528 - In a Business Way

Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's such a hard star.

That's Karen Kilgera.

This is a.

Podcast where we started out talking about true crime. Now it's a bit lucy goosey.

Would you say it's devolved? Yes, in some ways.

I think it's devolved terribly Yes, I mean terribly well de evolution.

You know, let's just go for.

It, let it go.

We are devote, No, we're not. We are not devote. It's my favorite murder.

We're a podcast, but we're also on TV.

That's right, And we know how fucking weird that is these days.

It's weird for all of us.

It's weird for me.

I finally watched a little bit of When I was Alone, which is always a bad thing, and I was like, let's just see how we look. And I turned it on and I immediately went to the internet and bought a posture like harness.

That looks like does it hook to the back wall? Yeah?

It just keeps you up.

It's like a dog, like a dog hardness.

Like a dog being washed.

Oh my god, yeah, I fucking can't even. And I also got a new hairdresser.

We're podcasters at heart.

Yeah, I wonder what it's going to be like in the next few years with podcasting and video, like you kind of have to do it now.

I know the kids.

Well, it's like or then the alt people will stay audio only. They will moralize about it, like it's better and you're a better person because of it, right whatever that always happened.

Now we don't have any opinion. We're just being told what to fucking do by big.

Podcast by big podcasting, and you know how much we love follow rules.

Well, and also it's we want to be up with the times. Yeah, doing what the kids do.

And it's fun. I think can tell you watch yourself.

It's fun and great. As long as you don't watch us. Just don't look for.

End it's not happening. Do you have anything anything good? Anything bad?

Are you reading that brook burnout that I gave you out of my pocket.

I'm too tired out handed to you and you're like, here, someone do something. I do have some good news and it's a true crime update. Start doing those again. Love that fun, but this one's huge. The Gilgo Beach serial killer has been terrorizing that part of the East Coast forever. I mean it feels like since the nineties. I can't believe Flate eight really caught him. Those are so satisfying.

They caught him. It's amazing they caught him and he pled guilty.

Incredible.

There's not going to be a trial. He has been formally charged with the murders of seven women, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelmy, Amberln Costello, Moreen Brainerd Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sondra Caristia. And he also admitted to killing an eighth victim, Karen Vergotta, but he wasn't formally charged with her murder as part of his plea.

Yeah, so thankfully those families aren't going to be put through that trial. Like what a fucking monster thing to go through after losing your family member in such a horrible way.

I mean, yeah, it's the best news in the worst situation possible. There's a quote from the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tyranny, though, and he said, quote, this case closes and another opens, there are still bodies on that beach. There are still bodies in Suffolk County. There's no rest for the weary.

Yeah.

And then there's also some Ted Bundy news what's the Ted Bundy news. Oh so, a victim of Ted Bundy's has been officially tied to him, one of those ones that's been suspected since the beginning. In nineteen seventy four, the body of seventeen year old Laura and Amy was found by hikers in Utah's American Fork Canyon.

She'd last been seen months.

Earlier, leaving a Halloween party in Utah County, where he was a fucking what was at college student at the time.

Oh yeah, that's right. He was going to become a lawyer, right, yeah.

And just before his execution, Ted Bundy admitted to murdering her, but there was no heart evince to support it and tell Very recently, forensic DNA testing of case evidence has now allowed investigators to build a genetic profile that they say links Bundy to Laura's murder. So on April first, Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith said they are officially closing Laura's case.

And I mean, I get give her her fucking respect, you know, and her.

Do It's been such a long time. I think that is incredible. I'm sure that the relatives and friends and family thought it was never going to happen, or that they wouldn't get answers, and like, yeah, that.

It wouldn't matter anymore, but it's like it does. We're still thinking about it all the time.

Good news and the bad news.

Totally good news in true crime world, Like that's you're not going to get a fucking Lisa Franks stationary no moment.

That's not what they do there. That's not what we do here.

True crime News.

And sometimes we eat weird flavored jelly beans.

Oh that's right, Yeah, that's something else to look forward to. Yeah, we find out about them.

Yeah, tell us about tell us in the comments, guys.

But you're saying KFC is making jelly bean.

My sister sent me a photo of a bag that the kids were so stoked on. It was like fried chicken flavor, mashed potato flavor, and like coal saft flavor.

I think we're corn nibletz right, No one orders that, dude.

I love it. Buttered corn.

No, No, it's like watery.

Yeah, it's so watery, just like my mother's cooking dried chicken. Weird watery corn and some minute rice.

Vince made funeral potatoes the other day.

Oh were they good?

They were so fucking good.

We were given a funeral potato kit when we went to Utah Salt Lake City that time years ago, because we didn't know what they were.

It was good, like used frozen cubed potatoes, like a can of cream of chicken soup and like just all the cheese you've ever seen, and it was all bubbly on top. I burnt my tongue and then cut up potatoes like child, yeah, because you ate them this cecert. It must have smelled amazing that all of my mother's cooking was based in Campbell soup. In some way, we got to bring it back right because it's so easy.

Can a cream of chicken, Can a cream of celery? You're off to the races.

That sock of onion powder or like ranch there and a half a cup of wine in your mouth and while you're cooking, drink that pour some in toast some all meals and then you don't care what it tastes like. There are people on Instagram, I'm sure on TikTok that are like, here's me making like a classic meal from the nineteen seventies, and they make like shit on a shingle, or they make like fucking cast role with like the actual vintage kitchen wear, which you know is my fucking weak spot. Yeah, all lead based and everything.

Yeah, you love lead, love lead. It's so delicious.

Lick it like I licked mercury as a child, and here I am today.

Look look at you. Didn't hurt you medically video podcast. We are a result of mercury poisoning. Two camera, two camera.

I'm fine. I don't have a uterus anymore.

It's fine. Who needs it?

All right?

Should we talk about this network because things are happening on this network?

Stop it.

It's crazy. We have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media.

It's been quite a week. We are still celebrating our newest addition to the arm family, our friend Jake Brennan and his true crime music podcast, Disgraceland, is here on ERM. We're so thrilled. His newest episode, which you can go check out now, is all about Grease Jones. If you don't know her, she's a legendary eighties icon. Her life collided with crime and scandal and she had to fight to protect her reputation. Of course, she was a powerful, incredible looking woman of color in the time where it was blonde women only, and it was incredible. I remember seeing her on TV and just being like, she has a crew cut and those cheekbones I've ever seen in my life. What's happening.

He's a legend. Yeah, I can't wait to listen.

And then over on Bananas, Kurt and Scottie are joined by Pooja Maifa. They cover octopuses getting extra cuddly on ecstasy. On ecstasy with an octopus, you will, you will wears off, paragliders narrowly avoiding a polar bear enclosure. And people who can mentally time travel. I fucking just write about that.

What is it?

They have such.

Good memory that they can go back to themselves there, Yeah, like literally be in that moment. And I think that they can also tell the future what's going to happen in the future too, Oh, because they understand correlations so much better than most people, because they actually remember, Yes, how I burn myself that one time.

Don't do that again.

Yeah, that's an incredible gift. Imagine that to not reburn yourself a thousand times, meaning psychologically it's called dating. Have fun, go back, try it again? Then over and I said, no gifts. Bridger tries to stay calm when the greatest of all time, our friend, Martha Kelly, you know from Baskets, you know her from Euphoria, she shows up with a gift. Anyway, of course they get into a gigantic fight and also stormchasing broken air conditioners and fighting for joint custody.

I love that there's a generation of young people who are scared of Martha Kelly because her role on Euphoria, Yes, is so terrifying and so perfect, and she almost plays the same character as in Baskets, but it's the most intimidating and Martha.

I don't know if everybody knows this is one of the greatest stand ups. Yeah, if you go watch her live, it will blow your mind. I do.

It's so funny that they're scared of her, like yes, like people on the internet are scared of her.

That's fucking badass.

It's so good. Over in merch Corner, we've got brand new whistles. Do you need a whistle for whatever reason you might need it? Because we've got politeness and we've got wheat Woo two whistles that you can buy.

Key chain whistles. They're so cute.

Proceeds from both of these whistles benefit the National Immigration Law Center.

So you can order yours at exactly right store dot com.

So this is more big news, which is very exciting, but this is almost like circumstantial. So we have a cult podcast here on ERAM called trust Me. Now, there's a new cult documentary on Netflix and it's called trust Me the False Prophet. It's not associated directly except that Lola Blanc, who is the host of our Trust Me, her mother, doctor Christine Marie, is featured in this documentary because that's why Lola hosts a cult podcast. She was raised in this cult and Christine Marie was the first guest of trust Me. So you can now go on Netflix and watch trust Me the False Prophet doc And when you're done with that, come on to r M.

Go on to trust Me, Go listen to episode one and you get every possible part of the story you would want.

Yeah, do it just in time for Mother's Day.

Just in time for Mother's Day.

Okay, I'm first, Okay, I have been waiting to tell you this story for a long time. I don't know why I haven't done it yet. It's just put my glasses on.

Oh, I like the build of that where you're like, and now I'm going to those are those new?

Yeah?

Cute?

They're okay, yeah, okay.

This is a story that is very familiar to those of us who lay awake at night scrolling Reddit and scrolling missing persons clickbait articles, and it takes place in Ohio, which is home to many, many cases we've covered.

Ohio gives and gives.

Yes, it does in a horrible way.

It does, and on any given day, around one thousand Ohians are missing. According to data from the Ohio Attorney General's Office, there are a thousand people a day missing in Ohio.

They're not new every time, Okay, just like it's the consistent count.

Is that high? Yeah, it's very high.

So today we're going to talk about one of those missing people, one of those thousand, and due to eerie surveillance footage that's kind of hard to fully reconcile. This story has become more of an urban legend, ending up on those late night June and scrolls about mysterious disappearances. But unfortunately it's not an urban legend. It's a true tragic story for one Ohio family in the mid two thousands.

This is the story of the disappearance of Brian Schaeffer. Do you know, yeah, what I'm you'll know when I explained.

Do you see that?

What did it look like?

I don't know.

I can see everything now, look like a cat hair.

Your vision is too good. You're like, can't read? Did you see that? It was an atom is Brian Schaeffer, the guy who left a party and they found like a canoe. No, no, okay, I'm like what because that was on True crime bullshit, because it was about potential Israel Keys victim.

Right, there was a similarity there, Like, I think you're close that Okay, No, no, it is so. The main sources I used for the story are an article in Columbus Monthly by April Johnston, one from mel Magazine by Kirk Peppy, and one from the Columbus Dispatch by Mike Wagner. And the rest of the sources are in the show notes.

Okay, so your eyes are a little bit bigger with those glasses on. Doesn't look insane, not like Jerry Seinfeld in that episode wearing the weird glasses. But it just when you went like that, you were just like Hugh, It's like it's weird.

I feel I'm self conscious.

That you don't have perfect vision. Yeah, come on, getting older. Yeah, we're falling apart on Netflix.

Truly, it's great, all right, this is serious.

It's the wee hours of Saturday, April first, two thousand and six, April Fool's Day. We're at the Ugly Tuna Saluna. Oh, that's what it's called.

Great.

It's a popular college bar at the edge of the Ohio State University campus. You know, those like blocks, like there's some in Austin that we've been to or Nashville. We just walk and there's just like bar after bar, kind of interchangeable just for college kids to get drunk cheap, you know, totally, although it isn't really a safe area either.

So three second year medical students have been bar hopping around town, blowing off steam because they've just finished their final exams. Med school, of course, is extremely high pressure and stressful. But for one of these students, twenty seven year old Brian Schaeffer, it's been a particularly awful few months.

So just three weeks earlier in March, he lost his mom, Renee to cancer. Then he had to just pivot and turn around and take his exams, his medical exams.

The same thing happened to my mom when she was taking her nursing test, her RN licensing test. Her dad died like the day, either the day of or the day before.

Oh my god.

Yeah, and you just shut it all down. How doally do what you gotta do?

Yeah?

Yeah, but it does seem like Brian's ready to take a break from this stress. And that's what this night is about. On the night of March thirty first, so before first, he goes out to dinner with his dad, Randy. Then he meets up with his friend Clint Florence. He'd also invited his brother Derek to come out too, but Derek and his wife were at a comedy show and it was that they went home afterwards. So let me tell you about Brian. Everyone's like he's an ordinary, normal college student. He's also like this beautiful, charming person. This is Brian and his dad. Oh yeah, that's Brian.

He's like good looking.

He looks like a cross to me between a young to Hawk and John Mulaney.

Do you see that?

Sure?

So, yeah, he's like a good looking he's fit, he's smart, he is nice and friendly and is you know, pretty normal person. So Brian and Clint start off at the Ugly Tuna Bar, and just before ten pm, Brian calls his girlfriend, fellow second year medical student, Alexis Waggoner. She's a few hours away in Toledo, staying at her parents' house, but she and Brian are planning to go on a trip to Miami together, I think for spring break. They're supposed to leave two days from then, and they're both looking forward to it. According to many people who tell this story who were there, Brian is planning to propose to Alexis on this trip, so he's just, you know, in the prime.

Of his life.

So shortly after this called, Brian and Clint start going bar hopping. They stop at seven other bars and they take a shot at each bar. And I guess I asked Vince, like, how many shots would make you chit faced? Yeah, because I think I heard somewhere that they had like eleven and up to eleven shots, I mean, and I'm like, well, you know, you're six he was like six foot two and big is he going to be drunk? And Vinces like fuck yeah, And you're drinking a beer at the same time, you're not just going in and having a shot.

You're like, right, that speculation obviously, but.

No, that makes sense. Also, the more like just thinking I'll talk about myself. The more shots I took and then beers, I backed with it. Yeah, the more I was like, well, it's fine, I'm fine, let's keep going. So you'd like, once you're over eight, it's mayhem. Yeah, you're making all bad decisions.

Yeah.

No, shots, that's my rule.

Shots just get you to a whole different place that you kind of can't plan for.

No.

No, So they presumably become very drunk, and then along their bark crawl route, Brian and Clint meet up with a friend of theirs, a woman named Meredith Reid, and towards the end of the night, Meredith drives everyone back to the Ugly Tuna. They end up back there at one fifteen in the morning. And so the Ugly Tuna is actually inside a bigger indoor complex of like where the Alamo Draft House is. Oh yeah, you know, you go up the escalator and there's like the bowling Alley there, the draft house there. So the indoor complex is called the Gateway, and it has a movie theater and some stores and offices and some university housing. So the entrance to the Ugly Tuna is inside and up an escalator on the building's second floor. So surveillance footage from that

night shows Brian, Clint, and Meredith riding up on the escalator and then entering the bar.

So that's the three of.

Them, Okay, so they know for a fact they were there.

They see all three of them there is going up into the bar. He's corroborated that he is there. Yeah, you can see the escalators and right outside the entrance of the bar, but you can't see the actual doorway of the bar, and there's no footage from inside the bar.

But it's clear that three.

Of them walk back in and then we never see Brian leave ever. So at about one fifty seven am, right before the bar is scheduled to close it too, Brian is just barely visible on the surveillance footage standing outside the Ugly Tuna talking to two women casualty. According to some accounts from that night, Brian was maybe flirty.

That's again speculation, and you can't really tell much from CCTV footage.

Like body, you have some beers, that's what everyone's doing. Sometimes good times like.

It might mean nothing. So people and they're so little to go on in the story that like people just cling to things and make up their own stories about.

It, and they're trying to figure something out, right.

So the women go back into the bar, they use the bathroom, they leave, and they don't see Brian again. Meanwhile, Clint and Meredith, who are back in the bar, can't find Brian as they're all planning on leaving when it's closing. It's unclear if Brian went back into the Ugly Tuna or he went elsewhere in the complex after talking to those women, but he definitely did not leave the complex via the escalator that is in view of the security cameras.

The cops like combed this video footage after the fact, and he is not in it. Wow, Clint doesn't know that, And after looking for Brian and calling his phone, he assumes Brian had just Irish goodbyde and gone back to his apartment which is very close by.

And so they leave.

And if it's a complex like that, there's plenty of other exits.

No, there's not. No, we'll get to that.

But also, like I feel like two thousand and six, it's not like we were texting each other constantly, like you would have been like, yo, I went home, you call if he didn't pick up.

Yeah, much more stuff was assumed, right Like it was just like you're not there anymore. We had a plan, but you must have.

Yeah, and he's a girl, it's not like he you know, is a woman. Then you're worried about them getting home safely in the same way you are about a dude just walking away and going home, right, like, not that big of a deal.

And it sounds like a very intelligent guy, yeah right, but.

Also really drunk. So that's a little worrisome. But what are you gonna do? All day Saturday?

And the next day Sunday, no one seems to be able to get in touch with Brian. Alexis's girlfriend tries several times, but no one's answering his phone. He's not returning her calls, which is unlike him. And so the next day is Monday and Brian and Alexis this is when they're scheduled to leave for their trip to Miami.

From what I've read, Alexis is just like he's something happened to his phone. I'm just you know, everything's going to be fine. I'm just going to meet him at the airport. I bet that's what's happening. So she goes to the airport and he doesn't show up and he misses his flight, and that's when Alexis and Brian's father contact the Columbus Police and a missing person's case is opened.

What a horrible just seeing there waiting.

To see us sitting there, like, because you get that thing, you know in the very much much much smaller version where you're kind of like, no, it's like it's all just going to come together and it's just going to work, and this will be this is the final chance for him to He'll just get out of a car and here we go on vacation.

He'll be an explanation and we get a move on, and you're just waiting with like kind of in the back of your head knowing that it's not.

Going to have it's not realistic.

Yeah.

So Brian's dad, Randy, goes over to Brian's apartment. Nothing seems out of place, his bed is made, his books, textbooks are all there. Police find the Brian's bank account and credit cards are untouched. You know, there's a course in the beginning, people are like, he must have just taken off on his own, and there's that trip to Miami, Like maybe he just like fucking left town was there already, right, So, very early into the investigation, police get that surveillance footage from outside the ugly Tuna Saluna. God, I don't want to say that anymore. Yeah, but it doesn't answer any questions.

He just appears that he just disappears into thin air. There are other ways out of the building. One of them they don't really make sense. One of them is like a back door and I think there is a video footage of that, but he's not in it. And then one is like the building was under construction, so there is a service door leading down to a construction site outside of the building.

That exit is covered with plywood.

You kind of have to climb down through a shaft, Like why would he go that way?

But if he's super drunk and he could have fallen or some you know, an accident, totally I don't know.

So he could have possibly fallen gotten hurt. But the area is searched and Brian is not found, and other businesses in the Gateway building have cameras and the buildings around the gateway also have cameras, but as far as we know, Brian never shows up on any of the security footage. He just goes up into the fucking bar and disappears. And I've always imagined him, like you said, still in there, having fallen somewhere. Like you see that recently, like a woman got stuck in her cral space and like died and she had been missing for years and years.

Yeah, that's happened. I think we did a story about that one time too, where it's like a fireplace, the fireplace one. I think there was a rock club one too, yeah, which is so rare. It's like just the oddest thing.

And they would have smelled something and they did a I mean, they did multiple thorough searches. It seems of this entire complex, but who the fuck knows?

Can I tell you? One theory just popped into my head because if these other stores had cameras, and if somebody that was in one of those stores was involved, than they could have gone and like erase the camera sure, or they're like, oh sorry, our camera's erase every day or something and covered their own tracks. Just that it's not freestanding It's like there's other places and other people that are kind of safe there. Yeah, and like this is what we're doing right, theorizing.

And there's a total possibility that he is on those surveillance cameras, and we just it doesn't it hasn't. I can't imagine it hasn't been connected. But yeah, who the fuck knows. Weirder things have happened. Sergeant John Hurst of the Columbus Police, he's the lead detective on this case. He believes that this is the likeliest route that Brian took out of the building, that he left through the shaft, wound up in the construction site, and then left the construction site or was taken from it.

One more interesting detail.

That Herst says is that dogs tracked Brian sent from the construction site to a nearby Wendy's like across the street, then possibly to an abandoned building, and then they lost the scent completely. We've also heard the stories of drunk people ending up in dumpsters and those getting emptied. I mean, that's such an awful fucking thought. But he got maybe got beat up and put I mean, this is clearly just more speculation that Yeah, it's all so, this area of downtown Columbus where the Gateway building is is known for having a pretty high crime rate, and so part of the reason the Gateway was built was for the university to establish kind of a safer area for students to hang out. But again, this also means that there

are cameras pretty much everywhere, and no trace of Brian is seen on any of them. A massive search effort expands outward from the Gateway center, with Brian's friends, family, and Alexis's girlfriend all working tirelessly to search the nearby Owl and Tangy River, and also they check every dumpster.

But it had already been a few days before he was reported missing, and no sign of him has ever found. Alexis calls Brian's cell phone every day. It always goes straight to voicemail, except one time, several weeks after brian It's disappearance, it rings once.

Can you imagine that idea that this is the last connection and you're just going to keep trying because nothing else is working, and the people are supposed to be helping you or solve it. Yeah, can't do it, no answers, And so then you have this one way and that's just like the only thing you can hold on to, and then it rings.

And you're so desperate, you're almost you also were like I if he left me and doesn't want to be any with me any more, good, I just need to know what happened right now, right, So like, yeah, it fucking rings once and brian cell carrier believes it was just a glitch and not alexis making an actual connection with Brian's phone. It's two thousand and six, so it's so hard to tell. And that said, in the thirty days after Brian's disappearance, his phone pings several towers around the Columbus area. It's that telephone ping thing that we got in Cereal that like does it make sense or does it?

Is it just a fluke? Is it an accident?

I mean, as we do in these things where we take conjecture from the things we've learned from the media. So my thing is like law and order, where it's like, well, someone found the phone on the ground, right, and it's their phone now for a little while, and then they ditch it, right, and it's not connected and it's not that.

But but like if that person came forward and said where they found the phone, it would help so much more than them getting in trouble for stealing a lost phone.

Yeah what I mean?

Yeah, but they already stole something and I don't know why how important it would be they know.

Yeah.

I feel like someday, in the same way DNA were able to like read it better. I think the pinging phone thing is going to make more sense one day, yes, although I wonder if it's going to be able to be useful for old cases like this.

What I hope is we some did get rid of these fucking phones and let's just go back to a long form letter writing. I think it's best. That's great.

I love it.

And this is one of the biggest mysteries of the case, as is the elevator footage. All calls to Brian's phone goes straight to voicemail, suggesting that the phone had lost battery or was turned off. But if it was pinging towers, it would have to be turned on, and some people writitors, a lot of editors believe this must mean that someone had Brian's phone and it was periodically turned out. Like we said so in two thousand and seven, it wasn't possible to pinpoint the fund's exact location, though, I wonder if someday it will be or if it's just such like old technology at this point.

Well, would be great if it could happen, and it'd be great if we could focus on things like that.

Yeah, you know.

Yeah, And the case attracts tons of attention of course. Brian he's also a musician who is actually considered becoming a musician as his career before picking medicine instead. He's a massive Pearl Jam fan, and he has a Pearl Jam tattoo, the stick figure from the art.

That's how I know this name really well, because Pearl Jam started talking about it, right.

Yeah, Eddie Vedder learns about the case and talks about it at a show in Cincinnati. That's the tattoo, it's just the stick figure. So he dedicates a song to Brian, and this brings even more attention to the case. But unfortunately it doesn't seem to turn up any fresh leads. So you know, there's the theories. Some people believe that Brian died accidentally in the construction site and there was some conspiracy by the developer or the local government to cover up his death. But you know, not wanting to lose funding or stall the project somehow. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go through in a very quick time, and a lot of people to be complicit in doing that. I don't there'd be one guy'd

be like, I'm not no. Another theory that comes up again and again in this case, and really when any young man disappears on a night out in the Midwest, is that this could be the work of an unknown serial killer who some people call the Smiley Face killer, not except from the Happy Face Killer believers in the Smiley Faced killer theory. So we don't even know if there's an actual serial killer out there. Note that young men, often drunk, have disappeared from many college campuses, particularly in the Midwest. Often they're eventually found in bodies of water near campus, and ray painted smiley face has been found somewhere on the banks of the river. Yeah, so it all might just be a coincidence totally.

And yet then you kind of underlay that with the Israel Keys story, where we had a serial killer who was intentionally crossing state lines and driving all over so he could kill people randomly or make it look random. I mean that's the unfortunate thing. It's just like that because that I remember trying to do the smiley face killer on this show, and it's just it is like it's a ton of the same story and so frustrating because it's like and then he disappeared or then he was found dead in this water. But graffiti near a horrible accident is not uncommon. Totally trying to lace all that together. But at the same time, it's already happened that way. Israel Keys is the proof that this could be happening. Other people could be doing it. Yeah, right,

it's not impossible. No such smiley face has ever been found on the banks of the ol in Tan River. The FBI is always maintained that there is no such killer and that the presence of the smiley faced graffiti is just a coincidence. Sorry, they say the same thing about Lady Bird Lake.

I know we're not doing that. We're not gonna believe the FBI. Okay, ever, sounds good. Ever again, ever again. Another theory is that Brian did leave the bar under his own power, that he changed his clothes and put on a different hat so he wouldn't be recognized in the footage and the surveillance video, and then people point to Brian's grief over his mother's recent death that apparently Alexis asked him to quote go away, just go away with him, that maybe he had been planning to run away, but why would he, you know, it just doesn't seem likely that he would have put his family through that all this time.

No, and what did he just graduate from medical school or is about to he.

Just finished his exams for that year or for that all.

That were exactly and all years and then you're just like, whatever, Yeah, it seems at least it seems like that's bumped down to the rower percentage of possibility.

Yes, yeah, and then his credit cards and money is aren't touched ever, like you'd never hear.

From him again.

Sounds kind of impossible intentionally, and he was close to his family after all they'd gone through with the mom. It just seemed really out of character for him, people said. So, Brian's dad, Randy, and his brother Derek work tirelessly to try and find Brian or any clues that could lead to finding out what happened to him. At one point, Randy, the father, consults a psychic who says, Brian is in the olin Tangy River, says he was caught in a whirlpool by a specific peer, like gives him all this information.

This grieving father, Randy puts on waiters and goes out to this spot and almost gets sucked into a whirlpool under the surface himself.

So it's just fucking so sad. It gets worse.

In the year after Brian's disappearance, Randy never lets up in his constantly calling Brian's friends. He calls Alexis and the police to discuss any possible developments. Like he just dedicates himself to finding out what happened to his son. Then in September of two thousand and eight, there is a powerful wind storm in the town where Randy lives, and Randy's trying to clear some debris and a large branch falls off the tree.

And kills him.

This poor family, I know, like the poor the brother who suddenly lost his entire family in.

Like within two or three years. Oh my god, I know.

So in the years since, though, Derek has taken a step back from the case, understandably trying to protect his mental health. Yeah, you know, And Alexis spends a year, also trying to search for Brian, manning the tip line, participating in physical searches, and still calling his phone every day. And about a year later, in two thousand and seven, she tells herself she needs to stop for her own sanity, and I mean not stop, but just not become be so involved in your entire life.

Yeah, the just focusing only on this tragedy over and over every day, which I'm sure in the beginning was like a way to get up and out of bedding. Yeah, dedicate yourself to something. But yeah, it's.

Years of not finding any clue.

So crazy.

And then about six months after that, her mom introduces her to a contractor named Eric.

They fall in love.

He's very understanding, and they ultimately get married and have two sons and settle down in Toledo, where Alexis works as an obstetrician, now delivering babies. She doesn't believe in any one theory. She tells the Columbus Dispatch that she's kind of numb from that time in her life, and she says, quote, it almost feels like this all happened to someone else.

Because it's just so strange and take.

Up so much energy and effort of your life, and then you had to walk away from it and just pretend that everything right.

Moved on.

You had no choice but to move on.

Yeah.

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of Ryan's disappearance. The case remains open and the Columbus Police say they still receive tips and pursue all leads.

Wow.

In a prepared statement for the twentieth anniversary of Brian's disappearance, his brother Derek says, quote, every day we think about Brian and can't believe it's been twenty years. We still continue to hope and pray to have answers someday and wish that anyone who knows anything would come forward. And that is a story of the mysterious and tragic disappearance of Brian Schaeffer.

Wow.

Hey, if the Gilgo Beach serial killer can get found and arrested years and years later, totally this person can get found.

I feel like there's a simple explanation. I don't think it's some big conspiracy, you know what I mean. It's just simple and not nefarious. Maybe because the ex detective is going to write a book about it, and they haven't ruled out murder, but it's like, we can't rule it in either because there's nothing right there.

What an incredibly frustrating story.

You've just told me. Sorry, I know you.

But I really love that you did it. The fact that it's the twentieth anniversary. Yeah, and that it's that kind of thing where it's like missing persons where everyone just puts their hands up and it's like, why haven't we established governmentally like huge cold case teams or missing person's teams where it's like a dedicated group of people and that's their job and so that the family doesn't have to do it and it's not left to the people who are hurt the most by it. Wow.

Great one.

I also have a bit of a mystery story to tell you today, right, but it's a real left turn okay, very different Okay, and it's one of those ones I'm excited to tell you about. It begins on Tuesday, September twenty ninth, nineteen oh three.

Oh shit, you know what.

That is the turn of the century, my favorite time. And we're in a small town van Meter, Iowa.

Okay.

It's around one am and a man named Ulysses G. Griffith is heading home after a long day of work. Ulysses is in his mid thirties. He runs a farm equipment business such a different time, and the business requires him to travel all around the region. He often makes it home quite late, and we assume he's traveling in probably a horse drawn wagon since it's nineteen oh three, and of course he's exhausted. It's a lot of long, slow travel. So he rolls onto Van Meter's main street and then he sees something incredibly strange. There's a bright beam of light coming from the roof of a nearby building cutting into the nighttime sky. So this is nineteen oh three. We are in rural Iowa. It's a darkness that none of us really understand anymore. Before the Rural

Electrification Act, so some towns did have electricity, but it was usually when people had it in their homes. It was people with money, so it took a while for everybody to get it evenly. So this kind of like spotlights and things, it's no one's seen that before. Most towns like this in America don't have street lights.

Or if they do, they have gas lights, and they probably out by then like that time of night.

Right totally, we have a picture of Van meter, just to get the sense of oh.

You know, yeah, small turn of the century town.

Train stops through it. It's big enough to have its own train stop, huge, but not big enough to have its own newspaper. Got it right in there. And then just in the background, no lights, nothing, there's nothing, no, So Ulysses is baffled. Of course, he's just staring at this bizarre site, trying to figure out what he's looking at and where it's coming from. When suddenly the light jumps to another rooftop, and then it jumps again, and then it vanishes into the darkness.

This this is an alien story, we'll see. Okay.

This is such a small town and incredibly tight knit community. So of course, word of ulysses experience is that the plural of Ulysses, Ulysses Ulysses. Word of this strange experience spreads very quickly, but no one knows what to make of it. And luckily, Ulysses is described in Old County records as quote among the leading men in town, both socially and in a business way, and uniformly respected end quote.

So we don't think he's bullshit yeah, or an old drunk tractor salesman who's just like well bladelp there, It's like it's the moon Ulysses. People of Van Meter know him as an even keeled, honest man who is not one for practical jokes. Still, there is no explanation, and there's really no way to find one. So time passes in life just kind of continues on, and it seems like that strange sighting is just a one off oddity.

But if that were the case, I wouldn't be telling you about it right now. This is the story of the Van Meter Visitor. So the main sources used today are articles from the Des Moines Register Archives, a book by Chad Lewis, Noah Vass and Kevin Lee Nelson about the topic, and a mini documentary from Iowa PBS and title Old Spooky Stories Van Meter Visitor, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So I'll tell you a little bit about the town. Van Meter, Iowa is situated along the Raccoon River twenty miles west of Des Moines, so it's technically a suburb, and to this day it still has that small town feel like it did in the early nineteen hundreds. But of course the nineteen oh three Van Meter is totally undeveloped, and yeah,

you saw that picture. Very remote. The I eighty has not been constructed, but trains do pass through the town, and that local train station that you saw is a major source of business and life in this small town. Van Meter is also an important Midwestern shipping stop for everything from lumber to farm goods to coal that's mined out of a local mine there in Van Meter. But by nineteen oh three that mine went out of business and it sits on the edge of town, a creepy and abandoned remnant that's in a state of disrepair. U sees this strange sight at one am on Tuesday, September twenty ninth. The rest of that day unfolds normally until late that afternoon when a thunderstorm rolls in and the town's doctor, twenty five year old Fred Alcott. Everyone's a

baby in this story. Age man, right, middle age, twenty.

Five year old.

Yeah, he's like he looks like Wilford Brimley, twenty five. So he's working a normal day, seeing patients all day long, and like many business owners in Van Meter, he keeps an apartment behind his office, so between the day's bad weather and the sun's setting around six thirty at that time of year. Doctor Alcott's not planning on going anywhere that night. It's too dark, it's too rainy, so he just goes home, goes to bed, and falls asleep. So sometime around one am, now it's Wednesday, September thirtieth, a bright light shines through doctor Alcott's bedroom window, lighting up an otherwise pitch black room. He's jolted awake. He jumps out of bed. He thinks someone's breaking into his office,

so he reaches for his gun and he rushes outside. But what doctor Alcott finds when he gets out into the street is incomprehensible. Just steps away from him, there's an impossibly bright light shining from what looks like a horn on the forehead of a large creature with bat like wings.

Okay, that wasn't where I was going. I was going, lefprikawn. I don't know why. Don't ask me why.

You just felt that?

Yeah, But so we're talking about a winged horse. You in a corn type creature.

Well, there is a horn and there are wings.

Where do I get horse from?

Just you're good rider? Terrified, Doctor Elcott lifts his gun and starts firing at this thing. She just got to shoot a thing, you saw. It was a time where they had just settled this area. Shooting things was the solution to almost everything.

Well, has anything changed?

I mean, hello America. The problem is his bullets have no effect on the creature. So he runs back into his office, He locks the doors and windows, and he barricades himself inside until the sun rises. So, just like the first time, word of doctor Alcott's encounter spreads very quickly through Van Meter. It's like it happened again. People running up and down the street. So because this has happened within a twenty four hour period, people start getting very worried. And it's also from an equally dignified, well respected member of town. But this time he's not just claiming us all light. He's claiming you saw a monster.

So as the sun goes down that night, the people of Van Meter are on edge. A clerk at the town bank named Peter Dunn, in his mid twenties has an idea. Everybody so young, So Peter Dunn has an idea in his mind, these lights and winged creatures feel like real people that are being misidentified by panicked witnesses or exhausted witnesses, and he's worried that they actually are criminals who are trying to target the bank and steal everybody's money. So he decides to.

Mister naked about himself, mister main character over.

Here, exactly right. He's like, oh, this is bank related. He gets me the twenty three year old banker of town. So bravely he decides to stand guard over the money all night long, and later on Peter will go on to earn himself a very widely respected role in the town of Van Meter. He manages the bank. After that, he holds several city offices, including becoming the mayor. So he's a sound mind. He's not the type to lie.

But what happens next sounds very far fetched. So one am on a cloudy Thursday, it's October first now, Peter claims he hears a weird noise coming from just outside the bank. He says, it sounds like quote, someone strangling. It's like a weird, choking, choking, strangling sound. So he takes his shotgun. He races outside. Right the rule have you seen?

This is reminding me of this tweet rip that says I'm sorry, but my friends and I would have smashed et with a hammer. Yes, yes, we would not have taken home like and I was like, oh shit, that's we were fairal We would have done the same. We would have dissected him to be like, well, I wonder what it is. We beat it with a hammer.

We were a real kill first to ask questions later generation Yeah, it's really what America kind of is at its heart. Lily Poory tea film The Right Guy at least really bad movie.

Stevens. Bilberg would have been like, what are you doing?

This movie is thirty two minutes long. We didn't get him. We're going to have him land get discovered, and the kids, I'm not called a sack circle up. Yeah, okay. So Peter races to a nearby window to see what the hell this sound is, knowing that it could be the thing that everyone is worried about, and he goes and peers out into the darkness. But when he presses his face to the glass, an intense light immediately shines right into his eyes and then it goes out, So we can safely assume Peter was dazzled by that light.

Men are so hysterical.

It's like, God, stop crying, You've got your big gun. So he's like, whoa, what just happened? He keeps looking out he's trying to see if that light comes back on. But now he sees as his vision kind of comes back, the light is bouncing around on the street in front of the bank. We can assume. With spotty vision and feeling absolutely terrified, Peter tries to focus on the light as it's moving. He thinks he can see something under the light, but not very clearly. He ends up describing it simply as quote a great form.

Of some kind.

Cool, so he panics. He raises his shotgun. He fires right through the bank's window, blowing out the glass, but the light vanishes and once again everything is dark. He stays inside that bank until sunrise. Now with a broken window, good job, you can get right in. It's called here does open it? So when it's finally light, he goes and tells everybody what he saw. The area surrounding the bank is searched, and, according to old reports, a set of quote great three toad tracks are found nearby and captured in a plaster mold.

Do you have the photo of it?

It's like I'm thinking, duck, that adult has since been gone missing. There's no I know, but yes, it's almost like a three toed a big bird.

Oh yeah, like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park. Yeah, that's right.

Yes, that's how we do it law and order in Jurassic Park. Steven. Okay, So this is a third encounter in forty eight hours, and the town of Van Meter is now gripped in fear. But the strangeness continues when the sun goes down that night. Once again. Around two am on Friday, October second, thirty five year old Auto V. White, who is the oldest man in town, just kidding, who lives in an apartment above his Main Street hardware store, is now awakened by a quote rasping sound outside. He immediately grabs his gun. He opens a window, and he scans the street. He's waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. I wonder if their vision was different because there was so little artificial light back then.

Yeah.

And then also like the dude in the bank, he's I don't like him. I don't know why, but his vision would have been so fucked after having you know, basically like a flashlight in your face, especially because he had never probably hadn't been around electric light that long. Yeah, so I don't trust I don't know why I don't like you don't like capitalists?

Is that what it is?

He seems like a pickmy guy, That's what I'm saying.

Okay. So he hears the rasping noise. This is Auto from the hardware store. Here's a rasping noise, immediately grabs his gun, opens the window, scans the street. He's waiting for his eyes to adjust, and as they do, he sees something hanging off the nearest telephone pole about fifteen feet away, so dangerously close for my taste. But it's another kind of rainy, cloudy night. There's almost no moonlight.

It's really too dark to be able to see any of the features of what this thing is. But Auto's already heard about the monster stocking van meter, so he thinks the best plan is to just shoot at whatever it is hanging off that telephone pole and ask questions later. He raises his gun, he pulls the trigger, but instead of this thing tumbling to the ground or screeching or anything, it's just silence until a moment later when an incredibly bright light shines right in his face. Suddenly he's overwhelmed by a horrible stench, and then it all gets a little foggy, and Auto cannot remember anything that happens after that.

After the stench. This has mothman vibes, doesn't it. Yep, that will come up later. So meanwhile, Otto's gunshot wakes up the man who lives diagonally across Main Street, twenty year old shopkeeper Sidney Gregg, twenty year old's shop children. He's been asleep in his street level apartment that's attached to his store, So he runs into a shop. He swings the front door open. He looks out over Main Street and he's looking around for the source of the gunshots.

But what he's shocked to see is the entire street lit up like it was daytime. And then he sees the creature still clinging to the nearby telephone pole with a bright light coming from its head, and according to reports, Sydney says, it's hanging by what looked like talons or bird claws. Yack, three of them. Men just go ahead and do this, Yeah, pinch like a pincher. Oh he ate with that light coming off his head. So Sidney is the witness who gets the best look at this creature of anyone in the story, and his description is more evocative of something like a pterodactyl versus like some flying humanoid creature.

Okay.

He watches as it climbs down from the pole and stands upright, and he estimates this thing is eight feet tall. Oh no, yeah, It jumps a couple times, unfolds two massive featherless wings all the wa while the light on its forehead sweeping back and forth like it's scanning the area. And then right on schedule, the overnight train barrels past van meter on the nearby tracks and spooks the creature, and from his shop stoorway, Sidney says he watches it bolt off quote on all four feet.

Wow.

So he runs like a horse, like remember you said in the beginning, but he looks like a bird. But he lands like a human and looks like a bird and then runs off on all four Okay. So when the word gets around the next day, this town goes into an all out panic.

Of course, where are the women to calm everyone down?

For fuck's sake, right, there weren't many in the pictures like it. It seems like a bunch of college grads went out and started Van Meter by themselves in a boys only.

Clubs hysterical old boys.

Then more information comes to light talking about the old abandoned coal mine in van Meter. It was built next to a brick and tile factory, and the brick and tile factory is still in business. Word spreads the workers at the brick and tile factory have been hearing weird sounds coming from the abandoned coal mine for a while.

They just haven't really talked about it to anybody, which also is an interesting kind of dynamic of like the pressure of small town. Like once you say, hey, we heard weird screeching or whatever, it's like, Oh, they're crazy at the tile factory or.

Whatever, puff tile glue or whatever.

Right exactly, So they haven't talked about it, so we don't really know how long they had been hearing those noises. But the factory and the mind shaft sits about five hundred feet away from each other, so relatively close. So as the sun sets that Friday evening, the residents of van Meter are preparing for another night of terror, and sure enough it comes around one am, forty four year old, Oh my god, a geriatric look. Forty four year old JL Platt, the operations manager of the brick and tile factory, and his crew of overnight workers start hearing those same weird noises coming from the mine shafts once again. But now because they've all heard about these sightings and all the crazy stuff that's been happening, Platt finally decides he's

going to step out and investigate this noise. There's a full moon that night, so he can see better than he would normally be able to. He walks towards the mind shaft, and as he approaches, he sees the outline of two creatures standing in the shaft entrance.

He's got a buddy, You got.

A buddy, A little buddy. One is noticeably larger than the other. Both have those light horns on their heads. He watches as they raise their enormous rings and fly off into the dark.

Bye.

So this time, there's no waiting until sunrise. Plat, his workers, and other citizens of Van Meter immediately mobilize, thinking that the mine is where these creatures live. A group of vigilantes armed with guns.

Let's start fucking shooting into it. Or what's set it on fire or what.

They surround the mine and they wait until daybreak because they're like, if they live here, they're coming back. And sure enough, right at dawn, the monsters are seen flying back through the sky toward the mine shaft.

What the fuck?

So everybody starts shooting, right, They unload everything they've got, and as they do, the two creatures let out bizarre loud groans and the air suddenly fills with that strange odor. But like every other time that anyone's tried to shoot at these mysterious things, the bullets have no effect. Reportedly, the creatures land and here's where I go. They push their way past the citizens and they disappeared down the mine shaft into the dark tunnel. So they're like, out of our way, We're going back home. Yeah, And no one can do anything because it's like, you're not going to fistfight them, duns don't work.

They're like, got that close? Is surprising, right?

What happens next is also mysterious. What we do know is that the citizens of Van Meter blocked the entrance to that abandoned coal mine, like boarded up forever, and after that there are no more documented sightings of these strange creatures. Ever again, over time they become known as the Van Meter visitor or visitors, And the remnants of that old mine with its blocked off entrance are still there in van Meter, but they're now on private property.

Has anyone gone in and searched for them? I mean, I'm sure. Well, but here's the thing I wonder we'll theorize. Okay, So there are a lot of theories about what this could have been. Who are what the van Meter visitor actually was. The most plausible explanation being it's a case of mass misidentification involving something like a vulture or a large owl, which is the same theory that kind of writes off the Mothman. Which is interesting because the Mothman, they think it was a gigantic bird called a shoe bill that was basically migrating and got like knocked off its migration path.

The weirdest looking fucking bird you've ever seen in your life.

It is a wild looking bird, so like if.

You saw out in the wild, you'd fucking run.

In, especially in like car lights in a very dark highway. I feel like darkness is a big part of all of these things that are like like it.

It's nocturnal. They're nocturnal.

They're nocturnal. Creek to yours, except for that last experience, which is so heightened that it's like truly a whole town sat there and watched these things come and fly, and then they were like pushed out of the way.

Out like they're a fucking concert or something.

Like they're pushing to the front. Okay, some write the whole thing off as a practical joke, but if that were true, then they'd know who was doing it, because the one was eight feet tall. If they were average height, they'd have to be talented enough to bounce, fly and climb telephone poles on stilts and in costume while carrying an incredibly bright lantern or an electric headlight that there's almost no way that could have. Yeah, yeah, Sears had an incredible catalog, and it always there's also the theory of massed illusion. When you said eight and seiers eight, there's the theory of massed illusion. Because throughout the eighteen hundreds, in the early nineteen hundreds, newspapers were full of sensationalized

reports of weird creatures. The Van Meter visitor story predates the nineteen oh nine Jersey Devil panic, which is similar because it involves a flying dinosaur esque creature, predates it by about seven years, and of course it predates our beloved mothman by fifty years, more than fifty years. But it's totally possible that people in van Meter were reading about other strange creatures in the papers and getting those ideas, because about a decade earlier, a pterodactyl like monster known as the Tombstone thunderbird was spotted in Arizona, And that's the one that I've heard about that where it's like it's a bird, but it is so gigantic. It's like a fifty foot wingspan, and I think there were stories

of like it carried off a child Jesus, like it's so huge and a bunch of people saw it. So even if that story was a lie, but it's in the newspaper and then the story goes around, then it's like you got our own. Also, of course, the very plausible theory the residents of Van Meter invented a monster story to drum up either publicity draw visitors to the town.

It's hard to imagine the most respected citizens of the town, like a doctor and a future mayor would use their own good names to back up a hoax like that, although let's not put anything past the high level people. As we have learned these days, by most accounts, locals did not like seize on the newspaper coverage to make more of it. They actually didn't seem to like it.

So it's unclear who would have benefited by spreading a story like this. We can take a closer look at the man who wrote the articles about the Van Meter visitor. He's a journalist named Harry H. Phillips, and we can mull over whether or not he is a bad reporter or somehow involved in an elaborate hoax, or just plan all telling the truth. The town of Van Meter, as I said, doesn't have its own newspaper in nineteen oh three, so the first reports of this event pop up in the Des Moines Daily paper on October fifth, a couple of days after that last reported sighting. It's totally possible Harry H. Phillips was given bad information or got kind of basic information and embellished the original details as he

was working on the cop.

I mean, we've done that for ten years, that's.

What we do you know their old timey version of clickbait. Essentially, it's just like, can you believe what's happening out west where nothing's provable and there are no cameras. Again, though, I will say Harry H. Phillips is an esteemed member of the community of van Meter. He lives in van Meter. He is the local postmaster, which I think takes an extra amount of honesty and trustworthiness.

He's not one to embellish, right or lie. Yeah, okay, he's off the hook.

What are those things? Money? A money order?

Yeah?

Is that what it's called? Now, I know what we're talking about.

I need to give you three hundred dollars, but I don'tant to have give you cash, so I'll give you this thing from the bank.

Yeah, A wire, I don't know.

Cashier's check. A cashier's check, God, damn it. You know, I quit forget that. I'll just keep going. So so people trust this man. And also very important to mention that there was a contest in van Meter, or I don't know if it was a contest, but they had the handsome bachelors of van Meter that they featured every year, and he was one of them. Here are the handsome bachelor's Hello boys Van Meta. This was from nineteen oh one, and uh what the.

One looks like he's just in a ghost this guy?

Yeah, constant surprise. Oh you mean young Harry Houdini who somehow lived in Van Meter, Iowa.

You guys, go to our instagram if you want to see this photo. The front row mustaches are fucking given. Yeah are they?

You know?

Is it like these are the most esteemed citizens because they have the biggest mustaches. And it goes up to the youngsters.

Can't just Willy Milly grow a mustache?

I think if I had to pick one, h how about that lone wolf over on the left.

I like the below him with the mustache.

That's kind of a daddy issue pick. He's giving saddy. He's giving za, totally saddy. My guy has a hair sticking up, just like I always do.

Oh yeah, hey, he was most like modern I'd say, yeah he does.

That's the time travel like a modern man. That's why he's a little bit apart because he slipped it on the side. Like Cam from nineteen seventy four.

He's disappearing right before his one.

Hand is going away. So Harry is on the left in the middle road. So this guy.

A little thicker. He's a little thicker on the face.

You know now that you point, Now that I point him out and blame it on you, I think he might be my pick. Okay, no more time travelers. Our boyfriends are friends.

Yay, you can have both. What don't have to pick? Fucking monogamy is out in the nineteen o threes.

Imagine that'd be even more revolutionary than this monster with a light on its head. So he's handsome. Of course he's not lying. Again, there's no obvious reason for him to make up the story unless it is a ruse to get more subscribers, which I think is what yellow journalism was kind of all about back then.

I mean, that makes sense.

So what we really need for the van meter visitor or visitors mystery to be solved is to find that old plaster cast of the monster's footprints, or maybe discover some lost diary of someone's great great grandmother in an.

Ath And yes, I was there in an attic in some fucking ex sheriff's grandma's Fuck what I don't.

Know, please or like I like to then even more kind of thrilling to me. Is it's at the bottom of a pile in a hoarder house where people are like, I just.

Can't deal with it.

It's grandma dies before we clean up, or she's gonna freak the fuck out.

That's right, but they're just sitting there proof. That was my dad's Yeah, he told me not to say anything, and then I started hoardon to cover the secret. In my mind. People don't talk like that in Iowa.

They maybe they do.

Everyone becomes an old prospector immediately. Okay, it's like the Bigfoot deathbed confession. Well it's like, hey, look, it's all a prank like that would be great, but until that happens, we just can't know. What happened in Van Meter in the fall of nineteen oh three. Everyone in our story, of course, is long since past the amazing except for Harry.

Except for that guy. It's crazy. He's two hundred and twelve.

It has an age today.

I say he's two hundred and twelve. I know for a fact how many years it's been since how many is up?

But how old is he then? So he's one hundred and whatever.

We don't math here matter, and we loved to riff use your calculator. I can't. I don't know how sure.

We're just just the meme of like my husband can I don't want to look at my camera, and not because I want to I'm cheating on him, but because and then it pulls up a calculator and it's like nine minus.

Three, the most basic mess. Oh so good. I think we should start doing our favorite TikTok of the week and show each other all week long. We're like, find the thing that you love the most, whether it's funny, touching and cool new thing, and then.

We'll learn the dance and then we do they'll do the dance. You have to do the dance.

Though, and then we do like your little couple's ones where it's like yep or whatever.

I'll flip you over and then we end in a two man pyramid. Okay, I'll do it.

Okay.

So here's a good news. We're just a couple of years shy of the one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary of the Van Meter Visitor event. And more good news, van Meter has since embraced their historical cryptozoological mystery. They have a yearly Van Meter Visitor Festival look Yes, and this year it's on September twenty sixth. We're there, We'll see you there. That's the story of the Van Meter visitor.

Good, good one. I have never heard of that guy.

I know.

It's a love a cryptozoology fucking.

And also one that's like, but if there were dinosaurs? But what if there is? But what if there are dinosaurs that had lights on their head like those.

Fishsh I was told?

Right?

Has there ever impossible? Animal doctors, has there ever been an animal? I'm sure there's been an insects, But has there been an animal that has had a light source on its head?

Please let us know. Yeah, we didn't go to college, we don't know.

Animal doctors, be here and help us solve this Van Meter mystery. As a doctor, I'll tell you my theory because you know this is my theory, or this is what I've read and then absolutely believed about the loch Ness monster. Is these prehistoric creatures that are in underground caverns and lakes and all the things we don't know are.

Down there, deep, dark and mysterious.

And then they evolved down there, and then you start blowing up their ecosystem and they come to the surface and look around and go.

Where are the intruders?

We need to reduce our carbon it's their landing in.

The center of the earth. Well wait, let me see if there's any other pictures that I would like a.

Drawing of what it would look like. Is that okay?

Oh well there it is. It looks like a dragon van meter hot under the collar. So basically it's like the report on like, here's what they think happened. Now everybody thinks they're crazy, yeah, which is why people don't come forward, as we know totally.

So is there a cryptozoology guy in your town? Tell us at my Favorite Murder at Gmail for minisodes.

And also any of the stuff that I just talked about that is incorrect. I when I first moved to LA in nineteen ninety four, there's a group of guys Mark Fight, Toby Huss Jim Turner, and they were called the Iowa Boys. They all did comedy, and I love Iowa because those three boys.

And represented it as well.

They're just truly salt of the earth, good guys, great drinkers, funny as fucking hell, and so I respect the people of Iowa. If I said anything wrong, please let me know and I will correct it. Those are the last people I want.

To just sure, Yeah, totally right? Yeah?

Is that it? I think we have to see.

We must stops plenty of some fucking point.

We're gonna really soon, don't worry. We really gotta stop really soon.

We're gonna all right, here we go.

Hey, everybody, We're in the car doing a live action moving driving honking horay.

That's right, presented by Hyundai.

Driven by Georgia Harsh.

Should I go for shit?

She's running around? It was very yellow, but it.

Was very yellow.

We're gonna take it away from you?

Is the perfect Yep, let's definitely do that.

Okay.

Here's the first one is from cast and it's via Instagram and it says, hey, queens, my haray is that after a year of sickness and injury and mostly being stuck inside, I remembered who I am. This month, I completed a four week Pilate's Challenge, went to a bunch of gigs and remembered I have a personality and free will.

So I got a new tattoo. I'm stronger, happier. Saw Noel Gallagher play Master Plan live and I'm feeling like myself.

Again, which is better?

Than any drug I've been prescribed this year, and then it says stay sexy and pulse this one out Casts.

Hell yeah, nice one, cass solve any heartbreak.

That's such a nice build of like she was down, like didn't know what to do, and then slowly but surely, like I did something for my muscles, I did something for my ears.

I went to.

Seeing Noel Gallagher. You're all set.

I remember who I am. I love that I know.

Good job, Casts, We're behind you. Here's the second one, and it's a short one. It says, my haray is a huge personal one. After eight years of referrals and waiting, I finally have a date for top surgery. It's finally time to yat my teats. And then it just says, Alex say them.

Amazing, Alex.

Congratulations Alex, you've done it. It's good that you were patient, it's good that you got to do the thing that you wanted to do, and sorry that this nation has turned the.

Way it has.

We support you, We support you entirely.

Okay, here's one. It's from an email.

It says hooray for sisters, and it starts I'm so happy Horay's are back. First, it was a dream to see you in Denver with my favorite and only sister. Now to the hooray. Let me preface with the fact that my little sister is my everything. Four years ago, her abusive, cheating husband left after running her into floor foreclosure in bankruptcy.

That was not not on me.

Also, I'm not laughing at either of those things.

That was a weird three way stoff that Georgia had to manage. A few months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer as a single mom and self employed woman, a double mistectomy and.

The recovery was brutal.

She lost all of her retirement, her savings, her home, and her beautiful boobs. Now she has a growing business, a gorgeous daughter, a supportive, caring partner, and me. She always has me and my horay is we have each other and she is here, a cancer free.

Strong woman.

I love her and I couldn't be happier to have a best friend like her. Krista, You're my horay. Thanks for all the laughter, Karen and Georgia. Don't forget to get the girls checked. Kira in Colorado, amazing, that's a really amazing one.

I have the message. It hurts, but you gotta get them checked.

Okay, this honking horay is about someone we all know and love. The email is entitled Paul Giamati, and it says, are we still doing horays? If so, I've got the tiniest little thing some of your fans might like. I'd just like to shout out MFM Royalty. Mister Paulgimoni. Does he know he's a MFM Royalty.

He's like.

Form making my day giving a lengthy quote about how Star Trek Deep Space nine is his favorite of the series. I don't think I'm alone in taking a bit of joy hearing about super talented and charming folks who also share your particular.

Flavor of nerd.

There's been plenty of times when my tastes have overlapped with you all during the years too.

Anyway, hooray for Paul Giamati again.

And May twenty twenty six be a year we listen to our elders like George Takai. Thanks for everything, Lindsay.

But what about next generation?

I mean, everyone knows there's so many choices in this Star Trek community.

Goods up, everyone, Yeah, we really hooray it up.

We sure did and thank you to Hyundai for giving us the opportunity to drive around and read hoorays.

We really appreciate you, Hyundai, and stay sexy.

Don't get Murder Ambulance.

Bye called Ambulance, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

Our editor is Aristotle las Vedo.

This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

And follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind Me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye,

528 - In a Business Way

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin