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Episode 27 - The Beast of Gevaudan and MacKenzie Shirilla
16 Plays15 days ago
Nym takes us to 18th century France to look at the mystery of The Beast of Gevaudan while Nylene keeps it current and dives into the troubling case of MacKenzie Shirilla.
Enter the Nightmare for show notes, sources, transcripts, and more!
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Transcript
Introductions and Personal Updates
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.
00:00:49
Speaker
I don't know,
00:00:55
Speaker
i don't know man. This past week, the past two weeks, I think, yeah, we were supposed to record last weekend, I think. Yes. And I ended up getting really sick. And that super sucked.
00:01:06
Speaker
But it was kind of nice because I got some time to myself because, you know, I didn't want to get the baby sick. So I was actually like, It's so funny. I was sitting out back on my patio just like enjoying the night and I was actually listening to Russian post-punk pop synth, I think is what it's called. Okay.
00:01:28
Speaker
While playing organ trail. I love that. And on my Switch. And let me tell you, like it was a whole vibe. It really was. Like that's been kind of like my weird relaxation thing.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah. If anyone has any good recommendations on that. the The music part. Yes, the music part. Yeah. And I've also and started playing. don't know. I don't know if you were at the age where you were playing organ trail on the computer.
00:01:51
Speaker
Oh, yes, I was but was there when the books were written. oh Yeah, no, we I i not feel like you were too old for that. No, that was actually, i remember when I was in first grade, and that was the first enter into the computer lab that we had. Yeah.
Gaming Nostalgia and Mishaps
00:02:05
Speaker
and it was typing, basic math, and Oregon Trail.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yes. And we've been doing, we also did Carmen San Diego, which there was a dual pack of Oregon Trail and Carmen San Diego. So I ended up buying it. I haven't done Carmen San Diego yet, but I remember I used to love that game. I did too. We actually had it on PC and it was one of those PC games where you had to like have a book to look stuff up. And I thought that was the coolest shit. Yeah. no Not enough things do that. I'm actually, um I'm also playing something on my Switch right now called Tiny Bookshop.
00:02:34
Speaker
Ooh, that sounds fun. It's fucking cute. You have this little caravan type bookshop where you take to different parts of this town and there's different genres and you have to recommend them. But they're all real books and they all have little synopsis that tells you when they were published, who the author is, all these things.
00:02:48
Speaker
So when they're people are like, oh, I want a book that's this, that or the other, you pick something from your shelves and suggest it and then you get bonuses based on that. and Oh my God. Did you find a game where you're running around recommending books to people? Yes. Because that's like...
00:03:03
Speaker
literally just your existence that's like all you've ever wanted yeah so ah i'll ever one amidst this you know crazy week i've had that's been my solace has been you know nobody talked to me let me just sell my books dude there is something about just like being able to like sit there and just play your switch i don't know i i like falling into games and then of course reading yes Oh, shit. There was something. Oh, so I did. Dude.
00:03:31
Speaker
So I had like, you know I told you like, I don't know what's happened in the past. I think Ace is doing this. Okay. I know. I just went like 12 different directions. That's okay But hear me out.
00:03:42
Speaker
So it used to be. and that i would find all kinds of things in ace's pockets like he would leave like because he has long hair so he would leave like hair ties in there or like pens or sticky notes or when we used to smoke lighters like everything yeah imagine when monkey was an arcade tech oh my gosh all the little pieces buttons pinballs switches levers pinball rubbers like just so many things you don't even know Yeah. So now it's he's like, I finally have him checking his pockets.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then I had to start checking Bash's pockets because I was finding rocks in the washing machine because he was putting them in his pocket. Of course he was. And then he finally stopped and i was like, oh, good. I'm great.
00:04:30
Speaker
Tell me why. my. put my Like, AirPods, my Samsung AirPods. I left them in my pocket when I washed my jeans.
00:04:45
Speaker
And they just get really hot when I try to charge them. I know. I'm so sad. But, like, luckily i have, like, other headphones so I can still listen to stuff. But, like, I feel weird, like, because I've been doing, like, my gardening or whatever stuff that I have to do outside with, like, usually use my iPods.
00:05:03
Speaker
And I'm not going to go to the grocery store with giant headphones. Like no offense if anyone else does. Right. Just not your vibe. I'm just, I feel, i don't know. I'm scared. I don't know why, but I'm scared.
00:05:14
Speaker
i agree. I wouldn't, I like the discreteness of my earbuds. yeah um I've actually had mine. i remember monkey got them for me for Christmas, the Christmas right before COVID. So I've had them for almost six years.
00:05:29
Speaker
So don't know. It was 2019. And they're still like they're not they don't fully work like the I don't use the left one anymore, but I love them so much. Dude, I love these because they were purple.
00:05:41
Speaker
um And like it's my favorite color. And like they're really great because like they were the updated version. Like they had really good ambient sound. Like even like actually they weren't the updated. They were the one before the updated version.
00:05:54
Speaker
Because Ace has the updated ones. And honestly, the way that the ambient sound, it sounds like shit and I hate it. So now I'm like, do I have to like find a way to get the old ones again? i would be such a you thing to do. it Right? Right?
00:06:07
Speaker
I know. I don't know why. I'm just very like... When you know you have something that works for you and you like it, then you don't need to look outside of that. You just want to keep using the thing that works.
00:06:19
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. I get you. So yeah, all of that. And then
Pet Stories and Free Stickers
00:06:25
Speaker
last thing. So I've been training Fern, the new nightmare puppy, ah because she's just getting so big and massive and too excitable.
00:06:34
Speaker
So we've been like taking her to training classes and stuff. And so that involves like giving her a lot of treats. And so now I have to give fern a treat at the same time i give dojo a treat at the same time now sushi wants a treat so it's like a whole thing yeah but the other day like i had the box of friskies and i wasn't friskies it was the greenies one and i ended up the lid is really fucking stupid on that thing yeah i know we give them to grim as well oh my god so like i go to take it out and tell me why the whole box spilled In the pantry. The whole fucking box.
00:07:06
Speaker
And so now, any time that Sushi hears that pantry door open, she runs in there because she's trying to, like, get all the treats that have fallen everywhere. it happened once. This could happen again. No, but, like, they're everywhere because I haven't been able to pick them up because there's, like, it's a really deep pantry. Yeah.
00:07:24
Speaker
But anyways, so, yeah, like, I've locked her in that pantry at least twice now. Like, not realizing that she had gone there because she's a cat. So, yeah, now I have to watch out, make sure my cat isn't trapped in the pantry before I go to bed. That would be a fun thing to wake up to. Oh, my God.
00:07:43
Speaker
but yeah, so that that's been what I've been dealing with. and only Always an adventure. I did want to mention one more thing.
00:07:54
Speaker
Ace had some stickers made of the Nightmare Cottage logo as well as like our Spotify code and stuff. If anyone wants one, nightmarecottage at gmail.com.
00:08:06
Speaker
And I'll try to see if I can. I mean you should be able to use the website as well. Yes. But like literally, if you just send me your address, I will mail you one for free. Feel free to send us your address, either email at nightmarecottage at gmail.com or just, you know, on our website. There's an about section. You can put a comment. You can put whatever. And yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
yeah And that's just nightmarecottage.com. Yeah. And I promise i won't add you to any weird spam lists or send you a bunch of shit or go visit you. Yes.
00:08:42
Speaker
You're like, i don't I don't know why we're bringing that up. It sounds suspicious. It sounds kind of suspicious.
The Beast of Gévaudan: A Historical Mystery
00:08:53
Speaker
Are you familiar with the beast of Jevedon? I'm going to pronounce this as best I can. All of these words are going to be French. And I did take French, which means I know that I'm butchering it.
00:09:06
Speaker
I'm just going to jump right in and share the tale. In 1764, just a year after the end of the Seven Years' War, the Gévedon region in southern France, currently Lozier, a series of vicious attacks began to be carried out at alarming rates.
00:09:23
Speaker
Wolf attacks were common in this time and place, but surviving victims were all quite sure their assailants were not your standard gray wolf native to the area. I'm sorry, what time period was this? 1764 to 1767 is going to be the span of this story. Oh, wow. It's only a few years. It is, yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
La Bête de Givadon, which I will refer to as the beast going forward, ok was described as... The beast! The beast. Was described as being much larger than a gray wolf, um with reported sizes ranging from that between a calf and that of a horse.
00:09:52
Speaker
The head was stout and almost pig-like, and there was a stripe of hair running down its back, with the fur reported as being a reddish-brown. So this area of France is actually really, it it was kind of backwater and everybody was like really superstitious, you know, so we don't have all of the science to explain why all the things happen, right? So always a ah superstition for everything.
00:10:14
Speaker
It was remote and rural and it was the late 1700s. It was perfect breeding grounds for a monstrous legend. The first reported attack came in early June of 1764. a young woman was tending her oxen when she was attacked.
00:10:27
Speaker
Oxen are very protective and loyal, so they stood around her to protect her and eventually the beast took off. So this was during the day, like it was daylight when this happened. It daylight, yeah. That's crazy. Yep. She described the beast as like a wolf, but not a wolf.
00:10:40
Speaker
I wonder if it are rabies, because like usually they say animals will attack in the daytime if it has like That noted and we'll come back up. Okay. Later that same month, the first recorded fatality occurred.
00:10:52
Speaker
14-year-old Jean Blais, her body had been brutally torn apart. There were dozens more attacks throughout the summer and fall with reports of torn throats or even decapitations as well as eviscerated torsos with organs ripped out.
00:11:05
Speaker
Jeez. Yeah. So they like basically left it like a bloody mess. Yeah. Juicy entrails just everywhere. Beautiful. Yeah. ah Locals began to suspect something supernatural at this point.
00:11:15
Speaker
During the many hunts for the beast, many claimed that bullets wouldn't put it down. um it would knock it back, but it would continue to rise and attack. Okay. I'm going to sound like an idiot. Did they really have guns? I thought it was gunpowder at that time.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah. Don't get me to give you like a history on guns, but yes, like rough rifles and and and like muskets and bayonets and stuff for things. Interesting. Yeah. So later on in January of 1765, 10 year old Jacques Portefeuille and a group of kids were attacked, but they managed to drive off the beast with nothing but sharp sticks and main character energy.
00:11:47
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, King Louis XV was actually so impressed that he rewarded the children and paid for Jacques to be educated and finally initiated royal support to dispatch the beast. Oh. Yeah, it was definitely more political than actually wanting to be helpful, but he did that.
00:12:01
Speaker
Later on during an attack in August of 1765, Marie-Jean Vallée drove a bayonet through the beast, earning her the nickname the Maid of Gévedon and eventually ah statue.
00:12:13
Speaker
sounds like there was only one of them. it wasn't like... That's cool. It looks like a dragon or something. Yeah. So this is the statue that's actually there now that still stands. So you can see that and that'll be put in the show notes. You know, Grimm might come from that creature. Look how long his tail is.
00:12:30
Speaker
I wouldn't put it past him. So I mentioned that King Louis had finally decided to get off his ass and do something. Well, or rather pay people to to get up their asses and do something. First, he sent out Captain Jean-Baptiste Douamel.
00:12:41
Speaker
Douamel recruited tens of thousands of hunters to the cause. Many were eager to redeem themselves after the disappointing performances in the Seven Years' War. Douamel's hunters trapped and lured to no avail.
00:12:53
Speaker
They put out poison bait and even dressed as peasant women to try to coax out the beast. Wait. I know. What? They're like, you know, vice cops dressed up as prostitutes trying to lure out the bad guy. They're just like, oh, the whiff will only come out if I'm a peasant and a female all alone. So most of the attacks were women and children. like there is And only the only male victims were like isolated by themselves.
00:13:16
Speaker
But we'll kind of get into that here in a bit. So after all of that, eventually Duhamel and his hunters gave up. The king then dispatched Jean-Charles Deneval and his son to take a stab at tracking the beast.
00:13:28
Speaker
The father-son duo boasted of having killed over a thousand wolves, and they were very eager to solve this mystery and put it to rest. After a few months passing with no results, the king pulled back the Denevelles and sent in his own personal bodyguard, the 71-year-old Francois Antoine. Oh my gosh!
00:13:45
Speaker
Wow, living to 71 at that time? ah Right, and being a bodyguard, like being this able-bodied dude. like That's crazy. Gotta be grizzled as hell. Francois Antoine took a bunch of men to traipse through the French mountains and countryside, murdering every wolf they could come in contact with.
00:14:01
Speaker
Eventually in the fall of 1765, the group killed a wolf large enough that it just might be the beast. So they took the thing back to the king, got rewarded, and fucked off in false glory.
00:14:12
Speaker
The wolf was stuffed, but has since been buried or destroyed since they didn't have proper preservation techniques the time. was say, wonder what that thing looked like now. Yeah. At this point, there had been hundreds of attacks, many of which ended in death.
00:14:24
Speaker
Things settled down for a bit after Francois was killed, but unfortunately, the peace would not last. Two months later, the slaughter started again. For the next year and a half, another 35 people would be murdered viciously. Which is interesting because before this, it was like dozens and dozens of attacks at a time, and now it slowed down to 35. The Givadon region did not receive any royal assistance at this time. As far as the king was concerned, the beast had already been slain.
00:14:49
Speaker
Jean Chastel was a local farmer that had been part of some of the earlier hunts. Despite him being considered an honest, good man by his peers, Francois Antoine threw Chastel in jail for leading his men into challenging bog terrain instead of anywhere he deemed to be useful.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah. By this time, though, he was back to his farm and ready to help with the hunt. And help he did. On June 19th, 1767, Jean Chastel shot two rounds he had blessed by local clergy and a beast.
00:15:18
Speaker
Oh, blessed rounds. Yes. From there, the hunting dogs finished the job. The corpse of the beast was then taken to Versailles, where the king dismissed the notion of this being the beast.
00:15:29
Speaker
There can't be more than one. Like you could have at least been like, oh, it must have mated. Yeah, no. So the carcass was taken for study and the results were recorded by notary Rock Ntn Marin.
00:15:40
Speaker
The resulting document is referred to as the Marin report. I've got a link to this in the show notes so you can see like the actual document and stuff. Generally, the report states that the creature only sort of looked like a wolf.
00:15:52
Speaker
It was bigger and had features inconsistent with wolves, including coloring and body structure. though many of the measurements were consistent with that of a larger grade wolf. Unfortunately, since the beast was killed in June and then traveled across the country in suboptimal preservation in the sweltering fucking summer, all of the results of the examination were inconclusive due to the rotten deterioration.
00:16:15
Speaker
and did they have cameras? I don't think they had cameras. No. The beast was buried soon after the report was recorded. This time, the killings did stop. Did they do any like sketches or anything of that?
00:16:27
Speaker
um Yeah. And there's going to, there's some in that'll be in the show notes for that, but there's theories. Are we ready? Yes. Ready for theories. So we're never going to know, right? Cause this was hundreds of years ago. how are they going to know? But there's some interesting theories, some plausible, some quite outlandish, and we're going to cover them from most logical to less.
00:16:45
Speaker
Is aliens one of them? No, sorry. Sorry. Okay, so the most most logical and probably right answer here is that it's just a big fucking wolf or several wolves.
00:16:57
Speaker
And things were just sensationalized due to the superstition and the novel concept of the media frenzy, which was starting to become a thing. Yeah, just some really brave wolves that were like, I mean, we can eat them might as well.
00:17:08
Speaker
Exactly. it should also be mentioned that wolves have been known to breed with other wild dogs and the offspring can be quite large and ferocious. um That's another very likely scenario. Talking on the rabies thing, rabies was another theory, but there was not much correlation of rabies in the victims.
00:17:26
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah. Well, I mean, if they were torn apart instead of just bitten. I don't know what the testing process is like at that point. So I don't know. I think with rabies, they have trouble swallowing and it wouldn't have been able to live for that long either. Cause I know they get really hydrophobic pretty fast. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
i don't know. Now, some people did get, like, fucked up and not die. Yeah, that's fair. So. Probably not rabies. At least not in, like, many cases at all. Yeah. So.
00:17:53
Speaker
Another realistic possibility to consider is is that royalty and nobles frequently kept small zoos and exotic animals. Fair. Some thought it might be a hyena. was about to say!
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah! But they're actually smaller than wolves. A theory that I think is interesting and is my favorite theory, even though it may not be the most possible, probable, is that it was a young male lion.
00:18:14
Speaker
The reddish fur, the stripe of hair down the back, and before their full mangroves in, they have like a little mohawk. I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess would they have known what a lion looked like at that time? People in France would not because they aren't native to that. so But it would look real similar to a wolf. Yeah.
00:18:30
Speaker
But the reddish brown fur, the mohawk. Yeah. I don't know. To me, that feels correct, even though there's not enough evidence. it and I mean, and even like think about all the different breeds of dogs we have now in general. Yeah. And, you know, many of the the attacks were also MO of a lion. They were like described as an ambush.
00:18:48
Speaker
And like i said, yeah, they have no reference to what a lion would look like. Biggest argument against the logic of that is that lions wouldn't tolerate French winters. And this went on for three years. Oh, so I mean, I'll come back to that.
00:19:00
Speaker
What it was someone's pet and they were like, you know how like you let your well, I don't let my cat out, but some people let their cats out like it was the same thing. They were like, yeah, during the day, it just goes out at night. It just comes home. I'm going to actually add to that here in a second.
00:19:14
Speaker
We're going to now start looking at some of the more off the wall theories. and They're amplified again by that rural superstition and the sensationalist media. So all the grains of salt. One theory that sounded like it would make a really badass story.
00:19:27
Speaker
a serial killer had a trained beast, perhaps a lion, that he sent to kill people under the guise of a wolf attack. Most of the victims were women and children, so some thought the attacks were targeted. There was also some suspicion around Jean Chastel, the guy who made the final kill. Why was he able to corner and slay the beast when so many others had failed?
00:19:45
Speaker
So some people think that he was responsible. Or he was actually able to find it. Right, yeah. Next we have werewolves! Of course. the leu-guerou in French. Already had a hold in French folklore at this time.
00:19:57
Speaker
It was a small jump for the superstitious villagers to make when faced with these tragedies. The last theory I will mention is the thought that this was somehow a still living dire wolf or cave hyena. I was wondering about that, how dire wolves might play into this.
00:20:11
Speaker
That somehow escaped the 12,000 plus years since the rest of their species was extinct. I mean, but aren't there even dogs now that are like, they have dire wolf blood in them. Like it's,
00:20:23
Speaker
So they recently crossbred something with direwolf DNA and it was like a whole big deal. Like this happened a few weeks ago. Okay. So this wasn't like, yeah, no, this is not like there are definitely not direwolves in existence and have not been for over 10,000 years.
00:20:36
Speaker
Got it. So there's plenty of evidence against these three theories. So we can't really hold any stock to that. Despite all that, despite the heavily documented events of the nearly 300 attacks and over 100 gruesome deaths, despite having a corpse, despite it being autopsied, we still have no idea what the Beast of Jevedon actually was.
00:20:57
Speaker
That's cool. I've never heard of that one. I hadn't either. don't even know how it crossed my i field of view to to catch on it. But it made me think about like the fact that it's French and it's about the beast. It makes me think of Beauty and the Beast.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah. But I couldn't find anything that tied them together. i even like dug through the folklore like archives and stuff and I couldn't find anything. Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
So today I'm actually going to tell, a surprise, surprise, a crime story.
Strongsville Car Crash: Crime and Consequences
00:21:26
Speaker
o so this one's a little interesting. It has a few theories and it's a recent one. So this one takes place in 2022. Oh, so real recent. Yes. In Strongsville, Ohio.
00:21:38
Speaker
Mackenzie Shrilla and Dominic Russo, age 17 and 20, had been dating for about four years. They were basically living together in Dominic's house, which was owned by and planted right next door to his mother.
00:21:53
Speaker
They were both very popular, well-liked, as well as active on social media and the social scene. Mackenzie was known to be a bit of a wild child. ah She'd post pictures of her her doing drugs, drinking in her car, and at parties and stuff like that.
00:22:08
Speaker
Her parents kind of let her do whatever she wanted to do. Dominic, her boyfriend, he was a few years older than Mackenzie. He was still figuring out what he wanted to do after high school. He's 22? 20. 20. She's 17.
00:22:18
Speaker
twenty twenty she's seventeen so They met four years ago. 16 and 12? Is that... That sounds right. That's gross. Okay. Yeah. ah So... 16 and 12?
00:22:32
Speaker
I think it was like 13 and 17. Doesn't make it much better, though. It really doesn't. Nope. ah Okay. Continue. No. So Dominic, and her boyfriend, was a few years older than Mackenzie.
00:22:43
Speaker
He was still figuring out what he wanted to do after high school. He was looking into maybe a career as a DJ or like joining the military. you know, the things that you do. I have nothing after that. um So yeah, he was... um His biggest mindset was really Mackenzie and doing what it like whatever it took to make her happy. They'd been together, I guess, you know through those tumultuous like teenage years.
00:23:05
Speaker
To most, it seemed like they had a pretty normal, tumultuous type high school relationship. Mackenzie had just graduated high school along with Dominic's good friend, Davian Flanagan, age 19.
00:23:16
Speaker
So they were going to a lot of graduation celebrations and festivities of that type. On the night of July 30th, 2022, Mackenzie, Dominic, and Davian went to multiple house parties.
00:23:27
Speaker
The first one was at Kelly Raja's house. um The group arrived around 10 p.m., hung out for a while. They'd brought a bottle of tequila and a weed pen with them. They were talking about going over to someone's house and tripping on shrooms.
00:23:41
Speaker
So they only stayed for about 30 minutes at this party before they decided to leave. The second house party was that of Paul Burlinghouse. Paul says they just listen to music. Some people were smoking weed.
00:23:55
Speaker
He says that him and Mackenzie didn't smoke that night, but others did. And that no one was drinking alcohol or using any other drugs. That they just had like a really chill, like close friend hangout type situation.
00:24:10
Speaker
um Paul says that he went to sleep sometime after midnight and aw woke around 3 or 4 a.m. and noticed that Mackenzie was still asleep on the couch and Davian was ah watching TV with some friends.
00:24:22
Speaker
He didn't see Dominic again that night, but everyone else was kind of accounted for around 3 or 4 So on the morning, the next morning of July 31st, 2022, Strongsville police responded to a 911 call reporting that a car had crashed into a building near the intersections of Progress Drive and Alameda Drive.
00:24:43
Speaker
Looking back at surveillance footage, the crash had happened around 540
00:24:49
Speaker
It was called in about 45 minutes later by a passenger who noticed the crash. Police didn't arrive until almost an hour after the crash. Wow. Yeah. The car, well, because it was called in like 45 minutes after it happened and they arrived 15 minutes later. Oh, okay. Yeah. So they had been sitting there for a while before someone noticed it.
00:25:07
Speaker
The car was really, really smashed up. There was really heavy front end damage. All of the airbags deployed. The car looked like it was cut in half. Like it was, it was really bad. ah First responders noticed, quote, the legs and lower torso of what appeared to be a female on the driver's side, while the upper half of the driver's body appeared to be on the passenger side underneath the passenger dashboard with the whole thing caved in on top of her.
00:25:36
Speaker
She was still whole. God. But yeah, she was just like splayed across the car. On the passenger side, first responders noticed that passenger seat was reclined all the way back.
00:25:48
Speaker
Dominic Russo lay on the passenger seat. He was unresponsive, had severe head drama trauma. That was ah Mackenzie's boyfriend. And Davian, he was laying on top of Dominic with his back to the seat and facing up to the roof of the car. missing at that point too when Paul woke up? Yeah. but Davian was watching TV. Mackenzie was sleeping on the couch. Okay, Davian was present. Yeah, Dominic. mean Dominic. Dominic was the one that wasn't there.
00:26:16
Speaker
But now all three of them are in this car. Oh, okay. Sorry. For some reason, I thought it was a different show It's okay. I gave a lot of names. Okay. right. Yes. So all three of them are in this car.
00:26:27
Speaker
ah Mackenzie seems to be the one driving. She's under the dashboard right now with it caved in on top of her. Her boyfriend's next to her, basically, with a seat all the way confined, laying down on it.
00:26:39
Speaker
And his friend is on top of him with his facing the roof of the car, basically. Jesus Christ. Davian also had really severe head trauma um and was responsive as well.
00:26:50
Speaker
ah Both of the men were not wearing their seatbelts either. So they think obviously this might have led to even more damage than would have happened initially. Right.
00:27:02
Speaker
So initially they believed that everyone in the car was deceased um until they started breaking the windows to like actually get in and they heard someone mumbling. So they started like trying to pull open the car more. They realized Mackenzie was still alive.
00:27:16
Speaker
So she was pulled out of the car using the jaws of life. You know what that is, right? So for anyone who doesn't, it's basically a can opener for a car. So they pulled Mackenzie out of the driver's side of her car um and they sent her off to the hospital.
00:27:30
Speaker
She had significant injuries to her leg and her arm. But I mean, that was most of it. And the first thing that she asked first responders when they pulled her out of the car was, how is Davian?
00:27:43
Speaker
Not her boyfriend, who was sitting next to her, but Davian, the guy in the backseat. It seemed kind of odd to me that she was asking about him and not her boyfriend, but maybe she like heard him talking when she was passing out. I don't know. Yeah. Also, probably some head trauma, right?
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So they noticed that he was still alive to Davian, but unfortunately he passed before CareFlight could get there. Like he was just barely hanging on. So the police are investigating the crash and they realized that the car had to be going like really fast for this kind of damage. And also it was a 35 mile per hour commercial road that this happened on. Right.
00:28:23
Speaker
But the impact was really bad. The road is described as an older paved road with sections where the concrete has raised like little raises on it. um It's a little bit bumpy with a series of curves. Once you get to the end of the road, there's like a T intersection.
00:28:38
Speaker
And she basically... blew through it. They didn't see any indication of the car trying to break before it crashed. So they pulled out the black box of the car and sent it for further forensic investigation.
00:28:53
Speaker
So while all of that is happening, they get Mackenzie to the hospital to be treated for injuries and she's claiming that she has no recollection of what happened before the accident or what caused it. um She says that she thinks that maybe she had a seizure ah due to her POTS diagnosis, which we'll get more into later. She's in the hospital taking selfies, posting on social media. She doesn't seem overly upset or remorseful that she was like driving a car that caused the death of like her boyfriend and his friend. Wow.
00:29:22
Speaker
Investigators bring up that they feel like she's not taking this very seriously um and that she might be facing murder charges or for at least like reckless driving at minimum. Manslaughter, at least. so Yeah.
00:29:33
Speaker
So to this, Mackenzie responds by asking, like, can't you just take away my license for 10 years or something? Yeah. So she's she's very out of touch. Investigators keep looking into Mackenzie and and her relationship with all of the people that were in the car, as well as her medical history and events preceding the event.
00:29:52
Speaker
So few things that they found in police interviews, they were getting a lot of people coming forward saying that Mackenzie just wasn't all there. She seemed really unstable. Previously or now? Previously. Like they were like, and yeah, dude, she's just like a little bit off. Like she's just, again, kind of out of touch. they There were recordings that Dominic had her boyfriend had ah saved on his phone of them fighting and her threatening like he his car, damages things like over them breaking up, like just escalating things really far.
00:30:23
Speaker
They were just always breaking up, getting back together. and again, like they're in high school living next door to his mother. right But they were always just like breaking up, getting back together. Their fights were just really intense.
00:30:36
Speaker
Mackenzie and Dominic's family were really, really close. Again, living next door, trying to be wifey. You know what I mean? Right. Dominic's mother mentioned that she had noticed in the six months before the crash that Mackenzie and Dominic's relationship seemed really strained.
00:30:50
Speaker
She would message – Mackenzie. She would ah call and message Dominic's mom all the time and involve her in their fights. Yeah, not good. Two weeks prior to the accident, Mackenzie and Dominic got into another one of their really, really big fights. Yeah.
00:31:03
Speaker
They were on the highway and Dominic called his mother and tells her that Mackenzie is driving recklessly and threatening him. A friend who picked up Dominic heard Mackenzie yelling that she would crash the car.
00:31:14
Speaker
Hmm. So Mackenzie was reported to have had a bag of mushrooms in her bra when she was pulled out of the car. But her lab work didn't indicate that she had done mushrooms that night or that she had alcohol in her system.
00:31:27
Speaker
Impairment from marijuana was also ruled out due to the levels that were in her system. Like it seemed like she had smoked at some point, but maybe not that night or recently. Both Mackenzie and her mother claimed that she had a POTS diagnosis, which from a doctor whose name they can't remember in 2017.
00:31:45
Speaker
They told her to just chew on salt tabs or salty food to treat it. Do you know what POTS is? I don't. Okay. So it stands for... Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
00:31:56
Speaker
Okay. um It causes an elevated heart rate, which like kind of makes you feel dizzy or can make you pass out and unexpectedly. Like typically, like if you stand up or sit down or like move, it's almost like, I don't want to say it's vertigo because it's not, it's more blood pressure related.
00:32:12
Speaker
It's just like circulation, not positional changes basically can can cause it. um It's one of those tough diagnoses that it isn't like there's not definitive blood work for it. More like tests they can run to help determine like limitations in your daily field activities or like like intake of salt or stuff like that. Her mom said that she had had at least two episodes that she could remember.
00:32:33
Speaker
But medical personnel who treated Mackenzie at the time of the accident stated that initially her eyes were closed, but after paramedics started asking her questions, she was giving delayed verbal responses.
00:32:44
Speaker
She was confused, but she was alert. Her pulse seemed normal and her blood oxygen level was 82 with normal level being 95 or above. So her, her blood oxygen was a little low, which could account for, you know, that kind of situation. Sure.
00:33:01
Speaker
So one of the medical responders stated when questioned, a person could have a seizure before medical personnel arrived and there would be no signs of it during medical eval evaluation. Additionally, her blood oxygen level of 82 was extremely low and that a level this low could indicate that a person just went into cardiac arrest or just came back out of cardiac arrest.
00:33:22
Speaker
Alternatively, could be the result of a misplaced measuring device or cold fingers. yeah Yeah. hits um So the doctor who admitted Mackenzie to the hospital the morning of the accident stated that it was possible that she could have recovered after two hours from like a seizure or a mini stroke.
00:33:39
Speaker
So maybe – As for the findings of the car and the accident itself. The night of the accident, surveillance video shows Mackenzie turning her car onto Progress Drive.
00:33:50
Speaker
She turned on her turn signal was driving carefully. Oddly, though, it didn't make sense for her to turn onto that street to get where she like needed to be or where she was going. It wasn't a shortcut or anything.
00:34:01
Speaker
Did they think they were heading home? or Yeah. Okay. they Yeah, they thought they were probably heading home or like, I don't know. Or to Damien's house. Yeah. Okay. But... Yeah, like that was nowhere near where they weren needed. And like it was like a commercial area.
00:34:15
Speaker
so it like it didn't make sense for them to go in there. It wasn't like a shortcut anywhere. Right. They made a big deal about her having been in the area a few days before the accident, maybe scoping the area out.
00:34:29
Speaker
But then they later admitted that cell phone towers just pinged the general area. So it was more of like a suspicion that, know, maybe. But in the car and on McKenzie, they found the previously mentioned mushrooms, 1.8 grams of it, a digital scale, two cell phones, a bong, a bag of marijuana, a purse, and a Cadillac key fob.
00:34:49
Speaker
This to me makes me think they were selling mushrooms, not necessarily doing them. Again, maybe they were. I don't know. It wasn't in her system. ah The car's black box records show it took 20 to 25 seconds to get to 99 miles per hour.
00:35:02
Speaker
So the pedal was fully depressed with no attempt to brake being made. The car was fully airborne as it went over the curb. With four and a half seconds of the start of the crash, the car made a small right turn, then a small left turn, followed by a significant right hard turn that caused the car to roll over.
00:35:22
Speaker
It was suggested that there might have been a struggle in the car with one of the investigators saying that maybe the guys had taken their seatbelts off in an attempt to like, Get her to chill the fuck out. Yeah, to stop the crash.
00:35:34
Speaker
I personally feel like it was really early in the morning. They were like half asleep. Maybe you shouldn't put their seatbelts on, you know, yeah being young, dumb. They didn't find any issues with the car itself that could have been a factor in causing the accident.
00:35:47
Speaker
There was no indication that the brakes had been applied for a long period of time in an attempt to stop the car before the crash. One odd thing from the black box was that it showed that both front seatbelts were engaged at the time of the crash.
00:36:01
Speaker
But remember, the guys didn't have seatbelts on. So taking off after the ass. Which is weird because then how, why was there so much damage like they've been thrown around the car? Dominic die instantly or do we know?
00:36:14
Speaker
It seems that he died instantly. There wasn't a lot of information, but it seems like he died pretty. Okay. And then Davian lasted until just before care flight. Correct. Yeah. Also that the gear shift was manually shifted back and forth between drive, sequential and neutral in the 4.7 seconds before the crash.
00:36:32
Speaker
So like someone had been maybe trying to put it in yeah park or something. So there's ah a few theories on the seatbelts, gear shift movement and hard right turn, which i'm going to get into. So the first theory, it was suggested that there might have been a struggle in the car with one of the investigators saying that maybe the guys had taken their seatbelts off, which already mentioned.
00:36:50
Speaker
It was probably too early in the morning and they were just right. So we talked about that one. Right. um The next one was the multiple turns and gear shift movement could have been her trying to maybe gain control of the vehicle.
00:37:03
Speaker
um And maybe she just panicked harder and hit the accelerator. You know what I mean? Like when you try to like brake and you brake too hard or your like foot slips. I have done that. To 99 miles hour? Not to 99 miles hour, no. Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
and That feels... not... it. They also state maybe the hard right turn could have been a physical reaction um of the airborne vehicle impacting the ground.
00:37:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And my personal theory... So as I do, ah the couple, this is my theory that the couple was fighting and Davian was in the back trying to ignore them.
00:37:40
Speaker
He tells her to calm down and she freaks out because you don't fucking do that. um He tells her to slow down to what she responds by accelerating down the street. Yeah. The sudden momentum and freak out causes her pots to act up and she passes out.
00:37:54
Speaker
Her boyfriend tries to move her leg while controlling the wheel, but ends up mashing her leg into the accelerator more. He panics, takes off the seatbelt, tries to shift the car into any other gear except drive. The car hits the curb, goes airborne, his arm pulling the wheel to the right as he falls back into a seat and they crash.
00:38:11
Speaker
That tracks. Yeah, that's my theory. That seems very plausible. Right? I should, like, do this for a living. um So, Mackenzie was arrested three months after the crash.
00:38:22
Speaker
ah Since she was 17 when the crash happened, her case was initially tried in the juvenile court system. This meant that at most, Mackenzie would only be in jail until she was 21. The defense didn't feel like this was enough time for her conviction, so they convinced the judge that there was enough evidence of this being done purposefully and with malice.
00:38:40
Speaker
So the judge converted the case to an adult criminal court. This meant that she would now be tried as an adult, which meant she could face life in prison. Day one of her adult trial, Mackenzie shows up to court wearing a brace cast type situation on her arm, which medical records show no reason for her having.
00:38:57
Speaker
Maybe she was trying to gain sympathy. It didn't work. They really hammered into all this evidence and her lawyer didn't interject much or cross examine the witnesses. Even as remarks and closing arguments were stumbling, they weren't very confident. Yeah, it was bad. It was a public defender maybe or a Her family was kind of wealthy. What the fuck?
00:39:18
Speaker
I know. and And, like, I watched these videos and that guy was just, I don't know, maybe it was his first case. I don't know. Maybe he knew they didn't have a shot. I don't know. It was bad. I'm not trying to say, like, she was innocent or because I don't know if she was.
00:39:31
Speaker
just think there was, like, a lot of suggestions that could have been examined at different angles for different outcomes. Mm-hmm. In the end, Mackenzie was sentenced in adult court.
00:39:42
Speaker
She waived her right to a trial by jury and was charged with four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, aggravated vehicular homicide, drug possession, possessing criminal tools.
00:39:55
Speaker
She was sentenced to serve an indefinite sentence of 15 years to life in prison for each murder to be served concurrently to each other. So at the same time. Mm-hmm.
00:40:06
Speaker
In her sentencing, the judge called the crash the horrible, terrifying, and tragic result of a selfish, intentional, and cruel decision by Mackenzie. Following sentencing, the judge stated, quote, I understand that the pain in this room wants me to impose the hardship harshest sentence, but I don't believe that would be an appropriate sentence because I do believe that Mackenzie will not be out in 15 years.
00:40:30
Speaker
End quote. okay And that is the end of that case. So the reason that I did this one is because i this is like the second or third time that I've actually watched this on. What was it?
00:40:42
Speaker
I watched so many crime things. um Killer Cases is what what the series was called. And I remember this one shocking me so much because the first time I saw it, I think I was pregnant with Sebastian.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I just remember like kind of freaking out for a second because I was like, okay, so I could like do everything right. I could teach him to put a seatbelt on, to not drink and drive, not, to not, just, just, just to not be dumb. Right.
00:41:10
Speaker
And, If he just has a murderous girlfriend, that's it. Like, you can't protect him. And it's just like, I cannot. No, but you can encourage him to make good decisions.
00:41:21
Speaker
Did you make good decisions? actually think I mostly did. I did not. i I was, you know, I've been a rule follower forever. Like, I hate, like, my biggest fear is getting in trouble, right? So I i generally err on the side of correct when I can.
00:41:38
Speaker
mostly yeah this one was really frustrating for me not just because of that but also just the I don't know like I don't know if she was guilty to be completely honest yeah so I'm thinking about level of hormones in a teenage girl like that and you have this older boyfriend so you feel like you're older than you are right you surround yourself with people who are older and her parents literally let her do whatever So there's a maturity issue there. yeah There's probably some, you know...
00:42:09
Speaker
I don't know. Like, I was dramatic in unchecked ways where I was more extra than I ever needed to be. Like, yeah you know, and we're all guilty of that, I think, especially growing up. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:23
Speaker
So I could believe that she just did not truly have a grasp on the reality of just how fucking extreme it was. I could believe that that is the case. To kill somebody? To crash her car? She doesn't...
00:42:35
Speaker
she yes fucked up and i'm glad she's in jail but really yeah because it does seem malicious but on purpose i don't know that she did it on purpose but that's why i think manslaughter is appropriate i don't know what is what was she convicted of actual murder yeah like and a but i think it was aggravated yeah aggravated Like, which means and with intent and malice. Right.
00:42:58
Speaker
And see, like, to me, like, I could see, like... mean, she was lucky she didn't fucking die, too. Reckless die. Exactly. that's That's my big thing is, like, I could see the reckless driving or reckless whatever, all of the other stuff.
00:43:11
Speaker
but being charged with intentional murder that I didn't understand because there was a lot of stuff that I didn't talk about in this. Cause there was this case just went crazy, but they were trying to bring in like, you know, she's suicidal. And you know, like the jokes that you make growing up, like, ah, I failed my test. I'll just kill myself. Right. Like not saying you should joke about suicide, but you know what I mean? Like,
00:43:35
Speaker
they were trying to bring all of that into it and at the end of the day it's like she had to be suicidal to do this because how can you ensure that you're going to get out the way how mangled that car was i mean there's also that whole immortal youth that's true complex that's true yeah and you don't truly believe anything that's going to happen to you mean she probably had no idea it was going to turn out that way she probably thought it was gonna just scare everybody and that everything would be fine yeah so i don't know but the selfies and lack of remorse in the hospital is yeah pretty
00:44:19
Speaker
so this week we are actually starting something new for our palate cleansers we decided to buy this pick your poison card game um and we're just going to kind of use it as a would you rather situation that we're going to talk about so we have two cards what would it be let's see would you rather get scalded on your inner thigh with a branding iron good god or hand out fortune cookies with bigoted sayings on them every halloween oh do you want scald yourself or ruin halloween
Moral Dilemmas: 'Would You Rather' Game
00:44:59
Speaker
I would get scalded. Really? Yes. No. Bigoted sayings? I'm not. a No. I'm sorry. Halloween and trick-or-treating is precious. It's sacred. You do not fuck with that. Yes.
00:45:11
Speaker
Fuck me up. I will not mess up trick-or-treating. You're crazy. I am. i I don't know. Maybe it's because I burned myself so many times on accident, like working in restaurants. I'm not.
00:45:22
Speaker
No. You're crazy. You would rather burn yourself. Yes, one and done get it over with rather than traumatizing children and and their parents with bigoted sayings inside fortune cookies on Halloween. Just tell them not to read it. The most holy of holy nights.
00:45:38
Speaker
If you were told not to read something, what would you You'd fucking read it. I would read it.
00:45:45
Speaker
That's a good place to end it, I think. So we will see y'all soon enough, I suppose. um Again, ah stickers. Yeah, they're very nice. Vinyl stickers. like they're They're good for on your car or putting it in places in the public where it just looks cool you know yeah on your laptop.
00:46:04
Speaker
They were made by Ace. Ace drew them up and and put them together. So I'm i'm super proud of them. But um yeah, just send us your email, your email your address, and I will Mail you one.
00:46:16
Speaker
Sweet dreams. If you have topic requests, book or movie recommendations, or just want to say hi, email us at nightmarecottage at gmail dot com or visit our website at nightmarecottage dot com. Sweet dreams.
00:46:46
Speaker
Bye bye!