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The Kasha House of Kaimuki & Bruiser Brody
25 Plays1 year ago
This week, it's paranormal stories from The Aloha State to True Crime in the wrestling world.
First, Lauren explores the “Kasha House of Kaimuki” in Honolulu, Hawaii - one of the state’s most well-known urban legends and considered one of the most haunted places on the island. The paranormal activity in this historic haunted home spans decades, dating all the way back to August 1942 in which the police were called to shoo a ghost (as the actual headline in a Hawaiian newspaper read). 30-years-later, Halloween 1972, another attack by the angry spirit, including on the police officer who responded to the call. But this is not your normal neighborhood ghost…listen to find out about the man-eating ghost creature from Japanese folklore that is believed to be behind this house of horrors!
Next, Felicia tells us the tragic story of Bruiser Brody aka Frank Goodish, a professional wrestler from the ‘80s who was stabbed by another wrestler backstage before a match and later died. But was Bruiser Brody’s killing a case of self defense? Or did someone take the rivalry too far outside of the ring…
PS: If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out, follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Spooky Interests
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Lauren. I'm Felicia. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff. And it is my first day of summer vacation. Woo. After my first year of teaching. Woo woo. Indeed. I'm so proud. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. So yeah, I'm happy to be here and not be in school today. That's how I feel.
00:00:39
Speaker
I was going to say, do you wish you were doing less work or more work? Less for sure. I think I usually on a break, it takes me a couple of days to actually feel like I'm on a break for my body to stop feeling like I'm working. And then I enjoy it for a few days and then I get bored and have to do something else.
00:01:05
Speaker
Totally. I think I'll be good. I think it's going to be great. I understand that feeling a lot. I feel like I, I don't know, maybe I do slightly better with doing nothing than you. Yeah, I always wish I was better at it because I think I would be a more relaxed and happier person.
00:01:26
Speaker
too bad too bad she's a high functioning anxious person that's right that's right um but yeah so i mean i i know you put on the tagline i know now we're like weeks later
Submarine Tragedy vs. Baby Jessica Incident
00:01:43
Speaker
But the tagline for our last episode in the text, like the written portion that the everyone on the submarine that I had covered last time is presumed dead. I mean, they're absolutely dead. And so it kind of it's interesting because we were kind of watching this tragedy unfold. And it was interesting in the description you had mentioned the baby Jessica and the well, which I thought was so genius, because it was kind of that that thing, except for they, you know, they died. But
00:02:13
Speaker
this watching something like that happen in real time. Yeah, but to like watch something happen in real time like that was so crazy. And it kind of ended up being what everyone assumed had happened. So yeah, but it is sad and weird and complicated to discuss. I think there's a lot of perspectives on it, but it is, you know,
00:02:39
Speaker
No one deserves to perish like that. No, totally. So it just sucks, but you know. I will say I have to really, I just have to give do or do. What am I trying to say? I have to give James do for bringing the baby Jessica thing up.
00:02:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he always writes the copy for me. But anyway, but he's so good. Other than that, I was gonna say he's so good at it. He's so much better than me at it. I really hate doing it. And I'm like, it's so professional. I give him the facts. This looks good.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah he really does a great job but i was gonna say for the submarine thing i will say it is maybe the the better option of the two that it was an instantaneous death. Like we talked about how horrifying to slowly you know run out of oxygen or you know any of that would be so terrible so in some ways.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, very bleak but better off that way in some ways. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. But yeah, so you're first this week, aren't
Chaos in Ultimatum Reality Show
00:03:44
Speaker
you? Oh wait, do we have recommendations? Yes. What do you got? I don't have a ton. I was going to say I watched, I can't remember if I already said this to you Felicia, but I watched all of that terrible
00:03:55
Speaker
ultimatum show, but this time it's lesbians. It's amazing. No, I watched it. I watched it because you told me about it. Yes. Okay. Is it so good? I did love it. It was so chaotic. And then also watching the aftermath of when the one person was like, yeah, but you also like were throwing things at me and like domestic violence. I was like,
00:04:24
Speaker
And then of course my entire TikTok just turned into stuff about the ultimatum and like the cast members and everything. Oh my gosh, it was so crazy. But I do want to know, sorry, everyone who's lost right now, because they didn't see the show, but who was your favorite couple on the show or favorite person on the show? Who was your favorites?
00:04:46
Speaker
Yes. So I'll just start out by saying I think I'm team Mal all the way for like whole season. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I don't know. Yeah.
00:04:58
Speaker
I just thought Mal in the conflict with Yoly, I was like, I want to be more like Mal in my conflict, in my life. It seems to be a very good communicator, but it was sort of this thing that I always had this question about was like, and this is always my thing with reality stuff, where I'm like, who are you on and off camera? Yes. You know what I'm saying? 100%. Are you this good of a communicator behind closed doors? Or are you like, I don't know. Maybe they are.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally hear you because I also was like, but there was just like one moment where like Yoli was like, I just don't know. I love Xander. I love you. And Mal was like, you know, I understand that. Take the time you need, figure it out. And I was like, I would never do that. I would never, you're right. I would never, I would never be like, yeah, how about you just figure it out and see who you love more? No, I would be like,
00:05:53
Speaker
I'm taking us both out. There's no way I could have done that. Especially after you'd been with them for that long. Oh my God, totally. Totally. Yoli's like, I've been dating Xander for three weeks and I love them so much better than you. I'm like, well, yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
Oh my God, because they're new and shiny. Yeah, I do. I do really like Xander and I hope Xander finds happiness. Me too. I think Xander like I felt so bad for Xander being with Vanessa. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, obviously the show made Vanessa the villain of the series, but obviously she deserved it.
00:06:31
Speaker
She is so crazy. The thing she would say, I was just like gasping at my TV. I was like, you know you're being filmed. Me too. I just couldn't believe it.
00:06:46
Speaker
I know. And again, speaking of like, don't you think like she must say more horrible things off camera? Oh, that's probably definitely true. When they went, okay, at the dinner, when she was just looking at Xander and being like, fuck you, or fuck off or whatever she was saying, I was like, God, that is insanity. Like the how in what world are you at a dinner with a group of people? And you are saying that to your partner across the table?
00:07:15
Speaker
And how do you stay with that person? I don't know. Or how does that person have love for you? I don't know. Oh my god. It's so crazy. It's so crazy.
00:07:26
Speaker
It's the best show, I really think. Did you have a favorite? Do you have any any favorite couples moments? Yeah, so I did. I even though, you know, maybe she's stars in drama, but who I really love is, is it Lexi? Yes. And the big boobs. Yeah, I do really like Lexi.
00:07:47
Speaker
I just like that she was just like, I don't know. She's just the kind of person that's like, I am, she kind of, I mean, I don't know what her birthday is, but she makes me think she could be a Sagittarius where she just is, you know, a fun person to be around, but then we'll just say something so truthful and dark that you're just like, wow, way to really like throw off the moment because she just can't help it, but just like say the truth, even if it's like something nobody has to hear. I just like that about her.
00:08:17
Speaker
I honestly, I loved Lexi. The only part I could not handle is when Lexi was like, Ray, you're gonna have to tell my grandfather how you fingered Vanessa. That was bad. That was toxic. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was bad. That was bad. I was like, wait, why? Why do you have to tell your grandfather? I can tell your grandmother that. But yeah, it seems like what I was looking at stuff later,
00:08:41
Speaker
It just sort of seemed like the cast wasn't really following the rules of the show, which I think also added chaos. They weren't supposed to be talking to each other or texting each other.
00:08:54
Speaker
And normally on these shows, don't they take away their phones? But they didn't on the show? I thought so. I don't know. So it got messy. This is a long conversation for somebody that is listening that potentially has no idea what the show is. I know. We should probably move on, and then you and I can have a friend phone call where we just hash it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. OK, cool. So are you going first? I don't really have any recommendations. Yes.
00:09:23
Speaker
I know.
Haunted House in Hawaii
00:09:24
Speaker
I'm like, I feel like we filled so much of it. I was only going to say I watched the first episode of Black Mirror and I did enjoy it, but I just, I don't know. I got to try again. I started watching it and I was like, eh. Yeah. What is that? I don't know. I thought it was, it just seems so false. Like something about, kind of forced. And I love Annie Murphy. I love her more than anything, but something about like the acting in it, I was like, this feels, I don't know. Totally. I'm with you.
00:09:53
Speaker
I just didn't feel quite right. Yeah. All right. I'm going to jump in. Jump in. So this week I am doing a haunted house in Hawaii, actually.
00:10:10
Speaker
This house is called the, or I guess like the kind of the name of the story is the Kasha House of Kaimukai or Kaimuki. And the house once sat in Honolulu, Hawaii, and it was even like built on a foundation of lava rocks. So like my, you know, stereotypical idea of a real Hawaii house.
00:10:33
Speaker
But everything began back in 1942. So a couple and their three children moved into the house and pretty soon after they moved in, the neighbors started to worry because they could hear loud noises and crashes heard from inside the house.
00:10:51
Speaker
They honestly thought it was like domestic violence or some kind of bad situation. Yeah. So neighbors actually ended up calling the police one night when it got to like a bad enough level or the sounds they heard, which now in my suburban neighborhood, I'm like, this could be a real thing. I have nosy neighbors. Not on me, but I could call the police on someone. Oh my gosh, totally.
00:11:16
Speaker
But the police officers, when they got there, they entered the home. And allegedly, this is kind of similar to, oh shoot, what was that one you did a while ago where the police report talked about paranormal activity? If I could remember a single topic I had ever covered, that would be good. It was the one that the movie was based off of, maybe Spanish subtitle movie.
00:11:40
Speaker
Oh Veronica? That's right. I think so. Yeah, I just can't remember the name of the actual family. But yeah, it was about the movie Veronica is based on the yeah. Yes, this kind of reminds me of that where it's like it's just so freaky when, you know, in police reports, you actually like see mention of supernatural things.
00:12:00
Speaker
So in this one, the officers entered the home and they found the three children in the house. So it was a 10 year old boy, an 18 year old and 20 year old girl. So a little boy and then two teenage early 20 girls.
00:12:15
Speaker
and they were all levitating. And I know, I know. So they were all levitating and being attacked by some kind of unseen force as they were thrown around the room. So the woman or the mother was beside herself, you know, like freaking out, throwing Hawaiian salt to ward off the ghosts. And she kept repeating over and over, she's trying to kill my children.
00:12:41
Speaker
So pretty in tons. So it lasted for nearly an hour and a half, which is crazy to me. Like that feels like so long. That is a very long time.
00:12:52
Speaker
So this was going on for an hour and a half before the police were able to finally help the family escape. So I'm imagining them forcibly dragging them out. There wasn't much more detail than that. But the family ended up staying at the mother's sister's house and just didn't end up going back to the house for any real length of time. But the incident had begun at 10 PM that night when the little boy said that he smelled something bad.
00:13:21
Speaker
that he identified as the odor of ghost. So I don't know how he knew what a ghost smelled like, but that's what he said. Was it like the sulfur smell that we hear about in some of these stories where it's like it smells like something burning? I assume so, which is freaky. Yeah.
00:13:38
Speaker
But it seems like when he brought up the smell to his family, it seems like that made the ghosts angry enough that they started to attack the boy and started to make attempts to strangle him and his sisters. So this whole experience was later written about in the local paper.
00:13:57
Speaker
And the mother actually says that she, you know, I don't know what kind of timeline this is, but said that the father had left, like had left the family. And so she blamed him for like why the ghosts like started to attack in that way. So the ghost is believed to be a kasha, which is a ghost originating from Japanese folklore. And the actual translation of the name, this is kind of weird, but the translation of the name is fire cart or burning chariot.
00:14:26
Speaker
Which I don't know the real history of it, but basically these ghosts tend to disguise themselves as house cats or strays. And their true form is a creature that walks on two legs and is bigger than most humans, ringed in the flames of hell. Oh, okay. Can I ask a question? Yes. Have you ever seen the Japanese film
00:14:54
Speaker
house or houseu? No, but maybe this is it. Yeah, because it's from the 70s. But it's a ridiculous movie, by the way, it's like the worst we've ever seen. But the poster is of a cat. And and what did you say this is called again? Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka- Ka
00:15:19
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. So I don't know if those two things are related. But for some reason, they feel related in my brain. So I've just I'm curious if, if any of that's connected. It's so weird. It's not. I just looked up like it doesn't cost you in. No, but it seems like it should be.
00:15:35
Speaker
Okay. Maybe I just connected the cat with the Hausu and the Japanese and my brain just put all of it together, but not related. Sorry audience. No, I hear you though. Like I'm looking at this movie and I'm like, this feels like it has to be related. Anyway, I guess not. But yeah, so this creature, some stories say that like these ghosts will steal corpses, you know, from funerals, cemeteries, crematoriums to eat them.
00:16:04
Speaker
Others say that they are demons that swoop down from the sky to nab the bodies of evildoers and drag them to hell as punishment. So kind of a freaky Japanese spirit is what they believed this to be. So they move out of the house. That's kind of the end of their story.
Supernatural Attack at Kaimuki House
00:16:21
Speaker
But three decades later, so I always wonder when there's gaps like this, I'm like, did anybody in the house in between have anything happened to them? Not sure.
00:16:34
Speaker
But three decades later, so 30 years later, three younger women shared this house, the same house, and their paranormal experiences began with strange noises kind of escalated to them actually having physical feelings or having physical things happen to them.
00:16:53
Speaker
So one of the girls had a feeling of a hand on her arm and it freaked her out bad enough that the women called the police and decided to spend the rest of the night at one of their mother's homes. So they asked a police car to be sent to escort them. And so they got into their car and the policeman was going to follow them. And as they drove away, one of the women felt an unseen force strangling her.
00:17:20
Speaker
So the girls pulled over into a parking lot, the officer jumped out of his car, reached into the girl's car to help, and he was reportedly stopped by what felt like a large calloused hand, which was just so gross. But he said later that there's no way that it could have been one of the girls, like it was a much bigger, obviously kind of gross hand.
00:17:43
Speaker
And so this invisible hand twisted his arm and he kind of like ran away and it prompted him to radio for backup. Then an answering officer arrived and the first got said, there's a ghost in that car. And he was as white as a sheet, supposedly.
00:18:00
Speaker
The girls were hysterical as well. But this reporting officer told the girl who had been choked, here, come into the police car. I'll follow the other two of you to where you're going. And as soon as this girl gets into the police car, the motor died and it wouldn't start up again. So he takes her back out, puts her back into the girl's car. The other officer tried the motor and it immediately started now that she was out of the car.
00:18:29
Speaker
So the two cars drove about five yards, and suddenly the door of the girl's car flew open. That same poor girl that had been strangled fell out onto the road. And again, she was like tearing at her throat, acting like something was choking her. And together, the two policemen were not strong enough to pull her hands away from pulling at her throat.
00:18:55
Speaker
And so rumor has it and this, you know, this was all in the local newspaper, but this hasn't been like corroborated by the police. But the rumor has it that the only thing that stopped the spirit was the officer used water and Hawaiian salt, which if you remember, that's what the mom was also using. So I think it's like, uh,
00:19:16
Speaker
You know something that's in their culture you know some kind of folklore about it but stop the spirit finally so again like I think the girls pretty much pretty quickly moved out of the house and that was like their most intense experience there.
00:19:31
Speaker
So it's always crazy to me when these stories are in the local newspaper. So there are obviously a few theories about how the demon came into the house. One is that there was a father who lived there before that first family who murdered his wife and children in his home. It's said because the bodies of the wife and son, I guess I don't know if this is all true, but supposedly bodies of the wife and son were found buried in the backyard.
00:20:01
Speaker
but the daughter's remains were never found. And so there's like a belief that maybe like her spirit is the one that, you know, is attacking all of these people. There's another kind of local legend, which is about like a queer couple. So two married women and one of them actually got involved with a man and then her lover found out about her, like the man found out about her wife and then killed them both and killed himself. So again, I don't know that those are like, I know, super dark.
00:20:31
Speaker
I don't know that those are real facts at all, but those are all what people say brought the spirit into the house. I looked and I could not find anything that was a real movie about this story. This woman named Hannah Liepstein wrote a play about the house, which we love a spooky horror play.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, and it was called the Kasha of Kamuki and it was actually presented by the Kumokahua Theater and I want to say that that was in
00:21:08
Speaker
Yes, it's in Hawaii. It's in Honolulu, this theater. So they did produce it there. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, very cool. And then obviously, I always love to see if I can find anything else out about it now. So the house was actually demolished back in 2016. So there is a new house that stands on the property now. And then just for fun, I did find one more story that I'm going to tell that's on overlyopinionated.com.
00:21:37
Speaker
Hilarious so again take that with a grain of I hope girls website that she's just like here all of my opinions Me I wrote this
00:21:52
Speaker
But it's from someone who lived in the new kaimuki house that's been there since 2016. So him and his roommates had made this kind of rash decision to move into the house just through a series of personal unfortunate circumstances. And he honestly didn't even realize that it was a haunted house until he was
00:22:13
Speaker
changing his address online and remember that there had been this story, I guess, about all this paranormal activity there. So they decided as roommates, they weren't going to do any Ouija board or trying to call out the spirit or anything. The landlord actually lived upstairs in the house, so they figured everything was pretty safe.
00:22:35
Speaker
This guy says he's a skeptic, he wasn't worried, but he actually did start to have supernatural experiences happen to him. So he would wake up every day at 4.33 AM. His room would be ice cold and he would have a gut feeling just telling him that something was very wrong. And then following every time he woke up, every smoke alarm in the house would beep once.
00:23:03
Speaker
which stuff like that always scares me. Very, very bad. Right? Time to go, time to move, time to run. If you're waking up at the same time, like, I don't know, if I woke up at the same time and the smoke alarms all went off at the same time, like how many times would you give it before you were like, okay, I gotta move? I feel like three would be my number. Yeah, right? First time, weird, second time, coincidence, third time, no, no, no, no, something's wrong.
00:23:32
Speaker
So I agree with you. He said, you know, all the smoke alarms are all battery powered in separate rooms. He had no idea how they were beeping together. His room also had a just like a portable AC unit and he would leave it on 72 degrees. And so he didn't understand how like every time that he woke up, it was at 60 degrees and it would just like turn itself on in the middle of the night and go down to 60 degrees, which is freaky to me too.
00:24:01
Speaker
and also expensive, honestly. His chest would be tight, he'd have a hard time breathing, each time he would run out of his room and into the living room and then be totally fine, which I also think is even more freaky in some ways, that it was just in his room.
00:24:20
Speaker
and then basically the next night everything would be back to normal and he would you know have like a like i guess even in the morning he didn't say it would like continue on so he actually says that he didn't think it was really like
00:24:36
Speaker
some kind of demonic presence or at least to him anymore. He feels like it was just some kind of trickster or mostly peaceful kind of ghost. None of his roommates ever had the experiences that he had. They never had anything weird happen to them. But he did eventually move out when his lease was up and it doesn't seem like there's anything else really about the house since then.
00:25:02
Speaker
But I thought it was really cool. And the story of the kids all levitating, the fact that that was in a newspaper is just so crazy to me. Yeah, that's wild and scary.
Kasha Story and Film Connection
00:25:15
Speaker
So scary. But such a visually striking image that I'm like, wow, that's crazy. Yeah. And I'm surprised there hasn't been a movie about it or something.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, because it's not how Sue. Mm hmm. I wish it was Lauren. That's a movie. I don't even know if I I mean, I do recommend it, but it is one of the strangest. It's like almost it's like comedy. It's very experimental, very probably the weirdest movie I've ever seen. I'll say that. I love it. I can't wait to check it out. I feel like I remember you talking about it at some point. Yeah, I might have. I don't even know. But I love it. But it's wild.
00:25:55
Speaker
Incredible. All right. Well, that's it for me. Good job. Good job. Thank you. Spooky.
Introducing Bruiser Brody
00:26:14
Speaker
Okay, so today I haven't really done anything like supernatural in a while, I feel like. And I'm also not doing that today. So today I'm talking about wrestling. So yeah, his favorite thing in the world is wrestling. He's loved it since he was a kid. And I just asked him, I was, do you have any like, is there any like good stories I should cover about wrestling on the podcast? And he mentioned the murder of Bruiser Brody.
00:26:42
Speaker
So, Bruiser Brody, his real name was Frank Goodish, which I think is a funny last name, like Good, and then I-S-H. It was like, I'm Good, but I'm Goodish. Frank Goodish. He was a former football player before he got into wrestling for Iowa and West Texas State. He was six foot five inches.
00:27:07
Speaker
and weighed close to 300 pounds of just like pure muscle. Like this guy's a big man. He's ginormous. And then he, after college, after playing football, he was a sports writer for a bit. He was a bouncer for a bit. And then eventually he found wrestling and he was like,
00:27:28
Speaker
found his like calling so it I don't know if Lauren or listeners I don't know how much you know about professional wrestling but not a ton that's fine so it's very theatrical and
00:27:43
Speaker
So people have gimmicks, which I think in the theater role we would call characters that they play. And they, the gimmick of Brody was is very simple. Like it wasn't something that is very like there are characters that are that are like, Oh, this this girl is a is a
00:28:06
Speaker
anime pirate this guy is you know he's like playing a white trash character with a million kids like bruiser brody his character was that he was the toughest meanest guy that's ever existed like that was the character he was just almost sort of caveman like and unhinged
00:28:30
Speaker
crazy long hair big beard these really like wide eyes that like somebody is like someone you would never go up to like just automatically big no I'm scared of you just by your very existence and so he was what's called in wrestling a heel so he was a bad guy basically
00:28:54
Speaker
But he wasn't a heel in what's the traditional sense now. So people are typically, and I'm sure if Travis listens to this, he's going to be like either proud of what I know or embarrassed of what I don't. And I'm not sure which it'll be. Proud. Pretty proud. So you're either a heel or a good guy or a baby face, which is also a good guy, I guess.
00:29:22
Speaker
Typically, people find those personas by their interactions with the crowd. So they're either kind of the hero and like giving the crowd what they want, or they're the villain and they're sort of taunting the crowd and kind of encouraging the crowd to hate them.
00:29:44
Speaker
And both are good positions to be in because in wrestling, as long as you're getting a reaction from the crowd, whether good or bad, you're succeeding is kind of the vibe. Makes sense. But Bruiser Brody, he wasn't really concerned necessarily with engaging with the crowd.
00:30:07
Speaker
he was almost like, I don't wanna say alienating them, but he was so into the like kind of insane guy character that it was kind of like he would be doing this whether there was a crowd or not. Like that's kind of what he was going for. So some of the things he would do
00:30:31
Speaker
He would bark like a dog. He had a giant chain that he would wear into the ring that he would use to hit opponents. The main thing he was known for, which I think people used to do more back in the day. By the way, we're kind of in the 80s. I should have said that, which is sort of the height of wrestling until it's kind of had a big comeback recently.
00:31:00
Speaker
there was called the blood trick that wrestlers used to do a lot, which is they would put a razor blade in their wristband and they would make a very like light cuts on their forehead because heads bleed profusely. So I don't know if you've ever got a cut on your head, but it won't stop bleeding. And so they would actually make these like kind of micro cuts on their forehead so that throughout the match,
00:31:29
Speaker
blood would be pouring down their face and into their eyes. Real blood. Oh my God. I didn't know any of that. Yes. Yes. And this was just a standard practice. This was just like, yes, that's how we put on a show here. Wow. It's wild.
00:31:45
Speaker
So he had been part of a lot of different promotions as things came and went. So he had done all Japan pro wrestling, NWA wrestling, WCW Australia, WWE, of course. Oh, wait, no, WWE didn't exist yet. See, this is where I'm going to get in trouble.
00:32:13
Speaker
I think you're doing great. No, no, it did. It did. It did exist. OK. Basically, he did all the promotions that were around at the time. That's a guess. I don't know. I'm sure it's right. I'd try. But oh, wow, there's just so many. It's like CSW, WWF, WWC, DSW. I'm like, what does all this mean? OK. Wow. But why we're talking about him today,
00:32:40
Speaker
is that he had a very tragic death at a wrestling match backstage. And it was interesting to me because the reason that he died and the lack of justice around it is very wrapped up in the sport of wrestling and how it's perceived by the public.
The Stabbing of Bruiser Brody
00:33:09
Speaker
But 1988, Bruiser Brody is in Puerto Rico. He has a scheduled match. This is July 16th, 1988 with Dan Spivey at the Juan Ramón Lubriel Stadium. And it was in the city called Bayamon, sorry if I'm saying things wrong, which is near San Juan in Puerto Rico.
00:33:34
Speaker
Okay, so He's at this match. It hasn't started yet when they had come from the hotel They had the wrestlers themselves had a hard time getting to the stadium because there were so many cars so much traffic It was clearly gonna be a sold-out huge night for wrestling in Puerto Rico. Mm-hmm
00:33:54
Speaker
And when they finally got in, they were in there for a while, and at some point in the evening, before the show starts, a fellow wrestler, who was also a booker, who went by Invader One, his name is Jose Huertas Gonzalez,
00:34:09
Speaker
And he was also a big wrestler at the time, especially in Puerto Rico. So he did wrestle in the US, but he was very big in Puerto Rico. So his career started in like 1972, 73. He joined WWF. And then when he went back to Puerto Rico as this like, you know, kind of more professional wrestler, he took on a masked persona known as the invader.
00:34:39
Speaker
And he is said to have done this because he didn't want his mother to know that he was a wrestler. I was like, how did she not know? How did she not? Very confusing. What did she think you were doing? Yeah. And so he was actually a part of a tag team known as the invader. So he was invader one and then there was invader two, invader three. Anyways, so a lot of the like eyewitness accounts for this are
00:35:06
Speaker
So people that were there in one of the biggest eyewitness accounts that you could listen to talk on Dark Side of the Ring, which is a vice series where they talk about some of the craziest things that have ever happened in wrestling, is a wrestler named Tony Atlas. So he's sort of what I would consider the main witness in this.
00:35:29
Speaker
apparently was in the dressing room backstage before the show and he was drawing because he liked to draw and Bruiser Brody came up to him and was like, oh, that's so amazing. Could you draw a picture of my son? And so Bruiser Brody, he was married. At the time he was married to his second wife, Barbara Smith, and he had a son
00:35:58
Speaker
named, oh, I don't even know his son's name, it's terrible. I don't see it on the Wikipedia. Maybe we're not supposed to know. But he had a young son and he gave him this photo and was like, could you please draw him? And then while they were having that interaction, Jose Huertas Gonzalez, invader one,
00:36:20
Speaker
says to Bruiser Brody, can I talk to you in the dressing room? I mean, sorry, sorry, in the showers. So he's Bruiser Brody said, Yeah, sure. He walks in there. There was some sort of argument so people could hear them sort of fighting. And at some point, it got loud enough and Tony outlets heard some sort of very scary noise come from
00:36:48
Speaker
Bruiser Brody. And so he goes over and then Bruiser Brody is doubled over, kind of falling out of the shower. And Tony Atlas said his immediate thought was that he had gotten like sucker punched. And he was like, Oh my God. And, and, you know, at the time in the 80s, from what I understand,
00:37:11
Speaker
wrestling on and off stage was just much more vicious. And so even it wasn't as monitored as it is today. And like, even like commercially monetized in the same way. Like people were really like fighting over their spots in, I think I guess sometimes physical ways. And so I don't know exactly there. People say
00:37:38
Speaker
that Jose Huertas Gonzalez had some sort of long form grudge against Bruiser Brody. And yeah, they just had, I don't know, some kind of like, yeah, long standing issues going on between about booking, about wrestling, I don't know. And
00:38:01
Speaker
So Tony Atlas sees, after he's, you know, kind of grabbed onto Bruiser Brody, he sees Jose holding a bloody knife. And he's like, Oh my God, you just stabbed him. Yeah. And so at this point, another wrestler is starts pulling
00:38:25
Speaker
Jose back into the shower and kind of standing between them and they all start asking for help. And so they call the police. The police don't come for over an hour. And there's sort of two reasons for that. One, because they had a hard time getting in because of the stadium traffic, which I know is like... Makes sense. The second thing is that the Puerto Rican police
00:38:52
Speaker
We're not sure if this was a real stabbing or a bit. Oh my god, our feet staged.
Trial and Acquittal of Jose Huertas Gonzalez
00:39:00
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. Because so much of what wrestling was about and was monetizing was violence. And the crowds loved the violence. And they didn't know if this was just like a gimmick thing to create hype around the show.
00:39:22
Speaker
That is wild. So they finally get there. And when Tony Atlas comes back into the dressing room, like they take Bruiser Brody to the hospital and he hears people talking and he realizes that people are saying in the dressing room to the police officers that a crazed fan came backstage and stabbed Bruiser Brody is the story they're giving the police. Oh, my God. And he-
00:39:52
Speaker
Points right at Jose. I mean, I just love this this Tony out this guy's It's great. He points at Jose Gonzalez and Says you killed you are not you killed. Sorry. He's like you stabbed him the guy that did it is right here He's sitting right here talking to you
00:40:10
Speaker
So they didn't like that, obviously. And then there's another sort of dynamic going on here that we haven't mentioned, which is Americans coming in as workers on this event versus the Puerto Rican wrestlers and police. So there was also this kind of thing of like, who was the police going to believe, the Americans that they don't know, or like the hero wrestlers of their country.
00:40:35
Speaker
So that's bad. And then that night, somebody told Tony Atlas not to go back to his hotel room because he had talked to the cops and apparently he, so somebody told him, they're looking for you. Don't go to the hotel. And so Tony Atlas spent the whole night wandering on the beach, scared to go to the hotel, doesn't know where to go.
00:41:06
Speaker
so dark. Oh, oh, I forgot to say something really important. And that is, after this happened, and Bruiser Birdie's in the hospital, the show went on. No. I was gonna ask you that. Oh my god. Everybody performed as they were supposed to. They said it's all good. They said money's more important than the stabbed wrestler in the hospital. Oh my gosh. It's just insane.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So the story once again, so the, I guess the next day, Tony goes to the hospital and finds out that Bruiser Brody has died. Basically from bleeding out. Wow. He took the top so long to get there. Yeah. So he died from his stab wounds. He had been, he had two eight inch cuts into him.
00:42:07
Speaker
His liver was sliced. There was, he just, he couldn't make it. He wasn't gonna make it. So then they of course had to call his wife and say, you need to come to Puerto Rico. And she was like, why? And they didn't tell her why until she got there. And so she came there and they ended up having like the funeral in Puerto Rico. Yeah, it's just horrifying. So then Jose Gonzalez,
00:42:37
Speaker
does go on trial for the murder of Bruiser Brody, but he tells the jury and tells whoever that he was acting as self-defense. No. And in 1989, he was acquitted of the murder. And this is one of the worst parts, is that all the witnesses
00:43:05
Speaker
particularly the American witnesses of the murder, including Tony Atlas, they got their juror, sorry, not the jury summons, they got their summons to testify as a witness the day after the court acquitted him. Oh my gosh. So they basically were like, ah, paperwork error. Sorry, we didn't call you in time to actually give your statement. He's already been acquitted.
00:43:34
Speaker
I guess you just didn't get the summons in time. Sorry. This is wild. I know. I know. It's freaking horrible. It is. Yeah. And shady. It's so shady. And then, you know, Jose Gonzalez continued to wrestle. So let's see. Yeah. He wrestled in 2011.
00:44:00
Speaker
In 2012, he became a director of the World Wrestling League, which is the Puerto Rico wrestling promotion. In 2019, he wrestled at 73 years old. So he is still a part of this world as though nothing ever happened.
00:44:22
Speaker
And it's just so dark and scary. Yeah, but the part, I mean, the part that really kind of I was so interested in is this idea of like somewhat people, a group that is like monetizing violence and then when real violence happens, they sort of don't handle it appropriately. No. And part of it seems to be because
00:44:48
Speaker
the show of it and like the. And once again, like Jose Gonzalez was like like considered a good guy and Bruiser Brody was considered a villain. And him getting off for self defense for stabbing him unprompted in a shower. It's just this kind of thing is like is there characters bleeding into a trial?
00:45:15
Speaker
even though the characters aren't who they actually are, when Bruiser Brody was a dad and a guy who was putting on a character. And it does, and especially in the 80s and in the 70s, probably more so,
00:45:32
Speaker
It had pretty I mean, the 80s by this time, people understood that wrestling was sort of fake, you know, like it's a show, it's theater. Yeah. But but not fully. Not as much as they do now. Yeah. Yeah. Not like now. Like it was still like it was still more real to people. The characters and the violence felt much more real to people because the veil had not come back of like
00:46:02
Speaker
how these things are done. So it was just kind of a different time. But yeah. Wow. That is the craziest story. Yeah, the murder of Christopher Brody. It just is so sad. And the fact that like, no justice was ever done is horrible.
00:46:20
Speaker
Just so upsetting. Yeah. Wow. I mean, what a good wrestling true crime story. I know. And unfortunately, it's not the only wrestling true crime story. If anyone's interested in that stuff, you should watch some dark side of the ring episodes because wrestling is a very dark and twisted sport and has a very dark history. Like this is not the only murder and this definitely not the only death.
00:46:47
Speaker
Wow. In the sport. How effed. Yeah, I know, right? But yeah, that's it. Well, thank you for doing that. I thought that was such a good one. Thank you. Thank you so much. Amazing. Well, thank you all for listening this week. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.