Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party Show.
We have a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown.
I'm your host Dave, joined as always by Sarge.
How's it going buddy?
Hello.
Thank God you're back.
Felt good to say those words again.
Yeah, welcome back.
That was like building up inside of me like a fucking lactose shit.
That's out.
Feeling good bud.
Thank you so much Sarge and Cam and Amanda for holding it down while I was gone.
I really appreciate it.
Hopefully the listeners all enjoyed it.
I didn't listen to any of those episodes mostly because I started this show just to hear myself
talk and I wasn't on any of those episodes.
Fair enough.
That's okay.
I didn't listen either.
Hopefully they worked out.
I'm sure they did.
I mean I had to listen to one because I had to edit it, but you know, it was fine.
It was good.
What's going on bud?
I'm glad you're back because I couldn't figure out how to change a studio name.
Like I would change the name and then Riverside was like, no, I'm just going to keep the one
that you had before.
Because you got to start a new studio.
I don't have to start a new studio every time we record.
I just do it because I need to come up with funny names.
Although this one, it's not the name I chose, but it works I guess.
Because I like to give you little breadcrumbs for what the episode might be about.
And then the other issue I had is that the first time I didn't realize that I had to
share the theme music in the episode.
I was just hitting preview and I was supposed to hit the other one.
So I'm like dancing away and Kim's just staring at me and I'm like, all right, you don't want
to dance.
That's fine.
And then I heard the episode and I was like, oh, I didn't play the music for anyone but
me.
So that's why.
See, I have a soundboard on my mixer, so I use it.
I don't use anything through Riverside except for just like us to talk.
Oh, gotcha.
This is a little inside baseball for people listening to podcasts.
No, but thank you so much for doing it.
I appreciate it.
I know it's a lot.
It sucks, especially editing.
Oh, it's not bad.
It's not bad.
I just it happened to be a very busy couple of weeks because my boss is out of town.
So I was covering for him.
But I still did the research.
And what's really hard is finding out what you haven't done because I was literally Googling
a cryptid cocktail party and then, you know, whatever thing I had found.
And I'm like, God damn it.
He did that one, too.
Yeah.
No, we've all mean it's been almost two years and 80 plus episodes at this point.
Like we've covered a lot.
We need to branch out.
That's why.
That's why we're going to branch out into other weirdness.
Yeah.
Well, that's why this episode is coming out on Halloween.
And I'm so excited for.
So I figured we'd do us do something.
We're going to switch genres.
OK.
And we're going to get real serious.
All right.
OK.
We're going to change the name of the show for just for this episode midway through.
Yeah, like it's going to be during this episode of the cocktail party that we're going to
be a completely different podcast.
And I'm going to try to do this in my best voice for the genre of we're going to do.
So now we're so we're no longer a cryptic cocktail party.
We are Shadows of Hayden Field, a true crime podcast.
Excellent.
Are you ready for this?
I'm ready.
All right.
So we've got to get serious now.
All right.
Oh, God, you nailed the genre.
It's exactly what the music sounds like.
Good evening and welcome to Shadows of Hayden Field.
Tonight we dig into one of the darkest stories to come out of small town America, a Halloween
horror that left a quiet community reeling.
Tonight's story is a chilling reminder that sometimes the scariest things are closer than
we realize.
It's a tale of an unidentified figure, a masked killer who terrorized Hayden Field, Illinois
on Halloween night in 1978, turning a beloved holiday into a bloodbath.
Hayden Field is the kind of place where people know their neighbors and leave their doors
unlocked.
It's the last place you'd expect a horror like this to unfold.
But on Halloween night, as families were celebrating, something sinister was lurking in the shadows.
It started with sightings.
Kids and teenagers mentioned seeing a strange figure in a pale, featureless mask wandering
through the neighborhood.
But in the excitement of Halloween, most people assumed it was just a prank.
At first, the night passed like any other.
Kids trick or treated, parents handed out candy, and teenagers attended Halloween parties.
No one suspected that soon, their quiet streets would become the scene of an unimaginable
nightmare.
The first sign that something was wrong came around 8 p.m.
Annie Brackett, a local high school senior, was babysitting for a family on Lampkin Lane.
Annie had stepped out of her car to run an errand when suddenly, she was attacked.
She was found hours later, her throat slit, slumped in the front seat.
Her car parked right on the street had become the scene of her murder.
A horrific display for the police who arrived at the scene.
The steam rising off of her corpse was her hopes and dreams escaping into the sky.
The potential that she lost.
Sorry, I just I wanted to also get overly dramatic and poetic if I could.
Oh, you're good.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
This wasn't a robbery.
And that's also my true crime podcast voice.
It's pretty good.
It's a gravelly whisper.
It has to be a gravelly whisper.
Yeah, I'll stop interrupting you now.
Go ahead.
This wasn't a robbery or random act of violence.
There was something deliberate out there.
Police described the killer's precision as unnervingly efficient.
It was as though he'd planned this down to the last detail.
But why Annie and why this night?
The attack left police with more questions than answers.
And this eerie silence that followed Annie's murder was shattered again just minutes later.
Not far from where Annie's body was discovered, another young couple was spending Halloween
together.
Linda VanderBloch and her boyfriend, Bob, were at home, unaware of the horror unfolding
nearby.
Sometime that evening, the door was forced open and they were attacked.
Bob was found pinned to the wall with a knife, his body left in a grotesque display.
Linda was strangled shortly after.
Her last moments filled with terror as she faced the mass figure who entered her home.
I'm sorry.
All I could think of all I could think of was the movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger,
where he stabs a guy with like a pipe and he gets stuck to a wall and he's like, stick
around.
The minute he said that, I was like, sorry, stick around.
In my head over and over again.
This is a serious true crime podcast now.
OK, no, no, no, no, I totally understand.
I totally normally I'm very, I'm very respectful of victims.
But I mean, he's stuck to a wall.
That's I mean, I mean, we're now he got the he got the moth in a museum display treatment,
you know.
Even as a kid, I saw that I'm like, what's wrong with you people?
Why would you do that?
I got to put a pin through an insect.
Was it dead when you did it?
Yeah, I got a I got a winged lizard that's like that, like pinned up.
I think it was already dead.
I fucking hope so, because that'd be I hope so.
I hope so.
That's kind of a fucked up way to do business.
All right.
So back to the shadows of Haydenfield.
Yes, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Stick around.
The police couldn't believe what was happening.
Three brutal murders in a single night, each one disturbingly calculated.
Whoever this killer was, he was moving through the town with terrifying efficiency and the
randomness of the attacks made it impossible to predict his next move.
It seemed he had no pattern, no motive.
As news of the murder spread, a new figure entered the scene, Dr. Samuel Loomis, a psychiatrist
from a nearby town.
He arrived at the Haydenfield police station visibly shaken, warning the officers that
they needed to prepare for more violence.
Dr. Loomis had an unusual request.
He wanted to access to every patrol unit in town, convinced he knew the man behind these
murders.
Loomis explained that he spent years studying someone he described as quote unquote pure
evil.
The officers were skeptical.
What could a psychiatrist know about a violent killer on the loose?
But Loomis was insistent, almost desperate.
He spoke of a patient he treated, a person whose darkness he believed could not be controlled
or cured.
He was certain this patient had returned to Haddonfield, although he wouldn't reveal the
patient's identity.
Now by this point, the town was in a panic.
The police doubled their patrols, urging residents to lock their doors and stay inside.
But it was already too late.
The killer was still out there and he wasn't finished.
It's an interesting strategy by the doctor.
I know who's doing this, but I'm not going to tell you until someone else does.
And then when I'm ready, you can know.
Yeah, it's that sounds like, well, you got to think patient privilege, you know, you
can't just reveal that information.
There's laws and stuff.
Well, there are some limits.
Like, if you know someone is killing a bunch of people, then you have to tell.
I mean, you don't have to do anything.
Unless you're in Illinois, apparently.
That's OK.
Yeah.
As the night wore on, the killer's movement seemed to follow an invisible path, drawing
him straight toward one final target, Laurie Stroud, a quiet high school senior, was babysitting
on the edge of town that night.
She noticed an eerie figure following her earlier in the day, but had shrugged it off
as a Halloween prank.
Little did she know that the same figure would return silently entering the house as she
was tending to the children in her care.
Laurie's survival instincts kicked in the moment she realized she wasn't alone.
She barricaded herself, shielding the children as the intruder tried to break through.
A brutal fight had ensued, with Laurie using anything she could find, knives, furniture,
to fight him off.
But the attacker seemed inhuman, unfazed by pain or injury.
It was though nothing could stop him.
At last, Dr. Loomis arrived.
Drawn by the sense of urgency, he confronted the killer, firing multiple shots.
Laurie watched, shaken and terrified as the intruder finally fell, seemingly defeated.
But when Loomis and Laurie went to check on this body, it was gone.
The masked man had vanished without a trace.
As police combed the scene and tried to understand the violence that had unfolded, Dr. Loomis
finally revealed the truth about the killer's identity.
The man in the mask was someone Haddonfield had long forgotten, a former resident who
had been removed from the town years ago after a violent crime.
Dr. Loomis explained that his patient had been institutionalized as a child for a murder
that shocked the community.
He'd been just six years old when he committed his first killing against his own sister.
The killer was Michael Myers, a name Haddonfield hadn't heard in years.
People remembered the tragedy vaguely, the little boy who killed his sister on Halloween
night.
The house where it had happened still stood, abandoned and falling into disrepair, becoming
a place where kids dared each other to enter.
But no one imagined that the same boy, now grown, would return.
Loomis had always believed Michael Myers was something beyond ordinary.
He described him as an embodiment of darkness, a patient who never spoke a word during his
fifteen years at Smith's Grove Sanitarium.
And though Michael had vanished that night, Loomis warned the people of Haddonfield to
remain vigilant, convinced that Michael would one day return.
The morning after Halloween, the morning after Halloween Haddonfield was left reeling.
Five people had been murdered in a single night, and the killer was still out there.
The police launched an investigation searching over every corner of town, but Michael Myers
was gone without a trace.
Some speculated he had left Haddonfield for good, while others believed he was hiding,
waiting for the right moment to strike.
In the years that followed, Dr. Loomis continued his search for Michael Myers, convinced that
he was still alive and as dangerous as ever.
His obsession with finding Michael Myers grew, and he warned that if Michael returned, the
town would be unprepared for the horror that would follow.
To this day, Haddonfield residents remember the Halloween night that transformed their
town into a place of terror.
Many lock their doors, some avoid Halloween altogether, while others pass down the legend
of Michael Myers as a warning.
Thank you for joining us on Shadows of Haddonfield.
Next episode we'll explore Dr. Loomis' theory in more detail and delve into Michael
Myers' past, searching for clues that might explain his descent into violence.
Until then, stay safe and keep your doors locked, because sometimes the past has a way
of creeping back into the present.
So, what did you think of Shadows of Haddonfield?
Honestly as soon as you said Haddonfield, Illinois, I was like, oh, he's doing Halloween.
I was wondering if you were going to pick up on it almost immediately.
Well when you said Shadows of Haddonfield, I was like, why does Haddonfield sound so
familiar?
Yeah, no, it's like an obscure name.
Like it's not what Halloween is known for.
But I did know that it took place in Illinois.
Yeah, I was.
And so as soon as you said Haddonfield, Illinois, I was like, oh, god damn it.
I had the idea that I thought it'd be funny to take a horror movie and like attempt to
write a true crime podcast as if it was like a real crime.
So I think you nailed it.
So that's what I did.
I think you nailed it.
I was worried.
I didn't want to reveal Michael's name too soon, but I was very worried that Loomis would
give it away almost immediately.
And if not, then as soon as you got to Laurie, like that's how you knew.
Yeah, once you said Laurie Stroud, like that's a dead giveaway.
I thought it was still really good.
I didn't want to interrupt and I didn't want to say I didn't want to say anything, but
I immediately what jumped into my mind was like Rob Zombie.
Yeah.
John Carpenter.
Yeah.
Mechanic suit.
Mike William Shatner's face.
Michael McDowell.
Oh, is that his name?
Andrew McDowell.
Oh, Andrew.
Who's Michael McDowell?
Did I make that name up?
Well, no, I might be saying his name around Malcolm McDowell.
Yeah.
Clock of Orange.
How could we forget that?
That's right.
Gosh darn it.
But yeah, we had the last name, right?
I don't know why I said Andy.
Yeah, that's way off.
I knew it was like an alliteration.
I knew it was Eminem.
But anyway, he nailed it.
Everything he does touches fear in my heart.
Oh yeah, he's great.
So yeah, what did you think?
Did it get you at all?
Were you at any point tricked by it?
In the very, very beginning I was, but the minute you said Haddonfield, Illinois, I was
like, wait a minute.
See, that's why I was worried.
I said before the episode, I was like, I think you're too smart to for me to trick you because
I haven't tricked you once.
If you did an episode where you were talking about, you're going to do an episode and it's
going to be like the most obvious thing.
And I'm going to be like, whoa, really?
Yeah, I know.
It's like the really easy ones that trip me up.
I know I got to get better at this.
But now, but now I have a new idea for a podcast, which is a true crime podcast, but it's just
horror movies.
But you have to make it really like dramatic.
That's extremely important.
It's going to be hugely over dramatic.
Like imagine doing a true crime podcast and covering like oceans 11.
Oh, fuck.
That'd be really good.
Right?
Yeah.
So that's it.
This is our little Halloween special.
It's not very long.
I just, I had the idea and I wanted to get it done and I haven't recorded with you in
a long time or at all in like half a month.
So like I needed to get it out.
But that was fine.
I also absolutely love that it's a Halloween special and you covered Halloween.
Just brilliant.
I had to.
What else would I have done?
Because then you could do a Christmas special about the one of the many horrible Christmas
horror movies that are out there.
Like Santa's sleigh with Goldberg.
Yeah.
Or like Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Ooh, gremlins.
That one's gremlins.
Gremlins is Christmas, right?
Yeah.
Gremlins is Christmas or Die Hard.
That's not a horror movie though.
But I could, I could, but I do.
That is Christmas movie.
I'll give you that.
There's a lot of contention whether or not gremlins or Die Hard or Christmas movies,
I'm going to go with they are.
If it takes place during Christmas, it's a Christmas movie.
Yeah.
Like Home Alone.
Home Alone to me isn't a Christmas movie, but it's a Christmas movie.
It is a Christmas movie.
Yeah.
I missed you.
I missed you too, buddy.
All right.
So that is our Halloween special.
I don't know if you got anything going, you got any, you want to plug anything?
I don't know if you have anything going on.
I haven't talked to you in forever.
Really?
No, I, I did do a video about some voter intimidation and mail fraud being done by the MAGA folks
and a little follow up to that, which I'm very excited about.
I'm going to do another video about it tomorrow is the ACLU actually called my friend back
and asked her for more details.
Oh really?
Yeah.
So it sounds like they're going to be interested in, in whatever this is.
And then there are two different news stations.
Was it like a return address?
Like is there any, no, of course not.
They're cowards.
So they didn't put that on there because they didn't want to actually to get back to them.
Yeah.
Um, but they're, I mean, it's still easy to catch them because if they were sending out
like bulk mailers, like there's gotta be some kind of account attached to it.
Yeah.
But also like people are morons.
I'm sure they brag about it online.
So eventually they'll get caught and then they'll have to, you know, it's, it's, it's
the typical way of MAGA make assholes get attorneys.
I saw that.
I was like, what the, that's so fucking wild.
Like that is such a ballsy move.
But anyways, so you had, so the ACLU is calling your friend back and you said two separate
news stations are what?
Two separate news stations interviewed her.
One has already posted a news story and the other one should probably post it with the
next couple of days.
Nice.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
Make those dudes fucking eat rocks.
Yeah.
Punch them in the face.
I can't wait.
I can't wait for the election to be over, to be honest with you.
I'm so sick of it anyway.
Yeah.
All right.
Um, I love you out there and thank you for listening.
Yeah.
Also leave us a radio.
May the Mothman bless and keep you.
Yeah.
We're not there yet.
Sarge.
All right.
So we gotta do the other plugs first.
I'm not on the news and all that shit.
I wasn't on the news.
I had nothing to do with that.
You kind of whatever.
Uh, if you want to follow Sarge and all of the social media is just look up stars, a
destroyer on all.
Or you can hit the link in our Instagram and you can find all of them there, which is at
Cryptic Cocktail on Instagram, Cryptic Cocktail party on Tik Tok.
Leave us a rating review, please.
Uh, we've got another one star review.
I think, I don't know.
I don't know how to tell on Spotify.
We were at five.
Now we're at 4.9.
That means a five, a one point, but you know, whatever.
Just make it better.
Make it five again.
Yeah.
Stop.
Stop giving us bad reviews.
You're fucked.
Yeah.
I'm going to blame Sarge because I was gone for two weeks.
Yeah.
It's probably my fault.
I wouldn't doubt it.
Somebody was like, God damn it.
Don't ever do this to me again.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Well, that Sarge, now do you want to say I love you to the audience?
May may, uh, the blessings of, of Mothman keep you.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I love you.
May Mothman be with you.