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🎥 ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE 🎥 In 1921, sc

🎥 ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE 🎥

In 1921, scandalous death occurred in Room 1219 of the St. Francis Hotel. A young actress died under mysterious circumstances, and a silent film star was charged with her murder. One of the nation’s first celebrity murder scandals was about to unfold, with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle at the center of it.

Arbuckle was a comedian, vaudeville performer, silent film actor, AND producer at the top of his game in 1921. I am. . . not going to call him “Fatty” in this post. He was actually fat, and he hated the name, but was kind of forced to use it to retain its fame. We’ll call him Arbuckle. Which, btw, was the name of Garfield’s owner John. Do you think he ever got that vet tech up to his hotel room to murder her?

In 1921, Arbuckle was separated from his wife and ready to party. It was Prohibition, but that didn’t stop him and his friends from driving up from LA with four cases of liquor. SF, and particularly the St. Francis, where THE place to party in the 1920s. The hotel had a fully stocked speakeasy in the basement, and these guys definitely used it. A mutual friend invited actress Virginia Rappe to the party. Arbuckle was cruising around between three rooms in silk pajamas passing out orange blossom cocktails. Between the 4 men and 2 women, they consumed 15 bottles of liquor. THAT’S KIND OF A LOT.

At some point, Rappe went to use the bathroom in Room 1219 - Arbuckle’s room - and he closed and locked the door behind her. About an hour later, her friend found her barely conscious on Arbuckle’s bed, complaining of abdominal pain. They put her in a cold bath and kept partying. Three different doctors visited, diagnosing her with too much to drink, an STI, and then a kidney infection. She stayed there, DYING, for 3 days. She passed away once she was finally taken to a hospital.

An autopsy revealed a ruptured bladder, and Arbuckle was blamed. He was accused of sexual assault and murder, and what followed was the first major celebrity scandal in the US. Stay tuned for the next post about THE TRIAL.

Hello my fellow weirdos — just a little housekee

Hello my fellow weirdos — just a little housekeeping today. As you may have noticed, my posts contain a lot of language and topics that are not Instagram’s FAVORITE. I use colorful language and I talk about some wild stuff. Stuff that I’m trying my best not to launch into right now because I want you to actually see this post!!! Even though my absolute favorite things to write are long run on sentences about obscure and possibly gross topics!!! Punctuated by words that my mother hates!!! SHE SUPPORTS MY WORK BUT MAYBE FEWER F BOMBS HONEY.

Instagram has also announced some algorithmic changes for political content, and since you’re not new here, you know I have a lot of that too. You can’t talk about crime and hauntings and history without getting into the weeds on the American experience, and I don’t plan on making my work any more vanilla.

To that end, I would like to humbly suggest that you turn notifications on if you want to make sure you see my posts. I’m not being throttled or shadow banned or anything dramatic like that, but I really do want to make sure that if YOU want to read about the sketchy stuff I write about, YOU can see it. Trying to guess what these networks want from you, what they punish and reward with their algorithms, is tedious and soul destroying. You’re never going to see repeat posts or hashtags or other crushingly boring trash designed to attract views on this account. I come here to be creative and to connect with people who share my interests, INSTAGRAM CAN’T BE THE BOSS OF ME!!!

Thanks for listening, I look forward to resuming foul language and disturbing stories right after I slide this thoroughly unproblematic post through. xo 🖤

🌝 HAPPY ECLIPSE DAY, NORTH AMERICA! 🌚 We’r

🌝 HAPPY ECLIPSE DAY, NORTH AMERICA! 🌚
We’re having a full solar eclipse today and people are losing their minds. On the fun side, scientists and eclipse chasers are fired up for the totality events, and astrologers are telling us to take care, these massive solar and lunar events can have emotional effects. On the NOT FUN SIDE, people are predicting the end of the world. I went down the rat hole and summarized the most absolute batshit theories out there, 90% of them from apocalyptic right wing lunatics, including a sitting Congressperson!!! Like I know a lot of people think astrology is bullshit, but those people are not BLAMING THE ((GLOBALISTS))YKWIM?
Get your safe viewing glasses (or don’t, bc they supposedly block the light of God during this Rapture event, I guess there are going to be a lot of QAnon posters with retinal damage to match their brain damage).
🌗 Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks that the eclipse, along with the recent earthquake, is God telling us to repent our sins.
🌗Alex Jones thinks that the ((globalists)) are using the eclipse to push for, what else, a NEW WORLD ORDER. But he also relies on the Hebrew alphabet to predict this, somehow??? Pick a lane, asshole.
🌗Birthers and other assorted racist bottomfeeders think that the movie “Leave the World Behind,” for which the Obamas have a producer credit, warned us that today is the end of the world. This is somehow related to the bridge collapse last week - IDK, ask your uncles.
🌗NASA is launching some rockets to study the eclipse up close, and right wing grifter Dom Lucre thinks that they will deploy balloons full of poison gas to kill us. First of all, thats a lot of fucking balloons has anyone checked in on Party City?? Second, there is actually an old Japanese superstition about eclipses and poison coming from the sky. Do we think he’s a scholar or just watches too much Hentai?
🌗OTHER PEOPLE believe that CERN is going to open a portal to hell today. There’s one theory that Aleister Crowley made contact with an entity called Aiwas on 4/8/04 and CERN is trying to get in touch with that demon today. I mean Crowley WISHES but also CERN isn’t even in the totality path sooooo ⬇️

⛰️MOUNT MADONNA AND HECKER PASS ⛰️ Santa

⛰️MOUNT MADONNA AND HECKER PASS ⛰️

Santa Cruz is a weird ass place. Dark forests, vortices, serial killers, GIANT SLUGS. There’s a reason Lost Boys and Us were set at that Boardwalk. But did you also know there is a haunted highway surrounded by a haunted inn and haunted campground?

Thanks to friend of HLAS @jenshorts26 we have dropped a new pin on the map of Cursed Bay Area: Hecker Pass and Mount Madonna. This is an area between Watsonville and Gilroy, once owned by Henry Miller, and all kinds of bad shit happened on this land.

Miller’s granddaughter died in a horseback accident. A grocery store opened and burned down. A WHOLE PASSEL of murders occurred, bodies were dumped, skeletons were found, and car accidents piled up.

It’s obviously haunted now! “White lady” ghosts are seen on the property, which could be the granddaughter, any of the women murdered on the land, or maybe killed in car crashes on the highway. The vibe here is also kind of cursed - bad things started happening in the 1920s and just never stopped. The story of little Sara Miller is tragic, but we don’t usually attribute curses to accidental deaths like hers. We know the environment is kind of dangerous - floods, slides, fires. The forest is dense and unpopulated and frankly a place to get up to bad deeds and hide things. It was even more remote in the early to mid 20th century, when these things were happening - it was probably a big risk opening a business or even traveling there. Shit, Hwy 17 is still a nightmare! It’s kind of prime country for urban legends like curses and hauntings.

Swipe for a true story from @kristymistyjune who had a crazy experience camping there, and check the link in bio for the full blog post from some Santa Cruz ghost hunters - lots of cool history and stories in there! Have you been? Was it cursed? Drop a comment!

🎇 THE WESTERFELD HOUSE 🎇 Ok, this is hands

🎇 THE WESTERFELD HOUSE 🎇

Ok, this is hands down the coolest house in the city. I know Danielle Steele has some kind of 16 block walled Court of Versailles in Pac Heights BUT DOES IT HAVE A BELFRY? DOES IT LOOK LIKE AN ANTENNA TO THE AFTERLIFE? DID ANTON LAVEY LIVE THERE WITH HSI PET LION? HAVE THE GHOST BROS EVEN BEEN THERE?

The William Westerfeld House, at the intersection of Scott and Fulton, was built in 1889, and it looks like the psycho house if it were owned by Lemony Snickett. It’s also obviously haunted and/or a portal to Hell, depending on who you ask.

All kinds of crazy ass people have lived in this house, it was an absolute magnet for counterculture. In the 1920’s, a group of Czarist Russians lived and operated a nightclub there. Then, jazz musician John Handy moved in, along with other Fillmore greats. In the 1960’s it was a commune and experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger moved in. He made a movie in the house starring a Manson Family member, Anton LaVey, and Mick Jagger. HEY NOW. The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company hung out there. Tom Wolfe writes about the house in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. This place was LIT and I imagine that the combined amount of acid dropped there would be enough to take out a small army.

All kinds of paranormal phenomena have been associated with the house. The ghost shows have been out there, reporting ghosts turning doorknobs, setting off alarms, murmuring, getting into bed with people. What’s more interesting to me, however, are the so called “electric phenomena” reported there.

At the turn of the century. Gugliemo Marconi reportedly sent the first radio signals on the West Coast from the tower of the Westerfeld House. Harry Houdini spent time in the tower trying to send telepathic messages across the Bay. People seem to treat the house as some kind of magnet for otherworldly phenomena - maybe it’s the tower design, maybe the aesthetics or the hilltop location, maybe the intervening years of psychic and psychedelic experiments during the Age of Aquarius. ⬇️

🖤 ALICE: MEMOIR OF A BARBARY COAST PROSTITUTE 🖤

In 1913, California passed the Red Light Abatement Act, which forced the remaining brothels and vice districts to close. This was dangerous for sex workers, and the San Francisco Bulletin ran an incredible series detailing their first hand experiences and struggles, which are captured in this book.

Note on the language: prostitute is an outdated word, but you’ll hear me use it in the video when referring to laws or news coverage from the area. When speaking contemporarily, I use the term sex worker.

Did you guys know that Arlington National Cemetery

Did you guys know that Arlington National Cemetery was built on land seized from American Bastard Robert E Lee?? An uplifting cemetery story for you! Check out @bastardspod for the full episode!

THE OMEN Newsletter is out tomorrow, and we’re

THE OMEN

Newsletter is out tomorrow, and we’re talking about how some birds at SFO accurately predicted:

🪶An 8 hour flight delay
🪶Inflight insurrections
🪶Meltdowns over recycling
🪶Hot flashes

And how reading pretentious New Yorker click bait is bad for the soul, but good for content! Check your inboxes, babes. Sign up at hereliesastory.com 💀

I finally got to the story of the missing skull. I

I finally got to the story of the missing skull. It’s a good one and thanks everyone who sent this to me. The complaint alleges corruption as well - specifically that the defendant interfered with a death investigation involving family of a member of the BOS. The allegation is worded in a confusing manner - unclear if it means he lied about findings just to staff, or to the public. LMK what you think.

✴️ THE PHOSPHORESCENT BRIDE ✴️ You guys,

✴️ THE PHOSPHORESCENT BRIDE ✴️

You guys, this is a WILD ONE. I first heard this story at a live show for @myfavoritemurder, and it popped up again in some research last week so we gotta get into it. AND there is a Maiden Lane tie-in so stay tuned til the end.

In 1887, a local doctor and messy, messy bitch named J. Milton Bowers married his third wife, Cecilia. His previous two wives had died mysteriously. Cecilia began to feel poorly, and obviously the good doctor insisted on treating her at home! With poison! I mean, medicine! After he’d taken out FIVE LIFE INSURANCE POLICIES on her life.

Cecilia’s brother Henry overheard her say to Bowers “you are torturing me with your medicines.”

She died shortly thereafter of a suspected liver abscess. An anonymous letter to the coroner prompted an examination, and when the coroner opened her body to examine it, the overwhelming smell of phosphorus filled the room. The body also GLOWED IN THE DARK. PHOSphorescent, get it you guys????

When questioned, Bowers replied “Why do you suppose that if I had any desire to kill my wife I would use phosphorous, a poison so easy of detection? I, as a physician, would have more sense than to use such a poison.” Sure, Jan. The cops disagreed, and he was arrested and tried for murder. After the longest trial to date, he was convicted and sentenced to hang. But his Bluebeard ass had a plan.

Cecelia’s brother Henry was the star witness against Bowers. He was dogged in his pursuit of justice for his sister. Shortly after Bowers was convicted, however, he was found dead ON MAIDEN LANE (if you’re new here, read the last post!). His death was staged to look like a suicide, with random bottles of poison scattered around and a sloppy note that did not match his handwriting. The note was an alleged confession to his sister’s murder. With that confession, Bowers appealed his sentence. ⬇️

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The Lost Cemeteries of San Francisco

Find out what happened to the cemeteries of San Francisco: where they were, why they were moved, and how the hell did so many graves get left behind?

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