Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage, where we discuss dark locations, sinister media, and other tales of the macabre. I'm Nim. And I'm Nyleen. Let the nightmare begin.
Speaker: follow into the nightmare if you dare
Speaker: well we'll see how it goes it was so funny as soon as we walked into Lowe's he goes can I press it which is hilarious because like the past few years he's been like cool cool cool don't press the button please Yeah, don't take him to spirit when they open, man. Everything at the beginning will... Oh my God. i think he'll be excited. ill I'll make you go with me. Oh yes, please do. He'll love that. Oh God.
Speaker: I want... I definitely want go to spirit with Ash. Actually, honestly, if we bring Monkey too, he'll definitely be more brave. Okay. Yeah. Oh my God, it's a date. We'll do that. Absolutely.
Speaker: so we'll ah keep an eye for when that spirit down the street opens. We'll do. I've been, um just this weekend, I've been starting to feel the Halloween-ness. You know what? I need to decorate this year. You need to, like, remind me to decorate. Because Bash loves Halloween and he loves going to your house because he loves how decorated it is. Yeah.
Speaker: I feel like I need to put up some, like, lights or something. i had, like, one of those, like, door, the door hangers one year. But it kept smacking on the door and would, like, set Dojo off all the time.
Speaker: We could make a wreath. That's true. You see you say things like make. If I made you a wreath? Yes. If you made it, I would definitely. And like you let me know. i like i'll I'll help you pay for like the materials and stuff. But like I just don't have the time to make it.
Speaker: I'll watch you make it. This sounds like a fun day. I know that's weird. Like I'll watch you do it. no, no. I get I get it. No, that'd be cool. I think we should definitely do that. And if we do that, we should take pictures and put it on my blog. Okay. Hey, everyone, we're really bad at following through. So just don't get your hopes up. or you can pressure us to do it.
Speaker: Nightmare Cottage at gmail.com. That's fucked up. No, I mean, if you ask for, if you want us to do something, if we've said we're going to do something and we haven't done it, if you want us to do it, tell us. I know, but that's what I mean. and I would actually do it if somebody was like, hey, you said you were going to do this. I'm like, now I have to do it because there's people telling me that they know that I said that I would do it.
Speaker: Oh, it would more inspire me to want to do it because somebody else actually does want me to do it and I wouldn't just be doing it for my own self-satisfaction, which is usually enough for me, but i am a people pleaser. so That's why you always do stuff for me. Yeah, that makes sense. No, you. you.
Speaker: no Mm-hmm. Are we ready for nightmares? No. No. one more thing to talk about. Oh, okay. How's Grimothy? He's my love.
Speaker: um He's good. he's He ah had to go to doctor because they wouldn't give me more of his flea stuff. Rude. And then they told me he was fat. no But he's not. He's just massive.
Speaker: Yeah. He's a gigantic cat. Like his bone structure is huge. And um so he's 18 pounds. He doesn't look like a chonker. I will post pictures of him as well. Like ah ah a current recent picture in Again, you can tell me what you think. I've been saving the pictures you sent me to.
Speaker: um But yeah, no, like, I mean, I even told Ace about that because i was like, I don't know that he could lose that much weight without being. I'm, it's sad for me because we you know, I'm a, I'm a feeder. I feed people to make them love me. Right. Well, it goes for my feeder. You know, yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, I'm the one who gives him his treats and stuff. And I i can't. we a we work We've been told no treats. I'm a baby. Baby. Sorry. Anyways. So our ritual of treats is off. But he's been still real sweet. So he's not mad at me, it seems.
Speaker: I mean, it's been, you know, over a week since we've been on this this path. But he's 18 pounds. They want him to be 12. And I'm like, no Do they realize how tall he is? I know. And long. Or whatever.
Speaker: and Like, even if you don't count his tail. Right? His super long tail. Like, he's a long boy. Yeah. That sounded bad. so Okay. He's a giant cat. I'm okay with cutting back the treats and monitoring his food, but I'm not going to try to get him down to 12 pounds. That seems... Excessive.
Speaker: yeah I feel like he'd be anorexic at that point. Like, my poor kitty. He's ginormous. He can't, like, he needs sustenance to survive. There's a joke somewhere there. I know. We're just gonna we're going to bypass that.
Speaker: But yes, I just wanted to call out poor little Grimothy and his little chonky snacky ways. There is nothing poor about that cat. He's going to be so sad now without his next next.
Speaker: Well, so the other thing is, is I, we all know that I have my garden, right? And I, I have several catnip plants and I don't do it every day because you're not supposed to do catnip every day. But um a couple times a week when I go out and water my plants, I'll grab a couple of leaves and rub rub them between my hands. And when I come inside, he's Just he is all over it. He'll lick them, but he'll also just like rub against them. And it's he's so super sweet about it. And it's a treat for both of us. So we get that a couple times a week. and And so that feeds my soul and makes him high. So was to say, like, what does that even do to them? Like, is it just that it like, you know, honestly, I have never looked into that.
Speaker: Might be interesting to do. Like, I'm wondering if it's actually like, I don't think disorienting is the right word, like intoxicating in that. Like, I wonder if it's intoxicating and like us being drunk kind of way. Right. Or if it's more of just like a, like a love bomb. Like, um what's it called? Like when you, you're flooded with.
Speaker: Like endorphins. Endorphins. Yeah. That word. So I don't know, but I do know that cats can react differently because some cats will just get like stoned and still.
Speaker: And then other cats will get crazy hyper and ridiculous. And Grim is more of the ridiculous side. I found Sushi has started. um i don't think she really cares for the catnip.
Speaker: but That doesn't kick in until they're about a year or so Fern likes the way it tastes, apparently. She keeps tearing apart her toys. But I found out Sushi really, really likes any toy that is that has fur on it. like She really liked feathers at first, but now if it has fur, oh my gosh, she'll just hold it and just lick and lick and lick and lick and lick and then start throwing it and chasing it.
Speaker: That's cute. Yeah, it's really cute. But this is not Nightmare-ish. But we are in the cottage and that's cozy. It's the pre-palate cleanser. It's the cozy bit. It's okay if we're cozy before and after.
Speaker: Are you familiar with the Egyptian Book of the Dead? From like the mummy movie. and Okay. So yes, and... Also, no. Yeah, like i fear feel it was probably sensationalized in that movie quite a bit. Yes. Well, and in most pop culture, and a lot, it's really easy to assume it's, you know, a book that will let you bring stuff back from the dead. Okay. And that is absolutely not at all what it is. And it's actually not even a book.
Speaker: Then is it called book if it's not a book? We will get there. Is it a scroll? It is a scroll. I feel like most stuff in that time was a scroll. Right. Yeah. So they would have the papyrus plants and they would beat them down into a pulp and and then get them flat and stuff. And so it was actually a really sturdy canvas, more or less, for them to preserve things on. And that's why we still have a lot of it today, because it was such a sturdy material in that climate, because it was so dry.
Speaker: Now, I did read something completely kind of related, but unrelated to the Book of the Dead. But I read that the the same papyrus, they used to use just what they had left over from like manuscripts or like records or whatever to um embalm mummies. So we have a lot of like really weird, just like little stuff from day to day um that was left on mummies on some of them on some of the...
Speaker: not noble ones, if you know what I mean. Yeah, class definitely played a role in a lot of the Egyptian burial practices, for sure. um When it comes to preparing for the afterlife, few civilizations were as extra as the ancient Egyptians.
Speaker: Most people have a hope for a peaceful rest and maybe a few nice words at our funerals. Egyptians planned for eternity with checklists, magical spells, and a firm belief that navigating the afterlife was more like an 80s montage of trying not to get murdered in several different ways than drifting off peacefully. Yeah.
Speaker: Wait, like the the to get there, like to get to the afterlife, they had to like, yeah, it's like this whole series of events like to to be able to because it's either you cease to exist or you go to the afterlife and the Book of the Dead is how you get there. We know about this because the Egyptian Book of the Dead or it was called by them the Book of Going Forth by Day.
Speaker: Or I've also seen it written as the Book of Coming Forth by Day. And like I saw both of them in a whole lot of places. it's one or the other or both. But it's a collection of spells, prayers and illustrations designed to guide the deceased through the terrifying puzzle filled obstacle course that was the afterlife or So like i think like a how-to, like almost from like the Beetlejuice. It is absolutely, that was the next thing i was going to say is that it's basically the handbook for the recently deceased.
Speaker: And it, yeah, it gives you the tools and cheats you need to get where you need to go. Yeah. And we'll kind of get into what I mean by cheating, but but it reveals a complex spiritual worldview where morality, ritual precision, and a solid respect for crocodile lion hippo goddesses were essential to eternal survival.
Speaker: Today we're going to explore how the Book of the Dead shaped Egyptian burial practices, influenced beliefs about the soul's journey after death, and reflected the culture's deep investment in the life beyond the tomb. Even if that life involved navigating talking doors and convincing a panel of gods you hadn't kicked your neighbor's cat.
Speaker: You know what? think... Was this discussed in... Was it Sandman? Did you watch Sandman? I did watch Sandman. Was it Sandman? I feel like there was a recent series.
Speaker: Moon something. Fuck. Moon Knight? Moon Knight. That was actually a really cool. And yes, yes, they actually did follow quite a lot of that. It was I just remembered the boat and like having to like navigate all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, that's what that was. Well, that that crocodile lion hippo goddess that Amit, she was in that. Yes. And depicted wonderfully, I thought. Yeah, my brain just went there. Yeah, that was that was great.
Speaker: I forgot about Moon Knight. It was actually surprisingly good. It was. But well before the Egyptians began sneaking papyrus scrolls into coffins like spiritual cheat sheets, their beliefs about death and the afterlife were literally already carved in stone.
Speaker: The Book of the Dead evolved from a long tradition of funerary texts beginning with the pyramid texts in the Old Kingdom, which was about 2700 to 2200 BCE, which were reserved exclusively for the Egyptian kings.
Speaker: These inscriptions were chiseled into the walls of royal tombs and read more like divine instructions for kings who wanted to continue their reign in the next life. As time went on, the afterlife became a little less exclusive.
Speaker: The Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, which was about 2100 to 1600 BCE, expanded these concepts to include nobles and high officials. Rather than being carved into stone, the spells were painted into their coffins. You'll see that even with like King Tut's tomb and some others that have been discovered and displayed in museums that have been available for people to see. Awesome.
Speaker: And so like, out of curiosity, do you mention like, i don't know if you like got into all of this, but like, where did they get these rules from? Was it very much like the Bible where they're like, Okay, so before I continue, this is a much like everything we cover a massive fucking topic. Yeah. And I've actually been working on it for about three weeks.
Speaker: And I've been spending a lot of time on it. And there's like two or three big chunks of story I wanted to include, but I just honestly did not have room for it. And one of them is the Osiris myth.
Speaker: which is the religious aspect of it. it It doesn't account for all of it, but it was a big part of the New Kingdom burials, ah the cult of Osiris. But basically the idea is that, oh, I didn't write it down. so But Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth and cut into a billion pieces or 14 pieces or whatever, several pieces and spread across the land. So that way he couldn't come back together. But then Isis...
Speaker: found all of the pieces, combined them back together, which is how we get the idea for a mummy. And then he came back as the ruler of the underworld. The idea is that if you do things correctly, you too can come back and be part of the underworld. Okay.
Speaker: That's a very quick and dirty ah explanation of that. i had I actually had wanted to like close it out with that story, like tell it as a story, but definitely am going to run along anyways. But yeah, so it it's basically all built around Osiris and wanting to...
Speaker: come forth by day and stay existing instead of ceasing to exist like osiris there's a better way to tell that story no no no that was great that was great In the Middle Kingdom, the spells evolved to include more moral themes instead of just how to reign after life. So now we have, like, don't be a dick.
Speaker: Exactly. They began to emphasize personal responsibility for one's behavior in life, foreshadowing what would later become the central themes in the Book of the Dead. By the New Kingdom period, which was about 1550 to 1070 BCE, the idea of the afterlife had become wildly popular and accessible to more than just the elite.
Speaker: Enter the Book of the Dead. Unlike its predecessors, the coffin texts and the pyramid texts, it was written primarily on papyrus and placed in the tombs beside the deceased. Rich Egyptians could commission personalized versions with detailed illustrations and custom spells.
Speaker: The shift from exclusive state-centered burial texts to more democratized funerary literature shows not only an evolving theology, but also a growing desire among everyday Egyptians to participate in the eternal party.
Speaker: provided they pass all the tests and knew which spells to recite when a demon asked their favorite color. Spoiler alert, it's not blue. That reminds me of the toilet demon that we talked about. The idea here is that when you die, there are several things that will happen and it will determine whether your heart is consumed by our crocodile lion hippo goddess Demet and you cease to exist forever or proceed to the afterlife where you reignite with your loved ones in a field of wreaths to exist in bliss for eternity.
Speaker: The Book of the Dead served as a strategy guide to the trials you face to get beyond Demet. Without it, you're raw dogging some pretty intense shit, which we'll get into shortly. Out of curiosity. So if if this was so important, right, like I'm thinking of it like kind of like modern day Christianity or Judaism, Judaism, um or you know what, just any of the major religions, right? So people spend so much time and I understand that lifespan was shorter then, but people spent so much time saying, okay, well, this is what you need to make it to the afterlife,
Speaker: Right? Like, why would they include this as a manual inside instead of, like... Because they believe that you took the things with you into the afterlife that you're buried Oh, fair. Which is why you have in, like, pyramids and other Egyptian tombs, there are so many, like, goods, like, riches and stuff, especially for the um the elite, because they're going to need that stuff when they're in the afterlife, because they ah they don't sell them there.
Speaker: I just, like... imagine them trying to drag all of this on the boat to cross consider it a bag of holding situation okay you have what you need and you know when you need it magic magic exactly i mean like i said it's a book of spells so you know they definitely believed in magic that's true so now let's get into the actual contents of the book of the dead no oh Sweet dreams.
Speaker: Depending on who you were, the contents may vary. These were extraordinarily expensive and would cost more than a standard citizen's full year of pay to procure. Scribes would make these scrolls and leave the places where the name would go blank so they could be added upon purchase.
Speaker: You could also have them custom made to pick and choose which spells you wanted to be included or, you know, what you could afford, depending on what you really wanted help with in the journey. and wonder what's stopping you from just like You buy it for one member of the family and copy it over.
Speaker: They very much believed that they were tied to the person. But however, i i need to look into more of this. But like, I know that when the husband went, he'd find his wife in death. Like the the scroll worked for it was for him, but his wife would meet him in the field of reads when he got through it.
Speaker: I don't know if it was a head of household situation, like only one person had to do it or what. I don't know exactly what the rules were, but I know the scroll of Ani that the is one of, or is the most complete one that's been found, the idea is that his wife would be there at the end.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. At least based on the sources I found, which I, oh my God. There's 11 billion sources and they almost all say something different. Oh yeah. No, I run into that all the time and I'm like, I don't know what's real anymore, but it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. We're all, we're all just navigating this. Man. Together.
Speaker: Man. And they were all like universities or like, like they were really, credible sources and i'm like why are you all different because there's so many like because all of these um all of these you know scrolls there were different for every person there were so so many of them not a whole lot of them have been found and the ones that have been found a lot of them were cut up and sold for you know profit antiquities and stuff like that in the victorian times and and i also imagine like translating like i know like just translating stuff from spanish to english like the
Speaker: the intent can be lost. You know what I mean? Or it can be interpreted in many different ways. Right. And there is a lot of books. You can find the Egyptian Book of the Dead to purchase that's translated. um And there are several different ones and everybody will tell you a different one that's the best one, you know. So yeah it's definitely a lot of it, much like so many other things in ancient history, it's up to interpretation based on what we found.
Speaker: So if you look up the spells from the Book of the Dead, you'll see that they're numbered. These numbers were assigned as the spells were found from various partial scrolls and at least one complete scroll. Most of what survives today are sections that have been, like I just said, cut for cut and separated. There are only a few examples of whole or nearly whole scrolls out there, one of which I mentioned is the Scroll of Ani.
Speaker: Based on what has been discovered so far, there are around 200-ish various spells that are that could be included in the Book of the Dead. and Yeah.
Speaker: but before mumification these spells allow your spirit to begin the journey to the afterlife they cleanse any evil that may still be on you they honor the gods as a good baseline to hopefully start you in a good in their good graces before you enter the crucible The mummification and burial processes are also for preparation for the afterlife.
Speaker: The organs, aside from the heart, would be removed and placed in canopic jars. They're usually modeled after the four sons of Horus, who is the god of protection. ah Liver goes in the jar of emseti with the head of the human.
Speaker: Lungs go in the jar of happy with the head of a baboon. Stomach goes in the jar of duomatef with the head of a jackal. Intestines go in the jar of kibessinueth with the head of a falcon. And here's some examples and jar I find it interesting that we still take out all of the organs. I mean, obviously for a different reason now, but I just find it interesting that they used to do it back then for again, different reasons. Well, they thought they needed them in the afterlife.
Speaker: The heart was actually left inside. it was taken out and preserved and then placed back inside because it was truly, ah you know, the essence of the person and needed to remain intact. And then a heart scarab, which was like a heavy amulet would be placed over the heart before burial. Yeah.
Speaker: The idea is that the heart scarab would bind the heart to silence, which you'll see why is this important later. Here's some examples of heart s scarabs. To help weigh your heart.
Speaker: it It's either for protection or for subterfuge, but we'll get there. The brain was generally seen as a pointless blob. They take a sharp Red Hawk poker, stick it in your nose, scramble things about a bit, and then rip it all out through your nostrils.
Speaker: And then they discard it because who cares? Once you're preserved with your heart scarab in place and your book of the dead tucked away safely, you are ready to begin your journey. The opening of the mouth ritual marked the end of the preparation and the beginning of the journey to the afterlife.
Speaker: It's an elaborate ritual usually performed by priests wearing jackal masks. The ritual is what made you aware in death. It awakens you and begins your path. In theory, you could speak, eat and drink after this point.
Speaker: Next, several more protection spells are placed to preemptively protect against the theft of the tomb, betrayal of the heart and other generally protective charms. So now you're self-aware, you're protected, time for adventure.
Speaker: The path ahead now depends on your status and when you died. I did a lot of digging and I feel like perhaps every source I found, like I say, gave a different depiction of how this goes. But they all kind of had some similar vibes. So I'm going to give a broad view. Okay. Those 200-ish spells cobbled together in various combinations, it's never the same in any two books.
Speaker: There are dozens of spells to fortify the deceased against the trials they'll face. There is protection from serpents, beasts, and demons. There are spells to align with the elements and spells to transform into several different animals, depending on who or what you're facing.
Speaker: The Book of the Dead has your back as you battle and outwit monsters and gods. It even has spells to prevent you from literally eating shit. Once you have succeeded against physical and psychological challenges, you cross a river or lake, I saw it both ways, where you are constantly fucked with by the god Seth, who I said chopped up Osiris and spread his pieces everywhere.
Speaker: And he's pretty much a petty dickbag. Some sources had some other fiery challenges after this bit, and some went straight to the Hall of Judgment, where they had to face 42 gods, different gods, and provide the correct negative confession to the correct gods. Yeah.
Speaker: Negative confessions were basically, I did not murder anyone. I did not sleep with my brother's wife. I did not sleep with my brother's donkey. I did not put salt in the sugar bowl. That kind of thing. You just had to say, I didn't do these things. Yes.
Speaker: Yep. When you get past all that, because you have the answers to the test, of course, it's now time for the weighing of the heart. This is the bit you see in a lot of pop culture references. um In fact, it was in Moon Knight. Yeah. If you have convinced 42 gods that you aren't a Dijin, you now face Anubis and the weighing of the heart.
Speaker: The heart contains everything you were in life. So this is the final test of truth. Your heart is weighed against the feather of Mayat, which is the feather of truth. If your heart is heavier or lighter than the feather, your journey ends and you're fed to our friend Amit.
Speaker: And that's usually because you haven't unloaded your burdens, right? Or you lied about them. Okay. Yeah. But then, yeah, you cease to exist at that point. Completely the end. And this was my favorite artist depiction of Amit.
Speaker: Like it. And I included the link to this artist's red bubble so people can buy stickers or whatever if they want. Doggy crocodile. lion Lion, hippo, crocodile is ridiculous.
Speaker: But yeah, so if your heart weighs the same as the feather, you did it! You won the contest! You have become Auk and will reunite with your past friends, family, pets, and favorite possessions. A couple of sources mention that the heart scarab was the way to pass the test if you weren't totally honest. So instead of them weighing your heart, they're weighing the heart scarab, which...
Speaker: It's always going the right way. Well, you've spelled it. you've You've done the spells to make it live for you. So you've got your cheat sheet that made it sound like you really, in fact, did not do all the awful things you did in life. And your heart scarab lies for your heart.
Speaker: That's crazy. To wrap things up, it's really pretty amazing how much we knew about the Egyptians because of their fixation on death and the afterlife. Preservation was the key and elements were meant to last.
Speaker: A ton of great information was lost largely to grave robbing and black market antiquities, as well as Victorian obsession with Egypt. ah To the point where they actually even had mummy unwrapping parties. Yeah, they would like eat them, right? Yes, they would. I know.
Speaker: But yeah, so a lot of stuff was lost. But there was so much of it that was so well preserved that many key items were preserved for study in museums. ah Many were obtained through nefarious actions. But without those actions, we wouldn't have a lot of the knowledge we have today. So it's really kind of controversial how we got a lot of these things.
Speaker: There's a lot of great texture and and adventure and stories regarding the books of the dead. There are Indiana Jones types of shenanigans surrounding the story of how the scroll of Ani that I talked about earlier was found and saved for study.
Speaker: That was another story I wanted to include, but it's just I didn't have the time. But I recommend looking up Sir Wallace Budge and the scroll of Ani. um It's controversial, but fascinating. There's at least one link in my sources that has a good summary. And but yeah, I just didn't have time to include it.
Speaker: But yeah, every time read I went to look up something to clarify. I just got a whole other rabbit hole of interpretations and information. that is the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Speaker: And i don't know, it's kind of comforting to know that in the grand scheme of things, even in death, a detailed checklist and decent grasp of mythological bureaucracy will kind of get you along the way. So I do wonder, like, I know that you mentioned, like, there's a lot of grave robbing and stuff like that. But you also mentioned there were supposed to be, like, spells to, like, these spells are supposed to ward off, that kind of thing. And so, like, I do wonder in some cases, like, how they would chalk that up. Like, would they be like, oh, he didn't have a good enough spell.
Speaker: Or, up he had a black market spell. like, is it, like, once you've passed the test, like, does it matter anymore? There are some spells that...
Speaker: are supposed to be for after that as well. But no, once you get past of the weighing of the heart, you're scot-free, you're good to go. There's, there's, I saw some things that talked about like different gates that you're going through and the weighing of the heart is only a little over halfway through all the gates. Like there's still other steps and stuff, but in general, the idea that those are just processes that you will go through, but you don't have to like solve anything.
Speaker: And I also wonder, like, they're like, oh, we take all this stuff with us to our afterlife. Like, I almost wonder if, like, they get grave robbed and it's like, oh, their bag of holding is suddenly empty after, you know, they've been dead for, like, thousands of years.
Speaker: don't know. I don't know. just Just, you know, weird little lore in my brain. Yeah. It drives me nuts to know how much stuff was lost. I mean, but that's history, isn't I know.
Speaker: But I want to know everything. All of it. All of the things. But the mystery is kind of fun. If you knew all the things, then we wouldn't be here. I suppose that's true.
Speaker: at this sleepy little baby. Aww. She's a good girl. Apparently it's angels. okay Okay.
Speaker: Calm down. I'm going to talk about the Burger Chef murders in Speedway, Indiana. Have you heard of this? No, but it sounds jaunty.
Speaker: Yeah, so... Burger Chef was a like a fast food chain back in the day. um I think it was eventually bought out by same people who did Hardee's. Okay. So it was it was just like think of it like a competition for like McDonald's and Wendy's that kind of thing.
Speaker: And then Speedway, Indiana was where the racetrack was in Indiana. So this was just basically a fast food chain that was in Indiana. Yeah. is what this is. So most of my information comes from a page. um I'll link it in the source notes, but the page was called unresolved.me, as well as some excerpts from a book written in 2019 by Julie Young titled The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana.
Speaker: um I'll also link the FBI file for the Burger Chef Murders. It's like 400 pages. Wow. But it has a lot of redacted information. um It's still really, really interesting to read, like all of the like different angles, like different boxes they ticked off trying to like solve this case.
Speaker: On Friday, November 17th, 1978, Brian Crane stopped by the burger chef he worked at a little after midnight to see if his coworkers and friends needed help closing up the night.
Speaker: So already have to say it's a red flag for me, right? Like who goes by their retail establishment to check if they need help closing up because that is the worst part of working.
Speaker: I don't know. Monkey has done that for work before. Like, that's just... I mean, sometimes that's Yeah, but he's a manager. There's a difference. So this is just a regular worker. Yeah. Joshimo worker. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. Like, would you have gone, like, just to, like... You have the night off. If I liked... If I was friends with the people there, that that could be... a reason a person could do that. But if I was not, if I did not just really love those people and like it was, and I had nothing else to do, I cannot see ever doing that. Yeah. It was like around midnight anyways. So I just thought that was very suspicious thing to have happen. Like how often is this person doing that? And they just happened to stop by that night.
Speaker: It's kind of weird. So anyways, Brian stops by the burger shop around midnight. So they should be almost done cleaning up as they close at 11 PM. He pulls up and notices the back door is ajar.
Speaker: The back door it's usually locked um and closed with like a little metal bar. I don't remember what they're called. Crash bar? I think so. Or burglar bar. Something like that.
Speaker: Upon entering, he doesn't see any of the four employees scheduled to work that night in front or the back of the restaurant. He goes into the back office and notices that the safe is wide open and empty.
Speaker: There should have been somewhere around $600 cash in the safe That is now gone. The $100 in the register change is still there, and the purses of two of the girls that would have been working that night were sitting on the office desk.
Speaker: Brian, of course, finds this a little alarming, and he goes to see if the assistant manager at the night shift is still in the parking lot. And he notices that Jane Freit's 1974 white two-door Chevy Vega was missing from the parking lot.
Speaker: So her purse was still in the restaurant, but her car is gone. So he called a nearby Burger Chef location that Jane sometimes helped out at to see if maybe they knew something he didn't.
Speaker: They hadn't heard from Jane that night either. At this point, Brian is starting to get really worried, and he decides to call the head manager of the Speedway Burger Chef.
Speaker: The manager tells him that he needs to call the police. So in this situation, would you have gone all the way up the chain before calling the police? Like having worked in retail? As soon as I walked in and found it empty and saw the safe open, I would have called the police. Right?
Speaker: Like the back door ajar, nobody's there and the safe is open. Yeah. But yeah, I thought that kind of was a little bit shady. But like I would I would call the police. Like if you guys just skipped out of there and forgot to lock up, that's on you for being dumb. I'm calling the police.
Speaker: No, that that feels I don't know if your spidey sense isn't tingling at that point. What's even happening? Yeah. So Ryan eventually does call the police. and The police show up. They think nothing of it.
Speaker: They're of the opinion that these teenagers just took the money in the safe, decided to go have a time with it. ah Just a case of teenage carelessness. They said those rotten kids will surely turn back up once they run out of money and booze.
Speaker: They tell the manager to chalk it up to a loss and just move on. So the manager does, because what else are you going to do? i mean, that's $600 in 1978 money. That's a lot of money.
Speaker: But the cops have now been called. They aren't concerned. Sure, there's plenty of alarming things out of place, but it's in the cops' hands now. What else can these Burger Chef employees do, even if this is really out of character behavior for these four employees?
Speaker: So a little background about the employees that were working that night. First, there's 20-year-old Jane Freit, the assistant manager. She was a college student who was heavily involved with extracurriculars and was known around town as Sweet Jane.
Speaker: She'd been working for Burger Chef for three years at this point and was known to have a positive disposition all around a good kid. Next, there was Daniel Davis. Daniel was a 16-year-old kid and was still in high school.
Speaker: He was known for being a jokester and enjoyed photography and developing film in his homemade darkroom in his free time. He had just recently joined the night crew a week earlier when another employee had quit.
Speaker: Oh. Oh. Mm-hmm. Who... Continue. the third employee working that night was mark flemens he was also sixteen still in high school and was a jehovah's witness so his parents were kind of strict on him he was only able to get the job manning the burger chef grill because it was within walking distance of his home he was known as a bright cheerful and friendly kid Finally, there was Ruth Ellen Shelton.
Speaker: She was an honor roll student and aspired to be a computer scientist. She was part of the youth ministries at her local church and studied music at what is now the University of Indianapolis to earn early college credits.
Speaker: So all of this to say these were pretty good kids who wouldn't have just skipped out of the restaurant, let alone left town without telling anyone in the middle of the night with all the money that was in the safe. Right.
Speaker: But the burger chef manager has been told to let it go, so they go on business as usual. The opening shift comes in, they clean the place up from anything that was left over the night before, at and proceed to start serving customers like nothing happened. Oh my god.
Speaker: That next morning, Saturday, November 18th, Jane's white Chevy Vega was found, unlocked and abandoned in the middle of the town. Now police and families are concerned that these kids have been abducted or something horrible has to have happened to them. I was going to say, what about these people's families? Have they said anything? Like, have they not called their parents? like Yeah. and And I didn't include that in here.
Speaker: but But yeah, like I was looking at a lot of like the the parents like records and they were like, my kid wouldn't do that. And they're like, I mean, this was the difference between a few hours, you have to realize, like, midnight is when all of this is being reported two o'clock in the morning is when the the police finally show up.
Speaker: And five o'clock in the morning is when they find the car. So it it's a matter of like, Well, my kid would be here by now and they're like, they've been missing for all of three hours, ma'am. Let me know when they don't show up hungover in the morning.
Speaker: Got it. That kind of situation. Not saying they were in the right. Right, right, right. But yeah. So the next morning they found the car, unlocked a man in the middle of town. The police have started to realize that, you know, something horrible had to have happened.
Speaker: But they have nothing to go on as the original officers who showed up to the burger chef the night before did not investigate the scene. They didn't collect any evidence besides like the purse and like a couple of things in the back room. Sure, but no dusting for fingerprints or nothing.
Speaker: Yeah. So all of that is gone now with the place running as normal. Luckily, the police did get a call that same morning from a 16-year-old who claimed he saw two men lurking around the burger chef shortly before closing time the night before.
Speaker: He states he and his girlfriend were hanging out in the parking lot at the Dunkin' Donuts next door to the burger chef when they were approached by two men. Both men were white, seemed to be around their 30s.
Speaker: One had a beard and the other was clean shaven. The witness says the bearded man held a handkerchief over his mouth while he spoke. He told them to get out of there because there had been a lot of vandalism going on.
Speaker: Whatever that means. Okay. Either he was trying to shoo them away saying don't vandalize or there's vandals. Be careful. Yes. like Okay. What a weird. Okay.
Speaker: and Sure, man. um So the following day, Sunday, November 19th, police received a call from landowners about 20 miles south of town of Speedway. They had discovered bodies lying face down in one of their fields.
Speaker: The police showed up and they found two bodies that were later identified as Ruth Shelton and Daniel Davis side by side. They had several.38 caliber gunshot wounds to their heads.
Speaker: What the fuck? Yes. A few yards away, they found the body of Jane Freight with a blade broken from a five-inch hunting knife protruding from her s sternum. Oh, God. Downhill from Jane, they found Mark Flemons.
Speaker: He was severely beaten with something like a chain and he had like run into a tree or something. Like he he basically choked on his own blood um after knocking himself out.
Speaker: All of them, they're still wearing their brown and orange Burger Chef uniforms. Apparently the police in this town at the time, just they weren't the greatest at how the crime scene.
Speaker: ah There's a quote from the book I mentioned previously that states, as various departments converged on the site, some drove through areas that should have been sealed off. There were rumors that one of the bodies was moved before the coroner or evidence technician arrived at the scene.
Speaker: One of the officers had even taken home one of the IDs that was found on the body and didn't realize they had it until a few weeks later. Oh, my God. So they weren't great um at what they did.
Speaker: Sounds like it. Lucky for them, a few days later, the Indiana State Police, the Marion County Sheriff's Department, the Indianapolis State Police and the FBI all teamed up to try to investigate the case together.
Speaker: Unfortunately, both crime scenes had been pretty badly handled by the Speedway police, so they didn't have much to go on. Because of this, it was decided that this was likely a robbery gone wrong.
Speaker: The assumption was that Mark Flemons, who wasn't actually scheduled to work that night, had recognized the robbers and sent the whole robbery into a tailspin. The biggest problem with this theory was that although $581 from the safe were still missing, the victims all had their personal effects like watches, jewelry, IDs, and money in their pockets.
Speaker: The only lead they had to go on was the witness, who said they saw two men lurking around the property the night the employees went missing. Police had composite sketches created from the witness descriptions. And I don't know if they were trying to make up for botching up the rest of the investigation, but they even went as far as having forensic artists carve full-size clay busts of the suspects.
Speaker: Definitely not normal. and But the police did investigate every lead they had after this. They met with detectives in Oklahoma to see if maybe they could connect their case to the unsolved murders of six people at an Oklahoma city steakhouse in July.
Speaker: No connections were made there. There were rewards posted to try to compel anyone with information leading to an arrest to come forward. The burger chef company posted a $25,000 cash reward.
Speaker: An anonymous donor put up an additional $10,000 reward. And the steak and shake company also added a few thousand to the reward part pot to try to get anyone to come forward. Steak and shake?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. No idea why, though. I don't know what how they were involved in this whatsoever. They were just like, OK, here's the money. But no one came forward to claim the reward, which is about $40,000 in Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: you could buy a house with that yeah There were a few leads that came from the sketches and the busts that were made. um There was a regular at a bar in Indianapolis that was bragging about having committed the murders.
Speaker: A detective went down to the bar. did some undercover work, played some pool with the guy. And the guy started bragging about how he committed the murders. The police take him in. And now all of a sudden he's denying everything. Basically saying he was just talking smack to help his image.
Speaker: they haven't how would murdering four teenagers help your image if you're a bad guy doing bad guy things wanting to be with the bad guy crowds you know in what universe is telling people you murder people not put you in prison gangs people that are afraid of you oh yeah guess that's literally how that works y'all i live a really sheltered
Speaker: But they do have him take a polygraph test and he passes it. So they just let him go. um But before they let him go, he says that he knows a few people who are involved in a, quote, fast food robbery gang.
Speaker: So apparently, and there had been a lot of fast food, like places that have been robbed in the area, like in surrounding counties and even states recently. So they're like, hmm, maybe. Yeah. So police follow this lead and they find a bearded suspect who lived in this nearby town of Franklin.
Speaker: um And he has a neighbor who is clean shaven and looks just like the other guy in the sketch. o Neither of them have an alibi for the night of the murders. The police ask the bearded guy to come into the station for an interview and line up. But when he comes in, he's clean shaven.
Speaker: Apparently it was the first time he'd shaven in a few years. Suspicious, huh? The police tried to offer the suspects ah plea deals just to confess to the murders. But of course, they refused to talk with the guy being clean shaven. The lineup can't be conclusive.
Speaker: So they had no evidence to tie the men to the murders and they had to let them go. Wow. Yeah. Another theory that was tossed around was that drugs were involved with one or more of the employees. Maybe a drug deal gone wrong or someone owed some people like bad people money.
Speaker: Three years after the murders, Jane Freight's brother, James, was arrested on charges of possessing cocaine. So this led police to believe that maybe he was the reason things had gone wrong for the employees that night.
Speaker: But it was the 80s and everybody had. yeah Everybody was cocaine. Literally. 90% cocaine. um They questioned him, but you know he was uncooperative, they had to let him go.
Speaker: In 1984, now six years after the murders, investigators received word that there was an inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility who had information on the murders.
Speaker: 34-year-old Donald Wayne Forrester had been sentenced to 95 years for a rape case, and he wanted to confess to the Burger Chef murders for a reduction in his time or to be moved to a different prison.
Speaker: As a sex offender in prison, he just wasn't having a good time. So I don't know if he was trying to become a murderer instead or you know, just get away from the people that were currently trying to kill him in prison.
Speaker: So Donald Forrester stated that on the night of November 17th, 1978, he and three other men went to pay Jane Freed a visit. Her brother James was in bad with some drug dealers and owed them money.
Speaker: So that Friday night, they went to the burger chef to put pressure on Jane to get her or her brother to pay up. The men started threatening Jane, telling her they would come back for her if they didn't pay up.
Speaker: At this, 16-year-old Mark Flemons tried to defend her, and the men started to fight. Mark fell, hit his head, knocking him unconscious. At this, the men panicked, thinking they had just killed Mark, and decided to eliminate all the witnesses.
Speaker: Oh yeah, accidentally did one murder. Let's do four to make it better. The men panicked. They got all the employees into Jane's car and drove it to the middle of town. There, they dumped the car and got into another car and drove out into the wooded area where the employees would be left.
Speaker: They were supposed to just dump them and run, but apparently more fighting ensued and things got out of hand. So investigators had been burned before in this case with someone claiming to have been involved and then later recanting.
Speaker: So they were suspicious. They were able to confirm that Forrester was living in Speedway in November of 1978, and he grew up near the area where the bodies had been found. Forrester claimed he executed Daniel Davis and Ruth Shelton with caliber gun and was able to show detectives exactly where each body had been left in the field.
Speaker: Forrester claimed that right after the murders, he and his wife drove out to the field to pick up all of the spent 38 shell casings. And then they drove home and flushed them down the toilet. Wow. Investigators confirmed this with Forrester's now ex-wife.
Speaker: And this led them to dig through the septic tank of the address where Forrester stated that this had it happened. And they did indeed find several 38 shell casings. Wow. They thought they had their guy and Forrester was ready to rat out three other people who were involved.
Speaker: The news was leaked to the media and Forrester backed down very suddenly. Immediately he recanted his whole confession, stated he had nothing to do with the case. They couldn't exactly tie him to the case, so they had to drop it. Even with the 38s in the septic tank? They can't prove that it's for that murder.
Speaker: Wow. Forrester ended up dying of cancer in prison in 2006. Wow. So another, and didn't really put this like, I didn't write this out. But another thing that I was researching said that while Forrester did tick off a lot of boxes, he also got a lot of stuff wrong.
Speaker: And they think that there's a possibility that maybe he was exposed to like the crime scene information, like maybe pictures and stuff like that in the middle or before his interrogation.
Speaker: So maybe a lot of the stuff that he was saying was more just to save his own ass. Sure. i mean, any kind of bargaining for a reduced sentence. Now, the 38 casings are very compelling, obviously.
Speaker: But I don't know, maybe those were maybe they were popular at the time. I don't know. Really weird. So after this, the case went cold. It's been assigned and reassigned to many investigators over the life of the case, and it's still open.
Speaker: There's been a lot of speculation on the case and a lot of different theories. The one with Jane and her brother being involved in some type of drug money situation seems to be the most compelling. As I mentioned earlier, there is a book that was written on the murders titled The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana. It was written by Julie Young.
Speaker: Additionally, there was a movie made of the case titled The Speedway Murders. It was more of a documentary kind of thing. okay This came out in 2023. ah Just a few additional sources to look into if you want to know more about the case. But this was one of those where every source I encountered had a different spin. hu And it all tied back to they didn't collect any evidence. They really botched everything like from the beginning.
Speaker: And so it was really, really hard for them to tie the cases to anything. And I do think it's really funny how often they were like, listen, just cop to it. We'll give you a deal. like Right, right. Somebody just just confess, please.
Speaker: These are the victims there. That's the sketches and then the busts, which are still actually Burger Street. Burger Street, not Burger Street, Burger Chef.
Speaker: That's where the bodies were found. And then this is the guy who tried to confess to killing everybody. But yeah. So never solved because of that. I feel like this...
Speaker: Along with some of the other things you've done, like we have somebody who more or less confesses or we know they did it, but we can't prove it based on a technicality. Do we is it not strongly believed that that's actually what happened or?
Speaker: See, and to me, just like with other cases that I've mentioned, like I almost wonder if this is, if it could be a case of like, well, I was in on it, but I was just the cleanup guy. Like he really did just go and pick up all the casings for his boss. Maybe he was a part of the gang. But wouldn't that make him an accomplice? an accomplice but not the murderer and i guess since he's already in jail but wouldn't we still just for the sake of paperwork still make that uh you know a trial like it' he's officially an accomplice isn't he i mean i know he's in jail for 95 years for rape but i think the reason that they don't do that is because you can't try somebody for a crime that has already been solved
Speaker: Right. But it hadn't been solved. So what I'm saying is if they say, okay, fine, you're an accomplice in this murder. Here's all, all, let me tell you everything, all the evidence we do have, everything we do know. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Now, anyone who they try to investigate into later, if they know details of the case, well, yeah, that's public knowledge. Everybody knows that now, you know, and also, you know, like this person was tried and convicted.
Speaker: You have to tie me to them now, too. So I feel like it's one of those things where they don't want to show their hand for someone who's already in jail that, you know, they don't know. But I mean, I think he definitely had some involvement in it. And, you know, maybe was the one that pulled the trigger. But what about the other people?
Speaker: I do find the drug part very interesting. Yeah. It makes sense, though. Yeah. I mean. You don't think so? no, no. It's not that I don't think so. I just, man, you know, I hate not knowing things. Yeah.
Speaker: But that that's me. Mystery. Yeah. I just like doing it. Do you have any nightmare fuel? Just the two things that I mentioned, the Speedway, the book, and the documentary that were part of this case. So,
Speaker: The Speedway Murders is the documentary and the Burger Chef Murders in Indiana is the book. i have Nightmare Fuel as well tied to my story. I'm assuming you've seen The Mummy from 1999 because you mentioned it earlier. That is one of my all time favorite movies. I would say top 10 of all time. like i with ah What's his name? Brendan Fraser. He was so beautiful.
Speaker: Everybody in that movie was beautiful. Yes, that's true. But I had the biggest crush on Brendan Fraser. And so it was 1999. Yeah. So I was I was nine. So I had to have watched it when I was like 12. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker: I watched it a lot. It was one of the the movies I owned when I first moved out on my own and didn't have TV. So I watched everything over and over and over again on VHS. Of course. ah So I absolutely love that.
Speaker: When I was describing taking the brain out through your nostrils, I was quoting Evie directly. um And I watched it the other day with my mom and it was just so much fun. i watch it. I watch it fairly often. it's Yeah, I've seen it fairly recently when Brendan Fraser kind of came back into the spotlight. I started watching a lot of his stuff again.
Speaker: i still remember... the the mummy face scene ah where it appears in the sand. Yeah. Because I think that was the first time that I really started seeing like when they use like c CGI i kind of thing. Yeah. That's ah really the first time that I started seeing that used on that big of a scale in movies for me personally.
Speaker: But i remember i was scary to me. That was very scary to me. Yeah. They just don't make movies like that anymore. Like this grand scale adventure stuff. It just... It's so fun and it's smart and it's funny and yeah everybody should watch it.
Speaker: And then I'm going to also recommend the 1932 version of The Mummy, which is one of those classic Universal movies. It's one of my favorite of the classic Universals because I remember when I first watched it, I was shocked at how funny.
Speaker: feminist it actually was like very empowering and I don't know very good but then if you watch the mummy's hand and the mummy's tomb you'll get some elements that you can see where the 1999 version of the mummy came from and the story elements are combined so yeah I will say the 1932 one I've seen that one and I I honestly wasn't a fan, but that's just me personally. You know, we all have different tastes. Sure.
Speaker: Which is funny because i liked a lot of the other original horror ones, but that one just wasn't my cup of tea. I was just so surprised by the positive feminine representation in that.
Speaker: I enjoyed it. The Mummy's Hand and The Mummy's Tomb, you might actually enjoy more. in them Yeah, those those I do recommend as well. I do remember, this is so stupid, there was this...
Speaker: think it was on Disney, this Disney movie. and it was about this mummy that came back and they were trying to. it was really cute. And it was funny. um Under Raps is what was called from 1997. Do you remember this movie?
Speaker: i do not. But I was in high school at that point. So it might I was probably aged past it. Yeah, probably. Was it Disney? Yeah. I don't know if it was Disney, but yeah, under wraps. It was a really cute one. um It's not quite horror, but I'm just going to throw that one in there for the mummy because it did have a lot of like the elements of them like having to basically get him back to rest because his mom is basic basically an archaeologist and does the whole thing. And that's how this happens. But trying to get him back to rest is very much, you know, that same tropey thing. Yeah.
Speaker: For our palate cleanser, hearkening back to the early days of the cottage mere months ago, I'm going to give you a quiz. Oh, God. Which Egyptian god are you most aligned with?
Speaker: Ooh. So, which of these best describes your ideal environment? Okay. Serene and earthy, vibrant and cultural, mysterious and enticing, calm and secluded.
Speaker: Serene and earthy.
Speaker: Which activity would you prefer? Crafting and building, stargazing, pottery and sculpture, or helping others? Ooh, it's between stargazing and pottery and culture.
Speaker: Let's do o pottery and culture.
Speaker: Which of the following appeals to you most? Magic and mystics, wisdom and strategy, nurturing and protecting, or adventure and travel? Nurturing and protecting.
Speaker: How do you feel about leadership roles? Strongly prefer to lead, prefer to advise, content with supporting, flexible to either? Prefer to advise. Which of these elements do you most resonate with?
Speaker: Earth, air, fire, or water? Water. How do you approach challenges strategically, boldly and directly, with patience and care, or creativity and intuitiveness?
Speaker: Boldly and directly. Sounds right. What is your perspective on chaos and order? Order must prevail. Chaos brings change. Balance is essential.
Speaker: Both are part of life. That kind of sounds like the last two or the same. Yeah. Okay. I feel like the last two, i feel like both are part of life. Well, I don't know. i i I need order, but I feel there is a balance because I am chaos.
Speaker: Your entire existence is chaos. Maybe that's why I need order. but you I don't know. you You surround yourself with chaos, but you are the order of it. which I'm the organizer of the chaos, but I'm also the starter of the chaos. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker: I light the fire and then literally fix it. That's the flames with that water. Balance. The balance one. Balance. Okay. How do you handle conflicts?
Speaker: Cry.
Speaker: Rational discussion, forceful resolution, mediation, or avoidance? Why did you look at me like that when you said forceful resolution?
Speaker: Because I thought it was funny. ah Fine, that one. Oh my god. Which season do you enjoy most? Fall. How do you usually spend your free time?
Speaker: Exploring new hobbies, relaxing and reflecting, socializing with friends, or learning new things? Learning new things. Right, because your free time is spent doing this podcast. All right, are we ready?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's inconclusive. Your result. Of course I can't pronounce it. Knum. and How do you spell it? K-H-N-U-M. K-H-N-U-M.
Speaker: He's the god of potters. Noom. Noom. We'll go with that. That actually makes sense. ah You're most aligned with Noom, the god of pottery and crafts, who embodies creativity and nurturing aspects of creation.
Speaker: Your affinity for serene environments, nurturing and protecting others, and engaging in craft work reflects on Noom's essence as a creator and guide. That actually kind of tracks for you. Yeah. I want to be creative, but I'm not. But I'll advise somebody on their creativity.
Speaker: like we talked about in the beginning you're doing that wrong hey do it this way instead i don't want to do it though but you do it the way but but don't do it like that it like this exactly face his face the whole time just why are you doing this he made this choice he knew what this was i know i think that's the end of this nightmare My nightmare never ends.
Speaker: Yeah, well. Well, if nobody can hear. Yeah, you probably have been serenaded with the dulcet tones of Fern snoring because, know, she's pretty far from the mic, so maybe it didn't pick it up. Maybe. But if you hear a little, that's her.
Speaker: Yeah. but She's most definitely having sweet dreams. Night. If you have topic requests, book or movie recommendations, or just want to say hi, email us at nightmarecottage at gmail.com or visit our website at nightmarecottage.com Sweet dreams.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: bye bla
