Drawn to Darkness

20 - Grey Gardens by the Maysles brothers

• Anne Azano • Episode 18

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Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, the podcast where we deep dive into our favourite horror and true crime. In this episode, we head deep into the peeling wallpaper, raccoon-infested attic, rotting walls and shingles, and extraordinary psychology of Grey Gardens, the 1975 direct-cinema documentary that follows Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, two formerly glamorous socialites now living in overwhelming decay and filth in their once-grand Hamptons estate. We  unpack the house as gothic horror, Little Edie’s charm, yearning, and self-loathing (as well as her fabulous head scarves), Big Edie’s pride in her aristocratic past, the mother daughter dynamic, and then men who didn’t help (at least Jackie Kennedy Onassis stepped in). We discuss the film’s reputation as a masterpiece, the tension between fascination and voyeurism and its connection to contemporary reality TV such as Hoarders.

Content & Spoiler Warning

In addition to spoilers, this episode contains discussion of animal neglect and unsanitary living conditions, including cat faeces, raccoons, fleas, and hoarding, Toxic mother–daughter relationships, psychological distress, Isolation, mental health concerns, and hints of past trauma

Palate Cleanser

TikTok trend of people strolling through HomeGoods and dramatically “discovering” absurdly specific décor items (like a “bird on a golden twig” or a “portrait of an elephant in a bathtub, but just the butt”). Just for fun.

All the Star Wars, including Rebels

The Whimsical Muse on Threads, an account full of cozy, bookish, soft-rain-in-Edinburgh energy to restore your faith in the world.

Recommendations:

Films & TV:

  • Grey Gardens (2009) — The Drew Barrymore/Jessica Lange dramatization
  • Documentary Now! — “Sandy Passage” — Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s hilarious Grey Gardens parody
  • Gimme Shelter — Another documentary by the Maysles Brothers
  • American Horror Story: Season 1— For claustrophobic house-based dread
  • Feud: Capote v. the Swans — For more on high-society mythology (creative non-fiction)
  • Arrested Development and Schitt’s Creek— Wealthy family, disastrous decline, narcissistic mother: say no more
  • The Haunting of Hill House — For more gothic “dancing alone in an empty house” 

Books & Literary Connections

  • The Marble Fawn of Grey Gardens by Jerry Torre and the novel by Nathanial Hawthorne
  • The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe)
  • The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
  • A Raisin in the Sun & Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” (what happens to a dream deferred?)
  • The Great Gatsby for Gilded Age illusions

Other Fascinating Rabbit Holes

  • The Winchester Mystery House — Another sprawling home built on grief, ghosts, and possible madness

Homework Assignment: 

Caroline is taking us into the horrors of scientific research gone wrong. Listen to the two-part “Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment” series from the podcast You’re Wrong About. We’ll explore the real-life horror of government-sanctioned cruelty, medical racism, and scientific exploitation.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd) 

Caroline:

Important.

Anne:

Okay.

Caroline:

I think it'll sort of come out in our discussion why I feel that way, in a lot more color. It really does call out in a very skillful way. the final point we make in our summary, which is this double-edged sword of the internet and webs, slce, and, the way that people who get involved and obsessed with things like this can end up making things worse for a lot of people doing irreparable damage along the way, even if their intention is pure, or even if their intention is like ours here today. You know? And what we wanted to do with this podcast, you know?

Anne:

What do we wanna do with this podcast?

Caroline:

I think just make people feel seen, people like us.

Anne:

Yeah. Weirdos like us.

Caroline:

exactly.

Anne:

Yeah. I mean, part of it, that's part of it for me. Part of it is I guess a defense of interest in this stuff.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

I would describe it as mysterious stomach churning, but overall just sad.

Caroline:

Yeah, it is.

Anne:

this was not a new story for me, but I'd never seen the documentary. I think I first encountered this listening to, uh, my favorite murder episode, which they covered very early. I went back and listened to their episode seven. I find this story fascinating because although, you know, we're gonna spoil it right now, this is most likely a case of a young woman with a very serious mental health issue who was all for meds and slipped through the cracks. It combines true crime and mystery with a hint of the paranormal, which I find fascinating, even if it's not true. So the place, the setting, the Cecil Hotel in LA near Skid Row, this is in the category of you learn something new every day. Because I knew the term Skid Row, but I thought it was kind of like a generic term for an area like that, where there's a lot of. People who are unhoused, but I, I thought it kind of came from England or something like, you know, you know how the term, I don't know if you know this, but the term Bedlam is the name of an asylum, and so when people use bedlam to describe chaos, it's because that asylum was probably a pretty chaotic place. So I looked it up and I found that skid roads were used by loggers to transport their timber to ports, but then at the end of those areas there would be these kind of rundown urban areas with lots of bars and brothels to cater to the loggers. And then it kind of morphed into what it is today. So I thought that was kind of interesting.

Caroline:

Wow. And I thought it came from the movie Little Shop of Horrors slash Play. cause I know it was a play first.

Anne:

Well, I think it dates back further than that. So the cecils in downtown la and I don't know why people would want to go there as a tourist attraction. I've spent some time in LA because my sister lives there now, and I feel like everyone I meet there is under duress. Like they're holding up a newspaper to show the date in a hostage video with someone like just out of sight with a gun to their head because they're all there for the industry, like acting, writing, music, but they don't actually seem to like living there. Obviously I'm responding to a small sample size, but I feel like it has this reputation as a tourist attraction maybe from shows like 9 0 2 1 oh or something that it does not deserve when there are so many other nice places you could go outside of la. being unfair?

Caroline:

Um, probably, I mean, the thing

Anne:

No.

Caroline:

about LA no. Okay, so caveat, I was born in Orange County, although I spent almost no time living there, I think like the thing that disappoints me about LA is how much art, trying to visit the different people I know who live, from, down to Santa Monica Pier area to Burbank, and all over kind of. And you just spend so much time in your car trying to get between those places, which living in New York for a very long time, I spent no time in a car, for the most part. but I actually wanted to ask a friend in advance of this episode if they would be offended.'cause we obviously don't wanna offend our listeners who live in LA and she shout out to Ty, who's friend, and a loyal listener. She was just talking about how when we visited LA in, freshman year of high school, she fell in love with it immediately and knew always that she was gonna move there. so it can happen.

Anne:

And there's beautiful parts. I actually quite like the neighborhood where my sister lives. She lives in Los Phillie, Los Phillies, Los Phillies. I never know how to pronounce it, but

Caroline:

where the

Anne:

Los Phillies, I know she hasn't taken me there yet, so I need her to do that. But

Caroline:

is a

Anne:

you know, it's actually. Really nice. Yes. And, uh, you know, like the whole area, what is it, the hills where you can, like, there's lots of hiking and it's really quite beautiful. So I, I will concede, I'm being a bit unfair, but I point this out because of like the English couple who show up and stay at the Cecil and think that they're going to a nice place and they are not.

Caroline:

Well, and I think to say it better, my rambling thing before, I do think it surprises people how far apart parts of LA are. Like they think they're gonna go there and be able to get back and forth between, the observatory and Hollywood and downtown and whatever else they wanna see. it's not gonna be quick and easy like that.

Anne:

you know, the same thing happens to people who want to come to Australia.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

like, okay, so I wanna see like Sydney, Melbourne, and the Great Berry Reef. I went and I'm like, do you know how far apart those things are? Like.

Caroline:

to be fair, that's a whole country.

Anne:

It is. Well, let's talk about the history of the hotel. It is known as the most haunted hotel in LA or a hotbed for death. It's about a hundred years old. It has an opulent lobby with lots of marble, made me think of Titanic, the Hotel of Dreams. We've been watching a Titanic on repeat for several months now, so it's almost all, I think about quite a grand past until the Great Depression I think only within five to 10 years after it was built, and because of what has happened between then and now. It's definitely got a decaying gothic quality to its history. It became a hotspot for the nearby unhoused population in Skid Row, and a lot of dark things happen there.

Caroline:

I mean, do you think it's really only the most haunted hotel in la? I feel like it's the most haunted hotel I've ever heard of in my life.

Anne:

I think so. Yeah. I can't, I mean, I think there's probably others. so I reread a quote from Stephen King, about the overlook. It reminded me of a line in The Shining when Jack Torrance has found a scrapbook of the Overlook hotel that goes into its dark history, including like mafia murders, suicide, and he writes, any big hotels have got scandals, just like every big hotel has got a ghost. Why hell people come and go suddenly, it seemed that he could almost feel the weight of the overlook bearing down on him from above 110 guest rooms, the storage room, kitchen, pantry, freezer, lounge, ballroom, dining room, so the Overlook hotel. Had like a hundred something rooms. This has 700 rooms and a hundred years of history.

Caroline:

But it isn't like standalone, quite like the overlook is, like it's in the middle of a very bustling, busy area where it's not even the tallest building, you know? But I think the element of the zoning and the prices for the rooms and the ability to have it be affordable, has historically lent itself to transient populations that, have been it capitalized on by people with bad intentions.

Anne:

Yeah, I mean, I wonder, is this like a Bermuda Triangle situation, Where if you look for it. You pay attention to those disappearances, you're gonna find them. And you combine that with an area that is prone to a lot of bad weather. There's not actually anything, paranormal going on at the Bermuda Triangle. It's just a place where there's a lot of boats that happen to be a lot of bad weather and then it gets a reputation. So that's my question. Is the Cecil, does it actually have a disproportionate amount of bad things happening or, is it just about its location, its length of time and existence and that there are gonna be deaths over time in any place

Caroline:

As an aside, we hear a lot less about the Bermuda Triangle now than I feel like we used to when we were little.

Anne:

for me to triangle in quick sand? I was really worried about both those things.

Caroline:

exactly. Much less of a big deal than I thought they were gonna be. As you know me, I like to contextualize things to understand how big a deal is it or isn't it? And I was trying to do research, like they gave a lot of stats about how often 9 1 1 is called how many people have died. And I tried to do research on is that a big deal compared to other hotels or not. And I was basically told by the internet, you cannot find this information in a day. would have to do a lot, a lot of deeper diving. But I did find that, there was a report about how many people were poisoned by carbon monoxide while staying in hotels in the US between 2005 20 18, 22 people died and 905 were poisoned by carbon monoxide while staying in hotels in the us. That shocked me. I've never heard of that.

Anne:

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of scary hotels. Like you're really putting yourself in the hands of the hotel,

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

You don't know who's there. You don't know how good their security is. You don't know how good their air filtration is, and you don't know who's been there before you. So it's kind of, a scary concept when you think about it too deeply. I mean, the manager says there were 80 deaths in her 10 years there, so that's a lot of bad stuff.

Caroline:

is a

Anne:

Yeah, I mean, it does seem disproportionate. so some of the things that happened, a woman jumped from the window and landed on a man walking by, killing him as well as herself. There was some woman, Goldie, do you remember her name? Goldie something.

Caroline:

Goldie was her nickname'cause she fed the birds.

Anne:

Okay.

Caroline:

lady from Mary

Anne:

Right. Well, she was raped and murdered there. The black dahlia's rumor to have stayed there. Richard Ramirez stayed there in the, in, was it the eighties, and would return to his rooms bloody after going on his rape and murder sprees. flashback to Rosemary's baby episode, as he said, hail Satan as he was led from the courtroom. So a very scary guy. Then there's Jack Unterweger who posed as an Austrian journalist reporting on Skid Row, but was actually murdering sex workers, and that brings us to Elisa Lamb in 2013. Did I, did I miss any of the big bad things that happened there?

Caroline:

Nope, I was tracking along with you. I had totally forgotten about that under Vader guy. you said you hadn't watched this before? I had watched it before, but when it came out, so it's been quite a few years

Anne:

Another interesting thing about the hotel is apparently there's no 13th floor, right? There actually is a 13th floor. They just call it the 14th.

Caroline:

that's pretty common.

Anne:

Yeah. It's interesting though, that in our society where we do scoff at superstition and people who believe in the paranormal, how commonplace it is to buy into that superstition in, you know, people who are like architects and hotel designers and business people are making these decisions to not have a 13th floor. I, I find that interesting.

Caroline:

I can tell you that my husband is an architect and for those who've been drinking, whenever I mention my husband, go ahead and drink. But he, he has always talked about how ridiculous it is there is a

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

is not a 13th floor.

Anne:

Yeah, a few words to describe it. The manager refers to it as a flop house. There's that man, Kenneth Gibbons, who kind of made me laugh. He was talking about it in the eighties and nineties, and he was like, we would get it on

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

right. But he described it as lawless. And it all these descriptions kind of, reminded me of, do you remember in Big where Tom Hanks goes to New York and he stays in that scary hotel and he can just hear all the scary things happening around him when he's actually a little kid in Tom Hanks' body, and it's just like, oh, that's what it made me think of.

Caroline:

I would never forget. We used to watch that, at our camp on rainy days sometimes, and I would have to like leave the room for that part'cause I felt so.

Anne:

Yeah. Oh, it's so, it's so sad and scary. Um. You know, I almost stayed at a hotel like this in New York City. I booked this hotel on booking.com, which I will never trust again. All the reviews were good, I booked it and then my sister sent me reviews from another website, maybe Yelp for something. And she's like, um, have you seen this? And apparently it was an old hotel that used to have a good rep reputation and it was now being used for the unhoused. It also reminded me of the building in Ghostbusters that Dana lives in, which is actually in Ghostbusters. A nexus of evil

Caroline:

Yeah. That was a gorgeous building though, wasn't it?

Anne:

or just building. Yeah. But just the idea of a building that draws darkness.

Caroline:

Totally.

Anne:

Shall we talk about some of the aesthetic devices? There was a lot of, tinting going on,

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

like red tinting, blue tinting. I think Elisa was always red. And then I, I can't remember. Maybe it was the web sleuths were like blue or green or something. A lot of closeup of things like Amy price's high heels as she walks down the halls with an overlay of creepy music.

Caroline:

Yeah, I always love the phrase that, date with Dateline uses for this, which is reimagine enactments when people

Anne:

that.

Caroline:

are, yeah, when, when people are like, sorry, do you see my lights flickering? I'm like having a real

Anne:

Do you have a ghost?

Caroline:

moment. Yeah.

Anne:

Maybe the Cecil Hotel doesn't want us talking about it.

Caroline:

just discussing the CSO hotel causes haunting, even for people who do not believe in hauntings. Good job la. Okay. So, yeah, actually my number one note is like, how do you feel about the voiceover of the diary? Because I think when, when the family is not involved with a documentary. approach like that, like reimagine admins, TM date with Dateline or voiceovers, always makes me feel kind of weird as an approach.

Anne:

Yeah, that is one of my criticisms of this is, is it, I not, is it, I believe it does overly sensationalize what happened here and without the family's consent.

Caroline:

Hmm

Anne:

So yeah, maybe there's an element of, invasiveness to that kind of reenacting the voice of a, dead girl who's a victim of, a mental health disorder, most likely. Yeah.

Caroline:

health crisis?

Anne:

Well, poor Elisa Lamb, you know, she's so cute. She wanted to travel, experience live life to the fullest. I admire her courage to travel alone. Have you ever traveled alone?

Caroline:

No. No. Well. I lived in Germany for work and I would travel alone to other German cities, but, I didn't like go to another country completely alone with no person expecting me.

Anne:

I think that counts Going to different cities by yourself. I mean, I went to Scotland alone and stayed in a hostel until I made friends. I made friends pretty quickly though. Shout out to Shannon and Kath, who both recently told me they're listening. and yeah, I've spent time, I spent a few days in London by myself, like three days. But yeah, I, I think it, it is very brave. Perhaps fool Hardy to travel alone if you're staying in places like the Cecil. Did you look at her Tumblr?

Caroline:

I didn't, no. Did you?

Anne:

I had a quick glance at it. Yeah. You know, she's a fan of, princess Bride Grit Gatsby.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

She had bad handwriting like me.

Caroline:

And me.

Anne:

Yes, she has this very sort of online public diary that does show that she struggled with depression. She shares a lot of vulnerability. And I think people really picked apart these clues to her psyche. Like she talks about. Her mouth, me, her downfall will get me in trouble. It's a strange thing to say. Does that imply that she pissed someone off who might have murdered her?

Caroline:

I guess my thoughts on Elisa and her social media presence or blogging presence, Feeds into kind of the first person I think of with this in that, you know, it is very wonderful for her to be vulnerable and certainly putting herself out there is not an easy thing to do. And I commend her efforts to do that. But I, I did find it really bizarre how much people like, budding dentist, John Banani, really obsessively combed through that to come up with. Assumptions about her personality, assumptions about what happened to her, all these theories to really feel like they knew her when they, they don't know her. It really struck me, his level of,, obsession I was like, I can't believe this person elected to be interviewed to convey this.

Anne:

Yeah, I mean those web sleuths, some of them really came off as kind of unhinged. There was one guy, and maybe we're talking about the same guy. He was like, we all wanted her to be alive. And I was like, okay, captain Obvious, like not the YouTuber guy, the other guy. Are we talking about the same guy?

Caroline:

the guy who like. Asked someone to

Anne:

went to her grave?

Caroline:

Yeah. Like that guy was, an unhealthy level of obsessed with her. I think

Anne:

yeah,

Caroline:

YouTuber and some of these other social media people whose interviews we saw, were caught up in the sensationalism and using the sensationalism for cliques, essentially. This

Anne:

yeah.

Caroline:

had an unhealthy fixation, I feel like.

Anne:

He, he definitely has a red string wall up in his room.

Caroline:

Yeah. but like, it's about her. He really, I, I don't know. It, it felt stalker level to me.

Anne:

I, I see that it felt more about knowing her than solving the crime or the mystery.

Caroline:

Whereas I feel like the other people are just down for conspiracy theory.

Anne:

Yeah. What about Amy Price?

Caroline:

She was one of the interviews that made me say important, as a person who myself, who has had professional experience as a marketer, I can understand. Her motivation behind things and I can understand some of the positions that she found herself in. And I can also understand how she suddenly found herself in the center of this whole like conspiracy situation that becoming the manager of a hotel. She never could have thought what happened to her. And I really sympathize with people in situations like that. It doesn't mean she's faultless though.

Anne:

She seems so beleaguered. She's just like shocked. She got through it, like there's at one point where she's like a tuberculosis outbreak. She talks about sniper in the hall, snakes in the bath, like she just looks like she's shocked. She survived. And then obviously the water tank thing would win the award for worst day of work ever for her.

Caroline:

seriously.

Anne:

She asked at one point, is there a room here that someone hasn't died in? what a crappy job. Her role was to fix up and rebrand this absolute lemon of a hotel. Let's talk about stay on Maine.

Caroline:

I the desire to rebrand the Cecil and aspects of the Cecil. think though that it is important to let people know,'cause it's not even like, it's a whole separate section like you are sharing elevators and it's not key card elevators. You can go to floors that your, room isn't on. Which I think was a very important piece of this for me in terms of the hotels failing.

Anne:

Absolutely.

Caroline:

are there and they're staying technically in different businesses or LLCs, which I don't even know how the backend of that worked, would be very important from a security perspective to have that on lockdown,

Anne:

If it's being marketed as a separate hotel, it should actually be a separate hotel, and I know that they can't do that completely, but very basic upgrading those lifts, sorry, Australia upgrading those elevators to have a key card system that you can only get off if you and most hotels have that, right? Like you can only get off on your floor. So I mean, on the one hand it's a good idea, right? It's pretty clever, but it's also, it's deceptive to get people to stay near Skid Row. And She seems pretty defensive.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

she's, she's also giving, I can talk shit about my family, but you can't.

Caroline:

Yeah. It does seem like has some affection for the building, which shocked me.

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

unknown number. I was very shocked at any sort of lingering fondness a person might have for something that has caused you so much pain,

Anne:

I know we misuse Stockholm Syndrome, like, but the way that the general public, understands the term Stockholm syndrome. Maybe there's a bit of that going on.

Caroline:

Or like trauma bonded with a location,

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

know,

Anne:

If there's a movie about this, the actor who plays Kim Wexler from Better Call, Saul should play her.

Caroline:

percent. Yes. Such a doppelganger.

Anne:

I mean, I'm sure people have blamed her for the rebranding and arguably tricking people like Elisa Lamb and that English couple to stay there. Because they didn't know what they were getting into. What's your worst experience at a hotel? Did I ever tell you about the time I went backpacking through Western Europe?

Caroline:

Shout

Anne:

get it?

Caroline:

friends fans and Ken Adams in

Anne:

Yes. we were backpacking around Europe and. Showed up in Santorini and there were all these guys at the dock waving around brochures, to get you to stay at their hotel. And one had a hotel for like, it was like 10 euros or something. It was so cheap. This is early two thousands, and it showed this photo of this absolute pristine glistening pool. So we got in a van with him because that's what you do when you're young and invincible. And he brought us to this hotel with like spiders everywhere, like a brown stain toilet miles from the beach. And though it did have a pool, it was empty.

Caroline:

Oh God. I, I went to Mexico with my, best friend Kate. shout out to her as well. this is our shout out episode. Everyone's getting the

Anne:

yeah.

Caroline:

send us a message or a review on iTunes and you can get a shout out too. Anyway, we went to this hotel in Mexico that I booked, much like you, in the story you told before, with stars and whatever. And we get there and it's fine. I mean, it's not great, but I was like, we'll just deal.'cause it was affordable. But then when we woke up in the morning, Kate was like, the room is flooded. I got us a room at another hotel, so we moved to hotels.

Anne:

Yeah, we bailed pretty quickly on our spider ridden brown stain toilet hotel, but neither of these compare to staying at the Cecil with a dead body in your water supply.

Caroline:

Oh my God. I couldn't,

Anne:

is why I say vomit inducing. Is that the word I used? I can't remember.

Caroline:

I, I couldn't, I couldn't believe, even though I'd seen it before, and even though I knew when they talked about how they showered with it and drank it and brushed their teeth with it, I was like, oh God,

Anne:

it's so gross.

Caroline:

I would ever feel clean again.

Anne:

No, no. I don't feel clean just talking about it. I feel like I need to brush my teeth because you said that,

Caroline:

I'm sorry.

Anne:

I mean they drank corpse water. That is just so gross.

Caroline:

The worst.

Anne:

I think a lot of people who haven't grown up in America don't with good reason, understand American cities, like the city centers in Europe are generally quite nice. Right. And that's often not the case in American cities. Certainly not la. So I hope they got their money back.

Caroline:

God. to that point, actually back on, not Kim Wexler. That decision is not a single person decision. You know, like that is something that had to be brought to a board of people or a suite of owners or whatever. You agree with that decision that she made or not, that is not all on her shoulders and she's the only one who's

Anne:

Definitely. Yeah.

Caroline:

about it. That's another thing I appreciate is the people who are here to take ownership of their mistakes, even if they also are defensive in part of it, are

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

who are there and they're, aware certainly after what they've been through, that they're gonna hear about it, you know?

Anne:

So speaking of people, I feel sorry for that maintenance guy.

Caroline:

Yeah,

Anne:

I mean, I guess if he'd been working there for a while, he'd have encountered dead bodies before. But to get caught up in this must have been really rough.

Caroline:

absolutely. Especially. With the whole debate over whether it was open or not open and stuff like that. I, I'm sure that was very tricky.

Anne:

Yeah. I mean, was it open or closed?

Caroline:

I think it was open. He said it was open,

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

He might have closed it. I don't think anybody here is intentionally deceiving anyone else, it's just a lot of people being imperfect.

Anne:

yeah, mistakes were made.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

What did you think of Morbid Pablo?

Caroline:

Oh, that really broke my heart. I mean, I can recall the days when everything was blamed on Marilyn Manson, who we now know is not a great guy, as we've discussed. Listen to catch and Kill. I can't say I connect with having that artistic expression, but it doesn't mean that you should be accused of anything and certainly not harassed. And I do think it's really frustrating. There's some other documentaries I've seen where innocent people get their accounts taken down and fraudsters continue, so for him to lose his livelihood, his passion for music, and he could have lost his life, because of this. And it wasn't

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

year that he was there.

Anne:

I know. It's insane. And this is the danger of web sleuths that we were talking about. I've had a student who was the sweetest girl you would ever meet. She was a delight and she was super into music like this, right? Like it doesn't mean you're a bad person to enjoy this really dark stuff. It's darker than what I like. Yeah.

Caroline:

you know?

Anne:

Funny enough, I took my daughter to get her hair cut yesterday and her stylist kind of looked like him, like he was super goth long hair. And my daughter was kind of like, oh, geez, when he walked up. But he was the sweetest angel you would ever meet. She loved him by the end, like just such a delightful man. But he looked like this, with the long, dark hair that was like clearly dyed and he had like tattoos on his face, but he was so nice.

Caroline:

Another MFM, shout out. I think they have a whole thing about like, find a goth,

Anne:

yeah.

Caroline:

If you're a child in distress, go find a goth because they are wearing their darkness on the outside. It's the people who are hiding their

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

on the inside

Anne:

Mm-hmm.

Caroline:

with often.

Anne:

Ted Bundy didn't look goth. BTK didn't look goth.

Caroline:

Absolutely.

Anne:

Big. Oops. When the web mob came after him, I do think he could have done a better job explaining his innocence in that video. Like, you know, he, it still made him look guilty. But yeah, he says what happened to me could happen to anyone and that he calls the internet a portal to hell. Which is a very good point. That ties in with our, unknown number, which I guess is more phones than internet. But yeah, just, the way this technology can be used to target people.

Caroline:

Yeah, absolutely.

Anne:

Any other people.

Caroline:

I liked the cop, which I can't

Anne:

Mm-hmm.

Caroline:

to me that often in these docuseries.

Anne:

Doesn't Fox Hollow

Caroline:

Yes, that's true.

Anne:

the cold taste cup? Yeah.

Caroline:

I guess we're picking instances where it does happen. But yeah, I did like him because it really felt to me like he was genuinely haunted by not having found her. And the coroner too, talking about the mistake made on the, death certificate.

Anne:

versus 18.

Caroline:

I really appreciated everyone who in there to admit they did something wrong. And I will say the, the, dentist we talked about earlier, who is now a dentist in la by the way. I did look him up. He did not admit any wrongdoing. And the YouTuber did. The YouTuber was like, I was looking for a conspiracy and there wasn't one. He went to the trial and was like, oh shit, I was wrong.

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

just appreciate anytime a person's willing to do that. It's not that often.

Anne:

Yeah. They need to make it up to Pablo Morbid

Caroline:

know, and I

Anne:

Mm-hmm.

Caroline:

maybe, they tried things after because I'm not sure that they knew about unintended victims like him, and the extent

Anne:

Mm-hmm.

Caroline:

it impacted him,

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

them the benefit

Anne:

And he is not the only one.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

Maybe not in this case, but you know, throughout cases there have been people who have been targeted and yeah, we're totally innocent.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

And that, that sticks with you, right? Like even if you are vindicated, it sticks with you emotionally and the stain of it. Sticks with you. People still wonder what if, right?

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

There's a great book about that. horns by Joe Hill, his Stephen King son, it's about a guy who people think killed his girlfriend, but he didn't. And everybody kind of thinks he's the devil in town who got away with it. And then like one day he wakes up with horns. It's so and so. He's like becoming the monster they think he is. It's really good.

Caroline:

Ooh, very metamorphosis like.

Anne:

Exactly like that. Yeah. so theories, most likely theory, unlike the documentary, we're not gonna bury the hatch lead, mental illness off her meds, Bipolar having a psychotic episode. So evidence for this, she was behaving strangely in the shared room acting erratically at the Conan O'Brien show. let's talk about, let's the elevator.

Caroline:

I wanna say that I wrote down the shoe debate. It looks very clearly like that's her foot turning. I, I don't understand why people were like, clearly that's

Anne:

Somebody else was there.

Caroline:

see the swing of her other leg. she is definitely bizarrely, she's erratically walking, but it's clearly her.

Anne:

I mean it's, it's creepy. I think it's always interesting when police who we think of as rational and not prone to fancy the way someone like I am, but even they're kind of like, what the fuck? And regardless of why, whether there's an actual person out of sight. Paranormal entity or she's just having a psychotic break. She's scared, right? Like she seems to be hiding, don't you think? Like she kind of peeks around the corner and then hops back in and

Caroline:

Yeah,

Anne:

herself into the corner. She's kind of cowering It's, it's very unsettling.

Caroline:

it is. Which I think it always confused me'cause I remember this happening and I remember watching that video before she was found. cause I was actually on maternity leave with my first child, so I was like home,

Anne:

Paying attention to this stuff. Hey,

Caroline:

And I remember looking at it being like, if you're running from somebody, why would you press so many buttons?

Anne:

she's like, buddy the elf there, right When he goes into the Empire State Building and it's like,

Caroline:

yeah.

Anne:

I did read somewhere that if you feel like you're being followed and you press all the buttons and then you get off. On a certain floor, then the person who gets in the elevator after you doesn't know which floor you got on or something. So it might be a way to escape somebody, but I don't know. It doesn't seem like that to me.

Caroline:

like leaving a lot up to chance.

Anne:

and what she's doing with her hands, those gestures or just stipulations are, they're very, I mean, I can see why people have turned to the paranormal because they're very spell like,

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

like an incantation.

Caroline:

I felt like it just looked like she was trying to feel if something was really there. It seems to me like she was hallucinating something. cause I remember thinking she's taken drugs. Especially because the, there was that whole debate about the box,

Anne:

Yeah. What's in the box? What's in the box? I heard somebody call it psychomotor agitation, which is, I guess a common symptom in a manic episode. it reminds me of the time I had the flu a few years ago, and I was like, really feverish and delusional. And I remember getting up in the middle of the night lying on the couch I remember being so convinced that if I could align my limbs in a certain way, that I would feel better. Like, that was the secret to feeling better, aligning my limbs in the right way. I, you know, I was outta my mind in that moment.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

And I was just wondering if, you know, is that something like she was experiencing, Like what was going on with those fingers? Yeah, those hands.

Caroline:

is why your husband takes a bath when he is drunk? You don't have to keep

Anne:

Because I'm crazy.

Caroline:

Because he's trying to align his limbs or something. I don't know what

Anne:

Maybe we all need to align our limbs correctly and everything will be better.

Caroline:

exactly.

Anne:

But I mean, if it was hallucination, a delusion, a psychotic break, it's still blows my mind that she would make the choices she made, like climbing. If, if it's, if this is how she got out, did she climb that ladder? And I think didn't the dogs go up to that door? Um,

Caroline:

window, if I remember correctly.

Anne:

I would have to be being chased by a murderer to climb that ladder. I'm afraid of heights it looks so harrowing. Because you could fall, right? And then the effort, it would've taken her to get into that hatch. to open that hatch, it's 20 pounds. That's not nothing. She's a small person. What would possess her, even if she is experiencing delusions to get into that tank?

Caroline:

I have to say,'cause I also looked up how often are sniffing dogs? Correct. Because I can't actually recall a time when I watched a documentary and the police department has brought out dogs and they found something, versus when the dogs didn't, I I would actually say it's probably more often that they didn't find the thing than they did in the documentaries that

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

or listened to. But as it turns out, it's actually a really high percentage rate. So for tracking dogs, they have a 50% correct rate if they're like a novice and up to 90% if they're a professional. But they are wrong three to 15% of the time. So that's

Anne:

That's pretty low, low, being wrong. Yeah.

Caroline:

Yeah. I don't know, just bad luck on my part that I didn't get to witness that for the documentaries

Anne:

maybe you're watching documentaries about things that are difficult to solve, right? Like you're not watching the documentaries about the open and shut cases, so

Caroline:

true.

Anne:

Where the dog immediately finds the bad guy.

Caroline:

I think probably that she went to the escape window and then didn't use it because that ladder is pretty treacherous. I think she might have gotten

Anne:

Hmm.

Caroline:

the other way, the stairwell way that was supposed to be alarmed. Maybe not though. I mean, I'm not really sure. I was also sort of like she climbed across those pipes, you know?'cause he was talking about how challenging it would be to carry a body through across the pipes that you would need to walk across to get to the tower that she was in, plus up the ladder that she had to climb of the water tower itself. was

Anne:

don't think she was carried and dropped in there.

Caroline:

I don't

Anne:

That doesn't make sense to me, but I do think she could have been hiding from something real or imaginary.

Caroline:

because why wouldn't you just drop her off the roof? Other people have fallen off that building, if you were

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

of the body, it looks more like a suicide if you would drop them off the side of the building,

Anne:

Yeah. Do you think there's the possibility this was suicide? I mean, in her Tumblr she shows some signs of suicidal ideation.

Caroline:

I think she had a psychotic break.

Anne:

Yeah. and one of the questions people have, where people think, could this be a sexual assault? Because she was nude. And I feel like that's pretty easy to explain that her clothes got heavy

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

she took them off, or she was experiencing hypothermia.

Caroline:

I think they do a good job of explaining why she wasn't wearing clothes.

Anne:

Well, shall we talk about the possibility that this was murder?

Caroline:

I guess,

Anne:

I mean, there's no physical evidence of violence. but there are people who think that perhaps a resident or a hotel employee could have been involved based on the fact that the alarm should have gone off if she went upstairs. And theoretically only employees had the key. But I just don't know if I believe that they were paying that much attention to. Things like keeping doors locked.

Caroline:

Much like with the Karen Reed case, for example, like I, I think that if you wanted to stash a body that you've murdered, you wouldn't do it on your front lawn, you know, like, or you

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

in the water tower on your ceiling. you would find a way that wouldn't point right at you,

Anne:

Then there's the theory that the footage is altered, the elevator footage where that elevator door is kind of starting to close and there's missing time. What do you think? Could an employee have done that?

Caroline:

I mean, I think they explained exactly how those things happened. I Illustrated this to you as the public was receiving the information that the public was receiving. then at the end, everything gets answered, in my opinion,

Anne:

I mean, I guess the main argument that this could have been murder is that there are sex offenders in the area. The crime rate in that general location is very high, and that stay on main shared a lift. there would've been people who could have accessed those floors.

Caroline:

mean, she could have been

Anne:

having said that,

Caroline:

then run away, who know, you know, I'm not saying she wasn't assaulted. She could have been, but I don't think that's how she ended up in the tank.

Anne:

Yeah. So she could have been hiding from someone? maybe it's a bit of both. Maybe she was having a manic episode and also had a strange encounter with someone who took advantage of that, and then she got scared and hid.

Caroline:

Why not both?

Anne:

Why not both? yeah. Uh, one thing I wondered, although there's no evidence of, strangulation or anything like that, would there be evidence, after. 19 days, in water, how much would have deteriorated? That's one of the questions I had. I think if you were strangled, the hyoid bone would've been broken. Is that how you pronounce that?

Caroline:

have no clue. I'm not an md, nor have I ever learned how to pronounce that, but I agree. Like there would be a bone fracture or something like that in the neck, and then her also, her capillary, whatever, like her blood vessels in her

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

been burst, and clearly they weren't.

Anne:

Well that brings us to what I think is the second silliest theory, that this hotel is a nexus of evil, and she was interacting with an entity that possessed her or drove her to do what she did. And I wanna acknowledge the insensitivity of discussing this, but. There are some who believe that in certain situations, in certain places, the veil is thinner and like a place where true evil has occurred and left a stain. If, if this is something you believe is possible, the Cecil Hotel would be just that type of place.

Caroline:

I agree. There is a stain on the place. That's as far, that's as far as I'll go. You said that's the second most ridiculous?

Anne:

yes. I'll get to that in a minute.

Caroline:

Okay, because I, I, I think we might have the same first most ridiculous, I hope we do.

Anne:

Okay. Let, let's see. and there's also the ideas that the veil is thinner in certain people, like we've talked about children seeing things in our sixth sense episode or when, when you're in that stage between sleep and wakefulness, when people experience sleep paralysis, the one time I've had sleep paralysis, I'm pretty sure it was at your house. I think in your apartment Baltimore senior year there was like a chair next to a bed. when I woke up, the arm of the chair was like right next to my face. And I thought it was a face like inches from me staring at me. I remember being terrified. And after what felt like way too long, the image of that face morphed back into a chair arm, which is most likely it was just a chair. but you know, there's this idea that like, you're slowly awakening, brain was just processing this real object. Or when you're in between wakefulness and sleep, the veil is thin and we can see the paranormal things that are actually there. so there's this strange, complex, dynamic push and pull between like mental illness and ghosts and demonic possession. so that's the horror movie explanation. And I, I don't actually think that's what's happening here. Um,

Caroline:

know, I

Anne:

what is your.

Caroline:

what's happening here.

Anne:

I know. Don't spoil my ghostliness. Uh, well, what do you think is the silliest explanation?

Caroline:

The government tuberculosis conspiracy theory.

Anne:

Yes,

Caroline:

Yay.

Anne:

me too.

Caroline:

page. I mean, it is really a crazy coincidence that the

Anne:

It's weird.

Caroline:

the lamb Elisa, I know this is not an original joke or a hot take, but have you ever project managed something? Have you ever tried to keep a secret in your school? the thought that the people, the government a college student and her family also the people who manage this hotel are all in on this together and trying to keep it on wraps with the LAPD. Like I understand the LAPD is not the most trustworthy organization. Get that. I understand governments are not the most trustworthy, get that, but that they would all be able to coordinate and nobody would know about something like this. It's just bizarre.

Anne:

unfathomable.

Caroline:

Agree.

Anne:

I think ghosts are more likely than that.

Caroline:

I agree

Anne:

I sculpt

Caroline:

I agree.

Anne:

the government agent theory. but there are weird things like the postcode of the bookshop has the same postcode as the cemetery, to me this is like the Bermuda Triangle. If you look for it, you'll find it. And if anything, this supports the theory that we're living in a simulation, right? Like.

Caroline:

written down.

Anne:

Yeah. Like whoever or whatever is doing the coding for the video game that we're unknowingly playing, got lazy and used the same zip code and name. And then there's that movie That came out before, which has so many parallels. Can I, can I tell you about the movie because I, I did finish watching it.

Caroline:

Oh, yeah. Dark

Anne:

Yes. I woke up early and finished it this morning. There's a little girl named Sie Cecil Hotel. The mother's name is Dalia.

Caroline:

Ooh.

Anne:

Dahlia was rumored to have stayed there. She suffers from paranoid delusions. There are creepy potential sex offenders hanging around. There is black water dripping into the room. There's problems with the tap tap water coming up black. There's surveillance footage of people behaving strangely in a malfunctioning elevator. Any drowning in a water tank on the roof of a deteriorating high rise, the victim is wearing a red jacket. It is uncanny.

Caroline:

do we know that she hadn't seen the movie? Because maybe that's where she got the idea for the water tank.

Anne:

Well, I listened to this podcast Time Suck with, Dan Cummins. I love his podcast. Scared to Death with his wife. It's delightful. that's his hypothesis that she'd seen this movie and gotten that into her head and was having like a delusion that she was in it or something.

Caroline:

that's what I assumed when I started seeing the clips because I was like, wow, these are a lot of coincidences another shout out, Christina, who I visited in Baltimore recently. we were talking about how is everything a simulation? And I am more likely to believe that, to be honest, than any of the

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

theories or the government conspiracy theory. because I've experienced a lot of bizarre things myself. I'm not gonna bore everyone with the details on. Isn't there also though, that book, isn't there a book about the Titanic that came out before?

Anne:

yeah, yeah. There is.

Caroline:

Yeah. there's a lot of, I, I, I support the simulation theory.

Anne:

Yeah. And the got lazy.

Caroline:

Yeah. Or just like, it's not winamp, you know? No shuffle is as good as winamp. No Shuffle gives you a random song every time. Like Winamp does. Your Apple Music, your Google Play shuffle, Spotify, all of it keeps playing the same couple songs every now and then. And you're like, come on. What happened to a real shuffle?

Anne:

Yeah, it's crazy. so what is the scariest or most disturbing part for you?

Caroline:

the point that Elisa's parents were trying to make, which is like if, if she had gotten help, she would be here

Anne:

I mean, for me, I think the most disturbing part is just the fact that she was in that water tank and that people were drinking and showering and brushing their teeth in that water. And also just the elevator footage I find very unsettling.

Caroline:

Yeah. And actually, sorry, I am gonna amend it because as I told you last night, I woke up in the middle of the night stressing. Which I'm sure many listeners here do as well. You don't listen to this like, because you're not a person with anxiety. So I was stressing, and then I kept having flashes of the little girl in the water tank and thinking of her in the water tank and just that whole, like, am stuck and nobody can hear me and nobody can help me. Desperation.

Anne:

a nightmare. And realizing like you can't stay afloat forever. Yeah. do you have any questions? Any unanswered questions?

Caroline:

I wrote down a ton that were then all answered, through

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

episode went on,

Anne:

I mean, her room was cleaned and cleared out after she disappeared, which I don't think indicates a conspiracy, but could some evidence have been destroyed in that moment? not on purpose, but just doing a normal housekeeping thing. I mean, the shoe in the video, I think yes, most likely it's her own shoe, but could it have been someone else's shoe? Did they cut someone else outta that footage? I also wonder how hard they looked at everyone who was staying there officially that night. could there have been somebody who threatened her in some way, even if they did not physically put her in the tank? if the hatch was open, as the maintenance worker has clarified, how was that missed when the police went up there?

Caroline:

Especially with the dogs, I can see how it was missed. When you get those aerial shots of the roof and the tank is kind of further, it's not the closer tank, it's like the farther tank. and it's like up the tank, you know, the top of the tank. So

Anne:

You just not have the vantage point when you're standing.

Caroline:

wouldn't occur to you because many times have people been found in water? Like, this has to be kind of a one time thing.

Anne:

Hmm. Do you think the hotel should have done more to protect Elisa when she started exhibiting strange behavior other than just changing her room?

Caroline:

I understand how Amy, not Kim Wexler, had the defense that there are no mental health facilities or mental health police so you don't wanna end up sending somebody into jail or having them detained, is really kind of the only option. So I understand like what do you do when a person

Anne:

Yeah. And she points out like would the police have even come,

Caroline:

right?

Anne:

for behavior she was exhibiting given the, bigger fish, they've got to fry in an area like that.

Caroline:

Especially in an area like that, when assumption, however wrong it would be, would probably be that she's on drugs.

Anne:

Right. I have one more question. What books did she buy? I looked this up online. Nobody seems to know.

Caroline:

Really?

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

must know.

Anne:

I guess so. But I, I was like, books Elisa Lamb read it. I couldn't find anything about it, so I dunno if anyone knows

Caroline:

I had to Google what show she saw.'cause they didn't say what she went to see, but it was Conan.

Anne:

and yeah, that, that's just another like, weird thing, like she can't carry a box by herself. why did she need two people to deliver it? I don't know. It's, it's probably innocuous, but I just thought it was a strange, unexplained detail.

Caroline:

Yeah. And I was gonna look up like what are the side effects of the medication that she was on and because we know people with bipolar and they, obviously there are different levels of it, which I think they clarified.

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

think that was helpful too.

Anne:

What do you think are some of the deeper horrors of this? I think the conditions of the unhoused population of Skid Row and how they're kind of contained there. It really reminded me of Hamsterdam and Season three of the Wire, um, just grief in general, like her poor family and that press conference and the fact that they didn't want her to go and that she was supposed to check in with them every day. They just look so broken and it's so sad.

Caroline:

They really did. I also think, Karen, you know, this is like what our third or fourth MFM referenced this episode, but Karen Iff often mentions that her mother had been, a nurse at, a state institution for mental health. And that while we understand the horrors of these state institutions in situations like the Geraldo expose, et cetera, and it's important that that stuff came to light. leaving. People who are having mental health crisis with nowhere to go, if they've already been abandoned by their family intentionally or unintentionally, this was going to be the result. There's just gonna be a lot of unhoused people not on their medication, et cetera.

Anne:

Another deeper horror is the targeting of sex workers. Like Elis Lamb was heavily investigated, but sex workers are killed in rights pretty regularly. Just a few blocks over are far less likely to be. Paid attention to, maybe we'll do the Long Island Serial Killer or Green River or West Mesa Bone Collector at some point. Any of the many, many, many bad men who target sex workers and often get away with it for a long time.

Caroline:

Did you see my dog giving me the stink eye?

Anne:

No. Oh yeah, I can see it now.

Caroline:

Sorry, it's a little distracting. This is like, yeah. Dog outtakes.

Anne:

Yep. Finally just what we've already discussed, but web sleuths, becoming obsessed, taking it too far. But on the other hand, I used to listen to this Paul Holes podcast about cold cases, and he would cover a cold case and then put a call out like, and you know, I'm making this up, but hey, if you shopped at this grocery store in this town in the 1970s, your parents did like talk to them, crowdsource, because the police realistically can't interview everyone. But then at the same time, they're also flooding the police with tips and crap that they may already know, and they're wasting time and focusing on the wrong things because they don't actually have all the information. And I'd imagine this is the way doctors feel about WebMD when people come in with a self-diagnosis. But at the same time, sometimes doctors miss things or don't believe you or police get tunnel vision and miss something. So, I don't know, it's just, it's hard to know what's right and what's wrong here, because I think there are pros and cons. But this definitely shows the cons.

Caroline:

Yeah, and I think honestly the con in all of these areas is laziness. because

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

Bob R has Voices for Justice. they are absolutely trying to assist, West Memphis. there are a lot of cases where has led to justice or pressure, you know, media pressure as well. That's,

Anne:

Yes.

Caroline:

another great podcast. So there's a lot of instances where this has led to positive things. However, when you do things kind of half-assed and just for the clicks and the sensational sensationalization of things, that leads to, a miss of a whole year into, you know, everyone kept arguing that he had been there at the same time as her and it was off by a year. That is a very basic mistake, And they were also second guessing the cops who were looking for input. They were actively trying. To receive tips and receive information. And it wasn't a case like some of these others where the crowd swell leads to justice happening. they were trying to make justice happen and these were all distractions,

Anne:

Like with Richard Ramirez,

Caroline:

Yeah,

Anne:

the crowd led to justice. Yeah.

Caroline:

did. They

Anne:

And now there's, There's murder tourism at the Cecil now, and I, I was thinking this would be the horror movie I would make like that YouTuber guy or one, you know, that dentist guy, one of these people who's obsessed show up and try to recreate what she did, and then they get brought through a portal or actually get targeted by something paranormal. Or you can make it a serial killer thing, like the same person staying there.

Caroline:

It's very

Anne:

And they recreate the series ones. Yeah. But yeah, some of these web sleuth guys did give me the heebie-jeebies. Okay. Do you have any criticism?

Caroline:

I had a ton of criticism. I was again feeling like, oh God, did I recommend another thing I regret recommending as I was, as I started watching it. And then I really ap and then I was also like, Ron Howard is involved in this. Like, uh, shame on

Anne:

I know I saw that.

Caroline:

I was

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

disa. I was like, wait, you know, is something else going on here? And then as it led on, like literally everything that I had to criticize, I think they did a good point in kind of

Anne:

Refuting.

Caroline:

Yeah. And, and calling out like why it was a problem, you know?

Anne:

I think my main criticism is I did think it was too long. I, I did watch the whole thing in one day because I was homesick. Um, but I do think it could have been completed in about half the time, like so many true crime docuseries. I think it's dragged out. And they could have probably cut a few of those stylistic closeups and, what do you call it? A reimagining

Caroline:

I, yeah, it's Date with Dateline. Highly recommend that podcast. They cover Dateline episodes and they call it Reimagine Enactments.

Anne:

rema? Reimagine. Enactments, yeah. Um, uh, yeah, I think like on a number, there was something that felt manipulative about it throughout, like withholding certain information like about the hatch until the very end to lead us down on these different paths. But at the same time, that's storytelling.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

So I accept it.

Caroline:

Yeah, and I think they were doing it. Intentionally to take you on the journey that the public was on. You know, like I, I don't think they were only doing it for a storytelling factor, even though Ron Howard is a great storyteller. Like I, I

Anne:

Yes.

Caroline:

were really trying to call out the public's propensity for jumping to conclusions.

Anne:

Mm. What survival takeaways

Caroline:

Take your meds.

Anne:

can we take from this? Take your meds. Yeah, good one. I was gonna say, check multiple sources before you book a hotel, research your tourist destination. Read the reviews. That English Couple thought they were going to sunny California and ended up on Skid Row.

Caroline:

Yeah, that's a good one. And also, like, even if you think, you know, don't just go attacking someone on the internet. Like, all, everyone's all big and brave when they're nameless and faceless and they don't have to look the person in the eye that they're accusing of something, you know?

Anne:

Which is easy to do online.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

Uh, lock your doors. Richard Ramirez, who stayed there, would just check doors and if they happened to be unlocked, you could be a victim of one of the scariest serial killers of all time. I just, because I, we were watching this, I listened to a last podcast on the left about Richard Ramirez. Um, again, I only recommend last podcast on the left. If you are okay with a ton of irreverence that is potentially offensive. Uh, if you want a more serious approach, stay away from them, but yet, very, very scary guy. Uh, um, okay. I think that brings us to pallet cleanser.

Caroline:

Okay.

Anne:

you have a pallet cleanser for us?

Caroline:

Yeah, I have a couple. So I, I originally wanted to recommend a podcast called We Don't Wanna Grow Up. It's a husband and wife that cover a bo whole bunch of like, nineties stuff that I found after Refinding again with this, which was my pellet cleanser last recording. Um, and so just in an effort to, to stray from that, I mean, but they basically, they cover movies and series from the nineties. Um, so they, I had been enjoying their episode by episode coverage of my So God life, which they also have a bunch of like listener q and As and stuff like that. but to expand beyond that, only mergers in the building obviously is very related to legendary buildings with a lot of, or I guess, notorious, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? What's the bad one?

Anne:

Notorious.

Caroline:

in a bad way. Infamous,

Anne:

It's notorious. Infamous. Okay.

Caroline:

famous in a bad way. What is that? Okay. Infamous, uh, buildings. So only murders in the building. I, I have been watching this season. It's not my favorite definitely, but go back and listen to the earlier or watch the earlier seasons. It's on Hulu. And then I also, my husband and I have been enjoying the show Peacemaker. If you're a fan of Marvel in DC and stuff like that, it's a very fun, not appropriate for children show to watch.

Anne:

Okay. My Palt cleanser is that because Elisa Lamb went to a Conan O'Brien show and I love, love, love Conan needs a friend. He's hilarious. Highly recommend this podcast if you just want to laugh.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

Do you have any other recommendations?

Caroline:

Yeah. Actually, since you mentioned that. There is an episode of his podcast that he has, Karen and Georgia on from My Favorite Murder. I think they cover Jonathan List, I think, uh, which he like went to see the trial for, so that's a great one.

Anne:

Anytime he has like Bill Hader or John Mullany on, they always end up talking true crime too. So those are always fun episodes.

Caroline:

loves like, um, uh, SB Law and Order. Um,

Anne:

Yeah. I really feel like those three, bill Hader, Conan O'Brien, and John Mullany should start a True Crime podcast. It would be the best thing ever made.

Caroline:

that would be very, very good. Um, I also, there's a bunch of my favorite murder episodes that cover Richard Ramirez. So there is a mini, where they got a letter from someone who, Richard Ramirez was her babysitter, and I,

Anne:

Ooh.

Caroline:

it's a mini, so, so I couldn't, too mini sos where they mention Richard Ramirez on their lake Wikipedia. Episode 2 22 is called a Richard Ramirez story, and one 90 is a Richard Ramirez connection. So I'm not sure which one is the one with the babysitter was Richard Ramirez, but they also cover him in general on episode 20, called 2020. Um, the other thing Richard Ramirez related is, um, the Netflix series Night Stalker Hunt for a Serial Killer, which maybe we'll cover at some point. Um, I do really appreciate the way he was caught. I don't like, love his story in general, but the whole like sequence of how,

Anne:

Pretty gross. His story's really

Caroline:

yeah, it's pretty horrifying, but the whole sequence of how he's caught is pretty amazing. Um, then finally Little Shop of Horrors, which is one of my favorite musicals of all time, which I have seen. Uh. Stage performance and the movie a gajillion times. I even walk down the aisle to somewhere that's green. Highly recommend that movie.

Anne:

Okay, well my recommendations are all the hotel horror. Um, I love the vanishing hotel room story. Do you know that it's not necessarily an actual thing, it's just an urban legend, like a woman and her mother go to a hotel. The mother gets sick, the daughter goes out for medicine or a doctor, and when she returns, the whole hotel owner is like, you were never here, and her mother's just gone. Do you know that's urban legend. I love that one. Um. Obviously my favorite novel of all time, the Shining, as I said, when Jack is in the basement, uh, going through all those files and discarded paperwork, exploring the overlooks dark history, you know, it just makes you wonder, does every hotel have darkness if you look hard enough. So this made me want to reread The Shining Other Hotel Horror is obviously Psycho Motel Horror Room 1408 with John Cusack and American Horror Story Hotel for a novel. The Sundown. The Sundown, I can't say it. The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James is a kind of ghostly story at a motel I mentioned. The Scared to Death episode. Uh, yeah, I mentioned the podcast, scared to Death. They have an episode called The Elevator Game, and there's this other theory that we didn't discuss earlier, but that, you know, if you press certain buttons in a certain order, you can be transported to another dimension. And some people have hypothesized that that's what she was doing.

Caroline:

Oh,

Anne:

Which

Caroline:

that.

Anne:

I don't think that's what she's doing, but yeah. So if you wanna know about what the elevator game is, scared to Death has a, an episode where they explain it and recount someone's encounter, um, oh, more survival tips. Don't say Bloody Mary and don't play the elevator game and don't say Candyman into a mirror. It's like Ouija boards. Don't mess with it. Um, Mulholland Drive for a very creepy movie that's set in la um, the Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon is a novel about a pool with a dark history. And as you said, Ron Howard was an executive producer. So Arrested Development, I couldn't think of a Mean Girls Connection. Can you.

Caroline:

No, but I did recently, I think because I've been revisiting all these 90 things on my Instagram, showed me clips from the movie Urban Legends, urban Legend.

Anne:

I love urban legend.

Caroline:

I,

Anne:

so good.

Caroline:

forgot that movie even existed, but I would love to give that a rewatch at some point.

Anne:

So I used to show the opening scene of urban Legends when I was teaching, um, past modal verbs in English. So, you know the scene where, oh, I think I've lost you.

Caroline:

I'm here.

Anne:

Okay. Um, so I used to use the opening scene with the gas station attendant who's creepy. Do you remember that? And like, it's actually the killer's in the backseat. So I would use it to teach my students should and shouldn't have.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

So they would criticize her, like she shouldn't have judged him by his appearance. She should have checked the back seat.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

It was such a fun lesson. Um, yeah. I love that movie. Um, I think,

Caroline:

oh association.'cause isn't that Rebecca Gerhardt in that movie?

Anne:

uh, yeah. Yeah. Rebecca Gay Hart's in it. Yeah. The Neutrogena girl, right?

Caroline:

is in that movie as well?

Anne:

I see.

Caroline:

Yeah. He

Anne:

about him.

Caroline:

uh, Mentos Coke thing in the class.

Anne:

Oh, he does that one and explodes or something.

Caroline:

tips and everything. Mm-hmm. Me check.

Anne:

Now I know that the obvious pick here is The Shining, because it's one of my favorite novels of all time. But because Stranger Thing is coming out, stranger Things is coming out on November 26th. Is what we're going to do next. We will be focusing on season four of Stranger Things, so rewatch that that is the most horror season. And then don't worry, the Shining, I'm coming for you in the future.

Caroline:

Yay. I'm excited for that. So yeah, definitely stay tuned for our next water cooler episode on Stranger Things.

Anne:

Yes. Anything else?

Caroline:

No.

Anne:

Okay. Okay. Thanks for listening. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Tell a friend write a review on iTunes. You can email us at Drawn to Darkness pod@gmail.com. And if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear, join us in two weeks here at Drawn To Darkness. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify. What. Happy drink outta the toilet. Well, it's just water, just, you know, close the door. We are taking care of, um, three dogs right now and it's chaos.

Caroline:

three, three

Anne:

So

Caroline:

in addition to your dog, or two dogs in addition.

Anne:

no two in addition. Yeah,

Caroline:

That's

Anne:

it

Caroline:

a lot.

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