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The Ash Manor Ghost & John Wood's Foot
54 Plays3 years ago
In this week's episode, it’s condemnation & amputation: Felicia dives deeper into the work of Eileen J. Garrett with the Ash Manor Ghost. (Make sure to check out last week's episode to hear more about Eileen and the Parapsychology Foundation!) Meanwhile, Lauren is a real gumshoe on the case of a missing limb and the rivalry born between two men fighting over a foot. As seen in the 2015 documentary FINDERS KEEPERS.
These may seem like very different topics, but they both have big surprises in the stories…and it's one of our most shocking episodes yet!
Do you have a podcast, short film, event or any creative project to promote? We would love to plug your work in our podcast for free. We are also accepting submissions of your own real-life paranormal encounters. Please DM us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast or email sinistersisterspodcast666@gmail.com and see if you end up on next week's episode! For the commercials, please send us the title, logline, and copy, ideally less than 50 words.
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Transcript
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction and Spooky Beginnings
00:00:13
Speaker
to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Felicia. I'm Lauren. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff.
00:00:21
Speaker
And through the magic of the internet, I gave my cold hundreds and thousands of millions of miles away to Lauren. Don't I sound nice and congested? It's nice. It's nice. I did have a COVID test this week, so I am also negative. So I guess we're just getting colds now. That's tough. I know. It's sad. COVID goes away. We get colds.
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how I feel. I mean, I'm glad it's not COVID, but dang. I know. I know. We shouldn't have to get colds.
TV Shows and Comfort Movies
00:00:52
Speaker
But anyway, I don't have a ton to recommend this week. James and I finished watching The Ultimatum, that trash television show. Oh, right. But it was beautiful.
00:01:04
Speaker
really eye-opening. Really, I will say if you ever need to feel better about your own relationship or like your own self, those are the shows you should watch because you're like, oh, wow, people are dumb and terrible. Yes. Yep. Yep. That's what those shows are for. That's what reality told us before. That's why I watched Wife Swap. Oh my gosh. Yes. That really is a show where you're like, wow, I'll be a better wife than that. Yeah. Or I'm like, hey, my life's pretty good.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't really watched anything other than The Office. I'm in season four now. Oh, wait, where are you? Yeah. What's happening? Spoiler, who cares? It's a really old show. So at the end of season three, Jim breaks up with Karen and asks Pam to dinner.
00:01:50
Speaker
And now they're like, I think secretly hanging out. But we don't know. So you're coming up on my absolute favorite episode of all time. Oh, no, I can't wait. I'm scared. I can't wait. There's a dinner party. That's all I'll tell you. It's the best. OK, I'll wait for the dinner party. I did start watching. Have you ever seen the burbs? I'm like, is this from the 80s? I think late 80s. I saw it in quarters, I think.
00:02:17
Speaker
No, you didn't. Yes, not not when it came out. James is like James is like another thing that I saw. Oh, I was like, you weren't born in my mom. Yeah. So what's up? Yeah. So I started watching it because I while Julie's getting a lot of love on this podcast, who recommended my topic last week, but recommended it for a Patreon requested review.
00:02:46
Speaker
It's something that's like been on my list for a long time and I started watching it I'm literally only half an hour in and I'm already like is this gonna be one of my favorite movies ever like it's just so Comfortingly 80s. Yes funny and Silly and I just it's exact kind of movie. I wanted to watch this weekend and I'm just like so happy it is
00:03:13
Speaker
There's something about those 80s movies. It's just very comforting. It's even the muted film of it. It's a little muted and the cabinetry is all brown. I don't know. There's something about it. Yes. I know. Even though we didn't grow up in the 80s, it feels like that to me sometimes. Yeah. It's nostalgic. It's nostalgic. I don't really know what else
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, do we talk about last week? I've been listening to my favorite murder again, which has been kind of fun. Oh, yeah. No, I think we mentioned that off podcast. Yes, I listened a little too. Oh, I've been listening to this is not really anything related to what we talk about on this podcast, but I've been listening to this podcast called Fed talks.
00:04:05
Speaker
And it's theater education interviews where this guy just interviews theater teachers from all over the country. And it's really, I mean, I'm trying to be a theater teacher, so it's obviously very specific to myself. But it's really inspiring and it's so nice to hear all these different like high school theater programs across the country and like what shows they're doing and what dramas they have and all this stuff.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's nice. I love that. That's so beautiful. I feel like I want to, um, I mean, not that I don't want to listen to Fed talks, but I also feel like I want to get, I listened to a couple of Ted talks not that long ago on whatever, like a podcast. Is that how they always are? I mean, you can watch the live video stream too, I'm sure, but.
00:04:49
Speaker
I feel like I want to listen to some more Ted talks, learn more about the right things. Yeah, no, Ted talks are amazing. I feel like I only overlooked them up if I'm trying to research a specific topic, but it probably would be, I bet they do have a podcast that you can just listen to like, I don't know, learning things you didn't think you would learn. Yes, definitely. Amazing.
The Haunting at Ash Manor
00:05:12
Speaker
Cool. So should I dive in? Yeah, I'm excited.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, so this is kind of a continuation of what I talked about last week, which was Eileen J. Garrett, the media and parapsychologist who started the Parapsychology Foundation in Long Island. And there was a couple of specific cases that she had worked as a media mom that I was really interested in researching a little bit more. And so today I'm talking about the Ash Manor Haunting.
00:05:48
Speaker
And it's fun, has an interesting twist. I'm excited. So Ash Manor House is a really freaking old house located in Sussex. And it was built in the 13th century.
00:06:03
Speaker
And it was destroyed and rebuilt kind of a bunch of times, but there is still some portion of the original structure that's there. And this haunting case takes place in the 30s. So in 1934, a couple with a 16 year old daughter moved in to this house and pretty immediately they started having some, you know, ghostly disturbances.
00:06:29
Speaker
But from what they understand, the previous owners had lived there. Let's see. They checked with the last two owners of the house, one that had lived there for 13 years and one that had lived there for seven years. And neither of them had had any kind of haunting situation. So that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So they moved in. And so we don't know their real names, but basically this case was covered by Nandor.
00:06:58
Speaker
Fodder, who is actually a Hungarian parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, et cetera, who did a lot of poltergeist hunting. Anytime I hear Nandor, I think of that vampire while we're doing the shadows. I mean, I think that's, you know, yes. And the fact that his name is Nandor Fodor is just something
00:07:24
Speaker
something magical about that. But so this case was written up and covered by this guy. And for the sake of like his writings, he referred to them as Mr. and Mrs. Keel. And
00:07:39
Speaker
So Mr. and Mrs. Keel, they started hearing some, you know, we've heard it before, casual stomping in the attic, doors closing, banging on the doors. It was very stressful. So at some point, Mr. Keel, and this is like,
00:08:04
Speaker
where, you know, it can go both ways, right? So Mr. Akhil goes out of town at some point and while he was gone, no haunting activity happened. Like his wife and his daughter were like, yeah, nothing happened while you were gone. He comes back and the haunting begins immediately again.
00:08:23
Speaker
I will say all these weird little details like that where you're like, why would they make that up? I don't know. It just feels like sometimes it makes it more real. Yeah. So when he comes back, the haunting gets worse. And one night he wakes up because he hears this huge bang on the door. And he said that the room felt unnaturally cold. He had this really bad feeling.
00:08:53
Speaker
And then he looked in the doorway and there was a little man, little old man, dressed in a green smock and had like very like muddy, dirty pants on and had little little hunger chip around his neck and a little hat on. And so, yes. And so it was a leprechaun. And it was a leprechaun. No!
00:09:22
Speaker
So they did have servants in the house. So at first, he thought it was a servant. And so he's like, excuse me, what are you doing? And the man didn't respond. And so he gets up, and he tries to go push the man out of the room. And his head apparently went straight through him. Classic. And after that, Mr. Keel fainted. Just fell to the floor.
00:09:52
Speaker
Oh my god. Or Viscroquille. So... Fainting is wild. One of my newest... I'm so sorry, I'm just interjecting with a random story. Please, tell me about fainting. One of my newest favorite things is watching people faint on roller coasters. Oh, I've seen that where it's like they kind of pass out and they wake up again and they pass out.
00:10:14
Speaker
But it's a pretty cool thing. And I've seen like I've had a couple friends faint in front of me, not recently, but just like in my life. And it's terrifying. You just go down. You just go down. It's so, so scary. Yeah. I'm sorry for that interjection. No, it's okay. I was like, I have some facing stories, but I just don't think they're going to be relevant. Okay, I'm going to keep going.
00:10:40
Speaker
Then Mrs. Keel says that she woke up and her husband like was running into her room, just babble says babbling incoherently. And I'll say I got most of the story off of occult world.com. And a little bit off of the Eileen Garrett research pages that I did last week, but a lot of the story is off occult world.com.
00:11:04
Speaker
So she said he ran into her bedroom. He was like babbling. And she was like, what's happening? So she runs out of the room and then goes. So apparently they slept in separate bedrooms. And I think that wasn't so uncommon. And I don't think we're going to get into that like a little bit more at the end of this episode or into the story. But I don't know how common or uncommon it was, but it doesn't seem to be
00:11:36
Speaker
I don't know, like the way this person told the story, it didn't seem to be a big plot point. But yeah, they slept in separate bedrooms. And so she runs to his bedroom. And apparently, she saw the man. And she saw the handkerchief around his neck, the little hat, she said his face was really red, and his eyes were malevolent and horrid.
00:12:01
Speaker
So terrifying. Yeah. So she tried to hit him. Yeah. So she tried to hit him and it says her fist once again went right through him. And then after that night, they started seeing the green man as they called him more and more.
00:12:19
Speaker
So at this point, they start calling in for help, right? They're freaked out. The servants are scared. The servants start quitting and leaving the house. And so they end up calling one... They have one formal exorcism that apparently just made the disturbances worse, which is like... Oh, no. That's what I would be afraid of. I was like, now you've just made them mad.
00:12:45
Speaker
I know. Well, that too, it's like how do you even know that the priest that you hire is a good exorcist priest? No, exactly. Are there good reviews on Yelp? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Not in the 30s. I did see a couple of articles about that exorcisms have gone up in the last couple of years, so that might be something to research for a different week, but I saw that when I was looking up some of those and I was like, excuse me. Interesting.
00:13:14
Speaker
Um, but anyways, so then they got sad spirits, maybe maybe more susceptible. I read that one book. I think I talked about the podcast before, but, uh, by that exorcist woman who talks about the fact that like
00:13:33
Speaker
that spirits, dark spirits like cling to negative energy. There's been a lot of negative energy. And there's been a lot of negative energy. So it kind of makes sense, but I don't know. I'll look into it for next week maybe.
00:13:47
Speaker
They brought in a couple other exorcists to look at the house. One said that it had been built on a druid circle and there was some sort of evil forest coming through it. But it also was like they kind of felt like they were just making stuff up. I mean, that's how I kind of feel. It's all like they kept saying different stuff. And they had a photographer come in and try to take a picture of the ghost.
00:14:11
Speaker
something showed up in the photo, but it's like inconclusive. And so eventually, they got Nandor Fodder involved in the case. So he was actually already writing a book about ghosts. And oh, wait, no, I just read that so wrong. Sorry. He was invited there by another writer.
00:14:35
Speaker
was writing a book about ghosts and because he had already had some research and experience with poltergeists. And when he came there, he took some photographs, he slept in one of the rooms that had the most activity, and he didn't see or hear anything. So then he invites, here she is, medium Eileen J. Garrett, who is still living in England in the 30s before she moved to America. And
00:15:04
Speaker
He was like, I need you to come here and look at this house. They're having all these haunting issues. And so she comes and
00:15:11
Speaker
She says there is some sort of man who has been imprisoned here and suffered a great deal, which is like the most generic thing of her. Yeah. Hot take. Hot take. But then she decides to do what she was kind of known for best, which was going into a trance. So she goes, once again, they're in like the most haunted room of the house.
00:15:38
Speaker
she goes into a trance and then so she had to think to what are called controls, which are kind of I was trying to like look into this to understand it better. And I don't really think I do. But the trance controls seem to be like how
00:15:56
Speaker
she communicates with the spirit world and they have names. So it's like, I don't know if it's like a different part of herself or if it's her using another spirit to communicate with spirits, like if anyone knows anything about that, but they're called trance controls. So she had two that she used. One was called Abdul Latif and one was called Uvani. And Uvani is who she communicated through for this haunting.
00:16:26
Speaker
And so, Uvani said that there was a great unhappiness in this house and that ghosts, as we were just talking about, manifest an atmosphere of unhappiness and it enables spirits to draw that energy and revive its own sufferings. So it basically like feed off of it and make it worse and worse.
00:16:52
Speaker
And Uvani said, haven't you discovered that these things only happen to you when you're a bad state, physically, bad emotional state, physically or mentally disturbed? Don't you realize that you yourself vivify this memory?
Revelations and Resolutions at Ash Manor
00:17:08
Speaker
And he was asking that of I guess the family. And so from there,
00:17:16
Speaker
Uvani said that he would permit the ghost itself to possess Eileen Garrett so that she could speak for the ghost. So apparently her features changed. She started to almost look like the ghost, which I'm like, I don't think that I'd never heard that when I've heard about like people going to chances. But who knows? Although I think we've seen that in some scary movies.
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, maybe actually yeah, I guess we have but I don't know about yeah I don't know about real stories, but I'm like I feel like you always see like them like become Yeah, yeah scary-looking But the ghost identified himself as a as Charles Edward He claimed to have been robbed of his lands from that area and betrayed by a friend like he had all these family issues and
00:18:12
Speaker
he wanted basically vengeance. So, Fodor and Eileen Garrett tried to, you know, tell the ghost, like, hi, your dad. You need to give this up. You need to leave this house. And
00:18:28
Speaker
Okay, so then Garrett wakes up. Okay, so Garrett's like out of the trance. So 24 hours after this, after the trance ends, Fodor hears from Mr. Kiel, says the ghost is still here. The exorcism has failed. What are we gonna do? And so they come in to do like another seance and Uvani, so Garrett goes back into another trance. Uvani says that
00:18:58
Speaker
the keels are using this ghost, using this poor unhappy creature. Basically, it says here to embarrass each other, to get back at each other, and that there was some sort of tension between the husband and wife
00:19:17
Speaker
So it's unclear to me whether they were saying that the ghost doesn't exist or that they were saying that their negativity is feeding on this ghost. I don't know. I'm a little confused by it. No, it's also intense. Yeah. And then this is the part that I was really waiting to get to.
00:19:42
Speaker
So Fodor is like, okay, this is over. We're out of here. See you later. And then Mrs. Keel finally makes a confession to him. She says, my husband is gay. There is a great deal of tension between my husband and myself about him being gay.
00:20:05
Speaker
And yes, which may go into why they were in separate bedrooms, but I don't know. Vodar felt that the ghost was providing distraction that prevented like the real issues of this house coming to light.
00:20:26
Speaker
And so Mr. Keel said that, yes, what Uvani said was true about them having this negative energy in the house and it being between the husband and wife. And then once he was able to sort of express that truth, I guess, Mr. Keel said that the Phantom departed and was never seen or heard from again.
00:20:56
Speaker
Wow. I did not see that plot twist coming.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, but I thought it was very interesting because obviously in the 1930s to the pain and fear around being gay in the 1930s in Sussex and being married and having a child and all this stuff. Yeah, I just can't imagine the amount of like negative, painful energy that that creates. Right. It kind of reminds me of the Bernie Brown
00:21:34
Speaker
I think you read this book, the one where she's talking about shame thrives in dark, cold places. And so it's like when you don't talk about the things that you're ashamed of.
00:21:45
Speaker
they actually thrive and they, they like that energy gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But as soon as you like talk about something, it like releases it. And so like, yeah, like this family, yeah, holding on to this giant secret in a house that happens to be from the 13th century and probably has a lot of ghosts presence on sites just from the fact that it's so old.
00:22:13
Speaker
It kind of makes sense that, I mean, to me, who believes in ghosts and stuff, it makes sense that a spirit would attach to it.
00:22:23
Speaker
if that makes sense. Yes. And I think, yeah, I totally hear you. And I think, too, like, I mean, I feel like all the time it's like you're fighting about the silverware, but it's not about the silverware. It's not about the silverware! Like, that's kind of what this reminds me of is, like, you know, they were, like, dealing with this ghost or this, like, separate entity so that they didn't have to, like, actually look at each other and face what was actually happening. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe. I don't know.
00:22:52
Speaker
So it's an interesting story. It's one of the famous stories of Eileen Garrett's trances. And then this is the first I had heard of this Nandora Fedor. But he has written a lot about poltergeists and believes that they are, and this makes sense with this case, he has this or had this theory that poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind.
00:23:21
Speaker
rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own.
00:23:27
Speaker
which I thought was really fascinating. And so he has a lot of books. He's written on this, many like papers. And then the last thing that's on his Wikipedia page that I thought was interesting too was that he had written some stuff about prenatal psychology and believes that like pregnant mothers could communicate telepathically with their unborn child, which I think is like, you know,
00:23:57
Speaker
not in those words, but generally believed of talking to your stomach or the dad talking to the stomach and playing music around the stomach so that the baby of fetus, whatever, can hear and start to get those positive vibes before they're even born. That's pretty generally accepted. And so I think he just went into more depth about
00:24:23
Speaker
yeah, be able to literally communicate with the being that you're growing in your belly. And I thought that was very, I don't know, very interesting. And I think that, yeah, I was gonna say, I think there's, yeah, everybody believes there's like such a strong link, obviously, from that time that you're growing that little baby inside you. It's crazy. I'm obsessed with the idea of ghosts as like a part of our subconscious tension, like going out or poltergeist. You didn't say ghosts, poltergeist.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, something about that. I'm like, I wonder if if you go back and watch the movie, the poltergeist under the like that lens. Yeah, I don't know. I bet it'd be interesting. Turns out the husband is really gay. I'm just kidding.
00:25:10
Speaker
It also reminded me, no, the whole story reminded me, too, of just felt like there was a lot of heart and emotion behind it, like our favorite horror movies, which I think is always, I don't know, just an interesting part of it. I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't, because I couldn't find a ton on this story. I'm surprised there hasn't been some movie made about it just because it's got- Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker
Interesting. And what a twist. Yeah. And what a twist. Yeah. I love it. But that's it. That's the Ash Manor Haunting with Eileen Garrett and Nador. Fodor. Nador. Fodor. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Thank you for sharing. That was such a cool one. Yeah.
Listener Engagement and Creative Promotions
00:26:02
Speaker
Do you have a podcast short film event or any creative project to promote? We would love to plug your work in our podcast for free. Please DM us on Instagram or email sinister sisters podcast 666 at gmail.com and see if you end up on next week's episode. Please send us the title, log line and commercial copy that's ideally less than 50 words. Thanks. Now back to the show.
The Tale of 'Finders Keepers' and John Wood's Foot
00:26:34
Speaker
Amazing. Wow. I'm telling a crazy story this week that I actually haven't told you. I don't think so. This is going to be a surprise. So I watched this documentary called Finders Keepers. That's where I'm getting most of my information. It's super entertaining, especially if you really liked Tiger King. It feels like very along. I'm like, where is this going?
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's about two southern gentlemen that are just real characters, both of them.
00:27:07
Speaker
So in 2007, Shannon Wisnant, I'm so sorry, I should have made sure I knew how to say that, but I'm going to call him Shannon for most of the story. So he picked up a barbecue smoker from a storage locker that he won at an auction in Mayden, North Carolina.
00:27:29
Speaker
It's just one of those classic, if you've watched Storage Wars, any of those. So he purchases this storage unit, he gets this barbecue smoker, takes it home, and he opened it to find a crudely mummified human foot. I don't want to find that. No.
00:27:51
Speaker
So he drove back to the warehouse with all the storage units immediately, said, you guys need to call everyone who has a storage unit and find out who's like this is. But in classic, I don't know, I feel like storage unit customer service, they didn't want to mess with it. They didn't want to get into it. They said, you purchased this, it's yours. Oh my gosh, they're like, we don't want this foot.
00:28:15
Speaker
I just think it's hilarious. They're like, it's not it's not up to us. He's like, here's a human foot. They're like, I don't know. It's yours. So he calls the cops. The sheriff's department confiscated it.
00:28:27
Speaker
which he was upset about to be clear. He said, which I'm also like, why did you call the cops if you didn't think it was going to be taken away from you? But whatever, I guess he felt like they needed to notify the person that he owned it. I'm not sure. So he was frustrated that they took it from him. He said, it's mine. I paid for it. But they took it. It's my foot.
00:28:49
Speaker
get ready. So they took it and they actually eventually found the man who owned it. So the owner of the foot, oh sorry, they took it to a funeral home and those people eventually found the man who owned it, who I think just saw on the news that this was a story and eventually was like, oh my gosh, that's my foot.
00:29:08
Speaker
So the owner of the foot was John Wood. He was a man who lived a, you know, relatively ordinary, if, you know, maybe kind of troubled life in North Carolina. So he's been electrocuted, ran over by a state dump truck, shot. No, just like a futon. Yes, exactly. It does feel like that. I'll tell how he lost his life, which was none of those things.
00:29:37
Speaker
He has this very beautiful relationship with his father, this man. His dad was everything to him. They talked to several of his family members and they're all just like glowing about his father. He had this larger than life personality. He was really just like the dad that spoiled his kids, gave them everything. So they had this small personal plane that they used to drive around. All the kids talk about their experiences on this plane.
00:30:05
Speaker
And as I mean, I'm sure you can already guess, I feel like whenever you have a dad that has this like, you know, everyone loves him kind of thing. Of course, like John and his relationship is very strong, but John really felt like he'd never be able to make his father proud. He he had a lot of like not living up to his dad's, you know, plans for him kind of feelings. And he he actually like got into drugs after leaving the army. He wasn't super successful in his life.
00:30:35
Speaker
But he and his dad were very close. And so back in 2004, which was like three years before our friend found the foot, John Wood's father was about to sell the plane. So he was literally going to sell the plane the very next day. So he took John to have one last joy ride on the plane and they hit this bad bit of weather on the plane.
00:31:01
Speaker
and suffered this unfortunate, just sort of freak accident. It doesn't seem like anybody really knew, except that they had maybe hit like a, you know, gusty patch of weather, but the engine went out completely and the plane just immediately went down and crashed. So John Wood had to have his leg amputated, but his father did not survive, sadly. Yes. So his death hit
00:31:28
Speaker
John really hard and kind of created this weird division in the family where his mother hadn't had a great relationship with the dad, their marriage was kind of
00:31:39
Speaker
toxic so she insisted that her husband didn't want a funeral or memorial. So all the kids to this day like really blame her and are really judgy over the fact that she didn't do anything and like cremated him cheaply and all these things. They have a lot of beef against their mom seemingly for this.
00:32:01
Speaker
So how this upsetness manifested for John was he asked the doctors if he could keep the part of his leg that had been removed. So in memory of his father, he wanted to hang on to this leg in memory of his father.
00:32:19
Speaker
I don't know. I can't even imagine the confusing feelings of like being in the plane. I mean, he wasn't driving, thankfully, like his father was driving, but still like being guilty and right next to him. I know that's probably crazy, but I'm also like, was the doctor like, uh, we don't want to do that.
00:32:37
Speaker
Well, that's okay. So I do feel like I may need to send to spend a separate whole episode on like what happens to amputated limbs. We had this conversation in my family at some point because I have to because we found a tombstone one time that was like blah, blah, blah limb. This is like a long running joke in our family because we were like, I guess like
00:33:03
Speaker
I don't know. Would you want it to be buried with you eventually? I feel like I would definitely cremate it or be like goodbye. I don't know. I never thought about that a single time in my life.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's very intense, but he thought he was communicating to the doctors that he wanted the bone, which I think they really don't do, I guess, because the doctors gave him the entire thing, skin, muscle, everything still intact, which he wasn't prepared for. So the craziest part to me is the mortician literally came to his house, drove up on the driveway and handed him his full leg in a trash bag
00:33:46
Speaker
So since it was this huge, you know, human leg, foot, all of it, he really had nowhere to keep it. So he immediately takes it and puts it in his own freezer. Then he has to outsource. And so he asks his friend who works at the local Hardee's if he could keep it in the freezer at Hardee's and they let him.
00:34:13
Speaker
So he said, he said, like when he's describing it, I mean, I feel like I haven't quite gone into this except to say that it's like Tiger King, but like these people are hilarious personalities. Wait, can you, did you ever tell me what year we were in? Yeah. So 2007's when he found out.
00:34:33
Speaker
Oh my god, I can't take it. Not like a weird 80s case. No, no, no, no. So at the local Hardee's, like when he's talking about it, he says he like puts it on top of the sausage patties. Like, no, no, no, it's wrong. It's so wrong. Also that all those Hardee's employees had to be like, huh, what's this? Like,
00:34:55
Speaker
It's just so weird. So he eventually decides, after also trying to take the skin and muscle off himself, he eventually decides to do some nice DIY mummifying techniques with embalming fluids. He gets them from his friend at the mortuary, tries to mummify his leg. His friend at the mortuary. This man, I can't wait to see a picture of this man.
00:35:22
Speaker
He's actually, I will say about John Wood, like he's not, Shannon is wild looking. John Wood is actually like a very normal looking man. I thought you were gonna say, he's actually really hot. No, I almost said something along those lines, like he's not hot, but he's just like sweet face, like he looks like kind, yeah. Yeah, so I'm like, what were you doing? He doesn't look like he would be saving his, I mean, tainted lips.
00:35:51
Speaker
No, no, definitely not. So he has this mummified leg now. And not long after that, he's, you know, as I said, still dealing with the grief over his father, the trauma of the flight, feeling guilty for the flight and crash. So he actually falls deeper and deeper into substance dependency and, you know, abusing drugs and couldn't keep up his finances. So he gets evicted from his house.
00:36:19
Speaker
and all his belongings had to go into the storage unit while he moved to south carolina which i don't really know why he moved to south carolina except just like for a fresh start or something but he definitely lost his house and maybe it just made more financial sense but
00:36:34
Speaker
So all his stuff ended up in the storage unit and he couldn't pay for it. After a while he stopped making payments. So his storage unit and all of his possessions were sold at that auction that Shannon won, including the barbecue grill that had his mummified leg. So back to Shannon. So he is the one that found the foot and ended up at the funeral home.
00:37:01
Speaker
And he starts to get this crazy idea that there was some money to be made on this foot. All of his family and friends in the documentary all talk about how he's just like this, like Wheeler, what is that called? Wheeler dealer guy? You know what I'm saying? Wheelin' and dealin'. Wheelin' and dealin'. You have to hustle or scammer. Exactly. Like he's been that way since birth. He's always trying to make, you know, make some money. Obviously if he's like, you know,
00:37:30
Speaker
paying for a storage unit at an auction. I feel like you kind of already know the kind of guy he is. No. But he figured he had paid for it. This leg was his. So he took matters into his own hands. He went to the funeral home. He started pounding on the table, waving his receipt around, claiming it was his property. So they didn't give it to him, but he threatened legal action.
00:37:54
Speaker
This is the part where really like he's also just like a very emotional dude. So he was talking about how he has a bum leg on his left side, which made him feel he had even more claim to this amputated left leg. That makes no sense, but okay, sir. No sense. He talks about it like I was meant to find this foot like very like meant to be kind of language.
00:38:20
Speaker
So he starts getting a bunch of media attention at this time because he's like fighting for this foot. He's like, it's my foot. All the local news are in on it. So John Wood is like, I'm going to set up my own news briefing. So he sets up a news briefing in the Dollar General parking lot that was across the street. Okay, this is starting to sound very much like the office when they make their own news briefing. Yes, it really, it is so small town, silly, like the whole documentary.
00:38:51
Speaker
So he sets up this news briefing across the street from the storage unit. His stance, you know, very clearly being it's my leg. Why does he want it? And so Shannon comes to this news briefing because, again, local news had called Shannon and said John Woods holding a news briefing at this time in the Dollar General parking lot. I mean, I just can't imagine being like a local news anchor, like stirring up drama. I love it.
00:39:21
Speaker
So he comes and Shannon eventually like comes into the frame and is like very heated. And so they start to like have this big fight on the news and obviously everyone's eating it up. And so that same, you know, after the news people left, Shannon said, hey, like, let's make a profit. Let's both make a profit off of this. We can stir up this media story. We can kind of keep this rivalry and fight between us.
00:39:51
Speaker
And eventually we can sell admission to see this foot. He had this whole business model. And so he left this meeting thinking he had really made this business deal with John Wood. And John Wood said there was never a deal and he never agreed to any kind of partnership.
00:40:12
Speaker
But somehow this ends with Shannon and John taking the foot and making a local tourist attraction. So Shannon quickly became Foot Man and he started displaying the leg, charging admission. There are all these t-shirts with his face on it, with his name. And I mean, I'm sure you can- How do I get a t-shirt? I guess that's the main question.
00:40:39
Speaker
I think you still can. But he, you know, Shannon always wanted to be famous. He fancied himself a local personality. He is a real character, so he loved all of this. But the two men were supposedly sharing the profits, had the foot on display, were kind of okay with it. But John, I guess, thought he could kind of become friends with Shannon, ride this little bit of, you know, making money off of it and then eventually get the leg back. Shannon heard
00:41:10
Speaker
wind of this and was not happy. So it kind of created this, you know, as I said, there's already a rivalry. And I didn't really or once I started watching the documentary, Shannon knew John growing up and thought of him as like super spoiled. He said, you know, people would have their birthday at John Wood's house because his basement had a roller rink and he had go karts like John's dad had a ton of money. And as I said, spoiled them.
00:41:39
Speaker
So Shannon has all this childhood jealousy built up, I guess.
00:41:45
Speaker
And it seems like even as an adult is super jealous of John for some reason. And there's, I did a little bit of research too. Like Shannon was supposedly abused by his own father. So he had a lot of resentment towards John. So what really was like the straw that broke the camel's back is he went on the local radio to like make fun of John's dad dying and how they crashed and just being like, they were so stupid. Yeah, not great.
00:42:15
Speaker
So in 2006, Judge Mathis, who's like a, you know, a TV judge, I never had seen his show. I don't know if you have, but just one of those, you know, like TV judge shows, super, you know, silly. What am I trying to say? A lot of touch duty. Yeah, exactly. Just like high stakes, crazy stuff. So Judge Mathis invites them on his show after seeing all this media attention.
00:42:45
Speaker
And Mathis chastises Shannon's behavior, orders him to return the leg, but John came on the show and was so on drugs that Mathis actually realized that John was high on drugs and actually offered to get him treatment, helps him go to a rehab facility.
00:43:08
Speaker
But Shannon describes all of this as John getting to keep Shannon's extra foot, which is really remarkable. But John Wood was ordered to reimburse Shannon $5,000 for the cost of the storage unit.
Life After the Media Frenzy
00:43:26
Speaker
So basically it was like John got to keep his leg but had to pay Shannon $5,000.
00:43:32
Speaker
And Shannon also when he's talking about this in the documentary, he gets kind of teary because he talks about how incredible it was to have everybody be like the media so excited about him and how meaningful it was to him to have all of this like praise and people wanting to talk to him and stuff. So I think he has a lot of things going on and really enjoyed the spotlight. Sounds like it. Yes. But it was kind of
00:44:02
Speaker
great for John. He went to rehab. He got his foot back. He successfully recovered from his addictions. He goes back to work. He gets engaged. And it was kind of successful for Shannon. So Shannon goes on Dukes of Hazzard, the TV show. No. Yes. Oh, my God. Becomes like a real reality TV show star.
00:44:27
Speaker
And he loves the spotlight, but he actually eventually gets into an argument with the producers when he learns that parts of the show are staged. Like he doesn't like that it's not real. But he also continues to promote himself as the foot man for the next 10 years. Selling merchandise, appearing on podcasts, he even tries to sell a book of essays. And in 2014... Oh God, what I would do to just hear one of those essays.
00:44:58
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure they exist somewhere. You probably put them out to the world, I would imagine.
00:45:03
Speaker
But this is very sad. So in 2014, he was arrested after employees saw him driving around a Wells Fargo brandishing a revolver. But he was later released into the care of a local hospital, sort of for unspecified reasons. I'm assuming mental illness of some kind at this point. The other thing I should say is that he's very heavyset. The Wikipedia article says, morbid obesity.
00:45:33
Speaker
I don't know that it was like, I don't know. I always feel weird when people are like, I'm like, what does obese mean? But he's a heavy set guy. The terms are very aggressive. Yeah, yeah. But he's definitely a heavy set guy. And unfortunately, he suffered a heart attack in November of 2016. Oh, no. So unfortunately, Shannon is no longer with us. But again, Wood is doing good. He stayed clean. He's married. He still has the leg.
00:46:02
Speaker
I was trying to say, does he have the leg? Yes. So he started with having it in the bottom of a golf bag and in his closet, but now he's kind of gotten it. It's encased in epoxy and it's like a memorial to his father. They show it in the documentary and it looks like it's like just the bone, I guess, and then like kind of like stuff around it, which, you know, fulfills his initial intentions on wanting to keep the leg, which I think is amazing.
00:46:32
Speaker
And then get ready for this little cherry on top. John Wood won the lottery in 2015. He did. He has had a wild life this May. That is the craziest life I've ever heard in my whole life. How much was it? Like millions? I should have looked that up. It doesn't really matter. I don't know how much it was. Either way, it's very impressive. He's just living large.
00:47:00
Speaker
I just think it's so funny that he went from being electrocuted, run over by a dump truck, all those things to winning the lottery and getting out of drugs and being married. Like he really had, it's really a success story for John Wood. Yeah, that is crazy. But that's kind of the whole story. So I highly recommend watching Finders Keepers. It's on Amazon Prime. I think it's also free on Tubi if you have access to that. Nice.
00:47:27
Speaker
I don't know why I didn't end up doing it. Anyway, highly recommend finders keepers, especially if you liked Tiger King. Amazing. That was a thrilling story. Honestly, this was one of my favorite weeks of stories in a while. Me too. Yours was so interesting too. I know.
00:47:52
Speaker
Good stuff. I know. Well, thank you all so much for listening. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.