528 - In a Business Way

This is exactly right. When a group of women discover

“they've all dated the same prolific con artist.”

They take matters into their own hands. I bowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the on-hot radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] Good to see you all. Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events

that really ever happened in New York City, politics. A screen get down, get down, those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.

Listen to Worshack, murder and city hall on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, it's Alec Baldwin.

“This season on my podcast, here's the thing I talked to composer Marc Shaman.”

It's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with.

You know, Robin Eye was always a great hang.

And journalist Chris Wippel, every White House staffer, they work in a bubble called the Westway. And it's exponentially more so in the Trump White House. Listen to the new season. Of here's the thing on the I Heart Radio app,

or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Richard Hardstar, that's Karen Kilkereth. This is a podcast where we started out talking about true crime.

Now it's a bit loosey, can you see? Would you say it's devolved, yes, in some ways? It, I think it's devolved terribly. Yes. I mean, terribly well.

Do you have a solution? You know, let's just go for it. Let it go. We are devolved. No, we're not.

We're not devolved. We're devolved. We're devolved. We're a podcast. Yeah.

But we're also on TV. That's right. And we know how fucking weird that is these days. It's weird for all of us. It's weird for me.

I finally watched a little bit of when I was alone,

which is always a bad thing.

Who? And I was like, let's just see how we look. And I turned it on. And I immediately went to the internet and bought a posture like hardness.

That looks like, does it hook to the back wall? Yes, it just keeps you up like a dog. It's like a dog hardness, like a dog being washed. Oh, my god. Yeah, I fucking can't even.

And I also got a new hair dresser. We're podcasters at heart. I wonder what it's going to be like in the next few years with podcasters in the video. Like you kind of have to do it now.

I know the kids. Well, it's like, or then the alt people will stay audio only. They will more lies about it. Like it's better in your better person because of it. Right.

Whatever that always happens. Now we don't have any opinion. We're just being told what to fucking do. By big podcast, by big podcasting and you know how much we love to follow rules.

Well, and also, we want to be up with the time doing what the kids do.

“And it's fun, I think, and tell you watch yourself.”

It's fun and great as long as you don't watch yourself. Look, because it's not happening. Do you have anything? Anything good, anything bad? Are you reading that book?

Burnout that I gave you? Out of my pocket? Like, I might try out of my purse and hand it to you. You're like here. Someone do something.

I do have some good news. And it's a true crime update. Start doing those again. Love that fun. Let's.

But this one's huge. The Gilgo Beach serial killer has been terrorizing that part of the East Coast forever. I mean, it feels like since the 90s. I can't believe it.

They finally caught him. Those are so satisfying. They caught him. It's amazing. They caught him and he pled guilty.

Incredible. There's not going to be a trial. He has been formally charged with the murders of seven women. Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelomy, Amber Limquistello, Moring Brainard Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor,

and Sandra Castilla. And he also admitted to killing an eighth victim, Karen Vergotta, but he wasn't formally charged with her murder as part of his plea. Yeah. So thankfully, those families aren't going to be put through that trial.

Like, what a mom. Yes. Fucking monstrous thing to go through after losing your family. Remember it's such a horrible way. I mean, yeah.

It's the best news in the worst situation. I mean, possible. There's a quote from the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney though. And he said, quote, this case closes and another opens. There are still bodies on that beach.

There's no rest for the weary. Oh, hi, hi. Yeah. And then there's also some Ted Bundy news. Well, it's the Ted Bundy news.

Oh, so a victim of Ted Bundy's has been officially tied to him. One of those ones I've been suspected since the beginning in 1974, the body of 17-year-old Laura Anne Amy was found by hikers in Utah's American Fort Canyon. She'd last been seen months earlier leaving a Halloween party in Utah County where he was

“a fucking, what was he a college student at the time?”

Yeah. That's right. He was going to become a lawyer. Yeah. And just before his execution, Ted Bundy admitted to murdering her, but there was no

hard evidence to support it until very recently forensic DNA testing of case evidence has now allowed investigators to build a genetic profile that they say links Bundy to Laura's murder. So on April 1st, Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith said they are officially closing Laura's case. And I mean, I get, give her her fucking respect, you know, and her dude. It's been such a long time.

I think that is incredible. I'm sure that the relatives and friends and family thought it was

never going to happen or that they wouldn't get answers.

I'm like, yeah, it wouldn't matter anymore, but it's like, it does. We're still thinking about it all the time. Good news in the bad news, right? Totally. Good news in true crime world, like that's you're not going to get a fucking Lisa Frank stationary.

Nope. Moment. That's not what they do there. That's not what we do here. True crime news. And sometimes we eat weird flavored jelly beans.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's something else to look forward to. Yeah, if we find out about them. Yeah, tell us about the tell us in the comments, guys. Well, you're saying KFC is making jelly beans. My sister sent me a photo of a bag that the kids were so stoked on.

“It was like fried chicken flavor, mashed potato flavor and like coal sauce flavor, I think.”

We're corn nublets, right? No one orders that. I love it. Buttered corn? No.

No, it's like watery. Yeah. It's so watery. Just like my mother's cooking. Dry chicken, weird watery corn and some minute rice.

Vince made funeral potatoes the other day. Ooh, were they good? They were so fucking good. We were given a funeral potato kit when we went to Utah Salt Lake City that time years ago. As we didn't know what they were.

Yeah. It was good. Like used frozen cubed potatoes, like a can of cream of chicken soup and like just all the cheese you've ever seen. Yeah.

And it was all bubbly on top. I'd burnt my tongue. And then cut up potatoes, like, shiled. Yeah. You cause you ate them this time.

I've got that.

It must have smelled amazing.

That's all my mother's cooking was based in Campbell Soup in some way. We've got to bring it back, right? Because it's so easy. Can a cream of chicken can a cream of celery? You're off to the races.

That's hot. Onion powder, like ranch powder. There's in a half a couple wine in your mouth. And yeah, you're cooking. Drink that.

Pour some in. Toast some almonds. And then you don't care what it tastes like. There are people on Instagram, I'm sure on TikTok that are like, here's me making a classic meal from the 1970s and they make, like, shit on the shingle or they make, like, fucking

casserole. It looked like the actual vintage kitchenware, which you know, is my fucking weak spot. Yeah. All led based on everything. Yeah.

You love led. Love led. That's so delicious. I like it. Like I lick to mercury as a child.

And here I am today. Look. Look at you. Didn't hurt you medically. This video podcast.

We are a result of mercury poisoning to camera to camera. I'm fine. I don't have a uterus anymore. It's fine. Who needs it?

All right. Should we talk about this network? Yeah. Things are happening on this network. Stop it.

It's crazy. We have the podcast network called exactly right media. It's been quite a week. We are still celebrating our newest addition to the era and family. Our friend Jake Brennan and his true crime music podcast is Grace Land is here on ERM.

We are so thrilled. Yeah. His newest episode which you can go check out now is all about Grace Jones. If you don't know her, she's a legendary 80s icon. Her life collided with crime in scandal and she had to fight to protect her reputation.

Of course, she was a powerful incredible looking woman of color in the time where it was

blonde women. For only. And it was incredible.

“I remember seeing her on TV and just being like, she has a crew cut.”

And that was cheekbones I've ever seen in my life. What's happening? I can't imagine. Yeah, I can't wait to listen. And then over on Bananas, Kurt and Scotty are joined by Pooja Matha.

They cover octopuses getting extra cutely on ecstasy on ecstasy with an octopuses. You will. You will. When the lead wears off. Paragliders narrowly avoiding a polar bear enclosure and people who can mentally

time travel. I fucking just write about that. What is it? They have such good memory that they can go back. Put themselves there.

Yeah. Like, literally be in that moment. And I think that they can also tell the future.

better than most people because they actually remember how I burned myself that one time. Don't do that again. Yeah.

That's an incredible gift.

“Imagine that to not reburn yourself a thousand times, psychologically.”

It's called dating. Have fun. Go back. Try it again. Then over on.

I said no gifts. Bridger tries to stay calm when the greatest of all time are friend Martha Kelly. You know, for baskets, you know, her from Buforia, she shows up with a gift anyway. Of course, they get into a gigantic fight, and also storm chasing, broken air conditioners, and fighting for joint custody.

I love that there's a generation of young people who are scared of Martha Kelly because her role on Buforia is so terrifying and so perfect. And she almost plays the same character as in baskets, but it's the most intimidating. And Martha, I don't know if everybody knows this, is one of the greatest stand-ups. Yeah.

If you go watch her live, it will blow your mind. That's right. So funny that they're scared of her. Like, yes. Like, people on the internet are scared of her.

That's fucking badass. It's so good. Over in Merch Corner, we've got brand new whistles.

“Do you need a whistle for whatever reason you might need it?”

Because we've got some cool likeness. And we've got, we, woo, two whistles that you can buy. He chained whistles. They're so cute. Proceeds from both of these whistles benefit the national immigration law center.

So you can order yours at exactly right store.com. So this is more big news, which is very exciting, but this is almost like circumstance. So we have a cult podcast here on Eram called Trust Me. Now there's a new cult documentary on Netflix. And it's called Trust Me The False Profit.

It's not associated directly except that Lola Blanc, who is the host of our Trust Me, her mother, Dr. Christine Marie, is featured in the documentary because that's why Lola hosts a cult podcast, she was raised in this cult.

And Christine Marie was the first guest of Trust Me.

So you can now go on Netflix and watch, trust me, The False Profit, Doc. And when you're done with that, come on to Eram, go on to Trust Me, go listen to episode one, and you get every possible part of the story you would want. Yeah, do it.

“Just in time for a mother's day, just in time for Mother's Day.”

[MUSIC PLAYING] A silver 40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From eye-hard podcasts and best case studios, this is Worshack, Murder at City Hall. Could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that.

Good, good, good. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons, and in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. [MUSIC PLAYING] Everybody in the chambers of dogs, a shocking public murder.

A scream, get down, get down, those are shots, those are shots, get down. The charismatic politician, you know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon. And I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret.

He alleged he was a victim of flat-down. That may have not been political, that may have been about six. Listen to Worshack, murder at City Hall on the eye-hard radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's two golden rules that any man should live by.

Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You place stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriend's. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girl Friends. Oh, my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discovered they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands.

I said, oh hell no, I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. [MUSIC PLAYING] Listen to The Girl Friends, trust me, babe.

On the eye-hard radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, it's Jake Brennan. And on my podcast, Disgraceland, I tell stories from the dark side of the music business.

And I'm thrilled to announce that now, Disgraceland, and its celebrity spin-off Hollywood land, have found a new home here at the exactly right network in partnership with I-Heart Podcast. You can binge over 250 episodes of Disgraceland's Back Catalog,

and listen to new episodes every Tuesday, bonus episodes on Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday, now on exactly right.

app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

OK, I'm first. OK.

“I have been waiting to tell you this story for a long time.”

I don't know why I haven't done it yet. It's just-- I put my glasses on. I like the build of that where you're like-- and now I'm going to.

Those are those new? Yeah. Cute. They're OK. Yeah.

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

Yes, it does. And a horrible it does. And on any given day, around 1,000 Ohioans are missing, according to data from the Ohio Attorney General's Office. There are 1,000 people a day of missing in Ohio.

They're not new every time. OK. The consistent count is that high. Yeah, it's very high. So today, we're going to talk about one of those missing people,

one of those 1,000, and due to eerie surveillance footage, that's kind of hard to fully reconcile. This story has become more of an urban legend ending up on those late night student scrolls about mysterious disappearances.

But unfortunately, it's not an urban legend. It's a true tragic story for 1, Ohio family in the mid 2000s. This is the story of the disappearance of Brian Schaffer.

“Do you know what I'm-- you'll know when I explain to see that?”

What did it look like? I don't know anything now. Look like a cat here. Your vision is too good. No, OK.

You're like, I'm on a cat read. Did you see that? It was an atom. Is Brian Schaffer the guy who left a party and they found like a canoe?

No. No, OK. I'm like, what? Because that was on true crime bullshit, because it was about a potential Israel keys victim.

Right. There was a similarity there. Like, I think you're close. OK, no, no, no, no. So the main sources I used for the story are an article

in Columbus Monthly by April Johnston, one from Nell, magazine by Kirk Peppy, and one from the Columbus Dispatch by Mike Wagner and the rest of the sources are in the show notes. OK.

So your eyes are a little bit bigger with those glasses on. Does it look the same? Not like Jerry Seinfeld in that episode. Like, really big brain, the weird glasses. But when you went like that, you were just like,

oh, it's like weird. I feel, no, I'm self-conscious that you don't have perfect vision. Yeah. Come on.

I'm getting older. Yeah. We're falling apart on that plate. Truly. It's great.

All right. This is serious. It's the wee hours of Saturday, April 1, 2006. April Fool's Day. We're at the Ugly tuna, Saluna.

Oh, that's what it's called. Great. It's a popular college bar at the Edge of the Ohio State University campus. You know, those like blocks, like there's some an Austin

that we've been to or Nashville, you just walk. And there's just like bar after bar. Kind of interchangeable. Just for college kids to get drunk cheap, you know, totally. Although it isn't really a safe area, either.

So three second year medical students have been bar hopping

around town, blowing off steam because they've just finished their final exams. Med school, of course, is extremely high pressure and stressful. But for one of these students, 27 year old Brian Schaffer, it's been a particularly awful few months.

So just three weeks earlier in March, he lost his mom, Renee, to cancer. Then he had to just pivot and turn around and take his exams. This is medical exams. The same thing happened to my mom when she was taking her

nursing test, her RN licensing test, her dad died like the day either the day of her the day before. Oh, my God. Yeah. And you just shut it all down.

Totally. Do what you got to do. Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't seem like Brian's ready to take a break from this stress.

“And that's what this night is about on the night of March 31st.”

So before first, he goes out to dinner with his dad, Randy, then he meets up with his friend, Clint Florence. He'd also invited his brother Derek to come out too, but Derek and his wife were at a comedy show. And it was that he went home afterwards.

So let me tell you about Brian. Everyone's like, he's an ordinary normal college student. If he's also like, this is beautiful charming person. This is Brian and his dad. Oh, yeah.

So that's Brian. He's like good looking. He looks like a cross to me between a young Tony Hawk and John Mulaney. Did you see that?

Sure. So yeah, he's like a good looking. He's fit. He's smart. He is nice and friendly and is pretty normal person.

So Brian and Clint start off at the ugly tuna bar.

And just before 10 p.m. Brian calls his girlfriend, fellow second year

medical student Alexis Swaggerner. She's a few hours away in Toledo, staying at her parents house, but she and Brian are planning to go on a trip to Miami together. I think for spring break, there's supposed to leave two days

According to many people who tell this story

who were there, Brian is planning to propose to Alexis on this trip. So he's just in the prime of his life. So shortly after this call, Brian and Clint start going bar hopping. They stop at seven other bars and they take a shot at each bar.

“And I guess I asked Vince, how many shots would make you chip-based?”

Yeah, because I think I heard somewhere that they had like 11 up to 11 shots. I mean, and I go, you know, your six, he was like six foot two. And big is he gonna be drunk and Vince is like, fuck yeah. And you're drinking a beer at the same time.

You're not just going in and having a shot. You're like, right, that's speculation, obviously. But, you know, that makes sense. Also, the more like, just thinking, I'll talk about myself, the more shots I took and then beers I backed with it.

Yeah. The more I was like, well, it's fine, I'm fine. Let's keep going. So you like, once you're over eight, it's mayhem.

Yeah, you're making all that decisions, yeah.

No shots. That's my rule. Shots just get you to a whole different place that you kind of can't plan for. No, no.

So they presumably become very drunk and then along their bar crawl route, Brian and Clint meet up with a friend of theirs, a woman named Meredith Reed. And towards the end of the night, Meredith drives everyone back to the ugly tuna.

“They end up back there at 115 in the morning.”

And so the ugly tuna is actually inside a bigger indoor complex, kind of like where the Alema draft house is. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, you go up the escalator and there's like the bowling alley there, the draft house there.

Yeah. So the indoor complex is called the Gateway and it has a movie theater and some stores and offices and some university housing. So the entrance to the ugly tuna is inside an up and escalator

on the building's second floor. So surveillance footage from that night shows Brian, Clint, and Meredith writing up on the escalator and then entering the bar. So that's the three of them.

Okay. So they know for a fact they were there. They see all three of them. There is going up into the bar. These corroborated that he is there.

Yeah, you can see the escalators and right outside the entrance of the bar, but you can't see the actual doorway of the bar and there's no footage from inside the bar. But it's clear that three of them walk back in

and then we never see Brian leave ever.

So what about 157 AM right before the bar is scheduled to close at two, Brian is just barely visible on the surveillance footage. Sending outside the ugly tuna talking to two women casually according to some accounts from that night.

Brian was maybe flirty, that's again speculation. And you can't really tell much from CCTV footage. Like body language.

“So you have some beers, that's what everyone's doing.”

Just doing it. Sometimes good times. It might mean nothing, so people and they're so little to go on in the story that people just cling to things and make up their own stories about it

and they're trying to figure something out. All right. So the women go back into the bar. They use the bathroom. They leave and they don't see Brian again.

Meanwhile, Clint and Meredith who are back in the bar can't find Brian as they're all planning on leaving. When it's closing, it's unclear if Brian went back into the ugly tuna or he went elsewhere in the complex after talking to those women.

But he definitely did not leave the complex via the escalator that is in view of the security cameras. The cops like combed this video footage after the fact and he is not in it. Wow.

Clint doesn't know that and after looking for Brian and calling his phone, he assumes Brian just Irish goodbye and gone back to his apartment, which is very close by. And so they leave. And if it's a complex like that, there's plenty of other exits.

No, there's not. No, we'll get to that. But also like, I feel like 2006, it's not like we were texting each other constantly. Like you would have been like, you know, I went home.

You call if you didn't pick up. Yeah, much more stuff was assumed. Right. Like it was just like, you're not there anymore. We had a plan, but you must have.

Yeah, and he's a girl. It's like, you know, is a woman and you're worried about them getting home safely in the same way you are about to do just walking away and going home. Right.

Like, not that big of a deal. And it sounds like a very intelligent guy. Yeah, right. But also really drunk. So that's a little worrisome, but when they end up.

All day Saturday and the next day, Sunday, no one seems to be able to get in touch with Brian. Alexis is girlfriend tries several times, but no one's answering his phone. He's not returning her calls, which is unlike him. And so the next day is Monday and Brian and Alexis,

this is when they're scheduled to leave for their trip to Miami. From what I've read, Alexis is just like he's something happened to his phone. I'm just, you know, everything's going to be fine. I'm just going to meet him at the airport. I bet that's what's happening.

So she goes to the airport and he doesn't show up. And he misses his flight. And that's when Alexis and Brian's father contact the Columbus police. And a missing person's case is opened. What a horrible.

I just feel like they're waiting to see his sitting there. Like, because you get that thing, you know, in the very much, much, much smaller version,

And it's just going to work.

And this will be, this is the final chance for him to, he'll just get out of a car. Yeah. Here we go on vacation. We'll be an explanation and we get a move on and you're just waiting with, like, kind of in the back of your head knowing that it's not going to happen.

It's not realistic. So Brian's dad, Randy, goes over to Brian's apartment. Nothing seems out of place. His bed is made. His books, textbooks are all there. Police find the Ryan's bank account and credit cards are untouched. You know, there's a course in the beginning.

“People are like, you must have just taken off on his own.”

And there's that trip to Miami, like, maybe he just, like, fucking left town was there already. Right. So very early into the investigation. Police get that surveillance footage from outside the ugly tune at Saluna. I don't want to say that anymore. Yeah.

But it doesn't answer any questions. He just appears. He just disappears into thin air. There are other ways out of the building. One of them, they don't really make sense. One of them's like a back door.

And I think there is video footage of that. But he's not in it. And then one is like, the building was under construction. So there is a service door leading down to a construction site outside of the building. That exit is covered with plywood.

You kind of have to climb down through a shaft. Like, why would he go that way? But if he's super drunk, and he could have fallen or some, you know, an accident. Totally. I don't know. So he could have possibly fallen, gotten hurt.

But the area is searched and Brian is not found. And other businesses in the gateway building have cameras and the buildings around the gateway also have cameras.

But as far as we know, Brian never shows up on any of the security footage.

He just goes up into the fucking bar and disappears. And I've always imagined him, like, you said, still in there, having fallen somewhere. Like, you see that recently, like a woman got stuck in her crawl space and like died and she had been missing for years and years. Yeah.

That's happened.

“I think we did a story about that one time, too, or it was like a buyer place.”

The fireplace one, I think there was a rock club one, too. Yeah. Which is so rare. It's like just the oddest thing. And they would have smelled something.

And they did a, I mean, it didn't multiple thorough searches. It seems of this entire complex. Yeah. Who the fuck knows? Can I tell you one theory just popped in my head?

Because if these other stores had cameras and if somebody that was in one of those stores was involved, then they could have gone in like a race the camera or they're like, oh, sorry, our cameras are race every day or something, and covered their own tracks. Just that it's not free standing. It's like there's other places and other people that are kind of set there.

Yeah. And like, this is what we're doing, right, theorizing kind of. And there's total possibility that he is on those surveillance cameras when we just, it doesn't, it hasn't, I can't imagine it hasn't been connected. But yeah.

Who the fuck knows? Weirder things have happened. Sergeant John Hearst of the Columbus police. He's the lead detective on this case. He believes that this is the likelyest route that Brian took out of the building that he left

through the shaft wound up in the construction site and then left the construction site or was taken from it. One more interesting detail that Hearst says is that dogs tracked Brian sent from the construction site to a nearby Wendy's like across the street. Then possibly don't abandon building and then they lost the scent completely.

Hmm. We've also heard the stories of drunk people ending up in dumpsters and those getting emptied. I mean, that's such an awful fucking thought, but we got maybe got beat up and put, I mean, this is clearly just more speculation than ever. That's all of us.

Yeah. Saw your left face. So this area of downtown Columbus where the gateway building is is known for having a pretty high crime rate and so part of the reason the gateway was built was for the University to establish kind of a safer area for students to hang out.

But again, this also means that there are cameras pretty much everywhere and no trace of Brian is seen on any of them. A massive search effort expands outward from the gateway center with Brian's friends, family and Alexis's girlfriend all working tirelessly to search the nearby old and tangy river and also they check every dumpster, but it had already been a few days before.

He was reported missing and no sign of him is ever found. Alexis calls Brian cell phone every day.

It always goes straight to voicemail except one time several weeks after Brian's disappearance.

It rings once. Can you imagine that idea that this is the last connection and you're just going to keep trying because nothing else is working and the people are supposed to be helping you or solve it. Yeah.

Can't do it.

“And so then you have this one way and that's just like the only thing you can hold”

on to and then it rings. And you're so desperate, you're almost, you also are like, if he left me and doesn't want to be with me anymore good, I just need to know what happened right now. So like, yeah, it fucking rings once and Brian cell carrier believes it was just a glitch and not Alexis making an actual connection with Brian's phone.

his phone pings several towers around the Columbus area.

It's that telephone ping thing that we got in cereal that like does it make sense or does it? Is it just a flu? Is it an accident? I mean, as we do in these things where we take conjecture from the things we learn from

the media. So my thing is like lawn order where it's like, well, someone found the phone on the ground right and it's their phone now for a little while and then they ditch it. Right. And it's not connected and it's not that, but it's like if that person came forward and said

where they found the phone, it would help so much more than them getting in trouble for stealing the lost phone. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but they already stole something and they don't know why how important it would be.

Yeah.

I feel like someday in the same way, DNA, we're able to like read it better.

“I think the pinging phone thing is going to make more sense one day.”

Yes. Although I wonder if it's going to be able to be useful for old cases like this. What I hope is we someday get rid of these fucking phones and let's just go back to a long form letter writing. I think it's best.

Oh. That's great. I love it. And this is one of the biggest mysteries of the case as is the elevator footage. All calls to Brian's phone go straight to voicemail, suggesting that the phone had lost

battery or was turned off, but if it was pinging towers, it would have to be turned on. And some people write it or there's a lot of writers believe this must mean that someone had Brian's phone, and it was periodically turned out like we said. So in 2007, it wasn't possible to pinpoint the phone's exact location, though. I wonder if someday it will be, or if it's just like old technology at this point.

Well, it would be great if it could happen and it'd be great if we could focus on things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Tracks tons of attention, of course, Brian, he's also a musician who is actually considered

becoming a musician as his career before picking medicine instead, he's a massive program fan. And he has a program tattoo, the stick figure from the art. That's how I know this name. Really?

“Well, because the program started talking about that, right?”

Yeah. Eddie Vatter learns about the case and talks about it at a show in Cincinnati. That's the tattoo. He has the tattoo. Yeah.

Stick figure. I want to Brian, and this brings even more attention to the case. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to turn up any fresh leads. So, you know, there's the theories. Some people believe that Brian died accidentally in the construction site and there was some

conspiracy by the developer or the local government to cover up his death, but, you know, not wanting to lose funding or stall the project somehow. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go through in a very quick time and a lot of people would be complicit in doing that. I don't-- right.

There'd be one guy, like, I'm not-- no. Another theory that comes up again and again, in this case, and really when any young man disappears on a night out in the Midwest, is that this could be the work of an unknown serial killer who some people call the smiley face killer, not-- it's separate from the happy face killer.

Believeers in the smiley face killer theory. So we don't even know if there's an actual serial killer out there. Yeah. One man often drunk have disappeared from many college campuses, particularly in the Midwest, often they're eventually found in bodies of water near campus, and often a spray painted

smiley face has been found somewhere on the banks of the river. Yeah. So it all might just be a coincidence. Totally. And yet, then you kind of underlay that with the Israel Key story, where we had its serial

killer who was intentionally crossing state lines and driving all over. So he could kill people random, or make it look random. I mean, that's the unfortunate thing. It's just like that. Because I remember trying to do this smiley face killer on the show, and it's just-- it

is like, it's a ton of the same story and so frustrating because it's like, and then he disappeared or then he was found dead in this water. But graffiti near a horrible accident is not uncommon. Totally. Trying to lace all that together, but at the same time, it's already happened that way.

Yeah. Israel Keys is the proof that this could be happening other people could be doing it. Yeah. Right. It's not impossible.

No such smiley face has ever been found on the banks of the old and tangy river.

The FBI's always maintained that there is no such killer, and that the presence of the smiley

face graffiti is just a coincidence. Sorry. They say the same thing about Lady Bird Lake. I know. We're not doing that.

“I believe the FBI, OK, ever, sounds good, ever again.”

Never again. Another theory is that Brian did leave the bar under his own power that he changed his clothes and put on a different hat, so he wouldn't be recognized in the footage in the surveillance video. And then people point to Brian's grief over his mother's recent death that apparently

Alexis asked him to quote, "Go away, just go away with him." That maybe he had been planning to run away.

all this time. No.

“And what did he just graduate from medical school or is about to?”

He just finished his exams for that year, or for that experience for all that work. Exactly. And all years. And then you're just like whatever, at least it seems like that's bumped down to the right percentage of possibility.

Yeah.

And then his credit cards and money aren't touched ever, like you'd never hear from

again, sounds kind of impossible and intentionally. He was close to his family after all they'd gone through with the mom. It just seemed really out of character for him, people said. So Brian's dad, Randy, and his brother, Derek, worked tirelessly to try and find Brian or any clues that could lead to finding out what happened to him.

At one point, Randy, the father consults a psychic who says Brian is in the old and tangy river, says he was caught in a world pool by a specific peer, like gives him all this information, this grieving father, Randy puts on waiters and goes out to this spot and almost gets sucked into a world pool under the surface himself.

“So, so it's just fucking, but it gets worse.”

In the year after Brian's disappearance, Randy never lets up in his constantly calling Brian's friends. He calls Alexis and the police to discuss any possible developments, like he just dedicated himself to finding out what happened to his son, then in September of 2008, there is

a powerful win storm in the town where Randy lives and Randy's trying to clear some debris

and large branch falls off the tree and kills him. This poor family. I know, like the poor, the brother who suddenly lost his entire family within two or three years. Oh my god. I know.

So in the years since, though, Derek has taken a step back from the case, understandably trying to protect his mental health. Yeah. And Alexis spends a year also trying to search for Brian, manning the tip line, participating in physical searches and still calling his phone every day.

And about a year later in 2007, she tells herself she needs to stop for her own sanity and I mean, not stop, but just not become, be so involved in being an entire life. Yeah. Just focusing only on this tragedy over and over every day, which I'm sure in the beginning was like, a way to get up and out of bed and dedicate yourself to something.

But yeah, it's years of not finding any clue. So crazy. And then about six months after that, her mom introduced her to a contractor named Eric. They fall in love.

He's very understanding.

And they ultimately get married and have two signs and settled down in Toledo where

Alexis works as an obstetrician now, delivering babies. She doesn't believe in any one theory. She tells the Columbus dispatch that she's kind of numb from that time in her life. And she says, quote, "It almost feels like this all happened to someone else." Yeah.

Because it's just so strange and deep of so much energy and effort of your life and then you had to walk away from it and just pretend that everything, right, moved on. You had no choice but to move on. This month marks the 20th anniversary of Brian's disappearance. The case remains open and the Columbus police say they still received tips and pursue

all leads. Wow. In the prepared statement for the 20th anniversary of Brian's disappearance, his brother Derek says, quote, "Every day we think about Brian and can't believe it's been 20 years. We still continue to hope and pray to have answers some day and wish that anyone who knows

anything would come forward." And that is a story of the mysterious and tragic disappearance of Brian Shaffer. Wow. Hey, if the Gilgo Beach serial killer can get found and arrested years and years later. Totally.

This person can get found. I feel like there's a simple explanation.

“I don't think it's some big conspiracy, you know what I mean?”

It's just simple and not nefarious, maybe, because the ex-detective is going to write a book about it and they haven't ruled out murder, but it's like, we can't rule it in either because there's nothing. Right, there's a layer, what an incredibly frustrating story you've just told me. Sorry, I know you.

But I really love that you did it. The fact that it's the 20th anniversary. And that it's that kind of thing where it's like missing persons where everyone just puts their hands up. And it's like, why haven't we established governmentally, like huge, cold case teams or

missing persons teams where it's like a dedicated group of people and that's their job. And so that the family doesn't have to do it. And it's not left to the people who are hurt the most by it. Wow. From I Heart Podcasts, and best case studios, this is Worshack, murder at City Hall.

Somebody tell me that.

“July, 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.”

Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Have everybody in the chambers of dogs, a shocking public murder. A scream, get down, get down those are shots, those are shots, get down. A charismatic politician, you know, he just bent the rules all the time.

But I still have a weapon, and I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was effective, flat now. That may have been not have been political, that may have been about sex. Listen to Worshack, murder at City Hall on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. There's two Golden Rules that any man should live by.

Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

He plays stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anison Field, and in this new season of the girlfriends. Oh my God, this is the same man.

“A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.”

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought how could this happen to me. The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. They said, oh hell no, I vowed I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends, trust me babe. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Jake Brennan, and on my podcast "Disgraceland," I tell stories from the dark side of the music business.

And I'm thrilled to announce that now, "Disgraceland," and its celebrities spin off

Hollywood land, have found a new home here at the exactly right network in partnership with I Heart Podcasts. You can binge over 250 episodes of "Disgraceland's Back Catalog," and listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Bonus episodes on Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday now on exactly right.

Listen to "Disgraceland," and Hollywood land on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Great one. I also have a bit of a mystery story to tell you today, but it's a real left turn. Okay.

Very different, okay. And it's one of those ones I'm excited to tell you about. It begins on Tuesday, September 29, 1903. Oh, shit, you know, that is the turn of the century, my favorite time. And we're in a small town, Van Meter, Iowa, okay.

It's Ron Iam.

And a man named Ulysses G. Griffith is heading home after a long day of work.

Ulysses is in his mid-30s. He runs a farm equipment business, such a different time. And the business requires him to travel all around the region. He often makes it home quite late, and we assume he's traveling in probably a horse-tron wagon, so this is 1903.

And of course, he's exhausted. It's a lot of long, slow travel. So he rolls on to Van Meter's main street. And then he sees something incredibly strange. There's a bright beam of light coming from the roof of a nearby building,

cutting into the nighttime sky. So this is 1903. We are in rural Iowa. It's a darkness that none of us really understand anymore. Before the rural electrification acts, so sometimes did have electricity.

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

Yeah.

“Or they do their gas lights and they probably out by then, like that time and I, right?”

Totally. We have a picture of Van Meter just to get the sense of, oh, you know, yeah. Right. Small turn of the century town. Train stops through it.

Yeah. It's big enough to have its own train stop. Yeah. Huge. But not big enough to have its own newspaper.

Got it. Right in there. And then just in the background. No lights. Nothing.

There's nothing. No. So Ulysses is baffled. Of course. He's just staring at this bizarre site, trying to figure out what he's looking at and where

it's coming from. And suddenly the light jumps to another rooftop and then it jumps again and then it vanishes into the darkness. This is an alien story. We'll see.

This is such a small town and incredibly tight knit community. So of course, word of Ulysses is experience.

Ulysses? Ulysses. Ulysses. Ulysses. Ulysses.

“Word of this strange experience spreads very quickly, but no one knows what to make of it.”

And luckily, Ulysses is described in old county records as, quote, among the leading men in town,

both socially and in a business way, and uniformly respected and, quote, so we don't think he's bullshit. Yeah. Or an old drunk tractor salesman who's just like, "Well, it's lateral player." It's like, it's the moon Ulysses.

People of VanMeter know him as an even killed honest man who is not one for practical jokes. Still, there is no explanation and there's really no way to find one. And so time passes and life just kind of continues on. And it seems like that strange sighting is just a one-off auditory. But if that were the case, I wouldn't be telling you about it right now, this is the story

of the VanMeter visitor. So the main sources used today are articles from the Des Moines Register archives, a book by Chad Lewis, Noah Voss, and Kevin Lee Nelson about the topic, and a mini documentary from Iowa PBS entitled Spooky Stories VanMeter Visitor.

And the rest of the sources are in our show notes.

So I'll tell you a little bit about the town. VanMeter Iowa is situated along the raccoon river, 20 miles west of Des Moines. So it's technically a suburb, and to this day, it still has that small town feel, like it did in the early 1900s. But of course, the 1903 VanMeter is totally undeveloped.

Yeah. You saw that picture. The I80 has not been constructed, but trains do pass through the town. And that local train station that you saw is a major source of business and life in this small town.

“VanMeter is also an important Midwestern shipping stop for everything from lumber to farm”

goods to coal that's mined out of a local mine, they're in VanMeter. But by 1903, that mine went out of business, and it sits on the edge of town, a creepy and abandoned remnant that's in a state of disrepair. So you'll see this strange site at 1am on Tuesday, September 29th. The rest of that day unfolds normally until late that afternoon, when a thunderstorm

rolls in. And the town's doctor 25 year old Fred Elcott, everyone's a baby in this village, man. Right. Middle aged 25 year old? Yeah, he looks like Wilford Brimley 25.

So he's working a normal day seeing patients all day long, and like many business owners, in VanMeter, he keeps an apartment behind his office. So between the days bad weather and the sun setting around 630 at that time of year, doctor Elcott's not planning on going anywhere that night. It's too dark, it's too rainy, so he just goes home, goes to bed and falls asleep.

So sometime around 1am, now it's Wednesday, September 30th, a bright light shines through Dr. Elcott's bedroom window lighting up an otherwise pitch black room.

“He's jolted away, he jumps out of bed, he thinks someone's breaking into his office.”

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

It wasn't where I was going. I was going left or gone. I don't know why. Don't ask me a lie. You just felt that.

Yeah, but so we're talking about a winged horse. You want a corn type creature? Well, there is a horn and there are wings. Why did I get horse from? Just a year.

Good writer. Terrified, Dr. Elcott lifts his gun and starts firing at this thing. Just fire at it. She just got a shoot of the thing. You saw, it was a time where they had just settled this area.

Yeah, shooting things was the solution to almost everything. Well, has anything changed? I mean, hello, America.

The problem is his bullets have no effect on the creature.

So he runs back into his office, he locks the doors, and windows and he barricades himself inside until the sun rises. So just like the first time, word of Dr. Elcott's encounter spreads very quickly through van meter. It's like it happened again.

People running up and down the street. So because this has happened within 24-hour period, people start getting very worried. And it's also from an equally dignified, well-respected member of town. But this time, he's not just claiming he saw a light, he's claiming he saw a monster. So as the sun goes down that night, the people of van meter are on edge.

Clerk at the town bank named Peter Dunn in his mid-20s, has an idea. Everybody. So young. He has an idea, in his mind, these lights and winged creatures feel like real people that are being misidentified by panicked witnesses or exhausted witnesses.

and steal everybody's money. So he decides, Mr. Make it about himself, Mr. Mancharacter over here. Exactly, right? He's like, "Oh, this is bank related." Yes, me.

The 23-year-old banker of town. So bravely, he decides to stand guard over the money all night long. And later on, Peter will go on to earn himself a very widely respected role in the town of van meter. He manages the bank after that he holds several city offices, including becoming the mayor.

So he's a sound mind, he's not the type to lie, but what happens next sounds very far-fetched. So one AM on a cloudy Thursday, it's October 1st now. Peter claims he hears a weird noise coming from just outside the bank. He says it sounds like, quote, "someone strangling."

Hmm. It's like a weird choking, choking, strangling sound. So he takes his shock on, he races outside, right? The rule?

“Have you seen, this was reminded me of this tweet, all right, Pete?”

That says, "I'm sorry, but my friends and I would have smashed E.T. with a hammer." Yes. Yes. We would not have taken him home in that room, like, and I was like, "Oh, shit, that's we were feral.

We would have done the same. We would have dissected him to be like, "Why don't we know what it is?" We would have speed it with the hammer.

We were real killed first ask questions later.

Sure. Generation. Yeah. It's really what America kind of is at its heart. Poor E.T.

We filmed the right guy at least. We're going to really bad movies. Steven Spielberg would have been like, "What are you doing?" This movie is 32 minutes long. We're going to get him.

We're going to have him land, get discovered. And then kids on that call to sack circle out. Yeah. Okay.

“So Peter races to a nearby window to see what the hell this sound is.”

Knowing that it could be the thing that everyone is worried about. And he goes and pears out into the darkness. But when he presses his face to the glass and intense light immediately shines right into his eyes. And then it goes out.

So we can safely assume Peter was dazzled by that light. Men are so hysterical. It's like calm down dude. Stop crying. You've got your big gun.

So he's like, whoa, what just happened? He keeps looking out. He's trying to see if that light comes back on. But now he sees as his vision kind of comes back. The light is bouncing around on the street in front of the bank.

We can assume with spotty vision and feeling absolutely terrified. Peter tries to focus on the light as it's moving. He thinks he can see something under the light, but not very clearly. He ends up describing it simply as, quote, a great form of some kind. Cool.

So he panics. He raises his shotgun. He fires right through the bank's window, blowing up the glass. But the light vanishes and once again everything is dark. He stays inside that bank until sunrise.

Now with a broken window, they're job can get right in. It's called here and it's open it.

So when it's finally light, he goes and tells everybody what he saw.

The area surrounding the bank is searched. And according to old reports, a set of quote, "great, three-toed tracks are found nearby and captured in a plaster mold." Do you have the photo of it? It's like, I'm thinking duck.

That model does since been gone missing. Of course it has. There's no, I know. But yes, it's almost like a three-toed, a big bird. Probably like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park.

That's how we do it. Law and order in Jurassic Park. Stephen. OK, so this is a third encounter in 48 hours and the town of Van Meter is now gripped in fear.

But this strange and continuous when the sun goes down that night. Once again, around 2 a.m. on Friday, October 2nd, 35-year-old Otto V. White, who is the oldest man in town, just getting through lives in an apartment above his main street hardware store is now awakened by a "rasping sound" outside. He immediately grabs his gun.

He opens a window. OK. And he scans the street. He's waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. I wonder if their vision was different because there was so little artificial light back

then. Yeah, and then also like the dude in the bank, he's the, I don't like him. I don't know why, but his vision would have been so fucked after having, you know, basically

like a flashlight in your face, especially because he had never probably hadn't been

around electric light that long. Yeah. So I don't trust him. I don't know why. You're, you don't like capitalist, is that what it is?

“He seems like a pick me guy, that's what I'm saying.”

OK, so he hears the rasping noise. This is Otto from the hardware store. Here's a rasping noise immediately grabs his gun, opens the window, scans the street. He's waiting for his eyes to adjust. And as they do, he sees something hanging off the nearest telephone pole about 15 feet

So dangerously close for my taste, but it's another kind of rainy cloudy night.

There's almost no moonlight. It's really too dark to be able to see any of the features of what this thing is. But Otto's already heard about the monster stalking van meter. So he thinks the best plan is to just shoot at whatever it is hanging off that telephone pole and ask questions later.

He raises his gun, he pulls the trigger, but instead of this thing tumbling to the ground or screeching or anything, it's just silence. Until a moment later, when an incredibly bright light shines right in his face, suddenly he's overwhelmed by a horrible stench and then it all gets a little foggy.

“And Otto cannot remember anything that happens after that after the stench.”

This has, this has mothman vibes. Doesn't it? Yep. That will come up later. Meanwhile, Otto's gunshot wakes up the man who lives diagonally across Main Street.

20-year-old shopkeeper, Sydney Greg, 20-year-old's shopkeeper, he's been asleep in his

street level apartment that's attached to his store. So he runs into a shop, he swings the front door open, he looks out over Main Street and he's looking around for the source of the gunshots. But what he's shocked to see is the entire street lit up like it was daytime. And then he sees the creature still clinging to the nearby telephone pole with a bright light

coming from its head. And according to reports, Sydney says, "It's hanging by what looks like talons or bird claws." Yeah. Three of them. Three of them.

Three of them. Clawing just go ahead and do this. Yeah. Pinch, like a pincher. Oh.

He ate. If we've got light going off his head. So Sydney is the witness who gets the best look at this creature of anyone in the story. His description is more evocative of something like a tear ductal, versus like some flying humanoid creature.

All right. He watches as it climbs down from the pole and stands upright. And he estimates this thing is eight feet tall. Oh, no. Yeah.

It jumps a couple times, unfolds to massive, featherless wings, all the while the light on its forehead, sweeping back and forth, like it's scanning the area. And then right on schedule, the overnight train barrels past man meter on the nearby tracks and spooks the creature. And from his shop storeways, Sydney says he watches it bolt off, quote, "on all four feet."

Wow.

“So he runs like a horse, remember you said in the beginning?”

But he looks like a bird. But he lands like a human and looks like a bird and then runs off on all four. Okay. So, when the word gets around the next day, this town goes into an all-out panic. Of course.

Where are the women to comment, everyone down, for fuck's sake? Right. There weren't many in the picture. I don't see my good. It seems like a bunch of college grads went out and started van meter by themselves in

a boys-only club, sterric home boys. Then more information comes to light. Talking about the old abandoned coal mine in van meter, it was built next to a brick and tile factory. And the brick and tile factory is still in business.

So word spreads that workers at the brick and tile factory have been hearing weird sounds coming from the abandoned coal mine for a while. They just haven't really talked about it to anybody. Which also is an interesting kind of dynamic of like the pressure of small town.

“Like once you say, hey, we heard weird screeching or whatever, it's like, oh, they're crazy”

at the tile factory, or whatever. Definitely. Tile glue or whatever. Right. Exactly.

So they haven't talked about it. So we don't really know how long they had been hearing those noises. But the factory and the mine shaft sits about 500 feet away from each other. So relatively close. So as the sun sets that Friday evening, the residents of van meter are preparing for another

night of terror and sure enough it comes. Around 1 a.m. 44-year-old, oh my God, a geriatric look. 44-year-old jail-plat, the operations manager of the brick and tile factory and his crew of overnight workers start hearing those same weird noises coming from the mine shafts

once again. But now, because they've all heard about these sightings and all the crazy stuff that's

been happening, plat finally decides he's going to step out and investigate this noise.

There's a full moon that night. So he can see better than he would normally be able to. He walks towards the mine shaft and as he approaches, he sees the outline of two creatures standing in the shaft entrance. You got a buddy?

You got a buddy, a little buddy. One is noticeably larger than the other, both have those light horns on their head. He watches as they raise their enormous rings and fly off into the dark. Bye. So this time, there's no waiting until sunrise, plat, his workers and other citizens of

van meter immediately mobilized, thinking that the mine is where these creatures live. A group of vigilantes armed with guns.

They surround the mine and they wait until daybreak because they're like if they live

here, they're coming back. And sure enough, write it done.

“The monsters are seen flying back through the sky toward the mine shaft.”

What the fuck? So everybody starts shooting. Right? They unload everything they've got. And as they do, the two creatures let out bizarre loud groans and the air suddenly fills

with that strange odor, but like every other time that anyone's tried to shoot at these mysterious things, the bullets have no effect. And importantly, the creatures land and here's where I go. They push their way past the citizens and they disappear down the mine shaft into the dark tunnel.

So they're like out of our way, we're going back home. Yeah. And no one can do anything because it's like, you're not going to fist fight them. Right. It doesn't work.

They've got that close. It's surprising. Right. What happens next is also mysterious. What we do know is that the citizens of van meter block the entrance to that abandoned

coal mine, like, boarded up forever. And after that, there are no more documented sightings of these strange creatures ever again. Right. Over time, they become known as the van meter visitor or visitors.

And the remnants of that old mine with its blocked off entrance are still there in van meter, but they're now on private property. Has anyone gone in and searched for them?

“I mean, I'm sure, well, but here's the thing I wonder, we'll theorize.”

Okay. So there are a lot of theories about what this could have been who or what the van meter visitor actually was. The most plausible explanation being, it's a case of mass misidentification involving something like a vulture or a large owl, which is the same theory that kind of writes

off the moth man, which is interesting because the moth man, they think it was a gigantic

bird called a shoe bill that was basically migrating and got like knocked off its migration

path. I think fucking bird you've ever seen in your life. It is a wild looking bird. But if you saw out in the wild, you'd fucking run. In, especially in like car lights in a very dark highway, feel like darkness is a big

part of all of these things that are like it. It's not eternal. They're not eternal. They're not eternal. They're not eternal creatures except for that last experience, which is so heightened that

it's like truly a whole town sat there and watched these things come and fly and then they were like pushed out of the way. I don't like they're to fucking concert or something like you're pushing to the front. Okay, some write the whole thing off as a practical joke, but if that were true, then they'd know who was doing it because the one was eight feet tall.

If they were average height, they'd have to be talented enough to bounce fly and climb telephone poles on stilts and in costume while carrying an incredibly bright lantern or an electric headlight that it's almost no way that could have, yeah.

The year has had an incredible catalog and it always.

There's also the theory of mass delusion on just eight and stairs eight. There's the theory of mass delusion because throughout the 1800s and the early 1900s, newspapers were full of sensationalized reports of weird creatures. The van meter visitor story predates the 1909 Jersey Devil Panic, which is similar because it involves flying dinosaur-esque creature predates it by about seven years and of course,

it predates our beloved mothman by 50 years more than 50 years, but it's totally possible the people in van meter were reading about other strange creatures and the papers and getting those ideas because about a decade earlier, a terredactal like monster known as the tombstone Thunderbird was spotted in Arizona and that's the one that I've heard about that where it's like, it's a bird, but it is so gigantic.

“It's like a 50-foot wingsband and I think there are stories of like, it carried off a child.”

Just like it's so huge and a bunch of people saw it. So even if that story was alive but it's the in the newspaper and then the story goes around then it's like, you got our own. Also there's of course the very plausible theory, the residents of van meter invented a monster story to drum up either publicity, draw visitors to the town.

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

They actually didn't seem to like it, so it's unclear who would have benefited by spreading a story like this. We can take a closer look at the man who wrote the articles about the van meter visitor, he's a journalist named Harry H. Phillips, and we can mull over whether or not he is a bad reporter or somehow involved in elaborate hoax or just plain old telling the truth.

reports of this event pop up in the Des Moines daily paper on October 5, a couple of days

after that last reported sighting. It's truly possible, Harry H. Phillips was given bad information or got kind of basic information and embellished the original details as it was working on the cotton. We've done that for 10 years.

“That's what we do, you know, they're old timey version of clickbait, essentially.”

It's like, can you believe what's happening out west where nothing's provable in their own cameras? Again, though, I will say, Harry H. Phillips is an esteemed member of the community of van meter. He lives in van meter.

The local postmaster, which I think it takes an extra amount of honesty and trustworthiness. He's not one to embellish. Right or lie. Yeah. He's off the hook.

What are the things? Money. A money order. Yeah. So what does it call?

No, I know what I'm talking about. I need to give you $300, but I don't have give you cash, so I'll give you this thing from the bank. Yeah, why are I don't know? Cashier's truck?

A cashier's truck. I got down that. You know, I quit. Forget that. I'll just keep going.

So people trust this man. And also, very important to mention that there was a contest in van meter, or I don't know if it was a contest, but they had the handsome bachelors of van meter that they featured every year. And he was one of them.

Here they have the handsome bachelors. Hello, boys. And this was from 1901, and what the one that looks like he's just seen a ghost. This guy? Yeah.

Constant surprise. Are you mean young Harry Houdini? Have you somehow lived in Van meter Iowa? You guys go to our Instagram if you want to see this photo. The front row of moustaches are fucking given.

Yeah. Are they, you know? These are the most esteemed citizens because they have the biggest moustaches and goes up to the youngsters. You can't just really, really grow a moustache.

“I think if I'd depict one, how about that lone wolf over on the left?”

I like the one below him with the moustache. That's kind of a daddy issue pic. He's giving daddy. He's giving. He's totally a daddy.

He's a daddy.

My guy has a hair sticking up just like I always do.

Oh, yeah. Hey. He looks the most like modern, I'd say. Yeah, he does. That's the time.

You're like a modern man. That's why he's a little bit apart because he's slipped in on the side, like, cam from 1974. He's disappearing right before us. Wait, one hand is going away.

So Harry is on the left in the middle row. So this guy? Little thicker. He's a little thicker around the face. You know, now that you point, now that I point him out and blame it on you, I think he

might be my pic. Okay. No more time travelers. Our boyfriends are friends. Hey, you can have both.

What? Don't have to pick. Fucking monogamy is out in the 1903s.

Imagine that'd be even more revolutionary than this monster with a light on his head.

So he's handsome. Of course, he's not lying. Again, there's no obvious reason for him to make up the story unless it is a ruse to get

“more subscribers, which I think is what Yellow Journalism was kind of all about back”

in her. I mean, that makes sense. So what we really need for the fan meter visitor or visitors, mystery to be solved, is to find that old plaster cast of the monster's footprint. Or maybe discover some lost diary of someone's great-great-grandmother in an evidence?

Yes. I was there in an attic, and in some fucking ex-share of grandma's, fuck, what? I don't know. Please, or like, I like to then even more kind of thrilling to me is it's at the bottom of a pile in a hoarder house where people are like, "I just can't deal with it."

Yeah. But when I took grandma dies before we clean up, she's going to freak the fuck out. That's right. But they're just sitting there, proof. That was my dad's.

Yeah. He told me not to say anything and then I started hoarding. I had to cover up the secret in my mind. People don't talk like that in Iowa. Don't they?

Maybe they do. Everyone becomes an old prospector. Really? Okay. It's like the big foot bed confession that's like, "Hey, look, it's all a prank."

Like, that would be great. But until that happens, we just can't know what happened in VanMeter in the fall of 1903. Everyone in our story, of course, is long since passed. You know, they made it for her hair. It makes it for that guy.

Yeah. It's crazy. 2112. He hasn't aged today. I'd say he's 2112.

I know for a fact how many years it's been since. How many? That up. But how old is he then? It's like 100 and whatever.

We don't math here. It doesn't. It doesn't. Matter and we love to riff. You should calculate her.

I can't. I don't know how. I can't math the meme of like, my husband can, I don't want to look at my camera, not because I want to, I'm cheating on him. But because I'm going to pulls up a calculator and it's like nine minus three.

Yeah. So good.

“I think we should start doing our favorite TikTok over the week to show each other.”

All week long, we're like, find the thing that you love the most. Whether it's funny, touching, and cool new thing. And then we'll learn the dance. And then we do the dance. You don't do the dance.

You have to do the dance though. And then we do like, you know, couple's ones where it's like they. Yep. Or whatever. I'll flip you over.

Yeah. And then we end in a two man pyramid. Yeah. I'll do it. So here's a good news.

We're just a couple year shy of the 125th anniversary of the van meter visitor event. And more good news. Van meter has since embraced their historical cryptosoological mystery. They have a yearly van meter visitor festival. Yeah.

And this year it's on September 26th. We're there. We'll see you there. That's the story of the van meter visitor. Good.

Good one.

I have never heard of that guy.

I know. It's like not a cryptosoological. And also one that's like, what if there were dinosaurs? But what if there is? But what if there are dinosaurs that had lights on their head?

Like those fish? I was told it. Right? Has there ever possible animal doctors? Has there ever been an animal?

I'm sure there's been an insects.

“But has there ever been an animal that has had a light source?”

Yeah. On its head. Please let us know. Yeah. We didn't go to college.

We know. No. Animal doctors. Be here and help us solve this van meter mystery. Yeah.

As a doctor. I'll tell you my theory. Because you know, this is my theory. Or this is what I've read. And then absolutely believed about the Loch Ness Monster.

Yeah. These prehistoric creatures that are an underground caverns and lakes and all the things we don't know are down there. Yeah. Deep dark and mysterious.

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

Where are the intruders? We need to produce our carbon. It's their land. I'm worried. I'm worried.

In the center of the earth. Well, wait.

“Let me see if there's any other pictures.”

That I would sort of like a drawing of what it would look like. Is that okay? Oh. There it is. It looks like a dragon.

Van meter. Hot under the collar. So basically it's like the report on like.

Here's what they think happened.

Now everybody thinks they're crazy. Yeah. Which is why people don't come forward as me now. Totally. So is there a cryptosoology guy in your town?

Tell us at my favorite murder at Gmail for many sods. And also any of the stuff that I just talked about that is incorrect. I when I first moved to LA in 1994. There's a group of guys Mark fight Toby Hus Jim Turner. And they recall the Iowa boys.

They all did comedy. And I love Iowa because of those three boys. And represented it well. They're just truly salt to the earth. Yeah.

Good guys. Great drinkers. Yeah. Funny as fucking hell. Yeah.

And so I respect the people of Iowa. If I said anything wrong, please let me know. And I will correct it. Those are the last people I want to just share. Sure.

Yeah. Totally. Right? Yeah. Is that it?

I think we have to say that. We must stop. Plenty. Some fucking point. We're going to release the door.

We've really got to stop. We're really soon. We're going to. All right. Here we go.

Hey, everybody. We're in the car doing a live action moving, driving, honking hooray. That's right. Presented by Hyundai. Driven by George Harsher.

She's running around. I'm so mad. I was very yellow. That was very yellow. We're going to take it away from you.

Look. That's the perfect. Yep. Let's definitely do that. Okay.

Here's the first one is from Cass and it's via Instagram DM.

And it says, hey, Queens, my hair as that after a year of sickness and injury and mostly being stuck inside. I remembered who I am this month. I completed a four week Pilates Challenge went to a bunch of gigs and remembered. I have a personality and free will. So I got a new tattoo.

I'm stronger, happier, so no Gallagher play master plan live. And I'm feeling like myself again, which is better than any drug I've been prescribed this year. And then it says, stay sexy and pulse this one out, Cass. Hell yeah. Nice one, Cass.

Salt and heartbreak. This such a nice build of like, she was down. Yeah. It's like, didn't know what to do. And then slowly but surely like, I did something for my muscles.

I did something for my ears. I went to, for my ears. Seeing no Gallagher. You're all set. I remembered who I am.

I love that. I know. Good job, Cass. Yeah. And we're behind you.

And it's a short one.

“It says, my hair is a huge personal one.”

After eight years of referrals and waiting, I finally have a date for top surgery.

It's finally time to eat my teeth. And then it just says Alex, they though. Amazing. Alex, congratulations. Alex, you've done it.

It's good that you're a patient. It's good that you got to do the thing that you wanted to do. And sorry that this nation has turned the way it has. We support you. We support you entirely.

Okay. Here's one. It's from an email. It says hooray for sisters. And it starts.

I'm so happy. Her raise her back. First, it was a dream to see you in Denver with my favorite and only sister. Now to the hooray.

“Let me preface with the fact that my little sister is my everything.”

Four years ago, her abusive cheating has been left after running her into floor floor. For closure and being her senior. That was not on me. Also, I'm not laughing at either of those things. That was a weird three way stop that Georgia had to manage.

A few months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a single mom and self-employed woman, a double mastectomy and the recovery was brutal. She lost all of her retirement, her savings, her home, and her beautiful boobs. Now she has a growing business, a gorgeous daughter, a supportive caring partner, and me. She always has me.

And my hooray is we have each other and she is here. I can't her free, strong woman. I love her. And I couldn't be happier to have a best friend like her. Crystal, you're my hooray.

Thanks for all the laughter, Karen, and Georgia. Don't forget to get the girls checked. Kira in Colorado. Amazing.

That's a really amazing one.

I love the message. It hurts, but you gotta get them checked. Okay. This honking hooray is about someone we all know in love. The email is entitled "Paul Giamatti."

And it says, "Are we still doing hooray?" If so, I've got the tiniest little thing some of your fans might like. I'd just like to shout out, "MFM royalty, Mr. Ball Giamatti." Does he know he's a Muslim royalty? He said he's like, "I hope not."

For making my day by giving a lengthy quote about how stark, track, deep space nine is his favorite of the series. I don't think I'm alone in taking a bit of joy hearing about super talented and charming folks who also share your particular flavor of nerd. There's been plenty of times when my taste of overlapped with you all during the years, too. Anyway, hooray for Paul Giamatti again, in May 2026,

be a year we listened to our elders like George Tekai. Thanks for everything, Lindsey. But what about next generation? I mean, there's so many choices in the Star Trek community. Good job, everyone.

Yeah, we really hurried it up. We sure did, and thank you to Hyundai for giving us the opportunity to drive around and read hooray. We really appreciate you, Hyundai, and stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Ambulance.

Bye. Call a man. I'm illusionary. Elvis, do you want to clicky? Ah!

This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Lianna Squalachi. Our researchers are Mary McLashin and Ali Elkin.

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Goodbye. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves.

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Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me babe. On the iHeart Radio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A shocking, public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City, politics. A scream get down, get down, those are shots.

A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex. Listen to Worshack, murder at City Hall on the iHeart Radio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, here's the thing I talked to composer Mark Shaman. It's about the hang.

It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with. You know, Robin I was always a great hang, and journalist Chris Whipple.

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