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Short Stuff: Teresita Basa · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you're welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Still and of course this short stuff short stuff now,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So Jos, I should have a question for you. I
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: know that every time we go to Chicago, you're always like,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: this is the creepiest place I've ever been. It feels haunted.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Forget New Orleans, right, forget other creepy places. This Chicago
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is the scariest place on earth. I do say that.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And you know what, after listening to this story, you
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: might be right. Yeah, yeah, um, it is a surprising town.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Like that's kind of where the Dunes murders started, That's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: where the Thailand all murders were. I think I just
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: realized this is the third one. Huh yeah, at the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: very least, at the very least. Um and in fact,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: part of this um this episode takes place in Edgewater Hospital, which, um,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: look up abandoned Edgewater Hospital. There's like fifty pictures of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this one maybe abandoned hospital. Oh my gosh, and um,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was abandoned maybe in the nineties. Is
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: like this this empty abandoned hospital in a high rise.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: But it's where Hillary Clinton was born and where John
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Wayne Gacy was born. Really. Yeah, but by thet I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't. I didn't go to the trouble
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of checking out their ages to see how far apart
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: they were. But wouldn't that be weird? Has a right
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: linked them together? Eventually? If not, they will. Now we
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: just gave him a little a little piece of little shred. No,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: but we'll look into it. So. Um, at this Edgewater
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: hospital there was a woman named Tarasee to Bassa who
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: worked there, and she was forty seven. She was Filipino,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and apparently she was a well to do Filipino aristocrat
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: ex pat who lived in America and worked as a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: respiratory therapist nurse in at Edgewater Hospital. Uh. And she
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: lived in Chicago, in Chicago proper, not in the suburbs.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And one day she is discovered in her apartment under
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a smoldering pile of clothing, naked with a kitchen knife
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: sticking out of her chest. She had been murdered. I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: think the fire department founder and they were really surprised
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: with what they found. Yeah, it was a pretty routine
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: call for them of an apartment fire on February two
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and under like you said, under the under a mattress,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a clear murder because of that kitchen knife sticking out
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of her chest, and that would have been an accident. Sure,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you stab yourself in the chest and then set your
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: clothing on fire under a mattress, that, yeah, it would
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: have been of an accident. Right, So this is unfortunately
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it just goes unsolved. There's like six months in These
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: detectives who are working in the case, they try out
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: every lead, they start doing some investigating, they find, you know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: maybe there were people who wanted are dead. Nobody had
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the right motive or opportunity. There was no good suspect
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and they reached a total dead end within six months.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: That's right. So, Uh. Detective Joe Statuela of homicide came
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in one day about six months later, I saw a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: note on his desk that said called the Evanston Police
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Department about the Terra Seda boss A case. He called
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Evanston and they said, hey, you need to call Dr.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Jose Chiwa in Skokie. And he said, couldn't they have
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: just put that on the note Let save me a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: phone call, And they said, we wanted you to know
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: it came from US so Skokie, Illinois. Uh, which always
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: reminds me of usual suspects. Oh, definitely does it to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you too, barbershop quartet, that's right, Sco Illinois. Um. They
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: went to see Dr Joe Jose we call him Joe Chua,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: who was also a Filipino, as we'll see, and they
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: interviewed him and he said, a weird thing has happened here.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: My wife, she's thirty eight years old. She has gone
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: into trances three different times, saying in Tagalog that she
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: is tarasee to bassa and she needs help solving her murder.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And here's who did it, right, which is very very
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: weird and and kind of something that you would probably ignore,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: especially if you got a call from somebody saying, yeah,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: my wife went into trance and said that she's a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: murder victim. But there were two things going on here. One,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Statuta and his partner had reached the total dead end
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in this case, and really any lead was was worth
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: pursuing at this point, right. And then two, not only
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: had them the doctor's wife, um, what is it rema
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: bossa no rembias remibius chewa uh doctor Jose to his wife,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not only had she said that she was this murder
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: victim she named the murderer, and she also said that
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the murderer had been in Terra Seda's apartment and had
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: stolen things from it, and that some of that stolen
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: goods were jewelry that he had given to his girlfriend.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So the fact that like this voice from the grave
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was saying that she was a murder victim and also
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: saying who did it and what they did with the jewelry,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that was enough, apparently to convince the detectives to follow
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: upon it. And not only that, before we take our
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: little break, she gave names of people who could identify
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: this jewelry and telephone numbers of those people, which is
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pretty nuts. Yeah, Ron, Samara kin Bossa, Richard past and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Ray Kings and that's not even the murderer. So that's
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a pretty good setup. I think we'll take a break
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and we'll tell you what happened after this. As s
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: k as all right, So she says in these trances
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: antagalog that she is this murdered woman, Teresa Teresa to Bassa,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: h huh. This guy broke into my house who works
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: at my hospital as a respiratory technician. He comes into
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: ostensibly fix a television murders me steals my jewelry that
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: was given to me uh in France as a gift
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: from my father two my mom. He stole the stuff.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Here's the people that can verify it. Here their phone numbers.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: They decide to investigate, and it checks out. It checks out.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: That's the crazy thing. The detectives start looking into this
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and they're like, there is this man named Alan Showery
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and he did work with Tarasee to Bassa, so let's
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: go visit him. And they went to because she named him.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: We've come out across right right. She said Alan Showery
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: killed me. That this woman in the trance said this
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: man Alan Showery was my murderer. So the detective and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: she gave enough information. The detectives followed up on it.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: They went to visit Allan Showery and they um, they said, hey,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: will you come down to the station with us, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: he went with them voluntarily, which is very important, as
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: we'll see in a minute. And they started interviewing him
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: about Tarasee to Bassa's murder. Apparently they read him as rights.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: They did everything by the book. Uh, they didn't arrest
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: him or anything like that. But he started answering questions
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: down at the station, and the more questions he answered,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the more they started to suspect that he was lying
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: because they were actually catching him in lies and contradictions
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and things like that. And eventually he admitted to having
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: gone to her apartment to help her fix the TV,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: but that she had called and canceled before he got there,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: so he went home instead. Well, the second thing they
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: did was they went to his apartment and talked to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend and said, hey, has your boyfriend given you
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: any jewelry recently? She said, well, yeah, he gave me
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: this pendant in this ring is a late Christmas present,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and um, I love them, don't they just look divine?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: The late Christmas present? And the detectives say, well, yes,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that does look very nice, but can we see these
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: things or take pictures of them? And if they took
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: him from her, um, and they had Taraceta boss's relatives
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that had been named apparently by raymie Chewa to come
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: down and look at these, um this jewelry and say
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: yeah or nay whether it was taracetas and they said yea,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: this is remarkable. So this is all plowing ahead. Uh.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: He is arrested and charged. There is a trial hearing here.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Hold on, he confessed, so he confessed, So they have
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a trial hearing on emotion from the assistant public defender,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: William Swanno, and he says, you know what, there's no
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: probable calls here. They got a call about a trance
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that I think this woman faked, and that arrest was
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: illegal to begin with because they liked probable calls. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: never to my knowledge quote, never to my knowledge has
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a man been arrested because of a supernatural vision. Police
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: have never been informed of a criminals name by a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: voice from the grave. And the judge went, except until now,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: because that's exactly what happened, dude. Yeah, the judge upheld
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: it in this hearing to throw out the entire arrest
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: because again, Chuck like, we're regardless of whether this trance
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: was taraset to Bassa possessing Ramy Chewa, regardless of what
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: you think of that. In the Annals of American Justice,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: there is a case where a man was arrested because
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of strictly because of a tip that detectives received from
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a woman claiming to have been possessed by the murder victim.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: That happened, Yeah, and the judge said, I see no
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: reason to restrict the investigatory power of the police, whether
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: they believe the voices are not. They had to check
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: it out. And that was sort of the party line,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: which is like, hey man, it doesn't matter if a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: dog came out and pete out a name on the street,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Like they went to this guy's house and he did
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: it right, so like who cares? That was basically the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: whole the whole thing, Like they because the police followed
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: proper procedure, because they advised him of his rights, because
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Alan Showery went with them voluntarily and answered their questions voluntarily,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and the fact that he confessed, like all of this,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter as far as the law is concerned
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: whether Taraseea Bassa possessed Rami Chu or not. They they
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: followed procedure, and they followed up on this tip. And
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: so there's a trial. And during the trial, um Alan Showery,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: it looked like he might get off. There was a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: mistrial in fact, but then he surprised everybody. While he
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was awaiting a new trial, he played guilty and didn't
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: get a second trial and instead was given something like
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: fourteen years for the murder and then four years each
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: for robbery and arson. But he's still he only served
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I think something like five which in and of itself
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it is crazy. But he was caught strictly because of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that call from from Raimi Chiwa's husband, Dr Jose Chiwa.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And so now you have to go back and say
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: how much of this is true? And apparently everything we've
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: said is true and verified that there were reports done
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: on it. That thing about that hearing that was from
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a Washington Post article we found from I believe this
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: is all true. That no one came out later and said,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you know, my wife's actually an amateur investigator, and she
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: thought it'd be kind of fun to solve this case
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and then present it and wrap it in the enticing
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: book jacket of a trance right. What what the I think?
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: We found some guy in a story and from Chicago
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: wrote a post about it, and he kind of captured
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: what I what I suspect um. One thing that gets
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: left out very frequently is that Raimi Chiwa was a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: co worker, uh kind of friend yeah, of Tara Sea
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: bassa Um went to a party at her apartment, so
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: knew where she lived and then also knew Alan Showery
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: was actually scared of Alan Showery. So this historian posits
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that she was actually so afraid of coming forward, but
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: so overcome by the guilt of keeping this, this this
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: thought to herself. It just came out like that, And
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. It would it would be more culturally
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: acceptable to do that than to, you know, just keep
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: it to herself. That that's where the trance came from.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: That she somehow acquired all this knowledge. If that's the case,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that's still pretty interesting too. Yeah, she could have been
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: sleep walking and talking, sure, which appears like a trance.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: But either way, it's all pretty remarkable. It is pretty remarkable.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: One of the most remarkable cases in American law enforcement
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and justice. And that's why we dedicated twelve minutes to it,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: more than that man thirteen and a half baby. Uh,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that's it for this short stuff, right, That's right, Short
• 13:32
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• 13:37
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• 13:40
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• 13:43
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