Latest / DISGRACELAND / Poltergeist Curse: Paranormal Activity, a Plane Crash, and Murder

Transcript

Poltergeist Curse: Paranormal Activity, a Plane Crash, and Murder · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. This is a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: story about a horror movie franchise, but it's also a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: story about a curse and freakish events that haunted the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: sets of three horror films. I'm talking about strangulation, I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: talking about an exorcism. I'm talking about a story where
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: one actress from the film franchise was brutally murdered, and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a story where two more actors died unexpectedly. It's a
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: story about a horrible plane crash, a story about the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: poltergeist curse, a movie that scared the hell out of moviegoers,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and a movie with an iconic theme. Great music, unlike
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that music I played for you at the top of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: loop from my melotron called c Static MK two. I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: black and white cheese? Could I afford it? Because that
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on June fourth,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and that was the day of the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: film franchise Poultergeist launched into theaters, scaring the hell out
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of teenagers and little kids like me at the time,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and starting rumors of a cursed film franchise that would
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: claim the lives of many. On this episode strangulation, exorcism, murder, death,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and destruction in the Poultergeist Curse. I'm Jake Brennan, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: this this disgraceland Richard laws And thought it was his
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: lucky day. First, he had been able to beat the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: incoming snowstorm by switching his flight from Monday to Sunday,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: which meant that he'd be able to escape New York
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and make it to Cleveland, where he could honor his
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: commitment to the Cleveland Cavaliers. As a drug counselor for
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the NBA, Richard often extolled the virtues of simply showing
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: up and if he needed a little luck so that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he could show up well, he'd gladly take it and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: then and more luck. The ticket agent at LaGuardia recognized
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: him not from his work with the NBA, which, despite
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: being real honest work, was actually his side hustle, because
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Richard Lawson's day job was as an actor with appearances
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and recurring roles on everything from Remington Steel to Dynasty,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and most recently, as a regular cast member on the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: daytime soap All My Children. The ticket agent noticed that
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Richard was sitting in coach seat six A, and as
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a diehard All My Children devotee, quickly upgraded the actor
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to seat one F in first class. But now from
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the leathery comfort of his spacious first class seat, Richard
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: had a sudden, inexplicable feeling that his luck was about
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to change. The snow was already coming down. Flights had
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: been delayed all day long as Creuz worked to thaw
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: out the side of the plane. Richard thought he could
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: actually feel the warm chemical blast of de icing fluid.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And then he felt something else, a chill. His stomach
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: went upside down. The plane wasn't even moving, but something
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: was off. Something was wrong. Richard felt it deep in
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: his gut. He had to get off the plane. Now,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: hold up. He took a deep breath, calm down. The
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: basketball team was waiting in Cleveland. He had to show up.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: He needed to chill the fuck out. Everything was going
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to be fine. Richard convinced himself that there was nothing
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to worry about. The plane took its place behind several
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: others on the runway. Minutes passed, ten minutes, twenty minutes,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the snow began to come down harder. Thirty minutes the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: plane slowly ambled down the tarmac and the wind blew,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: stinging wet against the cabin windows. As the plane was
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: cleared for ta off, Richards started to worry again. All
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that de icing had happened thirty minutes ago. What if
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the plane was covered in ice again. Richard's anxiety began
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to increase in direct proportion to the plane's increase in
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: speed as it taxied down the runway, and then they
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: were airborne. The plane was barely fifty feet in the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: air when it began to roll to the right. It
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: rolled some more hard, and then the nose pointed down
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: like it was a magnet being pulled down to a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: steel turmac. Passengers screened and the plane was nearly sideways
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: when it hit the ground, and the crunch was deafening.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: They caught air again briefly, and then once more came
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: down hard, and the nauseating screech of metal on asphalt
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: rang out. Flames licked the windows from outside. It was
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: impossible for anyone to tell where the plane was at
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: or what direction it was headed in. It was rolling
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: over on itself, tumbling towards oblivion, literally splitting apart at
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the seams, and suddenly everything went black. The noises stopped,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and the passagers could barely see a thing, but they
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: knew they were upside down, held in place only by
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: their safety belts, and the sound of bubbles began to
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: percolate from all sides. Goddamn thing was underwater. The plane
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: had landed in Flushing Bay and it was slowly sinking
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to the bottom. But Richard Lawson knew he was going
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to die. He was trapped, His body was pinned between
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: two unseen objects. He began to panic for real, and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: this was luck, all right, bad luck. Maybe he shouldn't
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: have taken that upgrade to first class, Maybe he shouldn't
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: have switched flights. Maybe one of his minor decisions that
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: day had jinxed it. And maybe his bad luck was
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: bigger than his choices that day. As the plane cabin
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: began to fill with ice cold salt water, Richard's mind
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: flashed back to that one movie he had made ten
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: years earlier, in nineteen eighty two, The legacy of Poltergeist
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and its Seagulls was infamous, four actors dead in their wake.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Some said the productions were ill fated and that the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: actors were the ones paying the ultimate price. One by one.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Richard Lawson struggled to free himself from the overturned airplane
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: as it was swallowed by flushing bay. He knew it
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was futile. His fate was clear. He was about to
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: become the latest tragedy in the Poltergeist Curse. The skeletons
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: weren't supposed to be real, or that's what actress Joebeth
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Williams assumed. Real skeletons would be too creepy, too gross,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: But fake skeletons cost too much and took too much
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: time to manufacture. Real skeletons were cheap and easy to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: come by, so it was real skeletons that bobbed up
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in the muddy water and brushed elbows with joe Beth
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Williams in the iconic pool scene from the original Poltergeist,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Toby Hooper's nineteen eighty two horror classic. Joe Beth's authentic
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: reaction to her close encounter with actual human bones helped
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: make Poltergeist not only the highest grossing horror movie of
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, but the eighth highest grossing movie of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the entire year. And it wasn't the only authentic reaction
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: in the movie. Eleven year old Oliver Robbins, who played
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Joebeth's son, was reportedly nearly choked to death by his
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: character's toy clown as the possessed toy wrapped a long
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: arm around his neck and tried to strangle him. According
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to Oliver, while they were shooting the scene, the animatronic
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: clown malfunctioned and the arm actually constricted his airway. He struggled,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: his eyes bumped out, he gasped for air, and the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: crew of adults thought that Oliver was simply delivering a knockdown,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: drag out performance, and it wasn't until his face began
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to turn blue that they realized something was terribly wrong.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: None of these terrifying onset mishaps faced child actress Heather O'Rourke,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: who was all of five years old when she was
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: first cast as Carol Anne, the youngest member of the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Freeling family and the character who makes contact with and
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: later is abducted by the malevolent spirits haunting her family's house.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Heather was told there was nothing to fear. In fact,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: she had been taught how to pretend she was afraid.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: She hadn't acted before, but she knew the business of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: making movies, the make believe business. Her older sister made movies.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: In fact, Heather was lunching in the MGM commissary with
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: her mother one day, waiting for her sister to wrap
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a scene, when Stephen Spielberg spotted her. Spielberg was Poltergeist
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: writer and producer, and Heather fit his vision for Carol
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Anne Freeling to a tea. Spielberg was in the middle
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of making his latest masterpiece, E T the Extraterrestrial, and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was therefore contractually prohibited from directing another movie at the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: same time, which is why MGM hired Toby Hooper of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fame to direct Spielberg's Poultergeist script. But
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Spielberg couldn't divorce himself from the production. He was on
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: set just as much as Hooper, and according to which
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: cast or crew members you ask, he was the one
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: who was actually really calling the shots. What Spielberg and
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Hooper did and didn't do where one of them ended
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and the other began. Well, that was just a little
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: bit of Hollywood magic. It was all part of the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: larger sleight of hand. As Heather O'Rourke would learn, it
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was how movies got made. It was all make believe,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just like the scary bits were make believe. But that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't entirely true. That was just something that adults said
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: to make children less frightened. The truth was, there were
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: things there, unexplainable things, things that made the hair stand
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: up on the back of your neck and the skin
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: on your arms tinkle. Who were what those things were?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It was sometimes impossible to know, but one thing was
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: for sure. There he and they had always been here.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: James Hermann stood in the doorway to the bathroom, speaking
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to his son, who was brushing his teeth. It was
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a perfectly normal moment, downright prosaic, actually, one that happened
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: nearly every day. But it was about to be disrupted
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: by a very abnormal occurrence, the kind that was beginning
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to happen with alarming frequency at the family's three bedroom,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: single story house. It was around eleven in the morning Sunday,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: February ninth, nineteen fifty eight. Strange things have been happening
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in the Hermann's home at sixteen forty eight Redwood Path
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  Speaker 1: in Seaford, Long Island for nearly a week. Bottles all
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: throughout the house were popping open on their own and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: falling to the floor. Shampoo, medicine, liquid starch in the kitchen,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: bleach in the basement, a bottle of holy water in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the mast at bedroom, and none of the bottles were
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: sealed with corks or pop tops. They all had screw caps,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: which required several rotations to remove. James and Lucille, along
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: with their children, twelve year old James Junior and a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: thirteen year old daughter, also named Lucille, listened in varying
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: degrees of confusion and fear as the bottles popped and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: fell from nearby rooms all week long, but they hadn't
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: witnessed it firsthand until now. As James Junior worked the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: toothbrush back and forth on his molars, James Senior stood
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: in the doorway of the bathroom and watched in horror
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: as a glass medicine bottle moved shakily across the top
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of the sink eighteen inches give her take entirely on
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: its own, and then it crashed and shattered into the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: sink basin. James Junior jumped, his toothbrush hit the floor,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and James Herman couldn't explain it. The sink top was level.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: The medicine bottle shattered with such force that it must
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: have been shoved, but by whom or what. When Nassau
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: County Detective Joseph Tauzy arrived at the Herman's house to investigate,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: he made it clear that he didn't believe in the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: supernatural ghost spirit specters all horseshit. Surely there was a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: reasonable logical explanation for what was going on, perhaps a
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: high frequency radio transmission, a down draft in the home's chimney,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: but unexplainable things continued to happen. The bottle of holy
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: water once again fell from the master bedroom bureau. When
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: James ran to retrieve it seconds after hearing it fall,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: he found it hot to the touch. And later that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: same day, James Junior and Lucille were watching TV when
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a porcelain figure rose from a table, moved three feet
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: through the air, and fell to the floor. Detective Tozy
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: himself bore witness to some truly weird shit. It challenged
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: his logical just the fact's mind. He went home each
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: night and thought about all the ways he could try
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to explain what he had seen. And the Hermans, on
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the other hand, had seen too much, and they were
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: freaked the fuck out, so they got the fuck out.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: On February twenty first, a little over two weeks since
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: they had begun to experience the inexplicable, they packed their
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: bags and went to stay with a relative, and they
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: were gone for two days. No supernatural activity was detected
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: at their home while they were away, and now did
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: anything out of the ordinary happen at the relatives' house
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: where they were staying. When they returned to sixteen forty
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: eight Redwood Path on the evening of February twenty third,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they were greeted by a flying sugar bowl. An eighteen
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: inch statue of the Virgin Mary rose from a bureau
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and sword twelve feet through the air. A large bureau
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: tipped over in James Junior's room, a record player weighing
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: ten pounds rose from a table and traveled fifteen feet
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: across the room. The Herman's predicament became a local, even
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: national sensation. People all over the country wrote letters, made
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: phone calls, even showed up the Herman's home to play
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: armchair ghostbuster. A priest performed a blessing. Another so called
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: holy man conducted a ritual to cleanse the house. Some
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: people blamed aliens, others said it was communists. A marche
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: F fifty eight profile of the Hermans in Life magazine
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: raised another possible suspect, James Junior. The article reported the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: quote in the Annals of Poltergeist, it has been consistently
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: noted that the mysterious motion of objects has taken place
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in households containing adolescent children. It further reported that James
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Junior was often nearby when bottles popped in porcelain figures
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: hovered midair. Doctor J. Pratt, a psychologist from Duke University's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Parapsychology Laboratory, made the trip to New York from North Carolina,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to investigate whether or not James Junior's mind was indeed
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: influencing matter. Like detective Tozy, Doctor Pratt didn't believe in ghosts,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: but he did believe that some people were able to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: let's say, animate otherwise inanimate objects with their own minds
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: without even knowing it. It is within the realm of possibility.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Doctor Pratt once said that if eight million New Yorkers
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: at one time concentrated on moving the Empire Higher State Building,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it might move a bit. Doctor Pratt was in Seaford
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: for three days, and nothing moved on its own, not
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the Empire State Building, not even a decorative porcelain figurine.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: But as soon as he left to return to North Carolina,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: it all started up again. Unlike the movies, there was
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: no tidy ending to explain the paranormal activity occurring in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the Herman's Long Island home. There was no discovery of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: an ancient burial ground beneath the house's foundation, no four
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: foot three spiritual medium named Tangina who was able to
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: detect an unsettling dark presence called the Beast, no portal
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to another sphere of consciousness that douses those who pass
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: through it with a sloppy layer of ectoplasm. Those, of course,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: were Hollywood embellishments to the true story of the hermans
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight haunting, and that true story was used
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: nearly twenty five years later, as that's the basis for
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the Poltergeist screenplay written by Steven Spielberg. Michael Grayis and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Mark Victor in the movie Carol Anne Freeling played by
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: five year old newcomer Heather O'Rourke, the one Spielberg met
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: in the MGM Commissary is the manifestation of Life magazine
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: psychokinetic child. She doesn't move objects with her mind, but
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: she is clairvoyant and communicates with ghosts directly through the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: family's TV set. Heather talked to the TV set the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: way she talked to her stuffed animals and dolls. It
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: was make believe. She knew not to be scared for real.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Her performance, however, in the movie as a whole, scared
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the pants off audiences in the summer of nineteen eighty two.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It also scared up some serious box office box throughout
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the summer of eighty two, and well it's the fall.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: For twenty four weeks, Poltergeist raked in more than seventy
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: five million in domestic gross. That said, the number was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: peanuts compared to the money that the other Out of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: This World Steven Spielberg blockbuster made when e T was
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: released the very next week. One cast member in particular,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: was never able to see Poltergeist reach its full box
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: office potential when she was cast as he yelled this
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: freeling sibling. Dominique Dunn was a twenty two year old
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: actress with a handful of TV roles under her belt.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Poltergeist was Dominique's first movie role, in her big Hollywood break.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Her potential as one of the decades defining scream queens
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: was palpable. Audiences loved her. One person in particular professed
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to love her more than anyone else. But Dominique knew
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: that John Thomas Sweeney was confusing love with obsession, which
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: was why she broke the relationship off. Sweeney was more
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: than just jealous and possessive. He was volatile, unhinged. Even
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: in August, when Poltergeist was putting fear in the hearts
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of moviegoers, Dominique was busy dealing with the horror film
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: that was her life. During an argument, Sweeney grabbed Dominique
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: by the hair and pulled so hard that he ripped
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: out a chunk by the roots. Dominique wrote Sweeny a letter,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: but never sent it. We are not compatible. It red.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: When we are good, we are great, But when we
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: are bad we are horrendous. The bad outwetes the good,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is made me realize how scared I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: am of you. A month later, against their better judgment,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Dominique was living with Sweeney again. Around three am one night,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: they fought again. Sweeney wrapped his hands around Dominique's neck
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and the two fell to the floor. He was on
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: top of her. He squeezed tight and Dominique struggled. She
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: managed to escape. She scrambled out of the house of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the bathroom window. Sweeney heard her car start up and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: ran outside. Suddenly he was in front of the car,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: but Dominique smashed her foot into the gas pedal. Sweeney
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: jumped out of the way to avoid getting hit, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the car sped off into the La darkness. Dominique Dunn
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: escaped for their life at least that time, but there
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: was no escaping the fear she lived with constantly. She
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: hit out at her friend's house. She only showed her
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: face in town when she was one hundred percent sure
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that Sweeney was at work. It wasn't ghosts or an
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: unsettled dark presence that would come for Dominique Dunn, but
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it was a beast, and not a make believe beast either.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: We're We're where.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Dominique Dunn decided that she had left John Thomas Sweeney
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: for the last time. She didn't care that he was
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the right hand man to fame chef Wolfgame Puck in
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the kitchen of the Shishi Mamaison restaurant on Melrose Avenue,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: or that he continued to profess his undying love and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: remorse with a fistful of flowers. In actuality, he did
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: more evil with those fists than prepping food and carrying flowers.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Dominique cared about her own safety. She cared about the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: fact that, when she filmed the cameo was a victim
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: of abuse on the gritty TV cop drama Hill Street Blues.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: She didn't need any makeup to look battered. The black
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and blue bruises on her neck that she wore to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: set were real. Every time she looked in the mirror,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it was a reminder of that cycle of violence that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: she continued to fall into, and she wanted out. October thirtieth,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, eight thirty pm, Poltergeist was still showing
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: well at movie theaters across the country, even if it
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: had slipped from the upper echelonne of the box office.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: While movies like First Blood and An Officer and a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Gentleman Dominated, not to mention Spielberg's et, which was well
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: on its way to becoming the year's runaway smash, didn't
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: matter much to Dominique Donne. She was already moving on,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: prepping for the next thing, the next big success. Dominique
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: was at her one bedroom home on Rangeley Avenue in
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: West Hollywood, the same one she had once shared with
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: John Thomas Sweeney. She was running lines with fellow actor
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: David Packer for the pilot of a new TV mini
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: series called V. Dominique and David paused when they heard
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: a car pull up outside the house. A car door
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: opened and slammed shut. A voice, A knock. Fuck. She
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: knew it was Sweeney again, always fucking Sweeney. Dominique opened
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the front door, but left the door chain attached. She
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: looked through the two inch gap and saw Sweeney staring
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: back at her. He said he wanted to talk. He
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: was worked up, out of breath. She wasn't about to
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: let him inside, but she knew she had to get
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: rid of him. She hoped she could reason with him.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: She told David to wait inside. She undid the door
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Jean walked out onto the porch and closed the door
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: behind her, looked over the script in his hands and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: began to run lines on his own. He could hear
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Dominique and swing He talking outside. Their voices slowly began
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: to escalate. Sweeney's voice erupted. It dominated the argument with
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: aggressive force. David could no longer concentrate on memorizing lines.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: He couldn't make out what they were saying, but he
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: knew it wasn't good. A loud, smacking sound made David
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: jump and sent chills down his spine, and another one
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: in the front of the house shook with each thud.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: David couldn't see what was happening, but he knew someone
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: or something was hitting the house. It was rattling the windows.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Then a scream. Another scream, this one more blood curdling
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: than the last. It horrified David. The screams were followed
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: by more thuds. David panicked. He picked up the phone
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and called the police. Lapd responded and told him that
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Rangeley Avenue, West Hollywood, that was out of their jurisdiction.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Nothing they could do out of their jurisdiction. David couldn't
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: believe he didn't have the number for the Sheriff's department
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: off hand. Lapd wasn't in a call forwarding kind of mood,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and David was terrified to open the front door. He
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: decided to slip up the back door, and as he
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: came up the side of the house and approached the driveway,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: he saw Sweeney trying to blend in with the bushes
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: but failing, crouching hiding like the cowardly piece of shit
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: animal that he was, and then David saw Dominique lying
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: lifeless in the driveway. On November fourth, Dominique Dunn was
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: taken off life support at Cedar Sinai. Her funeral was
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: two days later. Four to six minutes that's how long
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: medical examiners estimated John Thomas Sweeney strangled Dominique Dunn outside
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: her West Hollywood house four to six minutes. The prosecuting
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: attorney opened Sweeney's murder trial by letting a stopwatch run
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: for an agonizing four minutes to drive the point at home.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: But despite those chilling four minutes of silence, justice did
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: not prevail. First, the judge would not allow another of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Sweeney's former living girlfriends to testify about the ten times
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: he had beaten her during their relationship. About how Sweeney
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: broke her nose, punctured ear drum, collapsed or lung. The
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: judge said, quote the law says you judge a person
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: for his acts and not for the kind of person
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: he has been in the past. To make matters even worse,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the judge then granted the defense's motion to reduce the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: charge from first degree murder to manslaughter. In the defense's eyes,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the killing was not premeditated. It was committed in the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: heat of passion. Despite their personal views on the matter,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: members of the jury had to deliver a verdict within
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the strict confines they were being presented. Sweeney was saved
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: by the law. He got a max of six years,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: but wound up serving lightly less than three years eight months.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: To Dominique's family, it was a miscarriage of justice. The trial,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the sentence, the time, all of it. It defiled the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: memory of their daughter, The tragic loss of Dominique Dunn,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and the travesty of justice would haunt them for the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: rest of their lives. When John Thomas Sweeney was released
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: from his appallingly short prison stay in nineteen eighty six, coincidentally,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: perhaps it was around the same time that the sequel
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to Poltergeist hit movie theaters. Steven Spielberg didn't return to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: co writer produce Poltergeist Too the other side, but the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: other original screenwriters did return, as did the majority of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the original cast. Heather o'rouric, now ten years old, was
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: back as Carol Anne. Since she was so young in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: her exposure to the media was kept to a bare minimum.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: There was very little documentation of how much Dominique Dunn's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: death impacted Heather on or off the set. There's also
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a little documentation to back up the rumors about strange
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: occurrences that once again were reported to have happened during
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the sequel's production, like the one that an actual exorcism
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: was performed in order to cleanse the set of evil spirits.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: While Poltergeist Io retains a cult status among diehard movie fans,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: it certainly wasn't the same phenomenon the second time around.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: It barely made half the amount of money as the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: first installment, but there was one eerie similarity between the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: first and second Poltergeist. A few months before Poltergeist Too
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was released, Julian Beck, the veteran actor who co starred
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: in the sequel as Reverend Harry Kane aka Evil Incarnate,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: succumbed to stomach cancer at the age of sixty and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: then in June nineteen eighty seven, a little over a
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: year after the sequel came out, another of its co stars,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Will Sampson, who played the Native American shaman protecting the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: family from Harry Kane's Our Normal Voodoo, died at fifty
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: three from post operative kidney failure. Like the unexplained activity
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that had taken place nearly thirty years earlier at the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Herman family home in Long Island. The fact that three
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: actors died shortly after making Poltergeist films began to make
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: people wonder was it all just a coincidence, a random tragedy,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: or was there something more, something that couldn't be seen.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: When principal photography wrapped up for Poltergeist three in the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty seven, Heather O'Rourke went home to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Big Bear Lake in California. That winter, she turned twelve
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: years old, she began to prepare for the press junkid
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that would precede the third movie's Hollywood premiere, But Heather
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: O'Rourke never made it to the premiere. She never even
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: got a chance to see the finished movie. What happened
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: next turned a series of strange coincidences into a widespread
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: theory that the Holtergeist movie franchise, just like the Herman's
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Long Island Home, was cursed. March twenty second, nineteen ninety two,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Richard Lawson was still upside down. The entire plane was
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: still upside down. US Air Flight four H five was
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: currently inverted in Flushing Bay. The runway lights of LaGuardia
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: flashed in the rear distance, and the snow continued to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: fall sideways. Inside the plane, it was all blackness. The
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: water was on its way in, the oxygen was on
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: its way out. It was all happening way too fast.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Richards struggled to free himself, but he couldn't move. His
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: head was stuck. What were these two objects pinning his
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: body down? See to maybe other passengers. He was trapped.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: He was going to die. Up until this moment, he
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: had thought it was all bullshit, All that stuff about
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the so called Poltergeist curse, the one that had claimed
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: four actors from the three films. Fucked that curses were
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: make believe those tragedies were real. Dominie Dunn died at
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the hands of a violent abuser. Julian Sands had cancer.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Will Samson suffered complications from surgery. Heather, a uroric well
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: that had come out of left field, shocked everyone. They
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: all thought she had a nasty case of the flu.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Her family, the doctors, but her heart stopped on the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: way to the hospital. They were able to revive her,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and life lighted her to the Children's Hospital in San Diego.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: She died on the operating table before the doctors could help,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and they didn't even know where to begin. No one
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: knew that she had been born with the burn defect
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: that made a section of her intestine abnormally narrow. She
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: didn't have the flu. She suffered a bowel obstruction that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: sent bacterial toxins into her blood stream. She died from
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a shock caused by infection of her blood. The doctor
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: said that Heather's death was very unusual because she never
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: exhibited symptoms that anything was amiss at any point in
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: her life. The problem seemed to have come from nowhere.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Insights like those drove the curse conspiracy theorists wild, but
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Richard Lawson put little credence into any conspiracy theory, especially
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: one that connected all of these tragedies until now. Because
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: even though his role as a parapsychologist in the first
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Poltergeist movie was a small role, Richard had nonetheless acted
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: in a Poltergeist movie, and like four other actors before him,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: he now found himself staring down an unexpected death. This
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: was his fate. He knew it now. He had been
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: foolish to doubt it in the past. He accepted what
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: was about to happen. He ceased to struggle. He wanted
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to die with the spirit of peace. He wanted the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: people who loved him on the other side of the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: wreckage to know that he was okay, that he hadn't
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: died afraid. He continued to hold his breath under water
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and was about to finally let it all go, one
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: giant exhale and done, when something came over him. He
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: felt a sensation take over his body. It was warm, friendly,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the opposite of fear. The sensation enveloped his entire body,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: from the top of his head to the bottom of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: his toes, and he heard a voice say, get out
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of here. Take your seatbelt off and get out of here.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Richard put his hands on his belt buckle and released it.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: He felt the seat belt release from around his waist.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Get out of here, now, Richard. He put his hands
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: on the things that had trapped him in place for minutes,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: things that had been on moor before. Now they easily
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: moved the side with the gentlest of touches from his hands.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He could hardly believe it. His body began to move.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: He didn't know if it was up or down. He
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: just wanted to find an air pocket. When his head
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: finally surfaced, the twisted wreckage below his feet kicking and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: thrusting him towards salvation. He took a deep breath. He
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: inhaled bay water and jet fuel and spat it back out.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: He looked up in an arm and reached down through
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: a hole in the side of the plane. He couldn't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: see who it was attached to, if it was a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: man or a woman, a first responder or another passenger.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: He just saw the arm, and the hand at the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: end of that arm was reaching out just for him.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Let me help you, a voice said, and with that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Richard was hoisted from a watery grave to a place
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: where the snow and wind where so cold, you knew
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you were alive. Twenty seven people died in the crash
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: US Air flight four or five that day. Richard Lawson
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: later learned that at least one of those deaths had
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: been a passenger sitting in row six, back in coach
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: where he was originally assigned. If that wasn't a sign,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: he didn't know what was. His life hadn't been taken
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: by some evil spirit. It had been saved by a
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: benevolent force, something unexplainable, the kind of thing that made
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the hair stand up on the back of your neck
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and the skin on your arms tingle. Who or what
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that thing was it was impossible to know. But curses, Nah,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: curses aren't real. Just ask the Herman family in Long
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Island back in nineteen fifty eight. They eventually moved out
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of their supposedly haunted house and never experienced another paranormal event. Again,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: evil spirits didn't follow them. Maybe it was just some
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: unknown natural phenomenon, or maybe someone playing some sort of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: sick joke on them, which would of course be a disgrace.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan. This this disgraceland. All right, Poulter, Guys, listen,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to rewatch this now. I hope you guys
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: are too. As I mentioned in the a Bloc, this movie,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the original one anyways, scared the hell out of me
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: as a kid. So this week's question of the week
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: is which movie do you remember scaring the hell out
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of you as a child and why? I want to know?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Six one seven nine six six six three eight. Leave
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: me a voicemail, send me a text, let me know.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: We'll get into it in the after party bonus episode.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: You can also reach me at disgrace Slam pod as
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: well on Instagram, X and Facebook.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Win some free merch. All right, here come some credits es.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Disgracelam was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 37:11
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• 37:15
  Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
• 37:20
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• 37:24
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• 37:37
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