Killer Ouija Board

Hey true weirdos. I hope you know how much all of us here appreciate you You are the people we're making this show for and your feedback means the world to us We were so blown away for this show to win as many awards as it has I mean at this point we're working for hardware handouts, but at the end of the day, it's you People will walk up to us on the street I had a guy wave at me wearing a true weird stuff t-shirt at the park It just is the coolest thing and that's a hundred percent you and thank you And we're just covering costs to be able to present this to you. We're not really making any money with it So if you could do us a favor and patronize any sponsors that you hear throughout the show, that would be great Also, just go on whatever platform you listen to it and please rate and review it It really helps us in getting discovered and if you have a suggestion for anything Just reach out to us at our website true weird stuff.com and thank you so much for listening A Talking board. That's what the spiritualists called them It was just a piece of wood with letters and numbers painted or printed on it the user placed his or her fingers on a sliding pointer called a planchette and Then waited for the dead to speak the Arizona Supreme Court will rule on some of the strangest questions ever put to any high tribunal Can a Ouija board think and act for itself or may it be influenced by human hands?

A man was dead. His wife was on trial and his teenage daughter was in custody Was it a diabolical plot hatched by an unhappy wife and carried out by an unwitting child or Was it all just a terrible accident It's just And they got a small beam of light Stuff Weird stuff The whole spiritualism movement was born in 1842 from a prank played by a pair of sisters in upstate, New York Maggie and Kate Fox claimed that their home was haunted by a spirit and that they could communicate with this mysterious entity the spirit the girl said Spoke by knocking on walls and furniture their mother mrs Fox became a believer after asking this spirit how many children she had had to her amazement The spirit wrapped out the correct number and it all might have ended right there People are often hesitant to admit to believing in ghosts But the Fox's did believe Maggie and Kate were packed off to Rochester to stay with their mother's sister Until something could be done about the haunting Trouble was the spirit apparently followed the girls to Rochester and the odd knocking noises started up all over again Their aunt had neighbors who were very intrigued by the phenomenon Not just any neighbors, but a couple of radical Quakers named Amy and Isaac Post The post shared what was happening to the Fox sisters with their Quaker friends who also very much believed These Quakers became the core of the spiritualist movement and Maggie and Kate became famous mediums Suspicion dogged them almost from the start though handful of preachers along with a prominent doctor all called BS on it in 1851 a friend of the Fox family came forward and admitted to secretly helping the sisters fake the spirit sounds but by this point the whole Spiritualism movement had pretty much gotten too big to be taken down The deep grief that hung over this entire country in the years following the Civil War left millions of people in mourning desperate for any sign from their lost loved ones People yearned for peace and for closure and they were willing to believe almost anything to get there even Maggie coming forward in 1888 with a full confession as to how she and her sister had made the whole thing up and faked every noise Even that wasn't enough to turn people away from Spiritualism the once celebrated Fox sisters who are the patentees of medical Spiritualism appeared Saturday night at the Academy of Music to expose the frauds of spiritualism Mrs. Margaretta Fox Kane read a lecture in a faltering voice and produced famous rapping So that they were plainly audible by the movement of her big toe joint She thanked God that she was able to expose Spiritualism Not that it made a bit of difference Because hope once unleashed even fraudulent hope is something desperate people don't easily give up

in those days it felt like the whole country was near strangled by grief as Many as three-quarters of a million lost their lives during the Civil War The expected military casualties plus the horrific loss of life due to disease both soldiers and civilians People were desperate to make a connection with the dead not just for comfort, but because folks were starved for Meaning all this death Was there any kind of greater purpose that could justify the blood that had been spilled in this land?

You With spiritualism the Fox sisters had set in motion something even they couldn't stop and listen Just because they admit it to faking it. It doesn't mean the spirit world doesn't exist There's no gotcha moment here while Maggie and Kate Fox's claims weren't genuine They genuinely did inspire something that most of us have probably played with at least once the Ouija board It was an entrepreneurial guy by the name of Charles Kennard who first had the idea to turn the spiritualists talking boards into a sort of a game Kennard was a fertilizer salesman who'd managed to develop his own fertilizer recipe Business was good then came a drought and that combined with his existing debt Forced Kennard to find something new to sell The newspapers of the day were filled with stories of seances and mediums and talking boards Just a simple plank of wood paint it with the numbers zero through ten and the words. Yes no, and goodbye a Simple product cheap to produce and if you think about it a perfect product in so many ways Because whether or not it worked Was entirely on the user Spirits don't want to talk to you ma'am. That's too bad But it's not the board's fault Kennard kept an office in Chestertown, Maryland and just down the hall was a gentleman named EC Reiche a Prussian immigrant Reiche was a furniture maker who also made coffins and served as an undertaker The two men partnered up and made about a dozen talking boards and Kennard began talking them up It was a little bit of a lark for Reiche who had plenty of business dispatching the dead But Kennard had bigger ambitions. He left Chestertown for Baltimore convinced that his talking boards were a winning idea he did struggle to find investors, but there was one man in Baltimore willing to listen a lawyer named Elijah Bond whose sister was a spiritual medium her name was Helen Peters and She helped convince the United States Patent Office that the board would deliver as promised No small thing Considering that what the board promised to deliver were messages from beyond the grave And it was also Helen Peters who gave the board the name we call it today. What are you called?

Tell me your name Helen's fingers barely touched the planchette as it moved eerily across the wooden surface O-U-I-J-A Ouija It means good luck and That's how a hustling fertilizer salesman and an undertaker Patented the world's only board game that doubles as an oracle to the unseen world beyond this mortal coil Only the Ouija board itself could have predicted that it would outsell Monopoly Because absolutely no one else saw that coming Millions of Ouija boards have been sold and they're still selling not too shabby for a simple product whose own patent application Never once mentions how it works You can say That's because it doesn't I can think of at least one person that would argue One person who would never agree that the Ouija board is a toy A hoax the kind of thing only the simple-minded would take seriously That man would tell you in very plain terms that the Ouija board is a dangerous thing He'd know Because he was murdered and it was a Ouija board that called for his killing A social innovation in the home the Egyptian luck board Ouija Ouija Prophesizes forewarns and advises as well as prefigures one's destiny the most fascinating mysterious puzzle in this century the most Interesting and mysterious talking board has awakened great curiosity wherever shown it surpasses in its results second sight mind reading or clairvoyance Wonderful as it may seem the Ouija was thoroughly tested and the above facts Demonstrated at the United States Patent Office before the patent was allowed Now the Ouija board didn't bother letting Charles Kennard know that he would be kicked out of his own company in 1891 a man who'd been working for Kennard as a varnisher took over his name was William fold And one of the first things he did was file that talking board patent and that business took off Now the Ouija board did tell fold to prepare for a huge year in 1917 so he built a new and bigger manufacturing plant in Baltimore producing close to a million units per year 1917 was absolutely a very good year for William fold and his mystical talking parlor game Ouija board got that right too bad that full didn't know to ask the board about Dorothea Cognac Why would he he'd never heard of any such person?

Though her name would later be attached to his Ouija board in the ugliest way Dorothea Cognac was just a regular American girl a beautiful nobody who was about to be named America's Venus as in the Venus de Milo the ancient Greek marble statue that embodies the feminine ideal Except for the missing arms, that's less ideal, but no one knows what happened to those so it only adds to her mystery These American Venus contests were pretty bizarre women had cast off the corsets and bustles of the Victorian era only to find themselves being judged by a new beauty standard a second century BC marble statue of the Greek goddess Aphrodite Given that the statue was six foot eight inches tall some adjustments would clearly have to be made Experts ended up agreeing that the Venus's actual height was five foot four if she were a flesh-and-blood woman That is then there was the whole debate about her measurements Some experts insisted that the Venus de Milo was a solid thirty nine twenty six thirty eight Well others believe she measured in at thirty four point seven five twenty eight point five thirty six And here's a totally bizarre fun fact This whole fixation on the Venus de Milo Coincided with a near maniacal belief that poor posture led to poor health This sparked a mad hunt for scoliosis on college campuses Students were required to strip naked and be measured every which way but loose By today's standards a posture examination might seem like a quaint Oddity compared with the more enduring practice of testing in the eyes and ears But the medical profession of the early 20th century believed that assessing bodily carriage held great predictive and diagnostic value to them the curves bumps and protrusions of an individual's body served as a topographical map for understanding the Physiological workings under the skin bad posture both revealed and Predicted bad health that was the thinking back then Harvard orthopedist Joel E Goldthwait published widely on the matter Goldthwait used the latest x-ray technologies to show how slouching posture cramped the lungs pinched off circulation and caused the vital organs of the Abdomen and chest to descend downward and so what could be done?

But ask co-eds to strip naked and this was all widely known to the public We're talking breathless accounts in newspapers pitting colleges against each other for which student body had the most Ideal bodies and that's how we arrived at the hotly debated Swarthmore versus Wellesley Venus's of course the male students weren't expected to measure up to Michelangelo's David because well, I mean, you know Which brings us to March 1917 and a Venus contest put on by the New York newspaper the Evening World The paper published the measurements all contestants will be judged by height 5.49 inches weight 132.2 pounds neck 12.5 inches chest 34.2 inches waist 25.9 inches ankle 8.2 inches miss Kelly knack 21 years old of Crestwood Park, New York Two points accepted is the flesh-and-blood replica of the famous statue To the springing supple lines of her the arresting charm of a perfectly modeled perfectly managed body I can bear grateful witness Miss Kelly knack who beat out 50 Thousand other contestants was also a reporter stream sassy smart downright delightful I Was what is called a tomboy? I climbed fences. I climbed trees. I roamed for hours through the fields and woods. I Learned to ride horseback when I was five years old. I learned to swim when I was a mere child. I Repressed child whose one duty in life is to be a little lady No one could have been more surprised to be named the Venus than she was My being discovered a Venus was all an accident I never gave my figure a thought or wasted any time looking in mirrors to see if I was beautiful This whole Venus de Milo obsession was a really big deal even Hollywood paid attention releasing a silent film in 1926 called the American Venus Now for most of us winning a contest like this might just be the biggest thing ever Happened to us the story we tell over and over again until we're gray and wrinkly and all kinds of forgetful It's not a bit surprising that miss Kelly knack went on to become famous Not to mention pursued by what seemed like every bachelor in New York City What man didn't want the American Venus on his arm?

But Dorothea's parents had zero tolerance for this and sent their daughter off to Europe to study music Miss Kelly knack attained a degree of prominence on the concert stage But a career was not for this pretty maiden She met handsome serious-minded chief petty officer Ernest J. Turley of the US Navy fell in love with him and they were married a Daughter Maddie and a son David were born And so the Turley family moved from Boston and ended up living for a brief time in California But life on the west coast had disappointments for Dorothea she'd grown accustomed to applause and Adulation she was the American Venus and there was none of that in Coronado, California And then there's the problem of money Ernest Turley's Navy salary didn't cover the extras the American Venus had grown accustomed to And she struggled with her health sinus troubles. It kept her sick more than she was. Well a Friend of Dorothea suggested, Arizona The dry climate would help with her sinus issues and it would be a fresh start for the family The kids Maddie and David were enthusiastic Ernest promised them that they would buy guns and learn to hunt and fish Family bought a ranch a piece of property high in Arizona's White Mountains in August 1933. They settled into a rented cabin Crude Unattractive, but it was shelter and it was only temporary Dorothea told herself their neighbors were mostly cattle and the occasional cow puncher It was lonesome country, but peaceful in its own wild way the kind of place where a visitor was an occasion a welcome and eruption from the daily grind of endless chores and tasks a Knot came at the door that first week and Dorothea found herself eye-to-eye with a broad-shouldered man with a dusty hat And a weathered smile. He said he was looking for a job. Oh My husband is away from the house just now We'll have to let you know What is your name?

Reckon it's Kent Pearce ma'am Could Be that it was the isolation the culture shock one day you're in Boston the next you're in the wilds of Arizona not a shop not a cafe not another soul to be seen for weeks on end a person can think they're cut out for solitude only to learn the hard way that the crowd is where they feel most at home or You know, maybe it was just midlife. Maybe she was bored Disenchanted with the life she'd made it happens Within a month of moving to that ranch in Apache County Dorothea was spending hours hunched over her Ouija board Maybe she hoped the spirits would offer the comfort. She couldn't seem to find anywhere else Plus the board was a resource for Dorothea Very similar to the way Google is a resource for us For example while roaming around the land surrounding her new home Dorothea stumbled upon some ancient petroglyphs, you know prehistoric art carved into the rocks Dorothea was utterly captivated and full of questions. She knew just who to ask about these mysterious carvings her Ouija board The Ouija board told Dorothea that there was gold buried beneath those rocks Dorothea told her husband Ernest handed him a shovel Ernest Turley grumbled and complained but commenced to searching he dug and dug and even used dynamite Until his back was breaking Eventually, mrs. Turley went to the Ouija again and the board admitted. So she said that some mistake had been made Mr. Turley never quite forgave her for this tomfoolery Tensions in the marriage were becoming obvious little spats and quarrels that rapidly escalated The idea of living on a ranch out in the desert wilderness sounds pretty romantic when you're daydreaming about it All those crimson sunsets and peaceful evenings under the stars That's what you're imagining the reality though It's no daydream the heat the merciless glaring Sun the dust The wind you imagined as a welcome breeze that turns out to be a howling scourge of stinging sand and banging Shudders the grit that works its way into everything Even the sight of Ernest or the sound of his voice Dorothea's patience was scraped bare Twice it was revealed later. She even threatened his life Screaming at him one time in rage Every time I look at you, I want to kill you There were things other than gold honey that the Ouija board told Dorothea and her teenage daughter Maddie We've been joining her mother in these conversations with the spirits Spirits who were as displeased as Dorothea with how things have turned out Something needs to be done said the spirits Someone was to blame Someone who is standing in the way of your happiness Dorothea That someone was Ernest Turley Man, completely unaware that his time according to the mystical talking board was running out Maddie Turley, she's been on the fringes of this story, which is where children find themselves in tales like this background characters and the melodrama of their parents lives collateral damage But Maddie is about to make her debut as a main character The scene a dusty Corral early morning interstage left a skunk on the night of November 17 1933 a skunk got under the Turley cabin and had a fight with their cat The noise and odor so disturbed them that they could sleep no more that night

The Turley's kept watch all night waiting for the skunk to emerge from hiding It didn't and by noon the next day Dorothea declared that she and son David simply had to go to the village store for groceries It was David's birthday and she planned a special dinner to celebrate You stay with Daddy Maddie and help him catch the skunk. I won't help you catch him But I might shoot him and with that Dorothea and David left leaving Maddie standing in front of the house Holding a loaded shotgun and munching away on an apple Ernest Turley fetched a bucket and headed to the crowd and milk the family's new cow Maddie followed still holding the gun still eating the apple She watched as her father bent to the task of milking Watched as he finally finished and stood and lifted the now heavy bucket Maddie followed him through the gate and back toward the cabin with no warning at all two quick shots rang out Mr. Turley hit in the back tumbled down and glanced around to see Maddie's gun smoking She herself being on her knees Daddy The girl was screaming daddy Daddy, have I hurt you?

Ernest Turley was in tremendous pain, but still managed to not only send his daughter for help But to admonish her for having been careless Turley in that moment believed it was an accident because of course he did why in the world would his teenage daughter Intentionally shoot him in the back Maddie was hysterical Through sobs she managed to get out that she'd stumbled the gun went off as she fell Turley tried to comfort his daughter even as Dorothea and the doctor tended to his wounds The cowboy who'd come around looking for work can't pierce even showed up and helped out by holding the lantern Illuminating earnest as he laid pale and sweating in the dim cabin and The law was there to the officers of the county had to make some inquiries as a matter of custom One of these officers developed a curiosity Law enforcement today has all sorts of new and high-tech tools at their disposal at the time of the Turley shooting there was no DNA and even been discovered yet and Forensics ballistic testing for bullets was very new Police did have fingerprint technology and the FBI's new fingerprint database was in its ninth year but as we learned from Sherlock Holmes Deductive reasoning coupled with experience can take an investigator a long way The officer who developed a curiosity was Sheriff Marion Haws What sparked his suspicion?

The bullets traveled downward not upward through mr. Turley's hip That was funny Sheriff Haws reasoned when Maddie said the gun went off as it struck the ground It would seem more like Turley had been shot while she was still standing maybe with the gun at her shoulder How about it Maddie? Is that about how it went? That was all it took Maddie did a complete about-face and admitted that she had shot her dad Said she'd raised the gun first as he passed through the cow pin gate But lacked the nerve to pull the trigger. It was a stunning confession Shocking Patricide something so rare that it was nearly impossible to comprehend Why?

Why Maddie there was no known history of difficulty or conflict between father and daughter To fire a shotgun twice into her father's back Unfathomable and Maddie's reason the Ouija board The sands took place in a room in our home It was dark in the room and there were only shadows from a flickering lamp mother asked the Ouija board shall we Kill father and the pointer moved to yes mother asked who should do the killing and The pointer spelled out my name Mother said that I must not refuse to follow the command of the Ouija or I would suffer terribly Maddie described her mother asking the Ouija board if the shooting would be successful Would earnest die outright it said that it would be successful and the father would not die All right, we asked about the law and it said not to fear the law that everything would turn out All right. We asked how much the insurance would be and it said $5,000 the spirits explained Maddie Revealed that Dorothea was meant for a different life With a different man. I was nervous to pull the trigger But then I remembered how important it was to mother for her to marry her handsome cowboy That'd be none other than Kent Pearce the handsome cowboy who'd been so helpful at holding the lantern While the doctor worked on Turley's wounds Roses gun quickly and I shot I I Had asked mother if I had to do what the Ouija board said, she told me there was no escaping its commands It was horrified and panic-stricken when he fell when Dorothea learned of her daughter's confession She was enraged She accused the police of bullying and manipulating the girl into making up whatever story they wanted to hear well After that brow-beating that shameful mistreatment the girl would have confessed to anything I wasn't mistreated at all I only told what I thought I should Ernest Turley was hospitalized first in Arizona and then Transported by a United States Marine Corps plane to the naval base in San Diego Meanwhile, his daughter Maddie appeared in juvenile court where she pleaded guilty Maddie was sentenced to a reform school in Arizona where she would remain until her 21st birthday on December 26th 1933 38 days after he'd been shot in the back Ernest Turley succumbed to his injuries and died if Dorothea hoped his death was the end of it. She was mistaken Dorothea Turley was arrested and charged with assault with intent to murder She was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison a sentence she began serving in July 1934 Movies and TV shows and Dateline have taught us that the next person in handcuffs Would have to be that handsome cowboy Kent Pearce Kent Pearce had all the outward appearance of a movie type cow puncher big hat Neckerchief tight pants bow legs and all But he was a very frightened young man who denied any untoward associations with mrs. Turley Pearce was investigated and questioned and then released for lack of evidence Suggesting he'd been complicit in any way with the murder of Ernest Turley well No, Kent was Maddie's friend You wouldn't expect a woman of my age to rob a cradle. Would you?

With Kent Pearce fully cleared that left mother daughter and the Ouija board a case So confounding that it went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court in May 1936 the court was faced with some of the strangest questions ever Presented to any tribunal in the state's history Can a Ouija board think and act by itself or may it be influenced by human hands?

Dorothea's defense was to call her daughter a liar and blame the whole thing on teenage rebellion Maddie was angry with her father and me We didn't want her to use Rouge or to run around at night with cow punchers Or to cross her legs the way she did or to wear such short dresses She has been influenced to place the blame for this killing on me because some of the Cowboys didn't like me The first jury didn't believe a word of that But the Arizona State Supreme Court found 32 points of error in the original conviction and ordered a new trial Just two years into her sentence It looked like Dorothea might go free and upon learning this Dorothea asked Oh, I see Maddie again the warden of the prison gently warned Dorothea that yes She could see Maddie But that Maddie was likely to once again be called to testify against her Yeah, what of it as long as I see her then Dorothea shared her plan for the future with the warden now I'm confident that I will soon be free if I am I shall work to have Maddie freed Then go with her to New York to live with my mother and my son David This whole thing has been tragic and involved and mistakes all the way through Maddie's father himself said the shooting was accidental. The girl was extremely careless with her gun It has caused much grief Sure enough just two months later in October 1935 the Arizona Supreme Court Reversed the conviction of mrs. Dorothea Irene Turley It was expected that a new trial date would be set by July 1936 And that never happened there was no new trial Ernest Turley was dead. Maddie Turley was a ward of the state David Turley who'd lost his father and then watched both his sister and mother be arrested charged and convicted Was understandably bitter especially towards his sister Maddie You might expect Dorothea to lie low Any attention might remind the law that they could always get that new murder trial on the docket Playing low wasn't Dorothea's style. In 1938 she filed a lawsuit Asserting that mrs. Thelma Bradford Bailey who was in charge of the school for delinquent girls to which Maddie Turley was Committed when her mother went to prison Won the girl's affections by obtaining a parole for her. The parole was granted in December 1936 and mrs. Turley has not heard from her daughter since Dorothea's lawsuit demanded that she be paid $75,000 in damages due to the loss of affection how she thought mrs. Bailey a Matron at a reform school might come up with the equivalent of nearly two million dollars. It's anyone's guess She's tenacious and patient though and the alienation of affection trial was finally scheduled for October 1939 Superior judge Howard C Speakman dismissed the suit at the request of mrs Turley who said she is too ill to appear in court and is unable to contact her witnesses and that Was pretty much the end of it Neither Dorothea nor Maddie got away with murder exactly But the biggest consequence they faced was the destruction of their family There was no real justice for Ernest Turley and Attendant at the Naval Hospital reported that Turley's last words were that just before the gunshot He glanced over his shoulder and saw his daughter Maddie standing behind him shotgun leveled It's hard to imagine what it would be like to die at the hands of a beloved child the pain the betrayal the horror all Mixed up with a father's desperate desire to protect his young and there in his last minutes He remembers seeing his daughter

Drawing down on him What really happened on the Turley Ranch? the truth was Dorothea spent a lot of time in the company of Kent Pearce a company by daughter Maddie and another young man named Pollard Wiltbank The four rambled around the Arizona desert in the Turley family car Witnesses reported seeing Dorothea and Kent Pearce being very affectionate very demonstrative Kent Pearce even told a neighbor that he had every intention of marrying Dorothea one day Interesting how easily all of that was overlooked Did Dorothea manipulate her teenage daughter to commit murder What kind of mother pushes her own child to kill?

Did Maddie kill her father and then concoct the whole story of a seance and spirits? Or do you believe that Maddie unloaded that double-barrel shotgun into her father's back just because she didn't care for his rules You'd have to ask the Ouija board Next time on true weird stuff Everyone knows the story of Amelia Earhart the bold and brave lady pilot who made the first solo Transatlantic crossing by a female flyer and planned to fly around the world Till her plane was lost There's news now that the wreckage of that plane might finally have been found and that's fascinating, but you know, it's even more fascinating Dozens and dozens and dozens of radio Mayday calls Amelia Earhart's voice floating over the airwaves Broadcasting in SLS the Coast Guard the Navy amateur ham radio operators. They all heard it Why didn't no one go to the site Why was Amelia Earhart allowed to die?

Let's take a look on the next true weird stuff special Thanks to our voice talents on this episode Sam Moore Heather Elizabeth Kary "Doc" Bowser Erin Cox Kevin Nash Lamar Richardson and Don Morgan The Spiritualism sort of comes and goes this business of trying to Contact the dead Ouija boards that sort of thing We had talked about this before that it had a big it was a big sensation right after the Civil War it also in the 1920s and 30s had a Renaissance of sorts and then Somehow I can remember when we were kids. My sister had a Ouija board Sells Incredibly well, even to this day. She would get together with her girlfriends and they were moving it around You know on the board. I don't know what they were talking about but It's kind of amazing that this this mother did something that a lot of parents do they make a child do something?

And because you're so bonded to the parent you want to Please the parent and so that's that's that part of the story isn't actually not all that surprising Then okay, so like The Ouija board is an amazing product Because it literally makes no even its patent makes zero promises that it does anything but sit there and they sell Hundreds of thousands of them every year. Isn't that kind of it's that kind of genius when you think about it?

Like it's a perfect. It's a perfect product and it's sold and marketed as a children's toy But there I know I mean you you can ask Ten people and at least three of those ten will tell you that it's demonic and they won't allow it in their house Like it has quite the reputation the So the thing with the spiritualism movement it was a hoax and a prank But that I want to make I want to make really clear that that doesn't mean that there's not a spirit world Mm-hmm, you know, no, I agree like you on that like there are people who do fraudulent real estate schemes Selling you island property that doesn't mean there aren't islands, right?

It's just meant we had a shitty person who did a fraudulent thing so I want to I want to get right out in front of that because people get upset when you When you suggest that there's no unseen world and and who knows right, right? the thing with Dorothea This is actually when you take the Ouija board out of it. This is a very familiar story beautiful bubbly sparkling woman Mary's sober minded hard-working serious guy They move away from everything. She's ever known. Mm-hmm. They start a family They end up out in the middle of nowhere and then there's a murder This is like without this. How does Josh Mankiewicz? Oh, I know Right. I know exactly Yes The and even the part where we manipulate the kid into pulling the trigger or poisoning the drink That's not novel that there are two things in this story that make it jump one is the Ouija board and the other is once again Where's the child?

they just never got around to it and so somebody got away with murder or Conspiracy to commit murder and I think that's somebody who was Dorothea Back in the day this that was a time to be a criminal because the court systems I guess since everything was done on paper and folks were tired and hot whatever Like how many times have we seen this max where the trial just never happened?

So you don't think Kent knew about this or do you? And we didn't we didn't really get into that in the story, but I just wondered what you might have thought about that Okay. So here's the thing with Kent Pearce And I don't know why this is the law cleared him almost immediately Even though the neighbors and people in the nearby town The gossip about Kent Pearce and Dorothea Turley was off the hook Clearly there was something going on there the law cleared him So one of the things that we try to do in this podcast is save all of our speculation For this part, so I'm only gonna put the stuff in the story That is the stuff that is like right that can be documented, right?

I like you could not believe that handsome bow-legged squinty-eyed Kent Pearce Basically said to the sheriff. No, sir. I I didn't do nothing I don't know nothing and the sheriff was like that's good enough for me. And that was the end of that when clearly By Kent Pearce's own admission, yeah to other people here say, of course can't get it into court Even if you are gonna have a trial Clearly there was something going on. Mm-hmm. So I think there is a villain in this story a Monstrous human being and I think that person is Dorothea Kelnyak it's hard to look at this story and not feel like Dorothea was bored restless cheating and You know the easiest way out was for Ernest to die Yet she didn't have the wherewithal or the gumption to pull the trigger herself So she did one of the most evil things I can imagine She manipulated her child into killing her father. Mm-hmm That's that's evil it is but we've seen many cases of this Where the one parent wants the child to do something and they do it. I imagine so Apparently the daughter was In the company of a man right who was one of the friends of Right is where it gets. This is where it gets really toxic And again, like I don't want to I don't want to put things that are just made up in there Right and speculate wildly. Well, here we go Dorothea wanted to spend time with Kent Pearce and vice versa Mm-hmm, but they needed a cover and that had to be Maddie and Maddie was 15 when this whole saga began and so can't brought a friend and to all Appearances it would look like mother and daughter out for right with the surely there's nothing going on here I would bring their child into that right?

So it's I I could not find one single instance where Maddie was on board with this There's there's all this talk about Maddie's short dresses and Maddie's Rouge and Maddie wanting to cross her legs But when you really that's all what Dorothea is saying when you look at the at the rest of it You know Maddie ended up in reform school for years until she got out Right before her 21st birthday and then disappeared into the most private life imaginable Um you there was no evidence that anything Dorothea said about her daughter was true none So and I imagine part of this Manipulation was hey, we're out with these two men and we're not going to tell your dad so that's just between us so so it's like we have this special little bond and Whatever I say goes and you'll do whatever I say is what that end up regressing to and you can see how that would happen There's a little moment it's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment Maddie testifying I knew how important it was for mother to marry her handsome cowboy Well, it's a she said she said Dorothea says Maddie is lying to cover for herself but again, there's no there's no evidence that you can find to suggest that and Maddie right there on under oath is saying something completely different. I Think there was so much sympathy for Maddie even on the part of the sheriff who broke the case. Yeah by He was so gentle with her and so tender toward her that it dissolved whatever Whatever facade she had managed to put up to try to brazen her way through this He just melted it and that's when the confession came out Everyone there was no doubt that Maddie Turley Fired a double-barreled Bridger. That's my dog. He said I'm sad too. People are terrible, dude There's zero argument that it was Maddie Turley who at 15 years old Fired a double-barreled shotgun into her father's back. No one disputes that not Maddie not earnest not the cops. No one And her so Okay, good and her father and this is the most heartbreaking part of this story for me her father until his last breath Was I was trying to convince himself that it had been a terrible accident?

And it wasn't until the end as the light was leaving his eyes that he said I looked over my shoulder and saw my daughter standing It's terrible Bridger. It's tragic Standing and leveling that shotgun at my back So so he knew he did know but at the same time that is his daughter So he is going to give her the benefit of the doubt Throughout because he's going to try to protect her Yeah, she did do this, but maybe there was a reason maybe it was a mistake Maybe I missaw it whatever it is that he had running through his mind So he was I think he was just being protective of his daughter and then at the very end said look I I can't do this anymore This is really what happened because I think when when you're close to dying you want the truth to come out well, there's In people's actions sometimes in their smallest Bridger. I'm gonna need you to get a grip. Okay?

in people's smallest actions or their most offhand at words you see the truth of a Character so we have Dorothea who can I just tell you you know sometimes when we're talking about people in the past people of a hundred years ago and you'll read something like and so and so was a beauty bombshell and you look at the picture and you're like Now she looks a little bit like a yam. I Guess standard or he looks So this is Mmm, that was the that's considered like dashing back in the day You know what? I'm talking about cuz beauty standards change. So I did I totally moly I did look and you go have a look I wouldn't had a good look at Dorothea and Who you know?

You know Beautiful in that in that approachable way like listen No, man on earth has a shot at Neve Campbell, but you think you do In a way that you don't with Angelina Jolie. Do you understand the difference? Yes No, man is like yeah I got a shot at Angelina Jolie cuz you know, you don't Brian but Neve Campbell you could maybe make something happen there It's that this otherworldly beauty that manages to somehow be approachable That was Dorothea this had to have been a Sensation in the newspapers when this came out it just had to have been a sensation because this is This is worthy of a two-parter dateline episode really is Well, there are so many pieces of this like for you know, even today how rare it is For a child to kill a parent It's so rare for a daughter to kill a father It's so Incredibly rare. Yeah, and so what did we have here? We have the American Venus She was a coast-to-coast Sensation at the time of that competition and we haven't even touched on the weird trend of measuring naked college girls Haven't even touched on that and we will Oh My god But this woman I am telling you She was what we would like she was the equivalent of our in our world of like a big reality TV star You know, everybody knew who she was and the newspaper I mean they couldn't get enough of her and she was she made great copy because she was sassy, you know, I'm a tomboy I'm not like the other girls. In other words, she was a real pick-me but for the time She was an enormous star and you must remember that. This is like 1917 before we really have big Hollywood stars, right? Mm-hmm. She was huge and Ernest Turley was an officer at the United States Navy They tend not to be goofballs, right? It was a serious. Yeah, he did intelligent man and She was bored She was bored and under amused it was her idea to move. Hey Please I'm begging you. I'm begging you It was her idea to move from California to Arizona She wasn't happy in California. They probably should not have left Boston, but you know, what a shoulda coulda she was miserable in California and Thought you know, she had these romantic notions She probably pictured pictured herself You know galloping on a steed through the desert with the wind blowing her hair back as the sunset behind a mesa I mean, you know how people you know, we are right, you know with this kind of thing And then she was just bored and she resented earnest Even though the man had been tripping over himself to whatever she wanted They would have and she had these two beautiful children One of them she turned into a murderer David Turley lived the rest of his life in a bitter fury over what had happened to his family to his dad and to his life a Bitter fury. I wonder it's only big Maddy ended up No, he never forgave her unless he forgave her and it never made it into the public sphere But I wonder if he was able to look at it and see it for what it was but you know and And Dorothea played the victim right up until the end She you know the whole thing where the the the matron at the reform schools turned my child against me Lady you manipulated your kid into committing murder and shooting her father in the back I think that might be what turned Maddy against you and The whole lawsuit I shall sue and then oh my health is too poor ain't nothing wrong with your health Queen

you don't have a case and Apparently someone got through to her that she had no case. It's it's um For the American Venus held up as this icon this ideal of feminine beauty and charm To turn out to be such a sociopath Disappointment Yeah We could have done an entire episode on these men measuring college girl, I'm sure um, I I couldn't quite get over this that that's how that happened and and Although can I just tell you it's so funny when you were Reading about that. I was thinking to myself, you know when I was in college I went to a community college and we had wet t-shirt contests on a Friday afternoon and nobody said anything about it Nobody acted like there was something wrong with that. This is at a community college I When I think about that now you would no more hear something like that So it's not surprising to me that this sort of mania started It The thing like you look at it and you go and it was all under the you know It was all masquerading as public health, you know, the epidemic of scoliosis Wait, there was no epidemic Scoliosis you're a pervert. That's exactly and if you and if you think about who is going to Places like Swarthmore and Wellesley and Harvard Oh at the turn of the last century, you know Wealthy the daughters of wealthy privileged families It's you know college was a very elite experience and so Ever and it was mandatory. You were admitted into Wellesley Wellesley. Well the school that starts with a W you were admitted and and then you had to strip and Be measured and not like they were measuring the circumference of your ankle The length of your fingers The distance between you know, the top of your breasts and your waist like they were all over these girls. Can you imagine?

How bizarre that was and the whole the whole find the American Venus Like what the hell it's a it's an almost seven foot tall statue with no arms. What are we folks? What was in the drinking water that everybody was so nuts and weird but they were and she She probably would have lived a completely different life free of any violence without the fame of the American Venus I'm not saying that's why she did it but after winning that contest and being celebrated and parades and You know newspaper and magazine coverage and people taking your photo and asking your opinion on things and you're meeting dignitaries It's a little bit hard to go back to the farm after that, isn't it? Especially if you're not particularly Have a good sense of self-worth and I don't think she did or just a sociopath That's possible as well She was so young when all of this. Oh, yeah, and I think it's kind of human nature when things are going really great for you. Whoever you are wherever you are There's this part of you that just kind of thinks well, this is how my life is now Things are gonna stay pretty great. Yeah. Yeah, but there's a lot how life works And that's why it's important to enjoy those moments and occupy them fully because they're fleeting and your life may not always be so wonderful and Especially instant fame I think is a poisonous thing. Oh, it's one thing to work your way And we could we could sit here and name artists in various different fields actors and musicians and dancers and whatnot who writers who Really worked to achieve fame and what looks to us like an overnight success is to quote Harrison Ford about 15 years Of struggle and building people's necks. Yeah, right So when folks who've gone through that journey Arrive at a point of success. They have some life experience behind them and maybe a little perspective but I want you to imagine you're literally a teenage kid and Suddenly you're being celebrated as the epitome of female beauty in the USA. Mm-hmm You you don't have anything to compare that adulation and fame and privilege to and it just feels like it should keep going and It doesn't and it for her. She's like one of these flash-in-the-pan reality stars The you know, it's Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag the spotlight moves on and you're like, whoa, wait, wait, wait. I wait But I I love that and I need money. No, that was Dorothea. And so maybe she married What seemed like a really solid safe and good man in Ernest Turley. Mm-hmm And we have no way of knowing if there was love and attraction because that kind of stuff goes into people's diaries back then Yeah, we don't we we don't know he's the victim in this crime. We don't know what kind of person he was We don't we really don't know what the situation was, but I have to believe that She had all this fame and everything else and getting married was just the next the next thing to do that was going to fix Whatever she might have felt was wrong inside Sure, cuz what else?

Was there to do for America's Venus back in the day? And this wasn't she was a little bit early for the dangling of a Hollywood contract It's wild to me. We see this all the time in true weird stuff the things you think are Modern like oh the person wins the singing contest and now they're gonna star in a movie That's always since Hollywood has existed We've seen this over and over again. Do you remember we had the episode on in?

Arkansas where the you know The guy was promised a big show business career and they took him around and put him on radio stations and he had a Hollywood Contract as a walk-on part in the movie and then of course it fizzled out and he was back on the farm Because it turns out it's real hard to sustain that Exactly Bridger So I went looking for all of these people. How did things turn out?

It's tricky with women because their names change right when they get married. I can tell you that um They all disappeared They all just Maddy Maddy could not escape the public attention fast enough and you can understand why certainly Bridger So if you're a new to weird stuff listener, we rescued Bridger from the pound He was brought in with there were eight dogs all together that were rescued by police and animal control from some I don't know if it was a breeding situation Or I I don't know what was going on His little paws had never been on anything but concrete his little claws his nails had grown up into his paw pads He was emaciated the other seven dogs that came in with him all had to be immediately euthanized None of them could be saved. He was the only survivor Today, he thinks he's King Charles of England. He is the bougie is house hippo You can possibly imagine he weighs like 80 pounds He thinks he's a lapdog or a cat and he is so fixated on my husband That he can't bear to be separated from him and my husband broke a tooth and is at the dentist Because ordinarily I wouldn't have Bridger. So here we have the perfect storm of insane bougie dog with Separation issues husband with a broken tooth and a Ouija board murder happening all at the same Yes, sir. Come here. Come here and I'll scratch your head, you know, if you could figure out a way to kill him You know, you wouldn't have any of these problems Sherry. I'm just saying that it is a fault If only I didn't have a conscience So, you know Ernest Turley had a distinguished career in the Navy and tremendous support from the military I mean he's languishing in this hospital in Arizona and remember what remember the time that this was before You know advanced medicine and antibiotics and all the stuff that we have now and So the Marines flew him to San Diego They medevaced him out of there to try to save his life and the doctors at the Naval Station the naval base in San Diego Worked around the clock and for a minute there. It looked like there was hope But his injuries were too severe and it breaks my heart It breaks it breaks my heart that he died His last moment was the admission that his daughter had deliberately tried to murder him And and So I did a little I did a little search about Kent and Apparently Kent just sort of faded. He faded from view after all of this They all did and they did that because they were allowed to do that Yeah, they and and I don't know I mean you remember this one went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court Mmm, this wasn't like some dusty courtroom, you know in a town with one saloon This was a big case. I can't I Can't tell you why the retrial the new murder trial did not ever make it onto the docket It might have been That the prosecutor because remember the original murder conviction they found 32 points of legal error Like small procedural stuff, right, you know little legal nuances So it was pretty thoroughly examined at the state Supreme Court level And so I'm guessing that when the prosecutor sat down to review the case Turley's dead Maddie. They can bring Maddie in to testify again But what do they really Maddie's already confessed to shooting Ernest right and she's done her time To bring another murder trial now, they've got to prove That this woman via the Ouija board manipulated her daughter

And I bet that would be kind of tricky in any courtroom to prove much less back then Yeah, I think that it probably would have been because you need you need back then eyewitnesses for the big with a big thing You know, but here's what I imagine Kent Pearce Holding the light as they're tending this poor guy's Gunshot wound and him going. Oh, I bet that looks like it hurts Knowing it's how it all happened It's diabolical and that's why I have armchair diagnosed Dorothea as At your everyday next-door sociopath You know, they're they walk amongst us and they do most of the time. They never do anything violent they're just kind of hard to get along with because they're devoid of empathy and The that lack of empathy, you know Their life is great because they're living their best life every waking minute cuz I don't give a damn about you, right, right So, I don't know if you agree with that, but I just feel like she demonstrated consistently just a complete lack of empathy for Everyone but herself And if you're thinking this is the only murder that involved a Ouija board in this country. You are sadly mistake There are so many I'm going to imagine if we are correct and the neighbor gossip is correct and the general view of the case is correct She talked her daughter her 15 year old. That's a child She talked her 15 year old into pulling the trigger Mm-hmm, and then brought her lover in to watch her husband suffer and hopefully die the fact that he didn't I just didn't go Wonder if the daughter that the other man that was involved with this whether something was happening between the daughter and him the mother says I will keep this quiet you can go off with him and I will go off with my cowboy and we will both be happy and And we need to be rid of him whether that wasn't a part of the equation as well That you know what that there's no evidence of any relationship between Maddie and that Wilton dude, yeah, will it do but That doesn't mean that mom didn't sell that idea to her that's what I'm that's what I'm thinking I'm not saying he did anything wrong or that she did anything But but my guess is that she would be able to sell that a little better look both of us We have happiness at our doorstep. What's the one thing that's keeping us from that?

Think about how toxic it is this idea of Maddie we're on a double date with our cowboys But you married and that's her father like the level of toxic Manipulation just even if a trigger never got pulled max, right? You make your child your co-conspirator It's it's so disgusting, isn't it it truly is and the way she acted afterwards just sort of feeds into That that that is exactly how it all came down Like this is one of those where I mean there are three things you can believe you can believe that spirits did tell Maddie to do That okay, you can believe that Okay, you can believe that Maddie decided to kill her father because she wanted to wear short dresses and cross her legs Teenage teenagers have committed some crimes for roughly less. Mm-hmm, right even in the modern times Bridger Bridger, I need to have a word with you. This does not he's at the dentist Sure, can I point out one other thing that I think is Funny the guy who helped invent the Ouija board. What did he do for a living? He was a I Liked and this was how America used to be his first business partner was a furniture maker Who also made coffins and doubled as the town's undertaker?

That's a hustle Hustler that is that is so here we have Here we have there's just no way even though this story has loose ends and unanswered questions in terms of Kent Pearce and all Mm-hmm. There is no way that Dorothea does not look like a stone-cold blooded sociopathic selfish black widows fighter bitch In this story. No question Honey pie sugar bunch I You know what, I don't even know how I'm gonna get back at you for this but I'm thinking of a plan I'm gonna give the cat your your next tooth bone. They like those green dental chewy things They're supposed to like help their teeth Well, it turns out the cat likes them too because the cat and the dog think they're each other It's very that's gonna on the next true weird stuff. It's a cat who thinks he's a dog So David that there are two victims in this story there are three victims in this story Ernest, of course Maddy because Your own mother made you into right made you into a killer And you have to live with that for the rest of your life. It costs you your freedom It costs you your father. It costs you your brother, right?

It dramatically upended any hope you had for whatever future you planned, right? but David Turley who is completely kicked off to the side and all of this like an old dry cow pie is Also a victim Here go to one this there you go the one that you wanted all day now's your chance What else there was something else in here we were gonna the perverts measuring naked college girls The creator of the Ouija board being a failed fertilizer salesman check Sure, I'm just wondering if there's a magic eight ball murder that we can I'm hope I'll find one for you find that maybe do That mmm, I'll find one So here's what I we always like to when we have these cases where it's murky We always like to present our own theory of the case. I Think Dorothea and Kent Pearce were hooking up. I think Dorothea Wanted to be with Kent Pearce who was significantly younger, but again, she's the American Venus and buddy I'm here to tell you she was she was some kind of something. Hmm. So, of course, you know a Handsome and they said Kent Pearce like a lot of the accounts of the day Kent Pearce was like movie star handsome So we have a young swagger and bow-legged sexy cowboy and we have America's Venus and yes She's in her late 30s and today that's nothing but back then, you know move out me ma But she was still absolutely drop-dead Gorgeous and so alluring and sassy and playful. She was catnip. Mm-hmm. I Think that she didn't want Kent Because if Kent had pulled that trigger he'd have been hanged right, right There's no way this case would have been as bizarre and convoluted if Kent Pearce Had pulled the trigger She can't risk having her cowboy pull the trigger and she doesn't want to get her hands dirty that way I am maybe in her mind. She thought if her daughter did it and Nothing would happen to her because she was underage. I don't know. I think so maybe because her daughter was a minor The the Ouija board angle is just it's like woo woo, but it's also the most sinister thing Because what Dorothea managed to pull off?

Was persuading Maddy to commit murder But it wasn't her mother doing the persuading. Mm-hmm It was the spirits Yeah So whatever whatever Karmic justice we all face at the end And I guess I'm getting mine right now with Bridger whatever karmic justice we all face at the end Dorothea Kelny Irene Kelny act turn Turley Is guilty of some very egregious Acts of evil here of deception and betrayal and manipulation and violence It's called divorce But aren't you what keep Morrison and Josh Mankiewicz could tell you that I'm so amazed at the people who Deploy divorce sounds like a lot of work. Let me kill him instead with you I've been divorced. It's awful. I I cannot recommend it Bridger this is the part where I announced publicly into a microphone that I'm not gonna kill your favorite person. So listen If My husband ever turned up murdered. I assure you it wasn't me Cuz I know better Ain't no divorce. I don't care how ugly it is. I don't care what you're risking. I don't care how much you're gonna lose I don't care if you have to live in your car. No divorce is gonna be worse Than committing a murder Even if you think you have a perfect plan you're gonna get away with it She thought she had a pretty slick plan and I think you're right I think she thought Maddie's age would I Think they would hear Maddie say the spirits told me to do it and the worst-case scenario for Maddie Was a little time in a lunatic asylum or the idea that I accidentally the gun fell down it accidentally went off And everybody believe it because she's 15 and she was clumsy, you know, I mean If if Maddie were a little smarter if Maddie took after her mother instead of her father Maddie who was a pretty good shot Ernest made good on his promise to buy the kids guns and teach them how to hunt and fish Maddie was a pretty fair shot and there was some foreshadowing in here if you remember When mom and David pull away Help, what does Maddie say when?

Dorothea says help daddy trap the skunk What does Maddie say? I? Won't trap him, but I might shoot him So, um if Maddie what I was saying was if Maddie took after Dorothea instead of Ernest It might have occurred to Maddie who was no stranger to that shotgun. It was hers might have occurred to Maddie the direction the bullets would enter and she might have dropped she might have dropped to the ground before firing and Then none of this would have ever happened because what broke the case was sheriff Haws wondering how those bullets Had arrived where they were if she was telling the truth. Mm-hmm So this is why folks you can't commit murder. I promise you you're not smart enough to think of everything. None of us are No, hey, hey But but you know, she's going to shoot him. No, she's probably not thinking in her mind Well, somebody's gonna wonder what the angle is on this, you know, somebody shot She didn't take after her mother who was along with being absolutely deliciously beautiful a very calculating personality Was she I'm looking at some pictures. Maybe they're later pictures. I don't know the later pictures Are you looking at the pictures when she was named the American Venus?

When it was like, um, you know the actress Margaret Qualley, uh-huh. She did made in the substance there's a little bit of a Margaret Qualley vibe and I happen to think Margaret Qualley like is Just on oh my god scrumptious. Oh Okay. Yeah, I was looking at I'm seeing I'm just seeing like Yeah, I'm seeing some some pictures, you know some time in the past. Oh, yeah. Oh, she was a she was a major, babe Yeah, yeah this is why you have to be so careful because like your great-grandparents will say stuff like that Ethel Merman was a bobshell and then you pull up a picture of Ethel Merman on your phone and you're like Meemaw she looks like a Maytag chest freezer. But then you look at the young Ethel Merman and you're like, oh, oh Yeah, okay. It was a bobshell When you look at the young Dorothea the American Venus Dorothea, that's the one earnest fell in love with. Yeah Yeah, it's a bit right Mm-hmm and the one that can't see her still in love with It's not nice to talk about people's appearances But I think it is fair to say that Sometimes you'll hear like this old-time movie star was the chisel and then you'll look at them and you're like, I don't see it Okay. Yeah, I've seen later pictures of her Sherry. So yeah Well, I'm going to prison and committing murder and being a scandal took a toll They serve a lot of starchy food in the prison. That's just I'm just gonna say that that doesn't help your complexion or anything else Yes, she doesn't look when they released her. She only served two years for persuading her child to kill her father When she emerged from that lockup, she she had lost that vibrant glow that had convinced Kent Pearce to be an accessory to murder and He got away with that too because you can't tell me he wasn't an accessory to that. Yeah, there's no way Yeah, that's what they couldn't they couldn't pin anything on him They couldn't okay. Let me tell you what Bridger has now. I have one of those little toys It's a screaming goat. So there's like a little thing that you press at the bottom underneath. It's really low-tech. No batteries or anything He's eating it and every once in a while from inside his mouth I hear The mic must not be picking it up. So what have we learned here? Here's what we have learned Don't be killing folks. Yeah, I think that's probably that's a pretty good lesson to learn. I mean if you're unhappy in your marriage Murders not the answer if you're in love with a sexy cowboy from down the road murders Not the answer. No and and the idea of turning your kid into the killer girl So, I'm pretty sure she remarried and changed her name But never, you know as far as we know never did anything Noteworthy again Okay, you're barking at the little goat and it's not real You know, some people will tell you this dog is so smart and swearing person. Yeah, you'll never hear me say Okay, and with that we will wrap up this episode and We'll take a look next time at the Unanswered distress call. I am very excited about this next episode. I am I'm really very excited about I'm gonna ask you to think between now and then He's barking at the goat if it makes noise He's barking at the little goat because it makes noise and I guess I don't even know what's happening here. No, what I want Why

Hey Why max with all those distress calls Why did no one go why did they leave her there to die? I Want to hear the story I mean it was it was during World War two or it was When I say was during World War two, I can't remember what year was it that she went down She went down right before World War two, right? Well right before our involvement in world, right?

Yeah, right before we went in. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry That was such an American centric thing to say. Yeah right before we joined the fight, right? She her plane went down. So now granite. We didn't have the kind of sophisticated Technology we have now in terms of mapping navigation locating and pinpointing signals and all of that We didn't have that But We had a real pretty good idea and we had not one or two so many distress calls. Mm-hmm and Some people have theories as to why she was left there to die and boy if any of those theories are even close to true We are a shameful shameful country and an embarrassment as a species and that's all we'll say about that until the next True weird stuff. Thanks for being patient about Bridger the dog and we'll see you next time and if you listen to us on Apple podcasts hit the plus button in the top right corner and now it helps an independent podcast like Ours to get discovered and we really appreciate it If you subscribe rate and review true weird stuff hit our website true weird stuff Calm for show notes and photos and videos when we have it and bonus content Everything true weird is waiting for you at true weird stuff calm and follow true weird stuff on Instagram True weird stuff is in Now! Media production Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia The show is written and hosted by me Sheri Lynch along with my deeply weird director Max Sweeten our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr original graphics by Kevin Nash Original artworks by Olivia Axland true weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and Zane Nash copyright 2026 Now! Media all rights reserved all wrongs remembered