Episode 218 - Hey, I'm Fish

Deep in the Appalachian heartland, the scenery is breathtaking—but the secrets are buried even deeper. In West Virginia, "Wild and Wonderful" occasionally takes a detour into "Dark and Deadly." From the winding backroads of the hollers to the misty shadows of the mountain peaks, we’re exploring the cases that prove some things are better left unsaid in the hills. Whether it’s a decades-old cold case that the locals still whisper about or a mystery where the truth is stranger than the folklore, this episode proves that in the Mountain State, the quiet can be deafening.

Research links below!

Greenbrier Valley - "Greenbrier Ghost, Zona Heaster Shue"
Dannye Chase - "The Greenbrier Ghost"
West Virginia Ghosts and Legends - "The Green Brier Ghost"
Appalachian History - "The Greenbrier Ghost"
Samsara Parchment - "Spooky Saturday: The Greenbrier Ghost"

The Wall Street Journal - "A Coal CEO's Unusual Pastime: Firing Up West Virginia's Politics"
NPR - "Massey CEO's Pay Soared As Mine Concerns Grew"
NPR - "Mine Probe Examines Airflow, Possible Tampering"
Washington Post - "West Virginia mine has been cited for myriad safety violations"
abc News - "West Virginia Mine Survivor: Blast Felt Like 'Hurricane-Force Winds'"
The New York Times - "No Survivors Found After West Virginia Mine Disaster"
CNN - "12 killed in West Virginia mine blast"
abc News - "Government Investigation Faults Massey Energy in West Virginia Mine Disaster"
CNN - "Report: Deadliest U.S. mine disaster in decades due to safety failures"
NPR - "Mine Victims' Families Recall Fear, Safety Issues"
United States Department of Labor - "US Labor Department's MSHA cites corporate culture as root cause of Upper Big Branch Mine disaster Massey issued 369 citations and orders with $10.8 million in civil pe

Speaker 1: Yeah, why upon their arrivals. I'm not.

Speaker 2: They did.

Speaker 3: It's the living.

Speaker 1: You gotta worry about something. If I couldn't keep them

there with me whole, at least I felt that I

could keep their skeletons.

Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Rachel,

I'm bigg Hi God, Hi, welcome income take off your

shoes back. Yeah, I realized today.

Speaker 4: I'm sitting here in our recording studio with a nice

little blanket.

Speaker 3: Now, I have.

Speaker 4: Realized that I in the winter times, there is just

I don't know if it's poor circulation or like what

the deal is, but in the wintertimes, I feel like

the cold just gets into my bones and I am

constantly cold. I totally understand now. When I do stuff

like this, I just pick next, I pack an extra blanket.

Speaker 3: Freaking. It is really cute watching her like take her

little blanket out of her back.

Speaker 4: I just like move in and I know, really cute.

I meant to wear my fuzzy socks today.

Speaker 3: But I did it. My socks have fuzzy Bear on them,

Fuzzy not Fozzy.

Speaker 4: No, he's fozzy, I know, but I meant to wear

fuzzy socks, no wearing icy fuzzy.

Speaker 3: Shut up. See, I'm all like Irish and Scottish, so

like all of my like peasant blood is like, no,

it's fine. I'm like very warm blooded in the winter.

His teacher is like so sweet because we park outside

and like wait for her to come and then they

get in line whatever. And she is always she's a

little person and so she's always in like this like

parka that goes down to her like ankles, and she's

in bogs and and so like cozy. And I'm out

there in like basketball shorts of a hoodie. I'm like,

here's my kids. She's like, Rachel, are you really cold? Yeah?

Speaker 4: Well, I know there is a thing like as you

age your circulation, yeahs or gets worse or something. I

don't know, but I just feel I'm told all the time.

But I prefer this because I'd rather just like be

wrapped up than it is like so nice and sweaters warm,

Like I'd rather have that than be like dying of heat. Absolutely,

you know. Anyway, it's more convenient. Little side quest cold

or warm, call in and let us know. Uh, and

this is your first time listening. A special hello to you.

Speaker 3: Hi, thanks for coming.

Speaker 4: We are gonna head over to the news around.

Speaker 3: Let's go.

Speaker 4: Today, we had fifty this week. Our news comes from

The Guardian. So this is from back in November. Have

you ever heard of the Dining dash Diva?

Speaker 1: What so?

Speaker 3: No? No? Okay.

Speaker 4: Apparently there's this uh wanna be food influencer online called

the din and Desh Diva. She got arrested and jailed

in Brooklyn, New York.

Speaker 3: Because so. Her name is Pi Chung. She's thirty four

years old.

Speaker 4: She has been banned from at least seven restaurants oh

my and police have said that they have arrested her

multiple times for refusing to pay restaurant bills. That's not nice,

Chung allegedly is from The Guardian. Chung allegedly skipped out

on paying Aunt Williamsburg restaurants at least six times, including

one Michelin starred Brasserie Brasserie Francy Michelin service.

Speaker 3: Oh my God.

Speaker 4: Says that one sitting in October, she reportedly ordered fifteen

dollars Foi Gras, thirty two dollars carpaccio, twenty eight dollars, Bucatini,

fifty two dollars lamb and a nineteen dollars hot chocolate

moose before skipping out on the check.

Speaker 3: What a dick.

Speaker 4: She also ordered about one hundred and fifty dollars worth

of steak size and dessert at Peter Luger's Steakhouse, posted

pictures of her meal and then gave this review.

Speaker 3: But she like didn't pay. That's funny. Yeah, They're like,

they're like, that's okay. She's like, wow, great atmosphere, you know, nice,

good service. And they're like, oh, that's great. How are

the prices. She's like, I don't know, yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah, right, So she so from the steak joint. Apparently

when they were talking to NBC News about it as

this was coming out, Yeah, they said it was weird

that she stayed for a while at like hours hours,

and when they brought her the check, she was like,

I can't pay, I can't afford it. Let me give

you the kitchen scissors out of my bad. She was

like looking for stuff to like tray from her bag. Anyway,

So she was arrested when she went to Mulley in Brooklyn.

It says quote the owner said that when the Prada

Louis Baton and Hermez wearing influencers showed up for a

third go at the menu, they wised up, so she

ordered one hundred and forty nine dollars in food and

refused to pay, and so she was arrested and arranged

on theft of services charge, and she was being held

at Riker's Island on a forty five hundred dollars cash

bail for that, as well as failing to show up

on previous Din and Dash Warrens girl.

Speaker 3: What an asshole? Yeah, Like, I'm firmly of the belief that,

like you know, I'm thinking about like people who don't

have any money. If you're a restaurant and somebody comes

in and they're hungry, you should feed them. I don't

believe it. But this is not the case, right, That's

what I'm saying. No, this is not the case. You're

eating kerpot. She owned shit, which I bear I'm too

poor to really know what that is.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 3: Yeah, you're having like thirty five dollars worth of it.

You are not hungry girl.

Speaker 4: So on her Instagram, Chuh describes herself as ninety nine

pounds no plastic surgery, and apparently she is looking at

least at the time of the article, with the writing

of this article, she was looking at possibly eviction from

her three thousand, three hundred and fifty month apartments.

Speaker 3: By her landlord, Elliot Spitzer. Do we know who Elliot

Spitzer is?

Speaker 4: Okay for if you don't know, he was New York

gunner and he resigned in disgrace in two thousand and

eight when he was implicated as a regular client of

a prostitution.

Speaker 3: Ran God, I didn't realize that was it here, but

that's hilarious. Whoa yeah girl, get it together. Yeah. So anyway,

so she got arrested a crazy story. I don't do.

That's so rude. Like all the servers and shit who

don't make any money, who are bringing you that food

and are waiting for a tip, sell one of your handbags, bitch? Literally. Yeah.

Speaker 4: So we are going to move on to Netflix and killed.

This week we are talking about the lie the murder

of Grace Mulane. It's a British documentary.

Speaker 3: It's ninety two minutes.

Speaker 4: It's like an actual documentary about Grace Mulane, who was

a British tourist in Auckland, New Zealand, in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3: She goes missing.

Speaker 4: Basically the entire documentary was presented with There are interviews,

but they use a lot of CCTV footage. They have

tons of in New Zealand. Yes, also social media and

police interviews and things that were happening. Essentially, she is

in Auckland doing the tourist thing. She decides to load

up Tinder. She meets this guy on Tinder. They decide

to meet in a very public place. The CCTV footage

shows them meeting it like it was like a mall

or something like that, super public, a ton of people.

They go to a bar. The bar has cameras in it,

there's just people around whatever whatever. They end up arresting

this guy who tells police that they had consensual sex,

but that she was into like rough sex and he

accidentally murdered her because the follows him like going to

the store to buy a bag, put her body and

all of these things. And there's like former girlfriends of

this guy that comes that come forward. His name is

Jesse Kempson, okay, and so he was arrested. He was

charged with murder. There's former like ex girlfriends that come

forward that are like, yeah, when I was dating him,

like he would be kind of violent, I really liked

rough sex and tried to kill me on multiple occasions.

Speaker 3: This is man, This is just such a typical male

thing of like, oh, they'll totally buy that I accidentally killed.

Speaker 4: And his trial happened in twenty nineteen. Yeah, and his

lawyers used the quote unquote rough sex murder defense.

Speaker 3: So dumb.

Speaker 4: But they also talk about evidence of Kemsen's browsing history

for porn websites, that he took pictures of her corpse,

and while her corpse was still in I don't think

it was his apartment. I think it was like a

hotel or something. He went on another Tinder date the

day afterwards after this happened. Yeah, so he was convicted

of Mullane's death in December twenty nineteen. He was into

a life sentence with a minimum n parole period of

seventeen years. But it also he was also convicted of

another eight charges against a former partner, including unlawful sexual connection,

threatening to kill, an assault with a weapon in October

twenty twenty.

Speaker 3: It sounds like a stand up.

Speaker 4: He was then convicted of raping another British urist in

November twenty twenty.

Speaker 3: Oh my god.

Speaker 4: Yeah, but while this case, I mean, this case is horrible, right,

and this dude is a piece of shit. They also

use this murder, these murders and sexual assaults and stuff

as a vehicle to talk about this rough sex defense

and kind of call for it to be outlawed.

Speaker 3: In victim blamey.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's used a lot in domestic violence, right

cases absolutely, and murder cases.

Speaker 3: This is what anybody tells you. Humans are not easy

to kill, right, It's not easy, right.

Speaker 4: It's very hard to do on accidents in most situations, right.

I think there's very few things where it's like, oh

my god, that was an accident and you would have

to like literally like fall, you know, chrip and fall

in someone's backyard and land on a fucking rake or something,

you know what I mean, Like it happens, right, Yeah,

But they pretty much talk about the rough sex defense

in the United Kingdom, like because obviously this was a

British Terroist by Fresh documentary, but it was very interesting.

Speaker 3: You would have you seen this, No, I haven't, but

it sounds really familiar.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and you I think would find this very interesting

just because it is a lot of CCTV police interrogations

body cam, you know, whatever, whatever, but it's just a

very sad. Yeah, it's very sad. I will say.

Speaker 3: It's a lot. Yeah, so like.

Speaker 4: Heavy warned when you watch to be warned, you know.

But it was very interesting. Nice, it was very interesting.

So that is called The Law the Murder of Grace Moline.

That's on Netflix. Okay, if you want to check it out,

I would. This is that part of the show where

I say content may not be appropriate for all listeners.

Speaker 3: We are I.

Speaker 4: Don't even know about a warning to give on mine

because maybe claustrophobia.

Speaker 3: Okay, we'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 4: You have no idea what I'm covering, so it'll be interesting,

but no idea why cover you?

Speaker 3: Tell us? Okay, what we are talking about today? So

the topic that I picked, I went a little. I

almost said local. It's not nearby. It is not. It's

local as in, it exists in the same country. Sure does.

So we are covering the not nearby state actually quite

far from US, West Virginia. Yes, West Virginia. For those

who visited regular that's what all I was thinking. Who

I know, I know you were Mountain mom. Yeah, yeah,

for those who visited, but regular Virginia and thought, what

if this was just a bit to the west West Virginia.

So we have West Virginia, West Virginia. It's west as fuck.

It's a state known for its history of coal mining.

It's actually, like politically a very interesting state because they

were like a huge for years and years and years

actually up until about the nineties, they were a big

for the workers state. A lot of our benefits that

we have as workers are because largely in part to

like the coal mining uprisings in West Virginia. Yeah, they're

very pro pro worker. If you're interested in American politics

and stuff that might not be super remindly reported on,

you should check out like all of the coal miner

wars and uprisings and shit. And it's sad that recently

they've become like one of the like deepreadest states in America. Yeah,

so it's like kind of interesting. I would definitely group

them with the South. Yes, yes, that's where I'm at.

Speaker 4: And I mean, frankly, we're not a political podcast, right,

but like, I mean, there's something to be said with

the parties being very different. Yes, back in the day, right,

like they were very different, almost completely opposite, right, like

the swapping. I mean they witch, right, but yeah, no,

it was a very like workers' rights area.

Speaker 3: And it's and it's you know, and again just like

you said, we're not the political political podcast, but it

is one of it's it's an interesting case study in

how things like education and lack of access to education.

Speaker 4: And also money and money. Money both in lack of

and too much of, absolutely plays plays a role over there,

which we'll talk a little bit about in mind, but

especially when you're talking about this coal industry that is lucrative, right,

you get a little money in that and it becomes

kind of.

Speaker 3: A whole in cole barn dickheads.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: So it's one of those where, like I brought that

up specifically because I think a lot of people who

like maybe aren't like as into like state history as

my nerdy ass would be, Like, oh, West Virginia that

like backwoods like you know, which real Republicans it is,

But it's like they did have they weren't always like

they've had a very like varied history, so very interesting state.

Actually highly recommend looking up more history. It's also known

to those of us who are a little weird for

Mothman and from there.

Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that's true. I'm also like McElroy brothers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

Oh I forgot.

Speaker 3: You're so smart. I just love them. Love West Virginia.

We love it, and I picked it for a regular

West Virginian crime that is not weird at all. And

I'm lying sure West Virginia is probably super great. Uh, Victoria,

have you ever heard of a please don't cry? Victoria linky?

Have you ever heard of a red herring? Yes? It

basically means I tricked you so that I could annoy

you with this case about ghosts.

Speaker 4: Ooo, this is a spooky bad taste episode. Don't work.

It's half a spooky bad taste episode. Right, there's still

a murder. This is a legitimate murder case. Okay, a

tastardly murder by a dastardly bastard of a man. Can't

wait to tell you what his name is.

Speaker 3: I'm not waiting. It's Trout, okay, like a fish. His

first name is Trout. His name's Trout. Okay, what's his

last name? Trout?

Speaker 4: Let me.

Speaker 3: I want to know if it's like trout, walleye or something.

He had like a long ugh? Was he German? His

name was Edward stribbling trout shoe, so he always shoe, Yeah,

trout shoe. He also went by aliases a lot, so

he would be known as Erastus and Erasmus weird fucking guy,

but he was like trout. Interesting. I have I have

throw back in the day.

Speaker 1: Uh.

Speaker 4: When I was eighteen, we went on this cruise, like

family cruise, nice, and I was hanging around with some

people that I had met on the boat. One of

the guys was just named Fish.

Speaker 3: He just called him Fish.

Speaker 4: I started hanging around with this couple who was like,

they're on their honeymoon and the guy or both the

guy and the girl were in the military, and they

had this like sweet right, so they're like, come.

Speaker 3: On hang out.

Speaker 4: So I went up and hung out and there were

these other people there who they had met and invited

up or whatever. And one of the guys was this

hippie guy who was like, my name's Fish because it's

one of these experiences, and I'm like, I've never met

anybody who was just like, hey, I am Fish.

Speaker 3: That's amazing. Yeah, I want to hang out with that dude. Now.

I wonder if it was pH Fish like the band. No,

I think it was just fish like with like the animal.

I made out with him for a second. Nice? Was

it fishy? I don't even a lot of time ago.

It was what a while, it was my wild days.

Oh gosh, I now you're over here wearing like a

cute little and I'm like, yeah, I made out with

a guy named fish. Great choices. I made some real

great choices in my life. When I worked at the mall,

I got asked out by a guy whose name was Thor.

That was pretty funny. He was actually very nice.

Speaker 4: But that was that his actual name? Yeah, I'm pretty

sure this was not this guy's actual name.

Speaker 1: He did.

Speaker 3: He was a very Madonna situation, you know. Oh that

is like a ver sure, that is like a very

like hippie thing where it's like, my name is Rando

Prince Cloud, Yeah, the simple normally known as Cloud. But no,

we had to he came into I worked at like

a terrible shoe store with like the most horrible, meanest

people on earth, and I hope they're all dead. They're not,

but he uh brought he had to do like a return.

So I had his driver's license and his name was

like Thor like something. Fucking vikingy yeah, but it was Thor. Yeah.

He was really nice. Like it was actually like I

feel like most of the time when girls are like

I got asked out, it's like, oh god, are you okay?

Because men are terrible. But he was like the most nicest,

respectful I was with Robs. I was like, ah, no, sorry,

I'm all said that was but he was like, okay,

I have a wonderful day. I was like, wow, So

I hope that guy has a nice life. He's probably

a murderer, to be honest with you, I mean with

the man like Thor, I know, and like he had

he didn't have an accent or anything, but he had

like long hair. What are you what are you getting

a I mean, because like I feel like it would

be more normal for your name to be Thor if

you were like from Denmark. Okay, but he was like, clearly,

what are you trying to get? I'm not sure where

we're going Mountain from Game of Thrones. His name is Thorp, yes,

you know, and that's like not an abnormal name, but

like he seemed like an American guy, but his name

was Thorp. Yeah, that's all I got gotcha. I see,

I see have you ever dated somebody with a weird name?

Colin tell Us? Right now, So Trout's name wasn't the

only fishy thing about this mountainous moiter. So strap into

the coal mining car and let's get paranormal. This is

the case of the Green Briar Ghosts. Stay with me,

VICKI stay with me. You lost me? No, I didn't.

So this is this is It's called the Green Briar

Ghost because it takes place in greenbrid It's difficult for

me to say Green Briar. Okay, it's like so many consonants,

I mean Briar County, West Virginia. I'm pretty sure there's

more vowels shot the fuck up? Who cares? So this

was so we're going back in time, back to the

eighteen nineties. Okay, So eighteen nineties, West Virginia. Okay, this

is old school, very old school, very much so. So

in October eighteen ninety six, this is another long name,

not quite as crazy as fucking Trouts, okay, but kind

of a long name. Elva Zona Heaster okay, and she

went by Zona okay, So she was like Elva gross.

So she met Trout because he Trout, because he was

a blacksmith, so they like kind of met in this town,

you know, young love. She was kind of from like

a Greenbrier County was pretty isolated at the time, so

she was pretty young. It was from an isolated area.

It seemed like he was kind of like one of

the first guys to kind of talk to her, which

you know, it happens. He was said to be very

very handsome. Okay, by the way, Okay, oh, by the way.

So everything's fine. You know, it's the eighteen ninety so

it's like, okay, we like each other, we've known each

other for fifteen minutes. We're probably gonna get married, right,

odds are. But the only problem was a woman named

Mary J. Heaster, who was Zona's mother. Okay, so she

was like, no, thank you. This guy is really dirty

and he is gross. She I. That's the thing, is like,

I wonder if it was like mother's intuition or if

he was rude to her. Because this is so long ago,

you know, yeah, pretty limited records, but right away it

was said she was like, I don't like this guy.

I do not like this guy.

Speaker 4: I don't know some thing that people were a little

I don't want to say pick here, but like, oh totally.

Parents are a little bit harder on them, you know.

Speaker 3: From an isolated area. It is that thing of like outsiders,

even though he was from the area. It's like you

gotta be really careful. It's that sort of that sort

of attitude from that area of like you only trust

who you know, right, who you already know. But with

this one, she was right, you know, she should not

have been around this guy. It's unlikely that she knew

that he already had a pretty extensive criminal record and

had even been to prison. Oh okay, stealing a horse.

Well great, that's also eighteen nineties not a good time

to have been married twice before.

Speaker 4: Yeah, oh definitely not. Yeah, so not even once before.

Speaker 3: If she knew about that, I think she probably wouldn't

have liked him even more. This is like just kind

of casually throwing out there. He also had a child, okay.

The first with the first wife, he had a child

and basically dipped out and abandoned them. So she was like, well,

fuck you, I'm divorcing you. So that was the cause

for divorce. Was like, are you gonna stick around? He

was like no, wow, bye, Okay. The second one.

Speaker 1: Now.

Speaker 3: You know, we talked a little bit in uh earlier

about how it's it's difficult to kill a person right

like physically in many ways you have to kind of

want to do it on purpose.

Speaker 4: Like if we're talking about like physical contact, right, Wow,

weird that I picked that it because your psych.

Speaker 3: Definitely didn't. Isn't real. Wait till the end of my story,

maybe you'll be like, oh my god, I'm a change.

Totally doubt it, totally doubt it. This is one of

the lines in this case, Like I went and looked

at all of the old timey PaperWorks and it was like,

this is a case based entirely uncircum stantial evidence. Okay,

circumstantial last case, however, there is a fuck ton of

circumstantial evidence. Like it's one of those where you'll be like,

all right, okay, this is not a mystery, is not,

you know, but it is circumstantial. Okay, But sometimes circumstantial cases,

you know what, sometimes that works. I mean, it's good

to have evidence, yeah, but circumstantial is nothing, right, you know,

it does mean something, and in this one you'll see. Okay,

So back to Trout and his wives. So first wife,

he was a dead beat. She was like, get the

fuck out of here. He was like, gladly, I'm going

to marry this other lady. So he married this other

lady and he was They were living in an area

of West Virginia called Pocahontas County, which is probably racist,

and he was building their house and like doing stuff

on the roof and wouldn't she know it, Whoopsie Daisy

accidentally drops a brick onto her head and she dies.

Oh shit, Okay, oh I hate it when that happens.

Super crazy also out Yeah the ways, right, I don't

like that. I wouldn't pick that. Well, Luckily I don't

think that's how it really happened. But there's not much information.

Speaker 4: It's probably one of those like hadhead trauma. Yes, Corner

showed up and he was like, yeah, just working on

this and dropped Brooke.

Speaker 3: Correct. Yeah that's kind of what And again, is that

circumstantial evidence? Yes, but based on what I know now

about this case, that's what I'm gonna say. Yeah. So

the old uh Mary Heaster, the mother of the Zora,

the girl who's like really into him, she probably didn't

know any of that. Yeah, because this was all like

in other counties and secret. You know, he was not

talking about these things. But as soon as she met him,

she was like, no, okay, I do not like this guy. Okay,

so Zona, who I just called Zora accidentally. Zona, Instead

of being like, you know what, mom, you have my

best interest at heart, I'm.

Speaker 4: Very young, she was like, haha, I mean, how many

of us are like no, I no, I know, I know,

And she just like the rest of us, is like,

I'm putting on my prettiest burgundy high color dress and

I'm eloping by bitches.

Speaker 3: Okay, that high colored burgundy dress coincidentally is gonna be

the same one that she's buried in. Oh great, yeah,

love that. Yep. So they ended up eloping. They built

a cabin together. I even have like a little picture

of it. How cute is that? That's cute. That's pretty big.

It's like huge. Yeah. So it's like it seems like

they were planning on having like a nice farm, like

having lots of children. So it's like, okay, so Mary Heaster,

the mother probably felt a little bit more relaxed, like, Okay,

at least you know, they're not living on the street.

He's providing for her, he's a blacksmith so and makes

some decent money. Yeah, they're never short of horseshoes, you know, right,

So it's like everything's okay, Okay. So on this day

in eighteen ninety seven, trout it keeps calling him Shoe.

I'm like, no, I'm calling him Trout. I don't care

what his last name is. Okay. So Trout left is

he had like a shop that he worked at, his

blacksmith's shop. So he was at work, do do do?

And then he walked out of his shop, went down

the road to a house with like who they had,

like a little boy who he like kind of knew

because he would make him like run errands for him. Hey,

get me more ice from the shop, you know, yeah

for a nickel or whatever. Super cute and old timey.

I hope the boy wore a little page boy cap,

because that's how I'm picturing it, Okay, little trousers like

suw a missday even though they're in West Virginia and

not London in like the country.

Speaker 4: Yeah, pah, mister screwge is Christmas Day. So he's like, hey,

he's like my uh my wife. The old ball and

chain you know, is over at our our cabin there,

and she said that she might like want something. I

was gonna send you to the store. Would you run

and like go see if she needs anything before I

send you to the store. And he's like, yeah, no problem.

He walks in. A little boy walks in, opens the door.

Speaker 3: Finds a Zna laying on the floor dead. Oh no, okay,

I send the kid to go. Obviously don't kill people.

But like you're gonna send a little kid, I mean,

clearly he doesn't give a ship like that sucks ass.

Spoiler alert, this guy sucks ass. So the boy ran

and fetched the doctor this was doctor nap, so he

went sounds like my kind of yeah, I love and

app yep. He's like, let me prescribe a sleepy time

for you, making extra dose of kim met prescribed. That's

all I would.

Speaker 4: I mean, same, dude, Can we nap after this? I

do every every time we record. I literally I go home,

I get food, I take a nap for like two hours.

Speaker 3: Nice it is. I'm a saying, dude, it's great. I

go home and my children climb on me.

Speaker 4: Single income, no kids, baby, I'm living vicariously through you.

Speaker 3: It's fine. It's not that exciting. It's a lot of napping.

That's what I want.

Speaker 4: It's like napping crushing. I struggled to decide which hobby

I'm gonna do this morning. It was like, I could

play a video game before we record, but then I'll

get too into it and then I so instead, I

just worked on a cruche baby in a baby blanket

a friend of mine. The second one, the first one

i'm the first one I just finished, I'm getting ready

to ship, and the second one I started. He's not

due until June, so cute. Got time at least. Baby

Yeah sweet. Anyway, Sorry, no hobby corner. No, I like

the hobby corner. It's my favorite corner I got put into.

So the doctor rushed over was trying to figure out

what the hell happened to her because at this point

there's not like blood or anything. She's laying on the floor.

Speaker 3: Yeah, the boy knew something was wrong, went and got

the doctor. The doctor was like, she's dead, Like, I

cannot resuscitate her. I can't do anything. So the boy

also ran and grabbed trout. He was like, hey, man,

you're right, You're like you want to help, but I'm

not going to be able to help. So he turns

up and the doctor's like, dude, I don't know what

to do. I'm like at a loss. This is eighteen

ninety and I'm in West Virginia. Medical malage is probably

not great. But SU's like, so what? And this was

again still a time when wives were very subservient to

their husbands. So in order to take her to the hospital,

and shit, he had to ask the husband. She was like,

what do you want me to do?

Speaker 1: Like?

Speaker 3: How are we going to proceed? Quote Trout said, requested

the doctor to make no further examination of the body,

that he would assist him in in dressing her because

they had to take her out of the house obviously,

so dressing her with dressing the body and in doing

so put around the neck a high collar and a

large veil several times folded and tied in a large

bow under the chin. The head was as they carried

her out, her head was observed by the witnesses to

be very loose upon the neck and would drop to

side from side. What correct? So he got the biggest

goddamn hat that she had, put a veil over it,

tied it under her chin a bunch of times and

it had her in this high necked dress. Yeah. The

reason that he said he did that afterwards was like

she was so like he almost kind of like made

fun of her and called her like vein, Like, oh,

she wouldn't want everybody to see her like this, but

she was already like dressed.

Speaker 4: It's not like she was naked almost like she had

like a high modesty.

Speaker 3: Right, So he's like, well, I can't let everybody see

her business. But it's like, listen, as you know, a

lady who accessorizes. No one has ever double knotted a

veil under their chin from a hat. That's never happened ever. Yeah,

so like what the fuck idiot? So she was buried.

It was just a very like he was like, so

you want us to figure out what happened? And he

was like, no, of course not. She's just dead.

Speaker 1: Now.

Speaker 3: You know, sometimes wives die. I had that happen once myself,

rip second wife, So you know, things happen and things changed.

I'm just gonna roll with the punches. So why don't

you just go ahead and bury her in the grave?

And uh, that's just kind of gonna be it. Wow,

but you know who it was not? It for was

her mom, who was like, what the fuck, what happened

to my kid? So she was, you know, obviously very

very distraught. I'm sure she was really struggling with like

I should have told her, you know, not to be

with this guy immediately, she said, immediately, she knew that

he had killed her. She knew immediately, and all of

these doctors and stuff are like, you crazy bitch. She

just fell down and so SiO right, oh no, her

vagina exploded, that happens to him. Yeah, She's like, now,

it doesn't take her to the doctor. So they before

they buried her, they did do a very cursory examination

because she would not leave them alone, and they under

a verdict of death by heart disease, which, as you know,

makes your neck real floppy. Just kidding it fucking doesn't.

Maybe it does. I don't think so.

Speaker 2: Though, maybe back down the hill, well maybe I don't know.

Well it didn't in this case, okay, but like, I

don't know, maybe maybe there I don't want anybody listening

to her flappy neck, I should probably not go to

the doctor. Go to the doctor for your flappy neck freak.

So on January twenty fourth, the day after her death,

so again, this was a real short examination. I was

found dead the day before January twenty fourth, eighteen ninety seven.

She was buried in a cemetery was called something different then,

but now it's the Soul Chapel Methodist Cemetery. Okay, So

poor Mary, her poor mother. Because obviously Trout is like,

oh well, let me just go back to work. He

didn't seem that affected by the circumstances. But Mary is

obviously heartbroken the death of her child and such like

a mysterious way. So she starts doing things that I

would probably be doing in the eighteen nineties that you

would not be doing, which would be going to seances.

Speaker 3: Oh no. So she is trying to figure out, like

what the hell's going on. She went to her church.

They all told her to shut up. She went to

the doctors, they told her to shut up. All of

her friends are like, you know, sometimes people die. She's like,

she was fine, she didn't have heart disease. Yeah, something happened, like,

and I can't figure out what happened. She even tried

to confront Trout and he told her like fuck off.

He was like no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. So she went

to she was going to these seances. It's a little

unclear as to whether this was like a vision that

she had at one of these seances, because a lot

of the newspaper articles described it as a dream that

she had. So I don't know if she had this

dream or vision at the seance or she went home

and went to bed and had a dream, you know

what I mean. But either way, she had what she

described as a very clear vision of her daughter's zona

coming to her and telling her I was murdered. It

was not heart disease. My husband killed me, and he

killed me by strangling me and breaking my neck. And

she involved a detail about one of the ligaments in

her neck that had been She was like, there was

a snap, and this is how I died. Note at

that time, she was not aware of everyone saying her

neck was flopping around the show.

Speaker 1: Bah.

Speaker 4: You know, I do think there is something to be

said for like sort of confirmation bias, right, Like she

thought for sure her daughter was murdered and now she's

dreaming about having murdered.

Speaker 3: I'm joking around like this is the case that converts you.

But I think that surely with her grief, heavy heart

and the fact that she is not saying she wasn't murdered,

and she was we're gonna talk about the whole morningment,

but like the I'm sure, I'm sure this was something

that was just weighing heavily on her heart. The fact

that she knew the cause with no proof is pretty interesting.

But again she said she didn't know about like the

floppy neck, but maybe someone had told her and she forgot,

you know, or maybe someone mentioned to her, or maybe

one of the seans people knew it and were like, girl,

he broke her neck, you know what I mean, Like,

we don't know, but she either way, she had this

big vision of Zona coming to her and being like,

I have been murdered, like you were right, Sorry I

shouldn't have gotten married. Fuck you right, But now I'm dead,

so you know, it does it happens, So she obviously,

you know, when and you're grieving, you have dreams like this.

You're like, I'm just gonna kind of push it to

the side. She felt so strongly about this that this

was proof that Zona had truly visited her from the

other side that she went to the local prosecutor, a

man named John Alfred Preston, and She like pretty much

barricaded herself in his office and was like, I am

telling you this is what happened. Whether he believed her

about the ghost, he didn't quite say, but she was

so convincing. And I think part of it was probably

that she was like they did because he was like, Okay,

what did the autopsies stay. She's like, they didn't do

a full fucking autopsy because he said no, and he went,

that's suspicious. Yea. So he was like, all right, let's

actually look into this for realsies. Yeah, so he went

and reinterviewed first of all, went and reinterviewed doctor Knapp.

I was like, yeah, he told me not to look

at her. He told me not to examine her. I

wasn't allowed to lift her. And then like they were

interviewing people in the town and people were like, that

guy sucks. We hate that guy, and she looks scared

when she's with him. We don't like him at all.

Small town. Everybody's talking, you know, everyone's like he fucking murdered. Sure,

So this led to an exhumation of the body, so

they had to do like a whole I thought that

was so interesting, Like eighteen nineties like, what even is

this process? But it seems like pretty similar to today

where they had to have an inquestuary and then they

were like all right, it's fine. And then they exhumed

her and determined there was enough evidence to have a

full autopsy done. So this was on February twenty second,

eighteen ninety seven. They took her body to a local

one room schoolhouse, which like so nice for the children.

I hope they weren't there. Yeah, they're like, scooch over, billy,

take her, take your plank over. The autopsy was extensive

for this time period and it lasted three hours. They

immediately were like, oh, her neck is broken. Duh okay,

well quote this is from like the autopsy report. The

discovery was made that the neck was broken and the

wind pipe mashed on the throat where marks of fingers

indicating that she had been choked. The neck was dislodged

between the second and the first and second vertebrae. Excuse me,

the ligaments were torn and ruptured. The wind pipe had

been crushed at a point in front of the neck. Okay.

Speaker 4: Yeah, so they were like, yep, that that's what did it. Yeah,

So they immediately arrested him and he helped to sit

in jail for a little while.

Speaker 3: Oh good. So as they sit him in jail, they're

starting to learn more information about him, and this is

when all of this information would come to light about like, oh,

you've been married before, you've been in jail. The first wife,

who was like you're a deadbeat, Like are you going

to support me and my child, not only confirm that

story but said that he had been enormously cruel and

would like almost play games with her. He was clearly

like some kind of psychopath. Yea enjoyed pain and torture. Yeah.

So they're talking to like his friends and like all

the people he drinks with. They're like, what sort of

guy is he? And they're like, well, he has this

like weird idea. So he has this like cute new wife, right,

and he told us that he'd been married before. Obviously

not the circumstances on how these marriages ended, but he

has this whole idea that he wants to in his

lifetime wed seven women. Okay, that was his like goal?

How serial killery is that? It's because it's like you're

gonna want something, would say, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 4: My goal is to make as many children as possible

and make him with.

Speaker 3: His own wiener. They use surrogates.

Speaker 4: Yeah crazy, I mean okay, yes they do. Yeah, well

we're gonna move on. We don't need to talk about

him on this, that's true. No more airtime, Yeah.

Speaker 3: Right, get out of here. So that was like his ambition.

So when he was being held in the jail, because

when they eventually had court, some of his cellmates would

testify that he would talk to them about this as well, like, oh, yeah,

this is my life goal. Your life goal is getting

out of prison and be a good member of society.

Hell yeah, my goal is to marry seven women. They

were like that's pretty weird, dude, and he was like, well,

I mean it doesn't really matter because I don't really

have to talk to you guys because I'm going to

get out of here. They have nothing. Sure you are, Yeah,

you're super cocky and was like no, yeah, no, So

you'll be happy to know that when the court started, uh,

the prosecution or whatever would because Mary the mother was

no not or whatever is it? The prosecution? Uh yeah,

the people prosecuting, Yes, the people prosecuting the well, I

mean like her, like lawyers and shit. Like, you know,

when you're a lawyer and you're prosecuting, you have to

have an angle, right. I think it would have been

really easy and fun for them to go with the

ghost angle, but they were kind of like.

Speaker 4: Well, we're just not gonna fucking talk about that. Fair

let's just not talk about it. I agree, not really evident,

good legal strategy.

Speaker 3: Correct. That's why I was like this because they weren't

like good solid in the courtroom. Let me take you back.

Speaker 1: For a d.

Speaker 3: So he uh, the lawyers cross examined her, but they

didn't really They were like, don't talk about your ghost dream.

Just tell us that you didn't like him and stuff,

and she's like, I didn't, I didn't. But they the

tactic did backfire because they were like, so, uh, you

know all that stuff we talked about, how come you

knew he was a bad person. She's like, I had

a dream of a ghost. And the judge said later

that it was difficult because everybody at the courtroom believed

her story, right, because this was a very superstitious period

of time. Oh for sure, this was and West Virginia,

small town West Virginia. There's all kinds of cryptids and yells,

woods don't whistle at night, et cetera, et cetera. Very

superstitious area. My family is all from there, Like, I

totally get it, you totally get it. Yeah, But I'm

sure for a judge it'd be like, all right, can

we focus on like the actual evidence and not the

fun and spooky story. And everyone's like no. But in

the end it didn't really matter. So the ghost was

only mentioned by her quote. The Greenbrier ghost was never

mentioned by the prosecution, and he said played no part,

but I think there's no issure. But the evidence was

pretty humongous. So he was found guilty on July eleventh,

nineteen eighty seven, of first degree murder. They were going

to hang him, but for some reason, the jury recommended

mercy and he was sentenced to life in prison. Okay, again,

I say this because this is West Virginia and it

was very common that when you were convicted of murder

you would just kind of be shot.

Speaker 4: It was just us at the time, Like everywhere in

the US at that time, it was.

Speaker 3: Very like Proro the boy. We love life here in America.

And in fact, outside of the of the core and

the jail, there was already a lynch mob mob forming,

and they were like, Okay, yep, you go ahead and

drop him off and we'll take it from here. But

the sheriff was like, can you all fucking go home? Yeah,

Like he seemed like a pretty stand up guy. He

actually was kind of like, haven't hasn't like this mother

suffered enough, right, leave it alone. Yeah, And actually some

of the people in the lynch mob ended up getting

in trouble for doing lynching activities. Trout it's still it's

trying to get me to call him Edward with his

names Trout Trout. Chu died March thirteenth, nineteen hundred, so

only about like twelve years later. It says, the victim

of an unknown epidemic, so I mean eighteen nineties. It

could have been Spanish flu. No, it could have been whatever.

So he is buried in an unmarked grave at the

local prison cemetery. Seems fitting. To round this story out,

the state of West Virginia has enacted a little marker

by where Zona is buried. This is the description, which

is this is actually how I found this case as

I was looking at like interesting like grave sites, grave

sites and like markers and stuff. Brand normal activities sounds

about another Saturday night. This is what the plinth reads.

Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shoe. Her death

in eighteen ninety seven was presumed natural until her spirit

appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed

by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the ezombody verified the

apparition's account. Edward found guilty of murder was sentenced to

state prison. Only known case in which testimony from a

ghost helped convict a murderer.

Speaker 4: My god, right, I mean, it is certainly the more

interesting story, right, Like right, it's funner, it's funner to believe,

and like the Greenbrier Ghost is still like a thing

enough that it was actually an episode of drunk history.

Someone talked about the Greenbrier Ghost. There are like four

plays based on the account. There's plenty of novels. There's

even an opera which is called Everlasting Faint, and it's

from twenty twenty three. Oh so this is still like

a like a local I don't want to call it

a fun tale because this poor girl, but it's like

a local intrigue story. And I loved the distinction of

like this is the only code case to be solved

by a ghost, when in fact, as we both discussed,

we really didn't need that part of it. No, it's

not essential to the case in any way. And I

think i'm it's all about like, to me, it's like

a mother's determination of like, I know something happened, and

it's not about the ghost. It's about the fact that

she went to the prosecutor's office and was like, hey,

your people aren't following the rules. I mean, arguably, there

is still no cases where testimony from a ghost has

correct as a ghost believer correct correct.

Speaker 3: But I thought it was like such a fun distinction,

and as soon as I read it, I was like, oh,

this will annoy her so much, And I immediately was like,

I'm doing this case. It's so fun. It was interesting.

I'll give you that interesting. So that is the case

of Dick Head Trout and how he was just like

a wife murderer, loved to murder his wives. Everyone needs

a hobby.

Speaker 4: So when you suggested West Virginia murderer, yes, there was

a lot of ways that you can go with this,

and I wanted to go one of the more unconventional.

As I do, I'm also going to say at the top,

this is very information dense material.

Speaker 3: So I know that I apologize because it does. It

really does.

Speaker 4: But like there's some of the intricacies of this stuff

that's like heavy. Yeah, I know, it's like glad, I'm

just kidding, right, but I wanted to talk about I mean,

I consider this murder right Don Blankenship and the upper

Big Branch mind disaster interesting.

Speaker 3: I was just gonna say coal mining.

Speaker 4: Yes, I know you talked at the top, like coal

mining is this huge, absolutely in West Virginia. But also

the name Don Blankenship just makes me think of Kenny Blankenship,

who was one of the hosts of uh Most Extreme

Elimination Challenge, which was before the American version like dubbed

over version of a show called Takeshi's Castle.

Speaker 3: Oh wait, I do know. Yeah, it used to be

on Spike.

Speaker 4: I still watch reruns of it because you can watch

them on Amazon pro tip.

Speaker 3: Hell.

Speaker 4: But it was like there was this like Japanese It's

one of these Japanese like physical game shows where people

are like running through obstacles and try to do whatever.

Then in the two thousands, they basically bought the rights

to it and then re dubbed it with American voice actors.

Speaker 3: This was such a time in the two thousands where

they were just like stealing.

Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really funny. It's super good. I don't know, Library, Syle,

Library was good.

Speaker 3: It was so fun was good. But it was that era, right.

Speaker 4: One of the one of the hosts in the American

version was named Kenny Blankenship, and that's unrelated, but I

was like, no, I love it. So we're actually we're

gonna start with him. We'll start with a little bit

of background on mister Don Blankenship. Okay, So he was

born in Stopover, Kentucky. Wow, is a hilarious day. They

know what they're about. Yeah, but he was raised in

West Virginia.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 4: His parents got a divorced, got divorced not long after

he was born. His mother took the money from that

and opened a convenience store that she would run for

forty years. Okay, So she was sort of teaching this

entrepreneurship and the young years, and it was very clear

that this was like gonna the sun after I'm Don. Yeah.

Uh So blanket Ship received a Bachelor's of Accounting from

Marshall University in nineteen seventy two, and he would spend

his summers working as a coal miner. This was pretty

comic because, like you said, coal mining is one of

West Virginia's largest industries. It's actually the second nations I'm sorry,

it's the nation's second largest producer of coal.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I was surprised. Behind Doo. Who's the first I

did until you asked me Wyoming. Oh yeah, I was

gonna say it's like some like western state.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, which I guess. I didn't realize that Wyoming

was such a big coal industry. Also, because I think

when I think coal mining, I think West Virginia like

I think East Yeah, making Appalachia. Yeah, you know, Appalachia.

Why don't give a shit. Janelle used to correct me

on that too.

Speaker 3: Our Appalachian viewers are going to be mad at you.

Speaker 4: That's fine. They get mad at you for all sorts

of reasons. I'm just spreading the lover around.

Speaker 3: So in Appalachia, oh my god, it's just wrong, falls

out of here incorrectly. In the East, yeah, whatever, That's

what I think of. Though.

Speaker 4: Is West Virginia like when it comes to coal mining?

Me too, So there is tons of stuff in his background.

Some of it will talk about some of what we want,

but what I really want to focus on is his

career in the mining industry. So in nineteen eighty two,

Blankenship first joined Rall Sales and Processing Company, which was

a subsidiary of this company called Massy Energy.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 4: About seven years later, he was promoted to president of

Massy Coal Services, Incorporated, receiving the COO chief operating Officer

position as well in nineteen ninety Business Bitch. By two thousand,

Blankenship was named chairman and CEO of Massy Energy. He's

doing great, and he was the first non Massy family

member to run the company.

Speaker 3: Wow.

Speaker 4: By two thousand and nine, Blankenship was earning seventeen point

eight million dollars a year, which was a six point

eight million dollar raise from the year prior and the

highest earnings in the coal industry in the United States.

Speaker 3: That's a stupid amount of money. It is a stupid

amount of money, dude. Crazy.

Speaker 4: It was also around this time that he started getting

into politics a little bit. Great.

Speaker 3: I love when rich people do that.

Speaker 4: In which for reasons that will become clear later, Like

it's very specific reasons, right, I mean the cold stuff. Yes,

but like h in twenty eighteen and twenty twenty four,

Oh no, he ran for West Virginia's US Senate seats

and launched a presidential campaign in twenty twenty under the

Constitution Party. Oh yes, So it's a little bit of background.

I'm like, yeah, but I want to move on to

what we are actually talking about today, which is Disastercha.

So in West Virginia, near mont Cole, just south of Charleston,

was the Upper Big Branch South Mind, which was mine

which was owned by a subsidiary of Massy Energy called

Performance Coal Company. Okay, upper big Branch. You're going to

hear me refer to this a ton as Ubb. That's

how they refer to it in a lot of sport. Yes, mine, Yeah,

Upper Big Branch South Mine.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 4: On April fifth, twenty ten, just before three point thirty pm,

an explosion occurs at the mine, rocking the nearby towns. Immediately,

emergency services were dispatched to the mine, including over twenty

ambulances and three helicopters. Wow, there were some people successfully

pulled out in those initial rescue efforts.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 4: There was one miner that was taken by helicopter. There

were two others that were taken by ambulance. By the

end of the day, a total of seven bodies had

been pulled from the mine, but it was clear that

there were other factors like limiting their rescue efforts.

Speaker 3: Okay, Oh, how tragic.

Speaker 4: In interviews in the days after, survivor Stanley Stewart told

NPR that he had been between three hundred two three

to four hundred feet underground getting ready to start his shift.

This happens like right at or right after a shift changeover, okay,

when the explosion happened. He also said, quote he had

to struggle through hurricane force winds and flying to debris

to make it above ground end quote. Rescuer workers also

said the rail lines were twisted like pretzels and mining

machines were blown to pieces.

Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah, this sounds so scary.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Meanwhile, Massey is starting to give official statements about

like what is going on, right, because it's like his subsidiary, well,

it's like the Massy company is given these statements, so

like he and they are trying to like reduce panic

at this point, so they assure the public that the

mine had various rescue chambers that were stocked with first

aid kits and oxygen tanks, including two inflatable units that

had air, water, sanitary facilities, and food for twelve miners

for four days.

Speaker 3: Sounds pretty cool.

Speaker 4: Sounds great. Which also I just imagine like essentially an

emergency bounce house with facilities. That sounds I don't know

if that's what it is, but that's what I envisioned

my head.

Speaker 3: Right, It's like the airbag.

Speaker 4: Yeah, so that all sounds great, But it's only great

if the miners are able to make it there, make

it to these safety chambers in the first place, right.

Speaker 3: Because otherwise it doesn't matter, right right.

Speaker 4: By the end of the first day, news outlets were

reporting twelve miners had died and more than a dozen

were unaccounted for. As with most mine incidents, rescuers had

to be like super careful about how they went about

getting people out for.

Speaker 3: A variety of reasons. My ning is crazy. It is

fucking crazy. You're just underground. Hell no, dude, I know not.

Speaker 4: I In the early hours of April sixth, it was

determined there were high levels of methane and carbon monoxide,

which forced rescue teams to return above ground.

Speaker 3: Until it could be addressed.

Speaker 1: Oh no.

Speaker 4: From ABC News. The plan was as announced by then

Governor Joe Manchin quote crues. I know crews will have

to drill down about one thousand feet to be able

to release the gases and test the air to determine

whether it's safe for rescuers end.

Speaker 3: Quote.

Speaker 4: Over the course of the next couple of days, rescuers

continued to pull bodies out of the mine, adding to

the death toll day after day. By Saturday, nearly a

week after the initial explosion, the mission was changed from

rescue to recovery.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Speaker 4: None of the miners were able to make it to

any of the safety chambers, and in the initial hours

of the rescue, rescuers walked right past four bodies without

seeing them due to conditions. In the mind, you're like

a coal mine. I mean, like all the black dust

it's from the explosion to it. Kiss a shit tome.

I'm not even like a normal day on the mine.

You probably can't see shit. Yeah, And I'm not putting

any blame on these people, That's what.

Speaker 3: I'm saying too. That must have been twist. Yeah.

Speaker 4: In total, the explosion killed twenty nine people twenty eight

Massy employees and one contractor, as well as three additional

people injured.

Speaker 3: Wow yeah, what a nightmare. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4: Once the rescue efforts had ceased, it was time for

an investigation to assign blame, right, and boy was there

plenty to go around. Holy shit, are you gonna be

pissed off by this?

Speaker 1: Oh?

Speaker 3: Great, great, I'm already got you girl. You thought you

were getting me. I'm getting you. I got you, I

got time, bod pressure.

Speaker 4: So there was a ton of background investigation happening into

safety records and reports, but the Mind Safety and Health

Administration also called the MSHA wasn't able to physically investigate

the mind sight until July twenty ten.

Speaker 3: Okay, they got a wait for all those gases to

yes a page. Sure, yeah, that makes sense too. So

this was two months later. Okay, I had to wait again,

like you said, due to the large concentration of toxic

gas that was still present. Now, up to this point,

Massey's official stance on the cause of the explosion was

quote caused by a massive release of methane gas, which

would absolve them from responsibility. How convenient isn't it nice

when methane does that.

Speaker 4: Which is I'm not saying this doesn't happen, right, Right,

it's not impossible, but when you're riling, there's like pockets

of gas all those things. But the report from an

independent agency's investigation commissioned by then Governor Joe Manchin placed

the blame squarely on Massy and the MSHA. Yeah again

from ABC News quote. According to the report, a mining

machine hit a rock, which created a spark and ignited

a pocket of pent up gas. The crew saw it

and immediately shut down the machine, but the fireball moved

and hit cold dust, which is extremely combustible. This caused

a series of massive blasts that reached two miles through

the mine and lasted for several minutes.

Speaker 3: Oh god, those poor guys, they must have been terrified.

Speaker 4: And this would have happened in less than a minute.

Like it's one spark. They turned off the machine, it

ignited the gas. That gas ignited the.

Speaker 3: Coal dust, and it was like, this is like very chernobyle.

It's reminding me of that a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Further, the report said, quote, the company's ventilation system didn't

work adequately, causing the deadly build up of explosive gases,

and that Massy quote failed to meet federal and state

safety standards for the handling of rock dust, and that

emergency water systems were not properly maintained and failed to

function as they should.

Speaker 3: Have end quote. Fuck this asshole.

Speaker 4: So this is the independent agency. Yeah, that's like yo,

So that's just the stuff that they assigned to Massy. Okay,

there is some very big blame to place, not only

on the company, but on the governmental agencies charged withholding

the company accountable to meet industry standards of safety, both

state and federal. Very true, like for real, But there

were a lot of findings to support these allegations, right,

they were like, here's what happened. So uh, Not only

did they look at reports and interview over this from

the independent investigation, They looked at reports, interviewed over three

hundred Massy employees, survivors and families of those who lost

their lives. They gave congressional testimony about their family member's

experience working for Massy. During one of these hearings, he was.

Speaker 3: A peach and a doll and a lovely man.

Speaker 4: Well, it's a company. Massy is the company I know.

Massy Blankenship is the guy Massy is the company. You're right,

You're right, my man, My god, Massy's company.

Speaker 3: Massy is the company exactly.

Speaker 4: Okay, So mass Massy's monster. So during one of these hearings, okay,

Alice Peters, who lost her son in law Dean Dean

Jones in the explosion, recounted his attempts to raise alarms, saying,

quote Jones himself warned Massy at least seven times. They

told him if he shut down the coal production, he

would lose his job.

Speaker 3: End quote.

Speaker 4: Now, if you remember, I said, the report also blamed

the MSA right right for the explosion. Well, they said

that just in two thousand and nine, Massey received five

hundred and fifteen citations for safety violations at the upper

Big Branch.

Speaker 1: Mine.

Speaker 3: What from the MSHA, Oh my god, that seems like

a right, sure, seems like a fucking lot. Seems like

kind of a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Well, apparently the agency could have fined Massy two hundred

and twenty thousand dollars under a flagrant violation citation. They

have this special citation that's called flagrant violation. So it's like,

we've told you about these errors, you have just completely

disregarded everything that you've said frant I know, flagrant violation citation,

but for whatever reason, they decided not to.

Speaker 3: Wow, that's really interesting saying. You know, you always think

about like who's going to be held accountable. You never

think about these like each That's so interesting.

Speaker 4: There was also a failure to notify miners that the

mine was not meeting the minimal safety standards as required

by law.

Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, not even the minimal, like which it's a

fucking coal mine is so dangerous to work in. Yeah,

and you're not even doing the bare minimum for these guys. Yeah,

well that costs money. That costs money to do the

bare minimum. I'm mad.

Speaker 1: I know.

Speaker 3: Well, you're gonna be even more mad.

Speaker 4: No, this was not the first methane incident at UBB.

Speaker 1: What.

Speaker 3: There was one in nineteen ninety seven. Oh my god.

Speaker 4: There was one in two thousand and three. There was

one in two thousand and four.

Speaker 3: Hello.

Speaker 4: But the company chose to view these events as anomalies

rather than a symptom of a larger issue. They're like,

oh my god, what a weird accident. Oh it happened again,

crazy accident. That sucks.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Fuck.

Speaker 4: There does not appear to be evidence that additional safety

measures were required by the MSAHA following any of these events. Wow,

and that's just the methane related events.

Speaker 3: That's crazy.

Speaker 4: There were numerous citations and fines in the many years

prior to the incident, including get ready for this list,

Massy Energy being fined three hundred and eighty two thousand

dollars in two thousand and nine for serious unrepentant violations

for lacking ventilation and proper equipment plans as well as

failing to utilize its safety plan properly.

Speaker 3: Wow.

Speaker 4: Two safety citations the day before the explosions. Stop it,

fifty seven citations in the prior month, six hundred safety

citations in the prior eighteen months. Why, one thousand, three

hundred and forty two safety citations in the prior five years,

and two point two million dollars in fines from the

MSHA for more than three thousand safety violations between nineteen

ninety five and twenty ten.

Speaker 3: Shut it down. Yeah, bro, this mine sucks.

Speaker 4: Also, to add to this, there's allegations of Massey's massive

influence on the West Virginia political system, which is something

I don't think anybody is going to be surprised by no,

like they're talking about like paying off judges and paying

off inspector.

Speaker 3: I was going to say, it seems corrupt as shit. Yeah,

that's what I mean.

Speaker 4: When you add money into the mix, it's like, now

you're playing with people's.

Speaker 3: Lives and they don't care. Oh my god, No, they

do not They do not care at all. I'm so mad.

I told you. Okay.

Speaker 4: So now, like I said, this was just the independent

investigation that was commissioned by the governor, the MSAJA was

doing its own investigation at the federal level that would

eventually be released as a final report in December twenty eleven.

They too rejected Massy's narrative that this was an unexpected

random pocket methane, instead saying the disaster was entirely preventable.

This is from the MSHA's press release quote. While the

investigation found the physical conditions that led to the coal

dust explosion were the result of a series of basic

safety violations at UBB, which PCC and Masse disregarded, the

report cites unlawful policies and practices implemented by PCC and

Massey as the root cause of the explosion, including the

intimidation of miners, advanced notice of inspections, and two sets

of books with hazards recorded in ubb's internal Production and

Maintenance book but not in the official examination book.

Speaker 3: Wow.

Speaker 4: The investigation found that the operator promoted and enforced a

workplace culture that valued production over safety, including practices calculated

to allow it to conduct mining operations in violation of

the law.

Speaker 3: End quote. Holy whoa, this whole thing is bad. It's

so bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. Dude, what

didn't give a shit? No? Nah?

Speaker 4: Meanwhile, they're, uh, the guy running the company is literally

making like six times as much as anybody else in

the whole industry.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and like going and holding it up doing his

political stuff. Crazy.

Speaker 4: I wanted, Well, that didn't come until his political stuff

doesn't come until after this for reasons that will become clear.

Speaker 3: Oh my god.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Uh So, as a result of their investigation, the MSHA

issued three hundred and sixty nine citations to Massy Energy

and Alpha Natural Resources, who, like, so they're doing this investigation. Massy,

in the meantime is acquired by Alpha Natural Resources. Okay,

okay during this time, got it?

Speaker 3: So they also get issued the citation well, of course

that was pretty dumb. Yeah, probably, like we wish we

didn't buy this. This is coming with a lot of

problems for us.

Speaker 4: The Department of Justice also announced a settlement with Alpha

National Resources the same day the MSHA report was released.

Speaker 3: Okay, so Alpha agreed to pay MHSA a ten.

Speaker 4: Point eight million dollar civil penalty, as well as two

hundred and nine million dollars in settlement money to the

Department of Justice. The settlement included thirty four point eight

million in fines for safety, forty eight million for a

health and safety research and development trust fund, eighty million

for safety improvements during two years, and one point five

million to each survivor as well as the families of

those who lost their lives in the explosion. Okay, the

civil fine to the MSAHA was five times larger than

the largest fine for a mining accident and denies any

corporate criminal liability. Now that is just corporate, right, that

is that is this is the time where Massy is

actually a person, because you know, in the corporal law

world they view businesses as people and it's a whole thing.

Speaker 3: Yes, that makes sense.

Speaker 4: So you might be wondering at this point why I

even bothered to talk about Don Blankenship at the beginning.

Speaker 3: I am this episode. It was interesting.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I was interested, But like, why did I even

bother mentioning him?

Speaker 3: Yeah?

Speaker 4: Well, it seems to me that he is one of

only two individuals who received any criminal liability for the explosion.

Speaker 3: What two people? I'm furious.

Speaker 1: I oh.

Speaker 4: In November twenty fourteen, Blankenship was indicted by a federal

grand jury for conspiracy to violate safety laws, defrauding the government,

securities fraud, and making false statements to the SEC. Uh

huh the Security Exchange Commission.

Speaker 3: Did that shit.

Speaker 4: Out of all of that, he was only convicted of

a lesser misdemeanor charge for conspiring to violate federal mind

safety standards and received one year in prison.

Speaker 3: Fuck you.

Speaker 4: During this time, Blankenship was like I'm a political prisoner.

He's like they're coming after me, and he apparently had

a Twitter feud.

Speaker 3: With Joe Manchin.

Speaker 4: Get out of here because Joe Manchin is like, this is

all your fault. He's like, fuck that guy, this is

politically motivated. Wow. He also continuously called for another investigation

into the explosion, like, bro, you don't want that pretty

much pretty much, seeming like he's denying any responsibility whatsoever.

The Joe mansion feud was likely the catalyst to seek

his Senate seat. So like this, like I said, this

was twenty fourteen, he goes into prison, he comes back out,

and then in twenty eighteen he's running for Joe Manchins,

got his seat and runs it.

Speaker 3: Attempts to run against him twice. I hate this guy

so much. I'm literally boiling that I know.

Speaker 4: In an interesting turn of events, in August twenty nineteen,

Federal Magistrate Magistrate Judge Omar J. A. Bolson discovered there

were sixty one memorandums of interviews conducted by federal agents,

in addition to other documents that were not turned over

to the defense by prosecutors. Oh, he did not indicate

that it was done purposely, Like he didn't. It didn't

seem like it was done with malice. But had these

been turned over, it could have changed the outcome.

Speaker 3: Of the verdict. Boy, how interesting. While he called for.

Speaker 4: The conviction to be thrown out, it was a recommendation

rather than a legal ruling, and the US District Court

declined to throw out the conviction.

Speaker 3: Whatever.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean at this point, he like he did

his year in jail, whatever right. The other person to

receive any charges as a result of the explosion was

former Superintendent of UBB, Gary May, who pled guilty to

conspiring to impede the msaha's enforcement efforts. Okay, this is

from the Department of Justice website. Okay quote. May admitted

that he and others conspired to impede MSAHA in administering

and enforcing mine health and safety laws at UBB. He

acknowledged giving advance warning of MSHA inspections, often using code

phrases to avoid detection. May also admitted to concealing health

and safety violations when he knew inspections were imminent. What

the violations concealed included poor airflow in the mine, piles

of loose combustible coal, and scarcities of rock dust, which

prevents mine explosions. Yeah, many, excuse me. May further acknowledge

that he ordered a mine examination book to be falsified.

He also said he told miners to require the methane

gas detector on a piece of mine equipped. I'm sorry

to it was like to disconnect the methane gas detector

on a piece of mine equipment, so the equipment could

run illegally.

Speaker 3: What the Oh my god, yeah, I'm mad.

Speaker 4: Yeah, which is literally the fucking cause of this accident,

Like you killed all those people, dude.

Speaker 3: You're a murderer.

Speaker 4: So May received twenty one months in prison as well

as three years of supervised release and a twenty thousand

dollars Fine.

Speaker 3: That's nothing. Here's the deal with May. You should have

to eat coal.

Speaker 4: I do think he's culpable in like perpetuating that culture,

but I also do think there was probably a lot

of sure coming from the top.

Speaker 3: He shouldn't be the most punished. No, no, no, I

totally agree.

Speaker 4: No, but he he got fucking more time, right than

the guy who's running the company.

Speaker 3: I agree with you. He got worse penalties than the

guy running the fucking company, which is crazy because it's like,

what about his boss, I know, Like what about this

blanket guy?

Speaker 4: I know, I know, And the company didn't even take

any responsibility even in his sons. He was like, yeah,

I did do these things. Like he played guilty too.

Speaker 3: Right, It's like with the allowance of the company that

you worked for, right, really should be dissolved. Yes, that's disgusting.

I know I don't like it here.

Speaker 4: I know that's capitalism, baby, I hate it here. In

April twenty ten, just weeks after the disaster, then President

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden attended a memorial and

attended a memorial service in Beckley, West Virginia. In the

years since, a memorial has been erected in Whitesville, West Virginia,

called the Upper Big Branch Miners Memorial, and includes a

forty eight foot black granite monument that has life sized

silhouettes of the twenty nine miners who lost their lives

etched on the front. On the back is the story

of coal. It's kind of like a coal history of

West Virginia, as well as a tribute to the twenty

nine miners killed and two survivors, as well as all

miners who have suffered injury or death as a result

of their work in the coal mining industry.

Speaker 3: Because I'll tell you it is extensive.

Speaker 4: It is not the first, it will probably not be

the last until we can completely stop our coal consumption.

And frankly, it's not the first or last in West

Virginia specifically.

Speaker 3: I talked in the beginning of the episode about like

the political history of West Virginia. This is huge, This

is a huge It's very interesting to look at how

the government has prevented West Virginia from flourishing in that way. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's I mean, I want to say the

nice thing I think the good things to come out

of these disasters, right is lawmakers looking at things absolutely,

And like the Safety Chamber thing was something that was

enacted like a year or two prior because of something

else that happened at fucking UBB.

Speaker 3: Like the thing it's like, once there's a disaster, people

can people are motivated to make more positive changes for safety. Yeah,

so it's like that is a good thing.

Speaker 4: I agree with you there, but like also they should

do that beforehand, say from the Star but whatever.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 4: So that memorial, the Upper Big Branch Miners Memorial that

was dedicated in July twenty twelve.

Speaker 3: But yeah, that is I mean, that's.

Speaker 4: The story of the Upper Big Branch mind disaster and

the crazy like just the blatant disregard for safety standards.

Speaker 3: And the fact that that was rewarded because nobody really

got in trouble.

Speaker 4: And how shitty because you're in a community where it's

literally like sons and their dads and their grandfathers, like

generations all working for the same mind and doing the

same things. Like these people have dedicated their fucking lives.

Speaker 3: To completely disregard their safety.

Speaker 4: You're like, let them die. Yeah, that's mastering anyway, that's

my want West Virginia story.

Speaker 3: I want to put coal in a sock and I

hit them with it. I told you that'd be messy.

Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody

knows things are bad. It's a depression.

Speaker 4: Everybody not losing their job. Well, that has been our show. Yes,

we done did it. I'm ready for a napp.

Speaker 3: Now mount mama.

Speaker 4: Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Speaker 3: I need bad things to happen to people in power.

Speaker 4: Okay, well I'm not gonna let you expand on that anymore.

Speaker 3: You probably shouldn't, I guess.

Speaker 4: On that note, If you enjoyed this episode, you can

find more just like this at bad Taste podcast dot com.

Our sound and editing is by Ti Fulman. Our music

is by Jason Zakshevsky Bonigma. This has been the Bad

Taste Crime Podcast. We will see you in two weeks.

Speaker 3: Goodbye, along as a highway. It was as if the

way that people washed over with town wearing another