Ep. 153: Hospital hell pt. 4 – murderous medical professionals

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. Sometimes you just you need to go old school, don't you? You need to just strip it back to basics, and you need to just get back in touch, go back to the well, you know. Okay, so for this week's opener, Corey, we're going to go with a classic, right? Just an absolute classic. Just a nice fucking meaty full on case of the murders. How do you feel? How do you feel about that? [00:00:37] Speaker B: I feel great about that. I'm excited. Yeah. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Just enough horseshit. Let's have a really fucking good murder, shall we? All right. This is so fucked up. It's February the 23rd, right? It's 2022. Okay. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Fairly recent murder. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Yes. It's approximately 03:30 a.m.. All right. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:59] Speaker A: And we're in Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the packers. Home of the packers. I definitely know what that is. And talk to me about Green Bay. What is Green Bay of? 2022. 2023. What kind of area are we talking about? [00:01:17] Speaker B: What kind of I have no idea. [00:01:19] Speaker A: The only thing why don't you know this? [00:01:21] Speaker B: The only thing I know about Green Bay is the packers and that their fans wear cheese hats. That's really the extent of it. [00:01:30] Speaker A: So you can't give me any insight into life in Green Bay, Wisconsin, today? [00:01:35] Speaker B: No, I can't do that. For a wisconsin is a weird spot to me. There's some areas in the United States that I have no real sense of except their know something. Like could be they've got cold winters, they have interesting accents. I know nothing else about what it's like to grow up in Wisconsin. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Let's say that there are good people, earthy and good natured. [00:02:07] Speaker B: Okay, sure. [00:02:08] Speaker A: The people of Green Bay. But on February the 23rd at 331, tara Packanich is in Stony Lane, Green Bay. And she, I don't mind telling you, has made some fucked up discoveries in the basement of her uh oh. Yeah. Real bad. If you wish, you could find yourself some dashcam footage of this very okay. An officer, upon entering, is shown to the basement of Tara's home and is pointed towards a bucket. A bucket covered only by a towel. [00:02:47] Speaker B: All right. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And on lifting the towel, the officer sees what is unmistakably a human head inside the bucket. [00:02:55] Speaker B: Head in a bucket. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Head in a bucket. Listen, what could be a better way to kick off a late September jack of all graves than a fucking head in a bucket right now? A quick search of the basement reveals a tote bag soaked in blood. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:12] Speaker A: In the tote bag is a hollowed out human torso. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Hollowed out? [00:03:19] Speaker A: Eviscerated, organ by organ, by the look of it. Forensically unpacked this hollowed out human torso. Not empty, though, because a human foot has been shoved up into the organ cavity. [00:03:31] Speaker B: They took all the insides out and. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Put a foot in it without sides. Shoved a fucking human foot up in the organ cavity? Numerous plastic bags in the basement containing other organs. Taking another look inside the bucket. The victim's penis is also in there. It's also in the bucket with two bloody knives alongside the head. Okay. There's a bucket contained on the floor. [00:04:01] Speaker B: Head ahead, two knives. A peen torso contains a foot, and. [00:04:07] Speaker A: The torso has a foot in it. [00:04:08] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:10] Speaker A: So that's the scene that we find ourselves in this February the 23rd in Green 22 in Green Bay at 03:30. A.m lovely people, earthy. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Honest, just yeah, salt of the earth. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Salt of the salt of the earth. But in this particular house, cock in a bucket, head knives, foot up a torso. [00:04:33] Speaker B: That is really sticking with me right there. Just foot in a torso. [00:04:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:40] Speaker B: That is one of the most bizarre. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Detail things from the torso. [00:04:45] Speaker B: And putting a foot in it. [00:04:48] Speaker A: Jam. [00:04:49] Speaker B: I think one of the things that strikes me about that is it feels almost like the kind of thing a kid does with, like, a Barbie or something like that. Yeah, you would always do, like, kind of bizarre stuff with a doll. [00:05:02] Speaker A: No, I've never killed anyone. Right, sure. But I had some unusual action figures. [00:05:09] Speaker B: Right. I think most kids did. I think that's know your two things are you're going to make your Barbie scissor and then you're going to do something very violent with them. That is a universal thing. [00:05:22] Speaker A: So obviously I was super into my Kenner Star Wars figures. [00:05:26] Speaker B: Yes, sure. Yeah. [00:05:27] Speaker A: No, I would simulate freezing Han Solo in carbonite by putting him in a jug full of water and freezing him. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:41] Speaker B: That's clever, isn't it? [00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And as he would melt, I would play and be hand. But what I'd also do with some figures is I would stand them on the like a three bar heater, like a fire that you would have in your living room if you were a poor like me? [00:05:56] Speaker B: If you were a poor. A three bar heater. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah, three bar heater. Three kind of it's like the thing. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Like you guys have in your bathrooms. Yeah. No, not like that. I don't know what this is. [00:06:09] Speaker A: An electric heater. And anyway, I would lean my action figures against the three bar heater and thus melt their faces. [00:06:18] Speaker B: So satisfying. [00:06:20] Speaker A: It's super satisfying. You also get to rearrange them a little bit when they were still soft and melty. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Oh, sure, that sounds kind of fun. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Anyway, I never went on to murder anyone. Go on. [00:06:32] Speaker B: No, we had like a brook or like a creek between my house and my next door neighbor Jenna's house. And I remember one of the many things that we did with Barbie was that first we took the head off and then we dropped a match on the inside of it, so it kind of, like, melted until the match went out pretty quickly. This is also probably the fumes from that were very toxic. We're like woo. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Oh, super. Toxic spontaneous combustion. Barbie yeah. [00:06:59] Speaker B: Right? So we kind of melted it, and then we tied dental floss around its neck and then hung it in the creek. And then it was like an El Nino year. And we just watched as this thing would just basically bob helplessly in the water and become increasingly algae covered until finally it ripped off the string. [00:07:28] Speaker A: You would return to the scene of the crime yeah. And check in on the decomposition of your victim. This is problematic. Anyway, listen, it is. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:37] Speaker A: Let's go back to the basement. Right? Back to the basement. Blood soaked mattress. Now, here's the thing, right? This is going to advance the narrative somewhat, okay? The lady who called the cops, the lady who made these discoveries in her basement, was none other than the victim's mother. Oh, that's very, very unfortunate. She was the victim's mother. She'd found her son Shad her son, Shad tyrion cut up and spread throughout the house. You see this guy, this victim, Shad, who was described later as a wonderful guy, always put others before himself. He was an artist, a painter, etc, etc. It seems his only crime was to have the bad luck to fall into a relationship with Miss Taylor Shabismus. Shabismus, I fucking shit you not. Taylor Shabismus. And. [00:08:38] Speaker B: It'S that her legend name. [00:08:40] Speaker A: No, her surname is, like is that. [00:08:44] Speaker B: The name she was born with? [00:08:45] Speaker A: Oh, no, she changed it. [00:08:49] Speaker B: She changed it to yeah. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah. But that's her given name. That's the name she goes by. That's the name that she's standing trial under. That's the name that she was arrested under. Ms taylor shabismus. Now, oh, boy. Fucking lock up your sons, right? Because, man, I don't even know, basically, Taylor, a few nights earlier, right? Taylor, she'd picked up Shad in her minivan. They'd gone to a friend's house, they'd gone to an apartment. They'd smoked some weed, they'd smoked some meth. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, sure. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Injected a prescription medication called Trazodone, which is a sleep aid and antidepressant medication. So they were injecting all of that shit, right. And after the sesh, they went back to Tara's, Shad's mother's, where the mayhem commenced. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Tara and her partner were out for the night, so she had no indication that this was going on during the investigation. Later, Taylor Shabismus told and you can look this up, by the way, because it is actually her fucking name. [00:09:56] Speaker B: There's no way you could make that up. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:09:59] Speaker B: It has to be her name. Of course. [00:10:03] Speaker A: So after they got on the Sesh, they went back to Tara's place and Taylor Shabismas told officers that she went crazy. They'd started some of that autoerotic asphyxiation. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Some of that fucking chained collar kind of play. And Taylor told the officers that she went crazy. She strangled Shad because, quote, she liked it. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Oh, God. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker B: And she could not, like a great excuse. [00:10:30] Speaker A: No, not at all. She made no excuse. No excuse. She told cops that she liked it. She told cops she could feel Shad's heart still beating, so she kept choking him harder until she died. During the trial, she's reported as asking detectives, do you know what it's like to love something so much that you kill it? [00:10:48] Speaker B: It's just cute aggression. [00:10:51] Speaker A: That's exactly what it is. [00:10:53] Speaker B: Extreme cute aggression that leads to know methamphetamine. Fucking hell. [00:11:00] Speaker A: They tracked Taylor down to a nearby apartment building, right? They only tracked her down because hours before the crime, she'd taken off a tag that she had for a completely unrelated previous crime. Right. [00:11:11] Speaker B: She took off her like a ankle bracelet. [00:11:14] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [00:11:16] Speaker B: So she did something that already had her being monitored. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Yes, on tag. She took that tag off a few hours before picking up Shad for that night of mayhem. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Wow. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So they tracked her down to a nearby apartment. They found her a day or two later, still in blood soaked clothes with her minivan. Her minivan was there too. Right. In the minivan, they found Shad's legs? Yeah, and various other parts. The initial investigation was so wild. Don't judge me too harshly for this, but Taylor, shabismus feels like somebody I'd have a conversation with. She sounds quite cool. Well, not cool so much. But look, when the police told her what they'd found in the basement, right? Her response, quote, that is pretty fucked up. [00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Taylor. No kidding. [00:12:20] Speaker A: She explained that after she killed Chad, she played with the body for two or 3 hours. She told the cops that she fucking sucked him off while cutting him. She she's a quote machine, Taylor's. A business. I swear to God. She told officers, you'll have fun trying to find all the organs. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Hell of a girl. She claimed that the plan was to take all of the body parts with her in a minivan, but, quote, I got lazy. [00:12:49] Speaker B: What? Like, obviously the murder is not funny. This is horrendous. Especially him being found by his mother. This woman. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Do a little recap here if you catch us giggling during an at his expense. No, not at all. Fucking shadow lad, right? [00:13:08] Speaker B: Just the circumstances here are beyond. She's like a real life Art the Clown. [00:13:18] Speaker A: 100%, mate. But I mean, she's a mess, this girl. She had a pretrial appearance in February this year, right? Where she attacked her attorney in the middle of court. She fucking flew at the guy. Yeah, he made a motion to delay the trial and the fucking CCTV is right on her. She just lunges at the dude over some chairs, is physically restrained by a security guy, and now she's got a state provided attorney. [00:13:52] Speaker B: See how that wouldn't work out? [00:13:53] Speaker A: Understandably the other guy, yeah, but again, a complete mess. Her current attorney filed a motion to exclude some of her internet searches before the murder. Right. You aren't ready for this. You are not ready for this. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Oh, no. This is before the murder, you say? [00:14:11] Speaker A: This is before the murder. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Taylor Shabusiness, her search history included the terms, quote, Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy. [00:14:23] Speaker B: No, come on. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Another one. Was Jeffrey Dahmer's butt. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Incredible. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, but the great thing is, right, she was found obviously guilty as shit of homicide in July. She made various attempts at an insanity plea, but she was into it, man. She really enjoyed it. But the great thing is Taylor Shabusiness undergoes her sentencing tomorrow. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Oh, really? [00:14:59] Speaker A: Yes, sir. Tomorrow is Taylor business's sentencing. So, friends, those on the joag journey, those who are now as invested in the sorry saga of Taylor Shabusiness as I am, tune into Jack of Wargraves next week for a sentencing update on Taylor. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Do you know what's on the table. [00:15:20] Speaker A: For her in this decapitation? Something something meddling with, a least not. [00:15:29] Speaker B: In terms of the actual charges. But could she get the death penalty or life? [00:15:33] Speaker A: Right? No, Wisconsin does not have the death penalty. Okay. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:15:37] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:15:40] Speaker B: She's lifetime, probably what's going to yeah, it feels indicated. [00:15:45] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:48] Speaker B: Obviously, like you said, she tried for the insanity plea did not take. Probably largely because the thing about the insanity plea is that you have to be able to basically prove that you didn't know right from wrong, which it sounds like she very clearly, with all these quotes, knew, as she put it. That's fucked up completely. But is there, like, in any of the stuff you read? Did it talk about any form of mental illness she'd been diagnosed with or anything like that? [00:16:19] Speaker A: Well, her current attorney, right, told the jury, quote, I ask, when you're considering all the evidence, don't jump to a conclusion. Don't rush to judgment. Please keep an open mind and listen to all the facts. Listen to what every witness has to say carefully and weigh what they had to say. [00:16:39] Speaker B: What did he think that was going to do? [00:16:41] Speaker A: Well, exactly. [00:16:44] Speaker B: Were there people who are like, that's the thing. Her victim people were like, he was great, beautiful person, all that kind of stuff. Were there people there that were like, taylor is like, wonderful fucking mental. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Well, amongst all of this, in so many of the articles, you just get the little line sneaking in at the end. Taylor has a husband who is standing by her damn Yemen. [00:17:13] Speaker B: That's really something. It's incredible. She was cheating on him with another guy and murdered that guy. [00:17:22] Speaker A: Murdered him. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Committed necrophilia with that guy. Yes, that is loyalty to a fault. [00:17:30] Speaker A: But yeah, guilty on all accounts. July 26, killing dismemberment. But she's got a man. She's got a man at home waiting for her when she gets out. [00:17:41] Speaker B: When she gets out. [00:17:42] Speaker A: Right. Shabusness. [00:17:46] Speaker B: That is also did it say in anything why she changed her name to Shabismus? [00:17:51] Speaker A: Right. It's in line with her husband's name. I'm going to keep just scanning my documents here. Sure. And at some point during tonight's episode of Jack of All Graves, I'll just oh, here we go. Shabismus is married to husband Warren Chabot okay. Who is standing by her and has a young son. I don't know if the young son is hers, but Warren Chabot is Taylor Shabismus's husband. I don't know. It's all just a silly game to her, isn't it? [00:18:29] Speaker B: Well, I think that's perfectly like that's what's? So, like her flippancy about the whole exactly this. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Exactly this. [00:18:39] Speaker B: You really don't see a lot even like you take, like, your Ed Kempers or people like that who love to talk about their crimes and all of that kind of stuff. But normally these are serial killers. These are people who made a life out of it. Whatever. And I think there's just something strange about she clearly just takes nothing seriously. She follows an impulse. She's, like completely doesn't take human life seriously. She's an impulsive person. She says, whatever. She doesn't take consequences seriously. She's probably going to go to prison and be like, fine, like, whatever. I will find something to do here that's wild in a torso. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Well, exactly that. It's like mice coming out your fish, isn't it? Should not be there. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Shouldn't be there. That's wrong. And honestly, after you describing her even more, this feels like a kid with a Barbie. [00:19:42] Speaker A: Do me a favor. Take a look at her for me, would you? Just google Taylor Shabusiness. S-H-A business. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Taylor Shabusiness. All right, let's see here. Using my very slow computer to do this. So we'll see what happens. Oh, not really what I was expecting exactly. [00:20:09] Speaker A: She's presentable, isn't she? [00:20:11] Speaker B: Well, but I don't know. I was expecting someone who I guess there's one picture of her that she's got a lot of makeup on and things like that, which I think is more what I was expecting. Like someone who's that flippant seems like the kind of a young party girl who just doesn't give a shit or whatever. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. There's the photo that I've had open whilst yeah, whilst inhabiting Taylor's your business. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Her non orange jumpsuit pictures. Yeah, no, I guess that's kind of essentially what I imagined. Fascinating. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, Mark. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy. [00:20:58] Speaker B: Hoomst. Hasn't. [00:21:03] Speaker A: You just got to learn to use incognito for that shit. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Exactly. Why don't murderers know about incognito mode? [00:21:11] Speaker A: Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, Misel sen. [00:21:19] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said Misel sen in such a horny way before. [00:21:23] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex cannibal received. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:21:29] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm going to leg it. [00:21:36] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:21:38] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. Okay, well, look, here we go. Here we go with another episode of Jack of All Graves. Feels delightful to see you, Corey. Feels delightful to have you all listening to us. Has it been the best week ever? No, probably not, but not so much. I tell you what, when you have shit weeks, right, it is for me a pleasure to go back to the behaviors which, you know, work for you, that, you know, give you solace and comfort. I've dived right into some video games this week, which has been terrific. And you know what? Do you know what something a behavior from the COVID times, right? A behavior from the lockdown times, which I think, collectively, I think a lot of people adopted for their own for the better. And for me, it's a behavior which I still tend to adopt sometimes. Even though lockdown is now a thing of the past, a thing of memory, it's the behavior of sometimes getting yourself a little treat. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Do you know what I'm saying? It felt like that was something that a lot of people I know during COVID did. Let's get myself a little treat. So this week I got myself a little treat, right? And fucking hell. It was so good, I bought twelve bottles of exotic flavors of Coca Cola. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. Did you get the AI Coke? [00:23:15] Speaker A: Me? I didn't get the AI coke. No, I got a couple of bottles of Mexican. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Oh, I love Mexican coke. [00:23:22] Speaker A: It's so good, so delicious. So good. A few bottles of Quebec maple. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know about that. [00:23:32] Speaker A: How did that oh, Corey, it's fucking beautiful. Quebec maple flavored Coca Cola, right? It's Coke, but it's got this kind of syrupy kind of note to the end, honestly. Fucking beautiful. A couple of bottles of British Colombian raspberry Coke. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Okay. Delicious. I sometimes put raspberry into mind at. [00:23:56] Speaker A: The movie just just astounding and they didn't last a day. [00:24:03] Speaker B: What? [00:24:04] Speaker A: They didn't last a day? [00:24:06] Speaker B: Bottles. [00:24:07] Speaker A: To be fair. That is bad, isn't it? Owen and Pete had one, but I think I must have pounded ten bottles of Coke in a day. [00:24:18] Speaker B: It was so full sugar bottles of Coke. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Nice. [00:24:24] Speaker B: You are a specimen mark. I enjoy the taste of a full sugar Coke, a Mexican Coke or whatever, but if I drink one bottle, I feel like my insides feel sticky, like I'm like that's too much. It was beautiful. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Ten bottles of Coba over the space of a day. You understand? Over the space of a day. But it was sure. I regret nothing. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Well, good. I'm glad. I'm glad that worked. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Nothing at all. I've ordered another box, in fact, because they're so fucking nice. Let and playing computer games back into cyberpunk, which has had a big fucking makeover and now plays like a dream. So I'm super invested in that game at last. It was a year late, but I'm finally playing the game that I wanted to play last year. [00:25:17] Speaker B: I love that. On the computer? [00:25:21] Speaker A: No. On the PlayStation. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Oh, you said computer games. I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah. [00:25:26] Speaker A: That means all kinds of video game computer games. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Does it? [00:25:30] Speaker A: Because see, back in the day, you would play them on a computer. You know what I mean? [00:25:32] Speaker B: We would tap them. I feel like in like 1996, computer games meant any game. Now I don't feel like people use that phrase a lot. I did play a video game on a computer this past week, though. You did? Our latest Men of Low Moral Fiber game was the new homestar runner game Dangerousque, the Rheumatode Triangulate, which was super fun and I highly recommend it. [00:26:01] Speaker A: It's quite a title. [00:26:02] Speaker B: It is quite a title. But it's like a game that'll take you like 3 hours ish puzzle game. The puzzles are complicated, but not to the point where you're like, I'm going to throw things. It's just one of those sweet spot games where it's exactly right. Plus it's super funny. All of the homestar humor you loved is all present in Dangerous. So it's on steam. I think that's the only place you can get it and you can play it on Mac and PC. And it was so fucking fun. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Delighted to hear that. And delighted to know that there's another malmph coming out. [00:26:46] Speaker B: There is another malt coming out soon, which is always a good time. For those of you who don't know, I do a video game podcast as well with my high school boyfriend and his brother. It's a lot of fun. It's called men of low moral fiber. [00:27:03] Speaker A: My high school boyfriend and his brother. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Yes. At this point we all just basically engage with each other like siblings. So it's a good time. But speaking of video games, also, hey, for those of you subscribed to the Kofi, we're going to play some more Death's Door tomorrow and get that up for you as a little let's play for whatever month it is currently. September. Your September. Let's play we're going to play some more Death's Door and see how far we get. So excited to see that. Hopefully we'll get it right the first time and not have to record it twice. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Listen, that's not a mistake that we're going to make more than once. [00:27:47] Speaker B: No, I think we learned our lesson there. It's a thing we're normally very careful about. It was just a one time slip. So watch the Kofi for that. If you haven't subscribed to our Kofi, hey, you should do that because we have. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah, you should do that because not only do you get more content from us, there's also some pretty cool stuff to come, isn't there? Didn't something go up this week? [00:28:12] Speaker B: Did something go up this week or. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Is it coming up this week? [00:28:16] Speaker B: It's not on Ko fi. What's coming up? [00:28:19] Speaker A: Oh, is it not? [00:28:20] Speaker B: No, that's just a regular thing. [00:28:22] Speaker A: Oh, I see. [00:28:22] Speaker B: So wonderful this week. Yes, this is for everybody, which is very exciting for me and hopefully for you as well, Marco. Tomorrow we will be on it's kind of a new thing. I didn't do it for know I like I've now I kind of like it. But anyways, our dear listener and friend Ryan of the Lay Down podcast had us on last week or so to discuss some spooky things, some of our favorite horror books as well as some books made of human flesh, which was a lot of fun. [00:29:07] Speaker A: That was great. That was great. I don't know, you sounded like the Count. [00:29:13] Speaker B: I don't know what's wrong with me today. There's a lot happening. I'm happy to see you, Mark. But yes. So tomorrow you will be able to hear us on the Lay Down podcast. So make sure that you check that out. Ryan and Joe are absolutely delightful and it was so wonderful of them to have us and let us geek out about books and things. I think people over the course of listening to this cast know that both of us are big readers, giant book nerds. So it was fun to get to visit something different. We talk about horror movies all the time. It was fun to get to talk about some horror books and related topics. And as such, we are also at 10:00 a.m.. Eastern time tomorrow, live on our YouTube will be the video that we made in Bristol in the spring. [00:30:10] Speaker A: One of we made a couple in. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Bristol, one of we made a couple of them. But the first of our videos from our travels will be up on our YouTube about the John Horwood skin book that we went and saw at MShed, a museum there in Bristol. So I am super stoked for you all to see that get to see Mark being amazing as just an off the cuff travel host and my editing skills, I guess, I don't know. [00:30:42] Speaker A: Honestly, I think you did a great job. [00:30:45] Speaker B: Thank you. And I feel like I figured out our vibe after editing this. Listen, I'm great at directing you and you are great. [00:30:56] Speaker A: I agree. [00:30:56] Speaker B: You're speaking off the cuff. I think we've got something you are. [00:31:02] Speaker A: Good at directing me that's actually landed. I think that's actually quite insightful because not just through our UK tour a couple of months back, but through Joag as well. You've got the hang of kind of shepherding me in the right direction to do the things that I need to do. [00:31:26] Speaker B: It's a skill that I've cultivated over the course of the past few years and I think it works. We've got this great symbiosis going as a result and hopefully this will be clear to all of you when you watch this video as well. Let us know what you think. Please leave us comments and all of that kind of stuff when I post it because I'm stoked on it. I enjoy watching you mark in it. I think it was really fun. It was one of those things where, like, editing it, I was like, I'm not getting sick of watching this. This is really fun to oh, that's. Look for that tomorrow on our YouTube. Our link is in all of our stuff, our link tree and all that jazz. You can subscribe to our YouTube, watch stuff like, hey, you know, if you just want to validate me a little bit, go check out our Cold Opens playlist on our YouTube, which I spent hours and hours retitling and retagging over the course of the past couple of days. There were 61 Cold Opens on that playlist, and I renamed and retagged every single one of them. So, hey, go watch some of them. Just go admire the nice new titles that tell you exactly what is contained in them. Share them with your friends, whatever. Tell me you like them. I don't know. Whatever. [00:32:53] Speaker A: Maybe watch some of the ones where I have hair. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Isn't that weird how there was, like, a point in the beginning of Jo AG where he was you caught me. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Right at the fucking right on the transition, the tail end. Not just enough hair to know, pretend I can grow hair. And then the period where I realized that I was kidding myself and it's time to just buz it. [00:33:17] Speaker B: That is the funny thing. Just generally about that playlist, though, is it's like, oh, do you want to just watch us age in real time? [00:33:26] Speaker A: Listen, we've been doing this long enough now that we aren't the same as we were. [00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah. For a while, it's like, oh, you kind of look the same. No. If you were to watch the first one on that and the last one on that, we distinctly look older. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Now, I am not doing that. [00:33:47] Speaker B: Maybe not great for your self esteem, but if people at home want to just look at it, you can see the aging process occur. [00:33:54] Speaker A: And maybe you'll realize yourselves that you are older too. [00:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah. You've been with us for terms. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Your life is now three years shorter. [00:34:04] Speaker B: Right. But if there's one thing that we're here for is helping you to come to terms with that, if our aging can help you a little bit, come to terms with your own and your own mortality, we're on the right track. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Three years closer to the inevitable conclusion of Joag. [00:34:25] Speaker B: I had this weird realization. I think I have this lately. I want to say, like, the last six months or so that I think there's this weird part of me that doesn't totally see aging as permanent. Right. And that this is a hard thing to explain because it's going to sound ridiculous. Okay. But every now and again, it hits me that I will never be younger. [00:34:56] Speaker A: You are right now as young as you will ever be. [00:34:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm as young as I'll. Ever be right now. And that's kind of a strange feeling. And I feel like if you ever asked your grandparents or something about it, about what it feels like being old or things like that, I know my grandma is like, it's weird because I don't feel any older, but I look in the mirror and I see an old lady. [00:35:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:19] Speaker B: Right. And I feel like, absolutely, I feel that way that I don't necessarily feel old. I mean, my body hurts and stuff like that. Physically, I feel older, but I feel like the same me. And I feel like there's some weird part of me that always feels like, oh, yeah, someday I'll be younger again, instead of like, no, I'm just moving forward. Yeah, I'll just write it out until I come back around again. Is this some strange latent reincarnation idea in my mind or something? I feel like maybe it's a return to some of the ideas that as a kid I had when I was trying to process life and stuff like that. I don't know. It's a weird is it a squid. [00:36:05] Speaker A: That actually does that? I'm sure there's like an immortal squid, isn't there? [00:36:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I do remember. I think we've talked about something. I can't remember if it's a squid, but yeah, or maybe it's like a jellyfish that like it's over jellyfish. [00:36:19] Speaker A: Turitopsis Donnie. Yes, turitopsis, donii. Small biologically immortal jellyfish found worldwide. [00:36:29] Speaker B: There we go. I think I'm a jellyfish. I think I think that's what my brain is processing it as I will reach a certain point and just break off and become little me again or something. [00:36:42] Speaker A: Adolescence. Revert back to adolescence. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:49] Speaker A: That was the coolest thing about finding those photos of me recently when I was in the States. [00:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah, those were cool to see. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Just the thought that fucking young Corey is like a few miles away right there. [00:37:02] Speaker B: I'm not that far away right there. [00:37:04] Speaker A: When that photo was taken. Love that. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so and even looking at so Mark sent me these pictures from his trip to New York City as a teen. [00:37:18] Speaker A: And it's like, I'm going to post it on Blue Sky right now. [00:37:21] Speaker B: I don't think you posted them. Do it. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Post them right now. [00:37:26] Speaker B: But that was one of the weird. I think that that's one in the many times that I've thought about this over the past few months is looking at that and thinking like, that looks like a different boy. But it is the boy I know. And he's in there, in that body, in that face. That's him. And you're still that guy. Obviously you've been through many changes in your life and stuff like that, but it's an interesting thing to process to me. And this sounds like such a stoner insight. Like, once we were young, now we're old. Like, what? But I don't know. It's just an interesting, I don't know, thought process that I keep catching myself it is in. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Yes, it is. Because before we met, we were alive for a long time. And the fact that our lives have intersected unbeknownst to either of us, it is it's a fascinating topic. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Life is this will make sense when. [00:38:33] Speaker A: You listen to this week's episode. There we go. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Nice. [00:38:38] Speaker A: And it is. [00:38:39] Speaker B: I'm having trouble with linearity and the passage of time and all of those kinds of things, which I think also is just part of processing. It was my birthday. I'm getting closer to 40. I think we all, in weird ways, process that moment. And this is how I'm processing it is going, oh, weird. I'm not going to be young ever again. That's so crazy. [00:39:03] Speaker A: You're right about it being a necessary realization to go through. And I'm certain everybody has. I don't know if Taylor Shabusiness has gone through that yet. [00:39:15] Speaker B: No, I don't think so. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Needs to yes. [00:39:20] Speaker B: This is like yeah. It's a certain life stage that you have to go through. And if you don't, you end up with heads and buckets. [00:39:28] Speaker A: Heads and buckets legs and minivans. Yes, sir. So neither of us have done that. So we're obviously well adjusted, beautiful people. [00:39:36] Speaker B: We're doing perfectly. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Just like you, my listeners. Just like you. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Like you, we hope. What have you been watching, my dear, well adjusted co host. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Not something I get often. Let's have a look. Ended up I went to visit my mother. This right? [00:39:57] Speaker B: Oh, so cute. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Yes. I love my mother to bits. So I went to Wales to spend some time with her and just chill. [00:40:05] Speaker B: She still lives in your hometown? [00:40:07] Speaker A: Yep, she sure does. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Nice. [00:40:10] Speaker A: So it's also an opportunity to go and just poke about and have a little look and get all misty eyed, etc. And don't ask me why. Right. But we sat down, did a bit of a Netflix scroll, scrolly, scrolly, scroll. And I don't know why, but for some fucking reason, we landed on 2000 and nine's Friday the 13th remake. Why. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Is your mom a horror fan? Is that like no. Okay, so not even interesting. And when I'm assuming you were the. [00:40:44] Speaker A: One who suggested I was because I know what did she I fell asleep. Not keen by any means, is it, Mark? All right. But it was a deeply awkward watch. I mean, there's Titties flying around everywhere in that movie. [00:41:04] Speaker B: This is going to be you and your son next week, watching Final Destination. [00:41:08] Speaker A: It's the Titty chapter, isn't it's? [00:41:10] Speaker B: The Titty chapter. So this is your preview, watching it with your mother. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but anyway, titties aside, just what a fucking dog shit movie. And I had it in my head for some reason that I really liked it, which was why I wanted to put it on again. [00:41:25] Speaker B: Really? [00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I cannot pin down why I had the fucking damn fool idea in my head that this was some slept on gem because it is not I have. [00:41:39] Speaker B: So little recollection of this movie. I know that I've seen it and I think I've seen it multiple times, but it did not make a lasting impression on me. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Not only is there not one single likable character in it, all of the kids are just knobheads. Quite a good jason physically. [00:42:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Good Jason. We're going to take that away from it. But what this movie does on two separate occasions twice twice it performs an absolutely unforgivable transgression in that twice, it violates it acknowledges and violates Chekhov's Gun. Right. [00:42:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:27] Speaker A: It does. It so egregiously. There's a lovely lingering long shot of a wood chipper, right? [00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:36] Speaker A: Which then does not get used in a killing. Terrible. It then does exactly the same later with a beautiful just a long shot that caresses a circular saw blade, right. And you see light glinting off the fucking teeth of this blade and you're thinking, oh, yeah, that's going to get used in a fucking killing soon. Never seen again. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Do you think it just ended up on the cutting room floor? Because certainly a filmmaker can't think, oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to reverse Chekhov's Gun and people are going to love this. Right? [00:43:11] Speaker A: That's a really good point. That's a really good point. [00:43:13] Speaker B: It must have gotten cut. [00:43:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I'll look into that because fucking hell, it's the worst thing to do, man. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that sounds terrible. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So neither I nor my mother enjoyed fucking 2009 Friday the 13th. [00:43:33] Speaker B: Excellent work. [00:43:34] Speaker A: Great one, Marco. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Well, yesterday you picked a movie that we both enjoyed, which is great one that I've seen half a dozen times and was excited that you picked yeah. [00:43:49] Speaker A: Housebound. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Housebound, yes. I know that of our listeners, for sure. At least our dear Satania loves this movie. It's a great one. [00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Tough not to love and tough to kind of reconcile how I haven't seen it yet. I mean, it means a new movie. It's 2014, right? [00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah. This is a Kiwi horror movie. It's a horror comedy of sorts about a woman who is arrested and as a result of sort of her criminal past and the fact that she's been very hard to rehabilitate, she is forced to wear an ankle monitor and live with her mother and her mother's partner in a house that appears to be haunted and craziness ensues. From there. [00:44:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. Nicely violent, nicely profane. Again, earthy. It's like the third fucking time I've described something as Earthy today. And yeah, you were quite right. See, when I suggest a movie to you and you go, oh, yeah, that's a banger, I know, we're fine. [00:45:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess usually that pretty much works out. I try to temper, like, the reason I wasn't positive on this one, because I know horror comedies are pretty hit or miss with you, but this doesn't lean super hard into the comedy, which I think is kind of like what? Tempers it. It's got some very funny moments in it and little quips and stuff like that. There's one scene where our dear lead character is sort of hearing the noises in the house for the first time in between piss streams and keeps sort of cutting off her stream to listen for the sound and then resuming and listening again. And there's a few very silly things like that in it, but it doesn't lean so hard into it that it. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Becomes like the comedy comes from the characters and of the service of the characters, not just slapstick or fucking nonsense for the sake of it. [00:46:07] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. So, yeah, Housebound has been a fave of mine basically since it came out. And I'm excited that now you can add it to your collection of flicks. [00:46:20] Speaker A: Movie wise. I think that is it. Apart from, oh, I didn't put it on my letterboxed because on Saturday I know, right? Maybe I'm cured. Maybe that means I'm better. Maybe not only am I now not rating movies while they're still in progress, I'm not rating movies at all. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:45] Speaker A: Saturday, was it? [00:46:47] Speaker B: Yes, Saturday, it was the 23rd. We got the gang together for the month of September, and we watched Return of the Living Dead D, which is. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Right, a movie which is I'm seeing Roundly Savaged everywhere. [00:47:06] Speaker B: I don't understand at all. Even your old review of the movie was like, that leans too hard into the comedy. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Was it? [00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah. If you look at your letterboxed, your review the last time you watched it, leans too hard into the comedy. Disagree with past, Marco. And I think you do, too. [00:47:26] Speaker A: I do. Yeah. I totally disagree. This film has it going on. Let me see. I know you're not a zombie aficionado. No, but one of my favoriteest things in a zombie movie, right, is the bit about two thirds in and you'll recognize this trope. It's when the fucking zombies at the gate finally fucking break in. Whether they're outside, wherever you're hunkered down or hidden out, or they break in through the door, or they're breaking through the fence, but there's suddenly a fuck ton of these zombies and Return the Living Dead Two, takes that moment and handles it amazingly. [00:48:08] Speaker B: It was so funny that you mentioned this. I can't remember if I've told this story on here maybe multiple times. I don't know, it's been three years. But that you were like, oh, I love a zombie at a fence. And that's one of my I don't enjoy zombies. They scare me in a gross way. More than like a way that, you know, I'm more of a just I don't like the they're gross to look. [00:48:32] Speaker A: At that kind of thing. [00:48:34] Speaker B: And I went on The Walking Dead attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood at my husband's request, even though I was like, you know, I don't like these things. They stress me out. And he was like, It's fine. We'll go on the Minions ride afterward. Everything's going to be great. And so I was like, fine. And so I walk through there, I've like my shoulders up to my ears in tension. I'm looking at everyone cautiously, like, looking at the security guards. Are they going to come after me? What is this? So we get to the end of this little walk through, right? And I can see the door. And I'm like, oh, thank God. We are finally about to exit this thing. And at that moment, there's like a fence, right? And I can see I've spotted there's zombies behind this fence. Great. See you. Cool. [00:49:19] Speaker A: I'm gone. [00:49:20] Speaker B: Aces. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Great job, guys. Yeah. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Good job. Got it. I'm safe. I did not realize that there was a loose chain on this fence making it so that they could push that fence forward and reach through wankers. And that's exactly what this woman did. And I screamed. I kid you not. This was an out of body experience. I screamed so long and so loud that I had time to think to myself, gosh, who's screaming? Oh, my God. That's me. [00:49:54] Speaker A: Nice. Very nice. [00:49:56] Speaker B: I was so horrified. I burst out of that place and turned to Kyo and just said, Minions. That was the only word that I could functionally get myself to say. Minions. Just wants to go on the Minions ride. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Right? Okay. [00:50:16] Speaker B: Scared? Yeah. So when you said there were I love zombies at a fence, like, my whole body just like, shivered. I was don't. I don't love that. [00:50:29] Speaker A: Do you remember the Lewis family's? Christian friends? [00:50:33] Speaker B: Of course. Yes. [00:50:34] Speaker A: Okay. Well, we went to Alton Towers with them once, and I split off with Peter and the boy from this family, and I took them both on the saw ride. [00:50:51] Speaker B: There's a saw ride? [00:50:54] Speaker A: Yes, there is. [00:50:55] Speaker B: Incredible. Is it like a walkthrough thing or is it a ride? [00:50:59] Speaker A: It's both. It's got a nice little kind of the queue is you've got fuckers in costumes and whatnot and set dressing and whatever. And then there's a kick ass roller coaster at the end. I thought, I know I'll take them both on this and a whale of a time was had. But forget this as long as I live. During that walkthrough bit at the start where you've got screens telling you, turn back now and you've got fucking devices everywhere, this kid pulls on my sleeve and goes, mark, this isn't real. Is. No. No. [00:51:36] Speaker B: Sweet boy. Yes, child, I'm leading you to the slaughter. Your parents are fine with it. [00:51:43] Speaker A: Yeah. We've just know Jumbo slushies because it's hot. And now I'm taking you to meet your end at Hands of Jigsaw in Alton Towers. Tom. [00:51:55] Speaker B: Incredible. I love that so much. So, yeah. Return of the Living Dead two Good luck is so much fun. Yes. You recently had me watch Return of Living Dead three. I did not like it, so I did not have high expectations for going back one. But it had what I liked about Return of the Living Dead Three which was great makeup and effect, great creatures, the zombies look great. And then the humor that was in the parts of Return to the Living Dead Three where you get to see those zombies just kind of silly movements and deaths and things like that. It's like very goofy. And that is there in spades in the second one where the third one just kind of annoyed me because that was like the love story at the center of this. [00:52:45] Speaker A: You didn't buy that at all. [00:52:48] Speaker B: I hate these people and I want bad things for them as fast as possible. This one was not like that. [00:52:55] Speaker A: What I will tell you. A few months away from watch alongs. Oh man, was it? [00:53:00] Speaker B: It's beautiful to come back. [00:53:01] Speaker A: It was. It was great. I think we are one or two newcomers, which was fantastic to see. Just love that and our regs our regulars. It really did give me a much needed boost of brain happy juice for sure. [00:53:17] Speaker B: So we'll get an October watch along coming. Also, Ryan suggested for those of us who know, a weekly Spooky Season watch along, so maybe we'll see about that for Americans. Obviously it wouldn't work as well for those of you on that side of the pond, aside from the night owls and whatnot, but maybe get something going where we can just share in Spooky Season together. But we will also have another regular Watch Along in October and just get back on it because it's so much fun. Yes, I watched a few things this week as well that have not been mentioned. Tell Marco I will. Watched with The Scream and Chat this past week a film by the name of Fatal Pulse. And the less said about that, the better. But the thing about Fatal Pulse, fatal Pulse, which was just like just a slasher of sorts that's basically there for the purpose of showing a lot of blonde girls tits. [00:54:22] Speaker A: There you go. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Seems to be as far as they got with this movie. But the worst thing about it, like we watch a lot of 80s movies that that's basically the entire premise is just like get the tits out. Flonk One had the most aggressive soundtrack where it was like I eventually just muted it. It's like I can't listen to this anymore. The music was just so overwhelming. [00:54:49] Speaker A: The whole aggressive how was it? [00:54:51] Speaker B: Like it was loud and never stopped. It's like you got to have scenes where it's kind of quiet but I could search the web for it, siri. I was like, what's happening there? Yeah, it was overwhelming. So I don't recommend fatal pulse. I don't think anyone else in the screaming chat recommends fatal pulse. Not a good time. What I did watch also because of Dead and Lovely is an old favorite of mine that I had not seen in years and I'm happy to report, holds up great. That was critters. Fucking love critters. When I was a child, my dear friend Matt Hardich and I would sit inside during recess and write Critters fanfic on the apple. [00:55:38] Speaker A: I know this about you. It's one of my favorite things about you. Of all of the fucking movies, of all of the franchises, all of the characters, christmas fanfic. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Oh my god, we were so into it. I loved Critters so much. And watching it now again, it has like much like Return of Living Dead, too. It just has this campy charm to it. [00:55:58] Speaker A: It does. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Very goofy. The characters are very over the top. I was reading letterbox reviews of this and someone pointed out it's basically just a return to those, like, 1950s rural alien invasion movies, right? But just transported into the 1980s. And it is just so deeply fun and funny. And the characters are entertaining and likable. [00:56:27] Speaker A: That feels like one for the boys, one for the kids. [00:56:30] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. [00:56:31] Speaker A: Isn't it? [00:56:31] Speaker B: I think would love it. It's so fun and it moves quick. It's a tight 90, I think. It's not insanely graphic. It's got Billy Zane, so it's a little bit of Zane core, which we haven't had much of lately. Yeah, it's like bloody and stuff like that, but not in a way that's. [00:56:51] Speaker A: Going to I distinctly remember as well when I saw Critters writing about it in my school book the next day and drawing pictures of it and shit. [00:57:01] Speaker B: Love that kind of movie. It's such a good early horror that has all the things that engage you and that you just love about watching a horror movie. So, yeah, Critters was delightful to return to. I went to the movies. Listen, I never go to the movies after dark. I don't like driving in the dark. I don't like that other people are around in the evenings. But there was a movie that was going to be at theater and was leaving the next day. And I was like, well, when am I going to see this? It's at the indie theater. [00:57:38] Speaker A: An old movie. [00:57:39] Speaker B: This is never going to come out. No, a new movie called Cassandro. Have you ever heard of this? [00:57:47] Speaker A: No. [00:57:48] Speaker B: It's a wrestling movie. [00:57:51] Speaker A: No, really? [00:57:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a wrestling movie starring Gael Garcia Bernal where he plays a luchador whose lucha name is Cassandro. And it is not good. It's like a giant mess, but kind of a likable mess at the same. Like, he's really good in it, basically. So I don't really know much about lucha, do you? [00:58:18] Speaker A: Bits and bobs. [00:58:19] Speaker B: Okay. Are you familiar with the concept of an exotico in lucha? I was not before this. So he is an exotico. He decides to become one. Take off the mask, be this flamboyant queer character in lucha. And this is a biopic. It's about a real person. So this was like a famous luchador and his real name is Saul, but he decides to change his path. Do this becomes very famous and kind of basically exoticos are meant to lose, and everyone just sort of screams F bombs at them and things like that. And basically you hate gays. So these are your villains in Lucha at the time anyway, I assume. It's not like that anymore, but yeah. So this is him sort of becoming the first queer Luchador to really gain a following and become like a big face, essentially, to use the American wrestling terms, instead of a heel. And so it's an interesting story, I think, but it very much doesn't know what it's doing. Gael Garcia versional is amazing in it. Everybody in it is pretty amazing. But it starts all these moments of tension throughout that and then just kind of abandons them. Obviously it's a big deal that this guy is like a queer lucidor and that's hinted at that people don't like them or whatever, but there's never really a moment where you're like, oh, this is dangerous for him, or anything like that. [01:00:19] Speaker A: Does it go into check it out. Does it go into the tradition of it all? [01:00:24] Speaker B: No, that's the thing, too. So it doesn't really build these things. And there's stuff like you basically kind of have to put together everything yourself, which is difficult, and it's not fun like it should be like when you're watching this flamboyant fun. [01:00:40] Speaker A: It ought to be character. [01:00:42] Speaker B: There's like a couple really good moments in this. There's like a montage of him sort of like as he's becoming famous stuff where you get some great cinematography and cool moments that are big and flashy and fun, but that is not sustained throughout the movie. Yeah, it's just kind of like poorly written and stuff, but it's also very indie. And there's a part of me that just likes seeing a mid budget story out there made by people who are passionate about it, even if they're not the best filmmakers in the world. Yeah. So I think there's something that's kind of charming about it, even though the movie doesn't really work. So I don't know. I don't not recommend Cassandra, but also. [01:01:30] Speaker A: It'S not it doesn't sound like you're recommending. Think I couldn't call what just happened a recommendation at all? [01:01:38] Speaker B: I'm not recommending it. I'm just not saying you are not watch this. It's more of a like, if it's on or like, just don't go out of your way. And then the funny thing was that then I came home. I found this on the web for a seat. Jesus Christ. [01:01:52] Speaker A: I'm really sorry, siri. Keeps Siri piping up. I apologize. Quiet. [01:01:59] Speaker B: After that after my going out at night to go see a movie. [01:02:02] Speaker A: Why was it bad, by the way? Why was it horrible? [01:02:05] Speaker B: What do you mean? [01:02:06] Speaker A: I thought your experience in going out at night to see a movie wasn't good. [01:02:10] Speaker B: No, that's fine. I just don't like doing that. But I made an exception. I went out. I journeyed. I had to pay for parking, all this kind of stuff, because it's busy downtown, like at night. I spent $6 in parking to see this movie. The movie cost me $6 to see. Come on. And then I came home, and my friend Kyle had uploaded it to Plex. [01:02:31] Speaker A: Oh, fucking Kyle. [01:02:33] Speaker B: I was like, God damn it. If I had checked this before, I jesus. I wouldn't have gone out $6 richer. $12 rich, $12 richer. And I bought a Diet Coke. I would have been $16 richer, which. [01:02:48] Speaker A: Is pretty much 16 quid in British money as well. [01:02:52] Speaker B: It is these days. There you go. The other thing that I watched, though, was no One Will Save You, which showed up on Plex. And I was like, oh, it looks interesting. Sort of an alien invasion story. And then I didn't immediately watch it, even though I was like, maybe I'll put this on. But then I saw everybody loving it on Letterboxd and whatnot. And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to put an effort in to see this. And I loved it. It is caitlin Deaver plays this girl with some trauma in her history whose home is invaded by aliens. The movie is almost entirely without dialogue, if there is any at all, because I can't remember. But I feel like there's maybe a couple lines in it, now that I think about it, but almost completely without dialogue. And you're just watching this girl who is being tormented by aliens. [01:03:51] Speaker A: Oh, hello. Yes. [01:03:52] Speaker B: Try to deal with that. It genuinely scared the shit out of me, which I loved. I love that the aliens are basically your basic gray. They don't try to do anything to make it extra scary. It's just like, this is just the alien you expect, which I think really works. And that means that it has all the things that freak me out, like long limbs and yeah, sure. Weird spindly fingers, spindly fingers, unnatural motions. And then it's a home invasion movie, basically, which is one of my favorite genres. I love a home invasion. Always terrifying. And there were multiple times where I legit did that thing I do where I go. I know it. Yeah. It just really worked for me. I've seen a couple people. It didn't work well. My friend Zed didn't like it. Anna didn't like it. [01:04:47] Speaker A: Zed, like off police Academy. [01:04:50] Speaker B: Sure. I've never seen Police Academy, so I don't know. [01:04:53] Speaker A: You should, because let me tell you, Zed getting on little tackle breeze case. [01:05:02] Speaker B: Sure. Seeing Zed like what's it called? Men in black. But yes, Zedariah. Zedariah Breckerman. He didn't love it, and I didn't love it. But yeah, I think for me, it hit all the points that I really like. And something I think it would make a great pairing with the vast of Night, which is another alien movie. That I quite enjoyed from a couple of years ago. Yeah. [01:05:29] Speaker A: Just really well, I've just been merrily adding movies to plex, as you've been talking, so I've got Critters and no One Will Save You. Ready to go? [01:05:38] Speaker B: Beautiful. I think you'll like it. See, it's funny because I wouldn't have questioned and then Anna didn't like it. And you guys tend to be a little more on the same wavelength we do. I feel like you're going to enjoy it. [01:05:51] Speaker A: I can't wait. [01:05:51] Speaker B: I'll look forward to hearing watch it this week. Yeah. And I also want to hear about your kids watching Critters. But yes, no one will save you. Check it out. It's a delight, I think. [01:06:02] Speaker A: And while you're checking out no one will save you, why don't you also check out Chris's housebound, the other one that you said? Return of the Living Dead Part Two yes. [01:06:14] Speaker B: Cassandra Fatal Pulse and Friday the 13th, 2009. Listen, as always, those are listed in the description and on our blog. So if you don't remember what we recommended to you, you can always go and look at that. [01:06:29] Speaker A: Frankly, if you watch one thing this week, make it the sentencing of Taylor Shabusiness tomorrow. [01:06:34] Speaker B: That's true. [01:06:35] Speaker A: You know, we'll be back here next week talking about it. Yeah. [01:06:38] Speaker B: And we could talk about it in the group, too. Yes, it'll be great. So, Mark, we've covered a lot of ground over the course of this month about how hospitals can be terrifying. [01:06:53] Speaker A: Yes. And I like what we've done here. I like that we've really kind of chunked this up. I like that we've portioned it out. I like that we've considered our approach here, our responses here. And yes, hospitals aren't places that you go for good things, are they? [01:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah. On multiple levels. Not a great place to be. And first off, I want to ask you, after all of this, how are you feeling about your upcoming procedure? [01:07:24] Speaker A: Oh, fine. I mean, it's been moved to February. [01:07:27] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. [01:07:29] Speaker A: So I have no jigglies at all about it. In fact, way before February, I'm going to have taken to this myself and sorted it out then. I don't believe that. I'm going to get this sorted out in the hospital. I get it done before that. [01:07:47] Speaker B: I don't think you should do that. [01:07:51] Speaker A: Well, it's my eyelid. [01:07:53] Speaker B: It's really close to your eye. [01:07:56] Speaker A: I had a go at it a couple of weeks ago and oh, my God. Reduced it a little bit, but it's come back. [01:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't do you want to see it? [01:08:03] Speaker A: I can pop it out if you want to see it. [01:08:05] Speaker B: Pop it out? [01:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. What's this? You see that? [01:08:13] Speaker B: Yes. You should let them take care of that. I think I'll take care of that. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Readers, listeners, what you didn't just see was me kind of popping out my eyelid cyst to show Corey, because that's how we roll. [01:08:30] Speaker B: That's what. We do around here. Yes, it is. Nature of the joy journey. But anyway, we're going to close out this series this week by dealing with one thing that we've kind of hinted at but haven't actually really addressed yet, which is actually medical professionals who murder. And so I found a couple stories about that that I want to share with you, Mark, in sort of closing here. And then I'm going to bring it back around to where our conversation started at the beginning of this month when it came to this story. So are you ready to hear about. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Some medical very much so. We're talking medical murders committed within a clinical setting? [01:09:20] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. In the hospital? Yeah. These are meditate doctors who go home and kill and happen to be doctors we are talking about in the hospital. You go in there and they, fucking. [01:09:33] Speaker A: Hell, mate, I'm doing nothing. I'm not doing this. [01:09:36] Speaker B: Can you disable her? Like, will she fight you? What happens if you turn off siri. [01:09:45] Speaker A: That'S for another week? [01:09:46] Speaker B: Okay. [01:09:49] Speaker A: Oh my God, I'm not doing this. Anyway, go on. [01:09:52] Speaker B: Okay. You're being smart housed right now. Anyways, so one of the things that I think is Wildest about these stories, I was looking at a bunch of these and I tried to avoid Dr. Death, the guy that there's a whole podcast in about, right? Like, you know, people who everyone knows about, but I read about him and read about a lot of the others. And of course about Lucy Leppy, who came up in our first episode. [01:10:20] Speaker A: Oh, she's back in the news, by the way. [01:10:22] Speaker B: Has she left the news? [01:10:24] Speaker A: Well, I mean, she's about to get a retrial, I believe, for some of. [01:10:30] Speaker B: The attempted oh, I did see that. Yeah. I think for one of the attempted murders or something like that. I saw that earlier. And for those who, if you didn't listen to that first episode and aren't British and don't know what is going on with this, this is a British nurse who murdered a ton of babies. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Too many say too many. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Too many babies, for sure. So one of the things that came up, including in her story, and that came up in a lot of the stories that I read, is that there were signs everyone knew. I can't remember what the name of the doctor or whatever was, but there was that movie that I watched a few months ago that had Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in it that was about another doctor like this who or a nurse, the good nurse. It was called the Good Know. Another murderous nurse from like a decade or so. Yeah. One of the things that strikes me is that these doctors and nurses who are clearly hurting and killing patients just kind of get moved along in the system instead of not just fired, but prosecuted or anything like that. They don't see punishment for a long time. Even though people know they're doing it. [01:11:59] Speaker A: Consistently fucking crazy to me. And it isn't just by any means, isn't just stories about medical practitioners in the police teaching in showbiz. There's so fucking goddamn many stories of people doing atrocious things, and it being quietened down, closing ranks, moving on and carrying on elsewhere. Horrible. [01:12:21] Speaker B: I think. Yeah. All those professions you just mentioned are great examples of that. And that's a wild thing to me that amongst the stuff that we've talked about, that's one of the hardest things to wrap my head around, is just that idea of closing ranks and just letting this stuff get by. For whatever the reason is, whether it's like to protect the institution, to protect someone because you think that you're allowed to do that, whatever the case may be. I think of the podcast Teacher's Pet, which actually led to the arrest of a man for murder 30 years after it happened. But that the stories from that were like, basically a school where all the teachers were sleeping with students. It was just like, normal. Everyone did this. And so they just kind of, like, shut up about it. And everyone knew, and that was fine. So in this case, talking about medical murder and whatnot, one of the most egregious examples of this was a doctor named Michael Swango, a doctor who was so well known for the frequent deaths of his patients, colleagues called him Double O. Swango a reference to James Bond's license to kill. [01:13:36] Speaker A: Oh, good one. [01:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah, good one. Except, like, that's a red. [01:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah, huge. Huge. But if you've got a colleague who has become known for his murdering people, give him a funny nickname. [01:13:51] Speaker B: Give him a funny nickname. Just maybe, like, after you tell your superiors or here he comes. Wink, wink. Yeah. This started really early with him. He attended Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. [01:14:10] Speaker A: Where is this gentleman from? Where did these horrific acts take place? [01:14:15] Speaker B: Did I not just tell you the first part of this? You asked me that literally. As I was saying, the phrase Southern Illinois University, the first of which Southern Illinois University, is where we start here. So other students there were unsettled by the fact that he was way more into dying patients than was normal. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Red flags all over the place. [01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And it was also the case, as you may recall, with Dr. Jack Kavorkian, who went on to become the most famous practitioner of physician assisted suicide. We did an open on that a while back. [01:14:53] Speaker A: We did. [01:14:54] Speaker B: So you can check that out. But in Swango's case, he didn't seem to show that he felt a particular compassion for the dying. Like with Kvorkian, it was like once he was really fixated on the process of dying, but he kind of put that into, like, how can I make the death penalty more humane and things like that. Before he went into the physician assisted suicide thing, swengo was not like that. He just really enjoyed watching people die. This actually ended up delaying his graduation because he was having such a good time working as an ambulance attendant where people died all the time that he neglected his studies and was essentially held back in his med school graduate. He did though, and from there he moved on to Ohio State University Medical Center and immediately shit got shifty. [01:15:47] Speaker A: Super quick pause here. Right, sure. I know that an accompanying discussion to this over these past few weeks has been the search to find something to empathize in in killers like this. [01:16:00] Speaker B: Right. [01:16:02] Speaker A: Is it because I'm confronting this now? I mean, this idea that Swengo was just doing the killings because he fucking loved it, right. That gives me something to cling. [01:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that sounds dark and everything, but something about that I can understand. [01:16:27] Speaker A: That I can conceptualize that. I get it. [01:16:31] Speaker B: Right. [01:16:34] Speaker A: Let's go back to Lucy Leppy, for example. Right. If on the stand, she'd gone, yes, I did kill these six babies because I had just an absolute desire to do it. And so I did it and I regret nothing. I can box that off. I can make sense of that more so than I can make sense of this anonymous breath of fucking air, of a live laugh, love anonymous fucking nothing of a person who just kills for why. [01:17:10] Speaker B: Especially since yeah, from all indications, it seems like she didn't love it. She had a lot of upsetting feelings about it. But then at the same time, the idea of someone being deeply conflicted, I think is something I can empathize with as well. Why do I do the things I don't want to do? What is compelling me to do this? [01:17:31] Speaker A: Can I, I wonder, empathize more with Taylor Shabusiness than I can with Lucy Leppy? I think I probably can. [01:17:39] Speaker B: I was going to say I feel like there's something to this here that before you're, like, I would talk to Taylor Shabusiness or whatever, she gruesomely murdered someone and loved it and has no remorse about it. That should be a non starter, but there's something there that you are relating to which I think also we kind of talked about and when I finish this, we'll come back around to the empathy conversation. But the first time that we talked about this, that was one of the things that we discussed was like, does our being able to understand a motive impact the degree to which we feel empathy towards someone which innocent? That's what empathy is. Right. Like being able to put yourself in someone else's position. But yeah, I think that's an interesting thought there. Yeah. Love to watch people die. Moved to Ohio State Medical Center and colleagues noticed that people who were in more or less stable condition would suddenly drop dead during his shift. And to their credit in this case, upon hearing this, the hospital canceled his residency. Good. [01:18:54] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, cool. But if you think someone is maybe killing people, simply firing them doesn't seem like enough, doesn't it? Right. It's like the thing with tahre and the eating a baby thing. It's like they kicked hospital, but you think he ate a child. Shouldn't you follow up follow up a little bit on that? Yeah. So they canceled his residency, but they did not do anything further. And because this was the before the Internet, it was really easy to just sort of pick up and move somewhere else and carry on what you were doing. [01:19:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:36] Speaker B: And that would end up kind of being his Mo. Initially, he moved back to his hometown in Illinois, and he became an EMT. But and Mark, this is absolutely insane. He poisoned his own colleagues in the ambulance with arsenic. [01:19:54] Speaker A: In the ambulance? [01:19:55] Speaker B: In the ambulance with arsenic. [01:20:00] Speaker A: No respect for that at all. [01:20:02] Speaker B: No. And this put him behind bars for aggravated battery for five years, which, again, feels pretty lenient for trying to murder five people here. [01:20:14] Speaker A: It's the lack of self control that I have issues with. If you enjoy it that much, pal, space them out. [01:20:24] Speaker B: Right. Like doing something like that, where it's like, who else are they going to think did it, buddy? [01:20:30] Speaker A: Exactly. Space them out. Because now you've got greedy and you've had a load at once, and now you're not going to be able to do it anymore. [01:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah. It's just myopic is what that is. It's impulsive. I mean, that's the thing with most of these people, is there has to be a degree of impulsivity to it, because obviously there are serial killers who are planners. That is a thing. But with a lot of this kind of stuff, there's a degree to which, like, I have to do it, and I and I will do it. And I think that's true of all murderers. Right. Like, even if you have planned this long term whatever, you are following an impulse that you know you shouldn't be. And he is just a particularly impulsive person. [01:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Super impulsive. [01:21:14] Speaker B: Once he got out of prison in 1989, he moved on to Virginia and then South Dakota. And in both places, he just kind of forged his way into medical practice. He wrote on documents that he had been in jail for two years for a misdemeanor after fighting with coworkers instead of five years for trying to kill them. [01:21:37] Speaker A: They weren't successful, were they? [01:21:38] Speaker B: No, none of them, actually. He even went so far as to fake a letter from the Governor of Virginia claiming that his rights to vote and serve on a jury had been restored, which is a lot. [01:21:54] Speaker A: Well, again, thorough. You're getting greedy, mate. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Right. But yeah, background checks not being what they are today, they pretty much just accepted those things. [01:22:06] Speaker A: Here's a letter from the President governor. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. Yeah. The Queen says that he's actually a model citizen, and she's considering knighting him. [01:22:17] Speaker A: Drops it on his own doormat. Oh, what's this? [01:22:23] Speaker B: And in South Dakota, he, at least on the surface, seemed to be behaving. Obviously, we can't know for sure whether or not he was killing people on the slide, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it. And he probably could have stayed there at least for a while, except that he got cocky and decided to apply to the American Medical Association, a group which conducts far more extensive background checks than hospitals generally did, and was immediately, uh, no, you tried to murder people. [01:22:50] Speaker A: The letter from the governor is in your writing. [01:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah, right. So in 1994, he fled to Zimbabwe, the Jig being up on him in the United States. And according to Bruce Sackman, who is an investigator on this case, quote, when he was there, he killed men and women and children, everyone. The medical staff in Zimbabwe were competent, though, and they started to realize that something was going on, and they tried to charge him, but he beat the charges, which is, like, to me, I think, incredible, because I think people always go, like, oh, Africa, when they think of poor hospitals, things like that. Like, oh, they need white people to go over and fix things. [01:23:41] Speaker A: The infrastructure. [01:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah, right. And in Zimbabwe, the medical professionals figured him out and turned him in. They didn't try to pass him along to someone. They put him through the like, this guy is murdering people. So they were far ahead of these American hospitals that just kind of bounced him around. He was arrested upon returning to the US to renew his passport, though, and while they couldn't initially get him on murder, they could hold him because he'd lied on legal documents. So they locked him up, and they started digging, and it was then that they found an unsettling pattern behind him going all the way back to med school. Wherever he went, south Dakota sighed. People died when he was around. Quote, at various stops during his career, some colleagues had reported seeing swango inject patients with an unknown substance shortly before they died. It was reported on another occasion that he emerged from a dying patient's room with a smile on his face. According to Sackman, quote, I've heard and I've read and we've discussed that it was somewhere in the vicinity of 60 people. [01:24:51] Speaker A: Wow. [01:24:52] Speaker B: Medical serial killers kill so many people that even when they cooperate, they can't even remember. Yeah, that's a wild thing to say. [01:25:02] Speaker A: It is. [01:25:02] Speaker B: These guys are so prolific at killing, they honestly don't even know how many times they've done it. [01:25:09] Speaker A: Like brushing your teeth, to use the British example of the good Dr. Shipman. [01:25:16] Speaker B: Right. [01:25:17] Speaker A: Went to his grave, man. No real clear picture of the number of his victims. [01:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no way for us to know that. [01:25:26] Speaker A: It's been suggested, like, 200 and 5300 victims. [01:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And we'd have no idea. [01:25:33] Speaker A: None. [01:25:34] Speaker B: And nor would he, probably. That's what's so bananas. So in the end, Swango is only tried and convicted for four of those deaths. Because the thing about medical murders is they are super hard to yeah. [01:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:49] Speaker B: Most people who come into the hospital, especially the ones who are being targeted by guys like this, are sick. So it's difficult to say that the person definitely wouldn't have died without outside intervention, even if it seems clear that that's the case. This difficulty is part of why Dr. William Hughesel may have gotten away with killing 25 patients. Although, again, we can never really know for sure. Hughesel was on trial in Ohio in 2019 in one of the largest murder cases in the state's history. It was alleged that between 2015 and 2018, he had been over prescribing lethal doses of opioids, including fentanyl, to his patients. According to the prosecutor, many of the patients to whom these drugs were prescribed were not alert when they were admitted. Thus, quote, there would be no legitimate medical reason to administer opioids as painkillers. If someone's not feeling pain because they're not alert, why would you prescribe them opioids? In one case, an 82 year old woman with stomach pain was ordered 2000 micrograms of fentanyl about five minutes before she died, according to a lawsuit. Quote, such an amount of the synthetic opioid would be 20 times higher than what would be appropriate for a patient, depending on their size and circumstance. It's posited that even though everyone would have known that was an unhinged amount of fentanyl to give someone, he either persuaded people into accepting it or they felt they didn't have the authority to overrule him. It's not great. Murder is a difficult charge to prove. And Hughesl, for his part, exercised his right to remain silent and not incriminate himself. Meaning the prosecution was missing a hugely important method for convincing juries a motive. Why the fuck would a doctor intentionally cause people to overdose on fentanyl? [01:27:49] Speaker A: 200 times the lethal dose, 2020 times? Oh, 20. Sorry, still? [01:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, too many times. Double. Okay, you fucked up something. You wrote it down wrong. 20 times. Come on. [01:28:05] Speaker A: It strains credulity, doesn't it? [01:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:28:09] Speaker A: To the point where colleague after colleague after colleague coming across heinous fuck ups like this and just simply fucking passing the buck over and over again. Like you said, one colleague doing this. All right, fair enough, I get it. But people talk, surely fuck people share their experiences and share their findings. It is insane to think that that can happen. [01:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah, because, you know, you know, he prescribes 2000 micrograms of fentanyl. People are in the room. You know, they leave that room and they go, holy shit, did you see how much he just prescribed? And then this just keeps happening and people keep dying, like, Come the fuck on here. But, yeah, without motive, all you can really say is that maybe he was just really bad at his job. But incompetence is not the same thing as murder. [01:29:08] Speaker A: No. [01:29:09] Speaker B: According to CNN, over 50 witnesses testified for the prosecution, including doctors, nurses and administrative employees of Mount Carmel Hospital West, where Husel worked as the night ICU physician. Family members detailed the stories of their loved ones declining quickly once at the hospital, as well as their experiences with Huezel and the ICU. Experts also told the court that the large fentanyl doses Huusel gave to patients caused their deaths and were intended to accelerate the dying process, which in and of itself counts as murder. There's multiple sort of analogies that people use to describe this, but basically one of them was that say you have a candle. If you leave a candle, it'll eventually burn itself out, but you can hasten it by snuffing it, and if you snuff that candle out, it is your responsibility, right? And that that's essentially like, maybe these people would have died, but he snuffed that candle out rather than letting it burn out naturally. [01:30:12] Speaker A: And that, of course. [01:30:16] Speaker B: The jury struggled to come to a verdict before ultimately finding him not guilty, since they felt his guilt couldn't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. As multiple articles I read about murderous doctors pointed out, these situations are hard to prove, both in a court of law and within a hospital. Hospitals tend to take the side of the offending doctor, if only to avoid major lawsuits that would ensue if they acknowledged, we've got a murderer working here, and this disempowers other medical professionals from reporting their suspicions in the first place. It's more likely that they'll see retaliation than that the doctor will see any sort of consequence. So people just kind of keep their mouth shut. But there is at least one case where it may have worked the opposite way, that of British nurse Colin Norris. In 2008, Norris was convicted of the murder of four patients in the attempted murder of a fifth, and he was dubbed the serial killer nurse. The patients had died of hypoglycemia, a condition in which blood sugar drops dangerously low, and at the time, experts testified that incidences of this were exceedingly rare, especially in a cluster like the one that had apparently occurred at the hospital in which he worked. It was alleged that Norris had either been present during or shortly before these hypoglycemic attacks and therefore must be responsible for them. For their part, the jury wasn't entirely convinced he was convicted by a majority verdict, which means that at least one juror felt he was not guilty, which I don't know if that's a thing here. I think they all have to agree. [01:32:05] Speaker A: I didn't realize it was a thing here. I thought that a verdict had to be unanimous here too. [01:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe there are exceptions here. I don't know. I've never heard of this. But apparently this is a thing, at least in Britain, and now that conviction is being more broadly challenged, as medical experts say that what happened is actually not that rare at all. It was claimed at the time that Norris would have had to have injected these patients with insulin before their deaths to induce hypoglycemia, and that this doesn't just happen spontaneously in patients who don't have diabetes, and none of these patients did. The motive given was simply that he didn't like elderly people, and the similarity in Mo to good old Dr. Shipman probably didn't endear him to anyone and played into people's fears about these angel of death medical professionals as often as the case. When it comes to using science in the courtroom, though, a lot of it is either guesswork guesswork assumptions or just straight up fucking wrong. Yes, and actually, I think that would make a great episode. I'd love to talk about why so much of forensic science is absolute bullshit and how watching police procedurals has us thinking all of this is settled fact. This makes us shitty juries, because if an expert takes the stand and explains the science to us, we take it at face value, because, duh, they can tell this stuff, but they can't. [01:33:35] Speaker A: Certainly one to discuss with our dear Eileen when she next graces us with an episode. [01:33:41] Speaker B: Well, she's got enough on her plate for the next episode that she's going. [01:33:43] Speaker A: To be on, which will be mid. [01:33:45] Speaker B: October, but we can definitely put that as a one for Eileen later on. Yeah. In the decade plus, like I said, since Collins went to prison, medical knowledge about hypoglycemia has apparently shifted and it's now accepted that it does in fact happen spontaneously, particularly to elderly patients, whether or not they have diabetes. Further, a good chunk of Collins'case hinged on the fact that he was present during all of these episodes, but it turns out that there were several other such cases in the hospital around that time when he wasn't on duty at all. They simply hadn't mentioned those in the initial trial. BBC Scotland investigations correspondent Mark Daly said of Norris's conviction, quote, from my own perspective, having investigated miscarriage cases for more than a decade, this is one of the most troubling cases I have ever seen. Now, to be clear, I am not actually saying that Colin Norris didn't do it. I have no idea. I read some solid arguments to his guilt and he really did seem to be pretty unpleasant about old people and had a history of other crimes like theft, including robbing his own father. Dude's. Not exactly a model citizen, I'll grant. [01:35:00] Speaker A: However, I have at least two friends who believe that there's a chance that Lucy Leppy is innocent. [01:35:07] Speaker B: There you go. [01:35:08] Speaker A: Right, aside from the kind of the common denominator defense. Right. It's all circumstantial, of course. [01:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Again, this is why all of this stuff is hard to prove, because there is no like unless you see well, people did see lucy let me standing over dying babies. But unless you watched her do it, there's always doubt. But yeah, this guy not a model citizen. But there's two things I think worth mentioning here in wrapping up our Hospital Hell series for one. One of the true horrors of stuff like this is how hard it is to sniff it out. Some things look like crimes that aren't, some things don't look like crimes that are. And sometimes it's really hard to convince people to intervene when something terrible is going on. As we've said many times, when you're ill or injured, you're at your most vulnerable. And it's unsettling to think that sometimes really bad people have control over whether we live or die. But the Colin Norris case also brings us back to empathy. Because, let's be real, he seems kind of shitty. And it can be a lot harder to fight for someone who's a giant asshole than someone whose story tugs at our heartstrings. It's easy to care when someone seems perfectly innocent or when they're only guilty of one small thing but have otherwise lived a blameless life. We can empathize with someone who steals out of desperation or kills out of self defense. When it comes to a guy who hates old people and steals from his own family, it doesn't exactly make you fired up. To make sure that justice has been served, I recently looked up a pen pal program for inmates on death row. Nice. And there was one woman who the profile really made me like, super sad. When I read it, she had written something along the lines of it feels like everyone has forgotten about me. So I Googled her after Know and it turned out that she and her boyfriend had committed some violent sexual crimes and murders of women together. Like kind of a like Carla Hamolka and Paul Bernardo kind of situation. Like really terrible rapey. They like the crimes were so heinous they'd even been discussed on at least one television crime show. There are folks, including her, who see her as a victim of a manipulative partner who would never have done these things on her own, but the fact remains that she did them seemingly gleefully. So does it still make me sad that she feels forgotten in prison? I don't know. Sort of. A part of me thinks no one deserves to feel that way. But then I certainly don't feel any particular sadness at the thought of Russell Brand dying sad and alone. It's complicated, Marco. Are these guys who murder vulnerable people they're supposed to help the worst of the worst? Maybe. But I don't know. What do you think. [01:38:14] Speaker A: There is? Almost a checklist is the wrong word. But there is a collection of circumstances which place people further and further and further away from my empathy. And that things like premeditation things like are you preying on somebody who is already vulnerable? Are you leveraging kind of power imbalances? Are you ill? And it's almost like my own personal kind of it's almost like my own personal kind of beliefs that I need to go down and tick them off or cross them off. And I don't do this consciously with every fucking case that I read about. It's something that happens on its own. But there's always a kind of a reckoning in the back of my head when I'm reading about horrific cases like this. If it contains kind of like my own personal checklist of heinous shit, if you're doing all that, I don't know how can I guess what I'm arriving at here is that I don't think empathy is automatic and and expected because there are cases where I don't think it's deserved. [01:39:46] Speaker B: Sure. It's interesting. I mean, this is the thing we'll. [01:39:50] Speaker A: Come back to is it always deserved? Is empathy always implied? [01:39:54] Speaker B: It's the question, isn't it? Right. [01:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:39:57] Speaker B: And to what end? Right? I mean, the thing know, I think we sort of brought it back to with Dr. Ben Duff and Jones and all this kind of stuff. Is this idea of the limits of our empathy then also potentially mean the limits of our capacity to understand when it's wrong to treat people poorly, including in incarceration. And that being sort of the center of this. If we believe some people are beyond our empathy, what can you do to. [01:40:28] Speaker A: Them once you, on the other hand, the most horrific, fucking far removed from relatability kind of case? I still don't believe that capital punishment or cruel and unusual punishments are called for. I don't believe that that extends to any human. [01:40:48] Speaker B: Right. Maybe there's something there that has to do with and maybe that's kind of what empathy entails too. I don't need to be able to put myself in that person's shoes, and I don't need to understand it to understand that a human should not be put through certain things. Yes, but that's tough. And I think for a lot that's not a given. Obviously, for a lot of Americans, the idea of capital punishment seems perfectly natural. And even the kinds of beatings and things like that that people get in. [01:41:26] Speaker A: Prison like that seem perfectly natural enough to be endorsed by my God. [01:41:33] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Precisely that. So I think this is just an interesting sort of journey that we've taken. And like I said, we'll keep returning to this because I think it's never going to be a thing we've completely got a handle on. But for people who are entrusted with our care to betray it so much is certainly a test of how much. [01:41:56] Speaker A: It'S one of the biggest it's one of the biggest tests. Yeah. [01:41:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. So let us know your thoughts, dear listeners, on this. We hope you've enjoyed this journey. Next week, I don't know what we'll talk about, but we're out of the hospital. [01:42:10] Speaker A: We're all better. We're going home. [01:42:12] Speaker B: We're all better. Yeah. We're going to go home and rest for a while. So thank you so much for listening to Jack of All Graves and coming along on the joag journey. As always, you can find us on all the socials except for Twitter at Jack of All Graves. [01:42:27] Speaker A: I'm never calling it X, by the way. I'm not absolutely. I'm not going to dignify it. [01:42:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we've had this conversation at Wisecrack, too. Do we just keep calling it Twitter? Yeah. Check out our YouTube. Check out the lay down podcast, which anything else that they should do, dear. [01:42:43] Speaker A: Marco, they should stay spooky and we'll fucking see you next week. [01:42:47] Speaker B: Here, here.