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Don-t-do-what-he-did-MATURE-AUDIENCES · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's episode deals almost exclusively with suicide and with depression,
0:04
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to start this by saying, if
0:07
Speaker 1: you or someone you know is struggling with mental health,
0:10
Speaker 1: there are resources that can help you. I've left a
0:12
Speaker 1: number of them in the description below. But before we
0:15
Speaker 1: get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
0:18
Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to
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Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do, and we
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Speaker 2: So if that's of interest to you, please ask the like.
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Speaker 1: Button if you can borrow their phone for a second
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Speaker 1: and then proceed to change their language setting to Japanese
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Speaker 1: and then hand it back to them. Also, please subscribe
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Speaker 2: Of our weekly uploads.
0:38
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into today's story. In the early
0:53
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Richard Sumner was in his twenties and he
0:57
Speaker 1: was a scenic designer for a major opera house just.
0:59
Speaker 2: Outside of London.
1:00
Speaker 1: Richard was a truly gifted artist and was known to
1:04
Speaker 1: be a very intelligent man. In nineteen eighty four, when
1:07
Speaker 1: Richard was twenty nine, he started to notice he was
1:09
Speaker 1: having a really hard time focusing, like he couldn't keep basic.
1:13
Speaker 2: Information straight in his head.
1:15
Speaker 1: It would just get all jumbled up, and it was
1:17
Speaker 1: making his job exponentially more difficult. Initially, Richard assumed it
1:21
Speaker 1: must just be the product of working lots of long
1:24
Speaker 1: hours and being under lots of pressure all the time.
1:26
Speaker 1: But after taking a few days off from work, his
1:29
Speaker 1: mental focus did not come back. In fact, it only
1:32
Speaker 1: got worse, and so when he told his friends and
1:34
Speaker 1: his colleagues about it, they urged him to go see
1:36
Speaker 1: a doctor, and so finally he did. He went to
1:39
Speaker 1: a doctor, and the doctor put him through a series
1:41
Speaker 1: of tests and was really only able to rule out
1:44
Speaker 1: different medical conditions. They were not able to pinpoint what
1:47
Speaker 1: was actually causing this mental disturbance, and so Richard was
1:50
Speaker 1: pretty frustrated because he thought by going to the doctor,
1:53
Speaker 1: they would figure out what it was and you know,
1:55
Speaker 1: give him a pill and that would make everything better.
1:57
Speaker 2: But that wasn't happening.
1:58
Speaker 1: He was left with a lot of questions, and so
2:00
Speaker 1: Richard went to another doctor and another doctor for additional opinions,
2:04
Speaker 1: and they too were not able to get to the
2:06
Speaker 1: bottom of what was going on with him, and so
2:08
Speaker 1: finally Richard found himself sitting across from a psychologist asking
2:11
Speaker 1: them if they had the answer, and they did. They
2:14
Speaker 1: informed Richard that he was unfortunately developing schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is
2:19
Speaker 1: a very serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally.
2:24
Speaker 1: Schizophrenics usually experience some combination of hallucinations, delusions, extremely disordered thinking,
2:31
Speaker 1: and behavior that can be disabling.
2:34
Speaker 2: Richard was horrified.
2:35
Speaker 1: At this diagnosis and he asked us, psych you know
2:37
Speaker 1: what can I do?
2:38
Speaker 2: How can I get better?
2:39
Speaker 1: And the psych would tell him that unfortunately, there is
2:42
Speaker 1: no cure for schizophrenia. However, medical treatment has been shown
2:46
Speaker 1: to be very effective in some people, especially when it's
2:49
Speaker 1: caught early, and it seems like we're catching your disorder
2:52
Speaker 1: fairly early, and so Richard immediately began the medical treatment plan,
2:56
Speaker 1: and he seemed to be one of the lucky few
2:58
Speaker 1: that benefited tremendously from it. In fact, within just days
3:02
Speaker 1: of being told of this diagnosis, he was back to
3:05
Speaker 1: work at the opera House. But over the years, despite
3:08
Speaker 1: Richard diligently staying on his medical treatment plan, he just
3:12
Speaker 1: continued to kind of spiral because of this disorder, and
3:15
Speaker 1: it was becoming more and more apparent at work that
3:17
Speaker 1: Richard was just not the same anymore. He had lost
3:20
Speaker 1: that mental focus that he was known for, and he
3:23
Speaker 1: was perpetually fatigued. And so in nineteen ninety six, so
3:27
Speaker 1: twelve years after his original diagnosis, Richard finally had to
3:31
Speaker 1: step away from.
3:32
Speaker 2: His job at the opera house. He just couldn't do
3:34
Speaker 2: the work anymore.
3:35
Speaker 1: Although Richard was eligible for governmental assistance because of his schizophrenia,
3:40
Speaker 1: the money he would receive from those benefits would not
3:43
Speaker 1: be enough to cover the costs associated with living in
3:46
Speaker 1: his flat in London, and so he was forced to
3:49
Speaker 1: move back home with his family in North Wales. Even
3:51
Speaker 1: though his family welcomed him with open arms, Richard immediately
3:55
Speaker 1: felt like he was this huge burden to them, and
3:58
Speaker 1: within a year of having moved back home, Richard had
4:01
Speaker 1: fallen into this deep, dark depression and he decided he
4:04
Speaker 1: did not want to live anymore. So one day that fall,
4:07
Speaker 1: Richard left his house and he walked to a store
4:09
Speaker 1: where he purchased handcuffs, and then he took those handcuffs.
4:12
Speaker 1: He left the store and he walked away from town
4:15
Speaker 1: towards this secluded forest that was not too far away,
4:18
Speaker 1: and when he got to the forest, he picked a
4:19
Speaker 1: trail and he started walking down it, and he kept
4:22
Speaker 1: looking over his shoulder until finally he could not actually
4:25
Speaker 1: see the town anymore. He was fairly far into these
4:27
Speaker 1: woods at that point. He deviated off of the trail
4:30
Speaker 1: and walked for several more minutes until he came to
4:33
Speaker 1: a stop in front of this tree that had some
4:35
Speaker 1: fairly thick, low hanging branches. At that point, he took
4:38
Speaker 1: his handcuffs and he connected one cuff to one of
4:41
Speaker 1: these branches and made sure it would not come off,
4:43
Speaker 1: and then he connected the other cuff to his right wrist,
4:46
Speaker 1: and once he was fully secured, he leaned back.
4:49
Speaker 2: Against the tree and he began to wait.
4:51
Speaker 1: It's unclear what drove Richard to choose such a slow
4:54
Speaker 1: and tortuous method for ending his life, but apparently after
4:58
Speaker 1: four days of leaning up against this tree and not dying,
5:01
Speaker 1: he began to have second thoughts about it. He was
5:03
Speaker 1: desperately hungry and thirsty and extremely tired because he was
5:07
Speaker 1: in this kind of semi upright position that didn't really
5:10
Speaker 1: allow him to sleep, and he just ate from standing
5:13
Speaker 1: and kind of hanging on his wrist for as long
5:15
Speaker 1: as he had been, and he was worried that he
5:17
Speaker 1: was still days away from dying. He also started to
5:20
Speaker 1: feel really bad about the effect his death would have.
5:23
Speaker 2: On his family.
5:24
Speaker 1: They loved him, and even though they knew he was depressed,
5:27
Speaker 1: they were not thinking he was suicidal, and so this
5:29
Speaker 1: would be a huge shock and it would be extremely
5:32
Speaker 1: upsetting for years and years to come. Richard also started
5:35
Speaker 1: thinking about the poor soul that was going to stumble
5:37
Speaker 1: across his.
5:38
Speaker 2: Body in the middle of the woods after he had.
5:40
Speaker 1: Passed, and he thought, what a terrible thing for someone
5:43
Speaker 1: to have to go through. And so on the night
5:45
Speaker 1: of the fourth day that he's been out in the woods,
5:47
Speaker 1: chained up to this tree, Richard finally decides that he
5:51
Speaker 1: just can't go through with it, and so with his
5:52
Speaker 1: left hand, his free hand, he reaches into his pocket.
5:55
Speaker 1: He gets the handcuff key, and just a couple of
5:57
Speaker 1: seconds later he's out. He's free, and so hopped his
6:00
Speaker 1: way back to the path and he makes his way
6:02
Speaker 1: out of the forest and walks all the way home.
6:04
Speaker 1: When he goes inside, his sister is there and she's
6:06
Speaker 1: totally shocked to see him. She sees the state he's in,
6:09
Speaker 1: and she's asking, you know, are you okay, what have
6:10
Speaker 1: you been doing?
6:11
Speaker 2: Where have you been?
6:12
Speaker 1: We've been so worried, And that's when Richard confides in
6:15
Speaker 1: her that he had been in the forest and he
6:16
Speaker 1: had just attempted suicide. And so his sister is totally
6:19
Speaker 1: devastated at this news, and she tries to comfort him
6:22
Speaker 1: and remind him that she and the rest of the
6:24
Speaker 1: family loves him, and please, please don't attempt suicide again.
6:29
Speaker 1: We can get you help, we can put you in
6:31
Speaker 1: touch with professionals, we can do anything you want, but
6:33
Speaker 1: please don't do something you can't undo. Richard didn't make
6:37
Speaker 1: any promises to her, but he was very touched at
6:39
Speaker 1: how much she cared.
6:40
Speaker 2: He thanked her, he gave her.
6:41
Speaker 1: A hug, and then he went to his room and
6:43
Speaker 1: he went to bed. The next morning, when Richard got up,
6:45
Speaker 1: he had this sense that, you know, he had just
6:47
Speaker 1: survived a suicide attempt, and so in many ways he
6:50
Speaker 1: now had this new life he was living, and so
6:53
Speaker 1: what better time to kind of forge ahead and build
6:56
Speaker 1: a new life with the current construct and the current
6:58
Speaker 1: limitations that he had, and stopped focusing so much on
7:02
Speaker 1: the life that he had lost back in London, because
7:04
Speaker 1: that life doesn't exist anymore. And so for the next
7:06
Speaker 1: couple of years, Richard did just focus on his new
7:09
Speaker 1: life in North Wales. He was diligent about keeping up
7:12
Speaker 1: with his medical treatments, He tried to spend time with
7:14
Speaker 1: his family. He was doing all the right things, but
7:18
Speaker 1: his schizophrenia only got worse. And one of the ways
7:21
Speaker 1: it was really manifesting itself in his life was this
7:24
Speaker 1: deep seated paranoia that his family secretly did not want
7:28
Speaker 1: him in the house, that they looked at him as
7:30
Speaker 1: this parasite, as he called it. And so he really
7:33
Speaker 1: developed this awful view of himself and he fell back
7:35
Speaker 1: into a very deep state of depression, and before long he.
7:39
Speaker 2: Was suicidal again.
7:40
Speaker 1: And so in nineteen ninety nine, which is three years
7:43
Speaker 1: after his first suicide attempt, Richard decided he would try again.
7:47
Speaker 1: He got his handcuffs and he left the house without
7:49
Speaker 1: talking to his family, and he walked to that secluded forest.
7:52
Speaker 2: On the edge of town.
7:53
Speaker 1: He went down the trail he veered off. He found
7:56
Speaker 1: a tree with some sturdy, low hanging branches, and he
7:58
Speaker 1: cuffed himself to it and began the long wait but
8:01
Speaker 1: after only being there for a couple of hours, Richard
8:04
Speaker 1: started to have those same second thoughts he had while
8:07
Speaker 1: he was out here in his first attempt. He started
8:09
Speaker 1: to worry about his family, and he worried about the
8:11
Speaker 1: person who was going to find his body, and he
8:13
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think about how painful and miserable those
8:16
Speaker 1: four days had been when he was out there waiting
8:19
Speaker 1: to die, and so after agonizing over what he should
8:22
Speaker 1: do next, Richard ultimately decided that again he just couldn't
8:25
Speaker 1: go through with it, and so he pulled the key
8:27
Speaker 1: out of his pocket, he undid the cup, and he
8:29
Speaker 1: left the.
8:29
Speaker 2: Forest and he walked back home.
8:31
Speaker 1: After this second suicide attempt, Richard again tried to find
8:35
Speaker 1: meaning in having this new life, but he just couldn't
8:38
Speaker 1: shake this growing paranoia brought on by his schizophrenia, that
8:42
Speaker 1: his family secretly wanted him to leave the house, that
8:45
Speaker 1: he was this parasite and that they all hated him,
8:47
Speaker 1: he was this terrible person, and it was just overwhelming
8:50
Speaker 1: for Richard, and so eventually he would actually confide in
8:54
Speaker 1: his sister that he felt this way, that he felt
8:56
Speaker 1: like he was this leech on the family, and she
8:58
Speaker 1: would say no, Richard, we love you unconditionally, We want
9:02
Speaker 1: you here.
9:02
Speaker 2: Do not leave. This is your home.
9:04
Speaker 1: But Richard just couldn't believe her. That paranoia was so strong,
9:08
Speaker 1: he just couldn't see reality for what it was. And
9:11
Speaker 1: so in April of two thousand and two, which was
9:14
Speaker 1: three years after his second suicide attempt, Richard grabbed the
9:18
Speaker 1: handcuffs and headed out for another attempt. But after securing
9:22
Speaker 1: himself to a tree in the middle of the forest,
9:24
Speaker 1: once again, his conscience cut through all the chaos inside
9:27
Speaker 1: of his mind and told him don't do it, and
9:31
Speaker 1: he listened, But this time, after freeing himself and getting
9:34
Speaker 1: back home, he didn't feel any sense of relief or
9:37
Speaker 1: any desire to kind of live this new life he's
9:40
Speaker 1: been given. Instead, he longed to be back in the forest,
9:44
Speaker 1: chained up to a tree. He confided in a sister
9:46
Speaker 1: that he had now tried suicide three separate times, and
9:49
Speaker 1: he was just at a loss for what he should
9:51
Speaker 1: do next. And so, of course his sister is totally
9:53
Speaker 1: shocked and sat in by this news, and she tells
9:56
Speaker 1: him over and over again how much she loves him,
9:58
Speaker 1: and please do not go back in that est.
10:00
Speaker 2: Do not hurt yourself.
10:01
Speaker 1: And in fact, his sister would go on to tell
10:03
Speaker 1: the rest of the family about these suicide attempts, and
10:06
Speaker 1: so before long, the whole family is telling Richard how
10:09
Speaker 1: much they love him and that he's not a parasite,
10:12
Speaker 1: let us know how we can help you, or let
10:14
Speaker 1: us connect you to someone who can. But it was
10:16
Speaker 1: just not enough, and less than a week after his
10:19
Speaker 1: third failed suicide attempt, Richard grabbed his handcuffs, he left
10:22
Speaker 1: the house and began walking towards that secluded forest for
10:25
Speaker 1: one final try. That night, when Richard did not come home,
10:29
Speaker 1: the family obviously was very concerned about this, and so
10:32
Speaker 1: they called the police and they reported him missing, and
10:34
Speaker 1: they explained he was suicidal and that the best place
10:37
Speaker 1: to look for him was going to be in that forest.
10:39
Speaker 1: But after several days of looking all over town and
10:42
Speaker 1: out in that forest, the police could not find Richard
10:45
Speaker 1: or any trace of him, and so unfortunately they had
10:48
Speaker 1: to turn the search off, and so the family was
10:50
Speaker 1: crushed and all they could do was just hope and
10:53
Speaker 1: pray that Richard again changed his mind and came back home.
10:57
Speaker 1: Three years later, a woman and her two dogs decide
11:00
Speaker 1: to go out for a walk inside of that secluded
11:02
Speaker 1: North Wales forest. At some point on their walk, they
11:05
Speaker 1: left the path and got kind of lost in the
11:08
Speaker 1: thick of the forest. And so as she's walking around
11:10
Speaker 1: trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out where
11:12
Speaker 1: the trail is, she winds up going behind this one
11:15
Speaker 1: big tree and she enters into this clearing and on
11:17
Speaker 1: the other side of the clearing, up against this tree
11:20
Speaker 1: are the badly decomposed remains of Richard Summer. Out of fear,
11:23
Speaker 1: she reflexively turns and runs with her two dogs and
11:27
Speaker 1: just keeps on running until she actually does find the
11:29
Speaker 1: trail again. And so once she's on the trail, she
11:31
Speaker 1: kind of makes a mental note of where she is
11:33
Speaker 1: and then she runs out of the forest and she
11:35
Speaker 1: contacts authorities about the body she saw, and so the
11:38
Speaker 1: authorities they come ount to the forest and they eventually
11:40
Speaker 1: are able to find Richard's location, And initially they believed
11:44
Speaker 1: they were dealing with a murder victim because they see
11:46
Speaker 1: this body that's been handcuffed to a tree. But after
11:49
Speaker 1: police went through Richard's pockets and found a house key
11:52
Speaker 1: that had an address on it, they went to that
11:55
Speaker 1: address and it turned out it was Richard's family's house,
11:57
Speaker 1: and after speaking with them, the police were able to
12:00
Speaker 1: confirm that the body they had just found was in
12:02
Speaker 1: fact Richard Sumner, the suicidal man that had gone missing
12:05
Speaker 1: three years earlier, and so almost certainly his death was
12:09
Speaker 1: a suicide. Even though this looked like a total open
12:12
Speaker 1: and shut case, the medical examiner still needed to officially
12:15
Speaker 1: rule on the cause of death, and so the medical
12:18
Speaker 1: examiner went out into the woods who went right up
12:20
Speaker 1: to Richard and he began looking him over, and right
12:23
Speaker 1: away he noticed some disturbing discrepancies. There were deep scuff
12:27
Speaker 1: marks all around the branch where the handcuff had been
12:30
Speaker 1: connected to the tree, and the other handcuff that was
12:32
Speaker 1: connected to Richard's wrist had been jammed up over his
12:36
Speaker 1: thumb all the way up to his knuckles. The examiner
12:38
Speaker 1: asked the police in the area if anybody had found
12:41
Speaker 1: the handcuff key, and they said they had. It was
12:43
Speaker 1: laying on the ground about fifteen feet in front of
12:46
Speaker 1: Richard Sumner, and that's when the medical examiner realized the
12:49
Speaker 1: horrible truth about what most likely happened to Richard. In
12:53
Speaker 1: his report, the medical examiner theorized that Richard had indeed
12:57
Speaker 1: gone into this forest in order to commit suicide. He
13:00
Speaker 1: had walked over two hundred yards into this forest, way
13:04
Speaker 1: off the beaten path, into the deepest, thickest part where
13:07
Speaker 1: no people went, and he most likely went there because
13:10
Speaker 1: he specifically didn't want anyone to happen upon him. He
13:13
Speaker 1: wanted privacy. And then, after handcuffing himself to that branch
13:17
Speaker 1: of that tree, he did something that he did not
13:19
Speaker 1: do in his previous three suicide attempts. He pulled the
13:22
Speaker 1: handcuff key out of his pocket, and then he threw
13:25
Speaker 1: it in front of him so far that he could
13:28
Speaker 1: not get it back again. And then, tragically, Richard came
13:31
Speaker 1: to the same conclusion that he had come to in
13:33
Speaker 1: his previous three attempts. He realized he did not actually
13:37
Speaker 1: want to die. He couldn't get to the key, and
13:39
Speaker 1: when he yelled out for help, he was so far
13:41
Speaker 1: away from society no one could hear his voice. And
13:44
Speaker 1: so for the next several agonizing days, Richard yanked and
13:48
Speaker 1: tugged and pulled on that handcuff until finally he painfully
13:52
Speaker 1: got the cuff to slip up over his thumb all
13:55
Speaker 1: the way up to his knuckle, but he just couldn't
13:57
Speaker 1: get it to go over his knuckle, and he didn't
13:59
Speaker 1: have another to cut the branch down, or to even
14:02
Speaker 1: cut his own hand off, and so he used the
14:04
Speaker 1: cuff that was actually on the branch and began twisting
14:07
Speaker 1: it back and forth to maybe hopefully saw through the branch,
14:10
Speaker 1: but there just wasn't enough friction inside that cuff, and
14:12
Speaker 1: so it made almost no progress. Also, Richard probably tried
14:16
Speaker 1: to pull and yank on the branch itself to try
14:18
Speaker 1: to break it to free himself that way, but without
14:21
Speaker 1: a tool, there was no way he could.
14:23
Speaker 2: Have broken this branch. It was just too sturdy.
14:25
Speaker 1: And so, after what must have been several horrifying days,
14:29
Speaker 1: Richard ultimately died of a heart attack out of fear
14:32
Speaker 1: of the situation he had put himself in, or he
14:35
Speaker 1: died from starvation. As a result of his findings, the
14:38
Speaker 1: medical examiner was not able to label.
14:41
Speaker 2: Richard Sumner's death a suicide.
14:43
Speaker 1: He basically had to call it an accident.
14:45
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it, guys.
14:46
Speaker 1: But before we wrap up, I just want to say
14:48
Speaker 1: to all the people out there that are struggling, that
14:51
Speaker 1: are maybe thinking about suicide or harming themselves in some way.
14:54
Speaker 2: Stop and tell.
14:56
Speaker 1: Someone, tell someone you love, tell someone you trust, And
14:58
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15:00
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15:06
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