April 19, 2023 • 44 mins
Julien struggles to connect the dots between the Hadley murders and the dark history of the caves. His investigation takes him back to the Fowler estate, where he meets unexpected visitors and discovers a new lead.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Miniwauk Caves is intended for mature audiences. It contains
strong language and depictions of bullying, violence, and sexual assault
that some may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Also,
this is an extremely immersive experience and headphones are recommended.
You're listening to The manwac Caves, a production of iHeartRadio,
(00:22):
Blumhouse Television and Cycopia Pictures.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You can't fill out an accent report without note in
the conditions, whether the location.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You collect, witness information studied, the scene.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Safety is relative, and there's always a pattern, and then
if you pay attention, the pattern belies a deeper cycle.
I put on a bicycle, hit, buy a car, left
for dead. That's senseless and terrible. It tears down home families,
and that goes into the universe that wounded howl of
(01:04):
confusion and existential questions.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
And again, the kid had no helmet.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He was crossed in Memorial and Boulevard, the most dangerous
intersection in the city. And there's a robbery at a
corner store, gone ry. That leads to the junkie who
needed that fix. That leads to the dealer that could
get it to 'em and it rolls on down the line.
Safety is relative. I mean there's always a pattern, forces
(01:37):
trajectories the momentum, and unless the pattern is disrupted, collisions
are inevitable.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
There's a pattern here too.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A man of walk uh, cycle of violence. It's not
just those sadly boys. And unless the pattern is disrupt.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Stories about the caves go way back beyond early settler folkmore.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
The ghost in the mill.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
And the hounds of hell dancing in your.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
What do you mean, like like ghost and witches, some
kind of he'll believe food or something.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Seems turn the river glean inside tells.
Speaker 7 (02:50):
These tells the.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Hi Leary family such alter during a winter blizzard and
became trapped inside the cave. Only the youngest daughter, Nadine
o'hery mergem the cave.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
That's the end.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Adventure was most interesting, discussing it's one of these great
unsold mysteries of this area.
Speaker 8 (03:18):
All this call will be recorded as monitored. Please standside, Julia,
(03:40):
you ventcher, Yeah, it's me.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I need you to come bessing man. I don't have
much time lifting.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Neither you.
Speaker 7 (04:08):
August ninth, five fifty five pm. Where to begin? There's
only four days left now four days till James Fincher's
scheduled to be executed by the State of Tennessee unless
I can still do something about it. I drove to
(04:29):
see him this morning the Riverbed Maximum Security Institution in
Nashville for the first time since he was convicted fourteen
years ago. I'm led into a windowless box where for
death row inmates, you are a partitioned from your visitor
by a sheet of thick plexiglass. Their voice only available
(04:50):
to you through a hard wire plastic phone. The divider
lends a surreal aspect to the whole ordeal, like I'm
watching a live event on TV. My face reflected in
the glass, so while I wait, I stare at myself
as though I'm seeing myself on the other side. In
(05:14):
the final days leading up to their execution, the death
row inmate is taken to a special cell away from
the other inmates. Their cells completely bear a blank canvas
for a busy mind. They're not allowed any tools or
silverware that they could potentially harm themselves with, and a
guard is stationed by their side twenty four to seven
until it's time to go to the death chamber. It's
(05:36):
a final torture leaving them sitting there and their selves
rotting away, counting the days till they're predetermined death, deprived
of their inalienable human right to die by surprise. What's
most fucked up about it, although, is just how fiercely
a death row inmate is protected against their own non
schedule death. God forbid it happen in any other way.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
God forbid.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
They grant the condemned a fleeting but final moment of autonomy.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 7 (06:10):
I was about to see him for the first time
since before he was arrested fourteen years ago. But as
I looked at my reflection, all I could think about
was how I was about to come face to face
with everything I hate about myself.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Hey bene non.
Speaker 9 (06:39):
I saw the cuts on him, deep lines of scar
tissue rising up from his chest, some older than others,
real old. Others looked fresh, still raw and faster, and
tons of them all spilling out from underneath his sleeves
like he had carved words and symbols into his flesh.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Didn't make any fucking sense. They go to great lengths
to ensure these miserable bastards on death Row can't kill
themselves no sharp objects, even if he manufactured some kind
of shit. These scars would have taken time years maybe
if they covered his whole body and finished didn't have
these scars. The last time I saw him in the
(07:20):
courtroom before he was taken away, So.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
How the hell did he get him?
Speaker 9 (07:29):
He looked good. I mean, I mean, you don't actually
look much different, That's what I mean. My first time
back a man to walk.
Speaker 7 (07:38):
Everyone looks older, worn down, But but you don't look
like you've eached today. I mean, I know, I look
like shit. Haven't really slept, I don't really sleep anymore.
I spent last night in my car. I was supposed
to go to Tyler's.
Speaker 9 (07:56):
But shit, man, I mean, I don't know what you've heard.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
You know, if you've spoken to Dina, well you know
I'm Tyler.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
He's missing.
Speaker 9 (08:08):
I went over there and he was just go.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
His whole place was smashed up.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
But I yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't
know what's going on. Look, I spent years thinking of
what i'd say to you, apologies and please and explanations
(08:36):
for what happened and why, But it's all bullshit. I
was a stupid, scared kid, and I have hated myself
for all these years, and so I'm here and I'm
trying to help, but I don't know if I'm doing
(09:00):
anything right.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Please say something.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You do.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Look like shit. I don't want no apologies.
Speaker 9 (09:24):
Your study's gone.
Speaker 10 (09:26):
I had a lot of time in here to work
on it, to work on controlling my thoughts. Dena says
you freaked out on her last night.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Ever since I got back up, it happened issues. Did
Tina tell you about Tyler?
Speaker 10 (09:51):
Forget about Tyler? What forget Tyler? Tyler did his part
and I'm doing mine, but you still have work to do.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
I know, man, I'll go back to Dana and Joe Campbell.
Speaker 9 (10:14):
I'm sure they need reassurances after after I FORGEBT last night,
and I want to make sure that they have my
statement about the Coherce testimony. No wait, I was thinking,
I'm confused.
Speaker 10 (10:32):
What exactly do you think you're doing back here, Joe.
Speaker 7 (10:37):
I'm doing everything I can, everything I can do. I'm
really I'm grateful for your team's.
Speaker 11 (10:44):
Gonna be able to make a new poop for you.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
But in the meantime, I said you were writing a
book about all this about me?
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Maybe, but that's not why I'm here now.
Speaker 9 (10:59):
Listen, I've been reaching the steps that check to Smith
took when he was involved in the original homicide investigation.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I know.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
What, how do you know?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I just know? Thanks you only.
Speaker 12 (11:14):
Stuff you don't know, or maybe you blocked it out,
or you aren't allowed to know details about you and
Tie and the had leaves and the case, especially the case. Yeah,
(11:35):
I'm practically a goddamn scholar on the subject.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
I have so much to ask just the history and geography.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I know stuff that you can't find in the history books.
Speaker 13 (11:52):
I know, Man Good Winner of eighteen ninety three, what
the O'Leary family took shelter during the winter blizzard got
snowed in Eleanor O'Leary was trapped deep in the caves,
watching her daughter starve to death. Don't ask for the
Lord's help, of course, Braiden prayed, Oh, Heavenly Father, please,
(12:15):
I beg you, please deliver my poor innocent.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Child from the cool hand of death. But the Lord
didn't respond. He was a no show. Maybe deep in
those dark, evil caves, even God couldn't hear their small
and desperate voices calling out, Okay, but I believe someone
else did hear, and I imagine him appearing before h
(12:50):
Miss Oldliarry was something resembly pity in the slits of
his eyes.
Speaker 13 (13:00):
Good mother, you should you should tell you that he
made Miss Oliery an offer.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I can help you.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
I can object to.
Speaker 10 (13:10):
I can say, your poor little girl.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And only if you make the deal.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
And poor Eleanor starved, delirious, freezing, and on the brink
of death.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I imagine she did.
Speaker 10 (13:24):
What any loving mother and a moment of defeat and
weakness would do.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
She made the deal.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
He dies.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Nor nothing in the scaff I'll protect you. We're going
to get to know each other for very long time.
Speaker 10 (14:00):
I don't understand whether or not you believe that story
comes Spring of eighteen ninety three, the impossible happen. The
youngest daughter, Nadine, Sure shit, That little girl e murders
from the cave, the only survivor of the O'Leary family.
How she survived is a mystery to this day.
Speaker 7 (14:18):
Finch, I'm here to tell you something. Smith knew.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
He knew you didn't kill him.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
I think he knew who did.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
Why don't you ask him what, Detective Solomon Smith.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
He's lone gone, Finch.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
No one's seen him.
Speaker 10 (14:50):
Since when are you going back to the house the
Fowler estayed off of twenty nine, that's where Smith was
living during the investigation. Right, yeah, when you're going back there?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Not cut good?
Speaker 5 (15:10):
How did you know that?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Wait?
Speaker 7 (15:12):
Wait, wait wait, I have so much to talk to
you about, Fitch.
Speaker 10 (15:16):
Do you have any idea how hard it is to
speak to you. I'm not talking about just sitting here
across from but literally speak words to your face.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I have spent years in this place, years.
Speaker 10 (15:36):
Teaching myself to focus on the shapes of words, quiet
in my mind, training the muscles in my face to
wrap around the words properly.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And I can.
Speaker 13 (15:48):
When I'm calling.
Speaker 10 (15:51):
But when I called you, all of a sudden, I
couldn't get one word out clean. It was like no
time had passed it all for James fucking go there
first to foul the place.
Speaker 14 (16:08):
Tonight, Guard, We're done.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So who helped a little girl?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
That's where the discovery of Eleanor O'Leary's journal is interesting.
Miss O'Leary described the entire deal in great detail. What
Fincher was most interested in this is the last few
enturies of her journal. When she starts to discuss the
presence inside the case with him.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
The truth comes in different flavors. Sometimes it's revealed in
the intersection of facts.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Aaron with the father, Seamus, he died first.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
Sometimes it's hidden the lore.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
As the family went to extremes to avoid starvation, Miss
O'Leary's journal entries become less coherent.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
More disturbed.
Speaker 15 (17:11):
These dots are all interconnected. I can feel it. Richard
Roddell being from Anniwalk, Detective Smith moving into William Fowler's
place after Riddell's execution, and then coming on board the
Hadley murder case, only to become convinced that James Fincher's innocence,
and now Deacon Hadley's necklace found in Tyler Wilson's ransacked
(17:34):
house after Tyler's gone missing.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
These devils pranks, They're.
Speaker 15 (17:39):
Important more than clues or converging strings on an investigation
board or breadcrumb's on the trail, a thread through the labyrinth.
But what was Fincher's obsession with the story of the
O'Leary family. I know it's all connected somehow.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
According to miss O'Leary, here emerges from the very shadows
of the caves and offers to help her.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
What doll.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
It would seem that miss O'Leary was lacking rational faculties, delirious, freezing, hallucinating,
No doubt conjured this narrative while on the brain coach starvation.
Would you agree it's a classic narrative. A surf in
the garden, Fousty embargain the devil, a crossroads. Some people
believe Fincher worships the devil, would you agree, doctor Tector? Well,
(18:35):
even Satanists don't believe in the literal Satan, detective, And.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
What do you call people who do believe in a
literal Satan? Christians?
Speaker 7 (18:49):
After I saw Finch at Riverbedd in Nashville, I drove
back to the Fowler's place, detect dismiss less known home.
(19:12):
In the wash of the flashlight, it looked decrepit hollowed
out a skull deer and out at the night. Its
front windows were opaque with dust. My flashlight didn't seem
to want to penetrate the dark inside. The door, of course,
was locked. What there's someone there?
Speaker 16 (19:37):
Come on, I have a gun, It was, dear, what
the hell do you want?
Speaker 7 (20:00):
Three doze in a buck?
Speaker 5 (20:02):
A phone?
Speaker 7 (20:04):
They all stood right there at did you the wood
staring at me, eyes reflecting back my beam shoe.
Speaker 15 (20:12):
What the hell?
Speaker 9 (20:14):
They didn't move when I shouted. It was like they
were waiting for something.
Speaker 16 (20:26):
Okay, where those stand there? Just don't call the cops
when I and I won't send hunters out here. Freezy
pickens deal.
Speaker 11 (20:38):
Okay, okay, all right to take the smith.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Let's see what you knew.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
I'm not gonna lie. I didn't know what I was
expecting when I got inside, but it wasn't what I
was looking at.
Speaker 6 (21:35):
First.
Speaker 7 (21:35):
Off, it was cold, I mean outside it's nearly summer.
In the house, cold like twenty degree drop and damp, subterranean,
without the benefit of ever being worn by the sun.
The house had largely been untouched since Solomon skipped out,
so the furniture's all there, and the bed sheets still
must from the last night he slept in the dry
(21:56):
goods in the pantry, a single dirty plate in the
sink next to a coffee cup, mold that had grown
over them, long, sin stride and dead. It was like
I stepped back in time. The only thing suggesting the
Solomon had ever left were the open drawers and half
empty closet, the hangers on the bed and he'd left quickly,
and then in the back office hum around the room,
(22:22):
moleskin tablets the kinyrad used to jot down notes on
the case perhaps were scattered about. In the corner of
the office, a small aluminum waste paper basket sat beneath
the scorch section of the wall. Someone had made a
small fire, and from the looks of it, he'd burned
pages here and there from the notebooks, one of which
seemed to have been burned whole. That wasn't even the
(22:45):
weirdest thing.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
What the fuck is this?
Speaker 7 (22:49):
The weirdest thing was the wall above the waste paper basket.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
What are you doing?
Speaker 9 (22:52):
Simon writing scrawled all over it, articles from the town
photo copied and pinned with no tape, and scribbled and
pencil and sharp remarker, no rahm or reason of the order?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
What the fuck?
Speaker 7 (23:05):
But all of it painted a grizzly, unflattering picture of
Manahawaan County. Every murder, every assault, every suicide and fire
and deadly car accident ever recorded, all pinned up and
noted in Solomon Smith's neat handwriting. Oh shit, it's here's tapes.
(23:41):
These tapes were dated, but there's no labeling beyond that.
From the looks of it, they went all the way
up to two days before Solomon Smith skipped town. Luckily,
I'd come prepared with extra batteries and a sleeping bag
and a bottleful of courage. I found the most recent
and popped in on this platform.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
What in, Hooper?
Speaker 17 (24:13):
I thought we were having a beer, figured we'd go
to a bar or something.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
You sure you want to be seen with me, sir?
And besides, I already moved on to whiskey a while ago.
From the looks of it, you want what or not?
Speaker 13 (24:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
I go on. Then something on your mind, Hooper? Solomon.
Speaker 17 (24:36):
I asked you on to this case because I know
you're about a mile more qualified than anybody else around here,
myself included. But this is a small town. People are upset.
When those two boys turned up the way they did.
It felt like it was their own children been cutted
in those caves, and they want closure, They want to
(25:00):
put it behind it, and they should want the truth
and maybe they'll get it. Seems to me that James
Fincher truly was the only one with any real motive
to harm Deacon and Thomas. I think we need to
seriously consider leaning into the possibility that James Fincher killed
those boys. A man, James Fincher didn't kill nobody. What
(25:22):
do you have to go on that says he didn't experience. Look,
you have no idea what being different is. To stand out,
to be ostracized, marginalized, demonized, to be discriminated against in
a world full of people will think they're smarter than you,
who think they deserve better than you.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I hear you.
Speaker 17 (25:46):
That's exactly why there's motive. I'm not arguing that the
system is perfect, It's goddamn far from it. But right
now we need to look at the impartial fact. Oh shit,
James Fischer didn't want to cause trouble.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
He just wanted to get by.
Speaker 18 (26:03):
Killing those boys would be a death sentence for a
kid like him in this town, and he damn well
is smart enough to know it. James Fincher has been
bullied since he moved here, and I'm not gonna let
him be bullied into a jail cell.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
All right.
Speaker 17 (26:19):
Look, I know you're a little bit heated and more
than a little drunk, but we gotta look at this
from the rest of the town's point of view too.
And how's that smart enough to know it isn't facts.
The fact is that multiple people have come forward pointing
a finger directly at James Fincher. We have interviews, we
have people willing to testify.
Speaker 19 (26:41):
And Reverend Perkins has been particularly vocal. Excuse me, Reverend
Perkins has been putting pressure on you, all right, Sam,
of course he has. Why the hell wouldn't he You
get the backing of the first Baptist Church. You can
have whatever you want in this town, a raise, a
re election. Come on, two boys are dead, you son
(27:03):
of a bitch. These are good people.
Speaker 17 (27:05):
They just want justice, and I would think that you,
of all people, would be able to relate to that.
Solomon Sheriff, I know what killed my boy. Maybe this
was a mistake. I think we've got more than a
little bit of a conflict of interest here. You understand
what I'm saying. Oh, you're taking me off the case.
(27:26):
I don't have much choice. It's my fault, it's not yours.
I should have put it together before bringing you on.
Speaker 18 (27:36):
You need me on this thing, James Fincher don't stand
a chance.
Speaker 17 (27:43):
I'm not so sure James Fincher deserves a chance.
Speaker 7 (27:55):
Detective Smith up and left his life in Atlanta, but
his own personal demons followed him the Milwaukee. His son
committed suicide a few years before the move. See. By
all accounts, he was a smart kid, but he had
a minor physical deformity born missing two fingers off his
right hand. That's it. But he was bullied for it
his entire life heart and one day something finally pushed
(28:19):
him over the edge. He was eighteen years old when
he died. James Fincher was eighteen at the time of
the investigation. Maybe just another devil's prank is Jennifer Fowler
called them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Listen, you can hear them off in the woods. I
know they're there every fucking night this goddamn week, right
outside my window, tapping and laughing.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
Fast forwarded around on that first tape, his last one.
He'd recorded, come on and.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
You piece this shit, Come on, show your goddamn faces.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Finally, come on, come on, come on.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh oh you motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
God damn dear.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
The tape from the perceiving that was much different. So
I skipped back a week or two and had another drink.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
After reading letters, James Fincher wrote to doctor Tratner. I
went down to the Pottsville Library and pulled every book
Fincher checked out. He'd also had the library and printed
a few articles he'd found on their microfiche, and from
around Halloween he's run in the Pottsville Press. As I
don't know, I guess you'd call it what passes for
a human interest story around here. Amongst these tales of
(29:58):
terror and woe is this strange case of Nadine O'Leary
of the O'Leary family, Scotch settlers who had landed in
Norfolk and decided to try their.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Luck heading west.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Davis Wentworth of the newly founded Pottsville walked out onto
her back porch to find a small creature hunched over,
eating raw eggs whole from her chicken coop. At first,
she believed it to be a mangy bear, it was
so stooped and filthy. It turned out to be young
(30:33):
Nadine O'Leary, dressed in rags, missing fingers in parts of
her face from frostbite. She was nearly feral. For decades.
Nadine would give only a cursory account. However, on her
deathbed she told a different story.
Speaker 16 (30:57):
What the fuck.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
Hello, Hello, Well damn, a tree has landed on the
roof of the house, flush up against the chimney. Jesus,
(31:48):
Come on, detective, what else you got here?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Fas cases of Tom Trevor. He's thirty four, father of
two young children. Report it dead June thirtieth, nineteen ninety
after being spotted on a hike with it. Laura Solace?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Also what uh? Laura Solace?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Wife of Paul Solace, mother of Julian Solace? Small world?
Speaker 7 (32:26):
No, no fucking way.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
What were you doing hiking with old Tom, Miss Solace?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
No, he too fell, if her testimony was to be believed. No,
cracked his skull wide open, brains spilled out all.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
Over the world.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
No, but why were you with him? Looks like you
will with your husband at the dealership.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
You'll probably travel to the same tiny circles in this hellhole,
probably tracked the same shitty beers and the same shitty bars.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Your kids maybe even played together.
Speaker 11 (33:01):
Oh my god, we're.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Just passing the time talking about your happy marriages, your
beloved children.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Did you talk about Julian? But were you going up
there for something else?
Speaker 6 (33:17):
What?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Hello? Is anyone out there?
Speaker 6 (33:24):
Oh my god?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
You get a little squirrel here?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
So did he take it too far, move too fast
for you misunderstand your intent?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Did you push him? Or did you in a moment
of fear maybe he's bearing down on you.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Did you pick up a rock and finish that creasy
motherfucking yourself?
Speaker 3 (33:50):
She wouldn't. Now you're probably right. She was just out
for a stroll in the woods with a friend, nothing more.
I mean, I guess we'll never know, will we, Julian?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Why don't we talk about something else? The subject doesn't
seem to agree with you.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
I can't think of anything.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
What happened to the olders?
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, you want a real devil's prank. This isn't the
first house to be built on this property. Guess who
the first owner of this land was?
Speaker 6 (34:37):
Was it shamous oldier?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Look at you, Nancy Drew, How damn son you could
have been a detective. When he died, it passed down
to his only living relative, Nadine, who built a cabin
here and lived until the rife old age of ninety
before passing it down to her grandson, who knocked it
down and built this place.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You find yourself sit right now?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
William Fowler Jennifer Fowler's granddad and my own benefactor.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Oh small fucking world.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You ain't kidding.
Speaker 15 (35:14):
The only reus what happened to them in the cave.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Navin's story didn't that up. There was no way she
could have sabred by herself, and on her.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Deathbed she fessed up.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Seamus wasn't much of a hunter, and one day I
was trying to build a snare, Shamus slipped and broke
his ankle, compound bone sticking out. Took him hours to
hop her back to the caves. Within a couple of days,
he'd succumbed to sepsis not a pretty way to die,
fever dreams and visions of hell. Poor bastard. They were
(35:53):
devastated within it. Eleanor wailed and gnashed her teeth and
pulled out her hair. Though she was grieving, she was
in a dumb She saw an opportunity to keep her
girls alive.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Oh, they ate their daddy.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
They ate him right up, bit by bit, cutting off
parts of him with a rock ILLINOI shope keeping the
body cold at the mouth of the cave, hoping there
would be a break in the weather so they could
try to make it back to civilization. But that break
didn't come, and as the days passed and the meat dwindled,
(36:36):
they began to lose all hope. Three days later, Milicine
got sick dysentery, Daddy's flesh had gone rancid. One night late,
the fire had died down. Nadine awoke, feeling that something
wasn't right. She looked over to where her sister was
(36:58):
sleeping and saw a form huddled over her, shaking and
grunting as her eyes had just as she realized it
was her mother, smothering the life out of her older
daughter to put her out of her misery.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And this is where it gets interesting. Eleanor died in
the caves too starvation. Her remains were found along with
the others.
Speaker 7 (37:34):
So how did Nadine survive?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
As a child, she claimed there was someone else in
the caves, a nameless and faithless man who led her
to safety. Then, when she was older, she denied it,
and the truth about what happened in the caves, well,
Nadine carried that to her deathbed, and she died right
(37:58):
here in this room. Only then did she whisper the
story to her grandson, mister William Fowler, same man who
left me this house.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
You didn't leave town, did you?
Speaker 3 (38:13):
What happened there?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It is again?
Speaker 7 (38:16):
Let's smell what'd smell?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Apple wood, smoke, lightning struck, makes for damn fine barbecue.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What happened to me?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Take a look around your old all, will you?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
No? No, no, no? What happened? Really?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I think I live something over there?
Speaker 6 (38:33):
Last? I love this, I appreciate.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Jesus.
Speaker 16 (38:44):
Hello, Julia Tyler? Yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
You probably wanted grand ship and get out of there?
Speaker 16 (38:55):
What where are you?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Seriously? You're five?
Speaker 16 (39:04):
What? What the fuck?
Speaker 17 (39:08):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Tyler?
Speaker 17 (39:32):
Tyler?
Speaker 6 (39:32):
Hello, Tyler?
Speaker 16 (39:37):
What the hell?
Speaker 7 (39:43):
I looked back at the house and there she was,
silhouetted before the bright flames that began to engulf the
Fowler homestead. A little girl in a tatter dress standing
in the doorway like a whole of blackness, a nothing
that's negative space, a paper girl cut out of this world,
(40:07):
her eyes barely visible on the flickering light. It was
Nadine O'Leary watching me, and soon she was enveloped by
the heat waves and smoked it and golfed in front
porch of the house.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Breeze.
Speaker 16 (40:28):
What hairs right? Sing, Holy, this was an accident. The
fuck up? Pick her hairs raised? Turn around, truly, I'm telling.
Speaker 14 (40:36):
You that, shut the fuck up. Turn around, Neil, kick
your hairs right.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
What's the point of you talking?
Speaker 16 (40:44):
Yeah, the right to remain silent.
Speaker 20 (40:48):
Anything you say can and we'll be held against you.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
In a court of law, you dumb motherfucker.
Speaker 20 (40:58):
Once it's sixth to radio, I got it, ding car
now way.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
The mana Walk Caves stars Jonathan Tucker as Julian Sallace,
Eddie Gatheggy as James Fincher, Clark Peters as Detective Solomon Smith,
Nick Cercy as Sheriff Kirby Hooper, Justin Welborn as Tyler Wilson,
Jill Jane Clements as Jill Campbell, Brad Carter as Dooley Tappert,
Scott Poythus as Reverend Perkins, Samantha Ashley as Dina Fincher,
(41:46):
Justin Matthews Smith as Paul Sawace, Tara Oaks as Laura Sallas,
Jonathan Horn as Deacon Hadley, Alden Karanovich as Thomas Hadley,
Mike w Anderson as Griff Washington, Body Walter as Jimmy Fincher,
Brian McClure as Ian Spinks, Larry Clark as Bobby Hadley,
Payden Fallis as ed LeBlanc, Vic Palisis as William Fowler,
(42:10):
Nick Takosky as Richard Rydell, and Aileen Loy as The Darkness,
with additional performances by Clint McGowan, Dina Dill, Edward Howard,
Henry Foster Brown, Jamie Joseph, Juan Monsalvez, Christopher Curry, Bailey Heineman,
David Mitchell, and Bernard Sataro Clark. Created by Connell Byrne
(42:32):
and Dan Bush. Written by Dan Bush, Zoe Cooper and
Nicholas Dakoski, featuring our theme song Killer Inside, written produced
and performed by Lera A.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Lynn.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Our executive producers are Matt Frederick, Alexander Williams, Michael Monty,
and Courtney du Frees. Our executive producers at Blumhouse Television
are Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickey, and Noah Feinberg. Produced by
Dan Bush, music by Ben Lovett. Additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.
This episode features the song Wayfaring Stranger, performed by Helena Rose,
(43:07):
edited by Dan Bush, Chris Childs, Stephen Perez, and David Chen.
Sound design by Benjamin Balcom. Additional sound design by Alexander Rodriguez.
Dialogue editing and sound mixing by Juan Campos. Recorded at
Studio Awesome in Los Angeles, Sound Byte Studio in Atlanta,
and Echo Mountain in Ashville. Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy
(43:28):
and Meg Mormon. Our dialect coach is Linda Bessesti, Assistant director,
Michael Monty, second assistant director, script supervisor and production coordinator
Sarah Klein. Supervising producer Josh Than Special thanks to Mary
Ellen and Jason Davis, Jonathan Dieter, and Joe Rickman. The
Manowalk Caves is a production of iHeart Radio, Blumhouse Television
(43:52):
and Psycopia Pictures Us.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
The Crows Seltendi.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And enter.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
A home way to card.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
I'm going there to see my sign who shed for me.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
It's precious Bill. I am just going way over toward him.
Speaker 17 (44:23):
I am just go
The Miniwauk Caves is intended for mature audiences. It contains
strong language and depictions of bullying, violence, and sexual assault
that some may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Also,
this is an extremely immersive experience and headphones are recommended.
You're listening to The manwac Caves, a production of iHeartRadio,
(00:22):
Blumhouse Television and Cycopia Pictures.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You can't fill out an accent report without note in
the conditions, whether the location.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You collect, witness information studied, the scene.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Safety is relative, and there's always a pattern, and then
if you pay attention, the pattern belies a deeper cycle.
I put on a bicycle, hit, buy a car, left
for dead. That's senseless and terrible. It tears down home families,
and that goes into the universe that wounded howl of
(01:04):
confusion and existential questions.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
And again, the kid had no helmet.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He was crossed in Memorial and Boulevard, the most dangerous
intersection in the city. And there's a robbery at a
corner store, gone ry. That leads to the junkie who
needed that fix. That leads to the dealer that could
get it to 'em and it rolls on down the line.
Safety is relative. I mean there's always a pattern, forces
(01:37):
trajectories the momentum, and unless the pattern is disrupted, collisions
are inevitable.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
There's a pattern here too.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A man of walk uh, cycle of violence. It's not
just those sadly boys. And unless the pattern is disrupt.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Stories about the caves go way back beyond early settler folkmore.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
The ghost in the mill.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
And the hounds of hell dancing in your.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
What do you mean, like like ghost and witches, some
kind of he'll believe food or something.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Seems turn the river glean inside tells.
Speaker 7 (02:50):
These tells the.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Hi Leary family such alter during a winter blizzard and
became trapped inside the cave. Only the youngest daughter, Nadine
o'hery mergem the cave.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
That's the end.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Adventure was most interesting, discussing it's one of these great
unsold mysteries of this area.
Speaker 8 (03:18):
All this call will be recorded as monitored. Please standside, Julia,
(03:40):
you ventcher, Yeah, it's me.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I need you to come bessing man. I don't have
much time lifting.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Neither you.
Speaker 7 (04:08):
August ninth, five fifty five pm. Where to begin? There's
only four days left now four days till James Fincher's
scheduled to be executed by the State of Tennessee unless
I can still do something about it. I drove to
(04:29):
see him this morning the Riverbed Maximum Security Institution in
Nashville for the first time since he was convicted fourteen
years ago. I'm led into a windowless box where for
death row inmates, you are a partitioned from your visitor
by a sheet of thick plexiglass. Their voice only available
(04:50):
to you through a hard wire plastic phone. The divider
lends a surreal aspect to the whole ordeal, like I'm
watching a live event on TV. My face reflected in
the glass, so while I wait, I stare at myself
as though I'm seeing myself on the other side. In
(05:14):
the final days leading up to their execution, the death
row inmate is taken to a special cell away from
the other inmates. Their cells completely bear a blank canvas
for a busy mind. They're not allowed any tools or
silverware that they could potentially harm themselves with, and a
guard is stationed by their side twenty four to seven
until it's time to go to the death chamber. It's
(05:36):
a final torture leaving them sitting there and their selves
rotting away, counting the days till they're predetermined death, deprived
of their inalienable human right to die by surprise. What's
most fucked up about it, although, is just how fiercely
a death row inmate is protected against their own non
schedule death. God forbid it happen in any other way.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
God forbid.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
They grant the condemned a fleeting but final moment of autonomy.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 7 (06:10):
I was about to see him for the first time
since before he was arrested fourteen years ago. But as
I looked at my reflection, all I could think about
was how I was about to come face to face
with everything I hate about myself.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Hey bene non.
Speaker 9 (06:39):
I saw the cuts on him, deep lines of scar
tissue rising up from his chest, some older than others,
real old. Others looked fresh, still raw and faster, and
tons of them all spilling out from underneath his sleeves
like he had carved words and symbols into his flesh.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Didn't make any fucking sense. They go to great lengths
to ensure these miserable bastards on death Row can't kill
themselves no sharp objects, even if he manufactured some kind
of shit. These scars would have taken time years maybe
if they covered his whole body and finished didn't have
these scars. The last time I saw him in the
(07:20):
courtroom before he was taken away, So.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
How the hell did he get him?
Speaker 9 (07:29):
He looked good. I mean, I mean, you don't actually
look much different, That's what I mean. My first time
back a man to walk.
Speaker 7 (07:38):
Everyone looks older, worn down, But but you don't look
like you've eached today. I mean, I know, I look
like shit. Haven't really slept, I don't really sleep anymore.
I spent last night in my car. I was supposed
to go to Tyler's.
Speaker 9 (07:56):
But shit, man, I mean, I don't know what you've heard.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
You know, if you've spoken to Dina, well you know
I'm Tyler.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
He's missing.
Speaker 9 (08:08):
I went over there and he was just go.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
His whole place was smashed up.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
But I yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't
know what's going on. Look, I spent years thinking of
what i'd say to you, apologies and please and explanations
(08:36):
for what happened and why, But it's all bullshit. I
was a stupid, scared kid, and I have hated myself
for all these years, and so I'm here and I'm
trying to help, but I don't know if I'm doing
(09:00):
anything right.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Please say something.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You do.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Look like shit. I don't want no apologies.
Speaker 9 (09:24):
Your study's gone.
Speaker 10 (09:26):
I had a lot of time in here to work
on it, to work on controlling my thoughts. Dena says
you freaked out on her last night.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Ever since I got back up, it happened issues. Did
Tina tell you about Tyler?
Speaker 10 (09:51):
Forget about Tyler? What forget Tyler? Tyler did his part
and I'm doing mine, but you still have work to do.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
I know, man, I'll go back to Dana and Joe Campbell.
Speaker 9 (10:14):
I'm sure they need reassurances after after I FORGEBT last night,
and I want to make sure that they have my
statement about the Coherce testimony. No wait, I was thinking,
I'm confused.
Speaker 10 (10:32):
What exactly do you think you're doing back here, Joe.
Speaker 7 (10:37):
I'm doing everything I can, everything I can do. I'm
really I'm grateful for your team's.
Speaker 11 (10:44):
Gonna be able to make a new poop for you.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
But in the meantime, I said you were writing a
book about all this about me?
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Maybe, but that's not why I'm here now.
Speaker 9 (10:59):
Listen, I've been reaching the steps that check to Smith
took when he was involved in the original homicide investigation.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I know.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
What, how do you know?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I just know? Thanks you only.
Speaker 12 (11:14):
Stuff you don't know, or maybe you blocked it out,
or you aren't allowed to know details about you and
Tie and the had leaves and the case, especially the case. Yeah,
(11:35):
I'm practically a goddamn scholar on the subject.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
I have so much to ask just the history and geography.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I know stuff that you can't find in the history books.
Speaker 13 (11:52):
I know, Man Good Winner of eighteen ninety three, what
the O'Leary family took shelter during the winter blizzard got
snowed in Eleanor O'Leary was trapped deep in the caves,
watching her daughter starve to death. Don't ask for the
Lord's help, of course, Braiden prayed, Oh, Heavenly Father, please,
(12:15):
I beg you, please deliver my poor innocent.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Child from the cool hand of death. But the Lord
didn't respond. He was a no show. Maybe deep in
those dark, evil caves, even God couldn't hear their small
and desperate voices calling out, Okay, but I believe someone
else did hear, and I imagine him appearing before h
(12:50):
Miss Oldliarry was something resembly pity in the slits of
his eyes.
Speaker 13 (13:00):
Good mother, you should you should tell you that he
made Miss Oliery an offer.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I can help you.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
I can object to.
Speaker 10 (13:10):
I can say, your poor little girl.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And only if you make the deal.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
And poor Eleanor starved, delirious, freezing, and on the brink
of death.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I imagine she did.
Speaker 10 (13:24):
What any loving mother and a moment of defeat and
weakness would do.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
She made the deal.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
He dies.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Nor nothing in the scaff I'll protect you. We're going
to get to know each other for very long time.
Speaker 10 (14:00):
I don't understand whether or not you believe that story
comes Spring of eighteen ninety three, the impossible happen. The
youngest daughter, Nadine, Sure shit, That little girl e murders
from the cave, the only survivor of the O'Leary family.
How she survived is a mystery to this day.
Speaker 7 (14:18):
Finch, I'm here to tell you something. Smith knew.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
He knew you didn't kill him.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
I think he knew who did.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
Why don't you ask him what, Detective Solomon Smith.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
He's lone gone, Finch.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
No one's seen him.
Speaker 10 (14:50):
Since when are you going back to the house the
Fowler estayed off of twenty nine, that's where Smith was
living during the investigation. Right, yeah, when you're going back there?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Not cut good?
Speaker 5 (15:10):
How did you know that?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Wait?
Speaker 7 (15:12):
Wait, wait wait, I have so much to talk to
you about, Fitch.
Speaker 10 (15:16):
Do you have any idea how hard it is to
speak to you. I'm not talking about just sitting here
across from but literally speak words to your face.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I have spent years in this place, years.
Speaker 10 (15:36):
Teaching myself to focus on the shapes of words, quiet
in my mind, training the muscles in my face to
wrap around the words properly.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And I can.
Speaker 13 (15:48):
When I'm calling.
Speaker 10 (15:51):
But when I called you, all of a sudden, I
couldn't get one word out clean. It was like no
time had passed it all for James fucking go there
first to foul the place.
Speaker 14 (16:08):
Tonight, Guard, We're done.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So who helped a little girl?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
That's where the discovery of Eleanor O'Leary's journal is interesting.
Miss O'Leary described the entire deal in great detail. What
Fincher was most interested in this is the last few
enturies of her journal. When she starts to discuss the
presence inside the case with him.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
The truth comes in different flavors. Sometimes it's revealed in
the intersection of facts.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Aaron with the father, Seamus, he died first.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
Sometimes it's hidden the lore.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
As the family went to extremes to avoid starvation, Miss
O'Leary's journal entries become less coherent.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
More disturbed.
Speaker 15 (17:11):
These dots are all interconnected. I can feel it. Richard
Roddell being from Anniwalk, Detective Smith moving into William Fowler's
place after Riddell's execution, and then coming on board the
Hadley murder case, only to become convinced that James Fincher's innocence,
and now Deacon Hadley's necklace found in Tyler Wilson's ransacked
(17:34):
house after Tyler's gone missing.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
These devils pranks, They're.
Speaker 15 (17:39):
Important more than clues or converging strings on an investigation
board or breadcrumb's on the trail, a thread through the labyrinth.
But what was Fincher's obsession with the story of the
O'Leary family. I know it's all connected somehow.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
According to miss O'Leary, here emerges from the very shadows
of the caves and offers to help her.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
What doll.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
It would seem that miss O'Leary was lacking rational faculties, delirious, freezing, hallucinating,
No doubt conjured this narrative while on the brain coach starvation.
Would you agree it's a classic narrative. A surf in
the garden, Fousty embargain the devil, a crossroads. Some people
believe Fincher worships the devil, would you agree, doctor Tector? Well,
(18:35):
even Satanists don't believe in the literal Satan, detective, And.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
What do you call people who do believe in a
literal Satan? Christians?
Speaker 7 (18:49):
After I saw Finch at Riverbedd in Nashville, I drove
back to the Fowler's place, detect dismiss less known home.
(19:12):
In the wash of the flashlight, it looked decrepit hollowed
out a skull deer and out at the night. Its
front windows were opaque with dust. My flashlight didn't seem
to want to penetrate the dark inside. The door, of course,
was locked. What there's someone there?
Speaker 16 (19:37):
Come on, I have a gun, It was, dear, what
the hell do you want?
Speaker 7 (20:00):
Three doze in a buck?
Speaker 5 (20:02):
A phone?
Speaker 7 (20:04):
They all stood right there at did you the wood
staring at me, eyes reflecting back my beam shoe.
Speaker 15 (20:12):
What the hell?
Speaker 9 (20:14):
They didn't move when I shouted. It was like they
were waiting for something.
Speaker 16 (20:26):
Okay, where those stand there? Just don't call the cops
when I and I won't send hunters out here. Freezy
pickens deal.
Speaker 11 (20:38):
Okay, okay, all right to take the smith.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Let's see what you knew.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
I'm not gonna lie. I didn't know what I was
expecting when I got inside, but it wasn't what I
was looking at.
Speaker 6 (21:35):
First.
Speaker 7 (21:35):
Off, it was cold, I mean outside it's nearly summer.
In the house, cold like twenty degree drop and damp, subterranean,
without the benefit of ever being worn by the sun.
The house had largely been untouched since Solomon skipped out,
so the furniture's all there, and the bed sheets still
must from the last night he slept in the dry
(21:56):
goods in the pantry, a single dirty plate in the
sink next to a coffee cup, mold that had grown
over them, long, sin stride and dead. It was like
I stepped back in time. The only thing suggesting the
Solomon had ever left were the open drawers and half
empty closet, the hangers on the bed and he'd left quickly,
and then in the back office hum around the room,
(22:22):
moleskin tablets the kinyrad used to jot down notes on
the case perhaps were scattered about. In the corner of
the office, a small aluminum waste paper basket sat beneath
the scorch section of the wall. Someone had made a
small fire, and from the looks of it, he'd burned
pages here and there from the notebooks, one of which
seemed to have been burned whole. That wasn't even the
(22:45):
weirdest thing.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
What the fuck is this?
Speaker 7 (22:49):
The weirdest thing was the wall above the waste paper basket.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
What are you doing?
Speaker 9 (22:52):
Simon writing scrawled all over it, articles from the town
photo copied and pinned with no tape, and scribbled and
pencil and sharp remarker, no rahm or reason of the order?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
What the fuck?
Speaker 7 (23:05):
But all of it painted a grizzly, unflattering picture of
Manahawaan County. Every murder, every assault, every suicide and fire
and deadly car accident ever recorded, all pinned up and
noted in Solomon Smith's neat handwriting. Oh shit, it's here's tapes.
(23:41):
These tapes were dated, but there's no labeling beyond that.
From the looks of it, they went all the way
up to two days before Solomon Smith skipped town. Luckily,
I'd come prepared with extra batteries and a sleeping bag
and a bottleful of courage. I found the most recent
and popped in on this platform.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
What in, Hooper?
Speaker 17 (24:13):
I thought we were having a beer, figured we'd go
to a bar or something.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
You sure you want to be seen with me, sir?
And besides, I already moved on to whiskey a while ago.
From the looks of it, you want what or not?
Speaker 13 (24:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
I go on. Then something on your mind, Hooper? Solomon.
Speaker 17 (24:36):
I asked you on to this case because I know
you're about a mile more qualified than anybody else around here,
myself included. But this is a small town. People are upset.
When those two boys turned up the way they did.
It felt like it was their own children been cutted
in those caves, and they want closure, They want to
(25:00):
put it behind it, and they should want the truth
and maybe they'll get it. Seems to me that James
Fincher truly was the only one with any real motive
to harm Deacon and Thomas. I think we need to
seriously consider leaning into the possibility that James Fincher killed
those boys. A man, James Fincher didn't kill nobody. What
(25:22):
do you have to go on that says he didn't experience. Look,
you have no idea what being different is. To stand out,
to be ostracized, marginalized, demonized, to be discriminated against in
a world full of people will think they're smarter than you,
who think they deserve better than you.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I hear you.
Speaker 17 (25:46):
That's exactly why there's motive. I'm not arguing that the
system is perfect, It's goddamn far from it. But right
now we need to look at the impartial fact. Oh shit,
James Fischer didn't want to cause trouble.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
He just wanted to get by.
Speaker 18 (26:03):
Killing those boys would be a death sentence for a
kid like him in this town, and he damn well
is smart enough to know it. James Fincher has been
bullied since he moved here, and I'm not gonna let
him be bullied into a jail cell.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
All right.
Speaker 17 (26:19):
Look, I know you're a little bit heated and more
than a little drunk, but we gotta look at this
from the rest of the town's point of view too.
And how's that smart enough to know it isn't facts.
The fact is that multiple people have come forward pointing
a finger directly at James Fincher. We have interviews, we
have people willing to testify.
Speaker 19 (26:41):
And Reverend Perkins has been particularly vocal. Excuse me, Reverend
Perkins has been putting pressure on you, all right, Sam,
of course he has. Why the hell wouldn't he You
get the backing of the first Baptist Church. You can
have whatever you want in this town, a raise, a
re election. Come on, two boys are dead, you son
(27:03):
of a bitch. These are good people.
Speaker 17 (27:05):
They just want justice, and I would think that you,
of all people, would be able to relate to that.
Solomon Sheriff, I know what killed my boy. Maybe this
was a mistake. I think we've got more than a
little bit of a conflict of interest here. You understand
what I'm saying. Oh, you're taking me off the case.
(27:26):
I don't have much choice. It's my fault, it's not yours.
I should have put it together before bringing you on.
Speaker 18 (27:36):
You need me on this thing, James Fincher don't stand
a chance.
Speaker 17 (27:43):
I'm not so sure James Fincher deserves a chance.
Speaker 7 (27:55):
Detective Smith up and left his life in Atlanta, but
his own personal demons followed him the Milwaukee. His son
committed suicide a few years before the move. See. By
all accounts, he was a smart kid, but he had
a minor physical deformity born missing two fingers off his
right hand. That's it. But he was bullied for it
his entire life heart and one day something finally pushed
(28:19):
him over the edge. He was eighteen years old when
he died. James Fincher was eighteen at the time of
the investigation. Maybe just another devil's prank is Jennifer Fowler
called them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Listen, you can hear them off in the woods. I
know they're there every fucking night this goddamn week, right
outside my window, tapping and laughing.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
Fast forwarded around on that first tape, his last one.
He'd recorded, come on and.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
You piece this shit, Come on, show your goddamn faces.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Finally, come on, come on, come on.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh oh you motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
God damn dear.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
The tape from the perceiving that was much different. So
I skipped back a week or two and had another drink.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
After reading letters, James Fincher wrote to doctor Tratner. I
went down to the Pottsville Library and pulled every book
Fincher checked out. He'd also had the library and printed
a few articles he'd found on their microfiche, and from
around Halloween he's run in the Pottsville Press. As I
don't know, I guess you'd call it what passes for
a human interest story around here. Amongst these tales of
(29:58):
terror and woe is this strange case of Nadine O'Leary
of the O'Leary family, Scotch settlers who had landed in
Norfolk and decided to try their.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Luck heading west.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Davis Wentworth of the newly founded Pottsville walked out onto
her back porch to find a small creature hunched over,
eating raw eggs whole from her chicken coop. At first,
she believed it to be a mangy bear, it was
so stooped and filthy. It turned out to be young
(30:33):
Nadine O'Leary, dressed in rags, missing fingers in parts of
her face from frostbite. She was nearly feral. For decades.
Nadine would give only a cursory account. However, on her
deathbed she told a different story.
Speaker 16 (30:57):
What the fuck.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
Hello, Hello, Well damn, a tree has landed on the
roof of the house, flush up against the chimney. Jesus,
(31:48):
Come on, detective, what else you got here?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Fas cases of Tom Trevor. He's thirty four, father of
two young children. Report it dead June thirtieth, nineteen ninety
after being spotted on a hike with it. Laura Solace?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Also what uh? Laura Solace?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Wife of Paul Solace, mother of Julian Solace? Small world?
Speaker 7 (32:26):
No, no fucking way.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
What were you doing hiking with old Tom, Miss Solace?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
No, he too fell, if her testimony was to be believed. No,
cracked his skull wide open, brains spilled out all.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
Over the world.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
No, but why were you with him? Looks like you
will with your husband at the dealership.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
You'll probably travel to the same tiny circles in this hellhole,
probably tracked the same shitty beers and the same shitty bars.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Your kids maybe even played together.
Speaker 11 (33:01):
Oh my god, we're.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Just passing the time talking about your happy marriages, your
beloved children.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Did you talk about Julian? But were you going up
there for something else?
Speaker 6 (33:17):
What?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Hello? Is anyone out there?
Speaker 6 (33:24):
Oh my god?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
You get a little squirrel here?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
So did he take it too far, move too fast
for you misunderstand your intent?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Did you push him? Or did you in a moment
of fear maybe he's bearing down on you.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Did you pick up a rock and finish that creasy
motherfucking yourself?
Speaker 3 (33:50):
She wouldn't. Now you're probably right. She was just out
for a stroll in the woods with a friend, nothing more.
I mean, I guess we'll never know, will we, Julian?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Why don't we talk about something else? The subject doesn't
seem to agree with you.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
I can't think of anything.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
What happened to the olders?
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, you want a real devil's prank. This isn't the
first house to be built on this property. Guess who
the first owner of this land was?
Speaker 6 (34:37):
Was it shamous oldier?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Look at you, Nancy Drew, How damn son you could
have been a detective. When he died, it passed down
to his only living relative, Nadine, who built a cabin
here and lived until the rife old age of ninety
before passing it down to her grandson, who knocked it
down and built this place.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You find yourself sit right now?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
William Fowler Jennifer Fowler's granddad and my own benefactor.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Oh small fucking world.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You ain't kidding.
Speaker 15 (35:14):
The only reus what happened to them in the cave.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Navin's story didn't that up. There was no way she
could have sabred by herself, and on her.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Deathbed she fessed up.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Seamus wasn't much of a hunter, and one day I
was trying to build a snare, Shamus slipped and broke
his ankle, compound bone sticking out. Took him hours to
hop her back to the caves. Within a couple of days,
he'd succumbed to sepsis not a pretty way to die,
fever dreams and visions of hell. Poor bastard. They were
(35:53):
devastated within it. Eleanor wailed and gnashed her teeth and
pulled out her hair. Though she was grieving, she was
in a dumb She saw an opportunity to keep her
girls alive.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Oh, they ate their daddy.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
They ate him right up, bit by bit, cutting off
parts of him with a rock ILLINOI shope keeping the
body cold at the mouth of the cave, hoping there
would be a break in the weather so they could
try to make it back to civilization. But that break
didn't come, and as the days passed and the meat dwindled,
(36:36):
they began to lose all hope. Three days later, Milicine
got sick dysentery, Daddy's flesh had gone rancid. One night late,
the fire had died down. Nadine awoke, feeling that something
wasn't right. She looked over to where her sister was
(36:58):
sleeping and saw a form huddled over her, shaking and
grunting as her eyes had just as she realized it
was her mother, smothering the life out of her older
daughter to put her out of her misery.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And this is where it gets interesting. Eleanor died in
the caves too starvation. Her remains were found along with
the others.
Speaker 7 (37:34):
So how did Nadine survive?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
As a child, she claimed there was someone else in
the caves, a nameless and faithless man who led her
to safety. Then, when she was older, she denied it,
and the truth about what happened in the caves, well,
Nadine carried that to her deathbed, and she died right
(37:58):
here in this room. Only then did she whisper the
story to her grandson, mister William Fowler, same man who
left me this house.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
You didn't leave town, did you?
Speaker 3 (38:13):
What happened there?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It is again?
Speaker 7 (38:16):
Let's smell what'd smell?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Apple wood, smoke, lightning struck, makes for damn fine barbecue.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What happened to me?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Take a look around your old all, will you?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
No? No, no, no? What happened? Really?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I think I live something over there?
Speaker 6 (38:33):
Last? I love this, I appreciate.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Jesus.
Speaker 16 (38:44):
Hello, Julia Tyler? Yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
You probably wanted grand ship and get out of there?
Speaker 16 (38:55):
What where are you?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Seriously? You're five?
Speaker 16 (39:04):
What? What the fuck?
Speaker 17 (39:08):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Tyler?
Speaker 17 (39:32):
Tyler?
Speaker 6 (39:32):
Hello, Tyler?
Speaker 16 (39:37):
What the hell?
Speaker 7 (39:43):
I looked back at the house and there she was,
silhouetted before the bright flames that began to engulf the
Fowler homestead. A little girl in a tatter dress standing
in the doorway like a whole of blackness, a nothing
that's negative space, a paper girl cut out of this world,
(40:07):
her eyes barely visible on the flickering light. It was
Nadine O'Leary watching me, and soon she was enveloped by
the heat waves and smoked it and golfed in front
porch of the house.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Breeze.
Speaker 16 (40:28):
What hairs right? Sing, Holy, this was an accident. The
fuck up? Pick her hairs raised? Turn around, truly, I'm telling.
Speaker 14 (40:36):
You that, shut the fuck up. Turn around, Neil, kick
your hairs right.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
What's the point of you talking?
Speaker 16 (40:44):
Yeah, the right to remain silent.
Speaker 20 (40:48):
Anything you say can and we'll be held against you.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
In a court of law, you dumb motherfucker.
Speaker 20 (40:58):
Once it's sixth to radio, I got it, ding car
now way.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
The mana Walk Caves stars Jonathan Tucker as Julian Sallace,
Eddie Gatheggy as James Fincher, Clark Peters as Detective Solomon Smith,
Nick Cercy as Sheriff Kirby Hooper, Justin Welborn as Tyler Wilson,
Jill Jane Clements as Jill Campbell, Brad Carter as Dooley Tappert,
Scott Poythus as Reverend Perkins, Samantha Ashley as Dina Fincher,
(41:46):
Justin Matthews Smith as Paul Sawace, Tara Oaks as Laura Sallas,
Jonathan Horn as Deacon Hadley, Alden Karanovich as Thomas Hadley,
Mike w Anderson as Griff Washington, Body Walter as Jimmy Fincher,
Brian McClure as Ian Spinks, Larry Clark as Bobby Hadley,
Payden Fallis as ed LeBlanc, Vic Palisis as William Fowler,
(42:10):
Nick Takosky as Richard Rydell, and Aileen Loy as The Darkness,
with additional performances by Clint McGowan, Dina Dill, Edward Howard,
Henry Foster Brown, Jamie Joseph, Juan Monsalvez, Christopher Curry, Bailey Heineman,
David Mitchell, and Bernard Sataro Clark. Created by Connell Byrne
(42:32):
and Dan Bush. Written by Dan Bush, Zoe Cooper and
Nicholas Dakoski, featuring our theme song Killer Inside, written produced
and performed by Lera A.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Lynn.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Our executive producers are Matt Frederick, Alexander Williams, Michael Monty,
and Courtney du Frees. Our executive producers at Blumhouse Television
are Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickey, and Noah Feinberg. Produced by
Dan Bush, music by Ben Lovett. Additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.
This episode features the song Wayfaring Stranger, performed by Helena Rose,
(43:07):
edited by Dan Bush, Chris Childs, Stephen Perez, and David Chen.
Sound design by Benjamin Balcom. Additional sound design by Alexander Rodriguez.
Dialogue editing and sound mixing by Juan Campos. Recorded at
Studio Awesome in Los Angeles, Sound Byte Studio in Atlanta,
and Echo Mountain in Ashville. Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy
(43:28):
and Meg Mormon. Our dialect coach is Linda Bessesti, Assistant director,
Michael Monty, second assistant director, script supervisor and production coordinator
Sarah Klein. Supervising producer Josh Than Special thanks to Mary
Ellen and Jason Davis, Jonathan Dieter, and Joe Rickman. The
Manowalk Caves is a production of iHeart Radio, Blumhouse Television
(43:52):
and Psycopia Pictures Us.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
The Crows Seltendi.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And enter.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
A home way to card.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
I'm going there to see my sign who shed for me.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
It's precious Bill. I am just going way over toward him.
Speaker 17 (44:23):
I am just go
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