tonio, was one of the ones killed at Happyland.


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[Assistant] Just three years after arriving in the United States. Like many of the victims, Tonio was young, he was only 18 years old.


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[Assistant] And a lot of them were working their asses off during the day and this was them blowing off steam. But they were working their asses off to make better opportunities here.


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[Assistant] The stories of the victims told in the wake of the fire really reflects the stories and experiences of many who immigrate to the United States. They quickly fell in love with their new home. They worked hard to make the most of the chances that they've been given.


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[Assistant] Like 22 year old Nicholas Zapata, for example, worked 10 hour days on a construction site and lived a very modest life.


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[Assistant] Sending most of his earnings back to his family in Honduras. Wow. On the night of March 24th, Nicholas had just gone to meet with his friends Will Castillo and Jose Diaz at Happyland, like I said, to blow off some steam after a long work week. No, just hang out. All three of them died in the fire.


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[Assistant] Squadrons of police were sent whizzing around the town to padlock every similarly unsafe social club in sight.


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[Assistant] But only nine days after the mass death when the owner of the fire trap building, Alex DiLorenzo III, was released on his own recognizance in a proceeding so benign that it makes traffic court look frightening by comparison, the judge never even mentioned the Happyland Fire.


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[Assistant] What? So Alex DiLorenzo is the owner there. Yeah. And he was released and they just...


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[Assistant] And that the safety code violations at Happyland would get so much attention obviously isn't unreasonable, it is very much part of the narrative.


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[Assistant] But the emphasis on fire codes, illegal clubs, and the landlord's responsibility really overlooked the fact that the fire was intentionally set by a frustrated little bitch of a man who wanted to get revenge on a woman he believed had wronged him. Yep. By simply not wanting to be with him. So, a reader of the New York Times actually wrote a letter to the editor.


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[Assistant] At one point saying, all your articles on the burning of Happyland Social Club have focused on the hazards of such illegal clubs.


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[Assistant] That's the thing, had he not intentionally set that club on fire to hurt his ex-girlfriend for not loving him anymore,


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[Assistant] But truly, safety measures aside, no one at Happyland would have died that night had Julio Gonzalez not acted out of a misogynistic desire to punish his ex-girlfriend. Yup. That's it. That's it.


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[Assistant] It really illustrates the ways that American culture in 1990 was divided over things like public safety, immigration, diversity, and domestic violence. There's a lot here. And unfortunately those divisions would be even more evident during Julio's trial.


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[Assistant] Now, because he had confessed almost immediately after being arrested for the fire, the trial of Julio Gonzalez was not to be about whether he committed the arson that ended 87 lives, but why he did it.


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[Assistant] Now, in his opening statement on July 18th, 1991, the prosecutor, Eric Warner, laid out the state's case that after failing in his attempt to persuade Lydia to return to him,


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[Assistant] Julio left the club to purchase gasoline that set the building on fire, knowing that there were nearly 100 people who would be trapped inside.


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[Assistant] Among those called to testify on the state's behalf were seven of the nine medical examiners who performed the autopsies. All of whom detailed the extent of the horrific damage suffered by those who died in the fire.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the most compelling witnesses to testify for the state were Carmen Melendez, the friend.


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[Assistant] That Julio went to after setting the fire, and Lydia herself.


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[Assistant] Who in her brief testimony, Melendez explained that Julio seemed to recognize that he had acted irrationally.


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[Assistant] Irrationally. Nice. And cause tremendous damage.


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[Assistant] She told the jury quote, he told me it was an error he had made.


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[Assistant] An error you mean. As she left the witness stand and made her way out of the courtroom, Carmen Melendez gave a small wave to Julio.


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[Assistant] And that outraged many of the victims' families who were in court that day.


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[Assistant] Yeah, definitely not. Outside the courtroom, many of the family members surrounded and confronted her.


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[Assistant] Rosario Alvarez, whose husband was killed in the fire, said, I asked how could you remain friendly with someone who left so many children without a parent? And she said she was his friend.


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[Assistant] You own that. Choices. Choices. Hoof. You own that.


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[Assistant] So in her testimony, Lydia Feliciano described the argument she had with Julio shortly before the fire, noting that he had made several ominous statements and threats indicating his intention to do something very drastic if she would not return to him.


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[Assistant] But it was also pretty controversial because many family members were angry that she simply fled the scene rather than alerting someone to the emergency. I would be pissed.


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[Assistant] Uh, Maria Colon, wife of Happyland owner Elias Colon, who died in the fire, said she screamed fire to herself. She had time to call a taxi, but she didn't have time to call the fire department.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the most damning evidence in the case was Julio's own confession, which the jury heard in its entirety. In the confession, Julio can be heard admitting to the DA that he knew the club was full that night.


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[Assistant] He said yes, yes, there were many people, many people. Yea, he was in there. And he said yes. He had talked to some of those people. Yea, exactly. Mingled with them. Mingled with them.


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[Assistant] He said they were dancing and when the DA asked why, if he knew it was full of people, why did he light it on fire? Leo said, I didn't think it was going to, I didn't think it was going to take a lot of intensity. I didn't think that it was going to do, uh, that.


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[Assistant] Pour gasoline on something and light it on fire that it's going to burn. You know that. That's basic. Exactly. That's why you did it.


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[Assistant] Julio knew the risks when he lit the gasoline and set Happyland on fire. Yup. At the very least. Yeah.


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[Assistant] In his opening statement, the defense attorney, Richard Burney, told the jury his client admitted causing the fire at Happyland, but he had only done so because he was, quote, legally insane on the morning of March 25th. Incorrect. He said, ladies and gentlemen, on March 25th, 1990, Julio Gonzalez started the fire in the Happyland Social Club. You've all heard me concede that repeatedly.


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[Assistant] He said, I'm gonna repeat, I'm conceding that he started the fire, but ladies and gentlemen, when Julio Gonzalez started that fire, he was legally insane.


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[Assistant] In defense of their insanity defense, Bernie called Andrew Lugos, one of the arresting detectives, to testify on their behalf.


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[Assistant] According to Lugos, when they asked Julio why he had set the fire and whether he intended to kill everyone outside, he said he didn't know that something had gotten in him that the devil had gotten into him. Not the devil made me do it. Not good enough to me.


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[Assistant] It's like you already told her. You told Lydia, I'll be back. You said till then, you told the bouncer, I'll be back. Was the devil in you at that point or was that just you? Or was that just you?


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[Assistant] While this seemed to support the defense's assertion, Lugos also stated that Julio was very calm.


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[Assistant] He also went to fucking sleep afterwards. And came and watched.


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[Assistant] Despite the sensational headlines that followed in the wake of the fire, in the constant outrage of zoning codes and fire safety afterwards, the trial itself was kind of mundane.


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[Assistant] Reporters covering the case day after day started noting that it was kind of long stretches of numbingly repetitive testimony.


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[Assistant] The family members really appreciate that, that the trial for their loved ones was boring you. Yeaah, sorry about that. So sorry that it bored you. Jesus, it's like keep that to yourself. In fact, even the judge at one point turned to the jury and apologetically said, this is not the stuff from which television dramas were made. That's because this is


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[Assistant] Honey, this is 87 lives. Like this is horrific.


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[Assistant] I'm sorry that it's not like super exciting for everyone. That's when I'm like people are gonna people.


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[Assistant] I think people-peopling is where we are right now, where it's like, this isn't fun to read anymore.


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[Assistant] Make it fun for me. Make this tragedy fun. And it's like, okay. Also, that's the thing, like, 87 people lost their lives in a horrific fire. What exactly are you-


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[Assistant] They lost their lives because a jilted lover came and lit the club on fire because his ex-girlfriend wouldn't take him back. Do you need more?


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[Assistant] What else would you like? An alien abduction on top of it? I don't know what else makes this more horrific.


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[Assistant] Yeah. And now people are calling this boring. Like what?


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[Assistant] Now finally, after a month-long trial and four days of deliberation, the jury delivered a verdict, finding Julio Gonzalez guilty on all counts.


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[Assistant] How did he get 174 counts of murder? Cause you, uh, with the 87 counts of arson felony murder and then 87 counts of depraved indifference to human life per victim. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Given the sheer enormity of the case and the number of victims involved, the verdict took more than five minutes to read in its entirety. Wow. Cause they had to go like charge by charge.


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[Assistant] Now when the jury foreman finally finished reading the verdict, many of the 20 families of the victims in


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[Assistant] That were present broke down in sobs. Of course. Also there for the verdict was Ruben Valdez, the DJ who'd escaped the fire.


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[Assistant] He had extensive burns. He required many surgeries. Uhm, he was there with his social worker.


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[Assistant] And he said outside of the courtroom, he said, it's a good thing.


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[Assistant] Uhm, he said a just thing, and uh, like he, I mean he went through so much after this, so.


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[Assistant] He was, he was pleased with the verdict, but nothing is gonna give him back. His life, his quality of life.


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[Assistant] Now in a statement to the press, prosecutor Eric Warner said, while the prosecutor's office was obviously satisfied with this outcome,


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[Assistant] He said, there's no happiness in this. The case was just, has just drained everyone involved in it. I could definitely see that. Which is, I think, a good statement, like, that there's no happiness in this. Like, we're satisfied that justice was served, but this isn't happy. It doesn't bring anybody back.


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[Assistant] Now a month later on September 19th, Julio Gonzalez returned to the packed courtroom for sentencing and before passing sentence on Julio,


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[Assistant] Judge Burton Roberts addressed the spectators in press, saying that while the defendant was ultimately the one who caused the fire, there were many things that led to the death of 87 people, most having to do with building and fire code violations. He said there are many to be blamed, not just Julio Gonzalez.


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[Assistant] Which I was like, I see where you're coming from. Of course. That you're saying there are many people to blame here, but let's blame Julio. Yeah, for the ultimate loss of life here.


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[Assistant] That's Julio. And especially since the trial here is for Julio.


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[Assistant] This was not the venue to do it. This is the murder trial. I understand the press talking about the different things and stuff, like the code violations and all that, that honestly the city should have dealt with. But this is about something much like more


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like intimate partner violence. This is literally something much more like s-


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[Assistant] Consolidated. Yeah, like you, that's the thing and something that a lot of people are dealing with.


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[Assistant] Like, a lot of people are not dealing with fire and code violations right now, but a lot of people are living with someone who could potentially do this to them. Exactly, but I don't think that was anybody's focus in 1990.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so when he had finished his statement, Judge Roberts sentenced Julio Gonzalez to 25 years to life in prison, the maximum allowed under New York law. Wow. That's definitely not enough, in my opinion. Well, Julio Gonzalez served his sentence at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. In 2015, he became eligible for parole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So shortly after the fire at Happyland, the building's owner, Alex DiLorenzo III, turned himself into police on a warrant for the many building code and safety violations. A judge released DiLorenzo on his own recognizance, that's what we talked about before, with an order to appear at a later date.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In May 1992, DiLorenzo and Jay Weiss, the building's landlord, agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors in which they pleaded guilty for violations and in exchange, they just had to perform 50 hours of community service and pay a fine of $150,000, which went towards a community center for Hondurans living in the Bronx.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's nice that that money went toward that. I'm glad that happened. A lawyer for DiLorenzo told reporters, we didn't think jail was the appropriate sentence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I disagree. And we were able to resolve it without that sentence. Like that's nice for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the months after the fire, victims' families actually filed a five billion dollar civil suit against DeLorenzo Weiss, the city of New York, and several of the companies whose products produced toxic fumes during the fire. Rightfully so. The suit took several years to resolve, but in July 1995, a settlement was reached totaling 15.8 million.


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[Assistant] With each family receiving an average of $163,000.


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[Assistant] I think that's shit. That's bullshit. Yeaah. That's bullshit.


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[Assistant] Lawyers for the family said while the settlement seemed small compared with other high profile wrongful death awards, the Happyland case was complicated by questions of insurance liability, the bankruptcy of the building's wealthy owner, and by the death of the club's operator in the fire.


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[Assistant] Now although they were relieved that the suit had been resolved, many families were disappointed with this outcome. I would say, I understand.


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[Assistant] It's not enough money for what we've lost, said Leticia Gemanita, whose two sons died in the fire. Two sons. That's your whole life. That's not enough money for what you've lost.


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[Assistant] And truly many of the victim's families found themselves in dire situations after the fire. They had been forced to make hard emotional and financial decisions because they had lost loved ones that were sometimes the person that was generating the income.


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[Assistant] Delicia Pineda, who lost her husband in the fire said, I've been doing my best, but it's been a very difficult time.


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[Assistant] Trying to figure out how to pay for things, how to pay their bills, how to send their kids to school, how to do all of that. How do you even get up in the morning and never mind do all of those things?


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[Assistant] Pinetta asked reporters outside court, how can I bring up my children and send them to college on what they're giving us?


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[Assistant] Like many events though, commemorating the loss of life and tragedy, the vigil gets smaller every year, right? Uhm, the event starts fading, you know, those directly affected move away or pass on still.


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[Assistant] There are those in the community like Jeanette Boccanay Gressimone. I hope I said your name correctly.


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[Assistant] I think the Latino and African American community has dealt with trauma in different ways without getting the support that they need.


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[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. And that is the story of the Happyland Social Club arson. Wow, that is a tragic, tragic case.


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[Assistant] Thinking of people just, and like we've seen this a lot in different ways, like, you know, recently with like mass shootings and other things that are happening. Whenever I think of people just,


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[Assistant] Doing something so innocuous, like going to school, going to a social club one night, just to blow off steam, one that you go to all the time, just going to hang out with your friends, going to a grocery store, like all this stuff, it's like going to a parade, and they're just, and that's it. Like that's it. Like it's so sad.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. Like, like the Pulse nightclub.


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[Assistant] That one always rings in my head. It's like this thinking about that and like hearing the stories of the cell phones ringing afterwards and stuff. It's like, you think of those things, those people just went.