Latest / Crime and Horror / Texas apartment dispute turned deadly - MrBallen

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Texas apartment dispute turned deadly - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you four stories about people
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: who thought they had a handle on the situation they
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: were in, but they would find out way too late
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: that they'd completely misjudged things. But before we get into
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do, and we
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  Speaker 1: our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. One
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  Speaker 1: afternoon in August of 2012, a woman named Carlotta Robinson
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  Speaker 1: sat behind her desk at her condo complex's main office
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  Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas. And as she was sitting there, she
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  Speaker 1: was listening to an elderly tenant who was seated across
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  Speaker 1: from her rant about his upstairs neighbors. Carlotta was the
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  Speaker 1: property manager and president of the homeowners association for this complex,
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  Speaker 1: which was called Sable Ridge. And she actually also lived
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  Speaker 1: in this complex herself. So basically every hour of her day,
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  Speaker 1: was spent wrapped up in the various issues and projects
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  Speaker 1: that came up here. And today, that involved resolving a
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  Speaker 1: dispute between two neighbors. The man in front of her
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  Speaker 1: was a 75-year-old condo owner named Chung Kim. He lived
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  Speaker 1: in a ground floor unit, and he felt that the
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  Speaker 1: couple that lived right above him were ruining his life.
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  Speaker 1: They had five kids and a dog, so it was
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  Speaker 1: incredibly noisy all the time, but the worst part was
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  Speaker 1: the dog upstairs would go to the bathroom on their porch,
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  Speaker 1: and then the couple would hose it off so all
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  Speaker 1: the waste would run down onto Chung's porch. Now, Chung
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  Speaker 1: said he'd already told them repeatedly to stop, but since
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  Speaker 1: they hadn't, he was now here asking the HOA to
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  Speaker 1: do something about it. So Carlotta knew that Chung had
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  Speaker 1: a habit of fighting with basically all of his neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: so she took what he was saying with a grain
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  Speaker 1: of salt. But Chung and his wife had owned their
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  Speaker 1: condo at Sable Ridge for more than six years, while
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  Speaker 1: this upstairs couple that they were so upset about They
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  Speaker 1: had just moved in last year, and they were also renting.
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  Speaker 1: And so in terms of the hierarchy of sort of
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  Speaker 1: importance to Sable Ridge and tenure, Chung was higher on
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  Speaker 1: that list. And, you know, if what Chung was saying
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  Speaker 1: was true, then what the couple was doing was totally
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  Speaker 1: unhygienic and did need to stop. So Carlotta told Chung
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  Speaker 1: she would speak to the couple and inform the HOA,
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  Speaker 1: and she was sure they could all figure this out. However,
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  Speaker 1: the issue did not get resolved at all. even though
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  Speaker 1: Carlotta and the HOA both tried to mediate it. Over
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  Speaker 1: the next few months, the disagreement between Chung and his
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  Speaker 1: neighbors only escalated, with both sides constantly lobbing complaints with
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  Speaker 1: the HOA about one another. It was like this ongoing
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  Speaker 1: drama that just had no end in sight. According to Chung,
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  Speaker 1: his neighbors upstairs had continued to be noisy and continued
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  Speaker 1: to wash their dog's waste onto his porch, and he'd
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  Speaker 1: even contacted the police. and the health department about it,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and still nothing had been done. But the couple upstairs,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they had complaints of their own. They said
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  Speaker 1: Chung was harassing them, and he kept cutting some of
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: their condo's cable wires to mess with them, or at
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  Speaker 1: least they were pretty sure it was him doing that.
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  Speaker 1: And Carlotta, I mean, she kept trying to help. She
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  Speaker 1: talked to both sides, and she emailed Sable Ridge's board
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  Speaker 1: of directors and its management company repeatedly, not just once,
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  Speaker 1: but all the time, you know, trying to figure out
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  Speaker 1: what to do here, asking for help on how to
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  Speaker 1: resolve this thing. And there was a lot of back
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  Speaker 1: and forth, but no one could actually figure out any
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  Speaker 1: real solution. And the neighbors, Chung and the upstairs neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: they just kept going at it. Until finally, when Carlotta
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  Speaker 1: was just at her wit's end with this whole thing,
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  Speaker 1: she actually reached out to the owner of the upstairs
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  Speaker 1: unit that the couple was renting from. So Sable Ridge
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  Speaker 1: managed the property. This is the actual owner of that
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  Speaker 1: unit that the couple was renting from. She asked the owner,
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  Speaker 1: would you please just evict this couple because it's just
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  Speaker 1: causing all these issues here? And the owner said, sure,
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  Speaker 1: I will. Fast forward to February 4th, 2013. This is
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  Speaker 1: now about six months after the initial complaints began between
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  Speaker 1: Chung and the upstairs neighbors. And at about 8am on
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  Speaker 1: this day, Carlotta, she She's bedraggled. She walks back inside
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  Speaker 1: of her apartment. She shuts the door behind her and
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  Speaker 1: just collapses on the couch. She's already just so wiped,
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  Speaker 1: already so annoyed about how the day is going. Because today,
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  Speaker 1: that morning, she was already dealing with more complaints from
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  Speaker 1: the upstairs neighbor about Chung. So the upstairs neighbors, that couple,
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  Speaker 1: they had been told they were being evicted today. but
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  Speaker 1: they had not actually been evicted yet. It had been
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  Speaker 1: six months now, and they're still just here, and the
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  Speaker 1: drama's still unfolding between Chong and the neighbors. It was
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  Speaker 1: just still going the same way it had been, but
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  Speaker 1: Carlotta knew that today, finally, like within the hour, hopefully,
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  Speaker 1: this couple was finally actually going to leave, and this
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  Speaker 1: whole thing was just gonna finally be done. And so
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  Speaker 1: she's sitting on the couch, and she's just over it,
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  Speaker 1: when she hears somebody suddenly start pounding on her door.
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  Speaker 1: It startles her. She jumps up. She runs to the door.
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  Speaker 1: She opens it up. It's not Chung. It's not the
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  Speaker 1: upstairs couple. It's this other resident of the Sable Ridge
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  Speaker 1: apartment complex. And he's ashen-faced. He looks completely terrified. And
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  Speaker 1: he begins to tell Carlotta this story of what's just happened,
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  Speaker 1: something he just saw, something he just witnessed, and he
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  Speaker 1: can't even believe it. And after Carlotta hears this, like,
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  Speaker 1: her heart's racing, she's just as scared, and she runs,
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  Speaker 1: grabs the phone, and calls the police. It would turn out, basically,
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  Speaker 1: everybody knew this couple was about to be evicted. From
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the time they were notified six months earlier all the
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  Speaker 1: way to now, it was like all the people in
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  Speaker 1: the know were well aware this was happening. You know,
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  Speaker 1: Sable Ridge, Carlotta, the couple, lots of people inside of
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  Speaker 1: the actual complex. This was sort of a known thing.
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  Speaker 1: It was just working its way towards the day they
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  Speaker 1: finally actually left. Everybody knew. Except for one person. Chung.
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  Speaker 1: Chung somehow had no idea that this couple was leaving today.
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  Speaker 1: He had no idea. His family had no idea. They
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  Speaker 1: felt like still nobody's doing anything. And so on the
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  Speaker 1: day that that couple was literally going to leave and
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  Speaker 1: be out of Chung's life forever... Chung, again, not knowing that,
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  Speaker 1: got so fed up when he saw the dog waste
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  Speaker 1: being sprayed down onto his porch that he marched right upstairs,
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  Speaker 1: barged into their apartment, and murdered the couple. And so ultimately,
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  Speaker 1: Chung was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for
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  Speaker 1: capital murder. Murders that very likely never would have occurred
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  Speaker 1: if somebody had just thought to tell Chung, hey, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, your mortal enemies upstairs are leaving today. But
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  Speaker 1: nobody did that. And so we have this tragedy. This
• 7:41
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  Speaker 1: or AG1 Pro through my link. Around noon on December 8th, 1976,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a 59-year-old man named Orek Bovar stepped into the elevator
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of a luxury apartment building in New York City. He
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: was carrying a bag of groceries, and once he was
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: in the car, he turned and pressed the button for
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  Speaker 1: the 17th floor. So Orek was here visiting his friend Stephen,
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  Speaker 1: who lived in this building. Stephen had been living with
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  Speaker 1: terminal cancer since the summer, and recently his doctors had
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  Speaker 1: told him that there was nothing left to do. and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they had discharged him from the hospital. But Stephen was
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  Speaker 1: from Greece, and he didn't have any family around to
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  Speaker 1: take care of him, and so Orek had ultimately stepped up.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Orek was the leader of this non-denominational prayer group that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Stephen also belonged to, which was how they had met
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in the first place. And when Orek had heard Stephen
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  Speaker 1: was sick, he'd organized a group of their members to
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: come by every day and help Stephen out. They spent
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: time with Stephen, and they prayed for him, and even
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: pulled money to pay his bills since he couldn't work anymore.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And they made sure the apartment was always stocked with food,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: which was why Orrick had brought this bag of groceries today.
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  Speaker 1: Orrick was really proud of all the people that had
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: volunteered to help with him. He was just sort of
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: amazed to see what his community was capable of. And
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: so now the elevator door opened up and Orrick got
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  Speaker 1: out and he walked down the hallway to Stephen's studio apartment.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: As soon as Orrick opened the door, he immediately was
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: hit with this wave of incense and then he He
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: saw five of his friends from the prayer group that
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: were gathered at Stephen's bedside in the corner of the
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  Speaker 1: apartment saying a prayer. Orrick set the bag of groceries
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: down on the counter and then walked over to join them. Now,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: because Orrick and these others that had, you know, come
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: together to rally around Stephen all really believed in the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: power of prayer, they thought, you know, their prayers would
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: literally cure Stephen. They were not here just to comfort him.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: They were here to make him get better. However, when
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Oreck walked over to the group and looked over at
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: one of his friends, a guy named James, he saw
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that James just looked totally demoralized. And then a second later,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: James broke down and began saying that this whole thing
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just felt pointless. Stephen seemed to just be getting worse,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and it just seemed sort of obvious that their prayers
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: were not working. And Oreck suddenly felt this knot in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: his stomach, because honestly, he sometimes had doubts too about
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the ability of their prayers to do anything. But he
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: was the group leader, and everybody looked to him for guidance,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: so he had to put on a brave face and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: keep on going. So his response was to kneel down
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and clasp his hands together and pray even louder. One
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: by one, James and the rest of the group all
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  Speaker 1: joined in, and they chanted a prayer in unison as
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: loudly and forcefully as they could. An hour later, Ork
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  Speaker 1: and his friends were all still praying really loudly when
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: there was a knock on the door. Ork told the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: others to keep praying, and he got up to go
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: answer it. when he opened the door, it was a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: police officer. And the officer said they'd gotten multiple calls
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: about a disturbance in this apartment. And Ork, he quickly
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: apologized and explained that they were praying for a sick friend,
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  Speaker 1: and he didn't realize the noise had been bothering the neighbors.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: He said they were being loud, but, you know, they'd stop.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: The officer nodded and said, well, can I just come
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: in and have a look around? And Ork said, yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: of course, and then moved aside till it let him in.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And so the officer steps inside the apartment and he
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  Speaker 1: He sniffed the air and then looked over at Stephen's bed,
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  Speaker 1: and he froze. And Orrick is watching the officer. He's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: seeing the reaction to his friends and Stephen in the bed.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: And Orrick was about to say something, but before Orrick
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: could explain the situation, the officer grabbed his radio and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: called for backup. It would turn out the non-denominational prayer
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: group that Stephen and Orrick and their friends all belonged
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to was not just a casual get-together. It was a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: small but very devoted circle of members who literally worshipped
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Oryk as their supreme leader. Oryk and his followers believed
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that Oryk had supernatural healing powers. And so when Stephen
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: had first been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he'd come to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Oryk for help. And so Oryk and his followers had
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: prayed over Stephen every day as he laid there in
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: his apartment. And they continued to do this even after
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Stephen died. And then for the next two months, Stephen's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: corpse slowly rotted. But Oreck continued to insist that he
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: could still heal him if they just prayed harder and louder.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So when the officer walked into Stephen's apartment, he found
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Oreck's followers frantically chanting at Stephen's rotting, decomposing body. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they kept saying, rise, Stephen, rise. And so Oreck and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the other five people involved in this cult, if you will,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that were praying over this dead body, were all cited
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: for failing to report a death. After this happened, many
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of Orrick's followers abandoned him, and this prayer group, this cult,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: if you will, sort of dissipated. And Orrick presumably didn't
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: take it very well, because just a few months later,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Orrick leapt out the window of his 10th floor apartment
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and died. Around 5 p.m. on February 9th, 1920, a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: 46-year-old gold miner named Albert Anton walked down a muddy
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: road in the small village of Edgewood, Illinois. It was
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: pouring rain outside, so the rest of his mining crew
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: had all taken the day off. But Albert, he had
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a shovel in his hand, and he was ready to work,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: even if he had to do it alone. So Albert
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: was part of a small mining crew from a nearby town,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and they'd been in Edgewood for weeks, digging for gold
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: in the caves outside the village. The leader of their
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: group had heard there was gold in one of these caves,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: which they hadn't found yet. But he'd been doing this
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: job a whole lot longer than Albert, who was actually
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: kind of new to mining. So Albert, like the others,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: had believed him. But again, so far, they had not
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: found anything. And the men were all starting to worry
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that maybe they were working on bad information and there
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: was no gold here after all. And if that were true,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Albert was really in trouble. If his crew didn't find gold,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: he didn't get paid, and he'd have to go home
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to his wife and six kids empty-handed. And since Albert
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was his family's only source of income, I mean, if
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: he didn't come home with anything, I mean, there was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a chance that his family would literally starve. So this
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is like borderline life or death situation here. So instead
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of just sitting around waiting for the rain to pass
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: like the rest of the mining crew, Albert had spent
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: all day in town asking around for any information that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: might help him figure out if there really was gold
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: here or not. And after a while, he'd started to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: worry that this was in fact a lost cause. It
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: seemed like no one knew anything about gold. But finally,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: at a certain point, he'd gotten a credible tip from
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: an unlikely source that there actually was gold here. And
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: it was buried in a spot where Albert's crew hadn't
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: looked yet. It was just 18 feet away from where
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: they had been digging this whole time. And so Albert
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: had told his crew about this tip, but they hadn't
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: believed him, and they had even told him not to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: go out and look for it, especially in this terrible weather.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But Albert had ignored them. He'd laced up his boots,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and he'd grabbed his equipment, and he had set out
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: into the rain to go look for this gold. And
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: in some ways, it was actually better for him if
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: nobody else wanted to come along, because if he did
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: find this gold and he was alone, he could take
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it all for himself. And so half an hour later,
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  Speaker 1: Albert stepped into the cave where the crew had been
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: digging the last few days, and he turned on his headlamp,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and he followed the footprints in the dirt deep into
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the cave like he had done so many times before,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: until he came to a hole that his crew had
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: recently dug. This was sort of their main digging area.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And then from there, again because of this tip, he
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: slowly began walking away from the hole deeper into the cave.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And as he did, he was counting his steps very
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: carefully to get 18 feet away, because that's where the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: tip had told him to go. And so he walked,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and when he got to the right spot, he stopped.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And he's like, okay, this is it. This is the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: right spot here. And if the information was correct, the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: gold had to be around here somewhere. At that point,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: he raised up his shovel and he struck it into
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the ground. And he began digging into the dirt again
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and again and again until he heard this loud crack.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: because his shovel, clearly it hit something hard. And Albert's
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: heart immediately began to race. He knew that sound could
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: be a rock, but it also could be the gold
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that apparently was right here. And so Albert continued to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: dig and dig, and he's hearing crack after crack after crack.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Then at some point, he must have realized those cracking
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: noises were not really coming from where he was digging.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: They were coming from right above him. So the reason
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: why nobody else in Albert's mining crew was excited about
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: this tip was because the unlikely source he'd gotten it
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: from was a Ouija board. So Ouija boards are board
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: games that can supposedly contact the dead. And even though
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: they were originally marketed as just novelty items that were
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: really just for fun, there were a lot of people
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: at the time, like Albert, who believed they could actually
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: communicate with dead spirits through the Ouija board. So Albert,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in his desperate state, had asked the board, where could
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: he find gold? And he believed the board had spit
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: out an answer. Go 18 feet away from where you've
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: been digging. I don't know how he came up with
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that on the Ouija board, but that's what he got
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: out of his interaction with this board. And so Albert,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: he thinks he's got this amazing tip. He tells the crew.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: They're like, no, we're not doing that, especially in this weather.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: This is a bad idea. But Albert said, I'm going alone. Now,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: we have no idea if where Albert ultimately went to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: go look for gold, you know, 18 feet away from
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the original dig site, we don't know if there actually
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: was gold there or not. But what we do know
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: is that because of this tip he got, which sent
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: him 18 feet deeper into the cave, that put him
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in an area that was really hazardous, except Albert didn't know.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It would turn out that that particular section of the cave,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the ceiling was not stable. It was very soft. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: because of all the rain outside, it was getting even
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: softer by the second. And as Albert's digging into the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: ground right beneath it, this is a tight space, right?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: He's shaking the earth and he's maybe bumping into the ceiling.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And wouldn't you know it, eventually those cracking noises, that
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: was the sound of the ceiling collapsing. And eventually it
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: just completely collapsed, buried Albert, and he died. So if
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Albert had just listened to his experience colleagues, instead of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: listening to a Ouija board, he very likely would have
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ultimately found gold eventually, because apparently his crew of miners
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: did go on to find gold there, and then he
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: could have gone home, provided for his family, and lived.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: BetterHelp is the paid partner of today's video. Have you
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• 21:29
  Speaker 1: on May 14, 1900, a 36-year-old house painter named Thomas
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: McDermott sat in a seat at the St. Patrick's Church
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: in Lowell, Massachusetts. And as he sat there, he was
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: listening to the choir sing the slow, somber hymn. A
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: funeral mass was underway, but Thomas didn't actually know who
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: had died. It was because he was there for something
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: very personal, like a deeply spiritual, personal reason. So Thomas
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was a house painter who for years had traveled around
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the country chasing work, and he'd basically lived a pretty
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: transient life. He'd never made much money or had many belongings.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: In fact, the only things he had in his pocket
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: right now were two dimes and a job reference and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a box of matches. But recently, he'd read an article
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: about how to become a successful and important person by
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: overcoming fear and finding your inner strength. So he'd come
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to St. Patrick's, which was this quiet, just very beautiful
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: place where he was hoping he would be inspired. The
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: church was truly just completely stunning with these huge arch
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: ceilings and stained glass windows and this towering steeple that
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: was actually currently under repair, but it was gorgeous. But
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the whole place was just magnificent. And so he was here, again,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to be inspired. It was just a total coincidence that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: there was a funeral mass in session. But hearing prayers
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: about how fleeting life was and listening to the somber,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: beautiful music had actually inspired him. And so as Thomas
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: sat there really listening intently to the choir sing their hymn,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: he was filled with this sudden sense of intense determination.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: It was so powerful that he found himself physically leaning forward,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: like he almost couldn't even control his body. He was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: so ready to do something. But as soon as he
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: did that, Thomas also felt this intense, overwhelming jolt of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: pure terror. At the same time that Thomas is having
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: this sudden, really intense sensation, near the church altar, the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: choir director, Laura Finn, was leading her singers through the hymn.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And the song had just reached its crescendo when over
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the choir's voices and the organ's accompaniment, Laura heard several
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: loud thudding sounds coming from outside, followed by this thwack sound.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Then there were a series of shouts from the congregation
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that And people all started to get up and run
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to the windows to see what was happening out there.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And Laura, she did too. She ran to the window.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And when she actually saw what had made those thudding
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: sounds and that one last thwack noise, she just felt
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: really confused. There was like this pile of clothes strung
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: up on the picket fence that divided the church and
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the property that was right next to it. And this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: weird pile of clothing on the top of this fence
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: was on fire. And as Laura watched, an onlooker who
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: had been outside walked over to this flaming pile of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: clothes on the fence, and they began nudging it, moving it,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: trying to make sense of what it even was. And
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: at some point, it clicked for Laura and all the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: onlookers what this was. And it was like in unison,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: everyone began to scream. So the house painter, Thomas McDermott,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: had not just randomly gone to St. Patrick's Church to
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: find inspiration. So that article that he had read about
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: overcoming fear was literally about the bravery of the elite
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: professional painters who were currently working on St. Patrick's new steeple,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: which was being repaired. These painters were renowned in the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: region for doing intricate methodical work while simultaneously being suspended
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in chairs attached to this this pulley system nearly 200
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: feet in the air. And Thomas, you know, he was
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: not an elite painter like them, but he was also
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a painter. And he wanted to prove that he was
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: brave enough to do stuff like that too. So after
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: getting to St. Patrick's Church, you know, while this funeral
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: mass was going on, Thomas snuck up to the steeple's
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: interior and he crawled out a window and into one
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of those chairs, those pulley chairs. that the elite painters
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: would use for their work. That was the seat that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Thomas had been sitting in when he was listening to
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the hymn. Thomas then grabbed a paintbrush and got ready
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to show that he was just as capable as those
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: famous elite painters. But this was a huge mistake because
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Thomas was not capable. The pulley system that the painters
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: used was very complicated, and Thomas had no idea how
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to use it. And so when he felt that rush
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of inspiration and found himself leaning forward in the seat,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: basically in an attempt to get out of the seat,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: go back into the steeple and go, you know, chase
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: down success, you know, he was done. He'd gotten his inspiration.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: He's getting out of the chair. When he did that,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: he lost control of the chair's rope and he fell down.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: out of the seat. And from there, Thomas, he began
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: tumbling down the roof of the church, this really tall building.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: He's falling down the roof, smashing into things as he goes.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And then he finally goes careening off the edge. He's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: free falling from the roof straight down to the ground.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: And where does he land? Right on that wooden fence.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: He was impaled basically across his whole body in the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: wooden fence. His fall was actually so violent and so
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: jarring that the box of matches in his pocket literally
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: ignited when he smashed into that fence. And so from
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: everybody inside looking out, what they saw on the fence
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: looked like this jumble of clothes that had, you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: inexplicably caught on fire. Everyone's like, what is this? But no,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that was Thomas. He was mangled and impaled on the fence,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and those matches had lit him on fire. And so ultimately,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Thomas went into that church to find some inspiration so
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that maybe he could, you know, make something bigger out
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of his life. He could find more success and make
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a name for himself. And in a way, he did
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: do that, just for the wrong reasons. In fact, his
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: death was so gruesome and so shocking that after it happened,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: it made news practically all across the country. Thank you
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: so much for watching today's episode. Let me know what
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you thought of it in the comments below. And remember,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of Places You Can't Go
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now. So go
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: ahead and click here and give them a watch. All right,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.