Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Behind the Scenes Minis: Villas and Tirades About this episode Holly talks about the unsubstantiated stories associated with the Villa de Vecchi in northern Italy. Tracy talks about getting angry about a passage she read in Wednesday's show.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:34 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details. The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare.
1:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2:08 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:19 Holly Frey? Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Frey.
2:21 Tracy V. Wilson? And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:23 Holly Frey? We talked about Villas de Vecchi.
2:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Two of it.
2:29 Holly Frey? Yeah, two of it. Uh, there were a couple of things that I didn't include. The episode ran a little bit shorter than usual and I had had these things in and I pulled them out. One is a thing that I didn't pull out. It's just a random thing, but I just could not substantiate them. And they were odd enough that I would have felt weird even trying to, I mean, just trying to talk around them. I was like, surely there should be a record of this. Like, it just became a weird thing.
2:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
2:58 Holly Frey? One was that allegedly there was actually a fire there at some point. I don't know if this is true. I never found any news stories about it, nothing. And the reason why I was like, I don't know that this is accurate, is that when you do look at pictures, I haven't seen anywhere it looks like there's charring or, you know, fire damage that you would normally see. It's possible there is, and I just haven't seen pictures, but I just do not know. The other was that there was a report that the reason the government finally took some steps to try to close the site with like wire fencing and whatever,
3:39 Holly Frey? is that somebody had actually fallen when the upper floor caved in, because the upper floor is not there anymore. And that they were injured and that's why. But I also could not find any substantiation of that one. Although that would certainly make sense as a catalyst to take steps, but it also could have just been that they got around to it on their list of things to think about. I don't know.
4:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
4:05 Holly Frey? I understand the impetus to want to look at a place that is overgrown and was once beautiful and is now a mess to make up ghost stories about it.
4:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Sure.
4:21 Holly Frey? I do. But I really think
4:24 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
4:25 Holly Frey? these ones are unfounded.
4:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
4:28 Holly Frey? I'm sorry, most haunted house in Italy. I don't believe you are.
4:32 Tracy V. Wilson? When the, like, the origin story of the ghosts is apparently just not really a thing. That does make it a little weird.
4:45 Holly Frey? Yeah, ironically, there is no, I found zero mention of the ghost of Sidoli being there, which would have made more sense.
4:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Sure.
4:54 Holly Frey? Since he was the architect that was there working.
4:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
5:00 Tracy V. Wilson? I have also had the experience of trying to research something for the show, ha- having like one set of information of what's available in English, and then finding the Wikipedia page for the country where that place is, and looking at it out of curiosity, and sometimes finding wildly different information, and, and often more just the amount of information is much different. Which is not, I mean, it's not surprising that a person that who was really important to the history of a particular place that is not the United States
5:42 Tracy V. Wilson? where we live, and is also not a place that has a lot of cultural and historical ties to the United States.
5:49 Holly Frey? Right.
5:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Totally reasonable and normal for there to be way more information about that person in that other place than here.
5:58 Holly Frey? Right.
5:58 Tracy V. Wilson? But occasionally, when this happens, I'll like see the Wikipedia page in this other place, and I'll do the same thing. I'll look at it, and I will like translate it just to be out of curiosity, like, what does it say? How is, how does it compare? And occasionally go, yeah, this is, this is very different. And trying to sort of figure out where, where, where the divergence happened in like the factual.
6:26 Holly Frey? Yeah.
6:27 Tracy V. Wilson? The, like, where, where did that come from? Not so much where did the ghost stories come from, but like, where did this completely different story about a murder arise?
6:39 Holly Frey? Right, and this is a case where like...
6:43 Holly Frey? There, I feel like places like this have this unique problem in terms of finding the root of that, because especially if they are in a foreign country from where native English speakers live, visitors will go there and locals will tell them stories to goad them on that then get repeated as though they are fact, while those locals are probably snickering at the ding dong tourists who bought everything hook, line and sinker. And so it becomes trickier to be like, okay, but then there are also allegedly locals that believe it's haunted. So.
7:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Right. Yeah. Well, and I mean, I've had that experience in the United States. We went on a ghost tour one time in New Orleans that I feel like that ghost tour was a lot grounded in reality most of the time.
7:34 Holly Frey? Yeah.
7:35 Tracy V. Wilson? But there were a couple of particular stories that after we returned to our respective homes from our visit to New Orleans, I was like, that would be a great podcast episode. And I went to look it up and I was like, oh no, that story was made up.
7:48 Holly Frey? Same.
7:49 Tracy V. Wilson? But I can't even find, you know, an origin point for something that could have been distorted into that story.
7:55 Holly Frey? Yeah.
7:56 Tracy V. Wilson? I also, that we, you said in the episode, like Wikipedia articles are not a source that we use for the show. One of the things that I do do on Wikipedia sometimes is scroll immediately to the bottom of the article to see if there are books that I am not aware of.
8:16 Holly Frey? Yes.
8:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Because as the quality of search engine results has gotten worse and more driven by ads and whatnot, sometimes I will find a reference to the book in the source list of a Wikipedia article that I might not have found otherwise.
8:32 Holly Frey? Same. Do it all the time.
8:34 Tracy V. Wilson? I am now using a plugin for Chrome that just strips out all of the AI summaries and ad links, which is very helpful, but still like the results themselves sometimes are less helpful than they used to be. In my personal life, I use Wikipedia for stuff like looking at the list of TV episodes from specific television shows when I'm trying to figure out like, where did I leave off watching this?
9:01 Holly Frey? Yeah.
9:01 Tracy V. Wilson? My watch history has gotten cleared somehow, that kind of thing. Anything that has a fandom associated with it, a lot of times, the Wikipedia page will be incredibly robust about like that particular entertainment property or whatever.
9:17 Holly Frey? Very helpful.
9:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Anyway, Wikipedia has uses is what I'm saying.
9:22 Holly Frey? Yeah.
9:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Even if those uses are not, you know, researching episodes of the show.
9:27 Holly Frey? Yeah, I'm not anti Wikipedia at all. We just always, we try to do primary sources as often as possible.
9:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
9:34 Holly Frey? And then you go to secondaries, et cetera. We've always said, like on the Halloween episodes.
9:39 Tracy V. Wilson? That's a little.
9:39 Holly Frey? Especially when you're talking about paranormal things or haunting stories. We're not as hardcore about those rules. But this one even so, I was like, I literally took this from a Wikipedia article and I wanted transparency about it.
9:51 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
9:53 Holly Frey? Um, we'll talk about a depressing thing.
9:56 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh.
9:57 Holly Frey? Sort of, and then a funny thing.
9:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay.
9:59 Holly Frey? I have, looking at pictures of places that are dilapidated, particularly homes, is very melancholy for me.
10:12 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
10:13 Holly Frey? Because on the one hand, I'm fascinated and it's like, ooh, spooky yucky. And on the other, I'm like, it happens less with smaller, or it happens less with big palatial homes like this and more with smaller homes. But I just like, I don't know if it's that I'm too empathetic about the whole thing. And I'm like, this was a place that somebody loved once and they felt like this was their special place and their like, you know, their hopes and dreams were into this space. And now it's just junk. And I find that very depressing.
10:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
10:51 Holly Frey? Because I am sentimental about inanimate objects. It happens all the time.
10:56 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
10:57 Holly Frey? Listen, I'll cry. I see one sad shoe in the road and I'm sad because like, where is the other shoe? What happened here? That's me. Here's the funny thing. I was looking at pictures from inside Villa Devaki in Greece, which again, you are allowed to go into and you can buy tickets to go visit. But it also does have a lot of graffiti, but I don't know why it cracked me up while I was looking at these pictures. Somebody had very, very carefully spray painted
11:32 Holly Frey? the URL for their SoundCloud.
11:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, that's hilarious.
11:36 Holly Frey? Walls. And I'm like, on the one hand, I'm like, honey, do you think people are like, taking this down or like taking a picture to go visit your SoundCloud because you did a graffiti? But then on the other hand, I'm like, is this very astute because they know this is a place that's photographed a lot? And then presumably those photos are going online and now everyone will know about their SoundCloud.
11:59 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
11:59 Holly Frey? I didn't go to their SoundCloud site, but I did think it was funny.
12:05 Holly Frey? I'm waiting for the time. There's like a graffiti QR code. I'm sure someone's done it already. With a stencil, but it seems like that would be very arduous. You gotta get out your cricket and custom cut that biz.
12:18 Holly Frey? But I'm waiting. I'm waiting. The age is coming. SoundCloud graffiti. I don't know why that cracked me up. To very carefully spray paint an entire URL is very funny to me. That's just inherently hilarious. That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time. Are you going out tagging? Yeah. Let me make sure I spell check it first. Like I don't.
12:44 Holly Frey? I love everything about it. Listen, we need our giggles where we can get them.
12:51 Speaker 04 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
13:21 Speaker 05 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
13:24 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T Fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
13:45 Speaker 05 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
13:52 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
13:59 Speaker 06 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
14:05 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
14:08 Speaker 06 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.
14:13 Speaker 05 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
14:16 Tracy V. Wilson? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
14:19 Speaker 07 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
14:22 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed. To connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and find people
15:07 Tracy V. Wilson? who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
15:33 Tracy V. Wilson? So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home. Let's say you're worried about package theft. The ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new doorbell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app. There are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there. You can add to your system as you need to with things like extra cameras or motion sensors. Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue,
16:16 Tracy V. Wilson? you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown-up topics, check out new episodes of Grown Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
16:45 Holly Frey? We talked about the Hammersmith ghost murder this week.
16:48 Tracy V. Wilson? We did.
16:49 Holly Frey? And I stopped you as we were recording because you were about to be real tyrady in a perfectly valid way about the language of the law that allows for the nuance of mistaken understanding.
17:03 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
17:04 Holly Frey? Which I completely agree with, although I feel like in Great Britain, it may work differently than it does here.
17:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Right, so we live in the United States. I don't know why the word United States didn't want to just come out of my mouth just then, but we live in the United States, so we like, that's the context we're operating out of. But when I was reading that whole, all the legal language, it made me super angry because the, the basic idea of what that boiled down to is that if a person believes that someone else is a threat, even if that is an unreasonable belief, if they were genuinely laboring under that unreasonable belief,
17:54 Tracy V. Wilson? they can use it as a defense. So if you think wildly with no basis that someone is a threat to you and you shoot and kill them, you can still use that thinking they were a threat as a defense, even though it was unreasonable. And we have similar laws in parts of the United States. And when the United States, we are also living in a society that for centuries spread racist misinformation about really anyone who was not white, but especially about black people and very especially about black men.
18:34 Holly Frey? Yeah.
18:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Presenting black men as uniquely dangerous to everyone else. And that has been used as a defense so often in people murdering unarmed black people in particular, also unarmed people of other races saying, well, I thought that this person was dangerous.
18:55 Holly Frey? Right.
18:55 Tracy V. Wilson? And I don't think that is a good defense. I do think that it is incumbent on all of us not to kill one another. And so having to read this language that was like, oh yeah, this is actually fine. If not fine, but like this is appropriate to use as a defense. I was like, no, I think if you are under the absolute. Unfounded misapprehension that someone is threatening you and you kill them because you're scared. That's not a good defense.
19:26 Holly Frey? I think, I agree with you 100%. I think, and I could be wrong. So any of our listeners from Britain who want to set the record straight, the way that it is handled in courts there is different than here in so far as there has to be enough evidence that it would be reasonable for them to have come to that conclusion. You know what I mean? They can't just say, this person looked scary and they happened to be in my yard, so I got scared and shot them. There has to be, and he did this and this and this. There has to be evidence behind it.
20:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
20:05 Holly Frey? You know, in that case, that 1983 case, there's all the stuff about like, that guy told me he was a police officer, but then he, he couldn't produce any credentials that proved that.
20:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
20:18 Holly Frey? And he, you know, he obviously was lying to some degree, which kind of fed the problem.
20:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
20:24 Holly Frey? That he was just, that he was in fact doing what you're talking about, going after a young black kid, that he was doing that kind of profiling wrong thing. So it's, I, I think there is more room for that kind of discussion and nuance in courts in Britain to establish a reasonable, like the, yes, a reasonable person might think this was the situation versus the way it is often handled here, where you just have to say they were on my property and I was scared.
20:55 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Well, and, and part of my frustration here is that like, because of the centuries of propaganda that has been steeped throughout society in the United States, it's possible to build an incredibly racist argument that someone was reasonable in feeling that they were threatened.
21:16 Holly Frey? Right.
21:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Which is like just a whole other layer of it.
21:19 Holly Frey? The definition is really like how you perceive reasonability, I think, at that point.
21:24 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
21:25 Holly Frey? Not to make light of it, but I really do think like, what is considered reasonable to some people is not reasonable to others.
21:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
21:34 Holly Frey? And I think some municipalities are a little more stringent in their assessment of that.
21:40 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that was my.
21:46 Tracy V. Wilson? My tirade, I guess.
21:47 Holly Frey? Yeah. It is wild to me in this that, I mean, it, it kind of speaks in this story to how well liked Francis Smith was, that even the victim of his accidental shootings, family members were like, no.
22:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
22:07 Holly Frey? Uh, he really was purposely taking this dumb risk.
22:10 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
22:11 Holly Frey? Uh, which is interesting.
22:12 Tracy V. Wilson? That kind of feeds into some like similar, similar things that continue to happen today, that it's like taking a, you know, an unwise risk is not grounds for being summarily executed in the street.
22:27 Holly Frey? No, not at all, not at all, not at all.
22:29 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Which is like a point that was made in the trial was that like, even if he had been on purpose pretending to be a ghost.
22:37 Holly Frey? That's not something you kill somebody over.
22:40 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
22:40 Holly Frey? Yeah. Yeah. It's a very interesting case.
22:47 Speaker 01 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
23:17 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect. With quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and
24:01 Tracy V. Wilson? find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
24:28 Holly Frey? We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.
25:10 Holly Frey? Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
25:31 Holly Frey? Okay, chicken nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped, and they are the crispiest, the juiciest, and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new chicken nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard. Sweet and sour, and even a whole new option, too. The new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself.
26:13 Holly Frey? This new chicken nugget, reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and Sauces today.
26:32 Holly Frey? I'm so fascinated by scenarios, as evidenced this year, maybe, of like mass hysteria and like group fear.
26:41 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
26:41 Holly Frey? That this one was very interesting to me, like where an entire community.
26:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
26:46 Holly Frey? Can get so heightened where, but what's really fun, fun is not the right word because it does involve a murder. But what's really, really interesting is how Hammersmith had enough people that were really amped up over this that they were sending, you know, people were going out and hunting.
27:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Patrols are happening.
27:05 Holly Frey? And at the same time, like London was like, oh, Hammersmith. I mean, those ding dongs think they're ghosts in the rain. It's an interesting thing in like cultural pockets within larger metro municipalities.
27:21 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
27:21 Holly Frey? That just have their own beliefs or, you know, they get caught up in the thing.
27:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
27:28 Holly Frey? Now we have that, but it's all segregated out into communities online, right?
27:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Right, yeah. To me, if you are in this community that has been gripped by the possibility that there is a ghost, and it seems likely that if not a ghost, there is at least someone all in white who has been scaring people on purpose. And the way such things are handled is often with community patrols. It's reasonable to me for the community patrol to question that person.
28:05 Holly Frey? Well, yeah.
28:06 Tracy V. Wilson? To question the guy that happens to be out at night in all, in all white clothes. The fact that it jumped immediately to shooting him, I'm like, I don't fully follow.
28:16 Holly Frey? Well, he called out for him twice and he didn't answer.
28:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. And to me, that's still not a reason to shoot.
28:23 Holly Frey? Well, no, but like, I mean, I think in that moment of fear.
28:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
28:29 Holly Frey? Again, keeping in mind that this was 200 years ago, when our understanding of the world was a bit different.
28:36 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
28:37 Holly Frey? I can see where in that moment of fear, somebody might do that. I'm not happy about it. I don't want that to happen. But I also am kind of one of those people that's like, you know what? This man had the pants scared off of him. And he reacted in a way that was not great, but is understandable. Particularly because he did say like, hey, who are you? And Thomas didn't want to reply. And the fact, we kind of glossed through it, but that in that testimony that his mother-in-law gave about his previous altercation with someone thinking he was a ghost. His response was not, oh no, I'm so sorry. It didn't even occur to me that I would look like a ghost. It was, I'm going to punch you in the head. Like clearly.
29:24 Holly Frey? He was not participating in trying to ease anybody's minds about the situation either.
29:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Sure, sure.
29:35 Holly Frey? Like that is a man that seems real ready for fun. Like, oh my gosh, I thought you were a ghost. Really? I will punch you. Like what is the, that's not a logical reaction either.
29:43 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
29:44 Holly Frey? It's, it's a lot of problems.
29:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
29:49 Holly Frey? Yeah. Don't punch people. Don't shoot people is the moral of the story.
29:52 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
29:53 Holly Frey? Don't do it.
29:54 Tracy V. Wilson? At least don't punch people for wearing white work clothes at night.
29:59 Holly Frey? Well, he was going to punch the guy for thinking he was, you know, a ghost, even though he, you know.
30:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
30:06 Holly Frey? So you don't, everybody be cool, which is the problem is that we don't, we live in a world where everybody can't be cool.
30:13 Tracy V. Wilson? And there's guns.
30:15 Holly Frey? Be cool. Just mind your, mind your business. We could all just be hanging out, having snacks. Trick or treating. I don't know. The other thing that I think is germane here is that Graham, the shoemaker, came forward. Nobody believed him because they didn't want to. There may have been a perception that he, because he did it the day after the sentencing, that he was trying to help mitigate the final outcome for Francis Smith. But also because people didn't want to. But what's interesting is that he faced no repercussions whatsoever. Even though, I mean, it sounds like, according to a lot of accounts,
30:58 Holly Frey? he was out there not just scaring people, but touching them in ways that might be considered assaultive.
31:07 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh.
31:08 Holly Frey? You know what I mean?
31:08 Tracy V. Wilson? That's no good.
31:09 Holly Frey? Like, if he's putting his hands around somebody, if he's putting his arms around someone, if he's putting his hands on someone's throat, that would be considered assault in my book.
31:19 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, sure. Yeah.
31:20 Holly Frey? He didn't seem to face any repercussions for any of that. So the whole thing has problems.
31:26 Tracy V. Wilson? That's annoying. There's layers of things.
31:29 Holly Frey? Everybody be cool. So this Halloween, I hope that you have a wonderful celebration, however you celebrate it. If you do, I hope that you have so much fun that involves no violence whatsoever, that no one assaults you in any kind of way, with the one very niche exception of if you pay to go into some sort of haunted attraction, where you know that you are likely to be in some way assaulted by someone in the spirit of fun that you have consented to. That's my one very niche exception. I hope that you have a wonderful time and that you celebrate with delicious things, maybe a yummy candy corn flavored cocktail. I'm working on one right now. I'm very excited about.
32:12 Holly Frey? And that as you go into this weekend, you have some relaxation time. Maybe you're going to recover from your Halloween revelry. If you don't have time off, maybe you have to clean up the yard after your Halloween decorations. Or just be like me, leave that stuff up year round. It's great. I hope everybody is kind to one another and that we all take care of each other rather than initially, rather than immediately jumping to violent reactions. We all need each other to be cool. We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode. And then on Monday, we will have something brand new.
32:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
33:03 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
33:34 Tracy V. Wilson? You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.
34:09 Speaker 04 Livright, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims that it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
34:37 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
35:07 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Hammersmith Ghost Murder Next SYMHC Classics: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated