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Episode 28 - Carnivorous Plants and Janie Lynn Ridd
11 Plays20 hours ago
Nym combines her love for plants and dangerous things and tells us all about carnivorous plants. Nym shares the story of Janie Lynn Ridd and her nefarious deeds.
Enter the Nightmare for show notes, sources, transcripts, and more!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage'
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage, where we explore history, mysteries, and other tales of the macabre. I'm Nim. And I'm Nyleen. Let the nightmare begin.
Seasonal Changes and Time Zone Confusion
00:00:47
Speaker
disturbing and mature content to follow into the nightmare if you dare I am so excited. Like I can feel just a little bit of the cool breeze, like when, when the wind blows.
00:01:03
Speaker
In the morning. Yes. Before the sun really comes out. Or at night, at night too. Like, yeah, that's been my big thing is like, like i want to go for walks because I feel that breeze, but when it stops,
00:01:15
Speaker
yeah it's getting darker earlier it's it's coming into my time speaking of getting darker yeah and it's really funny the other day i had bash he stayed at my my mom's house and he called me to say good night and he he goes mommy is it nighttime over there oh i was like yeah buddy it's nighttime over there and he goes oh Okay. Like I think he was hoping like it's nighttime over there. It's time to go to bed. But if he comes over where I'm at, it's daytime now.
00:01:51
Speaker
Does he even understand time zones yet? No. So he he thinks every time he goes to sleep, it's a new day. So days are very short for him because he takes a midday nap. Right. And I think that's why he doesn't want to nap sometimes now. Because he's like, no, no I'm not done with the day. Like, dude, I just woke up. I just did all this stuff because his nap is around like noon or one.
00:02:10
Speaker
But yeah, that's been it's been a whole thing. wow I know, dude. I'm like, kidnap while you can. Right? Like, get it in while
Napping and Sleep Talking
00:02:20
Speaker
you can. Because now I'm, like, at a stoplight and I'm like, if I could just take a second nap, that would be great.
00:02:26
Speaker
I'm so tired. I lament not being able to nap more.
00:02:34
Speaker
I will say, though, like, I love... Are you, like, a nap anywhere person or do you have to, like, specific places? I don't get a lot of opportunities to nap. So I usually, i mean, just on my couch in my bed, I found a way to take a nap in my office.
00:02:54
Speaker
Me too. oh
00:03:00
Speaker
ah So, yeah know, needs must and all. um Yes, that is a thing. Hey, I do it on my lunch break. It's fine.
00:03:11
Speaker
You mentioned that you nap in your bed. I can't nap in my bed. Like I will, I will sleep all day and then wake up with that. If I nap in my bed, alarms don't exist for some reason. It's rare that I'll like nap straight up in my bed.
00:03:24
Speaker
i have been known to like, walk in and see my bed and just lay my front half on it. And then I wake up like 10 minutes later. I do not know how you and monkey do that. I remember one time I came over I think monkey, he was like, I'm just going to just real quick nap. Like he had just come home from work. It was late, whatever.
00:03:44
Speaker
And lights on just asleep on the bed. I'm like, I can't. Yeah. I need to turn off the lights. I have to take off my street clothes. That man can sleep. whenever he needs or wants to on command unless he doesn't want to in which case fuck you but no man if he's if he is sleepy he will sleep oh yeah it is a superpower and it pisses me off i'm lot better about being able to fall asleep nowadays but i used to have such a hard time falling asleep and
00:04:16
Speaker
I would get so angry because if we at that time we went to bed at the same time more often than we do now and he would fall asleep before me and I would just lay there. And i mean he would snore. And then he can't go to sleep. And I can't go to sleep.
00:04:30
Speaker
Now he he... We run slightly different hours, so he always goes to bed later than me, so I get fall asleep before he comes in. So it's not a problem anymore. Yeah, Ace is really good about, like, mid-sentence.
00:04:42
Speaker
I don't know how he does it, but he literally goes from, like, talking to me, answering me, and then just... And I'm like, how... How did you do that? But he also sleep talks too, which is fun.
00:04:54
Speaker
Have some really great conversations that way.
00:04:58
Speaker
but
00:05:04
Speaker
Story time. Story time. like stories. I brought you a story.
00:05:11
Speaker
This is actually something I've been wanting to cover for a while. Okay. I think we're both pretty big fans of plants in
Passion for Plants
00:05:17
Speaker
general, right? Yeah. I would say we're plant ladies. Is there something that draws you to plants or do you have a favorite or anything like that?
00:05:25
Speaker
I love – okay, I like watching time-lapse videos of plants. Oh, yeah. Just because and find it so interesting that they're so silent yet so alive.
00:05:37
Speaker
Because really, like, you look at them from the morning to – if you hear for it, I'm so sorry. From, like, morning to afternoon, like, the way they shift, you know, based on light. Or if you water them. Or if, you know, there's been a dog sniffing at it all day.
00:05:52
Speaker
Like, they really –
00:05:54
Speaker
just that secret life, you know? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I love plants because as a science minded skeptic person who is very sad that magic isn't real, plants are like real magic.
00:06:13
Speaker
Like you like watching the whole process and doing things and affecting them and and how they interact with the environment and It's like real life magic. It's it's both magical to me, I guess. Yeah. And I mean, you fully do like full concoctions. Like I watch you like with your soil ratios and like all the things you put in it when you're potting a plant.
00:06:34
Speaker
Like you, it's like a cauldron. Like you literally are mixing all these different potions and making potions. That's why I love it so much. It's like, it's the closest thing to, you know, that kind of stuff I i feel like I can get and it scratches the itch and i get these really pretty plants and sometimes they're useful and sometimes they're not, but they're mine. i grew them. I made them happen. Do you have any favorite plants?
00:07:02
Speaker
ones that don't bark. Sorry, this dog is barking out here and distracting me. ah Favorite plants? o Honestly, like it's going to sound so basic, but pothos is one of my favorites. I love that There's so many different varieties, yet it's so it's so easy. It really is. like I have probably killed mine more than once and brought it back to life.
00:07:31
Speaker
But just just how versatile and how you can literally like root the whole thing. I grew up with pothos a lot. My dad has a green thumb, so like he has plants all over the house. But pothos is the one I remember the most because it's so viney and you can make it go wherever you want it to go.
00:07:45
Speaker
um the only thing that sucks is I'm really bad about cutting them because I feel bad i feel like I feel so bad I'm like what if and he's like it's just like a haircut and i'm like I don't know I feel like they're screaming oh yeah so what about you it's hard to pick I like a lot of plants for a lot of different reasons you picking pothos made me think of probably my favorite plant in my office because i I can't do indoor plants at home because I basically live in a cave but in my office I have like a corner window and and it gets south facing light and it's perfect for plants and I have ah my orange prince philodendron and it's so it's like just a kind of leafy plant but it has when the leaves first come up there's this bright vivid orange and i just love it lot trying to look it up sorry oh that is really cute yeah yeah okay yeah he's about to get put into a bigger pot soon so i'm excited to see if he gets bigger and but i've had him for like three years now and he's
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. So we'll just feature that guy today and maybe I'll talk about more of my plants later. That was ah really kind of crappy segue. But today I'm going to be bringing the coziness of plants to the nightmare of the
The World of Carnivorous Plants
00:08:58
Speaker
cottage. Okay.
00:08:59
Speaker
And we're going to talk about carnivorous plants. Ooh. Are you very familiar with carnivorous plants? No, I mean, carnivorous means that it eats. It traps plants.
00:09:10
Speaker
Whether it's bugs or whatever. It traps prey and digests it for nutrients, I believe. Yeah, the only one I really know of is the Venus fly trap, yeah which is like, I feel like the most popular. And honestly, like, I feel like it was so sensationalized when I was younger. Like, I felt like I would encounter more of them throughout my life and have to like be real worried about them. But like, yeah, it took a long time to digest.
00:09:31
Speaker
They do, and they don't digest anything. like you the the largest things are like rodents, yeah and and not on Venus fly traps. They just have bugs. they can't They don't do anything bigger than a bug, but we'll talk about that here shortly.
00:09:45
Speaker
They're really rad. I love carnivorous plants. I think they're super cool. They're basically plants that couldn't get enough nutrients from their soil, so they took matters into their own tendrils and evolved to to get their nutrients from trapping and eating creatures ranging from like single cell protozoans to in some cases like I said rodents lizards and birds over the last 140 million years they have evolved independently across the planet in hyper specific places usually bogs and swamps or like tropical areas with really thin shitty soil not shitty because that's actually good for it Thin, not nutrient-full rich soil. yeah yeah Just thin soil. Places where they maybe get plenty of sunshine in and water, but there isn't enough nitrogen, potassium, and other like essential plant nutrients in there.
00:10:27
Speaker
There's nearly 800-ish different species of carnivorous plants that have been discovered so far. And they all have super cool traits and ways of capturing their food. um While some of these are still kind of hidden under a veil of genetic mystery, science has uncovered many of their secrets about how and why they work the way they do.
00:10:43
Speaker
To be classified as a carnivorous plant, as i was saying before, they have to actively trap and digest their prey for nutrients. Across the hundreds of species of carnivorous plants, there's six primary trapping methods. We're going to start super basic and we're going to go with the sticky traps, just like kind of you would imagine. This does take different forms depending on the plant. Some have glands on the leaves that excrete a sticky substance, causing the insects that land on it to just simply get stuck.
00:11:08
Speaker
Small tentacle-like appendages are present on some of these. They can be stationary. It provides the planet with extra reach. So like little like vines that they can... Let's see if I got a picture here.
00:11:19
Speaker
These little tendrils. ah They're so cute. Some of the the tentacles are like stationary and they don't like move. They just kind of stretch out a little bit more. And then some of them will actually move and as something goes by, they'll snatch Oh, okay. So kind of like some of the corals and stuff like that. Right.
00:11:36
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. Most sticky trap plants have secondary glands that ooze out a digestive enzyme that break down their victims into delicious sustenance. I was wondering about that. Like, how do they digest?
00:11:47
Speaker
You said some are can do as big as rodents, right? So like what happens, like do they digest bones and stuff as well? And you know, like, So the the digestive enzymes are real similar like what like our stomach acid. So it's going to break down as much as it can and in all cases. And not to be like gross but like you know do they poop?
00:12:08
Speaker
I'd imagine they wouldn't like take like a full human shit but you know what mean? I feel like what goes in must come out. I cannot speak to plant excrement but now I will look into that and come back to you at another date.
00:12:22
Speaker
Do plants poop? Alright sorry go on. I have to Google it now. Yes, plants poop by excreting waste products. Although not in the same way animals do, they get rid of waste through various processes, including releasing gases like oxygen and water vapor through leaves.
00:12:39
Speaker
Shedding leaves and bark to discard stored waste and exuding substances like saps, resins, and gums. Some plants also perform guttation, pushing excess water and waste from their roots through leaf pores, while carnivorous plants discard the indigestible remains of their prey.
00:12:55
Speaker
h The more you know. Live Googling on the podcast. Because knowledge is power. So there's also, though, a sticky trap plant, the Roridula. It's an evergreen shrub that traps bugs with its sticky leaves, but it relies on an assassin bug called the Pemeridia merlothi. They've evolved to be able to live on the Roridula without getting stuck.
00:13:18
Speaker
They find, murder, and eat the trapped bugs. Their poop provides nutrients for the plant. Wait, so they just like eat plant, they live on the plant and eat and so that bugs and then poop on it?
00:13:28
Speaker
Yes, the plant traps the bugs. The assassin bug eats the trapped bugs and then they take a shit on the plant and then the plant absorbs that shit and poops that out.
00:13:40
Speaker
I mean, that's one way to get your nutrients. It is one way. It is. Yeah. Sorry, everybody.
00:13:48
Speaker
Sundews and better warts are some of the most recognizable of the sticky trap carnivorous plants. Sundews characteristically have thin stalks with a gland at the end that looks like a drop of water and better where it looks like a cute little innocent succulent.
00:14:00
Speaker
But when bugs land on its leaves, they become trapped and it digests them directly like right where they are to take their nitrogen. Nice. So that's the sundew that. That's just what there's so many different types sundews. They're really pretty. I love them. That's the better word. I am surprised you don't have any.
00:14:15
Speaker
We'll talk about that shortly. You also have squirrels though. So maybe... but Yeah, we're we're going to talk about me and carnivorous plants here shortly before before we wrap this up. Next up, let's look at carnivorous plants with pitfall traps.
00:14:29
Speaker
A familiar example of these would actually be pitcher plants, which I know you said you've only really thought of the Venus fly traps, but you're of the Pokemon generation and Victory Bell and...
00:14:40
Speaker
Okay, so I may have been of the Pokemon generation. Ah, but you were not a Pokemon child. No, my husband is, though. Yes, well, there are pitcher plant Pokemon. So some people are going to be familiar with those. There's like plants versus zombies. I had some plants on there, too. Anyways. Oh, and then like Super Mario, the little chomp plant.
00:14:59
Speaker
Those are more like Venus Flight. They did big chomps. And then they would like eat you and then spit you out. and So the basics on this one is that they have an opening on top with a vessel that can hold liquid.
00:15:10
Speaker
The rims are typically really slippery and the inside walls are waxy. So what happens here is the prey is it attracted to the water that stores in there when it rains and they get stuck inside and they drown.
00:15:22
Speaker
Then they're digested by the plant. Some of these keep a little water for trapping purposes and starve their prey instead. The leaves then change the pH of the water to aid in its production of its digestive enzymes.
00:15:34
Speaker
That's one of those. That's crazy. So it's just like sitting in this vat. Yeah. Yeah. ah Some pitcher plants have a slightly different trapping mechanism referred to as a lobster pot trap.
00:15:45
Speaker
These basically have an easy place to enter, but they're tricky to leave because of tricks to the light and the way that they enter is like. They're like traps. Yeah, exactly like that. Yeah. And it's the shape of the plant. So those look really cool. That that is cool. Like that's a hole right there. in And I don't know. And it's like really disorienting when they're inside because of the way that the light hits it. It makes it look like the opening should be where it's closed and it's like dark where the opening is. So.
00:16:09
Speaker
they get trapped there. Some things get out. But most things don't. Yeah. Also present in some species of pitcher plants are pigeon traps. In these traps, prey enter by pushing through teensy hairs that are pointed inward.
00:16:22
Speaker
And once they're in, they can't get out. One of the most unique trap mechanisms is a suction trap only found in bladderwort. This one's really cool. ah Basically, the plant has a bunch of little nodules on it that look like flat discs.
00:16:33
Speaker
Movement in the water triggers the trap, causing the discs to rapidly inflate. Oh my gosh. Sucking in the nearby water and any small organisms within it. Oh, that's cool. If you pull bladderwort out of the water, you'll hear popping sounds because it triggers the trap.
00:16:46
Speaker
And that's what that looks like. Oh, cool. Oh, that one's cool looking. Yeah. Oh, might be good for like mosquitoes. let Maybe I'll eat the mosquito eggs. That's a thing to look into. Yeah. That's cool. Last but certainly not least, we have the snap trap.
00:16:59
Speaker
This is one of the most familiar trapping mechanisms. As you said before, you're familiar with a Venus fly trap. These are native to wetlands in North Carolina. Oh, really? Yeah. That's actually the only place they grow natively on the entire planet is in this like one little strip of land, like a few dozen miles of land in the entire world is the only place they're native. That's crazy. Yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
As you know, they're super dramatic about their traps. So you know in regular leaves how there's like the stem in the middle and and the things that fringe off? Yeah. yeah That stem on the Venus flytrap is basically the hinge of the mouth of the trap and the mouth is the leaf.
00:17:32
Speaker
And it goes home like a clam. Yes. um The leaves have tiny little trigger hairs. And when a small insect lands and hits the trigger at least two times, the mouth will snap closed in like a tenth of a second. It's super fast. it's I remember seeing those in science class.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. And it's okay so it's adapted to not snap shut like just from one thing. So like raindrops won't trigger it because it takes a lot of their energy to snap shot. Yeah, because they can't open back up for a while. Right.
00:18:00
Speaker
Right. The nutrients that they have received power that. And each trap only gets like two or three meals before it browns and dies. Yeah. So that's all the different types or the six main types of of traps.
00:18:12
Speaker
Carnivorous plants weren't always just a quirky corner of botany. In the 19th century, these leafy little killers were practically celebrities. Charles Darwin himself was obsessed. He conducted hundreds of experiments with sundews over 16 years, even feeding them with bits of egg and raw meat.
00:18:28
Speaker
ah He published a whole book on them in 1875 titled Insectivorous Plants. At the time, many scientists thought plant carnivory was too outlandish to be real. Darwin proving it made some serious waves. Yeah, Darwin proved a lot stuff. He really did.
00:18:42
Speaker
and then you have the Victorians, of course, who adored the drama of carnivorous plants. These strange specimens were kept in elaborate glass cases as conversation pieces. Now for some fun facts about carnivorous plants.
00:18:53
Speaker
Some pitcher plants, like the Nepenthes eoe, feed on tree shrew poop. Tree shrew. Tree shrew. Shrew poop. Oh. yeah So they host the animals. Like a symbiotic relationship. Exactly. Yeah. They offer a little nectar snack to the to the shrews and then the shrews poop near the plant and they get but the nutrients from that.
00:19:15
Speaker
There's also another species that does the same thing with bats. It's an elegant little toilet economy. Also, the suction trap of the bladder war is among the fastest movements in the plant kingdom. It fires in less than a millisecond, which is faster than a camera shutter. Nice.
00:19:29
Speaker
The Portuguese sundew, Drosophilum lucitanicum, grows in dry, rocky areas, which already makes it a weirdo among its bog-loving brethren. But it also smells like honey and death.
00:19:40
Speaker
Its scent lures insects straight into its sticky leaves for its murderous intent. Some species of fly traps and sundews actually grow faster and healthier when they're fed. If they're deprived, they sulk.
00:19:50
Speaker
um They grow slower, produce fewer traps, and get sad leaves. Yeah. So don't starve your murder plant or quietly judge you. Some species of pitcher plants have evolved to reflect moonlight in a way that mimics animal eyes or dew drops.
Conservation and Collection of Carnivorous Plants
00:20:04
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:20:05
Speaker
But it attracts nocturnal insects like moths who think that they're heading for a midnight snack. Instead, they end up being the snack. and Unfortunately, our leafy little murder friends are in serious danger.
00:20:16
Speaker
Many species of carnivorous plants are currently endangered or threatened. Take the Venus flytrap, for example, despite its celebrity status. It grows, like I said, it only grows naturally in that one spot in the Carolinas, like just a radius of a few dozen miles, like really not a lot of space.
00:20:30
Speaker
And yeah, it's like this one very specific neighborhood is responsible for the entire population. The problem is that the area is being rapidly developed. Wetlands are getting drained. Forests are getting cleared.
00:20:41
Speaker
Suddenly the plants don't have anywhere to live. Yeah, they need a lot of moisture. Yes. On top of that, there's a whole illegal poaching issue. People sneak onto private or protected land and dig up Venus fly traps or other species, rhizomes and all, to sell them on the black market.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yes, apparently there is a black market for plants. Not exactly Ocean's Eleven, but it's still super harmful. And if a habitat destruction and theft weren't enough, climate change is also turning up the pressure. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and shifting seasons are throwing off the delicate balance these plants depend on especially in those nutrient-poor waterlogged environments they call home.
00:21:15
Speaker
Thankfully, plant nerds around the world are fighting back. Organizations like the International Carnivorous Plant Society, along with conservation groups, are working to protect native habitats, educate the public, and preserve species through cultivation and seed banking.
00:21:28
Speaker
So if you want to bring one of these quirky little killers into your home, please make sure you're getting your plant from a reputable source. There are plenty of excellent nurseries and growers that ethically propagate carnivorous plants and from seeds or tissue cultures without wild harvesting.
00:21:44
Speaker
Do your homework. Seriously. Carnivorous plants are weird, wonderful, and a bit peculiar about their care. Some need distilled water only. Some demand a ton of light.
00:21:54
Speaker
Some want to be left alone in a boggy corner. The point is you need to know what you're signing up for. An absolutely fantastic resource to dive into this world is the Savage Garden, Cultivating Carnivorous Plants by Peter D'Amato.
00:22:07
Speaker
it's It's a part care manual for just tons of different types of species. And it's a part love letter to these bizarre plants and full of juicy tips from someone who's been in the game for decades. So adopt responsibly, care fiercely, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get to be the proud parent of a happy, healthy, bug-munching monster.
00:22:26
Speaker
So you told me you were going to tell me if you. Okay. So prior to my research for this topic, I never wanted to commit to it because I did know that there was a whole lot involved in doing it correctly.
00:22:39
Speaker
Something about the way that they eat makes me feel like it's more alive. Right. you have to take care of it. Like i I already feel bad if I kill a plant. Mm-hmm. This plant was relying on me extra.
00:22:53
Speaker
and Anyways, i I have been reading that Savage Garden book and i am doing research and I do believe I am going to try to eventually get a little set up. I'm still doing a bunch of research. I don't know what I'm going to get, but I will absolutely post it on the blog. We'll talk about it here. If I get something, I'll probably name it and it'll be my pet.
00:23:14
Speaker
So are you going to name it Seymour? no and i'm not gonna name it audrey and i'm not gonna be cliche about it but i'll be like i don't know we'll see it'll it'll have to tell me what its name is but we have a lot of time because i've got i've got a lot of learning to do before that i'm i'm ready to commit but i i do believe i'm going start the process so good to know so i won't just buy the one yeah don't because i want to make sure i'm set up it's like a puppy yeah i've got a like i'm gonna to get girl light and like ah it's gonna a little thing
00:23:49
Speaker
ready to press me.
Strain in Rachel and Janie's Friendship
00:23:52
Speaker
All right. So our story begins in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1995. Okay.
00:24:00
Speaker
Rachel, age 22, had moved back into her parents' house after her divorce. She had met Janie, age 26, just a few months ago. They started hanging out more, getting to know each other more, and and became really close friends.
00:24:14
Speaker
Janie had been living on her own in an apartment, but recently, her apartment had been broken into. She told Rachel that she was, like, afraid to live alone and i asked her if she would like to move in with her instead of living with her parents.
00:24:27
Speaker
Rachel had married young. She'd never lived alone or had a roommate. So she was excited to try it out, the whole roommate thing, see, you know, maybe she can get in more social circles, get back in the dating game, that whole thing.
00:24:40
Speaker
So after they'd been living together for a while, Rachel started dating and hanging out with friends outside of Janie. Janie didn't react well to that. She would find reasons to start fights, heavily questioning her about everything she did, who she was with.
00:24:54
Speaker
She just started getting really possessive. When Rachel confronted Janie about it. Did you say how old those people were? 22 and 26. Yeah. When she started confronting Janie about it, Janie just said that she was like watching out for her. She was protecting her from bad men or bad friends, just people that were giving her bad vibes that she saw.
00:25:13
Speaker
Janie was like, I just, I see you as family and I don't want to lose you. And I'm afraid, you know, that you're going to leave. Rachel just wanted her to be happy, so she just kind of, you know, stopped going out as often and and kind of just tried to placate her as much as possible.
00:25:28
Speaker
No red flags here. So now it's 2010. It's been 15 years since they met. Okay. Rachel had been working as a paramedic for six years and had herniated her back, so she really couldn't work anymore.
00:25:42
Speaker
Janie and Rachel, they're still living together at this time. Okay. Okay. Janie's been paying the bills while Rachel's been struggling and Rachel gives her what she can when she can, but you know, she hurt her back. She can't really work to make matters a little more difficult.
00:25:57
Speaker
Rachel finds out that she's pregnant. So she has a herniated back and she's pregnant and she's living with Janie. Great. Yes. Biological father wasn't really interested in raising a child.
00:26:09
Speaker
So they went their separate ways. Rachel had a son named Ryder. Ryder is nonverbal autistic. So he does need a little extra care. And because Ryder requires extra care, Rachel decides to take out a large life insurance policy on herself in the case that she passes.
00:26:26
Speaker
Okay. that there will be money to pay for any care that writer might need without anyone else in her life who knows and understands the struggles that writers care comes with.
00:26:36
Speaker
Rachel places Janie as the guardian for writer and the beneficiary of the life insurance money to care for him. I feel like every time I hear about life insurance, somebody who's going to get murdered.
00:26:48
Speaker
It feels like that. I mean, it's probably from like that story I did a few stories ago. Yeah. Money makes people act crazy. It really does. Like I can just get dread, ever especially when you're telling me these stories and you bring up the life insurance policy. It's like, oh, fuck. Oh, God.
00:27:05
Speaker
Sorry. It's a crime. So due to the stress of delivery, Rachel's herniated disc gets even worse. She decides to just try to let it heal naturally because, you know, that's how that works. But over the course of the next five to eight years, it gets really bad. So this is like a really long time, right? They've been friends for about 20 years.
00:27:23
Speaker
Rachel's been dealing with these back issues for about 10 years now. Janie's and her are really close friends. And, you know, Janie basically supports her with whatever she needs while Rachel's Just goes about her life and tries to heal as much as she can. So they are still close, right? it's Yeah, they are. They are still close.
00:27:42
Speaker
So this life insurance policy, I assume the son's the beneficiary. Yes. So the son's the beneficiary and the money can only be used in the care of him. Okay. For like for his care.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's been about 10 years a doctor or that she's since she herniated her back. Doctors are telling Rachel that she really needs to have surgery or she might be permanently disabled.
00:28:04
Speaker
So she ends up having about seven surgeries on her neck and back. Yeah. She can't lift Ryder. She can't take care of him. She's on heavy pain medication. She's bedridden. um It's a really slow, long healing process.
00:28:17
Speaker
But during this time, Janie is being really supportive. ah She steps up to care for Ryder. She becomes like a second mom to him. She even finds a government-backed program that'll provide income to Janie so she doesn't have to leave the house anymore.
00:28:30
Speaker
It's giving her income for caring for Ryder and Rachel at the same time, right? She's dispensing her medications. She's helping her keep track of dosages after each surgery, how she's healing, basically helping her with everything, right?
00:28:43
Speaker
Meanwhile, she's also taking care of Ryder, working jobs here and there. She's taking him to school. But she starts presenting herself as Ryder's guardian to the people at school and to, like, Ryder's classmates. And I will note here, like,
00:28:59
Speaker
There wasn't any indication that they were in a romantic relationship. So this wasn't like one of those like we live together. We're just best friends but and more kind of situation. They were just roommates. roommates Yeah, but they were actually roommates.
00:29:11
Speaker
So Rachel draws a line and when Janie decides that she's just going to take Ryder to work with her after Rachel tells her no. And she's like, hey, you can't just take my kid whenever wherever you want, whenever you want. Like if I tell you no, it's no. Like I am his mother, not you.
00:29:27
Speaker
Janie didn't take that too well. You know, Janie had been caring for Ryder and Rachel, so she kind of felt like she was entitled to that. So didn't go very well, but she just kind of made a face about it and just kind of went about it, right, and just continued caring for them.
00:29:45
Speaker
Well, one day Janie's out with Ryder and Rachel goes to get the mail. She's healing from one of her more recent surgeries. So she's just hanging around the house. She sees a letter addressed to herself and finds that it's a legal letter.
00:29:58
Speaker
It informs Rachel that Janie is suing her for custody of Ryder.
Rachel's Health Issues and Janie's Suspicion
00:30:03
Speaker
What? Yes. Janie is claiming that Rachel is a addicted to pain medications, isn't fit to care for her son, and that Janie is worried for Ryder's safety with Rachel in the home.
00:30:13
Speaker
Not only that, but after contacting the police to try to get Janie to bring Ryder back home, she finds that Janie has filed a restraining order against Rachel and Rachel has to leave the house immediately.
00:30:25
Speaker
Not having any other options, she goes to a hotel without her son. oh my God. And leaves him with Janie at the house. So Child Protective Services does an investigation. They learn that basically everything that Janie is saying is a lie. Janie hasn't informed them that like Rachel joe was on medication because of her conditions, just that she was taking a bunch of like opiates and neglecting her child.
00:30:48
Speaker
Janie also never mentioned to them that Rachel was on bed rest to heal from surgery, just that she had abandoned Ryder and wasn't caring for him ever. Wow. Yeah. Great friend. Right. So after 10 days, Rachel finally gets Ryder back.
00:31:02
Speaker
10 days. But she's got nowhere to live because she's not going to go back there. She's on still on full disability. Her family all live out of state. They have their own problems. So she decides she's just going to go stay at a family shelter while she figures out how to rebuild her life from here. Right. Right.
00:31:19
Speaker
So after six weeks of Rachel and Ryder being at this family shelter, Rachel receives a call from Janie. She's begging Rachel to allow her to see Ryder. Just meet her at a park. let's just Let's just talk this out.
00:31:31
Speaker
So Rachel agrees since this is her best friend of 20 plus years. It's been basically been like a ah a second parent to her child. She's like, let me just hear her out. So of course, you know, writer really misses her too. So she's like, let me just fine.
00:31:45
Speaker
So they meet Janie. She's apologizing profusely saying she was in a dark place with everything that was going on. She was really stressed out between caring for her friend and the kid and and she felt put out. And, you know, she knows that that wasn't the best way to go about it. She she made a mistake.
00:32:00
Speaker
But she was also, again, saying that she was just really worried that once Rachel got better, like, she liked having her little family and she was afraid that Rachel was going to leave. So... I've seen horror movies like this. Right? No red flags here. This was also a mix of a few like really bad situations. Right? So Rachel had been in the shelter with Ryder for like six weeks so far. He's autistic, a very autistic.
00:32:24
Speaker
He wasn't doing well. He was regressing. He was getting really stressed out. he He was just really struggling with all of the different stimulations in that place. Yeah. Rachel knew she was going to need another surgery soon too.
00:32:36
Speaker
And again, she really needed help with Ryder. So she had no one else to go to. And Janie's like, just come back home.
00:32:47
Speaker
Like, I made a mistake. I'm so sorry. Come back home. And Rachel agrees to move back with Janie because of all this. I mean, I get it. But, uh.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah. So they move back in. Rachel puts off surgery for as long as she can just to, like, see how things get with their friendship. Rachel goes on to get her next surgery. And Janie agrees to help her with her medications, bandages, general cleanliness of the wound, like,
00:33:13
Speaker
they they they're on the same page this time right the the surgery she had it's it's on her near like the base of her neck slightly down her spine so she can't take care of this herself but after the surgery she's having a lot of pain in the incision so she's having Janie like really go in and like clean it regularly and and and make sure that it's healing well she noticed at times that like Janie's really like rubbing into it and she just keeps saying like she's just trying to get something out or like really clean it so she's just like okay like that really hurts but fine but she just feels like every like She feels like it's not healing well.
00:33:45
Speaker
And she keeps asking Janie to check it let her know if everything appears normal, you know remembering Rachel was a paramedic, so she's she knows that infections can happen. Right. But Janie's like, no, it it looks fine. like it's just It's healing, you know?
00:33:58
Speaker
but Rachel finally decides to go to the hospital when she starts having trouble breathing from the pain. and It's swelling and it's hot and she's getting fever and she's like, something's wrong. When she gets there, the doctor is shocked at the state of her incision. The infection is so bad they have to operate immediately.
00:34:16
Speaker
To get the incision open, clean it out, the infection, like they have to like clean, sterilize the whole area, get all of the infected tissue out and reseal it. They did a culture to see what they were dealing with and they found it to be MRSA.
00:34:30
Speaker
Do you know what MRSA is? I don't. Okay. So... It's MRSA, M-R-S-A, stands for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.
00:34:41
Speaker
It's a type of antibiotic resistance from staph infections. yeah kids It's really aggressive. So basically, it's seen a lot in hospitals or clinics where they have to do a lot of sterilization and cleaning. And basically, the staph bacteria gets used to the antibiotics that are used.
00:35:00
Speaker
Right. And so- it becomes resistant. So they have to use something stronger and it becomes resistant to that. And so that's what MRSA is. It's become so resistant to antibiotics that they have to use like hardcore things. Think of like,
00:35:14
Speaker
with cancer is how they have to use chemo. Like it's that point where it's just, they have to use things that might kill live tissue as well. It's assumed that she caught this infection at the hospital, either during surgery or in aftercare.
00:35:26
Speaker
They treat her with ven venomycin. um It's an IV type antibiotic. It is very aggressive form of antibiotics. So it started attacking her her white blood cells too. And she started getting very, very, very sick. Oh no.
00:35:40
Speaker
For a minute there, it seemed like she wasn't going to make it. Like she might actually die from the infection. And this whole time, Janie's at home taking care of Ryder. But suddenly, Rachel gets better.
00:35:51
Speaker
And she returns back home. And after being home for a while, things are starting to return to normal. She is noticing Rhea, Janie's become a little more distant. So she tries to spend more time with her. They're like watching TV. They're they're watching crime documentaries together. I'm just having a good time.
00:36:08
Speaker
One night they're watching TV and they're watching this true crime documentary about a nurse who murdered her husband with sussing choline. Rachel mentioned how silly that would be for a nurse to do such a thing with a medication that wouldn't be easy for just anyone to get their hands on, right? Especially like she's in that specific medical field.
00:36:29
Speaker
Additionally, she said it was dumb for the nurse to do this because she should know but if the guy dies at home, there would definitely be an autopsy. So it's better... for the nurse to like let him die in the hospital so that there won't be an autopsy because it's an attended death.
00:36:46
Speaker
So to this, Janie kind of sits quietly for a moment. And then she asks Rachel what she would do from a nurse's perspective. Rachel tells her that she would use insulin since it's naturally occurring in the body.
00:36:59
Speaker
These were normal, everyday conversations to Rachel, right? Hypotheticals they would discuss Just lounging and around watching TV, but Janie was listening very closely for directions here.
00:37:11
Speaker
On June 9th of 2019, with the help of Janie, Rachel takes her nighttime medication, gets in bed. When she wakes up, she's in the hospital. ah She had a blood sugar glucose level of 13.
00:37:25
Speaker
Which is incredibly low, especially for someone who's not diabetic. The average blood sugar reading should be around 80 to 110. And she is at 13. They don't know how she's not dead.
00:37:37
Speaker
Janie stated that she found Rachel unresponsive when she went to check on her and called the ambulance as well as immediately called Rachel's family and told her family that she wasn't going to make it. Like before she even made it to the hospital, she was like, she's not going to make it.
00:37:50
Speaker
Come come to the hospital, say your goodbyes. And Rachel's family sees Janie in the waiting room, notice she's just acting really odd. She doesn't seem to be worried about Rachel. She's not like upset. She's just more like unbothered about the whole situation, just kind of sitting there like waiting, right?
00:38:05
Speaker
The behavior is just chalked up to Janie being socially awkward. Rachel, she does recover. She was in the hospital for a few days while they monitor her and they find nothing wrong. They don't know what happened. they're like, yeah, it's a fluke, whatever.
00:38:17
Speaker
But she's going to pick up on that low blood sugar shit. You would think, right? You would think you would she would. You would think so. Rachel goes back home. And that night that she goes back home, her blood sugar crashes again.
00:38:30
Speaker
I wonder how that happened. Don't you? Janie calls the ambulance. They take her to the hospital. This time, Rachel in ah is in a state of insulin shock and she's comatose for two days before she finally wakes up.
00:38:41
Speaker
They can't figure out what's wrong with her. The only thing that should cause her symptoms is being given insulin. But Rachel says she doesn't remember taking insulin and surely she would remember being poked by a needle.
00:38:52
Speaker
So Rachel's getting to the point where she's just scooping sugar into her mouth before going to bed, hoping it counteracts whatever's making her blood sugar damn drop so low. This kept happening for a few months. Doctors couldn't. Months.
00:39:03
Speaker
A few months. Doctors couldn't figure out what was happening. Rachel suspected nothing. Why? I don't know. it's like It's like a really bad horror movie. It really is. Where you're like, you why do you keep going back in that room? they They slash at you every time. And she's also, the other girl's really bad at murder. Yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
yeah okay keep going So yeah, it kept happening ah ah for a few months. Doctors couldn't figure out what was happening. They've decided she has to be doing to this to herself at this point. They're like, no, like you're doing this yourself. Like you're just coming in here for attention or something.
00:39:40
Speaker
There's no other reason that she should have these massive drops in her blood sugar while she's sleeping at this point. Like they've tested everything. In December of 2019, it's been a few months since this started. Rachel noticed that Jamie just seemed to be growing more distant.
00:39:54
Speaker
She wasn't really taking care of Ryder as well as she normally did. Rachel was still experiencing the problems with her blood sugar crashing. She was worried that she was going to die in her sleep, to be honest. Because of all this and the way that Jamie was acting, Rachel decided she's going to remove Jamie as the guardian and beneficiary of her will and change it over to her father.
00:40:12
Speaker
Her father can't really care for Ryder. He's not really physically able, but she hopes that like with the money, he'll find someone to come in and care and, you know, he'll be safer and better cared for there.
00:40:23
Speaker
Rachel also decides to tell Janie that now might be a good time for her to move out, get her own place, you know, work on their friendship and relationship and just, you know, give Janie the space that she needs to live her life.
00:40:35
Speaker
Janie responds by being like, look, cool, fine. You want to move out? Just stay till Christmas Day. December 25th. Just stay until Christmas and then you can leave after Christmas. Doesn't sound too crazy.
00:40:47
Speaker
So on December 17th, 2019, Rachel is home alone while Janie is at work. She's resting on the couch, feeling nauseous, still recovering from her most recent hospital stay. Someone knocks on door.
00:40:59
Speaker
She goes to check who it is and sees three FBI agents standing on her porch. Fun. They ask her if they can talk to her about something. Cautiously, she asks, what's this all about?
00:41:12
Speaker
The agents respond that they have a search warrant for the house. In questioning her, they start asking a lot of questions about Janie. And they let Rachel know Janie's in jail.
00:41:24
Speaker
When Rachel asks why, one of the agents asked her if she knows the difference between Versa and MRSA, VRSA and MRSA. Rachel says she doesn't.
00:41:35
Speaker
And they tell her Versa is a much more dangerous strain than Marissa. And that Janie has ordered both online on the dark web and proceed to tell her the following.
00:41:47
Speaker
They had been trailing someone online who had purchased Versa on the dark web. They posed as a seller and she asked for express delivery that she really, really needed it before Christmas.
00:41:58
Speaker
The FBI believed that someone's purchasing this for terroristic intent and they aim to stop whatever is happening. Right.
FBI Investigation and Resolution
00:42:05
Speaker
So on December 17th, 2019, Janie arrives at the UPS store and comes back out with the package that the FBI placed.
00:42:13
Speaker
She gets in her car and they follow her to work. They go up to her office and they ask to speak with her and they start investigating her right there. And then in her fucking office, my anxiety, dude.
00:42:31
Speaker
Hey, don't worry. You haven't been buying viruses on the dark. I know, but I'm like, Oh God, they can do that. ah Just start watching you at work. If you do some really heinous fucked up shit, absolutely they can. Dude. Oh God.
00:42:44
Speaker
So they start by asking her if she picked up a package from the UPS store. um And I'm going to do a few like quotes here. Right. Sure. So the FBI agents are sitting in the office with Janie and they start by asking her if she picked up a package from the UPS store.
00:42:59
Speaker
She responds with, I did pick up a package should today. I thought it was, he said he was sending me some coffee beans. The agent responds by asking, is it just supposed to be coffee?
00:43:12
Speaker
To which Janie replies, well, I haven't opened it. Is there something weird inside of it that I should be concerned about? The agent responds by saying they don't believe that what she has in there is coffee, and they're going to give her another opportunity to try to tell the truth.
00:43:27
Speaker
Janie responded tearfully, i went on the site and I ordered this, and it is a biological, one that you can make beer with. They ask her if she has any other beer making supplies. And she says she's never made beer before, so she doesn't have anything else, but was going to try to make some beer for New Year's Eve.
00:43:46
Speaker
They then ask her what the biological is that she ordered. And with a long pause, Janie responds with, I think it's a staff. She explains that she bought the Versa so that she can do research on it to help her friend Rachel.
00:44:00
Speaker
They ask her if she ever intended to use this biological on her friend, Rachel, and she responds that she would never do that. And she loves Rachel like a sister. With this admission, she is arrested for possession of a biological weapon and intent to commit a terroristic threat.
00:44:15
Speaker
And that brings us full circle to the FBI being at the house, now searching it and trying to break it to Rachel that her roommate was attempting to purchase Versa to possibly kill her with. Rachel brings up that she already almost died of MRSA.
00:44:29
Speaker
And now they're saying that Jamie's trying to kill her with Versa. Rachel asks if Janie also ordered insulin off the dark web. To this, they perk up. Rachel described to them what had been happening to her, her problems with insulin spikes, even though she wasn't diabetic or taking any insulin.
00:44:45
Speaker
The FBI had not tied this piece in yet, but it seemed that Janie was ordering insulin, ketamine, and Xanax on top of the Versa. Like they thought, you know, That was just its own separate thing. They were more worried about the possible use of this versa.
00:45:02
Speaker
In searching the house, they found one of the insulin injectors in Janie's room with Rachel's DNA in it. Janie had been using ketamine and Xanax to dose Rachel at night, just enough to knock her out so she could inject her with the insulin.
00:45:16
Speaker
When that didn't work, she was going to try the Versa. Janie had tried to kill Rachel at least five times in the course of a year. Janie was charged with three felonies, aggravated intentional abuse of a disabled or elder adult, attempted intentional abuse of a disabled or elder adult,
00:45:36
Speaker
and attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction. She pled guilty to the attempt to hurt Rachel, but the possession of a weapon of mass destruction charge was dropped in a plea deal with the state.
00:45:48
Speaker
The judge ordered her to serve between 1 to 20 years in jail, and she only served 25 months in prison and then was later paroled in January of 2022. And now she's still living in Utah, along with Rachel.
00:46:02
Speaker
In an interview on a prison phone, Janie stated the following, quote, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to end up out of here. I'm going to find a way to get him away from her.
00:46:14
Speaker
He needs to come back to me now. End quote. Isn't that enough to keep her ass behind bars? Right? How? How did you release this woman? She literally went on the dark web and and ordered Versa.
00:46:33
Speaker
Just the fact that she's ordering so something that can kill somebody or lot of people. yeah Doesn't matter what her intent was. She did it. Like, ugh.
00:46:45
Speaker
I don't know. How's Rachel doing these days? Do we know? So the interesting thing when I actually researched this, I don't know if it's because it's so new that all the records haven't been unsealed or because the FBI got involved or what, but I couldn't find the court documents for this, which I usually can find the court documents for most of the stuff.
00:47:04
Speaker
Now, I did find like some of the police reports, but not court documents. Interesting. Yeah. So I couldn't really read into a lot of like those kinds of discussions like I normally would. Also,
00:47:15
Speaker
I don't know if Rachel is really the person's name. Right. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. Because everything I looked up did not give her last name. I don't know if Ryder is the real name. Now, Janie Lynn Ridd. Yeah. Janie Lynn Ridd. That is the correct. Like, that's the person that got arrested. But I don't know what her.
00:47:33
Speaker
actual friend's name is but I that she's she goes by Rachel and a lot of like the police reports and stuff like that yeah and so I don't know if maybe she ended up in witness protection or maybe she just hope her and that kid are somewhere were safe I know and I was like how but yeah that was one of the things that Rachel was saying afterwards she was like So after Janie got arrested, it's crazy. I feel amazing. Right. Like she's like, I mean, do I still get back pain?
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah. But like I can move. I can run with my kid. I can play with him. Like all of a sudden she's feeling better and she can move and she has mobility. So it almost seems like maybe Janie was doing more than just the big attempts to kill her and was probably – like munchausen situation where she was trying to keep her that's so sickly yeah i cannot believe she's out of jail i know 25 months after all of that so many attempts to kill yeah oh my god thanks that was fun you're welcome
00:48:38
Speaker
You have nightmare fuel? Yes. so My nightmare fuel for this one, one is going to be that Savage Garden book for anybody who is interested in carnivorous plants. It's like the Bible for that shit.
00:48:49
Speaker
And then the other one i am reading right now, this really fun book. It's called Red Rabbit by Alex Gretchen. And it's like historical horror. There's like witches and creatures and stuff and like but it's like a western and these this like really interesting group of characters is like on this journey to figure shit out and i don't know it's like it's i don't know it's been really dark and weird and fun so red rabbit nice
00:49:20
Speaker
Would you rather have a naked picture of you published on the front page of the New York Times? No. Or only be attracted to people who strongly oppose your political views? No.
00:49:38
Speaker
I'll just be naked. Yeah. It's fine. I that's we all have bodies. We all have bodies. And the way that the news cycle works these days, anybody who even sees it will forget by tomorrow. So ah yeah, yeah. No, but I won't forget being attracted to an asshole.
00:50:01
Speaker
ah never forgetty rest in spaghetti I don't know what sweet dreams sweet dreams if you have topic requests book or movie recommendations or just want to say hi email us at nightmare cottage at gmail.com or visit our website at nightmare cottage.com sweet dreams what are you doing Bye-bye.
00:50:39
Speaker
bye by