True Crime Cases / Emergency Room Spirits

In the first half, award-winning journalist Steve Fishman talked with host Richard Syrett (Twitter) about his new podcast The Burden, a series that covers the story of crooked cop Louis Scarcella. Scarcella became infamous for his high number of wrongful arrests, but before Fishman dove into the policeman's sordid tale, he told listeners of his own experience interacting with a criminal. As a young college dropout, he found himself in a serial killer's car while hitchhiking around his hometown. Luckily, he escaped without harm, and it wasn't even until he read the newswire at his first journalism job that he realized who the shady man was. Over the decades that followed, he was drawn to stories of both killers and the ones who put them away, which led him to research officer Scarcella of the NYPD. Fishman recounted a story about Scarcella escorting an alleged murderer on a flight, where he convinced this person that the plane was about to go down after hitting some turbulence. In a panic for his life, the handcuffed man confessed to a crime he may have not even committed. It was just one example of Scarcella's manipulative tactics, which appeared to be highly effective. According to Fishman, "He seemed to have lots of ways to get at people."

It would take decades before Scarcella's dubious interrogation methods came to light. Fishman talked about a group of inmates who met by chance one day in a prison law library, discovering that Scarcella was the one who locked them all up. Their investigations revealed that the cop had written down never-spoken confessions in his reports during a time when suspect interviews weren't being recorded. The men's determination to expose Scarcella's injustices led to 22 people having their convictions overturned, costing the taxpayers of New York over $100 million in settlements. Fishman shared his admiration of the falsely accused who taught themselves law in order to bring forth a case. "I mean, they dropped out of high school… and now they are poring through the [prison's] law books. They're writing briefs that are really as good as anybody else's," he explained. He also credited New York Times reporter Frances "Frenchie" Robles for bringing the story to the public's attention. Fishman's podcast explores this incredible story in great detail. "I think what makes The Burden so compelling in the long run — I mean, because we have 10 episodes — is because it's a story that we can chase," he said.

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In the second half, Dr. Jeff O'Driscoll discussed his observations of souls separating from their bodies at the time of death, a phenomenon known as a "shared-death experience." Over the course of his medical career he has witnessed this many times, and his contact with spirits started as early as his teenage years. He recalled that one night while driving a Volkswagen too fast down a narrow, winding road, his younger self heard a disembodied voice telling him to slow down. "I didn't just hear it — it was like something that wrapped around my soul," he claimed. He slowed down just in time to avoid sustaining major injuries as he crashed into an oncoming Cadillac. "I think I probably would have died that night if I had not heard that voice," O'Driscoll admitted. "I later realized that it was my brother… [who] died in a farm accident a few years before." He spoke about the case of Jeff Olson, who survived a terrible car crash that took the lives of his wife Tamara and one of his sons. Tamara's spirit appeared in the emergency room, thanking O'Driscoll for caring for her family. He relayed that when Olson regained consciousness, he detailed how his soul rose up above the scene of the wreck and encountered his wife's departing spirit. Tamara told him he had to go back and raise their other son, who miraculously survived the accident.

His gift has been met with skepticism from some of his medical colleagues, but O'Driscoll believes he is more in tune with the spirit world than others at the hospitals where he has worked. "Sometimes we can be more receptive, more open," he said. "We can invite that experience into our life." He also noted how people who work in assisted-living facilities are more familiar with these sightings. O'Driscoll hesitated to share his visions until after he retired. "I didn't speak about it for 25 years," he admitted. "One day I just had this feeling, a click in my heart, and I understood it was okay to talk about it now." Olson told listeners that 4-5 percent of the population have reported a near-death experience, and that possibly as many people have also witnessed a shared-death experience. What he's seen has changed his views on the afterlife. He now sees the other side as not being about judgment and punishment, but being "all about empathy and love."