Transcript of Episode Revisit: Torture

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.

Okay, did you guys catch that?

That actually was not Big Red.

I mean, I do a pretty good impression, if you ask me.

But guys, Big Red is feeling not so—

not, not big good.

She's kind of feeling big bad, I would say. So I'm here to introduce this episode on the ones and twos all by myself. I actually feel probably the weirdest that I've ever felt. I think I recorded one episode by myself, like, way back in the laundry room days, and it's very weird to just stare at your computer and not another person. So All you solo podcasters out there, I really give you a lot of credit because how do you do it, honey? Okay, before we get into today's case, which is going to be a little revisit, I believe this one is the medieval torture episode, which like, wow, we're really throwing it way back there, dolls. I think this might be when I asked if eagles had—

what did I say?

Cubs. If eagles had cubs. So the good news is I'm more educated now. They don't have cubs in case you're not as educated as me back then, or the same level of educated that I was apparently. Anyways, uh, before we get into today's episode, we have two pieces of exciting news for you. Numero uno is if you're not on the social media, you don't know the big cool news. We partnered with Hunt a Killer, who was one of our, actually not one of, our very first sponsor on this show. So that is like the coolest thing ever that like this is just such a full circle moment. We collabed with them and we've been working for the past, like, I don't even know how many months, but months and months and months of work has gone into this. And we developed a game with them called the Salem Slicer. I mean, can you think of a more perfect name for a game? The Salem Slicer, like that has Elena and Ash and Hunt a Killer. Written all over it. So that is our new game collab. It's available right now for preorder at Walmart, which is really freaking cool.

Never did I ever think I'd have a game in Walmart. It is a very, very fun game.

There's all these clues. You have to solve this murder.

It's from the 1980s. It's obviously based in Salem. So basically the game starts with this young woman named Abigail. She finds this box of evidence basically in her father's attic. And all of this evidence and like all these newspaper clippings and these kind of just like weird snapshots, I guess you could say, are in this box in her dad's attic and they're all tied to the Salem Slicer. And she's like, hold up, is my own father, my, my flesh and blood father, the Salem Slicer? Like that would change our lives because this case is way back in the 1980s. So Abigail starts investigating and now it's your turn to start investigating because you need to solve the case of The Salem Slicer. And if you think that that sounds like the bee's knees, if you think that's just the coolest thing in the world, which like you definitely should, then you need to head over to Walmart to preorder the game. Elena and I are so stoked about this. So that's that. That's one piece of incredibly exciting news. And guess what? It's not over, doll faces. I got more for you. I truly feel like I'm hosting my own radio show just like in the dark right now.

It's really weird to talk to you guys completely by myself, but I love you.

I feel close to you like this.

So second piece of news is Nicholas. Listen, listen, I know Nicholas is a controversial figure, but most of you love Nicholas. And if you say that you don't, I think you're maybe a little bit of a liar. Maybe a little bit of a liar, honey.

I don't know.

Or maybe you just don't know how to have fun. I'm just kidding. If you don't like him, it's fine. But if you do like him, this is really good news for you. There is a new shirt on the Morbid website officially, and it is a Nicholas shirt. It is dedicated to our boy in the afterlife. So go check that out. Go preorder the Salem Slicer and wish my sissy big— ew, I never call her my sissy. Why did I just say that? My sister. She's my sister. Wish her healing vibes. Wish her healing vibes and so that she gets better soon because I don't really want to catch her stomach bug and I also hate staying away from her. And most of you are probably sick of hearing me alone. So maybe you're not. Maybe you love me. I love you.

All right.

Without further ado, let's get into the case.

Hey, weirdos. I'm the Iron Maiden.

And I'm the Brazen Bull.

And this is Morbid Medieval. Pass the mutton.

Huzzah!

Burn some heretics.

Is this a competition? No, I won.

Woo!

We're back! And our sound's a little better.

Yeah, do we sound crisper?

Shout out to our bro Aiden. Yeah, does he listen?

I think he does.

Okay.

I'll make him listen.

Listen.

To this one. Yeah. My nephew Aiden, he's amazing. And he let us take his fancy pants microphone.

And his microphone is way cooler than our $30 one.

So we're going to buy this microphone.

We are going to buy it and you'll never have to hear crappy audio again.

Exactly. So hopefully from now on, we're going to have crisper, cleaner, beautiful audio. Well, there was another kind of exciting true crime update.

This week for a real bad guy. Yeah, you know that you always say he was a bad guy, he was a bad— a real bad guy, real bad guy. And it makes me laugh every time you say it because I feel like a bad guy.

I'm just very simple with my descriptions. I'm just like, bad dude, man.

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do?

Oh, we might get sued for singing that. Let's not sing that.

Well, I didn't finish it. I didn't finish it.

Well, This bad guy is a real bad guy.

He's a bad Larry.

And he's the one that we premiered our podcast with. Ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da. Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer. Ew. Who is also officially the Visalia Ransacker too. They've officially said that he's that guy. I mean, we knew that. And one of the big things this week was that he was charged with a 13th murder now. We had mentioned in the episode that he There was a possibility that he was involved in the killing of Claude Snelling, who was shot while he was stopping the kidnapping of his 16-year-old daughter.

Oh my God.

And he died. Um, he was a community college teacher. He's officially charged with that now, so that's good because that family deserves—

When does the trial— do they have a date?

I don't know.

I want to watch it on TV.

I'm waiting with bated breath.

But do you think that it will be televised?

I don't know. That's all, to be honest. You know, it'll be on like a Snapped or like something later. Yeah, we'll find out about it later for sure. And we'll hear all the updates. You know, Nancy Grace will be on that shit. Oh, God.

But that gives me anxiety.

I mean, he unfortunately can't be charged with any of the burglaries or rapes because there's a fucking statute of limitations on rape, which he can't be charged with any of the rapes. He's not charged with any of them. The statute of limitations expired. It just makes me so angry every time I see it because he's charged with more than 50 rapes. Right. And he's just— I know he's going to go to jail until he dies, but it's like— and he's like 400 now, but it's like, I want him to be charged with those. And I'm sure those victims of the rapes would want him to be held accountable for them.

They should give him at least some recognition.

Hopefully the judge says something like, yeah, if I could, I would. Like a ceremonial charge.

Sometimes they do. Like an honor. You know what I mean, though? Like judges can say like, Oh yeah. If I could, I would. If I could, I would. Like, there was— I forget what case it was, but she was like, if I could, I would sentence you for life.

Oh yeah.

I'm not allowed.

Yeah, I can't remember.

And she basically was just like, oh, in the Jill Rifkin case, remember? Yes, yes.

The judge was like, you're a disgusting monster, and I want to make sure— I think he said like, I want to make sure that you never see freedom in this life or the next, or something like that. Like, it was something very poetic. And very like, yeah boy.

I, I'm not thinking that one though. I'm thinking of a different one and I'm like watching it in my head right now.

Are you thinking of the—

it's a woman judge, woman judge from the, um, yeah, I know exactly where I'm saying.

What's his name? Larry. Yeah, the doctor.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Remember she went on like this big long—

oh yeah, and it was like amazing. The letter that he wrote that was bitching.

Yeah, and just like how unfair it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I hope something like that happens.

We're talking about the the US gymnast doctor who is charged with like a billion sexual assaults and rapes because he's a monster. He's a bad fucking guy. But yeah. So that's exciting. Current true crime news.

Hell yeah. But for today, we're going to bring it way back.

We are taking a trip in the way back machine.

Which Alayna always says that she would not do if she had a time machine.

Oh, I would never go back to the Middle Ages. That is not— That is not— if you were like— I don't even think it's safe for like dudes.

Well, do you know what I was going to say?

It's really not safe.

I almost just said I would only go back if I was royalty, but then sometimes even royalty—

sometimes your head gets chopped off.

Like Anne Boleyn. Yeah, yeah.

Especially if you're a woman. You're really— women are really not safe.

Yeah, I wouldn't go back there. I also wouldn't go to the future.

No, I don't know what's going on.

No, I'd go to like the '70s and the '80s.

I'd go back to like the '90s.

Yeah, I feel like we're in the '90s.

I'd go watch like Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Yeah.

And just chill.

Actually, realistically, I'd just go back to when I was like 10 so that I wouldn't have to work anymore and I would just stay there for a while.

Just chill for a little while.

Or I'd go to the future because maybe someday like I'll just like have my partner.

You just said you weren't going to go to the future.

No, I just— but I was rethinking.

You changed your plan.

I would take a sneak peek. Yeah, and then if it was real bad, I would go real step out.

Yeah, sniff around, see what's going on, and then get right.

But if I could be lazy in the future, I'm all about it.

Oh yeah, I think everybody would be all about that.

Take me there.

Who doesn't want to be lazy?

Yeah, yeah, I want to be lazy.

Oh, mail! The mailman just came and scared the shit out of me.

Oh, okay. So there's that. Yeah, guys, we're actually, um, recording in the middle of the day, which is weird because we never record in the daytime.

And I love that we're like more spooked out during the day, like We are very much like moon dwellers.

We are.

Like, the sun's out, I'm like, what's happening? Why is it so bright?

I'm in all black currently.

This is the worst. Sabrina the Teenage Witch is on the television.

Yep.

As per usual.

Literally.

Should we, should we jump on in?

So in 570— no, I'm just kidding.

Today we're going to be covering various methods and devices used in torture. Oh yeah. So this is kind of— we're going way back. Because these aren't, not that I know of, at least used.

And if they are, I don't want to know.

Except maybe one of them, but we'll cover that later. I kind of have to burp. Just do it.

Actually, it went away. I really had to. All right, so should I start?

Yeah, where Ash is going to do hers and then I'm going to do a list of mine.

Because guess what, weirdos? Ash did some research this week.

Ash researched.

At the top of the page is the brazen bull.

The brazen bull.

That's my first, um, what's it called? My first like torture device. Device. Yeah, my first torture device. And it was invented somewhere between 570 and 554 BC. BC. So like way, way back. Yeah, it was invented by Perillos of Athens.

Perillos is a great name.

Perillos. Perillos. Perillos.

It's like goatee.

He's just like, "Periling." It sounds perilous.

So it sounds like—

Well, just wait, actually.

You're dangerous. Dangerous.

So dangerous.

Perilous.

Perilous was a bronze worker, and he designed the brazen bull to execute criminals in a super chill way.

Yeah. Sounds pretty chill so far.

Actually, I'm kidding. It was really fucked up.

Oh, that's weird. Yeah.

The brazen bull was a legit statue of a bull, and it was hollow but made of bronze.

That's pretty.

So I read an article on allthatsinteresting.com and the article was really interesting.

Yeah, that— you know what, that website has all that is interesting.

Yeah, it actually does. Yeah. But it was described as a human crockpot on this website.

That sounds delicious.

And potentially the most fucked up torture device in history.

Yeah, because I use a crockpot often. For humans, but I don't normally put humans in.

Yeah, it's just like a, like, celebration.

Usually I throw some, like, chicken, some veggies in there, right? But after this, maybe I'll give it a shot.

Yeah, I hope it's not with me though, because you need a podcast host.

That's true. Okay, cool.

Bye.

Yeah, it won't be for you.

All right, so basically, in ancient Greece, there was a colony which is Akragas. Akragas.

I love it.

Um, it's now Sicily, so I like that better. Just Sicily. We're just gonna call it Sicily. Yeah, and it was ruled by a tyrant named Phalaris. So don't get yourself mixed up. There's Pyrilos, there's Phalaris.

It's a lot of P's. All right.

He ruled with an iron fist.

Wait, wait. I just got confused. Pyrilos, Phalaris. Okay.

Pyrilos, Phalaris.

Okay.

According to Aidan, we don't need a pop filter on this.

So. So that's exciting.

Hopefully we'll pop pop pop pop pop.

Yeah. So we can go pop pop pop pop and it's not going to piss you off.

Your eyes got wicked wide when you just asked that. I was like, kind of terrifying. So Phalaris was a giant asshole.

I felt like he would be.

But Perilos was like, oh my god, I'm gonna make this brass bull torture device and my master Phalaris is gonna think it's super dope.

Because he's a big dick.

Yeah, he's a dick and I'm gonna make him a dickish invention so that he thinks I'm cool.

Yeah, I see his train of thought.

I'm with him.

I smell what he's stepping in.

So how he designed it is that the person gets put inside the bull and then a fire is lit underneath.

Ah, the crockpot aspect.

Yeah, so basically the poor mofo just like burns alive.

Fun.

Yeah, it's really chill.

I wonder if they have like a low and high setting, like a crock pot, where you can like simmer them on low for a little while.

Well, I think in that case you would just make a small fire. Oh, there you go. And then you could just keep adding wood to the fire.

Oh, there you go. So then you would get more tender meat.

You know, this was BC. It was like they had to just work with what they had. Yeah.

But I feel like they were on it.

No, this is like some like modern day shit. Like I was like, Paralos, how did you come up with this?

Who you be, Paralos?

Like, how'd you know this? So he designed it so that the pipes and whistles that he like put inside the bull convert the screams of those inside to sounds of a bull snorting and grunting. So this poor like SOB is like, "Ahhh!" But the people on the outside are like, "Ooh!" Like that's what it sounds like. Is that what a bull sounds like? A bull's just walking around going, "Hrrr!" Well, can you do your best bull impression then please?

I like that one, to be honest.

Well, they also said—

I'm just picturing bulls walking around being like, "Grrr." Well, bulls are mad. They're just like grunting.

Fuck you. I like that he festooned it though.

Like, he made it fun.

He did.

He literally added the bells and whistles onto it.

Well, so, you know, he made it really fun.

Yeah.

But supposedly he was the first victim of it.

Ooh, saw that coming, I feel.

Yeah. He told Philara— sorry, I just totally lost my train of thought. That's fine. Supposedly he told Falaris goodbye.

He told that guy.

He said to this guy, "His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." Ooh. Falaris was really disgusted by that because he was messed up, but he was like, "That's messed up." He was like, "I have a line." Yeah, and you just went way past it.

Every tyrant dictator person has a line.

This was part of Falaris's line. He was so disgusted that he threw him inside. He threw Pyrilus inside. And in my notes I wrote, "Phalaris was so disgusted that he threw Phalaris inside." But he threw Pyrilus inside. He was so disgusted. He just jumped right in there.

He just threw himself.

He's like, "You know what? Goodbye cruel world. Light that fire.

I hate that people like you exist.

I'm just jumping in here." Yeah, no, he threw Pyrilus inside to test out the sound system. Just to test it You wanted to know. We're just gonna give it a shot.

But we just want to adjust the sound. Yeah, just like adjust the bass and the tempo a little bit.

Right, jump in there real quick, you know, just like let's, let's see what we're working with. Yeah, so it's unclear if he got pulled out before he died inside or if he was killed after, but either way, Phalaris had Perilos killed.

I imagine he probably did it in the Brazen Bull because they were like poetic as fuck. Oh yeah, and they were like, oh, you made this. So we're gonna burn you in it.

Well, either way he died because—

I just thought of something really gross.

The smell?

Well, that, but also can you imagine being the person that has to like clean inside of it between people?

Do you think they even did that?

Probably not, but it's like when you open that thing, it's probably just like people juice all up in there.

Yeah.

That's nasty.

Maybe they just like emptied it out into like— I mean, that's still like—

Imagine being the person who has to empty that shit out and just get people juice.

Well, they just used to throw their poop in the street back then, so. I know, but it's just like—

I just—

you just like turn your head the other way and toss it out the window.

You know what it is? I have like this weird thing where I don't like wet food.

No, that's not a weird thing.

Like when, you know, when you put a plate in the sink, like someone will put a full—

yeah, I don't like that either.

Food gets soggy.

Yeah, that— like the stuff that gets caught in the drain for longer.

Rips me out. I can't. So I just imagine like soggy people, and that's, that's real bad.

That's kind of like how raisins remind me of old people.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's exactly the same. I just, I don't know, you said soggy people, so I thought of just like really old people.

But you thought of saggy people. Yeah, I see where the connection was made.

Okay, so the next one is the Iron Maiden. The Iron Maiden, not the band. So metal. Is that one of their songs?

That's definitely one of their songs.

I don't know a single one.

Sounded just like it. Yeah? Ashton did a really good air guitar up by her shoulder.

Well, I'm really glad.

It was like an air violin.

Oh, it was like one of those people that you watch, 2Cellos? Yes!

I love 2Cellos.

Yeah, I bet they could cover an Iron Maiden song.

That's so good. Now I'm just itching my arm. They probably have covered an Iron Maiden song now that I think about it. They've covered an AC/DC song. Thong.

Oh man. Alright, well, we're not talking about the band. This is the—

Torture device.

Yeah, and it comes to you straight from the likes of Miss Trumbles, the Chokey.

Oh snap, bringing it back to Matilda.

And if you don't get that reference, like, get out of my face.

I also thought that you were gonna say it, it comes straight to you, like it—

yeah, it comes to you, somebody throws it right at you.

And I was like, well, at least it does that.

No, it doesn't. So it's an upright sarcophagus to get started.

Oh, okay, with spikes. Already this sounds okay.

Yeah, it's like comfy. Yeah, you just go and take a nap inside for sure, and you just avoid the spikes.

Yeah, except—

but once you're placed inside and the doors are closed, the strategically placed spikes— placed spikes— pierce several of your vital organs.

I mean, was there an ant on you or something? No, I thought there was something. It's— things are happening right now. Where's the daytime? We don't know how to—

we don't function in the daytime.

I need the moon. Yeah, I need some bats fluttering by.

I feed off the energy of the moon.

I feed off the energy of the Moon!

We have an exciting announcement, and now you have to listen to the whole rest of the podcast because we're gonna announce it at the end. Okay, so it appears like what? Your vital organs.

Is the moon coming on your podcast?

Yes, we're having an astronaut on the podcast.

The actual moon is coming.

What's that guy that your cat— your kids like? Scott Kelly. Scott Kelly's gonna be on the podcast.

My 2.5-year-olds are obsessed with Scott Kelly. Yeah, so there's that.

But, um, Vital organs, spiky.

Yeah, no good.

But no good. The spikes weren't long enough to make your organ shut down immediately.

That's unfortunate.

So you just bleed out.

Oh yeah, yeah. No, I'd just rather it all be—

yeah, it would take like—

I mean, I'm sure, you know, so you just stand there bleeding, slowly have your fucking organs poke down and like, what, um, you know, like juice floating out of your— oh.

Well, you know, like when you—

Floating, like it's floating in front of you.

When you go to like— like when something hits you, you move back. So then you probably just—

then you're moving into another one.

And then you try to move forward. So that makes me claustrophobic. Yeah. I just took a breath.

So this might make you feel better.

Oh, good. Sometimes people argue if the Iron Maiden is fact or fiction.

That kind of bums me out. Yeah.

I mean, either way, it like—

it was—

it was a thing. And if it was a thing back then, they used it.

Well, and we're the worst species ever, so I'm certain it was used. Because if all of these other ones were done, then I mean, this one isn't even as bad as some.

No, it's really not. Okay, well, these are a few accounts. Okay, so in the 1700s, German philosopher Johann Philipp Siebenkees— you're welcome—

I like it—

wrote about a coin forger, which I think is just somebody that like makes fake money.

Yeah, that makes sense. Or like just forges coins out of metals.

Yeah, because like if you think like she forged a check, like you write a bad check, like you're just like a fake-ass check.

You're a fake-ass hoe. Fake-ass bitch.

Yeah, yeah. So he was in—

that's what he was.

So the guy that wrote about this, Johan—

oh, motorcycle just drove by, you probably heard that.

Well, you know, I just can't stop the outside.

My neighbor got a motorcycle and I'm so happy for him. Which neighbor? One down the street.

Okay, Elena has this neighbor, I'm 100% sure he doesn't live listen to the podcast. So he is like the nicest guy and he's so funny, and his laugh is literally the most contagious laugh you've ever heard.

And it bellows throughout the neighborhood.

He almost— okay, I started watching Dog the Bounty Hunter again the other day because that's something that I don't know if I can support. Support it?

It's a great show. I'm not gonna—

I was raised watching Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Wow.

Yeah, which says a lot about how I was brought up, but Hi, Mom. Um, so anyways, he sounds just like Dog the Bounty Hunter's laugh.

I've never heard Dog the Bounty Hunter's laugh.

Well, it sounds like the impression.

I can't even say that sentence correctly, so that's how far out of that I am.

My favorite part of yesterday's episode that I was watching was Beth had a necklace on that said Big Daddy.

I, I hate this.

It's the most disgusting, horrible thing ever.

I hate this.

But she calls him Big Daddy.

I hate it.

Okay, I'm done.

I hate it a lot.

Where were— where was I going with your neighbors?

I don't know. I was saying that I'm very happy for my neighbor who got a motorcycle recently.

Yeah.

And, um, I don't know if like the sarcasm is registering. She's not happy over the podcast waves, but not super psyched about it.

All right, so the coin forger got executed. How we get there— he got executed in the Iron Maiden in the city of I think you say Nuremberg.

Nuremberg. Nuremberg. Which seems like a disproportionate punishment. Yeah.

Like, like, I don't know. He probably just could have did some time. And yeah, what's the thing where they put your head and then you're—

the stocks.

The stocks. Just throw them in there for like a couple days. It's fine.

Yeah. All right.

So around that time, iron maidens began to appear in museums around the US and Europe. Bless you. According to one article I read, God bless you. A man by the name of Matthew Peacock, which seems legit.

Paul Onions.

Paul Onions and Matthew Peacock write a book. They hang there. Yeah, in the 1800s. Yeah, well, Matthew—

I bet Paul Onions has transported through time.

Yeah, he's seen some shit.

Yeah, he escaped Ivan Milat. He's had to have traveled through space and time, probably.

Well, Matthew Peacock spent the 1800s collecting paintings and torture devices.

Same.

He had a wide variety of, uh, of interests. So he allegedly pieced an Iron Maiden together from pieces of other torture devices slash random devices, and he gifted it to a museum where people went crazy over it because they thought it was a real Iron Maiden. Yeah, they believed it.

What a turd.

Yeah, but here's my favorite one. This one— okay, you know how like folklore isn't always true?

Yes.

I feel like this isn't true, but I want it to be true. Oh, it's just a little too advanced for the time of 100 BC.

I don't know, they were pretty— they were pretty on it back then.

All right, so this account comes from Greek historian Polybius.

See, and I know him and he always tells the truth. Oh, okay, so you can believe—

how do I pronounce his name?

Exactly how you did.

Polybius.

Exactly.

Lived around 100 BC, like I said, and claimed that Spartan tyrant Nabis, or Nabis.

Oh yeah, I know that guy.

Yeah, well, did you know that he constructed a mechanical likeness of his wife Apega? That is really advanced for, um, but it was an iron maiden version of his wife.

What the fuck?

Supposedly. So if a citizen refused to pay their taxes, he would like trick them into coming to his royal courts or whatever it was back then. And then they would think that like his wife was coming to join them.

But she— fucking mechanical wife.

Yeah, but she had to like wheel over. So I'd be like, um, first fucking giveaway, she's on wheels.

It sounds like the Return to Oz, the wheelers.

Yeah, well, it just sounds ridiculous. So they would think that his wife was there because they're really fucking dumb apparently. But and then somehow Basically, he would like spring them into her embrace where they'd be impaled by the iron nails that covered her arms, hands, and breasts.

I mean, that sounds legit.

Yeah, I was—

I believe it fully.

When I was reading it, I was like, I don't know, like something is off. Maybe I missed something.

I don't know. Yeah, it sounds legit to me. I believe it. I believe Polud, you know, that guy.

Well, maybe they do. I mean, they debate if it's still around, but this fucking crazy stories are still there.

That's awesome.

Yeah, so that was the Iron Maiden, the little Iron Maiden.

Yeah.

Uh, my next one is the boots.

Oh, das Boots.

And then, okay, so there's, um, two methods that I found, and both of them, I don't know if it's like fortunate or unfortunate, you don't die.

Oh, it's never good when it ends with like, this is just torture.

Yeah, you're not gonna die.

You're gonna walk away from, or you're gonna crawl away from this, or slither away from this.

Seriously. Okay, so in the first method, the victim has boots placed on their feet made of spongy leather.

That just sounds nice.

It just sounds like— it sounds like soggy food. Ooh, spongy leather, soggy food.

It's like moist old people raisins. Fuck you. The word moist doesn't bother me.

Is that why you keep saying it?

Moist cake. That's what I think of. Moist.

I think it's just the nasty-ass look on your face that ruins it. That word only bothers me if people say it in like a yucky way. Like, I'm moist from being outside.

Bleh.

Yeah, that's not cool. Like, if you're like sweaty.

You don't want people to be moist.

Yeah, that really—

that brought it somewhere.

Yeah, I just meant sweaty.

Well, that's what I mean.

Yeah.

See, you just brought it somewhere. I meant sweaty too. So the boots.

Das Boots. Um, spongy leather. They're then tied up with their feet by fire.

Things get pretty serious pretty quick is what you're saying.

No, they're just trying to make them relax.

Here's some boots. Warm your feet up by a fire real quick.

Yeah, just like hang out. Yeah, but then I'm gonna pour this boiling water onto your boots.

That escalated quickly.

So then that water seeps through the leather and dissolves the flesh, and it said it dissolves the bone too.

Uh, yeah, I don't think so. It's really hard to get rid of bone.

And then in some cases, wood was placed inside the boot, like probably like on the top and the bottom, and then they would pour oil inside to expand the wood and cut off the circulation to the foot. So they like smush it is what I thought.

Yeah, that like cuts it all off.

Yeah, so basically your feet are just real gnarly. Gross. From then on. And then in the second version—

if you cut off circulation long enough, it'll— they'll die. So you just have like these necrotic nasty feet.

Yeah, their feet will die, but they won't.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Oh, their feet will die.

Oh yeah, gross dead feet.

I'm just looking at my feet now.

Ouch. I know, I'm like cradling my feet right now. You are? My hand, I'm like massaging it. Like, you still there? You're there. You're okay.

Don't listen, don't listen to these bad words.

I'm not putting you in any boots, don't worry about it.

Okay, well the second version, cradle your feet a little and your shins a little tighter.

Oh.

So they would place the victim's legs between two planks of wood, and then they would tie it together with cords. And then between the cords, the torturers would place wedges, which they would then violently hammer into the shins of the victim, so thus creating them wood boots.

Oh, those aren't boots. That's not cool.

It's up for artistic license.

It's like hobbling, like from, uh, Misery. Yeah, that Stephen King novel. Oh, that sounds horrible. It's a great movie with Kathy Bates.

Okay, well, each time a wedge was hammered, a small portion of the shin bone shatters. Oh, and then they would hammer at least a dozen wedges up and down the legs.

Oh my damn.

So like your whole tibia—

yeah, your tibia would just—

is just done for. Like it's—

it falls apart. Oh, so then your legs are just like Jell-O legs and you just have bone shards floating around.

Would you die?

Which you'd eventually get an infection.

And die.

Probably, because anytime they got an infection back then, you died. Because they had nothing to fix that.

Well, so anyways, they were unable to walk after that.

Yeah, so they probably just slithered away and then died from infection.

Mm-hmm.

Sounds good.

So that was the boots.

Das Boots.

Next one is gonna piss you off. Uh-oh. The scold's bridle was a gruesome torture instrument worn to prevent women from gossiping.

Goddamn women.

Just like a big fuck you to guys back then. Like, I can gossip if I want to.

I can talk shit if I want to.

I gossip all day. Yeah, every day. That's—

you are a hairstylist. It's part of your job.

I mean, you're not wrong. So basically the term speaks for itself because back in the day, scold was like a derogative term for women, or like a woman who was constantly displeased or like nagged too much. So like you.

I was just gonna say, yelty.

Just kidding. And then the bridle is a headpiece designed for a horse.

I was gonna say, isn't that like a horse thing?

Yeah, the bridle is.

So already that's nice.

So it's to direct it when you're like riding.

Yeah.

The device is an iron muzzle enclosed in an iron framework that would surround the head of the accused.

That sounds like that thing in Saw.

So the intention was to prevent the person wearing it from speaking. And sometimes, well, the bridle bit would like go in your mouth, but sometimes they would put a spike on the bridle bit or the bridle bit, excuse me, so that if the woman tried to talk, like the movement would pierce her tongue and like then if you— it would just ruin your whole— did they just have like—

somebody had like a mountain of surplus spikes. You know, there was a spike factory all the time and they were like, what do we do with this mountain of spikes? And they were like, let's just make some fucking shit that rips people apart with it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly the spikes on everything.

So if that wasn't bad enough, there's also a public humiliation part of this.

I thought that was the public humiliation.

Oh yeah, but then your husband would drag you in the streets on a leash.

Mäwes.

Like, hey, let's get divorced, you asshole. Where people were encouraged to yell insults, spit on you, and like inflict more violence on you.

Maybe that's where they got it in Game of Thrones.

That's what I was thinking of the whole time.

With the shame bell.

Shame. Shame. Sounds exactly like it. An early record of this practice took place in Scotland.

Scotland.

I feel like this isn't anything to cheer about. In 1567. Well, it was also— the method was also used in England and Wales.

Yeah, see, they did it too.

Yeah, everywhere, I'm sure. But Bessie Talyferre, Bessie, slandered this guy named Bailey, which is your dog's name, Bailey Hunter, because of false measurements in a land dispute. So I think someone was trying to buy land and he was like, it's this big, but she was like, no bitch, it's this big.

And then she got that shit put on her.

Yep. Because she was a woman and she was sentenced to it for 1 hour. 1 hour? That's just weird. Well, 1 hour of irreputable damage if they had the strap.

Yeah, they could tear up your tongue.

Right. Also in Walton-on-Thames, which is a town in England, I think, a scold's bridle— I looked on Wikipedia really fast. That's how I research. But a scold's bridle dated 1633 is displayed in the vestry of the church. That's how we say it.

Vestry? You're asking the wrong person about that.

Yeah, I like wasn't even baptized. The inscription reads—

it sounds like something that would be in a church.

I think it's vestry.

I like it.

Right in.

Yeah.

Um, but it says, Chester presents the Walton with a bridle to curb women's tongues that talk too idle.

Necessary and also poetic. Love that it's a poem.

You know, I didn't realize that until I said it out loud. I was writing it and I was like What a fucking asshole.

Like, this sounds so flowery, I don't know why.

So the story goes that someone named Chester lost a large fortune because of a lady's gossip.

I bet it was Chester's fault.

Of course it was. It had nothing to do with the lady's gossip, but he lost some money, and then he presented the town with the bridle out of anger and spite.

So he was like, here you go, I'm real pissed.

And then my last one, do you want to guess what it's called?

It's called—

BR is the initials.

The barnacle repairer. Nope, it's the breast ripper. Oh, so close.

So it rips off your titties.

Oh, I thought it went on your head. Nope.

So it's also known as the iron spider or just the spider. And you guessed it, super fucked up.

Super awesome.

But if you were real friended— offended, actually— by the Skull Spider— if you were friended by the Skull Spider, then that's weird. Delete your Facebook. Yeah, then this one you should just sit it out because it sounds like it's— yeah, and they like reserved like special-ass torture for girls. Yeah, that was nice of them. So this one's really short and sweet and to the point. It was a claw-like device ended in spikes and they either heated it or left it cold.

I don't know which one is worse.

They would just put it on your boobies and rip your boobs right off, or they would like hang it on a wall and then attach your boobies to it and then like yank you away so that the wall ripped your boobies off, kind of. Oh, and that is all my research on boobs in the medieval times.

I'm still like having a moment about that.

Are you? Yeah, yeah, my boobs hurt real bad like thinking about that after I like research.

Yeah, that's a lot.

And my tongue hurt because of the Scold's Bridle.

Yeah, I feel like everybody's gonna walk away from this feeling really sore.

My organs hurt because of the Iron Maiden.

Yeah, that's not okay.

And I felt like I was on fire because of the Brazen Bull.

Well, I'll, I'll start mine off with one that's like the Breast Ripper in the sense that it just gives you everything right up front. You don't have to guess what this one is all about. Okay, it's called the Head Crusher. Like I said, pretty straightforward. It's back in medieval times, of course. Sorry. I was actually throwing things. So what it was, was there was a bar that you would place your chin onto. Then on top of your head was a cap-like device. There was a little screw on top that they would twist and twist and twist, and eventually it was like a vice and your head would go crunch, pop, boom. It was pretty awesome. So your head would basically pop. And it would be crushed. And this happens super slowly, super painfully. And the first thing that would happen stresses me out a lot.

Was it your teeth?

Your teeth would shatter in your mouth.

Oh, fuck, I hate teeth things.

Yeah. And then after that, your eyes would pop out of its sockets.

No.

Yeah. No, goodbye. And then boop, dead.

Pop goes your head. So that's good.

Except once in a while, if— because a lot of these were like illicit confessions or just for punishment. So if they were doing this to elicit a confession, they might stop after they've popped your eyes out of your head, and— or like have halfway have popped your eyes and your teeth have shattered and been like, okay, thank you for confessing.

Like the guy from—

and then you walk away with no teeth and your eyes are like garbage. Yikes.

Yeah, that reminds me of the guy from Harry Potter with that big old eye.

Yeah, that's exactly the same. Oh, and a lot of these— now a lot of the ones I'm gonna go over were done for such heinous crimes like homosexuality. Bye. Blasphemy. Bye. Witchcraft. Bye.

Yeah. So I would have my head glued to the shed.

No, I don't think any— anybody would do great. So the first big one I'm going to go over is called the Blood Eagle.

Oh, this is fucked up. I know about this.

Great. Like hard, like dark metal band name. Oh God. So it's probably the most nightmarish thing I've ever heard happening to a human being.

Take yourself to your happy place.

It was popular among Vikings.

The Vikings are just fucked up.

They're known as a very mellow bunch, so this is a departure. And it's believed by some scholars to be something done as an offering to the Norse god of war Odin before and after battles. So like for good luck or something. Like, you know, some people—

like maybe just wear your lucky socks.

Yeah, it's, it's the same.

Rub a rabbit's foot pretty much the same day.

And according to 12th and 13th century scholars, it was most popular in Scandinavia because Vikings, and it was reserved when it wasn't being used just as like a pump-up thing for battle. This is just like a pregame, as a pregame for battle. Then it was used for literally the worst of the worst people. I don't think anybody served this, but no, I don't think so. So basically the blood eagle went a little something like this. No, the unfortunate captive would be kneeling or laying on their stomach.

It's never good from there.

Yeah, not a good position to be in.

Just try to get up.

Obviously they would be restrained in some way to prevent them from getting up or breaking free or trying to get the fuck up out of there because something bad's gonna happen. So first the back was carved. Nope. Sometimes it would be carved in the shape of an eagle, but that was not necessary. But either way, back carving, the thing that was the most important was that they opened up your back in some way. That was the main purpose. When they did that, the victim's rib cage was then cut away from the spine with an ax and subsequently pulled out one by one away from the spine and out through the back. And the rib cage was then pulled up to slightly resemble wings, which I have not seen a bird flying around with a rib cage shot out of its back, but I'm not in Scandinavia, so I don't know. Um, maybe birds are different. Scandinavian listeners, let us know. I'm— do you have crazy skeleton birds floating around? I don't know.

I want pictures.

I'm not gonna guarantee it's not a thing.

Pics or it didn't happen.

So you would really have to like suspend reality or give a lot of artistic license for this to resemble an eagle, but we're going with it. So to make the wing look, you know, because this, this looked like a bird obviously, but we could get it more authentic, right? So to, to take it to an entirely new level of suffering—

oh no—

the victim's lungs were then pulled out one at a time and laid over the ribs, because what are wings without fleshy airbags draped over them.

I mean, I'm in a dark place. A dark place.

Who hasn't seen a bird flying around with fleshy airbags ready? Who among us? Who?

I don't know, bro.

So obviously, if the victim managed to somehow live through this torture, which, who knows, stranger things have happened, they would just slowly suffocate. To death after their lungs were pulled out through their back. On top of that, they would rub salt in the victim's wounds because—

throughout the whole time or just after, at the end?

Throughout the whole time, because like, if you don't season as you go, then the end result—

then you can't throw them in the crock pot.

Yeah, it's not any— I watch a lot of Food Network and they are always saying, ew, season that meat. Ew. So it's important.

So what was this for? Like, what did you have to do?

You're just a bad guy, probably.

It's a real bad guy.

He's being a real bad guy, or gal. I don't know if they've done— I don't see any records of it happening to gals, but Vikings, man, major yikes. So that's the blood eagle. Oh man. Now let's take a little trip over to the strappado. Strappado. Strappado, also called corda. Not sure why.

Corda?

Yeah, I like strappado better. Yeah, it was used to torture heretics, witches, and anyone else that stepped out of the very fine line of living in medieval times.

Yeah, like, what could you do? Basically, it's like, let me—

you had a bad day and now you're in the strappado. It was used a lot during the Spanish Inquisition.

That was a fucked up time.

It was, it was a time. It was a moment.

It was a day.

There were 3 main ways in which this was administered. The first one was the victim's arms are tied behind their backs with a rope.

Also never a good position.

Yeah, no. And then the rope is attached to a pulley system, and the victim is lifted into the air with their arms inverted, which they then dislocate violently behind them. Now, the second method is basically the same as the first, except the victims would be stopped in midair several times to increase the pain and suffering. They would also cause the victim to jerk around so that they would effectively break the shoulders, because who needs shoulders like that? Yeah, that's no joke.

That's pain.

And then the third method was kind of the same as the first two, except this time they, you know, Just add a weight to your ankles so that you really get your joints ripped apart.

Oh my God.

So that's fun. Now usually this torture was completed within an hour and it was not used to cause death. So these people were then let down and away you go, come again soon.

And then you're just gonna have rotator cuff problems for your whole life.

Yeah, that's exactly the issue you're gonna have, it's a busted rotator cuff. So that's the strappado. The next one is called the rack.

Oh no, I know about this shit.

This one's fun. So in the rack, a victim would be secured to a board of some sort by having their wrists and ankles cuffed to it. No, it's never good when you're secured to a board, as you will see when we cover John Wayne Gacy. It's never a good place to be. Nothing good happens attached to a board. He's so weird. Also, Dean Corll, I think he's board.

Oh, a lot of boards.

This was— no, this was along the same lines. It's real bad. So then chains would be attached to the cuff, and the other end of the chains would attach to a wheel. There was a crank that would then turn said wheel, and this would cause the chains to slowly tighten. Oh no. Now, as this happened, it was pulling your arms and legs and stretching them.

Goodbye.

But not just stretching— the joints, sockets, ligaments, tendons would all completely snap and crack.

Oh.

Now sometimes they would even go way past stretching and just pull the fucking limbs right off your body.

Fuck you.

Now if they didn't take it that far, the muscles would completely lose the ability to contract, and at some point this person would be completely unable to move and likely unable to control like basic bodily functions like their bowels.

I feel like at the end of this they probably just like left them to die. Like, I don't— you know what I mean? Like they're just like, yeah, I'm not gonna totally kill you, but exactly. Gonna leave you here.

You're gonna die anyway, so it's like, it's gonna be slow or it's gonna be relatively quick. So there were other variations on this method that were common, like along with the stretching, sometimes the rack would include a bed of nails or spikes. So the person would lay upon these sharp objects while they were being stretched.

What if they just had any spikes left over from—

I think if they were next to a pile of spikes, they would just throw a few on there and they were like, let's do this.

Oh, and there were spikes everywhere.

Yeah, we don't want to waste spikes.

No, they had a surplus of those.

Now this clearly caused a lot of fucked up noises. If you've ever cracked your knuckles, cracked your back, heard anybody else do it—

um, I broke my pelvis when I was like in summer going into 8th grade, and that pop that you hear, people like across my summer camp said that they heard it, and it was like Gross.

Yes.

No, I can like still hear it.

Yeah, it's disgusting. And that's just like a small portion of what you'd hear here.

Oh God, because so many things would be crack-a-lackin'.

Well, this— for this reason, torture wasn't only used for the unfortunate person attached to the rack, it was also used as a method of eliciting a confession from accused heretics by having them watch someone else be tortured on the rack. The sound inside of someone's tendons, ligaments, and joints just fucking tearing apart. And popping all over the place was actually enough torture that it turns out that this was a pretty effective method for eliciting a confession. Because if you think about it, you're fucking watching somebody pulled apart slowly, and the sounds would drive you mad. Yeah. So yeah, that's the rack.

Oh, that's the rack.

That's the rack. And that's a wrap.

She should be called the Ripper. Ripper.

Ripper. The Rack Ripper.

Ouchie.

That's what the Breast Ripper should have been called, the Rack Ripper.

Oh, that's funny.

Oh, that's funny.

Oh my God, that was funny. Good job.

Incredulous.

You're like sometimes hilarious.

I am sometimes, only a little bit. On to the next one.

On to the next one.

This one's called the Wheel. It's also called the Catherine Wheel or the Breaking Wheel. Why Catherine? Because fuck it, you know Catherine, you know what she's all about. I know this was used during the Spanish Inquisition. Okay, it was the cousin of the rack.

The rack.

And it was intended for the purpose of capital punishment or for torture to elicit confessions. Samezies. Um, so there would be a large wagon wheel where the accused would be stretched out all over, hanging out. They would be attached to it some way, restrained, and then they would be severely beaten with clubs, thick branches, and, you know, stuff like that.

No thanks.

And because they were stretched out on a wheel with open spaces between all the spokes, their bones would fucking break because of all the off angles. And it was used for the purpose of torture. And then while the tour— after the torture was complete in that respect it would continue because the person would then be either removed from the wheel before death happened, or you would be straight up bludgeoned to death and left on the wheel for everybody to see. And then there's other ways where you weren't bludgeoned to death, you were just left on that fucking wheel to die after they broke all your bones.

Whoa, how long do you think that would take?

They said they could leave a beaten, broken body on that wheel for days. And they would just slowly—

infection would set in and they'd go starving and hungry.

Yeah, but they honestly, they'd probably die from the infection too, like, quick, because I think all those broken bones and shit, and I'm sure bones were popping through skin and stuff. Oh God, that's so nasty. Yeah, so if they were gonna— if they were using it for kaput, like to kill you, right, then they basically would leave you up there and just keep administering beatings until you finally just died. No, from the trauma.

I'm not interested.

And no matter what, you were on public display during all this because people like to watch shit like that back then. Shit was mayhem back then.

Like, people used to like join in on stones and stuff.

On stones?

Stoning. People were stoned back then.

Yeah, they were just joining.

No, I think they needed to be stoned.

They did, because they used to bring like kids to like public hangings and guillotine.

My first college English assignment back before I dropped out of college.

Yes, back in the Middle Ages.

Was like a short story about, um, somebody getting stoned, and then we were supposed to write a paper about morals.

Somebody getting stoned like smoking the weed?

No, like somebody getting like legit stoned. Yeah, or like— no, it wasn't stoned. It was like a book about like one— once a year they would have to like pick a name out of like the town and that person would get like stoned or hung. It's called like The Election or something.

It's like The Hunger Games.

Yeah, literally. But we had to write a paper on it, and I remember reading it and I was like, why am I in college?

Why am I in college? And then you were like, fuck this.

And then I dropped out.

Well, the next one, you're like back to reality. Unfortunate reality is called The Heretic's Fork.

Forks are never good in torture unless you're eating.

Now this was specifically used for people who spoke out against the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Bye. You know, witches, heretics, all that good stuff.

The usual.

Basically, it was a double-ended fork. Both ends had two very sharp prongs on them. Oh no. It would be attached to a leather collar device that would go around the victim's neck. No. This created a situation where the victim could not move their head from a strained upward position. And couldn't drop their jaw even a little bit. If they did, then prongs would pierce their neck and prongs would pierce their sternum area. And it wasn't like they would just be like, boop, that hurts a little. It was like, no, you're gonna get like impaled by this. And it was very simple but very effective. And the whole thing was very poetic because it's like, you spoke out against the church, so now you have to look up at your God that you don't believe in. Like that was the whole thing. You have to look up to heaven and we're forcing you to look up into the sky.

I'd be like, but it's still not there. I don't see anything except the ceiling.

It's like, please take this off of me.

God, are you there? It's me, Margaret. It's me, Margaret.

Back in the Middle Ages.

Judy Blume?

That's where it originated. Well, the next one has a little bit of religion to it too. Oh. It's called the Cradle of Judas.

Who's Judas again?

Judas is— I know this— Judas is the guy that betrayed Jesus.

To be honest with you, I thought that was Caesar.

Well, it's the same situation, like Caesar had Brutus.

Oh, Judas and Brutus, like, et tu, Brute?

Means, and you, Brutus? Like, he turned around and was like, and you, you are my friend, I thought. And so Judas did the same thing.

It was theatrical.

Yeah, I'm very theatrical. I went to theater camp.

And you had fun in high school. No, I'm just kidding. That actually does sound fun. I wanted to be in drama club, but my mom worked, so I couldn't be.

I was in drama club for a long time until senior year high school. I graduated.

Yeah, I did cheerleading. Bye.

Exactly, exactly. See, she's trying to hide the real root of the issue here.

Well, I wanted to do drama in middle school. I was only a cheerleader for one year.

Wow, it felt like a lot longer.

Sure did. You're telling me. I'm still dealing with the post-traumatic stress disorder. Selling the cookie dough. Sell it, sell it. Make the woo sound at the end of all your cheers.

Oh Jesus.

Remember, you put me through so much hell.

I did. I really did.

It was self-prescribed though. I like, I set it up.

You just made it so easy.

But I also played softball.

Yeah, I did too.

But I wasn't good and the coach was also your coach and he was like, why are you not like Elena.

That's because— that's only because I played softball since the time I was like— whenever you can start T-ball, that's when I started.

Yeah.

And I played literally every season my whole life.

Yeah.

Fun little fact.

Fun fact.

One of us was a cheerleader, one of us was a drama nerd.

Who's who?

Who's who? But you can't tell.

You could totally pick us up in a lineup.

Yeah.

Of who was who.

100%. 100%.

I'm just glad.

I don't think anyone is confusing me for a cheerleader. The Cradle of Judas.

Oh, where did we go? We came out of that. I think this is not going to be a popular podcast.

Now this one is a doozy, and I mean doozy when I say doozy.

Doozay?

Hold on to your butts, everybody.

Hold on to your butts. I'm going to start saying, hold on to your anus. Hold on to that rectum. So This is another creation from the Spanish Inquisition. Keep icing your front bum.

Oh, I hope someone gets that reference.

I'm not gonna say where it's from. I kind of want to.

Keep icing your front bum. Swelling continues if you do not ice.

Don't say where it's from. Don't say where it's from.

Someone tell me you know what that's from.

I want a DM.

Oh, I want one, please, please, please. We're begging.

Okay, so it continues if you do not ice.

So this device is a wooden pyramid that's raised high on four legs, and on top of that pyramid is a spike.

It's the theme.

The victim would then be stripped naked, and weights were attached to their ankles, and then they were hung by their arms and legs high above this device.

Not interested.

When the torture was to begin, they would then be lowered Slowly onto the period.

Period. You know what I want to know, actually? Because in my mind I was just like not interested. Like, I'm not showing up to my torture day. How did they not run away before?

Oh, they would rip you out of your house. Like, you weren't getting away. It's not like they were like, on Tuesday at 2, I don't know, be lowered onto a pyramid.

The Middle Ages were fucked up.

Maybe people were just so afraid of But that's why they would never give you advance notice. Because in the Middle Ages they were just like bursting into your house being like, "You thought an improper thought, so we're gonna stick you onto this fucking—" You are wrong, sir!

I'm eating breakfast!

The Cradle of Judas for you. So, yeah. So they'd be lowered slowly onto this pyramid, which would cause the spike to penetrate their perineum region. Which is yo anus. Yo butt. Gravity, body weight, and the added weights would cause the person to sink onto the stake with no resistance. Oh God. Now this torture would last for hours, and usually the victim was left on this thing all fucking night. Natural instinct, like, if you think about it, if you sit on something that hurts your bum, your natural instinct is to like rock back and forth to kind of like alleviate the—

yeah, to be like, oh, that hurt, to try to get yourself off off of it, kind of. Same thing with like the iron maiden, like we were—

exactly, like your just natural instinct would take over. But doing that in this case would just rip the wound larger and sink you lower onto the stake. This is like the hemorrhoid from hell.

They should have— they should have called it the Hemorrhoid Hole Maker. They should have just called it the Hemorrhoid. Yeah, it's just— Six Flags should come out with a ride like that.

Six Flags should not come up with a ride like that.

I'm just kidding.

Because I don't want to know the kind of people that would go on that ride.

It's like Dark Tourist. Exactly, that's real Dark Tourist shit. I just gave that guy an idea for his horror house.

I don't even think— he's probably like, no thank you, I do not want to explore that. Ew. Um, so these people would often bleed to death, or the infection from the spike never being fucking cleaned between torture sessions would definitely kill them.

Oh, that's like dysentery, right?

Dysentery is poopy. Pooping a lot. Like, you— like diarrhea.

Like, so it would cause dysentery?

No, it would cause internal damage.

Death.

It's not gonna cause you to have diarrhea. It's gonna cause your entire abdomen to explode. Cesspool. Are you just saying words?

What's it— what is it if you get like typhoid disease? Like people just like, because like their, their waist was on the thing and then it got into other people's widdies. I just saw a little trail of smoke come out of your ears. Something just popped in there as you tried very hard to get that. No, do you know what I mean though? Like, you know what I'm saying?

Like infection?

Yeah, yeah, but like poop infection is a different kind of infection.

I mean, if you want it to be a poop infection.

Well, it would be.

It's your bum.

This is not like— this is a spike that's ripping into your internal organs. That's where the infection happens, not pooping.

No, I'm not saying they're pooping. I'm saying it goes in their butt, so a little bit of poop gets on it, and then the poop gets in your organs. For sure. So that's where the infection comes from. For sure.

And like other bodily fluids, right?

Yeah. That's all I was saying. Cesspool. But I like it. Remember when I told that story of me dropping out of college?

Here we are.

Here we sit. They're like, go back to college, dumbass. Oh shit. So that's the cradle. Oh shit, the cradle of Jesus. That's the cradle of Judas.

So that's the cradle of Jesus. I don't think the cradle of Jesus would be as metal as that. I don't know. I don't know, man. So this— oh, this is the one that's used today.

You know what, I remembered which one it was because I looked at your notes.

Torture by rats.

That's the one still used.

This one's still used today, apparently. I don't know where. I'm not going there, but it's used.

I almost just said where. After you were like, I don't know where, I'm not going there, I was like, where? Where it happened. Cesspool.

Typhoid. The victim in this case is stripped naked and lays on a table. Nope. Which seems to be just— when that happens, it's just, just count your—

yeah, just go to a different spot.

Go to your happy place because this isn't going to be good. Then a half cage with an open top would be placed on their stomach with the open top facing their skin, and inside that container would be rats. Oh God. Next. Who thinks of this? Not I.

Like, who thought of these things?

Some really messed up people. Yeah, some really messed up people. I mean, you just— I guess it would kind of be easy because you just think of like the worst stuff that would make you— like, what's so wrong? You're like, let's do this to other people.

Do it to someone.

Exactly. This is, you know, serial killers. It's morbid. Very morbid. Yeah. So this was bad enough because it was just creepy, but then the cage where the rats were would be heated in some way. Oh, disgusting. So the rats would desperately scurry around and try to escape the heat. Well, where's the only place they can go? Inside of your chest. It can only go down. So this— these rats would violently burrow through the abdomen of the victim while they were chained to a table, unable to move. Oh, goodbye. So basically they would like tear through your intestines, and once you tear through the intestines, forget about it, you're septic. That's it. Cesspool. Yeah, you are a cesspool. Yeah, you don't want to— you don't want to hit the poop pipe, kid. That's a line from a really good movie that you should watch called Pathology.

I almost just said called Autopsy. Called Autopsy—

not called Autopsy, but called Pathology. I think our listeners would like that movie. I seen it. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. And at one point they're doing an autopsy and they hit the intestine and he says, you don't want to hit the poop pipe, kid. And it's a really good motto for life. Mm-hmm. So there's a variation on this.

Sometimes you hit the poop pipe in your life. You do. Yeah, like everybody hits the poop pipe sometimes.

You could have a poop pipe week. Yeah, and it's, you know, just gotta keep on moving. Sorry, anyway, suture that shit up and keep on moving. Yeah. So a variation on this was instead of placing the rats just directly against the flesh, they would use a telescopic tube to guide the rats inside the prisoner's body through the rectum or the vagine. Yeah. What? Yeah, they would guide the rats up, so they would like block one end and stick the other end that way, so the only way they were going was up. And rats will just be like, oh, all right, I'll just burrow through this. I'll burrow through this hoo-ha. Yeah, they don't know the difference. They're like, it's a dark hole.

Did the rats die too? Probably.

Uh, I don't think they would die right away because they're just going in there. Oh my God, they'll be fine.

So you, you would just die with rats inside you?

Pretty much. Gross. Yeah, they would just like destroy your insides. So let's see, where do I want to end? Because I have like two little ones and then one big one.

And on a high note, like a big note.

Okay, so I'll go next to the, um, Glasgow Smile. Oh yeah, this is Scotland, our people.

Maybe we don't want to tell them that right now.

Now if you've ever seen The Dark Knight, you've seen one of these. You've seen some shit. It's also known as the Cheshire Grin among the London street gangs, and originated— but it originated in Glasgow, Scotland. Um, basically two small incisions are made at the corner of the victim's mouth, and as the victim was beat or stabbed, muscle contractions in the face would make those wounds extend upwards towards the ears. and they get this big fucking terrifying ear-to-ear smile. If left untreated, some people would die as a result of severe infection or exsanguination, which is just acute blood loss.

Exsanguination.

Exsanguination. Exsanguination. Yes. I like that word, but it's awful.

It's a good word.

Exsanguination. I mean, it's a bad thing, but it's a good word. Um, one famous example of this is the Black Dahlia. Oh yeah, which— it's terrifying. And some people— there's actually like actors or directors or something, one of them that like, I can't remember his name, but he was a victim of this in like a bar, like fight or bar brawl, someone. And he has scars up like, like— oh my God, Dark Knight. Yeah, I can't remember his name. Of course I didn't write that down.

You know what I want to do? Um, because you said the Black Dahlia, I want to do an episode on the Cecil Hotel and like all the weird shit that's happened Oh yeah, we'll definitely do this.

Yeah, for sure. That's a really good one because there's all kinds of crazy connections to that.

There's so much shit.

This one's a quick one. It's another one that's exactly what it sounds like— saw torture. So they would tickle you with a feather. I saw a picture of this when I was doing the research for mine, and the people just look so happy.

Yeah, they're psyched. They're just like, da ba doo ba da. Like the people doing that.

Yeah, they probably sung. Uh, the victim is hung upside down, in this case by their ankles. And a saw is used to cut them from the groin all the way to the sternum. Oh, sometimes the poor person would stay alive until they hit the midsection or even the chest in some instances, because all the blood's at your head. Well, they— that's the thing, they were upside down, so they did that so blood would rush to your head. And so that it— because when that happens, you're, you're stopping blood loss. Oh, so this person would be able to live. And if you're hitting certain spots in the abdomen, you're not going to die right away. Oh God. Yeah. So that's awful. No, that's awful. Another one. I have two more. One's a big one, one's a littler one.

End on the big one.

Drawn and quartered. Oh, everybody's heard of this, I'm sure. It's usually reserved for high treason. And it began in 1283 England.

Good band name. High Treason.

High Treason. I like it. Hello, Philadelphia.

We are High Treason.

We are High Treason. I like it.

Hello, Wisconsin! I like how you weren't in Boston. You picked like two of them.

You were like Philadelphia. Typhoid. So in drawn and quartered, victims were often hanged to the point of near death and then taken down.

They're already like, whoa, you're still— yeah, that's not okay.

So that sucks. And then so they were taken down right before they died. And then they were tied to something and disemboweled.

Oh yeah, so really just disembowelment is just too extra. It's a lot. You die from that.

Well, then the entrails would be burned and the victim's limbs were then tied with ropes. The other end of the ropes are tied to horses and then the horses are just like lightly encouraged to take, take off and run. Oh, so boom, bye limbs. Um, the victim would then be beheaded and the head would be displayed. Wow, extra. Now, a famous one of the, uh, victims of this was Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace. Hey, hey, he was killed this way after leading the Scottish resistance against the English. In, uh, on August 5th, 1305, he was arrested near Glasgow. Whoop! And taken to England to be killed as a traitor to the King Edward I, even though he never swore allegiance to him. So it's kind of— so technically he's gonna be a traitor. Yeah, so whatever. Stupid. So yeah, that's drawn and quartered. Now this one, we'll leave— we'll leave on a high note, or really low note, however you want to look at it. We're going to end on flaying. Oh, so this is real, and it's not just the sigil for House Bolton on Game of Thrones.

I thought you were going to talk to me about Bobby Flay.

I love Bobby Flay. So first, in flaying, your skin has to be tenderized. The torturer, you know, wants a status— you know how when you like peel off like a face mask and it's like all in one sheet? That's actually like one, and it feels very—

or like when you peel off a sunburn.

Exactly. I know, it's like— so that's what the torturer was going for. He didn't want to have to work for this shit.

He wanted satisfaction.

So the victim would either be left out in the hot in the sun all day while their skin burned. Oh. Or they would be dipped into a vat of boiling water just until they were almost boiled alive.

Just until they were crispy.

This got the skin nice and loose, and it also just like prolonged the experience, which is always something they're looking for. Uh, now when they would start to flay you, they would usually begin with the face skin, so you would have your entire face peeled. It's like a super nightmarish chemical peel. Oh. And then cuts would be made around your arms, wrists, chest, neck, and ankles because this would make it easier for the skin to come off in one satisfying piece. And you didn't want all kinds of little ones because you wanted to be able to display the full— all the sheets, and it would look like a person's skin.

So going back to Australia like we did last week, Um, I listened once to a case where like this— I'm pretty sure it was Australia— and this lady did that to her husband and then hung him up in the doorway.

That's fucked.

Yeah, that's intense. Like, he did some real shit.

Yeah, he did some shit.

Nobody deserves that. That's fucked up. But like, you have to be real mad.

She—

yeah, she was pissed, but she was also like loco and de cabeza. I imagine she was.

That's a lot of work. Yeah. Well, then the cuts are only extended into the epidermis and stopped where the muscle begins. Oh, so that hurts more. And they knew that back then? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And science. Now, in the, the ancient church of Hadstock in Essex actually had a legend of a Dane who had committed sacrilege, and he was flayed for punishment. His skin was then spread out and nailed to the door of the church. Wow. As a super subtle warning to others. That's far too subtle. Now, when the door needed repair later, they found pieces of human skin still under the nails. So that's— it like actually happened. Ew. And then at another cathedral, uh, in England, I believe it's— there's a large slab of human skin like on display, and it was of another Dane who was a Viking who tried to steal the church's bell. Which, like, why were you trying to steal the church? And it's like, you tried to steal the church's bell and they flayed you. Like, damn, they were like, don't touch our fucking bell. Now, the reason I, I'm sure all of you are wondering, like, huh, what would it feel like to be flayed?

I'm not wondering that, to be honest. I'm sure everyone is wondering, right? Well, I thought I was hungry and I'm not anymore. I'm actually so hungry. But, uh, of course you are.

What's that picture that Vasco drew of you eating a sandwich?

Oh yeah, my Vosko, who's an amazing artist, and you should go find him.

Vosko Vosko. Yeah, that's a cool picture.

He drew a picture of me during an autopsy eating a sandwich. Which is like pretty believable. I'll have to post that picture and tag him in it. You should. Because it's a great photo. So the reason this hurts like hell is that nerve endings extend really deep into the layers of your skin, and that enables your sense of touch. Like, it's why your fingertips are really sensitive. And if you've ever had a paper cut, you know that shit hurts more than anything. Um, this response is caused by nociceptors, so those are sensory nerve cells that respond to pain. Science. Science. That was loud. Uh, flaying involves tearing the skin away from the muscle, not cutting it. Oh, so it's the ripping motion that your nerve endings are just— they're not being severed cleanly. Instead, they're just fucking torn to shreds. Oh my God. So your nerve endings are just being like bombarded. Yeah, it's not like a clean cut that they can like recover from. Um, you're gonna feel your skin being pulled off every bit of muscle. Oh my God. And you're literally gonna feel your nerve endings die. Like, you're gonna feel every nerve ending die.

You're gonna feel all of it. So despite the fact that those administering the torture may also be hitting you or hanging you upside down to keep you awake and alert, which they often did. You may lose consciousness from blood loss, from pain and fear, or because your brain is most definitely going to go into self-preservation mode and just start shutting shit down, right? Which, thank goodness for our brains, for real. Or you could die from hypothermia even if it's not cold out because you don't have your skin to protect you. Yeah, because your skin is the biggest— one of the big— it's the biggest and one of the most vital organs in the human body. And it regulates temperature, it protects all the other organs and systems in the body. So not only that, but you're exposed completely to infection. Oh, um, you will definitely die because, because of all that. Without your skin— this— you can repair and regenerate skin without your skin, but once you've lost that much skin, your body can't generate that much skin. Obviously there's a— there's an interesting story that I heard from another podcast that's amazing, and you should all go listen to Lore.

I'm sure a lot of people have listened to it. Yes, I love Aaron Menke. He is amazing.

And he has the show on Amazon.

Well, that's what I was thinking of. He has a show on Amazon called Lore, and there's a story of Peter Stuebe, and he was a crazy serial killer and cannibal who was caught after what they what was thought to be a werewolf was killing men, women, and children in Germany in the 16th century.

Oh yeah, I remember watching that with you.

So he's called like a werewolf, and well, really he's just— so back in 1589, Peter Stubbe was arrested and formally accused of being an insatiable bloodsucker, and evidence was provided that he had, quote, gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children, for over 25 years. That's horrible. So when he was caught, he was facing torture, so he confessed to having murdered and eaten, quote, 14 children and 2 pregnant women. Jesus. So he was a piece of shit. Now you would have thought that he would have stopped there while he was like relatively ahead because he was confessing. Confession. He was confessing. When you confess, you just gotta get that shit out. But, uh, no. He then declared that he, quote, extracted a fetus from a pregnant woman's womb and ate their hearts, panting hot and raw. Jesus. And he also confessed to having regular sex with his daughter and having had intercourse with a, quote, succubus sent to him by the devil. So his execution was prolonged with torture, obviously. Apparently. So flesh was torn from his body in 10 places with red-hot pinchers. Oh. Followed by his arms and his legs.

They also pulled this, so they flayed him with red-hot pincers. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an ax head on the wheel. So they added in the wheel to this. This is like a nice—

they got really crafty for this.

It's like a casserole of torture.

Yeah, just all throw them in the crockpot.

And to— that was to— now, to prevent him from returning from the grave, they then they beheaded him and burned his body on a pyre. Wow. Now his daughter and mistress were also flayed and strangled and burned. Is that fair? Well, it was as a preventative measure against similar wolfish behavior. As if they were a wolf. So they thought, because they thought he was a werewolf, that was the whole thing. They were like, well, they must be werewolves too. And then after all this was done, The wheel was erected on a pole with the figure of a wolf on it and topped by Peter Stubbe's severed head. Whoa. So that's the story of flaying. And also Ramsay Snow did it on Game of Thrones. Oh yeah. Yeah. Remember he did it? Remember he says it about that, uh— Oh, the kid that they hung up, right? Sansa's— no, it's Sansa's like nurse. Remember she was like an old woman? And he says something like "tough old bird," like she was alive until he got to her neck or something like that. And I was like, "Ahh!" Oh wow. Ramsay Snow, man. Yeah.

Can we tell them our announcement?

Oh yay, we have a fun announcement. Now, we don't have a date for this yet, we're still in talks.

But I'm really excited to announce it.

It's in the works. So I'm hoping— don't yell at us if it doesn't happen.

So we were watching Dark Taurus.

We were watching Dark Taurus and we were watching the episode where he goes to New Orleans and he talks to people who are vampires, right? Now, we recognized this beautiful couple of vampires that are married. They're so dope. They really are. And we were like, wait a second, where have we seen them before?

I literally texted Elena and I was like, are those the people that were on True Life? And they were.

They were on MTV like 2 episodes. Yeah, because they were on the episode back in 2014. They were in an episode, Respect My Sect, and it was following Daley who is the Vampire Queen of Austin. Uh-huh. And, and her husband, but it was focusing on her. And then it was in another episode in 2016, True Life: I'm a Witch, where like somebody is part of this court still. So you get to see Daley and her husband Logan, who's the Vampire King of Austin. They have a Vampire Court of Austin where they have like more than 50 members according to the True Life Wow. Episode, and I'm sure they have more now.

I mean, yeah, it makes sense.

And they are vampires, and we were fascinated by it. And they seem like they're just like so in love, and I love their relationship. Their Instagrams are like— it's adorable. And also like, we were kind of inspired by the fact that they're just like unabashedly who they are. And it's really like— it's like makes you want to know them. Because, I mean, how many of us can say that we just are totally unapologetically who we are all the time? And they found each other, which is nice. So we were like, shout out to them. And we reached out, talked to Daley, and asked her if she would ever want to speak to us for the podcast. And she was kind enough to say she would— her and Logan would love to talk to us. So we are setting up an interview with the king and queen vampire of the Vampire Court of Austin, Logan and Daley South. And we could not be happier.

We are so excited. Your dog is making the most disgusting noises next to me. I'm really sorry.

We are so excited. We're going to have a date for you guys. We'll let you know because I think we're going to do it soon. Yeah. So, yeah. So get excited. We're going to be talking to the vampire king and queen of Austin. This is like a big deal. We'll do— we'll, we'll kind of mesh it in with a whole episode devoted to vampirism because it's a really fascinating subject. Stop looking at my dog. I'm sorry. I'm sure you guys are going to be super into. Yeah, it's interesting and awesome. It is really interesting. Look forward to that. Check us out on Instagram, @morbidpodcast, and download us, subscribe, leave us reviews, rate us. Tell your friends, shout it from the rooftops. Just don't filet anyone. Just don't filet anyone, but you can bobby-flay someone. Uh, there you go. So yeah, hope you liked our foray into torture.

We hope you keep it weird. Bye! Huzzah!

Huzzah! Mutton. Again. I don't know any other medieval foods. Potatoes, gravy, right? Potatoes are good. Just say gravy. Gravy. It's over now.