211: A Creepy Manager & Balloonfest '86

Alisha Bromfield wasn’t interested in being Brian Cooper’s wedding date. But Alisha didn’t have much of a choice. Brian was her boss, and he was a vindictive creep. If she rejected his invitation, he might cut her hours, or worse, fire her. So Alisha told Brian she’d go to his sister’s wedding with him, as a friend.  Then Kristin tells a story that’s light on court stuff, but brimming with balloons! In 1986, the city of Cleveland wanted to reinvent itself. They figured out exactly how to do it. They’d host the biggest simultaneous balloon release, ever. It would be so fun! They’d be in the Guinness Book of World Records! They’d raise a ton of money for the United Way of Cleveland! What could go wrong??  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Balloonfest” short film  “How Cleveland’s Balloonfest ‘86 became a public disaster,” by Corey Irwin for ultimateclassicrock.com “Balloonfest ‘86: 35 years since downtown Cleveland event turned disastrous,” by Suzanne Stratford for Fox8 “When the balloons inflated, so did a man’s career,” by John Rogers for NBC News In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Postmortem Depravity: The Murder of Pregnant Mother Alisha Bromfield” by Kym L. Pasqualini, Medium “Horrific crimes against Alisha Bromfield spur law change in 32 states” True Crime Daily “Alisha Bromfield” chillingcrimes.com “Seventh Circuit Slams Home Depot in Employee Murder Case” by Lorraine Bailey, Courthouse News “Sherry Anicich v. Home Depot Inc.” findlaw.com YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 30+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!