Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 120: Live at the Orpheum in Los Angeles

0:16 Hello and welcome to Rewind with Karen and Georgia.

0:21 Every Wednesday, we recap our old shows with all new commentary and case updates and general small talk.

0:26 Today, we're rewinding to episode 120, which we named Live at the Ortheum Theater in Los Angeles.

0:34 This episode came out May 10th, 2018.

0:36 Let's listen to the intro of episode 120.

0:55 My favorite murder. You know it.

0:57 You know.

0:58 Who's that? Yeah, that was it.

1:07 They recognized it.

1:08 What's up Los Angeles? Now nothing else can go wrong. Thank you. Because of that. Hi. My God. The rug's disappearing.

1:25 Wow.

1:25 Wow. Hi. Hi.

1:35 It's totally fine.

1:38 I don't know why this show, I'm nervous about this one.

1:42 Yeah, we're really mad because we're nervous.

1:44 Yeah, we're mad at ourselves. We're mad at, you know.

1:48 We've been out all across America doing this show for the past year, year and a half, quite some time.

1:55 Oh, no. Thank you, Beth. We've gone everywhere but Idaho for some reason. Right? Is that it?

2:03 Just about.

2:03 Just about. Alaska.

2:05 We're coming for you, Alaska.

2:06 Wow.

2:08 But then LA, it's a different thing. It's a different beast to come back to our hometown and perform for you here tonight.

2:15 It's very... Scary. Scary. Yeah, we don't want you guys to, like, if anyone else hates us in fucking Arizona, it gives a shit. I mean, come on.

2:26 Who are they going to tell?

2:29 But here, ugh. I know. I could be disowned by my parents that are floating around the audience somewhere. Don't make eye contact. Go there.

2:39 Shit, you have a ton of parents.

2:41 Fucking 17 parents over there. I was a handful as a kid. I was hard to parent, so they just passed me around.

2:49 So they had to call in a bunch of backups and reserves. My dad was going to come, but then he was not sure he could get an aisle seat, so then he was.

2:57 Just like, forget it. Are you serious? Yeah, because he has a bad hip.

3:01 And then he's like, eh, I'm going to have to walk. And I was just like, well, cool then.

3:05 Stay home for sure. Do you know that my dad texted Vince and was like, hey, can I get an aisle seat? Is that a dad thing? It might be. Oh, my God. Aisle's totally a dad thing.

3:17 Because, you know, you never know if somebody out in the lobby is going to have to write a check for an electric bill and that dad needs to run out there and oversee that shit.

3:26 Well, he's got to make sure that he put it in your, what is it called that I don't use? You know, when you write down. I don't either. It's called the logbook. Right.

3:35 It's called a checking logbook.

3:37 Thank you. That's right. So 80s. Right. Right.

3:40 No one fucking uses those things anymore. Come on.

3:43 That's the thing you use to test if the pen is working. That's the thing you use when you're financially responsible. Who's that? I don't know. And like want to keep track of your purchases instead of like wanting to not remember all the horrible purchases you've made.

4:01 Right? I've always done the thing where you just do, you get whatever the ATM will give you and you go. Like you take it and you fucking go. Oh, you won't give me 40? How about 20?

4:12 I'll go lower if you will, ATM.

4:14 Yeah.

4:15 Have you in your life gone, why won't they just give you fives? I don't understand why you can't get smaller. What about, did you ever do the.

4:22 Thing where you had like 1898 in the bank? So then you write yourself a check for $ 3 that you know is going to bounce so you can have a $ 20 bill.

4:31 I don't used to know. Oh, I'm the bad one now?

4:35 Now you turn on me.

4:36 I'm saying no in a way that that's fucking genius. Right? I wish I had known that when I was crying over not having $ 20. I can write a check. It's fine. Boom. It's just you. What are you going to? You don't have any service fees. You're fine.

4:50 Do you want to show everybody your cute, cute dress?

4:54 I do. Okay. Did you see it? Thank you. So look at SSEGM.

5:01 It has our thing on it.

5:03 So this is a dress made by a local designer who's super lovely and keeps... for some reason, giving me dresses. I don't, she thinks I'm like, it's good for business.

5:14 Yeah.

5:14 So she was like, this time she's like in LA and she's like, I'm going to make you a special dress. I'm like, absolutely. But I'm going to pay you this time because, um, and she didn't, she's here April. It's, it's called, uh, May 68 is the company. What's it called? May 68. I'll put it up online. Look it.

5:29 Yeah.

5:29 Welcome around. Welcome around. Welcome around. Yes. Yes. Look it. She can run in that dress. She can hide things in her pockets in that dress. I legit just kind of twisted my ankle running around the rug. Did you for real? Uh-huh. You've got to be careful. And when I was trying to show you that I could put both my hands in my pockets, I almost went, I'll hold this in my mouth. Filthy. What am I doing on a stage?

6:03 The live shows are highly sexual and very dangerous.

6:07 Yes.

6:08 Also, what I love about it is this is a straight up The Shining Twins outfit, which is.

6:17 Come play with me. Or just me. Come play with me. Come play with you by yourself.

6:21 I would have done it. But I had to wear my... Yeah, tell us about this amazing thing.

6:26 Guys, please don't. I'll get mad. I'll get mad.

6:31 Um... Look, I love the Pat Benatar video, Love is a Battlefield. I feel like piling up your dress. You can put, anyone can put on a dress.

6:44 But putting on a dress.

6:45 And then piling more dress on that dress and kind of going outward with it is brave. It's high fashion.

6:52 Is it radical self-acceptance?

6:54 It's radical self-acceptance through the hugest pockets you can find at Macy's.

6:58 That's right. These are pockets. I can put anything in here. Pour a bottle of water in there. I'm going to fill my pockets with water and drink out of my pockets for the duration of the show. I love it. Stay hydrated. Oh, my God. Coachella was amazing this year. Oh, my God. Mushrooms. And water. It's the same water. She texted me yesterday while you were at the store looking for dresses and did the fucking classic question that we all know the fucking answer to, which is there is no such thing, which is how much cleavage is too much cleavage.

7:40 Yeah.

7:41 There's no such thing.

7:43 I had to add a panel to this dress because I'm not... I'm not all that interested in wearing a dress anyway, but I certainly wasn't going to go full like Star Trek Voyager with this fucking thing.

7:57 And this is the best part.

8:00 So I'm trying, I just grabbed as many black dresses with pockets as I could find in Macy's. And then I went into an abandoned fitting room. This is Macy's. But I went into the first one where you walk in. And trying, I'm in between trying on one dress and the other. So I'm like taking something off. And the door opens.

8:25 No, no, no, no.

8:28 Very far open. And this lady just kind of goes.

8:31 What?

8:34 And I'm kind of like this. And I was like, you know, shut it. And she goes, she was like kind of bitching.

8:42 She like shut the door.

8:43 She goes, sorry, why don't you lock it?

8:46 It's your fucking fault.

8:47 So then I'm standing there all shamed, fitting room nude, the worst way you can be.

8:53 Because you're trying not to look at the mirror that's right here behind you.

8:59 It's fluorescent lighting. It's against you in every direction.

9:03 I don't know why, yeah.

9:06 Well, I was just like, she was wearing a baseball hat. And I'm like, wait a second, is this some fucking new shame porn where.

9:12 They get you like.

9:14 They trick people.

9:16 Oh, no.

9:17 And if it's not, that's my idea. Don't fucking steal it.

9:21 That's my money. Steven, write that down. Steven! Oh, awesome. He's not here.

9:29 Just kidding.

9:31 What if we didn't allow him to come to the L.A. show? Steven, where are you? He's actually down. He's in the car. He's waiting in the car. If we yell your name four times, that's your cue. Get her! Damn it.

9:43 No, it's fine.

9:46 You're fine. Everything's fine. It's fine.

9:59 It's not like at home, it's not like at home.

10:02 No, no. Look at his shirt, everyone, Selena. He loves cats and Selena and dinosaurs. Oh my gosh, hi. It's scary, huh? Oh, this is great.

10:21 We told Steven that we wanted him to think of one of his favorite anecdotes from his career of working for us on My Favorite Murder.

10:29 What have you come up with? We both like coffee. Great one. See you later, Steven.

10:37 No, when I was thinking about this, the earliest memory that really stuck in my head was when the fireworks went off next to your apartment. And I just feel like in that moment, we were all together like, what the fuck is happening?

10:49 Cats are going everywhere. And we were just like, all right, let's just get back to business. We didn't even edit it out. It was just like, well, let's keep going.

10:57 We were like, let's set the tone with this level of professionalism. So that all the expectations are as low as possible.

11:04 Someone said they swerved in their car when they heard it, when they were listening in the car.

11:08 It happens.

11:09 That was fun. That was great.

11:12 Steven, you've done a great job.

11:13 You've done it. We love you.

11:14 We love you, Steven. Of course the sound guy talks about some crazy sound thing that happened one time.

11:22 How unprofessional we are. The train, there's the ghost train. There's the fucking helicopters. Oh my God, there have been so many sounds over the years. Let's talk about sounds.

11:33 It's nuts.

11:36 Oh, we got our makeup done. Show them your face. Like professionals.

11:47 I was like, please give me a strong eyebrow. And she was like, I got you, girl.

11:52 And she's fucking here too, Alicia, our friend. Are we those people now?

11:59 And I'd like to thank my podiatrist who's here tonight. What an amazing man.

12:04 Well, we actually did invite all of our therapists to this show. Guess how many of our therapists came? None.

12:14 Mine told me she is not a fan of my work.

12:18 Yeah, that's right.

12:19 That's how you keep that money coming in.

12:22 Oh, yeah.

12:22 We'll talk about it next week. I don't like what you do. I don't approve of it.

12:27 Do you think they've all maybe just like listened to one episode just to see what they're really dealing with?

12:31 Yes, in that little kitchen area. Oh, I forget yours isn't where mine is.

12:37 Ours is where yours is. That's right. And I know for a fucking fact, we invited him and he was like, I just want to, I think we should keep this like a personal level. Ouch. I've avoided listening to the podcast. And I was like, bullshit, you fucking hated it. I was.

12:51 The way he said it made me well up where I was like, rejection in a therapist's office is next level. It's next level pain where you're just like, I.

12:59 Don't care about you.

13:00 I don't care if you're kind of a fucking joke.

13:04 Who cares? It's so LA to get rejected by your fucking therapist.

13:10 They're at the fucking live choppo trap house right now. You're just like, what?

13:15 All of them are together right now? Yeah. At a different live podcast was the joke.

13:20 Oh, okay. I may have pronounced the name wrong or something.

13:23 I'm not sure. I just didn't get the reference probably. Yeah, maybe. It happens a lot. Could have been that. Happens a lot to me.

13:29 Here, let me try it again.

13:32 They're all together at Undisclosed. Oh, the live podcast. Okay, it's a podcast. Oh, no. Elvis? There's a fucking baby here. Give that baby to me right now. Hi. Hi. Are you fucking kidding me? Hi, baby.

13:56 Hi.

13:57 Hi. Hi.

14:00 That's actually my therapist. You're doing such a good job.

14:04 You are.

14:04 Thank you. God, I thought it was a fucking goat. I swear to God.

14:09 I was like, we can't have that at this show.

14:13 What if someone who knew I wasn't at home right now went and stole Elvis and brought him here? And then squeezed him really hard in downtime. I'm just saying to get the sound. It didn't happen.

14:25 It didn't actually happen. Is the baby going to make a noise.

14:30 The whole time?

14:31 Because it was cute the first time, but. We've got some podcasting to do.

14:36 Yeah, this rug is not going to pay for itself.

14:39 Do what my grandma used to do. Just put a little whiskey on his tongue.

14:43 Or hers. I did that to myself before the show. Oh, this is my favorite murder the podcast. Oh, yes. This is Karen Kilgariff. This is Georgia Hardstock.

15:02 Thank you.

15:03 Thank you. Thank you, LA. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're honored to be here. We like to thank, you know, people.

15:13 That fucking baby.

15:14 That baby. Number one, first and foremost. First and foremost, baby. You're going to go through some therapy someday.

15:21 Swear to God.

15:23 God. Baby's at the show.

15:26 Everybody lift your baby up right now, just so we know how many babies we're dealing with.

15:30 Four?

15:31 Seven? Eighteen babies?

15:35 Should we sit down? Is it sit-down time? I think it's sit-down time. Yeah, I don't think we have anything else. Because we're on a clock. We're on a serious clock. Oh, you forgot to introduce our thing. Oh, yeah. There's a man standing under this table. He's just really into mime and. He's on his feet.

15:59 He's a performance artist, a site-specific performance artist. So he's just going to be bent at the waist for this whole show.

16:07 Oh, do you know what? Our friend Lizzie texted me today that she was doing a comedy show at an erotic bookstore. And she was like, don't worry, it's really classy. And she's like, I went to pee and there's a watercolor painting of you and Karen on the wall in the bathroom. Shit. And I was like, I'm sorry you had to see that while you were peeing. Watercolors, huh?

16:31 I would have gone acrylics, certainly. That's kind of advanced art. Yeah. Well. Who knows? I mean. Steven spilled my water. I don't know what to do about it. No, it's okay. It's okay.

16:46 Steven.

16:47 Yelling sorry doesn't help.

16:48 He just goes, sorry. Sorry. Millennial. Thank God for Steven.

17:01 Yep. Let us pray. Dear Jesus. Oh, I'm Jewish. Oh, that's right.

17:14 Dear that God. You're the first and you're the best. You're the number one Old Testament God and we're scared of you. Thanks.

17:29 Thank you.

17:30 That's my new hit.

17:32 Number one God. Going out to all the Jews in the audience tonight. Represent. It's just my family. There's like four of you. And their rabbi.

17:51 Okay, we're back. What a show.

17:53 That was a fun opening. I wish they could all be like that.

17:56 Like, that was smooth and funny and good.

18:00 And there was a baby.

18:01 There was a baby. And also, that room was gold. It looked like we were in a movie about people in a show.

18:09 Totally.

18:09 This show was so fun, though, because it really did feel like, even though it was nerve-wracking, of course, always, and just any kind of industry audience, but it didn't feel like that was happening in any way.

18:20 No.

18:21 It felt very like everyone was right there with us.

18:24 It was great. Including and especially Steven.

18:26 And of course, Steven, who was holding his own in the lobby.

18:30 Oh, and this fucking episode, I do the Los Feliz murder mansion. That is like such a classic LA story.

18:38 I'm so glad I got that one.

18:40 Yeah.

18:40 And I got to do it live too. I mean, oh my God. It's so good. Yeah.

18:44 I can feel my excitement that I get to tell you that story tonight, that night.

18:48 You know what I mean? Oh my God. Completely.

18:50 But first.

18:51 This is one of your classics, too. Like, this is.

18:54 I feel the exact same way about this story, and I don't think that usually happens with us.

18:59 Totally.

18:59 I think we both, we each have, like, a more muscular moment in those shows. Yeah. And this one was, like, it was just, like, we were going great guns the whole time.

19:09 Absolutely. So good. All right. Let's start, then. Let's get into Karen's story about Agnes Underwood.

19:15 Yeah.

19:21 Okay, I'm going to go first tonight.

19:23 Yep. Thank you. I'm very excited.

19:32 So, this is kind of a jerk around to say, but I was going to do, I was going to do the Hillside Stranglers. Oh, are you really bummed out? It is, such a fucking horrible story, and it just keeps going horribleness. The only, like, potentially fun part is when Kenneth Bianchi at the end tries to pretend he has multiple personalities. Like, that gets a little light. But for the most part, it would have been a real slog. So...

20:11 As I was looking up stuff about that, I stumbled upon a blog called Deranged LA Crimes. And it's written by a woman named Joan Renner. I assumed Jeremy's sister. And it's an amazing true crime blog about, obviously, deranged LA crimes. And on that blog, she had this whole post about a person I had never heard of.

20:39 And that is.

20:40 Such an incredible fucking individual that I was like, this is the story I have to do. So I'm going to tell you guys tonight all about L.A. 's foremost newspaper crime reporter, Agnes Aggie Underwood.

20:56 That's right.

20:58 Clap politely because you wish it was the fucking Hellside Stranglers.

21:03 You creeps.

21:07 All right.

21:07 I'm going to start by... Can we bring up her first picture, Steven?

21:10 It's real good. She's at a bar.

21:12 Oh, look at her.

21:13 And the cool thing about this, too, is it all takes place downtown. Oh, shit. All of these newspapers were down here.

21:19 It's like everyone... She starts.

21:21 At one newspaper. She goes around the corner. It's all like, it's spring and 8th and fucking 9th and 4th or whatever. So you're going to love how local it is.

21:30 Picture a beer right there.

21:33 Girl, she drank day and night. And also finger waves.

21:37 Yeah.

21:37 Which we love. Absolutely. Love and respect.

21:40 Perm.

21:40 That's a straight up perm. Do you think it's a perm? Tight perm. Okay. Okay.

21:46 I'm going to start by reading you.

21:47 This is the.

21:48 She wrote an autobiography in 1947 called Newspaper Woman.

21:53 That's all one word. So....

21:57 Here's the dust jacket for newspaper woman. Agnes Underwood has written a crackling, breezy, no-words-minced account of her behind-the-news experiences as a top-notch reporter and as city editor of the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express. In celebrity and sensation-rich Los Angeles, one of the fastest, most competitive news centers of the world, she is on top of every story that breaks seven editions a day. As a rough-and-tumble, hard-working city-side reporter, she's covered every important West Coast murder and criminal trial in the past 21 years, every major disaster from floods to fires to earthquakes and explosions.

22:32 Shit.

22:32 Remember back when there was just fucking explosions on the street constantly?

22:37 Just like... You know, all those explosions that kept happening.

22:41 I'm just standing there at spring and eighth.

22:43 Explosion.

22:45 Reporters. Ten reporters arrive. Her stories have included strikes, traffic deaths, plane crashes, rapes, amnesia cases, suicides, divorce trials, shootings, robberies, Hollywood premieres.

22:57 No!

22:58 Very similar.

22:59 Oh, no.

23:01 Racetrack openings. Oh, that's the end of that list. In the course of working her story, she has gone unwashed, thirsty, hungry, sleepless.

23:09 We're still in the dust jacket, I swear to God. Are you reading us the book?

23:13 Yes.

23:13 Yes.

23:14 And page 29. She has dodged flying embers, been half drowned, trapped in the hills by brush fires, threatened by goons.

23:27 She's not a very good reporter, I don't think, if those things are fucking happening. She's kind of.

23:31 Like, she has a Columbo thing where she just keeps getting trapped in a brush fire. And she's just like, excuse me, ma'am, can I ask one more question? About this brush fire. Choked by tear gas. Now this seasoned reporter has checked back over her stories to tell how she lined up exclusives and persuaded tough ones to talk.

23:49 How she got pictures when the subjects were belligerent. How she talked her way into hostile homes.

23:54 What? How she copes with Hollywood press agents.

23:59 And how the Los Angeles reporters cut the stars down to size. Yeah.

24:05 Fuck them. The reason we all live here. Hard, garish, rough through her, though her work has been. Whoops.

24:14 She has loved it. Her memoirs reveal how she convinced skeptics that a woman can run a city desk and raise a family by telephone.

24:21 Whoops. Wait, what? Don't do that.

24:27 Okay, put your brother on. How much is it bleeding?

24:33 In courts.

24:33 Yes.

24:35 Without blowing up under pressure.

24:37 That was the last line. Exploding. Those explosions. Without exploding.

24:41 Those were all, the explosions were reporters all around Los Angeles.

24:45 It's too much.

24:46 Okay.

24:47 So we'll start with her early life. Aggie Underwood was born Agnes Mae Wilson on December 17th, 1902 in San Francisco.

24:57 Isn't it the best?

24:58 And it's so green up there. And the people are so nice.

25:02 And it's so cheap.

25:03 It's cheap to live there.

25:06 It's a bargain. Her father was a.

25:08 Glassblower, huh?

25:09 We can make money off that?

25:10 I mean, her mother, so her mother dies when she's six in childbirth. Her father had to travel for work, so he sends her and her younger sister off.

25:22 To family in Illinois and Indiana.

25:26 And long story short, yes, let's hear it for those two great.

25:29 States out in the middle. Wait, I feel like he was lying when he was like, I got to travel for glass blowing. I want to get rid of these kids because I don't want to parent them by myself right now. Yes, and I think if it's 1902 and it's an Irish family in San Francisco, we've got some alcoholism issues that maybe some people don't want to talk about on the.

25:52 Dust jacket cover of their book. So they go to live with family, and she basically says the families were dicks, and then they get moved into foster care. At one abusive home, Aggie pours ketchup on the head of her foster mother to protect her little sister from a beating.

26:08 And then her hair was real shiny afterwards. Oh, no, you're thinking of mayonnaise. Oh, right.

26:13 That's a mayonnaise treatment.

26:14 What does ketchup do? Skunks. Right, she didn't smell like a skunk anymore.

26:19 My mom once told me that in nursing school, she was so broke that she and her friend used to go to diners and they would order a bowl of hot water and put ketchup in it and then eat the free crackers and drink homemade tomato soup. Isn't that simply the grossest thing you've ever heard in your life?

26:37 Oh no. Yeah. Um, okay.

26:39 So, so Aggie's super smart. She actually, in school, she skipped a grade three different times. Um, But she ends up, when she's a sophomore in high school, she's like, this isn't for me.

26:50 She's like, I'm 12. This isn't working for me. I'm 12.

26:53 Everyone's older. I don't get their references.

26:56 Right. So she drops out.

26:59 And in November 1918, when she's 16 years old, she goes to live with a relative in San Francisco. The relative has an apartment on Geary Street. This is like a deeply sad story.

27:09 She knew that she would have to work for a living.

27:12 So she went out to get a job. And I mean, it's 1918 in San Francisco.

27:17 So she's like, I'll sell matchsticks or whatever.

27:20 And But she wants to contribute to the household, so she goes to try to get a job. And after a few days of job hunting that's unsuccessful, she comes back to the apartment only to discover that her relative has moved out, leaving Underwood broke alone and homeless.

27:37 What a dick.

27:38 So then, this is so Dickensian, next level. she's got another female relative that lives in LA and the female relative is like, you can come and live with me. And then when she gets there, she realizes that her relative was only inviting her to live there because she wanted to make her into.

27:54 A child star.

27:56 And so then when Aggie was like, yeah, that's not my bag at all. She was like, Oh, then you can't live here anymore. So then she once again is homeless. Uh, at, I think by that time she was 17. So, um, She gets a job at the Broadway department store down here in downtown Los Angeles, and she moves into a Salvation Army home. And then in 1920, she's 18, she's now got a job at the Pig & Whistle downtown.

28:22 Oh, nice.

28:23 Right?

28:24 You've heard of it.

28:25 You've been super shit-faced there. You've tried to play darts when you were super shit-faced. You hit your friend in the leg.

28:31 You know the story. Oh, no.

28:33 So when she's working there as a waitress, she meets one of her coworkers was a soda jerk named Harry Underwood. And one day she comes to work and she's all upset because that relative that had tried to make her into a child star shows up again and says, if you don't come back, move in with me.

28:49 Give me all your paychecks.

28:51 I will turn you into the authorities for living by yourself underage.

28:56 And she's freaking out about it.

28:57 So Harry Underwood says, well, your relative wouldn't have a case if we were married. So they get married. It's the most romantic story you've ever heard.

29:07 If they stay together, that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. If he's a dick, then I'm going to be bummed.

29:12 It seems like Harry Underwood was fine. They eventually get divorced.

29:16 Eventually.

29:17 Because she's such a working woman, but You know, sometimes people grow apart.

29:22 It's true. Especially when you're trying to raise a family by the phone. Right? It's so hard. Your ear hurts and you get like a shoulder cramp. Plus back then it was the finger dial thing. It took fucking forever to call it.

29:36 She started raising the family like this and she finally got to move to this.

29:40 Broadway 129. Broadway 3247. Come in Broadway 3247.

29:49 So they get married, and they very quickly, this is how I read it in one of the articles, they quickly had two children, which is exactly how the Irish do it. As quickly as possible, just back them.

30:00 Right up against each other, and then they can take care of each other. Perfect.

30:06 Okay, so her illustrious career starts in 1926. She's a mother of two. The family is, you know, kind of broke. Her sister is living with them, too. Her sister's working. Obviously, Harry Underwood is a high-level soda jerk.

30:24 And so she....

30:26 She's frustrated because she wants silk stockings, which is what everyone wears, but they can't afford them. She has to wear her little sister's hand-me-down silk stockings. So she goes to Harry one day, and she's like, you need to buy me a new pair of silk stockings. And he's like, no way. And she's like, fine, I'll buy them myself.

30:42 And then she's like, oh, shit, I don't have any money or a job. And she didn't really have any intention of getting a job. And then the next day, her very close friend, Evelyn Connors, calls her and goes, hey, do you have any interest in working the switchboard at the Los Angeles Daily Record? And so she's like, hell yes, because she wants them stockings, girl.

31:01 This is an I Love Lucy plot line, isn't it? Probably. I remember this episode. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

31:07 I'm reading a bunch of I Love Lucy episodes.

31:11 This is the other podcast that you do. I love Lucy.

31:14 And then they ate chocolate after chocolate.

31:19 Okay.

31:20 So, yeah, that all comes together. She was also the author of The Secret.

31:26 Just kidding. That's not true. That's not true.

31:30 So in October of 1926, Agnes reports to 612 Wall Street, which is literally within walking distance of where we are right now.

31:37 Let's all go there right now. Let's walk there.

31:43 She begins her job as a switchboard operator, and because of her work ethic and her personality, she earns the attention of the women's section editor, a woman whose working name was Cynthia Gray, but whose real name was Gertrude Pierce.

32:00 Yes, it was. Right?

32:01 Because it's 1927 and Aggie and Gertrude are going to be best fucking friends.

32:05 Aggie and Gertie.

32:07 Gertie.

32:07 Aggie and Gert. Aggie and Gert. A and G. Let's just keep fucking shortening them. Because they don't have time. It's a newspaper. No.

32:13 There's no time. None. They even shortened A and G down to a series of specific nods. That was worth trying to spit out. Okay.

32:24 Okay.

32:27 So Gertrude Gertie G.

32:29 Price takes her under her wing because she can tell she's super smart, she's a fast learner, and she basically makes her her catch-all assistant. And then in December of 1927, this story breaks in the newsroom while Aggie's there, and it's... There was a notorious child murderer named William Edward Hickman.

32:48 He kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. And he was on the run.

32:52 I know this one. You know that story? It's so sad. Why? Oh, you don't know it? No. Oh, you're probably going to tell it. Just tell me really quick.

32:58 Well, they're not paying attention.

33:01 I'll tell you later. Okay.

33:02 I know he chopped her up. Yeah. Yeah.

33:05 But it gets worse. Worse than chopping up?

33:08 Yeah.

33:09 Blended? Blended up?

33:13 Yeah.

33:16 No, I'll do it one day, but it's like not the kind of one you want to tell in front of an audience. Especially when there's a fucking baby.

33:24 That baby's over there smiling. Pacifier. Oh, by the way, if you're here because your friend brought you and you've never heard this podcast, super sorry.

33:38 They'll explain later.

33:42 So she's standing in the newsroom when this story breaks.

33:44 This guy was arrested.

33:45 Now he's on the run. And around her, the newsroom explodes. And she says... Explosion. Oh, fuck.

33:54 What if I.

33:54 That's just me trying to lace a theme through my own story. And it was an explosion of a murder. Thank you all for being here tonight. So this is her quote from her book. She says, As the Boltons pumped in and Cityside worked furiously at localizing, with.

34:12 No idea what that means, I couldn't keep myself in my niche.

34:15 I committed the unpardonable sin of looking over shoulders of reporters as they wrote. Which is, I mean, what's worse than that?

34:22 It's the eighth deadly sin.

34:27 So the newsrooms exploded around her. So basically, she's underfoot. Oh, in what I thought was exasperation, Rod Brink, the city editor, said, all right, if you're so interested, take this dictation. So I typed the dictation. Part of the main running story, I was sunk. I wanted to be a reporter. So she basically got herself into that newsroom, weaseled around, pissed somebody off, and then got a job as a reporter, which is so reporter-y.

34:54 It's amazing.

34:55 Yeah.

34:56 It's kind of how we got this podcast a little bit.

34:59 We got underfoot. It's under Steven's foot.

35:01 And then a man let us have it. Thank you, sir. Okay. So her bosses, uh, she, she clearly wants the job.

35:14 She's super smart and she's got like that little, she's got that Irish psychic thing where she kind of like pays a lot of attention. She knows she can see what people are doing. She's canny, canny as they say. And she also becomes very well known for being fearless and tireless. She has an insane work ethic, and she's unconventional.

35:32 So in 1933, there was a huge earthquake in Long Beach. She got sent to report on it, and she brought her son and husband.

35:43 She'd do stuff like that. Also, and I bet... Just read. Just read.

35:52 We're on a clock. She also became known for her, as they call them, hard-boiled quips, which is also.

35:59 What I'm known for.

36:01 Hard-boiled quips.

36:03 They smell, but if you put.

36:04 A little salt on them, they're so good.

36:06 Truffle salt. It's even better. You have it.

36:09 So she went to the autopsy of the actress Thelma Todd.

36:13 Okay.

36:13 Okay. And they're all standing around in the morgue. The body is under the sheet. and there's like a legendary story about her. She turned to the guy standing next to her and said, can you imagine what any of these guys would have given to be under a sheet with Thelma Todd?

36:28 Oh my God. That's very disrespectful.

36:32 What?

36:33 Excuse? What?

36:35 Why do you care all of a sudden?

36:38 They're mad. Come on, she was in there slugging it out with the boys. Why are there reporters in an autopsy to begin with is our question. Is that anyone's question?

36:48 Before 1975, reporters were invited to everything. Just anything that happened. They'd be like, let's get four reporters down here.

36:54 Well, and at the time, in 1926, there were six.

36:58 Newspapers in Los Angeles that were competing against each other. Six major newspapers. So it's kind of, it's obviously how everybody got their news.

37:06 Why did I say that? It's how everybody got their news. Newspapers.

37:11 Look it up in the newspaper. She ends up working at the Daily Record for nine years, and she gets this reputation as being a crack reporter and a badass. And so the people at the Hearst Corporation hear about her, and they offer her a job at the Herald Examiner, a competing newspaper that was way bigger than the Daily Record.

37:34 But she says no thanks. They offer it a second time. Again, she says no.

37:38 They just offer it again, or they give her more money?

37:40 No, right after. They were like, do you want it?

37:42 Are you sure?

37:43 Do you want it?

37:43 Yeah.

37:45 Took four minutes. Get one of those rubber thumb.

37:51 Things to turn pages faster. Write that down. The money thing.

37:54 Get a money thumb.

37:56 Hit the staples button.

37:57 Uh, the staples near my house closed and I've never been more scared in my life. It's pretty much the end, right?

38:07 Yeah. It's over. It's over. Okay.

38:09 Let's have a great time tonight, everybody.

38:13 Oh, okay. Great. Good. Just them. Balconies into it.

38:17 I don't know what.

38:17 Orchestra is that. Can I get an amen from the thing over there? Oh, thanks. Oh, yeah. Super, super Christians.

38:33 But in 1935, the Daily Record gets sold to the Illustrated Daily News.

38:38 What are these papers? So she decides she's, quote, ready to go work for Hearst.

38:44 So she takes the job covering what was called the milk route. So she had to be at work at.

38:49 3.30 in the morning every day. No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Yeah.

38:53 Driving around the city. We're trying to find crimes and accidents and suicides and murders.

38:59 Fun.

39:00 Yeah. In the dark in Los Angeles. And that's around the time that she meets a photographer named Perry Fowler. And they start working together all the time. They unofficially become a team. So the first big story that Aggie lands with the Herald Examiner is in January of 1935.

39:19 And it's an interview with Amelia Earhart. Holy shit. Yeah.

39:23 She had just made, Amelia Earhart had just made her historic flight from Honolulu to Oakland.

39:28 Yeah.

39:29 Okay. And. Glamorous. Right?

39:32 And so she, Aggie, goes to Amelia Earhart's house in North Hollywood and waits outside for hours and hours until she gets there, and then she gets the interview. And she's the first reporter at the newspaper to get the interview, so that's badass. I was very rocked by that chunk of information when I was doing this, because Amelia Earhart lived in North Hollywood.

39:56 And that....

39:59 If you're not from around here, it's fucking bizarre.

40:02 Yeah, but back then it was fucking sprawling ranches and shit and things here and over there. It's not like the fucking clown liquor store like it is now. Oh, it is.

40:11 It's exactly the clown liquor store. When the fuck do you think that thing went up?

40:15 It's the clown liquor store and only.

40:16 It was like a tree and then that clown. And then Amelia Earhart's gorgeous ranch-style house.

40:23 Not everyone knows that clown was always there. No one knows how it got there.

40:26 Also, no one knows that you're not supposed to look that clown straight in the eyes.

40:31 Or you'll get drunk.

40:35 Time to go stare at a clown.

40:36 Bye!

40:43 So she works punishing hours in every type of weather. She never bothers to buy a raincoat or a hat.

40:48 Oh, come on, honey. I mean, seriously. Radical self-care.

40:53 And acceptance after the care. One year, she's assigned to cover the Rose Bowl Parade, and she's... It rains the entire time and she's super pissed, but not because she's being rained on, but because the rains were causing floods and that's where she wanted to be reporting. She was super pissed that she got assigned to the Rose Bowl.

41:12 Fuck yeah, man. Floods are crazy. What do you think about floods? Crazy. Mm-hmm.

41:21 Once when covering a fire in Malibu, started.

41:24 By an explosion, a policeman.

41:27 Tries to block her from going into the danger zone. And this, like, senior sheriff's deputy walks up and goes, it's all right, lad.

41:35 So he was Irish.

41:37 Everybody in this story is Irish. She's been to a hell of a lot more things than you have.

41:40 Go on through. And then fucking, the tiger starts playing and she starts walking into the fire.

41:47 Why is she going in the fire?

41:49 She was fireproof.

41:51 And that's what I'm going to get to on page 93. Hang in. You're going to freak out. She was described as tough as nails. Oh, do we have that next picture, Stephen.

42:05 Of her? Disheveled. Oh, shit. That's her at her desk.

42:11 They describe her as disheveled, which as a fellow female writer, I say, you know what?

42:16 That's how it is. That's just fucking how it is.

42:18 It's not a beauty contest. I'll tell you that right now.

42:21 She's 23 right there. Yeah. Which phone does she use to call her son that she never sees? Right there in the front.

42:29 That's the emergency child phone.

42:30 Look at the size of those scissors right there. Next to the bat. Georgia loves an old scissor. I really love old scissors.

42:37 She does. Well, and also she kept... See the baseball bat right there? This is when she was city editor. This is what the picture's from. And then she used to just keep a bat on her desk in case people started fighting. And then she just starts swinging the bat at people. That was her management style. Some people do it differently.

42:55 I love her.

42:56 But she was more of a Dodgers-based.

43:00 Baseball. Baseball. They also say that her voice... It's very rude.

43:08 A voice that would seduce only a foghorn.

43:12 What?

43:14 What? Why do they need to say that? Why are you... First of all... It's a newspaper. Secondly, you can't fuck a foghorn.

43:22 So, like, why are you even bringing that up? In 1937, reporter Jack Campbell writes of her, she should have been born a man.

43:31 Oh, okay. Listen, listen. Okay, I get it. It's the 30s.

43:39 This was back before women were paid the same as men for the same job.

43:44 This is back.

43:45 Before we had agency over our own bodies and we could do with it what we wanted without the government getting, you know what I mean?

43:52 The fucking dark ages. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Vice President Mike Pence. Here he is. Get up here, big guy. Get up here. Getting political. We'll get political. Okay.

44:21 She also prided herself on making up catchy murder case names. One time, she had to go report on the stabbing of a waitress. And she was standing there And she had a moment of inspiration, and she picked up a white carnation and dropped it on the body, had her photographer take the picture, and then refer to it as the white carnation murders.

44:45 That sounds illegal. Yeah. That sounds like fucking with the crime scene, as they call it. I mean, they do these days. Yeah.

44:54 Forensic specialists call it fucking with the crime scene.

44:57 Mm-hmm.

44:58 Apparently, at the scene when she did that, a cop objected and she hit him with her purse.

45:03 Nope.

45:04 Yes.

45:04 That sounds illegal too. Look, it was a different time. Okay.

45:09 She becomes a master at reading people. So one time, there's a car accident by the Mount Wilson Observatory. This man, Laurel Crawford's entire family dies in a one-car car accident. And when the cop on the scene asks Aggie what she thinks of the accident, she says, I think it smells.

45:29 He's guilty as hell. And she was right. No.

45:32 He set up the whole thing and killed his family for money.

45:35 What a dick.

45:36 I know.

45:38 So... Those, is there cheerleading happening?

45:44 Those senses also got her the story before other reporters. There was a case where there was a woman named Louise Pete who killed her employer. And when she was being held, the reporters were all standing around. They were all yelling, Louise, and asking her questions.

45:57 Louise, Louise.

45:59 And Aggie notices this, and she's like, Miss Pete, may I ask you a question? The woman's like, yes, what is it? Because even though she was a murderess, she was also a lady.

46:08 Mm-hmm. Be back in one second. You were talking about Amanda Peet.

46:19 Right?

46:21 I was listening.

46:22 Thank you. So the Herald Express's motto was the first with the latest. Aggie delivers on that promise. She has a bunch of city and court officials in her pocket.

46:34 Big pockets, too, probably.

46:35 Oh, my God.

46:36 I bet they're a big pocket. She's got like a.

46:39 Like a trial guy in here and like a lawyer guy over here. So basically she does this. This is actually cool. So she's paid a bunch of people off basically just so she can get the story first, which is the job. So one of the famous ones she did was she called a trial clerk once. right before he read the verdict of a case that everyone was waiting on pins and needles to see what the verdict was, she calls the trial clerk's desk, and the trial clerk just picks the phone up and puts it back.

47:06 Down and then reads the verdict.

47:08 And as she's typing, so she fucking gets it real time and gets the story out minutes before the deadline. Shit.

47:16 Kind of shady, but it's okay.

47:18 I mean.

47:19 It's a woman, so we're on her side.

47:21 Right.

47:23 Right? She can do whatever she wants. Well, also because that was the.

47:29 Thing, it was everyone is fighting to get the best story first. And this was back when, like, especially LA peepers were, papers were so, peepers? Did I say Mr. Peepers?

47:41 LA papers were super tabloiding.

47:43 So everything was, you know, they took pictures of the body. They took pictures of people as they sat in jail cells. Like the photographers could just go take pictures of people as the shit was happening. They were welcome to step on evidence. That was part of the ritual.

47:58 And just throw flowers on fucking wherever.

48:01 If you want to throw a flower, you can. It was a city ordinance.

48:04 Okay.

48:05 So, the most famous thing, the case that she's known for is, it came on January 7th, 1947, when the nude, bisected body of Elizabeth Short was discovered in an empty lot in Lemur Park.

48:20 You guys heard of this one? Um.

48:24 She was smiling at me. She, Aggie Underwood was the first crime reporter on the scene. Yes, she was.

48:34 She did it. She was there. Think about it.

48:44 Uh, and she claims that the name, the black Dahlia was her idea.

48:49 She did it. Right. She fucking did it.

48:51 Based on that white carnation shit I told you earlier, it's easier to believe.

48:55 I get it.

48:56 But she says that because she got information from a homicide detective, an LAPD. So anyway, twice during the investigation, during the Black Dahlia murder investigation, she gets pulled off the story.

49:07 Two different times.

49:08 Both times with no warning and no explanation whatsoever. And the theory is, but she did, she was, by that point, she was known as the best crime reporter at the Herald Express. And she ended up getting a byline about the story. You know, she's like had her column right on the front page. But there are theories that she kept getting pulled off because she was getting close to figuring out who did it. And the second time she got pulled off, She was promoted to editor of the city desk.

49:40 They're like, let's get her the fuck out of here. It's like, come on, we're having a party for you.

49:44 Don't put that file away. Which is kind of amazing. And we'll bring it up later. Whatever the reason, Ag Yonderwood was the first woman to ever become city editor for a major metropolitan newspaper ever. She was the first. And she also lasted longer in that position than any man who had ever held a job before. The longest....

50:15 Seven, eight.

50:17 The longest that anyone had held a job before that was four years.

50:22 She worked there for 20 years. Sorry.

50:26 And so on the 10th anniversary of her job there, I think this is the next picture, right, Stephen?

50:33 Yes. They gave her... No way. They gave her a life-size baseball bat. Well, look at those alcoholics. Look at.

50:44 She looks like someone... She looks like the mother of a dead girl from L.A. Confidential, doesn't she? Yeah.

50:51 She's like, um, we're sorry, Mrs. Underwood. We have bad news. Your baseball bat has been killed.

50:58 Yeah.

51:00 Look at those snacks. I wonder what those snacks are. Oh, wait.

51:03 Actually, Stephen found this when we found this picture. There's a real good close-up. Look what's right behind her. Oh. No.

51:10 That's the Black Dahlia killer.

51:14 You know who that is?

51:15 Who?

51:15 That's Black Phillip from The Witch. Wasn't his name Black Phillip?

51:22 The goat?

51:24 Do you want to live deliciously? Just keep that up, Steven.

51:29 I think it's fun.

51:30 I think it's fun to have as wallpaper. She was featured on the TV show This Is Your Life in 1956. In 1959, she was named in the first edition of Who's Who.

51:45 In American women.

51:46 In 1962, the Herald Express merged with the Herald Examiner. Um, they actually moved to the Examiner building, which was on 11th and Broadway, three fucking blocks away from here.

51:57 Oh my God.

51:59 In September of 1964, she's promoted to managing editor. She's second in command of the newspaper that put out seven editions and had a readership of 725,000 people. Um, Uh, and by getting that promotion, she only had to be at work at 6 30 AM now. So she just got to a borderline banker's hour.

52:18 She really got to relax, sleep in a little.

52:22 So dad, um, so of course the promotion's a big deal and it's, you know, it's merited. Uh, I mean, it's to her credit, but she hates that she's not a reporter anymore. And she actually described the new job as, quote, wandering around for four years as a half-assed executive, which is not her style. So after 33 years of service and increasing circulation for Hearst Papers, she decides to retire.

52:56 And about working for the Hearst Corporation, she said, I can't recall one Hearst executive ever saying nice work over a story I'd covered or even buying me an ice cream cone on my birthday.

53:09 So help me. Whoa. Ice cream cone is all she wanted. I just love that she's like, yeah, fuck those guys.

53:17 Like, can we get an official quote on how you felt about working for this company?

53:21 They were assholes.

53:24 At her retirement party, they had it at the Hollywood Palladium. Bob Hope was the emcee.

53:30 What?

53:30 It was fucking sold out.

53:32 Shit.

53:33 She got telegrams from governors, senators, from President Lyndon B.

53:38 Johnson.

53:39 Oh, I think there's a, see even that book, there's the cover.

53:45 Oh.

53:45 She was like friends with Bob Hope. She's reading his book. He's reading her book.

53:50 How cute is that?

53:51 Even though there's no way he really read her book. Um, she, uh, over a decades long career, she received over 50 awards for her groundbreaking accomplishments in journalism. And on July 18th, 1962, the famed Los Angeles mayor, Sam Yorty, you know, remember, um, he declared July 18th to be Aggie Underwood day.

54:13 Oh, that's why we have that day off.

54:16 That's why, that's why all the banks are closed. Um, She died of a heart attack at age 81, and she's buried, of course, in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, and every newspaper in Los Angeles ran her obituary, which is very touching.

54:32 Yeah.

54:33 A one-time employee of hers, columnist Jack Smith, said about her, Aggie always reminded me of an old rhyme that used to be painted on the wall of a donut shop at 8th and Olympic. As o'er life's road you roll, keep your eye.

54:47 Upon the donut and not upon the hole.

54:49 Ooh. I know it's fun I love that but here's the big finish on her deathbed her grandsons found out that she worked on the Black Dahlia murder case and they went to her and they were like did you really solve it and she said I know who it is but he's dead and it doesn't matter anyway no.

55:09 And thus proving my theory that Walt Disney was the Black Dahlia fucking murderer am I right yeah.

55:21 Right. Why wouldn't she say the name?

55:23 Right.

55:23 If it's like some dude or some like doctor or whatever, like all those books are about, then she.

55:28 Just go, it was Dr. Who hot.

55:29 It was like, who cares? But she's covering for somebody.

55:33 Don't you think? Lyndon B. Johnson. Lyndon B. Johnson killed Elizabeth Short. That was fucking awesome. That was it. That was it. That was fun. That was a wild ride. Disney, a Disney ride. It was, you know, I accused some people of murders. I mean, me too. That's how we do it. Okay, we're back. Any updates, Karen?

56:11 There actually are, which is exciting. In 2019, the Los Angeles Public Library announced published an extensive photo-driven retrospective titled The First with the Latest, Aggie Underwood, The Los Angeles Herald, and the Sorted Crimes of a City. I can't believe I missed that.

56:27 I'm furious.

56:29 The online collection uses nearly 100 archival photographs revisiting the crimes she covered and her rise through the newspaper business. Go to lapl.org to go see them. I'm going to do that for sure. Also at Cal State Northridge, That's where Aggie's papers are housed. And they continue to maintain the Agnes M. Underwood collection. And that collection includes her correspondence, photographs, speeches, and newspaper clippings. So if you like that story and you want to know more, deep dive. Those are two great sources for you to do it.

57:02 What an unsung, like, feminist hero. I know. Who needs more attention.

57:07 Women who voluntarily go into all-men spaces in, like, the 40s.

57:11 Totally.

57:13 That's fucking... astronaut shit. Like that's the hardest of anything you can do.

57:19 Right.

57:19 She just had a baseball bat.

57:21 Oh my God.

57:22 Okay.

57:23 Now it's time. We're building to the great one. This is George's story about the Los Feliz murder mansion. What you got over there, like a bug or something?

57:38 Yeah, there was a fucking gnat. It's the ghost of Walt Disney. You're waving to the baby really weird. Baby! I love when you just spasically gesture at them. Okay, I'm really excited about this one. This is one of those stories that you're like, why haven't I done that? And you're like, I didn't think there was that much to do about it. And then you look into it and you're like, oh, this is... Yeah, oh shit. Okay. So, are you ready for the Los Feliz Murder Mansion?

58:03 Oh!

58:08 Opa. Nope. Oh, that was her book.

58:12 Please buy it today at your local Barnes & Noble booksellers.

58:16 Look at it. What a woman. What a book. What a woman. What a book. What a woman.

58:22 That was Gene Fowler's hit, What a Woman, What a Book.

58:27 All right. Los Feliz Murder Mansion. All right. Fuck, dude.

58:31 Now, we've talked about this on the podcast, though. Yeah. Like, we've talked to each other about it.

58:36 Absolutely.

58:37 I have.

58:38 Maybe. Absa maybe. Probably.

58:42 Probably.

58:42 Yes. Yes, we have. Because we got emails about it. Okay, great.

58:45 Okay.

58:46 So the LFMM or the Lewis Fields Murder Mansion. So it's one of those Los Angeles urban legends that people who live in Los Angeles love to tell people who... don't know it because we're we like to brag and we're like oh my god you don't know about the loss to less management yeah and then we can tell them about it and then they freak out and then they tell people who don't know and everyone's smarter than everyone.

59:08 Else it's with everything this podcast is based on.

59:13 So the first time I heard about it was on LiveJournal way back when.

59:18 Yeah.

59:19 Back when you were blogging? Back when I was blogging. And I was like, this is the best thing I've ever heard. The common urban legend is that a father killed his whole family and himself on Christmas Eve in the 1950s, that the house had sat abandoned and nothing in the house had been touched or changed since that night.

59:36 And if you crept up and trespassed and looked through the window, you could still see the Christmas tree and the presents underneath from the night he killed his family. That's the urban legend that everyone.

59:46 And does anyone talk about the level of dust that would be on those things?

59:50 Yes. It's like part of it. So people who are really into abandoned shit are like, this is the best thing I've ever heard.

59:56 That's like preserved almost.

59:58 So it's like, oh, it's like a abandoned porn, abandonment porn. Yeah.

1:00:03 Lots of people here into abandonment porn.

1:00:05 Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:07 Second only to changing room shame porn.

1:00:11 And porn porn.

1:00:12 And then just regular porn.

1:00:15 Porn. We rarely talk about porn this much. I know, especially not in front of my parents. It's fine.

1:00:21 Okay.

1:00:22 Hi, Janet. So it turns out that that isn't exactly true. I'm going to fucking tell you the real story.

1:00:30 Okay, finally, the truth.

1:00:31 The truth comes out tonight. So 2475 Glendower Place is a four-bedroom, three-bath Spanish Revival mansion on over half an acre lot that sits atop a hill in Los Feliz. It was built in 1925. I'm going to stop you. Okay.

1:00:46 Okay.

1:00:48 Los Feliz.

1:00:48 You're from here.

1:00:49 Los Feliz. I just was reading it in a voice. Oh, that was that lady's accent? That was that lady. My bad.

1:00:56 Sorry.

1:00:56 I am now like a 1950s real estate agent.

1:01:00 Who doesn't know what Los Feliz is. Yeah.

1:01:03 Got it. Okay. It was built in 1925 by architect Harry E. Weiner. Weiner. And... It was once owned by German film director, silent film director, Frederick Zoellick. Zoellick? Zoellick. Got it. With a K.

1:01:20 Right.

1:01:20 The house was described as a delightful 12-room home with terrace lawns, artistic gardens, and a magnificent view. It had a ballroom with a bar. Keep doing the voice. I know. That was the end of the quote. Maids' quarters, a glassed-in conservatory, and a podcast loft.

1:01:35 Okay. No, it didn't. Sorry, a glass conservatory?

1:01:40 Yeah.

1:01:41 For like concerts and stuff?

1:01:43 No, I think they're like an atrium, right? I don't know.

1:01:47 Not conservatory people.

1:01:49 Let's see the photos, Steven. Oh, isn't it gorgeous? Yes, it is. Where's the Christmas tree? That left side? No, no, no, no. We're going to get there. Take it down. All right. Okay, so.

1:02:03 They put the Christmas tree up in that window, like hung it from the ceiling.

1:02:06 Christmas. Upside down. Art Christmas. Okay, so this neighborhood is for fucking rich people. Richie Rich. It still is. It is and it was. And it's surrounded by all these insanely gorgeous fancy houses, million dollar houses, including the Ennis house. This house is right in front of the Ennis house.

1:02:29 And I actually saw that I saw it once from what? What's the NS house? Oh, the NS house was a Frank Lloyd Wright house built for the family. Got it.

1:02:37 That looks like a weird Aztec or Mayan temple or something.

1:02:40 It's the one that was in a house on haunted Hill. It's, it's the house on haunted Hill. It's like, and it was in blade runner and all this shit. It's like famous as fuck.

1:02:49 It's a great house.

1:02:50 Yeah. Okay. Uh, boop. Okay. Okay.

1:02:55 Okay.

1:02:56 By 1959, the... So, 1959, here we are. The Los Feliz murder mansion is owned by the Perilson family. The patriarch of the family is Harold Perilson. He's 50. He's known as a quiet and kind man. Badness. Mm-hmm. He's a prominent surgeon specializing in cardiothoracics and allergies. Cardiothoracic. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

1:03:20 Yes.

1:03:21 And... I need him as my doctor, but not him, because you'll see why. He has a profitable patent for a new type of syringe. He's written one of the most respected clinical reports of the time that I'm not going to try to read to you. Read it. The name of the electrocardiogram in familiar periodic paralysis. Good stuff. Okay, thank you. Doctors.

1:03:49 So many doctors.

1:03:51 And a well-respected keynote speaker in medical conferences around the country.

1:03:55 Hot.

1:03:57 His wife is 42-year-old Lillian, and she's a homemaker and mother to the couple's three children, 18-year-old Judy, daughter Judy, 11-year-old Debbie, and 13-year-old Joseph. This is the only photo I can find of any of them. How creepy is that? It's a nightmare. No, it's not.

1:04:20 That's not fun in any way.

1:04:21 No.

1:04:21 That looks like something from Insidious 2.

1:04:26 It just starts zapping in and out.

1:04:28 Yeah, because his eyes, like the newspaper print is making the boy's eyes look like they were bleeding up.

1:04:36 Everything's fine. Okay, take it down. Okay. All the neighbors, all the rich neighbors, of course, say that they're a loving family, shows no outward signs of strife, and by all accounts, they have wealth, respect, and success. This is where if we had them, we would raise our red flags high in the air.

1:04:55 You don't want wealth, respect, and success.

1:04:57 Nope.

1:04:59 That's a quick train to Deathville, everybody.

1:05:01 Which you want to. You want all your outward signs to be crazy and dysfunctional because then what's really happening... I don't know why.

1:05:09 You're just kind of working through shit real time.

1:05:11 Yeah.

1:05:11 You're not saving it all up for a murder house situation.

1:05:16 All was not well, it turns out.

1:05:18 Okay.

1:05:18 The story goes that... Here's the story. There's so much fucking speculation and different stories and embellishments online in every... Like, every article you read, every blog post about it. Can you believe bloggers are embellishing? I can't believe it. It's just, there's so much craziness. I tried to get the closest to what exactly happened. Sure.

1:05:40 But then embellish a little, too.

1:05:42 Because, I mean, why not? A podcaster is talking shit on bloggers embellishing.

1:05:48 This is when the podcaster-blogger war started.

1:05:52 Okay, the story goes that the night of December 6th, 1959... Harold came home from work like usual, fixed himself a drink. Lillian was wrapping Christmas presents and preparing dinner at the same time because women had to do everything back then.

1:06:07 Cooking and rapping at the same time.

1:06:09 Yeah, nothing's more fun. After dinner, the family watches TV, and then the two youngest children get tucked into bed by their parents. Judy, 18-year-old who's older, goes to her room to do some homework, and everyone kind of just is reading and eventually goes to sleep. Harold, before he fell asleep, was reading Dante's Divine Comedy, a little light comedy.

1:06:33 Light reading. Just some fun stuff. Uh-huh.

1:06:35 The Stephen King of their day.

1:06:38 Eventually, he falls asleep, but not before marking a specific passage in the book. We'll get there. Okay. Okay.

1:06:46 I can't wait for the Dante's Divine Comedy part.

1:06:50 I have like a four-page quote from it. It's going to be thrilling. It's going to rhyme. Sometime around 5 a.m., Harold wakes up goes to his toolbox, grabs a ball-peen hammer.

1:07:09 What are fucking ball-peen hammers for but to murder your family? Yes! Every story we read.

1:07:17 If you have one of those in your house, throw it away. Flush it down the toilet.

1:07:20 Burn the handle and then flush the big part down the toilet. It's the only solution.

1:07:28 Okay. Goes to his wife's room. and hits her while she's sleeping. As she lay dying, he goes to his eldest daughter Judy's room. But she had woken up when she heard what was going on in the other room, so she was kind of prepared for him. So when he went to hit her, she was able to lighten the blow by blocking with her arm. So it didn't come down and hit her as hard. And she was able to get up her arm in defense, but she was disoriented.

1:08:02 So, apparently your dad is trying to murder you.

1:08:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's fighting with him, and he says, lay still and keep quiet. But she is like, fuck you, and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Right? She tries to get up and run, and her scream wakes up her sleeping siblings, the younger ones in the other room. So Debbie, the daughter, comes out to be like, what's happening? Why is my sister screaming? And Harold, thinking that Judy is dazed and incapacitated, goes to take Debbie back to her bedroom.

1:08:36 He says to her, allegedly, go back to bed. This is just a nightmare. He goes back to Judy's room to, like, finish it off, one would think. But she's fucking booked it while he's tending to the other daughter.

1:08:53 Both the quotes, lay still, and whatever that second one is, Go.

1:08:57 Back to bed. This is just a nightmare.

1:09:01 This man is, I don't know anything about him and he's the creepiest thoracic surgeon I've.

1:09:05 Ever heard of in my life. That's right. So she, despite a fucking skull fracture, she takes off down that crazy hill at the, you know, what the house is on. What?

1:09:18 Yeah.

1:09:19 And runs, goes to the neighbors. They had already woken up because they heard her scream. So when she pounds on the door and they open it and she's got blood coming down her head, they let her in and they call the police. Meanwhile, Debbie, the little sister, who was like, go back to bed. This is a nightmare.

1:09:34 She was like, I don't believe that. And so when he, she grabs her brother and they booked it the fuck out of the house too. Oh, thank God. I know.

1:09:47 Baby, the kids survive. Everything's good. Your people are fine.

1:09:53 She was about to walk out.

1:09:57 Diapers.

1:09:58 Someone just told her this was a comedy show. She didn't know. Diapers. Okay, so Harold at this point, he's like, oh, I did this wrong. The cops are probably coming.

1:10:11 Yeah.

1:10:12 I'm a, I guess I'm, what is it called when you put words? You're riffing. I'm riffing. Sure. He goes back to his bedroom where his wife is now dead, takes a concoction of acid and tranquilizer pills. And of course it's like on every different place, it's a different kind of whatever he takes, you know, Nembutal or tranquilizers or codeine and the acid is supposedly cyanide. He takes a bunch of shit so that basically when the police arrive, he's on the ground in his bedroom where his wife is dead in the bed. He's near death and he's got the fucking ball-peen hammer in his hand. Won't let go.

1:10:50 And then it becomes fused to his hand. He comes back as the ball-peen hammer ghost. I'm just trying to get one film out of this experience.

1:11:00 One script. He is dead before the ambulance can get there. Shit. So on the nightstand next to Harold's bed, they find the copy of Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy. And the passage that was marked reads, midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark for, nope, within a forest dark for the straightforward path had been lost.

1:11:26 It's creepy, but we don't really know what it means. He was probably just crazy, whatever. Okay. He's a surgeon.

1:11:31 What more does he want?

1:11:34 So in the ensuing investigation to figure out why Harold had gone bonkers, a letter was found that Judy had written to her aunt that said, we are on the merry-go-round again. Same problems, same worries, only tenfold. My parents are in a bind financially. Oh. Basically, she was like, we're fucking broke. Oh. You know what I mean?

1:11:54 Yeah.

1:11:55 Despite outward appearances, the Pearlsons were actually going through financial hardships. So the rights to Harold's patent, his medical device patent, they were stolen by his partner after Harold and Lillian spent thousands of dollars developing it. And then he went on to spend thousands more on a legal battle that went on for years, and the settlement barely covered the legal costs in the end. And a few months after that, his children had been in a car accident. That wasn't their fault. He had filed another suit against the driver, but the settlement barely covered the children's medical costs. So, like, he needs a better lawyer, I'm thinking. That's one thing he needs. Another theory as to what happened was that...

1:12:42 Though friends were told that Harold had a recent spate of unexpected heart attacks, which had put him in the hospital. A spate of heart attacks? Yeah. That's too many. I know. Once plenty. Yeah. But they had to give an excuse as to why he kept having to go back to the hospital.

1:12:59 Oh.

1:12:59 But what really happened, they found that it had actually been suicide attempts.

1:13:05 Yes.

1:13:06 And they were saying he was just in the hospital for all these heart attacks he keeps having.

1:13:10 It's so crazy.

1:13:11 Dad fell down and had another heart attack.

1:13:13 So we're trying to.

1:13:17 And it was also possible that the wife, that Lillian or the doctors were going to have him committed or that she had to do it at the end of a certain time, a period of time. So maybe he was just like, I'm not going back. We don't really know. All three children left to live with relatives, and their whereabouts are now unknown. They changed their names so they wouldn't be associated with the murders. There's like one rumor of who someone is, but I don't even know if it's true, so I'm not going to say. And also, they don't want to be known. No, totally. Yeah. And here's her photo. No, that would never do that. It's my mom. Oh my God, how cool would that be?

1:13:54 And in researching this story, I discovered.

1:13:57 Shannon! Okay. Okay. Okay. In 1960. So, in 1960, a year after the murder-suicide, the mansion is sold at auction, and for the next over 50 years, the Los Feliz murder mansion would remain completely untouched and uninhabited by anyone. Okay, that part's only kind of true. Here's the truth.

1:14:22 How many times have you done that during this story?

1:14:24 Just this once? Like reading it to my cats? No, no, no.

1:14:29 Reading something going, that's actually only partly true.

1:14:32 That's my whole life. Okay. Either way, I know people want this to be the creepiest, craziest story. It is super fucking creepy either way. Here's what really happened. The couple that bought the home were Julian and Emily Enriquez of Lincoln Heights and They never lived there. They bought this fucking mansion and used it as a storage unit, basically.

1:14:56 Was this before storage units were available to America?

1:15:01 Before storage wars? It must be. So they basically just kept bringing boxes and weird stuff over there and filling the house. So people thought that all the stuff had been, like when people, the looky-loos would come and try to look through the windows, they thought that that was all of the stuff being left behind. But it's still creepy.

1:15:20 What? There's a box that says utensils on it. It's so scary.

1:15:27 When Emily, when the mother died in 1994, their son Rudy, who they all paid the property tax, so they couldn't take the house from them, even though no one lived there. He only used it as storage as well. He'd never spent a night there. He made no changes from the home aside from installing an alarm system because the neighbors were complaining about squatters and ghost hunters constantly trying to break into the house.

1:15:54 What were these Enrique's? What was the plan?

1:15:58 You wonder. I don't know.

1:16:01 They just filled the entire thing with boxes slowly but surely like Tetris.

1:16:05 25 more. Then it like explodes into the ether and it doesn't exist anymore. Okay, so the house slowly fell into disrepair and nothing was done to maintain the property except for the neighbors tended to the yard and cleaned the gutters in front because they're like, this is hideous and we hate looking at this. They did it themselves? Yeah.

1:16:27 That's like when my neighbors put my garbage can back up my driveway. Garbage day is Monday and I'll leave it out there until Thursday.

1:16:35 Okay. That's exactly what they did. Oh, it's so embarrassing. We have a photo of the abandoned looking house. Yes. Oh, shit. How fucking creepy is this?

1:16:48 Those fences make things look way creepier.

1:16:49 Though, too. No, but that's pretty creepy. It's, you know, it's creepy by itself. I mean, think about what happened in there.

1:16:55 Just saying, the fence adds.

1:16:56 Yes, it does. It really adds. It adds 10 pounds of terrifying. I wanted to go in there so bad. I mean, to a point where it broke my heart that I could never do it. Like, this is my fucking dream. We could get into.

1:17:11 That glass terrarium or whatever it's called.

1:17:13 I bet you.

1:17:13 If we put on like balaclavas and we'll wear the black shirt I always wear and we'll just climb a fence.

1:17:19 Honestly, like if I could travel the world only breaking into houses like this, I would do it. Just to go through things. I don't want to like fuck anything up. I just want to look around like an asshole. You know? People do that. Like, that's why I go to estate sales, is I just want to go through people's stuff. It's so fun. And, like, maybe buy their old, like, cookbooks.

1:17:37 I don't know. Yes. Okay.

1:17:38 Get in their lives.

1:17:41 All right. So now, on to the rumors that everything from the night of the murder was left behind and still there. It's not true. What people who peeked through the windows were really seeing was the fucking crazy shit the Enriquez family, who sound like hoarders, left behind.

1:17:54 The richest hoarders of all time.

1:17:56 Yes. Yes. And, well, at the same time, though, I wonder, a house was sold in 1960, so it happened in 1959. No one probably wanted to buy that house, you know? True. So maybe they got it for a steal. A song, that's what I meant to say.

1:18:10 Sure. But, I mean, still, if you buy a house, you'd want to go ahead and live there. Sure.

1:18:15 Or at least fix it up and sell it. Yeah.

1:18:17 Throw a coat of paint on there, just smudge stick or whatever.

1:18:21 Yeah. clap the corners of Sage. Um, okay. So they left behind all this stuff, including like vintage magazines and vintage cleaning products, which made people think that that was, uh, belonged to.

1:18:34 Were they fucking with people?

1:18:35 They might've been fucking with people. We have, um, a photo. Okay. So this is from a website, a blog called my LA bucket list.com. Um, she liked this chick basically as me, but braver. She snuck up there and like took all these photos in the, through the window. So here's, uh, one of them. Oh, we get to see. Oh, so see the magazine. That's a life magazine. That's a post magazine.

1:19:00 So when she put those up online, people were like, um, that came out in the 19, in 1965. And so it's clearly not the pearls and family's, It doesn't belong to them, you know? And there was a box of SpaghettiOs in the kitchen. And they were like, it's the murder SpaghettiOs and shit. They were really excited that somehow a box of SpaghettiOs belonged to a murderer. It's interesting.

1:19:23 It is interesting.

1:19:24 But it turns out that SpaghettiOs weren't manufactured until 1965. Which is like, internet sleuths are the best. How they're just like, nope, sorry, dicks.

1:19:32 Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:34 Hate to rain on your parade with SpaghettiOs, but.

1:19:36 Chef Boyardee wasn't even invented in 1963.

1:19:40 Anyway, nice try. And then there's another urban legend that the house was rented to a family a few years after the murder who were living there until one night... right around Christmas, or right around the anniversary of the murder, suicide, the family fled the house in terror. Ghost shit. Ghost shit.

1:20:05 And left behind everything, including a Christmas tree and unwrapped presents. Like, the Christmas tree part is a big part of this urban legend that people will tell you about, because it sounds so creepy. But here's the thing. There's no photo anywhere of a Christmas tree. So that Doesn't seem like it.

1:20:22 That's just hot gossip. Sorry guys.

1:20:25 Yeah.

1:20:25 But there is a photo through the window of a creepy old, I think it's the living room and Christmas wrapping paper on the couch. Here's another one from my LA bucket list.com. How terrifying you see that.

1:20:38 Yeah.

1:20:38 And then look at all the dust and shit and that old timey fucking thing. Yeah.

1:20:43 Oh, also that makes me uncomfortable. There's an office style file cabinet there. You don't have that in a living room or a TV room.

1:20:52 That's not.

1:20:53 That's for dad's office only.

1:20:55 Unless you're keeping files on something sinister.

1:20:58 Chef Boyardee. Right. So....

1:21:05 Okay. And the other thing is, the reason we know it's not the Perilsons is that they were Jewish, so. It's probably not the Christmas crap.

1:21:15 There's so many internet sleuths that were immediately like, yeah, does anyone get this?

1:21:19 Okay.

1:21:20 We'll wait till you people catch up.

1:21:22 And just for fun, cause I love this shit. Here's one more creepy photo from my LA bucket list through the window. Nightmare. God, don't you just want to like tiptoe through that house? Like, alone. No one's there with you.

1:21:35 Those yellow chairs are so clearly from overstock.com. There's, like, no fucking question in my mind.

1:21:41 No, you're ruining it.

1:21:42 I would immediately, I would see that picture and I'd just be like, $ 49. 99?

1:21:46 No, they're creepy from the death house. So they're creepy. No, they're so creepy. But they're also a bargain. But they're also, you can't afford not to buy them. Like, but look at that giant old school sofa, you know? Yeah. I just love it.

1:22:02 Yeah.

1:22:04 Okay. In 2016, all of us weirdos lost our minds when the house went up for sale. And this was when we were finally able to see inside the house because there weren't a lot of photos. There's some woman online who broke into the house. Did she? They broke into the house. It looks like a lot of squatters used to live there because there's now junk everywhere. It looks like they went through all the closets and all the Enrique stuff thinking it belonged to a murderer, which is... horrible. And, uh, they went in there. So there's some weird photos from inside of there, but we finally got to see inside the house.

1:22:37 I feel like this is that whenever that it went on sale is when we talked about it.

1:22:41 It was like the very beginning of the show. Yes. And we were like, let's buy it.

1:22:43 Yeah. Um, we still have a Patreon up if anybody wants to donate to, it might be too late.

1:22:49 Actually last night when Vince and I, Vince and I were laying in bed and I was writing this and, uh, I was like, can you believe it sold for this or was up for this much? And he was like, who would want to live in a, death house and I was like oh shit he doesn't know about me and I had to explain why I would really really.

1:23:07 Really want it you would live in a house where somebody murdered his his wife Yeah.

1:23:13 I'm asking her. Some lady goes, absolutely. It's the ghost of, uh, I wouldn't live there because someone was murdered there, but I wouldn't not. And it would kind of be a, if I were deciding between two places and one, it'd kind of be a bonus. In like a really cool spooky way and like connected to our history.

1:23:35 Have you ever seen one scary movie?

1:23:39 One.

1:23:40 No.

1:23:40 Any?

1:23:41 No.

1:23:41 No. Oh, we got to get you. Okay. First, Insidious 2 is where you have to start because it's so crazy, but it's also a sequel.

1:23:48 Okay. Okay, so we all lost our minds. Before all the junk was hauled off so the house could be listed, supposedly this woman who was a friend of the late owner, her name is Alexis Vaughn. She's a photographer. She was invited. She's like the only person ever who was invited into the house to take photos before they got rid of everything.

1:24:09 And she posted those photos on her website, Life in My Lens. Here's one of the photos. Or two photos side by side. An oven. It's so creepy. Do you not find any of these creepy? Am I crazy? Those are two separate questions.

1:24:25 I just like comedy.

1:24:26 Oh, okay.

1:24:28 No, no, I mean, they're creepy in a way, but then kind of knowing the... Knowing that it's the Enriquez's stuff, I would be freaking out if we knew it was their stuff.

1:24:38 I should have written this differently. No, no, no. But it's the truth.

1:24:42 Because I've actually known the wrong story this whole time.

1:24:44 Yeah.

1:24:45 So I want to know it.

1:24:45 Well, I wanted to ruin everyone's day. It's fun, right?

1:24:50 Yeah.

1:24:51 Once the house... was cleared of all the junk and slightly cleaned up. The real estate listing photos of the now-empty house went up with the listing. Here's some pictures. That's the ballroom with the fucking bar. I mean, they did hang out there, though, the family.

1:25:06 They did?

1:25:07 Well, they lived there. Oh, oh. You know what I mean. That's the creepy-ass fucking ballroom. They just stood in.

1:25:12 That room going like that?

1:25:12 You know, how you swim. It's kind of like swimming, but just in the ballroom. Yeah.

1:25:17 Every night from 7 to 8.

1:25:18 I think there's another one, Stephen. Yeah.

1:25:21 Ooh.

1:25:22 It's so crazy.

1:25:23 Floors.

1:25:25 The house was ultimately bought for $ 2. 289 million. Even though the family, I mean, it's really sad. And a lot of people are super bummed that there was this gorgeous, like historical house that, uh, that then this family bought and wouldn't sell it to anyone. They refuse it. Lots of offers and just let it fall into disrepair. And it might just be a teardown because there's so much damage.

1:25:51 So it's kind of shitty. No one knows why they did that. They wouldn't explain it to anyone. And it's just this sad, weird, creepy thing on top of the fact that this awful, horrible thing happened in the house before. It's almost like the house itself is this entity where only weird shit can happen in it.

1:26:08 It's an entity that makes you store things.

1:26:10 It's just box it up.

1:26:12 There's a voice that whispers box it up all night as you sleep.

1:26:17 I don't know. I just feel like it.

1:26:18 I feel like we can't use the closets in our own home anymore.

1:26:23 It's just, they're creepy too. I want to know what the fuck was going on with them. It's super creepy.

1:26:27 That should be the thing for the next, the web sleuths. They need to get all up in the Enriquez's business. Go to their house.

1:26:34 Squat in there. Well, do it. Well, they died. So, I forgot to say, the reason it went up for sale is because Rudy died in his 80s. And so the house went up on auction, you know? Yeah. It sold for 2.2, blah, blah, blah. And it was bought by TV legal analyst Lisa Bloom, who happens to be Gloria Allred's daughter. Oh, shit. I know. And you're like, oh, she's probably creepy. I like that she's... She knows some shit.

1:27:05 I don't know why I feel that way about her. Maybe because she bought this house.

1:27:08 No, because everybody knows it's the Los Feliz murder house.

1:27:12 And they were the only people who put a bid on it, too.

1:27:14 Right. And Katy Perry, probably. She would have gotten in there. If she had known, she was probably on tour.

1:27:22 So why Harold Perilson committed this crime it's still a fucking mystery and unless one of the kids comes forward and writes their tell all or says what happened about the family we'll never know what happened that night for sure and that is the Los Feliz murder mansion wow that's a good one and I'm gonna check this you guys better drive by before they make it all Hollywood and shit Okay, we're back.

1:27:52 Are there updates for this one?

1:27:53 There actually are. In late 2020, Lisa Bloom sold the house for $ 2. 35 million to an LLC represented by a contractor named Effies Lotnisky. Bloom reportedly sold the property because of renovation and permitting issues. I feel like that house, it was in such disrepair that... remodeling it would be millions and millions.

1:28:16 I mean, I wonder, maybe you looked it up, but like what happens to a house that just sits there closed up for 40 years?

1:28:24 Well, there was one in my neighborhood, actually.

1:28:26 Oh.

1:28:27 That was one of the original houses in the neighborhood. So, you know, like the 20s or 30s. And it costs so much money that they had to list it for like $ 7 million, which no one in my neighborhood is going to buy a fucking $ 7 million house.

1:28:40 House.

1:28:40 Yeah.

1:28:41 So it just doesn't make sense. But in Los Feliz, they would. Right. You see that. So I'm sure they bought it and who knows.

1:28:48 Anyways, in 2024, the New York Post reported that Zlotlinsky had defaulted on over $ 3 million in accrued interest and was at risk of foreclosure.

1:28:56 Been there.

1:28:56 Yeah.

1:28:58 The house has since been put back on the market. The exact date is unclear, but it seems like in late 2024. Now listed for just under $ 3 million. This is an uninhabitable house in.

1:29:08 Los Angeles, everyone.

1:29:09 It's so Los Angeles.

1:29:10 Just so you know. Like, that's what it's like.

1:29:13 Yeah.

1:29:14 One of the listing agents is Jason Oppenheim of Selling Sunset fame.

1:29:18 Oh.

1:29:19 I remember when it went on the market and you could see all the photos and there's like a ballroom.

1:29:24 I mean, it's really fancy. fucking cool house. I remember Vince saying, absolutely not.

1:29:31 He's not going in.

1:29:31 Would you ever let me buy that? Yeah, but I'm not fucking living in it. Yeah.

1:29:38 That's when you go solo.

1:29:39 Exactly.

1:29:39 And just go live in a haunted house alone. That is the craziest.

1:29:44 Yeah. I think new Exactly Right Media offices, maybe?

1:29:48 Or we raise the building entirely and just build a nice peace garden.

1:29:51 Oh, I like that. Come on. Come on, everybody.

1:29:54 Okay, it's time to go back into the episode to listen to the hometown that we get from the audience member.

1:30:05 Do we have time for a hometown? Oh, hell yeah. Yes.

1:30:14 Marie Enriquez walks up here. I'll tell you what I did with that.

1:30:19 Oh, no. Those SpaghettiOs, motherfuckers. I ate the whole box. Tell them the rules.

1:30:27 Oh, all right. Well, having been on this tour for a year and a half, we've seen some hometowns, good and bad, amazing and fine. And based on those experiences, we've made a couple rules. So obviously, we want you to do a hometown that's from Los Angeles. It's relevant to the people in this room. It doesn't have to be like California.

1:30:48 Yeah.

1:30:49 Yeah, the Southland.

1:30:51 Nobody gives a shit about, like, Modesto.

1:30:53 No, no, no, no. Look, let's be honest. Listen, listen, listen.

1:30:58 Um.

1:31:00 You can be drunk, but you can't be so drunk you can't tell your own story. You have to be able to track your own talking as you do it.

1:31:07 Remember the girl who was like, I'm on Xanax. Okay, and then just fucking went for it? Yeah. She did great. Yeah, she was good. She used the alcohol to her advantage.

1:31:16 There's some people that they start strong and then seven sentences in they realize where they are and what they're doing. They're like, I didn't buy tickets to this. What the fuck is going on?

1:31:29 Everything gets real slow.

1:31:32 You know, just kind of make it snappy. Remember that if you get picked, everyone else hates you, so they don't really want to watch you tell a story, so you have to really bring it on a high level if you don't think you can do that.

1:31:44 No improvisers. Just kidding. I think that's it, right? Okay, yeah. And I've been picking, and I've been pretty... I'm going to run, so don't fucking ruin this for me.

1:31:55 We were going back and forth, and it would be like whoever... If you picked a person and they didn't do a good job, then the other person, it was now the next person's turn to do it.

1:32:02 And I'm on a roll.

1:32:03 Georgia's been doing it for like the last 11, so.

1:32:05 Uh, uh. Okay, let's get.

1:32:07 So she's on it.

1:32:08 Okay. Right, yeah, right here.

1:32:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:32:12 I love when you and I point at someone who's like wildly waving their hand and then their face just falls and like an, oh shit, I didn't mean that kind of way. Hi. Hi, how are you? Good, good, good, good, good, good. Hi.

1:32:26 What's your name?

1:32:27 Mona. Here, stand here.

1:32:28 Center up.

1:32:29 Here we go. This is Mona. Think of the stage picture. Thank God it's dark. I know, right? Where are you from, Mona? I'm from up the coast a little ways. Ventura.

1:32:38 Oh, Ventura.

1:32:39 Ventura. I love Ventura. Are you a surfer? God, no. No balance. What do you do for a living? I sell insurance.

1:32:49 Cool.

1:32:49 All right. We all need it. It's true. It's true. So what's your hometown?

1:32:55 So, okay, a long time ago when I was in like the seventh or eighth grade, I had this, there was a teaching team at my high and middle school, Mr.

1:33:04 And Mrs.

1:33:04 Shirley.

1:33:05 And my brother was on the track team with, I think it was Jake Bush.

1:33:08 Jake Bush.

1:33:10 So what happens is Miss Shirley is super nice. She's like my English teacher.

1:33:15 Mr.

1:33:15 Shirley is like my history teacher. And one day Miss Shirley comes home with Jake Bush.

1:33:22 Mr.

1:33:22 Shirley is, I think, still grading papers or whatever.

1:33:25 They come home. The house is robbed.

1:33:28 And it's like fucked up beyond all belief.

1:33:30 Shit's everywhere. So in shock, they just go in.

1:33:33 And the mom's like, oh, shit. She starts going to get the phone to call the cops. Jake being a fucking 16, 17 year old runs into his bedroom to see if any of.

1:33:44 His shit's fucked up. So what happens is the dude's still fricking there. No, no, no, no. He's behind the door.

1:33:56 That's where you don't want them.

1:33:57 No.

1:33:58 Oh yeah.

1:33:59 So the fucked up thing is he was just there.

1:34:05 He didn't like flee or anything.

1:34:07 He stabs poor Jake.

1:34:11 Jake is screaming. His mom runs into the room. The guy runs out.

1:34:16 She literally is holding him, trying to stop the bleeding. And he dies in her arms. Jake!

1:34:25 It gets worse. It always does.

1:34:28 So it like rocked the community. I remember being in the class on the last day of school because they finished the fucking school year and Miss Shirley cried at everything.

1:34:39 She still came to class? She taught school? Cut the school year short. Isn't it hard enough for teachers? It's... Right? And I remember him, like, Mr.

1:34:49 Shirley giving this moving speech about how we really helped them through it and all this. I remember sewing the fucking memorial black patch of my brother's track uniform.

1:34:59 So it was awful.

1:35:00 It was never really solved. It just sat there for years and years and years. Last year, last year, they brought a guy to trial and they convicted him.

1:35:12 And it was because.

1:35:14 Whoever pulled the palm print off the window pulled it in a way that there was DNA.

1:35:18 Ooh. And he shit in the closet? they fucking ran his shit dna and they got a match of codas holy shit right well and how.

1:35:41 Don't you have to be not only you in this house you robbed it you're there long enough that you have to take a dump you don't use a fucking toilet you.

1:35:48 Shit in the closets Well, it might have been after they got home, so he was really trapped.

1:35:53 It's true. It was a bad situation.

1:35:56 So, long story short, his own shit did him in, and he's behind bars where he should be.

1:36:02 Yay! Wow.

1:36:04 Wow. That's how you do it.

1:36:07 That's how you tell a hometown murder.

1:36:08 Oh, we have a present for you.

1:36:10 That's it. Oh.

1:36:11 Look at this cool, you have a prize. Thank you. Orpheum gave us these incredible hats. And on the back, it says, Live Nation presents my favorite murder. Sold out March 16th, 2018. It's a one of a kind. So good. That was amazing.

1:36:29 I'll take that from you.

1:36:30 Yeah, you can't have that. Thank you. Oh, my God. That is how you do a hometown. I mean, twists and turns. I was way down here and sad, and I'm like, how are we going to get out of this? And then it, like, got here.

1:36:40 I did not see the shit coming at all.

1:36:43 None of us did. You never see the shit coming. We never do. Fuck. Okay, we're back. Karen, are there any updates on this hometown?

1:36:54 Marco Antonio Casillas' conviction was upheld. on a direct appeal in 2019. And then in 2023, a California appeals court rejected his request for resentencing, ruling that the evidence established he was the person who stabbed Jake Bush. Casillas continued challenging his conviction in federal court, arguing in part that the jury should have heard more evidence about another possible suspect.

1:37:19 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that challenge in March of 2025, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case. on October 6, 2025, leaving his sentence of life without parole intact.

1:37:32 Wow.

1:37:33 Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty final. It feels like they ran it through every court possible.

1:37:38 Totally.

1:37:39 Well, that's this episode, a pretty big one in my mind. It's a pretty, it's up there for me. It was originally titled Live at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.

1:37:48 But if we were naming it today, based on some fucking thing that came out of one of our mouths. On stage, maybe it would be. What about emergency child phone? We could do that. We could do old scissor. A quick train to death bill. That's good. Fitting room nude. All right. Well, thanks for listening. Let's say goodbye from the stage, the theater.

1:38:10 The theater.

1:38:11 The Orpheum Theater in 2018.

1:38:16 This is the last night of our big tour, our winter tour. We're home. We're home. We're home. To be here in our own hometown.

1:38:29 In Hollywood in a place where people are professionally disinterested in everything everything everyone else is doing it's fucking amazing to do something have a show that sells out have this many people give a shit about what you're doing thank you so much for everything.

1:38:49 Uh We are so incredibly lucky that we get to do this as a job. And thank you guys for making this incredible community around this horrible thing we talk about, but making it positive. We're so lucky to be a part of it, and we appreciate so much what you guys have done for us.

1:39:07 So thanks for being here.

1:39:08 Yeah, thank you. Thanks for... Thanks for doing this whole thing with us.

1:39:14 We really and very literally couldn't do it without you.

1:39:17 Thanks to Vince for being our tour manager. Vince has been our tour manager. Just do a quick... Come on, Vince. He doesn't want you. This is the man that makes it happen on the road. Yeah. Yes. Thank you.

1:39:30 He literally sometimes will be like, you just need to eat a little salad.

1:39:35 It's the nicest thing in the world. Uh, yeah, this is, we're lucky. This is amazing. We're very happy.

1:39:41 And when mostly we just want you to stay sexy.

1:39:47 Elvis, do you want a cookie?