Episode Transcript
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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai - Go Unlimited to remove this watermark) On February 27th, 2017, Brianna Jean Baptiste would stop by her grandmother's house in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
0:16
Brianna let herself in, finding the house mostly quiet.
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She would go upstairs to her grandmother's room, just to say a quick hello.
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But, what she saw shocked her.
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Mama Edna was lying in a pool of her own blood.
0:31
With only a faint heartbeat, CPR failed to keep her alive.
0:37
Someone had killed Mama Edna.
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She lived in Flatbush, New York, so you know, it definitely wasn't the rent.
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Welcome to Criminally Underreported Murder Mysteries.
0:51
Thank you for coming. Mama Edna was the community grandma, loved by many.
1:19
So, when word of her murder hit the neighborhood, everyone showed up to help the investigation.
1:24
Even a couple sewer rats were giving cops possible leads.
1:29
The home was full of people who had followed and loved Edna her entire life.
1:33
But, in their midst lay Judas. Edna's husband was in the other room when she was murdered.
1:40
Edna was both strangled and beaten. Either he ignored her pleas, or Edna died more quietly than the 2016 Clinton campaign.
1:49
Something else stood out. The police swept room to room, which is really impressive since most pigs can't even reach the broom.
1:58
But, they were attracted to something in her husband Frederick's room.
2:02
There was a pile of several burnt pieces of paper with Edna's name on them.
2:08
And ominously, right beside them lay an open book called How to Get Rid of a Witch.
2:13
Right there in the open book it read, Write the witch's name on pieces of paper and burn them all.
2:20
The cops would follow the obvious donut trail that led right to Frederick.
2:25
He was now a prime suspect in his own wife's murder.
2:29
While the spotlight was on Frederick, another suspect slipped away in the shadow, before they could be questioned.
2:35
By the time the police set their sights on them, suspect number two was in a whole different state.
2:40
They ran out that bitch like they were Connie at a psychiatrist's office.
2:43
Mama Edna was a Haitian immigrant, and in 1969 she immigrated to the United States for opportunity and found a new home.
2:51
The community of Flatbush welcomed her with open arms.
2:56
It was in this community where she worked as a seamstress, raised four kids, and was more popular than a 12-year-old on an Epstein flight.
3:05
The old sweet grandmother held another secret.
3:08
She was a rich. No, she wasn't a rich. She wasn't Mr. Krabs hiding away that wealth.
3:15
She was a witch. More specifically, she was a practicing voodoo priest.
3:21
Whenever the word voodoo is uttered, the Western mind twists and turns towards something dark, scary, and possessive.
3:28
But voodoo practitioners aren't evil, manipulative, and possessive monsters.
3:32
Come on, guys. It's a religion, not a Kardashian.
3:37
Much of our misconceptions about voodoo can be traced back to the Louisiana Purchase.
3:43
The United States purchased the land claimed by France for $15 million.
3:49
The French would lead the continent to the United States, leaving behind many slaves.
3:55
This was the first time the French would be paid for what they do best, running away.
4:00
Most French slaves were from the French San Gambier colony in West Africa.
4:06
The French would kidnap over a million people, using them for labor in the French colonies in the Caribbean.
4:14
Since the slaves were from the same region, they had similar folk religious beliefs.
4:20
These beliefs would adapt and change into what we know now as voodoo, with a U.
4:26
Voodoo, spelled V-O-D-U, originated from Haiti.
4:31
Although Haiti was a majority voodoo, all Africans were forcefully baptized and converted to Christianity.
4:37
It's the first bath recorded in French history, and to no one's surprise, it was a forceful one.
4:44
Some Haitians incorporated Catholicism into their voodoo beliefs, while others abstained from it entirely.
4:50
How voodoo got the bad rap was during the slave revolts between 1791 and 1804.
4:57
The Spanish and the British aided the revolution and provided essential supplies to beat the French.
5:03
Those supplies included bullets, ammunition, and of course, a Frenchman's biggest weakness, deodorant.
5:11
After a long-fought, smelly war, the Haitians would win their independence and kick the French out of Haiti.
5:18
The French had colonies in French Louisiana, but fighting the British was expensive and they were running out of bullets.
5:25
It took at least three to crack through the crooked teeth of your average British soldier.
5:30
To raise money to continue the fight, the French sold Louisiana for $15 million.
5:35
According to the National Geographic, adjusted for inflation, that is $342 million.
5:42
The United States not only had the territory of Louisiana, but also the slaves that lived there.
5:49
While American voodoo was indifferent from Haitian voodoo, to white Americans in the antebellum South,
5:54
a group of black people enjoying themselves as either a basketball team or a crime.
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And since no one bawled in the 1800s, the press lied about the criminal shit going on in voodoo ceremonies.
6:05
They were reported to have child sacrifices, mass orgies, and demon possessions.
6:11
Honestly, I don't know if they were talking about a voodoo ceremony or an R. Kelly concert.
6:16
The only thing truthful about this statement is that voodoo believers do aim to be possessed by spirits.
6:22
In voodoo beliefs, God is very distant from human beings.
6:26
However, spirits are an in-between messenger for God and the real world.
6:31
So, getting possessed by positive spirits is how you come closer to God.
6:35
It's like having the Holy Spirit inside of you.
6:38
And there's nothing wrong with having something positive inside of you.
6:41
I mean, unless you're sharing needles with Magic Johnson.
6:45
In some voodoo beliefs, disciples and saints were also seen as positive spirits
6:49
that would possess the followers of Jesus Christ to do good.
6:53
The more negative pop culture association comes from the media of the antebellum South.
6:59
After the success of the Haitian Revolution, southerners in the United States began to panic.
7:04
A slave rebellion could spell the end to the South.
7:07
Turns out black people were allergic to that whole slavery thing.
7:11
I mean, chains and whips.
7:13
The books called Fifty Shades of Grey, not Fifty Shades of Black.
7:18
Even after the Civil War, exaggerations of the voodoo practices never stopped.
7:23
They didn't go away. Some newspapers, like the New Orleans-based Picayune,
7:28
described the practices of voodoo as full particulars of the hell broth and orgies.
7:35
Stories in the Picayune also told lies about cannibalism and child sacrifices.
7:40
Still, when the Ku Klux Klan was on their rise in the South,
7:44
they emphasized stories of sexual depravity and violence against white people,
7:48
especially women, to paint the KKK as protectors against violent savages.
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The Ku Klux Klan at that time was a group of racist white men that were so bad at sex
8:00
that the only time they got action in the sheets was when they chased black people out of town.
8:06
But the Klan held an image as morally upstanding righteous Christian protectors,
8:12
of course, white families. So often the depiction of black culture would stand in opposition.
8:18
Despite the Christian influence of voodoo,
8:20
they were represented as anti-Christian and satanic.
8:24
Voodoo Christian services were a lot more involved and active,
8:28
and held more dancing than the white racist Protestant services.
8:31
And to a racist, nothing is more evil than dancing at church.
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The second that black ass dropped to the music of the church choir,
8:38
your soul dropped straight to hell with it. In my opinion, if Jesus was indeed white,
8:43
one of his miracles had to be making that ass jiggle to a ratchet beat.
8:47
It's important that we know the history of both voodoo
8:50
and why even someone like Frederick might have been in opposition to it.
8:55
How we understand the past will influence how we see the future.
8:58
Frederick, despite being a part of the New York Haitian diaspora,
9:02
still hated the religion of voodoo and hated his wife for practicing it.
9:06
This man hated voodoo so much that he bought a book to get rid of voodoo witches.
9:10
But was that hate enough to murder his own wife?
9:13
Personally, I could never hate a witch. What's not to love about a woman who can make magic work with your broomstick?
9:27
When the police arrived at the scene of the crime,
9:30
there were neighbors, family, and friends who had heard of the murder.
9:34
Some were surprised, some were sad, and some were a mixture of both.
9:38
Frederick was at the top of the mind of every investigator.
9:41
The voodoo book was damning. However, what didn't work in Frederick's favor
9:46
was his history of mocking his wife's rituals,
9:49
installing locks on all the rooms, but most damning of all,
9:54
Frederick did not eat her food. When a black woman cooks, the whole neighborhood damn well knows about it.
10:01
The only reason you wouldn't eat a black woman's cooking is if you hate her.
10:05
If the KKK could cook as good as a black woman, I'm not saying I'd join them,
10:09
but don't be surprised when a couple of my bedsheets have cornbread crumbs,
10:12
collard green stings, and a couple of holes in them.
10:14
While Frederick was being questioned,
10:17
the police looked around for more possible clues.
10:20
Officers soon found Edna's secret bedding room.
10:23
Grandma was running an unlicensed bedding racket in her own home.
10:28
Instead of baking cookies, Grandma was out there cooking bread.
10:32
It turns out that the real OG on the block was the original Grandma Edna.
10:37
However, during the time of her murder,
10:39
Edna didn't have any bedding clients scheduled.
10:41
After asking around a bit,
10:44
law enforcement discovered Edna did have clients,
10:47
but not the ones taking bets with dead presidents,
10:50
but rather the ones taking bets on dead spirits.
10:54
So, next, the investigators looked at her voodoo clients.
10:59
Once the officers realized Edna had a large client list,
11:02
they weeded the list down. First, they filtered out all the spirits,
11:06
since police love ghosts in white bedsheets.
11:08
But after asking around, they realized that the most recent client of Mama Edna
11:13
was present at the home during the investigation.
11:17
However, they would suspiciously leave right before they could be questioned.
11:21
Not only that, but they were parked outside of the home the night of the crime.
11:26
They were also reported to have sped away when approached.
11:30
The only innocent person to ever speed away from a crime scene is OJ Simpson.
11:34
If our suspect is guilty of anything,
11:37
it's probably secretly fathering a Kardashian.
11:40
A crime far more serious than murder.
11:44
But who is our bucking bronco? None other than 43-year-old Tamisha Harper.
11:49
And this glove indeed fits.
11:53
Tamisha had been a client of Edna in the past
11:55
and was even scheduled to meet her on the day of that murder.
12:00
Tamisha was not at her house during the time of Edna's murder,
12:03
and according to the DA, Edna's granddaughter had stopped by Tamisha's house
12:08
to tell her about Edna's murder. Tamisha was home but didn't answer.
12:12
Instead, that bitch ran out the back like she was Kanye
12:15
trying to escape from common sense. Later, police officers would attempt to bring her in for questioning.
12:20
However, Tamisha never returned home.
12:23
Instead, she was a runner. She was a track star.
12:26
And she dragged her ass to New Jersey. Like a Genshin Impact player escaping a healthy social life,
12:31
she was hiding in her mom's house.
12:35
After being brought in, Tamisha Harper admitted to everything.
12:39
Tamisha believed that a jealous woman wanted her boyfriend.
12:43
So, that jealous woman put a curse on Tamisha.
12:46
Tamisha, in response, went to her family friend, Mama Edna.
12:51
After only a single session, Edna realized the spirits in Tamisha were fighting hard.
12:56
They were throwing hands like they were Drake battling the Age of Consent.
13:00
So, Mama Edna needed Tamisha to come back for a second session.
13:05
This was on the night of Edna's murder. Edna, while returning to her room,
13:09
said either speaking to Tamisha or the spirits in her,
13:13
You're here to kill me. Mama Edna, in that brief moment,
13:17
was unfortunately gifted with the knowledge of her fate.
13:21
When the two reached Edna's room, Tamisha claims that was when the spirits took over.
13:27
Like a demon, Tamisha struck Edna,
13:30
causing her to fall over. And while she called for Frederick's help,
13:34
Tamisha wrapped her cold hands tightly around her neck
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until Edna's body was as cold and soulless
13:40
as the hands used to take her life.
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Tamisha would hurry home and shower.
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Regardless of what evidence she could scrub down the drain,
13:51
guilt is a stain that rarely washes away.
13:54
Its pungent stench follows you, leaving a trail back to the deathbed of your innocence
13:59
and forever tethering you to the birthplace of your guilt.
14:04
So she tried to run, and with the help of her boyfriend,
14:08
Tamisha fled to New Jersey and tried hiding with her mother.
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But she was caught and cornered, and on the walk to the interrogation room,
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she couldn't hold it in. She broke down and she spilled the whole truth.
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I find it rather fitting that on her walk to the interrogation room
14:27
to exercise the truth, Tamisha's guilt would betray her
14:31
and choke the truth out of her. It's almost like Mama Edna never stopped fighting
14:36
those spirits hiding under Tamisha's skin.
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Tamisha would plead guilty to manslaughter and receive 17 years in prison
14:44
in Bedford Hill Correctional Facility.
14:49
She could be freed by 2031. But the demons that led her to kill Mama Edna
14:54
will stay caged in her for the rest of her life.
14:58
Too bad she killed the one person helping her to fight them.
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