INFAMOUS: Lizzie Borden

Oct 29, 2018

Lizzie Borden took an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks When she saw what she had done She gave her father 41 But did she really? In this episode, we tell the story of Lizzie Borden and the other suspects in the case who you've probably never heard of. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-lizzie-borden/    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Lizzie Borden Took an Ax gave her mother 40 whacks when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41

or did she

this is one of the first true crime stories I ever heard as a young kid one that I became obsessed with in fact I even gave my first presentation on it freshman year of high school in speech class and actually I'm really glad I went to a school of over 4,000 kids because anytime I had to give an oral presentation all four years it was always about some kind of murder case and if any of my teachers were talking I think I would spend a lot more time with the counselor's office but I didn't and I got a lot of practice for my future

podcaster now this case was always so fascinating to me because of all the folklore that came out of it the exaggerated Jingle the fact that Lizzie Borden was considered to be guilty by an entire town and entire country for Generations even though she was acquitted did you know there were other suspects even other people arrested but you never hear about those anymore at least not until today I want to tell you the full story of Lizzie Borden and some

other suspects that maybe should have been looked into now Lizzie was born to Andrew and Sarah Borden back in the 1800s she was the last of three children her sister Emma was the oldest 10 years older than Lizzie and there was a sister in between the two who actually passed away in her teens Lizzie also lost her mother at a very young age just around two and a half so she never really knew her mom but she did grow up with a stepmom when Lizzie was just about five her dad remarried to a

name Abby Abby was 30 at the time never been married so she was considered to be a spinster in town which as someone who is about to be 30 I take total offense to but I get it those were the times blah blah blah either way she wasn't like the prime Pickens and Andrew really wasn't either he had two girls to take care of so a lot of people think that their marriage was more of a convenience rather than from love Andrew made a good living as the president of a local bank however

because he had the money didn't mean he lived like he had money all the people with money in their little Massachusetts town called Fall River lived on what they called the hill they all had running water and gas lamps some people even had electricity but not the Borden's they still lived down on the numbered streets with no running water and kerosene lamps in fact it's so strange as I was researching this case and looking at their house there isn't even a bathroom in the house which is such a bizarre concept to us

now but totally normal for them back then the girls didn't feel like they fit in growing up they weren't really permitted to engage with other kids their age socially girls Lizzie's age were getting fancy dresses and going to parties and really she just got to go to school go to church and come home by junior year she even dropped out of school and aside from a trip to Europe that her father permitted she really just stayed at home so she had a very small circle Lizzie was always known as a bit

peculiar and she even had a habit of shoplifting she was actually pretty known for this around town but never gotten any real trouble and I don't know if it's because her father was like a prominent figure in the area or because it was a small town and you just kind of handled it amongst your own but basically the store owners would just be like oh that Lizzie and they would just write down whatever she took and build her dad for it as Lizzie grew up not a whole lot changed she didn't really date she didn't really socialize

is a ton any more than she did as a young kid and all of her activities were really based around the local church which she was heavily involved with in the summer of 1890 to Lizzie was 32 years old unwed and still living at home with her father stepmother her sister Emma and their housekeeper Bridget now in 2018 it might seem strange that they were all still living together under the same roof but in the 1800's it was super socially unacceptable for a young woman to move out of her parents house

and unless she was getting married so Lizzie unmarried stayed at home with her sister well into her 30s and her sister even into her 40s so again it's the summer of 1890 to and there were some strange happenings around the board and home and tensions were running high within the family you see there was a rift building between Lizzie and her stepmom Abby recently her father had actually gifted some real estate to people within Abby's family and both Lizzie and Emma got upset about

they felt like they were entitled to all of Andrews real estate and any like Fortune he had and that he shouldn't be giving it to Abby's family because they weren't blood even though he'd married her and they'd been together for so long so to mend this Andrew their father decides okay I'm going to give the two of you a house as well and it's a very strange interaction because he gets them this home and then they just sell it back to him for cash but after this whole interaction it still never

a really got resolved and a relationship that was never super-loving to begin with between Abby and Lizzie got even colder and instead of referring to her as stepmother or mother she would now only call her mrs. Borden now in this summer something else happened to the family they had experienced a break-in in broad daylight the only things that were taken were $50 and some jewelry from mrs. Borden but absolutely nothing else was Disturbed almost as if the person who came

I knew exactly where to look and police were notified of this break and but just a few weeks after Andrew called off the investigation this to me is super strange Because unless you know who broke into your house and you were going to like handle it internally why wouldn't you want police to continue to look for this person and try to get back your stuff and he might have been doing that handling it internally himself because after this incident Andrew started locking all of the

rooms in the home every bedroom every closet the sitting room and he had this one master key that he would kind of carry around with him or leave on the dining table so it's not like he thought someone was going to come in and take the key it's almost like it was a message to someone within the family or someone within the home like I know what you did and if you do it again you're going to have to come through me first but as far as we know there were no other instance of theft in their home and again he totally called

off the investigation and never pushed forward to find out if there was a threat to their family or if there was somebody really after their things the murders which now live in infamy happened on the 4th of August before we go to that day I need to tell you one more strange thing because it might play into one theory about what could have happened in the first days of August just days before Andrew and Abby would be murdered the family got very sick Abby told her friend that she thought maybe the baker's bread had been

poisoned and Lizzie this very night before her family was murdered actually was talking to a friend and basically said you know I think my dad has his enemies and I think they're poisoning our milk and I'm even so afraid of these enemies that I think they're going to come burn our house down or do something bad and I've hardly been sleeping because I have to sleep with one eye open during this time that the family was sick and just the day before the murder the Borden's actually had a visitor Lizzie's Uncle John was in town

and staying with them in their guest room now this was Andrew Borden's brother-in-law it was by marriage so is from his first wife Sarah who had passed away from everything I can tell John didn't appear to be sick in any way like the rest of the Borden's so we have to believe that whatever they had come down with whether it was a virus or a flu or actually being poisoned was happening before John arrived now this takes us to the fateful day and I need to quickly explain the layout of the board

and house to you in the front of the house near the living room there's a staircase that takes you to the second floor if you walk up the staircase to that second floor straight ahead of you you would see the guest room and to the right of you would be a door leading to Lizzie's room those are the only two doors you can enter from this side of the hallway coming from this way in order to get to Emma's room you would actually have to enter Lizzie's room and then there was a door on the left that would normally look like a closet but

actually Emma's room there was another door in Lizzie's room to the right that actually led to her parents room but her parents had their own access to the first floor through the back of the house there was a stairwell from the kitchen that led directly to their room and a couple of interesting things I want to point out about this layout of the house first is that Emma's room off of Lizzie's was like half the size like I said it would be like a walk-in closet to Lizzie's really big room and I know

one had to get the smaller room but as an older sister I would have so called dibs and it's just something that stuck out to me that I thought was really bizarre like why did Lizzie get this did she demand it was there a reason or did Emma just not need the space the second thing worth noting is that the door between Lizzie's room and her parents room was nailed shut and I haven't been able to find an explanation of this was this just something custom of the time because it would be super weird and inappropriate to have access to your

parents room or were they wanting this extra layer of protection between them and a daughter that they might have suspected of violence to be clear there were never any reports of Lizzie being a violent person or her family being fearful of her in fact it was quite the opposite everyone said they could never imagine her harming anyone at least that's what people would say until the day that her parents were murdered on that morning breakfast was made for the family to eat together now Emma is

is away at a party so she did eat with the family and Lizzie just chose not to eat with them and this was kind of a usual thing she never really ate with a family some speculate it was because of her bad relationship with Abby but the truth is we really don't know so Andrew Abby and John all eat breakfast together and then John leaves to visit some other relatives on the other side of town he'll later say that he was going to visit actually someone that was sick and then Andrew leaves the house to go to the bank to tend to

work Abby tells her housekeeper that she would like her to wash the windows while she makes up the guest room from John stay during this time Lizzie stayed home and was moving between the barn and the house doing random little tasks tasks that have changed depending on when or whom she was telling the story to the housekeeper is still at home also cleaning the windows and doing her chores like mrs. Borden had instructed her Andrew arrives back home at 10:45 in the morning

and at first he tries to get in through the side door the door that he always uses to get into the house but on this day it was locked so he goes around to the front door and the front door is locked too so he pulls out his key puts it in and nothing it's not turning it's not working it seems that other locks had been bolted shut and he cannot get into his own home now their housekeeper Bridget here's Andrew knocking trying to get in so she comes to open the door for him

and she remembers hearing Lizzie laughing from the top of the staircase landing near where her room would have been and where the guest room would have been when he comes in Bridget and Andrew don't exchange any words but then Lizzy comes in and Andrew and Lizzie have a chat about the mail and when he asked her where Abby is she tells him that Abby received some kind of note about a sick friend and she wanted to go visit them and he asks what sick friend But Lizzy said she didn't know and she

I didn't know who had actually sent the note Lizzie leaves the room and Andrew takes off his coat and sits on the couch in the front room presumably for a nap after Bridget here's this interaction she goes back to finishing the windows and then lays down for a nap herself shortly after She lays down just three or four minutes by her own account she hears the town Bell and knows that it's 11 o'clock just then she hears a scream Lizzie is yelling and saying Maggie

down here now I have to say they all called her Maggie and I don't know if this was some kind of like derogatory name or they just named all of their housekeepers Maggie but it wasn't her name it was some weird nickname they give her a but they always refer to her as Maggie so she yells and says Maggie come down and Maggie goes to the staircase and so what's the matter and she says come quick father is dead somebody came in and killed him when the housekeeper Bridget gets to the Parlor the scene is gruesome

Andrew is laying on the living room couch slouched over on his right side with his face having been so badly chopped up with a hatchet that there were no facial features just a hole where his face had once been Bridget ran across the street to get the neighbor who was also a doctor and I'm not sure what the point of getting a doctor was if you would see pictures of Andrew Borden there was no question he was deceased but when she gets back Bridget was so confused she asked Lizzie like

where were you when this happened I know I locked all the doors I latched all the screens how would someone have gotten in without breaking in or ripping a screen and Lizzy tells her that somehow she doesn't know she was outside but the screen had been unlatched and was wide open when she found her dad Lizzie and Bridget go wait in the kitchen for dr. Bowen to confirm that Andrew had in fact died when he does Bridget says something to the effect of like gosh I wish I knew where mrs. Borden was so I could go find her

and tell her what's happening and Lizzy says well I'm sure I heard something upstairs I think she's home now why don't you go look for her and in so many words she's like oh hell no I am not going up the stairs alone when some crazy ax murderers roaming around and like fair I wouldn't go up either but this behavior from Lizzie stands out to me it seems like in a lot of the cases that we talk about the person involved doesn't want to be the one to actually find the crime scene they wanted to be

else but if that's the case if that's the psychology going on here why was Lizzie okay being the one finding her father it really can cut both ways now there was another neighbor who had come over at this time mrs. Churchill and she offered to go upstairs with Bridget now they first went to the Borden's room to get sheets to cover mr. Borden's body and when they went there the room right above the kitchen where supposably Lizzie heard something there was no mrs. Borden so they decide to check the rest of the upstairs they want to go

on to the front of the house a send those stairs and see if anyone is in the guest room or in Lizzie's room or in Emma's room and as soon as they ascend the stairs they see her Abby Borden laying face down in the guest room between the dresser and the bed she like Andrew had been bludgeoned to death with a hatchet now neither woman went in the room they immediately ran downstairs and waited for the police to arrive police were called at 11:15 and arrived shortly

the after and what they find is somewhat surprising it didn't appear as if there was a mad Intruder who went on a rampage in the home Abby appeared to have been killed an hour and a half to two hours before Andrew was killed meaning that the killer stayed in the home and laid in wait for Andrew without going after Bridget without going after Lizzie and nothing in the home was taken this appeared to be a very personal attack because

Abby had been struck 18 times and Andrew had been struck ten to eleven despite the jingle that would surface later about them being hit 42 41 times it was actually 18 for Abby and 10 to 11 for Andrew now the first person to be arrested in this case wasn't Lizzie she wasn't even a suspect on day one in fact the first person they arrested was an immigrant man who lived in town and there was really nothing pointing to this man but I have to believe that they're

looking at the time was surely something so gruesome had to have come from outside our community it was small-minded thinking that I'm sad to say still persist centuries later it didn't take long though for this immigrant man to be released and for the police to be forced to look at other suspects suspects close to the Borden's because after all it seemed that it was very personal it would only be a few more days before Lizzie came into investigator site

it's a pharmacist came forward and said that just the day before the murders Lizzie tried to buy some poison from them but they wouldn't sell it to her this combined with the fact that the entire family had been sick for days LED investigators to wonder if maybe Lizzie had been poisoning the family all along and when she couldn't get access to more or when the poison just wasn't working fast enough she considered a swifter method of execution now when they confronted Lizzie with this she said that she was buying the acid to clean some of her

beeps nothing more but this wasn't the only suspicious behavior of hers in the days leading up to and after the murder Lizzie was seen burning address in the days following her parents murder and she admitted to this saying that it was a dress that had been stained with paint and her sister has always backed up this story but it's a very strange incident that I don't think anyone could really look past if this had taken place today I don't even think that this would be an issue because the

dress that she was burning she probably would have never gotten a chance to burn because they would have found it during the initial search of the house and they would have known right away was it blood or was it paint maybe case closed we wouldn't be talking about it hundreds of years later but back in 1892 it was deemed improper to go through a woman's things so when they did the initial search of the house after the murders they didn't go through Lizzie's room to find a dress covered in blood or paint and they didn't search her person to see if she

maybe put a clean dress over one that was already bloodied to cover the stains now the case against Lizzie was only compounded when she did a pretty bad job accounting for her whereabouts that morning police said surely you would have heard two people being asked to death but I actually disagree with this bridge at the housekeeper was around the home too and she doesn't claim to hear anything now granted sometimes she was outside but blizzy says that sometimes she was in the barn neither one of them heard anything

thing but even more even if they had been in the home I don't think there would have been screaming for anyone to hear Abby was hit first on the side of her face almost like she was turning around to see who is in the room and then she was surprised by that first blow and that first blow knocked her down and the rest were to the back of her head she didn't even have a chance to scream or to make a noise likewise Andrew was presumed napping when the first blow came to him kill

him instantly there wouldn't have been much to hear whether there was sound or not Lizzie's excuse for not hearing the thump of a bee's body or any kind of commotion was because she said she was outside in the barn up in the storage Loft looking for fishing sinkers however even this story falls apart because when the police go and check that Loft police say there were no footprints in the sawdust up there and it appeared as if the entire

area had been undisturbed for some time all of this is what led to the mayor pulling Lizzie aside at her parents funeral and telling her that she was the Prime Suspect and they would be calling an inquest to see if they could bring charges against her for the murder of her parents now Lizzie is officially arrested on the 11th just one week after the murders and she's transferred to another town to await trial since Fall River didn't have any kind of prison or housing for women and this is kind of a good

fuel indicator to like set up her trial in those days women did not commit heinous crimes like this and surely not well-to-do church-going women they don't even have a place to house these people so it's like incomprehensible for them for someone like her to commit a crime like this now she had to wait almost a year in prison before her trial began on June 5th 1893 when she did finally get there though she had the Dream Team before the dream team was even a

a thing one of her three lawyers was a former governor who had actually appointed the judge on her trial and her lawyers went to work and actually got a lot of stuff in her case deemed inadmissible but there were two key points that the prosecution was not allowed to bring in because of her lawyers work now the first remember how I told you that Lizzie said that she was in the barn looking for some kind of fishing stuff when the murders happened well she also had told another person that she was doing something else

another part of the barn or the house and the prosecution wanted to use this to point to this as proof of her lying saying she's telling everyone different stories about her Alibis but she had been given morphine as a sedative after everything had happened but before talking to police so her lawyers say you can't listen to anything she said because she was on drugs at the time none of it can be taken as proof or as testimony so all of that gets thrown out the second important thing is they also

got the entire testimony from that pharmacist about Lizzie trying to buy poison the day before the murder thrown out because get this it was ruled that the means of killing were two different poison versus axing somebody and because they didn't occur on the same day they said it was totally irrelevant both of those points seem bananas to me because if you're going to kill somebody just cause you're trying a new method on the next day doesn't mean you didn't do it but

her lawyers were earning their money and so that entire thing got thrown out so really what the da had was all circumstantial stuff to go on they basically said she had motive she wanted his money she was tired of living like a poor person when they had money to spend she wanted to spend the money and they said that she hated her stepmom they also said she had opportunity she was the only one in the house at the time now they're saying that Bridget was technically outside the house but they're saying that she was

home she admits to being home when this happened it's unlikely that a random person would have come in and not taken anything and according to them there were no other obvious suspects but don't worry we'll get back to that later during the opening statements Lizzie ended up fainting in the court now either she really did or she could have been putting on a little bit of a show because one of the things the prosecutor pointed to in his remarks was that Lizzie didn't even faint or become weary when she found

her parents dead so surely he said this is a sign of her guilt because any woman would so was she really overwhelmed by the gravity of it all or was she giving them exactly what they wanted to see this episode was made possible by simply safe if you've been thinking about your home security there is no better time to get it than right now starting this week Simply Safe home security is giving crime junkie listeners exclusive deals for Black Friday

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as the trial proceeded we learn more of what the DA has they also found a hatchet in the house missing its wooden handle and Ashes had been thrown on it police believe in attempt to make it look dirty old and unused in an unusual move for the time they actually exhumed the bodies of Andrew and Abby boiled off their skin and try to make comparisons between the hatchet that they found and their wounds I mean the

it's in this courtroom were seriously epic for the time and I think it's part of the reason why this case has lived on for so long and even though they kind of fit the wounds the wounds are really so large so gaping that you couldn't make any real conclusions now when they do all of these theatrics when they bring out the skulls of her parents with their flesh boiled off Lizzie faints again and again

she could be faking it but also your parents skulls with their flesh boiled off seems like kind of a legit reason to lose it now much of the trial transcripts are actually available online but there are a couple of things that I want to point out that I found really interesting when Bridget is on the stand there's a big deal made about what Lizzie was wearing the day of the murders and it's a little hard to follow because Lizzie's lawyers keep objecting like crazy but I think the point the

you can't rise to make is that Lizzie wasn't wearing her normal day dress remember this is the 1800s you had like three dresses your everyday dress maybe your backup dress and a fancy dress so I think what they were trying to point out is that for some reason on this day Lizzie isn't wearing the clothes she normally did day today the insinuation being that Lizzy couldn't wear her dress that she normally War because it was likely covered in blood and then they think that that's the dress that she later burned

and another point that the prosecution brings up and honestly it's the point that probably sticks with me the most even though Liz he's looking real shady at this point a lot of this I can get past but this next thing this thing is a sticking point for me

when Emma is on the stand Lizzy sister who's still a hundred percent standing by her and saying there's no way she did this she is asked about the note Abby Borden supposedly got that morning we now know that Abby was likely killed around 9:00 or 9:30 if you remember from the beginning of the story when Andrew gets home Bridget over here is Andrew and Lizzie talking and when Andrew asked Lizzie were Abby was she tells him that she had gotten a note about a sick friend had gone to visit now

he stuck by this story and asserts that this note came but Abby must have been killed before she got the chance to go so when Emma is on the stand they Grill her hard about this note asking her okay if Lizzie wasn't just flat-out lying because she knew her stepmom was already dead in the bedroom upstairs where is this note who wrote this note who delivered the note give us anything and Emma has to admit that she doesn't know she said they put an ad out in the paper asking for the writer or the

the deliverer of the note to come forward but no one ever did Even though Emma got grilled by the prosecution on this point she really was a defense witness they brought her up to testify to Lizzie's character she said she didn't want her dad's money she wouldn't have killed him it's true that she didn't like her stepmom but not enough to kill her and if the reason for killing them was hating her stepmom why on Earth would she kill her Dad too and Emma wasn't the only one to say these things the defense had a long line of character Witnesses for Liz

all portraying her as a sweet Christian Sunday school teacher and you guys it worked it took just 90 minutes for the jury to deliberate and despite the prosecution's case and that note that note I just cannot stop thinking about they found her not guilty upon hearing the verdict Lizzy laid her head on the railing in front of her and just wept now just because the court found her not guilty didn't mean hurt

town did with the exception of a few close family members and friends she was basically ostracized but she refused to leave Fall River after inheriting her father's money she finally bought that nice house on the hill where her and her sister lived for a long time together until they eventually had a falling out and no one knows what it was about exactly but by the end of their lives Emma and Lizzie refused to

and it seemed that Emma was more the one mad at Lizzy saying she would never set foot into their house again until Lizzie left but even when she hated her even saying all this she still stood by her and said her sister was innocent of the murders like in all of the cases we see today if police and prosecution lose they don't go back and reinvestigate just because the jury said that they got the wrong person they say well we did our job the jurors got it wrong

wrong so we're calling it closed they never investigated any other suspect but over the next Century many people would put forward suspects of their own the first being Uncle John now he had told police that he was visiting a sick relative down the road from the Borden's at the time of the double murder now he also had mentioned ones that he was with the town doctor but that's the same town doctor that was at the Borden home looking over the bodies

so it doesn't totally add up Uncle John also had a failing business which apparently he and Andrew had argued about the night before I don't know if he was asking for money or if Andrew had some stake in his business but they had a big fight about the business in general there are two main authors who put this Theory forward about Uncle John being the killer Beverly falstad and Rich Little they say it was likely an act of rage and they theorize that while Abby was

leaning up his guest room maybe she said something kind of snarky to him apparently that was kind of in her personality and then he attacked her then he left the house to create an alibi and came back with the intention of killing Andrew because in his mind he knew that if Andrew came home and found his wife dead he would know that John did it he wouldn't put place by him on any of his kids like Lizzie John had a couple of changing stories about his Alibi when he returned home along with his changing a lot

this author has some kind of wild theories that go along with this he basically thinks that John and Bridget the housekeeper might have been having an affair and he thinks Bridget knew that he committed the crimes because she was wandering around the house she was cleaning the windows and this to them and people who believe this theory is why maybe Bridget stood by Lizzie for so long because there was a lot of circumstantial evidence against Lizzie she was burning the dress she may or may not have been there

as far as Bridget knows Bridget locked all of the doors and Lizzie was the only one home but she was adamant Lizzie didn't do it was she adamant that Lizzie didn't do it because she knew who really did but he was her lover and she didn't want to give him up these authors have written an entire book dedicated to this Theory called Cold Case closed but they aren't the only ones with theories some people believe that Bridget herself committed the crimes because she was sick of her working conditions after all if Lizzie

a suspect just for being home wasn't Bridget in the same house with the two with all the same access to people and hatchets that Lizzie might have had along with that there's a theory that dr. Bowen himself the doctor from across the street committed the crimes apparently he was seen driving really fast in a radically in his Carriage away from the scene earlier in the day before he was called there on official Duty yet another person posed that Andrew had an illegitimate son named

Billy now Billy according to these theories has some kind of mental issues and what they say is that he had come and killed Andrew because Andrew was talking about putting him out of his will and he wanted to get to him before or maybe just his mental issues played into this and in this Theory Lizzie supposably knows that he killed them and was actually covering for him some people say Emma did it and she wasn't really at a house party some say that Emma and Lizzie planned it together and there are people who say

no we do believe it was a stranger who came into the house maybe even the same one who stole money for them months earlier there's no evidence that any of these people did it or that any of these theories are true but then again there's no real evidence that Lizzie did it either and after all she was acquitted I'm not sure who the real killer is but I am sure that there wasn't enough investigating into these other suspects or we might have more answers today and I always want you crying

junkies to be asking questions about cases you think you know Lizzie ended up dying at age 67 and her sister Emma passed away just a couple of days following her when Lizzie died she left most of her father's Fortune to an animal rescue because she was all about saving the puppets so I can get behind that no matter who she was in life

I'm going to post an entire laundry list of suspects and theories that I couldn't even get into in today's episode so make sure you go to our website crime junkie podcast.com check out all those theories and then please get with us on social media to tell us what you think happened and who you think the Killer really is and make sure you're following us on social signed up for our newsletter or on our patreon because we're going to be announcing the reopening of our merch store

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next week with another episode but if you need a pick me up and you want to stick around for an amazing adoption story we've got a brand new puppet of the month up next

this week's episode of crime junkie was written and hosted by me all of our editing and sound production was done by David flowers and all of our music including our theme comes from Justin Daniel crime junkie is an audio track production so what do you think Chuck do you approve

I'm back I know I couldn't be left alone with prophet of the month I had to pull you out of retirement specifically for this segment yes and I'm so glad you did because I found the most adorable fluffy Ewok looking puppet I think we've ever featured I spoke to his mom Michelle earlier this week and got his whole story are you ready I am more than ready

D okay so his mom Michelle had gone through a lot in her life recently and that included seven major facial reconstruction surgeries right and she was really feeling down on herself struggling we take that back story what happened to Michelle's face she didn't tell me and I felt rude asking so I was asking about her dog first oh my God Michelle tweet us email us DMs like II need some back story I hear what happened to you I hope you're okay go on so she was

down on herself and was struggling to accept the way she looked after all these surgeries and she decided that she needed to put some good Juju out there to try to turn herself around which like girl so proud of you like that is a huge decision and yeah it I know it doesn't come easily yeah like way to not make it like I mean like to be feeling bad about yourself and like wanting to just do something good is like I mean I can't like I Just Praise that mentality so much totally and a friend had mentioned that a local rescue was looking for Foster

hers and she thought it was a perfect opportunity to shift her Focus off of her own tragedy and for her time and energy and love into a special needs and I feel about they all coming so she got all set up and went over to pick up her first Foster and that's when she met Bentley and he was this tiny shell of a white dog who was huddled up in the corner shaking with his tail between his legs and Michelle said even though she

into this just to Foster dogs at that moment she knew that they were meant for each other as soon as she thought so Bentley has been surrendered to the shelter and had suffered severe neglect before he had gotten there he had infections in both his eyes and his ears and his fur was so mad at that he had to be shaved and the rescue had said that he didn't really interact with any of the dogs or even

many of the volunteers and mostly he just stood in the corner Frozen he was not adjusting well to the environment and Ashley I chose this puppet specifically for you because you and Michelle have something in common I was going to ask if it was our birthday but then you would say we all three have something in common right so it's not a birthday what is it but you both love changing the lyrics to songs this thing about your dog oh my God she does it to yes and like immediately

so Michelle said that on her drive home with Bentley she sang a song about Bentley would you change to Benny at this point yeah to the tune of All About That Bass which I'm not super familiar with so I'm gonna try to sing it oh my God I'm going to love this so much and it's not like the chorus either so like I'm really rusty so I apologize if I completely butcher this Meghan Trainor this is not like my thing this is Ashley's

I would also like to point out that it works perfectly with sexy back I'm Justin Timberlake which I know much better no no I love this I'm bringing Betty back oh yes yes ma'am so Michelle work with Bentley for about a month when a family came forward who was interested in adopting him

and knows heartbroken but reminder herself that this is what she signed up for and then the adoption fell through well good I thought when you said she saw him a new they're meant to be together that she just like filled out the adoption paperwork I didn't know we were still like hanging on a thread here yeah so we were still planning on like this as short term but as soon as they know as soon as she started singing Meghan Trainor to her dog it was over okay so as soon as she heard that the adoption fell

through she signed the papers yes thank you thank you you should have signed it right after I'm bringing Benny back but here's the problem the name Bentley and Benny just wasn't working he wasn't responding to it at all yeah I don't blame Em I'm not into it either what's his name now so Michelle tried a couple of other names and nothing stuck until one day on the phone with a friend and shouted Leroy Jenkins which I feel super old because I had to Google this do you know the

friends Ashley yeah it's like a video game right where this guy's like running around and he like just yells Leeroy Jenkins like kills everybody after here after they like get all the way to the end of this game kind of so again I did a Google and there's like a Wikipedia on it and basically yeah like a bunch of guys are like planning a campaign in like World of Warcraft and supposedly does other their friend who might be Leeroy Jenkins I'm not really sure was away getting food while they were planning like this attack and

and when he gets back he just like bursts in instead of following their attack plan and yells

Leroy Jenkins and they're like taping it so you can watch it on YouTube or something again I'm super old and so it's like a meme and so she shouted this on the phone with her friend like just kind of randomly which she said she's wants to do and the puppet came running oh my God stop it oh my God he just ran in and so I asked you like my name but you know what

so I asked Michelle what Leroy absolutely loves and she said that she got him this Lambie Choi which is just a little cushy Lambie and she actually stockpiled them because she knew like dogs go through a lot of toys if this is his favorite I went have backups until he found the stash oh my God stop it yes I actually in the pictures that I sent you there's a picture of him holding Lambie and it's like still on the cardboard that you buy like dog toys on wait let me go through these pictures because there's a lot

them and I'll my God he's got this like tiny round white fluffy head only that there is the Sheep found it found it yeah so he found the lambie's - and now he has five of them and every night my God there's a picture of him like sleeping in a pile of lamia so every night he takes them one by one to Michelle's bed and buries them in the blankets and then every morning the great Lambie migration happens

he takes them all back to the couch oh my God I love this little guy and Michelle also said that she recently took him to the beach and it was the happiest she's ever seen another Soul at Ashley describe nature of Leroy on the beach for me oh my God so Leeroy Jenkins is it's like this beautiful black and white picture of a beach and he's literally laying like in savasana if anyone does yoga like he is flat I got tomic's he's got two Yanks 4 Dodgers

with his legs spread out behind him and his face just like planted like in the sand and he looks like he's passed out and the happiest dog he's ever been like he's living his lie almost cried when I saw that that picture best life and that picture oh and there's another picture of him in sand oh my God he lucked out so much finding the best home ever yeah so Michelle included some pictures with others one time wait there's one of him tucked in his sheets are those

Brooklyn and sheets I think they're Brooklyn and sheets because I have the windowpane says looks exactly like that you a Brooklyn enforcing you get a girl so Michelle includes a picture of him with his hair all matted and and like devastatingly likes add a picture a couple pictures of him when he was shaving my God that's him yeah yeah I know you guys I'm posting I normally just pick like a couple of pictures and

every single picture that Michelle put on the blog and this before-and-after picture is the craziest thing I've ever seen and it like it's blowing my mind what a little love and a cone can do truly truly I think Patrick Hines has known to say put a comb through moniker running down through here like that has happened for Leroy a million times oh I am so happy for you Michelle you guys you literally found your soul mate I mean I think everyone when they get a

a dog that you find her soul mate and your dog oh definitely and Michelle said that she knows that she rescued Leroy and taught him how to be the dog again but like all of our prep it owners say We rescued her right back and after all that she had been through he really showed her how much good there still was in the world oh you guys I need to go hug Charlie I'm I love this one thank you so much for submitting Michelle thank you Michelle we love you guys we love the prep it's

thanks to Simply Safe for being a sponsor of crime junkie and making today's episode possible