Transcript of Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 123: Live at Vicar Street in Dublin

When he went to leave, he goes, if there's any other drama, just call me up. And I was just like.

My name is Georgia. What if there's, like, a there's somebody in the audience that's like, oh, I was guaranteed a man would be on stage. What are they going to do? They have no guidance or leadership. And we're back. Oh, my God, this show is legendary. I can't believe it's our first one in Europe. And I can't believe we went to Europe on a podcast that we created and just, like, went and toured.

That's so crazy. It's so funny to think of the beginning of the idea of touring that at least I had in my head because I'd seen other podcasts tour. And other podcast touring was kind of a long table that you'd set up at a spaghetti feed with three dudes sitting at it talking to each other.

She's the only girl of six. And she's the second-to-youngest. So these fucking dudes or her brothers adore her. She's, like, the light of the family. Colin, he is born in '71. He's born into, like, a nice middle-class family from Gormanstown. Gormanston. Gormanston. She doesn't even know what you're talking about. She doesn't know. Karen, you say that. What? Gormanstown.

Really? It's never what you think it's. You're always, like, it has to have some weird fucking sound in the middle of it because everyone yells at us. And then it just looks like a. We have PTSD. We have pronunciation PTSD. We have been verbally assaulted by entire cities because we didn't say their fucking local town right. All across America, people have screamed and screamed at us, which started our we began a crusade. And it's called Spell It Like You Say It. And we're just asking people to please.

All right. OK, so here we go. So Colin's from it's a better suburb of Dublin. He is a computer analyst with a background in IT. He gets this well-paid job with a banking giant, Irish Permanent. You guys work there. They love it. This is their yearly conference tonight. Oh, you guys had a holiday this weekend, we hear. Oh, yeah. You guys are way less shit-faced than I would have expected for a bank holiday.

And I appreciate I want to say we appreciate it. I just love that week I kept seeing commercials for, like, furniture stores. But it was, like, bank holiday sale, where I was like, what the fuck is this bank holiday situation? It's a big deal. Yeah. So he works there for, like, nine years. He's big time. And so Mary's brothers describe her as beautiful, funny, intelligent, easygoing, and a straight-talking girl. And Colin is her first boyfriend, which we all fucking know, except for the ones who married them. And they're here with him tonight.

Good cover. Good cover. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. There's always some girls like, I know, but I got a good one. You're like, all right, keep it. So she's from Stonemullin. Stonemullin. Close enough. Let Louise say it. Louise. She doesn't know. You can't do we're back family. What do you call it? Stonemullin. Stonemullin.

No? They're claiming that they do want to see it. There's too many. We'll be all night. Spelling? Oh, oh. They're saying I thought they were pronouncing the word. So I said Spelling. But they were like, spell it. Spell the word. Oh, it's that city, Spelling, over in on the east side. I'm not I'm not saying any more places. So we're good. Spell the word and they'll tell you.

OK, I'm going to because they asked the same thing. And then we yelled at them. Oh, I see. And then we attacked Louise. S-T-A-M-U-L-L-E-N. But if everybody says it at the same time, it sounds like nothing. Do you understand? It can only be Louise. It's your big chance, Louise. She hates it. Shout it out. Stonemullin. Stonemullin. Yes. We might have to get you your own mic. Give her that deodorant. Pass the deodorant to Louise.

So Colin becomes Mary's very first boyfriend. And her mother they liked Colin. But her mother said that she thought that Mary loved too much, loved him too much. I know. In August 1970, they start dating in where was I? '93. In August of '97, Colin buys a house in Baldrighan. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Feel it. Love it. Take it inside.

I'm doing it. It's happening. Your victory is real. If you just keep failing when you get one little victory, people are like, good job. You know? In '98, they get engaged. And they're moving together. So Mary's mother, Marie, has misgivings, of course, about Colin and the control that he exerted over her, saying that he insisted she would dress down and not be, like, revealing. But meanwhile, he was fucking checking out girls, all the ladies, all the time. You know? He would not approve of this dress. Absolutely not.

I mean, it is a bit nuts. Then so Mary, she's 27 now. And she's planning their September 2000 wedding. Meanwhile, he Colin makes a visit to their financial planner secretly. And he doubles their life insurance policy so that the surviving partner would get 400,000 euros of your money, euros. You know what your money is called. And so do we.

So we don't even have to say it. It's a bank holiday. Let's not let's stop talking about money. You guys are so greedy. We don't want to talk about money. Don't be so superficial. You need to hear the name of what your money is called. So it would get 400,000 if one of them died within 10 years of marriage, which seems like it shouldn't be a thing to be, like, betting on how long they'll live in the marriage. Shouldn't be allowed. No. It's like, but if you die within five years, you'll get this.

This is not a fucking contest. In September 2000, after dating for seven years excuse me, they're married. Apparently, allergies can come to Dublin with you in your carry-on. Da da da da da. After dating seven years, they're married. And at this point, Mary's working in a solicitor's office in Swords. Swords. Seriously? What the fuck? I tried to put a spin on it. Thank you. You guys are so supportive. OK.

And she's, of course, highly regarded as by colleagues because fucking everything sucks. So Colin, which is the name of my ex-fiancée, so of course, I fucking hate this guy even more. Stupid name. I love to hear the subtext of these stories. They're just filled with rage. Adding my own bullshit into this, like, that I should take out in therapy instead of on stage. I think this is therapy. I mean, so that means I pay you guys $150 at the end of this.

150L with two lines in it. So after just four months of marriage, Colin starts an online relationship with a woman named Helen who lives in Wales. And he. That's in the UK. He says to her that he starts bragging about how he's about to get 400 euros because his wife had died in a car crash. It might not be euros. It is.

Let's consult Louise. Pounds. No, you're at what, 400 things? That's what I said. I did not say that. Well, I didn't mean that. Thank you for catching that. Thank you. 400,000. That's a lot more. I feel like I need to warn you now, Louise. You are absolutely going to be attacked at some point. But it's very vulnerable to have to go to you for every fucking word you say. We're going to send you to therapy after this.

We understand. 400,000. So he is bragging to this woman, Helen, who has no fucking clue what's going on, that, yeah, his wife had died in a car accident years earlier. So he's going to get that money. And he made up a nickname for her to call him Furry Bear. As opposed to what other kind of bear? You know that sad one that you've seen without hair? Naked bear. Like a Chernobyl bear? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Redundant bear.

So the relationship gets intense. She's like, we're falling in love. They email each other, sometimes dozens of times a day. You remember that in 2001. Probably. Remember in 2001 when you can have an online relationship with someone and it, like, meant something? And your friends weren't like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. Because we didn't know. And they have phone calls. He sends her photos of him with his photo face, his face of his photo, superimposed over a fucking weightlifter's body.

And I think she finds out and thinks it's, like, funny. But it's not. He doesn't he does not mean it funny. It's not like he's like, look, I'm a meme or anything. It's before that. There's no memes. It's 2001. It's pre-meme time. He has. So I also bet that Photoshop is insanely shitty. So it was, like, his head with a black ring around it. Yeah. Part of a bar or the background. Two ear, like, his real ear and then the ear from a weightlifter. And of course, his face is normal Irish white. And then the bodybuilder's body is, like, a hot dog's color.

Yeah. So then they plan to meet for the first time. He's, like, makes up a bullshit thing that he's going to Germany for work. To go get muscles. Yeah. And so he plans they plan to meet on March 2, 2001. She's all excited about it and then doesn't hear from him after that. So it turns out the day before they're set to meet on February 28, 2001, at 16 minutes past midnight, Colin calls 999.

That's what you guys call it. They know. I know. I know. I don't know why I told them. It's like we're having a hard adjustment period. And asks for an ambulance. He claims that his wife, Mary, had fallen down the stairs. He tells the operators he didn't think she was breathing. And so he was talked through CPR and heart massage by the operator and made a show of carrying them out, of course. We're not going to play the 911 999 call, don't we?

The ambulance. Because I would walk off the stage. The ambulance arrives at 12:30. And immediately, paramedics are like, there's some shady shit going on. They can tell because Mary's position was not consistent with someone who had fallen down the stairs or someone who had gotten CPR. And there's no blood on his face from having given her mouth to mouth, even though there's blood on her face. So they also found Mary with, like, a duvet or a quilt resting over her, which they thought was weird.

And they and her body was too cold to have had it just happen, you know, a half hour earlier. And most telling, though, they found a blood-soaked towel around her neck. And they work frantically to save her. And Colin coldly asks, is she dead? And they were like, this is fucking not OK. Yeah. And then within minutes of Mary's arrival at the hospital, Beaumont Hospital, questions are raised from the medical staff. This nurse, Sister Katherine Galvin, she is like, what the fuck?

You have scratches on your chest. And so goes over to Gardi. Garda? Garda. And is like, yo, check this guy out. Gardi sounds like some dude that's standing in the corner at the hospital. You know Gardi, he has a bunch of cigarettes. You can always bum a cigarette from Gardi. You know. So yeah. So she notices that. And then the doctor who's trying to resuscitate Mary notices marks on her neck and chest, which suggests that she hadn't fallen down the stairs.

And also at the hospital, Colin seems to have no remorse or no, like, sadness over Mary's death. Mary's mother, Marie, who is, of course, extremely close with her only daughter, goes up to him and is like, what happened? And he she says, I walked up to Colin. And he was sitting with his head in his hands. And I said, how is Mary? And he just said she was dead, just like that. I couldn't get over it. I'll never forget the way he answered me. He was just sitting there. I was looking at everyone else, roaring and crying. And I didn't know what to think. So that's fucking shady.

Later that day, Dr. Marie Cassidy of the State Pathologists Company, she. Ooh. Laid down on Marie. She confirms the suspicions of Garda. And says that she had died of asphyxiation. The story of what really happened that night was that as Mary was getting ready for bed, Colin came up behind her with the dress, the belt of a dressing gown, and tries to strangle her. But she fucking fought like hell and scratched him up.

And that's what they saw at the hospital. And then she's unconscious. He drags her down the stairs and sits and covers her body with the blanket so that he could disguise her time of death, like, trying to keep her warm, which is fucking insane, and then has time to clean up the crime scene. And but he overlooked traces of blood. So when they go through the house, they find all this shit. He's yeah. They search. And then this guy is a fucking IT specialist with his own company.

And yet the Garda searched his computer and found that within weeks of setting up the insurance policy prior to their wedding, Colin was looking up different ways to kill Mary. Fucking googling this shit. I don't think Google exists yet. What was it then? Ask Jeeves. He was binging that shit? He was binging the shit out of it. That was an innocent time, like 2001, where people thought, oh, I'll just put this into my own computer. And no one will be the wiser.

And then you just. Porn, porn, porn, porn, porn. And then you hit clear history. Clear history? You're gone. It's cleared. What are cookies? Elvis just walks out of the stadium. Oh. That'd be oh, my god. What if we don't bring Stephen on tour, but we do bring Elvis? That's so insulting. That's just rude. Just plain rude. That would be great. So some of the searches this fucking idiot goes for are asphyxiation, loss of consciousness, how long to take to die from asphyxiation, lack of oxygen to the brain, and death by strangulation.

He just should have put, I'm going to kill my wife in there. What should I do step by step? Tell me exactly. Yeah. So but somehow and I think it's probably because of arrogance. Despite being a computer analyst, he just didn't realize that they could trace every movement of movement, like, on him. So maybe he didn't graduate at the top of his class. Probably not. Another creepy thing found on his computer was a downloaded transcript of a case from Northern Carolina regarding. North Carolina? Northern.

Same thing. North Carolina. We know that one. Why do I have to put a spin on it? I don't know. I mean, I had to, like, try to sound smarter. And I just sound stupid. Now you doubt every word on the page. I do. I'm so sweaty. OK. I am too. I am too. OK, great. In North Carolina, which is in the Northern America. It's the northern part of Carolina. There's also South Carolina. Hi. All the fucking Carolinas.

We're all here tonight, folks. Da da da da da. OK, there's a case there regarding death by strangulation that's really similar. Basically, he, like, studied another fucking murder case. In both cases, the bodies were wrapped in a blanket to keep the body warm. And they both involved the use of a towel to hide the marks around a victim's neck. So and they found out about the affair. And he had both he had affairs both before and after marrying Mary.

And he posted his on a number of dating sites trying to get sex and then other ones trying to get relationships. He's just a real piece of shit. So. Why do the relationship one? I don't know. I mean, not to be. Cynical. But isn't it? How much time do you have in your fucking day? That fucking arrogance, man. Yeah. It's. It'll get you. So OK, then. OK. A month after Mary's death on April 10, 2001, Colin's charged with her murder.

And the case was going to make legal history in that it would have been the first time that virtual evidence was crucial because the internet searches would have been central to securing a conviction. And that was the first time that would happen, which is like, oh, what an idiot. You know? Yeah. That's your legacy? Yeah. No. You're an IT guy that is the first person to be prosecuted. Yeah. For virtual evidence. Exactly. Way to go. Irony. This is the irony. He denies the fucking charges, of course.

But the trial is set for October 13, 2003. And he's fucking let on bail for some reason. It was going to be seven months later. And they're like, go ahead and wait at your house or wherever you want. Like, come on. And so, of course, his car is found shortly after his car is found abandoned at Houth. Houth. Damn close. You wanted two choices on that one. It was a 50-50. Right. Houth, which is an outer suburb of Dublin. And it's on Upper Cliff Road.

And I'm sure he was like, ooh, he committed suicide. But Mary's family was like, fuck, that shit. No, he didn't. They knew. They were like, I wrote. Of course, Mary's family was like, oh, hell nah. And they convinced and they were convinced that Colin had faked his own death. So they form a huge search party looking for him. But meanwhile and it turned out they were right, of course. Meanwhile, Colin had stolen the identity of a neighbor named Martin Sweeney. And Martin had never applied for a passport.

So fucking Colin goes, Martin's my dad's name. And Colin's my wow. It's all coming together. Oh, my god. Then so then he applied for a passport. And this guy, Martin's name, gets the passport and flees to Spain. He settles on an island called and I wrote this phonetically, Mallorca. Yeah. So that's the one you spell phonetically. The one nobody gives a shit about. So I guess it's not it's an island that's not often frequented by Irish tourists.

Are you drunk? No. You've seen me for the past two hours backstage. I've just huffed a lot of deodorant in the last couple hours. Oh, that's what it is. She's high on brut. So and he gets a job in a resort as a bartender. And he's just, like, living it up, like, Kokomo style. And you're like, fucking. You know he wore his shirt. Oh, yeah. Like, the first button was way down here buttons. He was like. He's like, I'm a bodybuilder. It's me. It's me, the Irish bodybuilder.

Right. He fucking makes friends. He gets a girlfriend. He's like, this is my life now. Asshole. But then he begins frequenting Irish bars in Palma Nova, which is, like, you really, like, fucking number one in hiding your identity is, like, don't go to the bar where people who are from the place you're hiding from hang out at. Hang out. Where you're going to get super drunk and then start going, wait, where are you from?

Hi. So am I. And I tell you a secret. I tell you a secret. A quick secret. Because you're my best friend. So I'm going to tell you. I know we just met. I kill. I kill people. So and he tells he tells all his best friends that his parents are dead. And he has no surviving relatives, which is, like, red flag, I think, right?

Yes. Unless it's real. And then, like, oh, my god. I'm so sorry. I doubted you. It sucks. It can go one of two ways. Yeah. Either you're the asshole or they're the asshole. But it's rare that somebody doesn't have, like, one old aunt sitting around somewhere. Or, like, someone who they keep in touch with on Facebook from elementary school, let's say. Like, just one. Yeah. Maybe two. Da da da da da. OK, so this of course, this place, Santa Ponsa. So he starts going to night spots in this other place, Santa Ponsa.

That's, like, Ireland's favorite fucking place to hang out outside of Ireland. So of course, in July of 2004, 16 motherfucking months after fleeing, that's a long time. Yeah, it is. That dude was spotted. He's Colin's spotted at the bar by someone from Dublin who was like, um. And he gets extradited back to Ireland. Nice. Yay. That person fucking saved up for their vacation to Santa Puebla, or whatever it's called.

They're fucking half of the bag. Like, isn't it great to be the uh-oh? Or what if it was like. Quick, you sober up. What if it was like, where do I know you from? Did we go to camp together? Where do I know you? I went to elementary school. Did we do Highland dancing in grammar school together? Local references? You don't, like OK. They don't want to. They're like, stop generalizing about us. You don't know us. A friend at the bar, a friend that he had worked with, said there's nothing out of the ordinary about they were all like, what the fuck?

His girlfriend's devastated about the whole thing. Can you fucking imagine? Oh, my god. She had no idea who he really was. So she the girlfriend thought he was dead, too. She let him. No, no, no. The girl Helen girlfriend A is, like it's like they knock on he doesn't show up when he's supposed to. They knock on her door. And they're like, we need to talk to you about your online boyfriend, Colin. And she's like, oh, my god. Is he OK? They're like, yes, but. And she fucking is going to, like, testify against him. Oh, got it. She fucking hate, like, fuck this dude.

Yeah. This girlfriend is the island girlfriend and new girlfriend. Oh, OK. And nobody had any idea. And she had no idea either. So, like, you know. Da da da da da. Don't date people on islands. That's the point of that one. This is an island. Shit. I'm just sweating so bad. This is high pressure. It's a high pressure situation. You had one job. Every move we make is wrong.

Edit that out. So now this Colin is 34 years old at the time of the murder trial. He expresses no emotion at the hearing. He just stands there with his head down. Just as Paul Carney told him, he since he prolonged the Goff's family suffering when he refused to offer a quick trial while extradited, he's still being a dick. He also said that this quote, this has been the most calculating and callous killing I have ever encountered in my time in court. Wow. So in April 2005, he Colin pleads guilty to the marriage, the murder of Mary.

At the sentencing, one of Mary's brothers spoke and said, our family is living a life sentence since her murder and will always have to live with it. They won't we won't get off for good behavior. Mary is gone forever. And we can't run away. Like, you fucking ran away. Yeah. So Justice Carney hands down a mandatory life sentence, the most severe sentence he could hand down. He said in normal circumstances, he would backdate the sentence to the time already spent in custody. But since Colin had later days from the state, he wouldn't.

So he's like, oh, fuck yourself. Oh, he's tacking on that 16 months. Yeah. He'd be like, remember your island vacation? Yeah. You're going to pay. Yeah. So Mary's brother David addressed Colin saying that the family would never, ever, ever quote forgive him because he took a piece of each of them when he killed Mary. And quote Mary's only crime was loving you too much. I know. And that's the murderer, Colin Whelan of Mary Goff. Wow. That's so good. That was amazing. Thank you.

Thank you. That was great. Boy, I'm glad yours is next. OK, we're back. Are there any updates for this case? Yes, there are some updates. At the end of 2025, Colin was moved to an open prison. As of September 2026, he's working as a chef at a center that provides job training to vulnerable people. He is granted day release so they can have this job. This has raised a bit of criticism since people point out that there are vulnerable women at the center.

And they are likely not aware of who Colin is or about his past. So all right. Well, Karen, let's get into your story about Billy in the Bowl, otherwise known as the Stoney Batter Strangler. I survived nine months in captivity. And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart. And these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

Silence of the Shadows? Silence from the Shadows. Sorry. Sounds of the Shadows. Is it like a storytelling podcast? Yep. Represent storytelling podcast. All right. Well, I'm doing your story. No, thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, because you know what I was going to do? I had Alias Grace, that story that was just on Netflix. And I had it all researched. Don't act sad. That's really rude. But then I realized it was an Irish girl.

But the whole thing took place in Canada. So there was a picture in my mind, like, no one gives a shit about Canada. Then we got this tweet. And I was like. They don't want you getting the fucking places in Canada wrong. No. You're doing it here. This is we need errors from the island. From this island. And then I so I look up this. And so what Emily and her theater group did was they linked a video of there's a video series called Story Maps where people tell stories. Is it all Europe, or is it just Ireland?

Just Dublin. Oh, just Dublin. OK. You guys have enough here. Jesus. StoryMaps.ie. And it's really cool. There's just all these people telling local lore and local stories. Cool. Oh, good. Other people are hot, too. OK, that's great. Oh, good. Oh, yeah. I forgot I could do this. Oh, for fuck's sake. Yeah, you can do that. In this StoryMaps video, it's a lovely young man named Bobby Ahearn who tells the story of Billy in the Bowl. Earn. Ahearn.

OK, we have family friends named the Ahearns. And so I just fight every pronunciation. My grandma told me that I become the girl in the bar. Bobby Ahearn. And he is so charming. He tells the story so well. He's sitting in the grain gin. He's got a cup of tea in front of him. And he tells the story of Billy in the Bowl, which is fucking nuts.

Also, there's a blog called Silent Owl. And they wrote up the story of it. There's a lot of great information. So I took from both of those. So this man, Billy Davis, he was born sometime in the mid-1700s. So this is old, old, old. Right. Good. Right. Good. And although not much is known about his early life, it's safe to assume that he was a beautiful, healthy baby boy. Because the story about him and the kind of the overriding fact of the story of Billy in the Bowl is that he was fucking hot.

He had a big mop of black hair. And he had green eyes. And he had, like, an awkward nose and just gorgeous face. And so he was, like he was dashing. He was a dashing hottie. That reminds me, I forgot to tell you guys. We saw Benicio Del Toro in the airport. Oh, yeah. It was really exciting. Yeah. He looked so hungover. It made me sad for him. Sorry. No. If he's here tonight, apologies. What if he was flying over to Cannes and then suddenly we pretend to be fans of Benicio Del Toro?

I love everything you've done. OK, so so Billy Davis was a hot guy. Unfortunately, he was born with no legs. Oh. So it wasn't supposed to be a joke. Ma'am, somebody is laughing insanely hard over there. So he ends up living in a place called the House of Industry, which is also known as the Dublin Poor House.

And so basically. That doesn't sound like what it means. No, I know. It's they're trying to gild the lily on that one a little bit. The first House of Industry was built in 1703, where today the St. James Hospital stands. And so they know that. They know that. So it was maintained this I love this fact. It was maintained by the taxes that people paid for their sedan chairs and their Hackney carriages. I don't know what either of those stands for. Sedan chairs are those things that you see in, like, period movies, where four dudes carry a box with a rich lady inside on sticks.

Yes, that's a sedan chair. Oh, god. So it's like. I want to be like, fuck those women. But I bet their shoes hurt so bad constantly. And their courses. Everything about. And their oppression. Being. All of it. Everything about it. They've been fainting. I'm like, get on that box. Get in the box. But those people that had carriages and sedan chairs had to pay an extra tax for them. And that tax went to pay for the House of Industry. I like that. It was kind of, you know, it was a good setup.

Let's bring those back. Except for the House of Industry wasn't the best place in the world, as I'm sure you all know and can imagine. In 1805, a man named Sir John Carr wrote something called the Historia of Ireland. He described the House of Industry as quote "a gloomy abode of mingled want, disease, vice, and malady, where lunatics were loaded with heavy chains and fallen women bound and lodged." Shit. Yeah. That's heavy. No sedan chairs inside of the House of Industry.

Also, you could if you were a fallen woman, which what that meant you wore dressed like this, that basically you're fucking in there with all the worst of the worst, bound and lodged, which whatever that fucking means. I don't want to know. Good luck with that. OK, so also a political theorist named Alexis de Tocqueville described the conditions of the inmates that he saw during his investigative tour of Ireland in 1835 as the most hideous and disgusting aspect of destitution.

Jesus. So it wasn't it wasn't awesome there. They fed people, I think it said, once or twice a day with a soup that they made from collected scraps from the great houses. So wherever the rich people lived, they'd go by and get the scraps and their shitty leftovers and then put all that in a bowl and make a soup. And they're like, dinner time, everybody. On the one hand, I'm like, that's pretty cool, though. At least it's not from, like, what the horses were eating.

Well, I mean, that's very positive of you. But. If they're noting it, it means it was bad. Yeah, it means this soup sucked. So in 1773, this workhouse is reformed. And it's split into a hospital for the mentally insane, a workhouse for the poor, and then a foundling hospital, primarily used for the safety and education of the admitted children. Now, they start talking about this foundling hospital.

And it later comes under investigation because of the abnormally high mortality rates. Ooh. It turns out four of the five children that are admitted to the foundling hospital die. Four of the fucking five. That's a lot. And the investigations, they find strong evidence that lady is so drunk it is she is at a totally different show. I'm reading about infant mortality rates. And she is peeing her fucking pants. It's the bank holiday.

It's the fucking bank holiday. What if it's a ghost? Oh, my god. So so the House of Commons stops allowing for new admissions to the foundling hospital in 1831. It took them 107 years to be like, you know what? It has to stop. Thousands of children have died. Like, they're better off on the streets. Just close the door. But well, let's wait one more year. OK, 107 years have passed. We're going to stop.

So when it's reformed, this House of Industry in 1773, it turns out there's no place for Billy Davis because and this is something good old Bobby Ahearn read in his in the StoryMaps story that in the minutes book, it said, quote, "It is deemed resolved that the man in the Bowl is not a proper person and is to be discharged from the House of Industry." So they decide because he's handicapped, he is not a person.

Oh, wait. And they fucking kick him out. Shit. Which sucks. So he's in the streets of Dublin. It's the mid to late 1700s now. And they say at the time, 18th century Dublin was known for two things, all the amazing architectural buildings and beggars. Ooh. That's what there's the most of everywhere. I was going to guess candy and. Soda bread? Yeah. I was hoping for it. No. You tried. So but the good news is things aren't all bad.

Because somewhere along the line, a kindly blacksmith took pity upon Billy. And they built him this weird early version of a wheelchair, which was basically a big, huge iron bowl that he could sit in. OK. And he stuck some wheels on it. OK. And then Billy used two pieces of wood and pulled himself along in a bowl. And that's how he became known as Billy in the Bowl. Holy shit. So now picture this.

When I first read this story, I didn't get that there were wheels on the bowl. So I just thought he was fucking. Dragging an iron bowl like the worst CrossFit workout of all time. And you know all the cobblestone streets. So it's just jarring its teeth. It's just the loudest, heaviest situation anyone could be in. But he was hot. But he was hot. And that's we can always go back to that when things get hard. Yeah. Is that up here, everything was working out great for him.

Because among all of the beggars, he actually was, of course, gorgeous. And he was really charming. So he got a lot of pity and attention. And people would give him money. He also made friends with a lot of the servant girls. And he I think he stole from the House of Industry style. So he would go back along the back of the great houses. And they would give him scraps from the house. So he'd end up filling his bowl up. Oh, no. As Bobby Ahearn in the video says, like a big stew. He sits in his bowl like a big stew.

Oh, my god. Coins, little pieces of meat. I don't know. OK, and so basically, this is he is on the streets of Dublin for six years begging. And but he drinks and he gambles. So as much as he makes and as well as he does being a beggar, a hot beggar on the street, you know, the money goes. Sure. So now I've lost my place. So he decides to embark on a life of crime.

So early one night in 1780, around dusk, Billy lays in wait until he sees a middle-aged woman coming up Grange Gorman Lane on her way to Queen Street. She's by herself. And he throws himself out of his bowl. Ay, ay, ay. Right? Pieces of meat go everywhere. Sorry, that's inappropriate. And he lays in the bushes moaning and screaming, right?

So then the lady's like, oh, no. Something happened to somebody. And she goes over to see what's going on. And now you have to imagine, because he spent years and years and years dragging himself around in a bowl, his upper body strength is fucking nuts. Yeah. So he has, like, crazy a crazy upper body. Sorry. I just got this, like, pole dart kind of idea in my head of, like, how hot fucking pole dart, right, Louise?

You got to watch that show. That guy's insane looking. But basically, she leans down. This lady leans down to be like, are you OK? She's like old school Ted Bundy style. Like, I'm her. Exactly. Oh, he's the enraged Ted Bundy. Because then she's like, are you OK, man in the ditch? Yeah. His huge power arms come out and just strangle her. Oh, no. He chokes her out. He takes her purse, bowls away, as we know.

Fucking clamping on those fucking cobblestones. Bobby Ahearn says, it was like he was going around in a canoe on the street. Oh, my god. That's how he explained it. Bobby's the best. Bobby's the best. And he had a real glimmer in his eyes, he told this story. So when the middle-aged lady wakes up, she has no fucking clue what just happened. She's just like, I don't know who did it. I don't know what he looks like. She has no clue. Meanwhile, Billy in the Bowl has the perfect cover. Because everybody, of course, writes him off.

They don't know how insanely strong he is and pole dart he is underneath his shirt. They just go, oh, it's the poor crippled man. So he is never even slightly considered. He is nobody even takes notice. And it's the perfect cover. So he then proceeds to do this crime constantly. This is now his new jam. So that's up until 1786. Now, one night, he's laying in wait, waiting for a woman to rob.

But the one who comes along, as Bobby Ahearn describes her, she's a hefty servant girl. Oh, shit. You better fucking watch out for us hefty servant girls. Do not fuck with us. So he goes to choke her out. And she's like, I don't think so. Man in the Bowl. And. Love it.

She starts to fight him off. And she's starting to get away. He knows that if she gets away, his whole scheme is going to be over. So he strangles her to death. And this is his first murder. Oh, no. Yeah. When her body's found the next day, it's a huge story. Everybody goes nuts. They call it the 11 Grange Gorman Lane Murder. And it's Ireland's first ever oh, so Ireland had just assembled their first police force. This is how long ago this was. OK. Pre-police. Damn.

Guarda. The Guarda. Or the Gardee. You're changing it now that it's my story, now that she's done. It's both. They're just saying whatever they want, Louise. You say no? Singular, plural. OK. Are you the one that was laughing earlier? Because I'm not listening to you, baby death laugher. One Guarda, two Gardee.

Got it. This is all information that will not help us in Oslo. But tomorrow night, everyone's going to think we're really smart here. Oh, shit. Thanks, you guys. Tomorrow night, we're going to be like, no, you're pronouncing it wrong. I mean, in all these articles, they called it the police force. So I don't know what you guys are. Anyhow. So basically, the case goes cold. Nobody suspects Billy in the Bowl, of course. He's the charming, beautiful beggar.

No one even looks at him. So he decides to lay low for, like, six months. But of course, all of his bad habits get the best of him. He starts to run out of money. So he goes. And he so one night, he's on Richardson's Lane. Two women are walking along. It's dusk. Some say in some stories, they're servant girls. In some stories, they're, like, rich, well-to-do women. But either way, it was women who were kind of dressed up for the night on the town. So they had a lot of jewelry on and a lot of kind of overt richness.

So Billy does his thing where he throws himself out of the bowl. But he doesn't see that there's two women. He just knows that someone's coming. Does he hide his giant bowl on wheels? You know what he does? He also carries around a big ficus plant. And so he'll just go ahead and pull that plant over. It looks like this amazing, gorgeous planter on wheels. I would love it if it was, like, a Looney Tunes style, like, skyline of, like, the Warner Brothers studio. He folds the bowl up real small and puts them in his pocket and then lays down in the bushes.

Oh, my god. I can't account for the bowl. OK. The man-sized bowl that he rolls around. He pulls it backwards, parks it. Yeah. Parks it facing out. Yeah. Gets out, gets into the bushes. Yeah. So. Some holes in this story. There's this whole thing is fake, obviously. But who cares? So when the women come up, he's doing the thing where he's doing his cries for help. The women approach. Uh-oh. He sees that their money, their jewelry, their money.

They open their purse to give him money. He can't control himself. He grabs one woman. No. He doesn't see that there's the other woman. He just sees the one in front of him. He starts to strangle her. Uh-oh. And then the woman behind her pulls out her fucking hat pin. Yes, yes, yes. Small hat pins that are, like, this long. Oh, shit. And she jams it into his right eye. We're glad. We're happy.

We're happy, but it's hard. There's nothing that makes Irish people clap more than piercing an eye with a pin. They love it. Oh, man. That's I'm just going to we need to start wearing hats again. Yes, that's right. Yink. I just don't understand how you put that on your head and don't then jam it into your own skull. Right. But it worked out great. Because they run up to hold on. I'll tell you.

Where do they go, Karen? They run up to a street. It's going to be somewhere fun, I bet. I bet it's going to be somewhere. Manor Street. They run up to Manor Street. Was that fun? They run up to Manor Street, which is an amazing street. You have to see it. And there's a group of people there. In that group of people, there's a new Guarda who's like, hey, I'm just learning how to do this. Let me help. And they all. I'm going to get my baton out. That's right. Finally. Their old, old baton. Mm-hmm. Run down.

And they find Billy laying on the street with his eye out. And they finally realize that they had this is who the strangler was. So someone goes and grabs I guess that he the bowl must have been elsewhere. Because they went and got a wheelbarrow and put him in it. Shit. Oh. And took him up to the Green Street prison. So. What a bummer. Yeah, it's the whole thing is horrifying. So they could not prove that he was the strangler. They didn't have the evidence to connect it to the other murders.

But they had him for this one. So he was convicted for robbery with violence. OK. And he was sentenced to hard labor at the Green Street prison. What's that? Some kind of a sex reference that I'm not getting? No, they're because he doesn't have legs. So we're wondering if he got his bowl. It's so small-minded of you to think that you can only do labor with your legs. What about this? What about lifting things?

What about handing someone something over and over? Here, I got it. I will pass that salt for the rest of my life. Karen, hard labor is passing salt. Oh, if you make a really loud noise as you pass it, it counts as hard labor. Ugh, god, I'm sick of it. So basically, he's convicted. And he has to stay there for the rest of his life.

Oh, good. There was a super creepy thing that they used to do. I don't know when they stopped doing it. The rich would go and visit prisons and mental institutions as, like, just as a night out. So apparently, he became, like, a sideshow at the prison. Oh, because he has one eye now. He's got the one eye. I don't know if that eye came all the way out. The other one's beautiful. It's so hot, gorgeous green. Yeah, and the other one's. With the black. What a great combination. I didn't get it.

And they go watch him pass salt all the time. It's disgusting. And they say that on some dark in the Grange Gorman's Tony Better district, you can hear a strange creepy noise coming up behind you. They don't like it when I do the accent. I can tell. You know. I like it a lot more. You're not insulting me, so I think it's great. OK, great. They really do say in a there's a place called Hidden Dublin that gives ghost tours. And it's on the walk.

It's the North Side Ghost Walk tour that you can take. And they say that the ghost of Billy in the Bowl haunts the area where he. After party. After party. Tonight. What is it? Hold on. We have to consult with Louise really quick. What is it? What happened? Louise, what's wrong? I actually live in Stony Batters. If you want to have an after party, that's. Great. We're going to Louise's after this. Louise's after. Balcony. Louise's after. Just don't wake up her flatmate. She has to work tomorrow. He's in London.

Great. The guy comes out in his underwear. You guys, come on. Not every day is a bank holiday. And there's also Billy in the Bowl is referenced in a Dubliner song and in a Pogue song. So he's legend. And that's the story of Billy in the Bowl. Yeah. Hey. That was great. Yeah. Good job. We did it. Thank you.

I think that the girl sitting next to our friends that helped us. Yeah, yeah, and the toxic masculinity. Where'd Vince go? Vince is right there. Walk over to him. Oh, there's Vince, everybody. Vince got us a lovely charcuterie and cheese spread backstage. Vince is our tour manager. He's Georgia's husband. That's right. He does it all. He does it. Which means we don't have to pay him. No, we pay him sometimes. That's hard labor. He's doing his hard labor for free.

His hard stark labor. What? His hard stark labor. Oh, right. That's so good. Hi. What's your name? Etha. Ethal? Etha. Etha. Hi. Oh, that's cute. Etha. Here, center up, center up, center up. Look at her shoes. Let's do a nice stage picture. Those are great. Will you tell me your name, sorry? Etha. Etha. Yeah. Awesome. Etha, everybody. Where are you from?

I'm from Kerry. You're from Kerry? Yeah. Kerry. She's from Kerry. You guys know it. Did she say it right? I'm sorry. It's Kerry. Ah, Jesus. Yeah. OK, what's your hometown? So my mom is from Westmeath. And she's from this tiny village. Like, there's not even as many people as there is here. Oh, cute. Fun. It's called Cool. And. Cool. Too easy. Sorry. Sorry. So a family from Dublin moved out there years ago.

And the father worked in England. So he'd be back and forth. And then they just stopped seeing him. Oh. And then they moved away. And they hadn't really gotten involved with the community. So it was fine. Nobody cared. But then they went the daughter went to the Guardie. Multiple Guarda. Got it. Message received. Yeah. And told them that they had killed him a few years back and buried him in their garden.

Whoa. Guardie. Garden. Got it. Garden. And then they dug him up and burnt him somewhere else. The family did? Yeah. What dick? OK. And then she decided to go to the Guardie because she found out her mother was having an affair with her boyfriend. Her own boyfriend. OK, wait. Who's related? First of all, let's start with the name.

Her first top. No. Yeah. Wait. So when they killed the father, was it the mother's idea? Yes. And she was the mother and the boyfriend. They tricked the kids. They tricked the daughter into killing him. The plan. No, no, no. Oh, my God. It's her cousin. No. What's who is it? Wait. She looks nice. She doesn't look bad. You better come up here right now.

I look so good. She looks nice. It was, like, just down the road from my mom's house. Maybe you're related. No, wait. Vince. Go around here. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. We got to hear this. What the hell's going on? Move it. This is unprecedented. It's her cousin. She said she yelled, "It's my cousin."

And then I was like, "Oh, shit." And then I saw her face. And she doesn't look angry. So we're good. It's going to be OK. She was. This is the great fear that we always have. Yeah. Yeah, we're really fucked up over this. PTSD. OK. Yeah, Etha. She's doing great. Etha. Hi. What's your name? Oh. Hi. What's your name? What's your name? That's Etha, right? What is it? Etha. Hi.

Nice to meet you. OK. They're sharing. Where are your family from? Do it in the microphones. Where is our family? OK. OK, so your cousin. Who's your cousin? Don't talk privacy on stage, please. We were going to email in about our auntie. But we decided not to. Did you want to say that? But then Etha came on stage and told her about our auntie.

OK, it's not an auntie that we talk to. OK. Good. Oh, my God. You know the kind. Oh, we got those. You know the kind. We know what she's done. Oh, my God. And we know she has a book or. A book? She wrote a book about her. You don't get to do that if you're the murderer. So will you run it down for us just really quick of, like. No, we see we don't. You don't talk about it? No, no. Do you see.

Everyone in Cool. The parents. You ask the parents. And they're like, "Oh, no." We don't talk about that. Oh, we can't. And they won't tell you anything? We can't. What's the book? Just tell us. We won't tell anyone. We're not going to tell anyone, right? We're keeping it here. The disaster was there was a bonfire. Yeah. And the ballroom. There was also a under patio. Yeah. And then they decided that wasn't good enough. So they brought it up and went to the case. I forgot the case.

Oh, shit. Yeah. But family don't associate with that. OK. Etha just goes, "I didn't get to the pig's part." I forgot. Yeah. My mom didn't know the pig's part. Oh, they were. Oh, she didn't know. I'm so glad we accepted. You guys, this all stays in this room tonight. Please. Please. Don't tell anyone. Sorry, Etha. There was bits left in the pig. That's how they found out. That's how they proved that. Yeah, but it was the murderer who's the daughter's husband.

So the daughter went to the Guardie. To the Guardie. Multiple. She said, "Hey, there's something shitty going on." Oh, my God. Good for her. A woman's scorn, man. Like, fucking watch it. So she brought out a book. And then it said, "Hey, fuck you." Oh, my God. It's like a diary. I remember. Our family worked out of. And so she's in jail now? She's gone. She's in jail now. She's out.

And she's like, "I'm right here." Just murderer. The wife was home for murder. Yeah. The daughter's husband was home for manslaughter. I will find out the name of the book. OK. I have it. OK, great. And I will come up. I'm not going to read it. I love it. You guys, this is an amazing seven-part series right now that we have. Give them a round of applause. Let's hear it for all of these guys. Thank you so much. Great stories.

Moral support. Small learning. Good job. Thank you. Jesus Christ. Thank you. Oh, my God. We'll call you guys later. Oh. That could have been a fucking question. Oh, my God. Fuck. And it wasn't. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm sweating a little extra. But I love that they came up. And they had less information than Etha did. Fuck, yes. That's what it's all about.

It would have been cool if we'd get, like, 30 people on this stage just milling around of like, "Well, I've heard this story. I would like to say this and that." You forgot the part of the pig, the chickens. You forgot the chickens. All right. That was our first show in Dublin. It was originally entitled Live at Vicar Street in Dublin. But if we are naming it today, we have many choices of what we could name it. Please Whisper is a great one, I think.

That's a really boring Please Whisper. If you're going to be boring, Please Whisper. High on Brood's really good. High on Brood. Redundant Bear. Furry Bear. De Classe was good. A Big Ficus Plant. I mean, we're just there's so many choices. We could do it all. Well, that's this week's episode of Rewind. Thanks for listening. Let's go back to 2018 Dublin to say goodbye. That was. Dublin. Yeah.

This has been amazing. So good. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you to our translators, Emily. You made it happen. Thank you so much. This is a really, really awesome way to kick off our tour, our big Europe tour, our big UK and Ireland tour. And Dublin. You guys not only are our kickoff show, you sold out two nights. Yeah. That's so amazing. Thank you.

We can't it's very difficult for us to convey how insane this is, where we just started taping our personal conversations at Georgia's house two years ago. And now we're in Ireland talking to 1,000 people. I mean. It's fucking amazing. It's so awesome. And we know it's all because of you guys, obviously. And we appreciate it so much. And we're so grateful. We have the best time. And it's because you guys are you're the best listeners and the best people to talk to about this crazy fucked up shit that we're all so fascinated by.