Epi 14: Freaky Friday - Halloween Special!

Happy Friday!  Tonight we’re diving into the history behind Halloween, and each telling a crazy story that has happened ON Halloween.



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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hey guys, welcome to cocktails that gets fear. Aziz, we love this podcast. I mucked up. I'm tessie and let's drink. Drink here. Right. We're taking a drink of something I just made and it's not good. You don't like it? Do you like it? Maybe I need more champagne. I think it needs a little more champagne death in the afternoon. Oh, it is called death in the afternoon. And guess what? It almost just did me in an interesting facts. This was ernest hemingway's favorite cocktail. Really? Yeah. He said, um, I forgot the quote. He said it was damn good. Well, I met Ernest was breaking the real absent and hallucinating all over the damn for sure. For sure. Yeah. So it is half an ounce of absent and four ounces of Champagne, so one part absent eight parts. Champagne. So Halloween is just around the corner and wait. Hopefully you all enjoyed our Salem witch trial. It was definitely the longest one to date, but for sure there's a lot of stuff in there. A lot. Yeah. Hopefully you all enjoyed that, but we're sticking to the theme, the spooky theme, the Halloween theme. Helping. Yeah, I can't believe it's already next week. I know, I know where the gap is. So. Great. Are you dressing up? I don't even have any plants. Yeah, it's on a Wednesday. It's weird. It is weird this year. Well, okay. All right. So yeah. So basically what we're doing is not only is it a halloween theme, but we are talking about Halloween, we're talking about like the holiday, the history behind Halloween too. Yup. And then we both brought a super scary story about something that happened on Halloween. Yeah, we're all excited. So. Okay. What is, how elouine where did it come from? Tests. Okay. So Halloween's origins date back about 2000 years ago to the ancient Celtic Festival of salt when the celts who lived in the area that is now Ireland, the UK and northern France celebrated their new year on November first rather than January first. Right. So they basically had this two week ranger where everyone would prepare for the new year and it was um, a celebration of the summers and the summer coming to like crops, like go get the book for crops. It wasn't about so much is because I read something where it was like, it's kind of been thought that that was to celebrate the dead or talked about death and it was really like almost like a harvest festival. Well it was kind of both, right? Yeah. So they drank for two weeks straight, but they also got shit done. So they would slaughter cattle, like you were saying for the coming winter. But this is also a time to like take care of their stuff. Administratively. They paid their taxes and settled their dads, you know what? I have to settle debts and pay taxes. Why not do it during a two week ranger, right? Yeah. God, we should change tax day. I think we should take the day off and just like rage and turn it on our taxes. Everyone who's, who's in. Oh. So in. That'd be so fun. Um, so the last day of October marks the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark cold winter at time of year that was often associated with human death. So the celts thought that the barrier between our world and the world of ghosts and spirit got really thin towards the end of their year. Right. So it meant that we're creatures with strange powers could wander about the earth and the day that it's the most heightened would be the last day of the year, which was October 31st the veil between the veil. Yep. So the celts dressed up like evil spirits to try to scare away the demons, you know, silly. But you know, if that's, if that's what you believed back then. I mean the first, I guess this is where like costume parties were born for sure. Um, and it was all about scaring away that ghosts in the spirits. And you know, what's interesting, they used to, I don't know why at this. I thought this was so funny. They used to feed beans to ghosts. Like I guess you know how little kids get set out cookies for Santa. They set out being ghosts. Yeah. So that actually, that whole tradition of setting something out before you go to bed is super old. Like so in Ireland, like in the same, they used to live out, leave out bowls of milk for like the fairies and stuff, so we didn't like if you forgot then they like take an, I forgot whose blood they take, they take blood, they make a blood cake and they hide it in your house and you are cursed or like you have bad luck until you find this like blood cake. If you don't sit out that bowl of milk. Whole milk, it's easy enough. Oh my God, I forgot I forgot I like a lot or just like a drop. I Dunno, but like just from the family. It's so weird. Like all the Irish. I know we're getting a little off topic but I mean all the, like the Irish mythology or like folklore and stuff. Is it legit? That's so cool. I never knew that. Sure. Okay. So they fact that they're being. Yeah. So da many centuries later, the Roman Catholic church in an attempt to do away with the pagan holidays such as Halloween. That's when they established November First All Saints Day and celebration of all the saints that do not have their own holy day. So it's good. That wasn't a November first. The modern name, Halloween is actually two words mashed together. So hollow, which means the holy person refers to the Saint, celebrated on All Saints' Day, which is November first. And then the easy part is a contraction of eve or evening before God and in evening before. So basically Halloween is just an old fashioned way of saying the night before All Saints Day. Oh, that's so cool. I didn't know that. Yeah. Got It. Okay. So then, so then how did the center here, how did it come here? So, um, okay, so really again, we, uh, we owe the Irish and the Scots for um, for having this as a recognizable Halloween in America at all. It spread because of the. I mean, you know, some people brought it back and it was practiced in small, like in small ways that the Protestant colonies, like back in the day obviously weren't all about this because Protestants and the puritans and all those people back then like we're not all about anything, but remember our psycho. Yes. Our psycho puritans, they do not want to celebrate Halloween. No, no, no. Do not like Halloween. Puritans were so strict that the people of Boston actually banned the celebration of Christmas in the mid 17th century. Considering it blasphemous to observe a day with the Vegas, have pagan origins, obviously a holiday that was based on spooky ghosts and divination rituals did not even stand a chance. Okay. So Christmas because of like Father Christmas, it's not just Jesus, it's like, you know, Santa Saint Nicholas said the. Yeah. So I'm sorry. I hate her. I hate them too. They're such assholes. They're such assholes. And I bet they were miserable, which even made them more assholes because they made themselves miserable. So this is kind of cool to the practice of, you know, going door to door and I in like a costume dressed up may be related to the medieval custom of soling in Britain and Ireland when poor people would knock on doors on November first asking for food in exchange for prayers for the dead. So it's like, I'm so imagine when you're at a stoplight and like the homeless, they try and wash your car. Yeah, it's like that. But they would come to your house intrusive because at least they're knocking. They're like, Hey, let me pray for your dead family. I mean, that's. Do you want, hey, they're probably like, sure, have this crust of bread because more prayers better. Yeah, let's pray. Actually I do that today. Somebody else is praying the prayer like neat older Breyer's believe so trick or treating actually didn't start in the United States until World War Two, that American kids were known to go out on Thanksgiving and ask for food. A practice known as thanksgiving, begging. Oh really? Ha. I didn't know any of this stuff. Which is totally fascinating because mean could thanksgiving be anymore glutenous I mean gluttonous, gluttonous, glutenous both actually there's a ton of gluten Gimme them role. Yeah. Um, so these days like the trip part of the phrase trick or treat is mostly an empty threat. But pranks have long been a part of the holiday. I love it. Yeah. Empty threats. Whenever I was doing research in this person, read it like that, I was like, that's hilarious. Setting. So by the late 18 hundreds, the tradition of playing tricks on Halloween was well established in the United States and Canada. The pranks include tipping over outhouses, opening farmers, gates and egging houses. They have been. People have been egging houses since the 18 hundreds. Wow. So funny. That is funny. God, I bet it was such a pain in the ass to get egg out of your house in the$1,800. Oh my gosh. You didn't have like a hook, like a pressure Washer, hose or anything. What did they do? Probably just like threw buckets like pails of water on it, right? It's fucking kids fucking codes. Um, but by the 19 twenties and thirties at the celebration more closely resembled an unruly blockparty and acts of vandalism got more serious in the twenties and thirties. Some people believe that because pranking was starting to get dangerous and out of hand, parents and town leaders begin to encourage dressing up and trick or treating as a safe alternative to doing pranks. So that's Kinda how it all came about. And like, I believe like in the fifties, that's when like it was really like our normal, like Ding Dong, like walk around trick or treat. So let's see, some of these were a lot of the rituals back in the day, focused on the future and instead, instead of the past and the living instead of the debt, but many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them, reassuring them that they would send a survey with luck by next Halloween, be married. God Damn. So this has always been going on. Listen, yeah, there's been so much pressure. So, so like an 18th century, Ireland. So, you know, the 18th century and, and the, you know, we talked about it in America, but at the same time in Ireland, a matchmaking cook. My Mike Burry Bar, I always say burry and I know it's Barry. I'm barry ring and her mashed potatoes. A duh. It's potatoes. Can you be a little less stereotype? I read this. This is so scary to me because I looked down my mashed potatoes for sure. I would choke 100 percent because I never let myself eat. Um, so when I get them I'm like, Oh yes, I don't, I wouldn't even show up. It would just go straight down. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. And then everybody looks at me expectantly. I'm like, why? They're good. Great, good answer. Good job. I already told you all so upset. So basically they would, she'd barrier, reenter, mashed potatoes on Halloween night hoping to bring true love to the who? To the diner who found it. Okay. So it wasn't like a planned engagement? No, it was like, oh, I'm just gonna. Just leave it up to keep it the Halloween. Keep Halloween cupid with myself. And keep, it looks like little skeleton with wings. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Find an image or I might draw it. Can you draw that? Maybe that should be. Maybe that's what we should dress up. Halloween. Cupid's dead cupid's. That's perfect. I like it. I like it too. So what are some surprising things that have happened? Happened. Okay. So what we're doing today is we're each telling a story at something that happened on Halloween and I was doing a little bit of research and saw like a lot of things happened on Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. So in 1926, Harry Houdini died on. Oh yeah. Um, and this is weird. Every year since 19, 27, the year after he died, a seance has been held in the hopes of making contact with Houdini. Houdini had given a code word to his wife, Beth, before he died. So he told her he would use it if you were able to crossover from it. Oh, that's right. I knew they did a little experiment fast, participated in the silence for 10 years until finally declaring that he wasn't coming back the seance. However, continues today without her, which to me is so sad. She tried for 10 years, 10 years and now finally to give up and be like, he's not. He's not coming back and if anyone cared, I feel like it'd be Houdini and he's like a magician for sure. For things. I'm on the Halloween of 15, 17. Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses to the door of the castle church of Wittenberg. Essentially launching the Protestant reformation. Yup. I'm Robert Mathieu, Van Winkle, Aka Vanilla ice. Oh Hey. Hey. Vanilla ice. See this? Born on October 30, first 1967 in Dallas in 2011. The former CFO of Enron is indicted on 78 charges. Oh my gosh. I'm on Halloween in 18. Sixty four. Nevada becomes the 36 state of America. Okay. Viva Las Vegas, Viva in 1941. Mount Rushmore is completed without the bodies, which is kind of spooky, like if you just bought it because it doesn't have any bodies. Just were they supposed to build bodies? I think that originally they were going to, and then they decided not to because the heads took so fucking long, so I don't really remember. Um, and then in 1984 Indian prime minister in Drea, Gandhi is assassinated. Fucking sucks. But yeah. So among all of these important historical moments, there's also some really weird shit that happens just because of the holiday. Yeah. And so I'll go ahead and tell mine. So one trend that I saw and looking for, you know, kind of crazy things that happened on Halloween is mistaking bodies for decoration. It happens, it happened more than once. So in 2005 in Delaware and there was a actual body hanging from a tree during Halloween festivities. And for several hours people passed by thinking it was part of the decor of the house. Jesus Christ. I know, it's so sad too. I mean, not only is it crazy, it's so, so sad. So basically it was an apparent suicide of a woman hanging from the tree. The Delaware state police said a 42 year old federica woman apparently client up in a poetry with a length of rope. And hanged herself from her branch, the body suspended about 15 feet above the ground was easily visible from passing vehicles for several hours. Wednesday morning they were driving by or walking by admiring it. And don't you know that they feel terrible. My God. I wonder if anyone took pictures by it. Like, Oh, Oh God, let's take a family photo by this very awesome, realistic deck kind of gag. Like, could you imagine like. Actually, I've never seen a dead, like hardly anything. Really. Yeah. Open casket. Funeral. I never go look at them really because I don't even remember. I'm like, how I remember him. Sure. My parents forced me to Catholic to Duh. Look at the body. Say Affair Beggars. I'll stay for up the funeral. Um, police spokesman, Corporal Jeff Oldham. Wait, hold on. What is the corporal? Some rank, some military rank like there's it between captain and colonel. Who knows? I've never known like the order. So many, so many. So many orders and the steps. So many levels, so many stripes. Stripes on your sleeve. So according to this dude and residents who lived nearby, people notice the body around 7:30 AM Wednesday, but dismissed it as a halloween prank. Those tricks, no treats authority as a prank. And because it's like, yeah, it's decoration, right? Like that's what you think. Authorities were called to the scene shortly before 11:00 AM, Wednesday. They thought it was a halloween decoration. They Glenndon wife of Mayor William Gland and told a Wilmington newspaper and she went on to quote, really? It looked like something somebody would have rigged up. She said, who was among a handful of residents who watched as authorities tended to the body. Oh fuck. All of them said the death of the woman who lived about a quarter mile from where her body was found was being investigated as a suicide. So they. Oh my God, I have so many questions. I know, I know. I, I, I don't, I don't have them. So let me, let me lighten it up and let me do the flip of this. So obviously people thinking that like dead body parts and dead bodies are a part of Halloween. Decorations happens a lot. But however, in 2017, the opposite actually happened. That's all fine. In mid September, police in Greene County, Tennessee received a panicked phone call from a man who believed that there was a beheaded corpse and his neighbor's neighbor's driveway. Police arrived on the scene only to find that the owner of the home had actually just put out his creepy Halloween display a little early. Do not call 9:11, reporting a dead body. The police department's facebook page wrote instead, congratulate the homeowner on a great display. That's awesome. So that one's a little lighter. That's a little better, but you know what, hey little neighbor email. Go ahead. You got to you, you know, you gotta. Make sure. I mean, obviously you do have to make sure, right? I've seen some weird shit for sure. For sure. Okay, well you're about to, uh, bring us down again. Great. Love it. Okay. So my story is about John d dot white, who's the preacher that strangled a woman to death and then dresses her senate for Halloween. What? Yes. Okay. So John d dot White was a 55 year old ex convict who had previously served to separate prison sentences for stabbing one woman in the early eighties and murdering another one in the mid nineties. Clearly this guy should not have been out in public or repeat offenders. What don't you like? We get a parole officer out there, ever gets worse because obviously he got really lucky. He might've had a retarded judge. So John walked out of prison in 2007 after serving 12 years of his sentence. Somehow in the next few years, this dickhead becomes a pastor of a small Michigan Church. Um, he was living a lie and no one knew about his past. So he's just like a true psychopath. Just conduct start to like, that's, that's not in, in that, in your, in your, in the most like authoritative automatically trusting position. There is[inaudible]. Like I always get really upset when like obviously pastors and priests, all of that shit going on with like all the Catholic priests up right now. It's nuts. But then like police who actually commit crimes to like when you see a policeman or if you see a pastor, you automatically feel better like you trust them and you should. There's anomalies for sure. And I and I, and you'll always feel safe and you'll always feel good. But that is a dick move. Subconsciously. You Trust these people. Yeah. Yeah. Somehow he becomes a pastor and yeah, I hate this guy already. Okay. So at the time he was living in a trailer park and dating one of the residents at the trailer park and his girlfriend's daughter and grandson lived in the same trailer park. So they were all very close and both would often let him babysit conway who was a three year old grandson because again, you would think that the pastor, right. So on Halloween Eve in 2012, Rebecca Gay, she was putting the final touches to her house, getting ready for Halloween the next day. And she let conway make some crafty, like weird thing and put it in the, display it in the yard and then made them go to bed. So the next morning John Chavez at dresses conway up in his costume and takes them to school. Later that day, Rebecca was reported missing by coworkers at goodwill industries in mount pleasant. Police automatically question why? Because he's the man in her life, right? Um, and his trailer was near. Rebecca is crime scene. Investigators processed the victims trailer for physical clues and searched whites mobile home, or they found bloody towels and other incriminating evidence when questioned by detectives with the Michigan State police, John White confessed. And then he led them to Rebecca's body. So what happened at Halloween morning when white confessed, he told him everything. And according to his story, he went to Rebecca's home at about 2:00 AM on Halloween morning after drinking four or five. And nattie daddy's. What the fuck is that a, it's a 24 ounce natural light beer. Well, yeah, I know what it is. But why do you call it a Natty Daddy? Oh, is that not what they're called? They're called natty lights or nannies or whatever. Oh, is it the big ones? A big one. That's why it's called a natty daddy. Is that what sounds disgusting sounds sick, but sounds just like John Wayne. So at four or five natty daddy's sweet. So like 15 beers, I dunno, White said he took a large rubber mallet and a zip tie and went to rebecca his trailer and notice the light came on in her bedroom. Rebecca walked to a side door where white said he entered the trailer and when she looked out at the door window, white hit her on the head several times with a mullet until she lost consciousness. So White told police that he noticed that she was still breathing and then that's when he put the zip tie around her neck and tightened it until she suffocated. Like how long had. And I'm sorry, like I'm asking you a question, but like you may not notice. How long was he dating that? Her Mom? I think a few months. So not that long, but like longer than like a couple days. So like why? No. Well because of the Daddy Daddy's. He was drunk off natty daddy's for sure. It's all Saturday guys. The blame. Oh this is so gross. So this guy admitted to having like he had like sexual fantasies about basically fucking a corpse necrophilia. Is that what it's called? Yeah. So. So, oh my God. After performing perverted sexual acts on Rebecca's body, after she was fucking dead, he hauled her body in his pickup truck and ditched her behind the stand of pine trees about a mile from the trailer park. After hiding his victims corpse white return to his trailer where he cleaned himself and his truck with paper towels. He walks to Rebecca's dwelling, gotten to her car and drove it to a nearby bar called the barn door and parked it there. And that's when her coworkers notice like, why is her car here? She's been, she hasn't been here all day. Two thousand 12. He's raw. He's retarded. He had also tossed her cell phone into a dumpster and throw away the rubber mallet. But remember, I mean they're living in a super small town. Like how many dumpsters are there? Like five. Yeah, there was probably a lot of shit in those dumpsters. Oh, okay. So this is the worst part from the bar. White walked back to rebecca mobile home, he dressed her son and his halloween costume and then he drove the boy to school. The creepiest part is that conway was in the trailer the whole time that he murdered her. I mean he was asleep at night. Right. So he most likely heard his mother getting murdered. Good knee. Good. On August 28th, 2013, a prison guard at Michigan, reformatory correctional institution found white dead in his cell. He had hanged himself. Good. Yeah. So He's dead. Don't worry.

Speaker 2: 27:04

Oh,

Speaker 1: 27:06

okay. So I have this. Maybe this is. This is my lighter story. Okay, good. I have a letter story too. Okay. So have you ever heard of the, a trick or treat marger? No. And it happened in Texas, in Houston I think in. Was it in deer park? Yes. Okay. I can do something about it is. Yes. Okay. I don't know. The details would go ahead. I don't know why I said that. I mean, who would guest your farm on your bed. Okay. Yeah. So on a rainy Halloween night in 1974, the children at deer park, Texas, we're out knocking on doors. Trick or treating Ronald Clark O'brian was out too. So if you can't tell by the tone of my voice, he's the bad guy. Yeah. So he's watching over his kids. Eight year old timothy and five year old Elizabeth as their trick or treating in this suburban neighborhood near their home. Joining them was a friend and a neighbor, Jim Bates and his young son. So one of the houses, the group approach had all its slight switched off, but the kids banged on the door anyway and yell trick or treat'em they just wanted some fucking candy for sure. Why not? But there was no answer. So either the occupants were hiding or one was home growing. Impatient. The kids ran off to fight another house and Jim followed. But Ronald was left alone. So catching up with the others. A short while later. Ronald had good news. He had produced a handful of 21 inch pixie stick tubes. Do you remember those big plastic? Let me just. Oh wait, the plastic one? Plastic one. Okay. Yeah, I remember the positive there and I remember the paper ones and full disclosure, totally ate the paper when I was a little kid. I think I have too. Yeah. Okay. So Ronald, like, oh hey guys. I got some huge ass pixie sticks. So we gave one to each of the kids and um, and then I guess they finished up and walked home. So before bed, Tim O'Brien, who was Ronald sign was allowed one treat from the evenings hall and he picks the big ass pixie stick to Pixie dust isn't the best fit. It's the biggest biggest because they're like, I want. Yeah, if you could have one, you get the biggest one. Yeah, for sure. But the powdered sugar was stuck in the straw and it wasn't until his dad helped him dislodge it, that he could take his first mouthful and it tasted better. I wonder why shit. I know exactly. Less than an hour later timothy was dead. Oh, I'm so a pathologist said that Timothy had consumed enough Sinai to kill two people. Tests later found that the top two inches of the pixie stick had been packed with the poison. So it was like the first thing that he got, police officers managed to recover the remaining sweets from the other children before any of them had had a chance to dig in. So they didn't eat them. Now Timothy, now his son. No, just to sign. Yeah. Detectives had actually discovered that Ronald had recently taken out a life insurance policy on both of his kids. 10 grand per child in January of that year. And then, um, and then a further 20 grand on each a month before halloween, investigators already knew that Ronald Odette's over a hundred grand. So when they found out that he called his insurance to ask about the payout at 9:00 AM the morning after a Timothy's death, it was clear. People are so stupid, you know, they do that in desperation. So they can't wait. Yeah. And then you're not literally every time. Yeah. So they, investigators got a warrant. Um, they searched o'brien's house and they found a pair of scissors with plastic residue attach, which was similar to that found on the cyanide laced suites. O'Brian was arrested and taken in for questioning. So as the investigation continued, the evidence started to stack up against Ronald. It turned out that O'brian was going to a community college and in class would ask his professor questions like, what is more lethal cyanide or another type of poisoning? Why the fuck would someone ask that? So it doesn't have to Google it, right? While this was also in the seventies, it was. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. Pre-Google, yeah. Oh, what if fuck face. And on June third, 1975, it took just 46 minutes for a jury to return a guilty verdict for one charge of capital murder. And four counts of attempted murder. March 30, first 1984, all routes to survival had been exhausted and he was finally put to death for his crime. By this point, the US Supreme Court had ruled a cruel and unusual punishment. So his life was ended with injections. Yup. Not the injection. I'm outside the Texas state penitentiary in Huntsville, a crowd of 300 people gathered to hear it. If the man, the hauling poisoned had met his end shouting trigger tree and throwing Kantian like a death penalty protocols. Mobs are nuts. Yeah. So when you said Candy Man, I thought you were talking about Dean corll down. He owned like his family owned like a candy company. Did he poison candy or did he know? He was just like a lot, some Canada and like would or not the kids. It's called the candy man because they just owned it. He didn't use the candy as the thing. He shut up. God. Well what am I doing? I don't know. So he like, he confessed and everything but it's crazy. I feel, feel want to look it up. It's, it's a terrible story. But yeah, it just happened in the heights in the seventies. But um, all right, well that's, that's it guys. And of course as always are our instagram is cocktails underscore and underscore conspiracies on instagram. Um, ah, well Gaius Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. We have you have a great weekend and we hope you got freaked out with us this Friday. Exactly. Leave the beans out for your guests layer. Yeah, absolutely. We love you. God bless you and trust no one especially. Be careful on Halloween. Watch those candy kids, boys it. Okay, cool.