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[Assistant] Uh, she eventually became the principal of more than 33 unorganized schools, which I'm not sure what that means. Lucy, the daughter.


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[Assistant] Until he died in 1956. Wow. Yeah. Isn't that wild? I was like, not that long ago. I know. Well, it was, but. But like, not in the grand scheme of things. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and investigators and reporters have always tried to link him to more crimes like, you know, unsolved murders, more frauds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cases, all that, they haven't really been able to connect.


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[Assistant] Anything really like hard to him? I feel like we can though. I feel like we can. I feel like it's gonna come. We're gonna hit more. I feel like we don't know the extent of what he's done. I could see that happening.


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[Assistant] I'm much more interested in the Jack Ripper case and finding that out, but I think that this is also a very interesting one and I think if people really give it, it's due diligence, I think we could learn more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The murder castle mysteriously caught fire again, and it burned to the ground. Interesting. Yep. So it's gone. And I think now there's like, a post office on its...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, where it was before? It should have been like a park there or something. I think it's a post office, so I think it's just like an innocuous post office sitting there. The post office is the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was actually the next thing I wanted to look into and I think I might look into it a little bit to just be like, yeaah, just be like a fun little like look back on it to see if anybody has any things about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good job. I'm going to sleep. Nighty night. Good night. Yum. That was crazy. Shout out to you. Shout out to Dave. Yeah, that was a complex. Shout out to Mirta and Clara. Shout out to them. Oofy. Shout out to them.


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[Assistant] And poor Minnie and Nanny Williams. I know. And all the kids. Poor all of them. It's just really sad. Pearl. Yeah. Feel bad for Carrie.


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[Assistant] But that fucker is gone now. I know, I wonder what ever happened to Carrie. Yea, I know. Couldn't find anything, she probably just, she was probably, get me the hell out of here. Ugh, god. But, wow, that was terrible. In conclusion, he is not Jack the Ripper. That's wild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so, uh, you guys have been wanting that one for, uh, five years, I'd say, and I've been waiting for the time. I just knew it was gonna be a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A real deep dive, so I wanted to give it the time it required. Yeah. He was from New Hampshire, right? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, uhm, next case that is occurring is also in New Hampshire. Wow, that's weird. Weird, and I didn't plan for that. Yea, that's really weird. And it's also kind of fun that he was caught in Boston, because I was like, bye bitch. I don't love that. Our city was like, mmm. That's true, that's true. I just don't like that he had his feet on my ground. But Anne, it was also our city who was like, mmm, that sounds great to arrest him, I'm so, I'm like,


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[Assistant] Bully down with that, but you're gonna have to get me another warrant so I can keep that fucker so we can extradite his ass. Boston strong, baby. Just saying Boston was like, do your job, okay? Bean town.


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[Assistant] Well, as always folks, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're like Elena and you have to revisit the Dear Boss letter for another time and then you also have to cover this in five parts because wow, she's so crazy, guys. I'm probably going to revisit it again with some other case. She says probably, but she means definitely. Forever.


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[Assistant] But we are actually, we're doing a really fun collab, cause I think we're like playing on the fact that, I don't know if you guys noticed, but they're not from here. It's really hard to tell.


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[Assistant] It's true, it's all true. We are a stereotype, it's 100%. But we figure what we would do is we're kinda, we're gonna do like a case, I've picked a really old case, cause those are always the most fun I feel like. I do, we're excited. Right, you can get fun with these. And this is a super, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just nonsense. And the thing in itself, so we're going to be talking about Lavinia Fisher in the Six Mile House.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, the cool thing about this is it's got, it's very American in and of itself because it's kind of exaggerated to the point of shenanigans. Which I feel like is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is this really the story of America's first female serial killer? No.


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[Assistant] My idea of it is probably exaggerated over time, but certain aspects are true and they're interesting because she was a criminal. There was that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the story of Lavinia Fisher unfolds against the backdrop of the pre-Civil War era. So it's 1815 to 1861-ish. Long ago. So like, a little bit ago.


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[Assistant] Uh, again in Charleston, South Carolina, it was during a time of huge economic and social upheaval at this moment. Charleston was among the wealthiest cities of the British colonies and was a hub of imports and exports, and especially in the wake of the American Revolution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So because of this, it became one of the main entry points for several, several different trades, but also for enslaved people being forcibly brought into our country. And because it was close to the ocean, it became a base of operations for merchants in tobacco industries, cotton industry, all the huge industries at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now at this time, and this is all to tell you why this all occurred.


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[Assistant] By the 1810s the prosperity of Charleston


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[Assistant] Because of this, they feared the city would be, quote, reduced to a city of beggars, vagrants, thieves and cutthroats.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the early 19th century, merchant ships definitely still were fearing attacks from pirates.


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[Assistant] And inspected before even being allowed to dock at the port. So this was causing tons of delays.


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[Assistant] The wagon trade remained the most viable way of getting goods anywhere you needed to go in the South.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that's like, Massachusetts specifically has the most gnarly names for places. Oh yea. Which we grew up just thinking that was normal, but when people try to say the names they're like, what is that? Like gloss.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're off. So, you know, here we go. So, we're in on the wagon trade now, because that's the only way that we can get anywhere, otherwise everything sucks, you're gonna get robbed by a pirate, you're gonna get delayed at port, you know, everything's gonna suck.


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[Assistant] Even though it was now keeping Charleston's economy afloat, it wasn't nearly as efficient as ships were.


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[Assistant] And while some traveling merchants had no problem sleeping in their wagon, and they could do that without getting robbed or murdered, uh, the journey was often hundreds of miles, and the driver, not to mention any occupants that they had with them, would need to find some kind of shelter at various points along the route, especially for storms, weather, all that good stuff.


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[Assistant] This gave rise to, quote, stage taverns or inns known just as houses.


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[Assistant] Not about pirates anymore, but now about being robbed or having an entire wagon or coach be stolen right out from under you.


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[Assistant] So in the early decades of the 19th century, Charleston, South Carolina was not so different from the other colonies around. It was always walking a line between the pre-revolution wilderness of the past and the industrial, socially complicated society that was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gonna be on its way in the latter half of the 19th century, but it was ruled by economic opportunity mixed with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they were in their mid to late twenties, the couple operated an inn that was referred to as the Six Mile House, along with what was known, uh, it was on Meeting House Road.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the name Six Mile House was basically the mile marker that it was on. Clever. It would indicate to travelers how far you were from the city. Nice. So other ends had names like Five Mile House.


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[Assistant] But these houses offered travelers and merchants a place to stop and rest, get food, water, and overnight stay.


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[Assistant] And as they traveled in Charleston to sell their goods, or as they traveled out, that's where they would stop along this way.


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[Assistant] But like we just mentioned a bunch of times, it is very reminiscent of the Bloody Benders. They were, we actually covered the Bloody Benders.


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[Assistant] But in early tellings of this story, John and Lavinia Fisher are described as, quote, pleasing in appearance.


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[Assistant] But the fishers weren't only praised for their resort, their loveliness, but also for their food, which was apparently described as excellent fare for men and beasts.


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[Assistant] But later, however, the entire area around Six Mile House is described as a haven for quote, gangs of white desperados who occupied certain houses and infested the roads leading to the city. White desperados.


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[Assistant] I know. But it is said that travelers passed these houses with fear and trembling. Oh no, because it was just bad guys everywhere. I hate that. And the more dreaded than any of the other of these haunts was known as Six Mile House, occupied by John Fisher and Lavinia.


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[Assistant] So the man says he claims that he had seen the fishers on the previous night going through his belongings and he had heard them make mention of having to attend to him.


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[Assistant] And he left a man on site to ensure that these bandits did not return. So he was just like, get out of your own house.


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[Assistant] I'm Olivia and John Fisher. You left one guy, we're coming back in. So he went back to the sheriff again, who at this time finally apprehended the entire gang and confiscated 10 muskets, some pistols, knives, and a large canister of powder from the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the fishers were found guilty of highway robbery and they were sentenced to hang.


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[Assistant] So yea, the fishers were found guilty of highway robbery, they were sentenced to hang, they sat in their cells for nearly a year, waiting on a pardon for their execution.


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[Assistant] And apparently when John was visited by a local priest, he was very contrite. He wanted his soul to be saved. But Lavinia, she had no interest in salvation. She really only cared about being pardoned. It never came.


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[Assistant] So to this day, it's said that Lavinia's ghost taunts the grounds that once held the old city jail, where she was held for nearly a year before her execution.


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[Assistant] Others say she haunts Charleston's Unitarian Cemetery, and whatever the case, her spirit is believed to still quote, roam and haunt the last areas she knew and where she felt most unsettled in her life.


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[Assistant] In response to the rise in highwaymen robbing people, you know, that was happening all the damn time.


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[Assistant] There were lynch mobs that were formed and they were basically the one bringing justice outside of the law to these random highwaymen. Of course we know this was often a legit act of terrorism masked


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[Assistant] Who was responsible for a string of highway robberies near Ashley Ferry had holed up at one of the houses and they were determined to smoke them out and bring them to justice.


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[Assistant] According to author Bruce Orr, which we will, uh, make sure we


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[Assistant] Talk to someone else, I don't know. Now among the many obvious problems with mob justice is that lynch mobs tend to lack information and objectivity.


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[Assistant] No one's taking a step back and really thinking in these cases. So in the case of the attacks along Meeting House Road, none of the victims who reported being attacked or robbed, robbed could actually identify any of their attackers. So when the mob arrived at Five Mile House, they had no idea who they were looking for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So nevertheless, when they entered the inn, the mob found a small group of individuals assembled inside, and regardless of whether they were the actual aggressors or robbers, the group was instructed to grab whatever personal belongings they had near them and get the hell out of the house immediately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Likely pretty confused and startled by the appearance of a giant violent mob at their house. The group of Five Mile House, um, protested a little bit and they resisted a little bit because they were like, what the fuck is happening right now? So the mob was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or maybe it was the actual lynch mob that was at their door that they were like, we should leave. Who can say?


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[Assistant] We'll figure, yea, you know, like, this is what, this is smart, they took context clues, they put the problem solving and they were like, this is gonna end badly for us, we should leave. So they got out. Either way, they left, and to make sure they didn't return, they did that old standby, where they just leave one guy standing at the door to keep the entire house out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has, obviously, so they, and it works for Six Mile House, so they left a guy named David Ross at Six Mile House and they said don't let them back in. I don't know if I trust him.


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[Assistant] But some time later, David Ross returned to Charleston.


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[Assistant] Pretty frantically, because he was like, shit I have to alert you. He was asking for the sheriff, and in his sworn testimony later,


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[Assistant] Ross said he was the one that was hatless and coatless. Uh-uh. Not him. Immediate red flag. I'm saying. He said that shortly after 9pm, a man named William Hayward, one of the men who'd been forced out of Six Mile House by the mob,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had returned to the inn and he had, quote, cursed him.


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[Assistant] So when David Ross went back into the house, and I love this because he's like,


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[Assistant] David goes into the house that doesn't belong to him that he was just thrown out of. He goes back in and he asks Hayward,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But after being rebuffed by Hayward a second time, Ross was surprised to find that more of the people from Six Mile House were now returning and were like, we're just gonna come back into our house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Specifically, John and Lavinia Fisher, as well as two other men that Ross didn't recognize. So Ross claimed that at that point, Lavinia Fisher, quote, Lavinia herself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the Six Mile House gang continued beating Ross with their fists and with loaded whips. Which I had no idea what a loaded whip was, cause a whip it's, I'm like, what?


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[Assistant] So he managed to make it back to a main road and was cross- crossing Frighteous Bridge.


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[Assistant] But the group must have kind of given up the chase at some point, she didn't catch him, because Ross managed to make it safely back into Charleston that evening to cry in front of the sheriff and be like, why did you leave me in front of that house? What a baby. Meanwhile, it was David. You left David. What do you expect? That was your own doing. Ew, David. Ew, David.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A merchant by the name of John Peoples. Which I love that name. Fun. Peoples.


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[Assistant] He was headed out of the city, and my thing just went into black, okay, towards Meeting House Road. And when he reached Six Mile House, John Peoples stopped at the inn. This was after all of this.


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[Assistant] It was around 11 p.m., and he was just gonna rest and water his horse. So, you know, as one does. So once he stopped at the end, he alleged that he and his young companion, who was a young boy, I don't know if it was a son or what, they don't say, uhm, they were attacked and robbed by multiple people at Six Mile House.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In his official affidavit, he claims that as he was arguing with his companion over who would get the water bucket for the horses, nine or ten persons, among them a tall, stout woman, came out of the same house. They were armed with clubs, guns and pistols and immediately made a violent assault on them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So according to peoples, the woman among them was the most vicious of all of them.


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[Assistant] It was active in beating him, cutting him over the head and eyes with a stick. Okay. Like...


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[Assistant] After searching the man and the boy, the bandits took his pocketbook and it contained roughly $40, which is a pretty good haul back then, and turned back in the direction of Six Mile House. So meanwhile, John Peoples and this boy raced back to Charleston and immediately reported the attack to authorities.


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[Assistant] Although he couldn't positively identify each member of the gang right then and there, John Peoples, quote, had just cause to believe that among them was William Hayward.


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[Assistant] He points out that among the more interesting aspects of the John Peoples affidavit is that the document looks like it was written in the handwriting of a lot of different people.


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[Assistant] So that's weird. And then various different points in the affidavit, his name is spelled people's like P-E-O-P-L-E-S and people's P-E-E-P-L-E-S. I wonder why. So people think this means one, at least another person was involved in writing that description of events, but they're not sure why.


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[Assistant] And it's, but it's also possible when you really think of like, you know, history and reality in that time, he might have not had an ability to read and write, so they might have had to have somebody documenting his report. It's still interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He also notes that the list appears to have been added to people's affidavit likely after it had been filed, and it's a list of the people they think were in Six Mile House.


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[Assistant] So with sworn affidavits from two victims and witnesses, Sheriff Cleary quickly assembled a huge posse of police officers and vigilantes on February 19th, 1819.


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[Assistant] They surrounded the place, demanded everyone surrender immediately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's when they basically were able to search Six Mile House and they found that large storage of weapons and powder, so that was all true. So the gang definitely had the means to resist them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One like set of tales, and I kind of believe it because I feel like John Fisher was like a good husband.


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[Assistant] He's a John. He's a John. You know, we love a John. We do. And John Fisher apparently said that he opted to surrender rather than risk injury or death to his wife. Oh, I believe that. So he did that for Lavinia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever their reason was, they were arrested without a fight, and the sheriff successfully did get John and Lavinia. They also got James McElroy. They did get Seth Young, but I don't know if he ever comes up again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they got, uhm, somebody James Howard. So evidence taken from the home, and this does come back, so don't worry, I'm not just randomly saying it, was a large cowhide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they didn't own any cows. So they were like, where the hell did this come from? Yeah, it was like a recent cow lie and they were like, what's this about?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So by the time the gang members were being loaded into the wagon, the scene had attracted a big crowd, obviously, because I always love that in these old timey cases where it's like this huge crime scene and all these people are just walking through it. They're like, whoa, look at that blood. It's like, ooh, this is nuts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So rather than leaving the scene as it was or coming back later to search it more, they just set it on fire. Easy. What else are you gonna do? So it was burned to the ground and a few days after their arrest or


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We made it easier. Made it sanitary. Uhm, and at least two bodies were indeed found buried near the house, like right on the property. One was the body of a male who'd been shot and the other was the skeletal remains of a woman who'd been buried in an unmarked grave at least two years earlier. Don't love that. Neither of them were ever identified.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there was no running water, there was no bed or toilet, instead there was a pile of wood chips where they were like, that's your bed and your toilet. Oh wow. So, have fun with that.


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[Assistant] And apparently if you were a violent offender, you were just shackled to a steel ring that was in the middle of the floor. And if you stepped out of line, you got the shit kicked out of you.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so that's fun. And they said that it was also not unusual for a corpse to reach an advanced state of decomposition before being removed from a cell. So. You don't want to do that any sooner. You don't want to go to the city jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at the time of John and Lavinia's arrest, South Carolina still operated under a colonial justice system.


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[Assistant] So by February 22nd, the sheriff had also, uhm, arrested gang member James Sterrett, which would bring the total arrested to seven.


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[Assistant] Some more arrests would come later. By the end of the week, I think there was about nine people that were arrested from that house that were in the gang.


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[Assistant] So looking at their previous crimes that they'd been punished for, both John and Lavinia had previously been arrested for theft, which at least for John, he had received 30 lashes for it. James Sterrett had also been convicted of theft on one occasion, and he had been branded as his punishment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Joseph Roberts had a piece of his ear chopped off.


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[Assistant] Roberts got out, but he didn't do well with his immediate freedom because two days later he was again arrested for threatening the life of a local butcher. The same butcher that the gang sold the meat that belonged to the cow found in the Elf building at Six Mile House that belonged to the neighbor that they had the cow hide for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the trial began on May 10th, 1819, and that's where John Lavinia, William Joseph, and James were all indicted for assaults with intent to murder David Ross. The attorney general's documents said the gang, quote, were said to have wielded pointed and fired a loaded weapon at David Ross with the intent to kill him. I agree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the time the hearing concluded on the 27th, through various methods, a lot of the gang either skipped town, were either to escape, or somehow got off the indictment, I'm not really sure how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It left really only John and Lavinia on the hook for the whole crime. Excellent. So the trial was drawing huge crowds and the couple was found guilty on both assaults with intent to murder and common assaults on David Ross. Damn. So on June 2nd, they were brought before Judge Charles Jones Colcock for sentencing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is so complicated. It is. So now it was going to be held, and it wasn't going to be held until the conclusion of the trial. And unfortunately for John and Lavinia, the Constitutional Court wouldn't be back in session until January. And it was June.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were allowed to do that, and weirdly, the debtor section was also where Joseph Roberts, another member of the gang, was serving his sentence for threatening the butcher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were all reunited again in the cell and that's nice. So on the evening of September 13th, John and Joseph actually managed to dig a hole under the wall of one of the cell windows large enough for them to fit through and using a rope made of blankets they tied together, they climbed down the wall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they, they were like, oh no, that sucks. And then they just ran away. They just ran away. No one noticed until the next morning. That's when the governor issued a proclamation offering a $500 reward for their recapture. Uh, the sheriff didn't have to look very far. I don't,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, they weren't really smart. I don't think this was really going a whole, and again, this is another case of John being a really good husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't you worry though, because their original plan was to escape and travel by boat to Cuba.


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[Assistant] Obviously. But John refused to leave Lavinia behind. So he and Roberts had stayed close to the jail to try to come up with a plan for how to get Lavinia out. Okay, fun. So he got himself caught that way. A few days after their escape, they were visiting a local grocer, which I'm also like, guys, what are you doing? Like you're wanted convicts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were both returned to the city jail. They were going to have to wait for that constitutional court in January. So on January 17th, 1820,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and it was on John Peoples, that's what they were, they were now bringing that in at the fi- at like the ninth hour. So they ended up being sentenced to hang on February 4th, 1820.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the week following their sentence, John and Lavinia had petitioned several clergymen and notable Charlestinians, uh, just asking to intervene on their behalf because they were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they claim they wanted an opportunity for repentance and for time to prepare to meet their god and so they wanted a reprieve at least. The governor granted the reprieve, but the order only pushed the date back to like February 18th. Oh shit. It was like a few days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, while John and Lavinia waited for execution, they spent a lot of time preparing for death and what comes next with various clergymen.


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[Assistant] John, like the original story, apparently welcomed us, he was like very intensely praying.


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[Assistant] But Lavinia definitely legitimately was not interested in this. She was more worried about just saving herself. She was like, I would really like just to live through this and not prepare for what comes next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They said when she engaged in prayer, Lavinia would jump at any moment or noise by her captors. She was convinced they were coming to her with a pardon. So she was totally convinced she was getting pardoned out of this. Damn. And she was very confident that they would not, one, execute her for a crime she had never been convicted of, and two, execute a woman. Unfortunately, she was wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, yeaah. But at the time, I will say, contrary to what like legends will tell you, many residents of Charleston really believed Lavinia was innocent of at least that crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless of the confession though, the governor refused to extend the reprieve.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in fact, he left the city just to avoid any negative press. He was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now they were gonna be killed for crimes that they were very sketchily associated with, and they weren't even tried for, but there were bodies found on their property, so like, this is kind of mayhem, like in all ways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they did, two people died on their property at the very least.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just saying. So when February 18th arrived, caskets for the fishers were selected. So beautiful. And the hangman was measuring the length of rope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is true that when Lavinia saw the hangman measuring the rope that was going to be used to hang her with, she shrieked in terror, her cry chilling every heart with horror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which yeaah. Yeaah, that'll do it. They were presented in the town square before they went to the gallows and they were covered in loose white garments together. Apparently it's like a smock thing, I don't know why they would do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when they arrived, John climbed the scaffold without incident, but Lavinia refused to move from her spot at the bottom of the stairs. She had to be carried up on the platform.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once there she called out to the crowd apparently with her arms outstretched asking them to save her. Wow.


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[Assistant] They all literally were like, nah. It was like that, like, blink blink.


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[Assistant] And he also claimed his and Lavinia's innocence. They both embraced one final time, the sacks went over their heads, signal from the sheriff, down they go. The press reports that Lavinia quote, died without a struggle or a groan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So John and Lavinia Fisher were members of a gang of thieves. That much is true. Lavinia Fisher was definitely not America's first female serial killer. By any means. It's possible she never killed anyone. It's possible she did kill someone. In truth, the only crime they really acknowledged committing was robbing and beating David Ross.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was huge in the penny dreadful publications and pamphlets. They really took it and ran with it. In 1830, a man named Peter Nielsen published a book where he claimed to have been in Charleston at the time of the arrest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said the fishers had been robbing and killing for years. And according to Bruce Orr, Nielsen claimed quote, on digging around this den of iniquity, a great number of skeletons were found. No doubt the remains of unfortunate travelers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And actually, in the latter part of the 19th century, Lavinia's skeleton was exhumed from her coffin in a potter's field and put on display.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were occasionally removed from their display for being out of order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, you got to. And I think part of this story is definitely she was a woman, so it's exaggerated because female criminals of her caliber were definitely not common. Even if her real caliber were not common, her arrest and story definitely became a huge interest of the time and even now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the, in the 19th century, many of, if not most people believed that women were incapable of violence of any kind, never mind murder. So Lavinia was just something like new and fascinating, I think, and so she just, the legend just got a life of its own. But,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very clear that they were trying to be like, look at the consequences for stepping out of your normal, like you should be at home popping out babies and like cooking dinner. You're gonna get hanged. Like that's essentially what it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally, there is the convenient fact that the legendary account of Lovina Fischer's monstrous killing spree and being the serial killer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It justifies a lot of problematic elements of the real story. The legend kind of makes law enforcement and the justice system at the time like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They swept in and they just took care of the heinous crimes and we took these people off the streets so they were painting them as these vicious violent killers. So it kind of also justifies this execution that was probably not justified at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they were not tried for this crime, and who even knows if they committed it? But according to Bruce Ohr, the government had actually been hoping to secure the land that Five Mile House and Six Mile House sat on. Oh, so we know exactly what happened. And it was going to build a new naval base. No wonder they were burning all that shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the execution of the fishers in William Hayward, who owned Five Mile House by the way, that would have cleared the property for the state to do whatever the hell they wanted to do with it without having to jump through any hoops or be denied.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whoa. You might hear some faint, you probably won't actually, but if you do, you hear, if you might hear some faint like rain tip tapping on the window. You guys like that ambiance. Yeah, you guys do like that. We've gotten a lot of people who are like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well now we're gonna add murder to his repertoire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when we last left you guys, he had just moved to Chicago. After he was gonna try that whole scheme selling the bodies of the wife and the child, of his friend, the insurance, all that stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as, if you know the story of H.H. Holmes...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know that it really does revolve around Chicago. Chicago is kind of like the room where it happened. Very much the room where it happened. Devil in the White City, there he is. So once he'd arrived in Chicago, he somehow passed the exam to become a pharmacist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow, I would think that that's a pretty difficult exam. Yeah, and he was only one of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess he had something in there. Maybe chemistry was his thing, and that's... He did a lot of extra stuff with chemistry, so maybe he really did give himself a leg up in that department. Maybe. But maybe he just wasn't great in other things, or he just wasn't a good student. You know? Yeah, exactly. That pretty much makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he ended up finding work at Holton Drugs, which was a pharmacy on the corner of 63rd and Wallace, and it was owned by an elderly woman named Mrs. Holton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But she explained to Holmes that the pharmacy actually belonged to her husband, Dr. E.S. Holton, but he was very sick, very elderly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fucking pharmacy kid. And she was finding it a little hard, a little difficult to manage this entire pharmacy by herself. She was elderly herself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So of course, like we said, his ears perked up. He was sensing opportunity here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Holmes told her, huh, I too am a doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, he was like, you know what, I'm a doctor, I have a lot of experience in the pharmacy, he did not, uh, but he did pass the pharmacy exam, so. I think him cheated. Something happened there, but he was like, you know what, I'm absolutely certain that I can transform this into just a thriving business again if you just give it to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So not long after he began work at the pharmacy, because she believed him of course. Yea, she's a sweet woman. Dr. Holton did die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he left the store and everything in it to Mrs. Holton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he was, so Holm sees this happening and he's like, you know, I-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's angling to own this store. So he frames it like he's doing her a favor because he's like, you're old and ailing. Your husband just died. You don't want to run this whole thing. So he's like, I'll buy this from you and I'll allow you to live on the second floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was like, kind. My god. You are so nice. So she agreed and he did pay her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she did, she used the money that she got by mortgaging the stores fixtures, fixtures, fixtures. Why couldn't it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, words are hard, uh, in the stock and actually, um, Holmes bought the pharmacy and he rebranded the entire things as H. H. Holmes Pharmacy. So he took out the drugs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we do a little more here than just drugs. You know what, I'm pretty upstanding, so let's change this. Uhm, in the early days of him owning this new pharmacy, a lot of the customers would come in and they'd ask about Mrs. Holton because people loved her. She was a sweet old lady. Totally. And every time he would say that she went on a trip to California,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And people are still asking where she is. And when they would ask, Holmes would just be like, well, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She just loved California so much that she just stayed there. She's just there. You can't call her on the phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause like, we don't have those. The 1800s here, so like, you know, deal with it, I guess. Just deal with it. She stayed with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, there was no actual physical evidence of him having killed Mrs. Holton?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no evidence that he didn't either, and there's probably some circumstantial evidence that points


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why would we not think that it would be this time? I believe she might be his first victim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what about the boy? I thought you thought the boy was. That one I'm like, I go back and forth with. That one for sure could be his first victim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but it should be noted too that there are variations in this story if you're researching this case yourself too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like one of the stories is that the woman, Mrs. Holton, is not super elderly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the other story is that like they both go missing or one of them goes missing and in another version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The woman's name is Elizabeth Sarah Holton, who is the doctor, and the pharmacy is owned by her and her husband, but she's the doctor. They said, let's go with the feminist angle. Yea, exactly. And that they are a young couple, and she decided to sell the pharmacy when she became pregnant, so like, that's another story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this version, the couple doesn't disappear, and they were actually still living in the neighborhood afterwards, so like it doesn't-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think so. To quote Spencer Hemway. Uh, yeaah. To me, it just, you know, Mrs. Fulton was older. People came in looking for her. He said she went to California. She didn't go to California. No matter what, he took ownership of that pharmacy in late 1886.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now the pharmacy is open and it seems to be running pretty smoothly with him at the helm, at the very least. Uh, he, he's like, everything seems to be going good, so like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what, I'm gonna look for some romance. I'd like to point out that he is still married to Clara. Still married. Yeah. Uh, but yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's that. So he's turning his attention to the ladies now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was in Minneapolis, he met a woman named Miss Myrda Belknap. Myrda? I think it's Myrda.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, they've sparked up a flirtation and she seemed pretty smitten with him at the time. And he made his life sound very exciting, which like at the time it kind of was. He was traveling all over the place. Um, and because at the end of 1886, Myrda's life was small. It was kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, she lived with her parents in Minneapolis and worked in a music store. It was like a cute little existence, but like to her that wasn't enough. She didn't feel like she was getting out there. I get that. So Holmes seemed very enticing to her and he was very charming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he also represented himself as a very intelligent man. He's a doctor. Like, that's like, whoa, hey. I mean, that's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so Holmes knew all of this and so he wrote to Murda and courted her very aggressively.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First through letters, and then he did it in person, like he was really playing the long game here. And after only a few months of talking back and forth, he took a bold move and he proposed to Murda.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did let her know that he was still married to a woman named Clara. That'll usually do it. Yeah, strangely, two weeks after he married Murda, Holmes filed a divorce petition in Cook County Supreme Court against Clara.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And had carnal knowledge with one JM Downer.


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[Assistant] What? So he's claiming they should divorce Clara and he? Yeah. After he's already married a second woman, by the way. He's now filing for divorce against Clara, saying Clara committed adultery. Like sir, you weren't


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Behavior. And you were saying she was, she adultered years ago?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this divorce decree, he also had put in there this, he had put in there, he further represents to your honor that he has ever since the time of said marriage, conducted himself as a true kind and affectionate husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do recall. Does any of that ring as true, kind, or affectionate? Nor. No. Nor. Oh well he also added into the decree that their six year old son Robert, quote, is now living and is under the care, custody, and control of your orator, Herman Webster Mudgett. That simply wasn't true and never was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That that child is now living and is under the care, custody and control of him. And that's not at all the truth. He had been with Clara the entire time. Also that's so easy to prove. At one point he tried to go get Robert and take custody and she was like, no bitch. I remember. And it didn't happen. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he's now having it put in the decree that Robert is in his custody. I don't know if he thought he would get more money or something like that or something would come out of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they looked, and no one could ever find a JM Downer either that Clara supposedly had carnal knowledge with. What does that even mean? By the way, they fucked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He likely didn't exist. Like he, he likely did not exist. No. Holmes was a lying sack of shit, but it doesn't really matter anyways because he also failed to show up on any, follow up on any of the administrative requirements. And the petition, yeah, and the petition like, I hear that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the petition just lapsed. It was eventually dismissed by the court for quote, default of appearance of complainant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's unclear whether Clara ever even received notice of his intention to divorce her. I don't even think she knew he ever wanted to divorce her, so he didn't get divorced. You know what this is giving?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except he, except he actually, like, should have just divorced Clara. Like, why are you not getting divorced? Why are you married to, like, several women at a time? That, well, he's the sand of all in it all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like, obviously, that's exactly what you think of with H.H. Holmes. But like his marriage to Clara, Holmes' relationship with Murda started off like that of like any couple in love. She helped him run the pharmacy and she became


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, we see the hallmark of his behavior is always based on money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to a fault. But in the spring of that year, Murda actually became pregnant. And the bulk of the work she did was shifting


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, I want to be excited for her, but I feel like it's going to end badly. No, you definitely don't want to be excited for this whole thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was separated from homes a lot. Like she was kinda, she had to be in the back now. Right. Like she could do office work, so she was just kinda relegated away from the public too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very quickly. Like, marry, baby, business. And I feel like parents, they know. It's like, he went after young women. Yea. At the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he didn't exactly endear himself to them. Uh, despite his wife and child living in the house, he was barely there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like he never came to visit. So they were like, do you want to see your infant child? No? No. Okay. Well, literally never came to see them. That's good. Um, immediately they began to question the kind of man that their daughter had married and had a child with. And soon though, he was able to charm his way into their good graces. I'm not sure how, but it took a lot of shushing on his part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was mainly when they saw the ways that he like, he wasn't around all the time, but he showered Murda and the baby with gifts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And adoration every time he would be there. Okay. So he would love bomb a lot of the time. He was there, when he was there, he was there. He was just never there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I know it's just like running a business, you know, I'm just such a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, who I will, uhm, source his work in our show notes. Holmes' manner of dress and how he would frequently give a lot of gifts and like, he was always about the material things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He is now thinking about that infamous murder castle that everybody knows about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because now he's in Chicago, he's settled there, he's in an apartment near, like above the pharmacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he wants more. And he's got grand, grand plans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And during the later decades of the 19th century, Chicago was going, like, there was a huge population boom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of people were moving west for work and opportunity and like a bigger, brighter life. Kinda like how everybody's like, oh my god, let's go to California and become stars. Like it's the same kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] California, New York, Chicago, same vibes. Yeah, exactly. As a result, new buildings were popping up all over the city because, like, people were coming in, the economy was starting to boom, people were trying to make way for a ton of residents to be living there, big apartment buildings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since arriving in Chicago and starting work, Holmes had been eyeing this empty lot that happened to be across the street from the pharmacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally, in the summer of 1888, he managed to buy it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the time, he registered the deed under the false name H.S. Campbell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the beginning of him using many many aliases to get many many things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why a lot of people think there was some like, layover between the two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we talked about it in the episodes. Yea. It's a- I don't have a great memory. It's a theory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, I was like, we mentioned it, but we didn't go super into it because I don't, I, one, I haven't looked too...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't looked hard enough into that theory to be convinced by it yet, and I don't want to give a full opinion on something that I haven't given the full court press to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, H.H. Holmes liked killing, and he liked killing women. Yeaah. He did enjoy that. And it did, it wasn't, to me, H.H. Holmes isn't just a, I kill for financial gain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes it's I killed because I wanted to kill. Right. Or I killed because this bitch was in my way. Essentially. Yikes. Like not, that's essentially what you would say, you know. No, no, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, that's how he kind of presented himself, is like, she was a problem. So, out she had to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the way he would talk about it was very cold, like that, like, well, she became an issue, so, down the chute she went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was very, like, intricate about the ways he would do it. To me, it doesn't really line up so far with what I've seen between the two cases because of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mainly because of the two, I think environments with which they were killing in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are so vastly different that their methods of murder


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't add up together? But I don't know if that has to do with the environments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In uhm, when we talk, actually when we talked about, uh, it with Tobias, he made a valid point of like, which we always thought, but like, I'm like, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Whitechapel, if it was like somebody like H.H. Holmes who dressed like a man of importance all the time and was very like showy, he would stick out like a sore thumb.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, so I don't know, but then the reports of Jack the Ripper that he did look a little fancy, so it's like, but you don't know, you know, like we've come through a lot of different theories with that and it's like, it could be mistaken, it could be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I definitely want to look further into it and look at some dates and look at...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That maybe Jack had left at certain times and it would be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he did like, I think this is when he was coming to an end, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it's really not a divergence though, because it's all the same. Cool. Uh, but, so, we were saying that by the summer of 1888, he had registered this lot across the street from the pharmacy under the false name HS Campbell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is when Holmes committed the first murder that he would wholly admit to. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He claimed he killed a friend and former schoolmate named Dr. Leacock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, he did this because, uh, this man had a large life insurance policy, and he said he lured his friend to Chicago under some kind of bullshit pretense, gave him, quote, an overwhelming dose of laudanum, and killed him that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did this because it would look like Leacock had died accidentally in his home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Waiver about because he loved to talk about murder and mayhem when he was caught and he really wanted to make everybody like, you gotta know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He doesn't need to make us believe he is a fucking monster. That's the thing. Like, he has no need to exaggerate, and yet he does. All the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But either way, there is mention a lot in his youth, like in his early days, in any research you see of a classmate at college named Robert Leacock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, he was actually the one that Holmes claimed helped him originally come up with the idea of faking a death and using a medical dead body to claim insurance fraudulently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it would be a little poetic of Holmes to then use that plan on his friend who he came up with it with, but take it to another level and just murder him for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it would be something he would do. That's a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the man eating tiger of the tropical jungle, I roamed about the world seeking whom I could destroy. Dramatic. That's him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, now for the, so this all began, this is what began the Murder Castle idea, was what he said. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said after this whole scheme, after he went through with it, he got the money, he was ready to go, he said I had this grand idea for a murder castle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In his words, he said it would be, quote, to generate income and allow him to employ as many women as possible. That he could then murder. That he could then murder. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second and third floors were going to be apartments for rent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, this part was important to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like that, it was important to him to have a very front-facing business model, a very front-facing looking building that no one could question. But what was more important to him was these macabre little details that were going to be hidden inside the bones of the building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were much more important and much more exciting to him in particular. To us, they're fucking horrifying. To give you an idea, some of the features he wanted was a giant chute that would extend from one of the apartments on the second floor all the way down to a secret chamber in the basement that would seal off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then he also wanted a large room in his own personal apartment that you would have to walk into and then there was a walk-in vault in that that was airtight with iron walls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, why would you want that? Also, how do you talk to the contractors about all of this? We'll get to that, don't worry about it. He also wanted gas jets throughout the entire building that would be controlled only in his personal office so he could turn on gas and just gas you anywhere he wanted to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one's gonna notice that in the blueprint. Nope, he also, don't worry, we're gonna get to that. He also wanted a large basement with secret storage chambers inside that would seal off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bend on any of this, this was his vision. But he also wanted this psychological aspect to it, like, he knew this was all there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no one else was gonna know this was there. He knew the gas jets would be there, but the guests wouldn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he loved the idea of this, like, whole, like, I know, but they don't kind of thing. And it all just fed into his desire to, like, just fuck with people and also kill people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, he knew, like we do, that even though he wasn't willing to bend on any of this, he was making this happen, he knew that uhm, these curious design aspects,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could have done something great if you had just put your mind to it, like you weren't a brilliant guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you had a working, you had hard work ethic when you put your fucking mind to it. But not for a good cause. But you put it to terrible causes. Exactly. And it's like, like this, like you're learning a skill set yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What? This is real. And what's, so, there was a population boom in Chicago, like I said at the time, people were moving over there. And it meant that there was gonna be no shortage of labor. Like people were gonna be wanting to work on these kind of things. But there was, again, still that problem that these workers were gonna ask too many questions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So even though he had put together the blueprints and he was gonna have somebody help him,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He devised a strategy that would allow him to get the building constructed without any suspicions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The plan was he was going to constantly change the architects, buildings, laborers. None of them were going to be able to get a clear or complete picture of what was being built.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also due to the lax inspection processes in Chicago at the time and the limited protections for laborers, he was going to be able to get away with not really paying. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it is a really like cunningly smart thing to do to one, start the blueprint process yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To make sure you get all those weird things in there, then hire architects, have them work a little more on it, then fire them before they're done, hire another one to build off that other thing, fire that one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bring in labors to start building this little extension, fire them when they're done with it, hire another one to do that one, like, that way you're getting it piece-mailed together and nobody can fully get a full picture of what's happening here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe they know a chute is in there, but they're like, what's that chute for? And you're like, I dunno, garbage, bye. Like, it's just, no one can really get into the like, nitty gritty of what's happening yet. It's like you're giving everybody a little piece of the puzzle, but like- But nothing that they can jump off of. Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So construction of the quote unquote murder castle, which he was calling the Holmes Castle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, began in the summer of 1889.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, partially working from Holmes' own design blueprints and also working from plans partially developed by local architects, uhm, two of which were Charles Berger and Edward Gullner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The labor and materials were going to be from etna, iron, and steel.


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[Assistant] Before the foundation had even been completed, he was already making plans to get this thing going.


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[Assistant] Early in the construction, he actually approached a bricklayer named George Bowman, and he approached him with a very strange proposition.


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[Assistant] And pointing down into the basement said, you see that man down there? Well, that's my brother-in-law. And he's got no love for me, neither have I for him.


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[Assistant] Now it would be the easiest matter for you to drop a stone on that fellow's head while you're working, and I'll give you $50 if you do it.


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[Assistant] But either way, Bowman quit and never returned to the job, smart man. He was like, bye, no thank you.


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[Assistant] In April of 1889, Holmes met, excuse me, it was in, it's later than April in 1889, I had the wrong month. Holmes met a carpenter by the name of Benjamin Pitezel. I think it's Pitezel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you're right. At first, Pitesel's job was to take care of the horses that were going to be used on the construction site, because again, we're in the 1800s.


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[Assistant] Pitezel was a little like Holmes. He had a history of petty crimes, misdemeanors, kind of a ne'er-do-well.


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[Assistant] And eventually it all caught up to him and he was arrested for passing bad checks in Indiana while he was out, while he was still working for Holmes. So Holmes actually bailed Pitezel out of jail. Yea, that's his right hand. He paid the amount in bad checks, by the way. He bailed him out with bad checks.


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[Assistant] Getting in jail for bad checks, out of jail with bad checks. The irony. Calls is nothing but a poet.


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[Assistant] Uh, Pytsel failed to return to Nienna for the trial, so.


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[Assistant] Now they were just like, now nothing could happen. They're like, we're out. They're like Jay Z and Beyonce on the run together. They're thick as thieves together. Because now they're the boss and the assistant. It's like the assistant to the regional manager from the office. There you go. Now after a year or two, the unpaid bills and the schemes and the lying and the fraud, it started to catch up with home.


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[Assistant] That'll happen. Unfortunately for the most part though, individual laborers, many of them were immigrants, they had no way of getting the money owed to them. That's so fucked. Yeah. And that sucks. He just got away with that. But remember,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's using Etna Iron and Steel for the supplies. Can't fuck them over. That's a major company who doesn't give a shit about your feelings. So they sued his ass and when he didn't pay his debts, they were like, we're fucking taking all this back dude. But when they sued him in the fall of, uh, in the fall of 1889,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He tried to use like usual bullshit tactics and excuses that he did to get out of paying them. One thing he did...


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[Assistant] Was he changed the deed on the property to make it look like it was owned by his mother-in-law?


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[Assistant] How do you just do that? He just did that. Like, what? For the most part? Like so literally?


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[Assistant] He had first registered that deed under a false alias. Right, but that didn't work. And then when he started getting in trouble, he just shifted it all into his mother-in-law's name and was like, these are her deaths.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's the thing. Back then you could do that easily. You can shift out like who's gonna catch ya.


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[Assistant] You know, you just like write her name in there, and you're like, there it is. You just like spit on it.


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[Assistant] Exactly. So for the most part, all his like legal shit was handled by his lawyer, Edward Marr.


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[Assistant] Who actually did manage to successfully like push off creditors for a while, but


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[Assistant] He was, and he was honestly his lawyer till he was like executed essentially. And he did manage to help him out in this scenario. I think they just like kinda backed off a little bit because it was under her name. That was gonna be an issue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wouldn't think this murder castle would be a, like, you would think that this would be a very long...


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[Assistant] Process of building this thing, it's huge, it's complicated, it's an annoying long project, there's all the constant turnover of workers and...


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[Assistant] Architects, there's legal troubles now associated with it, but the actual construction of the building happened really quickly. Really?


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[Assistant] Uhm, Holmes had already moved Murda, Lucy, and her mother, the one he had thrown the deeds into.


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[Assistant] Into the large corner apartment on the second floor. I think that's how he was able to get away with doing these kind of things was he would then, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I'm handling it. Here's your beautiful penthouse. Yeah, like here you go. It's like a Jada Essence hall. Look over there! Exactly.


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[Assistant] So yea, they all got to live on there, and a short time later, he sold the drug store across the street, the original one that he got from Mrs. Holton.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and the new owner who bought it, he was like, ugh, like you're gonna love it here.


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[Assistant] I'm telling you, this place is gonna be booming. It's great. Like, don't worry about it. And he was like, oh, great business. See you later. Bye.


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[Assistant] He does things just to be a dick. Because he's such a fuckboy.


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[Assistant] Now among the first few, because again, you don't know which one is his first murder victim. That's so crazy. But among the first, among them,


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[Assistant] Uhm, in Chicago was John Dubrai, and it was actually one of his investors in the Murder Castle. Uh, it was a man that Holmes owed money to.


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[Assistant] Dubrai had actually arrived in Chicago to see the ab- the complete, completed construction of the castle. And to get his money that he owed.


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[Assistant] Uh, this was on April 18th, 1891. Cause like I said in 91, it was like Donski. Sure. And he hadn't even entered the building.


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[Assistant] Oh! According to Benjamin Nixon, who was like, uh, I think he was in the jewelry store on the first floor, he might have even, um, owned it I think.


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[Assistant] He saw Holmes rush outside to DeBri's side.


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[Assistant] In quote, poured a dark liquid down Debray's throat and he died immediately.


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[Assistant] Now, during the construction of the castle and into its first year,


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[Assistant] He was engaged in a lot of schemes, like little schemes, you know, like the snake oil salesman kind of schemes. Like he would sell mineral water to people and say it would like cure all the shit, but it was just vanilla infused tap water. Sounds kinda good.


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[Assistant] Um, he would con widows out of their pensions, you know, he was very into that. He's such a, like low down fucking ass.


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[Assistant] Oh god. And she was the laundress, uhm, for like the actual castle. Uhm, the title. I know.


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[Assistant] He would pay the one, he said, I'll pay you $6,000. That's a lot.


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[Assistant] And he said, well then after you die, I would make $4,000 profit on the investment. And in the meantime, you can spend the $6,000 however you want. You just get $6,000 free and clear. And this woman was really young.


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[Assistant] And her job as a laundress really didn't make her any money.


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[Assistant] And if that was Thomas Shelby, sign me up. Like I will buy that life insurance policy. Does he say that to people? Like no, but I just thought that's something that Thomas Shelby would absolutely do. Like he has that vibe. Okay. Like I'm not afraid, but this is Herman Webster Mudgett. Who smells like scrotum. Exactly. So she immediately said something about him.


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[Assistant] That was off, it scared me, and she was like, I immediately declined the offer.


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[Assistant] So in 1890, like the year before, after a long bidding and like crazy process, it was announced that the next World's Columbian Exposition would be held in Chicago, and it was going to be held between May and October of 1893.


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[Assistant] So this timing was supposed to coincide with the celebration of Christopher Columbus' arrival in North America. Holy shit. Uh, the world's exposition was a huge fair with all the fair accoutrements.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and it was held in and around Jackson Park. It was going to be celebrating the scientific and technological advancements of the modern world. It was so funny to think about.


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[Assistant] It was going to very much draw in hundreds of thousands of visitors to Chicago. It was going to be a huge, huge boom for the local economy. It was a huge win for them to get it here.


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[Assistant] And Holmes, he was probably pretty psyched about tourist dollars coming in, like regular ones, like, you know, there was gonna be a lot of boom in the economy, that's good for everybody, but...


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[Assistant] He was not one to waste opportunities that were just going to stroll into his life, especially if it involved bringing unsuspecting women into his orbit. Exactly. So he was like, well this is even better. Like this works for me.


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[Assistant] So that's when Ned and Julia Connor arrived in Chicago.


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[Assistant] They were in need of work, a place to stay, and somebody they knew was like, you should check with this guy, H.H. Holmes. He's got a new building, I'm sure there's employment opportunities in it, there's also places to live, like he's a perfect guy to go to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And apparently they were right because he had a jewelry store on the first floor and he happened to need somebody to work there. It was crazy. Oh wow. So Ned was hired like on the spot to work in that jewelry store and they ended up moving into an apartment in the Holmes Castle.


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[Assistant] Better still, Holmes was like, Julia can work in the pharmacy with me.


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[Assistant] And I can train her to keep the books. Like you guys just got two jobs in one, that's wild.


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[Assistant] And then Julia's sister Gertrude moved into the city a few months later and he was like, I'll employ her as well.


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[Assistant] Things felt like, wow, we've been really struggling and this is finally falling all into place. But he said that, but there was always something about H.H. Holmes that he said made him uncomfortable. Was it the smell? He just didn't like it. It was probably the smegma. Uh, he seemed...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said on one occasion, Holmes was like, I got something to show you, Ned. And he was like, okay.


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[Assistant] And he showed him that large vault that he'd installed in his, uh, his apartment. And he showed him another one in the basement. And he showed him one in the basement and said, Ned, step inside. No.


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[Assistant] And Ned stepped inside and he closed the door. And before he closed the door, he said, I just want to show you how well this is soundproofed.


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[Assistant] And so he shut the door and he said, I shut the door and put my ear into the crack.


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[Assistant] He let him out of it. So terrifying. But this was definitely a just so you know, this is where I can put you. We're moving out in two and a half minutes. Goodbye. Bye. Now over time during this whole thing, because remember, Holmes is paying a lot of attention to Julia.


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[Assistant] Like, it's getting weird. So things between Ned and Julia are becoming strange. Right. Because she's kind of fallen for it.


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[Assistant] Julia baby. Again, H.H. Holmes is very charming. He's got it all. These women are being told the world. They are seeing the world. They are seeing him as this very important guy, this very wealthy and connected guy. And at the same time, they're making money. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Now they're arguing a lot, Ned and Julia, and you know, he was really having trouble with how much attention was being paid to her and how she was seeming to like it.


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[Assistant] In Gertrude, her sister left the city a while later, so like she wasn't around anymore, so now it's just Julia.


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[Assistant] And he was trying to fix it, but during this time, Holmes suddenly offered out of nowhere to sell Ned the pharmacy.


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[Assistant] What? On the first floor. And does Ned even have like pharmacy experience? Well and he was like, I want you to own the store. Like not be a pharmacist, but I want you to own the business.


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[Assistant] But unfortunately the business made things worse because Holmes had sold it to him knowing he hadn't paid a fucking dime to any of his creditors and now those debts, sorry Ned, those are your debts now.


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[Assistant] Now, the issues between Ned and Julia were made way worse by the fact that Julia had actually given birth to a daughter named Pearl.


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[Assistant] A pretty unpleasant custody agreement between the two of them, so it was getting, so discord is just getting worse and worse. Very contentious. But things were not improving between them.


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[Assistant] The pharmacy was being a huge money pit and a big struggle on both of their lives. So Ned told Holmes.


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[Assistant] I took a job with a jewelry company in downtown Chicago. I don't want the pharmacy. I want out.


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[Assistant] And a short time after he'd left the castle, Ned made one final attempt to try things, to make things work with Julia, but by then she was engaged in a full affair with Holmes.


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[Assistant] Julia refused to get back together and Ned packed up his things and moved to, uh, Gilman, Illinois and he filed for divorce and he signaled his intent to gain custody of Pearl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So by the fall, why you say that to me? So by the fall, Holmes had moved Merta and Lucy, yeah, his wife and child, you might remember. Yeah, they were, were they living, sorry, were they in his apartment or were they in the, oh they were in his, okay. They were in his apartment.


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[Assistant] Murda didn't know it, but he was having a full-blown affair with Julia Connor.


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[Assistant] So this affair was super intense, like very passionate, very intense. And Holmes kept telling her, I'm going to marry you. I'm going to marry you. And it's like, my guy, you're married to two other women. You're not even supposed to be married to the woman you're married to at this point.


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[Assistant] Like if he's telling you he's gonna marry you, do you really think that means that much to him? No.


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[Assistant] So he's constantly promising he's gonna marry her, but once Ned left Chicago, suddenly it all foo-foo-foo-foo.


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[Assistant] Yeah, all of a sudden he'd lost interest. The risk of getting caught was gone, there was really no- There was no forbidden fruit anymore. Right. And he's uninterested by it. That's so fucked. So by November of 1891, Julia told Holmes that she was pregnant. Again? Yeah.


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[Assistant] Remember, Pearl is Ned's child. Yes, yes, no, I know. But she's pregnant again. Oh no. Uh, so, said, now you have to marry me.


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[Assistant] He doesn't think so. Uh, Holmes was like, okay. And then he was like, yeah, I guess I do have to marry you. So he was like, yep.


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[Assistant] I'll marry you, but on one condition. And she was like, what is that? And he said, you're gonna get an abortion.


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[Assistant] And several weeks later, she was on an operating table that he had put together.


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[Assistant] He poured chloroform onto a rag and held it to her mouth and nose to sedate her.


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[Assistant] Uh, but he should have only had to do that for like a second.


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[Assistant] Instead, he just held it on there, held it into place, and continuously dripped more and more chloroform onto the rag while it was on her face. She struggled to get off and tried to fight him off, but after several minutes of this horrific torture,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He felt for a pulse, and she was gone. As well as the unborn child. Wow. Wild that he could do that to a woman carrying his child too. Yea, it gets worse. Oh. He then walked into Pearl's bedroom. Oh no, I forgot about Pearl. And did the exact same thing to Pearl. Oh! A child.


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[Assistant] Who is likely about five or six. Oh my god.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. Now once everybody was dead, Holmes contacted a man named Charles Chappell, who Holmes, uh, knew was a trained articulator.


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[Assistant] What is that? A person trained in stripping the flesh from human bodies in preparation for medical instruction. Wish I never asked. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And he was like sure. So chapel returned the body afterwards and he home sold her skeleton.


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[Assistant] Uh, but when investigators excavated the basement of the castle, they did find the bones of a child between what they think is the ages of 4 to 10 years old. So it could have been her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the days after this, Julia's neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. John Crow, who worked, who lived in the, in the, uh, castle,


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[Assistant] Asked about her and Pearl. Where did she go? Where did they suddenly disappear? And no one else in the building had seen them for days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally they caught up with Holmes and they were like, what happened? And he was like, oh, Julia and Pearl left early for a planned trip to Davenport, Iowa. Uhm, obviously. Like, didn't she tell you? And they were like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in January 1892, a new family moved into the Connors' old apartment, the Julia and Ned Connors' apartment in Pearl. Uhm, and when they arrived to move in,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The person who had lived here before, her sister had become ill a few weeks earlier.


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[Assistant] And she and Pearl had had to leave right away to tend to her.


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[Assistant] And according to Holmes, there was no need to pack up their belongings as Julia and Pearl were well provided for and would not be coming back.


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[Assistant] Like I have to just like take all this shit out of here now and move mine in. Yup. Now he gave a different version of this story to others when they asked. Cause he's giving three different things about what happened to Julia and Pearl. It's also like maybe you should stick with the same story, brother. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when others asked, he claimed that Julia had briefly come back in early January to settle up rent she'd owed him, and at that time, quote, announced not only to me, but to her neighbors and friends that she was going away. Yeah, she didn't say that to anybody though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But apparently he knew ahead of time that Julia had mentioned to others that she had plans to visit her sister in Iowa at some point. So the story would seem legit. He had planned this all out. He also vehemently denied any claims or rumors that he had any kind of inappropriate sexual relationship with Julia. They were just friends. What are you talking about? Yeah, for sure. Even though, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was very clear, like very, very clear, like Ned knew, everybody knew.


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[Assistant] But he later said, quote, that she is a woman of quick temper and perhaps not always a good disposition may be true.


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[Assistant] In the spring of 1892, Benjamin Pitesell, his assistant there,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He traveled to Dwight, Illinois, which is a small village about 25 miles from Chicago.


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[Assistant] I found this interesting because immediately for some reason I thought of him, like I made the little quip about him being like assistant to the regional manager. Yea, and then it's Dwight. And then he traveled to Dwight, Illinois. That is funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but he went there because he was, um, getting treatment for alcoholism. Ben was? Uh, Benjamin, yea. He was doing that at the Keeley Institute. And while he was there, receiving treatment,


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[Assistant] He met a young woman named Emeline Segrand.


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[Assistant] And at that time, she was working as a stenographer for the institute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the like, typer. Right. Okay. Uhm, takes uh, transcripts. Yep yep yep. And Pitezel was just taken by her beauty. Like he saw her just like, oh my god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when he returned home from Chicago after the treatment, he told Holmes all about this magnificent, beautiful young woman.


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[Assistant] Well, shut your mouth. Oh, he did this on purpose. He knew that Holmes would be seriously interested in this. He was doing his job. As his assistant, I found you a pretty young thing. But he's old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no, he said she's just beautiful. She's just beautiful, you should kill her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god. So he knew that he would be very interested in this, and he was right. He loved the idea of a beautiful woman almost as much as he loved the idea of killing a beautiful woman. So Holmes wrote to Emmeline,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And based only on Pitesel's description, he wrote to her.


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[Assistant] Which is one of his sham businesses that was operating on the first floor. He had a shit ton of those. He had like a closing company. Yea, right? And he had like a glass bending business down there that was a sham too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the landlady of the boarding house she was staying at called, uhm, Sagrand a very pretty girl and was a favorite among the boarders, though she seldom went out with any of the young men. So she's known very much so as a beautiful woman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wouldn't even look you in the face. Yeah. Like this guy, there is a little, there's something there. There is. Like that's different than the strabidmus kinda situation where you can't like focus on your eyes. Exactly. He wasn't even looking you in the face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it wasn't long until he shamed his way into a romantic relationship with poor Emeline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now other employees noticed, like at the castle and the different businesses, they noticed and everyone around them knew something was going on. One of Holmes's castle tenants, Dr. Maurice Lawrence, told the InterOcean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At this point, he would have had three children. Okay, okay. Uhm, or no, he would have had two children. Because Pearl was not his. But she was pregnant, Julia. Yeah. But he had just says Robert. And Lucy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and Murda's just across town. Yeah, like a few miles away. And he's carrying on this, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, in the winter of 1892, Emeline told several people she would be returning to Lafayette, Indiana to visit her parents for a few weeks before Christmas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to her cousin, Dr. BJ Sagrand,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who'd visited with her very shortly before she was scheduled to leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said Ms. Sagram was changing her feelings towards homes. Sounds like something happened that turned her off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't know what. Maybe he leaned in and said don't be afraid of me. Don't be afraid of me. Because then several days passed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the wife of Dr. Maurice Lawrence, the tenant in the castle, who had that other quote, asked, like, about her, two homes, he simply said, quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, what? This obviously was a little weird, because uh, she'd never dated anyone but him. It was pretty clear that they were in a relationship, and Emeline never mentioned leaving early, and no one ever heard of Emeline being engaged to someone else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, she said that she was very put off about how he spoke about it. He was very anxious appearing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She notices that she sees Holmes and two of his assistants carrying a heavy trunk out of the castle and loading it onto a wagon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day after that, Holmes left Chicago for the house in Wilmette where Murda and Lucy lived, Murda's parents. Because remember,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's married with a child two times over. I just want to keep reminding you of that. He went to his wife's house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Emeline's trunk arrived at her parents' house in Indiana. It had all her clothes, all her belongings that she had taken with her when she left for that job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to, uhm, Eric Larson's book, her parents hoped that she'd sent the trunk, trunk because she must now be marrying a wealthy man and she doesn't need all this old stuff. So she's sending it back to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. So you think uhm, the big trunk was all her things that they moved out? Oh no, I think she was in that big trunk. And they disposed of her along the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think she, so whatever the case, the trunk arrived, that was the last time that her family got anything from her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to Holmes' confession later, Emeline, quote, had become almost indispensable in my office work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jesus Christ. What is worse about this is it's very likely true. Yeah, I believe it, because he tested it out with, uh, Ned. The name Phelps, which is supposedly her fiancee's name, was a known alias of Benjamin Bitesell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which he was using around the time he would have met Emeline at the Keeley Institute. Oh shit, so it would have. So Phelps never existed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now too, on January 2nd, after she disappeared in uh, 93, Holmes asked Charles Chapelle for help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now do you remember Charles Chappelle is the articulator? Uh huh. And he said Holmes sent him a trunk containing a young woman's body to be stripped of flesh and articulated. Now a few weeks later, the LaSalle Medical College of Chicago received a delivery of a nicely articulated skeleton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inside that large vault that he said he put her in, they found a woman's footprint in the enamel on the wall, and it was made with so much force that it was unable to be wiped off. Oh my god. She was trying to escape and like kick her way out of there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it 100% was true. And he was selling their articulated skeletons to medical colleges.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is where we are gonna end for part two. I didn't see that coming, you arsehole. Because we're gonna get some more. Trust that we have a lot more coming, and it's a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're gonna, and I wanna look into the, the Jack the Ripper thing a little more for part three. I wanna like to see if I can get into that a little more. Yeah. So, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's already this bad. So. Awesome. Yep. So that is part two of HH Homes. We have the Murder Castle being built. We have it being in full operation so far. We haven't seen the, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The little macabre elements, all the macabre elements being used, we've seen that vault being used quite a bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's, yeaah, there's a lot that's about to happen and I'd like you guys to hang tight. And I'm scared about the bricks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, exactly that. Uh, so we've been, you know, we've been, like we changed the way we did things. We added another episode every week with a listener tale on Fridays. You know, the process has been different for a few months and we've been seeing how it's going. Yeah. And it just feels good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It feels, it hasn't, we haven't been able to settle into this enough. No. And we've been kind of taking your feedback and like mulling over it and we've been comparing that with how we're feeling and we're all lining up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like after, you know, I don't know, it must have been like a year or two in that we started doing two episodes a week and that mini morbid became a full episode. And then we were at two episodes a week and we did one episode every month that was a listener tale.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you guys dug that. Right. Like it felt like that was, and we dug that. I was just gonna say and we dug that. Like it felt like doable, we felt like we were always able to put enough time and effort into the main episodes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think we're not feeling that way right now. No. And we have Dave who's a really big help. He's our like research assistant now and he's fucking phenomenal. But like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That says so much about our listener base. It does because like that, and that's when it started to hit us. We were like, alright, people are seeing that we're getting tired. So we, we got together, we decided, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Huge episodes every week because I feel like these episodes are getting meatier and meatier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeah, you know, either way we want to keep these main episodes like really be able to focus all our attention and like, you know, we don't want to burn ourselves out. We don't want to burn Dave out. We don't want to burn you out. We don't want to burn you out. So we're going to take it back. We're going to do,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We still do the two main episodes everywhere, like that's not gonna change, so don't worry. That'll never change. Just keeping it the same it's always been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two main episodes sticking around. Don't worry about that. And we'll let you know because it's going to be instead of the Friday episode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, we're gonna figure out where these two main episodes are gonna release now, because we want to make sure we're not putting them in a place where there's too much time between them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think this will be good for everybody. And again, this is like, we're taking your feedback. Like this is, this is your show as much as it is ours and we just want to make it what you want it to be. Exactly. Sorry, somebody sent mail and made a noise.