5: The Responsible Voter's Hoverboard Race — Show Notes

On July 29, 2015 police were called to a vacant lot on a residential street located between Harry Hines and I35, in the vacant lot a body was found. The body had been so far advanced in decomposition that police couldn't determine a race. The victim was found to be wearing a black wig, “false” fingernails (i’m assuming press-ons or acrylics or something) with pink tips and rhinestones, sunglasses, a blue and white cotton tube top, blue shorts, and black Nike flip-flops. There were faint tattoos visible, on the right shin there was one that read Shade, on the right shoulder there was the name Willie inside of a heart, and finally on the right thigh there was a banner and a star.

The victim turned out to be Shade Schuler, a 22 year old trans woman. The initial police posting on the DFW Beat identified her sex as male when asking the public for help in a posting on August 10, 2015. However, Senior Corporal Monica Cordova, a public information officer with the Dallas Police Department, told Cosmopolitan.com that because some of Schuler's friends referred to her as female, and because "she was found in women's clothing," the department is now referring to Schuler as female. "Unfortunately, we can't talk to her to figure out what she would be liked to be called," Cordova said, but they have chosen to adopt female pronouns "out of respect" for the victim. (Cosmopolitan)

Friends and the trans-rights community affectionately call Shade Ms. Shade.

Unfortunately, again, i can't find an obituary for Ms. Shade. I can’t find much information on the crime except what I’ve given you and that reason is because of the sheer amount of trans WOC that are being murdered in Dallas. Ms. Shade’s story is overshadowed by the monster amount of cases the DPD has in their load.

In April 12, 2019 a video circulated of 23 year old trans woman Muhlaysia Booker being beaten brutally in an apartment complex while many men joined in and others watched Booker struggle to escape until a group of women helped her get away. It was described in an article by the Washington Post as looking like “mob violence.”

According to police Muhlaysia had accidentally backed into Edward Thomas’s car, who then got out of his car and held her at gunpoint until she paid for damages, a crowd started forming when someone offered Thomas $200 to beat Muhlaysia. Thomas was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on April 14th.

During a rally after her publicized attack Booker said “This time I can stand before you whereas in other scenarios we are at a memorial”

On May 22nd Muhlaysia Booker was found shot to death in a wooded area in South Dallas between an apartment complex and a golf course.

Muhlaysia was last seen getting into a light colored Lincoln.

In June 2019 a man named Kendrell Lyles was arrested under the suspicion of Muhlaysia’s murder, who is also suspected of two other murders and is a person of interest in the murder of Chaynel Lindsey, another trans woman who’s body was found in White Rock Lake..

Police connected Lyles to Booker’s murder when they saw that cellphone records indicated her and Booker were in the same place at the same time, his car also matched the description of the car Muhlaysia was seen getting into.

Because Lyles was arrested so recently, there is no additional information on the direction the case is going in. "Muhlaysia had many fights," Stephanie Houston, Booker’s mom, said. "Muhlaysia didn't start trouble, but she would finish it. ... She just always had to defend, defend, defend, defend."

Muhlaysia’s funeral took place at the Cathedral of Hope, one of the country’s largest LGBTQ+ congregations near Oak Lawn. She was buried in a blue casket that matched her bejeweled blue dress. 400 people attended the memorial.

Her mom openly admitted she had issues accepting Muhlaysia as a transgender woman and once in a moment of anger she said she’d cut Muhlaysia’s hair and dress her as a man if she ever died before her mother. Stephanie Houston ultimately “honored her truth because of how hard she fought for it and paid the ultimate price.”

“I grew up with a brother who I loved, and later introduced to Muhlaysia, who I loved. That was my sister, my friend, and she meant a lot to me,” Booker’s sister La’Quincia Taylor said.

Muhlaysia was also honored in a small London vigil outside of the US Embassy on May 29, 2019.

Sources: CNN, Dallas News, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, Texas Tribune, NY Times, Wikipedia, The Guardian, and CBS

In the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia on September 12th 1952 there was a sighting of a creature that has sparked the people of Braxton County into a debate.

At 7:15PM, Edward (13) and Fred May (12) along with their friend Tomy Hyer (10), saw a bright object shoot across the sky and land on a nearby farm owned by G. Bailey Fisher. So when the boys saw this they immediately lost their minds and ran home to tell Kathleen May, Edward and Fred’s mom. I imagine she just rolls her eyes and humors the boys and heads out with them. Somewhere in their trek to the farm they picked up a few more people, Neil Nunley(14), Ronnie Shaver(10), and West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon(17).

Eugene Lemon also had a dog, which I mention only because as they were about to go over this hill into the farm property, the dog ran up ahead of them and immediately ran back to the group. When the rest of them finally got to the top they saw something truly bizarre.

The descriptions are slightly varied but here's what I found. There was apparently this pulsating red light and when a flashlight was shined in that direction they saw a 10ft tall creature. It had a round blood-red face with this large pointed hood shape around it, similar to a spade on a playing card. Its eye emitted this greenish-orange color and its body was either dark black or green. It also supposedly had small claw-like hands, and was wearing either just green clothing or armor.

Eugene Lemon and Kathleen May via Flatwoods Monster Museum

It was generally pretty hard for the group to see because as they got closer they smelt this rotten egg sulfur-y smell and there was this mist everywhere that made their eyes and noses burn. Also because as soon as the flashlight hit the monster, it made this shrieking hissing sound and glided straight at the group. To which they responded to by running the fuck away. There were later reported to be very nauseous and sick, and it may or may not be related, but some later developed cancer.

When Kathleen got back into town she contacted the local Sheriff Robert Carr, and Mr. A. Lee Stewert, co-owner of the Braxton Democrat, a local newspaper. Mr. Steward had done several interviews and even went back to the site with Lemon and he reported saying that “there was a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still prevailing” He also wrote later that he had discovered these"skid marks" in the field and an "odd, gummy deposit" . However, when the Sheriff returned he said that there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

The skid marks are actually believed to belong to a Chevy pickup truck belonging to Max Lockard, who had actually gone to look for the creature hours before Stewert had gotten there. Eugene Lemon’s mother said that her house shook and the radio had cut out for about 45 minutes that night. There was also a report from the local director of the Board of Education and he said that at 6:30 that following morning he saw a flying saucer take off. And I should take a minute to mention that the reason there were just so many people at the site is because Kathleen was mainly worried that it was a crashed airplane at first because again, this is the early 1950s and not even a handful of years earlier the Soviet Union had just tested the atomic bomb. So everyone is already on edge. Also?? Folks LOVED aliens at this time.

About a week later on a highway near the original site a woman and her daughter were driving when a bright blinding light hit their car. When they stopped they saw the original creature wearing this metallic skirt through this sulfur-y smoke and light. It was floating on some sort of device and when it touched their car it created a V shaped burn onto it.

So this story just sort of blows up, its in dozens of newspapers and on the radio and eventually it gets to the U.S. Air Force and because they had been doing research on UFO’s under Project Blue Book and they had an explanation. It was just an owl. By the way in 1952 they counted 1,501 UFO sightings, 303 if which were unexplained. The highest amount between 1947-1969, the second highest being only 46 unexplained sightings.

Project Blue Book is a whole ass thing the US Military did to investigate UFO sightings which is pretty dope, but we’re talkin Flatwoods Monster.

There was another sighting on September 12th, the original sighting time, where George and Edith Snitowsky were driving between Gassaway and Frametown, West Virginia. Their car, which had gotten a new battery, suddenly stalled, and as they were stopped on the road they began to smell this rank whatever smell. So George got out of the car to check it out and further down the road there was this hovering globe moving back and forth glowing this soft violet light. When he mover closer to investigate he felt the "sensation of thousands of needle-like vibrations" on his skin, he started to feel sick and stumbled to head back to the car. As he turned around his wife screamed that there was something behind him and when he glanced to look he saw “a figure about eight or nine feet tall with a big head, bloated body and long spindly arms gliding rapidly”

So if you go to Flatwoods, West Virginia now the place is littered with museums dedicated to their monster. Sutton, West Virginia has a Flatwoods Monster Museum, and the Braxton County Visitor’s Center had also slowly turned into a monster museum! There’s even a local-ish band named Captain Catfeesh based in Morgantown, and they’re this folk-punk band that sings about cryptids and stuff. There’s specifically a song called the “Phantom of Flatwoods”!

Sources: Cryptozoology, History, Wikipedia, WV Public, and Last Podcast on the Left Ep.109

Shade Schuler and Muhlaysia Booker

The Flatwoods Monster