Sept. 23, 2025
Ghosts of the Past: Amy Bruni on True Crime Hauntings
This week we step into the shadows with a very special bonus episode. Shane sits down with paranormal investigator, author, and TV star Amy Bruni (Ghost Hunters, Kindred Spirits, Haunted Road).
Amy shares chilling stories of hauntings rooted in real tragedies—from childhood encounters with “Mr. Green Jeans” to cases where skepticism gave way to the unexplained. Together, Shane and Amy explore the intersection of crime, history, and the paranormal—and why treating the dead with dignity is as important as uncovering the truth.
If you’re near Indiana, you can hear even more stories live:
📅 October 7 at 7 PM — Amy Bruni appears at the Eagles Theatre in Wabash, Indiana.
Can’t make it to Wabash? Amy is touring the U.S.—find her upcoming events here.
Learn more about Amy at amybruni.com.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/foul-play-crime-series/donations
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wabash, Indiana, a city famous for switching on the future.
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[SPEAKER_01]: First in the world to be lit by electricity, when brush arc lights were installed above the courthouse, but bright light throws long shadows, and just a block from the historic equals theater, a crowd once gathered outside that same courthouse, to watch a condemned man need the rope.
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[SPEAKER_01]: True crime leaves and afterimage, families remember, places remember, some say the dead due to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, a conversation about that thin place between evidence and the unexplained, Amy Bruney, investigator, author, the careful heart behind Kindred Spirits, joins me to talk
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[SPEAKER_01]: What it means to treat the dead with dignity, and why skepticism is a kind of respect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is Fowl Play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Amy, have you ever been to Wabash before?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a very good question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm at the point in my travels where I can't remember every where I've been.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very good chance I have, but sometimes I have to Google myself to see if I've been somewhere or I'll look in my photos on my phone and be like, is there any photo here tagged in that town?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I know I've been in the vicinity because I come back to that area every year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will tell you that when you get to a bash, you will fall in love.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really small city, very small.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But within two streets, there's just a lot of history that has happened here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was the first electrically divided city in the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, to go along with, you know, to show that you're doing here, there's been a lot of murder as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's interesting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one of the very first serial killers happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and in fact, he was found and he was hung outside the courthouse, which is just a block from where the equals theater is, which is where you're going to be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A theater that once set in the glow of a future that no one could imagine, and within your shot, a gallows, they'd rather forget.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's where Amy Brooney will take the stage.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's so interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to look up and read all about that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Amy, one of the things that really drew me into you watching kindergarten spirits, which was the first time I had ever seen you on TV, was the kindness that you offer spirits.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear to me that you
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[SPEAKER_01]: are well aware that the spirits were once living people in in some way deserve that respect, which is the reason why I've not been able to watch a lot of paranormal stuff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, Kindred Spirits for me has always been kind of a kind of way of dealing with death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I do on my podcast is I work with family members and detectives
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[SPEAKER_01]: when I feel like people who have passed on aren't being respected and I just want to thank you for always showing respect to the people who are on the other side.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness, thank you for acknowledging and it's just, you know, it's to me it seems like a no-brainer, humanized ghosts and spirits because, you know, one day that could be asked or it could be someone you love.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Amy, I'm so curious of what was your first experience with the paranormal?
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[SPEAKER_00]: My interest in the paranormal started when I was very young.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a haunted house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The very familiar story for a lot of investigators are people who are interested in the paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a haunted house in Alameda, California.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was eight years old, I saw a full body and apparition of a man standing outside.
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[SPEAKER_00]: a second story window where there's no way someone could physically be standing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He would have to be floating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I ran to get my mom and I just said, well, there's a man and he's floating outside the window, you know, and my mom just very matter of factly was said, oh, yeah, he's a ghost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen him too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I call him Mr. Green Jeans.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She showed no fear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She just kind of talked about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was an everyday occurrence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she said sometimes when people die, they become ghosts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Was he a kind ghost?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he was.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If the first glimpse was wonder, the second was warning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The house had opinions about unbelief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The only time we had anything even remotely sort of negative happened in the house was we had the neighbors over for dinner with their son and I remember my parents kind of saying to this man and his wife.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have a ghost here, and the husband was like, a total nonbeliever, he just kept saying, absolutely not, that's preposterous, that's ridiculous.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And at that moment, a picture that we had on the wall just kind of came up and off the wall and hovered there for a second and then crashed to the floor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and that man and his wife left the house that night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Very quickly they finished up dinner and they just kind of left never set foot in our house again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The best ghost stories are still stories and the best investigators like the best detectives work to rule out the ordinary before naming the extraordinary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you suffer from confirmation bias, which a lot of people do in the paranormal, they want something to be ghostly so badly that they'll overlook just very common and normal explanations for what's happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you have television shows that their one goal is to scare the heck out of people at home or make them think that everything they're encountering this paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Those two things together, it's not going any service to what I do, which is I want to realize about this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I won't even say that ghosts are real 100%.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I very much know that weird things happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My belief is that these are ghosts and spirits from people who have passed on, but I'm never going to say that to you absolutely, because I can barely prove they exist, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that a lot of times, especially now, I was like YouTube and TikToks and all these things, they're just praying on people's want for things to be paranormal so badly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I think so many people could watch and can watch Kindred, who just wants something a little more on the level, like, oh, you know, they're looking for alternate explanation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so then when something happens, that we can't explain, you're like, holy crap, that is really crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, it's something,
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[SPEAKER_00]: that has blown our minds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Even intuition has to stand in the lineup.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What ultimately convinced you to take the leap into paranormal television?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a test one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had been asked by a production company to potentially go on this show, Ghost Hunters International.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I already was working with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from Ghost Hunters at that point.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was helping them produce their podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was called Yon Riali Radio, and, you know, I told them that CHI was kind of courting me and they did not want me to do CHI, but so they were like, you know, why don't she come try a couple cases with us for fun?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was going through a divorce at the time, and everything I was already in my early thirties.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I want to say it was like 31.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so just seem like a, you know, I'll go try this thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I went and help them on a couple cases in California and then the producers called me and said, do you want to keep going, you know, I've done two cases in the Bay Area and they were like, do you want to come with us to San Diego next week?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, so then I did that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I just basically never went home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the road with them for seven years, sometimes 300 days a year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when you guys first started Kindred Spirit, what was your vision for that show?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because of course, that needed to differ from Ghost Hunters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was done with Parallel TV when we started kindergarten.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I quit those hunters because the schedule was just getting really crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And my longtime partner and I, we had our daughter, then I think she was born it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was born.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I know she was born in 2012.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was born in 2012 and he and I, you know, we tried to make it work for me to
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[SPEAKER_00]: two years of juggling, filming, and nannies, and, you know, and everything, and finally I just said, you know, this is not worth it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had started a travel business at that point, and I just said I'm going to come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I quit those tunners at the end of season nine and Adam did too, and it wasn't long, though, before discovery came to us, and they asked if we'd be interested in
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[SPEAKER_00]: I just basically said, we'll do it, but we have to be in control of the schedule.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have to pick the cases, we're executive producers, we have all final say and what gets aired and what does it, and everything has to be on the level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There can be absolutely no embellishments, no trickery, no fakery, like what you see is what you get.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When I said we wanted to help people, help families and ghosts and tell a story, and they said yes, and that was how Kendrick was born.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know exactly how many episodes of Ghost Tunners you ended up being on?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's somewhere around 130.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that for Kindred spirits, there were seven seasons.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, that's a lot of episodes that you have a crazy amount of experience on now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've done on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously, I kindred with seven seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We did less episodes per season, but I think we ended around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, somewhere around 70 episodes on a bunch of, you know, kind of spin off, which is another like 20 or so.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we had, I did DH and did guest spots on some other shows.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I've got a lot of paranormal television under my belt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I, of course, wanted to bring up our mutual friendship coffee who joins candid spirits as a psychic medium.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious what your experience is with chip.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then also maybe with other psychic mediums in that field.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm very, very cheesy about the psychic mediums that I work with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now the first thing I always tell people is that we would never base an entire investigation on a psychic's impressions and chip knows that any psychic that works with us know that like the best psychics know that they are soluble and that they are just one piece of the puzzle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But people really do fall back on the psychic thing like even my house right now
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[SPEAKER_00]: Gitchie Finn there like he's going to magically solve the mystery of his ear, you know, and but there are just certain psychics that I really trust in ship is one of them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've had some really compelling experiences with him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've known him for, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: a long time, 20 years probably.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been working a lot with medium Sarah Lamos recently.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoy her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's just the good psychics are the ones that are really willing to be like a piece of the puzzle and help you figure out the mystery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I've worked with many over the years and my list is pretty small.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're near Indiana, you can hear more of Amy's true crime hauntings.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And even see the artifacts she travels with, and takes bureaucorts, a painting by Ed Warren, live at the Eagle Steater and Wabash, on October 7th, details are in our show notes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you, like, how did you come from Kindred spirits to shows like this?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because going into it, I don't know what to expect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the trailer, it's 30 seconds, and it sounds like there's some true crime stuff that may be happening as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I obviously am a huge research nerd and I started touring in 2019 just doing talks in the fall about ghosts and hauntings and the tour has just grown every year to more and more cities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this year, my family and I, you know, we were just like, I'm just going to go all in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I have 28 cities total.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so every year, I changed the talk up a little bit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so last year, I wrote a book called food to die for and it's a recipe book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: from haunted locations all over the country, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that book is done really well, people love it, which is great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote a follow-up this last year that's coming out next year, called Quizzine to Kill For, and it's a recipe even stories from true crime-related hauntings all over the world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been...
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[SPEAKER_00]: fully into true crime hauntings for the last year and so I thought, I'm going to do a talk about this this year and so basically I talked a bit about the paranormal and then we visit some really famous crimes in America that have resulted in hauntings and we talk about the story of the crime then I kind of go into like what's happened there experiences people have had and then I show evidence from each location and so it's a whole evening
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[SPEAKER_00]: of that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end, people can just ask me any questions about anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll ask 20 or 30 minutes, as all like we just talk about spooky stuff together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I also bring a lot of my haunted artifacts with me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll get to see some dolls with interesting stories I have a painting by Ed Warren that I travel with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have some old Luigi boards and
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's you the fall and ghosts and true crime or any of those three things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I really think that this should be a sunny evening for you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: With just a couple minutes left, I know that you spoke about food to die for, which is your newest book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm wondering if we could talk just for a moment on your other book, life with the afterlife.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe you published that in 2020, is that right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was my COVID book, you know, how we all said we should do something productive with all that time at home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote, you know, I wrote life with the afterlife 13 troops.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I learned about ghosts with my friend Julie and it basically I died into.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 13 of my favorite series about the paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Evidence or ideas is to why I believe them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's kind of sprinkled a bit with biography and like, you know, kind of my journey as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, people have really enjoyed that book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's unautable to and both are strangely enough.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was cathartic for me, but also I think it's
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like what you resonate with with Kindred, kind of the, you know, empathetic aspect to what we do, the whole book kind of centers around ghost hunting with that in mind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I talk about a lot of paranormal theories that I think plague what I do, you know, people are always thinking, you know, is it a demon or is something going to attach to me, you know, how do I get rid of spirits, all of those things?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I tackle all of my thoughts and theories on those in that book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have listened to Haunted Road, which is your podcast, with just the minute that we have left, I'm wondering if you could just tell me a little bit about Haunted Road and what made you start it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So Haunted Road, I'm very dear friends with Erin Manky who produces in host lore, the podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he was the one who convinced me to do Haunted Road.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he's executive producer and it's under the Grim and Miles and Braille of his shows.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was how that came about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he and I came up with the concepts together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so hopefully new episodes will be out soon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in this whole contractory negotiation
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[SPEAKER_00]: I heart radio right now and it's taking forever and I'm just I'm sitting on like 40 scripts and I can't wait to get back into production.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wabash remembers its first light, bright as hope, and its darker gatherings, heavy as history.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Amy Bruni doesn't try to force a story where there isn't one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She listens, she tests.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when something remains after the drafts, after the doubt, she treats it like what it might be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Someone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If tonight's conversation moved you, you can step into that history with Amy, live at the Eagle's Theatre on October 7th, stories of American crimes that left more than a case file behind, and the artifacts that carry their stories.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Follow Amy's podcast, Haunted Road, and find her books, life with the afterlife, and food
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[SPEAKER_01]: The foul play is written and hosted by me, Shane Waters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If this episode met something to you, share it with a friend who believes stories can hold the living and the dead in that same careful light.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wabash, Indiana, a city famous for switching on the future.
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[SPEAKER_01]: First in the world to be lit by electricity, when brush arc lights were installed above the courthouse, but bright light throws long shadows, and just a block from the historic equals theater, a crowd once gathered outside that same courthouse, to watch a condemned man need the rope.
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[SPEAKER_01]: True crime leaves and afterimage, families remember, places remember, some say the dead due to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, a conversation about that thin place between evidence and the unexplained, Amy Bruney, investigator, author, the careful heart behind Kindred Spirits, joins me to talk
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[SPEAKER_01]: What it means to treat the dead with dignity, and why skepticism is a kind of respect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is Fowl Play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Amy, have you ever been to Wabash before?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a very good question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm at the point in my travels where I can't remember every where I've been.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very good chance I have, but sometimes I have to Google myself to see if I've been somewhere or I'll look in my photos on my phone and be like, is there any photo here tagged in that town?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I know I've been in the vicinity because I come back to that area every year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will tell you that when you get to a bash, you will fall in love.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really small city, very small.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But within two streets, there's just a lot of history that has happened here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was the first electrically divided city in the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, to go along with, you know, to show that you're doing here, there's been a lot of murder as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's interesting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one of the very first serial killers happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and in fact, he was found and he was hung outside the courthouse, which is just a block from where the equals theater is, which is where you're going to be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A theater that once set in the glow of a future that no one could imagine, and within your shot, a gallows, they'd rather forget.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's where Amy Brooney will take the stage.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's so interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to look up and read all about that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Amy, one of the things that really drew me into you watching kindergarten spirits, which was the first time I had ever seen you on TV, was the kindness that you offer spirits.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear to me that you
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[SPEAKER_01]: are well aware that the spirits were once living people in in some way deserve that respect, which is the reason why I've not been able to watch a lot of paranormal stuff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, Kindred Spirits for me has always been kind of a kind of way of dealing with death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I do on my podcast is I work with family members and detectives
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[SPEAKER_01]: when I feel like people who have passed on aren't being respected and I just want to thank you for always showing respect to the people who are on the other side.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness, thank you for acknowledging and it's just, you know, it's to me it seems like a no-brainer, humanized ghosts and spirits because, you know, one day that could be asked or it could be someone you love.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Amy, I'm so curious of what was your first experience with the paranormal?
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[SPEAKER_00]: My interest in the paranormal started when I was very young.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a haunted house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The very familiar story for a lot of investigators are people who are interested in the paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a haunted house in Alameda, California.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was eight years old, I saw a full body and apparition of a man standing outside.
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[SPEAKER_00]: a second story window where there's no way someone could physically be standing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He would have to be floating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I ran to get my mom and I just said, well, there's a man and he's floating outside the window, you know, and my mom just very matter of factly was said, oh, yeah, he's a ghost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen him too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I call him Mr. Green Jeans.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She showed no fear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She just kind of talked about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was an everyday occurrence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she said sometimes when people die, they become ghosts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Was he a kind ghost?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he was.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If the first glimpse was wonder, the second was warning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The house had opinions about unbelief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The only time we had anything even remotely sort of negative happened in the house was we had the neighbors over for dinner with their son and I remember my parents kind of saying to this man and his wife.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have a ghost here, and the husband was like, a total nonbeliever, he just kept saying, absolutely not, that's preposterous, that's ridiculous.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And at that moment, a picture that we had on the wall just kind of came up and off the wall and hovered there for a second and then crashed to the floor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and that man and his wife left the house that night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Very quickly they finished up dinner and they just kind of left never set foot in our house again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The best ghost stories are still stories and the best investigators like the best detectives work to rule out the ordinary before naming the extraordinary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you suffer from confirmation bias, which a lot of people do in the paranormal, they want something to be ghostly so badly that they'll overlook just very common and normal explanations for what's happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you have television shows that their one goal is to scare the heck out of people at home or make them think that everything they're encountering this paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Those two things together, it's not going any service to what I do, which is I want to realize about this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I won't even say that ghosts are real 100%.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I very much know that weird things happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My belief is that these are ghosts and spirits from people who have passed on, but I'm never going to say that to you absolutely, because I can barely prove they exist, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that a lot of times, especially now, I was like YouTube and TikToks and all these things, they're just praying on people's want for things to be paranormal so badly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I think so many people could watch and can watch Kindred, who just wants something a little more on the level, like, oh, you know, they're looking for alternate explanation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so then when something happens, that we can't explain, you're like, holy crap, that is really crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, it's something,
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[SPEAKER_00]: that has blown our minds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Even intuition has to stand in the lineup.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What ultimately convinced you to take the leap into paranormal television?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a test one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had been asked by a production company to potentially go on this show, Ghost Hunters International.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I already was working with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from Ghost Hunters at that point.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was helping them produce their podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was called Yon Riali Radio, and, you know, I told them that CHI was kind of courting me and they did not want me to do CHI, but so they were like, you know, why don't she come try a couple cases with us for fun?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was going through a divorce at the time, and everything I was already in my early thirties.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I want to say it was like 31.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so just seem like a, you know, I'll go try this thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I went and help them on a couple cases in California and then the producers called me and said, do you want to keep going, you know, I've done two cases in the Bay Area and they were like, do you want to come with us to San Diego next week?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, so then I did that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I just basically never went home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the road with them for seven years, sometimes 300 days a year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when you guys first started Kindred Spirit, what was your vision for that show?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because of course, that needed to differ from Ghost Hunters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was done with Parallel TV when we started kindergarten.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I quit those hunters because the schedule was just getting really crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And my longtime partner and I, we had our daughter, then I think she was born it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was born.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I know she was born in 2012.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was born in 2012 and he and I, you know, we tried to make it work for me to
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[SPEAKER_00]: two years of juggling, filming, and nannies, and, you know, and everything, and finally I just said, you know, this is not worth it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had started a travel business at that point, and I just said I'm going to come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I quit those tunners at the end of season nine and Adam did too, and it wasn't long, though, before discovery came to us, and they asked if we'd be interested in
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[SPEAKER_00]: I just basically said, we'll do it, but we have to be in control of the schedule.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have to pick the cases, we're executive producers, we have all final say and what gets aired and what does it, and everything has to be on the level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There can be absolutely no embellishments, no trickery, no fakery, like what you see is what you get.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When I said we wanted to help people, help families and ghosts and tell a story, and they said yes, and that was how Kendrick was born.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know exactly how many episodes of Ghost Tunners you ended up being on?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's somewhere around 130.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that for Kindred spirits, there were seven seasons.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, that's a lot of episodes that you have a crazy amount of experience on now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've done on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously, I kindred with seven seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We did less episodes per season, but I think we ended around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, somewhere around 70 episodes on a bunch of, you know, kind of spin off, which is another like 20 or so.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we had, I did DH and did guest spots on some other shows.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I've got a lot of paranormal television under my belt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I, of course, wanted to bring up our mutual friendship coffee who joins candid spirits as a psychic medium.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious what your experience is with chip.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then also maybe with other psychic mediums in that field.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm very, very cheesy about the psychic mediums that I work with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now the first thing I always tell people is that we would never base an entire investigation on a psychic's impressions and chip knows that any psychic that works with us know that like the best psychics know that they are soluble and that they are just one piece of the puzzle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But people really do fall back on the psychic thing like even my house right now
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[SPEAKER_00]: Gitchie Finn there like he's going to magically solve the mystery of his ear, you know, and but there are just certain psychics that I really trust in ship is one of them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've had some really compelling experiences with him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've known him for, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: a long time, 20 years probably.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been working a lot with medium Sarah Lamos recently.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoy her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's just the good psychics are the ones that are really willing to be like a piece of the puzzle and help you figure out the mystery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I've worked with many over the years and my list is pretty small.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're near Indiana, you can hear more of Amy's true crime hauntings.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And even see the artifacts she travels with, and takes bureaucorts, a painting by Ed Warren, live at the Eagle Steater and Wabash, on October 7th, details are in our show notes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you, like, how did you come from Kindred spirits to shows like this?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because going into it, I don't know what to expect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the trailer, it's 30 seconds, and it sounds like there's some true crime stuff that may be happening as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I obviously am a huge research nerd and I started touring in 2019 just doing talks in the fall about ghosts and hauntings and the tour has just grown every year to more and more cities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this year, my family and I, you know, we were just like, I'm just going to go all in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I have 28 cities total.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so every year, I changed the talk up a little bit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so last year, I wrote a book called food to die for and it's a recipe book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: from haunted locations all over the country, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that book is done really well, people love it, which is great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote a follow-up this last year that's coming out next year, called Quizzine to Kill For, and it's a recipe even stories from true crime-related hauntings all over the world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been...
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[SPEAKER_00]: fully into true crime hauntings for the last year and so I thought, I'm going to do a talk about this this year and so basically I talked a bit about the paranormal and then we visit some really famous crimes in America that have resulted in hauntings and we talk about the story of the crime then I kind of go into like what's happened there experiences people have had and then I show evidence from each location and so it's a whole evening
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[SPEAKER_00]: of that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end, people can just ask me any questions about anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll ask 20 or 30 minutes, as all like we just talk about spooky stuff together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I also bring a lot of my haunted artifacts with me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll get to see some dolls with interesting stories I have a painting by Ed Warren that I travel with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have some old Luigi boards and
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's you the fall and ghosts and true crime or any of those three things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I really think that this should be a sunny evening for you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: With just a couple minutes left, I know that you spoke about food to die for, which is your newest book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm wondering if we could talk just for a moment on your other book, life with the afterlife.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe you published that in 2020, is that right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was my COVID book, you know, how we all said we should do something productive with all that time at home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote, you know, I wrote life with the afterlife 13 troops.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I learned about ghosts with my friend Julie and it basically I died into.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 13 of my favorite series about the paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Evidence or ideas is to why I believe them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's kind of sprinkled a bit with biography and like, you know, kind of my journey as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, people have really enjoyed that book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's unautable to and both are strangely enough.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was cathartic for me, but also I think it's
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like what you resonate with with Kindred, kind of the, you know, empathetic aspect to what we do, the whole book kind of centers around ghost hunting with that in mind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I talk about a lot of paranormal theories that I think plague what I do, you know, people are always thinking, you know, is it a demon or is something going to attach to me, you know, how do I get rid of spirits, all of those things?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I tackle all of my thoughts and theories on those in that book.
16:25.527 --> 16:34.155
[SPEAKER_01]: I have listened to Haunted Road, which is your podcast, with just the minute that we have left, I'm wondering if you could just tell me a little bit about Haunted Road and what made you start it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So Haunted Road, I'm very dear friends with Erin Manky who produces in host lore, the podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he was the one who convinced me to do Haunted Road.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he's executive producer and it's under the Grim and Miles and Braille of his shows.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was how that came about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he and I came up with the concepts together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so hopefully new episodes will be out soon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in this whole contractory negotiation
17:03.086 --> 17:10.766
[SPEAKER_00]: I heart radio right now and it's taking forever and I'm just I'm sitting on like 40 scripts and I can't wait to get back into production.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wabash remembers its first light, bright as hope, and its darker gatherings, heavy as history.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Amy Bruni doesn't try to force a story where there isn't one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She listens, she tests.
17:29.810 --> 17:36.693
[SPEAKER_01]: And when something remains after the drafts, after the doubt, she treats it like what it might be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Someone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If tonight's conversation moved you, you can step into that history with Amy, live at the Eagle's Theatre on October 7th, stories of American crimes that left more than a case file behind, and the artifacts that carry their stories.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Follow Amy's podcast, Haunted Road, and find her books, life with the afterlife, and food
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[SPEAKER_01]: The foul play is written and hosted by me, Shane Waters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If this episode met something to you, share it with a friend who believes stories can hold the living and the dead in that same careful light.
