5:59

shoes. And yep they

6:02

are definitely on display in the main gallery

6:04

of the museum and roughly 3,000 people

6:06

a year passed by the aging skin of Big Nose

6:08

George. So again

6:10

curious go go see it. Also

6:12

confirmed there's no documented evidence of

6:14

Dr. Osborne wearing these shoes to his

6:17

inauguration that kind of you know far-fretched

6:19

wild sensationalized story

6:21

of him tap dancing in wearing his spazzy

6:23

George shoes.

6:24

But the doctor was known to be

6:27

proud of the dress shoes showing them as

6:29

an example of how he was tough

6:31

on crime. The medical bag and coin

6:33

wallet seem to be lost to history.

6:35

So you may want to be careful if you ever stumble

6:38

upon any unusually soft or perhaps

6:40

leathery antiques, you know?

6:42

Yeah, I read this other story

6:44

online and I don't know if it's true, but that the

6:47

governor, he had this vendetta,

6:50

personal vendetta against Big Nose George

6:52

because George had orchestrated this train heist

6:54

that made the governor late

6:57

for a party he was going to. Wow. That

6:59

might just be some like sensationalized story.

7:04

That doesn't even need to go to some anger management or something.

7:07

Damn. Yeah. And also the

7:09

tendons at the museum couldn't say

7:11

if there were other accounts of human skin being

7:13

used by local doctors in Wyoming. George

7:16

was the only known criminal to have been crafted

7:18

into everyday objects

7:20

in Carbon County. Yeah.

7:22

Yeah. Even though no other convicted

7:24

criminals were skinned in Wyoming

7:26

that we know of. Many other executed

7:29

prisoners were faded to rest in

7:31

pieces.

7:31

Literally. And this

7:34

is one grisly story of many, some might say

7:36

too many, in human history where people

7:38

got a little too crafty with human

7:40

skin. A little

7:43

too crafty. To me,

7:45

we have so many things to choose from, to craft

7:48

with. Sure, so many. And we're

7:50

definitely going to get into them as we approach

7:52

today's episode questioning why anybody would want to

7:55

make objects, clothing, art trinkets,

7:57

whatever, out of human skin.

7:59

While we don't understand them, apparently there are lots of

8:02

reasons that sickos have. Nonetheless,

8:04

we are doing a regrettably deep dive into

8:06

this fleshy underground trade, starting with one

8:08

of the earliest recorded instances.

8:10

During the 9th century BCE,

8:13

the Scythians left a trail of violence

8:15

across what is now modern day Russia, Ukraine,

8:17

Siberia, and parts of China. The

8:20

Scythians specialized in tattooing and

8:22

war and were also skilled butchers

8:24

who prized human skin. soldiers

8:27

would scalp their foes, hanging their skins

8:29

from

8:29

anywhere they could, the wash and drying

8:31

line, troubley

8:33

some trees, including their own belts and

8:36

garments. And to show off their victories,

8:38

Scythians would make bibs out of the fleshy

8:40

skull top or wrap celebratory

8:43

bone goblets and fine human leathers.

8:46

Some would sew the skin of the scalps together

8:48

to make cloaks.

8:49

Oh. Oh! I

8:52

just can't even imagine, like,

8:54

somebody asks you where you got your cloak from

8:56

and you're like, Todd. You know,

8:59

I just can't even. Remember Todd? Yeah.

9:02

Maybe I'm just jealous

9:03

because I don't feel like I have nice enough skin that's too

9:06

main. Oh my God, is that what you're thinking about?

9:08

Are you thinking about, like, in the end, would

9:10

anybody make something cool out of my skin? Jess, would

9:12

you wear me? Be honest.

9:15

Be honest. Probably

9:17

not, not because of your dishwater skin,

9:19

but because just, you

9:21

heard me say that. That wasn't

9:23

all good, no worries callback. Let's blend.

9:26

Anyway, no, just because

9:28

that's weird to me. You know it's weird. Okay,

9:30

if you didn't think it was weird.

9:32

Maybe a purse, okay?

9:35

Yes, a purse. Okay.

9:38

All right, I don't know if that, I guess you're not happy with

9:40

that. You're gonna spill stuff all over and I know that,

9:43

but all right. Probably, probably. Well,

9:46

anyway, back to the Scythians. Okay, fine, a bib.

9:48

We'll get you out of the bed. I gotcha. I

9:51

want people to see you on Zoom in

9:53

meetings, and then there's like a bib around

9:55

your neck that's got one eye. Oh no! No!

9:58

Oh, that's making me. That's making my skin crawl

10:01

a bit. That's the point of this podcast,

10:03

I guess. That is the point. That is the point.

10:05

Back to the Scythians, though. They would skin

10:07

their enemies whole, flaying their skin and

10:09

mounting it high onto something, maybe resembling

10:11

a sail,

10:12

or like, you know, people put up those, their

10:15

college dorms, they have those flags. Jesus.

10:18

Probably like that. Yes. All right,

10:20

can I just say, if someone's making a skin sail,

10:22

that is a literal

10:23

and figurative red flag. Absolutely.

10:27

Okay. This is

10:29

the blood. But literally what

10:31

you just said about, cause yes, the

10:33

college dorm rooms with the flag, a skin

10:35

flag, Jesus. Like Penn, Pennant

10:37

flag or Pennant flag. Yes. Ah,

10:40

jeez. God.

10:41

Yeah, Scythian soldiers were not alone in

10:43

their penchant for skin cloaks. In 2019,

10:47

an ancient temple was discovered in Mexico,

10:49

estimated to have been built between 1000 and 1260 BC

10:54

in honor of the Mesoamerican fertility

10:56

god, Shepei Totech. Shippe

10:59

totec

10:59

means our lord the flayed one, little

11:02

on the nose there, in the native language

11:04

of Nahuatl. They held

11:06

gladiator-style battles that resulted

11:08

in the dead having their skin flayed and

11:10

made cloaks. Researchers have found

11:13

whole intact human torsos wearing

11:15

flayed skin cloaks. Oh my gosh.

11:17

I know. It's just like recycle, reduce,

11:19

reuse, right? Right?

11:21

Anyway, statues and stone masks show

11:24

Shippe totec wearing freshly flayed ribbons

11:27

of human skin to symbolize the new

11:29

skin that covered the earth and the

11:31

regeneration of spring. When I hear new skin, I just

11:33

think of that liquid band-aid

11:35

you can put on.

11:36

Liquid band-aid? You know what I'm talking about? It's like,

11:39

it almost looks like clear nail polish, but it's a liquid

11:41

band-aid that you could put over a cut.

11:43

Oh, I see. That's what it's called new skin. Okay, so yeah,

11:45

it's kind of like a film. Yeah. Like

11:47

a, yes, yes. Yeah, but they had a whole other meaning for

11:49

it. Oh, they sure did. They

11:51

sure did. Yeah,

11:54

the Aztecs adopted the cult of Shepei

11:56

Totek between 1469 and 1481.

11:59

The second ritual month of the Aztec

12:02

calendar is called, I'm going to go to stay with me.

12:05

Here we go. The Aztec calendar is

12:08

called Tlac Ashwipe

12:10

Waltz Etsili, or let's just say

12:12

the flaying of men. That word existed

12:15

in multiple time zones. It sure

12:17

did. Well done Jess.

12:19

Aztec priests killed human

12:21

victims by removing their hearts and flaying

12:23

the bodies. The human skins would be crafted

12:25

and dyed yellow to resemble gold. Adorning

12:28

human skin as a spiritual ritual

12:31

was also practiced in Iceland. The

12:33

Museum of Icelandic Sorcery

12:35

in Witchcraft in Holmvik, Iceland,

12:38

is home to the only surviving

12:40

pair of necropants. Yes,

12:42

necro pants. Necro pants.

12:45

In the early 17th century, Icelandic

12:47

sorcerers commonly struck a gruesome

12:49

deal

12:50

amongst friends, which was,

12:52

when you die, I will wear your legs

12:54

as pants.

12:54

And honestly Jess, I'm kinda into that.

12:57

Okay, so then I changed my mind. It's no

12:59

more purse, no more bib. I

13:01

will wear your legs as pants. They're gonna be stretched out a little bit

13:03

because I'm a little taller than you. But

13:05

I

13:06

don't know. Have

13:08

you seen the picture? Have you seen the view? Yes, and I

13:10

will say these are like more than a pant

13:13

because there's- Oh, they're more than a pant. There's

13:16

feet in there. There's

13:19

hair. And there's like a penis

13:21

sheath. There's a, yes. The

13:24

best way to describe it, and again,

13:26

we can, we need to be better. I'm gonna post this photo

13:28

on this. You're gonna get our Instagram account flagged.

13:31

Maybe we don't, maybe we don't post it. But

13:33

the best way to describe it is, and I know this

13:35

is like far-fetching for a lot of people,

13:37

but Kim Kardashian wore

13:39

this one latex skin-colored

13:42

outfit out and about, have you seen

13:44

it? I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay, yes, that's what

13:47

I'm trying to like find the best, you

13:49

know, thing anybody can think of

13:50

right now. But it's like that, think of what she

13:52

wore. Kim Kardashian latex. She

13:55

was wearing Necropants. She could have been,

13:57

but she shaved the hair off because this photo.

13:59

shows hair, shows the

14:03

follicles, the pores, you know, all

14:05

the fun stuff. Which honestly,

14:07

the hair

14:07

is grosser to me than the skin. Yeah,

14:10

no, yeah. What does that say about me? So just look it up, guys.

14:13

Just look up the real photo. Yeah,

14:15

and there's

14:16

art to making these pants, right?

14:19

Yes, in order to make a pair of Nabro,

14:22

or Necropants, or Skinpants, friends

14:24

would make a pact giving the other permission

14:26

to wear their legs after they died. The

14:29

surviving member

14:30

of the Pact had to dig up their dead friend's

14:32

body, then peel off the skin of

14:34

the corpse from the waist down. You had to

14:36

do this all without tearing any

14:38

holes or causing any damage to the skin

14:41

or the Pact would be broken. According

14:44

to legend, a coin had to be

14:46

then stolen from a widow and a magical

14:48

sign called the Nabro Carstifer would

14:51

be drawn on a piece of paper.

14:53

Like prints, just a symbol. Yeah,

14:56

okay, yes. And

14:58

then once these now magically imbued items,

15:01

because you did this little ritual with them,

15:03

were sewn into the scrotum of

15:05

the Necropant. Oh, so the scrotum, I thought the scrotum

15:07

was just for show, just aesthetic, but

15:09

I guess it serves a purpose. It serves purpose. Who

15:12

knew? So then the spell was complete. The surviving

15:14

friend

15:15

would then step into the magical pair

15:17

of leg pants, the sisterhood of the traveling Necropants,

15:20

and the dead legs would allegedly fuse

15:23

to the living legs. That's kind of sweet and

15:25

I

15:26

hope you feel that way when you wear my legs someday.

15:30

I might. I might

15:32

not though and that's okay if I don't. I

15:35

don't agree with that. No.

15:39

You said that just so like, I'm sorry, I just don't agree

15:41

with that. No, we're not gonna, no.

15:45

According to folklore, the coin would aid

15:48

in gathering wealth and as long as the coin

15:50

was not removed from the skin scrotum,

15:52

they would continue to have good fortune for

15:55

generations. So, hmm,

15:57

but like if you lose the coin,

15:59

can you, or what if... currency just changes

16:01

over time. Like can I pop a Canadian

16:03

toonie in there?

16:06

Yeah. I think if

16:09

currency changed, I think it would still,

16:11

you'd still get some good fortune. I would hope so because

16:13

it's like, come on now. Yeah, come

16:15

on. If the wearer of the pants did

16:17

not pass them down to their own friends, legend

16:19

has it that the body of the wearer would be

16:22

infected with lice immediately upon death.

16:24

But the passage of time, the material use

16:27

of human skin continue to get stranger and

16:29

more elaborate. To this day, folks are

16:32

still running into everyday objects

16:34

that they later learned are actual epidermis.

16:37

And this is the stuff

16:37

that's like super morbid where people

16:40

in the 20th century now, you hear these gruesome

16:42

stories of a serial killer or

16:45

somebody making items out of human skin.

16:47

And we are going to talk more about

16:49

this when we return from a word from

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20:36

Now back to the show so we covered some

20:38

of the classical and ancient

20:40

Instances where people were making objects

20:43

or clothes from human skin and now we're

20:45

getting into the contemporary

20:46

Which this is in our

20:48

purview, right? It makes it all the more morbid

20:51

and creepy Six

20:53

months after

20:53

Hurricane Katrina in 2005,

20:56

a man named Raymond Skip Henderson

20:58

was sifting through a rummage sale in his New Orleans

21:00

neighborhood. Skip told NPR that

21:02

he was actually interested in a drum set, but

21:05

the seller pointed him to a lamp and specifically

21:07

pointed out the lamp's shade.

21:09

Skip told NPR, he said,

21:12

you know, this is the skin of Jewish people.

21:14

He said, that's Jewish people's

21:17

flesh. Skip went on to say, you know,

21:19

once you live in New Orleans, you just get prepared for

21:21

anything.

21:22

For whatever reason, Skip bought

21:24

the lamp. It was $35 when he got home. He

21:27

started to examine the lamp more closely, he

21:30

said in an interview, quote, now

21:32

you start looking. You're noticing wrinkles

21:35

and pores and it's very translucent.

21:37

It looks dusty or greasy and

21:39

it has a very silky feel to it. He

21:42

went on to say, that

21:43

thing will clear out a room. Horrific.

21:47

As stories of Nazi atrocities began

21:49

emerging immediately after World War II, Albert

21:51

Rosing was working for the U.S. Army's Psychological

21:54

Warfare Division and interviewed more

21:56

than 600 prisoners who

21:58

had been liberated from Buchenwald. While interrogating

22:01

a liberated French prisoner named Stefan

22:03

Essle, when Essle asked Roseng,

22:06

how can you, an American officer, sit

22:08

at this desk with this lamp?

22:10

To which Roseng replied, what the hell is

22:12

wrong with this lamp? Essle informed

22:14

him, don't you know? That lampshade

22:16

is human skin. I just got

22:19

goosebumps. It's just the idea

22:22

of, it's ubiquitous enough

22:24

that you don't even know that the atrocities

22:26

that happened are existing

22:28

and living around you. Like it's

22:31

awful. Woody Guthrie wrote

22:33

a song about the human skin lampshades at

22:35

Buchenwald called Eile Kocke. Eile

22:37

Kocke, known as the bitch of Buchenwald,

22:40

was the wife of the commandant Karl

22:43

Otto Kocke. Eile Kocke was infamous

22:45

for her sadistic treatment of prisoners and was

22:47

one of the first prominent Nazis tried with

22:49

the US military. You like hear stories

22:52

of these sick people, especially people in power,

22:53

who do these kind of twisted things

22:55

and it sounds like something from a movie, but no, it,

22:58

this was real, real horrific

23:00

things done to real human beings.

23:03

Yeah. Um, she allegedly constructed multiple

23:05

human skin lampshades and purses from

23:07

the skin of prisoners at the concentration

23:09

camp. And like the Nazis, you know, we're known

23:12

for doing tons of experiments

23:15

all the time, all kinds of experiments,

23:17

anything that they could think of do. They were doing

23:19

weird stuff. And like not experiments for

23:21

the positive. It was like, let's test how we

23:23

can break a person

23:25

or the lengths of human pain.

23:28

It wasn't like, let's test to figure out how to cure

23:30

this disease. Yes, yes. Of

23:33

all the items made of human skin, lampshades

23:36

seem to come up quite a bit. Why

23:38

is that? Maybe it's like a

23:40

good thing that we don't know why. If I had to guess,

23:42

I would think like the translucency of

23:45

skin is good for filtering light. Maybe,

23:48

but I mean, I don't know. Probably

23:50

the most infamous lampshade guy was serial killer. Ed

23:57

Gein, who committed many atrocities between

23:59

19-

23:59

47 to 57 in Plainfield,

24:02

Wisconsin. He went from exhuming

24:04

dead corpses to eventually targeting

24:07

fresher living victims for their skin.

24:10

Yeah, at Gein's home police officers

24:12

found numerous disturbing creations

24:14

including a human skin

24:17

apron and a skin belt made

24:19

of nipples. He also confessed to having

24:21

made a suit out of all female

24:24

skin so he could become his

24:26

mother. Psycho! Yep,

24:29

straight from a horror movie. And then he like,

24:31

he made like a wastebasket.

24:31

Like he was like, well, we

24:34

gotta, we need to stay tidy. Like

24:36

I'm making, oh, there's

24:38

scraps of skin everywhere. I need something to throw

24:41

it all in, make the wastebasket. Yeah, yeah.

24:43

There's something about him making such

24:46

like mundane and everyday objects out

24:48

of human skin that raises the

24:50

disturbing factor to like a hundred. Yeah,

24:53

yeah. You know? And I mean, there's a

24:55

wealth

24:56

of psychoanalysis on gain and

24:58

what drove him to his depraved behavior. Could

25:01

have just been a general perversion or

25:03

he used it as a method of control, a trauma

25:06

response, a maladaptive coping mechanism,

25:08

schizophrenia,

25:09

or maybe he was just pure evil, you know?

25:11

Not exactly. In the 1800s,

25:14

it was quite common for doctors and everyday

25:16

citizens to pull, pry and

25:18

shape the skin of the dead for

25:20

art, souvenirs or medical reasons.

25:23

folks justified this by

25:25

using the skin of executed criminals.

25:28

So it's like, oh, it's okay. They're executed criminals.

25:31

Yep. Like the situation with Big Nose

25:32

George, like doctors would claim the skin

25:34

of the dead and then say it was for medical purposes.

25:38

But in a lot of that time, like with George, that

25:40

skin was sculpted and molded into everyday

25:42

souvenirs like wallets and books. William

25:44

Burke was one of an

25:47

infamous pair of Scottish serial killers

25:49

known as Birkenhair. Birkenhaer

25:51

were responsible for the serial slayings

25:54

of 16 people whose murdered bodies

25:56

they sold to a local medical professor for 10 shillings.

25:59

a piece. Burke

26:02

was convicted of the two of

26:04

them and on the morning of January 28th, 1829, he

26:07

was hanged in front of 25,000 people. With

26:09

a morbid twist of irony, Burke's corpse

26:11

was publicly dissected by a

26:13

medical professor in Edinburgh's

26:16

old college. Karma. What

26:18

karma? It's like karma in action. During

26:20

the procedure, which lasted

26:21

two hours, the professor dipped his quill pen

26:23

into Burke's blood and wrote, this

26:26

is written with the blood of William Burke, who

26:28

was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood

26:30

was taken from his head. That's so metal.

26:33

I love that you

26:35

say, damn, that's so metal.

26:37

Well, it is. Like

26:40

this

26:41

professor was just off

26:43

the chain. Like this guy was skinning

26:46

people. I'm gonna write

26:47

his obituary and his own book.

26:49

Burke's skin was then carefully

26:51

stripped from his corpse. A wallet

26:54

was crafted and a book was bound

26:56

with his tan skin and then stamped with a

26:58

gold leaf. Oh,

27:00

beautiful. I know. Speaking of

27:02

human skin-bound books, the movie Evil

27:05

Dead, the original is great, the 2013 remake,

27:07

awesome, there's a new one. Remember

27:10

that weird looking book, the Necronomicon Ex

27:12

Mortis, a book bound in human

27:14

skin? Not real, but in the

27:16

movie. Yeah, yeah. In other words, Anthropodermic

27:19

Bibliopoege, which is the practice of binding

27:21

books in human skin. Yes, thankfully

27:24

there aren't too many of these books lying around.

27:27

In the 50 rumored human skin books

27:29

that the anthropodermic book

27:31

project have examined, only 18 as

27:33

of April 2022 are actually bound

27:35

in human skin. And let's hope that's it. Yeah.

27:40

This practice sort of peaked in the 17th and 19th

27:42

century and we can ask ourselves why, like

27:44

what was the point? Yeah, binding.

27:47

Why would you want to bind books with skin? For

27:49

one, punishment. Many, like we were talking about, many

27:52

skin bound books had the

27:53

skin of executed criminals.

27:55

sometimes even their confessions would be bound

27:57

with their skin.

27:59

I was bound in cadaver skin as a way

28:02

of saying thank you from the doctors to

28:04

their patients for helping learn from them. Oh,

28:06

this is

28:07

wild. I know, I know. Yeah,

28:09

imagine getting that as a thank you. Yeah,

28:12

yeah. Another reason was to, and

28:14

this one I kind of understand, it's a morbid

28:16

way, but to memorialize the

28:18

dead with some people giving consent to

28:20

having their skin used for this very purpose. Morbid,

28:23

but I guess I understand it. Well,

28:25

when you get

28:26

the book for me, it'll be, I'll be like, finally,

28:29

the way to get her to open a book. Yeah.

28:31

She's a damn Kindle. Rounding

28:38

out the macabre reasons, collectors

28:40

wanted something unusual to impress their

28:42

creepy friends

28:43

with. I personally

28:45

would not be impressed by such things, but

28:48

to each their own. These collectors especially

28:50

liked books bound in

28:51

tattooed skin. Yeah, a doctor

28:54

from this time, Dr. Ludovic Bulind,

28:57

as a medical student, decided to bind a

28:59

book using the scan of a female patient whose

29:01

body went unclaimed. It had

29:03

a guilt-paneled spine, guilt

29:06

borders, cover ornamentation,

29:08

and fillets.

29:10

Fun! Ah, but

29:12

anyway, back to William Burke. Burke's book still resides

29:15

behind a glass case at Surgeon's Hall Museum

29:17

in Scotland.

29:17

Close by is his death mask,

29:20

a sculpted plaster visage that shows off his

29:22

criminal features. Remember Big George

29:24

from the beginning? I remember him. Yeah, the coffin

29:26

wouldn't close. Yes, because of his, yes, got it. He

29:31

also had a death mask made, which was, I guess,

29:33

kind of the thing to do with criminals at the time to

29:36

try and understand what forces, if

29:38

any, shaped the criminal mind. Cesar

29:41

Lombrosso, the father of criminology,

29:43

wrote in his 1876 book

29:45

Criminal Man, quote, in general, Thieves

29:48

are notable for their expressive faces

29:51

and manual dexterity. Small,

29:53

wandering eyes that are often oblique in

29:55

form, thick and close eyebrows,

29:58

distorted or squashed noses.

29:59

thin beards, and hair and

30:02

slopping foreheads." Interesting.

30:05

Yeah, he went on to write, like, rapists,

30:07

they often have jug ears. Rapists, however nearly,

30:09

always have sparkling eyes, delicate

30:11

features, and swollen lips and eyelids.

30:13

Most of them are frail and some are hunched

30:15

back. This is all, I mean, malarkey,

30:18

of course, as we know. Yeah. Though

30:21

there is absolutely no debt to support the wrong

30:23

and overly racist idea that facial

30:25

features contribute to a person's criminality, Lombroso's

30:28

hypothesis creepily described

30:31

big nose George's face to a tee.

30:34

Yeah. I mean, the guy had a big nose. We

30:36

get it. We got it. Yup.

30:38

He, we, it is drilled into my

30:40

brain. Yeah. Yeah.

30:41

And then like the description, he had

30:44

this nose that sloped from the center bridge

30:46

and he had droopy eyelids.

30:48

His beady dark eyes were small

30:50

under a pair of black eyebrows and bushy

30:53

mustache covered the entirety of

30:55

his mouth.

30:55

He had thick black hair that pushed from the back of

30:57

his forehead and tucked behind his ears.

30:59

Again, this is more creepy

31:02

coincidence than any actual scientific

31:04

fact. In 1833, a Frenchman named

31:06

Antoine LeBlanc arrived in Morristown, New Jersey,

31:08

where he was offered lodging in Judge Samuel

31:11

Sayer's small dank basement in exchange

31:13

for unpaid work. After a few weeks

31:15

of hard labor, LeBlanc showed his true

31:17

nature. He murdered Judge Sayer

31:19

in cold blood by striking him

31:22

in the back with an axe. The judge's

31:24

wife, Sarah Sayer, and their servant,

31:26

Phoebe, possibly a slave, he

31:28

killed with a club.

31:29

LeBlanc then ransacked the house for money and valuables.

31:32

He hid out, but eventually the murders

31:34

came to light and the town hunted

31:36

him down. A local judge ordered

31:38

him to be hanged and dissected. On September 6,

31:41

1833, LeBlanc was hanged in

31:43

front of over 10,000 witnesses. He

31:45

was cut down and rushed across the street to

31:47

local Dr. Isaac Canfield's office.

31:50

Dr. Canfield removed the LeBlanc skin and

31:52

brought it to Atno, Tannery and Washington

31:54

Street to be fashioned into lampshades,

31:57

books, purses and wallets. Just a plethora

31:59

of things.

31:59

Apparently, bored locals

32:02

who were fascinated by the case were able to purchase

32:04

tiny strips of dried skin signed

32:07

by the arresting sheriff. God.

32:10

Go. That tannery made

32:11

so many items out of this one dude

32:14

that Morristown locals were still finding

32:17

the heirlooms of his

32:18

epidermis well into the late 20th century. On

32:21

Halloween night in 1995, while liquidating

32:23

the estate of the late Carl Scherzer, the

32:25

an official town historian as he was, auctioneers

32:29

found a shriveled

32:29

coin purse made from human skin. Can I

32:32

just feel like it's always the same stuff.

32:34

It's like a purse, it's a book.

32:36

It's like, where's like the pop cap? The

32:40

pop socket or the...

32:42

I think, yeah, I mean, when we're

32:45

talking about the skin and everything, it can

32:48

be pulled and stretched and like bound

32:50

on like maybe it's just because they need those

32:53

things like purses, books, And

32:55

it's just like that is just. Where's the beanie baby?

32:58

See, that might be harder to, because

33:00

it needs to be, I think on like something hard, something you

33:02

can stretch and bind. You know what I mean? I'm

33:05

gonna go off record on the record here. You

33:07

guys gotta switch up your game here. I'm tired

33:09

of the wallets. I'm tired of the,

33:11

you know,

33:13

like to make something interesting.

33:16

What do you want? A cross body bag. Well,

33:18

that's still a purse kind of.

33:20

Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah,

33:24

slap like a logo on it. There you go. There you

33:26

go. Love it. Love it.

33:29

But yes, that that old coin purse made

33:31

from human skin. Yeah, yeah. It

33:33

was made from a block. This

33:36

human skin wallet was found tucked away

33:38

in an upstairs library and is currently

33:40

in the hands of Scherzer's son, Douglas.

33:44

Douglas keeps that small rectangular

33:46

human skin wallet in a picture

33:47

frame. That wallet

33:50

is about four and a half inches long, and it's kind

33:52

of this like sickly greenish brown color.

33:54

Yeah, fold it over. a

33:56

tongue flap fits neatly into

33:59

a slot on the... front in order to close

34:01

the wallet. Is it like

34:03

a tongue flap, like a

34:06

tongue flap or? You

34:09

know, I have not looked this one up. This

34:11

is not looked that one up. And

34:14

there's a story about this in Weird New Jersey magazine,

34:16

which I don't

34:17

know if you've ever heard of Weird New Jersey, Jess. I

34:19

love it. I have some friends from New

34:21

Jersey that introduced me to it and like gave

34:23

me a bunch of physical copies of this magazine.

34:25

Nice. It's it's just this monthly

34:28

magazine that comes out in New Jersey that

34:30

talks about like a New Jersey creepy

34:32

folklore and Stories and

34:34

morbid stuff. It's it's awesome.

34:36

That's incredible But yeah, we're New

34:38

Jersey covered this and they

34:41

they described aged human skin

34:43

This was not the tough

34:45

yet supple high of a cow or pig

34:47

which we are all familiar with Nor was it the

34:49

shiny rough and scaly skin of a reptile?

34:52

This was a thin and frail skin that

34:54

should have never been tooled in such a manner.

34:56

Oh

34:56

see that Yeah, that

34:58

really gave me chills because

35:01

Up because it's like it's it's already

35:03

unnatural Yeah But the fact that

35:06

it's like human skin

35:07

doesn't have like even this dexterity

35:09

that people should be making it into stuff They have

35:11

they have to specifically

35:13

work against its natural properties

35:15

to make it and stuff exactly

35:17

You know, yeah, cuz we've been using you know

35:20

skin and hide to keep back

35:23

in the days, old days to keep us

35:25

warm and stuff like that. Tougher hides.

35:28

Yeah, but like human skin, it's just

35:30

like, it's so unnatural to us

35:32

as humans because we are humans and we're not supposed to

35:35

be worthy, the top of the food chain

35:37

right now, doing this to ourselves,

35:39

don't be skinning each other. But

35:42

yeah, from human cloaks to wallets,

35:44

to lampshades, to shoes, it's

35:46

creepy for sure. and it definitely, definitely

35:49

passes our Morbites. This is definitely your typical

35:52

Morbit type of episode.

35:54

Everything we talk about is Morbit, but this one is intense.

35:57

Yeah. especially like if you're in

36:00

animal lover or a vegan,

36:01

obviously the idea of making leather

36:03

objects from animal hides and skins is

36:06

probably, you, it lists the same reaction as

36:08

this. You know, it's, it's unnatural.

36:10

It's morbid, but like, I do think that there's

36:12

something about

36:13

making objects, clothing, et cetera, from human skin.

36:17

That is just a whole, it's a whole

36:19

thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is. I mean,

36:21

it means, it means something different

36:24

to possess and mutilate somebody's skin. Yeah.

36:26

And it's this departure from like

36:28

a human to human

36:29

relationship. You're turning someone into an

36:31

object.

36:32

You're literally objectifying

36:34

someone, making them an item. Mm-hmm. They're no longer

36:37

obligated to like this emotional connection. Mm-hmm.

36:41

And it's just, there's a whole like psychological

36:44

level to it. Yeah, it is. There's a deep, deep

36:46

and sickening level of dehumanization

36:48

at play. And I think we can all agree,

36:50

however you read into it, it's all really

36:53

fucking, ugh, icky. It's

36:55

really gross.

36:56

We should stop talking about

36:59

this. It's grossed me out. We

37:02

should talk about how fun it is that we're back with. I know. Yeah.

37:04

We're back with

37:06

Nastia in season five, right? Season

37:08

five. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

37:10

Yeah. Take a little break between seasons to get ready for the next one.

37:13

Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. What are we talking

37:15

about this season? I forgot

37:16

all week. I think we're covering

37:18

like, I think we're going to talk about like Egypt,

37:21

finally, properly. Absolutely.

37:23

Absolutely. Absolutely. God, I can't

37:25

tell you how many times there's like

37:27

Devin, my partner is obsessed with

37:30

ancient Egypt. How many times I've walked out

37:32

into the living room and there's just a documentary about

37:34

agent and I sit there and watch it too because it's fascinating.

37:36

But yes, Egypt is going to be great.

37:38

It is. And there's

37:40

also we're talking about could a zombie apocalypse

37:42

actually happen? Yes.

37:44

In real life. Yes. And this

37:47

was I mean, I know the nevermind.

37:49

I don't want to bring up the Last of Us because it's not about zombies

37:51

and they're very clear, not talking about zombies,

37:53

but I know we had talked about this even before

37:55

the show. But it's kind of like what

37:57

zombies in what sense? And that's what we talked

37:59

about.

37:59

talk about in the episode, right? It's like the

38:02

idea of a dead person

38:04

rising from their grave. That's more of like the sensationalized

38:07

movie zombie, but like the zombification

38:10

of an organism that's possessed by another organism.

38:13

Could that really happen?

38:14

Exactly. Either way, they were

38:16

dead and then now they are back and they want

38:18

to kill me. So either way, whatever

38:20

you want to call it, what the

38:22

fuck, how is that? Can it happen? Let's

38:25

get into it. So yeah, we got a lot of fun

38:27

stuff this season going up.

38:28

Yeah, and more beyond that. And

38:31

I just, quick question for you Jess. Your

38:34

opinion on, you know,

38:37

say you're getting married and you

38:39

need flowers for the wedding. Ooh, I can

38:41

buy these funeral flowers at a discount

38:44

after they've been used at the funerals at

38:46

a yes, is that a no?

38:47

Wow, whose

38:50

funeral specifically? Just anyone's?

38:53

Really depends on if they smell bad. Whose wedding? Well,

38:56

I was thinking. be the question you're asking. I

38:59

thought it was mine. Are you talking about

39:01

mine? You want me to help you, you want me to help you plan

39:03

your upcoming wedding. Right? I

39:06

absolutely haven't asked you yet, but yes,

39:08

do it, do it all for me. I don't have to disclose

39:10

all my methods to you. Do I?

39:12

You just write the check.

39:13

No, but you've

39:16

already given so much away and

39:18

I think my only qualm is just make

39:20

sure they don't smell like the dead body. So

39:22

if they don't smell,

39:24

sure. by all means throw some old funeral

39:26

flowers at the wedding, Elise. Well,

39:29

I need to rethink some things and make some calls. I got to

39:31

go. OK, bad

39:34

bye, Elise. Bye-bye Jess.

39:56

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