Middle-Aged and Mediocre

Joel found two stories from each month of 2022 and he's here to tell us all about them in our year-in-review episode! We've got people getting out of prison after being proven innocent, people going into prison that are guilty as hell, fun animal stories, and so much more! This is a fun, laid-back episode that we know you'll enjoy, so give it a listen!

Huge thanks to our sponsor for this episode, Square 1 Fitness. If you want to get happier and healthier in 2023, reach out to Square 1 Fitness for personalized diet and exercise plans. Contact them on Facebook or email them at [email protected] and tell them you heard about them on our podcast and your initial consultation is 100% FREE! Don't wait! Be a healthier you now!

We start the episode off with two stories that would make great mystery/criminal mastermind/heist-style movies. We're thinking you bring in Rian Johnson and let him tell the story of Juan Carlos Guzmán, a young man who literally fell out of the sky and began a life of crime at 13 years old only to be caught years later by accident when he reached for the same apple that a Scotland Yard detective who had been hunting him down was reaching for in a supermarket. Our other story in the first half of this episode is all about the Eagle Diamond, which first surfaced in Eagle, Wisconsin way back in 1876, and saw its way through a con man ripping off miners searching for more diamonds in Wisconsin by selling them land at hiked-up prices, as well popping up years later when it was stolen by a gang of surfer thieves! We've basically got There Will Be Blood mixed with Point Break here and we'd love to see this story given the Netflix series treatment it deserves. 

Those two stories are just appetizers for the main course because our last story is one of the craziest true crime stories we've ever featured on this podcast. There was a home invasion in Vallejo, California in 2015 that resulted in a kidnapping. A seemingly well-executed, well-prepared, professional kidnapping. What followed was a series of events that will have you guessing whodunnit the entire time and unless you already know the story, you're never going to guess the ending to this true crime story that goes from kidnapping to hoax to not a hoax and then back to a hoax but maybe not a hoax and okay yeah, definitely a hoax but we don't know who is hoaxing who and then oh damn, it wasn't a hoax after all but maybe it was and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING!?

A couple of episodes ago, we briefly looked at the case in Moscow, Idaho where 4 college students were murdered in their sleep on November 13, 2022. After more information has come out, we decided to take a closer look at everything that is known about the unsolved murders in this episode. 

Sticking with the unsolved murder theme, we also take a look at 5 cases that have remained unsolved and try to see if we can't come up with our own theories about what took place. 

Thank you to Monsters Horde: Records, Retro Toys & More in Marietta, Ohio for supporting this week's episode!

Cash and Joel sit down with Dr. Devilish DMD, Shaman, Doom Coon, and Blake Tornado, better known collectively as the band Triceratops, for a catastrophically destructive disaster of an interview.  The Middle-Aged and Mediocre duo spoke with the Interdimensional Combat Wrestling Alliance's Quartet of Chaos... the Bog Dwelling Sons of Satan... the Rock & Wrestlin' Warriors about a vast array of topics, including existence itself, the Dollar Tree raising its prices, George Michael, freezing time and so much more. Referring to themselves as "Dollar Store GWAR", get the band's thoughts on their pro wrestling dream matches, if they would rather fight an angry raccoon every morning or swat away the same fly all day every day, and what they would do if they were witness to a robbery at 7-Eleven.

Check out their podcast, Between the Horns and Under the Kushion, on Spotify and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/Triceratops740 to find out where and when you can see them live and how to buy their merch! 

This interview goes off the rails immediately and smashes its way through several dimensions before exploding all over your face. Enjoy!

Benjamin Lay was an abolitionist, vegetarian, pacifist, gender-conscious, anti-capitalist, environmentalist Quaker, with dwarfism and a hunchback, and he was an all-around badass who refused to remain quiet about what he believed in. Oh, and he lived in a cave. Mostly, though, this story goes to show you that being "woke" isn't new. It's not a scary boogeyman like some Tucker Carlsons would have you believe. Most importantly, though, don't forget... he was a little guy. You won't forget though! Joel won't let you.

In this episode, we also take a look at the current situation in Moscow, Idaho where four college students were apparently stabbed to death while asleep in their beds. We discuss the timeline of events that took place the night of the stabbings and all of the aftermath so far.

In Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, a horrific home invasion in the early morning hours of October 4, 2009, four teens who called themselves the "Disciples of Destruction" invade the home of 42-year-old Kimberly Cates and her 11-year-old daughter, Jamie Cates.  The bloodbath that ensued was horrific and the aftermath proved just how depraved 19-year-old Christopher Gribble and 17-year-old Steven Spader truly were.  Accompanied by 17-year-old Quinn Glover and 18-year-old William Marks, the two teenage boys finally got to carry out their deadly obsession with committing murder and mayhem. 

Also in this episode, we talk about a woman who blinded herself because she always felt that she was meant to be blind, another woman who crafted a husband & son out of yarn only for the husband to cheat on her, our inner monologues, and what has been going on with us since our last episode.  

In this episode, we cover five truly strange true crime stories filled with twists & turns that would make for great television plots (some even have already!).  We have a man found dead in a hotel room with a small hole in his scrotum and internal injuries but no evidence that anything caused him to end up that way.  A man is found dead in the desert from an apparent mob-style assassination but nothing suggests that a murder took place at all.  The mother of a young girl with a laundry list of ailments is found stabbed to death in her home and when the truth is revealed, the community and the country are shocked.  Two men named Richard both go missing in Alaska roughly around the same time and the weirdest body-switch movie from the 80s occurs.  Finally, a man is murdered in his home by another man who was unknowingly living in the same mansion.

Lance Henriksen stars as Ed Harley in this 1988 horror classic that warns of the dangers of letting hate and revenge consume you. When Ed's son is fatally injured in an accident involving a group of friends out on a camping trip, Ed turns to an old witch named Haggis to bring his son back to life. Haggis can't give Ed his son back but she can unleash a creature known as Pumpkinhead to get vengeance for Ed. She warns Ed that vengeance comes with a terrible price but blinded by rage, Ed allows her to unleash the demonic creature on the friends who have all been marked to be hunted and slaughtered. Will Ed have his revenge or will it cost him more than he can afford?

Chandler Halderson worked extremely hard not to have a job. He built a world of lies that came crumbling down around him, and instead of just owning up to his lies, Chandler decided to double down on his bad decisions by committing a double homicide. Continuing the trend of losers committing murder, we discuss the Children of Thunder cult... which had a member count of... 3. Brothers Glenn and Justin Helzer had found themselves excommunicated from the church of LDS and Glenn had his sights set on world domination. Fortunately for the world, the Children of Thunder were very bad at figuring out how to devise a plan to take over the world. One of their plans included orphan assassins but when that didn't work out, they became murderers themselves. Clearly, they were just as bad at covering their tracks as they were at planning their takeover of the world, or else we wouldn't be talking about them in this episode. 

We also discuss fighting a grizzly bear and Cash is the dumbest man alive. Enjoy!