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Short Stuff: La Pascualita · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is Short Stuff the Urban Legend
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: from Chihuahua Edition. Yeah, I've never heard of this. This
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: is kind of fun. You found this. I think La
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Pascualita colon bridal shop mannequin or embalmed course, And that's
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: from Lauren David at How Stuff Works. Yeah, for sure.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And so La Pasqualita is a bridal shop mannequin and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: has been keeping up her side of the bargain since
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties by being a mannequin. Yeah, that's a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: long lived mannequin. I mean, how many mannequins do you
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: think are at Macy's that were put into into work
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: put to work in the nineteen thirties? Just the old
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Marge Okay, one out of thousands, right, So that in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and of itself is pretty impressive. But what makes La
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Pascualita even more impressive, or more interesting even is that
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, especially in the Chihuahua area, believe
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that she's not a mannequin at all, that she's actually
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: an embalmed corpse, specifically the embalmed corpse of the original
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  Speaker 1: owner of La Popular bridal dress shop in Chihuahua, Mexico.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: That's right. I urge you to go when you can
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: safely do so. Look up pictures of La Pascualita and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: specifically just put in as your search term La Pascualita
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: mannequin hands, Yeah, because that is one of the creepiest
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: parts of this mannequin. Are these? I mean, it looks
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: like no mannequin hands that I've seen. They look like,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: at worst, like a Madame Tussau's dummy hands. I would
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: say even more detail than that. I've never seen more
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: life like non life hands in my life. You ever
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: been to Madame Tussau's I have, and I'm telling you
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: this mannequin hasn't beaten well. The story of Lo Pascualita, Um,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it's an urban legend, and usually when there's
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: an urban legend, you can't pinpoint like any head cannon. Uh.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It's usually just a story kind of passed around that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: morrison changes. And that's probably the case here. But as
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the story goes in the nineteen thirties, the she's known
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: as the corpse Bride, was going to get married and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: her mom. Uh. There's a couple of different versions. One
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: was her mother was not in favor of the marriage
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and the daughter it like broke her heart, so she died.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I saw other versions where she was bitten by a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: black widow or there are other sort of like bug
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: stings and bites that killed her, depending on who's telling
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the story separately, not all at once, right, depending on
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the story. Right. And that mama was so distraught that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: she had this her daughter's body mummified or and or embalmed,
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  Speaker 1: and said you're gonna live in my window as the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: corpse bride forevermore right, Yeah, which is kind of sweet
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Kind of The woman, by
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the way, that you're speaking of who had her daughter
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: embalmed is named Pasquala Esparza, the owner of the Bridle
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: shop in the thirties when La Pasqualita made her debut
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and local people said, look at those hands. I don't
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: know what Madame Tousseau is it yet, but this beats them. Yeah,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: never seen hands like that in my entire life. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: also doesn't that mannequin bear a very strong resemblance to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Pasquala's daughter who's now dead. I think that's really odd.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Did you think she did? I didn't think she looked
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a whole lot like her. No, but we'll get to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that in a minute. There's a reason why she didn't
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: look a whole lot like There's a picture that you're
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: referring to, I think on the internet where it shows
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a picture of Pasquala's daughter and then a picture of
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: La Pascualita the mannequin. Right, yeah, that sounds like a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: great cliffhanger. Okay, all right, we'll be going back stout.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Stop you shouldn't, I should know, all right, I'm hanging
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: let's hear it. Oh, okay, Well, the reason that the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: mannequin La Pasqualita doesn't look anything like the daughter of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Pasquala that has shown in that picture is that the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: woman of pictures not the daughter of pasqual There was
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: no daughter of Pasquala as far as okay, has that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: been super confirmed? Because this all how stuff works, dug up.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: A woman named Teresa Cordova, who did a dissertation in
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve from the University of New Mexico that had
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to do with this, went down to the shop to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: interview them. I don't know if it is still the
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: same family. That's one thing I couldn't find. I don't
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: believe it is, but it's it's the shop's been open
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the whole time, but I believe it's changed hands, all right,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: changed creepy mummified hands that had an interview lined up
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: with the manager. The manager did not show up for
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the interview, and they said that, you know, she got
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: back in touch and they said, no, we think it's
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: bad luck, so we're not going to do this interview.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And she proposed, Hey, this is all just a marketing
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: thing because I have done some pretty extensive public record
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: searching and I have not found that this daughter exists,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: So they're not gonna do this interview because this negative
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: publicity and missing is a great marketing tool. Yeah, that's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: what I was basing it on. Cordova's research. Okay, she
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: searched for obituaries church documents at the local church historical
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: records and found no record of Pasquala A. Sparza having
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a daughter or at all, let alone one that died.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: That's that's how I take it. Okay, As far as
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: whether or not this could be a embalmed human being,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: not only did how stuff works interview some embalmers and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: people in the funeral industry, but I got on Reddit
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the source for all information, and there were quite a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: few embalmers who weighed in, and all of them said,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: there's just no way, like the most super plus plus
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: two point zero embalming that you could ever do on somebody,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: if you really wanted someone to last a long time
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: for some weird reason, there's just no way it would
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: last seas long this long, especially in these conditions like
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: La Pascualita, if it were an embalmed corps. First of all,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: this is like has been standing in a sunny, bright
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: window for ninety years. That all that alone says nope,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: not a corpse. Thing would have rotted by now. It
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: would certainly not look like it does today, which is
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in pretty good shape. Right. The second thing is there
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: are corpses out there that have been embalmed and kept
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: preserved for very long time, like Lennon's corpse. I don't
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: remember when he died, but I think it was the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: thirties as well. And if you look at him, he's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: still looking okay, that's clearly a corpse. But also he's
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: kept under extremely specific conditions. There's a team of people
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: who whose job it is is to keep him, you know,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: up to snuff. Yeah. Yeah, essentially, and over the years,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: through all of these updates and like freshen ups, he's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: basically been turned into rubber. Yeah. So you couldn't just
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: embalm the corpse wants standed up in a dress shop
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: window for ninety years and it would look like that.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It just wouldn't. So, Yes, if you're a professional or balmer,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: you're like, this is not a corpse. It's just not
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a corpse. Yeah, much less change the clothes on this thing, right,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I mean I didn't. I didn't find any information on that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: But unless she's wearing the bridal dress from the nineteen thirties,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: is that true? I found um that there's so she
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: supposedly has vericoast veins in her legs. I'd try to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: find a picture of that, but I couldn't find one. Okay,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: here's why, because that piece of information that's bandied about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: is evidence that she's actually not TRPs came from I
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's true or not, but it's It
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: really fits into the idea of an urban legend where
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a woman unnamed who supposedly worked in the dress shop
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: when who knows and was responsible for changing law. Pascuelita
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: is the one who said that she had vericoast veins.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That woman might not exist either, right, So again, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: we're just following the steps of a great urban legend
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: where it just over time, somebody said it, it it became
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a really interesting thing. It's way more interesting than that's
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: a really strange mannequin that they've had since the nineteen thirties.
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  Speaker 1: And the dress shop itself is like, no, we're not
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: going to We're not going to rebuke this or dispute it,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: like it's great. It brings people to our bridal shop. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: did they ask a lady when she said and she
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: also has vericos veins. I've seen them where they like,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: is that a bluepin in your front pocket? What pocket? Apparently, also,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: there was another thing that's frequently said, like, oh well,
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  Speaker 1: this is great evidence too, that the owner requires that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: La Pascualita be changed from dress to dress behind a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: drawn curtain. Well, sure, so if she were a mannequin,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: why would you care? Right? But there is one question
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I have, Chuck, that I find fascinating. Nowhere on the internet,
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  Speaker 1: is there even a suggestion of the manufacturer of that mannequin?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Oh right, or mention of any other mannequins that have
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: hands like that. Nobody's stepped up and been like, look,
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  Speaker 1: she comes from the line of crazy hands from you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Nerveco that made mannequins back in the thirties. There's nothing
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: like that. Yea, So I really do wonder who made
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that mannequin. It's it's really interesting, and I think that too,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is helping keep things going. Maybe it was Vincent Price.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: It could have been very creepy. Look at those hands, everybody.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I think to make it even more creepy,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: we should just sit here in silence for thirty seconds
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: before we finish. Really all right, I guess we're doing this.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say short Stuff's out, and then I'm just
• 10:45
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• 10:51
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