Shiny Veneers (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:01Today, I'm going to share three stories that are all about people who went to great lengths to make themselves look good. But in each case, as you'll see, it completely backfires. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is really excited to see a new movie, make sure you tell them the ending of that movie right as they're sitting down to watch it.

0:34Okay, let's get into our first story, called Juanita.

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1:38When your life demands precision, USAA gets the details right, like helping you find savings on auto insurance when you switch. Visit usaa.com slash auto quote to see how much you could save. Membership eligibility and product restrictions apply and are subject to change. USAA means United Services Automobile Association and its affiliates, San Antonio, Texas. One afternoon in late February of 2023, a 26-year-old man named Julio Bermejo walked toward a park in the city of Puno, Peru with his girlfriend, Juanita. They were on the way to the park to meet Julio's two best friends, who he was finally going to be introducing Juanita to.

2:17To this point, they knew he had a girlfriend, but they had never actually met. And this in and of itself was actually kind of odd because, again, these are Julio's best friends, and Julio and Juanita had actually been together for a while now. But Julio had sort of always been a little hesitant to introduce her to his friends because he knew, you know, Juanita was just a little bit different. You know, she was odd. And he knew that his friends might, you know, pick up on that and maybe even make fun of him for it. He didn't know. He just, he was worried that it would cause weirdness amongst the friends if they, you know, had a chance to interact with his girlfriend.

2:56And so he just kind of kept her secret. But his friends knew he was dating Juanita and they just really wanted to meet her. And so they kept pressuring him and pressuring him. And finally, he's like, you know what? We'll just go to the park. We'll meet up. I'm sure it'll be fine. And in order to ensure that this meeting would go as well as it could, Julio had also brought along with him as they're walking to the park, he had this big red cooler. And inside of it was all this rum and some cups and ice and stuff that they could drink while they're at the park. And for what it's worth, you're not allowed to drink in public in Peru.

3:30And Julio knew this. And so he was sort of weary of the fact that he's lugging this obvious case of drinks out to a public park. And he was going to be drinking in public, but he felt like it was worth the risk. He would go out there. They'd have a couple of drinks. His friends would meet Juanita. it would all be fine. Eventually, Julio and Juanita reached the edge of the park, and up ahead, Julio could see his two friends waiting by this crumbling wall within the park. So most of Puno was covered in all these old ruins because there was this ancient civilization called the Incas who had lived there hundreds of years ago.

4:04And so this crumbling wall that his friends were sitting on was quite literally like an artifact, a remnant of the past. But it was sort of so commonplace in this area that people didn't even notice them. It was just sort of part of the landscape. And so Juanita and Julio and Julio's big red cooler full of rum, they lumbered their way through the park, dodging different, you know, ruins that were jutting out of the ground all the way over to the wall where the two friends were. And they actually hadn't seen them approaching. And so it was only when they kind of just were standing right in front of them that the friends looked and saw Julio, saw Juanita.

4:38And Julio right away, he's sort of trying to gauge their reaction to Juanita and to this whole situation. But pretty quickly, his friends were, you know, just pretty cool. And they were interested in Juanita. And, you know, they quickly wanted to learn more about Juanita. And it was just like kind of easy. And Julio, he opened up the cooler right away. He got the cups out. He's filling them up with rum and soda. And all the friends are drinking. You know, they're having a good time. And Julio's like, man, I was worried about nothing. My friends, they think Juanita is great. Yeah, she's different, but they think she's great.

5:12This has gone as well as it could have. And also, definitely the rum was helping. And so for a while, all four of them were just sitting around this crumbling wall, drinking their rum. They're having a good time. And then at some point, Julio, who was facing his two friends, his friends, they sort of looked up and they had this look come over their face like they were worried about something that clearly was behind Julio. sort of gasped when they saw it. And Julio, he's like, oh no, like, is it the police? Because they're out here drinking publicly and they're getting a little bit drunk and a little bit rowdy, with the exception of Juanita.

5:45You know, she had drank the least of the group, perhaps to maintain some level of decency, perhaps. But, you know, the two friends and Julio, they were pretty drunk and being loud. And so Julio, he turns around and his stomach just drops because, yep, here come the police. There are two officers coming over, and he's thinking, the jig's up, they're going to clearly see that we are drinking in public. We can't even hide it. And so the officers, they walk over, and, you know, the friends are sort of panicking. They're putting their cups down. And Julio, he's just sort of resigned to his fate here.

6:17He's going to get in trouble. And the officers, they come over, and they see the cups, and they can clearly tell this group of people is drinking. But when they looked into that red cooler, that big red cooler that Julio had brought along, when they saw what was in there, they backed up and they told Julio to stay right where he was. So Julio and Juanita had actually been together for years. And despite his insecurities about her, about their relationship, he was ultimately pretty eager for his friends to finally meet her. But taking her to the park that day turned out to be a really big mistake.

6:54Because when the police arrived on the scene and they looked in Julio's red cooler, probably expecting to see alcohol, because that's very likely why they approached them in the first place. They did see alcohol, but they also saw Juanita. So Julio was right to be on edge about how his friends might react to seeing his girlfriend, seeing Juanita, because she was so different, right? That's his concern. And she was. She was very different than your sort of average girlfriend, let's say. Because Juanita was actually an 800-year-old mummified man from the pre-Hispanic era, the period when the Incan civilization ruled the area.

7:36Julio's father had acquired Juanita, this mummy, decades ago. So Juanita had actually been a fixture in Julio's life since he was born. Now, Julio's best friends, really all of his friends, knew that his family had this mummy, but they didn't take it seriously when Julio referred to the mummy as his girlfriend. Again, this is an 800-year-old mummified man that he calls his girlfriend. They thought it was a joke. But when it seemed like it wasn't a joke, when it seemed like Julio apparently had a real relationship with this mummy, the friends begged him to bring Juanita out. They wanted to see this amazing artifact.

8:15But they didn't realize that that request, when they finally pushed Julio to come out to this park with Juanita in his cooler, because that's how he transported her, that that would actually destroy their friend's actual love life. Because Julio was not joking when he called Juanita his girlfriend. He had very real, very deep feelings for this mummy. He'd even convinced himself that she was like an active participant in their relationship and sort of kept him in line, you know, according to Julio. He said that Juanita would hold his hand and would poke his feet whenever he misbehaved. And so when those two officers in the park came over to Julio and his friends and they looked in the cooler, they saw, you know, Juanita, this mummy partially inside of this cooler along with the rum.

9:00And so right off the bat, Julio and his friends, they're getting in trouble for that alcohol. But also Julio was arrested and charged with the illegal possession of a historical item. but as of 2023, there's been no update on this case. As for Juanita, like the actual mummy, it was confiscated by the Ministry of Culture for research purposes, and that means very likely that she and Julio will be separated forever.

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12:32Our next story is called Unit 85.

12:40One afternoon in 1984, a man named Dmitry carried a cardboard box down the hallway of this high-rise apartment building in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine. And this building was basically brand new. It was one of a bunch of developments that had been built right before the Moscow Olympics, just four years earlier in 1980, as part of a push to show the world that the Soviet Union was a very successful and prosperous place. So very much by design, everything that they had built was very shiny and very modern and impressive, like this apartment building. And pretty much everybody in the area had been really desperate to get one of these new apartments, and Dmitry had lucked out.

13:20So a few weeks ago, Dimitri had been notified that one of the units had suddenly opened up, and he jumped at the opportunity to move in. He and his family had never lived in a place this nice before. I mean, there were brand new appliances, and the building had thick concrete walls with great soundproofing, so they didn't have to listen to their neighbors chat or watch TV like they had in many other places they'd lived before. Like, this was a huge upgrade. So today, Dimitri and his wife and two sons had basically spent the entire afternoon hauling their furniture in and getting situated because they're like, we want to move in here as fast as possible.

13:57His family was inside the unit now, unpacking basically everything else, and Dimitri was bringing up one of the very last boxes. But as he headed down the hallway toward his apartment, Unit 85, he saw a neighbor open up her door right up ahead, and the neighbor looked out at him. And as Dimitri got closer to this neighbor, he noticed that this woman looked incredibly sad and just kind of tired, like life had beaten her down. She was also really pale and very thin and gaunt, and she had bags under her eyes. And she was watching Dimitri with this strange expression on her face, almost like pity for Dimitri.

14:35And Dimitri, you know, despite this initial reaction to what she looked like, you know, he doesn't know her, and this is his neighbor after all. So he was about to stop and introduce himself to her. But right as he was about to, she suddenly went back inside of her unit and closed the door. The whole thing was just very weird. And Dimitri, after the door had shut, he just stood there for a second, wondering if he should knock and ask the woman if there was some kind of problem. Like, was she okay? But in general, Dimitri was naturally kind of a quiet, introverted guy. And he very much preferred to mind his own business about pretty much everything.

15:10So he decided he would just leave the woman alone, which was pretty clearly what she wanted anyways. I mean, she's the one who shut the door and disappeared on him. So after a minute, he just walked the rest of the way down the hallway. He went inside of his unit and he carried this cardboard box that he had lugged up here into the bedroom that his teenage sons were going to share. And when he got in there, he saw his boys were standing up on one of the mattresses trying to hang a decorative rug on the wall behind their beds to kind of freshen up the place. And Dimitri, he was glad to see that.

15:40It seemed like his sons were, you know, leaning in to making this space their own. And so Dimitri, he set the box down and looked around their room. And with all their stuff there, it was already starting to feel like home. And he was sure that, you know, despite the weirdness with his neighbor, that this has got to be the beginning of a really just amazing, you know, new, exciting chapter for he and his family. But Dimitri quickly realized that not everything in this building was as amazing as he thought it was. I mean, he'd already had that weird run-in with his neighbor. It would turn out that was just the tip of the iceberg.

16:14Even though his apartment and this whole building was undeniably nice and beautiful and modern, basically all of their neighbors were not nice. It was not just that one woman who appeared to be quite rude on that first day there. It was like every single person Dimitri ran into in this entire complex was quiet and sullen and grumpy and definitely not interested in talking to Dimitri. And then more than that, you know, you have all these people that clearly didn't want anything to do with Dimitri and his family, but it was almost like all the time the entire place was just silent. I mean, there was good soundproofing in this building, no doubt, but every time he walked down the hallway, it was like, it was just silent.

16:57Like nobody was making any noise in any of the apartment buildings. It was like this weird vibe that sort of hung over this whole place. Like a sense of gloom and doom sort of persisted everywhere. And Dimitri just couldn't explain it. Like of all places to have that feeling be so present, why here? This is such a nice place. But Dimitri and his family, they stuck it out. They stayed in this apartment. And, you know, despite how weird, you know, it was, and it continued to be as weird as I've described here, or pretty much the whole time they were there, Dimitri and his family, they tried to make the best of it.

17:32But a couple of years after they had moved in to Unit 85, Dimitri's older son started feeling unusually tired and weak, sort of similar to how the people in the building all seemed to act. And at first, Dimitri thought his son was just stressed with school or his social life or something, and maybe he just needed more sleep. But his son's symptoms just kept getting worse, And when Dimitri and his wife eventually took their son to the doctor, they found out that, unfortunately, their son had leukemia, which is a blood cancer. Now, this was obviously a total shock to the family because, you know, this whole time they'd been chalking it up to, you know, he needs more sleep, right?

18:14But to find out it was something so serious, I mean, they didn't even know what to think. And on top of that, I mean, Dimitri's son, who had the leukemia, he had always been like a really active, healthy kid. so this just felt like it came out of nowhere. But now he had to undergo cancer treatment and spend most of his time resting in bed. And despite doing those things, he just continued to get worse. A few months after Dimitri's older son got sick, Dimitri was sitting inside of an exam room at the doctor's office with his younger son, who was now also sick. He had a lot of the same symptoms as his brother, so Dimitri had taken him for blood tests right away, fearing, you know, he could have leukemia too.

18:54So now they were waiting for the doctor to come back with those blood test results to see if that was the case. And when the doctor did finally come back into the room, Dimitri could tell by the look on the doctor's face that whatever they were going to say was going to be bad. So the doctor, he sat down and said that Dimitri's younger son did also have leukemia. Dimitri was shattered. I mean, he was in complete disbelief here. He asked the doctor, like, how is it possible that both of my children could develop the same type of cancer in the same year? And the doctor said, well, there is an answer to that.

19:29This was hereditary. The whole family had a genetic predisposition to leukemia. That afternoon, Dimitri brought his youngest son home and told his wife and his older son the terrible news. And Dimitri just couldn't help but feel incredibly guilty. Like, this was all his fault for passing his bad genes onto his kids. So once, you know, everybody had begun to process the news and the sons were both in bed, Dimitri, you know, just who didn't know what to do with himself now, he felt so terrible, he just decided to go out for a walk to clear his head. And so he did that. He went out, he walked around, and it didn't really work.

20:07He still had so much on his mind, so many bad thoughts passing through his mind. But when he got back to the building after his walk, as he approached the main entrance, he saw one of his neighbors sitting out on the steps, smoking a cigarette. It was actually that woman that he had first seen when he had moved in, the one who had poked her head into the hallway and then quickly closed the door without saying hello. Since that day, Dimitri had never spoken to her. He hadn't even tried to talk to her. Like, it was clear she didn't want anything to do with him or anyone else for that matter. And certainly tonight was not the moment he was going to go, you know, talk to this woman.

20:40But very much to his surprise, as Dimitri walked right past her and began walking up the steps to go inside the building, she actually turned and looked at him and just asked him, is everything okay? And Dimitri was so caught off guard by this that he found himself just suddenly, very emotionally, sort of blurting out everything about his son's illnesses and how it was all his fault. And as his neighbor listened to him, she didn't seem surprised at all by what he was saying. And when he was done talking, she didn't ask a single question about it. In fact, she just nodded her head like, yep, that's too bad, as if she knew this was already going on, even though there was no way she could have known this stuff.

21:20And so when it was clear their conversation wasn't really going to go much further than Dimitri just sort of vomiting out all this information and her nodding, and that was sort of it, Dimitri was going to go back into the building, but she stopped him, and she did ask him a question. She asked him, do you know anything about the tenants who lived in your unit before you? He said, no. All he knew is that somebody had lived there, you know, and then apparently they had left. That created the opening and he had jumped to the chance to move in. That's all he knew. And so she told him that, well, actually, there's a story behind why this cleared up, why that unit cleared up.

21:59She said the previous tenants were a mother and her two teenage kids, and they had all died within two years of moving in. That's why it opened up. And they had died from leukemia. After hearing this, Dimitri couldn't help but feel like, okay, this doesn't seem like my kids got leukemia because this is hereditary. It feels like something else caused my kids to get sick that very likely is happening in my apartment. Like, how is it possible that both my kids got leukemia and the previous tenants who were in this unit also got leukemia? Like, there's no way. That's just coincidence. No way. And so Dimitri became absolutely obsessed with this idea that he was going to get to the bottom of whatever was going on inside of that apartment.

22:43And so over the next year, Dimitri made multiple serious efforts to get an inspector to come out and look at the apartment. He wanted them to check for a gas leak or toxic chemicals or something in the soil. But when he talked to building management, they just insisted that they'd already looked into all those things and everything was fine. Like, this is just hereditary. It's just coincidental. Like, you know, drop it. But Dimitri couldn't let it go. And he kept pushing, asking anyone he could to just try to help him figure out if there's some external factor that's causing his family to become ill.

23:18But it all went nowhere. Basically, people just started ignoring his requests. and Dimitri felt like there was nothing he could do. By 1987, only a few years after Dimitri and his family had moved in to Unit 85, Dimitri's older son passed away from leukemia, and Dimitri's younger son continued to get sicker. Meanwhile, a rumor began to spread around the apartment building and also just across the whole area that Unit 85 of that apartment building must be cursed. Two years later, on a cold morning in 1989, Dimitri came home from the hospital where his younger son was being treated to grab some clean clothes for himself and his wife.