MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS | Wapiti Shelter, Haunted Appalachia & True Hiking Horrors (Ep 336)

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addicted to Appalachia. There is spooks, there is craziness, but there's also evil. And sometimes it comes in the form of a human being. Tonight, we will head to the Appalachin Trail near Whoopity Shelter, a place where a real monster stalked his prey. Yeah,

very spooky.

Hello. Hi. Happy birthday. Oh my gosh. Thanks.

It's Sabrina's birthday and we're celebrating it twice because she gets an extra special encounters episode.

I feel like so many encounters this month were while it was something you also enjoyed,

they were gifts to me. This podcast is a gift to me.

And so is the photo I'm about to share

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you. Share you. I'm I'm about to share you. I'm so excited.

I can't speak it.

I can't speak it.

Can't speak it.

I can't even speak it.

Also, wait. Should we introduce ourselves?

Oh, yeah. This is Two Girls, One Ghost. Two Girls, One Ghost. And Dunkin Donuts needs to sponsor us. Literally,

we drink it every time. I'm clutching my metaphorical pearls that are dropping on my bosom for this photo that I'm about to share with you. Um, that's Karen.

Hello.

I am Sabrina.

flesh pedestrian

Mhm.

And our listener Vera, who is very often on campfire stories,

had sent this to us. She had like sent a message, like a private message. And usually that's like an accident. Most people like mean to send it to the whole group.

I accidentally send private messages to other people on campus. I mean to do it to the whole group. Random people get me being like, "lol". Like some random stuff.

LOL.

Well, this one was not LOL. This was Oh [ __ ] Vera said, "Hey, just wanted to

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give you a heads up. I sent you a picture from a hunting camera near me that looks like it caught a flesh pedestrian." Uh-oh. After I saved it to my phone, some creepy stuff started happening, so I ended up deleting it. I honestly think the only reason things didn't get worse is because I had moon water around to use for protection. So, if you open this email, make sure you've got something protective with you. We have Florida water right off camera and Bigfoot fur. So, we feel pretty safe.

We feel pretty safe.

Okay. Are you ready?

I'm kind of scared.

I'm so excited. It's so [ __ ] creepy.

Okay. So, this isn't She didn't take the photo.

It's a neighbor's hunting camera.

Okay. Someone in the area. So maybe it was on the news or or in the community groups. Oh, it's a client. Okay. So this is a personal photo.

Yes. This is not like found on Reddit. This is like a friend sent it to Vera.

Okay.

And this does take place or came from the Appalachia region, which is why I wanted to share it in this episode

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specifically because as you'll find out, Karen is bringing us to Appalachia.

Mhm.

Mhm. Okay. Dear Sabrina and Karen, first off, I love you guys. Thanks.

Thanks. You've been my go-to late night listen when I'm too creeped out to sleep, which seems maybe counterintuitive,

but we have heard that people fall asleep to our voices pretty easily, which however you want to listen when we're down,

right? And Vera said, "I'm also just too curious to stop listening." So, naturally, when something downright bone chilling came across my path recently, I knew I had to send it your way. I am a mental health therapist working in the deep woods of Appalachia. Cue the banjos, the fog, and generational ghost stories. Luckily, I get to hear all kinds of tales. Some that science can't explain, and some that leave even the most grounded among us saying, "Nah, that's something else." So, this story is the latter. A client of mine who gave full permission to

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share this story and the image recently told me about a chilling experience on their grandparents farm. It's a remote property surrounded by thick woods. The kind where the silence feels alive.

I have to remind myself to breathe. I just realized I'm hunched over and holding my breath the whole time.

Okay, I'm like getting giddy. I'm like I know it's a good one because of your reaction.

For safety, they have hunting cams posted around the land. So, one night they start getting all these motion alerts. They check the footage and what they saw is not human, not animal. It is just wrong. There's the figure standing upright, half naked. Its face and body

half naked, so it was wearing clothes on the other half.

It is distorted in a way that makes you want to look away, but also not blink. And its feet hooves. Everyone who has seen it believes it is a SW or a flesh pedestrian. And listen, I'm not saying what it is or isn't, but I have not stopped thinking about it since this photo is attached. It is a picture of

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the device displaying the original image since hence the glare, but you can still see the figure clearly. Open at your own risk. And to those of you listening, watching, view at your own risk. What the [ __ ] This is like what is the like 28 days later? What? What's that? Like zombie apocalypse?

Isn't it horrifying?

Oh my god. Is it wearing shorts?

I hope it's like shorts. I'm cut off.

Okay, wait. I'm going to pitch one more thing cuz this totally could be what they think it might be.

But just based on it kind of looking like it's wearing Jords and either flesh is being eaten off of their legs or maybe that's some hair. What if this is the beginning transition of a werewolf? Oh, cuz they could be not shorts. It could be like hair. Yeah. Or even just like p like it's getting like kind of ripped off. It's starting to Also, is that a tail? Yeah, that's confusing cuz the top really does look like it it

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looks like the back of a head to me. Like you can see the ears.

Yeah.

And like the hairline.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Let me look at it again.

Vero is right. You can't stop looking.

You can't stop. You see the shine of the hair of the person's hair. It's just so weird. The patches around them and the knees are so What's the

I'm going to feel so bad if this is just like some random person walking around. Well, the legs are very hoofl like you're in the middle of the Appalachia. Like it's a big farm. So either way, if it's a human or if it is a flesh pedestrian, this person should not be

on the property like this.

No,

it reminds me of is it Tomlin in um Narnia?

Oh, yeah.

Cuz he has fur short situations.

Yes. Okay. Wait, this is reminding me. Let me pull it up. We talked about this very briefly on campfire stories, but if anyone's on TikTok and likes spooky stuff, you're probably familiar with this one creator who was working as like

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a nurse that would go

Yes.

Did you start watching?

I know. I texted myself about it because I wanted to. Oh my god, it is so wild. Her name is Chelsea Rule. Chelsea has been posting a bunch of videos. Some of most of them are horribly terrifying. Some of them are actually kind of funny and sweet, but she used to work as a nurse who would go care for people in a very rural part of Appalachia where there was like no running water for most people. There was no service. She would use like a map basically to get there. So, she was very disconnected from the world when she was treating these patients and she had a lot of scary experiences

which also we don't know if these are real or not.

Yeah. She has said that for HIPPA purposes and for the sake of like storytelling and making sure like people can't figure out exactly where things are, she has edited the stories a little bit.

At first, when I first was watching some of her videos, I thought maybe she was like making it up and was just an amazing storyteller. But then she said

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one sentence in one of her videos that made me think this is real cuz she was like there's this one story that I'm still trying to figure out ways to like edit it so I can tell you guys and was kind of like alluding to how scary it was but that she was still needed to figure out how to like make it anonymous. So I was like well that to me feels like there is a lot of stuff. Well just Okay, tell the story because I I almost want it to be fake because it's so unsettling. Okay, I'm gonna butcher this, but everyone should just go to her channel and we'll link in the show notes and we'll link her specific video about the story so you can actually watch it like the full fleshed out. But there was one story people keep referencing it if you hear people talk about like paranormal Patrick. This is essentially I think what they're talking about. But there is one story where she goes to this woman's house and she goes inside and when she's inside she mentions something about like the person that she saw outside cuz she saw like a man walking by a bunch of cars. I think there were some like cars and she thought some guy was just like twiddling

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on her car and the woman got really weird and said, "He's here." And she was like, "Who's here?" And the woman was suddenly like everything changed and she was like, "You need to leave. You need to leave right now." And Chelsea was like, "What do you mean I need to leave? Like I'm supposed to go back out and like encounter this person or thing." And the woman would not explain what it was, but just kept being like, "You need to leave." Gave her a sandwich, which which wasn't really a sandwich. She like threw a bunch of like spare bread slices or something in a bag and was like here take this with you go leave right now. And it was this very rushed, very hurried situation.

Was the sandwich like a here's a snack for the road or was it this is like throw this if you see the man? So he chased about it and in the comments I was reading that this is something that people do in Appalachia to show the creatures and spirits around your house that this was a welcomed guest of yours.

Oh. cuz if you give a gift, if they're like offered something and then they're leaving the house, there's a better chance that they're maybe not attacked.

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But basically, she the whole sky changed and like the wind was picking up and it was this really scary thing and she had parked pretty far away. I hate this. And she had to like walk all the way back and she was holding her bag. She eventually dropped it, but she said she felt someone pacing and then like saw this guy in like jeans like basically like walking alongside her.

Well, that's not the story that you told me. And now it's like all of them are so

Oh, I told you the flies.

Yeah, we should ask her if she would come on the show.

We should I'm going to message her right now.

Actually, I'll wait cuz I'll cuz if I message right now, it's going to be like a gibberish message. But

I'll put some real thought to it. It would be I feel like I feel bad for all of you who are listening and we're like talking about this thing that like we're half telling you the details. But it would be really really cool to have

She's such a good storyteller, too.

And then I'm going to be like, "Bitch, is this real?"

Yeah.

And what the [ __ ] if it is?

We'll ask her.

Okay. We'll see.

Stay tuned. Until then, hopefully that picture we showed you did not um haunt

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you like it did Vera.

And uh let's enjoy the rest of this episode.

Well, we're not gonna enjoy it because it's about murder. Oh,

but we'll be curious about it maybe.

Okay. Are there hauntings as well?

Yes, there are hauntings.

We'll enjoy the haunting part.

We'll enjoy such a small part, but enjoy that. So, content warning just up

Wapiti shelter murders introduction

front that this is going to mention some brief details of murder and injury, but I thought because you have been I obviously love the Appalachia stories, too, but I feel like you've been picking them out

a lot.

Addicted to Appalachia. And once upon a time, many moons ago, I felt this very big draw to the Appalachin Trail. And you were like trying to warn me like, "Don't go. Why are you drawn to this?" Was like kind of spooked out. And I would say that the roles have almost reversed where you've become a bit obsessed. Well, like we've said, you are my muse. And everything you do or put out in the world, I then just pick up and sometimes

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it takes some time for me to catch on. Okay. Okay. Well, a few years later,

but you've laughed me.

Sabrina wants to be abducted and consumed by this trail.

But consumed.

I would like to have this episode be a little bit of a warning to you to question whether we should be so obsessed with this place. It's a sick fascination. I would never willingly on my own set up camp in Appalachia.

Yeah. But I would do a spooky summer camp there with all of you and you

I feel like I would do like a day trip or like a two-day

Yeah, that's true. Like a little like weekend thing.

Yeah. And like in the New England part with friends

because the New England part doesn't have some of the really scary cryptids that I think really is in Virginia.

Yeah. West Virginia, Virginia, the South,

the Carolinas. Yeah, it's all down there. And so we will avoid that part of the trail. However, today we are going

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to venture down to Virginia because this is where this story takes place. So, normally when we talk about Appalachia, we talk about how we're enchanted by it, how there's so many cryptids and hauntings and ghouls, how it's older than pangia.

Yeah.

You know, like the mountain range existed before all the continents broke apart. So, like this is old. This mountain range is shrinking. Like it is in its like elder years

very ancient and it holds a lot of secrets. And a lot of people talk about how like the Scottish Highlands are so haunted. And guess what? That is basically the same mountain range. So there is spooks, there is craziness, but there's also evil. And sometimes it comes in the form of a human being. Tonight we will head to the Appalachin Trail on the night of May 19th, 1981 near Who Wity Shelter in Giles County, Virginia. The Appalachin Trail flanked

the hike

by oaks and Virginia pines weaves through the Blue Ridge Mountains in this area. Super beautiful. We've talked about I feel like there's been a few episodes where we've mentioned the Blue Ridge Mountains and I can't remember exactly what ghouls and cryptids are

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there, but there were plenty.

Yeah.

And so at this point, it's spring, right? It's May. The woods are coming alive. It's really green. It's lush. There's rain. Wildlife is humming. The insects are coming out. Oh god, the air smells so good.

And people are like, "Hey, let's go on a hike." And I think oftent times this is also generally around the time that people who want to hike the entire trail will be like a bit of ways on the trail or start now because I think it takes around 2 to 3 months to hike the whole trail and depending on where you start you have to start in like the spring or summer because there's really treacherous parts

especially when you get to Kata and Maine which is where basically it starts. So it's May people are on the trail there is this peace that the area is feeling. Life pauses. Everyone's connecting to the earth again. It feels so good. There's no cell phones. And for a minute, you might find yourself wondering, Sabrina, if perhaps Earth What was I writing here? Hold on. I wrote something to you.

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Little private note.

Okay, that's not important. It felt good when I was writing it.

Wait, I want No, you got to you got to write it.

I said you got to write it.

You got to you got to write it. I wrote for a minute. You may find yourself wondering, Sabrina, if perhaps Earth is a nice place, and you could wait a little longer to be abducted from this planet.

That's a beautiful sentence.

Yeah, in Spooky Appalachia, maybe you'll be obsessed with this.

Yeah, don't leave us. But beneath the serenity of the beautiful landscape lies a history that is chilling. In the spring of 1981, two 27-year-old workers, they were social workers from Maine, set out to hike and raise funds for troubled youth. Robert. I saw his nickname was like Bob. I don't know if that's entirely accurate, but I saw people referring to him as Bob. So, I will call him Bob. Robert Bob Mountford Jr. He had been on the trail since Georgia and Laura Susan Ramsay who went by Susan or Sue or Suzu, so I'll call her Sue.

Mhm.

She had joined him in Damascus,

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Virginia. They had worked together. Robert was born and raised in Maine. Laura was living in Maine and they had worked together with this like sort of troubled youth program.

So they met through work. Yeah,

they met through work. Yes. Some people report that they were a romantic couple and I saw a lot of people arguing they were not. They were co-workers who were just like very outdoorsy and also really dedicated to their work, which was these people, these kids that need help. And so this was their way of raising funds at the time.

Okay.

So she meets Bob on the trail. He's already been out there for a little bit. and they head into the woods of southwest Virginia. On the evening of May 19th, Bob and Sue stop at Whoppity Shelter. But they were not the only ones who were camping there because that night there was another man who was solo who went to Whoity and together the three of them ate dinner and they chatted.

Oh, so they became friends.

Yeah, they were friendly.

So they were the only three there. So which makes sense like you make friends like along the trail and

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I have not hiked on the Appalachin Trail. I don't know the ins and outs of all of the shelters, but I know that like there's certain shelters where like people will drop supplies or like we'll be able to access town. This is not one of those. This is like very

remote. Yeah. It takes a it's a long windy dirt road that then you have to I think at this point they've changed some things since. But I think once the road ends you have to hike an additional 2 miles to even get into like it's it is remote.

Okay.

It's a place to have a cover over your head for the night.

Okay. And also it's like an open shelter so you are still like

I'm imagining like a little campsite.

Yeah. Yeah. There's photos if you're watching on YouTube. So the three of them, Bob, Sue, and this other third mystery man, they are chatting, dining, maybe having a good time. I don't know. Uh and after dinner, as darkness fell over the shelter, this other man we believe maybe left, and Sue and Bob let the calm of the cabin gently start guiding them to sleep. Okay. when suddenly they were viciously attacked.

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The pair failed to meet up at their scheduled stop and I think it was a It's so hard because there's like a bunch of articles that all say like things slightly differently, but I think that they were supposed to check into a hostel. So, I don't know if that was like the end of their trip or if they were just going to take a break from the trail and like, you know, shower or something,

but someone was expecting them.

Someone was expecting them. They did not show up. And so then that alerted everyone and an extensive search was launched. Nearly two weeks later on May 30th, 1981, searchers discovered their bodies in shallow graves covered with leaves and debris about 75 yards from Whoppity Shelter.

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the murder

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investigators determined that the hikers had been attacked at their campsite. And this is the content warning where details of what happened. I'm not going to go fully into detail, but some details. Sue had been stabbed over a dozen times in the chest and back with a knife and also with what was reported as a long nail, and a plastic garbage bag was found over her head. Her body was wrapped in a sleeping bag liner, and Bob had been shot three times in the head with a 22 caliber pistol. Apparently, he was still laying in his sleeping bag. The killer had attempted to hide all of the evidence. So other hikers kind of unknowingly passed through but started to note that the widity shelter like looked a little bit different. It didn't look the way that it was supposed to. So despite this guy's the murderer's attempt at like cleaning things up, people were like m the shelter's wooden floors are scorched with coals. It's like someone had burned a fire to try to cover some stuff up. And what looks like

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that stuff was was potentially blood stains all over the floor and cabin. the shelter's log book. So like the trail register where you write down like your name and and who you're with or whatever and the date that you've arrived that had been removed. So now there was no record of Sue and Bob having checked in being the last people there. Sue

and no record of the man.

Yeah. Well, I'm sure he didn't write his name in anyway.

Yeah.

Sue and Bob's backpacks, camera, and even Sue's sleeping bag were missing from the scene, suggesting maybe a robbery as the possible motive. And this discovery of these two missing hikers that were then found dead and murdered in shallow graves, it sent shock waves through the tight-knit community. This was like so unheard of. This was terrifying to like think that people were under attack on this really remote trail

and a lot of people hike it alone too and like you really are out in the middle of nowhere. And so it was really worrying because I think this community like everyone's very friendly,

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everyone's looking out for each other, everyone's tight-knit. So to think that there was a murderer amongst them was terrifying. And so there were a bunch of warning signs that were posted all along the trail and officials noted that this was the first murder on the Appalachin Trail in 6 years, which the Appalachian Trail is huge,

right?

But still like

What year is this in?

This was 1981.

Okay. And so this kind of like shattered the perception that had kind of like found itself again after the last murder that this trail was a sanctuary and that there's no violence here and la.

Well, I think especially most people do seek nature for peace and serenity and it's this as I'm thinking about it, I'm like where did my fear of being murdered come from? And I don't know, but I feel like my biggest fear when it comes to camping nature

is other people and humans and like what ill intent do they have.

But most people don't like most people.

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Not all people have that.

Most people who are hurt on the Appalachin Trail are do it's due from severe weather, falls, things like that. You know, I'm not good at math, but I did find a few articles that did the math for you. And basically your chances of being murdered on the Appalachin Trail are something like 0.000000008%.

I mean that's a reassuring stat.

You're probably going to get struck by lightning before you get murdered on the trail.

Okay. I would have thought it would be higher, but that's my fear I think.

Well, murdered is a specific thing, a specific bucket.

Being attacked and assaulted could be a separate

bucket. Yeah, that's true. So early on,

hunt for the killer

police had very little to go off of besides multiple hiker reports of a bearded dark-haired man seen acting oddly in the area around the time of the murders. He wore green army fatigues. He had work boots, a strong rural accent. He was seen carrying a sleeping bag and carrying a large hunting knife in a sheath. And most importantly, he was

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spotted by other hikers talking to Sue.

So now we have a connection. We have multiple people saying, "Hey, we saw this weird guy talking to the woman who was murdered."

So, they may have spent that night there alone, but there were other hikers who had crossed their paths.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

Which, thank goodness.

I know cuz a lot of people don't get that. Like, it's such a remote area. The chances of crossing

and having witnesses would have been Yeah. Jeez.

So, then along the treeine of Whoity Shelter, there is a clue. So Sue's missing backpack had been tossed to the ground and both of the backpacks were missing in the beginning, remember? So now they're finding Sue's backpack and inside is a paperback book, something she brought to do some reading. Inside of that book is blood stains and fingerprints. So they take the bloody fingerprints and it matches within days with one man, Randall Lee Smith. And the reason it matched was because I can't remember the details of it. I should have written it down, but I think he did

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some work with like some organization or some company. Maybe it was like construction that had like worked on something for the Navy or like some military branch. So, yeah, he was like probably required to have his fingerprints booked at some point for a job. So, it wasn't necessarily like he'd been arrested before.

So, this is why they had his fingerprints, which my fingerprints are also in the system. So,

mine too because at the 4 age fair when I was a little kid, they they did it.

Took your fingerprints. They were like, "Oh, this is fun for you kids." And it's like, "No, now you're in the system."

Now you're in the system. I did do it when I was working with children. I did like an after school program in college for

Yeah.

kids in abusive situations.

Anyway, we if we have to commit a crime, we'll wear gloves.

So, Rand Smith,

we have to.

You never know what humanity will bring you to.

That's true. So, Rand Lee Smith, he lived in Purisburg, Parisburg, uh, the town over from the shelter, and witnesses placed him there, reporting

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they saw Sue and Randall talking, chatting near the shelter shortly before Bob and Sue's presumed time of death.

So, police go to his house and wouldn't you know it, there is evidence of a crime. There is blood stained clothes soaking in a bucket. I think it was his pants. And so, now they're on high alert. They're like, "This is also weeks later, right?" So

yeah, this is a couple weeks later.

He's just a bad criminal.

Yep. So they're like, "Well, this very well could be our guy." Like pretty much everything is pointing to this man and they're kind of treading carefully trying to collect as much evidence as they can while also searching for him

cuz he's not home. So like he's not home, he's gone.

Okay. The most damning evidence came to light when the police located his pickup truck, which was abandoned in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And inside, stuffed into an ashtray, was a rambling note effectively describing the crime. He literally like handwrote a note, a confession. So, he wrote, quote, "Boy and girl have been so nice to me. It's

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going to be a real shame when the time comes to get rid of them." And also he wrote, "I will be far away before the truck and those people are found."

It's like he wrote this before he even committed the act.

Yeah. He's already like planning where he's going to drop the truck or or maybe not where, but like that he's going to drop the truck. He's going to run. And so there's a massive search for him like multi-state manhunt on the Appalachin Trail because he dropped his truck in South Carolina. So that's obviously further from where Wapidity Shelter is in Virginia and everyone is looking for him. So around Wapidity Shelter, they do like this massive massive extensive search. They don't find him. Other states along the trail, everyone's looking for this guy. Investigators have

trial

the genius idea after the manhunt is starting to cool down and everyone's like, "Oh, we don't know where he is." to go back around Whoity Shelter and research the areas that they had already searched and they found him. So that kind of insinuates either he evaded cops

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for that long and made his way back or he was watching them and was like, "Okay, this spot has already been like thoroughly searched. I'm in the clear." He had this like makeshift campsite.

Like he was living in the woods.

He was living in the woods. So they caught him. They don't know exactly what his uh watching planning process was because Randall feigned amnesia. He was like, "Wait, what happened? Who am I? I don't remember my name. Who are those people? His mom came to see him and he was like, I don't know who that woman is. So, he was trying to be quote unquote like insanity.

Yeah.

And so, everyone's like, oh god, like is there like something must be really wrong with this guy. So, doctors check him out and they say, "Nope, he remembers everything. He is choosing to not remember in those moments when you are talking to him. He is very fit and able to stand trial." And so that he did. He was identified, extradited, and eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of seconddegree murder in March.

He did eventually plead guilty. So, he

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confessed basically

as if he didn't already confess in the note that he wrote,

right?

You would think that he got the justice he deserved, pleading to two counts of seconddegree murder, which I'm like, why is it second degree and not first degree? But I guess maybe that's the plea deal. However, justice was not served because rather than face the death penalty, Randall Lee Smith ultimately accepted a plea bargain in 1982, which was the secondderee murder. But the really upsetting part is that the two counts of seconddegree murder, he got to serve concurrently. So he only had to be in jail for 15 years for murdering two people. Isn't that atrocious? Yeah. Like what what the [ __ ]

I just don't even understand how that's double homicide 15 years.

And such violent murders, too. It's not like self-defense. It's not

And it was planned. It was planned and it was I feel like the way that he attacked Sue

Mhm.

was so like crime of passion.

Yeah.

Like Bob shot, right?

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Yeah.

He has multiple weapons with him. He went out of his way to like change weapons in the middle of the attack to of Sue.

He clearly had spent so much time thinking about harming people and unfortunately Bob and Sue were in like the wrong place, the wrong time. Yeah, but like he would have killed anyone that night.

Oh, probably. Yeah. And I mean like take your pick, right? So many people that passed through there.

So he's out in the world

now. He's dead. Thank god. But everyone's obviously pissed.

The families of Bob and Sue, the public, the Appalachin hikers, some of the family members are like, "You know what? At least now we like have the it might not be like the sentence that we want and we feel it's just, but at least we have like closure. Like we know he's confessed. We know what happened. We can move on and bury our our children. One veteran threwhiker, Warren Doyle Jr., I love him for this. He held up a sign outside of the courthouse that said, "Did Bob and Sue plead for their lives?

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Did Randall Lee Smith give them a bargain?"

I do love that, but it just also makes my like heart ache. It just

It's so wrong.

It's so wrong.

So 15 years behind bars for a brutal double murder.

Mhm. The punishment did not fit the crime. And wow, I was really pissed. I wrote many sentence rambling about like why I think that this is [ __ ] Anyway, it is [ __ ]

Yeah.

After 5 years, he's eligible for parole

after 5 years.

Yep. But after serving 14 years, so still one year shy, he was released in 1996. He was the first murderer of an Appalachin Trail connected murder to see the outside of a prison ever. Yep. And the hiking community lost their [ __ ] as they should. Officials said, "Well, he has an ankle monitor and he's going to for the next decade, so everyone's safe." Okay. So, he's released, but he's on house arrest

for another decade. Yep. 2 years after

the killer strikes again

that ankle monitor comes off, or I don't

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know when it came off, but 12 years after his release, on May 8th, 2008, murderer Randall Lee Smith headed back to the same area where he had killed Bob and Sue. And this time, he met Shawn Farmer and Scott Johnston.

No. who were camping and fishing on the Appalachin Trail.

This episode's making me so sad.

Yeah, sorry. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Scott met Randall Lee Smith earlier that day because there was this like really skinny malnourished dog that popped out of the brush and Scott was like, "What the heck?" And then soon to follow was Randall Lee Smith. But Randall Lee Smith did not identify himself as Randall. He said his name was Ricky Williams. And so the two men, they get to chatting a bit and then they split up and Scott goes to fish. His friend Shawn is going to come later that day, so he wasn't there yet. So Scott's fishing, waiting out the time that Shawn will get there later that evening. And once he wraps up his fishing day, he is heading back to their campsite and he sees smoke from the fire. So he's like, "Okay, great. My friend has arrived." And when he gets close enough, he

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realizes that his friend is not alone. He sees another man, the same man from earlier, Ricky. So these three men, they end up sharing a meal together. And when it was concluded, there was this kind of like natural break in the conversation. And quote unquote, Ricky, Randly Smith, Ricky stood up and announced to Shawn and Scott that it was time for him to head out. Very normal. But then like a split second after saying that, he without warning whipped out a 22 caliber revolver and shot them multiple times. So they're just sitting there being shot. It was so sudden and so shocking that the men didn't react at first. They couldn't understand what was happening. Eventually, they realize like we're in danger. They don't know that they're shot for like a a something's going on and my body needs to run away. So, Scott, he is struck in the side of his neck in his back and another bullet has grazed his arm. He stands up from the campsite with these three wounds and he's able to run about 20ome feet into the woods where he took cover in the brush. Shawn has been hit

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in the chest, the left side of his head, and he's now stumbling around the campsite just trying to avoid Ricky, who's still there. Shawn manages to get into his Jeep and drive away. Ricky, Randly Smith, hops in Scott's truck and takes off,

chasing after him.

I'm not sure. It's now dark out. Scott is freaking out. He's been left behind. He's bleeding. He literally has his finger

plugging the hole in his neck to stop. He puts his finger into his neck to stop the bleeding. It's incredible. These men survived, which is absolutely incredible. Both of them survived.

So, he has his finger in his neck. He manages to run all the way to the road, which isn't exactly very close to the campsite. He gets onto the road and there's car lights approaching him, headlights. And luckily, this isn't a Hollywood horror film, so it's not Randly Smith,

but kind of in a Hollywood twist. It's his friend. It's Shawn. I don't know how it happened, but somehow Shawn and Scott

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reconnect in Shawn's car. Scott hops in and their injuries are so bad that they had to work together to be able to slowly drive the car because

I have full chills.

Yeah, it is. They were

also This is hours that have passed, right? Like

Yeah, they didn't. I survived episode two. Yeah. So, Sean couldn't really see. He is focused on the gas and the brake because he'd been shot like right in the face. Scott is steering the wheel with his finger in his neck and they're going down this dark, windy, bumpy back access like dirt road for 20ome minutes before they get to the very first house. They hop out, they go to the first house, they bang on the door, the family's home, but the family at first is like, "What's going on?" Apparently, like they thought maybe it was a prank or something, but then they realize like how badly these guys are injured and they're like rambling about being attacked. There's so much blood. So, they let them inside. They call the cops immediately. Then they let both guys use their phones to call their loved ones

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and speak to them. And then they're asking, they're like trying to treat their wounds, waiting for I have no idea how long it took for thinking about the emotion of like

because at this point like your adrenaline is pumping, of course, and you're in survival mode,

but like the second you feel like a sense of safety or like, oh, someone's gonna come help us, like the police have been called. I imagine the first ne like the next thought is like your adrenaline starting to slow down and it's like I'm going to die.

Yeah. They said that they were both like waiting for each other to die. Like waiting for themselves and each other cuz they were in such a remote area it like took a while. Like I think they got airlifted out so it took a while for them to get help and they were both just like bleeding out in this random family's home waiting for themselves and their each other to die.

Horrifying. Thank god they're both alive. So, as they're describing to this family who's treating them and caring for them what happened to them, someone in the family, I think it was the grandson, starts to realize that the description that they're telling them of

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their attacker looks a lot like a missing person's flyer that was in the country market right down the road. Apparently, a few days later, Rande Smith had like not been heard from for a while. So, I don't know if it was a family friend or a family member. Someone connected to him had reported him as a missing person and a few flyers were created and posted in a in a few different

few days before the attack.

A few days before the attack. Yep. Somehow I don't know who went down but someone from that family had acquired this flyer from the country store presented it to these men and Scott and Sean said that is the guy that attacked us and that person was Rand Lee Smith.

the aftermath

Murderer Randa Lee Smith would end up being caught by police after being pursued, getting in a car crash, and then dying from a blood clot while in custody. So, finally, the murderer is dead. The Avalanchin Trail, which is 2,197.4 mi long. We talk about it a lot on Two

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Coast and all the unsettling things that happen. All the land, the trails stretching along a mountain.

That's like the trail itself, but the region and like the mountain range is like way more expansive.

Huge. I mean, yeah, there's whole towns, there's cities, there's luxury hotels, ski resorts, like

there's a lot beyond just the trail,

but I do want to say that, and I alluded to this earlier was saying like there's a very low chance of you actually being murdered on the trail. There are 13 recorded murders along the trail since the '7s, which does seem like a lot, but given the opportunities there, maybe small.

Sure.

There are over 3 million annual users of the trail. And so statistically the likelihood of you being murdered is very very low.

The number of deaths, injuries, and missing persons is much higher than that. There's

the missing persons is the number that always scares me cuz it's like

that's really scary. Yeah.

How many of those do fall in

the murder?

We don't know. Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's three fatalities, average

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of three fatalities each year,

but a lot of them are like there was one that happened this year with a older man or middle-aged man unfortunately who was hiking and like conditions and stuff, weather patterns change and it becomes dangerous.

Jeez, I still can't believe that those two men survived.

Yeah,

they both were shot three times.

Yeah, this just like totally brought me back to my Grammyy's funeral when I was driving up. Laneie was my cousin Laneie was in my passenger seat and we're like up basically in the White Mountains. It was she was

in Gorm Cemetery in Gorm, New Hampshire. So we're like going through the White Mountains

and we were like what is happening? Because in the time the like 30 minute stretch that we're like driving through this range where like there's a bunch of like hiking trails and mountains and ski resorts and stuff,

we saw a biker pulled off on the side of the road. Not like a motorcyclist, but like an actual like Yeah. bicyclist,

a cyclist. He was pulled to the side of the road and tried to take a picture and slipped and just caught himself before

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he like tumbled down a steep cliff. We're like, "What the fuck?" And then like 15 minutes later there's a couple going like across the main road and the guy is like carrying the girl out and she's like basically like limping and he's like trying to like piggy back and like grab her and support her weight and drag her out. So, we're like, we're seeing a near maybe fatal fall and this accident or injury where like luckily and it was it was like 8:30 a.m.

So, stay inside.

So, yeah, there's so much that could happen.

Um, but I did learn something from doing this research. There's something called a ridge runner. Ridgger runners. So, basically people are employed or maybe they volunteer. I'm not really sure, but they patrol sections of the trail and report suspicious people. Do these jobs still exist? Are they?

Probably not anymore. Actually, I should have worn I meant to wear my

Protector National Parks hat.

Yeah, from National Park After Dark. It's part of their merch. I meant to do

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that and I forgot. Yeah. So, basically, they like run the trail, report suspicious people. It's not something that happens consistently. It's usually like a seasonal job and it's not at every location, but usually when something like this happens, there's a lot more people that like volunteer or like there's an uptick in people working at as ridge runners.

So, at the time that these murders happened, there were no regular patrols of ridge runners near Wapy Shelter.

And even if there were, like what are the chances they would be at Wapidity Shelter that night? You know, because like we're saying, it's remote. It's not, oh, it's a mile hike off the main street. It's like in the depths of the trail,

right? Kind of like what you were talking about before with like missing people and how Bob and Sue had witnesses. Like Bob and Sue did have witnesses, but a lot of people do not.

And so I gave one really quick example and we'll flash this photo on screen cuz maybe if someone has a tip, you might solve this mystery. But there is the woman in the lake who was someone whose

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life ended and still we have no answers. In March of 2000, along a stretch of the Appalachin Trail, a group of fishermen made the very chilling discovery of a nude body of a woman floating in a lake.

Authorities were quickly notified and despite the body likely having been in the water for nearly a month, investigators were able to generate a composite sketch in hopes of identifying her. But after all this time, it's been two decades, no one has come forward to claim her. No one knows who she is. No missing person's reports have matched her description. No witnesses, no known cause of death, no known killer. So we will flash the photo on screen. No one,

which is very haunting to think that, you know,

someone could disappear so completely. Yeah. While local law enforcement did conduct a thorough investigation to try to solve this woman's case, the lack of centralized support, coordinated trail surveillance, or rapid response resources along the trail may have also

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left crucial opportunities behind. And this was back in 2000. With more support and funding for agencies like the National Park Service, perhaps this woman's story may have ended differently, or at least not left untold for so long. This story is like devastating, but it's also provides this like beautiful survival story that while tragic, like thank goodness those two men survived.

Yeah. And that Randle died.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it is just Yeah. There's there's so many layers to this. And unfortunately, the National Park Service is not given the resources that it should. Mhm.

And so while this was already a type of trail that people have to lean on each other to survive and and to like make it out without injury and whatnot, it's even more so the case now.

Can I share a like pallet cleanser little thing?

Sure.

Okay. So, I this is another Tik Tok that I came across, but it was this woman and I can't remember like the exact caption,

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but it was basically like that moment when you're out in the wilderness having a moment of like sanity clearing ends up being someone's like traumatic event.

Oh,

and she's she's like thinks she's out in the wilderness by herself. She sets up her camera

and she like goes to the edge of like what she thinks is like no one's there. kind of a private little like area in the wilderness and she screams at the top of her lungs like just a complete release like a guttural like

it's all caught on camera and as she's screaming this man pops up from the brush like clearly had been going to the bathroom.

She probably thought it was a bobcat or something like that.

No, his like pants are like kind of down and he's like takes off running terrified. Oh my god. Oh my god. Maybe this is everyone's sign. If you're going to do that, just speak out loud first and say, "I think I'm alone." But if not, I'm about to scream. I need to release some trauma and pent up energy

45:00

and let it go.

But could you imagine like cuz when you're peeing in the wilderness, you try to find a quiet isolated spot and you

and you're like significantly off. Like you're not invisible if you're pooping cuz you're

definitely not if you're pooping. Then you hear someone screaming. terrifying but also hilarious.

Yeah.

And the fact that she caught it on camera.

It reminds me of when we went to remember when we went to the bell witch cave

and they were telling us a story about when everyone was in the cave for a tour and then there was like a woman shrieked so loud and everyone went like running for the hills and it was it was a mountain lion

which is also really scary.

That is scary. Being stuck in a cave with a mountain lion would not be enjoyable.

Yeah. No. Okay. So, I combed a bunch of

haunted Wapiti shelter

hiking websites and like people's blog books and stuff online where they chronicle their ventures. And what I found was I believe the original shelter is no longer in operation. There was a new one built or moved. Maybe it's still

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close by. So, I think where you stop now isn't the actual murder site. However, some people say it is. So, there's still some questioning as to what happened. There was also an interesting bit of gossip I saw online which said when the second Wapidity shelter was constructed, the people who built it had taken a photo of themselves like all the construction workers in front of the shelter. And apparently there's a rumor that like in the background like in the brush you can see Randle Lee Smith, but I don't know. I hate that it's Randall Lee Smith.

Hocus pocusy like conspiracy.

Ew. Get out of here.

I know that's that's the rumor. But I did grab just a few examples from a few people who talk about their experiences at Whoity Shelter.

Okay.

Someone by the username the hog wrote on March 2nd, 2005, "I spent a night alone in the Whoity 2 second one shelter a year after the murders took

47:00

place. I don't believe in ghosts, but that place may be haunted. It's beyond creepy." Believing that the murders had actually taken place at the other Whoity shelter, I awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, feeling unaloyed fear and knowing I had made a mistake.

At least that's how it ended.

Yeah. May 12th, 2009. Attorney at large writes, "I was the last hiker to stay in Wapidity 2 shelter before the bodies were found in 1981."

Oh jeez.

The girl's body was found the next day. I woke up with a start in the lean tube because I felt hands lightly touch my head and shoulders. There was no one there. No one else was staying at the shelter and there was still just enough post sunset light coming through the trees that had there been a real person there, I would have seen him against the light.

This is before the bodies were found, too.

May 28th, 2023, John wrote on an Appalachian Trail blog. This morning, I heard a baby crying in the woods. Some might question whether it was the wind

48:00

creaking the dead trees that made the sound, but after I heard it, my hair stood on end for a full minute.

No, that's straight up Appalacha creepiness.

That might be explained by my not washing my hair for a week, but that's when I saw a man standing in the trail who completely disappeared a second later.

When I walked up to where this man had just disappeared, I saw the sign. It was leading to Whoity Shelter. That's right. The place where two hikers were brutally murdered in 1981. And so this is what people experience. There's a lot of reports of people feeling this unseen presence, feeling unseen hands, some spine tingling sensations, the feeling of being watched, just like different noises. There was a lot that was like, it's hard cuz people are in the middle of the woods, right? And so you want to blame things on like a squirrel or

or animals of any kind.

Animals, but there were a lot about like knockings coming from inside. like it sounds like something's dropping on the floor, like different knockings inside of the cabin, which is like if you're in there in the shelter, you can see

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everything, you know,

but a lot of people tried to just be like, "Oh, it was, you know, whatever." And so there's a lot of that. So, yeah, we know that Appalach is extremely haunted. Every corner, every cave, it's the perfect hiding spot for ghosts and ghouls and monsters. But sometimes the monsters are us, the humans, and the trail and spirits remember that. And at Wapidity, the memory of something much darker than the paranormal is forever burned beneath the roof of the shelter. A place where a real monster stalked his prey, but the monster is dead and good riddens.

Yeah. Honestly, oh, that just breaks my heart. It's so sad.

Yeah, man.

It's tough cuz it's like this is still recent, you know? It is. Like I feel like we're lucky and that when we do so much research on the paranormal that often times the deaths

have occurred like 200 years ago. And so while it's still a life that has been lost, it feels like the way they experience the world is so different from how we do that there does feel like

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there's this disconnect where we can focus more on like the hauntings. But like stories like this, it's like

no, it's so prevalent and feels so close to us

and and it's hard to speak on such like horrific things like this because there is no justice even if Randall had gone to prison for his life.

Yeah.

Two lives were taken.

Innocent lives were taken by him. So there's no justice.

No,

at all.

I really do go back on like barbaric times. I was like, we should

I know everyone grab a stone.

I wouldn't go that far. I just think all of us should just be better people.

Yeah.

listener story

Well, I have a listener story that honestly will be a pallet cleanser in the sense that it's not about a human being horrible, but it's about horrible hauntings and

the trail provides all.

And in like a full circle moment, it is another flesh pedestrian in Appalachia story. H. This is from our listener

51:00

Amanda. She her. Amanda said, "I've been a listener for about a year now and a Patreon member for a little over a month. This story quite literally took place 5 minutes ago and my first thought was Sabrina and Karen would eat this up." This took place back in May. But I love that Amanda's first thought was like, "Oh, I just experienced this terrifying haunting. I'm going to email my goalies right away."

And I like how she says, "Eat this up." And we're talking about a related story at the beginning and the end. So, we are having a little flushy sandwich.

Wow.

Yeah.

A gift. A gift according to the Appalachin region. Okay. To start off, I grew up in West Virginia, which is the only state that the Appalachin Mountains run from border to border. I've had many weird experiences, but no like point blank sightings of beings that run on the mountains. I moved to Florida about 3 years ago where the scariest things that hide in the dark at night are men

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and Disney adults. Still, when I come home to visit, the classic rules run through my mind. Do not go out after dark. Close your curtains at night. And of course, if you see something, no, you didn't. Can I just say one thing about Disney adults really quick?

Sure.

Cuz I feel like Disney adults get a really bad rap, but I feel like we need to make a distinction between Disney adults. Someone who really enjoys Disney and like can tap into their childhood joy is great. An adult who goes there and expects for them to be served or owed things before the children.

Sure. Bad Disney adult.

Yes. I think that's a very good distinction to all of you Disney adults out there. We love you. Respect you. You do you. No judgment. It's not for us.

Ash says that she's a Disney adult now.

And and it's I think you you made a very good clarification again. and lesson of this episode. Let's all just be better people, kinder to one another. So, Amanda says, "Well, I immediately broke this last rule. To give you an idea of

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where my house is, it is in a very small community sandwiched in the valley of two mountains. So, about a week or so ago, my mom called me at the end of the day and we just debriefed like we usually do. and she was talking about how she almost set the house on fire with a frozen pizza and how she had to air the smoke out at about 1000 p.m. It had been storming all day, so it was very foggy and not much light. And she was holding the door open, letting the smoke out when she heard something on the roof on the house across the street. She described the sound like when a cat runs on hardwood floors, like the little nails. She looked over to the other house and she didn't see a cat. No, she saw a humansized thing that resembled the way a gargoyle sits.

She wouldn't tell me much more, but that she immediately decided that you know what? Enough smoke had left the house. I'm closing the door and going back inside. So, flash forward to now. I'm in town visiting for Mother's Day. It's around 11:00 p.m. when I decide to go run down the road to visit my dad at work. The second I stepped outside, I

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immediately felt pure dread. It felt so eerie, just like something was really, really wrong. And as I was walking to the car, the story my mom had told me popped into my head. And I felt this instinct to go look at the roof. And I did. Sure enough, there it was. An adult, human-sized, all skin, sitting like a cat sits when they lay on their stomach, looking straight at me. Oh my god. I stopped and turned to go back inside, not wanting to be outside with whatever that thing was, whether I was in my car or not. Nope, not today. When I got to the door, I realized I had locked it. So, I fumbled with my keys and I could feel this thing looking at me the entire time. I only looked at it for a couple of seconds, but it is engraved in my mind. Finally, when I got back inside, even though it felt like an eternity, I described to my mom what I saw, and she was like, "Yep, that is what I saw." So casual. Like I said earlier, after relaying what had happened to my mother, I was like, "Well, please excuse me. I have an email

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to write and that is why I wrote this email to you." So, yeah, this really happened five minutes ago. This was an added extra story to the file of all of my things mysterious and unexplained I have experienced in the Appalachian Mountains. See you on the other side, Amanda. Oh my god. Also, like why the same neighbor's house? Like, what's up with those neighbors?

I don't know.

Did they notice anything? It's kind of reminding me of was it like a Lai Chuza episode or something? I can't remember. But do you remember there was like a photo of a creature on top of the roof, right? Oh, the gargoyle.

Yeah, the gargoyle creature.

I think I'm recalling. This also kind of reminds me of that one scene from It Follows where there's that naked man just like standing on top of the roof and it's so scary.

Yeah,

it's very disturbing the fact that it's like sitting like a cat and just like watching.

I know. I'm just What is it

right? What does it want and why is it always lurking out there? Like unless it's like weirdly someone's familiar.

Well, it does remind me of our listener Camila whose cat shows up like has like

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a human form.

Mhm.

But the eerie feeling that is associated with this the way it is staring. All I got to say is trust your gut. And it's Appalachia so I don't trust it.

No.

But now I'm very curious about the neighbors.

Me too.

What's going on in that house? Is it one of them?

Right. I haven't seen the movie, but my brother was telling me about it because he just went and saw Weapons,

so it immediately makes me think of like Weapons and Glattus. And

we got to see it.

Yeah.

It has like a 96% of Rotten Tomatoes.

Yeah. He and my brother is a huge like horror movie thriller connoisseur. He just went in Texas to like a whole like horror movie film festival and everything. And so I do feel like he's a good critic. And he said that this is one of those movies that he will continue thinking about and will continue going back and watching.

Okay. I did just watch Brer Back,

which is by the same creators as Talk to Me, which offscreen we have the Talk to Me hand that Christian had given to me,

that my brother gave to me.

And I would say I like Talk to Me more,

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but Bring Her Back was such a heartwrenching, like really, really sad film. It's a horror movie, and definitely there are moments that I'm like, h like they they succeeded in horrifying, but when I think about that movie, like I'm filled with sadness. It's a very very sad movie about loss.

Yeah, I have a big list of horror movies to watch whenever I have time to watch a movie again.

It's tough because Brian doesn't like them. So,

yeah,

you really find time.

I like don't have any cuz my my spare 30 minutes we watch things like Stick, which is actually a great

What is it?

Stick. Oh, it's such a good one. It's Owen Wilson and he's like a ex pro golfer that kind of was like burned at the end of his career or like his career stopped short and he's having a really hard time.

You don't have to like golf to really like

No, I get it.

The show.

I'll watch all the horror movies for us. You watch Stick. Um recommend your favorite horror movies to us and please

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keep emailing us if you experience anything in Appalachia. If you're from the area, if you've had any paranormal encounters at all or know someone who has, please email them to us at two girlsodcast@gmail.com

and uh share the photo of that woman that Karin talked about who is still unidentified and maybe maybe

someone someone knows something.

20 some someone knows something.

Yeah.

Shout out to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces our podcast. Thank you, Jamie.

And shout out to all of you. Thanks for joining us each week. We love you and we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.