The Real Corpse Bride

Well good. I already ate my jalapeno poppers and I had a bowl of ice cream with cornflakes on it, so I'm ready to go healthy. It's vegetable corn. You got your dairy, You got your dairy in, You got your vegetable with the Hall of Venia my vanilla bean, which is probably a lagome. Right, Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle. So I've been doing research for a new show, right, or a rebrand of a show. I think it's about scary places, and I've been finding a ton of them. There's like an infinite amount of scary, creepy things out there in the world. And in the research, I kind of started zoning in on Mexico because I don't know why. I just I think my browser knows you're in the funnel, the Mexico funnel. It just sends me right there is just like apartments in Mexico, haunted stuff in Mexico. Yeah, it's not sending you Toronto. So today we're gonna go to Mexico, zooming into the state of Chihuahua. Oh, well, convenient because I have a chihuahua right here. His name is Robert. There you go, Roberto, Roberto, the baby, the famous director. We're gonna zoom it even more though, to the corner of Ocampo and Victoria the streets right. Oh, okay, this is a real place, so you can spot it, you know, if you visit the area. And since we are waiting for people to share and subscribe so we can start saving up for a trip, we'll have to use our imaginations here. It is modern day today. I don't think that's the way to say it, but you can as of right now. As of right now, you take a trip down to Mexico by yourself. You, Michelle, I'm for that. Yeah. None of your friends want to go because they were scared. Well, they're idiots. They're calling you crazy for wanting to go. I tell you to be careful saying all these stereotypical things about Mexico you hear on TV and online and everything. You go anyway, and you have a good time. Of course, chihuahua, it's not the dog, by the way, but like the place. But also roberta yeah, not to be confused with Roberto. Roberto baby. I guess I keep making it more Italian than sorry to say, Roberto, I can't do the rs Rebert Brett robe roto Roberto Roberto. There you go son more. Yeah, Roberto as opposed to Robert. So that baby, which is very isabla re versalini. Yeah, yeah, ye went that way anyway. So that Mexican state is known for mining and nature and also petroleum, so it has like that like balance. Is that a balance? You only said nature once and then two things that really destroy nature. So I don't know, but people like mining towns. Anyway, this place is has that I guess, not balance anymore, but anyway, it's off balance. Yeah, so you go, you feel good about it, right, You're having good time until one day, right after sunset and after roaming around the historic district and seeing the cathedral and all the sites there, you passed by people with their families and they're laughing and enjoying themselves. I just imagine like a little girl with an ice cream cone skipping, you know, yeah, I mean, are their corn flakes on our ice cream cone? Because then I'm in, you know what? They actually they might have something like that like ranola, that type of thing, so they might be used cornflakes. I'd also settle for rats on the ice cream as well. That's also a great treat. Oh there you go. My two favorite topics. This little girl, like imagine just imagine her like skipping away into the sunset, like you just you hear the laughter kind of fade, and all of a sudden, the voices get replaced by the ones from your friends, and you hear don't get kidnapped by the carteln and then it's dangerous, don't get shot, and you're just become a very paranoid. You're like, oh god, what's going on. I'm in Mexico. I'm scared. And then you realize that there's fewer and fewer people out on the street, and you're like, oh man, so this is the Michelle that's paranoid. She's just like, oh my god, I don't know where I'm going, the one I deal with on a daily basis. You start to sweat. It's you're like, oh my god, why aren't people here? Do they know something that you don't. You're not too far from your hotel, so you decide to turn up ahead to the right, and then begin to make your way back like in a loop. But then you spot it in big letters on a glass window that read la. Now you don't speak Spanish, but you get it. I'm like, uh, the popular kind of like what is that? Right? It's really like a store, like a way to anyway. Right underneath it is the important part and it says la casa the Pasqualita, the house of Basqualita. On the other side of the glass though, on the upper side of where you are standing on on the sidewalk, there is a stunning bridal dress on a mannequin and you just have to get a picture of it. By the way, everyone, I have a note here to remind that, to remind you that Michelle used to be a photographer, which is funny because now I wouldn't have a camera on me. I'd have my phone on me, and I would have had I would have had a camera on me had this been anytime in the last fifteen years. But no, anyway, So you start doing all these camera things, right, like aperturing the f stop and white balancing the batteries. But when you finally get ready to take a picture, white balancing the batteries. God, that's such an obscure joke. It like went right over my head. And then I was like, wait, he just did all this like photography jargon and has no idea what he's saying. I was trying to speak through it so you wouldn't get it, and I would just keep going nice try. When you finally get ready to take the picture, you notice something strange. The thing is he's focusing on the mannequin's face, so you zoom in and you take a closer look, and then you notice that this isn't a mannequin. It's a real person, or is it. Can You get closer to the and look at her hair and her eyes and her cheeks, and they're just drawing you in with the light bouncing off the other lights from her display. It's weird because it's well lit in this you know, it's kind of starting to get dark out and this area is just lit. You look at her hands and it has fingerprints, and her veins are showing her nails and the way the knuckles bend. You get even closer, right, and your face is now against the window as you stare intently at her nose pressed against the glass, So you make that face like this, yeah, and it's like I'm leaving a fog on the glass, but I'm looking really intently, and you're waiting for her to move almost You're just like, is this what is this right? And then her eyes turned to you a startled. You take a step back and you laugh it off, and you think, just imagined it right, Like I'm just you know, I had too much I don't know something, yeah, too much oxygen, too much chihuahua, something in the air. But then you look at the photographs that you took and even though it's subtle, you noticed a slight difference in the way she positioned her hands from one image to the next. Uh oh, And this is the story of the Pasqualita. I've never heard of this. So I'm on a journey. I'm on a journey with you. You know. I always tell the story of the mannequin of where I used to work back in Ecuador. In this I don't know if I told you Mischeon, I probably have no I'd remember a story about a mannikin well, okay, So back when I used to work in an, Ecuador in the hostel, we had a restaurant on the first floor and the owner had to set up everything in the make it, instructions of how to clean up, how to everything, position of the plate's, position of the lamps, like everything right. And one of the things that he asked for was to put a mannequin like in one of the tables that was closest to the window. And it would be like, okay, what, like that's weird, but anyway, he said, it's gonna be funny, it's gonna attract attention. People are going to want to come in because of it or whatever. We're like, oh, okay, that's weird, but we did it. He's a boss, okay. So then he gave us some of his clothes, his shirt and like his pants, like some of his stuff, and he made us put it on the mannequin, so it was dressed like him and it kind of looked like him too. It was weird, it was it was. It was weird. Anyway, the guy had to go off on a trip at one point and he just kind of left us there in charge, and the guests at the restaurant would ask us like can you move that, or hey, can you turn it away? And yeah, we used to have like you know people that you know, the waiters and all that stuff, and they used to stay sometimes hanging out, you know late at night, like three am, four am or whatever. Sometimes it's really late. And they ended up moving it because they were just freaked out by the mannequin. So eventually we just put it back into the storage area. It was weird. Nobody liked it except for the owner. And we had like this idea where like, what if this is a like he has cameras in it or something and that's why he wants it there. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking, was like, what if he just came back one day and took the place with the mannequin and then all of a sudden like surprised you guys like like who yeah, and he's just they're like, oh, that's weird. It's a long game to play for a prank and then it doesn't work where he's just like, oh, we saw him. But anyway, this specific mannequin, though, like La Pascualita, is very famous in Mexico. People go visit her as part of Haunted tours and just people like me curious and just want to go see her. And she has been in numerous news stories, television, newspapers, like documentaries all these things, and now I guess TikTok is becoming like everybody wants to go see he It was March twenty fifth of nineteen thirty and the boutique with the wedding dresses had a beautiful new piece on display. This is the origin story a white dress with swirls or whatever. I don't know how to describe a wedding dress like ruffles, bedazzled, swirls, bows, bows and hearts don't take ahead, hearts don't. I don't think hearts have ever been in style for a wedding dress. Okay, like a typical you can go ruffles, you could go like the Princess Diana ruffles, you could go minimalist. There's lots of ways to go. It sounds like it's a roughly cake dress. Sure, a rough flea cake dress. There you go anyway. People would pass by the front of the store and they would be like, yo, what is that And they would go into the shop until the owner, whose name was Pascuala Esparsa, to get rid of the mannequin because it looked too real. And in fact, they argue that the mannequin wasn't a mannequin at all, but an embalmed woman. Holy shit, like a corpse bride. Oh my god, people getting scared of the mannequin. It's not that big of a deal, right, because a lot of us are scared of mannequins. But these locals had a theory and it had some truth to it. Earlier that year of nineteen thirty, the daughter of Pascuala, again the owner of the Bridle shop, had received the news that her daughter was about to get married. So overjoyed with the news and excited for the event, everyone got to work and they went great until it didn't. On the night of her wedding day, Pasquala's daughter was bitten by a black widow spider and she was like al, and then she died. I'm sure she did say al. The death of her daughter was obviously very sad news for Pasquala, and she was having a very tough time. Obviously it's her mom, right. So the strange thing was that it wasn't long after that when the mannequin was put up on the shop. Pasquala was questioned and accused that of embalming her daughter and putting her on display because she looks eerily similar to her. I think we should post images of the daughter and the mannequin on Instagram so people can see, Yeah, that's a good idea. You have to look at her hands, you guys, like you're gonna be like, uh, I'm still kind of mind blown that this is real and not just a story, Like I thought you were just telling me a story about a mannequin that people think is alive, that you know, like the shop just appears at sunset sometimes, you know that kind of story. Yeah, No, it's it's creepy and I want to see I obviously want to go in person to see it. But anyway, you're gonna be freaked out by it if you look at the hand. I think the hands is what that's what does it for me? Where I'm just like what. Anyway, the whole time, Pascuala was like, no, I didn't embalm her and put her on display, like that's weird. So the locals would be like, okay, then prove it, but she will she would refuse. I think it's because she didn't know how to prove it, Like I don't know how you Yeah, I mean, I guess you'd like cut into the doll or something, or cut into the mannequin or you know, take an arm off or something and be like, see it's a mannekin. It's like she tries to move the arm and the bone breaks. Ah. Yeah, well that would definitely prove that it wasn't a mannequin, definitely, because I was thinking, like, which would you poke it and like wait for it through. It's like it's dead, so it wouldn't it wouldn't respond and it's been in But like, the only thing, I think you could just disarticulate it. That would be the only way to figure out if it's a human or a mannequin. X ray it. You could x ray it, that's true. I don't know if they have that back then, But chop off a finger. I wrote that in here. Maybe you could do that. That would be the easiest thing. And then I'm sure it would scream at you or something. So today people claim that the mannequin's eyes follow them as they walk around the store, or they see her change positions, just like I'm sure she squeaks like a robot, you like, or like a create like a door, Like I'm like, I think it's more like a door. I think that's what I was going for, is like and we have expert in balmers and mortuary people that listen to the show. So if you have an idea of you know, how you can show this without messing it up. Again, this is a ninety year old or more thing, right, so we don't want to is it ninety it's ninety right and ninety three or something. It's a pretty weird mannequin if it's a mannequin. Did you see look at try to find the picture of the daughter next to the They look the same. I think it's the mouth. It's the mouth. I mean, she's definitely the inspo for it, but like it's weird. It's I look at her hand. Look at her hand, Michelle, Like it's got the fingernails and like the fleshy part of a hand, like a mannequin doesn't need this like fleshy part of your of the hand, and those look like decaying digits, you know, Like that looks like decaying skin. I don't understand what this is. It's like, uh, it's like you would have to put like a mask on, like maybe it's her daughter's death mask or something. I don't know, but see that's what I was looking at that, and I'm like, wow, like this is intense. The hands are pretty weird. Yeah, you know. People say that it would be impossible to have someone's flesh be preserved for over ninety years. Pus, it's pretty hot over there. It just wouldn't work. But others say that the receding skin on her hands and having a dry the way that it's drying it is proof that she's a real corpse. It's it's weird. The hands make it look real. The face, you know, is strange, like that looks like a mannequin, but the hands are like, yeah, they look pretty real. That's what it has become like one of those things though, like you just have to go and see when you're there, because it's just got famous, like it went all over the place. There is a rumor though that I read in one page out of like fifteen that I found, that says that in twenty nineteen, the mannequin was taken to Mexico City to be put on display and that a different mannequin has taken its place. Now. Oh so, so there's two of it, but it's just a rumor. It's just a rumor. So like people aren't trusting, like they're like you might be this was a real corpse back then. Now it isn't or something like that. That's what I'm imagining, you know, but you know Ripley's believe it or not. It's got a hold of a shop worker, Sonia Burusiaga, who has to change the mannequin's outfits twice a week, and they got this quote from her that I found just really just weird. She said in Spanish. Probably, but this is the translated version. Every time I go near Pascualita, my hand break out in a sweat. Her hands are very realistic, and she even has Verico's veins on her legs. I believe she is a real person. Oh my god. But also like, if you were making a mannequin, why would you put in Verico's veins? Right, There's no reason, Yeah, there's yeah, why I mean this makes me like, you know, does she have nipples? Like does she have private part? Like there's things that like shouldn't exist on a mannequin, you know, Like I don't think Ripleys would have asked, hey, Ripley is I mean? But it's just, yeah, the hands are a little disturbing, and it's like her face is like encased in wax or something, so it wouldn't age like there's something weird about that it What is she made out of? Is it wax? It's made of wax? Okay, I thought so. With crystal eyes. Wow, it just really really described her which have tiny veins that emphasize improbable yet living memories. Jesus, Yeah, I mean she could be just a corpse in case in wax. You know now that I know that it's wax and not like a plastic. Uh, yeah, I don't know, but it's troubling. It's weird. So if if you go out there and I know, I want to go see it, just yeah, I go see it. I definitely go see it. But I think it is probably a corpse and wax. It just it looks too too weird. But that story with the daughter, like you know, names have been lost in time, so people say that it's just a legend, that it's not real, never happened. But I mean the story of the owner, like do they have her first name and last name? Yeah, at least that part has to be real and the root like the story obviously has to start somewhere. So so if you look at the images for yourself, you can't you get to decide, So the choice is yours. I didn't want to hear what people think if this is real or not. Let us know. It's pretty weird anything that looks like a human, and it isn't a human to me. It's just it's creepy like a doll. It is a little creepy like the doll that I have here. Wait, what happened to that part? What part? The part that I added with a you know who deleted that? The doll? It's stuck in the box, that doll. That doll is coming up like we're gonna be doing an intense experiment with. Yeah, it's gonna be Edwin's gonna gamble with his life a certain haunted object. Although he's not really gambling with his life because I picked a nice ghost, but it might have made it mean by this point by leaving it in the box this long. I'll be doc' mening my experience, making myself sacrificing myself for the podcast. It's all for that content, baby. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. By the way, I want to remind everybody. Spotify has the Question and Answers feature now. So, if you're listening on Spotify, right under right on that episode page, there's a question answer it. We want to see it. We want to see it. So before we've only gotten like two answers. Wait, what's the question? Sometimes it's automatically asks like what do you think about this episode? But I think we're going to change it to like something that's related to today. The question could be, I don't know, is it kind of weird that I want to hold this mannequin's hand? Would you hold the mannequin's hand? I mean, it might suck me into a world where I'm also made of wax, But like, I it's weird. Then you're like La Michellita, Yeah exactly, and we're standing next to each other holding hands. It's made of wax. I mean, look, it's just very weirdly inviting because the hand is just like this, Yeah, you know, you just want to go like that and then yeah, then I get turned into wax. It's one of those famous stories from there, Like when when you think of these stories for Mexico that are like female monsters or stuff like that, you have these like images of certain like like your ownA style. The Pasquarita's kind of about that, at that level where there's so much like, oh what is this is real? That kind of legend. But what's interesting though, is like, so there's like a picture of the daughter next to next to the mannequin, and they did her eyebrows different and her nose is different, but the mouth is Like what gets me is the mouth. The mouth is so similar. Our mouths easy to make, like, I mean, I don't I don't know. In wax, I don't know, but I think it would be the nose that would be hard to fake. But then in another picture of her it looks like her, So I don't know, it's hard. They just fixed her up a little bit. Yeah, they gave her a little nip chuck. Yeah, post death like plastic surgery. She always hated her nose, so we just took the liberty to make it a little more. We just you know, it's what she would have wanted people man eevil. Anyway, that's the story, and I'm gonna go nowhere. So I don't know where this is going. Well, I'll be sure to rate and subscribe. We love reviews. There's been some good reviews out there lately, so that make us feel good. Oh yeah, please leave them, leave them. That'd be cool because also, you know, they say subscriptions are now the way that Spotify's measuring how cool a show is. And we're about to hit a thousand subscriber. It is really cool. That's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, one thousand was gonna be the one thousand. We have no weight, No, we have no way to gauge or reward you. But in our hearts, in your heart, you'll know, and in our hearts will thank you. Yes, in our hearts, well, thank you. And with that we sign off. What should we talk about next week, Michelle, I don't know, but I think it'll be a surprise. Bye guys, Bye,