533 - An Exercise in Frustration

>> This is exactly right. [MUSIC] >> I'm Michelle McFee.

“And I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on,”

a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. >> Multi-million dollar house for our ies and Lamborghinis private jets a billion dollar fraud. >> But how long can this alliance last? >> Tell me what you know.

Is somebody coming after me? >> Listen to Kingdom of Frog and the I-Hart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. >> 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.

>> We always say that trust your girlfriends.

>> Listen to the girlfriends. >> Trust me, babe. >> On the On-Hart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. [MUSIC] >> How much do you weigh on the right now?

>> I'm about 130. >> I'm like 183, we should race. >> No, I want to leave here with my original hit. >> On the podcast and match up with the Leah, I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests.

On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ, Clara Sashields, and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard. The art of trash shock and what it really means to be ladylike. Open your free, eye-heart radio app, search the match up with the Leah and listen now. >> Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of eye-heart women sports network.

>> You know the famous author, Rold Dal. He thought I'd really want and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? Now that did I.

You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast,

the secret world of Rold Dal. All episodes are out now. >> Was this before he wrote his stories? I must have been. >> What?

>> Okay, I don't think that's true. >> I'm telling you. >> Okay, that was a spy.

“>> Binge all-time episodes of the secret world of Rold Dal.”

Now on the eye-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [ Music ] >> Hello. >> And welcome to my favorite murder. >> That's Georgia Hardstar.

>> That's Karen Kilcaref. >> And today we're going to beautiful Italy. >> I'm practicing my horrible Italian on Karen's and some going, oh, yes, she's pulling out the chef's kiss. >> It's Italian corner.

>> The chef's goo-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. >> Did you prepo-rado cafe por mi? >> Yes, I made coffee for you. >> Gratzi! >> You're going to do great.

>> Thank you. >> Right now I'm flashing back to pictures of very patient waiters waiting for me to do that. And then being like, "Madam, I was speaking, wish with you." >> Yeah, it's like, "Thanks so much." >> Thank you.

They just want to see you sweat a little bit. >> Yes. >> But, ma'am, please have some respect for the country you're in. >> Yes. >> And also we're supposed to say, "Oh, where are you from?"

You say, "I'm from the Republican California." Instead of the US. >> You're like, "I'm cool." >> That's right. >> Speaking of, I feel like obligated that we have to talk about this real quick.

Do I move this off? >> Yeah, this is getting serious. >> Okay. >> We have a lot of listeners that live in LA and that are over 18. And I think we need to make sure we tell them that they have to vote for mayor.

Oh. And they cannot vote for Spencer Pratt. And I know that you're 18, you're like, "I don't give a shit. It doesn't bother me."

“You have to vote so you cancel out the people that are stupid that are voting for”

him because we know our listeners aren't stupid. You're not going to vote for him. >> That's right. Go vote that day. >> True.

That's a great point to make. I also think I will say, "I believe in the children who are so much smarter or more active than we ever had to be." The privilege of a politicalism from the 90s, I think about and shiver with how disgusting it is.

And how much I'd never helped or did anything.

And I think these kids today know what's what. Also, speaking of which, I'm a real believer in Nithyaraman. She's also running, you know she's amazing because they do everything they can to keep her down. They do everything they can.

>> Yeah. I mean, that's debate all on its own. >> Yeah. >> Vote for someone you believe in. >> Do you really want to--

>> We're really not going to be here. >> We've played around with democracy too much. And we are now actively doing damage and harm to people every single day with non-action. >> Yeah. >> For sure.

We had to say that just because-- and now, don't, don't, don't, don't. >> And we're back. >> And we're back. Because this is the crazy world we've had to live in, where we simultaneously deal with the fall of democracy.

>> I feel like there might have been a glitch in the matrix and it's freaking me out a little

bit. >> Right, this second? >> Yeah.

“>> Before we walked in this room, maybe this room is a time machine, who the fuck knows?”

Or time capsule or something, but the hotdog phone box is upside down. And it's freaking me out. >> You know what it is? >> What? >> The other podcasts that shoot in here, they take our stuff down and soak the other stuff down.

>> Someone's fucking with us. >> Who did that bridge? >> Are you specifically? >> Orange or pink. >> Paul Paul.

>> Oh, that's okay. >> Okay. >> And then we're going to call him on that. >> That's really funny. Wait.

Was this like an Easter egg that he put in to say, hey, no, I don't think Paul did that. I think that it just happened on the outside. >> Paul doesn't clean up after him. >> Paul wasn't here. Not that long ago.

>> Someone turned the hotdog phone upside down and blew my mind. >> Seriously, there's three people crying in the control room right now, because of the intensity which you know I love it. >> That's up with you. >> I went to the desert this past weekend for last minute birthday trip. >> Hot springs?

>> Yes. >> Because I didn't plan anything, and then I was like, well, I'm not just going to sit here and I might as well go and sit in some small, or magnesium water, man, I'm a believer. >> You look glowy. >> Oh, thank you.

Well, I really also, I think I've gone over the, I went over the stress waterfall, and for a while I was turning down in those, the white water at the bottom of the stress waterfall. >> I see you in a barrel, just like an old timey barrel. >> Right. >> I was down there, water strayed down on my head for a while, I popped straight back up.

>> Yeah. >> And I landed in a hot spring, out by the desert. >> Oh, yeah. >> Also, it was a hundred and like three or four. At one point, we just sat by a pool, like I was a person that gets tan, and just like

later round by the pool for like hours. >> So nice. >> It was great. >> I like less self-help books, and more like just go, just go sit in the sun, or just go bake, and get some dopamine.

>> Yes, somehow. >> Yeah. >> But like good for you dopamine, not like alcohol. >> Yes. Exactly.

Do something that immediately have an effect on your nervous system, which that really does. I didn't realize. I love that place. >> I'm a real desert lizard. >> Yeah.

>> Should we get into it, or do you want to hear about jump-ropping? >> Nope, let's get into it. >> What's jump-ropping?

“I just started a new personal challenge if you want to join me.”

Jump-rope five minutes a day. >> Yes, boom. >> It's great. >> I'm going to turn it into content because nothing can happen without turning into content. >> Are you going to learn to double-dutch, eventually, or are you going to build up to

a skill? >> I'm going to learn to jump-rope first, because it's harder than I remember. >> But do you feel like you might be able to get skip-rope? >> Yeah. >> That's the idea, right?

>> Then I'm a jump-rope influencer. >> Yes. >> Then you can go to New York City where I watch TikToks of people jumping into those double-dutches that pop up in a square. >> It's a kid.

>> You can. >> Yeah. >> I think I could do it a little bit. >> You know what I could do now. >> That's how cocky I am.

>> How much I don't know how old I am? >> I bet I could fucking get into it. >> You immediately break your hip. The second you do that. >> No.

>> That's really good. I'm totally down for that. Do you have to check in and stuff? >> Sure. >> Unless we don't do it.

>> Well, I'll never talk about it again.

>> I mean, that is our way. >> Truly. >> But it's fun to try things. >> Yes. >> You know I have a mini trampoline that I jump on all the time.

>> I do too. I'd never jump on it. It's so hard. >> What about this? >> I'm going to get on my mini trampoline.

You do your jump-rope. >> Yes. >> And we'll do parallel jumping therapies and then report back. >> Yes. >> Okay.

>> My favorite jumping apparatus. [LAUGH] >> This is not an integration of any kind. >> No, not being paid by big jump loop at all. It's not what's happened.

>> I am. >> What? >> Did you get that?

“Did you see Katie, we own bus Kirk right before we started recording?”

>> No.

>> She's our incredible integration person.

>> Ad sales. >> Ad sales manager. >> She text lessons that I was looking through where your listeners are across the world. And then she wrote with a fucking gift Vatican City. >> [LAUGH]

>> That's not true. >> It's true. >> Inside the Vatican. >> Yes, we have listeners in Vatican City. >> Okay, then may I just for one second.

>> We are tying it all the way back to Italy. Please. >> Get it back up. >> Get it up. >> Here we are.

>> Hello, every citizen of Vatican City that's listening to us right now. >> We're putting it over there. >> [LAUGH] >> May we please go into your archives that you don't let the public into. So we can see the dragon eggs and the ghosts that are caught in a bragging and

they're all, we want to see it all. >> It has to be a listener who just does the archives. >> God of peace, just like a custodian. >> A custodian, a file folder, tent to her. >> It could be some merch.

>> You can have any sweatshirt you want if you tell us the secrets of the Vatican. >> And let us look inside. >> Yeah, exactly. >> I have watched the secrets of the Vatican. >> Yeah.

>> And they don't tie in and get secrets. >> Like it's like Mary Magdalene is actually the one. >> No, nobody knows the good secrets, but the people who hate them.

>> And if you're going to talk about fucking time travel cities and places, that's obviously. >> That's the number one portal. >> Right.

“>> They do a lot of old crazy shit there.”

We did go on. >> We wanted to tour of the Vatican, because page her wits are friend and EP made us go there. A person who was born and raised very Jewish. >> Yeah.

>> She was like, we have to go to the Vatican and it was me, Janet, and Adrian were like, we don't want to.

>> She made us go, yes, it was incredible.

>> Yeah, except for I did get in trouble for filming inside the Sistine Chapel. And I was doing it for my dad, where he's going to lose his mind. And the man put my hand down and he was like, be respectful of other people's religions. And I was like, I think we're the number one of the classic Catholics from this religion.

My grandparents paid for this fucking thing. They gave you all kinds of money they didn't have. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Well, Vatican City, here we go.

>> What? Here's the thing. And through Netflix, you're like, oh, look, there's a true crime podcast. Let me click on her and see what they're doing. >> The fuck are they talking about?

>> What is this? >> What is this? >> Why is this so dumb? >> It says two women. >> It says two women.

>> I can't spell women. >> Listen to their voices. >> I think their opinions matter.

“>> They can't even speak until you need to go to the kitchen and be trad wives.”

>> And really, meanwhile, we're not going to refuse. >> Meanwhile, that's not in the plans. >> Okay, real quick. Let's do some case updates. I mean, if we are true crime podcasts, let's talk about because big things have actually

been happening in the true crime space. >> That's true. >> We're in. >> And the craziest one is that the convictions in the Murdoch murders have been overturned. Alec Murdoch convicted for the murders of his wife Maggie and a son Paul that guilty verdict

has been tossed by the South Carolina Supreme Court citing shocking jury interference by a woman named Becky Hill, a court clerk who managed jurors during his 2023 trial. >> What'd she do? >> They say she improperly influenced the jury among other things by advising them not to trust the defense's evidence.

>> I can't do that. >> Well, that's egregious. >> Yeah. >> I mean, absolutely not. The South Carolina Supreme Court seems to agree with this saying in its recent decision, Hill

had, quote, placed her fingers on the scales of justice, but we should say Becky Hill has denied influencing the jury, although she did what would she do? >> She pled guilty to misusing public funds and using her job for personal gain and specifically to promote her book about the trial. >> Oh.

>> So it's a wash. >> It's a wash. >> That's no good. >> Yeah.

“>> 'Cause here's the thing, I think they get her on this crime, justifiably so.”

>> Yeah. >> And then it's like, and perfect, because now we undo the whole sweater, totally, unbelievable. >> Wow. That's a quick update on my, you know, the case that is nearest to my heart, which is the Yeo Workshop murders.

>> Yeah. >> I covered an episode 70, live at the Moon Tower, and so they have finally found the actual killer based on DNA, it's clearly this person, and so the city of Austin is expected to pay

35 million in restitution to the four teenage boys who were arrested and convicted of this.

So Robert Springstein, Michael Scott, Forest Wellborn, and the family of Maurice Pierce who died in 2010. So 35 million, yeah, it's taken a long time, but they're at least getting some justice. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> Is it justice or just like at least they're getting some relief from the difficulties that being convicted for this crime is probably created in their lives? >> And you can, if you watch the documentary, that was on HBO, I think they're in it, and we're clearly struggling still. So yeah, that whole case, all right, God, well, podcast network, it's time to be positive.

Okay, so this week on Ghosted, Ross is joined by the scrumptious Least Boogie drag sensation, pineapple, honeydo. >> Oh my God. >> Are you familiar with pineapple's work? >> No, I'm not eating.

>> I can't wait to watch, they get into Apple Action superstitions, psychic dreams, and pineapple's own uncanny manifestations. >> Oh, and then on I said no gifts, Bridger voids, a full-blown argument, when writer comedian Chloe Radcliffe arrives with a gift. Then the two discussed Craigslist Killers, bedbug immunity, and dating delicate men.

>> It's like a conversation just for us. Then over on this podcast, we'll kill you, Erin and Erin dive into his toe plasmosis, which is among the most widespread fungal infections in North America. >> Listen about me and them, that makes me so excited about that. >> Because you know you're now going to listen to that episode, and now you'll be an expert

on the widespread fungal infections in North America. >> Love fungus. >> They also discuss bathbirds, tuberculosis, and the surprising history behind this disease is discovery. >> Wow.

>> Yeah, that's going to be good.

>> Finally on Hollywood and Jake and Zeff tell the story of the legendary Steve McQueen

gas.

“>> That's our disgraced land Hollywood land vibe over there.”

>> Love it.

>> And just for everybody to know, in the merch corner, we have looked around this terrible

world of ours and decided to officially restock that this is terrible, keep going mug. You asked for it. There it is. >> Blue on blue. And it's on both sides now, which I really love.

>> Yeah, I love that color combination. It's very 1981. >> Totally. >> I love it. That's a good mug.

>> Yes. >> Also don't forget my Ontario mug from touring in like 2018, I've probably got it at a Starbucks. >> Yes. Starbucks for sure. >> Or it was given to us.

>> That's right. >> If you gave this to us and you're seeing this right now. Please write in and tell us what it was like. >> Okay. >> All right, you're first.

>> I'm first today. >> Wait. >> Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. >> We were God's chosen Kingdom on Earth. >> He felt destined for greatness.

>> So when a swagging Armenian businessman had a pulse Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. >> For our reason Lamborghini's right at just meeting the president of Turkey. >> And this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracy's eye that ever come across.

>> When Jacob met Levant, this went to a billion dollar fraud.

>> But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? >> The largest tax investigation in American history.

“>> You need to tell me what you know is somebody coming after me.”

>> Jacob told Levant, you're ruining my life. >> Listen to Kingdom of fraud on the I-Hart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. >> Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you saw it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring. The 14th season of family secrets. >> Just then we felt the plane turned in the air. >> So much so that the bags under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. >> Each week, we don't have headfirst into the complex power of secrecy.

How it shapes our identities and relationships and how it ultimately can reveal to us our trueest selves. >> My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine. >> He kind of showed me out of the way and said move and he went help the front door and

he jumped in a car and drove off and that was the last time I saw him. >> Listen to season 14 of family secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. >> May is mental health awareness month and your 20s. They can feel like a lot.

On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety that over thinking, the heartbreak the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you ever thought is anybody else feeling this way, they definitely are. >> I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at.

Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when there was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin and I just like really regret not living in the present form. >> Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools

to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts.

>> This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. We have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clarke. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actual whatever.

“My first thing is always, can you think of anything else?”

>> You can do rather big. >> Because for today, do that, Dennis Leary. >> I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water ball and Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me like they can karate noises. And here's the tie of the Kardashians and we over there, everybody's going, and the air

marsh is trying to grab my arms and scream. I immediately know that I've been at sleepwalk. >> David, oh, yellow. >> I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

>> Guy, Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Serban.

>> Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear.

Not like a life she was going to leave. >> Interesting, I like that.

>> Gate and moderato from Stranger Things.

“>> Sam, I'm Moju, Camilla Morone, carry Kenny Silver, and more.”

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. >> It's December 1816, so a while ago. A baby girl named Elizabeth is born in Massachusetts in a comfortable household by two parents who can afford to educate their children. Her two brothers are sent to all boy schools, while Elizabeth will eventually be trained with other

young girls to some day become school teachers. She is a curious, driven, and exceptionally bright young girl. These are all qualities that would be celebrated if they were displayed by her brothers. But we're talking about 1816. >> Yeah, and intellectually gifted girl invites scrutiny and criticism and screams of kill the whith.

Elizabeth will learn the hardest way she can, society prefers their ladies to be nice and to be quiet. And when they're not, when they dare to use their brains to question authority or their husbands, that intelligence will be used against them and they will be deemed too dangerous for their own well-being. And that usually, back then, meant being institutionalized. >> Sure. When Elizabeth is forcefully committed to a psychiatric institution,

she witnesses and experiences genuine harm, but it also radicalizes her.

“And she will begin to keep a diary writing down everything she sees.”

And when she finally gets to tell her story, she will not be nice or quiet about it.

She will change the world. >> Wow. >> This is the story of Elizabeth Parsons Wear Packard. Elizabeth Parsons Wear Packard. >> She has three last names, like a modern day lady.

Marin read the book, "The Woman They Could Not Silence" by author Kate Moore, who wrote "The Radium Girls." >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah, and that's the main source that was used today. Any other source is listed in our show notes, but it's mostly the work of Kate Moore. So Elizabeth Parsons Wear grows up very religious, her father Samuel Wear is a minister with Calvinist

leanings. So pretty bleak lens of Christianity that says all humans are inherently sinful. And salvation isn't determined by you making good choices or being a good person. It's just kind of randomly what God decides. Based on, like, I like you, you'll be saved, you won't sucks. >> Pretty fear inducing at all times.

“So you kind of can't do anything right and you're always apologizing.”

We've all been there. So the wears run every God fearing theologically strict household, and yet they're very progressive about their daughter's education. For a girl of her era, Elizabeth's education is an unusually rigorous one, and it also probably helps that they live near Amherst College, which kind of provides this

intellectual backdrop. So that influence is the way she sees the world, of course. By the time 1835 rolls around, 19-year-old Elizabeth is working as a teacher, until her career is interrupted by what doctors will refer to. The doctors of the time will refer to as brain fever.

Her symptoms include headaches, chills, fever, and confusion. Today, she would likely be diagnosed with a viral or a bacterial brain infection, like encephalitis or meningitis. >> Wow. >> Those are fully treatable with modern medicine, but it's 1835.

So, doctors theorize that Elizabeth's job as a teacher has overstimulated her female brain, hysterical, she's hysterical. She's just fucking lost it, which is manifested in these physical symptoms that she has. Now, cut to my sister Laura going, it does drive you and saying, like, that's all I can think about, it's like, it's true.

They were right, but she's wrong. So, oh, that felt great.

>> I've never really taken that to the public stage.

>> She's never going to hear it. >> Yeah, she doesn't. >> She's not a fan of this, Laura. >> You guys are wrong. >> You guys have always been right.

>> Right. >> Okay. So, when Elizabeth's father hears about this diagnosis, he requests that his daughter be admitted to the local asylum, believing that the root of her illness is that she's, quote, "Use too much mental effort," and quote, "in her line of work."

Too much mental effort, needs a hot spring, really. We should do this from a hot spring. Ooh, we absolutely should. >> Good. >> There's two ducks that just hang out the whole time with you,

and they're not scared of you, because they're filled with lithium. >> I want ducks to be my friends. Now, that's my new, like, bird obsession. It's guy girl duck couple. >> And they're like, cool with everyone?

>> They don't care. They're just so relaxed and filled with magnesium, and all the minerals you need for your nervous system to be okay. >> Okay. >> Okay, salt this to me, clearly. >> Okay, great.

We'll get to a little gift certificate. So, this, of course, will be entirely against her will, obviously. And according to Elizabeth, she will later write

She will spend six weeks in this asylum, subjected to all kinds of archaic treatments, including at one point bloodletting. >> Oh. >> So, it's not any kind of, like, hospital that we would know today.

>> Right. >> They didn't have lipotomies yet, right? >> I don't think so. I would love to, everything in me wants to say, "No, of course, not, but I don't." >> I want to ask that they had electric shock therapy,

but I don't even know if they had electricity. >> I don't. >> So I shouldn't ask.

“>> I think it was like the fresh new thing around town.”

>> Got electricity, but I don't know either.

What we know is this, she does not write about this first time she's hospitalized in any way,

but it's a 19th century mental asylum. >> Yeah. >> Her physical symptoms do start to improve, though. So, she's finally discharged because, of course, she is treated and basically her brain infection goes away, but by the point that she gets out, she firmly believes that her recovery is incidental, and that her treatment by these asylum doctors has actually only made her worse mentally and emotionally.

>> Wow. >> So, a couple of years passed after that, and then in 1839, when she's 22, she gets set up with a friend of her father's name, "Get ready for this." >> Oh, sorry. We have a picture of Elizabeth. Here's her. >> Oh, gee. >> She does not look happy. That's a Tao or face. >> All she wanted to do was be mean to children and hit them with a stick while she taught them

“Latin. >> She's like, "Someone unzip my dress. It's so tight."”

>> Please, I'm just upset about it. The idea that you would get a physical infection or a virus, and suddenly it's like, "Sorry, crazy. Go to the insane asylum." >> Your father or your husband says you're crazy, so. >> That's all that's needed. >> That's it. >> Okay, so she gets set up with a friend of her father's named, "Theophilus Packard."

>> Can we take a look at "Theophilus"? >> Theophilus. >> Oh, wow. >> This is one he's young. >> No. >> This is after he sees the ghost. >> [LAUGH] >> He looks like planet of the apes, where they put a suit on the apes. >> And also, I think it's the chin strap beard. This is the final argument against the chin strap beard. >> I know guys do it, because there was more left. >> Yeah, there used to be a lot.

Now we're down to this one and the answer is firm no. >> No. >> Please don't.

>> Trying to see if you'd be hot without it, but I don't think so. >> Well, also, he's taken the chin strap beard to a totally upsetting level where it's under his chin, but grown out. >> Yeah. >> So it looks like he's wearing a children's lion costume.

“>> I think it smells like, is that's what they can eat soup better?”

>> Maybe. >> It's so that he can worship the Lord better, because he is like her father, a Calvinist minister, and 14 years older than her. He's 37. He is not particularly romantic. I know that's going to shock you. He's not all about that relationship. And in fact, later Elizabeth will write that during their courtship, he quote, "Did not seem to love me much?" >> Yeah. >> Who sounds correct? >> She does go on to say that she marries him in part to make her father

happy, but they are not a match. So author Kate Moore writes, quote, "Their characters were as opposite as it was possible to get where Elizabeth was vibrant, sociable, and curious, the awfulest was gloomy, and in his own words dull." >> He said he was dull?

>> Yeah. >> Always trust the guy when they tell you what they are. >> He's like, "Look,

don't get fooled by my way back, chin strap beard." >> I know I seem whimsical because of this fucking... >> This was just an accident. >> Yeah. >> What if he couldn't grow beard hair on his chin? It started back there. Okay, so for years Elizabeth endures a marriage that she will later describe is quote, "Love Strangling," the worst. She spends that relationship constantly tempering her own thoughts and feelings to keep peace in the household. She has a lot of children,

and she moves at the whim of her husband's ministry career. He is always the focus of everyone's life, because how could it not be? >> He turns heads when he walks in the door. >> He looks like he invented great juice or something. He looks like something from the old, like trying to tell on it. >> Like a disgusting prune, Tanya. >> Yeah. That's like it works. >> It makes you bite. >> It does. >> Fix your spleen. >> And I always talking about a spleen.

>> Like he won't shut up, but a spleen. >> He's like, "Listen, I'm dull, but you're spleen, will be clean." >> The spleen is the heart of every relative. >> Every chin beard. In 1848, the first women's rights convention ever held in the U.S., which was the Seneca Falls convention, takes place in New York, and activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and La Cresha Mott are like the central players of this event. It's a watershed moment in the broader movement

for women's rights in the United States. Elizabeth is now in her early thirties. She doesn't get to go to this, but she hears about it, and she hears the messages of women's empowerment that come out of it. It resonates with her. She is a decade into this miserable, dull,

but as a preacher's wife. So she takes on, this is the ultimate, like, get out of jail free. She starts doing missionary work. So she gets out of the household. She's like, it's for the Lord, by it's what we're all supposed to be doing, and she gets to be out in the real world. And once she gets out into the real world, she starts examining her own faith. And this is the time where spiritualism is very, very popular in the United States, which is the belief that the living

can communicate with the dead, and being raised in the Calvinism and of Christianity, she's drawn to theologies that are more empathetic and mystical and humanistic. She even attends a say on where she claims that she spoke with her late mother. Wow. So listen to episode

“363 landed in marshmallows. If you want to hear about Harry Houdini's fight against spiritualism,”

that was a good one. Because he didn't like it. So for most other women at that time, that kind of Dalians into spiritualism was what was happening. It probably would have been fine. But because Elizabeth's husband is a rigid 19th century Calvinist minister, her spiritual journey puts a huge strain on their

marriage, but she doesn't want to hide her beliefs anymore. Basically, she's just trapped and she's

like whatever I'm going to do, but I want. So in their ultra religious social circle, which is probably just all the people at her husband's church, they're just watching as the minister's wife dabbles in the heretical who, like the Sam. You can't, you can't. Not allowed. And so at home, this, I guess, hobby is challenging the awfulness is values on everything from how to raise their six children to major issues of the day like slavery. Elizabeth identifies as an abolitionist,

“although a very flawed white 1800s one, very self-serving, but overall, especially like trying to”

put it on the table with her husband, who is 10 times worse than every direction than her, he doesn't like it. She is an avid supporter of John Brown, the man who led the anti-slavery raid at Harper's Fairie in 1859 and was executed for it. She's a believer in this movement and her husband is mortified. He, of course, unsurprisingly finds his wife's politics increasingly embarrassing. She becomes so disillusioned that she actually leaves her husband's church because she's like,

"How could you say you're of God and be doing this to people?" I mean, that's such a fuck you. Yeah. Oh, my wife leaving. Creatures wife. You saw the Whitney Houston movie? You know what it's like? So leaving the churches, she is just piling up the humiliations for him. Their marriages and

shambles, but, of course, divorces off the table, he would never do it, morally, and she's

definitely afraid that she'll lose custody of her children. Then her husband of 21 years does the am thinkable dies? No. It's close though, but not bad for him. It's 1860. They're living in Jacksonville, Illinois, and one night in the middle of the night, Elizabeth is taken from her home by two strange men and brought to the Illinois State Assilament and Hospital. Wow, he's just like, "Here's the problem. Let me hear it of it." Yeah. You're so embarrassing by contradicting me

“that you must be insane and so you have to be committed and it's right there in Jacksonville.”

Elizabeth has no idea what's going on. She remembers being in the reception room hours later, begging to be released and then she sees her husband through a window and realizes like he's there to confirm this is happening and make sure it happens. She will later write in her journal

that he looked at her with, quote, "one last look of satisfied delight." Never had I seen his face

more radiant with joy to, he's like, "She's gone. Can you imagine that fit? Can we see the face again? Never had I seen the face." We're so radiant with joy. That's he doesn't look like a joyful person. He's not. He looks a little stunned. It would actually probably be very upsetting to see home. That guy's radiant with joy. First of all, seeing that face through a window and I think like, that's a ghost or whatever, but to see him happy. He's like, "Hey, he's finally gone. I can get back to

my books and ledges." And God, and of course God. So the awfulest commits his 44-year-old wife to an asylum telling the doctors there that she is, quote, "slightly insane." His proof is all. I mean, we'd all be in there. It all be in there. This whole building of people would be in there. And God, together. His proof is her leaving his Calvinist church and disavowing his world view. An Illinois state law at the time says, "No problem, pastor. All husbands have the right

to institutionalize their wives without any medical proofs that they are mentally ill in any way." Yeah. And it was just so recently. I know. So as we know Elizabeth has been through this

and reaffirms her diagnosis. The well-respected 43-year-old superintendant of this hospital

“is a man named Dr. Andrew McFarlane. And he does seem to agree with the awfulest as a”

assessment that Elizabeth actions over the last few years suggest that she is, quote, "slightly insane." "Slightly insane." It's so cute. It's like, "Can you, that would be great." I mean, she's not raving in the streets. We understand. But she certainly isn't down a church, nodding along with her husband's beard. Elizabeth will write that she's been, quote, "Place there by her husband for thinking." And quote, "But her insistence that she's saying,

of course, only seems to affirm to Dr. McFarlane that she's not the old trick."

"She's screaming, I'm insane." Yeah. Never works. Yeah. I'm saying, I'm saying. And then you

say it 500 more times. So she's committed with no clear discharge date. And so she begins to write. And from her very thorough diaries, she describes her time in there. You're not only for her

“freedom, but for her children. She is an agony. Her friends on the outsider advocating for her”

release. But they are powerless, of course, because of the laws of the time. So they can argue all they want. Elizabeth is certainly not alone in our experience, though. She documents the leagues of other women that she meets in the asylum and who have also been unfairly institutionalized by the men in their lives. She also records details on patients who are genuinely unwell and how the staff are clearly unequipped to treat them and are often abusive. It is a miserable place.

It's overcrowded. Resources are stretched thin. There's high staff turnover. Some words are filthy. There are puddles of human waste left on the unclean floor. Every room seems to have been stripped of the smallest possible comfort. Patients only get to sit on hardwood benches and the bedding is a scratchy and itchy and terrible as it could possibly be. And so Elizabeth writes all this down. She takes it all down and she writes about all of it in detail. But the darkest testimony involves

the extreme abuse that she experiences and that she witnesses other patients being subjected to at the hands of asylum employees. So you got to figure probably a lot of these employees. We're totally unqualified on train. They're just thrown in. They're like make sure they're quiet or make sure they eat or go to bed. From there, the exploitation of that power. Women are injured as they're violently stuffed into straight jackets. They're beaten for being unruly. They're choked.

Sometimes Elizabeth tries to intervene. But she writes that once while trying to help a patient that's being manhandled by much larger attendant, he turns in grabs Elizabeth and drags her through the hallways back to her room by her arm and locks her in so she can't interfere anymore. She writes about a patient being starved as punishment. And when she sneaks that woman some food and aid finds out and pulls a knife on her and holds it over her head. Holy shit. So it's just it's

mayhem in there. She also writes about an assistant choking a young patient and one of his fingernails is so sharp. It slashes the young patients throat. When the attendant backs off, Elizabeth dresses the patient's wound with a piece of her own clothing and she keeps that bandage. And she writes that the scrap is, quote, "red with the blood of this innocent girl as proof of this kind of abuse in the Jacksonville in St. asylum." Oh my god. So she terrifying. Yeah. And she's just kind of like,

"I'm just going to put it down." Yeah. She writes extensively about the arrival of bathtubs too. Oh no.

And we talked about this a little bit with Nelly Blay. Right. So at first they're introduced as a

more hygienic and dignifying alternative to the sponge baths that were usually given to patients. But Elizabeth describes them as quickly becoming instruments of torture used to punish girls and women for things as small as, quote, "silly behavior and laughing." From her bed, Elizabeth writes that she can hear the patient's begging for mercy as attendance throw them into the tubs. Sometimes with quote, "they're hands and feet tied." And if they resisted,

a straight jacket was placed upon them. And quote, like just sadistic people. This is not therapy in any way. No, in fact. It's sadism. It's sadism because they're held under water repeatedly for long stretches of time. And sometimes the water's freezing or it's scalding hot. Right.

“And the only way that Elizabeth knows that the patient survives this basically torture”

sash treatment is when they come back up out of the water screaming. Fuck. So she is in this situation and in this hospital for months. And of course, it's deteriorating both her mental and her physical health because it's a living hell. Yeah. As an active resistance,

prayer. This is you and me in jumping rope. This is how we're going to do it.

“Keeping sane in this fucked up world. As we jump rope or on a mini trampoline,”

we're going to be like lower, lower, lower, lower, sharp in our brain. Let's sharpen this shit up and get it together. She writes in her journal quote, "I am becoming so extremely sensitive to wrong and abuse that I cannot or shall not witness it without interference even if you put me into fetters for it." And quote, "Wow." She is trapped in this asylum for three years total.

Oh my God. Until she's finally released in 1863, due to sustaining pressure from her older children

who are now or either in their late teens or early 20s. Okay. So they just basically have been calling and pressuring Dr. McFarlane and the other asylum officials like our phones? No, sorry. They've been calling. They have been putting pressure. Sorry. No, no, no, that's the good catch. They have been putting pressure on the Dr. McFarlane and on the other asylum officials,

“basically saying our mother is not crazy and you know it and get her out of there.”

But also the asylum officials and the workers are getting sick of dealing with Elizabeth and her interference because she really is fighting back. Essentially, they officially declare her incurably insane, but then release her. So it's not a celebration because she is still married to the awfulus and so when she gets home, according to her journals, he locks her in the nursery of their home. The awfulus, the awfulus. The whole time, we're thinking about the whole, it's like literally

just now. Just now. We'll credit that. Thank you. And apparently nurseries were way smaller in houses back then. Yeah, they were like in the fucking attic, like the attic room with the it's carry pottership. He's he's locking her in the smallest place he possibly can. She manages to sneak a letter out of the nursery window to a friend outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will. So she's just locked in there. Yeah. And she had, okay. Yeah, just like whatever

if it's, I mean, imagine it's just like you want to give me some soup. Yeah. Sounds good. Could we please do that? Like whatever. This guy fucking beer, though. Don't, I don't want to see it. Don't bring it back. Outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will under the

false pretence that she's insane. That friend delivers the letter to a local judge. And finally,

for some reason and somehow it works. For the first time, the awfulus's behavior is seen as legally problematic. Well, a husband can easily have his wife committed to an asylum. It's not as defensible to lock that same wife up in a little room in your house. They're our boundaries. They're people. We, we're here. It's just run around. There's a rocking chair on the front porch. It's so nice. Really, really. You keep all that abuse to the asylum. Okay. So in January of 1864, Elizabeth

goes to trial to establish her mental state once and for all. She is now 48 years old. She's like, can I go to sleep? She is like, but probably in the perfect like menopausal state to be like, let's do this thing. She's also like an old lady. I mean, all right. No, no, say it. I mean, because 48 days money, she's 117. Yeah. Various physicians and family members, friends, and acquaintances go on record in the courtroom to state that she is a sane human being. Wow.

And after five days of testimony, but only seven minutes of deliberating that jury deems Elizabeth

“Packard to be sane. And you know, is an all mail jury. I mean, it would have to be, I believe.”

So neckbeards about neckbeards being like, I don't want to give this woman her freedom, but I must. With that, the awful is immediately skipped town and takes their three youngest children with him. Elizabeth is left with nothing, but the clothes on her back. Luckily, she does have her older children and her friends to lean on. But of course, she is forever changed by the years of mistreatment. So she channels her anger into advocacy work. And she starts by advocating for herself.

She takes her husband to court in both Illinois and Massachusetts, where he's currently living. Yes. And she sues him for damages. I mean, in the, in the, in the, in the, is the electricity real yet? Well, we don't have anybody knows that long ago. A few years after that, in early 50s, she finally wins custody of her youngest children. And then she sets out on a campaign for the

rights of both married women and patients in psychiatric institutions. Wow. Her most powerful tool

is her writing. Her diaries capture the horrors of the asylum. So vividly, that when she publishes several books, based on them, the public laps it up. She becomes increasingly famous. She travels all through the United States, sharing her story. And she eventually secures real changes in the law.

ones that better protect women's personal assets when they get married. And an Illinois law

“that guarantees a trial for anyone unwillingly being committed, which could have prevented Elizabeth's”

own institutionalization if it had existed years earlier. So now it's 1867. And Elizabeth's efforts also result in the state investigation of Dr. Andrew McFarland and the Illinois State asylum in hospital, which stretches on for seven months. In the end, investigators recommend he be removed from his post. But for unknown reasons, this doesn't happen. And he holds the job for three more years, at which point he willingly leaves to open his own private asylum.

In 1897, when she is 80 years old, Elizabeth Parsons wear Packard diced suddenly of a strangulated hernia. She is buried in Chicago. After decades spent writing books and giving in passion lectures on the horrors of the asylum and the women who were sent there and who suffered there, her legacy as a courageous woman who stood up and spoke out has endured. As for Dr. McFarland, despite the reputational damage caused by Elizabeth's advocacy work, not to mention the investigation

into the asylum under his leadership, when a new state-run psychiatric center opens in Springfield, Illinois in 1968, it's named in his honor. Cool. The McFarland mental health center. But when author Kate Moore's book, the woman they could not silence is published in 2021, it brings renewed attention to Elizabeth Parsons' where story. And in 2023, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announces that center will be renamed the Elizabeth Parsons' where Packard Mental Health Center. That is amazing.

Yeah. And it just happened and it's because of author Kate Moore and her work, and of course, Elizabeth Parsons' where Packard's work where she was just blindly in the dark going, "This is wrong. I need to change this." Somebody do such a thing. Like, they could have named it something generic to just take in his name off of it. But instead of naming it after this evil doctor, they named it after a woman who fought him. He fought his evil. That's amazing.

And also, it's like, was he evil? I feel like the naming thing is like their way of saying,

"But he did such great work." Which always happened. Right. But he didn't

according to the people he was doing the right on. Right. And that's the key. Yeah. Is that anybody can claim that or their constituents can claim it? Yeah. Or their boys down at the Elx Lodge. Right. But how about the people that were there and sitting in their own fucking piles of feces being tortured? Okay. So of this decision, author Kate Moore has said, quote, "I think she would be personally grateful that she and her work have been recognized

when for so much of her life she was denigrated and dumbed down. But I also think she would say the work is not done and quote. And that's the story of mental health advocate Elizabeth Parsons Wear Packard." Wow. I didn't. As slightly, what is it? Slightly insane. I didn't know that

about her at all. Yeah. Amazing. And also, it's a mental health awareness month. That's right.

“So that's what the whole vibe is about. Yes. Good job. Thank you. And here's Kate Moore's book.”

She's an amazing author. Oh, yeah. The one they could not silence. Very cool. So good job. That was great. Thank you. That was harrowing. The idea that there are this many women who had to go either undercover or just were committed to insane asylum and then had to do the work on the other end once they were released. Totally. I mean, you can't just send me here because you don't like that I'm talking. I mean, it says something about like, you know, because she knew

how to write all the women who were not given an education who couldn't write about their experiences or send a note through a window to their friends tell them what was going on with them. That's right. You know, they could only raise their voices which then immediately qualified them as being slightly insane, which is why they didn't want to educate women. Mm-hmm. And we would fucking

“that's why that that's why our school systems are in the state that they are because if”

nobody knows anything, then we're going to be good with it. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen Kingdom on Earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman had a pulse Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. For our Eastern Lamborghinis, right at Jets, meeting the president of Turkey, Amishal McFeed, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracy's

eye that ever come across. When Jacob met Levant, this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two

kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax

Jacob told Levant, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the Ayahart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body

“is not what you saw it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro”

and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring the 14th season of family secrets. Just then we felt the plain turn in the air. So much so that the bags are under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we'd now have headfirst into the complex power of

secrecy. How it shapes our identities and relationships and how it ultimately can reveal to us

our twist selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of showed me out of the way and said move and he went help the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of family secrets on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

May is mental health awareness month and your 20s they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast we unpacked the anxiety that overthinking the heartbreak the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s because if you've ever thought is anybody else feeling this way they definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously

“and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when”

there was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin and I just like really regret not living in the present form. Each week we break down the signs behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out they're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or whatever you get

your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clarke. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actual

whatever. My first thing is always can you think of anything else that you can do rather big.

Because it's quite a day. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water ball and Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me like making karate noises. And here's the tie of the Kardashians and we over there everybody's going and the air marsh is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalk. David O'Yellowel. I love this podcast whether it's therapy or relationships

or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branam. So anyway Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Urban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to leave. Interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way? Gating moderato from Stranger Things. Sanam mojoo. Camilla Morone. Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the I Heart

Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, great job. Thank you. My turn. I mean, if you insist. I guess. I mean, I don't have to. I mean, I could walk out right now.

I don't think it's disgusting. And how do you keep them a clean? You never can. You're always wiping

your glasses on your shirt. The thing they tell you not to do. Oh, really? Mm-hm. Oops. Unless you're the kind of person that can keep a little silky thing now, I can't do it. I know what I can do that. That's a lie. It is a starting line. Okay. Conspiracy. I couldn't make a other word. Conspiracy. Oh my god. My brain. The brands are going to cross the board myself. The people I'm observing. This is what's happening to all of us. Okay. Let's go back. Okay.

“Two February of 2020. Remember that? The world is starting to look with increasing concern at”

coronavirus outbreaks in China and Italy. But today we are in Argentina. Specifically, we are in the Andy's mountains on South America's highest peak. The Akon Kaguah. Okay. I heard of it. No. Is it up by Manju Pitu? No. Okay. The fact that this is, I don't know. I don't know.

makes it one of the seven summits, which are the highest peaks on each continent. So this makes it

“part of a popular climbing challenge for mountaineers who want to conquer all of them.”

Could you imagine? Being like that? Do they not know about TV or maps? It's, I mean, I get it. It's nice to be outside and stuff. I don't know. Just have that drive would be cool for something. Besides podcasts. I feel, I feel like those are people who have learned something in this world

about not the immediate gratification of stuff like this. I just never learn that. It's just,

we mean. I can't hike all the time if no one's giving me attention. Right. Or alcohol. Okay. So Everest is the highest of these seven summits. It's also the most expensive and logistically worrisome, which is because of its popularity, altitude, and weather concerns. But it's debatable as to whether it's the hardest to actually climb. And so also, I did the deaths on Everest in episode 174 and you covered Junko Tabai in episode 526. Should anyone

“want to feel cold more? Learn about a legendary lady mountaineer or your thing. Or just a bunch of”

terrible deaths. It's skeletons. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's the middle of summer in the southern part

of the hemisphere 2020. So if that be where it's the peak of the Andy's climbing season and two

porters are on the mountain, not too far from the summit on its hardest climbing route. It's called the Polish glacier laying down ropes for a climbing expedition. And Akankagua has multiple routes to the summit. Some don't require much technical equipment or skill at all. You can just kind of have a nice walk up to them, but you do have to be in really good shape to get to the top, which is 22,000 feet, because the risk of getting severe altitude sickness is very high. And so some climbers use oxygen,

some are purists and don't. But this route that we're taking, the Polish glacier route is where the porters are, you know, getting everything ready for the mountaineers. And this part is extremely difficult. It requires significant mountaineering experience. And it's named the Polish glacier because

the first group to open up the route in the 1930s had been from Poland. Okay, not that interesting.

Yeah. It used to be that groups of mountaineers set up their own camps, lay their own minds, but now there's a whole industry around mountaineering and these porters are doing just that. Can you imagine that to your job, though? It'd be pretty red. Like some people are planning, like this is my lifetime trip to climb this mountain. And other people are like, oh, got to get a work and climb this mountain again. They do it constantly. He's idiots just keep

coming. Okay. Another thing that's changed is that the Polish glacier is receding because of the global climate change. Fake. I'm just kidding. What's the word conspiracy? Confarity. No, it's not.

“This means that every so often, and I remember seeing this, like, in my news feed,”

the glacier spits out an item that had once been encased on ice. My favorite. On this particular day, the porters stumble upon a necomet camera. Oh, it's an old school camera and it's gotten old school label maker name on it. So a name and address with an old school label maker. Wow. Right. Yes. The name says Janet Johnson. And there's the her address as well. The porters can see that 24 photos have been taken with this old camera. They shrug it off. They take it down to the mountain

to their campsite when they're done for the day. And they show it to a guide name, Ulysses Corvalon. And when Ulysses sees the name Janet Johnson, he goes white. And he tells the porters that Janet Johnson, along with another climber named John Cooper, died on the mountain almost 50 years earlier under very mysterious circumstances. Oh, and her camera had just been uncovered. The ice receding is unveiling evidence. That's right. This is the story of the

Aconcoqua Mountain mystery. The main source for this is a 2023 New York Times article. It's very good robust long. Yeah. boring. No, it's not wordy. It's good. It's called ghost on the glacier by John Branch with videos by Emily Ryan. It's a really great read. And then I also went to a website by this writer slash mountaineer name Mark Horrell, HOMR. Oh my no, Mark. It's one of the greats. The rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. Great. So it's 1972 and 52 year old Portland

base lawyer named Carmine Defoe. Yeah. That's a good name. Well done. Starts putting together a group that will tackle Aconcoqua together. And they want to do the Polish glacier route, the hardest one. If they succeed, they will be the fifth ever group to do so. Oh. Hey. Let's climb. Carmy is a member

Well, I meant carmy. It was really carmy. That's a could be. It's such a cutie nickname for

“like, "Come on to me." Carmy. So he's been a member of a climbing club. That's a thing called”

Mazumas. It's been around since the 1890s. It's still around today. So don't talk shit. You can join it. Most of the climbers he recruits are also members of Mazumas. The group includes a psychiatrist named Jim Petroski, a doctor named Bill Eubank, a dairy farmer named Arnold McMillan. Wow. Just like people who were in the climbing mountains. It's like, it takes all kinds of showgirl named Maureen. No. A police officer named Bill Zeller and the youngest a 25-year-old Brigham Young University student

named John Shelton, who was hot and he also spoke the best Spanish in his group because of his mission trip. Okay. The hot was me. What's it called? Editorialite. Thank you. And NASA engineer named John Cooper, who had worked on several recent Apollo missions. I mean, every type of person. That's right. Except for women. Well, oh, we're gonna get to her. Okay. Carmy hires a local guide named

“Miguel Alfonso and then close to when the group is going to leave he announces one new member of the”

party. A school librarian with a PhD in education from Denver named Janet Johnson. Okay. Right. While most people in the group are in the same general orbit, although none of them have

ever climbed together, Janet has never met anyone else in the group. But Carmy's Denver friends

say she's a highly experienced climber. So she can come along. Let her in. Oh, wait. What should do it on this? I'm not gonna win around all day. What should do it on the mountain top? Stop it. This is serious. No, it's not. Okay. Because the climbing party includes a NASA engineer and a woman and a woman. There's considerable public interest in the expedition and it attracts some media attention because like it's kind of a new exciting thing this mountain climbing. Yeah.

It's a woman in the sixties. You know, Everest, the whole like climbing things. The trend.

“It's really becoming a trend. And everyone loves NASA people. So and women. Of course, they love”

women. So love women. They get us a lot of media attention, especially directed at John, NASA, John, and Janet. So John, NASA, John, what I'm gonna call him that is 35 at the time of the expedition.

He had grown up in Kansas and had always loved the outdoors after graduating from Oklahoma University.

He becomes a pilot for the Coast Guard. He's an habit climber. He's just like all the things that you want if you want an outdoorsy type. Yeah. You know, like when you are swiping whichever way and you're like, do I want to hike on my first date or now? He's a hike on the first date guy. He's the hike five miles on our first date. That's right. He's summited Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and Popoca, Tay, Payton. Yes. Where are my vacation homies? That's right. And they all

have elevations between 17,000 and 19,000 feet. And at NASA, John had worked on the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon and every mission since up until the last one, which was Apollo 17. That's right. You knew that shortly before his expedition to Akankagua. While at NASA, he had met a secretary named Sandy Myers and they had gotten married in 1968. And they had a son named Randy in 1969. And we're back. Let's show a photo of NASA John Cooper, Cebu Play.

Okay. Yeah, ruggedly. Absolutely. You would love to have a beer at that guy. Totally. Fun tears. All of John's backstory becomes known to public around the time of the climb. Most of what people know about Janet at the time. She's a lady. She's a lady. Yes. Which is unusual for a climber at this time. Janet's 36 at the time of the expedition and had been born in Minneapolis and adopted by Victor and May Johnson. The Johnson's

are very religious and very strict in Janet as an obedient daughter. She's a voracious, reader, extremely studious, loves to learn. When she's 10, she says to her parents that she wants a sister. And so they adopt a five-year-old named Judy. Oh, I know. Judy says her sister quote, "liked to study." That was her favorite thing to do, straight days. She would settle for nothing less, same. When Janet goes away to college, when Janet goes away to college and this is

so little sister. Oh, no. Judy finds a box of love notes between her sister and another woman. This Janet, I mean, love notes between Janet and another woman. Judy found those in her room. Oh, okay. She went away to college. It's unclear exactly how Janet's parents find out, although a little sister. It's clear, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so allegedly, allegedly. But you said that but you go, this sucks. And then you're like, she found it. Think where I'm like,

"Well, that sucks." Oh, yeah. Sorry. What's happening? That doesn't suck. Judy fucking became a rat. Yes, you know. Got it. I'm sure she regretted it at the rest of her life.

Janet to a hospital to cure her. Yeah. Well, there's this theme today. This, of course, does not work. And Janet moves to Denver as soon as she can't put distance between herself and her parents. That's the story of my mom used to tell as being a nurse and a psychiatric hospital. And like, the, you know, the late '60s, '70s, where people are just taking their, the kids that smoke pot,

“the kids that rebel, the kids that were different in some way. And just like, well, you have to go to a”

psych to the scary place. Yeah. So it's in Denver. She becomes her own woman. And she gets her master's. And then a PhD in education and starts working as a school librarian. And then really just, it's just the thing to do between climbing mountains whenever she can. She's just obsessed

with it. She's among the first 20 women to climb all of Colorado's 14ers, they're called,

the summits that are higher than 14,000 feet, as well as notable mountains all around the world. Wow. Yeah. In addition to local interest in John and Janet, the group also attracts attention because of their plan to climb the notoriously difficult Polish glacier again. They would be the fifth team to do it if they accomplished it. Spoiler, they don't. A journalist from the local paper in Mendoza, Argentina, named Rafael Moran, goes to interview the climbing team when they arrive

in Argentina. So you go to the hotel, he's like, it's just, you know, a little flock piece on everyone. But right away, he gets some bad vibes when he interviews everyone together. He feels what the group is not cohesive. They don't seem to know each other well enough for what they're about to

“embark on because you have to trust each other, especially if you're roped together. Yeah,”

like believe that the other person knows what they're doing and how's your best interest and

helps out. They also don't seem to quite understand just how difficult the Polish glacier route is. They're kind of being jovial about it. He tells the photographer to make sure he gets single shots of everyone in the party because he's convinced they won't all make it back down the mountain and he'll want a photo for the newspaper when that happens. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, let's see a photo of Janet. So that's Janet, can I? There's no sunscreen back then. But sunscreen didn't exist. No sunscreen

everyone's wearing the same flannel. That's right. No sunscreen. But skin cancer still exists. Those cool sunglasses for sure, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. So that's yeah, she's got it all going. The group stays together at a hotel in Mendoza, Argentina before setting off John Cooper, the NASA engineer keeps a diary and from it, it seems like he and the other men in the group don't quite understand like what category to put Janet in. She just is kind of an enigma to them.

He says she doesn't seem feminine at all. He writes quote, Janet sure is weird. She went swimming in her bra blouse in panties today and the pull was full of people and quote. So it's just like women climbing mountains. Also, she just jumped into the pool because she didn't have a suit. She didn't give a fuck. Like she was definitely like a, I don't give a fuck lately.

Yeah, I'm going to live life. I want to live life. And so these guys had kind of never been around

anybody like that before. Exactly. So the team sets out for base camp, a 25 mile extremely rigorous hike on its own. Like you get to the first place and you're like, we have to go more. Who's making the food? Right. So base camp is at 13,500 feet, which is around 1,000 feet less than any of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Altitude sickness begins to be a factor at around 8,000 feet and they're at 13,500. And by the time they reach the base camp, you banks, the group's doctor

is already not feeling well and has to stay there. So I looked up what altitude sickness feels like because I don't fucking know and I'll tell you and you'll understand this as well as I do. Altitude sickness generally feels like a severe hangover. Oh, those fucking hangovers where you're lying there, just wishing for unconsciousness. Yeah, you could get out of your own body just for two hours, like sweaty and suppressed and oh, it's bad. It's so bad. It's characterized by a

throbbing headache, nausea, dizziness fatigue, and shortness of breath. So it sucks. You're not hiking anymore when you got it. At base camp, the group connects with a local 25-year-old climber,

“named Roberto Bustos, whom they have hired to look after their base camp set up. So I think he might be”

the cook or they just aren't eating like dry. Yeah, what is it? Handfuls of walnuts. It would drive me insane. Yeah. Roberto also specifically remembers that the vibe seemed off to him as well. They didn't seem like a team, but rather a group of individuals. He says quote, "There was no group attitude. I was thinking, oh, I am on my own. Everyone has to take care of himself. In my opinion, they weren't ready for such a strange and big mountain as Akankagua."

Yeah, that's a terrible way to start. Right. Yeah. And I think a lot of people underestimate this mountain and the people who are from there know that. Do you think the infighting would be worse if it's strangers who aren't jelly or if it's people who know each other really well? Because that also has a thing of like, you could start as a great group or something happens,

like each other though, if you're going to do it. You're right. Trust is the two people. Right. Now,

like each other, we're never going to ever want else to go. Who knows? Email us. Are you a mountain

“near? Let us know. What's the called altitude sickness? What's the ultimate threat on the trail?”

Let us know what it's like to be a mountain near. Do you hate everyone? Okay. A whole time you're thinking of string cheese, right? Because that's all I can think of or like you've to like line your pockets with gummy bears. Those little crackers that are sandwiched with peanut butter, they're so fucking good. Think of pulling that out of your socks or no one else can see. These days, it's expensive to be a mountain near. And that's partly because nowadays,

porters set up camps. They lay lines so that groups can mostly travel directly from base camp to base camp up the mountain. But in the 70s, that wasn't really how it went. This group would be doing all of that work themselves. So they're root up the mountain will include three separate camps. So they have to climb up to camp one, haul all the gear up there and set up camp. Then go back to base camp, then go back to camp one with the rest of the gear camp there and then do the same thing

two more times for base camp two and three. So bring everything up. Stay bring everything up. So it's an exercise and frustration. Yeah. While you're mountaineering. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that tree already. You're like your attitude just gets worse and worse. Right. The conditions are varying with the potential for storms to blow in and the climb includes

“long periods of navigating through spiky ice formations called penny tentays, right?”

penny tentays. Penny tentays have you ever heard of them? Yeah. They're literally

penitents. Penny tentays because they look like people praying in church. Yeah. They're basically

still agmites. There's still egg mites coming up from the ground. Exactly. They're these huge spikes of ice. Huge fields of them just coming up from the ground like upside down giant icicles. I'm going to show you a photo because I did understand those. Oh. So you've to navigate around those. It's just the pain in the ass essentially. You can't just like worry about putting one foot in front of the other. No. It looks like an old movie like a dune or you know, yeah,

labyrinth kind of thing or a doctor knows situation exactly. So there's a bunch of those as well. So those are the big pain in the ass or hard to climb around. It's grueling and already feels like people are starting to grumble about each other. NASA John writes in his diary that he does not think Janet is contributing enough. He writes quote, she's a real loner and appears to be for only one thing to get herself to the summit at the expense of everyone or on everyone's

back. Meaning they're carrying more than she is or something and she's not really helping out.

That's the first thing I thought of that she would be accused of because as a woman, you can't

maybe technically carry as much or if there is that kind of bitterness where they're like we didn't want her here anyway. Totally. That is what you would say. Several in the group come down with acute altitude sickness right off the bat and stay at camp one or go back to base camp. This includes Carmy right off the bat the leader the author of the whole plan. He's out the doctor you begs is out and Shelton the hot interpreter out gone. The rest of the group

make it to camp three. They do the fucking thing at the base of the Polish glacier about 18,000 feet up and the last camp before the stretch to the summit. So one last camp. Okay. As they get ready to start climbing Petroski the psychiatrist can't get on. I just hate this word. Can't get on his crampons. I hate it. I can't every time I see it. Are you going to spit that out? Why did I did that sip? That's like a shoe attachment to get into the ice that absorb your foot blood

every month. I'm spiky shoes. Not crampons. I just can't borrow crampons. Like I do the crampons. I forgot to bring my I'm sliding into the penitence. So he's like having trouble putting them on which is weird and it's clear to everyone else that it's because he's disoriented and they think that he's suffering from severe possibly deadly altitude sickness because at that point your brain is like not working. It's in my tampon. The local guide Alfonso digs him back down the mountain

to base camp. So now they're only four climbers left in the entire group. Zeller the police officer McMillan the good old dairy farmer and John NASA John and RJ on it. None of them have ever climbed a mountain this high before and none of them knew each other before the trip. Here's the other thing that I just would like to and maybe I'm totally wrong in doing this. But the idea that

“someone was like she's just doing it for herself. So how many that are left are doing it for everybody else?”

Do you want to hold hands at the top of these? Is there a mountain? No. Literally going to be like me first. I mean there's not kind of what mountaineering is a battle. Like you go together but it's a one man sport. It ends our woman. One woman. One one one. Okay sure. According to the accounts of Zeller

only two survivors of the group before. The group had set out believing they would reach the summit that day but had moved very slowly picking their way across the glacier with ice axe and crampons. They realized they will have to camp for the night and they didn't bring their tents so they have to like be evacuated into the fucking ice and try to like spend the night in there. Oh make themselves like a little igloo like a last minute igloo. It sucks. Okay. And so the next morning

NASA John Cooper says he's two fucking cold. He's like I'm out. He says he's like I'm going to go back to base camp and they let him go alone which is something I guess you're not supposed to do which is like maybe part of the thing of them not knowing each other. Yeah they want stick together. Yeah you know. So those three climbers keep going up for the summit. The last stretch is in icy snowy ridge and Zeller and McMillan say they walk ahead of Janet making a path for her. Let's see that photo.

“Remember that one. Okay. It's just someone hiking with a rope tied around them.”

Leady back to whoever's taking the picture behind them. Yep. Right. They're at the top. They go all mountain. They made it to the top. No they didn't. Okay. That's technically not the top. Oh it's on the side. That's the top. Okay. Right? I don't know. What do I know? More than me. So they make her a path and at some point as the sun is starting to go down they turn around and realize Janet's not behind them anymore. According to their account they find

her 100 feet off the trail lying in the snow and she says quote my name is Janet Johnson. Don't make me suffer. Just let me lay here and die and quote. The men say that Zeller ropes himself to Janet and eventually both of the men try to get Janet back down the mountain and they say her hands are swollen and black. They have to anchor her from three different directions to keep her standing up. They get to the snow cave where they had been in between the

final ridge and camp three where they had spent the night where Cooper had left to go back down the mountain. Remember? And there's a flare gun there and so they shoot it but nothing happens. At the lower altitude at this point because it came down they say Janet seems in better shape. So they send Mcmillan down the mountain to help so it's just Zeller the police officer and Janet is going to who's clearly not doing well. Yeah. On his way down, Mcmillan loses his ice

axe and falls sliding a thousand feet down. He has a black eye when he tells this story and

“says that's how he got it. Then he says he saw members of the Argentine army and dead mules and a dead”

soldier but it's only when he finally reaches camp three that he realized he had hallucinated all of

that because that's what happens when you have altitude sickness. He will later learn that he really did see a body but it wasn't a dead soldier hallucination. It was actually John Cooper's body NASA John Cooper's 35 year old NASA engineer. So meanwhile Janet and Zeller are following Mcmillan down the glacier and they also take a big fall which doesn't result in major injuries but their faces get cut up and their glasses get broken in the fall Janet and Zeller become untethered

from each other because remember they had tied her up in three places to help walk and it's only when Zeller climbs back up to Janet that he sees John Cooper's body. He says quote, "I checked him and he was dead and appeared to be frozen. I didn't see any cuts on his exposed skin and no tears in the clothing so I assumed that he didn't die as a result of a fall but exhaustion and hypothermia."

“End quote. So just kind of sat down where he was at. Yeah. Zeller says at this point that Janet”

seems in decent shapes since they've been coming down a bit but wants to rest a bit longer so he leaves her and says he'll go back ahead of her back down to camp three which again you're not supposed to leave anyone alone especially someone who's clearly suffering. He reaches camp

and he finds Mcmillan there and the two fall asleep and Janet never joins them. The men say in

the morning when they woke up there was no sign of Janet so they decided to go back down the mountain saying that Zeller was too disoriented for about to shoot sickness to try again and to keep going or to help get anyone down the mountain. It's essentially just two people of this whole mountain nearing team make it close to the top and come down and out of the four only two come down a live. Okay. The cases widely reported on and John and Janet's families are of course devastated

and some newspaper articles Janet's name is misspelled as Janet. Janet's mother saves clippings of every single article and carefully crosses out every Janet and replaces it with her daughter's correct name right now. Some articles quote Janet saying having said let me die here which they said that she said and in all of those articles her mother blacks out the entire

quotation she's like my daughter would never do that they don't believe that at all.

A judge and police investigator in Mendoza opened a case labeled as an investigation into possible manslaughter but despite this after brief questioning everyone on the mountain

surviving members at the party for a meeting with the club leadership and they write an official

chronology of events which is a story everyone tells their hometown newspapers and any

“following investigators. So they put a story together in secret and everyone sticks to that narrative.”

So they don't that meeting and that plan is a secret plan. They're not like let's get together and put this on the official record. No. They're like having been interviewed back in Argentina and having very different narratives and conflicting stories they meet up and they get their story straight. Which is suspicious. Yes it is. So the account says that John and Janet had the desperate to reach the summit and had likely died of pulmonary ademas from lack of oxygen

at altitude and because their bodies aren't able to be autopsy they're so on the mountain that's the general consensus. That is so that was 1972 and in the summer of 1973 John's body is found. That expedition is led by Alfonso that our local guide who was haunted by this entire ordeal at the foot of the Polish glacier they find ripped tents and sleeping bags and about 150 feet above on the glacier they find John's body and there's photos of it. John is found missing a cramp on

and without an ice axe he's on a gentle slope and reports say his face is frozen in a look of terror but like that to me is like everyone's his when they die. Yes it's the same thing as when it freaks people out and people think it's demonic when people's eyes are missing when their bodies

are discovered and it's like soft tissues is what goes first. But it looks like the devil has been

here. Right so that says nothing to me but it's just it's noted. Death it's dead bodies. Yeah. So here's the weirdest part of all to me that his abdomen has a cylindrical hole which is bloody and goes so deep it almost like hits his spine. Though this isn't seen until his body falls at a lower altitude because they bring him down a National Geographic reporter named Laura McIntyre who goes with this group comes to the conclusion that quote there is no mystery at all he fell on his ice axe

and he injured himself. But remember his ice axe isn't with him when they find him but he could have fallen on it left it behind then he says he wasn't so much discomfort and pain when he was

nearly the base camp that he finally got off the steep part of the glacier got down on the flat

he had evidently stopped sat down and removed his gloves and was probably trying to examine himself in his wound when he fell unconscious and froze to death. So he fell on his ice pick as that consensus. He tells us to the press in a statement it seems like a lot of people take him for his word even though he's just a reporter and not a forensic investigator. Now thorns at the guy feels incredibly uneasy about all of this because he specifically remembers the two other climbers

saying they had seen John's body in a seated position not laying down with his head in his hands

“but of course they had been hallucinating. You can't you have to remember the whole time that these two”

who survived were probably suffering from out some sort of altitude sickness as well. Yeah. Janet's body is not found until February 1975 or Nesto Cumballero and his son Alberto who's 17 are with another climber named Guillermo Vierro. When they have to scrap their summit attempt and decide to climb down via the Polish glacier in a field of any ten days and covered by some snow so it's a field of those and it's covered by some snow they find Janet's body.

Oh, the face is blackened from two years of exposure but it's also severely injured with exposed bone and there is blood visible on her face and jacket and like John she's missing one cramp on and her ice axe. Her hands are bare she's tangled up in ropes and this is super run a rock is found sitting on top of her body and there are no rocks around she's in this ice field exactly. So she's found on a shallow slope far from anywhere she could have possibly fallen along

“distance with Zeller so that narrative that that's how he lost her and she could have died”

isn't true. Yeah. So Alberto is a teenager and doesn't really know it to make of it all but the other two men will say that they are sure Janet was murdered. Of course they are just as an expert as a national geographic reporter who swears the opposite but it doesn't look like it squares up with the official narrative of the expedition. It's just such a weird thing for a reporter to come out and just be like I'm almost positive that this is what happened where it's like

sorry, aren't you a reporter right? Yeah, how would you suppose to speculate? Yeah, totally. A medical student who was present for the octopoles of both John and Janet says that John had a skull fracture and that hole in his abdomen which looked to him like it could have been made by an ice crew, maybe your ice pick as well. The injuries to Janet's face and damaged her boot look like

Yeah. The medical student who is now a neurosurgeon is also convinced that they were killed

“and that their deaths were not accidental. He says that this was the consensus and that the”

medical examiner believes the same and they're all dead now so he's kind of one of the last people who can verify that. Janet is buried at the small cemetery at the Bay City, Akan Kaguah, which she had told her family she wanted before the expedition if she perished on the mountain. No one from her family's able to attend but someone leaves flowers with the note dead to Madre or from your mother on her grave. So that's the sad. And the only item her sister

receives is Janet's ring with a brown stone from her finger and Judy still has it today.

Unfortunately any chance of further investigation. So here's maybe there would have been a

big investigation and the answers would have happened. However, it's 1976 in Argentina and there is a there's a violent military coup that overthrows a democratically elected president, perone and establishes a military dictatorship that brutally just consumes Argentina for years. I hate to gloss over that because it's so important and just go watch the musical evita. Right. You'll learn at least one woman's perspective. Exactly. So moving on just like that.

But you know, there's no chance of further investigation essentially. Right. The last surviving number of the party, John Shelton, the Mori Vermin,

the Mormon missionary missionary BYU student, was in hospice care at the time of this New York

times article by John Branch and Emily Ryan and they go see him in his hospice bed. He insists that there is no foul play. He calls that idea hogwash and he dies a month before the article is published. But he firmly doesn't believe him. But you know, that's the narrative.

“That's the narrative that he was at the secret meeting to establish, right?”

Yeah. And he wasn't there. He was, oh yeah. He wasn't there. It wasn't. Yeah. So, but you know, that's based on everyone. That's his opinion. Right. Those around the Akenkago community have more mixed feelings. Even though the medical examiner felt certain foul play had been involved, they might not adequately understand the damage a fall in the mountain terrain could actually inflict. So that makes complete science. But still,

looking back at the conditions at the time on the glacier, the amount of soft snow would have made a very long fall improbable or maybe impossible. So when Janet's camera is found, the film is sent to a special archival photo development company in Canada called film rescue because they're like what's on here. Yeah. If just anyone tries to develop it, it's going to get fucked up. So they

“they are able to get all the photos off of it. So the camera film and another role of film they”

found are able to be processed and the pictures show the party mostly smiling and those early stages of the journey, hauling gear and setting up camp. The photos are beautiful and well composed. And actually, can you show one of them? Really beautiful photos. This is on the mountain for back in 50 years. Wow. Just sitting up there. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Zeller and Macmillan said when she turned around and saw that she was gone, he said, well, we weren't tied together. So

she could have just left. But that one photo that she took, they're tied together. Oh, that's right. So is that her last clue? They are tied together. Whoever took the photo and we're not totally positive, which one of them that is, they are roped together. Yes. So so why lie? Right. What's the lie about exactly? So John Branch writes in the New York Times article, quote, "If she was oxygen deprived or delirious, she's still new, how to focus the lens, compose the frame, and hold the

camera steady to take clear photographs?" That is where the film ends. That is where the legend begins. The film does not solve the mystery. It adds to it. It tells you what John's in saw in her final hours. But not how she felt, not how she died. Not every discovery leads to revelation. Some just make you want to know more and quote, and that is the story of the Akankagua mountain mystery. You can punch me in the face. You got jam. Just one time, you can punch me in the face. You really set

that up. We were going to get the solution. But let's speculate. Care speculation. Allegedly, allegedly, this is just a true crime podcast theory. We're not doctors. That's right. Did one of them go a little bit? We could have been. It's been 10 years. We could have gotten a pH. Why don't we have our fucking honorary degrees from Sacramento and L.A. City College because they know we're foolish. Speaking up, so maybe one of them actually kind of had lost it on the mountain

and was hallucinating something and killed them. She was not sexually assaulted as well. I don't

with being at that elevation. But if you were hallucinating, if you were, if you had delirious,

yeah, if you didn't like a person to the degree where they kind of invaded your space. Right. And then it's not just anybody. Yeah. It's this lady that's I'm going to get there for myself is their perception for some reason. But or she was pushing to keep going and they didn't want to. But I don't think that there was that level of linear thinking at that at that height because they had such bad. Yeah. How to do it? On the way down, he saw, you know, he was hallucinated.

So what happened up there? Did he hallucinate? There. He was at war and these were soldiers and, you know. But I guess if that were the case and when they all got together to put a story together, why wouldn't they be able to say, hey, listen, these are the myriad stories we have because these are the crazy things we experienced because mountaineering would change forever after that. I see them, these mountaineers, these guys, guys, banding together and being like, let's not.

For you know, we're going to get a bunch of press over this. We just want to like this to kind of be hidden so we can go on doing what we're doing. And we don't want to ruin these guys that the memories of these people and the lives of the living ones. This is speculation. I'm not saying this is true. Right. Right. All right. They're entire families because they had altitude sickness and did and some crazy thing. Yeah. But they weren't aware of. They don't remember. And, you know,

“in their minds aren't responsible for. So it's something I think I'm not saying. I think that's true.”

But it sounds like you think that's possible. Like, as opposed to the usual where it's like, they, they killed her, whatever. It's like, you're like, something weird happened for sure. Yeah. But what they're protecting probably isn't just a pure killer. Right. It's more of an accident right, situational. Yeah. Oh, you know, doesn't it seem like though that's a little bit more of an argument of not mountaineering because it's like, you'll get, oh, you'll get up there. No.

Yeah. And you'll be hallucinating dead soldiers all around you. Yeah. Because you're not supposed to go up that high. All right. Because our bodies and brains were not meant for that elevation. Yeah. I mean, I got sick and Denver because it was fucking high. You know, high we were on stage and

Salt Lake City the first time we played there. We had to take oxygen on the back. It's crazy. Right.

And that was like, I'm guessing right now. Three thousand feet above sea level. Like, probably not even close to this. It's serious. Yeah. But the camera being found in the fucking ice. Also, it does sound a little fake them saying she said, my name is Janet, that whole story. Yeah. Seems fake. Yeah. And so oversimplified. Like, if you fell and were laying their

“dying, yeah, wouldn't you just be like, get help. Leave me or get help. I mean, I think leave me”

makes sense if you're true mountaineering. I don't know. Tell us what mountaineering is like at my favorite writer at Gmail. And wow. I don't know. What other mysteries will be uncovered over the years as the snow melts? Those crampons. Those crampons come rolling a lot. Ice pick DNA test them. I mean, he had a hole in his, yeah, he got ice picked somehow. Yeah. Did he fall on it? That's possible. Man. Well, that was a great story. I mean, that was very compelling. I've been excited

to tell you about it. Despite the ending. I apologize. I love 70s photographs. Yeah. I love the idea that it was a very end. It's like, except for that they were tied together. Right? That's wild. Yeah. Well, jump rope. Jump on a trampoline. Keep it positive. Don't go on a mountain. Don't go hiking up a mountain. Don't be a hero. Don't be a hero. Speak up. Your voice is wanted and needed. That's definitely. And of course, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Yeah. Elvis, do you want to click

key? 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 Leonis Guelacchi. Our researchers are Mary McLachin and Ali Alkin. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram and my favorite murder. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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I'm Michelle McFee. And I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported

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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You know the famous author, Rold Dal.

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