S1 E11: Ties that Bind

The Warning Woods has haunting horror stories that are sure to linger with you long after listening. I'm Miles Treidel, writer and narrator of The Warning Woods. Each week, I write an original scary story and share it with you. If you're into scary stories, you need to check out The Warning Woods. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search. When I was a kid, my dad used to read to me every night. We read John Grisham or...

Martha Grimes novels. Boss! Mendez, catch me up. I saw a girl excited for her move. No, I think she was coerced into making that video. Seriously? Whatever it is, I promise we can do something to help. It's too late for that. It's too late. It's too late. But what they don't seem to tell you in a lot of those novels is this. The real shit, it's a lot worse. Fran.

what's this missing persons case i'm sure you're sad that i'm gone and i'm going to you saw the signs in the video right the slurred speech the franticness She kept looking to her right, and I think she was coerced into making that video. Seriously? We're following up on the old case file, given the situation. About the radio station shootings? I think what Sheriff Crowley is trying to say is that we don't want to leave anything unturned since the tragedy.

We need to get in there. I make the calls. You stand down until we figure this out. The Crowley miniseries. All ten episodes available now at patreon.com slash howigied. Hey everybody, no announcement today, but I did have a quick content warning.

This episode deals with some rougher concepts. It may contain some harder to listen to topics of discussion, just as a heads up, but it is a really good episode. I think it's one of our stronger ones, and I can't wait to talk to you about it at the end. Hope you enjoy and thanks so much for listening. Another one.

That brings the total to 47 case files between 1989 and 2015 that are missing pages or have some sort of redacted information in them. Who knows how many files are completely missing? And any mention of an employee actually working at Springfield was nearly wiped clean. I can't even find a single note on the two additional men who died in the accident, along with Mike Melba.

That means it's 47 mysterious deaths that have gone unaccounted for. How in the hell do that many records go missing? And another thing. All of the files have the exact same handwriting on them. even on the non-pathology-related pages. It looked familiar to me, but I couldn't make it out, so I did some more digging. The signature actually lines up with more recent case files between mid-2017 and early-2018.

It turns out that the last pathologist who worked in this position was named Roger Benhoff. And by my best guess, the signature on all these documents looks like an RB with some sort of squiggle. My theory is that the last pathologist was either involved in or enticed to sign these old cases as some sort of cover-up. But I can't find any record to what happened to him or where he went after Springfield. I don't have a good feeling about this. John!

Oh, good timing. Crowley, look, there's really important information that I need to talk to you about. I've been compiling data on... What's wrong? What's that face for? Could you say that again? It's not something I enjoyed saying in the first place. It's for the recording. I really don't understand why you keep these things. They're medical records.

It's much easier for me to record the procedure talking than it is for handwritten notes. Whatever. So, do you mind starting over again? Amy Hawthorne. 19 years old, found dead in the Springfield Community College swimming pool at approximately 11.45 this evening. Who found her? I was getting to that. You know...

These notes of yours would go a lot smoother if you just let people talk instead of asking them questions mid-thought. Crowley, I've never seen you like this before. A couple of weeks ago, you were cracking jokes. Yeah, well... This is an especially shitty day. Yeah, and I'm sorry to make you say all of this again. The campus groundskeeper found her. Says he saw something in the pool when he went to go lock the doors. Found her face down in the water.

Damn. Yeah, you can say that again. Are there any leads? You let me worry about that. Come on, Crowley. I need to know what I'm looking for. You're looking for evidence. I shouldn't have to tell you that. You know what I mean. We're looking into the boyfriend, but I need proof before I can arrest him. You're thinking homicide. I'm thinking what I'm thinking. What's it to you? It helps if I know what I'm looking for. Miss Hawthorne was an up-and-coming speed swimmer for the college team.

I don't believe she drowned accidentally. So we need to figure out how she ended up in a pool with only her shirt on. And who's responsible for it. Exactly. Crowley, why the boyfriend? It's always from someone you trust. As mentioned, the victim was found only wearing a top.

I'll obviously be doing an external exam before testing the water in her lungs, which I'm sure we'll find. External exam? Yeah. Unfortunately, in these cases, it's standard. You can hear me? I can. And I'm so sorry for what happened to you. Am I a ghost? Yeah, you're a ghost. Good. What? Why is that good? You didn't... You didn't drown yourself, did you? No. Yeah, that's what I thought. Do you... Do you remember what happened? Yes. Um, I don't want to make you relive it.

Could you give me a little bit more info than that? No. All right, then. I understand, honestly. I'm just going to have to figure all of this out on my own. Wait, wait, wait. What are you doing? I'm doing the physical exam. No, you don't have my permission. If you're not going to help me here, I... I need to do this. Stop. I... Have to do it even without your permission. The victim shows bruising around the collarbone. You don't have my permission. You don't have my permission.

There are scratches on her arm and upper chest. Damn it, I can't do this. Amy, Amy, listen. I'm not going to touch you, okay? I just need you to talk to me. That's it. I'm not talking to you. You're all the same. Can you give me a name, Amy? Who did this to you? Please just let me disappear.

Please just let me disappear. You know... Amy, trust me. I get the feeling of wanting to disappear. Stop it. You don't know. No, I... I definitely don't know exactly, and I wish nobody had to, but... When I was a kid, I always wanted to be like a superhero with the power of invisibility. Not just to be able to make myself disappear, but to make other people be able to disappear too. And looking back on it, I realized that it was just my way as a kid to just the way of...

Dealing with the fact that I knew that my dad was... He was hurting my mom. Nothing happened. I died. That's it. One night when I was maybe five or six years old, I wandered in their room. I saw him on top of her with his hand over her mouth. You don't know anything. And I will never forget the way that she looked at me. She was furious. terrified, but not for herself. It was like that she was scared for me, for me being there and seeing that as a kid. She tried to push him off her, and I...

ran back into my room and covered my ears. After that, I didn't see her for a day or two. Where did she leave? I thought so. Or... Looking back at it, I can imagine that she just didn't want me to see what she looked like. But then she showed back up like nothing was wrong. She was pretending. My mom was a strong lady. She just seemed so happy to see me, and then my father, that's when he started beating me, just like he'd beaten her. Just a little at first, and then...

Got worse over the next few months. Why didn't anyone stop it? Why didn't your mom stop it? I wondered that too. I... I yelled at her. I cried. cried with her and she talked to me to try to explain what was happening. And it wasn't until much later that that son of a bitch was finally arrested.

You can't just try to connect with me by telling me something like- Amy, I am not trying to trick or manipulate you. I swear. I'm not saying I know what it's like to go through what you must have gone through. Stop it. But I watched it happen to someone. I watched it take away the person that I loved. But then I finally also watched when that fucker was taken out of our house in handcuffs.

That actually made my mom happy. Nothing will make me happy. Maybe not. Maybe nothing will. But I am telling you right now that these people...

The ones who hurt others, they don't stop when their victim is gone. They move on to the next one until someone breaks the pattern. You can help break that pattern. You think he'd hurt someone else? I do. I know it. Was it your boyfriend? No. A relative? No. Come on, Amy. Please. I don't want to think about it, okay?

I know you don't. I wish you didn't have to. I wish I didn't have to ask you these questions, but I don't want what happened to you to happen to anyone else, and I'm sure you don't either. It was Coach Matthews. Someone you trusted. Yeah. Our swim team coach. At first, he just talked to me after the meets. Then he came into the changing room one day while I was getting changed, and I yelled, and it stopped for a while, and then... Take your time.

Then he asked if I was fucking my boyfriend. And said if I was giving it up, why not just give it to him too? And it escalated? Do you mean me to say it? Yes, he fucking... And... I thought that was as bad as it would get, but after he said he wanted to go to dinner, and I told him to piss off and that I was going to the cops. And that's how I ended up in the pool. Jesus Christ. You happy now? Of course not. I'm not happy. This is a terrible fucking thing that happens. Yeah, well. That son of-

He's gonna go to jail. Is that supposed to make me feel better? I... I don't know. You might feel better, but I'm still dead. I'm the one whose life is over because of this asshole, and you get to go on living. And that's not fair. No. It's not. I know, but- Just don't! No buts. It's over. I'm so sorry. I don't want pity. It is not pity. Then what is it? I don't know.

It's sadness. It's frustration. It's utter shit. That something genuinely good in this world gets replaced with something like this. You don't even know me. I know that you weren't afraid when you were alive, and that you shouldn't be afraid now. I'm not afraid. Good. Then let's get the evidence to put this asshole behind bars. What happened with your mom? It wasn't until I was put in foster care that I realized. Realized what? My dad. My fucking father.

Had killed my mom that night. That night I walked in on them in the bedroom. Something got out of hand and he killed her. And he threw her body away like a piece of garbage. And then... She showed back up to me. She was a ghost, too. Yeah. The first one I'd ever seen. Or at least the first one I remember seeing. And I had no idea. I talked to her for almost a year before I realized that she was really gone. And so you were really left alone? Yeah. She stuck with me for a while.

But, yeah. She couldn't stand it, and I don't blame her. Being in limbo and not being able to do anything, not being able to hug me or... protect me from anything. We decided together a little after my seventh birthday that it was time for her to move on. But... This isn't meant to be about me. It never was. It's about putting the people that do this a place where they can never do it to anyone else.

I'm going to use the kit. And if you want to look away, I understand. No. I want to watch. I want him to go to jail. Oh. He will trust me.

This was an important episode to me and I think it was an important episode to a lot of people who are involved in making it. Obviously stuff like this is just terrible and it's nothing that people want to talk about but it might be something that people need to talk about. Stuff like this happens all the time. And part of the reason that I wanted to put this episode together and put the show together in general was to raise awareness about certain topics and things that need to be talked about.

Even though we're a fiction podcast, I think we can have a message when it comes to this stuff. And part of the goal was just to kind of always give a voice to the victim when it came to telling their story.

Hopefully we achieved that with this one. And if you know anyone who's been through anything like this, my sympathies go out to both you and them. This episode was definitely one of the hardest ones to put together in terms of everyone acting in it and, you know, trying to get the tone right.

I hope we did a good job with it. I feel like everyone's performance here was really spot on. I think we hit home with a lot of the emotional stuff, and hopefully you learned a bit about not only John's background, but... about how everyone in this world kind of handles these things. You know, you hear from Crowley in the beginning and how angry and frustrated she is, and I think that's, I think she needs to be, so.

I'm sorry it is kind of a sombering episode, but I think it was a very real one and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, we're going to get into the credits. How I Died is an audio media original production, co-starring Vince Dijani as John Spacer and Shana Waring as Sheriff Fran Crowley. This episode featured an amazing guest performance by Amanda Friedlander as Amy Hawthorne. Audio editing and sound design was done by Vince Dijani with Master...

by Alexander Mark. Sound effects and Foley provided by freesound.org are created in-house at Audio Media. The How I Died theme song was created by Mike Lynch at SilentMikeMusic.com. And special thanks to all of our Patreon supporters. Without you guys, we wouldn't be able to continue making this awesome show and providing the additional content that we have. So we really appreciate not only your listens, but also your support. Thank you to...

Michael Lynch, Nathan Boyce, Paula Small, Ray Snoke, Roe Thorne, Ryan Koenig, SK Pacman, and Teresa Waring. Check it out, patreon.com slash howidied. Thank you again for listening, and until next episode. Try not to die. You might think you know fairy tales, and you might think that they are cute and sweet and boring. But the real grim fairy tales were not cute at all. They were very dark, and they were often very grim.

On Grim Grimmer Grimmest, we tell a grim fairy tale to a bunch of kids. Perfect for car rides or screen-free entertainment, Grim Grimmer Grimmest activates kids' imaginations and instigates fun conversations. because fairy tales speak to all of us at a very deep, primal level, and they raise interesting topics and questions that are worth chewing over together as a family.

Every episode is rated grim, grimmer, or grimmest. So you, your kids, your whole family can choose what is the right level of grim for you. Though if you're listening with grandma, she's just going to go for grimmest. Trust me on this one. Tune in to Grimm. Grimmer Grimmest and our new season available now. Alright girls, this is the place.

We'll get everything loaded over to the boat and we'll lock up the truck. Don't leave anything behind. Wait, is that it? That's where we're going? Yeah, that's it. Seal skin rock. Return to the mysteries in Don't Mind, Sealskin Rock. Subscribe now to catch the premiere, and we'll see you on the rock.