Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, I'm Sierra and welcome back to another episode
of The Unsolved Couple, where every week Ben and I
recap one of your original gateway drugs into true crimes.
(00:23):
We rounded out the month of October by going to
a big event here in Tucson with multiple haunted houses
and different things like that.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
We did. We finished out the Halloween.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Season and now it's bad.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Started listening to Christmas. Got my way home. We did.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
We are one of those families that go straight from
Halloween into Christmas. Christmas and Thanksgiving to me are a
blended holiday. Yeah, our oldest son has been every year.
You need a little bit more annoying about the earliness
of the Christmas holiday. So I'm like, are we doing
(01:09):
that thing to our children that when they grow up
they'll be like absolutely zero tinsel and sparkle until like
December fifth or something.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I think it's just influenced by the cool crowd around it,
Like they people think it's cool to.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Not like christ It's just the teenage vibes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, you ain't getting a lot of that.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, good luck to anybody out there raising teenagers. It's
a whole project.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's never ending.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
We're back up late at night again waiting for them
to come home, Like you were not sleeping once again.
But now we're fourteen years older than we were the
first time we weren't sleeping.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, how is it's good?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
It's friends over we went Actually we didn't go t
trick or treated here, but I don't know what was
going on. Our neighborhood is usually like one of the
top neighborhoods to go to, and I mean like there's
been years where there's basically like live parties happening because
in Arizona it's still one hundred degrees here, Okay, it's
(02:21):
still in the nineties, and so on Halloween typically people
set up in their driveways, which growing up in Oregon,
I had never seen that in my whole life, had
you No, no, no, this is the first ever sear
and so people like get after it in the driveway.
There's been years and we had full on DJs in
our driveway listening to music with like the full lights
(02:44):
set up in everything. But this year we were like
the only ones on our one, two, three, four, five
what six houses in our little strip that we're doing anything.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, our neighbor must have been.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, so and with it being Friday night, I bought
a lot of candy, expecting a lot of kids to
be out because they normally start early and they get
after it until eight thirty nine o'clock at night. On
school nights, we've had to put out signs like we
are out of candy. Yeah, And this year I was
(03:22):
by the end just giving away fistfuls of candy with people.
And we still have a huge bucket of Halloween candy.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Back buckets sitting on my kitchen table. It is a
lot of it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, So I hope everyone had an amazing holiday. Wherever
you guys are. I think Germany's one of the only
places I know that doesn't go all out for Halloween,
which Germany, what are you doing with your life? If
that's not what you're doing, you should be campaigning for that.
If you want to run for any public office in Germany,
(03:57):
campaign on bringing Halloween in to.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The culture.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
But we hope you guys had a great time and
that you had to celebrate. We went to a haunted
house last night, which is one of my favorite things
to do and something we're going to be talking about
later in the show. I love hanted houses. I I
don't get terrified, but I jump scared very easily, and.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I just I don't know. I love it was.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
The problem is is that once you scream, then all
of the actors know like you're the weak link in
the party and they like to follow me outside of
the scaring area, keep scaring. So okay, well, we are
glad you're with us. We have what four stories to
(04:52):
go over, four recaps for you guys. But before we
get started and before we dive deep into the world
of unsolved mysteries, don't forget to follow the show wherever
you're listening, and if you enjoy what we're doing, please
take a moment to leave us a five star review.
It helps more people find the podcast and keep us
(05:14):
bringing you more of these mysterious and sometimes spooky cases. Okay,
since we didn't actually go over this before, how do
you want to break this down?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Me? You?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
No? No?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
You me you me? Okay went the haunted house. You
have to go last. Okay, I have to go first.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Oh, it's been a while since Ben has kicked off
Daddy storytelling time. So Ben is our true crime daddy
to everyone's nots.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I don't appreciate it. Okay, all right, okay, we'll get told.
This is a bankrup. It's telling your apps about you. Guys.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Ben would rather be watching football right now and taking
a nap from the amount absurd amount of candy he's
had today.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I haven't. I've slept terrible for like two weeks, so
all I want to do is sleep on my weekend.
But that's not what we're doing. We're talking about December fourteenth,
nineteen eighty seven, eight thirty am. Did you notice he
chucks the axe through the window. Very dangerous, hold on
to it. He yeats it through. As the kids might reenactment,
(06:32):
this guy just throws an axe.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Do you think the people oh, pause for a doorbell,
b r b okay, sorry for that interruption, local neighbor kid.
All right, okay, but no, I wonder when I was
(06:54):
watching this, do you think that actor had permission to
just slam through the glass like that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I don't know if he did or not, but I
would have been here for the director being like, I
think give it some more, give it like giving him
a few. We need more, we need more cowboll more cawbo.
And finally the actor was like you know what, and
just chucked this insane sized hatchet, like full on, like
what you would chop a tree down with. Yeah, and
(07:22):
acts through this metal there's not metal this glass door
and unsolved mysteries like dang it, we're gonna have to
pay for that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I don't know. It just was weird that you're about
to rob a bank and you're throw an axe through
the door first and then leave that on the ground.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I don't know anyways, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Anyway, So we get the screen actment on this guy
throwing an act dude or coming in. Everyone hands up,
blah blah blah, and within five minutes they steal a
half a million dollars. So, come to find out, we're
introduced to the man named Patrick Michael Mitchell. He has
(08:05):
been robbing banks for fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It's like that's longer almost and we've been raising children, Ben,
and it is technically it's longer than you've been in
your career. He is a career bank robber.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yes, I came find this is in my siders. One
of his first he was part of a game called
the Stopwatch game and like one of their first heists
was they still gold bars from the Ottawa Canada Airport.
First off, what they have gold bars? I don't know
who was in the seventies, so there's no inform like,
(08:44):
there wasn't any information on that man. What a time
to be alive.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I think I would have made different career choices in
the seventies.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Anyways, if you knew you could get away with robbing
things for fifteen years, I.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Think everyone would if they knew they could get away
with it. Yeah, but I don't know anyway. So he's
been Robin Banks fifteen years, supposedly has made off with
they say around three million dollars gravy side research, it's
possibly way more than that, up to like fifteen to nine.
(09:16):
But seriously, I got a lot of numbers. Okay, so
what is fact? What is not? I don't know. But
and then.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Robertson, We're not a factual podcast here, We're a entertainment
This is an entertainment podcast.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Facts. We give you the facts that we can, but
most of our facts come from us old mystery. So
if they're wrong then.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Which unfortunately we've learned a handful of times that they
didn't have back checkers.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Anyways, So Robert Steak comes back. He starts telling us like,
this guy changes identities like we change shirts. He's constantly
you know, doing all these I don't know, he's got
different aliases in Yeah. Anyways, he's made his name onto
the FBI is most wanted. Harberstick says that he is
(10:09):
responsible for at least fifteen bank robberies in two prisoner
stings could gravy. So then we get the FBI on
the air, an FBI agent and I the name of
William Flattery, and he tells us, you know, this guy's arrogant.
He's telling us about this guy. The best part was
(10:31):
he says that he's arrogant and self absorbed because he
takes thretin a. I guess you could.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Best describe him as being confident he's even the vein
to a certain extent, and that we believe him to
have taken the prescription drug of retin a, which supposedly
helps your keeps your youthful appearance.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Do you know what that is? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yes, I laughed, And I guarantee most women over about
thirty something will know what retine is. And the fact
that he described this as like some sort of like
you vane youthful.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Thing to keep his youthful.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Technically, reninee is still a gold standard for skin cell
turnover and exfoliation.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
It is a mild chemical that's in a.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Form of a cream, and you put it on your
face every night and it just kind of keeps you
with that youthful glow. I have some literally three feet
behind you in the bathroom. Would you like to start
using it?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I don't care. Here's the thing. I'm growing old and
I'm just I'm going to be an old man, so
might as well just accept it. Okay, all right, But
that's how we're talking about. We're talking about this guy.
But the shade he threw was awesome. Yeah. Yes. So
the other thing he describes him is he likes the ladies.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Oh well, you're not using renine if you don't.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So, And he sees himself as a cook because there's
a few pictures of him cooking. No, in the vehicle
they found later on, they found like twenty five cookbooks
in the back. I don't know that's what. It seems
like a lot of cookbooks, but it's a lot of cookbooks,
all right. So nineteen eighty three, he Patrick Michael Mitchell
(12:25):
had been sentenced to twenty years in Arizona State Penitentiary
or any robbery that's.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Not the one that's right down here. Is it because
we have a state pen down here, or we have
a federal penitentiary here.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, and we got a we think we might have
a statement. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
There's like three prisons right around the corner from here.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I didn't see which oney was that. So May ninth,
nineteen eighty six, him and two other inmates, they're cleaning
doing something. He's playing this escape somehow. They get into
like a maintenance closet and change into civilian clothes and
(13:10):
walk out of the primm Yeah. Literally, not a super
high security prison. And one of the inmates they escaped
with they had convinced her, convinced the inmate's girlfriend that
they were on Yeah, they had like a weekend furlough. Yeah,
So she is out there waiting to meet him, and
they drive away. They don't seem to notice they get away,
(13:35):
so not till it's too late, obviously. So one of
the escapees is caught later in Atlanta. But Patrick, it's quite.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
From here in Arizona to Atlanta. That's that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
But Patrick and Johnny Stewart escape and they had to
Gainesville or so. In Gainesville, they supposedly start scouting this
bank that we talked about in the beginning. They rented
a storage unit that overlooks the bank. Clearly the professionals,
(14:15):
because they don't just go round the bank. They do
all their homework, so they would like load boxes and
unload boxes in car and that while they watched the bank,
and they scouted it. And a matter what they were
scouting was armer truck deliveries in and out. So they
get all the intel supposedly on this. They figure out
(14:36):
the routine of the armor trucks and they even so
Patrick doesn't go into the bank, but Stewart, the other
guy that escaped, he goes in and opens it account
and kind of scopes the bank.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He becomes a regular presence at the bank so that
if he's seen in there, no one is alarmed.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, so this is happening, they say, And because what
did they escape, wonder And they escaped in May, so
this is happening in the fall. Well, that's a long
time to wait, but anyways, patience is a virtue. December fourteenth,
nineteen eighty seven, seven thirty am Mitchell and Stewart. They
(15:18):
meet at the storage unit and they get ready for
their robbery. Seven point fifty they noticed bank employees are
starting to filter into the bank to get ready for opening,
which is not untill nine am. This is this, This
timeline seems weird to me. But eight am the armored
car leaves to go collect deposits. At eight ten, someone
(15:43):
calls in a bomb threat at a high school across town.
But still in the same jurisdiction of the police department
over that.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Part that is going to take the risk of children
being in danger, is going to take precedence over what
is about to happen.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
But they have no idea that this is about. I
understand they don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
But there and in the seventies bomb threats, I guarantee,
unfortunately are or in the eighties are not as normal
as a thing as they are now.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So eight twenty two the armored car returns with deposits
and drops them off at the bank. It seemed like,
in like twenty two minutes, you left and collected a
bunch and then we're back.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
But they probably go around to just a handful of
local Did you ever work for a place that had
armored trucks that popped.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
By, not that I know. Yeah, I mean I worked
at Macy's.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Possible, Yeah, they probably did, because you put everything in
the like nightly deposit boxes and stuff, and then usually
either the manager takes it, but if it's a bigger
company they might come through or.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I'm sure that like we had a worked at I
was a teenager, there was a safe in the floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was a timer. You could not once you closed it,
it could not be opened until eight am the next time. Yeah. Anyways, okay,
so that at twenty two, the armor car returns, brings
all the deposits back. Eight twenty five the robbery begins.
(17:19):
Oh you know, what they might have been collecting.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Was there was sometimes like deposit boxes in different areas,
Like if you banked with somebody, they might have a
deposit box and they might have gone around and collected those.
They wouldn't want that money sitting there, So it would
make sense in my mind, if that is correct, that
it would be done quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Always they go in, they smash the window. They're wearing
round regg and miss you know, love it. But they
said that this was that was his remo.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
He kind of had a little tongue in cheek with
stuff because he even wore like the Watergate people or
Nixon and yeah, and Bozo the Clown.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They said he would just wear different crazy masks.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Did you have Bozo the Clown? Do you know who
just bought the rights to that? Those are the clown?
David Arquette he played Dewey Officer Dewey Oh yeah in
the screen movies like he now owns, like the whole
Bozo the Clown. You guys, I haven't taken my ad
age medicine for a few days, so we might be
(18:19):
getting some random facts that for some reason have stuck
inside my brain and I can't tell you why.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
So they go in yell. Within five minutes, they're off
with five hundred thousand dollars. They even say he dropped
a bag on the way out that had twenty eight
thousand bucks. But he's still made off with a half
a million dollars. So he's on the run. Two months later, Stuart,
(18:47):
his accomplice, is arrested. He plays not guilty, but he's
sentenced to forty years into love.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
When people played not guilty that are very obviously guilty.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So a year later, Mitchell's Cadillac that he was last
seen in was found abandoned in Tallahassee in a storage unit.
So that's where they found all the cookbooks in the bay.
But he's on the run and they're looking for him.
They shows picture all kinds of pictures. He's got all
(19:20):
these aliases. This is where they think he is. But
you know, we just don't know, So can you help
us find him? They say he is a citizen of Canada,
so he could be there, but he's coming in and
out and all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So Canadians are sneaky man.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, all right, that's your story the months long is
ready for your update? Update? All right. He was arrested
February twenty second, nineteen ninety four. So it turned out
he had supposedly been there, supposedly ev that he was
living in the Philippines, but he would like comeback and
(20:02):
rob banks and stuff. Goodness, But he was arrested walking
out of a bank in Mississippi. Why because someone had
called in a bomb threat and the chief of police said,
this seems suspicious, so he sent a bunch of his
officers to the different banks in town Wow, and the
(20:23):
officers waited for him to walk out and arrested him
without it. There you go. He was suspicious of that, clearly.
I'm gonna guess from what I read, this guy was
he's considered one of the most successful bankrupt Is that
the word? Yeah, So I'm gonna guess his mom was
(20:44):
pretty well known around the country at that time. Yeah,
I'm throwing a guess out there. But he was sentenced
to two thirty years sentences for bank rubery plus another
five years for escape, so he had like a sixty
five your sentence. He died in prison on January fourteenth,
two thousand and seven. Oh, but he did rune a
(21:08):
biography in prison called This Bank Robber's Life, so if
you're curious of it. But I did read that he
was pretty well known. He was supposedly courteous with people.
As of what I read, no.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
One was ever he physically harmed.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, now I shouldn't because they interviewed some of the
bank tellers and they were clearly frightened for them. Can
you even imagine? No? So, yeah, I'm not trying to
say anything nice about this guy because he brought banks,
He put people in a I will say, a fear
situation and were they were they were scared for him.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, it is easy to be like, well, the banks
are ensured and that's that's like.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
But they're real humans that work there, Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And so to think financially this didn't affect the normal people.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Does that make sense.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
It's easy to be like, okay, so what some multi
millionaire billionaire x y ors he's the one affected, bladoity blah.
But it's easy to discount the emotional trauma that would
come from being the employees of the bank.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
One lady was interviewed like she was scared. She never
go home to her one hundred percent again, and that
is probably.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I never assumed that someone pulls out a weapon if
they're not willing to use it.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, it's good he was got And uh, we've heard
a lot of bank rubbers in a few years. No,
this guy they locked my five years and then, like
I said, he died in prison. So anyways, but he
was a very robbed a lot of banks. Yeah, and
(22:56):
I read those gold bars and he's stole seven hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Please tell me that no one has ever found them
so that we can start a treasure hunt. So there's
somewhere then and now he's dead, so we don't even know.
Maybe there's clues in his book. Maybe his book has
a hidden treasure matter. All okay, So before we drop
in to our lost love story, I just want to
(23:21):
remind everybody that we do have a social media account,
Unsolved Couple Pod, that is the same handle on Instagram
and on TikTok. If you've already left us a review
and you're looking to support us a little bit more,
please make sure to hop on over and give us
a follow. I post the little little things all the time.
(23:43):
I'm doing actually like a twenty rules life rules of
what true crime has taught us because we grew up
listening watching unsolved mysteries and not fairy tales. And then
a couple of other reminders Ben and I do have
a to support links down below in the show notes.
We have a buy me a coffee which, you know,
(24:04):
if you could throw a couple of bucks on our podcast.
We are working on upgrading equipment and looking to do
some more as far as being able to bring you
video formats of this, and yeah, we'd appreciate it, and
we're so grateful for all the people that have done
those things so far and now I will tell you
about a sweet, sweet older gentleman named Victor in the
(24:30):
nineteen twenty nine. In nineteen twenty nine, during some of
the darkest days of the Great Depression, an eight year
old boy named Frank at the time grew up in Dylan, Yale, Ohio.
For him, and he's interviewed in this the hard times
(24:50):
common to all Americans or most Americans at the time
during the Great Depression, were especially cool, even more so
on him. On the farm. He had chickens to feed,
grass to cut, and chores to do. Although he says
he didn't mind helping out on the farm, it was
(25:11):
the fact that he did not like that he usually
went hungry afterwards. This story, I know it is for
as far back as he can remember. His hardships went
far beyond your standard Great Depression and even like thankless
chores of like being a kid on a farm, he
(25:34):
was beaten. And he says he went often hungry, but
so hungry that even the smell of food made him nauseous.
Let that sink into this boys ate at the time
that he's experiencing this.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Not even allowed inside the farmhouse. Instead, he was four
to sleep in the barn with the family dog, and
he says growing up he was bitter, angry, and upset.
Well yeah, yeah. By the age of nine, Frank's life
(26:15):
had completely fallen apart. His parents informed him at that
point that a he was not their biological child, that
they had quote ordered him like basically from family, or
like that he had been abandoned, like he was almost
like this ordered hand.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Well, they literally like they almost tried to. They said
that he wasn't wanted. That they were pretty much that
we are doing you a favor by even like letting
you live here because your family didn't even want you.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, and kicked him off the farm. He wasn't allowed
like by nine, he was abandoned according to them for
the second time.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
That he had been told that his family, his birth parents,
had didn't want him and had turned him over to
the state welfare just days after he was born. After
being abandoned for the second time, this sweet nine year
old boy was left to fend for himself. He had
no family, no identity, or no clue as to who
(27:24):
he really was. The search for a missing family and
one's true identity can be difficult many times, years of
research end in disappointment. So it's just this is it's
sad because when he is interviewed, he's like a I
(27:45):
don't want to say like he's just as happy, cool looking,
but he just seems like very well spirited as he's
sharing this story.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
He's clearly taken this thing in his life and turned it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and so his deepest fear was that this nine
year old boy, Frank, who searched for the truth, would
actually be more harmful than good, Like he was going
to just find out more kind of hard news.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And so we kind of go back for a second.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
After being kicked out of his home at the farm,
and I use that term home loosely because whoever those
human beings were, I hope they didn't get a good
night's sleep and that their hay beds were always infected
with lice. So Frank was shuffled from state institution to
foster families all over the place. He became a ward
(28:37):
of the state of Ohio and often had to eat
at soup kitchens and even tells us that he stole
food not because he was a theft but because he
like it was eat or die.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, he says I'm not a thief, but I stole,
but I was starving.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, he did not know anything about his birth parents.
He was told so several different stories, including that his
family had deserted him. He felt completely lost, and as
a teenager, these troubles continued. The belief that his birth
parents had wilfully abandoned him left him dispirited and aimless.
At sixteen, however, his life takes a little bit of
(29:17):
a term. A concerned social worker confirmed that Frank was
actually not his real name. He had been born Victor
Emmanuel Schiman. And I'm gonna spell up to you for
you because it does become important here in a little bit,
shima n and put a pin in that we'll.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Get back to it.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
The counselor also made this promise, and this kind of
broke my heart. I can maybe see why he did
what he did, But this is the definition of like
an empty, unfulfillable promise. If Victor now at the time,
applied himself in stayed in school, his birth parents would
(30:02):
be in the audience when he received his diploma, and
that if he would just finish school and graduate, this
social worker would make that happen. So on graduation day,
he officially changes his name and graduates as Victor Schiman.
(30:23):
It was the first time in his entire life that
he used.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
His real name.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
He thought that if his birth parents were in the audience,
that they would hear his name and respond this, that
that moment had to have been so exciting, and then
like the biggest letdown, it was the worst day of
his life after all these things he'd been through. So
(30:55):
no one shows up, and it turns out that yeah,
this would I will say I as I'm watching this,
I thought, my gosh, this boy at this point in
his life, especially the day and age that it was
at that moment, could have chosen a very different life.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
At this point in his life, he's been through more
than what seventeen eighteen years is going through what a
lot of people will never go through in their entire times.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So Victor decides to write to the Ohio Welfare Department,
and they told him that nothing can be found about
his birth family and that he just they kind of
disappeared without a trace. At that point, he gives up
his search. He had no choice, but he was just
going to move on with his life. In the nineteen fifties,
he married this beautiful woman named Eleanor inserted his own family.
(31:47):
They ended up having five children, and they show several
pictures of them. It looks like this beautiful little family.
And for thirty four years he'd all but abandoned any
hope of ever kind of finding out about his birth family.
Then in nineteen eighty four, he learned of an organization
(32:09):
actually in Ohio where he was from, called Reunite. It
was a support group for people searching for their lost
loved ones. An old friend from school had told him
about the group, and he decided to go meet with them.
Victor told the group of his story of his childhood,
and that evening he met with an amateur genealogist named
(32:32):
Rose Murphy. She was upset to learn that he had
spent his entire life not knowing about any of his history,
and she was determined to find something to help solve
this puzzle. She began sifting through a labyrinth of state
adoption records County where fail wellfare files, old newspapers, and incredibly,
(32:54):
less than a week later, she actually discovered an obituary
of thirty seven seven year old Hungarian immigrant named Leanne
Schiman Shmon. She had died in nineteen twenty one, just
hours after giving birth to her eleventh child. The baby's
(33:17):
name was Victor, so Rose actually then contacts a Hungarian
language professor. There's jobs for everybody, because that seems so niche,
But here we are, and he guessed that the family
name was actually Simon sim N, a common Hungarian family name. However,
(33:42):
when pronounced by a Hungarian person and heard by an
English speaking ear, it would be spelled as sc or
excuse me, shim an Shiman. Within twenty minutes, she had
located his original birth certificate that had sat there for
(34:07):
sixty four years. It had not been found before them
because they were searching for Shiman instead of the family
Simon name. Just a chilerical error and even an unintentional one. Yeah, yeah,
So this leads us to, then, how did we have
(34:30):
a birth certificate? We have a live birth. But this
was also found through an obituary with ten other children
involved in this family, So how did we get to
this quote unquote abandonment that he had been told had
happened to him? So we're able to kind of reconstruct
(34:51):
the events surrounding Victor's birth. His forty two year old
birth father, Dan had worked for the railroad in a line,
and Ohio actually only one hundred miles from where Victor
ended up growing up. Just before his birth, a tragic
series of events would kick into motion and separate him
from his family. While Dan was working on September fifth,
(35:13):
nineteen twenty one, the bones in his ankle were shattered
in a railroad accident that sounds awful. He was rushed
to the hospital, while then that afternoon, his wife Lean
went into labor at their family home. It appears, per
the reenactment and which was common for the time, she
(35:38):
dies shortly after giving birth to Victor. According to the obituary,
Dan was taken from the hospital to the funeral and
basically like the baby's kind of taken away from him.
It seems like because he's not able to even stand up,
he's still in hospital, so the state takes the baby
(35:59):
and places into foster care. Records indicate that Dan agreed
to this being done so only with like major regret
and like almost reluctancy in wanting to do this. But
this man also is dealing with the fact that there
was no at least I don't think at the time,
like labor unions and workmen's camp and all of this.
So your bones being shattered, even though it was potentially
(36:22):
at your work's expense or their fault, they owe you nothing.
You have ten miles to feed, and you're burying your.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Wife who just died in childbirth.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
If exactly so, I can't even imagine its even mental
state was in a clear decision making point. So records
also a rouse believes that there was some evidence, and
they didn't really go into what that. Dan had returned
later to the welfare home after recuperating and getting back
(36:54):
into work to try to get his son back. However,
by this point the baby Victor had been mislabeled and
changed their name to Shiman in their.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Records, and his name they changed the dame with Frank. Yes.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Again like just these little tiny errors that ended up
changing and devastating the course of these families' lives. Victor
had taken some comfort, obviously annoying that he was not
an unwanted child, but rather a victim of an unlikely
series of events. However, several pieces to the puzzl's life
(37:36):
are so missing. Any hope someday to meet any member
of his birth family, just to know that he belongs.
He wants to know what happened to them. He also
wants his children to be able to get to know
their family. Through the research, Victor learned that three of
his siblings his brother George, his sister Leanne, and is
another sister named Emma. He so he got their name us. However,
(38:01):
he was unable to locate any of the other birth relatives,
and that's kind of where it leaves us. Okay, update
solved in a way. According to Victor's grandson, he was
(38:22):
actually able to locate a distant cousin in Arizona and
talked to them on the phone. He'd also learned that
he had several other relatives still living in Romania, and
with help from Rose and Unsolved Mysteries and a handful
of other organizations, they were able to come up with
a ninety five percent certainty that these relatives were members
(38:45):
of his birth family. Unfortunately, though Victor passed away in Columbus, Ohio,
May sixteenth, nineteen ninety five, only at the age of
seventy three, that I were getting to meet in person
a single member of his birth family. However, according to
(39:07):
his grandson, he passed away happy as he was able
to locate at least the people that he belonged to.
His grandson hopes at the time to travel to Romania
one day and meet the descendants of the found relatives.
Records do indicate that Dan passed away in nineteen forty,
and George passed away in nineteen sixty seven, and Emma
(39:30):
passed away in nineteen eighty seven, so a handful of
his siblings could have also passed away before even getting
to where he was on Unsolved Mysterious. So I mean
a sad update in a way, but also I'm glad
that people were willing to try to help this man
(39:50):
at least put some pieces together, and he did find
out that his family did not abandon him.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Sad, but also bittersweet, maybe that's a good term for it.
He seemed like the cutest, sweet old man. He's just
he's writing of the grandpa because he's not a grandpa.
The movie up the Little Man with his big glasses
and just kind of like short, kind of square sh
like face and stuff. He kind of looked like that man. So,
(40:22):
all right, are you ready to tell us about a murder?
I just I know this is this story is it
is weird?
Speaker 2 (40:34):
All right? Yeah, yeah, it's open.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
We'll just sit here and wait patiently.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You weren't ready even though I.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Finished up my story.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
I don't know. Sometimes I just wait till the moment
is the shocking.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
And you procrastinate more than any when I you are
the biggest, but you, guys, it has never really ever
had a negative effect on Ben. He is this weird
ability to procrastinate and then just no consequences of it.
And me, procrastination is innately something I fight against because
(41:19):
my brain just forgets things. And then I'm always stressed
in a word that I'm forgetting something, and I've always
had consequences of it. I've lost friendships over it because
people think I just abandonedly forget about things. I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
I have been this way with my whole life. I
will wait to be very Does it stress you out though?
While you wait?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
No, and see, I'm just always out of ten that
I'm forgetting something.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Sometimes it does, but then I will wait to the
very last moment, and then I find some way to
weasel out of it where I can just escape, and it.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Works, it does, and I hate you for it.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
And so then all that does is perpetuate.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
That the procrastinations and not the problem. Yeah, okay, please
share us this triple homicide.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
We're about to come. All right, we get introduced to
Las Vegas, Nevada. You know, Robert Steck starts telling us
about the life of Las Vegas, but that it starts attracting.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Speaking of Las Vegas, come find me at Crime Con
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, but Las Vegas now has u In the eighties,
it started attracting retired communities.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
You know, dude, the retired people love the dry heat.
We live in Arizona and there is a little community
called Green Valley. The entire city, you guys, the entire
city ordinance is fifty five and over. It is like
in the laws there. Ninety eight percent of Green Valley
is under this umbrella of fifty five plus. And we
(43:07):
all know when the Green Valley people starts.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh oh, the population in the city.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Almost double, almost doubles, you guys, like October till May
or June.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, it's crazy. Go to the walmart.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Oh oh, it's a nightmare there in January. It's two different,
two different Walmarts. Parking lot pack July half full.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, It's why people giving you their opinions whenever you
go into the store and in yeah did January, versus
no one's speaking to you when you go in July.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Do you know how many car accidents I've seen in that.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Oh that was the other thing I was going to
tell you. The amount of car accidents in Green Valley
during snowboard season is insane. You have to be on
high lart people stop signs me nothing speed them it
just to expect it's always going to be ten or
fifteen miles under what it is posted.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
I literally walked out of that walmart today and so
at the front they have instead of pulling diagonal in,
they have where you just pull straight straight.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They've made it as easy as possible for people to park.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Three disabled disability parking spots where you just pull straight.
And I'm sure this doesn't make sense because I'm explaining
it terrible, but I literally watched someone pulled straight into
the spot and then back up and hit the car
behind him and then pulled forward and he just got
(44:45):
out and walked in. Clue.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
No, he had no idea, They have no idea.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It wasn't a bad but I just was dumbfounded, I know.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Anyways, Anyways, continue, Okay.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Las Vegas. We get introduced Frank Allen. He buys a house.
He's an LA businessman, buys his retirement home or a
house in Las Vegas. It's clearly a jenne in this house.
It's in a gated community. But he supposedly does a
lot of business. I'd actually like to know, would.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Love to know what he does for living. But this
is a really smart setup. This is probably why he's
as successful.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
As he is. So he buys his house in this
gated community. He supposedly does a lot of business and
Las Vegas, so he travels there a lot Los Angeles.
To mean you said in LA going to Las Vegas
a lot for business? Got it? And so he rents
(45:47):
the house now, but saves one of the rooms for himself.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
The primary bedroom and bathroom is his, and he keeps
it lock.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Keeps it lock. But the rest of the house he
rents out. And he does this. I think they said
he bought it like in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Six, so we're twelve dollars adjusted for inflation.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I didn't look at what it was one hundred. That
was a joke that houses used to be way more
affordable than they are now, all right, So he rents
the house out to Joseph or Joe Weldon Smith. Okay,
so him and his wife and his wife's daughters. They're
not his she it's her daughters from a previous marriage,
(46:32):
a twelve year old and a twenty year old. Yeah,
so Wendy is the twenty year old and Christy is
the twelve year old. So this family of four is
renting this house and living in it for multiple years,
it appears, or for a while. Anyways, on the night
(46:53):
of October fifth, nineteen ninety, Frank comes Frank's in the house.
He comes. He supposedly Joe had said to Frank that
he was They were going to be out of town
for civil days. So he comes into the house thinking
he has the house to himself. Yeah. He goes to
(47:13):
his bedroom, unlocks it, goes and is settling in for
the night. It's late at night, supposedly middle of the
night or one am, so I guess like one am
on October sixth, he says, as he's there, he just
feels that something is off. It's like something's wrong. So
(47:33):
he goes, starts walking around the house and all of
a sudden, Joe attacks him. Yeah. What In another article
I read that he ended up did hitting him in
the head with the hammer. He doesn't say that in
Unsolved Mysteries. But he attacks him. He grabs his wrists
(47:56):
and he realized and he said, Joe, what are you doing? Yeah,
and then he realizes, oh, this guy's trying to kill me. Yeah,
so he's able to get him off, runs down the stairs.
He's telling this story. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
He's interviewed so Bride twenty something year old.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
No, I think it says he's in a sixties.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
He's old man who's just been attacked with a hammer.
Sends the guy off hand to hand combat style and
is able to try to flee the house.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I think you'd have to understand the setup of the house.
I don't understand, he says. He goes to run through,
like towards the kit He gets down the stairs, goes
to run through, and I will say he's saying to himself,
I have double locked myself in the house. It appears
that there's a dead bolt on the door that he
you have to lock with the key even on the inside. Yeah,
(48:50):
So he says, I've double locked myself because he thought
he was entering the house by himself and staying there
for the night. It's already late at night, and so
he's saying, as a running away, I'm thinking, I don't
have time to open the door. So he runs down
the stairs. He's in the entryway and then starts running
(49:10):
around a corner. Notices that Joe goes the other way
to cut him off in the kitchen, so he stops,
doubles back, realizes, listen, I still don't have time to
open the door. So he just jumps through the glass door.
Smart thinking and doing everything he can to serve jumps out,
(49:36):
is able to get in his car and drive away.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Every scary movie you've seen this like scene, he says.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
As he's driving away, he sees Joe in the doorway,
and then Joe goes back into the house, drives down
to the guard shack of this gated community and says, help,
but you need to call nine one one someone in
my house. Police show up ten minutes later and go
to clear the house. They think Joe's still in the
house or they're hoping. Go into one room. As they
(50:05):
go in, they see someone under a blanket and they
think it's Joe hiding pull it. No, it's a twelve
year old Christy bludgeoned and strangled the deck. Good night.
So they go into the next room and they find
(50:26):
the twenty year old daughter bludgeoned and hit like thirty
two times. This was a violent attack. So then they
go upstairs. They go into the main room and find
his wife killed. So all three people dead.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
So we have two family and annihilator cases back to back.
I get these weren't his biological children, but these was
a family unit living under one roof together.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah. Yeah, so they had estimated that the family had
been dead for eighteen hours. So he's been in the
house waiting for Frank to come back and then he
tries to kill him.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah that seems crazy, Yeah, just weird. So you think
that maybe he thought Frank was like the wink link
of like Dead Mantown Hotels or something. If he could
get rid of him, then he could get away with this.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Well supposedly and other things I had read that they
were in contact, that he knew Frank was coming that day,
So I don't know, maybe he wanted to get rid
of him so that he had more more time. Yeah, no,
I'm throwing a guess out at the idea. Anyways, So
then another weird thing happens four thirty am, so only
a few hours. This all happens at one thirty in
(51:48):
the morning, four thirty AM. Joe calls his wife's daughter
in law and tells her, listen, the family's been killed.
It wasn't me, it was several other guys. I know
who did it. I'm going after him, okay, and you
(52:13):
know pretty much says like I would kill myself, but
I'm the victim in this situation, and also the hero.
You're a loser denied him. He just yeah, I didn't
do this, so he's gonna go after him. But all right, whatever,
(52:34):
so please do their investigation. Now they're looking for they're
looking for Joe, all right. They give his vehicle. He's
got like a gold two door link and continental. It's
got a vanity plate called Smitty two whatever that means.
That's a weird day. So but they even say, like,
(52:57):
we don't know the motive because from all all accounts,
their marriage was decent. She doesn't have life insurance, he
wasn't in her will, so even with her being dead,
he doesn't get which.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Is the same scenario as the last week one is
that William guy the same thing, like there was no
I mean, trying to motive is important for people to
try to rationalize. There wasn't a clear black and white yes,
there was a life insurance or there was an affair
like X, Y or Z happening.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
They just they have no idea why this all happened. Yeah,
but anyways, place elect war. So that's your story. It
actually was pretty quick, yea. And so are you ready
for your updated? Yes? All right, so they say within minutes.
I did read that they aired it twice. So they
aired it.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
And thrown a little bit of shade. Unsolved mystery.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
They aired it twice. An anonymous person called that he
was in a motel in LA. They go there, he'd escaped,
he was gone. So then they supposedly he had a
brother in the area, so they surveyed him for five days.
Why weren't you surveying the brother before?
Speaker 1 (54:12):
I have no idea. I had the same question when
I was.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Looking into buttons. As they survey him, they find out
where he is staying. They don't tell us how, but
within once they figure it out twenty minutes and they
go into a motel and they capture they're able to
capture him and get him hey pretty much. He doesn't
admit it, but he's like high tired of being a fugitive.
(54:36):
I'm just glad it's over, supposedly according to the police.
So he's charged with three counts of murder in one
count of attempted murder. He did try to kill Frank,
and he was convicted of all four sentenced to life
in prison. I actually read multiple He's been sentenced to
death for the two girls and then life for the
(54:59):
the why but then like the Supreme Court overturned them
and then he was there. It gets money. But anyways,
he had been he was on death row. He actually
was still on death row on May twenty twenty three.
He died in prison not long ago, not from lethal
injection but.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
The passway of natural Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
He is dead, but not ok. He does say in
trial that he was part of a drug smuggling ring
it's a Colombian game, okay, and that they came in
and killed the people, and that he was there. He
(55:44):
attacked Frank because he thought one of them was that
Frank was one of the guys coming back. They said
he came in, they put him in the room, They
put him in the game room, locked him in there,
and then when he went out he found also even dead,
which still doesn't explain why he attacked Frank with the
(56:05):
same murder weapon. Yeah, you know, that's his story. His
story is that he didn't do.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
It that just like that he was consequences of his
job or yeah, that he supposedly done so.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
But there's a lot of that story there.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
I have listen, don't take off Colombian drug lords and
or don't do drugs and don't kill your family like
no matter what happened or didn't happen, that's I don't.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Believe that story. No one but anyways got convicted that
in prison.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
So okay, are you ready for a wanted house? This
also has a psychic in it too, oh I know,
and not just a regular psychic.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Don't even me started. Don't even and get me started.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
All right, everybody, get comfy.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
I'm gonna put all my best performance for you because
I love haunted houses. In the Nevada Wide Desert Basin,
an old Victorian home carried with it a long, unsettling past.
The house had stood since the late eighteen hundreds, built
(57:32):
in a silver Get this going, built in the silver
boom days of Virginia City. And later where this hold on?
I'm going to get to it. Sit down, I'm telling
you a story. Built in the silver boom days of
Virginia City. Later moved plank by plank, nail by nail
(58:01):
across the state. What state or not Virginia? This is well,
here's the thing is now it's in a difference.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
It's in Nevada. I'm still in Nevada. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
By the late nineteen seventies, the house had been saved
from demolition by a couple, Jim and Susie. Okay, they'd
moved to Fish Springs, Nevada on May second, nineteen seventy eight,
exactly one hundred years to the day as the original
(58:37):
owner's death.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
They could have been done dred years. They made it
their hall.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
What from that moment on, strange things began to happen.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
It was actually one hundred years. At night, it's an
owner stubbing his toe.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
Benjamin, I put a lot of thought into this. At night,
as the family settled into sleep, footsteps echoed up and
down the stairs as soft treads of boots, followed by
rustles of chiffon skirts. Sometimes the sound stopped outside their
(59:23):
young daughter's bedroom door. Four year old Jennifer would later
recall waking in the night to find a boy standing
by her bed, a boy she did not recognize, with
a sad look in his eyes.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Behind him stood an.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Older man with a mustache with a kind but yet
solemn face. Moments later, both figures would vanish and Jennifer
Jennifer's bed began to even lift off the ground. Moments later, terrified,
(59:59):
she would call out to parents, and this would kind
of be the catalyst to where the parents decided it
was time to put their foot down and get some answers.
So what did they do, Ben, I don't know this
call a psychic. They called a local psychic and Daniel Martin.
(01:00:22):
I tried to look this guy up to see if
he did any other work. Unfortunately, there is a really
well known artist from Tucson, Arizona named Daniel Martin who
does great work. I'd love to commission a piece from him,
but it's very expensive. So there's a Christmas idea if
anyone's looking to get the unsolved couple of something. I
almost reached out to him to be like, did you
know that you also have a name of a psychic
(01:00:44):
who helped in a haunted house. But okay, so they
reach out to the psychic daniel and are hoping to
understand who or what had taken residence in their home.
By nineteen eighty one, they like had almost had enough.
(01:01:08):
We were gonna find out here. We've got a couple
of stories happening. Okay, So they reach out to Danielle
and what does he decide to do?
Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Then? I was, so what do they do? He comes in,
he does his little research, and then he goes, he
leaves the house and puts himself in a trance.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
He takes a nap, and when he puts himself into
this trance like state, he's able to basically leave his
body and go into the house and see the other
spirits that are living.
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Amongst the home. I've seen this before, you have, ye,
what's it? What do you so?
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Astral projection is actually what it's called.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
But yes, So what happened was there was this house
and it was haunted. It was in Louisiana, and once
you crossed the threshold of the house, you got stuck
there because ghosts would follow you. So they brought in
a psychic and she contacted another psychic called Madam Liota,
(01:02:23):
and then they did this thing where then they could
get this. They did a yeah, they could get this
seance and they could get this atab body expense and
go amongst the ghost and talk to him. And this
guy did it, and he talked to the ghosts and
they found out the ghost haunting the house was the
(01:02:44):
Headless Man. And if you don't know what I'm talking about,
I'm talking about the movie Haunted Mansion from Great Film, Yeah,
from Disney.
Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Okay, but that's what happened to this family. They're told
that there is h two ghosts in the house okay,
a young man and an older man, but they have
no ill will, no intent. And the psychic lets him know,
you're scarying the children. Please stop doing what you're doing, and.
Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
He just has a conversation. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
He's on their level, and he has realized that I
was having that effect on the family.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
I will stop. Yeah, I didn't know, okay, fair, so
I'm glad you came into our realm and let us know.
And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna wake up now.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
By nineteen eighty one, this family must be doing really
well for themselves because they move into a newer home
in a different part of Nevada, and they decide to
rent out their old Victorian home. But the problem is
is that the haunting seems to have followed them. One afternoon,
as Susy is photographing her seven month old son, she
(01:03:56):
develops the film and finds a chilling photograph of an
unfamiliar as man's face really close.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Up, and it is terrifying to her.
Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
The man had sharp features, white hair, and a mustache,
and she believes it was the original ghost, a man
named Samuel, that had followed them to their new house. However,
experts to analyze the photo, calling it three dimensional and reflective,
suggesting that it was an accidental photo that had been
(01:04:29):
taken from a telephone to a television screen. And once
they say that, you see like the lines through it,
it's very clear that.
Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
It's the TV.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And here's the thing, But Susie claims she'd never taken
a picture of her television.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Okay, newsflash, you used to have to get your film developed.
Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Oh yeah, children, here's a story for you. Your photos.
You had to take them in and do you know
what happens? Sometimes you would get random.
Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Photo is this is this photo thing? Yes? And you
read the sixteen year old run film department. Yeah, who
did not care.
Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
No, they're making three dollars an hour or whatever it
was at the time. They don't care, and they make mistakes.
Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I thought the exact same thing. And I love haunted houses,
and I thought exactly the same thing. So for fifteen
months the house sits quiet under the new tenants. Then
spontaneously October nineteen eighty nine, the new family moved in,
(01:05:42):
called the Robinson's. They knew nothing about the ghostly history
of this haunted, hallow home. Almost immediately, footsteps return, laughter
echoes from upstairs, and their son Garrett starts to hear
(01:06:03):
multiple voices humming through the walls.
Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
At night.
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
When he ran out in fear, he turned back to
see a screen door slam shut and in the front
window an old man's face grinning back at him. Soon after,
their young son, Miles, awoke to find himself levitating above
(01:06:28):
his bed. The new family, the Robinsons, start to grow
increasingly terrified. The father is quoted that he would like
to see the house burnt to the ground.
Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
He seemed like an interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Yeah, because he also then says something later like he
just kind of thought his wife was being a little dramatic.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
He does say that he believes his kids are telling
him yeah right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Only four months later the Robinsons would flee the home
in tear. Okay, so at the time of Unsolved Mysteries
that Kelsey's the original. The owners that we started with
at the beginning still own the property, and once again
they contact their psychic BFF, Daniel Martin, who once again
(01:07:20):
enters at trance.
Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
It claims to.
Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Have encountered at this point three brand new ghosts, two
men and one woman. There's ghosts now there's actually a thousand,
because a woman just passed away in early October inside
the Haunted Mansion ride. They were from the Virginia City air.
I didn't know that there was a whole Virginia City
(01:07:45):
error ere as in like time error.
Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
He said.
Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
That they were like a rowdy bunch of troublemakers, but
they who loigans, but they weren't cruel. He did ask
them politely to leave, and from then on the disturbances
seem to stop. So this psychic is putting in the work.
You got the first haunting to just.
Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Put these ghosts in their place in his trance. Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
And another family actually moves into the home shortly after.
Guess what, no hauntings.
Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
No hauntings. A psychic was.
Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Worth his weight in gold. Right, Great, they're doing good.
So when Unsolved Mysteries aired the story in nineteen ninety one,
it ended with a question, and I would like to
pose that question to you today. Was the Kelsey House
(01:08:46):
truly haunted? Or were its spirits only reflections of imagination
and fear? Yep, yep bers all right, Okay, so I've
got a cup that's kind of where I Solved Mysteries
leaves us. All right, So I did some research on
just where we are today.
Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
I found the house on a first on one of
the first sale websites. Okay, it's wildly expensive for some
random remote farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. Maybe
the daughter of the original family.
Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Did post. Now again, this is all like on Reddit
forms and different things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Yeah. She claims that there are several parts of the
television story Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
That were incorrect.
Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Okay, The house, she said, was built in nineteen or
excuse me, eighteen seventy seven, not eighteen sixty, and that
her mother Susie, personally saved it from demolition in nineteen
seventy seven on the Homes when the anniversary. That was
actually not even mentioned in the story, But I am
(01:10:06):
just relating to you what she said. It was relocated
from Virginia City to Carson Valley, where her grandfather's homestead stood,
So I don't know if they bought it and then
transported it or bought it on the land. Again, this
is just what I was able to find out. The
(01:10:26):
paranormal activity actually didn't begin until they started renovations of
the home and continued until the family moved out in
nineteen eighty eight. She also wanted to clarify that a sister, Jennifer,
was only three years old and not thirteen as the
show had said when the hauntings began, and that the
(01:10:48):
spirit Samuel, she insists, was never malicious or evil, but
described him as a quiet, protective presence with white hair
and a cap a cape, and that even after leaving
the entire state of Nevada, Samuel has followed their family
(01:11:11):
decades later, while visiting New Orleans, her husband mentioned their
haunting during a ghost tour, and the ghost detector in
his pocket suddenly went off the walls. In twenty eleven,
she visited the old house again, which at the time
was a private residence and has been reportedly very peaceful today.
(01:11:33):
From what I can understand, the house still resides in
the Reno Nevada area, silent, still filled with the history
and echoes of ghosts from beyond no ella. Whether the
spirits were protectors or pranksters, the story has lingered far
(01:11:55):
longer than the families who have lived there, and we
know once to be certain whether the family goes. Samuel
seems to want to tag along.
Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
And there you go.
Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
So do you think that the house was haunted? Well,
first off, we've ketch ours. You believe in ghosts, right?
Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Do you believe ghosts can haunt and be.
Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Presence in some sort of Let's just make this.
Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
This is a an area I have not given a
lot of thought processes too and come to firm conclusions.
Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Okay, fair, you haven't put a lot of effort or
energy into trying to decide how you feel about these days.
Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Okay, I know we've had this conversation many of times.
I I believe in life after death, so I believe
that we are comprised of souls, so that spirits to
do this, this okay possible for spirits to protect sure,
(01:13:08):
mm hmm. I just I am having a hard time
buying that spirits get to go around in funt of
buck to people. Yeah, for generations and geticals to just
(01:13:29):
like make silly ghosts levitate and do things like that.
I just I have a hard time buying into that.
But at the same time, it's hard for me to
speak any things because you literally asked me like this.
Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Is I guess, do you believe that there is potentially
evil spirits that can haunt in like when we've seen
like the haunting movies or the conjuring movies and different
things like that.
Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I mean I do believe.
Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
I mean, with good and evil, there has to be faith.
Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
I believe in good versus evil. There is evil out
there and evil spirits out there, so sure possibility.
Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Yeah, yes, I guess you hate admitting that. Why does
that make you feel some kind of way? I don't know,
because it's something you can't explain, like you can't put
your finger on it.
Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Yeah. Maybeah, But like I said, I mean I find
some of these stories they're entertaining. Like we talk about
the one where like I just saw like supposedly the
severed head on the thing and he just walked quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I just don't know if I'm buying that stuff that
a spirit is just putting his head on a tray
and staring at someone.
Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
As a Oh, I hope he sees me, you know,
like if I was a ghost, I would want to be.
Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
That way, right, or or like just hanging out in
a are near it because they're trapped. I don't believe that.
I believe. I believe that when we go we do
go into So I don't know. But like I said,
you're asking me things that I have not put. I've
(01:15:17):
put effort into thought processes of what happens to us
after this life and before. Yeah, but not thought into
do spirits hang out in homes and okay mess with people? Yeah.
(01:15:38):
When I hear these stories, my first intinct is to
just be like, now, the only convincing part of this
story is a interview two of the kids, and I
tend to believe kids more than I do parents.
Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Yeah, children really don't have a reason to lie or like.
Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
I know, I'm not saying the parents have a reason
to like either, but kids are usually a little more
innocent and like in there, they just kind of tell
you what they see, yeah, and what happened to them more.
Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Maybe two kids is this according had some sort of
like levitation experience and had seen and seen things.
Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Yeah, because as I'm not saying, adults are the adults
are lying at all or making it up. That's not
what I'm saying. But as adults, we tend to think
through it way more before we tell the story. Kids
are just like, I'll do this happen? Curious? Yeah, I
don't know what's your thoughts. I already know how you
do what your thoughts. I'm done speaking because most of
my speaking is just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Yeah, I mean, I fully believe in I mean, here's
the thing. Do I think that every person that thinks
that they had some encounter is an actual one. Our
brains do weird things when we're in sleep boat Like,
I've experienced sleep paralysis before it's hair refined, and I've
(01:17:02):
experienced and I've heard I mean, I haven't experienced the
sleep proreless where there's like an actual figure that I
can see. But I experienced sleep proalyss this once, where
you know in scared movies when like the blanket is
being pulled off your bed slowly down right, I've experienced
sleep parroalysis where I couldn't move and that was happening
(01:17:25):
to me, and I thought that I was awake, and
everything was very very Every ounce of the room of
the bedroom I was in was exactly how it's supposed
to be. Maybe some people hear that and think that
there was an actual, real encounter. Maybe the adult braining
me realizes that sleep paralysis is this weird phenomenon that
(01:17:45):
we can't explain. But I do believe that we are
surrounded by spirits and ninety eight percent of them are
good intent and are what you would categorize maybe people
I calls guardian angels or positive influences or whatever, But
(01:18:10):
I do believe that there can be things out there
that can body or manipulate or deceive, and fear is
a real emotion. That energy is energy in that way.
I don't know if this is making any sense in
what I'm saying, but I do believe in that things
can be haunted and that these things can be real.
(01:18:33):
It's just a fine line because I also think that
we just celebrated Halloween, and I find it very playful.
My daughter was just telling us that she has a
friend who doesn't celebrate Halloween thinks that anything related to
it is rooted in some sort of very evil, dark place. Okay,
(01:18:54):
I can see that.
Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
I don't agree with it.
Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
I think it's actually really fun and it's a human,
you know, experience of what happens to us before or
after life.
Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
This is not a philosophical podcast, as we talked about.
I don't really think this house was quote unquote necessarily haunted.
I think it's possible that there might have been some
weird things. It's an old house. It makes weird noises.
I grew up in a really old home. To say
a house settles in like it's bones creak. It really
(01:19:25):
does well.
Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
And that's why I was gonna.
Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
Say that.
Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Our mind does Our mind is interesting. It's deep, Yeah,
I know personally so when I work next Yeah, I
was out in the desert. It looked nowhere, pitch black,
pitch black, sitting we ran in operation. I sat under
(01:19:54):
a tree in the dark for hours to waiting for
stum in the noises you hear. Now, I understand that's
out in nature, okay, but I was hearing noises.
Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
I'd never I you couldn't explain for Yeah, And if
you let your mind do what minds will do, Yeah,
I could.
Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
I could have convinced myself it was some crazy things.
So I don't know, Like I said, I just think
that our mind sometimes, like you said, it's an old
I don't know. Yeah, but I will tell you what
I don't believe psychic psychic went home and went to
a trance and talked to spirit.
Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
I don't believe have you ever even heard of astrol projection.
Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
I do not believe that someone can just walk in
and then go and say, well, I now have the
power to just put myself in a trance and talk
to those spirits that I have thought about and that
I do not buy. Yeah, I don't think that you
can just have the ability to say, well, I'm going
to talk to whoever I want on the other side
(01:21:05):
because I have that ability to do so, and I'm
going to come into your house.
Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Well, no one is surprised at your thoughts on that
because we all know how Ben feels about psychics.
Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Yeah yeah, and maybe because you thought yourself a psychic.
I'm just like, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
But okay, well, you guys. That is our recap four episodes,
all from season three, episode sixteen of our beloved story
and series Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries. So for any of
those who'd like to hang around at the end of
every episode, I ask Ben a silly question and we
(01:21:43):
kind of wrap things up and make things lighthearted. If
you're not interested in the banter and the chit jet,
you may exit stage left and we'll see you back
here next week. For those who would like to stick around,
I got an easy one for Ben this week. Ben,
what is your favorite Halloween can Do you have one?
Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
In particular? I have one? Okay, what is one that
you like?
Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
Were you the kid that like ate all your favorites
first or you saved your favorites for the last okay?
Which know that our unneurotypical brains had a plan in
a hole like I had my whole mapped out. But
that's another that's another question for another day. But what
are I guess what are some of your top Halloween candies?
(01:22:30):
So I love mister Goodmore that is one of you
that's been your favorite. Yeah, but those are not very
common in Halloween.
Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
What right now? In the bucket we have, I dig
for Milky Way, Snickers, and kt Okay, those are the
three right now, I will dig through that bucket and
those are the three. I grab, Snickers being last, so
if you wear first KitKat Snickers. Once all of those
are gone, then I will find something else that I'm
(01:22:59):
willing to But after that, Okay, it used to be Butterfinger,
but we all know how you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
I don't know if we've talked about that Butterfinger change,
have we?
Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Oh? Yes, I think we have. Yes, we had a
big thing, a whole thing about it. We all know.
Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Okay, we won't dig up that grave again, boycott butter Finger.
Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
But yeah, like fan of I guess I know I
threw four out you. But mister Goodbar milky Way, yeah
so good. Yeah, I do love kit Cats too, and
then Stinkers is smiles.
Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
Yeah, all great, All good ones? Okay with yours, you guys.
I'm kind of an old soul when it comes to
canty you say almond joy or no, I don't like
coconut I don't like.
Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
I love the flavor of coconut, coconut flavored things, but
I hate the texture of coconut. It feels like a
certain kind kind of body hair in between your teeth
and when you're.
Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
I just hat.
Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
So sorry if I just ruined coconut for anybody else. Okay,
Actually one that I like that most people don't. I
kind of like some of the I have two categories.
I've got like my fruity ones and then my chocolate ones,
and those are different and they can't be competed against
because it just depends on the mood.
Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
I like dots. That's disgusting, that's an abomination.
Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Dots are one of my favorites.
Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
That's gross.
Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Twizzlers and that's plastic. I love.
Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Plastic, And then flavored TUTSI rolls. Those are delicious. Yeah,
I will give you that. That's the only one. Twizzlers
is an abomination.
Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
To Recently, there's been a Lifesavers gummies that are I'm
pretty here for, but that's not been a around for
a long time. Okay, we had Dots are in my
number one.
Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
I like dig through the.
Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
Kids's bags to see if I can find it dots,
and no one's ever accused me of like their dots
are missing.
Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Yeah, because nobody wants them because they're gross.
Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
Okay, Well, if you guys have dots, you don't want
to send them to me, I will eat them all.
Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
I love them.
Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
Do you remember the old style? I think they were
called Jujub's. They were like little time. They looked like dots,
but they were like micro small. I don't think they
sell those anymore. Those were also one of my favorites
as a kid. Then on the chocolate side, Reese's peanut
butter Cup obviously delicious, and I also one hundred grand
(01:25:40):
that's gross. Midnight Milky way also gross, not like one
hundred grand. It's basically the crunchy chocolate that you like.
Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
They're okay and I like it.
Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
And twigs yeah, yeah, so those are some of my favorites.
But you know what, you know that's about racist peanut
ECUs tell me I like to also eat mine a
very particular weird way.
Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
The small ones not as good.
Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
I agree, the bigger ones better. The peanut butter to
chocolate ratio is much more.
Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
Small ones are too hard the chocolate, and there's too
much chocolate. Too much chocolate and not enough peanut butter.
You gotta get the bigger ones. I agree.
Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
I think that's why the peanut butter pumpkins and the
peanut butter eggs are so popular, because way more peanut
butter to chocolate ratio.
Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
It's like in eighty twenty. Do you also know what
I love to do? Tell me what you love?
Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
Also, the new oreos with the Reese's peanut butter delicious. Those,
Let's keep those in stock all the time.
Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
The another one that goes by the way said that
people don't eat is just the Hershey little Hershey bars, right,
just the plain Hershey bars. And I love it because
you know why those What's that?
Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
Those are not good?
Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
And here's how to make them good. Take those Hershey
bars and take a can of peanut butter and you
dip the.
Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Hersheybars, a can of peanut butter, a jar of peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
Whatever, a jar of peanut butter, and you scoop some
peanut butter on that Hershey bar.
Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
It would like to do it with my Oreos. I
break the Oreo in half and scoop up. I'm willing
to about equal amount to whatever the cream is, and
then you smash it back together and eat it. And
that is a midnight snack my friends. Okay, well, we
are excited that you guys joined us and we are
(01:27:44):
looking forward to chatting with you again next week, when
Ben and I will be back here to recap another
episode of Bye