The foresight with that, that's smart.
Like in the moment a lot of people wouldn't have thought of that as I think.
Wow.
You'd like to think that you would in the moment do the things that, you know,
help the situation and maybe don't make it worse by adding in another potential victim.
But I mean, who can say what they would do?
Seriously, I was watching a documentary on horror movies last night and that was one of the things
that's like people always yell at the screen like, I would never do that.
I would never be that stupid.
Like you would always and forever be that dumb.
Yeah, you probably will.
Hi Cassie.
Hi Caitlyn.
Hi creepy people.
Hello.
How you doing out there?
How you doing?
This is PNW Haunts and Homicides.
Where we chat about true crimes, the paranormal, it’s officially spooky season,
So definitely some spooky stuff.
Do you have a spooky episode for us today?
Actually, I'll say a little bit spooky.
Oh.
I'm so excited.
I'm excited.
I love spooky stuff.
Yeah, I don't know if you'll love how this one goes spooky,
but I'm listening.
Is it at least Pacific Northwest?
Well, yeah.
Okay, good.
Yeah.
Because that's what we talk about here.
Yeah.
Also that.
Yeah.
We also do a tarot reading at the end of every episode for a little bit of deeper insight to our topic.
We do.
It's a thing that we do also as well.
Another spooky thing that we do.
Yes.
Because we're spooky.
It's spooky.
Okay.
Yeah.
We've got a real witchy vibe going on over here with the tarot.
So yeah, we do.
The altar is immaculate.
It is.
And Caitlyn did it all by herself.
It's only been set up for like two weeks.
So she's really excited about this one.
You guys got and moved around a little bit.
I didn't know I was setting it up for this one, but I caught a vibe.
She did so.
Here we are.
So make sure you go look at the altar on the video, either on YouTube or Patreon, or you can see.
Or both.
Yeah, or both.
It's with the double whammy.
Or you can see it on Instagram.
You can see little clips of it.
Make sure you look with your eyeballs, your peepers, jeepers, peepers, creepers.
We'll cut them.
All right.
I'm going to get into it.
Okay.
Cheers.
Cheers for the last happy moment for an hour.
This one is like slightly long.
It might be a little bit more than an hour.
She's horrified.
I'm ready.
Okay.
Fantastic.
Today we're going to talk about Jake Bird.
And no, I'm not talking about the Colorado Rockies right-hander.
Who by the way, reportedly signed his friend's earbooks, saved this autograph for when I'm playing
in the major leagues at the end of his second grade year when he was just eight years old.
Oh, that is so freaking cute.
I don't know who that is, but that's so cute.
Yeah.
I was like, what even sport is she talking about?
Yeah.
I wasn't even sure if that was going to be something that you would be able to figure out from context.
This is not a sportsing podcast.
But if you were hoping that I might say sportsing, at least once this episode,
I've now met your expectations twice over.
So you're welcome.
We're here for you.
No, he's a baseball player.
Okay.
Yeah.
I just had to bring it up because despite being one of the most prolific killers in US history based on his confessions,
the baseball player is far more heavily represented in the results from your average search engine.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
I'm gave it a “Goog" and I was like, no, not that Jake Bird.
But thank you.
I would be interested to know like the stats on people who watch sports and listen to True Crime.
Like are the pools very vastly different in number?
We might find out.
Oh.
I think the SEO.
Yeah.
I'm going to have to put the Jake Bird in the show notes and we'll just see what happens with that.
Yeah.
So it's funny.
I've kind of know.
I've come across this in my spooky research.
I don't know the full thing.
I obviously did not research this.
What?
You came across what?
I've come across Jake Bird of my spooky research.
The baseball player.
No.
Oh.
Okay.
Still not a sporting podcast.
I don't know a lot.
I've read like, you know, a little, a little paragraph or two on things.
Okay.
So I'm excited.
Yeah.
Kind of.
Yeah.
I love that even the baseball player by the same name currently hails from the PNW.
Ooh.
You know, Colorado Rockies.
Yeah.
That's PNW, sure.
Yeah.
And of course, also his confidence, which apparently took root at a very young age.
That's called manifesting.
Right.
He did it.
I think that's about all that he has in common with the Jake Bird.
We'll talk about today.
Who's death predates the other Jake Bird, the baseball player one, his career in the MLB by
about five decades.
So there couldn't be less in common or related with these two just to be abundantly clear.
I love how both like this episode and your last episode, you're like, we have to separate
these names.
And they're not related.
Yeah.
It's like that's kind of the running theme I like with my recent episodes.
I'm okay with it.
I guess I've been on a little bit more of an old tiny kick lately.
I don't know.
I am still trying to dart around so we get to visit a variety of places.
And I have some case recommendations that I'll be working on that are from a more modern
era.
Okay.
So we do have some more modern stuff coming, but were they recommendations for my creepy
people?
Yeah.
Well, some of them, I'm not going to promise like my next episode is a recommendation.
Yeah.
I'm working on some things that people have asked for or suggested.
So I'm not.
I'm ignoring you all.
I just wanted to say I'd personally love seeing our email fill up with any recommendations
that you have.
Yeah, there's quite a few in there.
Yeah.
Anything you want us to cover for future, but especially if you stumble upon anything that would
be helpful source material.
Because I do, I do sometimes find that there are cases that people are really interested
in.
And the reason they're so interested is that they found like one good article that maybe
links to another looks on that my way.
Yeah, send it, send it all.
Get me started off.
Just send us a list of resources to pull from.
You just via our research assistance that would be the entiest.
We're currently in the market.
Yeah.
So if you're interested.
Uh-huh.
Did I wink?
Okay.
I don't know.
Hard to say.
I can't wink.
It's actually dangerous right now because I've magnets on my eyes, but your eyelashes will
just fly off if you try to.
Yeah.
Jake Bird was born December 14, 1901.
Supposedly in Greenwood, Louisiana, though many statements he made were very vague, just
somewhere in rural Louisiana.
Just somewhere over there.
Somewhere in that.
You know, really matter over there.
I feel like I'm also never surprised when I learned that my research subject is or involves
a “Sag."
Yeah.
Sagittarius, as if you're nasty.
I love them.
I love you, Sages that aren't murderers.
Yeah.
Well, I'm really intrigued by the prevalence amongst serial killers.
Yeah.
I'm just like, what is it about cosmic timing or maybe something else in their environment?
Like, are you guys born in winter and you don't like winter?
Isn't Taylor Swift the Sagittarius?
Oh, well, now I have a whole host of concerns.
I'm getting, getting, getting.
She might end up on our pod one day for a different reason other than us being Swifties.
Oh, boy.
Whatever, it's really not that important to our story in terms of because we're not going
to focus on astrology.
But yeah, this time.
Speaking of things that are perhaps interesting for my hat rack, but perhaps not the most important
to the story, you got to appease the hat rack.
A piece?
Is that the right word?
Yeah.
I don't think I've ever used that word.
I believe it's good.
Yeah.
No, that fits.
My vocabulary is just expanding thanks to Caitlyn.
Oh, I don't know that I can take credit for all of that.
Detritus...
Okay, I mean, like I may have played a part.
Knowing that we're hoping to take a trip out to good ol', NOLA next year, I just had to see
how far away Greenwood was from New Orleans.
These are the things I think about because I'm like, we're going to be in New Orleans next
fall.
And it's about five hours for reference.
Oh, okay.
It's probably not going to visit, but...
No.
Problems us not.
I feel like everyone's getting a real up close in person.
And look at the ADHD of it all.
Yeah, that's okay.
That's why they come.
Yeah.
Also, I don't know, like if you want us to come to New Orleans, you know, if you want to
come to New Orleans, we're going to be at hopefully a spooky podcast convention.
So I don't know.
This is a really great time to probably just put our podcast on like auto play over and over
again.
Almost with that sweet, sweet ad revenue.
Don't give the ads too.
Keep them on.
It's fine.
You know, subscribe on Patreon.
That's true.
It is all ad free on Patreon.
So there's that beyond that, there are frustratingly few details available that have been confirmed
about his early life.
Here they are.
He was raised by Charles and Delie bird.
Charles Charles.
Charles.
Every time.
He also had three brothers Andrew, Henry, and Lenny.
And then he was raised by Charles and Lenny.
So back then, see this is my goal is to just skip town and work for my laptop all over the country.
So back then, I would have worked on trains.
Yeah.
What you're saying.
Get on a train.
Do crime.
Okay.
Well, steps one and two.
But without the crime.
Oh, maybe some crime.
Weed to legal in a lot of places.
No, come on.
It's not like they don't know.
I don't get high.
We're definitely about to start another show that may or may not center on.
The topic.
I don't know.
Stay tuned.
I don't know.
By the time he turned 45, he had already spent 31 years behind bars for various crimes, including
multiple assaults, burglary, and even attempted murder.
Okay.
So I saw that face.
I saw that face in my mind as I was writing this.
So my next sentence is let me know if I need to repeat that because it's a little bit mind blowing.
I was trying to math.
Yeah.
45 years old.
And he has been incarcerated for 31 years of his life.
So he was 14.
14 years.
He essentially.
Yeah.
There's like 14 years of his life sporadically, somewhere throughout those 45 years that he was not
imprisoned.
Oh, I wonder like how young he was.
Are you going to talk about it?
I guess pretty young.
The bulk of his criminal history is not when he would have been starting out.
I'm not going to get into a ton of like any of his early crimes, but you know, just remember
at 45, we've got multiple assaults, burglary, and even attempted murder.
So like, you know, he's kind of working his way through building a quite the rap sheet.
After his release from jail in 1947, he took to working on the railroad near Tacoma, Washington.
Oh.
Yeah.
Lots of great things happening in Tacoma.
I don't talk about them, but.
And Jake Bird would eventually again be arrested.
I know.
I was shocked too, you guys.
He was arrested in Tacoma on October 30, 1947, just a few days after arriving to the area.
And a day before hell.
I know.
I would.
My mind was blown.
I was not looking for anything.
Theme at home.
And I could not have picked anything more on brand for spooky season because when we get
there, and I will tell you, I was partway through already writing some of my notes from articles
and stuff that I had found.
And I was like, I'm sorry.
What's this now?
There's so much more.
Okay.
I was absolutely dying.
I was like, you have got to be kidding.
It just, it's like a true crime story made in the lab for me to talk about during the month
of October.
I mean, it's awful, but I'm very excited to tell you about it.
That night, Bertha Kludt, a widow in her 50s who worked at a bakery and her 17 year old daughter,
Beverly, who had just recently graduated, were sleeping soundly.
End of story.
Okay.
No, I'm, it keeps going.
They lived on 21st Street in Tacoma.
I'm going to refer to them as now, which always makes me think of it's always sunny in Philadelphia.
It's such a bird, Dee.
Oh, I always think of the [sings] b-b-b-bird bird bird! But I digress.
He snuck onto their property and because it's old timey and this is actually just a thing
that happens actually in more than one case that I've talked about of this nature, he
found an axe in their wood shed before slinking into their home through the unlocked backdoor.
So lots of old timey features here.
People just had axes.
There's, you know, chop chop and stuff.
Unlocked doors because I, the 1940s of it all.
Though he'd taken great pains to be as quiet as possible, Bertha screamed when she came
across the strange man in her home.
Because one does.
Mrs. Steincipher phoned the police when she heard the sounds of a struggle in her neighbor's
home.
Oh, that was so sweet.
She's probably like, this is like a widowed single mother with a teenage daughter.
Yeah.
Like, I'm getting on the horn.
Oh.
I know.
God.
Just heartbreaking.
I always make fun of like note the nosy neighbor thing, but like, no, this is smart.
Sometimes you just want a nosy neighbor.
But it's just smart because literally this next sentence, she turned out her own lights
when she saw the silhouette of a man through the window of the club family home.
Okay.
So she's basically like, I don't want this guy to see me and get tipped off that like,
somebody's aware of his presence or obviously come after her or, you know, I just thought
the foresight with that, that's smart.
Like in the moment, a lot of people wouldn't have thought of that.
I think, wow, you'd like to think that you would in the moment do the things that, you
know, help the situation and maybe don't make it worse by adding in another potential
victim.
Yes.
I mean, who can say what they would do?
Seriously, I was watching a documentary on horror movies last night.
And that was one of the things is like, people always yell at the screen like, I would never
do that.
I would never be that stupid.
Like you would always and forever be that dumb.
Yeah, you probably would.
Yeah, because I think a lot of us would, you wouldn't be Mrs. Stein, Steine Sifer.
Steine Sifer.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Don't look at my notes because I don't know about the spelling here.
That's a cool last name.
Yeah.
I know.
I was like, yeah, your beer episode.
Okay.
So beer and Sifer.
Sifer.
Oh.
Like a, like a cryptic code situation.
I was like, okay.
That is cool.
I know.
She aspires.
That was so smart.
No.
Conspiracy.
She was very German spy.
Right.
Oh, in 1947, I'm Yikes.
She was cool though.
Yeah.
That was fine.
The war was over.
Just in case the title will be end up choosing for the episode isn't adequate enough of a
giveaway regarding the nature of his crimes.
They were absolutely brutal because, you know, the whole acts situation.
Fucking bird.
Dirty bird.
Such a bird.
Ugh.
He would end up facing charges for two murders.
And though he would only be convicted for one, he reportedly claimed responsibility for
up to 44.
44?
I don't think it's exactly a spoiler, but eventually the charges were brought for the slaying
of these two women, Bertha and Beverly in their home the night before Halloween in 1947,
which as previously mentioned has a super spooky vibe to it.
To be honest, I had no idea about the Halloween connection.
Again, just want to reiterate, wasn't looking for that, which I feel like now lady Doth
protest too much, but I don't think so because we know she covered like Christmas crime during
the summertime.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just, I didn't realize in the name when I got to that point in my research, I was
like, well, no time like the present spooky season.
We don't plan a whole lot around here.
Things just kind of happen.
Yeah.
They either happen or they just don't.
They've been happening for, you know, almost four years now, so we've had a pretty good
job.
We've done okay for ourselves.
We're not unimpressed.
As I said previously, the crimes he detailed to law enforcement would make him, if his statements
were truthful, one of the more prolific serial killers in US history.
It's his MO in particular that is giving the Ick in this case.
I mean, there's plenty of Ick with the sky.
I mean, just be clear, but how he reportedly killed these women and other victims allegedly
is just really brutal.
He beat his victims with an axe or stab them because that's Axis or it's a real stabby
weapon.
Sharp.
Yeah.
It's just a gruesome and personal way to take another human's life.
Not that there's a good way to do it to be clear, but I just feel like that always kind of
gets to me because you're interacting with this person in the last moments of their life,
literally fighting for their life and it's probably going to take more than one axe blow.
It's like every single time you do that, you are making a conscious choice.
That's the part that I feel like, you know, I don't know, you could just run away at a certain
point.
I feel like that's why it bothers me.
Were you there to rob them?
I mean, at Axe Point?
Right.
I mean, just seems, I don't know.
Well, officers Andrew Sabutis, just quite a name.
Sabutis.
It looks like it kind of the way that spelled is kind of like Sabutis.
Sabutis.
And Evan Skip Davies.
No, slow himself.
I like that name.
Okay.
I'm Evan Skip Davies.
Yes, he is.
You'll remember my name.
I don't know why he got Southern-ish.
They responded to the disturbance and found Jake fleeing the house, covered in blood.
So he was like caught, literally, right?
Yeah.
A chase through neighborhood yards ensued, but he was finally subdued in an alley after
injuring himself pretty badly.
I mean, mainly just a flesh wound, but I would imagine it blood a lot.
It sounds like he kind of dragged his face over.
I just like, okay.
Yeah, we all feel so bad.
I hope it hurt.
I know.
Yeah.
Anyways, that might be where you'd expect him to surrender without additional struggle.
And boy, would you be wrong.
And like, isn't your whole face bleeding?
He charged the pair of law enforcement officers, initially injuring both of them with the switchblade.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
The notice was stabbed in the shoulder and Evan's hand was slashed in the encounter.
Sounds like somebody's going to need a shot, which funny enough, I learned was developed
in the 1920s and widely used during World War One.
Oh, okay.
So they did have a world war two.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So they did have it though.
They had the test shot.
Yeah, okay.
I had to know.
Well, it was like pretty new, yeah.
Well, no, it would have been around for almost 30 years.
Yeah.
They, I mean, they had widely used it during World War Two, which had ended just a couple
of years prior at this point.
Okay.
So I just, I felt like I needed to situate a couple of things for myself within the historical
timeline.
Yeah.
A lot of hand gestures.
It's helping me.
It's helping me learn the timeline.
Yeah.
So I'm really bad at like historical timelines.
Well, and there's certain things like a tetanus shot.
I mean, that has been around obviously for our entire lifetime.
But when you come across these stories and you're like, oh, I thought to myself, oh, he's
got to go get a tetanus shot.
And I was like, yeah, tetanus shots.
This is why I'm always like, did they have cards?
I know.
I need to know.
I was pretty confident that I was like, I don't know the exact year.
Sabutus nailed him with a punch to the jaw and kicked him in the groin.
Yeah.
Which is probably exactly what I would do to someone who had stabbed me in the shoulder
if I'm being honest.
These moves were apparently very effective because officers, Sabutus, happened to be a prize
fighter.
Oh my god, I was literally picturing him like doing.
I know.
I'm like, poor.
And then not karate.
Oh, kick.
I'm kicking under the table.
I can't see.
Kick.
And while I am not, I still have to insist that no one pushed their luck by even attempting
to stab me.
I'm just going to say something.
There info is in our show notes.
Unfortunately, the officers had been too late
Unfortunately, the officers had been too late to save Bertha and Beverly.
Bertha and Beverly.
I know.
Well, we knew that was coming.
I know. Well, we knew that was coming.
I know.
Well, we knew that was coming.
Yeah, but still.
Okay, this next part.
You didn't know this was coming.
But here she is.
Bertha's head had been battered.
She could be too late to get battered.
This story kind of makes him sound like a real dumbass at first glance.
However, he was such a good liar that Lyon said he was almost tempted to believe his story.
Until they processed one particular piece of forensic evidence.
And at this point, I'm going, I'm sorry, processing forensic evidence.
Really?
What?
What kind of processing?
1940s of it all.
The pans he had been wearing apparently were found to be littered with brain matter.
When they were processed, but then 1940s era CSI team.
So I don't know what their process for identifying brain matter was at that point in history.
But they had little microscopes, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But wowsers.
That is so horrible.
Wowsers all over your trousers.
That is.
Cute.
Yeah, progressed.
Also, Lyon is going to believe all that.
Lyon.
I know.
Lyon.
Come on.
Yeah.
Only after this was brought to his attention, did he confess to the killings?
He's like, oh, I guess they kind of had me like, you know, red handed.
I mean, they already did.
But then, you know, like again, they're like, yeah, no.
But what, like we know you did.
We know you did it.
He had brains on your pants.
Yeah.
Where did that come from?
Yeah.
Listen, if you have a smother, totally reasonable explanation for that, we are all ears.
At the time of his arrest, he already had quite the rap sheet, including Berglery's assaults
and attempted murder, just in case anyone straight to jail.
What?
38, wait, how many years have it been?
31 out of the 45.
Insanity.
31, like October 31st to Halloween.
It's funny you mentioned that.
He was charged on October 31st, 1947 with Bertha's murder.
Literally the next day.
Okay, I was like, wait, is this the next year or literally the next day?
The next day.
Yeah.
Wow, they did that processing of the brain matter really fast.
Well, they were like, they immediately had his clothing, they had him in university.
And they're like, yeah, that's definitely brain matter.
Wow.
In order to qualify for the death penalty, the prosecution would need to prove that her death
was the result of a premeditated murder.
Bird was held in the Tacoma City jail without bail until trial after pleading not guilty
at his agreement.
Just certainly a plea that you could enter.
Didn't he confess?
And then he was just kidding, not guilty.
A lot of people confess and then still plead not guilty.
That's not necessarily unique, but it's kind of like, bro.
Yeah, bro.
I mean, I guess it depends on how the confession was extracted from the person, but they didn't
have to work that hard.
Yeah, trust me.
It didn't sound like it.
This trial began on November 24th, 1947 in the Pierce County Superior Court, only lasting
two and a half days.
So are doing things wrong, like so fast.
Trials were just so much quicker back then, seemingly.
They probably had less of them, you know?
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, I think that tracks.
His attorney supposedly asked for not only a change of venue, but to be removed from
the trial as his counsel.
Not why?
Um, it's not perhaps totally clear, but he really didn't, he just did not want, he didn't
want anything to do with the trial.
I do.
Who would?
Like, especially back then, how many of those people have you had to like defend?
Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
I don't, I don't, I don't, I can't say exactly what the track record was.
I mean, I, maybe I, maybe I'll look into it, but the judge denied both.
So that had to have made for some pretty awkward interactions thereafter.
I feel like that's like a huge like, um, what am I trying to say?
Yeah, I, you know, it's not really, um, it's not really a conflict of interest per
say.
Yeah, that's what my brain was thinking, but something like, yeah, it's almost setting him
up for an appeal though.
Yeah, that's because he's, you know, it seems like it's setting him up for the trial.
The defense that he had, you know, inadequate counsel.
Yeah, because if someone doesn't want to defend you, are they going to do a job defending
you?
Probably not.
He did make some statements and you're like, bro, bro, this is your attorney.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, but I mean, also we all know you're guilty, but also this man's life is on the line.
You know, if you don't defend him well, it's the difference between life and prison
and, you know, the death penalty, which they tended to carry out a lot.
Or back then, which is, you know, sitting around in jail for 40 years, waiting to die.
No.
Later in court, birds attorney, James W. Seldon, apparently only begrudgingly representing
him, maintained that his signed confession had been obtained under duress and was therefore
inadmissible.
Okay.
I mean, if you consider being presented the fact that there's brains on your pants, duress,
maybe, but I would be in duress at that point.
But mostly I'd be like, how did they get my pants and why are there brains on them?
We just live very different lives.
Yeah.
Jake and I.
Yeah.
I hope so.
Judge Edward D. Hodg, however, disagreed, admitting the confession into evidence.
So, you know, there's, there's like a little hinting about, you know, maybe some old time
e-racism because I don't know if I certainly haven't mentioned it up to this point.
But I'm curious if you knew about this case.
Jake Bird was a black man.
Yes.
I know that.
Okay.
And I haven't asked or said anything because I knew maybe there was going to be a, there's a big
review.
Yeah, there's a big review.
This is part of the two paragraphs that I read about this case.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
On November 26, 1947, after deliberating for only 35 minutes, which is an insanely short time
by today's standards.
Seriously.
Yeah.
The jury found Jake Bird guilty of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty before
the court.
Wow.
In 35 minutes.
Yeah.
Well, remember, this is only the one murder because this, this is something that still can
be done today, but it was very common at this point in history from what I have like
read and what I came across in my research.
They would, in a multiple murder scenario, they would frequently hold charges for the additional
victims just so that it's like, okay, if for some reason they don't find him guilty of
this murder, we're going to, because if you put them all together, then you can be in
a double jeopardy situation.
Okay.
If he's found not guilty, then they can't go after him again.
But if there's a separate crime, it's all about how you classify.
It's basically it's the administrative side of law.
It makes sense to me.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's not, I don't know, this is just how I feel.
It's not really fair to put all of the separate people who are murdered in the same trial.
I just feel like they, yeah, I think you see it.
You did two different things.
You deserved two different fucking punishments in all the trials.
I do think it is unusual compared to what I think we see and sort of experience in a more
modern era, because these were two women that were killed in the same encounter.
They were, you know, familial victims.
I don't think you see that a lot.
I think it's very common when there are, you know, when it's a spree killer or a serial
killer, you will see instances where they separate crimes that occurred on different dates.
Because again, yeah, if we can't get them on this, we want to get them on that, you know,
a separate murder or other crime, whatever the case may be, because we want to put this
person away.
Yeah.
So they're no longer a danger to people.
So I don't know.
It's kind of complicated because I do think sometimes you look at how people are charged
and it can be really upsetting how they will stack things or, you know, separate out different
instances and try to like maximize penalties.
I feel like in this instance, I don't take issue with it.
Yeah.
But, you know, there are people that will never leave prison who have multiple crimes related
to like marijuana.
People how you want about, you know, that I know not everybody thinks it's just fine or whatever.
And that's your own personal choice.
But, you know, to put somebody away for life from there, wow.
For something that grows out of the fucking ground.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm just cocaine technically, but-
I think you may process the shit out of it.
It's different.
They sure do.
Yeah.
I'm not going to be curious about the process.
Another very violent show.
So back to sentencing.
That's where we're at.
The judge sentenced him to be hanged at the Washington State Penitentiary on January 16,
1948.
After his conviction was announced, bird was allowed to make a final statement, which I
feel like almost never turns out good.
But holy shit.
This is the part I was telling you.
You guys, this case was already like working out to be like, oh, spooky season.
He's like charged on the 31st and then this shit.
He spoke for about 20 minutes, noting that his request to represent himself had been denied
and that his own lawyers were against him.
In hindsight, it's kind of like, where's the lie?
They said that they were.
Yeah.
Apparently nobody really cared.
A little bit of casual racism.
You could see that too.
But in this case, he literally was caught with blood and brain matter all over him.
Like dude, how hard do you want this poor public defender who's come on?
Bird then said, are you ready for this?
I don't think I am at all.
I'm putting the Jake Bird Hex on all of you who had anything to do with my being punished.
Mark my words, you will die before I do.
I do remember this now.
This is why it's in spooky articles.
Allegedly, six people connected with the trial died in relatively quick succession.
No.
Okay.
Everything I only say allegedly because I wonder sometimes if things get sort of, you know,
low-notive proportion or it becomes like this like almost a mythical proportion like a legend.
And if he's saying he had said, I am hexing you.
So people are like watching out for it.
You know, it's like seeing 9/11 on the clock all the time because you know that number.
Yeah.
But he had all the time.
Everything that I have come across indicates that this actually happened.
Holy shit.
Like multiple.
I'm confident that several people died.
And I'm gonna tell you about him.
The first to go was Judge Edward D. Hodg who sent in Spurred to death.
He died of a heart attack not long after the conviction as did one of the officers who
took Bird's initial confession.
So here.
Another police officer who took a subsequent confession also died of a heart attack.
What are they eating though?
Wow.
A lot.
I mean McDonald's wasn't a thing back then, right?
I don't think they come around in the 1950s.
But a lot of really like it's very meat and potatoes diet.
A lot of things cooked him butter.
Okay.
Definitely.
I mean the fact that it's like all heart attacks is like kind of freaky.
I tell you think about like yeah, the average life expectancy for a man think about the diet.
And yeah, that's a not.
I want to see these two women wait to die, especially in this era.
Yeah.
Or man.
But still it is so freaky.
Very freaky.
Then there was the court clerk who passed away from pneumonia as well as one of Bird's prison
guards also from a heart attack.
Last but not least, JW Selden, one of Bird's lawyers died on the first anniversary of his
sentencing.
That's fucking weird.
That's the weirder to me than all of the other.
Yes.
Like girl, I think Jake Bird, that bitch is a witch.
When was he sentents again?
Was that the Halloween or was that different?
No.
Okay.
No.
One of the most chilling statements about this story came from the defense attorney who
said, "My heart does not beat with sympathy for this man."
Then he dies of a heart attack like many of the others involved in this case.
That's crazy.
Did you get chills?
I did.
I definitely did.
I have chills.
Breaky, right?
That's really weird.
He specifically makes a statement about his heart.
That is so creepy.
I do like the researcher in me though wants to be like, "Okay, can we look at another guy
who is convicted or whatever and see how many of the people attached to that died?"
I just want to know the stats.
Obviously impossible.
I do, well, not necessarily.
Probably this isn't unusual.
It's an anomalous situation.
I feel like there's too many people that died close to his case for it not to get attention,
especially after he literally releases a hex in a courtroom.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, people are going to be paying attention.
They're going to be keeping track.
But also, this kind of not proves, but it helps support just speaking things into existence.
He might not have really been like a witch or really, but if you just speak it into existence
and you have, he had a lot of passion for it, I'm sure.
So, that's like a big part of the way to win the lottery.
You've got to keep speaking it and actually believe it.
And probably also buy a lottery ticket.
Yeah.
OK.
Lottery is a hard one.
Yeah.
It's such a one.
But other things, I feel like are easier to manifest the lottery.
That makes sense.
I feel like that's fair.
Yeah.
The governor at the time, Munrad C. Walgren, allowed his 60-day reprieve from bird sentence.
Why, you might ask?
Well, because bird claimed that he could clear up at least 44 other murders that he either
committed or participated in during his travels across the country.
Wow.
Of course, there was no shortage of investigators eager to interview him at the state penitentiary.
They came from all over the country.
Of the 44 murders that he allegedly said he commit, only 11 were substantiated.
But he reportedly had enough knowledge about many of the others to be considered the prime
suspect.
Wow.
Like, why is he doing that, though?
What else has he got to lose?
I mean, it did get him a reprieve from the death penalty.
It's true.
The 70s and 60s at the minimum police in several states took the opportunity to close the books
on many of their unsolved murders.
In his travels, bird murdered people, mostly women, in and around the following areas.
Louisville Kentucky, Omaha, Nebraska, Kansas City, Kansas, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Cleveland,
Ohio, Orlando, Florida, as well as the states of Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, other victims outside
of Orlando in Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.
Oh, sorry, there's more Wisconsin.
And, of course, the state of Washington, reportedly in the city of Portage, in addition to the crimes
in Tacoma.
God, he was just all over the place.
Yeah, it's a lot.
Now, there was a lot of focus on the fact that he primarily killed white women.
I think women are primarily victims of crime.
It's both women of color and white women.
It's obviously transgender.
There are, there's a lot of qualifiers with that.
I think for the time, what that does is stir up this sort of hysteria that there's this
crazed black man.
And they've already made a point of saying that he was attempting to sexually assault Bertha.
So it creates this sort of moral panic about that there's crazed black man that's attacking
white women, which particularly in some parts of the country, that is the type of stuff
that really endangers other people of color.
Yeah.
That felt pretty icky.
But how many friggin white dudes do the same exact thing?
Right.
Like it's back then.
Yeah.
Also now, probably in the future.
Yeah.
Just be scared of all men.
Yeah.
Never meet a man.
Yeah.
Never meet a man.
In the meantime, Bertha appealed his conviction to the Washington State Supreme Court,
but his petition for a retrial was denied.
The U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court also rejected his petitions for a new trial.
I just wonder if they took longer than 35 minutes that the jury did to consider his case.
They didn't say, yeah.
I'm not sure.
I probably get a look into it, but usually those particular entities or bodies within the
legal system, you're talking about like a month's long review.
But you know, not that I'm shedding any tears for Jake Berk.
Yeah.
It sounds like a real dick.
On July 14, 1947, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Bertha's conviction for the third
time.
And Governor Arthur B. Langley.
I love how everybody's using their middle initials.
He chose not to interfere with the execution.
And by this time, it was fast approaching.
Or well, it would have been.
But of course, appeals and the rest of the whole legal process slows things down.
Even back then.
I mean, it's slow relative to like they convicted him in 35 minutes.
So they're like, why is this man not dead yet?
Little too eager for that stuff.
I feel like.
I mean, I do think it does have a lot to do with the racial aspect of this case.
Yeah, I think you can't ignore that.
I do think that it is a case where oftentimes we would see in a similar case, you know, perhaps
a coerce confession, you might see an instance of police brutality.
And I just don't know that we really find that in this instance.
It's also really hard to be able to document that.
Yeah, posthumously, but yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like that's the case.
Doesn't mean that there isn't still racism involved.
Yeah.
Finally, early Friday morning on July 15, 1949 at the Washington State Penitentiary in
Walla Walla.
The word was taken from his cell conveniently located on the same level as the gallows
to be placed in the news for his execution.
Wait, the gallows were like in the same area as he was being held.
Apparently, holy shit.
I don't know if it was visible from his cell or not.
That would be fucked.
Pretty horrifying thought.
Like, hey, this is just like having an Ace of You of your fucking future.
Just got nurse set up for ya.
Which was witnessed by over a hundred spectators at 1220 AM when the gallows trap door was released.
Jake Bird dropped five feet to his death.
After 14 minutes, his body was taken down and prison physician Dr. Elmer Hill pronounced
him dead.
He was buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
Identified only as Confect Number 21520.
Holy shit.
His remaining personal fortune, a whopping $6.15, which actually was more money than it
sounds like now.
But was willed by Bird to Murray Taggart.
The Walla Walla attorney who filed his appeals.
Wow.
I don't know what the average cost for billable hours was back then, but I'm guessing that
would have been a drop in the bucket.
So hopefully this guy was on salary with state.
Wow.
That is interesting, though.
It is.
We lost it to this guy.
Yeah.
Like the only guy who seemed to be helping him out.
Yeah.
Well, and one thing that's really interesting about his case and it's kind of hard to find
the exact right spot to sort of drop in this information, but I came across that like
he wanted to represent himself on the front end of the case.
Obviously, we talked about that.
He also continued to research and study law books and he actually became well known in
prison as being someone that other inmates went to, you know, to try to get legal advice.
That's very interesting.
Yeah.
And it seems like he was very intelligent and actually became very knowledgeable about the
law, which is kind of horrifying.
It's like a year and yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But I mean, you know, you're someone fighting for your life essentially.
Yeah.
Jake Bird was the 63rd prisoner and the 7th African American to be executed in Washington
state since the death penalty was established in 1904.
Though, of course, we know that the last person to be executed in the state of Washington
was Cal Coburn Brown.
Mmm.
We covered some time ago.
Yes.
Search for it.
Yeah.
I can't say I was sad to see him go, but capital punishment has been formally abolished in
Washington for about the last year and a half.
Really just last year and a half?
I was shocked.
Oh, I was shocked too.
Normally, it's like Washington does something or it's like California and or Washington kind
of go first and then it's Oregon.
Oregon has actually had it abolished for longer.
Is my understanding.
Interesting.
Maybe that's why we learned I was thinking because we live here in a house.
Yeah.
How about that hex, though?
Am I right?
Dude.
It's turned out to be a pretty wild one if I do say so in the style.
I feel like we're, we have to change our name to Haunts, Homicides, and Hexes now.
Yeah.
Ooh, I like that.
That's.
Shall we do some tarot?
Yeah, let's do some tarot.
We won't hex you.
We promise.
Unless you're a murderer.
Yeah.
Probably that we would.
Unless you're creepy.
Yeah.
Not the good creepy.
Yeah.
Okay, now I'm handing the deck to Caitlyn so she could put her magical shuffling powers and
then pull a card.
Oh boy.
For the spooky Halloweeny.
That was pretty good.
That was good for you.
Like the energy of that.
Oh, shut up.
I'm just kidding.
It was good energy.
I felt it.
Okay.
I'm gonna spread them out so that you can help me spread those legs.
The cards.
I mean cards.
She's ways.
Where do you think you are?
Okay.
Take in here or first first instinct for your point of finger is.
Oh, what?
It's a bird you guys.
Bird.
Of course it's a fucking bird.
Cause Jake fucking bird.
And it's a sword.
It's three of swords.
It's the one with the swords piercing the heart.
And this imagery it is a dead bird on top of Rose Petals.
Delayful.
And he's got kind of like an orangey head which like pumpkins.
She's like everything spice.
Everything pumpkin spice.
Halloween, you know.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was visualizing the right card when you said it's like stabbing through the heart.
It's literally three swords through a heart.
Yeah.
It's one of the ones where the imagery is like pretty you know scary for people who aren't
used to tarot.
But yeah.
It's totally fits.
Or for some people that maybe even are.
Okay.
Alright.
So our keywords are suffering, heartache, regret, grieving, sorrow and loss.
All of it.
It's interesting because we're talking about the death of widow and her daughter.
So they've already grieved a loss.
And it from what I was reading in my research, it sounded like not recent in the sense of like
in the last six months or anything, but it had been I think in the last couple of years
that her husband and the daughter's father had passed away.
And then like the family that's left behind, oh my, well they lost three people.
Yeah.
It's the three of swords.
They're extended family.
Yeah.
Wow.
That is really interesting because I was like well he had like the two victims that we sort
of talked about, but that makes so much sense.
Just looking at this heart with three swords piercing it is painful.
One of the saddest cards in the tarot.
It symbolizes deep emotional pain, heartbreak and a real or perceived tragedy.
You may not manage to avoid the suffering indicated by the three of swords.
However, the card advises separating true grief from self pity.
It's interesting.
And I think I drew this actually in the reverse.
Did you?
Yeah.
I need to…
You handed it to me upright.
I did.
I think I flipped it.
Oh my god.
Now I feel like I need to roll back the tape.
I thought we hold it up.
I mean either way.
Yeah.
We flip it.
Because the bird is upside down technically on the right side up.
Yeah.
I think it was reverse.
You did.
Looking at it, I think I…
Yeah.
Okay.
It's kind of…
I don't know why the image popped into my head of like hanging because it is like…
It would be head up.
Yeah.
I don't know why.
Ooh.
Okay.
Well, okay.
I'm going to read the reverse interpretation first, but I think we should read both just so
that we can see kind of the impact of each maybe.
Okay.
There's an extra excerpt in between the two interpretations.
The soul is a diamond in the rough, which must abide the blows inflicted by suffering in
order to shine in all its brilliance.
And that's from like water for chocolate.
Oh.
The reversed three of swords is actually less problematic and severe than the upright three.
Hmm.
It's interesting.
It suggests you're making more of an unhappy situation than necessary or that a disappointment
is temporary, not the end of the world.
Perhaps the truth hurts, but once you face it, you can improve things.
Pull yourself together and get on with your life.
In a reading about money, you may harbor regrets about what might have been or you're
chastising yourself for a bad decision.
The reversed three recommends letting go of blame and guilt, repairing damage and starting
anew.
I feel like part of me just at a glance thought, oh, no, maybe I did pull this in the upright,
but I feel like nothing is stronger for me than like seeing the card and that visual representation
and seeing in the reverse and like, no, pulled her in the reverse.
And I think it makes sense though, because losing or grieving the loss of a loved one and
kind of finding a pathway forward.
Yeah.
I feel like it fits more than I thought it would.
If the reading is about your job, you may be pulling out of a damaging and hurtful situation.
The reversed three can mean the worst is over and you've learned from your mistakes.
Remain watchful for confusion, deception and poor judgment.
Maybe that comes in like the trial and him confessing and then being guilty and then his
lawyer not wanting to represent him anymore, but like being forced to basically.
I think it's really interesting because this is a card that specifically based on its orientation
is dramatically different in some ways, whether it's upright or reverse.
And the fact that as I'm pulling it, I'm like, yeah, no, I pulled it in reverse.
Like the questioning aspect of that.
Yeah.
That's really moment sometimes where I feel like they both fit the right.
When we have those kind of like confusing, did we pull it upright or not?
I feel like it could go either way.
Yeah.
Well, and I feel like normally the way that we pull it is so that you can literally see
it on cam.
And I don't know if you'll be able to tell at all when we go back and watch the video
from my camera, which way I pulled it.
Taylor, do a slow mo.
But I think the fact that we're questioning it just means like I usually just take that
as it could be both ways.
Yeah.
And it does fit both ways because like the reverse is like you said, it's kind of like the
ending of it.
And we did talk about the, I mean, the end it's over.
He's convicted.
He's stopped killing because he's dead now.
So yeah.
In a reading about love, this card points to painful experiences, which feels dead on.
Obviously as you know, a family that's lost a loved one and she's a widow.
But you're working on past problems and trying to make things better.
You need to let go of jealousy, regrets, guilt and fear.
Sometimes this card, oh my god, stop it.
This is card represents accepting a loss and moving on.
Okay.
I'm going to go to the upright.
Makes me think of like the police to like their, the regrets and the guilt of like this
has been happening to potentially like 44 people.
You know, that's I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have clocked it that way.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
I mean, police who are trying to solve something like they obviously I'm sure they have regrets
of like this person.
Yeah.
And killing.
I mean, any case that just goes unsolved.
Yeah.
That's an interesting point.
I, I didn't really think of it that way.
I'm sure some of those you'll never know what happened to you just kind of have to accept
it and yeah, that it's not going to be solved.
Yeah.
Okay.
The upright three signifies separation, severing a connection to something or someone you
love.
Oh, you just said like severing and my picture that had wow.
Okay.
So the upright feels so far just skimming feels equally applicable.
Sorry, I just have like a really big reaction.
Yeah.
That's weird.
No, I mean, that makes sense.
Yeah.
When we're talking about someone who is nearly to capitated that that is I, that's an appropriate
response.
Okay.
I'm going to read it again.
The upright three signifies separation, severing a connection to something or someone
you love.
You feel isolated and cut off from something you found meaningful.
A way of life, your home and family, a philosophy, pursuit or job, something in your life has died.
In a reading about money, the upright three represents losses due to relying on your
rational mind or your emotions alone.
You need to use both to avoid problems.
Oh, interesting.
I don't know why that just reminds me of him like acting on his impulses is like emotional
need to be a fucking murderer instead of making more than six dollars and to be left to
someone, you know?
Yeah.
Okay.
Sometimes it suggests someone you trusted has withdrawn support or you're grieving the loss
of better times.
I mean, how many times have I specifically used?
Oh, okay.
The widow asked you to do that.
Yeah.
If the reading is about your work, this card can mean losing a job you loved or you feel
isolated and unhappy in your job.
Maybe you regret an unwise business decision or you're thwarted, unable to do the work you
enjoy.
I mean, he was caught not that I want to call what he's doing like his work, but maybe in
his mind.
But I mean, that's his for lack of a better way to put it.
That's like his professional pursue.
I mean, he chose the train profession so that he could go.
Yeah.
I mean, at least.
And that and he literally just worked odd jobs and yeah, all of that sort of scenario was
designed to sort of set him up to be, you know, dependent upon less than ethical means
of acquiring income.
I don't know.
I don't know how else to put that.
Try to see this as a sign.
It's time for a change.
Low late.
Time to die.
But I guess maybe he thought, now I'm going to become like a high priestess and just deliver
hexes.
Right.
Yeah.
Wow.
Oh, God.
This is in a reading about love.
The upright three can represent a split with a partner or at least a sense of separation
and despair.
If the relationship is worth salvaging, heal the gap with compassion and understanding.
In some cases, this card says it's time to move on.
So whether you draw this upright or in the reverse, it hints at sort of the loss of a loved
one and sort of like a less than ideal scenario with your romantic partner.
Yeah.
And I feel like this card, I just think is there's heartbreak cards, but this one is an extra
heartbreak.
It is.
Like what I feel about this.
Yeah.
I'm always curious what we're going to get.
Like, how's this one going to go and what's that reading going to look like as we go through
the case and think about like what are the possible outcomes and what would make sense.
And sometimes we get cards that I feel like, okay, I don't know.
Maybe we maybe we need to redraw or something like that.
And sometimes I'm really surprised that even how well I feel like we're learning and becoming
familiar and being more knowledgeable with the different interpretations.
I'm like, wow, I guess I forgot about this sort of aspect of a card and thinking, wow,
okay, I didn't, I didn't predict that would fit at all.
And don't you?
I mean, I just feel like the fact that we drew a dead bird on a card is just.
Yeah, a dead bird, like a symbolism of that or a jake bird.
It's, it's not lost on me.
It's a dead bird.
That is wild.
And the point you made specifically about the three.
Yeah.
Because I, here I was thinking, oh, well, the two of swords would have been more applicable.
But even just at the outset, the numerical piece of it for me is kind of the first thing
that a lot of times jumps out.
But holy shit.
In terms of imagery and then if you think about the fact that they literally had lost a
loved one and you're talking about a family of three that has just lost so much.
And when I want to say no, it doesn't feel like that card fits and then it just fucking
fits.
Yeah.
Oh, well, some of you that are in our Facebook discussion group or I think that's the one
place I can think of that I mentioned it.
I don't think I mentioned it on Patreon or anywhere else.
But we're doing a double header this week.
We just came off of literally everyone that's currently in this house having had COVID in
quick succession.
Almost my first time and I gotta say zero out of 10.
We are recovering in terms of our ability to create and I think release content also.
So we're doing a double headers.
We start to build up a little bit of a backlog for those emergencies.
We did we we had some things and then holy shit.
The COVID hung on.
I was positive for at least 10 days.
Yeah.
I'm.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
It's I think we've talked about it before.
And since all of the plague happened in my home, but yeah, we better we better get to it.
I guess is what I'm saying.
It was the most rambling way of saying we got to go because we need to record another
episode because we're playing catch up.
You know, we're playing in catch up and it is spicy.
Actually, did have one more thing.
I don't know if you wanted to mention it because it didn't make it into your last episode
with the blue mountains and the cores.
I feel like that was like a quick thing we come up.
Yeah, yeah, you have to tell it.
Oh, you want me to tell it?
Well, because I don't know if I remember.
Oh, so you texted me after you like, I were thinking about the episode and you're like,
oh my god, I added that blue crystal to be a blue mountain because I like needed the
Rockies or what I put with the Rockies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what's on course?
What's on course you guys?
Yeah, how many shitty beer pong tournaments have you been in?
And we did color changing mountains.
We even had someone comment on our Facebook or our Instagram posts like only drink the
cores when the mountains are blue.
Yeah.
So we unknowingly randomly last minute, Caitlin added a blue mountain to the halter set
up.
I just thought it deserved it deserved an honorable mention today, I think.
Yeah, and I remember it's so funny because I remember us talking about that and we're like,
oh, yeah, we got to remember to mention that at some point.
And I was like, I remember there was something that came up.
I don't.
And we like drew the blue card and we were talking about blue the whole episode and we didn't
even register the blue mountains on the course.
Yeah.
Yeah, just just for reference, if anybody's coming in randomly on this episode, that was
the eight off course, the third episode where it's course cans.
We're talking about in the beer and the blue mountains and you got to watch the video
on YouTube to really get the contacts with the blue crystal mountain.
Yeah.
It was in our altar and wow.
And we're witches and we again won't hack you because we love you, creepy people.
We do.
Should we do that thing?
Let's do it.
All right.
Have a creepy ass day.
See you next Tuesday.
You're dead bird.
Oh my gosh.
Only be a dead bird if you're evil though.
I mean, just don't just don't be dead birds in my presence.
Okay.
I don't like birds.
I don't want to be around birds dead or alive.
I feel like there's a lot of you.
You understand my feelings on the top.
Okay.
Birds?
What?
What do you call birds?
Winged fox.
Oh.
I have been known to call them winged fox.
That's Jake Bird's new nickname.
You winged fox.
Winged fox.
I love that.
Maybe that's what I should call the episode.
Maybe.
I feel like Apple and all of the other streaming apps would be like, no, thank you.
Cool.
SEO straight to the bottom.
You guys share the shows that when we make terrible decisions about the titles, we don't
just completely play them out in tank.
Please and thank you.
Bird.
Oh, I already read that.
Bird.
Bird is a word. pnwhauntsandhomicides.com