Werewolf Serial Killer

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Spain, 1854.
The country's first documentedserial killer is sentenced
to death for the murder of five people.
The killer, Manuel Blanco Roma Center,
had become the source of national gossip.
People called himnames like the man of the Sack
because of a traveling salesman jobhe had, or the fat collector

(00:26):
because there are rumors that he useda fat of his victims to make soap.
And finally, his most famous moniker,
The Werewolf of Aries.
C Manuel Blanco.
Roma Santo wasn't just a self-professedkiller.
In fact, he claimed even more victimsthan stated in his conviction.

(00:46):
Roma Santa, though, told the court
that he was a werewolf,
a claim that the courtfound important enough to take seriously.
This is a study
of strange.

(01:19):
All right.
Well, welcome to the show,everybody. I'm Michael May.
Happy New Year.
There's a first episode in 2083,
and my guest today is R.J.
Blake, who is a producer of the otherstrange podcast in the world.
Strange phenomenon.
Do you also comment on.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
It's an amazing, amazing show.

(01:40):
Do you want to tell people about the showright now?
I feel like your explanationwill be better than mine.
Sure. Yeah.
It's like a documentary podcast
that uses eyewitnesses and experts
to go into tales of the bizarreand the weird.
So every episode covers a different topic,whether it's alien

(02:04):
or Cryptidsor just something like flat out weird.
We have some that are just bizarremyths and bizarre
people who lived insane lives
and we put them out in seasons.
Each one is like a full on documentary.
And then we also put outthe full interviews with each

(02:28):
eyewitness or expert afterwards.
Yeah, I'm right in the middle of the UtahMonoliths episode right now,
which I'm really enjoying
because that was such a true phenomenawhen that started a couple of years ago.
So I know that took a long timefor us to put together.
We were actually reporting on thatlike as it was going on, I got in contact
with Brant, who was the helicopter pilotthat found it.

(02:52):
I think the week that
it all started going down.
And the thing that I like a lotabout that episode
that I think goes intowhy strange phenomenon,
what I like about it, and what I also like
about a study of Strangebecause you do the same kind of thing,
which is the true storyends up being weirder.

(03:14):
Yeah, absolutely. The myth around it.
Yeah.
Getting into the whole art worldand what has gone on with
who's claimed dead and the replicationof it, of the monolithic
monolith is what is a wild.
Yeah. Yeah.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
It is a very true statement.

(03:35):
It always, always is.
And it's what makes me mad in the movieindustry sometimes,
because they'll always like,try to change something in a true story.
And it's like, why are you changing it?
It's so much more interesting and weird.
It's just not as clean.
It's not like, Yeah, well, we did
we did episode onthis guy named John Murray Speer and it is
I had the lead,so I read the whole biography of Mike

(03:57):
talked to the biographerand we have to weave
so much out of his storyjust to be able to get it.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah.
You always got to,
but you always get to cut down on stuff,which is it's tough,
but that's part of it'spart of doing anything. Yeah.
Yeah.
Let me do I'm going to do a quicklittle little bit of biz here.
I do want to announce that on Patreon,which you can find through our website,

(04:20):
a story of Strange Uncommon is start
releasing episodes unedited,or at least like mostly unedited,
because I'll cut out like bathroombreaks and stuff like that, of course,
but I am going to start doing that.
Leave those in the leaves. I honestly.
Hey, it might be fun, but yeah, check,check that out on our Patreon.
And if you're enjoying the show,make sure to subscribe rate review.

(04:40):
And I'll just kind of leave it at that
because we all knowwe all know these things.
I always feel weird doing the business,but that's what you get to do.
So today, talking about strange things.
RJ We do have a werewolf story and yeah,absolutely.
He's giving me thumbs up. Now.
This is not like a
Yeah, this is not like a universal monstermovie type of werewolf story.

(05:02):
This is a serial killer storyand it involves lycanthropy.
So have you heard of Manuel Blanco,Roma Santa before?
I have not.
Oscar Awesome hospital.
You sent me the topic. Yeah. I love
werewolves.
I think they're very underrated in both

(05:24):
the whole scripted community.
You don't hear a lot of peopletalking about werewolves and movies too.
I think there's not enoughwerewolf stuff out there.
So yeah, I was shocked when I heard this.
Yeah. Yeah. It's.
It's truly fun.
And I don't know much about werewolflore outside of, like, movies,
so it was really interesting.
I'm not going to go too much into it.

(05:46):
I'm going to go into some of it today.
But like the law and the history behindwerewolves is absolutely fascinating.
And honestly, maybe it'sjust because I don't know it as well,
but it seems to be strangerthan like vampire legends and stuff.
Well, it's like very tied inwith vampire legends.
Like a lot of early vampires. Stop.
Even you.

(06:06):
You read Bram Stoker's Dracula.
He can also turn into a dog.
Not just the bat in that.
So there's a lot of interconnected
of those, but also with witchcraft.
It was a big thing.
And I know that there was like thisthis beast in France
once that they thought
could be a werewolf that like, yeah,the whole French government like

(06:30):
aid to go kill this thing.
So yeah there's some some interestingstuff with werewolves out there.
Absolutely. So the story today is amend.
I've already said his name, but.
Well, Blanco Roma Center.
He is Spain's first recordedserial killer, and this is in the 1850s.
He killed depending on what you read,he killed at least five

(06:53):
people up to potentially 13.
And I am going to give a bit of a callto action to the listeners out there,
because when I was researching this,this is the first like serial killer story
where I cannot find detailsabout the murder victims,
like at the scene of the crime.
So to speak.
Like, I don't know what they were killedwith, if they were dismembered,

(07:14):
if they were stabbed, if they were beatup, if they were strangled.
I don't know any of that.
And I think
the information exist out there
because there are hundredsof pages of court documents.
But they're you know,we're thousands of miles away.
I can't find anything onlinethat's translated into English.
So if people out there, there's peoplemuch better than me at sleuthing
this stuff out, if any listeners outthere can find the details to the

(07:36):
the murder victimsat the scene of the crime,
let me know Send me an emaila study of strange edema dot com.
And I can do a follow up
because right now it's just like, oh,he killed these people.
And it's just kind of.Like actual court documents from eight.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome.Isn't that amazing? So cool.
Yeah it's I there's storiesI've worked on from documentaries and TV

(07:57):
shows where it's likea missing person's from the 1990s
and you can't even find like,police records and yet they have hundreds
of pages of court documentsthat from the 1850s in Spain.
So yeah, if anybody can help me out onthat, I would love to, to do a follow up
and get into some more detailson what we'll be able to do today.
And this is also a strange casebecause it is the first or only

(08:19):
major court casethat involves lycanthropy,
which basicallyjust means being a werewolf.
But there's two versionsof the definition of lycanthropy.
There is literally turning into a wolf,a werewolf situation,
or this psychological beliefthat you are a werewolf when you're not.
So it's it's sort of a psychosisthat's probably not the right word.

(08:41):
And we will discuss bothbecause they are both part of this case.
And werewolves,as you've already mentioned a little bit.
They're very
much influenced by movies and stuff today.
But the history of them is influencedby religion and culture
and all those other things, just likevampires, as we've already mentioned.

(09:04):
And it typically just involves a human
who can shapeshift into a wolflike creature and then eat people.
I mean, it's pretty, pretty simple.
But, you know,you've got to say it just a guess.
And lycanthropy, for the most part,
can be traced backto at least the second century B.C.
There was a Greek geographerwho traveled around the Greek Isles named
I'm totally going to butcher this name,so I apologize.

(09:27):
Person this Pausanias.
I did take Latin for two years,and yet I can't remember how to say this.
I think that's betterthat I would ever date.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he he wrote down a bunch of storiesduring his travels and he related
a story of King
like Keon, which again, I'mprobably pronouncing that wrong as well,
who transformed into a wolf because he hadsacrificed a child at the altar of Zeus.

(09:50):
And in some tellings,the child is his own child.
In other tellings, it'ssomeone like there's various versions
of this Legendsas there are with any any legend.
However, he eventually,like, transformed into this, Wolf.
And that's where we get the wordlycanthropy from.
KING Like in now, as timewent on, these things
morph and changewith culture and religion and history.

(10:13):
And in Europe primarily,which is where you see the werewolf
legends lore, it'sobviously Christianity is a
has a huge impact on on the legendsand beliefs around werewolves
and you say Christianity made you likeChristianity.
Really Werewolves.
Well, yeah.
They talk about the physical metamorphosisof people in the carpet.

(10:34):
Carpet? You let them carpet,you let them. There we go.
Capital Adam Episcopacy,
which is part of the Councilof Ankara in 314,
which is basically a document that helpedthe church figure out their relation
and their beliefs around magic and witchesand transformation.
So werewolves do tie in with literaturearound Christianity

(10:57):
and in the fifth century,talk about witches.
Earlier there were werewolf trials,much like the witch trials.
And this started in Switzerland,and then it spread throughout Europe.
And when I was reading it,I didn't go too much into
I guess I didn't want to spend 8 hours onlike the history of werewolves today.
But it does seem a bit like peoplewere kind of done with witch trials.
Like, all right, we did thatand they were just like, What's next?

(11:19):
Like, we got to do something else for fun.
Weight trials about werewolf trialsand then.
We got to do Werewolf II.
Yeah, I could see a meeting of executivesbeing like, All right, guys,
we need something else. What do we got?
We got, like.
We're we're burned out of this trial.
They tanked.
We need something new.

(11:40):
When it's a new, we get to.
We got to bring in the new generation.
Yeah,so they swapped over werewolf trials and.
Yeah, and that that spread.
And so the region of our tail today,it was it's in a region called
Galicia in Spain and that'swhere Roma Sant spent most of his life.
And they still believe like there was,

(12:01):
were a lot of local beliefs in werewolvesin this section of Spain.
And it's kind of likethe northwestern part of Spain,
like just north of Portugalfor people that that know geography
and to understandthe beliefs of werewolves in Galicia.
I won't actually quotesomething that I read on
Galicia Alive XCOM about Werewolves.

(12:21):
The causes behindthis transformation are diverse.
Curse, enchantment,divine punishment and action of the Devil.
Werewolf Folklore and Galicia specifies
that the seventh child of any unionis likely to be afflicted with a curse.
If the child is a girl. She's liable.
Liable to become a witch.

(12:41):
If a boy, a werewolf,
The Godfather may ward off the curseby saying certain prayers at the baptism.
Generally, the curse doesn't manifestuntil later in life, and afflicted
werewolf will feel compelled to addressat a crossroads and wallow in the mud.
If a wolf has already wallowed there,the transformation occurs
in the werewolf uncontrollably attacksand eats defenseless people and babies.

(13:08):
So that is.
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot to unload there.
And notice here, when I was like,you know, we're influenced by movies
and stuff todaywhen it comes to werewolves, they,
you get bit by a werewolf or whatever.
But there's a ton of various beliefsthroughout the history
of werewolf loreabout how the transformation takes place.
And it's not like it is in the movies.

(13:28):
It's curses, divine punishment.
Like they said, the devil is obvious,especially in Spain, where
there's a lot of Catholicism, and thedevil is a big part of the belief of this.
There's also some
I read about, like if you drink water outof a footprint of a werewolf, you will
then also become a werewolf,which is an interesting.
That's a very interesting movie.
I caught my dog licking out of a puddlethe other day,

(13:50):
so I've got to actually make surethat he's not a werewolf.
You got to be careful about, like,keeping it like a £20 werewolf by,
you know, pretty can get pretty vicious.
Hey, small and feisty.
And that's actually part of talking.
Now. Roma Santa himself, which we'll getinto, was a very tiny person.
So he had a bit of that small dogsyndrome.

(14:12):
So very feisty. Werewolf.
You know,one other thing I thought was interesting
about what you just said was the,um, the aspect
of adolescence for the witch or
the werewolf once more,going very much into straight up
puberty like that moment where

(14:35):
hair is growing, you're getting wild.
You have so much energy unbound.
That's a very interesting
moment there.
That's that'sthat's an amazing observation,
I think, because that historically,I didn't think about that.
But that has to have some impacton the belief of these kind of things

(14:55):
you would imagine.
I think that has to be a huge part of it.
And with a child eating too,that's been used for centuries
to demonize people, cannibalism,it was actually used to demonize
Christians at a certain pointbecause when Christianity was first
becoming a growing religion,like during the Byzantine Empire,

(15:19):
before Constantinople
adopted it, there was rumorsthat Christians and Catholics
were baby eaters,because all that came out
was that there's people drinking the bloodand eating the body of their savior.
What are they doing? Eating babies.
So, yeah, very interesting,very interesting connections.

(15:40):
I'm going to age myself with this comment,
but I'm a big fan of Eddie Izzard,and like most Americans
I became a fan of fan of his is is born,you know, shoot.
What was it called Dressed to Kill?
Was his comedy cameo in like 2000.
Yeah and he does the whole thing is avampire is a bit of like wait that's
you're drinking the blood.That's vampirism.

(16:02):
You're a vampire.
Yeah.
Blood of Christ. What are you doing?
Yeah, very true.
So our our serial killertoday, Manuel Blanco.
Roma, Santa.
He was born on November18th in Galicia, Spain.
And this is.
I had to work on my as much as I'm goingto mispronounce everything today,

(16:22):
which is just normal for me,I do work on it.
That's the sad partbecause I do actually spend a lot of time.
But my my brain, having taken Spanishin America, where we're influenced from
from all the Spanish speaking countriessouth of the United States,
the pronunciationwould be more like Galicia or Galicia.
But in Spain they have that bit of that,like Lisp kind of thing.

(16:45):
So it's Galicia, Spain,and he was born in 1809.
And one of the interesting thingsabout Roma
isn't that everything you read about himbrings up is that he was raised as a girl.
He was actually raised as Manuelauntil he was six,
and that is because his parentsactually thought he was a girl.
His parents were MiguelBlanco and Maria Roma Center.

(17:07):
And today and sort of the modern thinking,
we suspect that Roma Santa was intersex.
And just because I wantedto understand this correctly,
I'm going to quote from the IntersexSociety of North America.
Intersex is a generalterm used for a variety of conditions
in which a person is bornwith a reproductive or sexual anatomy
that doesn't seem to fit the typicaltypical definitions of female or male.

(17:30):
For example, a person might be bornappearing to be female on the outside,
but have mostly male typicalanatomy on the inside.
Sometimes a person isn'tfound to be intersex, isn't found to have
intersex anatomy until she orhe reaches the age of puberty.
Oh, that's that's an interesting time.
Some people live and die with intersexanatomy without anyone ever knowing.
And this is about a birth per 15 births.

(17:53):
So it's rare, but it happens all the time.
It is not. Yeah. Yeah.
And we have a lot betterunderstanding of this today, obviously.
I think historically they would haveused the term hermaphrodite
and typically historically you can assume
that people that are intersex are bulliedand mistreated and misunderstood.

(18:15):
There's a lot of history of infanticide
when something isn't quite right,which is just just awful.
And yeah, so it is assumed that RomaSanta was intersex.
He it wasn't pubertywhen they figured this out.
It was actually at the age of six.
So they figured it out very early on.
A doctor is allegedly the one who toldthe parents he's he's actually a boy.

(18:38):
They didn't legally changehis name till to man.
Well, until he was eight.
So some stories you read,he was a girl until eight.
It's No, no,
they actually knew it at six,but they just didn't legally change
the name for a few years.
We don't
know anything about how he was treatedgrowing up, but I do want to mention that
because we can make some assumptionsthat he might have been mistreated

(19:01):
not just by people in town,but also potentially even his parents.
And we don't know.
I just you got to thinkabout those kind of things.
I imagine.
And I would imagine as a heavily Catholic
region is probably nottreating somebody like that very well.
I think we see that today.
Yes, absolutely.

(19:22):
As he aged,he was described as being very short.
He was under five feet tall.
He had blond hairand a lot of the engravings and paintings
you see of him,he has dark hair, but that's probably
just because his hair darkenedas he got older. Mine did.
I was I was a blond kidfor some of my life and then my hair dark
and he there are so many interestinglittle anecdotal stories about him

(19:45):
being like a really kindof temperamental person.
And because of the whole intersex
saying the older stories attribute
a lot of that to himbeing different, like, Oh, is it?
Testosterone levels are all messed up.
It makes him really mean, right?
And it's just like, no,I think he just might have might have been

(20:07):
a kind of mean personfor for whatever reason.
I don't think it's.
Necessarily probably just like probablya very mistreated person, if you know, is
redirecting a lot of their anger towardshow they were treated.
Um, very unfairly and yeah that's.
And take it out. Yeah.

(20:29):
Now he was very smart, he was educated,he could read and write and do arithmetic,
which was uncommon in the small townsof Galicia, Spain at that time.
So modern researchersassume that his parents were well-off,
that they had a lot of moneybecause you had to.
You had to have money to payfor education at that time.

(20:50):
So they assumehe came from a well-to-do family.
Now, on March 3rd, 1831,he married Francisca Gomez Vasquez,
and he became became a tailor.
And some of the storiessay dressmaker tailor.
So obviously he's sewing, he's mendingclothes, he's creating clothes,
and in 1834, his wife, Francisca, died.

(21:14):
Now finding information about his wifelike her name,
The exact date of their marriagewas really they
that was the hardest part of my researchbecause I was like, wait, when wrote me?
Because people just mention it,they don't give details.
And again, records 1850sother side of the world in Spain.
That's that's not hard to understand.
But what's frustrating isI don't know how she died.

(21:36):
So again,if people out there are researching this
and have information,I want to know how she died.
He was never a suspect in her death.
I don't even know if she. Was.
Killed. Like,maybe there was a health reason.
But you do have to askwhen you're dealing with a serial killer.
Like couldthis have been his first victim?
And that would be, you know, her thing?
She died. Oh, she she died in 1834.

(21:58):
And I would assume she was aroundthe same age.
He was so in her twenties.So she was young.
So, yeah, it'd be really interestingto find out if there are
or is information about her deathoutside of just how she died.
And he wasn't suspected of anything weird.
Yeah.
I would also say during that time,almost anything could kill you about.

(22:19):
True. It is true.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.You get a cut on your toe.
That thing could kill you. Yeah, yeah,yeah.
So, yeah,I've been a little devil's advocate.
Absolutely. And that's very honest.
If people have been listeningto my kind of recent episodes,
I've done a number of episodes in the 19thcentury now, and I keep being like,
life was hard.

(22:39):
People went missing, people died.
Like, it's like,you're not going to suspect murder
right awaybecause this stuff happens all the time.
Even on Ancestry.
So I joined ancestry
like five or six years ago becauseI always wanted to know about my ancestry
and my family.
My grandparents, whenever I askedthem, would always got me.
You don't want to know about that.
And that's likeall I ever learned in my family.

(22:59):
So I had a side. Oh,there's nothing weirder. Mysterious.
Just my relatives were all like
southern farmers for hundreds of yearson every side of my family.
But what's funny is when youwhen you go through all the records
on ancestry, so it's a lot of likebirth records or census records.
Everybody had like 20 kidsand half of them die super young.

(23:20):
And so you'll find the same name.
So you'll be like, Wait, It said they hada daughter named Rose, born in 1851.
But then it says they had a daughternamed Rose, born in 1858.
And you're like,Oh, it's because the first rose died.
So they they used the name again,like it was just keep going.
That's interesting.
I never thought about that before.

(23:40):
Yeah, that's very interesting.Yeah, it happened.
I don't know if that was likea cultural thing in the South
where my family's from or something,But yeah, you see a lot of the same name
Get used with a lot of the kidsat the time
tell you that it'sneither here nor there with Mr.
Roma Santa.
But life is tough.
Life is tough is the point. Yeah.
Now, his wife died, as you can imagine,that's a big change in his life.

(24:02):
He actually stopped being a tailorand became a street vendor, essentially.
I don't know what kind of goods he sold,but he would sell goods from town to town.
It could have been a variety of things.
It doesn't have to be like one
specific thing, but he's he'sselling goods and he's traveling.
And what this allows him to dois to actually
really get a lay of the landfor a sort of western Spain

(24:25):
and also parts of Portugalwhere he would go to do business.
He learned all the roads, the routes.
He got comfortableliving and camping in the woods,
knowing his way around how to communicatewith people, how to hide out,
got really comfortablewith that lifestyle.
And it took about ten years.
Before we get to his first known victim.
It was 1844, near a town of Ponte Ferrata

(24:48):
and the autonomous communityof Castillo Leone.
And this is more like centrally Spainand the story.
The story goes that he owed somebody moneyfor goods.
We don't know what, but he obviously hadto do some sort of business arrangement
and he had some credit.
Credit came dueand depending on the story, either

(25:08):
a sheriff or a bailiff or a constable.
Honestly, for the sake of our storytonight, it doesn't matter.
It's just an authority.
And an authority figure showed up to belike, Hey, I'm here to collect that debt.
Give me the money.
This guy's name was Vincent Fernandez.
And very quickly,right after he went to meet Mr.
Rome, Santa, he was found killed.

(25:29):
So suspicion immediately lands on RomaSanta because they know
that this guy was going to collect a debtand Roma Santa flees town.
And what's really interesting about this,that shows some cunning,
some education,some some street smarts is Roma.
Santa faked a passport and he wentby the name of what was his name?

(25:50):
I think it was Antonio Gomez,I think is his name.
Yeah, Antonio Gomez.
And he just hightailed it out of town.
Now, in Spain, I don't knowif the law is still like this,
but they still have a trialeven without him.
And if you don't show up for your trial,you're immediately found guilty.
And the the timing or whatever,they're they're sort of sentencing

(26:13):
length was at that time was ten years,which seems really tiny for a murder.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he sent to
the address and that'swhere you kind of got away your object.
Like, how much do I not like this personof ten years worth of not liking him?
I maybe. Maybe, maybe so.

(26:34):
He's he's sentenced to ten years,but again, he's not there.
They don't know where he is.
He's he's just hightailed it out of town.
But he is sentenced and convictedfor the murder of Vincent Fernandez.
So he actually moved back to Galicia,
to the autonomous region of Galiciaand Spain, and he lived in hiding.
And reportsget really weird around this time

(26:57):
because people don't knowexactly where he is.
But I was able to track it
more specifically than whatyou typically read, which is rubber ducky.
So again,
pronunciation is a terrible rubber ducky,which is near ironies in Galicia.
And this is actually where the nickname
one of his nicknamesis The Werewolf of Aries.
That's where it comes from,because he was near the town of Iris

(27:19):
and he knows this areabecause he's from Dilithium.
So I imagine he feels comfortable.
He knows the roadways and bywaysand routes through the mountains
and all that kind of stuff, especiallyafter being a traveling salesman.
Now I pulled up imagesand maps of this town.
It is amazing.
It is right out of a 1970sUniversal Horror movie.

(27:39):
It is a small town, a little riverrunning through.
It's like a valley in between mountains.
And the whole town is all the homesand everything are super close together.
They're all made out of stone and brickand there's like wonderful little brick
alleyways and, you know, everything builtin this time period.
And it still looks likeit's from the 1850s.
It's incredible. Can't covered in fog.

(28:04):
Honestly, I think every
image I said was very foggyor at least kind of dark and monotone.
And yeah, it is. It really is.
And so he lived there and
people described him
as being effeminate,and that is because he worked again.
He was a tailor.
Like thatwas part of his his past work resume.

(28:26):
So he has that skill.
So I think he ended up doing various oddjobs in town, including
knitting and sewingand mending clothes and stuff.
So the other guys called him effeminate.
And he, however, was able.
Yes, sorry, go ahead.
At this point,he's still going by Antonio Gomez, right?
I think he went by if if it was actuallyreally hard to kind of specify that.

(28:48):
But I think he went by Antonio Gomezthe whole time he lived in this town,
because he had again,he had been convicted for ten years.
So I think for the next ten years, he'skind of going by Antonio Gomez.
I could be wrong
because maybe he trusted his small towninformation as a travel fast.
I'll just be Roma Centerlike everybody knows me.
So I could be wrong about that.But I think he's hiding out.

(29:08):
So I think he's gone missing. Yeah,yeah, yeah.
Now he became trusted.
Even though people thoughthe was a little weird.
He became a trusted person.
A trusted member of the community.
Again, it's a small towns.Everybody knows everybody.
You can't not kind of get to knoweverybody very well in a town like this.
And a woman came to himnamed Manuela Garcia, a blanco,

(29:29):
which is interesting to note,because Manuela Blanco was the
first part of his namewhen he was thought to be a girl anymore.
So I think it's just a coincidence.
And Manuela had a six year old daughterand this is I think this is in 1846.
So he had been in towna couple of years now.
And she wanted to she wanted to get out.
She wanted to follow her dreams.

(29:50):
She wanted to go somewhere and not bestuck in this town her whole life.
And she knows that Roma sent,even if he was going by a different name.
I'm sure people he had talked about thingshe had done for a living.
So she knows thathe had been a traveling street vendor.
He knew the roads,he knew how to get around.
He knew where she would go.
So she asked him for helpgetting out of town and he agreed

(30:11):
and he took her out of town.
She went home, said said hergoodbyes to her family, took her
her child, and left with Roma Santa.
Some time later, Roma Santa returnsto town, tells everybody she's fine.
She's having a wonderful time.
She's staying with a priest right nowand, you know, good for her
moving on with her life.
So other women are suddenly like, waita second, I want I want to leave town.

(30:34):
It sucks here. There's no Internet.
There's no Starbucks.
I don't know, whateveranybody complained about in 1850,
they all want to leave.
So next up is actually Manuel,his sister Benita, and she had a young son
who also was going to travel with herand she asked for Roma Santos help.
So they travel out of town with Roma Santaand they never come back by 1850.

(30:58):
So 1846 is when he takesthe first girl is now 1850 Roma.
Santa had helped a number of people,most of them with small children
journey out of townand there's suspicion is starting to grow.
It's not like hardcore,but it's starting to grow.
And because Roma, Santa had some leeway,1850 again, slow communication.

(31:20):
I don't think they even havelike a wire service yet.
Like there's very slowcommunication, small town.
And any of these people can even writeis the thing.
Probably very few like very, very few.
But as you mentioned, writingRoma Santa does something that actually
gives him a little bit of help,but actually turns against him later
with some of his later potential victims.

(31:41):
He returned to town with letters,and the letters are like, Hey,
we're doing great.
We love it, don't worry about us,we'll write soon or whatever.
And spoiler alert,he he wrote those letters.
They didn't he was it was planned in that.
Yeah.
What a twist. What a twist.
And then Roma Santa made a mistake,as killers often do.

(32:04):
And this one, for someone that showeda lot of cunning, is really stupid.
He kept the clothing of his victims
and he sold it to a vendor in town.
So you have a small townwhere everybody knows everybody,
and so everybody'sgoing to recognize the clothing.
It's not like todaywe're like, Oh, that's just a gap shirt.

(32:26):
A million people could own that.
It's like clothing backthen was very unique.
You're you're handcrafting ityou're repairing it yourself
so there's identifying marks and and styleand everything like that.
So yeah.
So he's resellinghis victim's clothes in town,
and this is where people start to go.
Wait a second.

(32:47):
Roma.
I think Roma Saint is killingthese people.
And a rumor spreads that he's now killedthese people, including the children.
And turned their fat into soap,
which is one of his othernicknames is like this soap maker.
Oh, my God.
There's a there's a nickname to it. Yeah.
I do not know if that is true at all.

(33:08):
That may just be like a local rumorthat started
when people are like,Wait, what the fuck is going on?
Roman Saint is going to come back. Yeah.
Well, hearing that
close is not like that crazyfor a serial killer.
Most serial killers keep, you know,little trinkets cheap, something savvy.
Selling it back like

(33:30):
is a very ballsy move.
You know, somebody in that town
probably sewed that out of, like,spent hours on it that they see it.
Like, that's crazy.
The soap is disgusting,but I wonder if it worked.
Well, you know?
But yeah, it's it's disgusting.
It's terrifying as well.
And what's interesting hereis that Roma Santa, because of the rumors

(33:53):
now authorities are like,well, get to arrest the guy.
And here's where, again,some of the details of the murder victims
are just out ofout of reach of my research.
I don't know if they found any dead bodiesbefore they tried to arrest it.
They may have just been like,we can't find these people.
We've got to bring them in.
So, again, a study of stranger dangerthat com if anybody knows

(34:15):
if they found any of them,I don't think they found all of them,
but they may have found a fewand I just can't confirm that.
So they tried to arrest him.
But given his historywith running away from authority,
he kind of knew what to already doand he had hightailed it out of town.
I think this 1852, when they go after himand they actually this time

(34:35):
they're able to track them downpretty quickly.
And they find him at a town calledwhere is this?
They arrested him,a town called Bella Toledo.
And that again,I think it's more central of Spain.
So they get on thebring him back and he goes on trial
in which I've already saidthere's hundreds of pages of court
documents about his his trial.

(34:56):
And that's because his trial
lasted nearly a year, like he was on triala long time.
Whoa. And part of that
is because of his defense,which we'll get into very shortly.
But, yeah, he goes on trial and I thinkhe goes on trial for killing nine people.
So it's ninepotential victims during his trial.

(35:17):
And those victims are ManuelaGarcia Blanco and her daughter, Petra
Benita Garcia Blanco,and her son Antonio Land
and Antonia Landand her daughter and Josefa
Garcia and her son and a maria Dolores,who was 12.
So there's two, three, four, five,six kids. Oh.

(35:39):
Yeah.
And yeah, it'sabsolutely horrendous and terrifying.
And in the trial,this is kind of what made him
not just a legend because he's the first
notated, documentedserial killer of Spain,
but how he tries to either defend himselfor what kind of plea

(36:03):
he takes, however you want to describe it,is what makes this so fascinating.
And this is where our first scenecomes in.
RJ So, you know,if you don't mind pulling up that document
or do you have it in front of you.
Got it right here.
Okay, So do you want to bewhy don't you be Roma?
Santa, you're the guest.
Be the it be the star of the show?

(36:23):
Sure, sure.
Let's do it. Yeah.
So this is my greatgrandfather's from Spain.
Or I'll channel him.
Do it. Do it.
So this is justthe first page is our first scene.
And this is in the courthouseduring Roma Santas trial.
All right, here we go.
Inside a classic but tiny courtroom.
Manuel Blanco, Roma Santa sits at a tablewith his attorney opposite a prosecutor,

(36:47):
a gaggle of publiclooky loos gather at the back of the room.
It's standing room.
Only a judge is at the head of the room.
And how do you plead?
Roma sent his lawyer,
nudges him in the armand gestures from the stand at the stand.
Guilty or not, Mr. Roma.
Santa Werewolf. Dad.
Excuse me.

(37:09):
I plead Werewolf judge.
The crowd gasps.
What do you mean, werewolf?
Well, I've been sufferingfrom lycanthropy, Your Honor.
I was out of my control.
That's why I killed 13 people.
You were on trial for nine murders.
Oh, well,

(37:31):
regardless, I'm aware.
What a defense.
What a defense.
I mean, that's the way I doubt he stood upand was like, I plead werewolf,
Your Honor, but that's the wayI like to imagine him doing this.
And yeah, because that that's the
that's the essence of the story of of RomaSanta is that he told the court

(37:52):
that he was a werewolfand he was afflicted with lycanthropy.
He had been cursed and was killing people.
It was out of his controlbecause obviously he's a werewolf.
And what's I love,at least in everything I've read,
he claims to kill 13 people,but he's only on trial for nine.

(38:12):
And I just it's.
It's so bonkers and bizarreand part of me is like, is he playing
an 1850s version of the insanity pleawhere
he justwants to sound as crazy as possible.
So even though it's ninepeople and it's 13, I'm a werewolf.
Yeah. Like, is that what he's going for?

(38:33):
I don't know.
That is for us to debate and think.
About an insanity plea that.
I don't know.
I don't.
Know.
Yeah, because I feel likethey would be more willing to believe
at that point that he's a werewolfrather than he's insane.
You know, like, culturally,they probably were like, I don't know
if this guy is insane, but it sounds likehe could be a werewolf for sure.

(38:56):
Yeah. So let's get into
we're going to jump rightinto our second scene right away here.
And the second sceneis later on in the trial.
And I actually for the first part of it,you're going to be Roman Santa again.
The first like you'll havea little bit of a monologue here,
but this is actually a cloaked this. Yeah.
Get your voice ready.
This is actually a quote from his trial.

(39:17):
It's one of the few quotes that I can findfrom the documents.
So, yeah, let's let's dive into it.
Weeks into the
trial, Roma Center sits in a witness chairnext to the judge.
The prosecutor stands before him.
The first time I transformedwas in the mountains of Kosovo.
I came across two ferociouslooking wolves.

(39:38):
I suddenly fell to the floorand began to feel convulsions.
I rolled over three times and a fewseconds later, I myself was a wolf.
I was out marauding with the other two
for five daysuntil it returned to my own body.
The one you seebefore you today, Your Honor.
The other two wolves with me,who I thought were also wolves,

(40:00):
changed into human form.
They were from Valencia.
One was called Antonioand the other Don Carrano.
We attacked in a number of peoplebecause we were hungry.
Okay, well, this is very interesting.
I believe you, by the way.

(40:21):
Thank you.
But only for the sake of the jury.
We'd love to see the transformation.
Go ahead and turn into a werewolf for usnow, please.
Sure.
All right.
Go on. I It's very dangerous.
I don't worry.
We have armed guards around the roomin case you get feisty.
Go. Go ahead. Go ahead.

(40:41):
It's.
Here's the thing. I can't.
Oh, you aren't a werewolf after all.
No, no, no, no, no.
You misunderstand.
I can't believe you don't know this.
I thought it was obvious.
I can't changebecause my affliction is gone.

(41:01):
But gone,
Of course, lycanthropyonly lasts for 13 years.
My time with it ended just last week. The
prosecution rests.
Very seriously, said I.
That that lycanthropycan only last for 13.

(41:24):
Yes, Yes.
So, I mean, obviously, outside of thatfirst like monologue, I'm
doing my own interpretationof what potentially happened.
But he did tell, I don't know.
And the exact words he used,but he did tell the court that at last,
for 13 years, the prosecution was like,go ahead, go, go, go, show us.
And he was just like,But no, he last for 13 years.

(41:47):
And I love that it was last week.Like that's when he was.
Oh, no, it just it was just last week.I mean, have you got me?
Oh, man.
Could it could he shown could a juniorIrishman.
Yeah. Yeah.
And Oh no. Yeah.
It's.
Yeah.
I thought he was going to say likethe full moon but maybe that's not part.
Yeah.
No it's not.I think working on a full moon.

(42:08):
Are we really.
Oh my. Goodness. Look at that.
That is. Amazing. Yeah.
Werewolf in the air. Indeed.
I think just by talking about him,
we are now cursedand we will become werewolves tonight.
But I'm looking forward to it.
Honestly, I think it's going to be justloads loads of laughs.
Now, at the trial, the prosecution did.

(42:30):
They didn't just go, Hey,turn into a werewolf for us.
They actually did variousother things to argue.
They brought in a lot of doctors.
The best doctor by far.
They brought in as a person
who studied phrenology,which is the study of bumps in the head.
I'm sure you've heard of this, right?
Have you heard of this? It's no.

(42:51):
It is not a truth.
It is a pseudoscience.
But there are people, especially at thattime, there are people that believe like
the shape and the bumps and the thingsin your head could tell them
what kind of personality you have,what kind of temperament you have.
If you're a bad person, a good person,like all that kind of stuff.
And what's actually just a littlea little tangent here.
Did you ever seeI think it's called Minute Work.

(43:13):
It's a movie with Charlie Sheenand Emilio Estevez from like
the early nineties where they play garbagemen and they uncover a murder.
It's really.
Good.
It's when I was a kid, I loved itbecause it's it's a bit of
like a humorous take on Rear Window,the Hitchcock movie.
All right.Yeah And it's to their brothers.
So it's real brothers in real life.

(43:33):
Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen playingbrothers.
I think Emilio directed the movie, too.
And they play garbage men
that like witness a potential murderfrom across the street.
But Charlie Sheen's character, too,in order to get like a date with somebody,
I think in the building,they're trying to investigate the murder
and he he says that he's like a worldfamous for knowledge,
just like he studies bumps in the headand obviously making it up.

(43:56):
So, anyway, when I think of phrenology,this sounds insane.
It's called I think it's called minutewhere honestly, it is worth checking out.
I hope.
I hope it agedwell because I loved it as a kid.
But yeah, it'sdefinitely like a humorous rear window
kind of thing.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure Emilio Estevezdirected it.

(44:16):
A pretty I mean, that's did Charlie Sheen.
And it isit is like when they were at their
best like, yeah, shots, young guns,you know like.
It is right then it is right then. Yeah.
Check it out, everybody, please.
And then producers of Men at work, please.
I will take just 1% of any future salesfrom here on out.

(44:37):
That would be fantastic. You get it.
You deserve it.
Absolutely. Thank you. So.
So, Roma.
Santa, To get back to phrenology here,he was studied and examined
by some phrenology analysisthat claimed Nope, not a werewolf.
I can tell by the shape of his head.
And again, some other doctors came in
and studied him and they all were like,He's not a werewolf.

(44:57):
Everybody chill.
And at the end of the trial,I kind of give credit to the court system
and to the jury and everybody elsein this, because, again, there are
strong beliefs for werewolves and cursesand all that kind of stuff in this area.
And they didn't fall for it.
They were just like, nowyou're not a werewolf.
You're just an evil personwho killed a lot of people.

(45:19):
And so he was charged with killingnot all nine victims.
He was acquitted of four.
So he was charged with killingfour people.
And here is the most amazing twist
that isn't even mentioned inmost of what you read about Roman Santa.
The victims.
He wasnot did not get convicted for killing.

(45:39):
He wasn't convicted for killing them
because they were found to actuallyhave been killed by a real wolf.
So they were torn apart by wolvesin the wild and just kind of lumped in
because they were the peoplethat he helped get away.
They were like, oh,he must have killed them.
And yeah, this is this.
Is a weird twin. I'm going to say.

(45:59):
Yeah, that is weird.
Like, that's a little bit weird.
You talk about strange.
That is right at the topof the strangeness for this series.
And that's again whyI want details on these murder victims.
So again, people help me out because
because I want to know howthey were found.
And also when they were foundbecause, again, I'm not even sure
if they were all found beforehe was on trial.

(46:20):
But here's an interesting thought.
What if he knew they were killed by wolves
and that gave him the idea He was.
Yeah. Gave him the idea of werewolves.
Yeah, I think that's very possibleat that same thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, butespecially because he was claiming more.
Yeah.

(46:40):
Like,
would he have thoughtthat there was a lesser sentence,
even if he was accusedof being a werewolf?
It feels likethat's like a burn at the stake.
Yeah. Yeah, I'd rather. Yeah.
Can't be called a murderer.
Yeah. Yeah.
Especially If you're getting ten yearsa person.
Come on.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I could wait ten yearsfor killing 13 people.

(47:02):
I don't want to be burned at the stake.
Burned at the stake or something.Yeah, in that case.
Oh, man.
Oh, God.
Yeah, that is. It's so bizarre.
And it's a really weird defense.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
That's why
I keep towing around with the idea,and I'm jumping
a little bit ahead of my own,like, outline here. But my.
I honestly think he was tryingto sound completely crazy.

(47:25):
That's what I think. He thought.
I can create some time here.
The longer it's it's a bit of that like
like defensewhere it's like I just want to create
havoc and confusion and timebecause if I have time,
maybe I'll come up with something else.Maybe I can escape.
Maybe I can use a fake passport again.Maybe I can do whatever.
Maybe will quit mebecause they're confused.
Maybe they'll just think I'm insaneand I go to a not very

(47:50):
locked down, what do they call, likemental medical, like security type place?
Like I get just thrown in a madhouseis better than being thrown out of prison.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah.
I don't know.
Like, uh I don't imagine the,
uh, amadhouse was, like, a great place to live.
No, Maybe better than a prison.

(48:11):
I don't know. Yeah,Or at least thought of.
Or at least, again, my thinking is maybeeasier to escape a madhouse than a prison.
Yeah, You know, like.
Yeah, So I. That's my own personal theory.
Regardless,he was sentenced and he was sentenced
to die by grafting.
So it's a basicallylike an electric chair,

(48:32):
but instead of a thing connectedto your head and electricity, it's
a thing that goes around your neckand they strangle you to death.
So that's the way they were doingexecutions in Spain at the time.
Yeah.
I don't know if I'd prefer that I. Guilty.
They were still using the guillotinein France at the time, so maybe.
Maybe I would have preferred that.
But yeah, I just. That sounds.

(48:54):
Feels quicker.
Yeah. And you get to work at your like 44.
Yeah. You get that like through.
Oh wow.
That's what I look like through somebodyelse is like, wow, that's really pretty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think I would take the guillotine.
I Oh.
I definitely, if it was between these twothings, getting strangled is not,

(49:17):
not the way to go.
That is definitely not the way to go.
And the end of the story here
is that he actually
didn't get killed by the sentencing.
He didn't get strangled to deathon this guy's rotting chair thing
because after he was sentenced,a doctor known as Philips from France

(49:38):
wrote in the the authorities,the government, whatever office,
you send a letter to like thisand asked the court to delay execution
because he claimed that Roman Santais possibly suffering from lycanthropy.
The psychological versionnot actually turning into a werewolf,
but this rare delusional beliefthat you are a werewolf

(49:59):
or you can turn into an animal.
It's a it's a disorder of the mind orsomething like that is what he called it.
And he wanted to study Roman Santa.
He thought it was very importantto study him from a psychology standpoint
and did not want him to die.
So they had time to study him.
He was not associated with Rome,a standard.
This isn't like an old friendthat was like, Oh,

(50:20):
let me help this guy out or something.
He was just a doctorthat wanted to study him.
And storiesare that the doctor wrote the queen
and she immediately, like,commuted his sentence to life.
Instead, however,I was able to realize that or find out
that he actually wentthrough the very normal correct channels.
He didn't just write the Queen.

(50:41):
It was like, Dear Queen, please stop it.
He actually like wrote the appropriateauthorities, and the letter
eventually made its wayall the way up to where it needed to go.
And she agreed withsome of the other authorities that like,
okay, let's commute his sentenceso that we can study him.
So he ended up getting life in prisoninstead, it is believed,
however, that he diedjust a few months later in prison.

(51:04):
We don't know why some stories claimthat a guard killed him
because he was sayingturn into a werewolf.
I want to see you turn into a werewolf.If you don't, I'll kill you.
And of course he couldn't.
So he was killed.
That, I think, is just pure local or noteven local.
But that's just pure legend.I don't believe that.
For an instance, I can't find anyany confirming evidence of that at all.

(51:26):
I did read that he died of stomach cancerand one of the accounts I found
and also the date of when he died,he was sentenced in 1854.
And a lot of these storiessay he died a few months later.
But some of the storiessay he died in 1863
because of health reasonslike stomach cancer.
So it actually I think he did it.
I do think he didlive till 1863. That's my own

(51:49):
sort of
conclusion after going through everythingI've read.
But again, it's a weird timewhere they don't keep records very well.
So we don't know.
We just know he died in prison.
That's what it seems very, very evident.
Well, I guess at that time, too,if you if you just like if you're saying
this person's living their entire lifein prison, I'm like, why even.

(52:11):
Yeah. Track.
Yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Again, I've tried to look up,you know, police reports and court
reports from things in our lifetimeand people are like, Man,
I don't know where that went.
So I can imaginethere are things going back then.
I have it's all the time There was a.
Little concerning,but that's it. Yeah. Right.

(52:32):
Oh, absolutely.That's always very concerning.
Now, there was a documentarymade in Europe
just I think within the last ten yearsthat said they found evidence
that he lived in a prisonuntil the end of his life around 1863.
And they found like this specific prisonhe was at and all that kind of stuff.
I, however,cannot find a copy of that documentary.
So I got to keepI got to keep looking for it

(52:52):
because I guarantee youit's somewhere to see.
Was it like a full documentaryor was it like a I.
Think it was like a TV.
I think it was a TV program.
I think it was like.
Yeah.
It might have been actually.
Yeah. Quattro Millennium.
It was like a very popular,like a tabloidy kind of.
Yeah.
Almost their version of like Alex Jones,

(53:13):
but more like conspiracy theory.
Yeah. I know that they've covered this.
At least I'm pretty sure they have,because they do have other bits and pieces
of this story that I found on YouTubeThat was them, at least I think that was
So they may have done it ifit wasn't them of someone else like that.
Or it could have even beenlike a Discovery Channel.

(53:35):
Yeah, that. Kind of thing.
So I am looking,I'm sure I'll find that somewhere.
I just haven't been able to yet.
And yeah, outside of all that,
there's not a lot of other detailsI can have until I can find information
about how the bodies were found, howthey were attacked like that.
Those to meare the most important pieces of this.

(53:56):
It's like, when were the bodies found?
How were they found? How were they killed?
Did he kill them?
I definitely think so.
I don't think he would have gone down thisunless he really did
believe he was a werewolf,which is another potential theory.
But I kind of
think he was just using itas a as a weird defense.
I mean, he hasI feel like he has to have killed them

(54:19):
because he was confessingto even more murders,
which, like, feelsat least accurate to me.
You would imagine, even maybebefore the first confirmed murder that he
probably murderedsomebody else and got away with it.
If he thought that he could murder likean authority figure and just disappear,

(54:42):
that feels likenot the first person you kill.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, so I feel like he must have murderedothers.
I do think the fact that some were killed
and eaten by wolves is bizarre and a
the it's like a weird feedback loop,you know?

(55:05):
You know, and you just said somethingthat I think is really interesting.
You said killed and eaten by wolves.
And it made me think,what if he did kill them
and then they were eating by wolvesbecause, well, wolves will do that.
They don't have to kill their prey.
They will scavenge through it. So
I wonder if that happened.

(55:25):
And that just kind of destroys certainevidence about how they were killed.
And it's like, okay,we can't get them for these
because they werethey were completely eaten by wolves.
Right.
That's that's something to consider.
Again, we can't confirm that at all.
But that's an interesting thingthat I just hadn't about that.
It made me think about the way you phrasedthat.
There is something else.

(55:45):
And I'm realizing this nowas I get to the end of my notes.
I don't think I wrote this inbecause I don't think I was able to.
What try to do when I research isunless I have like an authority
figurethat's done years of research on a topic
I will try to like almostlike a journalist where I want to see
the same informationconfirmed through various sources.

(56:05):
And if it isn't there, I just won't read
necessarily comment on itunless it's an interesting thing.
Like I'm about.
Yeah,but I did find one source that said he
he actually told the courtwhere to find some of the victims.
So I do think I don't think they foundeverybody before he was tried
if that is true that he didtell them where to find some of the bodies

(56:27):
and they found him there, which is aninteresting thing to think about, too,
because why if he's claiming
if he was just being like,I'm innocent, he's never going to do that.
But if he's claiming to be a werewolf,he's going to be like,
Oh, find the rest of the bodiesover this way and they find him.
And that to me is athat's an interesting very kind of

(56:48):
like a normal serial killer thingwhere he either either may want.
To credit. His he wants to credit.
Thank you.
He wants the credit.
He wants to kind of revel in the glory.
But he is taking this spin of werewolfness.
Yeah, I mean, there's an aspect to that.
If he did believe that he was a werewolf,there is a possibility that he felt like

(57:14):
and maybe all the persecutionthroughout the years of his life
felt like he didactually want to be punished
for these crimesand these things that they did.
And maybe he felt as if
confessing was a
way of like, absolving sin.
Two Oh, yeah, that's interesting.

(57:37):
Yeah, that is really interesting.
And all of this kind ofthis is all circling a larger topic,
topic about understanding,trusting in psychology because the. The.
The science of that was notI mean it was starting around the 1850s
but like modern psychological beliefsand studies and all that

(57:58):
kind of stuff were still in their infancy.
And I think I would imagine, especially ina heavily religious community like this,
that there was not a lot of trustin those things.
They're going to go to phrenologybefore they're going to go
to a doctor of psychology.
So it is it's there is a psychological
that I feel likewe may never be able to pinpoint

(58:19):
because they weren't looking at himfrom that respect.
There was that Philips guythat wanted to study him for lycanthropy,
but I don't think we ever got full studiesout of him there.
Just doesn't say anythingafter he goes to prison.
But yeah, there's a psychological elementthat's missing from this as well
that we just don't.
We only conjecture.
Right?
Because especially at that time,if you don't fully understand

(58:41):
what's going on with your bodyand there's confusion with the doctors
and your or your whole life has changedand is changing throughout,
I can see a worldwhere with the mythology,
with the belief systems that are going outon at the time, you could
particularly if you're in this travelingroving band where I'm sure you're hearing

(59:06):
bits andpieces from other cultures are coming in.
I can see a worldwhere you start to believe that
you are a werewolf like no other.
You're at leastyou feel very othered by other people
and you try to find an explanationfor what that is, you know?

(59:26):
Yeah,
and that could have been the answer
that he landed on.
Yeah.
I like that. I like. That. It's bizarre.
I mean, it's a very interesting,very interesting story
and like a very tragic, sad life, really,
at the end of the day

(59:49):
for everybody involved.
I mean, how many children
and the family membershad to lose their life because of it?
Yeah, it's very sad.
It is terribly sad.
And it's worth worthlooking into in sharing, because I do
think I do think there is valuein these kind of stories.
I if I wouldn't have a podcast like thisif I didn't yet.

(01:00:12):
Yes, there is athere's an entertainment value
and I do love a mysterythat is kind of my my big passion.
But there is there's always something tolearn and like how how we are as humans,
how we react to these things,what makes somebody do terrible things.
There's always something to learn.
I don't always know that is bad,but there's always something.

(01:00:32):
They learn
throughevery mystery, through every story.
There's all there.
A great story,a great mystery has underlying human
pathos to it and seems to pull out.
And I think this is a great version of it,just through the historical
aspect of what was going on through that,the trial aspect.

(01:00:56):
I'm a personwho has a lot of lawyers in my family.
My dad is a lawyer and my sister
went to law school and workedfor the Innocence Project for a while.
Nice.
Now I've worked on my truecrime shows and yeah,
so you bring a trial into a story.

(01:01:16):
I love it.
I'm all I'm all so sorrybecause you get it.
It feels
more legit, I guess.
Like that there has to be some, like,real basis in it.
Absolutely.
And that's why I love court transcriptsand any story.
I love transcripts.
I find them fascinating.

(01:01:37):
And it's also I'm one of those peopleI've only been on a jury once
and it was the stupidest chasein the world.
But I loved like I was actually super fastand I was annoyed that I got chosen.
And then I was also like, Well,I'm going to make the best of this.
It was absolutely fascinated,fascinated the whole time.
But yeah, that,I mean, that, that pretty much sums up Mr.
Roma Santa until,until we can get more details.

(01:01:59):
And again, I want to give a big a big callto action here for any listeners
that may be able to track downmore details of anything,
not just the victimsbut any other details,
because it is a hard one to researchand I would love to to find more.
So pleaseemail me a study of strange dot gmail.com
if you can come across anything,especially the court
all day court documentif there's a way to get those translated.

(01:02:21):
Man, I am all over that.
And I was honestly kind of shockedbecause I think in Spain
this is a much more likethis is a probably a very popular story.
There's even been somelike movies made about it.
Oh, that doesn't surprise me.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
There's two there's two trialsI could find.
Yeah.
Trial the wolf. There you go.
There's two that I could find.

(01:02:42):
And they seem very like,you know, Hollywood.
It's not Hollywood at all, but it'sthey've been changed dramatically.
So you can't really dream much specificsof the real story out of it.
But yeah, it's a famous story over there.
So I imagine there's
there's more information than we can findand it just hasn't quite made it's
made its way into the pop cultureover here where it's easy to research.

(01:03:03):
All right, R.J.,do want to plug anything here,
any of your true crime showsand I mean, obviously strange phenomena.
Where can people findwhat do you want. Them to do?
Yeah, I would say the best place is findthis strange phenomenon.
If you like this show, I think you'llreally dig strange phenomenon.
So check that out.
At Strange Destiny Amazon dotcom or it's on every single podcasting

(01:03:28):
app, whatever you're listening to this on,it's like a strange phenomenon.
You'll find it and you'll get it there.
No problem.
We're on Instagram and Twitter
and all of thatat strange underscore phenomena.
So find is there Instagramwe post about that I think

(01:03:49):
and other than
that I do some shows for Watchercheck them out.
Don't really need much more promotionbecause they've been blowing up
but if you like watcher
watching go keeping employed through thatYeah Ghost files
and some of their upcoming showsabsolutely.

(01:04:09):
And I feel like we need to start some sortof like podcast the union it's like the
strange podcast or just like a group,I don't know, a lobbying group.
There we go.
Some sort of a lobbying group
that's all about strange, strange podcastsor podcasts.
That's Strange is the title.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
We'll get monsters among us in here.

(01:04:30):
Yeah, yeah.
It'll be a party. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that'll be amazing.
Well, cool. Well, thank you so much, RJ.
We will talk very soon and.
Yeah, thank you for everything.
Awesome. Thank you, Michael.
This is a lot of fun.
And that'll do it for the werewolfserial killer.
Thank you all for listening.
Remember to subscribe, rate and review.
Check out R.J.

(01:04:51):
Blake's podcast strange phenomenon.
It's awesome.
And then check us out on Instagramat a study of Strange sent me an email
with comments, notes, things I got wrong.
Let me know.
A study of strange at gmail.comand check out our additional
and exclusive content through our Patreon,which you can find on our website.
A study of strange dotcom next week.

(01:05:12):
I actually don't know what our episodewill be next week because I have like
three ready to go, but it just dependson the schedule of our guests.
We'rethey're going to do a strange phenomenon
or a mystery that doesn't deal with death.
You know, you're
going to take a break every now and then,so that'll do it.

(01:05:34):
Thank you and good night.

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