Episode 22: Hometown Urban Legends
/Your hometown defines you - the stories you hear end up being the stories that you tell through the rest of your life. This week, in honor of heading home for Thanksgiving, we bring you the urban legends we grew up with! From haunted asylums, to spooky roads, to demonic possessions, hear the stories that got us into the creepy & cool early on.
Hear our take on Sweet Hollow Road, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, and the Amityville Horror, classic stories from our childhood home of Long Island, New York. For more creepiness check out these haunting and beautiful photos of Chernobyl.
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and review us in iTunes to help new listeners find the show. Plus, check out our Patreon for bonus audio content, behind-the-scenes photos, custom recipe cards, and more. We can also be reached at spiritspodcast@gmail.com.
Our music is "Danger Storm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.
Transcript
AM: Welcome to Spirits Podcast Episode 22: Hometown Urban Legends.
JS: Oh man, I'm so excited actually. We haven't really shared any personal stories yet.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, I'm super stoked about this.
AM: And we're from a weird ass place.
JS: Yeah, we are.
AM: Long Island is like, on the one hand, totally vapid of culture. And, on the other hand, like in the – in the middle of so many like New England, New Jersey, you know, immigrant stories, New York City lore, it's a pretty cool place.
JS: I think everyone --
AM: Mobsters.
JS: I think everyone's got sort of their own – their own hometown urban legends --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- and folklores and stuff. And I just guess you don't hear about them until you really dive into it.
AM: Exactly. And, and something that you think is really normal to you and your friend group, you suddenly – you know, in college or in the workplace, bring up to someone and they're like --
JS: Yes.
AM: "What are you talking about, Midnight Mary, you know?
JS: Yeah.
AM: And, yeah, I mean this is a week of homecoming for a lot of our US listeners. Not everyone, you know, goes home for Thanksgiving. Not everyone likes it. It's not always an easy holiday.
JS: Not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving.
AM: Exactly. But one thing that we all do have in common is that we all have hometowns. And we thought it'd be very cool to share with you some tales from ours.
JS: Yeah. So, if you are going home for Thanksgiving and you have a hometown story that you want to share with us or if you're not going home for Thanksgiving and you want to share a little slice of your home with us --
AM: We just like hearing from you. Please help our needs.
JS: Yes. Tweet us, Facebook, Email. Send --
AM: Spiritspodcast@gmail.
JS: Yes. Send it.
AM: Spirits Podcast everywhere.
JS: We want to hear it. It'll keep us entertained while we're with our families.
AM: Yeah. Like – and something else that I think would be awesome to do this week is to share the show with one person in your life who you love. You know, share it with a friend, share it with someone who would get us, share it with like your badass coworker across the office that you really want to bond with but haven't yet. Maybe, you know, you and a friend will be driving home for Thanksgiving. Maybe you'll be going froyo after midnight. Maybe you'll be driving down this like windy two lane Parkway to the beach in the middle of winter or maybe that's just what Julia and I do.
JS: That is true.
AM: But you should share it with somebody you love.
JS: Thank you guys, of course, for interacting with us on Twitter. Special thanks to Thea, which is Soap by Thea. Thanks, Thea. Philip Ellis, who gave us a great shout out about our Medusa episode. Thank you.
AM: So nice.
JS: HangryKicks, who gave us a really cool shout out and has one of the best names that I saw on Twitter.
AM: Just a cool name. Just a cool name.
JS: Awesome. And Allison Eyres.
AM: We also like to thank our newest patron Dahrvla Kelley, what up Ireland, and our supporting producer-level patron LeeAnn Davis. I’m teaching --
JS: Beautiful, unique snowflake mermaid..
AM: Such a beautiful – oh, such a beautiful land mermaid. We are teaching this month. I’m doing some audio extras about my favorite mythological poems. So, if you sign up to be a $3 patron – just $3 – you get access to our entire back catalogue of audio extras and behind-the-scenes posts.
JS: Amanda's poetry reading voice is really, really pretty and beautiful and very relaxing.
AM: It's almost like I should have a radio show.
JS: Oh, oh, yeah.
AM: My voice is not like that.
JS: Oh, no. Not at all.
AM: Cool. So, what are we drinking this week, Jules?
JS: I thought, because we're going home --
AM: We are.
JS: We are from Long Island.
AM: We are.
JS: I picked a Long Island brewery, one of my favorites. Great South Bay Brewery.
AM: They're great.
JS: They're not sponsoring us, but they should.
AM: Hey, get in touch.
JS: I – totally, we're doing the Blood Orange IPA.
AM: I am usually not into fruity beers, but this fruity beer is pretty good.
JS: Passed the test.
AM: Happy thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating. If you are not or if this is a hard time of year for you, we feel you and we see you too. So, without further ado, please enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 22: Hometown Urban Legends.
Intro Music
JS: So, Thanksgiving is tomorrow.
AM: I, I can't believe – I can't believe it. I know that like it's so dumb to hear people talk about, "Oh, the time goes by so quickly." But I guess that --
JS: It does, man.
AM: -- this is how life passes, where, you know, without school semesters to kind of delineate your life, suddenly, you're 24 and a half.
JS: Yep. That's a little terrifying. I'm only one month into my 24. So, I'm okay with that.
AM: Julia and I are almost a year apart, which is – which was great when I got my license.
JS: Yes.
AM: And you don't have to worry about it.
JS: Yes.
AM: But I will always be --
JS: Except when we were going to bars and shit though.
AM: It did. Yeah, I had a wait.
JS: You had to wait for me for a while.
AM: I had to wait that, that middle year.
JS: That sucked.
AM: I love you enough that it was okay.
JS: I appreciate it.
AM: You got it.
JS: Okay. So, Thanksgiving tomorrow. Thank god the year’s almost done. It's been a fucking killer ass year in the bad way. Not a good way.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Not a good killer.
AM: Get it out of here.
JS: So, this is kind of the time where we all head home.
AM: It is.
JS: Yes. Thanksgiving, you – traditionally, you'd had home. You spend time with your family. You --
AM: Go to those weird, sad hometown bars and see people from your kindergarten class.
JS: You get super drunk on wine while you try and like not fight with your uncle over politics.
AM: Yep. Oh, that's not gonna be fun this year.
JS: Nope. No, no. The Wednesday is always when everyone gets super drunk beforehand. And then you get super again.
AM: I thought it was the like Friday like you start day drinking.
JS: No. I think it's like everyone starts drinking Wednesday night and just get through --
AM: Like on – in Penn Station on the train home.
JS: Oh, yeah. 100 percent.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: Where --
AM: This is Long Island, folks.
JS: Yeah.
AM: This is where we're from, as we said, I think in the intro. Penn Station train beer like that means I need this, you know, paper bag covered 4D to get through the next four hours.
JS: And then you stop at a bar on the way home.
AM: Ooh.
JS: You see everyone from your elementary school.
AM: Yeah. You gotta make sure you look cute.
JS: Yeah, of course.
AM: That's important.
JS: And then you go home, try and sleep until you smell turkey, and then – and then roll out of bed.
AM: Doesn't sound so bad.
JS: We did some weird-ass shit as teenagers I feel like.
AM: Not bad. Just weird.
JS: I mean not bad. Just weird shit.
AM: Yeah.
JS: I feel like all like teenagers in small towns do weird shit. Not bad shit. Weird shit.
AM: Yeah. Like – I don't know – there's some kind of – some kind of phenomenon behind like trying to really cling to like the lore of the place that you're from.
JS: Yes.
AM: Maybe like knowing that you're going to leave for college soon kind of makes you want to put roots down or maybe you want to kind of legitimize this place that you grew up in. That it's, you know, not as cool as big cities and not as, you know, exotic as foreign countries, but there's something about this place too.
JS: Right. And I think it's also part of a rite of passage sort of situation.
AM: It is. Yeah. You hear your older cousins, and brothers, and sisters, and friends like, like go under the bridge to honk three times --
JS: Yes.
AM: -- to do whatever.
JS: Yes. Which is what we're going to talk about today.
AM: Oh, good. I forgot everything that's about it. So --
JS: We're going to talk about – we're going to talk about the urban legends of our hometown of Long Island.
AM: Well, you know, there is some stuff to be said for Long Island.
JS: Yeah. I mean the – us, crazy teens, always end up doing some crazy shit where we go to weird haunted places on Long Island --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- or break into abandoned mental institutions and dumb shit like that.
AM: Yeah. There's, there's a good – there's a good like middle of the Venn diagram between like tragic crime --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- like tragic state actions perpetrated against vulnerable populations. And then like weird – like people, immigrants from Italy and Ireland and Poland like telling you strange stories that get transmogrified into an urban legend in the middle school cafeteria.
JS: And that's what we're going to break into. So, here's a good one to start off with. The Kings Park Psychiatric Center.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Have you heard of this?
AM: Every emo band on Long Island --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- needs to take a cover photo.
JS: Took photos there. Jake's band took photos there at one point.
AM: Of course. Jake, our resident cryptozoologist.
JS: Built in 1885, it opened up in 1895, but then was closed and abandoned in 1996. So, like a solid --
AM: Hundred years. Yeah.
JS: -- 100 years – 101 years.
AM: And it was a psychiatric facility.
JS: Psychiatric facility, which is actually really interesting because the hospital was originally built to be a self-sufficient community. So, they grew their own food. They generate their own heat and electricity. It housed all its staff on site.
AM: Yeah.
JS: It even had its own Long Island Robert’s Dock.
AM: Did it really?
JS: Yeah. It super did.
AM: Wow. Talk about a like – a pariah type situation where like who stands up when you get to the Kings County Medical Facility stop.
JS: You're like, "Oh, I guess have fun checking in on your relatives or checking in yourself. Wooh. So, however, as the psychiatric hospital grew and the number of patients grew, they had to expand their building. So, they ended up with 13 total buildings.
AM: Yeah. A bunch of outbuildings and stuff. Right.
JS: Yeah. The most famous one being Building 93. So, patient numbers at the hospital peaked at 9,309.
AM: Shit.
JS: And, at that point, the asylum started to turn to more invasive techniques like prefrontal lobotomies and electroshock therapy.
AM: Right. Patient management in the form of, you know, making patients less like, you know, able to move their own bodies.
JS: Right. It's that – that shit like creeps me the fuck out though, honestly.
AM: I know.
JS: One of my – like – so, I listen to Lore.
AM: Yes.
JS: Because Lore is a excellent podcast, but it usually doesn't spook me out too much.
AM: Right. You have pretty high tolerance --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- for spookiness.
JS: The one episode that he did about the dude who like went around the country and performed lobotomies --
AM: Oh, no.
JS: -- with an ice pick through people's eyes.
AM: That's a hard myth.
JS: That fucked me up. That was so fucking terrifying. And, so, as I'm researching about Kings Park, that's like what keeps coming to mind for me.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Because – oh, god, that's so freakin terrifying.
AM: Thanks, Aaron.
JS: That was the norm for about 20 something years. And then, in 1995, the first treatment of mental illness through drug, which was called thorazine --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- started happening, which means --
AM: Very, very popular.
JS: -- they could actually start releasing their patients out into the world again because --
AM: And that was in '95.
JS: '99. Sorry. 1955.
AM: Oh, I was gonna say 9 --
JS: Did I say '95?
AM: Yeah.
JS: Sorry. 1955.
AM: That's, that's when they closed. That's okay. That's okay.
JS: So, with the introduction of thorazine, a lot of the patients were able to leave the mental institution because --
AM: Right.
JS: -- they were able to manage their illness better.
AM: They had a treatment regimen. Right.
JS: And they had a treatment regimen and all of that. And they were able to reenter society.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, that's just the history of the asylum. Nowadays, it's rumored to be one of the most haunted locations on Long Island.
AM: It is a pretty picturesque wreck. We'll include links in the show notes
JS: Yeah. Well, it is a hot mes.
AM: And it has its own like – I think its own exit off the highway. Like --
JS: Yes.
AM: Yeah. So, it's – every time I pass it coming home from Oakdale, I am always like, "Huh."
JS: Yeah.
AM: I'm not going to go there.
JS: It's super, super creepy. So, there's a bunch of rumors which have developed since it closed about --
AM: Let's do it.
JS: -- unexplained deaths. Many of the patients were said to be murdered by other patients. And they were covered up by the staff.
AM: I mean let's be honest. The peak population of 10,000 like some of those shit are likely to be true.
JS: Yeah, that's true. There's, there's like a really thick woods surrounding the campus of the hospital.
AM: Naturally.
JS: And there's rumors that like patients got lost wandering into the woods and either escaped or went missing and died in the woods.
AM: Wow.
JS: So, there's a lot of craziest ass stories about that. There's other ones that said that a lot of them tried to escape and drowned in the Long Island Sound, which is right north of where the hospital is.
AM: Right north of it. Yeah. That's not sanitary.
JS: Yeah. That's kind of – kind of sad. One of the most interesting stories though revolves around the tunnels.
AM: Yes.
JS: So, there were a bunch of tunnels that were built into the buildings around the grounds --
AM: For wintertime.
JS: -- for wintertime so that patients or staff members --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- don't have to brave the cold north shore Long Island winds.
AM: I think, back in the day, it was slightly more snowy than it currently is.
JS: Yes. No. That's true.
AM: Thanks, climate change.
JS: Also, the north shore is always snowier --
AM: Yes. Yes.
JS: -- than the rest of the island.
AM: Yes. Part of Long Island faces Connecticut and is on this really like choppy Sound. Think of whaling ships. Think of, you know, Great Gatsby. That East Egg type shit.
JS: Yeah.
AM: That's the north shore. We're from the south shore, which is beachy and relatively placid and has really good surfing.
JS: Teddy Roosevelt once called it the Sandy Wastelands of the South Shore.
AM: Wow.
JS: The Roosevelt's were from the north shore.
AM: Sick burn, Teddy.
JS: Yeah. That's like intense.
AM: I also hear that you, you date girls from the south shore, but you marry girls from the north shore.
JS: Your dad would say that.
AM: My dad didn't know. No, no, no.
JS: Oh, okay.
AM: Don't implicate my dad. No. That's just like – I actually think it was my Uncle Brendan, my dad's brother. who said that.
JS: That's, that's right.
AM: But that's very – that's very typical.
JS: Yeah.
AM: You know, I think of us as like the north shore is near Connecticut, the south shore is near Jersey. That's, that's pretty important. That is actually pretty [Inaudible12:00] what it is.
JS: Yeah, now that I think about it.
AM: But, yes, snow and wind and tunnels.
JS: So, the tunnels connect all the buildings. They were said to house secret torture chambers, and patients were kept against their will and experimented on.
AM: I mean, if you're going to detain a patient to experiment upon them. Yeah.
JS: Secret tunnels, I guess that makes sense.
AM: Cellar. That makes sense.
JS: Yeah. So, Building 93 is also considered the most haunted part of the campus.
AM: How much you want to bet that a pop punk band from Long Island has released [Inaudible 12:29] named Building 93.
JS: Or like there is a band named Building 93 somewhere. Like --
AM: We'll research.
JS: -- melodic death metal band, perhaps.
AM: Hey.
JS: So, it housed most of the mental patients. And it's where most of the mysterious haunted sightings are supposed to take place. A lot of times, many people will say they see faces in the windows of the building.
AM: Whoa!
JS: And one dude said to – was said to have gotten locked in there overnight.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: In the story, he says that he kept stepping in puddles, which when he was able to like see through the light of the windows looked like blood.
AM: Aaaaah!
JS: When he finally escaped the building when dawn came out, the door he came through when he looked back said evil inside.
AM: Wow.
JS: Someone had spray painted evil inside, which I will include in the show notes because it actually is there.
AM: That, that's a pretty legit myth. And I must say that faces in the windows, there's just something super unnerving about it.
JS: Yeah. It's super creepy.
AM: About like – about – I don't know – faces being in a place they shouldn't be.
JS: Yeah.
AM: I just don't like it at all.
JS: I think, also, there's something super creepy just about abandoned buildings in general.
AM: Yeah, especially ones where --
JS: That is creepy.
AM: -- there's furniture and stuff still inside.
JS: Right.
AM: Like there are some amazing really sad photos out of places like Detroit. There's this amazing gallery of Chernobyl and --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- and from a town in the forest. I'll put whatever links I can find in the show notes. But the sort of – I don't know – the impression of a life on pause forever. Like that's what really gets to me.
JS: Yeah. That's what I feel like is super creepy and just the, the idea that people were there, and now they're not.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Like this is not a livable place anymore.
AM: Right. This is a place where life was conducted. And, now, you know, it's a – it's a place that teenagers on mushrooms go to like --
JS: Pretty much.
AM: -- to scare each other.
JS: So, when we were discussing urban legends from Long Island earlier, you mentioned the scary two lane road where you honk three times.
AM: Yes. So, I went with a group of people when we were in high school. And, from my recollection, you drove to this town out east on Long Island. You know, where Walt Whitman was born actually. And you park under a bridge. Like a low kind of stone bridge on this two lane, windy north shore road. Turn your headlights off, and I think honk three times. And then something was meant to happen. I don't know what it really is precisely. But, in retrospect, turning off your headlights in a black car under a bridge at night, not a great idea.
JS: Terrible idea.
AM: Not a good idea.
JS: Really, really bad. So, there's actually a couple of stories. The road that you're thinking of is called Sweet Hollow Road.
AM: Sweet Hollow Road.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Yes.
JS: There's a couple of legends around this area. There's no records of any of the stories that are related to the legends actually ever happening.
AM: I mean why will there be?
JS: But it doesn't stop anyone who just got their driver's license from going there anyway.
AM: Yeah. And like I mean talk about like trying to take someone out on a weird date or trying to like feel like you're part of the cool older kids. I mean this is the kind of thing that like all teenagers did on Long Island.
JS: Right. So, story number one about the Sweet Hollow Road.
AM: I'm ready.
JS: Three boys all commit suicide together by hanging themselves off the bridge. Not great, you know, but classic middle school we're scared of death sort of situation.
AM: Someone died here, and, now, it's scary.
JS: Yes, exactly. The legend has it that, if you go under the bridge, flash your light three times, you'll see three bodies hanging there. Other stories say like, if you're just driving by and you're – like, as you're coming out the other side, you'll see the bodies hanging.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. In recollection, that, that seems about what we were – what we were going for.
JS: Yeah. Pretty much.
AM: Why? To 15-year-old Amanda, why?
JS: Kind of creepy, but not super cool.
AM: It could be kind of sad.
JS: Yeah, at that point. But, you know --
AM: I just had --
JS: -- teenagers are morbid in that way.
AM: Right. And like I guess kind of looking back, you don't really think about death happening to you. You just kind of are coming to terms of it as like a force in the world. So, I – you know, thinking about, about it happening to other people, you sort of – you know, that's an abstraction.
JS: Right.
AM: And the sort of like the ghosts in the here and now that are like interesting in some way.
JS: Yeah. And the teenagers are very much like, "I'm gonna live forever."
AM: Yeah.
JS: Nothing can hurt me.
AM: Yeah. I – as a teenager, I was like, "I don't know what are we talking about." But, now, looking back, I'm like, "Shit, you engage in so many risky behaviors. Like it's not even fun." And like I was a nerd. Like I'm a nerd.
JS: Yeah. You were a teenage nerd.
AM: Like I didn't do much. And, still looking back, I'm like, "Why did we get into the car of that person? He’s such a bad driver."
JS: Yeah, seriously. Another story about Sweet Hollow Road --
AM: Number two.
JS: -- is said to be about a bus full of children who crash on a snowy day by driving off a bridge killing everyone on board.
AM: Oh, okay.
JS: Yeah.
AM: I mean not very creative if I were judging it though.
JS: When I asked – when I was talking to Jake about this story actually, he was like I always thought they were like from a camp that was nearby. And now the camp and the bridge are haunted. Like, yeah, that's like classic urban legend though where it all has different variations depending on who you're talking to.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I kind of like it as like a multi-destination --
JS: Yeah
AM: -- you know, ghost hunting night. You know, go to the bridge, go to the camp. Like try to make out with the person just you're sitting next to.
JS: Sure.
AM: It's all – it's all a ploy.
JS: Jake, apparently, his dad took him to this bridge when they were --
AM: Really?
JS: -- 12 I think or something.
AM: He would.
JS: And they were being dicks. And they were pretending they couldn't get the car to start. And, because they were jolting around with the ignition so much, the car actually stalled. And they couldn't get it to start again. And Jake and his friend were freaking out over it, but it's very funny.
AM: It's pretty classic.
JS: So, anyway, children, all die, fell off a bridge in a bus.
AM: Spirits Podcast.
JS: Spirits Podcast. It's said that, if you drive under the bridge and put your car in neutral, the car will start to move under the bridge. And that's because it said the kids – the ghost of the kids are pushing the car out of the way. Needless to say, that bridge is on an incline.
AM: It is.
JS: So, when your car starts moving, it's because you're on an incline.
AM: It is on a hill. I mean I guess you want to move uphill and not downhill.
JS: Yeah. But you're moving downhill in that situation.
AM: Again, super risky behavior.
JS: Yes.
AM: Please don't put your car in neutral on a dark hill.
JS: It's really dumb.
AM: Please don't.
JS: Then there's Mt. Misery. Have you heard of Mt. Misery before?
AM: I have not.
JS: Okay. So, it's actually pretty close to Sweet Hollow Road. A lot of their mythology is connected.
AM: Okay.
JS: So, it's frightening history dates back to native American times when Long Island was sold to European settlers for a whopping total of $25.
AM: That's true.
JS: Yeah, that's actually true. The local tribes told the settlers to stay away from the area claiming that there was a man beast that roamed the hills.
AM: Sounds like an error in translation, but --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- let's continue.
JS: Man beast, I mean I guess that's kind of creepy. I'm thinking like werewolves.
AM: Or maybe they were like, "Yo, like Ted lives there. Please don't disturb him."
JS: Please leave Ted alone.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, in 1840, there was another Insane asylum built on Mt. Misery. We had a lot of insane asylums at one point.
AM: I mean Long Island was, was a kind of comparatively – I don't know – like a bustling place.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And it was like a country retreat for folks from New York City. It had a population of its own, a fisherman, and the whalers, and shipbuilders. And it's been – you know, it's been habitated for a long time since the end of the 17th century.
JS: Right. But there's a shit ton of asylums. That's basically the point of that.
AM: Right.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But which I mean like more people, more asylums.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But also mean we all are a bit more crazy.
JS: So, it was built in 1840. It burned down shortly after killing most of the patients.
AM: Oh, wow.
JS: Fifteen years later, the hospital was rebuilt. And they were said that the smell of burning never left the place.
AM: Creepy.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Which apparently was true because, five months after that, it burned down again. And they just kind of gave up. So, interestingly, we haven't really talked about aliens too much on the show.
AM: We haven't.
JS: But Mt. Misery has had a shit ton of UFO sightings.
AM: Oooh.
JS: It's actually really interesting. So, a woman claimed that she was visited by men in black after spotting UFOs in the area and called the local radio station. I think it was WBAB --
AM: Okay. Classic Long Island.
JS: -- which, you know, WBAB.
AM: I do.
JS: Classic Long Island – Long Island. I think their thing is like classic rock. Long Island's only classic rock station, WBAB.
AM: That sounds about right.
JS: It's what – it's literally what their slogan is.
AM: Listeners, please email us voice memos of you saying the tagline of your local rock station.
JS: I love that.
AM: I love it too.
JS: So, she apparently got a number of what she claimed to be crank calls on her unlisted phone number, where metallic voices ordered her to meet her on the Mount.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: Yeah, that's creepy as fuck.
AM: That is creepy as fuck.
JS: I mean it's probably --
AM: I mean it sounds like elevation wise. Yeah.
JS: Right. It's probably like dudes with vocoders, but imagine how creepy that is.
AM: Still.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Or, like an elaborate hallucination. Like props. Like there's some good world building in that hallucination.
JS: Dang good.
AM: Dang good. Christy --
JS: Done some seriously – serious LSD, Christy.
AM: See, Christy, the 60s came back to haunt you. Your mom was right. Metabolized to the fat cells, it never leaves you. Don't do LSD.
JS: Oh, god. Okay. So, coming down to the final and probably most well-known Long Island myth. Do you know what I'm thinking of Amanda? You don't say in. Just tell me if you think you know what I'm talking about.
AM: I don't think so.
JS: Okay. Amanda, you'll know when I say it. You'll be like, "Why did I not remember that?"
AM: I'm ready.
JS: There's a house. That is a right of passage --
AM: Of course
JS: -- on Long Island.
AM: My driver's Ed teacher took me there.
JS: Mine too. Fuck.
AM: It could be the same one. The like stout kind of creepy guy with a blonde hair.
JS: No, I took mine out in --
AM: Oh, out East.
JS: Out East. Yeah. So --
AM: Okay.
JS: So, this is the kind of house where someone will make you go and sit outside the house and stare at it for as long as you – like for as long as possible until you decide you see something. And then it flips you the fuck out.
AM: Is that like the structure of what you're supposed to do?
JS: Well, that's, that's what people do now, but it's not really the structure.
AM: Like they go to visit and they wait --
JS: Right.
AM: -- until they see something creepy.
JS: Right.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Exactly. It's the kind of, "Wooh, I'm scared now. We should leave." But, you know, most people know the Amityville Horror house from the really shitty movies.
AM: That's right. They do.
JS: Especially the Ryan Reynolds one. That one is terrible.
AM: Oh, my god. I haven't seen that yet.
JS: It's really bad, Amanda.
AM: We should watch it on Thanksgiving.
JS: We should. He has like a ridiculous, unnecessary beard in it.
AM: Oh, beautiful.
JS: And there's like unnecessary sex scenes. And it's just really, really bad.
AM: I'm already down.
JS: So, there's actually two stories about the Amityville Horror house. Do you know that there's two stories about the Amityville Horror House?
AM: No. And, for context, Amityville is like, if you – like Long Island is a big long fish. Amityville is about two thirds of the way out. It's in Suffolk County, which is the East County. It's not the Hamptons. And it's not like the suburbs of New York City. It's really in the middle kind of farmers territory. But Amityville itself is a pretty big town comparatively.
JS: Yeah. So, the story begins with a man named Ronald DeFeo, Jr., better known to his friends as Butch. So --
AM: Classic Long Island Italian-American.
JS: Oh, 100%. It gets even more Italian-American just give me a few seconds.
AM: Oh, my god, I'm so ready.
JS: Shortly after 6:30pm on Wednesday, November 13 1974 --
AM: Oh, a timeline.
JS: -- Butch rushed into a bar known as Henry's exclaiming, "You've got to help me. I think my mother and father are shot.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: A group of people go --
AM: Sorry. What year? I forgot already.
JS: 1974.
AM: Okay.
JS: A group of people go with DeFeo back to the house where they don't just find his parents dead, but find everyone in the house, besides Butch, has been killed laying facedown in their beds with gunshot wounds. They'd all been shot around – by the same gun around 3:00 in the morning the day before.
AM: Wow. The day before?
JS: Yes. So, it was 6:30 at night the day after. Originally, the police took Butch in for custody. Thinking that the deaths had been related. Get this the result of a mob hit.
AM: All right.
JS: The most Italian-American thing on Long Island you could possibly assume.
AM: Long Island is big with the mob. It's big in the mob.
JS: Yes. This happens a decent amount of time – I'm sorry – in the '70s.
AM: In the time of the mob.
JS: Yes.
AM: It's not uncommon during our childhoods for our parents in the car to point out to us like, "Oh, yeah, that small guy – you know, like, like we just knew the cars before --
JS: Or, like, you know, someone's parent would like not be around for a couple years.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And then, you know, it will be – it'll just be like, "Oh."
AM: He went away.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Right. He went away.
JS: He went away for a "vacation."
AM: Yes. Yeah.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. So, they take Butch into custody. They interviewed him. He ends up confessing to the killings. He even said, once I started, I couldn't stop. It went so fast. They went for the insanity defense saying he heard his family's voices in his heads plotting to kill him. They even said, at one point, that the dog was telling him to kill everyone.
AM: I mean hallucinations, paranoia. I mean a thing that people experience.
JS: Right.
AM: And super, super scary.
JS: Also, the defense was pointing out like, "Oh, Butch, you know, used heroin and LSD a lot and had an antisocial personality disorder. But he still wound up serving six concurrent life sentences.
AM: Okay.
JS: He's still alive and still in jail actually. They keep denying his bail. So --
AM: All right. That seems pretty fair all things considered.
JS: Yeah. So, there's sort of a terrible legend that DeFeo, DeFeo was influenced to commit the murders by spirits from Lenape, which is a local Native American tribe --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- burial ground, where – which was on the site where the house is built. Like some poltergeist ass shit right there.
AM: White people, please don't.
JS: But also local historians and like local tribe members say that's a load of horseshit.
AM: Yeah.
JS: There was no burial site over there.
AM: No.
JS: That's a load of crap that Long Islanders came up with because everyone watched the Poltergeist.
AM: Yeah. And like the Lenape wouldn't live in Amityville.
JS: Yeah. No. They're like north and more in the woods area.
AM: Yeah. Amityville has nothing in it. You know, it's like just flatland.
JS: The next year --
AM: We’re friends, Amityville.
JS: No. We love Amityville.
AM: I mean --
JS: There's some good bars venues actually.
AM: They, they have – yes. They have some great music venues, some good bars, and really good Driver's Ed courses.
JS: Yes.
AM: Our drivers Ed instructors drove us 20 miles out of the way to, A, visit the Amityville Horror House and, B, practice our key turns.
JS: Like I always would get coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. And then make us drive to the Amityville Horror House while he finished his coffee. He was a dick.
AM: I want to have a podcast just interviewing drivers Ed instructors.
JS: And have a viewer tune in to this podcast.
AM: Right? Like what a group of people.
JS: That would be insane.
AM: What a cross section of humanity.
JS: Yeah, that's true.
AM: Right.
JS: It's mostly teenagers, but then you get like crazy people who are like, "I never learned how to drive."
AM: No. All of us have to do that.
JS: Yeah.
AM: I was gonna say all my instructors were like older dudes --
JS: Yeah, that's true.
AM: -- who would you picture to be like either owning a comic book shop or like having a basement laboratory where they like sampled human flesh.
JS: Accurate and terrifying at the same time.
AM: Watching Criminal Minds.
JS: Okay. So, the next year, December 18 1975, the Lutz family moved into the Amityville home. They bought it for a steal at the time, $80,000.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: This was a --
AM: I miss the '70s.
JS: This was like a five bedroom, three bathroom house or something like that.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Maybe six bedrooms.
AM: Again, like a nice part of town – a nice part of Long Island.
JS: Yeah. And this also included all the furniture that was remaining in the house, which is creepy. Never buy the furniture with a house.
AM: No.
JS: That's terrifying --
AM: No.
JS: -- and asking to be haunted.
AM: Clean slate.
JS: Yeah. Just, just throw everything out.
AM: Yes. Like --
JS: Just toss it in the trash.
AM: -- granny smell.
JS: Yeah.
AM: At worst quantity --
JS: Haunting.
AM: -- haunting shit.
JS: To be fair, the real estate agent did tell them about the murders and the Lutz's were cool with it.
AM: You have to actually.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Is it – I don't know if that was still like a thing in the 1970s. But I guess now it's like you have to legally tell them about murders.
AM: I think, yes, you'd have to disclose something that impacts the value of the home.
JS: Okay. I guess that's fair.
AM: And like notoriety of that extreme degree does.
JS: Right. So, the Lutz's are moving in. They tell a friend about the murders. He insists on having the house blessed. Both of the Lutz's were non-practicing Christians. I think the wife was Lutheran, and the husband was some sort of nondenominational Christian or something like that.
AM: All right. But they're like down with it.
JS: They're down with it. They're like, "Okay, whatever." So, they have a priest named Father Ralph Pecoraro. I think it's how you pronounce it.
AM: Okay.
JS: Yeah, like – yeah.
AM: Timer. Yeah. Long Island. What?
JS: A Roman Catholic. He comes to the house as they're unpacking. He starts performing the blessing. And, as he gets to one of the rooms upstairs, he hears a masculine voice tell him, "Get out."
AM: Oh, god.
JS: And then leaves without telling the fucking family that he heard a weird demonic voice.
AM: Come on, father.
JS: Like he calls them like a week later on Christmas Eve telling Mr. Lutz to stay out of the room where he heard the voice from. The priests even told them that he had developed a fever and blisters after visiting the home.
AM: Come on. That stuff you have to disclose.
JS: It's so dumb. So dumb. So, at first, the Lutz's don't really experience anything and kind of dismissed the priest, but then shit starts going down.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: Each night, George, the husband woke up at 3:15 every morning and would go down to the boathouse. This is about the same time that the forensics team decided that when all the DeFeos died.
AM: Right. 3:00 in the morning. Oh, god . Wait. Was he sleep walking?
JS: No. He would just like get up. He's like, "I want to stretch my legs," and, every fucking day, go down to the boathouse at 3:15.
AM: Boathouse meaning like a house on the --
JS: It was on the water.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: It was like the little house where you store the rowboat and shit.
AM: Oh. And, so, it's like – it's like lake garage.
JS: Right. His lake garage. Yes.
AM: And, by lake, I mean the ocean.
JS: Another thing, in the middle of winter, the house had swarms of flies even though you're not supposed to fucking have flies in the winter.
AM: Oh, god.
JS: The Lutz children all started sleeping on their stomachs, which is the same position all the bodies were found in. Mr. Lutz discovered – this is my favorite one. Mr Lutz discovered a room in the basement that was painted all red and did not appear in the blueprints of the house.
AM: What?
JS: I know. That's fucking crazy, isn't it?
AM: A, how did those inspectors miss that? B, get out.
JS: They started calling it like the Red Room. I'm like, "Oh, no. Oh, no. That's so red."
AM: Oh, no. We know that Japanese urban legend. You don't fuck with that.
JS: When they were making a fire in the middle of winter once, the image of a demon with his half blown off head was burned into the soot of their fireplace.
AM: Okay. That's --
JS: That one's a little bit more bullshit.
AM: That sounds like you're – you're interpreting you're like 10-year-old's piece of art. And you're like, "It looks – it looks kind of like a --
JS: Like a demon that had his head blown off.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Only half blown off though.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Because she – like she smudged the corner that drawing, you know.
JS: Speaking of their children, their youngest daughter, Missy --
AM: Please don't. Please don't.
JS: -- had a creepy imaginary friend named, Jodie, which looked like a demonic pig with glowing red eyes, which the parents all reported seeing glimpses of. Like, at one point, George was like going upstairs and heard a noise and like looked down. He swears to God he saw a pig run by the staircase. The mom was putting Missy to bed at one point and like saw glowing red eyes at the window that she had just closed because Missy said Jodie just went out that window. Children are creepy as fuck.
AM: And like, best case scenario, it's a raccoon. Worst case scenario, get the fuck out.
JS: Raccoon eyes glow green though in the right amount of light.
AM: Aaaah!
JS: Aaah! Creepy. Another creepy ass thing that this child used to do was she would sing constantly while she was in her bedroom.
AM: Okay. I mean like a child.
JS: And then would stop when she left off, but would start up again exactly where she left every time she entered the room.
AM: Oh. So, like I like, like go down to dinner --
JS: Right.
AM: -- come back and like start off at the same bar.
JS: Exactly. It's kind of creepy
AM: Okay. This is pretty creepy.
JS: Children are always creepy.
AM: Children are always creepy.
JS: Children are creepy and singing children are creepier.
AM: The creepiest.
JS: Children, who sing and have imaginary friends that look like demon pig, just like the trifecta of creepiness.
AM: And, and like my, my like maternal side is like I hope she isn't being abused, you know. And like – and like terrible shit is refracting --
JS: Right.
AM: -- into a sort of like really imaginative, you know, kind of like dreamscape.
JS: Yeah.
AM: However, through the lens of the Amityville Horror, get the fuck out.
JS: Yes. So, deciding all this was super creepy and unexplainable, the Lutz's decided they were going to try their own blessing because they couldn't get the priests to come back. This is why he was like, "Well, fuck it. I'm not coming back."
AM: You're on your own now.
JS: So, January 8, Mr. Lutz --
AM: The Donder Party of Amityville.
JS: January 8, Mr. Lutz starts doing his own blessing. He has a crucifix.
AM: Wait. Donder is a reindeer. The Donner Party.
JS: Yes. Yes.
AM: The Donner Party at Amityville.
JS: No. Donner is also the name of the --
AM: Donder and Blitzen.
JS: I don't think it's Donder.
AM: Bitch, I'm ready.
JS: I think it's Donner.
AM: Hold on. Fact check.
JS: Okay, go ahead.
AM: Wait our producer is on the line. Eric, is it Donder, the reindeer or Donner?
JS: It's Donner.
AM: Hold on. Damn it. It's Donner.
JS: Yay. Fuck yes. Suck it.
AM: Ugh. No. Oh, no. Not giving you a high five.
JS: Okay. Mr. Lutz, January 8th, performing his own blessing on the house.
AM: Okay.
JS: He has a crucifix. He's saying the Lord's Prayer. At the time where he stopped the first time he did the Lord's Prayer, he heard a chorus of voices asking, "Will you stop?"
AM: Nooo!
JS: Yeah. So, that was the last night they stayed in the house.
AM: The ghosts are collective bargaining.
JS: Yes. That is the last night they stayed in the house. They took their things. They flee to Mrs. Lutz's mother's house, which was in nearby Babylon.
AM: Nice.
JS: The Lutz family spent a whopping 28 days in the house before they fled.
AM: That is 28 too many.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But good job family for pulling the fuck out when the going got bad.
JS: This is where the Warrens come in.
AM: Ooh.
JS: Do you know anything about the Warrens? Did you see the Conjuring?
AM: No.
JS: Okay. So, the Warrens are paranormal investigators. Okay. So, their names are Ed and Lorraine Warren.
AM: Okay.
JS: Ed is just like a scientist, and Lorraine claims to have like psychic powers. So, she connects with spirits and stuff like that.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Jake loves these people. They're super interesting.
AM: Before in Long Island Medium, they were the one.
JS: Fucking wild.
AM: People, people, go to YouTube and look up the Long Island Medium. You'll understand from whence we came.
JS: And luckily we didn't --
AM: Is it not?
JS: Luckily, we didn't turn out like that.
AM: It is pretty representative of our --
JS: That's true.
AM: -- of our home.
JS: It's pretty accurate. So, the Warrens, the paranormal investigators, they invited the Lutz – they heard about the Lutz's issues.
AM: Yeah.
JS: I think the Lutz's might have contacted them. I'm not entirely sure.
AM: I mean she would have found out.
JS: The investigators actually invited the Lutz to come with them as they investigated the house, but the Lutz's refused. They're like, "Fuck no. We're not stepping in that place again.
AM: Again, the second good decision to happen this whole podcast. Don't.
JS: During the investigation, Ed was supposedly pushed to the floor by an unseen spirit, while Lorraine, who's the psychic, was overwhelmed with a sense of demonic presence.
AM: Wow.
JS: Research by the Warrens revealed that the land used to be owned by a man named, John Ketcham, which made me think of Ash Ketcham.
AM: OBV.
JS: He apparently was a practicing "black magician," and had a cottage on the land prior to the construction of the Dutch Colonial house that is there now. His remains were apparently still on the property. They never found him, obviously, because no one want to dig up the land --
AM: Yeah. No.
JS: -- to see if this guy's dead body was there. The Lutz's sold all of their belongings along with the house and then moved to California.
AM: Good call y'all.
JS: Good call, Lutzs.
AM: Much better.
JS: Interestingly, did you know that the Amity House is still for sale?
AM: No, I did not know that.
JS: I mean it's, it's been sold between people for the last --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- couple of years or something. So, they actually did a really good job renovating it. It doesn't look like the house from the movies anymore.
AM: Yeah, but like --
JS: It doesn't have the weird demon eyes --
AM: Right.
JS: -- anymore, which is kind of sad.
AM: I mean but you do have driver's ed instructors idling outside about, about twice a day.
JS: Yeah. That's true. So, it went for 950,000 in 2010.
AM: Huh.
JS: It's going for 850,000 right now, which for like a five bedroom, three and a half bath on Long Island is not a bad deal whatsoever.
AM: Yeah. But like it's the Amityville Horror.
JS: It's on the water though.
AM: It's the Amityvile.
JS: It's on the water. It's got like a greenhouse.
AM: Oh, I forgot that it is on water.
JS: Yeah. That's why it's got a boathouse.
AM: It's got a little like canal system, right?
JS: Yeah.
AM: Oh.
JS: Yeah. So, it's for sale now if you want to go in halfsies with me.
AM: I mean fuck no.
JS: Yeah. I mean we could – we could make the, the murderer Red Room that's not on the blueprint into a bar. That would be fun.
AM: Your idea of fun and my idea of fun are very occasionally extremely divergent.
JS: That's true. So, I feel like --
AM: You do like a good speakeasy.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But not based on the Amityville Horror House. I have to draw the line somewhere.
JS: I would be into that though. So, I think that's sort of a very small sampling of the crazy stories that we grew up with being on Long Island.
AM: And I, I do love them, right? Because, as I kind of mentioned at the Venn diagram earlier – so, we have our example of kind of like institutional wrongs, right? Like a – like a system that is kind of sad and tragic and lots of individual lives are swept up into it, and you know, changed irrevocably by it. You know, by, by the terrible system. Like institutions are scary for that reason. Then, secondly, we have kind of quotidian death, right?
JS: Yes.
AM: Like kind of every day hopelessly common death, whether it's suicide or whether it's an accident involving children, involving teens like whatever. You know, that's another kind of death that we sort of try to understand and deal with through mythmaking. And then, finally, I don't know. You got that good demonic lore.
JS: We just love a good – we love a good murder. We love a good murder and trying to explain it.
AM: We do and we have that like good, good creepy child singing. You know, lots of – lots of good things in there and exorcism. Creepy like Amityville, Fishman, black magician from the earlier time.
JS: Good solid.
AM: So much – and, and we managed to fold in the creepy driver's ed instructors.
JS: Always good.
AM: That's our backyard, y'all.
JS: God, I feel like I could tell stories like this all night.
AM: I mean I have lots of personal experiences too --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- of just like – just – I don't know. I guess – I guess suburban teens everywhere – like you've no place to go, right? Like, like schools closed at night. Your parents house, you know, you don't want to stay in or you can't go to with your little siblings or whatever. And, so, you just drive. You just drive around.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And like listening to whatever it; pop, punk, listening to musicals, listening to audiobooks that really wasn't really a thing back in the day. They don't listen to podcasts either. They were – they were too new. But just driving around in the dark like telling stories, trying not to be scared, trying to scare each other, you know, trying to one up one another. It really is a free for all breeding ground for, for mythology and mythmaking.
JS: And it feels like home. That's, that's what home is.
AM: Yeah.
JS: It's stories that are unique to yourself and the people around you and your community.
AM: Yeah. And like you see people that you went to elementary, middle, and high school with, you know, five 10 – and we'll get there, hopefully – 15, 20 years after you last see them. And, if you have occasions to talk to each other, that is the kind of thing that will like immediately bring you back, right? It's like the myths that you told each other at sleepovers, right, or like late at night or the, you know, fast food that you ran during your lunch break in high school to get to before, you know, the period was up. Anyway, it – I don't know. I don't think I really realized, while we were living through it, how, how much of an impression daily life made on me.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Like clothes you wore, routines you had, you know, tea you bought, coffee you bought. Like things you listened to on the way to and from school. French fries you ate. Chinese food you ordered. Like that, that, that to me is the fabric of growing up.
JS: Yeah. And, worst case scenario for this Thanksgiving, if you need to derail a political conversation with your crazy Uncle, you tell him these crazy stories instead.
AM: Yeah. Wiki the Amityville Horror, you know, commit just a couple of those details to mind and --
JS: Make up the rest.
AM: Make up the rest. That's what the rest of us do.
Outro Music
AM: Spirits was created by Julia Schifini and me, Amanda McLoughlin. It's edited by Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
JS: Subscribe to Spirits on your preferred podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, @SpiritsPodcast.
AM: On our Patreon page, patreon.com/spiritspodcast, you can sign up for exclusive content like behind the scenes photos, audio extras, director's commentary blooper reels, and beautiful recipe cards with custom drink and snack pairings.
JS: If you like the show, please share with your friends and leave us a review on iTunes. It really does help.
AM: Thank you so much for listening, ‘til next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil