Somebody Call An Arborist!: Tree Killers

Maybe you’re looking to get back at someone. Maybe that fine root structure is standing in the way of your upcoming financial boon. Or maybe you don’t like the cut of that tree’s xylem and phloem. Whatever the reason and whatever the chosen method, approaching a tree with murderous intent is just plain ridiculous. And it’s way, way out of bounds.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you they Elizabeth were? I was looking for you.
What's all right? I got a question for you?

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Me up here? Yeah, he knows what's ridiculous?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
I do you do? Yeah? I does know it. I
learned so much today.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
What did you learn today?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
The interns?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
You look tired.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah. The interns came to me with tears in their eyes, ma'am, ma'am,
and they said, we we got something from Marianna today.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Mariana today, huh and are you going to get me wrong?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Marianna apparently she apologized to the interns for having to
make this them look this up, but like it's not
that bad, really good. But so they brought this to
me and they're like this was amazing. Marianna is great,
oh really okay. But the thing is, it's like, okay, so,
do you know what a mook bong is?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Bong m u k b A n G sounds familiar? No,
I would say no.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
It's one of those videos like people eat something on
the video and talk about the food they're eating. It's
like a TikTok. Yeah, exactly. It comes from the Korean.
They're like, you know, and so like you're you're eating this,
and then sometimes you're like, wait a second, I my
lipstick's gonna get all messed up if I eat this

(01:19):
on the television. So there's another thing I learned about
called micro blading.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
You're just full of learning today, aren't you.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh gosh. It's like a temporary tattoo process where they
like put on lips color or like eyebrows. It's not
like getting them tattooed on you. It fades.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So there's this company Wonderskin, and they do something that
is called wonder blading. So it's even less permanent than
the microblading. It's just lasts like ten hours. Look at
me blading, Yeah, exactly. And so they're like, you know
what if you're going to do these videos where you're

(02:03):
just shoving food in your ma, but you also want
to look super cute and you don't want your lipstick
to either be eaten while you're eating the food or
rub off all over you, we should help. And then
there is a company that's like, we want people to
make videos of them eating our food, but like, I
don't think.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Anyone's going to on this one.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
So these two companies Wonderskin. They made this lip thing
and you put it on and you have to let
it sit for a little bit and then you you like,
peel it off. I think, well, yeah, I think you
peel it and then yeah, you peel it off, and
then there's like a color underneath. So the it goes

(02:48):
on in a metallic green color and then you peel
it off and it's a lovely rosy color. They teamed
up because they wanted it to look like it's an
ode to guacamole and tinfoil. So it's not from like
the the like God's gift to Burrito's al Farlito. No,

(03:12):
this was this is a chain Chipotle. Chipotle joined up
with Wonderskin to do a transfer proof guawk proof lip
color and it's called Lipotle.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
It's not called lip bang.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's called Liipotle. And it's for when you're doing a
mook bung and you want, like you you know, want
to stay fresh lasts all day. It's a formula that
is hydrating and then you just take it off with
a regular oil based cleanser. Unlike Chipotle, it's a vegan,
cruelty free and gluten free, So you got that going

(03:50):
for you while you're there.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
They're bringing that to the Mashupe exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
God seemed like nice up front. This is ridiculous, Elizabeth.
You tell me my eyes are up here, Look up here, Elizabeth,
trying to kill a tree.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
That is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
To get back at a person, or maybe a lot
of people, or maybe to improve your life or to
improve your asset portfolio.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Oh boy, all right.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Elizabeth, today I'm going to use up all of our
one percent. But we're only talking about tree murder only.

(04:42):
This is it is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd
and outrageous capers. Heis and cons it's always ninety nine
percent murder free and ridiculous. How did you, Elizabeth sar
Remember when I told you about the Great Sheffield Tree War?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yes, I do, right, All.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Those silver hairs were throwing themselves at the trunks of
the trees to protect them, protect their beloved arbors from
the choppers. Yeah right now, the wood chopper that is.
Remember you were a cat and you witnessed the early
morning raid where the tree removers came in like a
military operation.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Okay, it took a couple of years off my life.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I read it, Did you looked stressed? Harry One? I
would say, in that instance, the trees they were being
massacred by local authorities in this senseless fight over who
ran the streets of Sheffield, some who controlled the leaf
is green edge. But today I have a much different
version of them. Okay, today we'll be focusing not on
state based anti tree violence, a term I just coined. Instead, rather,

(05:43):
we will be focusing on freelance arbor assassins, self appointed
tree surgeons, and anti leaf crimes of opportunity are boris
side boy, there you go. We're just throwing terms around.
I like this coined Elizabeth. You ever seen a grand, tall,
old tree removed? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
It's a sadness to right, it really is.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Okay, now flipping it. Have you ever seen a tree
that's been poisoned? Yes? You have?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
I have?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay, how heartbreaking? Was that?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Really heartbreaking? Because it's it's usually for like selfish means
people want to view and so they poison a tree totally.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Or say, say the people own the tree, right, it's
their tree, and they still poison it because they want
to take it down. Yeah, yeah, even that's sad it is.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Did you poisoning of any type of sad saren.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Poisoning of life is sad.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Any kind of poisoning in life is sad.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Dose makes the poison, right,
Even water can be a poison. Well, there are a
few ways to kill a tree, Okay, I looked into it.
I wanted to be able to speak with a thorough tare. Okay,
so one you can ring it? Did you know about this?
You know what this means? Ringing a tree?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Refresh meat?

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Okay? Well, the way we have veins and arteries and
capillarias and also are lymph ducts that convey all the
precious fluids of our body around, like all in circulation. Well,
trees they have analogs. Right. Trees have skin just like us.
Their skin we call bark.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
I call my skin bark.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I know you do. I wish you wouldn't, But it's
just like our epidermis. Right, It's a combination of dead
and living cells that together function as this protective layer.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
So, now, scientists, those amongst us who study trees and plants,
they have terms for all the stuff that's inside the
tree bark. They break it into layers or rings, if
you will. So what's in the side the tree bark?
They call that the like vascular cambium. Right, don't worry,
I won't be throwing a bunch of Latin terms at you.
Nothing you have to remember. But I do know you
prefer ancient Greek terms. Sure, so I got some of those,

(07:39):
all right. So while we're on the subject, the ancient
Greek term is floios, which was a word for tree bark.
The Greek words for tree bark, which was the inspiration
for this next bit of fun tree science. I want
to tell you the inner cambium layers, Elizabeth. So you
have these layers of skin, right, just like we have
layers of scan, trees of layers of scan. That's their bark.
And inside your skin you have your corpus, that meat
sack of all everything that's inside the skin, right, all

(08:02):
your squishy bits. Well, it's this mass of muscles and
tendons and ligaments and soft tissue joints, organs. Right, The
recently discovered interstitionum are newest part. Look it up. Most importantly,
you have this network of nerves and a system of
veins and arteries, capillaries, and the lymph ducks, right do
we talked about well, trees, as I said, basically the
same thing, but it's in rings. So the rings go,

(08:23):
that's where there's squishy bits. Are you with me so far? Okay?
So inside the tree skin, inside their bark, you will
find this first ring of tissue called flow them. That's
from the ancient Preek term flowios p h l oios.
Now doesn't it sound like what it is? Flow them right?
Flow right? So it's this network of veins that feeds
sugar as in sucrose like basic sugar, table sugar, which

(08:46):
is the product of a tree's photosynthesis. So the veins
are distributing sugar from the leaves where the photosynthesis is occurring,
and it goes down throughout the rest of the tree. Right,
So that's that ring of flowam. Now, next inside you
find the ring of xylum tissue. Yeah, these are the
only two I'm gonna tell you about, so no worry.
That's it. That's the last one, flom and xylum. The
xylum This is a network of veins that distribute the

(09:07):
water from the roots to the rest of the tree.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
So xylum comes from an ancient Greek term elizabeth xylon yes, exactly,
and which was the ancient Greek word for wood. So
we've got bark and wood. Anyways, it seems fitting. So
we got flohm and xylom. Now I like to think
of these sugar arteries and the water veins. We keep
it easy, okay, right, So this all all we learned
all this stuff from one guy, This guy Carl Nagali.

(09:33):
You never heard of him. I didn't know about him, right,
Like I knew some of these plant tree scientists people
like you know, like Mendel and stuff, but not this guy.
He came up with all the language we have for
tree parts, these three he's he was big into pollination,
mixed legacy and history though. Yeah. For one, he's all
into trees and plants things, right, But then he also
goes he talks to his fellow scientist, Gregor Mendel, that

(09:54):
monk who was working with the peas.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, he convinced him to abandon his work on genetics.
It's like Mendel, I give up the peas man, it's
going nowhere, right, the guy who gives us the seeds
of genetic theory. So Negali, he writes to Mendel these
letters right in a hope of persuading the monk to
give up on his early genetics work, because the dude Nagali.
He believes that evolution was not the record of life's sloppy, messy,

(10:18):
ongoing quest to better itself. No, no, no, which is
what we think of natural selection as Yeah, he believed
that nature had quote a inner perfect principle. Okay, well,
you have to understand he's writing to a monk. They're
both really religious. He believed that God's work would be
far more organized than what Mendel is putting forward. He's
basically saying, you're muddying up God's name, suggesting that God
would rely on all this happenstance and chaos. So that's

(10:40):
why he got mad at him. Anyway, the result was
Mendel's absolutely correct theory for genetics gets shunted, is pushed
off to the side. His gardening studies in the eighteen
fifties and eighteen sixties, they go nowhere, He's out there
in this monastery raising p's. Other monks are like, what
are you doing. I'm doing science, guys, and feeding the
monks nuts. Anyway, his whole this stuff about the inheritance
of traits of peas. Right, that all gets totally missed

(11:03):
for until the early twentieth century, all because of this
guy who also tells us all about trees. Yeah, so
he's like, my name's good, but I'm gonna try it anyway.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
So he was a special interest voter, a single issue.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Vote for our purposes. This cat and aagally, he's a
true tree freak, right, So using his language of flowam
and xylum, this is how you get to kill a tree, right,
It's all about the flow and the xylum. You can
ring a tree, which means if you cut into the
bark and you remove that external bark that we think
of as bark, then you cut in a little further
and you make a ring all the way around the tree,

(11:37):
just like an inch or two inches you know, I
guess tall wide. I don't know how you'd want to
think of it like a ribbon cut, you know, right. Yeah,
you go in deep enough to get into those soft
inner rings, you'll break up the flow them and the xylum,
and the tree will just start to die because you
cut off the connection to the roots, and the leaves
can't get water from the trunks of the and the roots,
and it can't get sugar from the leaves. Tree dies.

(11:59):
All you have to do is just ring that right,
So that's one way tree killers operate. He may not
like this next one, Elizabeth. It's a little more violent.
You get out of drill and you go to town
like your man Huck from Scandal.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Oh god.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, you drill holes and you pour in poison and
herbicide like round up, and you don't go for all
that fancy chemical war Yeah, you can go with also
the good old fashioned standby gasoline or get the petroleum distill.
It's really ebs and salts. Maybe I don't know about
that one.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
He people who get rid of tree stumps that way
and you pour that seems very natural. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
I had old paint boss, Elizabeth back when I was
a house painter, and he had a stump in his
backyard and a BlackBerry bramble, and you know about those,
neither of which could he kill off. So he was
engaged in this long prolonged chemical warfare battle with the
BlackBerry bramble.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
You just have to let go into the BlackBerry brand
and enjoy it's there.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's you now have BlackBerry, and.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Thank god, it's like my favorite fruit.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
His whole fence was a black perry bramble, so he
would also he would he had that stump as well,
right was in the center's backyard. He hit that thing
with paint thinner like from old job sites NAPFA, which
is like one of the craziest petroleum the still its right.
Then one time we poured muriatic acid on it from
a job. We were pulling the paint off a floor,
off a cement floor. He would drain any chemicals he

(13:20):
had in his garage. He wanted to get rid of stump,
all right, Yeah, poor Davis. Now this thing would not
die right. The stump just kept going. So he started
cutting into it, right, and then he would like then
green shoots would sprunt out and get all math. I was.
I was not aware. I don't. I would want to
say it was like some type of fruit tree, but

(13:41):
I don't remember. It's a big big stump. Was this big,
like like big like I would see, like I'm trying
to think of something as a.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Comparative, like a manhole cover.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Bigger's little bigger than a manhole cover. Like it was
a big daddy like yeah, like real real wide. Right,
So and this thing is basically using these tree fresh
green tree shoots to give my boss the middle finger.
So like I show up, he's all pistol look on
that tree and I'm like, O, looks great. He's like, no, no,
the stump's a triumph. Yeah, exactly right. So he would
mix up chemicals basically like a bomb maker and just

(14:13):
keep pouring them on this stump, and then a week
or two later more green shoots like this is a
He's like, I loved the tree, and I loved how
much it made my old paint boss Larry shout out
to Larry how much he would just go nuts, right,
But anyway, he moved on to the third thing you
can do, which is expose the roots and douse them
in poison. So he tried that. He dumped raw toxic
waste in his backyard. For a while.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
People and Davis have to only like drink out of
a brit of water flow.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
That's because of the agricultural run. But it's a Larry Yeah,
he had big time boomer energy where he's like everyone
does this. I'm like, yeah, from Texas, nobody does this
out here. Anyway, When that failed to work in the stump,
now now it's like no longer flat top. You can't
even use it as like, Oh it's a stump, I
can sit on it, talk to a kid. No, it's
a pock marked battlefield, but partially exposed, fully defiant moss

(14:59):
and roots and stuff and the stub of this trunk
right anyway, at this point, he gets down to brute force, right,
so he went at the exposed roots with a chainsaw,
and then the root ball is basically too big to
pull out, so he's got a sauce all he's trying
to get down to it. He took that tree stump down,
chunk by chunk, bit by bed till finally we sell
you the top of like the whole top of the

(15:19):
root ball. And he realizes that's way more work than
I'm willing to do. So he's like, this tree will
outlive us all God bless and he gave up right
then and there right, grabbed his shovel and started covering
the exposed roots. Left. I bet if you went to
that backyard Davis and I could take it to the
house today, you would find a tree growing that exact
same spot, possibly a circle, a small circle of trees growing. Anyway,

(15:43):
This is where I learned from those big, loud, rolling
thunderstorms you have in the South in the summer that
the only real way to take out a tree is
to saturate the hell out of the ground and then
knock it over somehow winderic. You know, another tree falls
on it. Yeah, you can go full lumberjacket, you know,
kind of cut into one side, pull out the saws,
cut it down, or you know, you know, if you can,

(16:03):
you want then you want to aim for a spot
like that's much more difficult. But he could out the
ropes and cables. You can yank those suckers down.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
The guys who cut down trees like that are total artists.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Oh my god. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I watch them drop it, the precision of.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
It, and the good ones use ropes they can really
guide it down. And then some of them. I've watched
guys with just the spikes and they're up there slaying
with it and dropping it exactly where they want. I
prefer more a little more serious horsepower. I want a
truck or attractor to pull the tree down. That's me.
I come from the South. But also, as you know
from the South, what a lightning strike will do to
a tree. Yeah, it will just blow the tree up. Yeah,

(16:38):
And you know how it happens. The flow them in
the xylom the water instantly boils and then the pressure
inside just explodes apart the tracks. It superheats, the super boils,
so you know, Or you could do what my old
paint boss Larry would have done, if he could have
in California. And you get yourself some old tree stump
remover or as he would call it, dynamite, or I'd

(16:59):
call it TNT. Now you take that TNT and you
see ignited with a detonation of some sort of kaboom,
you blow the hell out of the tree. Now, that's
the way he did it back in Texas, at least
that's what he'd tell me. In the backyard. In California,
that wasn't possible, so he bemoaned lament. He wasn't in
the lone Star Republic seat of the Bear Republic anyway.
So that's what we're talking about today, Elizabeth, folks who'd

(17:20):
like to kill a trade. So take a little break
when we get back.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
You've given me all these like funny folksy stories to
soften me up.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
So yeah, and that we're too bad, No, I'm trying
to like, let you see that the humor in it all. Now,
we're gonna kill some trees. I'm sorry and we're back

(17:55):
by Hi. Sorry apples, Hey those are good? Did you
slice this? Do you have any orange slices too? So
as we've covered us the house, now let's get into
the who and the why of true right. Often when
it comes to tree killing, much like murder, it's someone
the victim knows. Yeah, now that is if a tree
can know someone, I don't know what that means. So

(18:16):
you know what I mean. It's like typically someone close
to the tree, maybe that's a better way to put it,
or more specifically a neighbor usually. So there's this one
story I found a fifty one year old woman, Elizabeth
living in. Her name was not Elizabeth, your name is,
my name is, but she was living in Madiskin, Madiskin, Madison, Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, anyway, Madiskin is like the Portmanteau.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
You don't want to go to Madiskin, just trust me. Anyway,
Elizabeth Madison, lovely town, but Madiskin, forget about it. Anyway,
This woman, she loved her cottonwood tree. You know anything
about cottonwoo tree is a nice tree. This leafy beauty
grew in her backyard where she had planted it a
decade earlier. Now, this bad boy was thirty feet tall.
Dang all right, grand old lady of a tree so

(18:59):
well it would gaze out into her backyard and admire
all that green foliage and like that was like in
the spring. Obviously in the summer, she would appreciate the shade.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
I'm gonna look up a cottonwood tree.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Keep going. She would also then, like in the summer,
you know, admire the shade of the tree. And then
come fall, she would enjoy the dropping of the leaves
that the cat can yeah that winter. Yeah, And then
she she's it's as her tree slept through the winter,
so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
I'm looking at it.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
It's limbs, barren and empty, only to have then the
promise of news fresh spring growth to look forward to.
She loved this tree in all of its many ways
and shapes and sizes, right, I guess forms Anyway, one spring,
just as this newly grown spring leaves were popping out,
She's all excited. She noticed her tree seemed to be
in ill health. She's like, what the heck, this is spring.
I don't understand what could be possibly wrong. Just as

(19:46):
the new growth emerged, Elizabeth, it soon began to fall,
like it just skipped right over summer.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
These leaves within a short time of popping out, they
grow a little bit and then they chart to turn green.
Then they kind of will wither and drop. She was like,
she then thought about it. She's like, this is not nature.
This is only one thing typically, but you'll see those
the symptoms are different. This was the whole tree all

(20:11):
at once.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
There was no like hanging like moss or like in
nothing that was like some kind of like area. When
you see tree diseases, there's usually an indicated area, right, Yeah,
this case, it's just dropping leaves, like the whole thing's
being starved or poisoned. So some woman she calls the
police in tears, Elizabeth. You see, she suspected her next
door neighbor was trying to kill her beloved cottonwood tree.
The police that come out to her house, because it's Wisconsin,

(20:34):
they got nothing better to do. They're like, yeah, let's
go do it. I'm kidding, I know. So that she
they tell her, right, what's going on? Ma'am, like, you
called us, what can we do? G it's on my tree.
They're like, oh, let's get to the bottom of this.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Was it dropping all that cotton in her in the
neighbor's yard some kind of guessing. So messy trees, they
are a.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Bit of a messy dropper, we'll say, right. So she
believed her next door neighbor wanted her tree dead. The
cops are like, let's go talk to them. You can
stay here, ma'am. They go next door, they speak to
the neighbor, the cops. While they're there, they spot in
the backyard a small white funnel and it was quote
protruding from one of four holes on top of the
root with a tinted residue inside the funnel. A short
distance away sat a container with a chemical smelling liquid inside.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
So the roots went into the neighbor's yard.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, exposed roots in the neighbor's yard. But you do
test that, right, It was written in cops speaks. It
may have been a little bit weird. But the neighbor
had drilled a hole in the tree root that extended,
as you noticed, into his backyard. He then used a
funnel to pour some horrendous chemical concoction into the tree
to kill it. The funnel was still sitting there in
the pouring position in the tree root when the cops
arrive at his door, right on.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
The side of the plastic funnel. Tree poison only totally
kitchen yea Now.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
When the cops asked about the drilled hole the toxic chemicals,
the funnel still propped up in the root. Wait for it, Elizabeth.
According to the Madison Police quote, at first, the neighboring
property owner said he didn't know what the officer was
talking about. Sir, turn around, it's right there. So when
the cops were really to like, we can see the funnel,
bro It's like, buddy, come on, come on, man, the root.

(22:03):
If you're treat neighbor's tree, you come on. He's like
all right now, as the Madison PD reported quote, he
later conceded the liquid in the container could be round up,
but he felt he didn't break any laws because everything
that had happened was on his property. He's trying to
act like a tree's roots. Come like, what are you
a child? Anyway? This neighbor was a fifty nine year
old man. The cop cited him for criminal damage. The

(22:24):
woman who'd planted and raised this cotton went try told
the police. Quote, if the person had a problem with
the root or any plant encroaching on his or her property,
they could have come to her and worked out some
type of resolution.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Now, instead the tree was killed in a cost alone
a few thousand dollars to have it removed.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
She might have planted it a little close to the
lot line.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Oh but yeah, but I'm taking it's something that some
conversation could be had pay.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
For the half of the problems in this world. Yeah,
seventy the problems in this world I'm not talking about
like geopolitical no interperson in people's lives could be solved
with just speaking plainly, speaking up when it bothers you,
without you know, coloring it with emotion or any kind
of stuff like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
And also it's being honest about how you feel to
the to the extent that you feel and to the
person who's making you feel the way you feel.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, and that it's not a personal affront when people
bring things to your attention exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, you know, so that's how we can play out
on a small scale. Now, however, there are larger coordinated
efforts to remove trees. Typically those efforts are led by
fat cat developers, greed head house flippers, the people you
like to call violently wealthy. Yes, right, So, last year
the Washington Post published a story about how in the
nation's capital, the stately old trees were under attack by developers.

(23:38):
Two grand old white oak trees, each one hundred inches
in circumference. Big daddies had penny sized holes drilled into
their exposed roots, then poured poison into the trees. The
once lush, verdant oak trees were soon spindles, moribund, pathetic
sites a little bit, and soon after that they were dead.
So who would do such a thing? Turns out was
a DC developer. He was eyeing the undeveloped lot and

(24:02):
he poisoned the trees to clear the lot and get
a hold of the land. They took out two oaks
and two other elm trees. They killed them because it
would have been they would have had to pay fines
for removing the trees, right, so they're like, well'll just
kill them and they'll take care of itself. City can
clear them. Well, the city, of course found out they
discovered the tree murdered. The developer was fined one hundred
and forty four thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
They shouldn't be allowed to develop on that. That's a
punishment to.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
That's that totally you know, now interesting you bring that up.
This dynamic isn't limited to America. So over in the UK, developers,
real estate firms, they often determined the value of a
land of a or so it's say a home before
and after tree removal. They literally will do this. So
for homes with an unobstructed view of say the coast,
that can raise the value of a home by a fifth.

(24:46):
We're talking like a good amount. So Adrian Dunfood, director
of Taylor Made Estates and Sandbanks, he said of potential
home sales in his area, quote, a house with no
view that probably one point five million pounds. A house
with the the tree in front of it has probably
got a partial view. But the gain and value by
removing that tree might be about twenty percent. So that's

(25:07):
three hundred thousand pound markup removing a tree or a
few trees, right that suddenly that round up starts to
look pretty tempting, right. So this is why down in
Australia some wealthy communities have taken a more proactive stance
against just blatant tree murder. So at Black's Beach, Great
Beach in Queensland, there was an incident where forty trees
got the chop right. This was to clear an ocean view.

(25:29):
The local town council in Mackay, they learn about this
and the tree murder, so they vote to erect enormous
billboards in the exact spot where the trees were removed,
thus blocking the newly cleared view. So McKay town council
was like, you take away the trees to get a
better you, we take away that view.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, buddy, I thought like that.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
One thing I noticed I was looking around the world,
and obviously mostly this was English language newspapers, so there
was some biases I would have. But in the these
news outlets lately there's been an increase in tree killings
around the globe. Really, Oh yeah, why what's motivating all
this arbor side Elizabeth?

Speaker 1 (26:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
One British expert on the subject speculated that COVID and
the lockdown is partially to blame.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
I blame that for absolutely everything everyone's behavior.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, they said, and I quote I think during lockdown,
a lot of people were sitting at home thinking, we
keep asking the council to get rid of that tree,
they won't do it. So I'm going to take matters
in my own hands. I think in general societies taking
things into its own hands, we certainly get a lot
more mister Angries on the phone than we ever did before.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Right, Right, that's the bad behavior. If everyone would have
just like joined and focused on sourdough like a large
contingent of people did. Yeah, you know, they put it
into something constructive. But yeah, that totally makes sense. People
sitting around can't go anywhere. You start to get like
nitpicky on stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Man. Also, I mean there's an old saying that I
used to always warned my male friends about a man
who lives alone too long gets weird. Right, So like
it's one of those things like you gotta be on
on the look out for. I think we got a
lot of men living alone, but it's just across the board. Yeah. Anyway,
So this supposition, it makes a lot of sense to me,
but it doesn't capture the full picture because there also
seems to be a lot of pre COVID trend of selfishness,

(27:11):
and it was also motivating this recent rise in tree killings.
At least, I'll just leave it at that. For instance,
take the case of the star chef who murdered an
old lady's tree. Oh god, yeah, Elizabeth, Now we all
know you watch TV, so I gotta ask we can
talk about it. I have you ever watched any of
the fine offerings from Bravo's buffet of reality TV competition shows?

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Oh? Like the competition?

Speaker 2 (27:34):
I don't know, like you know, America's Next Top Model.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Or Next Tops No, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Really correspond whatever the shows are. There's Top Chef.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't like competition.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
I think it was like, can you make a dollhouse?
I don't know what these shows are. There's these shows,
the competing, and I guess parents. I don't know a
bunch of parents. I need to make a dollhouse for
a child just tapping their tail?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know what. I used to watch his Project Runway.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, there's one of them.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
I watched that.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
While Yeah, you know, you do actually watch more TV
than I do. I don't even know, no idea. I'm
not kind of doing watching TV right now in my mind.
In twenty fourteen, there's this contestant for Top Chef. His
name was Adam Harvey.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
He made it.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
I didn't. I don't watch that. I used to watch
Iron Chefs. Okay, yeah, Food Network like Ages and the.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
One in Japan with the Japanese chef rely hard on them. Yeah,
I've seen that really loved food, yes, and seemed to.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
And also seem to appreciate. What I think is the
most important part of it is like how do you
share it with others? And how is it an experience?
Not in terms of like I'm going to take a
picture of this for Instagram.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Like the cloud that my food made?

Speaker 1 (28:41):
No ya, how do you nourish another person in an
experience for them that is like pleasure? Yeah, exactly, very pleasurable.
And so the stuff like Top Chef, it seems I
don't I don't like whether they're all yelling at each other,
and then there doesn't seem to be any kind of
like appreciation for like ingredients. You know, they're not looking
at this and being like, oh my god, this is
a beautiful tomato, which is I think an important part

(29:03):
of totally.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
I think if you and Alice Waters had a show,
that's what it would be yeah, right, it would just
maybe like listening to her presenting a tomato, presenting a peach,
that's the show. It's just yeah, exactly perfect. Such. But anyway,
so twenty fourteen, this guy Adam Harvey, right, he makes
it pretty far in Top Chef. He was the tenth
chef eliminated, and I guess there's sixteen chefs. Not that

(29:25):
far anyway, halfway, he made a little past halfway. So anyway,
he's on Top Chef and though he didn't come close
to winning, he did see an increase in his profile
as a chef because he was on TV and he
was pretentious or whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
He had a restaurant in New York City and.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Then one of those chefs that's like has all the
tattoos and all I love pork belly.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah I'm aggressive. Yeah, he was like, I'm a trendy
spot where they boast their use of quote farmers market
ingredients and they also had a farmed party vibe as
their thing. Oh boy. Oh yeah. So when he first
launched the restaurant, he attempted this gorilla marketing campaign. He
tagged the restaurant's logo all over the New restaurant's Park
Slope neighborhood. I mean everywhere, not just the alleys in

(30:02):
the walls, but the business fronts, newspaper, vending machines, scaffoldings,
subway stops at Park Slope, angwanas tech, even the sidewalk
with they tagged tacky. So yeah, so the when his
fellow business owners and new neighbors were pissed that he'd
tagged the whole hood, Adam told him it was all
it's temporary, faint man, It'll wash off in a few days,
let it rain. It'll all to be a funny memory, right,
it might last like a month, thirty days. He said

(30:25):
that was not the case. Elizabeth lasted longer than that.
One neighbor took to Instagram to post and I quote
what genius on the marketing team thought that vandalizing the
neighborhood was a good advertising idea. Some of us actually
live here and care about the neighborhood. So that was
the attitude of his neighbors. Fast forward to twenty eighteen.
He's now renamed this restaurant and calling it now Bar Saloumi.

(30:46):
I don't know, it's still farmed a party though, as
its general Ethos. Yeah, I thought you like that. And
part of his new vibe is to be eco friendly, right,
because he's changing with the times. You know, I got
to update the tattoo. So he installed solar panels on
the roof of the home. He just in Brooklyn, near
Prospect Park. I'm just sitting in all the names. Yeah.
The homes listing mentions how the home is on this

(31:06):
quote tree lined street and includes a photo of an
enormous tree in the backyard of a neighboring home as
evidence that the trees are both in front of and
behind the home a tree lined street. The neighbor was
a retired New York City public school teacher. She moved
into the neighborhood in nineteen ninety two. Celebrity chef he
buys a property next door to this woman. He complains
to his new neighbor that her enormous tree looks sick

(31:28):
to me, looks like it may be dead. This is Elizabeth,
this tree. I want you to picture this tree. It
was about somewhere between seventy and ninety feet tall, okay,
she the woman described it as seven stories tall. Dan right,
It was clearly thriving. This douchebag want to be celebrity chef.
He wants to play diy agronomist, so he declares the
tree to be dead or dying. Well, She's like, I

(31:48):
don't believe that this tree was one of the major
reasons I bought this home in nineteen ninety two. I've
taken care of it the entire time. Not only that,
I've had like you know, arborous recently confirmed it's doing well.
So she has an The actual arbor is confirmed the
tree is healthy, not dead or dying. So this elderly neighbor,
the former schoolteacher, she tells this wanna be celebrity chef
kick rocks right. So he was like, oh, now, remember

(32:10):
this echo friendly solar panels the wannabe celebrity chef installed
on his roof. The seven story tall tree shaded some
of his solar panels. So what does he do is
what's cutting down the amount of sunlight that he can
turn into green energy? That tree turning sunlight into green energy.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Sometimes I feel like you tell me these stories just
to get me really really mad. Research the absolute worst
people that Elizabeth is just gonna like, can we raise
Elizabeth's blood pressure.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Retired school teacher bullied by wannabe celebrity chef, which because
he's echo friendly. So what is this, Adam Harvey?

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Do let me go back to lunching my job and tell.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Me he secretly hires a tree treaming service to come
out and chop down the limbs that extend over the
property line and well past that obviously, because you know
those lines are hard to draw. So he starts cutting
into her tree. The retired school teacher now she has
to go and pay for a lawyer. She sends the
wannabe celebrity chef a cease and desist order. So what
does he do now, Elizabeth? Oh god, he gets out

(33:22):
the drill and he finishes the job himself. But this Jabbroni,
he gets spotted killing the tree. All the other neighbors
who have views of the backyard witness him drill holes
into the tree roots and pour in some kind of
toxic sludge. This is on the April thirtieth, right, We're
just say the actually actually is the date April thirtieth.
The neighbors who witnessed the attempted tree murder, they phoned

(33:43):
the police that very day. The Brooklyn PD take it
as seriously as it would be in Madison, Wisconsin. They
roll out the spring into action. They arrest the wannabe
celebrity chef. Two weeks later, he gets arraigned on charges
of criminal trespassing and criminal mischief. Now get this, he
and his wife had not even moved in yet. They
were still renovating the home, and now all of their
new neighbors hate them.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Has one neighbor told the New York Daily News, and
I quote, he's outraged everyone in a half mile radius.
It's really hard for me to follow what he's thinking.
It's arrogance and a wrong sense of entitlement to come
here destroy his neighbor's property.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Also, according to New York state law, which feels like,
by the way when I read it, a very old law. Quote,
if any person, without the consent of the owner thereof cuts, removes, injures,
or destroys, or causes to be cut, removed, injured, or
destroyed any underwood tree or timber on the land of another,
and action may be maintained against such person for treble
the stumpage value of the tree.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
That you know, there's a there's a subreddit tree law
that is fastest there is.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
And it's like they're all people will take their issues
there and it's it's it's very intricate, and this the
treble damages get brought up quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh yeah, this is all new to me.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah. And also I mean then there are issues of
like if it's hanging over onto your property what.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, totally. So in this tree on this tree
tree law, tree law's tree laws subredded? Are these like
lawyers helping people or just people all containing like this
is what happened to me? Or are the people get
away with it?

Speaker 3 (35:17):
You know?

Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I had to learn about things like the stumpage
value of a tree, right yeah, So anyway that what
the law means is if you chop down a tree,
you have to pay obviously triple its value or treble.
And according to the estimates of New York's Council of
Tree and Landscape Appraisers, quote, a mature tree can add
one thousand to ten thousand dollars of value to the home.
So go ahead and trouble that. And now you're looking
at a price tag of three thousand to thirty thousand, right,

(35:44):
but for this wanna be celebrity chef. This sixty year
old tree was seven stories tall. It's stumpage value is
almost difficult to estimate. One developer estimated the tree could
be worth quote hit it's in the four to five
figure range. Now triple that. So Additionally, the wannabe celebrity
chef is responsible for the cost of removing the tree

(36:05):
he killed and also replacing the mature maple tree. So
teacher gets a new old tree. I don't know how
that works out anyway. The judge also is shued an
order of protection for the retired school teacher, so she
doesn't ever deal with the wannabe celebrity chef anymore, and
he can't talk to her.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Excellent.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Okay, so there you go. That's a good one. I
kind of thought, right, let's take a little break, and
after this I got a couple more.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Nice Elizabeth, Hey, look at us now for this next story,

(36:51):
I've mentioned it before, but I wanted to go a
little deeper this time.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Elizabeth, do you remember the Alabama super fan who poisoned
the Auburn trees at Tumor Circle in Passing in the story? Okay,
well dateline ope, Laika Alabama are purp Harvey Updike Junior.
Who is Harvey Updike Junior. Yeah, great question, Elizabeth, we
have your head on the sea.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Harvey Almorn Updike Junior was a retired Texas State trooper.
He moved to Alabama for his sunset years. There he
became a huge fan of the Alabama college football team.
Alabama's main competition is it's in state rival Auburn, So
each year they face off in the Iron Bowl. Okay,
both football programs legendary and are known for their excellence

(37:35):
on the field. Like, for instance, I know you don't
really follow to college football. Neither do I, but I
did know this. In a four year stretch between two
thousand and nine and twenty twelve, Alabama won three of
the four college football national championship titles. Wow. The other
one was won by Auburn. Oh yeah, so that only
intensified the rivalry.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Is Alabama roll Tide.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, okay, right, So at Auburn, there's this spot on
campus called Toomor's Corner. It's where a two are known
as tumors trees are proudly displayed at the entrance to
the campus, right, living icons of the school.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
So Alabama also had a very famous coach. This is
Auburn with the trees. Now Alabama, the other school, They
had a very famous coach named Bear Bryant. You may
have heard about it.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
It sounds familiar.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, he's a very like Taciturn hard not my favorite.
But anyway, when he died, it was rumored that Auburn
fans went to Tumor's corner and celebrated the passing of
their rival's beloved coach like cheered, danced around the tree.
This was in Discuss nineteen eighty three. So oh, I'm
not writing it off and just letting you know where
it was nineteen eighty three, So the story takes place.

(38:35):
This story takes place in twenty ten. Okay, so the
converted Alabama fan, mister Updyke Junior, was still carrying that
anger in his heart even though he wasn't a fan
from back then. I don't know how he just transported
the anger forward in time, put it in his heart,
and pretended like it had been there since eighty three.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
I just want to feel they belong.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
They want to be agreed, I think, especially on these
emotional terms, like I got my team, their team This
is a great way to have Yeah, this seems very human. Ye. Anyway,
the story goes in November twenty ten, after Auburn one
that year's Iron Bowl, the rivalry game between Auburn and Alabama.
Quote Al from Dadeville took it upon himself to punish
Auburn with some tree murder. And this genius then called

(39:15):
a local radio station and confessed what he'd done. He
called himself Al from Dadeville. Since his middle name is
al morn right, I'm guessing that's why he called himself
Al from Daydeville. He also wanted to hide his identity,
but he also wanted credit for what he had done,
so he called a local radio station. I don't follow
it myself, but those are the facts.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
This is a very sad man.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah. In anyway, he indeed what did live in Dadeville, Alabama.
So whatever, Elizabeth, I can tell you about him. Instead,
I'd like you to close your eyes and I like
you to picture it. You are a new producer for
the Paul Finebaum Show, a call in radio show. It's
January twenty seventh. It's your first day. You've just moved

(39:53):
to the area after your previous job as a celebrity.
Catwalker fizzled out after Selena Gomez fired you for getting
a raincoat for her hairless cat on a day it
didn't even rain in La. As the song goes, it
never rains in La But whatever. You know what, you
were fired, and now you've moved on. You're in Alabama
working in local radio. You love it. And since it's
college football bowl season is just concluding down there in Bama,

(40:16):
the folks still want to talk SEC football. Studio phone
rings through. You screened the caller. It's a man who
says his name is Al from Dayville. He seems a
bit odd, but then again, many of the callers you've
spoken to today seem a bit odd to you. Anyway.
After speaking to him briefly to find out what he
wants to talk about, you pass on your notes to
the host, letting him know what to expect. After the

(40:37):
commercial break, you had a glowing red button and you
patch through the call. Then you give the signal to
the host Paul, and you hear, hey, Paul, how you
doing h well? Well? Thanks? When Bear Bryant died, I
was living in Texas. I really didn't understand the Alabama
Auburn rivalry, but a good friend of mine who live
in Birmingham sent me a copy of the newspaper showing
the Auburn students rolling Timor's corners celebrating Bryant's death. Uh no, stop, stop, stop,

(41:01):
stop stop. I even though I know you what you
just got through saying, and even though I know what
you're quoting from a newspaper, I just have the most
difficult time ever believing that Auburn students rolled Tumor's corner
with the news broke that coach Bryant died. Does anyone
else remember that? I don't you want me to send
you a copy? I still have the newspaper clipping. Well,
I'm kind of awkward here because I'm not doubting your truthfulness.

(41:23):
I'm just are you guys in the other room as
in as much shock as I am? I mean, that
is just one of the most shocking things I've heard.
I do not want to believe that is true. As
one of the other guys in the other room. You
look around at the other guys. All of you are confused,
all of your faces, some have laughs, beginning to decorate
their lips with a knowing smile. We got a live one.

(41:44):
Their faces seem to say, okay, well, let me finish
my story. Uh, okay, this year I was at the
iron Ball. No way that could be true. Well, okay,
this year I was at the iron Ball. Oh okay,
uh yeah, well I saw where they put a scam
I'm Newton Jersey on Bear Bryant statue. Okay again, that's
twenty eight years later. Paul rolls his eyes at you, like,

(42:07):
what have you done? Well? You hope he's not secretly
pissed you on your first day. Okay, Well, let me
tell you what I did. The weekend after ironbol I
went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live thirty miles away,
and I poisoned the two tumors trees. Okay, well, well
that's fair. I put Spike eighty DF in them. Did
they die? Do?

Speaker 1 (42:25):
What?

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Did they die? They're not dead yet, but they definitely
will die. Is that is that against the law to
poison a tree?

Speaker 1 (42:35):
No?

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Okay, I really don't now I don't know. Okay, well,
oh okay, roll damn tied. Click So that, Elizabeth, you
look at your boss, Paul fine Bomb and you mouth
the words I am so sorry. But he knows this
is just another day on Alabama Sports Talk radio. Now,
believe it or not, that was the actual full conversation

(42:59):
between him. That was the call with Paul finebaumb and
this was al from Dadeville. A little more than a
week later, he also called a professor at Auburn University
and he confessed he had knowledge of who poisoned the trees,
and then he hung up.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
What is wrong with this?

Speaker 2 (43:13):
This wants to be found out. So, as you know,
SEC football is second only to Jesus in the South,
and it's a close second, right, So the authorities they
get called in. They're like, we're gonna get to the
bottom of this. So the FBI, the US Marshall Service,
State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, their Pesticides
Management section, the Tallapoosa County Sheriff's office, the Dadeville Police Department,

(43:36):
and Auburn University's police department, and other administration officials all
get involved in finding out who this guy is. Solving
the mystery of who poisoned Auburn's beloved trees. Didn't take
them along, Elizabeth. Yeah, they got to the heart of it.
They were able to match the phone number and identify
the voice of the tree killer, because of course it's recorded.
I played for you something that was on YouTube. People
recorded it. They're like, what who is this guy? Evidence

(43:58):
was easy, like it was match the voice. Anyway, Auburn
University confirmed their trees had indeed been poisoned. Twenty four
hours later, Harvey updyke ak Al from Dayville was busted.
The sixty two year old now sixty two year old
former Texas State trooper was arrested charged with a felony
criminal mischief. At first, he denied poisoning the trees, but
then before his case went to trial, he confessed outside

(44:20):
the courtroom before a reporter from the Auburn student newspaper. No,
some student newspaper reporter got him flustered to the point
that he admitted it to him and basically, I killed
your trees. You guys are mad, like whatever. I don't
know exactly what he said, but he couldn't help him
with So the judge has to help proceedings at that
point because he's compromised the whole trial by confessing outside
of court. So now later there were doubts if the

(44:42):
former Texas State trooper was mentally competent to stand trial.
Updike pleaded not guilty for reasons of mental defect. That
was his own defense. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced
to six months in jail, five years probation in order
to pay eight hundred thousand dollars in restitution. After serving
seventy six days inside, Updike, he gets released right and
he gets cleared to leave the state of Alabama because

(45:03):
they're like, get the hell out, and so even BAMA
fans were like, do not say roll tide. I swear
to God, I will smack you. So his probation forbade
Updike from ever setting foot on Auburn's campus, and he
had to complete an anger management program. When he got out,
he'd grown a full jailhouse handlebar and mustache. So he's
got it looks great. Anyway, he tells the gathered press.

(45:23):
Did he plan to move to Louisiana LSU watch her anyway?
Just before his release from jail, he had only one request,
as his lawyer said, he wanted a banana, and he
got a banana. That's it. Wait, I don't know, Elizabeth
that was in the stories. That was like, really, it
was hilarious. He wanted a banana, and he got a banana.

(45:44):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
So his lawyer, though, also did add one other point.
He's very sincere. He wants to go back to Louisiana
and never wants to be heard from me ever again.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
From Louisiana. Go back.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
He may have been born there before he became a
Texas State trooper. So anyway, a laudable goal for the man.
But of course he didn't do that. The siren call
of viral fame couldn't be resisted. Elizabeth our fellow iHeart
podcast host Morocca from Obituaries covered this story and pointed
out in his post release Updyke told CBS News quote,
I wanted Auburn people to hate me as much as

(46:15):
I hate them. I just don't like Auburn. You know,
there are several things in this world I really and
truly don't like. An Auburn is one of them. Okay,
got hating his heart.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
You know, he didn't even go to any of these business.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
You know what that is in the South, it's more
of a regional thing or like an aspirational thing. Going
to the school has nothing to do about your diehard legacy.
At the allegiance to.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
The school concept to escape.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
I know, yeah, these are not you know, it's not
their alma mater. So anyway, it's rising to learn this
guy's a former Texas State trooper. I wait, no, it's
not at all. Ohay, sorry Texas, you pulled me over
too many times. Anyway, Elizabeth, Now I'd like to tell
you the story of another famous legendary tree down south.
It's known as the Austin Treaty Tree. It's wild to

(47:03):
be six hundred years old. It was the tree where,
beneath the shady canopy, local Native American tribal leaders met
with leaders of the nascent Republic of Texas and they
signed treaties between them, making up you know, the the
agreements of law and compacts. Right. That was way back then,
and this tree stood for centuries. It is a beloved
part of Austin. That is until nineteen eighty nine. Getting
angry yep, that year. That year, not the Taylor Swift album.

(47:27):
Nineteen eighty nine. That was when a semi coherent amateur
shaman and psychoknot attempted to perform an occult ritual a
psychot Yeah. Yeah, it's when people do drugs and they
take it really seriously and they say psycho.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Knot, You're just again, You're like, what now you're.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Not communicating with yourself, you like being honest with your
this is You're.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Like, what kind of things do? What? What does Elizabeth
get most irritated?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, people on psychedelics doing horrendous things to living creatures
and acting like, you know, I did this because it's
part of my journey.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, oh, you're standing in their right there.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
So the story goes Elizabeth. In the spring of eighty nine,
the city forester of Austin, they got a city forester,
tall John Gedritis. He discovered the famed, iconic beloved Treaty
Tree was dying, and not from a natural death. There
were the telltale signs of poison. So there was like,
for instance, a wide yellow ring of dead grass surrounding

(48:23):
the tree. There it is, I'm seeing it. So this
new growth was also on the tree was shriveled up, died,
and it was also you know, dying, I guess, dried
up and dying. The city forester he orders chemical analysis,
like what happened? What's been you know? Going on? The
analysis shows that the tree had indeed been poisoned like
that was not the question. But he finds out that

(48:44):
whoever tried to kill the tree used enough poison to
kill one hundred trees. What it was just like a
chemical dump. Basically, this was like that was super hard. Yeah,
no past that. This is like a super fun site
Larry did over time, you know, and it leached into
the soil. This is just like one big dump all
at once. Anyway, when news spread, the city forester's heart

(49:04):
was warmed Elizabeth by his fellow citizen's reaction. According to
local station kV u E, the citi's forester get right
to said quote, the people of Austin responded with outrage
and love. People came here and prayed, brought chicken soup.
I don't know why treated chicken soup. I think it's
for him. Anyway. They left money crystals. We spent a
couple hundred thousand dollars, but we didn't have to spend

(49:26):
city money because h Ross Perot, the Texas industrialist and
former presidential candidate, called me and said, no matter how
long it takes, just send me the bell. That was
good for us about it right now?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Not only that, and he he stuffed up totally yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Ah truss pro used to let throw his money around
for things he believed in it. There's stuff about him
storry with the Afghanistan and anyway, So not to get
an all sidetracked. But now at this point the story
goes viral, right who killed the treaty tree? Others from
around the country, even around the world, Elizabeth, they come
in to try to help us save this beloved tree.
So botanists, agronomous, arborous all labor together. They create a

(50:01):
canopy to shade the tree from the punishing Texas summer sun.
They add a mister system to kind of like, you know,
keep it cool and wet. Tell them even experimented with
this constant like drip system or they would feed sugar
water like an ivy bag right into the tree.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
It's like a tree ICU totally id.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, but they had like like thirteen different guys doctor
House trying to save this tree. This I thought you'd
like this, right, but I didn't want to leave you
out too bad at the end. No, No, let's keep listening.
Don't worry. But no one had any guesses as to
who would do such a thing as to poison the tree.
Now that they've kind of got the tree in the
ICU as you wind out. Yeah, they still had no
leads on the perp till one day someone contacted the

(50:39):
police Elizabeth. They said their friend, a man named Paul
Steedman Cullin, had bragged no relation to Oprah's a boyfriend
anyway that we know that we know of, bragged to
them that he'd killed the treaty tree. The police were like,
what are you sure. You seem kind of like a
dirty hit beat to us. The guy's like, look, my friend,

(51:02):
I swear to God it's him. He did it. The
cops were like, okay, well, would you be willing to
wear a wire and get a confession.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
From your friend as I would? I hope he said.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
This dirty hippie friend was like, mike me up. So
he went in there. Cops outfitted him with a listening
device mike whatever, and they sent him to go talk
to Paul Steadman Cullin to get him to confess again
to tree murder. So, sure enough, this guy does it.
He's got no brains. He's just like, oh, yeah, I
killed that tree, or kill another tree, right, like he
that's not exactly what he said. But he gets subsequently

(51:33):
arrested and tried. At his trial, the police they play
the secret recording of Culland's confession. What emerges is the
motive Elizabeth according to Austin police, and I quote, it
came out in his trial that he was in love
with his counselor at his methadone clinic. Oh good god,

(51:55):
I'm sorry. I just knew this would go. And this
is Austin's Forrester good ryde Is he added the mo
for this love struck occultist with the former heroin problem
trying to get clean. According to him, Collins quote drew
a magic circle at the base of the tree and
would put something of his own or his spurn love
and the tree would die or he'd die. So it

(52:17):
was sort of a magical ritual or spell like that.
So in other words, this guy tried to kill a
six hundred year old tree to gain dark sex magic
powers and convince his methodone counselor that he was the
man of her dreams. That's what happened to Who told
him to do this? The universe, Yeah, the cards, the crystals,
the universe. I don't know, I don't know how one

(52:37):
reaches this conclusion, but there was some arcane, abstract math
I'm sure done. Later in the trial he changed his story.
He said he was innocent. I don't know what all
this occult stuff is. Despite what he'd confessed earlier. The
jury was like, yeah, no, you're guilty as hell. We're
gonna put you under the jail. So he was sentenced
to nine years in prison. Yea, yeah, he serves three

(52:57):
of them. But there was a silver lining in all
of this other than in him getting jail time. You
know one thing I think you I think you'll like
this when Elizabeth, I swear to God look at this face.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
I sometimes but I trust that the Austin.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Treaty Tree survived. So we got that going forest had
some scars from the murder attempt, but it's still thriving, amazing.
That's not the exciting part. That's not the part I
think you'll like. Yeah, the silver lining is this. Remember
the Austin City Forester. Yeah, John Gadritis, Well, things worked
out really well for him and his efforts to save
the blood of Tree. I met this wonderful girl and
I was going to get married to her. So underneath

(53:32):
the Treaty oak, I knelt down and proposed to my wife.
I chose this tree to propose to my wife, and
this guy call and tried to kill it. So it's
pretty personal. But I'm still married and the tree is
doing great.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
That's beautiful. But I thought you were going to say
that he proposed to the Methadone council.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
That would be amazing. They fell in love, That's what
I thought.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
The man of her treats is the tree armiste who
actually they.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Both were in social services. It makes a lot of sense,
and he never said it was. They both tend to life.
You know.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
It's beautiful, Rightah.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
So last bit of good news when all those local
folks stepped in and they were trying to save the
poison tree, well they took shoots from the tree and
planted them all over the city. So now there are
hundreds of children of the tree to yoke, all growing.
Oh I love that right now. In researching these stories,
I noticed a few patterns, right. I was reading a
bunch of these are all around. I told you in
English language outlets. For one, when wealthy people kill trees,

(54:25):
they don't go to prison or jail. They pay for
the crime. I noticed, Yeah, in some ways like the
developers or the other rich people. It's just like for
them it becomes a cost of doing business. They could
just factor it in. But when the purpose are lower incomes,
suddenly we get prison in jail sentences from the same
crimes of killing a tree. It's interesting America, I know, right. So,
but in twenty fifteen, there was a developer in Bellevue, Washington.

(54:49):
He iced or actually literally salted one hundred and twenty
three poplar trees and because why Elizabeth, they blocked the
view for his luxury real estate properties he had for sale.
He was caught, tried, convicted, He caught a forty five
days in jail sentence for tree killing. So they sent
his butt to jail time and there the judge said
she wanted to quote send an appropriate message to our

(55:11):
community about the way we view your actions. So this
trend is maybe changing. And also down in Australia, where
rivers can be awarded the legal protection of a person,
the lawmakers are considering making tree murder a criminal offense
punishable by serious time in prison. Because here's the deal. Trees,
they are the key to the planet for a lot
of things. They literally are the planet's lungs. Trees are

(55:32):
how we all breathe other than our own lungs, obviously,
but they can live for hundreds of years. They improve
the environment, They lower ambient temperatures, they oxygenate the air,
They provide beauty shade. So far the home to animals, insects.
Trees are this miracle of life's design. Right, And having
read about all these tree murder attempts and successful tree killings,
I gotta say I agree with the Aussies. All legal

(55:52):
systems should defend them fioustly.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Yeah, another reason to love Australia.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Elizabeth, what's your ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 1 (56:00):
And you know, I think that if people had more
respect for for things that kept them going, and you know,
we'd all be better off. But we already know that.
I just I want more trees. I want more trees
around us. I know a lot of people, you know,
they don't like the leaf drop or the you know,
the stuff that comes off of pecan tree or pecan

(56:22):
in the South. I used to come lawn pubes because
but I think, you know, sometimes you have to deal
with a little mess or you know, down branches occasionally.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
As Mendel found, life is messy.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
That's that's how life works.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
That's how big believer.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Trying to see too clean, too delineated, then you missed
the whole. That's Gelli's problem. He wanted it to be neat, orderly, tidy,
and Mendel's like, no, man, it's it's all about chaos
and change and like what works best. Let life be messy.
You like to say, let wild, wild be wild. I say,
let life be messy.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I like that to.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Stand think that. No, that's it.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
You're ridiculous with.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
That, ridiculous but boom there it is. So hey you
in the mood for a talkback every single time, producer
d can you hook us up? Oh my god, I
love g Oh great googly movie.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
I love this stuff. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
I love gee. This is why we love your talkbacks.
Please send us talkbacks. We so dig this, can't you tell?

Speaker 1 (57:36):
So?

Speaker 2 (57:37):
As always, you can find us Ridiculous Crime on the
social media's We have our website Ridiculous Crime dot com
and uh, as I said, the talkbacks go there the
iHeart app, download it record George. You can hear your
voice here on the air and also email us if
you like Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and as
always type that dear producer d thanks for listening and

(57:57):
we'll catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Elizabeth Dutton and Zara and Burnett, produced and edited by
Ridiculous Crimes resident Tree Dots and starring Analys Rutgers.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Judith.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Research is by Known Green Thumbs, Ris Brown and Andrea
song Sharpings. Here our theme song is by Thomas the
Dirt Digger Lee and Travis the Old Sawed Bustard. The
host wardrobe provided by Buck five, guest Harry, makeup by
Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are those who speak
for the Trees, then Bowling, Annual.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Brown Why say it one More time? Crime?

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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