Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Do you they Elizabeth were? I was looking for you.
Speaker 2: What's all right? I got a question for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Me up here? Yeah, he knows what's ridiculous?
Speaker 1: I do you do? Yeah? I does know it. I
Speaker 1: learned so much today.
Speaker 2: What did you learn today?
Speaker 1: The interns?
Speaker 2: You look tired.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The interns came to me with tears in their eyes, ma'am, ma'am,
Speaker 1: and they said, we we got something from Marianna today.
Speaker 2: Mariana today, huh and are you going to get me wrong?
Speaker 1: Marianna apparently she apologized to the interns for having to
Speaker 1: make this them look this up, but like it's not
Speaker 1: that bad, really good. But so they brought this to
Speaker 1: me and they're like this was amazing. Marianna is great,
Speaker 1: oh really okay. But the thing is, it's like, okay, so,
Speaker 1: do you know what a mook bong is?
Speaker 2: Bong m u k b A n G sounds familiar? No,
Speaker 2: I would say no.
Speaker 1: It's one of those videos like people eat something on
Speaker 1: the video and talk about the food they're eating. It's
Speaker 1: like a TikTok. Yeah, exactly. It comes from the Korean.
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, and so like you're you're eating this,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes you're like, wait a second, I my
Speaker 1: lipstick's gonna get all messed up if I eat this
Speaker 1: on the television. So there's another thing I learned about
Speaker 1: called micro blading.
Speaker 2: You're just full of learning today, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. It's like a temporary tattoo process where they
Speaker 1: like put on lips color or like eyebrows. It's not
Speaker 1: like getting them tattooed on you. It fades.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: So there's this company Wonderskin, and they do something that
Speaker 1: is called wonder blading. So it's even less permanent than
Speaker 1: the microblading. It's just lasts like ten hours. Look at
Speaker 1: me blading, Yeah, exactly. And so they're like, you know
Speaker 1: what if you're going to do these videos where you're
Speaker 1: just shoving food in your ma, but you also want
Speaker 1: to look super cute and you don't want your lipstick
Speaker 1: to either be eaten while you're eating the food or
Speaker 1: rub off all over you, we should help. And then
Speaker 1: there is a company that's like, we want people to
Speaker 1: make videos of them eating our food, but like, I
Speaker 1: don't think.
Speaker 2: Anyone's going to on this one.
Speaker 1: So these two companies Wonderskin. They made this lip thing
Speaker 1: and you put it on and you have to let
Speaker 1: it sit for a little bit and then you you like,
Speaker 1: peel it off. I think, well, yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: peel it and then yeah, you peel it off, and
Speaker 1: then there's like a color underneath. So the it goes
Speaker 1: on in a metallic green color and then you peel
Speaker 1: it off and it's a lovely rosy color. They teamed
Speaker 1: up because they wanted it to look like it's an
Speaker 1: ode to guacamole and tinfoil. So it's not from like
Speaker 1: the the like God's gift to Burrito's al Farlito. No,
Speaker 1: this was this is a chain Chipotle. Chipotle joined up
Speaker 1: with Wonderskin to do a transfer proof guawk proof lip
Speaker 1: color and it's called Lipotle.
Speaker 2: It's not called lip bang.
Speaker 1: It's called Liipotle. And it's for when you're doing a
Speaker 1: mook bung and you want, like you you know, want
Speaker 1: to stay fresh lasts all day. It's a formula that
Speaker 1: is hydrating and then you just take it off with
Speaker 1: a regular oil based cleanser. Unlike Chipotle, it's a vegan,
Speaker 1: cruelty free and gluten free, So you got that going
Speaker 1: for you while you're there.
Speaker 2: They're bringing that to the Mashupe exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: God seemed like nice up front. This is ridiculous, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You tell me my eyes are up here, Look up here, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: trying to kill a tree.
Speaker 1: That is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: To get back at a person, or maybe a lot
Speaker 2: of people, or maybe to improve your life or to
Speaker 2: improve your asset portfolio.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, all right.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, today I'm going to use up all of our
Speaker 2: one percent. But we're only talking about tree murder only.
Speaker 2: This is it is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd
Speaker 2: and outrageous capers. Heis and cons it's always ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent murder free and ridiculous. How did you, Elizabeth sar
Speaker 2: Remember when I told you about the Great Sheffield Tree War?
Speaker 1: Yes, I do, right, All.
Speaker 2: Those silver hairs were throwing themselves at the trunks of
Speaker 2: the trees to protect them, protect their beloved arbors from
Speaker 2: the choppers. Yeah right now, the wood chopper that is.
Speaker 2: Remember you were a cat and you witnessed the early
Speaker 2: morning raid where the tree removers came in like a
Speaker 2: military operation.
Speaker 1: Okay, it took a couple of years off my life.
Speaker 2: I read it, Did you looked stressed? Harry One? I
Speaker 2: would say, in that instance, the trees they were being
Speaker 2: massacred by local authorities in this senseless fight over who
Speaker 2: ran the streets of Sheffield, some who controlled the leaf
Speaker 2: is green edge. But today I have a much different
Speaker 2: version of them. Okay, today we'll be focusing not on
Speaker 2: state based anti tree violence, a term I just coined. Instead, rather,
Speaker 2: we will be focusing on freelance arbor assassins, self appointed
Speaker 2: tree surgeons, and anti leaf crimes of opportunity are boris
Speaker 2: side boy, there you go. We're just throwing terms around.
Speaker 2: I like this coined Elizabeth. You ever seen a grand, tall,
Speaker 2: old tree removed? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It's a sadness to right, it really is.
Speaker 2: Okay, now flipping it. Have you ever seen a tree
Speaker 2: that's been poisoned? Yes? You have?
Speaker 1: I have?
Speaker 2: Okay, how heartbreaking? Was that?
Speaker 1: Really heartbreaking? Because it's it's usually for like selfish means
Speaker 1: people want to view and so they poison a tree totally.
Speaker 2: Or say, say the people own the tree, right, it's
Speaker 2: their tree, and they still poison it because they want
Speaker 2: to take it down. Yeah, yeah, even that's sad it is.
Speaker 1: Did you poisoning of any type of sad saren.
Speaker 2: Poisoning of life is sad.
Speaker 1: Any kind of poisoning in life is sad.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Dose makes the poison, right,
Speaker 2: Even water can be a poison. Well, there are a
Speaker 2: few ways to kill a tree, Okay, I looked into it.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be able to speak with a thorough tare. Okay,
Speaker 2: so one you can ring it? Did you know about this?
Speaker 2: You know what this means? Ringing a tree?
Speaker 1: Refresh meat?
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, the way we have veins and arteries and
Speaker 2: capillarias and also are lymph ducts that convey all the
Speaker 2: precious fluids of our body around, like all in circulation. Well,
Speaker 2: trees they have analogs. Right. Trees have skin just like us.
Speaker 2: Their skin we call bark.
Speaker 1: I call my skin bark.
Speaker 2: I know you do. I wish you wouldn't, But it's
Speaker 2: just like our epidermis. Right, It's a combination of dead
Speaker 2: and living cells that together function as this protective layer.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, now, scientists, those amongst us who study trees and plants,
Speaker 2: they have terms for all the stuff that's inside the
Speaker 2: tree bark. They break it into layers or rings, if
Speaker 2: you will. So what's in the side the tree bark?
Speaker 2: They call that the like vascular cambium. Right, don't worry,
Speaker 2: I won't be throwing a bunch of Latin terms at you.
Speaker 2: Nothing you have to remember. But I do know you
Speaker 2: prefer ancient Greek terms. Sure, so I got some of those,
Speaker 2: all right. So while we're on the subject, the ancient
Speaker 2: Greek term is floios, which was a word for tree bark.
Speaker 2: The Greek words for tree bark, which was the inspiration
Speaker 2: for this next bit of fun tree science. I want
Speaker 2: to tell you the inner cambium layers, Elizabeth. So you
Speaker 2: have these layers of skin, right, just like we have
Speaker 2: layers of scan, trees of layers of scan. That's their bark.
Speaker 2: And inside your skin you have your corpus, that meat
Speaker 2: sack of all everything that's inside the skin, right, all
Speaker 2: your squishy bits. Well, it's this mass of muscles and
Speaker 2: tendons and ligaments and soft tissue joints, organs. Right, The
Speaker 2: recently discovered interstitionum are newest part. Look it up. Most importantly,
Speaker 2: you have this network of nerves and a system of
Speaker 2: veins and arteries, capillaries, and the lymph ducks, right do
Speaker 2: we talked about well, trees, as I said, basically the
Speaker 2: same thing, but it's in rings. So the rings go,
Speaker 2: that's where there's squishy bits. Are you with me so far? Okay?
Speaker 2: So inside the tree skin, inside their bark, you will
Speaker 2: find this first ring of tissue called flow them. That's
Speaker 2: from the ancient Preek term flowios p h l oios.
Speaker 2: Now doesn't it sound like what it is? Flow them right?
Speaker 2: Flow right? So it's this network of veins that feeds
Speaker 2: sugar as in sucrose like basic sugar, table sugar, which
Speaker 2: is the product of a tree's photosynthesis. So the veins
Speaker 2: are distributing sugar from the leaves where the photosynthesis is occurring,
Speaker 2: and it goes down throughout the rest of the tree. Right,
Speaker 2: So that's that ring of flowam. Now, next inside you
Speaker 2: find the ring of xylum tissue. Yeah, these are the
Speaker 2: only two I'm gonna tell you about, so no worry.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's the last one, flom and xylum. The
Speaker 2: xylum This is a network of veins that distribute the
Speaker 2: water from the roots to the rest of the tree.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So xylum comes from an ancient Greek term elizabeth xylon yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: and which was the ancient Greek word for wood. So
Speaker 2: we've got bark and wood. Anyways, it seems fitting. So
Speaker 2: we got flohm and xylom. Now I like to think
Speaker 2: of these sugar arteries and the water veins. We keep
Speaker 2: it easy, okay, right, So this all all we learned
Speaker 2: all this stuff from one guy, This guy Carl Nagali.
Speaker 2: You never heard of him. I didn't know about him, right,
Speaker 2: Like I knew some of these plant tree scientists people
Speaker 2: like you know, like Mendel and stuff, but not this guy.
Speaker 2: He came up with all the language we have for
Speaker 2: tree parts, these three he's he was big into pollination,
Speaker 2: mixed legacy and history though. Yeah. For one, he's all
Speaker 2: into trees and plants things, right, But then he also
Speaker 2: goes he talks to his fellow scientist, Gregor Mendel, that
Speaker 2: monk who was working with the peas.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he convinced him to abandon his work on genetics.
Speaker 2: It's like Mendel, I give up the peas man, it's
Speaker 2: going nowhere, right, the guy who gives us the seeds
Speaker 2: of genetic theory. So Negali, he writes to Mendel these
Speaker 2: letters right in a hope of persuading the monk to
Speaker 2: give up on his early genetics work, because the dude Nagali.
Speaker 2: He believes that evolution was not the record of life's sloppy, messy,
Speaker 2: ongoing quest to better itself. No, no, no, which is
Speaker 2: what we think of natural selection as Yeah, he believed
Speaker 2: that nature had quote a inner perfect principle. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: you have to understand he's writing to a monk. They're
Speaker 2: both really religious. He believed that God's work would be
Speaker 2: far more organized than what Mendel is putting forward. He's
Speaker 2: basically saying, you're muddying up God's name, suggesting that God
Speaker 2: would rely on all this happenstance and chaos. So that's
Speaker 2: why he got mad at him. Anyway, the result was
Speaker 2: Mendel's absolutely correct theory for genetics gets shunted, is pushed
Speaker 2: off to the side. His gardening studies in the eighteen
Speaker 2: fifties and eighteen sixties, they go nowhere, He's out there
Speaker 2: in this monastery raising p's. Other monks are like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing. I'm doing science, guys, and feeding the
Speaker 2: monks nuts. Anyway, his whole this stuff about the inheritance
Speaker 2: of traits of peas. Right, that all gets totally missed
Speaker 2: for until the early twentieth century, all because of this
Speaker 2: guy who also tells us all about trees. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: he's like, my name's good, but I'm gonna try it anyway.
Speaker 1: So he was a special interest voter, a single issue.
Speaker 2: Vote for our purposes. This cat and aagally, he's a
Speaker 2: true tree freak, right, So using his language of flowam
Speaker 2: and xylum, this is how you get to kill a tree, right,
Speaker 2: It's all about the flow and the xylum. You can
Speaker 2: ring a tree, which means if you cut into the
Speaker 2: bark and you remove that external bark that we think
Speaker 2: of as bark, then you cut in a little further
Speaker 2: and you make a ring all the way around the tree,
Speaker 2: just like an inch or two inches you know, I
Speaker 2: guess tall wide. I don't know how you'd want to
Speaker 2: think of it like a ribbon cut, you know, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you go in deep enough to get into those soft
Speaker 2: inner rings, you'll break up the flow them and the xylum,
Speaker 2: and the tree will just start to die because you
Speaker 2: cut off the connection to the roots, and the leaves
Speaker 2: can't get water from the trunks of the and the roots,
Speaker 2: and it can't get sugar from the leaves. Tree dies.
Speaker 2: All you have to do is just ring that right,
Speaker 2: So that's one way tree killers operate. He may not
Speaker 2: like this next one, Elizabeth. It's a little more violent.
Speaker 2: You get out of drill and you go to town
Speaker 2: like your man Huck from Scandal.
Speaker 1: Oh god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you drill holes and you pour in poison and
Speaker 2: herbicide like round up, and you don't go for all
Speaker 2: that fancy chemical war Yeah, you can go with also
Speaker 2: the good old fashioned standby gasoline or get the petroleum distill.
Speaker 2: It's really ebs and salts. Maybe I don't know about
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 1: He people who get rid of tree stumps that way
Speaker 1: and you pour that seems very natural. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I had old paint boss, Elizabeth back when I was
Speaker 2: a house painter, and he had a stump in his
Speaker 2: backyard and a BlackBerry bramble, and you know about those,
Speaker 2: neither of which could he kill off. So he was
Speaker 2: engaged in this long prolonged chemical warfare battle with the
Speaker 2: BlackBerry bramble.
Speaker 1: You just have to let go into the BlackBerry brand
Speaker 1: and enjoy it's there.
Speaker 2: It's you now have BlackBerry, and.
Speaker 1: Thank god, it's like my favorite fruit.
Speaker 2: His whole fence was a black perry bramble, so he
Speaker 2: would also he would he had that stump as well,
Speaker 2: right was in the center's backyard. He hit that thing
Speaker 2: with paint thinner like from old job sites NAPFA, which
Speaker 2: is like one of the craziest petroleum the still its right.
Speaker 2: Then one time we poured muriatic acid on it from
Speaker 2: a job. We were pulling the paint off a floor,
Speaker 2: off a cement floor. He would drain any chemicals he
Speaker 2: had in his garage. He wanted to get rid of stump,
Speaker 2: all right, Yeah, poor Davis. Now this thing would not
Speaker 2: die right. The stump just kept going. So he started
Speaker 2: cutting into it, right, and then he would like then
Speaker 2: green shoots would sprunt out and get all math. I was.
Speaker 2: I was not aware. I don't. I would want to
Speaker 2: say it was like some type of fruit tree, but
Speaker 2: I don't remember. It's a big big stump. Was this big,
Speaker 2: like like big like I would see, like I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think of something as a.
Speaker 1: Comparative, like a manhole cover.
Speaker 2: Bigger's little bigger than a manhole cover. Like it was
Speaker 2: a big daddy like yeah, like real real wide. Right,
Speaker 2: So and this thing is basically using these tree fresh
Speaker 2: green tree shoots to give my boss the middle finger.
Speaker 2: So like I show up, he's all pistol look on
Speaker 2: that tree and I'm like, O, looks great. He's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: the stump's a triumph. Yeah, exactly right. So he would
Speaker 2: mix up chemicals basically like a bomb maker and just
Speaker 2: keep pouring them on this stump, and then a week
Speaker 2: or two later more green shoots like this is a
Speaker 2: He's like, I loved the tree, and I loved how
Speaker 2: much it made my old paint boss Larry shout out
Speaker 2: to Larry how much he would just go nuts, right,
Speaker 2: But anyway, he moved on to the third thing you
Speaker 2: can do, which is expose the roots and douse them
Speaker 2: in poison. So he tried that. He dumped raw toxic
Speaker 2: waste in his backyard. For a while.
Speaker 1: People and Davis have to only like drink out of
Speaker 1: a brit of water flow.
Speaker 2: That's because of the agricultural run. But it's a Larry Yeah,
Speaker 2: he had big time boomer energy where he's like everyone
Speaker 2: does this. I'm like, yeah, from Texas, nobody does this
Speaker 2: out here. Anyway, When that failed to work in the stump,
Speaker 2: now now it's like no longer flat top. You can't
Speaker 2: even use it as like, Oh it's a stump, I
Speaker 2: can sit on it, talk to a kid. No, it's
Speaker 2: a pock marked battlefield, but partially exposed, fully defiant moss
Speaker 2: and roots and stuff and the stub of this trunk
Speaker 2: right anyway, at this point, he gets down to brute force, right,
Speaker 2: so he went at the exposed roots with a chainsaw,
Speaker 2: and then the root ball is basically too big to
Speaker 2: pull out, so he's got a sauce all he's trying
Speaker 2: to get down to it. He took that tree stump down,
Speaker 2: chunk by chunk, bit by bed till finally we sell
Speaker 2: you the top of like the whole top of the
Speaker 2: root ball. And he realizes that's way more work than
Speaker 2: I'm willing to do. So he's like, this tree will
Speaker 2: outlive us all God bless and he gave up right
Speaker 2: then and there right, grabbed his shovel and started covering
Speaker 2: the exposed roots. Left. I bet if you went to
Speaker 2: that backyard Davis and I could take it to the
Speaker 2: house today, you would find a tree growing that exact
Speaker 2: same spot, possibly a circle, a small circle of trees growing. Anyway,
Speaker 2: This is where I learned from those big, loud, rolling
Speaker 2: thunderstorms you have in the South in the summer that
Speaker 2: the only real way to take out a tree is
Speaker 2: to saturate the hell out of the ground and then
Speaker 2: knock it over somehow winderic. You know, another tree falls
Speaker 2: on it. Yeah, you can go full lumberjacket, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of cut into one side, pull out the saws,
Speaker 2: cut it down, or you know, you know, if you can,
Speaker 2: you want then you want to aim for a spot
Speaker 2: like that's much more difficult. But he could out the
Speaker 2: ropes and cables. You can yank those suckers down.
Speaker 1: The guys who cut down trees like that are total artists.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I watch them drop it, the precision of.
Speaker 2: It, and the good ones use ropes they can really
Speaker 2: guide it down. And then some of them. I've watched
Speaker 2: guys with just the spikes and they're up there slaying
Speaker 2: with it and dropping it exactly where they want. I
Speaker 2: prefer more a little more serious horsepower. I want a
Speaker 2: truck or attractor to pull the tree down. That's me.
Speaker 2: I come from the South. But also, as you know
Speaker 2: from the South, what a lightning strike will do to
Speaker 2: a tree. Yeah, it will just blow the tree up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know how it happens. The flow them in
Speaker 2: the xylom the water instantly boils and then the pressure
Speaker 2: inside just explodes apart the tracks. It superheats, the super boils,
Speaker 2: so you know, Or you could do what my old
Speaker 2: paint boss Larry would have done, if he could have
Speaker 2: in California. And you get yourself some old tree stump
Speaker 2: remover or as he would call it, dynamite, or I'd
Speaker 2: call it TNT. Now you take that TNT and you
Speaker 2: see ignited with a detonation of some sort of kaboom,
Speaker 2: you blow the hell out of the tree. Now, that's
Speaker 2: the way he did it back in Texas, at least
Speaker 2: that's what he'd tell me. In the backyard. In California,
Speaker 2: that wasn't possible, so he bemoaned lament. He wasn't in
Speaker 2: the lone Star Republic seat of the Bear Republic anyway.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're talking about today, Elizabeth, folks who'd
Speaker 2: like to kill a trade. So take a little break
Speaker 2: when we get back.
Speaker 1: You've given me all these like funny folksy stories to
Speaker 1: soften me up.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and that we're too bad, No, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to like, let you see that the humor in it all. Now,
Speaker 2: we're gonna kill some trees. I'm sorry and we're back
Speaker 2: by Hi. Sorry apples, Hey those are good? Did you
Speaker 2: slice this? Do you have any orange slices too? So
Speaker 2: as we've covered us the house, now let's get into
Speaker 2: the who and the why of true right. Often when
Speaker 2: it comes to tree killing, much like murder, it's someone
Speaker 2: the victim knows. Yeah, now that is if a tree
Speaker 2: can know someone, I don't know what that means. So
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's like typically someone close
Speaker 2: to the tree, maybe that's a better way to put it,
Speaker 2: or more specifically a neighbor usually. So there's this one
Speaker 2: story I found a fifty one year old woman, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: living in. Her name was not Elizabeth, your name is,
Speaker 2: my name is, but she was living in Madiskin, Madiskin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, anyway, Madiskin is like the Portmanteau.
Speaker 2: You don't want to go to Madiskin, just trust me. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Madison, lovely town, but Madiskin, forget about it. Anyway,
Speaker 2: This woman, she loved her cottonwood tree. You know anything
Speaker 2: about cottonwoo tree is a nice tree. This leafy beauty
Speaker 2: grew in her backyard where she had planted it a
Speaker 2: decade earlier. Now, this bad boy was thirty feet tall.
Speaker 2: Dang all right, grand old lady of a tree so
Speaker 2: well it would gaze out into her backyard and admire
Speaker 2: all that green foliage and like that was like in
Speaker 2: the spring. Obviously in the summer, she would appreciate the shade.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look up a cottonwood tree.
Speaker 2: Keep going. She would also then, like in the summer,
Speaker 2: you know, admire the shade of the tree. And then
Speaker 2: come fall, she would enjoy the dropping of the leaves
Speaker 2: that the cat can yeah that winter. Yeah, And then
Speaker 2: she she's it's as her tree slept through the winter,
Speaker 2: so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at it.
Speaker 2: It's limbs, barren and empty, only to have then the
Speaker 2: promise of news fresh spring growth to look forward to.
Speaker 2: She loved this tree in all of its many ways
Speaker 2: and shapes and sizes, right, I guess forms Anyway, one spring,
Speaker 2: just as this newly grown spring leaves were popping out,
Speaker 2: She's all excited. She noticed her tree seemed to be
Speaker 2: in ill health. She's like, what the heck, this is spring.
Speaker 2: I don't understand what could be possibly wrong. Just as
Speaker 2: the new growth emerged, Elizabeth, it soon began to fall,
Speaker 2: like it just skipped right over summer.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: These leaves within a short time of popping out, they
Speaker 2: grow a little bit and then they chart to turn green.
Speaker 2: Then they kind of will wither and drop. She was like,
Speaker 2: she then thought about it. She's like, this is not nature.
Speaker 2: This is only one thing typically, but you'll see those
Speaker 2: the symptoms are different. This was the whole tree all
Speaker 2: at once.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was no like hanging like moss or like in
Speaker 2: nothing that was like some kind of like area. When
Speaker 2: you see tree diseases, there's usually an indicated area, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this case, it's just dropping leaves, like the whole thing's
Speaker 2: being starved or poisoned. So some woman she calls the
Speaker 2: police in tears, Elizabeth. You see, she suspected her next
Speaker 2: door neighbor was trying to kill her beloved cottonwood tree.
Speaker 2: The police that come out to her house, because it's Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: they got nothing better to do. They're like, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: go do it. I'm kidding, I know. So that she
Speaker 2: they tell her, right, what's going on? Ma'am, like, you
Speaker 2: called us, what can we do? G it's on my tree.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, let's get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 1: Was it dropping all that cotton in her in the
Speaker 1: neighbor's yard some kind of guessing. So messy trees, they
Speaker 1: are a.
Speaker 2: Bit of a messy dropper, we'll say, right. So she
Speaker 2: believed her next door neighbor wanted her tree dead. The
Speaker 2: cops are like, let's go talk to them. You can
Speaker 2: stay here, ma'am. They go next door, they speak to
Speaker 2: the neighbor, the cops. While they're there, they spot in
Speaker 2: the backyard a small white funnel and it was quote
Speaker 2: protruding from one of four holes on top of the
Speaker 2: root with a tinted residue inside the funnel. A short
Speaker 2: distance away sat a container with a chemical smelling liquid inside.
Speaker 1: So the roots went into the neighbor's yard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exposed roots in the neighbor's yard. But you do
Speaker 2: test that, right, It was written in cops speaks. It
Speaker 2: may have been a little bit weird. But the neighbor
Speaker 2: had drilled a hole in the tree root that extended,
Speaker 2: as you noticed, into his backyard. He then used a
Speaker 2: funnel to pour some horrendous chemical concoction into the tree
Speaker 2: to kill it. The funnel was still sitting there in
Speaker 2: the pouring position in the tree root when the cops
Speaker 2: arrive at his door, right on.
Speaker 1: The side of the plastic funnel. Tree poison only totally
Speaker 1: kitchen yea Now.
Speaker 2: When the cops asked about the drilled hole the toxic chemicals,
Speaker 2: the funnel still propped up in the root. Wait for it, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: According to the Madison Police quote, at first, the neighboring
Speaker 2: property owner said he didn't know what the officer was
Speaker 2: talking about. Sir, turn around, it's right there. So when
Speaker 2: the cops were really to like, we can see the funnel,
Speaker 2: bro It's like, buddy, come on, come on, man, the root.
Speaker 2: If you're treat neighbor's tree, you come on. He's like
Speaker 2: all right now, as the Madison PD reported quote, he
Speaker 2: later conceded the liquid in the container could be round up,
Speaker 2: but he felt he didn't break any laws because everything
Speaker 2: that had happened was on his property. He's trying to
Speaker 2: act like a tree's roots. Come like, what are you
Speaker 2: a child? Anyway? This neighbor was a fifty nine year
Speaker 2: old man. The cop cited him for criminal damage. The
Speaker 2: woman who'd planted and raised this cotton went try told
Speaker 2: the police. Quote, if the person had a problem with
Speaker 2: the root or any plant encroaching on his or her property,
Speaker 2: they could have come to her and worked out some
Speaker 2: type of resolution.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, instead the tree was killed in a cost alone
Speaker 2: a few thousand dollars to have it removed.
Speaker 1: She might have planted it a little close to the
Speaker 1: lot line.
Speaker 2: Oh but yeah, but I'm taking it's something that some
Speaker 2: conversation could be had pay.
Speaker 1: For the half of the problems in this world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seventy the problems in this world I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: like geopolitical no interperson in people's lives could be solved
Speaker 1: with just speaking plainly, speaking up when it bothers you,
Speaker 1: without you know, coloring it with emotion or any kind
Speaker 1: of stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also it's being honest about how you feel to
Speaker 2: the to the extent that you feel and to the
Speaker 2: person who's making you feel the way you feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that it's not a personal affront when people
Speaker 1: bring things to your attention exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, so that's how we can play out
Speaker 2: on a small scale. Now, however, there are larger coordinated
Speaker 2: efforts to remove trees. Typically those efforts are led by
Speaker 2: fat cat developers, greed head house flippers, the people you
Speaker 2: like to call violently wealthy. Yes, right, So, last year
Speaker 2: the Washington Post published a story about how in the
Speaker 2: nation's capital, the stately old trees were under attack by developers.
Speaker 2: Two grand old white oak trees, each one hundred inches
Speaker 2: in circumference. Big daddies had penny sized holes drilled into
Speaker 2: their exposed roots, then poured poison into the trees. The
Speaker 2: once lush, verdant oak trees were soon spindles, moribund, pathetic
Speaker 2: sites a little bit, and soon after that they were dead.
Speaker 2: So who would do such a thing? Turns out was
Speaker 2: a DC developer. He was eyeing the undeveloped lot and
Speaker 2: he poisoned the trees to clear the lot and get
Speaker 2: a hold of the land. They took out two oaks
Speaker 2: and two other elm trees. They killed them because it
Speaker 2: would have been they would have had to pay fines
Speaker 2: for removing the trees, right, so they're like, well'll just
Speaker 2: kill them and they'll take care of itself. City can
Speaker 2: clear them. Well, the city, of course found out they
Speaker 2: discovered the tree murdered. The developer was fined one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty four thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be allowed to develop on that. That's a
Speaker 1: punishment to.
Speaker 2: That's that totally you know, now interesting you bring that up.
Speaker 2: This dynamic isn't limited to America. So over in the UK, developers,
Speaker 2: real estate firms, they often determined the value of a
Speaker 2: land of a or so it's say a home before
Speaker 2: and after tree removal. They literally will do this. So
Speaker 2: for homes with an unobstructed view of say the coast,
Speaker 2: that can raise the value of a home by a fifth.
Speaker 2: We're talking like a good amount. So Adrian Dunfood, director
Speaker 2: of Taylor Made Estates and Sandbanks, he said of potential
Speaker 2: home sales in his area, quote, a house with no
Speaker 2: view that probably one point five million pounds. A house
Speaker 2: with the the tree in front of it has probably
Speaker 2: got a partial view. But the gain and value by
Speaker 2: removing that tree might be about twenty percent. So that's
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand pound markup removing a tree or a
Speaker 2: few trees, right that suddenly that round up starts to
Speaker 2: look pretty tempting, right. So this is why down in
Speaker 2: Australia some wealthy communities have taken a more proactive stance
Speaker 2: against just blatant tree murder. So at Black's Beach, Great
Speaker 2: Beach in Queensland, there was an incident where forty trees
Speaker 2: got the chop right. This was to clear an ocean view.
Speaker 2: The local town council in Mackay, they learn about this
Speaker 2: and the tree murder, so they vote to erect enormous
Speaker 2: billboards in the exact spot where the trees were removed,
Speaker 2: thus blocking the newly cleared view. So McKay town council
Speaker 2: was like, you take away the trees to get a
Speaker 2: better you, we take away that view.
Speaker 1: Yeah, buddy, I thought like that.
Speaker 2: One thing I noticed I was looking around the world,
Speaker 2: and obviously mostly this was English language newspapers, so there
Speaker 2: was some biases I would have. But in the these
Speaker 2: news outlets lately there's been an increase in tree killings
Speaker 2: around the globe. Really, Oh yeah, why what's motivating all
Speaker 2: this arbor side Elizabeth?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: One British expert on the subject speculated that COVID and
Speaker 2: the lockdown is partially to blame.
Speaker 1: I blame that for absolutely everything everyone's behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said, and I quote I think during lockdown,
Speaker 2: a lot of people were sitting at home thinking, we
Speaker 2: keep asking the council to get rid of that tree,
Speaker 2: they won't do it. So I'm going to take matters
Speaker 2: in my own hands. I think in general societies taking
Speaker 2: things into its own hands, we certainly get a lot
Speaker 2: more mister Angries on the phone than we ever did before.
Speaker 1: Right, Right, that's the bad behavior. If everyone would have
Speaker 1: just like joined and focused on sourdough like a large
Speaker 1: contingent of people did. Yeah, you know, they put it
Speaker 1: into something constructive. But yeah, that totally makes sense. People
Speaker 1: sitting around can't go anywhere. You start to get like
Speaker 1: nitpicky on stuff.
Speaker 2: Man. Also, I mean there's an old saying that I
Speaker 2: used to always warned my male friends about a man
Speaker 2: who lives alone too long gets weird. Right, So like
Speaker 2: it's one of those things like you gotta be on
Speaker 2: on the look out for. I think we got a
Speaker 2: lot of men living alone, but it's just across the board. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So this supposition, it makes a lot of sense to me,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't capture the full picture because there also
Speaker 2: seems to be a lot of pre COVID trend of selfishness,
Speaker 2: and it was also motivating this recent rise in tree killings.
Speaker 2: At least, I'll just leave it at that. For instance,
Speaker 2: take the case of the star chef who murdered an
Speaker 2: old lady's tree. Oh god, yeah, Elizabeth, Now we all
Speaker 2: know you watch TV, so I gotta ask we can
Speaker 2: talk about it. I have you ever watched any of
Speaker 2: the fine offerings from Bravo's buffet of reality TV competition shows?
Speaker 1: Oh? Like the competition?
Speaker 2: I don't know, like you know, America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1: Or Next Tops No, I didn't.
Speaker 2: Really correspond whatever the shows are. There's Top Chef.
Speaker 1: I don't like competition.
Speaker 2: I think it was like, can you make a dollhouse?
Speaker 2: I don't know what these shows are. There's these shows,
Speaker 2: the competing, and I guess parents. I don't know a
Speaker 2: bunch of parents. I need to make a dollhouse for
Speaker 2: a child just tapping their tail?
Speaker 1: You know what. I used to watch his Project Runway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one of them.
Speaker 1: I watched that.
Speaker 2: While Yeah, you know, you do actually watch more TV
Speaker 2: than I do. I don't even know, no idea. I'm
Speaker 2: not kind of doing watching TV right now in my mind.
Speaker 2: In twenty fourteen, there's this contestant for Top Chef. His
Speaker 2: name was Adam Harvey.
Speaker 3: He made it.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't watch that. I used to watch
Speaker 1: Iron Chefs. Okay, yeah, Food Network like Ages and the.
Speaker 2: One in Japan with the Japanese chef rely hard on them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've seen that really loved food, yes, and seemed to.
Speaker 1: And also seem to appreciate. What I think is the
Speaker 1: most important part of it is like how do you
Speaker 1: share it with others? And how is it an experience?
Speaker 1: Not in terms of like I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: picture of this for Instagram.
Speaker 2: Like the cloud that my food made?
Speaker 1: No ya, how do you nourish another person in an
Speaker 1: experience for them that is like pleasure? Yeah, exactly, very pleasurable.
Speaker 1: And so the stuff like Top Chef, it seems I
Speaker 1: don't I don't like whether they're all yelling at each other,
Speaker 1: and then there doesn't seem to be any kind of
Speaker 1: like appreciation for like ingredients. You know, they're not looking
Speaker 1: at this and being like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: a beautiful tomato, which is I think an important part
Speaker 1: of totally.
Speaker 2: I think if you and Alice Waters had a show,
Speaker 2: that's what it would be yeah, right, it would just
Speaker 2: maybe like listening to her presenting a tomato, presenting a peach,
Speaker 2: that's the show. It's just yeah, exactly perfect. Such. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so twenty fourteen, this guy Adam Harvey, right, he makes
Speaker 2: it pretty far in Top Chef. He was the tenth
Speaker 2: chef eliminated, and I guess there's sixteen chefs. Not that
Speaker 2: far anyway, halfway, he made a little past halfway. So anyway,
Speaker 2: he's on Top Chef and though he didn't come close
Speaker 2: to winning, he did see an increase in his profile
Speaker 2: as a chef because he was on TV and he
Speaker 2: was pretentious or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: He had a restaurant in New York City and.
Speaker 1: Then one of those chefs that's like has all the
Speaker 1: tattoos and all I love pork belly.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm aggressive. Yeah, he was like, I'm a trendy
Speaker 2: spot where they boast their use of quote farmers market
Speaker 2: ingredients and they also had a farmed party vibe as
Speaker 2: their thing. Oh boy. Oh yeah. So when he first
Speaker 2: launched the restaurant, he attempted this gorilla marketing campaign. He
Speaker 2: tagged the restaurant's logo all over the New restaurant's Park
Speaker 2: Slope neighborhood. I mean everywhere, not just the alleys in
Speaker 2: the walls, but the business fronts, newspaper, vending machines, scaffoldings,
Speaker 2: subway stops at Park Slope, angwanas tech, even the sidewalk
Speaker 2: with they tagged tacky. So yeah, so the when his
Speaker 2: fellow business owners and new neighbors were pissed that he'd
Speaker 2: tagged the whole hood, Adam told him it was all
Speaker 2: it's temporary, faint man, It'll wash off in a few days,
Speaker 2: let it rain. It'll all to be a funny memory, right,
Speaker 2: it might last like a month, thirty days. He said
Speaker 2: that was not the case. Elizabeth lasted longer than that.
Speaker 2: One neighbor took to Instagram to post and I quote
Speaker 2: what genius on the marketing team thought that vandalizing the
Speaker 2: neighborhood was a good advertising idea. Some of us actually
Speaker 2: live here and care about the neighborhood. So that was
Speaker 2: the attitude of his neighbors. Fast forward to twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: He's now renamed this restaurant and calling it now Bar Saloumi.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's still farmed a party though, as
Speaker 2: its general Ethos. Yeah, I thought you like that. And
Speaker 2: part of his new vibe is to be eco friendly, right,
Speaker 2: because he's changing with the times. You know, I got
Speaker 2: to update the tattoo. So he installed solar panels on
Speaker 2: the roof of the home. He just in Brooklyn, near
Speaker 2: Prospect Park. I'm just sitting in all the names. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The homes listing mentions how the home is on this
Speaker 2: quote tree lined street and includes a photo of an
Speaker 2: enormous tree in the backyard of a neighboring home as
Speaker 2: evidence that the trees are both in front of and
Speaker 2: behind the home a tree lined street. The neighbor was
Speaker 2: a retired New York City public school teacher. She moved
Speaker 2: into the neighborhood in nineteen ninety two. Celebrity chef he
Speaker 2: buys a property next door to this woman. He complains
Speaker 2: to his new neighbor that her enormous tree looks sick
Speaker 2: to me, looks like it may be dead. This is Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: this tree. I want you to picture this tree. It
Speaker 2: was about somewhere between seventy and ninety feet tall, okay,
Speaker 2: she the woman described it as seven stories tall. Dan right,
Speaker 2: It was clearly thriving. This douchebag want to be celebrity chef.
Speaker 2: He wants to play diy agronomist, so he declares the
Speaker 2: tree to be dead or dying. Well, She's like, I
Speaker 2: don't believe that this tree was one of the major
Speaker 2: reasons I bought this home in nineteen ninety two. I've
Speaker 2: taken care of it the entire time. Not only that,
Speaker 2: I've had like you know, arborous recently confirmed it's doing well.
Speaker 2: So she has an The actual arbor is confirmed the
Speaker 2: tree is healthy, not dead or dying. So this elderly neighbor,
Speaker 2: the former schoolteacher, she tells this wanna be celebrity chef
Speaker 2: kick rocks right. So he was like, oh, now, remember
Speaker 2: this echo friendly solar panels the wannabe celebrity chef installed
Speaker 2: on his roof. The seven story tall tree shaded some
Speaker 2: of his solar panels. So what does he do is
Speaker 2: what's cutting down the amount of sunlight that he can
Speaker 2: turn into green energy? That tree turning sunlight into green energy.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like you tell me these stories just
Speaker 1: to get me really really mad. Research the absolute worst
Speaker 1: people that Elizabeth is just gonna like, can we raise
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's blood pressure.
Speaker 2: Retired school teacher bullied by wannabe celebrity chef, which because
Speaker 2: he's echo friendly. So what is this, Adam Harvey?
Speaker 1: Do let me go back to lunching my job and tell.
Speaker 2: Me he secretly hires a tree treaming service to come
Speaker 2: out and chop down the limbs that extend over the
Speaker 2: property line and well past that obviously, because you know
Speaker 2: those lines are hard to draw. So he starts cutting
Speaker 2: into her tree. The retired school teacher now she has
Speaker 2: to go and pay for a lawyer. She sends the
Speaker 2: wannabe celebrity chef a cease and desist order. So what
Speaker 2: does he do now, Elizabeth? Oh god, he gets out
Speaker 2: the drill and he finishes the job himself. But this Jabbroni,
Speaker 2: he gets spotted killing the tree. All the other neighbors
Speaker 2: who have views of the backyard witness him drill holes
Speaker 2: into the tree roots and pour in some kind of
Speaker 2: toxic sludge. This is on the April thirtieth, right, We're
Speaker 2: just say the actually actually is the date April thirtieth.
Speaker 2: The neighbors who witnessed the attempted tree murder, they phoned
Speaker 2: the police that very day. The Brooklyn PD take it
Speaker 2: as seriously as it would be in Madison, Wisconsin. They
Speaker 2: roll out the spring into action. They arrest the wannabe
Speaker 2: celebrity chef. Two weeks later, he gets arraigned on charges
Speaker 2: of criminal trespassing and criminal mischief. Now get this, he
Speaker 2: and his wife had not even moved in yet. They
Speaker 2: were still renovating the home, and now all of their
Speaker 2: new neighbors hate them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Has one neighbor told the New York Daily News, and
Speaker 2: I quote, he's outraged everyone in a half mile radius.
Speaker 2: It's really hard for me to follow what he's thinking.
Speaker 2: It's arrogance and a wrong sense of entitlement to come
Speaker 2: here destroy his neighbor's property.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, according to New York state law, which feels like,
Speaker 2: by the way when I read it, a very old law. Quote,
Speaker 2: if any person, without the consent of the owner thereof cuts, removes, injures,
Speaker 2: or destroys, or causes to be cut, removed, injured, or
Speaker 2: destroyed any underwood tree or timber on the land of another,
Speaker 2: and action may be maintained against such person for treble
Speaker 2: the stumpage value of the tree.
Speaker 1: That you know, there's a there's a subreddit tree law
Speaker 1: that is fastest there is.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And it's like they're all people will take their issues
Speaker 1: there and it's it's it's very intricate, and this the
Speaker 1: treble damages get brought up quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is all new to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also I mean then there are issues of
Speaker 1: like if it's hanging over onto your property what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally. So in this tree on this tree
Speaker 2: tree law, tree law's tree laws subredded? Are these like
Speaker 2: lawyers helping people or just people all containing like this
Speaker 2: is what happened to me? Or are the people get
Speaker 2: away with it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: So I had to learn about things like the stumpage
Speaker 2: value of a tree, right yeah, So anyway that what
Speaker 2: the law means is if you chop down a tree,
Speaker 2: you have to pay obviously triple its value or treble.
Speaker 2: And according to the estimates of New York's Council of
Speaker 2: Tree and Landscape Appraisers, quote, a mature tree can add
Speaker 2: one thousand to ten thousand dollars of value to the home.
Speaker 2: So go ahead and trouble that. And now you're looking
Speaker 2: at a price tag of three thousand to thirty thousand, right,
Speaker 2: but for this wanna be celebrity chef. This sixty year
Speaker 2: old tree was seven stories tall. It's stumpage value is
Speaker 2: almost difficult to estimate. One developer estimated the tree could
Speaker 2: be worth quote hit it's in the four to five
Speaker 2: figure range. Now triple that. So Additionally, the wannabe celebrity
Speaker 2: chef is responsible for the cost of removing the tree
Speaker 2: he killed and also replacing the mature maple tree. So
Speaker 2: teacher gets a new old tree. I don't know how
Speaker 2: that works out anyway. The judge also is shued an
Speaker 2: order of protection for the retired school teacher, so she
Speaker 2: doesn't ever deal with the wannabe celebrity chef anymore, and
Speaker 2: he can't talk to her.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there you go. That's a good one. I
Speaker 2: kind of thought, right, let's take a little break, and
Speaker 2: after this I got a couple more.
Speaker 3: Nice Elizabeth, Hey, look at us now for this next story,
Speaker 3: I've mentioned it before, but I wanted to go a
Speaker 3: little deeper this time.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, do you remember the Alabama super fan who poisoned
Speaker 2: the Auburn trees at Tumor Circle in Passing in the story? Okay,
Speaker 2: well dateline ope, Laika Alabama are purp Harvey Updike Junior.
Speaker 2: Who is Harvey Updike Junior. Yeah, great question, Elizabeth, we
Speaker 2: have your head on the sea.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Harvey Almorn Updike Junior was a retired Texas State trooper.
Speaker 2: He moved to Alabama for his sunset years. There he
Speaker 2: became a huge fan of the Alabama college football team.
Speaker 2: Alabama's main competition is it's in state rival Auburn, So
Speaker 2: each year they face off in the Iron Bowl. Okay,
Speaker 2: both football programs legendary and are known for their excellence
Speaker 2: on the field. Like, for instance, I know you don't
Speaker 2: really follow to college football. Neither do I, but I
Speaker 2: did know this. In a four year stretch between two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine and twenty twelve, Alabama won three of
Speaker 2: the four college football national championship titles. Wow. The other
Speaker 2: one was won by Auburn. Oh yeah, so that only
Speaker 2: intensified the rivalry.
Speaker 1: Is Alabama roll Tide.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, right, So at Auburn, there's this spot on
Speaker 2: campus called Toomor's Corner. It's where a two are known
Speaker 2: as tumors trees are proudly displayed at the entrance to
Speaker 2: the campus, right, living icons of the school.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: So Alabama also had a very famous coach. This is
Speaker 2: Auburn with the trees. Now Alabama, the other school, They
Speaker 2: had a very famous coach named Bear Bryant. You may
Speaker 2: have heard about it.
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a very like Taciturn hard not my favorite.
Speaker 2: But anyway, when he died, it was rumored that Auburn
Speaker 2: fans went to Tumor's corner and celebrated the passing of
Speaker 2: their rival's beloved coach like cheered, danced around the tree.
Speaker 2: This was in Discuss nineteen eighty three. So oh, I'm
Speaker 2: not writing it off and just letting you know where
Speaker 2: it was nineteen eighty three, So the story takes place.
Speaker 2: This story takes place in twenty ten. Okay, so the
Speaker 2: converted Alabama fan, mister Updyke Junior, was still carrying that
Speaker 2: anger in his heart even though he wasn't a fan
Speaker 2: from back then. I don't know how he just transported
Speaker 2: the anger forward in time, put it in his heart,
Speaker 2: and pretended like it had been there since eighty three.
Speaker 1: I just want to feel they belong.
Speaker 2: They want to be agreed, I think, especially on these
Speaker 2: emotional terms, like I got my team, their team This
Speaker 2: is a great way to have Yeah, this seems very human. Ye. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the story goes in November twenty ten, after Auburn one
Speaker 2: that year's Iron Bowl, the rivalry game between Auburn and Alabama.
Speaker 2: Quote Al from Dadeville took it upon himself to punish
Speaker 2: Auburn with some tree murder. And this genius then called
Speaker 2: a local radio station and confessed what he'd done. He
Speaker 2: called himself Al from Dadeville. Since his middle name is
Speaker 2: al morn right, I'm guessing that's why he called himself
Speaker 2: Al from Daydeville. He also wanted to hide his identity,
Speaker 2: but he also wanted credit for what he had done,
Speaker 2: so he called a local radio station. I don't follow
Speaker 2: it myself, but those are the facts.
Speaker 1: This is a very sad man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In anyway, he indeed what did live in Dadeville, Alabama.
Speaker 2: So whatever, Elizabeth, I can tell you about him. Instead,
Speaker 2: I'd like you to close your eyes and I like
Speaker 2: you to picture it. You are a new producer for
Speaker 2: the Paul Finebaum Show, a call in radio show. It's
Speaker 2: January twenty seventh. It's your first day. You've just moved
Speaker 2: to the area after your previous job as a celebrity.
Speaker 2: Catwalker fizzled out after Selena Gomez fired you for getting
Speaker 2: a raincoat for her hairless cat on a day it
Speaker 2: didn't even rain in La. As the song goes, it
Speaker 2: never rains in La But whatever. You know what, you
Speaker 2: were fired, and now you've moved on. You're in Alabama
Speaker 2: working in local radio. You love it. And since it's
Speaker 2: college football bowl season is just concluding down there in Bama,
Speaker 2: the folks still want to talk SEC football. Studio phone
Speaker 2: rings through. You screened the caller. It's a man who
Speaker 2: says his name is Al from Dayville. He seems a
Speaker 2: bit odd, but then again, many of the callers you've
Speaker 2: spoken to today seem a bit odd to you. Anyway.
Speaker 2: After speaking to him briefly to find out what he
Speaker 2: wants to talk about, you pass on your notes to
Speaker 2: the host, letting him know what to expect. After the
Speaker 2: commercial break, you had a glowing red button and you
Speaker 2: patch through the call. Then you give the signal to
Speaker 2: the host Paul, and you hear, hey, Paul, how you
Speaker 2: doing h well? Well? Thanks? When Bear Bryant died, I
Speaker 2: was living in Texas. I really didn't understand the Alabama
Speaker 2: Auburn rivalry, but a good friend of mine who live
Speaker 2: in Birmingham sent me a copy of the newspaper showing
Speaker 2: the Auburn students rolling Timor's corners celebrating Bryant's death. Uh no, stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 2: stop stop. I even though I know you what you
Speaker 2: just got through saying, and even though I know what
Speaker 2: you're quoting from a newspaper, I just have the most
Speaker 2: difficult time ever believing that Auburn students rolled Tumor's corner
Speaker 2: with the news broke that coach Bryant died. Does anyone
Speaker 2: else remember that? I don't you want me to send
Speaker 2: you a copy? I still have the newspaper clipping. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of awkward here because I'm not doubting your truthfulness.
Speaker 2: I'm just are you guys in the other room as
Speaker 2: in as much shock as I am? I mean, that
Speaker 2: is just one of the most shocking things I've heard.
Speaker 2: I do not want to believe that is true. As
Speaker 2: one of the other guys in the other room. You
Speaker 2: look around at the other guys. All of you are confused,
Speaker 2: all of your faces, some have laughs, beginning to decorate
Speaker 2: their lips with a knowing smile. We got a live one.
Speaker 2: Their faces seem to say, okay, well, let me finish
Speaker 2: my story. Uh, okay, this year I was at the
Speaker 2: iron Ball. No way that could be true. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: this year I was at the iron Ball. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: uh yeah, well I saw where they put a scam
Speaker 2: I'm Newton Jersey on Bear Bryant statue. Okay again, that's
Speaker 2: twenty eight years later. Paul rolls his eyes at you, like,
Speaker 2: what have you done? Well? You hope he's not secretly
Speaker 2: pissed you on your first day. Okay, Well, let me
Speaker 2: tell you what I did. The weekend after ironbol I
Speaker 2: went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live thirty miles away,
Speaker 2: and I poisoned the two tumors trees. Okay, well, well
Speaker 2: that's fair. I put Spike eighty DF in them. Did
Speaker 2: they die? Do?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Did they die? They're not dead yet, but they definitely
Speaker 2: will die. Is that is that against the law to
Speaker 2: poison a tree?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, I really don't now I don't know. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: oh okay, roll damn tied. Click So that, Elizabeth, you
Speaker 2: look at your boss, Paul fine Bomb and you mouth
Speaker 2: the words I am so sorry. But he knows this
Speaker 2: is just another day on Alabama Sports Talk radio. Now,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, that was the actual full conversation
Speaker 2: between him. That was the call with Paul finebaumb and
Speaker 2: this was al from Dadeville. A little more than a
Speaker 2: week later, he also called a professor at Auburn University
Speaker 2: and he confessed he had knowledge of who poisoned the trees,
Speaker 2: and then he hung up.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with this?
Speaker 2: This wants to be found out. So, as you know,
Speaker 2: SEC football is second only to Jesus in the South,
Speaker 2: and it's a close second, right, So the authorities they
Speaker 2: get called in. They're like, we're gonna get to the
Speaker 2: bottom of this. So the FBI, the US Marshall Service,
Speaker 2: State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, their Pesticides
Speaker 2: Management section, the Tallapoosa County Sheriff's office, the Dadeville Police Department,
Speaker 2: and Auburn University's police department, and other administration officials all
Speaker 2: get involved in finding out who this guy is. Solving
Speaker 2: the mystery of who poisoned Auburn's beloved trees. Didn't take
Speaker 2: them along, Elizabeth. Yeah, they got to the heart of it.
Speaker 2: They were able to match the phone number and identify
Speaker 2: the voice of the tree killer, because of course it's recorded.
Speaker 2: I played for you something that was on YouTube. People
Speaker 2: recorded it. They're like, what who is this guy? Evidence
Speaker 2: was easy, like it was match the voice. Anyway, Auburn
Speaker 2: University confirmed their trees had indeed been poisoned. Twenty four
Speaker 2: hours later, Harvey updyke ak Al from Dayville was busted.
Speaker 2: The sixty two year old now sixty two year old
Speaker 2: former Texas State trooper was arrested charged with a felony
Speaker 2: criminal mischief. At first, he denied poisoning the trees, but
Speaker 2: then before his case went to trial, he confessed outside
Speaker 2: the courtroom before a reporter from the Auburn student newspaper. No,
Speaker 2: some student newspaper reporter got him flustered to the point
Speaker 2: that he admitted it to him and basically, I killed
Speaker 2: your trees. You guys are mad, like whatever. I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what he said, but he couldn't help him
Speaker 2: with So the judge has to help proceedings at that
Speaker 2: point because he's compromised the whole trial by confessing outside
Speaker 2: of court. So now later there were doubts if the
Speaker 2: former Texas State trooper was mentally competent to stand trial.
Speaker 2: Updike pleaded not guilty for reasons of mental defect. That
Speaker 2: was his own defense. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced
Speaker 2: to six months in jail, five years probation in order
Speaker 2: to pay eight hundred thousand dollars in restitution. After serving
Speaker 2: seventy six days inside, Updike, he gets released right and
Speaker 2: he gets cleared to leave the state of Alabama because
Speaker 2: they're like, get the hell out, and so even BAMA
Speaker 2: fans were like, do not say roll tide. I swear
Speaker 2: to God, I will smack you. So his probation forbade
Speaker 2: Updike from ever setting foot on Auburn's campus, and he
Speaker 2: had to complete an anger management program. When he got out,
Speaker 2: he'd grown a full jailhouse handlebar and mustache. So he's
Speaker 2: got it looks great. Anyway, he tells the gathered press.
Speaker 2: Did he plan to move to Louisiana LSU watch her anyway?
Speaker 2: Just before his release from jail, he had only one request,
Speaker 2: as his lawyer said, he wanted a banana, and he
Speaker 2: got a banana. That's it. Wait, I don't know, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: that was in the stories. That was like, really, it
Speaker 2: was hilarious. He wanted a banana, and he got a banana.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: So his lawyer, though, also did add one other point.
Speaker 2: He's very sincere. He wants to go back to Louisiana
Speaker 2: and never wants to be heard from me ever again.
Speaker 1: From Louisiana. Go back.
Speaker 2: He may have been born there before he became a
Speaker 2: Texas State trooper. So anyway, a laudable goal for the man.
Speaker 2: But of course he didn't do that. The siren call
Speaker 2: of viral fame couldn't be resisted. Elizabeth our fellow iHeart
Speaker 2: podcast host Morocca from Obituaries covered this story and pointed
Speaker 2: out in his post release Updyke told CBS News quote,
Speaker 2: I wanted Auburn people to hate me as much as
Speaker 2: I hate them. I just don't like Auburn. You know,
Speaker 2: there are several things in this world I really and
Speaker 2: truly don't like. An Auburn is one of them. Okay,
Speaker 2: got hating his heart.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't even go to any of these business.
Speaker 2: You know what that is in the South, it's more
Speaker 2: of a regional thing or like an aspirational thing. Going
Speaker 2: to the school has nothing to do about your diehard legacy.
Speaker 2: At the allegiance to.
Speaker 1: The school concept to escape.
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, these are not you know, it's not
Speaker 2: their alma mater. So anyway, it's rising to learn this
Speaker 2: guy's a former Texas State trooper. I wait, no, it's
Speaker 2: not at all. Ohay, sorry Texas, you pulled me over
Speaker 2: too many times. Anyway, Elizabeth, Now I'd like to tell
Speaker 2: you the story of another famous legendary tree down south.
Speaker 2: It's known as the Austin Treaty Tree. It's wild to
Speaker 2: be six hundred years old. It was the tree where,
Speaker 2: beneath the shady canopy, local Native American tribal leaders met
Speaker 2: with leaders of the nascent Republic of Texas and they
Speaker 2: signed treaties between them, making up you know, the the
Speaker 2: agreements of law and compacts. Right. That was way back then,
Speaker 2: and this tree stood for centuries. It is a beloved
Speaker 2: part of Austin. That is until nineteen eighty nine. Getting
Speaker 2: angry yep, that year. That year, not the Taylor Swift album.
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty nine. That was when a semi coherent amateur
Speaker 2: shaman and psychoknot attempted to perform an occult ritual a
Speaker 2: psychot Yeah. Yeah, it's when people do drugs and they
Speaker 2: take it really seriously and they say psycho.
Speaker 1: Knot, You're just again, You're like, what now you're.
Speaker 2: Not communicating with yourself, you like being honest with your
Speaker 2: this is You're.
Speaker 1: Like, what kind of things do? What? What does Elizabeth
Speaker 1: get most irritated?
Speaker 2: Yes, people on psychedelics doing horrendous things to living creatures
Speaker 2: and acting like, you know, I did this because it's
Speaker 2: part of my journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, you're standing in their right there.
Speaker 2: So the story goes Elizabeth. In the spring of eighty nine,
Speaker 2: the city forester of Austin, they got a city forester,
Speaker 2: tall John Gedritis. He discovered the famed, iconic beloved Treaty
Speaker 2: Tree was dying, and not from a natural death. There
Speaker 2: were the telltale signs of poison. So there was like,
Speaker 2: for instance, a wide yellow ring of dead grass surrounding
Speaker 2: the tree. There it is, I'm seeing it. So this
Speaker 2: new growth was also on the tree was shriveled up, died,
Speaker 2: and it was also you know, dying, I guess, dried
Speaker 2: up and dying. The city forester he orders chemical analysis,
Speaker 2: like what happened? What's been you know? Going on? The
Speaker 2: analysis shows that the tree had indeed been poisoned like
Speaker 2: that was not the question. But he finds out that
Speaker 2: whoever tried to kill the tree used enough poison to
Speaker 2: kill one hundred trees. What it was just like a
Speaker 2: chemical dump. Basically, this was like that was super hard. Yeah,
Speaker 2: no past that. This is like a super fun site
Speaker 2: Larry did over time, you know, and it leached into
Speaker 2: the soil. This is just like one big dump all
Speaker 2: at once. Anyway, when news spread, the city forester's heart
Speaker 2: was warmed Elizabeth by his fellow citizen's reaction. According to
Speaker 2: local station kV u E, the citi's forester get right
Speaker 2: to said quote, the people of Austin responded with outrage
Speaker 2: and love. People came here and prayed, brought chicken soup.
Speaker 2: I don't know why treated chicken soup. I think it's
Speaker 2: for him. Anyway. They left money crystals. We spent a
Speaker 2: couple hundred thousand dollars, but we didn't have to spend
Speaker 2: city money because h Ross Perot, the Texas industrialist and
Speaker 2: former presidential candidate, called me and said, no matter how
Speaker 2: long it takes, just send me the bell. That was
Speaker 2: good for us about it right now?
Speaker 1: Not only that, and he he stuffed up totally yeah.
Speaker 2: Ah truss pro used to let throw his money around
Speaker 2: for things he believed in it. There's stuff about him
Speaker 2: storry with the Afghanistan and anyway, So not to get
Speaker 2: an all sidetracked. But now at this point the story
Speaker 2: goes viral, right who killed the treaty tree? Others from
Speaker 2: around the country, even around the world, Elizabeth, they come
Speaker 2: in to try to help us save this beloved tree.
Speaker 2: So botanists, agronomous, arborous all labor together. They create a
Speaker 2: canopy to shade the tree from the punishing Texas summer sun.
Speaker 2: They add a mister system to kind of like, you know,
Speaker 2: keep it cool and wet. Tell them even experimented with
Speaker 2: this constant like drip system or they would feed sugar
Speaker 2: water like an ivy bag right into the tree.
Speaker 1: It's like a tree ICU totally id.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they had like like thirteen different guys doctor
Speaker 2: House trying to save this tree. This I thought you'd
Speaker 2: like this, right, but I didn't want to leave you
Speaker 2: out too bad at the end. No, No, let's keep listening.
Speaker 2: Don't worry. But no one had any guesses as to
Speaker 2: who would do such a thing as to poison the tree.
Speaker 2: Now that they've kind of got the tree in the
Speaker 2: ICU as you wind out. Yeah, they still had no
Speaker 2: leads on the perp till one day someone contacted the
Speaker 2: police Elizabeth. They said their friend, a man named Paul
Speaker 2: Steedman Cullin, had bragged no relation to Oprah's a boyfriend
Speaker 2: anyway that we know that we know of, bragged to
Speaker 2: them that he'd killed the treaty tree. The police were like,
Speaker 2: what are you sure. You seem kind of like a
Speaker 2: dirty hit beat to us. The guy's like, look, my friend,
Speaker 2: I swear to God it's him. He did it. The
Speaker 2: cops were like, okay, well, would you be willing to
Speaker 2: wear a wire and get a confession.
Speaker 1: From your friend as I would? I hope he said.
Speaker 2: This dirty hippie friend was like, mike me up. So
Speaker 2: he went in there. Cops outfitted him with a listening
Speaker 2: device mike whatever, and they sent him to go talk
Speaker 2: to Paul Steadman Cullin to get him to confess again
Speaker 2: to tree murder. So, sure enough, this guy does it.
Speaker 2: He's got no brains. He's just like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 2: killed that tree, or kill another tree, right, like he
Speaker 2: that's not exactly what he said. But he gets subsequently
Speaker 2: arrested and tried. At his trial, the police they play
Speaker 2: the secret recording of Culland's confession. What emerges is the
Speaker 2: motive Elizabeth according to Austin police, and I quote, it
Speaker 2: came out in his trial that he was in love
Speaker 2: with his counselor at his methadone clinic. Oh good god,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I just knew this would go. And this
Speaker 2: is Austin's Forrester good ryde Is he added the mo
Speaker 2: for this love struck occultist with the former heroin problem
Speaker 2: trying to get clean. According to him, Collins quote drew
Speaker 2: a magic circle at the base of the tree and
Speaker 2: would put something of his own or his spurn love
Speaker 2: and the tree would die or he'd die. So it
Speaker 2: was sort of a magical ritual or spell like that.
Speaker 2: So in other words, this guy tried to kill a
Speaker 2: six hundred year old tree to gain dark sex magic
Speaker 2: powers and convince his methodone counselor that he was the
Speaker 2: man of her dreams. That's what happened to Who told
Speaker 2: him to do this? The universe, Yeah, the cards, the crystals,
Speaker 2: the universe. I don't know, I don't know how one
Speaker 2: reaches this conclusion, but there was some arcane, abstract math
Speaker 2: I'm sure done. Later in the trial he changed his story.
Speaker 2: He said he was innocent. I don't know what all
Speaker 2: this occult stuff is. Despite what he'd confessed earlier. The
Speaker 2: jury was like, yeah, no, you're guilty as hell. We're
Speaker 2: gonna put you under the jail. So he was sentenced
Speaker 2: to nine years in prison. Yea, yeah, he serves three
Speaker 2: of them. But there was a silver lining in all
Speaker 2: of this other than in him getting jail time. You
Speaker 2: know one thing I think you I think you'll like
Speaker 2: this when Elizabeth, I swear to God look at this face.
Speaker 1: I sometimes but I trust that the Austin.
Speaker 2: Treaty Tree survived. So we got that going forest had
Speaker 2: some scars from the murder attempt, but it's still thriving, amazing.
Speaker 2: That's not the exciting part. That's not the part I
Speaker 2: think you'll like. Yeah, the silver lining is this. Remember
Speaker 2: the Austin City Forester. Yeah, John Gadritis, Well, things worked
Speaker 2: out really well for him and his efforts to save
Speaker 2: the blood of Tree. I met this wonderful girl and
Speaker 2: I was going to get married to her. So underneath
Speaker 2: the Treaty oak, I knelt down and proposed to my wife.
Speaker 2: I chose this tree to propose to my wife, and
Speaker 2: this guy call and tried to kill it. So it's
Speaker 2: pretty personal. But I'm still married and the tree is
Speaker 2: doing great.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. But I thought you were going to say
Speaker 1: that he proposed to the Methadone council.
Speaker 2: That would be amazing. They fell in love, That's what
Speaker 2: I thought.
Speaker 1: The man of her treats is the tree armiste who
Speaker 1: actually they.
Speaker 2: Both were in social services. It makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 2: and he never said it was. They both tend to life.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, Rightah.
Speaker 2: So last bit of good news when all those local
Speaker 2: folks stepped in and they were trying to save the
Speaker 2: poison tree, well they took shoots from the tree and
Speaker 2: planted them all over the city. So now there are
Speaker 2: hundreds of children of the tree to yoke, all growing.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that right now. In researching these stories,
Speaker 2: I noticed a few patterns, right. I was reading a
Speaker 2: bunch of these are all around. I told you in
Speaker 2: English language outlets. For one, when wealthy people kill trees,
Speaker 2: they don't go to prison or jail. They pay for
Speaker 2: the crime. I noticed, Yeah, in some ways like the
Speaker 2: developers or the other rich people. It's just like for
Speaker 2: them it becomes a cost of doing business. They could
Speaker 2: just factor it in. But when the purpose are lower incomes,
Speaker 2: suddenly we get prison in jail sentences from the same
Speaker 2: crimes of killing a tree. It's interesting America, I know, right. So,
Speaker 2: but in twenty fifteen, there was a developer in Bellevue, Washington.
Speaker 2: He iced or actually literally salted one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: three poplar trees and because why Elizabeth, they blocked the
Speaker 2: view for his luxury real estate properties he had for sale.
Speaker 2: He was caught, tried, convicted, He caught a forty five
Speaker 2: days in jail sentence for tree killing. So they sent
Speaker 2: his butt to jail time and there the judge said
Speaker 2: she wanted to quote send an appropriate message to our
Speaker 2: community about the way we view your actions. So this
Speaker 2: trend is maybe changing. And also down in Australia, where
Speaker 2: rivers can be awarded the legal protection of a person,
Speaker 2: the lawmakers are considering making tree murder a criminal offense
Speaker 2: punishable by serious time in prison. Because here's the deal. Trees,
Speaker 2: they are the key to the planet for a lot
Speaker 2: of things. They literally are the planet's lungs. Trees are
Speaker 2: how we all breathe other than our own lungs, obviously,
Speaker 2: but they can live for hundreds of years. They improve
Speaker 2: the environment, They lower ambient temperatures, they oxygenate the air,
Speaker 2: They provide beauty shade. So far the home to animals, insects.
Speaker 2: Trees are this miracle of life's design. Right, And having
Speaker 2: read about all these tree murder attempts and successful tree killings,
Speaker 2: I gotta say I agree with the Aussies. All legal
Speaker 2: systems should defend them fioustly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another reason to love Australia.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, what's your ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that if people had more
Speaker 1: respect for for things that kept them going, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'd all be better off. But we already know that.
Speaker 1: I just I want more trees. I want more trees
Speaker 1: around us. I know a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't like the leaf drop or the you know,
Speaker 1: the stuff that comes off of pecan tree or pecan
Speaker 1: in the South. I used to come lawn pubes because
Speaker 1: but I think, you know, sometimes you have to deal
Speaker 1: with a little mess or you know, down branches occasionally.
Speaker 2: As Mendel found, life is messy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's that's how life works.
Speaker 1: That's how big believer.
Speaker 2: Trying to see too clean, too delineated, then you missed
Speaker 2: the whole. That's Gelli's problem. He wanted it to be neat, orderly, tidy,
Speaker 2: and Mendel's like, no, man, it's it's all about chaos
Speaker 2: and change and like what works best. Let life be messy.
Speaker 2: You like to say, let wild, wild be wild. I say,
Speaker 2: let life be messy.
Speaker 1: I like that to.
Speaker 2: Stand think that. No, that's it.
Speaker 1: You're ridiculous with.
Speaker 2: That, ridiculous but boom there it is. So hey you
Speaker 2: in the mood for a talkback every single time, producer
Speaker 2: d can you hook us up? Oh my god, I
Speaker 2: love g Oh great googly movie.
Speaker 1: I love this stuff. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I love gee. This is why we love your talkbacks.
Speaker 2: Please send us talkbacks. We so dig this, can't you tell?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: As always, you can find us Ridiculous Crime on the
Speaker 2: social media's We have our website Ridiculous Crime dot com
Speaker 2: and uh, as I said, the talkbacks go there the
Speaker 2: iHeart app, download it record George. You can hear your
Speaker 2: voice here on the air and also email us if
Speaker 2: you like Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and as
Speaker 2: always type that dear producer d thanks for listening and
Speaker 2: we'll catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton and Zara and Burnett, produced and edited by
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crimes resident Tree Dots and starring Analys Rutgers.
Speaker 3: Judith.
Speaker 2: Research is by Known Green Thumbs, Ris Brown and Andrea
Speaker 2: song Sharpings. Here our theme song is by Thomas the
Speaker 2: Dirt Digger Lee and Travis the Old Sawed Bustard. The
Speaker 2: host wardrobe provided by Buck five, guest Harry, makeup by
Speaker 2: Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are those who speak
Speaker 2: for the Trees, then Bowling, Annual.
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