Due to the graphic nature of this episode,

listener discretion is advised.

This episode contains discussions of murder and sexual assault.

Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13.

In September of 1998, a flood of police

swarmed an unassuming suburban house in Poughkeepsie, New York.

The officers were used to gruesome crimes,

but they'd never seen such wretched living conditions.

Garbage covered every surface.

The stairs were clogged with decaying chicken bones

and broken baby furniture.

Cat fur and soiled underwear caked the kitchen floor

and the bathroom sink arrived with maggots.

From the squalor alone,

99 Fulton Avenue was a house of horrors,

but then the cops opened the door to the attic,

inconceivably, that's where it got so much worse.

An overpowering stench crawled down the officer's throats

as they slogged through a mysterious sludge

that caked the ground.

It all seeped from a pile of lumpy wet trash bags.

They approached slowly, not knowing what was inside.

...