Latest / Crime and Horror / The most extreme age-gap relationship

Transcript

The most extreme age-gap relationship · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to share three stories that are all
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Speaker 1: about people who went to great lengths to make themselves
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Speaker 1: look good, but in each case, as you'll see, it
0:09
Speaker 1: completely backfires. But before we get into today's stories, if
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Speaker 1: you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered
0:16
Speaker 1: in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:19
Speaker 1: because that's all we do and we upload two, three,
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Speaker 1: down to watch it. Also, please subscribe to our channel
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Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories.
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Speaker 1: One afternoon in late February of twenty twenty three, a
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Speaker 1: twenty six year old man named Julio Bermejo walked toward
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Speaker 1: a park in the city of Puno, Peru with his
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Speaker 1: girlfriend Juanita. They were on the way to the park
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Speaker 1: to meet Julio's two best friends, who he was finally
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Speaker 1: going to be introducing Juanita too. To this point, they
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Speaker 1: knew he had a girlfriend, but they had never actually met,
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Speaker 1: and this in and of itself was actually kind of
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Speaker 1: odd because again, these are Julio's best friends, and Julio
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Speaker 1: and Juanita had actually been together for a while now,
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Speaker 1: but Julio had sort of always been a little hesitant
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Speaker 1: to introduce her to his friends because he knew, you know,
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Speaker 1: Wanita was just a little bit different, you know, she
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Speaker 1: was odd, and he knew that his friends might you know,
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Speaker 1: pick up on that and maybe even make fun of
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Speaker 1: him for it. He didn't know. He just he was
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Speaker 1: worried that it would cause weirdness amongst the friends if they,
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Speaker 1: you know, had a chance to interact with his girlfriend,
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Speaker 1: and so he just kind of kept her secret. But
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Speaker 1: his friends knew he was dating one, and they just
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Speaker 1: really wanted to meet her, and so they kept pressuring
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Speaker 1: him and pressuring him, and finally he's like, you know what,
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Speaker 1: we'll just go to the park, we'll meet up. I'm
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Speaker 1: sure it'll be fine. And in order to ensure that
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Speaker 1: this meeting would go as well as it could, Julio
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Speaker 1: had also brought along with him. As they're walking to
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Speaker 1: the park, he had this big red cooler and inside
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Speaker 1: of it was all this rum and some cups and
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Speaker 1: ice and stuff that they could drink while they're at
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Speaker 1: the park. And for what it's worth, you're not allowed
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Speaker 1: to drink in public in Peru, and Julio knew this,
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Speaker 1: and so he was sort of weary of the fact
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Speaker 1: that he's lugging this, you know, obvious case of drinks
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Speaker 1: out to a public park and he was going to
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Speaker 1: be drinking in public, but he felt like it was
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Speaker 1: worth the risk. He would go out there, they'd have
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Speaker 1: a couple of drinks, his friends would meet Wanita, it
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Speaker 1: would all be fine. Eventually, Julio and Janita reached the
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Speaker 1: edge of the park end up ahead, Julio could see
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Speaker 1: his two friends waiting by this crumbling wall within the park.
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Speaker 1: So most of Puno was covered in all these old ruins,
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Speaker 1: because there was this ancient civilization called the Incas who
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Speaker 1: had lived there hundreds of years ago, and so this
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Speaker 1: crumbling wall that his friends were sitting on was quite
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Speaker 1: literally like an artifact, a remnant of the past. But
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Speaker 1: it was sort of so commonplace in this area that
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Speaker 1: people didn't even notice them. It was just sort of
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Speaker 1: part of the part of the landscape. And so Wanita
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Speaker 1: and Julio and Julio's big red cooler full of rum.
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Speaker 1: They lumbered their way through the park, dodging different, you know,
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Speaker 1: ruins that were jutting out of the ground all the
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Speaker 1: way over to the wall where the two friends were,
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Speaker 1: and they actually hadn't seen them approaching, and so it
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Speaker 1: was only when they kind of just were standing right
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Speaker 1: in front of them that the friends looked and saw
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Speaker 1: Julio saw one Eita, and Julio right away he's sort
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Speaker 1: of trying to gauge their reaction to Janita and to
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Speaker 1: this whole situation. But pretty quickly his friends were, you know,
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Speaker 1: just pretty cool, and they were interested in one Eita,
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Speaker 1: and you know, they quickly wanted to learn more about
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Speaker 1: one Eita. And it was just like kind of easy.
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Speaker 1: And Julio he opened up the cooler right away, he
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Speaker 1: got the cups out, he's filling them up with rum
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Speaker 1: and so and all the friends are drinking, you know,
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Speaker 1: they're having a good time, and Julio is like, man,
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Speaker 1: I was worried about nothing. My friends they think Janita
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Speaker 1: is great. Yeah she's different, but they think she's great.
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Speaker 1: This has gone as well as it could have. And
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Speaker 1: also definitely the rum was helping and so for a while,
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Speaker 1: all four of them were just sitting around this you know,
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Speaker 1: crumbling wall, you know, drinking their rum. They're having a
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Speaker 1: good time. And then at some point Julio, who was
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Speaker 1: facing his two friends, his friends they sort of looked
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Speaker 1: up and they had this look come over their face
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Speaker 1: like they were worried about something that clearly was behind
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Speaker 1: Julio sort of gasped when they saw it. And Julio
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Speaker 1: he's like, oh, no, I is it the police, because
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Speaker 1: they're out here drinking publicly, and they're getting a little
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Speaker 1: bit drunk and a little bit rowdy. With the exception
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Speaker 1: of one Eta, you know, she had drank the least
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Speaker 1: of the group, perhaps to maintain some level of decency perhaps,
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Speaker 1: but you know, the two friends in Julio, they were
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Speaker 1: pretty drunk and being loud, and so Julio he turns
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Speaker 1: around and his stomach just drops because, yep, here come
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Speaker 1: the police. There are two officers coming over, and he's thinking,
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Speaker 1: the jig's up. They're gonna clearly see that we are
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Speaker 1: drinking in public. We can't even hide it. And so
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Speaker 1: the officers they walk over, and you know, the friends
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Speaker 1: are sort of panicking. They're putting their cups down, and
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Speaker 1: Julio he's just sort of resigned to his fate here
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Speaker 1: he's going to get in trouble. And the officers that
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Speaker 1: come over and they see the cups and they can
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Speaker 1: clearly tell this group of people is drinking. But when
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Speaker 1: they looked into that red cooler, that big red cooler
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Speaker 1: that Julio had brought along, when they saw what was
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Speaker 1: in there, they backed up and they told Julio to
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Speaker 1: stay right where he was. So Julio and Juanita had
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Speaker 1: actually been together for years, and despite his insecurities about
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Speaker 1: her about their relationship, he was ultimately pretty eager for
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Speaker 1: his friends to finally meet her. But taking her to
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Speaker 1: the park that day turned out to be a really
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Speaker 1: big mistake because when the police arrived on the scene
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Speaker 1: and they looked and Julio's red cooler, probably expecting to
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Speaker 1: see alcohol, because that's very likely why they approached them
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Speaker 1: in the first place, they did see alcohol, but they
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Speaker 1: also saw one Eta. So Julio was right to be
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Speaker 1: on edge about how his friends might react to seeing
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Speaker 1: his girlfriend seeing one Eita because she was so different, right,
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Speaker 1: that's his concern, and she was she was very different
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Speaker 1: than your sort of average girlfriend, let's say, because Wanita
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Speaker 1: was actually an eight hundred year old mummified man from
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Speaker 1: the pre Hispanic era, the period when the Incan civilization
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Speaker 1: ruled the area. Julio's father had acquired one Eita, this
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Speaker 1: mummy decades ago, so Janita had actually been a fixture
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Speaker 1: in Julio's life since he was born. Now, Julio's best friends,
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Speaker 1: really all of his friends knew that, you know, his
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Speaker 1: family had this mummy, but they didn't take it seriously
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Speaker 1: when Julio referred to the mummy as his girlfriend. Again,
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Speaker 1: this is a an eight hundred year old mummified man,
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Speaker 1: you know that he calls his girlfriend. They thought it
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Speaker 1: was a joke. But you know, when it seemed like
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Speaker 1: it wasn't a joke, When it seemed like Julio apparently
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Speaker 1: had a real relationship with this mummy, the friends begged
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Speaker 1: him to bring Janita out. They wanted to see this,
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Speaker 1: this amazing artifact. But they didn't realize that that request
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Speaker 1: when they finally pushed Julio to come out to this
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Speaker 1: park with Juanita in his cooler because that's how he
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Speaker 1: transported her, that that would actually destroy their friend's actual
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Speaker 1: love life. Because Julio was not joking when he called
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Speaker 1: Juanita his girlfriend. He had very real, very deep feelings
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Speaker 1: for this mummy. He'd even convinced himself that she was
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Speaker 1: like an active participant in their relationship and sort of
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Speaker 1: kept him in line, you know. According to Julio, he
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Speaker 1: said that Janita would would hold his hand and would
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Speaker 1: poke his feet whenever he misbehaved. And so when those
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Speaker 1: two officers in the park came over to Julio and
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Speaker 1: his friends and they looked in the cooler, they saw,
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Speaker 1: you know, Juanita, this mummy partially inside of this cooler
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Speaker 1: along with the rum. And so right off the bat,
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Speaker 1: Julio and his friends they're getting in trouble for that alcohol.
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Speaker 1: But also Julio was arrested and charged with the illegal
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Speaker 1: possession of a historical item. But as of twenty twenty three,
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Speaker 1: there's been no update on this case. As for one Itta,
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Speaker 1: like the actual mummy, it was confiscated by the Ministry
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Speaker 1: of Culture for research purposes, and that means very likely
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Speaker 1: that she and Julio will be separated forever. This episode
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9:54
Speaker 1: eighty four, a man named Dmitri carried a cardboard box
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Speaker 1: down the hallway of this high rise apart building in
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Speaker 1: the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine. And this building was basically
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Speaker 1: brand new. It was one of a bunch of developments
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Speaker 1: that had been built right before the Moscow Olympics just
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Speaker 1: four years earlier in nineteen eighty as part of a
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Speaker 1: push to show the world that the Soviet Union was
10:15
Speaker 1: a very successful and prosperous place, so very much by design,
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Speaker 1: everything that they had built was very shiny and very
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Speaker 1: modern and impressive like this apartment building, and pretty much
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Speaker 1: everybody in the area had been really desperate to get
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Speaker 1: one of these new apartments, and Dmitri had lucked out.
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Speaker 1: So a few weeks ago, Dmitri had been notified that
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Speaker 1: one of the units had suddenly opened up, and he
10:39
Speaker 1: jumped at the opportunity to move in. He and his
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Speaker 1: family had never lived in a place this night before.
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Speaker 1: I mean, there were brand new appliances, and the building
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Speaker 1: had had thick concrete walls with great soundproofing, so they
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Speaker 1: didn't have to listen to their neighbors chat or watch
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Speaker 1: TV like they had in many other places they lived
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Speaker 1: before like this was a huge upgrade. So today Dmitri
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Speaker 1: and his wife and two sons had basically spent the
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Speaker 1: entire afternoon hauling their furniture in and getting situated because
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Speaker 1: they're like, we want to move in here as fast
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Speaker 1: as possible. This family was inside the unit now unpacking
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Speaker 1: basically everything else, and Dmitri was bringing up one of
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Speaker 1: the very last boxes. But as he headed down the
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Speaker 1: hallway toward his apartment, unit eighty five, he saw a
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Speaker 1: neighbor open up her door right up ahead, and the
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Speaker 1: neighbor looked out at him, And as Dmitri got closer
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Speaker 1: to this neighbor, he noticed that this woman looked incredibly
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Speaker 1: sad and just kind of tired, like life had beaten
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Speaker 1: her down. She was also really pale and very thin
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Speaker 1: and gaunt, and she had bags under her eyes, and
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Speaker 1: she was watching Dmitri with this strange expression on her face,
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Speaker 1: almost like pity for Dimitri. And Dmitri, you know, despite
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Speaker 1: this initial reaction to what she looked like, you know,
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Speaker 1: he doesn't know her, and this is his neighbor after all,
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Speaker 1: So he was about to stop and introduce himself to her.
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Speaker 1: But right as he was about to, she suddenly went
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Speaker 1: back inside of her unit and closed the door. The
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Speaker 1: whole thing was just very weird, and Dmitri, after the
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Speaker 1: door had shut, he just stood there for a second,
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Speaker 1: wondering if he should knock and ask the woman if
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Speaker 1: there was some kind of problem, like was she okay?
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Speaker 1: But in general, Dmitri was naturally kind of a quiet,
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Speaker 1: introverted guy, and he very much preferred to mind his
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Speaker 1: own business about pretty much everything. So he decided he
12:24
Speaker 1: would just leave the woman alone, which was pretty clearly
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Speaker 1: what she wanted anyways. I mean, she's the one who
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Speaker 1: shut the door and disappeared on him. So after a minute,
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Speaker 1: he just walked the rest of the way down the hallway.
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Speaker 1: He went inside of his unit, and he carried this
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Speaker 1: cardboard box that he had lugged up here into the
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Speaker 1: bedroom that his teenage sons were going to share. And
12:42
Speaker 1: when he got in there, he saw his boys were
12:44
Speaker 1: standing up on one of the mattresses trying to hang
12:47
Speaker 1: a decorative rug on the wall behind their beds to
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Speaker 1: kind of, you know, freshen up the place. And Dmitri
12:52
Speaker 1: he was glad to see that. It seemed like his
12:54
Speaker 1: sons were you know, leaning in to making this space
12:57
Speaker 1: their own, and so Dmitri he set the box down
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Speaker 1: and looked around their room, and with all their stuff there,
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Speaker 1: it was already starting to feel like home. And he
13:06
Speaker 1: was sure that, you know, despite the weirdness with his neighbor,
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Speaker 1: that this has got to be the beginning of a
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Speaker 1: really just amazing, you know, new exciting chapter for he
13:14
Speaker 1: and his family. But Dmitri quickly realized that not everything
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Speaker 1: in this building was as amazing as he thought it was.
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Speaker 1: I mean, he'd already had that weird run in with
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Speaker 1: his neighbor, and it would turn out that that was
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Speaker 1: just a tip of the iceberg. Even though you know,
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Speaker 1: his apartment and this whole building was undeniably nice and
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Speaker 1: beautiful and modern, basically all of their neighbors were not nice.
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Speaker 1: It was not just that one woman who appeared to
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Speaker 1: be quite rude on that first day there. It was
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Speaker 1: like every single person Dmitri ran into in this entire
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Speaker 1: complex was quiet and sullen and grumpy and definitely not
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Speaker 1: interested in talking to Dimitri. And then more than that,
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Speaker 1: you know, you have all these people that clearly didn't
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Speaker 1: want anything to do with Dimitri and his family. But
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Speaker 1: it was almost like all the time time, the entire
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Speaker 1: place was just silent. I mean, there was good soundproofing
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Speaker 1: in this building, no doubt, but every time he walked
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Speaker 1: down the hallway, it was like it was just silent,
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Speaker 1: like nobody was making any noise in any of the
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Speaker 1: apartment buildings. It was like this weird vibe that sort
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Speaker 1: of hung over this whole place, like a sense of
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Speaker 1: gloom and doom sort of persisted everywhere. And Dmitri just
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Speaker 1: couldn't explain it, Like, of all places to have that
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Speaker 1: feeling be so present, why here, this is such a
14:28
Speaker 1: nice place. But Dmitri and his family they stuck it out.
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Speaker 1: They stayed in this apartment, and you know, despite how weird,
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Speaker 1: you know, it was, and it continued to be as
14:38
Speaker 1: weird as I've described here pretty much the whole time
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Speaker 1: they were there. Dmitri and his family, they tried to
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Speaker 1: make the best of it. But a couple of years
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Speaker 1: after they had moved in to Unit eighty five, Dimitri's
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Speaker 1: older son started feeling unusually tired and weak, sort of
14:54
Speaker 1: similar to how the people in the building all seemed
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Speaker 1: to act. And at first he thought his son was
15:01
Speaker 1: just stressed with school or his social life or something
15:04
Speaker 1: and maybe he just needed more sleep. But his son's
15:07
Speaker 1: symptoms just kept getting worse, and when Dmitri and his
15:10
Speaker 1: wife eventually took their son to the doctor, they found
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Speaker 1: out that, unfortunately, their son had leukemia, which is a
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Speaker 1: blood cancer. Now this was obviously a total shock to
15:21
Speaker 1: the family because, you know, this whole time, they'd been
15:24
Speaker 1: chalking it up to you know, he needs more sleep, right,
15:27
Speaker 1: but to find out it was something so serious, I mean,
15:29
Speaker 1: they didn't even know what to think. And on top
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Speaker 1: of that, I mean, Dmitrie's son who had the leukemia,
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Speaker 1: he had always been like a really active, healthy kid,
15:38
Speaker 1: so this just felt like it came out of nowhere.
15:41
Speaker 1: But now he had to undergo cancer treatment and spend
15:44
Speaker 1: most of his time resting in bed, and despite doing
15:48
Speaker 1: those things, he just continued to get worse. A few
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Speaker 1: months after Dimitri's older son got sick, Dimitri was sitting
15:54
Speaker 1: inside of an exam room at the doctor's office with
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Speaker 1: his younger son, who was now also sick. He had
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Speaker 1: a lot of the same symptoms as his brother, so
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Speaker 1: Dmitri had taken him for blood tests right away, fearing,
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Speaker 1: you know, he could have leukemia too. So now they
16:08
Speaker 1: were waiting for the doctor to come back with those
16:11
Speaker 1: blood test results to see if that was the case.
16:13
Speaker 1: And when the doctor did finally come back into the room,
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Speaker 1: Dmitri could tell by the look on the doctor's face
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Speaker 1: that whatever they were going to say was going to
16:21
Speaker 1: be bad. So the doctor he sat down and said
16:24
Speaker 1: that Dmitrie's younger son did also have leukemia. Dmitri was shattered,
16:29
Speaker 1: I mean, he was in complete disbelief. Here. He asked
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Speaker 1: the doctor, like, how is it possible that both of
16:35
Speaker 1: my children could develop the same type of cancer in
16:38
Speaker 1: the same year, And the doctor said, well, there is
16:41
Speaker 1: an answer for that. This was hereditary. The whole family
16:45
Speaker 1: had a genetic predisposition to leukemia. That afternoon, Dmitri brought
16:51
Speaker 1: his youngest son home and told his wife and his
16:53
Speaker 1: older son the terrible news. And Dmitri just couldn't help
16:57
Speaker 1: but feel incredibly guilty. This was all his fault, for
17:01
Speaker 1: passing his bad genes onto his kids. So once, you know,
17:04
Speaker 1: everybody had begun to process the news and the suns
17:07
Speaker 1: were both in bed. Dmitri, you know, just who didn't
17:11
Speaker 1: know what to do with himself. Now, he felt so terrible,
17:13
Speaker 1: he just decided to go out for a walk to
17:15
Speaker 1: clear his head. And so he did that. He went out,
17:18
Speaker 1: he walked around, and it didn't really work. He still
17:21
Speaker 1: had so much on his mind, so many bad thoughts
17:23
Speaker 1: passing through his mind. But when he got back to
17:26
Speaker 1: the building after his walk, as he approached the main entrance,
17:29
Speaker 1: he saw one of his neighbors sitting out on the
17:31
Speaker 1: steps smoking a cigarette. It was actually that woman that
17:34
Speaker 1: he had first seen when he had moved in, the
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Speaker 1: one who had poked her head into the hallway and
17:38
Speaker 1: then quickly closed the door without saying hello. Since that day,
17:41
Speaker 1: Dmitri had never spoken to her. He hadn't even tried
17:44
Speaker 1: to talk to her like it was clear she didn't
17:46
Speaker 1: want anything to do with him or anyone else for
17:48
Speaker 1: that matter, and certainly tonight was not the moment he
17:51
Speaker 1: was going to go, you know, talk to this woman.
17:53
Speaker 1: But very much to his surprise, as Dmitri you know,
17:57
Speaker 1: walked right past her and began walking up the steps
17:59
Speaker 1: to go inside the building, she actually turned and looked
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Speaker 1: at him and just asked him, is everything okay? And
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Speaker 1: Dmitri was so caught off guard by this that he
18:08
Speaker 1: found himself just suddenly very emotionally sort of blurting out
18:12
Speaker 1: everything about his son's illnesses and how it was all
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Speaker 1: his fault. And as his neighbor listened to him, she
18:18
Speaker 1: didn't seem surprised at all by what he was saying,
18:21
Speaker 1: and when he was done talking, she didn't ask a
18:24
Speaker 1: single question about it. In fact, she just nodded her head, like, yep,
18:28
Speaker 1: that's too bad, as if she knew this was already
18:30
Speaker 1: going on, even though there was no way she could
18:32
Speaker 1: have known this stuff. And so when it was clear
18:34
Speaker 1: their conversation wasn't really going to go much further than
18:37
Speaker 1: Dmitri just sort of vomiting out all this information and
18:41
Speaker 1: her nodding, and that was sort of it. Dmitri was
18:43
Speaker 1: going to go back into the building, but she stopped him,
18:47
Speaker 1: and she did ask him a question. She asked him,
18:50
Speaker 1: do you know anything about the tenants who lived in
18:53
Speaker 1: your unit before you? He said no, All he knew
18:55
Speaker 1: is that somebody had lived there, you know, and then
18:58
Speaker 1: apparently they had left that created the opening, and he
19:01
Speaker 1: had jumped to the chance to move in. That's all
19:03
Speaker 1: he knew. And so she told him that, well, actually
19:07
Speaker 1: there's a story behind why this cleared up, why that
19:10
Speaker 1: unit cleared up. She said the previous tenants were a
19:14
Speaker 1: mother and her two teenage kids, and they had all
19:18
Speaker 1: died within two years of moving in. That's why it
19:21
Speaker 1: opened up, and they had died from leukemia. After hearing this,
19:25
Speaker 1: Dmitri couldn't help but feel like, Okay, this doesn't seem
19:28
Speaker 1: like my kids got leukemia because this is hereditary. It
19:32
Speaker 1: feels like something else caused my kids to get sick
19:36
Speaker 1: that very likely is happening in my apartment. Like, how
19:39
Speaker 1: is it possible that both my kids got leukemia and
19:42
Speaker 1: the previous tenants who were in this unit also got leukemia.
19:45
Speaker 1: Like there's no way, that's just coincidence, no way. And
19:48
Speaker 1: so Dmitri became absolutely obsessed with this idea that he
19:52
Speaker 1: was going to get to the bottom of whatever was
19:54
Speaker 1: going on inside of that apartment, and so over the
19:57
Speaker 1: next year, Dmitri made multiple serious as efforts to get
20:00
Speaker 1: an inspector to come out and look at the apartment.
20:04
Speaker 1: He wanted them to check for a gas leak or
20:06
Speaker 1: toxic chemicals or something in the soil, But when he
20:10
Speaker 1: talked to building management, they just insisted that they'd already
20:13
Speaker 1: looked into all those things and everything was fine, like
20:16
Speaker 1: this is just hereditary, it's just coincidental, like you know,
20:20
Speaker 1: drop it. But Dmitri couldn't let it go, and he
20:22
Speaker 1: kept pushing, asking anyone he could to just try to
20:26
Speaker 1: help him figure out if there's some external factor that's
20:29
Speaker 1: causing his family to become ill. But it all went nowhere. Basically,
20:34
Speaker 1: people just started ignoring his requests and Dmitri felt like
20:38
Speaker 1: there was nothing he could do. By nineteen eighty seven,
20:41
Speaker 1: only a few years after Dmitri and his family had
20:43
Speaker 1: moved into Unit eighty five, Dmitri's older son passed away
20:47
Speaker 1: from leukemia, and Dimitri's younger son continued to get sicker. Meanwhile,
20:52
Speaker 1: a rumor began to spread around the apartment building and
20:55
Speaker 1: also just across the whole area, that unit eighty five
20:59
Speaker 1: of that apartment building must be cursed. Two years later,
21:04
Speaker 1: on a cold morning in nineteen eighty nine, Dmitri came
21:07
Speaker 1: home from the hospital where his younger son was being
21:10
Speaker 1: treated to grab some clean clothes for himself and his wife.
21:14
Speaker 1: He and his wife are now spending virtually all their
21:16
Speaker 1: time at the hospital. It felt like they were at
21:19
Speaker 1: this point just waiting for their second son to die.
21:21
Speaker 1: That was the direction this seemed to be going. And so,
21:23
Speaker 1: of course this is like a really miserable, awful time
21:27
Speaker 1: for Dmitri and his wife. And so when he got
21:30
Speaker 1: back to his apartment and after he got those clothes,
21:33
Speaker 1: instead of just immediately leaving and rushing back to the hospital,
21:36
Speaker 1: which was just so awful, you know, Dmitri just wandered
21:40
Speaker 1: into his son's bedroom and just took a minute for himself.
21:43
Speaker 1: He sat down on one of the beds, and he
21:45
Speaker 1: stared at that decorative rug that was hanging on the wall,
21:48
Speaker 1: which had been there since the first day they had
21:50
Speaker 1: moved in, and the sons had put it up there.
21:52
Speaker 1: And when he looked back at that day, he remembered
21:55
Speaker 1: how excited and how hopeful his sons had been, and
21:57
Speaker 1: how he and his wife had been for their new
22:00
Speaker 1: life here like this felt like such an amazing opportunity.
22:04
Speaker 1: But that day, that move and day, felt like a
22:06
Speaker 1: lifetime ago. Ever since then, nothing had gone the way
22:10
Speaker 1: they had expected. And so Dimitri wondered if maybe the
22:13
Speaker 1: rumor was true that unit eighty five where they lived,
22:16
Speaker 1: maybe it really was cursed. And while he was thinking
22:19
Speaker 1: about that, something on the rug, the decorative rug on
22:23
Speaker 1: the wall caught his eye, and so Dmitri he got
22:26
Speaker 1: up and he walked over to this rug to get
22:28
Speaker 1: a better look. And at first he couldn't even tell
22:30
Speaker 1: what he was looking at, but upon closer inspection, he
22:34
Speaker 1: knew something was wrong here, and it was wrong enough
22:38
Speaker 1: that he actually ran out of the room, picked up
22:40
Speaker 1: the phone and called emergency services. So when Dmitri had
22:44
Speaker 1: moved in, he'd been so excited that he'd basically overlooked
22:47
Speaker 1: a lot of red flags. He never asked why the
22:50
Speaker 1: previous tenants would leave behind such a great apartment. He
22:53
Speaker 1: didn't know it was because they died after living there
22:56
Speaker 1: for a very short amount of time, But he didn't ask,
22:59
Speaker 1: and he also didn't ask about why basically everybody on
23:02
Speaker 1: the premises just seemed so sad and lifeless all the time,
23:06
Speaker 1: like everybody acted that way. He never asked about it.
23:09
Speaker 1: And so ultimately Dimitri's opinion of this place of unit
23:12
Speaker 1: eighty five in this building is that, you know what,
23:15
Speaker 1: there can be nothing wrong with living here. I mean,
23:17
Speaker 1: this is a modern place, everything so new and beautiful,
23:20
Speaker 1: like it has to be a safe place to live, right,
23:23
Speaker 1: But it would turn out being brand new and modern
23:26
Speaker 1: was actually what made this apartment building so dangerous. When
23:30
Speaker 1: this building was constructed, the Soviet government had been in
23:34
Speaker 1: such a rush to show off how wonderful and rich
23:37
Speaker 1: the country was in time for the Moscow Olympics that
23:41
Speaker 1: they'd made a terrible mistake. During the construction of this
23:44
Speaker 1: whole apartment building. The crew had lost a very small
23:49
Speaker 1: but very important piece of equipment. It was a capsule
23:53
Speaker 1: on a machine that measured the density of soil, which
23:56
Speaker 1: they used at the quarry where they were carving the
23:58
Speaker 1: stone that was used to build the apartments. Now work
24:02
Speaker 1: had been paused so the crew could find this capsule,
24:05
Speaker 1: but the government also really didn't want there to be
24:07
Speaker 1: a big delay here because they wanted to show off
24:10
Speaker 1: this amazing place, you know, in time for the Olympics.
24:13
Speaker 1: So after a week, even though the capsule was still missing,
24:17
Speaker 1: they just called off the search and resumed construction, figuring
24:21
Speaker 1: the capsule must just be somewhere in the quarry. But
24:24
Speaker 1: the capsule was not in the quarry. It ended up
24:27
Speaker 1: embedded into the stone walls of Unit eighty five, and
24:32
Speaker 1: this was a big problem because that capsule contained a
24:35
Speaker 1: substance called cesium one point thirty seven, which is extremely radioactive,
24:41
Speaker 1: and so for the next eight years, the people who
24:44
Speaker 1: lived in that apartment building, in particular in and around
24:47
Speaker 1: Unit eighty five, were receiving constant radiation exposure. That's why
24:53
Speaker 1: all of Dimitri's neighbors seemed sad and pale and lethargic.
24:58
Speaker 1: And that's also why Dmitri's family and the family before
25:02
Speaker 1: him who had lived inside of Unit eighty five, it's
25:04
Speaker 1: why they got leukemia. Dmitri discovered the awful truth in
25:08
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine when he was in his son's bedroom
25:12
Speaker 1: and he was looking at the rug hanging on the wall.
25:14
Speaker 1: What he noticed on the rug was there was what
25:16
Speaker 1: appeared to be a burn mark, And when he looked
25:19
Speaker 1: more closely, he realized that the burn was coming from
25:22
Speaker 1: the wall itself, that the rug was pressed against, like
25:25
Speaker 1: there was something in the wall causing this rug to burn.
25:28
Speaker 1: And so not really having any idea what that was,
25:31
Speaker 1: but knowing that, you know, something odd has been going
25:33
Speaker 1: on here, he suspected for many years and no one's
25:36
Speaker 1: really looked. This seems really odd. I'd better call the authorities. Well,
25:40
Speaker 1: when he did, the authorities came out and they inspected
25:43
Speaker 1: the apartment and when they cut into that wall behind
25:46
Speaker 1: the rug, what did they find the missing capsule. In total,
25:51
Speaker 1: six people who lived in this apartment building died and
25:54
Speaker 1: seventeen more were disabled, all because of the radiation in
25:58
Speaker 1: unit eighty five. However, despite that being sort of hard facts,
26:03
Speaker 1: nobody was ever held accountable for this deadly incident. On
26:24
Speaker 1: the evening of September seventeenth, eighteen ninety six, a detective
26:28
Speaker 1: named John White dug a shovel into the ground outside
26:31
Speaker 1: of a home in Evanston, Illinois. So Detective White worked
26:34
Speaker 1: for the Evanston Police, and that morning, the owner of
26:37
Speaker 1: the home that he was currently digging in front of
26:40
Speaker 1: had come in to report that he had found bones
26:42
Speaker 1: buried on his property, so White had been sent out
26:45
Speaker 1: there to see if they were human or animal. Now,
26:48
Speaker 1: White had actually already stopped by the home earlier to
26:51
Speaker 1: inspect a few of the bones the homeowner had pulled
26:53
Speaker 1: out of the ground, and his initial thought was they
26:56
Speaker 1: were likely just from a deer or some other animal,
26:59
Speaker 1: so he was not expected this to be human bones. However,
27:02
Speaker 1: he had still come back to fully excavate this yard
27:05
Speaker 1: because this property was only a quarter mile from the
27:08
Speaker 1: former home of the infamous serial killer named HH Holmes,
27:13
Speaker 1: who had been caught just two years earlier. And HH
27:16
Speaker 1: Holmes had confessed to twenty seven murders, but the police
27:20
Speaker 1: believed that there were dozens or even hundreds more that
27:23
Speaker 1: they didn't know about. So if any of the bones
27:26
Speaker 1: that were found on this property were human, it was
27:30
Speaker 1: then very likely they were connected to this serial killer.
27:33
Speaker 1: And that would be a huge find for detective White
27:36
Speaker 1: at a time when he desperately needed a win, because
27:40
Speaker 1: just a week ago, a reporter from the Chicago Chronicle
27:43
Speaker 1: had published a very unflattering story about Detective White, about
27:48
Speaker 1: how he had bungled a case which had made White
27:52
Speaker 1: sort of like the laughingstock of the police force. It'd
27:54
Speaker 1: have been very embarrassing, but more than embarrassment, I mean,
27:57
Speaker 1: detective White cared a lot about his reputation. He cared
28:01
Speaker 1: about being a good detective. So he had been looking
28:05
Speaker 1: for a way to sort of get that story out
28:07
Speaker 1: of everybody's heads, and he thought, like, what better way
28:10
Speaker 1: to do that than to be the detective that finds
28:14
Speaker 1: these missing bones, these potentially missing bones of these victims
28:17
Speaker 1: that had never been found. And so White, who he's
28:20
Speaker 1: out here, you know, part of this bigger excavation of
28:23
Speaker 1: this property. He takes a shovel and he begins to dig,
28:27
Speaker 1: and at some point he hit something hard in the ground.
28:30
Speaker 1: At that point, White took a shovel away, and he
28:33
Speaker 1: reached down and he carefully brushed away the dirt from
28:35
Speaker 1: whatever he hit. And eventually when he revealed what it was,
28:40
Speaker 1: it was clearly bone. But more than that, it was
28:43
Speaker 1: clearly human bone. It was an entire human skull. And
28:48
Speaker 1: so White, I mean, he was thrilled. I mean, this
28:51
Speaker 1: is like, in some ways, the best thing he could
28:53
Speaker 1: have found. I mean, this is undeniably human remains here,
28:57
Speaker 1: and that was sort of what he was hoping he
28:59
Speaker 1: would find. And there also wasn't much decay or discoloration
29:02
Speaker 1: on the skull, which suggested it had not been buried
29:05
Speaker 1: for very long, at least not more than a few years,
29:08
Speaker 1: which also highly suggested it was connected to H. H. Holmes,
29:12
Speaker 1: who had been caught two years ago. And so White
29:14
Speaker 1: he's feeling really good, like he's got the big find here.
29:17
Speaker 1: This is exactly what he hoped would happen. He knew
29:20
Speaker 1: the medical examiner would obviously have to look things over
29:22
Speaker 1: and confirm some things, but certainly seemed like he had
29:26
Speaker 1: effectively struck gold. And it also seemed like this was
29:30
Speaker 1: going to be White's chance to really stick it to
29:32
Speaker 1: that reporter who just a week earlier had written that
29:35
Speaker 1: horrible article about him. Now look at White, look what
29:38
Speaker 1: he was doing. Now nobody would remember that terrible article,
29:42
Speaker 1: and everybody would remember this, And so White he stops digging.
29:46
Speaker 1: He wraps the skull in a blanket, and he heads
29:49
Speaker 1: back to the police station. And when he went in there,
29:52
Speaker 1: who was already inside talking to another officer, none other
29:56
Speaker 1: than that very reporter who had written that embarrassing article
29:59
Speaker 1: about White a week earlier. And so White he's thrilled,
30:03
Speaker 1: like this is the best case scenario for him. He's
30:06
Speaker 1: got that that skull that's wrapped in a blanket. And
30:08
Speaker 1: he made a point of as he walked down the
30:10
Speaker 1: middle of the aisle of this this big room full
30:12
Speaker 1: of all the other officers and desks and this reporter,
30:15
Speaker 1: he made a point to really indicate that he had
30:17
Speaker 1: something important in his hands, and he was walking with
30:19
Speaker 1: a purpose here, but he really wanted to get the
30:21
Speaker 1: reporter's attention. And so he walks down the aisle. He's
30:24
Speaker 1: got his he's got his skull, and the reporter he
30:27
Speaker 1: notices and stops what he's doing and he turns and
30:29
Speaker 1: he looks at White and he's like, hey, what do
30:32
Speaker 1: you got there? And so White he turns to this
30:34
Speaker 1: this reporter, and you know, he stares at him like,
30:37
Speaker 1: I know who you are, I know what you wrote
30:39
Speaker 1: about me. But what he does is he unfurls the
30:43
Speaker 1: blanket and reveals the human skull to the reporter. And
30:46
Speaker 1: the reporter's looking at it like what in the world.
30:48
Speaker 1: And White's like, yeah, you know, he's kind of gloating
30:51
Speaker 1: as he's doing this. He's like, yeah, I was. I
30:54
Speaker 1: was digging up over at that property about a quarter
30:56
Speaker 1: mile from where h Holmes lived, and uh I found
31:00
Speaker 1: another victim, a victim that nobody knew about. Yep, here
31:03
Speaker 1: it is, so there you go. And the reporter he's
31:06
Speaker 1: staring at the skull. He's hearing what Detective White has said.
31:10
Speaker 1: And White could see the gears are turning in the
31:12
Speaker 1: reporter's head like this is a huge story. And the
31:15
Speaker 1: reporter's like, oh, my goodness, thank you, I got to
31:17
Speaker 1: write about this. This is amazing. I can't believe you've
31:20
Speaker 1: you've found this. This is this is incredible. And so
31:23
Speaker 1: White's like this, this is the greatest thing. He's going
31:26
Speaker 1: to write a new article. It's going to feature me.
31:29
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the hero. And also how great
31:32
Speaker 1: is it that this article is going to be written
31:34
Speaker 1: by him, Like, the same guy who talked bad about
31:37
Speaker 1: me is now going to make me out to be
31:38
Speaker 1: some kind of a hero. This is perfect. The next morning,
31:43
Speaker 1: when White walked into the police station, he was greeted
31:45
Speaker 1: with all his fellow officers cheering and clapping for him,
31:49
Speaker 1: congratulating him on this huge breakthrough, the find of this skull.
31:53
Speaker 1: So that Chicago Chronicle reporter had immediately written a story
31:57
Speaker 1: about White's big find about finding the sky in that yard,
32:01
Speaker 1: and it had been front page news that morning, and
32:03
Speaker 1: so all of White's colleagues, everybody had read this story.
32:07
Speaker 1: He was he was the star. And to White's delight,
32:11
Speaker 1: I mean, the reporter even openly speculated that that skull
32:14
Speaker 1: might even belong to HH Holmes's former wife, Minnie Williams,
32:18
Speaker 1: who had completely disappeared a few months after they had
32:21
Speaker 1: gotten married, which was a huge revelation because nobody knew
32:24
Speaker 1: what happened to her, and it was like, wow, Detective White,
32:27
Speaker 1: you figured it out, you found her. And so Detective
32:29
Speaker 1: White had like the best day of his life, like
32:32
Speaker 1: this is redemption. Everything is great. Until that night, on
32:36
Speaker 1: his way home from work, Detective White stopped at this
32:39
Speaker 1: very crowded newsstand to pick up a copy of the
32:42
Speaker 1: evening edition. He grabbed a newspaper off the shelf and
32:45
Speaker 1: he looked at the front page, and unsurprisingly, you know,
32:48
Speaker 1: his story, the bones story, was still very much front
32:52
Speaker 1: page news. But as he read through the article, his
32:55
Speaker 1: stomach dropped, and then he heard a noise coming from
32:59
Speaker 1: all around him that made his blood run cold. It
33:02
Speaker 1: would turn out, other than the human skull that White
33:05
Speaker 1: dug up on that property, all the other bones that
33:09
Speaker 1: so far had been found on that man's property had
33:12
Speaker 1: been horse bones. And more than that, the skull did
33:15
Speaker 1: not belong to a murder victim. So unfortunately, White's big
33:19
Speaker 1: breakthrough was not a breakthrough at all. But Detective White
33:24
Speaker 1: he actually knew that. He had known that from the
33:26
Speaker 1: first second he stepped on that property. Ever since that
33:30
Speaker 1: embarrassing article had been published about White that week earlier,
33:34
Speaker 1: he'd become obsessed, not just with fixing his reputation, but
33:38
Speaker 1: specifically with getting revenge on that reporter who wrote it.
33:43
Speaker 1: And this bone scenario had given him, in his mind,
33:47
Speaker 1: the perfect opportunity. He had come up with this elaborate
33:50
Speaker 1: plan to plant the human skull, pretend to find it,
33:55
Speaker 1: and then tell that specific reporter all about it in
33:58
Speaker 1: hopes that the reporter would write a completely incorrect story
34:02
Speaker 1: and then get publicly humiliated, exactly the way White felt
34:06
Speaker 1: like he had been humiliated. But White had underestimated this
34:10
Speaker 1: reporter because the reporter, after seeing the skull that White
34:13
Speaker 1: showed him and writing that big article about how this
34:17
Speaker 1: skull could be connected to HH Holmes, you know, the reporter,
34:20
Speaker 1: he gets that story out the door that morning. It's
34:22
Speaker 1: this big hit. After that, on that same day, the
34:26
Speaker 1: reporter went to the medical examiner to ask for more
34:28
Speaker 1: information about the skull, and quickly he learned about the
34:32
Speaker 1: other bones, and he learned that this skull very likely
34:35
Speaker 1: was not connected to HH Holmes. And the reporter began
34:39
Speaker 1: to see that this looked like a setup. He saw
34:42
Speaker 1: through White's scheme, and so that evening, a whole new
34:46
Speaker 1: article had come out about White and his big discovery
34:49
Speaker 1: and basically what it said was White was a petty
34:53
Speaker 1: moron who tampered with evidence and thought he could pass
34:55
Speaker 1: off horse bones for human ones, and so White after
34:59
Speaker 1: reading this story and realizing what a terrible position he
35:02
Speaker 1: was in now, that sound he heard all around him
35:06
Speaker 1: that made his blood run cold was the sound of
35:09
Speaker 1: the other people all around him reading this article and
35:12
Speaker 1: laughing at his expense. Thank you so much for watching
35:23
Speaker 1: today's episode. Let me know what you thought of it
35:26
Speaker 1: in the comments below, And remember, we have a whole
35:28
Speaker 1: playlist of places you can't go episodes ready for you
35:32
Speaker 1: to binge right now, So go ahead and click here
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Speaker 1: and give them a watch. All right, until next time,
35:38
Speaker 1: see it