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The Hex Hollow Murder - Nelson Rehmeyer · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In the winter of 1928, deep in rural Pennsylvania, USA,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: three men walked into a secluded farmhouse, convinced that the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: man living inside had placed a hex on them. And
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: they believed there was only one way to break that hex.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Steal his book of spells, take a lock of his hair,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and perform a ritual that would finally free them from
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the witch's curse. Before the night was over, superstition would
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: turn to murder. and a farmhouse would be set ablaze,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and the strange events inside that home would become one
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of the most infamous witchcraft killings in American history. This
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: is the story of the Hex Hollow Murder. My name's Ben.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: A true crime podcast.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Listener discretion is advised.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if my headphones are like sitting a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: little extra tight today or if my volume's different, but
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I feel like my intro voice was like really good today.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Was it?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I was going to crack a joke that was like rude.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Whoa.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I just got a big head today.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, snap.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: But then I was like, then you're complimenting yourself. So
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, no, not the time.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Well, because yeah, if I compliment myself and then you
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: say I've got a big head, it's like, yeah, full
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of myself. So thanks. Thanks for not throwing that.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Shade at me. Your headphones aren't sitting quite right.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: But no, I think your intros always are good.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I mean, I put on my little like,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you know, showman voice or whatever a little bit for it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: But I just felt like I was a little more,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know, in the zone on it today. A
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: little extra good sounding.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Extra pizzazz.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd say pizzazz, but like a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: little more velvety, a little like, you know what I mean?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Just like a little more gravitas to it.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I felt like the intro did not seem like a
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: true crime case. I will say that.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: This is definitely a true crime case. I've been trying to,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting into spooky season. That is no
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: surprise to anyone at this point. I've been trying to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: get into some more spooky cases to warm us up.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: We still got a little ways to go till Halloween week,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: but it is around the corner.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Kate, I don't feel like I'm quite there with the
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: spooky season yet. But you were even playing like kind
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of spookier music this morning, weren't you?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was playing our Halloween playlist.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And it's not even September though. Like I don't think
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I'm there until at least September.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: But this is the weekend before September hits. We only
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: have a couple of days. I know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: But it's still August. It's still summer.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But also I was just playing the Time Warp,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: which RIP to the great legend, Tim Curry. We've been
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: losing a lot of legends as of late. Golly pardon.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But Tim Curry definitely around this time of
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: season watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show, listening to the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Time Warp. I mean, many other things. He was a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: voice actor for several things. Fern Gully was one of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the things I grew up with him in and yeah,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: he'll be, he'll be missed. So I wasn't playing that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: music specifically for spooky season. It was also, also for him.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Fair enough.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: It was a hard week for, for celebrity deaths, I suppose.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Definitely was, but. Anyways, I'm going to listen to that
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: song again later today. I'm going to remember Tim Curry.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Might even watch Ferngully because that's one of my favorites.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Also Legend is another one of my favorites from him.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: With maybe a glass of scotch?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe I will. I think that might be what I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: do this evening.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: That sounds great.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: But before we do that, I think we should get
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: into the story if you're ready for it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I am, yeah.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: In 1928, York County, Pennsylvania. It was not some isolated
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: place that was cut off from the rest of modern world.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: For the First World War had actually been over for
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a decade at this point. Automobiles and radios were now
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: part of everyday life. The stock market was booming and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the Great Depression hadn't even begun yet. Farming, though, still
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: shaped a lot of the region, especially in rural communities
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: south of York, where many families traced their roots to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: German-speaking immigrants who had settled into Pennsylvania generations earlier. And
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: along with language, food, and religion, some of those families
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: had carried older healing traditions with them as well. In
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania German communities, one of those traditions became known as
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: powwow or brockeri. And no, it has nothing to do
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: with the indigenous powwows that you're thinking. Instead, it was
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a form of Christian folk healing that mixed prayer, scripture,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: spoken charms, hand movements, and traditional remedies. And practitioners were
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: often called powwow doctors. Some people went to them for headaches, fevers, bleedings.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: or warts, maybe sick animals, or failing crops, or protection
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: from misfortune. The practice could be simple. It could be
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: reciting prayer over someone making a sign of a cross.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Other remedies involved these written charms, or household objects, or
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: even rituals passed down through families. To believers, the practitioners,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: they were not necessarily the source of this power, though.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: The healing, that came from God. The powwower was acting
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: as kind of more of a conduit. There was also
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: an important distinction between powwow and what Pennsylvania Germans called hexerai.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Powwow was generally understood as healing or protective work. Hexerai
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: meant harmful witchcraft, using supernatural power to curse, injure, or
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: cause trouble for someone else. People didn't always agree on
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: where the line sat between the two, though, but that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: distinction did matter a lot. A person could believe deeply
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in Christian prayer and powwow, while also believing that someone
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: else might use similar knowledge for darker purpose. So it's
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: more light and dark side of this magic, you can say.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: One book became especially associated with the practice of powwow.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: It was Powwow's or Long Lost Friends, and it was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: published in 1820 by German immigrant John George Hohmann. It
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: collected folk remedies, prayers, charms, and protections for both people
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and animals. And it wasn't a secret, hidden book, don't
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: get me wrong. It wasn't something that was only known
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to a handful of occultists. It was a widely available
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and commonly used book among Pennsylvanian Dutch families. And one
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: of the promises associated with the book was that whoever
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: possessed it would be protected from harm. Now, the Raymeier
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: family had been in the area for generations by this point.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Henry and Wilhelmia Raymeier came to America in 1841, followed
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: by Henry's brother Christoph and Karl in 1844. Soon, the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: three brothers pooled their money together and bought 96 acres
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in southern York County. And so many members of the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: extended family eventually lived there in the surrounding valley, which
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: would become known as Raymeier's Hollow. Now, Nelson Ramire was
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: born in October of 1868 to Henry Ramire and Rachel McCann.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: He grew up on the family land and became a
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: farmer himself, raising potatoes on his property in the hollow
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: by 1928, when he was about 60 years old. He
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: preferred staying around his farm, and he could be quite private,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: but he was not completely cut off from the community.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: He was described as friendly, kind, and willing to help.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: People visited with him regularly, especially because Nelson had learned
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: powwow when he was young, and he developed a reputation
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: as a very effective practitioner. He was a tall man,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: standing about six feet tall, or even a bit taller,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: depending on the sources you read. And Nelson had a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: few traits that made him seem unusual to some of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: his neighbors. He kept socialist literature in his house at
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the time, when socialism could draw a lot of suspicion
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: in rural Pennsylvania. His home itself was modest and sparsely furnished.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: It was a small farmhouse with a stove, sink, table,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: chairs in the kitchen, and a couch in the parlor
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and bedroom upstairs. Eventually, he married a woman named Alice,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: who was roughly 10 years younger than he was. Together,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the couple had two daughters, Edna and Beatrice. And in 1928,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Edna was 14 and Beatrice was 10. Nelson and Alice
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: were still married, but for roughly the last four years
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of his life, they'd lived separately. Alice had inherited the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: house where she had grown up, about a mile away
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: over the hill, and moved there with the girls. Now,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: their separation appears to have done or had a lot
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to do with Nelson's powwow work. According to family recollections,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Alice disliked having people arrive at the farmhouse at all
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: hours seeking separate treatments. Ultimately, though, Nelson continued practicing, even
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: when Alice and the girls lived nearby.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, that is fair enough, though.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Like it could be in the middle of the night
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: and you have like a family and your kids and
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: stuff and someone in a panic is, you know, waking
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you up. So I get that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, like, don't get me, you're,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you're totally right. But at the same time for him
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: with his beliefs, he was kind of a quasi doctor
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: in his own eyes.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Well, and he wanted to help people.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So, so yeah. So it's like, well, I can't just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: stop helping people. They need my help. It's kind of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: his mindset.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So it's all quite interesting though. Listening to that belief
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: and stuff. I had never heard of anything of that.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: So it's quite like a, I don't know, like an
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: interesting belief to me.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: It definitely is.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: We don't generally associate like Christianity or anything with, you know, witchcraft, right?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And so this, I mean, there certainly is histories with that.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting to dive into one of them. Now,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the arrangement, though, with their marriage at this point where
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: she was Alice was living with the kids about a
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: mile away in her own house. It wasn't like a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: complete break between the two. They were still married. They
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: were still amicable. They were still, you know, that sort
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of thing.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Parenting and stuff.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Reportedly, Nelson even brought his dirty clothes to the
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: top of the hill. where Alice would then collect them,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: wash and repair them for him, and then meet him
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: again to give him the clean clothes.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: He's off farming and stuff, all this sort of thing, too.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of the way that, you know, husband
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and wife operate at the time. He's out there working.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: She's taking care of the house stuff. So they still
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: did that, even though they were in two separate homes. Now,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: back at the farmhouse, Nelson kept farming and continued seeing
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: people who came looking for help. They arrived with everything
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: from minor cuts and warts to fevers or even more
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: serious illnesses. Some were children, some were elderly. Nelson apparently
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: didn't turn any people away. He was someone who tried
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to help whoever showed up. And by the fall of 1928,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that was Nelson Ramire's life. He was a farmer living
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: alone in a small house deep in the hollow, and
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: his family had settled in this same spot decades earlier.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: He was separated but still connected to his wife and daughters.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: He was tending crops, tending animals. and receiving a steady
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: stream of people who believed he might actually be able
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to make things better for them. Now that brings us
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to John Blymir. John was born in York County, Pennsylvania
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in 1895, into a family where powwow was already part
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of everyday life here too. His father, Emmanuel Blymir, practiced
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the tradition as had other members of the family too.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: For John, belief in charms, healing rituals, and hexes was
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: part of the world in which he just simply grew up.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: When John was about five years old, he even became
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: seriously ill, and he was wasting away from a condition
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the locals called opnema, which is an illness that some
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: people believed could be caused by a hex. Now, whatever
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was actually medically wrong with him is uncertain, but Emmanuel's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: attempts to help his son were unfortunately unsuccessful. So the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: family eventually turned to a local powwow practitioner, someone else
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in the community who could help. And that practitioner was
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Nelson Ramire. Nelson treated the boy, and John soon began
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to recover. It was an experience that made a very
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: lasting impression on John. In his mind, powwow was not
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: simply something his family believed in. He had actually experienced
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: what he regarded was proof that it worked. And a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: few years later, John returned to Ramire's Hollow. For a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: much more ordinary reason, though. As a boy, he worked
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: for Nelson picking potatoes. reportedly earning 25 cents a day.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: He also continued learning about powwow and eventually even began
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: practicing it himself. By approximately the age of 13 years old,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: John was working though at a cigar factory in York.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: During that time, a coworker by the name of Albert
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Wagner was suffering from an inflamed eye. Apparently, John instructed
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Albert to bring him a dirty dinner plate. When he did,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: John took that plate, pressed it against Wagner's eye, recited
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a charm, and then smashed the plate on the floor
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and stomped it into pieces. Then he finally made the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: sign of a cross three times over the affected eye.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And soon his eye problem disappeared. Another story claims that
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: John cured a dog that was believed to have been
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: rabid by placing his hand over the animal's head and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: reciting some sort of incantation. Whether these treatments actually produced
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the results attributed to them is impossible to establish from
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: surviving accounts, but What mattered to John's story is that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he believed that they did, and apparently some of the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: people around him believed it as well. Then at the
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: age of around 17, John began losing weight and suffering
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: from poor health once again. His physical problems were accompanied
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: by increasingly troubling thoughts, too. He soon became convinced that
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: his powers were disappearing, and that another practitioner had placed
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a hex on him. In fact, his condition became serious
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: enough that he was eventually committed to a mental institution.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Accounts describe John as having an intense fixation on witchcraft
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and curses, with doctors recognizing that his beliefs could become
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: very dangerous. He was ultimately institutionalized for approximately 48 days
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: before simply walking out of the facility unnoticed and walking
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: approximately 25 miles back to York after leaving. And whatever
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: temporary stability he gained from being there, Well, it didn't last.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: In 1917, John married a woman named Lily. For a while,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: his life seemed to improve. He found work, his health
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: appeared to get better, and he again took clients as
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a powwow healer. Then the couple began experiencing devastating losses.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Their first child, a boy, died about five weeks after birth.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Then a second child, a girl, born prematurely, survived for
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: only about three days. John increasingly interpreted these tragedies in
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: his life through the belief system that had shaped everything
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: else that he had lived through. He didn't see the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: death of his children or the illness that he had
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: or his inability to maintain stability as separate events. No,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: to him, these were evidence of the same underlying problem.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Like everything was connected.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Everything was connected. And to him, he's looking at this like,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: someone hexed me. And he became consumed. with identifying the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: person who was responsible. Over the years, John reportedly consulted
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: more than 20 different powwow practitioners and supposed witches, looking
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: for someone who could tell him where the curse originated
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: from and how to remove it. One practitioner was named
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Andrew Lenhart, and reportedly his advice strengthens John's belief that, yes,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: someone was in fact responsible. And he even told him that,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you know the person. Someone you know is responsible for
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: this hex on you.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, dang. That's not something good to tell someone who's
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: already completely obsessed.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So from then on, people around John basically became
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: potential suspects to him. And eventually, that even included his wife,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Lily herself.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Whoa.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And she soon became frightened enough to go seek help
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: from her parents. Lawyers soon got involved, and a judge
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: issued an order committing John to an asylum. While he
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: was institutionalized, Lily filed for divorce and was granted... She
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: was granted that divorce, basically. Now, the concern surrounding John's
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: mental condition was not simply that he held unusual religious
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: or supernatural beliefs. Powwow itself, it was still relatively common
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: within the area. It wasn't abnormal to say. His problem
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: was more to the degree in which his life had
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: become dominated by all this, by the conviction that this enemy,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this unknown enemy, was deliberately attacking him through these supernatural hexes.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: But not only was his mind struggling at this point,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: John's physical health continued to trouble him as well. There
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: were reoccurring illnesses, there was weight loss, and nearly constant
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: headaches that were plaguing him. He struggled to maintain regular employment,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and increasingly drifted between jobs and places to stay. At
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: various points, he was described as extremely thin. You have
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to remember, this is an adult male. And he reportedly
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: weighed a little more than 100 pounds, in many sources.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that is... Well, I don't know how tall
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: he is, but that's not good.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: That's frail. Yeah. By 1928, John was 33 years old,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and he was back working at a cigar factory in York.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And through the people around him, he began finding what
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: looked to him like evidence that he was not the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: only person who was suffering from supernatural interference and hexes.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: One of those people was named John Curry, a 14-year-old
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: boy whose own life had been unstable from a very
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: early age, too. Now, Curry's father had died when he
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: was young, after which his mother eventually moved towards York
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and remarried a man named McLean. And McLean drank heavily.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: He rarely worked. He had a violent temper and reportedly
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: beat Curry's mother and also physically abused Curry himself. The
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: situation eventually became bad enough that the teenager increasingly stayed
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: away from home and spent much more time out on
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the streets. But Curry did eventually find work at that
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: same cigar factory where John worked. And despite the roughly
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: 19 years of age difference between the two, they developed
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a very close friendship. Between them, Curry was described as quiet, polite,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and unassuming rather than someone who naturally took control. He
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: was even described as a follower who could easily be influenced. John, meanwhile,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: was an adult who shared Curry's belief that suffering could
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: have supernatural causes. Their relationship became even stronger after Curry
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: suffered an unspecified health problem. But John performed a powwow
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: treatment on him and Curry believed it worked, even accrediting
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: John with having saved his life, leaving him deeply indebted
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to this older man. Another family that John knew was
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Milton and Alice Hess. They operated a farm near Leaders Heights,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: south of York. Their son, Wilbert Hess, was 18 years
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: old and worked on the family farm. And for a time,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the Hess property had been successful. But by the summer
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of 1928, the family was struggling. Livestock was being lost,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: dry conditions were damaging the crops, and members of the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: household were experiencing various illnesses. But there was also trouble
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: within the extended Hess family too. Milton's relative Ida Jane
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Strickler Hess, who was Wilbert's aunt, lived nearby and was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: doing considerably better than the Hess family. She was financially
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: well off, to say the least. The two sides became
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: involved in an increasingly bitter property boundary dispute, too. Ida
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: wanted a right-of-way to her farm that apparently needed to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: run along the boundary of Milton's property. But Milton, however,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: refused to provide it. And what began as a disagreement
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: over land soon evolved into an ugly family argument. But
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: against all of this, the Hess family's bad luck began
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to look suspicious to people who were already inclined to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: believe in hexes. Why was one branch of the family
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: doing so reasonably well while Milton's was struggling? So soon
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: suspicion initially fell on Ida. Now, Alice Hess was described
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: as particularly superstitious, and she already believed that some of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the family's troubles might have a supernatural cause. So when
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: John became involved, he reinforced those fears. Someone was doing
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: this to them. It had to be a hex. So
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: John continued looking for the person responsible. And eventually, he
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: traveled to Marriott in Lancaster County, where he consulted an
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: elderly and well-known practitioner, known as Nellie Knoll, or also
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: known as the River Witch of Mariette. She was definitely older,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: though sources disagree on her age, but she's often described
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: as being in her 70s or even up to her 90s,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and John consulted her repeatedly before receiving the answer that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he was looking for. He was seeking the identity of
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the person he believed had spent years ruining his health
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and his life. And Nellie eventually told him, yes, he
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: had been hexed. And there was a way she could
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: help him find this person. She placed a $ 1 bill
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: in the palm of John's hand and instructed him to
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: stare intently at the portrait of George Washington that was
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: facing him. After he had focused on the image on
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that $ 1 bill, she took it away and told him
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: to look at his palm. And there the face of
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the person responsible for his troubles would appear. And there
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: as he stared intently at those lines running through his
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: own hand, that's when John saw a face. It was
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the face of Nelson Raymeier.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, that is just so hard for me to take
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it and like almost believe, you know? Sometimes the power
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: of just believing something though, I guess is strong, is
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: also strong enough too.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. And like, don't get me wrong.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I do believe in some, some kind of witchcrafty stuff
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to a degree. I do believe in some of it,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: but this one, I do not believe it. You have
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to look at this in a deconstructed way. You're staring
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: at a face already on that $ 1 bill. And it's
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: no different than when you're scrolling your phone and you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: see these things. It's like stare at the dot in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the center of the screen. It's the same thing. You
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: remove the bill, you're going to see some sort of face.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And now you're going to try and align it with
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: people you know. He already knows the person responsible for
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this is someone he knows. And so he's been told
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and influenced. So this weird morphing shape of a face
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: in the light as he's blinking is moving and he's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: trying to associate it with someone he knows. And he's like,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I think that looks like this person.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And did he already suspect Nelson of kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: of being the person that did put a hex on him?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And do like Nelson and George Washington maybe look a
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: little bit similar?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe they did. I'm not certain. But as
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: far as I could find, like this answer of it
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: being Nelson, it didn't make sense to him at first.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think he suspected him.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Because you also have to remember that Nelson was the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: powwow practitioner who actually treated John when he was a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: kid and like in his mind saved his life.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Now, John, even after that, then worked on his farm
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: picking potatoes. Like, he felt like there was, like, they
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: were almost like distant relatives. Like, they were so close.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So, how could this be the man responsible is kind
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of what's going on in his mind. He's trying to
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: reconcile that. But yet, he was now sitting here with
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the face of the person who's supposed to be responsible
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: for his suffering. As far as this witch, this Nellie
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: was telling him.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Now, he returned to Nellie for further guidance, and she
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: apparently confirmed that Nelson was also supposedly responsible for troubling
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: affecting the sorry, the troubles affecting Curry and the Hess
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: family as well. So not only is Nelson being the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: one responsible for John's troubles, it's also for Curry's troubles
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and the Hess family's troubles.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So basically, he's just going around hexing everybody is what
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: she's claiming. But she did say that there was a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: way to stop it. In order to do so, John
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: needed Nelson's copy of the Long Lost Friends, that book
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier, that spell book.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Need this copy of the book and a lock of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Nelson's hair. Get both of these items and then bury
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: them at least six feet underground. That should stop the hex.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: John then convinced Curry and the members of the Hess
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: family that he knew who was responsible. It was Nelson
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: who was behind their problems. And so soon, with all
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: this information on hand, they came up with a plan.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: On the night of November 26, 1928, John and 14-year-old
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Curry set out for Raymire's Hollow. They did not make
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the trip alone, though. Clayton Hess, the older son of
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Milton and Alice Hess, drove them towards the area. He
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: took them as far as Hangtown, after which John and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Curry continued on foot into the hollow. The area was
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: rural and heavily wooded, with scattered farms and few obvious landmarks.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: John had known Nelson years earlier. He'd worked the farm,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: but enough time had passed, he wasn't exactly certain where
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Nelson was currently living. So their first stop was not
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Nelson's house. He went instead to the nearby home of
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Alice Rehmeyer, Nelson's wife. They were, of course, still married.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: but they'd been living apart for several years at this point.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And when John and Curry knocked on her door, she
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: opened up, and they asked where they could find Nelson.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Alice told them that as far as she knew, Nelson
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: was currently at his own farmhouse roughly a mile deeper
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: into the hollow. So the two continued on. And when
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: they reached Nelson's farmhouse, they knocked on the front door.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Nelson opened it up and let them inside. The three
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: men now sat together in the farmhouse and talked. John
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: asked questions about farming, about powwow, and the book, The
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Long Lost Friend, without telling Nelson why he was really
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: interested in it. And as the evening continued on, John
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: was also getting his first close look at Nelson in years.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: The difference he was seeing was very difficult to ignore
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: because last he saw him, he was a kid. He
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: couldn't quite remember him, right? So now he's an adult
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and he's comparing himself to Nelson. Nelson is a rather
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: large man, standing around six feet tall or taller, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: still very physically strong and imposing. But John, by comparison,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: had spent years struggling with illness and weight loss. Nelson
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: was much larger and much more imposing than he remembered.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: As the night wore on, the visit lasted long enough
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: that Nelson eventually offered the two men somewhere to sleep.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So John and Curry accepted. And once Nelson went to sleep,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: they began searching the farmhouse for his copy of that book.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: But they couldn't find it. And the second part of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the plan presented an even bigger problem to them. They
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: needed a lock of Nelson's hair. John and Curry discussed
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: whether they could take it while Nelson slept, but they
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: didn't believe they could do it without waking him. And
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: if Nelson did wake and resist, the two were not
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: confident they could restrain him alone. You have a 14-year-old
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and a frail 33-year-old against this physically imposing large farmer.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Probably not going to go well. The next morning, November 27th,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Nelson fed his guests breakfast before John and Curry thanked
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: him and left the farmhouse. They spent the night under
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Nelson's roof and walked away with neither of the things
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that they had came for. John went back to the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Hess family and explained the problem. Nelson was simply too
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: big and strong. If they were going to return with force, maybe,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to make him surrender the book and lock of hair, well,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: they needed muscle to do so. So Milton and Alice
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Hess agreed to help. Their 18-year-old son, Wilbert Hess, would
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: go with John and Currie back to Nelson's home. So
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on the night of November 27th, 1928, the three of
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: them returned to Raymire's Hollow. Clayton Hess again drove them
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: towards Nelson's farm, John and Currie had also obtained approximately
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: 25 feet of rope for this, which had been cut
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: into lengths of roughly five feet long each the plan
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: was to use the rope to restrain nelson long enough
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to take the lock of hair that they believed they
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: needed to break this hex it was late when they
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: reached the farmhouse at around 11 30 p.m in fact
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the house was already dark and nelson seemed to have
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: already gone to bed they knocked on his door repeatedly
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And eventually, Nelson opened an upstairs window and looked outside
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: with a lantern, asking who was there. John identified himself
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: standing there in the dark, and said that he had
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: left something behind in the house during their stay the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: night before, and they had returned to get it. Believing him,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Nelson came downstairs and let the three men inside. But
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: once they were in the house, the excuse quickly disappeared.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: John demanded Nelson's book. And Nelson asked, what book are
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: you talking about? But John pressed him, making it clear
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: he was talking about The Long Lost Friend, but Nelson
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: denied knowing what John was going on about. He didn't
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: know about this book or nothing. At one point, Nelson
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: turned towards the stove, apparently to put more wood on
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the fire. And that's when John gave the order to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: grab him. All three of the men rushed Nelson in
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that moment of weakness. But despite being outnumbered, Bringing him
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: down was not easy. The struggle intensified inside the small room.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: John picked up a chair and broke it across Nelson's back,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: smashing splinters around the room. And Curry then grabbed a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: piece of firewood from the pile and struck Nelson in
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the head with it. That blow to the head was devastating.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It was powerful enough to fracture Nelson's skull and drive
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: pieces of bone inward, lacerating his brain. which produced a
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: small intercranial hemorrhage. And with that, Nelson went limp and
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: collapsed on the floor.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Dang, holy heck, eh? And he was like, I feel
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: like only just ever trying to help.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all he was doing.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Now, the attack didn't stop there, though. The men used
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the rope that they had brought with them. Nelson's hands
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and feet were bound, and another piece of rope was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: placed around his neck. And they began to pull it tight,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: strangling him. After a while of doing so, the three
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: men were confident that Nelson was dead. There was no
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: longer need in John's mind to take Nelson's hair. His
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: death itself was viewed as enough to end the hex.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, is that what the person had said? They could
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: also just kill him?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I don't believe so. Not as far as I could find,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: but clearly he made his own assumptions.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's making his own rules now.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, after that, the three began searching the house.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: They were looking for the book, but they were also
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: looking for some things that Nelson was known to hide.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Money and gold in tin cans beneath or around his staircase.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: So the men pulled apart sections of the steps, reportedly
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: particularly around the third step, looking for these valuables. But
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: they couldn't find that book. They sure maybe have got
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: some coins or gold, but that book, The Long Lost Friend,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't anywhere. so with some valuables stolen and no book,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and Nelson still lying on the floor. The three men
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: then turned to destroying what remained. Oil was poured over
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Nelson's body and around the surrounding floor. Then a match
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: was lit and thrown down onto it, catching Nelson's body
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: on fire. John, Curry, and Wilbert left the farmhouse quickly,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: expecting the flames to spread throughout the old wooden structure.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And as they moved away, they looked back. And what
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the three saw appeared to be movement apparently inside the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: house now whether that was nelson moving around because he
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: was still alive maybe it was their imagination or maybe
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: it was shadows from the flames dancing in the kitchen
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to establish but whatever happened inside the expected
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: inferno never came the flames lit up burned through parts
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of the floor around nelson and then the fire went
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: out and the farmhouse remained standing Two days passed before
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: anyone entered Nelson's farmhouse again. On Thursday, November 29, 1928,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day, a nearby resident, David Vanover, noticed something unusual
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: at Nelson's property. After Thanksgiving dinner that afternoon, he could
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: hear Nelson's livestock making considerable more noise than normal. The
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: animals appeared to be hungry and thirsty, and Nelson, who
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: ordinarily cared for them very regularly, was nowhere to be found.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: So David went over to the farm and tended to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the animals himself. But Nelson and his continued absence, it
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: bothered him. It bothered him enough that him and another neighbor,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Oscar Gladfelter, got together. They approached the farmhouse and knocked
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: on his door, but there was no answer. So David
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and Oscar opened the front door to the house and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to shout out Nelson to see if he was there,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: see if something was wrong. And what they found inside
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: immediately made it clear that something terrible had happened. Because
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: there was Nelson, laying on the floor face down, with
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: his head positioned against or near the pile of wood.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: A rope remained around his neck, blood was visible across
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the floor, while portions of the room had been scorched
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: and blackened. The fire had done considerable damage to parts
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: of the wooden floor, and it even burned completely through
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: some of the floorboards and such, but somehow the flames
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: stopped before consuming the rest of the building. Smoke and
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: soot had blackened the kitchen and Nelson himself had been
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: badly burned. But the condition of the room showed that
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the fire was only part of what had happened. There
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: had clearly been violence before anything was set ablaze. David
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: quickly got on a horse and went back to a
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: nearby home where Alice Ramire, Nelson's wife, was living. He
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: told her that something had happened to her husband and
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: she needed to come to the house. Authorities were soon
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: summoned as well, and the investigation began with a basic question.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Who had recently been at Nelson's farm? Nelson lived alone,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: but he was hardly isolated from everyone around him. People
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: knew him throughout the community, and his work as a
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: powwow practitioner meant visitors were not necessarily unusual to this farm,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: but they certainly were regular. Investigators therefore needed to establish
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: who had seen him in the most recent days and
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: whether anyone had been looking for him in the days
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: before his death. And Alice was able to provide them
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: with an important piece of information.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Right before you said that, I was like, they had
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: talked to the wife.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: They did.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I can't believe how much this had just escalated though.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: And I'm just sitting here wondering too if that Nellie
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: person wanted that book and like And that's why she
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: had come up with this like whole plan or something.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the, the, the, the situation here.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: She probably already had her own copy. It was a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: readily available book. It was fairly cool.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: But there was ties to like the practitioner and their book.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: That book was supposed to like protect the practitioners and such. Um,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, unless there's something underlying within this whole, you know,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: powwow stuff where it's like, Hey, you get another practitioner's powers.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: If you get their book or something, I don't know.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: But from my understanding at the very least, I don't
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: think it comes to that. It's definitely possible though.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: So the fact, I guess, for a believer, for him
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: not to have his book, they could also believe like
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: this is kind of why this happened to him too,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: I guess, right?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, theoretically, yeah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Now, Alice told them, of course, that on Monday, November 26th,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the two men had come to her home asking where
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: they could find Nelson. She actually recognized one of those men, though, too.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: His name was John Blymere. Police quickly located John and
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Curry as well and brought them in for questioning. And
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: investigators asked them directly whether they had anything to do
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: with Nelson's murder. And they admitted that they did.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Well, that sure didn't take them very long to find them.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: It really didn't. It was, who could this have been?
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And it was, I think I know. And there was,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: did you guys do this?
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much how it went down. So John and
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Curry told police that Nelson was a witch who had
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: placed a hex on them. And in their minds, the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: killing had been necessary to end it all. John in
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: particular showed very little apparent remorse in the accounts of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: his confession. He continued insisting that Nelson had cursed him
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and treated the killing as a response to something that
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Nelson had done first. And as investigators questioned the two men,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Another name emerged, Wilbert Hess, who was the third involved.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: The 18-year-old farmhand had gone to the hollow with them
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: on November 27th. Wilbert had already been struggling with what
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: had happened that night, though. According to an account connected
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to his family, he went to his mother, brother, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: sister-in-law after returning home and described what had happened when
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: they murdered Nelson. But his family didn't report it. Instead,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: they apparently tried to comfort Wilbert, telling him that it
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: sounded as though the events had simply gotten out of hand.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: But once police learned Wilbert had been there too, all
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: three men were brought in and all three confessed. By
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: December 1st, 1928, four days after Nelson was killed, local
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: newspapers were already publishing accounts of their confession. Only then
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: did the full reason for the strange condition of Nelson's
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: farmhouse begin to actually emerge. The men explained the original
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: goal was actually not a robbery. Because investigators, when they
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: first seen the scene, they thought probably a robbery gone bad.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: But John believed Nelson had hexed him. He also convinced
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Curry and the Hesses that Nelson was responsible for their
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: problems too. And the supposed way to break that curse
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: was requiring his hair and a copy of his book,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: The Long Lost Friend. And they explained that John and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Curry had first visited peacefully on November 26th. But then
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: they explained that they returned with Wilbert. And the rope.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: That 25 feet of rope, cut into short lengths, had
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: supposedly been intended to hold Nelson's hands and feet while
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: they cut his hair. But instead, the rope became part
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of the attack itself, including the length placed around Nelson's neck.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: And as far as I could find, I could not
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: find an account of whether they went there wanting to
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: kill him or if anyone intended to kill him going
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: to that house that day. As far as their defense goes,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: they did not. They went there intending to tie him
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: get his hair. And I guess in the heat of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the moment, they just took things much further.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Honestly, that's sort of how I feel too, that it just,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Escalated.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Escalated. And I don't know, in the moment, they just, because, well,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think with the one kid, it was the
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: 14-year-old that hit him across the head with the piece
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: of wood, right?
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. The 14-year-old Curry was the one who struck Nelson
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: on the head with a piece of wood. John struck
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Nelson on the back with a chair.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So hitting someone across the head with a freaking piece
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: of wood is obviously going to cause some serious damage.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like his intention was to kill him.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: It might not have been. You're right. It could not
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: have been, but it could have been.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: But then the whole thing just like escalated. They realized
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: how injured they made him. And then, I don't know,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like it just spiraled because they were like
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: men that went into that house without a plan.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Really? I don't think that they realized. It wasn't a
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: matter of like, oh, we didn't realize how much we
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: injured him. I think it was John struck him with
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a chair. Then Curry struck him with wood. And it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: was just next step, next step. And then they definitely
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: meant to kill him when they're strangling him. That's premeditated murder.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: You have a weapon. You're strangling him and waiting for
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: him to go limp.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: But why did it get to that point then? Because
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: they had done too much and they're like, okay, we
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: got to just end this. Because I don't feel like
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: they went in there thinking they were going to kill him.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think so either. So it was just a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: matter of escalation. But in the moment of strangling, that
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: is certainly intense to kill. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: For sure. And then the frigging burning of the body
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: and everything. Like, gosh.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Which is just covering their tracks.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Very savage.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Now, their accounts of the violence was not perfectly consistent
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: through what they were saying, though. But the general sequence
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: was rather clear. Nelson was attacked after... Turning away from
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the men, a violent struggle followed. He was beaten with
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: an object or multiple inside the farmhouse. He was restrained
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: with rope and then strangled until they were satisfied that
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: he was dead. Then after searching the home, they tried
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: to destroy the evidence. Oil was poured over Nelson and
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: the surrounding floor and the farmhouse was lit on fire,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: but the fire failed. The physical evidence police found were
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Nelson's restraints, his severe head injury, the disturbed house, the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: fire damage, and the attempt to of burning the body. Now,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: it could all be placed beside the statements of these
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: three men who were admitting what had happened. The investigation
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: itself moved quickly, which we are already very well aware.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And the story outside the police station moved even faster.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Once newspapers learned that three people had confessed to a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: killing involving a man who they thought hexed them, well,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: reporters soon descended on York County. and the homicide became
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: a national curiosity. Articles focused on witches, curses, folk magic,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and what outsiders described as the strange superstitions of Pennsylvania's
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: German communities. Some headlines portrayed York County as a place
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: where people were still living according to beliefs that the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: rest of the country associated with past centuries. And with
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the news coverage, Nelson Ramire's murder became known as the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: York Hex Murder and the Hex Hollow Murder. sensationalizing the title. Now,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the defendants were tried separately, with proceedings beginning in the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: earliest of around January 7th, 1929, and the court initially
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: tried to keep the supernatural elements out of the case.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Judge Ray P. Sherwood made it clear at the beginning
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of John's trial that he did not want testimony about witches, hexes,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: or even powwows. The prosecution instead approached the killing as
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: a robbery that ended in murder. But unfortunately, that approach
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: didn't last.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Well, that's not really what happened, though, either.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: But I guess for people who maybe don't believe in
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: all of this, they have to just kind of break
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: it down a little.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's got to be a line in the sand somewhere.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Sure, okay, he went there thinking that a hex was
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: placed on him and he needed to remove the hex.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: But the facts are, you went in there, killed a man,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: stole some stuff.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Because technically they did go in for a robbery because
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: they were wanting to rob him of the book and
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: a piece of his hair.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Technically, yes.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Technically speaking. Now, during testimony from Clayton Hess, though, Wilbert's
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: older brother, the word witch officially entered the record. And
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: John's attorney, Cohen, argued that the prosecution had opened the
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: door to the very subject the court was trying to exclude.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: It's officially in the trial. Someone had mentioned it. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: so Judge Sherwood agreed that, yes, here we are. We
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: tried to keep it out, but unfortunately, it's in the trial.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It's part of the story. So he allowed the defense
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to begin presenting evidence about John's belief in curses and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: his history of mental instability.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: The judge was probably just like, fuck, as soon as
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: that word came out of his mouth.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Probably. And to be fair, I honestly do think it
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: should be in there. I don't think it should affect
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: much of facts though. Sure, you believed there was a hex.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: That's your personal belief. That's your mental belief. That shows
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: your intent, but it does not change the fact of
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the case, right?
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Nope, I agree.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Beliefs, mental instability, all that can be wrapped up in
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the same thing. It's your personal belonging, what's going on
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: inside your mind, nothing more. Now for John, that became
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the center of his defense. This curses the history, the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the religion, and the mental instability. Now, Cohen argued that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: John had spent much of his life trapped in delusion
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: involving witches and hexes and was unable to appreciate the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: wrongfulness of what he had done, and his previous institutionalizations
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and obsession with the supernatural soon became relevant evidence, honestly,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: as John's state of mind. However, the jury ultimately rejected
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the insanity defense they were seeking, and John was convicted.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: of first-degree murder, with the jury recommending life imprisonment rather
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: than execution. Even then, though, his belief in hexes apparently
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: had not changed throughout it all. Cohen later recalled John
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: sitting beside him, looking around the courtroom, cracking his knuckles
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: before remarking that the witch was dead and that he
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: could finally eat and sleep in peace. Now the case
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: against John Curry moved even faster. Curry was still only
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: 14 years old, and his court-appointed attorney, Walter Van Bamman,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: largely avoided trying to justify the killing through powwow beliefs. Instead,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: he focused on Curry's childhood, the death of his father, neglect,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: abuse at home, and influence John had developed over him.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: At one point, Walter even pointed towards Curry's mother in
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the courtroom and blaming the circumstances of Curry's upbringing on
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: her for where the boy found himself now. and allegedly
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: she collapsed during the emotional argument. Ultimately, Curry's trial lasted
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: less than a day, and the jury found him guilty
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: of first-degree murder, and he too received life in prison.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: That leaves us with Wilbert Hess. Unlike John and Curry,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Wilbert's family hired an attorney named Harvey Gross. Now, Gross
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: emphasized that Wilbert was was an 18-year-old farm boy who
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: had been pulled into a plan created largely by others.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And one of the strongest moments for the defense came
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: from Wilbert's own mother, Alice Hess. Under questioning, she admitted
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: that Wilbert had come to her the morning after Nelson's
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: death and told her he had not wanted to go
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to that farmhouse and he didn't want to do what
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: the others wanted to do and he was pushed into
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: doing it. He nevertheless told her that despite his involvement,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Nelson was in fact dead. And he said that he
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: hoped that she would now get better and whatever hex
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that there had been on them would be gone. Now,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Gross jumped on that testimony and portrayed Wilbert as a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: sacrificial lamb sent into the situation by adults who already
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: believed that the Hess family had been cursed.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Well, he kind of was used for his muscle, right?
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: He literally was.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And that argument made a big difference. Although it was
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: not enough to produce an acquittal, Wilbert was convicted of
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. Now,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: by then, Nelson had already been buried. His funeral was
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: held on December 5th, 1928 at Sadler's Church. So many
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: people attended that the church could not hold the large crowd.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: So the building's windows were opened wide, so that those
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: who were standing outside could get a glimpse and hear
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the service. Now, none of the three convicted men ultimately
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: spent the rest of their lives behind bars. Wilbert Hess
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: was released in 1939 after serving approximately 10 years of
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: his 10-20 year sentence. John Curry was also released in
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: 1939 after roughly 10 years behind bars, reportedly on the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: condition that he enter and serve in the military. Curry
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: later trained as a cartographer, and worked on maps connected
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: with the Allied invasion of Normandy before returning to York County,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: where he became known for his artwork. John Blymere, though
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: he remained in prison considerably longer. He spent approximately 23
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: years at Eastern State Penitentiary before being released in 1953.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: A relative later recalled that even after he was released, though,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: members of the family remained convinced that that John's fundamental
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: belief about Nelson Rehmeyer had never changed. Regardless of the time, though,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the murder itself left its mark on York County. National
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: coverage had taken a Pennsylvanian-German tradition built largely around prayer, healing,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: and protection, and repackaged it for outsiders as evidence that
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: witchcraft was still thriving in modern America. The distinction between
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: powwow and hexerai was largely lost in sensational headlines. And
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Nelson Raymeier became known across the country as a witch.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: But before the label swallowed his name, he'd been something
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: much simpler. A farmer, a husband, a father, and a
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: folk healer who regularly opened his door to people who
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: were simply asking for help. In fact, he even opened
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: his door to the very people who would kill him.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: The old farmhouse survived the fire that was meant to
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: destroy it. And in the years that followed, the place,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: once simply known as Ray Myers Hollow, acquired another name.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Hex Hollow. And that's the story of the Hex Hollow murder.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: What a, like, soap opera story, I feel like.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it could be something that's straight
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: out of Hollywood.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: And, okay, so I don't know if you even know this,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: but I'm still confused about one thing. Like, did John...
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: John convinced the other... Or like the one family and
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: then the one boy that Nelson was behind all of this. Yes.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: But did Nelson even know those people?
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I am uncertain. I don't, I don't know. I mean,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: within the small communities, it is very possible.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: But it was basically John that was just.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Fixating.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Like he was like the leader and he was just
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: very obviously convincing people. to the others and they are
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: accepting what he believed.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He was basically a crusader for his own religion
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and convinced and led other people to murder an innocent man. Yeah.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: An innocent man that was just like living his life,
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: trying to actually help people in a way that he
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: believed would help people.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Right. Now, the fact that they couldn't even find the book, honestly,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: should be evidence enough for John to say, this isn't
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: the man who hexed me. Something's wrong. Because the witch
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: who instructed you and told you and gave you the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: little like George Washington dollar bill in your hand ceremony
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: thing all pointed towards this is the man. And she said,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: get his book and lock of hair. He doesn't have
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the fucking book. So clearly she's wrong.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Jeez. That's crazy. I don't know this story.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: This story is going to like live in my head
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: for the day because it's very interesting. it's different, right?
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: It's so different.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And it's just like a different world. And to kind
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: of like put yourself in that world is almost like,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a unique feeling, I guess. Yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I was honestly tempted to save this one for Halloween,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't wait that long.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: No, fair enough. Yeah. It's a different world. That's for sure.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Now I'm, I wasn't going to say anything. Um, well,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: actually I was going to, I was planning on saying
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: it at the very end here. Um, but this entire
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: time recording the podcast, it's been driving me nuts. Your
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: sweater's on backwards. I can see the tag on the front. Oh,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: my God. So you might want to swap that around
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: before you throw it earlier.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I was fiddling with it a lot because it felt
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: so funny. Okay, this is why. I actually didn't sleep
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: well last night at all.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I just see this little sewn square right in the front.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Clearly, this is an indication that I really maybe need
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: to have a nap.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: You might need to have a nap. Okay, well, I'm
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: going to go put Nicole down for an hour or so.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys for being here. We appreciate you. Check
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: out the description for more for our show. We have
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: our website. We got Patreon where you can get exclusive
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes content, extra episodes and ads free listening.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: We're here because of you. You're listening does the world
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: for us. We're an independent podcast, owned our own, researched
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: our own, written all of it. It's us in our
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: tiny home and you. So thank you so much. We
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: appreciate you.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: I just have to say something though.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Because this is quite funny because you and I fixate
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: on things about each other when we're like recording, obviously,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: because the amount of times that I am fixated on
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: like a gray beard hair that I wish I could
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: pluck while we're recording is often.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Well, we're just sitting here staring at each other for
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: over an hour or so.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Anyway, I just had to put that
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: out there, but thanks for being here. And until next time.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Stay wicked.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: © transcript Emily Beynon