Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, a man in the checked
Speaker 1: town of Curim turned his baby monitor on, expecting to
Speaker 1: see his own sleeping child, and instead what he saw
Speaker 1: was a grainy feet of an unknown boy locked in
Speaker 1: a dark room, bruised and terrified. That accidental glimpse of
Speaker 1: horror pulled police into a secret world hidden behind an
Speaker 1: ordinary front door, and by the time investigators uncovered the truth,
Speaker 1: the case had spiraled into one of Europe's strangest stories
Speaker 1: of abuse, deception, and calculated manipulation that no one could
Speaker 1: have ever seen coming. This is the story simply known
Speaker 1: as the Curum Case.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a.
Speaker 1: True crime podcasting following you more mature audience listener. It
Speaker 1: is frosty and foggy out this morning, and oh man,
Speaker 1: it looks creepy. Did you notice that tree over there?
Speaker 2: No, it's weird. We have the creepiest tree in the field,
Speaker 2: like tree line that we've never noticed. But I think
Speaker 2: it's just being hit right right now with the light
Speaker 2: and it's like very eerie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no leaves on it. It's like back lit
Speaker 1: by white is white fog and then everything is like frosted,
Speaker 1: so it's really standing out in like contrast, we didn't
Speaker 1: really notice how creepy it looked before. It's almost as
Speaker 1: creepy as the tree in our logo. It's the same
Speaker 1: kind of tree, cottonwood tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a little bit smaller, I would I
Speaker 2: would say it is.
Speaker 1: It's not as it's not as creepy as our our
Speaker 1: logo tree, but it is. It is very akin to.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's showing off today.
Speaker 1: It is. Has anyone else started their Christmas shopping? Because
Speaker 1: I know Nicole has. She's been in like full Christmas
Speaker 1: shopping mode. And maybe it's all the frost that's hitting
Speaker 1: those trees that's getting you in that mood. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well really only since like Sunday, I feel.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, and it's been full force.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the reason behind this is because I
Speaker 2: don't love how busy the shops get, Like the closer
Speaker 2: you get to Christmas, Yeah, and they're starting to get
Speaker 2: really busy, and I'm just like already a little bit panicking,
Speaker 2: not panicking, but my.
Speaker 1: People anxiety levels.
Speaker 2: You're already spiked your people's skills, your so I'm like,
Speaker 2: I gotta get this shit done because I can't handle
Speaker 2: this if it gets even more busy.
Speaker 1: There needs to be a word for that. You're you're
Speaker 1: peopling ability. I don't know. Yeah, I know you're saying,
Speaker 1: but I.
Speaker 2: Know what would be the word for that, Your.
Speaker 1: Social level, your social media I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that capacity. There you go.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Anyways, Nicole may or may not be
Speaker 1: getting sick, so she might sound a little interesting today
Speaker 1: where we're still figuring out if it's just because she's
Speaker 1: groggy because she just woke up, or if she's actually
Speaker 1: getting sick. Hopefully it's not the latter.
Speaker 2: I know I didn't feel great last night either, so
Speaker 2: I think it's something. But we'll just see if it
Speaker 2: amounts to much. Hopefully it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Well, fingers crossed for you. Maybe we'll make you some
Speaker 1: tea and some hot chocolate and soup and stuff like
Speaker 1: that and make you feel better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm about to go clean a chicken coop after this.
Speaker 2: You think that will that will help?
Speaker 1: Probably not. Well, I don't know if this case will
Speaker 1: help at all. But it is a dang interesting one,
Speaker 1: that is for sure. It is known as the Curum case,
Speaker 1: and it was requested on Patreon.
Speaker 2: So it sounds pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So we did a whole like request feed we do frequently,
Speaker 1: like at least once a month, once a month or
Speaker 1: so like something like that. We do requests and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and Julie actually requested this one. And Julie's
Speaker 1: been a part of our Patreon family and all that
Speaker 1: for a long time. And as soon as she drops
Speaker 1: a case, I know it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 1: So right out of the gate it piqued my interests.
Speaker 1: I started digging into it and I was like, damn son, So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and this is a two parters.
Speaker 1: It not it is going to be two part well
Speaker 1: it's in the title on part ten. It is a
Speaker 1: two parter, so if you miss it in the title, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the first part of the Kurum case. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if my English translations of many of
Speaker 1: these names and locations are going to be all that great,
Speaker 1: but bear with me. I will be doing my best.
Speaker 1: I have done like Google pronunciations and stuff on them,
Speaker 1: so just an FYI own that, but even still, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna do my best. Let's pove it that way.
Speaker 2: Well, I know, we get we do get flat for
Speaker 2: that sometimes and we literally do Google pronunciation just so
Speaker 2: everybody is aware.
Speaker 1: Yes, but it steers us wrong many a times. Other
Speaker 1: other times it's it's like, oh, well that's obvious, see
Speaker 1: how you pronounce it, and it's still just wrong, like yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't Google Google pronounce it because we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's you know this, And then no, it's there's actually
Speaker 1: an accent or that's a silent l or who.
Speaker 2: Knows right, So oh yeah, absolutely. When you don't live
Speaker 2: in the area, sometimes it's very hard to know how
Speaker 2: some thing's pronounced.
Speaker 1: Right or sure, there's a lot of places in British
Speaker 1: Columbia where we live that we know how to pronounce that.
Speaker 1: I know people have pronounced horrifically wrong. Yeah, in podcasts.
Speaker 1: So it's just part of the nature of storytelling, it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I digress. I'm going to do my best, and
Speaker 1: I think it's time to get into this.
Speaker 2: O hey, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So on May seventh, two thousand and seven, Kurum resident
Speaker 1: Edward Trida was standing in his living room doing something
Speaker 1: patentfully ordinary. Honestly, he was trying to set up a
Speaker 1: baby monitor that refused to cooperate. He flipped through the channels,
Speaker 1: going through the manual, and he's expecting, you know, the
Speaker 1: usual static sort of thing, maybe a faint signal from
Speaker 1: his son's bedroom down the hall to finally show up
Speaker 1: as he's working on this, But instead of a picture
Speaker 1: in from the familiar bedroom in his house, soon an
Speaker 1: image sharpened that he didn't recognize. It was a small,
Speaker 1: cramped space lit only by a harsh infrared light cutting
Speaker 1: through the darkness. The picture was grainy, you know the
Speaker 1: way old security cameras look, but clear enough to make
Speaker 1: out a boy sitting there. He was thin, naked and
Speaker 1: lying on the floor with his wrists wrapped tightly in tape.
Speaker 1: He moved slowly, like every motion hurt, dragging himself inch
Speaker 1: at a time. Edward froze. This wasn't his house, this
Speaker 1: wasn't his son. It definitely wasn't a scene anyone ever
Speaker 1: would expect to pick up on a baby monitor. He
Speaker 1: waited for the image to glitch away, thinking it was
Speaker 1: maybe a figment of his imagination, but it didn't. The
Speaker 1: boy stayed there, shifting, weak and clearly in distress, for
Speaker 1: a few moments, Edward tried to convince himself it was
Speaker 1: some kind of I don't know, test feed, accidental crossover
Speaker 1: from another device, like maybe a TV from you know,
Speaker 1: a neighborhood, a neighbor in the neighborhood. But nothing about
Speaker 1: this footage looked stage, fake or harmless. The longer he stared,
Speaker 1: the more obvious it became that this child clearly needed help.
Speaker 1: So he did the only thing that made sense. He
Speaker 1: called the police. Officers arrived quickly and watched the same
Speaker 1: disturbing image on the monitor, and based on short transmission
Speaker 1: ranges of this device, they realized soon that the feed
Speaker 1: would have to be coming from somewhere extremely close.
Speaker 2: A neighbor basically, which is terrifying.
Speaker 1: Exactly most likely a neighbor on the street. So when
Speaker 1: officers approached that home and knocked, a woman answered calmly,
Speaker 1: insisting that nothing was wrong. But at that same moment,
Speaker 1: back in Edward's living room, the feed, you know, it flickered.
Speaker 1: They could hear things that were happening in the house,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was clear this was the place. It
Speaker 1: was enough for police to push past the front door,
Speaker 1: and they didn't know it yet, but they were about
Speaker 1: to uncover one of the strangest and most disturbing cases
Speaker 1: in modern Czech history, one that began with a baby
Speaker 1: monitor as we all know, and a boy no one
Speaker 1: was supposed to see now before the investigation ever reached
Speaker 1: that front door. Though the Minerva family seems unremarkable from
Speaker 1: the outside, they were the kind of family people would
Speaker 1: describe with phrases like quiet, you know, kept to themselves,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Clara Marnova was born on January thirtieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, the middle of three sisters. She grew
Speaker 1: up in Burnout, in the household defined by routine, strict
Speaker 1: morals and a heavy dose of religion. Church wasn't an
Speaker 1: option for them. It was an expectation. So were the commandments,
Speaker 1: you know, obedience and the idea that God had a
Speaker 1: plan for everyone.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Clara took that last part the most serious of all,
Speaker 1: more serious than most do. In fact, her older sister,
Speaker 1: Katerina was born in nineteen seventy three, and she did too.
Speaker 1: As teenagers, the girls started talking about visions, dreams where
Speaker 1: God actually showed up and singled them out, saying that
Speaker 1: they were chosen for something far greater than most people. Now,
Speaker 1: teachers kind of started noticing these shifts in behavior, these dreams,
Speaker 1: if you will, and before long social workers would get involved.
Speaker 1: Now the girls weren't violent, but their grand ideas and
Speaker 1: intense religion fixations while it raised enough red flags that
Speaker 1: officials suggested psychiatric evaluation, but nothing ever came of it.
Speaker 1: Their mother refused any treatment, saying instead that her daughters
Speaker 1: were fine, effectively just turning a blind eye to the situation,
Speaker 1: and so whatever was happening inside their heads was allowed
Speaker 1: to keep unfolding, unchecked. The sisters eventually grew up, They
Speaker 1: moved on, and, at least on the surface, settled into
Speaker 1: adult life. Clara married a man whose name was Radic,
Speaker 1: and for a while life was normal. She gave birth
Speaker 1: to her first son, Jacob, at twenty and two years
Speaker 1: later came Andre. She studied economics, worked in an office,
Speaker 1: kept up with the bills in school schedules, just like
Speaker 1: any other young mother would. But the intensity she carried
Speaker 1: as a teenager, while it never really faded, and by
Speaker 1: her mid twenties, the stress of marriage, motherhood, well, they
Speaker 1: were enough to crack whatever stability that she built. She
Speaker 1: started to become a bit withdrawn convinced once again that
Speaker 1: she was meant for something far bigger, some bigger mission,
Speaker 1: and that her husband and children were distracting her from
Speaker 1: this mission. Arguments followed radic while he eventually found for
Speaker 1: divorce with their marriage crumbling, and Clara took the boys
Speaker 1: and left. This should have been a turning point where
Speaker 1: she could potentially find balance or maybe you know, lead
Speaker 1: on her wider family for support. Now she did lean
Speaker 1: on family, but instead she drifted back to the one
Speaker 1: person whose worldview mirrored her own, her sister, Katerina. They
Speaker 1: moved in together and shared an apartment, two sisters, two
Speaker 1: young boys, all under one roof, and for a short
Speaker 1: stretch of time it worked. For this stretch, the Minerva
Speaker 1: household looked like any ordinary one. After the divorce and move,
Speaker 1: Clara settled into routine, one that actually made sense from
Speaker 1: an outside. She worked, she parented, and she leaned on
Speaker 1: her sister in any practical way that she needed to.
Speaker 1: The two women lived in Burnho, sharing a modest apartment
Speaker 1: and carving out that life. By all accounts, it didn't
Speaker 1: raise any alarms. Clara handled her office job and continued
Speaker 1: her studies, while Katerina worked as a manager at a
Speaker 1: local youth center, the kind of place filled with you know,
Speaker 1: craft tables, noise, and the after school chaos of kids
Speaker 1: who don't really want to sit still very well, and
Speaker 1: of course, the boys, Jacob and Andre, were thriving. Jacob
Speaker 1: was the older brother of the two, and he had
Speaker 1: a gentle, thoughtful streak. He loved dinosaurs, books, and baseball.
Speaker 1: He played the flute and was a kind of kid
Speaker 1: that teachers described as being very polite. Andre, the younger
Speaker 1: of the two boys, was two years younger, and he
Speaker 1: had more energy than while their apartment could reasonably contain.
Speaker 1: He liked hockey, running, and really anything that let him
Speaker 1: burn through. All that restless enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: That's probably most common really.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think it, honestly is yes, that energy that
Speaker 1: oh my god, he never stops and just go, go, go.
Speaker 1: I think that is something very common.
Speaker 2: I look at that often. I'm like, oh, I wish
Speaker 2: I had that kind of energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Instead, I have the energy of, well, how our
Speaker 1: dog is laying right now, She's just belly up, just
Speaker 1: live in her best life.
Speaker 2: She is a good vibe.
Speaker 1: She does now. Friends and co workers who knew Clara
Speaker 1: during this period. Remember her as a good mother. She
Speaker 1: was a tentative, soft spoken, and reliable. She was someone
Speaker 1: who asked questions at parent meetings, packed lunches, and genuinely
Speaker 1: cared about providing stability for her two sons. If you
Speaker 1: looked at them then nothing would have stood out, no
Speaker 1: strange behavior warning, any sort of hints on what would
Speaker 1: eventually take place in the home. In fact, she might
Speaker 1: even admire her for how she would be parenting.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Even the dynamic between the sisters it seemed balanced. Clara
Speaker 1: was well. She was a bit of the emotional one
Speaker 1: in Katerina, she was the organized one. But under that
Speaker 1: thin layer of normalcy, the old patterns were still there.
Speaker 1: The grand beliefs, the unaddressed mental health issues, the religious intensity,
Speaker 1: all the things at once made their teachers uneasy. It
Speaker 1: had simply gone dormant underground for a while, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't stay buried for long, because in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: the sisters, while their quiet, predictable life changed moments a
Speaker 1: new child entered the picture. It started with a conversation
Speaker 1: that didn't sound unusual. Katerina mentioned a new girl at
Speaker 1: the youth center, a quiet, thirteen year old named Anika,
Speaker 1: who had just arrived from Norway. Her story, however, was
Speaker 1: not exactly what one would call or. According to Katerina,
Speaker 1: the girl had endured more in her short life than
Speaker 1: most adults could ever imagine. Both of her parents were dead,
Speaker 1: and she spent years drifting through harsh orphanage jiz and
Speaker 1: the abuse was so severe it left her withdrawn and
Speaker 1: extremely skittish. As if that weren't enough, she was now
Speaker 1: supposedly battling leukemia on top of it all.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: And she's thirteen thirteen and doctors were unsure if she'd
Speaker 1: even survived past sixteen years old.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, what a life? No kidding, that's really not fair. Now.
Speaker 1: When Clara finally met the girl, every detail reinforced this impression.
Speaker 1: Annika appeared tiny for her age. She was unnervingly thin.
Speaker 1: Her shaved head even explained the chemotherapy all of it.
Speaker 1: She spoke softly, hiding her face. She clung to Clara
Speaker 1: more than anyone else in the room. Actually, her behavior
Speaker 1: was actually a little odd, childlike at moments and strangely
Speaker 1: self aware the next. But trauma can warp a young
Speaker 1: person in all kinds of ways, and Clara saw this
Speaker 1: frightened child who needed stability, needed help, needed someone who
Speaker 1: could give affection in overwhelming doses. And when Anika leaned
Speaker 1: towards her, seeking attention, comfort and everything that you know,
Speaker 1: she needed, Clara responded instinctively. I mean she was a
Speaker 1: mother after all. Right. Within weeks, the girl had become
Speaker 1: a near constant presence in her home and in her
Speaker 1: thoughts too. What Clara didn't see, however, was how expertly
Speaker 1: that girl adapted herself, how she shifted her behavior depending
Speaker 1: on what could draw Clara closer, how quick she was
Speaker 1: to request help or praise or even physical closeness, and
Speaker 1: how she began acting as though Clara was the only
Speaker 1: adult she fully trusted. It all worked exactly as this
Speaker 1: girl intended, and it set the stage for a decision
Speaker 1: Clara believed was both compassionate and divinely meaningful. She agreed
Speaker 1: to begin the lead process to adopt this fragile, unlucky
Speaker 1: child named Anka.
Speaker 2: So I just have to say, like Honica has been
Speaker 2: living her life in foster care and has learned how
Speaker 2: to just like adapt to what other people want and
Speaker 2: need from her, is sort of what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Not quite. Let me explain. Okay, So what no one realized,
Speaker 1: not even Clara, not the YOU Center, or the officials
Speaker 1: that worked with her, or even officials that signed the
Speaker 1: later adoption papers, was that this girl in front of
Speaker 1: them was not a thirteen year old girl. She was
Speaker 1: not a sick girl named Anica at all. Her name
Speaker 1: was actually Barbara Scarlova, a fully grown woman deep into
Speaker 1: her thirties, perfectly aware of the manipulation she was doing.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Yes, and she was under care though correct. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: okay I was. If I had a thousand guesses, I
Speaker 2: don't think I would have guessed that.
Speaker 1: I didn't think you would.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Whenever something in Anica's story felt off, which that's what
Speaker 1: I'll be referring to her for for now, Anica, Clara
Speaker 1: reassured herself that there was one thought in her head.
Speaker 1: A doctor was involved. And this doctor was a specialist
Speaker 1: in childhood trauma and also the same man treating her
Speaker 1: for leukemia, someone who supposedly understood the girl's pain better
Speaker 1: than Clara ever could. But this doctor, well, he never
Speaker 1: appeared in person per se. Every instruction came through emails
Speaker 1: and text messages, always late at night too. And always
Speaker 1: written with a strangely commanding tone. He framed himself as
Speaker 1: both a therapist and medical guardian, offering guidance that sounded
Speaker 1: scientific enough to be believable, at least at first. Then
Speaker 1: eventually the advice deepened into some more uncomfortable territory. He
Speaker 1: encouraged Clara to give the girl long, full body massages
Speaker 1: under the guise of desensitization therapy. He insisted she keep
Speaker 1: close physical contact, monitor the girl's reactions constantly, and maintained
Speaker 1: relentless emotional reassurance. If Clara felt unsure, he shut down
Speaker 1: any doubt immediately, saying, quote, trauma survivors deteriorate when challenged. Meanwhile, Anika,
Speaker 1: while she behaved exactly in ways that reinforce his claims,
Speaker 1: she stopped walking, saying her legs hurt too much. She
Speaker 1: refused to eat unless Clara fed her directly. She was
Speaker 1: startled whenever Jacob or Andrea came into the room and
Speaker 1: whispered accusations that they teased her, they pushed her, and
Speaker 1: scared her. Of course, no one ever witnessed these moments,
Speaker 1: though it was only her who had seen it happen,
Speaker 1: of course, and yet the fear she projected was so
Speaker 1: convincing that Clara reacted automatically, disciplining her boys and pushing
Speaker 1: them away. At the same time, Little by little, Clara
Speaker 1: began shaping her daily routine and life around the girl's moods.
Speaker 1: Outings were canceled, family routines shifted, and the boys found
Speaker 1: themselves blamed for well a lot of things more often
Speaker 1: than not, and they were watched a lot more closely too,
Speaker 1: and punished even more severely for things. The doctor never
Speaker 1: backed off either. Each message nudged Clara a little further
Speaker 1: towards the edge, and by then Clara was She was exhausted,
Speaker 1: emotionally raw, and dependent on the two influences she believed
Speaker 1: were guiding her, her sister and this unseen professional who
Speaker 1: claimed to know exactly what this child needed. The possibility
Speaker 1: that she was being manipulated will it never even registered
Speaker 1: to her, But the pattern forming around her was. While
Speaker 1: it was not therapeutic, it was strategic. The household was
Speaker 1: slowly being reorganized around Anica, turning Clara into a servant
Speaker 1: of someone she didn't actually understand, someone who had no
Speaker 1: official identity. Actually, there were no documents that proved anything
Speaker 1: about her past, no school file, no medical history, nothing
Speaker 1: that tied Onnica to any sort of situation or institution.
Speaker 1: And instead of seeing this as a warning sign, Clara
Speaker 1: interpreted it as evidence of her life of hardship. Now
Speaker 1: this doctor reinforces the idea too, explaining that years of
Speaker 1: mistreatment and displacement had erased much of the girl's recorded history.
Speaker 1: He insisted the only way to move forward was give
Speaker 1: her an entirely new beginning. Now, for the adoption process,
Speaker 1: authorities needed confirmation of the girl's age, So Clara brought
Speaker 1: Anica to a hospital for evaluation. What Clara didn't witness
Speaker 1: or didn't understand, was that someone else accompanied her Onnica
Speaker 1: into the examination room. A genuine teenage girl stood in
Speaker 1: for Onnica.
Speaker 2: What, Okay, this is the most messed up thing I've
Speaker 2: ever heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So doctor's examine in this teenage girl as the substitute,
Speaker 1: and they reasonably concluded that she was around the age
Speaker 1: of thirteen or fourteen years.
Speaker 2: Old, which I could see happening quite easily. Definitely that
Speaker 2: you would just assume, oh, that's like her mom or
Speaker 2: the one wanting to adopt her. This as the teenager
Speaker 2: and Yeah, that could work. I mean, I'm probably did well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that assessment. It became the foundation of a completely
Speaker 1: legal new identity. Is so now they had a forged
Speaker 1: medical summary, a testimony from Clara and Katerina, and digital
Speaker 1: correspondence from this so called doctor, and the court saw
Speaker 1: no reason to doubt the case whatsoever. So judges and
Speaker 1: social workers viewed Clara as a compassionate woman trying to
Speaker 1: rescue a child who had survived unthinkable circumstances, and so
Speaker 1: they approved the adoption and issued a birth certificate listing
Speaker 1: the girl as Anica Mernova born December two, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: The reality, of course, was she was nowhere near thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, was not exactly the person they thought she was.
Speaker 1: You see, Barbara Scerlova, who was pretending to be this
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Onika, was a person with a long
Speaker 1: pattern of mimicking children in her history. She was actually
Speaker 1: in her early thirties, mid thirties around there, and her
Speaker 1: small stature, her youthful face, and hormonal growth disorder made
Speaker 1: her disguise unusually effective. But it was her ability to
Speaker 1: manipulate others that made the whole scheme possible. Once the
Speaker 1: adoption was complete. Barbara didn't just have a place to stay,
Speaker 1: she had a legitimate identity she could use anywhere. It
Speaker 1: gave her freedom, protection, and a level of control over
Speaker 1: Clara that went far beyond any sort of emotional dependence.
Speaker 1: So now with it all official, the atmosphere inside the
Speaker 1: Menova home changed in ways. The boys were too young
Speaker 1: to understand. What had begun as minor tension grew into
Speaker 1: a steady reorganization of the household, which quote unquote Anika
Speaker 1: placed at the center and Jacob and Andrea pushed towards
Speaker 1: the edges.
Speaker 2: See, I still don't I'm having trouble getting this because, like,
Speaker 2: I just don't understand why. I mean, I'm sure it
Speaker 2: will come very clear, but I don't understand why a
Speaker 2: full grown ass woman, yeah, would want to do this
Speaker 2: like you could. Why would you want to like just
Speaker 2: become a child.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. People do a lot of
Speaker 1: fucked up things, and this is definitely one of them.
Speaker 2: Because I don't know, I'm just my brain is just
Speaker 2: spinning because it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Well, she's not wanting to become a child, per se.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's more about the manipulation on
Speaker 1: other people, so she gets free living, free food, people
Speaker 1: who are caring for her, doting on her, and all
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess I just feel like it would
Speaker 2: be so much easier to get a job and then
Speaker 2: you can to get your own apartment and like.
Speaker 1: Live your life, and would definitely be the more legal
Speaker 1: way of going yeah, the more ethical way of outgoing
Speaker 1: about it. But instead she chose this for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: I just feel like that would just be all around
Speaker 2: a better choice. But okay, here we are.
Speaker 1: Here we are now. The first major step was pulling
Speaker 1: the boys out of school. Clara told teachers it was temporary,
Speaker 1: you know, it's part of a home base program recommended
Speaker 1: by this doctor. She repeated the same explanation to their
Speaker 1: father and other relatives too when asked about it. But
Speaker 1: the reality was she was eliminating outside influence. With the
Speaker 1: boys at home full time, the household became a closed
Speaker 1: loop where every interaction took place under the watchful eye
Speaker 1: of the girl Clara believed she was saving. Their world
Speaker 1: had narrowed down to the layout of the house, and
Speaker 1: the emotional landscape was dictated by Anika. Whenever she appeared
Speaker 1: frightened or upset, Clara redirected her frustration towards the boys.
Speaker 1: If they laughed too loudly, she said it distressed the girl.
Speaker 1: If they touched something, she considered hers it while she
Speaker 1: took it as an attack. Even small disagreements became evidence
Speaker 1: of malice, fed by anxious trembling Anica sitting in the
Speaker 1: corner scared now. Punishments initially started small, you know, early
Speaker 1: bed times, some scoldings, but they quickly escalated, and soon
Speaker 1: they became abuse, things like being forced to kneel for
Speaker 1: extended periods, standing perfectly still for long stretches of time,
Speaker 1: or being deprived of meals for minor infractions. Clara viewed
Speaker 1: these consequences as simple discipline. In fact, they were something
Speaker 1: the doctor approved of, even or even encouraged. The boys
Speaker 1: began living their lives filled with caution, unsure what might
Speaker 1: set off the next round of consequences and discipline. More
Speaker 1: physical punishments soon followed two things like discipline with a
Speaker 1: wooden spoon or a belt, or even open handed strikes
Speaker 1: delivered in moments. When Clara believed the boys had frightened Anica,
Speaker 1: she didn't seem to notice that Onnica never really displayed
Speaker 1: fear around anyone else, nor did she ever flinch when
Speaker 1: adults were near. The reactions appeared only when Clara was
Speaker 1: alone with her sons, as if performed for an audience
Speaker 1: of one person. The boys, as a result, grew quieter. Andre,
Speaker 1: the younger of the two, started flinching at sudden sounds.
Speaker 1: Jacob adopted a very careful routine of speaking minimally, completing
Speaker 1: chores quickly, and avoiding eye contact whenever Anica entered the room.
Speaker 2: That's so sad for them. She's basically ruining their childhood
Speaker 2: and their life.
Speaker 1: She is, she's manipulating the whole thing, and these young
Speaker 1: boys that they're starting to understand that their safest moments
Speaker 1: are when they go like unnoticed, when attention isn't paid
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: My gosh, I hate that.
Speaker 1: It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, during this period, Anica became steadily more demanding. She
Speaker 1: even rejected the boys entirely. She refused to share space
Speaker 1: with them and positioned herself as someone delicate enough to
Speaker 1: require constant supervision. And the doctor's message, of course, reinforced
Speaker 1: all of this, describing the girl as emotionally fragile and
Speaker 1: easily traumatized by any sort of disturbance, and Clara, well
Speaker 1: already overwhelmed and exhausted, believed it all. She saw herself
Speaker 1: as the one balancing both the care for a damaged
Speaker 1: child and the discipline of two boys she thought were
Speaker 1: becoming more increasingly hostile. But the real breaking point came
Speaker 1: when the family left the house altogether and moved temporarily
Speaker 1: to relocate to Bruno or just outside. It was a
Speaker 1: place that the adults would soon call the cottage. It
Speaker 1: marked a clear transition from functional parenting to something far
Speaker 1: more controlling and deliberate. Clara and Katerina referred to it
Speaker 1: as a place for re education, but the reality was
Speaker 1: the setting here well, it was where the world around
Speaker 1: the boys would completely collapse. The cottage sat away from neighbors,
Speaker 1: surrounded by trees and quiet roads. It was the kind
Speaker 1: of place where no one would hear shouting or screams,
Speaker 1: or noticed children not stepping outside to the group. That
Speaker 1: isolation wasn't a drawback actually of this place. It was
Speaker 1: the entire point of this place. They wanted privacy for
Speaker 1: what they claimed were tests, corrections, and purification exercises. Those were,
Speaker 1: of course words, not from the boys, but the adults
Speaker 1: in the home. Inside that home or a cottage, everything
Speaker 1: and I mean everything was controlled. The adults locked Jacob
Speaker 1: and Andre into cramped metal dog cages. Neither cage allowed
Speaker 1: them to stand comfortably what The food arrived irregularly, Their
Speaker 1: toilet was a bucket, and they were forbidden from speaking
Speaker 1: to each other and punished if they did. Sleep came
Speaker 1: in very short, broken intervals, to interrupted by shouting, cold
Speaker 1: splashes of water, or sudden orders and demands for them
Speaker 1: to do something or tasks or chores. These punishments were
Speaker 1: not random oltbursts. They were structured. Each adult participated. When
Speaker 1: I'm saying adults, I want to make it clear I
Speaker 1: am including Anica in this as well. So when I
Speaker 1: say adults from here and out, it does include her too.
Speaker 1: The sisters may think she's a child, but she is
Speaker 1: an adult and she is very much so taking part
Speaker 1: in many of these disciplines and abuse situations too.
Speaker 2: This is like so messed up. Yeah, it is, I
Speaker 2: am having trump. We've ben listening to this because it's
Speaker 2: just it's fucked.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it got to this point. I don't
Speaker 1: understand it, But here we are because like.
Speaker 2: The two like the two boys are her flesh and
Speaker 2: blood here, but.
Speaker 1: She's being manipulated to think that they're misbehaving, and then
Speaker 1: her religious upbringing a mixed with her delusions of grandeur,
Speaker 1: are allowing her to think that she needs to do
Speaker 1: these outlandish discipline structuring whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: to fix them while she's trying to take care of
Speaker 1: this new fragile.
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, like it makes sense in a way,
Speaker 2: but it also just doesn't you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get you the path, how we got here,
Speaker 1: I can see it, but it is so fucked up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it. I mean it probably it took some
Speaker 2: time and stuff to get here. I get that, but
Speaker 2: also it's just like unfathomable to me that it did
Speaker 2: get here.
Speaker 1: Well, manipulation does a lot, right, I mean, yeah, that
Speaker 1: it's manipulation for a reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, some beatings with these two boys came with belts
Speaker 1: or woulden't implements, as I kind of mentioned already, But
Speaker 1: other times the boys were forced to kneel until their
Speaker 1: legs shook, or remain naked in a corner while the
Speaker 1: adults lectured them about obedience. Loud industrial music was played
Speaker 1: for long stretches too, not for entertainment, but to disorient them,
Speaker 1: specifically drowning out their crying and keep them awake and
Speaker 1: prevent any sort of sleeping. One incident occurred where Jacob
Speaker 1: was forced to lie in a shallow pit outside a
Speaker 1: hole the adults referred to as a grave. He was
Speaker 1: not to move, He was to lie there, not breathe
Speaker 1: too loudly, and stay as still as he could, as
Speaker 1: if he were dead. Then Andre, who believed everything he
Speaker 1: was told at that age, was ordered to start burying
Speaker 1: his brother, shoveling dirt onto him.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, like the trauma that would be coming from
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent these adults, they told him that he had
Speaker 1: poisoned Jacob, and the point was not to teach anything.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was to break both boys at once,
Speaker 1: as one brother is basically believing he's burying his dead
Speaker 1: sibling that he is responsible for killing, and now he's
Speaker 1: going to be going through all this alone, as the
Speaker 1: other brother is forced to stay there and watch what
Speaker 1: his other brother is going through, and he's being what
Speaker 1: he might think is buried alive. It is so beyond messed.
Speaker 2: And like just sad too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Jacob did eventually climb out of that pit,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't played off as we were joking or
Speaker 1: he was alive the whole time. Instead, he was paraded
Speaker 1: in front of Andrea as if he had like returned
Speaker 1: back to life.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And the adults treated this as a successful lesson in
Speaker 1: obedience somehow, But for the boys it obviously became another
Speaker 1: moment that they didn't have like the cognitive capacity or
Speaker 1: vocabulary really to even explain. Their physical injuries piled up fast. Bruises, cuts, burns,
Speaker 1: and in one case, a wound on Andre's lower body
Speaker 1: that became a major focus of the following investigation. You see,
Speaker 1: at some point during this re education, as they called it,
Speaker 1: Andrea suffered a wound to the back of his thigh
Speaker 1: in kind of like his lower butt area. Not an
Speaker 1: accidental kind of wound either, but something inflicted very deliberately.
Speaker 1: An incident occurred where the adults in the home cut
Speaker 1: a piece of his flesh from his body, following instructions
Speaker 1: they claim came from this mysterious. Later medical examinations with
Speaker 1: this whole case, they documented the trauma entirely and it
Speaker 1: was consistent with a sharp, controlled cut, not a fall
Speaker 1: or random accident. The scar pattern supported Andre's account that
Speaker 1: the tissue was removed intentionally by the adults in the home.
Speaker 1: Now where the truth becomes clouded is exactly what had happened,
Speaker 1: how this went about, and what happened next. Some early
Speaker 1: statements suggests the piece of flesh was burned, while others
Speaker 1: said it was actually eaten as part of a purification ritual,
Speaker 1: though cannibalism has never been definitively proven in this case.
Speaker 2: I just can't with this fucking case. Yeah, is this
Speaker 2: just making me so angry? That would have been so painful.
Speaker 1: It would have been and so fucked up now, regardless
Speaker 1: of this incident though, or what they went through. Even
Speaker 1: the boys had no allies in this home, every single
Speaker 1: adult that was present, they enforced the same rules every
Speaker 1: adult participated. Clara's role was particularly devastating because her son
Speaker 1: still expected her to intervene, you know, stop the torture,
Speaker 1: the pain, the suffering, to protect them like a mother should,
Speaker 1: but instead she echoed the very same ideas as the others.
Speaker 1: She convinced that she was correcting them for their own good.
Speaker 1: By the time the group returned to the city months later.
Speaker 1: Both boys were weakened, frightened, and conditioned to expect punishment
Speaker 1: for even the most minor action. The cottage had served
Speaker 1: its purpose in the eyes of the adults. At least,
Speaker 1: the boys were compliant, traumatized, and entirely under their control.
Speaker 1: But the next stage of this ordeal wasn't about breaking
Speaker 1: both the children. It focused almost entirely in Andre instead,
Speaker 1: who became the center of this group's escalating cruelty once
Speaker 1: they moved into the new house in Kurum. Now the
Speaker 1: new house was a two story place with a modest yard.
Speaker 1: It had neighbors who minded their own business, and absolute
Speaker 1: nothing about it suggested that one of the rooms had
Speaker 1: been turned into a miniature prison. The inside of the
Speaker 1: home was arranged with a very specific intention to monitor,
Speaker 1: to confine, and isolate a child without attracting any sort
Speaker 1: of attention. Now, Jacob at this point was kept elsewhere
Speaker 1: part of the time, sometimes at a youth facility and
Speaker 1: sometimes under the watch of other adults connected to this group. Now,
Speaker 1: this group isn't exactly innocent in all of this either.
Speaker 1: They certainly had their share and involvement in the story
Speaker 1: as well. As influence of care of these boys. Now,
Speaker 1: Jacob was the older of the two, and he was
Speaker 1: becoming harder to manipulate than Andre. He had become increasingly
Speaker 1: protective of his younger brother too, so separating them made
Speaker 1: the control much easier. The heart of this new arrangement
Speaker 1: was a narrow storage space beneath the stairs that wasn't
Speaker 1: large enough for a bed. It had no window, and
Speaker 1: the door had been reinforced and secured with a bunch
Speaker 1: of different locks that allowed adults to steal it from
Speaker 1: the outside. Inside there was only a thin mat, a
Speaker 1: small blanket, and a bucket. The space was so cramped
Speaker 1: that even a child couldn't stretch out fully, and it
Speaker 1: was too dark for him to see anything beyond the
Speaker 1: faintest outlines when the door was shut.
Speaker 2: Is that small of an area.
Speaker 1: Yes. A security camera was also mounted inside and pointed
Speaker 1: down directly at the floor of the covered space. Its
Speaker 1: wireless feed transmitted to a receiver in the house, where
Speaker 1: the adults could observe Andrea at any moment of the day.
Speaker 1: Life for Andrea inside this curum house followed a predictable
Speaker 1: cycle of unimaginable abuse, confinement monitoring brief release, then punishment
Speaker 1: for something that he probably hadn't even actually done. The
Speaker 1: adults left him bound at times when they were out,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they kept him naked to prevent misbehavior. Meals
Speaker 1: were inconsistent, water was withheld as a form of discipline,
Speaker 1: and he slept on the hard floor in the cramped
Speaker 1: darkness with just that thin mattin blanket, sometimes for hours,
Speaker 1: sometimes for days, depending on, honestly the mood of the
Speaker 1: adults in the home. Outside of that dark, copboared space,
Speaker 1: the home remained deceptively normal, as if they were, you know,
Speaker 1: just living a normal life, and what they were doing
Speaker 1: wasn't something completely horrific. Clara went shopping, Katerina visited work,
Speaker 1: Anica or Barbara in her carefully maintained disguise, moved through
Speaker 1: the house as if she were a fragile teenager needing
Speaker 1: constant protection and care.
Speaker 2: She makes me sick.
Speaker 1: Visitors saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one imagined
Speaker 1: a child was locked just a few feet away, watching
Speaker 1: the edges of a camera lens as his only connection
Speaker 1: to the outside world. One of the most disturbing aspects
Speaker 1: of this period is how seamlessly the group functioned around
Speaker 1: that confinement. They cooked meals, cleaned rooms, and entertained the
Speaker 1: girl they believe they were protecting, all while it ignoring
Speaker 1: the fact that a boy was Clara's boy was trapped
Speaker 1: beneath their staircase. Like think Harry Potter living under the
Speaker 1: stairs and the treatment he had versus cousin, except way worse.
Speaker 1: Like Harry Potter had a good compared to this, And
Speaker 1: that's honestly fictional, but this was very much so real.
Speaker 1: Andre adapted in the only ways he could. He learned
Speaker 1: to keep quiet. He monitored the adults through their footsteps
Speaker 1: walking through the house as he sat in the dark.
Speaker 1: This was his life. Now, He's on his only tie
Speaker 1: to the outside. He's thinking, Okay, their footsteps are here,
Speaker 1: I'm safe. Their footsteps are coming close now, fear would grow.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is just so sad.
Speaker 1: What he didn't know, though, what no one knew, was
Speaker 1: that that camera watching him had an open signal and
Speaker 1: it was about to broadcast to more than just the
Speaker 1: people in that home. On May seventh, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: within that seemingly ordinary Cureum neighborhood, the camera signal drifted
Speaker 1: past the walls into another home. Edward, the man who
Speaker 1: lived nearby, was trying to set up a device, a
Speaker 1: baby monitor, so he could check on his infant son
Speaker 1: in another room. As he was setting it up, the
Speaker 1: monitor flickered, adjusted, and then instead of showing his own child,
Speaker 1: it revealed a dim, unfamiliar space. A small boy sat
Speaker 1: hunched on the floor, shirtless, thin, and visibly shaken. The
Speaker 1: image shown was low quality and grainy, but the distress
Speaker 1: on the child's face was unmistakable. At first, Eduard assumed
Speaker 1: he'd picked up a stray signal from a nearby home
Speaker 1: where a parent was briefly disciplining a child, you know,
Speaker 1: just like a timeout situation or dealing with a tantrum maybe,
Speaker 1: But the more he watched, the less it resembled anything normal.
Speaker 1: The child wasn't moving freely. The room itself looked like
Speaker 1: it was an improvised prison cell, with bare walls, no furniture,
Speaker 1: with a bucket in the corner. At one point, the
Speaker 1: boy even recoiled from an unseen sound and pressed himself
Speaker 1: up against the wall, as if expecting the do or
Speaker 1: to open and receive a blow.
Speaker 2: It's worse than a prison, really, it is.
Speaker 1: Edward watched this all in horror, and he didn't know
Speaker 1: what to make of it. He was hoping that the
Speaker 1: camera feed would shift back to his son's crib, but
Speaker 1: it didn't. The thought at first was he must be
Speaker 1: seeing like just making this up in his head. He's
Speaker 1: seeing something, but the image didn't disappear. He fought with
Speaker 1: himself and maybe it's a prank, a movie, someone's TV
Speaker 1: that's crossing a feed you know, from some maybe it's
Speaker 1: a hoax, anything except reality. But as he stared at
Speaker 1: the image on the screen, the longer he did, the
Speaker 1: more he realized this was real, and soon he called police.
Speaker 2: It's honestly like a miracle that they set it up
Speaker 2: that way that it would be open, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: he came across it and took it seriously, because I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people would just you know, like,
Speaker 2: this isn't real kind of thing and just try to
Speaker 2: shift to like to get their own child exactly. So
Speaker 2: a lot of things had to like align and work out, So,
Speaker 2: I mean, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: Imagine are imagine that they that he didn't get this
Speaker 1: feed on the baby moment? Yeah, how long could this
Speaker 1: have gone with being unnoticed?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the child might have died.
Speaker 1: Yeah now. Officers responded to the call immediately, they too
Speaker 1: were unsure whether they were dealing with a malfunctioning device
Speaker 1: or an actual, genuine emergency. They brought with them equipment
Speaker 1: to track the source of the transmission, and they knew
Speaker 1: immediately that the range of the monitor was very limited,
Speaker 1: which helped narrow down the possibilities right away. So as
Speaker 1: they moved through the neighborhood trying to locate where the
Speaker 1: signal was coming from, they picked up a faint audio
Speaker 1: as well. There was some footsteps, muffled voices, and a
Speaker 1: repetitive mechanical hum that was coming out of this baby monitor,
Speaker 1: a sound they knew would help identify the location once
Speaker 1: they were actually inside. Now, the signal also helped guide
Speaker 1: them the whole way. If they moved too far, the
Speaker 1: image got worse and it was harder to connect to.
Speaker 1: But if they they got closer, the signal got stronger
Speaker 1: and clearer. It was sort of like a digital hot
Speaker 1: cold kind of scenario. So as they did this, the
Speaker 1: signal consistently grew stronger outside the Minerva home, and when
Speaker 1: officers approached and knocked in the front door, Clara and
Speaker 1: Katerina appeared on the other side of that door. They
Speaker 1: were very calm and polite when they answered. Officers asked
Speaker 1: about a child in distress, and while the two sisters
Speaker 1: denied it, and they insisted that the officers were mistaken,
Speaker 1: but something about their demeanor raised suspicion, and the police
Speaker 1: requested entry now for clarification. Under Zech law, immediate intervention
Speaker 1: is allowed when a child is believed to be in danger,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't something they could refuse. Okay, they didn't
Speaker 1: need a warrant to enter that home. If they believed,
Speaker 1: you know what, this child is in this home, they
Speaker 1: can enter now. Once inside, officers heard a faint echo
Speaker 1: of that very same humming noise captured on the monitor.
Speaker 1: That sound led them towards a small door beneath the staircase,
Speaker 1: a door secured with there are more locks and hardware
Speaker 1: than any ordinary storage space was required. Clara right away
Speaker 1: tried to block the hallway, insisting the police had come
Speaker 1: to the wrong house, and she repeated that her children
Speaker 1: were safe, that nothing unusual was happening, but her nerves
Speaker 1: gave her away.
Speaker 2: Now she realizes something's wrong, that she's doing something wrong right.
Speaker 1: Now, Katerina stepped in beside her as well, attempting to
Speaker 1: divert the officer's focus by bringing Anna Cut into the room,
Speaker 1: who was trembling and clung close to the sisters as
Speaker 1: she she cried like she was terrified of the unfolding
Speaker 1: scene with officers in the house. Now, these officers had
Speaker 1: already made their assessment, though they knew something was up
Speaker 1: and they weren't going to be distracted from it, so
Speaker 1: they moved past the women to the lock door, and
Speaker 1: immediately when they were there up against it, a foul
Speaker 1: smell steeped through the frame, sour sweat, stagnant air, and
Speaker 1: something heavier they couldn't immediately identify. When they broke the
Speaker 1: locks and pulled the door open, the reality became undeniable.
Speaker 1: Andrea lay inside that cupboard, filthy, skeletal, shaking in fear.
Speaker 1: His wrists and ankles were bound, his skin marked with
Speaker 1: layers of injuries that didn't come from a single day,
Speaker 1: not even from weeks, but probably months and even beyond.
Speaker 1: When that door was opened, the sudden brightness even made
Speaker 1: him recoil. His first instinct wasn't relief, It was fear.
Speaker 1: Children in prolonged cat captivity often react this way. The
Speaker 1: door opening and the light usually meant attention, and attention
Speaker 1: usually meant punishment, abuse and pain.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's just just like breaking my heart.
Speaker 1: The officers slowed their movements the moment they saw him
Speaker 1: curled up in the dark. They didn't rush in and
Speaker 1: grab him right away. They spoke softly, using calm tones,
Speaker 1: doing what they were trained to do when a child
Speaker 1: is an acute distress like this off. One officer crouched
Speaker 1: low to come closer to his eye level, careful not
Speaker 1: to crowd him, and another assessed the bi in the
Speaker 1: state of the room. They gave him time to understand
Speaker 1: that the adults now standing in front of him were
Speaker 1: not the ones who had been hurting him, and they
Speaker 1: were there to help him and not harm him.
Speaker 2: That would be so hard because you'd literally want to
Speaker 2: just like scoop this little boy up, I know, right,
Speaker 2: and just like tell him everything will be okay, But
Speaker 2: you can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When they finally did lift him out, they handled
Speaker 1: him with the kind of care usually reserved for medical emergencies,
Speaker 1: because that's exactly what this was. He weighed far less
Speaker 1: than an eight year old should and this honestly is
Speaker 1: a medical emergency. The police formed a protective circle around
Speaker 1: him as they moved through the house, instinctively shielding him
Speaker 1: from the chaos of the arrests and from the sight
Speaker 1: of the adults responsible for his condition. Outside, paramedics took over,
Speaker 1: Andrea was placed on a stretcher, wrapped in blankets, and
Speaker 1: rushed straight to the hospital. Doctors later described him as
Speaker 1: severely malnourished and dehydrated, with clear evidence of long term trauma. Jacob,
Speaker 1: his older brother, was found shortly after as well, and
Speaker 1: he too showed signs of fear, withdrawal, and physical neglect.
Speaker 1: He was removed to safety with the same urgency and care. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: inside the house, the adults were detained immediately. Anica, still
Speaker 1: presenting herself as a frail, frightened thirteen year old well,
Speaker 1: she too was treated as a victim. Shelter staff and
Speaker 1: social workers believe she was another vulnerable child caught in
Speaker 1: a violent household of abuse, so they provided her a bed, food,
Speaker 1: and a quiet place to rest. No one suspected that
Speaker 1: this young girl was actually an adult woman with a
Speaker 1: history of manipulation, or that she had helped orchestrate this
Speaker 1: entire system of abuse that fell upon these two boys.
Speaker 1: And that's where we're going.
Speaker 2: To leave off for today. Okay, I knew it. Oh, Okay,
Speaker 2: I knew it was coming, But this case just has
Speaker 2: me on the edge of my seat because well, we
Speaker 2: obviously know that it's figured out who she is, but
Speaker 2: I just can't with her like she is, just I
Speaker 2: don't know, she's going to keep me awake at night.
Speaker 1: Really, she's a monster in every ounce of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just makes no sense either. So I'm yeah,
Speaker 2: the fact that we have to stop is kind of
Speaker 2: a piss off, But I get it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to this case and it's going to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a full two parter, so be prepared.
Speaker 1: What a case.
Speaker 2: This is? Unreal, right, huh.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Julie fort As this case, no kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hopefully enjoyed this at least will not necessarily enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: but hopefully enjoyed the story. We're all true crime people.
Speaker 1: We get it. Many people we talk to who don't
Speaker 1: get it, we can't say enjoyed when it comes to cases.
Speaker 2: Of this, well, I mean, like it's it's a fascinating
Speaker 2: story to listen to and to try to comprehend. But
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily that we like enjoy what's happened. It's
Speaker 2: just this shit has happened, though, Yeah, and it's like interesting,
Speaker 2: I guess, to learn about it and to give like
Speaker 2: voice to the victims and stuff.
Speaker 1: So well, honestly, imagine the world where we just pretended this.
Speaker 2: Didn't happen, no shit, and just walked around being vulnerable
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: Well, not only being vulnerable the respect that would give,
Speaker 1: yeah to two victims that it's as if your your issues,
Speaker 1: your your trauma, none of it matters.
Speaker 2: It's not even real under the carpet, and move on
Speaker 2: with your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's far worse in my opinion, but anyways,
Speaker 1: I digress. Thank you for being here. You guys are amazing.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to check out the description for all our
Speaker 1: links and all that good stuff. Don't forget to give
Speaker 1: us a review if you like the show. We're a
Speaker 1: indie podcast, produced, researched, written, hosted all of it by ourselves,
Speaker 1: with our dogs and our chickens outside too, and we
Speaker 1: just live in our tiny home doing our best and
Speaker 1: we get to do it because of you. We sure
Speaker 1: do so, thank you so much
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here, and until part two, stay wicked.