Workplace Horror Stories Vol. II

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast features three workplace horror stories.

[3] The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[4] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[5] The first story you'll hear is called 90 Minutes, and it's about a man who had a terrible first day on the job.

[6] The second story you'll hear is called 18 inches, and it's about a construction worker who lost his balance.

[7] And the third and final story you'll hear is called Robot 23, and it's about the hazards that car manufacturing workers face every day.

[8] But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Deliverton's Story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday, once on Thursday.

[9] So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to do all the Amazon Music Follow buttons laundry, but only dry their clothes 80 % of the way.

[10] Okay, let's get into our first story called 90 Minutes.

[11] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[12] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, a mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[13] What's the answer?

[14] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[15] Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[16] Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free on Wondry Plus.

[17] Lawrence Dayquan Davis, who just went by day, graduated from a military -style high school in 2009.

[18] Following his graduation, he enrolled in Job Corps, which offers young people from a low -income background, free career education, and vocational training.

[19] During his time in the Job Corps program, he trained as a medical assistant.

[20] And then after successful completion of Job Corps, he applied.

[21] for numerous jobs all over the place, but no medical facility was ready to hire him.

[22] For a couple of years, Day consistently tried to apply to medical facility after medical facility, but after everybody kept denying him, mostly because he lacked experience or he lacked the credentials they were looking for, he eventually realized that, you know, it's probably not going to happen, that he should look into some other career field.

[23] And so he decided he would join the military.

[24] But when he took the military entrance exam, he failed the math portion, and so was told he can't join the military.

[25] And so Day decided he would study and retake the exam, but he knew in the meantime he needed to make money right now.

[26] He was the oldest of four siblings, and his mother, who had had him when she was only 14 years old, was out of work, and Day's father was not in the picture.

[27] And so Dave felt like it was his responsibility to step up and help support his family.

[28] And so he did what many other people in Jacksonville, Florida, did when they were struggling to find work.

[29] He went to a temp agency.

[30] Temp agencies are staffing firms that contract with employers who are in need of temporary, part -time, or seasonal workers.

[31] The temp agency hires someone like Day and then ships them off to one of their client companies when they need work.

[32] Conceptually, this employment structure works great for all parties involved.

[33] People like Day get to have a paycheck really quickly and the companies have their short -term employment needs met on the cheap.

[34] But there's a loophole.

[35] Temp workers are legally employed by the temp agency, not by the physical location they go to to do work, known as the direct employer.

[36] This is a very important distinction because it means the temp agency is the one that has to pay for insurance for the temp worker, not the direct employer.

[37] Therefore, if a temp worker gets hurt on a temporary job, the direct employer's insurance costs will not spike.

[38] Instead, the temp agency's insurance costs will spike, meaning the direct employer knows they can be kind of reckless with their temporary workers because there's not a big penalty if they get hurt on the job.

[39] This loophole doesn't mean much if the temporary worker is being asked to be a receptionist where it's totally safe, but this loophole matters a lot when the temp worker is asked to do something dangerous, like work with industrial machinery inside of a factory.

[40] On August 16, 2012, Day received a call back from the temp agency he went to, telling him that they had a job for him.

[41] It was at the Bacardi Bottling Corporation in Jacksonville, Florida.

[42] They told him he needed to be at the warehouse that day at 2 .45 p .m. for training, and then at 3 p .m. 15 minutes later, he would start his first shift.

[43] After Day agreed to do this job and hung up with the temp agency, he excitedly called his mother to tell her that he had finally landed a real job.

[44] In fact, this would be the first job he had ever had.

[45] And so he was just very proud of himself.

[46] And his mother was very proud of him too.

[47] And so Day asked her, you know, would you give me a ride to Walmart so I can pick up some things I need for work?

[48] I need a white shirt.

[49] I need khaki pants.

[50] I need these special industrial boots.

[51] And so his mom said, absolutely.

[52] She swung home.

[53] She picked him up.

[54] The pair went to Walmart.

[55] They picked out his whole outfit.

[56] And then from Walmart, his mother just drove him directly over to the Bacardi factory to begin his first day.

[57] Day went inside and just a couple of minutes later at 2 .45 p .m., he was shown a very short safety video.

[58] That would be all the training he received.

[59] Day was brought into Bacardi to be a warehouse clerk, which basically meant he would do odd jobs around the factory that didn't require a lot of skill.

[60] And so after he watched this training video, he was told to head down to the bottling line to watch all of the bottles as they went by to make sure the labels were put on properly.

[61] Before he headed down to the floor, Day stopped in the bathroom and took a very, proud selfie of himself to commemorate the start of his first shift at his first job ever.

[62] He sent the picture to his fiance, put the phone in his pocket, and then headed out the door down to his first workstation.

[63] There was a section of the factory that initially Day was not working in, where there were these huge machines called palletizers that took the finished bottles of rum and stacked them into what are called pallets so they could be shipped off the stores.

[64] These palletizers are two -story pieces of heavy machinery where the top story is just catwalk where the palletizer operator can manipulate the machines, and then the first floor is where the rum actually comes into the machine and has moved around and stacked on these big metal platforms.

[65] Sometimes as the rum comes in on the conveyor belt, they will fall off and smash on the ground.

[66] This started to happen about 90 minutes after Day took that selfie in the bathroom.

[67] The palletizer operator, after seeing the broken glass, called out over the radio that he needed a temp worker to come into that section of the factory and help him.

[68] Day's supervisor at the bottling line told Day to stop what he was doing and go over and help pick up the glass.

[69] There is a security camera video of Day running into the section of the factory where all the palletizers are, making himself obviously available to help pick up this glass.

[70] And the operator sees him and immediately turns, he's up on the catwalk, and he points down towards the first floor, clearly telling Day, you need to get down there, that's where the glass is, go sweep it up.

[71] Day immediately walks around and goes down to the first floor of this machine and begins working, A couple of minutes later, Day comes back up to the catwalk and he looks visibly confused.

[72] He's scratching his head and just everything about his body language says something is wrong.

[73] Now, we don't know for sure what Day says next because there's no audio in this video, but he's clearly asking a question to the operator and also to a supervisor who's now in frame.

[74] And it looks very much like he's asking clarifying questions, like he's confirming, you want me to go down there, right into that space down there and clean the glass up, that's what you want me to do?

[75] and clearly the operator and the supervisor have no time for questions from Day.

[76] They just want him to get this done.

[77] And so there's kind of a tense interaction between the two parties before Day ultimately just decides, okay, I'll just go down and do what they ask me to do.

[78] And so Day again goes back around and you see him go down into the first floor to continue cleaning this glass.

[79] And after a few moments, the supervisor and the operator, who don't realize Day is still down there, they turn the machine back on.

[80] And after a couple of seconds, they hear a scream, coming from the first floor, they look over the railing down there and they see day.

[81] The broken glass that needed to be cleaned up was located directly underneath this metal platform that lowered the built pallets that weighed 2 ,000 pounds all the way down to the floor before they were shipped off and out the door.

[82] In order for Day to actually get down in there and clean his glass up, he needed to crouch way down and practically crawl on his stomach to get into this tight space.

[83] While he was in there, the machine turned back on again and he wasn't able to crawl out fast before this platform and 2 ,000 pounds of rum pressed him into the ground.

[84] It would be the equivalent of crawling on your stomach into the bottom of an elevator shaft and then having the elevator car come down and mechanically be lowered flushed to the bottom with you in there.

[85] The palletizer operator and the other supervisor immediately spring into action and try to reverse this platform up off of day, but they can't do it.

[86] And so they grabbed a metal pry bar and they tried to pry the platform off of him, but that didn't work either.

[87] And so finally, when emergency crews did show up and were able to get this platform up off of day, it was too late.

[88] He was already dead.

[89] In any factory where a worker needs to go inside of a machine that could maim or kill them if it turned on, they go through what's called a lockout or tagout procedure before stepping foot inside.

[90] All it is is they completely incapacitate that machine.

[91] Day had no idea about lockout tagout procedures because the only training he got was a 15 -minute video that didn't touch on them.

[92] And so although Day definitely had reservations about going down underneath this machine, he wanted to make a good first impression on his first day of work at his first job ever.

[93] And so he pushed his reservations aside and went down below, believing the supervisor and the operator were looking out for him.

[94] When in reality, they, like all of the other managers and supervisors inside of this warehouse, had been trained to prioritize productivity over safety.

[95] And so while they definitely knew the lockout, tagout procedures, they chose not to do them because that slowed down productivity.

[96] And so in this unfortunate example where Day is kind of like a second -class citizen within the Bacardi plant because he's a temp worker, his safety was thrown out the window in favor of reaching a quota, and it got him killed.

[97] Bacardi was ultimately fined $192 ,000, but after they improved their safety compliance, their fine was reduced to $110 ,000.

[98] Bacardi also paid Dei Davis's family $250 ,000.

[99] The staffing agency that employed Davis was not hit with any fines, and to this day, they are still sending temp workers to the Bacardi Bottling Factory.

[100] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[101] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[102] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[103] I'm like, stop around.

[104] She's like, I can't.

[105] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[106] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the download.

[107] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[108] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[109] Yeah, well, yeah.

[110] No, it's hysteria.

[111] It's all in your head.

[112] It's not physical.

[113] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[114] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[115] Or is it something else entirely?

[116] Something's wrong here.

[117] Something's not right.

[118] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[119] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

[120] Hysterical.

[121] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[122] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[123] Hey, all you fans of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious.

[124] It's me, Mr. Ballin, and today I have some big news.

[125] It's something I'm holding in my hands right now, and so obviously you can't see it, but this is something you're really going to want to see.

[126] It's the first ever official Mr. Ballin publication.

[127] It's a graphic novel, and it's called Mr. Ballin Presents, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, The Graphic Stories.

[128] It's an anthology of both classic and brand new, terrifying stories that we've never covered on any of my other platforms, because we created them specifically for this first book.

[129] Each of these stories in the book are feature -length, Mr. Ballin's stories that really needed to be told visually.

[130] And the artwork in this book is, I mean, I'm looking at it, and it's just absolutely stunning.

[131] So the book is not actually coming out.

[132] until my birthday this year, October 1st, but you can pre -order it right now at book .bollenstudios .com.

[133] Again, that's book .bollendstudios .com.

[134] Our next story is called 18 inches.

[135] On August 15, 2003, 41 -year -old veteran construction worker Ron Hunt was part of a crew that was building a house in Reno, Nevada.

[136] On that particular day, Ron knew before he could do anything else on the job site, the first thing he needed to do was drill a couple of large holes in the ceiling of one of the rooms in this house.

[137] And so as soon as he got to the job site that morning, he went in the back of his truck and pulled out a six -foot -tall step ladder and a drill and then walked into that particular room.

[138] Once inside, he opened up a step ladder and placed it where he wanted it.

[139] And then he tested his drill by squeezing the trigger a couple of times.

[140] And so once he knew that worked, he climbed up the ladder a couple of steps, not to the very top, but just a couple of steps, and began punching holes in the ceiling with this drill.

[141] Now, at first, these holes were very easy to punch through.

[142] But when he got down and moved the ladder to another section of this room where he also needed holes in the ceiling, when he got up there, he could not get the drill to go through the ceiling.

[143] And he didn't really get it because he knew there was nothing behind the ceiling that would stop the drill from going through, and it was just wood, so it really should be going through.

[144] And so he decided he just needed a little bit of extra leverage.

[145] He needed to really press on the back of this drill while he's pulling the trigger.

[146] And so instead of standing on the second or third rung of the six -foot -tall step ladder, he walked to the very top of the ladder, the kind of dangerous section you're not supposed to stand on on any ladder.

[147] And from there, he was in a better position to really push this drill into the ceiling.

[148] And so he gets in position and kind of feels like the ladder's fairly stable, and then he lines up this drill where he wants it, he begins squeezing the trigger, and at the same time, He really pushes with all that extra leverage into the ceiling, and as he does that, he feels the drill starting to go into the wood, but at the same time he's pushing so hard that he's not realizing he's pushing down with his feet at a bit of an angle, and at some point he pushes too hard, and he causes the ladder to spill out from underneath him.

[149] Ron instinctively tried to throw the drill away from him, which is a common practice amongst construction workers.

[150] You don't want to land on your gear.

[151] It could hurt you.

[152] But he wasn't able to throw the drill far enough away from him.

[153] And even worse, the drill, when it hit the ground, basically right underneath him, it landed on its back with the drill bit pointing straight up into the air.

[154] And so when he fell down, face first, his right eye socket landed directly on the drill.

[155] And so this 18 inch long, one and a half inch in diameter drill bit impales his head, goes right through his eyeball, goes through his skull, and punctures out the back of his head.

[156] And so Ron, he hits the ground, but he's conscious.

[157] And so without even rolling over, he just reaches up with his hands and he feels the base of this drill, and then he traces to the drill bit, and he feels it going into his eye, and then he feels around the back of his head, and he feels the rest of the drill coming out of his skull.

[158] And at that point, he just starts screaming.

[159] The only other worker on the job site at the time was this man named Forrest and Forrest who was in a separate part of the job site, he hears Ron screaming and so he runs over, he goes in the room, and he sees Ron who's now standing up cradling the drill base, the bit, the 18 -inch bit, is still poking through his head and so Ron is looking at Forrest and then turns to the side to show him that he's been fully impaled by this thing, and Forrest is totally horrified at what he's seeing.

[160] he can't believe Ron is even alive, but then Forrest jumps into action.

[161] He rips his shirt off, runs over to Ron, and kind of wraps it around his head to try to control the bleeding a little bit, and then he tells Ron to stay where he is, and then Forrest ran out of the job site, ran about a thousand feet away to the nearest house, and he was able to use their phone to call paramedics.

[162] The paramedics arrive in an ambulance a few minutes later, and they find Ron sitting next to Forrest, just with this drill still in his face.

[163] Ron is very obviously in shock because he's not making any sound, he's totally conscious, but he's just kind of staring blankly holding onto this thing.

[164] And so the paramedics, they go over and they detach the drilled base from the drilled bit.

[165] So all that's left is the actual 18 -inch rod that's been pushed through his head.

[166] And then they take Ron via ambulance to a local hospital, and from there they actually fly him in a helicopter to a bigger hospital that can handle this kind of injury.

[167] And so when he arrives at this larger hospital, They rush him immediately to the operating room, and at first, the surgeons attempted to cut off either end of this bit, the part that's sticking out the front of his eye and the part that's sticking out the back of his head.

[168] But they realized once they did that, there would still be this huge piece of bit that was stuck in his skull, and that would obviously be a huge problem.

[169] And so after thinking about it, they decided their best bet was just to unscrew the bit from his head.

[170] And so they gave him some morphine, and then over the next couple of hours, the doctor slowly twisted this piece of metal until it finally unwound itself out of his skull.

[171] And apparently, as they were doing that, Ron, who was so high on painkillers, was cracking jokes about how somebody needs to come in here and take a picture of me. I probably look so great.

[172] And so miraculously, Ron would survive and he would not even be paralyzed.

[173] The worst thing that happened to him is he lost the sight in his right eye, but all things considered, Ron is okay with that.

[174] The surgeons would tell Ron that the only, reason he didn't die or get paralyzed is because when that drill bit went into his skull, it kind of pressed his brain aside as it passed through.

[175] Had it punctured his brain when it went through, that almost certainly would have killed him.

[176] But by some unbelievably slim chance, it did not and he survived.

[177] The next and final story of today's episode is called Robot 23.

[178] In 1993, after an exhaustive review of hundreds of sites around the United States, executives from the German car company Mercedes -Benz had finally come to their decision.

[179] Tuscaloosa, Alabama would become the site of the first -ever passenger car assembly factory outside of Germany.

[180] This was a historic day, not just for Mercedes, but also for Alabama.

[181] At the time, the state had one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and so residents of Alabama were hopeful this factory would create hundreds of new jobs.

[182] jobs.

[183] But what actually happened shattered their expectations.

[184] Immediately following this announcement by Mercedes that they were going to set up shop in Tuscaloosa, three other major automotive giants, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai all announced that they too would be setting up shop in Alabama.

[185] And so these four major factories all came with jobs of their own, and each of these factories attracted dozens of other smaller factories that supplied the parts to put together these cars.

[186] And so all these smaller factories came with additional jobs.

[187] And so this one decision by Mercedes didn't just create hundreds of new jobs in Alabama.

[188] It created tens of thousands of new jobs all across the state.

[189] Two years later, in 1995, a little girl named Regina Elsie was born just about an hour away from the Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa.

[190] Growing up, the automotive manufacturing industry was a big part of her life.

[191] Her family worked in the factories, and as a kid, every day when she went outside, she would see dozens of these 18 -wheelers come bombing down the road in front of her house carrying car parts on their way to one of the many factories.

[192] Regina was a reserved and quiet kid.

[193] She loved to read, she was a good student, and she loved animals.

[194] She would take in stray animals, any animals she could find, she would bring it back home to her house, but her favorite animal was her dog, who she named cow.

[195] She dreamed of becoming a pediatrician, and so after high school, she enrolled in a local community college on a federal grant, with plans to eventually transfer out to Auburn University where she would finish her degree and then hopefully go on to medical school.

[196] But while she was at the community college, she fell in love with a local boy named Dan who she'd actually gone to kindergarten with, and before long, the two were engaged to be married.

[197] The young couple wanted to move in together, but they didn't have enough money.

[198] Regina was a full -time student, so she didn't have an income, and Dan barely made minimum wage working as a shelf stocker at Walmart.

[199] The only way they could get their own place would be if Regina dropped, dropped out of school and got a job too.

[200] This was a difficult decision for Regina because she still wanted to be a pediatrician, but at the same time she was really excited about her future with Dan, and so she thought, you know, I'm only 20 years old, I can always come back and get my education later and become a doctor later, and so in January of 2016, she disenrolled from her classes and went out looking for her job.

[201] A month later, she landed a job as an assembly line worker at a car parts supplier factory where her stepfather and one of her sisters currently worked.

[202] It was called Agent USA, and they supplied parts to Hyundai and to Kia.

[203] Regina's mother told her that it was not a great place to work, that she had worked at two other similar auto parts supplier factories, and the pace and pressure was unbearable.

[204] Car parts suppliers are known for being under intense pressure to reach their quotas every single day.

[205] Failure to do so, even by a slim margin, can lead to massive fines imposed on them by their customers, like in this case, Hyundai and Key.

[206] This immense pressure on these suppliers often leads them to overwork their employees like Regina.

[207] And the employees develop a sort of production at all -cost mentality because they see their employer only cares about hitting their daily quota.

[208] And so employees will cut corners and skirt safety regulations to ensure they stay on their quota.

[209] But after Regina's mother approached her and told her about all these horrible things about the auto parts supplier factories, Regina said, I got bills to pay.

[210] She had already moved into a house in southeastern Alabama near the Agent factory.

[211] She was living there with her fiancé Dan and her beloved dog cow.

[212] She had bought herself a brand new car, which she was very proud of.

[213] And she had found herself the perfect wedding dress that fit her just right, but it cost $4 ,000.

[214] And so Regina was not about to walk away from this job.

[215] She needed the money.

[216] When she first started at Agent, she was put on temporary status, which meant she only made $8 .75 an hour.

[217] In order for her to make more money, she would need the company to shift her to full -time status, which came with a $1 .75 per hour raise.

[218] Determined to show the company she was worthy of being shifted to that full -time status, Regina volunteered for 12 -hour shifts seven days a week.

[219] But by June of that year, after six months of this halacious work schedule, Regina was over it.

[220] And she went to her parents' house, she laid on the couch, and she told them that she just couldn't do it anymore.

[221] And in fact, she was going to start looking for other work, preferably something she could do part -time so she could go back to school and continue to pursue her career as a pediatrician.

[222] And her family was relieved and excited to see her get her life back to normal.

[223] A few days later, on June 18th, Regina, who was still employed at Aegean, was working the day shift at the factory.

[224] Her job that day was to oversee a robot that would weld on these metal pillars onto the front right and the front left of the car where the side view mirrors would attach to.

[225] This robot looked like a giant arm protruding from the ground, where at the end of the arm, where the hand would be, were two welding tips that stuck out about four inches each.

[226] The robot was surrounded by this huge chain -length fence that was there specifically to keep the employees from getting too close to it while it was in operation.

[227] Regina would oversee this robot via a computer screen outside of that cage.

[228] At some point in the afternoon, as Regina is monitoring her computer, it comes across the screen that there is a stud fault on Robot 23.

[229] Now, her robot was not Robot 23.

[230] It was the robot adjacent to her station.

[231] But the person in charge of overlooking Robot 23 was a part of her team.

[232] And her team had a daily quota to hit.

[233] And so having Robot 23 down directly impacted Regina.

[234] And so Gina stepped away from her computer.

[235] She walked over to the outside of Robot 23.

[236] She spoke to the team member and they decided it was best to just call maintenance and have them come by and try to clear the fault.

[237] A security camera inside of the factory was aimed down at Regina and her co -workers as they stood outside of the metal cage around Robot 23 waiting for maintenance.

[238] But after quite a while, maintenance still hadn't shown up and it was obvious the team was getting very anxious.

[239] They know every second that robot was not operational.

[240] They were hurting their chances of reaching their quota, which the company would be very upset about because they'd be hit with a big fine.

[241] And so at some point, Regina just kind of says, screw it, I'm going to fix the fault myself.

[242] And so she picks up a small tool that looks like a screwdriver.

[243] She opens up the cage to Robot 23, and she steps inside and walks right for the stem of the robot.

[244] When she gets over to it, she has her back to the robot's arm that's behind her, and she begins doing something with her tool to the stem of the robot.

[245] And whatever she does, it works because the robotic arm behind her springs into life and immediately goes back into the action it had been trying to perform before it failed.

[246] And that action involved swinging back in Regina's direction.

[247] And when it did, those two four -inch welding tips at the end of the robotic arm were driven directly into Regina's back, impaling her.

[248] Her coworkers saw it happen and hit the emergency shut -off switch, but it didn't power down the robot until after it had thrust Regina across the cage and pinned her up against the wall.

[249] And so with this robot now powered down, the welding tips were now run all the way through her upper back and pressed up against the wall.

[250] She was literally pinned to the wall, like tacking up a piece of paper with two tacks in a corkboard.

[251] She slouched over, but her eyes were wide open.

[252] She was conscious, but she didn't make a sound.

[253] Nobody knew how to release Regina from the robot's grasp.

[254] And so the team leader hopped on a forklift and sped across the factory floor towards the break room.

[255] He ran inside.

[256] he found a maintenance worker and he dragged him out they got on the forklift the maintenance worker had to sit on the team leader's lap and they sped back across the factory towards the robot 23 cage when they got there they took this maintenance guy and basically thrust him into the cage and told him to get regina out but the maintenance worker didn't speak any english he was terrified at what he was seeing seeing regina the way she was he didn't really know how to fix the situation tempers were flaring and before long the maintenance worker just got overwhelmed and ran away.

[257] When emergency crews finally arrived several minutes later, Regina was still pinned by this robot, she was conscious, her eyes were wide open, and she was still totally silent.

[258] And they were able to get her off.

[259] They sent her to a hospital, and then she was transported to a trauma center, but it was too late.

[260] The damage that had been done to her by getting impaled by this robot was just too extensive, and she died at the hospital.

[261] It would turn out Regina's company, Agent, had not properly trained her or any of her co -workers.

[262] Agent's policy was to hire people and as fast as possible get them on the floor helping them reach their quota.

[263] And so as a result, Regina and her team members had no idea about a so -called lockout procedure where if you're going to go inside one of these robots cages, you need to make sure the power switch has been locked out, meaning it will not turn back on if you fix the fault that has caused your robot to stop.

[264] All Regina and her car, co -workers knew is that the most important thing is hitting your quota at the end of the day.

[265] And so that was the reason Regina went inside of the cage, and that was the reason Regina was killed.

[266] Agent ultimately pleaded guilty to not having properly trained Regina leading to her death, and they paid the family $1 .5 million.

[267] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

[268] If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please offer to do all the Amazon Music Follow buttons laundry, but only dry their clothes 80 % of the way.

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[277] So, that's going to do it.

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[284] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[285] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[286] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[287] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[288] What happens next depends on who you ask.

[289] Was it a crime of passion?

[290] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[291] This was clearly an intentional act.

[292] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[293] or a corrupt police cover -up.

[294] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[295] Everyone had an opinion.

[296] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[297] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[298] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[299] You can listen to Karen, exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[300] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.