MFM Minisode 133 - The Traysure

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The minisode.

[3] Well, reread your stuff back to you.

[4] Don't worry about it.

[5] It's not a problem.

[6] Stop worrying.

[7] Stop acting like everything is a fucking problem that we do.

[8] We've got, we'll take care of you.

[9] Look, we've always let you down before.

[10] You know that you can't rely on us.

[11] You can't count on us.

[12] We don't know what we're talking about.

[13] Everything we say is false.

[14] So why are you panicking now?

[15] So what's the problem now?

[16] You should have done it like six months ago.

[17] Yeah.

[18] So here's what's amazing.

[19] Last time someone told a story, how did this happen, Stephen?

[20] Someone...

[21] Episode 97.

[22] But it was a minisode, right?

[23] No, it was a full phyllisode, philosophical sod.

[24] And...

[25] It was a phyllisdillarsode.

[26] Right, Stephen?

[27] And, okay.

[28] It was a full episode and someone said something about something in the walls.

[29] Right.

[30] Me?

[31] It was me. We went on, yes, you started it, and then we began to discuss finding things in walls.

[32] I told the story about Katie Newberger's house, things in walls.

[33] Yes.

[34] So basically, Stephen had this great idea to, wasn't it your idea?

[35] To ask for people to send us hometowns of stuff in walls, right?

[36] It was yours, Stephen.

[37] No, I feel like it was a group effort.

[38] I mean, I guess I should take the, I should take it.

[39] Good, good move.

[40] The consummate politician.

[41] Yeah.

[42] You should take credit.

[43] Was that the last thing?

[44] I'm pretty sure we have yeah okay fine I'm deleting the text where you asked and we're all and it never happened it was a team effort we need to start doing more team building I would like to do trust falls at the end of this episode please really let's get into the circle of trust surround yourself by a listen okay so what happened oh yeah we don't know stuff in walls and we're like why don't you tell everyone do you have weird story or photos.

[45] Tell us what you found in walls.

[46] Exactly.

[47] We're in love with that and it's our dream.

[48] And and what I, what was awesome is right after Stephen posted the episode the next day, it started immediately and somebody started, somebody said, and I have one here, but there are so many good ones that I would like to just say this quickly.

[49] Somebody came and said, we opened a wall and there tons of razor blades came out.

[50] Right.

[51] And then someone else, this was a real time thing that happened on Twitter and someone else came in and said in the 20s, that's how they used to dispose of razor blades, your medicine cabinet that got set into the wall had a little hole where you were supposed to put the razor blade into this like a little spot was like dispose of razor blades here and it just went into the wall that doesn't make any sense Steven has a photo yeah but that was like you know that's how they did shit back in the day oh my god just piles and piles of old razor blades laying there so if you've ever had that happen to you there's it there's an explanation and I just love that we have listeners that immediately are like let me tell little something about medicine cabinets in the 20s.

[52] Okay.

[53] Fucking facts.

[54] I love pointless facts.

[55] We love them.

[56] So credit to Kim M. Thanks, Kim M. For educating us on that.

[57] So I didn't mean to like, you know, that was a great one too, but that just kicked us off.

[58] And now, Stephen, he's got some stories.

[59] Do you want me to go first?

[60] You go first.

[61] Okay.

[62] I'm all sitting up and ready.

[63] I know.

[64] Because I really did love this one.

[65] So it's, hi, ladies, love you both and your amazing, etc. Boom.

[66] We're in.

[67] Love you, too, for writing it that way.

[68] My grandfather bought an old Victorian hotel in Ireland in the 1970s.

[69] Attached is a picture of the hotel in its heyday.

[70] Let's see that picture.

[71] Yes.

[72] You can't find these photos on Twitter and Instagram.

[73] It looks amazing.

[74] Cepatoned.

[75] It's everything you want out of Ireland.

[76] The hotel is Cibatone.

[77] Yeah, that whole neighborhood.

[78] They painted everything Cibatone.

[79] Just give you, this picture is from 2011.

[80] But it's Cepatone, so it feels old.

[81] That's not true.

[82] Okay.

[83] So it had about 20.

[84] bedrooms and at the beginning before it opened my dad's family lived in there about six months after about six months one of my uncles who was six or seven at the time was playing and slammed hard into a wall head injury uh it broke the wall broke revealing another room which had been sealed up once my grandfather broke the wall down they found an empty room with only a trunk inside and when they opened the fucking wait i just want to see over the moment like where I'm so excited and I don't know yet okay okay when they okay go ahead when they it they it had a fucking skeleton inside uh -huh uh -huh and then the next sentence an actual human skeleton what the fuck an actual it's an actual human skeleton and the jaw was going ah ah no uh granddad's photo was in the local paper and it was a really big deal in this rural Irish town.

[85] When the police looked into it, it turns out a doctor had lived there years before and it was his office problem.

[86] Oh.

[87] I mean, still, how fucking rad.

[88] Like, no, that whole experience.

[89] Like, what else do you want it to be?

[90] Nothing.

[91] Anything else is disappointing.

[92] No, you're right.

[93] But it's not as fun.

[94] It's, you don't want someone to have been terribly murdered and then sealed up into a secret room.

[95] Absolutely not.

[96] Of course you don't want that.

[97] But, but we're trying to tell stories here.

[98] This is my favorite murder.

[99] I got, I was short on it.

[100] I was late.

[101] I was trying to hold for you and then I had to move on.

[102] Granddad was so disappointed.

[103] He's an old Irish murderer.

[104] Oh my God.

[105] Granddad was so disappointed and always would tell the story to people when they would come to the hotel.

[106] Oh, I love it.

[107] They're like, oh, great.

[108] Oh, and then she wrote OG murderino.

[109] Oh, my God.

[110] Nice.

[111] SSDGM, Lara.

[112] Thanks, Laura.

[113] That's Laura.

[114] That's a good one.

[115] Mm -hmm.

[116] This is how Cousin Doris ruined her life by finding Trazier.

[117] Trazier!

[118] Yeah.

[119] Hi, Karen, Georgia, Stephen and Pets.

[120] I'll be honest, after listening to you guys for close to two years, I'm both thrilled to finally have a story for a minisode category and pretty terrified of screwing this up.

[121] Uh -oh.

[122] All right, Kathleen, don't screw this up.

[123] You better fucking nail this, Kathleen.

[124] Cousin Doris was actually my dad's cousin, so she's probably my second cousin or something, like, that.

[125] In the 1950s, she lived on a farm with her husband out in the sticks of Pennsylvania.

[126] Late one night, a friend of their stops in and asked him to hang on to a box for him.

[127] Yes, no problem.

[128] Won't look inside at all.

[129] Absolutely.

[130] Absolutely.

[131] We'd love to have that box.

[132] Give it here.

[133] Give it over.

[134] He'll be back to get it in a little while.

[135] Doris and her husband put the box on a top shelf in the closet and forget about it.

[136] Without even looking at it.

[137] Yep.

[138] Better person than I am.

[139] I bet it's his hat or his hat box it's my whole checkstubs about two years later doris is wrestling around in that closet and knocks the box over it falls to the ground and bursts open to reveal cash cash more cash than doris has ever seen in her life she and her husband going a shopping spree she buys furs and he buys a beautiful packard convertible wait how many years later sorry two years later so it's like 1950 whatever Yeah, but where's the guy?

[140] They're just spending the guy's money?

[141] Oh, sorry, sorry.

[142] There's only one problem.

[143] I think that they were just like, fuck it.

[144] Yeah, cash.

[145] It's been two years.

[146] Nobody can prove, but we did or didn't have this cash.

[147] Right.

[148] That's the problem with cash.

[149] There's only one problem.

[150] They live in a tiny rural town.

[151] Everyone knows their business and everyone's super duper knows that they have no legitimate reason to have that much money.

[152] The authorities get involved and actually and eventually pieced together that the friend who disappeared had robbed a bank.

[153] hidden the money at Doris's house then accidentally fucked off and died so it's horrible let's go ahead well I was just going to say so if they had played it right yeah you never buy a fur or a convertible first of all you don't need a fucking fur unless you live in the mountains yeah yeah just move out of Pennsylvania just you could go you could move somewhere or you could just buy small nice things right every time you go to the drugstore a new pair of hose right Something like that.

[154] Go to Sephora and do like a $250 sweep.

[155] No one is the wiser.

[156] The point is to be responsible with the money you stole it.

[157] Yes.

[158] Please be a practical thief and criminal.

[159] Of course not.

[160] Just use your head.

[161] Doris and her husband are convicted of aiding and abetting, receiving stolen goods, etc. She does 18 months either in prison or jail.

[162] I'm not sure which, except here's the sad twist.

[163] Doris was in her mid -20s at the time that this happened.

[164] While she was locked up, she started hearing voices and being bothered by people no one else could see.

[165] Nowadays, we understand that the onset of schizophrenia is pretty common in a woman's 20s, but as far as my family was concerned, prison drove her nuts.

[166] Well, yeah.

[167] We called her crazy cousin Doris until we understood that that was not a cute nickname.

[168] No. Which probably took way longer than it should have.

[169] She got divorced pretty soon after getting out of prison and moved to California and spent the rest of her life reading magazines about aliens.

[170] Hell yes.

[171] At least she was happy about the little gray men not creeped out by them.

[172] Stay sexy, don't get murdered, and be careful of free cash, Kathleen.

[173] Am I crazy cousin Doris?

[174] Because that sounds like a dream life.

[175] Reading magazines?

[176] In fur coats.

[177] But also sitting in a convertible.

[178] Right.

[179] You know how much you love your fur coats, Karen.

[180] is it my turn it's your turn and the subject line is when I was in a cult we lived in a former crack house with random hidden treasures oh my god read this to me slowly and it just says salutations I grew up really poor primarily because my parents were part of a very restrictive quote religious organization aka apocalyptic cult oh honey and while they didn't make us all live in a compound they did dictate when my father could work no Saturday work and my mom was supposed to be the stepford wife no work at all.

[181] Fuck that.

[182] My dad was in construction and money was tight.

[183] This resulted in our family living in some pretty interesting houses, but by far, the former crack house was the best.

[184] My parents didn't announce that the house was a former crack house, but as I got older, I put two and two together.

[185] Not only was there tons of furniture and other belongings everywhere in the house when we moved in, it also had tons of children's stuff and Polaroids of children labeled black male picture.

[186] What?

[187] Uh -huh.

[188] There's a child finding these pictures.

[189] What the fuck?

[190] I wanted to leave this next detail out, but my husband insists that it be told.

[191] Absolutely.

[192] Married the right man. And he's the right man for us.

[193] Yeah.

[194] That's what matters.

[195] That's what we meant.

[196] That's all that matters.

[197] In the hallway, someone had knocked a hole in the wall, and that hole was full of used hypodermic needles.

[198] Uh -huh.

[199] My dad patched it up.

[200] And we went about our lives.

[201] Someday we're going to get out.

[202] That's what we found in the wall story.

[203] It's going to be hybridermic needles.

[204] Yep.

[205] And it's going to, we have, then we'll have to come right back to this episode.

[206] Okay.

[207] It's kind of like the shaving razors in the wall, but more disgusting.

[208] I've always wondered if anyone ever discovered them.

[209] Anyway, that's what we were just talking about.

[210] Us too.

[211] Us too.

[212] Samezies.

[213] Anyway, in the backyard, there was a shed that was filled with porn mags and strangely beautiful antiques.

[214] What?

[215] I mean, which one's the other?

[216] Who can say?

[217] I have two passions in this life.

[218] Filthy porn and old lamps.

[219] We were only renting this cracked end, so my mom said we weren't supposed to throw anything away and that we couldn't go out there.

[220] But I thought it was hilarious to have all that porn and regularly got in trouble for bringing friends over to partake in the fun.

[221] Fuck, yeah.

[222] Yeah, you got to look at that porn.

[223] Whoops.

[224] After a couple of years living there.

[225] We discovered that the strip of green shag carpet in my brother's closet came up to reveal an outline on the floor.

[226] We lifted it up and found a room dug out in the crawl space.

[227] We were too freaked out to explore down there anymore.

[228] So we threw a bunch of toys and stuff in it and never spoke of it again.

[229] I love them.

[230] They put stuff on top of it.

[231] Yep.

[232] I love this family.

[233] They're all about denial.

[234] and sub sublimating everything.

[235] Covering it up.

[236] Just cover things up.

[237] Cover it up.

[238] Cover it up.

[239] Cover things up.

[240] Patch it.

[241] Seal it.

[242] Someone else's problem in the future.

[243] Someone else's hometown in the future.

[244] Throw some drywall up over it, nail it on.

[245] Oh my God.

[246] Okay.

[247] By accident one day, I discovered that the broken AC window unit in my room was filled with old newspapers and JFK half dollars.

[248] What?

[249] That's nuts.

[250] That's cool.

[251] money in the air conditioning.

[252] See, because people on drugs.

[253] Oh, yeah.

[254] They get real nuts.

[255] And then they're like, I have to hide this.

[256] And they hide it.

[257] And then they don't remember where they put it or why.

[258] And they think someone stole it.

[259] And then they think they stole their shit.

[260] And then they realize they just hid it in the fucking AC unit.

[261] Hey, it's just in the AC unit.

[262] Oh, shit.

[263] I killed fucking whatever.

[264] My best friend.

[265] Okay, we lived there over five years.

[266] And every year we would find more and more stuff buried in the backyard.

[267] Dude.

[268] Fuck.

[269] Mostly kitchen.

[270] items, like wooden spoons.

[271] What?

[272] I got to hide these wooden spoons.

[273] The government's coming for my spoons.

[274] But also the occasional antique china.

[275] I never made it into the attic, primarily because of rats, Jesus Christ, but also because I could see into it from the garage unit via giant holes in the ceiling, and it did not look structurally sound.

[276] But I bet there was some cool stuff up there.

[277] Eventually, my parents left the cult.

[278] We moved, but before we did, I made sure.

[279] to hide stuff around the house before we left for some other kids to hopefully find.

[280] Oh, no. In addition to the crack treasures, whenever I'm in town, I check to see if it's up for rent or sale in case there's a chance we do to do a walkthrough.

[281] Oh, my God.

[282] Fun fact.

[283] When we moved into the next place, my sister promptly found a Nazi coin in one of the closets.

[284] Sincerely yours, Ginger.

[285] Georgia, what if I told you we could be transported to the 1920s to solve a murder?

[286] I'd say, my entire life and wardrobe have led me. to this point.

[287] If you want to escape to a bygone age of mystery, danger, and romance, then check out June's Journey, the hidden object mystery game that tests your detective skills.

[288] June's journey is a mobile mystery game that follows June Parker and New York socialite living in London.

[289] As June Parker, you'll investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder.

[290] There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline.

[291] And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective Club where you can chat with other players and either team up with them or compete against them.

[292] June needs your help, but watch out.

[293] You never know which character might be a villain.

[294] Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance.

[295] Can you crack the case?

[296] Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

[297] Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

[298] That's June's Journey, download the game for free on iOS and Android.

[299] Goodbye.

[300] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[301] Absolutely.

[302] And when you say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash.

[303] Exactly.

[304] And if you're a small business owner, you might know Shopify is great for online sales.

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[313] Connect with customers in line and online.

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[315] Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify .com slash murder.

[316] important note that promo code is all lowercase go to shopify .com slash murder to take your retail business to the next level today that's shopify dot com slash murder goodbye okay so the subject line of this one is found in the wall these never get old for me amazing go hi karen georgia steven felines and canines great oh that's the first one of that never really thought about the fact that it kind of rhymes first of all i love the podcast second of all i once found some fucked up shit in the wall of an old house here we go here we got several years ago my dad was buying old Victorian houses and fixing them up and flipping them yes cool dead so cool you know before the whole housing bubble burst yes I do know about that got it oh I was underwater in my own home one house he bought needed a bad gut job the dining room was covered in this wonderful 1970s wood paneling and every bedroom had a different incredibly ostentatious wallpaper oh my dream Please show me 17 pictures of that.

[317] I love wallpaper.

[318] I love wallpaper.

[319] I love it.

[320] Do you remember the store wallpapers to go?

[321] Oh my God.

[322] In the 80s, 70s, 80s.

[323] And you could go down there and they just had a, it was like a store filled with wallpapers on the wall.

[324] It was to go.

[325] You'd order it to go.

[326] No, but I do.

[327] And wallpaper is making a comeback.

[328] The secret is you get a really tacky, crazy wallpaper, but you only wallpaper one wall with it.

[329] And you paint the rest of the walls like a light, you know, complimentary color.

[330] Yeah.

[331] Everyone.

[332] And it becomes your fascinator wall.

[333] Follow my design blog.

[334] It's called Walpapers to Go.

[335] By Georgia.

[336] The room I was living in was covered in gigantic blue and lime green flowers.

[337] A hundred percent on board.

[338] Hard to sleep.

[339] While pulling down the wood panel.

[340] It's aggressive.

[341] Yeah.

[342] It's like when we all, my sister and I got to pick our paint wall color.

[343] Yeah.

[344] When we were in the house where I heard the dog outside my bedroom window.

[345] I wanted it to be kind of a nice moss, a light moss green.

[346] It was fucking neon lime green.

[347] Oh shit.

[348] To the point where I feel like, you know, they do those studies where if you paint the walls, certain color has psychological effects.

[349] Yeah.

[350] I am 1 ,000 % sure that it made my experience as a 12 to 14 year old much more painful than it needed to be.

[351] Zap that brain of yours.

[352] Ooh.

[353] Okay.

[354] Back to whatever this show is.

[355] Okay.

[356] He's pulling down the fucking...

[357] While pulling down the wood paneling in the dining room, we discovered a hole in the wall.

[358] My dad comments that it was so lazy of the previous owners to just put paneling over a hole in the drywall instead of repairing it, but I looked inside the hole and found a very old manila envelope.

[359] It wasn't a million dollars inside, but it was two very old eight millimeter film rolls, reels, sorry, unmarked.

[360] Naturally, I assumed it was a snuff film.

[361] Sure.

[362] Wouldn't we all?

[363] So I called a friend that worked at a video production company and asked him what to do with these film reels.

[364] Bring them down immediately.

[365] I have to know what's on them, he tells me. Love you.

[366] Love you.

[367] So the next day, I drove to his studio and clean the film with cotton and baby oil, trying to restore them.

[368] I think it was supposed to be he cleaned, whatever.

[369] My friend told me we'd only get one view.

[370] out of them because the film was so deteriorated.

[371] Oh my God.

[372] So I call a few more buddies and we had a screening party.

[373] What was on the film?

[374] They're all dead now.

[375] What?

[376] You want to do a guess?

[377] What was on the film?

[378] It's not film.

[379] Oh, you think it was a not film?

[380] Yeah.

[381] Stephen.

[382] What do you think was on this film?

[383] Moustache porn?

[384] Just childhood memories?

[385] No, it was homemade porn.

[386] From the 1960s.

[387] Holy shit.

[388] Judging by the woman's plastic.

[389] and unmovable gigantic hair and the man's not what I thought you were in and the man's impressive mustache and the room they were in had gigantic no floral wallpaper my bedroom amazing so good freaked out I returned home and talked to the elderly woman who lived across the street she'd been in her house for about 40 years at that point and I asked her if she remembers the people described from the film.

[390] You know they had a giant bush?

[391] She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know her, yeah.

[392] Oh, sure.

[393] She had a giant bush.

[394] God, that thing was big.

[395] She said that in the late 60s, there was a pastor from the local church who lived there.

[396] Oh, really?

[397] But he wasn't married.

[398] So who was the mystery woman?

[399] I still have the film reels, but they're so badly damaged.

[400] They can't really be viewed anymore.

[401] Anyway, SSTGM and always watch mystery films found an order.

[402] walls, Annie.

[403] Fuck Annie.

[404] Amazing.

[405] That was everything we need it to be.

[406] I think I would prefer, I mean, obviously, finding money's great, bloody blah.

[407] I think finding two film reels would make me go insane.

[408] The thing of, we'll only be able to watch this once.

[409] It's almost, it's like from a movie where you're like, come on, it's not a thing.

[410] So everybody get down here, call everybody.

[411] And then it's exactly what you'd want it to be, which is fucking.

[412] fucking homemade vintage porn.

[413] Homemade porn.

[414] And if only that pastor knew that in 40 years, homemade porn would be a celebrated huge piece of the internet that everybody participated on.

[415] Everyone loves it.

[416] It's like not even real porn.

[417] I love it.

[418] Hello Karen, Georgia, Stephen, and Animals.

[419] You mentioned in your last podcast that you were looking for people who found cool things in their walls.

[420] I didn't find anything murder related, but I did find a random assortment of objects.

[421] My fiance and I were renovating our basement about a year.

[422] or two ago.

[423] And the basement had a horrible decor.

[424] Wood shingles on most walls.

[425] Ew.

[426] Inside, inside shingles, a large native mural of a bird.

[427] Wooden arrow on one wall, shag carpet, stocked.

[428] Amazing.

[429] Yeah.

[430] We found the following items in the walls during demolition.

[431] A black Sharpie message, quote, we hope the world is better for you because it sure is fucked up in our time.

[432] Ron and Brian, December, 1976.

[433] Oh my God.

[434] And there's a photo.

[435] And there's a photo.

[436] Oh my God.

[437] Sorry Ron and Brian.

[438] Brian and Brian, we got bad news.

[439] Yeah, guess what?

[440] You baby boomers are probably the Republicans now.

[441] Also, it peaked 76.

[442] It may have been at the top.

[443] Oh, my God, that's so good.

[444] Let me see.

[445] That's the other one.

[446] So, oh, my God.

[447] So that message, then a blank postcard of a man and a bright pink speedo chest hair and all.

[448] There's that picture so good.

[449] He's amazing.

[450] A deck of playing cards featuring naked women from the 70s.

[451] A pipe with weed stuffed in it.

[452] Fuck yeah.

[453] A wooden dildo that was clearly homemade.

[454] Wow.

[455] Woodshop.

[456] A small Batman figurine.

[457] And an Abba Greatest Hits Volume 2 vinyl record.

[458] Wow.

[459] Anyway, thanks for the loves.

[460] It was great seeing you at the Toronto Live Show, Renee.

[461] Oh my God.

[462] I like that.

[463] It's so good.

[464] live your life okay the subject line of this is my literal job is finding stuff in walls this is this is slightly long but it's really worth i am here for it hi karen and georgia imagine my delight when i realized your obsession with finding shit in walls was very real clearly you were operating on my level of obsession which is basically the doctoral level of finding shit in walls i am director of museums for historic charleston foundation in charleston oh my god south Carolina, Charleston, that's a whole sentence.

[465] As a historian and preservationist in charge of two sites in the historic district, we find all caps a lot of shit in walls.

[466] Here's the latest and greatest story.

[467] One of the house museums I oversee is called the Nathaniel Russell House.

[468] It was built by, hey, you guessed it, Nathaniel Russell in 1808.

[469] The original house consisted of an enormous three -story federal mansion, kitchen house, carriage house, workyard and garden.

[470] Russell moved into the house.

[471] House in the spring of 1808 with his wife, two daughters, aged 19 and 17, and 18 enslaved men and women.

[472] We have owned the Russell House since 1955, and since 1989, much time, funding, and effort has been poured into the study and restoration of the main house.

[473] As such, it is a pristine example of the towering wealth of slave owners in the early 19th century, whereas the areas inhabited by those 18 enslaved people were used for offices or storage and were not considered essential to the telling of the full history of the house.

[474] Sorry.

[475] Needless to say, that line of thinking has evolved and last year we began an intensive study of the kitchen house to learn more about the lives of those living and working in the kitchen, laundry, and living quarters between 1808 and 1865.

[476] I should add that since very little about the daily lives of the enslaved, of the enslaved, survives in written record.

[477] It's only through forensic evidence and archaeology that we're able to piece together what life was like.

[478] Even microscopic traces of pink can tell us volumes about a room from 200 years ago.

[479] We began our study of the kitchen house by assessing the structure and realized that the upstairs living quarters were drywalled in the early 20th century.

[480] Oh shit.

[481] And we could hear voids behind it when we tapped along the walls.

[482] A contractor on our team used a very small reciprocating straw to cut a small hole in the drywall and we were astounded by what we found underneath.

[483] Behind the drywall, perfectly encapsulated was the original plaster walls of the first period slave quarter.

[484] Holy shit.

[485] Complete with original lime wash. We were amazed since features like this don't survive 200 years of renovation.

[486] But as we removed drywall, we realized that practically everything in the room was original to the period of enslavement, plaster woodwork, paint finishes, windows sashes, doors, everything.

[487] As the drywall came down, the room transformed, and we were looking at the same walls from the early 1800s.

[488] Oh, my God.

[489] It was an incredibly emotional day, thinking about how everything we could see was built by the enslaved from the bricks and mortar to the plaster and paint, and these surfaces hadn't been seen for at least 100 years.

[490] This was a living space for enslaved people, and probably the only place in the house they could have a moment peace, if any.

[491] It was like a sacred place.

[492] to say the least so then it gets better oh my god as we rounded the corner and continued to remove drywall we discover tons of debris packed in between the studs and baseboards while all that shit ended up being the remains of several undisturbed rats nests before you freak out finding a rat's nest is like christmas morning for preservationists oh because they take it and run yep we were literally jumping for joy holy shit um rats tend to gather items from a 50 foot radius pack it in there and then pee all over it and thankfully, rat pee is a preservative.

[493] Holy shit.

[494] So even if a nest is hundreds of years old, the things in it tend to stay intact over many years.

[495] Oh my God.

[496] They're like tiny time capsules.

[497] If time capsules were full of nod bones, mummified rat poop and a shitload of sweet artifacts.

[498] Fun.

[499] We wasted no time pulling all that shit literally out of the walls.

[500] I'll attach a photo of us coming through one of eight rat nests.

[501] Oh, my God.

[502] So you can see how much debris we are talking.

[503] about.

[504] We spent several days painstakingly combing through the debris and removing artifacts.

[505] We uncovered hundreds of artifacts these fucking rats had straight up stolen from the people living in the kitchen house.

[506] We found buttons, stockings, marbles, straight pins, a portion of a waistcoat, a veil from a bonnet, hundreds of bones from butchered animals.

[507] They were likely stealing these from the kitchen one floor down.

[508] We found a small lidded paper box containing a cake of makeup.

[509] Oh my God.

[510] The most exciting finds, however, were two fragments of paper.

[511] One was a minuscule bit of newspaper with the name Crookshank on it.

[512] My colleague was quickly able to search the historic newspaper database and match it with the digitized original, which dated from November 1833.

[513] It was incredible to know that everything we were looking at was from such an early period.

[514] However, it gets better.

[515] The most intriguing artifact retrieved from the nest was a tiny fragment of a reading primer.

[516] This one made us all tear up.

[517] When we realized what it was.

[518] You see, reading and writing was illegal for enslaved people in South Carolina in 1833.

[519] Despite this, someone living above the kitchen at the Russell House got their hands on a reading primer and were possibly learning to read and write.

[520] Holding the physical evidence of potential resistance was one of the most powerful moments of my career.

[521] So that's my touching story of finding shit and walls.

[522] The kitchen house restoration is still ongoing.

[523] You can come see it when you come to Charleston in September.

[524] Dude.

[525] And we are in the fundraising period.

[526] now hoping to fund a full restoration of the kitchen house so it can be put on public view along with the artifacts we pulled out of the walls telling the story the full story of charleston and it's complicated and painful past is basically my reason for living at this point so it is important especially in this political climate thank you so much for keeping me company during long hours of cataloguing museum objects you guys are the best cannot wait to see you in september SSDGM Lauren.

[527] Holy shit.

[528] That is incredible.

[529] Isn't that amazing?

[530] incredible story.

[531] If you, the she's the director of museums for the historic Charleston Foundation.

[532] So whenever the historic Charleston Foundation starts that fundraising campaign, there's nothing I'd love more than to see that house.

[533] Me too.

[534] Let's just go knock on that fucking gym house door.

[535] Hi.

[536] We'll go there, but we'll be wearing gloves and masks and booties on our shoes.

[537] Totally.

[538] Stephen has the photos.

[539] Oh, oh.

[540] We'll put them up on Instagram and Twitter and shit.

[541] Oh, my God.

[542] Facebook.

[543] That's so much stuff.

[544] Oh, that is creepy and looks so much fun.

[545] Wow.

[546] That's like, it's like American Indiana Jones.

[547] Can people who are, who work in museums, I know like a lot of museums have their, like, their shit that they, they just store that they don't have out.

[548] Like, send us the weirdest thing you have or the creepiest thing you have or the your favorite thing that you've have in there.

[549] It sounds like you're trying to rip off Don Wildman's mysteries at the museum.

[550] Please, essentially, Don Wildman us.

[551] We want to get bite that Don Wildman style.

[552] And we want you to Mysteries at the museum email us.

[553] Well, because there's nothing more fascinating than the real, the real stuff.

[554] The real, the real history.

[555] Which is, by the way, you should watch the show.

[556] It's a great show.

[557] Yes.

[558] However, we want the ones that Don Wildman doesn't want.

[559] They can't tell every story.

[560] Yeah, it's right.

[561] We will.

[562] Listen, uh, send us a Send us a wee -woo.

[563] Weet -woo us at my favorite murder at Gmail.

[564] Send us a whistle.

[565] Send us a whistle.

[566] Weat -woo at us.

[567] And stay sexy.

[568] And don't get murdered.

[569] Goodbye.

[570] Elvis, you want a cookie?

[571] That's right.

[572] Weak -woo.

[573] He just weat -woot.

[574] He wit -woot.

[575] He wit -woot.

[576] Weet -wooed.