Case 20160430W, statement of Liam Woodman, April 4, 2016. Statement read by Miguel Slater, archival assistant. Statement on the subject of an old teapot. Statement begins.
I know I sound crazy and well maybe I am. But I also know that my husband has been intoxicated by that thing and I don’t know who else to go to now. And I know it’s the teapot. I just do okay?
It was a gift from Thomas’ grandmother before she passed. It was a porcelain teapot with a silver rim and a floral pattern on it. We never used it. It always seemed to be filled with cobwebs, and no matter how many times we cleaned it out and any tea made in it would feel strange. Almost stringy, I guess? We had planned to throw it out and be done with it, but we would always forget to take it out with us whenever we went out to throw away our trash. So for a while it just lived with us, sitting on our kitchen counter and not really doing much of anything.
Then one morning I found Thomas drinking some tea. I asked if he could make me a cup and a few moments later he called me over to sit and drink with him. When I looked in the mug I saw these spiderwebs floating in the tea. I asked him if he had forgotten to rinse out the mug first and he just looked at me with a confused expression on his face. I glanced over into his mug and there were clearly webs in it too but it was like he hadn’t noticed, or that he didn’t care. I picked up the mugs to drain them out but he grabbed my wrist tightly and told me to put it down. I thought he was just in a mood and needed some space today so I left for work as usual.
He seemed pretty calm when I got back but he didn’t mention what had happened in the morning. He asked me about my day and I told him about how my boss had been giving me a hard time lately. He said that I should rest and that he’d “take care of it” for me. When I woke up I found Thomas drinking a cup of tea, and that my boss had quit for some unknown reason. A few days after he was declared missing.
For the next month or two anyone I complained about to Thomas would go missing. I knew something was up but whenever I tried to talk with him about it he said he was doing it for me and that I should be glad he’s making my life easier. I felt so weird, like I was being ungrateful and a bad husband to him, even though in our six years of being together he had never acted like this. I was beginning to get scared of saying anything to him in general.
Then some of his friends began to disappear. And some of mine. Whenever the police came to ask us about it I would say I hadn’t known them very well or that we had a falling out. He would glare me down, making sure I was saying the right thing. All while drinking a cold cup of tea.
Yesterday was when I saw it. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw Thomas was dragging someone's body across the floor. I didn’t recognize them as they were cocooned in thick white silk. I watched from the bedroom door as he took it over to the teapot. Then a spider crawled out of the spout. It was almost pure black, and larger than any spider I had seen before. I could have sworn it was the size of Thomas when fully out of the teapot, almost as if it was growing the closer it got to the body. It stuck its fangs into the cocoon and I saw a stream of a black liquid spew out of its mouth and into the body. The cocoon thrashed weakly as the liquid filled up the sack. Then it made a terrible sucking sound, like it was drinking whoever was in there through a straw. It was bigger when it had finished its meal, unraveling the silk to reveal nothing. There weren’t even any bones left behind.
I think I fainted. The next thing I remember was Thomas cradling me in his arms. I was so glad he only had two. He kept whispering to me that he had taken care of her and that I should trust him. I do trust him, and I don’t want anything to happen to him. But I’m also scared about that spider in the teapot and I know it did something to Thomas. He told me I could make a statement about it and that he wouldn’t get into any trouble, and that’s why I’m here. I’m just worried that Thomas is going to get taken by the spider. I still haven't gotten over my fear of the things.
Statement ends
Spiders…eugh. I hate them. They crawl everywhere and their webs are too sticky and easy to walk into.
It appears that everyone in the story is under an alias. And they seem to have traced their steps very well, I haven’t been able to find anything identifying. I’ve been looking through disappearance cases via our back door access to police reports and haven’t found much. The closest I found was that there was an increase in disappearances in the Tucson area of Arizona between 2015 and 2016. I’ll get another assistant to look into this further.
Recording ends.












