Transcript of Blanche Taylor Moore, The Oldest Woman on Death Row (Part 1)

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

I'm Alayna.

And this is Morbid.

This is Morbid.

Honey, it's Morbid post Radio City.

It is.

We had a fucking blast.

We did. It was amazing meeting you guys afterwards. It was so much fun.

It was so much fun. Yeah, meeting everybody afterwards was You guys made me feel like Harry Styles.

That's exactly what I felt like.

Yeah, we were like the Beatles or something.

It's true.

It was so much fun.

And my parents got to come.

Ma and Papa had the best time.

They did. They had— they were beaming seeing Ma in New York.

Ma hadn't been to New York City in like decades and had like the best time. We got to like do a really fun dinner afterwards with all of our friends. Like, my cup is full to the brim right now.

It truly is.

But it's time to get back.

Yeah, I'm happy to get back to normalcy a little bit.

We spent So much time planning that live show. I think the last weeks of our lives were spent just like going over every single detail.

Yeah.

To get it all perfect.

And now, and there's just like the production, everything. It was a bigger, it's such a big venue that it was such a bigger production.

Mara Production.

I just have to shout them out.

Marcus and Sophie specifically.

Jeez. Truly.

Not cheese. Jeez.

Truly.

They were the sweetest people I think I've ever met in my life and like took such good care of us. Took such good care of the stage, and like, just so much went into that.

Yeah.

So thank you to everybody who made that happen, and thank you to everybody who showed up to support us. It really means a lot.

You guys rule. You do.

But now it's time to get back to like, our normal day-to-day, our regular morbid schedule.

We're back. We're home.

Mercury is in Gatorade, and we saw something that said— or I should say—

it wants you to slow down.

I should say Mercury is retrograde. I have to stop saying in retrograde as a student of astrology. It's retrograde. Because that's just saying Mercury is in backwards.

Yeah, it's in backwards, you know, but it is, it's just backward. It's in backwards right now. And it, and it said, according to Eliza Kelly, who I trust— oh yeah, trust in Eliza Kelly— she said it wants you to slow down. And I said, I'm going to take that to heart, babe, because I'm like a missile right now and I, I need to slow down.

Frankly, I'd like to slow down. Truly, Mama's tired. Truly, Mama is tired. I'm exhausted and my asthma is flaring up again. My asthma, The asthma and the humidity, it said flare up, flare up, give that bitch some mucus in her throat and a cough.

That's what it said. I don't know, you sounded like Donald Trump.

Oh, I've never been more insulted in my life.

Wow, it sounded like it. Yucky. It did.

Oh, how do we move away from that?

Any— anyway, anything else?

Do you want me to— should we just get right into the story? I actually— we probably should because I do have a long one today.

Yeah, let's go. And I know like, um, Jeffrey has his timer out.

So exactly, here we go. We're starting.

Stop. Here we go.

All right, so I have a two-parter. This is obviously part one. Welcome. So we're going to be talking about Blanche Taylor Moore. And Blanche Taylor Moore is— spoiler alert, just to really start you off to, to know what you're getting into— the oldest woman on death row.

Oh, that's what we're getting into. Okay.

Yeah. All right, that's where we're headed.

Let's go.

Before she headed to death row, she was born on February 17th, 1933, in Concord, North Carolina. She was the 5th of 7 children born to Parker "P.D." Keyser and his wife Flannie.

Okay. I'm obsessed with Flannie. Okay, Flannie.

Okay, Flannie Flonton.

All right.

Now technically P.D., the dad, was a mill worker, but his real passion was preaching the gospel.

Okay.

Preaching the gospel.

P.D.

proudly fell into the category of primitive preachers, which was kind of a group of untrained, definitely unpaid Baptist preachers who traveled around to rural locations like campgrounds to preach, which only makes me think of True Detective Season 1.

Yes, absolutely. Like, what a—

like tent revivals.

What an iconic season of television.

True Detective is so good. I love Season 1.

Truly.

Now, according to author Jim Schutz, who we will link in the show notes and who we have used before, great author, P.D. preached an intense, monotonous, sing-song, literal interpretation of the Bible.

Oh, okay.

I don't really know exactly what that means.

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

But, you know, it felt like a lot.

Yeah.

He always seemed to find a way to make money, which was a good thing.

Yeah. All right.

He was working or he got donations.

Always be closing.

But he rarely used that money on his own family. The work of raising children and paying the bills basically just fell completely on Flannie, who worked full-time to just make do, basically.

Yeah.

Basically just to keep ahead, uh, I almost just said a head over their roofs— a roof over their heads. Now, of the $40 or so a week that she made, she always gave half of that to her husband, who according to Schutz never made any secret of the fact that he was spending it all on young girls. Oh yeah, so that wasn't awesome.

That was terrible.

Now, in 1942, when Blanche was only 9 years old, the family moved to Burlington. Burlington did offer better job prospects, but the real reason for the move was probably because Petey couldn't manage to stay employed very long, and he kind of just ran out of options for employment in Concord. Now, despite his own proclivity for sex workers and gambling and drinking and generally not spending time with his own young family, he was very, very strict on his own children when he was around. And he had— I don't even want to call them high standards because it's like impossible standards. Impossible standards. The family didn't have much flowing in, so the girls were usually dressed in tattered rags and hand-me-downs, essentially. But he would routinely inspect their outfits to make sure that they were quote-unquote sufficiently modest.

Come on.

Which is also like, come on, guys, you're the biggest hypocrite ever.

Yeah, you gotta, you gotta make sure.

You just have to be sure that everybody's modest, even though you're clearly not.

Modesty is the most important thing. So important.

Yeah, yeah, fuck off. Now, the high standards didn't just end with what the kids looked like, what they were wearing, their appearances. They also were completely forbidden from participating in any after-school activities.

That's so fucked up. That actually pisses me off.

Truly, like, a lot.

Like, what good does that do?

They couldn't socialize with their friends, they couldn't join a club, nothing like that. They had to come to me right home from school and probably pray.

That's— that's fucked up.

Now, when Blanche reached her early teens, she was finally given enough freedom to get a job in one of the local shops downtown, probably because they needed more money and less about, like, her happiness.

Exactly.

But more time outside of the house also meant that she was able to socialize a little bit. And when she was about 15 or 16, she started dating a boy named James Taylor. No, it's not that one.

Thank you. I said of Tanglewood.

Not of Tanglewood fame.

Not of—

not sweet baby James.

Not sweet baby James.

I fuck so heavy with that James Taylor though.

James Taylor, like our James Taylor, like collectively all of our James Taylor. He is the most soothing voice.

He does.

He's the voice of a generation. He is.

He's actually— I feel he's the voice of many generations.

I think he is too. You hear a James Taylor song, like a specific one, that like you just—

you just hear that beginning guitar, right?

It does. Like, that'll— to be honest, my nervous system has been a little alight lately.

Yeah.

I'm gonna listen to a James Taylor song and I bet I'm gonna feel right as rain.

You probably should, and I think you will.

I will.

Period.

Thank you for that.

You bet. So she met James Taylor, not V, but A, A James Taylor. In a lot of ways, James and Blanche did seem like a really good fit for each other. In public, he was a good Christian boy. He doted on his mama. He did well in school. But in private, he loved a crass joke and a cold beer. So he had two sides to him.

Yeah.

Within a few weeks of starting their relationship, James introduced Blanche to his family, which was kind of a revelation for her because she knew most people came from stable and happy homes, but she had never seen one up close or experienced one.

That's so sad.

It is really sad. But the cool thing was that in the beginning of their relationship, she kind of like enmeshed in this family, and they loved her. I love her. And they supported her, and she like got her cup filled that way.

Nice.

Now, by that time, she had actually quit school and was just always looking for a good reason not to be home at her house. So she spent a lot of time at the Taylor house, and apparently her and James's mom, Isla, were very close. When it came to James's relationship with Blanche, I told you the good things about him, but it was also hard not to see the similarities between her boyfriend James and her father. James wasn't dismissive, he wasn't controlling, not in the way that her dad was, but he was a drinker and he did love to gamble. And he was also at times, according to Schutz, sentimental, childish, and given to eruptions of a violent temper.

That's not great.

He had very good facets of his personality.

But he had flaws.

And a lot of flaws.

Some real flaws.

As we all do. But he really needed to figure out how to rein those in.

Yeah. When your flaws start, you know, becoming violent. And when they start, like, messing with someone else, like affecting someone else. Yeah. Those are flaws you got to take care of.

That's the thing.

You know?

So not long after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, James was drafted and he was sent to the Pacific to serve in the Army. He returned a year later to Burlington. He proposed to Blanche and they got married on May 29th, 1952. At the same time, he found work restoring and refinishing fine furniture, which I feel like would be such a fun job. Yeah, I love furniture videos on TikTok.

Yeah, I feel like that would be very like, uh, fulfilling.

Yeah, and like, at the same time too. Yeah, he was really, really good at the job, but the income was modest. It really was barely enough to cover the bills of two people. So when Blanche gave birth to their daughter 1953, the family really started to struggle financially. But never one to shy away from hard work, soon after her daughter was born, Blanche got a job as a checkout clerk at the local Kroger grocery store, and she was an immediate hit with all of the customers.

Dang.

Uh, former coworker Brenda Green told a reporter in 1989, she was always pleasant, always outgoing to the customers. And she wasn't just a hit with the customers, she was really popular with the men who came into the store. She had, I mean, a way about her.

Her name's Blanche.

I know, it's just, you know, comes with the territory.

It does.

Uh, author Schude said men lined up behind her register just so they could look at her. She sang to each one in her busy little chitter, chittering bird voice, always with some expression of concern for their personal affairs.

Wow.

So she was a little bit of a flirt.

I was gonna say, she was kind of— she was digging it.

She was, yeah, she was doing her thing.

No, I know nothing about this case, by the way, so—

well, she's the oldest woman on death row, so, so there's that. Just so, like, I can go with keep that with you.

Yeah.

So at that time, the roles for Kroger employees were strictly segregated. Women filled the customer service jobs in the front of the store. Men worked the management, the stockroom, butcher roles in the back.

Okay.

Now, given the hierarchy, the highest that a female employee at Kroger could generally expect to make, like the highest position, was head cashier.

Okay.

It was kind of like a front-end manager position. They were like responsible for supervising the cashiers and the bag boys, just keeping everything in check. We've seen him.

Yeah.

Now that was the job.

We've seen him, we love him.

We've seen him, we love him, yeah. That was the job that Blanche was really determined to get. And once she set her mind to something, she did usually achieve it. Now I said that the customers loved her. Coworkers, not so much. Eee. Outwardly, she seemed to get along with people pretty fine, you know?

Yeah.

But a lot of her coworkers didn't like the way that she played obvious office politics.

Oh.

And they saw that she was very clearly intent on climbing the ladder to get that head cashier position, which, like, that's bound to happen in any kind of, like, corporate or, you know, any retail environment. One, people are all vying for the same job, so that it kind of creates, like, a—

it's competitive—

not a great environment.

Yeah.

But that wasn't just it. Some of the cashiers suspected that Blanche was stealing from the company.

Oh, that's not good.

According to Schutz, Blanche had a penchant for using loaner registers and for moving around using other checkers' drawers rather than following the safe and sure procedures designed so that each cashier would check out on a register that was entirely her own responsibility for each shift.

Eek.

She just kind of floated amongst them. Yeah. Now, despite the rumors of her embezzling small sums of money, by 1959, Blanche did work her way up at Kroger and she got that head cashier position.

Oh, yeah, she got it.

And the promotion couldn't have come at a better time because just a few months after she moved up, she gave birth to the couple's second daughter. So the extra income was an asset. Oh, hey, you know, it seemed things were going pretty good for Blanche in 1950.

Seems like it. Yeah.

But her personal life was starting to unravel a bit. That same year, her mother, Flannie, filed for divorce from P.D., citing her husband's abandonment as the reason. P.D. Keyser had basically left his wife and children a few years earlier to, quote, find himself a younger woman.

Oh, excuse you.

And he also didn't contribute a dime to the support of their children since he left them. And now, even though all of that is true, that he was just a prick at the time, going through a divorce would have been a pretty shameful experience, which is silly, but it just was. And sharing the details of her failed marriage in such a public forum wouldn't just be embarrassing but humiliating, not just for Flannie but also for the children, like Blanche. Yeah, even like the adult children. Now luckily, the judge was sympathetic and ordered P.D. to pay $25 a week in child support, which was dropped then to $10 a week the following year.

Jesus.

And to everyone's surprise, though, he did pay the support.

Huh.

Yeah. So that is interesting.

I didn't see that coming.

At least he paid it, you know, the bare minimum. But the public dissolution of her parents' marriage, which became then a big source of gossip in the small town, was kind of a source of shame for Blanche. And on top of that, things in her own marriage weren't really going very well. After the birth of her second baby, she wasn't really interested in being with James romantically. And since getting married, in her view, he had changed quite a bit physically, and she just wasn't feeling very attracted to him.

Oh, okay.

In addition, the gambling and the drinking that when he was younger made him seem wild and fun and carefree now made him seem irresponsible and reckless and probably reminded her of her father.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Now, even though he knew he was being judged, it didn't really seem like gave a shit at this time. James kept drinking, he kept gambling, and he also had picked up a new hobby since he got back from Korea and just spent a lot of his weekends editing tape recordings of sermons from the Glenhope Baptist Church so that the tapes could be sent overseas for missionary work. Which like, cool, like, you know, you're getting a little extra cash by doing that, but you're also spending all your time away from your family by working, gambling, and drinking.

Yeah, it's like one— a couple of those things could go, right?

You know, like work for sure. Keep that up.

Gambling and drinking, if it's affecting you negatively, you gotta stop. Maybe cut that back.

Cut it back.

Yeah.

Now, so by 1962, the distance between James and Blanche had become so evident that even strangers would have felt the tension between them. It wasn't just a lack of physical intimacy or the fact that he was just never home, but Blanche also found other ways to spend her time in the absence of her husband.

Oh boy.

That year she started an affair with her boss.

Saw that coming.

Yeah. And she barely tried to hide it, not only from her husband, but like from anyone.

Yeah, she doesn't give a fuck.

She really didn't give a single fuck.

That doesn't shock me.

One theme of this story that you'll find is that Blanche does not give a fuck.

Fucks are nowhere to be found.

No, her fuck basket is barren. That sounded a lot worse than I meant for it to, but you can leave it in. So before long, the tension over Blanche's obvious affair escalated to verbal abuse and occasionally physical abuse from her husband. Like the night that James and Blanche argued over her relationship and he just started flinging spoonfuls of chocolate pudding at her in a mean way. I know that sounds silly.

It does, but it's like—

but it's mean when you really think of that.

How— I want you to picture that. Yeah, weird.

They're trying— like they're having a serious conversation. Yeah, like that's fucked up, flinging pudding at her.

Also so childish.

He was quite childish.

Wow. Yeah.

Now, wow. Despite their troubles and Blanche's ongoing affair, which he didn't give a fuck about, they kind of tried to keep up appearances as a happy couple, even though it was blatantly obvious to everyone that Blanche was having an affair. But in the early 1960s, James did decide to slow his drinking, and he cut off all contact with his gambling circle, and he joined a church and found new friends there. Now Blanche continued to work at Kroger, and she also filled a lot of her free time by selling Tupperware, which was such a thing.

My God, Tupperware parties. Yeah, yeah, that was like a real thing.

I've always heard of them, but just buy Tupperware. I kind of want to go to a Tupperware party because one thing about me is I make people food and then I lose my Tupperware.

That's the thing, when, when I think of Tupperware parties, I'm like, not a bad idea because I can always use more Tupperware.

Should we start Tupperware parties?

Maybe we should have a Tupperware party.

Maybe we should have a tupperware party. Do you feel like the word Tupperware is losing all meaning?

Tupperware.

Say Tupperware again.

Tupperware.

I want to say it again. Tupperware.

Sorry, one more time.

So yeah, we should have those parties again.

I think so too.

So she just randomly started doing that, and it seemed like she was a powerhouse salesperson because she routinely filled her nights with those parties and other events. But, uh, what James thought was his wife's satisfying side job was in fact a cover story that allowed her to keep her nights free to spend with her boss Raymond who she was sleeping with, and other men in town who she was also sleeping with.

Fuck, Blanche.

She kind of seemed to have a growing obsession with sex. Oh, and it was obvious to anybody who spent any time with her. At work, she was relentlessly flirty, not just with her boss Raymond, but with any man she found attractive. And she found a lot of men attractive. According to Schutz— this is wild— she might be mid-sentence talking about Jesus in the Bible, and she would stop and mutter to a co-worker, man, I'd like to see the dick on that guy. At no part of that did I know where it was going, but then we got there.

I had no part of that. Even at the end she said, what the fuck? Imagine I never had someone say that to me or in my presence. I don't think I have. No, I've never heard somebody say that.

Man, I'd love to see the dick on that.

Wow.

What do you say? It's very Samantha Jones, I guess.

It is very Samantha Jones. I feel like you just have to be like, okay.

Oui, oui, Blanche.

I bet. I bet. Yeah. That's like what you say. Neat.

Go for it.

Yay.

Hope that works out for you.

Awesome. Period.

Hey.

So honestly, period to me is like the best response.

Because you have to put an end on that sentence.

Yeah, just period.

Period, Blanche. So she grew more promiscuous, more reckless. And as she was doing that, James actually seemed to finally grow into adulthood.

Oh yeah, look at this.

His drinking and gambling was pretty much under control at that point, and he actually started spending more time with his kids, and at this point in time found that he genuinely loved being a father.

Wow, like took him a minute, kind of did a 180 here.

Okay, took him a minute, but at least—

never, I guess.

Exactly. Now when he wasn't doting on his daughters, he could easily be found spoiling his nieces and nephews, especially his sister Dot's children, because their father had died a few years earlier in a drowning accident.

Oh geez.

So he was really trying to fill that, that role too. The happier James became though, the more frustrated and disgruntled Blanche became, which shouldn't be the case. No, when your husband's succeeding, like you're supposed to be really happy about that, and vice versa.

Your husband or wife or partner is thriving, that should make you feel like, oh, hell yeah.

Yeah, like part of marriage is celebrating each other's wins. Yeah. But no matter the circumstances, she criticized his every move. She constantly commented on his appearance, which included a lot of fat shaming. Oh, which is like really shitty. I mean, and if she wasn't complaining about how much money he was spending on his hobbies or on the kids she was criticizing him, like I said, for how much weight that he had put on since they got married.

That's just mean, man.

Which I'd like to point out sometimes is a sign of happiness.

That's true. Comfortability. Exactly.

Now, at the same time, James's family, who had once been very kind and welcoming to Blanche, remember?

But they're probably like, what the fuck?

That's the thing. They started to grow cold and distant around there because it wasn't any secret that she was cheating on him. What was that?

Not only is she cheating, but she's also bullying him while he's being a good dad.

And humiliating him when he's made these, like, life changes, life changes that it seemed like she wanted him to make.

That's the thing. Not everybody makes those changes or grows like that.

And here's the thing, like, sometimes it is too late for you, for you to make it up to another person, like, for them to want to be along for the ride with you going through these changes.

And that's okay.

That's okay. But you just get divorced.

Yeah, you don't bully them. No, like, you just, you say, okay, this is so cool that you're doing this, but I'm It's past the point of being repaired.

I'm glad you made those changes, but you're gonna make them without me. It's too far gone, and I hope you keep it up.

Yeah.

So yeah, his family was just like, you know what, um, we really don't like you anymore.

Yeah, I don't blame him.

So by the mid-'60s, her world was rapidly changing, and it doesn't really sound like for the better. For somebody who craved and seemed to require control to feel a sense of stability at least one point, the ongoing upset at home was becoming unbearable for her. So in September of 1966, Blanche experienced one of the more defining moments of her life when her father P.D. passed away. Oh, this is interesting, and that's all I can say. It's allegedly pretty interesting.

Okay.

According to the coroner, the cause of death was a heart attack brought on by chronic emphysema. The death didn't come as a big surprise to really anybody who knew him because P.D. had been pretty much a lifelong smoker, and he had always been pretty reckless when it came to his health. Uh, and he also led a kind of nomadic existence. He just moved from one town to another, so there wasn't a real consistent record of his healthcare to speak of.

Okay.

I think that, you know, um, raised some eyebrows later.

Yeah.

Now, if anybody had been paying close attention to his symptoms just before his death, the cause of death might have been diagnosed as something altogether different. He entered the hospital the day before he died complaining of chest and stomach pains. And he was admitted and moved to a room. Over the course of the next 30 hours or so, though, he experienced a range of symptoms, most of which were internal, that included paralysis in the limbs, painful irritation of the nose and throat, aggressive bloating, and a burning sensation in his hands and feet, among other things.

What?

Also, if somebody had been at his bedside when he died or immediately after, they maybe would have noticed a strong scent of garlic on his breath. Oh, despite the fact that he hadn't been eating garlic. And I don't know, I wonder why— know this, but, um, all of those signs are prominent telltale signs of arsenic poisoning.

Oh, our old friend arsenic.

Yeah. Now the problem was Petey checked into a large busy city hospital where he was obviously attended to, but it was periodically by nurses and doctors. There was nobody there who was consistently monitoring his symptoms. And even if they had suspected that his death wasn't natural, by the time of the autopsy, arsenic would have passed out of his system entirely.

Yeah.

So even if the coroner had suspected arsenic poisoning, they might not have found any evidence of that to put on a toxicology report. Now, weirdly Blanche didn't really seem moved by her father's death. You know, maybe that could have provided some insight to people.

I think that would be something that you would at least be like, huh?

Yeah, you know, but you know, who's to say? They had a tough relationship.

They did. That's the thing. They had a very complicated relationship.

So I see both sides.

And it's not like he was a warm fuzzy.

Yeah.

And didn't allow them to have any kind of real life as they were growing up. So that could just be distance emotionally. Yeah, in that way.

And she also had a lot going on at home.

Yeah.

While PD was writhing in pain in the hospital, Blanche's marriage was rapidly deteriorating. By the late '60s, the once private arguments between Blanche and James started to spill over into public spaces, and their neighbors became accustomed to not only hearing but seeing the couple scream at each other in the front yard or driveway.

Hmm.

In one particularly bad incident in 1969, neighbors watched in horror as they got into a shoving match one Sunday on their way to church.

Oh.

And what started as a verbal agreement quickly escalated to James trying to shove Blanche into the car. She immediately got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, but her coat was caught in the door when it shut and he started backing down the driveway. So she was pulled to the ground and dragged down the driveway on her knees until James finally stopped the car.

We were rooting for you.

We were rooting.

We were all rooting for you. How dare you? Yeah, what?

And on your way to church?

On your way to church?

Are you going to confession too?

You're gonna sit in that pew and act like everything's fine? Yeah, fuck, that is crazy.

It is crazy.

Holy shit.

Now, James had always been a pretty easily excitable man, you know. He had gambled and drank in the past. Yes, he got arrayed really quickly. But with all the tension in his marriage and the changing state of the world around them, the stress of life was starting to take a toll on him physically. And one afternoon in 1970, as he was driving into downtown Burlington, he was stopped by a police roadblock and told he couldn't go in the direction he was going because there was an active shooting situation.

Wow.

Now, obviously, he immediately turned the car around and drove home, but the situation caused him such incredible anxiety that by the time he got home, he was shaking and sweating profusely, and then that turned into vomiting and violent diarrhea.

What?

So he finally went to see his doctor and was informed that he had had a fairly serious heart attack.

Holy shit.

And unless he wanted to experience another one, he needed to make some major changes in his life.

Yeah.

So the health scare marked a major turning point in his life. About 6 months later, Blanche came to her own major turning point too, when Raymond Reed and his wife finally divorced. That's her boss that she was having an affair with. James was still doing his best to raise their kids and to, you know, avoid his blood pressure spiking.

Jesus Christ.

And Blanche was spending almost all of her free time with Raymond, explaining to anyone who cared that she was just trying to help him out because he didn't have a wife anymore.

Oh yeah, just trying to stand in as his wife.

But at that point, they had been carrying on a pretty public affair for almost 10 years.

So people were like, are you guys serious?

Yeah, are you for real?

That's the thing, be so serious right now.

The increased attention really didn't seem that unusual to anybody, not even to James. He fully knew that they were continuing their affair. Now, maybe it was because he was so accustomed to his wife's infidelity, or maybe he was just trying to not have another heart attack, but whatever the case, he really never expressed any disappointment in Blanche after they went through that really big period of arguing. And then it just seemed like they were like, okay, we'll live together and we'll be married, but like, I fucking hate you and you know I do, so let's not even talk about it.

That's really sad. What a sad existence.

And sadly, kids—

yeah, it's sad for everybody.

Yeah. Yeah, so they just carried on as usual. He worked a lot, took care of the bills. She, you know, had a grand old time at Kroger.

Holy shit.

But all of that came to an end in the fall of 1973. One day in late September of that year, James started experiencing symptoms of what he thought was the flu. He was getting bad headaches, his glands were swollen, and he was becoming violently ill. When the symptoms finally got so bad that he couldn't manage them anymore, he went to see a doctor. But by then, things had, uh, had escalated significantly. In addition to all the earlier flu-like symptoms, he now had painful blisters on his hands and feet. His hair was falling out in clumps. What? And his face was beginning to swell. The doctors had actually never seen anything like this, but they were like, it's not related to your heart, that's for sure.

Yeah, some shit is going on.

So the doctor ordered a myriad of to rule out various illnesses and hopefully find the cause in the case of what the fuck was going on here. But after several tests, James was worried about the cost of the treatment and asked that no more tests be conducted, which is like really sad.

Yeah, because it's like something is obviously going wrong.

Yeah. Now on the night of October 2nd, Blanche had just cooked dinner and set the table, but James told her his throat was hurting too much to eat, so he skipped dinner. But rather than let her husband go without dinner entirely, Blanche, being the sweetie bobity that she is—

oh no—

brought him some ice cream and convinced him to at least have some of it. It might make his throat feel better, you know.

I'm scared.

Unfortunately, within the hour after having said ice cream, James was writhing in tremendous pain on the couple's bed, which then escalated to— I'm so sorry— violent projectile vomiting.

Oh no.

And he said the feeling that something was inside of him trying to claw its way out.

What the fuck?

Rather than call for an ambulance, Blanche sent her daughter away telling the girl she'd arrange for a doctor in the morning, and then she made up the couch and she went to sleep on it.

What?

While her husband lay upstairs projectile vomiting with the feeling that somebody was trying to claw its way out of him. That is horrifying. I'm sure you will be shocked to hear this, but the next morning when Blanche went to the bedroom to check on James, she found him on his side, his hands twisted like claws, and his face a bluish-purple color.

Oh my God.

Under the circumstances, I think almost fucking anybody would call for some sort of help. Yeah, emergency services, police, what have you.

Dead to me.

Blanche just calmly informed her daughter that her father was dead and then went to call her other daughter, who I think maybe was at a sleepover or something, and informed her of the same thing. In fact, Blanche called nearly every single one of James's relatives to tell them that their loved one was dead. And also she called the man she'd been having an affair with for 10 years, Raymond Reed, to tell him also that her husband was dead and to please come over. And then finally she called an ambulance and reported the death.

I can't even picture this. Like, this is next level. This is mayhem.

Why would you call— what's like a male mistress? It's just a mister.

Your paramour, maybe.

Paramour. Why would you call your side mans over? Your side piece to your house when like your husband just died?

Yeah.

And why would you call his whole family instead of emergency services? And why would you call your daughter and just tell them calmly, Daddy's dead?

Why? I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say.

His death was listed a heart attack. Which made sense given his medical history. But like P.D. Kaiser's death one, uh, years earlier, no one considered the events and the symptoms that led up to the 45-year-old supposed heart attack.

Yeah.

Or the fact that those symptoms would not have been caused by heart failure.

Hmm.

So for a short time after James's death, which just happened and life moved on apparently—

yeah, apparently—

Blanche played the role of a grieving widow, but But really, in no time, things got back to normal. Her daughter Cindy said in 1989, Mom never expected to spend the rest of her life by herself. She said she had too much to offer.

Wow. She was just like, yeah, I don't give a shit.

Yeah. Blanche and Raymond continued to see each other, but they would only visit each other at their respective homes so as to not contribute to any gossip, even though they'd literally been together for like 15 years.

I was gonna say, like, really?

But other than the living arrangements, they were very much a couple in every sense. And thinking back on that time, uh, Blanche's daughter Vanessa had fond memories. She said, Raymond was a very good man. He was very good to us.

I mean, that's good.

So for a little bit, the arrangement seemed to suit everybody just fine. They could carry on their affair while Blanche still had enough space to continue building her own identity independent of men in her life for like 4 seconds. But her relationship with Reed wasn't the only bad habit that she carried on after her husband died abruptly. She also kept up her scheme of petty theft from the registers at the store. She's still at that? She's been at that.

Goddamn.

Uh, people started to notice the missing money, and people already had in the past, but more and more people were beginning to notice.

Yeah.

And finally, in 1976, a bag of cash went missing from the store.

Wow.

As the person responsible for the register when the money went missing, Blanche was immediately suspected of the theft, and she was actually even questioned by the police and a private investigator that Kroger hired.

Oh my God.

But they couldn't find any evidence, and so there was no way she could be charged with anything. But a few months later, most people in Burlington did find it pretty odd that Blanche was able to afford a down payment on a new house. Pretty interesting, even though she had the salary of a grocery store clerk.

She's just, she's really good at it.

She's just thrifty.

Yeah.

Now, just as it had been with her now dead husband, as Blanche started to come into her own as a single woman, Raymond Reed's life became considerably more difficult. After he got divorced, his relationship with his wife was very bitter, and it was worse than it had ever been, actually, even when they were married. So it was hard for him to keep seeing his kids on a regular basis.

Yeah.

Which, like, maybe you should think about that before you cheat on your wife, just saying.

Yeah, I think that would be good advice.

That's just how I feel. But then there was problems at the store. In addition to the occasionally mysteriously missing money that he probably knew his mistress was responsible for, the store wasn't making the kind of profit that it needed to remain a viable branch. So that meant that there were more frequent visits by the store's regional manager, Robert Hutton. Now, like Raymond, Robert— sorry, it might get confusing here— Robert, Robert.

Sorry, I miss Marcus the Worm.

We must quote Marcus the Worm at all times. Robert Hutton was very devoted to the Kroger Company, a lot like Raymond, and he loved his job. But that's where the similarities between the two of them ended. Robert Hutton, the manager, he was young, he was apparently good looking and said to be cartoonishly masculine. I'm just picturing Johnny Bravo.

What is— what was the— It was in Twilight, one of the Twilight movies. Something feminine, like aggressively feminine. Oh, that— it reminds me of that. Cartoonishly masculine.

It's hard to say too.

Yeah, cartoonishly masculine. Masculine.

Was it aggressively feminine?

I think it was like aggressively feminine.

It was in— I think it was in the book.

Yeah, it is in the book. I think it's like Jacob's chapter.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, didn't he— he says Rosalie and, um, and Alice. And Alice, right?

Yeah. Just remind me about—

now we have cartoonishly masculine.

I love it.

Robert bragged about his ability to sleep with any woman he wanted to, loved telling raunchy jokes, which like you probably shouldn't do as the manager of a store.

Probably not.

Yeah. And he also had a habit of sleeping around with women at various stores in his district.

Ew, what a pig.

And really didn't make it a secret. So after careful review, he concluded that the Burlington Kroger did not stand a chance of survival, and the store ended up having to be closed. Now, fortunately, he did recognize that a lot of the staff was in fact very reliable, very competent, good people, including Blanche and Raymond. So like, maybe not good people, but— So they were all offered jobs at other area locations at a pay cut though. Raymond was demoted to assistant manager in Martinsville, and that was one of the Virginia stores. And Blanche was demoted to just a regular old cashier position in Greensboro. A few months later, uh, Hutton moved Raymond to the Durham, North Carolina store and then promoted him back to manager, but Blanche stayed where she was. Now, not surprisingly, the demotion and relocation were major disappointments for Blanche. She didn't have the power that she had over other cashiers anymore.

Oh no.

And she also didn't get to spend every day with her side man. So therefore she didn't know what he was getting up to while she was away.

Who's to be sure?

I know. Well, You know, the way it's going already about—

yeah, you got to be worried.

It took some time, but by 1983 she managed to get transferred to the store that he worked at. Oh man, guys, the relocation meant at least an hour-long commute each way, but apparently it was worth it to her to keep up her relationship with Raymond. And it also meant that she would be working alongside Robert Hutton, who she thought was irresistibly attractive since they had met years earlier. This bitch wants to have her cake and eat it too.

She does.

Now by the 1980s, the early 1980s, Blanche and Raymond's relationship had been going on for like 15 years or possibly more. And like her marriage before it, but things had become less exciting than they once were. As he got older, Blanche didn't find Raymond to be so attractive anymore. She didn't think he was as fit as he should be. She really loves to fat shame. I just gotta say it. She really does. She does. He also had grown tired of their not-so-secret relationship and really just wanted to be together since they could be now. Yeah, but that wasn't fun for her. After she moved to the Greensboro store, he actually asked her to marry him. But she was like, no.

My God.

And then he asked her to marry him again.

She said no.

And she was like, no.

Yeah, guys, she said no.

And then he kept asking her to marry him, and she continued to say no.

God, get it together.

Yeah, she didn't just not want to marry him, but she really wasn't interested in changing their relationship at all. She was like, we can have a clandestine affair forever and ever. Now, if she wasn't interested in marrying Raymond and committing to monogamy, it's probably because she had her sights set on Robert Hutton, now the store manager, the other Um, over the months that they've been working together, she was dropping hints indicating her interest in him, but he hadn't really picked up on anything, which was kind of crazy because he was a disgusting pig who regularly groped women that he employed.

God.

So I guess subtlety was something he wasn't accustomed to.

He lacked sorely.

But despite his aggressiveness with some women at the store and his tendency to grab them without permission, he knew that his attention wasn't wanted from Blanche. He, like, he thought that she didn't want him to do that to her, I guess.

Oh, um, what made him think that?

I don't really know, to be honest with you. But eventually Blanche dropped the subtlety and got right to the point and just told him that she wanted him and she knew he wanted her. Yeah, so I guess they got together.

There it is.

Now by 1985, her life was spinning out of control again. She was still seeing Raymond regularly and continuing to deny his marriage proposals.

Cool.

While also carrying on a sexual relationship with her boss Robert Hutton. And apparently balancing the two was getting a little bit difficult.

Yeah.

So that January, the chaos escalated when Blanche called Raymond one day to tell him that she had come home and her house was ablaze. Oh, she said, hello Raymond, I got home and it's engulfed in flames.

Hi, my house is on fire.

He raced over to Blanche's house, and when he got there, luckily by then the firefighters had managed to put out the flames, but the damage had been done. When they went into the bedroom, fire investigators found all of Blanche's underwear and lingerie scattered about, and she claimed that there had been a pervert prowling around the house days before, and she was pretty sure that he was the one who set the fire.

Oh, excuse me.

But weirdly, when they asked for any defining characteristics of this person that she had seen only days earlier, Blanche couldn't remember any details at all. Okay, so her homeowner's insurance paid out a large sum, and she sold the house as is, which is crazy, but she managed to come out ahead, and she used the money to buy a mobile home a few miles away. But this fire is where things really started to get fucking crazier in her life. Over the course of a year, she continued her affair with Robert Hutton and her relationship with Raymond while also having a bunch of one-night stands with a bunch of other men in town.

Blanche.

She's young and she's getting it, I guess.

She is young and getting it. So that's one way of describing this.

I don't know how else to say it. A few months after the fire that destroyed her, her house, Blanche was again, sadly, the victim of another house fire.

You know what? Some people, arson just kind of follows.

It's crazy.

Follows them around.

It's the weirdest thing.

You can never figure out why.

You really can't.

You know, sometimes fire just just fire curses. Fire follows people.

Yeah, it follows, but it does.

But it's fire follows.

So Raymond got to Blanche's house to pick her up for, for fucking church one afternoon. I'm sorry, it's just wild to me that this woman goes to church. But he was getting annoyed that she was taking so long, which was going to make them late, and he didn't want to be late for church.

So after—

of course, I know he's, he's a righteous man. Yeah, he's a righteous, righteous—

let's be real.

So after she finally got out to the car, they had barely pulled out the driveway when Raymond slammed on the brakes and said, Blanche, there's smoke coming out of your bedroom window. In response, she didn't look back. She just said, no, I think that's the sun reflecting on it. Yeah, I'm sorry, but if somebody tells me that there's smoke coming from my bedroom window, I'm gonna tell them, hey, would you mind pulling back in the driveway so I can figure out what the fuck that's about?

Yeah, no, I'd just be like, I bet it's just the sun reflecting. I'm not worried.

Yeah, she was like, listen, we're late, we have to get to church, don't worry about Now, crazy.

Yeah.

When they returned from church later that evening—

I bet I know—

they entered the house to find that the place was on fire.

Oh my God, so much fire!

Can you believe it?

More fire.

Small flames were licking around the corners of the bedroom, and Blanche exclaimed, ah, damn it, must have been that pervert again. Must have been just that, that arsonist pervert.

Yeah, that fiery pervert.

Not a fiery pervert. So Raymond grabbed the fireworks— fire extinguisher from the kitchen and managed to put out the remains of the flames, but again The damage had been done, and Blanche's bedroom was a mess of fire and smoke damage because of the fiery pervert. In the closet, there was a single wax candle burning on the floor.

That's odd.

That's the mark of a fiery arsonist pervert.

Yes.

To Raymond's surprise though, the insurance company paid out a second claim on the fire without any questions.

Huh.

I feel like a man took that claim, I just have to say it. So during this time, Blanche managed to get a medical note from a doctor doctor that claimed she had intestinal problems which had been exacerbated by the fire, so it was possible she may need to take time off from work periodically. Of course, she very much used that as an excuse to blow off work or call out whenever she felt like it, which put Raymond in a difficult position every time she did it because he was her manager. By that summer, he finally insisted that Blanche had to return to work or she had to find a different job. But rather than give in, She apparently went to Robert Hutton and initiated sex with him in his office, which produced a favorable result in terms of extending her medical leave.

Every decision she makes, I just never know where it's going.

I know that was a crazy way to tell you what happened, but like, how else was I supposed to word it?

Honestly, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

So she didn't want to lose that job, so she got to work work. Okay, in a different way.

She did. She sure did.

Yeah, in case you didn't pick that up.

Oh, I picked it up.

Everything that was happening at the time, it's very abundantly, massively clear that Blanche was becoming more and more reckless with every day that was passing.

It would seem so.

But all, all like that being said, at the same time, it really didn't seem like she had a long-term strategy for anything. But at the same time, not everything she did was on impulse.

Else.

One week after she and, uh, Hutton had sex in his office, Blanche showed up at the law office of Walker, Hoy, and, uh, Kernodle.

Walker and— or Hoy and Kernodle.

Yeah, them, them, the law, the office of law.

Yep.

In a meeting with Douglas Hoy, one of the men.

Yeah, yeah, the law.

She laid out a long history of the sexual harassment that she experienced at Kroger at the hands of the district manager Robert Hutton. Whoa. Yeah, do you remember that she did go to his office and initiate sex to keep her job? After hearing the story she told, Hoy agreed to take the case, obviously. And in January of 1986, she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Kroger. Holy shit. $13.8 million in Superior Court. Wow. Among other things, the suit accused Robert Hutton of 4 counts of battery, 4 counts of assault, 4 counts of inflicting emotional distress, and 1 count of invasion of privacy. The suit also alleged that executives at Kroger were aware of Hutton's sexual proclivities and failed to take any precautionary measures.

Wow.

She claimed that on one— on multiple occasions, excuse me, he had called her into his office or conference rooms and exposed himself to her, fondled her, or made sexual advances.

Fuck that guy.

In the most egregious of these incidents, she claimed that he approached her from behind. Sorry, this is all very graphic. Yeah, he approached her from behind while she was stocking items and grabbed her around the waist and said, are you ready for this?

Ew.

And I'm not asking you if you're ready for this, that's what he asked.

No, that's like literally what he said.

And she said— they're in the grocery store, please remember. Yeah, she said when she turned around, he was nude from the waist down.

Ew.

She said she managed to get out of his grasp gasp and grab his pants and underwear, and then she ran out of the store, which forced him to leave wearing a shirt and a tie and a butcher's apron.

Oh my God.

She also alleged that he frequently threatened to fire her or transfer her to another store if she didn't acquiesce to his demands.

I mean, that's fucked up.

Remember that Blanche is the oldest woman on death row.

Remember that. Okay, yeah, we should remember that.

Now, given his history with women at the company though, because he is a pig.

Yeah.

Yeah, not all of this is true, like all everything that she put in her lawsuit, and like we know, but he is piggy, but he is a pig. Yeah. Uh, so given his history with women, it really wasn't that hard for anybody to believe what Blanche had alleged, and Robert Hutton was forced to resign from his position.

Yeah.

The case got held up in pre-hearing motions for the next 2 years until in late 1987 Kroger finally agreed to settle for $250,000.

Damn.

So Blanche has a lot of money now.

Sure does.

Now, in the spring of 1986, one of Blanche's sisters called and asked if she would join them for Easter service at the Carolina United Church of Crast in Burlington.

Of Crast.

Her husband, uh, Blanche's sister's husband, was in the hospital dying from cancer, and this was a tradition that they always looked forward to. So Blanche agreed to accompany her to the service. Now, Blanche had been to that service many times in her life. I just feel like, it's—

you have to, you know what I mean, laugh.

I think it's Blanche in Ghost.

You gotta—

but here's— so she had been there a million times, but when she arrived for Easter service in 1986, she was surprised to find that the church had been taken over by a fun new pastor.

Oh, you don't say?

Reverend Dwight Moore.

Dwight, you say?

In Dwight, yeah. In fact, Easter was to be Moore's first big celebration as the new pastor, so the stakes were very high, and he was very much looking forward to this event.

Oh, absolutely.

Now, not long before he arrived in Burlington, before he found himself as head pastor, he had gone through a really painful divorce, which was not officially the cause for his moving, but it was almost certainly why he was reassigned.

Yeah.

So he hoped the new scenery in the new community would be an opportunity to heal some of his pain. Now, for someone who had been drawn to the flair and drama of her father's fire and brimstone preaching, Blanche wasn't terribly impressed with Reverend Moore when she first saw him. Unlike the preacher she was used to from her youth, he was kind of a modern church leader who focused on the more positive aspects of Christianity.

Yeah.

And he kind of left behind like darker Old Testament lessons that he thought were scary.

Scurry.

Scurry. But still, there was something about him that Blanche found intriguing. He was handsome. He was friendly. He was energetic. Maybe she didn't like his preaching, but she liked his face.

Oh, there you go.

And for his part, he couldn't help but find himself drawn to Blanche as well.

Oh no.

As soon as that Easter service ended and the congregation made their way to Easter breakfast, christ, he immediately spotted Blanche and her sister, and he made his way over to their table. Now, if he had been in Burlington for more than a few weeks, the odds were that he probably would have heard a lot of rumors about Blanche.

Yeah.

And while he may not have approved of that gossip, he probably would have stayed away.

Probably.

But he hadn't heard about Blanche's salacious and occasionally scandalous past, so he saw no reason why he shouldn't reach out to her.

Yeah, why not?

About a week after the Easter service, he managed to get a hold of her address, which is a little bit sketchy and he showed up at her house one evening, but she wasn't home.

Hmm.

He returned a few days later and managed to catch her, and the two sat down, chatted over coffee, gave her a little of his history. They got to know one another. Now, as religious leaders go, Dwight Moore's backstory was surprisingly atypical. After high school, he went to Duke University where he studied theology. Uh, being educated in a traditional university, I guess, made him kind of an outlier in the Christian church. But what was more surprising was that shortly after beginning his service, uh, at his previous assignment, he started having an affair with his secretary, Eileen. Oh, who was also married at the time.

Okay.

Eileen eventually left her husband, and she and Moore made their relationship public, but it was always a well-known secret that they started seeing each other when they were both married. My God, after nearly 20 years together, their, uh, their relationship eventually soured and they divorced. Which proved too scandalous for the congregation, and that's why he moved.

They said, we can't have this.

They said, ugh, ugh, ugh. Now, maybe Blanche saw something of herself in Dwight Moore's story, or maybe she just liked the way he looked. Who's to say?

She liked his face.

She did like his face. Whatever it was, the two hit it off and they started seeing each other more and more. And they made sure to keep everything a secret. For Moore, another romantic scandal would have had him excommunicated and probably kicked out of his new congregation.

Yeah. Yeah.

And as for Blanche, her lawsuit against Kroger alleged that as a result of workplace harassment, she had been unable to form healthy relationships with men.

Yeah.

So if the new relationship got out, that case probably would have been lost.

Probably.

Now, as her interest in Dwight Moore grew, the amount of time that she had in her life for Raymond decreased, and that wasn't lost on him. In the spring of 1986, he showed up at Blanche's house unannounced and he gave her a very expensive ring and a velvet-lined box, and he said, don't feel like I'm trying to pressure you, I just wanted you to have something nice from me. Now that wasn't all Raymond gave her that day. He also handed her over 2 tickets and a hotel confirmation for a trip to Florida. Just wants to have a nice little trip with her. Okay, now during their trip to Florida, they did embark on a trip to Florida. Okay, Raymond did everything he could to endear himself to Blanche. He wanted to rekindle once passionate romance. He paid for everything. He complimented her. He flattered her endlessly.

Damn.

Doted on her morning until night. Sounds really nice, but nothing really seemed to work. When they got back from the trip, she told her psychiatrist, I feel really guilty when I tell Raymond not to come over. He always wants to come to my house. I got to tell him goodbye.

She's like, you know what, this is kind of bullshit.

She's like, I do feel feelings, but like, I'm not into it. Well, like, I'm kind of annoyed So like she had done years ago when she was cheating on her husband, Blanche went out of her way to keep Dwight— Pastor Dwight— a secret from Raymond. But he was hearing the rumors from the cashiers at the store and from everybody else in town. And the thought of losing Blanche to another man was so incredibly stressful that eventually his body began to react to the stress.

Oh no, you don't say.

Or so he thought.

Hmm.

One afternoon in the spring of 1986, after experiencing an outbreak of some kind of painful blistering rash.

Oh no, probably out of nowhere.

Out of nowhere, I tell you. Raymond went to his doctor, Dr. Norman Garrett, who took one look at one of those red blister and boils on his skin and diagnosed him with shingles. Shingles is incredibly painful and incredibly disrupting, but it can be brought back under control with medication and with rest. But no matter how much Raymond rested and took the medication as he was directed, he wasn't getting any better.

Oh no.

And by April, he ended up being admitted to the hospital. By that time, he was experiencing significant numbness in his arms and legs.

Oh shit.

And a burning sensation with severe stomach discomfort.

Oh no.

So for the next several months, he spent most of his time in and out of the hospital and traveling to different specialists just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Eventually they diagnosed him with Guillain-Barré syndrome. Guillain-Barré.

Oh yeah.

Um, which is a rare immune disorder where basically your body's muscle system just starts to fail.

Yeah, that's crazy.

The symptoms can look a lot like the symptoms of poisoning, but at the time nobody had any reason to suspect that it wasn't Guillain-Barré.

Yeah.

Now In early October, only 5 months after his symptoms emerged, Raymond Reed died in the hospital.

Oh shit.

Now according to her daughters, Blanche visited Raymond often in the hospital and seemed distraught by his death.

But I'd like to highlight, visited him often in the hospital, was in the hospital with him.

Yeah, not only that, she, she did act publicly distraught over his death. But not so distraught that she wasted any time in delivering his safe to his kids, his sons, a few days after his— after their father had died. The safe had been in Raymond's house when he died, and the boys knew that's where he kept an antique coin collection that he was saving for them.

Yeah.

And, uh, there were silver bars in there too that he collected over the years. But when they opened the safe with the key that Blanche gave them, his sons were surprised to find that the silver bars were missing. And so was the large chunk of a coin collection. Everything was gone.

That's so fucked up.

So fucked up and so strange. How did that happen?

That's so fucked up when things disappear like that.

I know, and people just die miraculously after having the strangest symptoms.

So crazy.

But that, my friends, is where we're gonna end for part 1.

Damn.

And in part 2, we'll learn a lot more about strange symptoms and things that go missing and the woman that is behind all of it.

Blanche is really out here.

Blanche Taylor Moore is a reckless woman.

I mean, she's the oldest woman on death row, so she, she did it.

She did something.

So whatever, whatever been done, she did it, period. I, I can't believe she's going to do more.

She's going to do more. I have a whole part 2.

Oh shit.

Yeah, there's, there's a pastor too.

Oh man, of course there is. There's—

I mean, you know him, Dwight.

Of course. Yeah, I, I knew Dwight wasn't going to get out of this. Maybe, maybe not. Not scot-free, I imagine.

I'll tell you in part 2.

I guess you will.

All right, well, I have a fun fact for you actually. I don't even know if it's my turn, but it is.

Cool.

I got a Snapple yesterday.

Oh, you did?

I haven't had a Snapple in forever, and I forgot that they put fun facts in the cap.

I forgot that too.

And my fun fact was gorillas burp when they're happy.

I love that. Good for gorillas.

And I too burp when I'm happy.

I do too.

It's awesome.

So good for all of us.

Mikey knows that better than anyone.

Yes.

All right. Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. It's so weird that you're so happy that you burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp.

Yeah. Burp your world away.

Yeah. Burp all your woes away. But not so weird that people around you start dying with painful blisters all over their body. Because like, that's just so strange.

That's so weird.

Weird, unexplainable.

And don't, you know, be followed by a fire perv. No, don't do that. That's weird. Don't do that. A fiery perv, if you will.

Not a fiery perv.